Good News in History, July 5

Why this story matters: In a world where it is easy to feel overwhelmed by the scale of our problems, stories of localized innovation and community-driven success provide a grounded, realistic roadmap for broader progress.

Quick summary: This story highlights recent developments related to this day in history, showing how constructive action can lead to meaningful results.

32 years ago today, Jeff Bezos founded Amazon in the garage of his home in Bellevue, Washington. Originally founded as “Cadabra,” it was famously limited to book sales, the nearby distribution chains for which was why Bezos chose Washington for the entrepreneurial project. Fast forward to today, and it can be said to have launched the e-commerce revolution, changing the face of retail forever and becoming the world’s largest “store,” available in dozens of countries. READ some more milestones on Amazon’s way to success… (1994)

It took just 3 years for Amazon to be listed publicly, and just 4 years before it began acquiring small online booksellers in the UK and Germany to establish an international footprint.

In 2002, Bezos oversaw the launching of Amazon Web Services, providing API and application frameworks for e-commerce platforms, and later cloud storage and compute. In 2006, Amazon opened its platform to hundreds of thousands of retailers to use for their own businesses by stocking their products through Amazon warehouses.

The 12th most-visited website on Earth, visits to amazon.com grew from 615 million annual visitors in 2008 to more than 2 billion per month in 2022. Along with that growth has been the growth of criticisms and lawsuits toward Amazon for various practices. The company, led by Andy Jassy since 2021, has been generally willing to alter these practices if confronted.

MORE Good News on this Day:

• Isaac Newton published his formulation of the laws of motion, which formed the foundation of classical mechanics, as well as his law of universal gravitation (1687)
• William Booth founded The Salvation Army in London (1865)
• The National Labor Relations Act is enacted in the US (1935)
• The British National Health Service Act was launched providing government-financed medical and dental care as an integral part of British society, largely “free at the point of delivery”, paid for by taxes (1948)
• Arthur Ashe became the first black man to win Wimbledon singles’ championship (1975)
• The SARS virus was declared to be contained by the WHO (2003)
• First Indonesian presidential election (2004)
• Roger Federer won a record 15th Grand Slam tennis tournament at Wimbledon (2009)

Happy 33rd Birthdays to the Colorado Rockies and Florida Marlins who were authorized by MLB as expansion teams to equalize the American and National Leagues. In Colorado, a consortium of state businesses helped by a 0.1% sales tax funded the creation of the new Denver team, while the creation of the Florida Marlins was spearheaded by the CEO of Blockbuster.

The Rockies have qualified for the postseason five times, each time as a Wild Card winner. In 2007, the team earned its only NL pennant after winning 14 of their final 15 games in the regular season to secure a Wild Card position.

In a strange contrast, the Marlins have the lowest winning percentage and fewest postseason appearances (four) among active MLB franchises yet also won the World Series during their first two playoff runs in 1997 and 2003, doing so as a Wild Card for the first time in MLB history.

12 years ago today, the Juno spacecraft was launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida on a mission to study Jupiter. Having now completed 42 flybys, called “Perijoves” Juno has undoubtedly provided some of the most beautiful and stunning images ever seen, with Jupiter appearing like a canvass upon which colors move and swirl in combinations and variance beyond the imagining of the human artist. It has also completed 4 flybys of Jupiter’s moons, Io, Ganymede, and Europa.

Juno provided the first views of Jupiter’s north pole, as well as providing insight into Jupiter’s aurorae, magnetic field, and atmosphere. The data from its various scientific instruments have reshaped existing theories about the formation of Jupiter.

Only recently, Juno data on the planet’s interior have revealed that the content of heavy metals was far higher than previously thought—as much as 11-30 Earth masses. This has changed how scientists believe Jupiter was formed, from absorbing loose rock, to primarily growing through the absorption of small planets. In fact, this gargantuan thunderstorm of a world may have gobbled up dozens, potentially hundreds of other planets, dwarf planets, and planetesimals that inhabited the early solar system. (2014)

54 years ago today, the voting age for citizens in the US was lowered from 21 to 18. First passed by Congress, then ratified by three-fourths of the States, the Twenty-sixth Amendment became part of the Constitution when President Nixon and his administration certified its adoption.

During the signing ceremony, held in the East Room of the White House, Nixon talked about his confidence in the youth of America. (1971)

71 years ago today, Elvis Presley entered a recording studio at Sun Records and launched the birth of Rock & Roll. The 19-year-old was invited to play with two session musicians to make his first commercial recording. He was fooling around on his guitar and began strumming an old blues number, That’s All Right—playing the song faster than the original version. That single, released two weeks later with Blue Moon of Kentucky as the B-side, was hailed by Rolling Stone magazine in 2004 as the very first rock-and-roll record.

Presley’s version has different lyrics compared to the Arthur Crudup original, and was produced in the style of a live recording (all parts performed at once and recorded on a single track). John Lennon, who, along with Paul McCartney copied Elvis as much as possible in the early days of The Beatles, later said: “Before Elvis there was nothing.” LISTEN to the 2-minute song… (1954)

17 years ago today, the marvelous, unprecedented hoard of Anglo-Saxon gold was found in Staffordshire, from which it would take its name. Numbering 11 pounds of gold, thousands of garnets, and 3 pounds of silver, the hoard is now the greatest testament to the wealth, power, and reach of the early Britons. Among the most dramatic finds are a collection of sword hilt fittings and pommels made from gold, filigree, and garnet.

Considered “possibly the finest collection of early medieval artifacts ever discovered,” one of the first things one notices is the wealth of the semi-precious red stone called garnet. There are 3,500 garnet stones contained within the treasure, most of which arrived from Sri Lanka, or Afghanistan, showing how even back in the once-called “Dark Age” global trade was truly global. Another hypothesis is that they came from Roman jewelry that was recycled.

The quality of the metalworking is also hair-raising. The Anglo-Saxon smiths understood how to twist and hammer gold to make filigree—or beaded chains—utilizing gold’s peculiar properties as the most manipulatable metal. With this filigree, they decorated their sword pommels in particular with spirals and North Atlantic graphic styles.

Discovered within what would have been the Kingdom of Mercia, most of the gold and silver items appear to have been intentionally removed from the objects they were previously attached to. Some researchers associate the predominantly warlike character of the artifacts in the hoard with the custom of giving war gear (heriot) as death duty to the king upon the death of one of his noblemen. The removal of the sword pommel caps finds a parallel in Beowulf which mentions warriors stripping the pommels of their enemies’ swords. There are 66 such items in the hoard. (2009)

26 years ago today, the largest-ever airlift of wild birds was launched by conservationists. 18,000 penguins were moved to safety after an oil slick threatened their South African breeding ground during mating season. A third of the entire species of black-footed penguins (found only in Africa and classified as “threatened”) lived on the islands.

Thousands of volunteers and zoo experts helped with the airlift and the cleaning of 20,000 birds. This video shows volunteers and experts scrubbing and feeding nearly 20,000 oil-soaked penguins in thirty days. WATCH the news report… (2000)

And Happy Birthday to musician Robbie Robertson, who turns 83 today. As a singer-songwriter, the Canadian is credited for writing “The Weight,” “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down,” “Up on Cripple Creek,” ‘Broken Arrow’ and “Somewhere Down the Crazy River.”

He played with The Band and Bob Dylan for years before going solo and producing records. Robertson has collaborated with Martin Scorsese, who directed the rockumentary film The Last Waltz, featuring The Band alongside a string of mega music stars. He continued acting and composing for a number of dramatic Scorsese films, including Raging Bull, Casino. WATCH a performance of The Weight in The Last Waltz…(1943)

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