History Thread...

[CMRivdogs]

 

“It is a lamentable circumstance that the only mediatory power acknoleged by both parties, instead of leading to a reconciliation his divided people, should pursue the incendiary purpose of still blowing up the flames as we find him constantly doing in every speech and public declaration.

“This may perhaps be intended to intimidate into acquiescence, but the effect has been most unfortunately otherwise. … This accident has cut off our last hopes of reconciliation, and a phrenzy of revenge seems to have seized all ranks of people. 

“A little knolege of human nature and attention to it’s ordinary workings might have foreseen that the spirits of the people here were in a state in which they were more likely to be provoked than frightened by haughty deportment.”

[CMRivdogs]

There are but very few who are permitted to come out in a day. They delay giving passes, make them wait from hour to hour, and their counsels are not two hours together alike. One day they shall come out with their Effects, the next Day merchandise are not Effects.

“One day their household furtinuture is to come out, the next only weareing apparrel, and the next Pharaohs heart is hardned, and he refuseth to hearken unto them and will not let the people go. May their deliverence be wrought out for them as it was for the Children of Israel.”

[CMRivdogs]

May 8

https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/may-8

Quote

On May 8, 1945, Great Britain, the United States and other Allied countries celebrate Victory in Europe Day. Cities in the U.S., U.K., and Western Europe, along with in the Soviet Union, Canada and Australia put out flags and banners, rejoicing in the defeat of the Nazi war machine during World War II.

The eighth of May marked the day when German troops throughout Europe finally laid down their arms: In Prague, Germans surrendered to their Soviet antagonists, after the latter had lost more than 8,000 soldiers, and the Germans considerably more; in Copenhagen and Oslo; at Karlshorst, near Berlin; in northern Latvia; on the Channel Island of Sark—the German surrender was realized in a final cease-fire. More surrender documents were signed in Berlin and in eastern Germany.

 

Quote

On May 8, 1792, Congress passes the second portion of the Militia Act, requiring that every free able-bodied white male citizen of the respective States, resident therein, who is or shall be of age eighteen years, and under the age of forty-five years be enrolled in the militia.

Six days before, Congress had established the president’s right to call out the militia. The outbreak of Shay’s Rebellion, a protest against taxation and debt prosecution in western Massachusetts in 1786-87, had first convinced many Americans that the federal government should be given the power to put down rebellions within the states. The inability of the Continental Congress under the Articles of Confederation to respond to the crisis was a major motivation for the peaceful overthrow of the government and the drafting of a new federal Constitution.

The Militia Act was tested shortly after its passage, when farmers in western Pennsylvania, angered by a federal excise tax on whiskey, attacked the home of a tax collector and then, with their ranks swollen to 6,000 camped outside Pittsburgh, threatened to march on the town. In response, President Washington, under the auspices of the Militia Act, assembled 15,000 men from the surrounding states and eastern Pennsylvania as a federal militia commanded by Virginia’s Henry Lee to march upon the Pittsburgh encampment. Upon its arrival, the federal militia found none of the rebels willing to fight. The mere threat of federal force had quelled the rebellion and established the supremacy of the federal government.

 

Quote

1886. The first-ever Coca-Cola is served at Jacob's Pharmacy in Atlanta as a health tonic, originally laced with coca leaf extract. It sells slowly at first—about nine glasses a day—but soon becomes the pick-me-up of choice.

 

[CMRivdogs]

May 9

https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/may-9

 

Quote

On May 9, 1915, Anglo-French forces fighting in World War I launch their first combined attemptto break through the heavily fortified German trench lines on the Western Front in France.

At Vimy Ridge, a strategically important crest of land on the Aisne River, in northwestern France, French troops launched an attack on German positions after firing shrapnel shells for five hours on the morning of May 9, 1915. On the heels of the artillery barrage, the French soldiers left their trenches to advance across No Man’s Land, only to find that the bombardment had failed to break the first German wire.

That same day, British troops under the orders of Sir Douglas Haig, commander in chief of the 1st Army Corps, attacked German lines further north in the Artois region in an attempt to capture Aubers Ridge, where they had failed during the Battle of Neuve Chapelle two months earlier. The British artillery here also proved ineffective, with many of the shells fired proving defective and many others too light to cause serious damage.

Quote

On May 9, 1914, President Woodrow Wilson issues a presidential proclamation that officially establishes the first national Mother’s Day holiday to celebrate America’s mothers.

The idea for a “Mother’s Day” is credited by some to Julia Ward Howe (1872) and by others to Anna Jarvis (1907), who both suggested a holiday dedicated to a day of peace. Many individual states celebrated Mother’s Day by 1911, but it was not until Wilson lobbied Congress in 1914 that Mother’s Day was officially set on the second Sunday of every May. In his first Mother’s Day proclamation, Wilson stated that the holiday offered a chance to “[publicly express] our love and reverence for the mothers of our country.”

Quote

May 9

Quote

In an episode of the TV western "Trackdown," a fictional con artist named Trump claims he alone can save a small Texas town from a meteor storm—by building a huge wall. When a Texas Ranger doubts him, the grifter threatens to sue.

 

 

Edited May 9 by CMRivdogs

[CMRivdogs]

May 10

https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/may-10

Quote

On May 10, 1869, the presidents of the Union Pacific and Central Pacific railroads meet in Promontory, Utah, and drive a ceremonial last spike into a rail line that connects their railroads. This made transcontinental railroad travel possible for the first time in U.S. history. No longer would western-bound travelers need to take the long and dangerous journey by wagon train.

Since at least 1832, both Eastern and frontier statesmen realized a need to connect the two coasts. It was not until 1853, though, that Congress appropriated funds to survey several routes for the transcontinental railroad. The actual building of the railroad would have to wait even longer, as North-South tensions prevented Congress from reaching an agreement on where the line would begin.

Quote

On May 10, 1773, the British Parliament passes the Tea Act, a bill designed to save the faltering East India Company from bankruptcy by greatly lowering the tea tax it paid to the British government and, thus, granting it a de facto monopoly on the American tea trade. Because all legal tea entered the colonies through England, allowing the East India Company to pay lower taxes in Britain also allowed it to sell tea more cheaply in the colonies. Even untaxed Dutch tea, which entered the colonies illegally through smuggling, was more expensive the East India tea after the act took effect.

British Prime Minister, Frederick, Lord North, who initiated the legislation, thought it impossible that the colonists would protest cheap tea; he was wrong. Many colonists viewed the act as yet another example of taxation tyranny, precisely because it left an earlier duty on tea entering the colonies in place while removing the duty on tea entering England.

Quote

On May 10, 1775, Ethan Allen and Benedict Arnold lead a successful attack on Fort Ticonderoga in upstate New York, while the Second Continental Congress assembles in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

The Congress faced the task of conducting a war already in progress. Fighting had begun with the Battle of Lexington and Concord on April 19, and Congress needed to create an official army out of the untrained assemblage of militia laying siege on Boston.

The transformation of these rebels into the Continental Army was assisted by the victory of the Vermont and Massachusetts militia under the joint command of Ethan Allen and Benedict Arnold at the British garrison at Ticonderoga on Lake Champlain. Their major achievement was to confiscate enough British cannon to make the Patriot militias into an army capable of an artillery barrage.

Quote

1893 A real food fight reaches the Supreme Court, which rules in Nix v. Hedden that tomatoes are vegetables—not fruit—for tariffs. While the court concedes tomatoes are fruits botanically, it subjects them to veggie import taxes.

 

[CMRivdogs]

May 12

https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/may-12

Quote

The body of aviation hero Charles Lindbergh’s baby is found on May 12, 1932, more than two months after he was kidnapped from his family’s Hopewell, New Jersey, mansion.

Lindbergh, who became the first worldwide celebrity five years earlier when he flew The Spirit of St. Louis across the Atlantic, and his wife Anne Morrow Lindbergh discovered a ransom note in their 20-month-old child’s empty room on March 1. The kidnapper had used a ladder to climb up to the open second-floor window and had left muddy footprints in the room. In barely legible English, the ransom note demanded $50,000.

 

[CMRivdogs]

Quote

Time had become a factor, as the garrison at Crown Point had sent word for reinforcements downriver to Fort St. John as soon as they heard of the capture of Ticonderoga. Warner and his men have now added Crown Point’s 111 cannon to the Patriots’ arsenal.

 

[CMRivdogs]

“A dinner is ordered for the number, eight, and whatever is deficient of that number is to be paid for at two shillings and sixpence a head, and each that attends pays only the expense of the day.”
 

[CMRivdogs]

May 13

https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/may-13

Quote

On May 13, 1846, the U.S. Congress overwhelmingly votes in favor of President James K. Polk’s request to declare war on Mexico in a dispute over Texas.

Under the threat of war, the United States had refrained from annexing Texas after the latter won independence from Mexico in 1836. But in 1844, President John Tyler restarted negotiations with the Republic of Texas, culminating with a Treaty of Annexation. The treaty was defeated by a wide margin in the Senate because it would upset the slave state/free state balance between North and South and risked war with Mexico, which had broken off relations with the United States. But shortly before leaving office and with the support of President-elect Polk, Tyler managed to get the joint resolution passed on March 1, 1845. Texas was admitted to the Union on December 29.

Quote

1610....Annoyed by guests picking their teeth at the table, French Cardinal Richelieu is said to have ordered the sharp tips of his table knives rounded off. The new implements also spread butter better.

 

[CMRivdogs]

May 14

https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/may-14

Quote

May 14, 1804: One year after the United States doubled its territory with the Louisiana Purchase, the Lewis and Clark expedition leaves St. Louis, Missouri, on a mission to explore the Northwestfrom the Mississippi River to the Pacific Ocean.

Even before the U.S. government concluded purchase negotiations with France, President Thomas Jefferson commissioned his private secretary Meriwether Lewis and William Clark to lead an expedition into what is now the U.S. Northwest. On May 14, the “Corps of Discovery”—featuring approximately 45 men (although only approximately 33 men would make the full journey)—left St. Louis for the American interior.

Quote

On May 14, 1607, some 100 English colonists arrive along the east bank of the James River in Virginia to found Jamestown, the first permanent English settlement in North America. Dispatched from England by the London Company, the colonists had sailed across the Atlantic aboard the Susan Constant, Godspeed and Discovery.

Quote

On May 14, 1787, delegates to the Constitutional Convention begin to assemble in Philadelphia to confront a daunting task: the peaceful overthrow of the new American government as defined by the Article of Confederation. Although the convention was originally supposed to begin on May 14, James Madison reported that a small number only had assembled. Meetings had to be pushed back until May 25, when a sufficient quorum of the participating states—Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia—had arrived.

Quote

On May 14, 1948, in Tel Aviv, Jewish Agency Chairman David Ben-Gurion proclaims the State of Israel, establishing the first Jewish state in 2,000 years. Ben-Gurion became Israel’s first premier.

In the distance, the rumble of guns could be heard from fighting that broke out between Jews and Arabs immediately following the British army withdrawal earlier that day. Egypt launched an air assault against Israel that evening. Despite a blackout in Tel Aviv—and the expected Arab invasion—Jews celebrated the birth of their new nation, especially after word was received that the United States had recognized the Jewish state. At midnight, the State of Israel officially came into being upon termination of the British mandate in Palestine.

Quote

1856..The first members of the US Camel Corps arrive in Texas by boat from the Middle East—34 dromedaries in all. The military had high hopes for their use in the desert Southwest, but the 10-year experiment ended in abject failure.

 

Edited May 14 by CMRivdogs

[oblong]

May 14, 1973 NASA launched a Saturn V rocket for the last time.  This wasn't a lunar mission but it carried Skylab, our first Space Station.   A minute into the launch there were problems as a micrometeroid shield deployed early and took a solar panel with it.  The first Skylab manned crew had to come up with emergency procedures to rescue the mission, which they did.  At one point Pete Conrad was stretched out to the max on his tether.   He walked on the moon but said he was proudest of this mission.

The Saturn V is the only rocket to take man out of earth orbit.  It stood 363 feet tall and in my opinion is a beautifully designed piece of work. Magestic.  I've seen a 1/10th scale model when they did an Apollo era museum tour here at the Henry Ford a few years ago.  I want to see one in person.  They have one at KSC in Florida and two in Huntsville.  

The Artemis SLS vehicle planned is a few feet taller but nowhere near as elegant.

 

 

 

[CMRivdogs]

May 15

https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/may-15

Quote

On May 15, 1765, Parliament passes the Quartering Act, outlining the locations and conditions in which British soldiers are to find room and board in the American colonies.

The Quartering Act of 1765 required the colonies to house British soldiers in barracks provided by the colonies. If the barracks were too small to house all the soldiers, then localities were to accommodate the soldiers in local inns, livery stables, ale houses, victualling houses and the houses of sellers of wine. "Should there still be soldiers without accommodation after all such publick houses were filled," the act read, "the colonies were then required to take, hire and make fit for the reception of his Majesty’s forces, such and so many uninhabited houses, outhouses, barns, or other buildings as shall be necessary."

Quote

On May 15, 1800, President John Adams orders the federal government to pack up and leave Philadelphia and set up shop in the nation’s new capital in Washington, D.C.

After Congress adjourned its last meeting in Philadelphia on May 15, Adams told his cabinet to make sure Congress and all federal offices were up and running smoothly in their new headquarters by June 15, 1800. Philadelphia officially ceased to serve as the nation’s capital as of June 11, 1800.

At the time, there were only about 125 federal employees. Official documents and archives were transferred from Philadelphia to the new capital by ship over inland waterways. President and Mrs. Adams did not move in to the (unfinished) president’s mansion until November of that year. Settling in to the White House was a challenge for the new first lady. In December, Abigail Adams wrote to a friend later she had to line-dry their clothes in what eventually became the East Room.

Quote

On May 15, 1942, a bill establishing a women’s corps in the U.S. Army becomes law, creating the Women’s Auxiliary Army Corps (WAACs) and granting women official military status.

In May 1941, Representative Edith Nourse Rogers of Massachusetts, the first congresswoman ever from New England, introduced legislation that would enable women to serve in the Army in noncombat positions. Rogers was well suited for such a task; during her husband John J. Rogers’ term as congressman, Rogers was active as a volunteer for the Red Cross, the Women’s Overseas League, and military hospitals. Because of her work inspecting field and base hospitals, President Warren G. Harding, in 1922, appointed her as his personal representative for inspections and visits to veterans’ hospitals throughout the country. She was eventually appointed to the Committee on Veterans’ Affairs, as chairwoman in the 80th and 83rd Congresses.

 

[CMRivdogs]

 

Quote

(Note that the war has already spread to upstate New York, with the capture of Fort Ticonderoga, which Ethan Allen explicitly claimed to do in the name of Congress; but Congress is as yet unaware of that.)

After debate, the Congress resolves that the redcoats “be permitted to remain in the barracks, so long as they behave peaceably and quietly, but that they not be suffered to erect fortifications or take any steps for cutting off the communication between the town and the country.”

The resolution also recommends removing military supplies from the town and preparing places of retreat outside town for women and children, in case the redcoats should provoke a spread of the war to New York.

 

[CMRivdogs]

Quote

In his letter to his friend, Franklin reassures him that throughout America, Burke’s efforts on the colonists’ behalf are known: “All People here feel themselves much oblig’d by your Endeavours to serve them. …”

 

The Continental Congress “din’d together on Saturday, when your Health was among the foremost [one of the first toasts to be drunk].” Burke will not reply to Franklin’s letter. founders.archives.gov/documents/Fr...

 

 

 

[CMRivdogs]

May 17

https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/may-17

Quote

May 17, 1954: In a major civil rights victory, the U.S. Supreme Court hands down an unanimous decision in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, ruling that racial segregation in public educational facilities is unconstitutional. The historic decision, which brought an end to federal tolerance of racial segregation, specifically dealt with Linda Brown, a young African American girl who had been denied admission to her local elementary school in Topeka, Kansas, because of the color of her skin.

In 1896, the Supreme Court ruled in Plessy v. Ferguson that "separate but equal" accommodations in railroad cars conformed to the 14th Amendment’s guarantee of equal protection. That ruling was used to justify segregating all public facilities, including elementary schools. However, in the case of Linda Brown, the white school she attempted to attend was far superior to her Black alternative and miles closer to her home. The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) took up Linda’s cause, and in 1954 Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka reached the Supreme Court. African American lawyer (and future Supreme Court justice) Thurgood Marshallled Brown’s legal team, and on May 17, 1954, the high court handed down its decision.

Quote

1756 England declares war on France, officially launching them into the Seven Years' War, a global conflict played out in North America as the French and Indian War. However, fighting and skirmishes between England and France had been going on in North America for several years.

In the early 1750s, French expansion into the Ohio River valley repeatedly brought France into armed conflict with the British colonies. In 1756—the first official year of fighting in the Seven Years' War—the British suffered a series of defeats against the French and their broad network of Native American alliances. However, in 1757, British Prime Minister William Pitt (the older) recognized the potential of imperial expansion that would come out of victory against the French and borrowed heavily to fund an expanded war effort. Pitt financed Prussia’s struggle against France and her allies in Europe and reimbursed the colonies for the raising of armies in North America.

 

[CMRivdogs]

 

[CMRivdogs]

May 18

https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/may-18

 

Quote

At 8:32 a.m. PDT on May 18, 1980, Mount St. Helens, a volcanic peak in southwestern Washington, suffers a massive eruption, killing 57 people and devastating some 210 square miles of wilderness.

Called Louwala-Clough, or “the Smoking Mountain,” by Native Americans, Mount St. Helens is located in the Cascade Range and stood 9,680 feet before its eruption. The volcano has erupted periodically during the last 4,500 years, and the last active period was between 1831 and 1857. On March 20, 1980, noticeable volcanic activity began with a series of earth tremors centered on the ground just beneath the north flank of the mountain. These earthquakes escalated, and on March 27 a minor eruption occurred, and Mount St. Helens began emitting steam and ash through its crater and vents.

 

Quote

On May 18, 1783, the first United Empire Loyalists, known to American Patriots as Tories, arrive in Canada to take refuge under the British crown in Parrtown, Saint John, Nova Scotia (now New Brunswick), Canada. The town was located on the Bay of Fundy just north of the border with what is now the state of Maine.

Most of the refugees came from New York, which had been under royal control throughout most of the War for Independence. After the Treaty of Paris ended the War for Independence in February 1783, the British evacuated their New York Loyalists to remaining British territories, mainly in Canada. These families had been dispossessed of their land and belongings by the victorious Patriots because of their continued support of the British king and were able to regain some financial independence through lands granted to them by the British in western Quebec (now Ontario) and Nova Scotia. Their arrival in Canada permanently shifted the demographics of what had been French-speaking New France until 1763 into an English-speaking colony, and later nation, with the exception of a French-speaking and culturally French area in eastern Canada that is now Quebec.

 

Quote

On May 18, Union General Ulysses S. Grant surrounds Vicksburg, the last Confederate stronghold on the Mississippi River, in one of the most brilliant campaigns of the war.

Beginning in the winter of 1862-63, Grant made several attempts to capture Vicksburg. In March, he marched his army down the west bank of the Mississippi, while Union Admiral David Porter’s flotilla ran past the substantial batteries that protected the city.

They met south of the city, and Grant crossed the river and entered Mississippi. He then moved north to approach Vicksburg from its more lightly defended eastern side. In May, he had to split his army to deal with a threat from Joseph Johnston’s Rebels in Jackson, the state capital that lay 40 miles east of Vicksburg. After defeating Johnston’s forces, Grant moved toward Vicksburg.

 

Quote

1896...

In a major victory for supporters of racial segregation, the U.S. Supreme Court rules seven to one that a Louisiana law providing for “equal but separate accommodations for the white and colored races” on its railroad cars is constitutional. The high court held that as long as equal accommodations were provided, segregation was not discrimination and thus did not deprive African Americans of equal protection under the law as guaranteed by the 14th Amendment.

The Plessy v. Ferguson ruling, which indicated that the federal government would officially tolerate the “separate but equal” doctrine, was eventually used to justify segregating all public facilities, including railroad cars, restaurants, hospitals, and schools. However, “colored” facilities were never equal to their white counterparts in actuality, and African Americans suffered through decades of debilitating discrimination in the South and elsewhere because of the ruling. In 1954, Plessy v. Ferguson was struck down by the Supreme Court in their unanimous ruling in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka.

 

[CMRivdogs]

May 19

https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/may-19/lawrence-of-arabia-dies

1935

Quote

T.E. Lawrence, known to the world as Lawrence of Arabia, dies as a retired Royal Air Force mechanic living under an assumed name. The legendary war hero, author and archaeological scholar succumbed to injuries suffered in a motorcycle accident six days before.

Quote

On May 19, 1943, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and U.S. President Franklin Rooseveltplot the cross-Channel landing that would become D-Day—May 1, 1944. That date will prove a bit premature, as bad weather becomes a factor.

Addressing a joint session of Congress, Churchill warned that the real danger at present was the “dragging-out of the war at enormous expense” because of the risk that the Allies would become “tired or bored or split”—and play into the hands of Germany and Japan. He pushed for an early and massive attack on the “underbelly of the Axis.”

Quote

President Abraham Lincoln writes to anti-slavery Congressional leader Senator Charles Sumner of Massachusetts on May 19, 1864, proposing that widows and children of soldiers should be given equal treatment regardless of race.

Lincoln shared many of his friend Sumner’s views on civil rights. In an unprecedented move, Lincoln allowed a Black woman, the widow of a Black Civil War soldier, Major Lionel F. Booth, to meet with him at the White House. Mary Booth’s husband had been killed at Fort Pillow, Tennessee, in April 1864 by a Confederate sniper. The massacre of African American Union forces that followed the subsequent fall of the fort was considered one of the most brutal of the Civil War. After speaking with Mrs. Booth privately, Lincoln sat down and wrote a letter of introduction for Mrs. Booth to carry to Sumner and asked him to hear what she had to say about the hardships imposed on families of black soldiers killed or maimed in battle.

As a result of his meeting with Mrs. Booth, Senator Sumner influenced Congressional members in 1866 to introduce a resolution (H.R. 406, Section 13) to provide for the equal treatment of the dependents of Black soldiers. According to the Library of Congress, though, there are no records that Mrs. Booth ever applied for or received a widow’s pension after the bill’s passage.

 

[CMRivdogs]

May 20

https://www.history.com
 

Quote

On May 20, 1873, San Francisco businessman Levi Strauss and Reno, Nevada, tailor Jacob Davis are given a patent to create work pants reinforced with metal rivets, marking the birth of one of the world’s most famous garments: blue jeans.

In San Francisco, Strauss established a wholesale dry goods business under his own name and worked as the West Coast representative of his family’s firm. His new business imported clothing, fabric and other dry goods to sell in the small stores opening all over California and other Western states to supply the rapidly expanding communities of gold miners and other settlers. By 1866, Strauss had moved his company to expanded headquarters and was a well-known businessman and supporter of the Jewish community in San Francisco.

Quote

Upset by the Boston Tea Party and other blatant acts of destruction of British property by American colonists, King George III of England gives his royal consent to three out of four of the Coercive Acts—to the outrage of American Patriots—on May 20, 1774.

The Coercive Acts (also known as the Intolerable Acts) were a series of laws established by the British government. Their aim was to restore order in Massachusetts and punish Bostonians for their Tea Party, in which members of the revolutionary-minded Sons of Liberty boarded three British tea ships in Boston Harbor and dumped 342 crates of tea—nearly $1 million worth in today’s money—into the water to protest the Tea Act.

Quote

On May 20, 1862, President Abraham Lincoln signs the Homestead Act, which opens government-owned land to small family farmers (“homesteaders”). The act gave “any person” who was the head of a family 160 acres to try his hand at farming for five years. The individual had to be at least 21 years old and was required to build a house on the property.

Farmers were also offered an alternative to the five-year homesteading plan. They could opt to buy the 160 acres after only 6 months at the reasonable rate of $1.25 an acre. Many homesteaders could not handle the hardships of frontier life and gave up before completing five years of farming. If a homesteader quit or failed to make a go of farming, his or her land reverted back to the government and was offered to the public again. Ultimately, these lands often ended up as government property or in the hands of land speculators. If, after five years, the farmer could prove his (or her) homestead successful, then he paid an $18 filing fee for a “proved” certificate and received a deed to the land.

 

[CMRivdogs]

May 21

Quote

1821 In Washington, D.C., humanitarians Clara Barton and Adolphus Solomons found the American National Red Cross, an organization established to provide humanitarian aid to victims of wars and natural disasters in congruence with the International Red Cross.

Quote

1927 American pilot Charles A. Lindbergh lands at Le Bourget Field in Paris, successfully completing the first solo, nonstop transatlantic flight and the first ever nonstop flight between New York to Paris. His single-engine monoplane, The Spirit of St. Louis, had lifted off from Roosevelt Field in New York 33 1/2 hours before.

Quote

1932 Five years to the day that American aviator Charles Lindbergh became the first pilot to accomplish a solo, nonstop flight across the Atlantic Ocean, female aviator Amelia Earhart becomes the first pilot to repeat the feat, landing her plane in Ireland after flying across the North Atlantic. Earhart traveled over 2,000 miles from Newfoundland in just under 15 hours.

 

[CMRivdogs]

May 22

Quote

The first major wagon train to the northwest departs from Elm Grove, Missouri, on the Oregon Trail.

Although U.S. sovereignty over the Oregon Territory was not clearly established until 1846, American fur trappers and missionary groups had been living in the region for decades, to say nothing of the Native Americans who had settled the land centuries earlier. Dozens of books and lectures proclaimed Oregon’s agricultural potential, piquing the interest of white American farmers. The first overland migrants to Oregon, intending primarily to farm, came in 1841 when a small band of 70 pioneers left Independence, Missouri. They followed a route blazed by fur traders, which took them west along the Platte River through the Rocky Mountains via the easy South Pass in Wyomingand then northwest to the Columbia River. In the years to come, pioneers came to call the route the Oregon Trail.

Quote

On May 22, 1781, Major General Nathanael Greene and 1,000 Patriots attempt an attack on the critical village of Ninety Six in the South Carolina backcountry. After failing to seize the fortified settlement, they began a siege of it, which lasted until their retreat on June 18, making it the longest of the Revolutionary War.

Although Greene failed to remove the British from Ninety Six, he and Brigadier General Francis Marion of the South Carolina militia were remarkably successful at taking back other British outposts, capturing five others before their attempt at Ninety Six. By the time the time the British left Ninety Six of their own accord, on July 1, 1781, it was the last Loyalist fort in South Carolina.

Quote

1856 Southern Congressman Preston Brooks savagely beats Northern Senator Charles Sumner in the halls of Congress as tensions rise over the expansion of slavery.

Brooks became an instant hero in the South, and supporters sent him many replacement canes. He was vilified in the North and became a symbol of the stereotypically inflexible, uncompromising representative of the slave power. The incident exemplified the growing hostility between the two camps in the prewar years.

Sumner did not return to the Senate for three years while he recovered.

Quote

On May 22, 1939, Italy and Germany agree to a military and political alliance, giving birth formally to the Axis powers, which will ultimately include Japan.

Mussolini coined the nickname “Pact of Steel” (he had also come up with the metaphor of an “axis” binding Rome and Berlin) after reconsidering his first choice, “Pact of Blood,” to describe this historic agreement with Germany. The Duce saw this partnership as not only a defensive alliance, protection from the Western democracies, with whom he anticipated war, but also a source of backing for his Balkan adventures. Both sides were fearful and distrustful of the other, and only sketchily shared their prospective plans. The result was both Italy and Germany, rather than acting in unison, would often “react” to the precipitate military action of the other. In September 1940, the Pact of Steel would become the Tripartite Pact, with Japan making up the third constituent of the triad.

 

[CMRivdogs]

May 23

https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/may-23

Quote

On May 23, 1934, notorious criminals Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow are shot to death by Texas and Louisiana state police near Sailes, Louisiana.

Bonnie Parker met the charismatic Clyde Barrow in Texas when she was 19 years old and her husband (she married when she was 16) was serving time in jail for murder. Shortly after they met, Barrow was imprisoned for robbery. Parker visited him every day, and smuggled a gun into prison to help him escape, but he was soon caught in Ohio and sent back to jail. When Barrow was paroled in 1932, he immediately hooked up with Parker, and the couple began a life of crime together.

Quote

1777 

At Sag Harbor, New York, Patriot troops under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Return Jonathan Meigs capture several British vessels and burn Redcoat supplies.

With the help of two local men, Meigs and his Connecticut raiders grabbed the British commander from his bed in the wee hours of the morning, firing only one gunshot. Instead of guns, the Patriots used silent but deadly bayonets to capture the British fort, successfully avoiding announcing their presence with gunfire.

The British had built their fort on the site of a burial ground because it was the highest land in the area and had the best view of the harbor. The Redcoats desecrated colonists’ family gravesites, and in the process, lost the important battle for the hearts and minds of the residents. Nearly half of Sag Harbor’s families fled to Connecticut during the British occupation.

Quote

1949 The Federal Republic of Germany (popularly known as West Germany) is formally established as a separate and independent nation. This action marked the effective end to any discussion of reuniting East and West Germany.

In the period after World War II, Germany was divided into four occupation zones, with the British, French, Americans, and Soviets each controlling one zone. The city of Berlin was also divided in a like fashion. This arrangement was supposed to be temporary, but as Cold War animosities began to harden, it became increasingly evident that the division between the communist and non-communist controlled sections of Germany and Berlin would become permanent. In May 1946, the United States halted reparation payments from West Germany to the Soviet Union. In December, the United States and Great Britain combined their occupation zones into what came to be known as Bizonia. France agreed to become part of this arrangement, and in May 1949, the three zones became one.

Quote

1783 After predicting he’ll be taken into “eternity” by a flash of lightning, prominent colonial patriot James Otis dies after, yes, lightning strikes him in a friend’s doorway. The Boston Gazette reported he "expired without a groan.

 

[CMRivdogs]

Quote

Americans are always convincing themselves that firm resistance to Parliament is about to push unfriendly governments out of office, John Dickinson argues, but (apart from the Stamp Act Crisis in 1765) it never seems to happen:

“I am inclined to think that the Unanimity & Firmness of these Colonies will within a 12 month dethrone the Ministry. Yet I fear there is more of Hope than Reason in that Expectation.

“One Thing I am sure of--that no Man here is sure--that our Firmness & Unanimity let it be ever so extraordinary, will procure Us immediate Relief of our Grievances by a change of Ministry or of ministerial Measures.

"It is impolitic then in the utmost Degree to depend on the realizing an Event, which is indisputably uncertain. Our Firmness & Unanimity may conduct Us into the Miseries of War or the Blessings of Peace

 

“We have no Prophet among us who can predict which part of the alternative will take Place. In this Situation our Affairs will stand if We only prepare vigorously for War.”

 

[CMRivdogs]

May 24

Quote

After 14 years, the Brooklyn Bridge over the East River opens in 1883, connecting the great cities of New York and Brooklyn for the first time in history. Thousands of residents of Brooklyn and Manhattan Island turned out to witness the dedication ceremony, which was presided over by President Chester A. Arthur and New York Governor Grover Cleveland. Designed by the late John A. Roebling, the Brooklyn Bridge was the largest suspension bridge ever built to that date.

Quote

On May 24, 1775, John Hancock is elected president of the Second Continental Congress.

John Hancock is best known for his large signature on the Declaration of Independence, which he jested the British could read without spectacles. He was serving as president of Congress upon the declaration’s adoption on July 4, 1776, and, as such, was the first member of the Congress to sign the historic document.

Quote

The Cincinnati Reds beat the Philadelphia Phillies 2-1 on May 24, 1935 in Major League Baseball’s first-ever night game, played courtesy of recently installed lights at Crosley Field in Cincinnati.

The first-ever night game in professional baseball took place May 2, 1930, when a Des Moines, Iowa, team hosted Wichita for a Western League game. The game drew 12,000 people at a time when Des Moines was averaging just 600 fans per game. Evening games soon became popular in the minors: As minor league ball clubs were routinely folding in the midst of the Great Depression, adaptable owners found the innovation a key to staying in business. The major leagues, though, took five years to catch up to their small-town counterparts.

 

[CMRivdogs]

Filed under "Things You Never Learned in School". I think I prefer the name Transylvania to Kentucky. 

Quote

Transylvania was founded by settlers from Virginia and North Carolina who purchased land west of the Appalachians from the Cherokee two months ago, but the governors of both North Carolina and Virginia declared the purchase--and the colony--illegal.

Nor is this a case of royal servants pursuing the King’s interests in conflict with those of their colonists. The Continental Congress delegations of Virginia and North Carolina will be no more receptive than their governors when Transylvania representatives appear in Philadelphia.