Wednesday

                          Musings and History

Quote of the day:

“Music is spiritual, the business is not.”

                Van Morrison

Trivia question of the day:

Who hold the largest lifetime batting average in major league history? Answer at the end of the blog.

                            This Date in History   April 11

1814 On this date Napoleon Bonaparte abdicated the throne of France and is exiled to island of Elbe in the Mediterranean. Napoleon began his rise to power right after the French Revolution of 1789. He was recognized for the military genius that he was during this period. He eventually was the virtual ruler of all of Europe by defeating every army on the Continent and declared himself as emperor of France. Napoleon thought that Russia and England were conspiring against him and invaded Russia to prevent this from happening. This expedition proved to be disastrous to Napoleon’s army just as it was to Hitler’s army during WWII. Napoleon invaded Russia with 500,000 troops and arrived back in France with less than 100,000. After this debacle he knew that his days as a military power in Europe was numbered and offered to turn the throne of France to his sons and this was rejected and that is when he abdicated. About a year later he escaped from Elbe and made his way back to France and quickly raised another army and began to kick-ass again all across the Continent. The difference this time was two of the best military commanders in Europe joined forces and were the equal of Napoleon’s army in both number and skill. They were Lord Wellington of England and the Prussian General von Blucher.  The beginning of the end began when Napoleon met von Blucher about 20 miles from him meeting with Wellington and administered a substantial ass-whipping on the Prussian army. He then headed to meet Wellington near the town of Waterloo, Belgium. Napoleon made a serious tactical error when he did not attack immediately and waited until the field between the two armies had dried out somewhat from the rain the night before. This allowed Wellington to array his troops to the best advantage and allowed von Blucher to arrive at the scene and prepare his troops to attack the left flank of Napoleon’s army. It was early afternoon when Napoleon launched his attack and was initially successful but became overly concerned with the Prussians closing in from his left. Napoleon uncharacteristically mismanaged his troop movements and was defeated. This time Napoleon was exiled to Saint Helena Island in the Central Atlantic where he died, probably from stomach cancer. He was 57 years old. This man was a brilliant military commander and was responsible to the enactment of a code of laws that many are in use today, especially in Louisiana, but he was also responsible for over a million deaths.

1951 The armies of North Korea had previously crossed the border in South Korea, this act of was a clear violation of the SEATO treaty and the nations of NATO had to respond and the Korean War began. The United States sent General Douglas McArthur to be in command and the allies soon had the North Koreans on the run. The only problem was the Chinese border. The Chinese had warned the Allied forces to stay clear of their borders or expect retaliation. McArthur felt they were bluffing and had expressed a desire to bomb the Chinese border with nuclear weapons to make that area safe from the marshaling of troop and even the launching a all out attack. McArthur expressed displeasure when Harry (the hard ass) Truman order McArthur to meet with him at Wake Island. At that meeting, President Truman relieved McArthur and sent his young ass to the United States and replaced him with General Mathew Ridgeway. It is not of often that an officer of that rank is relieved of command, but this was one of those times and rightly so. Because McArthur never understood that politicians make policy, not the military. Not long after this McArthur died. I think because he had fulfilled his mission in this lifetime and it was time for him to move on to the next life

1970 On this date Apollo 13 was launched from Cape Canaveral headed for a landing on the moon. When the spacecraft was about 200,000 miles for earth, the astronaut heard an explosion and immediately determined that they were seriously low on battery power water and oxygen to mention just a few things. The engineers in Houston had their hands full in figuring out how to save the crewmen, Jim Lovell, Fred Haise and Jim Sweigert. The tricky thing would that the master booster rocket would need to make two “burns”. One would be to put the spacecraft in the correct trajectory to go around the moon and the other would be to put the spacecraft in the correct trajectory to re-enter the earth’s atmosphere safely. Jim Lovell had to figure out this mathematically since the power loss left him without a computer. Not only that, the master space capsule did not have enough oxygen, power and water to last the three days it would take to return to earth so the engineers in Houston instructed Lovell to shut down the master space capsule and move into the Lunar Excursion Module or LEM which had its own power supply, oxygen and water but the LEM was made for just two men, not three. Anyway, Lovell made the rocket burn for orbiting the moon and the three moved into the LEM to wait it out. They were running the LEM at minimum power meaning the temperature was only 35 to 36 degrees. Anyway, when the time came the three moved back into the master capsule, discarded the LEM, made the “burn” and successfully returned to earth. It was a miracle ya’ll.

1945 During WWII the US 3^rd Army, led by General George Patton, had broken out of the German perimeter around Omaha Beach and swept across France gathering German prisoners as he went. The 3^rd army crossed into Germany and was running rampant across the land. On this date, lead elements of one of Patton’s tank Corp came upon a huge fenced in camp full of half-starved prisoners. It was Buchenwald, ya’ll, one of the most infamous concentration camps in history. The Americans discovered that it was a labor camp where hundreds if not thousands died daily from starvation, disease, beatings and gruesome medical experiments. Some were simply executed especially those with tattoos. The wife of the camp commander wanted tattooed human skin that she tanned and had them made into gloves and lampshades. Is there any wonder that when the Russians found such camps when approaching form the east, they went crazy with bloodlust and killed everything they could find on German soil? Anyway, the war was over soon thereafter and peace prevailed.....until 1950.

Born today:

1862 US Chief Justice Charles Evans Hughes. He said “When we lose the right to be different, we lose the right to be free.” Justice Hughes was a wise man.

1794 Harvard President Edward Everett. He said of a student application by a black person, “If he passes the application, he will be admitted. If the white students want to withdraw, we will use their tuitions to teach the black one.” Everett was ahead of his time.

Answer to the trivia question:

The player with the largest lifetime batting average in major league history is Ty Cobb. He averaged .366 for 22 years with the Detroit Tigers.

Thanks for listening I can hardly wait until tomorrow