History Thread...

[Screwball]

I had a Rambler of some kind, don't remember what year. 70s probably. It had air conditioning when that was a thing, but this was old when I got it. It didn't work. There were buttons on the dash for air, maybe 5 of them. One setting said "desert only." Too funny.

Cars are a perfect example where a simple task like getting from point A to point B departs from the KISS rule (Keep It Simple Stupid) to product life cycle and making a **** load of money. You could design a car to last a lifetime and save a ton of money over the years, but they don't do that and never will. We also like all the bells and whistles.

A good buddy is a retired Mercedes mechanic. They have car seats that make my recliner feel like a park bench. The electronics in cars today is off the charts as well. All stuff that can **** up - and cost money to fix. Lots of it, and usually not a fun experience.

ON EDIT: appliances are no different.

Edited December 4 by Screwball

[gehringer_2]

1 hour ago, CMRivdogs said:

Didn't AMC have their offices in Southfield back in the day. We moved to the area late 2000, WWJ was and still is on American Dr, or at least last I knew

Yes- AMC was originally down on Plymouth just west of Schafer. (there is some kind of huge warehouse on the site now).  When they moved out of that they built a kind of a blackish glass tower - 15-20 story range in Southfield near 11 and Franklin just south of 696.. After they got merged out of existence and the building went to general office rental the firm my mother worked for was in the building for a while. It was the only place she worked I never had occasion to visit because they were there when I was at school.

[gehringer_2]

35 minutes ago, Screwball said:

One setting said "desert only." Too funny.

LOL - yeah  I remember 'desert only' on early car ACs. I had only had my license a few months and was driving in FLA mid summer with the air on 'desert only' (which was full blast) when the whole damn car fogged up. PANIC! We were trying to wipe the front windshield while not crashing into anything and finally realized the condensate was on the outside of the window - turn on the wipers dummy!  I think modern cars are set up so they never blow ice cold air on the windshield like some of those early ones (1968 IIRC) could.

Edited December 4 by gehringer_2

[Screwball]

Just a simple car (years ago), for the most part the make didn't matter, if you took it in for a tune up and inspection once a year they were dependable, and didn't cost a lot of money. I've dealt with some car issues recently, and it is a total mess, and not cheap. So much has changed over the years. 

[gehringer_2]

1 minute ago, Screwball said:

Just a simple car (years ago), for the most part the make didn't matter, if you took it in for a tune up and inspection once a year they were dependable, and didn't cost a lot of money. I've dealt with some car issues recently, and it is a total mess, and not cheap. So much has changed over the years. 

To this this day it never fails to make me laugh when I pop the hood on my 2.4 L *4* cylinder powered car and can't see the ground anywhere, when I had 300 horses sitting under the hood of my '66 SS and almost had room to stand inside the engine compartment with the engine. 

[Screwball]

18 minutes ago, gehringer_2 said:

To this this day it never fails to make me laugh when I pop the hood on my 2.4 L *4* cylinder powered car and can't see the ground anywhere, when I had 300 horses sitting under the hood of my '66 SS and almost had room to stand inside the engine compartment with the engine. 

Absolutely.

Change the oil, and filter, plugs (and wires if needed), points, condenser, clean the battery terminals (and battery), look at the belts, air filter, all the fluid containers (brakes, wipers, anti-freeze,etc) then put it up on a rack and check the suspension parts while they get greased, u-joints, rear end fluid level, tire wear level, and pull a front and back wheel to look at the brakes. This was a routine tune-up as they called it. It used to work that way.

They were simple, and they lasted as long as you did that. 

Now they are too complicated. The first thing they do is hook up a computer.

 

[CMRivdogs]

December 4

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

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On December 4, 1991, Islamic militants in Lebanon release kidnapped American journalist Terry Andersonafter 2,454 days in captivity.

As chief Middle East correspondent for the Associated Press, Anderson covered the long-running civil war in Lebanon (1975-1990). On March 16, 1985, he was kidnapped on a west Beirut street while leaving a tennis court. His captors took him to the southern suburbs of the city, where he was held prisoner in an underground dungeon for the next six-and-a-half years.

Anderson was one of 92 foreigners (including 17 Americans) abducted during Lebanon’s bitter civil war. The kidnappings were linked to Hezbollah, or the Party of God, a militant Shiite Muslim organization formed in 1982 in reaction to Israel’s military presence in Lebanon. They seized several Americans, including Anderson, soon after Kuwaiti courts jailed 17 Shiites found guilty of bombing the American and French embassies there in 1983. Hezbollah in Lebanon received financial and spiritual support from Iran.

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A force of Continental dragoons commanded by Colonel William Washington–General George Washington’s second cousin once removed–corners Loyalist Colonel Rowland Rugeley and his followers in Rugeley’s house and barn near Camden, South Carolina, on December 4, 1780.

After nearly a year of brutal backcountry conflict between Washington and the fierce British commander Lieutenant Colonel Banastre Tarleton (who was infamous for Tarleton’s Quarter, the murder of colonial POWs on May 29, 1780 at Waxhaws), Washington had retreated to North Carolina the previous October. Commanded to return to the South Carolina theater by Brigadier General Daniel The Old Wagoner Morgan, Colonel Washington still lacked the proper artillery to dislodge the Loyalists. He told his cavalrymen to dismount and surround the barn. While out of Rugeley’s sight, Washington’s men fabricated a pine log to resemble a cannon.

This Quaker gun trick, named so because Quakers used it to be intimidating without breaching their pacifist vow of non-violence, worked beautifully. Washington faced the cannon toward the buildings in which the Loyalists had barricaded themselves and threatened bombardment if they did not surrender. Shortly after, Rugeley surrendered his entire force without a single shot being fired.

When informed of the pacifist victory, General Charles Cornwallis, commander of the British armies in America, informed Tarleton that Rugeley’s performance ensured he would never rise to the rank of brigadier. A few weeks later, Tarleton would himself face an even worse humiliation at the hands of General Morgan during the devastating Battle of Cowpens. The harrowing civil war for the hearts and minds of the Carolina backcountry had finally begun to favor the Patriots.

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On December 4, 1783, future President George Washington, then commanding general of the Continental Army, summons his military officers to Fraunces Tavern in New York City to inform them that he will be resigning his commission and returning to civilian life.

Washington had led the army through six long years of war against the British before the American forces finally prevailed at the Battle of Yorktown in 1781. There, Washington received the formal surrender of British General Lord Charles Cornwallis, effectively ending the Revolutionary War, although it took almost two more years to conclude a peace treaty and slightly longer for all British troops to leave New York.

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1967. An impromptu jam session breaks out between Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins and Johnny Cash at Memphis' Sun Studios. The press dubs it the “Million Dollar Quartet.”

 

[CMRivdogs]

December 5

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

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At 2:10 p.m. on December 5, 1945, five U.S. Navy Avenger torpedo-bombers comprising Flight 19 take off from the Ft. Lauderdale Naval Air Station in Florida on a routine three-hour training mission. After having completed their objective, Flight 19 was scheduled to take them due east for an additional 67 miles, then turn north for 73 miles, and back to the air station after that, totaling a distance of 120 miles. They never returned.

Two hours after the flight began, the leader of the squadron, who had been flying in the area for more than six months, reported that his compass and backup compass had failed and that his position was unknown. The other planes experienced similar instrument malfunctions. Radio facilities on land were contacted to find the location of the lost squadron, but none were successful. After two more hours of confused messages from the fliers, a distorted radio transmission from the squadron leader was heard at 6:20 p.m., apparently calling for his men to prepare to ditch their aircraft simultaneously because of lack of fuel.

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1872 The Dei Gratia, a small British brig under Captain David Morehouse, spots the Mary Celeste, an American vessel, sailing erratically but at full sail near the Azores Islands in the Atlantic Ocean. The ship was seaworthy, its stores and supplies were untouched, but not a soul was onboard.

On November 7, the brigantine Mary Celeste sailed from New York harbor for Genoa, Italy, carrying Captain Benjamin S. Briggs, his wife and two-year-old daughter, a crew of eight, and a cargo of some 1,700 barrels of crude alcohol. After the Dei Gratia sighted the vessel on December 4, Captain Morehouse and his men boarded the ship to find it abandoned, with its sails slightly damaged, several feet of water in the hold, and the lifeboat and navigational instruments missing. However, the ship was in good order, the cargo intact, and reserves of food and water remained on board.

The last entry in the captain’s log shows that the Mary Celeste had been nine days and 500 miles away from where the ship was found by the Dei Gratia. Apparently, the Mary Celeste had been drifting toward Genoa on her intended course for 11 days with no one at the wheel to guide her. Captain Briggs, his family, and the crew of the vessel were never found, and the reason for the abandonment of the Mary Celeste has never been determined.

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1776 

In Williamsburg, Virginia, a group of five students at the College of William and Mary gather at Raleigh’s Tavern to found a new fraternity, Phi Beta Kappa. Intended to follow strictly American principles as opposed to those of England or Germany, the new society engaged in the fervent political debate typical of student life at the college in Virginia’s capital. The fluent scholars of Greek and Latin who gathered to found the society, which was destined to count presidents and poets of the newly declared republic among its ranks, could not have differed more greatly from their Patriot fellows suffering as prisoners of the crown in British-occupied New York.

From the British stronghold, an officer writing on this day described his 5,000 American captives in Shakespearian terms: “…many of them are such ragamuffins, as you never saw in your life; I cannot give you a better idea of them than by putting you in mind of Falstaff’s recruits, or poor Tom in King Lear; and yet they had strained every nerve to cover their nakedness, by dismantling all the beds.”

While students toasted and the captured shivered, General George Washington pled the virtues of a standing army above those of an ad hoc militia. His missive to Congress came at the end of his notice that his batch of ragamuffins and their supplies were still in transit across the Delaware to Pennsylvania, protected from the rampaging redcoats by a rear guard at Princeton commanded by Lord William Stirling and General Adam Stephens.

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1933 

The 21st Amendment to the U.S. Constitution is ratified, repealing the 18th Amendment and bringing an end to the era of national prohibition of alcohol in America. At 5:32 p.m. EST, Utah became the 36th state to ratify the amendment, achieving the requisite three-fourths majority of states’ approval. Pennsylvania and Ohio had ratified it earlier in the day.

The movement for the prohibition of alcohol began in the early 19th century, when Americans concerned about the adverse effects of drinking began forming temperance societies. By the late 19th century, these groups had become a powerful political force, campaigning on the state level and calling for national liquor abstinence. Several states outlawed the manufacture or sale of alcohol within their own borders. In December 1917, the 18th Amendment, prohibiting the “manufacture, sale, or transportation of intoxicating liquors for beverage purposes,” was passed by Congress and sent to the states for ratification. On January 16, 1919, the 18th Amendment was ratified by the states. Prohibition went into effect the next year, on January 17, 1920.

 

[CMRivdogs]

The petition singles out Poor’s leadership abilities: he “behaved like an experienced officer as well as an excellent soldier.” Implicit is a contrast with the many white New England officers at Bunker Hill who emerged with accusations of incompetence or cowardice.

As the army besieging Boston is reconstituted for the New Year, Washington and the Continental Congress have ordered that black men be forbidden from enlisting, including those who have already served in it since it formed spontaneously after the Battles of Lexington and Concord.

[CMRivdogs]

December 6

https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/december-6

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On December 6, 1884, in Washington, D.C., workers place a nine-inch aluminum pyramid inscribed with "Laus Deo," meaning praise (be) to God, atop a tower of white marble, completing the construction of an impressive monument to the city’s namesake and the nation’s first president, George Washington.

As early as 1783, the infant U.S. Congress decided that a statue of George Washington, the great Revolutionary Wargeneral, should be placed near the site of the new Congressional building, wherever it might be. After then-President Washington asked him to lay out a new federal capital on the Potomac River in 1791, architect Pierre L’Enfant left a place for the statue at the western end of the sweeping National Mall (near the monument’s present location).

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On December 6, 1865, the 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, officially ending the institution of slavery, is ratified. “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.” With these words, the single greatest change wrought by the Civil War was officially noted in the Constitution.

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1917 At 9:05 a.m., in the harbor of Halifax in the Canadian province of Nova Scotia, the most devastating manmade explosion in the pre-atomic age occurs when the Mont Blanc, a French munitions ship, explodes 20 minutes after colliding with another vessel. More than 1,800 people died.

At approximately 8:45 a.m., the two ships collided, setting the picric acid ablaze. The Mont Blanc was propelled toward the shore by its collision with the Imo, and the crew rapidly abandoned the ship, attempting without success to alert the harbor of the peril of the burning ship. Spectators gathered along the waterfront to witness the spectacle of the blazing ship, and minutes later it brushed by a harbor pier, setting it ablaze. The Halifax Fire Department responded quickly and was positioning its engine next to the nearest hydrant when the Mont Blanc exploded at 9:05 a.m. in a blinding white flash.

The massive explosion killed more than 1,800 people, injured another 9,000—including blinding 200—and destroyed almost the entire north end of the city of Halifax, including more than 1,600 homes. The resulting shock wave shattered windows 50 miles away, and the sound of the explosion could be heard hundreds of miles away.

 

[CMRivdogs]

December 7

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

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On December 7, 1941, at 7:55 a.m. Hawaii time, a Japanese dive bomber bearing the red symbol of the Rising Sun of Japan on its wings appears out of the clouds above the island of Oahu. A swarm of 360 Japanese warplanes followed, descending on the U.S. naval base at Pearl Harbor in a ferocious assault. The surprise attack struck a critical blow against the U.S. Pacific fleet and drew the United States irrevocably into World War II.

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1787   In Dover, Delaware, the U.S. Constitution is unanimously ratified by all 30 delegates to the Delaware Constitutional Convention, making Delaware the first state of the modern United States.

Less than four months before, the Constitution was signed by 37 of the original 55 delegates to the Constitutional Convention meeting in Philadelphia. The Constitution was sent to the states for ratification, and, by the terms of the document, the Constitution would become binding once nine of the former 13 colonies had ratified the document. Delaware led the process, and on June 21, 1788, New Hampshire became the ninth state to ratify the Constitution, making federal democracy the law of the land. Government under the U.S. Constitution took effect on March 4, 1789.

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1805  

Having spied the Pacific Ocean for the first time a few weeks earlier, Meriwether Lewis and William Clark cross to the south shore of the Columbia River (near modern-day Astoria) and begin building the small fort that would be their winter home.

Lewis, Clark, and their men deserved a rest. During the past year, they had made the difficult trip from the upper Missouri River across the rugged Rockies, and down the Columbia River to the ocean. Though they planned to return home by retracing their steps in the spring, the Corps of Discovery settled in the relatively mild climate of the Pacific Coast while winter raged in the mountain highlands.

 

[CMRivdogs]

 

[oblong]

A17 was the only nighttime launch of a Saturn V.  
 

one minor correction on that thing from Bluesky, what do we call them?  It wasn’t the last Apollo mission. It was the last Apollo lunar mission.  There was the Apollo Soyouz Test Project mission with the soviets.  And the Skylab flights are officially considered Apollo missions. 

[CMRivdogs]

December 8

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

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John Lennon, a former member of the Beatles, the rock group that transformed popular music in the 1960s, is shot and killed by an obsessed fan in New York City.

The 40-year-old artist was entering his luxury Manhattan apartment building when Mark David Chapman shot him four times at close range with a .38-caliber revolver. Lennon, bleeding profusely, was rushed to the hospital but died en route. Chapman had received an autograph from Lennon earlier in the day and voluntarily remained at the scene of the shooting until he was arrested by police. For a week, hundreds of bereaved fans kept a vigil outside the Dakota—Lennon’s apartment building—and demonstrations of mourning were held around the world.

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On December 8, 1863, President Abraham Lincoln offers his conciliatory plan for reunification of the United States with his Proclamation of Amnesty and Reconstruction.

By this point in the Civil War, it was clear that Lincoln needed to make some preliminary plans for postwar reconstruction. The Union armies had captured large sections of the South, and some states were ready to have their governments rebuilt. The proclamation addressed three main areas of concern. First, it allowed for a full pardon for and restoration of property to all engaged in the rebellion with the exception of the highest Confederate officials and military leaders. Second, it allowed for a new state government to be formed when 10 percent of the eligible voters had taken an oath of allegiance to the United States. Third, the Southern states admitted in this fashion were encouraged to enact plans to deal with the formerly enslaved people so long as their freedom was not compromised.

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On December 8, as America’s Pacific fleet lay in ruins at Pearl Harbor, President Franklin Roosevelt requests, and receives, a declaration of war against Japan.

Leaning heavily on the arm of his son James, a Marine captain, FDR walked haltingly into the House of Representativesat noon to request a declaration of war from the House and address the nation via radio. “Yesterday,” the president proclaimed, “December 7, 1941—a date which will live in infamy—the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan. No matter how long it may take us to overcome this premeditated invasion, the American people in their righteous might will win through to absolute victory.”

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On December 8, 1919, English economist John Maynard Keynes publishes The Economic Consequences of the Peace, a blistering critique of how the Treaty of Versailles that ended World War I would wreak economic and political havoc throughout the European continent. In effect, he predicts the chaos that would engender the Nazi state.

Keynes, an official representative of the British Treasury, had attended the peace conference at the Palace of Versailles outside Paris, which began in January 1919 and ran until June 28, when Germany begrudgingly signed the treaty with the Allies, officially ending the war. One of the most outspoken critics of the punitive agreement, he had walked out of the conference in protest in late May. In his The Economic Consequences of the Peace, published just over five months later, Keynes predicted that the stiff war reparations and other harsh terms imposed on Germany by the treaty would lead to the financial collapse of the country, which in turn would have serious economic and political repercussions on Europe and the world.

 

[CMRivdogs]

December 9

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

 

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On December 9, 1992, 1,800 United States Marines arrive in Mogadishu, Somalia, to spearhead a multinational force aimed at restoring order in the conflict-ridden country.

Following centuries of colonial rule by countries including Portugal, Britain and Italy, Mogadishu became the capital of an independent Somalia in 1960. Less than 10 years later, a military group led by Major General Muhammad Siad Barre seized power and declared Somalia a socialist state. A drought in the mid-1970s combined with an unsuccessful rebellion by ethnic Somalis in a neighboring province of Ethiopia to deprive many of food and shelter. By 1981, close to 2 million of the country’s inhabitants were homeless. Though a peace accord was signed with Ethiopia in 1988, fighting increased between rival clans within Somalia, and in January 1991 Barre was forced to flee the capital. Over the next 23 months, Somalia’s civil war killed some 50,000 people; another 300,000 died of starvation as United Nations peacekeeping forces struggled in vain to restore order and provide relief amid the chaos of war.

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1835 

Inspired by the leadership of Benjamin Rush Milam, the newly created Texan Army takes possession of the city of San Antonio, an important victory for the Republic of Texas in its war for independence from Mexico.

Milam was born in 1788 in Frankfort, Kentucky. He became a citizen and soldier of Mexico in 1824, when newly independent Mexico was still under a republican constitution. Like many Americans who immigrated to the Mexican state of Texas, Milam found that the government both welcomed and feared the growing numbers of Americans, and treated them with uneven fairness. When Milam heard in 1835 that Santa Ana had overthrown the Mexican republic and established himself as dictator, Milam renounced his Mexican citizenship and joined the rag-tag army of the newly proclaimed independent Republic of Texas.

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1958 In Indianapolis, retired candy manufacturer Robert H.W. Welch, Jr., establishes the John Birch Society, a right-wing organization dedicated to fighting what it perceives to be the extensive infiltration of communism into American society.

Welch named the society in honor of John Birch, considered by many to be the first American casualty in the struggle against communism. In 1945, Birch, a Baptist missionary and U.S. Army intelligence specialist, was killed by Chinese communists in the northern province of Anhwei.

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On December 9, 1979, a commission of scientists declare smallpox has been eradicated. The disease, which carries around a 30 percent chance of death for those who contract it, is the only infectious disease afflicting humans that has officially been eradicated.

Something similar to smallpox had ravaged humanity for thousands of years, with the earliest known description appearing in Indian accounts from the 2nd century BCE. It was believed that the Egyptian Pharaoh Ramses V died of smallpox in 1145 BCE; however, recent research indicates that the actual smallpox virus may have evolved as late as 1580 CE. A type of inoculation—introducing a small amount of the disease in order to bring on a mild case that results in immunity—was widespread in China by the 16th century.

 

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1965 "A Charlie Brown Christmas" airs for the first time. CBS executives, unhappy with the music, the pacing and Linus reading a Bible verse, almost refuse to air it. Good grief!

 

[CMRivdogs]

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Over the last two weeks Dunmore has been fortifying Norfolk while beefing up his force with escaped slaves lured by his promises of freedom. At the same time this proclamation of emancipation has terrified and enraged many white Virginians and rallied the patriot armies to confront the British. 

In just 30 minutes the British suffer what Col. Woodford calls “a second Bunker's Hill affair, in miniature”—with the difference that this time the British retreat, beating a path back to Norfolk. Compounding the setback: They are forced to spike and abandon artillery that’s stuck in the swamp. 

Somewhat related..

December 9, 1775 Intercepted letter from John Hatley Norton to John Norton (London): "I have hitherto been silent about our Governor's Operations, but I cannot help saying something of them, as they are marked with almost every Species of Cruelty that a wicked Mind cou'd Suggest; After pillage the Plantations on the Rivers for some Months past, taking Negroes, burning Houses, & the like Depredations he hoisted his Standard & issued a Damned, infernal, Diabolical proclamation declaring Freedom to all our Slaves who will join him, & obliged great Numbers to take an Oath that they will arm themselves & assist him with their Lives & Fortunes. Most of the Scotch have joined him & a great Number of Negroes: he is now entrenched with a Body of Men at the Great Bridge to prevent our Men from getting to Norfolk. he has tis said 500 Whites & as many Blacks. our Men in number about 700 under Colo. Woodford are entrenched within a few hundred Yards of his Party..." John Norton & Sons, pp. 391-392

Edited Tuesday at 03:27 PM by CMRivdogs

[CMRivdogs]

 

[CMRivdogs]

December 10

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

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The first Nobel Prizes are awarded in Stockholm, Sweden, in the fields of physics, chemistry, medicine, literature and peace on December 10, 1901. The ceremony came on the fifth anniversary of the death of Alfred Nobel, the Swedish inventor of dynamite and other high explosives. In his will, Nobel directed that the bulk of his vast fortune be placed in a fund in which the interest would be “annually distributed in the form of prizes to those who, during the preceding year, shall have conferred the greatest benefit on mankind.” Although Nobel offered no public reason for his creation of the prizes, it is widely believed that he did so out of moral regret over the increasingly lethal uses of his inventions in war.

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On December 10, 1778, John Jay, the former chief justice of the New York Supreme Court, is elected president of the Continental Congress. Jay, who graduated from King’s College (now Columbia University) at the age of 19, was a prominent figure in New York state politics from an early age. While Jay opposed British interference in the colonies, he was against complete independence from Great Britain.

Jay was elected to the First Continental Congress in 1774 as a representative from New York, where he published a paper entitled Address to the People of Great Britain, in which he promoted a peaceful resolution with Great Britain instead of independence. Jay was reelected to the Second Continental Congress in 1775 but, upholding his opposition to complete independence from Great Britain, he resigned in 1776 rather than sign the Declaration of Independence.

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1869 

Motivated more by interest in free publicity than a commitment to gender equality, Wyoming territorial legislators pass a bill that is signed into law granting women the right to vote.

Western states led the nation in approving women’s suffrage, but some of them had rather unsavory motives. Though some men recognized the important role women played in frontier settlement, others voted for women’s suffrage only to bolster the strength of conservative voting blocks. In Wyoming, some men were also motivated by sheer loneliness–in 1869, the territory had over 6,000 adult males and only 1,000 females, and area men hoped women would be more likely to settle in the rugged and isolated country if they were granted the right to vote.

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1917After three years of war, during which there had been no Nobel Peace Prize awarded, the Norwegian Nobel Committee awards the 1917 prize to the International Committee of the Red Cross.

From the outbreak of World War I, the Nobel Committee had decided not to award its annual peace prize, stating officially that there had been no worthy candidates nominated. In January 1917, however, Professor Louis Renault, a prominent lawyer, past winner of the Nobel Peace Prize (in 1906, for his role in the extension of the Geneva Convention to include maritime warfare), and current president of the French Red Cross, nominated the ICRC for that year s prize. Renault worked closely with the secretary of the Nobel committee, Ragnvald Moe, during the pre-nomination process. In addition, the government of Switzerland had separately nominated the ICRC, whose operatives were based in Geneva.

 

[CMRivdogs]

“The General will want some of each, as well as of the sweetmeats and pickles that are on board, as his lady [Martha] will be here today or tomorrow. You will please to pick up such things on board as you think will be acceptable to her, and send them as soon as possible.”

(From the National Park Service’s “Bicentennial Daybook,” 1975)

[CMRivdogs]

December 11

https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/december-11?cmpid=email-hist-tdih-2025-1211-12112025

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1936 After ruling for less than one year, Edward VIII becomes the first English monarch to voluntarily abdicate the throne. He chose to abdicate after the British government, public, and the Church of England condemned his decision to marry the American divorcée Wallis Warfield Simpson. On the evening of December 11, he gave a radio address on the BBC in which he explained, “I have found it impossible to carry on the heavy burden of responsibility and to discharge the duties of king, as I would wish to do, without the help and support of the woman I love.” On December 12, his younger brother, the duke of York, was proclaimed King George VI.

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1941 Adolf Hitler declares war on the United States, bringing America, which had been neutral, into the European conflict.

The bombing of Pearl Harbor surprised even Germany. Although Hitler had made an oral agreement with his Axis partner Japan that Germany would join a war against the United States, he was uncertain as to how the war would be engaged. Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor answered that question.

On December 8, Japanese Ambassador Oshima went to German Foreign Minister von Ribbentrop to nail the Germans down on a formal declaration of war against America. Von Ribbentrop stalled for time; he knew that Germany was under no obligation to do this under the terms of the Tripartite Pact, which promised help if Japan was attacked, but not if Japan was the aggressor. Von Ribbentrop feared that the addition of another antagonist, the United States, would overwhelm the German war effort.

 

That very same day, Hitler addressed the Reichstag to defend the declaration. The failure of the New Deal, argued Hitler, was the real cause of the war, as President Roosevelt, supported by plutocrats and Jews, attempted to cover up for the collapse of his economic agenda. “First he incites war, then falsifies the causes, then odiously wraps himself in a cloak of Christian hypocrisy and slowly but surely leads mankind to war,” declared Hitler—and the Reichstag leaped to their feet in thunderous applause.

 

 

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On December 11, 2008, financier Bernard Madoff is arrested at his New York City apartment and charged with masterminding a long-running Ponzi scheme later estimated to involve around $65 billion, making it one of the biggest investment frauds in Wall Street history.

Madoff, who was born in Queens, New York, in 1938, founded a small trading firm bearing his name in 1960. The business was established, in part, with money he earned working as a lifeguard. Two decades later, Madoff’s firm, which helped revolutionize the way stocks are traded, had grown into one of the largest independent trading operations in the securities industry, and he and his family lived a life of luxury, owning multiple homes, boats and expensive artwork and jewelry.

 

[oblong]

Stolen from another site:

Dec 11, 1983

Rollergirl catches up with an old classmate. Dirk Diggler meets a new friend.  Buck Swope stops for donuts"

 

[Screwball]

The rest of the Madoff story. From NPR on the whistleblower nobody listened to; Madoff Whistleblower: SEC Failed To Do The Math

Also on this date in 2004, the death/murder of Gary Webb. Quite the rabbit hole this.

[CMRivdogs]

Also today, Gen. Washington issues orders to officers that they should "put themselves in proper uniform." This should consist of  "by no means...costly or expensive Regimentals, but uniforms in their Colour, Cut and Fashion...no matter how plain or coarse." 2/2

[CMRivdogs]

 

[CMRivdogs]

December 12

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On December 12, 1787, Pennsylvania becomes the second state to ratify the Constitution, by a vote of 46 to 23. Pennsylvania was the first large state to ratify, as well as the first state to endure a serious Anti-Federalist challenge to ratification.

Pennsylvania was the most ethnically and religiously diverse state in the new nation. One-third of Pennsylvania’s population was German-speaking, and the Constitution was printed in German for the purposes of involving that population in the debate. The chairman of the Pennsylvania ratifying convention, Reverend Frederick Augustus Conrad Muhlenberg, was the son of the leading German Lutheran minister and grandson to Conrad Weiser (1696-1760), who had been a leading colonial Indian interpreter and German-speaking political leader. The leader of the Anti-Federalist opposition was the Delaware-born Scots-Irishman Thomas McKean. Future Supreme Court Justice and Scottish immigrant James Wilson was the most articulate defender of the Federalist cause.

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1901 Italian physicist and radio pioneer Guglielmo Marconi succeeds in sending the first radio transmission across the Atlantic Ocean, disproving detractors who told him that the curvature of the earth would limit transmission to 200 miles or less. The message—simply the Morse-code signal for the letter “s”—traveled more than 2,000 miles from Poldhu in Cornwall, England, to Newfoundland, Canada.

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On December 12, 1965, the rookie running back Gale Sayers of the Chicago Bears scores six touchdownsduring a single game against the San Francisco 49ers at Chicago’s Wrigley Field, tying the National Football League (NFL) record for most touchdowns in a single game.

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1899 George F. Grant, an African American dentist from Boston, receives US Patent number 638,920 for the world’s first golf tee. Neither a marketer nor an inventor, Grant gives away a few copies of his creation but makes no money from it before he dies.