History Thread...

[CMRivdogs]

August 18

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

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On August 18, 1991, Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev is placed under house arrest during a coup by high-ranking members of his own government, military and police forces.

Since becoming leader of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) in 1988, Gorbachev had pursued comprehensive reforms of the Soviet system. Combining perestroika (“restructuring”) of the economy—including a greater emphasis on free-market policies—and glasnost (“openness”) in diplomacy, he greatly improved Soviet relations with Western democracies, particularly the United States. Meanwhile, though, within the USSR, Gorbachev faced powerful critics, including conservative, hard-line politicians and military officials who thought he was driving the Soviet Union toward its downfall and making it a second-rate power. On the other side were even more radical reformers—particularly Boris Yeltsin, president of the most powerful socialist republic, Russia—who complained that Gorbachev was just not working fast enough.

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1590 John White, the governor of the Roanoke Island colony in present-day North Carolina, returns from a supply trip to England to find the settlement completely deserted. White and his men found no trace of the 100 or so colonists he left behind, and there was no sign of violence. The Roanoke Island colony was the first English settlement in the New World, and the mystery of its collapse has never fully been solved.

The Roanoke Island colony was founded by English explorer Sir Walter Raleigh in August 1585. The first Roanoke colonists did not fare well, suffering from dwindling food supplies and Indian attacks, and in 1586 they returned to England aboard a ship captained by Sir Francis Drake. In 1587, Raleigh sent out another group of 100 colonists under John White. White returned to England to procure more supplies, but the war with Spain delayed his return to Roanoke. By the time he finally returned in August 1590, everyone had vanished.

In 1998, archaeologists studying tree-ring data from Virginia found that extreme drought conditions persisted between 1587 and 1589. These conditions undoubtedly contributed to the demise of the so-called Lost Colony, but where the settlers went after they left Roanoke remains a mystery. One theory has them being absorbed into a Native American tribe known as the Croatans.

 

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A dramatic battle in the Tennessee House of Representatives ends with the state ratifying the 19th Amendmentto the United States Constitution on August 18, 1920. After decades of struggle and protest by suffragettesacross the country, the decisive vote is cast by a 24-year-old representative who reputedly changed his vote after receiving a note from his mother.

America’s suffrage movement was founded in the mid 19th century by women who had become politically active through their work in the abolitionist and temperance movements. In July 1848, 200 woman suffragists, organized by Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott, met in Seneca Falls, New York, to discuss women’s rights. After approving measures asserting the right of women to educational and employment opportunities, they passed a resolution that declared “it is the duty of the women of this country to secure to themselves their sacred right to the elective franchise.”

By March of 1920, just one more state was needed to ratify the 19th Amendment in order for it to become law. The Tennessee General Assembly took up the question in August, and suffragists and anti-suffragists bore down on Nashville. The State Senate voted convincingly to ratify, but the House failed to do so twice, by two votes of 48 to 48. State Rep. Harry T. Burn, a 24-year-old from McMinn County, was one of the “nay” votes. Reportedly, he had intended to vote for ratification but had been persuaded not to by telegrams from his constituents and members of his party.

Just as a third vote was set to begin, Burn received a letter from his mother, Febb Ensminger Burn, that read, in part, “Hurrah and vote for Suffrage and don't keep them in doubt … I've been watching to see how you stood but have not seen anything yet ... Don't forget to be a good boy.”

 

[smr-nj]

Thumbs up to mom for urging her son to be a good boy!! 

[CMRivdogs]

August 19

https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/august-19

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On August 19, 1909, the first race is held at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, now the home of the world’s most famous motor racing competition, the Indianapolis 500.

Built on 328 acres of farmland five miles northwest of Indianapolis, Indiana, the speedway was started by local businessmen as a testing facility for Indiana’s growing automobile industry. The idea was that occasional races at the track would pit cars from different manufacturers against each other. After seeing what these cars could do, spectators would presumably head down to the showroom of their choice to get a closer look.

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On August 19, 1791, the accomplished American mathematician and astronomer Benjamin Banneker pens a letter to then-Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson. Jefferson corresponds prolifically with luminaries from around the world, but Banneker is unique among them: the son of a free Black American woman and a formerly enslaved African man from Guinea, Banneker criticizes Jefferson’s hypocritical stance on slavery in respectful but unambiguous terms, using Jefferson’s own words to make his case for the abolition of slavery.

In August of 1791, Banneker sent Jefferson, who was known both as a Founding Father and a devoted scientist, a draft of an almanac he was readying for publication. He felt compelled to include a personal note. In this letter, Banneker quoted the famous preamble to the Declaration of Independence (“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal…”) and said plainly that he was disappointed in the hypocrisy of Jefferson, a slaveowner:

"…but Sir how pitiable is it to reflect, that altho you were so fully convinced of the benevolence of the Father of mankind, and of his equal and impartial distribution of those rights and privileges which he had conferred upon them, that you should at the same time counteract his mercies, in detaining by fraud and violence so numerous a part of my brethren under groaning captivity and cruel oppression, that you should at the same time be found guilty of that most criminal act, which you professedly detested in others, with respect to yourselves."

Jefferson’s response, eleven days later, was cordial and complimentary but also condescending and racist. Jefferson praised the almanac and informed Banneker that he was sending it along to the Marquis de Condorcet, a French philosopher, mathematician, and abolitionist. The future president praised Banneker as a credit to the Black race, essentially telling him that he considered the almanac evidence that African American’s inferiority was owed “merely to the degraded condition of their existence both in Africa and America” and not to their innate inferiority, a paternalistic sentiment that was a frequent topic of debate among whites

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1812

During the War of 1812, the U.S. Navy frigate Constitution defeats the British frigate Guerrière in a furious engagement off the coast of Nova Scotia. Witnesses claimed that the British shot merely bounced off the Constitution‘s sides, as if the ship were made of iron rather than wood. By the war’s end, “Old Ironsides” destroyed or captured seven more British ships. The success of the USS Constitution against the supposedly invincible Royal Navy provided a tremendous boost in morale for the young American republic.

In July 1798 it was put to sea with a crew of 450 and cruised the West Indies, protecting U.S. shipping from French privateers. In 1803, President Thomas Jefferson ordered the American warship to the Mediterranean to fight Barbary pirates off the coast of Tripoli. The vessel performed commendably during the conflict, and in 1805 a peace treaty with Tripoli was signed on the Constitution‘s deck.

 

 

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On August 19, 1919, in a break with conventional practice, U.S. President Woodrow Wilson appears personallybefore the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to argue in favor of its ratification of the Versailles Treaty, the peace settlement that ended the First World War.

The previous July 8, Wilson had returned from Paris, France, where the treaty’s terms had been worked out over a contentious six months. Two days later, he went before the U.S. Senate to present the Treaty of Versailles, including the covenant of the League of Nations, the international peace-keeping organization that Wilson had envisioned in his famous “Fourteen Points” speech of 1918 and had worked for so adamantly in Paris. “Dare we reject it?” he asked the senators, “and break the heart of the world?”

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1953 

The Iranian military, with the support and financial assistance of the United States government, overthrowsthe government of Premier Mohammad Mosaddeq and reinstates the Shah of Iran. Iran remained a solid Cold War ally of the United States until a revolution ended the Shah’s rule in 1979.

Mosaddeq came to prominence in Iran in 1951 when he was appointed premier. A fierce nationalist, Mosaddeq immediately began attacks on British oil companies operating in his country, calling for expropriation and nationalization of the oil fields. His actions brought him into conflict with the pro-Western elites of Iran and the Shah, Mohammed Reza Pahlevi. Indeed, the Shah dismissed Mossadeq in mid-1952, but massive public riots condemning the action forced the Shah to reinstate Mossadeq a short time later. U.S. officials watched events in Iran with growing suspicion. British intelligence sources, working with the American Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), came to the conclusion that Mossadeq had communist leanings and would move Iran into the Soviet orbit if allowed to stay in power.

Working with Shah, the CIA and British intelligence began to engineer a plot to overthrow Mossadeq. The Iranian premier, however, got wind of the plan and called his supporters to take to the streets in protest. At this point, the Shah left the country for “medical reasons.” While British intelligence backed away from the debacle, the CIA continued its covert operations in Iran. Working with pro-Shah forces and, most importantly, the Iranian military, the CIA cajoled, threatened, and bribed its way into influence and helped to organize another coup attempt against Mossadeq. On August 19, 1953, the military, backed by street protests organized and financed by the CIA, overthrew Mossadeq. The Shah quickly returned to take power and, as thanks for the American help, signed over 40 percent of Iran’s oil fields to U.S. companies.