On This Day in History

c/o Rutgers University

The first one all year. . .

1777 — Henry Clay was born in Hanover County, Virginia. Both a Senator and three-time Speaker of the House of Representatives, Clay was a strong proponent of the “American System” that benefited industry to a great extent. Styled “The Great Compromiser” and “The Western Star,” a Congressional panel in 1957 named Clay as one of the five all-time greatest Senators (along with John C. Calhoun, Robert La Follette, Robert Taft and Daniel Webster).

He died of tuberculosis in Washington, D.C. in 1852. Clay was 75-years-old. Subsequently he was the first person to lie in state in the U.S. Capitol.

1861 — Beginning at 4:30 a.m., Confederate forces commenced their bombardment of Fort Sumter near Charleston, South Carolina. Although the Union garrison returned fire, they were significantly outgunned and, after 34 hours, Major Robert Anderson agreed to evacuate.

Amazingly there was no loss of life on either side during the engagement, although a gun explosion during the surrender ceremonies two days later resulted in two Union deaths. The War Between the States had officially begun.

1908 — Robert Lee Scott, Jr. was born in Waynesboro, Georgia. He is best known for his book God is My Co-Pilot, a memoir about his time as a member of the 1st American Volunteer Group (“The Flying Tigers”) during World War II.

Scott shot down down 13 Japanese aircraft en route to becoming one of our earliest fighter aces of the War. He served in the United States Army Air Forces for 25 years and retired a Brigadier General in 1957. He died in his native Georgia in 2006. General Scott was 97-years-old.

1934 — The strongest surface wind gust ever recorded (to that point in history) is measured at 231 mph on the summit of Mount Washington, New Hampshire. The record stood for 62 years until a 253 mph gust was recorded at Australia's Barrow Island during Cyclone Olivia in 1996.

1945 — President Franklin D. Roosevelt died just months after winning an unprecedented fourth term. Our 32nd President, and perhaps the last liberal Democrat for whom I may ever hold a modicum of lasting respect, was a relatively young 63-years-old.

1961 — Russian (Soviet) cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin becomes the first human to perform a manned orbital flight. His time in space lasted just under two hours.

1981 — The Space Shuttle Columbia launches in NASA’s first shuttle mission (STS-1) from the Kennedy Space Center in Merritt Island, Florida. The shuttle itself suffered an untimely demise shortly before the conclusion of its 28th mission (STS-107) on February 1, 2003.

1987 — The lovely and vivacious Brooklyn Decker was born in Kettering, Ohio. But the Victoria’s Secret and Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue cover girl is a Carolina girl at heart.

1989 — Sugar Ray Robinson, the undisputed best pound-for-pound boxer of all-time, died in Culver City, California. He compiled a 173-19-6 (108 KO, 2 NC) record over a career that spanned a quarter-century, including an almost unbelievable tally at one point of 128-1-2. He was 67-years-old.

1999 — President Bill Clinton is cited for contempt of court for giving “intentionally false statements” in a sexual harassment civil lawsuit. Scandalous, impeached, and ultimately disbarred, good ol’ Bill sure was fun.

2002 — Religion of Peace: Just seven months after 9/11, a female suicide bomber from the Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigade detonated a bomb at the entrance to Jerusalem's Mahane Yehuda open-air market, killing seven and wounding 104.


Information initially obtained from Wikipedia; confirmed and revised (when necessary) through various sources.

Editorial Sketch(es) of the Week: Duplicity at home and abroad



© Pat Bagley, The Salt Lake Tribune

© Nate Beeler, Washington Examiner

Sunday’s Quote: Conviction and fortitude

c/o Thy Black Man

There’s a lot to like about Allen West. Anything but a typical politician, this 22-year Army veteran has spoken frankly about Islam and the War on Terrorism more than once. His most recent statement is no exception.

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“I want to extend my sincere condolences to the families of the Army Colonel and Major who were killed by Afghanistan security forces over this ‘burning Koran’ episode. If we had resolute leadership, including in the White House, we would have explained that these Islamic terrorist enemy combatants being detained at the Parwan facility had used the Koran to write jihadist messages to pass to others. In doing so, they violated their own cultural practice and defiled the Koran. Furthermore, they turned the Koran into contraband. Therefore, Islamic cultural practice and Parwan detention facility procedures support burning the ‘contraband’. Instead here we go again, offering apology after apology and promising to ‘hold those responsible accountable’. Responsible for what?

“When tolerance becomes a one-way street it leads to cultural suicide. This time it immediately led to the deaths of two American Warriors. America is awaiting the apology from President Hamid Karzai.”

~ Rep. Allen B. West (R-FL, 22nd congressional district); February 27, 2012

Editorial Sketch of the Week: A (belated) Veterans Day salute

© Rick McKee, The Augusta Chronicle

Sunday's Quote: The day everything changed

Photo by Carmen Taylor/Associated Press

"Mohammed is God's apostle.  Those who follow him are ruthless to the unbelievers but merciful to one another."

– Quran 48:29 (Surat Al-Fath, a.k.a. The Victory)

I was the operations manager for a trucking company in south Memphis on this particular day in history ten years ago.  Upon returning to my office from a drop yard on Elvis Presley Blvd., an ominous sounding voice on the radio abruptly interrupted a commercial and said "We now go to Howard Stern live."

Stern was broadcast on an hour delay in most of his syndicated markets, so I knew something substantial must have occurred for the recorded airing of the shock jock's program to be suddenly preempted.  The catastrophic terrorist attacks that would change the world forever were revealed to me from that moment on.

The numbers are astonishing.  Subsequent to the 17,727 acts of terrorism executed globally in the name of Islam since 9/11, the Associated Press reported last week that 35,117 convictions have ensued from the arrest of 119,044 terror suspects worldwide since that fateful day in which 2,977 innocent lives in New York City, Washington, D.C. and Stonycreek Township, Pennsylvania were snuffed out by the concerted and misguided acts of aggression that, to this day, remain somewhat difficult to fully process.

The Global War on Terror – a label President Obama discontinued some two years ago in favor of the more inauspicious Overseas Contingency Operation – got its unceremonious start when 19 men hijacked three passenger jets to implement the will of Allah.  Operation Enduring Freedom, the official campaign that commenced in Afghanistan, was launched a little over three weeks later on October 7.  Since then, nearly 6,000 of our military's finest have been killed and over 40,000 more have been injured, often severely, while endeavoring to rid our planet of these fanatical vermin – all of which has come at a fiscal cost in the trillions of dollars.

But the hits just keep on coming.  The Taliban, just today, claimed responsibility for a truck bombing in the Wardak province of eastern Afghanistan that killed two civilians and wounded nearly 80 American soldiers.  Such exploits have become so common, and we have become so desensitized, that you could be learning about this most recent attack for the first time from this very post.

Although former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee referred to the events of 9/11 as "my generation's version of Pearl Harbor" on his Fox News program yesterday, one could surmise that the fervent adversary facing the world today, and the resulting 10-year confrontation that has no end in sight, is exceedingly worse than an enemy that was defeated less than four years after their initial attack on American soil.

Our Founders did not ascribe the First Amendment to the Bill of Rights to enable those with less honorable intentions the capacity to determine how "We the People" respond to calamity.  Yet hypersensitive nonsense from television pundits (Huckabee excluded), politicians and the press at large often dictate how we react to a hostile foe, to the point that charges of hate speech could be levied for merely speaking with candor about the commonality of events once unthinkable.

Consequently those who embrace ideologies that are acknowledged nation destroyers – communism and socialism, just to name a couple – are equally influenced, and thus, driven by erroneous interpretations about our establishing documents, which, in no small twist, now encourages those who might otherwise be faithful allies to instead view our nation as a target for conquest and our Founders as subjects for derision.

To be sure, adherents and sympathizers alike who view Islam as a vehicle to put Americans in their place, as it were, only causes the vitriol about tolerance – for the sake of their traditionally peculiar sensitivities – becomes more intolerable by the day.  In addition, the so-called "peace loving" Muslims, who supposedly comprise the majority, seem quite content to allow the rest of the world to clean up the tragic mess left by their more militant counterparts.

Be not fooled.  They're laughing at us.

William Gladstone (d. 1898), the only four-time Prime Minister of Great Britain and a prominent classical liberal, is somewhat famously noted for referring to the Quran as an "accursed book," once even going so far as to hoist it amid a session of Parliament and proclaim "So long as there is this book, there will be no peace in the world."

Dutch politician Geert Wilders, a self-proclaimed right-wing liberal, made a number of similar statements in 2007 that were not received nearly as well.  Accused of criminally insulting religious and ethnic groups and inciting hatred and discrimination, Wilders was finally acquitted of all charges just three months ago.

As mentioned before, all painstaking efforts will go for naught if civilized nations insist upon circumnavigating both the initial source and the resulting philosophy of what produces the abundance of likeminded extremists who have been a relentless thorn in the side of peaceable societies for well over a millennia.  Verily we will chase our tails ad infinitum until the international community and its leaders become bold enough to confess, finally and collectively, that stomaching those who refuse peace and assimilation is a formula for continued upheaval and ultimate conquest.

The Pentagon has been repaired, a memorial has been built to the victims of the plane that crashed in southern Pennsylvania, and Ground Zero is beginning to rediscover its identity.  But it's been no easy task.  Ten years later, it still feels like yesterday.

Here is noted English commentator (and atheist) Pat Condell to further the perspective.

Editorial Sketch of the Week: The song remains the same (on the terrorist front)

© Nick Anderson, The Houston Chronicle

Just Thinking Out Loud: One down, many more still to go

Our allied soldiers can overwhelm all the terrorists in the world.  Certainly no other assemblage of warriors has ever executed such a challenging task with more precision and valor.  Yet their painstaking efforts will go for naught if civilized nations insist upon circumnavigating both the initial source and the resulting philosophy of what produces the abundance of likeminded extremists who have been a relentless thorn in the side of peaceable societies for well over a millennia.

There's no need for a lengthy diatribe.  Put simply, we will chase our tails ad infinitum until the international community and its leaders become bold enough to confess, finally and collectively, that tolerating those who refuse peace and assimilation is a formula for continued upheaval and ultimate conquest.

Enjoy Hell, Osama.  You earned it.

Osama's final status update

Iconic Shot(s): Justice is served

Authorized by Vice Admiral William H. McRaven, a former SEAL and commander of the Pentagon's Joint Special Operations Command, and in conjunction with the Central Intelligence Agency via direct order of President Obama, an indeterminate number of elite soldiers from the U.S. Naval Special Warfare Development Group – formerly SEAL Team Six – dropped into Abbottabad, Pakistan yesterday and bestowed a particular brand of justice that Osama bin Laden has deserved for well over a decade.

Obviously the maneuver was a remarkable success.  Our warriors suffered no casualties, bin Laden's lifeless body has already been disposed at sea, and America's role as de facto international police force, for better or worse, has never been more fortified.  Of course the War on Terrorism is far from over, but for the moment our world is a better place now that the Saudi-born founder of Al-Qaeda is burning in Hell.

Spirits among my fellow Americans haven't beeen this uplifted and unified in quite some time.  The following pictures from the UK's Daily Mail, per the Associated Press, speak volumes.

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Sunday's Quote: Matters of faith

One of the key witnesses in the congressional hearings on Islam's "radicalization" was Melvin Bledsoe, a fellow Memphian whose son Carlos (a.k.a., Abdulhakim Mujahid Muhammad) is currently imprisoned and charged with murdering one of our soldiers; an act committed because, as Mr. Bledsoe told the panel, Islamic radicals programmed and trained his son to kill.

Every imaginable faction, without exception, has a kook fringe.  But some have more than others, and some have a lot more than others.  A multitude of Muslims may indeed feel that their religion has been hijacked by so-called extremists, but it seems the heavy responsibility of weeding out the bad from the good has been yet again dumped on non-Muslims all over the world.

As usual, Americans will lead the way.  But these are hypersensitive times and little is to be conclusively expected from a leadership that appears to resist the otherwise undeniable commonality of a theocratic military structure from which almost 17,000 post-9/11 acts of terrorism have been carried out.  Yet in an effort to take the proverbial next step to find that ever-elusive "common ground," another fellow Memphian offered this:

"What the First Amendment says is that here in America, each of us has a right to maintain our freedom of conscience.  You are free to believe what you want to believe about God, the heavens and mankind, and so are your Muslim, Jewish, Buddhist and atheist neighbors.

"You can't use violence to promote your cause.  They can't, either.  You can't try to change the government into an arm of your religion, and neither can they.  That's different from Iran, Saudi Arabia and dozens of other countries where the government is an arm of religion and vice versa."

-- from "Politicizing Islam aids terrorists" by The (Memphis) Commercial Appeal editor Chris Peck; March 13, 2011

Where Christians aren't the majority

My initial re-commitment to write more in 2011 has been temporarily derailed by the combination of a demanding schedule (in a difficult work environment) and an impromptu head-to-head with a couple of Al Sharpton wanna-be haters.  It's a long story.  Perhaps in the near future I'll write about it.  In the meantime, consider this --

My Christian brothers and sisters throughout Asia, the Middle East and Africa have been getting hammed by their "Religion of Peace" counterparts for over a millenia.  So this should come as no surprise:

For more, have a look at Voice of the Martyrs

On This Day in History

1000 – Hungary is established as a Christian kingdom by Stephen I.  Nearly a thousand years after his death, Stephen is still regarded as one of Hungary's most revered saints, and the date of his canonization is celebrated as a state holiday commemorating the foundation of the nation.

1642 – According to the "Old Style" dating system, Isaac Newton, simply one of the most influential people in history, is born in Lincolnshire, England.  (The "New Style" calendar places his birthday on January 4, 1643.)

1776 – George Washington and his army cross the Delaware River to attack Great Britain's Hessian (German) mercenaries.  The Battle of Trenton was won decisively the next day, which boosted the Continental Army's morale and inspired a significant number of re-enlistments.

1818 – Written by Father Joseph Mohr and composed by Franz Xaver Gruber, the first performance of "Silent Night" takes place in the Church of St. Nikolaus in Oberndorf, Austria.

1826 – The result of whiskey smuggling for a Christmas party in the North barracks at the United States Military Academy, the Eggnog Riot concludes after beginning the previous night.  The riot involved more than one-third of the cadets by the time it ceased, 19 of whom were eventually court-martialed.

1868 – President Andrew Johnson grants unconditional pardon to all Confederate soldiers.

1899 – Hailed by the American Film Institute as the greatest male star in the history of American cinema, Humphrey Bogart (his real name) was born in New York City.

1990 – Based upon a proposed hypertext system designed to access the many forms of documentation at, and related to, the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN), the first successful trial run of the system that would become the World Wide Web was conducted by computer scientists Robert Cailliau and, the man credited for "inventing" the Internet, Tim Berners-Lee (and not Al Gore).

2009 – Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, a Nigerian Muslim, unsuccessfully attempted a terrorist attack while on board Northwest Airlines Flight 253 en route to Detroit, as the concealed plastic explosives in his underwear failed to detonate properly.  Abdulmutallab was restrained, arrested, and eventually charged with, among other things, the attempted murder of 289 people.  The would-be "martyr" is currently incarcerated at the Federal Correctional Institution in York Charter Township, Michigan.

Shown above, "Washington Crossing the Delaware" by Emanuel Leutze (1851) is located at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City.

Profound leadership

Who should the GOP send up against President Obama in 2012?  His name is Allen West.  He's a retired U.S. Army Lt. Colonel, and I think he's more impressive than all the other candidates put together:

On This Day in History: War, and a bit of education

1636 – Headquartered near Boston, the Massachusetts Bay Colony organized three militia regiments to defend against the Pequot Indians.  This organization is recognized today as the founding of the U.S. National Guard.

1769 – Dartmouth College is founded by Protestant minister Eleazar Wheelock on land donated by the British colonial governor of New Hampshire, Sir John Wentworth.

1862 – Outnumbered by 41,500 men, Confederate General Robert Edward Lee and his Army of Northern Virginia put the finishing touches on their convincing victory over Maj. General Ambrose Burnside and his 114,000 Federal soldiers at the Battle of Fredericksburg in Virginia.  Notable Southern legends commanding alongside General Lee were Lt. General Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson, Lt. General James Longstreet, Maj. General James E.B. Stuart, Maj. General John Bell Hood, Maj. General Ambrose Powell Hill, and Brig. General Jubal Anderson Early.

2001 – The Parliament of India in New Delhi is attacked by the Lashkar-e-Toiba and Jaish-e-Mohammed terrorists groups, just three months after 9/11.  In all 12 people died.  The attack itself led to a standoff between India and Pakistan that was not diffused until both the United States and Russia intervened.

2003 – Commanded by U.S. Army Colonel James Hickey, the 1st Brigade of the 4th Infantry Division capture former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.  He is found near his hometown of Tikrit, literally hiding in a hole.

Sunday's Quote: WikiDespotism

It might be a stretch to draw a comparison between President Obama and Julian Assange.  But a noted columnist recently went the extra mile to make a valid point:

"The irony is that Assange represents a purer form of Obama’s own idealism.  According to Assange’s dangerous utopianism, in governance purity must determine means, not just ends.  He is convinced that he has revealed the hypocrisy and corruption of U.S. foreign policy, when in reality all he has revealed is that pursuing foreign-policy ideals is messier and more complicated in a world where bad people pursue bad ends.  We can hope that Obama has been learning that lesson.  Assange, meanwhile, is simply blind to it."

-- from "A WikiLeaks Wake-up Call" by syndicated columnist and editor-at-large of National Review Online, Jonah Goldberg; December 1, 2010

On This Day in History: Those dastardly explorers

A statue of Christopher Columbus in Providence, Rhode Island was found vandalized with red paint yesterday.  For additional effect, a sign that read "murderer" was left hanging around the statue's waist.  Later that day, dueling rallies were held in Boston, about 50 miles from Providence, to celebrate and protest the observance of the Spanish explorer's voyage to the Americas.

Although anti-Columbus sentiment is not new, it has become more virulent.  As school curricula give way to hypersensitivity aimed at national pride, the disregard of other cultural imperfections that are celebrated ad nauseam while concurrently refusing to acknowledge the achievements of both the explorers and Founding Fathers, without whom our greatness would not be possible, is unavoidably conspicuous.  It's also abject hypocrisy.

Aside from Columbus, the following Europeans deserve some degree of recognition and gratitude for their exploration throughout the Americas: John Cabot (c. 1497, via England), Alonso de Ojeda (c. 1499, via Spain, alongside Amerigo Vespucci, after whom America is named), Vicente Yáñez Pinzón (c. 1500, via Spain), Pedro Álvares Cabral (c. 1500, via Portugal), Gaspar Corte-Real (c. 1500, via Spain), Rodrigo de Bastidas (c. 1501, via Spain), Vasco Núñez de Balboa (c. 1513, via Spain), Juan Ponce de León (c. 1513, via Spain) and Juan Díaz de Solís (c. 1516, via Spain).

Now for some history...

1492 – The first expedition led by Christopher Columbus makes landfall for the first time at San Salvador Island in The Bahamas.

1792 – The first celebration of Columbus Day is observed in New York.  It would not become a Federal holiday until 1937.

1793 – The cornerstone of Old East, the oldest building at the oldest State university in the United States, is laid on the campus of the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill.

1870 – General Robert Edward Lee died.  A West Point graduate (class of 1829) and U.S. Army Colonel whom President Lincoln personally chose to quell a certain uprising in the South, Lee is best remembered as both the commanding general of the Confederate Army and one of the greatest of all Americans.

1892 – The Pledge of Allegiance is first recited by students in many public schools throughout the United States as part of a celebration marking the 400th anniversary of Columbus's voyage.

1901 – The Executive Mansion is officially renamed "The White House" by President Theodore Roosevelt.

1960 – As both General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and Premier of the USSR, Nikita Khrushchev infamously pounds his shoe on a desk during an assembly of the United Nations to protest the assertion of colonial policy being conducted by the Soviets throughout eastern Europe.

1972 – En route to the Gulf of Tonkin, a racial brawl involving more than 100 sailors breaks out aboard the USS Kitty Hawk.

1999 – Although its veracity is debatable, "The Day of Six Billion" is commemorated by the United Nations Population Fund as the approximate day on which the number of people in the world reached 6,000,000,000 following the birth of Adnan Nevic in Sarajevo, Bosnia.

2000 – Religion of Peace: The USS Cole (DDG-667), a United States Navy destroyer, is badly damaged in the port of Aden, Yemen by two suicide bombers connected to al-Qaeda, killing 17 and wounding 39.

2002 – Religion of Peace: Terrorists detonate bombs in Kuta, Bali, killing 202 and wounding over 300.

What she said

Oriana Fallaci (1929-2006), an Italian journalist whose reputation was built, in part, by her interviews with numerous internationally known figures, was also an atheist who is perhaps best remembered for her outspokenness about Islam's worldwide impact.

In The Rage and The Pride, her first book inspired by the 9/11 tragedies, Fallaci analyzed Muslim practices and dissected totalitarian forces single-minded in its collective desire to either dominate, or destroy Western society.  In the book that followed, The Force of Reason, she opined that Europe is under a Muslim siege and already well into the process of becoming "Eurabia."

Fallaci concluded with the most self-evident point of all: that peaceful coexistence with Islamofascism is simply impossible.  We can only hope, and pray, that Europeans and Americans -- Christians and secularists alike -- will, at last, rally around the boldness exhibited by this one atheist.

Sundays' Quote: See below

What I wrote yesterday is perfect.  That's your Sunday's Quote.

To our Islamic terrorist aggressors...

We, the citizens of the United States, are beyond irritated with your peculiar hypersensitivity and tactics of intimidation.  So know this: America will not become more Shari'a compliant, we will not yield to your self-righteous hubris, "Freedom of Religion" was not inserted into our Constitution to enable extremists to dominate through fear and double standards, and we are not fooled by your suddenly friendly rhetoric about unity and tolerance.

You brought this fight to our doorstep.  You believe a term like "Islamophobia" will guilt-trip us into submission.  And you think that we're blissfully unaware of the relentless atrocities Muslims have committed unabatedly against our Christian brothers and sisters throughout Africa, Asia and the Middle East for over a millenia.  Think again.

The United States did not become the envy of the entire planet by giving in to threatening factions like you.  And despite the best efforts of your American Left Wing counterparts, who defend you whenever the opportunity presents itself, you will be defeated.  One way or another, you will bow down at the altar of the very spirit you vowed to destroy.  By God, we will place our giant American feet on your scrawny little necks and never let up.

If only we dare.

Three things you should know about Islam (ما يجب أن تعرفه عن الإسلام)

Considering the inroads Muslims have been making in our once-great society, I thought a comprehensive assessment about Islam from an objective non-religious group would be in order.  I promise you, this is worth a mere eight minutes of your time: