HISTORY OF STAR TREK

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Star Trek premiered on NBC TV on September 8, 1966… 60 years ago. It is my favorite television show; I was glued to the TV for the first episode and every one after that. It had a significant influence on my choice of a career in technology.

The show presented an optimistic vision of the future, where the challenges of poverty and hunger had already been addressed. However, many other issues — relevant to the ’60s — were depicted as still being wrestled with centuries later. The Original Series showed a utopian view of science fiction that differed somewhat from the current dystopian Sci-Fi TV and movies. The franchise continues to create new shows, as I’ll describe below.

Star Trek’s View of the Future

Star Trek did not just envision the future; it imagined it and helped drive it. It inspired generations of scientists, engineers, and technologists around the world. Many scientists today will say that Star Trek influenced the projects they are working on, especially in space exploration, physics, optics, electronics, computing, and communication — as I’ll recount at the end of this article.

Though the original series ended in 1969, the dream of exploration did not die; it lived on. Six weeks later, Neil Armstrong(opens in new tab) stepped onto the Moon, taking one small step for man, where no man had gone before.

In 2004, when Armstrong was the keynote speaker during the “Beam Me Up One Last Time Scotty” convention honoring James Doohan, who had gotten a star on the Walk of Fame, the Moon astronaut said:

“So, I’m hoping for my next command, to be given a Federation starship,” said Armstrong. “And, when I get that command, I would like to have a crew like Captain James T. Kirk had. Spock and Chekov and Uhura and Dr. McCoy and Sulu and the others we all remember.

“Now I have a confession to make. I am an engineer. And if I get that command, I want a chief engineering officer like Montgomery Scott. Because I know Scotty will get the job done and do it right. Even if I often hear him say, ‘But Captain, I dinna have enough time!’

“So from one old engineer to another, thanks, Scotty.”

See my tribute to James Doohan here.

The Beginning

I can remember the first episode as if it were yesterday, though it was over half a century ago. In the summer of 1966, there was a preview of an upcoming new Fall TV series that told us:

…a starship the size of a city.

Then, on September 8, 1966, the first episode of Star Trek premiered on NBC. It was called “Man Trap,” also known as the “Salt Vampire,” but that was not the first episode recorded.

The Pilots

The first pilot began taping at Desilu’s Culver City lot on November 27, 1964. This pilot, “The Cage,” starring Jeffrey Hunter as Captain Christopher Pike, was not seen by the public until two years later, as part of a longer, two-part episode in November 1966 titled “Menagerie.”

The pilot also featured an unemotional dark-haired female Number One, played by Majel Barrett, and a rather excitable pointed-ear “half-Martian” named Mr. Spock, played by Leonard Nimoy.

Lucille Ball, head of Desilu Productions, overruled the NBC executives who wanted to kill the show after the first pilot and, after asking for some changes, called for a second pilot. This second pilot, “Where No Man Has Gone Before,” starred William Shatner as Captain James T. Kirk.

The network had told Gene Roddenberry, the creator and producer of Star Trek, following the first pilot,

“Get rid of the woman and the guy with the pointed ears.”

So Roddenberry married the woman, Majel Barrett, and kept the guy with the pointed ears. Leonard Nimoy was fond of saying

“I would not have had it the other way around.”

The woman dyed her hair blonde and waited in Gene’s reception office, so he didn’t recognize her even when he walked past her. They figured that if he hadn’t recognized her, NBC wouldn’t either. She became Nurse Christine Chapel.

The guy with the pointed ears became less emotional, more logical, and Vulcan-green rather than Martian-red (the red wouldn’t film correctly).

The series lasted for 3 of the “5-year mission” of the United Starship Enterprise, a victim of poor ratings. Ironically, the following year, demographics were used for the first time in TV ratings, and it was discovered that Star Trek was appealing to exactly the kind of audience that advertisers wanted!

Isaac Asimov on Star Trek

I, Robot by Isaac Asimov. Image: Wikipedia

In the April 29, 1967 issue of TV Guide, famed science fiction writer Isaac Asimov wrote that his adolescent daughter told him,

“Mr. Spock is dreamy!”

He concluded:

“Well, just in case, while I’m being smart, I’ll also let my ears grow.”

Asimov, who gave us the Three Laws of Robotics (or Four, if you read his book Robots and Empire), was a regular guest at early Star Trek Conventions. He had a lot of his own theories as to why the show was so popular among its fans, saying that the “cult,” as he called it, is based on four things:

• Young people of intelligence who are concerned with our world and with their own lives are naturally interested in science fiction, since this is the only form of fiction that deals with the future and with change — and it is in a changed future that youngsters will mature.

• There was enough respect for science in the program to give it the support of the more sophisticated portion of the science fiction audience — who are the opinion-makers.

• Many ‘Star Trek’ episodes dealt with ethical problems that were resolved in humane fashion. Even a ‘monster’ was viewed sympathetically when she turned out to be a mother protecting her child.

• There were interesting, idiosyncratic, and sympathetic characters about whom one’s feelings could crystallize.

The USS Enterprise

Matt Jefferies designed the iconic starship from concepts provided by “The Great Bird of the Galaxy” show creator Gene Roddenberry. Coincidentally, the diagonal tubes that lead from the Enterprise’s Engineering up to the warp nacelles are called “Jefferies tubes.” It was initially produced at the Production Model Shop in Burbank, California. The Smithsonian Institution received the 11-foot filming model of the Enterprise on March 1, 1974.

I saw it five months later, before it went on display. Here’s how. I was visiting Washington, DC, while in college and knew that the wood-and-plastic model was at the Air & Space Museum, awaiting the opening of the “Life in the Universe” exhibit. I arrived early one morning at the museum on the National Mall, walked in, and said to the staff:

“I’m a visiting scholar from Berkeley with a greater than average interest in Star Trek and I’d like to see your model.”

I was an undergraduate student and didn’t know that a visiting scholar is usually a postdoctoral fellow. I did know that I was visiting Washington, D.C.; I was a scholar, and the Star Trek parts were all true. And they let me in. The exhibit was not yet finished. I took tons of pictures lying on the floor to get a full view of the hanging model.

When I returned to Berkeley, I showed the photos to Kent Wilcox, a university friend who was also a Trek junkie. He was a budding professional high-quality plastic model builder, specializing in World War II airplanes.

He built me an AMT plastic model of the ship, using authentic paint chip colors from the photos I’d supplied him. The paint on the filming model at the Air and Space Museum had arrived severely damaged. They had to call in experts to provide high-resolution photos and videos from the original series to ensure the colors were accurate.

Its Continuing Mission

The show remained incredibly popular in syndication on 150 American and over 60 international TV stations. Eighteen years after the show’s cancellation, it spawned another TV series, Star Trek: The Next Generation. Then there was Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, followed by Star Trek: Voyager, and eventually a prequel, Enterprise. There was even an animated Saturday morning series that ran from 1973 to 1974 featuring the voices of some of the original actors.

There are Trekkies, Trekkers, Trekkists, and Trek junkies. I belong to the latter. I’ve personally seen or met all of the cast of “Star Trek Classic” (The Original Series) and about half of the cast of Star Trek: The Next Generation.

When I was a student at Berkeley in the ’70s, the “Federation Trading Post” was a local store on Telegraph Avenue that featured Star Trek memorabilia and occasionally had original cast members stop by.

I caught Nichelle Nichols (charming) and William Shatner (virtually undetectable toupee) there, where he was promoting his new “William Shatner Live” album. Bruce Hyde (Navigator and Communications Tech “Kevin Riley”) was a San Francisco actor who had come across the Bay to meet us.

I met James Doohan in 1976 after I was practicing for a fencing exhibition on campus. As I walked out of the theater and saw him sitting on the lawn, I said to my fencing partner,

“That’s Jimmy Doohan!”
“Who is that?” he asked.
“Scotty, from Star Trek!” I replied.

Mr. Doohan was there to do a play on campus, and I sat down with him on the lawn and discussed “theater” for over an hour. I was dying to talk about Star Trek, but didn’t want to seem like a sniveling fan. He admitted that he loved theater, but TV paid the bills at the time.

Franz Joseph Schnaubelt, creator of the Enterprise Blueprints (endorsed by Paramount), had just published the Starfleet Technical Manual and signed copies there. The backstory was that he had been an aerospace design engineer at General Dynamics. His daughter loved Star Trek and asked him to explain the show’s technical aspects.

He’d draw up schematics and illustrations to explain various devices to her, including medical equipment, a communicator, a phaser, a tricorder, and uniforms. He showed them to Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry, who gave him access to the original props and carpenter blueprints. When I met him, along with other fans, we pointed out several technical errors he had made, which I’m sure he appreciated from university students.

The “manual” was later consulted for the first three Star Trek films, including ship names, schematics used in background bridge displays, and plans for the USS Enterprise.

The Star Trek Conventions

A flier for the Aug. 7–8, 1976 “Star Trek” convention at the Oakland Municipal Auditorium. Image: San Francisco Chronicle

The first major Star Trek Convention was held in New York in January 1972. At my first Star Trek Convention in Oakland in August 1976, I had a long conversation with George Takei (Sulu), who was very friendly and outgoing. I learned that he had spent his first two years of university at Berkeley in a dorm where I once stayed. He had completed his lower-division studies in architecture at Berkeley, then transferred to UCLA to pursue a degree in theater. He was happy to discuss almost any subject.

At subsequent conventions and technology shows, I’ve chatted with Majel Barrett Roddenberry (stunningly attractive), Wil Wheaton (bright and techie — one of the early bloggers), Marina Sirtis (striking, and with a British accent you don’t hear on the show) and Walter Koenig (he told me “I have an ear for accents… and my parents are Russian immigrants”). And no, I didn’t wear “Vulcan ears.”

A new generation of fans had developed, and the show was more popular than ever. A letter-writing campaign succeeded in getting the first NASA space shuttle renamed Enterprise.

The Star Trek Films

Now, don’t let anyone tell you Star Trek is a sect; that is not true at all. As Asimov said, it’s more like a cult.

This cult requires that I always be there on the first day of the movie premieres. On December 7, 1979, a day that will live in infamy, the first full-length movie, Star Trek: The Motionless Picture, opened. Despite a plodding plot, the movie performed remarkably well and led to several sequels.

The second, Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, was considered the best by the faithful, featuring a return engagement of Khan, a popular opponent from Kirk’s past. A futile boycott was called when it was leaked that Spock would die. A hasty tag-on was filmed and put at the end of the movie, hinting at the possibility of new life.

By the way, here’s the question I stumped the Trivia Expert panel with at a Trek Convention years ago in San Francisco. See if you know the answer:

In Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, Spock was “buried” in a photon torpedo that was shot into space to land on the Genesis Planet. What was written on that tube?

This movie was followed by the Leonard Nimoy-directed Star Trek III: The Search for Spock, followed by Star Trek IV: Still Looking for Spock. Just kidding. Star Trek IV: The Search for Whales, I mean The Voyage Home, was considered the most generally popular and successful of the movies, with plenty of humor and modern-day San Francisco as its backdrop.

Because Leonard Nimoy had directed his second film, William Shatner wanted a turn. Star Trek V: What Were They Thinking? was his first and last excursion. Even the camp-out scene with the backdrop of Yosemite couldn’t pull this one out of the fire.

Star Trek VI: Quoting Lines From Hamlet or The Undiscovered Country was the last of the Classic-era movies and featured Kirk’s last heard line as Captain of the Enterprise, a line I’ve been waiting for him to say for years… It’s a line quoted by another flyboy hero of mine:

Second star to the right and straight on till morning.

This was followed by Star Trek: Generations, a blend of the classic era and an extended episode of The Next Generation. Here we see the changing of the guard as Scotty, Chekov, and Kirk inaugurate the Enterprise NCC 1701-B.

Subsequent movies featured the cast of the so-called Pepsi Generation series, including Star Trek: First Contact, which takes us back in time to meet the inventor of the warp drive (faster-than-light travel). It was the most financially successful of the ten pre-reboot movies.

Star Trek: Insurrection followed, with the Next Generation cast again, directed by ST: TNG First Officer Jonathan Frakes, aka Commander Will Riker, who had directed “First Contact” and episodes of ST: TNG, Deep Space Nine, Voyager, and Discovery.

Star Trek X: Nemesis was released in 2002 — and should have been subtitled “Send in the Clones” — but it was not enough to push the franchise further for several years. Indeed, it was the least popular and the least financially successful of all the movies. In general, the even-numbered movies were better than the odd-numbered ones.

The last general TV series, Star Trek: Enterprise, had a relatively short run, only four years, compared with earlier series like The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, or Voyager.

Star Trek both reflected and pushed the limits of American culture. The Original Series had a recurring bridge crew with a black woman (Uhura), a 4th-generation Japanese American (Sulu), a Scotsman (Montgomery Scott) — “All good engineers are Scots,” according to Jimmy Doohan — and a young Russian (Chekov) at a time when America was in a Cold War with the Soviet Union. But most remarkable was the half-alien Spock. In Star Trek: The Next Generation, we’d see an android (Data), and in Star Trek Voyager, we’d see a software holographic doctor (The Doctor).

Star Trek: The Reboot

On May 8, 2009, I spoke at my company’s sponsored premiere of J.J. Abrams‘ vision for a Star Trek reboot with the debut of the 11th Star Trek feature film. It featured an updated retro USS Enterprise, with bulging Bussard ramscoops at the front of the nacelles, making it look like a BMW. You can see my movie reviews:

• Star Trek (reboot), 2009

• Star Trek Into Darkness, the second Star Trek reboot movie, 2013.

• Star Trek Beyond, the third movie of this franchise, opened in July 2016, just two months before the 50th anniversary of the original series.

Star Trek: Today and Beyond

In the more recent past:

Star Trek: Discovery launched as a new series in the fall of 2017 on CBS All Access, now Paramount+. Yes, it’s an over-the-top subscription streaming service. But I had to be there. The USS Discovery ship was clearly an homage to concept art by Ralph McQuarrie for the unproduced 1976 movie, Star Trek: Planet of the Titans, that did not see the light of day. You know McQuarrie for his iconic concept art for Star Wars. I compare the two franchises in my article here.

The 15-episode first season is set 10 years before the USS Enterprise’s original 5-year mission. Rather than starring a Captain, it features a black female character, initially serving as Number One, a lieutenant commander named Michael Burnham, who later becomes captain. This was done in honor of Majel Barrett, who had that name in the original pilot. It covers an incident in Star Trek history that was mentioned but never explained. You may have noticed that the ship’s name is identical to the titular one in 2001: A Space Odyssey.

While it did not feature any of the lead characters from the original series (at least at its premiere), it did feature Spock’s father, Sarek of Vulcan, as a younger man. But you did see Harry Mudd. At the end of the first season, a cliffhanger emerged: sensors detected another starship approaching the Discovery, the U.S.S. Enterprise. This is at a time when Christopher Pike is captain, and his science officer is Mr. Spock. In the second season, we meet a younger Spock. The lead character, Michael Burnham, is Spock’s adoptive sister.

A TV movie spinoff, Star Trek: Section 31, was released on the Paramount+ streaming service in 2025, featuring Michelle Yeoh as Philippa Georgiou, a character working for a secret division of Starfleet tasked with protecting the United Federation of Planets. It was panned by critics, with some calling it the worst Star Trek ever (including Rotten Tomatoes), and was nominated for 5 Golden Raspberry Awards (Razzies).

Following the end of the second season of Star Trek: Discovery, the Enterprise crew, featuring Captain Christopher Pike, Number 1, and Mr. Spock, and occasional appearances of a young Lieutenant James Kirk, spun off Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, which is now in its fourth season. Set in the decade ahead of Star Trek: The Original Series, it debuted as a stand-alone series on May 5, 2022, but will end after its fifth season, which will premiere in 2027 with Captain Pike transferring command of the Enterprise to Captain James T. Kirk

Having watched all the episodes (so far) of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, I was greatly impressed. It echoes the original series well, with metaphors to current social and political issues, and is not afraid to make fun of itself — with cartoons and puppets. The USS Enterprise is sleeker than the one in J.J. Abrams’ Star Trek reboot films, with narrower nacelles and more pronounced, canon-accurate rotating red Bussard ramscoops at the forward ends of the warp nacelles.

Some of the episodes are quite moving, and there are lots of “inside” science fiction throwaway lines, including one to Dr. Who. It is the best “Trek” I’ve seen in a long time.

Star Trek: The Next Generation TV Sequel — Picard

Patrick Stewart returned to reprise the role of Captain Jean-Luc Picard from Star Trek: The Next Generation. While it is not a continuation of The Next Generation, it is the next chapter of the captain’s life, 20 years after “Star Trek X: Nemesis.” The show’s name was Picard, and it premiered in early 2020 on CBS All Access (Now Paramount+). With a new cast, fans were pleased to see Brent Spiner, Jeri Ryan (from Voyager), Marina Sirtis, and Jonathan Frakes make return appearances. It ran three seasons.

More Star Trek?

There are two additional animated series. CBS released Star Trek: Lower Decks, an adult comedy created by Mike McMahan of Rick and Morty fame.

The other is Nickelodeon’s commissioning of a children’s cartoon called Star Trek: Prodigy.

Star Trek: Starfleet Academy premiered on January 15, 2026. The second season will be its last.

And a link to Webtoons, featuring Stargazers, a digital comic romance. But wait, there’s more!

Star Trek: Khan is an audio podcast that tells the story of Khan Noonien Singh.

And for the younger set, there’s Star Trek: Scouts, launched a year ago on YouTube, that features 8-year-old characters.

Star Trek’s Legacy

Star Trek remains one of the most enduring and profitable franchises, as well as one of the most successful media franchises in American history. It spawned numerous TV series, including the Saturday-morning animated one, a series of ten initial movies (adjusted gross: $2B), plus a renaissance of three new movies (so far), which have earned over $1B.

Star Trek has spawned countless books, comic books, games, music, street names, a space shuttle, parodies, traveling science tours, a (former) Las Vegas amusement experience, conventions, lunch boxes, coffee cups, shower curtains, and pajamas (and yes, I have the PJs.)

Star Trek Parodies

The film Galaxy Quest is a satirical take on the world of Star Trek and its fans, known as Trekkies. It is so “on the nose” that it does not seem like a satire.

The TV series The Orville, created by and starring Trek fan Seth MacFarlane, is an homage to Star Trek.

Star Trek Tributes

Several interesting fan ventures have appeared. Notably, Star Trek Continues was produced, written, directed, and starred by Vic Mignogna. It continues the 5-year mission and features some guest stars from the original series. James Doohan’s son, Chris Doohan, plays “Scotty.” It’s worth watching, and not just for nostalgia’s sake. Find it on YouTube here.

Star Trek 60

Paramount has a special website for the 60th anniversary at startrek.com/60

It mentions that there will be a special Star Trek float at the Pasadena Rose Parade. There’s a teaser for #LegoStarTrek, a first-ever collaboration to bring the iconic world of Star Trek to life in LEGO® brick form. There’s also a tie-in with DoSomething, a new campaign in celebration of Star Trek: Starfleet Academy.

For the 60th anniversary of the original series, you might want the BlueBrixx, a German LEGO-like building set. You can get the 1,600-piece USS Enterprise NCC-1701-E.

Whither Star Trek?

Both currently running TV series, Strange New Worlds and Starfleet Academy, are ending after their next seasons, and no other shows have been announced to replace them. For the first time in over a decade, there are no new Trek series in production other than the animated Star Trek: Scouts.

What’s next for Star Trek?

Although it’s been ten years since the last Star Trek movie, there is recent confirmed information about a “Star Trek 4” by Paramount Pictures. After numerous attempts to reunite the cast of J.J. Abrams‘ Trek reboot movies for a fourth film, Paramount has apparently decided to start afresh. The new film is being developed by John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein, the writing-directing duo behind Game Night and Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves. It will reportedly center on an all-new cast of characters in a far-future setting, eschewing so-called “legacy characters.”

Star Trek Technology Inspiration

Star Trek has inspired:

• The invention of the StarTAC mobile flip phone by Motorola, like the communicator

StarTAC 8500. Image: Wikipedia

• A prototype tractor beam at the University of St Andrews

• Voice-activated computing like Siri, Alexa, and Google’s ubiquitous computing

• Scanadu is a medical tricorder

• Matter replication is now seen in early 3D printing

• Aluminum oxynitride (ALON) is transparent aluminum

• Cisco’s TelePresence, a hyper form of HD telecommunication, is used across multiple locations

As Mr. Spock would say,

“Live long and prosper.”

Bill Petro, your friendly neighborhood Trek junkie
billpetro.com

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HISTORY OF SEPTEMBER

You may have noticed that September sounds like the Latin word for seven. And you’d be perceptive — septem is the Latin word for seven, and this month used to be the seventh month of the ancient Roman calendar.

This Latin numbering continues through the year’s remaining months, as highlighted below: octo/eight, novem/nine, decem/ten.

A Little Calendar History

Legend has it that this calendar, dating back to around 753 BC, was established by Romulus — the founder and first king of Rome — as I describe in my article on the Founding of Rome. The months counted up as follows:

1. Martius — 31 Days

2. Aprilis — 30 Days

3. Maius — 31 Days

4. Iunius — 30 Days

5. Quintilis — 31 Days

6. Sextilis — 30 Days

7. September — 30 Days

8. October — 31 Days

9. November — 30 Days

10. December — 30 Days

It Doesn’t Add Up

This adds up to only 304 days — about 61 days short of a solar year — leaving a chunk of winter that went uncounted. King Numa Pompilius reformed the calendar around 713 BC, adding January and February to the end of the year after December.

Calendar Going Imperial

As I’ve written before, Quintilis was renamed July in honor of Julius Caesar in 44 BC. Sextilis was renamed August in honor of Caesar Augustus in 8 BC. Emperor Commodus, son of Marcus Aurelius — made (in)famous by the movie Gladiator — renamed all 12 months after his own titles during his reign, but this was repealed (damnatio memoriae) after his assassination in AD 192.

Changes to the Roman calendar could only be made by the Pontifex Maximus, the high priest of the College of Pontiffs in ancient Rome. When Julius Caesar became pontifex maximus, he reformed the calendar by replacing the irregular intercalary month — once added to align the lunar calendar with the solar year — with a fixed 365-day year and a periodic leap day.

Calendar Reform

The Julian Calendar reform began with Julius and was completed with Augustus. For over a millennium and a half, the Julian Calendar was in use until Pope Gregory XIII introduced what became known as the Gregorian (or Western or Christian) Calendar in 1582.

The Gregorian Calendar is now used almost universally as the civil calendar, not just in the West.

September as the Start of the Fall

September is the astronomical start of Fall, marked by the Autumnal Equinox. It used to be that September was when students returned to school for the Fall term, traditionally following harvest time. There are still half a dozen states in the U.S. that require school to begin no earlier than September 1, or at least after Labor Day.

During Charlemagne‘s time in the early 9th century, September was called “harvest month.” The Anglo-Saxons called it Gerstmonath or barley month, referring to its harvest, and the German-Swiss speakers call it Herbstmonat or “autumn month.”

See you in September.

Bill Petro, your friendly neighborhood historian
billpetro.com

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HISTORY OF I HAVE A DREAM SPEECH

Today, 63 years ago, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his famous “I Have a Dream” speech. It continues to echo down the halls of history more than six decades later.

On August 28, 1963, he delivered his speech at the March on Washington, at the height of the Civil Rights movement. Over a quarter of a million supporters gathered at the Mall in Washington, D.C., where King delivered his public speech from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, looking over the Reflecting Pool.

President John F. Kennedy had proposed new civil rights legislation earlier that year, in June, and this march was to demonstrate support for its passage. The march was remarkable because it was one of the first such demonstrations of that size to receive extensive television coverage.

A century earlier, the Emancipation Proclamation of 1863 had declared millions of slaves free, but it applied only to Confederate territory outside Union control, so its promise depended on the Union winning the Civil War that was then underway.

Did Martin Luther King Jr. intend to share his dream at the Civil Rights March? Was he the only scheduled speaker?

The “I Have a Dream” Line Was Not Part of the Prepared Speech

King asserted that “one hundred years later, the Negro still is not free.”

But the famous line “I have a dream” was not part of his prepared speech. Instead, toward the end of the address, it was when the renowned singer Mahalia Jackson — who had sung “How I Got Over” just before his speech — called out

“Tell them about the dream, Martin,”

that he related his dream of freedom and equality in a modern America.

King was not the only speaker that day. Like King, the other movement leaders on the program — including John Lewis and Roy Wilkins — broadly supported the march’s goals, though they didn’t always agree on tactics. The phrase “civil disobedience” was not original to King. Still, he brought it to people’s attention, at least in the U.S., as part of the Montgomery Bus Boycott, which began on December 5, 1955.

Peaceful Civil Disobedience

He popularized the concept in his “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” where he had been incarcerated following his arrest for participating in protests in Birmingham, Alabama, in April 1963.

As a Baptist minister, he was guided by his Biblical theology of nonviolence. But he was also influenced by similar practices by Gandhi in India in the early 20th century.

“And so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.
I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.’…
I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character. I have a dream today!”

View the speech on YouTube:

Bill Petro, your friendly neighborhood historian
billpetro.com

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HISTORY OF ST. AUGUSTINE

The Feast of Saint Augustine is celebrated on August 28, the date of his death in 430 A.D. Augustine is considered the most influential bishop in history; he is the patron saint of brewers, printers, theologians, and several cities and dioceses worldwide.

Most of what we know about him is from his writings:

• Confessions (397 A.D.) is an autobiography written in the form of a prayer to God about his spiritual struggles.

• Retractions (428 A.D.) is Augustine’s late-life review of his own writings, in which he revisited and corrected earlier works.

Who was this man beloved by Roman Catholics for his writing on ecclesiology (the Church) and by Protestants for his writings on soteriology (salvation)?

Significance of Augustine

Augustine of Hippo did more than any predecessor to clarify and systematize the meaning of the New Testament. He did it more brilliantly than anyone else had done before. The Protestant Reformation is essentially a restatement of Augustine.

• Martin Luther, the German Reformer in Wittenberg, was an Augustinian monk.

• Ulrich Zwingli, Luther’s contemporary, the Swiss Reformer in Zürich, was a devoted student and admirer of Augustine’s writings.

• John Calvin, the French Reformer in Geneva, said he could have answered the Catholic accusations of “introducing novelties to traditional Christian doctrine” by simply quoting Augustine.

All the Reformers read his writings over a millennium after Augustine lived.

“Augustine’s impact on Western Christian thought can hardly be overstated; only his beloved example, St. Paul of Tarsus, has been more influential, and Westerners have generally seen Paul through Augustine’s eyes.” –Diarmaid MacCulloch, A History of Christianity: The First Three Thousand Years, 2009, p. 319

Augustine’s Early Life in Africa

He was born in Roman North Africa, in Tagaste (now Souk Ahras, Algeria), in the same region as the once-powerful Carthage (near modern Tunis, Tunisia), home over five hundred years earlier of Hannibal.

He had a godly mother, Saint Monica, a Christ-follower, and a pagan father, a minor Roman official.

He lived a rather lustful life in his youth, following the sensual morals and promiscuity of his pagan culture. He had an illegitimate son at the age of 17 or 18. He sought peace in literature; he became a follower of Manichaeism.

Augustine in Rome

He was a desperate man. Desperate men do desperate things. He went from Carthage in North Africa to Rome to teach rhetoric. It was later, in Milan, that he became drawn to Neoplatonism.

He almost died of illness before he went north to Milan to accept an appointment as imperial court rhetorician (essentially the city’s official orator).

Augustine in Milan

In Milan, he heard the preaching of St. Ambrose, a superior rhetorician and preacher. Impressed by Ambrose’s character and explanation of the Christian faith, Augustine found that his doubts about Christianity slowly dissolved. After being impressed by reading Romans 13:14…

“But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires.”

… he was converted and baptized by St. Ambrose.

One of his most quoted lines from Augustine’s Confessions is his prayer:

“Grant me chastity… but not yet.”

He returned to Africa, where he would write his Confessions.

Augustine’s Return to Africa

A well-known, if perhaps apocryphal, story illustrates Augustine’s changed character upon his return to Africa. When he arrived at the dock, one of his favorite paramours met him at the ship. She was thinking something like, “Oh boy, Augustine is back; happy days are here again.” She ran up to him and said, “Augustine,” and he turned his face from her. She thought that was strange, so she ran up to him again and said, “Augustine,” and he turned away from her again. So finally, she ran after him, grabbed him, and said, “Augustine, Augustine, it is I!” He turned to her and said, “It is not I, but Christ.”

He emerged from his conversion with a profound sense of his sin.

Augustine in Hippo

He preached extensively in Africa, around 6,000 to 10,000 sermons, though only about 800–900 are accessible today. Some of his sermons would last over an hour, and he’d preach several times weekly. He was ordained a priest in Hippo Regius (now Annaba, Algeria). Later, as “Bishop of Hippo,” he preached and interpreted the Bible to his congregation and led a monastic life in the church residence there.

Augustine’s Theology

The issues he addressed concerning theological anthropology (the study of man) were:

• Does man have any innate ability to affect in any measure his standing before God?

• Is there any goodness in man that would cause God to look upon him with favor?

• Is man totally depraved?

• Can man do anything to save himself?

Augustine strongly affirmed the existence of original sin (he popularized the term), the need for infant baptism, the impossibility of a sinless life without Christ, and the necessity of Christ’s grace for salvation.

At first, he had believed predestination was based on God’s foreknowledge of whether individuals would believe in Christ, and that God’s grace was “a reward for human assent.” Later, in response to the heterodox teachings of the monk Pelagius, traditionally identified as British, Augustine said that the sin of pride consists of assuming “we are the ones who choose God or that God chooses us (in his foreknowledge) because of something worthy in us” and argued that God’s grace causes the individual act of faith.

Augustine wrote:

“And what is written, that He wills all men to be saved, while yet all men are not saved, may be understood in many ways, some of which I have mentioned in other writings of mine; but here I will say one thing: He wills all men to be saved, is so said that all the predestinated may be understood by it, because every kind of men is among them.”

Pelagius taught that the events described in Genesis 3 were a myth. He denied the fall of man and the idea of original sin (innate, inherited depravity of the mind and spirit). Man can save himself, Pelagius taught, and has no need for God’s grace. Man sins by choice, and he can choose not to sin — and it is in choosing not to sin that he saves himself.

• Pelagius: “We are sinners because we sin.”

• Augustine: “We sin because we are sinners.”

Augustine taught that man cannot repent unless the grace of God draws him and transforms his heart. God appears so loving, so kind, and so benevolent that we are compelled to be willing. And when we are willing, he saves us.
Augustine then taught that men fell from innocence in Adam; man is born in sin because he was born in Adam. Man is totally depraved, unable in any way to affect or influence his position before God. Salvation, therefore, can only be God’s gift apart from any human contribution or lack of it. Pelagianism was condemned at the church Council of Carthage in 418 A.D. and reaffirmed at the ecumenical Council of Ephesus in 431 A.D., but it did not disappear.

Augustine and Monergism

He championed the idea of monergism. This means that only “one works” in salvation, namely God alone, not by man’s efforts. He got this idea from St. Paul’s letter to the Ephesians:

For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.

The Protestant Reformation subsequently adopted it: Lutherans, Calvinists, Presbyterians, Low Church Anglicans, Puritans, Dutch Reformed, and Reformed Baptists.

Augustine on History

Augustine also postulated a providential theory of history, one that is more linear than progressive, though it had both components. His theory was both interventionist — God can intervene supernaturally in history (miracles) — and eschatological — there is a climax, an end to the history of the present age.

He captured these thoughts in his book The City of God, which was occasioned by his observing the sack of Rome in 410 A.D. by Alaric. His theory was embraced for over a millennium until the Enlightenment in the 18th century, whose materialistic and empirical approach precluded the possibility of supernatural intervention.

Bill Petro, your friendly neighborhood historian
billpetro.com

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NORTHERN LIGHTS AND CORONAL MASS EJECTION: METHANOGENIC CATTLE

NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) has announced a G2 geomagnetic storm watch for tomorrow, August 28, which could potentially boost aurora activity.

Coronal Mass Ejections (CMEs) are plasma and magnetic field explosions from the Sun’s corona. When aimed at Earth, they trigger geomagnetic storms that affect infrastructure in near-Earth orbit and on the surface. These storms can disrupt various systems, such as electric power grids, GPS navigation, and Netflix.

Climate scientists have finally recognized an unprecedented existential threat to the Earth, as evidenced by the recent ejection of a coronal mass from the Sun earlier today, with another predicted for Saturday, August 29. Arrival times vary based on speed; some can arrive in as little as 15–18 hours, while slower CMEs may take several days to reach Earth.

What’s causing this?

The Science of Solar Climate Change

It’s all due to the insidious increase in bovine flatulence, as I’ll explain below.

For too long, our climate scientists focused only on climate change on Earth; thankfully, they have lifted their gaze from the ground and finally turned their eyes to the skies. Our Sun is in trouble. And that means all of us are in trouble.

All too often, the uninformed citizen has been concerned only with carbon dioxide emissions from the tailpipes of their automobiles. But now, the whiff of danger from methane has warned us, almost too late.

In 2019, 590 million tons of methane were released globally. According to the 2021 Global Methane Assessment, methane emissions from livestock (including cattle) are the largest source of agricultural emissions worldwide. Enteric fermentation by ruminant livestock produces 100kg of methane per cow per year! In layman’s terms, it’s a cacophony of cattle crepitation. Where does it go? It goes up — up to the Sun.

The impact on our planet is evidenced by the extreme southern extent of what scientists are calling Aurora Bovinalis.

Methane: the Silent Killer

Methane, or as scientists like to call it, carbon tetrahydride, is a tetrahedral molecule with four equivalent C-H bonds. But that’s just oversimplifying the molecular makeup of this silent but deadly killer. It’s a Group-14 hydride, the simplest alkane. It’s the main constituent of natural gas.

Methane may be called “natural gas,” but how natural is it if it’s destroying the atmosphere of the surface of the Sun? It’s an invisible, colorless gas. While ‘technically’ odorless, when combined with feculent material… I would not advise standing near the south end of a corn-fed cow.

Methane, at very long distances, absorbs visible light at the red end of the spectrum. This gives Uranus its blue or bluish-green color as light passes through its methane-rich atmosphere and is scattered back to Earth. But I don’t need to tell you what else comes from Uranus.

Cattle: Meat or Murderers?

Methanogenesis is an anaerobic process in which this domesticated four-hooved cud-chewing furnace magically converts feed into fermented fumes. The equation for mankind is simple: sirloin or survival, hot dogs or health? Do you want to risk it for brisket?

We have to beef up our concern about these cuddly cattle killers, or we’ll surely steer ourselves to an Artiodactyl Armageddon. Look at that CME pictured at the top — the resemblance to a pillar of fire is unmistakable.

What Can Be Done?

Denmark is moving ahead with the world’s first carbon tax on agriculture, charging cattle farmers almost €100 per year for each cow’s greenhouse gas emissions. But is that enough?

After extensive research at Wind Break Laboratories, the latest data dump studied by the renowned scientific community — Fellowship of Astronomical Research Theorists — has determined the best solution to methane multiplication and its concomitant coronal mass ejections. Move as far away from the Sun as possible.

In our Solar System, this would involve relocating to Pluto, that astronomical object named after Mickey Mouse’s dog. Because it was downgraded and is no longer considered a planet, real estate values have plummeted, and you can get a lovely little ranch house for a song.

• The upside: Earth is only 8.3 light-minutes from the Sun, while light takes 5.5 hours to reach Pluto.

• The downside: it would take about 9.5 years to get there with current technology, and there’s no oxygen.

The next-best solution is to stop feeding cattle methanogenic feed. They convert grass to gas. Let’s turn that grass into lawns. Or we could give cattle a surfactant like simethicone, which reduces bloating and gas.

Alternatively, we could feed them Soylent Green, food that is “as good as humanly possible.”

Bill Petro, your friendly neighborhood hysterian
billpetro.com

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HISTORY OF THE 19TH AMENDMENT: WOMEN’S RIGHT TO VOTE

Over a hundred years ago, on August 26, 1920, the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was adopted.

This prohibited the federal and state governments from denying citizens of the United States the right to vote on the basis of sex. Effectively, this meant that the right to vote could no longer be denied to women.

The text, in part, read:

The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex. Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

For over 70 years before that, the women’s movement had been pressing for the legal right of women to vote, going back to the 1848 women’s rights Seneca Falls Convention, “a convention to discuss the social, civil, and religious condition and rights of women.” Two years later, the National Women’s Rights Convention in 1850 saw suffrage, the right to vote, as an essential part of the movement.

In 1869, the Women’s Movement coalesced around two different organizations.

• In 1860, Susan B. Anthony led the National American Woman Suffrage Association.

• The other was led by Lucy Stone, who helped organize the earlier National Women’s Rights Convention and influenced leaders Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton.

These two groups combined in 1873 to form the Women’s Christian Temperance Union, which campaigned for women’s suffrage and a “sober and pure world” achieved through “abstinence, purity, and evangelical Christianity.”

This had a powerful impact on the passage of the 18th Amendment, which prohibited alcohol in the U.S. in 1919.

Feminism and the 19th Amendment

Looking back on the history of the women’s movement through the lens of feminism, the original “suffrage” campaign is identified as First-wave feminism. This is to distinguish it from Second-wave feminism of the 1960s and 1970s, commonly called “Women’s Liberation,” when the priority was equal legal and social rights.

During this Second-wave period, feminist theory embraced the distinction between biological sex and the social construct of gender. Up to that time, it was uncommon to use the word “gender” to refer to anything other than grammatical categories, meaning a specific form of a “noun class” system in which nouns are assigned to gender categories, such as masculine, feminine, or neuter noun genders.

Third-wave feminism, starting in the 1990s, can be considered both a continuation of and a reaction to Second-wave feminism. This most recent wave focused on the perceived failures of the Second Wave while responding to the backlash against it. Using what is now called modernist “critical theory,” a late 20th-century social-philosophical ideology that emerged from the U.S. “critical legal studies” of the late 1970s, it emphasized “intersectional” issues affecting race and gender.

Some have argued for the existence of Fourth-wave feminism starting around 2012, which has leveraged social media for online activism to combat sexual harassment and violence against women; it is best known for the #MeToo movement.

19th Amendment and African-American Women’s Suffrage

Contemporaneously with the mid-19th-century suffrage efforts, notable African-American suffragists, including Mary Church Terrell and Ida B. Wells-Barnett, were also at work. Terrell was among the first African-American women to earn a college degree and championed suffrage and civil rights.

She helped form the Colored Women’s League of Washington (1849) and the National Association of Colored Women (1896). She was a founding member of the later National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in 1909.

Ida B. Wells-Barnett, with 8,000 other women, participated in the 1913 Woman Suffrage March in Washington, DC. An African-American journalist, she was an outspoken leader in the anti-lynching campaigns of the late 1800s and the founder of the later Alpha Suffrage Club in 1913.

It’s essential to note that these efforts ultimately led to the passage of the 19th Amendment; however, it did not secure the right to vote for African American women. While the 15th Amendment to the Constitution in 1870 stated that voting rights could not be:

“denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.”

It nevertheless allowed the States to determine the specific qualifications for voting. Some states, especially in the South, used qualifications such as literacy tests, poll taxes, and other practices to disenfranchise African-American voters in the decades following the passage of the 15th Amendment through so-called “Jim Crow” laws.

Other Voting Milestones beyond the 19th Amendment

In 1924, the Indian Citizenship Act granted citizenship to all Native Americans, regardless of their tribal affiliation, and conferred the right to vote. But while about two-thirds of Native Americans were already citizens, some western states continued to bar them from voting until 1948.

In 1943, the Magnuson Act gave Chinese immigrants the right to citizenship and the right to vote. In 1948, Arizona and New Mexico became the last states to extend full voting rights to Native Americans.

It was not until the Civil Rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s that the “Voting Rights Act” of 1965, signed by President Lyndon Johnson, banned literacy tests and other disenfranchising methods. The U.S. Supreme Court case Harper v. Virginia Board of Elections declared poll taxes unconstitutional.

The path to equal voting rights involved a long series of threads, including women’s rights, abolition, temperance, and civil rights.

In recent years, August 26 has been recognized as “Women’s Equality Day,” with a focus on issues of equal pay for women and female minorities.

Might the 19th Amendment be Repealed?

There have been efforts to overturn the 19th Amendment and women’s right to vote in the United States.

Q: How likely is this to happen?

A: Incredibly unlikely.

Why? There are at least three reasons.

Overturning a Constitutional Amendment is Difficult

The issue is not moral or political, but a simple matter of civics. An amendment cannot be overturned by a simple act of Congress or a Supreme Court ruling. It requires a new amendment to the Constitution. According to Article V of the Constitution, this requires:

1. Proposal: A two-thirds vote in both the U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate, or a constitutional convention called for by two-thirds of the State legislatures.

2. Ratification: Approval by three-fourths (38 out of 50) of the State legislatures, or by conventions in three-fourths of the States.

Amendment Repeal Has Only Ever Happened Once

The 21st Amendment is the only instance in U.S. history in which a constitutional amendment was passed specifically to repeal a previous one: the 18th Amendment, which had established a nationwide prohibition on alcohol. By 1933, prohibition had become unpopular.

Passing any New Amendment is a Long Process

The last time the U.S. had a new Constitutional Amendment was on May 7, 1992, with the ratification of the 27th Amendment, which prohibits any law that increases or decreases the salary of members of Congress from taking effect until after the next election of the House of Representatives.

But it took 202 years to ratify because the original 1798 proposal included no time limit for ratification. The ERA (Equal Rights Amendment), which was reintroduced to Congress in 1971, failed because it did not secure approval from 38 states by the established deadline of 1982.

Bill Petro, your friendly neighborhood historian
billpetro.com

HISTORY OF THE CALIFORNIA GOLD RUSH

On August 19, 1848, the New York Herald reported news of the California Gold Rush along the American East Coast.

It was not new news to those further West, as the gold rush had started in January and was publicized in San Francisco in March.

However, the New York Herald was then the most popular and profitable newspaper in the US. By the dawn of the American Civil War, the newspaper claimed a circulation of 84,000 copies and called itself “the most widely circulated journal in the world.” In any event, the news of the gold rush reached a much larger audience than before and spread the gold fever much wider.

What was the result of this news on San Francisco, the gold miners, and California itself?

Gold Discovery

James Marshall was installing a water-powered sawmill along the American River in Coloma, California, when his carpenter discovered gold flakes in the stream bed in North-central California at Sutter’s Mill on January 24, 1848.

Despite trying to keep the discovery a secret, the news spread in all directions — initially to Oregon, Hawaii, Mexico, Central America, Chile, Peru, and as far away as China.

By mid-June, about three-quarters of the male population of San Francisco had left for the goldfields. By the end of 1848, around 20,000 had come to California to seek their fortune. Ultimately, about 300,000 people from all over the world came to California.

The military governor, Colonel Richard B. Mason, toured the goldfields and reported: two miners on Weber Creek gathered $17,000 of gold in just seven days; six miners with fifty Native American Indians took out 273 pounds of gold; sales at Samuel Brannan‘s goldfield merchandise store — a San Francisco entrepreneur — had totaled $36,000 in the three months of May, June, and July.

He became the wealthiest man in California by opening the first supply stores in Sacramento and other locations throughout the goldfields. It was Gold Fever.

Gold Rush 49ers

By 1849, the number of those coming for the Gold Rush had grown from 20,000 to over 100,000. These “49ers” (who lent their name to the San Francisco football team) passed through what came to be called the “Golden Gate” of the San Francisco Bay.

The Golden Gate Bridge, which now spans San Francisco to Marin County, gets its name from that Golden Gate. Prospectors could make a fortune — nuggets might be found lying on the ground or in streams — if they came early. Some 750,000 pounds, or billions of dollars’ worth of gold, was extracted from the mining area, with extraction peaking in 1852.

San Francisco and the Gold Rush

San Francisco exploded from a small village of 800 in 1848 to a boomtown of 50,000 within five years. Within 25 years, the city’s population reached 150,000. Merchants’ fortunes increased as they supplied goods, transportation, and entertainment to the prospectors heading to the “Mother Lode.”

Initially coming by sea, these Argonauts, referring to the classical story of Jason and the Argonauts seeking the Golden Fleece, would round Cape Horn at the bottom of South America in 5–8 months from the East. Half of the fortune seekers came by sea.

The Isthmus of Panama might shorten that route, but the canal had not yet been constructed, and some of the journey was over land. Otherwise, the trek was across the continent along what was called the California Trail. In the years after the Civil War ended, transcontinental railroads connected the East and West coasts.

San Francisco: Ship Graveyard

So many ships came to San Francisco bringing 49ers that scores of ships were abandoned at the docks. Some were converted into hotels, restaurants, and saloons, with the masts used to prop the ships above the mud.

The San Francisco Peninsula was windy and lacked natural resources and fresh water, but it was an excellent port with its large bay. Quickly, warehouses, ironworks, shipyards, and exchange houses were built. Timber and iron, salvaged from the ships, were used to build the city. Before the railroads in the 19th century, shipping was the main mode of transportation for towns north of San Francisco.

Original San Francisco coastline, 1851. Courtesy of the Maritime Museum of San Francisco. Author’s photo

There were so many ships that arrived in San Francisco ports in 1849 that their masts rose like a forest offshore. The small “bays” along the north and east sides of the San Francisco peninsula soon filled up with these derelict ships. Examples include:

• Yerba Buena Cove is home to the current Embarcadero and was filled with over 800 ships. Excavation has revealed the resting place of over 40 ships. The iconic Transamerica Pyramid was built on the edge of that cove.

Yerba Buena Cove Ships by Michael Warner et al., 2017. Image: San Francisco Maritime National Historical Park, National Park Service

• Mission Bay was filled with ships and eventually became reclaimed land, forming the present coastline of San Francisco. It is now home to the University of California, San Francisco Mission Bay Campus, the Chase Center Arena, and OpenAI’s offices. It is across from Oracle Park, home of the San Francisco Giants.

1852 US Coast Survey map of Mission Bay w/Mission Plank Road, courtesy of FoundSF.org

Subsequently, fishing and whaling operations extended from San Francisco across the Pacific, from Alaska to Peru. By the 1880s, San Francisco replaced New England as the American whaling capital.

California and the Gold Rush

The gold rush essentially created California. The first Federal census in 1860 counted over 300,000 residents; the non-Native population had exploded since before the Gold Rush: from roughly 14,000 in 1848 to over 300,000 by the 1860 census.

Lawmaking, government, and civic improvements occurred rapidly. Days after discovering gold at Sutter’s Mill, the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo — which ended the Mexican-American War — left California in the possession of the United States. A constitution was written in 1849, and California became a free state in 1850 (without slavery).

The University of California at Berkeley — named after Anglo-Irish philosopher George Berkeley — was started as a land-grant university in 1868. Its mascot is the Golden Bear, and its colors are blue and gold.

And while it was long known by this name, it was not until 1968 that California was formally designated “The Golden State.”

By the way, the state seal motto, “Eureka,” is the Greek word εὕρηκα, meaning “I have found (it),” from the story of the ancient Greek scholar Archimedes. He yelled out this word upon discovering that the water level in his bath had risen to the level represented by the volume of water displaced by his submerged body.

Bill Petro, your friendly neighborhood historian
billpetro.com

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HISTORY OF WOODSTOCK

August 15 marks the anniversary of the “3 Days of Peace & Music” held in 1969 at Max Yasgur‘s 600-acre dairy farm in Bethel, New York, southwest of the village of Woodstock.

This outdoor music event, despite thunderstorms, gave voice to the counterculture youth generation of its time. A documentary film followed it in 1970, and a top-selling soundtrack album was released.

I’d like to share with you what it was like to be at the Woodstock Rock Festival — the music, the crowds “half a million strong,” the rain, the muddy roads, the traffic jams, the counterculture vibe, the media coverage, the movie film crew, the atmosphere, the awareness of its own importance, the sense of history in the making:

• What it was like to hear Jimi Hendrix electrically and psychedelically reinterpret the national anthem, The Star-Spangled Banner.

• To experience the frenetic exuberance of The Who define a new youth anthem with We’re Not Gonna Take It and My Generation.

• What it was like to hear the newly formed supergroup Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young say, “This is only the second time we’ve performed in front of people; we’re scared s***less!”

• To describe to you what it was like to participate in “peace, love, and rock & roll.”

I’d like to do this, but I wasn’t there. However, I do remember it when it occurred. And, of course, who hasn’t seen the 1970 Academy Award-winning documentary, for which a young Martin Scorsese was an editor and assistant director?

Woodstock, the Event

Over fifty years ago, an estimated 400,000–500,000 Baby Boomers attended one of the defining moments of American postmodernism.

While The Beatles may have introduced post-modernism earlier in the ’60s, Woodstock pulled together many distinctively American voices. This music festival was called “An Aquarian Exposition,” though it now may feel more like the “dawning of the aging of Aquarius.”

Here were the performers, 32 different acts performed over the four days, in Yasgur’s field, from Friday to the morning of Monday, with a few of my comments:

Friday, August 15

• Richie Havens — 8 songs, including 3 Beatles songs

• Swami Satchidananda — gave the invocation for the festival

• Sweetwater — the first GROUP to play at the Woodstock festival. Their music style is a fusion of rock, jazz, folk, psychedelia, Latin, and even classical music.

• Bert Sommer

• Tim Hardin

• Ravi Shankar — father of singer Norah Jones

• Melanie — Melanie Safka performed a solo act, although she’s well known for her Top Ten hit “Lay Down (Candles in the Rain)” with the Edwin Hawkins Singers, a popular gospel group. She was popular on the Smothers Brothers TV show during this time with her hit song “Brand New Key.”

• Arlo Guthrie — son of folk musician Woody Guthrie, Arlo is famous for “Alice’s Restaurant Massacree.” He also played “Amazing Grace” and (somewhat inaccurately) told some history behind the hymn. Years later, it was followed by Judy Collins’ hit version of the hymn. Alice’s Restaurant Massacree appeared in the 1969 movie “Alice’s Restaurant,” further re-popularizing it in the ’60s,

• Joan Baez — San Francisco Bay Area folk singer, social and political activist who once dated Steve Jobs of Apple.

Saturday, August 16

• Quill — forty-minute set of four songs

• Keef Hartley Band

• Country Joe McDonald — Country Joe & the “Fish” (Barry Melton) became popular for the “FISH Chorus” associated with his Vietnam War song, which was a local favorite in Berkeley, where he lives, for anti-war rallies.

• John Sebastian — (of the Lovin’ Spoonful) I once saw him live back in the mid-70s when he was doing the warm-up for stand-up comedian Steve Martin. The impatient and unappreciative audience shouted Sebastian off the stage in preference for Martin.

• Santana — Carlos Santana was playing a residency at the Mirage in Las Vegas when I last visited.

• Canned Heat

• Mountain

• Grateful Dead — a popular Haight-Ashbury-based band. I saw them once in Oakland. Even in an open-air venue, the smell of burning hemp was overwhelming.

• Creedence Clearwater Revival — Bay Area group. Lead singer John Fogerty has recently experienced a comeback with tours. The song “Who’ll Stop the Rain,” he claims, was inspired by the Woodstock festival.

• Janis Joplin with The Kozmic Blues Band — another popular Haight-Ashbury band.

• Sly & the Family Stone — Sly Stone was known as a popular San Francisco disc jockey.

• The Who began at 4 AM, kicking off a 25-song set including songs from their rock opera Tommy. I have seen the band perform live half a dozen times, including during the early ’70s when at the San Francisco Cow Palace, drummer Keith Moon twice passed out into his drum set from a drug overdose. Guitarist Pete Townshend excused it as: “It must have been something he ate. It’s your American food.” They’ve been performing now for over 50 years.

• Jefferson Airplane — the first of the San Francisco psychedelic rock groups of the 1960s to become internationally known, later changing their name to Jefferson Starship and then Starship.

• The Incredible String Band

Sunday, August 17 to Monday, August 18

• Joe Cocker and The Grease Band — dressed in classic tie-dye.

• Country Joe and the Fish

• Ten Years After

• The Band

• Blood, Sweat & Tears

• Johnny Winter featuring his brother, Edgar Winter

• Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young — formed by refugees from three 1960s bands: The Byrds, Buffalo Springfield, and The Hollies. The band is primarily known for its three-part vocal harmonies. At Woodstock, Young sat in for part of the set. I saw then in the Summer of 2006. See my concert review here. In the Summer of 2009, they were touring without Young.

• Paul Butterfield Blues Band

• Sha-Na-Na was a New York ’50s revival and send-up band made up mainly of Columbia University students. They were later made famous in the movie “Grease,” where they appeared as “Johnny Casino and The Gamblers.”

• Jimi Hendrix

What Did It Cost to Hire the Performers?

Back in 1969, how were the performers paid?

Woodstock, the song

In 1970, Joni Mitchel wrote an eponymous song about Woodstock that was later popularized with slightly altered lyrics by Crosby, Stills, Nash (her then-boyfriend) & Young, which they’ve performed every time I’ve seen them live:

I came upon a child of God
He was walking along the road
And I asked him, where are you going
And this he told me

“I’m going on down to Yasgur’s farm
I’m going to join in a rock ’n’ roll band
I’m going to camp out on the land
I’m going to try an’ get my soul free”

We are stardust
We are golden
And we’ve got to get ourselves
Back to the garden…

Where were you in ’69?

Bill Petro, your friendly neighborhood historian
billpetro.com

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What’s in a name? The name of this month was not always August; previously, the Romans referred to it as Sextilis. Because the calendar then started in March, this was the sixth month. This was back in the days of Romulus in 753 B.C., when there were originally ten months (… Sept, Oct, Nov, Dec… or seventh, eighth, ninth, tenth). In 8 B.C., the Roman Senate decided to honor their first Emperor, Augustus Caesar, by changing the month’s name to Augustus.

Now, Augustus wasn’t his name; it was a description of his importance. He was born Gaius Octavius, though he is known in the history books as Gaius Julius Caesar Octavianus or Octavius to his friends. Custom suggested he append Octavianus to mark his birth family — a name he studiously avoided, though history has fastened it on him. He preferred to be identified with his adoptive father Gaius Julius Caesar.

The title Augustus in Latin comes from augere, “to increase,” and was granted to him in 27 B.C. by the Roman Senate.

It meant “venerable” or “consecrated,” signifying his religious role in the Roman cultus. We use the term in English to describe someone auspicious, grand, or lordly… or with imperial qualities. The Greek equivalent is Sebastos (Σεβαστός).

What do we know about Augustus?

Augustus in History

You know about Augustus from the Christmas story in Luke 2:

Now in those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus, that a census be taken of all the inhabited earth [i.e., the Roman Empire].

Back in Rome, his mother was the niece of Julius Caesar, and his father was the governor of Macedonia. However, his family was of the equestrian order, and his father was the first of the line to reach the Senate — a respectable but not aristocratic pedigree. Nevertheless, the young Octavius rose in status.

He was elected to the College of Pontiffs and later joined his great-uncle, Julius Caesar, on the battlefield. The General (and Dictator) was so impressed that he changed his will and named the boy his principal heir; his will left him three-quarters of his estate. As Caesar was childless in the eyes of Roman law, this adoption meant Octavius would succeed him.

Octavius took the name Gaius Julius Caesar, though Roman tradition required that he append the surname Octavianus (or Octavian) to denote his biological family; as noted above, he never used it himself. He is alternatively known as Octavius, Octavian, or Augustus.

Official Roman Emperor

Augustus was the first official Emperor of Rome, not Julius, as some suppose. Julius had been “dictator for life,” dictator perpetuo, though his life lasted barely a month after he gained that title, ending in his assassination.

During Octavian’s rise to power, the powerful First Triumvirate — an informal pact among Caesar, Pompey, and Crassus — gave way to a legally sanctioned Second Triumvirate comprising himself, Antony, and Lepidus.

Eventually, after the victory over Sextus Pompey, Lepidus overreached by claiming Sicily for himself; his legions deserted to Octavian, who stripped him of his triumviral powers in 36 B.C. Meanwhile, Antony’s invasion of Parthia ended in costly failure. Relations between the two remaining triumvirs broke in the late 30s B.C. before they fought a final war, the Battle of Actium in 31 B.C., from which Augustus emerged as the victor.

With the end of the Second Triumvirate, Augustus’ reign became known as the Principate, or more colloquially, the Roman Empire.

Where does Cleopatra Fit In?

As you remember from that late, great teacher of history, Elizabeth Taylor, in the 1963 movie Cleopatra, she was, in glorious Technicolor, the Queen of the Ptolemaic Kingdom of Egypt. She, at 21, had an affair with Julius Caesar (52), resulting in the birth of their son, Caesarion (“little Caesar”). Despite Cleopatra making repeated official declarations about Julius Caesar being the father, Caesar himself, whose wife Calpurnia was in Rome, remained publicly silent about the boy, meaning he did not acknowledge paternity. Consequently, Julius Caesar had no legitimate male heir, making adoption of Octavius a necessity.

Historical Trivia:

Cleopatra was a descendant of Ptolemy I Soter, a Macedonian Greek general and one of Alexander’s leading generals, part of the group of successors known as the Diadochi. Ptolemy took the satrapy of Egypt after the death of Alexander the Great beginning in 323 B.C. Like all her predecessors, she spoke Koine Greek, or Common Greek, the same language the New Testament was written in. While she was the first of her dynasty to learn the Egyptian language, she was ethnically Greek, not Egyptian, despite ruling Egypt. After her death, the Ptolemaic Dynasty, founded in the wake of Alexander’s death, came to an end., and Egypt became a province of the Roman Empire.

Why Does August Have 31 Days?

There is a myth that August has 31 days because Augustus took a day from February to match Julius’ July. But it was invented during medieval times; Sextilis had 31 days under the Julian reform before the renaming to August.

Bill Petro, your friendly neighborhood historian
billpetro.com

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MOVIE REVIEW: THE ODYSSEY (NO PLOT SPOILERS)

I walked out of the theater after seeing The Odyssey with these thoughts and feelings:

“Spectacular, awesome, massive, intense, harrowing, violent, merciful, evocative, fearful, seductive, humbling, restrained, overwhelming, noble, epic… an immersive experience, not just a movie.”

I found the film noble, uplifting, and immensely satisfying. For those who haven’t read the story that was written 2,800 years ago, I won’t spoil the ending.

The Film

I saw the film in 70mm IMAX, and it was stunning. It filled the entire screen from floor to ceiling.

Over the course of its opening weekend, The Odyssey grossed a colossal $264.1 million worldwide (more than its original production cost), giving Nolan his biggest-ever global opening. In the US alone, it raked in $124.5M, almost half of the worldwide total. In its second week, it made an additional $87M in the U.S. With international grosses, some outlets report the film has earned $650M worldwide. On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has a 94% positive critics’ score and a 97% audience score.

The story picks up after the Trojan War (told in The Iliad, also by the Greek poet Homer), though there are frequent flashbacks to the war. Most of the characters you’d expect are in this film: the Cyclops Polyphemus, portrayed as you’ve never seen him before, the dangerous Sirens, the sorceress Circe (Samantha Morton), and the nymph Calypso (Charlize Theron).

The Cast

Matt Damon as Odysseus

Matt Damon is the everyman of modern films. He’s accessible, relatable, and transparent in his acting. You’ve seen him in comedies, thrillers, dramas, and action movies like the Jason Bourne films. This is one of his most compelling and mesmerizing performances.

Tom Holland as Telemachus

There is a historical St. Telemachus I’ve written about previously. This isn’t him. Here, Telemachus is the son of Odysseus and his wife Penelope. The youth hasn’t seen his father in 20 years and seeks him. Holland, who is better known for his portrayal of Spider-Man, is well cast here in this coming-of-age role, more than a boy, less than the man who might replace his father as King of Ithaca.

It should be noted, because even NPR recently got this wrong, that Odysseus spends 10 years at sea (The Odyssey) endeavoring to return home from the Trojan War, but the war itself (The Iliad) lasted 10 years.

Telemachus is tutored, advised, and protected by Mentor, his father’s trusted friend. That’s where we get the word.

Telemachus is Greek for “far from battle” or “fighting from afar.”

Anne Hathaway as Penelope

Anne Hathaway is a favorite of writer/director/producer Christopher Nolan and previously appeared in his Batman film The Dark Knight Rises and his science fiction film Interstellar.

Penelope is the cousin of Helen, wife of the Spartan king Menelaus, who eloped with, or was abducted by, Paris of Troy, fomenting the Trojan War (which launched a thousand ships) as her abandoned husband sought her return.

Hathaway as Penelope is the faithful wife who has waited 20 years for her husband Odysseus to return; she’s beautiful, brittle, and angry.

Robert Pattinson as Antinous

Among the many suitors of Penelope, Antinous is the most arrogant and most despicable. Pattinson was previously in Nolan’s Tenet film. In this movie, as the lead suitor, he plays the role so creepily that it drives out memories of the attractive boy Cedric in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Edward in The Twilight Saga, or even the dark-night detective in The Batman.

Trivia: The faceless character Agamemnon resembles Batman with a helmet that covers the top of his face, blackened bronze armor, and a long black cape.

Entertainment vs. History

I’m not writing this review as a historian, but more as a classicist, a major I enjoyed for a few months, and a student of ancient Greek for a year and a half while at university.

A reader asked me if the film was historically accurate. That is difficult to answer because the story of The Odyssey contains both mythological elements, such as monsters and Greek gods, and historical elements and actual geographical locations. For example, we’ve had evidence since 1870 from excavations of Hisarlik in Turkey that it is the probable location of ancient Troy.

It may be better to ask if the film is faithful to the epic poem The Odyssey. The short answer is… not exactly.

There are plenty of current articles criticizing the film for its historical inaccuracies, from armor to casting. One of the most scathing reviews is by Emily Wilson, the classicist whose 2017 English translation of The Odyssey not only increased interest in the epic, but was the text that Christopher Nolan used for the film. But she was encouraged that the film has increased readership of the epic and study of the classics.

Almost any retelling of the story, especially on film, is going to have to make different compromises.

It is accurate to say that this film is a modern retelling of the ancient legend seen through 21st-century postmodern eyes. It inverts some of the heroic tropes and makes Odysseus a more sympathetic man rather than a heroic and resourceful warrior.

Christopher Nolan presents us with a modern, accessible, relevant man. This Odysseus is more approachable, with a powerful sense of guilt and trauma rather than the Bronze Age’s cunning killer-king seeking victory and glory.

One Final Ancient Greek Note

Tradition holds that The Odyssey was composed as a poem from oral tradition by Homer around the 8th or 7th century B.C.

It was subsequently recited as part of the Greek literary canon in public performances by a rhapsode, or “singer of stitched lays.” This is where we get the word “rhapsody.”

Grade: B+

You’ll like it if: you enjoy large action set pieces or expensive sword-and-sandal films.

You won’t like it if: fidelity to the original story is important to you or you were expecting a non-musical version of O Brother, Where Art Thou?

Bill Petro, your friendly neighborhood historian
billpetro.com

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Science of the Buck Moon

Tonight’s full moon is called the Buck Moon. This full moon is so called for the antlers that grow annually from the forehead of a buck (male deer), around this time of year. Alternate names include Hay Moon, Wyrt Moon, and Thunder Moon.

I’ve written previously about the Sturgeon Supermoon, Strawberry Moon, Blue Moon, and Harvest, or Blood Supermoon.

What makes the Buck Moon different?

Moon Science

In the US, it will reach peak illumination on July 29 at 10:36 A.M. Eastern Time. Astronomically, a full Moon occurs when the Moon is positioned opposite the Sun in the sky, causing it to appear fully lit from our perspective here on Earth. Over three weeks before the Buck Moon, Earth reached aphelion — the point in its orbit that is most distant from the Sun, making it the farthest full moon from the Sun in 2026.

The Buck Moon will look especially low in the sky after sunset. This is largely due to the fact that in the weeks following the Summer Solstice, when the sun is at its highest in the daytime sky, the moon tracks a correspondingly low path through the night.

The lunar disk will appear larger near the horizon than it does when high overhead, thanks to the ‘Moon illusion’ — a trick of the brain, since the Moon occupies the same actual space in the sky at both positions.

It will also seem somewhat reddish, due to the same atmospheric scattering that produces the reddish colors of a sunset.

What’s In A Name?

• Native American tribes may call it: Salmon Moon or Thunder Moon due to frequent thunderstorms during this part of the summer. The Cree called it the Moulting Moon. The Cherokee called it the Ripe Corn Moon, and the Algonquin and Ojibwe tribes called it the Raspberry Moon.

• Celtic tribes called it Claiming Moon, Herb Moon, Wyrt Moon, and Mead Moon. They’d gather herbs or wyrts at this time of year and dry them as spices and remedies.

• Anglo-Saxons in early England called it Hay Moon for the harvesting of hay during this time of year.

As the Old Farmer’s Almanac explains, traditionally…

“each full Moon name was applied to the entire lunar month in which it occurred, not solely to the full Moon.”

NASA on the Buck Moon

Noah Petro (no relation), chief of NASA’s Planetary Geology, Geophysics and Geochemistry Laboratory, said:

“The nice thing about the full moon is it looks full about a day on either side of it, so on the night of the [full moon], for instance, if you go out and look at the full moon, it will look effectively full. Similarly, if you miss it on the [the next night], the [following] night, it will also look fairly full.”

Bill Petro, your friendly neighborhood historian
billpetro.com

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Merry Christmas in July, or Christmas in Summer, is celebrated primarily on July 25!

It is not to be confused with LEON Day, celebrated on June 25, which falls exactly six months before Christmas Day.

Christmas in July also has a practical dimension in the Southern Hemisphere, where it has the benefit of occurring during winter, when it’s called Midwinter Christmas, with wintry snow-like conditions that can be enjoyed, especially at colder, higher elevations.

What is this holiday, when did it begin, and will you get presents?

Origins of Christmas in July

The first known use of the phrase occurred in the opera Werther in 1892. “Werther” is a character who comes from Goethe‘s 1774 novel The Sorrows of Young Werther, on which the opera is based. In the French opera, a group of children rehearses a Christmas song in July, and a character responds,

“When you sing Christmas in July, you rush the season.”

The first documented celebration in America occurred in 1933. Fannie Holt, the co-founder of Keystone Camp, a girls’ summer camp in North Carolina, decided the midsummer doldrums needed a bit more magic. She staged a whimsical summer event that evolved into a full-blown Christmas celebration on July 24 and 25, complete with all the festive trimmings of carols, gifts, a Christmas tree, and even a visit from Santa Claus.

It spread from there to other parts of the U.S The 1940 film Christmas in July helped popularize it.

Religious Observance of Christmas in July

Churches in Philadelphia and Washington, D.C., used the date for summer gift drives for missions as well as for soldiers serving overseas during World War II. In 1942, the Calvary Baptist Church in Washington, D.C. celebrated Christmas in July with carols and a sermon titled “Christmas Presents in July,” patterned after a similar program at a Philadelphia church. By 1945, the service was being broadcast over local radio.

Christmas in July in the Southern Hemisphere

In Australia and New Zealand, Christmas in July has a more practical meaning. July falls in the middle of winter “down under.” To get that cozy, wintry Christmas spirit that the Northern Hemisphere enjoys, people celebrate Christmas in July.

Christmas in July in the U.S.and Canada

There are no national holidays between July 4 and Labor Day. That’s a mirthless stretch of about two months. How will retailers find an opportunity to sell more?

Modern Celebrations of Christmas in July

Retailers, believe it or not, saw an opportunity to hold sales on this “holiday.” In North America, beginning in the ’50s, it has been celebrated with traditional Christmas foods, shopping, decorations, shopping, carols, and shopping.

You’d think Hallmark would jump on this holiday… and they did. Beginning in 2012, they began their “Christmas in July” movie marathon.

Mr. Scrooge at the end of A Christmas Carol said:

“I will honour Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year. I will live in the Past, the Present, and the Future. The Spirits of all Three shall strive within me. I will not shut out the lessons that they teach.”

So why not celebrate it twice a year?

Bill Petro, your friendly neighborhood historian
billpetro.com

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July 25 is the Feast Day of St. James, and Roman Catholics, Lutherans, Anglicans, and some Protestants accordingly celebrate St. James Day. For Orthodox churches that follow the Julian calendar, it’s on April 30.

Each summer, pilgrims walk the Camino de Santiago, or the Way of St. James, which finds its way to the traditional grave of Saint James in Spain.

Who was St. James, and what is his relation to the pilgrimage of El Camino de Santiago?

Who was St. James

There are two St. Jameses mentioned in the New Testament:

• One James the Just, understood by Catholics as a cousin or step-brother of Jesus, and by Protestants as a half-brother, wrote the Book of James in the New Testament and was the leader of the church in Jerusalem after the departure of St. Peter.

• But we will discuss the other one, James the Greater, or James the Great, so designated because he was older or taller than the other James.

St. James the Great was one of the Sons of Zebedee, along with his brother St. John the Evangelist. Jesus called these two brothers “the Sons of Thunder” or Boanerges (probably from the Aramaic bene reghesh, “sons of the tumult”).

When Jesus and his disciples were traveling through Samaria, and the inhabitants did not respond to their message, they asked,

“Lord, do you want us to call fire down from heaven to destroy them?”

Another time, they (or their mother Salome) asked Jesus

“Teacher, we want you to do for us whatever we ask… Grant us that we may sit, one on your right hand and the other on your left, in your glory.”

These brothers, along with Peter, were among the earliest whom Jesus called to follow him and were considered his “inner circle.” They saw Jesus’ Transfiguration (Mark 9:2), the raising of Jairus’ daughter from the dead (Mark 5:37 and Luke 8:51), and Jesus’ agony in the Garden of Gethsemane (Mark 14:33 and Matthew 26:37).

James’ brother John was the last to die of all the disciples. But James was the first to be martyred for Jesus.

Ministry of St. James

James and his younger brother John had a fishing business in Galilee. John had connections in Jerusalem with the High Priest, as his Gospel tells us much about what happened at Jesus’ trial, while their fishing partner Peter remained outside by the fire. While James did not write any books of the New Testament, his brother wrote five books.

Jesus had called the brothers to follow him and become “fishers of men.”

While the Book of Acts in the New Testament does not mention James’ ministry with the early church after Easter, tradition holds that he traveled and preached the Gospel in Spain after serving in and around Jerusalem, where he eventually returned.

Death of St. James

The Book of Acts, Chapter 12, discusses how James and Peter were imprisoned by “Herod the King.” Biblical and extra-biblical ancient sources (like Josephus, Philo of Alexandria, and the Jewish rabbis) tell us much about Herod Agrippa I.

• He was the grandson of Herod the Great, whom we met in the Christmas narrative.

• He was the nephew of Herod Antipas, who had John the Baptist beheaded (Luke 9:9; 23:7–11) and had Jesus appear before him (Luke 23:7) during his Trials.

• Herod Agrippa had grown up in Rome and tutored Emperor Tiberius‘ grandson, but Tiberius imprisoned him for his reckless comment about the emperor. Following Tiberius’ death, his friend and Tiberius’ successor, Caligula, gave him a chain of gold equal in weight to the iron one that had imprisoned him. Emperor Claudius promoted him to the kingship of Judea and Samaria.

Due to Herod Agrippa I’s influential friendships with the Roman emperors, he pieced together what was essentially his grandfather’s old kingdom plus the region of Abilene to the north. He wielded great power over the whole territory of Palestine and Syria, including Tyre and Sidon, from A.D. 37–44.

Herod Agrippa exerted almost autonomous control over much of Palestine. He could arrest and execute with impunity.

He put James to death by the sword and “saw that it pleased the Jews” (Acts 12:3) and intended to do the same with the apostle Peter, but divine intervention released him from prison. James was the first of Jesus’ Twelve Apostles whose martyrdom is mentioned in the Bible. James died in A.D. 44, at least a decade after Jesus’ crucifixion.

St. James in Spanish

Saint James, Latin Sancti Iacobi, became in Spanish, shortened to Diogo/Diego, or Tiago in Portuguese. The complete word Santiago means “Saint James.” So Camino de Santiago is the Way of St. James. He is the patron saint of Spain.

St. James in Spain

A 9th-century Catholic tradition states that James’ disciples carried his remains by sea from Jerusalem to the coast of Spain, where they ventured to Santiago de Compostela. At that time, King Alfonso II decided to walk from Oviedo to Santiago de Compostela to visit James’ grave. It remains the third most popular Christian pilgrimage after Jerusalem and Rome. Other traditions suggest that he was miraculously translated to Spain. Various legends tie the scallop shell to the sea voyage.

History of Pilgrimages: All Roads Lead to Rome? | Bill Petro
History of Pilgrimages: What does pilgrim mean, what are the secular & sacred pilgrimages of the world’s religions…billpetro.com

The Cross of St. James resembles a sword-shaped cross in red — the symbol of the Order of Santiago.

Separately, the scallop shell has become the symbol of St. James. In French, it’s coquille Saint-Jacques. You’ll notice it on the shoulder of the painting of St. James by Rembrandt (at the top of this article).

It also serves as a marker along the Way of St. James pilgrimage.

There are classical as well as modern stylized versions.

Pilgrimage of the Camino de Santiago

The Way of St. James was one of the most important Christian pilgrimages, dating back to the 9th century, and a pilgrimage route on which one could earn a plenary indulgence from the Roman Catholic Church. This involves, among other Catholic requirements, walking the Camino’s last 100 km or cycling the Camino’s last 200 km to the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela.

The pilgrimage starts along many European routes, including France (Chemins de Saint-Jacques), Switzerland, Germany (Jakobuswege), Poland, Italy, and England. Travelers from my hometown in Colorado have walked the Way of St. James.

I was recently in Krems, Austria, at the Göttweig Abbey, a Benedictine monastery. There is a sign there with the scallop shell directing pilgrims on their way along the Camino.

In recent years, more than 400,000 pilgrims register annually to complete the final 100 kilometers (62 mi) walk to Santiago to qualify for the compostela, the certificate of completion. The last part of the pilgrimage is along the northern part of Spain.

It ends at the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela, in the northwest of the Iberian Peninsula — the region the ancient Romans called finis terrae, the end of the Earth. Indeed, some pilgrims extend their journey nearly 90 kilometers further to Fisterra, where the land literally ends at the Atlantic.

Fisterra lies in the community of Galicia in northwestern Spain. The reliquary of St. James rests in the crypt of the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela.

Bill Petro, your friendly neighborhood historian
billpetro.com

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Fifty-seven years ago today, at 4:17 Eastern Time, July 20, 1969, the American lunar module touched down on the Moon, and about seven hours later, at 10:56:15 pm EDT, the first human stepped out of the Apollo 11 lunar module onto the Moon. With the immortal words of the 38-year-old Neil Armstrong:

“That’s one small step for (a) man,
one giant leap for mankind.”

…the first man in history began an excursion on the moon that lasted over two and a half hours.

Five hundred thirty million people watched it on television. Roughly 65–75% of the American population, and 1 in 7 people in the world.

Everyone I knew watched it.

Moon Landing: The Mission

Eight years previously, in May 1961, President John F. Kennedy, in his Special Message to the Congress on Urgent National Needs, to a joint session of Congress, in May 1961, had uttered these galvanizing words:

“I believe this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal,
before the decade is out,
of landing a man on the moon and
returning him safely to Earth.”

You have no doubt heard the phrase “Space, the final frontier… its five-year mission…” first spoken in September 1966. But John Kennedy’s 29-word statement five years earlier first captured the sense of “mission” more clearly and memorably than Americans had commonly heard before.

The Apollo mission would send two Americans to the moon’s surface and return them safely.

Apollo 11 and the Space Race

When Kennedy issued the challenge, the US was in the midst of a Cold War with the Soviet Union. The Soviets had already beaten the US into space:

• Sputnik: 1957, first orbiting satellite

• Luna 2: 1959, first unmanned vehicle on the moon.

• Vostok 1: 1961, piloted by Yuri Gagarin, first human in space and first to orbit Earth.

It was not until May 5, 1961, that Alan Shepard became the first American to go into space and back, just 23 days after Gagarin became the first human to do so. Less than a year later, John Glenn would be the first American to orbit the Earth.

The Apollo mission followed the initial Mercury program, which had sent individual astronauts into space. Then the Gemini program sent two astronauts at a time into space. The Apollo program had three crew members and sent five more crewed missions to the moon, ending with the completion of the Apollo 17 mission.

For Apollo 11, the three men in the crew were Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, and Michael Collins. However, only the first two went to the surface of the moon in the Lunar Module. Collins stayed aboard the Command Module “Columbia” and continued to orbit the moon, then piloted the craft back toward Earth.

Apollo 11 Lift Off

The journey began several days earlier, on July 16, at Launch Pad 39A, where the massive multistaged Saturn V rocket lifted off from Cape Canaveral at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

Everyone I knew watched it.

Five years later, during the summer of 1974, I visited the launch site in Florida, witnessing the massive Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB) and the crawler-transport system that moved the rocket from the VAB to the launch pad, I was told, at 4 miles per hour. I was awestruck to see the scale of the VAB, which housed the rocket assembly as I stood next to the immensity of the crawler.

The Apollo 11 launch started at the Launch Control Center. The astronauts rode an elevator up 320 feet to the ingress of the spacecraft. Altogether, it weighed 6.2 million pounds. After lift-off, it climbed:

• At 12 miles downrange, it was moving at 4,000 ft/sec.

• At 100 miles up, it was moving at 23,000 ft/sec.

• When it finally left Earth orbit, it did so at over 25,000 mph.

• It was moving at 11,000 feet/sec for its final maneuver.

• Apollo 11 arrived at the moon 4 minutes ahead of schedule.

On July 20, four days out, they undocked the Lunar Module (LM) from the Command Module. They had traveled roughly 240,000 miles in just 76 hours inside a cramped, 12-foot-diameter cabin. The LM descended to the lunar surface. As it touched down on television, these words were heard:

“Houston, Tranquility Base here. The Eagle has landed”

From Mission Control came the words:

“People were blue here; they’ve started breathing again.”

Apollo 11 Mission Image — View of Moon Limb, with Earth on the Horizon. Image: NASA

There were smiling faces all over the world.

First Men on the Moon

It was hours before they exited the LM to descend the ladder to the moon. During that time, Buzz Aldrin did something not widely reported, and when it was published, it was done somewhat confusingly.

He was an Elder in his home church, the Webster Presbyterian Church. Before he left, he got special permission to take with him the elements of bread and wine to perform Communion in the Lunar Module. He poured wine into a small chalice and served Communion to himself before he donned his helmet to exit the spacecraft.

Buzz Aldrin’s Communion kit. Image: Space Relics

Ahead of him went Neil Armstrong. After Armstrong said the words:

“That’s one small step for (a) man, one giant leap for mankind.

…he continued with:

“It’s got a stark beauty all its own, like the high desert.”

Into this magnificent desolation… Buzz Aldrin followed to the surface about 20 minutes later, carefully guided down the ladder by Neil Armstrong.

You can see the location of the landing on Google Maps here.

The Apollo 11 crew received a phone call from President Richard Nixon, during which the astronauts said they felt honored to be on the mission. Before they left the Moon, they left behind two things:

Note: the font is Futura. Image: NASA

A silicon disk rests in an aluminum case on the Moon’s Sea of Tranquility, dropped by Buzz Aldrin as he ascended the ladder at the end of their EVA. It contained miniaturized goodwill messages from 73 countries, along with the names of congressional and NASA leaders.

A plaque was attached to the ladder on the landing gear strut on the descent stage of the Apollo 11 Lunar Module. It reads:

“Here men from the planet Earth first set foot upon the Moon July 1969, A.D. We came in peace for all mankind.”

It bears the signatures of Armstrong, Aldrin, Collins, and President Nixon.

Meanwhile, in Space

Mike Collins flew in the Command and Service Module (CSM) above the Moon, orbiting every 119 minutes at an altitude of 69 miles for more than a day, alone in the Columbia. The AGC running the COLOSSUS flight software accompanied him.

The lunar module spent part of the “night” on the Moon to start working on science experiments and moon rock collection the next day. After completing their mission on the surface of the Moon, the lunar module lifted off to rejoin Columbia in orbit, executing an intricate docking procedure.

At 130 hours, 30 minutes into the mission, Columbia transferred back the two-man crew and jettisoned the Eagle into lunar orbit, and several hours later began its burn back to Earth.

Apollo 11 Splashdown

The USS Hornet recovered the astronauts. Image: NASA

The American aircraft carrier USS Hornet departed from Honolulu, Hawaii, to retrieve the capsule after returning to Earth. The Apollo 11 capsule landed 2 miles off the intended landing area due to weather and seas. At 12:50 PM local time, after an 8-day voyage, the capsule, suspended by three parachutes, landed in the Pacific Ocean.

The astronauts would spend 21 days in quarantine. No humans had ever returned from an extraterrestrial body to Earth.

When they were released, there was a ticker-tape parade in New York City in front of 4 million people.

Everyone I knew celebrated it.

We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others, too.
–President John F. Kennedy, September 12, 1962. Rice University, 14 months before his assassination

Next stop, Mars?

Bill Petro, your friendly neighborhood historian
billpetro.com

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One hundred ninety-three years ago today, on July 26, 1833, the Slavery Abolition Act passed its third reading in the House of Commons, ensuring the end of slavery in the British Empire. William Wilberforce had championed the cause for nearly half a century. This article, published on the anniversary of the Act’s passage, also looks ahead to Wilberforce’s birthday on August 24.

William Wilberforce, British statesman and England’s greatest abolitionist, was well known to the Founding Fathers of the American Revolution and became not just a politician, philanthropist, and abolitionist but also a writer of such popularity (in his day) as C.S. Lewis was in the 20th century.

As I mentioned in my first article on the History of Amazing Grace, Wilberforce’s mentor was the song’s author, John Newton. The popular film “Amazing Grace” briefly tells the life of Wilberforce.

William Wilberforce was born in 1759 to privilege and wealth in 18th-century England and, though physically challenged, worked for nearly 20 years to push through Parliament bills for both the abolition of the slave trade and the emancipation of enslaved people in the British Empire almost 200 years ago.

Early Life of William Wilberforce

Born in Hull, Yorkshire, he was sent to live with an aunt and uncle in Wimbledon after his father died in 1768. As a young boy, briefly encountered the great evangelist George Whitefield.

The former slave-trading sea captain, pastor John Newton, also influenced him. However, he was returned to Hull because his mother and grandfather wanted him away from Newton’s influence, which they thought was too evangelical and “Methodist,” much too enthusiastic for respectable Anglicans.

Friendship with William Pitt

Following private school, Wilberforce took both his B.A. and M.A. at St. John’s College in Cambridge, where he began a lasting friendship with the future Prime Minister, William Pitt the Younger. But Wilberforce was not a serious student, and he was given to late nights of drinking, gambling, and card playing.

He was elected to Parliament at the age of 21, the youngest age at which one could be elected. He was noted for his charm and eloquence; his phenomenal rhetorical skill caused the young Prime Minister William Pitt later to challenge Wilberforce with a considerable undertaking — abolition.

The abolitionist Thomas Clarkson collaborated with Wilberforce as activists on the issue of slavery. Together, they proposed a dozen resolutions against the slave trade to Parliament. Wilberforce’s early optimism was met with one defeat after another, but these did not dissuade him from the cause against slavery or other issues.

Dramatic Change of William Wilberforce

What was the source of his motivation? At age 25, he heard the Gospel of Christ very clearly and converted in a way that changed his life. He would rise early in the morning to read his Bible, pray, and keep a journal. Within two years, he determined to serve God by serving the lowest and most ill-treated.

But what of his blossoming career in parliamentary politics? At this point, he decided to visit his old preacher, John Newton, now an influential Anglican clergyman installed as Rector of St. Mary Woolnoth in London. Wilberforce considered retiring from public life to engage fully in the spiritual life.

Newton helped Wilberforce understand that an awakened faith did not necessitate flight from society. He told him that just as Esther had been put in the palace of King Xerxes “for such a time as this,” Newton went on to say,

“…One may not be able to calculate all of the advantages that may result from your service in public life. The example, and even the presence of a consistent character, may have a powerful, though unobserved, effect upon others. You are in a place where many know Him not, and can show them the genuine fruits of the religion you are known to profess.”

At the age of 28, Wilberforce wrote in his diary:

“God Almighty has set before me two great objects, the suppression of the slave trade and the reformation of manners [morals].”

Though he continued to be plagued by poor health that kept him bedridden for weeks at a time, he attended to his causes. All his life, he suffered chronic ill health that included a crooked spine, poor eyesight, and stomach problems. He wrote:

“So enormous, so dreadful, so irremediable did the [slave] trade’s wickedness appear that my own mind was completely made up for abolition. Let the consequences be what they would: I from this time determined that I would never rest until I had effected its abolition.”

William Wilberforce’s Activism

When in 1797 he settled in Clapham, he became a member of the so-called “Clapham Sect,” a group of devout Christians dedicated to correcting social ills. Wilberforce was dedicated to and helped found numerous parachurch groups like the:

• Society for Bettering the Cause of the Poor

• Church Missionary Society

• British and Foreign Bible Society, the Antislavery Society

• Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.

He championed the cause of chimney sweeps, single mothers, Sunday schools, orphans, and juvenile delinquents. He supported 69 philanthropic causes, giving one-fourth of his annual income to the poor.

In the same year, Wilberforce completed writing his book “A Practical View of the Prevailing Religious System of Professed Christians in the Higher and Middle Classes of This Country Contrasted With Real Christianity,” which he’d been working on for some four years.

He spoke against the decline of morality in the nation, but more than anything, he gave his own personal testimony of his life following Christ and his views. His book became a bestseller and a strong and influential apologetic for a vital and living Christianity. The book sold widely for over forty years.

William Wilberforce’s Emancipation Bill

Though his previous Slave Trade Act passed in 1807 in Parliament called for the abolition of the slave trade, slavery itself continued. However, he always hoped for the emancipation of the slaves. He further campaigned that the emancipation of enslaved peoples was morally and ethically necessary and that British slavery was indeed a national crime that Parliament needed to legislate.

Compare this to the words 30 years earlier of Thomas Jefferson‘s well-known but unpublished portion of his Declaration of Independence — excised by the Second Continental Congress during debates between July 1 and July 3, 1776 — where Jefferson lays the blame upon Britain’s King George III:

He has waged cruel war against human nature itself, violating its most sacred rights of life & liberty in the persons of a distant people who never offended him, captivating & carrying them into slavery in another hemisphere or to incur miserable death in their transportation thither.

As old age set in, he lacked the vigor to work to its accomplishment, though he continued to attack it through speeches in public meetings and the House of Commons. Finally, 46 years after he began his fight in Parliament, the Slavery Abolition Act gathered sufficient support and had its final commons reading on July 26, 1833.

It expanded the jurisdiction of the Slave Trade Act 1807. It made the purchase or ownership of slaves illegal within the British Empire with three exceptions: the Territories in the Possession of the East India Company, Sri Lanka, and Saint Helena (an island in the Atlantic). Full emancipation in the British West Indies came in 1838, when the transitional apprenticeship system was abolished. All told, 800,000 slaves were freed, mainly in the Caribbean.

Wilberforce died just three days after the Act passed its final reading in the Commons, though he did not live to see it receive Royal Assent on August 28. He was buried in the north transept of Westminster Abbey next to his friend William Pitt, Prime Minister.

On the day he was laid to rest, both Houses of Parliament took a recess out of respect.

Bill Petro, your friendly neighborhood historian
billpetro.com

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Each year on July 14, Bastille Day commemorates the Storming of the Bastille in Paris in 1789, an important date in the French Revolution. Also known as French National Day, it features feasting, fireworks, public dancing, and an address by the French President.

However, the center of this celebration is the largest and oldest European military parade along the Avenue of the Champs-Élysées. This wide boulevard runs through Paris and is called la plus belle avenue du monde.

Lined by high-end shops and eateries, as well as the Arch of Triumph (l’Arc de Triomphe) near the western end, it is undoubtedly the most beautiful avenue in the world I’ve walked along.

Bastille Day is celebrated across the globe wherever French expatriates, people of French ancestry, and Francophiles live.

What is its origin, how has it been celebrated, what’s the American connection, what does it mean today?

Origin of Bastille Day

The event’s history goes back to 1789 in France’s monarchy under King Louis XVI, when he convened the Estates-General, where the Third Estate, the common people, voiced their grievances about high taxes and rising food prices. The people were unhappy about the economic crisis brought on by:

• Louis’ extravagant spending at Versailles

• The building of his navy

• His financial support of the American Revolution, thanks to the negotiations of Benjamin Franklin, the first American Minister to France

The Third Estate declared itself the National Assembly on June 17, 1789, and swore the famous Tennis Court Oath on June 20. Five days later, on July 9, the Assembly reconstituted itself as the National Constituent Assembly — still nearly a week before the Bastille fell.

It was the king’s perceived threat to that Assembly — including his dismissal of the popular finance minister Necker on July 11 and the massing of royal troops around Paris — that helped trigger what followed. On July 14, fear of reprisal drove the people to storm the fortress and prison known as the Bastille, seizing gunpowder and ammunition. This was considered the start of the French Revolution.

Historical Irony:

The Bastille held only seven prisoners when stormed — and they were not heroic political prisoners. The symbol of royal tyranny held seven largely unremarkable inmates on the day it fell.

The National Constituent Assembly, already in session, continued its transformative work in the weeks that followed. It abolished feudalism of the Ancien Régime on August 4, 1789, and passed the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen later that month, which became a fundamental document of the French Revolution.

The following year, on July 14, 1790, the Fête de la Fédération was held to celebrate.

Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité

Historical Progression of Bastille Day

As we now know, the celebration commemorated in a painting by Claude Monet called Rue Montorgueil was held on June 30, 1878. It became an annual national holiday. Throughout the 1880s, it was celebrated famously as a victory over the ancien régime, when the monarchy ruled France. Bastille Day didn’t become the official French national holiday until July 6, 1880, first celebrated that July 14. The Monet painting is a lovely illustration of French national celebration, but it’s technically depicting a different holiday.

The military parades we now see began along the main boulevard, including marches by the Allies following the signing of the Treaty of Versailles after World War I on June 28, 1919. The Bastille Day parade of July 14, 1919, was the famous Allied Victory Parade following the armistice and treaty.

Of course, the Liberation of Paris in World War II — 80 days after D-Day — was celebrated here along the Champs-Élysées on August 25, 1944. (My father visited Paris as a U.S. soldier during WWII some months later.) The parades pass along the boulevard from the Arc de Triomphe to the Place de la Concorde, where the Champs-Élysées ends. Beyond that are the Jardin des Tuileries (Tuileries Garden) and the Impressionist art gallery Musée de l’Orangerie. If you keep walking, you’ll reach the Louvre.

Ironically, Place de la Concorde was called Place de la Révolution. Many notable public executions were carried out by guillotine during the French Revolution, including those of King Louis XVI and Queen Marie Antoinette in 1793.

American Connection to Bastille Day

This “Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen” document was written in August 1789 with French General Lafayette. “Gilbert du Motier, Marquis de Lafayette,” had previously come to America to aid George Washington and the Continental Army in the American Revolutionary War in 1777. Thomas Jefferson, the author of the Declaration of Independence, was a close friend of General Lafayette and reviewed drafts of the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen.

It was influenced by Jefferson’s other writings, including the American Declaration of Independence, and itself inspired the later 1948 United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights. As the Declaration of Independence led later to the writing of the American Constitution, so too did the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, which led to the drafting of a constitution for France.

And Bastille Day is strategically placed after the American National French Fry Day.

Bastille Day Today

Bastille Day, or La Fête Nationale, the National Celebration, or simply Le Quatorze Juillet, the Fourteenth of July, has been celebrated for over two hundred years in Paris, except during the German occupation during World War II, when General Charles de Gaulle led it in London.

The French say,

“Vive la France!”

How do you celebrate la fête du 14 juillet?

Guillaume Petro, your friendly neighborhood historian
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July 13th is National French Fry Day. While no one knows who began this celebration, placing it on July 13 is significant in that the important French holiday is the next day, July 14, Bastille Day.

Did they originate in France, why are they called that, who else enjoys them, and what is their history?

History of French Fries

Some French people might call the delectable potato confection Belgian Fries, and there is evidence that they may have originated there.

One story is that the phrase “French Fried Potatoes” first appeared in English in 1856 in the cookbook Cookery for Maids of All Work by E. Warren.

Another story, which is more likely, is that they were first called “French Fries” by American soldiers stationed in Belgium during World War I. After first tasting them, the Yanks called them “French” fries as it was the official language of their fellow Belgian soldiers. While they brought the name home with them, the term existed long before that in English.

A Belgian journalist claims that a 1781 family manuscript tells of deep-fried potatoes in the Spanish Netherlands (now Belgium) before the 1680s. The fact that potatoes did not arrive in that area until around 1735 makes this a hot potato. Eating potatoes for food was popularized in France by King Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette, who wore potato blossoms in their buttonholes and hair.

From the New World

Potatoes are not native to Europe but came from the New World when Spanish conquistadors brought them back from Peru in the early 15th century. This is why J.R.R. Tolkien, at the suggestion of his careful readers, removed them from his mid-60s versions of his Hobbit and Lord of the Rings books, but the subsequent Peter Jackson films did not.

What’s In a Name: French Fries

You can find these at a plethora of places that provide provender under names like these: Frituur, Frietkot, or Friterie.

In France, they’re called frites, from pommes frites, or “potato fries.” Potato in French is pomme de terre, which literally means “ground apple.” But everyone calls them just frites. I learned this embarrassingly.

On one of my first speaking trips to Paris, I was ordering lunch at a burger shop in the food court of the Carrousel du Louvre, beneath the Louvre Museum, and saw the word frites on the menu. I asked:

“Qu est ce que ça veut dire ‘frites’?” (What does ‘frites,’ mean?)

The answer I got back, in plain English:

“Fries.”

In Belgium: “Belgian fries,” though to distinguish them, they are often twice-fried. The first bath is called blanching.

In England: “Chips” as in “fish and chips.” Sometimes more thickly cut. You can get them in shops wrapped in newspaper.

In India: “finger chips.”

Condiments for French Fries

• Ketchup: the most popular dipping sauce in the U.S.

• Ranch Dressing: surprisingly, the second most popular in the U.S.

• Mayonnaise: a favorite in continental Europe

• Dijon Mustard: for the last 40 years, a popular sauce in France

• Aioli: another French favorite, drizzled upon the potato delicacies

• Vinegar: especially malt vinegar, is most favored in England and the Commonwealth

French Fries in America

Between the time he worked on the Declaration of Independence and when he became the Third President of the United States, Thomas Jefferson spent time in Paris as the Minister to France (1785–1789). During one White House dinner in 1802, he served “potatoes served in the French manner.”

In the 1940s, the J.R. Simplot Company commercialized frozen French fries, and in 1967, Ray Kroc of McDonald’s fame contracted the company to supply them with them. Since the 1960s, most fries in the U.S. have been produced from frozen Russet potatoes, which have been blanched or at least air-dried industrially.

The popular In-N-Out Burger, in contrast, still serves fresh-cut fries.

Celebration of French Fries

How should one observe this holiday? A trip to the most popular American purveyors of this delicacy would include McDonald’s, Chick-fil-A, or Burger King. Or Carl’s Jr, Five Guys, Arby’s, Dairy Queen, Steak N Shake, Shake Shack, Jack in the Box, Sonic, KFC, In-N-Out.

Here’s how the Los Angeles Times food columnist Lucas Kwan Peterson ranked America’s fries in a manner that he called “the authoritative, totally not subjective, incontrovertibly definitive and 100% correct” way:

Would you like some fries with that?

Bill Petro, your friendly neighborhood historian
billpetro.com

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On July 10, 1509, in Noyon, France, Jehan Cauvin, known to us as John Calvin, was born. Of all the leaders of the Protestant Reformation, none was more significant in forming biblical theology or ecclesiastic thought than this one man. Calvin’s teaching and tradition penetrated more of the world than any other Protestant tradition.

He most influenced the worldview of Western Europe, the UK, and the Americas until the 20th century. His organization of the church government in Geneva influenced the church polity of Presbyterianism. His theology influenced the Congregational (Puritan) and German and Dutch Reformed Churches. Though they did not fellowship with Calvinistic churches, some Baptists and Unitarians often contained aspects of his theology.

Not every historian agrees with Calvin’s views, but every historian has to deal with Calvin.

Who was this singular Reformer, why did he work in Geneva, and what did he influence?

John Calvin’s Influence on America

Men influenced by John Calvin inspired many ideas incorporated into the American Constitution. He had a healthy view of the depravity of man, the need for checks and balances in government, the division of powers, and the provision for the rightful and orderly succession of rulers.

Founding Father James Madison was strongly influenced by the Scottish Presbyterian (Calvinist) Reverend John Witherspoon, the only clergyman to sign the Declaration of Independence.

Witherspoon was a descendant of the Scottish Reformer John Knox. Knox, once chaplain to the English King Edward VI, subsequently became a student of Calvin in Geneva, calling it:

“the most perfect school of Christ since the days of the Apostles.”

Witherspoon had been president of the Presbyterian school, Princeton (then known as the College of New Jersey). Madison spent another year after graduating, studying Hebrew and political philosophy under Witherspoon.

Unlike Martin Luther‘s Germany, which operated under a monarchy, Calvin’s Geneva was a republic. Calvin’s emphasis on representative bodies — similar to his church’s board of Elders (Consistory) — had spread throughout Northern Europe, where his followers became agents of change. Calvin’s emphasis on universal education led him to the formation of his Academy there:

“to train men for the preaching of the gospel.”

It later became known as the University of Geneva.

Economics and Calvinism

What about economics? Popular theory holds that Protestants, especially Calvinists of the Dutch, Scottish, and English varieties, played a significant role in the rise of modern Capitalism. With the “Protestant work ethic” — a sense of thrift, dignity of work, and industry — Capitalism thrived in northern Europe.

It generally rolled over all competing theories either by its superior worth or simply by the economic power generated by the type of people subscribing to a Calvinist view of work and man.

Even when Calvin’s original religious and theological vision was long lost, as it was in men like the 18th-century Unitarian New England Yankees, the spirit of hard work and duty nonetheless lived on for hundreds of years.

Not until Marxism in the last century or two was a theory that captured the imagination as much as the Protestant-inspired Capitalistic view. Calvin also felt that greed was one of the chief examples of idolatry. How prescient, considering today’s economic woes. His motto was:

Prompte et sincere in opere Domini

… ever ready to act “promptly and sincerely in the work of the Lord.”

A Detour for John Calvin

Though Calvin was initially educated for a position in the church in France, his father encouraged him to study law. After his father’s death, Calvin returned to his interest in the Humanities. But “providentially,” as Calvin later concluded, he had to detour through Geneva on his way to Strasbourg and was confronted by the thunderous Reformed evangelist Guillaume Farel.

The French evangelist challenged Calvin to stay and assist him in the work of the Reformation in Geneva, a town of approximately 10,000, where he had been laboring for four years already.

Farel had read Calvin’s magnum opus — and best-selling — Institutes of the Christian Religion and pressed his case upon Calvin, who was 20 years his junior.

When Calvin refused, as he later wrote:

“Farel who burned with an extraordinary zeal to advance the gospel, immediately strained every nerve and after having learned that my heart was set upon devoting myself to private studies for which I wished to keep myself free from other pursuits, and finding that he gained nothing by entreaties, he proceeded to utter an imprecation that God would curse my retirement and tranquility of the studies which I sought, if I should withdraw and refused to give assistance when the necessity was so urgent. By this imprecation I was so stricken with terror that I desisted from the journey I had undertaken.”

John Calvin in Geneva

Calvin took Farel’s imprecation seriously. Over more than two decades, Calvin lived and worked in Geneva, transforming it into a veritable ecclesiocracy — a “new world order” of Protestantism. This Genius of Geneva lived to write a commentary on almost every book of the Bible. He developed a representative form of church government that included pastors, teachers, elders, and deacons.

He died as he had lived and for the same purpose. A month before he died, he wrote in his last will and testament:

“I have always faithfully propounded what I esteemed to be for the glory of God.”

Near the end, when he was urged to rest, he said,

“What! Would you have the Lord find me idle when he comes?”

The Spread of Calvinism

Calvinism spread to France, Germany, Hungary, the Netherlands, Scotland, England, and the United States. It is the foundation of “Reformed” Protestantism, especially of European Reformed churches and Presbyterianism. But it has also influenced Baptist theology.

As Time Magazine reported almost 80 years ago in its February 24, 1947, issue, “Calvinist Comeback?”

“It came to New England with the Puritans, to New York with the Dutch Reformed, and to Pennsylvania with the German Reformed. And wherever Scottish Presbyterians went… it went with them.”

Bill Petro, your friendly neighborhood historian
billpetro.com

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In response to a recent article I published, one of my readers asked me this question:

“Is America a Christian country?”

My students have asked me this question often over the years. It usually takes me several lessons to lay the historical foundation to address the question. The answer is complex, and in today’s partisan-charged political climate, it may seem provocative, but it deserves a better answer than a simple “yes and no.”

Much of the answer depends on one’s definitions — because the different meanings yield different answers. To begin:

1) What is meant by America? (and when)

2) What is meant by Christian? (whose definition)

But the more nuanced answer also depends on:

3) Who is asked, and what do they intend to do with the answer?

Let’s explore the different ways of examining the question.

Q1. What is meant by America?

The question is usually asked about the United States at some point in our history. Here are some historical snapshots:

Example 1: In 1630

In 17th-century Puritan New England, the Massachusetts Bay Colony had a unique charter that differed from other colonies. It allowed an unusual degree of self-government because the company charter itself was transferred to New England from England. The colony developed a government closely intertwined with Puritan religious leadership under a theocratic approach.

Was it Christian?

Absolutely. They saw themselves as “a city on a hill,” based on a 1630 sermon by Puritan John Winthrop, traditionally believed to have been delivered aboard the Arbella, flagship of the Winthrop Fleet and the lead ship of the Great Puritan Migration of 1630. The fleet brought about 1,000 Puritans to New England. The total migration saw about 20,000 Puritans emigrating from England to North America.

Winthrop quoted from Matthew 5:14–16:

“You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden. Nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a stand, and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.

They hoped to demonstrate to Old England, and the rest of Europe, an example of a true Christian society. They operated as a Biblical Commonwealth: they sought the guidance of Scripture in all aspects of citizens’ lives, with Scriptural authority applied to many criminal statutes.

Was it America?

Not America as a nation. It was a colony of ‘British America’ rather than the independent United States. The original Puritan charter government lasted about 60 years until the revocation of the charter in 1691, when the Crown merged Plymouth Colony and the Province of Maine with the Massachusetts Bay Colony into a single royal Province. As a British American colony, it was not yet the United States — no more ‘U.S. America’ than colonial Virginia or New France.

Example 2: In 1776

Did Christianity influence the founding of the United States in 1776? The short answer is “Yes,” though there were other major influences at the time, including the Enlightenment. I discuss this in greater detail in my earlier article, American Revolution: Reason and Religion.

Was it America?

Certainly, the Declaration of Independence starts with “The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen “united States of America.”

Was it Christian?

I’ll “parse” the different aspects of the answer below.

Example 3: In the Mid-1800s

The Second Great Awakening of the early 1800s was a Christian revival that swept throughout the United States like a fire. It saw dramatically more converts and a far larger percentage of the population converted, compared to the First Great Awakening in the early and mid 1700s, which I discussed here. This Second Great Awakening was a transformative religious revival that fundamentally reshaped American culture, social life, and even politics. It influenced virtually every major social movement in the United States, including abolitionism, temperance, and expanded women’s public roles.

Was it America?

It was certainly a larger territory of the country and a larger percentage of the population than previously. The U.S. had 26 states by 1840.

Was it Christian?

One could say it established a precedent for faith-driven societal transformation, providing a sense of community and a moral framework for a nation undergoing rapid expansion and social change. The Second Great Awakening shaped the moral and partisan climate of the 1828 and 1840 elections, during which voter turnout rose dramatically.

Q2. What is meant by Christian?

The answer to this question depends on who one asks and what definition they operate upon:

1. If one were to ask a person in a church Sunday School class, they might say something like:

“A Christian is someone who has put their faith in Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior, trusting in him for salvation of their sins and guidance to live a life as he commanded.”

Let’s call this:

Christian with a capital “C.”

2. If one were to ask one’s next-door neighbor, they might say something like:

“I try to live by the Ten Commandments and the Golden Rule. I’m faithful to my spouse, I don’t cheat on my taxes, and I try to go to church on Christmas and Easter.”

This sentiment may not be unique to Christianity and is indicative of a nominal Christian, a person who identifies as a Christian because of family tradition or cultural background, but lacks an active personal faith in Jesus Christ.

Let’s call this:

Christian with a small “c.”

3. If one were to ask the “man on the street” if America is a Christian country, they might say something like:

“Of course, America is a Christian country. We’re not a Muslim or Hindu country. We’re not a country of Buddhists or Shintoists.”

Let’s call this:

Christian with no “c.”

Q3. Who is asked, and what do they intend to do with the answer?

The person asked this question may have their own perspective, experience, and personal biases. They may only understand the answer through their “grid”.

Example 1: a Non-American

A person who is a visitor, foreign tourist, or knows of America from what they read or see on TV and movies may see the answer this way:

“Is America a Christian country? Yes, it’s not like my country at all, which has a different religion, culture, and history.”

They might be a European who perceives their Western society as post-Christian. Or they may live elsewhere, in a country that is majority Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, animist, or atheist.

They may see America as the land of opportunity where one might pursue the “American Dream”; they might envy the U.S. Witness the social media posts of international tourists in the U.S. for the World Cup — estimates range from 1m to 10M — who are amazed by America’s kindness and abundance.

If, on the other hand, they live in a society that is Christophobic, they may see America as an enemy.

Historical Trivia:

Alexis de Tocqueville, a young French magistrate, traveled widely in the US in 1831 — admittedly some fourty years after the U.S. Constitution — and wrote about his observations and reflections in his book Democracy in America. He concluded:

“There is no country in the whole world in which the Christian religion retains a greater influence over the souls of men than in America.”

Example 2: a Christian Nationalist

While the meaning is currently hotly debated, and the term itself is contested among historians, political scientists, and even Christians as to what it means, an advocate of this ideology might say:

”We need to take our country back as a Christian country; it may not be one now, but it once was, and it should be again. We’re obliged to restore it and recover our heritage.”

This person harkens back to some period in America’s past that they believe was Christian and wants to reinstitute it, framing politics as spiritual warfare against secularism and pluralism.

Example 3: a Secular Liberal

Secular Liberal T-shirt. Source: Printerval

At the other end of the spectrum, a more liberal or progressive American might say either:

“Is America a Christian country? Yes, it was, and we must get past it.”

or:

“No, we never were, and we should stay that way.”

Is it Yes, No, or Maybe?

Correct.

Looking again, particularly at the Founding in 1776 and the subsequent U.S. Constitution of 1789:

Yes: Culturally and Demographically

Unlike at the federal level, nine of the thirteen original states had an “established” state church; most of the state constitutions required those who served in government to make a profession of faith, like that of Delaware:

Every person who shall be chosen a member of either house to any office or place of trust… [shall] also make and subscribe the following declaration, to wit:

“I do profess faith in God the Father, and in Jesus Christ His only Son, and in the Holy Ghost, one God, blessed for evermore; and I do acknowledge the holy scriptures of the Old and New Testament to be given by divine inspiration.”

All 56 signers of the Declaration of Independence had some formal affiliation with a church. They were closer in time to the First Great Awakening than the signers of the U.S. Constitution. Their “devotion” is subject to how one defines “Christian”; see Question 2 above. Nevertheless, some were notably and outspokenly Christian with a capital “C”:

• John Witherspoon (pastor, professor, college president)

• Roger Sherman (Committee of Five who crafted the Declaration of Independence, orthodox Congregationalist shaped by Reformed Calvinistic theology)

• Samuel Adams (deeply Calvinistic)

• Benjamin Rush (evangelical Protestant, active in Pennsylvania Bible Society and the American Sunday School Union)

• Charles Carroll (the only Catholic signer, was devout)

• Others (perhaps 10–20 more, had an active orthodox personal faith, some with documented church leadership roles)

• There were a handful of other signers who were considered deists or skeptics. (i.e., Franklin and Jefferson, who held heterodox religious views by the time of the Revolution)

Of the 39 signers of the U.S. Constitution:

• All had a denominational identity

• Perhaps 10–20 demonstrated clear evidence of an active personal faith;

• A few deists (with no “c”)

• An undocumented group in the middle (with a small “c”)

In their writing, the Founders commonly cited other authors and books. The single most-referenced book, with over a third of those attributions, was the Bible. Specifically, the Old Testament, particularly Deuteronomy, according to political scientist Donald Lutz, who found that Bible citations were employed in a broad sample of American political writings between 1760 and 1805.

America at the founding was overwhelmingly Protestant, and Christian assumptions shaped everything from common law to public rhetoric. It was reflected in the very fabric of the calendar:

• All states had Sunday Blue Laws where businesses were closed, courts didn’t sit, and legislatures didn’t meet

• The calendar universally used A.D., Anno Domini, “in the Year of our Lord”

• Christmas and Easter became anchoring points of the American year

• The First Continental Congress and subsequent legislatures built their calendars around Christian holidays. Chaplains opened legislative sessions with prayer

• Academic calendars were structured around the Christian liturgical year for terms, breaks, and graduation ceremonies not to conflict with Christian holidays. This included Harvard, Yale, Princeton, and William and Mary

Even in modern times, according to several recent polls, roughly two-thirds of Americans (60%-64%) identify as “Christian”… combining small “c” and capital “C”. This number has been declining — in 2007 Pew Research reported that 78% of Americans identified as Christian — but the percentage has now stabilized since 2019. If America is not now post-Christian, as Europe is, it is post-Biblical.

No: Legally and Constitutionally

The U.S. Constitution makes no substantive references to God, except perhaps the last sentence:

“Seventeenth Day of September in the Year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and Eighty seven.”

There was an explicit effort in the U.S. Constitution to prevent a faith test for officeholders (like the state constitutions) by originally prohibiting Congress from establishing a national church while allowing the exercise of religious freedom (1st Amendment).

The Founders did not want a state church, like England had (Anglican). They established freedom of religion, not freedom from religion, except if it was the imposed religion of an established state church.

Nevertheless, as I’ve written, the Constitution was crafted under the influence of Christian (influenced by Presbyterian polity) principles as well as more secular Enlightenment principles.

Maybe: Contested Issues

I’ve previously written on the influence of the First Great Awakening revival and the clergy’s role in promoting independence. But at the same time, there is no doubt of the influence of Enlightenment writers like Paine (clearly secular), Locke, and Montesquieu.

My old sociology of religion professor, Robert Bellah, applied and developed the term ‘civil religion‘ — originally coined by Rousseau — to describe the more generic providential language (à la Abraham Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Address) that draws heavily from biblical imagery and invokes God without privileging one faith or fusing it with ethnic identity.

U.S. presidents have leveraged this language by employing “city on a hill” rhetoric as a national touchstone in their public speeches:

• John F. Kennedy: specifically referred to John Winthrop’s sermon in his 1961 address to the Massachusetts General Court, just ahead of his inauguration.

• Ronald Reagan: used it in his 1974 CPAC speech, the 1980 campaign, his 1984 acceptance speech, and his 1989 Farewell Address.

• Barack Obama: used it in his 2006 University of Massachusetts, Boston commencement address as senator.

Even non-presidential leaders like Sandra Day O’Connor and Mario Cuomo used it as well.

Summary

If one were to push on the original question a bit harder, one might conclude that America at the time of its founding had a Christian character — based on the faith of its Founders and the overwhelmingly Protestant identity of its people — such that:

• If you define “Christian” with no “c” — culturally and by contrast to other world religions — then virtually all of the Founders qualified

• If you define “Christian” with a small “c” — nominal faith, church affiliation, Christian moral framework — then nearly all of them qualified

• If you define “Christian” with a capital “C” — active, orthodox, personally declared faith — then a significant minority (perhaps 15–25 of the 56 Declaration signers) openly and demonstrably qualified

Conclusion

It would be historically defensible to assert America was founded by a mostly Christian people who deliberately created a non-sectarian (religiously neutral) government — a nation with a Christian culture but a secular constitution. Where one places the emphasis is where the argument lives.

Bill Petro, your friendly neighborhood historian
billpetro.com

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Part of the series on America 250, the US Semiquincentennial

Our quarter-millennium experiment with non-monarchical self-government, now 250 years old, remains singular in history. See my previous article on the American uniqueness compared to other nations throughout history.

Congress had authorized George Washington to command the Continental Army in June 1775. In time, the American Revolutionary War would gain the country’s independence.

The Treaty of Paris in 1783 officially ended the American Revolutionary War against the colonial power that had previously ruled us, Great Britain. King George III of Great Britain had the world’s most powerful navy, but the American Colonies threw off British control through several battles that began in 1775.

But would the country’s government be a democracy or a republic?

Definition of Democracy and Republic

It may seem that these words are synonymous, and in some cases, they’re used interchangeably. But the difference between their meanings is subtle yet profound. While there may appear to be overlap, they are quite distinct, as I’ll illustrate.

There are several definitions of these words. To be clear, I am not talking about the current political parties, “Democrat” or “Republican.” Let me use the most universally agreed-upon meanings that are also useful in differentiating these two words:

• Democracy: government by the entire population of citizens. The Greek roots are demos (people) + kratia (rule).

• Republic: government whereby citizens elect representatives delegated to rule for them. The Latin is Res Publica (public affair), something held in common by many people.

Stated differently:

A direct democracy allows citizens to have the authority to deliberate and decide legislation without reliance on intermediaries or representatives. Majority rule stipulates that an election by the largest percentage of voting citizens decides a matter. A democracy is often contrasted with an aristocracy (rule by “the best”), a monarchy (rule by a monarch), or a dictatorship (rule by an autocrat).

A republic, by comparison, rules through representatives elected by the citizenry to its governing bodies. Examples include the UK’s House of Commons, while the U.S. has the House of Representatives and the Senate. While this type of government is sometimes called a representative democracy, or an indirect democracy, it is crucial to keep these two terms distinct, as we’ll see later.

America’s Brief Experiment with a limited Democracy

America had briefly experimented with a democracy of sorts after the Revolutionary War, but the Founding Fathers, the Framers of the American government, did not prefer a democracy.

Adopted by Congress on November 15, 1777, and ratified by all 13 states on March 1, 1781, the Articles of Confederation became the new nation’s first governing document. However, the Framers recognized the unworkable weaknesses of these Articles: they had established a loose confederation of sovereign states with a feeble central government — a poor basis for a functioning federal system. The democratic excess was in the States.

The Articles allowed each State, as a sovereign entity, to establish its own foreign trade policy. Each State had only one vote in Congress, regardless of size. The Federal Congress did not have the power to tax, maintain a standing army, regulate interstate commerce, or formulate foreign trade. There existed no executive branch to enforce any laws passed by Congress.

Several state governments of the 1780s (Pennsylvania’s radically democratic 1776 constitution, the paper-money and debtor-relief legislatures, Shays’ Rebellion) alarmed the Framers. It was this unchecked majoritarianism in the states that James Madison had in view when he wrote Federalist Paper №10.

A meeting was set in Philadelphia on May 25, 1787. This became the Constitutional Convention. The delegates there, led by James Madison, realized that changes would not be sufficient. Instead, the entire Articles of Confederation needed to be replaced with a new U.S. Constitution that would dictate the structure of the national government.

James Madison: Father of the Constitution

James Madison’s formative years were spent at Princeton (College of New Jersey), as I’ve written previously.

He studied under the supervision of John Witherspoon, a Presbyterian minister who was the college’s president and a professor there. Madison studied Latin, Greek, and theology, as well as the works of the Enlightenment.

Madison had contemplated entering the ministry or practicing law following his graduation, but instead decided to remain at Princeton to study Hebrew and political philosophy under Witherspoon.

Witherspoon profoundly influenced Madison’s ideas on morality, philosophy, and political theory. Historians have noted parallels between Witherspoon’s Presbyterian polity (church government) and the subsequent U.S. Constitution, which Madison, the primary architect, drafted and promoted.

Presbyterian theology is based on the Calvinist doctrine of human sinfulness — drawing on St. Augustine, who developed it from St. Paul — and the need for God’s grace and human institutions as checks and balances.

Madison’s famous argument in Federalist Paper №51 — “ambition must be made to counteract ambition” — reflects the Presbyterian assumption that human nature is fallen. Therefore, no person or institution should be trusted with unchecked power.

More specifically, Witherspoon translated Calvinist political thought into the language of the Enlightenment, which Madison then operationalized in the Constitution. Witherspoon argued that Presbyterian polity demonstrated proof of concept: representative self-government actually worked in practice, not just in theory.

Madison held that direct democracy led to factional tyranny, instability, and mob rule, whereas a Republican government would effectively combat partisanship and factionalism. Here are some of the parallels between Witherspoon’s Presbyterian polity and the U.S. Constitution:

1. Representative Governance

Both systems reject the rule of a single individual (such as a monarch or a bishop) in favor of representative leadership.

• Presbyterian Polity: Governance is conducted through a series of graded councils — including local congregational Session, regional Presbytery, and national General Assembly — composed of elders (presbyters) elected by the congregation. This is in contrast to episcopal (bishop) or congregational (democratic) forms of church government. See my explanation here.

• U.S. Constitution: The government is a republic where citizens elect representatives to exercise legislative and executive power. Local → State → Federal.

2. Checks and Balances

Both systems incorporate mechanisms to prevent the concentration of power.

• Presbyterian Polity: The “plurality of elders” ensures that no single person holds absolute authority; decisions are made by groups (councils) rather than individuals. This polity shaped the structure — not just the spirit — of the American republic.

• U.S. Constitution: Power is divided among the legislative, executive, and judicial branches, creating a system of separation of powers.

3. Constitutionalism and Written Law

Both the church and the state rely on a written “constitution” to define their identity and operational rules.

• Presbyterian Polity: The church operates under a Constitution consisting of the Bible, standards of faith (such as the Westminster Confession of Faith), and a Book of Order (or Form of Government). Some historians note that American Presbyterians used the term “Constitution” for their governing documents even before the political Founders did.

• U.S. Constitution: The nation is governed by a supreme written document that establishes the framework of government and limits its power.

4. Distinction between Republic and Democracy

• Presbyterian Polity: Witherspoon explicitly taught that pure democracy was unstable, while representative republican governance was both viable and morally legitimate.

• Federalist Paper №10: This is precisely the argument Madison makes in Federalist №10 when he says, “A republic, by which I mean a government in which the scheme of representation takes place, opens a different prospect, and promises the cure for which we are seeking. Let us examine the points in which it varies from pure democracy, and we shall comprehend both the nature of the cure and the efficacy which it must derive from the Union…”

Historical Trivia:

Twelve of the 56 signers of the Declaration of Independence were Presbyterians.

What the Founding Fathers Said About a Democracy

The Founding Fathers were outspoken about their opinions on democracy:

John Adams:

“Democracy will soon degenerate into an anarchy, such an anarchy that every man will do what is right in his own eyes, and no man’s life or property or reputation or liberty will be secure and every one of these will soon mold itself into a system of subordination of all the moral virtues, and intellectual abilities, all the powers of wealth, beauty, wit, and science, to the wanton pleasures, the capricious will, and the execrable cruelty of one or a very few.”

“Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There is never a democracy that did not commit suicide.”

George Washington:

“It is one of the evils of democratical governments, that the people, not always seeing and frequently misled, must often feel before they can act right; but evils of this nature seldom fail to work their own cure.”

Alexander Hamilton:

“If we incline too much to democracy, we shall soon shoot into a monarchy.”
“Real liberty is neither found in despotism or the extremes of democracy, but in moderate governments.”
“It has been observed that a pure democracy if it were practicable would be the most perfect government. Experience has proved that no position is more false than this. The ancient democracies in which the people themselves deliberated never possessed one good feature of government. Their very character was tyranny; their figure deformity.” –his speech at the New York ratifying convention, June 1788

James Madison:

“Pure democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention; have ever been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property; and have in general been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths.” –Federalist Paper №10

John Jay (First Chief Justice of the Supreme Court):

“Too many in your state, as in this, love pure democracy dearly. They seem not to consider that pure democracy, like pure rum, easily produces intoxication, and with it a thousand mad pranks and fooleries.” –from a letter to Judge Richard Peters, July 24, 1809

The American Republic

Instead, the Founding Fathers preferred a constitutional republic over a democracy.

Thomas Jefferson:

“The republican is the only form of government which is not eternally at open or secret war with the rights of mankind.” –letter to William Hunter, March 11, 1790

John Adams:

the very definition of a Republic, is “an Empire of Laws, and not of men.” –Thoughts on Government (1776)

James Madison:

“Where a majority are united by a common sentiment, and have an opportunity, the rights of the minor party become insecure.” –his June 6, 1787 speech at the Convention

Ben Franklin, responding to a question as he left the Constitutional Convention of 1787:

“Well, doctor, what have we got, a republic or a monarchy?” His reply:
“A republic, madam, if you can keep it.” –recorded in James McHenry’s convention notes, of a reply to Elizabeth Willing Powel

Factoids of American Uniqueness

This distinctive form of self-government has produced significant and enduring benefits to America, some unique in all the world:

• The country has grown from 13 colonies with about 2.5 million people to 50 states, 5 inhabited territories plus numerous island possessions, and 1 district, with a population of more than 340 million.

• The economy has swelled to nearly $32T.

• Advances in public health — public sanitation, the germ theory of disease, and more — have cut the child mortality rate from more than 45% to under 1%, and our citizens live over 35 years longer on average.

• We’ve built almost 4 million miles of public roads, 161,000 miles of federally supported highways, more than 5,000 public airports, and 15,000 private airports.

• The U.S. power grid is one of the most extensive electrical systems on Earth, with more than 200,000 miles of high-voltage transmission lines.

• Over 91% of households have access to broadband Internet, and 95% have at least one computer.

• In 1800, 94% of the population lived in rural areas; now, about 80% live in urban areas.

• The U.S. has been responsible for hundreds of human spaceflights, more than all other countries with a space agency combined.

• Scientific achievements in the U.S. have delivered everything from the practical incandescent light bulb, modern flight, and the Internet to air conditioning, the polio vaccine, and Hollywood and the modern film industry.

Happy birthday, America.

Bill Petro, your friendly neighborhood historian
billpetro.com

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