1925 Robert Millikan presented evidence of cosmic rays to the National Academy of Sciences at Madison, Wisconsin. A graduate of Oberlin College where the sky did not fall when women were admitted, he showed the extraterritorial origins of the energies he and others had recorded. Many other kinds of energies from space have since been identified. He got a Nobel Prize. We have been bombarded with such cosmic rays.
1961 The Professional Golfers Association (USA) ended the caucasians only rule (reaffirmed in 1960) in a year when a darling of the South African apartheid regime, Gary Player won the open. It was the last major sports organisation to end this explicit racism and did so with reluctance only after repeated litigation by individuals, clubs, and associations. It was finally coerced into it by Stanley Mosk, Attorney General of the State of California, who had threatened to disrupt a scheduled tour with court orders, subpoenas, and writs. Speaks for itself.
1972 Discoveries of bones in Tanzania by the Mary and Louis Leakey caused the origins of humanity to be revised backward by one million years. These two were inveterate diggers, shifters, analysers who spent most of their lives in tents in Kenya and Tanzania. EVeryone’s family tree got longer as a result.
1980 Iraq and Iran War started and continued until 1988. After half a million deaths, it ended at the status quo ante without any change of borders or attitudes. It was largely trench warfare, featuring poison gas, child soldiers, human wave attacks, prisoners used as human shields with dissent groups from each country siding with the other to add to the mayhem. Within each country it was also the excuse for ethnic cleansing.
1989 The Berlin Wall opened for the first time since 1961. It was about 150 kilometres in all, and about 140 people were killed trying to cross it, including two just a fortnight before it crumbled. Amazed me at the time, like the Cold War, the Berlin Wall seemed immutable and eternal, and then it fell over. Been there and seen Checkpoint Charlie and more, a couple of times.
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