March 8: Volkswagen Bus

On this date in History .... 1950:

Volkswagen begins production on the VW Microbus and gives the American “counterculture generation” a mode of transportation that becomes an iconic symbol of hippies and free love.

 

The bus was only the second product offered by the Volkswagen company, the first being the VW “Bug”.  The bus had a number of nicknames including “hippie van”, so named for its popular use of transporting hippies to their concerts and camping events. The VW logo on the front of the bus was often changed to a peace sign.  

 

 

The bus was used in the movie "Back to the Future" as the vehicle of choice for the Libyan terrorists.

 

 

 

 

It was also featured in the sitcom "That 70's Show" (seen here at marker 2:40) and ended its role in the show when it fell off of Mount Hump.

 

 

Kids will remember it in the movie "Cars" when the animated vehicle named Filmore was played by George Carlin.

And who can forget the fun ride Hurley had in the Dharma van in this episode of "Lost"!

 

Production of this vehicle will stop on December 31, 2013.

 

 

March 6: Sara Gilbert

On this date in History ..... 1984:

 

Sara Gilbert makes her movie debut in “Calamity Jane”, which is released on this date. 

 

Gilbert is best known for her role as Darlene on the show “Roseanne”, a middle child in a blue collar family, the sarcastic tomboy turned vegetarian, from 1988-1997.  She also made guest appearances on shows such as as The Simpsons, 24, Will & Grace, Law and Order: Special Victims Unit and Private Practice.

 

In 2007, she began a semi-regular appearance on "The Big Bang Theory" with Johnny Galecki, who also played on the "Roseanne" show as Darlene Conner's boyfriend, David.

Gilbert, who comes from an acting family, started out doing commercials. At six years old, she told her producer-and-talent-manager-mother that she wanted to be an actress when she saw her older half-sister, Melissa Gilbert (“Little House” fame) get a star on the Hollywood walk of fame. Her grandfather, Harry Crane, was a writer for “The Honeymooners”, and grandmother Julia Crane was a dancer.

 

See Gilbert in a Kool-Aid commercial ... click here.

 

 

While working the Roseanne show, she attended Yale University, where she majored in art and photography, and graduated with honors.  She created and is the executive producer for the show, “The Talk”. 

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March 5: Boston Massacre

On this date in History ..... 1770:

The Boston Massacre takes place. Colonists were angry about the British troops that had been sent to Boston to enforce the various tax laws & Townshend laws. British troops, being tormented by the angry crowds, fired into the crowd and killed 5 people. It was labeled a ‘massacre’ because the 5 killed were civilians, and it became a profound effect leading to the Revolution. The funerals of those killed were turned into a great patriotic demonstration.

The British captain and his troops were tried for murder, with John Quincy serving as one of the defense lawyers. The captain and 6 men were acquitted; 2 were convicted of manslaughter. Roughly 30 days later, the laws were repealed on April 12.


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March 4: Robert Smalls

On this date in History .... 1875:

Robert Smalls joins the House of Representatives from South Carolina’s 5^th District. A former slave, he was the last Republican to represent the district until 2010.

 

“As a politician, Smalls authored state legislation providing for South Carolina to have the first free and compulsory public school system in the United States, and founded the Republican Party of South Carolina. He is notable as the last Republican to represent South Carolina's 5th congressional district until 2010.”

The first ten years of his life were relatively easy.  It is rumored that his master, Henry McKee, was his father. Smalls was taken around town by McKee and he was permitted to play with other children, black and white.  This bothered his slave-mother who made sure he saw and understood the horrors of the life of slavery.  She made him sleep on the earthen floor, not on a cot. She made him work in the fields, pick cotton, and wear tattered clothes like other slaves. She even took him to watch the activities at the whipping post so he could truly understand what it was like to be a slave.

As a 12-year old slave, his master sent him to Charleston to be hired out on ships where he gained a high level of knowledge about ships and the Charleston harbor.  While on the USS Planter, he planned and executed a daring escape, disguising himself as the ship’s captain and even stopping to pick up his family. He used the correct Confederate signals to get past the Confederate ships.  He then raised a white sheet as a flag and headed straight for the Union fleet.  He turned the ship and its contents, which included a copy of the Confederate code book and locations of mines in the harbor, over to the Union Army.

Congress passed a bill, signed by Lincoln, enabling Smalls and his other “Negro crew members” to receive the prize money for turning over the Confederate ship (about $1500).  He met Lincoln himself just a couple of weeks later.  Because of the debate on allowing African Americans to join the military, Smalls served in the Union Army as a civilian.

"In December 1863, Smalls became the first black captain of a vessel in the service of the United States. On December 1, 1863, the Planter had been caught in a crossfire between Union and Confederate forces. The ship's commander, Captain Nickerson, decided to surrender. Smalls refused, fearing that the black crewmen would not be treated as prisoners of war and might be summarily killed. Taking command, Smalls piloted the ship out of range of the Confederate guns. For his bravery, Smalls was named to replace Nickerson as the Planter's captain. Smalls returned with the Planter to Charleston harbor in April 1865 for the ceremonial raising of the American flag upon Ft. Sumter."  (Quote Source: Wikipedia)


After the war, he returned to the South and purchased his former master’s house.  His mother lived with him for the rest of her life and he even permitted his previous master’s wife to live with them in the house prior to  her death.  The home as been designated as a National Historic Landmark.

March 3: The Civil War Draft is Passed

On this date in History .... 1863:

Congress passes the Civil War conscription act, the country’s first military draft of U.S. citizens.

Exemptions from the draft could be bought for $300, allowing the buyers to hire a substitute to go into the military in their place, which led to riots in New York City since only the wealthy could afford to pay for an exemption and those who couldn’t afford it had to be drafted and go to battle.

The Confederacy had a similar law and included a clause that exempted overseers or plantations owners, something that was antagonistic to those who were fighting in the Confederate Army, laying way to Confederate soldiers referring to the Civil War as a “rich man’s war and a poor man’s fight.”

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March 2: Dr. Seuss

On this date in History ..... 1904:

Theodor Seuss Geisel is born in Mass. Twenty years later, after being removed from his editor-in-chief position of a college humor magazine with Dartmouth College for drinking in his dorm on campus, which was in violation not only of school policy but of Prohibition Law, he was forced to invent his pen name of “Dr. Seuss” (his middle name which was also his mother's maiden name) so he could be published. He published 44 books and only 4 of them were not written in rhyme. 

His father, a brewmaster, wanting his son to be a professor, so after graduating from Dartmouth, Geisel went to Oxford University in England where he met his wife. The year they were married, he dropped out of school and came back to America where he began earning a living as a cartoonist and eventually drawing cartoon-like advertisements for Standard Oil, a job he held for fifteen years.

Viking Press gave him his introduction to illustrating children’s books. Geisel’s first book “And to Think I Saw it on Mulberry Street” was rejected 27 times before it was published, becoming the first of 44 books to be published by the author.  (Only four of those books were not written in rhyme.)

He also drew propaganda posters and made animated training films for the War Department during WWII, featured a character named “Private Snafu”.

Click "here" to see a video of "Private Snafu"

In 1954, Life Magazine published an article criticizing children’s reading levels. Two publishing houses challenged him to write a children’s book using only 200 vocabulary words. The challenge was met with the Seuss icon book of “Cat in the Hat.”

“At the time of his death on September 24, 1991, Ted had written and illustrated 44 children's books, including such all-time favorites as Green Eggs and Ham, Oh, the Places You'll Go, Fox in Socks, and How the Grinch Stole Christmas. His books had been translated into more than 15 languages. Over 200 million copies had found their way into homes and hearts around the world.

Besides the books, his works have provided the source for eleven children's television specials, a Broadway musical and a feature-length motion picture. Other major motion pictures are on the way.

His honors included two Academy awards, two Emmy awards, a Peabody award and the Pulitzer Prize.”    (Quote Source: http://www.catinthehat.org/history.htm )

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March 1: Green Feather Movement

On this date in History .... 1954:

The Green Feather movement started in the campus of Indiana University when five “Merry Men” students covered the campus in green chicken feathers, tacking one to every bulletin board on campus, as a protest to McCarthyism and in response to an Indiana Textbook commissioner, Mrs. Thomas White, calling Robin Hood a communist.

In the Cold War era, the Indiana State Textbook Commission had recently raised arms against the Robin Hood legend appearing in schools for its communist undertones in the "rob-the-rich-give-to-the-poor" theme. The students saw the Robin Hood fuss as the epitome of McCarthyism pushed too far. They found their symbol and were ready to run with it. They would call it the "Green Feather Movement" with the five involved standing as "Robin Hood's Merry Men."  

Only two days pass before the entire state is involved in the controversy. Word spreads through the Midwest, and news organizations from Louisville to Indianapolis start taking sides. One Bloomington newspaper goes so far to say that the students are acting on behalf of the adults on campus who lack "courage of their conviction."

The Green Feather movement consequently spread to the Universities of Michigan, Illinois, and to Purdue and other universities across the country. Even Harvard University announced in May 1954 that a chapter would be formed on their campus. The movement was discontinued after McCarthy’s censure in December 1954.

(Sources for this article include www.thecrimson.com and www.idsnews.com)

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