80th Anniversary of Cassablanca-- Part 2: 'Play It, Sam'

Some more quotable quotes from the movie.

**  "Play it, Sam.  Play 'As Time Goes By'."  --Ilsa Lund

**  "Kiss me.  Kiss me as if it were the last time."  --Ilsa Lund

**   "Here's looking at you, kid."  --Rick Blane

**  We might as well be frank.  It would take a miracle to get you out of Casablanca, and the Germans have outlawed miracles."  --Signor Ferrari

"Play 'As Time Goes By'."  --Cooter

Family of First Enslaved Africans in America Marks 400 Years-- Part 2

The men and women who came from what is now Angola in Africa arrived on two ships and were traded for food and supplies from the English colonists in Virginia.  The landing is considered a pivotal moment in American history, setting the stage for a system of race-based slavery that continues to haunt the nation.

Many of the first Africans in America are known only by their first names.  That included Anthony and Isabella, who became servants for a Captain William Tucker.

They had a son named William Tucker who many believe was the first documented African child born in English-occupied North America.

"We're still here," Wanda Tucker shouted in her family's shaded cemetery, which included many worn gravestones, as well as white crosses where ground penetrating radar had recently found unmarked graves.

The Africans were just 12 years after the founding of Jamestown, England's first permanent colony, and weeks after the first English-style legislature was convened there.

WW I, the End-- Part 6: Armistice Signed, Fighting Continues in Africa

Armistice Day is now commemorated as Veterans Day.

NOVEMBER 11, 1918

At 5:10 a.m., in a railway car in Compiegne, France,  the Germans sign the Armistice which is in effect at 11 a.m. -- the eleventh hour of the eleventh month.

Fighting continues on the Western Front until precisely 11 a.m., with 2,000 casualties on both sides.

Artillery barrages  also erupt as 11 a.m. approaches as soldiers yearn to claim they fired the very last shot of the war.

NOVEMBER 12, 1918

A final action occurs as Germans in Africa under the command of the elusive General Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck encounter British troops in Northern Rhodesia, where news of the Armistice had not yet reached.

It's Over.  --Cooter

An Empire Shrinks-- Part 3

1956:  The Suez Crisis leads to the evacuation of British troops from Egypt and, arguably, the beginning of the end of the British Empire.

1960:  The independence of Nigeria and the Somali Republic mark the beginning of a decade in which Britain loses loses almost all of its African colonies.

1968:  The beginning of the troubles in Northern Ireland.

1973:  Britain joins the European Economic Community, the precursor of the European Union.

1978:  Independence of Tuvalu and the Solomon Islands.

1984:  Britain and China agree on a timetable for returning Hong Kong to China.

1997:  Britain cedes Hong Kong to China, ending British colonial rule in all but a handful of mostly island territories.

1998:  The Scotland Act creates the Scottish Parliament, which is given authority over some domestic issues such as education, health and social services, and the environment.

2011:  The Scottish National Party (SNP) gains a majority in the Scottish Parliament.

2014:  Scotland votes on independence from the United Kingdom.  They decided to stay.

--Cooter

The World Lost a Great One This Week: Nelson Mandela

I was sad to hear that this man died this past week. He is one of those rare politicians, especially in Africa, who put his people and country above himself at all times. He was a man who stood up for his convictions regardless of repercussions and even had to spend some 27 years in prison for opposing apartheid in his native South Africa.

Just to show what kind of man he was, I heard one journalist talking about him shortly after he was released from prison and having a top level meeting with his group at a hotel when a maid came into the room. He stopped what he was saying and stood up because that is what you do when a lady comes into the room. He was a gentleman as well.

I admired him early on, but especially after reading a long article about him in Time Magazine a few years ago.

The passing of a great one.