Good News in History, June 5

171 years ago today, Uncle Tom’s Cabin, an anti-slavery novel by American author Harriet Beecher Stowe, was first published in the abolitionist periodical The National Era. In the United States, Uncle Tom’s Cabin was the best-selling novel and the second best-selling book of the 19th century following the Bible. A landmark in protest literature, its influence was so strong on the abolitionist sentiment that it sold 200,000 copies in London alone. READ some more about the book… (1851)

Hammatt Billings did the illustrations for the eventual release of the book a year after it began as a magazine serial in The National Era; the first 20,000 copies were bought on the first day. Southern opponents of the book decried the book as slanderous, and brought up the fact that Harriet Stowe had never even visited a southern plantation.

Stowe explained she was simply piecing together accounts from runaway slaves she had met and interviewed in Cincinnati. Stowe sent a copy of the book to Charles Dickens, who wrote her in response: “I have read your book with the deepest interest and sympathy, and admire, more than I can express to you, both the generous feeling which inspired it, and the admirable power with which it is executed.”

In the ultimate irony, the influence that the characters and illustrations in Uncle Tom’s had on the perception of the enslaved blacks in the South created over a century of negative black stereotypes, for which Stowe and her work have received much criticism, especially in the 20th century.

MORE Good News on this Day:

• US Secretary of State George Marshall called for economic aid to rebuild war-torn Europe during a speech at Harvard University; the beginning of the Marshall Plan (1947)
• Elvis Presley introduced his new single, Hound Dog, on The Milton Berle Show, and scandalized some with his suggestive hip movements (1956)
• The Apple II – The first practical personal computer went on sale (1977)
• In response to his party’s moving too far to the right, moderate Vermont Senator Jim Jeffords crossed the aisle, an independent act that shifted control of the U.S. Senate from the Republicans to the Democrats  (2001)

Today is World Environment Day, first celebrated by the UN General Assembly 51 years ago to encourage us to think about how to reduce, reuse, recycle, and protect our planet. The theme changes every year, and this iteration is land use, desertification, and drought. (1974)

141 years ago today, the Orient Express began its inaugural departure from Paris en route to Istanbul. The long-distance passenger train service created in 1883 by the Belgian company Compagnie Internationale des Wagons-Lits (CIWL) operated until 2009, though by then it had ceased service to Turkey, and even Bucharest. By 2007 it was simply a service from Paris to Vienna. 

The route outlasted several wars beyond the two World Wars, and traveled to Budapest, Bucharest, Athens, and Istanbul with three different services. It was known for its luxury. Permanent sleeper and restaurant cars teemed with diplomats, aristocrats, patronized artists, royalty, and businessmen.

The first menu to debut on the train was oysters, soup with Italian pasta, turbot with green sauce, chicken ‘à la chasseur’, fillet of beef with ‘château’ potatoes, ‘chaud-froid’ of game animals, lettuce, chocolate pudding, and a buffet of desserts.

The glamour and rich history of the Orient Express has frequently lent itself to the plot of books and films and as the subject of television documentaries. Murder on the Orient Express was one of Agatha Christie’s most famous. In From Russia with Love, James Bond, along with Bond girl Tatiana Romanova and ally Ali Kerim Bey, try to travel on the Orient Express from Istanbul to Trieste, but complications involving SPECTRE assassin Red Grant force Bond and Tatiana to jump off the train in Yugoslav Istria. (1883)

Happy 48th birthday to the great British stand-up comic, Ross Noble. Voted as one of the 10 best comics on a list of 100 by Channel 4, he singled himself out among other comics with a unique stream-of-consciousness delivery, which often involves him pacing hunchbacked across the stage covered in sweat performing elaborate miming of everything he’s talking about. Noble has completed around 17 total comedy specials, and done dozens of appearances on television. 

As a teenager, Noble was diagnosed with dyslexia, and so decided to work within a career that did not rely on academic skills. He had a brief stint as a street juggler with a friend, and aspired to join a circus. He joined a clown troupe and sold balloons as a stilt-walker, before finally settling on comedy, despite the fact he was only 15, and local licensing laws prohibited him from working as a stand-up and several times headed to run out of comedy clubs through the kitchen. WATCH Noble live at the Apollo… (1976)

35 years ago today, during the student uprising near Tiananmen Square in China where one million people were rallying for democratic reforms—and the morning after the nation’s military arrived to open fire on protestors—a young man halted the advance of a column of tanks for over 30 minutes by standing defiantly in the way.

The Tiananmen Square moment was memorialized best by AP photographer Jeff Widener in a photo taken from the sixth floor of the Beijing Hotel, half a mile away, through a 400mm lens. The operator of the tank, perhaps softened by the humanity of the act, would not advance on the man and finally maneuvered around him.

There is no reliable information about the identity or fate of the man; the story of what happened to the tank crew is also unknown. WATCH the CNN raw video of the incident… (1989)

And, on this day in 1983, the Irish band U2 played the Red Rocks Amphitheater near Denver. The concert was released as an LP, ‘Live At Red Rocks: Under A Blood Red Sky‘.

It was also the band’s first video release and the dramatic rain-soaked, torch-lit atmosphere made it a best-seller. WATCH the film, when Bono and Edge perform I Will Follow…

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