Women’s History Month traditionally highlights the groundbreakers, the glass-ceiling crashers, and the ones who went first. Count two U.S. Army nurses among them. On March 13, 1942, Major Julia O. Flikke, chief of the Army Nurses Corps, became the first female colonel in the history of the Army. Her second in command, Captain Florence A. […]
When Christy Hayes graduated from Morro Bay High in 2000, she received a bottle of perfume from her sister as a graduation gift. It contained the essence of her dreams. Chanel No. 5? Giorgio? J’adore? Nope. “WD-40 has always been my favorite scent,” said Hayes. A lifelong engine buff, Hayes went straight from “California’s only […]
The overwhelming majority of living Americans cannot remember a time when the Star-Spangled Banner” was not our national anthem. Francis Scott Key watched the British pound Maryland’s Fort McHenry during the War of 1812 and then wrote about that moment in history in a poem originally titled “The Defence of Fort McHenry.” A newspaper in Baltimore published the work on September 14, 1814, and he later changed the name to […]
In February 1942, less than three months after the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor – 79 years ago this weekend – the Japanese scored a decisive victory in one of the first actual sea battles in the Pacific, the Battle of Java Sea. Among the losses to the United States Asiatic Fleet, more than 2,000 sailors […]
On the evening of June 25, 1996, Latia Suttle settled in for the night in her quarters in the United States Army’s housing at the Khobar Towers complex in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia. At least she thought she had. “We were there on a peacekeeping mission,” Suttle said. The marble floor suddenly sank beneath her feet. […]
Kenneth James is happy with his new neighbors. So what if some have four legs and antlers and others use their rattles to let him know they are visiting? As long as they follow social distancing protocols, they are welcome around his home in Bear Valley Springs, near Tehachapi, in the mountains southeast of Bakersfield. […]
Presidents keep on working on the national holiday that many U.S. citizens have off.
One summer afternoon in the late 1950s, eight-year-old Phillip Willis, Jr. took a break from mowing lawns at a home in Jackson, Mississippi. Having worked up a thirst, Willis asked his employer, a white woman, for a glass of water. That simple and reasonable request required minimal physical effort on the woman’s part. Mainly, it required mere humanity and compassion for a young Black kid toiling in the stifling heat and humidity. She begrudgingly gave him the water, Willis said, along with a not-so-subtle reminder that he […]
Imagine, being in outer space with no secure connection to the mothership. A bit unnerving, perhaps? Too Hollywood for you? Decades before George Clooney vanished into the galaxy in “Gravity” and Matt Damon took his chances in “The Martian,” Navy Captain Bruce McCandless II became the first person ever to fly untethered in outer space. […]
As the Civil War raged in 1861, Julia Ward Howe penned a poem that first appeared in The Atlantic monthly magazine on February 1, 1862. With February being Black History Month, the importance of her 160-year-old work continues to resonate today. Titled “Battle Hymn of the Republic” by the magazine’s editor, Howe’s poem defined the […]
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