Four centuries and six decades and one year ago, Anglican Bishop John Hooper died, burned alive at a stake to which his accusers tied him for the crime of wanting to reform the Church of England; two hundred seventy-nine years prior to just now, a baby boy gave a first cry who would grow up as fiery critic and radical democrat Thomas Paine; thirty-eight years thereafter, in 1775, Great Britain’s Parliament declared that the colony of Massachusetts Bay was in rebellion; thirteen years later and four thousand miles East in 1788, Hapsburg forces joined Russians in their battles with the Ottoman Empire in the Russo-Turkish War; nineteen decades and two years prior to the present pass, Congress decided the U.S. Presidential election when no candidate received an Electoral College majority, out of which emanated the present ‘Two-Party-System;’ thirty-six years subsequent to that minor drama, in 1861, a much more brutal tragedy was evolving, with the election of the just resigned U.S. Senator from Mississippi, Jefferson Davis, to preside over the just formed Confederate States of America; nine years past that point in time, in 1870, U.S. Grant signed the law that created the U.S. Weather Bureau; four years afterward to the day, in 1874, a female infant entered the world who would grow up as poet Amy Lowell; in Russia seven years further down time’s path, in 1881, author Fyodor Dostoyevsky took his last breath; another eight years onward, in 1889, Grover Cleveland signed legislation that gave the Department of Agriculture Departmental status in the executive branch; six years later, in 1895, William Morgan gave a strange name to a game that he’d invented, which soon enough becomes volleyball; nine years afterward, in 1904, Russia was putting the finishing touches on losing the Battle of Port Arthur to the Japanese in the Russo-Japanese conflict; just seven hundred thirty-one days subsequently, in 1906, American poet Paul Lawrence Dunbar lived out his last stanza; eight more years further along time’s arc, in 1914, a baby boy sang out en route to a life as the beloved singer and songwriter, Ernest Tubb; Turkey and Greece two decades toward now, in 1934, led the way in bringing a handful of jurisdictions to affirm the Balkan entente as a way to forestall armed conflict and skullduggery in the region; one thousand ninety-six days subsequently, in 1937, Congress appropriated the then huge sum of almost a billion dollars for relief, the lion’s share of it for job’s in flood control and other infrastructure projects; an additional three years onward in the direction of today, in 1940, seven thousand miles to the South, a male child was born who would go on to literary acclaim and a Nobel Prize as J.M. Coetzee; two years hence, in 1942, the U.S. reinstituted Daylight Savings Time, so as to make electricity more readily available to wartime industrial efforts such as the Clinton Engineering Works, and a female infant opened her eyes who would rise as the gifted musician, singer, and lyricist, Carole King;three hundred sixty-five days thereafter on the dot, in 1943, a male child took an initial breath en route to a career as an honest interlocutor in the ‘dismal science,’ Joseph Stiglitz, who would win the Nobel Prize and the admiration and support of working people around the world; one more year further on, in 1944, a baby girl came along who would mature as iconic writer and storyteller Alice Walker; half a dozen more years henceforth, in 1950, Joseph McCarthy, in a so-called ‘Second Red Scare,’ accused the U.S. State Department of essentially being a Communist Party front; just shy of a decade later on, in 1959, Russia launched the world’s first Intercontinental Ballistic Missile, capable of spreading megadeath anywhere on Earth; two years past that intersection in time and space, in 1961, President John Kennedy called for Congress to approve a Medicare program, so as to help up to fifteen million elderly citizens gain access to health care; three more years nearer to now, in 1964, more than seventy million viewers watched the Beatles perform live on the Ed Sullivan Show; one year later, just over half-a-century ago, in 1965, U.S. troops received a first combat assignment in Southeast Asia when Marines operated an air-defense operation near Saigon; twenty-six years precisely after that, in 1991, Lithuania declared its independence from Russian or Soviet oversight; not quite a full ten years still more proximate to the present day, in 2000, almost 20,000 highly skilled and technical workers at Boeing went on strike in Washington and Oregon for a better compensation and benefits package; another year even closer to the current context, across the wide Pacific near Hawaii in 2001, a U.S. nuclear submarine surfaced suddenly and struck a Japanese Fishery High School training vessel, sinking it in less than ten minutes and causing the deaths of nine crew members, including four young students.