CMRivdogs Posted June 17 Author Posted June 17 Quote Needing to beat a deadline of June 28, when the committee will present its proposed argument for independence to the floor of Congress, Jefferson produces "a draft that revealed both splendid artistry and signs of haste," in the words of historian Pauline Maier. What Jefferson calls his rough draft is actually a copy he made of earlier compositions in mid-June to show the committee. He also made a copy to share with fellow committee member John Adams, who is likely the first person other than Jefferson to see the draft. The wording of a key passage from the rough draft is only slightly changed in the final version: "We hold these truths to be sacred & undeniable; that all men are created equal & independant, that from that equal creation they derive rights inherent & inalienable,... "... among which are the preservation of life, & liberty, & the pursuit of happiness; that to secure these ends, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed." The final version reads: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. "--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed." This creed of equality makes up Jefferson's most immortal writing, but he labors harder over the pith of the Declaration, its list of charges against George III. Jefferson borrows heavily from his own words in this section. A week earlier he had drafted a preamble for Virginia's new constitution that included over a dozen charges against the king, which subsequently appear in Congress' final Declaration. Quote
CMRivdogs Posted June 18 Author Posted June 18 July 18 https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/june-18?cmpid=email-hist-tdih-2026-0618-06182026&om_rid=&~campaign=hist-tdih-2026-0618 Quote June 18, 1812: The day after the Senate followed the House of Representatives in voting to declare war against Great Britain, President James Madison signs the declaration into law—and the War of 1812 begins. The American war declaration, opposed by a sizable minority in Congress, had been called in response to the British economic blockade of France, the induction of American seaman into the British Royal Navy against their will, and the British support of Indian tribes along the Great Lakes frontier. A faction of Congress known as the “War Hawks” had been advocating war with Britain for several years and had not hidden their hopes that a U.S. invasion of Canada might result in significant territorial land gains for the United States. Quote On June 18, 1778, after almost nine months of occupation, 15,000 British troops under General Sir Henry Clinton evacuate Philadelphia, the former U.S. capital. The British had captured Philadelphia on September 26, 1777, following General George Washington’s defeats at the Battle of Brandywine and the Battle of the Clouds. British General William Howe had made Philadelphia, the seat of the Continental Congress, the focus of his campaign, but the Patriot government had deprived him of the decisive victory he hoped for by moving its operations to the more secure site of York one week before the city was taken. Quote President John Adams oversees the passage of the Naturalization Act, the first of four pieces of controversial legislation known together as the Alien and Sedition Acts, on June 18, 1798. Strong political opposition to these acts succeeded in undermining the Adams administration, helping Thomas Jefferson to win the presidency in 1800. At the time, America was threatened by war with France, and Congress was attempting to pass laws that would give more authority to the federal government, and the president in particular, to deal with suspicious persons, especially foreign nationals. The Naturalization Act raised the requirements for aliens to apply for U.S. citizenship, requiring that immigrants reside in the U.S. for 14 years before becoming eligible. The earlier law had required only five years of residence before an application could be made. Adams, in fact, never enforced the Naturalization Act. Nevertheless, he came under heavy fire from opponents, led by Vice President Thomas Jefferson, who felt that the Naturalization Act and its companion legislation was unconstitutional and smacked of despotism. So disgusted was Jefferson with Adams’ enthusiastic support of the law that he could no longer support the president and left Washington during the Congressional vote. Quote In a major reversal of federal policy toward Native Americans, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt signs the Indian Reorganization Act into law on June 18, 1934. Also known as the IRA, the Indian New Deal and the Wheeler-Howard Act, the act granted a new degree of autonomy to Native Americans in the United States, giving them greater control over their lands and allowing them to form legally recognized tribal governments. In the early 1900s, federal policy toward Native Americans had promoted assimilation, pressuring tribes to leave reservations, move to cities and give up their traditional ways of life. After World War I, in gratitude toward Native Americans who had served in the military, Congress commissioned a study of conditions on Indian reservations across the U.S. The resulting report detailed the impoverished and unhealthy conditions in which many American Indians lived, finding a “vicious circle” in which economic opportunities were rare. Quote At Waterloo in Belgium on June 18, 1815, Napoleon Bonaparte suffers defeat at the hands of the Duke of Wellington, bringing an end to the Napoleonic era of European history. The Corsica-born Napoleon, one of the greatest military strategists in history, rapidly rose in the ranks of the French Revolutionary Army during the late 1790s. By 1799, France was at war with most of Europe, and Napoleon returned home from his Egyptian campaign to take over the reins of the French government and save his nation from collapse. After becoming first consul in February 1800, he reorganized his armies and defeated Austria. In 1802, he established the Napoleonic Code, a new system of French law, and in 1804 was crowned emperor of France in Notre Dame Cathedral. By 1807, Napoleon controlled an empire that stretched from the River Elbe in the north, down through Italy in the south, and from the Pyrenees to the Dalmatian coast. Quote
romad1 Posted June 18 Posted June 18 I cite this because I've been reading a bit lately about how bad Buckner was. He insisted on fighting the Japanese on their terms in Okinawa and not just seizing airfields and cordoning off the diehards. So he dies as part of his arrogance. He was warned to not expose his party to Japanese observers and sure as heck they got him. I am recalling that he got command because he was favorable to the US Navy position on some disagreement with Macarthur so Nimitz and the other Pacific area Navy leaders supported him getting command of the Okinawa invasion over someone else. Eventually, Stilwell fresh off being kicked out of China was given the command after Buckner's death. Okinawa Casualties (1945): In the Pacific, Lieutenant General Simon B. Buckner, commander of the U.S. Tenth Army, was killed by Japanese shrapnel on Okinawa Quote
CMRivdogs Posted June 19 Author Posted June 19 June 19 https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/june-19?cmpid=email-hist-tdih-2026-0619-06192026&om_rid=&~campaign=hist-tdih-2026-0619 Quote In what is now known as Juneteenth, on June 19, 1865, Union soldiers arrive in Galveston, Texas, with news that the Civil War is over and slavery in the United States is abolished. A mix of June and 19th, Juneteenth has become a day to commemorate the end of slavery in America, which was made official by the adoption of the 13th Amendment. Despite the fact that President Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation was issued more than two years earlier on January 1, 1863, a lack of Union troops in the rebel state of Texas made the order difficult to enforce. Some historians blame the lapse in time on poor communication in that era, while others believe Texan enslavers purposely withheld the information. Ultimately, few were willing to grant enslaved people their freedom without authorities present to mandate they do so. Quote 1856 In Music Fund Hall in Philadelphia, the first national convention of the Republican Party, founded two years before, comes to its conclusion. John Charles Fremont of California, the famous explorer of the West, was nominated for the presidency, and William Lewis Dayton of New Jersey was chosen as the candidate for the vice presidency. In 1854, Congress moved to vote on the Kansas-Nebraska Bill, an act that would dissolve the terms of the Missouri Compromise of 1820 and allow slave or free status to be decided in the territories by popular sovereignty. When it seemed the bill would win congressional passage, the Whig Party, which could not adequately cope with the issue of slavery, disintegrated. By February 1854, anti-slavery factions of the former Whig Party had begun meeting in the upper Midwestern states to discuss the formation of a new party. One such meeting, at Ripon, Wisconsin, on March 20, 1854, is generally remembered as the founding meeting of the Republican Party. Quote On June 19, 1953, Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, who were convicted of conspiring to pass U.S. atomic secrets to the Soviets, are executed at Sing Sing Prison in Ossining, New York. Both refused to admit any wrongdoing and proclaimed their innocence right up to the time of their deaths, by the electric chair. The Rosenbergs were the first U.S. citizens to be convicted and executed for espionage during peacetime and their case remains controversial to this day. Julius Rosenberg was an engineer for the U.S. Army Signal Corps who was born in New York on May 12, 1918. His wife, born Ethel Greenglass, also in New York, on September 28, 1915, worked as a secretary. The couple met as members of the Young Communist League, married in 1939 and had two sons. Quote
CMRivdogs Posted June 20 Author Posted June 20 June 20th https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/june-20 On June 20, 1975, Jaws, a film directed by Steven Spielberg that made countless viewers afraid to go into the water, opens in theaters. The story of a great white shark that terrorizes a New England resort town became an instant blockbuster and the highest-grossing film in movie history until it was bested by 1977’s Star Wars. Jaws was nominated for an Academyi Award in the Best Picture category and took home three Oscars, for Best Film Editing, Best Original Score and Best Sound. The film, a breakthrough for director Spielberg, then 27 years old, spawned several sequels. On June 20, 1782, Congress adopts the Great Seal of the United States after six years of discussion. The front of the seal depicts a bald eagle clutching an olive branch in its right talon and arrows in its left. On its breast appears a shield marked with 13 vertical red and white stripes topped by a bar of blue. The eagle’s beak clutches a banner inscribed, E pluribus unum, a Latin phrase meaning “Out of Many One.” Above the eagle’s head, golden rays burst forth, encircling 13 stars. 1863 During the Civil War, West Virginia is admitted into the Union as the 35th U.S. state, or the 24th state if the secession of the 11 Southern states were taken into account. The same day, Arthur Boreman was inaugurated as West Virginia’s first state governor. After a long and bitter struggle on the part of Henry Ford against cooperation with organized labor unions, Ford Motor Company signs its first contract with the United Automobile Workers of America and Congress of Industrial Organizations (UAW-CIO) on June 20, 1941. 1 Quote
CMRivdogs Posted June 21 Author Posted June 21 June 21 https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/june-21?cmpid=email-hist-tdih-2026-0621-06212026&om_rid=&~campaign=hist-tdih-2026-0621 Quote June 21, 1788: New Hampshire becomes the ninth and last necessary state to ratify the Constitution of the United States, thereby making the document the law of the land. By 1786, defects in the post-Revolutionary War Articles of Confederation were apparent, such as the lack of central authority over foreign and domestic commerce. Congress endorsed a plan to draft a new constitution, and on May 25, 1787, the Constitutional Convention convened at Independence Hall in Philadelphia. On September 17, 1787, after three months of debate moderated by convention president George Washington, the new U.S. constitution, which created a strong federal government with an intricate system of checks and balances, was signed by 38 of the 41 delegates present at the conclusion of the convention. As dictated by Article VII, the document would not become binding until it was ratified by nine of the 13 states. Quote On June 21, 1779, Spain declares war on Great Britain, creating a de facto alliance with the Americans. Spain’s King Charles III would not consent to a treaty of alliance with the United States. For one imperial power to encourage another imperial power’s colonies in revolt was a treacherous game, and he was unwilling to play. However, French Foreign Minister Charles Gravier, comte de Vergennes, managed to negotiate a treaty with Spain to join their war against the British. As the ally of the United States’ ally, Spain managed to endorse the revolt at a critical diplomatic distance. Quote 1956 Playwright Arthur Miller defies the House Committee on Un-American Activities and refuses to namesuspected communists. Miller’s defiance of McCarthyism won him a conviction for contempt of court, which was later reversed by the Supreme Court. His passport had already been denied when he tried to go to Brussels to attend the premiere of his play The Crucible, about the Salem witch trials. Quote On June 21, 2004, SpaceShipOne becomes the first privately owned spacecraft to reach an altitude of 100 kilometers, or about 62 miles, above the earth, the generally accepted point at which “space” begins. Pilot Mike Melvill, the sole crew member, took SpaceShipOne, or SS1 for short, to an altitude of 100.124 kilometers, just past the invisible boundary line, before beginning the long glide back to earth. When he landed at what is now the Mojave Air and Space Port in Mojave, California, he had become the first commercial astronaut in history. The flight lasted 24 minutes. Quote
CMRivdogs Posted June 21 Author Posted June 21 His interviewers address their questions to “Mr. Franklin” (not “Governor”), but rather than answer questions from an “illegal Assembly,” Franklin repeats his objection to the provincial congress calling him an enemy of his country and seizing his person without legal grounds. After each question, the interviewer pauses briefly, then when Franklin doesn’t answer, moves on to his next one. (The crime Franklin is accused of is summoning a meeting of the province’s legal assembly, challenging the authority of the provincial and Continental congresses.) Only when asked to confirm that he threatened Colonel Heard (the officer who arrested him) does Franklin react, angrily demanding that Heard be brought into the room to make the accusation himself. This provokes an argument between his interrogators, some of whom want Heard brought in while others do not. In the end, Heard is brought into the room but not allowed to testify. The Continental Congress have already agreed with the provincial congress that it would be inappropriate to hold Franklin in New Jersey; therefore, word is sent to the Continental Congress to find somewhere else to incarcerate him. Quote
CMRivdogs Posted June 22 Author Posted June 22 June 22 https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/june-22?cmpid=email-hist-tdih-2026-0622-06222026&om_rid=&~campaign=hist-tdih-2026-0622 Quote On June 22, 1944, U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt signs the G.I. Bill, an unprecedented act of legislation designed to compensate returning members of the armed services—known as G.I.s—for their efforts in World War II. As the last of its sweeping New Deal reforms, Roosevelt’s administration created the G.I. Bill (officially the Servicemen’s Readjustment Act of 1944) hoping to avoid a relapse into the Great Depression after the war ended. FDR particularly wanted to prevent a repeat of the Bonus March of 1932, when 20,000 unemployed veterans and their families flocked in protest to Washington. The American Legion, a veteran’s organization, successfully fought for many of the provisions included in the bill, which gave returning servicemen access to unemployment compensation, low-interest home and business loans, and—most importantly—funding for education. Quote On June 22, 1775, Congress authorizes the issue of $2 million in bills of credit. By the spring of 1775, colonial leaders, concerned by British martial law in Boston and increasing constraints on trade, had led their forces in battle against the crown. But, the American revolutionaries encountered a small problem on their way to the front: they lacked the funds necessary to wage a prolonged war. Quote On June 22, 1864, Union forces attempt to capture a railroad that had been supplying Petersburg, Virginia, from the south, and extend their lines to the Appomattox River. In the Battle of Jerusalem Plank Road, the Confederates thwarted the attempt, and the two sides settled into trenches for a nine-month siege. The struggle for Petersburg began on June 15. Union General Ulysses S. Grant had spent six weeks fighting his way around Richmond, Virginia. His adversary, General Robert E. Lee, commander of the Army of Northern Virginia, had inflicted tremendous casualties on the Army of the Potomac. Most recently, at Cold Harbor, Grant ordered a disastrous attack on Rebel entrenchments and lost 7,000 men. Afterward, Grant swung south to capture the rail center of Petersburg, 23 miles from Richmond Quote 1945 During World War II, the U.S. 10th Army overcomes the last major pockets of Japanese resistance on Okinawa Island, ending one of the bloodiest battles of World War II. The same day, Japanese Lieutenant General Mitsuru Ushijima, the commander of Okinawa’s defense, committed suicide with a number of Japanese officers and troops rather than surrender. On April 1, 1945, the 10th Army, under Lieutenant General Simon Bolivar Buckner, launched the invasion of Okinawa, a strategic Pacific island located midway between Japan and Formosa. Possession of Okinawa would give the United States a base large enough for an invasion of the Japanese home islands. There were more than 100,000 Japanese defenders on the island, but most were deeply entrenched in the island’s densely forested interior. By the evening of April 1, 60,000 U.S. troops had come safely ashore. However, on April 4, Japanese land resistance stiffened, and at sea kamikaze pilots escalated their deadly suicide attacks on U.S. vessels. Quote
CMRivdogs Posted June 22 Author Posted June 22 1933 The Henry Ford Museum and Greenfield Village opened to the public for the first time per Wikipedia Quote The Edison Institute was, at first, a private site for educational purposes only, but after numerous inquiries about the complex, it was opened as a museum to the general public on June 22, 1933.[13] It was originally composed of the Henry Ford Museum, Greenfield Village, and the Greenfield Village Schools (an experimental learning facility). Initially, Greenfield Village and the Henry Ford Museum were owned by the Ford Motor Company, which is currently a sponsor of the school and cooperates with the Henry Ford to provide the Ford Rouge Factory Tour. The Henry Ford is sited between the Ford Dearborn Development Center and several Ford engineering buildings with which it shares the same style gates and brick fences. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Henry_Ford Quote
CMRivdogs Posted June 23 Author Posted June 23 June 23 Quote On June 23, 1992, Mafia boss John Gotti, nicknamed the “Teflon Don” after escaping unscathed from several trials during the 1980s, is sentenced to life in prison after being found guilty on 14 accounts of conspiracy to commit murder and racketeering. Moments after his sentence was read in a federal courthouse in Brooklyn, hundreds of Gotti’s supporters stormed the building and overturned and smashed cars before being forced back by police reinforcements. On April 2, 1992, John Gotti was found guilty on all counts and on June 23 was sentenced to multiple life terms without the possibility of parole. While still imprisoned, Gotti died of throat cancer on June 10, 2002. Quote On June 23, 1956, 99.95 percent of Egyptian voters mark their ballots to elect Gamal Abdel Nasseras the first president of the Republic of Egypt. Nasser, who toppled the Egyptian monarchy in 1952 in a military coup, was the only presidential candidate on the ballot. In the same ballot, Nasser’s new constitution, under which Egypt became a one-party socialist state with Islam as the official religion, was approved by 99.8 percent of voters. Quote On June 23, 1972, Title IX of the education amendments of 1972 is enacted into law. Title IX prohibits federally funded educational institutions from discriminating against students or employees based on sex. It begins: “No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance.” As a result of Title IX, any school that receives any federal money from the elementary to university level—in short, nearly all schools—must provide fair and equal treatment of the sexes in all areas, including athletics. Quote On June 23, 1972, President Richard Nixon’s advisor, H.R. Haldeman, tells the president to put pressure on the head of the FBI to “stay the hell out of this [Watergate burglary investigation] business.” In essence, Haldeman was telling Nixon to obstruct justice, which is one of the articles Congress threatened to impeach Nixon for in 1974. In audio tapes of that day’s conversation in the Oval Office, Haldeman tells Nixon that the press and FBI investigators have come close to linking the men who burglarized the Democratic National Committee headquarters in 1972, housed in the Watergate building, to the White House. They specifically mention funds diverted to the burglars, many of whom were Cuban, by members of Nixon’s re-election committee. Quote On June 23, 1993 Lorena Bobbitt chops off the ***** of her sleeping husband, John Wayne Bobbitt, with a kitchen knife. She flees their home, tossing the severed organ from her car window as she drives away. Bleeding profusely, John had a friend drive him to Prince William Hospital in Manassas, Virginia. Meanwhile, police officers went searching for the severed organ. After speaking with Lorena, they found it in a field across from a 7-Eleven convenience store. They reportedly put it on ice from the store, wrapped it in a hot-dog bagand rushed it to the hospital. A team of surgeons managed to reattach it in a nine-and-a-half-hour operation. Bobbitt would later demonstrate how well he’d healed by appearing in several pornographic films. Quote
CMRivdogs Posted June 24 Author Posted June 24 June 24 Quote 1948 One of the most dramatic standoffs in the history of the Cold War begins as the Soviet Union blocks all road and rail traffic to and from West Berlin. The blockade turned out to be a terrible diplomatic move by the Soviets, while the United States emerged from the confrontation with renewed purpose and confidence. Following World War II, Germany was divided into occupation zones. The United States, Great Britain, the Soviet Union, and, eventually, France, were given specific zones to occupy in which they were to accept the surrender of Nazi forces and restore order. The Soviet Union occupied most of eastern Germany, while the other Allied nations occupied western Germany. The German capital of Berlin was similarly divided into four zones of occupation. Almost immediately, differences between the United States and the Soviet Union surfaced. The Soviets sought huge reparations from Germany in the form of money, industrial equipment, and resources. The Russians also made it clear that they desired a neutral and disarmed Germany. Quote 1812 Following the rejection of his Continental System by Czar Alexander I, French Emperor Napoleon orders his Grande Armée, the largest European military force ever assembled to that date, into Russia. The enormous army, featuring some 500,000 soldiers and staff, included troops from all the European countries under the sway of the French Empire. During the opening months of the invasion, Napoleon was forced to contend with a bitter Russian army in perpetual retreat. Refusing to engage Napoleon’s superior army in a full-scale confrontation, the Russians under General Mikhail Kutuzov burned everything behind them as they retreated deeper and deeper into Russia. On September 7, the indecisive Battle of Borodino was fought, in which both sides suffered terrible losses. On September 14, Napoleon arrived in Moscow intending to find supplies but instead found almost the entire population evacuated, and the Russian army retreated again. Early the next morning, fires broke across the city, set by Russian patriots, and the Grande Armée’s winter quarters were destroyed. After waiting a month for a surrender that never came, Napoleon, faced with the onset of the Russian winter, was forced to order his starving army out of Moscow. Quote 1970 On an amendment offered by Senator Robert Dole (R-Kansas) to the Foreign Military Sales Act, the Senate votes 81 to 10 to repeal the Tonkin Gulf Resolution. In August 1964, after North Vietnamese torpedo boats attacked U.S. destroyers (in what became known as the Tonkin Gulf incident), President Johnson asked Congress for a resolution authorizing the president “to take all necessary measures” to defend Southeast Asia. Subsequently, Congress passed Public Law 88-408, which became known as the Tonkin Gulf Resolution, giving the president the power to take whatever actions he deemed necessary, including “the use of armed force.” The resolution passed 82 to 2 in the Senate, where Wayne K. Morse (D-Oregon) and Ernest Gruening (D-Alaska) were the only dissenting votes; the bill passed unanimously in the House of Representatives. President Johnson signed it into law on August 10. It became the legal basis for every presidential action taken by the Johnson administration during its conduct of the war. Quote Early in the morning on June 24, 2021, 98 people die when a 12-story, beachfront condominium building collapses in Surfside, Florida, near Miami. The disaster is one of the worst of its kind in U.S. history. Responders pulled dozens of survivors from the 40-year-old Champlain Towers South building the day of the collapse. But searches by rescuers in the ensuing days discovered no other survivors. Quote
CMRivdogs Posted June 25 Author Posted June 25 June 25 https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/june-25?cmpid=email-hist-tdih-2026-0625-06252026&om_rid=&~campaign=hist-tdih-2026-0625 Quote On June 25, 1876, Native American forces led by Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull defeat the U.S. Army troops of Lt. Col. George Armstrong Custer in the Battle of the Little Bighorn near southern Montana’s Little Bighorn River. Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull, Lakota Sioux leaders, strongly resisted the mid-19th-century efforts of the U.S. government to confine their people to reservations. In 1875, after gold was discovered in South Dakota’s Black Hills, the U.S. Army ignored previous treaty agreements and invaded the region. This betrayal led many Sioux and Cheyenne tribesmen to leave their reservations and join Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse in Montana. By the late spring of 1876, more than 10,000 Native Americans had gathered in a camp along the Little Bighorn River–which they called the Greasy Grass—in defiance of a U.S. War Department order to return to their reservations or risk being attacked. The Battle of the Little Bighorn—also called Custer’s Last Stand—marked the most decisive Native American victory and the worst U.S. Army defeat in the long Plains Indian War. The gruesome fate of Custer and his men outraged many white Americans and confirmed their image of the Native Americans as "wild." Meanwhile, the U.S. government increased its efforts to subdue the tribes. Within five years, almost all of the Lakota Sioux and Cheyenne would be confined to reservations. Quote On June 25, 1864, four years into the Civil War, Pennsylvania troops for the Union, begin digging a tunnel toward the Rebels at Petersburg, Virginia, in order to blow a hole in the Confederate lines and break the stalemate. The great campaign between Confederate General Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia and Ulysses S. Grant’s Army of the Potomac ground to a halt in mid-June. Having battered each other for a month and a half, the armies came to a standstill at Petersburg, just south of Richmond. Here, they settled into trenches for a long siege of the Confederate rail center. The men of the 48th Pennsylvania sought to break the stalemate with an ambitious project. The brainchild of Lieutenant Colonel Henry Pleasants, the plan called for the men of his regiment–mostly miners from Pennsylvania’s anthracite coal region–to construct a tunnel to the Confederate line, fill it with powder, and blow a gap in the fortifications. On July 30, a huge cache of gunpowder was ignited. The plan worked, and a huge gap was blown in the Rebel line. But poor planning by Union officers squandered the opportunity, and the Confederates closed the gap before the Federals could exploit the opening. The Battle of the Crater, as it became known, was an unusual event in an otherwise uneventful summer along the Petersburg line. Quote The last Packard—the classic American luxury car with the famously enigmatic slogan “Ask the Man Who Owns One”—rolls off the production line at Packard’s plant in Detroit, Michigan on June 25, 1956. Mechanical engineer James Ward Packard and his brother, William Dowd Packard, built their first automobile, a buggy-type vehicle with a single cylinder engine, in Warren, Ohio in 1899. The Packard Motor Car Company earned fame early on for a four-cylinder aluminum speedster called the “Gray Wolf,” released in 1904. It became one of the first American racing cars to be available for sale to the general public. With the 1916 release of the Twin Six, with its revolutionary V-12 engine, Packard established itself as the country’s leading luxury-car manufacturer. World War I saw Packard convert to war production earlier than most companies, and the Twin Six was adapted into the Liberty Aircraft engine, by far the most important single output of America’s wartime industry. Quote
CMRivdogs Posted June 26 Author Posted June 26 June 26 https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/june-26?cmpid=email-hist-tdih-2026-0626-06262026&om_rid=&~campaign=hist-tdih-2026-0626 Quote On June 26, 1948, U.S. and British pilots begin delivering food and supplies by airplane to Berlin after the city is isolated by a Soviet Union blockade. When World War II ended in 1945, defeated Germany was divided into Soviet, American, British and French zones of occupation. The city of Berlin, though located within the Soviet zone of occupation, was also split into four sectors, with the Allies taking the western part of the city and the Soviets the eastern. In June 1948, Josef Stalin’s government attempted to consolidate control of the city by cutting off all land and sea routes to West Berlin in order to pressure the Allies to evacuate. As a result, beginning on June 24 the western section of Berlin and its 2 million people were deprived of food, heating fuel and other crucial supplies. Quote 1917 During World War I, the first 14,000 U.S. infantry troops land in France at the port of Saint-Nazaire. The landing site had been kept secret because of the menace of German submarines, but by the time the Americans had lined up to take their first salute on French soil, an enthusiastic crowd had gathered to welcome them. However, the “Doughboys,” as the British referred to the green American troops, were untrained, ill-equipped, and far from ready for the difficulties of fighting along the Western Front. After four years of bloody stalemate along the Western Front, the entrance of America’s well-supplied forces into the conflict was a major turning point in the war. When the war finally ended on November 11, 1918, more than two million American soldiers had served on the battlefields of Western Europe, and more than 50,000 of these men had lost their lives. Quote On June 26, 1956, the U.S. Congress approves the Federal-Aid Highway Act, which allocates more than $30 billion for the construction of some 41,000 miles of interstate highways; it will be the largest public construction project in U.S. history to that date. Among the pressing questions involved in passing highway legislation were where exactly the highways should be built, and how much of the cost should be carried by the federal government versus the individual states. Several competing bills went through Congress before 1956, including plans spearheaded by the retired general and engineer Lucius D. Clay; Senator Albert Gore Sr.; and Rep. George H. Fallon, who called his program the “National System of Interstate and Defense Highways,” thus linking the construction of highways with the preservation of a strong national defense. Quote President John F. Kennedy expresses solidarity with democratic German citizens in a speech on June 26, 1963. In front of the Berlin Wall that separated the city into democratic and communist sectors, he declared to the crowd, “Ich bin ein Berliner” or “I am also a citizen of Berlin.” In his speech, Kennedy assured West Germans that free nations still stood by the people of the democratically controlled sectors of Berlin who had lived within the hostile borders of East Germany since the end of World War II. Immediately after the war, the city of Berlin was divided into West Berlin, comprised of American, British and French-administered democratic enclaves, and East Berlin, an East German communist-controlled area. In an early confrontation of the Cold War, West Berliners had endured a Soviet-imposed blockade of their part of the city between June 1948 and May 1949 that cut off their food and energy supplies. In response, the Allied Military Air Transport Service had flown food, coal and school supplies into the city in an unprecedented logistical feat known as “Operation Vittles” or the “Berlin Airlift.” Quote
CMRivdogs Posted June 27 Author Posted June 27 June 27 https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/june-27?cmpid=email-hist-tdih-2026-0627-06272026&om_rid=&~campaign=hist-tdih-2026-0627 Quote On June 27, 1950, President Harry S. Truman announces that he is ordering U.S. air and naval forces to South Korea to aid the democratic nation in repulsing an invasion by communist North Korea. The United States was undertaking the major military operation, he explained, to enforce a United Nations resolution calling for an end to hostilities, and to stem the spread of communism in Asia. In addition to ordering U.S. forces to Korea, Truman also deployed the U.S. 7th Fleet to Formosa (Taiwan) to guard against invasion by communist China and ordered an acceleration of military aid to French forces fighting communist guerrillas in Vietnam. Quote 1844 Joseph Smith, the founder and leader of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (more commonly known as Mormonism), is murdered along with his brother Hyrum when a mob breaks into a jail where they are being held in Carthage, Illinois. Born in Vermont in 1805, Smith claimed in 1823 that he had been visited by a Christian angel named Moroni who spoke to him of an ancient text that had been lost for 1,500 years. The holy text, supposedly engraved on gold plates by a Native American historian in the fourth century, related a story of Israelite peoples who had lived in America in ancient times. During the next several years, Smith dictated an English translation of this text to his wife and other scribes, and in 1830 The Book of Mormon was published. In the same year, Smith founded the Church of Christ—later known as the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints—in Fayette Township. Quote On June 27, 1864, Colorado Governor John Evans issues a proclamation warning that all peaceful Native Americans in the region must report to the or risk being attacked, creating the conditions that will lead to the Sand Creek Massacre. Evans’ offer of sanctuary was at best halfhearted. His primary goal in 1864 was to eliminate all Native American activity in eastern Colorado Territory, an accomplishment he hoped would increase his popularity and eventually win him a U.S. Senate seat. Immediately after ordering the local Native Americans to the reservation, Evans issued a second proclamation that invited white settlers to indiscriminately “kill and destroy all…hostile Indians.” At the same time, Evans began creating a temporary 100-day militia force to wage war on the Native Americans. He placed the new regiment under the command of Colonel John Chivington, another ambitious man who hoped to gain high political office by fighting Native Americans. Quote On June 27, 1941, British cryptologists help break the secret code used by the German army to direct its strategic military operations on the Eastern front in the Soviet Union. British and Polish experts had already broken many of the Enigma codes for the Western front. Enigma was the Germans’ most sophisticated coding machine, necessary to secretly transmit information. The Enigma machine, invented in 1918 by Arthur Scherbius looked like a typewriter and was originally employed for business purposes. The German army adapted the machine for wartime use and considered its encoding system unbreakable. They were wrong. Bletchley Park codebreaker Alan Turing developed a machine designed to decipher Enigma codes. Turing's prototype "bombe" unit, named Victory, was first installed in the spring of 1940. Quote
CMRivdogs Posted June 27 Author Posted June 27 (edited) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sesquicentennial_Exposition Evidently bad weather and poor planning made this event less than a great success... Edited June 27 by CMRivdogs Quote
CMRivdogs Posted June 28 Author Posted June 28 June 28 https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/june-28?cmpid=email-hist-tdih-2026-0628-06282026&om_rid=&~campaign=hist-tdih-2026-0628 Quote Sometime after midnight on June 28, 1969, in what is now regarded by many as history’s first major protest on behalf of equal rights for LGBTQ people, a police raid of the Stonewall Inn—a popular gay club located on New York City's Christopher Street—turns violent as patrons and local sympathizers begin rioting against the authorities. Although the police were legally justified in raiding the club, which was serving liquor without a license, New York’s gay community had grown weary of the police department targeting gay clubs, many of which had already been closed. Soon, the crowd began throwing bottles at the police. The protest spilled over into the neighboring streets, and order was not restored until the deployment of New York’s riot police sometime after 4 a.m. Quote Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria and his wife Sophie are shot to death by a Bosnian Serb nationalist during an official visit to the Bosnian capital of Sarajevo on June 28, 1914. The killings sparked a chain of events that led to the outbreak of World War I by early August. The archduke traveled to Sarajevo in June 1914 to inspect the imperial armed forces in Bosnia and Herzegovina, annexed by Austria-Hungary in 1908. The annexation had angered Serbian nationalists, who believed the territories should be part of Serbia. A group of young nationalists hatched a plot to kill the archduke during his visit to Sarajevo, and after some missteps, 19-year-old Gavrilo Princip was able to shoot the royal couple at point-blank range, while they traveled in their official procession, killing both almost instantly. Quote 1965 In the first major offensive ordered for U.S. forces in Vietnam, 3,000 troops of the 173rd Airborne Brigade—in conjunction with 800 Australian soldiers and a Vietnamese airborne unit—assault a jungle area known as Viet Cong Zone D, 20 miles northeast of Saigon. The operation was called off after three days when it failed to make any major contract with the enemy. One American was killed and nine Americans and four Australians were wounded. The State Department assured the American public that the operation was in accord with Johnson administration policy on the role of U.S. troops. Quote 1972 President Nixon announces that no more draftees will be sent to Vietnam unless they volunteer for such duty. He also announced that a force of 10,000 troops would be withdrawn by September 1, which would leave a total of 39,000 in Vietnam. Quote
CMRivdogs Posted June 29 Author Posted June 29 June 29 https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/june-29?cmpid=email-hist-tdih-2026-0629-06292026&om_rid=&~campaign=hist-tdih-2026-0629 Quote On June 28, 1776, Edward Rutledge, one of South Carolina’s representatives to the Continental Congress in Philadelphia, expresses his reluctance to declare independence from Britain in a letter to the like-minded John Jay of New York. Contrary to the majority of his Congressional colleagues, Rutledge advocated patience with regards to declaring independence. In a letter to Jay, one of New York’s representatives who was similarly disinclined to rush a declaration (and who was on business in New York during the independence debates), Rutledge worried whether moderates like himself and Jay could “effectually oppose” a resolution for independence. He further wrote, “The Congress sat till 7 o’clock this evening in consequence of a motion of R. H. Lee’s resolving ourselves free & independent states. The sensible part of the house Opposed the motion… They saw no wisdom in a Declaration of Independence, nor any other purpose to be answered by it…No reason could be assigned for pressing into this measure, but the reason of every Madman, a shew of our Spirit…" Quote On June 29, 1995, the American space shuttle to form the largest man-made satellite ever to orbit the Earth. This historic moment of cooperation between former rival space programs was also the 100th human space mission in American history. At the time, Daniel Goldin, chief of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), called it the beginning of “a new era of friendship and cooperation” between the U.S. and Russia. With millions of viewers watching on television, Atlantis blasted off from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in eastern Florida on June 27, 1995. Quote 2007. Apple releases the first iPhone, revolutionizing the mobile phone industry and transforming human communication with its sleek design and pioneering touch interface that allowed users to pinch, zoom and swipe. Quote
CMRivdogs Posted June 30 Author Posted June 30 June 30 https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/june-30?cmpid=email-hist-tdih-2026-0630-06302026&om_rid=&~campaign=hist-tdih-2026-0630 Quote 1934 In Germany, Nazi leader Adolf Hitler orders a bloody purge of his own political party, assassinating hundreds of Nazis whom he believed had the potential to become political enemies in the future. The event became known as the Night of the Long Knives. The leadership of the Nazi Storm Troopers (SA), whose four million members had helped bring Hitler to power in the early 1930s, was especially targeted. Hitler feared that some of his followers had taken his early “National Socialism” propaganda too seriously and thus might compromise his plan to suppress workers’ rights in exchange for German industry making the country war-ready. Quote On June 30, 1905, Albert Einstein publishes “Zur Elektrodynamik bewegter Körper (On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies),” a paper that sets out his theory of special relativity, in the German physics journal Annalen der Physik. Einstein’s groundbreaking work shatters the foundations of physics. After attending the Federal Polytechnic School in Zurich, Switzerland, Einstein worked at the Swiss patent office in Bern from 1902 to 1909. He was employed as a "third- class technical expert," examining inventions for their patentability, most likely among them a gravel sorting machine and a weather indicator. In a letter to his friend Michele Besso, Einstein regarded the patent office as “that secular cloister where I hatched my most beautiful ideas.” Quote On June 30, 1953, workers at a Chevrolet plant in Flint, Michigan, watch as the first completed Corvette, a two-seater sports car that would become an American icon, rolls off the assembly line. It was one of just 300 Corvettes made that year. The idea for the Corvette originated with General Motors’ pioneering designer Harley J. Earl, who in 1951 began developing plans for a low-cost American sports car that could compete with Europe’s MGs, Jaguars and Ferraris. The project was eventually code-named “Opel.” Quote
CMRivdogs Posted June 30 Author Posted June 30 Quote 1776] Honble. Sir I this day received information that the Convention had been pleased to reappoint me to the office in which I have now the honor to be serving them and through you must beg leave to return them my sincere thanks for this mark of their continued confidence. I am sorry the situation of my domestic affairs renders it indispensably necessary that I should sollicit the substitution of some other person here in my room. The delicacy of the house will not require me to enter minutely into the private causes which render this necessary: I trust they will be satisfied I would not have urged it again were it not necessary. I shall with chearfulness continue in duty here till the expiration of our year by which time I hope it will be convenient for my successor to attend. Quote
CMRivdogs Posted July 1 Author Posted July 1 July 1. Happy Canada Day https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/july-1?cmpid=email-hist-tdih-2026-0701-07012026&om_rid=&~campaign=hist-tdih-2026-0701 Quote The autonomous Dominion of Canada, a confederation of Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and the future provinces of Ontario and Quebec, is officially recognized by Great Britain with the passage of the British North America Act. July 1 will later become known as Canada Day. During the 19th century, colonial dependence gave way to increasing autonomy for a growing Canada. In 1841, Upper and Lower Canada—now known as Ontario and Quebec—were made a single province by the Act of Union. In the 1860s, a movement for a greater Canadian federation grew out of the need for a common defense, the desire for a national railroad system, and the necessity of finding a solution to the problem of French and British conflict. When the Maritime provinces, which sought union among themselves, called a conference in 1864, delegates from the other provinces of Canada attended. Later in the year, another conference was held in Quebec, and in 1866 Canadian representatives traveled to London to meet with the British government. On July 1, 1867, with passage of the British North America Act, the Dominion of Canada was officially established as a self-governing entity within the British Empire. Two years later, Canada acquired the vast possessions of the Hudson’s Bay Company, and within a decade the provinces of Manitoba and Prince Edward Island had joined the Canadian federation. In 1885, the Canadian Pacific Railway was completed, making mass settlement across the vast territory of Canada possible. Quote One of the largest military conflicts in North American history begins on July 1, 1863, when Union and Confederate forces collide at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. The epic battle lasted three days and resulted in a retreat to Virginia by Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia. Two months prior to Gettysburg, Lee had dealt a stunning defeat to the Army of the Potomac at Chancellorsville, Virginia. He then made plans for a Northern invasion in order to relieve pressure on war-weary Virginia and to seize the initiative from the Yankees. His army, numbering about 80,000, began moving on June 3. The Army of the Potomac, commanded by Joseph Hooker and numbering just under 100,000, began moving shortly thereafter, staying between Lee and Washington, D.C. But on June 28, frustrated by the Lincoln administration’s restrictions on his autonomy as commander, Hooker resigned and was replaced by George G. Meade. Quote The last Thunderbird, Ford Motor Company’s iconic sports car, emerges from a Ford factory in Wixom, Michigan on July 1, 2005. Ford began its development of the Thunderbird in the years following World War II, during which American servicemen had the opportunity to observe sleek European sports cars. General Motors built the first American sports car: the Chevrolet Corvette, released in 1953. The undeniably sleek Corvette’s initial engine performance was relatively underwhelming, but it was gaining lots of attention from the press and public, and Ford was motivated to respond, rushing the Thunderbird to the market in 1955. The 1955 Thunderbird was an immediate hit, selling more than 14,000 that year (compared to just 700 Corvettes). The success of the Thunderbird led Chevrolet to continue production of (and improve upon) the Corvette, which soon became a tough competitor in the sports car market. Quote
CMRivdogs Posted July 2 Author Posted July 2 July 2 Quote 1776 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. Quote 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. Quote 1881 Only four months into his administration, President James A. Garfield is shot as he walks through a railroad waiting room in Washington, D.C. His assailant, Charles J. Guiteau, was a disgruntled and perhaps deranged office seeker who had unsuccessfully sought an appointment to the U.S. consul in Paris. The president was shot in the back and the arm, and Guiteau was arrested. Garfield, mortally ill, was treated in Washington and then taken to the seashore at Elberon, New Jersey, where he attempted to recuperate with his family. During this time, Vice President Chester A. Arthur served as acting president. On September 19, 1881, after 80 days, President Garfield died of blood poisoning. The following day, Arthur was inaugurated as the 21st president of the United States. Garfield had three funerals: one in Elberon; another in Washington, where his body rested in state in the Capitol for three days; and a third in Cleveland, Ohio, where he was buried. Charles Guiteau’s murder trial began in November, and in January 1882 he was found guilty and sentenced to death. In June 1882, he was hanged at his jail in Washington. Quote In the East End of London on July 2, 1865, revivalist preacher William Booth and his wife Catherine establish the Christian Mission, later known as the Salvation Army. Determined to wage war against the evils of poverty and religious indifference with military efficiency, Booth modeled his Methodist sect after the British army, labeling uniformed ministers as “officers” and new members as “recruits.” The Christian Mission, in which women were given ranks equal to men, launched “campaigns” in London’s most forsaken neighborhoods. Soup kitchens were the first in a long line of various projects designed to provide physical and spiritual assistance to the needy. In the early years, many in Britain were critical of the Christian Mission and its tactics, and the members were often subjected to fines and imprisonment as breakers of the peace. In 1878, the organization was renamed the Salvation Army, and two years later the first U.S. branch opened in Pennsylvania. During the Great Depression, the Salvation Army provided food and lodging for those in need, and during both world wars, it distinguished itself through its work with the armed forces. By then, it had come to be appreciated as an essential international charity organization. Quote
CMRivdogs Posted July 2 Author Posted July 2 Quote “What Part are we to act after this Event takes Place; every Act we join in may then be considered as in some Measure acceding to the Vote of Independency, and binding our Colony on that Score.“Indeed many matters in this new Situation may turn up in which the Propriety of our voting may be very doubtful.” New York’s delegates are asking their state if they are still allowed to participate in the Continental Congress (and if they even have any moral right to do so, as the only state that won’t have voted to declare independence) right at the moment, of course, when the United Colonies’ army is bracing to defend New York itself from invasion by the largest military armada ever to have crossed the Atlantic Ocean. Quote
CMRivdogs Posted July 3 Author Posted July 3 July 3 https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/july-3?cmpid=email-hist-tdih-2026-0703-07032026&om_rid=&~campaign=hist-tdih-2026-0703 Quote 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 Warto an end. In June 1863, following his masterful victory at the Battle of Chancellorsville, General Lee launched his second invasion of the Union in less than a year. He led his 75,000-man Army of Northern Virginia across the Potomac River, through Maryland, and into Pennsylvania, seeking to win a major battle on Northern soil that would further dispirit the Union war effort and induce Britain or France to intervene on the Confederacy’s behalf. The 90,000-strong Army of the Potomac pursued the Confederates into Maryland, but its commander, General Joseph Hooker, was still stinging from his defeat at Chancellorsville and seemed reluctant to chase Lee further. Meanwhile, the Confederates divided their forces and investigated various targets, such as Harrisburg, the Pennsylvania capital. Quote 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. Quote 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. That changed with the arrival of the American explorers Meriwether Lewis and William Clark in the summer of 1805. Searching for a route over the Rocky Mountains to the Columbia River, Lewis and Clark traveled through Idaho with the aid of the Shoshone and their horses. British fur traders and trappers followed a few years later, as did missionaries and a few hardy settlers. As with many remote western states, large-scale settlement began only after gold was discovered. Thousands of miners rushed into Idaho when word of a major gold strike came in September 1860, occupying Indigenous lands. Merchants and farmers followed, eager to make their fortunes “mining the miners.” Quote Rolling Stones guitarist Brian Jones is found dead of an apparent accidental drowning on July 3, 1969. Two years later to the day, in 1971, Jim Morrison dies of heart failure in a Paris bathtub. Quote
CMRivdogs Posted July 3 Author Posted July 3 Quote In this anecdote e, as Jefferson later retells it, there was a hatter named Thompson. “His first concern was to have a handsome sign-board, with a proper inscription. He composed it in these words ‘John Thompson, Hatter, makes and sells hats—for ready money,’ with a figure of a hat. ”But he thought he would submit it to his friends for their amendments. The first he shewed it to thought the word ‘Hatter,’ tautologous, because followed by the words ‘makes hats’ which shew he was a Hatter. It was struck out. ”The next observed that the word ‘makes’ might as well be omitted, because his customers would not care who made the hats. … He struck it out. A third said he thought the words ‘for ready money,’ were useless as it was not the custom of the place to sell on credit. ”The inscription now stood ‘John Thomson sells hats.’ ‘Sells hats’ says his next friend? Why nobody will expect you to give them away. What then is the use of that word? It was stricken out, and ‘hats’ followed it, the rather, as there was one painted on the board. In the end, the sign is nothing more than the picture of a hat with the name John Thompson on it. The story may be intended as a joke on the frustration of decisions by committee—but it could also show every member as making a useful opinion, ending with a minimalist design. Quote
CMRivdogs Posted July 3 Author Posted July 3 Quote Although best known now for its introduction that upholds the people’s rights to “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness,” the bulk of the Declaration of Independence is a list of indictments against King George III as “unfit to be the ruler of a free people.” One of these charges is eliminated entirely—an emotional accusation that the king is responsible for the slave trade, “a cruel war against humanity itself.” In Jefferson’s words, he violated the “most sacred rights of life & liberty in the persons of a distant people who never offended him,… ”…captivating & carrying them into slavery in another hemisphere, or to incur miserable death in their transportation thither. This piratical warfare…is the warfare of the CHRISTIAN king of Great Britain. determined to keep open a market where MEN should be bought & sold. ”He has prostituted his negative for suppressing every legislative attempt to prohibit or to restrain this execrable commerce: and that this assemblage of horrors might want no fact of distinguished die, he is now exciting those very people to rise in arms among us,… ”…and to purchase that liberty of which he has deprived them, & murdering the people upon whom he also obtruded them; thus paying off former crimes committed against the liberties of one people, with crimes which he urges them to commit against the lives of another.” Jefferson later notes that the denunciation of the slave trade was deleted “in complaisance to South Carolina & Georgia,” with the agreement of Northern delegates who may not have owned slaves but whose states had been “pretty considerable carriers of them to others.” Jefferson, who held 600 slaves over the course of his life, betrayed what could be interepreted as guilt through his denunciation of slavery. Claiming the king was responsible for this practice was absurd—Africans were bought, enslaved and forced into work almost entirely by Americans. A single, veiled reference to slavery remains in the final Declaration, an accusation that the king “has excited domestic insurrections amongst us,” which could be taken as describing both slaves who fled to British protection and Indian uprisings. Just an aside, if you haven't watched the movie version of 1776, filmed over 50 years ago, it does a good job documenting the arguments for the era. The song Molasses to Slaves is still a powerful message and argument that the northern colonies and later states were just as guilty in the slave trade as the southern states. Quote
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