In an episode of M*A*S*H a bigoted white soldier is "colored" by Trapper and Hawkeye while still under anesthetic. After the soldier awakes and sees his darkened skin, the doctors tell him the story of Dr Charles Drew, inventor of blood plasma, and how he died for lack of a transfusion because he was black. It's a good story, widely circulated, but it has no shred of truth to it. Two of the doctors he traveled with tried to help, he was taken to a mixed (segregated) hospital and received treatment including one transfusion, but it wasn't enough. He had been crushed by the car and his neck was broken, injuries that would challenge any trauma center today. The best "whites only" hospitals of the time would have had no more success.
Another black American, born just two years later, had greater public success than Drew, but had to go to Paris to achieve it. Josephine Baker, the Black Venus, started life in the slums of St Louis, did well in New York, was a brilliant success in Paris, with age her income fell as she adopted a huge family, and in her final years was again the toast of the continent. Christian Dior designed her wardrobe, her admiring friends included Ernest Hemingway and Pablo Picasso, her lovers were legion. But a black woman of this power and confidence was more than white American audiences could handle.
We have an item in the events section that most gun owners would consider impossible, a suicide by gunshot involving five shots from a bolt-action rifle. It almost makes sense if you know that the victim was investigating a wheeler-dealer con man and friend of Lyndon Johnson named Billy Sol Estes.
My mail is working again, and the flood of corrections almost made me wish it weren't! The explorer Marquette was born in 1637, not 1673, so he had a little longer than 2 years to explore the Mississippi. Ion Antonescu turned Romania over the Germans from 1939 to 1944, rather than the impossible 1949 to 1944 - all the suggestions from science fiction fans suggesting how my original dates could have been managed were greatly appreciated. If you entered any changes in your subscription that haven't taken effect, please send them again as they were lost.
1937 - Edward, Duke of Windsor, having abdicated the throne of England the previous year, married twice-divorced Baltimore socialite Wallis Warfield Simpson in the Chateau de Cande, Monts, France.
1948 - Twenty years after George Ellery Hale secures funding from the Rockefeller Foundation, 12 years after the 200-inch mirror blank was cast at Corning, New York, ten years after Hale died, the Hale Telescope at Mount Palomar is dedicated.
1961 - Henry W. Marshall, a farmer and investigator for the US Department of Agriculture, was found dead at his West Texas ranch, the coroner ruled it a suicide. Death was caused by five shots from a .22 caliber bolt-action rifle.
Memorial to Broken Dolls Day, Japan - A Buddhist observance when broken dolls are enshrined by a priest.
Jefferson Davis' Birthday, Florida, Georgia, South Carolina (US) - Jefferson Davis was a Mississippi planter, soldier, and politician prior to the War for Southern Independence, he resigned from the US Senate when Mississippi seceded from the Union. He wanted a military position, but became President of the Confederate States of America.
1904 - Charles Richard Drew, US physician - Born at Washington, DC, he received his BA from Amherst College, one of few white colleges to accept blacks. All-American football player at Amherst, after graduation taught at Morgan College as biology teacher and athletic director. Used his coaching income to get his MD and CM (Master of Surgery) at McGill University at Montreal, Quebec in 1933. Earned Doctorate from Columbia University at New York 1940, pioneer in blood plasma and storage, developed concept of blood banks while at Presbyterian Hospital at New York. Organized WW II blood programs in London. While traveling to a medical conference with three other doctors he was half thrown from the car in an accident and crushed, died from the trauma on 1 April 1950.
1906 - Freda Josephine MacDonald Baker, US/French dancer - Born to unmarried parents in the slums of St. Louis, Missouri, working as maid by age 8, left home and school by age 13, waited tables, married, divorced, and had started appearing on stage in New York by age 18. Did well in New York, great in Paris in 1925 where her "La Danse de Sauvage" ended with Baker doing the Charleston wearing only a feather girdle. Nudity packed the house, powerful Jazz dances, passion, and comedy brought them back. Tried the states again, returned to Paris 1937 and took French citizenship. Was intelligence liaison and ambulance driver for Resistance during war, won the Legion of Honor and Medal of the Resistance. Adopted ten boys and two girls of various color and nation, called them "The Rainbow Tribe." Lived beyond her means, lost her chateau, Princess Grace gave her a smaller villa. Fortunes improved with the production of "Josephine" in Monaco in 1974, Paris in 1975. The fiftieth anniversary of her arrial was a gala in Paris, but she died of a stroke four days later, 12 April 1975. Twenty thousand attended her Paris funeral.
If birds of a feather flock together, they don't learn enough.
- Robert Half
Aristotle taught that the brain exists merely to cool the blood and is
not involved in the process of thinking. This is true only of certain
persons.
- Will Cuppy
It's not your blue blood, your pedigree or your college degree. It's
what you do with your life that counts.
- Millard Fuller
Nudity on the stage? I think it's disgusting, shameful and unpatriotic.
But if I were twenty-two with a great body, it would be artistic, tasteful,
patriotic, and a progressive religious experience.
- Shelley Winters
Twisted History is sent daily, absolutely free, to our subscribers who understand that the events of the past centuries have shaped our lives today - and are probably less depressing than the events on today's TV news. Both an HTML version (which looks just like this) and a text version that is compatible with all mail clients are available.
Copyright 2000 G. Armour Van Horn, all rights reserved. This document may be distributed freely. Please forward the complete message including this copyright notice.