Good Morning Lowcountry

Oh, good morning, good morning. For your amusement today, GMLc takes note of a few milestones along the stumbling block we like to think of as Western Civilization, courtesy of History.com.

FOUR SCORE AND APRIL 15th AGO

On this date a century and a half ago, the fabled emancipator Abraham Lincoln was weighing his options when it came to crushing the insurrection that would become the War Between the States. He was particularly worried about the loss of revenue collected at the cash cow ports along the Southeast, such as, say, Charleston. Like any good politician, he knew just what needed to be done. So he asked a few cabinet members whether the president could tax profit from "any kind of property, or from any professional trade, employment, or vocation carried on in the United States or elsewhere from any source whatever." And income tax was born. Those words are from the Revenue Act, imposed by Lincoln on Aug. 5, 1861, repealed by Congress in 1871, passed in 1909 and ratified in 1913 as the 16th Amendment. Suitably enough, the country has fought over it ever since.

STOP GO STOP GO STOP GO

On this date — we think — a year after Congress made sure your income wasn't going to disappear from your nation's pockets, a cute little gadget was hung at the intersection of Euclid Avenue and 105th Street in Cleveland — we think — amid the road rage of horses, cars, streetcars and dodging pedestrians. The traffic light employed a unmistakable sequence of red, amber and green beacons to tell people when to stop and when to go. As if that helped. Mostly, red means "stop" — except in the United Kingdom and Canada, where amber means "stop." In China, Pakistan, Germany, Poland, Denmark, Iceland and Israel, green means "go" but amber means "ready, set." In New England, red plus amber means pedestrians only.

Got it? Hang on tight to that wheel. Nobody agrees when or where the first light went up or who came up with the idea. Some credit it to Garrett Augustus Morgan, a son of former slaves. Some credit it to William Potts, a Detroit police officer whose job it was to stand in the middle of the intersection and make sure everybody didn't hit him or each other. Within a year, Detroit — or maybe Cleveland — had 15 lights installed. Today, it can seem like there are five zillion of the things between your driveway and the destination you are late for, and they are all programmed to turn red as your car approaches.