On This Day in American History — Nov 3: Panama Breaks From Colombia, Iran-Contra Comes to Light

Host 1: Welcome to On the Stay in American History. On this day, November 3rd, we are diving into your sources for three pivotal moments from today's date.

Host 2: Yeah and the the unifying theme connecting these events is really how American ambition has has steered global and interplanetary events.

Host 1: Right, like sometimes in plain sight and then sometimes completely in the shadows.

Host 2: Exactly.

Host 1: Yeah.

Host 2: So let's start in 1903 with Panama's independence. Or you know the American backed version of it.

Host 1: Right because President Theodore Roosevelt desperately wanted a canal, but when Colombia's Senate flat out rejected the US financial offer, Panama suddenly revolted.

Host 2: Yeah. And the US stepped right in to block Colombian troops from from stopping the rebellion I mean they sent warships sure but the craziest part was that they just held all the train train cars on the American run Panama Railroad

Host 1: wait really they just they just held the trains

Host 2: yeah government telegrams actually track the action by the hour like one report shows the USC Nashville landing 50 armed men

Host 1: just to secure the railroad office

Host 2: exactly to make sure those trains didn't move didn't move

Host 1: wow that is basically calling dibs with a battleship

Host 2: it really is and you know three days later the US recognized Panama and secured a 10 mile wide canal strip for 10 million dollar payment

Host 1: which obviously changed global shipping forever though I mean historians still debate how heavily Roosevelt orchestrated orchestrated that whole revolution behind the scenes

Host 2: oh absolutely

Host 1: but you know from steering geopolitical borders by force we move to to steering through the cosmos using nature's own forces

Host 2: Right, jumping ahead to 1973.

Host 1: NASA launched Mariner 10 to Venus and Mercury. It was run by the Jet Propulsion Lab and it was the first mission capped by a strict fixed budget.

Host 2: Right. It was exactly $98 million.

Host 1: So I have to ask, did that unprecedented strict budget force NASA to be so creatively frugal? frugal like essentially figuring out how to sail on sunlight?

Host 2: That is exactly what happened.

Host 1: That's amazing.

Host 2: It was the first spacecraft to use active solar pressure control. So they were literally steering by the pressure of sunlight hitting the ship's panels.

Host 1: That's just wild.

Host 2: It really is. And they also use one planet's gravity to reach another for the very first time. It eventually mapped like 45% of Mercury, revealing this cratered moon-like planet moon-like planet with a magnetic field and an iron rich core.

Which

Host 1: which was huge because it proved gravity assists actually work right and it provided the foundational data for NASA's future Messenger mission

Host 2: precisely

Host 1: but while Mariner 10 was steered by the sun's light our final event involves steering steering foreign policy completely in the dark

Host 2: yeah moving to 1986 the Iran Contra affair was exposed when a Lebanese magazine Al-Shira revealed secret US arms sales to Iran in exchange for American hostages

Host 1: Right. And the Reagan administration later admitted the arms money was secretly funneled to Contra rebels in Nicaragua,

Host 2: exactly, which completely bypassed a congressional ban and looking impartially at impartially at the historical facts from the source, they ran this shadow operation operation entirely outside normal oversight.

Host 1: The detail that always gets gets me is Reagan's March 1987 national address.

Host 2: Oh, yeah.

Host 1: Where he basically confessed that while his heart told told him he didn't trade arms for hostages, the facts and evidence proved proved he did.

Host 2: It's a massive historical touchstone. Following overturned convictions and presidential pardons, it still drives arguments today over covert action and congressional oversight.

Host 1: It really does. Well, also on this day in a single sentence, the 1835 Texas consultation opened the 1956 Wizard of Oz TV debut reached 45 million viewers and in 1964 DC residents finally voted for president.

Host 2: It just leaves you to ponder you know whether it is building a canal exploring exploring Mercury or funding foreign rebels where is the ultimate line between line between bold unilateral action and the necessity of oversight.

Host 1: Thanks for tuning in. See you back here tomorrow.