March 6, 2019
Dearest Readers,
Never, ever let me take this many days off in a row again! Every apology is issued.
Let’s get back to work.
Many thanks for reading,
Cheers!
xoxoxo
Kaitlyn
THE ALMANAC
On This Date:
In 1857 – The United States Supreme Court issues its ruling in Dred Scott v. Sanford. The case was brought by a slave named Dred Scott who sued for his freedom after his master John Sanford had taken him to free states and territories. Among other things, the court’s ruling said blacks whose ancestors were slaves could not be citizens of the United States whether they were free or not. It also held, among other things, that the federal government could regulate slavery in territories acquired after the creation of the US. The decision would be superseded by both the Civil Rights Act of 1866 and the 14th Amendment to the Constitution. Scott and his family would be given their freedom in 1857, and he worked a hotel porter in St Louis while is wife took in laundry.
In 1967 – Svetlana Alliluyeva, the daughter of former Soviet Premier Joseph Stalin, defects to the United States after entering the US embassy in New Dehli, India. She was immediately flown to Rome and then to Geneva, ultimately arriving in the United States in April. She became a US citizen in 1978 and later returned to the Soviet Union and reclaimed her Soviet citizenship. She later became a British citizen, but returned to the United States, dying in southern Wisconsin in 2011.
Top of the Charts
#1 songs on this date in 1976:
Hot 100 – Love Machine (Part 1)…The Miracles (only week)
Soul Chart – Boogie Fever…The Sylvers (only week)
Country Chart – Good Hearted Woman…Waylon and Willie (3rd of three weeks)
Album Chart – Desire…Bob Dylan (5th of five weeks)
– Chart data courtesy of Billboard.
Numbers Racket
10,667: the continuous number of days the US has been at war.
22.107: the number of dollars, in trillions, of America’s national debt. – Source: usdebtclock.org
614: days until Election Day 2020.
Philosophy 101
Niagara will witness the passing of the human species…Such ceaselessness had its parallel in his own life…the inner demand to make something of himself…to swim upstream against formidable obstacles.
Fred Kaplan
Lincoln: The Biography of a Writer
Abraham Lincoln is a good example of a lot of things, but more than anything he is a good example of someone who knew what he wanted from life and then went out and tried to get it. He had and answered the inner demand to make something of himself.
I believe all of us have this demand. Those that get on in this life, those who at the end are looking back at time well spent yield to that demand. Those that are looking back on time squandered, at a life that is less than what they wanted, ignore that demand.
Those that do get on in this world do not have any special powers or any greater luck than we have. They merely have the commitment to make their time serve them. They wake up every morning, determine what they should be doing that day and then go and do it.
We should have that same commitment. If we are going to look back at time well spent we must have the wisdom to know the life we are meant to live, the courage to go and live that life and the patience to see the road through until the day we die. When we do, we will live the life we are meant to live, life’s great prize.
Fred Kaplan is an American writer.
Abraham Lincoln was the 16th president of the United States.