Musings
and History
Quote
of the day:
During
WWI a US Marine unit was pinned down by ferocious German machine gun
fire in the section of France known as Belleau Wood. 1st
Sgt. Dan Daly ordered a bayonet charge, rose up and yelled “Come on
you sons-of-bitches, do you want to live forever?” and off they
went. Daly was awarded two Medals of Honor in his long career as a
Marine. A law was passed since then that there could be only one MOH
per person. His commanding officer said of Daly “He is the
fightingest Marine I ever saw”. The Commandant of the Marine Corps
said “Sergeant Daly is the most outstanding Marine of all time.”
Daly was 5'-6” and weighed 134 pounds. In later blogs I will tell
you why he was awarded the two MOH's.
Here
is an event from my air traffic controller days. The control tower
at the Asheville, NC contacted us here in Greenville, SC and said
they had a non-instrument rated pilot caught on top of an overcast
and needed help getting down and was a little short on fuel.
Asheville at the time had no radar. The pilot came over to my
frequency and I located him with radar. He was about 10 mile south
of the Asheville airport. I got him headed south to where the
overcast ended and the ground would be visible. He expressed concern
about his fuel so I suggested that he start a gentle descent and back
off the throttle to a near glide. This meant that his ground speed
would decrease but he would burn less fuel. I was careful to make
sure he did not get so low he would crash into the mountains. He
eventually was able to see the ground, descended faster and I turned
him directly to the Greenville Downtown airport. He landed on runway
36 and ran out of fuel on the taxiway. God works in mysterious ways.
This
Date in History April 26
1986
Near a small village 65 miles north of Kiev, Ukraine the world was
awakened to the possible dangers of nuclear power plants. The four
reactor power facility at Chernobyl experienced the worst nuclear
accident in history. Electrical engineers decided to perform an
experiment on reactor #4. They wanted to see if the gigantic turbine
could power the emergency pumps with inertia alone. These guys had
hardly any experience with nuclear power and their experiment was not
well thought out. Then a series of mistakes occurred. The engineers
shut down all the emergency systems and reduced the power level in
the reactor to where the nuclear reaction was unstable. So these
geniuses decided that they should withdraw many of the control rods
to heat up the reactor. They then continued with their experiment by
disconnecting the turbine from its power source and waited to see of
the now wind milling turbine could power the emergency pumps. It did
not work; the pumps would not operate in that fashion. They finally
realize that the reactor was on the edge of being out of control and
slammed nearly 200 control rods back into the reactor simultaneously
causing an immense explosion and fire. A deadly radioactive cloud
rose up and headed northwest. The Russian designed nuclear power
plant here did not have a “containment building” over their
reactor buildings like are those in the United States. These
buildings would have contained this accident.
The
Russian government originally tried to cover up this debacle but it
was just a matter of hours that stations in Scandinavia began
reporting radioactivity levels 200 times higher than normal so they
knew something had happened. It was estimated that 50 tons of highly
radioactive debris was blown into the atmosphere. The Russian
immediately evacuated 30,000 people but not before 32 had died almost
instantly and about 5,000 Russians died of cancer as a result of
contact with the radioactivity. Needless to say there was hardly any
way to get firefighters into that inferno with any degree of safety
so the Russians asked for volunteers to go in and put the fire out
and informed them that there was no doubt that they would die of
radiation poisoning but the Russian government would take care of
their families. So a group of walking dead firemen went in and put
the fire out. Eventually the entire power plant was closed but there
is a defined perimeter around that plant site that is uninhabitable
to this day. By the way, all the firemen did indeed die.
1865
After killing US President Abraham Lincoln, actor John Wilkes
Booth jumped down on the stage of the Ford Theater and yelled “Thus
to all tyrants” except he yelled it in Latin. Booth broke his leg
in the jump but was able to make his way out the back door to an
awaiting horse and his fellow conspirator David Herold and they made
good their escape southbound. Booth and Herold have no problem
getting help because Maryland was a hotbed of Confederate
sympathizers. He stopped at the home of a Dr. Mudd to get his leg
set and the good doctor set and splinted Booth’s leg. Booth and
Herold stayed on the run for 12 days and stopped by a farm and asked
the farmer if they could sleep in his barn. The farmer agreed but
after they were inside the farmer sent his son out to lock the barn
door so his horses would not be stolen. As you might suspect, the
countryside was swarming with Federal troops looking for these two.
The funny part is that the soldiers would not exchange information
with each other because there was a $20,000 reward on Booth's head.
On this date a group of Federal troops figured out that Booth and
Herold were in the barn, surround it, and demand their surrender.
Herold surrendered only to be hanged soon thereafter. Booth refused
to surrender and the barn is set aflame to drive Booth out. Not only
did the troopers set the barn on fire, they asked Herold where Booth
was in the barn. They then fired fusillade of gunfire into that area
of the barn killing Booth before the barn is consumed. By the way,
Dr Mudd was captured as being part of the conspiracy but was released
later when it became apparent that he was not.
1798
Future mountain man James Beckwourth is born on a plantation near
Fredericksburg, Virginia the issue of a white man and a black slave
woman. James was a slave also and ended up in St. Louis where his
owner emancipated him. He joined in the third fur trapping
expedition organized by William Ashley. James was green as grass
when it came to surviving in the Rocky Mountains and he leaned
heavily on others until he was educated. He developed a good
relationship with the Crow Indians and eventually gave up his white
man ways and moved in with the Crows and had several wives and
children. Later on he hired himself out as a guide and scout for the
US Cavalry and participated in the Seminole War. Beckwourth was a
participant in the notorious Sand Creek Massacre where a whole
village of peaceful Cheyenne was wiped out simply because they were
Indians. After this James moved back in with the Crows. Beckwourth
was a notorious braggart and liar especially about himself. In fact
the date he gave for his birth date is in question. Some western
writers say he was born in 1800. In any event he died in 1867 and
some say he was buried in an unmarked grave near Denver and others
say he died while with the Crows and they buried him in typical Crow
fashion, on a platform in a tree and left to decompose into a
skeleton. The Crows believed that it was an honor to be buried “in
the sky”.
Born
today:
1599
English Lord Protector Oliver Cromwell. He said “Do not trust
the cheering crowd. They would cheer just as loud if you were being
taken to the gallows.” Speaking of the gallows, here is an
interesting story about Cromwell. He was part of the crowd that
overthrew the Charles I, King of England. The king was beheaded at
the behest of Cromwell. Cromwell became the “protector” of
England making him essentially the king. He could not officially be
king because he was not of royal blood. Cromwell eventually died and
Charles II, the son of Charles I, was made king. Charles II was
really pissed about his father being beheaded and had Cromwell’s
corpse dug up and hanged even though he had been in the ground for 11
years.
Thanks
for listening I can hardly wait until tomorrow
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