Trivia question of the day:
Name 3 present day entertainers that were Mouskateers. Answer at the end of the blog.
I don't know what made me think of it but one day when I lived in Pensacola I was in my boat offshore a few miles slowly trolling. All of a sudden a school of flying fish came out of the water and streamed by me in a hurry. I new something was chasing them but I did not know what. I looked over the side and there was a bottle nosed dolphin (porpoise) right beside me. It did not pass, it stayed within a few feet going at the same speed. I dipped my hand over the side and it came over and nuzzled my fingers. We looked at each other for a few seconds and then he was gone. It was a magical moment that I will never forget...we were connected for those few seconds. By the way, flying fish is one reason that I cannot deny evolution. Their lateral fins are four time longer than the average fish and are wing shaped. They can leap out of the water and sail for a considerable distance to avoid a predator.
This Date in History July 2
1863 The second day at Gettysburg sees a simultaneous attack on the right and left flanks of the Yankee army. It is the troops of CSA General Richard Ewell attacking the right flank at Culp’s Hill on the extreme north end of the Union lines. At the same time CSA General James Longstreet attacked the extreme south or left flank of the Union lines at a place called Little Round Top. I have been to both places. Culp’s Hill is not very high but it is a jumble of huge rocks making the way up for the Confederates very slow and difficult. The Union soldiers there were up to the task and repulsed the attack inflicting heavy losses to the Confederates. The attack on the south end, or Little Round Top, was an epic struggle studied to this day by military historians. Earlier in the day, the Union division under US General Dan Sickles was in a good position on Little Round Top but Sickles did not like the ground and pulled his troops off and headed west through the woods. Sickles was a politician from New York and got his command because of his political influence. Anyway, about a mile and half west was the open ground of a peach orchard. When Sickles and his troops emerged form the woods, they were set upon by a large number of screaming Confederates and was all but annihilated. All of this happened in view of the rest of the Union troops on Little Round Top. After this, Longstreet launched his attack with CSA General John Bell Hood and about 2.500 of his Alabamians and Texans. They first swept the Yankees off yet another small, rocky hill called Devil’s Den which was about ½ mile from Little Round Top. After this a direct assault on Little Round Top began. The slopes on this hill are very steep as you get toward the top which slowed the Confederate advance. So the Confederates began trying to flank the line by moving to the right forcing the defenders to stretch and roll back their lines. The Confederates were facing 300 men of the 20th Maine. Even with 2,500 against 300, the Confederates were unable to dislodge those Yankees. The battle reached a crisis when the Yankees were out of ammunition and the Confederates were still coming. The commander of the 20th Maine, Colonel Joshua L. Chamberlain, ordered a bayonet charge even though they only had only 160 combat ready men and down the hill they went. The stunned Confederates beat a hasty retreat and the day was saved. Had the Confederates been able to turn that flank it is likely the war would have ended right there with there would be two nations, the United State of America and the Confederate States of America. Chamberlain received the Medal of Honor for his actions on this day.
1881 Same crazy jackass named Charles Guineau showed up at a national event and walked up to James Garfield and put two rounds from his pistol into Garfield’s abdomen. One of the two shots lodged near Garfield’s pancreas. It wasn’t long before Garfield developed a serious infection and he died on Sept. 18. Charles Guineau had written an acceptance speech and sent it to Garfield. Garfield did not read it, of course, but Guineau felt like Garfield was elected due to his writings and wanted the ambassadorship to France as his reward. Garfield’s staff ignored his insistence and soon Guineau got fed up and shot Garfield. There are a lot of crazies out there.
1937 On this date Amelia Earhart is on her way from Lae, New Guinea to Howland Island in the middle of the Pacific. Amelia and her navigator Fred Noonan are the only ones aboard. The USS Coast Guard ship “Itasca” is in intermittent contact with Earhart who says that she is lost and is looking for landfall. The Itasca puts out miles of black smoke hoping she would see them to no avail. The last contact was when Earhart called and said that she had 30 minute of fuel and no land in sight. After that, there was no more contact. After the largest search in history with no results, this remains an eternal mystery.
1839 The Cuban schooner Armistead departed Havana headed to the sugar fields of Puerto Principe with a cargo of 30 African slaves. About half way the slaves revolted and killed the captain and the first mate and instructed the rest of the crew that it would be prudent if they took this boat back to Sierra Leone in present today west Africa. The crew obliged and headed east back to Africa. The only problem is that when it became dark, the navigator headed the ship north rather than east. After a couple of months the ship was spotted off the coast of New York and sent to New London, Conn. After a series of law trials the Supreme Court ruled that these men were unfairly brought into slavery and were released. In 1841 abolitionists financed the passenger vessel Gentleman to take the slaves back to their homeland in West Africa.
1992 On this day the book “A Brief history of Time” by Stephen Hawking hits the best seller list. Hawking is a professor of theoretical physics at Cambridge. His book is an attempt to explain the physics of the cosmos to the average man. I not only read this book many times, but I read and studied it like it was a text book, not a book of entertainment. It was and is a milestone in the understanding of what is out there. Hawking has a severe case of Lou Gehrig’s disease that was diagnosed many years ago with just a year or two to live, but he prevailed. He is wheelchair bound and cannot speak, but he can use his left hand and a sophisticated voice synthesizer was installed. We now can reap the thoughts of one of the most creative minds this world has ever known. Incidentally, Hawking was born on the 300th anniversary of the death of Sir Isaac Newton. Both were theoretical physicists at Cambridge and both were/are Presidents of the Royal Society, an organization of very smart people. Makes you wonder. On one occasion the Pope asked Hawking to back off on trying to find the origins of the universe because it would disrupt religion if he found it. Again, religion should not have a part in the classroom for this reason.
Answer to the trivia question
3 present day entertainers that were Mouskateers are:
Brittany Spears, Christine Aquilera and Justin Timberlake.
Thanks for listening I can hardly wait until tomorrow
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