A First Draft of History: Week of March 26 – April 2

here are a few important events from this week in history:

1836 - The first Mormon temple was dedicated, in Kirtland, Ohio, in what is today an eastern suburb of Cleveland. Beginning in 1831, members of the Church of Christ of Latter Day Saints, under the direction of church founder and president Joseph Smith Jr., began to gather in the Kirtland area.

In December 1832 Smith reported to have received a revelation that called for the construction of a house of worship, education, and order. The temple was dedicated in an eight-hour service on March 27, 1836. Smith and many of his followers were soon driven out of Ohio by persecution, and the temple came into the hands of various schismatic groups. Ownership passed back and forth, but today this historic structure is owned and operated by the Community of Christ, formerly known as the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.

1867 - Secretary of State William H. Seward reached agreement with Russia to purchase Alaska for $7.2 million, or about two cents an acre. Despite the generous terms, the deal was roundly ridiculed at the time as "Seward's Folly," by people who assumed that Alaska was nothing more than a vast chunk of ice. Of course that was before the discovery, first of gold, and then of oil.

In today’s dollars, the purchase price was about 110 million dollars, making it probably the second-best real estate deal in US history, right after the Louisiana Purchase. And speaking of Alaska…

1946 - An undersea earthquake off the coast of Alaska triggered a massive tsunami that killed 159 people in Hawaii. In the middle of the night, 13,000 feet beneath the ocean surface, a 7.4-magnitude tremor was recorded in the North Pacific. (The nearest land was Unimak Island, part of the Aleutian chain.) The quake triggered devastating tidal waves throughout the Pacific, particularly in Hawaii. Unimak Island was hit by the tsunami shortly after the quake. An enormous wave estimated at nearly 100 feet high crashed onto the shore. A lighthouse located 30 feet above sea level, where five people lived, was smashed to pieces by the wave; all five were killed instantly.

Meanwhile, the wave was heading toward the southern Pacific at 500 miles per hour. In Hawaii, 2,400 miles south of the quake's epicenter, the wave was first spotted at about 7 a.m., four-and-a-half hours after the quake. A sailor who spotted the wave estimated that it was as high as the bridge his ship, 46 feet above sea level. He guessed that the wave was about two miles long. As the first wave came in and receded, the water in Hawaii's Hilo Bay seemed to disappear. Boats were left on the sea floor next to flopping fish. Then, the massive tsunami struck. In the city of Hilo, a 32-foot wave devastated the town, completely destroying almost a third of the city. The bridge crossing the Wailuku River was picked up by the wave and pushed 300 feet away. In Hilo, 96 people lost their lives. On other parts of the island of Hawaii, waves reached as high as 60 feet. The massive wave was seen as far away as Chile, where, 18 hours after the quake near Alaska, unusually large waves crashed ashore.

This tsunami prompted the U.S. to establish the Seismic SeaWave Warning System two years later. The system, now known as the Pacific Tsunami Warning System, uses undersea buoys throughout the ocean, in combination with seismic-activity detectors, to find possible killer waves. The warning system was used for the first time on November 4, 1952. Still, as recent tragedies have demonstrated, tsunamis remain difficult to predict precisely.

2005 - John Paul II, history's most well-traveled pope and the first non-Italian to hold the position since the 16th century, died at his home in the Vatican. Six days later, two million people packed Vatican City for his funeral, said to be the biggest funeral in history. John Paul II was born Karol Jozef Wojtyla in Wadowice, Poland, 35 miles in 1920. After high school, the future pope enrolled at Krakow's Jagiellonian University, where he studied philosophy and literature and performed in a theater group. During World War II, Nazis occupied Krakow and closed the university, forcing Wojtyla to seek work in a quarry and, later, a chemical factory. By 1941, his mother, father, and only brother had all died, leaving him the sole surviving member of his family. Although Wojtyla had been involved in the church his whole life, it was not until 1942 that he began seminary training. When the war ended, he returned to school to study theology, becoming an ordained priest in 1946. He went on to complete two doctorates and became a professor of moral theology and social ethics. On July 4, 1958, at the age of 38, he was appointed auxiliary bishop of Krakow by Pope Pius XII. He later became the city's archbishop, where he spoke out for religious freedom while the church began the Second Vatican Council, which would revolutionize Catholicism. He was made a cardinal in 1967, taking on the challenges of living and working as a Catholic priest in communist Eastern Europe. Wojtyla built a reputation as a powerful preacher and a man of both great intellect and charisma. Still, when Pope John Paul I died in 1978 after only a 34-day reign, few suspected Wojtyla would be chosen to replace him. But, after seven rounds of balloting, the Sacred College of Cardinals chose the 58-year-old, and he became the first-ever Slavic pope and the youngest to be chosen in 132 years.

Over the course of his pontificate, John Paul II spoke and wrote extensively on a wide range of theological and social issues. One of the central themes of his writing was what he termed the “culture of life,” which he used to condemn not only things like abortion and capital punishment, but also the excesses of capitalism and materialism. He traveled widely as pope, using the eight languages he spoke (Polish, Italian, French, German, English, Spanish, Portuguese, and Latin) and his well-known personal charm, to connect with the Catholic faithful, as well as many outside the fold.

On May 13, 1981, Pope John Paul II was shot in St. Peter s Square by a Turkish political extremist, Mehmet Ali Agca. After his release from the hospital, the pope famously visited his would-be assassin in prison, where he had begun serving a life sentence, and personally forgave him for his actions. The next year, another unsuccessful attempt was made on the pope s life, this time by a deranged priest. In the 1990s Pope John Paul II began suffering from Parkinson's disease. He began to develop slurred speech and had difficulty walking, though he continued to keep up a physically demanding travel schedule. In his final years, he was forced to delegate many of his official duties, but still found the strength to speak to the faithful from a window at the Vatican. In doing so, he offered a powerful and moving testimony to the dignity and value of all human life, however infirm or enfeebled. In February 2005, the pope was hospitalized with complications from the flu. He died two months later.

Pope John Paul II is remembered for his successful efforts to end communism, as well as for building bridges with peoples of other faiths. He was succeeded by Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, who became Pope Benedict XVI. Benedict XVI began the process to beatify John Paul II in May 2005. That process culminated on May 1, 2011, when Benedict XVI officially beatified John Paul II before a crowd of a million people in St. Peter’s Square, declaring the late pontiff “Blessed” and leaving him just one step from sainthood.

International News: Three NATO troops were killed in two separate incidents in Afghanistan Monday by Afghan security forces and police. The spike in such attacks in recent weeks has raised concerns about the feasibility of a key element of the Obama administration's exit strategy for Afghanistan. Under a transition plan agreed by President Obama and NATO allies, U.S.-led forces plan to train some 350,000 Afghan army soldiers and police, and transition security responsibility to them in phases, culminating with the withdrawal of international forces from the country by the end of 2014. Of course that’s not going to work though if it turns out the Taliban have infiltrated the security forces, as these attacks indicate. The deaths Wednesday brought to 16 the number of NATO troops killed this year by Afghan security forces and police, 8 of them American.

An Associated Press tally Monday said 80 NATO service members have been killed by Afghan troops or police since 2007, 80 percent of them in the past two years. Attacks by members of the Afghan security forces account for nearly one-fifth of all coalition combat deaths this year. NATO commanders have instituted new measures aimed at combating such attacks. For example, U.S. troops have been assigned so-called "guardian angels," fellow troops who will watch over them as they sleep. In several Afghan ministries, Americans are now allowed to carry weapons. And they have been instructed to rearrange their office desks there to face the door, so they can see who is coming in.

U.S. commanders and Defense Secretary Leon Panetta have been quick to downplay the killings, arguing that they do not represent a trend. Although when more and more of something happens each year, I’m not sure how that’s not a trend. Either way, the recent increase in Afghans gunning down troops they are serving with reflects increased tensions between Afghanistan and the U.S. just as the American-led coalition force escalates efforts to train Afghans to take over their own security so that most NATO forces can leave by the end of 2014.

The Afghans – I mean, the Afghans ostensibly allied with coalition forces – are also taking steps to address this troubling trend, or non-trend as Secretary Panetta would have it. The Afghans have inserted their own intelligence officers into their units to help try to ferret out possible insurgents or rogue soldiers. They have also taken a number of steps to increase building security in the ministries and to improve the vetting of their workers. Still, these measures have clearly been insufficient. On Friday, an Afghan policeman killed nine colleagues in an attack in eastern province Paktika.

Turning now to the one country in the world that makes even Afghanistan seem somewhat stable – violence between supporters and opponents of dictator Bashar al-Assad continued to roil Syria this week. On Thursday gunmen killed two army colonels at a downtown roundabout in Aleppo, one of Syria’s largest cities. Meanwhile, in the central province of Hama, rebels attacked an army truck and killed two soldiers, and fresh clashes also broke out between government troops and army defectors in the country's north and south. The violence came as Arab leaders meeting at a Baghdad summit struggled with deep divisions about how to address Syria's crisis. The leaders are expected to pass a resolution calling for a cease-fire and an immediate, daily two-hour stop to fighting across Syria to permit aid to suffering civilians. Such a resolution would fall short of previous calls by the body that Assad give up power. For its part, the Syrian regime announced this week that the year-old revolt is over, even as the army again shelled opposition areas on Saturday and rebels said they would not cease fire until tanks, artillery and heavy weapons are withdrawn.

Opposition activists reported 25 people killed and five bodies found bearing signs of torture, including two children. A protest singer in Kafr Ruma was killed when his house was raided. A young man and his sister were shot dead when state forces stormed their village, and a man died of gunshot wounds inflicted during a protest in Damascus. In addition, artillery and mortars pounded a pro-opposition part of Homs city, killing one. Ten deaths were reported in Homs province. More civilians, and several soldiers, also died in clashes in other parts of the country.

So, contrary to the regime’s claims, the revolt is obviously not over. Still, Assad’s forces certainly seem to hold the upper hand. In recent weeks the Syrian army has driven rebels from strongholds in the cities of Hama, Homs and Idlib. Equally importantly, the political opposition remains divided, meaning that, unlike in Libya last year, the Western and Arab countries are unlikely to grant quick recognition to a revolutionary national council. Also working in Assad’s favor, the prospects of Western-led military intervention are close to zero, although the Saudis continue to push hard for providing arms to the rebels.

National News: "Obamacare" finally had its day in court this week, three days in front of the Supreme Court to be precise. After quickly dismissing the claim that the Court could not yet rule on the law because parts of it haven’t gone into effect – in fact, the Court had to appoint someone to argue that point because none of the parties in the case wanted to make it – the Court turned its attention to the individual mandate provision of the law.

The key question is whether the individual mandate – the requirement that virtually everyone have or buy health insurance – exceeds the authority granted to the federal government by the commerce clause of the Constitution. The court then considered the issue of "severability," or what happens to the rest of a law if part of it is struck down.

In other words, if the court rules that the mandate is unconstitutional, does the rest of the law collapse as well. It’s a very tricky question. Usually Congress includes a clause that clearly defines its intent in that event. But the Democrats neglected to include one amid the political rush to pass the law. So, the Court could uphold the individual mandate, in which case the point is moot. Or, it could overturn the mandate but let every other part of the law stand. Or it could say that the rest of the law never would have passed without the mandate, so everything else should be taken down with it.

The 26 states challenging the law argue for this last option. They maintain that the mandate is the very heart of the Affordable Care Act because it is meant to subsidize the insurance regulations that drive up costs. In other words, the law compels insurers to cover a lot of people on whom they would lose money – people with preexisting or chronic conditions, for example. In exchange, the law forced the younger and healthier to buy coverage they may not need.

So, essentially Democrats have told insurers, we want you to accept a bunch of people on whom you’ll lose money, but in exchange will give you a bunch of people on whom you’ll make money. If you remove the second half of the equation, which repealing the mandate would do, then the formula no longer works. What it comes down to is on one side defenders of the law saying that the individual pieces can stand even without the mandate, and on the other side critics who say that all the elements are interconnected, so if one piece goes all the rest must follow.

Overall, the general opinion in the punditsphere is that the court will rule against the individual mandate, based largely on the tone of questions asked by Justice Anthony Kennedy, who will likely be the deciding swing vote. In fact, the left-wing media is already whining about what a poor job Solicitor General Donald Verrilli did with his arguments and how unfair the whole idea of a Supreme Court is (of course they’re quite happy with it when the court is ruling in their favor, but we mustn’t expect logical consistency from the press).

Although, I have to admit that it does seem strange that the fate of 1/6th of the economy of 300 million people comes down to the opinion of a single unelected official. No one seems to have any idea what might happen in terms of severability though. If the court strikes down the mandate but picks and chooses other parts of the law to uphold, it would essentially be taking over the legislative function of Congress. Justice Antonin Scalia, for example, noted that severing would require the Justices to comb through the Affordable Care Act's 2,700 pages and pick out the parts that are connected to the mandate and those that aren't. Scalia also pointed out that since very few members of Congress read and understood all 2,700 pages, it seems unfair to ask the court to. Having heard the arguments, the justices retired to their secret chamber high atop the Washington monument. There they will discuss, read the entrails of sacrificed doves, and finally return with their ruling, probably by late June, in other words, just in time for the 2012 presidential race to really start heating up.

And speaking of the presidential race, there’s no telling how it’s going to play out, but the one thing we can say for sure is that it’s going to be very expensive. With Republicans locked in a contentious and costly primary, President Obama has spent a small fortune in recent months to build and maintain a campaign operation that is larger, more diverse and more focused on November's general election than any of his opponents' organizations.

Obama, who faces no serious challenger for the Democratic nomination, has sunk his cash into an expansive brick-and-mortar operation with offices in nearly every state. His campaign has spent more than $135 million on operations through February, according to an Associated Press analysis. That's about $3 million more than all his GOP challengers combined. According to reports, Obama's paid staff exceeds 500, many of whom work in the campaign's Chicago headquarters. Campaign filings list more than 330 paid staffers in Chicago and 200 more spread across the country — payroll costs that exceed $6.3 million during the last two months alone.

These revelations may boost Mitt Romney’s campaign for the Republican nomination. Among other things, he can argue that he alone of the Republican candidates will have the ability to at least try to keep up with the Obama money machine.

And speaking of large amounts of money, a former top executive of the defunct brokerage firm MF Global appeared before a House committee this week. The committee is trying to figure out how MF Global managed to lose hundreds of millions of dollars of its clients’ money. This week’s hearing didn’t shed any light on the issue though, as the executive declined to testify. Curse you, 5th Amendment. The House committee was specifically interested in whether MF Global CEO Jon Corzine approved a transfer of nearly $200 million in customer funds to cover losses days before the brokerage firm collapsed, which would be illegal. Congressional investigators recently acquired an email contradicting Corzine’s testimony that he did not order the transfer.

In case you’re thinking the name Jon Corzine rings a bell, he’s the former governor of NJ and a big buddy of Bill Clinton. Now, I know it seems very unlikely that a friend of Bill and NJ politician would be involved in anything shady, but this is suspicious MF Global firmed file for bankruptcy Oct. 31 after a disastrous bet on European debt. It was the eighth-largest bankruptcy in U.S. history and resulted in farmers, ranchers and other customers losing roughly $1.6 billion. Several former executives have testified, and all have claimed that they had no knowledge of, well, anything basically. Which is odd, because they were also earning millions of dollars in salary. Still, it’s doubtful any of them will go to jail. We reserve jail for the really bad criminals, like people who use marijuana.

State News: The huge Mega Millions jackpot had a lot of people thinking about lotteries this week. I know I spent a lot of time thinking about what I would do with $600 million – telling off my boss at the library, leaving it all behind to start a new life with a young Brazilian model – but I also did some reading about the way lotteries really function. Of course we’re all familiar with the saying that lotteries are taxes on people who aren’t good at math, but in many states they’re justified on the grounds that the money goes to education.

Here in NC, for example when state lawmakers passed the lottery in 2005, they promised that the money would go to education, and, equally importantly, that it would not replace tax dollars meant for education. Well, it turns out they haven’t been completely honest about that.

Results of an investigation by WRAL news released this week show that in fact lottery money is replacing other sources of education funding, leading to no actual gain for the NC school systems. While the lottery meets its revenue raising goals, cuts elsewhere in the state budget mean the stream of funding for education has continued a downward trend. A look at the general fund education allotment since the lottery was established shows spending slowly increased, but the actual percentage of the general fund allotted to education has dropped. The lottery's net proceeds account for just 4 percent of North Carolina's total public school spending. After prizes and administrative costs, which are very high, only 35 cents of each dollar spent on tickets goes toward education. So, you might still want to buy your tickets in the hopes of getting rich, but don’t be fooled: the so-called, “North Carolina education lottery” actually has very little to do with education, unless of course it’s education in disappointment and broken dreams.

One other piece of state news: NC’s last two teams may have been eliminated from the NCAA tournament this week, but we’re still not quite done with basketball talk. When asked this week by the AP which of our state’s teams he supports, U.S. Rep. Brad Miller, who represents North Carolina's 13th district, had this to say. Miller is a UNC alum, and so he’s a big Tar Heel fan, and it turns out he doesn’t particularly care for Duke.

When asked how he feels about the Blue Devils, he remarked, "I have said very publicly that if Duke was playing against the Taliban, then I'd have to pull for the Taliban." Not a very diplomatic comment, but then again Miller isn’t running for reelection. And anyway, you have to give him credit for honesty. That’s certainly the way Miller sees it.

He went on to say: "I make no pretense that I am at all half-hearted in my support for Carolina. Nobody in North Carolina would trust a politician who claimed to be neutral on a matter as important as college basketball."

True enough. In one piece of local news, Hyde County released the audit of its finances for the last fiscal year. I’ve said it before, but again, I’d like to commend the County for making this information so accessible to all of us. Now, as responsible, concerned citizens, it is up to each of us to read the audit. You may ask, have I read it? The answer is…heck no; it’s really, really long.

I did skim it, however, and I learned some interesting things. For example, in the last fiscal year, Hyde County spent $71,404 on bioterrorism. The audit didn’t say whether than money was spent to prevent bioterrorism or to promote it, but either way, I’m glad our leaders are working on this important issue.

Cosmic News: An expedition financed by Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos announced this week that it has located the engines that powered the Saturn V rocket which carried the first astronauts to set foot on the moon. Bezos revealed that his privately-funded expedition had been successful locating what he believes to be the five massive F-1 engines that powered a Saturn V rocket off the launch pad with Apollo 11 crew members Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, and Mike Collins aboard. The engines, still attached to the rocket's first stage, had been purposely dropped into the Atlantic Ocean after they had flown 38 miles (61 kilometers) high and burnt through their fuel supply.

Bezos' expedition used state-of-the-art deep sea sonar to locate the Apollo 11 engines lying 14,000 feet below the surface. He is now planning on attempting to raise one or more so they can be publicly displayed. Despite his efforts, even if he is successful he won’t be able to keep the fruits of his labors. NASA congratulated Bezos on his find this week, but also reminded him that it maintains ownership of the engines.

If Bezos is able to recover them, at least one will probably end up in the National Air and Space Museum in Washington. The F-1 engines remain the most powerful single-nozzle, liquid fueled rocket engine ever developed. Five engines were used as the foundation of the 138-foot (42-meter) tall S-IC, or first stage, of each Saturn V, which depended on the engine cluster for the 7.5 million pounds of thrust needed to lift it off the launch pad. And at 19 feet (5.8 meters) high and just over 12 feet (3.7 meters) wide, the F-1 also remains the largest single-chamber, single-nozzle liquid fuel engine ever flown. A total of 65 F-1 engines were launched and then dropped into the ocean between 1967 and 1973. The five that flew in 1969 on Apollo 11's Saturn V rocket may be the most famous.

NASA scientists announced this week that a tiny moon orbiting beyond Saturn's rings may contain life in the form of tiny microbes. In a series of tantalizingly close flybys to the moon, named "Enceladus," NASA's Cassini spacecraft has revealed watery jets erupting from what may be a vast underground sea. These jets, which spew through cracks in the moon's icy shell, could lead back to a habitable zone. The jets of water contain salt at almost exactly the same levels as Earth’s oceans. Scientists believe the small moon, with its sub-surface liquid sea, organics, and an energy source, may host the same type of life we find in similar environments on Earth, specifically subterranean volcanoes. One of the things that makes this discovery so exciting is that if there are microbes on Enceladus, they would be uniquely accessible to scientists. Because these jets of water are erupting out into space, it’s not necessary for a spacecraft to land on the moon and dig into its surface. All scientists have to do is direct a spacecraft to fly through one of the plumes of water and take samples.

Andrew Stern is, among other things, an historian, an Ocracoke resident, and a board member at Ocracoke’s community radio station, WOVV 90.1FM where you can hear his weekly broadcast of “A First Draft of History” every Monday morning at 9am.