Monthly Archive: January 2016

The past is our definition. We may strive, with good reason, to escape it, or to escape what is bad in it, but we will escape it only by adding something better to it. ~Wendell Berry

1778 – English explorer Captain James Cook became the first European to discover the Hawaiian Islands when he sailed past the island of Oahu. Two days later, he landed at Waimea on the island of Kauai and named the island group the Sandwich Islands, in honor of John Montague, who was the earl of Sandwich and one his patrons.

1803 – Determined to begin the American exploration of the vast mysterious regions of the Far West, President Thomas Jefferson sent a message to Congress asking for money to fund the journey of Lewis and Clark.
Jefferson directed Lewis to draw up an estimate of expenses. Basing his calculations on a party of one officer and 10 enlisted men – the number was deliberately kept small to avoid inspiring both congressional criticisms and Indian fears of invasion – Lewis carefully added up the costs for provisions, weapons, gunpowder, scientific instruments, and a large boat. The final tally came to $2,500. The largest item was $696, earmarked for gifts to Indians.
Despite some mild resistance from Federalists who never saw any point in spending money on the West, Jefferson’s carefully worded request prevailed, and Congress approved the $2,500 appropriation by a sizeable margin. It no doubt seemed trivial in comparison to the $9,375,000 they had approved a week earlier for the Louisiana Purchase, which brought much of the territory Jefferson was proposing to explore under American control.

1862 – Former U.S. President and Confederate congressman-elect John Tyler died at age 71 in Richmond, Virginia. After his presidency ended in 1845, Tyler’s fellow Virginians called on the 70-year-old to negotiate a compromise with the Republicans in the North to prevent a civil war. The attempt failed, as the Republicans were not willing to entertain any proposals that would protect slavery in the Western territories.
Tyler felt that victory was impossible for the Confederates but nonetheless suggested that Confederate cavalry be dispatched to capture Washington, D.C. before the Union military was in place. Tyler was elected to the permanent Congress of the Confederate States of America but died before he could take his seat.

1911 – An aircraft landed on a ship for the first time. Pilot Eugene B. Ely flew onto the deck of the USS Pennsylvania in San Francisco harbor.

1919 – Allied leaders met in Paris to begin the long, complicated negotiations that would officially mark the end of the First World War.
France, Great Britain, the United States and Italy would make most of the crucial decisions in Paris over the next six months. For most of the conference, U.S. President Woodrow Wilson struggled to support his idea of a “peace without victory” and make sure that Germany, the leader of the Central Powers and the major loser of the war, was not treated too harshly. On the other hand, Prime Ministers Georges Clemenceau of France and David Lloyd George of Britain argued that punishing Germany adequately and ensuring its weakness was the only way to justify the immense costs of the war.
In the end, Wilson compromised on the treatment of Germany in order to push through the creation of his pet project, an international peacekeeping organization called the League of Nations.
Representatives from Germany were excluded from the peace conference until May, when they arrived in Paris and were presented with a draft of the Versailles Treaty. Having put great faith in Wilson’s promises, the Germans were deeply frustrated and disillusioned by the treaty, which required them to forfeit a great deal of territory and pay reparations. Even worse, the infamous Article 231 forced Germany to accept sole blame for the war.

1936 – Novelist and poet Rudyard Kipling (The Man Who Would Be King, Gunga Din, Mandalay, If–, The Jungle Book, Rikki-Tikki-Tavi) died at the age of 70 of a perforated duodenal ulcer. His ashes were buried in Poets’ Corner, part of the South Transept of Westminster Abbey, next to the graves of Charles Dickens and Thomas Hardy.

1943 – After a four-month hiatus, the deportation of Jews from the Warsaw ghetto to the concentration camp at Treblinka resumed – but not without bloodshed and resistance along the way.
A German SS unit entered the ghetto and began what they thought would be a routine roundup. However, rebels with smuggled firearms opened fire on the SS troops. The Germans returned fire – machine-gun fire against the Jews’ pistol shots. The fighting continued for days, with the Jews refusing to surrender and even taking arms from their Germans persecutors in surprise attacks.
Amazingly, the Germans withdrew from the ghetto in the face of the unexpected resistance. They likely did not realize how few armed resisters there were, but the fact that resistance was given at all intimidated them. But there was no happy ending. Before the next incursion into the ghetto was over, 6,000 more Jews were transported to their likely deaths at Treblinka.

1945 – Soviet forces under Marshal Ivan Konev liberated Kracow from Nazi Occupation. Any attempt by the Soviets to claim the role of heroes was shattered by reports of a wave of rapes of women and girls, and other acts so heinous I wouldn’t begin to describe them here.

1950 – The People’s Republic of China formally recognized the communist Democratic Republic of Vietnam and agreed to furnish it military assistance. The Soviet Union extended diplomatic recognition to Hanoi on January 30. China and the Soviet Union provided massive military and economic aid to North Vietnam, which enabled North Vietnam to fight first the French and then the Americans.

1952 – Jerome Lester Horwitz, better known as Curly Howard, the most outrageous member of the Three Stooges, died after a series of strokes. He was 48.

1954 – Actor Sydney Greenstreet (best remembered for his performances in The Maltese Falcon, Casablanca, and Passage To Marseille) died of complications from diabetes and a kidney disorder. He was 74.

1969 – Heavy rain began falling in Southern California, resulting in a tragic series of landslides and floods that killed nearly 100 people.
Mt. Baldy, east of Los Angeles, received more than 50 inches in a nine-day period. In Glendora, 1 million cubic meters of rock and mud slid down a hillside, destroying 200 homes and killing dozens of people. Mandeville Canyon Road, north of Sunset Boulevard in L.A. ‘s Brentwood section, became a flowing river and was impassable for a week. Waves of water three feet high ran through homes, sweeping residents’ possessions, including furniture and pianos, away.

1971 – In a televised speech, Senator George S. McGovern (D-South Dakota) began his antiwar campaign for the 1972 Democratic presidential nomination by vowing to bring home all U.S. soldiers from Vietnam if he was elected. McGovern won his party’s nomination, but was defeated in the general election by incumbent Richard Nixon.

1978 – Just hours after the University of Connecticut Men’s Basketball team defeated the University of Massachusetts Amherst, the weight of snow from the day’s heavy snowstorm and a faulty roof design caused the Hartford Civic Center roof to collapse.

1978 – Actor Carl Betz (The Donna Reed Show, Judd For The Defense) died at the age of 56 of lung cancer.

1985 – British actor Wilfrid Brambell (best known for his role in the British television series Steptoe and Son and for his role as Paul McCartney’s fictional grandfather in the Beatles film A Hard Day’s Night) died of cancer at the age of 72.
Idle Thought: That means Brambell was only 51 when he appeared in ‘A Hard Day’s Night’ as shown above. Maybe it’s just me but he looked a lot older than 51 in that film.

1990 – Actor Rusty Hamer (played the son of entertainer Danny Williams (Danny Thomas), on the television comedy Make Room For Daddy) committed suicide with a .357 Magnum. He had long been depressed over his inability to transition into acting as an adult.
Hamer’s suicide raised awareness of the potential mental fragility of child performers and inspired fellow former child actor Paul Petersen (The Donna Reed Show) to establish the support group A Minor Consideration. The group seeks to improve working conditions for young actors and assists former child entertainers in making the transition from past fame to adult life.

1990 – At the end of a joint sting operation by FBI agents and District of Columbia police, Mayor Marion Barry was arrested and charged with drug possession and the use of crack, a crystalline form of cocaine. At the Vista International Hotel in downtown Washington, Barry was caught smoking the substance on camera with Rahsheeda Moore, a woman who had agreed to set up Barry in exchange for a reduced sentence in an earlier drug conviction.
He was sentenced to six months in prison for possession of crack cocaine. After serving his sentence, Barry reentered D.C. politics and was elected to the city council before once again winning the mayoral election in 1994 for an unprecedented fourth term.

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