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What will October bring?
Welcome back to the This Day In Esoteric Political History newsletter. Each week, a member of our team (or a friend of the show) gathers together bits of America’s past and attempts to find a throughline that might add a little understanding to our current moment.
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Thank you to everyone who came to last Friday’s live taping in Boston! We had such a blast and look forward to meeting more listeners soon! And we’ll have the audio we recorded about “October surprises” in the feed… in October.
Here’s what happened over the week ahead in American history…
September 19
1664: Maryland passes the first law to prevent the intermarriage of English women & Black men
1952: The United States bars Charlie Chaplin from re-entering the country after a trip to England. It would be 20 years before he would return
2010: The BP oil well that had spilled hundreds of millions of oil into the Gulf of Mexico is confirmed to be sealed with a permanent cement plug.
September 20
1873: For the first time in its history, the New York Stock Exchange closes to prevent panic
1976: Democratic presidential candidate Jimmy Carter gives an interview to Playboy magazine in which he admitted that he has “lust in his heart” for women
September 21
1780: Benedict Arnold gives the British the plans to West Point in exchange for 20,000 pounds
1938: The Great Hurricane of 1938, one of the most destructive and powerful hurricanes in recorded history, makes landfall on Long Island in New York
1981: Sandra Day O'Connor is unanimously approved by the U.S. Senate as the first female Supreme Court justice
2011: President Barack Obama repeals the Clinton-era policy of “don’t ask, don’t tell,” regarding openly gay military service members
September 22
1692: The last hangings of those convicted of witchcraft in the Salem witch trials takes place
1842: Abraham Lincoln almost duels, using swords, with a man named James Shields, but manages to get out of it.
1862: President Abraham Lincoln issued the preliminary Emancipation Proclamation, declaring all slaves in rebel states should be free as of Jan. 1, 1863
1999: Aaron Sorkin’s show “The West Wing” premiered on NBC.
September 23
1806: The Lewis and Clark expedition returns to St. Louis from the Pacific Northwest.
1944: During a campaign dinner with the International Brotherhood of Teamsters union, President Franklin D. Roosevelt makes a reference to his small dog, Fala, which had become the subject of Republican attacks.
1952: Richard Nixon delivers the "Checkers Speech" on television in Los Angeles as he denied allegations of improper campaign financing.
September 24
1810: Rebels storm the Spanish fort at Baton Rouge, overwhelm the garrison, and proclaim the Republic of West Florida
1955: President Dwight Eisenhower suffers a heart attack while on vacation playing golf
1964: The Warren Commission releases a report concluding that President John Kennedy was assassinated by Lee Harvey Oswald, who acted alone
1977: Chicago Alderman Frank Stemberk offers a $1 bounty for a rat's tail
1996: The United States and the world's other major nuclear powers signed the CTBT treaty to end all testing and development of nuclear weapons.
September 25
1789: The first United States Congress adopts 12 amendments to the Constitution, ten of which became the Bill of Rights.
1957: Nine Black children are escorted to Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas, with U.S. Army troops standing guard
In which we take the above collection of events and find themes, throughlines, rabbit holes and more. This week it’s Jody Avirgan’s turn at the typewriter.
Looking at the smattering of topics above for a theme or throughline (that’s what the logline says I should be doing) I’ll be honest — I’m not seeing much. And, actually, that might be the most interesting pattern. Who knows what next week’s newsletter will bring, but this has to be one of the final weeks we’ll see before the list becomes completely subsumed by election-related items.
Last Friday in Boston, we did a live show on October surprises, and one of the things we discussed was whether the events that upend a race at the last minute are truly scandalous… or they seem so because they are happening in the final weeks of campaign, when attention and chaos is at its highest. Take the Jimmy Carter “lust in my heart” story above. We did an episode about that, and discussed how a comment like that really was scandalous given the social mores of the time, and Carter’s wholesome brand. But part of the reason it had an impact has to be the fact that it broke five weeks before the election. Is it as big of a scandal if that interview is given in July? Who knows.
Anyway, we here at This Day are certainly playing our part — we’re going to lean into election coverage over the next month and change. We have our October Surprise series coming up, and just today we decided that, starting at the end of this month, we’re going to devote our Sunday episodes to newsier, chattier takes about the 2024 race. Don’t worry, we’re not going full Pod Save America, but we do feel like there’s a lot to say about this election, and hopefully we can provide a little history-minded analysis as Harris vs. Biden rounds the corner. Let us know what you’d like us to take on.
Before we go, one special shoutout to the newest member of the Radiotopia family — Hyperfixed! Alex Goldman, one of the co-hosts of the late, great “Reply All” is back to fix your problems big small. Alex is a singular talent, who I’ve known since we sat 10 feet from each other at WNYC a decade and a half ago. It’s so great that he’s back, and back with Radiotopia. Check it out!
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