On This Date In 1215 Following a revolt by
the English nobility against his rule, King John put his royal seal on the
Magna Carta, or “Great Charter.” The document, essentially a peace treaty
between John and his barons, guaranteed that the king would respect feudal
rights and privileges, uphold the freedom of the church, and maintain the
nation's laws. Although more a reactionary than a progressive document in its
day, the Magna Carta was seen as a cornerstone in the development of democratic
England
by later generations.
On This Date In 1300 Poet Dante Alighieri
became one of six priors of Florence,
Italy, active
in governing the city. Dante's political activities, which included the
banishment of several rivals, lead to his own exile from Florence, his native city, after 1302. He
would write his great work, The Divine
Comedy, as a virtual wanderer, seeking protection for his family in town
after town.
On This Date In 1775 George Washington,
who would one day become the first American president, accepted an assignment
to lead the Continental Army.
On This Date In 1776 The Assembly of the
Lower Counties of Pennsylvania declared itself
independent of British and Pennsylvanian authority, thereby creating the state
of Delaware.
On This Date In 1846 Representatives of Great Britain and the United
States signed the Oregon Treaty, which settled a long-standing
dispute with Britain over
who controlled the Oregon
territory. The treaty established the 49th parallel from the Rocky Mountains to
the Strait of Georgia as the boundary between the United States and British Canada.
The United States gained
formal control over the future states of Oregon,
Washington, Idaho,
and Montana, and the British retained
Vancouver Island and navigation rights to part of the Columbia
River.
On This Date In 1846 Francis Parkman, one
of the first serious historians to study the American West, arrived at Fort Laramie
in Wyoming,
and prepared for a summer of research with the Sioux.
On This Date In 1863 During the American
Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln put out an emergency call for 100,000
troops from the state militias of Pennsylvania,
Maryland, Ohio,
and West Virginia to protect Washington, D.C., America’s capital city. Although
the troops were not needed, and the call could not be fulfilled in such a short
time, it was an indication of how little the Union
authorities knew of Confederate General Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern
Virginia's movements, and how vulnerable they thought the Federal capital was.
On This Date In 1864 During the American
Civil War, Ulysses S. Grant's Army of the Potomac and Robert E. Lee's Army of
Northern Virginia collided for the last time as the first wave of Union troops
attacked Petersburg, a vital Southern rail
center 23 miles south of the Confederate capital of Richmond, Virginia.
The two massive armies would not become disentangled until April 9, 1865, when
Lee surrendered and his men went home.
On This Date In 1877 Henry Ossian Flipper,
born a slave in Thomasville, Georgia, in 1856, became the first African
American cadet to graduate from the United States
Military Academy
at West Point, New York. Flipper, who was never spoken to
by a white cadet during his four years at West Point, was appointed a second
lieutenant in the all-African American 10th Cavalry, stationed at Fort Sill in
Indian Territory.
On This Date In 1904 The PS General
Slocum, a passenger steamboat built in Brooklyn,
New York, in 1891, and named for Civil War
General and New York Congressman Henry Warner Slocum, caught fire and sank in New York's East River.
At the time of the accident, she was on a chartered run carrying members of St.
Mark's Evangelical Lutheran Church
(German Americans from Little Germany, Manhattan)
to a church picnic. An estimated 1,021 of the 1,342 people on board died. The
General Slocum disaster was the New
York area's worst disaster in terms of loss of life
until the September 11, 2001 attacks.
On This Date In 1917 Some two months after
America's formal entrance
into World War I against Germany,
the United States Congress passed the Espionage Act. It originally prohibited
any attempt to interfere with military operations, to support U.S. enemies during wartime, to
promote insubordination in the military, or to interfere with military
recruitment. In 1919, the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously ruled in Schenck v. United States
that the act did not violate the freedom of speech of those convicted under its
provisions. The constitutionality of the law, its relationship to free speech,
and the meaning of the law's language have been contested in court ever since.
On This Date In 1938 Cincinnati Red Johnny
Vander Meer pitched his second consecutive no-hit, no-run game. Vander Meer is
the only pitcher in baseball history to throw two back-to-back no-hitters.
On This Date In 1943 During World War II,
Paul Blobel, an SS colonel, was given the assignment of coordinating the
destruction of the evidence of the grossest of Nazi atrocities, the systematic
extermination of European Jews.
On This Date In 1945 23-year-old actress
and singer Judy Garland married director Vincente Minnelli, her second husband.
The couple had one daughter, the actress and singer Liza Minnelli.
On This Date In 1946 The United States presented the Baruch
Plan for the international control of atomic weapons to the United Nations. The
failure of the plan to gain acceptance resulted in a dangerous nuclear arms
race between the United States
and the Soviet Union during the Cold War.
On This Date In 1963 Kyu Sakamoto
accomplished something never achieved before or since when he earned a #1 hit
on the American pop charts with a song sung entirely in Japanese - a song
originally written and recorded under the title “Ue O Muite Aruk?.” This was
not the title under which it climbed the U.S. pop charts, however. Instead
of a faithfully translated title like “I Look Up When I Walk,” Sakamoto's
ballad was called, for no particular reason, “Sukiyaki.”
On This Date In 1964 At a meeting of the
National Security Council, McGeorge Bundy, President Lyndon B. Johnson's
national security advisor, informed those in attendance that President Johnson
had decided to postpone submitting a resolution to Congress asking for
authority to wage war in Vietnam.
Just two months later, they revisited the idea of a resolution in the wake of
the Tonkin Gulf incident. Known as the Tonkin Gulf
Resolution, it gave President Johnson the power to take whatever actions he
deemed necessary, including “the use of armed force.” The resolution passed 82
to 2 in the Senate, where Wayne K. Morse (D-Oregon) and Ernest Gruening
(D-Alaska) were the only dissenting votes; and passed unanimously in the House
of Representatives. President Johnson signed it into law on August 10, 1964,
and it became the legal basis for every presidential action taken by the
Johnson administration during its conduct of the war.
On This Date In 1965 During the Vietnam
War and as part of Operation Rolling Thunder, U.S.
planes bombed targets in North Vietnam,
but refrained from bombing Hanoi
and the Soviet missile sites that surrounded the city. On June 17, two U.S.
Navy jets downed two communist MiGs, and destroyed another enemy aircraft three
days later. U.S.
planes also dropped almost 3 million leaflets urging the North Vietnamese to
get their leaders to end the war.
On This Date In 1986 Driving legend
Richard Petty made the 1,000th start of his National Association for Stock Car
Racing (NASCAR) career, in the Miller American 400 in Brooklyn, Michigan.
He became the first driver in NASCAR history to log 1,000 career starts.
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 Mario Cuomo (1932), Billy Williams
(1938), Xaviera Hollander (1943), Mike Holmgren (1948), Dusty Baker (1949), James
Belushi (1954), Julie Hagerty (1955), Polly Draper (1955), Helen Hunt (1963), Courteney
Cox (1964), August Busch IV (1964), Leah Remini (1970), Dana Bash (1971), Andy
Pettitte (1972), Neil Patrick Harris (1973), Greg Vaughan (1973), Elizabeth
Reaser (1975), Kate Ford (1977), Nadine Coyle (1985), and Denzel Whitaker
(1990).
RIP Rachel Jackson (1767 – 1828), Mary
Ellis (1897 – 2003), David Rose (1910 – 1990), Trevor Huddleston (1913 – 1998),
Alberto Sordi (1920 – 2003), Mo Udall (1922 – 1998), Belinda Lee (1935 – 1961),
Waylon Jennings (1937 – 2002), Harry Nilsson (1941 – 1994), and Jim Varney
(1949 – 2000).
Quotes
I love the man that can smile in trouble, that can gather
strength from distress, and grow brave by reflection. Thomas Paine
When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro. Hunter
S. Thompson
Innovation distinguishes between a leader and a follower. Steve
Jobs
I cannot and will not cut my conscience to fit this year's
fashions. Lillian Hellman
I have always thought the actions of men the best
interpreters of their thoughts. John Locke
We should be taught not to wait for inspiration to start a
thing. Action always generates inspiration. Inspiration seldom generates
action. Frank Tibolt
The great composer does not set to work because he is
inspired, but becomes inspired because he is working. Beethoven, Wagner, Bach
and Mozart settled down day after day to the job in hand with as much
regularity as an accountant settles down each day to his figures. They didn't
waste time waiting for inspiration. Ernest Newman
Courtesy You Tube et al
A 5-minute history of tightrope walkers and daredevils at Niagara Falls.
Niagara Falls
has been a magnet for daredevils since the 1800's - and wire walkers - also
called funambulists - were a big part of the earliest daredevils. Now, on June
15, 2012, Nikolas Wallenda will attempt what no one has done in over 100 years
- walk the wire across Horseshoe Falls. The last successful walk was in 1897.
For more information on Niagara Falls, visit: USA: www.niagarafallsstatepark.com CANADA: www.niagarafallstourism.com
Topics in today's show: -Obamacare-Warren Buffett-Jon Bon
Jovi-Environmental Protection Agency-NBC's Nancy Snyderman-Lauryn Hill-Lindsay
Lohan-Elizabeth Taylor
Starring: Jodi Miller; Production: Dialog New Media
NewsBusted is a comedy webcast about the news of the day,
uploaded every Tuesday and every Friday
Blue Star Museums is a program which offers active duty
military and their families free museum admission at more than 1,500 museums
nationwide from Memorial Day, May 28, through Labor Day, September 3, 2012. Blue
Star Museums is a collaborative effort among the National Endowment of the
Arts, Blue Star Families, the Department of Defense, and museums across America. For
more info, or to listen to the Bloggers Roundtable visit: http://bit.ly/K2B2WF
A little something for Fathers’ Day:
I've been loved, and I've been left. I've held on, and
I've let go. I've forgiven, and I've forgotten. Death has taught me more about
life than living ever could, and family is always there when the world never
is. I've learned tradition is grasping your past without holding you back, and
being who you are is an obligation, not a choice. Laura Kessler
Nothing in the world can take the place of
Persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with
talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will
not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination
alone are omnipotent. The slogan 'Press On' has solved and always will solve
the problems of the human race. Calvin Coolidge
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