Good Morning & God Bless To Every One !
Today is March 30, the 89th day of 2014 and there are 276 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 !!!
Today, I ask everyone to take a short pause to Praise God, for in the best of times, our days here on God’s glorious earth are numbered by His plan. So it would be a crime against nature and God Himself for any generation to take the world crisis so solemnly that it put off enjoying those things for which we were designed in the first place: the opportunity to do good work, to enjoy friends, to fall in love, to hit a ball, and to bounce a baby. And more important than that, praise the Lord for having this day in the first place!!!
So, What Happened Today In 1981?
President Ronald Reagan is shot in an assassination attempt
President Ronald Reagan is shot in the chest outside a Washington, D.C. hotel by a deranged drifter named John Hinckley Jr.
The president had just finished addressing a labor meeting at the Washington Hilton Hotel and was walking with his entourage to his limousine when Hinckley, standing among a group of reporters, fired six shots at the president, hitting Reagan and three of his attendants. White House Press Secretary James Brady was shot in the head and critically wounded, Secret Service agent Timothy McCarthy was shot in the side, and District of Columbia policeman Thomas Delahaney was shot in the neck. After firing the shots, Hinckley was overpowered and pinned against a wall, and President Reagan, apparently unaware that he’d been shot, was shoved into his limousine by a Secret Service agent and rushed to the hospital.
The president was shot in the left lung, and the .22 caliber bullet just missed his heart. In an impressive feat for a 70-year-old man with a collapsed lung, he walked into George Washington University Hospital under his own power. As he was treated and prepared for surgery, he was in good spirits and quipped to his wife, Nancy, ”Honey, I forgot to duck,” and to his surgeons, “Please tell me you’re Republicans.” Reagan’s surgery lasted two hours, and he was listed in stable and good condition afterward.
The next day, the president resumed some of his executive duties and signed a piece of legislation from his hospital bed. On April 11, he returned to the White House. Reagan’s popularity soared after the assassination attempt, and at the end of April he was given a hero’s welcome by Congress. In August, this same Congress passed his controversial economic program, with several Democrats breaking ranks to back Reagan’s plan. By this time, Reagan claimed to be fully recovered from the assassination attempt. In private, however, he would continue to feel the effects of the nearly fatal gunshot wound for years.
Of the victims of the assassination attempt, Secret Service agent Timothy McCarthy and D.C. policeman Thomas Delahaney eventually recovered. James Brady, who nearly died after being shot in the eye, suffered permanent brain damage. He later became an advocate of gun control, and in 1993 Congress passed the “Brady Bill,” which established a five-day waiting period and background checks for prospective gun buyers. President Bill Clinton signed the bill into law.
After being arrested on March 30, 1981, 25-year-old John Hinckley was booked on federal charges of attempting to assassinate the president. He had previously been arrested in Tennessee on weapons charges. In June 1982, he was found not guilty by reason of insanity. In the trial, Hinckley’s defense attorneys argued that their client was ill with narcissistic personality disorder, citing medical evidence, and had a pathological obsession with the 1976 film Taxi Driver, in which the main character attempts to assassinate a fictional senator. His lawyers claimed that Hinckley saw the movie more than a dozen times, was obsessed with the lead actress, Jodie Foster, and had attempted to reenact the events of the film in his own life. Thus the movie, not Hinckley, they argued, was the actual planning force behind the events that occurred on March 30, 1981.
The verdict of “not guilty by reason of insanity” aroused widespread public criticism, and many were shocked that a would-be presidential assassin could avoid been held accountable for his crime. However, because of his obvious threat to society, he was placed in St. Elizabeth’s Hospital, a mental institution. In the late 1990s, Hinckley’s attorney began arguing that his mental illness was in remission and thus had a right to return to a normal life. Beginning in August 1999, he was allowed supervised day trips off the hospital grounds and later was allowed to visit his parents once a week unsupervised. The Secret Service voluntarily monitors him during these outings. If his mental illness remains in remission, he may one day be released.
Other Memorable Or Interesting Events Occurring On March 30 In History:
1492 – King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella sign a decree expelling all Jews from Spain;
1775 – Hoping to keep the New England colonies dependent on the British, King George III formally endorses the New England Restraining Act. The New England Restraining Act required New England colonies to trade exclusively with Great Britain as of July 1. An additional rule would come into effect on July 20, banning colonists from fishing in the North Atlantic. The British prime minister, Frederick, Lord North, introduced the Restraining Act and the Conciliatory Proposition to Parliament on the same day. Unfortunately for North and prospects for peace, he had already sent General Thomas Gage orders to march on Concord, Massachusetts to destroy the armaments stockpiled in the town, and take Patriot leaders John Hancock and Samuel Adams into custody. On April 18, 700 Redcoats marched towards Concord Bridge. The military action led to the Revolutionary War, the birth of the United States as a new nation, the temporary downfall of Lord North and the near abdication of King George III;
1814 – European forces allied against Napoleonic France march triumphantly into Paris, formally ending a decade of French domination on the Continent. Napoleon, one of the greatest military strategists in history, seized control of the French state in 1800, and in 1804 was crowned emperor. By 1807, he controlled an empire that stretched across Europe. In 1812, however, he began to encounter the first significant defeats of his military career, suffering through a disastrous invasion of Russia, losing Spain to the Duke of Wellington, and enduring total defeat against an allied force in 1814. Exiled to the island of Elba, he escaped to France in early 1815 and raised a new Grand Army that enjoyed temporary success before its crushing defeat at Waterloo. He was then exiled to the island of St. Helena, where he died six years later;
1822 – Florida becomes a United States territory;
1825 – Future Confederate General Samuel Maxey is born in Tompkinsville, Kentucky. During the Civil War, Maxey served in the West and led Native Americans troops in Indian Territory. After the war, Maxey continued to support his Native American friends when he served in the U.S. Senate and was an outspoken advocate of Indian rights. He died in 1895;
1842 – In Georgia, ‘Ether’ used as an anaesthetic for 1st time by Dr Crawford Long;
1855 – In territorial Kansas’ first election, some 5,000 so-called “Border Ruffians” invade the territory from western Missouri and force the election of a pro-slavery legislature. Although the number of votes cast exceeded the number of eligible voters in the territory, Kansas Governor Andrew Reeder reluctantly approved the election to prevent further bloodshed. During the next four years, raids, skirmishes, and massacres continued in “Bleeding Kansas” as it became popularly known. In 1861, the irrepressible differences in Kansas were swallowed up by the outbreak of full-scale Civil War in America;
1858 – Hyman L. Lipman of Philadelphia patents the pencil with an eraser attached on one end;
1867 – U.S. Secretary of State William H. Seward signs a treaty with Russia for the purchase of Alaska for $7 million. Despite the bargain price of roughly two cents an acre, the Alaskan purchase was ridiculed in Congress and in the press as “Seward’s folly,” “Seward’s icebox,” and President Andrew Johnson’s “polar bear garden.” Six months later, Alaska was formally handed over from Russia to the United States. Despite a slow start in U.S. settlement, the discovery of gold in 1898 brought a rapid influx of people to the territory, and Alaska, rich in natural resources, has contributed to American prosperity ever since;
1870 – President U.S. Grant signs bill readmitting Texas to the Union, the last Confederate state readmitted;
1870 – Following its ratification by the requisite three-fourths of the states, the 15th Amendment, granting African-American men the right to vote, is formally adopted into the U.S. Constitution. Passed by Congress the year before, the amendment reads, “the right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.” One day after it was adopted, Thomas Peterson-Mundy of Perth Amboy, New Jersey became the first African American to vote under the authority of the 15th Amendment. In the same year, Hiram Rhoades Revels, a Republican from Natchez, Mississippi became the first African American ever to sit in Congress;
1909 – The Queensboro Bridge in New York City opens. It is the first double decker bridge and links Manhattan and Queens;
1918 – During World War I, British, Australian and Canadian troops mount a successful counter-attack against the German offensive at Moreuil Wood, recapturing most of the area and forcing a turn in the tide of the battle in favor of the Allies. By early April 1918, both the Allies and the Central Powers had entered a crucial period of reckoning. A major German victory on the Western Front would mean the end of the war, in their favor. As British Prime Minister David Lloyd George told the leaders of the British Dominions in a speech on March 31: “The last man may count.” The Allies, at least, could count on fresh infusions from the United States, which increased its troops in France to more than 300,000 by the end of that month. For their part, the Germans were prepared to wager everything they had on this spring offensive—the last they would undertake in World War I;
1923 – The Cunard liner RMS Laconia became the first passenger ship to circle the globe as it arrived in New York;
1948 – Henry Wallace, former vice-president and current Progressive Party presidential candidate, lashes out at the Cold War policies of President Harry S. Truman. Wallace and his supporters were among the few Americans who actively voiced criticisms of America’s Cold War mindset during the late-1940s and 1950s;
1959 – A narrowly divided U.S. Supreme Court, in Bartkus v. Illinois, ruled that a conviction in state court following an acquittal in federal court for the same crime did not constitute double jeopardy;
1965 – During the Vietnam War, A bomb explodes in a car parked in front of the U.S. Embassy in Saigon, virtually destroying the building and killing 19 Vietnamese, 2 Americans, and 1 Filipino; 183 others were injured. Congress quickly appropriated $1 million to reconstruct the embassy. Although some U.S. military leaders advocated special retaliatory raids on North Vietnam, President Lyndon B. Johnson refused;
1972 – In the Vietnam War, a major coordinated communist offensive opens with the heaviest military action since the sieges of Allied bases at Con Thien and Khe Sanh in 1968. Committing almost their entire army to the offensive, the North Vietnamese launched a massive three-pronged attack into South Vietnam. Four North Vietnamese divisions attacked directly across the Demilitarized Zone in Quang Tri province. Thirty-five South Vietnamese soldiers died in the initial attack and hundreds of civilians and soldiers were wounded. After initial successes, especially against the newly formed South Vietnamese 3rd Division in Quang Tri, the North Vietnamese attack was stopped cold by the combination of defending South Vietnamese divisions (along with their U.S. advisers) and massive American airpower. Estimates placed the North Vietnamese losses at more than 100,000 and at least one-half of their tanks and large caliber artillery;
1980 – A floating apartment for oil workers in the North Sea collapses, killing 123 people, on this day in 1980. The Alexander Kielland platform housed 208 men who worked on the nearby Edda oil rig in the Ekofisk field, 235 miles east of Dundee, Scotland. Most of the Phillips Petroleum workers were from Norway, although a few were American and British;
2004 – In a reversal, President George W. Bush agreed to let National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice testify publicly and under oath before an independent panel investigating the 9/11 terrorist attacks;
2009 – U.S. President Barack Obama issues an ultimatum to struggling American automakers General Motors (GM) and Chrysler: In order to receive additional bailout loans from the government, he says, the companies need to make dramatic changes in the way they run their businesses. The president also announced a set of initiatives intended to assist the struggling U.S. auto industry and boost consumer confidence, including government backing of GM and Chrysler warranties, even if both automakers went out of business;
2012 – VISA and MasterCard warn banks that a security breach has compromised over 10 million credit card numbers. (Maybe we need to consider this while we hold Target Stores alone responsible for last years incident when there were actually 8 or 9 major chain stores which had the exact same thing occur! America, as a whole, chose to use the system we do when we knew it was lacking in security to save money. It’s time to re-evaluate and pay for the system ‘we all now want’ which would provide a much more secure system!);
2013 – Kaufman County, Texas, District Attorney Mike McLelland and his wife, Cynthia, were found killed in their house two months after one of his assistants, Mark Hasse, was gunned down near their office. Ex-Justice of the Peace Eric Williams and his wife, Kim, are charged with capital murder;
2013 – North Korea warned Seoul the Korean Peninsula was in “a state of war” and threatened to shut down a border factory complex that was the last major symbol of inter-Korean cooperation;
2013 – It was one year ago Today!
Now, normally we’d be off to the fun stuff, but today I have to apologize as I’m not including it today.
In fact, I need to apologize even further as my intention is to not include it any more in the future which I actually regret as it is something I really enjoyed doing.
Yesterday, you will note that I didn’t even get my daily post out at all, which I also regret.
From today forward, ‘Today In History’ will pretty much be just exactly that. If you break down my daily post, it comes with two sections – the actual history portion followed by the fun stuff. Each in themselves take an hour to two to put together which, on average is taking me three or more hours to get the whole report put together. Unfortunately, as many of you know, I’m in a battle with stage 4 cancer. While, in general, I’m winning the battle, (I think), I still suffer from numerous side effects which actually can vary from day to day. While it may sound silly to some, it is a ‘major’ task to spend that amount of time trying to concentrate and it’s frequently, such as yesterday, just too much of a task to work on for that long while trying to fight off nausea, pain, headaches and other side effects. It is also taking what little time I may have feeling ok during the course of a day away from my family which I also need to take into consideration under the circumstances. Without the ‘history’ portion there is little reason to produce a ‘today in history’ post so I’m going to try to continue producing that for you. By dropping the ‘fun stuff’ portion of it, I should be more able to ensure that the history post actually gets out, which it hasn’t on several occasions recently. Maybe, as I go forward, this will allow me the flexibility to produce that in another form in which to bring you ‘the funny stuff’ in a different format without having to spend as long at one time to produce what I’ve been doing up to now.
My regrets to all who may be disappointed with this decision but it’s what I’ve been told by a much higher power to do for now.
So, Until Tomorrow, Bless God & God Bless to you all!!!
