The death last weekend of Sen. John McCain was cause for many across the country and the world to take a look back at his story — one that touches on many phases of modern American history.
We examined how he became a prisoner of war in Vietnam, how that experience shaped his political career and, as some of his colleagues looked for ways to memorialize him by renaming their office building for McCain, the history of the man whose name they wanted to replace. We also wondered just how unusual it was that President Trump won't be attending McCain's memorials. The answer: for a president to skip a significant funeral isn't that strange — but the reason Trump won't be there is.
Here's more of the history that made news this week:
He's conducting an orchestra of Holocaust survivors, at a concert that almost didn't happen
FROM THE TIME VAULT
75 Years Ago: WWII’s Air Battles
“In the air over Europe a great battle is nearing its climax. The combined forces of the R.A.F. and the U.S. Eighth Air Force are in head-on collision with the bulk of Germany's fighter-plane strength. The issue may be decided in the next month. On it may depend: 1) success or failure of an Allied invasion; 2) the answer to the question: Can Germany be bombed out of the war?" (Aug. 30, 1943)
“These are voices—some voices—of the Negro revolution. That revolution, dramatically symbolized in this week's massed march in Washington, has burst out of the South to engulf the North. It has made it impossible for almost any Negro to stay aloof, except at the cost of ostracism by other Negroes as an ‘Uncle Tom.’ It has seared the white conscience—even while, in some of its excesses, it has created white bitterness where little or none existed before. And right up to the President of the U.S., it has forced white politicians who have long cashed in on their lip service to 'civil rights' to put up or shut up.” (Aug. 30, 1963)
“You've come a long way, sister. The gym classes you skipped at school now form a significant part of your adult entertainment. You are working hard, playing hard, making yourself hard and strong. The sports for which you were once only a cheerleader now serve as your after-work recreation and, thanks to Title IX, part of your school-age daughter's curriculum. Spurred by feminism's promise of physical, domestic and economic freedom, you have done what few generations of women have dared or chosen to do. You have made muscles — a body of them — and it shows. And you look great.” (Aug. 30, 1982)
What Lies BeneathBloomberg’s Charlie Devereux has the run-down on the story of Spain literally digging up its past by deciding to exhume the body of Francisco Franco.
On Paper Benjamin Frisch and Willa Paskin at Slate take a look at how the history of paper dolls intersects with the evolution of American LGBTQ communities.
My Kingdom for a Car For the Independent, David Keys covers the coming fight between historians and local officials as they debate building a track for testing driverless cars at the site of the Battle of Bosworth Field, one of British history’s most important.
Love All The early history of tennis is surprisingly disputed, writes Ben Rothenberg for the New York Times, as he covers the attempts by two historians to settle the subject once and for all.
Haitian History In light of a New York City street being named after Jean-Jacques Dessalines, historian Julia Gaffield explains the story of the Haitian revolutionary at The Conversation.
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