Mark Scott Smith's Blog: Enemy in the Mirror, page 34
July 28, 2022
Fidel Castro’s Forces Triumphant
Fidel and Raul Castro formed an underground movement in the early 1950s to overthrow the brutal and corrupt regime of the dictator Fulgencio Batista, under whose rule Cuba had become a haven for organized crime.
After an unsuccessful rising against Batista in 1953 the Castro brothers were jailed for 15 years, but were released after two years and exiled to Mexico where they met the charismatic Argentinian doctor Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara.
Returning to Cuba with Guevara and a small band of followers in 1956, they joined with mountain bandits. From their stronghold in Sierra Maestra they smuggled arms, mounted guerrilla raids, blew up bridges, kidnapped Americans and cut off the ports from which sugar was exported.
Batista finally fled on New Year’s Eve 1958, and Fidel Castro, at the age of 30, entered Havana in triumph on 8 January 1959.
Source: history.blog.gov. uk
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July 25, 2022
Pope John XXIII Crowned
Pope John XXIII was head of the Catholic Church from October 1958 until his death in 1963.
Born in 1881 as Angelo Giuseppe Roncalli, he was one of thirteen children in a family of sharecroppers who lived in a village in Lombardy.
Pope John had a major impact on the Catholic Church, opening it up to dramatic unexpected changes including:
– prohibiting bishops from interfering with local elections
– “Ostpolitik” engaged in dialogue with the communist countries of Eastern Europe
– naming the first cardinals from Africa, Japan, and the Philippines
– promoting ecumenical movements in cooperation with other Christian faiths.
Source: Wikipedia
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July 21, 2022
Kingston Trio – Tom Dooley
The Kingston Trio, an American folk and pop group from San Fancisco helped launch the folk music revival of the late 1950s.
The original lineup of Dave Guard, Bob Shane, and Nick Reynolds rose to international popularity fueled by an unprecedented sale of LP records.
Source: Wikipedia
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July 18, 2022
Boris Pasternak Forced to Decline Nobel Prize
Growing up in Moscow, the son of an artist and concert pianist, Boris Pasternak anandoned a career as a composer to study philosophy in Germany. On returning to Moscow, he became an author and was awarded the 1958 Nobel Prize for literature.
His novel Doctor Zhivago was banned by Soviet authorities and he was forced to decline the Nobel Prize.
Source: Nobelprize.org
Pasternak’s novel Doctor Zhivago was made into a 1965 film.
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July 14, 2022
Pope Pius XII Dies
Pope Pius XII (born in 1876 as Eugenio Maria Giuseppe Giovanni Pacelli) died on October 9, 1958 after a long, tumultuous, and controversial pontificate (1939–58).
During his reign, Pius XII faced the ravages of World War II, the abuses of the Nazi, fascist, and Soviet regimes, the horror of the Holocaust, the challenge of postwar reconstruction, and the threat of communism and the Cold War.
Deemed an ascetic and “saint of God” by his admirers, Pius was criticized by others for his alleged public silence in the face of genocide and his apparently contradictory policies of impartiality during World War II coupled with fervent anticommunism during the postwar period.
Source: Brittanica.com
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July 11, 2022
Little Rock Voters Close Public Schools
In September 1958, Gov. Orval Faubus closed all Little Rock, Arkansas public high schools for one year rather than allow integration to continue, leaving 3,665 black and white students without access to public education.
Source: Library of Congress.
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July 7, 2022
Martin Luther King Jr. Stabbed
In September 1958 Martin Luther King Jr. was autographing copies of his memoir Stride Toward Freedom (about the Montgomery bus strike) in a Harlem department store when a 42-year-old African American woman plunged a seven-inch penknife into his chest.
With the knife still lodged in his sternum, King was carried in his chair to an ambulance and rushed to Harlem Hospital where he was successfully treated.
The woman, Izola Ware Curry, was later diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia.
Source: history,com
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July 4, 2022
Independence Day
Independence Day (Fourth of July) is a federal holiday commemorating the Declaration of Independence of the United States, which was ratified by the Second Continental Congress on July 4, 1776.
Congress declared that the thirteen American colonies were no longer subject to the monarch of Britain, King George III, and were now united, free, and independent states.
Source: Wikipedia
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June 30, 2022
Second Taiwan Strait Crisis
1958 Taiwan Strait Crisis, was a conflict between the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and the Republic of China (ROC).
The PRC shelled the islands of Kinmen(Quemoy) and the Matsu Islands along the east coast of mainland China in the Taiwan Strait to “liberate” Taiwan and probe the extent of US defense of Taiwan’s territory. A naval battle also took place around Dongding Island when the ROC Navy repelled an attempted amphibious landing by the PRC Navy.
Source: Wikipedia
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June 27, 2022
USS Nautilus Submarine Travels Beneath North Pole
USS Nautilus (SSN-571) was the world’s first operational nuclear-powered submarine and the first submarine to complete a submerged transit of the North Pole in August 1958.
The nuclear submarine shared the name of Captain Nemo’s submarine in Jules Verne’s classic 1870 science fiction novel Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea and the USS Nautilus (SS-168) that served with distinction in World War II.
Source: Wikipedia
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