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.

A word from Churchill

I began reading “Citizens of London” by Lynne Olson recently. Thus far the story about the Americans — centering primarily on Edward R. Murrow, Averell Harriman and John Gilbert Winant — who stood with Churchill’s Britain during “it’s darkest, finest hour” has proven a good read. Hence I found the pic below both notable, and personally applicable, as well.

From disheartened to righteously fortified

About two years ago, not long after his infamous bow to Emperor Akihito, a Japanese reporter asked President Obama if the U.S. was right for the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945.

That's an interesting (read: loaded) question. Let’s review.

In an attack that was intended to intimidate the U.S. Pacific Fleet from interfering with military actions the Empire was planning against Europe, and ultimately the United States, Japanese aircraft carriers launched over 350 fighters, bombers and torpedo planes on the morning of December 7, 1941 in an assault on the Hawaiian island of Oahu that was nothing short of devastating.

In all, the Japanese smashed, wrecked and demolished three cruisers, three destroyers and 188 aircraft. All eight battleships docked at Pearl Harbor were also damaged, half of which were sunk. Six of the eight, however, were raised (when necessary), repaired and returned to service during the War.  Yet the greatest cost was paid in blood, as 1,282 Americans were wounded and 2,402 of our finest were killed.

Instead of ducking the aggressor, we knuckled up. FDR informed the Allied powers that America was officially all-in. The Stars and Stripes jumped into the fire, kicked more than our share of Axis ass (at no small cost by any measure) and led the drive to bring this worldwide struggle to an end nearly four brutal years later, sending Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy and Imperial Japan to the guillotine.

I don’t exactly recall how Obama responded to the reporter. I’m sure our President – who’s developed a reputation for apologizing on behalf of the nation he represents – offered an answer that was both nice and diplomatic. But for those who feel such questions and apologies have become redundant, it seems the American response to the events that occurred 70 years ago today require no justification at all.


Picture credit: The battleship U.S.S. West Virginia is engulfed in flames after the surprise Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor 70 years ago today; c/o The National Archives via AFP/Getty Images and USA Today

On This Day in History

c/o MacArthur Memorial, via AltDaily

1803 – The U.S. Senate ratified the Louisiana Purchase, acquiring 828,000 square miles originally claimed by France for less than three cents per acre (equivalent to 42 cents per acre today).

Ultimately 15 States would be carved from the area. Also of note, Napoleon Bonaparte said of the exchange, "This accession of territory affirms forever the power of the United States, and I have given England a maritime rival who sooner or later will humble her pride."

1818 – The Convention of 1818 was signed between the United States and the United Kingdom. Most importantly, Article II of the agreement established the 49th parallel as the border between the U.S. and Canada. It hasn't moved an inch after 193 years, and unlike our neighbors to the south, Canadians have no problem respecting our mutual border whatsoever.

1944 – General Douglas MacArthur (pictured) fulfilled his "I shall return" promise when the Battle of Leyte commenced in the Philippines. The Allies reclaimed the islands from the Japanese by New Year's Eve, and World War II would be decided nine months later. The good guys won.

1946 – Lewis Grizzard, a distinguished writer and humorist known for his commentary and Southern demeanor, was born in Fort Benning, Georgia. He was inflicted with a congenital heart defect from birth and died from complications of his fourth heart-valve surgery in 1994. "I Haven't Understood Anything Since 1962 and Other Nekkid Truths" is one of my all-time favorites.

1950 – Tom Petty, one of our finest singer-songwriters, was born in Gainesville, Florida. His music, both solo and collaborative, has sold a combined 60 million units worldwide since he debuted (with the Heartbreakers) in 1976.

1967 – A brief motion picture of an unidentified subject purported to be "Bigfoot" was filmed by two men in the Six Rivers National Forest in the northwestern-most corner of California. Known as the Patterson-Gimlin film, its veracity still remains open to debate.

1973 – Designed by acclaimed Danish architect Jørn Utzon, the Sydney Opera House opened to the public for the first time at Bennelong Point in New South Wales, Sydney, Australia. Declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2007, the SOH remains one of the most distinctive buildings and one of the most famous performing arts centers in the world.

1977 – Just three days after the release of their fifth album, Street Survivors, a plane carrying Lynyrd Skynyrd crashed in Gillsburg, Mississippi, killing lead singer Ronnie Van Zant, guitarist Steve Gaines and backup singer Cassie Gaines, along with three other non-members of the band.

Skynyrd reformed 10 years later for a reunion tour with lead singer Ronnie Van Zant's younger brother as the new frontman, a position Johnny holds to this day. Although lead/rhythm guitarist Gary Rossington is the only founding member who remains with Skynyrd, thousands still show up to see the Kings of Southern Rock every time they play. To date, the band has sold nearly 30 million units in the U.S. alone.

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

On This Day in History: A particularly blood-stained date

Pulitzer-winning shot by Charles Porter

1775 – The first engagements of the American Revolution begin at the Battles of Lexington and Concord throughout Middlesex County, Massachusetts.  Colonialists earned victory on this day, but the War itself would not be decided for another eight years.

1861 – One week after the Battle of Fort Sumter, a group of secessionists and Southern sympathizers in Baltimore, Maryland attack the Sixth Massachusetts Regiment as they traveled en route to Washington, DC.  The ensuing riot resulted in 16 deaths, including 12 civilians.

1951 – Eight days after being relieved of command by President Truman, General Douglas MacArthur addressed a joint session of Congress with his famous Old Soldiers Never Die speech.

1961 – In an attempt to overthrow the regime implemented by Fidel Castro, the Bay of Pigs invasion of southern Cuba is quelled in three days.  Fifty years later, Cuba is all but in ruins.

1971 – Charles Manson was sentenced to death for his role in the Tate-LaBianca murders.  The ruling was commuted to life imprisonment a year later when the Supreme Court of California temporarily eliminated the state's death penalty.  Manson is currently incarcerated at Corcoran State Prison in central California.

1987 – The Simpsons premiered as a short cartoon on The Tracy Ullman Show.  I remember like it was yesterday.

1993 – Ending a siege that lasted for over seven weeks, the Mount Carmel Center – home of the Branch Davidian sect near Waco, Texas – burns to the ground, killing all 80 people inside.  Four ATF agents were also killed throughout the incident.

1995 – Said to be seeking vengeance against the federal government for its handling of the siege in Waco, among other raids, Timothy McVeigh carried out the bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, killing 168 people and injuring 450.  At the time it was the deadliest act of terrorism ever committed on American soil.

Eventually convicted of 11 federal offenses, McVeigh was executed on June 11, 2001 – exactly three months prior to the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

On This Day in History

1703 – In what is now Tokyo, Japan, 46 of the legendary Forty-seven Ronin committed ritual suicide (seppuku) as part of the samurai honor code (bushidō) for avenging their master's death.

1789 – George Washington was elected the first President of the United States.

1844 – Discovered by German Biblical scholar Constantin Tischendor, the Codex Sinaiticus -- ancient portions of both the Old and New Testaments -- was uncovered at St. Catherine's Monastery in Egypt's Sinai Peninsula.

1861 – Delegates from South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, and Louisiana convened in Montgomery, Alabama to form the Confederate States of America.

1902 – Charles Lindbergh was born in Detroit, Michigan.  Having initially risen to prominence with his solo non-stop flight from Roosevelt Field in New York's Long Island to Le Bourget Field in Paris, France (May 20-21, 1927; nearly 3,600 miles), Lindbergh was named TIME magazine's first Man of the Year.  Later in life he also became a prize-winning author, explorer, environmentalist and inventor.  Few have ever accomplished so much in a lifetime.

1906 – Dietrich Bonhoeffer [pictured] was born in Breslau, Germany (present-day Wrocław, Poland).  A master theologian of the Evangelical Lutheran faith, Bonhoeffer became critical of the Church's general insensitivity to the needs of secular society as he witnessed social upheaval, a decline of traditional values and international financial crisis -- much like the events of today.

Opposed to circumventing Christ in "religiosity," Bonhoeffer's time at Abyssinian Baptist Church in the Harlem borough of New York City (where he taught Sunday School) inspired a world view that would ultimately lead him to establish the Confessing Church, which became one of the few opposing voices to the Nazification in Germany.  It also led to Bonhoeffer's two-year incarceration and eventual martyrdom at the Flossenbürg concentration camp, less than a month before the Nazi regime collapsed.

In short, his influence and the example he set by speaking and standing for Truth cannot be overstated.

1945 – "The Big Three" -- Churchill, Roosevelt, and Stalin -- open The Yalta Conference at the Livadia Palace in Crimea (present-day southern Ukraine) to discuss Europe's postwar reorganization.

2004 – Mark Zuckerberg launched "Thefacebook," the forerunner to Facebook, from his dorm room at Harvard University.  Seven years later, Facebook.com boasts of 600 million users and only trails Google as the world's most visited website.

Sunday's Quote: Churchill

A recent interview with John Fisher Burns, London bureau chief for The New York Times and two-time recipient of the Pulitzer Prize, got me to thinking about the British as military protagonists.  Paraphrasing Burns, much of the world has considered the United States, however begrudgingly, as "keepers of the peace" for generations.  And while this is true, at least some of that inspiration can be attributed to one of Britain's all-time greats:

"Churchill considered Nazism vile and barbaric, a rejection of civilization in every way, despite his respect for the German race.  He was particularly offended by its anti-Semitism, which made Nazism, in some ways, worse than communism. ...  

"Even after Hitler violated the Munich peace agreement of 1938 and conquered all of Czechoslovakia in March 1939, Chamberlain and Foreign Secretary Lord Halifax adamantly opposed a pact with Soviet Russia.  They fundamentally misunderstood Hitler, had too much sympathy for Germany and too much contempt for Soviet Russia, and feared war too much to adjust policy.  They were not as intellectually imaginative, strategically discerning, or obsessively determined to face threats as Churchill.  But Churchill’s standing in the Conservative Party and the nation at large was very low in the mid- to late 1930s, and his warnings went unheeded.

"Churchill was clearly the indispensable man of the moment in 1940, whom destiny summoned to change the course of history.  His overwhelming love of country and civilization, grave sense of obligation to protect and improve on all the good the ages had produced, romantic view of the world, and keen understanding of how history had reached a vital point, made him realize why he and Britain had to battle relentlessly, regardless of the odds.  His firm conviction that individuals can overcome great adversity, his belief that great leaders can redirect global forces, and his uplifting oratorical abilities, allowed Churchill to shape the thoughts and feelings of his countrymen and save his country and civilization."
-- from "Being Winston Churchill" by Michael Makovsky; December 8, 2010

On This Day in History: With a certain English flavor

Diana was the world's princess.

1422 – Upon the death of his father, Henry VI ascended to the throne and became the King of England at nine months of age.  Possibly the youngest monarch in history, a regency council was established to govern in Henry's place until he came of age in 1437.  Although generally ill prepared to be King, Henry's legacy is largely defined by the establishment of Eton College (described as the most famous public school in the world) in 1440 and King's College, Cambridge the year after.

1803 – Meriwether Lewis and William Clark leave Pittsburgh, PA and begin their expedition to the west.  Having not achieved their primary objective of finding the "Northwest Passage," Lewis and Clark are nonetheless responsible for production of the first accurate maps of the west and a better understanding of the region's natural resources.  They also established friendly relations with some of the indigenous tribes, without whom the explorers (33 in all) would have starved to death and/or become hopelessly lost in the Rocky Mountains.

1864 – Union forces, led by Maj. General William T. Sherman, launch a final assault on Atlanta, Georgia.  The following November, Sherman ordered that all military and government buildings in the area to be burned, although many private homes and shops were also torched.  I guess if Confederate General Joseph E. Johnston, who initially led the opposition against Sherman's Atlanta Campaign and later served as a pallbearer at his funeral, would not speak ill of the Ohio native, then neither will I.

1888 – A woman named Mary Ann Nichols is found murdered in the Whitechapel district of London.  She later becomes known as the first victim of Jack the Ripper.

1897 – Thomas Edison patents the Kinetoscope, the first movie projector.

1943 – The first United States Navy ship to be named after a Black person, the USS Harmon (DE-678), is commissioned.  This ship was named for mess attendant Leonard Roy Harmon, who was posthumously awarded the Navy Cross for his heroism aboard the USS San Francisco (CA-38) during the Battle of Guadalcanal at the Solomon Islands.

1948 – Robert Mitchum is arrested in a Hollywood drug raid.  He would later be found guilty of criminal conspiracy to possess marijuana and sentenced to 60 days in prison.  Today he is a stoner icon.

1997 – Diana, Princess of Wales is killed in a car crash in Paris, just one year (and three days to be exact) after her divorce from Prince Charles was finalized.  To this day she is more revered in America than most of those who served as President, and for good reason.

Iconic Shot: The Big Three

Although the last U.S. combat brigade pulled out of Iraq about 48 hours ago, one of the remaining contentions encompassing America's questionable military presence in a nation formerly run by a dictator who was once supported by our government is perhaps best understood by the picture below, which proves that geopolitical complexities will sometimes demand that the good guys side with a committed antagonist to overcome an even greater threat.

(click to enlarge)

Credited to an unidentified member of the U.S. Army Signal Corps, this original photo from the National Archives, taken 65 years ago amid the waning days of World War II, centers upon British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt, and the aforementioned antagonist, Russian Premier Josef Stalin during the Yalta Conference (also called the Crimea Conference), held at the Livadia Palace in the southern portion of present-day Ukraine.

On This Day in History

The Scots are a proud people.

1305 – William Wallace, Commander of the Army of the Kingdom of Scotland amid the Wars of Scottish Independence, was captured by the English near Glasgow and transported to London, where he was put on trial and executed 18 days later.  Scotland would win its independence in 1328.

1583 – Sir Humphrey Gilbert establishes the first English colony in North America at what is now St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador, located along the eastern tip of Canada.

1620 – The Mayflower departed from Southampton, England on its first attempt to reach North America.  Because its sister ship, the Speedwell, developed a purported leak (later disproved) and was docked as a result, the Mayflower would not reach Provincetown, Massachusetts until the following November.

1884 – The cornerstone for the Statue of Liberty is laid on Bedloe's Island (now Liberty Island) in New York Harbor.  Having been constructed in France, the statue was shipped in crates, assembled on the completed pedestal, and officially opened to the public by President Grover Cleveland on October 28, 1886.

1930 – Neil Armstrong, the first person to set foot on the Moon, was born in Wapakoneta, Ohio.

1944 – Polish insurgents liberated a German labor camp in Warsaw, freeing 348 Jewish prisoners.  Although the Germans would eventually quell the two-month Warsaw Uprising, the Nazi regime would be defeated by the Allies eight months later, ending World War II.

1952 – The show that would become American Bandstand debuted on the ABC television network and would remain on-air for 47 years.

1962 – Marilyn Monroe, the Lindsay Lohan of her day, died of a "probable suicide" from "acute barbiturate poisoning."  In other words, the Kennedys probably did it.

1981 – President Ronald Reagan fired 11,359 striking air-traffic controllers who ignored his order for them to return to work.

Iconic Shot: Eisenhower & his men

(click to enlarge)

General Dwight D. Eisenhower addresses paratroopers of the 502d Parachute Infantry Regiment, 101st Airborne Division on the evening of June 5, 1944, just hours before the Normandy landings during World War II (a.k.a., Operation Neptune, Operation Overlord & D-Day).

© Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress