Brief narratives about people and events in the American past.
was added to the Pledge of Allegiance by Act of Congress on this date 50 years ago (June 14, 1954). Today the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that a California atheist could not challenge the language. The atheist does not have custody of his daughter and, according to the Court, is not her legal representative. The ruling did not address the issue of whether the phrase is an unconstitutional melding of church and state.
In other words, they punted.
On this date in 1777 the Continental Congress approved a national flag:
Resolved, that the Flag of the thirteen United States shall be thirteen stripes, alternate red and white; that the Union be thirteen stars, white on a blue field, representing a new constellation.
In 1916 President Wilson issued a proclamation declaring June 14 Flag Day.
The present design of the flag was established in 1818 — thirteen stripes to represent the original states and a star for each state. The current flag with 50 stars was established on July 4, 1960, when Hawaii was admitted to the Union.
The Star Spangled Banner at Fort McHenry during the War of 1812 had 15 stars and 15 stripes.
In a 5-4 decision the U.S. Supreme Court found on this date in 1966 that Ernesto Miranda had not been informed of his rights before he confessed to the rape of a mildly retarded 18-year-old woman in 1963. His case was remanded to Arizona for a new trial. More importantly, the decision stated that the Constitution required that all persons arrested be informed of their rights before they were interrogated. These rights became known as Miranda Rights.
Ernesto Miranda was retried (he had remained in prison throughout on another conviction). He was found guilty on other evidence and sentenced for a second time to 20-30 years for rape. He was paroled in 1972 and for a time sold autographed “Miranda” cards such as the police carried.
Ultimately Miranda was stabbed to death in a bar fight in 1976.
Read the decision.
View Chief Justice Warren’s handwritten notes.
Update: Listen to the oral argument [45 MB mp3 file].
is 80 today.
someone killed Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman.
should have been 75 today.
was born on this date in 1880 on a ranch near Missoula, Montana.
In 1916, Rankin was elected the first woman member of the U.S. House of Representatives. She was not re-elected in 1918, after voting against entry in the First World War, but was returned to Congress for one term in 1940. In 1941, she cast the sole vote in Congress against the U.S. declaration of war on Japan.
Jeanette Rankin was a social worker and a lobbyist for peace and women’s rights. She died just before her 93rd birthday in 1973. She is one of the two Montanans honored in The National Statuary Hall Collection of the U.S. Capitol.
Read Rankin’s obituary from The New York Times.
is 79 today. Mrs. Bush shares with Abigail Adams the distinction of being the wife of one president and the mother of another.
Eric Alterman makes some recommendations:
[B]ut for those who want a fuller picture of Reagan’s life and times, I’d recommend Lou Cannon’s fair-minded biography, President Reagan: The Role of a Lifetime, a book that can be admired by honest fans of Reagan as well as honest opponents. The most interesting meditation on Reagan’s character and presidency can be found, in my view, in Garry Wills’ Reagan’s America: Innocents at Home. An extremely useful perspective on Reagan’s role in the end of the Cold War can be found in Frances Fitzgerald’s Way out There in the Blue.
From Gallup, average job approval rating during term:
Kennedy 70%
Eisenhower 65%
Bush I 61%
Clinton 55%
Johnson 55%
Reagan 53%
Nixon 49%
Ford 47%
Truman 45%
Carter 45%
June 7th Thursday 1804 [Clark]
Set out early passed the head of the Island opposit which we Camped last night, and brackfast at the Mouth of a large Creek on the S. S. of 30 yds wide Called big Monetou, from the pt. of the Isd. or Course of last night to the mouth of this Creek is N 61° W 4½ ms. a Short distance above the mouth of this Creek, is Several Courious Paintings and Carveing in the projecting rock of Limestone inlade with white red & blue flint, of a verry good quallity, [7] the Indians have taken of this flint great quantities. We landed at this Inscription and found it a Den of rattle Snakes, we had not landed 3 minutes before three verry large Snakes wer observed on the Crevises of the rocks & Killed— at
the mouth of the last mentioned Creek Capt. Lewis took four or five men & went to Some Licks or Springs of Salt water from two to four miles up the Creek on Rt. Side the water of those Springs are not Strong, Say from 4 to 600 Gs. of water for a Bushel of Salt passed Some Small willow Islands and Camped at the Mouth of a Small river called Good Womans River this river is about 35 yards wide and Said to be navagable for Perogues Several Leagues Capt. Lewis with 2 men went up the Creek a Short distance. our Hunters brought in three Bear this evening, and informs that the Countrey thro: which they passed from the last Creek is fine rich land, & well watered. Source: Journals of the Lewis and Clark Expedition Online June 7, 1804
The above took place near where I-70 crosses the Missouri River west of Columbia, Missouri.
first looked west from Cumberland Gap into what is now Kentucky on this date in 1769. The Kentucky Historical Society celebrates June 7 as “Boone Day.”
Boone was not the first person through Cumberland Gap; he wasn’t even the first European-American. He was, however, instrumental in blazing a trail, which became known as the Wilderness Road. According to the National Park Service:
Immigration through the Gap began immediately, and by the end of the Revolutionary War some 12,000 persons had crossed into the new territory. By 1792 the population was over 100,000 and Kentucky was admitted to the Union.
During the 1790s traffic on the Wilderness Road increased. By 1800 almost 300,000 people had crossed the Gap going west. And each year as many head of livestock were driven east. As it had always been, the Gap was an important route of commerce and transportation.
It is right to honor those brave warriors who stormed the beaches at Normandy 60 years ago, but I hope in doing so we don’t think they were any more brave or honorable than the Americans at Trenton in 1776, or Gettysburg in 1863, or Saint-Mihiel in 1918, or Iwo Jima in 1945, or Iraq today.
NewMexiKen long thought the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences should present Reagan with an Oscar. The Academy should have honored him for bringing distinction to the industry they represent by rising to this country’s highest office. But they also should have done it because, whatever the policies he promoted, Reagan knew how to act like a president, and in that he brought honor to us all.
Marshall is one of the truly great Americans. He was Army chief of staff during World War II (and the first five-star general in American history), secretary of state 1947-1949, and secretary of defense 1950-1951 (at age 72). Marshall received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1953.
According to one story told to NewMexiKen, Marshall lived near Leesburg, Virginia, some 35 miles from Washington. As a cabinet officer Marshall was entitled to a car and driver for his commute. Marshall, however, thought it was unreasonable for the taxpayers to pay when he chose to live so far out. So each day he drove himself 23 miles to Tysons Corner, Virginia, where he was met by his driver for the few miles remaining of the trip to the office.
Not many like Marshall anymore.
Secretary of State George C. Marshall announced what became known as the Marshall Plan at a speech at Harvard University’s graduation ceremonies on this date in 1947. The State Department provides this brief summary:
Europe, still devastated by the war, had just survived one of the worst winters on record. The nations of Europe had nothing to sell for hard currency, and the democratic socialist governments in most countries were unwilling to adopt the draconian proposals for recovery advocated by old-line classical economists. Something had to be done, both for humanitarian reasons and also to stop the potential spread of communism westward.
The United States offered up to $20 billion for relief, but only if the European nations could get together and draw up a rational plan on how they would use the aid. For the first time, they would have to act as a single economic unit; they would have to cooperate with each other. Marshall also offered aid to the Soviet Union and its allies in eastern Europe, but Stalin denounced the program as a trick and refused to participate. The Russian rejection probably made passage of the measure through Congress possible.
The Marshall Plan, it should be noted, benefited the American economy as well. The money would be used to buy goods from the United States, and they had to be shipped across the Atlantic on American merchant vessels. But it worked. By 1953 the United States had pumped in $13 billion, and Europe was standing on its feet again. Moreover, the Plan included West Germany, which was thus reintegrated into the European community.
was shot by Sirhan Bishara Sirhan early on this date in 1968. The 42-year-old brother of assassinated president John Kennedy died the next day. Read the story from The New York Times.
Sirhan’s snubnosed .22-caliber Iver Johnson Cadet model revolver, which wounded five individuals in addition to killing Senator Kennedy.
was born on this date in 1878. He became known as Pancho Villa.
Read what NewMexiKen posted about Pancho Villa’s 1916 raid on Columbus, New Mexico — the last raid on American soil by a foreign force until 2001.
Retired General William Tecumseh Sherman wired the Republican national convention on this date 120 years ago to say, “I will not accept if nominated and will not serve if elected.”
Sherman did not want a deadlocked convention to nominate him. On the fourth ballot the Republicans nominated James G. Blaine, who lost to Grover Cleveland.
The Chinese army crackdown on the protests in and around Tiananmen Square was 15 years ago today. According to estimates by the Chinese Red Cross (accepted at the time by the U.S. State Department) some 2,600 protesters and military were killed and another 7,000 wounded.
This declassified State Department cable (June 22, 1989) provides the account of a witness to the violence on the night of June 3-4. The students believed that the military would be firing rubber bullets. The witness tells that “he had a sickening feeling when he noticed the bullets striking sparks off the pavement near his feet.”
This second declassified cable provides an hour-by-hour chronology of the events of the night of June 3-4, 1989.
While difficult to read, these documents tell the story as American diplomats reported it.
NewMexiKen took this photo in Tiananmen Square just three years after the historic events there. The building in the background is the Great Hall of the People. At left is the Monument of the People’s Heroes.
As the anniversary of D-Day approaches, Brad DeLong has a thoughtful assessment of Eisenhower’s leadership.
was fought on this date in 1942.
From Rear Admiral Samuel Eliot Morison, esteemed historian and author of History of United States Naval Operation in World War II, a brief summary of the Battle of Midway from The Oxford History of the American People:
In the next and more vital Japanese offensive, Yamamoto went all-out. Personally assuming command, he brought with him almost every capital ship of the Japanese navy except the carriers damaged in the Coral Sea. His first objective was to capture Midway, a tiny atoll at the tip end of the Hawaiian chain, 1134 miles northwest of Pearl Harbor, where the United States had an advanced naval and air base. Yamamoto wanted Midway as a staging point for air raids to render Pearl Harbor untenable by the American Pacific Fleet. Minor objectives were Attu and Kiska, two barren islands in the western Aleutians which he wanted as the northern anchor of the new ribbon defense. Yamamoto’s dearest object, however, was to force Nimitz to give battle with his numerically inferior Pacific Fleet. He had his wish, but this time the battle did not go to the strong.
Nimitz guessed what Yamamoto was up to, but had only a small fleet to stop him. First, he reinforced Midway with planes to the saturation point. Next, he sent out Rear Admiral Raymond A. Spruance to command carriers Enterprise and Hornet with their attendant cruisers and destroyers; Rear Admiral Fletcher in carrier Yorktown (damaged in the Coral Sea but promptly repaired) hastened to join. On 4 June 1942, the Japanese four. carrier force, advancing undetected under a foul-weather front, was near enough Midway to batter the air base. A brave group of twenty-six obsolete marine fighter planes, together with anti-aircraft guns on the island, disposed of about one-third of the enemy attackers. The rest bombed Midway severely but not lethally.
Admiral Nagumo, the Japanese carrier-force commander, had a painful surprise on the morning of 4 June, when he learned from a reconnaissance plane that American flattops were approaching. Nagumo then made the fatal decision of the battle. He ordered his reserve attack group, then arming for a second strike on Midway, to be rearmed with the different sort of bombs used against ships, and turned his prows northeastward to close with the American carriers. Spruance and Fletcher already had several flights of torpedo- and dive-bombers flying toward the Japanese; and, owing to Nagumo’s mistake, they had the good fortune to catch three of his four carriers in the vulnerable situation of rearming and refueling planes. But the carrier-plane battle opened ill for the Americans. Nagumo’s combat air patrol of fast fighter planes shot down 35 of the 41 slow torpedo-bombers that came in first. Minutes later, the American dive-bombers hit three carriers and left them exploding and burning. The fourth Japanese carrier, Hiryu, unseen by the American fliers, got off two plane strikes, which found and disabled Yorktown. Fletcher’s flagship, however, was promptly avenged, for an attack group from her deck and from Enterprise jumped Hiryu that afternoon and put her down. A lucky shot by a Japanese submarine later sank Yorktown as she was under tow.
Yamamoto, having lost his four best carriers, ordered a general retirement of his vast fleet. He had sustained the first defeat to the Japanese navy in modern times. The carriers and their air groups were wiped out, and the Stars and Stripes stilI flew over Midway. Only Kiska and Attu – consolation prizes – had been taken by a Japanese task group. The ambitious plans for capturing New Caledonia, the Fijis, and Samoa, had to be scrapped; and the Japanese high command was forced into an unaccustomed defensive position.
This glorious Battle of Midway on 4 June 1942, marked a clean-cut ending to the defensive phase in the Pacific war. For two months there was an ominous pause, each contestant licking his wounds. There then broke out a bloody and desperate six months’ campaign over two focal points – Buna-Gona in New Guinea, and Guadalcanal.
American Heritage is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year and publishing a series called “50/50” to commemorate it. The series consists of five essays by prominent historians and cultural commentators, each picking ten leading developments in American life during the past 50 years. So far, two of the essays have been published.
The first essay was on Politics. The second is on Popular Culture. It was written by historian and critic Allen Barra, who names 11 “artists and writers who either were at the forefront of change or best symbolized it.” See the essay to read about each.
James Dean
Miles Davis
Raymond Chandler
Pauline Kael
Buddy Holly
Andy Warhol
Frank Sinatra
Ernie Kovacs
Norman Mailer
Francis Ford Coppola
Malcolm X
Eighty years ago today the United States declared: “That all non citizen Indians born within the territorial limits of the United States be, and they are hereby, declared to be citizens of the United States.”
Until the Indian Citizenship Act of 1924, Indians occupied an unusual status under federal law. Some had acquired citizenship by marrying white men. Others received citizenship through military service, by receipt of allotments, or through special treaties or special statutes. But many were still not citizens, and they were barred from the ordinary processes of naturalization open to foreigners. Congress took what some saw as the final step on June 2, 1924 and granted citizenship to all Native Americans born in the United States.
The granting of citizenship was not a response to some universal petition by American Indian groups. Rather, it was a move by the federal government to absorb Indians into the mainstream of American life. No doubt Indian participation in World War I accelerated the granting of citizenship to all Indians, but it seems more likely to have been the logical extension and culmination of the assimilation policy. After all, Native Americans had demonstrated their ability to assimilate into the general military society. There were no segregated Indian units as there were for African Americans. Some members of the white society declared that the Indians had successfully passed the assimilation test during wartime, and thus they deserved the rewards of citizenship.
Source: NebraskaStudies.org
It was 24 years before every state enabled Indian citizens to vote.
The states that set the most stringent restrictions on voter eligibility were Arizona, Nevada, and Utah. These states required that voters be not only citizens, but residents and taxpayers as well. In Arizona, the state supreme court in Porter v. Hall, decided in 1928, ruled that Indians should be disqualified from voting because they were under “federal guardianship,” a status construed by the court to be synonymous with “persons under disability.” This decision stood for twenty years until the court finally reversed itself in Harrison v. Laveen.
Kentucky became the 15th state on this date in 1792.
Tennessee became the 16th state on this date in 1796.
Rhode Island, the 13th state, was mentioned here last Saturday.
Can you name the 14th state?
