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(Originally appeared in Bethesda Magazine) In August 1861, with the first battle of the Civil War at Manassas, Virginia, resulting in Union forces fleeing in retreat, President Abraham Lincoln embarked from the White House on a carriage ride. With him was Secretary of State William Seward, his son, Frederick, assistant Secretary of State, and General … Continue reading
In 1830, Frances Trollope—a petite Englishwoman whose acidic wit would later earn her the sobriquet “Old Madam Vinegar”—arrived in Montgomery County, Maryland, with three children in tow. She had come to summer at Stonington, a friend’s Potomac estate near Great Falls. Immediately, Trollope was taken by the beauty of the Montgomery County countryside. It “perfectly … Continue reading
Histories have traced the lineage of the PC’s x86, the first PC, back to 1972, with Intel Corp.‘s introduction of the 8008 chip, the 8-bit follow-on to the 4-bit 4004, itself introduced in 1971 and remembered as the world’s first microprocessor. According to “Forgotten PC history: The true origins of the personal computer,” written by Lamont Wood and … Continue reading
Hippies were a dying breed in 1972, those peace-loving, longhaired boys and braless, braided-hair girls so in the know, so hip — “hippies” they became known in the early 1960s, a term popularized by San Francisco journalist Michael Fallon in writing about a local coffeehouse called the Blue Unicorn, where “the new generation of beatniks … Continue reading
Gloria Steinem declared 1971 the “Year of Women’s Liberation.” And even though a year later, in 1972, the Supreme Court would rule unconstitutional separate hiring practices for men and women, there was still no consensus among observers or advocates as to what the women’s movement was all about – were they liberationists or feminists? Yet … Continue reading
In 1972, with Marvin Gaye’s release of the landmark anthem “What’s Going On?”, soul music died. For a decade soul music had shared the top of the American charts with the Beatles and the Stones — The Beach Boys were deluged by the tidal wave of British acts crossing the Atlantic, while Elvis was sinking … Continue reading
Long, long hair for the boys was a rock-and-roll thing in 1972 – picture Robert Plant from Led Zeppelin or Roger Daltrey from The Who. On stage it was perhaps alluring, but on Main Street of the early 1970s long hairs were looked on as the dregs of the community, the derelicts of the town, … Continue reading
In July 1972 Queen Elizabeth II officially opened the Runcorn Shopping Center, the first “American-style” shopping center built in the United Kingdom. Today known as Halton Lea, it is what 1970s consumers in the United States called a “mall” — a fully enclosed, weather-controlled wonder of commerce. But the truly first American-style shopping center appeared … Continue reading
In 1972, the pesticide DDT was banned by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency due to its link to cancer – notably breast in women and testicular in men – although some bemoaned the decision, hailing DDT as a “miracle chemical” that was eradicating the world of malaria-bearing mosquitoes. The State of Maryland (and nearly every … Continue reading
The summer of love in America was long over. It was a time of waning optimism. A time of national doubt. About the power of M1s and napalm to stop encroaching communism in Southeast Asia. About the power of communal living to either change or block out the world’s ills. A time of burning draft … Continue reading
Mark Walston 