Good Morning & God Bless To Every One !
Today is March 25, the 84th day of 2014 and there are 281 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 !!!
In 1990, Congress designated March 25th as National Medal of Honor Day, a day that is dedicated to all Medal of Honor recipients. According to the Army’s Medal of Honor web page, “The President, in the name of Congress, has awarded more than 3,400 Medals of Honor to our nation’s bravest Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, Marines, and Coast Guardsmen since the decoration’s creation in 1861.” We here at FGGAM are ever grateful for the service of these men and women, and all our military personnel. A well deserved Thank You to each and every one of our brave service men and women, past or present!
So, What Happened Today In 1946?
Soviets announce withdrawal from Iran
Shortly after the end of World War II, in conclusion to an extremely tense situation of the early Cold War, the Soviet Union announces that its troops in Iran will be withdrawn within six weeks. The Iranian crisis was one of the first tests of power between the United States and the Soviet Union in the postwar world.
The Iranian crisis began during World War II. In 1942, Iran signed an agreement by which British and Soviet troops were allowed into the country in order to defend the oil-rich nation from possible German attack. American troops were also soon in Iran. The 1942 treaty stated that all foreign troops would withdraw within six months after the end of the war. In 1944, however, both Great Britain and the United States began to press the Iranian government for oil concessions and the Soviets thereupon demanded concessions of their own. By 1945, the oil situation was still unsettled, but the war was coming to an end and the American attitude toward the Soviet Union had changed dramatically.
The new administration of Harry S. Truman, which came to power when Franklin D. Roosevelt died in April 1945, decided that the Soviets were not to be trusted and were bent on expansion. Therefore, a policy of “toughness” was adopted toward the former wartime ally. Iran came to be a test case for this new policy. The Soviets had decided to take action in Iran. Fearing that the British and Americans were conspiring to deny Russia its proper sphere of influence in Iran, the Soviets came to the assistance of an Iranian rebel group in the northern regions of the country. In early 1946, the United States complained to the United Nations about the situation in Iran and accused the Soviets of interfering with a sovereign nation. When the March 2, 1946 deadline for the withdrawal of foreign troops from Iran passed and the Soviets were still in place, a crisis began to develop.
A major diplomatic confrontation was avoided when the Soviets announced on March 25, 1946, that they would be withdrawing their forces within six weeks. President Truman bragged that his threats of a possible military confrontation had been the deciding factor, but that seems unlikely. The Soviet Union and Iran had reached an agreement that gave the Soviets an oil concession in Iran. With this promise in hand, the Soviets kept their part of the bargain and moved their troops out of Iran in April 1946. Almost immediately, the Iranian government reneged on the oil deal and, with U.S. aid and advice, crushed the revolt in northern Iran. The Soviets were furious, but refrained from reintroducing their armed forces into Iran for fear of creating an escalating conflict with the United States and Great Britain. The Iranian crisis, and the suspicion and anger it created between the United States and the Soviet Union, helped set the tone for the developing Cold War.
Other Memorable Or Interesting Events Occurring On March 25 In History:
708 – Constantine begins his reign as Catholic Pope;
1199 – Richard I, Lion Heart, King o f England, is wounded by a crossbow bolt while fighting France which leads to his death on April 6;
1306 – Robert the Bruce crowned Robert I, King of Scots, having killed his rival John Comyn, Lord of Badenoch;
1634 – The first colonists to Maryland arrive at St. Clement’s Island on Maryland’s western shore and found the settlement of St. Mary’s;
1774 – British Parliament passes the Boston Port Act, closing the port of Boston and demanding that the city’s residents pay for the nearly $1 million worth (in today’s money) of tea dumped into Boston Harbor during the Boston Tea Party of December 16, 1773. The Boston Port Act was the first and easiest to enforce of four acts that together were known as the Coercive Acts. The other three were a new Quartering Act, the Administration of Justice Act and the Massachusetts Government Act;
1776 – Gen. George Washington, commander of the Continental Army, was awarded the first Congressional Gold Medal by the Continental Congress;
1807 – British Parliament abolishes the slave trade;
1865 – In the American Civil War, Confederate General Robert E. Lee makes Fort Stedman his last attack of the war in a desperate attempt to break out of Petersburg, Virginia. The attack failed, and within a week Lee was evacuating his positions around Petersburg. During the conflict, the Union lost around 1,000 men killed, wounded, and captured, while Lee lost probably three times that number, including some 1,500 captured during the retreat. Already outnumbered, these loses were more than Lee’s army could bear. Lee wrote to Confederate President Jefferson Davis that it would be impossible to maintain the Petersburg line much longer. On March 29, Grant began his offensive, and Petersburg fell on April 3. Two weeks after the Battle of Fort Stedman, Lee surrendered to Grant at Appomattox Court House, Virginia;
1879 – Little Wolf, often called “the greatest of the fighting Cheyenne,” surrenders to his friend Lieutenant W. P. Clark. Little Wolf was the chief of the Bowstring Soldiers, an elite Cheyenne military society. From early youth, Little Wolf had demonstrated rare bravery and a brilliant understanding of battle tactics. First in conflicts with other Indians like the Kiowa and then in disputes with the U.S. Army, Little Wolf led or assisted in dozens of important Cheyenne victories;
1894 – Jacob S. Coxey began leading an “army” of unemployed from Massillon, Ohio, to Washington D.C., to demand help from the federal government;
1911 – In one of the darkest moments of America’s industrial history, the Triangle Shirtwaist Company factory in New York City burns down, killing 145 workers, on this day in 1911. The tragedy led to the development of a series of laws and regulations that better protected the safety of factory workers;
1918 – Less than three weeks after the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk formally brought an end to Russia’s participation in the First World War, the former Russian province of Belarus declares itself an independent, democratic republic;
1932 – The Supreme Court hands down its decision in the case of Powell v. Alabama. The case arose out of the infamous Scottsboro case. Nine young black men were arrested and accused of raping two white women on train in Alabama. The boys were fortunate to barely escaped a lynch mob sent to kill them, but were railroaded into convictions and death sentences. The Supreme Court overturned the convictions on the basis that they did not have effective representation. There would be many more trials of the Scottsboro defendants over the years and each time the jury convicted and was later reversed on appeal. When the saga finally ended, all of the defendants were finally released. But not after they had served an average of ten years for the phantom crime;
1933 – President Herbert Hoover accepts the newly commissioned USS Sequoia as the official presidential yacht. For 44 years, the Sequoia served as an occasional venue for recreation and official gatherings for eight U.S. presidents. When not functioning as the presidential yacht, the USS Sequoia also served as the official vessel of the secretary of the Navy. President Jimmy Carter was the last to use the Sequoia before selling it to a private firm in 1977. President Reagan is said to have considered using the ship on occasion in the 1980s, but never did. The Sequoia has since undergone expensive restoration efforts. She is currently owned by the non-profit Sequoia Foundation and serves as a historic charter vessel on the Potomac River;
1941 – In World War II, Yugoslavia, despite an early declaration of neutrality, signs the Tripartite Pact, forming an alliance with Axis powers Germany, Italy, and Japan. Within two days, the Cvetkovic government was overthrown by a unified front of peasants, the church, unions, and the military—an angry response to the alliance with Germany. Prince Paul was thrown from his throne in favor of his son, King Peter, only 17 years old. The new government, led by Air Force Gen. Dusan Simovic, immediately renounced the Tripartite Pact. In less than two weeks, Germany invaded the nation and occupied it by force;
1947 – A coal mine explosion in Centralia, Ill., claimed 111 lives;
1953 – During the Korean War, The Battleship USS Missouri fires on targets at Kojo, North Korea, the last time her guns were fired in combat until the Persian Gulf War of 1992;
1954 – RCA announced it had begun producing color television sets at its plant in Bloomington, Ind. The sets, with 12½-inch picture tubes, cost $1,000 each — roughly $8,700 in today’s dollars;
1957 – France, West Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Belgium, and Luxembourg sign a treaty in Rome establishing the European Economic Community (EEC), also known as the Common Market. The EEC, which came into operation in January 1958, was a major step in Europe’s movement toward economic and political union. In the early 1990s, the European Community became the basis for the European Union (EU), which was established in 1993 following ratification of the Maastricht Treaty. In addition to a single European common market, member states would also participate in a larger common market, called the European Economic Area. Austria, Finland, and Sweden became members of the EU in 1995. As of early 2007, there were twenty-seven member states in total, and further growth was expected;
1967 – During the Vietnam War, the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., leads a march of 5,000 antiwar demonstrators in Chicago. In an address to the demonstrators, King declared that the war was “a blasphemy against all that America stands for.” King first began speaking out against American involvement in Vietnam in the summer of 1965. In addition to his moral objections to the war, he argued that the war diverted money and attention from domestic programs to aid the black poor. He was strongly criticized by other prominent civil rights leaders for attempting to link civil rights and the antiwar movement;
1968 – During the Vietnam War, after being told by Defense Secretary Clark Clifford that the war is a “real loser,” President Johnson, still uncertain about his course of action, decides to convene a nine-man panel of retired presidential advisors. The group, which became known as the “Wise Men,” included the respected generals Omar Bradley and Matthew Ridgway, distinguished State Department figures like Dean Acheson and George Ball, and McGeorge Bundy, National Security advisor to both the Kennedy and Johnson administrations. After two days of deliberation the group reached a consensus: they advised against any further troop increases and recommended that the administration seek a negotiated peace;
1970 – The Concorde makes its first supersonic flight;
1975 – In Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, King Faisal is shot to death by his nephew, Prince Faisal for reasons that remain obscure, and his son, Crown Prince Khalid, ascended to the throne. The nephew, who had a history of mental illness, was beheaded in June 1975;
1994 – At the end of a largely unsuccessful 15-month mission, the last U.S. troops depart Somalia, leaving 20,000 U.N. troops behind to keep the peace and facilitate “nation building” in the divided country;
2004 – The United States vetoed a U.N. Security Council resolution condemning Israel’s assassination of Hamas leader Ahmed Yassin;
2004 – Finally getting something right concerning an unborn fetus, the Senate joined the House in passing the Unborn Victims of Violence Act, making it a separate offense to harm a fetus during a violent federal crime. (What the writer doesn’t understand is how it can be a crime to kill a fetus in the act of another crime at any age, but not a crime to kill a fetus at any age by abortion!!!);
2011 – Iran’s Government rejects an investigation into alleged human rights abuses called for by the United Nations Human Rights Council;
2013 – It was one year ago Today!
Now, Off To The Fun Stuff!!!
Today’s Quote For The Day:
Getting information off the Internet is like taking a drink from a fire hydrant.
– Mitchell Kapor
Today’s Thought For The Day:
“It is better to be hated for what you are than to be loved for something you are not.”
– Andre Gide, French author and critic (1869-1951)
Today’s ‘I’m Big but I think I’m Small’ Picture:
Today’s Founders Quote:
“It is sufficiently obvious, that persons and property are the two great subjects on which Governments are to act; and that the rights of persons, and the rights of property, are the objects, for the protection of which Government was instituted. These rights cannot well be separated.”
– James Madison, Speech at the Virginia Convention, 1829
Today’s ‘Least We Forget’ Video:
This Is My Rifle – https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=0_-T0JJRSnc
Today’s ‘Parent & Child’ Picture:
Today’s Funny, (but maybe annoying), Animal Video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=uxVkedSU3_c
Today’s ‘Daily Motivator’:
When you feel like quitting, you’re actually closer than ever to getting the work done. Keep going, keep moving, keep working and finish the task. When it seems that you’ve run out of ideas, you’re actually opening yourself to new, more workable, more powerful ideas. Keep going, move on past the discouragement, and let those new ideas flow.
Today’s “Impeccable Timing’ Picture:
Today’s ‘Its Just An Observation:
Now that oil companies can cause earthquakes with their fracking, maybe people should be nicer to them.
Today’s Word For The Day:
Vociferous (vo·cif·er·ous) adj Characterized by vehemence, clamour, or noisiness: “A vociferous crowd.”
Today’s ‘Its A Dogs Life’ Picture:
Today’s Word With A Double Definition:
The bandage was wound around the wound.
Today’s Trivia:
In colonial Boston, schoolteachers earned about seven cents per day.
Today’s ‘Try Not To Smile’ Picture:
Today’s Inspirational Music Video:
Forever – https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=huFra1mnIVE
Today’s Verse & Prayer:
If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.
– 1 John 1:9
Father, please forgive me today for my lack of passion to love and forgive others in the way you have so graciously forgiven me. Create in me a heart like your own: faithful, forgiving, and gracious. In the precious name of Jesus I pray. Amen
Today’s ‘AWE of GOD’:
Until Tomorrow – America, Bless GOD!!!