Good Morning & God Bless To Every One !
Today is May 22, the 142nd day of 2014 and there are 223 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 !!!
Just Wonderin – ?
Have you heard anything in the news lately about ‘Death Panels’?
Have you heard anything in the news lately about the Veterans Hospitals, a government run heath care system?
Have you heard anything in the news lately about our Veterans DYING due to unbelievable delays or complete lack of service?
Now, let me change your thought process – !
Have you heard anything in the news lately about ‘Death Panels’?
Have you heard anything in the news lately about ObamaCare or the Affordable Care Act, which is controlled by the government and seriously has a chance a becoming a single source provider – the government?
Kinda brings us to an alarming conclusion – !!!
Have a Happy Memorial Day Weekend as you ponder the thought that we’ll all be getting the same service and care as our Veterans who placed their lives on the line for our freedom!!! We’re ALL Veterans now!!!
Smart Guy Here –
“The sacred rights of mankind are not to be rummaged for, among old parchments, or musty records. They are written, as with a sun beam, in the whole volume of human nature, by the hand of the divinity itself; and can never be erased or obscured by mortal power.”
– Alexander Hamilton, The Farmer Refuted, 1775
So, What Happened Today In 1802?
The First First Lady, Martha Washington,, dies
President George Washington’s devoted widow and the nation’s first first lady, Martha Dandridge Custis Washington, dies at her Mt. Vernon home on this day in 1802. She was 70 years old.
Like her husband, Martha Washington was born in the American colonies as a British subject (1731). The petite, dark-haired 19-year-old married her first husband, a prosperous 39-year-old Virginia planter named Daniel Parke Custis in 1750. The couple resided in a mansion called the White House and, after Custis died in 1757, Martha ran the plantation, aided by her innate business sense. Two years later, Martha, then 26 and a wealthy and socially prominent widow with two children, met George Washington. At the time, George was a colonel in the British army, a veteran of the French and Indian War and a member of the Virginia House of Burgesses. The two were married in 1759.
George and Martha moved to Mt. Vernon when he inherited the estate in 1761. Although the couple had no children of their own–many scholars suggest Washington may have been sterile–George adopted Martha’s children as his own. Before the American Revolution began in 1776, Martha helped to run two households–Mt. Vernon and the estate she inherited from Custis–with an enormous staff of slaves and servants. During the war, while George led the Continental Army, she frequently followed him to military encampments to take care of him and urge the local women to help feed, clothe and tend to the soldiers.
In 1789, George was elected the first president of the United States and the 57-year-old Martha struggled to fill a role for which she had no model. She shunned the spotlight and resented having her every move being restricted by advisors and documented by the press. Forbidden from dining in private homes with friends, the Washington’s held regular formal dinner parties and receptions at the presidential mansions, first in New York and then in Philadelphia. She disliked both cities and looked forward to returning to Mt. Vernon upon George’s retirement. At that time, the term first lady was not in popular use and Martha was referred to affectionately as Lady Washington.
Friends and acquaintances observed that George and Martha were very close. She considered her primary job to be taking care of her husband. When he had a cancerous growth removed from his tongue in 1789, she personally nursed him back to health and ordered that the streets around their house be cordoned off so that he could convalesce without being disturbed by the sounds of rattling carriages. Despite her doting, Martha may not have been the great passion of George’s life. Before their marriage, George had fallen in love with Sally Fairfax, the wife of an old friend, and some evidence suggest that his feelings for her remained even after his marriage to Martha. It is not known if Martha knew of George’s love for Sally. After he died in 1799, Martha burned all correspondence with her husband, according to his wishes.
Martha graciously gave up a private burial place for her husband and gave John Adams permission to entomb him in Washington at the U.S. Capitol building. He was never interred there, however, and lies buried at his beloved Mt. Vernon. Martha lived the rest of her days at Mt. Vernon and was also buried there in 1802.
Other Memorable Or Interesting Events Occurring On May 22 In History:
334BC – The Macedonian army of Alexander the Great defeats Darius III of Persia in the Battle of the Granicus;
1455 – In the opening battle of England’s War of the Roses, the Yorkists defeat King Henry VI’s Lancastrian forces at St. Albans, 20 miles northwest of London. Many Lancastrian nobles perished, including Edmund Beaufort, the duke of Somerset, and the king was forced to submit to the rule of his cousin, Richard of York. The dynastic struggle between the House of York, whose badge was a white rose, and the House of Lancaster, later associated with a red rose, would stretch on for 30 years. The War of Roses left little mark on the common English people but severely thinned the ranks of the English nobility;
1761 – The first American life insurance policy was issued in Philadelphia to a Rev. Francis Allison, whose premium was six pounds per year
1781 – During the American Civil War, Major General Nathanael Greene and 1,000 Patriots attempt an attack on the critical village of Ninety-Six in the South Carolina backcountry. After failing to seize the fortified settlement, they began a siege of it, which lasted until their retreat on June 18, making it the longest of the War for Independence. Although Greene failed to remove the British from Ninety-Six, he and Brigadier General Francis Marion of the South Carolina militia were remarkably successful at taking back other British outposts, capturing five others before their attempt at Ninety-Six. By the time the time the British left Ninety-Six of their own accord, on July 1, 1781, it was the last Loyalist fort in South Carolina;
1843 – A massive wagon train, made up of 1,000 settlers and 1,000 head of cattle, sets off down the Oregon Trail from Independence, Missouri. Known as the “Great Emigration,” the expedition came two years after the first modest party of settlers made the long, overland journey to Oregon. After leaving Independence, the giant wagon train followed the Sante Fe Trail for some 40 miles and then turned northwest to the Platte River, which it followed along its northern route to Fort Laramie, Wyoming. From there, it traveled on to the Rocky Mountains, which it passed through by way of the broad, level South Pass that led to the basin of the Colorado River. The travelers then went southwest to Fort Bridger, northwest across a divide to Fort Hall on the Snake River, and on to Fort Boise, where they gained supplies for the difficult journey over the Blue Mountains and into Oregon. The Great Emigration finally arrived in October, completing the 2,000-mile journey from Independence in five months. In the next year, four more wagon trains made the journey, and in 1845 the number of emigrants who used the Oregon Trail exceeded 3,000. Travel along the trail gradually declined with the advent of the railroads, and the route was finally abandoned in the 1870s;
1856 – U.S. Congressman Preston Brooks of South Carolina beats Senator Charles Sumner with a cane for Sumner’s earlier condemnation of slavery, which included an insult to Brooks’ cousin, Senator Andrew Butler;
1868 – The “Great Train Robbery” takes place as seven members of the Reno Gang make off with $98,000 in cash from a train’s safe in Indiana;
1872 – The Amnesty Act restores civil rights to Southerners;
1900 – Associated Press, (AP), organizes in NYC as non-profit news cooperative;
1913 – The American Cancer Society was founded in New York under its original name, the American Society for the Control of Cancer;
1939 – During the second World War, Italy and Germany agree to a military and political alliance, giving birth formally to the Axis powers, which will ultimately include Japan. Mussolini coined the nickname “Pact of Steel” (he had also come up with the metaphor of an “axis” binding Rome and Berlin) after reconsidering his first choice, “Pact of Blood,” to describe this historic agreement with Germany. The Duce saw this partnership as not only a defensive alliance, protection from the Western democracies, with whom he anticipated war, but also a source of backing for his Balkan adventures. Both sides were fearful and distrustful of the other, and only sketchily shared their prospective plans. The result was both Italy and Germany, rather than acting in unison, would often “react” to the precipitate military action of the other. In September 1940, the Pact of Steel would become the Tripartite Pact, with Japan making up the third constituent of the triad;
1944 – In World War II, U.S. and British aircraft begin a systematic bombing raid on railroads in Germany and other parts of northern Europe, called Operation Chattanooga Choo-Choo. The operation is a success; Germany is forced to scramble for laborers, including foreign slave laborers, to repair the widespread damage exacted on its railway network;
1964 – In the Vietnam War, in a major speech before the American Law Institute in Washington, D.C., Secretary of State Dean Rusk explicitly accuses North Vietnam of initiating and directing the aggression in South Vietnam. U.S. withdrawal, said Rusk, “would mean not only grievous losses to the free world in Southeast and Southern Asia but a drastic loss of confidence in the will and capacity of the free world.” He concluded: “There is a simple prescription for peace–leave your neighbors alone.” In the fall, there was incontrovertible evidence that North Vietnamese regular troops were moving down the Ho Chi Minh Trail to join the Viet Cong in their war against the Saigon government and its forces. Elsewhere in Southeast Asia, Thailand mobilized its border provinces against incursions by the communist Pathet Lao forces from Laos and agreed to the use of bases by the U.S. Air Force for reconnaissance, search and rescue, and even attacks against the Pathet Lao. By the end of the year, some 75 U.S. aircraft would be based in Thailand to assist in operations against the Pathet Lao. Eventually, Thailand permitted the United States to use its air bases for operations against the Viet Cong and the North Vietnamese in South Vietnam, and ultimately to launch bombing raids against North Vietnam;
1964 – President Lyndon B. Johnson, speaking at the University of Michigan, outlined the goals of his “Great Society,” saying that it “rests on abundance and liberty for all” and “demands an end to poverty and racial injustice”;
1967 – A fire at the L’Innovation department store in Brussels, Belgium, kills 322 people. Poor preparation and safety features were responsible for the high death toll. At L’Innovation, it was the first day of a heavily promoted American fortnight exhibition, a salute to American fashion. There were approximately 2,500 people shopping in the store during their lunch hours when fire broke out in the furniture department on the fourth floor, just after noon. However, virtually no one in the store was aware of the fire because no fire alarm went off, nor were there any sprinklers. Despite speculation that the fire was a deliberate anti-U.S. action, most of the available evidence pointed to an electrical fire;
1969 – The lunar module of Apollo 10, with Thomas P. Stafford and Eugene Cernan aboard, flew to within nine miles of the moon’s surface in a dress rehearsal for the first lunar landing;
1969 – During the Vietnam War, Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge, at the 18th plenary session of the Paris peace talks, says he finds common ground for discussion in the proposals of President Richard Nixon and the National Liberation Front. In reply, Nguyen Thanh Le, spokesman for the North Vietnamese, said the programs were “as different as day and night.” At the 16th plenary session of the Paris talks on May 8, the National Liberation Front had presented a 10-point program for an “overall solution” to the war. This proposal included an unconditional withdrawal of United States and Allied troops from Vietnam; the establishment of a coalition government and the holding of free elections; the demand that the South Vietnamese settle their own affairs “without foreign interference”; and the eventual reunification of North and South Vietnam. In the end, Nguyen Thanh Le’s observation was on target. The communists’ proposal and Nixon’s counteroffer were very different and there was, in fact, almost no common ground. Neither side relented and nothing meaningful came from this diplomatic exchange;
1972 – President Richard Nixon arrives in Moscow for a summit with Soviet leaders. Although it was Nixon’s first visit to the Soviet Union as president, he had visited Moscow once before–as U.S. vice president. As Eisenhower’s vice president, Nixon made frequent official trips abroad, including a 1959 trip to Moscow to tour the Soviet capital and to attend the U.S. Trade and Cultural Fair in Sokolniki Park. During a week of summit meetings with Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev and other Soviet officials, the United States and the USSR reached a number of agreements, including one that laid the groundwork for a joint space flight in 1975. On May 26, Nixon and Brezhnev signed the Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty (SALT), the most significant of the agreements reached during the summit;
1977 – President Jimmy Carter, in a speech delivered at Notre Dame University, reaffirms his commitment to human rights as a cornerstone of U.S. foreign policy and disparages the “inordinate fear of communism which once led us to embrace any dictator who joined us in that fear.” Carter’s speech marked a new direction for U.S. Cold War policy, one that led to both accolades and controversy;
1981 – “Yorkshire Ripper” Peter Sutcliffe was convicted in London of murdering 13 women and was sentenced to life in prison;
1990 – After 150 years apart, Marxist South Yemen and conservative North Yemen are unified as the Republic of Yemen. Ali Abdullah, president of North Yemen, became the new country’s president, and Ali Salem Al-Baidh, leader of the South Yemeni Socialist Party, vice president. The first free elections were held in 1993. The unification of Yemen in 1990 did not go as smoothly as hoped; economic troubles in 1991 brought Yemen to the brink of collapse, and a civil war in 1994 between southern secessionists and Yemen’s northern-based government temporarily dissolved the Yemeni union. Free elections resumed in 1997;
1992 – After a reign lasting nearly 30 years, Johnny Carson hosted NBC’s “Tonight Show” for the last time;
2002 – In the American civil rights movement: a jury in Birmingham, Alabama, convicts former Ku Klux Klan member Bobby Frank Cherry of the 1963 murders of four girls in the bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church;
2002 – The remains of former Federal Bureau of Prisons intern Chandra Levy are found over a year after the 24-year-old was last seen at a health club. The bone remains, discovered by a man walking through Washington D.C.’s Rock Creek Park, were identified through dental records. What might have been a routine missing-persons investigation became the subject of intense national media coverage when it was discovered that Levy had had an affair with then-U.S. Representative Gary Condit (D-CA), a married 53-year-old grandfather whose congressional district included Levy’s hometown of Modesto. Although police did not name Condit as a suspect, suspicion was rampant, among the Levy family and the popular media, that Condit was withholding information from investigators. An autopsy was performed on Levy’s remains and police pronounced her death a homicide on May 29, 2002. In subsequent weeks, police questioned Ingmar Guandique, who was then serving prison time for assaults on two women in Rock Creek Park, but did not press charges against him. The investigation was reopened in 2006, and in November 2010 Guandique was convicted of murdering Levy and sentenced to 60 years in prison. Gary Condit lost his Congressional re-election bid, failing to win the primary election in March 2002, a defeat widely attributed to his association with the disappearance of Chandra Levy;
2004 – In Tunisia, Arab leaders convened their annual summit, but the opening session was overshadowed by the walkout of Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi, who criticized peace efforts;
2009 – President Barack Obama promised graduating midshipmen at the U.S. Naval Academy that, as their commander-in-chief, he would only send them “into harm’s way when it is absolutely necessary” – (maybe like Benghazi, Libya Mr. prez commander-in-chief type guy?);
2013 – Ibragim Todashev, a suspect under FBI questioning in Orlando, Florida, concerning his connections to the April 2013 Boston Marathon bombing, is shot dead after attacking an agent during the course of questioning;
2013 – In a brutal daylight attack in London, two men with butcher knives hacked to death an off-duty British soldier, Lee Rigby, before police wounded them in a shootout. The attackers were later sentenced to life in prison;
2013 – Lois Lerner, an Internal Revenue Service supervisor whose agents had targeted conservative groups, swore to a House committee she did nothing wrong, then refused to answer further questions, citing her Fifth Amendment right not to incriminate herself. (Guess my question is – if you swear you did nothing wrong – how could you possibly incriminate yourself?!?);
2013 – It was one year ago TODAY!!!
Number 17 of 50 beautiful pictures from 50 beautiful states:
Indian Fort Mountain, Berea, Kentucky
Just Thinkin –
“It is the people who can do nothing who find nothing to do, and the secret to happiness in this world is not only to be useful, but to be forever elevating one’s uses.”
– Sarah Orne Jewett, American author (1849-1909)
As I
A thought
Freedom is a wonderful gift when it is handled with responsibility. Not being under law is such a sweet grace, but we want to pass that sweetness on to each other through service, kindness, and care.
Leads to a verse
For you have been called to live in freedom, my brothers and sisters. But don’t use your freedom to satisfy your sinful nature. Instead, use your freedom to serve one another in love. For the whole law can be summed up in this one command: “Love your neighbor as yourself”
– Galatians 5:13-14
That brings a prayer
My Great God of Deliverance, thank you for rescuing Israel from Pharaoh’s grasp, David from the sword of Goliath, and Daniel from the lion’s den. But my dear God, thank you most of all for the triumph of Jesus over sin at Calvary and his victory over death at the empty tomb. I long to see you face to face and thank you for my freedom. Until that day, guide me as I use this gift of liberation to serve your children and live for you. In Jesus’ name I pray. Amen
Until the next time – America, Bless GOD!!!