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Post by Fairweather on Feb 13, 2009 10:45:08 GMT -5
A grisly bit of history today:
On Feb. 13, 1935, a jury in Flemington, N.J., found Bruno Richard Hauptmann guilty of first-degree murder in the kidnap-death of the infant son of Charles and Anne Lindbergh. Hauptmann was later executed.
I did a paper in college about the Lindbergh kidnapping and the trial of Hauptmann. I didn't then and still don't have any doubts about his guilt. But I do believe this: HE HAD HELP. And the authorities were so anxious to pin the crime on ANYBODY that they didn't follow up on obvious clues that others were involved.
Strangely, too, a new theory still comes up every few years. In the last decade or so there have been two that involved family members. One guy says that Anne Morrow Lindbergh's mentally unstable older sister, Elizabeth Morrow, killed the child in a fit of jealous rage (Charles Lindbergh had apparently courted her before he fell in love with Anne) and the whole thing was an elaborate coverup for her act.
Another theory, altogether more vile, says that Lindbergh himself killed the child in a prank that went horribly awry and that the coverup saved HIS a**.
Granted Lindbergh turned out to be a less than stellar character--he is at best a tarnished hero--but that is going way too far.
No. It was Hauptmann. But his cohorts are unlikely to be found out at this late date.
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Post by Fairweather on Feb 26, 2009 16:39:13 GMT -5
One could call this a warmup for something infinitely more sinister and heartbreaking, an opening salvo, or simply an act of pure evil:
On Feb. 26, 1993, a bomb exploded in the garage of New York's World Trade Center, killing six people and injuring more than 1,000 others.
Courtesy of the NY TIMES.
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Post by Fairweather on Mar 2, 2009 12:21:02 GMT -5
Something about this situation sounds familiar to those of us who were pissed off by the results of the 2000 election:
On March 2, 1877, Republican Rutherford B. Hayes was declared the winner of the 1876 presidential election over Democrat Samuel J. Tilden, even though Tilden had won the popular vote.
All it needs is the Supreme Court. As it was, the Supremes, in this case, had nothing to do with it; it was decided by a "special congressional commission."
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Post by Fairweather on Mar 6, 2009 16:08:06 GMT -5
On March 6, 1857, in its Dred Scott decision, the Supreme Court held that Scott, a slave, could not sue for his freedom in a federal court.
We have, in spite of FDR's characterization, had a great many "days that will live in infamy" in our history, and the day the Dred Scott decision was handed down ought to be remembered as one of them.
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Post by puhlease on Apr 23, 2009 13:44:10 GMT -5
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Post by nanalinda on Apr 23, 2009 14:03:31 GMT -5
Everybody always remembers that March 17 is St. Patrick's Day. Few of us remember that today is St. George's Day and it's traditional to wear a rose. St. David, who is the patron saint of Wales, has his day on March 1 and the leek is his symbol. Last, but not least, is St. Andrew the patron saint of Scotland. His day is November 30 and the traditional sport a thistle in his honor.
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Post by Fairweather on May 21, 2009 13:02:48 GMT -5
Courtesy of the NY TIMES:
On May 21, 1927, Charles A. Lindbergh landed his Spirit of St. Louis near Paris, completing the first solo airplane flight across the Atlantic Ocean
Nazi sympathizer he may have turned out to be, but Lindbergh did something wonderful once.
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Post by Fairweather on May 23, 2009 12:02:22 GMT -5
Again, courtesy of the NY TIMES: On May 23, 1934, bank robbers Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow were shot to death in a police ambush as they were driving a stolen Ford Deluxe along a road in Bienville Parish, La. SHAMELESS SELF-PROMOTION ALERT: fairweatherlewis.blogstream.com
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Post by Fairweather on May 26, 2009 9:10:39 GMT -5
From the NY TIMES:
On May 26, 1868, the Senate impeachment trial of President Andrew Johnson ended with his acquittal as the Senate fell one vote short of the two-thirds majority required for conviction.
Another time, if I remember right, when the Republicans overreached and succeeded only in splitting their own party, as seven GOP senators turned against the Radical Republicans who wanted rid of Johnson and voted against conviction.
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Post by moonstone on May 26, 2009 18:48:28 GMT -5
From the NY TIMES: On May 26, 1868, the Senate impeachment trial of President Andrew Johnson ended with his acquittal as the Senate fell one vote short of the two-thirds majority required for conviction. Another time, if I remember right, when the Republicans overreached and succeeded only in splitting their own party, as seven GOP senators turned against the Radical Republicans who wanted rid of Johnson and voted against conviction. True. They just never split it quite far enough. There's always a big enough splinter left over to regenerate itself.
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Post by Fairweather on Jun 3, 2009 11:44:48 GMT -5
On June 3, 1965, astronaut Edward White became the first American to ``walk'' in space, during the flight of Gemini 4.
From the NY TIMES, as usual. White was one of three astronauts who died in January 1967 in the Apollo I fire, barely a year and a half after that first space "walk."
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Post by Fairweather on Jul 2, 2009 16:49:34 GMT -5
On July 2, 1937, aviator Amelia Earhart and navigator Fred Noonan disappeared over the Pacific Ocean while attempting to make the first round-the-world flight at the equator.
Most likely, they were off course and forced to ditch in the ocean--but the theories keep popping up, stranger and stranger with each new one.
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Post by Fairweather on Jul 16, 2009 10:57:05 GMT -5
An ugly entry from an ugly period in Russian history today:
On July 16, 1918, Russia's Czar Nicholas II, his wife and their five children were executed by the Bolsheviks.
By all accounts, Nicholas II was a kindhearted but inept man, tragically ill-suited to be the ruler of a vast and backward empire; he was more the sort to be a small landowner, amiably tyrannizing his tenants because he was henpecked by his wife. His wife, a great-granddaughter of Queen Victoria, emotionally unstable, and--most significantly--a carrier of the gene for hemophilia, was equally ill-suited to be empress. The Russian empire was, like the French monarchy in the latter half of the eighteenth century, so corrupt and weakened that its collapse was a matter of WHEN, not IF--and the "when" came with horrifying rapidity when the country entered World War One and went down in famine and flames.
And unfortunately, among the victims when the crash came was the entire royal family. The bodies of Nicholas, Alexandra, and their daughters Olga, Tatiana, and Anastasia were found in 1979 and finally identified by DNA in 1998; the remains of daughter Marie and hemophiliac son Alexei were finally identified in 2008. The whole family is considered, by the Russian Orthodox Church outside Russia, to be "passion-bearers"--saints who died in the faith.
I don't hold up for them as rulers. Quite the contrary. But, no matter what their weaknesses and inadequacies, nobody deserves to die as they did--without ever having been given a trial, in a hail of bullets in a prison house in the godforsaken Siberian town of Ekaterinberg, ninety-one years ago today, because the Bolsheviks wanted to tamp down all royalist sentiment in the "new Russia" they were building. God willing, they all rest in peace.
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Post by Fairweather on Jul 21, 2009 14:13:30 GMT -5
A bit of semi-local history today: July 21st, 1925--a verdict is reached in the so-called Scopes Monkey Trial in Dayton, TN. After a largely anticlimactic showdown between William Jennings Bryan for the prosecution and Clarence Darrow for the defense, teacher John T. Scopes was convicted of teaching the theory of evolution in violation of TN's Butler Act and fined $100. More details at fairweatherlewis.blogstream.com I don't feel comfortable pimping Fair other places but being as how I'm among friends here. . .
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Post by Fairweather on Jul 22, 2009 13:53:59 GMT -5
From the NY TIMES:
On July 22, 1934, a man identified as bank robber John Dillinger was shot to death by federal agents in Chicago.
Hmmmmm--Fairweather feels a conspiracy theory blog comin' on--
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Post by puhlease on Jul 22, 2009 15:27:07 GMT -5
Love your synopses, Katie, especially the Russian one. I was looking forward to one on Bastille Day, but after reading elsewhere, I think I will just put my hand down and slouch in my desk.
No ma'am, no questions at all. *g*
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