Good Morning & God Bless To Every One !
Today is April 1, the 91st day of 2014 and there are 274 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 !!!
Given the day it is and since yesterday was theoretically suppose to be the sign up deadline for the affordable care act, or Obamacare, I had to throw this one in today:
So, What Happened Today In 1865?
Confederates suffer defeat at Battle of Five Forks
In the American Civil War, Confederate General Robert E. Lee’s supply line into Petersburg, Virginia, is closed when Union forces under General Ulysses S. Grant collapse the end of Lee’s lines around Petersburg. The Confederates suffer heavy casualties, and the battle triggered Lee’s retreat from Petersburg as the two armies began a race that would end a week later at the Appomattox Court House.
For nearly a year, Grant had laid siege to Lee’s army in an elaborate network of trenches that ran from Petersburg to the Confederate capital at Richmond, 25 miles north. Lee’s hungry army slowly dwindled through the winter of 1864-65 as Grant’s army swelled with well-fed reinforcements. On March 25, Lee attacked part of the Union trenches at Fort Stedman in a desperate attempt to break the siege and split Grant’s force. When that attack failed, Grant began mobilizing his forces along the entire 40-mile front. Southwest of Petersburg, Grant sent General Philip Sheridan against Lee’s right flank.
Sheridan moved forward on March 31, but the tough Confederates halted his advance. Sheridan moved troops to cut the railroad that ran from the southwest into Petersburg, but the focus of the battle became Five Forks, a road intersection that provided the key to Lee’s supply line. Lee instructed his commander there, General George Pickett to “Hold Five Forks at all hazards.” On April 1, Sheridan’s men slammed into Pickett’s troops. Pickett had his force poorly positioned, and he was taking a long lunch with his staff when the attack occurred. General Gouverneur K. Warren’s V Corps supported Sheridan, and the 27,000 Yankee troops soon crushed Pickett’s command of 10,000. The Union suffered 1,000 casualties, but nearly 5,000 of Pickett’s men were killed, wounded, or captured. During the battle, Sheridan, with the approval of Grant, removed Warren from command despite Warren’s effective deployment of his troops. It appears that a long-simmering feud between the two was the cause, but Warren was not officially cleared of any wrongdoing by a court of inquiry until 1882.
The vital intersection was in Union hands, and Lee’s supply line was cut. Grant now attacked all along the Petersburg-Richmond front and Lee evacuated the cities. The two armies began a race west, but Lee could not outrun Grant. The Confederate leader surrendered at Appomattox Court House, Virginia, on April 9.
Other Memorable Or Interesting Events Occurring On April 1 In History:
1621 – At the Plymouth settlement in present-day Massachusetts, the leaders of the Plymouth colonists, acting on behalf of King James I, make a defensive alliance with Massasoit, chief of the Wampanoags. The agreement, in which both parties promised to not “doe hurt” to one another, was the first treaty between a Native American tribe and a group of American colonists. According to the treaty, if a Wampanoag broke the peace, he would be sent to Plymouth for punishment; if a colonist broke the law, he would likewise be sent to the Wampanoags;
1748 – The ruins of Pompeii are found;
1778 – New Orleans businessman Oliver Pollock creates the dollar sign, ‘$’;
1789 – In the American Revolution, the first U.S. House of Representatives, meeting in New York City, reaches quorum and elects Pennsylvania Representative Frederick Augustus Conrad Muhlenberg as its first speaker. Muhlenberg, a Lutheran minister and the former president of the Pennsylvania convention to ratify the U.S. Constitution, was the son of Henry Augustus Muhlenberg and grandson of Johann Conrad Weiser, two of the leading Germans in colonial Pennsylvania. His brother, Major General John Peter Gabriel Muhlenberg, also served in the first House of Representatives;
1863 – The first wartime conscription law in the United States goes into effect;
1877 – In the American ‘Old West’, ignoring the taunts of fellow miners who say he will only find his own tombstone, prospector Edward Schieffelin begins his search for silver in the area of present-day southern Arizona. Later that year, Schieffelin was not only alive and well, but he had found one of the richest silver veins in the West. He named it the Tombstone Lode. Located about 70 miles southeast of Tucson in the San Pedro Valley, the Tombstone Mining District and the town of Tombstone quickly became major economic and social centers of the Southwest;
1918 – The United Kingdom’s Royal Air Force (RAF) is formed with the amalgamation of the Royal Flying Corps (RFC) and the Royal Naval Air Service (RNAS). The RAF took its place beside the British navy and army as a separate military service with its own ministry;
1920 – Germany’s Workers Party changes its name to the Nationalist Socialist German Worker’s Party (Nazis);
1924 – Adolf Hitler is sentenced for his role in the Beer Hall Putsch of November 8, 1923. The attempted coup in Munich by right-wing members of the army and the Nazi Party was foiled by the government, and Hitler was charged with high treason. Despite his conviction, Hitler was out of jail before the end of the year, with his political position stronger than ever. After his conviction, Hitler spent the remainder of the year in prison writing the first volume of Mein Kampf. By the time he was released, he had become more popular than ever, and within eight years he had taken over Germany;
1929 – The yo-yo is introduced in the United States by Louie Marx;
1939 – The United States recognized the government of Gen. Francisco Franco in Spain, the same day Franco went on radio to declare victory in the Spanish Civil War;
1945 – Near the end of World War II in the Pacific, after suffering the loss of 116 planes and damage to three aircraft carriers, 50,000 U.S. combat troops of the 10th Army, under the command of Lieutenant General Simon B. Buckner Jr., land on the southwest coast of the Japanese island of Okinawa, 350 miles south of Kyushu, the southern main island of Japan. Determined to seize Okinawa as a base of operations for the army ground and air forces for a later assault on mainland Japan, more than 1,300 ships converged on the island, finally putting ashore 50,000 combat troops on April 1. The Americans quickly seized two airfields and advanced inland to cut the island’s waist. They battled nearly 120,000 Japanese army, militia, and labor troops under the command of Lieutenant General Mitsuru Ushijima. General Buckner, son of a Civil War general, was among the casualties, killed by enemy artillery fire just three days before the Japanese surrender. Japanese General Ushijima committed ritual suicide upon defeat of his forces;
1946 – An undersea earthquake off the Alaskan coast triggers a massive tsunami that kills 159 people in Hawaii. In the middle of the night, 13,000 feet beneath the ocean surface, a 7.4-magnitude tremor was recorded in the North Pacific. The nearest land was Unimak Island, part of the Aleutian chain. The quake triggered devastating tidal waves throughout the Pacific, particularly in Hawaii. Unimak Island was hit by the tsunami shortly after the quake. An enormous wave estimated at nearly 100 feet high crashed onto the shore. A lighthouse located 30 feet above sea level, where five people lived, was smashed to pieces by the wave; all five were killed instantly. Meanwhile, the wave was heading toward the southern Pacific at 500 miles per hour;
1948 – In the early days of the (first) Cold War, Soviet troops stop U.S. and British military trains traveling through the Russian zone of occupation in Germany and demand that they be allowed to search the trains. British and U.S. officials refused the Soviet demand, and the problems associated with the Soviet, British, and U.S. occupation of Germany grew steadily more serious in the following months and in response, the Berlin Airlift begins, relieving the surrounded city from the Soviet siege;
1954 – The United States Air Force Academy was established by President Dwight D. Eisenhower;
1968 – In the Vietnam War, the U.S. Army launches Operation Pegasus, the reopening of a land route to the besieged Khe Sanh Marine base;
1970 – President Richard Nixon signs legislation officially banning cigarette ads on television and radio. Nixon, who was an avid pipe smoker, indulging in as many as eight bowls a day, supported the legislation at the increasing insistence of public health advocates. Alarming health studies emerged as early as 1939 that linked cigarette smoking to higher incidences of cancer and heart disease and, by the end of the 1950s, all states had laws prohibiting the sale of cigarettes to minors;
1976 – Apple Computer was founded by Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak and Ronald Wayne;
1993 – Race car driver and owner Alan Kulwicki, “The Polish Prince”, who won the 1992 National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing (NASCAR) Winston Cup championship by one of the tightest margins in series history, is killed in a plane crash near Bristol, Tennessee, where he was scheduled to compete in a race the following day. The 38-year-old Kulwicki had been the first owner-driver to collect the championship since Richard Petty did so in 1979, as well as the first NASCAR champ to hold a college degree;
2004 – President George W. Bush signed into law new protections for the unborn that for the first time made it a separate federal crime to harm a fetus during an assault on the mother;
2004 – Google introduces Gmail: the launch is met with scepticism on account of the launch date
2011 – The U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration reports 32,788 traffic deaths; the lowest number of deaths since 1949;
2013 – It was one year ago Today!
To close –
Only fools say in their hearts, “There is no God”
Lord God Almighty, Creator and Sustainer, thank you for not only being there, but being with me today and every day. In Jesus name I pray. Amen
Until Tomorrow, America – Bless GOD!!!
