On this day in 1983, Ronald Reagan stood before the 41st Annual Convention of the National Association of Evangelicals in The Sheraton Twin Towers in Orlando and made history. In his speech Reagan referred to the Soviet Union as an “Evil Empire” and “the focus of evil in the modern world”. Staffers repeatedly cut the phrase from his speech leading up to the keynote address, however, Reagan left in it and the rest is history. Courage under fire.
The Crusades were a series of religious wars between Christians and Muslims started primarily to secure control of holy sites considered sacred by both groups. In all, eight major Crusade expeditions—varying in size, strength and degree of success—occurred between 1096 and 1291. The costly, violent and often ruthless conflicts enhanced the status of European Christians, making them major players in the fight for land in the Middle East.
By the end of the 11th century, Western Europe had emerged as a significant power in its own right, though it still lagged behind other Mediterranean civilizations, such as the Byzantine Empire (formerly the eastern half of the Roman Empire) and the Islamic Empire of the Middle East and North Africa.
In 1095, Alexius sent envoys to Pope Urban II asking for mercenary troops from the West to help confront the Turkish threat. Though relations between Christians in the East and those in the West had long been fractious, Alexius’s request came at a time when the situation was improving.
Continue readingOn June 17, 1885, the Statue of Liberty arrived in New York Harbor aboard the French ship Isere.
In 1972, President Richard Nixon’s eventual downfall began with the arrest of five burglars inside the Washington, D.C., Watergate complex.
In 1994, O.J. Simpson was arrested and charged with murder in the slayings of his ex-wife, Nicole, and her friend, Ronald Goldman.
In 2008, hundreds of same-sex couples got married across California on the first full day that gay marriage became legal.
In 2015, nine people were shot to death in a historic African-American church in Charleston, South Carolina.
In 2019, Iran announced that it was breaking compliance with the international accord that kept it from making nuclear weapons. The Trump administration followed by ordering 1,000 more troops to the Middle East.
1976
Apr 1 – Apple Computer founded in Los Altos, California, U.S.
1979
Mar 16 – The China Syndrome, Jane Fonda, Michael Douglas
Mar 28 – 3 Mile Island accident
Jul 12 – Disco Demolition Night, Comiskey Park, Chicago, Illinois
1980
Feb 22 – The Miracle on Ice, Lake Placid Olympic Center,New York
Apr 27 – Ted Turner announces the creation of CNN, the first 24-hour cable news network.
Apr 28 – The U.S. makes attempt to rescue American hostages held in Iran since Nov 1979.
May 01 – Rubiks Cube released
May 18 – In Washington State, Mt. St. Helens erupts, killing more than 50 people.
May 21 – “The Empire Strikes Back,” premieres in movie theaters.
May 22 – The Pac-Man video game is released in Japan, followed by its U.S. release in October.
Jun 1 – CNN launches
Nov 21 – A record 350 million people worldwide watch “Dallas” to find out who shot J.R. Ewing.
Nov 04 – Ronald Reagan wins the presidential campaign
Oct 30 – Sherman Oaks Mega Mall Opens, Los Angeles
Dec 8 – Singer John Lennon is assassinated in front of his New York City apartment.
On April 12, 1861, the Civil War began.
In 1945, President Franklin D. Roosevelt died at age 63; he was succeeded by Vice President Harry S. Truman.
In 1955, the Salk vaccine against polio was declared safe and effective.
In 1961, Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first man to fly in space.
In 1963, civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. was arrested and jailed in Birmingham, Alabama, charged with contempt of court and parading without a permit. (During his time behind bars, King wrote his “Letter from Birmingham Jail.”)
In 1992, Euro Disneyland (now called Disneyland Paris) opened in MarneLa-Vallee, France.
In 2015, Hillary Clinton jumped back into presidential politics, announcing in a video her second campaign for the White House.
Kwanzaa, is an annual holiday affirming African family and social values that is celebrated primarily in the United States from Wednesday, December 26 to Saturday, January 1. Both the name and the celebration were devised in 1966 by Maulana Karenga, a professor of Africana studies at California State University in Long Beach and an important figure in Afrocentrism. Karenga borrowed the word kwanza, meaning “first,” from the Swahili phrase matunda ya kwanza, adding the seventh letter, an extra a, to make the word long enough to accommodate one letter for each of the seven children present at an early celebration. (The name Kwanzaa is not itself a Swahili word.)
Although Kwanzaa is primarily an African American holiday, it has also come to be celebrated outside the United States, particularly in Caribbean and other countries where there are large numbers of descendants of Africans. It was conceived as a nonpolitical and nonreligious holiday, and it is not considered to be a substitute for Christmas.
Each of the days of the celebration is dedicated to one of the seven principles of Kwanzaa:
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Counting down to the 50th anniversary of Walt Disney World’s opening in October 1971,
the Orlando Sentinel begins a weekly feature looking at the construction and impact of the theme park on our area. See more Disney at 50 coverage at OrlandoSentinel.com/DailyDisney.
Walt Disney’s presence in Florida went from rumored to reported to reality as he came to downtown Orlando’s Cherry Plaza Hotel on Nov. 15, 1965 to announce his plans for 27,000 acres in Orange and Osceola counties. A clipping from the Nov. 16, 1965 edition of the Orlando Sentinel includes a headline that reads: “Walt Disney to Build World’s Best Tourist Attraction in Mid-Florida.”
There was an invitation-only presentation to government and business leaders followed
by a news conference described by Gov. Haydon Burns as the largest in Florida history.
An estimated 400 people crowded into the Egyptian Ballroom.
In this week’s Disney at 50, the Sentinel’s look at Walt Disney World of yesterday and
today, we present photos from that occasion.
The Cherry Plaza building stands today on East Central Boulevard. It’s now Post Parkside Orlando apartments and home to several businesses, including World of Beer, which faces Lake Eola. Back in ‘65, it housed offices for Delta Air Lines, Florida Symphony and an art gallery. Many civic organizations such as Elks, Parliamentarians and the German American Ladies met there regularly.
President Lyndon Johnson had stayed there overnight during his 1964 campaign.
In 1965, after Walt Disney spoke and answered questions, there still was confusion about just what was coming to Central Florida. Disney dodged specifics, saying planning was still in the works. It would be the same as Disneyland but entirely different, he said, and it would definitely not be called Disneyland.
He was crafty in other ways. Reporters trying to catch him checking into Cherry Plaza were disappointed. It was later revealed that he stayed at the Robert Meyer Motor Inn under an assumed name, perhaps his pilot’s name. That hotel, on the corner of Washington Street and Rosalind Avenue, was on the opposite side of the lake from Cherry Hill. Robert Meyer eventually was known as the Harley Hotel, which is now condos called Metropolitan at Lake Eola.
If you live there now, you can say Walt Disney slept there then.
About that eternal lockdown: The principle of “Hanlon’s Razor” holds that we shouldn’t credit malice for actions that can be explained by stupidity, but in Florida, in 2020, sometimes it was tough to tell the difference. As other countries and even states worked together to flatten their disease curve and return to something approaching normality, those of us in Orlando who scrupulously observed COVID protocols watched helplessly as those who refused to danced, drank and wedding-partied Florida into a viral cesspit. Malice, stupidity, or a little bit of both? We’ll never know, but in the meantime, our three months of quarantine is stretching out into 13 with no assured end in sight.
But even though it felt like living the movie Groundhog Day, things happened that deserve notice, both commendable and regrettable.
Rep. Val Demings is a manager of the Trump impeachment:
We kicked off 2020 with the hometown-pride-inducing sight of U.S. Rep. Val Demings serving as one of seven managers to physically “transmit the articles of impeachment to the Senate.” As an impeachment manager, Demings walked to the Senate chamber to hand over the printed articles and after reading the charges aloud, returned to the House to give a verbal report. “I’ve enforced the laws and now I write the laws,” Demings, who was once Orlando Police Chief, said during the debate before the House impeachment vote. “But the laws mean nothing if the accused can destroy evidence, stop witnesses from testifying and blatantly refuse to cooperate.”
COVID craters the local tourism industry:
Before 2020, conventional wisdom was that, no matter what, theme parks don’t close; 9/11 only interrupted Disney operations for less than a full day, for god’s sake. But the coronavirus pandemic put paid to that notion, shutting down the tourist industry that Orlando’s economy hinges on in March. Theme parks and attractions closed and furloughed scores of workers. Then hotels, restaurants, bars, the convention center, even the airport all followed suit to varying degrees. The ripple effects were heartbreaking, like watching a car wreck in slow motion. In June, Universal and SeaWorld reopened, followed by Disney World in July. But with limited capacity and large events like Halloween Horror Nights off the table, profits nose-dived enough to cause thousands more layoffs. It will be a long road back to where we were at the start of 2020, and things will get worse with Disney and Universal, yes, set to lay off still more employees by the time you read this issue.
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