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Show In 1872, Chicago was "digging out" of the ashes from its great fire, caused by Mrs. O'Leary's cow kicking over a lantern. Or was that just hearsay? In 1862, with the Civil War underway, the battle of the Monitor and Merrimack took place at Hampton Roads, Va. The significance, of course, was that unarmored wooden warships war-ships came to the end of their usefulness that March day. In 1852 a book was written which stirred a nation to war. It was "Uncle Tom's Cabin" by Harriet Beecher Stowe, a novel which did much to incite anit-slavery feeling. And inl842, pioneers of medicine medi-cine were using the newly-discovered newly-discovered miracle of ether as an anaesthetic to painlessly pull teeth and make possible surgical surgi-cal procedures. So it goes as you thumb through the pages of history all those major happenings in the decades ending in '2'. No different, admittedly, thanthose ending in '1', '6', '9' or what have you. Why will 1972 be remembered? Two or three times a year, it's nice to be able to impose on old friends. Take like this week, for instance, and take like Jim Cornwell, publisher of The Murray Eagle. I've borrowed bor-rowed from his column, "Here's a Thought," before. You'll like it much better than anything I might come up with this week: When we get up Saturday morning, we'll have to begin the campaign to change 1971 to 1972. Experience has taught us it -won't be easy. We'll be writing 1971 'til at least mid-February. For what will 1972 be significant? signi-ficant? Every year must have its claim to fame and this one will be no exception. It'll be a presidential election year and that's significant. But what invention, tragdey, international internation-al episode or human achievement achieve-ment will make '72 for history's recognition? That digit '2' at the rear of the series of numbers seems to have no particular significance. signifi-cance. It you thumb back through history, analyzing the years ending in '2' you find no correlation cor-relation only a number of events which your memory recalls, re-calls, either because you were a part of humanity's masses when it took place or because you've read about it in history books. Take 1962, for example. That was the year Lt. Col. John Glenn became the first American Ameri-can to orbit. Happened Feb. 20 -- he circled the earth three times - remember? Check your recollections of '52. Several things happened that year that made history, but perhaps the most significant was the inauguration of jet air travel by BOAC, flying from London to Johannesburg, South Africa. It would be several years before commercial jet travel came to this country, but certainly the DeHavilland Comets were the pioneers of a remarkable new age in rapid transit. In 1942, our nation was at war. Doolittle bombed Tokyo, the Battle of Midway was fought and our troops invaded North Africa. But even more significant signifi-cant was the first nuclear chain reaction at the University of Chicago on Dec. 2. What that meant to the world, few even suspected at that time. The year 1932, in addition to being . depression-ridden, was remembered by many Americans- as the time the tiny son of the Charles Lindberghs was kidnapped for ransom. He was found dead and Bruno Haupt-mann Haupt-mann . was later executed. Remember? In 1922, the world watched, unaware of the role he would later play, as Benito Mussolini and his Fascists took over the government of Italy and established estab-lished a dictatorship. In 1912, the new luxury liner . Titantic struck an iceberg off Newfoundland and sank. Of the 2,307 persons aboard, 1,517 perished. In 1902, the Spanish-American war long ended, the Republic of Cuba was inaugurated inaugur-ated and American occupation ended. If someone could've looked into the future as far as Fidel Castro, we'd probably have made Cuba a territory or a protectorate. The year 1892 was notable for one of the early and most vicious labor-capital disagreements, disagree-ments, the strike of Carnegie steel mills near Pittsburgh. Eighteen people were killed and countless others wounded before be-fore it was settled. |
