With Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton, for all intents and purposes, having locked up their nominations of their respective parties, they can now set their eyes on the big prize: winning the presidency.
Whoever wins the whole enchilada in November will be inaugurated as the 45th U.S. President.
And though no one likes to be thought of as just a number: almost everyone knows Abraham Lincoln was the nation’s 16th president, Babe Ruth smacked 714 career home runs, and Ludwig van Beethoven's Symphony No. 5 in C minor is arguably the best-known composition in classical music and one of the most frequently played symphonies.
Similarly, nearly everyone associates 1929 with the stock market crash that triggered the Great Depression; December 7th (1941) as day of infamy when Pearl Harbor was bombed; and of course, the unconscionable terrorist attack on U.S. soil on September 11 (2001) or 9/11.
So will number 45 bode ill or well for the country?
To get a rough idea, we have to turn to history.
For starters, in the book, `In Wonders of Numbers'' by Gopal Sharma, the number 45 is considered a fortunate number and symbolizes ``energy, drive, initiative, and fruitful activity.''
Interestingly, ``energy, drive, initiative, and fruitful activity’’ was hardly characteristic of the 45th U.S. Congress (1877-1879).
According to the book ``Facts about the Congress,’’ there were few events of historical significance during the 45th Congress.
Of the few accomplishments in the politically divided Congress, President Rutherford B. Hayes vetoed an Army appropriations bill from the House, which would have ended Reconstruction and prohibited the use of federal troops to protect polling stations in the former Confederacy. ``His Fraudulency’’, as he was nicknamed, also vetoed the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1879.
Congress, in turn, countered by overriding another of Hayes’s vetoes and enacted the Bland-Allison Act that required the purchase and coining of silver. Congress additionally approved a generous increase in pension eligibility for Northern Civil War veterans.
Owen O'Shea, co-author of ``The Magic Numbers of the Professor’’ (a book he wrote with Underwood Dudley that was published by the Mathematical Association of America in 2007) and author of new book published this year by Prometheus Books, ``The Call of the Primes'' informs me of a number of fascinating curiosities associated with the number 45.
According to O'Shea, the Second World War ended (1945) on the 245th day of the year; and the day of the election of the 45th U.S. President, Tuesday, November 8, 2016, falls in the 45th week of the year.
O'Shea additionally points out that the phrase “forty-fifth President of the United States of America” contains forty-five letters, while the phrase ``November eight two thousand and sixteen: election day” also contains 45 letters.
The number 45, moreover, holds special significance in the wide world of sports.
Track and field sensation Jesse Owens made a big splash even before the 1936 Olympics in Berlin. On May 25, 1935, while at the Big Ten Championships in Ann Arbor, Mich., the Oakville Alabama native set three world records and tied a fourth, all in a span of 45 minutes.
If you're a baseball fan-who wouldn't want to be associated with number 45 when two hall of fame flame throwers, Bob Gibson and Pedro Martinez, wore number 45 during their illustrious careers.
When Michael Jordan returned to the NBA in the 1994-95 season, he wore number 45 (the same number he wore during his first two years in high school); but by the 1995-96 season, MJ returned to wearing his signature number 23.
Jordan also donned number 45 during his brief Minor League Baseball tour of duty (1994) with the Birmingham (AL) Barons in the Southern League (AA).
And as any long suffering Chicago Cubs fan will tell you, 1945 was the last year the Cubs were in the World Series, losing to the Detroit Tigers in seven games.
According to the Encyclopedia of Women in Politics, in 1992, Bill Clinton was elected president with 45 percent of all votes cast by women.
And in an ironic twist, the number 45 packs a mighty punch for Hillary Clinton. In 1993, at age 45, Mrs. Clinton became First Lady. So, if the Democratic front runner is elected the next president, she would have become a First Lady at age 45 and the 45th U.S. President in 2017.
The presumptive Republican nominee, Donald Trump, on the other hand, would just as soon forget what was going on in his life during his 45th year. At age 45, in 1992, the Trump Plaza Hotel filed Chapter 11 bankruptcy, and the Donald himself lost his 49 percent stake in the luxury hotel to Citibank and five other lenders.
And if we turn to the Bible, we'll come across Psalm 45, describing a celebration on the king's wedding day in which he is portrayed as ``the ideal ruler, excellent in appearance and physical attributes as well as in wisdom and justice.’’ (Walter Brueggemann and William H. Bellinger, Jr, ``Psalms’’, 2014, pg. 213).
Just as the 45th U.S. President will be arriving at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, armed with an ambitious ``to do’’ list in 2017, Austrian composer Franz Joseph Haydn was performing his ``Farewell'' Symphony, Symphony No. 45 in 1772, the only known composition in F#-minor for the entire 18th century.
According to Elaine Sisman, Professor of Music at Columbia University, Symphony No. 45 was written supposedly because ``the Prince had delayed leaving his summer palace in Hungary and the musicians were longing to get to the year-round palace in Austria where their wives and families lived.'' ``In the last movement'' Sisman explained, ``the musicians leave one by one until only the two violinists are left.''
The other theory `` is that the Prince was depressed and had threatened to fire the whole orchestra, and Haydn was illustrating what the emerging silence would be like,’’ Sisman said.
Sisman shared other associations in the classical music world with number 45, including Johannes Brahms' German Requiem (To Words of the Holy Scriptures), opus 45, a ``tremendous ecumenical’’ piece, Sisman says, while Ludwig van Beethoven produced a number of noteworthy compositions when he was 45 (1816), including, the song cycle "To the Distant Beloved" and piano sonata in A, op. 101, both of which evoke "memory" and are sometimes thought to inaugurate his "late style."
In 2000, The Doobie Brothers, an American rock band, came out with their twelfth studio album, `Sibling Rivalry.’’ One of the songs is titled ``45th Floor,’’ a song written with a biting political observation.
``Politician drivin' down the road
Flashin' that smile that got him the vote
Campaign money comes rollin' in
Ain't nobody askin' where it's been
Doesn't matter if it's left or right
'Cause we're all gonna pay the price
And the party rolls on.''
The number 45 additionally holds some rich significance in world history and literature.
According to Dr. Julie Watt, author of ``Poisoned Lives: The Regency Poet Letitia Elizabeth Landon (L.E.L.) and British Gold Coast Administrator George Maclean’’ (Brighton: Sussex Academic Press, 2010), the Second Jacobite Rising is known in Scotland simply as The Forty-Five. ``In 1745’’, Watt said, ``Charles Edward Stuart landed at Glenfinnan, marched to Edinburgh, won the Battle of Prestonpans, before marching to England where he was turned back at Derby, and defeated at the Battle of Culloden the following year.''
Dr. G. Kim Blank, who teaches English Romanticism as well as Great Moments in English Literature at the University of Victoria (Victoria BC Canada) enlightened me to the fact that “45 Mercy Street” is an exceptional poem by Anne Sexton (she won the Pulitzer); who sadly committed suicide at age 45.
Susan Wolfson, Professor, in the Department of English at Princeton University, meanwhile, reminds me that ``Bard of Avon'' William Shakespeare's poems and sonnets were published when he was 45 and Queen Elizabeth I (1558-1603) ruled for 45 years.
Among other peculiarities with the number 45, we lost some prominent newsmakers at age 45.
Pope Leo X (born Giovanni di Lorenzo de' Medici) one of the leading Renaissance popes who excommunicated Martin Luther in 1521 died December 1, 1521 at the age of 45. Actors George Reeves, best-known for his role as Superman in the 1950s television program ``Adventures of Superman'' died at age 45 in 1959, and four-time Oscar nominee Montgomery Clift died of a heart attack on July 23, 1966 at the age of 45.
Finally, in the event things go badly for President Clinton or President Trump, and angry mobs storm the White House similar to the Bastille, the next commander-in-chief may want to surround themselves with much needed protection, much like Henry III of France did.
The Forty-five guards, as they were known, were recruited by the Jean Louis de Nogales de La Valetta, Duke of Épernon, to provide Henry III of France (1574-1589) with trusted protection in the midst of the War of the Three Henrys during the Wars of Religion.
The Forty-five were noblemen of lesser nobility (mostly from Gascony) who were paid extravagant wages. In return, 15 of them were to be on duty, day or night, ready at the king's call.
-Bill Lucey
May 2, 2016
Comments