On This Date In 1776 In a letter addressed
to the president of Congress, American General George Washington recommended raising
companies of German-Americans to use against the German mercenaries anticipated
to fight for Britain.
Washington hoped this would engender a spirit
of disaffection and desertion among Britain's paid soldiers.
On This Date In 1798 The convention of the
Estates-General of 1789, a general assembly representing the French estates of
the realm - the nobility, the church, and the common people - led to the coup
d'etat of the 22nd Floreal, Year VI, coming to an impasse as the three estates
clashed over their respective powers. It was brought to an end when many
members of the Third Estate formed themselves into a National Assembly,
signaling the outbreak of the French Revolution.
On This Date In 1812 In London,
Spencer Perceval, prime minister of Britain since 1809, was shot to
death by demented businessman John Bellingham in the lobby of the House of
Commons. Bellingham, who was inflamed by his
failure to obtain government compensation for war debts incurred in Russia,
gave himself up immediately.
On This Date In 1846 U.S. President James
K. Polk sent a message to Congress stating that “Mexico
has passed the boundary of the United
States, has invaded our territory and shed
American blood upon American soil.” Conflict over the Nueces Strip, and the
resulting Thornton Affair, in which a 2,000 strong Mexican cavalry routed an
American patrol sent into the contested territory of the Rio Grande River in
Texas, killing 16 U.S. soldiers of the 70-man unit, along with Mexico's
rejection of prior treaties, would lead to Congress approving a declaration of
war on May 13.
On This Date In 1858 Known as the “Land of
10,000 Lakes,” Minnesota became the 32nd state
admitted into the Union. Minnesota's
application for statehood was submitted to President James Buchanan in January,
but became entangled with the controversial issue of Kansas statehood, delaying it for several
months until it was finally approved by Congress.
On This Date In 1864 The Battle of Yellow
Tavern was fought as part of the Overland Campaign of the American Civil War.
Union cavalry under Maj. Gen. Philip Sheridan was detached from the Army of the
Potomac to conduct a raid on Richmond,
Virginia, and challenge legendary
Confederate cavalry commander Maj. Gen. J.E.B. Stuart. The Confederate force
was outnumbered and outgunned and Stuart was mortally wounded while attempting
to rally his men, dying the next day.
On This Date In 1931 “M,” a German
drama-thriller directed by Fritz Lang and written by Lang and his wife Thea von
Harbou, was released. It was Lang's first sound film, although he had directed
more than a dozen films previously. The film has become a classic which Lang
himself considered his finest work.
On This Date In 1934 A massive dust storm
sent some 350 million tons of topsoil flying from across the parched Great
Plains region of the United States as far east as New York, Boston and Atlanta.
Even ships some 300 miles offshore saw dust collect on their decks.
On This Date In 1937 “Captains Courageous,”
an MGM family adventure film, based on the novel by Rudyard Kipling, had its
world premiere at the Carthay Circle Theatre in Los Angeles. The movie was produced by Louis
D. Lighton and directed by Victor Fleming. Filmed in black-and-white, Captains
Courageous was advertised by MGM as a coming-of-age classic with exciting
action sequences.
On This Date In 1942 One of William
Faulkner's greatest collections of short stories, Go Down, Moses, was published. The collection included The Bear, one of his most famous
stories, which had previously appeared in the Saturday Evening Post. The seven
stories in Go Down, Moses all take place in the fictional county
of Yoknapatawpha, Mississippi, and are based on Faulkner's
observations of his own native state.
On This Date In 1943 Through May 30, 1943,
The Battle of Attu was fought entirely between forces of the United States and the Empire of Japan on Attu Island
off the coast of Alaska.
The action, which was part of the Aleutian Islands Campaign during the Pacific
War, was the only land battle of World War II fought on territory that was part
of the incorporated territory of the U.S. It is also the only battle in
which Japanese and American forces fought in Arctic conditions. The battle,
which lasted for more than two weeks, ended when most of the Japanese defenders
were killed in brutal hand-to-hand combat after a final banzai charge broke
through American lines.
On This Date In 1944 The Battle of Monte
Cassino was fought during World War II by the Allies against Germans and
Italians, with the intention of breaking through the Winter Line and seizing Rome. The first assault
(May 11 – May 12) on Cassino opened at 23:00 with a massive artillery
bombardment with 1,060 guns on the 8th Army front and 600 guns on the 5th Army
front, manned by British, Americans, Poles, New Zealanders, South Africans, and
French. From January 17 to May 18, the Gustav defenses were assaulted four
times by Allied troops. For the last of these, the Allies gathered 20 divisions
for a major assault along a twenty mile front and drove the German defenders
from their positions, but at a high cost. The Allies suffered around 55,000
casualties in the Monte Cassino campaign. German casualty figures are estimated
at around 20,000 killed and wounded. Total Allied casualties spanning the
period of the four Cassino battles and the Anzio campaign with the subsequent capture of Rome on June 5, 1944, were
over 105,000.
On This Date In 1947 The B.F. Goodrich
Company of Akron, Ohio, announced it had developed a tubeless
tire, a technological innovation that would make automobiles safer and more
efficient.
On This Date In 1961 President John F.
Kennedy approved sending 400 Special Forces troops and 100 other U.S. military advisers to South Vietnam. On the same day, he
ordered the start of clandestine warfare against North Vietnam to be conducted by
South Vietnamese agents under the direction and training of the CIA and U.S.
Special Forces troops. Kennedy's orders also called for South Vietnamese forces
to infiltrate Laos
to locate and disrupt communist bases and supply lines there.
On This Date In 1968 The 1968 Stanley Cup
Final was a best-of-seven series between the Montreal Canadiens and the St.
Louis Blues. The Canadiens would sweep the series in four-straight games, in
the first Stanley Cup series after the NHL expansion to 12 teams.
On This Date In 1969 During the Vietnam
War and the Battle of Hamburger Hill, part of Operation Apache Snow, a
2,800-man Allied sweep of the A Shau Valley, Lt. Col. Weldon Honeycutt directed
helicopter gunships, from an Aerial Rocket Artillery (ARA) battery, to support
an infantry assault. In the heavy jungle, the helicopters mistook the command
post of the 3/187th battalion for a Vietnamese unit and attacked, killing two
and wounding thirty-five, including Honeycutt. This “friendly fire” incident
disrupted battalion command and control and forced 3/187th to withdraw into
night defensive positions.
On This Date In 1972 The 1972 Stanley Cup
Final NHL championship series was contested by the Boston Bruins and the New
York Rangers. It was the Rangers first appearance in the championship final
series since 1950. The Bruins were making their first appearance since their
victory in the 1970 Final. It was the second Boston-New York Final series, the other being
the 1929 Final. The Bruins would win the best-of-seven series four games to
two.
On This Date In 1980 “The Return of the
King,” an animated musical adaptation of the novel by J. R. R. Tolkien, was
released by Rankin/Bass as a TV special. The film was created by the same team
which had worked on the 1977 animated version of The Hobbit. It has since been released on VHS and DVD.
On This Date In 1981 Robert Nesta “Bob”
Marley, OM (February 6, 1945 – May 11, 1981),
Jamaican singer-songwriter and musician, rhythm guitarist and lead singer for
the ska, rocksteady and reggae band Bob
Marley & The Wailers (1963–1981), died in the University of Miami
Hospital. He was only 36 years old. The most widely known and revered performer
of reggae music, and credited with helping spread both Jamaican music and the
Rastafari movement to a worldwide audience, Marley collapsed while jogging in
Central Park only days after a successful New York Concert and later received a
grim diagnosis: a type of malignant melanoma under the nail of one of his toes
had metastasized and spread to Marley's brain, liver and lungs.
On This Date In 1981 “Shut Up 'n Play Yer
Guitar,” a triple vinyl album featuring live material recorded by Frank Zappa
between February 1977 and December 1980, was released. The final track, “Canard
du Jour”, is a duet with Frank Zappa on electric bouzouki and Jean-Luc Ponty on
baritone violin dating from a 1972 studio session.
On This Date In 1985 The Bradford City
stadium fire occurred when a flash fire consumed one side of the Valley Parade
football stadium in Bradford,
England. The
fire broke out during a football match between Bradford
City (the home team) and Lincoln City,
on the day that Bradford
City were supposed to
have celebrated their winning the Football League Third Division trophy. A
total of 56 people died and more than 265 others were injured.
On This Date In 1987 Klaus Barbie, the
former Nazi Gestapo chief of German-occupied Lyon,
France, went on trial in Lyon more than four decades after the end of World War
II. He was charged with 177 crimes against humanity. On July 4, 1987, he was
found guilty. For his crimes, the 73-year-old Barbie was sentenced to spend the
rest of his life in prison, France's
highest punishment. He died of cancer in a prison hospital in 1991.
On This Date In 1987 “Execution
Guaranteed,” the second full-length album by the heavy metal band Rage (formed
in 1984 under the name, Avenger), was released. The album was remastered by
Noise/Sanctuary in 2002 with slightly altered cover art, and six bonus tracks.
On This Date In 1992 “Fear of the Dark,”
the ninth studio album by British heavy metal band Iron Maiden, was released.
It topped the UK
albums chart. It was the final studio album to feature Bruce Dickinson as lead
vocalist, who left the band following the album's support tour to pursue a solo
career. He was succeeded by Blaze Bayley, formerly of Wolfsbane, for two studio
albums until Dickinson
returned to Iron Maiden for the 2000 release of Brave New World.
On This Date In 1995 The Sega Saturn, a
32-bit video game console first released on November 22, 1994 in Japan, was released in North America, and
released on July 8, 1995 in Europe. The system
was later discontinued in Europe and Australia
in 1998, April 1999 in North America, and in 2000 in Japan.
On This Date In 1996 ValuJet Flight 592, a
domestic passenger flight between Miami
International Airport,
Miami, Florida,
and William B.
Hartsfield Atlanta
International Airport,
Atlanta, Georgia, crashed in the Browns Farm
Wildlife Management area in the Florida Everglades, killing all 110 persons on
board.
On This Date In 1997 IBM's supercomputer
Deep Blue made chess history by defeating Gary Kasparov, the chess champion
widely regarded as the greatest who has ever lived. The Russian master conceded
defeat after 19 moves in the sixth game of the tournament, losing the match 2.5
to 3.5. It was the first defeat of a reigning world champion by a machine in
tournament play. Big Blue, which can analyze 200 million chess moves a second,
had met Kasparov once before, but the human had been able to hold his own
against the computer. Before their second meeting, Kasparov had never lost a
professional chess match.
On This Date In 2010 David Cameron, 43,
became the youngest UK
Premier since Lord Liverpool almost 200 years ago, and the first Conservative
in No 10 Downing Street since John Major departed 13 years prior. http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/may/11/david-cameron-uk-prime-minister
Hat tip to any included contributing sources, along with: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page
, http://www.-history.com/this-day-in-history
, http://timelines.com/
Happy Birthday Eric Burdon (1941), Frances
Fisher (1952), Alyson Williams (1962), Marguerite MacIntyre (1965), Jeffrey
Donovan (1968), Harold Ford Jr (1970), Coby Bell (1975), Laetitia Casta (1978),
Cory Monteith (1982), and Matt Leinart (1983).
RIP Chang and Eng Bunker (1811 – 1874), Margaret
Rutherford (1892 – 1972), Mari Sandoz (1896 – 1966), Salvador Dali (1904 –
1989), Phil Silvers (1911 – 1985), Foster Brooks (1912 – 2001), Richard Feynman
(1918 – 1988), Denver Pyle (1920 – 1997), Doug McClure (1935 – 1995), and Natasha
Richardson (1963 – 2009).
Quotes
The deeper that sorrow carves into your being the more joy
you can contain. Is not the cup that holds your wine the very cup that was
burned in the potter's oven? Kahlil Gibran
It is the supreme art of the teacher to awaken joy in
creative expression and knowledge. Albert Einstein
Where self-interest is suppressed, it is replaced by a
burdensome system of bureaucratic control that dries up the wellspring of
initiative and creativity. Pope John Paul II
If I have a swing, I have a shot. Golfer Bubba Watson, who beat
40-1 odds to win the Masters tournament.
If I were given the opportunity to present a gift to the
next generation, it would be the ability for each individual to learn to laugh
at himself. Charles M. Schulz
Music is God's gift to man, the only art of Heaven given to
earth, the only art of earth we take to Heaven. Walter Savage Landor
Courtesy You Tube et al
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Martin Dempsey,
and his wife Deanie, address service members during Military Appreciation
Month.
Topics: -Labor Force-Dead Voters-Obama
Girlfriend-Physicians-Newt Gingrich-South Carolina
Teacher-Jewish Voters-Florida Gynecologist
Starring: Jodi Miller; Production: Dialog New Media
@riverpointe with @marysarahmusic @nolanryanburke
@chadstrader
This is dedicated to all of my fellow military moms, both
past and present. Happy Mother's Day and God Bless our Troops!
Do not abandon yourselves to despair. We are the Easter
people and hallelujah is our song. Pope John Paul II
So long as the human spirit thrives on this planet, music in
some living form will accompany and sustain it and give it expressive meaning. Aaron
Copland
Do not be afraid. Do not be satisfied with mediocrity. Put
out into the deep and let down your nets for a catch. Pope John Paul II
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