In 1908, the New York Times and a French newspaper co-sponsored an international car race around the world, from NYC west to Paris, and cars/drivers from France, Germany, Italy and the US entered the race. It was a rich man’s folly. Could a car really drive across a frozen Bering Strait from Alaska and safely reach Russian soil? Who could even find Manchuria on a map in 1908, much less contemplate driving through it? But the race was on newspaper front pages daily and people flocked to see the cars and drivers as they made their way haphazardly around the world in this improbable 169-day event. Top left: the NYC starting line. Center: crossing the American West. Top right: driving through Manchuria. Bottom left: crossing Europe’s mud: Right: the winner in Paris, an American-made 1907 Thomas Flyer.
Left: Britain’s King George VI and Queen Elizabeth, grandparents of the reigning monarch, visited the New York World’s Fair on June 10, 1939. The next day, they joined FDR at his home in Hyde Park, New York, for hot dogs, beer and a few days of rest. Right: the King sits with FDR’s mother, Sara Roosevelt, NY State Gov. Herbert Lehman, and Elinor Morgenthau at the hot dog picnic.
With the onset of World War II in late 1939, Stalin presssed Finland to swap land to gain a buffer for Leningrad (St. Petersburg). When negotiations broke down, the Soviets invaded Finland, sparking the 105-day Winter War. Although the badly outnumbered, out-gunned Finnish army lost the war, they became legends for leveraging their harsh environment as an effective defensive weapon. The Soviet victory came at a steep price. While Finland is believed to have suffered 25,000 fatalities in the Winter War, Soviet fatalities have been estimated at 200,000, with thousands more injured and disabled by frostbite. Left: Finnish defenders on the front line. Right: frozen Soviet bodies alongside a disabled convoy.
Left: Bill Clinton and Hillary Rodham at Yale, 1973. RIght: Ann Dunham and her children, Maya Soetoro and Barack Obama, in Honolulu, c. 1972. Stanley Dunham is on the left.
Left: Putin sits in a motorized hang glider in Siberia, Sept. 5, 2012. Right: Putin (age 71) on Thursday (1/4/24) as he signed a decree permitting foreign nationals to apply for Russian citizenship if they sign a service contract with the Russian Armed Forces during the “special military operation” in Ukraine.
Left: President Volodymyr Zelenskyy of Ukraine at his presidential inauguration, May 20, 2019. Zelenskyy trained as a lawyer and owned a television production company prior to entering politics. He was born to Jewish parents. His dad is a professor of cybernetics and computer hardware; his mom worked as an engineer. Zelenskyy’s great-grandfather perished in the Holocaust. Center: Trump and Zelenskyy on the sidelines of the UN in New York, Sept. 25, 2019. Right: Zelenskyy today (1/6/24), with his nightly address: “We are working tirelessly so that this year, our defense and security forces can rely mostly on our Ukrainian production in their actions. We want the enemy to feel the real power of Ukrainian weapons. The sense of this is already shaping. Many successful things are done with Ukrainian weapons, and the occupiers have fewer and fewer peaceful nights. The strength of our Ukrainian forces must be much greater. It will happen. We will rebuff every manifestation of Russian terror, every attempt by Russia to increase its pressure on our state, our people, our positions.” Zelenskyy turns 46 at the end of this month.
Edith Claire Head (1897 – 1981), top left, an American costume designer, received eight Academy Awards for Best Costume Design in her fifty-year Hollywood career, making her the most awarded woman in the Academy's history. Top right: Victor Mature and Hedy Lamarr as "Samson and Delilah" (1949), for which Head received an Oscar. Bottom: Head’s dress for Grace Kelly in "Rear Window" (1954).
