August 22-August 28, 1947. Two years after the US and its allies, Britain, France, Canada and Australia had won the war. Peace and prosperity has arrived, or so everyone had hoped. The US had dropped 2 atomic bombs on Japan to win the war. The country and the world celebrated the end.

But the reality of winning the war was proving to be quite different than imagined. In 1947 the real result wasn’t peace, just a big gigantic mess. The Big Mess.

A worldwide mess.

1947, Peak mess!

The peace dividend was nowhere to be found.

And it was much worse overseas. The world was in chaos as everyone rolled from a full-out fight against the Axis powers into a cold war against endless Soviet assaults and aggression.

The Cold War was the major issue. But not to be outdone, our English allies decided within the space of 3 months to give independence to its prize jewel, India. Unexpectedly, this triggered the great transfer of millions of people between India and Pakistan following independence and partition. The Muslims and Hindus clashed. Millions died. This was called the partition of India, one of the largest, but from the US perspective, less known crisis of the 20th century.

August 15-21, 1930. Who was Van Lear Black? And what was he a harbinger of? He wasn’t just a man with three middle names, he was the very wealthy owner of the Baltimore Sun back when newspapers were the only media that mattered.

His demise tells us about 1930, the year the depression really started to bite.

While times were bad and getting worse, people were still obsessed with two things: keeping tabs on people who were flying around the world in flimsy aircraft which today you wouldn’t step into even if it had wheels, and liquor.

Prohibition was going strong, but politicians were openly calling for its repeal, while the cops were still making a show of locking up people for having booze. The US was a country split between the wets and dries.

Meanwhile, a drought was ravaging the Midwest. Another harbinger.

But baseball, still the number one sport here in the US, provided quite a show. Batting batting averages were never higher. It was the year of everyone being a great hitter.

In politics we had a General who later became a dictator, a marine who later became a dictator and a German general turned Bolivian general. Wets and dries, drought and a rain of hits, and too many dictators, as usual.

August 8-14, 1982. Midnight in America.

Two years before there was Ronald Reagan's Morning in America, we had 1982, what we call Midnight in America. It was anything but the roaring 1980s from popular memory. This week was like an alternative universe in many ways to the 1920s.

Brand new President Ronald Reagan was heading up to Capitol Hill to stump for a tax increase of all things. The tax increase would turn out to be the largest tax increase in US history. The economy was still suffering a long hangover from the exploding interest rates that got cranked up in the late 1970s. 15%! The 70s in America were a little crazy and 1982 was the transition from the ugly 1970s to the more sedate 1980s.

In Europe, things were testier, as usual.

The Solidarity trade union in Poland had been officially outlawed by the government of President Jaruzelski, but was holding mass demonstrations in the streets this week.

Israel was fighting the PLO in Lebanon. And President Reagan told them to stop fighting…and they did.

The summer of blockbuster movies was upon us, more great movies than you can remember.

AIDS was stalking the land but it was only beginning to be known and understood.