The Year That Was

By: Elizabeth Lunday
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  • Summary

  • A look at history one year at a time, from as many angles as possible. Famous people, infamous people, obscure people; wars, revolutions, peace treaties, art, science, sports, religion. The big picture, in an entertaining podcast package. The complete first season of The Year That Was is now available. However, the podcast is now on hiatus. What happens next? That's a very good question! I'll let you know as soon as I've figured it out for myself. Thanks to everyone who has listened and reached out. This has been enormous fun. Keep in touch! -- Elizabeth
    © 2024 Elizabeth Lunday
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Social Sciences World
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Episodes
  • Welcome to The Year That Was

    Welcome to The Year That Was
    Aug 12 2019
    Welcome to the The Year That Was: 1919. I'm so excited to announce this new project. I've always been fascinated by year-by-year approach to history, and I'm thrilled to be taking a close look at 1919. Over the course of the next few months, we're going to look at wars and revolutions, peace conferences and treaties, scientific discoveries and artistic innovations, scandals and triumphs. The podcast launches September 3rd. Make sure to subscribe now so you don't miss a single episode. Meanwhile, here are some notes on today's trailer: Gilbert M. Hitchcock, a Democrat from Nebraska, served as U.S. Senator from 1911 to 1923 and was Chairmas on the Foreign Relations Committee until 1918. He was a supporter of President Woodrow Wilson and a strong advocate for the League of Nations. In 1919, he recorded a speech on the League as part of a Columbia Gramaphone Company series called "Nation's Forum." You can listen to the full speech on the Library of Congress website (https://www.loc.gov/item/2004650544/). Nannie and James Pharis told their story about the Spanish Flu Epidemic as part of the Piedmont Social History Project. They were recorded at their home on January 8, 1979. The entire interview is fascinating, and you can hear it and read the transcript (https://exhibits.lib.unc.edu/exhibits/show/going-viral/oral-histories) on the Going Viral website, a project of the Southern Oral History Program at the University of North Carolina dedicated to documenting the impact and implications of the 1918 flu pandemic. (Scroll down to see the Pharis interview--it's the second on the page.) Rilla of Ingleside is the last book in the Anne of Green Gables series by Canadian author Lucy Maud Montgomery. This is the cover of the first edition of the novel. The book was published in 1921, but Montgomery began writing it in 1919 immediately after World War I ended. It is, as best I can tell, the only contemporary account of World War I from the perspective of women on the homefront. Rilla of Ingleside is widely available, including from Amazon (https://www.amazon.com/Rilla-Ingleside-Anne-Green-Gables/dp/0553269224/ref=sr_1_1?crid=2TYV4V9Y9TYL0&keywords=rilla+of+ingleside&qid=1565625766&s=gateway&sprefix=rilla+of+in%2Caps%2C187&sr=8-1) and most libraries. You can also listen to a free audio recording by LibriVox, which offers free recordings of books in the public domain. That's where I found my clips of Karen Savage reading the novel. You can find the LibriVox recording here (https://librivox.org/rilla-of-ingleside-by-lucy-maud-montgomery/). William Butler Yeats was one of the most important poets of his generation. A mystic with a strong belief in the supernatural, he channeled his reaction to current events into powerful symbolic imagery. You can read the entire poem The Second Coming (https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/43290/the-second-coming) or see actor Dominic West reading it (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QI40j17EFbI) in a powerful performance. Tsar Nicholas II, ruled as the last autocrat of all Russias but was brought down in 1917 by the Russian Revolution. His entire family, pictured here, were executed by Bolshevik forces. You can see the entire BBC documentary (https://www.britishpathe.com/programmes/day-that-shook-the-world/episode/asc/playlist/5) from which I quote on the British Pathe and Reuters Historical Collection website. Eamon de Valera dedicated the early part of his life to achieving independence for Ireland from British rule. He fought during the Easter Uprising, served time in British prisons, and was elected president of Sinn Fein and the shadow Irish assembly Dail Eireann. He spent 18 months of his presidency in the United States raising money and lobbying for the Irish cause. During his months in the U.S., he recorded this speech as part of the Columbia "Nation's Forum" series. You can listen to the entire speech and read a transcript (https://www.loc.gov/item/2004650653/) on the Library of Congress website. An unnamed Palestinian man spoke to the BBC in 1936 about life in the British Mandate territory. In 1919, the British took over Palestine and began welcoming Jews with the goal to create a Jewish homeland. You can see the man's entire statement (https://www.britishpathe.com/video/VLVAFULNK7G0W2S5G4HI807ST516-P5120) on the British Pathe and Reuter's Historical Collection website. "How Ya Gonna Keep 'Em Down on the Farm (After They've Seen Paree)" was a 1919 hit with music by Walter Donaldson and words by Joe Young and Sam M. Lewis. You can listen to the entire song by Arthur Fields (https://archive.org/details/78_how-ya-gonna-keep-em-down-on-the-farm-after-theyve-seen-paree_arthur-fields-le_gbia0047025a) from an original 1919 78 record on the Internet Archive website. W.E.B. Du Bois was a sociologist, historian, civil rights activist, author, writer, editor and all-around amazing person. He was one of the founders of the NAACP and edited the organization's monthly magazine The Crisis ...
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    18 mins
  • After You've Gone

    After You've Gone
    Feb 2 2022
    Actress Irene Castle cut her hair short in 1915 shortly before an operation for appendicitis. She liked it so much she never grew it back. In 1919, American women began following her lead. Newspapers were full of articles about the trend, but since it hadn't yet spread beyond major East Coast cities, critics in the heartland held their criticism. That would not last. This photo shows Alcock and Brown shortly after landing in Ireland at the conclusion of their record-setting Trans-Atlantic flight. You can see that the plane has tipped nose-first into a bog. Alcock and Brown are the two men in front of the plane in dark hats and coats. An estimated 12,000 Native Americans served in World War I, many of them volunteers. They received high praise for their courage acting on behalf of a nation that refused to grant them citizenship, abused their children and kep their tribes in penury. Emiliano Zapata was a skilled horseman, an inspirational leader and an unyielding revolutionary. He had no use for political theory and no patience for political compromise. He is still revered by many Mexicans for his unrelenting efforts for the poor and downtrodden. Concerned about the state of America's roads, the U.S. Army sent 80 trucks and cars to cross the country and evaluate the state of the roads. They averaged 6 miles per hour and at one point in the Utah desert had to be rescued by teams of horses. The experience planted a seed in one of the officers on the trip, an idea to create an efficient nationwide highway system.
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    51 mins
  • Through Cloud, Hopeful: Eddington, Einstein, and the Eclipse of 1919

    Through Cloud, Hopeful: Eddington, Einstein, and the Eclipse of 1919
    Jul 4 2021
    Arthur Eddington was committed to testing Einstein's General Theory of Relativity during the 1919 Solar Eclipse, not only to remove all doubts about the theory but also to demonstrate the value of scientific internationalism. But the British Army was determined to send him to the Front. Eddington faced the greatest challenge of his life: proving his opposition to violence and his dedication to science were both a matter of conscience. Conscientious objectors in Britain could be sent to prison if their claims were rejected by local tribunals. Many were sent to solitary confinement, while others were put to hard labor. This prisoner is standing on a stool to get a glimpse of the sky. Some COs were subjected to field punishment. Field punishment was introduced in 1881 following the abolition of flogging in the Army--so I guess that's a good thing? The punishment was applied to soldiers who disobeyed orders, which included COs who had been denied official status and continued to refuse to fight. Men would be tied up to a fixed object for up to two hours a day. Conscientious objectors were despised by the general public and often mocked in political cartoons. In this image, as in many, COs were depicted as unmanly cowards--as "sissies" with a major dose of homophobia. Einstein's General Theory of Relativity describes space as curving in response to the mass of heavy objects. The amount of the curvature depends on the mass of the object, so the Sun will cause greater curvature than the Earth. The Earth orbits the Sun because it is caught in the well of the Sun's gravity. One of the problems with most explanations of relativity theory, including my own, is that they imply that massive objects sit on top of space. In fact, they existing within space. This graphic tries to represent this concept. Eddington arranged for two expeditions to view the 1919 eclipse. One went to Sobral in northern Brazil and the other to Príncipe in the Gulf of Guinea. Príncipe is a gorgeous tropical island with misty mountains and white beaches. Eddington was amazed at the lush landscape and tropical fruits; he ate about a dozen bananas a day. Some fifteen years before Eddington arrived, the world learned that the cocoa plantations in Príncipe, which primarily supplied Cadbury's Chocolate, were worked by enslaved laborers kidnapped from Angola. The Portugese government promised to stamp out the practice, but political instability meant that these efforts received little attention. It is unclear in 1919 if Eddington saw free or enslaved laborers at work. Northern Brazil, meanwhile, had been struck by a devastating drought in 1915 that killed hundreds of thousands of people. Many of those who survived fled the region, but the government feared they would cause instability if they arrived in Brazil's cities. What can only be called concentration camps were established and people were forced to live in them, as seen here. The drought was beginning to lessen in 1919, but the region was struggling. The eclipse observation teams arrived with telescopes, cameras, glass photographic plates, developer chemicals, motors, clocks, waterproof tents and more. Here you can see the set up in Sobral. The light from the Hyades had been traveling about 153 years when it reached Eddington's telescope. Scientists now know that at least one of the stars within the cluster has three planets, one roughly the size and composition of the Earth. It is considered unlikely any advanced life exists on the planet, but anything is possible. This is one of Eddington's original photos of the eclipse. It has been scanned, and the stars that he was measuring are circled and labeled. You can see that the stars are incredibly dim and hard to spot even when pointed out. The announcement by Eddington and Dyson caught the world's attention and newspapers struggled to make sense of the discovery. The Illustrated London News did a fairly good job of explaining what the astronomers were looking for. The New York Times, on the other hand, was more bombastic that clear. I can only imagine readers were perplexed by this announcement, which seems at pains to tell everyone that (a) no one understands what has happened but (b) you don't need to worry about it. I suppose with everything else going on, readers did like having that reassurance. The bit about "A Book for 12 Wise Men" refers to a story that circulated widely at the time. Supposedly, Einstein had gone to a publisher about writing about book about his theory, but the publisher replied that since only about 12 wise men in all the world would understand it, there was no point in publishing. This story seems to have been completely made up but got a lot of traction in the years to come. (Also, apparently only men of science were more or less agog. No word on the women of science, who, while small in number, did exist.) Einstein made his first visit to Britain in 1921. He toured the United States first (a tour...
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    58 mins

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