Richard Galant

4 days ago | open.substack.com | Richard Galant

“A conciliator, not a firebrand.” That was how the New York Times’ Steven V. Roberts described Rep. Clement J. Zablocki in his obituary December 4, 1983. The Democrat from Milwaukee “preferred consensus to confrontation” and was known for “a bushy mustache he kept carefully clipped, and a tiny, leather-bound pipe he kept clasped in his hand.”He also played a key role in the long history of disputes between presidents and Congress over who controls the power to go to war.

1 week ago | nowitshistory.com | Richard Galant

In February, 1954, President Dwight Eisenhower invited Chief Justice Earl Warren to a “stag dinner” at the White House. It was two months after the Supreme Court heard arguments for a second time on the case of Brown v. Board of Education, and it would be three months before the court would issue its historic ruling striking down racial segregation in schools.

2 weeks ago | open.substack.com | Richard Galant

In 2022, the British tabloid Daily Star dramatized the perishability of Prime Minister Liz Truss’s leadership by streaming video of a head of iceberg lettuce to see if it would survive longer than the government. The produce, decorated in the style of Mr. Potato Head and dubbed Lizzy, outlasted the 45-day premiership of Truss. It wasn’t the first time that Britons had chosen such a food analogy for political leadership.

2 weeks ago | nowitshistory.com | Richard Galant

In 2022, the British tabloid Daily Star dramatized the perishability of Prime Minister Liz Truss’s leadership by streaming video of a head of iceberg lettuce to see if it would survive longer than the government. The produce, decorated in the style of Mr. Potato Head and dubbed Lizzy, outlasted the 45-day premiership of Truss. It wasn’t the first time that Britons had chosen such a food analogy for political leadership.

3 weeks ago | open.substack.com | Richard Galant

When Iranian students chanting anti-American slogans gathered in front of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran at about 10:30 on the morning of November 4, 1979, it seemed that they would be following other groups heading to a planned demonstration at the nearby university. Instead the crowd surged toward the embassy’s front gates. Young women pulled bolt cutters out of their hijabs. Local security officers “melted away,” newly arrived U.S. diplomat John Limbert would later recall.