Category: History

The Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization (PATCO) walked off their jobs with the Federal Aviation Administration 28 years ago today. President Reagan threatened to fire the controllers if they didn’t return within 48 hours. Other unions failed to support PATCO. And so began the end of the labor movement in the United States.

Reagan fired 11,345 striking air traffic controllers.

Two of the four coincidences posted by John Steele Gordon at AmericanHeritage.com:

1) Probably the most famous coincidence in American history is that both Thomas Jefferson and John Adams died on the same day. And it was not just any day but July 4, 1826, the fiftieth anniversary of the adoption of the Declaration of Independence. The cherry on top is that Adams and Jefferson were the only two signers of the Declaration to later become President. We will never know, of course, but I’ve always suspected that both Jefferson and Adams, old and rapidly failing though they were (Adams was 90, Jefferson 83) were aware of what day it was and perhaps at some level decided that it was a good day to die. President James Monroe also died on July 4, in 1831. So more than 8 percent of deceased American Presidents have died on the nation’s birthday, and three of the first five did.

3) In the 1940s two of the mightiest and most iconic of American industrial corporations were General Motors and General Electric. The president of GM from 1941 until 1953 was a man named Charles E. Wilson. The president of General Electric from 1940 to 1950 (except from 1942 until 1945, when he worked for the government) was a man named . . . Charles E. Wilson. They were unrelated and were known as Engine Charlie and Electric Charlie to keep them separate. (Runner up in this category, perhaps, is the fact that Chief Justice Earl Warren was succeeded in office by Chief Justice Warren Earl Burger.)

If you saw Jaws or read it, you will remember the harrowing story Quint (Robert Shaw) tells of surviving the sinking of the cruiser Indianapolis. It was on this date in 1945 that the ship, which had carried the Hiroshima atomic bomb and was out of communication, was torpedoed by the Japanese. According to the USS Indianapolis CA-35 web site:

At 12:14 a.m. on July 30, 1945, the USS Indianapolis was torpedoed by a Japanese submarine in the Philippine Sea and sank in 12 minutes. Of 1,196 men on board, approximately 300 went down with the ship. The remainder, about 900 men, were left floating in shark-infested waters with no lifeboats and most with no food or water. The ship was never missed, and by the time the survivors were spotted by accident four days later only 316 men were still alive.

The ship’s captain, the late Charles Butler McVay III, survived and was court-martialed and convicted of “hazarding his ship by failing to zigzag” despite overwhelming evidence that the Navy itself had placed the ship in harm’s way, despite testimony from the Japanese submarine commander that zigzagging would have made no difference, and despite that fact that, although over 350 navy ships were lost in combat in WWII, McVay was the only captain to be court-martialed. Materials declassified years later adds to the evidence that McVay was a scapegoat for the mistakes of others.

Shark attacks began with sunrise of the first day (July 30) and continued until the survivors were removed from the water almost five days later.

The Navy web site includes oral histories with Indianapolis Captain McVay and Japanese submarine Captain Hashimoto. The Discovery Channel has a wealth of material.

The site dedicated to the Indianapolis is perhaps the best source.

In Harm’s Way: The Sinking of the U.S.S. Indianapolis and the Extraordinary Story of Its Survivors (2001) by Doug Stanton is a book on the voyage, the sinking, the survivors and McVay’s court martial.

Fifty-three years ago today, on July 25, 1956, two large passenger liners off Massachusetts were steaming toward each other through the night at a combined speed of 40 knots. In spite of ample room to maneuver, in spite of the radar that let them spot each other from a distance, and in spite of clear rules intended to avoid collisions, the Stockholm crashed into the Andrea Doria and ripped the luxurious ship open amidships. It was to be the last great drama of the age of transatlantic passenger liners.

Read more from American Heritage.

A 14-year-old girl aboard the Andrea Doria survived in the wreckage on the Stockholm.

On July 23, 1904, according to some accounts, Charles E. Menches conceived the idea of filling a pastry cone with two scoops of ice-cream and thereby invented the ice-cream cone. He is one of several claimants to that honor: Ernest Hamwi, Abe Doumar, Albert and Nick Kabbaz, Arnold Fornachou, and David Avayou all have been touted as the inventor(s) of the first edible cone. Interestingly, these individuals have in common the fact that they all made or sold confections at the 1904 Louisiana Purchase Exposition, known as the St. Louis World’s Fair. It is from the time of the Fair that the edible “cornucopia,” a cone made from a rolled waffle, vaulted into popularity in the United States.

Library of Congress

Sixty-five years ago today, German military officers failed in an attempt to assassinate Adolf Hitler with a bomb in a briefcase. Four were killed but Hitler, though wounded, was saved by the heavy wooden table on which he was reviewing maps. This from the BBC —

Adolf Hitler has escaped death after a bomb exploded at 1242 local time at his headquarters in Rastenberg, East Prussia.

The German News Agency broke the news from Hitler’s headquarters, known as the “wolf’s lair”, his command post for the Eastern Front.

A senior officer, Colonel Claus Schenk von Stauffenberg, has been blamed for planting the bomb at a meeting at which Hitler and other senior members of the General Staff were present.

Hitler has sustained minor burns and concussion but, according to the news agency, managed to keep his appointment with Italian leader Benito Mussolini.

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Von Stauffenberg was arrested the same day and shot. The rest of the conspirators were tried and hanged or offered the chance to commit suicide.

Eight of those executed were hanged with piano wire from meat-hooks and their executions filmed and shown to senior members of the Nazi Party and the armed forces.

40 years ago, three human beings – with the help of many thousands of others – left our planet on a successful journey to our Moon, setting foot on another world for the first time. Tomorrow marks the 40th anniversary of the July 16, 1969 launch of Apollo 11, with astronauts Neil A. Armstrong, Michael Collins and Edwin E. “Buzz” Aldrin Jr. aboard. The entire trip lasted only 8 days, the time spent on the surface was less than one day, the entire time spent walking on the moon, a mere 2 1/2 hours – but they were surely historic hours. Scientific experiments were deployed (at least one still in use today), samples were collected, and photographs were taken to document the entire journey. Collected here are 40 images from that journey four decades ago, when, in the words of astronaut Buzz Aldrin: “In this one moment, the world came together in peace for all mankind”. (40 photos total)

The Big Picture – Boston.com

The duel between Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr was 205 years ago this morning. Hamilton biographer Ron Chernow wrote about the duel five years ago. Here are the essentials, but the whole piece is worth reading.

Two hundred years ago today, Aaron Burr and Alexander Hamilton squared off in a sunrise duel on a wooded ledge in Weehawken, N.J., above the Hudson River. Burr was vice president when he leveled his fatal shot at Hamilton, the former Treasury secretary, who died the next day in what is now the West Village of Manhattan. New Yorkers turned out en masse for Hamilton’s funeral, while Burr (rightly or wrongly) was branded an assassin and fled south in anticipation of indictments in New York and New Jersey. To the horror of Hamilton’s admirers, the vice president, now a fugitive from justice, officiated at an impeachment trial in the Senate of a Supreme Court justice.
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So Hamilton, at 49, decided to expose himself to Burr’s fire to prove his courage, but to throw away his own shot to express his aversion to dueling. He gambled that Burr would prove a gentleman and merely clip him in the arm or leg — a wager he lost. With Hamilton’s death, America also lost its most creative policymaker. (The murder indictments against Burr petered out, and he died a reclusive old man in 1836.)

Seeking to regain political power after the duel, Burr allegedly led an expedition to establish an independent nation along the Mississippi River, separating territories from the United States and Spain. He was charged with treason but acquitted.

English and American troops under British Major General Edward Braddock were routed by French and Indian forces near Fort Duquesne (Pittsburgh) on this date in 1755. The leading colonial officer, George Washington, had two horses shot out from under him, his coat torn by bullets and his hat shot off, but — as you may have heard — he survived.

A very good, well-balanced assessment from James Fallows. Recommended.

… in 1865 at Fort McNair, Mary E. Surratt, Lewis Payne, David E. Herold and George A. Atzerodt were executed for their part in the Lincoln assassination conspiracy.

Alexander Gardner photo from the Library of Congress

This date, July 7, is significant in American imperial growth. On July 7, 1846, Commodore John D. Sloat captured Monterey and officially raised the American flag over California. On July 7, 1898, President William McKinley signed the Newlands Resolution which annexed the Hawaiian Islands to the United States.

It was the Declaration of Independence that was approved by the Second Continental Congress on this date in 1776.

Independence itself was voted two days earlier. We celebrate the anniversary of the birth certificate, not the birth.

The signing of the embossed copy we recognize as THE Declaration of Independence began on August 2nd.

Having failed on July 2 to turn either of Meade’s flanks (Culp’s Hill and the Round Tops), Lee decided on the 3rd to assault the Union center. James Longstreet, who would command the attack, wrote later that he told Lee: “General, I have been a soldier all my life. I have been with soldiers engaged in fights by couples, by squads, companies, regiments, divisions, and armies, and should know, as well as anyone, what soldiers can do. It is my opinion that no fifteen thousand men ever arrayed for battle can take that position.” But Lee had made up his mind — and he had already issued the orders. Two divisions from A.P. Hill’s Third Corps and one — Pickett’s — from Longstreet’s First Corps were to make the advance. It’s known as Pickett’s Charge, but more correctly it is the Pickett-Pettigrew-Trimble Charge.

To prepare for the assault — to cripple the Union defenses — Lee order a massive artillery strike. The 163 Confederate cannons began firing at 1:07 PM. The Union artillery returned fire with nearly the same number. The Confederate aim was high and smoke curtained the targets. Little damage was done to the Union infantry. After a time, Union artillery commander Henry Hunt ordered his guns to cease firing — to save ammunition, cool the guns, and lure the rebels forward.

Forward they came, 14,000 men in a formation a mile wide, moving across open fields for three-quarters of a mile. The Union artillery opened on them with shot and shell and ultimately canister (shells filled with metal). At 200 yards, the Union infantry on the Confederate front opened fire, while other Union units moved out to attack both sides of the charge. Of the 14,000 in the advance, perhaps 200 breached the first Union line before being repulsed. Of the 14,000, half did not return.

Lee was defeated and withdrew from Gettysburg. While the war lasted 22 more months, the brief moment when the 200 reached the Union line was considered the high-water mark for the confederacy. Gettysburg totals: 25,000 Union casualties; 28,000 Confederate casualties.

Map: National Park Service