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CALM, COOL, COLLECTED: HOW DID WASHINGTON DO IT?

Saturday, February 17, 2024

In today’s newsletter, we focus on America’s first president, meet the Osage Nation ballerina who earned the highest title in the world … and remember a presidential friendship like no other.

A painting of Washington overseeing the signing of the Constitution at Independence Hall

PHOTOGRAPH BY BRIDGEMAN/ACI

He was a public servant, first and foremost. He knew how to project strength (and sometimes even vulnerability). And he knew when to leave the arena.

On this President’s Day weekend, as America faces its next election for president, what can we learn from its first leader? (Above, George Washington presiding over the signing of the Constitution.)

Related: President’s Day technically only celebrates one president

STORIES WE’RE FOLLOWING

This 2015 NASA image of Pluto combines blue, red and infrared images.

PHOTOGRAPH BY NASA/JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY APPLIED PHYSICS LABORATORY/SOUTHWEST RESEARCH INSTITUTE

International Pluto Day: These scientists believe it should be restored as the ‘Ninth Planet’ (Pictured above, a 2016 NASA image of Pluto.)

The tumultuous election that birthed modern American politics

When was the First Sack of Rome? It may have been sooner than you were taught

How can long COVID affect your ability to exercise? Now we know

Jackie Kennedy was already in mourning before JFK’s fatal visit to Dallas

Your bones need way more than Vitamin D. Here’s why.

What animal makes the best spy? The CIA found out

Emerging PTSD treatment shows promise—and the VA is interested

Why are doctors overdiagnosing the deadliest form of skin cancer?

PHOTO OF THE DAY

A caretaker at a rescue center holds a pangolin in his arms

PHOTOGRAPH BY BRENT STIRTON

Who is this cute critter? Few endangered animals connect with our readers more than the pangolin, whose scales are used in traditional Chinese medicine. On World Pangolin Day, we bring you Tamuda (shown above, with a caretaker at a Zimbabwe rescue center). The pangolins, often rescued as babies, form close bonds with their humans, who help them learn how to feed on ants and termites.

WHY ARE PANGOLINS POACHED?

IN THE SPOTLIGHT

An illustration depicting the globe from 650 millions years ago, as it may have appeared from space while the planet was mostly covered in ice.

PHOTOGRAPH BY STANLEY WEISENFELD

An Osage Nation ballerina’s highest honor: Maria Tallchief (pictured above, dancing in the title role in George Balanchine’s revival of Stravinsky’s Firebird) broke barriers as a widely celebrated Native American ballerina, earning the title of “prima ballerina assoluta”—the highest in the world of ballet. Now, she is memorialized on a U.S. quarter. This is her story.

AMERICA’S FIRST PRIMA BALLERINA ASSOLUTA

LAST GLIMPSE

Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis stands with conductor-composer Leonard Bernstein while looking up at the stage in the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, in Washington, DC.

PHOTOGRAPH BY ASSOCIATED PRESS

Two titans of 20th-century America: John F. Kennedy and Leonard Bernstein (pictured above, with Jacqueline Kennedy-Onassis in 1971) were an unlikely pair. Here’s a look at their surprising friendship, which is given a glancing glimpse in the Oscar-nominated film Maestro.

Today's soundtrack: Excerpt of Resurrection from Mahler's Symphony No. 2 in C Minor, Leonard Bernstein conducting the London Symphony Orchestra

This newsletter has been curated and edited by David Beard, Nancy San Martín, Nishita Naga, and Jen Tse. Thanks for reading!

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