Tag Archives: 1966

T – 50: Half a Century BEFORE “Star Trek”

A week or so back in this space, we looked fifty years behind us to 1966… the year in which Star Trek debuted. It’s thought-provoking to think about what life was like, and how different it is now… but also how much it’s still the same.

*But if our own time now is T (for Trek) + 50, there was also a time of T – 50… a time 50 years before that debut, just as our time is 50 years after. Despite our computers and cell phones and independent Africa and an African American president, that half-century before Star Trek probably brought more changes than the half-century since.

*Do you know what was closer to Star Trek than we are? World War I. When Star Trek debuted, the war had been over for 47 years and 10 months. All the horror of Spanish influenza, the Great Depression, the rape of Nanking, World War II, the Hitler genocide, the Korean War, the nuclear axe swinging over us, and the early years of Vietnam were crammed into less than 48 years.

*On the other hand, those same years brought forth penicillin, polio vaccine, television, jets, satellites, space travel, direct dialing, and rural electrification.

*What was going on in 1916… at T – 50?

*Woodrow Wilson was re-elected President, beating former New York Governor Charles Evans Hughes. In New York, and in most other states, women couldn’t vote.

*Corning Glass Works introduced Pyrex to the buying pubic. Glenn Curtiss sold controlling interest in his company for seven million dollars. Endicott Johnson gave everybody a 40-hour week.

*On our northern border, we signed the Migratory Bird Treaty with Canada. On the south, Pancho Villa attacked Columbus, New Mexico, killing almost 20 people. General Pershing led 10,000 troops, along with a dozen Curtiss Jenny biplanes, in an unsuccessful punitive invasion of Mexico.

*In Jersey City German saboteurs blew up two million pounds of ammunition at Black Tom, damaging the Statue of Liberty and doing wreckage to the tune of half-a-billion in today’s dollars.

*The German-backed Easter Rising in Ireland was crushed, but set the stage for independence five years later. The British-backed Arab Revolt, egged on by Lawrence of Arabia, also broke out. It would be far more successful, only to be betrayed by the British and French, setting up hostility between the regions today.

*In the main war, battleships clashed at Jutland. The battle of the Somme began, and the Battle of Verdun ended. Tanks were first used in significant numbers.

*Down at the bottom of the globe, Ernest Shackleton and his select crew made a desperate and unprecedented small-boat journey through polar seas, followed by the scaling of a cliff and an epic trek across South Georgia island.

*The toggle switch for electric lights first appeared. So did oxycodone. So did the Sopwith Camel. So, in silent movie cartoons, did Farmer Al Falfa.

*Dwight D. Eisenhower was at Fort Sam Houston. Franklin D. Roosevelt was assistant secretary of the navy. Harry Truman was farming. Lyndon Johnson was eight years old, and Ronald Reagan was five. John F. Kennedy would be born in the following year.

*Emma Goldman was arrested for providing birth control information.

*The National Park Service came to be.

*Americans lynched 54 other Americans in 1916, but still the national government refused to act. So did the state governments. So did the local governments. James Weldon Johnson became field secretary of the N.A.A.C.P., which proved to be a turning point for the struggling young organization.

*Jack London died, and so, after considerable struggle, did Rasputin.

*Jackie Gleason was born, as was Dinah Shore. Eugene McCarthy and Beverly Cleary first saw the light of day. Kirk Douglas, Walter Cronkite, and C. Everett Koop all drew their first breaths in 1916.

*It would be years before the names of Adolf Hitler, Josef Stalin, Amelia Earhart, Charles A. Lindbergh, and Billy Graham became household words.

*So – 1916 was just as far from the debut of Star Trek as we are. Doesn’t seem possible, does it?

“Star Trek” and Us — Fifty Years Ago

For those of us who were actually there, it seems quite puzzling that fifty years – half a century? – have gone by since we sat eagerly down to watch that very first episode of “Star Trek.” Most of us weren’t TOO badly disappointed, though we all agreed it could have been better. And over the next three years it GOT better, though never reaching quite the heights we’d hoped for. Still… space travel in prime time, and we didn’t need to be ashamed of it.

*From its original moderate success, “Star Trek” has swelled into a phenomenon… last weekend, I even bought “Star Trek” stamps at the Post Office. Those square computer discs have come and gone… those flip-lid clamshell communicators look an awful lot like our phones.

*Then we looked forward, now we look back. What were our lives like the night “Star Trek” premiered, back in 1966?

*Lyndon B. Johnson was our president, and Nelson Rockefeller was our governor. Our senators were Jake Javits and Robert F. Kennedy. Kennedy was 41. He would never be 43.

*“Cadillac” Bill Smith was a state senator from Big Flats, three years into his 24-year service. He initially grabbed the voters’ attention by campaigning in a Cadillac that he bought with subsidies for not growing crops, and condemning government waste.

*Steuben County was still governed by a Board of Supervisors, rather than an elected legislature. The state legislature was just finishing a chaotic reapportionment on the “one man, one vote” principal, which broke an undemocratic stranglehold by rural Upstate counties.

*Down in Georgia, though, the assembly overwhelmingly blocked duly-elected Julian Bond from taking his seat. (They insisted it was because he opposed the Vietnam War, not because he was black – the Supreme Court ordered him seated later in 1966.) Civil rights worker Vernon Dahmer was burned to death in Mississippi. Robert Weaver became the first African American cabinet secretary. Riots exploded in Watts. Ed Brooke became the first African American senator since Reconstruction.

*“The Dick Van Dyke Show” ended, and “Dark Shadows” began. Mr. Ed made his last snide remarks. Doctor Who regenerated for the first time. Walt Disney died.

*“How the Grinch Stole Christmas” got its very first airing. A New York City TV station made the first yule log broadcast. Kwanzaa had its first celebration.

*A midair collision in Spain caused three H-bombs to be dropped and lost. Several Gemini space missions took place. A Russian probe made a soft landing on the moon. Johnson sent more troops to Vietnam, and demonstrations against the war began in ernest. The Supreme Court issued its Miranda ruling. The Freedom of Information Act became law.

*A sniper with an undiagnosed brain tumor killed 14 people from a tower at the University of Texas. Albert Speer finished his 20-year sentence for crimes against humanity.

*Twenty-eight original members founded the National Organization for Women. A merger formed the United Farm Workers, under an earlier name. The Black Panther Party was formed.

*Barack Obama was five, and probably wasn’t allowed to stay up for “Star Trek.” Andrew Cuomo was almost nine. Hilary Clinton was a sophomore at Wellesley. Donald Trump had just finished two years at Fordham, and was switching to Wharton.

*Corning and Hornell were busy industrial cities. Home computers and portable phones were nothing but dreams. Vaccines were available for measles, but not for mumps, rubella, or chicken pox. If gasoline prices ever rose as high as a quarter a gallon, people were horrified. The second stage of the Watergate Hotel was just opening. No one had ever spoken the name of Hurricane Agnes.

*Technology has advanced since 1966, but “Star Trek” envisioned a social future too. A future in which African Americans could be president. A future in which women could be president. A future in which people of different backgrounds could live, work, and play together.

*Mission accomplished? No, but mission advanced anyway. Even so, for all the ground we’ve travelled nativism and xenophobia are powerful forces in this election… even the Ku Klux Klan is a factor in this election, just as it was in 1966. So there’s a lot of journey still to go. Still climbin’. But we won’t sit down.