An Achievement and a Warning

In today's post, I'd like to focus on two historical events that occurred in the coming week. One was a discovery. The other was a warning. Both events sowed the seeds of later, greater events.

Christopher Columbus

First, on October 12, 1492, Christopher Columbus landed on an island in the Bahamas that he named San Salvador. He had embarked on his voyage after convincing Spanish monarchs Ferdinand and Isabella that riches of the East awaited if they would finance his voyage to the East by sailing west.

After he had sailed beyond where any other man had ever sailed and not sighting land, whispers of discontent and possible mutiny were heard among the crew. But then they sighted land, and he claimed it for Spain and named its inhabitants "Indians." After all, he thought he had found the East (India) because that's what he, based on his theory, hoped to find. He later made other trips to this "East." Consequently, he was hailed as a hero, a determined and persistent explorer. And the Age of Exploration began in earnest.

Columbus demonstrated by his actions the depth of his belief that one could reach the East by sailing west. Other people said it couldn't be done, but that didn't stop Columbus. It only motivated his desire to prove the naysayers wrong.

Columbus's pluck and determination reminds me of a poem by one of my favorite poets, Edgar Guest. Titled "It Couldn't Be Done," is says ...

Edgar Guest

Somebody said that it couldn't be done,

But he with a chuckle replied

That maybe it couldn't, but he would be one

Who wouldn't say so till he'd tried.

So he buckled right in with the trace of a grin

On his face. If he worried, he hid it.

He started to sing as he tackled the thing

That couldn't be done, and he did it.

Somebody scoffed, "Oh, you'll never do that;

At least no one ever has done it."

But he took off his coat and he took off his hat,

And the first thing we knew, he'd begun it.

With a lift of his chin and a bit of a grin,

Without any doubting or quiddit,

He started to sing as he tackled the thing

That couldn't be done, and he did it.

There are thousands to tell you it cannot be done;

There are thousands to prophesy failure;

There are thousands to point out to you one by one

The dangers that wait to assail you.

But just buckle in with a bit of a grin,

Just take off your coat and go to it;

Just start in to sing as you tackle the thing

That "cannot be done," and you'll do it.

Lately, however, "woke" propagandists have denigrated Columbus as a promoter of imperialism, racism, and slavery. They're trying to expunge true history and hide valuable life lessons gained from Columbus's achievement by substituting a false narrative. I prefer historical reality to the revisionists' alternative.

Albert Einstein

The second significant event was a warning. On October 11,1939, Albert Einstein, recently escaped from Nazi Germany, wrote a letter to President Franklin Roosevelt warning him that, by using Einstein's calculations and theories, Hitler would soon develop an atomic bomb.

J. Robert Oppenheimer and Lt. Gen. Leslie Groves at the Trinity Test Site

Fortunately for the world, FDR heeded Einstein's warning and took action. Thus were sown the seeds for the race to develop that bomb before Hitler did so. The result was the initiation of the top-secret Manhattan Project under the direction of J. Robert Oppenheimer (scientific aspects) and Lieutenant General Leslie Groves (military and security aspects). It gave birth to the plants code named X-10, Y-12, and K-25 and the city of Oak Ridge, Tennessee. And they enabled the U.S. to win the race to build the first atomic bombs, Little Boy and Fat Man, which were dropped on Japan and brought an end to World War II.

I had the good fortune to work for seven years at the Y-12 Plant in Oak Ridge. Without any scientific background (they preferred it that way), I began as a junior technical publications analyst (a glorified title for an editor) and worked my way up to senior technical editor before the end of the Cold War led to layoffs and the dissolution of the Publications Division.

But my work didn't involve the building of bombs. Rather, it involved mostly environmental cleanups and "technology transfer," the application of lessons learned at the Oak Ridge facilities to industrial uses.

None of that would have been possible without the two events I've briefly described: the discovery of the New World by Columbus and Einstein's prescient warning to FDR and the president's heeding and acting on that warning.

Just goes to show that things do work out for the best.