1980 – Mt. St. Helens erupts in Washington state. This would have been the month my classmates and I graduated High School. The video says it best…
Tag: History
25 Missions
Today in History, May 17, 1943:
The Memphis Belle, a B-17 Flying Fortress of the 8th Air Force, completes it’s 25th mission and it’s crew has the opportunity to return to the states.
The event would be documented in an Army Air Force documentary, and later a blockbuster movie. What wasn’t documented in the original documentary was the fact that over 30,000 airmen lost their lives taking the skies over Europe, 8,000 bombers destroyed.
More airmen died in the skies over Europe than Marines in the Pacific.
Today (literally) the Belle was unveiled after years of restoration at the US Air Force Museum in Dayton, Ohio.
“Uh Oh, SpaghettiOs!”
Today in History, May 16, 1965:
The Campbell’s Soup Company introduces SpaghettiOs, an easy to prepare, easy to eat pasta.
The tasty kid favorite was the invention of Campbell’s Donald Guerke, who would also come up with the company’s “Chunky” line of soups.
“Oh Oh, SpaghettiOs was a take off of a 50’s Jimmie Rodgers tune, “Uh oh, I’m falling in love again.”
Women’s Army Corps
Today in History, May 15, 1942:
President Franklin Roosevelt signs a bill passed the previous day creating the Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps.
The bill had been put forward by Massachusetts Representative Edith Nourse Rogers in mid-1941, who had seen women volunteer in the first World War…on their own dime and without compensation or benefits. The bill lingered until after the attack on Pearl Harbor, when it was taken more seriously.
The many women who served as WACS and WAVES (Navy) during WWII were paid and received benefits, although not as much as the men. It would be decades before they received pensions.
Their service was to be in non-combat roles…secretarial, air traffic control, ferrying aircraft, and hundreds of other positions.
While the inclusion of the hundreds of thousands of women in the military was a huge step forward for a nation which had only given women the vote two decades before, it was still repleat with gender bias. Women could not command men.
The move also was born of necessity, rather than revolutionary thinking. It had the full support of the Army’s commanding General, George C. Marshall, who testified before Comgress on behalf of the legislation.
Marshall expected the “Two-Ocean War” to quickly overwhelm the nation’s ability to provide “manpower”. He believed women already trained in administrative jobs would be more efficient and effective than men.
While the women served in “non-combat” roles as operators, etc, you can’t serve in a combat zone without the risks of combat. WACS were killed in action. One source indicated 16.
Israel is “Re-Born”
Today in History, May 14, 1948:
David Ben-Gurion, soon to be Israel’s first Premier, declares the birth of the first Jewish State in 2,000 years. As he finished his speech, the gunfire from the first Israeli-Arab War could be heard in the distance, as Egyptian forces began their attack.
The story continues…and many have changed sides or at least become more vocal in their anti-Israeli sentiments.
This discussion, and the bloodshed, has been ongoing for centuries.
The Stars and Stripes Forever
Today in History, May 14: 1897 – In Willow Grove Park, Philadelphia, “The Stars and Stripes Forever”, composed by John Phillip Sousa, is first performed in public. As of 1987 it is now the official US March of the United States of America. The tune, and the lyrics Sousa attached to it has to touch every truly American soul.
Let martial note in triumph float
And liberty extend its mighty hand
A flag appears ‘mid thunderous,
The banner of the Western land.
The emblem of the brave and true
Its folds protect no tyrant crew;
The red and white and starry blue
Is freedom’s shield and hope.
[Second Strain]
Other nations may deem their flags the best
And cheer them with fervid elation
But the flag of the North and South and West
Is the flag of flags, the flag of Freedom’s nation.
(repeats) Other nations may deem their flags the best
And cheer them with fervid elation,
But the flag of the North and South and West
Is the flag of flags, the flag of Freedom’s nation.
[Trio]
Hurrah for the flag of the free!
May it wave as our standard forever,
The gem of the land and the sea,
The banner of the right.
Let despots remember the day
When our fathers with mighty endeavor
Proclaimed as they marched to the fray
That by their might and by their right
It waves forever.
[Repeat of the First Strain]
Let eagle shriek from lofty peak
The never-ending watchword of our land;
Let summer breeze waft through the trees
The echo of the chorus grand.
Sing out for liberty and light,
Sing out for freedom and the right.
Sing out for Union and its might,
O patriotic sons.
[Grandioso]
Hurrah for the flag of the free.
May it wave as our standard forever
The gem of the land and the sea,
The banner of the right.
Let despots remember the day
When our fathers with mighty endeavor
Proclaimed as they marched to the fray,
That by their might and by their right
It waves forever.
Private William Henry Christman Laid to Rest
Today in History, May 13, 1864:
Private William Christman of the 67th Pennsylvania Infantry, US Army, became the first soldier laid to rest at Arlington National Cemetery. He was laid to rest in the Lee’s rose garden near the Custis-Lee Mansion, or Arlington House.
Private Christman’s brother had preceded him in service to his country, leaving William to manage the family farm. William volunteered himself in part to help provide for his family. He became ill and died in a DC military hospital.
The mansion and the plantation it was on had belonged to George Washington Parke Custis, grandson of Martha Washington, step-grandson of President Washington. He willed the property to his daughter, Mary Anna Randolph Custis. She in turn married a young US Army Lieutenant and West Point graduate, Robert E. Lee.
Lee served in the Mexican-American War and was respected as one of the best officers in the US Army. In fact he was offered command of the forces around Washington at the outset of the Civil War. He turned this offer down and instead left the Custis-Lee Mansion to go further south into Virginia and command Confederate forces.
As the war progressed the mansion was used as a Union Headquarters. A camp to assist former slaves was set up on the property. And finally, faced with mounting casualties in the war, the Union assumed the property as a cemetery for Union war dead.
It was actually after Private Christman was interred that the property was designated the Arlington National Cemetery. Today American soldiers from every war fought by the United States are buried and memorialized at Arlington, including the Revolutionary War and the War of 1812.
arlingtoncemetery.mil
H. Norman Schwarzkopf Investigates the Lindbergh Kidnapping
Today in History, May 12: 1932 – H. Norman Schwarzkopf looks down into the recently found shallow grave of infant Charles Lindbergh, Jr. in a field not far from the Lindbergh home. The Lindbergh baby had been kidnapped from his home on March 1st, the ransom paid, but the child was not returned to his parents. Schwarzkopf, a West Point graduate and WWI veteran, in 1921 had been appointed by the Governor of New Jersey to create, organize and train the New Jersey State Police. It was in this capacity that he led the investigation of the Lindbergh Kidnapping, the “Crime of the Century”. He would prove that the baby had been killed accidentally as he was being carried down a ladder from his second floor bedroom. When a new governor took office, he would be sacked. He would return to the US Army when WWII broke out, where he would be tasked to use his logistics and organizational talents to train the Iranian police, a country where the US was setting up railroads to supply the Soviet Union for the fight against Germany. After the war, Schwarzkopf would also help set up the security forces of the Shah. Two years after he investigated the Lindbergh kidnapping, his son, H. Norman Schwarzkopf, Jr. would be born. And as most know, “Stormin’ Norman” would follow his father to the middle east in the service of his country nearly six decades later.
The American Bible Society is Founded
Today in History, May 11, 1816:
The American Bible Society was founded in New York City. The Society was formed as a consortium of numerous smaller societies, mostly state based. The members were abolitionists Christians with the mission to put Bibles into as many hands as possible “without note or comment.”
The first President of the Society was Elias Boudinot, who had also been President of the Continental Congress for a time. Other prominent officers included Supreme Court Justice John Jay and Star Spangled Banner author Francis Scott Key.
The Society distributed many translations of the Bible, including into Native American languages. It provided pocket Bibles to soldiers during the Civil War and in wars since.
At it’s outset the Society was devoutly Protestant, and had a rocky start with the many Catholic immigrants to the United States. In the mid nineteenth century it took steps to correct this problem.
The ABS has distributed millions of copies of the Bible in countries all over the world since its inception. Today it manages an online resource to search Bible text in several languages.
Churchill Becomes Prime Minister
Today in History, May 10, 1940:
Sir Winston Churchill is made Prime Minister of England, a post he had long desired, but not necessarily under these circumstances. Churchill had been a member of the British government since the turn of the century, as his father had before him.
Due to politics, he had been abandoned to the political “wilderness” in the early 30’s…still a member of the House of Commons, but not of HMG…Her Majesty’s Government.
Throughout the 30’s he repeatedly called for beefing up the military to prepare for German aggression…and was repeatedly denied…cast as a crank looking for attention. It wasn’t until the Germans actually took France that his countrymen realized that Neville Chamberlain was the crank and that “Winston” knew what he was talking about.
On this date they cast their lot with him…and he did not disappoint.
Mark Loves History! 