The Keziah Affair, 1858
During the 1850s, with increasing desperation, the white population of the Upper South witnessed the success of slaves escaping North, both through individual exploits and organized efforts such as the Underground Railroad. In 1855 the Norfolk Southern Argus wrote that the “frequent escapes of fugitives from our port” were “an intolerable evil.” The next year the Virginia General Assembly required that all ships leaving the state for the North had to be inspected. With this heightened scrutiny and white anger came increasing resourcefulness on the part of slaves and their allies assisting in their escape.
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The Lincoln and Grant Meeting
The climactic events leading to the collapse of the Confederacy began on April 1, 1865 when Union forces defeated the two divisions of General George Pickett at the Battle of Five Forks. Lee could no longer hold Petersburg or stop the Yankees from cutting the Southside railroad. It was time for a breakthrough and General Grant seized the moment in a series of coordinated attacks that broke the siege and put Union troops into Petersburg proper.
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Muslim Conquest of Spain I
Lead: The expansion of Islam in the centuries after the Prophet Muhammad’s death flowed east to India and west to the Visigothic kingdom on the Iberian Peninsula. Spain had powerful Moorish rule for more than seven centuries.
Intro.: A Moment in Time with Dan Roberts.
Content: From 712 to 1492 some part of Spain was under Muslim control. At high tide, Arabs ruled almost all of Iberia. In the end, only Granada, dominated by the massive Alhambra fortress, could resist the Reconquista, the re-conquest of the peninsula, led finally by Christian forces united under Ferdinand and Isabella. The city surrendered in the year Spain turned its attention outward and sent Christopher Columbus on his journey to a new world.
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Marie Sklodowska Curie
Lead: Winner of two Nobel prizes, the French physicist Marie Curie, born Maria Sklodowska near Warsaw, Poland, helped advance the understanding of radioactive substances.
Intro.: A Moment in Time with Dan Roberts.
Content: Learning was a lifetime passion for Marie Curie. Her parents lived and taught in a private school and as a child she demonstrated a remarkable memory in academic matters but hers was not a purely abstract scholarship. During Maria's childhood, her native Poland could not be found on the maps of eastern Europe. For centuries Polish territory had been parceled out to hostile neighbors and in 1863, due to an abortive revolt, Poland had become little more than a Russian province. The Polish language was suppressed. As a teenager she took part in the secret nationalist "free university" where she taught the Polish language to women workers.
Creation of the United Nations – II
Lead: Determined to avoid the mistakes of the League of Nations, the founding states of the United Nations met to draft a charter in San Francisco in the Spring of 1945.
Intro. : A Moment in Time with Dan Roberts.
Content: One of the factors complicating the establishment of the United Nations was that its Charter provisions were hammered out when the primary concern of the founders was the defeat of the Axis. Nothing could be allowed to deter the Allies from this task. Therefore the negotiations proceeded with a certain delicacy.
Creation of the United Nations – I
Lead: In October 1945, the victorious World War II Allies met in San Francisco to establish the United Nations. It was the 20th century’s second multi-purpose world-wide international organization and emerged from the failures of the first.
Intro.: A Moment in Time with Dan Roberts.
Content: When the charter members met in spring 1945, they were determined to steer clear of the fatal weaknesses that proved so damaging to the U.N.’s predecessor, the League of Nations. In many ways the failures of the League insured the success of the United Nations. The League came to grief in part because one of its great champions, U.S. President Woodrow Wilson, despite a prodigious public relations campaign that probably undermined his health, failed to convince the Senate, led by conservative Massachusetts Senator Henry Cabot Lodge, to ratify the Versailles Treaty (1919) a section of which established the League. That meant the up-and-coming international power during the 1920s and 1930s would not be a full player in League debates or diplomatic efforts. The League also lacked an independent enforcement mechanism, and when Germany, Italy and Japan began their pattern of aggression that ultimately led to World War II, and the major Allies refused to act, the League was powerless and therefore discredited.
Savonarola II
Lead: At the height of the Renaissance in Florence, Fra Girolamo Savonarola thundered against corruption, ostentation, and vanity in civil affairs and in the life of the Roman Catholic Church. He paid for his meddling with his life.
Intro. : A Moment in Time with Dan Roberts.
Content: Savonarola was born into privilege in 1452. Educated to follow his father as court physician in Ferrara, Italy, he turned to the Dominican priesthood, and served in various assignments with increasing scholarly reputation. It was in Florence, however, at the Monastery of San Marco after 1489, that he developed the passionate preaching style that compelled him into prominence and popularity.