Today is the anniversary of the birth of Emma Lazarus. In case you have never read the whole of her famous Poem, but only the lines on the Statue of Liberty, here it is.
The New Colossus
Emma Lazarus, 1883
Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
"Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she
With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"
If you pop over to one of those "This Day In History" sites, which I do daily, with only a couple of minor exceptions and one major one, June 17 seems to be reserved for misconceptions, accidents, missteps, crime, and lost causes. Of course, this is the main reason things become historical. It is, as Alexander would say, one of those terrible, horrible, no good, very bad days.
In 1775 there was a revolutionary battle fought on Breed's Hill in Boston. Naturally, this will be forever designated as The Battle of Bunker Hill.
In 1944 The Vichey government in France surrendered to Germany. Now you know why Humphrey Bogart tosses a bottle of "Vichey Water" into the trashcan at the end of Casablanca.
1876 - The Indians won one game at the Battle of Rosebud. Unfortunately, they didn't win the series.
In 1962 the Watergate Burglers got arrested. Eventually, Deep Throat came to mean something more than an X-rated movie, Woodward and Bernstein became way too famous for their own good, and the American public got stuck with G. Gordon Liddy as a talk show host.
1994 - Who can forget the slow speed "chase" of the white Bronco down a California freeway. Two people were dead, OJ was arrested and eventually released, and TV programmers discovered that car chases got great ratings.
1986 - Kate Smith died. There's nothing funny to say about this one. We lost a great lady with a great voice who had way too many jokes made about her weight, but kept singing anyway. When I was four, her signature song was the first "grown up" one I ever learned as my repetoire to that point was Itsy Bitsy Spider.
And the really, really good thing.
In 1885 - The arrival of what may have been the world's largest puzzle arrived in New York. It came off the boat in more than 200 packing cases, took a year and a half to assemble, but once completed, gave an excuse for a great big party then and a hundred years later. To see how the puzzle turned out: Go Here.
