Iconic Actress Betty White Dies at 99

Betty White, who set the record for the longest television career in history, spanning eight decades, died Friday at the age of 99.

White, born on January 17, 1922, in Oak Park, Illinois, a suburb of Chicago. Her first media appearance was a guest call to a radio show in 1930. She began modeling and acting after graduating high school, but she put her career on hold to serve in the American Women’s Voluntary Services during World War II.

After the war, she began appearing on television, where she would be a regular fixture for decades. Notably, in 1954, when The Betty White Show received criticism for the inclusion of black tap dance performer Arthur Duncan, White defended his appearance on the show and even expanded his role.

White was the last surviving main cast member of two notable shows, The Mary Tyler Moore Show and The Golden Girls. She was also the oldest main cast member of both shows, with all her younger castmates predeceasing her.

White would have celebrated her 100th birthday on January 17. A cinema event celebrating her birthday and documenting her career had been planned to mark the occasion; the filmmaker who created the documentary confirmed that it will still be shown in theaters on the 17th.

 

Notable People We Lost this Month

Former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid

Sen. Harry Reid of Nevada was a force in American politics for decades, serving as Democratic Senate leader from 2005 to 2015, eight of those years as Senate Majority Leader. While he faced criticism for his tactics and rhetoric during his tenure, Reid was successful in pushing through the Senate much of President Obama’s agenda in 2009 and 2010, including his health care package and the Dodd-Frank financial regulatory legislation.

NFL Coach and Commentator John Madden

John Madden was known for his near decade-long tenure as head coach of the Oakland Raiders and leading the team to victory in Superbowl XI. He later became a NFL commentator, and he was commemorated with popular NFL Madden video game series.

Grichka Bogdanoff

Grichka, along with his twin brother Igor, were known for their appearances in French science television shows in the 1970s and 1980s. The brothers courted controversy when they published scientific papers in peer-reviewed journals which critics say were non-sensical and had no scientific value, known as the Bogdanoff Affair.

The Bogdanoff brothers are often featured in internet memes, usually relating to cryptocurrency, in which they are portrayed as omnipotent market manipulators who pump and dump financial assets, often to comedic effect.

 

Soviet Union's End: Thirty Years Later

On December 25, 1991, Mikhail Gorbahev resigned as general secretary of the Communist Party. For Western countries, this occurred on Christmas day, though it was a much more typical day in the largely Orthodox Soviet Union, as Orthodox Christians observe Christmas in January. 

In Gorbachev's speech, he said, "I hereby discontinue my activities at the post of President of the USSR", and declared an end to the Cold War, which had subsumed geopolitics for over over four decades. His powers were then transferred to Russian president, Boris Yelstin. 

After his speech, the Soviet flag was lowered over the Kremlin, and the Russian flag was raised. The next day, upper chamber of the Soviet legislature formally voted to end the Soviet Union. 

Watch Gorbahev's speech translated to English here:

Pearl Harbor 80 Years Later

Today marks the 80th anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, which led to United States' entry into World War II.

Several survivors of the attack, many of whom are 100 or over, visited the site today to observe the memorials for those lost on that day.

Bob Dole, Former Republican Presidential Candidate and Elder Statesman, Dies at 98

Bob Dole, the former US senator from Kansas who was the Republican presidential candidate in the 1996 election, died Sunday at 98. Dole had been battling lung cancer, and was taking immunotherapy to treat the disease.

Dole was born on July 22, 1923 in Russell, Kansas. He enrolled in the University of Kansas, where he played several sports including basketball and track, but left in 1942 to fight in World War II, where he became an officer in the US Army. He was severely injured in combat in Italy, and while he never regained use of his right arm, he managed to recover the use most of the rest of his body.

Dole was elected to the Kansas House of Representatives in 1950, and two years later became the county attorney of Russell County, a position in which he served for 8 years. He ran for the US House of Representatives in 1960 for Kansas's 6th Congressional District, and after he was elected, he served in the chamber for 8 years. During that time, he supported several notable civil rights bills, including the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

Dole ran for and won a seat in the US Senate in 1968, and he served in the chamber until 1996. Dole became Senate Majority Leader in 1985, became Senate Minority Leader two years later when the GOP lost the chamber in the 1986 elections, and regained the Majority Leader post when Republican recaptured Congress in 1994. He also served as chairman of the Republican National Committee (RNC) from 1971 to 1973. 

Dole was selected as Gerald Ford's running mate in the 1976 presidential election, replacing Nelson Rockefeller, who was seen as too moderate for many in the party. His addition to Ford's ticket was an attempt to keep conservative delegates from supporting Ronald Reagan's presidential candidacy at the 1976 convention, the last contested presidential election to date. While the Ford-Dole ticket emerged victorious at the convention, it ultimately lost to the Carter-Mondale ticket that year.

During his time in Congress, he created relationships and friendships across the aisle that helped achieve the passage of several pieces of legislation, including the American with Disabilities Act and legislation dealing with social security and food assistance.

Dole ran for president in 1980 and 1988, losing in the primaries to Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush respectively. The third time proved the charm in 1996, when he won the Republican primary and faced off against incumbent Democratic President Bill Clinton. He resigned from the Senate to focus on his campaign, which ended unsuccessfully that November when Clinton managed to win another term. Republicans did manage to keep both chambers of Congress that year.

Dole became an elder statesman in the Republican Party in his post-elected career. He also appeared in several television advertisements, including for Pepsi and Viagra (he was open about his struggles with erectile disfunction and aimed to remove the stigma of the condition).

Dole notably was the only former Republican presidential nominee to support Donald Trump after he won the Republican primary in the 2016 election. Dole reiterated his support for Trump in the 2020 election and defended him from what he saw as unfair treatment of Trump from the Commission on Presidential Debates during the debates with eventual election winner Joe Biden. 

While Dole referred to himself as a "Trumper" following the 2020 election and expressed his disappointment in Trump's loss, he also said he was "Trumped out" and criticized Trump's claims of election fraud, saying that there was no evidence for it.

Dole had spoken well of Biden following his election victory, calling him "a great, kind, upstanding, decent person," though he was critical of what he perceived as Biden leaning too far left and the cancellation of the Keystone XL pipeline.

Other than his political statements, Dole managed to keep an active life until the end, even in face of his cancer diagnosis, visiting the Dole Institute frequently at the University of Kansas and even visiting all of Kansas's 105 counties.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi called for the flags at the Capitol to be set to half-mast in honor of Dole. Other politicians from across the aisle have also issued statements of remembrance following the announcement of his death, highlighting his commitment to work across the aisle and his bravery in his military service.