S3E12: TR's Nobel Prize wasn't the only byproduct of the Treaty of Portsmouth; JFK's posthumous contribution to pop culture; and how George Washington shook things up
Presidents often enter the pop culture fray even if they don't mean to
Presidents have a strong relationship with popular culture; they get elected, at least in part, by a popular vote, and they tend to be the one person in the whole country that everyone can name.
Early December may seem like an odd time to discuss presidential pop culture, but the specific items selected at various podcast karaoke events do have linkage to this time of year. Besides, every election year sees the Electoral College meet this time of the year to cast their vote for the office.
1905 Treaty of Portsmouth sowed the seeds of more than just a Nobel Prize
First up is Jade who spoke to me at Portsmouth New Hampshire’s 400th anniversary celebration in June. It was some footage of the 1905 Portsmouth Peace Treaty ceremony from the Library of Congress which caught Jade’s eye and produced this conversation. President Theodore Roosevelt orchestrated the conference and won the Nobel Peace Prize on December 10th, 1906.
The date of this podcast’s publication is December 7th, Pearl Harbor Day. The relationship with Japan that was forged through the brokering of the Treaty of Portsmouth was non existent for the four years that followed. The foreign policy of the Theodore Roosevelt Administration arguably set into motion a series of events which prompted the Empire of Japan to carry out attacks on what Franklin Roosevelt would refer to as “A Day of Infamy” immediately after.
John F. Kennedy’s funeral changed the way the country saw Arlington
John F. Kennedy served in the Pacific Theater during World War II and 20 years later, as President, he was considered for the Nobel Peace Prize for averting a nuclear war during the Cuban Missile Crisis. President Kennedy was assassinated the following year in Dallas, but unlike so many presidents before him, was not brought home for burial, but laid to rest in Arlington National Cemetery. Arlington’s Command Historian Dr. Stephen Carney joined me just this past weekend in Nashville during the National Council for the Social Studies annual conference.
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