AMERICAN PATRIOT
VIEW IN
FULLSCREEN FEBRUARY 11, 2010
A HISTORY OF
PRESIDENTS’ DAY THE CHARM OF
CHARLESTON FIFTY-FOUR FORTY OR FIGHT!
CLICK ABOVE
AMERICAN PATRIOT THE HISTORY OF
PRESIDENT’S DAY
4 6 THE CHARM OF
8
CHARLESTON
GREAT AMERICAN ACTORS
PAUL NEWMAN
OLYMPIAN OHNO HEADS TO VANCOUVER
12
10
Contents
54°40’ OR FIGHT!
16
14 14
JAMES NAISMITH THE MAN WHO INVENTED BASKETBALL
QUOTE OF THE WEEK
17 THIS WEEK IN AMERICAN HISTORY
THE HISTORY OF
P R E S I D E N T S ’ DAY GEORGE WASHINGTON WAS BORN ON FEBRUARY 22, 1732. ABRAHAM LINCOLN WAS BORN ON FEBRUARY 12, 1809.
Thus America found itself with two presidential birthdays, worthy of celebration, falling within a short timeframe. For years, both days were celebrated as public holidays, Washington everywhere and Lincoln in most states.
4 AMERICAN PATRIOT
FAST FORWARD TO 1968. Congress was enlisted to create a uniform system of federal Monday holidays and voted to shift Washington’s birthday celebration to the third Monday in February. A draft of the Uniform Holidays Bill sought to rename the holiday Presidents’ Day to honor both Washington and Lincoln, but this proposal failed in committee. But in the commonsense way Americans have, the concept and phrase “Presidents’ Day” took hold in the popular mind and has become part of the everyday vernacular to denote the birthdays of both great leaders.
Interestingly, Presidents’ Day is still not an
in the lives of Washington and Lincoln.
all-inclusive term. Massachusetts officially
The National Park Service features a number
celebrates “Washington's Birthday,” but
of historic sites and memorials to honor
state law also prescribes that the governor
the lives of the two presidents, and many
issue an annual Presidents’ Day proclamation
of the birthday activities and events are
honoring all the presidents that have come
held at the George Washington Birthplace
from Massachusetts. Alabama uniquely ob-
National Monument in Westmoreland VA,
serves the day as "Washington and Jefferson
the Abraham Lincoln Birthplace National
Day", even though Jefferson's birthday was
Historic Site in Hodgenville KY, the Lincoln
in April. And in New Jersey, Connecticut,
Boyhood National Memorial in Lincoln City
Missouri and Illinois, Washington's Birthday
IN, and the Lincoln Home National Historic
is treated as a federal holiday, and Lincoln's
Site in Springfield IL. Mount Vernon also
birthday is treated as a state holiday.
honors Washington’s birthday with a celebration weekend, which draws between
There are as many different ways to celebrate
10,000 and 20,000 visitors. Other traditions
Presidents’ Day, as there are names for it.
include the longest running George Wash-
Many communities continue to observe
ington Birthday parade in Alexandria VA,
the original holidays by staging pageants
and an annual “George Fest” in Eustis FL.
and reenactments of important milestones
AMERICAN PATRIOT 5
THE CHARM OF CHARLESTON Charleston, SC is a city rich in history, tradition and Southern culture, with a reputation for outstanding accommodations, entertainment and cuisine. Named after King Charles II, it was established in 1670 and is located just south of the mid-point of South Carolina’s coastline, at the confluence of the Ashley and Cooper Rivers. Charleston’s nickname is The Holy City due to the prominence of churches and steeples on the low-rise cityscape and the fact that it was one of the few cities in the original thirteen colonies to extend religious tolerance to the French Huguenot Church. Charleston was also one of the first colonial cities to allow Jews to practice their faith without restriction. Charleston is well-known across the United States
Charleston’s museums offer a glimpse into the
and beyond for its unique culture, which blends
city’s history. The city is home to the Charleston
traditional southern American with English, French,
Museum, America’s oldest, as well Shem Creek
and West African elements. All are visible in
Maritime Museum, which pays tribute to historical
Charleston’s “Low Country” cuisine. Two of the
maritime Charleston, and the Karpeles Manuscript
most celebrated dishes are shrimp and grits and
Museum, with the largest collection of significant
she-crab soup. There are also a number of differ-
historical manuscripts in the world. Charleston’s
ent breweries offering the authentic taste of
rich military history is on display at Ft. Sumter and
homemade Charleston Beer.
Ft. Moutrie. The Avery Institute of Afro-American History and Culture collects and preserves the
Founded by the British as a “great port towne”
unique historical and cultural heritage of African-
during the colonial period, mid-18th century
Americans in the South Carolina Low Country.
Charleston became a major trade center, the hub
And standing in remembrance of a dark moment
of Atlantic trade for the southern colonies, and
in Charleston’s history are its historic plantations,
the largest city south of Philadelphia. A focal point
now open to the public, where slaves once labored.
during the Revolutionary war, the city became ex-
In 1995 Marjabelle Young Stewart, an etiquette
tremely prosperous in the post-Revolutionary years
expert recognized Charleston as the “best-man-
through trade and a plantation-dominated econ-
nered” city in the US, clearly exemplified by the
omy. Devoted to the concept of States Rights, South
friendliness of its population. A visit to Charleston
Carolina seceded from the Union and the first shots
offers the delights of modern city life and the tra-
of the Civil War came in Charleston harbor, and the
ditions of a time past.
Confederate soldiers took control of Fort Sumter. Charleston languished for decades, but has seen an economic renaissance in the past three decades. 6 AMERICAN PATRIOT
SITES TO SEE
GIBBES MUSEUM OF ART Established in 1905, the Gibbes illuminates Charleston’s history with stories of the South Carolina Low Country as seen through painting, sculpture and photographs.
BOONE HALL PLANTATION An antebellum plantation, which includes a post-civil war farmhouse, original slave cabins, several flowering gardens and the historic “Avenue of Oaks.”
SPOLETO FESTIVAL USA Founded in 1977, Spoleto is one of the world’s major performing arts festivals, and features established and emerging artists. KIAWAH ISLAND Named for an Indian tribe from the 1600s, the island 10 miles of beaches and five world-renowned golf courses just 15 miles from the city. WATCH A VIDEO OF CHARLESTON HIGHLIGHTS
FORT SUMTER The first shots of the bloody Civil War took place here in 1861, and the fort remains a powerful symbol of union and disunion. AMERICAN PATRIOT 7
Born in 1925 in Cleveland OH, Newman showed an early interest in the theater. After serving in WWII and receiving his undergraduate degree at Kenyon College, he married actress Jacqueline Witte and took over the family sporting goods store. But Newman grew restless and subsequently enrolled at the Yale School of Drama. While there, he travelled to New York City where he won a role in the CBS series The Aldrich Family. In 1953 Newman made his Broadway debut in Picnic where he was spotted by Warner Bros. executives, who offered him a contract.
G R E AT A M E R I CA N ACTO R S
PAUL NEWMAN Paul Newman was as much a hero off-screen as on. A blue-eyed idol whose career successfully spanned five decades, he was also a prominent social activist, a proponent of actors’ creative rights, and a noted philanthropist.
Though Newman’s early films were disasters, his third film, Somebody Up There Likes Me, was a success, with rave reviews for his performance. In 1958, he starred in The Long Hot Summer and met his second wife, Joanne Woodward. The couple continued to team onscreen throughout their careers. When he appeared in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof opposite Elizabeth Taylor, Newman scored his first Academy Award nomination. He was one of the few actors to successfully make the transition from 1950s cinema to that of the 1960s and 70s. His rebellious nature recommended him to the new generation and he received a second, third and fourth Oscar nomination. On his sixth attempt, Newman won the Oscar for Best Actor for The Color of Money. He continued making movies until 2002, and in 2007 announced he would retire because he could no longer act at the level he wanted to. Newman’s efforts off-screen were equally prolific. In 1968 he and Woodward made headlines by campaigning full time for Democratic candidate Eugene McCarthy and for their strong opposition to the war in Vietnam. With Barbara Streisand and Steve McQueen,
Newman founded First Artists, a production company created to offer performers the opportunity to produce their own projects. Productions included The Sting, which won the 1973 Oscar for Best Picture. With writer AE Hotchner, Newman founded Newman’s Own, a line of food products whose proceeds would be donated to charity. Newman also began his own charities, the Hole-in-the-Wall Gang Camp, a residential summer camp for seriously ill children, and the Scott Newman Foundation, started after the drug-related death of his son. He was also an avid racecar driver and raced frequently in major races including Le Mans and the Can-Am and Trans-Am series. In 2008, Newman was diagnosed with lung cancer and died soon thereafter in his beloved town of Westport CT. Father of six children, he died surrounded by friends and family.
CLICK HERE TO SEE A MONTAGE OF SOME OF PAUL NEWMAN’S GREATEST MOVIE MOMENTS
US01-1452_8.5x11_Layout 1 11/30/09 10:28 AM Page 2
Upgrade Your Life
With Smart Circle Cards
Save 15% Use the savings code AMPAT15 at checkout
Let’s face it. Most of us, even if we haven’t lost a job or seen our retirement savings shrink, have taken a hard look at how we spend our money. That is smart thinking. Many people have cut back on things they really enjoy like vacations, recreation, entertainment, and dining out. Golfers play fewer rounds, massage enthusiasts don’t spend quite as much time at the spa, fans are catching fewer games. That smarts! You can still enjoy vacationing at a resort, playing golf at great courses, spending a day at the spa, dining out, and other activities you love without busting your new budget. How? By spending smarter
with Smart Circle Cards.
Visit us at www.smartcirclecards.net or call us at 1-800-775-1975 to see how you can get four rounds of golf for the price of one, three spa services for less than the price of a massage, 50% off dining, and more.
Live better. Live smart.
54°40’ OR FIGHT! 10 AMERICAN PATRIOT
With Canada and America sharing the longest peaceful border in the world, and the Olympics ensconced in British Columbia, it is strange to think that war once almost broke out over the exact location of the border in the great Northwest where the U.S., Canada and then-Russian Alaska met. Strange but true. The story is this. In the early 19th Century, the U.S. and British Canada had established a joint claim over the Oregon territory, which covered lands west of the Rockies and all the up to the border with Alaska. When joint governance caused friction, however, the parties decided to divide the territory.
Enter James K. Polk (pictured above) who, as the 1844 Democratic presidential candidate, ran on a platform of taking control over the entire territory. His campaign popularized the slogan, "Fifty-four Forty or Fight!" (that was the line of latitude serving as the
northern boundary of the territory). Polk threatened to go to war unless the U.S. was granted the entire territory, and he won the election by soundly defeating a less bellicose Henry Clay of the Whig Party. After the election, calmer heads prevailed. Polk, eyeing expansion in Texas and Mexico, did not want a second war on his hands. When the British Ambassador, proposed a compromise — to use the 49th parallel as a border to divide the territory but loop southward around Vancouver Island so the British could keep the island intact — both sides backed down and war was averted. The Treaty of Oregon, signed in 1846, is still the law today and the border, which now separates Washington State and British Columbia, still stands. During the negotiations in 1845, magazine editor John O’Sullivan wrote an article stating that the U.S. had a “manifest destiny to overspread the whole of the Continent which Providence has given us for the development of the great experiment of liberty.” The term — Manifest Destiny — became a popular term for the inevitable expansion of the country from the Atlantic to the Pacific.
< MAP SHOWING PROPOSED BOUNDARIES RELATING TO OREGON QUESTION. From Political History of Oregon by James Henry Brown, copyright W.B. Allen 1892. AMERICAN PATRIOT 11
O LY M P I A N
OHEADS H NTOO VANCOUVER
12 AMERICAN PATRIOT
The only Olympian ever to win five speed skating medals — not to mention ABC's Dancing With the Stars Competition — is Apolo Anton Ohno. He heads to Vancouver as one the best known personalities on the US Winter Olympic Team. The Games begin this week in Vancouver, British Columbia. Ohno is entered in four events and experts say he has a good chance of becoming the most decorated American Winter Olympic athlete of all time. Despite the victories, many of his races were embroiled in controversy. For example, in 2002, he was accused of allowing a teammate and friend finish in front of him in race, in effect throwing the Gold medal to a friend. In 2006, he won a gold in the 500 meter, but many accused him of a false start that gained him an advantage. In both cases, sporting panels reviewing the events vindicated him.
Ohno grew up in Seattle WA, the child of an American mother and Japanese father. After their bitter divorce, his father raised him. When he was 12 years old, Ohno became interested in short track speedskating, and at the early age of 13 he was admitted to the Lake Placid Olympic Training Center. As the youngest skater ever to be accepted, he had some early setbacks, but eventually he emerged with several major victories including the World Junior Champion in 1999, a U.S. Senior national championship — the first of ten — and his first World Cup overall title in 2001. Then began his Olympic successes. Ohno was a medalist in three events in the 2002 Games and two more in the 2006 games.
While continuing to skate competitively between Olympics, Ohno took some time off in 2007, and had a star turn on the ABC Dancing With The Stars Show. With dancing partner Julianne Hough, he won the finale after having performed the paso doble, rumba, hip hop and samba routines to near perfection. Building up the Games, Ohno’s performances have been spotty. He won the 2008 overall World Cup title and swept the U.S. Olympic trials in the fall — winning all three distances, 500 meters, 1,000 meters and 1,500 meters — but had mixed success in this season’s World Cup races. Expectations are low for the U.S. speedskaters but Ohno contends that he and the team are peaking just in time for the competition.
SEE OHNO TAKE GOLD IN 2006
AMERICAN PATRIOT 13
JAMES NAISMITH THE MAN WHO INVENTED
BASKETBALL When you think of the fast, flashy and popular spectacle of basketball today, it is hard to remember that that game was not invented all that long ago and was intended as a quiet game of indoor skill for students. The man who invented basketball, Dr. James Naismith was born in 1861 in Canada. He always attributed the notion of basketball as arising from a schoolboy game involving rock tossing that he had played outside his one-room schoolhouse. Naismith grew up to attend McGill University in Montreal and, after serving as the universityâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Athletic Director, he moved on to the YMCA Training School in Springfield MA in 1891. In snowy western Massachusetts, Naismith was faced with finding a sport suitable for play inside during the winter for the students at the School for Christian Workers. Naismith wanted to create a game of skill for the students, and one that could be played indoors in a relatively small space. The first version of his invention was played with a soccer ball and two peach baskets used as goals. Players tried to throw the ball into the elevated peach baskets. PICTURED TOP LEFT:
The 1899 University of Kansas basketball team, with Dr. James Naismith at the back, right. PICTURED BOTTOM LEFT:
The first basketball court at Springfield College. 14 AMERICAN PATRIOT
BASKETBALL GAMES AT THE UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS’ ALLEN FIELDHOUSE TAKE PLACE ON THE JAMES NAISMITH COURT.
The first official game was played in the YMCA gymnasium in January 1892 with nine players. The game ended at 1-0; the single score was made from 25 feet, on a court just half the size of a present-day standard court. By 1897, teams of five became standard and, with the help and missionary zeal of the YMCA movement, the game spread quickly throughout the country. The sport caught on and evolved quickly. Peach baskets, used until 1906, were replaced by metal hoops with backboards and nets. Baskets, originally nailed to the mezzanine balcony of the playing court, were often interfered with by spectators. The solution: a backboard was introduced to prevent interference and had the additional effect of allowing rebound shots. While the “Y” eventually discouraged the sport for its rowdiness, other clubs, colleges, and professional
clubs filled the void. The first pro league, the National Basketball League, was formed in 1898 to protect players from exploitation and to promote a less rough game. The rest, as they say, is history. As for Naismith, he joined the University of Kansas faculty in 1898, teaching physical education and as chaplain. In addition to creating the game of basketball, James Naismith graduated as a medical doctor, primarily interested in sports physiology and what we would today call sports science and as Presbyterian minister, with a keen interest in clean living. Naismith watched the sport spread to many nations and to the Berlin Olympics in 1936, where he was an honored guest. He died in 1939 and, posthumously, the Basketball Hall of Fame in Springfield is named in his honor.
PLAN YOUR TRIP TO THE NAISMITH MEMORIAL BASKETBALL HALL OF FAME IN MASSACHUSETTS AMERICAN PATRIOT 15
QUOTE OF THE WEEK
“A wise girl kisses but doesn’t love, listens but doesn’t believe, and leaves before she is left.” — MARILYN MONROE ACTRESS, SINGER AND SEX SYMBOL OF THE 1950S AND 1960S
WATCH A MARILYN MONROE TRIBUTE
16 AMERICAN PATRIOT
THIS WEEK IN
AMERICAN HISTORY 1848. Photographer Mathew Brady, seen here, took the first photography of a sitting U.S. President, James K. Polk. Brady later became famous for this Civil War photography and portraits of Abraham Lincoln. VIEW BRADYâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;S WORK HERE
AMERICAN PATRIOT 17
F R E E al digit
2 01 0 Cal or i r o f s file lendar a c e l Goog ach with e ase p u rc h
The 2010 Lunar Planner Donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t start 2010 without it. Humans have been observing the lunar cycles for thousands of years. Weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve incorporated these celestial cycles into a daily planner to help you determine the most fortuitous times to start a business (and when not to), schedule important meetings, plan a party, your wedding, sign contracts, travel, stay at home, buy, sell or close on real estate, and on and on, for whatever you plan thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s important to you. Order your paper Lunar Diary or digital sync at www.thelunardiary.com. Thank you. http://twitter.com/LunarDiary
T he lu c kie st peo p le live in lu n ar lig h t. Heller Communication Design hellercd.com 718.222.4800
H
Tens of thousands of American Service Members are deployed in hostile and remote regions of the world, including the Middle East, Afghanistan, and on ships throughout international waters. The physical conditions they must endure are difficult and they may be separated from loved ones for long periods of time. Operation Gratitude seeks to lift morale and put smiles on faces by sending care packages addressed to individual Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen and Marines deployed overseas. Operation Gratitude care packages contain food, hygiene products, entertainment items and personal letters of appreciation, all wrapped with good wishes of love and support.
Visit www.OperationGratitude.com to learn how you can help.