History Thread...

[CMRivdogs]

BTW There is also a Harriett Tubman Underground Railroad site in Maryland. 

https://www.nps.gov/hatu/planyourvisit/basicinfo.htm

We did a quick walk around during a quick trip to the Eastern Shore. Just outside Church Creek near the bridge on RT 50. Was an informative spot and a nice area to walk the dog

[Netnerd]

11 hours ago, CMRivdogs said:

Incidentlly, we're leaving tomorrow for our first "Great Adventure" in years. Basically following the Lewis and Clark Trail. After spending the Weekend visiting my son and grandson in Detroit, we'll head for Ashland, Ky to start the trek. We're hoping to end up in Bozeman,MT in about three weeks before heading back. decided trying to hit the Pacific and back was a bit too much travel at one time

Be sure and wave when you pass the Sgt. Floyd Monument in Sioux City. I’ll wave back.

[CMRivdogs]

July 2

https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/july-2

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The Second Continental Congress, assembled in Philadelphia, formally adopts Richard Henry Lee’s resolution for independence from Great Britain. The vote is unanimous, with only New York abstaining.

The resolution had originally been presented to Congress on June 7, but it soon became clear that New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland and South Carolina were as yet unwilling to declare independence, though they would likely be ready to vote in favor of a break with England in due course. Thus, Congress agreed to delay the vote on Lees Resolution until July 1. In the intervening period, Congress appointed a committee to draft a formal declaration of independence. Its members were John Adams of Massachusetts, Benjamin Franklin of Pennsylvania, Roger Sherman of Connecticut, Robert R. Livingston of New York and Thomas Jefferson of Virginia. Thomas Jefferson, well-known to be the best writer of the group, was selected to be the primary author of the document, which was presented to Congress for review on June 28, 1776.

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On July 2, 1964, U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson signs into law the historic Civil Rights Act in a nationally televised ceremony at the White House.

In the landmark 1954 case Brown v. Board of Education, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that racial segregation in schools was unconstitutional. The 10 years that followed saw great strides for the African American civil rights movement, as non-violent demonstrations won thousands of supporters to the cause.

The Civil Rights Act fought tough opposition in the House and a lengthy, heated debate in the Senate before being approved in July 1964. For the signing of the historic legislation, Johnson invited hundreds of guests to a televised ceremony in the White House’s East Room.

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1992 The one-millionth Chevrolet Corvette rolls off the assembly line in Bowling Green, Kentucky. Swallowed by a sinkhole there in 2014, the sports car has since been restored to its former glory.

 

[CMRivdogs]

July 3 

https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/july-3/washington-takes-command-of-continental-army

On July 3, 1775, George Washington rides out in front of the American troops gathered at Cambridge common in Massachusetts and draws his sword, formally taking command of the Continental Army. Washington, a prominent Virginia planter and veteran of the French and Indian War, had been appointed commander in chief by the Continental Congress two weeks before. In agreeing to serve the American colonies in their war for independence, he declined to accept payment for his services beyond reimbursement of future expenses.

 

July 3, 1863: On the third day of the Battle of Gettysburg, Confederate General Robert E. Lee’s last attempt at breaking the Union line ends in disastrous failure, bringing the most decisive battle of the American Civil War to an end.

Idaho is admitted to the union on July 3, 1890.

Exploration of the North American continent mostly proceeded inward from the Atlantic and Pacific coasts and northward from Spanish Mexico. Therefore, the rugged territory that would become Idaho long remained untouched by Spanish, French, British and American trappers and explorers. Even as late as 1805, Idaho Native Americans like the Shoshone had never encountered Europeans.

Edited July 3 by CMRivdogs

[CMRivdogs]

July 4, 

https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/july-4

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In Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on July 4, 1776, the Continental Congress adopts the Declaration of Independence, which proclaims the independence of the United States of America from Great Britain and its king.

The declaration came 442 days after the first volleys of the American Revolution were fired at Lexington and Concord in Massachusetts and marked an ideological expansion of the conflict that would eventually encourage France’s intervention on behalf of the Patriots.

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On July 4, 1826, former Presidents Thomas Jefferson and John Adams, who were once fellow Patriots and then adversaries, die on the same day within five hours of each other.

Thomas Jefferson and John Adams were the last surviving members of the original American revolutionaries who had stood up to the British empire and forged a new political system in the former colonies. However, while they both believed in democracy and life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, their opinions on how to achieve these ideals diverged over time.

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In a ceremony held in Paris on July 4, 1884, the completed Statue of Liberty is formally presented to the U.S. ambassador as a commemoration of the friendship between France and the United States.

The idea for the statue was born in 1865, when the French historian and abolitionist Édouard de Laboulaye proposed a monument to commemorate the upcoming centennial of U.S. independence (1876), the perseverance of American democracy and the liberation of the nation’s slaves. By 1870, sculptor Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi had come up with sketches of a giant figure of a robed woman holding a torch—possibly based on a statue he had previously proposed for the opening of the Suez Canal.

 

 

[1776]

On July 4, 1872 Calvin Coolidge was born. 
On July 4, 1831 James Monroe died. 
 

Three of our first five presidents died on a July 4th. 

[CMRivdogs]

July 5

https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/july-5

On July 5, 1775, the Continental Congress adopts the Olive Branch Petition, written by John Dickinson, which appeals directly to King George III and expresses hope for reconciliation between the colonies and Great Britain. Dickinson, who hoped desperately to avoid a final break with Britain, phrased colonial opposition to British policy as follows: “Your Majesty’s Ministers, persevering in their measures, and proceeding to open hostilities for enforcing them, have compelled us to arm in our own defence, and have engaged us in a controversy so peculiarly abhorrent to the affections of your still faithful Colonists, that when we consider whom we must oppose in this contest, and if it continues, what may be the consequences, our own particular misfortunes are accounted by us only as parts of our distress.”

 

 

During an Independence Day celebration in Rochester, New York on July 5, 1852, Frederick Douglass delivers what would become his most celebrated speech, “What to the slave is the Fourth of July?” Tensions over slavery in the early 1850s are high, and the famed abolitionist’s oration serves as a searing reminder that at the time, only a fraction of the U.S. population enjoyed the freedom celebrated by the nation.

 

 

After Judge Hugo Friend denies a motion to quash the indictments against the major league baseball players accused of throwing the 1919 World Series, a trial begins with jury selection. The Chicago White Sox players, including stars Shoeless Joe Jackson, Buck Weaver and Eddie Cicotte, subsequently became known as the “Black Sox” after the scandal was revealed.

 

 

 

Edited July 5 by CMRivdogs

[CMRivdogs]

July 6

https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/july-6/congress-issues-a-declaration-on-the-causes-and-necessity-of-taking-up-arms

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On July 6, 1775, one day after restating their fidelity to King George III and wishing him “a long and prosperous reign” in the Olive Branch Petition, Congress sets “forth the causes and necessity of their taking up arms” against British authority in the American colonies. The declaration also proclaimed their preference “to die free men rather than live as slaves.”

As in the Olive Branch Petition, Congress never impugned the motives of the British king. Instead, they protested, “The large strides of late taken by the legislature of Great Britain toward establishing over these colonies their absolute rule…” Congress provided a history of colonial relations in which the king served as the sole governmental connection between the mother country and colonies, until, in their eyes, the victory against France in the Seven Years’ War caused Britain’s “new ministry finding all the foes of Britain subdued” to fall upon “the unfortunate idea of subduing her friends also.” According to the declaration, the king’s role remained constant, but “parliament then for the first time assumed a power of unbounded legislation over the colonies of America,” which resulted in the bloodletting at Lexington and Concord in April 1775.

At this point, Congress assumed that if the king could merely be made to understand what Parliament and his ministers had done, he would rectify the situation and return the colonists to their rightful place as fully equal members of the British empire. When the king sided with Parliament, however, Congress moved beyond a Declaration of Arms to a Declaration of Independence.

 

 

[CMRivdogs]

July 7

https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/july-7

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On July 7, 1930, building begins on the future site of the Hoover Dam. Over the next five years, a total of 21,000 men would work ceaselessly to produce what would be the largest dam of its time, as well as one of the largest manmade structures in the world.

Although the dam would take only five years to build, its construction was nearly 30 years in the making. Arthur Powell Davis, an engineer from the Bureau of Reclamation, originally had his vision for the Hoover Dam back in 1902, and his engineering report on the topic became the guiding document when plans were finally made to begin the dam in 1922.

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For the first time in U.S. history, the House of Representatives exercises its constitutional power of impeachment and votes to charge Senator William Blount of Tennessee with “a high misdemeanor, entirely inconsistent with his public duty and trust as a Senator.”

In 1790, President George Washington appointed Blount, who had fought in the American Revolution, as governor of the “Territory South of the River Ohio,” now known as Tennessee. Although he was a successful territorial governor, personal financial problems led him to enter into a conspiracy with British officers to enlist frontiersmen and Cherokee Indians to assist the British in conquering parts of Spanish Florida and Louisiana. Before the conspiracy was uncovered, Blount presided over the Tennessee Constitutional Convention and in 1796 became the state’s first U.S. senator.o

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On July 7, 1798—15 years after the Revolutionary War ended—Congress rescinds treaties with France and starts two and a half years of what is called the Quasi-War with its former ally.

President John Adams and Benjamin Stoddert, secretary of the Navy, led this undeclared naval war, triggered by France’s seizure of more than 300 neutral American merchant ships during its French Revolution. The U.S. had been pursuing a more pro-British foreign policy, which infuriated rival France.

[smr-nj]

I appreciate these posts, cmrivdogs

[CMRivdogs]

Traveling today, July 8

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On July 8, 1951, Paris, the capital city of France, celebrates turning 2,000 years old. In fact, a few more candles would’ve technically been required on the birthday cake, as the City of Lights was most likely founded around 250 B.C.

The history of Paris can be traced back to a Gallic tribe known as the Parisii, who sometime around 250 B.C. settled an island (known today as Ile de la Cite) in the Seine River, which runs through present-day Paris. By 52 B.C., Julius Caesar and the Romans had taken over the area, which eventually became Christianized and known as Lutetia, Latin for “midwater dwelling.” The settlement later spread to both the left and right banks of the Seine and the name Lutetia was replaced with “Paris.” In 987 A.D., Paris became the capital of France. As the city grew, the Left Bank earned a reputation as the intellectual district while the Right Bank became known for business.

 

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1950 The day after the U.N. Security Council recommended that all U.N. forces in Korea be placed under the command of the U.S. military, General Douglas MacArthur is appointed head of the United Nations Command by President Harry S. Truman.

MacArthur, the son of a top-ranking army general who fought in the Civil War, was commissioned as an army lieutenant in 1903. During World War I, MacArthur served as a commander of the famed 84th Infantry Brigade. During the 1920s, he was stationed primarily in the Philippines, a U.S. commonwealth, and in the first half of the 1930s he served as U.S. Army chief of staff. In 1935, with Japanese expansion underway in the Pacific, President Franklin D. Roosevelt appointed MacArthur military adviser to the government of the Philippines. In 1941, five months before Japan bombed Pearl Harbor, he was named commander of all U.S. armed forces in the Pacific.

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1959 Maj. Dale R. Buis and Master Sgt. Chester M. Ovnand become the first Americans killed in the American phase of the Vietnam War when guerrillas strike a Military Assistance Advisory Group (MAAG) compound in Bien Hoa, 20 miles northeast of Saigon. The group had arrived in South Vietnam on November 1, 1955, to provide military assistance. The organization consisted of U.S. Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marine Corps personnel who provided advice and assistance to the Ministry of Defense, Joint General Staff, corps and division commanders, training centers, and province and district headquarters.

 

[CMRivdogs]

 

[CMRivdogs]

 

[CMRivdogs]

https://www.historicdetroit.org/buildings/buhl-building

The Link shows the formal opening as May 25. Assuming the "Grand Opening" was later

[CMRivdogs]

July 9

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

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On July 9, 1877, the All England Croquet and Lawn Tennis Club begins its first lawn tennis tournament at Wimbledon, then an outer-suburb of London. Twenty-two amateurs showed up to compete in the Gentlemen’s Singles tournament, the only event at the first Wimbledon. The winner was to take home a 25-guinea trophy.

Tennis has its origins in a 13th-century French handball game called jeu de paume, or “game of the palm,” from which developed an indoor racket-and-ball game called real, or “royal,” tennis. Real tennis grew into lawn tennis, which was played outside on grass and enjoyed a surge of popularity in the late 19th century.

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1948 Satchel Paige, longtime Negro League star, makes his Major League debut with the Cleveland Indians, the oldest rookie in history. “Age is a question of mind over matter,” he says. “If you don’t mind, it don’t matter.”

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On July 9, 1850, after only 16 months in office, President Zachary Taylor dies after a brief illness. The exact cause of his death is still disputed by some historians.

On a scorching Fourth of July in Washington, D.C., Taylor attended festivities at the newly dedicated grounds upon which the Washington Monument would be erected. According to several sources, Taylor gulped down a large quantity of cherries and iced milk and then returned to the White House, where he quenched his thirst with several glasses of water.

Taylor died on the evening of July 9, after four days of suffering from symptoms that included severe cramping, diarrhea, nausea and dehydration. His personal physicians concluded that he had succumbed to cholera morbus, a bacterial infection of the small intestine. His vice president, Millard Fillmore, was sworn in as the new president the next day.

 

[CMRivdogs]

He was close

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Radio will be so advanced that most business will be done through the medium, and you will even be able to take a "radio bath." "The state biologist will have certain women create children to order." 2/2

 

[CMRivdogs]

July 10

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

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July 10, 1925: In Dayton, Tennessee, the so-called Scopes Monkey Trial begins with John Thomas Scopes, a young high school science teacher, accused of teaching evolution in violation of a Tennessee state law.

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On July 10, 1832, President Andrew Jackson vetoes the government's effort to re-charter the Second Bank of the United States, one of his most forceful actions against the institution, which he opposed as corrupt and in service only to the country's elite. His veto marked a key salvo in what is referred to as the “Bank War," Jackson's ongoing effort to decentralize America's banking, and dissolve the national bank altogether.

Jackson did not emerge unscathed from the scandal. In 1834, Congress censured Jackson for what they viewed as his abuse of presidential power during the Bank War.

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On July 10, 1940, the Germans begin the first in a long series of bombing raids against Great Britain, as the Battle of Britain, which will last three and a half months, begins.

After the occupation of France by Germany, Britain knew it was only a matter of time before the Axis power turned its sights across the Channel. And on July 10, 120 German bombers and fighters struck a British shipping convoy in that very Channel, while 70 more bombers attacked dockyard installations in South Wales.

 

[CMRivdogs]

July 11

https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/july-11

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On July 11, 1804, in one of the most famous duels in American history, Vice President Aaron Burr fatally shoots his long-time political antagonist Alexander Hamilton. Hamilton, a leading Federalistand the chief architect of America’s political economy, died the following day.

Alexander Hamilton, born on the Caribbean island of Nevis, came to the American colonies in 1773 as a poor immigrant. (There is some controversy as to the year of his birth, but it was either 1755 or 1757.) In 1776, he joined the Continental Army in the American Revolution, and his relentless energy and remarkable intelligence brought him to the attention of General George Washington, who took him on as an aide. Ten years later, Hamilton served as a delegate to the Constitutional Convention, and he led the fight to win ratification of the final document, which created the kind of strong, centralized government that he favored. In 1789, he was appointed the first secretary of the treasury by President Washington, and during the next six years he crafted a sophisticated monetary policy that saved the young U.S. government from collapse. With the emergence of political parties, Hamilton was regarded as a leader of the Federalists.

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On July 11, 1767, John Quincy Adams, son of the second U.S. president, John Adams, is born in Braintree, Massachusetts.

John Quincy Adams inherited his father’s passion for politics. He accompanied his father on diplomatic missions from the time he was 14 and entered the legal profession after completing his schooling. As a young man, he served as minister to a variety of countries, including Prussia, the Netherlands, Portugal, Russia and England. In 1803, he began his first term as a Republican in the Senate and afterward helped negotiate the Treaty of Ghent that ended the War of 1812. In 1817, President James Monroe appointed Quincy Adams secretary of state, a position he held until 1824, when he ran for president. In the subsequent presidential election, a tie between Quincy Adams and Democrat Andrew Jackson put the deciding vote in the House of Representatives. The House chose Adams, who went on to serve one term from 1825 to 1829.

Rather than retire after presiding at the pinnacle of American politics, Adams returned to Congress. He preferred legislative duties to the presidency, which he described as the four most miserable years of his life. Beginning in 1831, he served in the U.S. House of Representatives, chairing congressional committees on the economy, Indian affairs and foreign relations. He even found time to argue the controversial Amistad slavery case in the Supreme Court. His eloquent argument for returning the ship’s illegally transported cargo of Africans to Africa cemented his reputation as an abolitionist.

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On July 11, 1914, in his major league debut, George Herman “Babe” Ruth pitches seven strong innings to lead the Boston Red Sox over the Cleveland Indians (now known as the Cleveland Guardians), 4-3

To the great dismay of Boston fans, Ruth’s contract was sold to the New York Yankees before the 1920 season by Red Sox owner Harry Frazee, so that Frazee could finance the musical No, No, Nanette. Ruth switched to the outfield with the Yankees, and hit more home runs than the entire Red Sox team in 10 of the next 12 seasons. “The Sultan of Swat” or “The Bambino,” as he was alternately known, was the greatest gate attraction in baseball until his retirement as a player in 1935. During his career with the New York Yankees, the team won four World Series and seven American League pennants. After getting rid of Ruth, the Red Sox did not win a World Series until 2004, an 85-year drought known to Red Sox fans as “the Curse of the Bambino.”

 

[CMRivdogs]

July 12

 

Alpena’s greatest fire occurred July 12, 1872, when about fifteen acres were laid to waste, and upward of $175,000 worth of property destroyed. The number of buildings destroyed was not far from seventy. The heart of the city was destroyed, and scarcely a store remained on the south side of the river. But the people met the emergency with manful energy, and fine brick blocks were erected on the sites of the wooden buildings burned.

Source : History of Alpena County, pp. 234-235.

On this day in Chicago, the Detroit Tigers won the second game of a doubleheader against the Chicago White Sox by forfeit when an estimated 5,000 to 10,000 people swarmed out of the stands during a between games, anti-disco-music promotion and made the field unplayable.

Detroit Tiger fans will also be glad to know that they won the first game of the double header too.

Frank Mastropolo, “‘It Was Like A Riot’: The History of Disco Demolition Night”, Ultimate Classic Rock, July 12, 2015.

Disco is dealt death blow by fans of the Chicago White Sox, History.com This Day in History (July 12, 1979).

Phil Vettel, “Steve Dahl’s Disco Demolition at Comiskey Park”, Chicago Tribune.

[CMRivdogs]

July 13

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On July 13, 1787, Congress enacts the Northwest Ordinance, structuring settlement of the Northwest Territory and creating a policy for the addition of new states to the nation. The members of Congress knew that if their new confederation were to survive intact, it had to resolve the states’ competing claims to western territory.

In 1781, Virginia began by ceding its extensive land claims to Congress, a move that made other states more comfortable in doing the same. In 1784, Thomas Jefferson first proposed a method of incorporating these western territories into the United States. His plan effectively turned the territories into colonies of the existing states. Ten new northwestern territories would select the constitution of an existing state and then wait until its population reached 20,000 to join the confederation as a full member. Congress, however, feared that the new states—10 in the Northwest as well as Kentucky, Tennessee and Vermont—would quickly gain enough power to outvote the old ones and never passed the measure.

https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/july-13/congress-enacts-the-northwest-ordinance

 

[CMRivdogs]

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On July 14, 1798, one of the most egregious breaches of the U.S. Constitution in history becomes federal law when Congress passes the Sedition Act, endangering liberty in the fragile new nation. While the United States engaged in naval hostilities with Revolutionary France, known as the Quasi-War, Alexander Hamilton and congressional Federalists took advantage of the public’s wartime fears and drafted and passed the Alien and Sedition Acts, without first consulting President John Adams.

The first three acts took aim at the rights of immigrants. The period of residency required before immigrants could apply for citizenship was extended from five to 14 years, and the president gained the power to detain and deport those he deemed enemies. President Adams never took advantage of his newfound ability to deny rights to immigrants. However, the fourth act, the Sedition Act, was put into practice and became a black mark on the nation’s reputation. In direct violation of the Constitution’s guarantee of freedom of speech, the Sedition Act permitted the prosecution of individuals who voiced or printed what the government deemed to be malicious remarks about the president or government of the United States. Fourteen Republicans, mainly journalists, were prosecuted, and some imprisoned, under the act.

In opposition to the Alien and Sedition Acts, Thomas Jefferson and James Madison drafted the Virginia and Kentucky Resolves, declaring the acts to be a violation of the First and Tenth Amendments. President Adams, appalled at where Hamilton and the congressional Federalists were leading the country under the guise of wartime crisis, tried to end the undeclared war with France to undercut their efforts. He threatened to resign from the presidency and leave the Federalists with Republican Vice President Thomas Jefferson if they did not heed his call for peace. Adams succeeded in quashing Hamilton and the Federalists’ schemes, but ended any hope of his own re-election in the process.

 

Happy Bastille Day

https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/july-14/french-revolutionaries-storm-bastille

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Parisian revolutionaries and mutinous troops storm and dismantle the Bastille, a royal fortress and prison that had come to symbolize the tyranny of the Bourbon monarchs, on July 14, 1789. This dramatic action signaled the beginning of the French Revolution, a decade of political turmoil and terror in which King Louis XVI was overthrown and tens of thousands of people, including the king and his wife Marie Antoinette, were executed.

By the summer of 1789, France was moving quickly toward revolution. Bernard-René Jordan de Launay, the military governor of the Bastille, feared that his fortress would be a target for the revolutionaries and so requested reinforcements. On July 12, royal authorities transferred 250 barrels of gunpowder to the Bastille, and Launay brought his men into the massive fortress and raised its two drawbridges.

 

Edited Monday at 04:07 PM by CMRivdogs

[oblong]

50 years ago the final Apollo mission launched.  This wasn’t a lunar mission but a diplomatic one with the Soviets.  Years prior the two countries agreed to to a joint mission where the Apollo and Soyuz spacecrafts would dock in earth orbit.  Due to the sensitivities involved with the standard  probe and drogue docking mechanism used they came up the Androgynous Peripheral Attach System (APAS) that utilized the existing docking hardware used on Apollo but attached to the adapter first. Basically the Russians and Americans didn’t want to be on the “receiving end” so to speak.  It was a legit concern and threatened the idea of the mission.  With this either craft could be active or passive. 

The US had a 3 man crew and the Soviet’s a 2 man.  They were docked for over a day and visited each craft and did scientific experiments.  
 

this was the first Soviet space launch televised live.  It was the last crewed capaule launch for the US until a Dragon in 2020. 

[CMRivdogs]

 

[CMRivdogs]

https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/july-15/ford-motor-company-takes-its-first-order
 

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On July 15, 1903, the newly formed Ford Motor Company takes its first order from Chicago dentist Ernst Pfenning: an $850 two-cylinder Model A automobile with a tonneau (or backseat). The car, produced at Ford’s plant on Mack Street (now Mack Avenue) in Detroit, was delivered to Dr. Pfenning just over a week later.

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1806 Zebulon Pike, the U.S. Army officer who in 1805 led an exploring party in search of the source of the Mississippi River, sets off with a new expedition to explore the American Southwest. Pike was instructed to seek out headwaters of the Arkansas and Red rivers and to investigate Spanish settlements in New Mexico.

Pike and his men left Missouri and traveled through the present-day states of Kansas and Nebraska before reaching Colorado, where he spotted the famous mountain later named in his honor. From there, they traveled down to New Mexico, where they were stopped by Spanish officials and charged with illegal entry into Spanish-held territory. His party was escorted to Santa Fe, then down to Chihuahua, back up through Texas, and finally to the border of the Louisiana Territory, where they were released. Soon after returning to the east, Pike was implicated in a plot with former Vice President Aaron Burr to seize territory in the Southwest for mysterious ends. However, after an investigation, Secretary of State James Madison fully exonerated him.

The information he provided about the U.S. territory in Kansas and Colorado was a great impetus for future U.S. settlement, and his reports about the weakness of Spanish authority in the Southwest stirred talk of future U.S. annexation. Pike later served as a brigadier general during the War of 1812, and in April 1813 he was killed by a British gunpowder bomb after leading a successful attack on York, Canada.

 

 

 

 

Edited 12 hours ago by CMRivdogs

[CMRivdogs]

July 16

https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/july-16

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On July 16, 1945, at 5:29:45 a.m., the Manhattan Project yields explosive results as the first atom bomb is successfully tested in Alamogordo, New Mexico.

Plans for the creation of a uranium bomb by the Allies were established as early as 1939, when Italian emigre physicist Enrico Fermi met with U.S. Navy department officials at Columbia University to discuss the use of fissionable materials for military purposes. That same year, Albert Einstein drafted a letter with the Hungarian-born physicist Leo Szilard and sent it to President Franklin Rooseveltsupporting the theory that an uncontrolled nuclear chain reaction had great potential as a basis for a weapon of mass destruction.

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On July 16, 1779, American Brigadier General Anthony Wayne launches a coup de main against British fortifications at Stony Point, New York, on the orders of General George Washington. He earns the moniker “Mad” Anthony Wayne for the ensuing maneuver.

The British fort on the cliffs at Stony Point overlooking the Hudson River threatened West Point, which was only 12 miles upriver. Wayne, at the head of 1,200 light infantry, successfully assaulted what the British believed was an impregnable position, losing only 15 killed and 83 wounded while the British lost 94 killed and wounded and 472 captured. Remarkably, the attack took place under cover of darkness, employed only bayonets as weaponry and lasted a mere 30 minutes. Two days later, Wayne, now dubbed “mad” for his enthusiastic and successful undertaking of a mission that had seemed doomed to failure, destroyed the fortifications and evacuated the area. Congress rewarded Wayne’s efforts with a medal.

Much of Wayne’s ensuing career involved divesting Native Americans of their land. Following the victory at Yorktown, Wayne traveled to Georgia, where he negotiated treaties with the Creeks and Cherokees. They paid dearly in land for their decision to side with the British, and Georgia paid Wayne in land—giving him a large plantation—for his efforts on their behalf. In 1794, President George Washington called upon Wayne to bring the ongoing violence with British-backed Indians in the Northwest Territory to a close. Wayne was victorious at the Battle of Fallen Timbers, near what is now Toledo, Ohio, and gained much of what would become Ohio and Indiana for the U.S. in the Treaty of Greenville.

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On July 16, 1790, in signing the Residence Act, the young American Congress declares that a swampy, humid, muddy and mosquito-infested site on the Potomac River between Maryland and Virginia will be the nation’s permanent capital. “Washington,” in the newly designated federal “District of Columbia,” was named after the leader of the American Revolution and the country’s first president: George Washington. It was Washington who saw the area’s potential economic and accessibility benefits due to the proximity of navigable rivers.

George Washington, who had been in office just over a year when the capital site was determined, asked a French architect and city planner named Pierre L Enfant to design the capital. In 1793, the first cornerstones of the president’s mansion, which was eventually renamed the “White House,” were laid. George Washington, however, never lived in the mansion as it was not inhabitable until 1800. Instead, President John Adams and his wife Abigail were the White House’s first residents. They lived there less than a year; Thomas Jefferson moved in in 1801.