Brief narratives about people and events in the American past.
NewMexiKen has finished The Summer of 1787: The Men Who Invented the Constitution
The classic work on the Constitutional Convention is Catherine Drinker Bowen’s Miracle At Philadelphia
But here’s another trivia question from the Constitution.
The Preamble begins with the famous “We the People of the United States, in order to [blah, blah, yada yada, and so forth], do ….
“Do” what? What are the two predicates in this famous sentence?
Herb Morrison reporting, 70 years ago today.
Thirty-six were killed — 13 of the 36 passengers, 22 of the 61 crew, and one ground crew member.
The Hindenburg did not explode because it was filled with hydrogen as long thought. The outer skin of the big German aircraft — longer than three 747s — was painted with an iron oxide, powdered aluminum compound to reflect sunlight (to minimize heat build up). The powdered aluminum was highly flammable and was ignited by an electrostatic charge in the imperfectly grounded zeppelin.
How flammable is iron oxide and aluminum? It’s the fuel used to launch the Shuttle.
Fifty-six men signed the Declaration of Independence in 1776. Thirty-nine men signed the Constitution in 1787.
How many signed both?
Bonus question.
How many states were there when George Washington became president on April 30, 1789?
The answers are in a comment.
On April 30th four centuries ago, our ancestors, led by Don Juan de Oñate, reached the banks of El Rio Bravo (Rio Grande). The first recorded act of thanksgiving by colonizing Europeans on this continent occurred on that April day in 1598 in Nuevo Mexico, about 25 miles south of what is now El Paso, Texas. After having begun their northward trek in March of that same year, the entire caravan was gathered at this point. The 400 person expedition included soldiers, families, servants, personal belongings, and livestock . . . virtually a living village. Two thirds of the colonizers were from the Iberian Peninsula (Spain, Portugal, and the Canary Islands). There was even one Greek and a man from Flanders! The rest were Mexican Indians and mestizos (mixed bloods).
. . .On April 30, 1598, the scouts made camp along the Rio Grande and prepared to drink and eat their fill, for there they found fishes and waterfowl. Villagrá wrote,
We built a great bonfire and roasted meat and fish, and then sat down to a repast the like of which we had never enjoyed before.” Before this bountiful meal, Don Juan de Oñate personally nailed a cross to a living tree and prayed, “Open the door to these heathens, establish the church altars where the body and blood of the Son of God may be offered, open to us the way to security and peace for their preservation and ours, and give to our king and to me in his royal name, peaceful possession of these kingdoms and provinces for His blessed glory. Amen.”Excerpted from The New Mexico Genealogical Society
Ah, the importance of worshipful friends or family in building a legend.
John Luther Jones from Cayce (pronounced Cay-see), Kentucky, famous to us through song as a brave engineer who romantically died trying to make up time. In truth, he crashed his locomotive at high speed into a freight train that was attempting to get out of the way on a siding. According to reports he failed to heed warning signals that were out. The accident took place early in the morning of April 30, 1900. Jones was the only fatality.
Jones was known for his affability and his skill in blowing a train whistle. His engine wiper, Wallace Saunders, reportedly idolized the engineer. Saunders wrote the original song.
All you might want to know can be found in this 1928 article.
Jill and Emily, official daughters of NewMexiKen, are rightfully proud of their alma mater, The College of William and Mary. It’s America’s second oldest college (after that one in Massachusetts), granted its charter by King William III and Queen Mary II in 1693. Other alumni in addition to Jill and Emily include Thomas Jefferson and Jon Stewart.
And the campus has a famous visitor next week.
As noted earlier today, it was 12 years ago that the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City was bombed, killing 168 people and injuring 500. NewMexiKen has been to the Memorial twice, most recently last June with Dad. I’ve created an album with 12 photos of this striking, yet somber place.
You may click on the image to advance to the next photo.
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NewMexiKen hasn’t read this book yet, but it’s getting good reviews. The Summer of 1787: The Men Who Invented the Constitution
And this, of course.
Einstein: His Life and Universe
And, among the Pulitzer winners, this stands out for me:
The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11
At Lexington Green, the British were met by 77 American Minute Men led by John Parker. At the North Bridge in Concord, the British were confronted again, this time by 300 to 400 armed colonists, and were forced to march back to Boston with the Americans firing on them all the way. By the end of the day, the colonists were singing “Yankee Doodle” and the American Revolution had begun.
Indeed, if actions spoke louder than words, today would be Independence Day.
… 12 years ago today that a bomb was exploded outside the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City killing 168 people, and injuring 500.
Stylized chairs representing some of the public servants and others (including 19 children) who lost their life that day (Oklahoma City National Memorial).
. . . died on this date in 1790. He was 84.
In his twenties Franklin had written an epitaph for himself:
By the age of 84 he wished for something simpler. The marble over his grave simply reads: Benjamin and Deborah Franklin.
Information from Walter Isaacson’s superb biography of Franklin.
| . . . appeared in his first major league game 60 years ago today. He went hitless but scored the winning run.
The front page of the Pittsburgh Courier, once the country’s most widely circulated African-American newspaper, conveys the significance of that day. Click on image to enlarge. |
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Titanic Sinks Four Hours After Hitting Iceberg;
866 Rescued By Carpathia, Probably 1,250 Perish;
Ismay Safe, Mrs. Astor Maybe, Noted Names MissingBiggest Liner Plunges to the Bottom at 2:20 A.M.
RESCUERS THERE TOO LATE
Expect to Pick Up the Few Hundreds Who Took to the Lifeboats.
WOMEN AND CHILDREN FIRST
Cunarder Carpathia Rushing to New York with the Survivors.
SEA SEARCH FOR OTHERS
The California Stands By on Chance of Picking Up Other Boats or Rafts.
OLYMPIC SENDS THE NEWS
Only Ship to Flash Wireless Messages to Shore After the Disaster.
From The New York Times story of the sinking.
On the 14th day of April of 1935,
There struck the worst of dust storms that ever filled the sky.
You could see that dust storm comin’, the cloud looked deathlike black,
And through our mighty nation, it left a dreadful track.
From Oklahoma City to the Arizona line,
Dakota and Nebraska to the lazy Rio Grande,
It fell across our city like a curtain of black rolled down,
We thought it was our judgement, we thought it was our doom.
The radio reported, we listened with alarm,
The wild and windy actions of this great mysterious storm;
From Albuquerque and Clovis, and all New Mexico,
They said it was the blackest that ever they had saw.
From old Dodge City, Kansas, the dust had rung their knell,
And a few more comrades sleeping on top of old Boot Hill.
From Denver, Colorado, they said it blew so strong,
They thought that they could hold out, but they didn’t know how long.
Our relatives were huddled into their oil boom shacks,
And the children they was cryin’ as it whistled through the cracks.
And the family it was crowded into their little room,
They thought the world had ended, and they thought it was their doom.
The storm took place at sundown, it lasted through the night,
When we looked out next morning, we saw a terrible sight.
We saw outside our window where wheat fields they had grown
Was now a rippling ocean of dust the wind had blown.
It covered up our fences, it covered up our barns,
It covered up our tractors in this wild and dusty storm.
We loaded our jalopies and piled our families in,
We rattled down that highway to never come back again.
Today is the anniversary of Black Sunday, the day in 1935 when a windstorm hit a part of the Great Plains known as the Dust Bowl. When the day started, the weather was sunny and calm. People were on their way home from church, or out visiting friends for lunch, when they saw huge flocks of birds flying south, away from a dark black cloud on the northern horizon. As the cloud approached, people realized that it wasn’t a storm cloud, but a cloud of dirt, blown up by the wind. Witnesses said it was like a black tidal wave came down from the sky. It became as dark as night as soon as the cloud descended. Static electricity stalled cars and shorted out telephone lines. People standing a few yards away from their homes got lost in the darkness, and grabbed onto fence posts to keep from being blown to the ground. It was later estimated that the storm carried 300 million tons of soil through the air.
Those on the road had to try to beat the storm home. Some, like Ed and Ada Phillips of Boise City, and their six-year-old daughter, had to stop on their way to seek shelter in an abandoned adobe hut. There they joined ten other people already huddled in the two-room ruin, sitting for four hours in the dark, fearing that they would be smothered. Cattle dealer Raymond Ellsaesser tells how he almost lost his wife when her car was shorted out by electricity and she decided to walk the three-quarters of a mile home. As her daughter ran ahead to get help, Ellsaesser’s wife wandered off the road in the blinding dust. The moving headlights of her husband’s truck, visible as he frantically drove back and forth along the road, eventually led her back
. . . And the old house was just a-vibratin’ like it was gonna blow away. And I started tryin’ to see my hand. And I kept bringin’ my hand up closer and closer and closer and closer and closer and I finally touched the end of my nose and I still couldn’t see my hand. That’s how black it was. And we burned kerosene lamps and Dad lit an old kerosene lamp, set it on the kitchen table and it was just across the room from me, about — about 14 feet. And I could just barely see that lamp flame across the room. That’s how dark it was and it was six o’clock in the afternoon. It was the 14th of April, 1935. The sun was still up, but it was totally black and that was blackest, worst dust storm, sand storm we had durin’ the whole time.
A lot of people died. A lot of children, especially, died of dust pneumonia. They’d take little kids and cover ’em with sheets and sprinkle water on the sheets to filter the dust out. . . .
See earlier entry by NewMexiKen with photo.
And, again, I strongly recommend The Worst Hard Time
Stephen W. Terrell reminds us:
Yes, today is the anniversary of the assassination of President Lincoln, the sinking of the Titanic and the Great Dust Storm of 1935 — as lamented in those mysterious songs by Gillian Welch I played in my set on The Santa Fe Opry last night . . .
Ruination Day Set
April the 14th Part 1 by Gillian Welch
The Great Dust Storm (Dust Storm Diaster) by Woody Guthrie
The Titantic by Bessie Jones, Hobart Smith & The Georgia Sea Island Singers
Booth Killed Lincoln by Bascom Lamar Lunsford
Lincoln and Liberty by Oscar Brand
Waltzing on the Titantic by Lonesome Bob
My Heart Will Go On (Theme from Titanic) by Los Straitjackets
Ruination Day Part 2 by Gillian Welch
It was on this date 72 years ago that the largest of the dust storms of the 1930s swept the western plains.
Cyclic winds rolled up two miles high, stretched out a hundred miles and moved faster than 50 miles an hour. These storms destroyed vast areas of the Great Plains farmland. The methods of fighting the dust were as many and varied as were the means of finding a way to get something to eat and wear. Every possible crack was plugged, sheets were placed over windows and blankets were hung behind doors. Often the places were so tightly plugged against the dust (which still managed to get in) that the houses became extremely hot and stuffy.
Quotation and photo from the Cimmaron Heritage Center, Boise City, Oklahoma. Boise City is in the Oklahoma panhandle near Colorado, New Mexico, Kansas and Texas.
The Worst Hard Time
… of Loretta Lynn. The coal miner’s daughter was born in Butcher Holler, Kentucky, 72 years ago.
Loretta Webb was born in a one-room log cabin and was the second of eight children. At thirteen she attended a pie social, bringing a pie she had baked using salt instead of sugar. The highest bidder not only won the pie but also got to meet the girl who had baked the pie. Mooney Lynn had just returned home after having served in the army. A month after they had first met, still three months short of her fourteenth birthday, Loretta and Mooney married.
… of three-time Oscar nominee for best actress Julie Christie. She’s 67. Miss Christie won the Oscar for Darling.
… of Pete Rose. You can bet that Pete is 66 today.
… of Brad Garrett, 47. Garrett is 6-8½.
… of Greg Maddux, 41.
… of Adrien Brody. The Oscar winner (best actor for The Pianist) is 34.
… of Sarah Michelle Gellar. Buffy is 30.
… of Abigail Breslin. The Oscar-nominated actress is 11.
Three time Oscar-nominated actor Rod Steiger was born on this date in 1925. Steiger won for Best Actor for his portrayal of the sheriff in the movie In the Heat of the Night. He was nominated for best actor for The Pawnbroker and for best supporting actor for On the Waterfront. The Pawnbroker (1964) was one of the first films to deal with the emotional aftermath of the Nazi concentration camps. Steiger died in 2002.
James Cash Penney opened his first retail store, called the Golden Rule Store, in the mining town of Kemmerer, Wyoming, on this date in 1902. In 1913, the chain incorporated as J.C. Penney Company, Inc.
The first store, as seen in 1904.
RMS Titanic hit an iceberg at 11:40 PM (Titanic time) on this date in 1912. She was at 41° 46′ north latitude , 50° 14′ west longitude in the Atlantic. The ship went under at 2:20 AM on the 15th.
. . . was born on this date in 1743.
Eight-three years later, at the end of his remarkable life, he wished to be remembered foremost for those actions that appear as his epitaph:
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At a White House dinner honoring 49 Nobel laureates in 1962, President Kennedy remarked, “I think this is the most extraordinary talent, of human knowledge, that has ever been gathered together at the White House, with the possible exception of when Thomas Jefferson dined alone.”
It seems to NewMexiKen that the country could use a federal holiday during that long spell from Washington’s Birthday to Memorial Day. I propose that today, April 13, Jefferson’s birthday, would be ideal.
Despite serious flaws, Jefferson remains one of the most remarkable Americans — statesman, scientist, architect, philosopher agronomist, author.
Click on the image of the document to view Jefferson’s draft of the Declaration of Independence. The photo of Jefferson’s tomb above taken by NewMexiKen, 2001. Click to enlarge.
Here, from AP, is the actual recording 27 years ago today of Astronaut Jack Swigert telling Houston we have a problem.
In the film, Tom Hanks as Commander Jim Lovell has the line.
This report is from the next day’s New York Times:
The Apollo 13 Astronauts, their lives threatened by a serious oxygen leak, were forced to evacuate their command ship late last night and use their intended moon-landing craft as a “lifeboat” for a fast return to the earth.
In cool and cryptic words, they were instructed by mission control here to use the attached lunar module’s rocket to power them back to an emergency splashdown in the Pacific Ocean at about noon on Friday.
There will be great risks and little margin for error or delay. …
Capt. James A. Lovell Jr. of the Navy, the commander, and his two civilian co-pilots, Fred W. Haise Jr. and John L. Swigert Jr., crowded into the two-man lunar module at about 11:40 P.M. Eastern standard time.
Salon’s Ask the pilot (Patrick Smith) reviews the tragedy at Tenerife. He begins his fascinating history:
March 27 marked the 30th anniversary of the most deadly aviation disaster in history.
Most people haven’t heard of Tenerife, a pan-shaped speck in the Atlantic. It’s one of the Canary Islands, a volcanic chain governed by the Spanish, clustered a few hundred miles off the coast of Morocco. The big town on Tenerife is Santa Cruz, and its airport, beneath a set of cascading hillsides, is called Los Rodeos. There, on March 27, 1977, two Boeing 747s — one belonging to KLM, the other to Pan Am — collided on a foggy runway. Five hundred and eighty-three people were killed. The KLM jet had commenced takeoff without permission, slamming broadside into the taxiing Pan Am jumbo as it swerved to avoid impact.
“He is conscious of limitations greater than he has.”
Unidentified individual speaking about Harry Truman, as reported on April 12, 1945, the day Franklin Roosevelt died and Truman became President.
Starting on April 3, 1860, the Pony Express ran through parts of Missouri, Kansas, Nebraska, Colorado, Wyoming, Utah, Nevada, and California. On an average day, a rider covered 75 to 100 miles. He changed horses at relay stations, set about 10 or 15 miles apart, transferring himself and his mochila (a saddle cover with four pockets or cantinas for mail) to the new mount, all in one leap.
The first mail by Pony Express via the central route from St. Joseph to Sacramento took 10 1/2 days, cutting the Overland Stage time via the southern route by more than half. The fastest delivery was in March 1861, when President Abraham Lincoln’s inaugural address was carried in 7 days and 17 hours.
From April 1860 through June 1861, the Pony Express operated as a private enterprise. From July 1, 1861, it operated under contract as a mail route until October 24, 1861, when the transcontinental telegraph line was completed, and the Pony Express became a legend.
Title of this post taken from want ad placed in March 1860 for riders.
. . . entered Richmond, the capital of the Confederacy, on this date in 1865. The Confederate government and army had fled the night before. According to historian James M. McPherson, “Southerners burned more of their own capital than the enemy had burned of Atlanta or Columbia.”
The following day, April 4, President Lincoln, who had been “vacationing” at City Point, Virginia, near the front since March 24, toured Richmond (much of it on foot) with his 12-year-old son Tad (it was Tad’s birthday). At the capitol, Lincoln sat in Jefferson Davis’ chair.
Lincoln returned to Washington on April 9th (the date of Lee’s surrender). He was assassinated just five days later.
From The New York Times report on President Woodrow Wilson’s call for a declaration of war — 90 years ago today:
Before an audience that cheered him as he has never been cheered in the Capitol in his life, the President cast in the lot of American unreservedly with the Allies and declared for a war that must not end until the issue between autocracy and democracy has been fought out. He recited our injuries at Germany’s hands, but he did not rest our cause on those; he went on from that point to range us with the Allies as a factor in an irrepressible conflict between the autocrat and the people. He showed that peace was impossible for the democracies of the world while this power remained on earth. “The world,” he said, “must be made safe for democracy.”
