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In the New York of 1860, the population reached 813,000 and as the year drew to a close, Abraham Lincoln was elected 16th President of the US - and the first ever Republican. His win triggered South Carolina to secede from the Union just five days before Christmas 1860. Thus the scene was set for the outbreak of the war between the states, that opened when Fort Sumter - a Federal fort lying in Charleston, South Carolina's outer harbour - was fired upon by southern guns. Within three days, Major Anderson of the U.S. Army and his 85 men, including 13 members of the regimental band, surrendered to Brigadier-General P.G.T. Beauregard of the Confederate forces. By the time it was over, there would be more than 600,000 American dead, southern cities in ruins and a country divided against itself. Even today, areas of the south still refer to the Civil War as, The War of Northern Aggression. In fact, during my last visit to the only remaining, intact plantation house in South Carolina, one elderly Charleston lady referred the Civil War as, "Oh, that last little unpleasantness!" Meanwhile, back in New York City of 1863... |
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Talking Points Memo: by Joshua Micah Marshall |
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prospects for Britain looked bleak in 1940. The Nazis had conquered France and were eyeing an early invasion of Britain from their vantage point at the channel ports. The Blitz of that year, proved morale-sapping to a population reeling from the débâcle of Dunkirk. It appeared to some in government that the only hope was to bring a reluctant, isolationist United States into the war. And so was launched the largest single covert spying operation in history. The phrase, British Security Coordination is a British understatement. BSC, as it was commonly known at the time, was a covert operation, based in the Rockefeller Center, New York, using a claimed 3,000 spies that included the euphemistically-named elimination squads - from 1940 onwards. |
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A blue note is a lowered third, seventh, or fifth degree of the diatonic music scale. As a non-musician and lover of music, it means nothing to me. It meant something to Alfred Lion, in 1920s Berlin though. He first heard jazz as a boy in the suburb of Shöenberg and saw his first concert at age 16 quite by accident. He intended going roller skating with his friends, but happened upon a gig where Sam Woodyard and his band were playing. He was captivated. Unfortunately due to the Nazi regime, Lion was forced to emigrate to the US in 1937. By summer 1938 Lion frequented record stores, bars and jazz clubs. Later that year he attended a Carnegie Hall concert featuring Albert Ammons and Meade Lux Lewis, two jazz boogie-woogie pianists. His life was about to change... |
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