[←14 ]
Robert George "Bobby" Seale[1] (born October 22, 1936) is an American political activist. He and fellow activist Huey P. Newton co-founded the Black Panther Party.
[←15 ]
Angela Yvonne Davis (born January 26, 1944) is an American political activist, academic, and author. She emerged as a prominent counterculture activist in the 1960s working with the Communist Party USA, of which she was a member until 1991, and was involved very briefly in the Black Panther Party.
[←16 ]
Daniel Joseph Berrigan SJ (May 9, 1921 – April 30, 2016) was an American Jesuit priest, anti-war activist, and poet. Berrigan's active protest against the Vietnam War earned him both scorn and admiration, but it was his participation in the Catonsville Nine (nine Catholic activists who burned draft files to protest the Vietnam War) that made him famous. It also landed him on the Federal Bureau of Investigation's "most wanted list" (the first-ever priest on the list), on the cover of Time magazine, and in prison.
[←17 ]
Benjamin McLane Spock (May 2, 1903 – March 15, 1998) was an American pediatrician whose book Baby and Child Care (1946) is one of the best-sellers of all time. Spock was an activist in the New Left and anti Vietnam War movements during the 1960s and early 1970s. At the time, his books were criticized for propagating permissiveness and an expectation of instant gratification which allegedly led young people to join these movements.
[←18 ]
John Edgar Hoover (January 1, 1895 – May 2, 1972) was an American law enforcement administrator and the first Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) of the United States. In his later life (i.e. at the moment of writing this novel) Hoover had become a controversial figure as evidence of his secretive abuses of power began to surface.
[←19 ]
Reference to a known painting by the American-born painter James McNeill Whistler in 1871. It is best known under its colloquial name Whistler's Mother. The subject of the painting is Whistler's mother, Anna McNeill Whistler. The image has been used since the Victorian era, especially in the United States, as an icon for motherhood, affection for parents, and "family values" in general.
[←20 ]
This written before the coming into existence of AIDS.
[←21 ]
Victory over Japan Day (also known as V-J Day, Victory in the Pacific Day, or V-P Day) is the day on which Imperial Japan surrendered in World War II, in effect bringing the war to an end.
[←22 ]
Mark is having a satirical go here at various VIPs of his time. Richard Milhous Nixon (January 9, 1913 – April 22, 1994) was an American politician who served as the 37th President of the United States from 1969 until his resignation in 1974, making him the only U.S. president to resign from office. Donald Francis Shula (born January 4, 1930) is a former professional American football coach and player who is best known as the head coach of the Miami Dolphins. Spiro Theodore "Ted" Agnew (November 9, 1918 – September 17, 1996) was the 39th Vice President of the United States, serving from 1969 to his resignation in 1973. Wernher Magnus Maximilian Freiherr von Braun (March 23, 1912 – June 16, 1977) was a German (and, later, American) aerospace engineer and space architect. He was the leading figure in the development of rocket technology in Germany and the father of rocket technology and space science in the United States. He was responsible (with his team) of placing Americans on the Moon. Martha Elizabeth Beall Mitchell (September 2, 1918 – May 31, 1976) was the wife of John N. Mitchell, United States Attorney General under President Richard Nixon. She became a controversial figure with her outspoken comments about the government at the time of the 1972 Watergate scandal (which may just not have been known to Mark at the time of writing). Hubert Horatio Humphrey Jr. (May 27, 1911 – January 13, 1978) was an American politician who served as the 38th Vice President of the United States from 1965 to 1969. He was the Democratic Party's nominee in the 1968 presidential election, losing to Republican nominee Richard Nixon. Aristotle Socrates Onassis (20 January 1906 – 15 March 1975) was a Greek shipping magnate who amassed the world's largest privately owned shipping fleet and was one of the world's richest and most famous men. He was known for his business success, his great wealth and also his personal life, including his affair with famous opera singer Maria Callas; and his 1968 marriage to Jacqueline Kennedy (July 28, 1929 – May 19, 1994), the widow of American President John F. Kennedy. Edward Moore "Ted" Kennedy (February 22, 1932 – August 25, 2009) was an American politician who served in the United States Senate from Massachusetts for almost 47 years, from 1962 until his death in 2009. For many years, Ted Kennedy was the most prominent surviving member of the Kennedy family. Henry Alfred Kissinger (May 27, 1923) is a Germany-born American statesman, political scientist, diplomat and geopolitical consultant who served as the United States Secretary of State and National Security Advisor under the presidential administrations of Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford. A Jewish refugee who fled Nazi Germany with his family in 1938, he became National Security Advisor in 1969 and United States Secretary of State in 1973. He was instrumental end effective in negotiating a ceasefire in Vietnam thus helping to bring this war to end. Jack Northman Anderson (October 19, 1922 – December 17, 2005) was an American newspaper columnist, considered one of the fathers of modern investigative journalism. Burrhus Frederic Skinner (March 20, 1904 – August 18, 1990), commonly known as B. F. Skinner, was an American psychologist, behaviorist, author, inventor, and social philosopher. He was the Edgar Pierce Professor of Psychology at Harvard University from 1958 until his retirement in 1974. Skinner considered free will an illusion and human action dependent on consequences of previous actions, according to his principle of reinforcement. Norman Kingsley Mailer (January 31, 1923 – November 10, 2007) was an American novelist, journalist, essayist, playwright, film-maker, actor, and liberal political activist. Richard Gordon Kleindienst (August 5, 1923 – February 3, 2000) was an American lawyer, politician, and a U.S. Attorney General during the Watergate political scandal. Daniel Joseph Berrigan SJ (May 9, 1921 – April 30, 2016) was an American Jesuit priest, anti-war activist, and poet. Like many others during the 1960s, Berrigan's active protest against the Vietnam War earned him both scorn and admiration . Dame Elizabeth Rosemond Taylor (February 27, 1932 – March 23, 2011) was an, acclaimed British-born American actress, businesswoman, and humanitarian. Richard Burton (10 November 1925 – 5 August 1984) was an internationally acclaimed Welsh actor. Noted for his mellifluous baritone voice, Burton established himself as a formidable Shakespearean actor. He was married twice to Elisabeth Taylor. Howard Robard Hughes Jr. (December 24, 1905 – April 5, 1976) was an American business tycoon, investor, record-setting pilot, film director, and philanthropist, known during his lifetime as one of the most financially successful individuals in the world. Later in life, he became known for his eccentric behavior and reclusive lifestyle—oddities that were caused in part by a worsening obsessive–compulsive disorder (OCD), nosophobia, chronic pain from several plane crashes, and increasing deafness. Granville Oral Roberts (January 24, 1918 – December 15, 2009) was an American Charismatic Christian televangelist, ordained in both the Pentecostal Holiness and United Methodist churches. He is considered the godfather of the charismatic movement and one of the most recognized preachers worldwide. Ralph Nader (born February 27, 1934) is an American political activist, author, lecturer, and attorney, noted for his involvement in consumer protection, environmentalism and government reform causes. Marion Mitchell Morrison (born Marion Robert Morrison; May 26, 1907 – June 11, 1979), known professionally as John Wayne and nicknamed "The Duke", was an American actor and filmmaker. An Academy Award-winner for True Grit (1969), Wayne was among the top box office draws for three decades. Sir Leslie Townes Hope (May 29, 1903 – July 27, 2003) known professionally as Bob Hope, was an English-American stand-up comedian, vaudevillian, actor, singer, dancer, athlete, and author. With a career that spanned nearly 80 years, Hope appeared in more than 70 short and feature films, with 54 feature films with Hope as star. Abbot Howard Hoffman (November 30, 1936 – April 12, 1989) was an American political and social activist, anarchist, and revolutionary who co-founded the Youth International Party ("Yippies"). Rodney Marvin "Rod" McKuen (April 29, 1933 – January 29, 2015) was an American poet, singer-songwriter, and actor. He was one of the best-selling poets in the United States during the late 1960s. Irwin Allen Ginsberg (June 3, 1926 – April 5, 1997) was an American poet, philosopher, writer, and activist. He is considered to be one of the leading figures of both the Beat Generation during the 1950s and the counterculture that soon followed. He vigorously opposed militarism, economic materialism and sexual repression.