It Was a Very Good Year

“You must have been warned against letting the golden hours slip by; but some of them are golden only because we let them slip by.”
James Matthew Barrie

I can now divulge to all and sundry that I was born in 1938 – a very good year.  But alas, I have no memory of that year.  But I do know that this was not the only big happening of the year.

• I just love the fact that I can now read newspapers from around the world on my PC.  Today I was browsing through the Edmonton Journal and found out that on May 2 1938 a special Public Service Pulitzer Prize was awarded to the Edmonton Journal “for its leadership in the defence of the freedom of the press in the province of Alberta.”  Read the rest of the article here.

• Adolph Hitler was named Man of the Year 1938 by Time Magazine.
  The issue was published in 1939 when news of his activities was slowly seeping out into the world.  I wonder who determined he was worthy of this title?

• The March of Dimes was established by Franklin Delano Roosevelt.  The organisation was originally founded to combat polio (which disease plagued FDR) but has now changed and is set on improving  the health of mothers and babies.
• Two landmark live recordings were made in this year. Mahler’s Ninth by the Vienna Philharmonic under Bruno Walter in the face of continuing unrest and harassment by Germany;  and Benny Goodman and his orchestra become the first jazz musicians to headline a concert at Carnegie Hall in New York City.
• Oil is discovered in Saudi Arabia.
• Anschluss: German troops occupy Austria; annexation is declared.
• Thornton Wilder’s play Our Town  premiered in Printon, New Jersey and had its debut in New York City in February that year.
  In this year Thornton won a Pulitzer Prize for drama for Our Town
• First appearance of Superman in Action Comics – surely the original flying super hero.
• Hitler declares his decision to destroy Czechoslovakia by military force, and orders the immediate mobilization of 96 Wehrmacht divisions.
• “Peace for our time” said Neville Chamberlain, the Prime Minister of Great Britain on returning from a meeting with Hitler in Munich.  It is primarily remembered for its ironic value, as the German occupation of the Sudetenland began on the following day.  And less than a year later, following continued aggression from Germany and its invasion of Poland, Europe was plunged into World War II.
• First ascent of the north face of the Eiger. [1,800 m (5,900 ft)] by an Austrian-German expedition and is one of the six great north faces of the Alps
• The New England Hurricane of 1938 struck Long Island and southern New England, killing over 300 along the Rhode Island shoreline and 600 altogether
• Du Pont announced a name for its new synthetic yarn: “nylon“.  Nylon was first used commercially in 1938 in a nylon bristled toothbrush but is more famous as the material used in women’s stockings.
  Nylon was intended to be a synthetic replacement for silk and after silk became scarce during World War II it was used as a substitute in many different products  It replaced silk in military applications such as parachutes and flak vests, and was used in many types of vehicle tires.
• Jews with Polish citizenship were evicted from Nazi Germany
• Orson Welles’ radio adaptation of The War of the Worlds was broadcast, causing widespread panic.  Millions of radio listeners believed that earth was being invaded by Martians.
• Kristallnacht (Crystal Night) refers to the wave of violent anti-Jewish pogroms which took place on November 9 and 10, 1938, throughout Germany, annexed Austria, and in areas of the Sudetenland in Czechoslovakia recently occupied by German troops.  The name stems from the shards of broken glass littering the streets from windows of synagogues, homes, and Jewish-owned businesses plundered and destroyed during the violence.

So in some ways it was a very good year but in many others it was a very bad year.  The true beginning of the outrageous acts of inhumanity visited on one race by another. And all the bad things and happenings mentioned above can be put at the feet of  one man Adolph Hitler,who has been  described as a despicable human being, an occult inspired, mass murdering, tyrannical.genocidal monster.

There is nothing more to say.

Related articles

• Appeasement, Hitler’s Promise, and Peace in our Time, 1938. (longstreet.typepad.com)
• On the Return of “Mein Kampf” to Germany (bigthink.com)
• The Bounty on Hitler (dlewis.net)
• Tea Time with Hitler (thedailybeast.com)
• Did Obama simply forget about history or is his reelection mission just too damn important? (Video) (politicsandfinance.blogspot.com)