Daily history

Good morning,


Quote of the day:

“Dignity consists not in possessing honors, but in the consciousness that we deserve them.”

                                         Aristotle

On June 2, 1944 the countries of England, Ireland and Scotland are packed to the gills with over a million men at arms and all the tools of war required. The allies are on the cusp of the invasion of Hitler’s Germany beginning on a stretch of beach in southern France known as Normandy. Since 1938 Hitler has been enslaving one nation after another seeking world domination. Now it is time for retaliation. Hitler will commit suicide in April of 1945 essentially ending the war Europe and hell rejoiced at the arrival of one of the most evil creatures that ever existed. By the way, the Allies agreed to allow the Russian troops to be the first to enter Berlin. The Russians had had over 26,000,000 of their civilians slaughtered in German “Operation Barbarossa”. This was Hitler’s attempt to overrun Russia. Not only that, it was the Russians that liberated many of the unspeakably horrible concentration and death camps in Poland and other places. Having seen these horrors first hand and remembering the slaughter of millions of their citizenry, once they entered Germany they showed no mercy and killed every air breather they encountered including livestock, pets, women, children, etc. They literally, were taking no prisoners.

There still is no more verifiable news about whether or not South Carolina gubernatorial candidate Nikki Haley had an affair 3 years ago or not but the mud-slinging continues. All the person that accuses her can produce is text messages and phone records. I believe the accuser is under pay of one of the other front runners, especially Congressman Gresham Barrett. It is disgusting.

There used to be a Confederate flag flying from the top of the South Carolina capitol building. It was the third flag down under the Stars and Stripes, the State Flag. A lot of hell was raised by different groups and as a compromise the Confederate flag was removed from the top of the building is now flying beside Confederate memorial on the state capitol grounds. This appears to be not enough because a very small minority still finds this abrasive and want the flag removed because they say it represents slavery to them. Two of the three Democrats that are running for Governor have said they would entertain the idea of removing the flag altogether. They do not realize that the majority of voters in this state want the flag to stay status quo. Neither I nor many other South Carolinians admired slavery nor rued the loss of it. It is a dark era in our nations history, not only in South Carolina. What it does ment to me is the courage and bravery displayed under the most trying of circumstance and anyone that will take the time to read about it will understand. But what happens it someone starts a ball rolling and those that are unread and uninformed jump on the bandwagon not having a scintilla of knowledge of what really happened. They are just sheep, they need to be leaders, but no, that would take time for them to read something.

This date in history June 2
1935    George Herman Ruth was born in Baltimore in 1898. He parents were very poor and sent George was sent to a Catholic parochial school. He excelled at sports especially baseball. He was drafted by the Baltimore Orioles which was a farm club for the Boston Red Sox at the time. He quickly came into the major leagues as a pitcher and won 69 games before 1920 for the Boston Red Sox. For reasons known only to the Boston Red Sox front office, they traded Ruth to the New York Yankees. This stupid trade gave the Red Sox what was called “The Babe Ruth curse” meaning they did not win another World Series until 2004, while the Yankees won seven pennants and four World Series. It was not until Roger Maris hit 61 home runs in an extended season that Ruth’s record of 60 home runs in one season was broken and Hank Aaron broke his record of 711 home runs. But Ruth’s slugging percentage of .690 has never been equaled. In his later years Ruth was traded to the Boston Braves hoping he would become the manager but “The Babe” decided he liked gambling, girls and the sauce better and on top of that he developed cancer of the throat. Babe Ruth retired on this date and died in 1948 and his body was held in repose in Yankee Stadium for two days. His corpse was visited by over 150,000 people. Ruth was one of the most beloved sports figure in world history. Yes, his memory rests in the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, NY.

1865    In spite of the CSA Army of Northern Virginia, General Robert E. Lee commanding, surrendering two months earlier, the Civil War was not completely over. There were a couple of more organized Confederate armies in the field. There was the army under the command of General Joseph E. Johnston primarily in the Carolinas and Georgia. This army surrendered within days of Lee. Then there were the Confederate armies of General Kirby Smith and Sterling Price who were primarily in Arkansas and Missouri. On this date General Kirby Smith surrendered virtually eliminating any organized resistance for the Confederacy. There were still a few guerilla bands but they were quickly subdued. There were 680,000 Americans killed in this war, ya’ll. Think about it.

1924    On this date the United States Congress passes the Indian Citizenship Act. This act made any Indian born on United States soil an automatic citizen. Before the Civil War to be a citizen an Indian had to have less that half his blood be Native American. But even after the passage of this act back then each state was responsible for the votes and some of the western states would not allow the Indians to vote. I guess they still had in mind the massacres on both sides. Prejudice has a long memory.

1953    On this date Elizabeth II is crowned the Queen of the United Kingdom in a lavish ceremony dating back a thousand years. She was 27 years old and her husband, the Duke of Edinburgh was 30. The ceremony was held in Westminster Abbey (been there). According to legend in 616 the site of the Abbey was determined by a fisherman who said that he saw an image of Saint Peter there and soon the river Thames was full of salmon. The actual first stones for the abbey were laid in about 950 AD and was completed and made into a home for Benedictine monks. The Abbey was used for the first coronation for King Harold and then later his successor King William the Conqueror in the year 1067 AD. Speaking of William the Conqueror, he was a Viking that had been living in France and could not speak English but this man was an awesome leader and organizer, not to mention a ruthless military leader. It was William that built the home of the present Queen Elizabeth II in Windsor Castle.

1823    Two years before William Ashley had set forth down the Missouri River on a fur trapping expedition. Included in this expedition were some of what would become the greatest explorers of the great American west. Names like Jim Bridger, the Sublette brothers, Jedediah Smith and Edward Rose among others. They had a hard go of it on the first expedition because of their lack of experience. They were not that much better off on this expedition two years later but the 70 trapper headed upriver. On this date they got to what is now the border of North and South Dakota and were set upon by about 600 Arikara Indians. The Arikaras were the chief fur traders among the Indians in that area and did not take kindly to others moving in on their livelihood. The 70 trappers were soon overwhelmed and 20 were killed and many more wounded before they hightailed it back to the safety of Saint Louis. The trappers told their tale and asked for military assistance and a Colonel Leavenworth organized a 200 man cavalry and headed out for the Arikara territory. Colonel Leavenworth and his cavalry caught sight of a few Arikara braves but they faded away and none of the other Arikaras were ever seen. Leavenworth heads back to Saint Louis. But the threat of an Arikara attack in the river persuaded Ashley to make his next expedition across country by horseback. It was in expeditions such as this that much of the exploration of the American west was accomplished thanks to the Arikara raids on the river.

1944    From his headquarter in England US General Eisenhower and his staff is putting the final touches on the invasion of Europe. It was on this date that June 5 was set as D-Day. As we all know the date ended up being June 6. Eisenhower himself said that he and his staff only got cat naps for the last four days before the actual launch of the mightiest amphibian assault in history.

Born today:

1947    US swimmer and gymnast Jocelyn Smith...She said “Live young”. She is one of my dearest friends and has been my pleasure to have known her.

1879    US Football coach Bob Zuppke. He said “We don’t care how big or strong our opponents are as long as they are human.” Bob must have coached in the SEC.

1931    Philippine politico Imelda Marcos. She said “Filipinos love beauty and I try to be beautiful so the poor people will have a star to look at from their slums.” Imelda, you jackass, shut up.

1956    Supermodel and ex-wife of Mick Jagger Jerry Hall. She said “Mick and I used to get along famously; we would sit up all night discussing nuclear disarmament.” Jerry, why don’t you get with Imelda and both of you shut the hell up.

Thanks for listening I can hardly wait until tomorrow