Word: idea
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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...idea was too irresistible. Marshall notwithstanding, Harry Truman decided to go ahead...
...asked for air time for that night. Having in mind the rules of the campaign, the network officials asked: "Is this political or is it Government business?" Government business, said Ross. When they looked skeptical, Ross swore them to secrecy and told them of the President's idea. They went away to think it over...
Universal & Permanent. Eli Whitney, an 18th Century Massachusetts Yankee, went broke after his cotton gin invention was widely pirated, and turned to making muskets. He got the idea of interchangeable parts. Before Whitney, each part of each factory product was different from its fellow on another product, even from the same shop. But every Whitney trigger fitted every Whitney gun. This principle of interchangeable parts became the basis of modern industry...
...measures, Congress did nothing about it for 80 years. Congressmen were passionately interested in the subject, but they could not agree. Repeatedly Washington begged Congress to pass a standardization law; in 1795 he suggested that the U.S. adopt the new French metric system. Jefferson thought he had a better idea: he wanted a system based on the length of a uniform cylindrical pendulum which, at 45° N. latitude, would move at the rate of one beat a second. Congress did not go for that, either...
...conference got under way in a blaze of imperialist hope & glory. Leopold Amery, former Secretary of State for India, while supporting economic cooperation in Europe, denounced the idea of a European federation. "We can never subject our loyalty to Crown and Empire to some outside authority." The conference came out against freer trade, and for the Empire preference system...