Daily History

If history repeats itself, and the unexpected always happens, how incapable must man be of learning from experience?
~George Bernard Shaw

1865 – At the Battle of Dabney’s Mill (also known as Hatcher’s Run), Union and Confederate forces around Petersburg, Virginia, began a three-day battle that produced 3,000 casualties but ended with no significant advantage for either side.

1917 – The Congress of the United States passed the Immigration Act of 1917 over President Woodrow Wilson’s veto. Also known as the Asiatic Barred Zone Act, the law required a literacy test for immigrants and barred Asiatic laborers, except for those from countries with special treaties or agreements with the United States, such as the Philippines.
Subsequent immigration to the United States sharply declined, and, in 1924 a law was passed requiring immigrant inspection in countries of origin, leading to the closure of Ellis Island and other major immigrant processing centers.

1918 – Anchor line steamship Tuscania, traveling as part of a British convoy and transporting over 2,000 American soldiers bound for Europe, was torpedoed by the German submarine U-77.
Lieutenant Commander Wilhelm Meyer spotted the Tuscania and its convoy just eight miles off the coast of Ireland. After moving into position, Meyer fired two torpedoes. The first torpedo missed, but the second scored a direct hit on the starboard side, causing a terrific explosion. The 14,384-ton steamer immediately took a great list and crewmembers were plunged into darkness as they began lowering lifeboats into the sea. Of the 2,397 American servicemen on the Tuscania, the convoy was able to rescue 2,187, along with the majority of the ship’s British crew.
One of the survivors was Harry Randall Truman, who later came to brief fame in the months preceding the Mount St. Helen’s 1980 eruption after he stubbornly refused to leave his home despite evacuation orders. He is presumed to have been killed in the eruption.

1937 – President Franklin Roosevelt announced a controversial plan to expand the Supreme Court to as many as 15 judges, allegedly to make it more efficient. Critics immediately charged that Roosevelt was trying to “pack” the court and thus neutralize Supreme Court justices hostile to his New Deal.
The proposal offered retirement at full pay for all members of the court over 70. If a justice refused to retire, an “assistant” with full voting rights was to be appointed, thus ensuring Roosevelt a liberal majority. In July, the Senate struck the proposal down by a vote of 70 to 22.

1958 – During a practice exercise, a U.S. F-86 fighter plane collided with a B-47 bomber carrying a 7,600-pound Mark 15 nuclear bomb To protect the aircrew from a possible detonation in the event of a crash, the bomb was jettisoned. Following several unsuccessful searches, the bomb was presumed lost somewhere in Wassaw Sound off the shores of Tybee Island near Savannah, Georgia.
To date, no undue levels of unnatural radioactive contamination have been detected in the regional Upper Floridan aquifer by the Georgia Department of Natural Resources (over and above the already high levels thought to be due tomonazite, a reddish-brown phosphate mineral that is naturally radioactive).
A satirical “news” website (World News Daily Report) ran a story in February 2015 stating the bomb was found by vacationing Canadian divers and that the bomb had since been removed from the bay. The fake story spread widely via social media.

1969 – Actress Thelma Ritter (nominated six times for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress: All About Eve, The Mating Season, With A Song In My Heart, Pickup On South Street, Pillow Talk, Birdman Of Alcatraz) died of a heart attack at the of 66.

1971 – Astronauts Alan Shepard and Edgar Mitchell became the fifth and sixth men to walk on the surface of the Moon landed on the moon as part of the Apollo 14 mission. While on the Moon, Shepard fashioned a golf club and hit a couple of golf balls. Mitchell joined in by throwing a lunar scoop handle javelin-style.

1991 – Actor Dean Jagger (starred in television’s Mr. Novak and appeared in nearly 100 films, including The Robe, White Christmas, King Creole, Elmer Gantry and won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor his role in Twelve O’Clock High ) died of natural causes at the age of 87.

1994 – White supremacist Byron De La Beckwith was convicted of the 1963 murder of civil rights leader Medgar Evers, and given a life sentence by a racially diverse jury. He died in prison in 2001 at the age of 80.

2002 – A federal grand jury indicted John Walker Lindh, the so-called “American Taliban,” alleging that he was trained by Osama bin Laden’s network and that he conspired with the Taliban to kill Americans.
Lindh could have received up to three life sentences and 90 additional years in prison. On February 13, 2002, he pleaded not guilty to all 10 charges. The court scheduled an evidence suppression hearing, at which Lindh would have been able to testify about the details of the torture to which he was subjected. The government faced the problem that a key piece of evidence – Lindh’s confession – might be excluded from evidence as having been forced under duress (i.e. torture).
Michael Chertoff, then-head of the Criminal Division of the U.S. Department of Justice, then directed the prosecutors to offer a plea bargain. Lindh could plead guilty to two charges: supplying services to the Taliban, and carrying an explosive during the commission of a felony. He would have to consent to a gag order that would prevent him from making any public statements on the matter for the duration of his 20-year sentence, and he would have to drop any claims that he had been mistreated or tortured by U.S. military personnel in Afghanistan and aboard two military ships during December 2001 and January 2002. In return, all other charges would be dropped. The gag order was said to be at the request of Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld.
Lindh accepted the offer. On July 15, 2002, he entered his plea of guilty to the two remaining charges and was sentenced to 20 years in prison with no possibility of parole.

2012 – 36-year-old Josh Powell, who had been in the public eye since police labeled him a person of interest in the 2009 disappearance of his 28-year-old wife, Susan, Killed his two sons and took his own life by setting fire to his Graham, Washington, home.
He had lost custody of his children after his father, Steven Powell, was arrested on child porn charges following a raid on the father’s home. Powell and his sons were living with Steven Powell. Police said images found on Josh’s computer were concerning for the welfare of the children.
At a hearing just days prior to the murders, he was denied custody of his sons at a court hearing, and was ordered to undergo a psychosexual evaluation and polygraph test in order to get them back.
On the day of the murders, he let his sons into his house for a supervised visit, but shut and locked the door before the social worker could enter. He then brutally tried to kill his two sons, 5-yar old Braden and 7-year old Charles (I’ll spare you the details) before igniting two 10-gallon cans of gas.
Authorities determined Powell had planned the murders in advance, giving away boxes of his children’s toys to Goodwill on the weekend of the tragedy and, minutes before setting his house ablaze, emailing his pastor and several family members with instructions about how to take care of some of his final business. None of the emails mentioned Susan Powell.

Compiled by Ray Lemire ©2016 RayLemire.com. All Rights Reserved.