- Several people wrote us after the fourth season premiere to say that they thought the Great Depression started with the Stock Market Crash on October 29, 1929. And not on October 24th like Bartlet, an economist, said. So, we looked it up in our trusty 1994 Encyclopaedia Britannica when we got a chance. And here is what it said under the entry for "Stock Market Crash of 1929":
- "Prices began to decline in September and early October, but speculation continued. On October 18, the stock market began to fall precipitately. The first day of real panic, October 24, is known as 'Black Thursday'; on that day a record 12,894650 shares were traded. Though a number of major banks and investment companies bought up great blocks of stock in an effort to stem the panic, their attempts were in vain. The panic continued on 'Black Monday'; on 'Black Tuesday' (October 29) 16,000,000 shares were traded, and the stock market collapsed completely."
- ML posted on the West Wing forum on the Television Without Pity site, (under the thread on the "Holy Night" episode) the following translation, edited for clarity about the end of the Bourbon family (some information gathered from 2 - The history of the Condé & Conti families; the second to last entry on the page is on Louis-Antoine - last one is n the Daughter of Louis-François II). ML posted the following:
- "The execution of Louis-Antoine was widely proclaimed as an
atrocity; his unjust death ended all hope of reconciliation
between Napoleon and the royal house of Bourbon.
Louis-Antoine was the only son of Louis-Henri II, Duke de
Bourbon. He emigrated with his father at the outbreak of the
French Revolution and served in his grandfather's émigré
army from 1792 until its dissolution after the Treaty of
Lunéville in 1801. He secretly married Charlotte de
Rohan-Rochefort and settled at Ettenheim, in Baden, just
across the French border.
In 1804, a false intelligence report linked Louis-Antoine to a
discovered conspiracy that had threatened to overthrow
Napoleon, the First Consul; acting swiftly the Little Corsican
ordered the arrest of Louis-Antoine. French gendarmes
secretly crossed the Rhine and seized him. He was brought
to a place near Paris where he was excuted by firing squad.
Although his father survived him, Louis-Antoine, Duke
d'Enghien, was genealogically the last prince of the house of
Condé.
The indignation throughout Europe provoked the often
quoted and misquoted comment upon the execution, C'est
pire qu'un crime, c'est une faute. It's worse than a crime, it's
a mistake."
- *******There are several other sites that discuss this history, though most seem to be in French but if you search for "Louis-Henri+Bourbon+Louis-Antoine" in Google, you will get a list and with each you get the offer from Google: "[ Translate this page ]"
- Bartlet says, "Fredrick the Great told his generals, 'To defend everything is to defend nothing.'" [#415]
- Steve Horton emailed us the full quote and a link to it:
"Little minds try to defend everything at once, but sensible people look at the main point only; they parry the worst blows and stand a little hurt if thereby they avoid a greater one. If you try to hold everything, you hold nothing."
--- Frederick the Great
From General Dennis J. Reimer Training and Doctrine Digital Library, which is part of the U.S. Army's website.
- What was that exchange about between Josh and Joe on whether Josh heard the shots in "Evidence of Things Not Seen"?
- The dialogue went something like this:
Joe: "Did you hear the shots?"
Josh: "No but I heard a brass quintet playing 'The First Noel', so I assume somebody somewhere was locked and loaded."
Joe: "You know, not for nothing but the people that I talk to don't believe that story and the people that you'd like, don't care."
Josh's comments refer to the assassination attempt made on Charlie and the President where we find out later at the beginning of the second season that Josh had been shot by a stray bullet. He almost died and had a long recovery. Then later, it turned out he had a Post Traumatic Stress reaction brought on by music at Christmas (see episode "Noel"). He was talking about having heard music instead of shots just as he had reacted to shots when he heard music when he freaked out that Christmas.
We found Joe's comments a little less easy to understand but they were made clear by a post "D.C." made on the West Wing forum on the Television Without Pity site, which said the following:
"Joe's response meant that talk about Josh's PTSD is out there, but his political enemies don't take it seriously--or use it as an excuse to run him down. His friends, or people who are at least not his enemies and are more more neutral, take it seriously but don't think of it as a defect."
- What did Teddy Roosevelt do for which he was awarded the Nobel Prize? [#420]
- West Wing Episode Guide found a link to an essay about Theodore Roosevelt and "his work in the negotiations that led to the Treaty of Portsmouth ending the Russo-Japanese War in 1905".
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Fourth Season Questions about History
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