Further Review: The Stories Behind the History You Thought You Knew
From the pages of The Spokesman-Review
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Children in Berlin re-enact the Berlin Airlift with toy U.S. planes they received for Christmas 1948.
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The stories behind the history you thought you knew
From the pages of The Spokesman-Review
THE NATIONALLY DISTRIBUTED INFOGRAPHICS OF JOURNALIST
CHARLES APPLE
CONTENTS
Foreword
August 1492: Columbus’ First Voyage
1500s: Slavery in the ‘New World’
November 1620: The Journey of the ‘Pilgrim’ Separatists
November 1621: The First Thanksgiving
December 1773: The Boston Tea Party
1776: Origin of the U.S. Flag
July 1776: The Declaration of Independence
1781: The Federalist Papers
April 1789: The Inauguration of George Washington
1789-1791: The Bill of Rights
April 1803: The Louisiana Purchase
August 1807: Robert Fulton and his Steamboat
August 1812: Old Ironsides in the War of 1812
September 1814: The Star-Spangled Banner
November 1823: The Monroe Doctrine
May 1838: The Trail of Tears
January 1848: The California Gold Rush
March 1852: The Origin of Uncle Sam
March 1862: Battle of the Ironclads
July 1863: Battle of Gettysburg
May 1864: The Newspaper Gold Hoax
April 1865: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln
May 1869: The Transcontinental Railroad
June 1896: Henry Ford and his ‘Quadricycle’
February 1898: The Destruction of the USS Maine
August 1898: The Mock Battle of Manila
November 1902: Teddy and the Bear
December 1903: The Wright Brothers at Kitty Hawk
April 1912: The Sinking of the Titanic
August 1914: The Building of the Panama Canal
March 1918: The ‘Spanish Flu’ Pandemic
January 1919: The Peace Conference in Versailles
August 1920: The 19th Amendment
May 1921: The Tulsa Massacre
May 1927: Charles Lindbergh’s Flight Across the Atlantic
July 1932: The U.S. Government vs. the ‘Bonus Army’
March 1933: Bank Holiday
May 1937: The Destruction of the Hindenburg
June 1938: The Fair Labor Standards Act
September 1938: Appeasing Adolf Hitler
November 1938: Kristallnacht: ‘The Night of Broken Glass’
May 1940: The Birth of McDonald’s
May 1940: Evacuation from Dunkirk
September 1940: The London Blitz
December 1941: Attack on Pearl Harbor
December 1941: The Ships at Pearl
February 1942: Internment of Japanese-American Citizens
June 1942: The Battle of Midway
June 1942: Anne Frank and her Diary
1942: Hedy Lamarr: Movie Star Genius
1936-1942: Alan Turing and the Enigma Code
July 1943: John F. Kennedy and PT-109
April 1944: Exercise Tiger: Rehearsal for D-Day
June 1944: The D-Day Invasion
May 1945: Operation Paperclip
July 1945: Testing the Atomic Bomb
October 1947: Faster Than Sound
May 1948: The Marshall Plan to Rebuild Europe
June 1948: The Berlin Airlift
July 1948: Desegregating the Military
November 1948: ‘Dewey Defeats Truman’
May 1950: The Origin of Smokey Bear
June 1951: The History of Computing
February 1954: Polio Vaccinations for Children
May 1954: Desegregating Public Schools
March 1955: A Shooting in the Capitol
October 1957: Sputnik: First Satellite in Orbit
January 1958: Explorer 1: First U.S. Satellite
February 1959: The Day the Music Died
March 1959: The Birth of Barbie
May 1960: The U-2 Incident
May 1961: The Freedom Riders
August 1961: The Berlin Wall 1961-63: Project Mercury
February 1962: The First American in Orbit
October 1962: James Meredith at Mississippi
October 1962: The Cuban Missile Crisis
August 1963: “I Have a Dream” and the March on Washington
September 1963: A Church Bombing in Birmingham
November 1963: The Assassination of John F. Kennedy
January 1968: Vietnam War: The Tet O ensive
March 1968: Vietnam War: Massacre in My Lai
July 1969: Apollo 11: Getting to the Moon
July 1969: Apollo 11: Photography on the Moon
1968-1972: Strange But True Tales of Apollo
June 1972: The Watergate Scandal
October 1973: The Oil Embargo and Energy Crisis
August 1977: The Birth of Home Computing
March 1979: Meltdown at Three Mile Island
April 1981: The Space Shuttle Program
March 1989: The Web is Born
February 1991: The Gulf War
August 1991: The Fall of the Soviet Union
September 2001: 9/11: The Late, Great Twin Towers
September 2001: 9/11: A Timeline
Misquoted
From Shattered Dreams
Sources
About the Author
Acknowledgements
FOREWORD
An important mentor in my life once explained the power of serendipity in a newspaper. He said readers know exactly what they expect and need from us, and that we have to do those things well. But it’s when we do something completely unexpected that readers notice.
Serendipity was his message — a word I’d never really heard to describe a newspaper. “Every damn day, we have to give our readers something they never saw coming,” he told me. “Yes, we have to give them the best daily report possible, but most people won’t remember any of those stories the very next day."
“Surprise and delight matter. Our readers love it when we give them something they never saw coming, and those things are often the only things they really remember."
By Rob Curley EDITOR, THE SPOKESMAN-REVIEW
It was like I was talking to the Yoda of newspapers. Be a source of amazement and curiosity, we must.
Both in Spokane at The Spokesman-Review and when I was the editor of the Orange County Register in California, that’s been exactly Charles Apple’s core task: to surprise and delight our readers.
In an age when newspapers seemingly just cut and cut, a regional newspaper in the rural part of a big state that publishes four or five full-page, full-color infographics every week is a pretty big surprise. But it’s that the pages are so darn informative is why our readers continually tell us that
Charles’ Further Reviews are one of their very favorite parts of the daily miracle that is our great morning newspaper.
Every industry has its Rock Stars. You know, the kind of person who every one in a chosen profession knows exactly who he or she is.
Well, in the newspaper world, Charles is a Rock Star. Especially if you are a designer or produce informational graphics. His work at newspapers across the nation has always been attention-grabbing, is the
topic of conferences and is even taught in journalism schools. In many ways, his Further Review pages for The Spokesman-Review have grown that reputation.
Outside of the rarity of a newspaper publishing several full-page infographics every week, part of the reason his work’s audience continues to grow is that readers literally have no idea what to expect. I’m his editor, and I have no idea what to expect, so it might be that Charles has embraced that whole “surprise and
delight” a little too much.
His Further Reviews now run in hundreds of newspapers across the country, and I am absolutely convinced they are now the ultimate training tool for any wannabe “Jeopardy!” contestants. Or high school history teachers. Or just someone who strives to be the most interesting person in the world, but thinks Dos Equis means a second set of car keys.
There isn’t a subject that Charles can’t make interesting, while making sure his readers learn a few new things, and — more importantly — have a better understanding of how our complex world really works. His pages e ortlessly go from pop culture to complex physics to detailed history.
That brings us to this book.
Outside of trying to build a co ee-table book that people would actually want to read, there was another important reason for it. Real rock stars have to release a Greatest Hits album. Charles couldn’t carry a tune in a bucket, but these Further Review pages totally sing.
Plus, it meant Charles had to reformat all of these pages to work as a book. That might seem like a ton of work — and it was — but ask a real rock star if they think it’s important to remaster their favorite songs if they’re going to be re-released, and the answer is always absolutely.
So grab your cup of co ee and prepare to rock out. Or at least grab a cup of co ee and prepare to be enlightened and entertained by Charles.
Serendipity is now in book format. And my mentor is smiling. So is Charles.
As Yoda would say, “Pass on what you have learned, you must.”
Rob Curley, Charles Apple and Spokesman-Review Assistant Managing Editor for Design Chris Soprych at a Northwest Passages book club event in Spokane on Aug. 17, 2023. Apple and Soprych worked together at the Chicago Tribune in the 1990s. And all three worked together at the Orange County Register.
1620 JOURNEY UNEASY
The English settlers known as “the Pilgrims” lost a ship, endured a sea voyage twice as long as anticipated and then — still living on their cramped vessel — dealt with winter sickness that killed o nearly half of their number.
A DECISION TO LEAVE EUROPE
The group we call the Pilgrims were English families who separated from the Church of England and sought the freedom to worship elsewhere. They moved to Holland starting in 1608 but then, in 1620, decided to move to America where they could create their own colony, just like settlers had done 13 years before in Virginia. They were hoping to settle in the Hudson River area — what is now the New York metro area.
Church leaders recruited a number of farmers and other workers to join them in setting up a new colony. And they hired two ships to take them across the Atlantic: The Speedwell and the Mayflower.
The ships were loaded and set out on Aug. 5, 1620, but within hours, the Speedwell had sprung a number of leaks. After a couple of returns to Southampton, England, for repairs, the decision was made to ditch the Speedwell and cram all
the settlers and their supplies onto the Mayflower, They set out again on Sept. 6.
By that time, prime Atlantic-crossing season had passed. The Mayflower — with its landlubber passengers highly prone to seasickness — ran into a series of Atlantic storms. The Mayflower crew spotted land on Nov. 9 — 66 days after their departure. And the storms had thrown them hundreds of miles north of their intended destination.
removed the Pilgrims’ resolve to spend more time in the cramped ship.
The Mayflower sent out small boats with crews to scout the area we now call Cape Cod, Massachusetts, and found the region to be suitable for settlement. So the Mayflower dropped anchor — in what is now Provincetown Harbor in the tip of Cape Cod — and began making plans for its passengers to disembark.
adviser they had hired, Myles Standish, as their leader and then drew up a compact outlining the settlers’ intention to live by English laws and with allegiance to the king.
Forty-one male Pilgrims over the age of 21 signed the Mayflower Compact on Nov. 21, 1620, in preparation for making landfall and settling in their new home.
Land was selected and marked o . Construction began on the new settlement on Dec. 25. By that time, settlers had begun falling ill to winter sicknesses and pneumonia that added to their increasing scurvy and other ailments. Nearly half the settlers would die before settling in.
At first, the Mayflower attempted to head south to the Hudson region but continued rough seas and dwindling provisions
Realizing their inability to reach the area they had been authorized to settle, the Pilgrims decided they needed some form of government. They selected the military
The Mayflower wouldn’t be completely emptied until March 31, 1621, and it wouldn’t depart for England until April 15.
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS
PILGRIM HALL MUSEUM
PILGRIMS WHO SET OUT FOR AMERICA IN 1620
Those who died en route or during that first winter in the New World
Dorothy Bradford slipped o the deck of the Mayflower while it was anchored in Cape Cod Harbor. Her body was never found.
William Button died at sea on Nov. 6, three days before the Mayflower sighted land.
Oceanus Hopkins was born on the Mayflower en route to the New World.
Rose Standish — wife of the colony’s military adviser Myles Standish — died of pneumonia on Jan. 29, 1621.
Peregrine White was born onboard the Mayflower while it was anchored in Cape Cod Harbor.
NATION-BUILDING OF ART THE
In October 1787, the United States of America was falling apart in disagreements over how the young nation was to be governed. A group had met in Philadelphia to write a new Constitution, but it wasn’t clear whether or not three-quarters of the states would approve it.
That’s when three of our Founding Fathers stepped up to write a series of essays advocating for a strong federal government and for ratification of the Constitution. What came to be called the Federalist Papers began publishing Oct. 27, 1787.
AUTHORS OF THE FEDERALIST PAPERS
Born: Nevis Island
A senior aide to Gen. George Washington, Hamilton practiced law and then worked for passage of the Constitution. He led the Treasury Department but was killed in a duel in 1804.
James Madison
Representing: New York Age in 1787: 32 Born: Virginia Representing: Virginia Age in 1787: 36
The son of a prominent plantation owner, Madison was an adviser to President Washington and then served eight years as Secretary of State. He went on to serve two terms as president.
John
Jay
Born: New York
Representing: New York Age in 1787: 42
Born into a family of wealthy merchants, Jay served as ambassador to Spain during the Revolution and then helped negotiate the Treaty of Paris ending the war. He went on to become the nation’s first Supreme Court Chief Justice.
Alexander Hamilton
THE WHITE HOUSE
BOWDOIN COLLEGE
NATIONAL PORTRAIT GALLERY
THE PATH TO RATIFICATION
DEC. 7
Delaware becomes the first state to ratify the Constitution.
MARCH 11
Hamilton embarks on a series of 11 essays examining the executive branch and the o ce and powers of the president.
DEC. 11
May 17, 1787
A convention is called in Philadelphia to reform the Articles of Confederation that have formed the framework of government for the United States.
NOV. 22
SEPT. 17
After four months of work, the convention adopts a new constitution.
The 10th Federalist essay is contributed by Virginia’s James Madison, who makes a powerful case for the Constitution by explaining how it will carefully balance the competing interests of various political factions.
Pennsylvania becomes the second state to ratify the Constitution.
MARCH 1
DEC. 16
New Jersey becomes the third state to ratify the Constitution.
JAN. 2, 1788
Georgia becomes the fourth state to ratify the Constitution.
Jay rejoins the project to write about the powers of the Senate. From here on, all the Federalist essays — 21 more of them — will be written by Hamilton.
MARCH 22
The first 36 Federalist essays are republished in book form. A second volume with 49 will be published two months later.
JUNE 26
While the point is now moot, New York ratifies the Constitution, despite having more anti-Federalists than federalists in its ratification convention. New York, too, requests a Bill of Rights.
JULY 16
North Carolina will ratify the Constitution in November 1789 and Rhode Island will ratify it in May 1790.
SEPT. 28
The new constitution is formally submitted to the states for ratification.
NOV. 10
OCT. 27
Realizing how strong opposition is in New York — especially in rural areas of the state — to the new Constitution, lawyer and constitutional delegate Alexander Hamilton enlists the help of John Jay in writing what will become a series of essays for New York City newspapers explaining the new Constitution and making an argument for its ratification.
OCT. 31
Jay falls gravely ill with rheumatism and is forced to drop out of the Federalist project. Hamilton writes the next four installments on dealing with disputes between states and with insurrection.
JAN. 9
Connecticut becomes the fifth state to ratify the Constitution.
FEB. 22-26
In Federalists 59 through 61, Hamilton writes about how the new Congress would regulate the election of its members.
MARCH 24
Rhode Island becomes the first state to reject the new Constitution.
JUNE 25
MARCH 28
Maryland becomes the seventh state to ratify the Constitution.
JAN. 11
Jay follows Hamilton’s introductory essay with four on the topic of national defense.
Madison writes the next 22 essays, published over 40 days, taking a deep dive into the structure of the new government.
FEB. 6
Massachusetts becomes the sixth state to ratify the Constitution.
MAY 23
South Carolina becomes the eighth state to ratify the Constitution.
JUNE 21
After contentious objections from anti-Federalists — led by Henry — Virginia ratifies the Constitution, but recommends a Bill of Rights be added as amendments.
In Federalist 84, Hamilton makes a case against a Bill of Rights, writing that the Constitution aims to regulate government, not people. A Bill of Rights is unnecessary, he argues.
The essays are called “The Federalist” and are all attributed to the pen name “Publius.”
JAN. 25
In Federalist 44 and 45, Madison writes about what restrictions the new Constitution would place on state governments.
FEB. 6
In Federalist 51, Madison explains the need for checks and balances between the three branches of the new government. “If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary,” he writes.
MAY 28
In Federalist 78 — first published in the second bound volume of Federalist essays — Hamilton lays out the groundwork for judicial review.
JUNE 16
New Hampshire ratifies the Constitution, making it the law of the land.
APRIL 1, 1789
The first session of Congress under the new Constitution opens in New York.
At a meeting of the Virginia ratification convention, delegate Patrick Henry proposes a Bill of Rights — a list of rights guaranteed to the people — to be added to the Constitution.
Five days later, a joint session of Congress tallies votes and announces George Washington has been elected the nation’s first president. He’s sworn into o ce on April 30.
OCT. 19
Jay becomes the nation’s first Supreme Court Chief Justice.
THE TRAIL OF TEARS
Indigenous peoples had always been a shaky one. Time and time again, Native American tribes agree to treaties granting them land while also earmarking land on which settlers could farm, hunt, build cities and form governments. But time and time again, settlers — and later, the young United States of America — would break those treaties and push Native Americans away from the areas the newcomers wanted.
America’s Founding Fathers favored the idea of “civilizing” Native Americans, having them adopt Western customs, dress, languages and religion. Some tribes did this more willingly and more rapidly than others.
In 1823, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled
Andrew Jackson
War hero and populist president who had teamed up with real estate interests to profit from illegal settlement of Native American lands.
Martin Van Buren
Jackson’s vice president — and, in March 1837, his successor — continued Jackson’s policies regarding Native American removal.
Winfield Scott
Commander of the roundup of the Cherokee. He ordered his troops to “show every possible kindness” and to protect the Native Americans from harm.
John Ross
Principal chief of the Cherokee Nation from 1828 to 1866. The U.S. government bypassed Ross in 1835 when it signed a treaty to relocate the Cherokee.
In May 1838, the U.S. Army began rounding up members of the Cherokee tribe in northern Georgia and western North Carolina to forcibly move them to empty lands out west. This was despite promises and treaties and even a Supreme Court ruling that guaranteed them their homes.
About one-fifth of them would die en route.
that the “right” of Indigenous people to live on their designated lands in the southern part of the country was a “secondary right” to the U.S. government’s “right of discovery” on those lands. This made it even easier for settlers and speculators to seize Native American property.
Then, in 1828, gold was discovered in the Appalachian foothills of North Georgia — lands occupied by the Cherokee tribe. The next year, Congress passed the Indian Removal Act, allowing the government to negotiate with tribes for their relocation to lands west of the Mississippi.
Some tribes — the Choctaw and the Chickasaw — willingly moved, realizing conflicts with settlers would only get worse. Others, not so much. The Seminoles of Florida refused to leave
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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS WIKIMEDIA COMMONS METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF ART NATIONAL GALLERY OF ART
and were forced out only after a long and bloody war.
The Cherokee also weren’t happy about leaving. The government worked around the unwillingness by signing a new treaty — the Treaty of New Echota in 1835 — but with members of the tribe who were not its recognized leaders.
Cherokee leaders including John Ross fought the treaty through the courts all the way to the Supreme Court, which sided with the Cherokee.
But President Andrew Jackson was determined to push the Cherokee o their land. “(Chief Justice) John Marshall has made his decision,” Jackson said. “Now let him enforce it.”
The government set a May 23, 1838, deadline for the Cherokee to voluntarily leave their land and to head west. About
2,000 Cherokee did just that.
Three days later, 7,000 troops under the command of Gen. Winfield Scott began rounding up Cherokee from their homes at gunpoint and sending them to 11 temporary internment camps.
Some tribal members escaped the roundup by fleeing east, farther into the Appalachians. The descendants of those
Native Americans live today in the hills and valleys around what is now Great Smoky Mountains National Park.
Some of the Cherokee were loaded into boats to make the journey via the Tennessee, Mississippi and Arkansas rivers. Others marched by foot. The journey was badly organized and poorly executed. Drought lowered water levels,
requiring boats to be repeatedly unloaded and loaded again to avoid rapids and shoals.
Drought struck the region. Food ran short. Breaks were called in the forced migration, during which the Cherokee were imprisoned in military stockades along the way. Of the more than 4,000 who died during the migration, about 1,500 died in stockades.
NATIVE AMERICANS
REMOVED DURING THE TRAIL OF TEARS
Totals
AN 800-MILE JOURNEY TO ‘INDIAN TERRITORY’
ILLINOIS
Most of the Cherokee reached Indian Territory by March 24, 1839. They were promised food and supplies through March 1, 1840. About 16,000 Cherokee would eventually settle near the town of Tahlequah, in the foothills of the Ozark Mountains.
In 1987, Congress would designate a Trail of Tears National Historic Trail, stretching 2,200 miles across nine states.
Became a state in January 1861
Became a state in August 1821
TENNESSEE
TERRITORY’ Oklahoma would become a state in November 1907
on April 10, 1912.
TRAGEDY ATLANTIC THE IN
The RMS Titanic — the largest ship afloat at the time and with 2,224 passengers and crew aboard — set sail from Southampton, England, to New York City for a five-day maiden voyage. The state-of-the-art vessel was considered to be unsinkable.
THE LARGEST OBJECT EVER MOVED
Launched on May 31, 1911, the Titanic — and its sister ship, the Olympic, which was launched seven months before — were billed as the largest objects ever moved.
The Titanic weighed 26,000 tons. The largest of its three anchors weighed 15½ tons. It took a team of 20 horses to pull it into the shipyard.
The ship had bout 2,000 portholes and windows and contained 200 miles of electrical wiring. The ship carried 5,892 tons of coal. At its usual cruising speed of 21 to 22
knots, the Titanic used 620 to 640 tons of coal a day.
The ship had four 63-foot-tall funnels, but only three of those were needed. The ship’s designer thought the ships would look better with four funnels. The fourth one carried air vented from the kitchens.
Originally, the Titanic was to carry 64 lifeboats but the owners cut that to 32 and then down to 16. They didn’t want to clutter premium deck space with so many lifeboats. And 16 lifeboats were all regulations at the time required.
Late in the evening of April 14, the Titanic struck an iceberg about 400 miles south of Newfoundland, Canada. The ship sank early the next morning, taking 1,514 people down with it.
THE UNSINKABLE SHIP SINKS
At 11:39 p.m. on April 14, the ship’s lookout spotted an iceberg immediately ahead of the Titanic. The first o cer ordered a turn, but it was too late.
The starboard — or right — side of the Titanic scraped the iceberg below the ship’s waterline. The seams in the ship’s hull buckled, allowing seawater to rush into several of the Titanic’s watertight compartments.
Titanic was designed with 16 watertight compartments. The ship could stay afloat even if four of those compartments flooded.
But the collision ruptured the hull around five compartments.
It became clear the Titanic — slowly but surely — would sink.
The RMS Titanic leaves Southampton, England,
WIKIMEDIA COMMONS
At 12:25 a.m., the order was given to load women and children into lifeboats. First-class passengers were told to put on their life jackets and make their way to the top deck. Third-class passengers didn’t have to be told — many of them found their compartments already filling with water.
Lifeboat 6 approaches the RMS Carpathia on April 15, 1912.
WIKIMEDIA COMMONS
WHY
SO MANY DIED
The decision to abandon ship brought up a di erent problem: The Titanic carried 20 lifeboats, enough room for 1,178 people.
All but two lifeboats left the ship with plenty of unfilled seats:
As the ship’s radio operator frantically sent for help, the crew began launching lifeboats. At first, many passengers didn’t feel there was a need to leave the ship. Others weren’t filled with confidence, watching inexperienced crew trying to lower lifeboats. In some cases, women refused to leave their husbands aboard a sinking ship.
And that’s assuming they were all filled to capacity. But the Titanic had nearly twice as many passengers and crew aboard.
NUMBER
NUMBER ABOARD
CAPACITY OF LIFEBOAT
Passengers on the upper decks had a much easier time of getting to the lifeboats. Third-class passengers not only had to work their way through a confusing maze of inside passages, they also found gates — designed to keep them out of the first and second class areas of the ship — still locked.
2.4 MILES BELOW THE SURFACE
Undersea explorer Robert Ballard discovered the wreck of the Titanic in September 1985. Ballard and his team discovered the ship had broken apart near the surface and came to rest on the seabed, about a third of a mile apart.
Thirty-three years later, Ballard revealed he had actually been on a secret mission for the U.S. Navy to assess the nuclear missiles and reactors aboard two U.S. submarines that sank in the Atlantic in the 1960s. He had been allowed 12 days to search for the Titanic as a cover story. Since then, a number of expeditions have brought back items from the ship and several salvage operators have made proposals to raise the wreck. It’s now protected by the United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization, or UNESCO.
Among the fatalities: The ship’s seven-man orchestra, which began playing at 12:15 a.m. and ended the night playing on the Titanic’s deck.
NATIONAL OCEANIC AND ATMOSPHERIC
OF THE
WORKPLACE REFORM
In response to allegations of children working in “sweatshop” conditions in factories and coal mines, Congress passed laws in 1916 forbidding the employment of children younger than 14. Two years later, however, the Supreme Court declared that legislation unconstitutional.
The Franklin D. Roosevelt administration attempted to take on safety and wage issues with the National Industrial Recovery Act and the President’s Reemployment Agreement in 1933 — but again, the courts invalidated the reforms.
The administration tried again in 1936, with the Public Contracts Act that required government contractors to adopt an 8-hour
work day and a 40-hour work week. This law was passed but was limited in scope.
In 1937, New Jersey Congresswoman Mary Norton introduced what would become the Fair Labor Standards Act.
The bill met tremendous pushback in the House Labor Committee. Twice, she was forced to talk her colleagues into passing a discharge petition in order to bring the bill to a vote.
Roosevelt signed the bill into law on June 25, 1938. The law went into e ect on Oct. 24.
RESTRICTIONS ON CHILD LABOR
The Fair Labor Standards Act addressed child labor by setting a minimum age of 14 for employment outside of school hours and 16 for employment during school hours. It also set a minimum age of 18 for occupations deemed “hazardous” by the Secretary of Labor.
All this applied only to jobs where the employer was engaged in interstate commerce — which is how the child labor guidelines avoided being struck down by the Supreme Court.
Over the years, a number of exceptions and additional rules were put into place to govern cases such as newspaper delivery and child actors.
Despite the fact that these laws have been in e ect for decades, however, the Economic Policy Institute found earlier this year that violations of child labor laws have more than tripled since 2015.
In addition, four states passed laws in the 2020s extending the hours that underage children are allowed to work and increasing the amount of time they must work before allowed a break. Arkansas passed a law eliminating verification of children’s ages and parental permission.
Child labor laws relaxed:
Child labor laws introduced but not enacted: ■
‘IF DIE WE MUST ...
Troops of Company E, 16th Infantry, 1st Infantry Division leave their landing craft and wade onto Omaha Beach on June 6, 1944. Two-thirds of Company E became casualties.
NATIONAL ARCHIVES
... (we ask that) we die as men would die, without complaining, without pleading and safe in the feeling that we have done our best for what we believed was right.”
— Lt. Col. Robert L. Wolverton
The tide of World War II had already begun to turn against Germany. The Axis’ march into Eastern Europe was halted by the Soviet Union. Germany was pushed out of North Africa. Rome fell to the Allies on June 4.
But France had spent four long years under German occupation. Months in planning, the Allies’ Operation Overlord launched from the coast of England with nearly 7,000 vessels and more than 100,000 troops — the largest amphibious invasion in history.
A feint was made toward one section of the French coast, but the real target was the beaches of Normandy. Each area over a 45-mile-wide swath would be assaulted first by smaller units and then an entire division. Wave after wave of LCV(P) — Landing Craft, Vehicle and Personnel, better known as a Higgins Boat — floated troops, 36 at a time, past half-sunken obstacles and the fury of shore-mounted battery guns.
The objective was to secure a beachhead and create tra c lanes that would allow mountains of men and equipment to flow inland over the days and weeks it might take before the Allies could capture a port.
The original goals for that first day proved to be a bit too ambitious. Still, the Allies landed, secured the beaches, began drawing in heavy equipment and slowly moved ahead, repelling German counterattacks that were too little and too late.
Paris was liberated on Aug. 25. The war would continue for another seven months, but the fall of Nazi Germany was just a matter of time and attrition.
WORDS TO REMEMBER
The words that open this page are those of 29-year-old Lt. Col. Robert L. Wolverton, praying with his 750 troops of the 3rd Battalion, 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment of the 101st Airborne Division before taking part in the air drop.
Hours later, Wolverton was killed by German machine gun fire as he hung tangled in a tree in an orchard outside St. Come-du-Mont.
HOW THE INVASION UNFOLDED
Overnight Paratroops land south of Utah Beach east of Sword Beach.
6:30 a.m.
The first troops go ashore at Utah Beach. The current pushes the actual landing 2,000 yards south of the target. Luckily, German defenses there are weak.
7 a.m.
The most heavily defended of the beaches, Omaha, is dominated by cli s. Transfer to landing craft takes place 11 miles from shore, resulting in seasickness for some troops. Those who make it ashore find themselves pinned down on the beach by withering gunfire.
7:25 a.m.
Rocky beaches at Gold and Juno make for narrow landing avenues. Troops see little resistance but get congested as reserves begin to land.
A major D-Day objective, Caen, isn’t captured until July 20.
7:30 a.m.
Troops landing at Sword Beach are assaulted by heavy fire. Still, commandos are successful linking up with paratroopers.
ISIGNY
MOON TICKET THE TO
On July 16, 1969, NASA launched three astronauts into space. Four days later, two of them would make history by becoming the first Earthlings to set foot on the moon.
THE MAN WHO FIGURED OUT HOW TO GET TO THE MOON
If not for NASA engineer John Houbolt, getting to the moon before the end of the 1960s might have been a no-starter.
The original plan was for astronauts to blast o in a giant rocket and back that rocket down onto the lunar surface.
NASA called this direct ascent
After the astronauts finished their work on the moon, the rocket would blast o again and head back to Earth.
The plan seemed simple enough, but required a lot of brute force. Houbolt did the math and found the amount of fuel required to lift a giant rocket o the Earth and then again o the moon would have been enormous. He proposed a better way.
With lunar orbit rendezvous, or LOR, NASA would launch a spacecraft designed in small modules and then discard the used modules as they go.
Fuel, oxygen and propulsion systems: “Service Module”
Primary cockpit: “Command Module”
Cockpit and ascent stage
2. Apollo goes into orbit around the moon.
A landing module would carry two astronauts to the surface while one remained behind in orbit with the main spacecraft.
Landing gear and descent engine to leave behind on the lunar surface
3. Lunar Module detaches and descends to surface.
Remainder of lunar module is jettisoned for the return home.
LOR used less fuel and wouldn’t require a launch vehicle larger than the Saturn V. This would cut years o the e ort to reach the moon. Nor would it require multiple launches for a single mission to the moon.
4. Lunar module detaches from landing stage, returns to orbit to link up — or “rendezvous” — with mother ship.
DOWNSIDE: This would require astronauts to rendevous and dock in orbit around the moon. NASA would need to learn how to do this, which would require an interim step between Projects Mercury and Apollo. This would become the Gemini program.
Houbolt risked his career and the wrath of his supervisors by repeatedly pressing for lunar orbit rendezvous. By June 1962, Houbolt had convinced master rocket builder and influential NASA o cial Wernher Von Braun that LOR was the way to go.
1. Lifto
INSIDE THE EAGLE
The lunar module for Apollo 11 measured 23 feet tall and weighed 16.6 tons at launch. Lunar modules for later Apollo flights would weigh another ton-and-a-half.
Steerable S-band antenna
Handles communications with Earth. Can be aimed manually but also has an automatic tracking mode.
Rendezvous radar antenna
Tracks command module when ascent stage returns to orbit.
Windows
Consist of two panes of coated glass. Tilted downward for maximum visibility of the landing site for astronauts.
Plume deflectors
Protected the lunar module from thruster fire. One was mounted under each set of thrusters.
Hatch
32 inches square and opens to the inside. Air pressure inside the cabin helps hold the door tight.
Egress platform
32 inches wide and 45 inches long, the ship’s “front porch” was corrugated in case lunar boots became slippery.
Modularized equipment storage assembly
Armstrong pulled a cord that opened the hatch of this storage unit, deploying a TV camera.
Stainless steel commemorative plaque
Ladder
Nine rungs, each nine inches apart. The ladder itself is 10 inches wide.
VHF antenna
Handles communications tra c between the lunar module and the command module.
Docking hatch and tunnel
32 inches in diameter. The tunnel is 16 inches long. Astronauts crawl through this to move between the lunar module and command module while in flight.
Crew compartment
A tight squeeze: only 7-and-a-half feet in diameter and 3-and-a-half deep. The walls were only 0.012 inches thick — flying the lunar module was definitely not for the faint of heart. There were no seats — astronauts could rest in hammocks and attach their boots to the floor with nonflammable Velcro.
Ascent engine
Can lift the lunar module’s upper stage back into lunar orbit. Unlike the descent engine, the ascent engine has no throttle. It’s either on or o .
Reaction control thrusters
Thermal insulation
The descent stage was covered in thin, gold-colored mylar foil to help disperse heat from the sun.
Descent engine
This gimbal-mounted engine had to be capable of slowing the spacecraft, hovering and landing. Used Aerozine 50 for fuel and dinitrogen tetroxide as an oxidizer.
Landing probes
Extended five feet. When a probe touched the lunar surface, it set o a “contact light” in the cockpit, which let astronauts know they could shut o the engine.
Allow astronauts to change the direction the lunar module is facing.
Fuel
The lunar module uses hypergolic fuel, meaning it ignites on contact. This was important: There was no room for a backup system in case of failure.
Storage
The spaces between the lunar module’s four landing gear could be used to store equipment, instruments to be left on the moon and, on later missions, a lunar rover.
Shock absorbers Were designed to compress as much as 32 inches.
Armstrong set the Eagle down pretty lightly, so hardly any compression was observed.
