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Blizzard Hits New England; 56th Grammy Awards; Rice Sworn in as Secretary of State; Sir Winston Churchill’s State Funeral; First Transatlantic Call

 

⇒ What You Were Talking About This Week: juno

Earlier this week, millions of people in the northeast made massive preparations for what meteorologists and politicians referred to as potentially “historic” snowfall. The National Weather Service called the storm, Juno, “life-threatening.” New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio said “I want everyone to understand that we are facing—most likely—one of the largest snowstorms in the history of this city.” Nearly 8,000 flights were cancelled. Subway service suspended. Highways shut down.

And then the storm turned east overnight, meaning New York City got at most 9 inches instead of the predicted three feet (parts of Long Island, however, reported more than two feet). New England got pelted with several feet of snow. While Boston had about two feet, Worcester, Massachusetts, reported a record snowfall of 34.5 inches—with 31.9 inches on January 27 alone!

The National Weather Service apologized. From a Facebook post: “The science of forecasting storms, while continually improving, still can be subject to error…Efforts, including research, are already underway to more easily communicate that forecast uncertainty.” As advanced as our technology may be, sometimes there’s just no predicting the weather. And for what it’s worth, we’ve been over-preparing for storms for decades.

⇒ Last Year: Daft Punk Gets Lucky

Musicians met the 56th annual Grammy awards with the usual parade of plunging necklines, weird hats, and so many sequins. That’s not to say there was no talent. Over the past few years, the Grammys have smartly emphasized performances over the typical award show banter. And last year’s show was certainly no disappointment.

Daft Punk tapped Stevie Wonder and collaborators Nile Rogers and Pharrell to create a funk-tastic medley of hits from “Get Lucky” to Chic’s “Le Freak” to Wonder’s “Another Star.” Madonna and Queen Latifah officiated the wedding of 34 couples, some of which were same-sex couples, during Macklemore and Ryan Lewis’ performance of “Same Love.” And The Beatles reunited.

The night belonged to Daft Punk though who won both record of the year for “Get Lucky”—which somehow never reached the number one spot on the Billboard Chart, falling to the (lesser) “Blurred Lines”—and album of the year for “Random Access Memories.” Among the other notable winners of the evening: Lorde won best song and best pop solo performance for her hit “Royals,” and the aforementioned Macklemore and Ryan Lewis took home prizes for best new artist and best rap performance, album, and song.

⇒ 10 Years Ago: Rice Moves to Foggy Bottom

The Senate confirmed Condoleezza Rice as Secretary of State in January 2005, making her the second woman, and first black woman to hold the office. Rice served as George W. Bush’s foreign policy advisor during his 2000 campaign and in his first term as national security advisor.

The Senate voted to confirm Rice by a vote of 85 to 13, the highest number of votes against a nominee for almost 200 years—dating back to Henry Clay’s nomination in 1825. For comparison’s sake, the Senate confirmed Hillary Clinton by a vote of 94 to 2 and John Kerry by 94 to 3. Democrats voted against Rice as a statement of their opposition to the war in Iraq.

After periods of optimism, 2004 marked a turning point in the war with the conviction of seven U.S. soldiers for the humiliation of detainees in Abu Ghraib and the costly, but ultimately successful assault in Fallujah, previously an insurgent stronghold. Though combat operations ended (who could forget the infamous “Mission Accomplished” speech) upcoming elections offered an opportunity to turn the page again—one that Rice communicated to European allies shortly after assuming her position at Foggy Bottom.

⇒ 50 Years Ago: The British Bulldog      

World leaders gathered in London on January 30, 1965 to pay tribute to Sir Winston Churchill, the wartime hero. This remained the “largest assemblage of statesmen in the world” until the funeral of Pope John Paul II in 2005. Queen Elizabeth granted him a state funeral and more than 320,000 people lined the streets of London to pay respects, bringing the city to a standstill. For more coverage of the day’s events, see the BBC Archive.

Former President Eisenhower delivered a eulogy to his “old friend” in which he said, “…Winston Churchill was Britain—he was the embodiment of British defiance to threat, her courage in adversity, her calmness in danger, her moderation in success.”

Sir Churchill remains a giant today for his words of strength throughout the war. There are countless brilliant quotes but I’m partial to what he said when visiting the Harrow School on October 29, 1941:

Sometimes imagination makes things out far worse than they are; yet without imagination not much can be done…But for everyone…surely from this period of ten months this is the lesson: never give in, never give in, never, never, never-in nothing, great or small, large or petty—never give in except to convictions of honor and good sense. Never yield to force; never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy.

⇒ 100 Years Ago: Can you hear me now?

Ahoy! On January 25, 1915, Alexander Graham Bell called Thomas Watson in the first transcontinental phone call from New York to San Francisco. Bell the “veteran inventor” of the telephone and his associate, Watson, completed the first-ever call nearly 40 years earlier on a two-mile wire in New York City. For this transcontinental call, they needed a 3,400-mile wire.

Getting the go-ahead from the chief operator, Bell picked up the receiver and said “Mr. Watson, are you there?” To which Watson replied he heard him perfectly. Following this initial call, Bell picked up a duplicate of the phone he first created in 1875, connected it to the San Francisco wire, and spoke again to Watson. Bell confessed he was proudest of using this original device, which people had mocked when it was first used, to make the successful call.

As exciting as this was—and hundreds on both ends celebrated the success—it was not the longest call that day. As The New York Times reports, “Telephones in New York, Jekyl Island, Washington, and San Francisco were all on one big loop, and while persons in any two of the places were talking, hundreds in the four places were listening to the conversation.” In placing a call from Jekyl Island, Georgia to San Francisco via Boston, these innovators set a record for longest distance of the day at 4,750 miles.