The Mysteries of History (March 12 Edition)
FDR's First Fireside Chat; Germany Annexes Austria; Truman Doctrine; Oil Discovered in Alaska
“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” — Spanish-American philosopher George Santayana, 1905
1933 — FDR’s First of Many Fireside Chats
public domain image from wikimedia commons
Imagine how many people felt like tuning him out when Franklin Delano Roosevelt (commonly referred to as FDR) began his first “fireside” chat with the words, “I want to talk for a few minutes with the people of the United States about banking.”
But they, for the most part, continued listening. FDR had taken office during the worst part of the “Great” Depression. Many of the people who were tuned in (not watching, but listening, on their radios) were suffering economically and hopeful that FDR had a plan to make things better for them and for the Country.
President Roosevelt took great pains to make his “chats” understandable to a universal audience by using simple vocabulary and a “down-home” style of speaking, sprinkled with anecdotes and analogies that explained what was happening in the Country and how he was dealing with it.
It was this style of speaking that caused a journalist to label his addresses to the Nation “Fireside chats,” 31 of which he gave from this date in 1933 to the middle of 1944.
At first, these informal-sounding speeches were about his “New Deal” to combat the Depression (which succeeded remarkably well) and then, further on in his presidency, his ideas about World War 2 and America’s role in it.
Questions: How did people feel about FDR after listening to his “fireside chats” on the radio? Why was FDR the only President to be elected four times and serve three terms? Why didn’t he serve the fourth and final time he was elected? What role did his wife, Eleanor Roosevelt (also, like FDR, a distant relative of Theodore) play in FDR’s administration? What did she busy herself with?
1938 — Germany Absorbs Austria
public domain images from wikimedia commons
The image on the left above says (in German, the language of both Germany and Austria) “One People, One Empire, One Leader”; the image on right is a ballot to vote for the “reunification” of Austria with the German Empire and choose Hitler as leader of both Countries (note how much larger the “Yes” (Ja) vote circle is than the “No” (Nein) vote circle).
On this date in 1938, German forces goose-stepped into neighboring Austria to take over. Germany called it an “Anschluss,” meaning “annexation.”
Adolf Hitler himself was born in Austria (actually, it was Austria-Hungary at the time).
When Germany lost World War 2, Austria was broken off from Germany and reinstated as an independent Nation.
Questions: Have you seen the movie “The Sound of Music”? What happened to the [von] Trapp family in later years? Besides Hitler, what other significant figures of the Nazi era hailed from Austria?
1947 — Truman Doctrine
public domain images from wikimedia commons
On this date in 1947, Harry Truman gave a speech seeking support for two countries who might otherwise, in his estimation, become communistic: Greece (the “Cradle of Democracy”) and Turkey (or Türkiye). This stratagem of working to keep countries “free” rather than “slave” (to use a Civil War analogy) came to be called “The Truman Doctrine” and was viewed as an opening salvo in what came to be known as “The Cold War,” a series of wide-ranging conflicts waged somewhat indirectly by Russia and the U.S. with “proxy” countries doing much of the actual fighting and dying.
The way Truman phrased the struggle between “free” and “slave” governments was that the choice people had to make was a way of life “based upon the will of the majority” which provided “guarantees of individual liberty” (read: American style democracy) OR they could choose a way of life “based upon the will of a minority forcibly imposed upon the majority” (read: Soviet style communism).
Questions: Was Truman’s take on Greece and Turkey regarding Russia’s involvement and designs accurate? Did Greece and Turkey, after being aided by America, end up with freedom-loving rulers who catered to the will of the majority? How did Truman’s perspective shape future geopolitical events? How was the Truman Doctrine similar to the Monroe Doctrine? How did it differ from the Monroe Doctrine? How long did Truman remain President?
1968 — Oil Discovered in Prudhoe Bay, Alaska
top image generated using Bing Image Creator; bottom public domain image of pipeline from wikimedia commons
On this date in 1968, oil was discovered in northern Alaska (Prudhoe Bay, to be precise). The oil reserve had been predicted by a petroleum geologist, and it turned out to be the largest one discovered in the U.S. The discovery occurred just ten years after Alaska became a State.
In the late 1980s, Prudhoe Bay was producing two million barrels of oil each day. The State became so wealthy as a result that income tax for residents was eliminated, and above and beyond that each resident was gifted $1,000 per year by the State government.
Output has steadily slowed since its peak in 1988 to one fourth of that (500,000 barrels per day).
Questions: What happened in Valdez, Alaska in 1989? How much did it cost to clean up? Is the oil output continuing to decrease? According to estimates, how long will the reserves last before they are depleted? How long did the Alaska pipeline take to complete, and how much money did it cost? How long was the original estimate to build the pipeline, and at what cost? Why the huge difference between the estimates and reality — were the estimators being dishonest or did they merely fail to take all the factors into account? How has the pipeline affected people who live near its course? Have you ever been to Alaska? Would you want to live there? How much money are residents currently paid annually by the State?
