The boy is a genius! So said Thomas Edison after spending a day at his New Jersey laboratory with 12 year-old John Hays Hammond, Jr. The young Hammond would grow up to become the second most prolific patent holder after Edison, with more than 800 inventions ranging from self-launching missiles to kitchen appliances. He was a millionaire at the age of 19 and is known as the "Father of Radio Control." In the 1920s, Hammond built a castle in Gloucester to house his scientific laboratory and burgeoning Roman, medieval, and Renaissance collections.
On Dec. 17, 2014, President Barack Obama announced that the U.S. would normalize diplomatic relations with Cuba. A timely exhibit at the JFK Library, "To the Brink," highlights the Cuban Missile Crisis and the 13 terrifying days when the world faced nuclear holocaust. In the unsettling words of the introduction, "it was a close call — maybe the closest call in human history … and the end of civilization as we know it."
In 1959, Communist revolutionary Fidel Castro overthrew dictator Fulgencio Batista, and relations between the U.S. and Cuba deteriorated rapidly as Castro seized American oil and business holdings, and formed close ties with the Soviet Union. The U.S. responded by severing diplomatic relations and instituting a trade embargo.
