General Thanksgiving
By the PRESIDENT of the United States Of America
A PROCLAMATION

WHEREAS it is the duty of all nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey His will, to be grateful for His benefits, and humbly to implore His protection and favour; and Whereas both Houfes of Congress have, by their joint committee, requefted me “to recommend to the people of the United States a DAY OF PUBLICK THANSGIVING and PRAYER, to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many and signal favors of Almighty God, especially by affording them an opportunity peaceably to eftablifh a form of government for their safety and happiness:”

NOW THEREFORE, I do recommend and affign THURSDAY, the TWENTY-SIXTH DAY of NOVEMBER next, to be devoted by the people of thefe States to the fervice of that great and glorious Being who is the beneficent author of all the good that was, that is, or that will be; that we may then all unite in rendering unto Him our fincere and humble thanksfor His kind care and protection of the people of this country previous to their becoming a nation; for the fignal and manifold mercies and the favorable interpofitions of His providence in the courfe and conclufion of the late war; for the great degree of tranquility, union, and plenty which we have fince enjoyed;– for the peaceable and rational manner in which we have been enable to eftablish Conftitutions of government for our fafety and happinefs, and particularly the national one now lately instituted;– for the civil and religious liberty with which we are bleffed, and the means we have of acquiring and diffufing useful knowledge;– and, in general, for all the great and various favours which He has been pleafed to confer upon us.

And also, that we may then unite in moft humbly offering our prayers and fupplications to the great Lord and Ruler of Nations and befeech Him to pardon our national and other tranfgreffions;– to enable us all, whether in publick or private ftations, to perform our feveral and relative duties properly and punctually; to render our National Government a bleffing to all the people by conftantly being a Government of wife, juft, and conftitutional laws, difcreetly and faithfully executed and obeyed; to protect and guide all fovereigns and nations (especially fuch as have shewn kindnefs unto us); and to blefs them with good governments, peace, and concord; to promote the knowledge and practice of true religion and virtue, and the increafe of fcience among them and us; and, generally to grant unto all mankind fuch a degree of temporal profperity as he alone knows to be beft.

GIVEN under my hand, at the city of New-York, the third day of October, in the year of our Lord, one thousand feven hundred and eighty-nine.

(signed) G. Washington

No, it wasn’t awesome. It was kinda sucky.

But then I remembered that Dr. Sullivan has kind of a screwy grading scheme, 100 isn’t always the top score that you can get, so I asked someone, “What was the top score you could get on this paper?” And they replied, “Seventy-five.”

So I got an A+, a 100%, or as I said, “a perfect,” and it only took about two weeks and some furious editing.

And he said -

Excellent paper. I like the way you presented the three inventors in the context of a broader picture of invention — and its influence within the African-American experience.

And I feel good about the paper. Very good.

Woods’ Synchronous Multiplex Railway Telegraph brought efficiency and safety to rail travel at a time when train collisions could be common. With the invention of the telephone and further advancements in communications technology, the telegraph became an antiquated means of communication. Although obsolete on its own, his invention was one of a serious of steps into a wider world of communication that we use today.

Latimer’s invention set the standard in lighting for the 25 years that followed. In 1904 William D. Coolidge developed an incandescent light bulb using tungsten, which extended bulb life far beyond Latimer’s carbon-filament bulb.

As Henry E. Baker  said in The Colored American, “It is held to be of far greater importance to show that the Negro as a race has actually accomplished very much of value in the line of invention, and thus to show how much in error are those who constantly assert that the Negro has made no lasting contribution to the civilization of the age. These facts ought clearly to show that under favorable environment the Negro is capable of performing his whole duty in the work of mankind, whether it be tilling the earth with his hoe or advancing the world by his thought.”¹⁸

Summary

McCoy, Woods and Latimer all came from modest beginnings. They didn’t have privilege but they worked hard and found recognition, and some a measure of fame, from what they were able to do with ideas, sweat and ingenuity. Their ability to rise up paved the way for modern African-American inventors like Dr. Mark Dean, who was instrumental in the creation of the personal computer for IBM; George Alcorn, the developer of the imaging x-ray spectrometer; and theoretical physicist Dr. Shirley Jackson, who helped create the portable fax, the touch tone telephone and the fiber optic cables used to provide clear overseas telephone calls.¹⁹ As pioneers in their scientific fields, these men broke past the barriers of their time to open up new avenues for others that would follow.

Next time, what happened after I got the paper back.

Woods remained an independent inventor his entire life, always remaining outside of the technological mainstream of Bell and Edison. The never ending scourge of his life became having to constantly defend his patents in court. As people of the time were always inventing it was natural that several people could come up with the same idea at roughly the same time. Because of this, the majority of Woods’ money went to fighting legal disputes. After years of being destitute and penniless he suffered a stroke on January 30, 1910 at Harlem Hospital in New York City – killing him at the young age of 53. Despite his great success as an inventor and amassing over 60 patents in total, he had little to show for it. His simple ground-level headstone in East Elmhurst, New York reads “Granville T. Woods, Esq, 1856–1910, Electrician — Inventor.”¹⁶

Latimer understood incandescent light in ways that few other men did, enough so that Thomas Edison himself asked him to work for him and help defend Edison’s patents against competitors. Later in life Latimer worked as a draftsman and an expert witness in patent litigation on electric lights. He married Mary Wilson on December 10, 1873. They had two daughters, Emma and Louise. In 1918 Latimer was asked to join the Edison Pioneers, a group of distinguished men who had participated in the early years of the electric light industry. Membership in this group represented the highest honor to individuals in the electrical field, and he was one of the original 28 charter members, all of whom had worked with Edison prior to 1885. In addition to this he volunteered his time to help the community as well as an accomplished poet, author, musician and artist. He died at the age of 80.¹⁷

Next time, How They Made a Difference and Conclusion

Granville Woods was Australian by birth and moved  and emigrated to Missouri with his family in 1872 when he was 16. His schooling was overseas was meager and upon emigrating he began working as a fireman – a job whose sole purpose was to fuel the firebox of the engine to keep the steam levels high – with the Iron Mountain Railroad. While the self-taught Woods continued to teach himself about electricity, he worked a variety of transportation and industrial jobs. He did strive for more education and occasionally managed to get private tutoring or take night courses in engineering, but he never earned a degree.¹³

Lewis Howard Latimer was the son of runaway slaves. Born in Chelsea, Massachusetts on September 4, 1848 to George and Rebecca Latimer who had fled his master in Virginia for the safety of Trenton, New Jersey six years prior. When George’s master, James B. Gray arrived where the Latimers had settled in Boston to take them back to Virginia, famous abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison took up the cause. Eventually funds were raised to pay Gray $400 for George’s freedom.

From those beginnings, Lewis had a minimal school-based education. Most of what he knew came from on-the-job training and what he could pick up here and there. He eventually joined the Navy during the Civil War and afterward he began work at Crosby Halstead and Gould where he learned most of the skills that he would later employ in his work: sketching patent drawings.¹⁴

Next time, The Fruit of Their Labor

Educational reform in the United States was just gaining momentum in the late 19^th century. Before that time educating enslaved African-Americans in the South was forbidden by law in many states, but in the North, where schools for African Americans did exist, they were generally housed in crowded buildings staffed by teachers of low q

ualifications and restricted to the knowledge of the teacher. African-American parents also grouped together to make private arrangements for schooling and often times hired their own teachers. Public schools did outnumber private ones, but the quality of educational services varied from school to school, with the quality of teaching depending on how much the parents were willing to spend to pay teachers.

In fact, many of the schools formed would hardly be recognized as such by modern standards. Elementary education was available to African-Americans, but higher, more specialized, educational services that would produce more respect among the already somewhat-doubting white class was harder to attain.

Due in part to this, illiteracy rates among African-Americans were tracked at a staggering 79.9% in 1870, the first year that such statistics were collected. With improvements in education this figure dropped by roughly 10% in each decade that followed underscoring the need for African-American education.¹¹

It’s surprising then that education seemed to be of little factor in the success of any of the black inventors mentioned. Of the three, only one was able to attain a college degree – McCoy. While, conversely the most successful of the bunch – Woods who was also known as the “Black Edison” – had only a meager elementary school education. They proved that the sky was the limit for what could be achieved with creativity and knowledge of your subject against the traditional thinking that formal education alone stood as the foundation for invention of thought.
Next time, Education as the Foundation of Invention

In discussing the improvements, Latimer stated in his patent application for the process –

“My invention relates more particularly to carbonizing the conductors for incandescent lamps, though it is equally applicable to the manufacture of delicate sheets or strips of dense and tough carbon designed for any purpose whatsoever….

“When heated the confining-plates expanded, while the blanks between them contract very considerably under the intense heat of the furnace, so that many of them are broken and distorted in consequence of their extremely-delicate structure and their tendency to shift their position between the plates. This I avoided by the method I propose…”

His method was to coat the carbon in graphite (to keep it from sticking) and then place it inside of a cardboard sleeve which would prevent the super-heated carbon from breaking during the carbonizing process. His method reduced the amount of broken carbons to almost zero, allowing for more useable carbons instead of the few that were being produced per batch at the time. His mass production process could be applied to many different uses, and because of this the Latimer carbons had a much longer life and made them less expensive.¹⁰

Next time, The Educational System in 19th Century America

After working in the railroad industry for several years Woods moved to Cincinnati, Ohio and set up a firm for production of telephones and other electrical equipment. While there, at the age of 31, he patented a means of telegraphy for trains to communicate with station houses using wires on the roofs of the train cars. He based his idea on trolley car wires, attaching to another wire suspended above the train track. The Synchronous Multiplex Railway Telegraph was a major breakthrough in telegraphy which, because it allowed communications between individual trains and stations, greatly reduced railway accidents by allowing dispatchers to communicate the locations of trains to other trains. As Woods put it in his patent application:

“My invention relates to induction-telegraphy, having reference to its use between moving vehicles, particularly on railways; and its object is to obtain increased effects from a given dynamic force with a single permanent conductor, thereby economizing in respect to the plant employed.”⁸

This was the first time train operators had been able to give and receive information about their location that could be immediately passed on to other moving trains. The Washington Bee lauded him for his discoveries:

“Granville T Woods is the smartest colored man in Ohio. He is an inventor who will someday make Edison look to his laurels. Never a day passes but that he invents something new, and his only pleasure is to experiment in electricity and applied mechanics.

“…the most notable of Mr. Woods’ inventions is a plan for telegraphing from one moving train to another. When a railroad engineer he thought out this device. Afterwards the same thing was discovered by Riley Smith and Edison perfected it, but Woods was the first in the field and he has successfully established his claim in the courts.”⁹

Woods was fascinated by what electricity could do when harnessed properly, and his advances in in-motion telegraphy saved countless lives. During the rest of his career as an inventor, applied for more than 60 patents, among them a steam boiler furnace, an automatic air brake, a tunnel construction for electric railway and an electromechanical brake.

Elijah McCoy
Elijah McCoy’s great invention, the one that would secure his name in the American lexicon, was something that solved a common problem among all crews of trains – lubricating engine parts. In 1870 McCoy took a job with the Michigan Central Railroad as a fireman – part of his duties included oiling the engine. Crews would often have to stop their locomotives, sometime for hours on end, and oil the engine to prevent overheating. This caused passenger and mail delays and stretched long locomotive travel times even longer. ³

McCoy thought of a way to eradicate this problem. As he said in his patent application, in flowery language, “To all whom it may concern: Be it known that I, ELIJAH MCCOY, of the city of Ypsilanti, in the county of Washtenaw and the state of Michigan, have invented certain new and useful Improvements in Lubricators; and I do hereby declare that the following is a full, clear, and exact description thereof, reference being had to the accompanying drawing and to the letters of reference marked thereon, which form a part of this specification.

“The nature of my invention consists in the construction and arrangement of a lubricator for steam-cylinders, as will be hereinafter more fully set forth.”

McCoy then set about explaining his incredibly simple but revolutionary device: A covered cup, containing lubricating oil, with a hollow stem at the bottom that had a valve that would be forced upward as steam pressure exerted force on the valve. When the steam opened the valve lubricating oil would drip out of the cup, dispensing oil to the engine parts requiring the oil.⁴

McCoy took a problem that had plagued engineers for decades and solved it with a device so simple yet so invaluable that competitors began to copy his invention, leading discerning people with a want for the true article to ask for “the Real McCoy”.⁵

As a 1903 The Colored American put it in an article about African-American inventors –

“At the head of the list stands the name of Elijah McCoy, of Detroit. He has succeeded in placing his lubricators on many of the steam-car and steamboat engines in the Northwest, and also on some of the Trans-Atlantic steamers. And these are said to net him a handsome royalty.”⁶

You’ll notice superscripts throughout the posts. Those are for the endnotes that were part of the hard copy. I will not be including that in this; no point in doing that.

Also, if you find this paper and copy it, believe me, there are ways to find you. The Internet is a glorious and wonderful place, and I’m posting my paper because I’m proud of it, but that works two ways — me being nice, and you, the reader, playing nice too.

And so without further ado.…
Elijah McCoy, Lewis Latimer and Granville Woods: African-American Inventors of the 19th Century
African-Americans down through the centuries, whether slave or free, improvised and created tools and machines that helped them either in the fields or in the cities of the United States during the Nineteenth Century. As The Colored American put it November 14, 1903 –

“It should be borne in mind that the great industrial burden in the South fell almost wholly upon the Negro slaves, not only in agriculture and domestic labor, but in mechanical pursuits as well: so that through his experiences in field and workshop the Negro laborer was enabled – indeed forced – to devise many an new practical contrivance for minimizing the exactness of manual labor.“¹

On the plantations of the South, where African-Americans of many skills and strengths were often grouped together, new tools and machines were created that helped ease the back-breaking day to day labor. In the cities, mind-numbingly tedious labor, such as the construction of shoes, was made simple and quick by inventors such as Jan Ernst Matzeliger, who’s shoe lasting machine revolutionized the shoe industry, drastically cutting production time and man hours.

As early as the late 19^th century African-American inventors were beginning to be recognized for their accomplishments. “The oft-repeated accusation against the Negro that he is an imitator and not an inventor does not stand the test when brought under the limelight of investigation,” claimed a reporter in 1908 in the Seattle Republican. Which was true. According to the Governmental Patent Office at that time, it was estimated that of the 900,000 total patent rights that had been granted in the history of the office about 1,000 of those came from African-American inventors. Henry E. Baker, one of the first Black Patent Examiners in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office said, “…the records of this office do not distinguish between inventors as to race but only to nationality (but black inventors)…not only served to raise the standard of the inventors materially and socially but (have) greatly aided in increasing the facilities of civilization.“²

African-Americans, often without the benefits of higher education, were starting to make noted, valuable contributions to the American landscape, even if they as a people were still not fully accepted as social or intellectual equals in white America. This paper will focus on the backgrounds, work and inventions of three influential African-American Inventors of the 19^th Century inventors: Lewis Latimer, Elijah McCoy and Granville Woods. It will address their inventions, the social and racial climate at the time and how their race impacted their opportunities and educations.
Next time, their inventions.

The end of the 19th Century was a turbulent time for African-Americans. The Civil War, having just recently concluded, was still an open wound in parts of the United States, and the lingering feelings and racism bled into the Reconstruction period and beyond. During this time, a handful of men rose above the difficulties to create life-changing inventions that would modify the future of entire industries. This paper will focus on the backgrounds, work and inventions of three influential inventors: Lewis Latimer, Elijah McCoy and Granville Woods.

Woods’ work in telephony and telegraphy, McCoy’s work in engine lubrication and Latimer’s work in the manufacturing of carbon filaments for Edison’s light bulbs made them forerunners in their fields for which they received praise and recognition in a time when such adulation for African-Americans was rare. McCoy’s invention lead users to coin the phrase “the real McCoy”. Latimer’s work was so important to the field of electric light technology that he was given one (out of twenty-eight) of the coveted spots in the Edison Pioneers, a group that represented the highest honor in the electrical field. Woods, known in some circles at the time as the “Black Edison”, pioneered different uses of telegraphy, allowing communication between station houses and moving trains.

This paper will cover what these inventors were famous (and not so famous) for, how their backgrounds as the children of former slaves impacted their opportunities and educations, and how their race played a part in their notoriety as well as how their inventions changed our lives.

Downfall would have been the largest amphibious landing in history, including 42 aircraft carriers, 24 battleships, 400 destroyers and other ships. Fourteen U.S. divisions A division is a large military unit usually consisting of around ten to twenty thousand soldiers. would take part also as they used Okinawa as a staging base and then seized the southern portion of the island of Kyushu. The invasion was scheduled to start on November 1, 1945. But there were some other considerations that the planners had to take into account.

There was, naturally, to be a deception plan leading up to the Olympic invasion. By having such a plan it was hoped, as all deception plans in war were, that Allied casualties would be minimized because the enemy force would believe that it needed to focus itself elsewhere. The plan to precede Olympic was Operation Pastel, wherein which the Joint Chiefs of Staff would attempt to fool the Japanese into thinking that a direct invasion of the southern islands had been rejected and instead that the Allies would focus first on Japanese forces still in mainland China. The first strike would be a false Allied attack on China’s Chusan-Shanghai area, with a fictional landing date of October 1, 1945. This was to be followed by one of the smaller southern Japanese islands, Shikoku. After this the Allies hoped to surprise the Japanese with the Olympic invasion.

All of this was leading up to X-Day, as it was called, where the Alllied forces would invade Kyushu along the eastern, southeastern, southern and western coasts of the island near the towns of Miyazaki, Ariake, and Kushikino. The invasion force was to consist of three main groups landing on 35 different beaches, all codenamed after makes of automobiles. The Eastern Assault Force consisting of the 25th, 33rd and the 41st Infantry Divisions, would land near Miyaski and quickly move inland to capture Miyazaki and its nearby airfield. The Southern Force which was to consist of the 1st cavalry Division, the 43rd Division and American Division would land inside Ariake Bay and capture Shibushi and to capture, further inland, the city of Kanoya and its surrounding airfield. On the western shore of Kyushu near Kushikino the 2nd, 3rd, and 5th Marine Divisions would land and split, part of which would head inland to capture Sendai while the other half captured the port city of Kagoshima. Once these areas were secured more Allied reinforcements consisting of three American divisions would be brought in each month to strengthen the hold on the occupied portion of Kyushu.

Before and during all of this activity the U.S. Twentieth Air Force would be bombing strategic targets such as railroads, airfields and the various beaches that were to be hit. With a successful bombing campaign it was hoped that they could minimize any fast means that reinforcements could utilize to arrive at the various invasion points.

The four month timetable for Olympic was not to conquer the entire island but to gain a foothold for the Allies to jump off of and use as a staging ground for the even bigger invasion — Coronet. More on it in part 3.

(The info for this piece came, once again, from Wikipedia, the the Combined Arms Research Library)

IN CONGRESS, JULY 4, 1776
The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America

When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. — Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their Public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected, whereby the Legislative Powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.

He has obstructed the Administration of Justice by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary Powers.

He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.

He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power.

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:

For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

For protecting them, by a mock Trial from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:

For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:

For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:

For depriving us in many cases, of the benefit of Trial by Jury:

For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:

For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies

For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:

For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation, and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & Perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.

He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these united Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States, that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. — And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.

The conference had many other factors to think about also. How could they force an unconditional Japanese surrender with the least amount of Allied casualties in the shortest period of time? Originally a joint British-American team had written a document entitled “Appreciation and Plan for the Defeat of Japan” where they didn’t foresee an invasion until after 1947 but the conference felt that dragging the war out that far would have dangerous consequences to American morale at home. And not only would the Allies face Japanese military units but also a “fanatically hostile population”. Fighting the Japanese military was one thing, facing an entire population armed with various weapons carrying out banzai attacks was another. The death toll on both sides could have been tremendous.

In light of this the US Navy urged a sea blockade and airpower to bring about surrender. The US Army Air Force, using captured airbases in China and Korea would be able to bombard Japan into submission.((A sea blockade had helped the US defeat another enemy roughly 80 years previous to this — The Confederate States of America.)) The US Army, though, believed that the strategy could prolong the war for an indeterminate amount of time and needlessly waste lives. In light of this the Army’s opinion won out.

And so planning on the two-part invasion began. It was to be broken into two operations, Olympic and Coronet with Olympic scheduled to begin on X-Day — November 1, 1945.((Info for this post came from both Military History Encyclopedia on the Web and Wikipedia.))

We’ll talk about the first phase, Olympic, next time.

But on the lighter side of having the possibility of the Union torn asunder forever, he was the tallest president we’ve had — 6 ft 4 in. He often would talk about how he never had to look up to anybody since he was always the tallest man in the room. On meeting a wounded Union soldier that was taller than him, he remarked, “Hello, comrade. Do you know when your feet get cold?”

James Madison, the president that got us into probably our most pointless war was our shortest president, coming in at just 5 ft 4 in.

And our tallest first lady? Eleanor Roosevelt. She was 6 ft tall. While Lincoln’s wife, Mary Todd, was probably our shortest first lady, measuring in at 5 ft 2 in.

So…how does the Secretary of Education skip all of that running for President and the election and just become President of the United States? Why, have everyone in front of you in the line of presidential succession die! Want to know the current line of succession? Well, here it is -

1. Vice President of the United States and President of the Senate
2. Speaker of the House of Representatives
3. President of the Senate pro tempore
4. Secretary of State
5. Secretary of the Treasury
6. Secretary of Defense
7. Attorney General
8. Secretary of the Interior
9. Secretary of Agriculture
10. Secretary of Commerce
11. Secretary of Labor
12. Secretary of Health and Human Services
13. Secretary of Housing and Urban Development
14. Secretary of Transportation
15. Secretary of Energy
16. Secretary of Education
17. Secretary of Veterans Affairs
18. Secretary of Homeland Security

“About how big?” Mr. Mitchell asked them. At the time the moon was rising, so a miner held out his hands, framing the moon in them and said, “About that big!”

He headed back to the bakery after making his rounds and saw some of the workers dipping graham crackers into marshmallow and laying them on window sills to harden. With a concept for the perfect working man’s snack, he added another cookie and a coating of chocolate and sent them back for the workers to try. When the response they got was favorable he sent samples around with their other salespeople, too. The MoonPie was a hit.

The usual way to enjoy a MoonPie in the 1950’s was with an RC Cola, which, when couple with a MoonPie, cost about 10 cents. RC was preferred since the RC bottle was a little larger than that of Coca-Cola. The two became inseparable and was often referred to as “The Working Man’s Lunch.”

He refused an appointment of first lieutenant in his company on account of his age (he was 16 at the time) and instead was made a non-commissioned staff-officer. Upon entry of his unit into the war he was promoted to captain of Company A, 97th Pennsylvania Volunteers on August 22, 1861. Roughly a month later he was promoted again, this time to major.

He remained with the 97th for many years, where he was well respected and liked by his men. By the time 1864 rolled around, and after seeing much action and combat, he had been promoted to colonel.

Pennypacker’s greatest moment of the war came at the second battle of Fort Fisher on January 15, 1865, where he was severely wounded while crossing enemy lines. Because of his bravery in leading his men and his wounding in the battle he was awarded Congressional Medal of Honor with a citation reading -

“He gallantly led the charge over a traverse and planted the colors of one of his regiments thereon; was severely wounded.”

After the battle Pennypacker was given a brevet promotion to Brigadier General on January 15, 1865. After convalescing, he received a full promotion to brigadier general at age 20, making him the youngest officer to hold the rank of general in the United States Army to this day. He was brevetted, once again, to major general on March 13, 1865. He was not yet 21 years old.

The truck driver stopped. “Was that your cat?”

Taylor replied, “No.”

The driver nodded and started driving again, leaving the squished cat in the street. We all went outside to look at the flat cat and then called our friends to tell them what just happened. Patrick, Josh and Willie were amazed by the story and how quickly it all happened.

Later I went with Patrick’s girlfriend Kim to find the Branch Davidian compound. The compound was outside of town, not in Waco as so many newscasters said. It was getting dark and you could see the spotlights that the FBI was using from miles away. We started driving, just following the lights. We never found exactly how to get to the compound, as the ranch was on several back country roads, but we had fun just driving around and looking for it.

Kim dropped me off at our apartment, and as I stepped up to the front door I noticed something in the doorway. There, with string tied around its two front paws and taped up to the inside of the doorway so it stood up, was the dead cat. It’s squished little body no longer bleeding, there was a scrawled sign reading “YOU KILLED ME” in red ink made up to look like blood.

I stepped over the cat and went inside, finding Joel and Taylor. I showed them the cat and we knew immediately who’d done this — Patrick, Josh and Willie.

Joel and Taylor carried the cat out to the garbage, then we called Patrick, Josh and Willie. They feigned innocence of the whole matter at first, but after hardly any interrogation they fessed up and said that they had done it. They’d thought it would be funny for us to leave our apartment the next morning on our ways to class and see the tiny crushed cat sitting there in our path.

It was about at that moment that we heard some banging around out at the garbage. We opened the door, while still on the phone, and peeked out at the garbage. There, dumping bottles and cans into the garbage, were 3 men in a truck. They continued to dump their trash until someone sneezed or something and they heard us. The 3 of them jumped into the truck and took off, very quickly. It was kind of strange, we thought.

And then we remembered the cat. We walked out to the garbage and, yes, the cat was gone. They’d taken a squished dead cat.

Probably going to use it in some satanic ritual or something, but the sickos had taken the dead cat.

In 1792, Alexander Chisholm of South Carolina, the executor of the estate of Robert Farquhar, attempted to sue the state of Georgia in the Supreme Court over payments due them for goods that Farquhar had supplied Georgia during the American Revolutionary War. In 1793, U.S. Attorney General Edmund Randolph argued the case for the plaintiff before the Court in “Chisholm v. Georgia”. Georgia refused to appear, claiming that as a “sovereign,” a state did not have to appear in court to hear a suit against it to which it did not consent.

The Court, in a 4–1 decision, found in favor of the plaintiff, with Chief Justice Jay concurring with Justices Blair, Wilson, and Cushing, with Justice James Iredell dissenting. The Court argued that Article 3, Section 2 of the Constitution abrogated the States’ sovereign immunity and granted federal courts the affirmative power to hear disputes between private citizens and States.

In 1795, largely as a result of the Chisolm decision, the Eleventh Amendment was ratified, which removed federal jurisdiction in cases where citizens of one state or foreign countries attempt to sue another state. However, citizens of one state or foreign countries can still use the Federal courts if the state consents to be sued or if Congress, pursuant to a valid exercise of Fourteenth Amendment remedial powers, abrogates the states’ immunity from suit.

Processed cheese, according to the FDA, is a “food product” made from regular cheese and sometimes other unfermented dairy ingredients, plus emulsifiers, extra salt, and food colorings. It was developed as a way of staving off the usual perishability that all foods have. Processed cheese has the capability to last almost indefinitely.

Walter Gerber was the first person to invent processed cheese in 1911 in Thun, Switzerland, but James L. Kraft (of Kraft Foods), seeing that the cheese hadn’t been patented, applied for an American patent in 1916. In 1917 he supplied to the US Armed forces the first batch of Kraft canned cheese for soldiers fighting in Europe during World War I. In addition, the Kraft Company also developed a process for producing sliced processed cheese and a machine that individually wrapped slices of cheese.

Kim’s cousin Karen lived a couple hours south of D.C. in northern Virginia, so in late June we flew up there to visit for a couple of days. We would rent a car and drive into D.C. on the Fourth and toodle around. I thought we was prepared, but nothing prepared us for the heat and humidity.

I used to watch David Letterman and hear him complain that the thermostat got up to 92 degrees that day in New York City and I’d just shake my head. “How can these people not survive 92 freaking degree heat? I’m a Texan! We deal with 192 degree heat every summer!” My father told me that the heat there was different; I scoffed. Texas heat is terrible. I scoffed too soon, I think.

We drove to the Pentagon City mall (right across from the Pentagon, no less) and took the Metro blue line from there. The D.C. Metro is amazing — clean, comfortable and quiet, it’s the complete antithesis to the New York City subway as I would find out a couple years later. Nobody hassling you, people not feigning sleep so people wouldn’t bother them, none of that, only quiet and clean. The Metro is the way all subway trains should be.

We stopped at the Smithsonian stop and climbed out of the underground and got hit by a hot blast of wind. Very hot wind, and it felt like you were swimming there was so much humidity. Instantly our clothes started sticking to us and the backpack we’d brought with us caused my back to ooze sweat. It was not a good sign.

Kim had never been to the Lincoln Memorial so we trekked down past the Washington Monument (which was closed) and walked past the reflecting pool. As we walked past, Tito Puente was playing at a band shell near the Monument, a crowd gathered around. I’d forgotten how big the reflecting pool actually was and it seemed like we walked forever. We finally got there, out of breath and red in the face and saw Lincoln. Took some pictures, went past the Vietnam wall and saw the Korean War memorial and then grabbed a tram to Arlington National Cemetery. Yes, there are Revolutionary War veterans and presidents buried there, but I was there to see the grave of Lee Marvin, who had served in the Marine Corps during World War II. We went and asked at the visitor’s center where he was located and after a little searching found him. He has a very simple white marble headstone, very much unlike his neighbor, professional boxer Joe “The Brown Bomber” Louis, who had volunteered for the Army, even after an amazing career he’d already had. We went to the Tombs of the Unknowns and then headed back to the tram.

We hit the Air and Space Museum at that point and then started to stake out our turf. The Mall was crowded already with thousands of people and it was probably 6 hours before the fireworks would begin. We’d been hot and miserable most of the time we were there, but it was beginning to get to me. I was starting to say things like, “Let’s just go back to the car, I can’t take it anymore,” and other whinyisms, but Kim, the trooper she is, said that we hadn’t come all that way to give up. So we found an office building that had an open lobby and camped out in the air conditioning for several hours. It was heavenly.

When the fireworks started many hours later, we were just east of 14th Street. Right across the street was a huge line of port-a-potties, with a line of people waiting to go them stretching several hundred feet. With the amount of sweating Kim and I had been doing we couldn’t see how anybody would even need to pee in this heat.

The fireworks were amazing, like nothing I’d ever seen before or since. I would think that that much ordnance was not even expelled on D-Day. The sky was full of rockets, light and sound. We were so close to the actual launch site that the booming of each rocket was almost simultaneous with its explosion. It was pretty incredible.

Afterwards, we headed back to the Metro stop, along with about 10,000 people. The heat had been bad, but cram 10,000 people together trying to go down a flight of stairs and you learn a new definition of hideous. It was claustrophobia inducing.

Despite the discomfort, we’d had a great time. Lots of fun. Everyone should go to D.C. for at least one Fourth of July.

Pickersgill had learned flag making from her mother, Rebecca Young, who made ensigns and continental standards during and after American Revolution. After marrying and moving to Philadelphia, Mary returned to Baltimore, widowed and with a small child. She established a flag-making business out of her home. Through her trade she supported her family by designing, sewing, and selling “silk standards, cavalry and division colours of every description.” She created signal and house flags for the U.S. Army, U.S. Navy, and merchant ships that visited Baltimore’s harbor.

When asked by Major Armistead to sew the flag, she created in just 6 weeks an American flag measuring 30x42 feet with the help of her daughter, two nieces, and two servants. Each stripe was two feet wide and each star was two feet from tip to tip. As a result the flag could be seen from several miles away from the fort.

When the British attacked Baltimore, Francis Scott Key, a lawyer aboard the British ship HMS Tonnant, saw Pickersgill’s flag while he was held captive and was inspired to compose the poem that became the national anthem of the United States. Pickersgill’s flag, being restored, is the centerpiece of the redesigned National Museum of American History at the Smithsonian Institution.

Some legacy, huh?

Screen writer Milton Gunzburg and his brother Julian thought they had a solution for the declining attendance with their Natural Vision 3-D film process. They tried to shop it around Hollywood, but no one really had any interest. Columbia and Paramount passed on Gunzberg’s pitch. 20th Century Fox introducing CinemaScope and weren’t interested in throwing another viewing experience into the mix . Only one man, John Arnold, who headed the MGM camera department, liked it enough to convince his bosses to purchase an option on the technology, but they let their option lapse.

To the Gunzbergs, it appeared that the Natural Vision technique of filming was doomed and they were back to square one until a man named Arch Oboler wanted a meeting with the them. Oboler, producer and writer of the popular radio show, Lights Out, was impressed enough to option it for his next film, The Lions of Gulu.

The film was based on a well-known event at the time, the killing of more than 120 workers building the Uganda Railway for the British at the turn of the century. The incident was also the basis for “The Man-eaters of Tsavo”, a story written in 1907 by J.H. Patterson, the hunter who tracked and killed the animals.

Bwana Devil premiered on November 26, 1952 at the Paramount Theatres in Hollywood and Los Angeles, CA. The critics hated it but it was a smash with audiences. Local premieres followed in San Francisco on December 13, Philadelphia, Dallas, Houston and San Antonio openings on December 25 and New York on February 18, 1953.

United Artists bought the rights to Bwana Devil from Oboler for $500,000 and a share of the profits put the film into wide release in March. After other studios saw the big profits that UA was bringing in with Bwana Devil, other studios raced to release their own 3-D films and a cool, albeit short lived, trend was begun.

McCall was chairman of the New York ad agency McCaffrey & McCall, and he put the problem to his underlings. They suggested he hire Bob Dorough, a Texas jazz musician known for creating catchy music to create the songs. Dorough was willing to give the idea a shot, and he plowed through his daughter’s math books, making up tunes on his piano until he’d created the trippy ballad “Three Is a Magic Number.”

McCall loved Dorough’s song, and the tune was eventually released as a record by Capitol Records under the title Multiplication Rock. A workbook deal fell through, but Tom Yohe, McCaffrey & McCall’s creative director, thought that the songs would go well with animation, so, after doodling some pictures, which McCall once again loved, they put together a 3 minute film to accompany “Three Is a Magic Number”, which they showed to ABC’s head of children’s programming, Michael Eisner. Eisner was receptive to the idea and gave McCaffrey & McCall the go ahead to create films for the rest of the multiplication tables. General Mills was brought on as the sole sponsor of Schoolhouse Rock.

Eisner also demanded that the big animation studios of Hollywood that made their Saturday morning cartoons cut 3 minutes from each show so that the animated shorts could be run. The studios were not too eager to comply, but after prodding by Eisner that it made good business sense, the relented.

Schoolhouse Rock premiered on the weekend of January 6–7, 1973, with the play list being “My Hero Zero,” “Elementary, My Dear,” “Three Is a Magic Number” and “The Four-Legged Zoo.” The shorts were aired for 12 years, ending in 1985.

When it came to desserts, though, he insisted that they be expressive. It may be apocryphal, but it is said that he once demanded of a waiter, “Take away this pudding, it has no theme.” There is no record of how the waiter took the “compliment”.

When it came to drinking, though, he was very particular. He was personal friends with Sir Alexander Walker, and loved his scotch, Johnny Walker Red. When he drank brandy, he always took a snifter of Hine.

While cruising westerly over the Gulf of Mexico Richardson’s B-47 refueled as was standard practice on these missions. Upon reaching New Orleans, Richardson turned northerly and proceeded to the Canadian border in preparation for a southerly turn to begin his “bomb run” on radar scoring facility at Radford, Virginia. Richardson’s B-47 “bombed” the target electronically and headed for home. The crew had covered 4000 miles in 8 hours and were ready to rest and relax. Richardson was told by a message from headquarters that on the return trip he would not be “attacked” by enemy fighters, which added a little bit of comfort to the remaining flight.

But no one seemed to have told Charleston Air Force Base in South Carolina. Lt. Clarence Stewart and two other pilots and three crew chiefs are readying their F-86 fighters to “attack” Richardson’s returning B-47. They had been given permission to attack Richardson’s plane any time before it landed in Florida.

At 12:09 a.m. on February 5, Air Defense Control radar picked up one of the B-47’s roughly 180 miles north of Charleston Air Force Base, but it did not pick up Richardson’s B-47. Ground control radar directed the 3 F-86’s to a point several thousand feet over and 15 miles away from Richardson’s B-47. Stewart, and his radar, locked onto the known B-47 and he began descending rapidly to “attack” the bomber, never knowing that he was on a collision course with Richardson’s B-47. Stewart didn’t know he was plunging towards Richardson’s B-47, as he was intently looking at his radar for fear of losing the other B-47 in the darkness, but he looked up for a second and saw the moon reflecting off the top of Richardson’s B-47. He attempted to roll the F-86 right but was unable to avoid a collision.

Stewart was able to eject from the crippled F-86, but, amazingly, the B-47 was only damaged. Upon inspection, the B-47’s crew noticed that the far right engine was bent upwards at a 30-degree angle and the right external fuel tank had been sheared off. Because of the bent engine the plane is rolling wildly. In an effort to control the craft Richardson cuts the power to that engine and then cuts the speed of the plane in an attempt to make an emergency landing at Hunter Air Force Base in Georgia. The tower at Hunter advises Richardson that because of maintenance on the runway, if the plane lands short it could cause the plane to crash, hurtling the Mk 15 bomb through the cockpit and down the runway at 200+ mph. Richardson radios Strategic Air Command and informs them that he is going to ditch the bomb in the Atlantic near Tybee Island, off the coast of Georgia. He does this and is able to eventually land the damaged plane.

On February 6, 1958, the Air Force 2700th Explosive Ordnance Disposal Squadron and 100 Navy personnel began the arduous search to recover the lost Mk 15 bomb. 10 days later an announcement was made that the search had turned up nothing, with the Air Force and Navy believing that the bomb was buried below the water in upwards of 5–15 feet of mud. To this day it has never been recovered.

She produced 24 quarts of milk during the flight, which was sealed into paper cartons and parachuted to spectators below. Charles Lindbergh reportedly received a glass of Ollie’s milk.

And yeah, you know some of these men, but what about the other men? Here they are, the members of the Second Continental Congress -

From New Castle, Kent, and Sussex, on Delaware
George Read
Caesar Rodney
Thomas McKean

From the Province of Pennsylvania
George Clymer
Benjamin Franklin
Robert Morris
John Morton
Benjamin Rush
George Ross
James Smith
James Wilson
George Taylor

From the Province of Massachusetts Bay
John Adams
Samuel Adams
John Hancock
Robert Treat Paine
Elbridge Gerry

From the Province of New Hampshire
Josiah Bartlett
William Whipple
Matthew Thornton

From the Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations
Stephen Hopkins
William Ellery

From the Province of New York
Lewis Morris
Philip Livingston
Francis Lewis
William Floyd

From the Province of Georgia
Button Gwinnett
Lyman Hall
George Walton

From the Colony and Dominion of Virginia
Richard Henry Lee
Francis Lightfoot Lee
Carter Braxton
Benjamin Harrison
Thomas Jefferson
George Wythe
Thomas Nelson, Jr.

From the Province of North Carolina
William Hooper
John Penn
Joseph Hewes

From the Province of South Carolina
Edward Rutledge
Arthur Middleton
Thomas Lynch, Jr.
Thomas Heyward, Jr.

From the Province of New Jersey
Abraham Clark
John Hart
Francis Hopkinson
Richard Stockton
John Witherspoon

From the Connecticut Colony
Samuel Huntington
Roger Sherman
William Williams
Oliver Wolcott
From Maryland
Charles Carroll
Samuel Chase
Thomas Stone
William Paca

Against the backdrop of this knowledge, Germans were fleeing the advancing Soviet army as fast as they could. The Wilhelm Gustloff was there in Gdynia to help with the evacuation as part of Operation Hannibal. Commanded by Friedrich Petersen, the Wilhelm Gustloff began taking refugees aboard on January 28, 1945, with a launch time 48 hours from then. After launch they were to head to Kiel.

Armed guards allowed passengers on in an orderly fashion, even though panic had taken over the harbor. The mob mainly consisted of women, children and old men, as the SS was combing the crowd for men to fight the advancing Red Army. As the 30th approaches the throng became more panicked, mothers and children became separated, shoving caused some to fall overboard into the icy waters below, hysteria was setting in as the last remaining avenues of escape dried up.

At around 12:30 pm, the Wilhelm Gustloff weighed anchor and left Gdynia with their escort, a small torpedo boat, the Löwe. The sailing was anything but smooth. Rough seas, snow and hail pelted the ship, while on the bridge the crew debated the best course of action to take. Route, optimal speed and whether the Gustloff should be following a zigzag course to avoid detection were all topics of discussion. Shortly after 6 pm the crew was alerted that convoy of minesweepers was approaching them from the opposite direction. In order to avoid a collision, shouldn’t the ships running lights be turned on? The decision, which would prove fatal, was that they should.

Near 8 pm that night the crew of the Soviet submarine S-13 spotted the lights of the Wilhelm Gustloff. Captain Alexander Marinesko gathered his officers together and formulated their plan off attack on the huge ship. Because of ice, the Löwe’s anti-submarine sonar was disabled, forcing lookouts on both ships to rely on sight to spot submarines, which allowed the S-13 to get in close to both ships. Shortly after 9 pm Captain Marinesko orders 4 torpedoes to be launched at the Wilhelm Gustloff (only 3 worked properly), each hitting the starboard side of the cruise ship. Passengers were caught off guard, as most believed that the worst of their journey had passed.

The 3 torpedoes had hit the front of the ship, midship where the swimming pool was, and the rear of the boat near the engine room, knocking out all power on board the ship. Because of this the radio room operator had to use an emergency transmitter to transmit the SOS distress signal. Complete chaos ensued as the ship descended into anarchy. An hour and 10 minutes after the first torpedo hit at 9:16 pm, the Wilhelm Gustloff slipped beneath the waves of the Baltic, taking thousands of people with it. Some survivors flailed in the icy water attempting to climb into life boats, only to be beaten back by those occupying them.

The Löwe was able to pick up 472 passengers from the water, while another torpedo boat, the T-36, was able to pick up 564. The minesweepers which were feared to cause a collision arrived and picked up an additional 179 people from the water, eventually bringing the combined total of rescued to approximately 1,230. All in all, 9,500 people would perish in the sinking, making the sinking of the Wilhelm Gustloff the worst maritime disaster in history.

George moved the family to Waxahachie for work reasons, but he left the family there and moved back to Oklahoma, once again in a quest to find better work. The interesting thing about this is that Susan and the children did not go with him. The family continued to pick cotton to feed themselves.

During all of this Bessie believed that she was destined for greater things than living out a meager existence. Trying to get out of the situation she was in, she saved all the money she could and attended a year at the Oklahoma Colored Agricultural and Normal University in Langston, Oklahoma. The problem was that her money ran out after that amount of time and she had to go leave school. She returned home.

At the age of 23 she moved to Chicago and lived with some of her brothers who were living there at the time. She worked at a supermarket and as a manicurist, but she dreamed of flying. Orville and Wilbur Wright had flown their Wright Flyer in 1903, and Bessie wanted to do the same. She heard stories from men returning from The Great War about flying over the battlefields of France and they fascinated her.

With some financial backing, she took classes in French and then in 1920 traveled to Paris to attend the Federation Aeronautique Internationale. She’d had to travel that far to learn to fly, because American flight schools would not allow blacks to enroll. By 1921, after training, she was the only black pilot in the world.

She became a role model, not just for black women, but people of all races, for she had overcome great obstacles and fulfilled her dreams. Sadly, her dream came to an end on April 30, 1926 in Jacksonville, Florida when she crashed in the first plane she had ever owned.

She and her mechanic had taken the new plane out for a test flight. During the flight the mechanic, who was piloting the plane, experienced engine trouble and lost control of the aircraft. Bessie fell out of the open cockpit of the plane and plummeted several hundred feet to her death.

More than 5,000 people attended her memorial services in Chicago and another 10,000 filed past her coffin to pay their last respects. She garnered much attention even in death, but she will always be the first black woman pilot.

The idea of a meeting such as this was floated a year earlier by Renaissance man Benjamin Franklin, but it took the closing of Boston Harbor by the British and the following Boston Tea Party to get the ball really rolling. The First Continental Congress met in Philadelphia’s Carpenters Hall on September 5, 1774. Of the 12 colonies, only 12 sent delegates, as Georgia was beset by problems with Indians and needed help from the British military to put down the problems.

So…you know those few men that you had to know for school, but what about the other ones? Here they are from the First Continental Congress -

From the Province of New Hampshire
Nathaniel Folsom

From the Province of Massachusetts Bay
John Adams
Samuel Adams
Thomas Cushing
Robert Treat Paine

From the Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations
Stephen Hopkins
Samuel Ward

From the Connecticut Colony
Silas Deane
Eliphalet Dyer
Roger Sherman

From the Province of New York
John Alsop
James Duane
John Jay
Philip Livingston
Isaac Low
County of Kings
Simon Boerum
County of Orange
John Haring
Henry Wisner
County of Suffolk
William Floyd

From the Province of New Jersey
Stephen Crane
John De Hart
James Kinsey
William Livingston
Richard Smith

From the Province of Pennsylvania
Edward Biddle
John Dickinson
Joseph Galloway
Charles Humphreys
Thomas Mifflin
John Morton
Samuel Rhoads
George Ross

From New Castle, Kent, and Sussex, on Delaware
Thomas McKean
George Read
Caesar Rodney

From Maryland
Samuel Chase
Robert Goldsborough
Thomas Johnson
William Paca
Matthew Tilghman

From the Colony and Dominion of Virginia
Richard Bland
Benjamin Harrison V
Patrick Henry
Richard Henry Lee
Edmund Pendleton
Peyton Randolph
George Washington

From the Province of North Carolina
Richard Caswell
Joseph Hewes
William Hooper

From the Province of South Carolina
Christopher Gadsden
Thomas Lynch, Jr.
Henry Middleton
Edward Rutledge
John Rutledge

Possibly next — the members of the Second Continental Congress.

It followed the lives of the Molly and Jake Goldberg and their family as they made their way through their everyday lives in Brookylyn, NY. Gertrude Berg, the writer-producer behind the show, portrayed Molly and Philip Loeb portrayed her husband Jake. Also on the show were Roslyn Silber and Alfred Ryder Molly and Jake’s children Rosalie and Sammy.

During the first season on CBS, the show was the third most popular program on the air. It was such a popular show that performers from other fields desired to be on the show, like Jan Peerce of the Metropolitan Opera.

It went on to be the 3rd highest rated show for CBS during that time. It eventually went from CBS to NBC to a now none-existent network known as the Dumont network where it ended its run in 1955.

Many women have made a run for the presidency. Who were they?

Victoria Woodhull, 1872: The first woman to run for president, Woodhull was an Equal Rights Party candidate. Ulysses S. Grant won the 1872 election as a Republican.

Belva Ann Lockwood, 1884 and 1888: Lockwood, who also ran on the Equal Rights Party ticket, eventually became the first woman lawyer to practice before the Supreme Court. In 1884, Democrat Grover Cleveland was elected president; in 1888, Cleveland lost to Republican Benjamin Harrison.

Margaret Chase Smith, 1964: Smith, a Maine Republican, was the first woman to run on a major party ticket, entering primaries in New Hampshire, Illinois, Massachusetts, Texas and Oregon, among others. She withdrew after the first round of voting at the Republican National Convention. Sen. Barry Goldwater won the Republican nomination and lost in a landslide to the incumbent, Lyndon B. Johnson.

Shirley Chisholm, 1972: The first black woman to run for president, Chisholm ran as a Democrat and received more than 150 votes at the Democratic National Convention. She was also the first black woman to serve in Congress; New York sent her to the House of Representatives in 1968. George McGovern won the Democratic nomination that year and lost to the incumbent, Richard M. Nixon.

Patsy Mink, 1972: A congresswoman from Hawaii, Mink ran in the Oregon Democratic primary as an anti-war candidate.

Pat Schroeder, 1988: Schroeder’s headline-grabbing campaign never got off the ground after the Democratic congresswoman from Colorado could not raise enough money. The party’s nomination went to Michael Dukakis and the election to Republican George H.W. Bush. Schroeder was first elected to the House in 1972, where she served for 24 years.

Elizabeth Dole, 2000: Dole announced her presidential bid in January 1999 and dropped out of the race nine months later. Republicans eventually nominated George W. Bush, who defeated Democrat Al Gore for the presidency. Dole’s husband, former Sen. Bob Dole, R-Kan., was the Republican presidential nominee in 1996, when he lost to Bill Clinton. Mrs. Dole is now North Carolina’s senior senator, elected in 2002.

And last, but certainly not least–

Carol Moseley Braun, 2004: The first black woman to serve in the Senate, Braun was one of 10 candidates to seek the Democratic presidential nomination in the last presidential election. Primary voters eventually tapped Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., as the nominee. He lost to George W. Bush.

The tiny town of Great Yarmouth was bombarded by a 3 zeppelins of the German Navy near the beginning of World War I. The zeppelins, designated as L3, L4, and L6, left the northern German coast on the morning of January 19, 1915 for, what was cryptically called “a distant mission to the west”. If it can be believed, these missions were not to include bombing London, as Kaiser Wilhelm had decreed -

“Targets not to be attacked in London but rather docks and military establishments in the Lower Thames and on the English coast.”

The first mission was to encompass bombings in the areas of the Thames estuary, the mouths of the Humber and Tyne, and the East Anglian ports of Harwich, Lowestoft and Yarmouth.

Fregattenkapitan Peter Strasser, the leader of the mission, lifted off from the German coast aboard his zeppelin, the L6, at 9:30 that morning, but his participation in the raid was to be short-lived, as his zeppelin developed engine trouble off the Dutch coast and was forced to return to Germany. Despite the loss of their captain, the remaining 2 zeppelins, commanded by Kapitanleutnant Hans Fritz on L3, and L4, skippered by Kapitanleutnant Magnus von Platen-Hallermund, floated on to England.

Problems began to arise for the remaining 2 zeppelins were blown off course and they made separate landfalls over the coast of Norfolk. Without radio contact between the 2 zeppelins and with the weather being bad, neither knew where the other was. Locals, on the other hand, began reporting sightings of various aircraft to authorities.

Finally, at 8:20 pm, L3 sighted Yarmouth and began its bombing run over the town, traveling from north to south. During the next 10 minutes L3 is thought to have dropped eight bombs, three of which failed to detonate, and two incendiary devices, causing an estimated damage and killing or wounding a handful of innocent bystanders.

Because of the bewilderment of the locals on the ground, the zeppelins encountered almost no resistance, with reports of only one sentry firing on L3 as it flew overhead.

As for the bombing raids, they achieved little in military terms. The damage was almost all done to private property, but psychologically the damage was huge. No longer were the British Isles immune to attack, with their powerful navy. Now the enemy could bypass that obstacle entirely by just flying over it. This attack, while small, was primarily a trial run for larger attacks that would come later on London, which began on May 31 of that same year. Several hundred people were killed in subsequent raids that eventually declined as the British developed incendiary ammunition which helped to bring down the zeppelins and once again regain control of English airspace.

After being under way for roughly a month, Kuhlmann and his crew scored their first kill when the intercepted the Dominican schooner Carmen off the coast of the Dominican Republic on July 11. Not wanting to waste his valuable (and finite) supply of torpedoes, he surfaced and destroyed the schooner with the sub’s deck mounted guns. Two days later he struck gold again, this time with the U.S. steam freighter Oneida, off the eastern tip of Cuba. From there he and his crew continued westerly along the Cuban coast.

He encountered the fishing vessel Gertrude on the evening of July 16 about 30 miles northeast of Havana. The trawler was too small to use a torpedo on, so he surfaced, commanding the crew into life boats before he destroyed it with the sub’s deck guns once again.

For the next 2 weeks Kuhlmann’s crew sailed northward into the Gulf of Mexico hunting for prey but finding none until he found the mouth of the Mississippi River, an excellent location to sit and wait for tankers steaming eastward. Patience paid off, when on the afternoon of July 30 he encountered the passenger steamer Robert E. Lee.

The Robert E. Lee had been pressed into service by the Navy, running cargo here, passengers there. On July 30 she was carrying passengers from Port-of-Spain, Trinidad, some of which were survivors of other attacks instigated by other German U-Boats. With the heat of summer pressing down upon the overcrowded Robert E. Lee, the captain was trying to find a safe harbor for his passengers. After trying and being unable to dock in Tampa, Florida, he headed for New Orleans, along with his U.S. Navy escort, the U.S. submarine chaser PC-566, where they met up with U-166.

After picking up radio transmissions coming from the PC-566, U-166 homed in on the location of the 2 boats. Firing a single torpedo into the freighter’s port side, the Robert E. Lee went down, taking 25 lives with it.

Once the Robert E. Lee began sinking, PC-566 jumped into the fight, dropping depth 10 charges over the fleeing U-166. After the dropping of the charges, an oil slick was seen rising from the water, but since the other usual evidence that a sub was sunk (a rush of air to the surface) it was assumed that the sub had escaped. In reality the U-166 had been sunk by PC-566.

In 2001 the wreckage of both the Robert E. Lee and U-166 were found by C&C Technologies while the firm was surveying a proposed pipeline route for BP Exploration and Shell international. The 2 ships rest over 5000 feet down on the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico.

From March through September of 1836 Texas had as interim president a man named David G. Burnet. Burnet, a failed land speculator, was chosen at the Convention of 1836 to be the interim president of the newly-formed Republic of Texas following the adoption of the Texas Declaration of Independence. After the Battle of San Jacinto Burnet, along with Mexican president Antonio López de Santa Anna, signed the Treaties of Velasco on May 14, 1836, making Texas a free republic.

But Burnet was not to continue as president of the weeks-old republic. Burnet’s political enemy, Sam Houston, was elected as president on September 5 of that same year. Whether it was out of disgust with politics or him just being a sourpuss, Burnet resigned as president on October 22, handing over the reigns of power to Houston, who was supposed to assume the presidency in December.

Houston had been a veteran of the War of 1812, a lawyer in his adopted home state of Tennessee, and had also been a senator there. Even with all of the success he’d had, Houston’s 2 year constitutionally-mandated term was plagued with problems. Texas had a mountain of debt left over from the revolution, and to compound on this the new country had no money, and no real way to raise it. Also the new republic lived under the constant specter of another imminent invasion, as Mexico had renounced the signing of the Treaties of Velasco. Lastly, Texas was a country that was unrecognized by any nation of the world. Houston sought to immediately join the United States to alleviate some of his country’s troubles, but, with the slave issue raging, Texas was denied entry into the Union, as it would have entered as a slave state.

At the end of his 2 year term Houston was succeeded by his vice president, Mirabeau Bounaparte Lamar. Lamar had fought under Sam Houston in the revolution, joining up after the massacres at Goliad and the Alamo. He commanded the cavalry during the Battle of San Jacinto.

Lamar, unlike Houston, wanted Texas to remain an independent nation, eventually expanding itself out to California, and to eventually rival the United States for control of the North American continent. He also was in favor of exterminating all Texas Native Americans. But on the plus side, under him Texas was recognized by several European countries, and he also founded the new capital of Texas in Austin. Through all of this he spent money like it was going out of style, raising the national debt to unheard of heights.

It may have been the problems that Lamar faced that caused his old political rival to once again assume command of Texas, and on December 12, 1841, Sam Houston once again became the president of the republic and led the fledgling country until it was finally annexed by the United States in 1845.

The balloon had been made by conscripted Japanese schoolgirls to carry a bomb across the Pacific jet stream from the town of Kokura and hopefully land in the United States. A Japanese officer urged the girls on, saying

“You will be defeating America with these arms. Work to your utmost. Achieve your goals!”

The balloon that landed near Lakeview was one of 9300 others launched into the westerly winds during the war. Others landed as far east as Ontario and Michigan, but the balloon that exploded on May 5 killing the woman and the children caused the only wartime deaths due to enemy action in any of the 48 states.

Four days before the MLK celebration the city received the plaque, but instead of Jones’ name, the plaque read :

“Thank you James Earl Ray for keeping the dream alive. City of Lauderhill, January 19, 2002.”

Ray, of course, was the man who plead guilty to assassinating MLK at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis in 1968.

Snopes has some stuff about it, a little more about the reaction of the company, Merit Industries, that created the plaque -

AdPro hastily checked to ensure that the blunder hadn’t been the result of a mistake on their part:

Gerald Wilcox said he knew the error didn’t come from his company, but he sent a company secretary scurrying through order forms — just to be sure.

“In all my communications with the vendor, I never used [the name James Earl Ray)). I almost fell off my chair when I saw it,” said Norbert Williams, 68, a former middle school principal who is an AdPro account executive. The evidence pointed to Georgetown, Texas.

Even with his doubts, Wilcox said he was willing to call it an error but wanted Merit executives to tell him what happened. He said the first phone conversation broke down when a Merit employee became uncooperative and cut the call short. On a second try, Gerald Wilcox talked to the owner, Herbert Miller.

“I explained to him why this was so important. He said I was making a mountain out of a mole hill,” Wilcox said. “They had no sense of history. First I was stunned, then the anger kicked in.”

Miller, apparently lacking any diplomatic skills whatsoever, assuaged nobody’s feelings by blaming the error on some of his poorly-educated employees and terming the mix-up an innocent mistake that had been “blown out of proportion”:

He said some of the company’s workers are barely in their 20s, possess poor English language skills and have limited grasp of history. “[They)) don’t know who James Earl Ray is from James Earl Jones from the man in the moon,’’ he said. Miller said the worker responsible for engraving this plaque was handling another one about the same time bearing the name “Ray Johnson.” He said the “Ray” from that plaque ended up on the Lauderhill plaque, supplanting the word “Jones.”

He said the mistake slipped through quality control because it was a rush job. “It was a stupid, stupid error,” he said.

Mr. Jones, to his credit, brushed it off. From CNN -

James Earl Jones brushes off engraving mistake

LAUDERHILL, Florida (AP) — James Earl Jones brushed off a mistake by an engraver who erred while inscribing a plaque meant to honor the actor during a Martin Luther King Jr. tribute.

The plaque was engraved: “Thank you James Earl Ray for keeping the dream alive.” Ray was the man convicted of assassinating King in Memphis, Tenn., in 1968.

Jones said the company made a common mistake and he’s been introduced as James Earl Ray before.

“There’s no point in getting too sensitive about it,” Jones said Saturday at the ceremony.

Instead of the plaque, the city gave Jones a colorful Ashanti stool similar to ones traditionally used as a throne in the African tribe.

Merit Industries, the plaque’s maker, said the mistake happened when an employee was preparing the Jones plaque at about the same time as one for someone named Ray Johnson.

Dennis lived on Sunset Blvd in a house formerly occupied by Will Rogers, and he left Ella Jo and Patricia there while he went to a recording session. Upon returning home at 3 am, a man appeared at the back door of Dennis’ house.

Dennis, frightened, asked the man, “Are you going to hurt me?”

The man replied, “Do I look like I’m going to hurt you, brother?” and he dropped to his knees and kissed Dennis’ feet. He invited Dennis into his own house where about a dozen uninvited house guests, nearly all of them girls, were gathered.

The man was Charles Manson, and he and Dennis got along great. He and Manson would sing and talk about important things, while the girls cleaned house, cooked, and catered to their needs. Manson liked to write music, even though Dennis said he was not musically gifted, and Dennis introduced Manson around town to various people in the entertainment industry.

The Beach Boys eventually went on to record one of Manson’s songs, retitled from its original name “Cease To Exist” to become “Never Learn Not To Love” from the 1969 album 20/20.

By this point, of course, the Nazis had been defeated by the Allied forces in Europe, negating the need for the Allies to bomb Berlin, much else any German city. But that hadn’t stopped Nazi physicists from pondering how a nuclear device might be delivered to either New York or London. The diagram at right shows an idea for this.

While far away from the ideal nuclear bomb eventually delivered by the Manhattan Project, Nazi physicists believed that if they could construct a small low-level nuclear device and combine it with a rocket (probably a V-2) that the Axis powers could deliver their nuclear payload to London. Naturally a larger rocket would have to be constructed if this type of scenario were to befall New York, but the war ended before the possibility could even be envisioned.

Since Taft’s first pitch, every President but one has opened at least one baseball season during their tenure. The exception: Jimmy Carter. Maybe he just didn’t like baseball.

He had volunteered for militia duty during the War of 1812 and, following the war, had practiced law in Jackson, Tenn. While on a business trip to New York City and Philadelphia he heard about land opportunities in the new territory of Texas. Determined to make an even better life for his wife and children he set off in 1835 aboard a steamboat from Nashville.

Once there he joined up with the rebels fighting the forces of Antonio López de Santa Anna. On January 13, 1836 while in Nacogdoches he enlisted in the Volunteer Auxiliary Corps of Texas under the command of Capt. William B. Harrison. He and others, including Davy Crockett, set out for Washington-on-the-Brazos. He arrived in San Antonio de Bexar (soon to be San Antonio) with his company on February 9 and joined the Alamo garrison under the command of Lt. Col. William Barrett Travis.

But one thing made Autry stand out; he was an expert marksman. Because of his skill with a long rifle he was chosen by his company to attempt to eliminate Santa Anna, who often walked out in the open across the grounds near the Mexican battle lines. Whether out of arrogance or cluelessness he didn’t seem to understand that a sniper might try to take a shot at him.

During one such walk by the Mexican dictator, Autry raised his long rifle and took aim as his compatriots looked on, and fired. In that moment, the history of Texas and Mexico might have been changed, but either because of nervous tension or the great distance to the target, Autry’s bullet went wild and Santa Anna scrambled for cover. After a siege lasting 13 days, Autry fell with his comrades at the stockade near the chapel, overwhelmed by the Mexican troops.

To: H. R. Haldeman

From: Bill Safire

July 18, 1969.

IN EVENT OF MOON DISASTER:

Fate has ordained that the men who went to the moon to explore in peace will stay on the moon to rest in peace.

These brave men, Neil Armstrong and Edwin Aldrin, know that there is no hope for their recovery. But they also know that there is hope for mankind in their sacrifice.

These two men are laying down their lives in mankind’s most noble goal: the search for truth and understanding.

They will be mourned by their families and friends; they will be mourned by the nation; they will be mourned by the people of the world; they will be mourned by a Mother Earth that dared send two of her sons into the unknown.

In their exploration, they stirred the people of the world to feel as one; in their sacrifice, they bind more tightly the brotherhood of man.

In ancient days, men looked at the stars and saw their heroes in the constellations. In modern times, we do much the same, but our heroes are epic men of flesh and blood.

Others will follow, and surely find their way home. Man’s search will not be denied. But these men were the first, and they will remain the foremost in our hearts.

For every human being who looks up at the moon in the nights to come will know that there is some corner of another world that is forever mankind.

PRIOR TO THE PRESIDENT’S STATEMENT:

The President should telephone each of the widows-to-be.

AFTER THE PRESIDENT’S STATEMENT, AT THE POINT WHEN NASA ENDS COMMUNICATIONS WITH THE MEN:

A clergyman should adopt the same procedure as a burial at sea, commending their souls to “the deepest of the deep,” concluding with the Lord’s Prayer.

The 80-ton side-wheeler had been hauling cargo on the Brazos River during 1834 and 1835. After their victory at the Alamo on March 6, 1836, Mexican Gen. Antonio López de Santa Anna and his troops began moving toward Harrisburg (today it’s a part of Houston), pursuing the Texas rebels. In early April, David G. Burnet, the interim president of the new republic, impressed the Cayuga into public service to transport provisions to the Texas army. On April 15, Burnet and his cabinet boarded the Cayuga just ahead of the advancing Mexican army. The steamboat made stops at Lynch’s Ferry and New Washington, in the vicinity of today’s Morgan’s Point in Harris County, then proceeded to Anahuac and Galveston with the officials, who conducted the republic’s business as they went. The officials went ashore at Galveston on April 26, then moved to a succession of locations before finally settling in January 1839 in the new capital at Waterloo, which soon was renamed Austin.

The eruptions believed to have caused the anomaly were -

1. The 5 April — 15 April 1815 volcanic eruptions of Mount Tambora on the island of Sumbawa in the Dutch East Indies
2. Mount La La Soufrière in Saint Vincent in the Caribbean in 1812
3. and Mount Mayon in the Philippines in 1814

Because of these eruptions a large amount of volcanic ash was launched skyward into the atmosphere and resulting in lower temperatures and sudden cold snaps worldwide.

In the northeastern US the summer of 1816 started out with a climatological bang. May brought on a hard frost that killed off most of the crops that would have been harvested later that year, then in June snowstorms hit eastern Canada and New England resulting in many deaths.

The interesting thing about that summer was that the cold didn’t last the entirety of the summer, it only came in fits and spurts, with the temperatures ranging from downright hot one day to below freezing later the same day. As an example, on the 5th of June the temperature in Salem, Mass reached 89 degrees, whereas on the following day, after thunderstorms blew through the temperature was 41 degrees. The temperatures then rose until they reached, for that area, almost heat wave proportions. Then as June slipped into July the cold returned.

Because of the cold snaps, freezes and snow the prices on corn, wheat and other grains rose dramatically. Conversely beef prices fell, given the fact that farmers found it hard to feed their livestock and wanted to make all the cash they could off of already starving animals.

So what did this climatic abnormality end up causing, besides possible starvation and cold toes? Historians believe that it was the impetus for many Americans to migrate westward and start settling the Midwest. Joseph Smith, founder of the Mormon church, was one such man, having begun his move westward after he had several crop failures.

In Europe, where the cold snap was even worse, there were food riots in England and France, the government of Switzerland declared a national emergency, while brown and red snow fell in Hungary and Italy, respectively, the cause of which is assumed to have been volcanic ash.

And the prolonged rainfall forced Mary Shelley and her friends to remain indoors during most of a planned holiday in Switzerland. They all decided to hold a contest, seeing who could write the scariest story, leading Shelley to write Frankenstein.

Inspired by the writings of the French philosopher Francois Marie Charles Fourier, the colony was intended to become a socialist Utopian conclave basing itself on the idea of communal production and distribution for the benefit of all. Unlike true communist systems individuals could own private property.

Built on a 2,000 acre purchase, La Réunion had problems almost from the very beginning. The colonists, none of them farmers, planned to support the colony, misguidedly, through farming, mainly wheat and vegetables. Mix in a large group of watchmakers, weavers, brewers and storekeepers and suddenly there was a large portion of the colony that didn”t have the foggiest idea on how to survive in the Texas landscape.

But they stuck it out and succeeded at growing some wheat and vegetables, although not enough to sustain the colonists. Throw in a blizzard in 1856 which destroyed all of their crops and the blazing Texas summer heat and it”s little wonder why they failed to take hold.

With over 350 colonists eventually made La Réunion their home, the commune was already beginning to fail as its population began to leave the area. Some returned to their native Europe while others just moved out away. In 1860 the growing town of Dallas incorporated the La Réunion colony into its own land area and absorbed the skills of the remaining colonists into its general population.

Little of the experiment is left today, mainly an odd reminder here and there. The most recognizable reminder of the colony was a tower built in 1978 which was named Reunion Tower as an esoteric honor to the colonists who have become a little less than footnotes in Dallas history.

The 3 and a half acre camp, which was a branch of the Camp Mexia Prisoner of War camp, started out its life in 1933 as a Civilian Conservation Corps camp on the shores of White Rock Lake, roughly 1/2 a mile from my home. The camp was made up of roughly 200 unemployed men from the surrounding areas who lived there as well as made improvements to White Rock Lake Park. However, after the start of WWII the CCC camp was given over to the Army Air Corps’ Fifth Ferrying Command, which used the camp as an induction center and boot camp for nearly two years.

Then in 1944, some of Erwin Rommel’s Afrika Corp soldiers captured by American G.I.’s were shipped off to the White Rock Lake branch of Camp Mexia. The camp eventually held 403 men who were bussed to work everyday at the Regional Quartermaster Repair Shop at the converted Centennial General Exhibits Building at Fair Park.

There was never an escape attempt from the camp, even though civilians would often call about escaped prisoners wandering the area but when questioned by MP’s they would reply that they’d just gotten lost or wanted to go for a walk. The area, I can attest, is very pretty.

At the end of the war a large percentage of Hitler’s soldiers wanted to stay in the States, but the government quashed the idea, forcing all to return home to their native lands.

1. The Tularosa Basin near Alamogordo, NM
2. The lava beds (now the El Malpais National Monument) south of Grants, NM (which could have been fun, as the westerly winds probably could have carried fallout to Albuquerque)
3. The Alamogordo Bombing and Gunnery Range, today known as the White Sands Missile Range
4. An Army training area north of Blythe, California, in the Mojave Desert
5. San Nicolas Island (one of the Channel Islands) off the coast of Southern California
6. A desert area southwest of Cuba (NM) and north of Thoreau
7. Padre Island south of Corpus Christi, Texas, in the Gulf of Mexico
8. San Luis Valley, near modern day Great Sand Dunes National Monument, located near Mosca, Co.

General Leslie Groves had decided on using the area north of Blythe, but opted not to use because he didn’t want to have to deal with the base’s commander, Gen. George S. Patton. So the “honor” fell to Alamogordo.

A locomotive crash staged several months earlier by the Columbus and Hocking Valley Railroad near Cleveland, Ohio, had been a great success, attracting 40,000 spectators. William George Crush, a general passenger agent at the Katy Railroad, thought it would make for a great publicity stunt, so he proposed a similar event in Texas. The Katy wouldn’t charge for the event, only the price of train fare to get to the event. He ran the idea up the Katy flagpole and was given full control of putting on the spectacle.

Posters were made up for the crash, but little paid publicity was needed since almost every major newspaper was providing free publicity of the event. The crash was set for September 15, 1896 and the crowds filed in to central Texas the days preceding, mostly aboard Katy trains.

Crush, a friend of P.T. Barnum, borrowed a tent from the Ringling brothers to be used as a restaurant and built a wooden jail in case there were pickpockets and drunks. Crush, with the help of Katy engineers, laid out the logistics of the crash, setting up the impact point in front of a grandstand filled with V.I.P.s. By the day of the event it is estimated that up to 50,000 people were at the site, creating a town for a day, which was appropriately called Crush. In 1896, Dallas had just 40,000 so for that one day Crush may have bested Dallas for the title of Texas’ largest city.

At 5 p.m. the two locomotives set up about a mile from each other and put the peddle to the metal. Maximum speed was reached at 90 miles an hour, and they set off cherry bombs laid on the tracks to create small explosions as the trains traveled along. The two trains met ten feet north of the designated impact point, which was close enough according to the Katy engineer’s calculations.

Three large explosions quickly followed one after the other. The first explosion was the collision of the engines, then the next two explosions were the boilers of each train exploding. Both the photographers and V.I.P.s’ stands were immediately pelted with shrapnel. The official photographer for the event, Jervis Deane of Waco, was hit by a piece of metal that put out his eye and embedded several pieces of metal in his head.

The storm of the shrapnel occurred so quickly and the crowd was so closely packed together that it was impossible to run for cover. Three people died and several dozen spectators were injured by the exploding locomotives.

One of those killed was sitting in a mesquite tree and was nearly decapitated by a length of chain. The explosion was so powerful that a piece knocked a woman unconscious half a mile away. Some were even injured as they attempted to pick up the scalding metal on the ground as a souvenir.

The injured and the families of the dead were paid by the Katy. Crush was fired immediately, but rehired a few days later without the general public’s knowledge until he retired from the company. The “Crash at Crush” was immortalized by famed Texas composer Scott Joplin in his march, “Great Crush Collision.”