Quote of the day:
“Who was the guy that looked at a cow and said ‘I think I will drink whatever comes out of those things when I squeeze them?”
Bill Watterson
Trivia question of the day:
How did Joseph Kennedy (father of JFK and RFK) make the majority of his money?
I am reading the history of Scottish hero William Wallace who the movie “Braveheart” was about. The movie took many liberties about what he was really about. They showed Wallace and company winning the Battle of Sterling with a pure infantry engagement in an open field. What I read was it really as the Battle of Sterling Bridge. Sterling is a town northwest of Edinburgh (the Scots pronounce it “Edin-burah”) and has the Forth river running through. In the battle Wallace's forces were on the east side of the river and the army of Edward II on the west. The English army began crossing the only bridge within many miles. After a certain amount of the English army had crossed and Wallace knew he could defeat, he had his men to set fire to both ends of the bridge trapping the jam packed English army and cavalry. They could not jump into the river, they were in armor and would sink like an anvil. They jumped anyway rather than be burned alive while the horses went wild in their panic. Wallace then turned his attention to the troops that had made it across and annihilated them. Now you have the rest of the story.
This Date in History January 31
1865 Earlier United States President Abraham Lincoln had declared that the purpose of the Civil War was to preserve the Union. But after the major ass-kickings the Union army had received during the first year of the War, the northern public said “To hell with it, let the Rebs have their own country, stop the bloodbath.” So Abe had to took another tack to get the country back together so he now changed horses and said the purpose of the War was to free the slaves. It had been noticed that when the Union Army infrequently won a battle, the slaves nearby would join-up with the Yankee soldiers and they would not give them back to their owners. Then Abe issued the Emancipation Proclamation which allegedly freed the slaves in those states in rebellion. Abe’s advisers had in mind that those slaves in the Confederacy would rise up in rebellion upon hearing of the Emancipation but they were wrong, it did not happen and Abe stood there with egg on his face. The Confederacy did not consider themselves “states in rebellion”. They considered themselves as a separate and equally sovereign nation. Not only that there were four states that had slaves but had not seceded. What happened to those slaves? And finally, the Proclamation was not enforceable. I don’t know what Abe was thinking but the Emancipation Proclamation wasn’t worth paper it was written on. It took the 13th Amendment to the Constitution (ratified on this date) to get the job done and it read in part ...”neither slavery nor involuntary servitude shall exist in the United States nor any place subject to their jurisdiction....” Now the law had some teeth. This amendment passed the Senate and a House vote of 119-65, barely enough of a majority. The bill was introduced in 1864 but failed to pass the House vote because of “states rights” issues.
1923 One of my favorite writers is born on this day. Norman Mailer is born in Long Branch, New Jersey and raised in Brooklyn, New York. Norman was seen as a gifted child at an early age and was given a scholarship to Harvard during WWII but delayed his education and joined the army. After the war he attended the Sorbonne in Paris. While there he was encouraged to pursue his obvious writing skills and gave us one of the greatest war novels ever written in The Naked and the Dead. It is very unusual for an author to deliver such a blockbuster on their first try. He wrote a couple of more novels that were not as successful as his first. Norman joined the peace protest march in Washington in 1967 and wrote about his experiences in the book Armies of the Night and received a Pulitzer Prize and a National Book Award for this one. Later he gave us another winner in The Executioners Song. It is the story of the last few days and months of convicted serial killer Gary Gilmore before Gary met his maker in front of a firing squad in Utah. Again, Norman received a Pulitzer Prize and another National Book Award. Norman is known as a two-fisted drinker/brawler and avid anti-feminists. He has written about nearly everything and everyone. He has written about politics, war, religion, etc and written biographies on people like Marilyn Monroe and Richard Nixon among many others. He wrote about the Chicago police riot during the Democratic National convention. His irascible nature and anti-feminisms has made him one of the most controversial in the entire literary world. It had been reported that he got into an argument with actor Rip Torn and the mother of all brawls ensued. He got into an argument with his wife at a party and chose to stab her in the arm. But no matter, Norman Mailer is one of the most versatile and talented writers this country has ever produced.
1945 During the later years of WWII the United States were running out of soldiers and lowered the draft requirements. Eddie Slovik had originally been rejected because of a Grand Theft Auto conviction. Since the lowering of the standards Slovik was re-classified as 1-A, trained and sent to France to join the 28th Division as a private. Slovik got lost in the turmoil of battle and ended up with a Canadian outfit. Slovik was a hater of guns and a pacifist and refused to fight. The Canadians finally got fed up with Slovik and turned him over to MP’s of the 28th Division. Slovik told his commanding officer that he does not want to fight and ran away to the Canadians again. He is again returned to the MP’s of the 28th Division. This time his commander gives him a choice to go immediately to his combat team or face a firing squad. Slovik refused and a date is set for his execution. He appealed to General Dwight Eisenhower but this is a bad time for this because the Battle of the Bulge was underway and American soldiers were dying by the hundreds. Eisenhower rejected Slovik’s appeal and on this date at dawn, a firing squad of seven riflemen ended the life of Private Eddie Slovik for cowardice and desertion. He was the first man in the United States military that was executed since the Civil War. It was reported that the men in the firing squad never flinched because they believed he was getting what he deserved. Maybe so, maybe not.
Born today:
1892 US entertainer Eddie Cantor. He said “Every time I see a Most Wanted list I have this thought. If they had been wanted in their youth, would they be wanted now?” I wonder if Atilla the Hun was wanted as a youth.
1905 US writer John O’Hara. He said “So who is perfect? Washington had false teeth, Ben Franklin was nearsighted, Mussolini had syphilis, unpleasant things have been said about Walt Whitman and Oscar Wilde, Tchaikovsky had his problems too, and Lincoln was constipated a lot.”
1921 US actor John Agar. He said “Hell I don’t drink anymore than John Wayne, Ward Bond, Spencer Tracy, Alan Ladd or Robert Walker but I got in hell of a lot more trouble.” John you got into showbiz ony becaue you were married to Shirley Temple.
Answer to the trivia question:
Joseph Kennedy made a lot of money during prohibition by illegally bringing whiskey into the United States from Canada. But the major coup was buying vast quantities of scotch whiskey in Ireland and Scotland and letting it sit in rail tanker cars until prohibition ended then he almost had a corner of the scotch market.
Thanks for listening I can’t wait until tomorrow
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