Month: August 2012

Neil Armstrong: Future Astronaut

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On July 20, 1969, Neil Armstrong climbed down from the ladder of the lunar module the Eagle and became the first man ever to walk on the moon. It took Armstrong a long time to become an astronaut. Even as a young kid growing up in small towns in Ohio, Armstrong had a willingness to try new things as well as a strong work ethic. Both came in handy when he applied to NASA.

Though his passion for space travel came later, as a child Armstrong was fascinated with airplanes. At six years old, he took his first plane flight with his father in a passenger plane named the Tin Goose. Neil and his father, Stephen Armstrong, planned to just watch the planes at the Warren Ohio airport on a Sunday morning, but the pilot of the Tin Goose offered them a ride. The Tin Goose’s body was made of aluminum and carried up to twelve passengers in wicker chairs. Neil’s father remembered that “he was scared to death and Neil enjoyed it.” After his first passenger flight, Neil spent a lot of time building model airplanes. When he completed them, he hung them with string from the ceiling of his bedroom.

As he grew, Armstrong wanted to fly planes himself, but lessons cost money. Mostly, he wanted to fly so he could understand how planes were built. Armstrong said, “While I was still in elementary school my intention was to be—or hope—was to be an aircraft designer. I later went into piloting because I thought a good designer ought to know the operational aspects of an airplane.” When he didn’t have to be at school, Armstrong worked at a pharmacy stocking shelves and sweeping floors to pay for flying lessons. Even though Armstrong had to work twenty-three hours just for one flying lesson, he still received his pilot’s license at age sixteen. He hadn’t learned to drive a car, but he could fly a small plane.

After high school, Armstrong planned to go to college to study aeronautic engineering—the science of how planes were built and what made them to fly. He received a scholarship from the U.S. Navy, which allowed him to attend college in exchange for serving three years in the navy. The idea of serving in the navy didn’t bother him because he knew he would be able to fly some of the newest and fastest jets. Armstrong started taking classes at Purdue University, but soon had to learn how to pilot fighter jets when the U.S. entered the Korean War. Though flying combat missions was dangerous, Armstrong came back safely. He finished his courses at Purdue, and found work at Edwards Air Force Base.

Pilot Neil Armstrong returns from a research mission, 1960

Pilot Neil Armstrong returns from a research mission, 1960

At the base, Armstrong test piloted new planes. One of the planes, named the X-15, could go almost 4,000 miles an hour at an altitude of 207,500 feet. The plane served as an early test for space flight. In 1962, Armstrong left the test pilot program. He decided to apply to NASA’s astronaut program, which might one day give him an opportunity to fly in outer space. He was accepted and completed one other space flight before joining the other astronauts on the space shuttle Apollo 11. Part of the shuttle, the lunar module, which the astronauts named the Eagle, landed on the moon.

Queen Liliuokalani: Hawaii’s Last Queen

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In 1959, Hawaii officially became America’s fiftieth state. Before any Americans arrived, however, Hawaii was a free nation governed by one ruler. Hawaii’s last monarch, Queen Liliuokalani, sought a peaceful resolution with America but also wanted to keep her title. Instead, she lived to see her nation taken over by another country.

As early as age four, Liliuokalani felt the influence of Americans in Hawaii. In 1842, she attended a school for Hawaiian royal children, where she received lessons from missionaries from New England. Some of the lessons, such as English and music, were useful to Liliuokalani when she became queen.

The missionaries, Amos and Juliette Cooke, did more than insist that the children do homework, however. At the Royal School, Liliuokalani learned to pray to one god instead of many. No one at the school called Liliuokalani by her real name. Instead, she was given the Christian name Lydia. The Cookes also made the children wear more clothing than they were used to out in the warm climate of Hawaii, and they ate less. Liliuokalani wrote later, “It seems to me that they failed to remember that we were growing children. A thick slice of bread covered with molasses was usually the sole article of our supper.”

At age sixteen, Liliuokalani married an American named John Dominis. He served as an advisor to Hawaii’s king. King Kamehameha V noticed young Liliuokalani’s musical talent and asked her to write a national anthem for Hawaii. She wrote it in both Hawaiian and English. It read in part, “Grant Thy peace throughout the land/O’er these sunny, sea-girt Isles/Keep the nation’s life O Lord/And upon our sovereign smile.”

When King Kamehameha died, Liliuokalani’s brother became king. By the 1870s, more Americans came to Hawaii. These Americans were businessmen, not missionaries. They bought Hawaiian land and grew sugarcane on it. By shipping sugarcane around the world, Americans in Hawaii became rich.

Liliuokalani’s brother, King Kalakaua, wanted native Hawaiians and Americans to get along. To accomplish his goal, Kalakaua made a treaty with President Grant. The treaty said that American sugar growers could ship their sugar without paying taxes, and that only the United States could use Hawaii’s harbors. Kalakaua thought the treaty would create better relations with Americans, but it just made Americans richer by helping them stockpile their money. When her brother signed away Hawaii’s harbor, later known as Pearl Harbor, Liliuokalani wrote, “King signed lease of Pearl river to U. States for eight years. It should not have been done.”

One day, a group of Americans stormed Ionlani Palace where the king lived. They had weapons and demanded that he sign a new constitution that gave Americans the power to make Hawaii’s laws. A few years later, King Kalakaua, who had become only a figurehead in Hawaii, died with no heir.

His sister Liliuokalani was crowned queen. She worked hard to return her country back to native Hawaiians. She wrote a new constitution that gave her the right to rule. The Americans rejected it. When an American named Sanford Dole took over as Hawaii’s leader, she appealed to President Cleveland for help. Cleveland supported Liliuokalani, but failed to convince Dole to step down. Some of Liliuokalani’s loyal supporters in Hawaii tried to overthrow the new government, but they only managed to imprison themselves and their queen.

The new government locked Liliuokalani away for eight months, during which she was forced to sign away her rights to the throne. When she was released in 1895, she traveled the United States, unsuccessfully trying to gain support for Hawaii’s independence from America.

Frederick Olmsted: Landscaping the World’s Columbian Exposition

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The sandy area along Chicago’s lakeshore looked more like a deserted marsh than a site for the World’s Columbian Exposition. Frederick Law Olmsted, however, saw the area’s potential. As landscape architect for the project, he got the fair committee’s permission to use this site. His design called for lagoons and what Olmsted referred to as a wooded isle, but they had not been developed yet. The 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition, however, would give Olmsted the opportunity to create his vision. After the fair was over and the buildings torn down, a park would remain for Chicagoans to enjoy. Today this park is known as Jackson Park.

Olmsted  saw the Exposition as an opportunity to showcase landscape architecture. The work involved in designing parks did not receive the same respect as designing a building. Olmsted put all of his energy into the Chicago World’s Fair’s landscaping in the hope that his profession would be recognized as an art. He wrote, “If people generally get to understand that our contribution to the undertaking is that of the planning of the scheme, rather than the disposition of flower beds and other matters of gardening decoration, it will be a great lift to the profession.”

As landscape architect, Olmsted was responsible for planning the basic land and water shape of the fairgrounds. After consulting with the building architects, Olmsted concluded that the marshy areas of Jackson Park could be converted into waterways. Low-lying parts of the park were deepened and turned into water basins. Workers dredged sand out of the marshes to make lagoons of different sizes and shapes. The sand dug up during this process was used to raise higher areas of the park on which the fair’s buildings would later be constructed.

In addition to waterways, the original landscaping plans for the fair included a secluded piece of land that Olmsted called the Wooded Isle. The plan stated that “near the middle of this lagoon system there should be an island, about fifteen acres in area, in which there would be clusters of the largest trees growing upon the site; that this island should be free from conspicious buildings.” Olmsted created a natural setting for the island. He ensured that the best trees already on the island were fertilized and between them water plants, bushes, and young trees were planted.

Olmsted intended the island to be a place where visitors could rest and enjoy nature away from the busyness of the fair. Fairgoers appreciated Olmsted’s efforts to make nature part of the Exposition. After viewing the island, one visitor wrote that “little arms of vegetation and of land reach out here and there between tiny coves and bays, and the general effect is so natural and real that it amazes one to hear that it is not so.”

Although only a small part of the fair was dedicated to nature, Olmsted wanted the flowers and plants throughout the grounds to appear natural. A trip to the site of the earlier World’s Fair in Paris convinced Olmsted that the Chicago fair needed more natural landscaping. He thought the landscaping in Paris “must have been extremely disquieting, gaudy and childish, if not savage and an injury to the Exposition.” As a result of his observations, most of the plants at the Chicago World’s Fair came from native lakes, rivers and swamps in Illinois and Wisconsin. Workers transplanted willows, waterside plants, cattails, rushes, irises, and pond lilies on the shores of the lagoons.

When the Exposition was completed, Olmsted was at the peak of his contemporary reputation. Garden and Forest magazine stated that “the sparkle of genius which has produced a single and consistent work of art…sprang from his brain.” As a result of his work on the Exposition, landscape architecture became recognized as an art.

Raoul Wallenberg and the Rescue of Jews During World War II

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As a young man growing up in Sweden, Raoul Wallenberg couldn’t figure out what he wanted to do with his life. His family expected him to become a banker, but his grandfather also wanted him to travel Europe. Wallenberg thought traveling to foreign countries was exciting, so with his grandfather’s blessing he worked for a branch of the family’s bank in Haifa, Palestine. Since he arrived in Palestine during the 1930s, the boarding house where he stayed at night was filled with Jewish families who recently fled Germany. Adolf Hitler was in power and the Nazi party placed harsh penalties on the Jews, making it difficult for them to earn a living or even walk the streets without fear of being beaten.

 Traveling Europe after World War II

Bored with his work, Wallenberg left the bank. After World War II began, he met a Jewish businessman named Koloman Lauer from Hungary. Wallenberg’s home country stayed neutral during the war, but Hungary’s alliance with Germany made it impossible for native Jewish businessmen to travel in Europe. Instead, Lauer hired Wallenberg to travel on his behalf. Though Wallenberg enjoyed traveling, what he saw in Nazi-occupied territories like Hungary disturbed him. He encountered Nazis beating Jews in the streets and saw families rounded up and sent to so-called labor camps where they seemed to disappear. Wallenberg’s family was Jewish and he wanted to do something help, but he didn’t know what he could do.

 Wallenberg’s Assignment

Finally, in 1944, Wallenberg received the opportunity to aid Europe’s Jews. The United States had just formed the War Refugee Board, which was designed to provide rescue and relief programs for European Jews. The Board’s representative in Sweden needed a Swedish diplomat who could travel to Budapest, Hungary and rescue Jews there. Wallenberg’s boss mentioned his name to the WRB representative in Sweden, Iver Olsen. Olsen met with Wallenberg and warned him of the dangers of his mission. Wallenberg didn’t care about himself—he just wanted to do something to stop the Nazis.

 Efforts to Protect Hungarian Jews

When he arrived in Hungary, Wallenberg decided the best way to protect Jews was to provide them with Swedish identification badges. The badges proved that these Jews had ties to the neutral country of Sweden and therefore could not be deported by the Nazis. When Wallenberg ran out of official badges, he printed his own. Approximately 7,000 Hungarians received protective badges. Wallenberg also turned large houses in Budapest into Swedish safe houses and allowed Jewish people to live in them. Each house flew the Swedish flag, signifying neutral territory. The badges and safe houses all served the purpose of protecting Jews from deportation to concentration camps where Jews were killed. With the help of a Jewish staff, Wallenberg also worked on other projects, like setting up hospitals and soup kitchens for needy Jews.

Opposition

Despite Wallenberg’s best efforts to protect Hungarian Jews, the Nazis sometimes tried to defy him. On one occasion, he returned to the safe houses and discovered German troops rounding up all the able-bodied Jewish men. When the German patrol refused to leave, Wallenberg said, “As long as I live, none will be taken out of here. First you will have to shoot me.” The Nazis decided against making an enemy out of Sweden by killing Wallenberg, so the patrol left. Unfortunately, they returned later to snatch a handful of Jews and placed them on a train bound for a concentration camp. Undaunted, Wallenberg sped away in his car and caught up with the train. He shouted for the Jews onboard to show their papers, and anyone with Swedish papers returned to the safe houses with him.

Results of Wallenberg’s Work

Wallenberg’s massive efforts helped save tens of thousands of Jews. Though Wallenberg mysteriously disappeared when the Soviet Army arrived in Budapest in 1945, he left a legacy of helping others even when the task endangered his life.

The Childhood of Anne Frank

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Early Years in Germany

Although Anne Frank was born in Germany in 1929, her parents Otto and Edith knew they had to leave their country when Adolf Hitler came to power. Hitler and the Nazi party found a scapegoat for Germany’s economic problems—the Jews. Since the Franks were Jewish, Otto hoped his family could escape Germany’s oppressive Jewish laws by moving to the Netherlands when Anne was four.

The Move to Amsterdam

When the family settled in, they sent the children Anne and Margot to school. Anne’s parents knew that traditional schooling would not work for her stubborn, free-spirited personality. Instead, they sent her to a Montessori school in Amsterdam where she started kindergarten. Students often chose what they wanted to do for the day, like reading or drawing. Anne talked freely in class, often asking questions of her teachers. Even when a lesson that Anne didn’t enjoy was taught, teachers went out of their way to make learning fun. For example, if the teacher asked what two times two was and the students didn’t know, they hopped around the rows of desks, counting as they went.

Anne and Her Family

Anne’s friends always enjoyed coming over to the Frank house. Mrs. Frank made delicious food, and Mr. Frank loved to play with the children. In an era when fathers left most of the childrearing to their wives, Otto stood out. He made up stories and songs for Anne and Margot, and though he worked hard he always made time for them. He and Anne had a close relationship. Her bubbling personality kept his mind off his adult worries about money and what Hitler might do if he invaded Holland. Edith and Anne’s relationship became strained because she wanted Anne to be more like her older sister, Margot, who had a gentle temperament and did what she was told. Ironically, Anne’s future best friend had a personality similar to Margot’s. 

Best Friends–Anne and Jackie

In 1940, Hitler invaded the Netherlands. Among other restrictions, Jewish children could only attend schools with Jewish students and teachers. On Anne’s first day at the Jewish school, she met a girl named Jacqueline van Maarsen. After school, they rode their bikes to the Frank’s house at Anne’s insistence. Jacqueline later wrote, “from that day on we were inseparable…after a few days, Anne firmly declared that I was her best friend and she mine.”

Though Anne never had trouble making friends, she wanted one that she could truly confide in, and she found what she wanted in Jackie. They read books together, pretending to be the heroines they admired. Anne wrote in her diary, “Recently I met Jacqueline van Maarsen at the Jewish Lyceum. We hang out together all the time and she’s my best friend now.” Because of the German occupation, the two friends could only hang out at each other’s homes or at certain Jewish owned businesses. They spent a lot of time on Anne’s porch gossiping and having sleepovers at each other’s homes, though they also visited an ice cream shop after school, where Anne liked to flirt with boys.

Going into Hiding

When Anne’s sister Margot got a summons to report to a labor camp, the Franks knew they had to hide. They had already heard stories of Jewish young people disappearing after they left for the German camps. It was time for the family to go into hiding. Neither Anne nor Margot knew for sure where they were going so they couldn’t tell friends about their hiding place. For years Jackie believed Anne immigrated to Switzerland. Later she discovered that the Franks tried unsuccessfully to hide out in a section of Anne’s father’s office.

For more information about Anne Frank's family, including photos, visit:

1942 – Frst page of Anne Frank's diary.