Famous Guys in History this Week

Good morning my fellow Rotarians on this Friday, February 18th.  Thought I would share with you a few 'famous guys' from this week in history...

In 1801...  Thomas Jefferson was finally elected the 3rd US president after one tie vote in the Electoral College and 35 indecisive ballot votes in the House of Representatives.  He defeated running mate, Aaron Burr. The election took five months to complete with Jefferson not inaugurated until March 4th.  This clearly exposed the need for change with the electoral process and that led to the 12th Amendment. The formation of political parties happened this year as well; Jefferson formed the Democratic-Republicans (forerunner of the Democratic Party) and Alexander Hamilton started the conservative Federalists Party.

In 1885...  Mark Twain published "the Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" which was a follow up to his tremendously successful novel The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, published 9 years earlier in 1876. Twain saw Huck's story as a kind of sequel to his earlier book, but this new novel was far more serious, focusing on the institution of slavery and other aspects of life in the South.  The book was took a look at racism, religion and other social attitudes of the time and thus is became very popular and yet controversial, long after Twain's death in 1910.  Today it is required reading in most US high schools and is considered a masterpiece.

In 1933...  Adolph Hitler came up with the Volkswagen Beetle idea.  The car became the highest production vehicle in history, in 1972, when 15,007,034 Beetles were produced.  For over 40 years Ford Model T held the record during 1908 thru 1927. Hitler wanted a small, inexpensive 'people's car' and he hired Austrian-born engineer Ferdinand Porsche as the designer.  When the Beetle arrived in the US In the 1950s it was not well received, but with a new ad agency in the early '60s and with some help from the 'Love Bug' Disney movie, the Beetle eventually became the #1 US import. 

And finally, in 1962...  John Glenn Jr. was the first American astronaut to go in to space and orbit the earth aboard the Friendship 7 spacecraft.  Glenn, a Marine lieutenant colonel, was a decorated pilot who flew nearly 150 combat missions during World War II and the Korean War.  Glenn endured many mechanical and functional issues during his five hours in space, but in the end he was considered a national hero because his flight put the US back as the leader in the space race, which had been led by the Russians who had put two men in space two years earlier.  Glenn did not fly any other space missions until 38 years later when he was designated as a payload specialist on the space shuttle Discovery. On this flight the 77-year-old Glenn became the oldest human ever to travel in space.

And there you have it, famous guys this week in history as our bottom of the news on this Friday, February 18th, 2011.  ###