Category: Politics

President Barack Obama

President Barack Obama born August 4 1961. President Obama became the first non white president elected on November 4 2008. Born 35 years after Roscoe Bartlett

J. Glenn Beall, Jr.

J. Glenn Beall, Jr. was Roscoe Bartlett's predecessor's predecessor's predecessor as U.S. Representative from Maryland's 6th Congressional District, and he was still younger than Roscoe. Did you follow all that? OK, let's try again. Beall was first elected to Congress 40 years ago when he was 41 years old. He was succeeded by Goodloe Bryon two years later, and he was succeeded by Beverly Byron eight years after that. They were all younger than Roscoe Bartlett.

Beall was elected to the U.S. Senate where he helped create the Congressional Budget Office and established the C&O Canal National Historical Park. J. Glenn Beall, Jr. died two years ago in Cumberland after battling cancer.

Fidel Castro

A couple months after Roscoe Bartlett was born, Angel Castro fathered a son by a household servant at his sugar plantation. Fidel Castro had four sisters and two brothers, all born out of wedlock. His father eventually married his mother, and recognized his children when Fidel was 17. While a law student, Castro became increasingly political, and two years after he earned his law degree he ran for parliament. But before the election took place, General Batista took over the government in a military coup, and canceled the election. Castro became a revolutionary.

Castro's first attempt to overthrow Batista was a dismal failure, resulting in his arrest and incarceration. A general amnesty allowed him to flee to Mexico where he plotted another attempt at revolution. His second attempt resulted in the deaths of three-fourths of his men, and he fled to the mountains. There he began a guerilla war against the government, and finally on New Year's Eve of 1958 Batista fled the country. Six weeks later, Castro became prime minister of Cuba.

Fidel Castro fathered seven sons and one daughter by two wives and two mistresses. He survived repeated American attempts to depose him over the years, and only resigned last February when faced with failing health. His brother Raul now rules Cuba in his place.

The Great Depression

Roscoe Bartlett was born in the Roaring Twenties, when jazz music flourished, flappers danced, and times were good. That all changed with the stock market crash of 1929, and the worldwide economy slipped into the Great Depression. It's hard to imagine today just how bad the depression was. During the 1930's 9,000 banks failed and depositors lost $140 Billion in deposits. American exports dropped 67% and the money supply shrank by a third, all in just four years. Unemployment in the US reached 25%.

But the numbers don't capture the personal hardships people faced in their daily lives. People who grew up in the Great Depression can often recall long unemployment lines, bankers reduced to selling apples for a living, or how their family gathered around the kitchen table to open their first can of soup in years.

Roscoe's own memories, however, seem to have faded over the years. When asked whether we were headed for a Second Great Depression, Roscoe replied that he had lived through the Depression, and "it wasn't that bad".

Pope Benedict XVI

Not many people can brag that they are even older than the Pope, but Roscoe Bartlett was born nearly a year before Joseph Ratzinger. Born in Bavaria, young Ratzinger was forced into the Hitler Youth at the age of 14. The Nazis killed his cousin with Downs Syndrome to help purify the German race. At 16, he was drafted out of the seminary to serve in the German Army, but he deserted from the collapsing Western Front. He was eventually placed in a POW camp, but was released only a few months later. He then re-entered the seminary

Although he appears to be in better health than his predecessor was at his age, Pope Benedict has suffered at least two strokes and has a heart condition. Perhaps if he tried a different hat he might look a little younger.