Category: History

“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.”

From the First Inaugural Address of Franklin D. Roosevelt, March 4, 1933.

Hear FDR speak the first part of the famous line.

. . . Both parties deprecated war, but one of them would make war rather than let the nation survive, and the other would accept war rather than let it perish, and the war came.

One-eighth of the whole population were colored slaves, not distributed generally over the Union, but localized in the southern part of it. These slaves constituted a peculiar and powerful interest. All knew that this interest was somehow the cause of the war. To strengthen, perpetuate, and extend this interest was the object for which the insurgents would rend the Union even by war, while the Government claimed no right to do more than to restrict the territorial enlargement of it. Neither party expected for the war the magnitude or the duration which it has already attained. Neither anticipated that the cause of the conflict might cease with or even before the conflict itself should cease. Each looked for an easier triumph, and a result less fundamental and astounding. Both read the same Bible and pray to the same God, and each invokes His aid against the other. It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just God’s assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men’s faces, but let us judge not, that we be not judged. The prayers of both could not be answered. That of neither has been answered fully. The Almighty has His own purposes. “Woe unto the world because of offenses; for it must needs be that offenses come, but woe to that man by whom the offense cometh.” If we shall suppose that American slavery is one of those offenses which, in the providence of God, must needs come, but which, having continued through His appointed time, He now wills to remove, and that He gives to both North and South this terrible war as the woe due to those by whom the offense came, shall we discern therein any departure from those divine attributes which the believers in a living God always ascribe to Him? Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman’s two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said “the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.”

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.

Second Inaugural Address of Abraham Lincoln

Delivered March 4, 1865; first several sentences omitted.

… became the official national anthem of the United States on this date in 1931. You know what that means? For 155 years is was not the official national anthem. For just 76 years it has been. We could change it. It isn’t etched in granite.

The first (of four) verses:

O say, can you see, by the dawn’s early light,
What so proudly we hailed at the twilight’s last gleaming,
Whose broad stripes and bright stars, through the perilous fight,
O’er the ramparts we watched, were so gallantly streaming?
And the rockets’ red glare, the bombs bursting in air,
Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there;
O say, does that star-spangled banner yet wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave?

… was established on this date in 1849.

The Mission of the Department of the Interior is to protect and provide access to our Nation’s natural and cultural heritage and honor our trust responsibilities to Indian Tribes and our commitments to island communities.

DOI manages 507 million acres of surface land, or about one-fifth of the land in the United States, including:

• 262 million acres managed by the Bureau of Land Management
• 95 million acres managed by the Fish and Wildlife Service
• 84 million acres managed by the National Park Service
• 56 million acres managed by the Bureau of Indian Affairs
• 8.6 million acres managed by the Bureau of Reclamation

“It is with no ordinary feelings we announce the fact—that a plan for making a railroad from the city of Baltimore to some point on the Ohio River, has been considered and adopted.” These words in a Baltimore newspaper, Niles’ Weekly Register, told the world that a group of businessmen had gotten a charter, 180 years ago today, to build the first public railroad in America.
. . .

A year and a half later, the first passengers were riding the B&O. In May 1830 they could travel as far as Ellicott’s Mills, about 10 miles west of the city. The cars, which resembled stagecoaches, were initially pulled by horses over wooden rails capped with iron. Those searching for a better means of propulsion suggested cars driven by the wind or powered by a horse on a treadmill. Both ideas were soon superseded by a more revolutionary concept. In 1830 Peter Cooper’s one-ton locomotive Tom Thumb proved the viability of steam power, and before long the B&O began carrying both passengers and freight in steam-driven trains of cars. To support the weight, cast-iron rails replaced the wooden ones.

Andrew Jackson became the first U.S. President to ride on a railroad, taking a short trip on the B&O in 1833. Two years later, the company opened a line connecting Washington and Baltimore. It was along that route that Samuel F. B. Morse sent the words “What hath God wrought!” 40 miles over wires in 1844. They were the first telecommunication in history.

B&O, of course, stands for Baltimore and Ohio. The line reached the river at Wheeling on New Year’s Day 1853. There’s more by Jack Kelly at AmericanHeritage.com.

… was the first American to orbit the earth — on this date 45 years ago.

Cape Canaveral, Fla., Feb. 20 — John H. Glenn Jr. orbited three times around the earth today and landed safely to become the first American to make such a flight.

The 40-year-old Marine Corps lieutenant colonel traveled about 81,000 miles in 4 hours 56 minutes before splashing into the Atlantic at 2:43 P.M. Eastern Standard Time.

He had been launched from here at 9:47 A. M.

The astronaut’s safe return was no less a relief than a thrill to the Project Mercury team, because there had been real concern that the Friendship 7 capsule might disintegrate as it rammed back into the atmosphere.

There had also been a serious question whether Colonel Glenn could complete three orbits as planned. But despite persistent control problems, he managed to complete the entire flight plan.

The New York Times

“Buchanan, Harding, Nixon, Dubya …? Much more fun than your high school History class, this year’s President’s Day tribute is to the very worst of them.”

Nicholas von Hoffman reviews the worst.

It was a speech so moving the crowd wept. It was a speech so personally important George Washington’s hand shook as he read it until he had to hold the paper still with both hands. After the ceremony, he handed the thing to a friend and sped out the door of the State House in Annapolis, riding off by horse. [December 23, 1783]

For centuries, his words have resonated in American democracy even as the speech itself — the small piece of paper that shook in his hands that day — was quietly put away, out of the public eye and largely forgotten.

Today, however, amid festivities celebrating his birthday, Maryland officials plan to unveil the original document — worth $1.5 million — after acquiring it in a private sale from a family in Maryland who had kept it all these years. . . .

The speech, scholars say, was a turning point in U.S. history. As the Revolutionary War was winding down, some wanted to make Washington king. Some whispered conspiracy, trying to seduce him with the trappings of power. But Washington renounced them all.

By resigning his commission as commander in chief to the Continental Congress — then housed at the Annapolis capitol — Washington laid the cornerstone for an American principle that persists today: Civilians, not generals, are ultimately in charge of military power.

The Washington Post

Follow this link for a copy of the document. Here’s the text version:

The great events on which my resignation depended, having at length taken place, I have now the honor of offering my sincere congratulations to Congress, & of presenting myself before Congress them, to surrender into their hands the trust committed to me, and to claim the indulgence of retiring request permission to retire from the service of my country.

Happy in the confirmation of our independence and sovereignty, and pleased with the opportunity afforded the United States, of becoming a respectable Nation as well as in the contemplation of our prospect of National happiness, I resign with satisfaction the appointment I accepted with diffidence — a diffidence in my abilities to accomplish so arduous a task, which however was superseded by a confidence in the rectitude of our Cause, the support of the supreme Power of the Union, and the patronage of Heaven.

The successful termination of the War has verified the most sanguine expectations- and my gratitude for the interposition of Providence, and the assistance I have received from my Countrymen, increases with every review of the momentous Contest.

While I repeat my obligations to the army in general, I should do injustice to my own feelings not to acknowledge in this place the peculiar services and distinguished merits of the Gentlemen who have been attached to my person during the war. — It was impossible the choice of confidential officers to compose my family should have been more fortunate. –Permit me Sir, to recommend in particular those, who have continued in service to the present moment, as worthy of the favorable notice & patronage of Congress.–

I consider it an indispensable duty duty to close this last solemn act of my Official life, by commending the Interests of our dearest Country to the protection of Almighty God, and those who have the superintendance direction of them, to his holy keeping.–

Having now finished the work assigned me, I retire from the great theatre of action, — and bidding an affectionate a final farewell to this August body, under whose orders I have so long acted, I here offer today deliver? my Commission, and take my ultimate leave of all the employments of public life.–

In 1976, Adm. Hyman Rickover of the U.S. Navy mounted yet another investigation into the cause of the Maine disaster. His team of experts found that the ship’s demise was self-inflicted—likely the result of a coal bunker fire. There are those, however, who still maintain that an external blast was to blame. Some people, it seems, just won’t let you forget the Maine.

Smithsonian Magazine

On February 15, 1898, an explosion of unknown origin sank the battleship U.S.S. Maine in the Havana, Cuba harbor, killing 266 of the 354 crew members. The sinking of the Maine incited United States passions against Spain, eventually leading to a naval blockade of Cuba and a declaration of war.

Ostensibly on a friendly visit, the Maine had been sent to Cuba to protect the interests of Americans there after riots broke out in Havana in January. An official U.S. Naval Court of Inquiry reported on March 28 that the ship, one of the first American battleships and built at a cost of more than two million dollars, had been blown up by a mine without laying blame on any person or nation in particular, but public opinion in the United States blamed the Spanish military occupying Cuba anyway. Subsequent diplomatic communications failed to resolve the matter, leading to the start of the Spanish-American War by the end of April.

Library of Congress

Sounds a lot like a “weapons of mass destruction” type scare scenario to me.

From PBS FEBRUARY ONE:

In one remarkable day, four college freshmen changed the course of American history. On February 1, 1960, Ezell Blair, Jr. (now Jibreel Khazan), David Richmond, Franklin McCain and Joseph McNeil—later dubbed the Greensboro Four—began a sit-in at a Woolworth’s lunch counter in a small city in North Carolina. The act of simply sitting down to order food in a restaurant that refused service to anyone but whites is now widely regarded as one of the pivotal moments in the American Civil Rights Movement.

The Greensboro Woolworth’s lunch counter was integrated in July 1960.

On January 13, 1832, President Andrew Jackson wrote Vice President Martin Van Buren expressing his opposition to South Carolina’s defiance of federal authority.

The conflict erupted the previous November when South Carolina nullified a federal tariff that favored Northern manufacturing over Southern agriculture. Complicating matters, Jackson’s vice president at that time, South Carolina native John C. Calhoun, firmly believed states had the right to overrule federal laws. South Carolinians agreed and planned to use armed force to prevent duty collection in the state after February 1, 1833.

Calhoun developed the idea of nullification—first put forth in the Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions of 1798—as a strategy for the South to preserve slavery in the face of a Northern majority in Congress. His support of the measure, disclosed midway through his term, was not shared by President Jackson who feared nullification’s power to split the Union. This difference of opinion permanently distanced the president and vice president.

On December 10, 1832, Jackson responded to South Carolina’s recalcitrance with a Proclamation to the People of South Carolina. Considered the greatest state paper of the era, Jackson promised to uphold the federal tariff and warned “disunion by armed force is treason.” The president reiterated these points in his January 13 letter to Van Buren, closing with the assertion, “nothing must be permitted to weaken our government at home or abroad.”

The Nullification Crisis of 1832-1833 was resolved without bloodshed in March 1833. Henry Clay and John C. Calhoun, who left the vice presidency at the end of 1832 to serve South Carolina in the Senate, drafted a reduced tariff agreement that pacified South Carolina while allowing the Federal government to stand firm. Calhoun represented his home state until his death in 1850. His final years in office were spent trying to unite the South against attacks on slavery.

Library of Congress