Good Morning & God Bless To Every One !
Today is April 23, the 113th day of 2014 and there are 252 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 !!!
As I consider all the court cases resulting from Obamacare concerning abortions and contraceptives:
If I decline to subsidize gun purchases by all American males. Does that make me anti-man? Anti-gun? If I decline to subsidize gym memberships for all teenagers. Does that make me pro-obesity? If I decline to subsidize farmers — oh wait, I already do that, but I wish I could refuse, would that make me anti-farmer? And the same goes for our subsidies of green energy companies, the NFL, big banks, transportation and thousands of other things.
Does their belief in not paying for abortions or contraceptives due to their religious beliefs make them ‘Anti-women’ and mean they are waging ‘A War On Women’? Or are they simply practicing their ‘Religious Freedoms’, one of the principles that our country was founded on?
So, What Happened Today In 1945?
President Truman confronts Soviet Foreign Minister Molotov
Near the end of World War II and the beginning of the (first) Cold War, less than two weeks after taking over as president after the death of Franklin D. Roosevelt, Harry S. Truman gives a tongue-lashing to Soviet Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov. The incident indicated that Truman was determined to take a “tougher” stance with the Soviets than his predecessor had.
When Roosevelt died of a massive stroke on April 12, 1945, Harry S. Truman took over as president. Truman was overwhelmed by the responsibilities so suddenly thrust upon him and, particularly in terms of foreign policy, the new president was uncertain about his approach. Roosevelt had kept his vice-president in the dark about most diplomatic decisions, not even informing Truman about the secret program to develop an atomic bomb. Truman had to learn quickly, however. The approaching end of World War II meant that momentous decisions about the postwar world needed to be made quickly. The primary issue Truman faced was how to deal with the Soviet Union. Just weeks before his death, Roosevelt met with Russian leader Joseph Stalin and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill at Yalta to discuss the postwar situation. Agreements made during the meeting left the Soviets in de facto control of Eastern Europe in exchange for Soviet promises to hold “democratic” elections in Poland. Some officials in the U.S. government were appalled at these decisions, believing that Roosevelt was too “soft” on the Soviets and naive in his belief that Stalin would cooperate with the West after the war. Truman gravitated to this same point of view, partially because of his desire to appear decisive, but also because of his long-standing animosity toward the Soviets.
On April 23, 1945, Soviet Foreign Minister Molotov arrived at the White House for a meeting with the new president. Truman immediately lashed out at Molotov, “in words of one syllable,” as the president later recalled. As Molotov listened incredulously, Truman charged that the Soviets were breaking their agreements and that Stalin needed to keep his word. At the end of Truman’s tirade, Molotov indignantly declared that he had never been talked to in such a manner. Truman, not to be outdone, replied that if Molotov had kept his promises, he would not need to be talked to like that. Molotov stormed out of the meeting. Truman was delighted with his own performance, telling one friend that he gave the Soviet official “the straight one-two to the jaw.” The president was convinced that a tough stance was the only way to deal with the communists, a policy that came to dominate America’s early Cold War policies toward the Soviets.
Other Memorable Or Interesting Events Occurring On April 23 In History:
1014 – Brian Boru, the high king of Ireland, is assassinated by a group of retreating Norsemen shortly after his Irish forces defeated them. Brian, a clan prince, seized the throne of the southern Irish state of Dal Cais from its Eogharacht rulers in 963. He subjugated all of Munster, extended his power over all of southern Ireland, and in 1002 became the high king of Ireland. Unlike previous high kings of Ireland, Brian resisted the rule of Ireland’s Norse invaders, and after further conquests his rule was acknowledged across most of Ireland. In 1013, Sitric, king of the Dublin Norse, formed an alliance against Brian, featuring Viking warriors from Ireland, the Hebrides, the Orkneys, and Iceland, as well as soldiers of Brian’s native Irish enemies. Forces under Brian’s son Murchad met and annihilated the Viking coalition at the Battle of Clontarf, near Dublin. After the battle, a small group of Norsemen, flying from their defeat, stumbled on Brian’s tent, overcame his bodyguards, and murdered the elderly king. Victory at Clontarf broke Norse power in Ireland forever, but Ireland largely fell into anarchy after the death of Brian;
1348 – The ‘Order of Garter’, the first English order of knighthood is founded;
1564 – Historians believe Shakespeare was born on this day in 1564, the same day he died in 1616. Although the plays of William Shakespeare may be the most widely read works in the English language, little is known for certain about the playwright himself. Some scholars even believe the plays were not written by William Shakespeare of Stratford-upon-Avon but by some other well-educated, aristocratic writer who wished to remain anonymous;
1661 – Charles II is formally crowned King of England, returning the monarchy to Britain, albeit with greatly reduced powers;
1789 – President-elect George Washington and his wife, Martha, moved into the first executive mansion, the Franklin House, in New York;
1791 – Future President James Buchanan is born in Cove Gap near Mercersburg, Pennsylvania. Buchanan, remembered mostly for his administration’s corruption and his failure to solve the country’s crisis over slavery, also inspired salacious gossip about his love life over the course of his career. After serving one disastrous term, Buchanan retired to his home in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, in 1861. In 1866, he published his memoirs, in which he blamed abolitionists for causing the Civil War. He died in 1868;
1859 – Beating a rival publisher by a mere 20 minutes, William Byers distributes the first newspaper ever published in the frontier boomtown of Denver, Colorado. Byers had arrived in Denver the previous month. He had previously worked as surveyor in Oregon and Washington and served as a territorial representative in Nebraska. However, when Byers heard in 1858 of the discovery of silver and gold in the Pike’s Peak area of Colorado, he decided to move to the Colorado gold fields to establish a newspaper. Denver was becoming a center for the Colorado mining industry, and Byers reasoned that it was the ideal location to begin publishing a newspaper. In honor of the rugged mountain range that rose up abruptly to the west of Denver, Byers named his new venture in frontier journalism The Rocky Mountain News;
1865 – Near the end of the American Civil War, Confederate President Jefferson Davis writes to his wife, Varina, of the desperate situating facing the Confederates. “Panic has seized the country,” he wrote to his wife in Georgia. It was three weeks since Davis had fled the Confederate capital of Richmond, Virginia, as Union troops were overrunning the trenches nearby. When Confederate General Robert E. Lee was forced to surrender his army at Appomattox Court House, Virginia, on April 9, Davis and his officials traveled south in hopes of connecting with the last major Confederate army, the force of General Joseph Johnston. Johnston, then in North Carolina, was himself in dire straits, as General William T. Sherman’s massive force was bearing down. Davis continued to his wife, “The issue is one which it is very painful for me to meet. On one hand is the long night of oppression which will follow the return of our people to the ‘Union’; on the other, the suffering of the women and children, and carnage among the few brave patriots who would still oppose the invader.” The Davis’ were reunited a few days later as the president continued to flee and continue the fight. Two weeks later, Union troops finally captured the Confederate president in northern Georgia. Davis was charged with treason, but never tried. In 1889, he died at age 81;
1900 – The first know occurrence of word “hillbillie” appears in the New York Journal;
1914 – Chicago’s Wrigley Field, then called Weeghman Park, hosted its first major league game as the Chicago Federals defeated the Kansas City Packers 9-1;
1942 – During World War II, in retaliation for the British raid on Lubeck, German bombers strike Exeter and later Bath, Norwick, York, and other “medieval-city centres.” Almost 1,000 English civilians are killed in the bombing attacks nicknamed “Baedeker Raids.” On March 28 of the same year, 234 British bombers struck the German port of Lubeck, an industrial town of only “moderate importance.” The attack was ordered (according to Sir Arthur Harris, head of British Bomber Command) as more of a morale booster for British flyers than anything else, but the destruction wreaked on Lubeck was significant: Two thousand buildings were totaled, 312 German civilians were killed, and 15,000 Germans were left homeless. As an act of reprisal, the Germans attacked cathedral cities of great historical significance. The 15th-century Guildhall, in York, as an example, was destroyed. The Germans called their air attacks “Baedeker Raids,” named for the German publishing company famous for guidebooks popular with tourists. The Luftwaffe vowed to bomb every building in Britain that the Baedeker guide had awarded “three stars”;
1943 – In World War II, United States Navy LTJG and future President of the United States, John F. Kennedy, assumed command of PT-109, a motor torpedo boat, in the Solomon Islands during World War II. On Aug. 2, 1943, PT-109 was rammed and sunk by a Japanese destroyer, killing two crew members; Kennedy and 10 others survived;
1954 – Hank Aaron knocks out the first home run of his Major League Baseball career. Twenty years later, Aaron becomes baseball’s new home run king when he broke Babe Ruth’s long-standing record of 714 career homers. Aaron retired from baseball in 1976 with 755 career home runs, a record that stood until August 7, 2007;
1967 – Soviet cosmonaut Vladimir Komarov is killed when his parachute fails to deploy during his spacecraft’s landing. Komarov was testing the spacecraft Soyuz I in the midst of the space race between the United States and the Soviet Union. Earlier in 1967, the U.S. space program had experienced its own tragedy. Gus Grissom, Edward White and Roger Chafee, NASA astronauts in the Apollo program, were killed in a fire during tests on the ground. Despite the dangers, both the Soviet Union and the U.S. continued their space exploration programs. The U.S. landed men on the moon just two years later;
1968 – The first decimal coins, (5 & 10 pence, replacing the shilling and two-shilling pieces), are issued in Britain;
1975 – At a speech at Tulane University, President Gerald Ford says the Vietnam War is finished as far as America is concerned. “Today, Americans can regain the sense of pride that existed before Vietnam. But it cannot be achieved by re-fighting a war.” This was devastating news to the South Vietnamese, who were desperately pleading for U.S. support as the North Vietnamese surrounded Saigon for the final assault on the capital city. By April 27, the North Vietnamese had completely encircled Saigon and began to maneuver for their final assault. By the morning of April 30, it was all over. When the North Vietnamese tanks crashed through the gates of the Presidential Palace in Saigon, the South Vietnamese surrendered and the Vietnam War was officially over;
1985 – New Coke debuts. To hear some tell it, it was a day that will live in marketing infamy! Taking the biggest risk in consumer goods history announcing that it was changing the formula for the world’s most popular soft drink spawning consumer angst the likes of which no business has ever seen. The resulting firestorm ended with the return of the original formula, now called Coca-Cola classic, a few months later with the return of original formula of Coca-Cola on July 11, 1985;
1992 – McDonald’s opens its first fast-food restaurant in China;
1993 – Labor leader Cesar Chavez died in San Luis, Ariz., at age 66;
2004 – President George W. Bush eased Reagan-era sanctions against Libya in return for Moammar Gadhafi’s giving up weapons of mass destruction;
2007 – Boris Yeltsin, the first freely elected Russian president, died in Moscow at age 76;
2012 – The trial over illegal use of campaign funds by U.S. Presidential candidate John Edwards begins in North Carolina;
2013 – A car bomb exploded outside the French Embassy in Tripoli, Libya, wounding three people and partially setting the building on fire;
2013 – France legalized same-sex marriage after a wrenching national debate that exposed deep conservatism in the nation’s heartland and triggered huge demonstrations;
2013 – The ambassador from the People’s Republic of China is summoned by Japan’s government after a flotilla of Chinese ships sail near the disputed Senkaku Islands;
JUST SAYIN!
If I had my life to live over … I would have gone to bed when I was sick instead of pretending the earth would go into a holding pattern if I weren’t there for the day!
Words with Power
To close as I
A verse:
It is written, “As surely as I live,” says the Lord, “every knee will bow before me; every tongue will confess to God.”
– Romans 14:11
Followed by a prayer:
Dear Father, I thank you for saving me. May my anticipation of the day of Jesus’ victory move me to be your agent of reconciliation so others are ready for that day and will welcome it with joy. Give me eyes to see those who need to come to Jesus today. Through him I pray. Amen
Until the next time – America, Bless GOD!!!
