from historychannel.com
This Day In History, February, 15....
General Interest
~1898 : The Maine explodes~
A massive explosion of unknown origin sinks the battleship USS Maine
in Cuba's Havana harbor, killing 260 of the fewer than 400 American
crew members aboard.
One of the first American battleships, the Maine weighed more than
6,000 tons and was built at a cost of more than $2 million. Ostensibly
on a friendly visit, the Maine had been sent to Cuba to protect the
interests of Americans there after a rebellion against Spanish rule
broke out in Havana in January.
An official U.S. Naval Court of Inquiry ruled in March that the ship
was blown up by a mine, without directly placing the blame on Spain.
Much of Congress and a majority of the American public expressed
little doubt that Spain was responsible and called for a declaration
of war.
Subsequent diplomatic failures to resolve the Maine matter, coupled
with United States indignation over Spain's brutal suppression of the
Cuban rebellion and continued losses to American investment, led to
the outbreak of the Spanish-American War in April 1898.
Within three months, the United States had decisively defeated Spanish
forces on land and sea, and in August an armistice halted the
fighting. On December 12, 1898, the Treaty of Paris was signed between
the United States and Spain, officially ending the Spanish-American
War and granting the United States its first overseas empire with the
ceding of such former Spanish possessions as Puerto Rico, Guam, and
the Philippines.
In 1976, a team of American naval investigators concluded that the
Maine explosion was likely caused by a fire that ignited its
ammunition stocks, not by a Spanish mine or act of sabotage.
~1942 : Japan celebrates major victory in the Pacific~
In one of the greatest defeats in British military history, Britain's supposedly impregnable Singapore fortress surrenders to Japanese forces after a weeklong siege. More than 60,000 British, Australian, and Indian soldiers were taken prisoner, joining 70,000 other Allied soldiers captured during Britain's disastrous defense of the Malay Peninsula.
On December 8, 1941--the day after Japan bombed Pearl Harbor--the Japanese moved against British-controlled Malay, steamrollering across Thailand and landing in northern Malay. The Japanese made rapid advances against British positions, capturing British airfields and gaining air superiority. British General A.E. Percival was reluctant to leave Malay's roads and thus was outflanked again and again by the Japanese, who demonstrated an innovative grasp of the logistics of jungle warfare. The Allies could do little more than delay the Japanese and continued to retreat south.
By January, the Allied force was outnumbered and held just the lower half of the peninsula. General Tomoyuki Yamashita's 25th Army continued to push forward, and on January 31 the Allies were forced to retreat across the causeway over the Johor Strait to the great British naval base on the island of Singapore, located on the southern tip of the peninsula. The British dynamited the causeway behind them but failed to entirely destroy the bridge.
Singapore, with its big defensive guns, was considered invulnerable to attack. However, the guns, which used armor-piercing shells and the flat trajectories necessary to decimate an enemy fleet, were not designed to defend against a land attack on the unfortified northern end of the island.
On February 5, Yamashita brought up heavy siege guns to the tip of the peninsula and began bombarding Singapore. On February 8, thousands of Japanese troops began streaming across the narrow waterway and established several bridgeheads. Japanese engineers quickly repaired the causeway, and troops, tanks, and artillery began pouring on to Singapore. The Japanese pushed forward to Singapore City, capturing key British positions and splitting the Allied defenders into isolated groups.
On February 15, Percival--lacking a water supply and nearly out of food and ammunition--agreed to surrender. With the loss of Singapore, the British lost control of a highly strategic waterway and opened the Indian Ocean to Japanese invasion. British Prime Minister Winston Churchill called it the "worst disaster and largest capitulation in British history." Many thousands of the 130,000 Allied troops captured died in Japanese captivity.
Later in the war, Lord Louis Mountbatten, the supreme Allied commander in Southeast Asia, made plans for the liberation of the Malay Peninsula, but Japan surrendered before they could be carried out.
~1965 : Canada adopts maple leaf flag~
In accordance with a formal proclamation by Queen Elizabeth II of England, a new Canadian national flag is raised above Parliament Hill in Ottawa, the capital of Canada.
Beginning in 1610, Lower Canada, a new British colony, flew Great Britain's Union Jack, or Royal Union Flag. In 1763, as a result of the French and Indian Wars, France lost its sizable colonial possessions in Canada, and the Union Jack flew all across the wide territory of Canada. In 1867, the Dominion of Canada was established as a self-governing federation within the British Empire, and three years later a new flag, the Canadian Red Ensign, was adopted. The Red Ensign was a solid red flag with the Union Jack occupying the upper-left corner and a crest situated in the right portion of the flag.
The search for a new national flag that would better represent an independent Canada began in earnest in 1925 when a committee of the Privy Council began to investigate possible designs. Later, in 1946, a select parliamentary committee was appointed with a similar mandate and examined more than 2,600 submissions. Agreement on a new design was not reached, and it was not until the 1960s, with the centennial of Canadian self-rule approaching, that the Canadian Parliament intensified its efforts to choose a new flag.
In December 1964, Parliament voted to adopt a new design. Canada's national flag was to be red and white, the official colors of Canada as decided by King George V of Britain in 1921, with a stylized 11-point red maple leaf in its center. Queen Elizabeth II proclaimed February 15, 1965, as the day on which the new flag would be raised over Parliament Hill and adopted by all Canadians.
Today, Canada's red maple leaf flag is one of the most recognizable national flags in the world.
**************************
American Revolution
~1776 : Nova Scotia governor sends word of potential American invasion~
From Halifax, Canada, on this day in 1776, Governor Francis Legge reports to British headquarters in London that traitorous elements in Cumberland, Nova Scotia, have contacted American General George Washington. Washington received a letter from the Nova Scotians, in which they expressed their sympathy for the American cause, on February 8. They invited General Washington and the Continental Army to invade Nova Scotia at his earliest possible convenience.
Legge found himself in a precarious position. He had alienated many of his constituents through a zealous anti-corruption probe. Now he reported that Nova Scotia had spawned a nascent revolutionary movement. Some of those whom Legge accused of corruption in his drive to clean up colonial politics had allies in the imperial capitol who were insisting that he explain himself in person.
Fortunately for Legge, little notice was taken of his subjects’ letter to Washington. The Continental Congress decided on February 16 to allow General Washington to investigate the “expediency and practicability of an Expedition to Nova Scotia,” but cautioned that Washington should “by no means accept the plan proposed… for the destruction of the Town of Halifax.” After Benedict Arnold retreated in May 1776 from his six-month long siege of Quebec, which included the disastrous attack Quebec on December 31, 1775, the Continental Army gave up its hope that Canada would join the rebellion. Still, Governor Legge received orders to return to London in February 1776 and departed Halifax in May.
Although Canada ceased to be a direct military target, it continued to play an important role as a haven for Loyalists and slaves fleeing from Patriots less concerned with other peoples’ liberties than their own. On December 18, 1778, a force of New Jersey and New York Loyalists, The King’s Orange Rangers, traveled to Liverpool, Nova Scotia, to help in its defense against Patriot privateers, privately owned ships that used pirate tactics to disrupt British shipping. The Rangers remained until August 23, 1783. Nova Scotia ultimately attracted 30,000 American Loyalists, one-tenth of which were fleeing African slaves. Of the slaves, one third eventually resettled in Sierra Leone. White Loyalists moved to Canada to flee the abuse of Patriot neighbors, African slaves came to British Canada in order to gain freedom from their Patriot owners.
.......continued in next post
Full Version: February 15
This Day In History, February 15... continued
Automotive
~1902 : Olds runs ads~
Oldsmobile ran its first national automobile advertisement in the Saturday Evening Post. Ransom Olds was no stranger to innovations in the field of publicity. A year earlier, Olds had sent one of his assistants, Roy Chapin, on a voyage from Detroit to New York in a 1901 Olds Runabout. In spite of the absence of proper roads, gas stations, or repair garages, nine days and 800 miles later, Chapin arrived at New York's Waldorf-Astoria Hotel unscathed. Newspaper accounts of the journey boosted publicity for the Runabout. In one year, Olds' company increased its sales of Runabouts from 425 to 2,500. With the help of newspaper advertisements annual sales would jump another 100 percent to 5,000 cars by 1904.
~1967 : Founder of American auto industry dies~
J. Frank Duryea, founder of the Duryea Motor Wagon Company with his brother Charles, died in Old Saybrook, Conneticut, at age 97. Seventy-four years earlier in the month of February, the Duryea brothers manufactured the first of 13 Duryea Motor Wagons, unofficially giving birth to the auto production line and the American automobile industry.
Civil War
~1835 : Alexander Stewart Webb born~
Union General Alexander Stewart Webb is born in New York City.
Webb's grandfather had fought at Bunker Hill during the American Revolution, and his father, James Watson Webb, was a prominent newspaper editor and diplomat who served as minister to Brazil during the Civil War. The younger Webb, known as Andy to his family, attended West Point and graduated in 1855, 13th in a class of 34. He taught mathematics at West Point and in Florida before the Civil War.
When the war broke out, Webb was assigned to defend Ft. Pickens, Florida, but was soon called to Washington and placed in the artillery in the army guarding the capital. He fought at the First Battle of Bull Run in July 1861 as assistant to the chief of artillery, Major William Barry. A year later, Webb was in charge of the artillery at the Battle of Malvern Hill at the end of the Seven Days battles. In that engagement, Union cannon devastated attacking Confederate infantry, and Webb was commended for leading the artillery line. General Daniel Butterfield later said that Webb's leadership saved the Union army from destruction.
Despite his numerous achievements, Webb was constantly passed over for promotion due to politics within the Army of the Potomac. He was closely associated with General George McClellan, and McClellan's removal in late 1862 left Webb stalled at colonel. Even some of his West Point students became generals before Webb, but the promotion finally came in June 1863. The new brigadier general played a key role at the Battle of Gettysburg just a few weeks later. On July 3, Webb commanded troops defending the center of the Union line on Cemetery Ridge. He rallied his troops as they received the brunt of Pickett's Charge, and his actions earned him the Congressional Medal of Honor.
Webb fought with the Army of the Potomac during the great campaign in the spring of 1864, and he was wounded in the head at the Bloody Angle, the most vicious fighting in the Battle of Spotsylvania. He was out of action for nearly eight months. When he returned, he became chief of staff for army commander General George Meade. After the war, Webb taught at West Point, served as president of the College of the City of New York, and wrote extensively about the war. He died in Riverdale, New York, in 1911. A statue of Webb adorns the Gettysburg battlefield near the spot where he earned the Medal of Honor.
Cold War
~1950 : USSR and PRC sign mutual defense treaty~
The Soviet Union and the People's Republic of China, the two largest communist nations in the world, announce the signing of a mutual defense and assistance treaty.
The negotiations for the treaty were conducted in Moscow between PRC leaders Mao Zedong and Zhou En-lai, and Soviet Premier Joseph Stalin and Foreign Minister Andrei Vishinsky. The treaty's terms called for the Soviets to provide a $300 million credit to the PRC. It also mandated that the Soviet Union return to the Chinese the control of a major railroad and the cities of Port Arthur and Dairen in Manchuria, all of which had been seized by Russian forces near the end of World War II. The mutual defense section of the agreement primarily concerned any future aggression by Japan and "any other state directly or indirectly associated" with Japan. Zhou En-lai proudly declared that the linking of the two communist nations created a force that was "impossible to defeat."
U.S. commentators viewed the treaty as proof positive that communism was a monolithic movement, being directed primarily from the Kremlin in Moscow. An article in the New York Times referred to the PRC as a Soviet "satellite." As events made clear, however, the treaty was not exactly a concrete bond between communist countries. By the late-1950s, fissures were already beginning to appear in the Soviet-PRC alliance. Publicly, the Chinese charged that the Soviets were compromising the principles of Marxism-Leninism by adopting an attitude of "peaceful coexistence" with the capitalist nations of the West. By the early-1960s, Mao Zedong was openly declaring that the Soviet Union was actually allying itself with the United States against the Chinese revolution.
....continued in next post.
Automotive
~1902 : Olds runs ads~
Oldsmobile ran its first national automobile advertisement in the Saturday Evening Post. Ransom Olds was no stranger to innovations in the field of publicity. A year earlier, Olds had sent one of his assistants, Roy Chapin, on a voyage from Detroit to New York in a 1901 Olds Runabout. In spite of the absence of proper roads, gas stations, or repair garages, nine days and 800 miles later, Chapin arrived at New York's Waldorf-Astoria Hotel unscathed. Newspaper accounts of the journey boosted publicity for the Runabout. In one year, Olds' company increased its sales of Runabouts from 425 to 2,500. With the help of newspaper advertisements annual sales would jump another 100 percent to 5,000 cars by 1904.
~1967 : Founder of American auto industry dies~
J. Frank Duryea, founder of the Duryea Motor Wagon Company with his brother Charles, died in Old Saybrook, Conneticut, at age 97. Seventy-four years earlier in the month of February, the Duryea brothers manufactured the first of 13 Duryea Motor Wagons, unofficially giving birth to the auto production line and the American automobile industry.
Civil War
~1835 : Alexander Stewart Webb born~
Union General Alexander Stewart Webb is born in New York City.
Webb's grandfather had fought at Bunker Hill during the American Revolution, and his father, James Watson Webb, was a prominent newspaper editor and diplomat who served as minister to Brazil during the Civil War. The younger Webb, known as Andy to his family, attended West Point and graduated in 1855, 13th in a class of 34. He taught mathematics at West Point and in Florida before the Civil War.
When the war broke out, Webb was assigned to defend Ft. Pickens, Florida, but was soon called to Washington and placed in the artillery in the army guarding the capital. He fought at the First Battle of Bull Run in July 1861 as assistant to the chief of artillery, Major William Barry. A year later, Webb was in charge of the artillery at the Battle of Malvern Hill at the end of the Seven Days battles. In that engagement, Union cannon devastated attacking Confederate infantry, and Webb was commended for leading the artillery line. General Daniel Butterfield later said that Webb's leadership saved the Union army from destruction.
Despite his numerous achievements, Webb was constantly passed over for promotion due to politics within the Army of the Potomac. He was closely associated with General George McClellan, and McClellan's removal in late 1862 left Webb stalled at colonel. Even some of his West Point students became generals before Webb, but the promotion finally came in June 1863. The new brigadier general played a key role at the Battle of Gettysburg just a few weeks later. On July 3, Webb commanded troops defending the center of the Union line on Cemetery Ridge. He rallied his troops as they received the brunt of Pickett's Charge, and his actions earned him the Congressional Medal of Honor.
Webb fought with the Army of the Potomac during the great campaign in the spring of 1864, and he was wounded in the head at the Bloody Angle, the most vicious fighting in the Battle of Spotsylvania. He was out of action for nearly eight months. When he returned, he became chief of staff for army commander General George Meade. After the war, Webb taught at West Point, served as president of the College of the City of New York, and wrote extensively about the war. He died in Riverdale, New York, in 1911. A statue of Webb adorns the Gettysburg battlefield near the spot where he earned the Medal of Honor.
Cold War
~1950 : USSR and PRC sign mutual defense treaty~
The Soviet Union and the People's Republic of China, the two largest communist nations in the world, announce the signing of a mutual defense and assistance treaty.
The negotiations for the treaty were conducted in Moscow between PRC leaders Mao Zedong and Zhou En-lai, and Soviet Premier Joseph Stalin and Foreign Minister Andrei Vishinsky. The treaty's terms called for the Soviets to provide a $300 million credit to the PRC. It also mandated that the Soviet Union return to the Chinese the control of a major railroad and the cities of Port Arthur and Dairen in Manchuria, all of which had been seized by Russian forces near the end of World War II. The mutual defense section of the agreement primarily concerned any future aggression by Japan and "any other state directly or indirectly associated" with Japan. Zhou En-lai proudly declared that the linking of the two communist nations created a force that was "impossible to defeat."
U.S. commentators viewed the treaty as proof positive that communism was a monolithic movement, being directed primarily from the Kremlin in Moscow. An article in the New York Times referred to the PRC as a Soviet "satellite." As events made clear, however, the treaty was not exactly a concrete bond between communist countries. By the late-1950s, fissures were already beginning to appear in the Soviet-PRC alliance. Publicly, the Chinese charged that the Soviets were compromising the principles of Marxism-Leninism by adopting an attitude of "peaceful coexistence" with the capitalist nations of the West. By the early-1960s, Mao Zedong was openly declaring that the Soviet Union was actually allying itself with the United States against the Chinese revolution.
....continued in next post.
This Day In History, February 15... continued
Crime
~1933 : The death penalty--then and now~
Giuseppe Zangara shoots Anton Cermak, the mayor of Chicago, in Miami, Florida. Zangara's shots missed President-elect Franklin Roosevelt, who was with Cermak at the time. Cermak was seriously wounded and died on March 6.
Immediately after Mayor Cermak died from the gunshot wounds, Zangara was indicted and arraigned for murder. He pled guilty and died in the electric chair on March 20, only two weeks after Cermak died. Today such a swift outcome would be practically unheard of, particularly where the death penalty is concerned.
Changes began in the 1950s. In the most notable case, Caryl Chessman spent almost 12 years on California's death row before going to the gas chamber in 1960 for kidnapping. His appeals kept him alive while he wrote three published books and caught the attention of Hollywood and the international community, who lobbied publicly on his behalf. The Chessman battle did more than any other case to politicize the death penalty; some credit it with bringing Ronald Reagan (who fiercely opposed commuting Chessman's sentence) to office as California's governor. Chessman was one of the last Americans to be executed for committing a crime other than murder.
Such cases have become commonplace in modern times. Jerry Joe Bird met his demise through a lethal injection in Texas in 1991, after 17 years on death row. In 1999, two inmates who had been on death row for 20 years appealed to the Supreme Court that the long delay itself was cruel and unusual punishment. The Court declined to hear their appeal, ruling that the prisoners had caused the delay themselves.
Disaster
~1996 : Oil tanker runs aground near Wales
On this day in 1996, a supertanker, the Sea Empress, runs aground near Wales, spilling 70,000 tons of crude oil. The oil spill did not take any human lives, but severely damaged several bird sanctuaries.
The Pembrokeshire coast of South Wales is an area teeming with wildlife, particularly seals and seabirds such as shelducks, teals and curlews. It is also an area often traveled by oil tankers carrying oil from North Sea drilling operations. On the evening of Thursday, February 15, at 8 p.m., the Sea Empress, a 1,300-foot, 147,000-ton tanker was traveling to Milford Haven on the Welsh coast through poor weather conditions. The ship, registered in Liberia, was carrying 128,000 tons of crude oil for Texaco.
The Sea Empress slammed into some underwater rocks and ran aground. The hull was pierced, causing oil to leak from the ship. The 28-member Russian crew worked feverishly to re-float the tanker, while attempting to move the oil to undamaged holding areas. Despite the quick response, the foul weather reduced the effectiveness of these measures. The Sea Empress was pushed aground a second time when tow lines from a towboat snapped.
Eventually the crew was pulled off the ship by Royal Air Force helicopters. High winds prevented most salvage operations, so the only measure officials could take was to drop detergent and dispersal chemicals on the growing oil spill. Approximately 70,000 tons of oil spilled from the tanker, causing a 12-mile-long oil slick. Nearby beaches were covered with the slimy oil, resulting in the deaths of thousands of seabirds.
The bird sanctuaries on nearby Skomer and Skokholm islands suffered severe damage that was still being repaired 10 years later. Nearly a week after the accident, the Sea Empress was finally pulled in to port.
Old West
~1812 : Wilson Hunt arrives at Astoria, Oregon~
Having departed St. Louis more than two years earlier, Wilson Hunt and his party stumble into the fur-trading post of Astoria, Oregon.
Later romanticized as the archetypal frontier hero in Washington Irving's novel Astoria, which chronicled the early Far West fur trade, Wilson Hunt was actually a reluctant mountain man. Born in Asbury, New Jersey, in 1783, Hunt was interested in making money, not exploring vast reaches of unknown wilderness. Hunt recognized that the West offered untapped potential wealth for the crafty merchant, and in 1804 he moved to St. Louis where he opened a mercantile establishment. There he caught the eye of the German immigrant John Jacob Astor, who was looking for ambitious young merchants to help launch an American fur-trading operation on the Pacific Coast.
Like Astor, Hunt realized there was big money to be made in the western fur trade. When Astor asked him to lead an overland expedition to the mouth of the Columbia River to establish a fur-trading post, he agreed despite his lack of experience in wilderness travel. With a small party of other Astor employees, Hunt departed St. Louis on October 21, 1810, and headed up the Missouri along the route blazed by Lewis and Clark five years earlier.
Historians have often criticized Hunt's leadership of the overland voyage. The inexperienced Hunt certainly made a number of blunders, such as losing the party's horses while attempting to cross the treacherous Snake River. Yet, Washington Irving and others have suggested that Hunt made the best of difficult circumstances, and he was a cool and competent leader. At the very least, Hunt deserves credit for blazing a route between the Snake River and Columbia River that eventually became a part of the Oregon Trail.
On this day in 1812, Hunt and his party finally reached the newly founded town of Astoria at the mouth of the Columbia River, about 60 miles northwest of modern-day Portland. An ocean-going party of Astor employees had arrived there nearly a year before and constructed the fur-trading post. Hunt remained at the post until 1814, when it was sold to the British, who had occupied the territory since the War of 1812.
Giving up the fur trade, Hunt returned to St. Louis, where he prospered in business and real estate and eventually won the job of city postmaster. The remainder of Hunt's life was marked by none of the excitement he endured during his epic transcontinental journey, and the reluctant mountain man apparently preferred it that way.
...continued in next post.
Crime
~1933 : The death penalty--then and now~
Giuseppe Zangara shoots Anton Cermak, the mayor of Chicago, in Miami, Florida. Zangara's shots missed President-elect Franklin Roosevelt, who was with Cermak at the time. Cermak was seriously wounded and died on March 6.
Immediately after Mayor Cermak died from the gunshot wounds, Zangara was indicted and arraigned for murder. He pled guilty and died in the electric chair on March 20, only two weeks after Cermak died. Today such a swift outcome would be practically unheard of, particularly where the death penalty is concerned.
Changes began in the 1950s. In the most notable case, Caryl Chessman spent almost 12 years on California's death row before going to the gas chamber in 1960 for kidnapping. His appeals kept him alive while he wrote three published books and caught the attention of Hollywood and the international community, who lobbied publicly on his behalf. The Chessman battle did more than any other case to politicize the death penalty; some credit it with bringing Ronald Reagan (who fiercely opposed commuting Chessman's sentence) to office as California's governor. Chessman was one of the last Americans to be executed for committing a crime other than murder.
Such cases have become commonplace in modern times. Jerry Joe Bird met his demise through a lethal injection in Texas in 1991, after 17 years on death row. In 1999, two inmates who had been on death row for 20 years appealed to the Supreme Court that the long delay itself was cruel and unusual punishment. The Court declined to hear their appeal, ruling that the prisoners had caused the delay themselves.
Disaster
~1996 : Oil tanker runs aground near Wales
On this day in 1996, a supertanker, the Sea Empress, runs aground near Wales, spilling 70,000 tons of crude oil. The oil spill did not take any human lives, but severely damaged several bird sanctuaries.
The Pembrokeshire coast of South Wales is an area teeming with wildlife, particularly seals and seabirds such as shelducks, teals and curlews. It is also an area often traveled by oil tankers carrying oil from North Sea drilling operations. On the evening of Thursday, February 15, at 8 p.m., the Sea Empress, a 1,300-foot, 147,000-ton tanker was traveling to Milford Haven on the Welsh coast through poor weather conditions. The ship, registered in Liberia, was carrying 128,000 tons of crude oil for Texaco.
The Sea Empress slammed into some underwater rocks and ran aground. The hull was pierced, causing oil to leak from the ship. The 28-member Russian crew worked feverishly to re-float the tanker, while attempting to move the oil to undamaged holding areas. Despite the quick response, the foul weather reduced the effectiveness of these measures. The Sea Empress was pushed aground a second time when tow lines from a towboat snapped.
Eventually the crew was pulled off the ship by Royal Air Force helicopters. High winds prevented most salvage operations, so the only measure officials could take was to drop detergent and dispersal chemicals on the growing oil spill. Approximately 70,000 tons of oil spilled from the tanker, causing a 12-mile-long oil slick. Nearby beaches were covered with the slimy oil, resulting in the deaths of thousands of seabirds.
The bird sanctuaries on nearby Skomer and Skokholm islands suffered severe damage that was still being repaired 10 years later. Nearly a week after the accident, the Sea Empress was finally pulled in to port.
Old West
~1812 : Wilson Hunt arrives at Astoria, Oregon~
Having departed St. Louis more than two years earlier, Wilson Hunt and his party stumble into the fur-trading post of Astoria, Oregon.
Later romanticized as the archetypal frontier hero in Washington Irving's novel Astoria, which chronicled the early Far West fur trade, Wilson Hunt was actually a reluctant mountain man. Born in Asbury, New Jersey, in 1783, Hunt was interested in making money, not exploring vast reaches of unknown wilderness. Hunt recognized that the West offered untapped potential wealth for the crafty merchant, and in 1804 he moved to St. Louis where he opened a mercantile establishment. There he caught the eye of the German immigrant John Jacob Astor, who was looking for ambitious young merchants to help launch an American fur-trading operation on the Pacific Coast.
Like Astor, Hunt realized there was big money to be made in the western fur trade. When Astor asked him to lead an overland expedition to the mouth of the Columbia River to establish a fur-trading post, he agreed despite his lack of experience in wilderness travel. With a small party of other Astor employees, Hunt departed St. Louis on October 21, 1810, and headed up the Missouri along the route blazed by Lewis and Clark five years earlier.
Historians have often criticized Hunt's leadership of the overland voyage. The inexperienced Hunt certainly made a number of blunders, such as losing the party's horses while attempting to cross the treacherous Snake River. Yet, Washington Irving and others have suggested that Hunt made the best of difficult circumstances, and he was a cool and competent leader. At the very least, Hunt deserves credit for blazing a route between the Snake River and Columbia River that eventually became a part of the Oregon Trail.
On this day in 1812, Hunt and his party finally reached the newly founded town of Astoria at the mouth of the Columbia River, about 60 miles northwest of modern-day Portland. An ocean-going party of Astor employees had arrived there nearly a year before and constructed the fur-trading post. Hunt remained at the post until 1814, when it was sold to the British, who had occupied the territory since the War of 1812.
Giving up the fur trade, Hunt returned to St. Louis, where he prospered in business and real estate and eventually won the job of city postmaster. The remainder of Hunt's life was marked by none of the excitement he endured during his epic transcontinental journey, and the reluctant mountain man apparently preferred it that way.
...continued in next post.
This Day In History, February 15... continued
Presidential
~1933 : FDR escapes assassination in Miami~
On this day in 1933, a deranged, unemployed brick layer named Giuseppe Zangara shouts “Too many people are starving!” and fires a gun at America’s president-elect, Franklin D. Roosevelt.
Roosevelt had just delivered a speech in Miami’s Bayfront Park from the back seat of his open touring car when Zangara opened fire with six rounds. Five people were hit. The president escaped injury but the mayor of Chicago, Anton Cermak, who was also in attendance, received a mortal stomach wound in the attack.
Several men tackled the assailant and might have beaten him to death if Roosevelt had not intervened, telling the crowd to leave justice to the authorities. Zangara later claimed “I don’t hate Mr. Roosevelt personally…I hate all officials and anyone who is rich.” He also told the FBI that chronic stomach pain led to his action: “Since my stomach hurt I want to make even with the capitalists by kill the president. My stomach hurt long time [sic].”
Zangara’s extreme action reflected the anger and frustration felt among many working Americans during the Great Depression. At the time of the shooting, Roosevelt was still only the president-elect and had yet to be sworn in. His policies remained untested, but reports of Roosevelt’s composure during the assassination attempt filled the following day’s newspapers and did much to enforce Roosevelt’s public image as a strong leader.
Unsubstantiated reports later claimed that Zangara’s real target had been Cermak and hinted at Zangara’s connection to organized crime in Chicago. Zangara was initially tried for attempted murder and sentenced to 80 years in prison, but when Mayor Cermak later died of his wounds, Zangara was retried and sentenced to death. Zangara died on the electric chair on March 5, 1933.
vietnam War
~1966 : DeGaulle offers to help end Vietnam War~
In response to a letter from Ho Chi Minh asking that French President Charles De Gaulle use his influence to "prevent perfidious new maneuvers" by the United States in Southeast Asia, De Gaulle states that France is willing to do all that it could to end the war. As outlined by De Gaulle, the French believed that the Geneva agreements should be enforced, that Vietnam's independence should be "guaranteed by the nonintervention of any outside powers," and that the Vietnamese government should pursue a "policy of strict neutrality." President Lyndon Johnson saw De Gaulle's proposal as part of a continuing effort by the French leader to challenge U.S. leadership in Southeast Asia as well as in Europe. Seeing the American commitment in Vietnam as part of a larger global issue of American credibility, Johnson believed that the United States could not afford to abandon its South Vietnamese ally and rejected De Gaulle's proposal without consideration.
~1970 : Chicago Eight defense attorneys sentenced~
As the jury continues to deliberate in the trial of the Chicago Eight, defense attorneys William Kunstler and Leonard Weinglass and three of the defendants are sentenced to prison for contempt of court.
The trial for eight antiwar activists charged with the responsibility for the violent demonstrations at the August 1968 Democratic National Convention took place in Chicago. The defendants included David Dellinger of the National Mobilization Committee (NMC); Rennie Davis and Thomas Hayden of the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS); Abbie Hoffman and Jerry Rubin, founders of the Youth International Party ("Yippies"); Bobby Seale of the Black Panthers; and two lesser known activists, Lee Weiner and John Froines.
They were charged with conspiracy to cross state lines with intent to incite a riot. Attorneys William Kunstler and Leonard Weinglass represented all but Seale. The trial, presided over by Judge Julius Hoffman, turned into a circus as the defendants and their attorneys used the court as a platform to attack Nixon, the war, racism, and oppression. Their tactics were so disruptive that at one point, Judge Hoffman ordered Seale gagged and strapped to his chair--Seale's disruptive behavior eventually caused the judge to try him separately.
By the time the trial ended in February 1970, Judge Hoffman had found all the defendants and their attorneys guilty of 175 counts of contempt of court and sentenced them to terms between two to four years. Although declaring the defendants not guilty of conspiracy, the jury found all but Froines and Weiner guilty of intent to riot. The others were each sentenced to five years and fined $5,000. None served time because a 1972 Court of Appeals decision overturned the criminal convictions; eventually, most of the contempt charges were also dropped.
...continued in next post.
Presidential
~1933 : FDR escapes assassination in Miami~
On this day in 1933, a deranged, unemployed brick layer named Giuseppe Zangara shouts “Too many people are starving!” and fires a gun at America’s president-elect, Franklin D. Roosevelt.
Roosevelt had just delivered a speech in Miami’s Bayfront Park from the back seat of his open touring car when Zangara opened fire with six rounds. Five people were hit. The president escaped injury but the mayor of Chicago, Anton Cermak, who was also in attendance, received a mortal stomach wound in the attack.
Several men tackled the assailant and might have beaten him to death if Roosevelt had not intervened, telling the crowd to leave justice to the authorities. Zangara later claimed “I don’t hate Mr. Roosevelt personally…I hate all officials and anyone who is rich.” He also told the FBI that chronic stomach pain led to his action: “Since my stomach hurt I want to make even with the capitalists by kill the president. My stomach hurt long time [sic].”
Zangara’s extreme action reflected the anger and frustration felt among many working Americans during the Great Depression. At the time of the shooting, Roosevelt was still only the president-elect and had yet to be sworn in. His policies remained untested, but reports of Roosevelt’s composure during the assassination attempt filled the following day’s newspapers and did much to enforce Roosevelt’s public image as a strong leader.
Unsubstantiated reports later claimed that Zangara’s real target had been Cermak and hinted at Zangara’s connection to organized crime in Chicago. Zangara was initially tried for attempted murder and sentenced to 80 years in prison, but when Mayor Cermak later died of his wounds, Zangara was retried and sentenced to death. Zangara died on the electric chair on March 5, 1933.
vietnam War
~1966 : DeGaulle offers to help end Vietnam War~
In response to a letter from Ho Chi Minh asking that French President Charles De Gaulle use his influence to "prevent perfidious new maneuvers" by the United States in Southeast Asia, De Gaulle states that France is willing to do all that it could to end the war. As outlined by De Gaulle, the French believed that the Geneva agreements should be enforced, that Vietnam's independence should be "guaranteed by the nonintervention of any outside powers," and that the Vietnamese government should pursue a "policy of strict neutrality." President Lyndon Johnson saw De Gaulle's proposal as part of a continuing effort by the French leader to challenge U.S. leadership in Southeast Asia as well as in Europe. Seeing the American commitment in Vietnam as part of a larger global issue of American credibility, Johnson believed that the United States could not afford to abandon its South Vietnamese ally and rejected De Gaulle's proposal without consideration.
~1970 : Chicago Eight defense attorneys sentenced~
As the jury continues to deliberate in the trial of the Chicago Eight, defense attorneys William Kunstler and Leonard Weinglass and three of the defendants are sentenced to prison for contempt of court.
The trial for eight antiwar activists charged with the responsibility for the violent demonstrations at the August 1968 Democratic National Convention took place in Chicago. The defendants included David Dellinger of the National Mobilization Committee (NMC); Rennie Davis and Thomas Hayden of the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS); Abbie Hoffman and Jerry Rubin, founders of the Youth International Party ("Yippies"); Bobby Seale of the Black Panthers; and two lesser known activists, Lee Weiner and John Froines.
They were charged with conspiracy to cross state lines with intent to incite a riot. Attorneys William Kunstler and Leonard Weinglass represented all but Seale. The trial, presided over by Judge Julius Hoffman, turned into a circus as the defendants and their attorneys used the court as a platform to attack Nixon, the war, racism, and oppression. Their tactics were so disruptive that at one point, Judge Hoffman ordered Seale gagged and strapped to his chair--Seale's disruptive behavior eventually caused the judge to try him separately.
By the time the trial ended in February 1970, Judge Hoffman had found all the defendants and their attorneys guilty of 175 counts of contempt of court and sentenced them to terms between two to four years. Although declaring the defendants not guilty of conspiracy, the jury found all but Froines and Weiner guilty of intent to riot. The others were each sentenced to five years and fined $5,000. None served time because a 1972 Court of Appeals decision overturned the criminal convictions; eventually, most of the contempt charges were also dropped.
...continued in next post.
This Day In History, February 15... continued
World War I
~1915 : Mutiny breaks out among Indian soldiers in Singapore~
In Singapore on this day in 1915, Indian soldiers launch the first large-scale mutiny of World War I.
Some 800 soldiers in the Indian army’s 5th Light Infantry Brigade broke out of their barracks on the afternoon of February 15 and killed several British officers before moving on to other areas of the city. By the time the revolt was quashed, several days later, by British, French and Russian troops, the mutineers had killed 39 Europeans—both soldiers and civilians. British soldiers executed 37 of the mutiny’s ringleaders by gunfire.
The Singapore Mutiny was intended by its organizers to be part of a general uprising being engineered by Sikh militants in neighboring India against British colonial rule. The Sikhs—whose religion combined elements of Hinduism and Islam—had earned favorable treatment from the British after their refusal to take part in an earlier mutiny in India in 1857, but some still chafed against the constraints of the empire. The Indian rebellion in 1915 enjoyed encouragement from the Germans, whose ship, the Bayern, had recently been intercepted by the Italians with a cargo of 500,000 revolvers, 100,000 rifles and 200,000 cases of ammunition intended to aid the militants. The rebels in India were betrayed in March 1915 by a police spy, and the leaders were arrested before they could signal the start of the revolt. Eighteen were hanged.
Despite such insurrections, many Indians from across the country continued to volunteer to serve the British empire in World War I. The first Indian Victoria Cross for bravery had been awarded on the Western Front in January 1915. Mahatma Gandhi, champion of passive resistance and leader of the struggle for Indian home rule, played an active role in the recruitment of Indian soldiers during World War I, writing later that “If we would improve our status through the help and cooperation of the British, it was our duty to win their help by standing by them in their hour of need.”
World War II
~1942 : Singapore falls to Japan~
Singapore, the "Gibraltar of the East" and a strategic British stronghold, falls to Japanese forces.
An island city and the capital of the Straits Settlement of the Malay Peninsula, Singapore had been a British colony since the 19th century.
In July 1941, when Japanese troops occupied French Indochina, the Japanese telegraphed their intentions to transfer Singapore from the British to its own burgeoning empire. Sure enough, on the eve of the Pearl Harbor attack, 24,000 Japanese troops were transported from Indochina to the Malay Peninsula, and Japanese fighter pilots attacked Singapore, killing 61 civilians from the air.
The battle between Japanese and British forces on the Malay Peninsula continued throughout December and January, killing hundreds more civilians in the process. The British were forced to abandon and evacuate many of their positions, including Port Swettenham and Kuala Lumpur.
On February 8, 5,000 Japanese troops landed on Singapore Island. The British were both outmanned and outgunned. Pro-Japanese propaganda leaflets were dropped on the islands, encouraging surrender. On February 13, Singapore's 15-inch coastal guns--the island's main defensive weapons--were destroyed. Tactical miscalculations on the part of British Gen. Arthur Percival and poor communication between military and civilian authorities exacerbated the deteriorating British defense. Represented by General Percival and senior Allied officers, Singapore surrendered to Japanese Gen. Tomoyuki Yamashita in front of Japanese newsreel cameras. Sixty-two thousand Allied soldiers were taken prisoner; more than half eventually died as prisoners of war.
With the surrender of Singapore, Britain lost its foothold in the East. British Prime Minister Winston Churchill attempted to prop up morale by urging Brits "to display the calm and poise, combined with grim determination, which not so long ago brought us out of the very jaws of death."
World War I
~1915 : Mutiny breaks out among Indian soldiers in Singapore~
In Singapore on this day in 1915, Indian soldiers launch the first large-scale mutiny of World War I.
Some 800 soldiers in the Indian army’s 5th Light Infantry Brigade broke out of their barracks on the afternoon of February 15 and killed several British officers before moving on to other areas of the city. By the time the revolt was quashed, several days later, by British, French and Russian troops, the mutineers had killed 39 Europeans—both soldiers and civilians. British soldiers executed 37 of the mutiny’s ringleaders by gunfire.
The Singapore Mutiny was intended by its organizers to be part of a general uprising being engineered by Sikh militants in neighboring India against British colonial rule. The Sikhs—whose religion combined elements of Hinduism and Islam—had earned favorable treatment from the British after their refusal to take part in an earlier mutiny in India in 1857, but some still chafed against the constraints of the empire. The Indian rebellion in 1915 enjoyed encouragement from the Germans, whose ship, the Bayern, had recently been intercepted by the Italians with a cargo of 500,000 revolvers, 100,000 rifles and 200,000 cases of ammunition intended to aid the militants. The rebels in India were betrayed in March 1915 by a police spy, and the leaders were arrested before they could signal the start of the revolt. Eighteen were hanged.
Despite such insurrections, many Indians from across the country continued to volunteer to serve the British empire in World War I. The first Indian Victoria Cross for bravery had been awarded on the Western Front in January 1915. Mahatma Gandhi, champion of passive resistance and leader of the struggle for Indian home rule, played an active role in the recruitment of Indian soldiers during World War I, writing later that “If we would improve our status through the help and cooperation of the British, it was our duty to win their help by standing by them in their hour of need.”
World War II
~1942 : Singapore falls to Japan~
Singapore, the "Gibraltar of the East" and a strategic British stronghold, falls to Japanese forces.
An island city and the capital of the Straits Settlement of the Malay Peninsula, Singapore had been a British colony since the 19th century.
In July 1941, when Japanese troops occupied French Indochina, the Japanese telegraphed their intentions to transfer Singapore from the British to its own burgeoning empire. Sure enough, on the eve of the Pearl Harbor attack, 24,000 Japanese troops were transported from Indochina to the Malay Peninsula, and Japanese fighter pilots attacked Singapore, killing 61 civilians from the air.
The battle between Japanese and British forces on the Malay Peninsula continued throughout December and January, killing hundreds more civilians in the process. The British were forced to abandon and evacuate many of their positions, including Port Swettenham and Kuala Lumpur.
On February 8, 5,000 Japanese troops landed on Singapore Island. The British were both outmanned and outgunned. Pro-Japanese propaganda leaflets were dropped on the islands, encouraging surrender. On February 13, Singapore's 15-inch coastal guns--the island's main defensive weapons--were destroyed. Tactical miscalculations on the part of British Gen. Arthur Percival and poor communication between military and civilian authorities exacerbated the deteriorating British defense. Represented by General Percival and senior Allied officers, Singapore surrendered to Japanese Gen. Tomoyuki Yamashita in front of Japanese newsreel cameras. Sixty-two thousand Allied soldiers were taken prisoner; more than half eventually died as prisoners of war.
With the surrender of Singapore, Britain lost its foothold in the East. British Prime Minister Winston Churchill attempted to prop up morale by urging Brits "to display the calm and poise, combined with grim determination, which not so long ago brought us out of the very jaws of death."
WOW, what a historical day. Today is the first day of the rest of your life.