Daily history

Good morning,







Quote of the day:






“My neighbors love it when I play my piano; they throw rocks and break my windows so they can hear me better.”


Les Dawson






I had a discombobulating experience a few days ago and I would like y’all’s opinion of my behavior.






I was sitting in on a board meeting of the Four O’clock Club when a sweet young thing beside me struck up a conversation. She introduced me to her husband of just a couple of years sitting beside her. They were both about 27 years old. After just a few minutes of conversation she said “Do you feel intimidated sitting next to a self-assured woman?” I was momentarily taken aback but gathered my wits quickly and said “I will answer that question if you will answer two questions that I have.” She said “go ahead.” I said “Do I seem like someone that would be intimidated by anyone or anything? And secondly, where do I find a ‘self assured’ woman within earshot?” She started telling me about how deprived she was as a child and how successful she was in her career. That opened a gigantic doorway for me to bury her; she had aroused my competitive spirit. I began telling her the history of Colin Powell, W.C. Handy, Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong, George Washington Carver (born a slave), etc. After an extensive history lesson I told her “I can go out on this street and mention any of those previously named and 99% of the people will know who I am talking about, but 100% of them will not know that you exist.” I began gathering up my drink to go somewhere else in the room to get some fresh air. I told my brother in imbibers (Michelin Mike, the accountant) that was sitting with me that I was leaving and he said he was too. The young lady smugly said “So both of you are intimidated.” I said “No sweetie, we are just bored as hell with your breast….make that your chest beating about how great you are. You are light years from being able to carry on an intelligent conversation with either me or Mike. Your husband looks bored too.” She said “He has no choice; I have all the money, or will have when my inheritance comes in three years.” That was it for me. I said “If I was your husband I would take a piece of that inheritance and buy a lot of cyanide, I will leave it to your imagination as to how he uses it, goodbye.” As I passed her husband he was laughing his ass off and said “Good job.” Mike and I found another conversationalist or two.






This date in history February 17






1865    On this date United States General William T. Sherman and his army of 60,000, in his continuing campaign against innocent and defenseless civilians, enters the state capitol of South Carolina and begins an orgy of rape and destruction. Two days before CSA General Wade Hampton III had pulled out of Columbia knowing that if he stayed and fought his small cavalry unit would be swarmed under and annihilated. The Yankee army took great pleasure and were very meticulous in their destruction of this city because they felt that it was South Carolina that was first to secede and provided the impetus for all the others. This method of “burnt turf” warfare was advocated by both General Ulysses Grant and President Abraham Lincoln. Ya’ll will need to remember that Abraham Lincoln issued a “call to arms to preserve the union” after the secession began. The US army had its ass handed to it by the Confederates in the first few battles of the Civil War and then the northerners pressed Lincoln to allow the Southerners to form their own country so as to stop the slaughter. Then Lincoln saw that patriotism was not going to get the job done so he switched horses and said the war was about freeing the slaves which changes the impetus from patriotism to a matter of conscience. Now when the US Army has a chance at barbarism with impunity they say they are punishing those that led the secession. That was bullshit; they are back on the other horse again. They were just doing rape and pillage because they could get away with it, politics not withstanding. But mankind’s history is full of similar events from the wars between the Mesopotamian city-states, Alexander the Great, Attila the Hun, Genghis Khan, Napoleon Bonaparte, Joseph Stalin, Adolph Hitler, Pol Pot, Slobodan Milosevic, Tutsis vs Hutus not to mention what is happening in Darfur. Mankind’s history is full of atrocities against the innocents and it appears to me that there is no end in sight.






1906    Earlier there had been a workers strike at various silver and gold mines near Coeur de Lene, Idaho and the mine owners had beseeched the Governor Frank Steunenberg to intercede. Foolishly the Governor did indeed intercede in favor of the rich mine owners. Well, soon thereafter a bomb detonated at Governor Steunenberg’s fence gate at his Caldwell, Idaho home while he was opening it. The governor was killed instantly. The mine owners, not to be outdone, hire the famous Pinkerton Detective Agency to find out who killed the governor. The Pinkertons brought in their ace detective in John McParland to investigate in and around Caldwell. McParland and the local police focused in on a man named Tom Hogan. McParland befriended Hogan ands soon found out that he was not Tom Hogan but he was Harry Orchard, a renowned assassin. After much pressure was applied, Orchard implicated Bill Hayward, Charles Moyer and George Pettibone all leaders of the National Miners Union. The only problem was that all three were in Colorado where law enforcement is very sympathetic to unions and it was guaranteed that they would not extradite the three on the word of an admitted murderer. So Idaho did the next best thing. Several Idaho officials and a few Pinkerton agents went to Colorado and kidnapped the three back to Idaho. But the Union had another ace up its sleeve; they brought in famous lawyer Clarence Darrow in their defense. Hayward was tried first and the prosecution could not get any corroboration for Orchard’s testimony and it came down to Orchard’s testimony alone and being it almost a sure thing that he was guilty, Hayward was acquitted. Since Hayward was acquitted, there was no sense in trying the other two. After he was released Hayward fled to Russia where he spent the rest of his days. He was buried in the Kremlin.






1995    On this day the ferry Neptune departs Jeremie for Port-au-Prince, Haiti. This boat was only 150 feet long with three decks and was carrying 1,200 people and farm animals. Normally the trip takes 12 hours. The bad thing was that this boat was licensed for only 650 people, had no life rafts, no life preservers and no emergency radio. About half way to Port-au-Prince a storm rises and the bottom deck begins to become awash because of all the extra weight. The passengers, animals in tow, flee to the top deck. Well, y’all can guess what happened next. Most of the passengers got on one side and the boat capsizes. Haiti has no Navy or Coast Guard so those people are out there on their own paddling around and hanging on to the boat. Finally the United States send a Coast Guard cutter and they rescue about 350 people. The rest are lost. What a nightmare that must have been.






1820    On this date the United States Congress enacts legislation known as the Missouri Compromise. Since the beginning of the addition of more and more states the southern agrarian society had been fencing with the industrial north about slavery. The southern states were sensitive to having more free states than slaves states because if they were outnumbered, slavery could be abolished which would be devastating to the huge plantations. All of this was of great import to the south up until the invention of the cotton gin and the steam powered farm vehicles. Anyway, at this point in time Missouri was petitioning to come into the union as a slave state and the northern states objected because it would upset the balance. So the Missouri Compromise stated that Missouri would come into the union as a slave state and the next year Maine would be allowed in as a free state. All of this was just a delaying action because the Civil War exploded just 41 years later.






1944    On this date the United States Navy and Marines began the invasion of Eniwetok atoll in the northwest Marshall Islands. It was determined that the Marshall Islands had to be neutralized before the capture of the Marianas where the Unites States Air Force could launch strikes against the Japanese mainland. The capture of Eniwetok would achieve that purpose. The Japanese on Eniwetok were very outnumbered and outgunned. The battle was over in six days with only 64 of the original 2,677 Japanese soldiers surviving. There were only 195 American casualties. Soon after this the US Marines attacked and after a substantial struggle captured the Marianas Islands of Saipan, Tinian and Guam. The US Air Force launched bombing attacks on the Japanese mainland from Guam and Saipan using the newly invented B-29 long range bomber. It was from Tinian Island, which is adjacent to Saipan, that the B-29 Enola Gay departed on August 6, 1945 to make the bomb runs on the Japanese city of Hiroshima and dropped a bomb that changed mankind for eternity.






Thanks for listening I can hardly wait until tomorrow