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Today in History – 1883 – Jan Matzeliger Patents the shoe “lasting machine”

So this morning I read that on this date in 1885 – John Matzeliger of Suriname patented the shoe lacing machine. I thought that sounded interesting, especially since I had no idea what a shoe lacing machine did? Anyway, what I found when I googled the event was that in 1883 a young man named Jan Matzeliger, who was born in Suriname patented a “shoe lasting machine”. Matzeliger was born in Suriname of a Dutch Father and a black native of Suriname. At an early age Matzeliger showed an aptitude for machines and by the age of 10 he was working in a machine ship that his father supervised. By 1873 he moved to Philadelphia and then on to Lynn, Massachusetts where the shoe industry was booming. He became an apprentice in a shoe factory’. From MIT’s Inventor of the Week: At that time, shoes were made mostly by hand. For proper fit, molds of customers’ feet had to be made with wood or stone called “lasts” from which the shoes were sized and shaped. Though the cutting and stitching of leather involved some degree of mechanization, the final process of shaping and attaching the body of the shoe to its sole was done entirely by hand with “hand lasters.” This was considered the most difficult, tedious part of the assembly and presented a major problem in that workers could not complete the assembly of a shoe as quickly as a machine could produce its parts. In effect, a bottleneck…

This Day in History – The Start of Operation Iraqi Freedom

A few reads regarding the Iraqi War, which started on this date ten years ago. From History.com: Bush announces the launch of Operation Iraqi Freedom On this day in 2003, President George W. Bush addresses the nation via live television and announces that Operation Iraqi Freedom has begun. Bush authorized the mission to rid Iraq of tyrannical dictator Saddam Hussein and eliminate Hussein’s ability to develop weapons of mass destruction (WMD). Operation Iraqi Freedom illustrated the Bush administration’s pledge to use unilateral, pre-emptive strikes if necessary against nations believed dangerous to American national security. Read More Is it better to think that they were just stupid and deceitful or that they were just deceitful. Anyway you look at it they lied to us and played upon our fears to do what they wanted to. But they didn’t have a clue of the complexity of the situation or the actual effect of their actions on the Iraqi people! From The Raw Story:New evidence: CIA and MI6 were told before invasion that Iraq had no active WMD Fresh evidence is revealed today about how MI6 and the CIA were told through secret channels by Saddam Hussein’s foreign minister and his head of intelligence that Iraq had no active weapons of mass destruction. Tony Blair told parliament before the war that intelligence showed Iraq’s nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons programme was “active”, “growing” and “up and running”. Continue Reading Can you say? “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat…

Quick Watch Robert Reich – Raise the Minimum Wage!!

So According to Robert Reich: “Raising the minimum wage from the current rate of $7.25 an hour to $9 should be a no-brainer,” Robert Reich says. The labor secretary during the Clinton administration argues, among other points, that putting more money in the pockets of the country’s lowest earners is not only fair, it would also help boost the economy. “Fifteen million workers would get a pay raise, allowing them to buy more and thereby keeping others working,” Watch below as he explains it in a couple of minutes. Then go sign the petition!

Treacherous Beauty – Peggy Shippen, the Woman Behind Benedict Arnold’s Plot to Betray Anerica

So in Book No 11 for 2013 Treacherous Beauty, the authors Mark Jacobs and Stephen H. Case make the case (no pun intended, well maybe a little) that the subject of the book was the Scarlett O’Hara of the Revolutionary War: “a woman whose survival skills trumped all other values. Had she been a man, she might have been arrested, tried and executed. And she might have become famous. Instead, her role was minimized and she was allowed to recede into the background – with a generous British pension in hand” the Treacherous Beauty is Peggy Shippen, Mrs. Benedict Arnold! Once again, much like I felt after reading about the assassinations of both Garfield and McKinley I felt like saying, “Hey why didn’t I learn this in school”. We all learned that Arnold was a traitor and was going to allow the British to capture West Point and split the colonies and block their path from north to south, but did we learn that Mrs. Arnold was a co-conspirator and probably introduced Arnold to British Adjunct General John André who was Arnold’s British contact. Peggy had spent considerable time with Andre when the British were occupying Philadelphia! Among the other things that I really didn’t know was the way that the conspiracy fell apart and Arnold fleeing down river from West Point into the arms of the British with the colonists hot on his heels or the capture of John André. I thought it was interesting that André was told…