On September 19…

“The United States has great strength and patience, but if it is forced to defend itself or its allies, we will have no choice but to totally destroy North Korea.”
~President Donald Trump
United Nations Speech

1796 – President George Washington’s farewell address to “friends and fellow-citizens” after 20 years of public service to the United States was published in the American Daily Advertiser.
The lengthy headline of The Address of Gen. Washington to the People of America on His Declining the Presidency of the United States announced his intention to decline a third term in office.
Washington reflected on the emerging issues of the American political landscape in 1796, expressed his support for the government eight years after the adoption of the Constitution, defended his administration’s record, and warned Americans about the “dangers of political parties to the country.”

1846 – Melanie Calvat (15) and Maximin Giraud (11) reported a supernatural appearance by the Blessed Virgin Mary had occurred at La Salette-Fallavaux, France.
The children were returning from the mountain where they had been minding cows and reported seeing “a beautiful lady” on Mount Sous-Les Baisses. Maximin later said, “We never said that this lady was the Blessed Virgin but we always said that it was a beautiful lady.”
According to their account, she wept as she spoke to them (first in French, then in their own dialect), giving the children a message of “Reconciliation”.
After giving a secret to each child, the apparition walked up the hill and vanished.
After five years of investigation, the Bishop of Grenoble announced that the apparition was likely to be a true revelation, and on the fifth anniversary of the sighting, Pope Pius IX formally approved the public devotion and prayers to Our Lady of La Salette.

1864 – At the Third Battle of Winchester: Union troops under General Philip Sheridan defeated a Confederate force commanded by General Jubal Early.
With over 50,000 troops engaged it was the largest battle fought in the Shenandoah Valley and was not only militarily decisive in that region of Virginia but also played a role in securing Abraham Lincoln’s election in 1864.

1881 – President James Garfield, who had been in office just under four months, succumbed to bullet wounds inflicted by an assassin 80 days earlier.
The assassin, Charles Guiteau – a disgruntled man who had unsuccessfully sought an appointment to the U.S. consul in Paris – was deemed sane by a jury, convicted of murder and hanged on June 30, 1882.

1893 – After years of effort by women’s suffrage campaigners, led by Kate Sheppard, New Zealand became the first nation in the world in which all women had the right to vote in parliamentary elections when David Boyle, the 7th Earl of Glasgow and the Governor of New Zealand, signed the Electoral Act 1893.
While some U.S. states were early to extend the right to vote to women on an individual state basis (Wyoming 1869, Utah 1870), it wasn’t until 1920 that all women in America were granted full voting rights.

1934 – Bruno Hauptmann was arrested in New York City and charged with the 1932 kidnap-murder of the infant son of aviator Charles Lindbergh.
The $50,000 demanded in a ransom note had been delivered, but the infant’s body was found in the woods 4 miles from the family home.
At the so-called “Trial of the Century,” evidence against Hauptmann included: $14,600 of the ransom money was found in his garage; testimony alleging handwriting and spelling similarities to that found on the ransom notes; testimony that lumber used in constructing the ladder probably originated in Hauptmann’s house; he had been absent from work on the day of the ransom payment and had quit his job two days later.
Hauptmann’s attorney, Edward J. Reilly, argued that the evidence against Hauptmann was entirely circumstantial, as no reliable witness had placed Hauptmann at the scene of the crime, nor were his fingerprints found on the ladder used to access the child’s bedroom, the ransom notes, or anywhere in the nursery.
Hauptmann was convicted, and on April 3, 1936, he was executed in the electric chair at the New Jersey State Prison.

1940 – Here is a name few people will recognize but should never forget.
Witold Pilecki, a Polish cavalry officer and intelligence agent, had developed a resistance operation that involved being imprisoned in the Auschwitz concentration camp in order to gather intelligence. Little was known about how the Germans ran the camp. At the time, it was thought to be an internment camp or large prison rather than a death camp.
His superiors approved the plan and provided him with a false identity card in the name of Tomasz Serafiński. On this date, he was voluntarily captured and sent to Auschwitz. While there, he organized a resistance movement within the camp which eventually numbered in the hundreds, and secretly sent messages to the Western Allies detailing Nazi atrocities at the camp.
His reports were ignored.
He escaped in April 1943 after nearly 2½ years of imprisonment and later fought in the Warsaw Uprising from August to October 1944.
He remained loyal to the London-based Polish government-in-exile after the communist takeover of Poland. In 1947, he was arrested by the Polish secret police on charges of working for “foreign imperialism” and was executed in 1948.

Idle Thought: I don’t write these columns for any personal gain, nor do I go out of my way to promote the works of others. I am making an exception this time.
If Pilecki’s story interests you at all, I urge you to find The Volunteer: One Man’s Mission to Lead an Underground Army Inside Auschwitz and Stop the Holocaust by Jack Fairweather.
It is an amazing read.

1957 – The United States detonated a 1.7 kiloton nuclear weapon in an underground tunnel at the Nevada Test Site, a 1,375 square mile research center located 65 miles north of Las Vegas.
The test, known as Rainier, was the first fully contained underground detonation and produced – according to government reports – no radioactive fallout.

1959 – In one of the more surreal days in the history of the Cold War, Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev – visiting the U.S. for a summit meeting with President Dwight Eisenhower – had several outbursts while visiting Los Angeles.
After an entertaining tour of the Can Can film set – where he chatted with Shirley MacLaine, Louis Jourdan, Maurice Chevalier and Frank Sinatra – the problems started when Twentieth Century Fox President Spyros P. Skouras introduced Khrushchev at Los Angeles Town Hall.
Skouras – an ardent anticommunist – irritated Khrushchev by referring to the premier’s famous statement that Russia would “bury” as capitalism.
Addressing Skouras directly, Khrushchev stated, “If you want to go on with the arms race, very well. We accept that challenge. As for the output of rockets – well, they are on the assembly line. This is a most serious question. It is one of life or death, ladies and gentlemen. One of war and peace.”
Khrushchev’s anger increased when he learned that he would not be allowed to visit Disneyland. Government authorities feared that the crowds would pose a safety hazard for the premier.
Khrushchev, still fuming about the debate with Skouras, exploded. “I would very much like to go and see Disneyland. But then, we cannot guarantee your security, they say. Then what must I do? Commit suicide? What is it? Is there an epidemic of cholera there or something? Or have gangsters taken hold of the place that can destroy me?”
Khrushchev left Los Angeles the next morning.

1969 – Alongside Defense Secretary Melvin Laird, President Richard Nixon announced the cancellation of the draft calls for November and December. He reduced the draft call by 50,000 (32,000 in November and 18,000 in December).
This move accompanied his twin program of turning the war over to the South Vietnamese concurrent with U.S. troop withdrawals and was calculated to quell antiwar protests by students returning to college campuses after the summer.
That certainly wasn’t the end of the draft, though. Far from it.
The Selective Service System instead underwent a dramatic overhaul. Congress approved a plan to establish a lottery and on Nov. 26, 1969 – just five days before the lottery – Nixon signed the measure into law.

1994 – 20,000 U.S. troops landed unopposed in Haiti to oversee the country’s transition to democracy.
Reacting to evidence of atrocities committed by Haiti’s military dictators, the United Nations had authorized the use of force to restore President Jean-Bertrand Aristide.
On the eve of the American invasion, a diplomatic delegation led by former U.S. President Jimmy Carter brokered a last-minute agreement with Haiti’s military to give up power.
Bloodshed was prevented, and on October 15 Aristide returned.

1995 – The Washington Post published a 35,000-word manifesto written by the Unabomber, who since the late 1970s had eluded authorities while carrying out a series of bombings across the United States that killed 3 people and injured another 23.
After reading the manifesto, David Kaczynski realized the writing style was similar to that of his brother, Theodore Kaczynski, and notified the F.B.I. On April 3, 1996, Ted Kaczynski was arrested at his isolated cabin near Lincoln, Montana, where investigators found evidence linking him to the Unabomber crimes.

2002 – President George W. Bush asked Congress to authorize the use of military force against Iraq, citing alleged threats to the U.S. by the regime of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, as well as Iraq’s failure to comply with United Nations disarmament resolutions.
Congress passed the resolution on October 11.
Five months later, on March 19, 2003, the U.S. and its allies began invading Iraq. Though one of the Bush administration’s oft-cited causes for war was Iraq’s possession of weapons of mass destruction, none were found following the regime’s collapse.
WMD Factoid: While the failure to locate any weapons of mass destruction has consistently been placed on Bush’s doorstep, it is important to remember his was not the first administration to make the claim.
On August 14, 1998, the U.S. Congress passed – and President Bill Clinton signed – Public Law 105-235, a resolution that stated, in part, “that international economic sanctions remain in place until Iraq discloses and destroys its weapons of mass destruction programs and capabilities and undertakes unconditionally never to resume such activities.”

2017 – President Donald Trump addressed the United Nations in what was perhaps the most aggressive speech ever delivered by a U.S. president at the U.N.
He described North Korea as a murderous and menacing regime and also blasted Iran, calling it “an economically depleted rogue state whose chief exports are violence, bloodshed and chaos.”

Compiled by Ray Lemire ©2005-2020 RayLemire.com Streamingoldies.com. All Rights Reserved.