One of my favorite historical authors is still alive - Herman Wouk! Go here to learn more about him and why I like his work.

Old Blue

I see he wrote his autobiography at the age of 100. I didn't know he wrote 'Marjorie Morningstar'.

I'd read anything he's written.

Cool! Thanks for the suggestion.

Today May 1, 1931 the empire state building opened.
Kind of interesting knowing the first sky scraper started on this day as well and demolished this same year.

Today may be his birthday but he died Dec 22 2014. One of my favorites is You are so beautiful to me.

It's always his birthday. That doesn't change. :)

But he doesn’t get older.

Ah, but the category is "Birthdays", not "People Who Are Older Today".

Love him!
Here’s one of my favorite videos. Classic Woodstock performance that’s been ... um, “subtitled”! 😉

https://vimeo.com/3017523

Netflix has a documentary on him. It was pretty good.

The most powerful volcanic eruption in recorded history occurs on Krakatoa, a small, uninhabited volcanic island located west of Sumatra in Indonesia, on August 27, 1883. Heard 3,000 miles away, the explosions threw five cubic miles of earth 50 miles into the air, created 120-foot tsunamis and killed 1,000's of people.

Old Blue
talk about a big bang!

After four years of separation, Charles, Prince of Wales and heir to the British throne, and his wife, Princess Diana, formally divorce.

Old Blue
Who ever could have divorced such a lovely woman... he is such a twit!

And just over a year later, she was gone.

TG

Thurgood Marshall becomes the first African American to be confirmed as a Supreme Court justice. He would remain on the Supreme Court for 24 years before retiring for health reasons, leaving a legacy of upholding the rights of the individual as guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution.

For your consideration,
Old Blue

On August 31, 1935, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signs the Neutrality Act, which he calls an “expression of the desire…to avoid any action which might involve [the U.S.] in war.” The signing came at a time when newly installed fascist governments in Europe were beginning to beat the drums of war.

In a public statement, Roosevelt said that the new law would, among other things, impose an embargo on the sale of arms to “belligerent” nations. It was understood that “belligerent” imply Hitler's Germany and Mussolini's Italy. It also provided the strongest language yet warning other countries that the U.S. would increase its patrols to protect American waters from lurking foreign submarines. This was seen as a response to Hitler’s March 1935 announcement that Germany would no longer honor the terms of the Treaty of Versailles, which prohibited Germany from rebuilding its military.

Submitted for your consideration,
Old Blue

On September 2, 1969, America’s first automatic teller machine (ATM) makes its public debut, dispensing cash to customers at Chemical Bank in Rockville Center, New York. ATMs went on to revolutionize the banking industry, eliminating the need to visit a bank to conduct basic financial transactions.

Old Blue
a parttime trivia master

On September 4, 1886, Apache leader Geronimo surrenders to U.S. government troops. For 30 years, the mighty Native American warrior had battled to protect his tribe’s homeland; however, by 1886 the Apaches were exhausted and hopelessly outnumbered. General Nelson Miles accepted Geronimo’s surrender, making him the last Native American warrior to formally give in to U.S. forces and signaling the end of the Indian Wars in the Southwest.

Geronimo was born in 1829 and grew up in what is present-day Arizona and Mexico. His tribe, the Chiricahua Apaches, clashed with non-Native settlers trying to take their land. In 1858, Geronimo’s family was murdered by Mexicans. Seeking revenge, he later led raids against Mexican and American settlers. In 1874, the U.S. government moved Geronimo and his people from their land to a reservation in east-central Arizona. Conditions on the reservation were restrictive and harsh and Geronimo with some of his followers escaped. Over the next decade, they battled U.S. and Mexican troops, launched raids on settlers, but were forced back to the reservation several times only to escape again.

After finally surrendering, Geronimo and a band of Apaches were sent to Florida and then Alabama, eventually ending up at the Comanche and Kiowa reservation near Fort Sill, Oklahoma Territory. There, Geronimo became a successful farmer and converted to Christianity. He participated in President Theodore Roosevelt’s inaugural parade in 1905. The Apache leader dictated his autobiography, published in 1906 as Geronimo’s Story of His Life. He died at Fort Sill on February 17, 1909 at the age of 79.

In 1882, my great grandfather, William R Steele, and a friend decided there was good money to be made working as teamster hauling freight to Tombstone... right in the middle of Apache country. It turned out that his friend was not a dependable partner and before long the enterprise was failing. The last straw came when William's wife, in California, read in the newspapers that Geronimo and Cochise were raiding all around Tombstone. She wrote him, urging him to come home & he obeyed. After all, happy wife happy life!

Submitted for your consideration,

Old Blue
well maybe not that happy, several years later, they divorced

Other Geronimo facts...

His actual name was Goyahkla (“The One Who Yawns”), but as a young man he earned the moniker “Geronimo” after distinguishing himself in Apache raids against the Mexicans. One theory regarding the nickname, Geronimo, is that fearful Mexicans fleeing his raiding parties invoked the name of St Jerome to protect them.

Geronimo was never a tribal chief.

His followers believed he had a variety of supernatural powers including the ability to heal the sick, slow time, avoid bullets, bring on rainstorms and even witness events over great distances.

So this and this?

I guess that we can call him the original Gero-Neo.

In a controversial executive action, President Gerald Ford pardons his disgraced predecessor Richard M. Nixon for any crimes he may have committed or participated in while in office. Ford later defended this action before the House Judiciary Committee, explaining that he wanted to end the national divisions created by the Watergate scandal.

Old Blue
we called him that 4 years before he quit office!

Hey what about ME!! I may have committed some crimes.

Red John

at Baumetes Prison in Marseille, France, Hamida Djandoubi, a Tunisian immigrant convicted of murder, becomes the last person executed by guillotine.

Red John

100 years ago today was the 4th and last day of a strike by the Boston Police officers. The largely Irish-American police force had seen its wages lag badly during the war. Efforts were made to organize in order to gain not only higher pay, but shorter hours and better working conditions. Police Commissioner Edwin U. Curtis refused to sanction a police union and suspended the leaders from the force in August 1919.

On September 9, more than 1,100 officers went out on strike, which removed three-fourths of the force from the city’s streets. In some areas, rabble-rousers looted and rioted. On the following day, Mayor Andrew J. Peters summoned local militia units, which managed to restore order. In anticipation of the strike, all of Boston's newspapers called it "Bolshevistic,"[#] and pleaded with the police to reconsider while predicting dire consequences. This hurt the officers deeply as most of them had fought in World War One, which had ended only 10 months earlier.

Police officers had an extensive list of grievances. Officially they worked ten-hour shifts, but typically recorded weekly totals between 75 and 90 hours, with no overtime pay. They were not paid for time spent on court appearances. They complained about having to share beds and the lack of sanitation, baths, and toilets at many of the 19 station houses where they were required to live. Their pay was $0.25 /hour, considerably less that the average Bostonian civil servant's. According to the US Census, average wages in America at the time were $1.25 per hour.

They also objected to being required to perform such tasks as "delivering unpaid tax bills, surveying rooming houses, taking the census, or watching the polls at elections" and checking the backgrounds of prospective jurors as well as serving as "errand boys" for their officers.

In the 4 days of the strike, 9 people were killed, 8 by the State Guard, who had virtually no experience in crowd control.

Ultimately all of the striking officers were fired, nearly 1200 in all. The replacement officers hired in the wake of the strike received higher salaries and more vacation days than the strikers had. They enjoyed a starting salary of $1,400 ($0.40/hr) along with a pension plan, and the department covered the cost of their uniforms and equipment ($250). So the replacement officers were the beneficiaries of the strike.

[#] Many of the non-Irish officers were Italian, Scandinavian and Canadian. This Bolshevik conspiracy fear focused on non-Americans, and particularly along religious lines.

Sources: Boston Globe and Wiki.

Submitted for your consideration,

Old Blue

World War I was also known as the Great War, or described as "the war to end all wars".

I prefer to describe it as part "One" of the World War with a 20 year intermission to follow.

On this day in 1814, Francis Scott Key pens a poem which is later set to music and in 1931 becomes America’s national anthem, The Star-Spangled Banner. The poem was written after Key witnessed the Maryland fort being bombarded for over 27 hours by dozens of British ships during the War of 1812. Key was inspired by the sight of a lone U.S. flag still flying over Fort McHenry at daybreak, as reflected in the now-famous words: “... And the rocket’s red glare, the bombs bursting in air, Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there.”

Am I the only person who get chills when I hear it?

Old Blue

I personally love that our national anthem has stuff blowing up in it. :)

My favorite has always been when Whitney Houston sang it at the Super Bowl. She is one of the few people who had a powerful enough voice and the range to really nail it that well. I'm sure there are other great versions but that one is my favorite.