Good Morning & God Bless To Every One !
Today is March 17, the 76th day of 2014 and there are 289 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 !!!
Please let me apologize in advance this morning my friends. Today has given me many things to get done and the only way to meet all my commitments today is to cut some of them a little short. Today, I’ll be giving you the ‘history’ portion of my daily post and dropping the ‘fun stuff’. This way I’ll hopefully have enough time to meet many other obligations today. Hopefully, tomorrow will prove a little bit of an easier day for me and I’ll get my full informative and fun packed post out.
So, What Happened Today In 1990?
Lithuania rejects Soviet demands to renounce it’s independence
Near the end of the (first) Cold War, the former Soviet Socialist Republic of Lithuania steadfastly rejects a demand from the Soviet Union that it renounce its declaration of independence. The situation in Lithuania quickly became a sore spot in U.S.-Soviet relations.
The Soviet Union had seized the Baltic state of Lithuania in 1939. Lithuanians complained long and loud about this absorption into the Soviet empire, but to no avail. Following World War II, Soviet forces did not withdraw and the United States made little effort to support Lithuanian independence. There matters stood until 1985 and the rise of Mikhail Gorbachev as leader of the Soviet Union. In 1989, as part of his policy of loosening political repression in the Soviet empire and improving relations with the West, Gorbachev repudiated the Brezhnev Doctrine of 1968, which stated that the Soviet Union was justified in using force to preserve already existing communist governments. Lithuanian nationalists took the repudiation of the Brezhnev Doctrine as a signal that a declaration of independence might be accepted.
On March 11, 1990, Lithuania declared that it was an independent nation, the first of the Soviet republics to do so. It had, however, overestimated Gorbachev’s intentions. The Soviet leader was willing to let communist governments in its eastern European satellites fall to democratic movements, but this policy did not apply to the republics of the Soviet Union. The Soviet government responded harshly to the Lithuanian declaration of independence and issued an ultimatum: renounce independence or face the consequences. On March 17, the Lithuanians gave their answer, rejecting the Soviet demand and asking that “democratic nations” grant them diplomatic recognition.
The Soviets had not been bluffing. The Soviet government insisted that it still controlled Lithuania, Gorbachev issued economic sanctions against the rebellious nation, and Soviet troops occupied sections of the capital city of Vilnius. In January 1991, the Soviets launched a larger-scale military operation against Lithuania. Many in the United States were horrified, and the U.S. Congress acted quickly to end economic assistance to the Soviet Union. Gorbachev was incensed by this action, but his powers in the Soviet Union were quickly eroding. In December 1991, 11 of the 12 Soviet Socialist Republics proclaimed their independence and established the Commonwealth of Independent States. Just a few days after this action, Gorbachev resigned as president and what was left of the Soviet Union ceased to exist.
(Just a thought: what did we do in the 1980’s which resulted in the winning of the (first) Cold War that we’re not doing now? – I know, but I’ll leave it to your imagination. – HINT: Peace Through Strength!)
Other Memorable Or Interesting Events Occurring On March 17 In History:
461 – Saint Patrick, Christian missionary, bishop and apostle of Ireland, dies at Saul, Downpatrick, Ireland. Pastor Dewey has posted an excellent ‘history’ for this day which you can read here: https://fggam.org/saint-patrick/;
1762 – In New York City, the first parade honoring the Catholic feast day of St. Patrick, the patron saint of Ireland, is held by Irish soldiers serving in the British army. The first recorded St. Patrick’s Day parade was held not in Ireland but in New York City in 1762, and with the dramatic increase of Irish immigrants to the United States in the mid-19th century, the March 17th celebration became widespread. Today, across the United States, millions of Americans of Irish ancestry celebrate their cultural identity and history by enjoying St. Patrick’s Day parades and engaging in general revelry;
1776 – During the American War for Independence, British forces are forced to evacuate Boston following Patriot General George Washington’s successful placement of fortifications and cannons on Dorchester Heights, which overlooks the city from the south. The bloodless liberation of Boston by the Patriots brought an end to a hated eight-year British occupation of the city, known for such infamous events as the “Boston Massacre.” For the victory, General Washington, commander of the Continental Army, was presented with the first medal ever awarded by the Continental Congress;
1799 – Napoleon Bonaparte and his army reach Mediterranean seaport of St. Jean d’Acra, only to find British warships ready to break his siege of the town;
1804 – Two months before Lewis and Clark begin their epic western expedition, Jim Bridger is born in Richmond, Virginia. Twenty years later, Bridger, heading West along the routes Lewis and Clark pioneered, became one of the greatest mountain men of the 19th century. By 1840, Bridger had grown tired of the nomadic trapper life. He was convinced that the emigrant traffic through the West had become heavy enough to support a trading post. He founded Fort Bridger along the Green River section of the Oregon Trail, in present-day southern Wyoming. By 1868, Bridger’s eyesight was failing, and he increasingly suffered from rheumatism. He retired to his Westport farm, where he cared for his apple trees and no doubt fondly recalled the rugged western mountains he had known so well. He died at the age of 76 on July 17, 1881;
1834 – Gottlieb Daimler, who in 1890 founded an engine and car company bearing his name, is born in Schorndorf, Germany;
1861 – Victor Emmanuel II was proclaimed the first king of a united Italy;
1863 – In the American Civil War, Union cavalry attack Confederate cavalry at Kelly’s Ford, Virginia. Although the Yankees were pushed back and failed to take any ground, the engagement proved that the Federal troopers could hold their own against their Rebel counterparts;
1901 – Paintings by the late Dutch painter Vincent van Gogh are shown at the Bernheim-Jeune gallery in Paris. The 71 paintings, which captured their subjects in bold brushstrokes and expressive colors, caused a sensation across the art world. Eleven years before, while living in Auvers-sur-Oise outside Paris, van Gogh had committed suicide without any notion that his work was destined to win acclaim beyond his wildest dreams. In his lifetime, he had sold only one painting. One of his paintings–the Yasuda Sunflowers–sold for just under $40 million at a Christie’s auction in 1987 and today his paintings are among the most recognized works of art in the world;
1902 – Robert Tyre Jones, Jr. is born in Atlanta, Georgia. Jones, the first great American golfer, was a hero of the so-called “Golden Age of Sports” in America along with baseball player Babe Ruth, boxer Jack Dempsey, tennis player Bill Tilden and football player Red Grange. Over the course of his career, Bobby Jones won four U.S. Opens, five U.S. Amateurs, three British Opens and one British Amateur. His total of 15 major tournaments wasn’t surpassed until Jack Nicklaus won his 16th major in 1980;
1905 – Future president Franklin Delano Roosevelt weds his fifth cousin once removed, Eleanor Roosevelt, in New York;
1906 – A powerful earthquake and a full day of aftershocks rock Taiwan on this day in 1906, killing over 1,200 people. This terrifying day of tremors destroyed several towns and caused millions of dollars in damages;
1912 – The Camp Fire Girls organization was incorporated in Washington, D.C., two years to the day after it was founded in Thetford, Vt. The group is now known as Camp Fire USA;
1914 – Russia increases the number of active duty military from 460,000 to 1,700,000;
1942 – The Nazis begin deporting Jews to the Belsen camp;
1964 – During the Vietnam War, President Lyndon B. Johnson presides over a session of the National Security Council during which Secretary of Defense McNamara and Gen. Maxwell Taylor present a full review of the situation in Vietnam. During the meeting, various secret decisions were made, including the approval of covert intelligence-gathering operations in North Vietnam; contingency plans to launch retaliatory U.S. Air Force strikes against North Vietnamese military installations and against guerrilla sanctuaries inside the Laotian and Cambodian borders; and a long-range “program of graduated overt military pressure” against North Vietnam. President Johnson directed that planning for the bombing raids “proceed energetically.” A statement issued to the public afterwards stated that the United States would increase military and economic aid to support South Vietnamese President Nguyen Khanh’s new plan for fighting the Viet Cong. Khanh’s intention was to mobilize all able-bodied South Vietnamese males, raise the pay and status of paramilitary forces, and provide more equipment for the South Vietnamese armed forces;
1966 – A U.S. midget submarine located a missing hydrogen bomb which had fallen from an American bomber into the Mediterranean off Spain;
1969 – Golda Meir became prime minister of Israel;
1970 – The United States cast its first veto in the U.N. Security Council. (The U.S. killed a resolution that would have condemned Britain for failure to use force to overthrow the white-ruled government of Rhodesia;
1972 – The United States cast its first veto in the U.N. Security Council. (The U.S. killed a resolution that would have condemned Britain for failure to use force to overthrow the white-ruled government of Rhodesia;
1973 – U.S. Air Force Lt. Col. Robert L. Stirm, a freed prisoner of the Vietnam War, was joyously greeted by his family at Travis Air Force Base in California in a scene captured in a Pulitzer Prize-winning AP photograph;
1992 – 28 killed in truck bombing of Israeli embassy in Buenos Aires, Argentina by Islamic Jihad;
1992 – White South Africans approve constitutional reforms giving legal equality to blacks;
2009 – U.S. journalists Laura Ling and Euna Lee were detained by North Korea while reporting on North Korean refugees living across the border in China. (Both were convicted of entering North Korea illegally and were sentenced to 12 years of hard labor; both were freed in August 2009 after former President Bill Clinton met with North Korean leader Kim Jong Il;
2011 – 26-year-old Raymond Clark III, a former animal research assistant at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, pleads guilty to the murder and attempted sexual assault of 24-year-old Yale graduate student Annie Le. On September 13, 2009, Le’s partially decomposed body was found stuffed behind a wall in the university research building where she was last seen five days earlier. On June 3, 2011, Clark was sentenced to 44 years in prison without the possibility of early release;
2013 – Scientists discover that a large amount of bacterial life forms live in the deepest part of the world’s oceans, the Mariana Trench, which is about 6.831 miles;
2013 – It was one year ago Today!
TODAY’S VERSE & 
The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not be in want. He makes me lie down in green pastures, he leads me beside quiet waters, he restores my soul.
– Psalm 23:1-3
Our Father & Shepherd, help me rest tonight in your grace and in the confidence that you are nearby. In Jesus’ name I pray. Amen
Until Tomorrow – America, Bless GOD!!!
