It was on this day in 1886 that Geronimo, the last major Native
American military leader to fight against the U.S., surrendered in
Arizona. Geronimo wasn't ever officially a chief. He was a medicine
man. But after his mother, wife, and children were killed by Mexican
troops, he joined leading raiding parties, attacking Mexican and
American settlers in the Southwest.
By the early 1880s, the Apaches had largely been defeated by American
troops. Their chief, Cochise, was dead, and the U.S. government
forced them to live on a barren reservation in San Carlos, Arizona.
As a last-ditch effort, Geronimo organized a group of warriors to
fight one last war of resistance. He fought for five years, and many
military historians believe he was one of the most brilliant guerilla
warfare strategists in history.
For the final five months, Geronimo led a band of only thirty-seven
men, pursued by five thousand soldiers, one quarter of the entire
U.S. military. Geronimo kept eluding capture. His men left no
footprints because they walked only on rocks.
But Geronimo and his men finally got tired of living in the
mountains, and so they surrendered on this day in 1886 to General
Nelson Miles in a place called Skeleton Canyon.
Geronimo was essentially a prisoner of war for the rest of his life,
but he became something of a celebrity. He made a living by selling
the buttons off his jacket and autographed photos of himself, and he
appeared at an exhibit at the St Louis World's Fair in 1904. He never
saw Arizona again. Much of the land that he fought the Americans for
remains uninhabited today.
THANKS for stopping by, I do my best to acknowledge when someone leaves a comment,you do not have to be a member here & everyone is welcome. Ps: This site is monitored but not actively posting on a regular basis. Mostly these are stories & some photos saved from a defunct site known as Verdun Connections which was on MSN Groups initially then on a social network called Multiply.
113 comments:
It was on this day in 1940 that four teenage boys discovered the Lascaux cave paintings, generally agreed to be the greatest works of prehistoric art ever found. The boys were looking for fabled buried treasure in the woods, and they stumbled upon a cavern, about 65 feet wide and 15 feet tall. When the boys held up their lanterns, they saw that the walls of the cave were covered with paintings of animals.
It turned out that the cave paintings were about 17,000 years old. Anthropologists believe that the cave was used as a kind of church, devoted to the worship of animals.
There are more than 200 paintings and 1,500 engravings in the Lascaux cave, almost all of them animals, including bulls, deer, oxen, herds of horses, stags, and cats, painted in various shades of yellow, red, brown, and black, realistic drawings with beautiful, fluid lines, showing the various creatures turning their heads, walking through water, falling off cliffs.
One of the few traces left behind by the artists are their own handprints, which they made by tracing around their own fingers.
http://www.culture.gouv.fr/culture/arcnat/lascaux/en/
Will this open?
SecondAve Your "attachment" gets attached, but when I click on it I am asked if I want to "save or cancel". Usually these ask if I want to "open or cancel". I really don't like to save stuff to the computer......ya can't be too careful these days. Your attachment about the rush hour was great, and had no trouble opening it. Cheers.
Yes Bill ,...maybe you can post the link in the msg. I thinh you mentioned you have a new O/S ,and this should make it easier & possible to post directly to a message,...rather than an attachement ..................I can open most of the things ,you've attached,..but have run into problems on occasion as well Good Luck : HF&RV
I have to experiment until I find out what works. I must have done something right before.
S.A.
I found out the solution. I have to use the Safari search, and not Internet Explorer when I use V.C.
S.A.
Well that one opened up easily Bill,.....and right you ae just keep trying ,till you find what you feel works best,....If you have any questions,.just ask,& somebody will jump in to help: Your figuring it out though,................ HF&RV
Okay, SA, now let's get going with some photos. Looks like you've finally got the solution. ...... post.....post......post away. Cheers
i'll try and include a few pictures of the trail I use while biking in the morning. Today I got a plat -- ugh!
S.A.
Flat.
Better than a Splat ,.....Bill: hahahaha HF&RV
Bill. I thought in The Islands they spelled that phlat, EH!!!!!!!
Actually it is kerphlat.
It was on this day in 1812 that Napoleon's army invaded the city of Moscow. Napoleon had hoped to conquer all of Europe, and he had almost succeeded. He had invaded Russia in June of 1812, but the Russian forces kept retreating, leading his army farther and farther into the country.
The Russians practiced a scorched-earth policy of retreat, burning all the farmland so that the French army wouldn't have any food to draw on. The troops were exhausted and hungry by the time they reached Moscow on this day, in 1812. As they approached, they found the gates standing open and the streets deserted. Then they noticed that all over the city, small fires had started. The Russians had set fire to their own city. By that night, the fires were out of control.
Napoleon watched the burning of the city from inside the Kremlin. He finally fled when a fire broke out inside the Kremlin itself, and he barley escaped the city alive. He began his retreat across the snow-covered plains on October 19. It was one of the great disasters of military history. Thousands died of starvation and hypothermia. Of the nearly 500,000 men who had set out in June, fewer than 20,000 ragged, freezing, and starving men staggered back across the Russian frontier in December.
Did you know Dr. Seuss?
Sorry Maggie, never met the doctor.
By William Cooper [RETIRED] (Wcooper) on Tuesday, September 19, 2006 - 02:42 am:
It was on this day in 1991 that a 5,300-year-old man was found frozen in a glacier in the Alps, between Austria and Italy. He became known as the "Iceman." Why his discovery was so important for anthropologists was the fact that he died while he was out walking on an ordinary day, wearing ordinary clothing, and carrying his customary tools and weapons. His discovery gave scientists a unique opportunity to learn about early European civilization.
The man was between 25 and 35 years old, and about 5 feet 2 inches tall. His hair was about 3 1/2 inches long, which is evidence that humans were getting hair cuts much earlier in history than scientists had imagined. He also had several tattoos: parallel lines on his lower spine, a cross behind his left knee, and stripes on his right ankle. Before the discovery of the Iceman, scientists had believed that tattoos originated 2,500 years later. The Iceman was wearing an unlined fur robe, whipstitched in a mosaic pattern that suggests Neolithic Age people were great tailors. He also wore a woven grass cape, and his size-6 shoes were stuffed with grass for warmth.
He carried a copper axe and a fur quiver for his arrowsÑthe only quiver from the Neolithic period that has ever been found. His arrows had sharp flint points and feathers affixed at an angle that would cause the arrows to spin, which showed that people at the time understood basic principles of ballistics. He carried a number of other tools in a primitive rucksack with a wooden frame, and in a leather pouch that functioned like a fanny pack. Among these tools were a ball of fibrous cord, a dagger, and a deer's antler, probably used to skin animals.
It was nearly 10 years before a forensics expert noticed in an X-ray that the Iceman had an arrowhead lodged in his back. Scientists now believe that he was murdered.
It was on this day in 1580 that Francis Drake docked his ship, the Golden Hind, at Plymouth, England, after circumnavigating the globe. He had left for the journey on December 13, 1577.
It's New Year's Day, and it was on this day in the year 2000 that a
technological disaster was supposed to occur but didn't, when the so-
called Y2K bug failed to take down computers all over the world.
The computer bug was the result of a decision, back in the 1950s. At
that time, computers were still using punch cards to feed information
into computers, and in order to save space, the early programmers
chose to represent the year as two numerals instead of four. So the
year 1956 would be represented as just 56. No one at the time thought
about what would happen if computers lasted until the end of the
century.
IBM shipped their earliest computers with the same two-digit year
embedded in the code, and it became the industry standard. A computer
programmer named Robert Bemer was one of the first people to point
out that sometime before the year 2000, computers would have to begin
representing the year with four numerals. He published an article
about the problem in 1971 and again in 1979, but nobody did anything.
It wasn't really until the 1990s that programmers began to realize
that computers could be terribly confused when the year ticked over
from 99 to 00. By that time, practically the whole world was run by
computers. It suddenly seemed possible that at midnight on the first
day of the year 2000, power plants and security systems and even
nuclear reactors could go haywire when their computers couldn't
figure out the date.
It might have seemed like an easy problem to fix, but most computers
by 1999 were running on programs that had been written in incredibly
complex computer code, and no one was exactly sure where the
information about the date would be located in all that code. It
turned out that about 1.2 trillion lines of code had to be checked.
After news stories about the problem became widespread, people around
the country began to panic, stockpiling food and generators. The
Federal Reserve worried about a run on cash with last-minute ATM
withdrawals, so they printed an extra $50 billion. Some people
thought that all the technology in the country would fail and that
we'd be sent back to a kind of Stone Age. There were predictions of
planes dropping from the sky, and nuclear weapons spontaneously
exploding. American companies ultimately spent about $100 billion
fixing the problem. And then, nothing happened.
Bill, Funny you mention Drake's ship the Golden Hind. As a nineteen year old kid working for McDonnell ship repair I was working on a ship of the same name. The ship had bent a prop blade in the ice comig up the river, causing a terrible vibration with every turn. We were on a raft in the bickerdike off Mill street in April straightening the prop. We welded an angle iron from the hull to the end of the blade and heated the bent part until we could straighten it with a sledge. When we were done we asked the Ist engineer to start the engines. We had loaded the forward ballast tanks and emptied the rear to lift the prop out of the water. Unfortunately no one thought to tighten the mooring lines when we did. The old bucket started to sway and the prop hit the raft dumping the four of us into the freezing April water. There was one slim 18 inch ladder built into the dock and I got part way up when some guy three time my size grabbed my belt and threw me about ten feet into the basin. When I got back to the ladder they were all at the top hollering at me to hurry as I had the keys to the truck. Ed
Ed, interesting. There must have been an angel looking after you that day. You use Oxygen/Acetylene torches? The prop bronze? Took lots of heat and talent to complete that job I bet.
I spent my entire adult life at sea, and sailed as 1st Eng. I know what it's like to have a bent prop and the vibration it causes. Years ago on a trip back from Indonesia on a merchant freighter (Gibbs Lykes) we hit a partially sunken tree washed down a jungle river during the rainy season. We could not go over slow ahead (20 RPMs) all the way back to Galveston Texas. The vibration was intense at that speed -- enough to loosen your teeth filings. I remember it took us a over month to the Panama Canal and another two weeks to Galveston. Some days with strong head winds we actually lost milage. I thought we'd never get home. When we arrived along side the dock I got totally wasted in the Port Hole Bar and stayed there until I was broke.
Second Avenue.
Those ship stories are really interesting to hear and brings to mind my brothers experiences as a shiphand and wheelsman. He traveled on the great lakes and around the world for 20 years and each time we get together, he describes the various incidents that happened to him. He would bring his motorcycle on board and would load and unload it with the ship's boon. When in south America, he would unload his motorcycle and go touring. Obviously, he had a very lenient captain, as a matter of fact, he would join the crew's card games wich sometimes lasted for days. Also, when on leave, he would have his sailor friends come over at our flat on Galt ave. and play cards days on end. This was in the fifties.One of his captains also lived in Verdun. Thanks for the ship stories Bill and Ed. Guy
If you are interested in sea stories of recent times check out 'Steaming to Bamboola, the World of a Tramp Freighter' by Christopher Buckley. It's all true. I've sailed on ships in that book.
Second Avenue.
Bill, The ship repair was the most interesting job I ever had. In early fifties the guys I worked with had sailed thru the war and I learned quickly. At that time the Montreal waterfront was a beehive of activity. All 103 berths were full all summer with ships anchored, waiting to unload. Our mainstay was installing seaway equipment for those going upriver. Fairleads were welded in to run the cables smoothly when they were in the locks. Also, lights attached to masts and rear deck to allow the seaway operator guidance at night. I remember getting an 10 foot length of frive shaft down into the engine room. Took 8 chain blocks and six men to guide it down thru the gangways. Did electrical work on a russian ship while two armed guards stood over me. They really didn't trust us back then. I never trusted the boson's chair but being skinny (then) they always swung me onto shore to tie up. It was disconcerting hanging over the gurgling water below while the lock pumps sucked something like ten thousand gallons a minute. Ed
Bill, Can you tell me what side of the marker buoys ships in river pass on. I'm thinking of the collision between the Empress of Ireland and the Storstad. I'm reading where mariners of the Norse countries pass on the opposite side to us. It sounds familiar. The Andrea Dorea and the Stockholm trial accused the Stockholm of doing the same. Also, An old classmate of yours is asking for your email address. Trevor Payne runs the A.A. meetings at Mtl. Gen. Hospital and speaks all over the city. I mentioned you and he had something in common. What addresss should I give him. You can get me direct at edbrown@videotron.ca
Red Right Return?
I've always heard Red to Red Go Ahead................. but radio's have made a difference ,you always yield to the larger ship ; and you can request to pass on whichever side ,but the general rule I beleive is the Red to Red.............(isn't it ??)
This site should help: http://www.boaterexam.com/Training/bouys1.html
Interested in te Emperess of Ireland,......... Sank in only 14 minutes.
VIDEO CLIP (mpg) Crash (3.4Meg) Over 1,000 lives lost, 850 of these being passengers,
making the Empress of Ireland the worlds worst
passenger ship disaster.
Unfortunately this was 1914, just 2 months before WW1.
Sadly the event is all but lost in history.
..........................Go directly to the website,for info on this shipwreck, http://www.execulink.com/~movegrafx/Empress_of_Ireland.htm ...........................................................................................
It Sank on January 27th ,1906............................. a century + one ago,..... here's some information re: the Emperess of Ireland http://www.sea-viewdiving.com/shipwreck_info/empress_of_ireland1.htm Several different areas to explore,.....................................................
I should say it was built on that Jan 27th 1906.......... at least that's what I gather from the home page on that last link,....... On her first trip of the summer of 1914 the Empress of Ireland sailed away from her berth in Quebec Harbour bound across the North Atlantic to Liverpool, England. Fate, however, had disaster in store for the Empress of Ireland and in a veiling fog the collier, Storstad, was to pierce her hull and send the Empress to the bottom of the St. Lawrence River. The Empress of Ireland took all but 462 of the 1477 souls on board with her. http://www.sea-viewdiving.com/shipwreck_info/empress_of_ireland1.htm
It was on board the Empress of Ireland that the Salvation Army band played as the ship went down. The band from here was on it's way to a convention in London. Hollywood portrayed as being on the Titanic. Ed
I think the larger vessel has the right of way in certain cases, but I'm not sure what the rules of the road are. That horrible incident so many years ago was covered up according to the book of the same name as the ship. The British Admiralty along with the ship owners weren't entirely forthcoming at the trial. Testimony of drunken wheelsmen and misunderstood ship's whistle alerts etc. So many lives lost. Mostly Irish immigrants returning to the homeland to visit family. I posted a thread here about the sinking a year or two ago, after I read the book. Below are a few Amazon books available about this ship.
.
http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss_gw/103-8241117-0282258?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=empress+of+ireland&Go.x=0&Go.y=0&Go=Go
"Did electrical work on a russian ship while two armed guards stood over me. They really didn't trust us back then. I never trusted the boson's chair but being skinny (then) they always swung me onto shore to tie up. It was disconcerting hanging over the gurgling water below while the lock pumps sucked something like ten thousand gallons a minute. Ed"
In 1980 a Keystone T-2 tanker (Perryville) I signed on to, was loading grain for Egypt in Portland Oregon. A Russia freighter also loading grain, were tied up behind us, and the Russian crew were not allowed to go ashore. They set up a ping pong table on the dock for their rest and recreation. Afraid the men/women crew members would skedaddle.
I also experienced the bosn's chair to tie up a Great Lakes ship (Henry Ford 2nd)I sailed on briefly in the 60s as an OS. No need of longshoremen that way.
S.A.
Ya know Bill, Some of the guys I worked with were tough. I fella hated the russians. He had two ships blown out from under him on the Murmansk run bringing goods to Northern Russia. He said the Russians even then had an anti western bias. I was repairing a switch for a fan in the engine room on an oiler and the rest of our crew was cleaning the tanks to fill with wheat going back to russia. We also had to weld pipes down the side of the ladder to within three inches of the hull. This as you know was to test for water in the hold. George got into some kind of argument with the Russkies and welded a can to the bottom of the pipe and filled it with water. I never heard what the result was but you can imagine. Ed
http://www.sea-viewdiving.com/shipwreck_info/empress_of_ireland1.htm
Les I purchased the DVD of the sinking of the 'Empress of Ireland' from the above address -- thanks for the URL. Interesting video of the wreck by Canadian divers plus a simulation video of the collision. The entire sinking took place in 14 minutes. That's from the time the coulier hit the Empress to liner laying on the bottom of the St. Laurence with 1000 souls entomed within. There is a book entitled '14 Minutes'.
Second Avenue.
On this day in 1848, James W. Marshall was building a sawmill for Captain John Sutter, using water from the South Fork of the American River, when he noticed several flakes of metal in the water and recognized them to be gold. Though he tried to keep it a secret, the word spread quickly, and triggered the California gold rush of 1849.
At the time, California was technically a part of Mexico. Coincidentally, just a little more than a week later, the United States and Mexico signed a treaty that led to the United States' purchase of the land that became California, as well as the other southwestern states. If Mexico had known about the discovery of gold on this day, they might never have sold all that land for just $15 million.
The reason the gold rush caused such a huge migration of people across the United States was that gold was a particularly easy mineral for ordinary people to mine. Gold has chemical properties that make it unlikely to combine with other minerals, so it is usually found relatively pure in nature. And because of its density, it would often get washed out of mountainsides in rivers, and then settle at the bottom of the river wherever the water was calm. So instead of having to build a huge mining operation, with lots of fancy machinery, ordinary people could just sift through the pebbles at the bottom of a stream, and if they were lucky, they'd find gold. The price of gold was about $20 an ounce at the time. If a riverbed contained gold, it was possible to pan out 10 ounces a day, earning more in a week than the average worker could earn in a year.
In the 10 years prior to 1848, only 2,700 people had settled in California. By the end of 1850, almost 200,000 people had moved there, and they did so even though California was 1,000 miles from the nearest state, Texas, and there were no major roads to get there.
By 1860, more than $600 million in gold had been mined out of California, but very few ordinary people actually made it rich. The riverbeds were panned out pretty quickly, and then the only way to get the gold was by using machines. But even though it didn't help many of the miners, the gold rush greatly increased government revenues, and helped build the American West. Some historians have argued that the gold from California even helped the North win the Civil War, since it was those gold revenues that helped fund the war effort.
One of the people who did manage to make a fortune from the gold rush was an immigrant from Bavaria named Levi Strauss. He was a traveling merchant, and he specialized in a sturdy brand of trousers made of sailcloth and held together with copper rivets. His pants were extremely popular, and they became the basis of modern blue jeans.
How about Alaska wich the U.S. bought for 5 million dollars from the Rusians. Guy
Guy I guess the Russians thought they were selling ice which they already had enough of. I wonder if either country were aware there be gold in them thar hills. Russia could have been Canada's neighbour otherwise.
Take Manhattan, purchaced from the indians for some triinkets I believe, and of course Hawaiian land bought up by missionaries who came to save souls, and in the end lost theirs. History is interesting huh.
Bill, Talking about Alaska, why did`nt Canada buy it since it is part of our land mass. Must check it up in our history book. Guy
Good question.
Secratary of State Seward only purchased this land in 1867. In that year Canada was not in a position to purchase anything. It consisted of only Upper and Lower Canada. (Ontario and Quebec.) Seward had hoped to buy territory from between the U.S. and Alaska which at that time I believe was called Rupert's land. The hostilities between him and President Johnson distracted him from his goal. Johnson took a lot of the blame for what they called Seward's folly. Ed
Incideltally, For History buffs. The trouble between Seward and Johnston was one of the most interesting pieces of history in the U.S.. Lincoln chose Andrew Johnston as aVice President because he was the only southern senator that stayed with the North. It gave Lincoln a go-between with himself and President Davis. On Lincoln's death Johnston, who was on a speaking tour of the south at the time, became President. Secratary of War Edwin Stanton and Seward tried to get him to resign. He refused. The Congress introduced a bill to say that the southern states had to put up 50 million each to get back into the union. Johnston vetoed saying it would make the southern states feel like secoind class citizens. When Seward fought him he fired Stanton and Seward. They had the congress pass a law saying the Prtesident did not have the power to fire them. When he fired them anyway he was brought up on Impeachment charges. He was never impeached thanks to Senators who voted it down. The hassle ruined his health but thanks to him the U.S. is one country today, possibly the bravest President they ever had. Ed
I'm certainly not a civil war buff but I'm always amazed at the death toll. More Americans died in the civil war than all the other world wars. Many of the deaths were from hand to hand combat, and infected wounds. A horrible time in US history but the end result is, as you say Ed, one country, and the world is better off as a result.
hmm are we now
I think Les Israel is on the brink of bombing Iran. Self preservation is a great motivator. WW 3? Hope not.
S.A.
Yes Les, The doomsday clock. Did I see you on St. Catherine street wearing a long beard and pushing Steven Hawking in his wheelchair. Also wearing a sandwich board saying, "The end is at hand. Bush still has two more years." Ed
It's the birthday of astronomer Galileo Galilei, (books by this author) born in Pisa, Italy (1564). He was in his 40 in the summer of 1609 when he heard a rumor that someone in Holland had invented a device called a spyglass, which allowed people to see things up close from a distance. As soon as Galileo heard about it, he cursed himself, because he'd had a similar idea years before, but he'd never followed up on it. He knew that the Italian government would be interested in such a device for military purposes. So he decided to try to make one himself before anyone from Holland could travel down to Italy. If he could present it to the government first, he would get the credit.According to Galileo, it took him only 24 hours to design his own telescope, even though he'd never seen one. And the telescope he designed was actually better than the one from Holland, more than 20 times more powerful. He presented it to the government, and they rewarded him with a lifetime appointment to his university post, with double the pay.He went on to become one of the first people to use the telescope to examine astronomical objects in our solar system. On the night of January 7, 1610, Galileo saw three stars, arranged in a straight line next to Jupiter. He observed them over the next several days and found that they changed position in relation to Jupiter every night. Eventually, he came to the conclusion that these must be moons revolving around Jupiter. And if moons could revolve around Jupiter, then Aristotle's theory that everything revolved around the Earth was incorrect. This observation provided evidence for Copernicus' theory that the Earth revolves around the sun. Galileo spent the rest of his life writing about these ideas, even though they got him into big trouble with the Catholic Church.Galileo said, "In questions of science, the authority of a thousand is not worth the humble reasoning of a single individual."
SecondAve I enjoyed reading about Galileo and
what he said "In questions of science,the authority of a thousand is not worth
the humble reasoning of a single individual"
I have started to keep a book with all my favorite
sayings this is one ,however I am not sure who said it.
Artificial intelligence is no match for natural
stupidity !
Makes me think of that song. It's hard to be humble
when your perfect in everyway.
better to die fighting for freedom
than being a prisoner all
the days of your life.
bob marley
Hi Levis I googled that one ....Artificial Intelligence ...... It came back as written by an unknown author. Laurie
It's the anniversary of two crucial battles in World War II. In 1940,
the British forces completed their evacuation from Dunkirk, and on
this day in 1942, the Battle of Midway took place.
Winston Churchill, who'd become prime minister that spring, had sent
British forces to Belgium to try to stop the advance of the Nazi
invasion, but the British soldiers were unprepared for the superior
German army. They were completely overwhelmed. They were bottled up
in the little coastal town of Dunkirk. They had abandoned equipment
on the way, leaving the road to Dunkirk littered with empty vehicles
and piles of gear.
The Nazi tanks had been in close pursuit, but when the British troops
reached the coast, Hitler gave a personal order to stop the invasion.
The Nazi commander was infuriated. He knew that he could probably
wipe out the British in a single battle, and that the war for western
Europe could be finished in a few days. One of Hitler's associates at
the time wrote in his diary, "The Fuhrer is terribly nervous.
Frightened by his own success, he's afraid to take any chance and
would rather pull the reins on us."
The British estimated they had about two days to evacuate, but when
the British ships showed up to carry the troops across the channel,
they found the harbor too shallow for most of the ships to reach the
shore. Almost 500,000 men were stranded on the beach, and Nazi
bombers began to attack from the air. The British government sent out
a request for all persons with seaworthy vessels to help in the
evacuation, and a great flotilla of fishing boats, lifeboats, paddle
steamers and yachts came across the English Channel and saved the
British army.
What really turned the tide, however, was Winston Churchill's
decision to turn the whole event into a symbol of bravery and
perseverance. When the soldiers arrived in Britain, they were given a
hero's welcome, with parades and cheering crowds. One solider said,
"We might have been the heroes of some great victory instead of a
beaten army returning home, having lost most of its equipment."
The Battle of Midway took place in the Central Pacific Ocean—Midway
Island—the last American outpost in the Pacific. The Japanese navy
hoped to take control of it and use it to stage an invasion of
Hawaii, but a squadron of American bombers who had wandered off
course accidentally stumbled upon the Japanese fleet while most of
planes were refueling. Fuel lines on the Japanese carriers caught
fire, munitions exploded, and hundreds of Japanese sailors died in an
instant. The battle went on for three more days, but the Japanese
never fully recovered from that first attack, and never won another
decisive naval battle for the rest of the war.
It's the anniversary of the biggest military invasion in history, D-Day, (1944). It's when the Allied armies launched the invasion of Normandy. Dwight D. Eisenhower had planned the invasion, and had been arguing for it ever since America got into the war after Pearl Harbor. Most British military commanders thought it was too risky. Winston Churchill was particularly nervous about the idea of invading France.
But Eisenhower finally won the argument, and the Allies built dozens or airfields in Great Britain, stockpiled millions of tons of weapons and supplies, built tent cities along the ports of the English Channel where tens of thousands of soldiers would live.
The German commanders knew an invasion was coming. They'd spent weeks fortifying their positions, but the Allies had deceived the Nazis into thinking the invasion would come in near the French-Belgian border. They had a number of battle ships across from that point in the channel, and the Nazis took the bait and concentrated a good deal of their defensive forces in the wrong place.
June 6, 1944, was a foggy morning. Sometime after dawn, the English Channel was full of ships—a huge armada—1,200 fighting ships, 10,000 planes, more than 150,000 troops, a little more than half of them American. The plan was to bomb the beach to create craters in the sand for foxholes, and then send the ground troops up the beach.
When the troops reached the shore, they saw that the bombers had missed all of their targets. There was no protection on the beach. The landing craft were hit by a barrage of bullets. In less than a half an hour, more than two-thirds of the first company to reach the shore was killed. At first, the American commanders thought that the invasion had failed, but the first troops made some progress, and the second wave came in and slowly took over the fortified positions above the beach. By nightfall, more than 150,000 Allied troops had landed in France.
The Germans had tank divisions that could have driven the Allies back into the sea, but they got conflicting orders from the high command and didn't start to attack until late in the afternoon, almost ten hours after the invasion had started. The German commander said at the time, "If we don't succeed in throwing the Allies into the sea, we will have lost the war." The German tanks got to within three miles of the shore and then were driven back by Allied tanks and anti-tank guns, and no German unit ever again got so close to the beaches. Many historians saw that as the turning point of the war.
Your right Bill ,.this is a very Important day in history: ..........................Imagine the thoughts running through these fellows heads,just prior to those doors opening,......and some of them (lot'sof them) would not see lunch..............................................................Remember Them
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Hi Sandy while searching for those D-Day pics,...I did come across this site http://www.daughtersofd-day.com/ I didn't explore this site,so I'm not sure of it's content,otherthan what it would indicate in the title,........ it had a few pictures ,which is what I was searching for originally,........but you (or others) may find something of interest here??? ....................................hv&rv
Sandy here's a quick paragraph related to the previous post & from that site Daughters My friend Carol Schultz Vento and I started this website with the idea that there seems to be some unspoken connection that the children of WWII veterans shared and are just now beginning to recognize and question. It seemed clear to us that these men must have returned home from war in a traumatized state and it was something that no one was prepared to deal with at that time. The effects of combat were not widely discussed in the late 40’s and throughout the 1950’s. Post Traumatic Stress (PTSD) wasn’t even recognized until after the Vietnam War. When we spoke with other women we found a very similar pattern woven into all of our stories; much of which we think has to do with that untreated trauma. While we are not therapists, we suspect that we're onto something. We also found a certain sense of resonance among the children of veterans in recognizing what we didn’t understand about what our fathers went through and how profoundly it affected them. .........................Looks like it may be an interesting ,site,.perhaps the actual stress is what seemed to make a lot of Our Vets ,not want to talk about most of the events they witnessed,...........
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Sandy. That is one thing about so many Canadians. When war was declared on Germany, so many of the "young" men did not hesitate to join up immediately!!!!
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Also as a worthy note, Canada declared war before the US, but it took an alied effort to crush the Germans.
This photo is showing the town of Arramanches, Normandy. It is one of the landing areas that the allied forces landed on the beaches of Normandy on June 6, 1944 You can still see parts of the artificial harbour that was built so the troops could land.
This photo shows the DDay Landing Museum in Arramanches, Normandy.
Bill, I disagree with your info on DDay. To say Churchill and the British generals were hesitant to invade France is 100% wrong. The British Expeditionary Force was at Dunkirk on May 10, 1940, two yerars before Eisenhower and the American Army got overseas. The plans for invasion were there from the begiunning., it was just a question of when and where. The one good thing Eisenhower did in taking command was to pull all the generals together. Somehow he had a knack of leadership that made men work together. The failure of the Battle of Dunkirk was the Maginot line. The Germans pentrated the line and the French did not let anyone know. The Allied forces suddenly found the enemy at their backs. One of the reasons for the Normandy success was because the RAF had obliterated the german airforce in the Battle of Britain. Hitler ordered Ghoerring to keep the Luftwaff a s an umbrella to protect Berlin..
Right on.
You know Bill, Canada was in World War before the Americans because the U.S. had not been threatened or attacked and it would have been illegal for them to enter. Canada through connection with Britain had a pact with Poland and Czeckoslovakia and had to enter. Had America entered the war before Pearl harbour it would have been against the Geneva convention and a criminal act. The same thing happened in W.W one. America could not legally enter until her ships were sunk by Germany. I find it odd that many Americans I talk to can't understand that Canada felt the same way about Iraq. We did not feel threatened by them and that's the reason we did not enter. Some of my American friends including my own sister in California don't see it that way. They feel we let America down. However I'm pleased that Canada went to Afganistan immediately after 9/11. Ed
back then as a littile verduner, living on woodland, kids are kids they called me pollack, most they made fun of my last name at times i asked my dad, he told me to be proud, many many people don't know how much the polish did in ww11. aprox1500 RAF pilots took part in the battle of britain, over 150 of whom were polish pilots. squadron 303 became the highest scoring allied squardon dad was one of those pilots, the sad part on the victory day parade the polish forces weren't allowed to march on that parade. this was a big hurt to those that fought along side with canadians, irish, english scots, they were the fourth biggest allie in the war.
Oh Would I ever like to respond to this topic,...........but I think I'll let the As*h*67%e ,who is 'presenetly' running the USA,.........to stick his own head up his ...................Foreign Policy.........hahahahahhaha
Amen. I have a different view point Ed of the current Iraqi policies, but today is a day of honoring our fallen and surviving heros.
No one can dispute the bravery of the Canadian soldier. My father was in the war for the 'duration'. I was five years old before I seen him for the first time (highly decorated). He spent months in an English hospital convalescing from shrapnel wounds, after sent back to the front lines. As a Canadian soldier he started in N. Africa (?), Sicily, Italy, France, Holland, Germany. My godson was injured in Bosnia as a Canadian soldier, and continues to suffer serious back pain today.
Bill
Hello WAlter ,..................I don't know if You Know this,........but I made it a point to get the book regarding the Polish Pilots ,...........that you mentioned years ago here on Verdun Connections,...............a part of the GVPL 's catalogue.................... "A Question of Honour".......Look it up ,it's now in the Library's Inventory,..................... & I was the first person to get it checked out
les thank you looking it up, a question of honour was written by two american authors. they have a web site- a question of honour, for those interested years back the polish embassy called me to go to the book showing so i went to find out. there was lots of vets thanking the authors on writing the book, they traveled to europe spent several years to write this book. a few years ago, they were allowed to march on the victory day parade in front of the parade.
Guys is this the book?B.
http://www.amazon.com/Question-Honour-Lieutenant-General-Valentine/dp/0850524962/ref=sr_1_5/103-8241117-0282258?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1181213861&sr=1-5
Today is the anniversary of the day in 1815 that Napoleon Bonaparte lost his final major battle near Waterloo Village in Belgium. After a series of defeats, he had abdicated the throne and went to live on the island of Elba. He took long salt baths and read The Arabian Nights. But after a year in exile, he got bored and went back to France. He gathered an army and marched north toward Belgium where he hoped to attack and destroy the English and Prussian armies, which were gathering near Brussels.His plan was to split his own army and attack the English and Prussian armies separately, in order to drive them apart. Then he could defeat them one at a time. But the men in his army were mostly peasants and farmers he had gathered on his way north. They loved him, but they had no real experience on the battlefield. Due to a series of blunders, his two flanks accidentally drove the English and Prussian armies closer together rather than further apart.Napoleon got the bad news at 11:00 p.m. on June 17th, and he spent all night worrying about it. There had been a thunderstorm that evening so he'd been forced to delay his attack on the British troops near the village of Waterloo. But despite everything going against him, he still thought he could win. He had 74,000 men compared to the opposing army's 68,000, and he had superior artillery. He told his chief of staff, "This affair is nothing more than eating breakfast."Unfortunately for Napoleon, the rain had delayed the battle so long that the Prussian army had time to arrive with reinforcements and help the British win the battle. Napoleon lost 25,000 men. He signed a second abdication in Paris and went to live on the remote island of St. Helena off the coast of Africa.The word "Waterloo" has come to mean an impossible struggle or a decisive and final contest. An abolitionist and orator named Wendell Phillips was one of the first people to use the word that way when he said, "Every man meets his Waterloo at last."
And today, the 18th of July, is believed to be the anniversary of the fire that burned Rome in 64 AD, while the emperor Nero supposedly played his fiddle. In fact, he wasn't in Rome. He was away at his holiday villa on the coast, and when he heard about the fire, he rushed back to the capital and took charge of the operations.The rumors about his playing his fiddle probably came from people in the Roman military who did not approve of Nero's artistic leanings. He'd come to power at the age of 16. He was the youngest ruler in the history of Rome. He was more interested in music and poetry than in battling the barbarians. And he didn't play the fiddle; he did play the lyre. But his real passion was singing. He was also known to be a transvestite, which did not endear him to the soldiers.One of the rumors being spread at the time was that Nero had himself started the fire because he was disgusted by the architecture in Rome and wanted to rebuild the city. And to bolster his own image against these rumors, Nero decided that the fire needed to be blamed on someone else, and he picked out the Christians who were generally loathed by Romans.The religion of Christianity was only a few decades old when Nero singled it out. Nero rounded up Christians; they were covered in the skins of wild animals, torn to death by dogs, crucified, or they were burned at the stake.Most Romans at the time despised Christians, but Nero's program of persecution went further than the people wanted. It had the unintended effect of making people sympathize with Christians. And a little more than 200 years later, the emperor of the Roman Empire himself converted to Christianity, and it became the dominant religion of Europe.
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I always thought it was a "figure of speech" that Nero "played his fiddle" while Rome burned. Like he was oblivious to the destruction because he was busy enjoying himself. Much like a "leader" in our age that was "busy" in his own little world while the attacks on his "nation" took place. hmmmmmmm, is he over-compensating because of his feelings of inadequecy? Just a thought........ [the previous message was deleted (by me) because of a spelling error]
Hmmm... Are you saying this particular leader has a small...ahhh...dink?
S.A.
Hmmmm I don't know about his apendage's but his grey matter,is quite small......but one thing for sure ,there's no argueing that his VP is a DICK .......even says so on his business cards................... hahahahaha
A Church goer wrote a letter to the editor of a newspaper and complained that it made no sense to go to church every Sunday. "I've gone for 30 years now," he wrote, "and in that time I have heard something like 3,000 sermons. But for the life of me, I can't remember a single one of them. So, I think I'm wasting my time and the pastors are wasting theirs by giving sermons at all."
This started a real controversy in the "Letters to the Editor" column, much to the delight of the editor. It went on for weeks until someone wrote this clincher: "I've been married for 30 years now. In that time my wife has cooked some 32,000 meals. But, for the life of me, I cannot recall the entire menu for a single one of those meals. But I do know this.. They all nourished me and gave me the strength I needed to do my work. If my wife had not given me these meals, I would be physically dead today. Likewise, if I had not gone to church for nourishment, I would be spiritually dead today!" When you are DOWN to nothing.... God is UP to something! Faith sees the invisible, believes the incredible and receives the impossible! Thank God for our physical AND our spiritual nourishment!
In regards to just the Mexican border alone, I agree with your sentiments in regards to this very confusing leader. Did you know the congress has lower popularity poll points than the leader? Sad.
S.A.
Yikes !!
In Regards to the Mexican Border alone,......................(the Fearless Leader) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Og-lqgRasLw .........Have Fun & Remember Verdun
Whenever I see "W" I thank God that I live in Canada. If a Canadian Prime Minister tried to pull the things he does he'd be stomped into a striped tie frisbee. Remember when Mulroony tried to cheat on the pensions. The elderly came from coast to coast and gathered on parliament hill. When he confronted them, they told him to his face what a rotten skunk he was. Mulroney backed down. I don't know why the American people take it. Ed
It was on this day in 378 A.D., the Romans were routed by the Visigoths at the Battle of Adrianople, a victory of barbarian horsemen over Roman infantry. It was one of the most decisive battles in what is now the nation of Turkey. Two-thirds of the Roman army, 40,000 men, including Emperor Valens himself, were overrun and slaughtered by the Visigoths which set the stage for the fall of the Roman Empire.
It was on this day in 79 A.D. that the one of the most destructive volcano eruptions in recorded human history occurred when the volcano Mt. Vesuvius erupted, burying the Roman city of Pompeii. Pompeii was a resort town for citizens of Rome at the time, located on the Bay of Naples. People there probably didn't even know Mt. Vesuvius was a volcano. There hadn't been a major eruption in 800 years. But there were frequent earthquakes, and in the two weeks leading up to the eruption, there had been thin clouds of volcanic ash drifting down from the mountain, which people had been sweeping off the streets.
Then, on the morning of this day in 79 A.D., Mount Vesuvius exploded with a force 100,000 times that of the atom bomb dropped on Hiroshima. The explosion sent a cloud of ash 12 miles into the air, completely blacking out the sun. The mountain was almost five miles away, so some of the people in the city didn't evacuate right away. They thought they would have time to flee if necessary. What they didn't know was that the volcano had spewed toxic gasses along with molten rock. Birds began to fall dead from the sky, and then the city was blanketed with volcanic rock and ash, at the rate of six inches an hour. By the end of the day, not a single living thing remained in Pompeii. The city was buried under more than 20 feet of debris.
The molten rock that covered the city kept it preserved for more than 1,750 years, until the mid-1800s, when stories began to circulate in the area that you could dig around in the dirt and find treasures. After years of pillaging, an archeologist was finally hired in 1860 to perform an official excavation of Pompeii. It turned out to be one of the most important sites in the history of archeology.
Most of the city was preserved exactly as it had been at the moment of destruction. Archeologists could examine what pictures ordinary people had painted on their walls, what cutlery and cookware they kept in their kitchens. They found graffiti written on bathroom walls and legal documents written on wax tablets. Most of what historians know about everyday life in Ancient Rome is based on what archeologists found in the perfectly preserved city of Pompeii.
And archaeologists also found the bodies of the people who died in the eruption. The volcanic ash had molded to the bodies of the victims, leaving a perfect imprint before the bodies decayed. Archaeologists poured plaster into these molds, and the result was detailed replicas of the victims at the moment of death, down to the wrinkles in their clothing and the expressions on their faces. On the floor in a house they found a father and son. The young boy was on his back, looking up at his father, and they were holding hands. They found adults with their arms outstretched trying to protect children, a family of eight rushing toward the sea, and dogs straining against their leashes.
It was on this day in 1945 that Japan formally surrendered to the United States, marking the end of World War II. It was a gray, overcast day. The surrender took place on the USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay, the sunken wrecks of Japanese ships all around the harbor, left over from American bombings.General MacArthur came aboard at 9:00. A few minutes later, the Japanese contingent arrived. The Japanese foreign minister walked slowly, wearing a frock coat and top hat. When he had taken his place, a naval chaplain delivered an invocation and a recording of "The Star-Spangled Banner" was played.The witnesses said that General MacArthur was in a terrible mood. He barely looked at the Japanese and seemed impatient to get the whole thing over with. The whole signing ceremony took about 10 minutes, and most of it was carried out in silence. When it was over, MacArthur said, "Let us pray that peace be now restored to the world and that God will preserve it always. These proceedings are now closed." And with that, he walked off the ship, without having ever formally acknowledging the Japanese men who'd just surrendered to him. The Japanese were then escorted from the ship. In less than half an hour, the bloodiest war in history had come to an end.
It was on this day in 1927 that a man named Philo T. Farnsworth transmitted the first ever all-electronic television picture in history. Farnsworth had gotten the idea for television when he was just 14 years old, living on a potato farm in Idaho. His high school science teacher had gotten him interested in electricity, and he studied electrical engineering in his spare time. One day, he was tilling a potato field, walking with the horse back and forth, when he suddenly had a vision of a machine that could break an image down, line by line, and then reconstruct it on a screen.
He finished high school in just two years and then went to Brigham Young University. But he dropped out to pursue his dream of creating the electric television. He got some investors together and set up a laboratory in San Francisco. And it was there, on this day, that he pointed his Image Dissector at a picture of a single line and turned on the receiver, which showed the same picture of a single line. Farnsworth then rotated the picture 90 degrees, and the people watching the receiver saw it rotate. When the demonstration was complete, Farnsworth said, "There you are, electronic television."
But Farnsworth never got much credit for his invention. He turned down offers from both RCA and General Electric because he wanted to be an independent. But he had little business expertise, and instead of spending his time developing television for a mass audience, he got bogged down in a series of lawsuits. The biggest battle of Farnsworth's life was a court battle with RCA over the control of his patent. RCA claimed that one of their engineers already held a patent on the technology Farnsworth had developed. Farnsworth finally won the case in 1934, but RCA decided to just wait until Farnsworth's patents ran out before they began manufacturing televisions without paying Farnsworth anything.
Farnsworth never became famous for his invention, and later felt that he'd created a kind of monster. He never owned a television himself, and refused to let his son watch it.
It was on this day in 1609 that the explorer Henry Hudson sailed up the river to which he would give his name. He had been hired by the Dutch East India Company to find a passage to Asia through the North Pole, and he thought the Hudson River might be that passage. The Mohican Indians called the river "Great Waters Constantly in Motion." Hudson sailed up the river with his men on this day in 1609, and they anchored their ship that night on an area of land that would become Manhattan's West 42nd Street.
Hudson and his men sailed up the river for about a month, until they reached what would become Albany. By then Hudson had decided that this wasn't the Northwest Passage, and he turned back. He and his men were almost killed by Indians on his return journey, but they reached the open sea on October 4 and headed back to Amsterdam.
Henry Hudson never saw that river again, and though it became known as the Hudson River, he probably died thinking of it as one of his many failures. During his last known voyage, his men mutinied and forced him into a tiny lifeboat, where he was set adrift in what became known as the Hudson Bay. No one knows what happened to him.
It was on this day in 1961 that President John F. Kennedy signed legislation that created the Peace Corps. In the first five years, the number of volunteers grew from 500 to more than 15,000. There's been an average of about 10,000 volunteers each year since then, including the writer Paul Theroux, who taught school in Africa as a Peace Corps volunteer. He wrote, "In this schoolroom there is a line of children, heads shaved like prisoners, muscles showing through their rags. They are waiting to peer through the tiny lens of a cheap microscope so they can see the cells in a flower petal."
It's the birthday of John Lennon, (albums by this musician) born in Liverpool, England (1940), who formed his first rock band in high school, called the Quarrymen. He was performing at a church social in the summer of 1957 when a boy in the audience named Paul McCartney saw him for the first time. McCartney later said he was impressed by how tough Lennon looked on stage, like he was challenging the audience to a fight. In fact, Lennon had gotten into a fight with his aunt earlier in the evening, and he was just glaring at her while he sang. Lennon and McCartney became friends later that night, and they formed the band that became The Beatles.
He'd be 67. Wow.
BobB
Bob haven't heard from you for some time. Hope all is well.
If you click on (albums by this musician) you'll see some really good buys for used CDs. I may order the 'Imagine' album today.
Bill
It's the birthday of (Anna) Eleanor Roosevelt, born in New York City (1884), who grew up feeling plain and boring compared to her beautiful, fashionable mother. She said, "I seemed like a little old woman entirely lacking in the spontaneous joy and mirth of youth." But one day on a train to visit her grandmother, she happened to bump into her distant cousin, Franklin Delano Roosevelt. They started a secret courtship and got married in 1905.The Roosevelts' marriage nearly ended in 1918, when Eleanor found out FDR had been having an affair with a secretary. They agreed not to divorce, but after that Eleanor grew increasingly independent. She developed her own ideas about politics, joined the Women's Trade Union League and the League of Women Voters. When FDR was elected president in 1932, she helped institute regular White House press conferences for female correspondents only, which forced many news organizations to hire women for the first time.She toured the country during the Great Depression to give her husband a firsthand account of how people were doing, and she was a supporter of civil rights before her husband was. In 1936, she started a syndicated newspaper column called "My Day," and after her husband died in 1945, she became a delegate to the United Nations and helped draft the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948.Eleanor Roosevelt, who said, "No one can make you feel inferior without your consent."
Hi Bill
Thank you for your concern. Yes I am fine. I guess I have been too busy with stuff and haven't taken the time to stop and have fun. But I am getting back into the good things.
I will definitely check out the albums. John Lennon's Imagine is a masterpiece. But then again, so many of his songs were. In My Life for example.
I hope life is good out there in the Pacific, Bill.
BobB
It's the birthday of philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, (books by this author) born in the Prussian village of R철cken (1844), who was a young professor of Greek literature when he got sick and had to take a medical leave from his professorship. He spent the next 15 years suffering from terrible headaches and stomach problems and deteriorating eyesight, living in a series of increasingly shabby rented rooms. But he wrote to distract himself, and it was in those 15 years that he wrote all his most famous books, including Thus Spake Zarathustra (1883), about a prophet who comes down from the mountains to tell everyone that God is dead and we have killed him. Nietzsche thought that the absence of God from the world was a tragedy, but he felt that people had to learn to live in a world without God and without absolute morality.
It was on this day in 1854 that a British military disaster occurred
in the Crimean War that inspired Alfred Tennyson to write his famous
poem "The Charge of the Light Brigade."
It was on this day in 1940 that 75,000 men were called to Armed Forces duty under the first peacetime conscription in American history. The draft had never been popular in America. During the Civil War it had sparked riots, and during World War I more than 3 million men refused to register at all. But people had heard about Hitler's army invading and occupying Poland and France over the course of several months. In October of 1940, 16 million young men appeared at precinct election boards across the country to register with the Selective Service, and the first 75,000 draftees were called up to service on this day in 1940. In 1939, a poll had shown that only 35 percent of Americans approved of a draft, but by 1940 that support had gone up to 92 percent.
Good one Bill. That was something I didn't know. Thanks.
It was on this day in 1558 that Queen Elizabeth I acceded to the English throne. Her father, King Henry VIII, had broken with the Catholic Church to divorce his first wife and marry Anne Boleyn, in hopes of producing a male heir. But when Elizabeth was born, he had Anne Boleyn beheaded and declared Elizabeth an illegitimate child. She grew up in a world of conspiracies and assassinations. Because she was a potential heir to the throne, her life was constantly in danger.
England almost broke out in civil war when Elizabeth's half-sister, Mary Tudor, came to power and tried to turn England back into a Catholic nation. But Mary died just five years after becoming queen, leaving behind a debt-ridden, divided country. Elizabeth took the throne on this day in 1558. She was 25 years old. One of her first acts as queen was to restore England to Protestantism. Militant Protestants wanted her to seek out secret Catholics and prosecute them, but Elizabeth decided that she wasn't going to police anyone's private beliefs. She required everyone to go to the Church of England on Sunday and that they all use the same prayer book, but aside from that they could believe whatever they wanted.
She also eased the restrictions on the legal operation of theaters, and the result was a new career for writers such as Christopher Marlowe, Ben Johnson, and William Shakespeare. Part of the reason so many great writers came out of the Elizabethan era was simply that it was a time of relative peace and prosperity, in which people had the luxury to read books and go to the theater. But Elizabeth also helped encourage the English to have pride in themselves, in their history, and especially their language.
She reigned for 45 years, one of the great eras in English history. Near the end of her reign, she said to her subjects: "Though God hath raised me high, yet this I count the glory of my crown: that I have reigned with your loves. And though you have had, and may have, many mightier and wiser princes sitting in this seat; yet you never had, nor shall have any that will love you better."
It's the birthday of the man who introduced us to Coca-Cola, Asa Griggs Candler, born in Villa Rica, Georgia (1851). He grew up during the Civil War and wanted to be a doctor, but his family was so poor that he could only receive an elementary school education before becoming a pharmacist's apprentice. But Candler proved to be business savvy, slowly building his own drugstore empire, and in 1886 he bought sole rights to John Pemberton's original formula of Coca-Cola and formed the Coca-Cola Company in 1890. Candler understood the importance of advertising. He used calendars, billboards, and posters to keep the Coca-Cola trademark prominent in the public's mind. After selling the patent in 1919, he went on to serve as Atlanta's mayor and funded a teaching hospital for Emory University's Medical School.
It's the birthday of Father Damien, born Joseph de Veuster in Belgium (1840), the priest who served the leper colony on the Hawaiian island of Kaluapapa. At that time, victims were dumped off the boat in the shallows because the captains were terrified to go ashore. Doctors left medicine on the beach and fled. Damien, however, dressed the wounds of his patients himself, ate with them, and buried them when they died. Eventually he developed the illness himself, and he died on the island, having roofed its buildings and made its hospital beds with his own hands. He said, "I would not be cured if the price of the cure was that I must leave the island and give up my work... I am perfectly resigned to my lot. Do not feel sorry for me."
Great reading thanks Bill jim
It's the birthday of the man we call Buffalo Bill, born William Frederick Cody in LeClaire, Iowa (1846).Cody's father died when the boy was only 13, and Cody responded by leaving the family home in Kansas to seek his fortune out West. He first worked for supply trains and a freighting company, and in 1859 he worked in the Colorado gold fields. The next year, Cody rode for the Pony Express. Then, Buffalo Bill began the work for which he became famous: scouting for the Army and hunting buffalos for railroad construction camps across the Great Plains.The novelist Ned Buntline persuaded Cody to appear on stage on December 17, 1872, as the character Buffalo Bill, and Cody was connected with show business almost completely from that time forward. The next year, Cody formed the Buffalo Bill Combination, which included his friend Wild Bill Hickok. He organized Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show in 1883, and toured all over America and Europe for many years. The state of Wyoming gave Cody a stock ranch, and it was here that the future city of Cody was first conceived.Buffalo Bill's adventures and exploits were written about in dime-store novels by Prentice Ingraham — and many of the adventures written there were true, or based in truth.
It was on this day in 1933 that the Nazi Party won 44 percent of the vote in German parliamentary elections, enabling it to join with the Nationalists to gain a slight majority in the Reichstag.
Hitler had become chairman of the Nazi Party in 1921, and two years later he tried to topple the German republican government in the so-called Beer Hall Putsch. Nazi storm troopers surrounded government officials during a meeting at a beer hall in Munich. The troopers forced the officials to swear allegiance to the Nazi revolution. But the coup was defeated and Hitler fled, then he was captured and imprisoned. While in prison, Hitler dictated his autobiography Mein Kampf (My Struggle) to a sympathetic scribe, and the book became important to Nazism.
The failed coup made Hitler famous, and the Nazi Party capitalized on the economic depression of 1929, as well as the heavy reparations Germany was made to pay for World War I, and they became a powerful force in Germany. In 1932, Hitler ran for president of Germany, but lost. The next year, he became the chancellor. Just before the parliamentary elections in 1933, the Reichstag building was set on fire, which led to the Reichstag Fire Decree, which rescinded habeas corpus and other protective laws. The following week, March 5, 1933, the Nazi Party won a slight majority in the elections. Within three weeks, the Nazi-dominated Reichstag passed the Enabling Act, which gave Hitler dictatorial powers and ended the Weimar Republic in Germany.
It is a significant event to be sure. But the 5th of March has many historic events: 1496: King Henry VII issued Letters of Patent to John Cabot and his sons, authorizing them to explore "unknown" lands. 1936: First flight of the Spitfire aircraft 1999: Paul Okalik is elected first Premier of the then new territory of Nunavut. 1867: Louis-Alexandre Taschereau, Premier of Quebec is born 1918: Milt Conrad Schmidt, hockey player, coach and manager. Mostly for the Bruins 1918: Roy Alvin "Red" Storey, football player for the Argonauts and hockey referee 1966: Bob Halkidis, hockey player !953: Russian thug, Joe Stalin died 1963: Patsy Cline, country singer died 1967: Georges Vanier, great canadian accomplished in many fields and Governor General of Canada 1980: Jay Silverheels, a hero on screen to many of my age, died 1982: John Belushi, actor died
6th of March: 1834: York is incorporated as Toronto 1836: Remember this day in Texas, on this day the Alamo fell 1964: Cassius Clay becomes Muhammad Ali, which means "beloved of Allah" 1475: Michelangelo is born 1906: Lou Costello, american actor and part of the comic team of Abbott & Costello is born 1923: TV personality Ed McMahon is born 1944: Kiri Te Kanawa the soprano from New Zealand is born 1944: Mary Wilson of the Supremes is born 1946: David Gilmour of Pink Floyd is born 1947: Rob Reiner, actor, comedian and producer is born 1959: Tom Arnold, actor is born 2002: Bryan Fogarty, a hockey player, born in Montreal, died
Didn't realize that Patsy Cline and Stalin shared anything. Neat set of factoids. Nunavut too. Impressive. Continue! Carol
What is it that Patsy Cline & Stalin shared..............I see ten years apart .......in deaths,....is that the similarity,...if it is,.... Then perhaps that's the Logic behind her song :Crazy: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wysJ7KeGpX4 ..................................................well one of them 'admits' they were Crazy....................................Yikes !! hahahahah HF&RV
1719: Michel-Phillippe Isabeau starts to build the fortress Louisberg on Cape Breton Island. It takes 25 years to build 1876: Alexander Graham Bell is granted a patent for an invention that he calls the "telephone" 1965: Bloody Sunday in Selma Alabama. Police use force to break up a march of 600 civil rights workers 2006: Apple granted the patent to the iPod 2007: British House of Commons votes to make the Upper Chamber, the House of Lords, 100% elected 1671: Robert Roy MacGregor, Scottish folk hero is born 1875: Maurice Ravel, French composer is born 1927: Jean-Paul Desbiens, writer and teacher is born 1942: Televangelist TammyFaye Baker is born 1943: Chris White of The Zombies is born 1946: Both Matthew Fisher of Procul Harum and Peter Wolf of J Geils Band are born 1951: Tower of Power member Francis Rocco Prestia is born 1952: Ernie Isley of the Isley Brothers is born 1968: Denis Boucher a baseball player born in Canada 1972: Maxim Roy, the actress is born 1979: Lead guitarist with Revolver, Tom Stockton is born 322BC: Aristotle dies 1274: Thomas Aquinas is born 1767: Jean-Baptiste Le Moyne de Bienville, a French colonizer dies 1913: Emily Pauline Johnson a native canadian poet dies 1999: Stanley Kubrick, the director dies In Albania, today is Teachers Day In Bali, Indonesia, today is the Day of Silence For all the women here who are or have been married. Today is the feast day of Saints Perpetua and Felicitas. They are the patron saints of married women
It's the birthday of Vincent Van Gogh, born in Zundert, Holland (1853). He painted sunflowers, starry nights, wheat fields, and self-portraits, and his work was just beginning to be acknowledged when he committed suicide at the age of 37. When he was 20, he went to work for an art dealer in London, then went off to Brussels to study to become an evangelist, and then went as a missionary to the coal miners in southwestern Belgium. One day he decided to give away all of his worldly goods and live like a peasant. But his religious superiors thought he was having a nervous breakdown. They kicked him out of the mission, and he had to go home.It was then that he started to draw and paint. He taught himself with art books and by studying the masters. He was especially interested in painting the daily life of peasants, and he began a collection of clothing that had been worn by fishermen, miners, and other laborers.For the next 10 years, from 1880 to 1890, he painted fast and furiously. He eventually settled in Arles, in southern France, where he said he could "look at nature under a brighter sky." It was in Arles that he began to develop the style he became known for, in which the images of flowers and trees and landscapes are exaggerated by extremely rough brush strokes and vivid colors. He believed that his paintings should convey the mood he was in when he painted them, and he painted extremely quickly so that his mood would not change before he finished. To get the job done, he often squeezed tubes of oil paint directly onto the canvas.His brother Theo was an art dealer, and for years he had supplied Van Gogh with a small monthly stipend. In return, Van Gogh gave his brother every canvas he painted. He wrote thousands of letters to Theo. "How much sadness there is in life," he wrote. "The right thing is to work." He moved to a small town north of Paris and painted feverishly until insanity overtook him. He cut off part of his own ear and was placed in an asylum at St. R챕my. One of his greatest paintings, Starry Night (1889), was painted while he was confined there. He left the asylum for good in the spring of 1890. In July, just as he was starting to receive favorable attention for his work, he committed suicide. Shortly before he died, he wrote "I feel a failure."
Bill, Did you see the film made in 1956 on the life of Van Gogh ? Kirk Douglas played the role of Van Gogh. What a performance, he really portrayed the troubled painter perfectly. However, I read somewhere that the film was not a financial success. Guy
On this day in 1889, the Eiffel Tower was inaugerated in Paris. It was built for the Paris Exposition as part of the commemoration of the 100th anniversary of the French Revolution, and also as a demonstration of the structural capabilities of iron.The tower elicited strong reactions after its opening. A petition of 300 names, including writers Guy de Maupassant, Émile Zola, and Alexandre Dumas the younger, was sent to the city government protesting its construction. The petition read, "We, the writers, painters, sculptors, architects, and lovers of the beauty of Paris, do protest with all our vigor and all our indignation, in the name of French taste and endangered French art and history, against the useless and monstrous Eiffel Tower."De Maupassant described it as, "A high and skinny pyramid of iron ladders, [a] giant ungainly skeleton upon a base that looks built to carry a colossal monument of Cyclops, but which just peters out into a ridiculous thin shape like a factory chimney." He hated the tower so much that he started eating in its restaurant every day, because, he said, "It is the only place in Paris where I don't have to see it."
It's the birthday of Anglo-Irish writer Mary Wollstonecraft, (books by this author) born in London in 1759, one of the first women to argue in favor of equality between the sexes in her book Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792)
For our Verdun friends of italian descent:
It's the birthday of (Gaius) Julius Caesar, born in Rome around 100 B.C. He was the great military leader who managed to capture most of what became France and Great Britain for the Roman Empire.
In a series of dispatches from the battlefield, Caesar became his own war correspondent. Unlike many of the Roman poets and historians of the era, Caesar wrote short descriptive prose that was easy for ordinary people to understand. His stories of military victories turned him into a national hero, but the Roman Senate increasingly saw him as a threat. It passed legislation requiring him to lay down his military command and return to Rome.
But Caesar realized that he had the largest and most battle-tested army in the empire under his command. And if he returned to Rome, his political opponents would end his career. And so, on January 10, 49 B.C., Caesar crossed the Rubicon River with his army, directly challenging the authority of the Senate. The result was a civil war. Though he was outnumbered in many of the major battles, Caesar won the war. And he was extremely merciful with captured military leaders because he wanted them as his allies. That might have been his biggest mistake, since it was a group of those men he spared that began to conspire against him.
He was an absolute dictator of Rome, with ambitious plans to redistribute wealth and land. But a group of senators, led by Brutus and Cassius, wanted to bring back the old republic. So they organized an assassination on the steps of the Senate.
The Roman republic never returned. Instead, Rome would be ruled by a series of emperors for the rest of the empire's existence.
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