History Confidential

You hear today how biased the media is and how politicians use the power of the media to push their agenda. This is scary, and unfortunately it happens. But one politician in 1902 took this to the extreme. In the Caribbean island of Martinique, Election Day was heating up, but so was the island’s volcano, Mount Pelee. It was spitting up smoke and fire as if to warn the inhabitants it was going to let out steam Election Day or no election day. The residents of the city of Saint-Pierre, which sat at the foot of the volcano took this warning quite seriously and became concerned.

The governor of Martinique was a lot more concerned with his party winning than saving people from the impending doom. Governor Louis Mouttet figured that if a warning was put out, it would create a panic which would hurt the candidates of the ruling Progressive Party. He went to the local paper and told the editor to down play the danger of the eruption! And to add insult to injury, he went to the city of Saint-Pierre three days before the election and told the people there was nothing to worry about. All was safe, go to the election booths and vote. It’s all good.

The next morning at 8:00 AM Pelee erupted on the city. An ominous cloud of hot gas and ash more than one thousand degrees centigrade moved through the city at 100 miles per hour. No one had a chance. It killed 30,000 people including the governor in less than 2 minutes. The volcano didn’t care what party you were, if you were in its path, it would swallow you whole.Only two people survived, one of which was a prisoner which was due to get executed that night! Later this prisoner’s sentence was commuted and he landed a gig with Barnum and Bailey Circus.

The governor didn’t think of the people for one second. It was about his agenda, and he used the media to push it and the media did it. And 30,000 people paid with their lives. Like an eye witness said, “This date should be written in blood.”

Can you imagine postage stamps being used as currency? That is exactly what happened during the Civil War. When the Civil War started most people believed that it would end quickly. We all know differently. As the war dragged on, people went into panic mode and started hoarding their silver and gold coins. The country needed metal for weapons and machinery and so they restricted the production of new copper coinage. This metal hoarding on both ends caused a metal shortage.

To help with the problem, Congress passed a law permitting the use of postage stamps as currency! Huh? You can imagine the headaches this caused both those that used them, and the Post Office. The Post Office didn’t enjoy selling stamps as legal tender, and when customers came in with dirty or damaged stamps, the post office refused to replace them. After all, stamps were not made to be handled from person to person, and as small as they were, they were easily lost. One inventor tried to remedy the problem when he invented a protective encasing for the stamps and that helped for while. But the demand for the stamps increased, thus causing yet another shortage. What to do? US Treasurer F.E. Spinner, asked the government to produce fractional currency and on July 17, 1862, Abe Lincoln approved the Postage Currency Act. This act approved bills of five, ten, twenty-five, and fifty cents be produced and put in circulation.

The bills were much smaller than the ones we use today, in fact, they were postage stamp size. I might date myself here, but they looked like the sheet of small little stamps my mom used to get from the A & P. The first fractional bills produced were easy to counterfeit, so they came up with the idea of producing new ones that were more colorful and were printed on both sides. The bills came to be known as “shinplasters” because the soldiers were paid in fractional bills and they stuffed these bills into their boots to keep their feet warm. Some bills survive today.

I once saw a great movie with Loretta Young called “Cause for Alarm!” a 1951 movie about a woman who frantically needs to get a hold of a letter, her crazy husband wrote and sent out to the prosecutor. Her husband commits suicide, and the letter incriminates her as his killer. A terrific movie. But what am I getting at? I thought about this movie when I read about Albert Einstein’s greatest mistake. In 1939 Einstein wrote a letter to FDR when he became concerned that Germany had been doing some nuclear research that could lead to Germany’s creation of “extremely powerful bombs of a new type.” In the letter he encouraged research be expedited in the US, or else the Germans would do it first. He also encouraged the US secure an ample supply of Uranium.

Well this letter made the US scramble and ultimately led to what is known as the “The Manhattan Project.” The Manhattan Project was basically an arms race. Did you know that there were 10,000 people involved in this project and only a handful knew what they were trying to accomplish?

By 1945 some scientists were concerned with the power of the atomic bomb, and by now they knew Germany wasn’t building any bombs of their own. Einstein wrote FDR another letter urging him to meet with those opposing scientist, but the letter got there too late. FDR died before he read it, and on August 6, 1945 the US dropped the bomb in Hiroshima. And we all know what happened there.

Einstein is quoted as saying that the first letter he sent FDR was “the single greatest mistake,” of his life. I assume the loss of life with his creation weighed him down. I’ve not done extensive research on WWII, but I know how hard it was for America to fight multiple fronts at once, and Japan was a strong foe. It doesn’t justify it, but war is ugly, and there was nothing Einstein could’ve done differently to change that…bomb or no bomb.

You might know Jack Johnson (1878-1947) as the first black heavyweight champion of the world (1908-1915), but did you know he also patented a wrench in 1922? However, Johnson is known more for his boxing abilities, and for all the controversy he caused back in the day, than he is for his patent.

Can you believe that because he beat a couple of white boxers, riots soon followed through-out the United States? Some were celebration “riots” by blacks, while the whites tried to stop the celebrations, and in fact, police intercepted some lynchings. It’s hard to even imagine this. But someone once told me that in order to understand history, you have to see it through the eyeglass of the time. Johnson was known for his love of white women, in fact, he married 2 white women in a time white and black marriages were illegal in many states. When he married his second wife, he was forced out of the country, when two ministers in the south recommended Johnson be lynched.

In 1920 Johnson returned to the US and opened up a club in Harlem and sold it 3 years later to a gangster Oweny Madden who later renamed the club to “The Cotton Club.” Johnson had a few fights in Mexico and later returned to the US to only be arrested for “transporting women across state lines for immoral purposes.” He did one year in the United States Penitentiary in Leavenworth. It was in prison when he came up with the idea of a tool to help tighten loosening fastening devices, the wrench. Several proposals to grant Johnson a posthumous Presidential pardon have been requested, the latest being one to President George W. Bush. This one has passed the House, and a companion bill is going through the Senate.

Those of you, who know me, know that I am not only a history buff, but a classic movie buff as well. Visit cine classics, my blog on classic film for more on that. So why am I saying this? Well, because this little history secret has do with a beautiful classic movie star named Hedy Lamarr. Hedy is remembered mostly for her roles in classic film from the 30’s and 40’s. One in particular comes to mind, a pre-code film where Hedy has a nude scene, scandalous for the day, in the movie “Ecstasy.” The movie was condemned by the pope and banned in the United States. The movie tamed by today’s standards, was considered immoral back in the day of Hayes Enforcement. Hedy wasn’t just looks, and she had that plenty, but she also had brains.

Hollywood called her “the most beautiful woman in the world.” It was WW II that changed Hedy and she decided to use her brains to help her adopted country, America. In the summer of 1942 Lamarr got together with composer George Atheil and patented a secret communications system to prevent the jamming of radio-controlled torpedoes. Hedy came up with this idea on the back of a cocktail napkin: frequency hopping. Basically its radio signals that constantly switched frequencies to make interception impossible.

It was an invention ahead of its time and it wasn’t used until the Cuban missile crisis some years later. Today this is called spread spectrum technology and is an important part of cell phones systems, satellite encryption, and other modern technologies.

Hedy once said, “Any girl can be glamorous; all you have to do is stand still and look stupid.” She fooled the world with her looks, but shocked the world with her brains. You go girl!

For more on Hedy click here

We hear this little tune come the end of a year, but where did it come from and why do we sing it? “Auld Lang Syne,” is a Scottish Poem written by Robert Burns in 1788 and set to a tune of a traditional folk song. The song is well known in many English-speaking countries. It is often sung to celebrate the start of a New Year, or at the stroke of midnight on New Year’s Day.

“Auld Lang Syne” translated into English is, “old long since,” or “long long ago,” or “days gone by.” The phrase “Auld Lang Syne,” had been used by other poets predating Burns. There is some doubt as to whether the melody used today is the same one Burns originally intended, but it is widely used both in Scotland and in the rest of the world.

Singing the little tune on New Year’s Eve became a Scots custom that very quickly spread throughout the British Isles. And as the Scots and Brits emigrated around the world, the song went with them.

Band leader Guy Lombardo has been given the credit for popularizing the song at New Year’s celebrations in America through his annual broadcasts on radio and television beginning in 1929. The song became his trademark, and he recorded it twice. And that is why we sing it 220 years later, and for many more years to come. Happy New Year!

Three Union soldiers on the morning of September 13, 1862 spot a paper package lying in the grass. The soldiers were in a clover field two miles south of Frederick, Maryland. When they opened the package they find 3 cigars and a two-page letter written by Confederate General Robert E. Lee. The letter detailed the battle strategy for his Maryland campaign. The letters came to be known as the “Union discovery of Special Orders No. 191.”

Wow, talk about hitting the jack-pot. These three soldiers took this letter to their superior officer, eventually the letter made it up the ranks, up to General George B. McClellan himself. McClellan came to the conclusion that the letters were not a ruse de guerre, that in fact the letters were genuine and contained helpful information. McClellan knew exactly what to do and was more than happy to have this epiphany, if you will, show the way.

The orders gave detailed instructions for placing all of Lee’s units. How on earth did this happen? I don’t know that we will ever know that. Were these plans dropped there on purpose, or by accident? Lee himself claimed that he didn’t understand how it could’ve happened. The couriers in charge of delivering orders were required to bring receipts when orders were safely delivered. It has been established that the orders found in the field were duplicates, and the original got to the intended confederate general. One Historian Wilbur D. Jones believes the culprit was Henry Kyd Douglas, a trusted courier who smoked cigars and whose “subsequent behavior raises a level of suspicion.”

Turning Point:

Having these orders readily available allowed the following course of events:

• Victory for the Union in the Battle of Antietam

• Lee’s defeat of this battle allowed President Abraham Lincoln gain the necessary political capital to sigh the Emancipation Proclamation

• Europe refused to recognize the Confederacy

• Lee withdrew his forces to Virginia which changed the course of the war and led to the eventual defeat of the Confederacy.

One man’s trash is another man’s treasure.

source: Curious Events in History

We all know about the founding father John Adams, but did you know that his son John Quincy Adams was:

1. Was the first President whose father was also a President
2. First President elected without receiving a plurality of the popular vote
3. First President whose son was married in the White House

He also was the attorney, at age 76, for the slaves on the Armistad. He delivered an emotional eight hour appeal to the court asking the Africans be set free. Justice Story wrote to his wife about Adam’s compelling appeal: “extraordinary for its power, for its bitter sarcasm, and its dealing with topics far beyond the records and points of discussion.” The Supreme Court must’ve felt the same because they concurred and the Africans were set free. Adams must’ve had some affection for George Washington because he named one of his sons by the same name.

In 1620 the Mayflower left Plymouth, England and sailed across the Atlantic, and with it went the Pilgrims. But did you know that it also carried America’s first person to be convicted of murder? His name was John Billington.

Billington was not one of the separatist Puritans, the so called “Saints.” Rather, he belonged to the group of passengers who became known as the “strangers.” It is thought he left England to escape from his debts. His wife Elinor, and his teenage sons John, Jr., and Francis joined him on this voyage to the new world.

From the very beginning this family was trouble. One of his sons tried to blow up the Mayflower when he fired a musket near an open barrel of gunpowder. Had the barrel ignited we’d be reading another story about the first Pilgrims in our history books today. Historian George F. Willison believed, without question, that Billington was involved in the mutiny on the Mayflower which erupted when some passengers challenged the governing authority in their new land. This was preempted by the adoption of the Mayflower Compact, for which Billington was one of the signatories.

Shortly after the Mayflower arrived in Plymouth, John Billington was charged with “contempt of the Captain’s lawful command and opprobrious speeches.” His sentence was to have his neck and heels tied together. But Billington was later pardoned. He was implicated in the Oldham-Lyford scandal, a failed revolt against the Plymouth colony. Charges were later dropped due to insufficient evidence.

During the first winter in Plymouth, the typhus epidemic wiped out half the Pilgrim population. The Billingtons were the only family to not lose one family member in the epidemic. In fact, Elinor, John’s wife, was one of five women that survived. John and his teenage sons wreaked havoc in the colony and were notorious for their nefarious activities.

After 10 years in the colony, John’s crimes caught up to him. John got into a quarrel with John Newcomen, possibly over a woman, and shot him with a musket. This time the charges stuck. He was tried and found guilty “by plain and notorious evidence.” On September 30, 1630 John Billington became the first Englishman to be hanged in New England.

We always believe the first Thanksgiving was in 1621 when fifty colonists (Pilgrims) had a shin-ding with ninety members of the Wampanoag tribe. Well, what if I told you that was not the first Thanksgiving? The very first Thanksgiving in North America was observed on May 23, 1541 at the Palo Duro Canon in Texas. The Spanish nobleman Francisco Vasquez de Coronado and a group of Native Americans, which he called “tejas,” (where Texas gets its name) got together to celebrate his expedition’s discovery of food.

The Texas Society Daughters of the American Colonists commemorated this event in 1959 as the first Thanksgiving. Also, The Ford County Historical Society erected a permanent cross outside Fort Dodge, Kansas some 200 miles northeast of Palo Duro Canyon to mark the spot Vasquez supposedly held a Thanksgiving service or first “Christian Service” on June 29, 1541.

After this first Thanksgiving celebration, there were others predating the Pilgrim one. The second one is said to have been in 1565 in St Augustine, Florida. This one held by Pedro Menendez de Aviles and the Native people of St Augustine. The third was celebrated in 1598 near the site of San Elizario, Texas, by Don Juan de Onate and some Manso Indians from present day El Paso.

After 1621 Thanksgiving was celebrated randomly, no specific day or time of the year. Individual communities would often give thanks after the harvest, but Thanksgiving did not become a national holiday until the 19th century. And in the 20th century, On November 26, 1941 President Roosevelt passed a bill establishing the fourth Thursday in November as the national Thanksgiving holiday.

We can say that since the 1500’s people in America have set aside a day or even a couple of days a year to give thanks to God for harvests, blessings, health, and peace. No Thanksgiving prayer better said than James Madison’s at the end of the War of 1812 for “devout acknowledgments to Almighty God for His great goodness manifested in restoring to them the blessing of peace.”