Great White Fleet

On December 16, 1907, thousands of cheering spectators jammed the shoreline of Hampton Roads, Virginia. They had come out to watch 16 snow-white battleships set sail on a historic around-the-world voyage.

The cruise of this Great White Fleet was President Theodore Roosevelt’s idea. He believed that the United States should “speak softly and carry a big stick.” He wanted all nations to know that the United States had become a mightly power. Because Japan was acting aggressively in the Pacific, Roosevelt was especially anxious to convince the Japanese that any attack on the Philippine Islands or other American territories would be a serious mistake.

The Great White Fleet’s mission was a huge success. The ships and their crews were welcomed enthusiastically everywhere, even in Japan. The impressive display of strength discouraged Japan from acting against American interests in the pacific and the United States was recognized throughout the world as a major naval power.

The Great White Fleet sailed more than 46,000 miles on its 14-month cruise.

The Founding of the Boy Scouts

On a visit to London in 1909, Chicago publisher William D. Boyce became lost in a heavy fog. An English Boy Scout helped him to find his way. The Scout told Boyce about the Boy Scout movement, founded in England just a year earlier by army officer Robert Baden-Powell. Boyce returned home and founded the Boy Scouts of America in 1910. The new group adopted Baden-Powell’s motto, “Be prepared,” and his slogan, “Do a Good Turn Daily.”

Today the Boy Scouts of America have almost 4 ½ million members in five divisions: Cubs, Tigers, Webelos, Scouts, and Explorers. To become an Eagle Scout, the highest rank in scouting, a young man must have earned at least 21 merit badges. The organization’s goal is to improve its members’ self-confidence and competence and to foster leaders and good citizens. The program includes instruction and skillbuilding in a wide variety of fields, ranging from first aid to ecology. Members earn merit badges for their accomplishments in special fields, and thereby advance through the scouting ranks.

Camping and outdoor skills have always been important aspects of scouting. Every four years Boy Scouts from more than 100 nations gather for a giant camp-out known as the International Jamboree.

The Early Movies

In the early 1900s, all you needed was a projector, a sheet to use as a screen, some chairs, and an empty storefront. Then you could open up a “nickelodeon” and collect five cents apiece from all the people who wanted to see the newest form of popular entertainment, the movies.

The first movies, just a few minutes long, showed everyday scenes: a sneeze, a kiss, a train. But then the “flickers” began to tell stories. In 1903, crowds flocked to see the Great Train Robbery, which tells, in 12 minutes, the story of a gang of outlaws who rob a train and are then chased and gunned down by a posse. By 1908, there were more than 10,000 nickelodeons in the U.S. alone, serving more than 25 million customers each week. Movies grew longer and more ambitious. And ornate theaters called “picture palaces” were built to show the expensive dramatic epics created by D.W. Griffith and others.

People went to the movies for thrills and laughter. Audiences especially loved the slapstick comedies produced by Mack Sennett at the Keystone Studios in Hollywood beginning in 1912. Those films featured the wacky “Keystone Kops,” and always included a wild chase during which everything that could go wrong did. Audiences didn’t care that the films were silent; they often laughed too loud to hear dialogue.

Charlie Chaplin, the great comedian began his career in Sennett’s Keystone comedies.

The Wright Brothers Learn to Fly

On the morning of December 17, 1903, on the windy dunes at Kitty Hawk in North Carolina. Orville Wright made the first manned and powered flight.

Orville and his brother Wilbur operated a bicycle shop in Dayton, Ohio. They had been dreaming about flying since the 1890s. They were not trained scientists or engineers, but they made a scientific study of the problems of flight. They built and tested gliders to understand the principles of flying. They created a wind tunnel in the bicycle shop to test wing designs, and they studied propeller designs, and control mechanisms. Their machinist built a 12-horsepower gasoline engine for them. By 1903, the brothers had built a twin-winged airplane, the Flyer, and they felt confident it would fly.

At Kitty Hawk, they constructed a wooden track down a hill to provide a smooth surface for takeoff. With Orville at the controls, Wilbur guilded the plane down the track, and it bounded into the air. After covering 40 yards in 12 seconds, it landed gently in the sand. Before the day was out, the brothers had made three more flights, one of which lasted almost a minute. Man, at last, had learned to fly.

The Wright Flyer had twin pusher propellers drive by two bicycle chains from the brother’s shop.

The Assassination of William McKinley

On September 6, 1901, President William McKinley greeted the public at a reception in Buffalo, New York. He was there to speak at the Pan American Exposition about America's growing role as a world power. But as he reached out to shake the hand of an apparent well-wisher, two shots rang out and the President staggered backward.

The shots were fired by Leon Czolgosz, an anarchist (one who opposes the government). He had vowed to kill a "great ruler" and he succeeded. The President clung to life for eight days, but died on September 14. That day, Vice President Theodore Roosevelt was sworn in as President. Czolgosz was promptly tried, convicted, and executed.

The September assassination of the President cast a pall over a year that had begun well. The country was prosperous and at peace. And it had gained overseas possessions---Puerto Rico and the Philippines---in the Spanish-American War of 1898. As a result, the U.S. had new importance in the world. After McKinley's death, Roosevelt rallied the shaken country. At 42, he was the youngest person to serve as President. His energy and talent for leadership soon made him one of the most popular and influential leaders in U.S. history.

Charlie Chaplin

Baggy pants, a tight coat, and huge shoes covered his small, agile body. He wore a toothbrush mustache on his upper lip. A derby hat perched jauntily atop his head, and he twirled a bamboo cane. This was Charlie Chaplin, playing the "Little Tramp", the comic yet tragic hero of dozens of silent films. He was, as Chaplin described him, "a tramp, a gentleman. a poet, a dreamer, a lonely fellow, always hopeful of romance and adventure," but "not above picking up cigarette butts or robbing a baby of its candy."

Born in England, where he bacame a successful music-hall performer, Chaplin began his film career in Hollywood in 1913. He introduced the Little Tramp in his second short movie. By 1917, Chaplin had become so popular around the world that he was offered the then huge sum of $1 million to make eight films. He went on to cofound his own studio, making feature films that won wide acclaim. In fact, Charlie Chaplin wrote, directed, produced, and acted in his feature films. He even wrote the music for some of them.

One memorable scene in The Gold Rush, made in 1925, is a good example of Chaplin's genius. The Little Tramp is starving, and no food is available. So he cooks his shoes and eats them as as if they are a delicious dinner, twirling the shoelaces with his fork like spaghetti. The scene is hilarious and heartbreaking at the same time.

Emily Post's Etiquette

When Americans wanted to know the proper way to set a table, answer an invitation, or write a thank-you note, they turned to Emily Post. For 40 years, she was the country’s most famous expert on etiquette---the correct way to behave in social situations.

The daughter of a prominent Baltimore architect, Post politely refused when an editor asked her to write a book on etiquette. Etiquette, she said, was stuffy and not to be taken seriously. But after looking at a book from a rival publisher, she decided that she could do a better job. Her book first appeared in 1922 as Etiquette in Society, in Business, in Politics, and at Home. Its sound advice made it a must for every household. For a later edition, the book’s title was changed to Etiquette: The Blue Book of Social Usage. Some of Post’s 1922 rules were soon outdated such as “It is unheard of for a gentleman to ‘take’ a young girl alone to a dance or to dine or to parties.” But her books were frequently revised to cover modern situations. And Emily Post continued to dispense good advice through books, newspaper columns, and a radio program until her death in 1960.

Another piece of Post’s advice…..”Never try to make any two people like each other, “ Emily Post warned. “If they do, they do; if they don’t, they don’t, and that is all there is to it.”