The Happiest Place on Earth

Hot diggity dog! Walking down Main Street towards Sleeping Beauty's castle, Disneyland has a magical charm for millions of visitors each year. Kids and adults alike love Space Mountain, princesses, and Dole Whips. The happiest place on Earth that so many enjoy today all started with one cartoonist: Walt Disney.

In 1955, Disneyland opened in Anaheim. Originally built on 160 acres of orange groves, Disneyland has become one of America's most iconic and visited theme parks. In 1928, Walt Disney released the first animated film with sound, Steamboat Willy, which features Mickey Mouse. As Disney made longer, feature-length animated films for children, his popularity grew. Snow White, Dumbo, Fantasia, and Bambi were only some of the 170 films he produced.

Disney's popularity grew with each film, which compelled him to begin construction of a theme park. On its opening day, thousands of uninvited people arrived and were admitted to Disneyland. The park was not ready for the public, though, and food and drink ran out, a woman nearly got stuck on Main Street's wet asphalt, and the Mark Twain steamboat almost flipped over.

Disney was determined, though, to make the park "the happiest place on Earth," even with these obstacles. The park recovered and attracted visitors each year, all of whom were intrigued by rides like Mr. Toad's Wild Ride. A popular place for family vacations, Disneyland embodied the family culture of the 1950s and 1960s.

The development of Disneyland significantly changed how Americans viewed leisure and vacations. At its grand opening, Disney said that the park is "dedicated to the ideals, the dreams, and the hard facts that have created America." He believed any American could achieve their dreams with hard work, and maybe a little splash of magic. Although this is a highly idealistic and optimistic perspective, Disney certainly achieved his dreams. By 1957, ten million people visited Disneyland.

As President Eisenhower built highways connected the country and as cars became more affordable and common, millions of Americans would drive to Disneyland for a magical family trip. With these highways, getting to Disneyland was easy and convenient for nearly everyone on the west coast. As air travel expanded (although it was not very accessible), transportation was quicker and easier. This increased efficiency led to the decline of many cities on historic American roads, like Route 66. With amusement parks like Disneyland, more and more Americans focused less on the journey and more on the destination.

Disneyland has only gotten larger over time. Disney World opened in Florida a decade later, and today, Disney parks are worldwide. Even though Disneyland isn't the biggest or most extravagant amusement park, it's the original and it's extremely iconic. Since its opening, 710 million visitors have gone to Disneyland to make their dreams come true at the happiest place on Earth.

Sources:
https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/disneyland-opens
https://disneynews.us/disney-parks-attendance/
https://www.adayinlatours.com/the-history-of-disneyland/
https://www.thesun.co.uk/tvandshowbiz/2304983/walt-disney-films-death-body-cryogenically-frozen/

Ruby Bridges

           Ruby Nell Bridges was born on September 8, 1954, in Tylertown, Mississippi. When she was two years old, she and her family moved to New Orleans, Louisiana, in search of new opportunities. Little did they know, Ruby would become an American hero as the first African American student to desegregate William Frantz Elementary School.
            At the time, the desegregation of public schools met heavy resistance by the Southern states, even after the ruling of Brown v. Board of Education in which the segregation of public schools was ruled unconstitutional. In 1960, a federal court ordered the desegregation of public schools in Louisiana, which was a year after Bridges started attending a segregated kindergarten. As a result of this order, conservative Southerners made African American assimilation into white schools a greater challenge than it already was by forcing them to pass intelligence tests while also performing extensive background checks on the children's parents. The NAACP was informed that Bridges was the youngest of only six African American students who passed this test and were admitted to William Frantz Elementary School.
           On her first day of school, Ruby Bridges was escorted by several armed marshals protecting her from her large crowds of people gathered around the school, yelling and throwing things in her direction. Upon her reflection on that fateful day, Bridges claimed that she "saw barricades and police officers and just people everywhere. And then when I saw all of that, I immediately thought it was Mardi Gras. I had no idea that they were here to keep me out of school."
            As a result of the uproar taking place at William Frantz Elementary, only one teacher, Barbara Henry, was willing to teach Bridges. Ruby received her lessons individually, with Henry right by her side for a year until the overbearing adversity settled and white children who were taken out of William Frantz returned after their parents took them out because of Ruby's enrollment. Despite the opposition and hateful prejudice, she was faced with, Ruby Bridges even had perfect attendance the year she began elementary school.
             Although Ruby's bravery represented a major turning point for the potential progress in American race relations, her and her family's sacrifices to do so caused many complications for them. Ruby's father lost his job, her mother became unable to shop at local grocery stores, and her grandparents lost their jobs as sharecroppers along with their land. However, these sacrifices and losses were met with the reward of more African American children being admitted into William Frantz Elementary Schools, four of which include Ruby Bridges' future nieces.
          Eventually, Ruby was able to graduate from a desegregated high school and maintain her legacy for decades to come. She has done so through inspiring artworks like Norman Rockwell's The Problem We All Live With as well as forming the Ruby Bridges Foundation in 1999 to advocate for tolerance and reform for race relations through education.

https://64parishes.org/entry/ruby-bridges

https://medium.com/@markricks/rubybridges-fdc4ee377058

https://www.nps.gov/people/rubybridges.htm

https://www.bostonglobe.com/magazine/2014/06/27/teaching-ruby-bridges-reflecting-classroom-that-made-civil-rights-history/r0ozyM4GQWzD25g5mzhtqN/story.html

Hugo Black - An Ex-KKK Supreme Court Justice

Hugo Black was Franklin D. Roosevelt's first nomination for the Supreme Court. Black was born in Alabama to a relatively poor family. After enrolling in medical school and law school, Black enlisted as a soldier in World War I, but he was not sent to Europe. Afterwards, in 1926, Black ran for the Senate as a Democrat from the state of Alabama. He defeated his opponent, winning almost 81% of the white vote. In 1935, he became the chairman of the Senate Committee on Education and Labor, where he stayed for the remainder of his Senate career.

Shortly after the court packing plan failed, Roosevelt wanted to nominate a justice who would be strongly in favor of the New Deal, as well as someone from the south. In the Senate, Black voted for all 24 of the major New Deal programs, becoming favorable with Roosevelt. After the Judiciary Committee dealt with his nomination, eventually passing it with a 13-4 vote, the Senate approved Black with a 63-16 vote to confirm him.

After Black was appointed to the Supreme Court, a rumor got out that he used to be part of the Ku Klux Klan. Eventually, Black's resignation letter from the Klan from 1925 got out in the newspapers and stirred up controversy. He did state that his time in the Klan was no more and that he had many friends who were of the "colored race."

On the Supreme Court, Black leaned towards the liberal side, advocating for Civil Rights and the Bill of Rights, but was also accused of being a communist because of his defense of the freedom of speech of the Communist Party leaders after they were arrested.


Sources:
https://www.history.com/news/kkk-supreme-court-hugo-black-fdr
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugo_Black

ICBMS and the Cold War

ICBMs are also known as intercontinental ballistic missiles, were the most powerful weapons in existence at the time. Their long-range capabilities made it a nearly unstoppable force. The countries that possessed these types of missiles during the Cold War were the two superpowers, the United States and the Soviet Union.
The idea of ICBMs began way back during World War Two in Nazi Germany under German scientist Wernher von Braun. They were able to create the V-2 rocket that functioned properly. However, the rocket wasn't able to cause the mass destruction that the Germans had envisioned. But just the fact that the Germans were able to construct such a powerful weapon represented a breakthrough in missile technology and introduced a new factor for forces to deal with during wartime. After the war ended both of the superpowers began developing these missiles. The Soviets made their successful R-7 rocket which allowed for the Sputnik to be launched. On the other hand, the United States created its Atlas rocket after multiple failures. Both the countries went on to create hundreds of these weapons which brought up the theory of mutually assured destruction. Essentially, it means that in the case of nuclear war both sides would be annihilated.  As for the technical facts of these ICBMs, the rockets had a range of nearly 3500 miles. To put that range and speed into perspective it would only take these rockets 30 minutes to hit Moscow from New York. The point is that these weapons are extremely lethal and that one mistake can spark a conflict that would end life as we know it. It almost happened with the Cuban Missile Crisis but we were lucky that both sides called off the attack.





https://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Intercontinental_ballistic_missile

https://www.u-s-history.com/pages/h1955.html

Elizabeth Eckford

Elizabeth Eckford was a member of the Little Rock Nine, a well-known group of nine African American students who were supposed to attend a previously all-white high school in Little Rock Arkansas. They were the first African American students to start the desegregating of the Arkansas school systems and are known all around America for their immense bravery and hardships they endured. I had the great pleasure of getting to meet Elizabeth back around 2015 and I got to speak to her about her experience and what she went through attending the school. While speaking with her I realized that Elizabeth is so much more than just a member of the Little Rock Nine, she is a smart, kind, and courageous woman with a whole life story that deserves to be acknowledged.

Liz was born on October 4, 1941, to Oscar & Birdie Eckford in little Rock Arkansas. She grew up as a smart and kind girl, she was always considered to be on the shyer side but was loved by many nonetheless. By just fifteen Liz was chosen to be one of the Little Rock Nine. The plan was for all the students to enter the school area together, although Liz’s family did not own a telephone so she was not informed of the meeting spot. This caused Liz to have to enter the school alone where she was surrounded by a mob of four hundred white protesters, she was yelled at and spat on while being all alone in this mob. She was then escorted to a bus stop by a white woman who shielded her from the mob. That day was considered to be unsuccessful as the children were not able to enter the school due to the mass mobs and the lack of police action. It was not until two weeks later that she was able to attend and enter the school. She attended and graduated from Little Rock Central Highschool, although the abuse she went through there caused her to have post-traumatic stress disorder until this day that still affects her everyday life. White female students used to flush all the toilets while she was showering in the gym, which would cause the water to become very hot and burn her. She was assaulted, harassed, and threatened for the majority of her high school career, yet she still persisted.

Although her high school experience was traumatic Liz did not let it stop her, she went on to be accepted by Knox College in Illinois, she later attended Central State University in Wilberforce, Ohio, where she earned a BA in history. In 2018, she was then awarded an honorary doctorate from Knox College. Liz even went on to serve in the U.S military for five years and then returned home to write for Fort McClellan and Fort Benjamin Harrison newspaper. She went on to have many various professions including, a history teacher, welfare worker, unemployment and employment interviewer, and a military reporter.

Elizabeth persevered through life even when she had to experience hardships no fifteen year old should ever have to endure. She graduated, attended college, worked hard, and started a family. Liz is truly one of my biggest inspirations in life and one of the kindest souls I have ever had the opportunity to meet and get to know. 

Is (the king of) Rock and Roll dead?

On August 16, 1977, Elvis Presley, the music icon of the 50's and beyond, died in his mansion in Memphis, Tennessee. Or did he? Despite his declining physical health due to an increasing dependence on prescription drugs and poor diet, many people even today believe that he may have faked his death due to a number of reasons.


Even according to the FBI's own public online records, he was connected to them, they say because he was the victim of many extortion attempts. Among these public files, however, are also papers that show he was given private tours of the FBI facilities and his requests to meet with the director of the FBI were declined. Some conspiracy theorists have dedicated significant time to whether Elvis is truly still walking among us, some have even written books.

The author of the 1988 bestselling book Is Elvis Alive, Gail Brewer-Giorgio, has actually read through these thousands of pages of FBI files and refuses to believe that he died that day, even if he isn't still alive today. Her theory is that he had to go into witness protection because the FBI used him as an undercover agent in a racketeering ring. The official stance is that while Elvis was the victim of these racketeers, he was not used in any investigation against them, and the only reason all those FBI files exist is that he was involved, though in a completely mundane way.

This is a fairly well-known conspiracy, however, it does not hold much truth, and less than 4% of Americans believe Elvis Presley is still alive. So, while some aspects of historical figures' lives may seem unbelievable and without explanation, sometimes they just died of a heart attack, and had no connection to the mob or any criminal organization. Or did they?

Sources:
Chan, Melissa. “Elvis Presley Death Theories: Why Do Some Think He's Alive?” Time, Time, 15 Aug. 2017, time.com/4897819/elvis-presley-alive-conspiracy-theories/.

“Elvis Presley Dies.” History.com, A&E Television Networks, 9 Feb. 2010, www.history.com/this-day-in-history/elvis-presley-dies.

“Elvis Presley.” FBI, FBI, 6 Dec. 2010, vault.fbi.gov/Elvis%20Presley%20.

The Dixiecrats

The Dixiecrat Party was a short-lived, southern political party active in 1948. It was the result of President Harry Truman’s statement regarding civil rights, stating that all people, regardless of race, or religion, should have equal rights. This led to the creation of the political party, whose name comes from the word “Dixie” (nickname for those that are from the confederate, southern states), and “Democrat”. Members of the Dixiecrat Party sought to protect Southern state rights to segregation, white supremacy and Jim Crow laws.

After Franklin Roosevelt died, Harry S. Truman took over as president. He implemented desegregation in the armed forces, also known as Executive Order 9981. After that, a group of Southern governors met to discuss their standing in the Democratic party. They eventually agreed to hold another convention in Birmingham, Alabama if Truman won at the 1948 Democratic National Convention. The convention ended up re-nominating Truman, which led to 35 delegates walking out of the convention. In order to decrease Truman’s chances of becoming President, the southern delegates formed their own distinct political party, which was initially called the States’ Rights Democratic Party.

The party also needed a nominee to represent them, so they nominated South Carolina governor Strom Thurmond for president and Mississippi governor Fielding L. Wright for vice president. Thurmond didn’t have any radical policies regarding civil rights unlike the other segregationist leaders and had an overall positive image from the media. During the election, the Dixiecrats didn’t formally declare themselves as a third political party but rather pushed voters to vote for Thurmond. They hoped that with this election, the Dixiecrats would be able to dominate their views in the Democratic party. That did not end up working, with Truman pulling the supposedly “biggest upset” in election history with his win over Dewey. The Dixiecrat party ultimately had little effect on the election income in 1948.

Sources Cited:

http://www.encyclopediaofalabama.org/article/h-1477

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dixiecrat

How the Cold War gave us AP Classes

During the Cold War, pretty much everything was a competition between the United States and the Soviet Union. Education was no exception. Fears that Americans were not educated enough to keep up with highly trained Soviet scientists permeated government policy. It was thought that the “upgrading of American education was a matter of survival in a death struggle with communism.”

In 1951, the Ford Foundation created the Fund for the Advancement of Education largely in attempt to create a more educated population to compete with the Soviets. Educators from the fund wanted to prevent overlap between high school and college education so students could advance as quickly as possible. The result was something that we are all certainly familiar with—high students were able to take college-level classes and earn college credit. By 1955, the program was successful enough that the Ford Foundation invited a company called College Board to step in and administer it. From that time on, it was called the College Board Advanced Placement Program. 

After the Soviets successfully launched Sputnik into space in 1957, Americans were even more frantic to figure out how to catch up with them. This led President Eisenhower to pass the National Defense Education Act in 1958. The NDEA granted over 1 billion dollars in government spending to bolster higher education in mathematics, science, and foreign language. Additionally, the government invested heavily in the National Science Foundation, which in turn pushed for numerous education reforms. In 1959, the foundation received 100 million dollars more than the previous year in federal grants. Colleges and universities across the country had their science research programs funded while science students experienced countless new opportunities. In high schools, new teaching curriculum and educational tools were implemented with the hopes that it would be able to match the Soviets. 

There was a particular emphasis on educating young Americans because they were seen as the future of the country. After the passage of the NDEA, a House of Representatives report stipulated that “the very survival of our free country—may depend in large part upon the education we provide for our young people now.” Clearly, education was not free from the Cold War rhetoric of protecting freedom and preventing a communist takeover. 

Sources:

https://blog.prepscholar.com/history-of-ap-classes-exams

https://www.history.com/news/homework-cold-war-sputnik

https://web.archive.org/web/20090205075824/http://www.collegeboard.com/prod_downloads/about/news_info/ap/ap_history_english.pdf

http://wh-magazine.com/educational-philosophy/how-the-cold-war-affected-education-in-the-united-states-2

https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/d9ab/fc695a24e97e38a846c8f63c071c658f6c13.pdf

Lighting McQueen

Kachow!

As a flashy red car and rusty brown truck rolled across our screens during one of the most appreciated films of our childhood, the rapidly changing culture and landscape of American during the 1950s made its way into the background of Cars. The deserted town of Radiator Springs, the replaced Route 66, and even the variety of cars themselves all carried allusions to America's emerging car culture and the building of the first highways in the 1956.

Credited greatly not only as a WW2 hero but also as the man who built America's highway, President Dwight D. Eisenhower was involved in constructing long stretches of road as far back as 1919, when he took part in building the Motor Transport Corps convoy, running from Oakland California to Washington D.C. Official work on America's highway system, nevertheless, did not begin until 1953, when Eisenhower put General Lucius D. Clay in charge of acquiring data about the logistics surrounding an interstate highway system. Clay reported, "It was evident we needed better highways. We needed them for safety, to accommodate more automobiles. We needed them for defense purposes, if that should ever be necessary. And we needed them for the economy. Not just as a public works measure, but for future growth."

Eventually, Clay drafted out a 10-year plan to build 40,000 miles of interstate highways linking all cities with 50,000 or more residents. The entire project was to cost 100 billion dollars. Upon finalization, Eisenhower passed the Federal Aid Highway Act of 1956 and set the plan into motion. On August 13, 1956, construction on the US-40 started in St. Charles County.

The construction of America's highways were full of anticipated benefits, as Eisenhower would have otherwise not approved of such a large scale project. Primarily, traveling across the country became much more efficient. Simultaneously, more and more people began to buy cars, though it can also be observed that the previous increase in car ownership as early as 1945 affected Eisenhower's decision to make an interstate highway system. In other words, consumerism rose greatly after WW2, leading to a lot of people buying cars, which lead to the construction of highways, which lead to even more people buying cars.

The American cultural landscape was also fundamentally altered. During construction, small farms and even larger buildings were demolished to make way for the highway. Once put in use, the highways did their job in helping people travel quickly to and from cities. However, this ultimately lead to more and more people permanently moving away from the cities and into suburbs. As a result, shopping malls, a "downtown away from downtown", and fast food restaurants soon populated across America, all for the purpose of providing services for a new nation that is more dependent on their cars than ever. Factory transportation and vacation destinations all became more spread out as highways provided greater efficiency in traveling.

However, it is important to note that such highways were not the first "interstate route" to have been built in America. One of the most famous routes that were built before 1956 was Route 66, which most people regard now as the Mother Road. Running from California to Illinois and passing by the fictional Radiator Springs, Route 66 enjoyed popularity from the 1930s until the 1960s, when the completion of the I-40 gradually overshadowed it. The fading of Route 66, however, was only a popular example of the effects of national highways built during this time. As the planned interstate highways bypassed smaller towns, they soon became obsolete as well.

As Sally from Cars described it, "Cars didn't drive on Route 66 to make great time, they drove on it to have a great time." Radiator Springs, as a result, was also blooming in visitors in the early days of Route 66. However, with the construction of highways, "the town got bypassed just to save ten minutes of driving." While children merely appreciated this 2006 movie for its eventful plot and messages on dedication, persistence, and friendship, older folks may have been reminded of when the first national highway was built exactly 50 years ago and how far the country has progressed. Nowadays, though highways have become an inseparable part of our lives and small towns such as Radiator Springs gradually forgotten, Lightning McQueen begins to leave his legacy in a different fashion: memes.














Sources:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/steveolenski/2014/03/25/lightning-mcqueen-mater-and-the-rebranding-of-an-american-icon/#47b2928c5e24
https://interestingengineering.com/the-complex-history-of-the-us-interstate-highway-system
https://www.ocregister.com/2012/07/25/cars-land-inspiration-greetings-from-route-66-in-arizona/
https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/78410/15-ways-highways-changed-america

https://www.reddit.com/r/memes/comments/baumwa/i_am_speed/ (Reddit meme)