Good Morning & God Bless To Every One !
Today is Saturday, June 14, the 165th day of 2014 and there are 200 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 !!!
Americans observe Flag Day each year on June 14, the day when the Continental Congress first issued the U.S. Flag in 1777. This year’s Flag Day is extra special because 2014 also the 200th anniversary year of The Star-Spangled Banner, our national anthem written by Francis Scott Key, a Maryland attorney.
We know that on June 14, 1777, the Continental Congress adopted the Stars and Stripes as the official flag for the United States of America.
The Declaration of Independence made this resolution necessary. Previously, each colony had their own flag, which they flew on colonial vessels. England considered these armed vessels pirate ships and hanged their crews when they were captured.
The American flag was designed to represent the new union of the thirteen original states: it would have thirteen stripes, alternate red and white, and thirteen stars, white on a blue field.
One of the first flags had the stars arranged in a circle, based on the idea that all colonies were equal. The thirteen stripes, resting side by side, represented the struggle for independence; red stood for valor, white signified purity and blue represented loyalty.
In 1818, after a few design changes, the United States Congress decided to retain the flag’s original thirteen stripes and add new stars to reflect each new state that entered the union.
Since then, Americans have fought for and died to preserve the ideals of democracy represented by the flag.
Today we also say Happy Birthday as we celebrate the 239th birthday of the United States Army!!!
So, What Happened Today In 1789?
The ‘Bounty’ mutiny survivors reach Timor
English Captain William Bligh and 18 others, cast adrift from the HMS Bounty seven weeks before, reach Timor in the East Indies after traveling nearly 4,000 miles in a small, open boat.
On April 28, Fletcher Christian, the master’s mate on the Bounty, led a successful mutiny against Captain Bligh and his supporters. The British naval vessel had been transporting breadfruit saplings from Tahiti for planting on British colonies in the Caribbean. The voyage was difficult, and ill feelings were rampant between the captain, officers, and crew. Bligh, who eventually would fall prey to a total of three mutinies in his career, was an oppressive commander and insulted those under him. On April 28, near the island of Tonga, Christian and 25 petty officers and seamen seized the ship. The captain and 18 of his crew were set adrift in a small boat with 25 gallons of water, 150 pounds of bread, 30 pounds of pork, six quarts of rum, and six bottles of wine.
By setting the captain and his officers adrift in an overcrowded 23-foot-long boat in the middle of the Pacific, Christian and his conspirators had apparently handed them a death sentence. By remarkable seamanship, however, Bligh and his men reached Timor in the East Indies on June 14, 1789, after a voyage of about 3,600 miles. Bligh returned to England and soon sailed again to Tahiti, from where he successfully transported breadfruit trees to the West Indies.
Meanwhile, Christian and his men attempted to establish themselves on the island of Tubuai. Unsuccessful in their colonizing effort, the Bounty sailed north to Tahiti, and 16 crewmen decided to stay there, despite the risk of capture by British authorities. Christian and eight others, together with six Tahitian men, a dozen Tahitian women, and a child, decided to search the South Pacific for a safe haven. In January 1790, the Bounty settled on Pitcairn Island, an isolated and uninhabited volcanic island more than 1,000 miles east of Tahiti. The mutineers who remained on Tahiti were captured and taken back to England, where three were hanged. A British ship searched for Christian and the others but did not find them.
In 1808, an American whaling vessel was drawn to Pitcairn by smoke from a cooking fire. The Americans discovered a community of children and women led by John Adams, the sole survivor of the original nine mutineers. According to Adams, after settling on Pitcairn the colonists had stripped and burned the Bounty, and internal strife and sickness had led to the death of Fletcher and all the men but Adams. In 1825, a British ship arrived and formally granted Adams amnesty, and he served as patriarch of the Pitcairn community until his death in 1829.
In 1831, the Pitcairn islanders were resettled on Tahiti, but unsatisfied with life there they soon returned to their native island. In 1838, the Pitcairn Islands, which includes three nearby uninhabited islands, were incorporated into the British Empire. By 1855, Pitcairn’s population had grown to nearly 200, and the two-square-mile island could not sustain its residents. In 1856, the islanders were removed to Norfolk Island, a formal penal colony nearly 4,000 miles to the west. However, less than two years later, 17 of the islanders returned to Pitcairn, followed by more families in 1864. Today, around 40 people live on Pitcairn Island, and all but a handful are descendants of the Bounty mutineers. About a thousand residents of Norfolk Island (half its population) trace their lineage from Fletcher Christian and the eight other Englishmen.
Other Memorable Or Interesting Events Occurring On June 14 In History:
1642 – Massachusetts passes the first compulsory education law in the colonies;
1775 – Two Hundred and Thirty Nine years ago, during the American Revolution, the Continental Army, forerunner of the United States Army, was officially created;
1777 – During the American Revolution, the Continental Congress adopts a resolution stating that “the flag of the United States be thirteen alternate stripes red and white” and that “the Union be thirteen stars, white in a blue field, representing a new Constellation.” The national flag, which became known as the “Stars and Stripes,” was based on the “Grand Union” flag, a banner carried by the Continental Army in 1776 that also consisted of 13 red and white stripes. According to legend, Philadelphia seamstress Betsy Ross designed the new canton for the Stars and Stripes, which consisted of a circle of 13 stars and a blue background, at the request of General George Washington. Historians have been unable to conclusively prove or disprove this legend. With the entrance of new states into the United States after independence, new stripes and stars were added to represent new additions to the Union. In 1818, however, Congress enacted a law stipulating that the 13 original stripes be restored and that only stars be added to represent new states. On June 14, 1877, the first Flag Day observance was held on the 100th anniversary of the adoption of the Stars and Stripes. As instructed by Congress, the U.S. flag was flown from all public buildings across the country. In the years after the first Flag Day, several states continued to observe the anniversary, and in 1949 Congress officially designated June 14 as Flag Day, a national day of observance;
1801 – Former American Revolutionary War general and notorious turncoat Benedict Arnold died in London;
1811 – Harriet Beecher Stowe, author of Uncle Tom’s Cabin, is born on this day in Litchfield, Connecticut, the seventh child of Congregationalist minister Lyman Beecher. While living in Cincinnati, Stowe encountered fugitive slaves and the Underground Railroad. Later, she wrote Uncle Tom’s Cabin in reaction to recently tightened fugitive laws. The book sold some 300,000 copies and did much to galvanize public opinion in the North against slavery. In 1863, when Lincoln announced the end of slavery, she danced in the streets. Stowe continued to write throughout her life and died in 1896;
1846 – Anticipating the outbreak of war with Mexico, American settlers in California rebel against the Mexican government and proclaim the short-lived California Republic. In the spring of 1846, the American army officer and explorer John C. Fremont arrived at Sutter’s Fort (near modern-day Sacramento) with a small corps of soldiers. Whether or not Fremont had been specifically ordered to encourage an American rebellion is unclear. Ostensibly, Fremont and his men were in the area strictly for the purposes of making a scientific survey. The brash young officer, however, began to persuade a motley mix of American settlers and adventurers to form militias and prepare for a rebellion against Mexico. Emboldened by Fremont’s encouragement, on this day in 1846 a party of 33 Americans under the leadership of Ezekiel Merritt and William Ide invaded the largely defenseless Mexican outpost of Sonoma just north of San Francisco. Fremont and his soldiers did not participate, though he had given his tacit approval of the attack. Having won a bloodless victory at Sonoma, Merritt and Ide then proceeded to declare California an independent republic. With a cotton sheet and some red paint, they constructed a makeshift flag with a crude drawing of a grizzly bear, a lone red star (a reference to the earlier Lone Star Republic of Texas), and the words “California Republic” at the bottom. From then on, the independence movement was known as the Bear Flag Revolt. After the rebels won a few minor skirmishes with Mexican forces, Fremont officially took command of the “Bear Flaggers” and occupied the unguarded presidio of San Francisco on July 1. Six days later, Fremont learned that American forces under Commodore John D. Sloat had taken Monterey without a fight and officially raised the American flag over California. Since the ultimate goal of the Bear Flaggers was to make California part of the U.S., they now saw little reason to preserve their “government.” Three weeks after it had been proclaimed, the California Republic quietly faded away. Ironically, the Bear Flag itself proved far more enduring than the republic it represented: it became the official state flag when California joined the union in 1850;
1863 – During the American Civil War, a small Union garrison in the Shenandoah Valley town of Winchester, Virginia is easily defeated by the Army of Northern Virginia on the path of the Confederate invasion of Pennsylvania. In early June, General Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia began an invasion of the North. Lee’s men pulled out of defenses along the Rappahannock River and swung north and west into the Shenandoah Valley. Using the Blue Ridge Mountains as a screen, the Confederates worked their way northward with little opposition. General Joseph Hooker, commander of the Army of the Potomac, was unsure of the Confederates’ intentions. He tracked Lee’s army from a distance, staying safely away to protect Washington, D.C. Robert Milroy, the commander of the Yankees in Winchester, was unaware that the vanguard of Lee’s army was heading his way. He had received some warnings from Washington, but an order to evacuate Winchester did not reach him because the Confederates had cut the telegraph lines. As late as June 11, Milroy bragged that he could hold the town against any Confederate force. His assertion was rendered ridiculous when Richard Ewell’s Rebel corps crashed down on his tiny garrison. Ewell’s force quickly surrounded the Yankees. After a sharp battle, Ewell captured about 4,000 Federals, while Milroy and 2,700 soldiers escaped to safety. Ewell lost just 270 men but captured 300 wagons, hundreds of horses, and 23 artillery pieces. Milroy was relieved of his command and later arrested, although a court of inquiry found that he was not culpable in the disaster;
1864 – In the American Civil War, at the Battle of Pine Mountain, Georgia, Confederate General Leonidas Polk is killed by a Union shell;
1903 – A flash flood in Oregon kills 324 people on this day in 1903. The sudden onslaught of water caused millions of dollars in damages to the central Oregon town of Heppner. Damaging and deadly, a flash flood is more limited in scope than a regular flood, arising very quickly when torrential rains hit small streams or rivers with limited carrying capacity. The Heppner flood was an extreme example of a flash flood. Before the flood, extremely hard rain and hail came down in the Blue Mountains, which rise above Heppner. Reports say that the storm may have lasted only an hour, but it overwhelmed the small streams of the area and caused a 20-foot wave of water to thunder through the town with little warning. About 200 people were simply swept away from the community. A third of the town was absolutely destroyed. The flood also wreaked havoc on surrounding farms, killing another 125 people;
1907 – Women in Norway win the right to vote;
1909 – Burl Icle Ivanhoe Ives, a prominent folk singer and Academy Award-winning actor, is born on this day in 1909 near Hunt City, Illinois. To almost anyone born in the 1950s or later, the singer Burl Ives is best known for his voiceover work as the jovial Sam the Snowman in the Rankin-Bass animated Christmas special Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. But Ives’s “Holly Jolly Christmas” phase came relatively late in a very long and interesting career during which he helped to both usher in the folk-music revival of the 1940s and 50s;
1917 – During World War I, as the soldiers of the American Expeditionary Force (AEF) travel to join the Allies on the battlefields of the war in France, United States President Woodrow Wilson addresses the nation’s public on the annual celebration of Flag Day. Just the year before, on May 30, 1916, Wilson had officially proclaimed June 14 “Flag Day” as a commemoration of the “Stars and Stripes,” adopted as the national flag on June 14, 1777, when the design featured just 13 stars representing the original 13 states. In his Flag Day address on June 14, 1917, barely two months after the American entry into World War I, Wilson spoke strongly of the need to confront an enemy–Germany–that had, as he had said in his April 2 war message to Congress, violated the principles of international democracy and led the world into “the most terrible and disastrous of all wars, civilization itself seeming to be in the balance”;
1922 – President Warren G. Harding, while addressing a crowd at the dedication of a memorial site for the composer of the “Star Spangled Banner,” Francis Scott Key, becomes the first president to have his voice transmitted by radio. The broadcast heralded a revolutionary shift in how presidents addressed the American public. It was not until three years later, however, that a president would deliver a radio-specific address. That honor went to President Calvin Coolidge;
1940 – In World War II, Parisians awaken to the sound of a German-accented voice announcing via loudspeakers that a curfew was being imposed for 8 p.m. that evening-as German troops enter and occupy Paris. British Prime Minister Winston Churchill had tried for days to convince the French government to hang on, not to sue for peace, that America would enter the war and come to its aid. French premier Paul Reynaud telegrammed President Franklin Roosevelt, asking for just such aid-a declaration of war, and if not that, any and all help possible. Roosevelt replied that the United States was prepared to send material aid—and was willing to have that promise published—but Secretary of State Cordell Hull opposed such a publication, knowing that Hitler, as well as the Allies, would take such a public declaration of help as but a prelude to a formal declaration of war. By the time German tanks rolled into Paris, 2 million Parisians had already fled, with good reason. In short order, the German Gestapo went to work: arrests, interrogations, and spying were the order of the day, as a gigantic swastika flew beneath the Arc de Triomphe. While Parisians who remained trapped in their capital despaired, French men and women in the west cheered-as Canadian troops rolled through their region, offering hope for a free France;
1943 – Surprisingly, on ‘Flag Day’ and during World War II, the United States Supreme Court, in West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette, ruled 6-3 that children in public schools could not be forced to salute the flag of the United States;
1944 – In the second World War, United States Boeing B-29 bombers conduct their first raid against mainland Japan;
1951 – On June 14, 1951, the U.S. Census Bureau dedicates UNIVAC, the world’s first commercially produced electronic digital computer. UNIVAC, which stood for Universal Automatic Computer, was developed by J. Presper Eckert and John Mauchly, makers of ENIAC, the first general-purpose electronic digital computer. These giant computers, which used thousands of vacuum tubes for computation, were the forerunners of today’s digital computers. ENIAC, which stood for Electronic Numerical Integrator and Calculator, was completed in 1946 at a cost of nearly $500,000. It took up 15,000 feet, employed 17,000 vacuum tubes, and was programmed by plugging and replugging some 6,000 switches. It was first used in a calculation for Los Alamos Laboratories in December 1945, and in February 1946 it was formally dedicated. In 1950 their struggling company was acquired by Remington Rand, an office equipment company. On June 14, 1951, Remington Rand delivered its first computer, UNIVAC I, to the U.S. Census Bureau. It weighed 16,000 pounds, used 5,000 vacuum tubes, and could perform about 1,000 calculations per second. UNIVAC and other first-generation computers were replaced by transistor computers of the late 1950s which were smaller, used less power, and could perform nearly a thousand times more operations per second. These were, in turn, supplanted by the integrated-circuit machines of the mid-1960s and 1970s. In the 1980s the development of the microprocessor made possible small, powerful computers such as the personal computer, and more recently the laptop and hand-held computers;
1954 – During the (first) Cold War, over 12 million Americans “die” in a mock nuclear attack, as the United States goes through its first nationwide civil defense drill. Though American officials were satisfied with the results of the drill, the event stood as a stark reminder that the United States—and the world—was now living under a nuclear shadow. The June 1954 civil defense drill was organized and evaluated by the Civil Defense Administration, and included operations in 54 cities in the United States, Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, Alaska and Hawaii. Canada also participated in the exercise. The entire drill lasted only about 10 minutes, at which time an all-clear signal was broadcast and life returned to normal. Civil Defense Administration officials estimated that New York City would suffer the most in such an attack, losing over 2 million people. Other cities, including Washington, D.C., would also endure massive loss of life. In all, it was estimated that over 12 million Americans would die in an attack. Despite those rather mind-numbing figures, government officials pronounced themselves very pleased with the drill. In most cities the streets were deserted just moments after the alarms sounded and there were no signs of panic or criminal behavior. A more cautious assessment came from a retired military officer, who observed that the recent development of the hydrogen bomb by the Soviet Union had “outstripped the progress made in our civil defense strides to defend against it”;
1954 – United States President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed a measure adding the phrase “under God” to the Pledge of Allegiance;
1969 – During the Vietnam War, the U.S. command announces that three combat units will be withdrawn from Vietnam. They were the 1st and 2nd Brigades of the U.S. Army 9th Infantry Division and Regimental Landing Team 9 of the 3rd Marine Division–a total of about 13,000 to 14,000 men. These troops were part of the first U.S. troop withdrawal, which had been announced on June 8 by President Richard Nixon at the Midway conference with South Vietnamese President Nguyen Van Thieu. Nixon had promised that 25,000 troops would be withdrawn by the end of the year, and more support troops were later sent home in addition to the aforementioned combat forces in order to meet that number;
1982 – After suffering through six weeks of military defeats against Britain’s armed forces, Argentina surrenders to Great Britain, ending the Falkland Islands War. The Falkland Islands, located about 300 miles off the southern tip of Argentina, had long been claimed by the British. British navigator John Davis may have sighted the islands in 1592, and in 1690 British Navy Captain John Strong made the first recorded landing on the islands. He named them after Viscount Falkland, who was the First Lord of the Admiralty at the time. Ownership of the islands remained in contention between Britain, France, Spain and Argentia throughout it’s history but in 1981, the 1,800 Falkland Islanders–mostly sheep farmers–voted in a referendum to remain British, and it seemed unlikely that the Falklands would ever revert to Argentine rule. In March 1982, Argentine salvage workers occupied South Georgia Island, and a full-scale invasion of the Falklands began on April 2. Argentine amphibious forces rapidly overcame the small garrison of British marines at the town of Stanley on East Falkland and the next day seized the dependent territories of South Georgia and the South Sandwich group. Under orders from their commanders, the Argentine troops inflicted no British casualties, despite suffering losses to their own units. Nevertheless, Britain was outraged, and Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher assembled a naval task force of 30 warships to retake the islands. As Britain is 8,000 miles from the Falklands, it took several weeks for the British warships to arrive. On April 25, South Georgia Island was retaken, and after several intensive naval battles fought around the Falklands, British troops landed on East Falkland on May 21. After several weeks of fighting, the large Argentine garrison at Stanley surrendered on June 14, effectively ending the conflict. Britain lost five ships and 256 lives in the fight to regain the Falklands, and Argentina lost its only cruiser and 750 lives. Humiliated in the Falklands War, the Argentine military was swept from power in 1983, and civilian rule was restored. In Britain, Margaret Thatcher’s popularity soared after the conflict, and her Conservative Party won a landslide victory in 1983 parliamentary elections;
1985 – TWA Flight 847 from Athens to Rome is hijacked by Shiite Hezbollah terrorists who immediately demand to know the identity of ”those with Jewish-sounding names.” Two of the Lebanese terrorists, armed with grenades and a 9-mm. pistol, then forced the plane to land in Beirut, Lebanon. Once on the ground, the hijackers called for passengers with Israeli passports, but there were none. Nor were there any diplomats on board. They then focused their attention on the several U.S. Navy construction divers aboard the plane. Soon after landing, the terrorists killed Navy diver Robert Stethem, and dumped his body on the runway. Most of the passengers were released in the early hours of what turned out to be a 17-day ordeal, but five men were singled out and separated from the rest of the hostages. Of these five, only Richard Herzberg, an American, was Jewish. During the next two weeks, Herzberg maintained to his attackers that he was a Lutheran of German and Greek ancestry. Along with the others, he was taken to a roach-infested holding cell somewhere in Beirut, where other Lebanese prisoners were being held. On June 30, after careful negotiations, the hostages were released unharmed. Since the terrorists were effectively outside the law’s reach in Lebanon, it appeared the terrorists would go free from punishment. Yet, Mohammed Ali Hammadi, who was wanted for his role in TWA Flight 847 attack, was arrested nearly two years later at the airport in Frankfurt, Germany, with explosives. Within days of his arrest, two German citizens were kidnapped while in Lebanon in a successful attempt to discourage Germany from extraditing Hammadi to the United States for prosecution. Germany decided to try Hamadi instead, and he was convicted and sentenced to life in prison. He was released on parole in 2005 after serving 19 years. Since then, the United States has unsuccessfully petitioned for his extradition from Lebanon. Despite unconfirmed reports that Hammadi was killed by a CIA drone in Pakistan in June 2010, he remains on the FBI’s Most Wanted Terrorists List along with his surviving accomplices;
2004 – The United States Supreme Court allowed schoolchildren to keep affirming loyalty to one nation “under God,” but dodged the underlying question of whether the Pledge of Allegiance was an unconstitutional blending of church and state;
2011 – The Wallow Fire becomes the largest wildfire in Arizona history reaching 469,407 acres with containment at only 20%;
2012 – The world’s first stem-cell assisted vein transplant is undertaken by Swedish doctors on a 10 year old girl;
2013 – The Associated Press reported that Minnesota resident Michael Karkoc, 94, had been a top commander of a Nazi SS-led unit accused of burning villages filled with women and children, then lied to American immigration officials to get into the United States a few years after World War II. German and Polish authorities are investigating; Karkoc’s family has accused the AP of “slanderous allegations”;
2013 – In France, the Airbus A350 XWB makes its maiden flight from the Toulouse Blagnac Airport;
2013 – It was one year ago TODAY!!!
Another reason I still enjoy reading the newspaper!
Number 39 of 50 beautiful pictures from 50 beautiful states:
Portsmouth, Newport County, Rhode Island
As I
A thought
Do you have a basis for pride? What is your source of that pride? Paul reminds us that our one, true, and dependable source of boasting is boasting in what the Lord has done for us on the Cross. This one source of boasting has absolutely nothing to do with anything that we have done, attained, or accomplished on our own. All other reasons to boast are fleeting glimpses at hollow fame compared to the joy and assurance of sharing in Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection.
Leads to a verse
May I never boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.
– Galatians 6:14
That brings a prayer
Forgive me Father, for the times I have thought myself important because of some transitory accomplishment. Thank you for giving me a bedrock source of boasting in Jesus’ love and grace demonstrated in the Cross. In Jesus’ name I thank you. Amen
Until the next time – America, Bless GOD!!!