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The Zenith Press Tumblr blog has migrated its content to a bigger and better blog: Quarto Explores! Here, you'll find all the same content about history, WWII, aviation, space exploration, and more. Plus, you'll have access to the larger network of Quarto Knows blogs with categories ranging from cooking to cars to history to crafts.

A­fter World War II, the United States entered a period of prolonged economic prosperity. With the rest of the world in shambles from the war, America dominated the global economy like no nation before or since. As the middle class expanded, more and more families boasted more and more expendable income. We read about some of the crazy toys the American people spent their new-found cash on; it’s one of the fascinating “moments” in the richly illustrated book The Twentieth Century in 100 Moments.

Window shoppers outside a toy display, 1940. Source - Library of Congress / The Twentieth Century in 100 Moments

At the same time, American families grew with the Baby Boom (1946–1964), a spike in the national birthrate a­fter the depression and war. With many families bigger than they had been in decades, and better off than they had ever been before, parents began to spend more money on their wee ones. But there’s a big difference between what parents want their child to have and what the child wants.

The Slip ’N Slide. Source - Imokurnotok/public domain / The Twentieth Century in 100 Moments

To a large degree, Baby Boomers were the first generation of children to be treated as consumers who decided what to buy for themselves. The idea of kids as consumers was fairly new, but American businesses were quick to capitalize.

Tin toy car. Source - Alf van Beem/ public domain / The Twentieth Century in 100 Moments

Radio and television shows, along with magazines designed for especially children, provided ideal venues for advertising directly to children. As all of these factors came together during the 1950s, the result was a growing line of products designed for and marketed directly to the large new cohort of middle-class children.

Consequently, one fad after another emerged as the next crop of school children pined for the latest toy, game, or junior fashion statement.

An early fad came from the fictional children’s TV program about frontiersman Davy Crockett. The show made coonskin caps a must-have for many boys. At the trend’s peak during the 1950s, five thousand hats were being sold per day. 

World War II–era doll and toy furniture at the Maritime Child Development Center, Richmond, California. Source - Library of Congress, HABS CAL,7-RICH,3—14 / The Twentieth Century in 100 Moments

In 1958, the Wham-O toy company struck gold by selling nothing more than a simple, plastic circle that children could swing around their waists. In only four months, Wham-O sold twenty-five million Hula-Hoops. Sales topped one hundred million in just two years’ time.

During the 1960s, corporations continued honing in on the child market, marketing became sharper, and more fads for various games and toys appeared. Some fads, though wildly popular, lasted relatively briefly. Childhood entertainments that included the pogo stick and the Slip ’N Slide captured children’s imagination for a decade or less and then faded. Some, such as the infamous game of Jarts, or lawn darts, were simply dangerous.

The Etch A Sketch Animator 2000. Source - Recapatcha/Creative Common / The Twentieth Century in 100 Moments 

Other fads transcended generations. The Etch A Sketch, Nerf balls, and G.I. Joe dolls for boys (later to be called action figures) all maintained their popularity into the twenty-first century.

It’s a hot summer day, so we’re naturally thinking of cool places. Well, you can’t get much cooler than the North Pole, can you? We did a little reading on American exploration of the coldest edges of the earth in the book The Twentieth Century in 100 Moments. Here is the story of how Robert Peary reached the North Pole.

Self-portrait by Robert Peary at Cape Sheridan, Canada, 1909. Source - Robert Peary/Public domain / The Twentieth Century in 100 Moments

During the nineteenth century, European and American explorers traversed the globe, rounding out the map of the world by reaching the last places unknown to them. Whereas many of those places had indigenous populations and were merely unknown to Europeans and Americans, one of the very last places they ventured to was a discovery in the true sense, a place where no human being had ever set foot: the North Pole.

Having grown up in Maine, American Robert Peary became enamored with the idea of arctic exploration while working for the Navy in the jungles of Nicaragua. He began his explorations by traveling to northern Greenland in 1886 and soon decided to pursue the North Pole.

As Peary made half a dozen exploratory expeditions to the arctic during an eighteen-year period, his most trusted companion was Matthew Henson. An African American naval engineer from Maryland, Henson had been traveling the world since the age of twelve. As Peary’s partner, he would be invaluable. 

Matthew Henson, who accompanied Robert Peary on seven voyages, was the first African American Arctic explorer. Source - The Twentieth Century in 100 Moments

Aside from being an exceptionally skilled traveler, Henson forged good relations with the Inuit (Eskimo) people of the far north. He learned their language, and the Inuit shared with Henson invaluable information about the region and its environment, such as the importance of traveling in late winter and spring while the ice was still firm, instead of during the tempting warmer summer months. They also taught the Americans the finer points of arctic technologies such as dog sleds, furs, and igloos, all of which would prove vital.

By 1906, Peary and Henson had already gone farther north than anyone before them. On March 1, 1909, they set out from Canada’s Ellesmere Island, accompanied by twenty-three men, 133 dogs, and nineteen sleds. They streamlined the expedition by shedding supplies and companions as they advanced.

On April 6, 1909, Peary and Henson reached what they estimated to be the North Pole, though they may have actually been a bit off. As they planted an American flag, they were accompanied by only four Inuit companions: Oatah, Egingwah, Seegloo, and Ookeah.

Upon their return, both men confronted new difficulties. Peary faced having his thunder stolen by another man who claimed to have reached the North Pole a full year earlier. Publicizing a picture that later proved to be a hoax, the man had actually come up many miles short. However, it would take five years before Peary’s expedition was verified by Congress as having been the first to reach the North Pole.

The Peary Sledge Party at the North Pole, 1909.  Source - National Archives and Records Administration, 542472  / The Twentieth Century in 100 Moments

For his part, Henson was slighted by a nation mired in racism. He was belittled in the popular press as Peary’s servant or, more often, ignored completely. In 1937, he was finally invited to join the prestigious Explorers Club.

On this day in history, there was a flare up of Red Scare hysteria. We learned about this unfortunate chain of events surrounding the Rosenbergs in the book The Twentieth Century in 100 Moments. You can pre-order your copy today! Now, on to the tragic event that happened on June 19, 1951...

Julius and Ethel Rosenberg at the US Court House following their guilty verdict, 1951. Source - Library of Congress, LC-USZ62-117772 / The Twentieth Century in 100 Moments

During World War II, the United States and the Soviet Union put aside earlier differences and joined forces to beat back Nazi Germany. But after the war ended, relations quickly deteriorated. By 1947, the two superpowers had locked horns in a hotly contested international competition known as the Cold War, which would last for some four decades.

In America, anti-Soviet and anticommunist sentiments mushroomed to new heights. The late-1940s and early 1950s were a period known as the Red Scare. At times, fear and hatred of communism and the Soviet Union moved beyond reason into outright paranoia. In 1949,

Americans were understandably shocked when the USSR became the only nation other than the United States to develop the atomic bomb. Doubting that the Russians could have developed it so quickly on their own, many suspected espionage.

On July 17, 1950, federal officials arrested Julius Rosenberg, an electrical engineer for the US Army Signal Corps. He was charged with passing atomic secrets to the Soviets. Less than a month later, his wife, Ethel, was also arrested and charged with assisting his espionage activities. Gravely disillusioned with capitalism during the Great Depression, like thousands of other people, the Rosenbergs had joined the American Communist Party in the 1930s. That in and of itself was not a crime. But Julius Rosenberg had in fact spied for the Soviets during the war. Now he was being fingered by two other men who had recently been arrested themselves for espionage.

One of the informants was Ethel’s brother, David Greenglass. Facing serious jail time, he and his accomplice struck a deal. They admitted their crimes and then agreed to share information about other high-ranking spies.

Cross-section sketch of an atomic bomb produced by David Greenglass for evidence in the Rosenberg trial, 1951. Source - National Archives and Records Administration / The Twentieth Century in 100 Moments

However, Rosenberg had not actually had access to the Manhattan Project, which had developed the first atomic bomb. Ethel was sympathetic to the communist cause, but she had no access to any government documents.

It was actually Greenglass and a fugitive German physicist named Klaus Fuchs, who had worked on the Manhattan Project, who obtained atomic secrets and passed them on to the Russians. And it was David who, after getting arrested, eventually marked his sister and her husband as spies.

At the federal grand jury hearing, Ethel’s sister-in-law Ruth Greenglass testified against the Rosenbergs, claiming Julius had recruited her and her husband to be communist spies. The Rosenbergs were indicted.

Later, documents showed FBI chief J. Edgar Hoover had gone after Ethel despite a lack of strong evidence against her, hoping that fear of orphaning their two sons would cause the couple to crack. However, they refused to name names.

David Greenglass, 1950. Source - Library of Congress / The Twentieth Century in 100 Moments

At that point, the Greenglasses were convinced to change their stories. They now testified that David had passed atomic information directly to Julius, who had had Ethel type it all up.

On March 29, 1951, the Rosenbergs were convicted of espionage. A week later, Judge Irving Kaufman sentenced them both to death.

On this day in 1836, Charles Darwin departed from Cape Town in South Africa and traveled north along Africa’s west coast. He was en route to St. Helena Island, where he would remain for 5 days, staying near Napoleon’s Tomb. The voyage of the Beagle was nearly complete; Darwin had set sail in December of 1831.

Darwin described St. Helena Island as a desolate place. It was essentially a giant mountain of rocky lava rock in the middle of the Atlantic ocean, except inland where the scenery was more akin to the landscape of Wales. Darwin spent most of his time here exploring the geology of the island. Nearly all the species of plants have been introduced from England. About 5,000 people lived there, and Darwin had an elderly man as a guide and they took long walks every day.

Charles Darwin, the English naturalist and geologist was, of course, doing research and building a body of work on evolutionary theory. We are so excited about the illustrated book The Voyage of the Beagle, which is coming out this fall from Zenith Press. The book chronicles Darwin’s best-selling memoir of his adventures, filled with exploration and discovery that led to Darwin’s groundbreaking On the Origin of Species. Pre-order your copy of the book today:

Voyage of the Beagle: The Illustrated Edition of Charles Darwin's Travel Memoir and Field Journal

Enjoy the best-selling memoir of Charles Darwin's journey of discovery aboard the HMS Beagle--now fully illustrated for the first time.

The Voyage of the Beagle is Darwin's fascinating account of his groundbreaking sea voyage that led to his writing On the Origin of Species.

When the HMS Beagle sailed out of Devonport on December 27, 1831, Charles Darwin was only twenty-two and setting off on the voyage of a lifetime. His journal reveals him to be a naturalist making patient observations concerning geology and natural history as well as people, places, and events. He witnessed and visited volcanoes in the Galapagos, saw the Gossamer spider of Patagonia, sailed through the Australasian coral reefs, and recorded the brilliance of the firefly--these recollections are found in these extraordinary writings. The insights made on the five-year voyage set in motion the intellectual currents that led to the most controversial book of the Victorian age: On the Origin of Species. An introduction on the background to Darwin's work, as well as notes, maps, appendices, and an essay on scientific geology and the Bible by Robert FitzRoy, Darwin's friend and captain of the Beagle, provide context for this incredible story.

Lincoln had a sort of sixth sense when it came to dreams. Three days before he was killed in Ford’s Theatre, he related the disturbing dream below. 

This is an excerpt from the fascinating book Appomattox, by Michael Haskew.

During his extended visit to City Point, the president slept fitfully as the matters of state and other distractions weighed heavily on his mind. For years, Lincoln was known to suffer bouts of depression and insomnia. His dreams were often disturbing and—he seemed to believe—prophetic. He once cabled Mary, on a shopping trip with Tad in Philadelphia, to take the boy’s cap pistol away after a nightmare. He told army officers that a recurring dream always meant the coming of momentous news.

About the time of Mary’s departure from City Point, Lincoln’s most disturbing and predictive dream was said to have occurred. He waited, however, until three days before he was shot by John Wilkes Booth at Ford’s Theater in Washington, to tell the terrible tale. Ward Hill Lamon, an old Illinois friend, law partner, and self-appointed bodyguard of the president, wrote years later of the eerie evening. While visiting with a small group of acquaintances in the Red Room of the White House, Lincoln seemed to emerge from long moments of melancholy and began to talk about the significance of dreams.

“It seems strange how much there is in the Bible about dreams. There are, I think, some sixteen chapters in the Old Testament and four or five in the New in which dreams are mentioned,” Hill remembered the president saying. “If we believe the Bible, we must accept the fact that in the old days God and His angels came to men in their sleep and made themselves known in dreams. Nowadays, dreams are regarded as very foolish, and are seldom told, except by old women and by young men and maidens in love.”

Mrs. Lincoln pressed her husband for details. She said, “Why, you look dreadfully solemn; do you believe in dreams?”

“I can’t say that I do,” returned Mr. Lincoln, “but I had one the other night which has haunted me ever since.”

Mrs. Lincoln then saw her husband’s demeanor change and urged, “You frighten me! What is the matter?” The president responded, “I am afraid that I have done wrong to mention the subject at all; but somehow the thing has got possession of me.”

Then the president slowly began:

About ten days ago, I retired very late. I had been up waiting for important dispatches from the front. I could not have been long in bed when I fell into a slumber, for I was weary. I soon began to dream. There seemed to be a death-like stillness about me. Then I heard subdued sobs, as if a number of people were weeping. I thought I left my bed and wandered downstairs. There the silence was broken by the same pitiful sobbing, but the mourners were invisible. I went from room to room; no living person was in sight, but the same mournful sounds of distress met me as I passed along. I saw light in all the rooms; every object was familiar to me; but where were all the people who were grieving as if their hearts would break? I was puzzled and alarmed. What could be the meaning of all this? Determined to find the cause of a state of things so mysterious and so shock­ing, I kept on until I arrived at the East Room, which I entered. There I met with a sickening surprise. Before me was a cata­falque, on which rested a corpse wrapped in funeral vestments. Around it were stationed soldiers who were acting as guards; and there was a throng of people, gazing mournfully upon the corpse, whose face was covered, others weeping pitifully. “Who is dead in the White House?” I demanded of one of the soldiers, “The President,” was his answer; “he was killed by an assassin.” Then came a loud burst of grief from the crowd, which woke me from my dream. I slept no more that night; and although it was only a dream, I have been strangely annoyed by it ever since.

Every so often we like to read up on firearms, and we know where to find the perfect artillery stocked with impressive guns: 365 Guns You Must Shoot, by T.J. Mullin. Check out these two Berettas.

Beretta M38/42

Caliber: 9x19mm 

Manufacturer: Beretta 

Typical Use: Military and police

The M38/42 was the last in a line of wartime SMGs. The M38/42 had all the best features of the earlier models, but was easier to produce. The Beretta M38 series has one of the best magazines ever made to fire 9x19mm ammo, critical for any self-loading machine gun. It is very reliable. All models are sturdy and use a full-sized wood stock, so they present firm shooting platforms. The safety is located on the left side of the receiver and is essentially worthless. The M38/42 is selective fire, but it uses two separate triggers rather than a selector switch. By using the dual-trigger system, the shooter can quickly decide which system to use and rapidly shift between them as tactical needs arise. Sights are an open U-notch rear with an unprotected blade front. The sling swivels are well positioned to permit a proper carry strap to be installed. Weight and size of the weapon make a nice package. Its cyclic rate is slow enough that single shots are easy even if you pull the full-auto trigger. The weapon is solid, well-made, and effective at two hundred yards or more, depending on the ammo and the shooter. It is an excellent weapon and a credit to its designers, even a half century after it was created.

Beretta M93

Caliber: 9x19mm 

Manufacturer: Beretta 

Typical Use: Military, police, and self-defense

The 2-day Battle of Shiloh during the Civil War in 1862 resulted in 23,000 casualties and was the bloodiest battle in American history at its time. Below is an excerpt from the new Zenith Press book Co. “Aytch” detailing a bit more on the battle, which occurred April 6-7, 1862.

The Battle of Shiloh, April 6–7, 1862, where General Grant faced General Albert Johnston and, after Johnston was mortally wounded, General P. G. T. Beauregard. Source – Co. “Aytch”

When the recognition of Confederate failure at Shiloh finally sank in, many southerners turned against Beauregard. They blamed him for having snatched defeat from the jaws of victory by refusing to order a final twilight assault on the first day. About the time this shift occurred in southern opinion, Illinoisians began coming to Grant’s defense. When a prominent Pennsylvania Republican went to Lincoln and said that Grant was incompetent, a drunkard, and a political liability to the administration the president heard him out and replied: “I can’t spare this man; he fights.” One of Grant’s staff officers furnished Illinois Congressman Elihu Washburne, Grant’s original sponsor, with information that prompted Washburne to extol Grant in a House speech as a general whose “almost superhuman efforts” at Shiloh had “won one of the most brilliant victories” in American history.*

Storming of Fort Donelson. Source – Co. “Aytch”

Washburne put the case too strongly. Grant made mistakes before the battle that all of his undoubted coolness and indomitable will during the fighting barely redeemed. But in the end the Union armies won a strategic success of great importance at Shiloh. They turned back the Confederacy’s supreme bid to regain the initiative in the Mississippi Valley. From then on it was all downhill for the South in this crucial region. On the very day, April 7, that Beauregard’s battered army began its weary retreat to Corinth, a Union army-navy team won another important—and almost bloodless—triumph on the Mississippi.

A painting of the Battle of Shiloh. Source – Co. “Aytch”

When the Confederates evacuated their Gibraltar at Columbus in February, they left a garrison of 7,000 men and fifty-two big guns at Island No. 10 fifty miles downriver. This strongpoint blocked northern shipping as completely as Columbus had done. Halleck ordered Andrew Foote’s river fleet to shell the island batteries while John Pope’s newly formed Army of the Mississippi closed in by land from the Missouri side of the river. Foote’s seven ironclads and ten mortar boats (large scows, each mounting a thirteen-inch mortar) bombarded the rebel defenses at long range without much effect. Meanwhile Pope gained control of the Missouri bank below the island and brought several shallow-draft transports through a cutoff canal dug by his troops with the aid of contrabands. This penned in the Confederates from three sides, leaving open only a precarious supply line through the swamps on the Tennessee bank of the river. Pope pleaded with Foote for a gunboat to run the gauntlet of guns on the island and protect a downriver troop crossing to close this fourth side. The Carondelet did so during a spectacular thunderstorm on the night of April 4 and was followed by a second gunboat two nights later during another storm. Spearheaded by the gunboats, Pope’s army crossed the Mississippi, surrounded the garrison, and on April 7 captured its 7,000 men along with guns and equipment the South could ill afford to lose. With only a handful of casualties, Pope achieved what Halleck considered a more brilliant success than Grant at Donelson, and the North acquired a new hero.

A painting of the Battle of Shiloh. Source – Co. “Aytch”

Summer’s here, and it’s the perfect time to dig into some excellent e-books. From today until Tuesday, June 28, there are killer deals (just $2.99 each!) on the following Zenith Press books:

Jimmy Stewart: Bomber Pilot

Winning: The Racing Life of Paul Newman

The Fight in the Clouds: The Extraordinary Combat Experience of P-51 Mustang Pilots During World War II 

Bomber Command

The following excerpt is from Stay the Rising Sun, by Phil Keith. The book chronicles the true story of the USS Lexington and her valiant crew--changing the course of WWII. 

Explosion amidships aboard Lexington, 1727 hours on 8 May 1942: the first of the death blows. Source - US National / Stay the Rising Sun

1233, May 8, 1942

Central Station, USS Lexington

Lieutenant Commander Healy had repair crews running all over the ship. The reports coming back were encouraging, for the most part. All the fires were out except for that nagging bit of business in the Admiral’s Quarters. The upholstered furniture and the fancier trappings associated with flag rank were proving not to be worth the trouble, at least not that day. Thick, black smoke was still making the job difficult, although the actual area of the fire seemed to be rather small. Healy told his men to stay at it.

The inclinometer was finally level again—maybe just a smidgeon too much to starboard—but he could correct that pretty easily. Commander Duckworth had been anxiously awaiting a “clear deck” signal so he could launch a new CAP—just in case the Japanese were inclined to continue the fight.

Healy rang up the air boss: “Ducky, it’s Healy. I’m showing a level deck, almost. I think you’re OK to launch.”

“Great, Pop, thanks. What about the fires? I need to get these birds gassed up.”

“If you use the starboard tanks and pumps you’ll be OK. No reports of damage or any fires on that side.”

“Roger, thanks.”

“Portside boiler rooms are pumped dry, too. ‘Heine’ will be lighting them off again momentarily.”

“Pop. . . . You think we’re going to be OK?” “I think we’re going to make it. Now get those boys in the air.”

“Thanks, Pop. You got it. Ducky out.”

Healy replaced the receiver. Do I really believe what I just told Duckworth? he wondered to himself.

He looked up at his status boards: a lot of red lights were still on, too many switches were still open, repair parties were still struggling. Well, hell, doesn’t do any good to be negative, he thought silently. He picked up the phone to call the chief engineer.

Topside, Commander Duckworth signaled his crew to get the next launch moving. Five Wildcats were gassed and ready, and off they went, sent aloft to guard the skies overhead. Seven Dauntlesses were next. They would fly out toward the last known positions of the enemy to scout the Japanese task force.

With the exception of a few wisps of smoke from the forward fires, the jagged hole in the stack, and the thin trail of fuel oil streaming in her wake, Lady Lex, for all intents and purposes, looked to be ready for whatever the Japanese might send their way.

1242

IC Motor Generator Room, USS Lexington

Aviation gasoline is a mixture of various hydrocarbons that make its fumes denser—thus heavier—than ambient air. The portside aviation gas tanks were shielded by the hull, empty space, and water tanks, but there was no question that they had been shaken violently by the torpedoes that slammed into the vessel. Had they been penetrated, they might have exploded. But what if they were cracked, or if the brackets that secured them to the bulkheads came loose? There was no way to inspect the tanks directly—not without getting behind the bulkheads. Members of the repair parties, medical teams, and the firefighters all reported “smelling fumes,” however, which was not a comforting indicator.

What no one realized was that the vapors, weighing more, sank to the level of the decks and began to wend along the passageways in the area seeping into cracks and bulges made in the bulkheads as a result of blast damage. Even some of the fuel itself slithered down the decks, unnoticed in all the smoke and water from the fire hoses. Like a phantom reptile, the deadly fluid snaked along, looking for an ignition source to sink its ghostly fangs into.

Finally, some of the combustible fumes and flammable liquids found their way into the IC Motor Generator Room, near the chief petty officers’ mess, on deck three. A powerful odor of gas immediately welled up in the vicinity of the General Workshop and the CPO spaces, and all personnel were told to clear the area. “IC” stood for “internal combustion,” just like a conventional automotive engine, and Lexington had a number of these motors installed in a special compartment used to produce electricity. The engines were critical to maintaining vital systems on the ship and therefore were not “secured” (shut down) during or immediately after the attacks. In all probability, one or more of these motors, still running, had been jarred loose or misaligned enough to cause it to generate sparks. All it would take was one spark coming into contact with the leaking gas or vapors.

At 1242, that’s precisely what happened. An enormous explosion rocked the ship.

1243

Bridge, USS Lexington

“What in God’s name was that?!” Captain Sherman shouted as he was nearly thrown off his feet. The powerful shaking of his ship was even worse than what he had felt when the torpedoes had punched into the hull.

All over the ship, men were knocked flat, equipment jammed, hatches flew open, dishes crashed, and Lady Lex, as enormous as she was, was pushed a few feet sideways. Smoke poured, once again, from her wounded port bow area.

Valves cracked, additional pipes burst, and more gas ignited. A huge conflagration swept the lower decks in the area near the IC Motor Generator Room, the CPO Mess, the General Workroom, Admiral’s Quarters, and, most significantly, Central Station.

The massive fireball consumed every molecule of oxygen, literally sucking the air out of the lungs of the men nearby and replacing it with searing flame. Twenty-five men in Central Station, including steadfast Lieutenant Commander Healy, were killed instantly, burned from the inside out and then incinerated into carbon, beings barely recognizable as human forms. Central Station ceased to function.

Annunciators on the bridge went out as did steering control. Sherman’s only way to control the track of the ship was by an alternate voice circuit to a helmsman at the trick wheel, aft.81 New fires broke out and thick, brown smoke plumed upward from the forward elevator shaft. Damage-control teams, already exhausted, raced to the scene.

Some men remembered the blasted area as a charnel house. They had to pull and push aside charred bodies to fight the growing fires; other survivors were severely burned, several mortally. Band members and pantry boys hefted stretchers or pulled men from the shattered spaces. Sailors with their clothes burned off their bodies stumbled, naked, down smoking passageways.

The concussion of the blast blew forward and aft, its hot breath seeking any empty space in its path. The ship’s senior doctor, Commander White, who was working in the medical bay near the bow, was blown off his feet and slammed into a bulkhead, fracturing both ankles.

Back on the bridge, Captain Sherman steadied himself and barked out commands. He desperately needed to know the status of his ship. Commander Duckworth had gotten all the flyable aircraft off the deck, but the surviving fighters, bombers, and torpedo planes from the morning strike had yet to return. Would they be able to land?

The Sultan of Swat. The Caliph of Clout. The Behemouth of Bust. Babe Ruth wore many titles. Below is a little history about the legendary athlete, pulled from the Zenith Press book, The Twentieth Century in 100 Moments.

Source – The Twentieth Century in 100 Moments 

By the time George Herman “Babe” Ruth became the nation’s most famous athlete during the Roaring Twenties, he had also come to represent a new America. His background, his personality, and his athletic prowess all contradicted the symbols and culture of nineteenth-century America. He was a new kind of celebrity for a new century.

The older America had championed rural values, Protestant Christianity, restraint, decorum, and abstention from alcohol. Ruth was born and raised in Pigtown, a rough-and-tumble neighborhood of South Baltimore. His family was Catholic. His father owned a saloon. Ruth himself was boisterous, a braggart, and bigger than life. Even the way he played the game defied American norms.

Baseball had long been dominated by what is known as the “inside game.” Teams scratched and clawed for runs with walks, bunts, stolen bases, hit-and-runs, fielder’s choices, and sacrifice bunts and flies. Low-scoring games were the norm and home runs were a rarity. This style of play was thought by many to represent the American values of hard work and sacrifice. Babe Ruth changed all that.

Source – The Twentieth Century in 100 Moments

A pitcher during his early years, Ruth was able to create his own batting style. Instead of a modest approach to hitting, the left -hander developed a ferocious swing and began sending balls over the fence at an unheard-of rate. In 1919, he became an outfielder and broke the single season major-league home run record. That winter, the Boston Red Sox sold him to the New York Yankees, where he played for the next fifteen years. His dominance on the field has never been recreated. Both in 1920 and in 1927, he hit more home runs for the season than did any other entire team in the league. His impact was revolutionary, taking home runs from a rarity and making them a regular part of the game.

Off the field, Ruth was also larger than life, demanding attention with his prodigious appetites for food, beer, and women. The Roaring Twenties challenged traditional, conservative values, and in many ways Ruth represented the new, audacious attitudes. By 1930, his $80,000 salary (about $1.1 million in 2015 dollars) had made him the first baseball player to earn more than the president of the United States (Herbert Hoover made $75,000). Many Americans were incensed, since a ballplayer was obviously much less important than the president. When asked to defend his outrageous salary, Ruth quipped, “I had a better year than Hoover.”

It was hard to argue with his logic. Once again, he’d led the majors in home runs, as well as four other major categories, while Hoover was taking the heat for the Great Depression.

The following is an excerpt from a new Zenith Press book: Marines An Illustrated History. It was on this day in 1898 that the first American troops set foot on Cuban Soil during the Spanish-American War. 

On April 17, 1898, four days after the president declared war on Spain, Heywood ordered Lt. Col. Robert W. Huntington to prepare a marine battalion for amphibious operations in Cuba. Huntington mixed veterans with new recruits and formed the men into five companies of infantry and one of artillery. 

On April 22, he marched them through the streets of Brooklyn, New York City, embarked them on an old merchantman re-christened Panther, and sent them off to Key West, Florida, with four three-inch artillery pieces, medical stores, mosquito nets, tents, pick-axes, shovels, barbed-wire cutters, a three-months’ supply of provisions, and other accoutrements.

The Panther’s skipper, Cmdr. G. C. Reiter, nursed an old grudge against marines that dated back to the Civil War. Now with an opportunity to get even, he disembarked the battalion at night near a swamp swarming with bloodthirsty insects instead of on Key West’s sandy beaches. As Reiter stood offshore smirking, Huntington put the marines through battle-hardening tactical exercises while awaiting orders.

On May 28, Schley’s Flying Squadron cornered the Spanish Fleet at Santiago and blockaded the harbor. Navy Secretary Long cabled Rear Adm. William T. Sampson, Atlantic Fleet commander, and asked, “Can you take possession of Guantánamo [and] occupy [it] as a coaling station?” Sampson replied, “Send Colonel Huntington’s Marines.” On June 7, Reiter re-embarked the colonel’s battalion and steamed for Guantánamo Bay, forty miles east of Santiago.

On June 10, supported by the guns of the battleship Oregon (BB-3), Huntington’s battalion went ashore and became the first American troops on Cuban soil. After they landed, Reiter tried to sail away. He refused to unload small arms ammunition, claiming he needed it for ballast. Commander Bowman H. McCalla of the USS Marblehead (C-11) curtly ordered Reiter to “break out or land” all the ammunition and supplies Huntington requested. In appreciation for the commander’s intervention, marines named their beachhead Camp McCalla.

For four days, enemy snipers pestered the camp while Huntington’s scouts probed the countryside for enemy outposts. During one skirmish, two rifle companies under fifty-two-year-old Capt. George F. Elliot (later to become the Corps’ tenth commandant) defeated a 500-man Spanish detachment near the village of Cuzco.

The following history lesson from World War II was excerpted from War in Pacific Skies, by Charlie and Ann Cooper. 

On 3 June, an aerial attack was launched on the U.S. bases in the Aleutians, and in the Central Pacific, an American patrol pilot spotted enemy ships steaming toward Midway. On 4 June, the Japanese struck first, launching two waves of 108 airplanes, each equipped with high-explosive bombs to decimate the island installations. The Americans, warned of the impending attack by radar, scrambled every plane on the island to defend the tiny atoll. An oil tank and a hangar were set afire and some U.S. aircraft were downed. Japanese pilots returned to their carriers to prepare for a second attack, this time on warships.

Brewster F2A Buffalo, an obsolete U.S. fighter, was assigned to VMF-221, Second Marine Air Wing, on Midway. Led in the heroic defense of the island by USMC Major Floyd Parks, marine fighters downed six bombers before being cut to ribbons by faster, more maneuverable Zeros. Source - U.S. Navy / War in Pacific Skies

While the Japanese aircraft crowded the carrier decks to be refueled and rearmed to attack ships, six land-based U.S. Avenger bombers bored in at low altitudes to launch their slow-running torpedoes. Five of the six were brought down quickly by antiaircraft fire. They were followed by four torpedo-equipped, low-flying Martin B-26 Marauders. Their courage was laudable but their results were poor; three of the four were downed.

As ineffective as it was, the raid by land-based aircraft convinced the Japanese commanders to opt for a second attack on the island. Admiral Chuichi Nagumo, the strike force commander, was forced to decide to change weapons on his rearmed dive- and torpedo-bombers and to replace them again with high-explosive bombs. Chaos ensued on the flight decks as weapons and fuel handlers struggled to ready their planes for launch.

Meanwhile, Spruance launched every bomber from his two carriers, holding back only 36 fighters for combat air patrol. Fletcher launched half of Yorktown’s complement—17 Dauntlesses, 16 Devastators, and six Wildcats. By 0830, 155 U.S. Navy aircraft were skirting clouds and aiming at the Japanese carriers.

Although it was considered obsolete at the time of the attack on Pearl Harbor, the Douglas SBD Dauntless carried the day at the Battle of Midway as dive-bombing attacks were responsible for the ultimate destruction of four Japanese fleet carriers. The small, maneuverable Dauntless was a key factor in many early victories. Source - Cactus Air Force Art Project / War in Pacific Skies

Simultaneously, from bases at Midway, a new strike arrived over the Japanese fleet. Marine Dauntlesses, led by Major Loften Henderson (for whom the airfield at Guadalcanal would later be named), Vindicators, and USAAF B-17s wreaked minor damage but added greatly to the Japanese command confusion. Ultimately deciding that his first strike aircraft had to be recovered before the second could be launched, Nagumo ordered the aircraft on deck to be hangared in lower decks as the first strike flew on. Again, chaos ensued.

Now three waves of U.S. carrier-launched Devastator torpedo-bombers began attack runs on the carriers. It was brutal. The slow and obsolete Devastators were savaged by Zeros and by antiaircraft fire. The Japanese were jubilant, but their relief was short-lived. While Japanese fighters blasted the American torpedo bombers, they were at low altitude and unable to climb quickly enough to intercept incoming Dauntless dive bombers. In a six-minute period—from 1022 to 1028—those dive bombers destroyed Akagi, Kaga, and Soryu. Only the carrier Hiryu was undamaged, and it was Hiryu that launched the attack that found and bombed Yorktown, although it took two waves to finally sink that gallant ship.

Late that afternoon, Dauntlesses found the Hiryu while its exhausted flight crews were being fed and their planes refueled for yet another attack on the American carriers. The dive bombers attacked and four bombs destroyed its flight deck and left the carrier burning badly. Its crew was removed and the Japanese sank the gutted Hiryu the following day.

With the loss of all four carriers, Yamamoto reverted to his battleships and cruisers to attack Midway. Spruance and Fletcher chose not to risk a night naval engagement with what they knew to be a superior enemy force; they steered the task force to the east until just after midnight, when they reversed course to be in position to defend Midway at first light. The Japanese commanders, who had pursued the Americans hoping to lure them into the night battle, were thwarted again and forced to turn back to the home islands, facing the anguish of explaining this major defeat to the emperor. The Midway invasion force returned to Saipan, and two cruisers, Mikuma and Mogami, were damaged in a collision as they turned away from a U.S. submarine. Aircraft from American carriers sank the former and severely damaged the latter on 6 June. Along with the four carriers, the cruisers, and more than 300 aircraft, Japan lost 3,500 sailors and many experienced pilots. It was a stunning defeat.

You there—the one imbibing an orange-and-cherry-muddled Old Fashioned. Did you ever wonder about the bourbon that’s blooming with deep flavor in your glass? We sure did, so we reached for Bourbon Curious, by Fred Minnick. This excerpt ought to shed a little light on the matter:

I believe some early Americans actually made what would qualify as bourbon but called it “corn brandy.” My friend and bourbon historian Mike Veach maintains an incredible bourbon collection for the Filson Historical Society, and in the diaries of two Frenchmen, brothers John and Louis Tarascon, Veach learned the brothers rectified white whiskey and sold it as corn brandy. It’s likely the Tarascons, who grew up near the Cognac region, brought the French brandy technique of charring barrels to whiskey aging. It’s certainly possible that they were also referring to the Swedish production of “corn brandy,” which was a spirit of mashed grain intentionally not completely rectified and diluted with water.

Nineteenth-century connoisseurs said Swedish corn brandy was the “nearest approach” to making whiskey but was inferior. But given the fact that the Swedes’ version was largely isolated to their own region, it’s more plausible that the Frenchmen applied their country’s barrel-charring techniques and called the distilled spirit aged in barrels corn brandy. Brandy was what the French made, so they just aptly named the distilled corn spirit such. During the time, booze names were not as defined as they are today. There’s a good chance distilled potatoes were called whiskey, and people who thought they were drinking whiskey were really drinking vodka. Besides, most early American spirits were rectified to enhance the color. Rectifying meant adding prune juice, tobacco spit, rattlesnake heads and turpentine—you know, stuff that’s gross and will kill you—to make a clear spirit look more like aged whiskey.

Adding to the argument that the barrel-charring technique was created by the French, I’ve found bourbon’s aromatics to be similar to cognac’s nose, whereas bourbon and Scotch offer little to no taste or smell similarities. And bourbon whiskey is almost certainly named after a Frenchman. Well, kind of.

The two going theories about bourbon’s namesake are that it’s either named after Bourbon County in Kentucky or Bourbon Street in New Orleans. Both places were named after the Bourbons, the longtime ruling family of France. If you buy the Bourbon County theory, then you believe that early New Orleans merchants enjoyed the whiskey from barrels stamped “Limestone, Bourbon County, Kentucky.” Like the Craig legend, however, this one falls apart when you really analyze it: shipments from Kentucky to New Orleans took a year, and Veach writes, it is “therefore unlikely that there were enough whiskey shipments invoiced to Limestone to catch the attention of New Orleanians.” He suggests river travelers may have drunk aged whiskey on New Orleans’ Bourbon Street, and that’s where bourbon earned its name.

Many believe whiskey started the war between Native American tribes and the United States government. Whiskey traders took advantage of the tribes. In this drawing, published by Frank Leslie’s illustrated newspaper on February 3, 1872, Indians try to drink contraband whiskey destroyed by authorities. Source - Library of Congress/ Bourbon Curious

But the sad truth is we’ll likely never definitively know who truly invented bourbon or why he or she named it so. Bourbon does not enjoy the centuries’ worth of historical research that beer and wine have commanded. Universities are only now taking bourbon history seriously, and the distilleries closely guard their true histories. Distillers owned slaves, ran whiskey during Prohibition, and used prostitutes for their marketing, and many of these connections still haunt bourbon’s ruling families. The Pogue family, for example, sold barrels to Cincinnati bootlegger George Remus during Prohibition. “Not a proud moment in our history, but some really neat history nonetheless,” Paul Pogue told me. That’s why legends and misnomers have permeated bourbon culture; the truth isn’t always pretty, and it certainly won’t sell whiskey. In fact, I surmise that early bourbon marketers promoted Elijah Craig and other legends to hide the unscrupulous truth.

During the Civil War, on April 4, 1864, the irrepressible Gen. Phil Sheridan refused to be a bystander. The book Appomattox, by Michael Haskew details the events that took place, leading Sheridan to move from command of an infantry division in the Army of the Cumberland to command cavalry in the Army of the Potomac. Below is an excerpt from the book:

Although Gen. Phil Sheridan was actually Ulysses S. Grant’s second choice to command the Cavalry Corps of the Union Army of the Potomac, Sheridan proved more than equal to the task. During the pursuit of the Army of Northern Virginia, Sheridan skillfully led his cavalry, dogging the enemy relentlessly and positioning his horsemen to block the Confederate route of escape. Source - Library of Congress / Appomattox

Issuing orders to his cavalry commanders and to Griffin’s V Corps to concentrate at Jetersville, he sent an optimistic message to Grant concerning the future of the Army of Northern Virginia. “If we press on we will no doubt get the whole army.”

Then Sheridan headed to Jetersville himself. Riding hard, with only his personal escort—the two hundred horsemen of the 1st United States Cavalry—in company, he arrived there late in the after­noon intent on blocking the path of the Army of Northern Virginia.

“I reached Jettersville [sic] some little time before the Fifth Corps, and having nothing else at hand I at once deployed this handful of men to cover the crossroads till the arrival of the corps,” Sheridan remembered.196 Some anxious moments passed before the leading elements of the V Corps came up at about 5:00 p.m. When the infantrymen arrived, they set to work, eventually extending the entrenchments to a length of four miles, with cavalry protecting both flanks. A soldier of the 155th Pennsylvania recalled, “The Fifth Corps immediately occupied the cavalry works, and in a short time with pick and shovel had them thick and high.”

While Sheridan and his escorting cavalry were dismounting on the best defensive ground they could find, a ridgeline just southwest of Jetersville, a man riding a mule rode into the picket line. He was captured and hauled before the general. During a thorough search, two copies of a telegram signed by Lee’s com­missary general tumbled out of his boot. These were addressed to supply officers in Danville and Lynchburg, and Sheridan con­cluded that they were sent via courier because Crook’s cavalry had cut the telegraph lines north of Burkeville.

Lee’s telegram read, “The army is at Amelia Court House, short of provisions. Send 300,000 rations quickly to Burkeville Junction.”

Sheridan’s troopers and the Federal infantrymen who were approaching had left their own wagon trains behind. They had grown hungry. Griffin, Humphreys, and Wright were in a bit of a quandary as well. There were no provisions at hand. Nevertheless, the troops were in high spirits.

Grant remembered their enthusiasm years later, writing, “The Army of the Potomac, officers and men, were so elated by the reflection that at last they were following up a victory to its end, that they preferred marching without rations to running a possible risk of letting the enemy elude them.”

In the captured Confederate communication, Sheridan saw opportunity. He summoned Young and instructed him to send scouts along the rail lines toward Lynchburg and Danville. As soon as they found telegraph stations, the scouts were to instruct the operators to send the messages to their destinations. When Lee’s order was followed, any provisions coming from either depot would be intercepted to feed Sheridan’s command instead. The general did not record the outcome of the ruse.

As the afternoon of April 5 wore on, Sheridan waited impa­tiently for Humphreys and Wright to reach Jetersville with the II and VI Corps infantry. Around 2:00 p.m. a heavily escorted ambu­lance carrying Meade rolled into Sheridan’s camp. Meade had been ill for several days but intended to retain field command. In a letter to his wife, he described his ailment.

“Though late at night, I seize time to send you a few lines,” Meade wrote. “I don’t know when I last heard or wrote to you, for besides the battles and marches of the last ten days, I have been nearly all the time quite under the weather with a severe bilious catarrh, taking an intermittent form. Thanks to my powerful con­stitution, and the good care of my attending physician, together with the excitement of the scenes I have passed through, I have managed not to give up, but to be on hand each day.”

Finally, an hour after Meade arrived, the leading elements of II Corps appeared, and VI Corps followed. Due to his illness, Meade asked Sheridan to deploy his troops appropriately. As it turned out, Sheridan might secretly have wished that Meade’s discomfort had kept him from accompanying the two corps of the Army of the Potomac. Meade planned to attack Lee at Amelia Court House but decided to wait until the morning of April 6 to do it. Meade wanted all of his troops on the field and planned an envelopment of the Confederates from the south and east, which would leave the door open for Lee to withdraw to the west yet again.

Since early on the morning of April 5, Sheridan’s entrenched cavalry and V Corps infantry had brushed back probes from Rooney Lee’s cavalry. To counter the Rebel horsemen and to gain some knowledge of whether Lee was advancing or fortifying his posi­tions at Amelia Court House, Sheridan ordered Crook to send the cavalry brigade of Brig. Gen. Henry E. Davies on a reconnaissance around Lee’s flank to Painesville, a crossroads town about five miles north of Jetersville…

Glorifying the 19th Century as America Moves into the 20th Century

As the twentieth century opened, many Americans began to look back fondly upon the past. People in the bustling industrial cities of the East began to pine for a nostalgic vision of the Old West. Emerging out of the nineteenth century to provide Americans with a ready-made version of that romanticized history was one of the twentieth century’s first celebrities: William “Buffalo Bill” Cody (1846–1917). We found this excerpt about him in the book The Twentieth Century in 100 Moments.

Buffalo Bill. Source - Library of Congress / The Twentieth Century in 100 Moments

Cody was intimately familiar with the brutal realities of the nineteenth century. As a young boy in Kansas, his father was attacked for his vocal antislavery views. After the Civil War, Cody worked as an army scout, sometimes helping to track down, fight, and even kill Native people. He also worked as a buffalo hunter on the Great Plains, slaughtering the great beasts to feed the army. But he also had an eye on fame and a flair for self-promotion.

In his late twenties, Cody began working as an actor in traveling Wild West road shows. This new form of entertainment was a live variety show held under a large circus tent, where people watched such displays of skill as sharpshooting, trick riding, and rope tricks. But the main feature was the large-scale dramatizations of daring Western stories, usually battles between Americans and Indians, complete with galloping horses. While promoters claimed that their stories were true, in reality they were often fictionalized, or at the very least exaggerated, giving the audience a romanticized, melodramatic, and falsely heroic version of the brutal US conquest of Native nations.

Portrait of Amos Two Bulls, a Sioux Brave employed by Buffalo Bill. Source - Käsebier, Gertrude/Library of Congress/The Twentieth Century in 100 Moments

At the age of thirty-three, Cody published his memoir, The Life and Adventures of Buffalo Bill. The book was popular, and in 1883 he founded his own road show, Buffalo Bill’s Wild West. It was highly successful, and Cody spent the better part of three decades touring the United States and Europe with a large company of entertainers. Among them were many Indian people from the West, with whom he had a complicated relationship. Cody’s show provided them decent wages, a way to escape the grinding poverty of the new reservations, and a chance to see the world. In return, they performed for mostly white audiences who viewed them as wild, bloodthirsty savages doomed to extinction. Meanwhile, some of the white performers with whom Cody worked, such as Annie Oakley and “Wild” Bill Hickok, became celebrities in their own right, idolized by Americans eager for tales of frontier heroes.

In 1895, he helped found the Wyoming town that bears his name and tried to turn it into a tourist destination. Other businesses included a dude ranch, camping trips, and big game–hunting expeditions. At his eight-thousand-acre ranch, he entertained prominent visitors from around the world. From 1886 to 1887, Cody’s show played in New York City, including a long engagement at Madison Square Garden. 

Chromolithographic poster of Buffalo Bill Cody by the Courier Lithography Company. Source - National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution / The Twentieth Century in 100 Moments

Did you see the 2014 historical thriller “The Imitation Game,” starring Benedict Cumberbatch? The film was based on a biography of Alan Turing, written by Andrew Hodges, titled Alan Turing: The Enigma. The plot follows British cryptanalyst Alan Turing, who in the film is hired to decrypt German intelligence codes for the British government during World War II. 

Well, Zenith Press has a new book by Gavin Mortimer that details the deeper, more complex history behind the film. World War II in Secret profiles the many undisclosed and secretive stories of World War II, complete with copious illustrations and photographs drawn from the archives of all the major Allied and Axis powers. Espionage, radio, radar, and codes technology, resistance movements and saboteurs, weapons programs, camouflage and suberterfuge, and covert operations are all explored and uncovered to their smallest detail. 

Many techniques and technologies were either created or perfected during World War II. Many, such as the German use of blitzkrieg, radar, a human torpedo, the Enigma code, Barnes Wallis' bouncing bombs, soldiers on steroids, armies on amphetamines, America's Nisei, Project Z, Operation Bagration, the Double Cross, ghost armies, V weapons, the Wunderwaffen, and the Manhattan Project changed the course of world history forever. Award-winning military history author Gavin Mortimer explains them all, along with a few that didn't work at all, such as the Great Panjandrum and the Giant Dart.