75 Years Ago

On this day, 75 years ago, the Soviet Union, allied with Nazi Germany, invaded Poland from the East, forcing the Poles into a hopeless two front war.

Found!

Explorers have found one of Sr. John Franklin's lost ships, missing with all hands since being stuck in the Arctic ice in 1845.

75 Years Ago

Today is the 75th anniversary of the German invasion of Poland, the inciting incident that began World War II.

RIP - 100 Years On

Today marks the 100th anniversary of the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife, the pivotal event that started the First World War and changed the course of the rest of the century, and beyond. 

JFK - 50 years later

50 years ago today John F. Kennedy was gunned down in Dallas, an event no Baby Boomer will ever forget.

My own connection to the event began twenty years later, in 1983. I was nine years old that year and had just started the fourth grade when my Grandfather, a man I loved and idolized, passed away. To say that his death put me in a tailspin is almost an understatement, but sometime in the weeks that followed my Mom gave me a book on JFK. It was just a thin children’s book, full of more myth than fact – I particularly remember one scene where Jack fell in love with Jackie when he first saw her over a dinner table – but it hooked me.

I began to read everything I could about JFK. In retrospect it’s easy to see I was simply substituting one fallen hero (my Grandpa) for another (JFK), but in those dark months it was just about the only joy I remember. Somewhere around that time, and I don’t remember if it was with my knowledge or not – my Mom mailed out two letters about my newfound passion. Just before Christmas, two packages arrived in response.

The first, from Senator Edward Kennedy, included a short mimeographed note of thanks and contained information about both JFK and RFK, as well as two 8x10 black and white photographs, one of Jack, the other of Jackie and his children.

The second package was incredible. It came from the Kennedy Library, and included the following handwritten note from William Johnson, the Chief Archivist.

Inside was more information on JFK and his library, and some items I’ve now forgotten. Here’s one I never have: an original copy of Life Magazine dated November 29, 1963 that chronicled the horrific events of Dallas and its aftermath.

 Remember, this was on the cusp of the 20^th anniversary of his death. There were books and magazines and television specials galore, and I collected whatever I could. I accumulated a scrapbook of articles from the Milwaukee Journal’s Green Sheet, a few record albums of his speeches, a plaster bust of JFK, book upon book – you name it.

So on the actual anniversary of his assassination (in 1983 it was a Tuesday, if I’m not mistaken) I took this little collection into my school for show and tell, passing it among my classmates. I’d like to say someone was inspired, or even that it was met with boos – either one makes a great story – but I don’t remember, so odds are it was met with quiet tolerance.

Over the years my adoration of JFK waned. The reality didn't quite match up with the legend, and that’s a hard pill to swallow when it was the legend you fell in love with. My politics changed too, and suddenly a New Frontier that mocked Eisenhower’s admirable time in office held much less appeal.

The pendulum has begun to swing full circle, tho’ it will never reach the zeal I had as a child. JFK and I would disagree politically, but not as much as I once thought; his reputation was pushed to the Left by nostalgia and the far more liberal records of his brothers. He was a fiscal conservative and a cautious Hawk, two qualities I find appealing in a candidate. And even if he was as liberal as some people work hard to believe, it would carry a lesson all its own: that you can disagree with someone’s politics while still admiring them as a human being.

Even 50 years on, JFK’s memory continues to inspire this nation.  Rest in Peace sir; you earned it. 

The Gettysburg Address - November 19th, 1863

150 years ago today Abraham Lincoln journeyed to the Gettysburg battlefield to dedicate its cemetery, and delivered one of the finest - and shortest - speeches in history. 

The spirit of his mighty words lives on, as I hope they will forever. 

Take a moment to read them again, and offer up a prayer of thanks for all those who gave their lives to save freedom and our Union all those many years ago. 

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But, in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate — we cannot consecrate — we cannot hallow — this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us — that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion — that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain — that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom — and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

Gettysburg 150 years on

Today marks a century and a half since Union forces triumphed at Gettysburg. That battle, 150 years ago, staved off the defeat and dissolution of our nation; tomorrow is the 150th anniversary of Grant's victory at Vicksburg, which ensured that the victory of that same nation was all but inevitable. To the men who fought in both battles - especially those who fought and died in blue, in the name of freedom and country - I salute you.

Truman

• Early in the year I read both volumes of Harry Truman's autobiography and, to be honest, I had a hard time of it; popular opinion aside, there just didn't seem that much to like about him. Here are some thoughts I posted on social media at the time. I'm not sure why the formatting is so screwy, but I can't seem to fix it. 
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• There are few things more obnoxious than a "self-taught" man constantly showing off his knowledge - often knowledge half-understood and in the wrong context - in a vain effort to ease his inferiority complex. Harry S Truman, I'm talking to you.
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• Reading V2 of Truman's memoirs. Every time I'm impressed, he follows it up with something jack-assery.
• Hyper partisan. Distrustful of 'experts'. Twists history 2 justify his decisions. Ever hungry 4 more gov't. What's not to luv about Truman?
• Chp. 26 of his memoirs concern the a-bomb, and HST is far too cavalier about it. re Hirishima: " This is the greatest thing in history" ?!?!
• Truman argued the Potsdam declaration was
•  fair warning of & justification for the atomic destruction to come. I call b.s.
• In Chapter 26 of Vol 1 of his memoirs he admits he had been advised by statesmen and 
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• military alike that taking the Emperor off the table – in effect, making “unconditional 
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• surrender” slightly less so – would all but ensure the surrender of Japan. He concurred, and
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•  in an awkward segue claims that Potsdam was his last, best attempt to offer the Japanese a 
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• way out under that umbrella. But if you read the declaration, there is no mention of such a concession, nor for obvious reasons is there mention of atomic weapons, merely the standard issue “surrender or we’ll destroy you”. and, as you know, we did amend our surrender demands to allow the Emperror to remain - after we dropped two bombs.There may have been a way out, and it was either squandered or subverted by the President. 
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• Whether or not its use was justified - and I lean towards 'yes’ for Hiroshima, but no for Nagasaki – and whether by the same token you can stomach the idea of consciously selecting an entire population center for extermination - one would hope you make the decision with careful deliberation and a ton of melancholy. Not so. At least as he wrote it, the decision was preordained, and he was at sea when the bomb was dropped. He then famously declared the news of Hiroshima’s fate to be “the greatest thing in history” and expresses no hesitation when needlessly bombing Nagasaki three days latei. 
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• Throughout the chapter its taken far, far less somberly than prior discussions over the partitioning of Germany and the division of the German merchant fleet. Even if he didn't give one fat fig about dropping the bomb, a proper respect for the opinions of mankind and mankind’s God decrees that some expression of remorse or solemnity find its way into his account
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• There is none.
• Whether or not its use was justified - and I lean towards 'yes’ for Hiroshima, but no for Nagasaki – and whether by the same token you can stomach the idea of consciously selecting an entire population center for extermination - one would hope you make the decision with careful deliberation and a ton of melancholy. Not so. At least as he wrote it, the decision was preordained, and he was at sea when the bomb was dropped. He then famously declared the news of Hiroshima’s fate to be “the greatest thing in history” and expresses no hesitation when needlessly bombing Nagasaki three days latei. 
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• Throughout the chapter its taken far, far less somberly than prior discussions over the partitioning of Germany and the division of the German merchant fleet. Even if he didn't give one fat fig about dropping the bomb, a proper respect for the opinions of mankind and mankind’s God decrees that some expression of remorse or solemnity find its way into his account
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• There is none.
• Whether or not its use was justified - and I lean towards 'yes’ for Hiroshima, but no for Nagasaki – and whether by the same token you can stomach the idea of consciously selecting an entire population center for extermination - one would hope you make the decision with careful deliberation and a ton of melancholy. Not so. At least as he wrote it, the decision was preordained, and he was at sea when the bomb was dropped. He then famously declared the news of Hiroshima’s fate to be “the greatest thing in history” and expresses no hesitation when needlessly bombing Nagasaki three days latei. 
• Throughout the chapter its taken far, far less somberly than prior discussions over the partitioning of Germany and the division of the German merchant fleet. Even if he didn't give one fat fig about dropping the bomb, a proper respect for the opinions of mankind and mankind’s God decrees that some expression of remorse or solemnity find its way into his account
• 
  
• There is none.
• Throughout the chapter its taken far, far less somberly than prior discussions over the partitioning of Germany and the division of the German merchant fleet. Even if he didn't give one fat fig about dropping the bomb, a proper respect for the opinions of mankind and mankind’s God decrees that some expression of remorse or solemnity find its way into his account
• There is none.
• There is none.
• I would counter that paragraph one of my comment is not a question of morality per se ( though it is as well) but of practicality. Had we not had the bomb, the failure to amend the " unconditional" surrender despite correct pleas to do so would have had us incur needless economic, material, and personnel losses by dragging out the war. Offer that and have it refused, and you remove any moral questions regarding the use of the bomb.
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Today in History

Today is the 70th anniversary of Joseph Goebbels's Sportpalast speech, which warned Germany that dire days were ahead and that victory was in jeopardy.

2 Facts

1. 70 years ago today Guadalcanal was declared secure by US forces.

2. The world needs a new biography of Nelson Rockefeller

Columbia: 10 Years On

Today marks the 10th anniversary of the loss of the space shuttle Columbia.

Lincoln

On Monday I watched Spielberg’s “Lincoln”. Daniel Day-Lewis deserves all the accolades that come his way; wow, what a performance. As to the movie as a whole: I think it carries itself well enough to appeal to a general audience, but you need to be a history nut to properly relish it. After all, a movie about the passing of a constitutional amendment is not a shoot em up, and at times even I was a little “speed it up pardner”. What it does well – exceptionally well – is highlight Lincoln’s genius, his ideal combination of idealism and practicality, velvet glove and iron fist. Even as he argues for a gentle reconciliation, he exposes Civil War South and its apologists for what they were: the enslavers of an entire people, willing to betray oath and nation to protect their wealth - at enormous loss of life - under the masquerade of “state’s rights”. Grade: A

Two Dates

Today would have been my maternal grandmother's 90th birthday.

Today is also the 50th anniversary of the Battle of Ap Bac, where Viet Cong forces pinned down and defeated a South Vietnamese force 5x it's size, along with their American advisers. It's been described as the Viet Cong's first major battlefield victory and credited with all sorts of influence on how events played out in the next 12 years. IMO, that 'influence' seems exaggerated by historians It was influential in the moment, but I don't see its reach extending that much into the future.

The 150th Anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation

I almost forgot one of the most important anniversaries in all of history: today is the 150th anniversary of Abraham Lincoln issuing the Emancipation Proclamation. Yes, yes, it was the 13th amendment that ended slavery forever, but only the harshest revisionist would argue that the Proclamation was anything less than the nail in the coffin for that 'peculiar institution'.

150 Years Ago

I almost forgot one of the most important anniversaries in all of history: today is the 150th anniversary of Abraham Lincoln issuing the Emancipation Proclamation. Yes, yes, it was the 13th amendment that ended slavery forever, but only the harshest revisionist would argue that the Proclamation was anything less than the nail in the coffin for that 'peculiar institution'.

The American Experience: My Lai

This morning I watched "The American Experience: My Lai", with some trepidation. I was expecting to be hit over the head for an hour with more opinion than content . Instead, the documentary let the facts of March 16, 1968 speak for themselves; it was a wise move, as it was more than enough to cement the fact that the murder of 500+ women and children was an inexcusable war crime. 

Of note were the interviews with the men of Charlie company, and the myriad personalities that are on display even 40 years removed from My Lai: the meek follower, the strident soldier, the guy that just wanted to go home, the creepy rationalist. This should be required viewing. Grade: A+ (and as always, a tip of the hat to Hugh Thompson for his actions that day)

100 Years Ago Today

100 years ago today the bodies of Robert Scott and his men were discovered in Antarctica, where they had died that March.

500 Years Ago Today

500 yrs ago today the ceiling of the Sistene Chapel was unveiled to the public.

200 Years Ago Today

200 years ago today the USS Constitution defeated the British Royal Navy frigate HMS Guerriere off the coast of Nova Scotia, Canada, earning her the nickname "Old Ironsides".

 150 yrs ago today US Grant defeated the Confederate forces at the battle of Shiloh.