Class of 1994

The Maundy Monday Newsletter - This Week in History April 13 - 19.

2026 is the year of the 50^th birthday. You’ll remember, because I keep reminding you, that I turned 50 right when the calendar flipped. For the rest of the year, I will be celebrating 50^th birthdays with so many friends, either in person or through social media, the latter being most likely, because they did not invite me to their parties.

It’s been fun turning 50 and having moments of reflection with others about it. Born in America’s bicentennial year, 50-year-olds in 2026 would have meant graduating from high school in 1994. Bicentennial babies have reached a point in life where our graduating year is now a few years away from being eligible to run for president.

Reflection and observation usually mean being drawn to famously successful people my age and seeing what they are up to. Is this a healthy behavior? Probably not, because this almost always leads to a feeling of jealousy. But just a pinch. My mind then tends to wander, and I’m left wondering whether, if these famous and wildly successful 50-year-olds knew I wrote a mediocre US history blog, would they feel a pinch of jealousy, too?

My wondering mind then observed that last week was a big one for famously successful 50-year-olds from the class of 1994. Let me share two quick examples.

First up, one of my favorite authors, Patrick Radden Keefe, published his latest book.

If you don’t know who Keefe is, here’s a quick bio – Patrick is an award-winning writer whom I first began reading years ago in The New Yorker. He’s also written two of my all-time favorite books, Say Nothing and Empire of Pain. He is incredibly talented.

So it was obvious I was going to head over to my local bookstore and pick up my pre-ordered copy of London Falling to celebrate the guy who, after graduating from high school in 1994, earned a degree in history, went to an Ivy League law school, passed the bar, and then decided that instead he would settle into writing.

When I see his success, it’s like I’m practically looking into a mirror. Patrick turns 50 next month, and nothing beats turning 50 by cranking out another New York Times bestseller. We are practically twins at this point.

I'm on the right. (Source: Keefe - Justyna Gudzowska / Dake: - Blue)

Then on Friday, the crew of Artemis II returned from its ten-day lunar flyby mission. With all of the craziness coming from my town, it was a hopeful respite to watch these four incredibly brave people willingly launch themselves out of Earth’s atmosphere and then return with such speed and force that I don’t know how they did it.

Here again, we see another bicentennial baby. Victor Glover was the mission’s pilot and will turn 50 in a few weeks. Like Keefe, Glover is a proud member of the high school class of 1994, where he was named “Athlete of the Year.” Just like my uncanny parallel life with Keefe, I achieved a similar level of youthful success with Glover as I lettered in theater.

But the comparisons don’t stop there. Glover’s achievement of becoming the first black man to travel beyond low Earth orbit, whatever that is, is quite impressive. I’m the first person in my family to attend the same high school for all four years, which is quite an achievement considering I have four siblings. Two peas in a pod, really.

If you were born in 1976, graduated from high school in 1994, went on to excel at Ivy League institutions, military academies, or the 6th-best Jesuit university in the Midwest, you are going off to do some amazing things at the cusp of 50.

I’m proud of both Patrick and Victor and their recent accomplishments. I know they would share the same sentiment toward me if they knew me and the work I did this past week, where I did that thing in a remarkable way that was widely recognized as awesome.

I’m not too proud to admit that I have a pinch of jealousy toward these two. Patrick and Victor had a heck of a week, so let’s raise a glass in honor of all of us 50-year-olds from the Class of 1994!

Okay, let’s highlight what else happened this week. As a reminder, these events mark their anniversary, ending in 5 or 0. Here’s what I got:

1. President Abraham Lincoln issued a proclamation to recruit troops to suppress insurrection on April 15, 1861. South Carolina soldiers attacked Fort Sumter three days earlier, officially beginning the Civil War. Lincoln had been president for about 45 days when he issued the order to secure 75,000 troops to bring freedom to the Southern states. What they thought would last days and months turned into years. In 1994, Bernard Cornwell published his novel Copperhead, which was a part of a series of books about a character named Nathaniel Starbuck. I wonder if he got into coffee.

2. The Bay of Pigs invasion began on April 17, 1961. After Cuba fell to the Communists and Fidel Castro took power in 1959, the United States tried all different ways to get him out of there. After the CIA trained over 1,000 exiles to do that by military force, they landed at a southern port called the Bay of Pigs. The entire mission was an instant disaster as Castro knew of the invasion, and a local radio broadcast saw and detailed the exiles’ every move. Almost all of the fighters were captured, and over 100 were killed. They surrendered to Castro after two days. Can’t wait for us to try this again with the current leaders. Cuba won the Baseball World Cup in 1994, which was the middle of their three consecutive championships.

3. President Joe Biden announced the withdrawal of all US troops from Afghanistan on April 14, 2021. In early 2020, President Donald Trump cut a deal with the Taliban, the opposition force that protected 9/11 terrorist mastermind Osama Bin Laden. This deal meant that the United States would withdraw its troops from Afghanistan by May 2021. When Biden came into office after the extremely important 2020 election, he reviewed the deal, decided to keep it, and then pushed it back to September. Then Biden was criticized for that by supporters of President Trump, who, in 1994, made a cameo appearance on the television show The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air with his second wife, Marla Maples. If you remember, Trump had an affair with Maples while he was still married to his first wife. Maples and Trump were married in 1993, and Jeffrey Epstein attended the wedding. Anyway!

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I don’t want to neglect mentioning Glover’s fellow crew member, Jeremy Hansen, who also turned 50 in January. Hansen is Canadian, which means he was likely the nicest on the team. I imagine Jeremy is also quite accomplished by Canadian standards, and I’m sure we both have numerous similarities. But I don’t want you to think I had forgotten about him.

Okay, Anonymous is gone for the week, visiting her parents. Which means it’s guy’s week with Blue. I’ll be back on Saturday with another edition of the vice president rankings – I finally got my act together on this project and feel like I can be on a regular cadence with essays.

In the meantime, thanks, as always, for your support of Okay History. Have a great week!

Okay,

Chris

Blue will spend most of this week waiting for Anonymous to return.