1828 Boston (MA), Knowledge: Noah Webster published the first edition of the dictionary that has since born his name with the aim of simplifying language for the new country and making it logical for mass education. Webster was careful to copyright this work. In Webster’s I have trusted over the years. A biography of Webster is discussed elsewhere on this blog.
1841 Baltimore, Fiction: Edgar Allan Poe published ‘The Murders in the Rue Morgue’ which is often cited as the first detective story. August Dupin spots the inhuman hair, as Charlie Chan (‘at the Circus’ [1936]), too, did later. Dupin recurred in two more Poe stories. As a krimiologist of the first water I had to list this event.
1927 Gothenberg (SV), Industry: The first Volvo automobile appeared. Ridden in a few Volvo which were once a cheap alternative to the VW Beetle, but that changed When Volvo went upmarket. I had a train ticket to Gothenbeg once but had to cancel the trip.
1935 Valentine (NE), Ecology: It became Black Sunday when one of the most devastating storms of the Dust Bowl struck. To many people it was apocalyptic signalling the end of days. In the midst of the Great Depression after two generations of over-farming and eight years of drought, from South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Colorado, Oklahoma, Texas, and New Mexico an estimated 300 million tons of top soil was lifted in a maelstrom that lasted a week and more in some places. The skies as far away as Chicago, Boston, and New York City darkened. The Nebraska Sandhills around Valentine lost all their top soil and became what they are called today.
1954 Canberra, Politics: Soviet diplomat Vladimir Petrov asked for political asylum, leading to a diplomatic incident and then a split in the Australian Labor Party that insured it would not govern for twenty years. While MGB agent Petrov feared and despised Stalinism, a few kilometres across the Canberra bushland at the Australian National University Professor Manning Clark, the self-proclaimed dean of Australian historians, had rejoiced at receiving the Order of Stalin about this time. For years Petrov and his wife Evdokia hid in a Melbourne bungalow, while Clark held court. While no one ever criticises Clark, neither does any one ever read his impenetrable prose. That is justice of a sort. In the famous photograph of the time, two armed Russian agents are muscling Evdokia to a plane. When it landed in Darwin for fuel, even more armed Australian agents applied muscle to extract Mrs Petrov.
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