Musings
and History
Quote
of the day:
“If
the offered me a knighthood they will have to do it soon, while I can
still rise from the kneeling position without help.”
Roy
Hudd
In
1625 the king of England James I had died. James was a powerful
leader and was responsible for the establishment of the first
European settlement on the banks of a small river in North America
and the settlement and the river was named for him, James river and
Jamestown. After James’ death his son became king as Charles I.
Right from the git-go Charles had a problem with Parliament. He
wanted unquestioned authority in the affairs of England and so did
Parliament. Charles dissolved Parliament on several occasions and
ran everything himself but found out that he had bitten off more than
he could chew and re-instated Parliament. Another reason that
Charles was in the hot seat was that he had married a French Catholic
named Henrietta Maria. By far the greatest population of England and
indeed Parliament were Protestants. In those days a person in
power’s religion was a big deal. The squabble between Charles and
Parliament reached the boiling point and in 1642 the first civil war
broke out with the army loyal to Charles against the Parliamentary
army, known as the Ironsides Army, led by Oliver Cromwell. In 1644
the army led by Cromwell beat the crap out of the Loyalist army at
Marston Moor and again the next year at Naseby. Finally Cromwell and
Parliament prevailed and Charles I was convicted of treason and on
this date King Charles I went to meet his maker in two pieces
courtesy of the ever present big guy with a big ax in a black hood.
This put Oliver Cromwell in command and the monarchy was dissolved.
He could not be crowned king because he was not of royal blood.
Cromwell ruled until his death in 1658 when his son Richard took
over. Richard was not a good leader and saw the handwriting on the
wall and went into exile in France the next year. The English people
restored the monarchy with the placement of Charles II, the son of
Charles I. Charles II wanted his pound of flesh and Oliver Cromwell
was posthumously convicted of treason and his 11 year old remains
were dug up and hung from the gallows at Tyburn. What sight that
must have been.
This
Date in History January 30
1972 Earlier the
English Parliament had decreed that anyone that seemed to be a threat
to the peace in Northern Ireland would be arrested. We all know how
hot blooded the Irish are anyway and with this obvious trampling of
their rights would not stand without action. A group of civil rights
workers notified the Londonderry authorities that they would be
forming a civil rights march on this date in protest of what
Parliament had decreed. The Londonderry and British authorities
disallowed the march but the marchers showed up anyway. The British
responded with sending in a platoon of Royal paratroopers with
instructions to stop the march by whatever mean it took. When the
marchers reached the paratroopers that had the road blocked, the
paratroopers indiscriminately open fire with automatic weapons into
the unarmed crowd. The result was 13 killed and 19 wounded and is
known to this day as “Bloody Sunday”. As you can guess, the
entire free world raised almighty hell and money flowed into the
Irish Republican Army like the Amazon meaning that the British would
have their hands full with the IRA for years to come.
1816 Future United
States Army General Nathaniel Banks is born in Waltham,
Massachusetts. Banks was the son of textile workers and did not have
much of a formal education but he studied on his own and eventually
became an attorney and friends with those in high places in the
government of Massachusetts. At the outbreak of the Civil War the
United States Army was desperate for field commanders so they gave
Banks the rank of General and gave him an army and unfortunately sent
him and his army to invade the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia. I say
unfortunately for Banks because CSA General Thomas J. “Stonewall”
Jackson had been tasked with the protection of the Valley. What we
have here is a brilliant career military officer in Jackson opposed
by a military leader with zero experience in Banks. The outcome is
predictable. Banks received a severe ass-kicking on two different
occasions and lost so many supplies to Jackson the he was known as
“Commissary Banks.” The Union Army saw that he was out of his
element and sent his young ass to New Orleans. Banks was able to
capture the Confederate encampment of Port Hudson but at a terrible
cost. In 1864 he set out on the mission known as the Red River
Expedition. He started out in mid-Louisiana heading up the Red River
into northern Louisiana and Texas. He had several Union gunboats
following his advance to supply artillery support when needed. The
problem here was that he found the need to move inland somewhat to
avoid swamp lands. A Confederate Army had been watching and when
Banks was out of range of the gunboats, they fell like locusts on
Bank’s and his army was virtually annihilated. Banks retreated to
New Orleans and never again was in command of Union troops.
1943 On this night,
the British Royal Air Force launched its first of many nighttime
bombing raids of Berlin, Germany. Eventually it was the British at
night and the American 8th
Air Force flying out of bases in England in daytime raids. To all of
you who have not researched what devastation can be delivered from
the air with conventional bombs need to look at aerial photos of
Berlin, Frankfort, Hamburg and other German cities after the war.
There was nothing left y'all. They were just large piles of rubble.
On one raid, the 8th
Air Force sent over 1,000 bombers to Hamburg and dropped enough bombs
to turn Hamburg into kindling and that night the British came in and
dropped incendiaries and set the whole city on fire. At one point
there was a fire in the middle of the city that was so hot that the
air was going 200 MPH into the flames taking everything light enough
with it. The British pilots said they could smell burning flesh from
an altitude of 8,000 feet. You talk about hell on earth, this was
it.
Born today:
1882 US President
Franklin Delano Roosevelt. He sent a cable to England’s Prime
Minister Winston Churchill and he said “It is a pleasure to be in
the same decade with you”. Sir Winston was the very image and
demeanor of an English bulldog. There was a story about him that
came out of WWII. The English had cracked the German secret code
called Enigma. Through this find, Churchill found out that the
German air force was going to bomb Coventry, one of the greatest of
all the English cities and on what day it would occur. Churchill
decided not to warn the citizens of Coventry because the German would
have realized their code has been broken. What a terrible burden
that had to be for Sir Winston.
1948 US Inventor of
the first self propelled airplane Orville Wright. He said “Isn’t
it astonishing that all these secrets have been preserved for so many
years just so me and my brother could discover them.” Yes it is,
Orville, yes it is.
1930 One of my
favorite actors Gene Hackman. He said “Dysfunctional families have
sired a number of pretty good actors.”
Thanks
for listening I can hardly wait until tomorrow
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