Daily history

Good morning,







Quote of the day:






“Limitations live only in our minds. But if we use our imaginations the possibilities are limitless.”






Jamie Paolinetti






A friend sent me a vignette about the US Marines and it reminded me of this story. When I was an air traffic controller in Greenville I had a supervisor named Ralph that was a Marine pilot in WWII. He told me that on one occasion he was doing gunnery practice out over the Pacific Ocean and the target was a flag towed by another aircraft using a long cable. The target was stabilized by a large lead weight in the front of the flag. Ralph had not been scoring well in gunnery and he was determined to make this practice count. He said that he bored in so close to the flag that the lead weight struck the oil cooler on one of the wings and the engine froze immediately. He was flying an F4U Corsair. Ralph bailed out and was rescued by a destroyer that was on station for just that purpose. I asked him if he was scared. He said “A nineteen year old Marine is not afraid of anything.” Ralph was back in the air the next day doing gunnery practice over the Pacific Ocean. He was also aboard the aircraft carrier USS Franklin when it was hit by a Kamikaze while on station near Okinawa. The Franklin was fatally struck. Ralph said that he was in a briefing room when the bomb hit and all the lights went out. All of the people in the room held hands and felt their way to a ladder and climbed out onto the flight deck, ran across the deck and jumped over the side. He was rescued by a destroyer once again. The Franklin sank a flaming wreck. I asked Ralph if he was scared that time. He said that he did not remember anything after they grabbed each other’s hands. But when he was picked up by the destroyer he determined that he had to have done all that maneuvering to have ended up where he was.






I was reading about the Punic Wars (Rome vs. Carthage) in about the 3rd century BC. Rome had not appreciable navy because they conquered all they needed to with infantry. Carthage had a formidable navy because they did all of their exploring and conquering by crossing over from North Africa to Europe via the Mediterranean Sea. Eventually Rome realized that Carthage was taking over many of their trading posts and decided that a war would be necessary. The problem was they had no combat ready navy and if they challenged Carthage at sea they would received the mother of all ass- kickings. Rome decided the way to win this war was to get their first class infantry aboard the Carthaginian ships and let them take care of business. The Romans designed a walkway that was 40 to 50 feet long and 4 feet wide and made of heavy timbers so they would support the heavily armed and armored infantry making the walkway very heavy. The walkway had a large iron spike on the front. The walkway was held vertical in the front of the Roman ships and dropped when they got close enough to an enemy ship. The iron spike would penetrate the deck of the enemy ship and hold them together while the infantry crossed over. The ship builders told the Roman military that the walkway was too heavy and that much weight above the waterline would make the Roman ships unstable. The Roman military thought it would work and launched 500 ships with 100 infantrymen aboard each ship. After the 500 ships were several miles off shore a severe storm showed up and every one of the ships capsized and each and every infantryman drowned. That, my friends is a casualty list of over 50,000. That is the worst naval disaster in recorded history to that time. The worst one came in the 13th century in the times of Kublai Khan, but that is another story.






A few months ago five soldiers in training at Fort Jackson South Carolina had let it be known that they were thinking about poisoning the food in the mess halls. In response US Representative Joe Wilson (he is the one that called Obama liar) launched an investigation. To no one’s surprise the five men were found to be Muslims although American citizens from northern Virginia. This past week four of the men were “administratively released”. This means they were kicked out of the Army with neither an honorable nor dishonorable stipulation. One of them was sent back to a National Guard unit in northern Virginia. We cannot assume that all people that are American citizens are Patriots. Be aware.






This date in history March 2






1776 Finally all the hard work and sacrifices made by our ancestors is paying off. With all the military battles fought by Nathaniel Greene and Benedict Arnold in capturing the British artillery pieces in Fort Ticonderoga, and General Henry Knox bringing them back to Boston undetected and General John Thomas getting those bad boys up on Dorchester Ridge that ended up staring down the throats of the hated British led by Sir Charles Howe, Howe had no choice but board his ships and sail his young ass and his army up to the safety of Nova Scotia. The siege of Boston by the British was over. Brigadier John Thomas was rewarded with another star on his shoulder for his actions here and he became Major General John Thomas. Thomas was assigned to replace General Richard Montgomery who was killed at the Battle of Quebec while fighting alongside Brigadier General Benedict Arnold. Even with the addition of General Thomas, it was found that Quebec could not be taken and the Continental army began retreat back into New York. During this retreat General Thomas, a physician by trade, fell ill and died of smallpox on June 2. A terrific loss for the Continental army, but we eventually prevailed.






1836 On this date the state of Texas declared its independence from Mexico. A group of hard-assed Texans arrive on the Washington-on-the-Brazos and declare David Burnet as provisional Governor and Sam Houston as commander-in-chief of all military forces. Importantly, they adopted a constitution that allowed the institution of slavery which had not been allowed by the Mexicans. During this time Mexican General Santa Anna had the Alamo church in San Antonio surrounded with 2,000 of his troops against 237 Patriots. Earlier in 1821 after Mexico won their independence from Spain, Moses Austin had petitioned the Mexican government to allow him to bring 300 families to settle sparsely populated lands on the Brazos River. The Mexicans agreed as long as the settlers were Catholic. Moses Austin died soon after this and the cause was taken up by his son Stephen A. Austin. Austin brought in mostly southern states Protestants because they knew how to run plantations. More and more Americans flooded the land and soon had the resident Mexicans outnumbered. In 1830 the Mexican Government took steps to prevent the hordes of honkies headed their way. All of this sounds familiar except in reverse, doesn’t it? Anyway, Austin pled for statehood in the Mexican Federation but was imprisoned for it because he told his settlers to declare themselves a Mexican state anyway. He was released in 1835. In 1834 Santa Anna had told the people in Gonzales, Texas to relinquish the cannon that had been given to them by Santa Anna as protection from the wild-eyed Comanche. The hard-asses in Gonzales sent a message back “Come and get it”. The Mexican’s did indeed come and was defeated; this was considered the first battle for Texas Independence. So in 1835 Santa Anna amassed a large force south of the Rio Grande and an invasion appeared to be on the horizon and Sam Houston ordered the Alamo abandoned. Colonel James Bowie saw that all the artillery in the Alamo could not be moved before Santa Anna arrived and requested permission to stay and that would give Sam Houston more time to raise an army large enough to combat Santa Anna. Bowie was joined by a small cavalry under the command of Colonel William Travis bringing the total count to about 140 men. One week later they were joined by the frontiersman Davy Crockett and his entourage bringing the total to about 155. On February 23 Santa Anna and his 2,000 troops set siege to the Alamo. During the chaos a few men from Gonzales broke through and joined with the rest and brought the total up to 237. On March 5th Santa Anna ordered an all out assault with no quarter. In about an hour it was over and all the Patriots men were killed in savage hand to hand combat. There were a few women and children allowed to leave. Six weeks later Sam Houston surprised Santa Anna and his army near the town of San Jacinto and those Texans herded the Mexicans into waist deep water in a swamp and killed them wholesale. Santa Anna was captured and brought before Sam Houston and Houston told him that his life would be spared but he had better take what was left of his army and get his young ass back across the Rio Grande and don’t ever come back. The Mexican dictator had to acknowledge the independence of Texas. Texas petitioned to be annexed into the United States but Mexico and anti-slavery forces opposed it. So Texas rocked along there as an independent nation for 10 years with Sam Houston as President of the Republic of Texas. In 1845 Texas was admitted to the Union and soon thereafter the Mexican War with the United States erupted.






1807 The United States passes a law forbidding the importation of slaves to the United States or its possessions. The first slaves arrived at Jamestown in 1619 but the greatest majority of imports were European indenture servants. They were far more numerous than the blacks from Africa. However, after 1680 the flow of indentured servants dropped drastically and the influx of blacks from Africa increased dramatically. By the end of the Revolutionary War the British had imported an estimated 3 million slaves not counting the French and the Dutch. After the Revolutionary War the industrial north felt no longer a need for slaves and sought legislation to abolish slavery. So in 1807, The United States Congress passed a law that forbade the further import of slaves. The agrarian South still felt the need for slaves but felt that they had enough slaves that they could be self-sustaining. Any slave that could prove that he was brought to the Colonies after 1806 has the choice of returning to Africa or re-locating to Canada.






Born today:






1810 Pope Leo XIII. He said “It is quite unlawful to demand, defend, or to grant unconditional freedom of thought, or speech, or writing or worship as if these were so many gifts given by nature to man.” I had to read this statement over and over again to make sure that I copied it right from the text. Pope Leo XIII has since gone on to his reward.






1876 Pope Pius XII. He said “One Galileo in a thousand years is enough.” Ya’ll know the story about Galileo and Copernicus deducing about the same time that the earth circled the sun rather than vice versa. This was not what the Catholic Church (Pope) believed and Galileo was threatened with torture if he did not recant. They reached a compromise and Galileo was exiled for the rest of his life. It took the Catholic Church 300 years to admit Galileo was right and the church was wrong. That is what Pope Pius XII is talking about. That is also why we need to keep religion out of classrooms.






Thanks for listening I can hardly wait until tomorrow