Category: History

The cornerstone of the White House was laid on October 13, 1792. President John Adams and his wife Abigail moved into the unfinished structure on November 1, 1800, keeping to the scheduled relocation of the capital from Philadelphia. Congress declared the city of Washington in the District of Columbia the permanent capital of the United States on July 16, 1790. …

Constructed of white-grey sandstone that contrasted sharply with the red brick used in nearby buildings, the presidential mansion was called the White House as early as 1809. President Theodore Roosevelt officially adopted the term in 1902.

Source: Library of Congress

During the Truman Administration the White House was gutted except for the outside walls and rebuilt. This photo was taken in April 1950.

Gutted to the outside stone walls, deepened with a new two story basement, reinforced with concrete and 660 tons of steel, and fireproofed, the White House was stabilized. The protection of the historic stone walls was so important that workers dismantled a bulldozer and reassembled it inside to avoid cutting a larger doorway out of the walls. Shafts out of windows carried out debris from the inside of the house, and external stairs were built because the inside was completely empty during the renovation.

Source: The White House Historical Association

The Truman Presidential Museum and Library has a photo essay on the reconstruction — The White House Revealed — though the photos are too small to view much detail.

And this, Washington Didn’t Sleep Here: A White House FAQ

“Of all the days on all the fields where American soldiers have fought, the most terrible by almost any measure was September 17, 1862. The battle waged on that date, close by Antietam Creek at Sharpsburg in western Maryland, took a human toll never exceeded on any other single day in the nation’s history. So intense and sustained was the violence, a man recalled, that for a moment in his mind’s eye the very landscape around him turned red.”

Stephen W. Sears
Landscape Turned Red: The Battle of Antietam

The New York Times coverage from 1862 is online.

Antietam gave Lincoln the military victory he needed to issue his Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation on September 22nd. It stated that slaves in states or parts of states still in rebellion on January 1, 1863, would be declared free. The objective of the war had changed.

America’s bloodiest day:

Killed:	Union 2,000	Confederate 1,550	Total Killed: 3,650
Wounded:	Union 9,550	Confederate 7,750	Total Wounded: 17,300
Missing/Captured:	Union 750	Confederate 1,020	Total Missing: 1,770
Total:	Union 12,400	Confederate 10,320	Total Casualties: 22,720

As a rule of thumb, about 20% of the wounded died of their wounds and 30% of the missing had been killed (in the days before dog-tags to identify the dead). Accordingly, an estimate of the total dead from the one-day battle: 7,640.

Source: National Park Service

The best single volume on Antietam is Stephen Sears’s Landscape Turned Red: The Battle of Antietam.

Scene at the Signing of the Constitution of the United States by Howard Chandler Christy (1940). The original is in the House of Representatives Wing of the U.S. Capitol. 39 of the 55 delegates are pictured — but not the three who did not sign or the 13 who had left the convention. Washington is standing; Franklin seated, turned to face us; Hamilton is directly behind Franklin; Madison is seated to Franklin’s left. The person credited with writing the preamble, Gouverneur Morris, is standing behind and just a little to the left of Hamilton, facing us.

Click image for a much larger version.

… was killed on this date in 1057. But not as Shakespeare portrayed it. Here’s the story from the BBC:

Macbeth was a king of the Scots whose rule was marked by efficient government and the promotion of Christianity, but who is best known as the murderer and usurper in William Shakespeare’s tragedy.

Shakespeare’s Macbeth bears little resemblance to the real 11th century Scottish king.

Mac Bethad mac Findláich, known in English as Macbeth, was born in around 1005. His father was Finlay, Mormaer of Moray, and his mother may have been Donada, second daughter of Malcolm II. A ‘mormaer’ was literally a high steward of one of the ancient Celtic provinces of Scotland, but in Latin documents the word is usually translated as ‘comes’, which means earl.

In August 1040, he killed the ruling king, Duncan I, in battle near Elgin, Morayshire. Macbeth became king. His marriage to Kenneth III’s granddaughter Gruoch strengthened his claim to the throne. In 1045, Macbeth defeated and killed Duncan I’s father Crinan at Dunkeld.

For 14 years, Macbeth seems to have ruled equably, imposing law and order and encouraging Christianity. In 1050, he is known to have travelled to Rome for a papal jubilee. He was also a brave leader and made successful forays over the border into Northumbria, England.

In 1054, Macbeth was challenged by Siward, Earl of Northumbria, who was attempting to return Duncan’s son Malcolm Canmore, who was his nephew, to the throne. In August 1057, Macbeth was killed at the Battle of Lumphanan in Aberdeenshire by Malcolm Canmore (later Malcolm III).

Richard Nixon resigned as President of the United States and Vice President Gerald R. Ford assumed the office as the 38th President.

… nuclear bomb was dropped on Nagasaki, Japan, on this date in 1945.

The BBC provides some facts (the first two are as reported at the time of the bombing):

The bomb was dropped by parachute from an American B29 Bomber at 1102 local time.

It exploded about 1,625 ft (500m) above the ground and is believed to have completely destroyed the city, which is situated on the western side of the Japanese island of Kyushu.

About 30% of Nagasaki, including almost all the industrial district was destroyed by the bomb and nearly 150,000 people were killed or injured.

The bomb, nick-named “Fat Man” in a reference to Winston Churchill, measured just under 3.5m (11ft 4in) in length, had the power of 22 kilotons of TNT and weighed 4,050kg (9,000lbs).

Residents of both cities are still suffering the physical and mental consequences of radiation to this day.

On 14 August Japan surrendered to the Allies.

Today is the 66th anniversary of the dropping of the atomic bomb “Little Boy” on Hiroshima, Japan. The radius of total destruction was about one mile; the radius of fires was about 4.4 miles. 70,000-80,000 people, or about a third of population, were killed instantly. About twice that many or more eventually died from the effects.

The best single work you can read about Hiroshima is John Hersey’s Hiroshima published a year later, first as a New Yorker article. Hersey gave the accounts of six survivors.

Though Collier’s Weekly had previously published an account of the bombing, the editors of the New Yorker recognized the impact that the article would have by providing a human face to the victims, and devoted the entire August 31, 1946 edition to it. Although the four chapters were intended for serialization in four consecutive issues of the magazine, the editors decided to devote one entire issue only to it. There were no other articles and none of the magazine’s signature cartoons. Readers, who had never before been exposed to the horrors of nuclear war from the perspective of the actual people who lived through it, were quick to pick up copies, and the edition sold out within just a few hours. The article was read in its entirety over the radio and discussed by newspapers. Shortly after it appeared, the Book-of-the-Month Club printed it as a book and distributed it free of charge to all of its members. Only in Japan was the distribution of the book discouraged by the American Occupation Government.

Wikipedia

The opening sentence:

“At, exactly fifteen minutes past eight in the morning on August 6, 1945, Japanese time, at the moment when the atomic bomb flashed above Hiroshima, Miss Toshiko Sasaki, a clerk in the personnel department of the East Asia Tin Works, had just sat down at her place in the plant office and was turning her head to speak to the girl at the next desk.”

Modern editions of the book include a chapter, “The Aftermath,” written 40 years later. Hersey’s report, is perhaps, the best piece of wartime journalism ever.

Hersey had won a Pulitzer Prize in 1945 for his novel, A Bell of Adano. He was that kind of writer.

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.

… ratified the Constitution on this date in 1788, thereby becoming the 11th state.

On this date in 1917, King George V, by royal proclamation, changed the name of his family from Saxe-Coburg and Gotha to Windsor. When a German aircraft named Gotha started bombing London, the royal name had become somewhat of a liability.

The family name had come from Queen Victoria’s husband, Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha. In addition, Victoria’s mother was the Princess Victoria of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld. Prince Albert and Queen Victoria were first cousins.

George V was a grandson of Albert and Victoria. Of course, so were Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany and Tsar Nicholas II of Russia — Albert and Victoria had nine children and 42 grandchildren. On hearing that his cousin had changed the family name, Kaiser Wilhelm said he intended to see Shakespeare’s play “The Merry Wives of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha.”

By decree, Elizabeth kept the name Windsor for the family and her descendants. She is Albert and Victoria’s great, great granddaughter. Prince Philip, her husband, was born Prince Philip of Greece and Denmark. He had no surname, but adopted Mountbatten from his English grandparents when he became a British citizen. He too is a great, great grandchild of Albert and Victoria.

Windsor came from Windsor Castle, which has been a royal residence since 1110.

At 5:30 AM, 66 years ago today, 120 miles south of Albuquerque, the first atomic bomb was detonated.

… joined the Union as the 44th state on this date in 1890.

The horse on the Wyoming license plate is a depiction of Steamboat, an early 20th century bronc that could not be ridden.

English and American troops under British Major General Edward Braddock were routed by French and Indian forces near Fort Duquesne (Pittsburgh) on July 9th in 1755. Braddock was mortally wounded and the leading colonial officer 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. (We needed him later to pose for the image on the $1 bill.)

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.

I’ve just finished reading Barbara Tuchman’s magnificent 1962 Pulitzer prize-winning history of the first month of World War I, The Guns of August. I recommend it without hesitation. It is as fine a work of history as you will find; a superlative study in how the best laid plans of even the brightest are so often fraught with error. It will also give you a keen introduction into why World War II was simply the second round of a bout that began in August 1914.