Needing escape from the disappointing escapism of midsummer 2019 Philadelphia Phillies baseball, I read of happier times two hours north as obligingly recorded by the pitcher for the pennant-winning turn-of-the-20th-century New York Giants.

Editor’s note: Marvin Olasky concludes his monthly biographical series on key individuals from late 19th and early 20th century American history. In February and March, we looked at the life of John D. Rockefeller. In April and May, we studied Grover Cleveland.

Moments before astronaut Neil Armstrong steered a lunar module onto the surface of the moon, Charlie Duke wondered if he might have to abort one of the most spectacular missions of the 20th century.

While Armstrong hovered over the gray expanse, Duke was a quarter-million miles away, tucked behind a bank of computers at Apollo Mission Control Center in Houston. Duke was the capsule communicator (CAPCOM) for this phase of the mission. With a headset and a microphone, his job was to shepherd Armstrong and fellow astronaut Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin onto the moon without catastrophe.

My last column noted the good mood 400 years ago at the July 30, 1619, inaugural meeting of Virginia’s General Assembly. The assembly wanted to maintain peace with the Powhatan tribe and promote “the Conversion of the Indians to Christian Religion.” 

James Horn in his book 1619 shows how settlers and natives fought for several years after the Jamestown founding in 1607, but seven years later the marriage of Powhatan princess Pocahontas and settler John Rolfe improved relations.   

“We are all strangers in a strange land, longing for home, but not quite knowing what or where home is. We glimpse it sometimes in our dreams, or as we turn a corner, and suddenly there is a strange, sweet familiarity that vanishes almost as soon as it comes.” ―Madeleine L’Engle

This summer brings important 400th anniversaries. On July 30, 1619, the Virginia General Assembly, the first representative governing body in British America, met in a Jamestown church. Late in August a ship brought against their will 20 or so Africans, the first of their race in British America. The lack of a precise date or number suggests that already these captives were not being treated as individual human beings made in God’s image.

James Watt died 200 years ago this summer, but his face now graces the Bank of England’s 50-pound bills, each worth about $56. A sentence below his picture explains why Watt had a Eureka! moment on the Glasgow Green that led to his invention of steam engine improvements that revolutionized commerce: “I can think of nothing else but this machine.”