15 th January

1870 The Democratic party was first represented as a donkey, in a Harper’s Weekly cartoon by Thomas Nast. (See November 7th entry.)

1929 Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was born. (Martin Luther King, Jr. Day is celebrated on the Monday closest to this date.)

1929 Kellogg-Briand Pact was ratified by the U. S. Senate.

1943 The Pentagon, headquarters of the U. S. Department of Defense, was completed.

1967 The first Super Bowl was played as the Green Bay Packers of the National Football League defeated the Kansas City Chiefs of the American Football League.

1997 The crews of the U. S. space shuttle Atlantis and the Russian space station Mir celebrated together after succeeding in connecting their space crafts in orbit. (See June 29th entry.)

Man is a creature of hope. Back in 1929, the US. Senate ratified the Kellogg-Briand agreement for the peaceful settlement of international disputes. It was a general expression of hope following World War I—the war to end all wars. We know how well that worked! Ten years later the world was at war once again. However, on this same day in the same year, a man who dedicated his life to peace and equality, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., was born in Atlanta, Georgia.

We are creatures of competition. To struggle successfully and emerge victorious is a grand part of our human heritage. It was on this day in 1967, that America’s greatest annual competition began when the National Football League’s Green Bay Packers defeated the American Football League’s Kansas City Chiefs. Unlike horse races, auto races, and Olympic events, however, there is only a winner and a loser in the Superbowl. There is no second place, despite the fact that both teams had to best the rest of the league to earn the right to be there, and both deserve the champion’s laurels. In this respect, the grid iron has often been compared to the battlefield. It’s an appropriate coincidence that this is also the anniversary of the completion of the United States’ operational center for armed struggle. In 1943, construction was completed on the Pentagon, headquarters of the U. S. Department of Defense.