Everytime I read that I am reminded of how little it was liked at the time. Sacred words.
This Day In History
- Thread starter August West
- Start date
If it was from those who actually heard Lincoln give it, his voice was closer to Don Knotts than James Earl Jones. I'm absolutely serious.
December 3
1776 - General George Washington writes to Congress from his headquarters in Trenton, New Jersey, to report that he had transported much of the Continental Army’s stores and baggage across the Delaware River to Pennsylvania.
1967 - 53-year-old Louis Washkansky receives the first human heart transplant at Groote Schuur Hospital in Cape Town, South Africa.
1776 - General George Washington writes to Congress from his headquarters in Trenton, New Jersey, to report that he had transported much of the Continental Army’s stores and baggage across the Delaware River to Pennsylvania.
1967 - 53-year-old Louis Washkansky receives the first human heart transplant at Groote Schuur Hospital in Cape Town, South Africa.
December 5
1933 - The 21st Amendment to the U.S. Constitution is ratified, repealing the 18th Amendment and bringing an end to the era of national prohibition of alcohol in America. (Yay!)
1933 - The 21st Amendment to the U.S. Constitution is ratified, repealing the 18th Amendment and bringing an end to the era of national prohibition of alcohol in America. (Yay!)
Amazingly, still some dry counties!
The point of national prohibition wasn't that there weren't dry counties and parishes in the US. The point was to make it a national law. To do that requires a Constitutional Amendment, as this was arguably not part of the powers of the Federal government. It then required another amendment to repeal. Once the 21st Amendment went into effect, the Federal government no longer had the power to prohibit the sale of alcoholic beverages, but this once again fell on the states, courtesy of the 10th Amendment. Had the 21st Amendment addressed all prohibition against alcoholic beverages, that would be an different matter.
I'll drink to that.
The US is such a crazy quilt, with a great emphasis on local control. This not only gives us wet, dry, and moist towns and counties, but different zoning and building codes every few miles, multiple police agencies, school boards, fire departments, ordinances, yada, yada.
Mostly to our detriment
The reason is in the name: The United States of America. We have come to think of states as part of one nation for so long that the meaning has become lost. But call it by an equally valid title, the United Nations of American, and that helps it snap into focus. The US isn't one nation with fifty provinces; it is one nation made up of fifty smaller nations. That was the whole point of the Articles of Confederation and what became the Constitutional Convention: balancing the individual authority of member nations without becoming a province of an all-powerful central government.
This had the risk of heading to politics. It need not be. Simply read the Articles of Confederation, a little of the history of the US under the Articles of Confederation, The Federalist Papers, and then the US Constitution. All the while keep in mind that the word state was used in the sense of a separate nation and not a province. That gives a solid basis of history. Debating whether this is a good thing or a bad one, now that's politics, and I shall not go there.
December 7, 1941
At 7:55 am, Hawaiian - Aleutian Standard Time, the first Japanese bombers attacked Pearl Harbor. In his speech to Congress, FDR called it a day that would live in infamy. As more WWII vets die, I wonder how long it will be remembered at all.
At 7:55 am, Hawaiian - Aleutian Standard Time, the first Japanese bombers attacked Pearl Harbor. In his speech to Congress, FDR called it a day that would live in infamy. As more WWII vets die, I wonder how long it will be remembered at all.
"A day that will live in infamy."
December 7
1787 - In Dover, Delaware, the U.S. Constitution is unanimously ratified by all 30 delegates to the Delaware Constitutional Convention, making Delaware the first state of the modern United States.
1982 - The first execution by lethal injection takes place at the state penitentiary in Huntsville, Texas. Charles Brooks, Jr., convicted of murdering an auto mechanic, received an intravenous injection of sodium pentathol, the barbiturate that is known as a “truth serum” when administered in lesser doses.
December 11
1936 - After ruling for less than one year, Edward VIII becomes the first English monarch to voluntarily abdicate the throne. He chose to abdicate after the British government, public, and the Church of England condemned his decision to marry the American divorcée Wallis Warfield Simpson.
1941 - On this day, Adolf Hitler declares war on the United States, bringing America, which had been neutral, into the European conflict.
1978 - Half a dozen masked robbers raided the Lufthansa Airlines cargo building at JFK Airport in New York, making off with more than $5 million in cash ($21 million in today's dollars) and almost $1 million in jewelry. To this day, the Lufthansa heist, as it is known, is considered one of the greatest in U.S. history.
1936 - After ruling for less than one year, Edward VIII becomes the first English monarch to voluntarily abdicate the throne. He chose to abdicate after the British government, public, and the Church of England condemned his decision to marry the American divorcée Wallis Warfield Simpson.
1941 - On this day, Adolf Hitler declares war on the United States, bringing America, which had been neutral, into the European conflict.
1978 - Half a dozen masked robbers raided the Lufthansa Airlines cargo building at JFK Airport in New York, making off with more than $5 million in cash ($21 million in today's dollars) and almost $1 million in jewelry. To this day, the Lufthansa heist, as it is known, is considered one of the greatest in U.S. history.
December 12
627 - Byzantine Emperor Heraclius beats Sassanid forces at the Battle of Nineveh during the Byzantine-Sassanid War (602-628). The Byzantine victory later resulted in civil war in Persia and for a period of time restored the (Eastern) Roman Empire to its ancient boundaries in the Middle East.
1901 - Italian physicist and radio pioneer Guglielmo Marconi succeeds in sending the first radio transmission across the Atlantic Ocean, disproving detractors who told him that the curvature of the earth would limit transmission to 200 miles or less. The message–simply the Morse-code signal for the letter “s”–traveled more than 2,000 miles from Poldhu in Cornwall, England, to Newfoundland, Canada.
1913 - Two years after it was stolen from the Louvre Museum in Paris, Leonardo da Vinci’s masterpiece The Mona Lisa is recovered inside Italian waiter Vincenzo Peruggia’s hotel room in Florence. Peruggia had previously worked at the Louvre and had participated in the heist with a group of accomplices dressed as Louvre janitors on the morning of August 21, 1911.
1925 - The last Qajar Shah of Iran deposed and Rezā Shāh Pahlavi takes over.
627 - Byzantine Emperor Heraclius beats Sassanid forces at the Battle of Nineveh during the Byzantine-Sassanid War (602-628). The Byzantine victory later resulted in civil war in Persia and for a period of time restored the (Eastern) Roman Empire to its ancient boundaries in the Middle East.
1901 - Italian physicist and radio pioneer Guglielmo Marconi succeeds in sending the first radio transmission across the Atlantic Ocean, disproving detractors who told him that the curvature of the earth would limit transmission to 200 miles or less. The message–simply the Morse-code signal for the letter “s”–traveled more than 2,000 miles from Poldhu in Cornwall, England, to Newfoundland, Canada.
1913 - Two years after it was stolen from the Louvre Museum in Paris, Leonardo da Vinci’s masterpiece The Mona Lisa is recovered inside Italian waiter Vincenzo Peruggia’s hotel room in Florence. Peruggia had previously worked at the Louvre and had participated in the heist with a group of accomplices dressed as Louvre janitors on the morning of August 21, 1911.
1925 - The last Qajar Shah of Iran deposed and Rezā Shāh Pahlavi takes over.
December 13
1577 - English seaman Francis Drake sets out from Plymouth, England, with five ships and 164 men on a mission to raid Spanish holdings on the Pacific coast of the New World and explore the Pacific Ocean. Three years later, Drake’s return to Plymouth marked the first circumnavigation of the earth by a British explorer.
1642 - Dutch navigator Abel Tasman becomes the first European explorer to sight the South Pacific island group now known as New Zealand. In his sole attempt to land, several of Tasman’s crew were killed by warriors from a South Island tribe, who interpreted the Europeans’ exchange of trumpet signals as a prelude to battle. A few weeks earlier, Tasman had discovered Tasmania, off the southeast coast of Australia.
1937 - During the Sino-Japanese War, Nanking, the capital of China, falls to Japanese forces, and the Chinese government flees to Hankow, further inland along the Yangtze River. To break the spirit of Chinese resistance, Japanese General Matsui Iwane ordered that the city of Nanking be destroyed. Much of the city was burned, and Japanese troops launched a campaign of atrocities against civilians. In what became known as the “Rape of Nanking,” the Japanese butchered an estimated 150,000 male “war prisoners,” massacred an additional 50,000 male civilians, and raped at least 20,000 women and girls of all ages, many of whom were mutilated or killed in the process.
1577 - English seaman Francis Drake sets out from Plymouth, England, with five ships and 164 men on a mission to raid Spanish holdings on the Pacific coast of the New World and explore the Pacific Ocean. Three years later, Drake’s return to Plymouth marked the first circumnavigation of the earth by a British explorer.
1642 - Dutch navigator Abel Tasman becomes the first European explorer to sight the South Pacific island group now known as New Zealand. In his sole attempt to land, several of Tasman’s crew were killed by warriors from a South Island tribe, who interpreted the Europeans’ exchange of trumpet signals as a prelude to battle. A few weeks earlier, Tasman had discovered Tasmania, off the southeast coast of Australia.
1937 - During the Sino-Japanese War, Nanking, the capital of China, falls to Japanese forces, and the Chinese government flees to Hankow, further inland along the Yangtze River. To break the spirit of Chinese resistance, Japanese General Matsui Iwane ordered that the city of Nanking be destroyed. Much of the city was burned, and Japanese troops launched a campaign of atrocities against civilians. In what became known as the “Rape of Nanking,” the Japanese butchered an estimated 150,000 male “war prisoners,” massacred an additional 50,000 male civilians, and raped at least 20,000 women and girls of all ages, many of whom were mutilated or killed in the process.
December 14 2012
Last edited:
As someone who had grandkids in grade school at the time, that day was a total gut punch. I will stop talking now before I say something I shouldn't.December 14 2012
December 17
1777 - The French foreign minister, Charles Gravier, count of Vergennes, officially acknowledges the United States as an independent nation.
1903 - Near Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, Orville and Wilbur Wright make the first successful flight in history of a self-propelled, heavier-than-air aircraft. Orville piloted the gasoline-powered, propeller-driven biplane, which stayed aloft for 12 seconds and covered 120 feet on its inaugural flight.
1991 - After a long meeting between Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev and President of the Russian Federation Boris Yeltsin, a spokesman for the latter announces that the Soviet Union will officially cease to exist on or before New Year’s Eve. Yeltsin declared that, “There will be no more red flag.”
1777 - The French foreign minister, Charles Gravier, count of Vergennes, officially acknowledges the United States as an independent nation.
1903 - Near Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, Orville and Wilbur Wright make the first successful flight in history of a self-propelled, heavier-than-air aircraft. Orville piloted the gasoline-powered, propeller-driven biplane, which stayed aloft for 12 seconds and covered 120 feet on its inaugural flight.
1991 - After a long meeting between Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev and President of the Russian Federation Boris Yeltsin, a spokesman for the latter announces that the Soviet Union will officially cease to exist on or before New Year’s Eve. Yeltsin declared that, “There will be no more red flag.”
December 18
1620 - The British ship Mayflower docked at modern-day Plymouth, Massachusetts, and its passengers prepared to begin their new settlement, Plymouth Colony.
1865 - Following its ratification by the requisite three-quarters of the states earlier in the month, the 13th Amendment is formally adopted into the U.S. Constitution, ensuring that “neither slavery nor involuntary servitude… shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.”
1916 - The Battle of Verdun, the longest engagement of World War I, ends on this day after ten months and close to a million total casualties suffered by German and French troops.
1620 - The British ship Mayflower docked at modern-day Plymouth, Massachusetts, and its passengers prepared to begin their new settlement, Plymouth Colony.
1865 - Following its ratification by the requisite three-quarters of the states earlier in the month, the 13th Amendment is formally adopted into the U.S. Constitution, ensuring that “neither slavery nor involuntary servitude… shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.”
1916 - The Battle of Verdun, the longest engagement of World War I, ends on this day after ten months and close to a million total casualties suffered by German and French troops.
Dec 18, 1918- my grandfather was born. He was named Pershing after Blackjack himself. He went by Perk. He was the rock our family was raised on. He seemed like a hard ***, but had a heart of gold. As a Methodist minister, I don’t know how many times he got a call from a parishioner at 2 AM because a family member was in the hospital. He was always there for them. He had his faults, but was a strong, caring man. He died in 1986 (five years after my mother), but his stoicism has been the model I have attempted and to live up to.
