On This Day, 9-30-2008: James Meredith

September 30, 1962

Riots over desegregation of Ole Miss

In Oxford, Mississippi, James H. Meredith, an African American, is escorted onto the University of Mississippi campus by U.S. Marshals, setting off a deadly riot. Two men were killed before the racial violence was quelled by more than 3,000 federal soldiers. The next day, Meredith successfully enrolled and began to attend classes amid continuing disruption.

A former serviceman in the U.S. Air Force, Meredith applied and was accepted to the University of Mississippi in 1962, but his admission was revoked when the registrar learned of his race. A federal court ordered “Ole Miss” to admit him, but when he tried to register on September 20, 1962, he found the entrance to the office blocked by Mississippi Governor Ross Barnett. On September 28, the governor was found guilty of civil contempt and was ordered to cease his interference with desegregation at the university or face arrest and a fine of $10,000 a day. Two days later, Meredith was escorted onto the Ole Miss campus by U.S. Marshals. Turned back by violence, he returned the next day and began classes. Meredith, who was a transfer student from all-black Jackson State College, graduated with a degree in political science in 1963.

In 1966, Meredith returned to the public eye when he began a lone civil rights march in an attempt to encourage voter registration by African Americans in the South. During this March Against Fear, Meredith intended to walk from Memphis, Tennessee, to Jackson, Mississippi. However, on June 6, just two days into the march, he was sent to a hospital by a sniper’s bullet.

Other civil rights leaders, including Martin Luther King, Jr., and Stokely Carmichael, arrived to continue the march on his behalf. It was during the March Against Fear that Carmichael, who was leader of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, first spoke publicly of “Black Power”–his concept of militant African American nationalism. James Meredith later recovered and rejoined the march he had originated, and on June 26 the marchers successfully reached Jackson, Mississippi.

“Riots over desegregation of Ole Miss.” 2008. The History Channel website. 30 Sep 2008, 05:08 http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history.do?action=Article&id=5386.

On This Day

1777 – The Congress of the United States moved to York, PA, due to advancing British forces.

1787 – The Columbia left Boston and began the trip that would make it the first American vessel to sail around the world.

1846 – Ether, an experimental anesthetic at the time, was used for the first time by Dr. William Morton at Massachusetts General Hospital.

1882 – In Appleton, WI, the world’s first hydroelectric power plant began operating.

1938 – The Munich Conference ended with a decision to appease Adolf Hitler. Britain, and France allowed Czechoslovakia’s Sudetenland to be annexed by the Nazis.

1946 – An international military tribunal in Nuremberg, Germany, found 22 top Nazi leaders guilty of war crimes.

1954 – The U.S. Navy commissioned the Nautilus submarine at Groton, CT. It was the first atomic-powered vessel. The submarine had been launched on January 21, 1954.

1955 – Actor James Dean was killed in a car accident at the age of 24 near Cholame, CA. Dean’s mechanic, who was also in the vehicle, eventually recovered from his injuries.

1976 – California enacted the Natural Death Act of California. The law was the first example of right-to-die legislation in the U.S.

1989 – Non-Communist Cambodian guerrillas claimed that they had captured 3 towns and 10 other positions from the residing government forces.

1997 – France’s Roman Catholic Church apologized for its silence during the persecution and deportation of Jews the pro-Nazi Vichy regime.

September 30, 1949

Berlin Airlift ends

After 15 months and more than 250,000 flights, the Berlin Airlift officially comes to an end. The airlift was one of the greatest logistical feats in modern history and was one of the crucial events of the early Cold War.

In June 1948, the Soviet Union suddenly blocked all ground traffic into West Berlin, which was located entirely within the Russian zone of occupation in Germany. It was an obvious effort to force the United States, Great Britain, and France (the other occupying powers in Germany) to accept Soviet demands concerning the postwar fate of Germany. As a result of the Soviet blockade, the people of West Berlin were left without food, clothing, or medical supplies. Some U.S. officials pushed for an aggressive response to the Soviet provocation, but cooler heads prevailed and a plan for an airlift of supplies to West Berlin was developed. It was a daunting task: supplying the daily wants and needs of so many civilians would require tons of food and other goods each and every day. On June 26, 1948, the Berlin Airlift began with U.S. pilots and planes carrying the lion’s share of the burden. During the next 15 months, 277,264 aircraft landed in West Berlin bringing over 2 million tons of supplies. On September 30, 1949, the last plane–an American C-54–landed in Berlin and unloaded over two tons of coal. Even though the Soviet blockade officially ended in May 1949, it took several more months for the West Berlin economy to recover and the necessary stockpiles of food, medicine, and fuel to be replenished.

The Berlin Airlift was a tremendous Cold War victory for the United States. Without firing a shot, the Americans foiled the Soviet plan to hold West Berlin hostage, while simultaneously demonstrating to the world the “Yankee ingenuity” for which their nation was famous. For the Soviets, the Berlin crisis was an unmitigated disaster. The United States, France, and Great Britain merely hardened their resolve on issues related to Germany, and the world came to see the Russians as international bullies, trying to starve innocent citizens.

“Berlin Airlift ends.” 2008. The History Channel website. 30 Sep 2008, 05:10 http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history.do?action=Article&id=2806.

Hiking Wildcat Mountain State Park

Located near Ontario, Wisconsin Wildcat Mountain State Park offers over 25 miles of hiking trails some of which can be used by horses, and during the winter the park offers snowshoe and cross country ski trails.  The trails vary from the very scenic like the picture below:

 

To the dark and wooded like the pictures below:

The park also has an abundance of wildlife with many varieties of birds and of course…

The parks gets its name Wildcat Mountain from a sheep killing bobcat that roamed the area in the late eighteen hundreds.  Local farmers tired of finding dead sheep banded together to track down and kill the bobcat.  After killing it they named the bluffs that dominate the park Wildcat Mountain.  There are bobcats in the park today, but they are very elusive and seeing one is rare.  Wildcat Mountain is an excellent place to go hiking and offers overnight camping, picnic areas and rentable shelters.

On This Day, 9-29-2008: Tylenol Terrorist

Anyone who lived in Illinois at the time should remember this one.

September 29, 1982

The Tylenol murders

On this day in 1982, a sick 12-year-old girl in Elk Grove Village, Illinois, unwittingly takes an Extra-Strength Tylenol capsule laced with cyanide poison and dies later that day. She would be one of seven people to die suddenly after taking the popular over-the-counter medication, as the so-called Tylenol murders spread fear across America. The victims, all from the Chicago area, ranged in age from 12 to 35 and included three members of the same family. Johnson & Johnson, the maker of Tylenol, launched a massive recall of its product and offered a $100,000 reward for information leading to the arrest of the person or people responsible.

Investigators soon determined that the tainted Tylenol capsules hadn’t been tampered with at the factories where they were produced. This meant that someone had taken the bottles from store shelves, laced them with poison and then returned them to grocery stores and pharmacies, where the victims later purchased the tampered bottles.

Johnson & Johnson reacted to the crisis swiftly and decisively, launching a massive public relations campaign urging the public not to use Tylenol. The company also ordered a national recall of 264,000 bottles of Tylenol and offered free replacement of the product in safer tablet form. At the time, it was unusual for companies to recall their products.

Before the “Tylenol Terrorist” struck, Tylenol was the nation’s leading over-the-counter drug and Johnson & Johnson’s bestselling product and some observers speculated that Tylenol would never be able to recover from the disaster. However, within months, Tylenol was back on store shelves with a new safety seal. The recall and re-launch cost Johnson & Johnson over $100 million, but in the end, Johnson & Johnson was praised for its handling of the crisis. Within a year, Tylenol’s market share rebounded and its tarnished image was significantly repaired.

The Tylenol murders, which inspired copycat crimes involving other products, were never solved, although various individuals were investigated. However, a positive outcome of the crisis was that it led drug makers to develop tamper-proof packaging, which had been largely nonexistent before the Tylenol Terrorist struck.

“The Tylenol murders.” 2008. The History Channel website. 29 Sep 2008, 04:58 http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history.do?action=tdihArticleCategory&id=52868.

 

On This Day

1758 – England’s Admiral Horatio Nelson was born.

1789 – A regular army was established by the U.S. War Department with several hundred men.

1943 – U.S. Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower and Italian Marchal Pietro Badoglio signed an armistice aboard the British ship Nelson.

1962 – U.S. President John F. Kennedy nationalized the Mississippi National guard in response to city officials defying federal court orders. The orders had been to enroll James Meredith at the University of Mississippi.

1978 – Pope John Paul I was found dead after only one month of serving as pontiff of the Roman Catholic Church.

1983 – The War Powers Act was used for the first time by the U.S. Congress when they authorized President Reagan to keep U.S. Marines in Lebanon for 18 more months.

1988 – The space shuttle Discovery took off from Cape Canaveral in Florida. It was the first manned space flight since the Challenger disaster.

1994 – The U.S. House voted to end the practice of lobbyist buying meals and entertainment for members of Congress.

 

September 29, 1941

Babi Yar massacre begins

The Babi Yar massacre of nearly 34,000 Jewish men, women, and children begins on the outskirts of Kiev in the Nazi-occupied Ukraine.

The German army took Kiev on September 19, and special SS squads prepared to carry out Nazi leader Adolf Hitler’s orders to exterminate all Jews and Soviet officials found there. Beginning on September 29, more than 30,000 Jews were marched in small groups to the Babi Yar ravine to the north of the city, ordered to strip naked, and then machine-gunned into the ravine. The massacre ended on September 30, and the dead and wounded alike were covered over with dirt and rock.

Between 1941 and 1943, thousands more Jews, Soviet officials, and Russian prisoners of war were executed at the Babi Yar ravine in a similar manner. As the German armies retreated from the USSR, the Nazis attempted to hide evidence of the massacres by exhuming the bodies and burning them in large pyres. Numerous eyewitnesses and other evidence, however, attest to the atrocities at Babi Yar, which became a symbol of Jewish suffering in the Holocaust.

“Babi Yar massacre begins.” 2008. The History Channel website. 29 Sep 2008, 04:57 http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history.do?action=tdihArticleCategory&id=5383.

On This Day, 9-28-2008: Pompey the Great

September 28, -48

Pompey the Great assassinated

Upon landing in Egypt, Roman general and politician Pompey is murdered on the orders of King Ptolemy of Egypt.

During his long career, Pompey the Great displayed exceptional military talents on the battlefield. He fought in Africa and Spain, quelled the slave revolt of Spartacus, cleared the Mediterranean of pirates, and conquered Armenia, Syria, and Palestine. Appointed to organize the newly won Roman territories in the East, he proved a brilliant administrator.

In 60 B.C., he joined with his rivals Julius Caesar and Marcus Licinius Crassus to form the First Triumvirate, and together the trio ruled Rome for seven years. Caesar’s successes aroused Pompey’s jealousy, however, leading to the collapse of the political alliance in 53 B.C. The Roman Senate supported Pompey and asked Caesar to give up his army, which he refused to do. In January 49 B.C., Caesar led his legions across the Rubicon River from Cisalpine Gaul to Italy, thus declaring war against Pompey and his forces.

Caesar made early gains in the subsequent civil war, defeating Pompey’s army in Italy and Spain, but he was later forced into retreat in Greece. In August 48 B.C., with Pompey in pursuit, Caesar paused near Pharsalus, setting up camp at a strategic location. When Pompey’s senatorial forces fell upon Caesar’s smaller army, they were entirely routed, and Pompey fled to Egypt.

Pompey hoped that King Ptolemy, his former client, would assist him, but the Egyptian king feared offending the victorious Caesar. On September 28, Pompey was invited to leave his ships and come ashore at Pelusium. As he prepared to step onto Egyptian soil, he was treacherously struck down and killed by an officer of Ptolemy.

“Pompey the Great assassinated.” 2008. The History Channel website. 28 Sep 2008, 07:37 http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history.do?action=Article&id=5380.

On This Day

551 B.C. – Teacher and philosopher Confucius was born. He dedicated most of his life to teaching, starting at the age of 22 when he opened his first school.

1066 – England was invaded by William the Conqueror who claimed the English throne.

1542 – San Diego, CA, was discovered by Portuguese navigator Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo.

1787 – The U.S. Congress voted to send the new Constitution of the United States to the state legislatures for their approval.

1850 – U.S. President Millard Fillmore named Brigham Young the first governor of the Utah territory. In 1857, U.S. President James Buchanan removed Young from the position.

1939 – During World War II, Germany and the Soviet Union agreed upon a plan on the division of Poland.

1972 – Communist China and Japan agreed to re-establish diplomatic relations.

1985 – Rioting erupted in London’s Brixton district that lasted for two days. The incident occurred after a black woman was shot by a police officer during a raid on her home.

2000 – The U.S. Federal Drug Administration approved the use of RU-486 in the United States. The pill is used to induce an abortion.

2004 – Nate Olive and Sarah Jones arrived at the U.S.-Mexico border to complete the first known continuous hike of the 1,800-mile trail down the U.S. Pacific Coast. They started the trek on June 8.

September 28, 1781

Battle of Yorktown begins

On this day in 1781, General George Washington, commanding a force of 17,000 French and Continental troops, begins the siege known as the Battle of Yorktown against British General Lord Charles Cornwallis and a contingent of 9,000 British troops at Yorktown, Virginia, in the most important battle of the Revolutionary War.

Earlier, in a stroke of luck for the Patriots, the French fleet commanded by Francois, Count de Grasse, departed St. Domingue (the then-French colony that is now Haiti) for the Chesapeake Bay, just as Cornwallis chose Yorktown, at the mouth of the Chesapeake, as his base. Washington realized that it was time to act. He ordered Marquis de Lafayette and an American army of 5,000 troops to block Cornwallis’ escape from Yorktown by land while the French naval fleet blocked the British escape by sea. By September 28, Washington had completely encircled Cornwallis and Yorktown with the combined forces of Continental and French troops. After three weeks of non-stop bombardment, both day and night, from cannon and artillery, Cornwallis surrendered to Washington in the field at Yorktown on October 17, 1781, effectively ending the War for Independence.

Pleading illness, Cornwallis did not attend the formal surrender ceremony, held on October 19. Instead, his second in command, General Charles O’Hara, carried Cornwallis’ sword to the American and French commanders.

Although the war persisted on the high seas and in other theaters, the Patriot victory at Yorktown ended fighting in the American colonies. Peace negotiations began in 1782, and on September 3, 1783, the Treaty of Paris was signed, formally recognizing the United States as a free and independent nation after eight years of war.

“Battle of Yorktown begins.” 2008. The History Channel website. 28 Sep 2008, 07:40 http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history.do?action=Article&id=50911.

Fall Begins

Good Morning…

What All Dogs Know

Weekends are good!