“We can learn from history, but we can also deceive ourselves when we selectively take evidence from the past to justify what we have already made up our minds to do.”
~Margaret MacMillan
1901 – The Great Jacksonville Fire of 1901, one of the worst disasters in Florida history, started with a boiler explosion at a candle factory. Over the next eight hours, the fire burned 146 city blocks, destroyed more than 2,368 buildings, and left almost 10,000 residents homeless.
1940 – Henry Ossian Flipper, former slave, American soldier, and the first African-American to graduate from the United States Military Academy at West Point, died at the age of 84.
1946 – In Tokyo, Japan, the International Military Tribunals for the Far East began hearing the case against 28 Japanese military and government officials accused of committing war crimes and crimes against humanity during World War II.
Two of the twenty-eight defendants died of natural causes during the trial. One defendant had a mental breakdown on the first day of trial, was sent to a psychiatric ward and was released in 1948 a free man!. The remaining twenty-five were all found guilty, many of multiple counts. Seven were sentenced to death by hanging, sixteen to life imprisonment, and two to lesser terms.
All seven sentenced to death were found to be guilty of inciting or otherwise implicated in mass-scale atrocities, among other counts. Three of the sixteen sentenced to life imprisonment died between 1949 and 1950 in prison. The remaining thirteen were paroled between 1954 and 1956, less than eight years in prison for their crimes against millions of people.
1980 – 13-year-old Cari Lightner of Fair Oaks, California, was walking along a quiet road on her way to a church carnival when a car swerved out of control, striking and killing her. She was hit from behind, thrown 125 feet and left in the road to die because Clarence William Busch, the driver of the car, did not stop.
At the time of the crash, Busch had four previous drunk driving convictions, for which he had served, at most, 48 hours in jail. He had been arrested for another hit-and-run accident just two days before hitting Cari.
Cari’s tragic death compelled her mother, Candy Lightner, to found the organization Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD), which would grow into one of the country’s most influential non-profit organizations.
2003 – New Hampshire residents woke up to find their stern granite symbol of independence and stubbornness, the Old Man of the Mountain, had collapsed into indistinguishable rubble.
The state had used cables and epoxy for years in an attempt to keep the rock profile from falling due to erosion and the natural freeze-and-thaw cycle. But heavy rains, high winds and freezing temperatures ended a century of efforts to protect the giant mountainside landmark from the same natural forces that created it.
“Men hang out their signs indicative of their respective trades; shoe makers hang out a gigantic shoe; jewelers a monster watch, and the dentist hangs out a gold tooth; but up in the Mountains of New Hampshire, God Almighty has hung out a sign to show that there He makes men.” … Daniel Webster
Compiled by Ray Lemire ©2017 RayLemire.com. / Streamingoldies.com. All Rights Reserved.