Information Resource Center (IRC) Berlin

January 2007

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James Brown: An “American Original”

Americans awoke on Christmas morning to learn that one of their cultural icons was gone. Pioneering musician James Brown, the inventor of funk music, passed away at 73 on December 25. Brown changed the way music is looked at. His innovations marked the beginning of funk music and current rhythm and blues and rap... James Brown was also a hero to many fellow African Americans, one of his most famous songs being “Say It Loud, I'm Black and I'm Proud.” On April 5, 1968, James Brown played the Boston Garden—less than 24 hours after the assassination of Martin Luther King. Other cities were already aflame, and only 2,000 people gathered in an arena that held 14,000. Mayor Kevin White prepared for the worst and urged the audience to “honor Dr. King in peace,” but it was Brown who prevented a riot: when fans rushed the stage, he called off the uniformed police and talked everybody back to their seats. Brown asked that his concert that night in Boston be broadcast over the television networks “so that it would help curb some of the violence if everybody stayed home that night and watched him” instead of taking their anger to the streets. It worked. Boston was the only major U.S. city that did not have riots that night.

January 15, 2007 - Martin Luther King Day

On the third Monday of each January, Americans honor the life and achievements of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., (1929–1968), the 1964 Nobel Peace laureate and the individual most associated with the triumphs of the African-American civil rights movement during the 1950s and 1960s.

Martin Luther King, Jr. National Memorial, Washington D.C.

A Martin Luther King, Jr. memorial will be built on a plot on the north east corner of the Tidal Basin within the precinct of the Jefferson Memorial and north of the memorial to President Roosevelt in Washington, D.C.

2006 Word of the Year: "Carbon Neutral"

On November 13, the editors of The New Oxford American Dictionary unveiled the 2006 word of the year: "carbon neutral." Being carbon neutral involves calculating your total climate-damaging carbon emissions, reducing them where possible, and then balancing your remaining emissions, often by purchasing a carbon offset: paying to plant new trees or investing in “green” technologies such as solar and wind power.

Building the Transatlantic Partnership – Milestones

In the light of Germany’s EU presidency, the U.S. Embassy has created a website to highlight the ongoing cooperation on the shared priorities of the the United States and the European Union. Included on the website is a list of milestones that illustrate the history of the transatlantic partnership the two partners.

August 1, 1975

The Heads of State or Government of 35 nations gathered in Helsinki to sign the Final Act of the Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe (CSCE). The CSCE evolved into the OSCE, the only Eurasian security body in which all the states in the Euro-Atlantic region, Central Asia and the Caucasus sit at the same table as equal partners. This broad membership of 56 nations provides the OSCE with the opportunity to build overarching commitments on standards and values to prevent new divisions within Europe and beyond. Among the leaders who gathered in Helsinki was recently deceased former President Gerald R. Ford.

2007 Statistical Abstract Of The United States

This annual compendium of data is the single most useful statistical source for data on the United States. The Table of Contents page allows one to browse the publication section-by-section, including the sections on basic population data, income, trade, energy, arts and elections.