Official "This Day In History" thread

[Dr Sardonicus]

Originally Posted by petrw1

June 4 at 7:19 PM
Today is a special day. June 4th 2018 marks the 14th anniversary of the Killdozer's rampage through Granby Colorado.

Sit down kids and let me tell you a tale, about a reasonable man driven to do unreasonable things.
<snip>

The Snopes page Killdozer Day: The Story of Marvin Heemeyer has a few details the foregoing omits. Among other things, he had agreed to take $250,000.00 for his land from the folks who wanted to build the concrete plant. Then he reneged and kept upping the price, so the sale never happened.

His failure to kill anyone else wasn't entirely by design. He shot at propane tanks and transformers, and crashed his bulldozer into occupied buildings.

[Uncwilly]

Originally Posted by petrw1

Over the course of a year and a half Marvin secretly outfitted the bulldozer he bought to save his business with three foot thick steel and concrete armor, camera systems guarded with bulletproof glass.

The concrete and steel was about 1 foot, 30 cm thick. The ballistic plexiglass over the cameras was 3 inches thick. The armor was also used to protect the dozer's 'vitals'

Another piece of heavy machinery was even brought out to fight the Killdozer, but it too fell to the dozers righteous fury.

Knowing something about heavy construction equipment: a tracked vehicle (especially with that much extra weight on it) will beat a wheeled vehicle with regards to traction (except on surfaces like hard concrete or metal). An unladen earth mover (commonly known in the trade as a scrapper) is no match for even a smaller dozer. That earth mover in the picture looks to be a 657 or 637 setup for push-pull operations. 2 of them loaded with soil and aimed straight at the dozer's blade could withstand it (the weight improves their traction and the 4 engines combined have the power). I have worked around this type of equipment and have stories to tell about them. When a scrapper gets stuck while loading, or is cutting deep, they use a dozer to push it through. When multiple push-pulls are available, they team up and assist each other (generally the back pushes while the front loads, then the front pulls while the rear loads.)

[Dr Sardonicus]

June 22

First full day of summer (in the Northern Hemisphere).

On this day...

In 1937, Joe Louis began his reign as world heavyweight boxing champion by knocking out Jim Braddock in the eighth round of their fight in Chicago. (A year later on this date, Louis knocked out Max Schmeling in the first round of their rematch at Yankee Stadium.)

The first Joe Louis - Max Schmeling fight was on June 19, 1936. Joe Louis, apparently, didn't take Schmeling or the upcoming fight seriously. Schmeling, already 30 years old, was given little chance against the 22-year-old Louis, who was 23-0 as a heavyweight. But Schmeling prepared thoroughly anyway. And, by studying the films of Louis's fights, he spotted a very basic mistake Louis was making -- when he used his jab, he kept his left hand dropped low. Schmeling exploited this mistake, and in the fourth round landed a right to the chin that knocked Louis down -- a new professional experience for Louis. It likely shattered Louis's confidence. Schmeling kept landing punches, and knocked Louis out in the twelfth round.

The second fight went very differently. Louis landed many punches, and won by TKO at 2:40 of the first round. Schmeling spent 10 days in the hospital.

The WP page on Max Schmeling mentions the following, which may be of interest:

When he returned to Germany after his defeat by Joe Louis, Schmeling was now shunned by the Nazis. He won both the German and European heavyweight championships on the same night, with a first-round knockout of Adolf Heuser. During the Nazi purge of Jews from Berlin, he personally saved the lives of two Jewish children by hiding them in his apartment. It was not the first time that Schmeling defied the Nazi regime's hatred for Jews. As the story goes, Hitler let it be known through the Reich Ministry of Sports that he was very displeased at Schmeling's relationship with Joe Jacobs, his Jewish fight promoter, and wanted it terminated, but Schmeling refused to bow even to Hitler.

In 1944, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the Servicemen's Readjustment Act of 1944, more popularly known as the "GI Bill of Rights."

I don't know how many soldiers returning from WWII got college educations thanks to the GI Bill, but it was a lot. My dad was among them.

On June 22, 1977, John N. Mitchell became the first former U.S. attorney general to go to prison as he began serving a sentence for his role in the Watergate cover-up. (He was released 19 months later.)

This was "Mr. Law-and-order," who wanted to use "preventive detention," "no-knock" warrants, and illegally obtained evidence to put blacks, war protesters, and pot smokers behind bars. I think it was Bill Mauldin whose cartoons usually showed him standing with one foot in a wastebasket.

Perhaps his finest hour was in trying to prevent disclosure during discovery of wiretap evidence obtained without warrants in United States v. Sinclair, 321 F. Supp. 1074 (E.D. Mich. 1971), resulting in the Supreme Court decision in United States v. United States District Court (No. 70-153), AKA the "Keith case."

[ewmayer]

There is more to the Louis/Schmeling story. First off, it should have been Schmeling fighting Braddock for the title, not Louis, as a result of Schmeling's KO of Louis in their first fight. Wikipedia:

Now the unexpected number one contender for the heavyweight crown held by Jim Braddock, Schmeling looked forward to his chance to regain the title as first Heavyweight ever, scheduled for that September. The fight was postponed, however, when Braddock injured his hand in training. Rumors existed that the fight's organizers were stalling, afraid of the negative publicity that would be generated over a perceived Nazi getting a shot at the world's title. When it was confirmed that Braddock's managers were in talks with the Louis camp, the New York Commission officially released an order for Braddock to fight Schmeling for the title. Any other fight, with Louis or otherwise, would not be recognized by New York as being for the championship. The Madison Square Garden Corporation, the largest promotional company in the sport at the time, even attempted to get a legal injunction against a Braddock-Louis fight (Louis was not on their roster). Nonetheless, in February 1937, Schmeling received the news that the champion had indeed signed to defend his championship against Louis. A furious Schmeling protested, but to no avail, and he was forced to watch from ringside as Louis knocked Braddock out and gained the championship.
...
Many years later, in 1975, Schmeling said, "Looking back, I'm almost happy I lost that fight. Just imagine if I would have come back to Germany with a victory. I had nothing to do with the Nazis, but they would have given me a medal. After the war I might have been considered a war criminal.

And in later years, when Joe had fallen on hard times and been forgotten by the country which once elevated him to Hero-for-freedom status:

During the 1950s, Schmeling began working for The Coca-Cola Company's offices in Germany. Before long, he owned his own bottling plant and held an executive's position within the company. He became friends with Joe Louis and assisted his former rival financially in his later years, eventually financing his funeral in 1981.

No small irony, there, his becoming wealthy from the business of selling that iconic American product Coca-Cola. Max was, quite simply, a mensh, to use the Yiddish spelling and connotation of the word. He died not that long ago, in 2005, 8 months shy of his 100th birthday.

German TV had a 2002 docu-movie, Joe & Max, about our two principals. I've not seen it, but sounds like it might be worth a watch.

[Dr Sardonicus]

June 26

On this day...

In 1963, President John F. Kennedy was in West Berlin, where he gave a speech with the refrain "Let them come to Berlin." However, another phrase by which the speech is known, has fallen victim to an urban legend.

The tale is told, that the phrase Ich bin ein Berliner, used twice in the speech, means "I am a jelly doughnut" instead of "I am a citizen of Berlin," because of the (allegedly) mistaken inclusion of the article ein. The legend has even expanded to say that the crowd laughed at the remark.

With the inclusion of the article ein, the phrase could be taken either way, but is a perfectly correct way of saying "I am a citizen of Berlin." And it would have taken a monumental disregard of context for anyone present to take it as meaning anything else. And I am sure President Kennedy consulted advisors about the phrase before giving the speech. Besides, in Berlin and environs, the pastry is called Pfannkuchen. (I grew up hearing them called "bismarks.")

The falsity of the assertion that the crowd laughed at the remark may be seen in the video of the speech. The first time Kennedy used the phrase, he followed it by saying, "I appreciate my interpreter translating my German!" And this was greeted with some amusement.

[Dr Sardonicus]

June 27

On this day...

In 1833 Prudence Crandall was arrested for conducting an academy for black females at Canterbury, Connecticut.

In 1893, stock prices crashed on the New York Stock Exchange, heralding the Panic of 1893.

Part of the legacy of this economic meltdown is the American image of the "haunted house," fed by the great number of Victorian mansions which were abandoned when their owners were suddenly ruined.

The Panic of 1873 had begun the "Long Depression" which some reckon to have continued pretty much through the Panic of 1893.

[Dr Sardonicus]

July 16, 1969, 8:32 AM GMT-5

Launch of Apollo 11

First space mission on which men set foot on the moon

The mission also added the first retroreflector array to the Lunar Laser Ranging experiment. This array is still in use.

[Dr Sardonicus]

December 4

Fatal Black Panther raid in Chicago set off sizable aftershocks

The cacophony of gunshots on West Monroe Street in the early morning of Dec. 4, 1969, reverberated politically to the Loop office of Cook County State's Attorney Edward Hanrahan. Aftershocks traveled all the way to the Washington headquarters of the FBI. The incident also led to one of the biggest embarrassments in the history of the Chicago Tribune.
<snip>
Hanrahan was forced to defend the raiders against charges of "murder" and "modern-day lynchings," and activists called for a federal investigation. On Dec. 10, the Chicago Daily News described what had happened from the Panthers' point of view. Not to be outdone, the Tribune rallied with its own big story, a graphic, and a firsthand, account from an officer on the raid.

The Tribune account — which the newspaper ballyhooed with the one-word banner headline "EXCLUSIVE" — was supplied by Hanrahan and included photos supposedly showing bullet holes that supported cops' claims they came under fire. The Tribune didn't check that assertion before running with the official explanation of the photos. The next day, Sun-Times reporters went to the apartment and found that the alleged bullet holes were in fact nail heads. The Tribune's take on the photos, a Sun-Times headline crowed, "is nailed as mistake."

[ewmayer]

Originally Posted by Dr Sardonicus

June 26

On this day...

In 1963, President John F. Kennedy was in West Berlin, where he gave a speech with the refrain "Let them come to Berlin." However, another phrase by which the speech is known, has fallen victim to an urban legend.

For us expat Austrians, said urban legend has given rise to a joke:

Q: Why could a Berlin-style airlift never have taken place in Vienna, which was occupied by the Soviets until 1955?

A: Because JFK would never have been caught saying "Ich bin ein Wiener".

-------------------------

78th anniversary of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor today ... aside from Hollywood movie-hagiography, this date seems to be fading from the American collective consciousness, likely as result of the rapidly dwindling number of living WW2 vets. The concept of "living memory", illustrated.

[Dr Sardonicus]

Originally Posted by ewmayer

For us expat Austrians, said urban legend has given rise to a joke:

Q: Why could a Berlin-style airlift never have taken place in Vienna, which was occupied by the Soviets until 1955?

A: Because JFK would never have been caught saying "Ich bin ein Wiener".

78th anniversary of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor today ... aside from Hollywood movie-hagiography, this date seems to be fading from the American collective consciousness, likely as result of the rapidly dwindling number of living WW2 vets. The concept of "living memory", illustrated.

I do not mean to say, that the scenes of the revolution are now or ever will be entirely forgotten; but that like every thing else, they must fade upon the memory of the world, and grow more and more dim by the lapse of time. In history, we hope, they will be read of, and recounted, so long as the bible shall be read; -- but even granting that they will, their influence cannot be what it heretofore has been. Even then, they cannot be so universally known, nor so vividly felt, as they were by the generation just gone to rest. At the close of that struggle, nearly every adult male had been a participator in some of its scenes. The consequence was, that of those scenes, in the form of a husband, a father, a son or brother, a living history was to be found in every family -- a history bearing the indubitable testimonies of its own authenticity, in the limbs mangled, in the scars of wounds received, in the midst of the very scenes related -- a history, too, that could be read and understood alike by all, the wise and the ignorant, the learned and the unlearned. -- But those histories are gone. They can be read no more forever. They were a fortress of strength; but, what invading foeman could never do, the silent artillery of time has done; the leveling of its walls. They are gone. -- They were a forest of giant oaks; but the all-resistless hurricane has swept over them, and left only, here and there, a lonely trunk, despoiled of its verdure, shorn of its foliage; unshading and unshaded, to murmur in a few gentle breezes, and to combat with its mutilated limbs, a few more ruder storms, then to sink, and be no more.

Abraham Lincoln
The Perpetuation of Our Political Institutions:
Address Before the Young Men's Lyceum of Springfield, Illinois
January 27, 1838

[Dr Sardonicus]

On January 17, 1920 -- 100 years ago -- The Volstead Act took effect. This was Federal legislation to enforce the Eighteenth Amendment,

Section 1.

After one year from the ratification of this article the manufacture, sale, or transportation of intoxicating liquors within, the importation thereof into, or the exportation thereof from the United States and all territory subject to the jurisdiction thereof for beverage purposes is hereby prohibited.

Section 2.

The Congress and the several states shall have concurrent power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

Section 3.

This article shall be inoperative unless it shall have been ratified as an amendment to the Constitution by the legislatures of the several states, as provided in the Constitution, within seven years from the date of the submission hereof to the states by the Congress.

In fact, this Amendment was ratified by the States about one year after being passed by Congress.

It is the only Constitutional Amendment so far to be repealed (by the Twenty-first Amendment, ratified December 5, 1933).

Two of the lasting legacies of Prohibition are the U.S. Federal income tax (enacted in anticipation of Prohibition, and the consequent loss of liquor tax revenue), and the plea bargain, which became common when the courts became clogged with so many cases arising from the Volstead Act and State laws enforcing Prohibition, a practical means for dealing with them expeditiously was needed.

Prohibition also featured a great subversion of a Constitutional mandate: the US Census. The Census is used to determine Congressional representation, among other things. The 1920 Census showed, for the first time ever, a majority of Americans were living in urban areas (cities), as opposed to small towns and rural areas. Redistricting based on the 1920 Census was delayed for eight years.