Good Morning & God Bless To Every One !
Today is May 7, the 127th day of 2014 and there are 238 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’d like to take this opportunity to give all the fabulous nurses out there today a great big THANK YOU in celebration of ‘International Nurses Week’! During the last few years I’ve seen more than my fair share of these wonderful people in the course of dealing with heart disease, cancer and a number of other issues. I have yet to meet a nurse who hasn’t made it their number one intention to taking care of their patients and provide them the best care they possibly can. They all work under a heavy amount of pressure and they still make us their number one concern and their selfless dedication is endless. Having a good nurse taking care of you is as important, if not more important, than having a good doctor!!!
Our own Pastor Dewey’s precious wife, Sharon Moede, is one of these dedicated nurses herself and I’ve actually been under her care once also!!! (Can you imagine the feeling of calm when you realize that your Pastors wife, a nurse, will be taking care of you!!! WOW!!! Thank You Sharon and I offer my whole-hearted THANKS to ALL the wonderful nurses out there!!!
So, What Happened Today In 1954?
French forces are defeated and fall to Ho Chi Minh’s Viet Minh forces at Dien Bien Phu
In the Vietnam War, in northwest Vietnam, Ho Chi Minh’s Viet Minh forces decisively defeat the French at Dien Bien Phu, a French stronghold besieged by the Vietnamese communists for 57 days. The Viet Minh victory at Dien Bien Phu signaled the end of French colonial influence in Indochina and cleared the way for the division of Vietnam along the 17th parallel at the conference of Geneva.
In March, a force of 40,000 Viet Minh troops with heavy artillery had surrounded 15,000 French soldiers, holding the French position under siege. The Viet Minh guerrillas had been fighting a long and bloody war with French colonial interests for control of Vietnam since 1946. In an attempt to score a decisive victory, French General Henri Navarre had positioned the large French force 200 miles behind enemy lines in a remote area adjacent to the Laotian border. He had planned to draw the communists into a set-piece battle in which he hoped superior French firepower would destroy the enemy, but he vastly underestimated his foe.
Viet Minh General Vo Nguyen Giap entrenched artillery in the surrounding mountains and massed five divisions around the French positions. The battle, which far exceeded the size and scope of anything to date in the war between the French and the Viet Minh, began with a massive Viet Minh artillery barrage and was followed by an infantry assault. The tide of the battle quickly turned against the French.
U.S. Secretary of State John Foster Dulles and other members of the Eisenhower administration were stunned at the turn of events and discussions were held to decide on a course of action. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Arthur Radford proposed the use of nuclear strikes against the Viet Minh. Other options included massive conventional air strikes, paratrooper drops, and the mining of Haiphong Harbor. In the end, President Eisenhower decided that the situation was too far gone and ordered no action to be taken to aid the French.
Fierce fighting continued to rage until this day, when the Viet Minh overran the last French positions. During the siege, 1,600 French troops were killed, 4,800 were wounded, and 1,600 missing. The Viet Minh captured 8,000 French and marched them off on foot on a 500-mile trek to prison camps; fewer than half survived the march. Viet Minh casualties were estimated at approximately 7,900 killed and 15,000 wounded.
The battle of Dien Bien Phu marked the end of the French involvement in Southeast Asia. France had lost more than 35,000 men and 48,000 had been wounded in a war that was considered financially and militarily humiliating. The shock of the defeat at Dien Bien Phu led the French government, already plagued by public opposition to the war, to agree to the independence of Vietnam at the Geneva Conference in 1954.
Although the defeat brought an end to French colonial efforts in Indochina, the United States soon stepped up to fill the vacuum, increasing military aid to South Vietnam and sending the first U.S. military advisers to the country in 1959.
Other Memorable Or Interesting Events Occurring On May 7 In History:
1355 – 1,200 Jews of Toledo Spain killed by Count Henry of Trastamara;
1429 – The English siege of Orleans is broken by Joan of Arc and the French army;
1525 – The German peasants’ revolt is crushed by the ruling class and church;
1700 – William Penn began monthly meetings for Blacks advocating emancipation;
1727 – Jews are expelled from Ukraine by Empress Catherine I of Russia;
1763 – Pontiac, chief of the Ottawa Indians, attempted to lead a sneak attack on British-held Fort Detroit, but was foiled because the British had been tipped off in advance;
1789 – President George Washington attends a ball in his honor. The event provided a model for the first official inaugural ball, held to celebrate James Madison’s ascension to the office ten years later, which then became an annual tradition. The record number of inaugural balls attended in one night by a president is 15, set by President Bill Clinton in 1997. George H.W. Bush ran a close second, making 11 stops in 1989;
1800 – Congress divides the Northwest Territory into two parts. The western part will become the Indiana Territory and the eastern section remains the Northwest Territory;
1824 – Beethoven’s “Ninth Symphony” premiers in Vienna;
1847 – The American Medical Association is formed in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania;
1864 – In the American Civil War, following two days of intense fighting in Virginia’s Wilderness forest, the Army of the Potomac, under the command of Union General Ulysses S. Grant, moves south. Grant’s forces had clashed with Confederate General Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia in a pitched and confused two-day battle in which neither side gained a clear victory. When Lee halted Grant’s advance, Grant proved that he was different than previous commanders of the Army of the Potomac by refusing to fall back. Many of his veteran soldiers expected to retreat back across the Rapidan River, but the order came down through the ranks to move the army south. The blue troops had just suffered terrible losses, and the move south lifted their spirits. “We marched free. The men began to sing,” recalled one Yankee. But the cost was high: Weeks of fighting resulted in staggering casualties before the two armies dug in around Petersburg, Virginia, by the middle of June;
1888 – George Eastman patents the “Kodak Box Camera”;
1889 – The Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore opened its doors;
1902 – Martinique’s Mount Pele begins the deadliest volcanic eruption of the 20th century. The following day, the city of Saint Pierre, which some called the Paris of the Caribbean, was virtually wiped off the map. The city of Saint Pierre was buried within minutes and virtually everyone died instantly. There were only two reported survivors–one was a prisoner held in an underground cell. Legend has it that he went on to be a circus attraction. In addition, 15 ships in the harbor were capsized by the eruption. One ship managed to stay afloat with half the crew surviving, although most suffered serious burns;
1914 – The United States Congress establishes Mother’s Day;
1915 – During World War I, the British ocean liner Lusitania is torpedoed without warning by a German submarine off the south coast of Ireland. Within 20 minutes, the vessel sank into the Celtic Sea. Of 1,959 passengers and crew, 1,198 people were drowned, including 128 Americans. The attack aroused considerable indignation in the United States, but Germany defended the action, noting that it had issued warnings of its intent to attack all ships, neutral or otherwise, that entered the war zone around Britain. President Woodrow Wilson pledged neutrality for the United States, a position that the vast majority of Americans favored. Britain, however, was one of America’s closest trading partners, and tension soon arose between the United States and Germany over the latter’s attempted quarantine of the British isles. On January 31, 1917, Germany, determined to win its war of attrition against the Allies, announced that it would resume unrestricted warfare in war-zone waters. Three days later, the United States broke diplomatic relations with Germany, and just hours after that the American liner Housatonic was sunk by a German U-boat. In late March, Germany sunk four more U.S. merchant ships, and on April 2 President Wilson appeared before Congress and called for a declaration of war against Germany. By April 6, both the Senate and the House voted to declare war against Germany and with that, America entered World War I;
1928 – The minimum voting age for British women was lowered from 30 to 21 — the same age as men;
1941 – Glenn Miller records “Chattanooga Choo Choo” for RCA. You can listen here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FdrYYUuT07Q;
1943 – In World War II, the last major German strongholds in North Africa–Tunis and Bizerte–fall to Allied forces;
1945 – At the end of World War II, the German High Command, in the person of General Alfred Jodl, signs the unconditional surrender of all German forces, East and West, at Reims, in northwestern France. At first, General Jodl hoped to limit the terms of German surrender to only those forces still fighting the Western Allies. But General Dwight Eisenhower demanded complete surrender of all German forces, those fighting in the East as well as in the West. With Russian General Ivan Susloparov and French General Francois Sevez signing as witnesses, and General Walter Bedell Smith, Ike’s chief of staff, signing for the Allied Expeditionary Force, Germany was-at least on paper-defeated and World War II was over. Fighting would still go on in the East for almost another day. But the war in the West was over. Since General Susloparov did not have explicit permission from Soviet Premier Stalin to sign the surrender papers, even as a witness, he was quickly hustled back East-into the hands of the Soviet secret police, never to be heard from again. Alfred Jodl, who was wounded in the assassination attempt on Hitler on July 20, 1944, would be found guilty of war crimes (which included the shooting of hostages) at Nuremberg and hanged on October 16, 1946-then granted a pardon, posthumously, in 1953, after a German appeals court found Jodl not guilty of breaking international law;
1952 – During the Korean War, communist POWs at Koje-do riot against their American captors;
1954 – U.S., Great Britain and France reject Russian membership into the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, (NATO);
1960 – Leonid Brezhnev, one of Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev’s most trusted proteges, is selected as Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet—the Soviet equivalent to the presidency. In 1964, Khrushchev was removed from power and Brezhnev was named new first secretary. Brezhnev held that post for 18 years until his death in 1982. His era was marked by a certain blandness of rule, a much-needed stability in Soviet ruling circles, a sometimes harsh repression of the Soviet people, and a hard-line attitude toward relations with the United States;
1964 – Pacific Air Lines Flight 773, a Fairchild F27, crashed near San Ramon, Calif., after a passenger apparently shot both pilots, then himself, killing all 44 people on board;
1994 – Norway’s most famous painting, “The Scream” by Edvard Munch, was recovered almost three months after it was stolen from a museum in Oslo. The fragile painting was recovered undamaged at a hotel in Asgardstrand, about 40 miles south of Oslo;
1998 – The German automobile company Daimler-Benz–maker of the world-famous luxury car brand Mercedes-Benz–announces a $36 billion merger with the United States based Chrysler Corporation. The purchase of Chrysler, America’s third-largest car company, by the Stuttgart-based Daimler-Benz marked the biggest acquisition by a foreign buyer of any U.S. company in history;
1999 – Pope John Paul II travels to Romania becoming the first pope to visit a predominantly Eastern Orthodox country since the Great Schism in 1054;
2004 – Army Private Lynndie England, is shown in photographs smiling and pointing at naked Iraqi prisoners, was charged by the military with assaulting the detainees and conspiring to mistreat them. England was later convicted of conspiracy, mistreating detainees and committing an indecent act, and sentenced to 36 months. On the same day, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld offered “my deepest apology” to abused Iraqi prisoners and warned that videos and photos yet to come could further inflame worldwide outrage;
2009 – Former Illinois police Sgt. Drew Peterson was indicted for murder in the death of his third wife, Kathleen Savio. (Peterson was convicted of murdering Savio, and was sentenced to 38 years in prison;
2012 – Russia swears in Vladimir Putin for his third, six-year term as President;
2013 – President Barack Obama and South Korea’s new leader, Park Geun-hye, met at the White House, where they projected a united front as they warned North Korea against further nuclear provocations;
2013 – It was one year ago TODAY!!!
Picture #2 of 50 beautiful pictures from 50 states
Mount McKinley, Denali, Alaska
I was Just Wonderin?
Which political party probably has more racists – The one that gets constant scrutiny for racism or the one that somehow avoids any scrutiny?
Today, as I
A Thought
Where does your heart live? That’s what these verses are all about. It’s about where we spend the most time with our hearts. Is there a constant awareness in your life that God is present? Is he the unseen but always present companion in all your ups and downs? Or is God here when it is convenient and gone when things are busy or we feel that everything is going okay? Joy comes from knowing we are never alone. Prayer is the ongoing conversation we have, Spirit to Spirit, child to Abba, human with God. Thanksgiving and joy are the great reminders that we have been blessed no matter what the outward circumstances imply.
Brings A Verse
Be joyful always; pray continually; give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.
– 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18
Which Brings A Prayer
Precious and Righteous Father, thank you for being there, always. Give me a deeper appreciation and a more profound awareness of your presence today. May my life reflect the joy you have given me by saving me by grace. And may my heart always find its home in you. Through the name of Jesus my Savior and friend I pray. Amen
Until the next time – America, Bless GOD!!!
