Milestones: March 26, 2024

March 26, 2024 Brooklyn Eagle Staff

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CAMP DAVID ACCORD — ISRAELI PRIME MINISTER MENACHEM BEGIN AND EGYPTIAN PRESIDENT ANWAR SADAT on March 26, 1979, signed the Camp David peace treaty, ending 30 years of war between their two countries. The treaty was named for the presidential retreat campus where U.S. President Jimmy Carter hosted Israel’s and Egypt’s heads of state; he had also helped broker the agreement. The peace treaty ended three decades of hostilities between Israel and Egypt, and it established diplomatic and commercial bonds between the two neighboring Middle Eastern nations. The Camp David Accords were followed up with a formal peace treaty seven months afterward. Sadat about two years earlier had made peace overtures, and his actions enraged the Arab world, as did the Camp David Accords. That did not stop Sadat, however, from accomplishing this goal. Sadat and Begin were jointly awarded the 1978 Nobel Prize for Peace for the work they did that year.

However, the Arab League suspended Egypt, and that coalition’s anger at Sadat indirectly led to his death. A Muslim extremist assassinated him in Cairo on Oct. 6, 1981.

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THE PRESIDENT’S ‘WISE MEN’ — PRESIDENT LYNDON B. JOHNSON, UNABLE TO DECIDE ON A COURSE OF ACTION IN THE ESCALATING VIETNAM WAR, on March 26, 1968, convened a nine-man panel dubbed as the “Wise Men.” This panel, consisting of retired and distinguished presidential advisors, included Generals Omar Bradley and Matthew Ridgway, State Department figures like Dean Acheson and George Ball and McGeorge Bundy, who had served both the Johnson and the Kennedy administrations. The Wise Men, deliberating for two days, advised against increasing troop presence, instead advising that Johnson seek a negotiated peace. Johnson then announced on March 31 that he was restricting the bombing campaign in North Vietnam to the area just north of the demilitarized zone. Committing the U.S. to peace, Johnson announced also that he would not seek re-election.

Exactly a year after President Johnson and his “Wise Men” huddled, a group called Women Strike for Peace on March 25, 1969, demonstrated in Washington, D.C., in the first large antiwar demonstration since President Richard Nixon’s inauguration in January. Although the new president had campaigned on ending the Vietnam War, he soon became mired in a situation with no real solution for victory or exit.

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ENOUGH TO FEED A VILLAGE — PRESIDENT THOMAS JEFFERSON ON MARCH 26, 1804, ATTENDED A PUBLIC PARTY at the Senate at which he led the crowd in eating an enormous loaf of bread dubbed “the mammoth loaf.” It was baked that size, as it turned out, to accompany the remnant of a huge block of cheese that a group of Baptist women had given to him as a thank-you for supporting religious tolerance. They also said the cheese’s size supported Jefferson’s assertion that the United States’ natural resources would outshine that of Europe. Although a group of Federalists sought to ridicule Jefferson’s passion for science by calling the dairy gift “the mammoth cheese,” their scorn backfired as the populace took up the slogan and merchants began hawking “mammoth”-size meats, pumpkins and of course, bread.

The presentation of the mammoth loaf took place as a fundraiser for the Barbary States military campaign and, of course, included liquor. It degenerated into a drinking party.

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CREATED ANTI-POLIO VACCINE — AMERICAN MEDICAL RESEARCHER DR. JONAS SALK ANNOUNCED DURING A NATIONAL RADIO SHOW on March 26, 1953, that he had successfully tested a vaccine against poliomyelitis, the virus that causes the crippling disease of polio. The previous year, the polio epidemic had spread. with 58,000 new cases in the U.S. alone. Dr. Salk became celebrated for his work to eradicate the virus, and a vaccine was named for him. The first major polio epidemic in the United States occurred in Vermont in the summer of 1894, and by the 20th century, thousands were affected every year.

The initial treatments were limited to quarantines and the infamous “iron lung.” One famous polio victim, in the early 1920s, was future President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. He remained partially paralyzed.

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‘LIVE LONG AND PROSPER’ — LEONARD NIMOY, ONE OF THE PAST CENTURY’S MOST BELOVED ACTORS, DIRECTORS AND POP CULTURE FIGURES, was born in Boston on March 26, 1931. His most iconic role was probably the cerebral Mr. Spock, a half-human, half-Vulcan character in the “Star Trek” canon. “Live Long and Prosper Day” was initiated about eight years ago, the inspiration being Spock’s blessing from the original “Star Trek” series. The hand greeting is Hebrew in origin, taken from the priestly blessing, and the observance is held on Nimoy’s birthday.’

A few coordinated souls have been able to replicate the hand gesture.

See previous milestones, here.