Category: History

Brief narratives about people and events in the American past.

Pancho Villa

. . . and his forces attacked Columbus, New Mexico, 95 years ago today.

Columbus, New Mexico

Why Columbus? Why then?

The U.S. had taken sides against Villa and for Venustiano Carranza in the continuing Mexican revolutions. Columbus had a garrison of about 600 U.S. soldiers. Villa had been sold blank ammunition by an arms dealer in the town. And a few days earlier 10 Mexicans had been “accidentally” burned to death while in custody in El Paso during a “routine” delousing with gasoline.

The attack at dawn lasted about three hours before American troops chased Villa’s forces into Mexico. The town was burned and 17 Americans, mostly private citizens, were killed. About 100 of Villa’s troops were reportedly killed. The arms dealer was absent from Columbus that morning. He had a dental appointment in El Paso.

Pancho VillaThe next day President Wilson ordered General Jack Pershing and 5,000 American troops into Mexico to capture Villa. This “Punitive Expedition” was often mis-directed by Mexican citizens and Villa allegedly hid in the dust thrown up by Pershing’s vehicles. (The American Army used aircraft for reconnaissance for the first time. This is considered the beginning of the Army Air Corps.)

Unsuccessful in the hunt, by February 1917 the United States and Pershing turned their attention to the war in Europe. Minor clashes with Mexican irregulars continued to disturb the border from 1917 to 1919. Engagements took place near Buena Vista, Mexico, on 1 December 1917; in San Bernardino Canyon, Mexico, on 26 December 1917; near La Grulla, Texas, on 8-9 January 1918; at Pilares, Mexico, about 28 March 1918; at Nogales, Arizona, on 27 August 1918; and near El Paso, Texas, on 15-16 June 1919.

NewMexiKen’s very own grandfather served in Columbus during World War I, making him the first NewMexiKen.

Villa, born Doroteo Arango, surrendered to the Mexican Government in 1920 and retired on a general’s pay. He was assassinated in 1923.

The February Revolution

… began in Russia 94 years ago today (1917).

The February Revolution was the first stage of the Russian Revolution. Mostly bloodless, it led to the abdication of Tsar Nicholas II. Ultimately, the regime that began in the February Revolution was replaced during the October (Bolshevik) Revolution.

Here’s some contemporary reports from The New York Times.

(Russia was still using the Julian Calendar in 1917. Hence, March 8 elsewhere was February 23 in Russia.)

Best lines ever on a March 4th

“With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation’s wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.”

Abraham Lincoln, March 4, 1865

“So, first of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself — nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance.”

Franklin D. Roosevelt, March 4, 1933

Witch way did they go?

On March 1, 1692, Salem, Massachusetts authorities charged Sarah Goode, Sarah Osborne, and a slave woman, Tituba, with practicing witchcraft. The arrests inaugurated the infamous Salem Witch Trials of 1692. Over the following months, more than 150 men and women in and around Salem were jailed on sorcery charges. Nineteen people eventually hanged on Gallows Hill and an additional victim was pressed to death.

Cousins Abigail Williams and Betty Parris began entering trance-like states and suffering from convulsive seizures in January. By late February, prayer, fasting, and medical treatment had failed to relieve the girls’ symptoms and quiet the blasphemous shouting that accompanied their fits. Pressured to explain, they accused three local women of sorcery.

A recent epidemic of small pox, heightened threats of Indian attack, and small town rivalries, primed the people of the Salem area for the mass hysteria that characterized the witch trials. Although social status and gender offered little protection from accusations, historians note that single women particularly were vulnerable to charges of practicing witchcraft. Sarah Good, Sarah Osborne, and Tituba all lacked male protectors.

Acting on the recommendation of the clergy, civil authorities created a special court to try accused witches. As the number of imprisoned people approached 150, however, public opinion shifted against the proceedings. On October 29, 1692, Massachusetts Governor William Phips dissolved the special court. When the remaining witchcraft cases were heard in May 1693, the Superior Court failed to convict anyone.

In the 1950s, playwright Arthur Miller explored the Salem witchcraft trials in The Crucible. Writing during a period when concern about “subversive activities” ran high, Miller used his play to protest the red scares of the postwar era. Once again, Miller implied, innocent people were sacrificed to public hysteria. Called before the House Un-American Activities Committee in 1956, Miller refused to supply names of people he met years before at an alleged Communist writers meeting. The resulting contempt conviction was overturned on appeal.

Library of Congress

Lets take it back and call it New New Mexico

It was 150 years ago today that Congress organized the Territory of Colorado and stole the Rio Grande headwaters, the San Luis Valley, nine fourteeners, a national park and a big chunk of plains from New Mexico. Colorado was given that part of New Mexico east of the Continental Divide between 37º (the current state line) and 38º (69 miles further north).

In the House version of the bill, the new territory was called Idaho. The Senate changed it to Colorado.

The good news is, two years later, New Mexico Territory gave up what is now Arizona.

So, lose some, win some.

Here’s an 1857 map of New Mexico.

A More Perfect Union

During the opening months of World War II, almost 120,000 Japanese Americans, two-thirds of them citizens of the United States, were forced out of their homes and into detention camps established by the U.S. government. Many would spend the next three years living under armed guard, behind barbed wire. This exhibit explores this period when racial prejudice and fear upset the delicate balance between the rights of the citizen and the power of the state. It tells the story of Japanese Americans who suffered a great injustice at the hands of the government, and who have struggled ever since to insure the rights of all citizens guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution.

A wonderful online exhibit from the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History.

Executive Order 9066

Ouster of all Japs Near!E.O. 9066, signed 69 years ago today by President Franklin D. Roosevelt. An excerpt:

Now therefore, by virtue of the authority vested in me as President of the United States, and Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy, I hereby authorize and direct the Secretary of War, and the Military Commanders whom he may from time to time designate, whenever he or any designated Commander deems such action to be necessary or desirable, to prescribe military areas in such places and of such extent as he or the appropriate Military Commander may determine, from which any or all persons may be excluded, and with respect to which, the right of any persons to enter, remain in, or leave shall be subject to whatever restriction the Secretary of War or the appropriate Military Commander may impose in his discretion.

The Secretary of War is hereby authorized to provide for residents of any such area who are excluded therefrom, such transportation, food, shelter, and other accommodations as may be necessary, in the judgment of the Secretary of War or the said Military Commander, and until other arrangements are made, to accomplish the purpose of this order.

Within two weeks the western portion of California, Oregon and Washington, and part of Arizona were designated an area from which “any and all persons” might be excluded. The designation was made by Lt.Gen. John L. DeWitt, the commander of the western defense command. DeWitt was later quoted as saying, “a Jap’s a Jap” and “it makes no difference whether he is an American citizen or not…the west coast is too vital and too vulnerable to take any chances.”

The newspaper headline is from just eight days after the E.O.

One of his 1,093 patents

133 years ago today Thomas Edison received a patent for the phonograph and ultimately music changed forever.

The phonograph was developed as a result of Thomas Edison’s work on two other inventions, the telegraph and the telephone. In 1877, Edison was working on a machine that would transcribe telegraphic messages through indentations on paper tape…This development led Edison to speculate that a telephone message could also be recorded in a similar fashion. He experimented with a diaphragm which had an embossing point and was held against rapidly-moving paraffin paper. The speaking vibrations made indentations in the paper. Edison later changed the paper to a metal cylinder with tin foil wrapped around it. The machine had two diaphragm-and-needle units, one for recording, and one for playback. When one would speak into a mouthpiece, the sound vibrations would be indented onto the cylinder by the recording needle in a vertical (or hill and dale) groove pattern. Edison gave a sketch of the machine to his mechanic, John Kreusi, to build, which Kreusi supposedly did within 30 hours. Edison immediately tested the machine by speaking the nursery rhyme into the mouthpiece, “Mary had a little lamb.” To his amazement, the machine played his words back to him. . . .
It didn't look much like an iPod

The invention was highly original. The only other recorded evidence of such an invention was in a paper by French scientist Charles Cros, written on April 18, 1877. There were some differences, however, between the two men’s ideas, and Cros’s work remained only a theory, since he did not produce a working model of it.

Source: Library of Congress

Click image for larger version.

Are we there yet?

NewMexiKen is taking the day off. Even so, if I see things I think you should read, I’ll list them here.

You can begin with Tanya at Dinner without Crayons.

Karen went Walking On The Moon, a must read. Views like that — and chiles — are why I stay a New Mexican, Karen.

As The King’s Speech moves toward its coronation by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences on the 27th, you might want to read The King’s Speech: good movie, very bad history by Christopher Hitchens.

And a best line from Krugman:

“[A]s far as right-wing politicians are concerned: for the most part they know that Obama was born here, that he isn’t a socialist, that there are no death panels, and so on, but feel compelled to pretend to be crazy as a career move.”

Last night after finishing Iris Chang’s important The Rape of Nanking: The Forgotten Holocaust of World War II, I read Sarah Vowell’s Radio On: A Listener’s Diary. As the subtitle implies, Vowell annotated her radio listening — for a year (1995). It’s dated, and not equal to her more recent work, but it has its moments. Today I am into Empire of the Summer Moon: Quanah Parker and the Rise and Fall of the Comanches, the Most Powerful Indian Tribe in American History by S.C. Gwynne. I read the free Kindle sample of this book in January and have been eager to read the whole book but wanted a dead tree edition. UPS delivered it last Friday, the day after I ordered it, but to the vacant house across the street. The painter working at the house over the weekend took it inside — go figure — but fortunately the owner dropped by yesterday and had sense enough to walk it across the street.

The Rape of Nanking

After finishing Cleopatra, and as UPS delivered the book I ordered last week to the wrong address — or so it seems, because it sure isn’t here — I decided to read a book I’d heard much about over the past dozen years and that a friend had just given me. It’s The Rape of Nanking: The Forgotten Holocaust of World War II by Iris Chang, published in 1997. The book is in two parts: the massacre and the coverup. I’ve finished the first.

The Japanese assault on the capital of China late in 1937 is one of history’s most deplorable bloodbaths. In just a few weeks 300,000 or more Chinese non-combatants were killed by Japanese soldiers. Tens of thousands of women, from young girls to the elderly, were raped and mutilated and killed. The atrocities were so extreme that a German national Nazi party leader in Nanking wrote to Hitler to ask the Führer to get the Japanese government to end the massacre.

It’s an important book, horrific but not horrifying, and worthy of your time.

Iris Chang committed suicide in 2004. She was 36.

Today’s Photo

That’s Cleopatra VII depicted on a coin at the time of her reign as queen of Egypt, 51-30 B.C. (she co-ruled with her brothers and son Caesarion, but was effectively in charge from 47-30). I’ve concluded from Stacy Schiff’s biography that, unlike Roman woman of the time, Cleopatra was educated, strong-willed and independent, and it was those characteristics, rather than pure beauty that was her great appeal. The coin would substantiate that. (Roman noble woman did not even have their own names: Julius Caesar’s two sisters were both named Julia, Octavian’s sister was Octavia.)

The Macedonian Greeks ruled Egypt from Alexander’s conquest in 332 B.C. until Cleopatra’s death 302 years later. Alexander’s lifelong friend Ptolemy I Soter was given control of Egypt when Alexander died in 323; he made it into an independent Ptolemaic kingdom in 305.

Cleopatra VII had four children, a boy with Julius Caesar; then with Mark Antony, boy and girl twins and another son. The fathers acknowledged the children, but Cleopatra was never married to Caesar, and not married to Antony under Roman law. (A Roman could not marry a foreigner.) Antony’s divorced wife, the sister of Octavian (Caesar Augustus), raised Cleopatra’s three surviving children. Caesar’s son, 17 by then, was murdered by Octavian’s command in 30 B.C.

She was the wealthiest individual in the Mediterranean world at the time; one of the wealthiest ever (an estimated $100 billion). Alexandria was the largest, most cosmopolitan and attractive city during her reign, far out-shadowing Rome, whose time was to come, and Athens, whose time had passed. It too captured the hearts and minds of many Romans.

Oh, and it’s highly unlikely that Cleopatra’s suicide was from snakebite.

Remember the Maine

The American battleship Maine exploded in Havana Harbor 113 years ago today; 266 of the 350 men on board were killed. A torpedo was blamed, the news media hyperventilated, and by April the peace-loving Americans had declared war on Spain. When the war ended, Cuba, the Philippines, Puerto Rico and Guam belonged to the U.S.

It’s now believed the explosion was the result of a fire in a coal bunker on board the ship; that is, a self-inflicted accident.

News media leading us to war with erroneous information about weapons and attacks. At least that could happen today.

Valentine, You Slay Me

It was on this date in 1929 that the Valentine’s Day Massacre took place in Chicago. Here is the beginning of the news report in The New York Times:

Chicago, Feb. 14 — Chicago gangland leaders observed Valentine’s Day with machine guns and a stream of bullets and as a result seven members of the George (Bugs) Moran-Dean O’Banion, North Side Gang are dead in the most cold-blooded gang massacre in the history of this city’s underworld.

The seven gang warriors were trapped in a beer-distributors’ rendezvous at 2,122 North Clark Street, lined up against the wall by four men, two of whom were in police uniforms, and executed with the precision of a firing squad.

The killings have stunned the citizenry of Chicago as well as the Police Department, and while tonight there was no solution, the one outstanding cause was illicit liquor traffic.

Additional background from This Day in History:

Capone was in Florida in February 1929 when he gave the go-ahead for the assassination of Bugs Moran. On February 13, a bootlegger called Moran and offered to sell him a truckload of high quality whiskey at a low price. Moran took the bait and the next morning pulled up to the delivery location where he was to meet several associates and purchase the whisky. He was running a little late, and just as he was pulling up to the garage he saw what looked like two policemen and two detectives get out of an unmarked car and head to the door. Thinking he had nearly avoided being caught in a police raid, Moran drove off. The four men, however, were Capone’s assassins, and they were only entering the building before Moran’s arrival because they had mistaken one of the seven men inside for the boss himself.

Wearing their stolen police uniforms and heavily armed, Capone’s henchmen surprised Moran’s men, who agreed to line up against the wall. Thinking they had fallen prey to a routine police raid, they allowed themselves to be disarmed. A moment later, they were gunned down in a hail of shotgun and submachine-gun fire. Six were killed instantly, and the seventh survived for less than an hour.

Moran survived until 1957. Capone died in 1947. Prohibition ended in 1932.

Farewell to Springfield

Abraham Lincoln made these remarks in Springfield before boarding the train for Washington 150 years ago today. He transcribed them on the train — it’s Lincoln’s handwriting at first, then his secretary John Nicolay’s. The movement of the train is seen in the scrawl. Click the image above for a larger version. The text is below.

My friends—No one, not in my situation, can appreciate my feeling of sadness at this parting. To this place, and the kindness of these people, I owe every thing. Here I have lived a quarter of a century, and have passed from a young to an old man. Here my children have been born, and one is buried. I now [2] leave, not knowing when, or whether ever, I may return, with a task before me greater than that which rested upon Washington. Without the assistance of that Divine Being, who ever attended him, I cannot succeed. With that assistance I cannot fail. Trusting in Him, who can go with me, and remain with you and be every where for good, [3] let us confidently hope that all will yet be well. To His care commending you, as I hope in your prayers you will commend me, I bid you an affectionate farewell

Lincoln never saw Springfield again.

Information and idea from Farewell to Springfield, today’s very interesting installment in The New York Times series marking each day in the 150th anniversary of the Civil War.

Worth reading

As noted the other day, The New York Times is publishing a daily series tracking the Civil War 150 years ago. Today’s installment discusses Lincoln’s 12-day trip to Washington, which began on February 11, 1861.

Lincoln Moves

Pulitzer-winning author Lawrence Wright has written a lengthy but invaluable look at the Church of Scientology in The New Yorker. I commend his report to you.

Paul Haggis Vs. the Church of Scientology

The College of William and Mary in Virginia

King William III and Queen Mary II granted the charter to found William and Mary 318 years ago today.

The College of William & Mary is the second-oldest college in America. The original plans for the College date back to 1618—decades before Harvard—but were derailed by an “Indian uprising.” We couldn’t make this stuff up.

On February 8, 1693, King William III and Queen Mary II of England signed the charter for a “perpetual College of Divinity, Philosophy, Languages, and other good Arts and Sciences” to be founded in the Virginia Colony. And William & Mary was born.

Workers began construction on the Sir Christopher Wren Building, then known simply as the College Building in 1695, before the town of Williamsburg even existed. Over the next two centuries, the Wren Building would burn on three separate occasions, each time being re-built inside the original walls. That makes the Wren the oldest college building in America, and possibly the most flammable.

The College has been called “the Alma Mater of a Nation” because of its close ties to America’s founding fathers. A 17-year-old George Washington received his surveyor’s license through the College and would return as its first American chancellor. Thomas Jefferson received his undergraduate education here, as did presidents John Tyler and James Monroe. [And NewMexiKen daughters Jill and Emily.]

William & Mary is famous for its firsts: the first U.S. institution with a Royal Charter, the first Greek-letter society (Phi Beta Kappa, founded in 1776), the first student honor code and the first law school in America.

The College became a state-supported school in 1906 and went coed in 1918. In 1928, John D. Rockefeller, Jr. chose the Wren as the first building to be returned to its 18th-century appearance as part of the iconic Colonial Williamsburg restoration.

William & Mary – History & Traditions

A Bad Document’s Good Ideas

The Constitution for the Confederate States of America was approved 150 years ago yesterday. It, of course, authorized “the right of property in negro slaves,” but it did have two good ideas: single six year term for the president and the line-item veto for appropriations.

Background from Discunion, a daily commentary on the 150th anniversary of the Civil War.

Au

… was discovered by James W. Marshall on the property of Johann Sutter near Coloma, California, 163 years ago today. By the end of the year the rush was on; nearly 100,000 people arrived in California in 1849.

But these days, as The Gatlin Brothers sang —

All the gold in California
Is in a bank in the middle of Beverly Hills
In somebody else’s name

Poll Tax

The 24th Amendment to the Constitution was ratified by the required 38th state on January 23rd just 47 years ago (1964).

Section 1. The right of citizens of the United States to vote in any primary or other election for President or Vice President, for electors for President or Vice President, or for Senator or Representative in Congress, shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or any State by reason of failure to pay any poll tax or other tax.

Virginia ratified the Amendment in 1977, North Carolina in 1989 and Alabama in 2002. Mississippi rejected the 24th Amendment in 1962. Wyoming, Arizona, Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Louisiana, Georgia and South Carolina have never ratified the Amendment.

Poll taxes had been imposed late in the 19th century primarily as a means of keeping African-Americans from voting. In some instances, individuals whose parents and grandparents had voted were exempt from the tax — and, of course, the parents and grandparents of nearly all black voters had been slaves.

At the time the Amendment was approved, only five states still had a poll tax in federal elections: Virginia, Alabama, Texas, Arkansas and Mississippi. A Supreme Court decision in 1966 declared poll taxes unconstitutional for state elections under the Equal Protection clause of the 14th amendment.