Truly, history’s most famous concert is a matter for debate. But the performance of Marian Anderson at the Lincoln Memorial on April 9 of 1939 was memorable for a host of reasons. Anderson, a world-famous contralto, sang before an audience estimated at 75,000 on Easter Sunday that year. It’s a performance still remembered today. What […]
Tag: Franklin Roosevelt
The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire – Why Does This Tragedy Matter?
Take a look at the following photographs. They come from the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire of 1911. The first looks unexceptional, perhaps. A building is on fire. But the second show the rest of the story—the bodies you see are young women who had to jump from the building to escape the flames. This is […]
Enrico Fermi Sustains a Nuclear Reaction
December 2 of 1942 was a critical day in the history of the twentieth century. On that day, Italian scientist Enrico Fermi, working under the stands of Stagg Field in Chicago, achieved the first self-sustaining nuclear reaction in history. In an event fraught with meaning for the future safety of life on earth, Fermi created […]