Category: History

Orville and Wilbur Wright successfully made the first four sustained flights of a heavier-than-air machine under the complete control of the pilot at Kill Devil Hills, North Carolina, on this date 101 years ago.

Red Ted Keeps a Diary, and authors interesting history exam questions:

The first 17 presidents of the United states were: George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, James Monroe, John Quincy Adams, Andrew Jackson, Martin Van Buren, William Henry Harrison, John Tyler, James Polk, Zachary Taylor, Millard Fillmore, Franklin Pierce, James Buchanan, Abraham Lincoln, Andrew Johnson. First, rank these in order from best to worst. Second, explain why the person you rank best comes before the second person on the list. Third, explain why the person you rank worst comes after the penultimate person on the list. Note, “chocolate cake” arguments will get an instant 5 point penalty; make sure you discuss at least 4 presidents.

NewMexiKen did not know what a “chocolate cake” argument was and so asked Red Ted who tells me:

What is a chocolate cake argument?

Chocolate cake contains eggs, milk, and flour, all of which are good things; it is a perfectly reasonable breakfast food.

As you can see, I get the term from a Bill Cosby comedy routine. But, it is a serious rhetorical fallacy. If you only present a portion of the evidence, you can make an argument for almost anything …

It was on this date in 1773 that the Boston Tea Party took place. Fortunately for the future of America, the populace at that time was not encumbered with excessive Christmas shopping or second-rate bowl games and could pay attention to public affairs.

In 1770, the British Parliament ended the Townshend Duties — taxes on the sales of lead, glass, paper, paints and tea — ended them on all but the tea. The tax on British tea and a boycott of it in many of the colonies continued.

Tea was a hot commodity in the colonies, however, and considerable foreign tea was smuggled into America to avoid the tax. Some four-fifths of the tea consumed in America was brought in by smugglers.

In 1773 Parliament, in an effort to both prevent the bankruptcy of the East India Company and raise tax revenue, reduced the tea tax and gave the company a monopoly in the American tea business. The price of tea would be lower than smugglers could match, Americans would buy East India tea, the company would revive, and the tax, though lower, would be paid on vastly more tea. Win-win.

Instead of welcoming the tax reduction and the always low prices on tea, many Americans protested the continuation of the tax — and the granting of a monopoly. Surprisingly principled were those 18th century Americans.

Boston was but the culmination of the tea protest. In Charleston, South Carolina, longshoremen refused to unload tea and eventually it was confiscated by the royal governor for nonpayment of duties and stored in a warehouse. In New York protests preceded even the landing of the first tea cargo ship and the danger of violence was so high no ship was permitted to enter the harbor. In Philadelphia as well, the protests — against both the monopoly and the principle of a tax on commodities — were sufficient to prevent the tea ship from entering the port. The Polly docked at Chester and once warned the captain returned her to England still loaded.

In Boston, the Dartmouth was able to dock on the Sabbath, November 28, 1773. The next day however, thousands attended a rally to demand the ship return to England. On Tuesday the cargo other than tea was unloaded. On December 2, a second tea ship was docked, the Eleanor; five days later the Beaver was landed. The Royal Governor, Thomas Hutchinson, refused to let the ships leave the port. The people refused to let the tea be unloaded. The law required the ships be unloaded by December 17 and the British army was present to make it happen. The stand-off grew to a head.

was killed on this date in 1890.

Sitting Bull was a Hunkpapa Lakota chief and holy man. He was born around 1831 on the Grand River in present-day South Dakota. He became a warrior in a battle with the Crow at age 14, subsequently becoming renowned for his courage in fights with the U.S. Army.

In 1874, an expedition led by George Armstrong Custer confirmed the discovery of gold in the Black Hills, an area that had been declared off-limits to white settlement by the Fort Laramie Treaty of 1868. When efforts by the government to purchase the Black Hills failed, the Fort Laramie Treaty was abrogated. All Lakota not settled on reservations by January 31, 1876, would be considered hostile. Sitting Bull led his people in holding their ground.

As the PBS web site New Perspectives on The West describes it

In March, as three columns of federal troops under General George Crook, General Alfred Terry and Colonel John Gibbon moved into the area, Sitting Bull summoned the Lakota, Cheyenne and Arapaho to his camp on Rosebud Creek in Montana Territory. There he led them in the sun dance ritual, offering prayers to Wakan Tanka, their Great Spirit, and slashing his arms one hundred times as a sign of sacrifice. During this ceremony, Sitting Bull had a vision in which he saw soldiers falling into the Lakota camp like grasshoppers falling from the sky.

Inspired by this vision, the Oglala Lakota war chief, Crazy Horse, set out for battle with a band of 500 warriors, and on June 17 he surprised Crook’s troops and forced them to retreat at the Battle of the Rosebud. To celebrate this victory, the Lakota moved their camp to the valley of the Little Bighorn River, where they were joined by 3,000 more Indians who had left the reservations to follow Sitting Bull. Here they were attacked on June 25 by the Seventh Cavalry under George Armstrong Custer, whose badly outnumbered troops first rushed the encampment, as if in fulfillment of Sitting Bull’s vision, and then made a stand on a nearby ridge, where they were destroyed.

Public outrage at this military catastrophe brought thousands more cavalrymen to the area, and over the next year they relentlessly pursued the Lakota, who had split up after the Custer fight, forcing chief after chief to surrender. But Sitting Bull remained defiant. In May 1877 he led his band across the border into Canada, beyond the reach of the U.S. Army, and when General Terry traveled north to offer him a pardon in exchange for settling on a reservation, Sitting Bull angrily sent him away.

Four years later, however, finding it impossible to feed his people in a world where the buffalo was almost extinct, Sitting Bull finally came south to surrender. On July 19, 1881, he had his young son hand his rifle to the commanding officer of Fort Buford in Montana….

Though well-known for his appearances with the Buffalo Bill Wild West show, Sitting Bull actually was only with the show for four months in 1885, during which he was paid $50 a week to ride once around the arena.

Returning to Standing Rock, Sitting Bull lived in a cabin on the Grand River, near where he had been born. He refused to give up his old ways as the reservation’s rules required, still living with two wives and rejecting Christianity, though he sent his children to a nearby Christian school in the belief that the next generation of Lakota would need to be able to read and write.

Soon after his return, Sitting Bull had another mystical vision, like the one that had foretold Custer’s defeat. This time he saw a meadowlark alight on a hillock beside him, and heard it say, “Your own people, Lakotas, will kill you.” Nearly five years later, this vision also proved true.

In the fall of 1890, a Miniconjou Lakota named Kicking Bear came to Sitting Bull with news of the Ghost Dance, a ceremony that promised to rid the land of white people and restore the Indians’ way of life. Lakota had already adopted the ceremony at the Pine Ridge and Rosebud Reservations, and Indian agents there had already called for troops to bring the growing movement under control. At Standing Rock, the authorities feared that Sitting Bull, still revered as a spiritual leader, would join the Ghost Dancers as well, and they sent 43 Lakota policemen to bring him in. Before dawn on December 15, 1890, the policemen burst into Sitting Bull’s cabin and dragged him outside, where his followers were gathering to protect him. In the gunfight that followed, one of the Lakota policemen put a bullet through Sitting Bull’s head.

Tatanka-Iyotanka describes a buffalo (bison) sitting on its haunches.

was ratified by Virginia on this date in 1791, and thereby became part of the Constitution of the United States as its first ten amendments.

Twelve amendments were proposed to the legislatures of the several States by the First Congress on September 25, 1789. Numbers three through twelve were ratified by New Jersey, November 20, 1789; Maryland, December 19, 1789; North Carolina, December 22, 1789; South Carolina, January 19, 1790; New Hampshire, January 25, 1790; Delaware, January 28, 1790; New York, February 24, 1790; Pennsylvania, March 10, 1790; Rhode Island, June 7, 1790; Vermont, November 3, 1791; and Virginia, December 15, 1791. The amendments were ultimately ratified by the legislatures of Massachusetts, March 2, 1939; Georgia, March 18, 1939; and Connecticut, April 19, 1939.

The draft first amendment concerned the numbers of constituents for each representative. It has never been ratified. The draft second amendment was ratified by the required number of states in 1992. It took effect as Amendment XXVII (“No law, varying the compensation for the services of the Senators and Representatives, shall take effect, until an election of Representatives shall have intervened.”)

The Bill of Rights

Amendment I
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Amendment II
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

Amendment III
No Soldier shall, in time of peace be quartered in any house, without the consent of the Owner, nor in time of war, but in a manner to be prescribed by law.

Amendment IV
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

Amendment V
No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.

Amendment VI
In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defence.

Amendment VII
In suits at common law, where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury shall be preserved, and no fact tried by a jury, shall be otherwise reexamined in any Court of the United States, than according to the rules of the common law.

Amendment VIII
Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.

Amendment IX
The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.

Amendment X
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

died at his Mount Vernon home on this date in 1799 at the age of 67. According to the Library of Congress, his last words reportedly were: “I feel myself going. I thank you for your attentions; but I pray you to take no more trouble about me. Let me go off quietly. I cannot last long.”

Found at The College Writing Programs, University of California, Berkeley — ‘we commenced wrighting &c.’ —

In an age when spelling was haphazard at best and even the well- educated Thomas Jefferson sometimes wrote “knolege” for “knowledge,” William Clark stood out as a discoverer of orthographic possibilities hitherto unknown. For example, who but William Clark could take the five-letter word Sioux and spell it in no less than twenty-seven different ways? (“Scioux,” “Seauex,” “Seeaux,” “Soux,” and “Suouez” are just a few of his renderings, with perhaps the most bizarre being “Cucoux.”) Who but William Clark could relish the taste of “Water millions” fresh from the gardens of the Oto tribe, swat pestiferous “Muskeetors” along the Missouri, gratefully “bid adew to the Snow” after crossing the Bitterroot Range, and, wonder of wonders, come upon the tracks of “bearfooted Indians” in the wilderness of the Northwest? And who but William Clark could transform an ordinary sentence into a classic howler by writing, as he did on the day the expedition set out, “Many of the Neighbours Came from the Countrey Mail and feeMail”? (One can only wonder whether he referred to the distribution of letters among the men as “male call.”)

Because Clark had little, if any, formal schooling, he spelled many words phonetically, and in this his ear was often true. Thus, celestial navigation understandably entailed taking “Looner” observations, a tribe of Indians spoke with a different “axcent,” he was entertained by “10 Musitions playing on tambereens,” a sailing ship could be either a “Slupe” or a “Skooner,” and the Pacific was an “emence Ocian.” On the other hand, his ear frequently failed him, and this was when he demonstrated his remarkable gift for picturesque inventions. An umbrella became an “Humbrallo,” a naturalist became a “natirless,” a botanist became a “Botents, and a duct in the digestive tract of a candlefish became an “alimentary Duck” In addition, some hard-bargaining Indians “tanterlised” him, other Indians lived in houses built in “oxigon” form; beaver swimming in a river made a “flacking” noise, the Yankton Sioux wore “leagins and mockersons,” he and Captain Lewis “assended” a hill, and, among the choicest of all his malapropisms, two rifles were damaged when they “bursted near the muscle.”

When it came to spelling the names of people and places, Clark abided by Emerson’s maxim that a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds. Although he never surpassed himself in the number of variations he discovered in the word Sioux, he did manage to take the last name of Toussaint Charbonneau, one of the expedition’s interpreters and the husband of Sacagawea, and spell it at least fifteen different ways, not once correctly. (“Chabonat,” Chabonee,” and “Shabowner” are a few of his creations, with the closest to the mark being “Charbono.”) Admittedly, the French Canadian’s name is not easy to spell, but one would expect the simple last name of Clark’s longtime friend and co-commander of the expedition to have been inviolate. Yet even here Clark spurned consistency, on one occasion referring to Captain Lewis as “Cap Lewers” and on another naming what is now called the Salmon River “Louis’s river.”

The whole essay is worth a click.

From The Writer’s Almanac

In 1941 on this day, the Japanese attacked the American navel base at Pearl Harbor. Early in the morning 183 Japanese fighter planes took off from aircraft carriers in the Pacific Ocean. They used broadcasts from Honolulu radio stations to help them navigate. The planes arrived off the coast of the island of Oahu, Hawaii, shortly before 8:00 in the morning. Radar at Pearl Harbor had picked up the fleet, but the Americans assumed the planes were B-17 bombers coming from California. Bombs began to drop over the docks at Pearl Harbor along “battleship row.” Approximately an hour later 168 more planes appeared dropping more bombs. Eight ships were sunk or severely damaged and 347 U.S. military airplanes were destroyed. The battleship Arizona exploded, killing nearly all of the crew on board, accounting for 1,177 of the total of 2,300 American deaths at Pearl Harbor. The ship burned for days after the attack due to the fuel on board.

Up until that point President Roosevelt had refused to join in the Second World War going on overseas. After the attack the president announced in a short radio broadcast to the country that lasted less than 10 minutes, that December 7th was a date that would “live in infamy.” Congress declared war on Japan the following morning.

U.S. Navy cable at time of attack — THIS IS NOT DRILL.

And see NewMexiKen’s slideshow of the Arizona Memorial [1.2MB Windows Media file].

“The First State,” ratified the Constitution on this date in 1787.

From Yahoo! News:

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – The lawyer for Robert Kennedy’s assassin, Sirhan Sirhan, has gone to court to stop the demolition of the hotel where the late senator was shot dead, saying that there is evidence in its walls that can prove his client innocent.

Attorney Lawrence Teeter claims the 60-year-old Sirhan was set up as a dupe in the 1968 assassination, despite shooting at Kennedy in front of witnesses.

Sirhan is serving a life sentence for the crime.

Teeter filed suit this week in Los Angeles Superior Court to stop the city’s school board from demolishing the Ambassador Hotel to build a school on the site.

Link via BoingBoing

Sirhan’s 22 pistol. Photo taken by NewMexiKen.

was born on this date in 1839.

The PBS series The West has a fair essay on his life, career and legacy.

Custer’s blunders cost him his life but gained him everlasting fame. His defeat at the Little Bighorn made the life of what would have been an obscure 19th century military figure into the subject of countless songs, books and paintings.

NewMexiKen is partial to this photographic legacy.

was ratified by the 36th state (Utah no less) on this date 71 years ago, thereby repealing the 18th Amendment.

NewMexiKen will drink to that.

Forty-nine years ago, as told by the Library of Congress:

On the evening of December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks, an African American, was arrested for disobeying an Alabama law requiring black passengers to relinquish seats to white passengers when the bus was full. Blacks were also required to sit at the back of the bus. Her arrest sparked a 381-day boycott of the Montgomery bus system and led to a 1956 Supreme Court decision banning segregation on public transportation.

Although her arrest was not “planned,” Park’s action was consistent with the NAACP’s desire to challenge segregated public transport in the courts. A one-day bus boycott coinciding with Parks’s December 5 court date resulted in an overwhelming African American boycott of the bus system. Since black people constituted seventy percent of the transit system’s riders, most busses carried few passengers that day.

Success demanded sustained action. Religious and political leaders met at the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church and formed the Montgomery Improvement Association (later the Southern Christian Leadership Conference) and Dexter’s new pastor, Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., was appointed the group’s leader. For the next year, the Montgomery Improvement Association coordinated the bus boycott and the eloquent young preacher inspired those who refused to ride:

If we are wrong–the Supreme Court of this nation is wrong. If we are wrong–God almighty is wrong! If we are wrong–Jesus of Nazareth was merely a utopian dreamer and never came down to earth. If we are wrong–justice is a lie. And we are determined here in Montgomery to work and fight until justice runs down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.

Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., Montgomery, Alabama, 1955.

was admitted to the Union as the 42nd state on this date in 1889.

According to the Library of Congress:

Racism, rather than concerns about sovereignty, propelled the very first settlers into the Washington region. In 1844, George W. Bush, a man of African-American ancestry was among early pioneers to Oregon Country. After learning the Oregon Provisional Government prohibited black people from owning property, Bush’s party evaded control of the Provisional Government by crossing the Columbia River into present-day Washington. Olympia, now the state capital, traces its settlement to this band of pioneers.

Today is the 229th anniversary of the founding of the U.S. Marine Corps.

in 1865 that Andersonville prison commander Henry Wirz was hanged. The Library of Congress tells us:

Henry Wirz, former commander of the infamous Confederate prison at Andersonville, Georgia, was hanged on November 10, 1865 in Washington, D.C. Swiss-born Wirz was assigned to the command at Andersonville on March 27, 1864. When arrested on May 7, 1865, he was the only remaining member of the Confederate staff at the prison. Brigadier General John Winder, commander of Confederate prisons east of the Mississippi and Wirz’s superior at Andersonville, died of a heart attack the previous February.

A military tribunal tried Wirz on charges of conspiring with Jefferson Davis to “injure the health and destroy the lives of soldiers in the military service of the United States.” Several individual acts of cruelty to Union prisoners were also alleged. Caught in the unfortunate position of answering for all of the misery that was Andersonville, he stood little chance of a fair trial. After two months of testimony rife with inconsistencies, Wirz was convicted on all counts and sentenced to death.

View a photograph taken just before the hanging and another just after the trap was sprung.

Red Ted is considering this question for his American history students —

The historical drama network has put out a call for new proposals for telemovies about American history. Write me two paragraphs presenting your proposal. The first is the precis of a true historical event, as you would tell it on the screen. The second is your explanation of why this particular story would provide compelling television while conveying useful historical information.

Read his example answer.

entered the Union as the 41st state on this date in 1889.

… of James Knox Polk, 11th president of the United States, born on this date in 1795.

… of Warren Gamaliel Harding, 29th president of the United States, born on this date in 1865.

Polk is generally rated among the “near great” presidents. Harding who died while president, is generally considered a “failure.” See this NewMexiKen entry.