1968: Events and Inventions

January, 1968. The Czechoslovak Communist Party chooses a new leader, liberal Alexander Dubcek.

January 30, 1968. The Tet Offensive begins, as Viet Cong forces launch a series of surprise attacks across South Vietnam.

February, 1968. the North Korean government refuses to release the U.S. spy ship Pueblo, captured last month within Korean waters.

March, 1968. In the U.S., Lockheed presents the world’s largest aircraft to date, the Galaxy.

April 4, 1968. Civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. is shot dead in Memphis, Tennessee by escaped convict Jams Earl Ray. The night before his death Dr. King gave a speech at a church in Memphis:

“Well, I don’t know what will happen now. We’ve got some difficult days ahead. But it doesn’t matter with me now. Because I’ve been to the mountaintop. And I don’t mind. Like anybody, I would like to live a long life. Longevity has its place. But I’m not concerned about that now. I just want to do God’s will. And He’s allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I’ve looked over. And I’ve seen the promised land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the promised land. So I’m happy, tonight. I’m not worried about anything. I’m not fearing any man. Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord.”

May 6-13, 1968. Paris student riots; one million march through streets of Paris protesting the war in Vietnam and other grievances.

May 19, 1968. Nigerian forces capture Port Harcourt and form a ring around the Biafrans. This contributes to a humanitarian disaster as the surrounded population already suffers from hunger and starvation.

June 6, 1968. Robert Kennedy, younger brother of John F. Kennedy and Democratic candidate for president of the U.S., is assassinated in Los Angeles by lone Jordanian gunman Sirhan Sirhan.

July, 1968. Thirty-six nations, including the United States, the USSR, and Britain, sign a nuclear non-proliferation treaty.

August 22, 1968. The Prague Spring of increasing freedom in Czechoslovakia ends abruptly as 200,000 Warsaw Pact troops and 5000 tanks enter the country to force the Czechs to remain within the Soviet sphere. Unarmed Czech youths try, unsuccessfully, to resist the Soviet tanks in the streets of Prague and other cities. Prime Minister Alexander Dubcek’s goal and policy was “socialism with a human face”, but the Soviet Union and its vassal states will not allow changes in Czechoslovakia.

August 24, 1968. France explodes its first hydrogen bomb.

September, 1968. At least 11,000 people die in a series of earthquakes in Iran lasting for two days.

1967: Books and Literature

Feb22

Published in 1967:
The Chosen by Chaim Potok. Set in the 1940’s, two Jewish teens, one Hasidic and the other orthodox, but less strict in his observance, develop a friendship that survives the vicissitudes of adolescence and changing times.
Taran Wanderer by Lloyd Alexander. In this children’s fantasy novel, the fourth of five volumes in the series Chronicles of Prydain, based on Celtic/Welsh mythology, Taran, the Assistant Pig-Keeper, searches for his true heritage. The book is a classic coming-of-age story set in the fantasy kingdom of Prydain.
Endless Night by Agatha Christie. One of my favorite Christie novels, this mystery/suspense story features neither Hercule Poirot nor Miss Marple, but rather stands on its own with its own fascinating characters. The title comes from a poem by William Blake.
The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton. Ms. Hinton wrote this classic YA novel when she was only sixteen years old.
Christy by Catherine Marshall. A wonderful, wonderful book that I have been unable to “sell” any of my young adult children on reading. Christy is an eighteen year old innocent idealist when she goes to the mountains of Appalachia to teach school in a one-room schoolhouse. By the end of the story sheâ€™s a grown-up woman whoâ€™s experienced friendship, grief, and love. I don’t know why I can’t get my urchins to read it.
White Mountains and The City of Gold and Lead by John Christopher. I read these classic science fiction/dystopian novels when I was a kid of a girl. I remember them being quite chilling. Perhaps they’re due for a republishing in light of the current popularity of dystopian fiction.
Rosemary’s Baby by Ira Levin. I remember when everyone was talking about the movie version of this horror novel. Major elements of the story were inspired by the publicity surrounding Anton LaVey’s Church of Satan which had been founded in 1966. The eponymous Rosemary basically conceives a child with Satan.
Where Eagles Dare by Alistair McLean. World War II action adventure. The movie based on this book, starring Clint Eastwood and Richard Burton, is one of Engineer Husband’s favorites.
100 Years of Solitude, Cien aÃ±os de soledad by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Garcia Marquez was a pioneer in the genre of “magical realism”, a style that has since become quite popular in all sorts of literature. (Magical realism: an aesthetic style or genre of fiction in which magical elements blend with the real world.) I need to go back and read this book in English because when I read it in college in Spanish I couldn’t tell the magical elements from my lack of fluency in the language.
Nicolas and Alexandra by Robert K. Massie. Nonfiction biography of the last Romanov rulers of Russia. For more books about this tragic family, see my post on Reading About the Romanovs.

1967: Events and Inventions

Feb22

February, 1967. The U.S. launches Operation Junction City, its biggest assault yet against the Vietcong in Vietnam.

April, 1967. General George Papadopoulos takes over the government of Greece in a military coup.

April 9, 1967. The first Boeing 737, a twin-engine narrow-body jet airliner, takes its maiden flight. As of December 2011, Boeing had built 7010 of this model airliner for use around the world.

May 22-27, 1967. Egyptian President Nasser declares the Straits of Tiran , between the Sinai and Arabian peninsulas separating the Gulf of Aqaba from the Red Sea, closed to Israeli shipping. He says, “”Our basic objective will be the destruction of Israel. The Arab people want to fight.”

May 30, 1967. Colonel Ojukwu of the Ibo tribe in eastern Nigeria proclaims the region to be the independent republic of Biafra. European and U.S. citizens flee Biafra as Nigerian troops attack the breakaway republic.

June, 1967. China detonates its first H-bomb in Xiang Jang, a remote area of southwestern China.

June 5-10, 1967. The Six Day War. The Israeli air force launches surprise air strikes against Arab forces. In a decisive victory, Israel takes control of the Gaza Strip and the Sinai Peninsula from Egypt, the West Bank and East Jerusalem from Jordan, and the Golan Heights from Syria.

June 27, 1967. The first automatic cash machine is installed, in the office of the Barclays Bank in Enfield, England.

October 10, 1967. Ernesto “Che” Guevarra, Cuban revolutionary hero who helped Fidel Castro overthrow the Batista regime in Cuba, is shot to death by the Bolivian army while on a mission to spread the communist revolution to the rest of the world.

December, 1967. The first successful heart transplant is performed by Dr. Christian Barnard in South Africa.

1966: Events and Inventions

Feb21

January 12, 1966. President Lyndon Johnson says the US should stay in South Vietnam until communist aggression ends.

January 15-17, 1966. A bloody military coup is staged in Nigeria, deposing the civilian government. The Nigerian coup is overturned by another faction of the military, leaving a military government in power. This is the beginning of a long period of military rule.

January 19, 1966. Indira Ghandi, daughter of India’s first prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru, is elected prime minister of India. She pledges to “strive to create what my father used to call a climate of peace.”

February, 1966. While President Nkrumah of Ghana is on a state visit to North Vietnam and China, his government is overthrown in a military coup. Nkrumah is best known politically for his strong commitment to and promotion of Pan-Africanism, a movement that seeks to unify African people or people living in Africa, into a “one African community”. He never returns to Ghana, living the remainder of his life in exile.

April 8, 1966. In a reshuffling of power at the Kremlin, Leonid Brezhnev becomes the apparent leader of the Soviet Union. As General Secretary of the Communist Party in Russia, Brezhnev appears to be the real power behind the government in the USSR.

June, 1966. The U.S. unmanned spacecraft Surveyor is the first craft to land on the moon.

August, 1966. Mao Zedong launches the Cultural Revolution in China. The movement is led by thousands of students organized into bands called “Red Guards.” Teachers, artists, and other intellectuals are humiliated in the streets. Mao’s dictum to his young army is: “Revolution is not writing an essay or painting a picture . . . Revolution is an act of violence when one class overthrows another.”

November, 1966. In China, the Red Guard demands the dismissal of heads of state Lui Shaopi and Deng Xiaoping.

During the year 1966:
Botswana, Lesotho, and Guyana become independent states within the British Commonwealth.

Tension between the United Kingdom and the rebel state of Rhodesia in southern Africa continues. The United Nations authorizes sanctions against Rhodesia, and the British Navy enforces a blockade on oil shipments to Rhodesia.

Texas Tuesday: The Buckskin Line by Elmer Kelton

Feb21

Elmer Kelton is from my hometown, San Angelo, Texas. I’m not much of a reader of westerns, but I thought I should at least sample the work of Mr. Kelton, seeing as he’s a hometown boy and was the farm-and-ranch editor for the San Angelo Standard-Times. Also, for five years he was editor of Sheep and Goat Raiser Magazine, and for another twenty-two years he was editor of Livestock Weekly. He wrote more than thirty western novels, set mostly in Texas, and he was awarded several Spur Awards from the Western Writers of America. In 1977, Kelton received an Owen Wister Award for lifetime achievement, and in 1998, he received the first Lone Star Award for Lifetime Achievement from the Larry McMurtry Center for Arts and Humanities at Midwestern State University in Wichita Falls, Texas. Now that’s a resume to be found only in West Texas.

The Buckskin Line introduces us to Rusty Shannon, a red-headed orphan who is nearly captured by the Comanches in the first chapter. The Comanches do kill Rusty’s parents as the story opens in August, 1840 during the Comanche raid into south central Texas during which the small town of Linnville in Victoria COunty was sacked and burned. “The surprised people of Linnville fled to the water and were saved by remaining aboard small boats and a schooner . .. at anchor in the bay.”

In the story three year old Rusty is carried off by the Comanche raiders, but rescued by a ragtag group of pursuers, including Mike Shannon, an Irish-Texan wanderer who farms the land he finds until it wears out and then moves on. Mike has a wife, but the two have been unable to have childen. So they adopt the orphan boy and keep his first name, Davy, the only thing the young boy can tell them about himself. Davy grows up to be called “Rusty” in reference to his red hair.

Most of the book is about the adventures of the young adult Rusty Shannon, as he joins the Texas Rangers on the Red River border with Indian Territory just before and after the outbreak of the Civil War. Rusty is a brave and honest young man, but somewhat rash in judgement and too ready for revenge when someone hurts the people he loves. The Buckskin Line shows how Rusty Shannon matures and learns to temper his judgement with faith and patience.

I liked it enough to want to read the other two books in Kelton’s Texas Rangers Trilogy, Badger Boy and The Way of the Coyote.

Sahara: A Natural History by Marq de Villiers and Sheila Hirtle

Feb20

DNF=Did Not Finish.

I read more than 200 pages of this 300 page travelogue/history of Saharan Africa, but for many of those 200 pages I skimmed rather than read carefully. I just couldn’t get engaged in reading about the history and cultures of the Saharan desert in this book. The organization of the book was confusing: not chronological, not geographical, not anything else as far as I could see. There were some interesting factoids here and there, but otherwise the style and content were bewildering and forgettable.

“Salt was profitable, gold was more profitable still, but no commodity was more abundant and profitable than slaves, and slavery was always a mainstay of Saharan commerce.”

“It is considered polite among the Tuareg to occasionally interrupt a conversation by bowing and asking, ‘How are you?’ without in any way expecting an answer.”

“The Tuareg differ even more fundamentally from orthodox Arab societies in their treatment of women. The most obvious symbol of the difference is that Tuareg men are veiled, but the women are not. Tuareg women can divorce their husbands without difficulty, while for a husband, divorce is hedged around with so many restrictions as to be practically impossible.”

“. . . mirages are not always false. Sometimes only the sense of distance, the perspective, is wrong. Because of it, bushes can seem like trees, grasses like a waving forest, rocks like mountains—and sometimes they are seen upside down.”

1965: Events and Inventions

Feb18

February 18, 1965. The Gambia becomes independent from the United Kingdom.

March 20, 1965. The Indo-Pakistani War of 1965 begins. This conflict becomes known as the Second Kashmir War fought by India and Pakistan over the disputed region of Kashmir, the first having been fought in 1947.

March 31, 1965. U.S. President Lyndon Johnson sends 3500 Marines to protect the South Vietnamese air base at Da Nang from attacks by the communist Vietcong.

April 24-28, 1965. Civil war breaks out in the Dominican Republic. President Lyndon B. Johnson sends U.S. troops to the Caribbean nation “for the stated purpose of protecting U.S. citizens and preventing an alleged Communist takeover of the country”, thus thwarting the possibility of “another Cuba”.

April 29, 1965. Australian government announces it will send troops to Vietnam.

July 28, 1965. U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson announces his order to increase the number of United States troops in South Vietnam from 75,000 to 125,000, and to more than double the number of men drafted per month – from 17,000 to 35,000.

August 9, 1965. Singapore is expelled from the Federation of Malaysia, which recognizes Singapore as a sovereign nation. Lee Kuan Yew announces Singapore’s independence and assumes the position of Prime Minister of the new island nation.

October, 1965. An attempted communist coup fails in Indonesia. In response to the attempted government takeover, the Indonesian army sweeps through the countryside and are aided by locals in killing suspected communists. The number of people killed across Indonesia is anywhere from 78,000 to one million. President Sukarno remains in power, but the events of 1965 lead to his downfall in 1967.

November 11, 1965. The (white) Rhodesian Government, led by Prime Minister Ian Smith, severs its links with the British Crown. Mr. Smith makes the Unilateral Declaration of Independence. His address to the people of Rhodesia says he has taken the action, “so that dignity and freedom of all may be assured.” Over four million black Rhodesians will have no power in the new government.

December 30, 1965. Ferdinand Marcos is inaugurated as president of the Philippines.

Cost of Living in 1965
Average Cost of new house $13,600.00
Average Income per year $6,450.00
Gasoline per Gallon 31 cents
Average Cost of a new car $2,650.00
Loaf of bread 21 cents

Saturday Review of Books: February 18, 2012

Feb17

â€œBut words are things, and a small drop of ink, falling like dew upon a thought, produces that which makes thousands, perhaps millions, thinkâ€ ~Lord Byron

Welcome to the Saturday Review of Books at Semicolon. Hereâ€™s how it usually works. Find a book review on your blog posted sometime during the previous week. The review doesnâ€™t have to be a formal sort of thing. You can link to your thoughts on a particular book, a few ideas inspired by reading the book, your evaluation, quotations, whatever.

Then on Friday night/Saturday, you post a link here at Semicolon in Mr. Linky to the specific post where youâ€™ve written your book review. Donâ€™t link to your main blog page because this kind of link makes it hard to find the book review, especially when people drop in later after youâ€™ve added new content to your blog. In parentheses after your name, add the title of the book youâ€™re reviewing. This addition will help people to find the reviews theyâ€™re most interested in reading.

After linking to your own reviews, you can spend as long as you want reading the reviews of other bloggers for the week and adding to your wishlist of books to read. That’s how my own TBR list has become completely unmanageable and the reason I can’t join any reading challenges. I have my own personal challenge that never ends.

1. Janet @ Across the Page (The Omnivore’s Dilemma)
2. Barbara H. (Vicious Cycle)
3. Barbara H. (The Help)
4. Barbara H. (Little House in the Ozarks)
5. Becky (Tankborn)
6. Becky (Rasco and the Rats of NIMH)
7. Becky (Dominic)
8. Becky (Tales of Very Picky Eaters)
9. Becky (The Scrapbook of Frankie Pratt)
10. Becky (Pinkalicious Series)
11. Becky (Jane Austen Made Me Do It)
12. Becky (Tuesdays at the Castle)
13. Becky (Mistress of Nothing)
14. JoAnne @ The Fiarytale Nerd (Fracture)
15. the Ink Slinger (Discerning the Body)
16. Reach the Stars (Soup and Me)
17. Reach the Stars (The Tiger Rising)
18. Reach the Stars (Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane)
19. Reach the Stars (Peak)
20. Reading to Know (The Lighthouse Family)
21. Reading to Know (Still: Notes on a Mid-Faith Crisis)
22. Reading to Know (Pioneer Woman: Black Heels to Tractor Wheels)
23. Patricia (Moby Dick)
24. SuziQoregon@ Whimpulsive (Accidents of Provicence)
25. Becky (Listen to My Trumpet)
26. Beth@Weavings (Educating the Whole-Hearted Child)
27. Beth@Weavings (Reading Journal: The Resolution for Women and More)
28. Becky (Loving The Way Jesus Loves)
29. Jessica Snell (“Borders of Infinity” and “Inferno”
30. Collateral Bloggage (The Fellowship of the Ring)
31. Amy@book musings (Great Expectations)
32. Donovan @ Where Pen Meets Paper (The Flame Alphabet)
33. Lazygal (The Crown)
34. Lazygal (All That I Am)
35. Lazygal (Believing the Lie)

36. Lazygal (The Good Father)
37. Lazygal (Voyagers of the Titanic)
38. Lazygal (Hide Me Among the Graves)
39. Lazygal (The Book of Jonas)
40. Lazygal (The Spinoza Problem)
41. Lazygal (So Pretty It Hurts)
42. europeanne (Our Town)
43. Graham @ My Book Year (The Sense of an Ending)
44. europeanne (Jacob Have I Loved)
45. Laura @ Musings (Dance to the Music of Time, 3rd mvmt)
46. Nicola (Revenge of the Horned Bunnies by Ursula Vernon)
47. Nicola (Horrid Henry’s Underpants)
48. Nicola (The Missing Mummy by Sean O’Reilly)
49. Nicola (Monster Beach by Sean O’Reilly)
50. Nicola (Dotter of Her Father’s Eyes by Mary M. Talbot)
51. Nicola (No Such Thing as Ghosts by Ursula Vernon)
52. Joseph R. @ Zombie Parents Guide (Catechism of the Catholic Church)
53. Thoughts of Joy (Before I Fall)
54. Sarah Reads Too Much (Before I Go To Sleep)
55. Becky (Balloons Over Broadway)
56. Debbie @ Exurbanis (The Homecoming of Samuel Lake)
57. Debbie @ Exurbanis (A Midsummer Night’s Dream)
58. Reading World (By Fire, By Water)
59. Quieted Waters (The Shaping of a Christian Family by Elisabeth Elliot)
60. Amy @ Hope Is the Word (Breadcrumbs)
61. Amy @ Hope Is the Word (President’s Day read-alouds)
62. Amy @ Hope Is the Word (This Week in Books)
63. Girl Detective (The Tiger’s Wife)
64. Becky (Alas, Babylon)
65. Jules Book Reviews (The Druid)
66. Jules Book Reviews (The Girl Who Lived on the Moon)
67. Jules Book Reviews (Living With Dead)
68. Jules Book Reviews (The Dogs and The Wolves)
69. Jules Book Reviews (The Paris Wife)
70. Benjie @ Book ‘Em Benj-O (The Ragamuffin Gospel)

71. Benjie @ Book ‘Em Benj-O (Memoirs of an Ordinary Pastor)
72. S. Krishna’s Books (The Calling of the Grave)
73. S. Krishna’s Books (The Inheritance)
74. S. Krishna’s Books (All the Flowers in Shanghai)
75. S. Krishna’s Books (On Borrowed Time)
76. S. Krishna’s Books (The House at Sea’s End)
77. S. Krishna’s Books (One Was a Soldier)
78. S. Krishna’s Books (The Lost Empire of Atlantis)
79. Becky (The Practice of Praise)
80. Colleen @ Books in the City (Julia’s Child)
81. Alice@Supratentorial(City of Tranquil Light)
82. Becky (Being God’s Friend)
83. Beckie @ By The Book (Eric’s War)
84. Beckie @ By The Book (Sweeter Than Birdsong)
85. dawn (Evening in the Palace of Reason)
86. Becky (Power in the Blood)
87. Becky (Grace: God’s Unmerited Favor)
88. Reach the Stars (Because of Winn-Dixie)
89. Reach the Stars (Adaline Falling Star)
90. Melissa @ Betty and Boo Chronicles (NIGHT SWIM)
91. Melissa @ Betty and Boo Chronicles (MARRIAGE CONFIDENTIAL)
92. Becky (Suppose You Meet A Dinosaur; George Washington’s Bday; 10 Hungry Rabbits)
93. aloi – guiltlessreading – (Lone Wolf by Jodi Picoult)
94. Annie Kate (Chosen by God)
95. Melody @ Fingers and Prose (Song of the Lark)
96. utter randomonium (Jaguar Sun)
97. Annie@ Learn at Every Turn (California History for Kids)
98. Annie@ Learn at Every Turn (Homeschooling Gifted and Advanced Learners) )
99. Anna @ Diary of an Eccentric (The Picture of Dorian Gray)
100. Anna @ Diary of an Eccentric (Mr. Darcy’s Angel of Mercy)
101. Anna @ Diary of an Eccentric (Pride, Prejudice, and Curling Rocks)
102. Gina @ Bookscount (The Battle of the Labyrinth)
103. Gina @ Bookscount (Love and Capital)

The Hour Before Dawn by Penelope Wilcock

Feb16

Last night I took another trip to the abbey of St. Alcuin, and I encountered tragedy, sin, horror, and of course, grace.

This fifth book in the series about a community of monks in a fourteenth century abbey begins with atrocity. The new abbot of St. Alcuin Abbey, Father John, recieves word that his mother and sister have been the victims of assault, violence, and gang rape by villagers who think they might be witches. Father John can barely assimilate the news that his mother is dead, and his defenseless sister has taken refuge with the Poor Clares in their convent nearby.

The book is about healing: Father John’s sister Madeleine is a healer, before she becomes the wounded sister in need of healing herself. Father John himself has been the infirmarian at St. Alcuin’s before he became abbot. Now, he, too, needs healing. And the new character, Father William de Bulmer, former prior of an Augustinian monastery who entered this series in the previous book, The Hardest Thing To Do, comes into his own. It is Father William who is the sturdy prop that Father leans upon in his suffering and grief.

I like William de Bulmer so much. He is a hard man, without much concept of grace or mercy, except that which he has received from the monks at St. Alcuin’s Abbey. He doesn’t pretend to understand either or to change when change comes hard for him. What he does do is respond to the love and grace that he has been given with loyalty and stalwart support. William reminds me of a friend of mine. She’s a deeply committed, highly intelligent Christian homeschool mother of 10+ children, but all the fluffy emotional stuff that goes along with that role just isn’t there. Not that she doesn’t have or express emotions, but when you ask my friend a question, you get a straight answer—no evasions, no emotional baggage, not much tact. I like that, but it does rather jolt some people’s equilibrium.

I also like the idea presented in the book that William’s response to the anguish Father John is experiencing is silent listening, for the most part. And this listening response is the most helpful thing to bring healing to Father John’s heart. William doesn’t have any answers for the question of why bad things happen to good people, so he doesn’t give any. He speaks when necessary, but mostly he listens and tries to guide Father John to avoid despair. I try too hard to find answers for all the questions people have when they are mourning and dealing with pain.

I highly recommend the Hawk and the Dove trilogy and this new series, set after the events in the first three books of St. Alcuin’s Abbey. Ms. Wilcock, who is an ordained Methodist minister and the mother of five children. She blogs at Kindred of the Quiet Way.

Fifteen Year Old Boy Reads Books!

Feb15

Almost-15 year old Karate Kid, who quit reading, except for school assignments, when he was about twelve, speed-read his way through the series of books he got for Christmas: Andrew Klavan’s Homelanders series. Then, he read The Client by John Grisham, a book I strategically placed near his bed for him to discover.

Today, he asked me to recommend an Agatha Christie mystery! I think he’s going to read either Ordeal by Innocence or Murder on the Orient Express. So, assuming he doesn’t spend the rest of the spring reading through the novels of Dame Agatha, what do I suggest, or give as a birthday gift, or leave lying around, next?