in 1957 space as a territory had not yet been defined, and US leaders argued that it should be recognised as beyond the normal confines of territorial limits.

An opposite position, however, argued for the extension of territorial limits into space above a nation into infinity.

"Freedom of space" became an extremely significant issue for those concerned with orbiting satellites, because the imposition of territorial prerogatives outside the atmosphere could legally restrict any nation from orbiting satellites without the permission of nations that might be overflown.

Since the US was in a position to capitalise on this freedom of space, it favoured an open position.

US President Dwight D Eisenhower tried to obtain a freedom of space decision on 21 July, 1955, when he proposed it at a US/USSR summit in Geneva, Switzerland.

Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev rejected the proposal, however, saying that it was an obvious American attempt to "accumulate target information". Eisenhower later admitted: "We knew the Soviets wouldn't accept it, but we took a look and thought it was a good move." The Americans thereafter worked quietly to establish the precedent.

Then Sputnik, a scientific satellite, overflew the United States and other nations of the world. On 8 October, 1957, an Eisenhower advisor, Donald Quarles, offered this irony to the US president: "The Russians have... done us a good turn, unintentionally, in establishing the concept of freedom of international space."

BBC NEWS | Science/Nature | Sputnik 'was force for world peace'

Fifty years ago today, to the delight of many and the consternation of more than a few, the Soviet Union launched something like a silver volleyball with four swept-back antennas into Earth's orbit.

huzzah
Happy Birthday to the Future

The beeping ball that launched the Space Age - International Herald Tribune

Fifty years ago this week, all eyes were on Little Rock, Arkansas, where nine black students were trying, for the first time, to desegregate a major Southern high school. The town of Grand Forks, North Dakota, with fewer than 150 blacks, hardly figured to be a key front in that battle - until Larry Lubenow talked to Louis Armstrong.

The day Louis Armstrong made noise - International Herald Tribune

Newly discovered snapshots donated to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum provide a stunning counterpoint to what up until now has been the only major source of preliberation Auschwitz photos.

In the Shadow of Horror, SS guardians frolic - International Herald Tribune

"So that's where 'cut-and-paste' came from!"

The moment neatly captured the gap between the world that boomers grew up in and the inescapably digital world of today.

How Computers Transformed Baby Boomers - Baby Boomers At 60 - MSNBC.com

The Green Zone is a little America embedded in the heart of Baghdad. It is the former preserve of Saddam Hussein and his favored associates—an uncrowded district of villas, palaces, and monuments set in a parklike expanse that spreads for four square miles inside a meander of the Tigris River at the center of the ruined city. During the thirty-five years of Baath Party dictatorship it was neither gated nor strictly delineated, and it did not need to be, since the public's survival instincts were well honed, and people just naturally understood that special unwritten rules applied there. The Green Zone was the seat of Saddam's power. You could cross it along the three or four grand boulevards that were open to traffic, and you could reflect on the glory of the regime, but you could not safely linger or gawk. If you had a car and happened to blow a tire, you kept driving on the rims, and made a good show of it too. I know of one young man, the son of a high official in the former regime, who made a U-turn there, and was arrested for the indiscretion; he was held and questioned until his father intervened, and explained that he was innocent and just a bit feckless. Ah, youth.

thus starts a wonderful piece written back in Nov 2004
the world in depicts will make a fantastic movie
"the American bubble in Baghdad"

Welcome to the Green Zone

It's like encountering a long-lost, legendary uncle, away a long time at the wars. At first there is almost a stab of disappointment, as the mythic stranger turns out to be just human-scaled after all. But then, as you look at the slight smile, the long elegant fingers, and get the unique measure of him, the old fixed image gives way to something richer, warmer, funnier than you ever expected. What was revered, marvelled at, becomes intimate and human and ... lovable.

In the old pictures, he was just a face in a regimented rank of grey warriors. Now he stands separate and close to you: an infantryman, a charioteer, a general, an archer and - it is impossible not to feel as you look into those gentle eyes - a father, a son, a husband.

So, here they are, and this is it. I am looking into the eyes of one of the terracotta warriors from the tomb complex of China's First Emperor, a part of the most famous archaeological discovery of recent times.
...
This exhibition does the opposite of what it promises, and is the better for that. It begins with "wonderful things" that Howard Carter would be greedy for, with cups of jade and jewellery of gold, and shining sword blades. Yet its true wonders consist of mere fired earth, the stuff of China's soil turned into masterpieces of realist art. What survives of the First Emperor? Nothing but what his people gave him; nothing but the passion of the artisan who cared enough to put every little ribbon on that suit of armour. The emperor is gone. The human endures.

New model army | Art, Architecture & Design | Guardian Unlimited Arts

IT has become conventional wisdom that the decision to disband Saddam Hussein’s army was a mistake, was contrary to American prewar planning and was a decision I made on my own. In fact the policy was carefully considered by top civilian and military members of the American government. And it was the right decision.

the buck stops where?

How I Didn’t Dismantle Iraq’s Army - New York Times

There is more to Nelson Mandela than the genial old man seen shaking hands with the great, the good and the famous. Paul Vallely recalls the persecuted activist and prisoner
Published: 02 September 2007

Every Thursday at one point during Nelson Mandela's long incarceration on Robben Island he and a group of other black prisoners would be taken outside and told to dig a trench six feet deep. When it was complete, they were told to get down into it, whereupon their white warders would urinate on them. Then they were told to fill in the trench and go back to their solitary cells.

Years later, when Nelson Mandela was about to be inaugurated as the first president of South Africa elected by all its people, he was asked who he would like to invite to his first dinner as president. The warders from Robben Island, he said. "You don't have to do that," his advisers told him. "I don't have to be president either," he replied. The first time he sat down to break bread as head of state those same warders were his guests.

i was thinking a few weeks ago about who I would pick as the 3 greatest people of the 20th Century
2 where for me a complete no brainer to pick
Nelson Mandela
Gandhi
the third i found a puzzle but eventually settled on FDR -- by restoring American faith in capitalism and democracy -- even if it was only actually by asserting there was nothing to fear but fear itself -- America was ready and able to assert American values militarily and economically during and post WW2 -- thus the two great autocratic threats to freedom were defeated

A monument to Mandela: the Robben Island years - Independent Online Edition -- Africa

Today, of course, the United States finds itself in much the same position as Britain in 1781. Distracted and diminished by an irrelevant, costly and probably unwinnable war in Iraq, America could ultimately find itself challenged by countries like China and India.

by

Michael Rose, a retired British Army general, commanded the United Nations forces in the former Yugoslavia from 1994 to 1995.

The defeat that made Britain great - International Herald Tribune