Official "This Day In History" thread

[petrw1]

My grandson and my namesake was born on this day in 2015.

[ewmayer]

Originally Posted by petrw1

My grandson and my namesake was born on this day in 2015.

His name is petrw3, presumably?

[petrw1]

Originally Posted by ewmayer

His name is petrw3, presumably?

Good guess .... but no HAHA

His middle name = my first name....I'm honored.

[Dr Sardonicus]

March 27

On this date:

In 1964, Alaska was hit by a magnitude 9.2 earthquake (the strongest on record in North America) and tsunamis that together claimed about 130 lives.

1964 Alaska Earthquake

<snip>
Four minutes may not seem like a long time, but when it comes to earthquakes, it’s an eternity, and tremors during the Great Alaska Earthquake of 1964 lasted at least four minutes.

Geological surveys taken immediately afterward showed parts of the Alaskan coast sank up to eight feet, other parts rose up to 38 feet and much of the coast moved 50 feet towards the ocean. Coastal forests plunged below sea level and were destroyed by salt water.
<snip>
Downtown Anchorage had the most property damage mainly due to immense landslides, one of which dropped the business district nine feet.

In the Turnagain Heights area of Anchorage, soil liquefaction (when the ground behaves like a liquid) triggered a landslide which moved parts of a suburban bluff 2,000 feet into the bay, taking up to 75 homes with it.

The control tower at Anchorage International Airport collapsed, killing an air traffic controller. Part of the of the Million Dollar Bridge at Copper River also crumpled.

Thousands of strong aftershocks continued for weeks after the earthquake, some measuring greater than magnitude 6.2. Reports of residual water sloshing (seiches) came in from the U.S. Gulf Coast and as far away as Australia.
<snip>
Scientists learned a lot from data gathered after the 1964 Alaskan earthquake and put the knowledge to good use.

A broad earthquake-monitoring system was created to gather data and help seismologists predict future earthquakes and their potential damage. The data helped engineers develop earthquake-resistant structures to limit future casualties and property damage.
<snip>
Scientists also confirmed that earthquake-related tsunamis aren’t always localized and can happen thousands of miles from the epicenter. This led to the establishment of the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center (originally called the West Coast/Alaska Tsunami Warning Center) to alert people when a widespread tsunami is possible.

The warning system doesn’t monitor local tsunamis, however. The 1964 Alaska Earthquake taught coastal citizens to run for higher ground at the first sign of strong tremors.
<snip>
The demolished towns of Valdez and Chenega were rebuilt on higher ground, but not everyone was prudent about rebuilding on earthquake-prone land.

Much to the dismay of some earthquake experts, luxury homes were rebuilt on areas most likely to experience earthquake damage, including on top of the ruins in Turnagain Heights.

[Dr Sardonicus]

March 28

On this date...

In 1898, the U.S. Supreme Court, in United States v. Wong Kim Ark, ruled 6-2 that Wong, who was born in the United States to Chinese immigrants, was an American citizen.

169 U.S. 649 United States v. Wong Kim Ark (No. 18)

The evident intention, and the necessary effect, of the submission of this case to the decision of the court upon the facts agreed by the parties were to present for determination the single question stated at the beginning of this opinion, namely, whether a child born in the United States, of parent of Chinese descent, who, at the time of his birth, are subjects of the Emperor of China, but have a permanent domicil and residence in the United States, and are there carrying on business, and are not employed in any diplomatic or official capacity under the Emperor of China, becomes at the time of his birth a citizen of the United States. For the reasons above stated, this court is of opinion that the question must be answered in the affirmative.

[Dr Sardonicus]

On this day:

In 1971, Army Lt. William L. Calley Jr. was convicted of murdering 22 Vietnamese civilians in the 1968 My Lai massacre. (Calley ended up serving three years under house arrest.)

I still remember seeing a newspaper story about a massacre at "pinkville." The Wikipedia page on the massacre gives the following chronology of how the story camr to light:

The first mentions of the Mỹ Lai massacre appeared in the American media after Fort Benning's vague press release concerning the charges pressed against Lieutenant Calley, which was distributed on September 5, 1969.

Consequently, NBC aired on 10 September 1969 a segment in the Huntley-Brinkley Report which mentioned the murder of a number of civilians in South Vietnam. Following that, emboldened Ronald Ridenhour decided to disobey the Army's order to withhold the information from the media. He approached reporter Ben Cole of the Phoenix Republic, who chose not to handle the scoop. Charles Black from the Columbus Enquirer uncovered the story on his own but also decided to put it on hold. Two major national news press outlets — The New York Times and The Washington Post, received some tips with partial information but did not act on them.

A phone call on 22 October 1969, answered by freelance investigative journalist, Seymour Hersh, and his subsequent independent inquiry, broke the wall of silence that was surrounding the Mỹ Lai massacre. Hersh initially tried to sell the story to Life and Look magazines; both turned it down. Hersh then went to the small Washington-based Dispatch News Service, which sent it to fifty major American newspapers; thirty of them accepted it for publication. New York Times reporter Henry Kamm investigated further and found several Mỹ Lai massacre survivors in South Vietnam. He estimated the number of killed civilians as 567.

His superior officer, Captain Ernest Medina, whom Calley had said had ordered him to kill everyone in the village, was acquitted of all charges.

It was widely believed at the time (and many still believe) that Calley was made a scapegoat, and other responsible parties avoided any consequences. President Nixon ordered him transferred from Leavenworth to house arrest. He became a free man in 1974.

In 1973, the last United States combat troops left South Vietnam, ending America's direct military involvement in the Vietnam War.

A lot of guys my age breathed a huge sigh of relief. Back then, there was a military draft, and they conducted a lottery by birth date for induction. I still have my draft card.

In 1974, eight Ohio National Guardsmen were indicted on federal charges stemming from the shooting deaths of four students at Kent State University. (The charges were later dismissed.)

A famous photograph of the Kent State shooting shows a 14-year-old girl named Mary Vecchio kneeling over one of the victims. She was a runaway. It was said at the time that her parents did not know her whereabouts until the picture was published.

[Dr Sardonicus]

March 30

On March 30, 1867, U.S. Secretary of State William H. Seward reached agreement with Russia to purchase the territory of Alaska for $7.2 million, a deal ridiculed by critics as "Seward's Folly."

Also called "Seward's Icebox." A lot of folks thought Seward was crazy to buy this worthless land from Russia. But, as someone pointed out to me, "he had his bearings straight."


According to the US State Department's Office of the Historian, Milestones:

Russia offered to sell Alaska to the United States in 1859, believing the United States would off-set the designs of Russia’s greatest rival in the Pacific, Great Britain. The looming U.S. Civil War delayed the sale, but after the war, Secretary of State William Seward quickly took up a renewed Russian offer and on March 30, 1867, agreed to a proposal from Russian Minister in Washington, Edouard de Stoeckl, to purchase Alaska for $7.2 million. The Senate approved the treaty of purchase on April 9; President Andrew Johnson signed the treaty on May 28, and Alaska was formally transferred to the United States on October 18, 1867.

[Dr Sardonicus]

April 2

On this day...

In 1865, Confederate President Jefferson Davis and most of his Cabinet fled the Confederate capital of Richmond, Va., because of advancing Union forces.

And so began the promulgation of "Lost Cause" mythology. Oh, no, the Civil War wasn't about slavery. It was about "States' rights." It was about the "constitutionality of secession." Never mind that, prior to the war, Southern leaders openly called for expansion of Southern holdings to Cuba and other other tropical locales, for the express purpose of acquiring more slaves. Never mind that Confederate VP-to-be Alexander Stephens called white supremacy and slavery the "cornerstone" of the Confederacy.

And to this very day, we hear the same old crapola -- Slavery, Jim Crow, lynching, -- that was a matter of "States' rights." Robert E. Lee was a saint. Slavery was benevolent. And on and on, ad nauseam.

In this day and age, we still see throwbacks to the Confederacy trying to deny "people of color" the right to vote. We hear 150-year-old resentments at the loss of the "peculiar institution," in the cry that removing monuments to traitors from the public square is "denying our common history." Well, I don't see any monuments to Benedict Arnold in the public square, and I don't hear anyone claiming that this is a denial of our common history.

[Dr Sardonicus]

April 4

On this day...

On April 4, 1968, civil-rights leader Martin Luther King Jr., 39, was shot and killed while standing on a balcony of the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tenn.; his slaying was followed by a wave of rioting (Washington, D.C., Baltimore and Chicago were among cities particularly hard hit.)

I lived in Memphis for a while, and can tell you that, although it rarely snows there, winter weather can be pretty miserable. Instead of snow, there is often driving rain and temperatures not far above freezing.

In 1968, Memphis sanitation workers' pay was so low, that even with full time jobs they still qualified for welfare. They were not allowed to take shelter against inclement weather on residents' porches, even if the owners were willing. And so it came to pass, that on February 1, 1968, two sanitation workers, Echol Cole and Robert Walker, had no place to get out of the rain but the back of their truck. The electrical system malfunctioned, and they were crushed to death. Management did not allow coworkers to take time off to go to their funerals. The workers walked out. Some of their picketers wore signs proclaiming

I AM A MAN.

The night before his death, Dr. King gave his Mountaintop speech. In it, he addressed the question of why he was in Memphis, lending his support to the sanitation workers. He used the parable of the Good Samaritan:

Let us develop a kind of dangerous unselfishness. One day a man came to Jesus; and he wanted to raise some questions about some vital matters in life. At points, he wanted to trick Jesus, and show him that he knew a little more than Jesus knew, and through this, throw him off base. Now that question could have easily ended up in a philosophical and theological debate. But Jesus immediately pulled that question from mid-air, and placed it on a dangerous curve between Jerusalem and Jericho. And he talked about a certain man, who fell among thieves. You remember that a Levite and a priest passed by on the other side. They didn't stop to help him. And finally a man of another race came by. He got down from his beast, decided not to be compassionate by proxy. But with him, administered first aid, and helped the man in need. Jesus ended up saying, this was the good man, because he had the capacity to project the "I" into the "thou," and to be concerned about his brother.

Now you know, we use our imagination a great deal to try to determine why the priest and the Levite didn't stop. At times we say they were busy going to church meetings--an ecclesiastical gathering--and they had to get on down to Jerusalem so they wouldn't be late for their meeting. At other times we would speculate that there was a religious law that "One who was engaged in religious ceremonials was not to touch a human body twenty-four hours before the ceremony." And every now and then we begin to wonder whether maybe they were not going down to Jerusalem, or down to Jericho, rather to organize a "Jericho Road Improvement Association." That's a possibility. Maybe they felt that it was better to deal with the problem from the casual root, rather than to get bogged down with an individual effort.

But I'm going to tell you what my imagination tells me. It's possible that these men were afraid. You see, the Jericho road is a dangerous road. I remember when Mrs. King and I were first in Jerusalem. We rented a car and drove from Jerusalem down to Jericho. And as soon as we got on that road, I said to my wife, "I can see why Jesus used this as a setting for his parable." It's a winding, meandering road. It's really conducive for ambushing. You start out in Jerusalem, which is about 1200 miles, or rather 1200 feet above sea level. And by the time you get down to Jericho, fifteen or twenty minutes later, you're about 2200 feet below sea level. That's a dangerous road. In the day of Jesus it came to be known as the "Bloody Pass."

And you know, it's possible that the priest and the Levite looked over that man on the ground and wondered if the robbers were still around. Or it's possible that they felt that the man on the ground was merely faking. And he was acting like he had been robbed and hurt, in order to seize them over there, lure them there for quick and easy seizure. And so the first question that the Levite asked was, "If I stop to help this man, what will happen to me?" But then the Good Samaritan came by. And he reversed the question: "If I do not stop to help this man, what will happen to him?".

That's the question before you tonight. Not, "If I stop to help the sanitation workers, what will happen to all of the hours that I usually spend in my office every day and every week as a pastor?" The question is not, "If I stop to help this man in need, what will happen to me?" "If I do no stop to help the sanitation workers, what will happen to them?" That's the question.

[Dr Sardonicus]

April 6

On this day...

In 1862, the Civil War Battle of Shiloh began in Tennessee as Confederate forces launched a surprise attack against Union troops, who beat back the Confederates the next day.

The Hebrew place name "Shiloh" has various translations, one of which is "Place of peace."

...It was when the northern juggernaut began to roll, and the battle of Shiloh was an attempt to stop it, a desperate attempt to stop it that failed.

Shiloh was the first big battle — the first great bloody battle; First Manassas, or Bull Run as it's sometimes called, was nothing compared to Shiloh. It was fought in early April. The trees were leafed out and the roads were meandering cowpaths. Nobody knew north from south, east from west. They'd never been in combat before, most of them, especially on the southern side. So it was just a disorganized, murderous fistfight, a hundred thousand men slamming away at each other. The generals didn't know their jobs, the soldiers didn't know their jobs. It was just pure determination to stand and fight and not retreat.

The bloodiness of Shiloh was astounding to everyone. Out of 100,000 men, 20,000 were killed, wounded, captured, or missing. Shiloh had the same number of casualties as Waterloo, and yet when it was fought there were another twenty Waterloos to follow; and Grant shortly before Shiloh said 'I consider this war practically over and they're ready to give up', and the day after Shiloh he said 'I saw this was going to have to be a war of conquest if they were going to win'. Shiloh also corrected a southern misconception which had said, “One good southern soldier is worth ten Yankee hirelings." Shiloh did that, and it sobered the nation up something awful with the realization that they had a very bloody affair on their hands. And it called for a huge reassessment of what the war was going to be.

-- The Civil War by Ken Burns

[Dr Sardonicus]

April 7

On this day...

In 1954, President Dwight D. Eisenhower held a news conference in which he spoke of the importance of containing the spread of communism in Indochina, saying, "You have a row of dominoes set up, you knock over the first one, and what will happen to the last one is the certainty that it will go over very quickly." (This became known as the "domino theory," although Eisenhower did not use that term.)

According to Politico, he was already on this track, speaking before the U.S. Governors’ Conference in Seattle on August 4, 1953. Perhaps some will find his straightforward statement of a US interest in the region's natural resources refreshing:

"Now let us assume that we lose Indochina," Eisenhower said. "If Indochina goes, several things happen right away. The Malay Peninsula, that last little bit of land hanging on down there, would be scarcely defensible. The tin and tungsten that we so greatly value from that area would cease coming."