This Day in History: The United States Supreme Court rules 8–1 in Abington School District v. Schempp against requiring the reciting of Bible verses and the Lord's Prayer in public schools on this day in 1963.
Billy Graham said, "[i]n my opinion... the Supreme Court... is wrong.... Eighty percent of the American people want Bible reading and prayer in schools. Why should a majority be so severely penalized...?"
There was a time where I would have applauded the Supreme Court's decision and sneer at Billy Graham. There was a time where I thought that the New Atheists (Hitchens, Harris & Dawkins) made a lot of sense.
I've changed my mind. The secularism that the West has embraced has failed society.
Why?
In 1963 most families were intact.
In 1963 everyone knew what a woman was.
In 1963 there were only two genders. In fact, the word "gender" was only used in relation to language.
In 1963 profanity was not as ubiquitous as it is today. In 1963, the entertainment industry adhered to the Hays Code which prohibited profanity, suggestive nudity, graphic or realistic violence, sexual persuasions and rape.
In 1963 there was no Pride Month. People kept their peccadillos private.
This day in history: On this day in 1963 in Camden, Tennessee, 30-year-old country music superstar Patsy Cline (Virginia Patterson Hensley) was killed in a plane crash along with fellow performers Harold "Hawkshaw" Hawkins, 41, and Lloyd "Cowboy" Copas, 49, and their manager, Randy Hughes, who was piloting the Piper Comanche airplane. The four were returning to Nashville from a benefit performance in Kansas City, Kansas, for country radio disc jockey "Cactus" Jack Call and had taken off in bad weather after refueling at Dyersburg, Tennessee.
Patsy Cline was an American singer. She is considered one of the most influential vocalists of the 20th century and was one of the first country music artists to cross over into pop music. Cline had several major hits during her eight-year recording career, including two number-one hits on the Billboard Hot Country and Western Sides chart.
Cline has been cited in both country and pop music as of one of the greatest vocalists of all time. Her voice has also been called "haunting", "powerful", and "emotional". Cline has been a major influence on various music artists including Reba McEntire, Loretta Lynn, LeAnn Rimes, k.d. lang, Linda Ronstadt, Trisha Yearwood, Sara Evans, Dottie West, Kacey Musgraves, Margo Price, Cyndi Lauper, Trixie Mattel and Brandi Carlile.
This day in history: The very first Learjet, the Learjet 23, took off from an airport in Wichita, Kansas, on this day in 1963, with test pilots Bob Hagan and Hank Beaird at the controls. The prototype jet, the product of the investment of William P. Lear, inaugurated an era of private jet airplanes, marketed to the wealthiest of individuals.
Learjet, founded in the late 1950s as Swiss American Aviation Corporation, has been a subsidiary of Canadian Bombardier Aerospace since 1990, which markets it as the "Bombardier Learjet Family". The 3,000th Learjet was delivered in June 2017. The Learjet line was once sufficiently popular that the Learjet name became synonymous and interchangeable with the terms business jet or private jet in the popular vernacular.
This day in history: An unknown gunman narrowly missed killing former U.S. Army General Edwin A. Walker on this day (April 10) in 1963, who had been working on his taxes at his home in Dallas, Texas. The would-be killer would later be identified as Lee Harvey Oswald.
In February 1963, Walker joined Billy Hargis on an anticommunist tour named "Operation Midnight Ride." In a March 5 speech, Walker called on the American military to "liquidate the [communist] scourge that has descended upon the island of Cuba." Seven days later, Lee Harvey Oswald ordered a Carcano rifle by mail using the alias A. Hidell.
While initially skeptical about the photographic evidence provided by the FBI, the Warren Commission reported that Oswald photographed Walker's Dallas home on the weekend of March 9–10, 1963. Oswald's friend, 51-year-old Russian émigré and petroleum geologist George de Mohrenschildt, would later tell the Warren Commission that he "knew that Oswald disliked General Walker."
On April 10, 1963, as Walker was sitting at a desk in his dining room, a bullet struck the wooden frame of his dining-room window. Walker was injured in the forearm by fragments. Marina Oswald later testified that her husband had told her that he traveled by bus to General Walker's house and shot at Walker with his rifle. Marina said that Oswald considered Walker to be the leader of a "fascist organization."
Police detective D. E. McElroy commented, "Whoever shot at the general was playing for keeps. The sniper wasn't trying to scare him. He was shooting to kill." The bullet was too badly damaged to provide conclusive ballistics tests, but neutron activation analysis tests later determined that it was "extremely likely" that the bullet was manufactured by the Western Cartridge Company and was the same type of ammunition as was used in the Kennedy assassination.