tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-39094822541647852172023-12-04T01:03:54.937-08:00Today in History"Today in History" - What happened on this date in history? Author Brian T. Bolten presents something interesting, strange, amusing or tragic. Whatever it is, it happened TODAY.........Brian T. Boltenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15347138270315020257noreply@blogger.comBlogger410125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3909482254164785217.post-28398649292875601232021-04-20T11:41:00.030-07:002021-04-21T11:11:23.713-07:00March 21, 1836 - The Battle of Goliad<i>"...(I) ask that He who buildeth up and pulleth down nations will, the mercy preserve and unite us. For a Nation divided against itself cannot stand. I wish, if this Union must be dissolved, that its ruins may be the monument of my grave, and the graves of my family."</i> - Sam Houston.
These were the final words of a very worried Sam Houston; a man who raised up Texas and got her into the United States of America only to watch her go down in the flames of Civil War in March of 1863. One of the most important acts which he brought about was the the Battle of Jacinto which took place on today's date, April 21 in 1836. It once and for all settled the question of whether the Lone Star Republic would be a part of the United States... it would. A detailed, first-hand account of the battle was written by General Houston from the headquarters of the Texan Army in San Jacinto on April 25, 1836. Numerous secondary analyses and interpretations have followed. What follows is the best that I could manage, based on on-line and separate sources not to mention the recent book by Brian Kilmeade.
<b>Lorenzo de Zavala had opposed Santa Anna's power grab</b> <b>in Mexico</b> wherein he openly supported the Democratic reforms. To Santa Anna, Zavala
was a traitor and needed to be arrested, along with his supporters. Unfortunately, Santa Anna missed the government at Harrrisburg when they bolted town some several hours ahead of the strutting martinet. Santa Anna did get there in time to destroy all of the government's printing equipment; <div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjLc61xCT6w_J1qfQ1zqtaj25Ojg6DJ0k1CkE3I2-KG6JSpRJwha3fBaPiaZvJD_yqvp3wmOrArX1y9lix4bAg8xvoplKijgiw7GM0AA_RWF222JjQExekPWilSqwdMq_5qRBWM8iKA8ibD/s459/Sam_Houston_c1850-crop.jpg" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0; text-align: center; clear: right; float: right;"><img alt="" border="0" height="200" data-original-height="459" data-original-width="341" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjLc61xCT6w_J1qfQ1zqtaj25Ojg6DJ0k1CkE3I2-KG6JSpRJwha3fBaPiaZvJD_yqvp3wmOrArX1y9lix4bAg8xvoplKijgiw7GM0AA_RWF222JjQExekPWilSqwdMq_5qRBWM8iKA8ibD/s200/Sam_Houston_c1850-crop.jpg"/></a></div>
General Houston (right) arrived a few days later. He was a man of strongly-held opinions; there was something reminiscent of George Washington in the man, and this was likely what got him named major general of the army at the beginning of the Texas Revolution. When he arrived at Harrisburg he found the town had been wrecked. After their long March most of the Texians wanted to settle and make Camp. But Deaf Smith* (*- so named because of a childhood disease that made him lose his sense of hearing) was determined to take a few of his men and go looking for these men who had made such a Mess of Harrisburg. <i>"They were of one mind,"</i>one colonel said,<i>"to march down and fight the enemy!"</i>
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At this point on that same day, a Mexican courier carrying intelligence on the locations,and future plans of all of the Mexican troops in Texas was captured and dragged into camp with Spanish language documents in their saddle bags. These were quickly translated and showed that the Mexican forces in the area were much smaller than the Texians. About 1500 to the nearly 3,000 Texians. Sam Houston realized that his army was ill-trained. So Houston continued to retreat
to the great displeasure of so many of his officers. Houston was keenly aware of how untrained they were, hence the reason for the continual retreats. They had moved back by 120 miles. On March 31 they paused and began <b>training together</b>. And at this time they were joined by Secretary of War Thomas Rusk and Preident David G. Burnet, as well as Secretary of War Samuel Carson. Houston convinced these men that his plans were legitimate, and they should retreat to the Sabine river. They moved through the town of Harrisburg, and that the Mexicans had about 600 men in Texas. Realizing that this showed the Mexicans those who had commited the massscres at the Alamo and at Goliad were now in smaller numbers and not far away.Also there were copies of the Texas Declaration of Independance around.The steamboat <i>"Cayuga"</i> had moved out with the Government members who Santa Anna had been looking to catch up with. When Houston showed up at Buffalo Bayou three days later (8/17/1836)they found that Santa Anna had already been there and left that place a mess. But they now knew that man - Santa Anna - who had ordered the massacres at the Alamo, and Goliad was within reach. The two armies were now within striking distance of each other. With his army standing in formaton. He spoke of meeting their opposites and glory and victory, but when he got right down to one thing that would fire all of their hearts: <b>"Some of us may be killed; remember the Alamo, the Alamo, The Alamo!!"<i></i></b>
His army then raced as fast as it could towards Lynchburg.The area was filled with Oak Groves and marshes; quite at home for the Texians, but strange as could be imagined
for the Mexicans. Houston's 900 man force arrived in the morning of April 20, Santa Anna's 700 mn force a couple of hours later. The Houston group set up camp near the banks of Bufallo Bayou which gave them decent cover, but little room to get away if needed. The set-up of Santa Anna's forces caused Colonel Pedro Delgado to write later <i>"the camping ground of His Excellency's selection was in all respects, against military rules. Any youngster would have done better.</i>" Over
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0OOXtTNMigHI3bK1qGCO7B_GGSpQ3919kM0SmxsvVUZUtOkaTy05Du-12r1d3hvdeoN0FdZEYhuwp1E8EvSN5qQIx9QXOK5pb9RLOs1JlL1kZQg3oNdlpsY8OLsVQlTRNeIZ_lwwf2lqG/s1600/Painting-Santa-Anna-surrender-Mexican-Sam-Houston.jpg" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0; text-align: center; clear: left; float: left;"><img alt="" border="0" width="320" data-original-height="987" data-original-width="1600" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0OOXtTNMigHI3bK1qGCO7B_GGSpQ3919kM0SmxsvVUZUtOkaTy05Du-12r1d3hvdeoN0FdZEYhuwp1E8EvSN5qQIx9QXOK5pb9RLOs1JlL1kZQg3oNdlpsY8OLsVQlTRNeIZ_lwwf2lqG/s320/Painting-Santa-Anna-surrender-Mexican-Sam-Houston.jpg"/></a></div>
the next couple of hours skirrmishes broke out, with the Texians forcing the Mexicans to withdraw from a spot near the (above, Santa Anna surenders to Sam Houston)center. Then Mexican Dragoons then forced the Texians out of the area. Houston was unhappy that the Mexicans got a better look at his forces. Some of the men were unhappy that a full battle hadn't occurred. Genral Cos arrived in the morning with @540 reiforcements. But these men were all untrained and green. Santa Anna allowed his men to rest and relax. During this interval Houston ordered the destruction of Vinces Bridge thus blocking off the only escape for the mexicans.
As this morning lingered on and there was no attack, the Texicans got busy. The Texican cavalry was initially dispatched to the Mexican forces' far left, and the artillery advanced through the tall grass to within 200 yards of the Mexican breast works. "The Twin Sisters" (cannons brought from Cincinnati)opened the battle at 4:30. After this opening salvo the Texians broke ranks and began swarming all around the mexican lines yelling "Remember the Alamo! Remember tha Alamo" to initiate hand to hand combat with the Mexicans, who were taken completely by surprise. Santa Anna snd his officers issued conflicting orders while trying to lead some kind of defense. But it wasn't working. The Texian infantry forces charged on without halt until they had control of the woodland and the Mexican breastwork. The right wing of Burleson's and the left wing of Millard's forces had taken possession of the breastwork. Within 18 minutes, Mexican soldiers abandoned their campsite and fled for their lives, The killing lasted for hours. Many Mexicans tried to go through the marshes of Peggy Lake while shooting at anything that moved. But they had fallen prey to these Alamo/Goliad Avengers. The totals at the end of the day left
Mexican soldiers killed and 300 captured. Eleven Texians died, with 30 others, including Houston, wounded.
<b>Santa Anna <i></i></b>had escaped towards Vince's Bridge. Finding the bridge destroyed, he hid in the marsh and was captured the following day, wearing the uniform jacket of a private. But this failed when his own men recognized him as such and pointed him out to the Texian authorities. His Excellency was brought before Houston's own boys wanted him hung on the spot.He had escaped towards Vince's Bridge. Finding the bridge destroyed, he hid in the marsh and was captured the following day, wearing the uniform jacket of a private. But this failed when his own men recognized him as such and pointed him out to the Texian authorities. His Excellency was brought before Houston whose own boys wanted him hung on the spot.
In what historian Davis calls "one of the most one-sided victories in history",650 Mexican soldiers were killed and 300 captured. Eleven Texians died, with 30 others, including Houston, wounded. Eventually dealing with Santa Anna became a matter between one country and another.
In 1874, he took advantage of a general amnesty issued by President Sebastián Lerdo de Tejada and returned to Mexico, by then crippled and almost blind from cataracts. Santa Anna died at his home in Mexico City on 21 June 1876 at age 82. He was buried with full military honors in a glass coffin in Panteón del Tepeyac Cemetery.
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SOURCES =
<b>"Sam Houston and the Alamo Avengers"<i></i></b>by Brian Kilmeade,Large Print, New York, Penguin Random House
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_San_Jacinto,
https://www.history.com/topics/mexico/battle-of-san-jacinto
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Alamo
Brian T. Boltenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15347138270315020257noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3909482254164785217.post-21890554105316694132021-02-27T18:22:00.075-08:002021-03-02T15:30:55.627-08:00February, 1917 : The Zimmermann TelegramFebruary 1917:
When Britain and France had gotten to Autumn of 1917, they found themselves at the end of a rope financially speaking. They had spent a lot of money to prosecute the war against the Germans. And the Germans were preparing to announce to the world that they were about to re-start their policy of unrestricted submarine warfare. This meant that they would proceed to sink any ship of either the Allies, or their friends, any place that the found them. The Germans had come to figure that if the Americans were tied up with the Germans in submarine combat on one hand and had to deal with combat with the Mexicans on their southern boarder, then the Germans might prevail. The brits were frankly desperate to bring the the americans into the fray on their side.
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjk23EXJhma2P-03nDM2e5NNJ5kIhAEVVoYq1xyKXwQsGoXO00Q-pDlDMImAERHBZ_X7Suf3cPZ-Rj4A_YzPkz_YYI7WOu-T8UlVR1yHY39I0n8KfE8TJSnJE4C5tRmuuew_Vx4-E7f-IKt/s363/Arthur_Zimmermann.png" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0; text-align: center; clear: right; float: right;"><img alt="" border="0" height="320" data-original-height="363" data-original-width="247" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjk23EXJhma2P-03nDM2e5NNJ5kIhAEVVoYq1xyKXwQsGoXO00Q-pDlDMImAERHBZ_X7Suf3cPZ-Rj4A_YzPkz_YYI7WOu-T8UlVR1yHY39I0n8KfE8TJSnJE4C5tRmuuew_Vx4-E7f-IKt/s320/Arthur_Zimmermann.png"/></a></div>
Alfred Zimmerman,(right) the State Secretary for Foreign Affairs during a portion of Kaiser Wilhelm's reign, thought that this idea of dragging the Americans into the European war might just be the trick that would put them over the top against the Allies. The man who received the coded message, Ambassador Heinrich von Eckardt, was really hot to make this happen for his side. It would really shut down the Allies The text of the telegram read in part:
<i>"We intend to begin on the first of February unrestricted submarine warfare. We shall endeavor in spite of this to keep the United States of America neutral. In the event of this not succeeding, we make Mexico a proposal of alliance on the following basis: make war together, make peace together, generous financial support and an understanding on our part that Mexico is to reconquer the lost territory in Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona.</i><i></i>Please call the President's attention to the fact that the ruthless employment of our submarines now offers the prospect of compelling England in a few months to make peace.
Signed, ZIMMERMANN"<i></i> This document was being reviewed by the director of British naval intelligence, Rear Admiral William Reginald Hall, the director of Naval intelligence. Hall<div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJO3WNCKUu4YcGoQXHtbw2-SAWDGf3-PRp4FYDNOn3DV2cOJ-Npy3-fqWT1kzb2RVoB6_gu89CzUlB7XhbivbLd6X_AMJ4DjQeZLgFCMrBVSOmqor5u_yh0MZxhR17piZoYYrZrot-1CTV/s507/Admiral_Reginald_Hall%252C_1919.jpg" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0; text-align: center; clear: left; float: left;"><img alt="" border="0" height="320" data-original-height="507" data-original-width="440" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJO3WNCKUu4YcGoQXHtbw2-SAWDGf3-PRp4FYDNOn3DV2cOJ-Npy3-fqWT1kzb2RVoB6_gu89CzUlB7XhbivbLd6X_AMJ4DjQeZLgFCMrBVSOmqor5u_yh0MZxhR17piZoYYrZrot-1CTV/s320/Admiral_Reginald_Hall%252C_1919.jpg"/></a></div> was a hot-tempered maverick who blinked his clear blue eyes so regularly that his colleaugues called him "Blinker." An American who worked with him called him the most cold blooded proposition there had ever been. His interrogations of German P.O.W.s were as ruthless as anything the Old Bailey had ever seen. ,,,,,To Bell, secretary of the United States Embassy in Britain it seemed at first incredible, and he thought that it was a forgery. But when he was convinced, Bell sent a copy to United States Amb. Walter Hines Page. <div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgp53gvzsQZbx5yIDigMKJbBr_ctiHTw4MzWQb5XDyZW_30I8KgifpNxHb7aQLxvgzhGacOlFC0v1UHk_1z0Kk4VpGQpz0cRFUmGl7oh8X1dsPB_xjbel7SFKM6nismS72wA8xYqw1xMs0S/s276/Wilson.jpg" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0; text-align: center; clear: right; float: right;"><img alt="" border="0" height="200" data-original-height="276" data-original-width="182" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgp53gvzsQZbx5yIDigMKJbBr_ctiHTw4MzWQb5XDyZW_30I8KgifpNxHb7aQLxvgzhGacOlFC0v1UHk_1z0Kk4VpGQpz0cRFUmGl7oh8X1dsPB_xjbel7SFKM6nismS72wA8xYqw1xMs0S/s200/Wilson.jpg"/></a></div> Page who then reported the story to President Woodrow Wilson (right) <i>"Good Lord!"</i> he yelled. <i>"Good Lord!"</i><a on February 24, 1917. Wilson felt a considerable amount Good Lord!"</i> One would think he had much more by way of anger, but whtever he felt he kept it to himself until any doubts as to the authenticity of the telegram were done away with by Zimmermann himself. At a press conference on 3 March 1917, he told an American journalist, <i>"I cannot deny it. It is true."</i>
On April 2, 1917, President Woodrow Wilson went before a joint session of Congress to request a declaration of war against Germany. Wilson cited Germany’s violation of its pledge to suspend unrestricted submarine warfare in the North Atlantic and the Mediterranean, as well as its attempts to entice Mexico into an alliance against the United States, as his reasons for declaring war. On April 4, 1917, the U.S. Senate voted in support of the measure to declare war on Germany. The House concurred two days later. The United States later declared war on German ally Austria-Hungary on December 7, 1917.
Brian T. Boltenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15347138270315020257noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3909482254164785217.post-39937834397536864182021-02-04T08:43:00.000-08:002021-02-04T08:43:43.175-08:00FEBRUARY 4, 1937 Walt Disney Premiers "Snow White & the Seven Dwarfs."<div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7Yat57oWleCUG-NNTH5ScBUUwECOR_hvcsy2iNjHjvK06X-dXsHWb8wvRqMISt9fKkBmmLg2KBa9Gn-NZC4XEjW_nJj-h89sfmvd2ri39quf4eRbHzHpZpNnZL0sJ8Ra2gllwvGZATIit/s1440/Walt_Disney_2.jpg" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0; text-align: center; clear: left; float: left;"><img alt="" border="0" height="200" data-original-height="1440" data-original-width="1080" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7Yat57oWleCUG-NNTH5ScBUUwECOR_hvcsy2iNjHjvK06X-dXsHWb8wvRqMISt9fKkBmmLg2KBa9Gn-NZC4XEjW_nJj-h89sfmvd2ri39quf4eRbHzHpZpNnZL0sJ8Ra2gllwvGZATIit/s200/Walt_Disney_2.jpg"/></a></div> In December 1937 Walt Disney (below), producer and the father of "Mickey Mouse" was in the mood for a great experiment. He had produced countless cartoon shorts over the years and found success in that area. But now he wanted to make a full length animated film. He had a ton of negative voices in Hollywood including his wife Lillian, telling him that no adult would sit through the entire feature-length cartoon about a lady and a bunch of dwarfs. But Walt was convinced it would work, so he stuck his neck out on up to borrowing 1.5 million dollars in order to get it done. So Snow White premiered in Hollywood on December 21, 1937, got a huge ovation for his work from his celebrity filled crowd which loved every minute of it. It was then released the following February 4 grossing 8 million - an unbelievably huge sum during a vast economic depression. This was most made by any film up to that time. <b> Walt Disney was born in Chicago in 1901.</b> In 1923 Walt joined up with the infant animation industry. All films came with a cartoon back then, and in 1928 Walt introcuced the world to Mickey Mouse in the first full length sound cartoon: "Steamboat Willie"(below) 1928. By 1934, Disney had won 4 Oscars for his cartoons, many in color. But he realized that the way to <div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjW_i9DpZLqDLXIcDW2-rXEDnd7c6Ijd_aJ2oKb_0z8Lb41S8OTPgGdDL1FttSuoJ9Nm8dLOZkKr75ybn5qrwFXin-ZdTd0WV37iuRUV5J3Z-Y4OO-FxlwmZ2XXug02CfIM7MQeP5WZGTr/s2048/Steam+Boat+Willie.jpg" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0; text-align: center; clear: right; float: right;"><img alt="" border="0" width="200" data-original-height="2042" data-original-width="2048" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjW_i9DpZLqDLXIcDW2-rXEDnd7c6Ijd_aJ2oKb_0z8Lb41S8OTPgGdDL1FttSuoJ9Nm8dLOZkKr75ybn5qrwFXin-ZdTd0WV37iuRUV5J3Z-Y4OO-FxlwmZ2XXug02CfIM7MQeP5WZGTr/s200/Steam+Boat+Willie.jpg"/></a></div>really expand and diversify his product was with feature length cartoons. So one night in 1934, Walt took all of his best prodution men out to dinner and then brought them back to the studio. <b>There, he related the entire "Snow White" story</b> for them right down to the characters music that would play with them and some type of voice that they would have had. He really had it all laid it out of his mind.
So the more the story took shape in Disney's head the more it took hold with his artists. The story had to be adapted storyboard form by the artists Dorothy Ann Blank, Richard Creedon, Merrill De Maris, Otto Englander, Earl Hurd, Dick Rickard, Ted Sears and Webb Smith. David Hand became the supervising director, and William Cottrell, Wilfred Jackson, Larry Morey, Perce Pearce, and Ben Sharpsteen directed the film's penetrating individual sequences. <b>The story was based on a plot from Grimms fairy tales</b>, and it went through any<div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3e7kyIlJT-M7-BSqh4VM2uZNmlUcePCypTUu-cz7yhdcm6Vw0lxzrOP74oVrEJuk6clZ10TN7ZJGfItDORtWLdA6e_-w42PLdODstkuOD-BOT5Tp0XIeZn4dHKDvve7nDo8IpNdrUWtdJ/s350/Grim%2527s+Fairy+Tales.jpg" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0; text-align: center; clear: left; float: left;"><img alt="" border="0" height="320" data-original-height="350" data-original-width="220" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3e7kyIlJT-M7-BSqh4VM2uZNmlUcePCypTUu-cz7yhdcm6Vw0lxzrOP74oVrEJuk6clZ10TN7ZJGfItDORtWLdA6e_-w42PLdODstkuOD-BOT5Tp0XIeZn4dHKDvve7nDo8IpNdrUWtdJ/s320/Grim%2527s+Fairy+Tales.jpg"/></a></div> number of changes while it was developed into a full blown story. For example staff writer Richard Creedon came up with the principal characters for the seven dwarfs, none of whom had names in the original story. Also the number of dwarfs went through several changes. But Disney wanted names that would express something about the indvidual characters of the dwarfs, hence "Doc", "Sneeezy", "Grumpy", etc.were born. Also there were changes in the character of the Evil Queen. Disney didn't want her to be crazy, or fat, but a <i>"stately beautiful type"</i> There were a number of changes in how the Queen was to have Snow White murdered. Eventually after many changes that had the Queen using a poison comb, it was decided that a poisoned apple was to be the weapon of choice, The object of the Queen's wrath was of course <b>Snow White who was spoken and sung by 21 year old Adriana Caselotti </b>(below). Adriana brought a very sweet voice to Snow White, both in<div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjLys3F9iJvgTA4AMpWhLy9lmmjLwwDgAVLSWL-mGHyzBGZLeHHP2032uW0fj9dxX-fToQkHU8BVbLyO5YWkN2oQRbw79SarUMqn-9FuNHxz1Bd3Qzt7uQLmxf9IBe92zgVgnXchDFiC1uJ/s348/Adriana_Caselotti_photo.jpg" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0; text-align: center; clear: right; float: right;"><img alt="" border="0" height="320" data-original-height="348" data-original-width="285" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjLys3F9iJvgTA4AMpWhLy9lmmjLwwDgAVLSWL-mGHyzBGZLeHHP2032uW0fj9dxX-fToQkHU8BVbLyO5YWkN2oQRbw79SarUMqn-9FuNHxz1Bd3Qzt7uQLmxf9IBe92zgVgnXchDFiC1uJ/s320/Adriana_Caselotti_photo.jpg"/></a></div> song and in dialogue, as a direct contrast to the darkness of evil Queen. Her version of "Some Day My Prince Will Come" by Frank Churchill was one of the hilights of the film. And I couldn't resist whistling along with "Heigh Ho, Heigh Ho, It's Home From Work We Go" by Frank Churchill, and Larry Morey. Of course, there were artists all over the place on this one. The main concept artist in this production was Albert Hurter who had final approval on everything: from the look on each character to the animals to the rocks surrounding the dark castle had to be approved by Mr.Hurter before it went into the film.
That is just a hint of what went into the production of this magnificent film. The main point is that Disney got his baby out to the public.<b>The film premiered at the Carthay Circle Theater on December 21, 1937,</b> to an audience which was very receptive, and which contained some of the people who were most critical of its production. An audience contaning the likes of Marlene Dietrich, Charles Laughton and Judy Garland gave it a standing ovation. The American publication Variety observed that<i> "[so] perfect is the illusion, so tender the romance and fantasy, so emotional are certain portions when the acting of the characters strikes a depth comparable to the sincerity of human players, that the film approaches real greatness."</i>
Following successful intial runs in New York and Miami, the film was put into general release all around the United States on February 4, 1937. It became the most sucessful sound film of all time. Of course it was eclipsed in this by "Gone With The Wind" (1939), but it did remarkably well in foreign releases such as England and Australia. The film was re-released during the War, and it did so well that Disney began the practice of re-releasing every ten years. Eventually with VHS, and DVD technology, and all manner of special editions,"Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" looks to be a permanent part of our cinematic firmament.
...<b>Sources:</b> = .............................................. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snow_White_and_the_Seven_Dwarfs_(1937_film)...... https://disney.fandom.com/wiki/Snow_White_and_the_Seven_Dwarfs.................
https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/disney-releases-snow-white-and-the-seven-dwarfs..........https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/disney-releases-snow-white-and-the-sevendwarfs.......https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walt_Disney...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adriana_Caselotti......https://disney.fandom.com/wiki/Albert_Hurter......https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grimms%27_Fairy_Tales
Brian T. Boltenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15347138270315020257noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3909482254164785217.post-46207126729522233552020-12-26T11:04:00.030-08:002020-12-26T11:25:39.139-08:00December 26 = The Battle of Trenton.
On December 23, 1776 Thomas Paine wrote <i>"these are the times that try men's souls."</i> in his incendiary pamphlet <i><i>"Common Sense"</i>.</i> Surely it was so for George Washington's Continental army. They had been kicked out of New York and all of the Forts which they had erected on the Brooklyn Hieghts. And his army was literally disintegrating arround him his soldier's enlistment papers were due to expire at the end of the year. The men he had were in very poor shape, many of whom were <i>"entirely naked and most so thinly clad as to be unfit for service"</i> in Washington's own description, The only element in their favor was winter, which kept the Delaware River frozen, and safely between the Brits and the Americans. The British had settled into their winter quarters, hoping that either the freezing winter, or renewed hostilities in the spring, would end the rebellion. Indeed the Hessians (German mercenaries in the employ of the Brits) had settled down with a mere 1500 men at Trenton, just 9 miles down the road across the Delaware River.
<b>Washington Conceived a Bold Plan</b> to keep his army together and in the field.
Washinton refused to see himself as beaten no matter what William Howe (the General in charge of the British forces) thought. He now had the permission of the Congress to use the army in any way he thought productive, and this seemed to stimulate his thoughts.<i>"His Excellency George Washington" </i>General Greene (below) would record later <i>"never appeared to so much advantage as the hour of stress."</i><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEig8aL_mnlVhcZWADvac2MGxXuDG2cIRVxFsajNVukFoPKEA026ZmGZD9BPYjBQb_e1jOhdACchLpaBsVHrZuLMwzgeI_XgdALLoo_xJXnl4lIEKnkf7A9rqYWlYnX1gH4JWtnD3LHdcpmK/s400/General+Greene.jpg" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0; text-align: center; clear: left; float: left;"><img alt="" border="0" height="200" data-original-height="400" data-original-width="323" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEig8aL_mnlVhcZWADvac2MGxXuDG2cIRVxFsajNVukFoPKEA026ZmGZD9BPYjBQb_e1jOhdACchLpaBsVHrZuLMwzgeI_XgdALLoo_xJXnl4lIEKnkf7A9rqYWlYnX1gH4JWtnD3LHdcpmK/s200/General+Greene.jpg"/></a></div> Washinington devised a daring plan to sting the British, and the Hessiaan mercenaries. capture a ton of much-needed supplies as well as give a huge boost to his Armies morale. ....... His plan was the reverse of what anyone expected. Instead of huddling in winter quarters like the Brits and their Hessian pals did, <b>he proposed to ATTACK!<i></i></b>................He would move his 2,400 man force, including horse and eighteen cannons, across the ice-choked Delaware River, divide his forces into two, one under Greene and one under Sullivan, to launch a pre-dawn attack. Sullivan would attack the town from the south, and Greene from the north at dawn on December 26. The task of ferrying everything across the Delaware River fell on Colonel John Glover and his tough, rugged band of Massachusetts fishermen. After revealing his plan at a council of war, Washington ordered as many boats as his men could lay ther hands on to be located and ferried to his position ten miles above Trenton. And the strictest silence had to be maintained. The freezing troops of the Continental Army were given meager provisions for three days and were not told the objective, only that the password was,<i> “Victory or Death!"</i> <div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhrGpME14kGKTv_nTZcAfF1MCvWXH1B9WnB8VcO9c5jQ1i5NpCuMIsvknIUxJiD3WG0J_JElBkrmYPmx5K8-9rRDICbPThoYg-CKCqxFqIAdmGs4WixtHEcm1KwqLfZleIea_q1GG-gj24G/s297/Crosing+the+Delaware.jpg" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0; text-align: center; clear: right; float: right;"><img alt="" border="0" width="400" data-original-height="170" data-original-width="297" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhrGpME14kGKTv_nTZcAfF1MCvWXH1B9WnB8VcO9c5jQ1i5NpCuMIsvknIUxJiD3WG0J_JElBkrmYPmx5K8-9rRDICbPThoYg-CKCqxFqIAdmGs4WixtHEcm1KwqLfZleIea_q1GG-gj24G/s400/Crosing+the+Delaware.jpg"/></a></div>
Henry Knox, Washington’s Chief of Artillery recalled in a letter to his wife, <i>"The moon was full on Christmas night. As men and material loaded into the transports.."Floating ice in the river made the labor almost incredible.”</i> The river’s strong and swift current complicated matters, as did a nasty nor’easter which began pelting everyone with snow, freezing rain and sleet, accompanied by a steady and stiff wind. By 3:00 am, Washington’s troops were across. <i>“Perseverance,</i>” wrote Knox, <i>“accomplished what first seemed impossible."</i>
Behind schedule because of the storm, the Americans arrived on the outskirts of Trenton around daybreak on the 26th. Washington split his force into two columns. One, commanded by Nathaniel Greene attacked from the north, while a second under John Sullivan attacked from the west to cut the line of retreat to the south.
Recalling the assault, one American officer said,<i> “I never could conceive that one spirit should so universally animate both officers and men to rush forward into action.”</i>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj75pylA4dK1dr_CHYl2DNK7Dd5MgmFQLq4HUhgs37h4xN2TDLnkWviXjzF9fBx0lnbRnXaPTDFG99g3qkX-pXlhPUXr-HXIaeUZBE1VMWpwLhlDA83iFJH8x9Xv2RrXFprDgXczVCmGFvk/s1200/Battle_of_Trenton_by_Charles_McBarron.jpg" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0; text-align: center; clear: right; float: right;"><img alt="" border="0" width="320" data-original-height="874" data-original-width="1200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj75pylA4dK1dr_CHYl2DNK7Dd5MgmFQLq4HUhgs37h4xN2TDLnkWviXjzF9fBx0lnbRnXaPTDFG99g3qkX-pXlhPUXr-HXIaeUZBE1VMWpwLhlDA83iFJH8x9Xv2RrXFprDgXczVCmGFvk/s320/Battle_of_Trenton_by_Charles_McBarron.jpg"/></a></div> As they marched, Washington rode up and down the line, urging his men to forward. General Sullivan sent a message to Washington that the weather was wetting his men's gunpowder. Washington ordered, <i>"Tell General Sullivan to use the bayonet. I am resolved to take Trenton."</i>
The Hessian garrison, under the command of Colonel Johann Rall had been harassed by American militia for several weeks and were exhausted. Despite Washington engaging the pickets on the outskirts of town, Rall was taken completely by surprise. The Hessians attempted to form up at several spots but were unable to do so effectively. It became a running battle and the Americans quickly had the upper hand. Some of the Hessians did manage to escape, but most of them were captured.
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjH_5plOjkHsMDE6dw6VUDfMWyzrhSZiforujwrllE3_0GmqGd4fD-n_TdkiOHtRTZ_hxSkeDz89WCgyUE56-dM5_2BCguN2Q8hXOeEb9I5IKY5UIGue7RT4yWWOqFZUMYFDxNRthxPG8Tv/s278/More+Battle+of+Trenton.jpg" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0; text-align: center; clear: left; float: left;"><img alt="" border="0" width="320" data-original-height="181" data-original-width="278" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjH_5plOjkHsMDE6dw6VUDfMWyzrhSZiforujwrllE3_0GmqGd4fD-n_TdkiOHtRTZ_hxSkeDz89WCgyUE56-dM5_2BCguN2Q8hXOeEb9I5IKY5UIGue7RT4yWWOqFZUMYFDxNRthxPG8Tv/s320/More+Battle+of+Trenton.jpg"/></a></div> The battle raged with the Americans pouring down their assault upon the suddenly awakened Teuonic enemies. The Hessians were never sufficiently able to mount an organized defense. At on point they pulled back in as orderly a fashion as they could through the streets of Trenton only to be surrounded by the Americans in a peach orchard on the outskirts. Hessian commander Col. Johann Rall attempted to rally his men, but it couldn't be done, as his men felt frightened by this surprise attack. Col. Rall wound up beeing mortally wounded. This left his troops demoralized and those who saw this through their weapons to the ground and surrendered.
The Hessians lost 22 men killed in the fight with another 86 receiving wounds and close to 900 were taken prisoner. The Americans also seized much-needed supplies, including additional cannons and 1,200 muskets. The Americans suffered only five casualties, all only wounded. It was a major victory that proved a vital boost to the American cause when it desperately needed it.
<b>Washington had won a stunning victory.</b> The army that the British thought was all but defeated had destroyed a major garrison with very light casualties, capturing critical supplies in the process. Striking on Washington took to cross and recross Delaware again over the next ten days, fighting a delaying action at the Battle of the Assunpink and winning another stunning victory at the Battle of Princeton. The Revolution had survived.
<b>Sources =</b>
https://www.battlefields.org/learn/revolutionary-war/battles/trenton.....
https://www.battlefields.org/learn/articles/trenton.....
https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/washington-wins-first-major-u-s-victory-at-trenton........
<b>"1776"</b> by David McCullough, Simon & Schuster, New York, 2005.
<b>"The American Heritage History of the American Revolution" </b>by Bruce Lancaster, American Heritage Publising Co. New York, 1971......
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Trenton
x x
Brian T. Boltenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15347138270315020257noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3909482254164785217.post-86648680376286403142020-12-12T11:37:00.001-08:002020-12-14T08:12:16.045-08:00December 14, 1911 = Amundsen Wins Race to the South PoleOn today's date, December 14 in 1911, Norwegian <b>Roald Amundsen</b> (below) became the first explorer to reach the South Pole, beating his British rival, Robert Falcon Scott by more than a month.
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEicfANBGH2P0_GpA5ckOIqKdUOTVYeJDns_zV0ckzVjAarA2DDI9-yHtEiEjuekB3OZLxs3tS1SSCMQ8gQOJRILEXyx7x0PndBCC51mbJ33ZMQwFhDqtye0HHGKJC6bYkOAvLrH0pr57jX2/s444/330px-Amundsen_in_fur_skins.jpg" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0; text-align: center; clear: left; float: left;"><img alt="" border="0" height="320" data-original-height="444" data-original-width="330" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEicfANBGH2P0_GpA5ckOIqKdUOTVYeJDns_zV0ckzVjAarA2DDI9-yHtEiEjuekB3OZLxs3tS1SSCMQ8gQOJRILEXyx7x0PndBCC51mbJ33ZMQwFhDqtye0HHGKJC6bYkOAvLrH0pr57jX2/s320/330px-Amundsen_in_fur_skins.jpg"/></a></div>
Amundsen, born in Borge, near Oslo, in 1872, was one of the greatest figures in the history of polar exploration. In 1897, he was first mate on a Belgian expedition that was the first ever to spend the entire winter in Antarctica. In 1903, he steered the 47-ton sloop Gjöa around the coast of Canada using the Northwest Passage and becoming the first navigator to accomplish that treacherous route. He was having some difficulty raising funds for a dash to the North Pole when he heard in 1909 that the Americans Frederick Cook and Robert Peary had already gotten there.
Amundsen completed his preparations and in June 1910 sailed instead for Antarctica, secretly changing his plans. Without telling his financial backers or even his own crewmen at first, the Norwegian steered his ship Fram toward Antarctica and set his sights on reaching the South Pole. Before arriving, he sent a letter to<b> Captain Robert Falcon Scott of the British Royal Navy</b>(below) <div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8DNm7QVqIisrQUIagzy6i9SQUKgCbTmpfNS3GQ5YWL8DHtBJteoFuulTdWTaA44u_rrlHhPXTtBX_9SNGXt3UVxSFgh48z0e4_dMH1TrB5YhZgsuRIEGTAPGz7VzkuP5bVf8GaPrvPwnI/s471/Robert+Falcon+Scott.jpg" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0; text-align: center; clear: right; float: right;"><img alt="" border="0" height="320" data-original-height="471" data-original-width="330" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8DNm7QVqIisrQUIagzy6i9SQUKgCbTmpfNS3GQ5YWL8DHtBJteoFuulTdWTaA44u_rrlHhPXTtBX_9SNGXt3UVxSFgh48z0e4_dMH1TrB5YhZgsuRIEGTAPGz7VzkuP5bVf8GaPrvPwnI/s320/Robert+Falcon+Scott.jpg"/></a></div>who was preparing his own expedition in Australia. It read simply: <i>“Beg leave to inform you Fram proceeding Antarctic. Amundsen.”</i> Amundsen sailed his ship into Antarctica’s Bay of Whales and set up base camp 60 miles closer to the pole than Scott. Both explorers set up their means of trasportation Amundsen using sleigh dogs, and Scott employing Siberian motor sledges, Siberian ponies, and dogs. There was considerable press coverage to the two teams in what they called <i>“race for the South Pole.” </i>
After spending the early part of 1911 laying down advance caches of food and supplies for their polar journeys, Amundsen and Scott’s expeditions took shelter and spent several months waiting out the dark and frigid Antarctic winter. Amundsen later tried to get a head start by beginning his journey early in September 1911, but was forced to turn back after temperatures fell as far as 68 degrees below zero. <b>Finally, on October 20, 1911,</b> conditions improved enough for his five-man team to begin their dash to the Pole. Scott got underway just a few days later on November 1.
Amundsen and Scott relied on vastly different forms of transport during their journeys. Scott employed a combination of sled dogs, Manchurian ponies and even several motorized tractors. The machines fell victim to the arctic temperatures which quickly caused them to break down. Similarly, the cold caused his ponies to grow weak and they had had to be shot. After sending the dogs back to camp, he and his team were forced to spend much of their strength for their journey hauling their heavy supply sledges on foot. Amundsen, meanwhile, relied solely on skis and sled dogs to cross the tundra. The dogs helped his men save their strength, and the explorers later killed the weakest of the animals to supplement their food supply.
<b> Thanks to the speed of his dog teams</b>, Amundsen’s party managed to race toward the Pole at a pace of over 20 miles per day. The Norwegians took a previouly untried route that forced them to navigate a dizzying icy trail of crevasses, mountains and glaciers, but by early December, they had penetrated farther into the interior of Antarctica than anyone in history. Amundsen would later summed up his feelings at this moment of triumph: <i>“had the same feeling that I can remember as a little boy on the night before Christmas Eve—an intense</i> <div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKdJ0soisr-nnEy6azIkVRFPMqaCAduzamWldi8ogDETO0xj77b2ojpcrPR5dDGAPJ1CUtYJsniYw2KpgGDwfVPnpwxA8MtzJS2giR5BRfeFQnsZ7DKrkiZ_DgOmxdnQ7QQ_2poLMMhctG/s525/525px-At_the_South_Pole%252C_December_1911.jpg" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0; text-align: center; clear: right; float: right;"><img alt="" border="0" width="320" data-original-height="350" data-original-width="525" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKdJ0soisr-nnEy6azIkVRFPMqaCAduzamWldi8ogDETO0xj77b2ojpcrPR5dDGAPJ1CUtYJsniYw2KpgGDwfVPnpwxA8MtzJS2giR5BRfeFQnsZ7DKrkiZ_DgOmxdnQ7QQ_2poLMMhctG/s320/525px-At_the_South_Pole%252C_December_1911.jpg"/></a></div><i>expectation of what was going to happen.”</i> Finally, on December 14, 1911, he and his companions arrived at the South Pole. The men planted the Norwegian flag, (Pictured,above)smoked celebratory cigars and posed for snapshots, but they only remained for a few days before beginning the arduous trek back to their base camp. <i><i>“The goal was reached,”</i></i> Amundsen wrote, <i>“our journey ended.”</i>
<b>Scott's Team Arrives...Late</b>
Over a month later on January 17, 1912, Scott and his weary British team finally reached the Pole. And there they found that Scott had left him notes informing him that he had beaten them to their prize location by just over a month. Now Scott had to find their way back to their base camp. Having reached the South Pole late in the summer of the Antarctic. The Temperatures were dropping rapidly as Scott's weary company began its slow and laborious track to the north. But exhaustion from frostbite and not enough food began to spread throughout the weary group. <b> Nevertheless Scott kept a diary of his travels almost the end.</b>
<i>"Wednesday, 17 January
Great God! this is an awful place and terrible enough for us to have labor to it without the reward of priority
</i>
<i>"Thursday 29 March
Since the 21'st we have had a continuous gale from West Southwest and Southwest. We had fuel to make 2 cups of tea a piece and bare food for two days on the 20th. Every day have been ready to start for depot 11 miles away, but outside the door of the tent it remains a scene of whirling drift. I do not think can hope for better things now. We shall stick it out to the end, but we are getting weaker of course and the end cannot be far. It seems a pity, but I do not think I can write more."
"For God sake look for our people."</i>
The members of Scott's Scott’s group had a much tougher time on their return trek. Scott's dog teams were sent back while Scott and his four explorers continued on foot. On January 18, 1912, they reached the pole only to find that Amundsen had preceded them by over a month. Weather on the return journey was exceptionally bad–two members perished–and a storm later trapped Scott and the other two survivors in their tent only 11 miles from their base camp. Scott’s frozen body was found later that year.
<b>Sources =<i></i></b>
<b>"The Mammoth Book of Eyewitness History"</b> Edited by John B Lewis
Carroll & Graf Publishers, Inc. 1998.
<b>"The Treacherous Race to the South Pole"</b> By Evan Andrews....
https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/amundsen-reaches-south-pole....
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roald_Amundsen....
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amundsen%27s_South_Pole_expedition....
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Falcon_Scott
Brian T. Boltenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15347138270315020257noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3909482254164785217.post-85157970224357867072020-11-02T08:08:00.004-08:002020-11-02T08:44:53.284-08:00November 2, 1948 – Dewey defeats Truman!Note= This posting is intended strictly as report on the remarkable events that happened in 1948 on this date.<b> NO</b> support or lack of support for either of the candidates on the ballot tomorrow is intended.
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<b>"Dewey Defeats Truman"</b> was an incorrect banner headline on the front page of the Chicago Daily Tribune on November 3, 1948, the day after incumbent United States President, Harry S. Truman, won an upset victory over Republican challenger and Governor of New York, Thomas E. Dewey, in the 1948 presidential election. The President bought the paper's early edition. The... mistake was famously held up by Truman at a public appearance following his successful election, smiling triumphantly at the error.
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<b>What had gone wrong at the polls?</b>
Harry Truman had been thrust into the presidency by the death of Franklin Roosevelt in April 1945. Most Americans seemed to appreciate his steady grip on the government during difficult times. But the Republicans nominated Thomas E Dewey governor of New York (above). During his time as governor of New York and during his time as New York City Dist. Attorney, Dewey had made it his business to go after mafia related crime syndicates such as the one led by Lucky Lucciano and others. Both men seemed qualified. Dewey seemed like a more steady reliable hand at the helm of government. Some papers while expressing fondness for the president could not support him. <i>"However much affection you may feel for Mr. Truman and whatever sympathy we may feel for him in his strugges with his difficulties,"</i> said a front-page editorial in the Baltimore Sun, <i>"to vote him into the presidency on November 2 would be a tragedy for the country and for the world."</i> For some time polls had been predicting Dewey as being ahead of Tuman by 5 to 15 points. <i>“We stopped polling a few weeks too soon,”</i> said George Gallup Jr., co-chairman of the Gallup organization and son and namesake of another polling titan. <i>“We had been lulled into thinking that nothing much changes in the last few weeks of the campaign.”</i>
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<b>Truman's 1948 Campaign:</b> within the Democratic Party, there was some opposition Truman. After he forced a strong civil rights plank into the party platform that year Truman faced a walkout of many Southern Democrats under the leadership of Strom Thurmond,who formed a "Dixiecrat" party separate from the Democratic ticket.Similarly former vice president Henry Wallace,who favored more progressive policies than Truman formed his own "Progressive Party", and these exspected to take some points away from Truman's Democratic Party.
Given what seemed a deadly three-way split the Democratic Party, Dewey decided to take the high road in his campaign speaking in generalities and vague platitudes about what a great picture that they had in front of her.
The Louisville Courier Journal summed up what it saw as Dewey's bland and vague campaign by saying it could be reduced to four sentences: <i>"agriculture is important, our rivers are full of fish, you cannot have freedom without liberty, our future lies ahead."</i>
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<b>But Truman's feisty fighting personality</b> let him out on whistle stop campaign all across America. As can be seen in the map above Truman's campaign touched countless towns with countless speeches about his campaign. It was an Odyssey of 31,000 miles across the country and 352 speeches during his whistle stop tour and put him in personal contact countless civilians who understoodhis plain speaking style and appreciated it. Dewey was determined to avoid anything too controversial by criticizing Truman directly. In contrast to Dewey's restrained style, Truman unleashed a continuous attack upon Dewey by name, his refusal to cite issues specifically, and the "Do nothing" republican held 80'th Congress. The candidate for the most part seemed unbeatable, his outlook entirely positive. Between speeches he could lie down and go immediately to sleep however rough the road had been. <i>"Give me 20 minutes."</i> he would say. The strain of the campaign seemed to make him more firm even, in his purpose. At no point in the entire campaign to the staff, or the press, or even any of his family did he show less willingness to go on. The odds were all against him yet this only seemed to make him stronger. His natural optimism seemed to take over and keep them going. Several well-known and influential newspaper columnists, such as Drew Pearson and Joseph Alsop didn't believe Truman had a chance. Influential politcians said that Truman didn't have a chance and in their talks suggested which of Dewey's circle would take over which cabinet positions.
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<b>But still,the unthinkable began happening!</b> On the night of the election Dewey and his family and his staff confidentally assembled at the Roosevelt Hotel in New York City. There they fully expected returns coming in from all of the country electing Dewey to the presidency. Truman, used his Secret Service men assigned to him to steal away the historic Elms Hotel in nearby Excelsior Springs Missouri.There, he had dinner took a bath and went to sleep. " In the returns that started coming in Truman took an early which he never relinquished. Leading radio constantly reported that the returns were coming in from other parts of the country that would overcome Truman's lead and win the election for Dewey. Meanwhile over the radio the authoritative voices of radio commentators were reporting that the president was ahead by 1.2 million notes, but that Truman was undoubtedly beaten. Truman's staffers kept vigil over the radio for the next several hours. The tide was turning, with reports coming in that said Truman was leading by 2 million votes! They got Truman to wake up and turn on his radio radio to hear the commentator saying he didn't seem how Truman could possibly be elected since states like Ohio and Illinois which is where Dewey's base of "rural votes" was, had not been tallied yet. "We got 'em beat!" Truman said. The Secret Service got the car ready and they took a ride to Kansas City. Dewey had carried New York New Jersey and Michigan, but Truman and taken Massachusetts all the South except four states, was winning in Wisconsin, Iowa, and Colorado, He held by slim margins in Illinois and Ohio so far, and was ahead in all-important California. Dewey for his part began to realize the trouble he was in the early returns from New England and New York shows his new tallies as much less than was expected. He stayed up rest the evening and early morning analyzing the bits as they were counted. By 10:30 AM Dewey realized the jig was up at 11:14 AM he sent a kind letter of concession Pres. Truman. Clearly the pollsters had gotten it all wrong and went back to their books and came up with new ways of interpreting their data. Truman went on to serve four more eventfull years as president of the United States. But with a picture of Truman holding up the Chicago Tribune saying Dewey had defeated him in their memories, polllsters were never quite so sure of themselves again.
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<b>Sources</b> =
<b>"Truman"</b> by David McCullough. Simon and Schuster, 1992.XXXXXX https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1948_United_States_presidential_election#Fall_campaignXXXXX https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/truman-defeats-dewey XXXXX https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna26661213
Brian T. Boltenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15347138270315020257noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3909482254164785217.post-88157924072544463332020-06-23T17:19:00.000-07:002020-07-29T10:44:38.542-07:00JUNE 23 = Hitler Tours Paris<br />
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<br />
Adolf Hitler, Der Fuehrer his very own self stopped by Paris for a few hours to gaze and gawk a bit on today's date, June 23 in 1940. He had a full schedule of things that he wanted to see, but he was there for just a few hours that morning, and that was it. He left promptly and never came back. All the better for the people of Paris one might say, but there it was. Evidently the man was as odd as he was evil. Now I should say right off that I've run into several other internet sources saying that Hitler's visit came on the 24th, the 25th, and also the 21st. But I've found more saying the 23rd was the date than others citing another date so that is the one I'm going with. Forgive me if I've gotten it wrong.<br />
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<b>Hitler Arrives on the Spot</b><br />
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The Germans blew through the French defenses without too much trouble and and the French wound up surrendering to the Germans on June 22, 1940 on the very spot where Germany had had to surrender to France at the end of World War I. In fact Hitler had the railway car of Marshall Foch (the General who had beaten the Germans in 1918) hauled to the spot in Compiegne Forest wherein the 1918 ceremony had taken place and took the French armistice there, not wanting to pass up this chance to rub salt into the wounds of his enemies. He subsequently had the memorial sight destroyed. Hitler also ordered the destruction of two other memorials: one of French War Hero General Mangin and one of Edith Cavell a nurse who helped Allied troops to escape the Germans in World One. Now that he had destroyed these little details, Hitler had a few other things to do.<br />
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<b>Der Fuehrer Decides to Have a Look at Paris</b><br />
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Albert Speer, whom Hitler referred as his "colleague" in matters of Art and Architecture was informed by the Little Corporal himself that he wished tour the French capitol in a few days, and that he wanted Speer as part of his entourage. So at 5:30 a.m. the plane carrying Hitler and his Henchmen arrived at Le Bourget airport near Paris and they all piled into three large Mercedes sedans (with Hitler seated as usual next to the driver) and drove through streets largely unoccupied at such an early hour. They went directly to Paris Opera House - a great neobaroque building designed by Charles<br />
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Garnier which was very dear to Hitler's "heart". The great stairway was very spacious and highly ornamented as well as the elegant foyer (above) all were carefully examined. Hitler, who took on the role of guide in spite of the presence of a guide from the Opera Co. noticed a salon was missing and pointed it out, but the guide already knew it. Hitler was quite taken with all of this beauty. When the tour was finally over Hitler through his adjutant offered a couple of times to pay the Opera's attendant 50 marks, which the man politely but firmly declined saying that he was 'only doing his job."<br />
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<b>Off to the Eiffel Tower!</b><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXoLGELvX3eJpk3HnZB8lscJXBerrzB3dg_2nTDSiNQuIyRs9TS88ZKM04gj2y0agU3W72zM9zZW-zYzOC0pIqJS-Z4fzSoVPwVafekG8igwzpJ6yPSjpQGPA8vUO_c5gjGUyw0Wwm5U7P/s1600/Hitler%2527s+triumphant+tour+of+Paris%252C+1940+%25281%2529.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="733" data-original-width="1100" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXoLGELvX3eJpk3HnZB8lscJXBerrzB3dg_2nTDSiNQuIyRs9TS88ZKM04gj2y0agU3W72zM9zZW-zYzOC0pIqJS-Z4fzSoVPwVafekG8igwzpJ6yPSjpQGPA8vUO_c5gjGUyw0Wwm5U7P/s320/Hitler%2527s+triumphant+tour+of+Paris%252C+1940+%25281%2529.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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Next the Motorcade proceeded past the Rue Madeline, on down the Champs Elysees, and on to the Eiffel Tower. Hitler seemed in the film of this event to be one more tourist looking the place over; not overly impressed as he moved among his cronies. From the Arc de Triomphe which included<br />
France's Tomb of the Uknown Soldier, Hitler's caravan move onto L'Invalides there to gaze upon the tomb of Napoleon (the Original Little Corporal)which he spent some time doing. He later ordered that the remains of Napoleon's son to be re-interred alongside of his Dad. Hitler was much impressed by the Pantheon, but had no great interest in the most significant architectural works in Paris: the Place des Vosges, the Palace of Justice, and the Louvre. The only sight he got into was the unitary row of houses on the fashionable Rue de Rivoli. After taking in a few more churches, Hitler had everyone back at airport by 9:00 a.m.. It was one of the greatest cities in world, but after less than three hours this man had had his fill. Nevertheless he later gushed to Speer: "It was the dream of my life to be permitted to see Paris. I cannot say how happy I am to have that dream fulfilled today."<br />
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Sources =<br />
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<a href="https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/hitler-takes-a-tour-of-paris">https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/hitler-takes-a-tour-of-paris</a></div>
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<a href="http://www.eyewitnesstohistory.com/hitlerparis.htm">http://www.eyewitnesstohistory.com/hitlerparis.htm</a></div>
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<a href="https://www.google.com/search?q=rue+Rivoli&oq=rue++Rivoli&aqs=chrome..69i57j0l2j46j0l3j69i60.46675j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8">https://www.google.com/search?q=rue+Rivoli&oq=rue++Rivoli&aqs=chrome..69i57j0l2j46j0l3j69i60.46675j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8</a></div>
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<br />Brian T. Boltenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15347138270315020257noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3909482254164785217.post-82326940208123524012020-06-21T13:53:00.000-07:002020-06-21T14:02:36.148-07:00Father's Day<br />
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<br />
It is amazing to me think that I've been doing this Blog since about 2014 (I think!), and only today did I notice that I've never done a posting about Father's Day! I know that I've posted the picture to the left of my own magnificent father before, and I've written about<br />
his participation in World War II. And within my family, I have a couple more veterans, my brother-in-law Dave and my brother Pat, both of them veterans of the U.S. Navy. And there is nephew Pat Jr., who served in the U.S. Army. There is another brother, not me, but my brother John who is a Dad. And two more nephews (both of whom are taller than me), and a couple of nephews in law all of whom, just like the men mentioned above are excellent fathers and husbands. I wish them all Happy Father's Day!<br />
<br />
<b>A Bit of the History of Father's Day</b><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9ESZI29bvOxvql9hElLEs5MLeKzEjcQXV1xqskm5fwQ0OneMVIHAjLIswAyn8ltW-38PHgaKeYbhCJkEBRDJmhdH3gIDB3rEbxSXGBZfNt9Mawd50cR4Aiv9FjS9eFm7D-jvkzhPeldTY/s1600/SONORA_DODD.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="900" data-original-width="1600" height="111" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9ESZI29bvOxvql9hElLEs5MLeKzEjcQXV1xqskm5fwQ0OneMVIHAjLIswAyn8ltW-38PHgaKeYbhCJkEBRDJmhdH3gIDB3rEbxSXGBZfNt9Mawd50cR4Aiv9FjS9eFm7D-jvkzhPeldTY/s200/SONORA_DODD.jpg" width="200" /></a> There are versions of Father's Day across the world on which we celebrate our Fathers and show our filial devotion to the men who brought us into this world. In Americca, the first celebration is thought to have been a memorial service held for the men who had been killed in the <a href="https://historysstory.blogspot.com/2013/12/december-6-monongah-mining-disaster.html" target="_blank">Mining Disaster which took place in Monongah, West Virginia</a> in 1907. But following that, it seems to have been the inspiration of a woman named Sonora Smart Dodd (pictured,right) (1882 - 1978), a native of Arkansas. When listening to a sermon about the newly created Mother's Day at the Central Methodist Church in Spokane, Washington. Ms. Dodd held her own father, a Civil War veteran very dearly in her heart, and after hearing the sermon felt that there should be a day to honor fathers as well. She spoke with church leaders about her idea which was well received. They chose the third Sunday in June as the date. So Father's Day was first celebrated in Spokane on June 19, 1910.<br />
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<b>The Date Changes Over Time</b><br />
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Observance of the day faded over the course of the following decade. But it regained popularity ans in 1916, President Woodrow Wilson wrote a telegram to the leaders of Spokane praising them for their celebrations of the day, and the great orator William Jennings Bryan<br />
spoke out in favor of observance of the day.And getting closer to our own time, President Lyndon Johnson signed a presidential proclamation declaring that the third Sunday in June to be Father's Day. And in 1972 President Richard Nixon established the third Sunday in June to be the permanent observance of Father's Day. Of course there are hundreds of merchants and department stores which try their best to cash in with sales of all kinds. But Ms. Dodd that she thought anything to honor our fathers was fine with her. So let's get going with parties, and toasts to the loving spirit of our fathers, and warm memories of those, who like my own Dad are no longer here to share them with us.<br />
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<b><br /></b>
<b>Sources =</b><br />
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<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Father%27s_Day">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Father%27s_Day</a><br />
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<a href="https://www.spokesman.com/stories/2017/jun/18/it-started-here-sonora-dodd-the-spokane-mother-of-/" target="_blank"> https://www.spokesman.com/stories/2017/jun/18/it-started-here-sonora-dodd-the-spokane-mother-of-/</a><br />
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<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonora_Smart_Dodd">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonora_Smart_Dodd</a><br />
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<br />Brian T. Boltenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15347138270315020257noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3909482254164785217.post-29662877719440613642020-05-21T13:56:00.002-07:002020-05-21T15:44:22.917-07:00MAY 21 = Clara Barton Founds the American Red Cross<br />
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<br />
"But perhaps the most resilient worker of them all, and certainly the one who stirred up was a stiff-spined little spinster in a plain black dress and muddy boots who had brought the newly organized American Red Cross in from Washington. Miss Clara<br />
Barton and her delegation of fifty doctors and nurses had arrived on the B&O early Wednesday morning."<br />
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- David McCullough<br />
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The American Red Cross was founded on today's date, May 21 in 1881.Clara Barton was named president of the society, which held its first official meeting at her I Street apartment in Washington, DC, on this date with the help of Adolphus Solomons a prominent member of the American Jewish community in social welfare matters. Clara Barton was well captured in Mr. McCullough's description of her stirring up notice as she arrived with her Red Cross volunteers and marched right into the thick of disaster. It certainly fits everything ever written about this amazing woman Whether there were casualties from war or from natural disaster she always walked to the heart of the problem and took hands-action to fix it. And usually in a field which was considered men's work.<br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>Clara Barton's Early Life - What Lead Her to Nursing?</b><br />
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Clarissa Harlowe Barton was born on December 25, 1821, to Captain Stephen Barton, a local militia leader and Sarah Stone Barton one of five children in the family. She attended school at age three getting good marks in adding and spelling although socially she was quite timid. At age 10, when her brother David fell from the roof a barn and sustained serious head injury she took upon herself the job of nursing him back to health when most of the doctors had given up on him. She obviously had an ability to learn and the compassion to help those who were suffering. She taught in New Jersey and eventually had a job as a clerk in the U.S. Patent Office.<br />
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<b>The Civil War Breaks Out.</b><br />
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In the spring of 1861, the bloodshed from the war started arriving in Washington D.C. where Clara worked at the time. She wanted to serve, so she went to the train station and saw all of the suffering.<br />
She began nursing the wounded men. She provided vital personal help to these men who were hungry and suffering from battle wounds, and who had very few supplies. So she began taking supplies to them at the unfinished Capitol building where they had been taken. Barton and some of the other women there provided food, decent clothing and began dressing their wounds. Through this experience, Barton learned the business of storing and distributing medical supplies. She also<br />
offered emotional support to the men, reading to them, and writing letters home for them. From this point onward in her life she devoted herself to providing help and supplies to wounded soldiers. She even stored many of the supplies at her own home. In 1862 she was given permission by Quartermaster Daniel Rucker to work at the frontline of battle.<br />
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<b>"The Angel of the Battlefield"</b><br />
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<i>"I may be compelled to face danger, but never fear it, and while our soldiers can stand and fight, I can stand and feed and nurse them." - Clara Barton</i><br />
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She brought loads of supplies along with her in three army wagons for the suffering wounded going directly to them in the field hospitals. She even braved the havoc at Antietam where the shortage of supplies forced some surgeons to make bandages out of corn husks. She organized men who were able to practice first aid, prepare food and carry water. She paid for much of this with donations from citizens and much of it with her own funds (for which the government eventually reimbursed her). For the duration of the war, Barton had her wagons following the Union Army caring for the sick and wounded not just of the Union, but also tending Confederate prisoners as well. She became known as<br />
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"The Angel of the Battllefield." Many of the male surgeons objected to woman nosing into what they considered men's work but she ignored them and kept on working. During the union assault on Battery Wagner (July 18, 1863) many of the wounded were brought to Clara's care on Morris Island. There she would care or the sick, pass out mail and fresh food. Barton herself, based in her tent became very ill and had to be evacuated to Hilton Head. Of the action there, Barton said:<br />
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<i>"We have captured one fort - Gregg - and one charnel house - Wagner - and we have built one cemetery, Morris Island. The thousand little sand-hills that in the pale moonlight are a thousand headstones, and the restless ocean waves that roll and breakup on the whitened beach sing an eternal requiem to the toll-worn gallant dead who sleep beside." </i><br />
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<b>Clara Barton and the International Red Cross</b><br />
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After the grim carnage of the Civil War. Barton helped in identifying<br />
the many missing soldiers left from combat and also in the hellish Confederate P.O.W. camp at Andersonville, Georgia. President Lincoln gave her the title "General Correspondent for the Friends of Paroled Prisoners" and her job was to answer the many inquiries from loved ones of the many soldiers marked "M.I.A.". She was thus required to scour the casualty lists, Prison roles, and parole<br />
roles kept at Annapolis Maryland. In order to accomplish this Hurculean labor Clara produced the Bureau of Records of Missing Men of the Armies of the United States and published Rolls of Missing Men, and had these rolls produced across the country. It was also at her behest that the many anonymous graves at Andersonville be identified and marked. in 1869, she went to Geneva, Switzerland as a member of the International Red Cross. She began searching for wealthy benefactors to contribute to an American chapter of the Red Cross.<br />
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During 1870, the Franco-Prussian War (July, 1870 - May, 1871)broke out with the French getting their clocks cleaned by Bismarck's armies, and their Emperor, Louis Napoleon captured at Sedan. During the course of this mess, the Prussians laid siege to Paris for @ five months.<br />
Here again Clara was on the scene helping to prepare military hospitals, and was in charge of getting supplies to the embattled people of Paris. For her efforts she was rewarded the Prussian Iron Cross. Back in the United States, Clara started working on a project to acquire recognition of the International Committee of the Red Cross by the U.S. government. President Rutherford B. Hayes in 1878 demurred with the thought that the country was unlikely to face a calamitous occurrence such as the Civil War again. She tried again with President Chester Arthur and succeeded with the idea that the Red Cross could be called in to deal with natural disasters such as floods, earthquakes and forest fires. So Clara Barton was named President of the American Red Cross on this date in 1881.<br />
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<b>The American Red Cross Expands</b><br />
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The Red Cross expanded it's meaning and activities with the outbreak of the Spanish American War (April - August, 1898), not only treating American wounded, but also treating refugees and prisoners of the Cuban side of that conflict. Throughout the 1880's wherever there were victims in need following tornadoes or floods along the Ohio River, the Red Cross usually with Barton herself was there with supplies of food, or medical items and general medical care for any who needed it. In<br />
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fact when the city of Johnstown, Pennsylvania was hit with a disastrous flood on March 13, 1889 the American Red Cross took up its first major relief operation with Clara Barton showing up with her corps of 50 doctors and nurses (Coverage in Johnstown newspaper above). They worked steadily and seriously, staying on the scene for a full five months. In 1897, Barton traveled to the Ottoman Empire and brought relief to the Armenian peoples being slaughtered by the Turks. And her final field expedition as President of the leader of the American Red Cross came in 1900 to the relief of huge humanitarian losses suffered by the people of Galveston, Texas following the hurricane that visited there in 1900.<br />
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Miss Barton was forced out as President of the American Red Cross in 1904 when criticism was voiced over issues of mixing personal and professional resources. At age 83, Clara had what has been described an egocentric management style which didn't fit well with the organization of charitable organization such as the Re Cross had grown into. She moved to her home at Glen Echo, Maryland wherein she died of pneumonia on April 12, 1912 at the age of 90. She left us a quote from some time in her life which could be said to be her reaction to the all-male power structure with which she had done battle all of her life:<br />
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<i>"I have an almost complete disregard of precedent, and a faith in the possibility of something better. It irritates me to be told how things have always been done. I defy the tyranny of precedent. I go for anything new that might improve the past."</i><br />
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Of the good she had done with her life it is impossible to say enough. When and where she saw suffering she moved immediately to assuage that suffering, settling only for whatever worked and<br />
appeared to have little time for the traditional toes she stepped on. And there are literally millions of lives that were better off for her work, her determination and dedication.<br />
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Sources =<br />
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<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clara_Barton">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clara_Barton</a><br />
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<a href="https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/american-red-cross-founded">https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/american-red-cross-founded</a><br />
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<a href="https://www.battlefields.org/learn/biographies/clara-barton?gclid=CjwKCAjwqpP2BRBTEiwAfpiD-6ugVzPqHrFv7V-gYIOTbg6CbaBSs0H7OQXFyXwoc5G2VMiaP_ODaBoC4ncQAvD_BwE">https://www.battlefields.org/learn/biographies/clara-barton?gclid=CjwKCAjwqpP2BRBTEiwAfpiD-6ugVzPqHrFv7V-gYIOTbg6CbaBSs0H7OQXFyXwoc5G2VMiaP_ODaBoC4ncQAvD_BwE</a><br />
<a href="https://www.battlefields.org/learn/biographies/clara-barton?gclid=CjwKCAjwqpP2BRBTEiwAfpiD-6ugVzPqHrFv7V-gYIOTbg6CbaBSs0H7OQXFyXwoc5G2VMiaP_ODaBoC4ncQAvD_BwE" target="_blank"><br /></a>
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<a href="https://www.redcross.org/content/dam/redcross/enterprise-assets/about-us/history/history-clara-barton-v5.pdf">https://www.redcross.org/content/dam/redcross/enterprise-assets/about-us/history/history-clara-barton-v5.pdf</a></div>
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<a href="https://www.redcross.org/content/dam/redcross/enterprise-assets/about-us/history/history-clara-barton-v5.pdf">https://www.redcross.org/content/dam/redcross/enterprise-assets/about-us/history/history-clara-barton-v5.pdf</a></div>
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<b style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 13px;"><i>"The Johnstown Flood" </i></b><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 13px;">by David McCullough, Simon and Schuster, New York, 1968</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-size: 13px;"><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "georgia" , serif;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johnstown_Flood">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johnstown_Flood</a></span></span></div>
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<br />Brian T. Boltenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15347138270315020257noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3909482254164785217.post-59600457651249127172020-02-18T12:41:00.000-08:002020-05-20T11:50:13.686-07:00FEBRUARY 18 = Pluto the Ninth Planet is Found , Then Kicked out of the Planets Club!. <br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_xyPBzZprRiQWOt6-Pgzwi6mUP8A3YQyYHC714ISS2rK0JJ-5hQzBkbpF0lJ5kHhKElGQILIkGpG4Cr7LcKNjqTjvJK3tg5oEG25phyphenhyphen5b8rLV7GXfyIphz1Wr9rcu9ifb3cgJ2Y3Gvv4Z/s1600/PLUTO.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="440" data-original-width="440" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_xyPBzZprRiQWOt6-Pgzwi6mUP8A3YQyYHC714ISS2rK0JJ-5hQzBkbpF0lJ5kHhKElGQILIkGpG4Cr7LcKNjqTjvJK3tg5oEG25phyphenhyphen5b8rLV7GXfyIphz1Wr9rcu9ifb3cgJ2Y3Gvv4Z/s320/PLUTO.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: , sans-serif; font-size: 18px; letter-spacing: 0.5px;">Pluto, once believed to be the ninth planet, was discovered on today's date, February 18 in 1930 </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: , sans-serif; font-size: 18px; letter-spacing: 0.5px;">by astronomer Clyde W. Tombaugh working at </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-size: 18px; letter-spacing: 0.5px;">the Lowell Observatory at Flagstaff,</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-size: 18px; letter-spacing: 0.5px;"> Arizona. Now I will readily admit that in this subject of the study of planetary bodies I am taking on a subject about which I know almost nothing. But this seemed like an important subject. So please forgive in advance for all of the mistakes I may end up making!</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-size: 18px; letter-spacing: 0.5px;"><b>Planet out There?</b></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-size: 18px; letter-spacing: 0.5px;">First of a all planets are way too faraway to be discovered by simply going out and just taking a picture of it like the one above of Pluto and saying "there it is." In this case of Pluto, just as in the case of the many planets which have been discovered since way back in the 1930's a</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0a8m7G4RktKyPkfFrfaaMTBD93HEw8ryA6bI2PYknfwli2CSCluHUflb-sr_78hulbfeow82MmXwLrhykpcfiXqT5D9rYNBj9egq_ulg_Q1zJSMu1LoBSqFQ8sYKLcAeu2i9Uun8kfzpe/s1600/440px-Clyde_W._Tombaugh.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="574" data-original-width="440" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0a8m7G4RktKyPkfFrfaaMTBD93HEw8ryA6bI2PYknfwli2CSCluHUflb-sr_78hulbfeow82MmXwLrhykpcfiXqT5D9rYNBj9egq_ulg_Q1zJSMu1LoBSqFQ8sYKLcAeu2i9Uun8kfzpe/s200/440px-Clyde_W._Tombaugh.jpeg" width="153" /></a></div>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-size: 18px; letter-spacing: 0.5px;">planets existence can only be found by unexplained wobbles of the known orbits of known celestial bodies. In this case our view of the orbital patterns of Uranus and Neptune showed a sort of wobble that could only be explained by the gravitational pull of another planetary body (Clyde Tombaugh pictured above). The first man to propose the ninth planet was Percival Lowell based on these wobbles. Lowell calculated the likely position of this ninth planet and searched for it for a decade without finding it. </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-size: 18px; letter-spacing: 0.5px;">On February 18, 1930, Tombaugh using some of Lowell's calculations, discovered the small faraway planet by the using a new astronomic technique of combining a blink microscope with the photograph plates. It was named "Pluto" </span><br />
<span style="color: #181818;"><span style="font-size: 18px; letter-spacing: 0.5px;">after the Roman god of the underworld, the equivalent of Hades in Greek mythology. The discovery was confirmed by other astronomers and announced in March of that year.</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #181818;"><span style="font-size: 18px; letter-spacing: 0.5px;"><b>But Why Was Pluto "Demoted" From Planetary Status?</b></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #181818;"><span style="font-size: 18px; letter-spacing: 0.5px;">Pluto exists within the Kuiper belt, a ring of bodies beyond the orbit of Neptune. And there had been debate for some time on whether it should have been declassified to just a minor dwarf planet within the Kuiper belt. The discussion came to a conclusion within the International Astronomical Union with an official definition of a "Planet" quoted directly from Wikipedia:</span></span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxCoLtAk2Ad_glUVPbEgVbYTjGFQhVOwaVuS98eB93dKBJXwZshoWIM-sO-_pyoYT-qY2MU_Sfccb5LEuwBkZ8hXmuCjLqsDwcX8pExGq0HdVqz9jsoOW3ShHmN6Z1IZ0KGU8MKrtQ_gMj/s1600/Pluto+Hubble+Space+telescope+1998.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="200" data-original-width="250" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxCoLtAk2Ad_glUVPbEgVbYTjGFQhVOwaVuS98eB93dKBJXwZshoWIM-sO-_pyoYT-qY2MU_Sfccb5LEuwBkZ8hXmuCjLqsDwcX8pExGq0HdVqz9jsoOW3ShHmN6Z1IZ0KGU8MKrtQ_gMj/s1600/Pluto+Hubble+Space+telescope+1998.jpg" /></a></div>
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<span style="color: #181818;"><span style="font-size: 18px; letter-spacing: 0.5px;"> (Above: Pluto as photographed from the Hubble Space Telescope in 1998.) </span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #181818;"><span style="font-size: 18px; letter-spacing: 0.5px;">1.) The object must be in orbit around the Sun.</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #181818;"><span style="font-size: 18px; letter-spacing: 0.5px;">2.) The object must be massive enough to be rounded by its own gravity. More specifically, its own gravity should pull it into a shape defined by hydrostatic equilibrium.</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #181818; font-size: 18px; letter-spacing: 0.5px;">3.) It must have cleared the neighborhood around its orbit.</span><br />
<span style="color: #181818;"><span style="font-size: 18px; letter-spacing: 0.5px;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="color: #181818;"><span style="font-size: 18px; letter-spacing: 0.5px;">Again quoting directly from Wikipedia which is far beyond my level of understanding:</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #181818;"><span style="font-size: 18px; letter-spacing: 0.5px;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="color: #181818;"><span style="font-size: 18px; letter-spacing: 0.5px;">"Pluto fails to meet the third condition. Its mass is substantially less than the combined mass of the other objects in its orbit: 0.07 times, in contrast to Earth, which is 1.7 million times the remaining mass in its orbit (excluding the moon). </span></span><br />
<span style="color: #181818;"><span style="font-size: 18px; letter-spacing: 0.5px;">The IAU further decided that bodies that, like Pluto, meet criteria 1 and 2, but do not meet criterion 3 would be called <i>dwarf planets</i>."</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #181818;"><span style="font-size: 18px; letter-spacing: 0.5px;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="color: #181818;"><span style="font-size: 18px; letter-spacing: 0.5px;"> There was considerable disagreement within the scientific community about this announcement by the IAU. The portion which said Pluto would no longer be considered a planet, due to new rules that said planets must “clear the neighborhood around its orbit.” Since Pluto’s oblong orbit overlaps that of Neptune, it was disqualified.</span></span><span style="color: #181818; font-size: 18px; letter-spacing: 0.5px;"> </span><span style="color: #181818; font-size: 18px; letter-spacing: 0.5px;">Alan Stern, principal investigator with NASA's New Horizons mission to Pluto</span><span style="color: #181818; font-size: 18px; letter-spacing: 0.5px;"> dismissed the reclassification out of hand: "</span><span style="color: #181818; font-size: 18px; letter-spacing: 0.5px;">"the definition stinks, for technical reasons". Stern has said that under IAU's new rules, Ear</span><span style="color: #181818; font-size: 18px; letter-spacing: 0.5px;">th, Mars, Jupiter, and Neptune would not qualify as planets because they all share their orbits with asteroids. Stern also stated that fewer than 5% voted for </span><span style="color: #181818; font-size: 18px; letter-spacing: 0.5px;">it and thus the kick Pluto out of the planets decision was not representative of the many of the astronomical scholars. Again as I said at the start this is way outside my field, so if I've made some glaring errors please do feel free to write in on the response box below, and as long as you don't get TOO nasty I will publish it right here. </span><br />
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<span style="color: #181818; font-size: 18px; letter-spacing: 0.5px;"><b><i>Sources =</i></b></span><br />
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<span style="color: #181818; font-size: 18px; letter-spacing: 0.5px;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pluto">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pluto</a></span><br />
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<a href="https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/pluto-discovered">https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/pluto-discovered</a><br />
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<span style="color: #181818;"><span style="font-size: 18px; letter-spacing: 0.5px;"><br /></span></span>Brian T. Boltenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15347138270315020257noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3909482254164785217.post-6876271611568724032020-01-09T16:14:00.002-08:002021-01-09T10:58:32.428-08:00JANUARY 9 = 1861 "Star of the West" is Fired Upon<br />
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The American Civil War begun in earnest in April of 1861 when shots were exchanged between Union batteries in Fort Sumter in Charleston harbor and Confederate guns on the shore installations. But the first actual shots were fired on this day, January 9 in 1861 when shots were fired upon the merchant ship <i>"Star of the West"</i> (above) as she attempted to resupply and reinforce Fort Sumter.<br />
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<b>States Seceding, the Union Dissolving</b><br />
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This all came about during the secession crisis that followed the election of Abraham Lincoln on November 6, 1860. Sectional differences had divided the United States for years. There were arguments about state's sovereignty, but the main dividing factor was the practice of slavery in the southern states. Lincoln's Republican Party had run on a platform which pledged not to interfere with slavery where it already existed, but which opposed the extension of slavery into the territories as they became states. The election was held, and with the opposition so divided between pro and anti-slave elements, Lincoln won with nearly 40% of the popular vote but a commanding majority of the electoral votes - 180 of the 303 available. Many of the Southern states had been threatening to secede from the Union, and this mindset was very strong in South Carolina. On Nov. 8, the newspaper the Charleston Mercury, published a dark message: <i>"The tea has been thrown overboard—the revolution of 1860 has been initiated.”</i> And South Carolina indeed lead the way formally seceding from the Union on Dec. 20, 1860.<br />
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<b>Fort Sumter - in Charleston Harbor</b><br />
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On seceding from the Union on that day South Carolina demanded the the withdrawal of the Federal garrison in Fort Sumter right out in the middle of Charleston Harbor. The small number of Federal troops still in Charleston after secession had been moved there by their<br />
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commander, Major Robert Anderson in (left) to "prevent the effusion of blood." President James Buchanan refused to cave in on this one point. But Maj. Anderson and his 80 men required supplies and perhaps reinforcements. But Pres. Buchanan sent a civilian supply ship instead of a military ship, so as to keep the crisis from expanding by provocative action. The ship sent was <i>"The Star of the West"</i>, a purely civilian ship. Sent on Jan. 5, <i>Star of the West </i>was cruising into a hornet's nest. Cadets from the South Carolina Military Academy - the Citadel - had set up a battery of guns on Morris Island, and were waiting.<br />
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<b>The Shots Are Fired!</b><br />
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Early in the morning of today's date, January 9,<i> Star of the West</i> captain John McGowan tried to move his ship into a channel near Fort Sumter. The Cadets on Morris Island fired a shot across the merchant vessel's bow to warn her off. Still <i>Star of the West</i> tried to move on forward. The cadets began to open fire (below). Major Anderson gave no thought to returning fire from his batteries on<br />
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Sumter. If he had it might have initiated a full fledged military engagement, and the Civil War might have started right then and there. Some batteries on nearby Fort Moultrie scored a couple of hits on their target, causing some damage on the ship. At this point, Capt. McGowan in charge of his unarmed ship decided to exit the channel and make a safe withdrawal.<br />
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So ended thee initial shots of America's bloodiest war... a small little skirmish in a Southern harbor in which nobody was killed or even harmed. A few weeks later after Lincoln had been inaugurated, 11 southern states had seceded from the union. And on April 12, 1861 the batteries in Charleston harbor opened fire on Fort Sumter itself, and the real shooting had begun.<br />
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<b>Sources =</b><br />
<br />
<a href="https://www.postandcourier.com/news/charleston-at-war-in-star-of-the-west-gets-first/article_27c54d7b-af4a-57a2-8273-d5902a0965a3.html">https://www.postandcourier.com/news/charleston-at-war-in-star-of-the-west-gets-first/article_27c54d7b-af4a-57a2-8273-d5902a0965a3.html</a><br />
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<a href="https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/star-of-the-west-is-fired-upon" target="_blank">https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/star-of-the-west-is-fired-upon</a><a href="https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/star-of-the-west-is-fired-upon" target="_blank"><br /></a><br />
<br />
<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_of_the_West">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_of_the_West</a><br />
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<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Fort_Sumter">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Fort_Sumter</a><br />
<b><i><u><br /></u></i></b>
<b><i><u>"The Civil War"</u></i></b> Prod. by Ken Burns, written by Geoffrey C. Ward Vol. 1<br />
<b><i><u>"The Cause"</u></i></b>.<br />
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<a href="https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/star-of-the-west-is-fired-upon" target="_blank"><br /></a>
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Brian T. Boltenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15347138270315020257noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3909482254164785217.post-7624469593911023452019-12-03T13:48:00.000-08:002019-12-03T15:21:23.637-08:00DECEMBER 3, "The Who" Concert Tragedy<br />
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On the evening of today's date - December 3, in 1979 at Cincinnati's Riverfront Coliseum the press of concert-goers outside of the entry doors to a show being performed by the British rock group called "the Who" pushed forward with enough force to cause the death of 11 people who were trampled by the crowd. 23 other people sustained injuries in a situation so chaotic that the concert was performed to the end, before the band members were even told of the deaths.<br />
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<b>The Crowd Began Gathering Early</b><br />
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"The Who" was on on the late part of a successful world tour which had taken them to Detroit and Pittsburgh in the days before their Cincinnati appearance at the Riverfront Coliseum (which is now called the Heritage Bank Arena). The event seemed to be a success from the monetary side. 18, 348 tickets had been sold. The vast majority of these had been "General Admission" or "Festival Seating' which meant that instead of being actual seats with numbers on them, they were in the large open floor area directly in front of the stage. And the spots where one stood were of course on a "first come first serve" basis. The Concert had been scheduled to begin at 8:00 p.m. but by 7:00 the crowd waiting to enter which had been gathering since about 5:00 had grown to about 8,000. By 7:00 only two of the doors had been opened at the far right of the main entrance area. Why the late opening and of only two doors is something which I've not been able to discover.<br />
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<b>The "Stampede" Begins...</b><b>.</b><b>.</b><br />
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Then at about 7:15, "the Who's" "Quadrophenia" movie began playing as an opening to the concert. At this point, the crowd appeared to think that the band had started the concert early. So the situation quickly became dangerous when the entire crowd thinking that they were missing the concert began to surge toward the two open doors in a way that left some people being pushed to the ground and being literally crushed under the forward force of the crowd's movement. At total of eleven people who were unable to tear themselves away were knocked to the ground or simply crushed by the pushing and died of asphyxiation. Other people recalled being lifted off the ground and being carried along as if by a wave of the ocean. Some felt themselves being moved horizontally in and on top of the crowd. In some reports such as the<i> Enquirer </i>it was called a "stampede." The Concert did actually go on as planned as those who were inside had gotten there without knowing about the mob scene outside. The members of the band did't know of the chaos outside, and were not told of it until after the concert's end. In fact Cincinnati Safety Director Richard Castellini had thought of cancelling the Concert until he heard that the problem was on the outside, not in the arena itself.<br />
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<b>In the Aftermath of the Chaos</b><br />
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There was much to discover in the aftermath, but few people willing to take responsibility. Lt. Dale Menkhaus, who was in charge of the 25 man policemen who were assigned to police the event could see early on what a problem the crowd was turning into. He told one of the<br />
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concert promoters that more doors needed to be opened, but was told that the doors couldn't be opened until the sound check was over. And coliseum officials who had been told that more doors needed to be opened wouldn't comment on why more doors weren't opened. Some local TV news outlets described it as a drug crazed mob when it was obviously just too many people being squeezed through only a couple of open doors. The band when they were told of the deaths were obviously enough stunned and horrified. When they began a concert in Buffalo the following night, band leader Roger Daltry said; "We lost a lot of family last night. This show's for them." The city of Cincinnati also placed a ban on "Festival" seating on December 27, 1979, which, with minor exceptions, remained in place for the next 25 years. The families of the victims sued the band, the concert promoter and the city of Cincinnati. The suits were settled in 1983, awarding each of the families of the deceased @ $150,000, and roughly $750,000 to be divided among the 26 injured.<br />
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Who or what was responsible for their lost lives? The idea of "festival seating" which crammed too many people into such a restricted spot? Was it whomever kept all but two of the doors closed, and why? Was it not having enough security personnel on handle such a huge crowd? We'll likely never have an answer.<br />
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Below is a list of those who were killed that night, along with their age, and hometowns:<br />
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Walter Adams, Jr., aged 22, Trotwood<br />
Peter Bowes, aged 18, Wyoming, Ohio<br />
Connie Sue Burns, aged 21, Miamisburg<br />
Jacqueline Eckerle, aged 15, Finneytown<br />
David Heck, aged 19, Highland Heights, Kentucky<br />
Teva Rae Ladd, aged 27, Newtown<br />
Karen Morrison, aged 15, Finneytown<br />
Stephan Preston, aged 19, Finneytown<br />
Philip Snyder, aged 20, Franklin<br />
Bryan Wagner, aged 17, Fort Thomas, Kentucky<br />
James Warmoth, aged 21, Franklin<br />
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May they all rest in peace.<br />
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<b>Sources =</b><br />
<br />
https://www.cincinnati.com/story/news/2019/12/02/who-concert-tragedy-40-years-ago-stampede-kills-11-persons-coliseum-rock-concert/2590113001/<br />
<br />
<a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/rock-roll-tragedy-why-11-died-at-the-whos-cincinnati-concert-93437/">https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/rock-roll-tragedy-why-11-died-at-the-whos-cincinnati-concert-93437/</a><br />
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<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Who_concert_disaster">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Who_concert_disaster</a><br />
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Brian T. Boltenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15347138270315020257noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3909482254164785217.post-16018396381263770112019-10-24T16:20:00.001-07:002019-10-25T09:03:58.717-07:00OCTOBER 24 - Transcontinental Telegraph is Completed<br />
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On today's date, October 24 in 1861, the last link in the Transconti -nental telegraph system was completed, and the United States for the first time had instantaneous communication from the east coast to the west. From Washington to California news and communication was for the first time immediate. The world had become a lot smaller by just the clicking of a small device like the one pictured above, the telegraph sounder.<br />
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<b>The Need for Coast to Coast Communication</b><br />
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"California and the Pacific Northwest. This ground was rich enough to grow fruits and vegetables in abundance, and lumber was in limitless forests. And GOLD had been discovered there in 1848." As I wrote in my Blog about the Transcontinental Railroad (1869) and all that went along with it ( <a href="https://historysstory.blogspot.com/2014/05/may-10-trans-continental-railroad-is.html">https://historysstory.blogspot.com/2014/05/may-10-trans-continental-railroad-is.html</a>), California had suddenly become very important. In fact it had already become a state in September of 1850. Well, just as the physical commute from the east coast to<br />
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California was nearly a killer proposition, getting news and communication was nearly as tough. It took weeks for mail to get through, and the Pony Express, a mail service delivering news, etc. using "young skinny wiry fellows, Orphans preferred, willing to risk death daily" (Poster right) and a series of horse-mounted riders between Missouri and California, took ten days. And it only operated from April 3, 1860, to October 1861<br />
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<b><i>"What hath God Wrought.."</i></b><br />
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This biblical phrase (Numbers, 22:23) <i>"What hath God wrought"</i> was the first message sent on May 24, 1844 on a new device developed by Samuel F.B. Morse (below) and others by transmitting electrical signals over a wire laid between receiving stations, utilizing a code developed by Morse and thus known as Morse code. This assigned each number, letter or character a unique sequence of short and long signals called<br />
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"dots" and "dashes." This new invention revolutionized communication service between cities in the U.S. Efficient telegraphic stations had been set up throughout the 1840's And 1850 there were lines linked most eastern states, with a similar, separate network of lines linking the booming economy of California. The need to integrate the western state with its federal government and the financial and political centers in the east became self evident.<br />
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<b>Funding the Transcontinental Telegraph</b><br />
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The move to set up a transcontinental telegraph line started in 1860 when Congress approved a subsidy of $40,000 to any company that would commit to the construction of a telegraph line which would link the western network with the eastern. The main challenge was to cover the space currently missing any coverage between Salt Lake City and western Missouri. The Western Union Company took up the challenge. In a way very similar to that which would rule the Transcontinental Railroad a few years later, the work would be done by two teams working to the center from opposite ends.<br />
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In charge of the eastern team was Edward Creighton. In charge of the western team was James N. Gamble (right) - yes <i>that</i> Gamble, of the Proctor & Gamble Co. whose beautiful home on Werk Road in Cincinnati was recently demolished for no good reason. The first pole went up on July 4, 1861 and by the project's completion in October of that same year they had planted 27,500 poles holding 2,000 miles (3,200 km) of single-strand iron wire over some very rough country.<br />
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<b>Operational Difficulties.....</b><br />
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There were naturally some operational difficulties to be overcome in the construction. There was of course a Civil War raging not far from this area so acts of sabotage were a frequent concern. Also there was a bit of trouble with the indigenous tribes through whose land the poles and wires were being erected. In 1861 some Sioux warriors cut and<br />
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removed a section of wire for fashioning bracelets. Later, some of those wearing the bracelets fell ill. A Sioux medicine man determined the illness was the great spirit of the "talking wire" avenging its desecration. Thereafter, the Sioux stayed clear of the wire. And of course in the treeless Plains the logs had to be shipped by 200 oxen over the Sierra Nevada mountains, along with wire and glass insulators. According to Gamble that portion of the job took over a month.<br />
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<b>The Completion of the Transcontinental Telegraph</b><br />
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But in spite of the difficulties the line was completed in just four months; a surprise to President Lincoln (and most everyone else) who thought that it would take years. And the total cost came to a half million dollars. In the first message sent over the new system, Steven J. Field addressed to President Lincoln a message which sought to reassure the President that Transcontinental Telegraph would bind the western states to the Union:<br />
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"They (the people of California) believe that it will be the means of strengthening the attachment which bind both the East & West to the Union & they desire in this the first message across the continent to express their loyalty to that Union & their determination to stand by the Government in this its day of trial They regard that Government with affection & will adhere to it under all fortunes.<br />
<br />
Stephen J Field, Chief Justice of California"<br />
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<b>Sources =</b><br />
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<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_transcontinental_telegraph">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_transcontinental_telegraph</a><br />
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<a href="https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/western-union-completes-the-first-transcontinental-telegraph-line">https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/western-union-completes-the-first-transcontinental-telegraph-line</a><br />
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<a href="https://www.washingtonian.com/2016/10/25/1861-first-transcontinental-telegraph-was-sent-to-dc/">https://www.washingtonian.com/2016/10/25/1861-first-transcontinental-telegraph-was-sent-to-dc/</a><br />
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<a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/americas-original-wire-the-telegraph-at-150/">https://www.cbsnews.com/news/americas-original-wire-the-telegraph-at-150/</a><br />
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<a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/americas-original-wire-the-telegraph-at-150/">https://www.historynet.com/western-union-things-right-west-got-message.htm </a><br />
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<br />Brian T. Boltenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15347138270315020257noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3909482254164785217.post-13212692811517207872019-10-17T13:43:00.003-07:002019-10-17T13:45:32.070-07:00OCTOBER 17 = Al Capone is Convicted of Tax Evasion
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On today's date, October 17 in 1931 Al Capone (left) was convicted of Income Tax Evasion and sentenced to 11 years in Federal Prison. After a lifetime of violence, killing and bloodshed it took the long arm of the Internal Revenue Service to at long last put this ruthless criminal behind bars.<br />
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<b>The Rise of "Scarface" Al Capo</b><b>ne</b><br />
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Alphonse Gabriel Capone was born on January 17, 1899 to Italian immigrant parents in New York City. He started the crooked path early, being expelled from school at 14. He joined a street gang and it was in such company that he acquired at age 17 during a fight the facial scar which gave him the nickname which he personally hated. But this kid had a lifetime of crime ahead of him, and his scar was certainly no hindrance. While he was still a teenager he took up with the Five Points Gang and made himself useful as a bouncer in their brothels. In 1920 he moved to Chicago, becoming a trusted lieutenant to Johnny Torrio, the head of a crime syndicate which supplied alcohol which was then illegal under the 18th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. In 1920 this amendment established prohibition as the law of the land. Torrio was nearly killed in an attack by the North Side gang and was sufficiently frightened to retire while he still was alive. He returned to Italy handing over the reigns of his organization to Capone in 1925.<br />
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<b>Capone Goes for Bigger Profits</b><br />
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Al decided to expand the business, particularly the illegal liquor end of things, and he wasn't shy about using increasingly violent means to do it, effectively going to war with the North Side gang<br />
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which had attacked Torrio. Violence increased as did the body count while Capone's men fought it out with North Side thugs and their leaders Dean O'Banion and George "Bugs" Moran (right). At stake was control of the bootleg liquor business and the millions of dollars to be raked in from it and the brothels which they controlled. Of course Capone was careful to pay off the various politicians, policemen, judges, in particular Chicago Mayor William Hale Thompson which protected him from too much law enforcement. Capone became a kind of celebrity and enjoyed every minute of it. He<br />
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loved it when the crowds would cheer for him when he showed up at baseball games. He even cultivated a certain Robin Hood image by opening soup kitchens (left) to feed poor men hit by the economic depression which was at its worst. Anybody who could bring relief to the millions left unemployed was certain to be a popular man with the public.<br />
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<b>The St. Valentines Day Massacre</b><br />
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But the violence could get to be too much. Capone wanted to wipe out the North Side gang and the influence of its Irish-American leader, "Bugs" Moran once and for all. On February 14, 1929, seven members of the North Side gang were lured into a garage by several men dressed as Chicago policemen. There the men were lined up against a wall and were shot down in cold blood. It may be that Capone's men thought<br />
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that the group they had murdered included Moran himself. But it did not. In fact, it was Moran himself put the finger squarely on his blood rival by commenting to the press: <i>"Only Al Capone kills like that."</i> Capone had taken the precaution of being out of town at that time. No investigation was able to link the murders into Capone's hands, but he was widely believed to be the one behind it. His public image was severely damaged by this brazen murder in broad daylight leading to calls for Government action, while the papers began referring to Al as "Public Enemy No. 1"<br />
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<b>The I.R.S. Finally Bags Al </b><br />
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As Capone's fortune rose, so did the Treasury Department's interest in his income. A ruling by the Supreme Court in May of 1927 worked in the government's favor. In U.S. -v- Sullivan it was determined that “gains from illicit traffic in liquor are subject to the income tax (and) would be taxable” by the government. Al Capone claimed for years that he had no income which was taxable, so this was exactly what the feds needed to reel in Capone. Led by Elmer Irey and Frank Wilson a group from Treasury known as "the T men" they quietly followed Capone's money and gathered the necessary evidence to show that Capone had made millions off of income for which he had never paid taxes. And on today's date Mr. Capone was convicted on 22 counts of Income Tax Evasion, was sentenced to 11 years in prison was fined $50,000 ($847,111 in today's dollars), charged court costs and ordered to pay back taxes of $215,000 (now, $3,642,576).<br />
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<b>Jail is Tough on Al</b><br />
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Capone began serving his sentence in Atlanta, but there were charges that he was allowed too many luxuries there, so his residence was changed to the Federal Penitentiary on Alcatraz Island in San Francisco Bay. There, the warden, one James Aloysius Johnston, proved to be a more difficult man to deal with than Capone had dealt with before. There would be none of luxuries that Al had enjoyed before. As prisoner # AZ-85, Capone occupied a normal cell of 5 ft. by 9 ft., working in the prison laundry. These surroundings in a claustrophobically small cell in a damp place like Alcatraz is to anyone who has ever toured the place as this writer once did a few years ago, were not conducive to anybody's good health. At Alcatraz, Capone's body, ravaged by syphilis, began to turn against him leading eventually to insanity. He was released from the Rock after only four years there, and eventually died of a stroke on January 25, 1947 at his home in Palm Island, Florida.<br />
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<b>Sources =</b><br />
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<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al_Capone">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al_Capone</a><br />
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<a href="https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/capone-goes-to-prison"> https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/capone-goes-to-prison</a><br />
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<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/kellyphillipserb/2018/10/17/al-capone-sentenced-to-prison-for-tax-evasion-on-this-day-in-1931/#35da68ae7c4c">https://www.forbes.com/sites/kellyphillipserb/2018/10/17/al-capone-sentenced-to-prison-for-tax-evasion-on-this-day-in-1931/#35da68ae7c4c</a><br />
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<a href="https://www.history.com/news/8-things-you-should-know-about-al-capone">https://www.history.com/news/8-things-you-should-know-about-al-capone</a> </div>
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<a href="https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johnny_Torrio">https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johnny_Torrio</a></div>
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<a href="https://www.history.com/topics/crime/saint-valentines-day-massacre">https://www.history.com/topics/crime/saint-valentines-day-massacre</a></div>
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<a href="https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/capone-goes-to-prison"><br /></a></div>
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<br />Brian T. Boltenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15347138270315020257noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3909482254164785217.post-81875215494681674492019-10-04T17:08:00.003-07:002019-10-05T11:56:36.372-07:00OCTOBER 4 = The Soviets Launch "Sputnik"<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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"Our movies and television programs in the fifties were full of the idea of going into space. What came as a surprise was that it was the Soviet Union that launched the first satellite. It is hard to recall the atmosphere of the time."<br />
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— John Logsdon, Dir. of Space Policy Institute<br />
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On today's date, October 4 in 1957 the Soviet Union (Russia) launched an orbital space satellite, which they called "Sputnik, after the Russian word for "satellite". As one can see from viewing the image of it above, it was a rather odd looking craft that looked something like an octopus extending it's tentacles. But in terms of the Cold War (the period from @ 1946 through the mid 80's when U.S./Soviet relations were at their most tense) it came as a rude awakening to the American people that the Soviets may have gained an edge over the in the race in the Space Race.<br />
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<b>"Sputnik": What & Why?</b><br />
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"Sputnik" was was the first artificial satellite ever launched into space from earth. Measuring about 58 meters (23 inches) in diameter and weighing 184 lbs. of polished metal with four external antennas which broadcast radio signals back to earth which were strong enough to be picked up by amateur radio operators all over the world. The information being collected was tracking and studying the density of the upper atmosphere which could be deduced from "Sputnik's drag on earth's orbit, and the effects of its radio signals gave data about the<br />
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ionosphere. Traveling at 18,000 miles an hour, its elliptical orbit took it to a distance of 584 miles at it's farthest point from earth, 143 miles at its closest. And it took @ 101.5 minutes to orbit the earth. As to why the Russians launched it, well they were looking for a way to show that their system was as advanced as that in the U.S. perhaps more so. So the Soviet leader Nikita Krushchev (above) gave the program his full backing.<br />
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<b>The Space Race</b><br />
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Many Americans were shocked that the Soviets that the Soviets had beaten the U.S. to the punch in such a public fashion. And they felt very uneasy about having this damned Soviet contraption flying over our skies. Perhaps the satellite could eventually be used to spy or even launch weapons on this country. Eisenhower himself (below)was not<br />
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worried about it. Many in his administration dismissed 'Sputnik" as a "useless hunk of iron". But others were more concerned. As David Halberstam wrote in The Fifties, "The success of Sputnik seemed to herald a kind of technological Pearl Harbor, which was exactly what Edward Teller said it was." Whatever the case, the Russians and the U.S. continued one-upping each other with various "firsts" - until the U.S. wrote the final note on the subject by landing Apollo 11 with Armstrong and Aldrin landing on the moon itself in July 20 of 1969, effectively handing the U.S. the win in the Space Race.<br />
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<b>Sources =</b><br />
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<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sputnik_1">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sputnik_1</a><br />
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<a href="https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history">https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history</a><br />
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<a href="https://www.archives.gov/education/lessons/sputnik-memo">https://www.archives.gov/education/lessons/sputnik-memo</a><br />
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<br />Brian T. Boltenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15347138270315020257noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3909482254164785217.post-43721941293617085382019-09-21T14:10:00.001-07:002019-09-21T14:27:51.953-07:00SEPTEMBER 21, 1897= "Yes, Virginia, There is a Santa Claus!"<div>
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Yes I know! With every year that passes the pause between the end of summer and Halloween gets smaller. And after Halloween never mind Thanksgiving but let's move straight on to the Christmas BUYING season. I bemoan this entirely commercial kidnapping of our once cherished kids holiday into a big cashier's payoff as much as you do. <b>So please understand that that is <u>not</u> what I'm doing here! </b>It would feel a lot more appropriate if this had occurred some time in December. But it didn't. It happened now and since this Blog is called "TODAY in History", please indulge me for posting it today.<br />
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It just so happens that one of the best loved episodes of our Christmas holiday season occurred on today's date, September 21 in 1897 when the little eight year old Virginia O'Hanlon wrote in to the newspaper the <i>New York Sun</i> to get an authoritative answer to a question which had bothered her. Miss O'Hanlon's actual letter (above) struck one of the the <i>Sun's</i> editors as being important enough to require an immediate response. So Mr. Francis Pharcellus Church composed a properly philosophical answer. First I'll give you the full text of the <i>Sun's</i> introduction, Miss O'Hanlon's letter, and then the <i>Sun's</i> rather lengthy response and then we'll look at some of the historical details.<br />
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"<b>Is There a Santa Claus?</b><br />
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We take pleasure in answering at once and thus prominently the communication below, expressing at the same time our great gratification that its faithful author is numbered among the friends of The Sun:<br />
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DEAR EDITOR: I am 8 years old.</div>
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Some of my little friends say there is no Santa Claus.</div>
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Papa says, ‘If you see it in THE SUN it’s so.’</div>
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Please tell me the truth; is there a Santa Claus?</div>
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VIRGINIA O’HANLON.</div>
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115 WEST NINETY-FIFTH STREET.</div>
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VIRGINIA, your little friends are wrong. They have been affected by the skepticism of a skeptical age. They do not believe except they see. They think that nothing can be which is not comprehensible by their little minds. All minds, Virginia, whether they be men’s or children’s, are little. In this great universe of ours man is a mere insect, an ant, in his intellect, as compared with the boundless world about him, as measured by the intelligence capable of grasping the whole of truth and knowledge.</div>
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<b>Yes, VIRGINIA, there is a Santa Claus.</b> He exists as certainly as love and generosity and devotion exist, and you know that they abound and give to your life its highest beauty and joy. Alas! how dreary would be the world if there were no Santa Claus. It would be as dreary as if there were no VIRGINIAS. There would be no childlike faith then, no poetry, no romance to make tolerable this existence. We should have no enjoyment, except in sense and sight. The eternal light with which childhood fills the world would be extinguished.</div>
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Not believe in Santa Claus! You might as well not believe in fairies! You might get your papa to hire men to watch in all the chimneys on Christmas Eve to catch Santa Claus, but even if they did not see Santa Claus coming down, what would that prove? Nobody sees Santa Claus, but that is no sign that there is no Santa Claus. The most real things in the world are those that neither children nor men can see. Did you ever see fairies dancing on the lawn? Of course not, but that’s no proof that they are not there. Nobody can conceive or imagine all the wonders there are unseen and unseeable in the world.</div>
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You may tear apart the baby’s rattle and see what makes the noise inside, but there is a veil covering the unseen world which not the strongest man, nor even the united strength of all the strongest men that ever lived, could tear apart. Only faith, fancy, poetry, love, romance, can push aside that curtain and view and picture the supernal beauty and glory beyond. Is it all real? Ah, VIRGINIA, in all this world there is nothing else real and abiding.</div>
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No Santa Claus! Thank God! he lives, and he lives forever. A thousand years from now, Virginia, nay, ten times ten thousand years from now, he will continue to make glad the heart of childhood."<br />
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<b>The Reaction to and Legacy of </b><b><i>"Yes, Virginia..."</i></b><br />
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The editorial response from the Sun has gone on to be the most often repeated editorial in our English language. Nevermind that it goes on to deal with some pretty adult concepts such as <i>"the intelligence capable of grasping the whole of truth and knowledge."</i> and uses some words which I don't imagine most 8 year olds would ever understand these days such as <i>"comprehensible"</i>. But it does refer to some very modern day problems as <i>"the skepticism of a skeptical age."</i> In our very own present day with our computers, cell-phones, "smart" phones, we. or at least I wonder if it's possible to capture the imagination of children who seem jaded in a world that that has become harsh and all too real, wherein children know the latest computer trends, but rarely go out and see nature in its own habitat.<br />
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<b>Some Reality...</b><br />
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And of course even this seemingly magical moment has some harsh reality to go with it. The editorial went unsigned in the newspaper that day; its author, Mr. Francis Pharcellus Church had been a war correspondent during the American Civil War, and had thus seen humanity and destruction at its worst. So that may have informed the editorial with its laments about skepticism, and the need for child-like faith, romance and love. Indeed it may very well be that Mr. Church<br />
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himself (right) was a kind of hardened cynic. In an edition of the radio program "the Rest of the Story" an anecdote was broadcast saying that Francis Pharcellus Church was an atheist who had no belief in superstitions. It also said that Church didn't want to write the editorial and that this was why he didn't want his name attached to it. Although I must say that I find it difficult to believe that the man who wrote those sweet words was a cynic who didn't believe any of what he wrote there. But there it is for my readers to consider.<br />
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<b><i>"Yes Virginia"</i> Continues....</b><br />
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Whatever the truth about the details of the story behind the story may be, the essential meaning of the story goes on year after year to inspire readers with its faith in the goodness and love to be found in the whole idea of Christmas and Santa Claus. A cartoon has been produced of the story, a TV movie, and of course numerous newspapers around the<br />
country continue to re-print the letter from little Virginia, and the <i>Sun's</i> response every Christmas. Not a bad legacy for a letter from a little girl, wouldn't you say?<br />
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<b>Sources =</b><br />
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<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yes,_Virginia,_there_is_a_Santa_Claus">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yes,_Virginia,_there_is_a_Santa_Claus</a><br />
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<a href="https://oklahoman.com/article/2878743/yes-virginia-brwe-offer-this-classic-for-santa-doubters">https://oklahoman.com/article/2878743/yes-virginia-brwe-offer-this-classic-for-santa-doubters</a><br />
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<a href="https://www.newseum.org/exhibits/online/yes-virginia/">https://www.newseum.org/exhibits/online/yes-virginia/ </a><br />
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Brian T. Boltenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15347138270315020257noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3909482254164785217.post-79328639443245142052019-09-03T14:28:00.000-07:002019-09-03T19:32:54.162-07:00SEPTEMBER 3, 1783 = The Treaty of Paris is Signed <br />
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The Treaty of Paris was signed by Britain and America on today's date, Sept. 3 in Paris (hence the name), in 1783. This document recognized the former American colonies to be a free and independent nation. Although both the Brits and we Americans mostly got what they wanted out of the Treaty, the Brit's overall feelings can be summed up by the painting above by Benjamin West. It is a painting of the peace negotiators and it remains eternally unfinished, because the British declined to sit and be painted into it.<br />
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<b>The Fighting War Ends</b><br />
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The last actual armed combat between Britain and America came in October 1781 with the surrender of the last major army the Brits had in America (outside of New York City) on <a href="https://historysstory.blogspot.com/2013/10/october-19-end-of-two-great-armies.html">October 19, 1781 at Yorktown, Virginia</a>. That left @ 9,000 prisoners of war (including General Cornwallis) on America's hands. The defeat at Yorktown left the war in<br />
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America with diminishing support in the British Parliament and with the British public. The war government of Lord North had been brought down by the defeat at Yorktown and had been replaced the new Prime Minister, Lord Shelburn (right) who saw a favorable opportunity to develop a new and lucrative trading partner with the Americans. But the point which held up full negotiations on a Peace Treaty was the British unwillingness to recognize America as a free and independent state. Lord Shelburn had no problem with this. Yes Britain would accept American Independence. So on that basis negotiations could proceed.<br />
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<b>The United States Send Jay, Adams and Franklin</b><br />
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The U.S. sent John Jay, the U.S. Minister to Spain to Paris to negotiate with the Brits, and with him sent John Adams (below), and Ben Franklin, already in Paris as our Minister to France. The Continental Congress had given it's delegation strict instructions to follow France's lead in the negotiations. But the U.S. delegation saw no advantage in hitching our position to France. Jay told the Brits that his <br />
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people would negotiate directly with them. Adams, who favored the idea as well said that the U.S. wished: "...to be honest and grateful to our allies, but to think for ourselves." The most important point came in the first sentence of Article I stating, <b><i>"His Britannic Majesty acknowledges</i></b><br />
<b><i>the said United States... to be free, sovereign and independent states." </i></b><br />
This was fine with Shelburn who saw it as a way of splitting the U.S. off from France and thus bring about the rich trading partnership with the Americans. And it paid off handsomely with the Brits ceding all of the territory south of Canada down to Spanish held Florida, and east of the Appalachian Mountains to the Mississippi River, thus doubling the size of the United States with the stroke of a pen.<br />
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<b>Other Terms of the Treaty of Paris</b><br />
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Among other things, the treaty recognized the deep sea fishing rights of American fishermen in the Grand Banks off the Gulf of St. Lawrence and Newfoundland coasts.<br />
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Declared the Mississippi River to be open for the free navigation of both countries.<br />
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Said that the Continental Congress would recommend and "provide for the restitution of all estates, rights, and properties.." seized from British loyalists during the war. Also, it said that debts to creditors on either side of the conflict would be paid.<br />
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Released Prisoners of war on both sides; and any property of the British army presently located in the United States was forfeited. This included slaves.<br />
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The Treaty was signed by Franklin, Adams and Jay and the British emissary Richard Oswald at the Hotel d’York in Paris, on September 3, 1783. It would be ratified by the Continental Congress in early 1784. The conflict which had started out as a skirmish between a few hundred British regulars and disgruntled Massachusetts farmers and townsmen way back on April 19 in 1775 and had swallowed up a large chunk of the North American continent was at long last over. And the United States of America which would eventually take up nearly the entire continent was born.<br />
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<b>Sources =</b><br />
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<a href="https://www.history.com/topics/american-revolution/treaty-of-paris">https://www.history.com/topics/american-revolution/treaty-of-paris</a><br />
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<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Paris_(1783)">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Paris_(1783)</a><br />
<br />
<a href="https://www.amazon.com/John-Adams-David-McCullough/dp/B0028I7D5W/ref=sr_1_3?crid=3GGT9Z4Z357JK&keywords=john+adams+by+david+mccullough&qid=1567547351&s=books&sprefix=Joh%2Caps%2C157&sr=1-3"><b><i>"John Adams"</i></b></a> by David McCullough, Simon & Schuster, New York, 2001<br />
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<b><i><a href="https://www.amazon.com/American-Heritage-History-Revolution/dp/0743486811/ref=sr_1_2?crid=1LINXQHGCT50&keywords=american+heritage+history+of+the+american+revolution&qid=1567547654&s=books&sprefix=The+American+Heritage+History+of+the+American+Revolution%2Cstripbooks%2C399&sr=1-2">"The American Heritage History of the American Revolution"</a></i></b> by Bruce Lancaster, American Heritage Publishing Co., New York, 1971<br />
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<br />Brian T. Boltenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15347138270315020257noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3909482254164785217.post-71730769371500534302019-08-22T12:52:00.000-07:002019-08-22T13:22:29.171-07:00AUGUST 22, 1485 = The Battle of Bosworth Field<br />
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The Battle of Bosworth Field, which was fought on today's date, August 22 in the year 1486, was the climactic engagement in the English Civil War which took up the later half of the 15th Century, called "the War of the Roses". The war was essentially a struggle between the houses of Lancaster and York over which of them would hold the throne of England and thus rule the country. The Battle was won by the forces of Henry Tudor, the Earl of Richmond who would afterword would ascend to the throne as Henry VII, having vanquished the forces of King Richard III of the house of York whom he believed had usurped the throne via murder. Richard was killed during the battle; the last English king to suffer that fate in battle. As this marked a change to the house of York and the end of the Plantagenet dynasty over to the Tudors it is a very important moment in the history of England.<br />
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<b>Richard Usurps the Throne</b><br />
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The murder which Richard was suspected was that of his nephew Edward V. Richard had become Lord High Protector when Edward IV died and his only successor was his son the 12 year old Edward V. But Richard managed to get himself declared King on July 6 1483 after<br />
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which date the young Edward was not seen in public again. Richard III (right) was of course widely suspected of having him murdered. Richard was also rumored to have murdered his own wife Queen Anne. There was also some troubles regarding the Princess Elizabeth, the elder sister of the murdered Prince, and whom she was going to marry. She was already engaged to marry Henry Tudor, the Earl of Richmond who had been across the English Channel in France waiting for the right opportunity to go and knock the usurper Richard off the throne. With Richard under a cloud of suspicion, now was the time.<br />
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<b>Henry Lands in Wales, the Armies Clash at Bosworth</b><br />
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Henry, (below) with an army of 6,000 men landed unopposed at Milford Haven on the southwest coast of Wales on August 11, 1485. He<br />
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pushed immediately towards Richard, gathering support as he marched toward Richard's forces in London. Richard quickly gathered his forces, between 7,500 and 12,000 men, and the two finally clashed at Bosworth Field, near Leicestershire. A large portion of Richard's army was under and Sir William Stanley but he held back while they decided which side it would be most advantageous to support. Thus leaving Richard with fewer men at his disposal than he thought, Richard divided his army into three portions each with a specific goal. Stanley's inaction left the battle swaying back and forth until Richard apparently decided to bring it to an end by charging his group directly at Henry. When he saw Richard apart from the rest of his forces, Stanley decided to throw in with Henry which turned the tide against Richard. Seeing Henry fairly close by, Richard swung at him mightily, but was unable to get at him and was soon overwhelmed by Henry's men, who knocked him to the ground, and killed him there on that ground. thus ended the troublesome reign of the Richard III of the house of York.<br />
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<b>Sources =</b><br />
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<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Bosworth_Field">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Bosworth_Field</a><br />
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<a href="https://www.historic-uk.com/HistoryMagazine/DestinationsUK/The-Battle-of-Bosworth-Field/">https://www.historic-uk.com/HistoryMagazine/DestinationsUK/The-Battle-of-Bosworth-Field/</a><br />
<br />
<b><a href="https://www.amazon.com/KINGDOMS-EUROPE-Gene-Gurney-December/dp/B01B98RGJY/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=Kingdoms+of+Europe+Gurney&qid=1566503312&s=books&sr=1-1">"Kingdoms of Europe"</a></b> by Gene Gurney, Crown Publ., New York, 1982.<br />
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<br />Brian T. Boltenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15347138270315020257noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3909482254164785217.post-61729287457648460402019-08-16T08:46:00.000-07:002019-08-16T12:17:44.599-07:00AUGUST 16 = Gold is Discovered in Alaska, 1896. <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<b>"To Whom It May Concern:</b><br />
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<b>I do, this day, locate and claim, by right of discovery, five hundred feet, running up stream from this notice. Located this the seventeenth day of August, 1896."</b><br />
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With this simple hand-made sign, prospector George Carmack set off the last great Gold rush that our country would ever see.<br />
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<b>George Carmack and His Find</b><br />
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There had been reports of gold in Alaska and in adjacent parts of Canada for years. There were smaller parties of men looking for gold along the Klondike River in parts of the United States and Canada's Yukon Territory. The Gold Rush of 1848 was a not too distant memory,<br />
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so at about this time, Carnack having found nothing in California heard about gold to be found along the Klondike River. So he moved into the area with a pair of Native American cohorts: Tagish Charlie, and Skookim Jim. On today's date August 16 in 1896 while camped near Rabbit Creek, Carmack said that he saw a nugget of gold in one part of the creek, The three men looked further and found more gold in many of the rocks at their spot. Carmack posted the sign quoted above the very next day. As it turned out there was gold to be found all around this portion of Rabbit Creek which was renamed "Bonanza" as many of the local prospectors began setting up claims in the area as news of the find began to spread.<br />
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<b>News of Gold Goes National</b><br />
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While the men who were already on the spot at the time became rich, the Yukon was in a fairly remote spot. So it was nearly a year before the news spread around the country. But on July 27, 1897 news got to the rest of the world. This was when the steamship <i>Portland</i> arrived in Seattle filled with Gold from these original finds. And the newspapers just couldn't resist from trumpeting the news in their largest print. As a<br />
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result over the next several months nearly 100,000 men made their way north to Canada and Alaska hoping to strike it rich quickly. Although most of the easy to find gold had been snapped up by the men like Carmack, they made it as best they could to the Klondike river. The fact is that only about 30,000 actually got there. It was a long and very cold journey by foot or using pack animals or sleds. And many just gave up or were killed. Said one prospector: "“It is impossible to give one an idea of the slowness with which things are moving. It takes a day to go four or five miles and back; it takes a dollar to do what ten cents would do at home.”<br />
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<b>Klondike Fever Rises!</b><br />
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The excitement was extreme according to further reports in the <i>Seattle Post Intelligencer</i>: "It is safe to say that never in the history of the Northwest has there been such excitement as has prevailed in this city all day long and which is raging to-night. It is due to the arrival ... of the steamer Portland, carrying sixty-eight men, from the Clondyke<br />
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gold fields, every one of whom brings down a fortune." The hopefuls would land at such tent city ports as Skagaway and Deya, And from there they would start the 600 mile trek to the Gold fields (they hoped). There were many routes, one of which was the steep climb of Chillkoot Pass (left). They of course needed all manner of supplies, like snowshoes, winter coats, boots, picks and shovels... everything. and of course there were many men who got rich providing these supplies.<br />
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<b>The End Result....</b><br />
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Dawson City (below) became the largest genuine city north of San Francisco; not just a giant tent city but a town with modern amenities such as proper plumbing, electric lighting and fire hydrants. The growth of Dawson City was one of the key reasons that the Yukon became a new Canadian Territory on June 13, 1898. Those original groups that found gold (known as "the Klondike Kings") became very rich. It is estimated that over one billion dollars worth of gold was found (adjusted for<br />
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modern standards). The original "Klondike King", George Carmack, wound up leaving the area with $1 million in his account. There was an environmental impact on the area due to soil erosion, and deforestation. And the Native American peoples also suffered from the introduction of white men's diseases such a venereal diseases and small pox. The gold began to run out around 1898-99 with many of the small claims selling off to large mining companies. Also world events started crowding out the Gold Rush for national attention, such as the looming Spanish/American War. Also gold was found elsewhere in the area such as Nome, Alaska. But a handful had gotten very rich very quickly in this, the last great gold rush in our country's history<br />
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<b>Sources =</b><br />
<br />
<a href="https://www.nps.gov/klgo/learn/goldrush.htm">https://www.nps.gov/klgo/learn/goldrush.htm</a><br />
<br />
<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Klondike_Gold_Rush">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Klondike_Gold_Rush</a><br />
<br />
<a href="https://www.historynet.com/klondike-gold-rush">https://www.historynet.com/klondike-gold-rush</a><br />
<br />
<a href="http://content.lib.washington.edu/extras/goldrush.html">http://content.lib.washington.edu/extras/goldrush.html</a><br />
<br />
<a href="http://alaskaweb.org/mining/klongoldrushstrts.html">http://alaskaweb.org/mining/klongoldrushstrts.html</a><br />
<br />
<a href="https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/gold-discovered-in-the-yukon">https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/gold-discovered-in-the-yukon</a><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCvDhC9W-dTB1TfTij6I3sB2cGarRq8s-oouH9Rl4zV69p7uDEI3VMmWSgAToeIvf0q_sHMFOC_Nr4C300j_nezcdCgkkUl7No8zaM3STDK7zpgSEOtzsi0Of-bqI3A5Y3AhT2Q0ndMWhp/s1600/Klondike+miners-pan-and-dig-for-gold-in-alaska.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><br /></a>Brian T. Boltenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15347138270315020257noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3909482254164785217.post-71800126184779391342019-08-03T08:14:00.000-07:002020-08-03T10:49:55.965-07:00AUGUST 3 = Jesse Owens Wins Olympic Gold<br />
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On today's date, August 3, in 1936 at the Olympic games held in Berlin, the American track star Jesse Owens won the gold medal for his 1st place finish in the 100 meter dash. This was no ordinary feat. This was because it had happened just three days after Adolf Hitler, the Nazi leader of Germany had opened the games as a tribute to his regime which glorified the White Aryan as the master race. And Owens who would go on to win three more gold medals was an African American. In the words of ESPN: " When Owens finished competing, the African-American son of a sharecropper and the grandson of slaves had single-handedly crushed Hitler's myth of Aryan supremacy."<br />
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<b>The Olympics: Hitler's Showpiece</b><br />
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As I wrote in my blog posting of three days ago (Aug.1<a href="https://historysstory.blogspot.com/2016/08/august-1-hitler-opens-1936-olympics-in.html"> "Hitler Opens 1936 Olympics in Berlin"</a>), the Nazi regime fully intended to use the Olympic stage as a propaganda tool for their new Germany. And as William Shirer told us, the Nazis saw these games as a perfect time for them to impress the whole world with the scope of their achievements in their Third Reich. And although the Nazis tried their best to put on a good public face, removing the most obvious signs of their Antisemitic policies, they could only go so far with that charade. As ESPN further wrote: "Berlin, on the verge of World War II, was bristling with Nazism, red-and-black swastikas flying everywhere. Brown-shirted Storm Troopers goose-stepped while Adolf Hitler postured, harangued, threatened. A montage of evil was played over the chillingly familiar Nazi anthem: "Deutschland Uber Alles."<br />
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<b>Jesse Takes Charge and Wins - FOUR times!</b><br />
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It was into all of these symbols of the Nazi's racist pageantry James Cleveland "Jesse" Owens of Alabama standing 5-10, and weighing 157 lbs. dashed forward at the sound of the starter's pistol, and sprinted down the 100 meter track in a world record tying 10.3 seconds beating<br />
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Tinus Osendarp of the Netherlands, and just edging out his own team mate Ralph Metcalfe, thus securing the gold medal (above). And this would only be the first of a total of FOUR gold medals that Owens would collect. In the next few days he would win three more gold medals for the 200 meters dash, the long jump and part of the U.S. team in the 4x100 meters relay, overtaking world records in each category. This total of four gold medals was a record unmatched in that time and for years after.<br />
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<b>Hitler Wasn't Happy.....</b><br />
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In his book "Inside the Third Reich" Albert Speer, one of Hitler's closest associates wrote that Hitler "was highly annoyed by the series of triumphs by the marvelous colored American runner, Jesse Owens. People whose antecedents came from the jungle were primitive, Hitler said with a shrug; their physiques were stronger than those of civilized whites and hence should be excluded from future games." On this day Hitler was only willing to shake the hands of the German athletes who had won medals, leaving the stadium immediately thereafter. When International Olympic Committee president Henri de Baillet-Latour protested saying that Hitler should shake hands with all the medalists or none at all. Hitler took the suggestion, and in his Nazi snit skipped all of the remaining medal awards.<br />
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Jesse Owens himself was not overly upset one way or another. A calm rational man, he took it all in stride, knowing that in his own country as an African American his treatment would not be much better. "When I came back to my native country, after all the stories about Hitler, I couldn't ride in the front of the bus," Owens said. "I had to go to the back door. I couldn't live where I wanted. I wasn't invited to shake hands with Hitler, but I wasn't invited to the White House to shake hands with the President, either." This was certainly a regrettable reality for Jesse Owens' time, but that would eventually change and he would get the accolades due to him as a winner of the record four gold medals in the Olympics. Among many other honors he was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Gerald Ford, in 1976 (below).<br />
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Sources =<br />
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<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesse_Owens">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesse_Owens</a><br />
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<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Inside-Third-Reich-Albert-Speer/dp/0684829495/ref=sr_1_1?crid=7LAYK7EYAUZ7&keywords=inside+the+third+reich+albert+speer&qid=1564432815&s=books&sprefix=inside+the+third%2Caps%2C140&sr=1-1"><b>"Inside the Third Reich"</b></a> by Albert Speer, Simon & Schuster, New York, 1970<br />
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<a href="https://www.sports-reference.com/olympics/athletes/ow/jesse-owens-1.html">https://www.sports-reference.com/olympics/athletes/ow/jesse-owens-1.html</a><br />
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<a href="http://www.espn.com/sportscentury/features/00016393.html">http://www.espn.com/sportscentury/features/00016393.html</a><br />
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<a href="https://home.bt.com/news/on-this-day/august-3-1936-jesse-owens-wins-100m-gold-in-front-of-adolf-hitler-at-the-berlin-olympics-11363995389348">https://home.bt.com/news/on-this-day/august-3-1936-jesse-owens-wins-100m-gold-in-front-of-adolf-hitler-at-the-berlin-olympics-11363995389348</a><br />
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<br />Brian T. Boltenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15347138270315020257noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3909482254164785217.post-49121686480038378642019-06-21T08:44:00.000-07:002019-06-21T08:52:57.724-07:00JUNE 21 = The Yankees Announce Lou Gehrig's Retirement<br />
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On June 21, 1939, the New York Yankees announced that Lou Gehrig (left), their long-time first baseman would be retiring from baseball. "The Iron Horse", who had earned that mantle by appearing in what was then a world record 2,130 consecutive straight games had recently been diagnosed as having amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), a neuro-muscular disease which causes paralysis in those who have it, eventually resulting in death.<br />
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<b>Lou Gehrig's Amazing Career in Baseball</b><br />
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Lou Gehrig, a player of amazing durability, and great offensive talent as a hitter had spent his entire career in Major League Baseball with the<br />
New York Yankees from 1923 through 1939. He had been with then during their glorious period of dominance when they won an astonishing six World Championships between 1927 and 1938. Having come up to the Yankees in 1923, Gehrig took over the first baseman's job in 1925 from Wally Pipp. “I took the two most expensive aspirins in history.” said Pipp, who sat out a 1925 game with a headache and lost his position to Lou Gehrig, who would play every game there for the Yankees for the remainder of his career. After that it was a ton of remarkable records for "The Iron Horse": he finished his career with an amazing lifetime batting average of .340. Add to that 2,271 runs batted in, 493 home runs a total of 1,195 runs batted in. Further, he led the American League in home runs three times, RBIs five times, and he put up eight seasons with 200+ hits.<br />
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<b>Gehrig's Long Decline</b><br />
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Starting with the 1938 season he seemed to drop off the amazing standard which he had set for himself. He finished the season with a .295 batting average, 114 RBIs, 170 hits; a fine total for any player but not the spectacular numbers that Gehrig was used to. Gehrig himself remarked "I was tired mid-season. I don't know why, but I just couldn't get going again." As the 1939 season began. it was clear that he no longer possessed his former prowess. He seemed slow on the base paths, and by the end of Spring Training he had not hit a single home run. When he was able to hit, he showed little power and during batting practice one afternoon, Joe DiMaggio watched in astonishment as the Yankees' hitting star missed 10 fat pitches in a row. As the 1939 season moved through April Gehrig had only one RBI, and a lowly .143 batting average. Sports writer James Kahn wrote: "I think there is something wrong with him. Physically wrong, I mean. I don't know what it is, but I am satisfied that it goes far beyond his ball-playing...for some reason that I do not know, his old power isn't there ... He is meeting the ball, time after time, and it isn't going anywhere." Gehrig knew that he wasn't up to his own standard so on May 2, he went to Yankees manager Joe McCarthy and asked to be benched "for the good of the team."<br />
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<b>The Diagnosis</b><br />
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Gehrig took a plane to Chicago and checked himself into the Mayo Clinic. There, after six days of tests, the doctors gave him the diagnosis: Gehrig was suffering from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), a disease which deprives nerve cells of their ability to interact with the body's muscles. This disease causes rapidly increasing paralysis, difficulty with swallowing or speaking, and left Lou Gehrig with a life expectancy of fewer than three years. The cause of the disease was unknown then and now. And then, as now, there is no cure.<br />
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<b>Lou Gehrig Appreciation Day....</b><br />
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The Mayo Clinic made their findings public on June 19, 1939. This led the Yankees to announce Gehrig's retirement on this day, June 21 of that year. The game played on July 4, 1939 was designated as "Lou Gehrig Appreciation Day" at Yankee Stadium. Ceremonies to honor this great player were held between games of a double-header. In it's coverage, the <i>New York Time's</i> John Drebinger wrote that the ceremony was "...perhaps as colorful and dramatic a pageant as ever was enacted on a baseball field. 61,808 fans thundered a hail and farewell." Dignitaries and former Yankees players lined up to speak in tribute to Gehrig, most of them<br />
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struggling to hold back their emotions. Babe Ruth embraced his team mate (right). Then Lou himself stepped forward and delivered a short speech that summed up the man's character, and his indomitable spirit:<br />
"For the past two weeks you've been reading about a bad break. (pause) Today I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of the earth. When you look around, wouldn't you consider it a privilege to associate yourself with such fine-looking men as are standing in uniform in this ballpark today?... that I might have been given a bad break, but I've got an awful lot to live for. Thank you."<br />
<br />
The Baseball Writers' Association held a special winter meeting on Dec. 7 of 1939, during which Lou Gehrig was inducted to that hall of baseball honor as a result of a special election related to his illness. Lou Gehrig died on June 2, 1941 at his home in the Bronx, New York. His wife, Eleanor, with whom he had no children never remarried, saying: "I had the best of it. I would not have traded two minutes of my life with that man for 40 years with another." She dedicated the rest of her life to the support of ALS research. Eleanor survived her husband by 43 years, passing away on her 80'th birthday, March 6, 1984.<br />
<br />
It is perhaps a sad thing that the disease amyotrophic lateral sclerosis<br />
(ALS) has come to be known as Lou Gehrig's Disease. Just as the<br />
neurological disorder with which I must do battle every day, "Parkinson's Disease" has come to be known by that name after the doctor who first wrote about it, James Parkinson (who wrote "Essay on the Shaking Palsy" in 1817). With both maladies there is no known cause or cure, but scientists and doctors continue to study these disorders and make gains on them every day. Perhaps one day these names will come to be associated with the great victories that will one day be achieved when a cure for each one is found. For this we can only pray. But if you wish to do more than that try<br />
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/%C2%A0http://www.alsa.org/donate/%C2%A0"> http://www.alsa.org/donate/ </a> to help with research on ALS or go to <a href="http://www.michaeljfox.org/">www.michaeljfox.org/ </a> to help with research on Parkinson's.<br />
<br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>Sources =</b><br />
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/goog_1752893346"><br /></a>
<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lou_Gehrig">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lou_Gehrig</a><br />
<br />
<a href="https://baseballhall.org/hall-of-famers/gehrig-lou"> https://baseballhall.org/hall-of-famers/gehrig-lou</a><br />
<br />
<a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3234454/">https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3234454/</a><br />
<br />
<a href="https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Baseball_(documentary)#Inning_5:_Shadow_Ball_(1930_to_1940)">https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Baseball_(documentary)#Inning_5:_Shadow_Ball_(1930_to_1940)</a><br />
<br />
<a href="https://www.biography.com/athlete/lou-gehrig">https://www.biography.com/athlete/lou-gehrig</a><br />
<br />
<a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3234454/">https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3234454/</a><br />
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<br />Brian T. Boltenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15347138270315020257noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3909482254164785217.post-61322187406764865462019-06-06T09:21:00.000-07:002020-06-06T11:12:45.590-07:00JUNE 6 = "D - Day" 76 Years Later<br />
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<i style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 13px;">"Omaha Beach was a night- mare. Even now it brings pain to recall what happe- ned there on June 6, 1944. I have returned many times to honor the valiant men who died on that beach. They should never be forgotten. Nor should those who lived to carry the day by the slimmest of margins. Every man who set foot on Omaha Beach that day was a hero."</i><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 13px;">- General Omar Bradley, </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 13px;">"A General's Life"</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 13px;">, 1983</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 13px;">On today's date, June 6 in 1944 </span><b style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 13px;"><i>- 76 years ago -</i></b><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 13px;">the forces the Western Allies landed on the beaches of Normandy in Nazi-occupied France. This was the largest amphibious operation in military history with 160,000 men hitting the beach that morning starting at 6:30 a.m. The landings were preceded by airborne attacks through the early morning hours of June 6 by 24,000 Allied paratroopers. There were 5,000 ships supporting the invasion with naval bombardment as well as carrying the troops and supplies. The enemy were the forces of Adolf Hitler's Nazi Germany who had occupied France since 1940, imposing untold brutality. The Allied forces were the armies of the United States, Great Britain, Canada, Australia, the Free French, as well as ships and contingents of many of the countries which had been overrun by the Nazis. This was quite literally democracy and freedom versus the forces of tyranny, and as would become apparent as the invading allies moved inland and uncovered the murderous death camps, the forces of darkness and evil.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 13px;">These are basic facts of the operation that day, called </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 13px;">"D Day"</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 13px;">. But this battle (code named "</span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 13px;">Operation Overlord</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 13px;">")... </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 13px;">this <u>one</u> day</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 13px;">... was such a huge and complex undertaking that entire books, movies and TV documentaries have been devoted to it.. This one engagement would decide whether the Nazi tyranny could be overthrown, or whether it would last indefinitely. Every part of this story would qualify for a separate posting of it's own. But for our purposes here I shall choose one particular facet of the story and focus on that. And as the worst of the fighting -- the bloodiest, yet as General Bradley (commander of the U.S. forces in Normandy) tells us above the most heroic part of the story came at </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 13px;">Omaha Beach</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 13px;">, that is where I shall focus, attempting to relate what it was like to be there.</span><br />
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<b style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 13px;"><i>Omaha Beach</i> - A Killing Field</b><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 13px;">Omaha Beach was so bloody is because of its topo- graphy and its po- sition in the Allied attack zone: right in the middle of it - a fifty mile (80 kilometer) stretch of the of northwestern France's Normandy peninsula, divided into Sword, Juno, Gold, Omaha and Utah Beach (click on the above map to enlarge). The British, Canadian, and Free French were assigned the Sword, Juno and Gold beaches, the Americans were assigned Omaha and Utah Beaches. Failure to take it could endanger the entire operation by leaving the Allied forces divided. The German commander, Field Marshall Erwin Rommel, an intelligent officer (to say the least) saw that this area would be the key to any Allied assault, and had put up the strongest defenses in Normandy here. Omaha was overlooked by tall cliffs (easily visible in the middle of the above photograph) from which the Germans could blanket the whole beach with machine gun fire. The beach leading up from the water was filled with obstacles and mines. Part of the beach was called "shingles" - a line of small stones which offered a very small amount of protection from the machine gun fire. These were lined with barbed wire which made it impassable without exposure to the machine guns. And staying by the shingles too long left the troops exposed to German mortar fire. And with high cliffs enclosing it, Omaha could not be gone around.</span><br />
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<i style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 13px;"><b>"A hurricane of enemy machine gun fire..."</b></i><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 13px;">As if the above was not enough, the German forces defending Omaha were not the soft, half-loyal Russian and Polish conscripts that Allied intelligence had reported, but the crack, battle-hardened 352'nd Division. Their artillery made it nearly impossible for the men to be taken close to the beach. Thus from the moment they left their landing craft, the American infantry was in high water under heavy fire. As General Bradley sorrowfully recorded: </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 13px;">"All men instantly came under a hurricane of enemy machine gun, mortar and artillery fire. Dozens died or fell wounded, many drowning in the sea. There was no cover. The men lay in the sand or shallow water, unable to return fire, or crouched behind stranded landing craft. For several hours, the beach and the water just beyond was a bloody chaos."</i><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 13px;">Bradley gives "</span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 13px;">unstint- ing praise</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 13px;">" to the ships of the U.S. navy, whose destroy- ers repeatedly risked running aground by steaming in close enough to the beach to give the Army troops cover with their big naval guns. But Omaha was still nearly impassable. Nearly entire regiments were wiped out within a few minutes, leaving many survivors disoriented. Sgt. Thomas Valance of the 116'th Regiment recalled that after being severely wounded, he </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 13px;">"... staggered up against the seawall and sort of collapsed there, and as a matter of fact spent the whole day in that same position. Essentially my part in the invasion ended by having been wiped out as most of my company was. The bodies of my buddies were washing ashore and I was the one live body in amongst so many of my friends, all of whom were dead, in many cases severely blown to pieces."</i><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 13px;">Private John Mc Phee of the 16'th regiment recalled being exhausted by all of the heavy equipment he had to carry: </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 13px;">"Our life expectancy was about zero. We were burdened down with too much weight. We were just pack mules. I was very young in excellent shape. I could walk for miles, endure a great deal of physical hardship, but I was so seasick I thought I would die. In fact, I wished I had. I was totally exhausted."</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 13px;"> Pvt. Mc Phee was hit three times, and luckily for him was dragged to safety by his buddies and evacuated.</span><br />
<b style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></b><b style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 13px;">Dealing With Chaos and Moving Off the Beach</b><br />
<b style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></b><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 13px;">With so many higher ranking officers being wounded or killed it was frequently left to Captains and lower ranking officers to organize the chaos from different parts of units being thrown together in the chaos of battle and find some way of moving off the very slim sliver of beach they were holding onto and moving up the cliffs. Lieutenant John Spaulding of the 16'th regiment's E Company lead one such movement, climbing one of the many bluffs looking down on the beach: </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 13px;">"We still could see no one to the right and there was no one up to us on the left... we didn't know what had become of the rest of E Company. Back in the water boats were in flames. I saw a tank ashore, knocked out. After a couple of looks back, we decided we wouldn't look back anymore."</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 13px;"> Spaulding lead his men through a minefield with the help of Sergeant Fred Bisco, who yelled</span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 13px;"> "Lieutenant, watch out for the damn mines... but we lost no men coming through them, although H Company coming along the same trail a few hours later lost several men. The Lord was with us and we had an angel on each shoulder on that trip." </i><br />
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<b style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></b><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 13px;">Captain Joseph T. Dawson was leading a company of men through a similar minefield situation when he met up with Spaulding's group. They were proceeding </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 13px;">"... up to the crest of the ridge which overlooked the beach. We got about halfway up when we met the remnants of a platoon from E Company, commanded by Lt. Spaulding. This was the only group -- somewhere less than twenty men -- we encountered who had gotten off the beach." </i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 13px;">The group then organized an attack: </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 13px;">"Above me, right on top of the ridge, the Germans had a line of defenses with an excellent field of fire. I kept the men behind and along with my communications sergeant and his assistant, worked our way up to the crest of the ridge. Just before the crest was a sharp perpendicular drop, and we were able to get up the crest without being seen by the enemy. I could now hear the Germans talking in the machine gun nest immediately above me. I then threw two grenades, which were successful in eliminating the enemy and silencing the machine gun which had been holding up our approach." </i><br />
<i style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></i><b style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 13px;">General Eisenhower Pays Tribute</b><br />
<b style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></b><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 13px;">Overall the Allies suffered 12,000 casualties (men killed or wounded) in operations that took place on June 6, 1944. These included operations of airborne troops, naval vessels, and medical corpsmen operating on the beach, whose heroic contributions to the victory won that day we simply didn't have room to include in this posting, as extended as </span><b style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 13px;">it</b><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 13px;"> is. In an interview with Walter Cronkite on the 20'th Anniversary of D Day in 1964 Dwight D. Eisenhower the Supreme Allied Commander who gave the order to go ahead with the invasion on June 6 said:</span><br />
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<i style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 13px;">"It's a wonderful thing to remember what those fellows twenty years ago were fighting for and sacrificing for, what they did to preserve our way of life. Not to conquer any territory, not for any ambitions of our own. But to make sure that Hitler could not destroy freedom in the world. I think it's overwhelming. To think of the lives that were given for that principle, paying a terrible price on this beach alone on that one day... But they did it so that the world could be free. It just shows what free men will do rather than be slaves."</i><br />
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<b>Sources:</b><br />
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by Omar N. Bradley & Clay Blair, Simon & Schuster, New York, 1983<br />
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by Stephen E. Ambrose, Touchstone Books, New York, 1995.<br />
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edited by Jon E. Lewis, Carroll & Graf Publ. Inc., New York, 1998.<br />
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<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Normandy_landings" style="color: #999999; text-decoration-line: none;">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Normandy_landings</a><br />
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+ 4146.<br />
+ 279.<br />
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<cite class="user" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: bold;"><a href="https://www.blogger.com/profile/12429730420678601455" rel="nofollow" style="color: #999999; text-decoration-line: none;">Michele</a></cite><span class="icon user " style="font-weight: bold;"></span><span class="datetime secondary-text" style="margin-left: 6px;"><a href="https://historysstory.blogspot.com/2014/06/june-6-d-day-70-years-later.html?showComment=1465313797417#c5988351682668401516" rel="nofollow" style="color: #999999; text-decoration-line: none;">June 7, 2016 at 8:36 AM</a></span></div>
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By the way, Eisenhower's son, John, graduated from West Point on June 6, 1944!</div>
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Brian T. Boltenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15347138270315020257noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3909482254164785217.post-44168689221091309172019-06-02T09:19:00.000-07:002019-06-06T08:30:07.786-07:00JUNE 2 = The Last Confederate Army Surrenders <br />
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The American Civil War began on April 12, 1861, when the guns in the harbor of Charleston Bay opened fire upon the Federal held Fort Sumter across the Bay. This would be the start of the longest and bloodiest war in our nation's history. Four years later, General Edmund Kirby Smith (left) signed the final surrender document of the last Confederate army still in existence at Galveston on board the U.S.S. Fort Jackson on today's date, June 2, in 1865. The Confederacy had at long last come to her end.<br />
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<b>The Death of the Confederacy </b><br />
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We've covered two other parts of the death of the Confederacy - the main event, which was of course General Lee's surrender to General Grant on <a href="https://historysstory.blogspot.com/2014/04/april-9-lee-surrenders-to-grant-at.html">April 9, 1865</a>. And we have also covered the last battle of the Civil War,<a href="https://historysstory.blogspot.com/2016/05/may-12-civil-wars-last-battle.html"> the Battle of Palmetto Ranch</a> which begun on May 12 in 1865. But there were any number of Confederate troops still under arms after not only Appomattox but also Palmetto Ranch. General Joseph E. Johnston's Army of the Tennessee was still officially in the field with @100,000 men spread over several states from the Carolinas to Florida. Johnston surrendered his troops to General Sherman on April 26, 1865 at Bennett Place in Durham, North Carolina.<br />
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<b>Smith Commands the Trans-Mississippi</b><br />
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On January 14, 1863, Smith was sent to command the Trans-<br />
Mississippi Department. But with the South's defeat at the Battle of Vicksburg, (July, 1863) the Mississippi River fell under the control of the Union. Thus all of the Confederate troops to the west of the Mississippi were cut off from communication with Lee and the rest of the command structure of the Southern forces (see map below). They were effectively on their own. With Smith at their helm the Rebel<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1eTaHotvi9nLoQG3ZFOWMA2gAi90wfloepFPyjuZtCBLopfOpGsOieNP8nzD6_2oQfmqZECvWNxbH8XhukaQyyX5zBr6w3r7vFcS0WX4h9MjLzR_-ePRT_8aL5LNeYIzbuW4eGzAZe4At/s1600/Trans_mississippi.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="459" data-original-width="600" height="244" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1eTaHotvi9nLoQG3ZFOWMA2gAi90wfloepFPyjuZtCBLopfOpGsOieNP8nzD6_2oQfmqZECvWNxbH8XhukaQyyX5zBr6w3r7vFcS0WX4h9MjLzR_-ePRT_8aL5LNeYIzbuW4eGzAZe4At/s320/Trans_mississippi.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
forces were able to score some successes, but cut off from everything east of the Mississippi, and unable to send anything east, their effectiveness was shrinking. By 1865 the Confederate troops under Smith's command remained unbeaten and were still in existence as an army numbering some 20,000 men. Utilizing supplies that they had been able to get from Mexico, Gen. Smith still had thoughts of continuing to fight on in what was clearly a dying struggle against the Union. But Smith's Chief of Staff had been in talks with Union Gen.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiAHoWNsrbevzUSzHEBBzr8RUQsUmG-ya95nWawBnnxtYH0UErLsWek8JPqYLYQCB_FgAdQYeOvlgqSCayDwRxXceOdhEc6eoey5F_k-xkxrQX_tmXKHuV8TCzDD4UQd9aPd0cO4i15sKi4/s1600/Edward+Canby.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="550" data-original-width="306" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiAHoWNsrbevzUSzHEBBzr8RUQsUmG-ya95nWawBnnxtYH0UErLsWek8JPqYLYQCB_FgAdQYeOvlgqSCayDwRxXceOdhEc6eoey5F_k-xkxrQX_tmXKHuV8TCzDD4UQd9aPd0cO4i15sKi4/s200/Edward+Canby.jpg" width="111" /></a></div>
Edward Canby (left) with the idea of surrendering the Trans-Mississippi. At this time, Smith, still having hopes of going on with the struggle had been on his way to Houston. Arriving there on May 27, he found the rebel forces disorganized and falling apart. With this realization upon him, Smith regretfully concluded that the right course was surrender. With this in mind, he went to Galveston, Texas, and signed the final document of surrender aboard the U.S.S. Fort Jackson. With this surrender of the last rebel army, the Confederacy at last died, and the American Civil War finally came to an end. That fuse which had been lit back in April of 1861 wound up costing @ 620,000 dead total on both sides. Smith himself returned to the United States from his exile in Cuba and took an oath of amnesty at Lynchburg, Virginia, on November 14, 1865. He died on March 28, 1893.<br />
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<b>Sources =</b><br />
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<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edmund_Kirby_Smith">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edmund_Kirby_Smith</a><br />
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<a href="https://www.facebook.com/ShilohNMP/posts/gen-kirby-smith-finally-surrenders-june-2-1865gen-edmund-kirby-smith-was-the-las/831680786921909/">https://www.facebook.com/ShilohNMP/posts/gen-kirby-smith-finally-surrenders-june-2-1865gen-edmund-kirby-smith-was-the-las/831680786921909/</a><br />
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<a href="https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/american-civil-war-ends"> https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/american-civil-war-ends </a><br />
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<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edmund_Kirby_Smith"> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edmund_Kirby_Smith</a><br />
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<a href="https://www.thoughtco.com/general-edmund-kirby-smith-2360303">https://www.thoughtco.com/general-edmund-kirby-smith-2360303</a><br />
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<br />Brian T. Boltenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15347138270315020257noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3909482254164785217.post-51758103401108113622019-05-12T09:06:00.001-07:002019-05-12T15:39:32.155-07:00MAY 12 = Florence Nightingale is Born<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Florence Nightingale (left), widely regarded as the founder of modern nursing was born on today's date, May 12, 1820 in Florence, Italy. Miss Nightingale was born into a wealthy family in the Tuscany, Italy. Her mother, Frances Nightingale and her father, William Edward Nightingale were wealthy landowners who moved in high social circles. Florence was given the normal education for the upper class young lady, math and European languages. Florence often disagreed with her domineering mother who disapproved of Florence's interest in the welfare of the poor people who lived near her family's estates. Florence came eventually to the belief that nursing was her divine calling. Her parents had no interest in this; it was the Victorian age when a young woman was expected to marry well, not go into lowly servant-like work of nursing. In 1849, she declined a marriage proposal from an upper class man, contending that her "moral…active nature" drew her to something higher than the good wife. Against strong parental scoldings she enrolled as a student of nursing in 1850 at the Institution of Protestant Deaconesses in Kaiserswerth, Germany.<br />
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<b>Early Training and the Crimean War</b><br />
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At Kaiserswerth the young Florence learned the basic rudiments of nursing, which including the close observation of the patients condition. And she also learned much about hospital organization, both of which would become important parts of her approach to nursing. In 1853, through personal connections, Florence became the superintendent of the Institution for Sick Gentlewomen in Distressed Circumstances, in London. Here she showed not only her skills at nursing by improving patient care and overall working conditions, but also her flair for hospital organization. After a time she began to realize that she needed to turn her attention to directly training nurses. The world soon provided the chance for such training with the outbreak of<br />
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the Crimean War (1853 - 1856). The old Ottoman Empire (Turkey) was in steep decline at this point and wished to hold onto this portion of it's Empire. Britain & France wanted to keep Russia out of this neighborhood. There was some argument about protecting Catholics against the Eastern Orthodox Russians but this was mainly a struggle for Empire, Russia wanting to expand, with Britain and France backing the Turks to contain Russia.<br />
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<b>Nightingale Acts Following News Reports</b><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman";"> It was following reports in British newspapers or horrific conditions for wounded soldiers that Florence felt compelled to act. </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman";">On October 21 1854, gathering up her staff 38 personally trained lady volunteers, and 15 Catholic nuns, she went to the theater of war. They were set up about 339 miles across the Black Sea away from Balaklava, the main British base in the region. When Nightingale and her party arrived at Scutari in the Barrack Hospital on Nov. 5 what they saw was ghastly. Dirty overcrowded wards, patients lay wallowing in their own filth, and roaches and rodents crawled in among the wounded. A shortage of supplies, and uncooperative staff made matters worse. When wounded soldiers began arriving from the Battle of Balaklava, the </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times new roman";">hospital was overwhelmed. Nightingale called it </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman";">a </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman";">"Kingdom of Hell". Mass </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman";">infections were frequent in </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman";">this place where hygiene was being </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman";">ignored. And there was no effective system for getting food to the patients. Nightingale established </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman";">basic standards that included bathing, keeping the wounds clean, and dressings being changed regularly. Also supplies were purchased in order to keep the soldiers on a regular diet.</span><br />
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<b>"The Lady With the Lamp"</b><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman";">Nightingale herself was a serious woman who spared herself nothing in </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times new roman";">caring </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman";">for </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman";">the patients in her ward. At night, she made her rounds through the darkened hallways of the wards </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"> carrying a lamp. The wounded soldiers, seeing the obvious concern that Nightingale had </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman";">for them, began referring to Florence as "the Lady with the Lamp".The phrase went on to be popularized in a poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1857) called "Santa Filomena":</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman";">"Lo! in that house of misery</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times new roman";">A lady with a lamp I see</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times new roman";">Pass through the glimmering gloom,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times new roman";">And flit from room to room."</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman";">According to one source (</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman";">Stephen Paget), Nightingale reduced the death rate from 42% to 2%, not only by the improvements she made in hygiene herself, or by calling for a Sanitary Commission to oversee such matters.</span><br />
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<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"></span>Florence Nightingale's Life and Legacy</b><br />
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It was during her time at Scutari that Nightingale contracted the bacterial infection brucellosis, also called Crimean fever. This was an affliction that would stay with her for as long as she lived. But she continued to work tirelessly for the cause of better nursing care. A fund set up for her cause by the Duke of Cambridge collected some £45,000 which founded the Nightingale Training School at St. Thomas' Hospital in 1860. In 1859, she wrote "Notes on Nursing" which became a cornerstone of nursing education throughout the world. Her methods were followed around the globe including in hospitals during the American Civil War. In her book Florence wrote: "Every day sanitary knowledge, or the knowledge of nursing, or in other words, of how to put the constitution in such a state as that it will have no disease, or that it can recover from disease, takes a higher place. It is recognized as the knowledge which every one ought to have – distinct from medical knowledge, which only a profession can have" She continued to advocate through writings and interviews for better nursing and cleaner hospitals. Her long and influential life came to an end on<br />
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August 13, 1910. But her life which had been dedicated to the improvement of nursing not only for wounded soldiers, but for the poor and destitute of the world made a profound mark on the world in the number of methods, hospitals, and standard medical practices which bear her name. At left is pictured Florence Nightingale's grave in the churchyard of St Margaret's Church, East Wellow, Hampshire<br />
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<b>Sources =</b><br />
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<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Florence_Nightingale">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Florence_Nightingale</a><br />
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<a href="https://www.biography.com/scientist/florence-nightingalein">https://www.biography.com/scientist/florence-nightingalein</a><br />
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<a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Florence-Nightingale">https://www.britannica.com/biography/Florence-Nightingale</a><br />
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Brian T. Boltenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15347138270315020257noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3909482254164785217.post-16889620390957176412019-03-07T08:32:00.001-08:002019-05-04T10:54:33.720-07:00A (hopefully) temporary halt in T.I.H. .....As most of you know I suffer from Parkinson's Disease which makes it<br />
tricky to type out even the briefest of messages just to go along with<br />
the repeat messages which I've been sending you for a long time, let<br />
alone any new postings. Well recently I had a PD-related fall at a local<br />
library which resulted in my getting a broken left wrist. Not so painful<br />
as long as they keep it splinted and wrapped. And tomorrow morning<br />
they will operate on it to get everything put back together. In the<br />
interim I have been unable to keep even the repeat postings going, let<br />
alone any new postings. And I expect this to continue for about<br />
another 4 to 6 weeks while my wrist heals. SSSOOOO I just wanted to<br />
let you, my T.I.H. readers out there know that I've neither forgotten<br />
you nor "blown you off", I'm just resting and recovering, and I hope to<br />
get back to you soon.<br />
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- Your dedicated Historian, Brian T. Bolten<br />
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<br />Brian T. Boltenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15347138270315020257noreply@blogger.com0