Daily history

Good morning,


Quote of the day:

“Men travel the Earth seeking what they need and eventually return home to find it…their families.”

                                        George Moore

I have finished my education about pirates in the “Golden Age of Piracy” from about 1680 to 1862. The most successful by far was Bartholomew Roberts. He was a deckhand on a British slave ship that was captured by a pirate named Howell Davis. Both Davis and Roberts were Welshmen. Roberts was forced to become a crewmember on Davis’ ship and Davis sailed into a Portuguese port in what is now Ghana flying the flag of a British man-of-war. Soon after they entered the port, the Portuguese figured out that Davis and company were indeed pirates. The governor of the port invited Davis ashore for a glass of wine and when Davis and his entourage stepped ashore they were gunned down. The remainder of the pirates began looking for another captain and elected Roberts as their leader because of his navigation skills. Roberts decided it would be better be on a pirate ship rather than a slave ship where he had no chance of promotion and monstrous treatment of the slaves and the crew. He was a good organizer and treated his men sternly but fairly. After a while he captured a French man-of-war and made it his flagship and named it “Royal Fortune”. He captured several other ships and kept them as part of his fleet. He commanded over four hundred men and in the span of four years he captured and looted over 480 ships making him the wealthiest pirated in recorded history during the so-called “Golden age of Piracy”. The largest single act of piracy was when Sir Henry Morgan captured and looted the Spanish held city of Port Royal, Jamaica.

The British Admiralty and the English marine traders, especially the slave traders, got fed up and sent British Captain Charnel Ogle commanding the sloop “HMS Swallow” and several other ships to hunt down and eliminate Roberts. Roberts did not harbor his fleet in the Caribbean; he called the Cape Verde Islands off the west coast of Africa home. His prey was the slave traders coming south from Europe. In fact nearly 1/3 of his crewmen were Africans that he had rescued from the slave ships. On occasion he would dash across the Atlantic and raid ships working in the Windward Islands and even on to the American east coast but not often. After 8 months of searching Captain Ogle found Roberts near the Cape Verde Islands and during a rainstorm he was able to get within gun range of the “Royal Fortune”. Roberts was sighted on deck and a hailstorm of gunfire cut down Roberts and he fell over the side and his corpse was never found. Ogle returned to England and was knighted and ended up the Admiral of the Fleet. This was not the end of piracy by a long shot but no other pirate was as prolific as Bartholomew “Black Bart” Roberts during the “Golden Age of Piracy”.

This date in history February 12

1789    On this date the Patriot General Ethan Allen dies of a stroke on the banks of the Winooski River in Vermont at the age of 56. In spite of the ongoing struggle between Vermont and New York, Allen was a superb military leader for the fledgling United States. The problem was that New York felt that the lands of Vermont were part of New York and the New Yorkers had no problem selling lands in Vermont and fought against admitting Vermont to join the Union as a separate state. Ethan Allen was even arrested for treason because he got fed up with being refused admission to the Union; he approached England to allow Vermont to be part of Canada. Anyway, Vermont and New York eventually settled their differences and Vermont was admitted. In the meantime Allen teamed up with US General Benedict Arnold and they attacked the British at Montreal. Allen was captured by the British and was kept prisoner for 3 years. After his release he formed a unit called the Green Mountain Boys and joined up again with Benedict Arnold and captured the British bastion of Fort Ticonderoga. It was from this fort that the Patriot General Henry Knox brought the captured cannon to Boston and them to the peak of Dorchester Heights which drove the British out of Boston. Ethan Allen remains an icon in the battle for liberty in these United States.

2002    On this date one of the worst monsters of all time went on trial in The Hague, Netherlands for genocide and crimes against humanity. It was former Yugoslavian President Slobodan Milosevic known as the “Butcher of the Balkans”. In 1946 all the Balkan countries fell under the ruler of Yugoslavia Marshal Tito as a communist state. The Balkan countries were Croatia, Montenegro, Slovenia, Serbia, Bosnia-Herzegovina and Macedonia. After the death of Marshal Tito the communist states collapsed into turmoil that finally ended in civil war. In 1989 Milosevic became president of Serbia. Two years later Croatia and Slovenia declared their independence from Yugoslavia and all hell breaks loose. Milosevic sends tanks to the Slovenian border and a brief fight erupts but the Slovenians prevail and attain secession, after that fighting broke out in Croatia between the Croats and the ethnic Serbs. The ethnic Serbs rebels received medical supplies and arms from Milosevic led Serbia. The Croatian army clashed with the Serb-led Yugoslavian army joined with the Serb rebels and over 10,000 Croatians and hundreds of homes were destroyed before a cease fire enforced by the United Nations was put into effect in January 1992. Two months later Bosnia-Herzegovina declared its independence and Milosevic financed a Bosnian-Serb rebellion that cost the lives of over 200,000 civilians. This conflict ended in 1995. Then the worst of Milosevic came to the surface when the Kosovo army collided with the Serbian army and Milosevic ordered the “ethnic cleansing” of any and all native Albanians in Kosovo. Over 300,000 Albanians were killed and in the meantime Milosevic had declared himself as President of Yugoslavia. He was finally faced down by the Serbian army, captured and sent to a world tribunal in The Hague to stand trial for genocide but he died of a heart attack before the trial ended. Too bad. I would have enjoyed seeing him die on the gallows...or other ways of execution that run through my mind for creatures such as Slobodan Milosevic.

1828    Robert Ransom is born in Warren County, North Carolina. He attended West Point and graduated in 1850 18th in a class of 40. After graduating and instructing at the academy for a while he was sent to the cauldron of Kansas where pro and anti slavery forces were embroiled into what was nothing short of guerilla warfare. Upon the secession of North Carolina, Ransom resigned his commission and offered his services to the Confederacy. He was offered the rank of Captain, the same rank he had in the US army. He was assigned to help protect the coastal defenses of North Carolina. Eventually his talents were recognized and he joined the Army of Northern Virginia, Robert E. Lee commanding, and was instrumental in the defeat of the United States army at the Battle of the Seven Days. Shortly thereafter he was in command of a brigade at the bloodiest single day battle in United States history, the Battle of Antietam. This battle was considered a draw but it forced Lee to retreat into Virginia to lick his wounds. He was also present at the worst defeat of a United States army up until that date, the battle of Fredericksburg. The Union infantry suffered abysmal losses due to pre-registered Confederate artillery and the lack of military experience and leadership in Lt. General Ambrose Burnsides. But anyway, Ransom was with CSA General James Longstreet when he went to try and save Tennessee and was present at the Battle of Chickamauga and Knoxville. He was assigned to go with CSA General Jubal Early to kick US General Phillip Sheridan and his army out of the Shenandoah Valley. Early was unsuccessful and Ransom was sent to help defend the port of Charleston, S.C. After the war he worked as a civil engineer and farmer in his home state. He died of natural causes in 1892 in New Bern, North Carolina. Robert Ransom was a warrior, ya’ll.

1976    A young actor named Sal Mineo had just parked his car behind his apartment in Hollywood when his neighbors hear him screaming for help. When the neighbors arrive they see a white man with long brown hair fleeing the scene. Sal Mineo is dead of a stab wound to the chest. The LA cops are at a loss but when they search Mineo’s apartment they find the walls covered with photos of naked young men. Mineo’s murder stays unresolved for quite a while until a black man named Lionel Williams begins bragging about town that it was he that had capped Mineo. Everyone laughed because Williams had a black “afro” hairdo but the worst thing happened, Williams got into a fight with his girl friend and she shows the police a photo of Williams when he applied for driver’s license and he had treated his hair and it was long, straight and brown. Not only that, Williams had bleached his skin. Well, thanks to an angry girlfriend the rest was easy. Williams was arrested, tried and convicted. He was sentenced to life without parole. Beware of a woman with issues, they are merciless.

Born today:

1809    US President Abraham Lincoln. After receiving a message from Union General Joseph Hooker who signed the message “Headquarters in the saddle” Lincoln said “The trouble with Hooker is that he has his headquarters where his hindquarters ought to be.” Hooker had just been routed by CSA Generals R.E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson at Chancellorsville, Virginia in spite of the fact that Hooker had the Confederates outnumbered more than two to one. Before the battle Hooker had said “Now we have Lee where he will have to come out and fight or ingloriously run.” Lee and Jackson did neither; it was Hooker and Yankees that “ingloriously ran”. It cost Hooker his command.

Quotable quotes:

“Men marry because they are tired, women because they are curious. Both are disappointed.”
                                      Oscar Wilde

“It seems that we must hire lobbyists to protect us from the people we just elected.”

                                  Mark Twain

“Marriage is the price men pay for sex. Sex is the price women pay for marriage”

                                  Oscar Wilde

Thanks for listening I can hardly wait until tomorrow