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Matt's Today In History
Everything that came before us has helped to define the world we inhabit today. Matt's Today in History is a short podcast that brings you the story of an event that took place on today's date at some time in the past. From sobering to silly, from before the Roman Empire to the fall of Communism and beyond, we cover it all, a little at a time.We are all standing on yesterday. Begin your own journey of discovery with Matt's Today in History!
- MTIH 396 The Boston Tea Party, 1773
The story of what caused the Boston Tea Party and what happened because of it. - MTIH 395 The Abdication Crisis, 1936
- MTIH 394 HMAS Sydney and Kormoran Do Battle, 1941
The story of the battle between the HMAS Sydney and the German raider Kormoran in the waters off Australia in November, 1941. - MTIH 393 Bastille Day, 1789
- MTIH A Plea and Thoughts on Memorial Day---PLEASE LISTEN
- MTIH 392 Robert Kennedy Killed, 1968
- MTIH 391 Memorial Day
- MTIH Update - Please Listen
- MTIH 390 Super Outbreak, 1974
- MTIH 389 USS Missouri Decommissioned, 1992
- MTIH 388 Giuseppe Zangara Executed, 1933
- MTIH 387 The First Spacewalk, 1965
- MTIH 386 The Battle of Dien Bien Phu Begins, 1954
- MTIH 385 The First National Fireside Chat, 1933
- MTIH Special Request
- MTIH 384 The Boston Massacre, 1770
- MTIH 383 Augustus Saint-Gaudens Born, 1848
- MTIH 382 The Battle of Los Angeles, 1942
- MTIH 381 Douglas Bader Born, 1910
- MTIH 380 Iwo Jima Invasion, 1945
- MTIH DB Cooper Gets Away, 1971
The story of D.B. Cooper, one of the most infamous hijackers of the 20th century. - MTIH Update November 26, 2007
- MTIH 378 Man O' War Dies, 1947
A short summary of the life of Man O' War, one of greatest horses to every run in a race. - MTIH Hiatus
See you in November! - MTIH 377 F. Scott Fitzgerald Born, 1896
A short history of the life of F. Scott Fitzgerald, arguably one of the most important American writers of the 20th century. - MTIH 376 Norton the First, 1859
The story of Joshua Norton, the United States' first and only emperor. - MTIH 375 A Cloudy Day for Basketball, 1972
Tonight, we discuss the basketball game between the Soviet Union and the United States at the Munich Olympics in 1972. - MTIH 374 V-2s Against London, 1944
We discuss the first V-2 rocket attack against London during the Second World War and the development of the terror weapon. - MTIH 373 Sound Today and Edsel, 1957
I need to hear from you if you are having audio problems with this show, plus we discuss Ford Motor Company's Edsel, the mother of all bad marketing decisions. - MTIH 372 Caligula Born, 12
Today is the birthday of Caligula, the Roman Emperor who is today remembered as a madman. - MTIH 371 Shays' Rebellion, 1786
Sorry, no transcript for this episode. - MTIH 370 The Chicago Convention, 1968
Today in 1968, the Democratic National Convention opened in Chicago, Illinois. The purpose of the convention was to choose a Democratic nominee for the Presidency of the United States, but it was much more. The four-day gathering became a symbol of the divisions present in American society during the late 1960’s and is today viewed as one of the defining events of that decade.
The divisiveness that existed in the United States in 1968 was more pronounced than at any time since the Civil War. The biggest issue of the day was the Vietnam War, which had cost tens of thousands of American lives with no clear end or exit strategy in sight. Every large college campus in the nation played host to student protests against the war and protestors lined the sidewalk in front of the White House every day, sometimes shouting loud enough that they could be heard inside parts of the mansion. The college-aged kids who constituted the bulk of protestors nationwide were the children of the men and women who had fought in the Second World War. That generation’s notion of service and sacrifice seemed quaint to those who looked at Vietnam as an endless quagmire. Thus was created the term “generation gap”, a phrase used by those who believed anyone over 30 just didn’t “get it”.
1968 also saw the assassination of two giants in American political and cultural life: Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. and Senator Robert F. Kennedy. King was, for all intents and purposes, the head of the civil rights movement in the United States and had been for most of a decade. Kennedy was the standard bearer for the Kennedy legacy, the younger brother of a popular former President, himself gunned down after less than three years in office. Had Robert Kennedy lived, he would probably have been the Democratic Party’s nominee for President in 1968. With him gone barely two months, the party faced a difficult nomination process.
Today, political party conventions in the United States are well-organized affairs wrapped around speeches by party leaders; the Democratic Convention of 1968 was anything but. The two front-runners for the nomination were Hubert Humphrey, then Vice-President under Lyndon Johnson, and Eugene McCarthy, Senator from the state of Minnesota. McCarthy was fervently anti-war and favored a quick withdrawal of US troops from Southeast Asia. Humphrey believed that troop reductions should be contingent upon advances made during the Paris Peace Talks, a position similar to that of President Johnson. Johnson, also a Democrat, had announced earlier in the year that he would not run for a second term.
Everyone involved in the convention expected a large number of protesters. Chicago Mayor Richard Daley placed an 11PM curfew in effect for the city in the hope of stifling any potential violence. While the crowds were large from the beginning, the first day of the convention was relatively peaceful. Tempers started to flare, however, as protest leaders began stirring up the crowds with speeches and the nomination of Pigasus, the candidate from the Youth International Party which was, as you can guess, a pig. Bands were present both inside and outside the International Amphitheatre, including the Motor City 5, who played for eight hours.
What many of the protestors did not know was that no permits had been issued for the rallies and marches. This was on orders from Mayor Daley, who had hoped that some of demonstrations would disperse as people found out they had assembled illegally. It was