Eric Hanson's Blog, page 20

Decline and Fall

Just before midnight on June 27, 1778, in the summer-house in his garden in Lausanne, Switzerland, Edward Gibbon finished The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. The writing had consumed 15 years, producing 1.5 million words in six volumes, with 8000 footnotes. Gibbon was 37.

Michael

As career arcs go, Michael Jackson's was pretty amazing, and never uninteresting. He appears five times in A Book of Ages. I was just talking about him on the radio in Aspen.

At age 10 he has his first gold record, and also gold records two three and four. In fact the first four singles The Jackson Five record with Motown Records–– “I Want You Back,” “ABC,” “The Love You Save,” and “I’ll Be There”––all make it to #1.

At age 24 he performs the moonwalk in concert for the first time, 1983. (The mo

The Lottery

On June 26, 1948, the New Yorker magazine published a short story by a Vermont housewife. The Lottery is set in an ordinary New England village, much like the one Shirley Jackson lived in. The story is about a town ritual. It unfolds much like the Fourth of July, with the attendant excitement and gossip and speculation, and the town fathers giving speeches, culminating in a drawing of names. Many who read the story in the New Yorker expected the heroine to win a washer-dryer, and were upset by

Little Big Horn

On June 25, 1876, George Armstrong Custer and his small detachment of cavalry died at the hands of a much larger force of Cheyenne and Sioux warriors at the Battle of the Little Bighorn, a scene that was soon immortalized as Custer’s Last Stand in a lithograph that replaced murals of voluptuous nudes over saloon bars all across America. Custer, who the Native Americans called Yellow Hair, was 36.

George Armstrong Custer appears appears twice in A Book of Ages. Sitting Bull appears once. Geronimo

Picasso

Pablo Picasso opened his first gallery exhibition on June 24, 1901 in the Rue Lafitte in Paris. The 19 year-old Spaniard was just entering his Blue Period and still painting in a representational manner. He appears ten times in A Book of Ages.

Hitler in Paris

Adolf Hitler spent the morning of June 23, 1940 in Paris. He had never visited before. He liked the Eiffel Tower, and had his picture taken there, but found the Louvre disappointing. He had some quiet time at Napoleon’s tomb. The 51 year-old despot, war criminal and former painter spent three hours in the city. He would never come back. A year later, almost to the day, he invaded Russia. Hitler appears 12 times in A Book of Ages.

Dillinger

Today is the birthday of John Dillinger, the famous bank robber, born in Indianapolis in 1903. Dillinger was as famous for his daring escapes as he was for robbing banks. In March 1934 he escaped from a heavily guarded jail in Crown Point, Indiana, using a revolver carved out of soap and stealing the sheriff's new Ford automobile. Six months earlier he was sprung from a jail in Ohio by gang members posing as officers of the court.

Because Depression-era Americans resented bankers, Dillinger was

Machiavellian

Niccolo Machiavelli died on this day in 1527. He was 58. Machiavelli wrote the book on political ruthlessness. Today, The Prince is required reading on many college campuses. He once said, "It is better to be feared than loved, if you cannot be both."

Machiavelli appears at age 44 in A Book of Ages, right before an anecdote about Ronald Reagan hosting the TV coverage of the opening of Disneyland. Machiavelli appears again at age 58.

Mary Wollestonecraft tells a ghost story

On a rainy June 19th evening in 1816, Mary Wollestonecraft is in Geneva with her lover, Percy Bysshe Shelley, and Lord Byron, and Byron’s friend Polidori. It's Byron who suggests each of them write a ghost story. When the men can’t think of any good ideas, Mary writes one about a creature made out of spare parts from dead bodies. Back in England, she turns the story into a novel which she titles Frankenstein. The book will be published in March, 1818.

Mary Wollestonecraft Shelley appears twice

Freaky

At around 4:30 P.M. on June 19, 1999, while walking along Route 5 near Center Lovell, Maine, horror novelist Stephen King was struck by a car. He was 43 at the time. No doubt all 43 years passed before his eyes. In the novel he’d been working on, From A Buick 8, a character dies after being hit by a car. King, however, survived. Anyway, the vehicle that struck him was an ’85 Dodge Caravan, not a Buick.

Stephen King appears on pages 4, 52, 80 and 199 in A Book of Ages.