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Great Events Of Our Century Vol. 4, The (1997)
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Scandal
"Cardinal Dies in Arms of Caberet Blonde!" screamed the headline. His Eminence Cardinal Danilou was found in the Paris apartment of 24-year-old Mme. Santoni - the police delicately reported that he "had been acting as her father confessor". The more powerful they are, the further they have to fall and the more entertaining it is for the rest of us to see them land in the mire: priests and politicians, diplomats and doctors, emperors and entertainers. And stirring the murky waters of the scandal pool are the men with the muckrakes, gentlemen of the press. "Scandal is gossip made tedious by morality", said Oscar Wilde, the victim of a notorious 19th century scandal. Scandals reflect the changes in society's view of acceptable and unacceptable behavior - this view alters dramatically with time and place.
Scandals erupt when taboos are broken or cultures clash. Do illegitimacy, homosexuality, divorce and miscegenation still have the power to shock as they did in 1900? In 100 years time, the world may wonder why such a fuss was made about euthanasia - or will it?
I Am The Greatest
Muhammed Ali's famous eulogy to himself is now universally acknowledged as an accurate and fitting tribute to the century's most charismatic sporting hero. But he is only the most outstanding of a succession of athletes whose deeds have inspired all of us.
During the twentieth century sport has become a huge entertainment industry: a reflection of much that is laudable in the human spirit; a mirror of much that is said about the human condition; and a world-wide social opium, offering a cathartic release from the mundane realities of life. At the beginning of the century sport was still based on the simple pastimes of folk games. Little was organized on a significant scale, practically nothing resembling international competition existed.
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