Day Tripping: March 11

Fever, Fumble, and Fab Fealty

Welcome to my daily feature where each day on the calendar marks a part of our shared history.

All Too Familiar

Private Albert Gitchell, a mess cook stationed at Fort Riley, Kansas started his day in 1918 with aches and a fever of 103. He dragged himself to the infirmary where he was placed in isolation. By noon that day, 107 other men from the base had taken ill and the Spanish Flu was in full bloom.

Neither Gitchell not his medical practitioners could have known this would be the first documented case of a pandemic that would claim over 50 million lives.

All Too Close

An American B-47 bomber was flying over the home of Walter Gregg of Mars Bluff, South Carolina in 1958 when it inadvertently dropped a nuclear weapon from 15,000 feet, shattering parts of his home and leaving a 24-foot deep crater in his garden. If armed with a warhead, the device would have been twice as powerful as the load dropped on Hiroshima.

This one of a dozen or more accidents to occur during the Cold War before the military stopped flying weaponized aircraft over populated areas. Walter Gregg was never sufficiently compensated for the loss of his home and the crater was never repaired.

All Briton Accepted

Paul McCartney is knighted by Queen Elizabeth II in 1997, thirty years after receiving his MBE (Member of the Order of the British Empire). The English media suggests the former Beatle’s reputation is still damaged because John Lennon returned his MBE in protest of the war in Vietnam. A classic case of guilt by association.

McCartney accepted his knighthood with three of his children but his wife Linda Eastman — McCartney was too ill from her battle with breast cancer to attend the ceremony.

Musical Milestones

1972 — Neil Young’s Harvest album reaches №1 in America, knocking a seven-week chart topper, American Pie by Don McLean off the spot.

Narratives

Giuseppe Verdi’s opera Rigoletto is performed for the first time in 1851 in Venice.

Remembrance

The director of classic films like Key Largo, Elmer Gantry, and In Cold Blood, Richard Brooks died in 1992 at 79.

Notable Births

1934 — Journalist and long time White House correspondent, Sam Donaldson

1952 — Noted English author of Hitchiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams

1969 — Cool and sophisticated actor, singer, and producer, Terrence Howard

Thanks for taking the time to read this article dedicated to the days of our history. I hope to see you tomorrow for another instalment.

K. Barrett Katie Wallace Maria Rattray Joseph M. Learned Maryam Merchant Dr Mehmet Yildiz Tree Langdon Myriam Ben Salem Phil Truman Chelsea Mandler MAT Terry Mansfield Hollie Petit, PhD. Terry Trueman Dr Preeti Singh John Gruber Bill Abbate James G Brennan ScienceDuuude Marcus