Good Morning & God Bless To Every One !
Today is May 13, the 133rd day of 2014 and there are 232 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 !!!
I was just wonderin – … – If money is the ‘Root of All Evil’ – … – What is the ‘Root of Money’?
From The Gipper:
“History teaches that wars begin when governments believe the price of aggression is cheap.”
– Ronald Reagan
So, What Happened Today In 1846?
United States President James Polk declares war on Mexico
The U.S. Congress overwhelmingly votes in favor of President James K. Polk’s request to declare war on Mexico in a dispute over Texas.
Under the threat of war, the United States had refrained from annexing Texas after the latter won independence from Mexico in 1836. But in 1844, President John Tyler restarted negotiations with the Republic of Texas, culminating with a Treaty of Annexation.
The treaty was defeated by a wide margin in the Senate because it would upset the slave state/free state balance between North and South and risked war with Mexico, which had broken off relations with the United States. But shortly before leaving office and with the support of President-elect Polk, Tyler managed to get the joint resolution passed on March 1, 1845. Texas was admitted to the union on December 29.
While Mexico didn’t follow through with its threat to declare war, relations between the two nations remained tense over border disputes, and in July 1845, President Polk ordered troops into disputed lands that lay between the Neuces and Rio Grande rivers. In November, Polk sent the diplomat John Slidell to Mexico to seek boundary adjustments in return for the U.S. government’s settlement of the claims of U.S. citizens against Mexico and also to make an offer to purchase California and New Mexico. After the mission failed, the U.S. army under Gen. Zachary Taylor advanced to the mouth of the Rio Grande, the river that the state of Texas claimed as its southern boundary.
Mexico, claiming that the boundary was the Nueces River to the northeast of the Rio Grande, considered the advance of Taylor’s army an act of aggression and in April 1846 sent troops across the Rio Grande. Polk, in turn, declared the Mexican advance to be an invasion of U.S. soil, and on May 11, 1846, asked Congress to declare war on Mexico, which it did two days later.
After nearly two years of fighting, peace was established by the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, signed on February 2, 1848. The Rio Grande was made the southern boundary of Texas, and California and New Mexico were ceded to the United States. In return, the United States paid Mexico the sum of $15 million and agreed to settle all claims of U.S. citizens against Mexico.
Other Memorable Or Interesting Events Occurring On May 13 In History:
1568 – At the Battle of Langside, the forces of Mary Queen of Scots are defeated by a confederacy of Scottish Protestants under James Stewart, the regent of her son, King James VI of Scotland. During the battle, which was fought out in the southern suburbs of Glasgow, a cavalry charge routed Mary’s 6,000 Catholic troops, and they fled the field. Three days later, Mary escaped to Cumberland, England, where she sought protection from Queen Elizabeth I. In 1586, a major Catholic plot to murder Elizabeth was uncovered, and Mary was brought to trial, convicted for complicity, and sentenced to death. On February 8, 1587, Mary Queen of Scots was beheaded for treason at Fotheringhay Castle in England. Her son, King James VI of Scotland, calmly accepted his mother’s execution, and upon Queen Elizabeth’s death in 1603, he became James I, king of England, Scotland, and Ireland;
1607 – Some 100 English colonists arrive along the west bank of the James River in Virginia to found Jamestown, the first permanent English settlement in North America. Dispatched from England by the London Company, the colonists had sailed across the Atlantic aboard the Susan Constant, Godspeed, and Discovery. Upon landing at Jamestown, the first colonial council was held by seven settlers whose names had been chosen and placed in a sealed box by King James I;
1648 – Margaret Jones of Plymouth is found guilty of witchcraft and is sentenced to be hanged;
1861 – During the American Civil War, Britain declares its neutrality in the war;
1863 – During the American Civil War, Union General Ulysses S. Grant advances toward the Mississippi capital of Jackson during his bold and daring drive to take Vicksburg, the last Confederate stronghold on the Mississippi River. In April, Grant had moved his troops down the Mississippi River and around the Vicksburg defenses, landing south of the city before moving east into the interior of Mississippi. He intended to approach Vicksburg from the east to avoid the strong Confederate defenses on the riverfront. On May 12, Grant’s troops encountered a Rebel force at Raymond, Mississippi, which they easily defeated. The following day, he divided his force at Raymond, just 15 miles from Jackson, and sent two corps under William T. Sherman and James McPherson to drive the Confederates under Johnston out of Jackson, which they did by May 14. Grant also sent John McClernand’s corps west to close in on Pemberton in Vicksburg. A few days later, on May 16, Grant defeated Pemberton at Champion’s Hill and drove the Rebels back into Vicksburg. With the threat from the east neutralized, Grant sealed Vicksburg shut and laid siege to the city. Vicksburg surrendered on July 4, and the Confederacy was severed in two;
1888 – Slavery is abolished in Brazil;
1898 – Thomas Edison sues the American Mutoscope Company, claiming that the studio has infringed on his patent for the Kinetograph movie camera. Thomas Edison, born in Ohio in 1847, had already invented the phonograph, the light bulb and other important technologies by 1887, when he moved his Menlo Park, New Jersey laboratory to Orange, New Jersey. In Orange, Edison entrusted his assistant, W.L.K. Dickson, with the development of a new machine that could capture moving images. Dickson designed the Kinetograph, a camera that used celluloid film advanced by a sprocket that fit into square perforations running along the film, as well as the Kinetoscope, which projected moving images in a single-viewer peep-show format. Edison first publicly demonstrated the machine in 1891;
1918 – The first U.S. airmail stamps, featuring a picture of a Curtiss JN-4 biplane, were issued to the public. On a few of the stamps, the biplane was inadvertently printed upside-down, making them collector’s items;
1940 – During World War II, as Winston Churchill takes the helm as Great Britain’s new prime minister, he assures Parliament that his new policy will consist of nothing less than “to wage war, by sea, land and air, with all our might and with all the strength that God can give us; to wage war against a monstrous tyranny, never surpassed in the dark, lamentable catalogue of human crime.” Emphasizing that Britain’s aim was simply “victory, victory at all costs, victory in spite of terror, victory however long and hard the road may be.” That very evening, Churchill was informed that Britain would need 60 fighter squadrons to defend British soil against German attack. It had 39. Within a couple of weeks, the conservative, anti-Socialist Churchill, in an effort to make his rally cry of victory a reality, proceeded to place all “persons, their services, and their property at the disposal of the Crown,” thereby granting the government the most all-encompassing emergency powers in modern British history;
1949 – The first British-produced jet bomber, Canberra, makes its first test flight;
1954 – President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed the St. Lawrence Seaway Development Act;
1958 – During a goodwill trip through Latin America, Vice President Richard Nixon’s car is attacked by an angry crowd and nearly overturned while traveling through Caracas, Venezuela. The incident was the dramatic highlight of trip characterized by Latin American anger over some of America’s Cold War policies. The riot in Caracas served as a wake-up call to U.S. officials in Washington, alerting them to America’s deteriorating relations with Latin America. In the next few months, the United States increased both its military and economic assistance to the region. However, it was not until communist Fidel Castro’s rise to power in Cuba beginning in 1959 that the United States truly realized the extent of discontent and rebelliousness in Latin America;
1971 – During the Vietnam War, still deadlocked, the peace talks in Paris enter their fourth year. The talks had begun with much fanfare in May 1968, but almost immediately were plagued by procedural questions that impeded any meaningful progress. Even the seating arrangement was disputed: South Vietnamese Premier Nguyen Cao Ky refused to consent to any permanent seating plan that would appear to place the National Liberation Front (NLF) on an equal footing with Saigon. Such seemingly insignificant matters became fodder for many arguments between the delegations at the negotiations and nothing meaningful came from this particular round of the ongoing peace negotiations;
1972 – A fire breaks out at the Playtown Cabaret in Osaka, Japan, that kills 118 people. Only 48 people at the trendy nightclub survived the horrific blaze because safety equipment was faulty and safety procedures were not followed;
1972 – In the Vietnam War, seventeen U.S. helicopters land 1,000 South Vietnamese marines and their six U.S. advisors behind North Vietnamese lines southeast of Quang Tri City in the first South Vietnamese counterattack since the beginning of the communist Nguyen Hue Offensive. The marines reportedly killed more than 300 North Vietnamese before returning to South Vietnamese-controlled territory the next day. Farther to the south, North Vietnamese tanks and troops continued their attacks in the Kontum area. On May 1, North Vietnamese troops had captured Quang Tri City, the first provincial capital taken during their ongoing offensive. The situation at Quang Tri would not be rectified until President Nguyen Van Thieu relieved the I Corps commander and replaced him with Maj. Gen. Ngo Quang Truong, whom Gen. Bruce Palmer, Jr., later described as “probably the best field commander in South Vietnam.” Truong effectively stopped the ongoing rout of South Vietnamese forces, established a stubborn defense, and eventually launched a successful counterattack against the North Vietnamese, retaking Quang Tri in September;
1981 – Near the start of his weekly general audience in Rome’s St. Peter’s Square, Pope John Paul II is shot and seriously wounded while passing through the square in an open car. The assailant, 23-year-old escaped Turkish murderer Mehmet Ali Agca, fired four shots, one of which hit the pontiff in the abdomen, narrowly missing vital organs, and another that hit the pope’s left hand. A third bullet struck 60-year-old American Ann Odre in the chest, seriously wounding her, and the fourth hit 21-year-old Jamaican Rose Hill in the arm. Agca’s weapon was knocked out of his hand by bystanders, and he was detained until his arrest by police. The pope was rushed by ambulance to Rome’s Gemelli Hospital, where he underwent more than five hours of surgery and was listed in critical but stable condition. In February 2005, Pope John Paul II was hospitalized with complications from the flu. He died two months later, on April 2, 2005, at his home in the Vatican. Pope John Paul II is remembered for his successful efforts to end communism, as well as for building bridges with peoples of other faiths. He was succeeded by Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, who became Pope Benedict XVI. Benedict XVI began the process to beatify John Paul II in May 2005;
1985 – In Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, police begin evacuating people from their Osage Avenue homes in order to prepare for an operation against MOVE, a radical cult group that had assembled a large arsenal. By the end of the confrontation, 11 people were dead and 61 homes had been burned down. The roots of the 1985 incident date back to 1978 when a confrontation between MOVE and the police left Officer James Ramp dead. Several innocent MOVE members were convicted of murder, enraging other members. Leader John Africa began a counterattack on Christmas Eve, 1983. At the MOVE headquarters at 6221 Osage Avenue, members set up several loudspeakers and began shouting profanities at their neighbors. Even more ominously, MOVE began assembling a cache of weapons and building bunkers in their row house. Much like the Waco, Texas raid of the Branch Davidians eight years later, the government came under heavy criticism for their harsh handling of the confrontation. In 1986, a jury awarded $1.5 million to three survivors of the MOVE raid;
2004 – Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld visited the Abu Ghraib (grayb) prison camp in Iraq, where he insisted the Pentagon did not try to cover up abuses there. During a campaign swing in West Virginia, President George W. Bush said he felt “disgraced” by the images of U.S. soldiers abusing Iraqi prisoners but reminded his listeners that actions of a handful of Americans should not sully the nation’s military;
2009 – Space Shuttle astronauts aboard Atlantis captured the orbiting Hubble Space Telescope for five days of repair work;
2010 – Pope Benedict XVI celebrates open-air Mass at Fatima, Portugal with over 500,000 pilgrims attending from 35 nations including Vietnam, China and India;
2013 – The Associated Press sent a letter of protest to Attorney General Eric Holder after the Justice Department told the news agency it had secretly obtained two months of telephone records of AP reporters and editors;
2013 – In Belize, a construction company excavating for road fill gravel destroys a 2,300 year-old Mayan pyramid;
2013 – Philadelphia abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell was convicted of first-degree murder in the deaths of three babies who were delivered alive and then killed with scissors at his clinic. Gosnell is serving a life sentence;
2013 – President Barack Obama tried to address a pair of brewing controversies, denouncing as “outrageous” the targeting of conservative political groups by the IRS but angrily denying any administration cover-up after the deadly attacks in Benghazi, Libya, in September 2012. (Scandals he was outraged by and had previously promised to get to the bottom of and to bring the perpetrators to justice!);
2013 – It was one year ago TODAY!!!
Number 8 of 50 beautiful pictures from 50 beautiful states
Port Mahon, Delaware
As I
A thought
So many things we honor and exalt in our culture are shallow and temporary. The one thing that lasts in a beautiful woman is not her charm or her beauty, but her godliness. Let’s make sure that our church families and our physical families value godly women and give them the praise they deserve!
Leads to a verse
Charm is deceptive and beauty is fleeting; but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised.
– Proverbs 31:30
That brings a prayer
Holy God, please give us better eyes and more faithful hearts that we may value in all people qualities that reflect your character. Bless us as we raise our children that we may instill in them a sense of proper values as they choose their life partner. And dear God, please help us in our churches to value and praise women for their holy character. In Jesus’ name. Amen
Until the next time – America, Bless GOD!!!
