Good Morning & God Bless To Every One !
Today is February 12, the 43rd day of 2014 and there are 322 days left this year where it is another Blessed Day in the pleasure of our service for our Lord here at:
For God’s Glory Alone Ministries !!!
Sorry I’m a little late this morning folks. A number of medical appointments this week has my schedule bouncing all over this week. Tomorrow we’ll be out REALLY early as I have to be at the hospital at 7 a.m. Maybe by next week, I can get settled back down into a more normal routine! In the meantime – ENJOY!
So, What Happened Today in 1809 ?
Happy Birthday Abraham Lincoln!
On this day in 1809, Abraham Lincoln is born in Hodgenville, Kentucky.
Lincoln, one of America’s most admired presidents, grew up a member of a poor family in Kentucky and Indiana. He attended school for only one year, but thereafter read on his own in a continual effort to improve his mind. As an adult, he lived in Illinois and performed a variety of jobs including stints as a postmaster, surveyor and shopkeeper, before entering politics. He served in the Illinois legislature from 1834 to 1836, and then became an attorney. In 1842, Lincoln married Mary Todd; together, the pair raised four sons.
Lincoln returned to politics during the 1850s, a time when the nation’s long-standing division over slavery was flaring up, particularly in new territories being added to the Union. As leader of the new Republican Party, Lincoln was considered politically moderate, even on the issue of slavery. He advocated the restriction of slavery to the states in which it already existed and described the practice in a letter as a minor issue as late as 1854. In an 1858 senatorial race, as secessionist sentiment brewed among the southern states, he warned, a house divided against itself cannot stand. He did not win the Senate seat but earned national recognition as a strong political force. Lincoln’s inspiring oratory soothed a populace anxious about southern states’ secessionist threats and boosted his popularity.
As a presidential candidate in the election of 1860, Lincoln tried to reassure slaveholding interests that although he favored abolition, he had no intention of ending the practice in states where it already existed and prioritized saving the Union over freeing slaves. When he won the presidency by approximately 400,000 popular votes and carried the Electoral College, he was in effect handed a ticking time bomb. His concessions to slaveholders failed to prevent South Carolina from leading other states in an exodus from the Union that began shortly after his election. By February 1, 1861, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana and Texas had also seceded. Soon after, the Civil War began. As the war progressed, Lincoln moved closer to committing himself and the nation to the abolitionist movement and, in 1863, finally signed the Emancipation Proclamation. The document freed slaves in the Confederate states, but did not address the legality of slavery in Missouri, Kansas, Nebraska or Arkansas.
Lincoln was the tallest president at 6′ 4. As a young man, he impressed others with his sheer physical strength–he was a legendary wrestler in Illinois–and entertained friends and strangers alike with his dry, folksy humor which was still in evidence years later. Exasperated by one Civil War military defeat after another, Lincoln wrote to a lethargic general if you are not using the army I should like to borrow it for awhile. An animal lover, Lincoln once declared, “I care not for a man’s religion whose dog and cat are not the better for it.” Fittingly, a variety of pets took up residence at the Lincoln White House, including a pet turkey named Jack and a goat called Nanko. Lincoln’s son Tad frequently hitched Nanko to a small wagon and drove around the White House grounds.
Lincoln’s sense of humor may have helped him to hide recurring bouts of depression. He admitted to friends and colleagues that he suffered from intense melancholia and hypochondria most of his adult life. Perhaps in order to cope with it, Lincoln engaged in self-effacing humor, even chiding himself about his famously homely looks. When an opponent in an 1858 Senate race debate called him two-faced, he replied, If I had another face do you think I would wear this one?
Lincoln is remembered as The Great Emancipator. Although he waffled on the subject of slavery in the early years of his presidency, his greatest legacy was his work to preserve the Union and his signing of the Emancipation Proclamation. To Confederate sympathizers, however, Lincoln’s signing of the Emancipation Proclamation reinforced his image as a hated despot and ultimately led John Wilkes Booth to assassinate him on April 14, 1865. His favorite horse, Old Bob, pulled his funeral hearse.
Other Memorable Or Interesting Events Occurring On February 12 In History:
1554 – Lady Jane Grey, who’d claimed the throne of England for nine days, and her husband, Guildford Dudley, were beheaded after being condemned for high treason;
1789 – Vermont Patriot Ethan Allen dies of a stroke at age 52 on his Winooski River homestead. Allen is best remembered as the patriotic leader of the Green Mountain Boys, who took the British fort at Ticonderoga with Benedict Arnold in May 1775. Allen, like Arnold, faced charges of treason; he attempted to negotiate terms by which Vermont could rejoin the British empire in the early 1780s when New York blocked its acceptance as one of the United States;
1793 – Congress passes the first fugitive slave law, requiring all states, including those that forbid slavery, to forcibly return slaves who have escaped from other states to their original owners. As Northern states abolished slavery, most relaxed enforcement of the 1793 law, and many passed laws ensuring fugitive slaves a jury trial;
1828 – Confederate General Robert Ransom Jr. is born in Warren County, North Carolina. Ransom graduated from West Point in 1850 and spent the next decade serving on the frontier and as an instructor at his alma mater. Ransom worked as a civil engineer and a farmer in his home state after the war, and died at New Bern, North Carolina, in 1892;
1836 – Mexican General Santa Anna crosses the Rio Grande River en route to the Alamo;
1865 – The Rev. Dr. Henry Highland Garnet, the first African American to address the U.S. House of Representatives, delivers a sermon to a crowded House chamber. His sermon commemorated the victories of the Union army and the deliverance of the country from slavery. Garnet, a former slave himself, was a pastor of the 15th Street Presbyterian Church in Washington, D.C.;
1912 – Hsian-T’ung, the last emperor of China, is forced to abdicate following Sun Yat-sen’s republican revolution. A provisional government was established in his place, ending 267 years of Manchu rule in China and 2,000 years of imperial rule. The former emperor, only six years old, was allowed to keep up his residence in Beijing’s Forbidden City, and he took the name of Henry Pu Yi;
1915 – Lorne Greene, the actor who played Ben Cartwright on the immensely popular television Western Bonanza, is born in Ontario, Canada. An only child, Greene later said he based his portrayal of Ben Cartwright on his own father, Daniel Greene;
1915 – One of the biggest air raids of World War I occurs on this day in 1915, when 34 planes from the British Naval Wing attack the German-occupied coastal towns of Blankenberghe, Ostend and Zeebrugge in Belgium;
1924 – ‘Rhapsody In Blue’ by George Gershwin is performed for the first time at the Aeolian Hall in New York City. If you’d like, listen here: https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=rhapsody+in+blue+youtube&FORM=VIRE1#view=detail&mid=4E3DA6B6D4715627CF404E3DA6B6D4715627CF40
1941 – In World War II, German General Erwin Rommel arrives in Tripoli, Libya, with the newly formed Afrika Korps, to reinforce the beleaguered Italians’ position. In January 1941, Adolf Hitler established the Afrika Korps for the explicit purpose of helping his Italian Axis partner maintain territorial gains in North Africa. “For strategic, political, and psychological reasons, Germany must assist Italy in Africa,” the Fuhrer declared. The British had been delivering devastating blows to the Italians; in three months they pushed the Italians out of Egypt while wounding or killing 20,000 Italian soldiers and taking another 130,000 prisoner;
1949 – Moslem Brotherhood chief Hassan el Banna is shot to death in Cairo;
1955 – President Eisenhower sends the first United States advisors to South Vietnam;
1972 – During the Vietnam War, about 6,000 Cambodian troops launch a major operation to wrestle the religious center of Angkor Wat from 4,000 North Vietnamese troops entrenched around the famous Buddhist temple complex, which had been seized in June 1970. Fighting continued throughout the month. Even with the addition of 4,000 more troops, the Cambodians were unsuccessful, and eventually abandoned their efforts to expel the North Vietnamese;
1973 – During the Vietnam War, about 6,000 Cambodian troops launch a major operation to wrestle the religious center of Angkor Wat from 4,000 North Vietnamese troops entrenched around the famous Buddhist temple complex, which had been seized in June 1970. Fighting continued throughout the month. Even with the addition of 4,000 more troops, the Cambodians were unsuccessful, and eventually abandoned their efforts to expel the North Vietnamese;
1986 – During the Cold War, after spending eight years in Soviet prisons and labor camps, human rights activist Anatoly Scharansky is released. The amnesty deal was arranged by Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev and U.S. President Ronald Reagan at a summit meeting three months earlier. Scharansky was imprisoned for his campaign to win the right for Russian Jews, officially forbidden to practice Judaism, to emigrate from the USSR. Convicted of treason and agitation, Soviet authorities also labeled him an American spy. After his release, he immigrated to Israel, where he was given a hero’s welcome. Later, as a member of Israel’s parliament, he was an outspoken defender of Russian Jews;
1987 – A Court in Texas upholds $8.5 billion of a fine imposed on Texaco for the illegal takeover of Getty Oil;
1988 – Two Soviet warships bump two U.S. navy vessels in waters claimed by the Soviet Union. The incident was an indication that even though the Cold War was slowly coming to a close, old tensions and animosities remained unabated. The incident between the ships took place in the Black Sea, off the Crimean peninsula. The American destroyer USS Caron and cruiser USS Yorktown were operating within the 12-mile territorial limit claimed by the Soviet Union. They were challenged by a Soviet frigate and destroyer and told to leave the waters. Then, according to a Navy spokesman, the Soviet ships “shouldered” the U.S. ships out of the way, bumping them slightly. There was no exchange of gunfire, and the American ships eventually departed from the area. There was no serious damage to either U.S. vessel or any injuries;
1989 – Barbara Harris spends her first full day as a Bishop after she becomes the first female Bishop of a US Episcopal Church after being ordained Bishop Suffragan of the Episcopal Diocese of Massachusetts on February 11, 1989;
1999 – The five-week impeachment trial of Bill Clinton comes to an end, with the Senate voting to acquit the president on both articles of impeachment: perjury and obstruction of justice;
2002 – Former Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic goes on trial at The Hague, Netherlands, on charges of genocide and war crimes in Bosnia, Croatia and Kosovo. Milosevic served as his own attorney for much of the prolonged trial, which ended without a verdict when the so-called “Butcher of the Balkans” was found dead at age 64 from an apparent heart attack in his prison cell on March 11, 2006;
2008 – In an attempt to cut costs, struggling auto giant General Motors (GM) offers buyouts to all 74,000 of its hourly employees in the U.S. represented by the United Auto Workers (UAW) union. The move came after GM lost $38.7 billion in 2007, which at the time was the largest loss ever experienced by any car maker. (Two weeks later, on February 26, the loss was adjusted by $4.6 billion, to $43.3 billion.);
2009 – A Colgan Air commuter plane crashed into a suburban Buffalo, N.Y., home, killing all 49 aboard and a person in the house. The victims included Alison Des Forges, 66, a noted expert on the 1994 Rwanda genocide, and Gerry Niewood, 64, and Coleman Mellett, 34, members of Chuck Mangione’s band;
2010 – A 7.0 magnitude earthquake struck Haiti, devastating its capital city, Port-au-Prince, an estimated 150,000 were killed and buried later in mass graves;
2013 – It was one year ago TODAY !
Now, Off To The Fun Stuff !
Today’s ‘Can You Find The Animal Trying To Hide From You?’:
Today’s Founders Quote:
“I have sworn upon the altar of God, eternal hostility against every form of tyranny.”
– Thomas Jefferson
Today’s Thought For The Day:
Somebody has said there are only two kinds of people in the world. There are those who wake up in the morning and say:
“Good morning, Lord,”
And there are those who wake up in the morning and say:
“Good Lord, it’s morning.”
Today’s ‘AWE of GOD’ Picture:
Today’s Word Of The Day:
Peckish adj. Ill-tempered; irritable; Chiefly British feeling slightly hungry. “He felt rather peckish close to bedtime.”
Today’s Quote Of The Day:
“Your present circumstances don’t determine where you can go; they merely determine where you start.”
– Nido Qubein
Today’s ‘I Fixed It For You Honey’ Picture:
Today’s Internet Proverb:
C: is the root of all directories.
Today’s ‘Astute Visionary’:
“640K ought to be enough for anybody.”
– Bill Gates, 1981
Today’s ‘Let’s Be Friends’ Picture:
Today’s Lexophile Word Play:
A bicycle can’t stand alone; it is two tired!
Today’s Proverb:
Never test the depth of the water with both feet!
Today’s Picture Taken With Impeccable Timing:
Today’s Joke Of The Day:
Six-year-old Angie and her four-year-old brother Joel were sitting together during church services.
Joel giggled, sang, and talked out loud.
Finally, his big sister had enough.
‘You’re not supposed to talk out loud in church.’
‘Why? Who’s going to stop me?’ Joel asked.
Angie pointed to the back of the church and said, ‘See those two men standing by the door? They’re hushers.’
Today’s Inspirational Music Video:
The Millennium Prayer – https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=X6AV8DmJ6zY
Today’s ‘Love Is’ Picture:
Today’s Verse & Prayer:
Love does not rejoice about injustice but rejoices whenever the truth wins out. Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance.
– 1 Corinthians 13:6-7
My Glorious God on High, I humble myself before you recognizing your boundless power to love, the incredible need for love in the lives of those around me, and my limited ability to love. Please pour your Holy Spirit into my heart and fill me with the power to love as you do, always. In Jesus’ precious name I pray. Amen.
Today’s Funny Church Sign:
Until Tomorrow – America, BLESS GOD !
