DayStrider: Tales from a Time Traveler

Jan 8th: Bust a (Knee) Cap

• Truman Pastworthy • Episode 6

Share episode

Some incredible things happened on January 8th in history, and the tapestry today was quite diverse - demonstrating impressive human achievement with a dash of human flaws.  Make time to explore the richness of today: 

  • A special code that spawned the telecommunication industry,
  • The biggest scandal in the history of figure skating, and
  • The breaking of the glass ceiling in the guvna's office.   

If its a special day for you or for someone you care about, why not learn a little more about today by listening to some fun, engaging stories.  If you need some great gift ideas, we have those too (along with links to where you can find them on Amazon).

I mentioned two reports in this episode, here they are (these links worked in early 2024 - not sure how long the reports will be available):


Gift ideas for folks who celebrate January 8th for any reason:

Full disclosure:  If you use these gift idea links and make a purchase, I will make a small commission.
 
My promise:  Every penny will be reinvested into this podcast to help it grow and flourish . . . or perhaps even to help spawn new podcasts (many ideas are bubblin').

~~~   DayStrider Fun   ~~~

Text me your favorite time travel movie!!!


~~~ DayStrider Fun ~~~


Do you want to be mentioned here in the podcast? Or do you want me to do a shout-out for a loved one? All you need to do is send me an e-mail: daystriderstories@gmail.com


Better yet, you can record your own shout-out by leaving me a voice message using this SpeakPipe link


Do you have a story that you wish to share? Join me as a guest and let’s tell the world together! Once again, just send me an e-mail or find me here on Facebook: Truman Pastworthy


If you had as much fun listening as I did creating this episode, please click "follow" in your favorite podcast platform . . . oh . . . and even better - why not share it with a friend (or three)! I’m betting you know just the perfect person who would enjoy today’s stories!


If you feel adventurous, how 'bout writing a great review? :-)



SPEAKER_00:

If January 8th is your special day, or if it's special for someone you care about, then come stride through history with me. I've got some great stories to share with you about some things that happened on this day in the past. This special day in history witnessed a communication revolution, an extreme version of I'll do anything and everything to win, and a major advancement for women in politics. That's some great company to be in, my friend. So let's get to it.

UNKNOWN:

Music

SPEAKER_00:

Welcome, seekers, to the enchanting world of Daystrider, the podcast where we embark on a daily journey through history. I'm your travel guide, Truman Pastworthy, and together we'll explore some fascinating stories that happened on this exact day, but from some time in the past. From groundbreaking inventions to remarkable birthdays... and extraordinary events to quirky national holidays, we've got it all. So kick back, relax, and open your mind for some lighthearted stories that'll leave you saying, huh, I never knew that happened on this day. Alrighty then, let's get to it. I'd like to share a story about Jeremiah Denton. And it's somewhat of a dark story that took place during a dark time in U.S. history. The part I'm going to share is a sliver of light and hope found inside that darkness. But a quick public service announcement, the word torture is a critical part of this story. If young ears are nearby, you might want to consider listening to this segment another time. So that dark time in history was surrounding the Vietnam War. The country of Vietnam was involved in a civil war in the mid-1950s, and the U.S. decided to join in to support South Vietnam in what was essentially a a wasted effort to prevent the spread of communism. But we're not here to talk politics. We're here to talk about Commander Denton. So Jeremiah was a commanding officer of a bombing squadron stationed in the South China Sea. In the summer of 1965, he was leading 27 planes in a bombing run over North Vietnam when something went wrong. A mishap on his plane caused him and his navigator to eject. Fortunately, they were able to safely parachute to the ground. Unfortunately, they quickly got captured by the enemy. From there, they were imprisoned and tortured regularly, along with many other American prisoners of war. Back home, neither his family nor his military friends knew what happened to him, and for almost an entire year, the war raged on, and his family had no idea that he was being beaten and tortured nearly every day. Can you imagine what that must be like for him, knowing that people don't know he's alive and he's getting tortured? Or for his family members not knowing what happened to him? Since he was the highest-ranking prisoner that the enemy had captured, they decided that they wanted to do a television broadcast of an interview with him and try to make him say things he didn't want to say about the United States. He knew that he had to be very careful about what he said on camera because after those lights were turned off, more painful torture awaited him. So, he calmly sat through an interview and answered questions while blinking. And he blinked and blinked. Long blinks and short blinks, like this. Long blink, pause. Three long blinks together, pause. Short blink, long blink, short blink, pause. Long blink, and more. Spelling out the letters T, then O, then R, then T-U-R-E. He spelled the word torture over and over again using Morse code. The bad guys had no idea he was sending a secret message using his blinks and making fools of them. But several military folks on the U.S. side quickly realized that he was using the Morse code to communicate, and no matter what he was saying verbally to the cameras, his eyes were telling the truth. He was being tortured as a prisoner. Now sadly, it took another seven years to get him home after his message was delivered on this broadcast. Knowing that much of that time, he continued to be tortured. But finally, thank goodness he did get home. So the takeaway from this story that I want to pivot to was Captain Denton's use of the Morse Code. And to learn more about its invention, I need to take you further back in time about 130 years. So in the 1830s, the world was communicating by writing letters, and these letters were then carried around by the postal service, horses and boats and people, to get to their address. So Samuel Morris, who was traveling in Europe, he received a letter from home that his wife was ill and he needed to return immediately. So he quickly dropped what he was doing, found a ship, and raced home to his wife. Only in the 1830s, it took about four weeks to cross the Atlantic Ocean on a ship, and then he had to travel to his home, and when he finally got there, sadly, his wife had died. And he was distraught, and he decided to put his inventor mind to work on a faster means of communicating. He needed something that would travel quickly. And like every other inventor alive in the 1830s, he had been thinking about electricity. What could we as humans do to harness that amazing power? So remember, 1830s, this is before electric lights, before electric heating, before electric air conditioning, before electric anything. So even though there was no electric anything, electric was still a thing. It was an enigma, essentially, that inventors were trying to harness and figure out what could they do with this. Well, eventually someone figured out the concept of electromagnetism. So basically electromagnetism is when you run an electric current through a wire, a coil of wire, it creates a magnetic field. And then when you stop the current, the magnetic field goes away. So I don't want to get too nerdy here, but basically what Morse did was he created this thing that he called the telegraph that used this electromagnetism concept. So a telegraph device had a piano key looking thing with a big button on one end and a power source, and you hook that power source up to a wire and then stretch the wire to anywhere else you want and hook that up to another telegraph on the other end. And so what would happen is, when you push on your piano key, the circuit would be closed, and power would run through the wire to the other end, causing an electromagnetic field to make the piano key on the other end move and click, essentially. If you're on your end of the piano key, and you press it and let go, press let go, press let go, on the other end, they hear click, click, click. And it's that easy. And now you have a way to transmit some power along a wire and have it mean something on the other end with clicks. Of course, clicks doesn't really help you, does it? Well, you've got to come up with a code to translate the clicks into something useful like the English language. And so he was thinking about, how do I use short clicks and long clicks? Some call them dots and dashes, and some call them dits and dahs. But his idea was a bit wacky because he had tried to come up with a unique combination of short clicks and long clicks for each word in the English language, and that wasn't going to work. So he recruited his friend, Alfred Vail. Alfred quickly scrapped the wacky version and came up with a unique combination of dits and dahs for each letter of the alphabet and each number 0 through 9. And thus, on January 8, 1838, the Morse code was born. So I just said Alfred Vail came up with the revised version, but I guess Samuel didn't want Alfred to get any credit because he never mentioned him on the patent for the telegraph or the code that was being used when he submitted it to the patent office. And so there you have it. The telecommunications industry was born. So you might have heard of the telegram. Well, the telegraph was used to send messages and they called those messages a telegram. And many businesses got their start by sending messages from city to city and place to place all around the country and eventually all around the world. And this was how it was done until the telephone was invented a decade or so later. But the military used the Morse code all the way into today's times. They used it for training. They used it for battles. They used it at sea. They used it at sea. Well, so we stopped using wires. Once radio waves became a thing, you were able to use the Morse code over radio waves by holding the button on your microphone, beep, short beeps, and beep, long beeps. And that way you could use the Morse code over the air. And so all naval vessels were required to learn Morse code so that if there was a distressed situation at sea, you could use your radio signals and beep out the Morse code and tell others, you know, you have a problem, what's going on, what have you. So today you might think, well, the Morse code is not going to be used anymore. That's not true. It's used all the time. There are clubs and hobbyists that still use the Morse code today. During research for this segment, I enjoyed my time and connections with the folks who still use the Morse code today. There's the Long Island CW Club with over 4,000 members and the Straight Key Century Club with thousands of members, and they have events and competitions throughout the year. And then there's the CW Operators Club with members from over 100 countries around the world. And I could go on and on. But if you want to learn more about Morse code, you can check them out. There are groups on Facebook. There are clubs in Google. You can check it out and learn how to become your own over-the-air radio operator and get your own Morse code call sign from the FCC and everything. So it's the real deal. So much so that the folks who use the Morse code today feel like it's the most pure way and the best way to communicate. Well, I can appreciate that. But I'd rather you keep using your mobile device and listening to this podcast on your smartphone where you can hear me just run on and talking rather than hearing it this way. That was Morse code for day strider fun. Can you imagine listening to a whole episode of a podcast just using dits and does? Oh, by the way. Did you know that Beethoven's favorite letter in the Morse code alphabet is the letter V? I got to work in a dad joke into the podcast. All right, well, let's wrap up here. I want to come back to Commander Denton and let you know that once he got home from Vietnam, he went on to have a distinguished military career. And then after that, he went on to have a distinguished political career. He was a true hero and a patriot that we can all be proud of. Do you want to hear about the craziest story and scandal in the history of figure skating? I know, figure skating. And this isn't about Russian judges. But wait till you hear this one. Alright, so first let's start with what took place on today, January 8th, 1994. Tonya Harding's dreams finally came true. She finally got back on top by winning the U.S. National Figure Skating Competition, beating her nemesis, and earning a spot on the 94 Winter Olympic figure skating team. So Tanya began skating at a young three years old. Her family realized her potential when she was in her early teens, and they hired her a skating coach to help her climb the competitive skating ladder. She spent a lot of her youth on that skating rink, working and grinding to become the best that she could be. So much so that even in high school, she decided to withdraw from school so that she could focus on her skating skills. And it was paying off. In the U.S. figure skating championships that are held annually, she was improving. In 1986, she took sixth place. The next two years, she took fifth, and then in 89, she took third. In 90, she was ill, but in 91, she landed a triple axel in the competition and won that event. Basically, a triple axel is where she's skating forward, jumps up, spins around in the air three times, plus another half turn to land going backwards. She landed this in a competition and won the event, and the Hardings were on top of the world, reveling in their glory. But unfortunately, that pendulum of momentum started swinging the other way. She was unable to maintain the brilliance, and in 1992, she took third place to her nemesis, Nancy. She still made the Olympics, and so maybe it was just a setback, but sadly, the mojo was gone. And in the 1992 Winter Olympics, she took fourth place and had to stand there on the sides and watch her nemesis, Nancy, receive the bronze medal up on the Olympic stand. So back at home in the U.S., it was more training and more grinding. Anything and everything it would take to get back to glory. Frustratingly, in 93, she once again took fourth while Nancy won the gold at the U.S. Championships that year. More training and more grinding. Because strangely enough, 1994 was another Olympic year, only two years later. A quick aside, back in the old days, the Olympics used to take place every four years, and it was the winter and the summer together. And then in 92, they decided to switch it so that it was staggered. And so the Winter Olympics actually happened two years apart instead of four. So here we are, getting ready for those Olympics, and we're back at the U.S. Skating Championship here in January of 94 in Detroit. And Tanya was able to pull it off again. She won the U.S. gold and was finally putting her eyes on that Olympic gold prize. Okay, whoa, whoa, whoa, pump the brakes here, Truman. Where's the scandal? You've just run off some dates and places and a little bit of a glitch in Tanya's career. All right, all right, hold on a second. Let me just spend one more minute talking about Nancy Kerrigan, just so you get to know her a little. Thank you for watching. Guess what? Two nights earlier, Nancy was finishing up a practice session. She got off the skating rink, walked through the doorway towards the locker room, and smack! She got whacked in the knee by a billy club and dropped to the floor.

UNKNOWN:

What?

SPEAKER_00:

What just happened? Her assailant took off and disappeared. Meanwhile, Nancy was sprawled on the floor, wailing in pain, tears flooding the floor. What just happened? Why? Why me? Why? Was her skating career over? She was poised to take the gold in the upcoming Olympics. Remember all that success I just walked through? And now, laying on the floor, crying. Nancy was injured so badly that she couldn't skate in the championships, so she didn't even get the place. That's where she ended up. And what about the Olympics in the coming month? Would she be able to even do that? Would she even be on the team? As you can imagine, the media was going crazy. Did Nancy have enemies? What was going on in figure skating? Who would have the most motivation to take her down? You know where all the eyes were pointing, right? It didn't take long for the media and the police to learn about Tanya's difficult background. About her ex-husband, who was seeing dollar signs, if only his Tanya could rebound and claim the gold once again. And about Tanya's bodyguard, and I'm using that term quite loosely. who was also seeing dollar signs because he claimed that security at these events was slack and if something bad happened to someone, it would make his services more valuable. So the police did their thing and finally tracked down the hired hitman, Shane Stant. They uncovered that he agreed to club Nancy in the knee for$6,000. You heard that right.$6,000 a hitman was hired to take out the competition. After some digging, it turned out that Tanya's ex-husband and Tanya's father came up with the money to pay off the hitman. There was a bit of jail time for all the bad guys involved, but what about Tanya? Well, she claimed that she knew nothing about the attack. At least in 94, that's what she claimed. And two nights later on this day, she was smiling ear to ear, having won the gold, while Nancy was unable to skate in that final performance. So now here we are with the Olympics one month away. The media is going crazy, and the police are trying to unravel everything as fast as possible, but it wasn't fast enough. So Tanya, since she won the gold at the U.S. Championships, was able to skate in the Olympics. But thankfully, the U.S. team had some sense, and they invited Nancy to be on the team anyway because her injuries were not permanent. Thank goodness. And karma won the day. Nancy took silver that year. Tanya? Huh. Once again watching from the stands, she took a lowly eighth place. And more karma. Her laces snapped in her final performance, further distracting her. So I'm not sure if anyone knows what really happened, Tanya's involvement here, but she did do an interview in 2018, so that's 24 years later, and probably because she needed money. She admitted to knowing that, quote, something was up, but she continued to deny any direct involvement and wants everyone in the world to move on. Right. So I guess maybe doing anything and everything to win, sometimes people could take that a little too far. Right now, today, there are 12 female governors across the 50 United States. There are also 25 female senators out of 100 total possible and 126 female representatives out of 435 total possible. So basically, not a lot of ladies in elected positions. Now, I'm not about to get into a debate about politics or gender equality or anything like that. I'm just telling you this for some perspective. Because in 1975, which is about 50 years ago, there were no female governors at all, anywhere, ever. Now, let's pin that for a moment and come back to that. But all that changed on January 8th of 1975 when Ella Grasso was sworn into office as the 83rd governor of Connecticut. And we're going to get to some of her achievements and a good story about her in a moment. But let's go back to that pin I just placed. So there were actually three female governors prior to Ella Grasso. But those were some unusual circumstances, one of which Carolyn Shelton was the governor of Oregon for a weekend. between the outgoing governor and the incoming governor, who couldn't be sworn into office due to illness. And then there's Nellie Ross, who was the governor of Wyoming after a special election when her husband, the governor, passed away. And then Miriam Ferguson, who was the governor of Texas after an election when her husband was impeached. So other than those wacky circumstances, Ella Grasso became the first female governor elected into the role without being the wife or widow of a past governor. Isn't that crazy to think about? The states were forming themselves in the 1770s. So they had basically gone 200 years before Ms. Grasso was elected with all male governors for all the states for all of that time. That seems crazy to me. So while Ms. Grasso was trying to establish herself as a politician, she did not have a lot of role models to follow. For example, in the U.S. Senate, the first elected female was Hattie Caraway from Arkansas in 1932, and then after her, there were not a whole lot of female senators that were elected into the role prior to 1975. Similarly, over in the U.S. House, females did have more success, but prior to 1925, no female served longer than one term. Of course, Ella Grasso herself was in the U.S. House of Representatives. She got to serve two terms before she took on her governorship duties. So I've spent a lot of time spitting out facts, and some of those facts might be interesting to some, and maybe it's frustrating to others about the state of females in politics in America. And I'm a storyteller, and so I want to get to my story. So Ms. Grasso was a trailblazer. She was elected to the Connecticut General Assembly in 1952, served two terms there. She was elected the Secretary of the State of Connecticut and served three terms there. And then after that, she was in her two stints at the U.S. House of Representatives before becoming the governor. But her popularity really took off in 1978 during a crisis. The blizzard of 78 dumped three feet of snow on Connecticut and essentially shut down the state. And actually, this is one of the first times in history that a governor actually closed the state highways and roads. The story has it that as the blizzard was beginning to accumulate, Ella got into a police car headed to the armory, which is in the capital, and where they were directing the rescue work for the blizzard. And on the way, her car got stuck in the deep snow about a mile or so from the building. And her driver looked back and said, that's it. And Ella responded, that's not it. And she got out and trudged through the snow for a mile in her work clothes and work shoes to get to the building. She arrived looking like a snowman and stayed at that building directing emergency personnel until the crisis was over several days later. Her efforts at that time and the communications that she put out were favored so much so that when she was reelected, she got a 75% of the popular vote. Almost a landslide. That's impressive. Now, before I leave you with a great quote from Ella Grasso, I want to say this. In Europe, there is a significant amount of effort being put towards gender balance and politics. Thank you. Thank you. And another segment goes into talking about gender biases and how they're being perpetuated in AI applications. This is clearly a thorough and comprehensive document. So I'll leave a link to both of those in the show notes so you can check those out on your own. All right, so let's wrap up with a quote from Ms. Grasso when asked about the U.S. presidency. She said, I will not be president because I do not aspire to be president. But I am sure that a woman will be president. When? I don't know. It depends. I don't think the woods are full of candidates. And there you have it, folks. Some great stories to share with you or someone special to celebrate January 8th. Once again, those were the creation of the Morse Code, the greatest scandal in the history of figure skating, and the breaking of the glass ceiling for women in politics in America. After you share these special stories, you can also mention the following famous folks who celebrate their birthdays today. Elvis Presley, the king of rock and roll, was born today, and although he died at an early age of 42, he still recorded over 700 songs and sold over 430 million records. That's amazing. Valkyrae was born today. She is YouTube's most watched female streamer since 2020. Her real name, Rachel, she came up with this interesting name while building her initial fame playing the game Fortnite and streaming those live. Other famous folks born today include Stephen Hawking, a physicist and guest actor on the Big Bang Theory TV show, and also musicians David Bowie and Noah Cyrus. According to FamousBirthdays.com, the 50th most famous person born on January 8th is Jenny Sophie, a beauty blogger and YouTuber who became popular doing makeup tutorials. So while you're here, maybe you need a gift idea for your loved one. Well, after you share these great stories, you can have them open up a gift that is customized just for their birthday. I have several gift ideas for you today, and these are good ones. I've actually put a link in the show notes for each one on Amazon. So yes, that means if you make a purchase through the link, I would get a small commission. If you're someone special who's into puzzles and solving codes, then I have a gem for you to go along with the story about the Morse code. There is actually a book out there called Morse Code Mysteries and Missives. It's by Donald J. Bingle, and it's written in Morse code. So literally, a bunch of dots and dashes. Thankfully, he's translated into English words in the back of the book as well, but that is a one-of-a-kind gift that no one else is giving your loved one today for sure. January 8th is National Argyle Day, so you can get your special man a set of argyle socks. I found a nice set of a dozen that is reasonably priced and has a mix of flashy but also conservative argyle patterns. It's also National Bubble Bath Day, so you can get your special lady a collection of scented bubble baths. I found a set of four that is reasonably priced, highly rated, and will be sure to lead to some relaxation, maybe while listening to podcasts. And then there are three more ideas related to the famous folks who celebrate this day as their birthday. If your loved one likes music, then perhaps an Elvis greatest hit CD collection would be right on target. He has so many hits that he has two CDs to get all 50 of them into his collection. If your loved one likes YouTubers and stickers, Valkyrae has a neat logo that would be a great addition to a backpack, school folder, skateboard, or laptop lid. And finally, back to the book ideas. If your loved one has interest in a landmark volume of science writing, then the book A Brief History of Time, Stephen Hawking's bestseller, is a way to learn about black holes, quarks, and the actual Big Bang Theory. And as always, if those things aren't cool enough, you can always get them a shout out right here on this podcast. Just email me at daystriderstories at gmail.com or find me on Facebook and share your loved one's name and something interesting you'd want included in a future podcast. I'll do some shout-outs to a random selection of folks, and they'll be forever memorialized right here with me. For example, happy birthday, Big Don. May you rest in peace. You still live on in the hearts and memories of your family, friends, and the players you coached. They still laugh as they recall the silly sayings you always used, such as, can't never did anything, and if the good Lord's willing and the creek don't rise. My next two episodes will include stories about what happened on February 2nd and February 23rd. If you have a story that took place on one of those days, please reach out. Or if you have a story that just needs to be shared about any day in the past, please reach out to daystriderstories at gmail.com. While you're thinking about all that, how about following or subscribing to this podcast so you can get notifications when the next episode is released? If you had as much fun listening as I did creating this episode, then sharing it with a friend or family member would be incredible and sincerely appreciated. Thanks so much for listening. Until next time, this is Truman Pastworthy, reminding you that every day has a great story. And we'll be striding through them all to find some more goodies for you. Now get out there and make your own great story today.