Good Morning & God Bless To Every One !
Today is May 17, the 137th day of 2014 and there are 228 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 !!!
(First, let me apologize for ‘Today In History’ being a little late today. We had a little back procedure this past Thursday and there has been a little complication causing me to run a little slower for a couple days. Promise to try to do a little better after today!)
HAPPY ARMED FORCES DAY!!! – We here at FGGAM Salute all our past, present and future servicemen and women of the greatest Armed Forces ever know to mankind, The United States Army, Air Force, Navy, Marines & Coast Guard! And a special Thank You to all the wonderful military families who support them!
THANK YOU FOR YOUR SERVICE!!!
So, What Happened Today In 1885?
Geronimo flees Arizona reservation, again
For the second time in two years, the Apache chief Geronimo breaks out of an Arizona reservation, sparking panic among Arizona settlers.
A famous medicine man and the leader of the Chiricahua Apache, Geronimo achieved national fame by being the last American Indian to surrender formally to the United States. For nearly 30 years, Geronimo and his followers resisted the attempts of Americans to take away their southwestern homeland and confine them to a reservation. He was a fearless warrior and a master of desert survival. The best officers of the U.S. Army found it nearly impossible to find Geronimo, much less decisively defeat him.
In 1877, Geronimo was forced to move to the San Carlos, Arizona, reservation for the first time, but he was scarcely beaten. Instead, Geronimo treated the reservation as just one small part of the vast territory he still considered to belong to the Apache. Fed up with the strictures and corruption of the reservation, he and many other Apache broke out for the first time in 1881. For nearly two years, the Apache band raided the southwestern countryside despite the best efforts of the army to stop them. Finally, Geronimo wearied of the continual harassment of the U.S. Army and agreed to return to the reservation in 1884, much on his own terms.
He did not stay long. Among the many rules imposed upon the Apache on the reservation was the prohibition of any liquor, including a weak beer they had traditionally brewed from corn. In early May 1885, Geronimo and a dozen other leaders deliberately staged a corn beer festival. Reasoning that the authorities would be unlikely to try to punish such a large group, they openly admitted the deed, expecting that it would lead to negotiations. Because of a communication mix-up, however, the army failed to respond. Geronimo and the others assumed the delay indicated the army was preparing some drastic punishment for their crime. Rather than remain exposed and vulnerable on the reservation, Geronimo fled with 42 men and 92 women and children.
Quickly moving south, Geronimo raided settlements along the way for supplies. In one instance, he attacked a ranch owned by a man named Phillips, killing him, his wife, and his two children. Frightened settlers demanded swift military action, and General George Crook coordinated a combined Mexican and American manhunt for the Apache. Thousands of soldiers tracked the fugitives but Geronimo and his band split into small groups and remained elusive.
Crook’s failure to apprehend the Indians led to his eventual resignation. General Nelson Miles replaced him. Miles committed 5,000 troops to the campaign and even established 30 heliograph stations to improve communications. Still, Miles was also unable to find the elusive warrior. Informed that many of the reservation Apache, including his own family, had been taken to Florida, Geronimo apparently lost the will to fight. After a year and a half of running, Geronimo and his 38 remaining followers surrendered unconditionally to Miles on September 3, 1886.
Relocated to Florida, Geronimo was imprisoned and kept from his family for two years. Finally, he was freed and moved with this family to Indian Territory in Oklahoma. He died of pneumonia at Fort Sill, Oklahoma, in 1909.
Other Memorable Or Interesting Events Occurring On May 17 In History:
1630 – Italian Jesuit Niccolo Zucchi sees the belts on Jupiter’s surface;
1681 – Louis XIV of France sends and expedition to aid James II in Ireland. As a result, England declares war on France;
1769 – In the American Revolution, George Washington launches a legislative salvo at Great Britain’s fiscal and judicial attempts to maintain its control over the American colonies. With his sights set on protesting the British policy of “taxation without representation,” Washington brought a package of non-importation resolutions before the Virginia House of Burgesses. The resolutions, drafted by George Mason largely in response to England’s passage of the Townshend Acts of 1767, decried Parliament’s plan to send colonial political protestors to England for trial. Though Virginia’s royal governor promptly fired back by disbanding the House of Burgesses, the dissenting legislators were undeterred. During a makeshift meeting held at the Raleigh Tavern in Williamsburg, Virginia’s delegates gave their support to the non-importation resolutions. Maryland and South Carolina soon followed suit with the passing of their own non-importation measures. When Britain’s House of Lords learned that the Sons of Liberty, a revolutionary group in Boston, had assembled an extra-legal Massachusetts convention of towns as the British fleet approached in 1768, they demanded the right to try such men in England. This step failed to frighten New Englanders into silence, but succeeded in rallying Southerners to their cause. By impugning colonial courts and curtailing colonial rights, this British action backfired: it created an American identity where before there had been none;
1792 – The New York Stock Exchange had its origins as a group of brokers met under a tree on Wall Street;
1827 – Future President Andrew Johnson marries a shy, quiet, 16-year-old daughter of a shoemaker named Eliza McCardle. He was 18 years old. Johnson met Eliza while looking for a job as a tailor in Greeneville, Tennessee. The couple married in Warrenton, Tennessee, and settled down to raise a family in Greeneville. Her emotional stability balanced Johnson’s quick temper. While Eliza had been educated, her husband came from a poor family and never went to school. Eliza helped Johnson develop his woeful reading and writing skills and encouraged him to enter politics, even though she had no interest in the subject herself;
1863 – During the American Civil War, the Union army led by General Ulysses S. Grant defeats the Confederates on the Big Black River in Mississippi and drives them into Vicksburg. The Union leader had swung his army down the Mississippi River past the strong riverfront defenses, and landed in Mississippi south of Vicksburg. He then moved northeast toward Jackson and split his force to defeat Joseph Johnston’s troops in that city and John C. Pemberton’s at Champion Hill. During the engagement at Champion Hill, a Confederate division under William Loring split from Pemberton’s main force and drifted south of the battlefield. Pemberton was forced to retreat to the Big Black River where he waited for Loring’s troops. Loring, however, was heading east to join Johnston’s army because he believed he could not reach Pemberton. While Pemberton waited for Loring on a bridge over the Big Black River, Grant attacked. The battle began at dawn, and by 10 a.m. the Confederate position appeared hopeless. The Confederates suffered 1,752 troops killed, wounded or captured, while the Yankees had 279 casualties. Pemberton withdrew across the bridge and then burned it down. With the bridge out, Grant could no longer advance. But he now had Pemberton backed up into Vicksburg. He soon closed the ring and laid siege to the town, which surrendered on July 4, 1863;
1875 – The first ever Kentucky Derby is held in Louisville, Kentucky where the horse Aristides and his rider Oliver Lewis crossed the finish line ahead of the rest of the field. The horse’s owner, H.P McGrath and a roaring crown in the stands looked on. Aristides, a Thoroughbred named after an ancient Greek general, earned extra alfalfa that day;
1933 – U.S. News & World Report had its beginnings as David Lawrence began publishing a weekly newspaper called United States News;
1939 – Britain’s King George VI and his wife, Queen Elizabeth, arrived in Quebec on the first visit to Canada by a reigning British monarch;
1943 – During World War II, the crew of the Memphis Belle, one of a group of American bombers based in Britain, becomes the first B-17 crew to complete 25 missions over Europe. The Memphis Belle performed its 25th and last mission, in a bombing raid against Lorient, a German submarine base. But before returning back home to the United States, film footage was shot of Belle‘s crew receiving combat medals. This was but one part of a longer documentary on a day in the life of an American bomber, which included dramatic footage of a bomber being shot out of the sky, with most of its crew parachuting out, one by one. Another film sequence showed a bomber returning to base with its tail fin missing. What looked like damage inflicted by the enemy was, in fact, the result of a collision with another American bomber. The Memphis Belle documentary would not be released for another 11 months, as more footage was compiled to demonstrate the risks these pilots ran as they bombed “the enemy again and again and again—until he has had enough.” The film’s producer, Lieutenant Colonel William Wyler, was known for such non-military fare as The Letter, Wuthering Heights, and Jezebel. A fictional film about the B-17, called Memphis Belle, was released in 1990, starring John Lithgow, Matthew Modine, and Eric Stoltz;
1946 – President Harry S. Truman seized control of the nation’s railroads, delaying — but not preventing — a threatened strike by engineers and trainmen;
1954 – In a major civil rights victory, the U.S. Supreme Court hands down an unanimous decision in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, ruling that racial segregation in public educational facilities is unconstitutional. The historic decision, which brought an end to federal tolerance of racial segregation, specifically dealt with Linda Brown, a young African American girl who had been denied admission to her local elementary school in Topeka, Kansas, because of the color of her skin. The Brown v. Board of Education decision served to greatly motivate the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s and ultimately led to the abolishment of racial segregation in all public facilities and accommodations;
1961 – Cuban leader Fidel Castro offered to release prisoners captured in the Bay of Pigs invasion in exchange for 500 bulldozers. The prisoners were eventually freed in exchange for medical supplies;
1970 – During the Vietnam War, a force of 10,000 South Vietnamese troops, supported by 200 U.S. advisers, aircraft and logistical elements, attack into what was known as the “Parrot’s Beak,” the area of Cambodia that projects into South Vietnam above the Mekong Delta. The South Vietnamese reached the town of Takeo in a 20-mile thrust. This action was part of the ongoing operation ordered by President Richard Nixon in April. U.S. and South Vietnamese forces launched a limited “incursion” into Cambodia that included 13 major ground operations to clear North Vietnamese sanctuaries 20 miles inside the Cambodian border in both the “Parrot’s Beak” and the densely vegetated “Fishhook” area (across the border from South Vietnam, 70 miles from Saigon). Some 50,000 South Vietnamese soldiers and 30,000 U.S. troops were involved, making it the largest operation of the war since Operation Junction City in 1967;
1970 – Norwegian ethnologist Thor Heyerdahl and a multinational crew set out from Morocco across the Atlantic Ocean in Ra II, a papyrus sailing craft modeled after ancient Egyptian sailing vessels. Heyerdahl was attempting to prove his theory that Mediterranean civilizations sailed to America in ancient times and exchanged cultures with the people of Central and South America. The Ra II crossed the 4,000 miles of ocean to Barbados in 57 days;
1972 – In the Vietnam War, preceded by five B-52 strikes, which reportedly killed 300 North Vietnamese to the south, South Vietnamese forces arrive by helicopter to within two miles of An Loc in continuing efforts to relieve this besieged city. It had been surrounded by three North Vietnamese divisions since early April. The North Vietnamese had been holding An Loc under siege for almost three months while they made repeated attempts to take the city. The defenders suffered heavy casualties, including 2,300 dead or missing, but with the aid of U.S. advisors and American airpower, they managed to hold An Loc against vastly superior odds until the siege was finally lifted on June 18;
1973 – In Washington, D.C. the Senate Select Committee on Presidential Campaign Activities, headed by Senator Sam Ervin of North Carolina begins televised hearings on the escalating Watergate affair. One week later, Harvard law professor Archibald Cox was sworn in as special Watergate prosecutor. On June 17, 1972, five men were arrested for breaking into and illegally wiretapping the Democratic National Committee headquarters in the Watergate complex in Washington, D.C. One of the suspects, James W. McCord Jr., was revealed to be the salaried security coordinator for President Richard Nixon’s reelection committee. Two other men with White House ties were later implicated in the break-in: E. Howard Hunt, Jr., a former White House aide, and G. Gordon Liddy, finance counsel for the Committee for the Re-election of the President. Journalists and the Select Committee discovered a higher-echelon conspiracy surrounding the incident, and a political scandal of unprecedented magnitude erupted. In May 1973, the special Senate committee began televised proceedings on the Watergate affair. Public confidence in the president rapidly waned, and by the end of July 1974 the House Judiciary Committee had adopted three articles of impeachment against President Nixon: obstruction of justice, abuse of presidential powers, and hindrance of the impeachment process. On July 30, under coercion from the Supreme Court, Nixon finally released the Watergate tapes. On August 5, transcripts of the recordings were released, including a segment in which the president was heard instructing Haldeman to order the FBI to halt the Watergate investigation. Four days later, Nixon became the first president in U.S. history to resign;
1974 – In Los Angeles, California police surround a home in Compton where the leaders of the terrorist group known as the Symbionese Liberation Army (SLA) are hiding out. The SLA had kidnapped Patricia Hearst, of the fabulously wealthy Hearst family publishing empire, months earlier, earning headlines across the country. Police found the house in Compton when a local mother reported that her kids had seen a bunch of people playing with an arsenal of automatic weapons in the living room of the home. The LAPD’s 500-man siege on the Compton home was only the latest event in a short, but exceedingly bizarre, episode. The SLA was a small group of violent radicals who quickly made their way to national prominence, far out of proportion to their actual influence;
1980 – Rioting that claimed 18 lives erupted in Miami’s Liberty City after an all-white jury in Tampa acquitted four former Miami police officers of fatally beating black insurance executive Arthur McDuffie;
1986 – “Chicken Song” by Spitting Image hit #1 on the U.K. pop chart – You can listen to the modern ‘chicken dance’ here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aWjeITmDmmo;
1987 – 37 American sailors were killed when an Iraqi warplane attacked the U.S. Navy frigate USS Stark in the Persian Gulf. Iraq apologized for the attack, calling it a mistake, and paid more than $27 million in compensation;
1990 – Near the end of the (first) Cold War, Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev meets with Lithuanian Prime Minister Kazimiera Prunskiene in an effort to settle differences arising from Lithuania’s recent proclamation of independence from the Soviet Union. For Gorbachev, the meeting was a test of his skill and ability to maintain the crumbling Soviet empire. Gorbachev, however, had no intention of allowing republics to break free from the USSR. Despite optimistic press releases concerning their talks, it quickly became apparent that Lithuania would not back down on its claim to independence. After imposing economic sanctions and threatening military action, the Soviet Union launched a full-scale military assault against Lithuania in January 1991. The Soviet effort was in vain, however. In December 1991, 11 of the 12 Soviet Socialist Republics (including Lithuania) proclaimed their independence and established the Commonwealth of Independent States. A few weeks later, Gorbachev resigned as president and the Soviet Union ceased to exist;
1994 – A fire in an overcrowded Honduras prison kills 103 people on this day in 1994. An overheated refrigerator motor sparked the horrible blaze that raced through the outdated jail. Only a year earlier, a gang fight at the same prison had left nearly 70 people dead. The prison, in San Pedro Sula, 100 miles north of the Honduran capital of Tegucigalpa, was largely devoted to housing gang members arrested in a recent crackdown. This new emphasis on jailing gang members resulted in a prison population of nearly 2,000, although the structure was built to accommodate only 800. As news of the fire became public, relatives of the prisoners began gathering outside the prison. Officials then placed the bodies of the dead in rows on the ground for identification, which was often made through their elaborate gang-related tattoos, before refrigerated trucks transported them to a morgue. The Honduran government continued its anti-gang activity in the wake of the tragedy, but also took steps to prevent prison overcrowding;
2005 – Toyota Motor Company announces its plans to produce a gasoline-electric hybrid version of its bestselling Camry sedan. Built at the company’s Georgetown, Kentucky plant, the Camry became Toyota’s first hybrid model to be manufactured in the United States;
2009 – President Barack Obama strode head-on into the stormy abortion debate, telling graduates at the University of Notre Dame that both sides had to stop demonizing one another – (bet that fixed it and stopped the un-Godly killing of hundreds of thousands of innocent children!!!);
2010 – A volcano in Iceland causes Britain’s two busiest airports to close in addition to Dublin Airport and Amsterdam Airport;
2012 – United States Ambassador to Israel, Daniel B. Shapiro, says America ‘is ready’ to attack Iran to prevent them from developing nuclear weapons – (chew on that statement as you watch the way our president and secretary of state treat, our friend, the State of Israel!!!);
2013 – The ousted head of the Internal Revenue Service, Steven Miller, faced hours of intense grilling before Congress; both defiant and apologetic, Miller acknowledged agency mistakes in targeting tea party groups for special scrutiny when they applied for tax-exempt status, but insisted that agents broke no laws and that there was no effort to cover up their actions – (Oh Yeah, that’s right – NOT A SMIDGEN!!!);
2013 – Jorge Rafael Videla, 87, the former dictator who took power in Argentina in a 1976 coup and led a military junta that killed thousands during a “dirty war” against so-called “subversives,” died in Buenos Aires while serving life in prison for crimes against humanity;
2013 – It was one year ago TODAY!!!
Number 12 of 50 beautiful pictures from 50 beautiful states:
Little Redfish Lake, Sawtooth National Recreation Area, Idaho
As I close today, I
While a thought
God has a plan to save us which is incredible. His blueprints for the creation of our universe are beyond our imagining. He is so rich in wisdom and knowledge. What else can we do but go to him and ask him to open our minds to his work and his will in our lives.
Leads to a verse
Oh, how great are God’s riches and wisdom and knowledge! How impossible it is for us to understand his decisions and his ways! For who could know the Lord’s thoughts? Who knows enough to give him advice?
– Romans 11:33-34
That brings a prayer
Almighty Father God, thank you for reawakening me each spring to the power of your sustaining presence in the world, but even more in my life. Bless me today as I seek to put you first in all I do. In Jesus name I pray. Amen
Until the next time – America, Bless GOD!!!
