Mark Scott Smith's Blog: Enemy in the Mirror, page 70
March 18, 2019
Hopalong Cassidy
In 1904 Clarence E. Mulford created the fictional cowboy hero Hopalong Cassidy, in a series of popular short stories and novels based on the character.
Early on, Mulford portrayed Cassidy as a rude, dangerous, rough-talking man with a wooden leg that caused him to walk with a “hop.”
In 1935 the movie actor William Boyd transformed Cassidy into a sober and clean-cut hero.
In June 1949, “Hopalong Cassidy, played by William Boyd,” premiered on network (NBC) TV. The popular show continued for 52 more episodes.
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March 14, 2019
Kim Il Sung and Joseph Stalin
Did Joseph Stalin approve Kim Il Sung‘s plan to attack South Korea in June 1950 because he wanted the US to become entangled in a limited conflict in Asia — or was he reassured by Kim that the South would be rapidly overrun before the US could intervene?
Whatever the reason, bogging the US down on the Korean Peninsula would allow the USSR to consolidate its control over eastern Europe.
Source: Wilson Center
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March 11, 2019
Joe DiMaggio $100K
In 1949 Joe DiMaggio of the NY Yankees became the first $100,000/year baseball player.
Joe DiMaggio, known as the “Yankee Clipper,” was a supreme baseball player – an excellent fielder as well as hitter.
Hall of Fame player, owner and manager Connie Mack called DiMaggio “the best player that ever lived.”
His teammate All-Star Yogi Berra said: “I wish everybody had the drive he had. He never did anything wrong on the field. I’d never seen him dive for a ball, everything was a chest-high catch, and he never walked off the field.”
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March 7, 2019
TV Soap Operas
Irna Phillips (Old Magazine Articles)In January 1949 NBC broadcast the first TV daytime soap opera entitled “These Are My Children.” Written by long-time radio and screen writer Irna Phillips, the show was broadcast live from Chicago for just fifteen minutes at five PM each week day. The story centered around the story of Mrs. Henehan, an Irish widow who oversaw a boarding house with her children. Although the show only aired for 24 days before being canceled, “These Are My Children” paved the way for a new popular TV genre.
Though the show was a failure, it was the first time that a daytime soap opera appeared on a major television network. Over the next several years, televised soap operas such as Roy Winsor’s “Search for Tomorrow” and “Love of Life,” and Phillips’ television adaptation of “The Guiding Light” became popular
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March 4, 2019
Volkswagen in America
In 1933 Adolf Hitler demanded the production of an inexpensive automobile capable of transporting two adults and three children at 100 km/hr.
After WWII British occupation forces in Germany ordered 20,000 Type I VW beetles for light transport use from the bombed-out factory in Wolfsburg.
In January 1949, the first VW Beetles arrived in America.
Today, Volkswagen has overtaken Toyota (our other WWII enemy) as the largest automotive empire in the world.
Source: The first Volkswagen Beetle in America looked like this | Autoweek
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February 28, 2019
Soviet Atomic Bomb
In August 1949 the USSR successfully tested its first atomic bomb at a remote site in Kazakhstan with the codename “First Lightning.”
Buildings, bridges, other structure and caged animals were placed nearby to measure the effects of the blast..
The 20-ton atomic explosion (roughly equal to the American atomic bomb named “Trinity”) destroyed all the structures and incinerated the animals.
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February 24, 2019
The Tragedy of Billie Holiday
In January 1949 Police broke into a room in the Mark Twain Hotel in San Francisco and arrested Billie Holiday and her manager John Levy on charges of possession of opium. Her defense attorney Jake Erlich, fingered Levy as an informer and persuaded the jury to return a verdict of not guilty.
In 1959, while hospitalized for liver and heart disease, Billie Holiday was handcuffed and arrested by the FBI for drug possession as she lay dying in her hospital room – she was 44 years old.
Source: History of Heroin in America
In 1803 the drug morphine was created from opium. Widely used during the American Civil War, it led to the first wave of morphine addiction.
Opium smoking was introduced to America by Chinese immigrants in the mid-19th century. Throughout the 19th century many women were prescribed opium tonics and elixirs alleged to cure “female” maladies.
Heroin was created in 1895 and marketed three years to morphine addicts as part of a campaign against morphine addiction. Thereafter, heroin addiction grew.
Subsequent waves of opiate addiction in America occurred in:
the 1930-40 Harlem jazz sceneduring the 1950s Beatnik culture.U.S soldiers in the Vietnam War 1955-75With improved purity, smoking and snorting heroin in the 1980-90sIn the late 1980s, physicians claimed chronic opioid therapy was safe for patients with intractable pain and no history of drug abuse. Financial support for a campaign against under-treatment of chronic pain provided by manufacturers of prescription opioid products e.g., Percocet®),Actiq® and OxyContin®) led to the current opioid epidemic. From 1991-2013 prescribers tripled the number of prescriptions written for opioids. Evidence now suggests that many abusers of prescription opioids are shifting to heroin as prescription drugs become less available or harder to abuse.–
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February 21, 2019
Alger Hiss
In 1948 Whittaker Chambers, ex-communist and editor with Time magazine, testified before the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) that Alger Hiss was a communist who had passed him top secret documents during his work in the Department of State in the 1930s.
Appearing before the House Un-American Activities Committee, Hiss denied the charges and said he did not even know Chambers. Later, he admitted he knew Chambers by another name at the time.
Chambers then produced microfilmed documents he had hidden in a pumpkin patch that Hiss had supposedly given him in the 1930s. HUAC members, claimed that communists had penetrated the highest levels of the American government.
Although President Harry Truman and Secretary of State Dean Atchison claimed the HUAC was using “red herrings” to defame him, Hiss was brought to trial. The first trial for perjury (the charge of treason was beyond the statute of limitations) ended in a deadlocked jury. The second trial ended in January 1950 with a guilty verdict on both counts.
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February 18, 2019
Martians Land in Ecuador
In February 1949 an Ecuadorian folk song was interrupted by a Radio Quito announcer with urgent news: Martian flying saucers had landed and used death rays to destroy a town 25 miles south of Quito.
Soon a “reporter” breathlessly reported the destruction of the Ecuadorian Air Force Base near Quito before he collapsed in a cloud of “deadly gas.” Then “government officials” asked women and children to evacuate the city and able-bodied men to remain to fight the invaders.
Police and firefighters were dispatched to the airport area to confront the aliens. Military cadets were ordered to establish defensive positions around their campus.
Anticipating the end of the world, thousands of people sought absolution from their priests.
When the radio station finally announced the program was a work of fiction based on Orson Welles 1938 radio drama War of the Worlds, angry mobs burned down their building. The fire was finally extinguished but the building was destroyed. Estimates of the death toll vary from six to twenty.
Abstracted from: Cecilia Alvear
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February 14, 2019
Death of a Salesman
In 1949 the play Death of a Salesman written by Arthur Miller won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama and Tony Award for Best Play.
The play is a montage of memories, dreams, confrontations, and arguments occurring in the last 24 hours of Willy Loman’s life. Willy copes with loss of identity and inability to accept change within himself or society.
Premiering on Broadway in February 1949, the play ran for 742 performances, and has been revived on Broadway four times,
It was also made into a movie in 1985.
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