Daily history

Good morning.


Quote of the day:

“Joan Collins has had so many men that in the United States she is known as the British Open”.

                                            Joan Rivers

A few weeks ago I learned that the giant engineering and construction company Fluor had captured a contract in Haiti valued at $750 Million. The Greenville, South Carolina office was to do most of the work. I got feelers from crafts workers (carpenters, welders, etc.) asking where to make contact with the appropriate human resources person to do the work in Haiti. I asked some more questions and found that the contract had been put on hold. The reason was that Fluor was going to Haiti in support of our military to build chow halls, barracks, etc. Apparently the military had planned a long stay. Soon after that, the Haitian government had asked the American military to leave as soon as possible. The Haitians are very suspicious of the American military because we sent a Marine unit over there around 1915 to help suppress a civil war and they stayed until 1934. Sure enough, on Sunday I read that the American military is withdrawing from Haiti “en masse”. I can almost guarantee you that there will much bloodshed in the days ahead. If any of you saw the movie “Blood Diamonds” you will recognize what happens.

Up in Hickory, North Carolina a 41 year old man name Keith Campbell (no relation) kidnapped and raped a 23 year old woman. After that he used a box cutter and carved the word “mine” on her stomach. He has been charged with first degree rape, first degree kidnapping and assault with a deadly weapon. If he is convicted he will go to the joint for a long time with the word “ours” carved on his butt.

Here is a continuation of my saga crossing the United State in a ’53 Chevy way back when. My traveling companion and I decided that we were going to visit all those towns in Kansas made famous by people like Bill Hickok and Wyatt Earp. We are talking about Hays, Newton, Wichita and the infamous Dodge City. We left Denver and went south toward Colorado Springs and turned east headed for Hays City, Kansas. The terrain flattened out pretty quickly and soon we were on the Great Plains. We stopped in a small town near the Colorado/Kansas border for lunch. This was a very, very small town out in the middle of a plain that was flat as a pancake from horizon to horizon. It was a small café but that is usually where there is the best food. I forgot what I had to eat but what I do remember is the waitress behind the counter. She struck up a conversation and she asked what the hell we were doing in her small town. We told her that we were passing through on our way to east coast but we were going to stop at every historical site and roadside marker and visit all the sites we had read about all our lives. We told her that we had no reason to hurry to go anywhere. After a while she leaned over and held both of our hands and said “Help me get the hell out of here”. She said that her husband was a wheat farmer and did not have the time or money to go anywhere and do anything. She felt that she was trapped there and would end up living and dying within five miles of that town. She almost begged us to let her come along with us on our adventure. It was tempting because she was pretty and shapely but we wisely refused. God was in my corner on that day. What a nightmare could have been generated if we had agreed. Next stop Hays City, Kansas.

That South Carolina political giant Senator Lindsey Graham has approached Obama with a deal. He proposed that Obama allow those four terrorists that were responsible for 9-11 to be tried by a military tribunal and in return he will lean on his fellow Republicans to close the Guantanamo Bay prison. I have mixed emotions here. I personally do not think that the location of Gitmo has any significance. We have many possessions out there other than in Cuba. I really would like to see those pig-sucking towel heads answering to members of our military rather than having a team of publicity seeking lawyers at their side trying to convince a civil judge and/or a jury.



This date in history March 9

1781    Earlier the Spanish army had been neutralizing British positions in Louisiana and Mississippi and on this date the Spanish navy sent Admiral Bernarde de Galvez with 40 ships and 3,500 men to dislodge the British garrison in Pensacola, Florida. Galvez and his armada swept into Pensacola Bay and anchored. They unloaded their men and supplies onto Santa Rosa Island and prepared to bombard the British embrasures which were about 1 ½ miles away across Santa Rosa Sound. In the meantime they had to weather a hurricane on April 23 while lying at anchor in the bay. April is early for hurricanes in Pensacola but they do happen on occasion. The British had to endure nearly non-stop bombardment after the Spanish got arranged. On May 12, Galvez was reinforced by 7,800 troops and upon seeing this, 18 years of British occupation of Pensacola ended with the surrender of the British garrison. There were only about 170 British casualties and less than 100 for the Spanish. Galvez captured about 1,100 British soldiers but allowed about 300 Britons to immigrate to Georgia if they promised to never enter the British military again. These were obviously Loyalists from Georgia that had joined the British army earlier. Pensacola and West Florida was not of tactical importance to the Spanish but they needed it as a bargaining chip to use with France for the control of Gibraltar. West Florida, Mississippi and Louisiana were important to France for trade.

1862    As stated in the previous lesson, the CSS ironclad Virginia had sailed out into the waters of Hampton Roads, Virginia and kicked ass with the US wooden warships attempting to blockade that area. Well on this date, the United States sailed out its own ironclad named the USS ironclad Monitor. These two peculiar looking vessels engaged in naval combat all morning showering each other with cannon balls with no effect on either one. Late in the afternoon both vessels retired and it was a draw. But it was the beginning of the end for wooden warships world wide.

1997    Six months earlier rapper Tupac Shakur was shot and killed in a drive by shooting in Las Vegas. Tupac was a famous recording artist that specialized in “Gansta Rap” but the problem was that there was friction between the west coast “rappers” and the east coast “rappers”. What I am telling ya’ll is the friction between these two genre got to the point of life-threatening. I do not know if the friction was caused by who was selling the most records or was it about the “truthfulness” of the songs themselves, if you want to call them songs. There is a blues guitarist that is a subscriber that maybe can clear that up for us. Anyway, on this date a rapper named Christopher Wallace using the stage name of The Notorious Mr. B.I.G. was shot and killed while waiting at a stoplight in Los Angeles. Tupac was a west coast “Gangsta Rapper” and Notorious Mr. B.I.G. was and east coast “Gangsta rapper”. Wallace’s murder was never solved. Some believe that the murder was arranged by Tupac’s record producer “Suge” Knight who was in the car with Tupac when he was killed in Las Vegas. Knight was wounded but only slightly. It was reported the Knight hired the Las Angeles gang “The Crips” to cap Wallace. I guess we will ever know.

1841    On this date the United States Supreme Court hears the case of the mutiny aboard the slave ship, the Amistad. You may need a little background here. In 1807 the United States and England agreed to pass laws outlawing any further slave trade and any person that could prove he/she was brought to the United States as a slave after 1807 got a free trip either back to Africa or to Canada. In 1838 a Cuban sloop was returning to Cuba from a slave gathering raid in West Africa when the slaves got loose and revolted. They found some sugar cane cutting machetes and chose to hack everyone to death and throw them over the side except the two Cubans that had bought them, Jose Ruis and Pedro Montes. The slaves instructed the Cubans to take them back to Africa post haste and the Cubans set a course for Africa. Except the Cubans would run east in the daytime and turn north all night. Finally the ship was sighted off Long Island, New York and was brought to shore in Connecticut by a US warship. Ruis and Montes were released and the Africans were jailed during an investigation of mutiny and murder. Ruis and Montes sued for the return of their “Cuban born” slaves. The Spanish government wanted the slaves returned to Cuba to stand trial for piracy and murder. A federal judge named Samuel Judson ruled that the Africans were brought to America as slaves as outlawed in the l807 statute and should be returned to Africa. Well, the s--t hit the fan ya’ll. President Martin Van Buren raised hell and did many others and the case was appealed to the US Supreme Court. The abolitionists became deeply involved as did most of the country. The United States Supreme Court rule in favor of the lower court decision that the Africans were indeed brought to the US as slaves and had the right to return to Africa. Two months later the US ship “Gentleman” sailed out of New London, Connecticut and took the slaves back home to Sierra Leone, Africa. This decision by the Supreme Court was a milestone in the dispensing of justice but the Court has not been that wise in all cases as we all know.

1945    on this night the United States Air Force, under the leadership of General Curtis Lemay, firebombs Tokyo for the first time, and it won’t be the last. 78,000 acres of Tokyo are disintegrated. After the capture of Iwo Jima, Guam, Saipan and Tinian the US Air Force could bomb mainland Japan almost with impunity. General LeMay was brought to task for these firebombing raids as being unnecessary as the war was approaching an end but LeMay countered with “War has to be fought totally or not at all.” And indeed WWII ended with the surrender of Japan in August after the nuclear attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Born today:

1923    US publisher James Buckley. When visiting a McDonalds for the first time he was asked what he wanted to drink he said “I will take a glass of your house Chablis.” James has class, ya’ll

1993    British writer C. Northcote Parkinson. He said “It is a known fact that men enter politics to get away from their wives.” Perhaps he is talking about Bill Clinton, or maybe Hillary Clinton, or maybe both.

Thanks for listening I can hardly wait until tomorrow