Good Morning & God Bless To Every One !
Today is March 31, the 90th day of 2014 and there are 275 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 !!!
What Happened Today In 1865?
Yankees and Rebels skirmish near Dinwiddie Court House
During the American Civil War, the final offensive of the Army of the Potomac gathers steam when Union General Philip Sheridan moves against the left flank of Confederate General Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia near Dinwiddie Court House. The limited action set the stage for the Battle of Five Forks, Virginia, on April 1.
This engagement took place at the end of the Petersburg, Virginia, line. For 10 months, the Union had laid siege to Lee’s army at Petersburg, but the trenches stretched all the way to Richmond, some 25 miles to the north. Lee’s thinning army attacked Fort Stedman on March 25 in a futile attempt to break the siege, but the Union line held. On March 29, General Ulysses S. Grant, General-in-Chief of the Union Army and the field commander around Petersburg, began moving his men past the western end of Lee’s line.
Torrential rains almost delayed the move. Grant planned to send Sheridan against the Confederates on March 31, but called off the operation. Sheridan would not be denied a chance to fight, though. “I am ready to strike out tomorrow and go to smashing things!” he told his officers. They encouraged him to meet with Grant, who consented to begin the move. Near Dinwiddie Court House, Sheridan advanced but was driven back by General George Pickett’s division. Pickett was alerted to the Union advance, and during the night of March 31, he pulled his men back to Five Forks. This set the stage for a major strike by Sheridan on April 1, when the Yankees crushed the Rebel flank and forced Lee to evacuate Richmond and Petersburg.
Other Memorable Or Interesting Events Occurring On March 31 In History:
1492 – In Spain, a royal edict is issued by the nation’s Catholic rulers declaring that all Jews who refuse to convert to Christianity will be expelled from the country. The decree was signed by King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella the day before. Most Spanish Jews chose exile rather than the renunciation of their religion and culture, and the Spanish economy suffered with the loss of an important portion of its workforce. Among those who chose conversion, some risked their lives by secretly practicing Judaism, while many sincere converts were nonetheless persecuted by the Spanish Inquisition. The Spanish Muslims, or Moors, were ordered to convert to Christianity in 1502;
1776 – During the American Revolution, in a letter dated March 31, 1776, Abigail Adams writes to her husband, John Adams urging him and the other members of the Continental Congress not to forget about the nation’s women when fighting for America’s independence from Great Britain. The future First Lady wrote in part, “I long to hear that you have declared an independency. And, by the way, in the new code of laws which I suppose it will be necessary for you to make, I desire you would remember the ladies and be more generous and favorable to them than your ancestors. Do not put such unlimited power into the hands of the husbands. Remember, all men would be tyrants if they could. If particular care and attention is not paid to the ladies, we are determined to foment a rebellion, and will not hold ourselves bound by any laws in which we have no voice or representation.” Abigail and John’s eldest son, John Quincy Adams, served as the sixth president of the United States. Only two women, Abigail Adams and Barbara Bush, have been both wives and mothers of American presidents;
1779 – Russia and Turkey sign a treaty by which they promise to take no military action in the Crimea;
1814 – Paris was occupied by a coalition of Russian, Prussian and Austrian forces; the surrender of the French capital forced the abdication of Emperor Napoleon;
1854 – In Tokyo, Commodore Matthew Calbraith Perry, representing the U.S. government, signs the Treaty of Kanagawa with the Japanese government, opening the ports of Shimoda and Hakodate to American trade and permitting the establishment of a U.S. consulate in Japan making the United States the first Western nation to establish relations with Japan since it was declared closed to foreigners in 1683. In April 1860, the first Japanese diplomats to visit a foreign power reached Washington, D.C. and remained in the U.S. capital for several weeks discussing expansion of trade with the United States;
1880 – The first electric street lights ever installed by a municipality are turned on in Wabash, Indiana;
1889 – In France, the Eiffel Tower is dedicated in Paris to honor of the centenary of the French Revolution in a ceremony presided over by Gustave Eiffel, the tower’s designer, and attended by French Prime Minister Pierre Tirard, a handful of other dignitaries, and 200 construction workers. The tower remained the world’s tallest man-made structure until the completion of the Chrysler Building in New York in 1930. Incredibly, the Eiffel Tower was almost demolished when the International Exposition’s 20-year lease on the land expired in 1909, but its value as an antenna for radio transmission saved it. It remains largely unchanged today and is one of the world’s premier tourist attractions;
1896 – Whitcomb Judson, Chicago, patents a hookless fastening, also known as ‘The Zipper’;
1905 – Kaiser Wilhelm of Germany arrives in Tangiers to declare his support for the sultan of Morocco, provoking the anger of France and Britain in what will become known as the First Moroccan Crisis, a foreshadowing of the greater conflict between Europe’s great nations still to come, the First World War;
1917 – The United States purchases the Virgin Islands from Denmark for $25 million;
1918 – Daylight Savings Time goes into effect throughout the United States for the first time;
1940 – In World War II, the German auxiliary cruiser Atlantis sets off on a mission to catch and sink Allied merchant ships. The Atlantis donned various disguises in order to integrate itself into any shipping milieu inconspicuously. Commanded by Capt. Bernhard Rogge, the Atlantis roamed the Atlantic and Indian oceans. She sank a total of 22 merchant ships (146,000 tons in all) and proved a terror to the British Royal Navy. The Atlantis‘s career finally came to an end on November 22, 1941, when it was sunk by the British cruiser Devonshire as the German marauder was refueling a U-boat;
1949 – Following World War II, Winston Churchill declares that the A-bomb was the only thing that kept the Soviet Union from trying to take over Europe;
1959 – The Dalai Lama, fleeing the Chinese suppression of a national uprising in Tibet, crosses the border into India, where he is granted political asylum. In 1989, he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace in recognition of his nonviolent campaign to end the Chinese domination of Tibet;
1965 – During the Vietnam War, responding to questions from reporters about the situation in Vietnam, President Johnson says, “I know of no far-reaching strategy that is being suggested or promulgated.” Early in the month, Johnson had sent 3,500 Marines to Da Nang to secure the U.S. airbase there. These troops were ostensibly there only for defensive purposes, but Johnson, despite his protestations to the contrary, was already considering giving the authorization for the U.S. troops to go from defensive to offensive tactics. This was a sensitive area, since such an authorization could (and did) lead to escalation in the war and a subsequent increase in the American commitment to it;
1968 – In the Vietnamese War, in a televised speech to the nation, President Lyndon b. Johnson announces a partial halt of bombing missions over North Vietnam and proposes peace talks. He said he had ordered “unilaterally” a halt to air and naval bombardments of North Vietnam “except in the area north of the Demilitarized Zone, where the continuing enemy build-up directly threatens Allied forward positions.” He also stated that he was sending 13,500 more troops to Vietnam and would request further defense expenditures–$2.5 billion in fiscal year 1968 and $2.6 billion in fiscal year 1969–to finance recent troop build-ups, re-equip the South Vietnamese Army, and meet “responsibilities in Korea.” In closing, Johnson shocked the nation with an announcement that all but conceded that his own presidency had become another wartime casualty: “I shall not seek, and I will not accept, the nomination of my party for another term as your president.”;
1973 – The Mississippi River reaches its peak level in St. Louis during a record 77-day flood. During the extended flood, 33 people died and more than $1 billion in damages were incurred. Floods of this type are not typically as deadly as flash floods because there is sufficient warning and time to evacuate flood regions. Those who died in this instance were largely residents who had resisted evacuation orders. Still, the flood devastated the economy of the region, as very few families had flood insurance and millions of acres of farm land were unusable for a full year following the flood;
1991 – After 36 years in existence, the Warsaw Pact—the military alliance between the Soviet Union and its eastern European satellites—comes to an end. The action was yet another sign that the Soviet Union was losing control over its former allies and that the (first) Cold War was falling apart;
1999 – Law enforcement officers in Elephant Butte, New Mexico, began digging for evidence near the mobile home of David Parker Ray and Cynthia Lea Hendy after more evidence came to light about the couple’s activities. On March 22, a twenty-two year old woman was found running naked, except for a padlocked metal collar around her neck, down an unpaved road near Elephant Butte State Park. She told police that Ray and Hendy had abducted her three days earlier in Albuquerque before bringing her to the mobile home where she was raped and tortured. The woman escaped when Ray was at his job at the State Park. She got into a scuffle with Hendy and hit her on the back of the head with an ice pick. Hendy pled guilty to being an accomplice and then even more was revealed. Soon David Ray’s daughter Jesse was also charged for her participation in a similar 1996 attack. And the Ray’s friend Dennis Yancy was charged with the murder of a young woman who disappeared from in 1997 from an Elephant Butte bar;
2004 – Air America, intended as a liberal voice in network talk radio, made its debut on five stations. The network folded in January 2010;
2005 – Terri Schiavo, 41, died at a hospice in Pinellas Park, Fla., 13 days after her feeding tube was removed in a heart-wrenching right-to-die dispute;
2013 – Pope Francis marked Christianity’s most joyous day at the Vatican with a passionate plea for world peace as he celebrated his first Easter Sunday as pontiff;
2013 – It was one year ago Today!
A Verse & A Prayer for the day:
He was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed. We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.
– Isaiah 53:5-6
God of peace, fill my soul with the wonder of your grace. Let me not forget the cost of your love. Stir in me the constant and abiding memory of your redemptive grace. Thank you. In Jesus’ name I pray. Amen
Until Tomorrow, America – Bless GOD !!!
