Daily history

Good morning,


Quote of the day:

"In life we all have an unspeakable secret, an irreversible regret, an unreachable dream and an unforgettable love."

                                 Diego Marchi

I am still reading about the pirate era. There is an event that I thought was interesting and I think you will too.

One of the meanest pirates in history was Edward Teach, better known as "Blackbeard". He made a deal with the governor of North Carolina whereby he would have sanctuary in Bathtown, NC, which is on Pamlico Sound, in return he would give the good governor a percentage of the loot he captured. The governor of Virginia, Alexander Spotswood, hit the roof as did many of Virginia merchants whose business relied on shipping in the Chesapeake Bay which is just a hop, skip and a jump from Pamlico Sound.

The British had stationed two warships to guard the entrance to Chesapeake Bay. They were the HMS Pearl and the HMS Lyme. Governor Spotswood got so much pressure from the merchants that he decided to take the bull by the horns. He approached the captains of the two warships to go seek out and eliminate Blackbeard. The captains refused saying that the entrance to Pamlico Soud and the Sound itself was too shallow for their ships. Spotswood offered to provide two shallow draft sloops and a pilot to guide them into the Sound. This offer was accepted and a lieutenant Maynard and about 60 sailors were picked for the expedition. It was discovered that Blackbeard's flagship, Queen Anne's Revenge, was riding at anchor on the Sound side of Ocracoke Island. Maynard sent half of his sailors into the hold to get then out of sight and approached the pirate's ship. He was challenged by Blackbeard himself who had only 19 crewmen aboard. Maynard pulled along side and Blackbeard, seeing just a small group of sailors, ordered a boarding of Maynard's sloop and they scrambled aboard ready to fight. It was then that the sailors in the hold came out and had Blackbeard and company outnumbered 3 to 1. The action eventually found Maynard and Blackbeard face to face in a sword fight. Maynard made a lunge and the point of his sword struck Blackbeard's cartridge box and bent his sword at the hilt. Maynard threw his sword away, drew one of his pistols and fired almost point blank into the pirate with little if no effect. It was then that a Scottish Highlander stepped in front of Blackbeard with his terrible two-handed broadsword and struck Blackbeard in the neck. Blackbeard backed away and congratulated the Scotsman on his strike and kept fighting. The Scotsman said that he would do better and swung again and beheaded the pirate. The fight was not over by a long shot but Maynard's troops prevailed and all of Blackbeard's crewmen were killed and tossed overboard to the awaiting sharks including the headless corpse of Blackbeard. Maynard tied the head of Blackbeard to the bowsprit and went to Bathtown to attend to the wounded and then back to his warship and then back to England with the head of Blackbeard still tied to the bowsprit. There is a legend that when they threw Blackbeard's corpse over the side, the headless corpse swam around the ship seven time before descending. Maynard reported that Blackbeard absorbed three musket balls and twenty sword wounds before being beheaded. He was a tough one, y'all. By the way, the North Carolina Department of Archives and History believe they have found the wreck of Queen Anne's Revenge.

Your friend and mine Bill and Melinda Gates have donated $10 billion, that's right, I said billion, to be used over a period of 10 years to provide vaccines to the world's poorest countries. He said that he believed that this program would save the lives of 8 million people. Y'all need to do the math here. The second thing that is peculiar is that the poorest countries have a bigger problem feeding those that will survive. It may sound cruel but if you increase the population without beefing up the agriculture it
would be very counter-productive. Perhaps Bill and Melinda should split the money between increasing agricultural knowledge and increasing the population, but what do I know.

This date in history February 4

1861    Earlier in November of 1860, the Republican nominee Abraham Lincoln was elected president. The Republican Party was formed in 1850 for the sole purpose of eliminating slavery in America. As early as 1858 the slave-holding states had threatened secession if a Republican was elected President. The Democratic Party was divided and in disarray and there was very little chance that their presidential nominee would win. Almost immediately after the Lincoln election, the State of South Carolina began assembling the paperwork necessary to secede from the Union. On December 20, 1860 the South Carolina legislature issued the “Ordinance of Secession” declaring them as no longer being a member of the United States of America. Soon after various regiments of the South Carolina militia began capturing Union forts and armaments because they knew a war was on the near horizon. On this date, representatives of South Carolina, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia and Louisiana gathered in Montgomery, Alabama to hammer out a Constitution and establish the Confederate States of America and elected Jefferson Davis of Mississippi as President. By the time Lincoln was inaugurated in March of 1861, Texas had joined the Confederacy. Very soon after this meeting all of the Union forts and outposts on Confederate soil had been capture by the Confederacy except Fort Sumter in Charleston, SC harbor (been there) and Fort Pickens on the end of the Santa Rosa Island peninsula near Pensacola, Florida (been there, too). The Civil War began in earnest of April 12, 1861 when CSA General P.T G. Beauregard ordered an artillery bombardment of Fort Sumter after the commander of the Fort refused to surrender to the Confederates. Eventually the commander of the fort did indeed surrender because the Confederate artillery forbade any supplies reaching the fort. Fort Sumter is on an island in the middle of the Charleston, SC harbor and supplies can only get there by boat.

1945    On this date American President Franklin Roosevelt, England Prime Minister Winston Churchill and Russian Premier Josef Stalin meet in the city of Yalta in the Russian Crimea to decide the future of Europe in the post-war era. It was obvious that Germany was just weeks from capitulation especially after their defeat in the Battle of the Bulge. The biggest problem was the greed and avarice of Stalin. He had already established a Soviet controlled government in Poland and expected Roosevelt and Churchill to condone it. Roosevelt and Churchill believed that the Polish government-in-exile living in London should resume control. Stalin also wanted to establish a “Soviet sphere of Influence” in Western Europe. Stalin promised to invade Japan within 90 days of the surrender of Germany in return for him the other two agreeing to his demands. All of this mistrust was the beginning of the so-called Cold War but sure enough, Russia began marshalling their forces in Manchuria across the straights from the northern end of the Japanese islands in late July. The Emperor of Japan knew his country could not fight two armies simultaneously and started leaning toward the demands of the Potsdam Agreement where the Allies demanded an unconditional surrender of Japan or risk a wholesale invasion from the south by the Allies and from the north by the Russians. Then the world came to an end for Japan on August 6, 1945 with the detonation of the world’s first atomic weapon over Hiroshima and three days later over Nagasaki. Three days after that Emperor Hirohito uttered the unimaginable to his people when he broadcast on the radio to all of Japan the word “surrender”. Unfortunately, President Roosevelt died of a stroke exactly two months after the meeting at Yalta and was not around for the formal surrender of Japan.

1789    On this date 69 members of Congress cast their ballots for our first President of the United States. In those days the members of Congress cast a ballot with two names on it, the person who had the most votes at the top of the ballot was President and the other was Vice-President. In this case the President was George Washington and the Vice President was John Adams. The same thing happened four years later.

Born today:

1876    US writer Sarah Cleghorn. She said “The children working in the factories are close enough that they can look out the window and watch the adults playing golf.” Using child labor in America is not that far in our past, ya’ll.

1895    English actor Nigel Bruce. When told the price of tickets to the ballet he said “That is a hell of lot of money to watch people jump.” I concur.

1906    German theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Bonhoeffer was a vehement anti-Nazi and had no problem saying so. When asked why he did not join the Nazi party he said “When you board a train going the wrong direction, there is no use in running down the aisle headed the opposite direction.” He was executed by the Nazis by hanging just before the surrender.

1945 US comedian Davis Brenner. He said “A vegetarian is a person that will not eat anything that can have babies.” That’s funny.

Died today:

1978    US educator Bergen Evans. He said “We say that we are through with the past, the truth is that the past is not through with us.” This is why I love history.

1982    English musician Alex Harvey. He said “Do you think Paul McCartney makes records just to aggravate me personally, or does he want to get up every freaking body’s nose with his freaking antics?” Alex and Paul evidently did not get along.

2006    US feminist Betty Freidan. She said “The feminine mystique has buried millions of American women alive.” What the hell is the “feminine mystique.”?

Thanks for listening I can hardly wait until tomorrow.