The Chevy Corvette on This Day in History

The Corvette Song by George Jones

This Day In History: The first Chevrolet Corvette rolls off the assembly line in Flint, Michigan on this day in 1953. The cost of that Vette was about $3500.00 in 1953, In 2006 that same 1953 model sold for $1,100,000.00 in 2006. The first production C8 Corvette went for an impressive $3 million at Barrett Jackson’s 2020 Scottsdale Auction, and the 2020 Chevy Corvette Coupe runs for $103,615. While the Corvette is a fan favorite, the heavy price tag keeps it from being one of the top 5 selling Chevy models of all time. Those honors go to the Silverado, Camaro, Cavalier, Impala and the Caprice.

Economist Frederic Bastiat on This Day in History

The Law, by Bastiat

This Day In History: Economist Frederic Bastiat was born on this day in 1801. I actually have a Bastiat T-shirt. Economics is often called the "Dismal Science" but this became less so with Bastiat often injecting humor into it. Robert Heilbroner writes in his "Worldly Philosophers": "There was...a man who has been almost forgotten in the march of economic ideas. He is Frederic Bastiat, an eccentric Frenchman, who lived from 1801 to 1850, and who in that short space of time and an even shorter space of literary life—six years—brought to bear on economics that most devastating of all weapons: ridicule...Bastiat had a gift for pointing out absurdities; his little book Economic Sophisms is as close to humor as economics has ever come." For instance, in his Candlemakers’ Petition he wrote of candlemakers petitioning the Government to help them combat their enemy the sun, as sunlight was hurting their business.

He was also one of the earliest opponents of Socialism.

Bastiat- The Broken Window Fallacy

TOP 20 Frédéric Bastiat Quotes

See also The History & Mystery of Money & Economics-250 Books on DVDrom

See my Economics blog at http://fredericbastiat1850.blogspot.com/

Download The Worldly Philosophers: The Lives, Times And Ideas Of The Great Economic Thinkers by Robert L. Heilbroner  

The Treaty of Versailles on This Day in History

This Day In History: The Treaty of Versailles was signed on this day in 1919, ending the state of war between Germany and the Allies of World War I. While we say World War II started in 1939, you can argue, as many do, that it really starting at the signing of the Treaty Of Versailles, which forced harsh penalties and enormous reparations on Germany. This angered the Germans so much that and it laid the groundwork for Hitler and World War II. British economist John Maynard Keynes wrote that the reparations that were imposed on Germany in the Treaty of Versailles were "impossible" to pay.

Listen to Churchill, Hitler and the Unnecessary War by Pat Buchanan
https://archive.org/details/ChurchillHitlerAndTheUnnecessaryWar

"It had been a war that was brought on by inept bureaucrats and it was 'The Treaty of Versailles' that concluded the war between Germany and the Allied Powers. This treaty required Germany to disarm, make extensive territorial concessions, and pay reparations to the Allies. The fact that Germany was required to pay unrealistic reparations during difficult times was the primary reason that the Second World War was fought a little over twenty years later by bringing Adolf Hitler onto the world stage!”~Captain Hank Bracker

Without the Treaty of Versailles, World War II may never have happened.

Controversial Author Warren Farrell on This Day in History

Listen to the Audiobook

This Day in History: Author Warren Farrell was born on this day in 1943. He wrote one of the first "red pill" books I have read, "The Myth of Male Power." In it he discusses male powerlessness, like male-only draft registration where men are conditioned to view fighting and dying as "glory" and "power." Men die sooner, men commit suicide in far greater numbers, and men are told to earn money that someone else will spend. Men are victims of violent crime twice as often as women and are three times more likely to be murder victims. The phrase "women and children first" on lifeboats aboard a sinking ship illustrates that men are the disposable sex.

He concludes that "men's weakness is their facade of strength; women's strength is their facade of weakness."

Download the Myth of Male Power

See also https://archive.org/details/themythofmalepower

Visit Warren Farrell's author page on Amazon

Custer's Last Stand on This Day in History

This Day in History: Civil War General George Armstrong Custer was killed at the Battle of the Little Bighorn in Montana Territory on this day in 1876, an action that came to be known as "Custer's Last Stand." His two brothers, Boston Custer and Thomas Custer were killed alongside him at Little Bighorn. Custer was German-American. His paternal ancestors, Paulus and Gertrude Küster, came to the colonies around 1693 from the Rhineland in Germany. More than 200,000 native Germans served in the Union Army in the Civil War, mostly from New York, Wisconsin, and Ohio.

He graduated last in his class at West Point, and he had contracted gonorrhea, possibly from a prostitute in New York City. He may have also fathered a child by a Cheyenne woman.

Despite often being seen as a negative, controversial figure, monuments, places and at least one statue are named in his honor. The Battle of Little Bighorn was one of 45 battles won by indigenous peoples of the Americas.

See also: George Armstrong Custer & the American Wild West, 200 Books on DVDrom
https://thebookshelf2015.blogspot.com/2015/09/buffalo-bill-american-wild-west-200.html

The Dancing Mania on This Day in History

This Day in History: A sudden outbreak of the Dancing Mania happened on the streets of Aachen, Germany, on this day in 1374. (I was born in the Aachen area). The Dancing mania (also known as dancing plague, choreomania, St. John's Dance and St. Vitus's Dance) was a social phenomenon that involved groups of people dancing erratically, sometimes thousands at a time. It's hard to explain what caused this mass hysteria. Perhaps some sort of poisoning, others claim demon possession, or high levels of psychological distress. Whatever the cause, people would dance, often to the point of death.

See also The Dancing Mania and the Black Death by JFC Hecker 1859
https://thebookshelf2015.blogspot.com/2015/11/the-dancing-mania-and-black-death-by.html

The SAT Test on This Day in History

This Day in History: The College Board administered the first SAT (Scholastic Aptitude Test or Scholastic Assessment Test) exam on this day in 1926. The test is intended to assess students' readiness for college, however, lately the College Board has been under scrutiny. You see, Asian students score better than other groups, so they are held back and penalized to make way for students from other demographics with lower scores. This has led to lawsuits, and one attorney, Adam Mortara states that “Harvard has engaged in, and continues to engage in, intentional discrimination against Asian-Americans.”

"On average, Asian students need SAT scores 140 points higher than whites, 270 points higher than Hispanics, and 450 points higher than blacks to get into highly selective private colleges." ~Fewer Asians Need Apply: How the Ivy League discriminates against top-achieving students by Dennis Saffran
https://www.city-journal.org/html/fewer-asians-need-apply-14180.html

"Today, I see a systematic attempt to discredit high GPAs and SAT/ACT scores from Asian-American students as somehow tainted and the result of 'privileged' upbringing. The truth is their high scores are because they worked hard and not by virtue of legacy or political power. This bias has left many Asian-Americans red-faced despite their communities’ having championed and supported diversity in all walks of life."~The Problem for Asian-American Children: Too Successful, Not Diverse Enough By Prabhudev Konana
https://news.utexas.edu/2018/12/18/the-problem-for-asian-american-children-too-successful-not-diverse-enough/