Tuesday, Feb 23

Good morning!

Since I'm still battling laryngitis, I'm going to change up our plans. We will begin viewing Gangs of New York today. Here is what the film's director, Martin Scorsese, said of the production:

"The country was up for grabs, and New York was a powder keg. This was the America not the West with its wide open spaces, but of claustrophobia, where everyone was crushed together. On one hand, you had the first great wave of immigration, the Irish, who were Catholic, spoke Gaelic, and owed allegiance to the Vatican. On the other hand, there were the Nativists, who felt that they were the ones who had fought and bled, and died for the nation. They looked at the Irish coming off the boats and said, ‘What are you doing here?’ It was chaos, tribal chaos. Gradually, there was a street by street, block by block, working out of democracy as people learned somehow to live together. If democracy didn't happen in New York, it wasn't going to happen anywhere."

—Martin Scorsese on how he saw the history of New York City as the battleground of the modern American democracy[4]

Current Events

Sea Level rising fastest in past 28 centuries

NY looks to replace Common Core by 2017

Today in History

1836

Mexican general Santa Anna began the siege of the Alamo.

1896

The Tootsie Roll was introduced by Leo Hirshfield.

1945

U.S. Marines raised the American flag on Iwo Jima.

1997

Scottish scientists announced the successful cloning of a sheep, Dolly.

2011

The Obama Administration determines that the Defense of Marriage Act is unconstitutional.