Monthly Archive: January 2016

The lovers of romance can go elsewhere for satisfaction but where can the lovers of truth turn if not to history? ~Katharine Anthony

1777 – Having recognized the need for their territory to assert its independence from both Britain and New York and remove themselves from the war those two were waging against each other, a convention of future Vermonters assembled in Westminster. Delegates first named the independent state New Connecticut and, in June, finally settled on the name Vermont.
On July 4, the Constitution of Vermont was drafted during a violent thunderstorm at the Windsor Tavern owned by Elijah West. It was adopted by the delegates on July 8 after four days of debate. This was the first written constitution in North America to provide for the abolition of slavery, suffrage for men who did not own land, and public schools.

1831 – Victor Hugo finished writing Notre Dame de Paris, also known as The Hunchback of Notre Dame. Distracted by other projects, Hugo had continually postponed his deadlines for delivering the book to his publishers, but once he sat down to write it, he completed the novel in only four months.

1865 – Fort Fisher in North Carolina fell to Union forces, and Wilmington, North Carolina, the Confederacy’s most important blockade-running port, was closed. After the loss of this last major Confederate port, it took just three months for the Civil War to end.

1870 – The first recorded use of a donkey to represent the Democratic Party appeared in Harper’s Weekly. Drawn by political illustrator Thomas Nast, the cartoon (“A Live Jackass Kicking A Dead Lion”) referred to the Democrat-dominated newspapers of the South, and the dead lion represented the late Edwin Stanton, President Abraham Lincoln ‘s secretary of war during the final three years of the Civil War. In the background is an eagle perched on a rock, representing the postwar federal domination in the South, and in the far background is the U.S. Capitol.

1919 – A large molasses tank at the United States Industrial Alcohol building in Boston burst and a wave of boiling molasses rushed through the streets, killing 21 people and injuring 150 others.
Workers were loading freight-train cars within the large building. Next to the workers was a 58-foot-high tank filled with 2.5 million gallons of crude molasses. Suddenly, the bolts holding the bottom of the tank exploded, shooting out like bullets, and the hot molasses rushed out. An eight-foot-high wave of molasses swept away the freight cars and caved in the building’s doors and windows. The few workers in the building’s cellar had no chance as the liquid poured down and overwhelmed them.
The huge quantity of molasses then flowed into the street outside. It literally knocked over the local firehouse and then pushed over the support beams for the elevated train line. The hot and sticky substance then drowned and burned five workers at the Public Works Department.

1947 – The body of Elizabeth Short was found mutilated, her body sliced in half at the waist, in Leimert Park, Los Angeles. According to newspaper reports shortly after the murder, Elizabeth Short received the nickname “Black Dahlia” at a Long Beach drugstore in mid 1946 as wordplay on the film, The Blue Dahlia – a claim which was false. In fact, Los Angeles County district attorney investigators’ reports state that the nickname was invented by newspaper reporters covering the murder – all in the name of selling more papers.
William Randolph Hearst’s newspapers, the Los Angeles Herald-Express and the Los Angeles Examiner, sensationalized the case in a despicable manner. The black tailored suit Short was last seen wearing became “a tight skirt and a sheer blouse” and Elizabeth Short became the “Black Dahlia”, an “adventuress” who “prowled Hollywood Boulevard.”
Short’s unsolved murder has been the source of widespread speculation, leading to many suspects, along with several books and film adaptations of the story. Her murder is one of the oldest unsolved murder cases in Los Angeles history.

1951 – Ilse Koch, wife of the commandant of the Buchenwald concentration camp, was sentenced to life imprisonment in a court in West Germany. Koch was nicknamed the “Witch of Buchenwald” for her extraordinary sadism. She had been given free reign in the camp, whipping prisoners with her riding crop as she rode by on her horse, and, most horrifying, collecting lampshades, book covers, and gloves made from the skin of tattooed camp prisoners.
Koch was tried for crimes against humanity at Nuremberg and sentenced to life in prison, but the American military governor of the occupied zone subsequently reduced her sentence to four years. His reason, “lack of evidence,” caused a Senate investigation back home. She was released but arrested again, tried by a West German court, and sentenced to life. She committed suicide in 1967 by hanging herself with a bed sheet.

1953 – Testifying before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee prior to taking office as the new secretary of state, John Foster Dulles argued that U.S. foreign policy must strive for the “liberation of captive peoples” living under communist rule – although he remained vague about exactly how the “liberation” would take place.
The Eisenhower administration conceived a wide-ranging program of political and psychological warfare, and overseas propaganda – produced and disseminated by the new United States Information Agency – became an important Cold War weapon. In Iran, Guatemala, and later, Cuba, the United States resorted to covert operations directed by the Central Intelligence Agency to destabilize foreign governments perceived to be a communist threat.
In 1956, however, Dulles’s oft-repeated calls for the liberation of captive peoples backfired badly when Hungarian citizens rose up in revolt against the Soviet presence in their country. As the Russians crushed the uprising, the United States – despite Dulles’s claim that “We shall never have a secure peace or a happy world so long as Soviet communism dominates one-third of all of the peoples” – did nothing while Hungarian rebels pleaded helplessly for assistance.

1953 – Harry S Truman became the first U.S. President to use radio and television to say farewell as he left office.

1967 – The Green Bay Packers beat the Kansas City Chiefs, 35-10, in the AFL-NFL World Championship. Although it has become known as Super Bowl I, the term “Super Bowl” was not officially introduced until 1969.

1970 – Muammar al-Qaddafi, the young Libyan army captain who deposed King Idris in September 1969, was proclaimed premier of Libya by the so-called General People’s Congress.
Blending Islamic orthodoxy, revolutionary socialism, and Arab nationalism, Qaddafi established a fervently anti-Western dictatorship. In 1970, he removed U.S. and British military bases and expelled Italian and Jewish Libyans. In 1973, he nationalized foreign-owned oil fields.
He reinstated traditional Islamic laws, such as prohibition of alcoholic beverages and gambling, but liberated women and launched social programs that improved the standard of living in Libya. As part of his stated ambition to unite the Arab world, he sought closer relations with his Arab neighbors, especially Egypt. However, when Egypt and then other Arab nations began a peace process with Israel, Libya was increasingly isolated.

1973 – President Richard Nixon announced the suspension of all U.S. offensive action in North Vietnam, citing progress in peace negotiations.

1976 – Sara Jane Moore, Gerald Ford’s would-be assassin, was sentenced to life in prison. Her assassination attempt took place in San Francisco on September 22, 1975, just 17 days after Lynette “Squeaky” Fromme’s attempted assassination of Ford.
On December 31, 2007, at age 77, Moore was released from prison on parole after serving 32 years of her life sentence. When asked about her crime in an interview, Moore stated, “I am very glad I did not succeed. I know now that I was wrong to try.”

1978 – The Dallas Cowboys defeated the Denver Broncos, 27-10, at Super Bowl XII. For the first and only time in Super Bowl history, there were co-MVP’s; DT Randy White and DE Harvey Martin.

1981 – Hill Street Blues debuted on NBC, beginning a six-year run.

1981 – Pitcher Bob Gibson was the sole eligible candidate to be elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame by the Baseball Writers’ Association of America.

1983 – Meyer Lansky, a major organized crime figure, died of lung cancer at the age of 80. Despite all the attempts by U.S. law enforcement agencies to tie him to various crimes, Lansky was never found guilty of anything more serious than illegal gambling.
The Hyman Roth character, portrayed by Lee Strasberg in The Godfather, Part II, was based on Lansky. In the film, Roth’s statement to Michael Corleone that “We’re bigger than U.S. Steel” was actually a direct quote from Lansky, who said the same thing to his wife while watching a news story on the Cosa Nostra.

1987 – Actor Ray Bolger (best known for his portrayal of the scarecrow in The Wizard Of Oz) died of bladder cancer at the age of 83. At the time of his death, he was the last surviving main cast member of the classic film.

1993 – Sammy Cahn (lyricist for Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow!, Three Coins In A Fountain, All The Way, High Hopes, Call Me Irresponsible, My Kind Of Town) died of congestive heart failure at the age of 79.

1994 – Following the New York Giants’ loss to the San Francisco 49ers in an NFL playoff game, linebacker Lawrence Taylor announced his retirement from football.

1997 – Princess Diana angered government ministers after calling for an international ban on landmines. Her comments – made during a visit to Angola to see for herself some of the victims of landmines – were seen as out of step with government policy. Junior Defence Minister Earl Howe, described the princess as a “loose cannon, ill-informed on the issue of anti-personnel landmines.”

2009 – About a minute after taking off from New York’s La Guardia Airport, US Airways Flight 1549 collided with one of the aviation industry’s most threatening foes: a flock of geese. Crippled by the bird strike, both engines lost power and went quiet, forcing Captain Chesley Burnett Sullenberger to make an emergency landing. When air traffic controllers instructed the seasoned pilot to head for nearby Teterboro Airport, he calmly informed them that he was “unable” to reach a runway. “We’re gonna be in the Hudson,” he said, and then told the 150 terrified passengers and five crew members on board to brace for impact.
Ninety seconds later, Sullenberger glided the Airbus 320 over the George Washington Bridge and onto the chilly surface of the Hudson River, where it splashed down midway between Manhattan and New Jersey. As flight attendants ushered passengers into life jackets, through emergency exits and onto the waterlogged wings of the bobbing jet, a flotilla of commuter ferries, sightseeing boats and rescue vessels hastened to the scene. One survivor suffered two broken legs and others were treated for minor injuries or hypothermia, but no fatalities occurred. After walking up and down the aisle twice to ensure a complete evacuation, Sullenberger was the last to leave the sinking plane.

2011 – Actress Susannah York (A Man For All Seasons, The Killing Of Sister George, Images, Tom Jones, Superman and They Shoot Horses, Don’t They?, for which she was nominated for a Best Supporting Actress Academy Award) died from multiple myeloma at the age of 72.

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