Good Morning & God Bless To Every One !
Today is Friday, June 20, the 171st day of 2014 and there are 194 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 !!!
So, What Happened Today In 1782?
Congress adopts ‘The Great Seal of the United States’
The United States Congress adopts the Great Seal of the United States after six years of discussion.
The front of the seal depicts a bald eagle clutching an olive branch in its right talon and arrows in its left. On its breast appears a shield marked with 13 vertical red and white stripes topped by a bar of blue. The eagle’s beak clutches a banner inscribed, E pluribus unum, a Latin phrase meaning “Out of Many One.” Above the eagle’s head, golden rays burst forth, encircling 13 stars.
Charles Thomas outlined the symbolic connotations of the seal’s elements when he presented his design to Congress. The bottom of the shield (or pale) represents the 13 states united in support of the blue bar at the top of the shield (or chief), “which unites the whole and represents Congress.” The motto E Pluribus Unum serves as a textual representation of the same relationship. The colors used in the shield are the same as those in the flag: alternating red and white for the important balance between innocence and valor, topped by the blue of “vigilance, perseverance and justice.” The eagle’s talons hold symbols of Congress power to make peace (the olive branch) and war (arrows). The constellation of stars indicates that “a new State [is] taking its place and rank among other sovereign powers.”
The reverse side of the seal bears the familiar Masonic motif of a pyramid, which Thomas proposed as a symbol of “Strength and Duration.” The pyramid, like the new nation, is unfinished and frequently depicted as having 13 steps for the original states. The disembodied eye floating above the structure is that of providence, which Thomas believed had acted “in favour of the American cause.” Beneath the pyramid, the number 1776 appears in Roman numerals as a reminder of the year of independence. The phrase Annuit Coeptis or “Providence has Favored Our Undertakings” appears above the providential eye; Novus Ordo Seclorum or “A New Order of the Ages” appears beneath the pyramid.
Other Memorable Or Interesting Events Occurring On June 20 In History:
451 – Roman and Barbarian warriors halt Attila The Hun’s army at the Catalaunian Plains in eastern France;
1397 – The Union of Kalmar unites Denmark, Sweden, and Norway under one monarch;
1789 – In Versailles, France, the deputies of the Third Estate, which represent commoners and the lower clergy, meet on the Jeu de Paume, an indoor tennis court, in defiance of King Louis XVI’s order to disperse. In these modest surroundings, they took a historic oath not to disband until a new French constitution had been adopted. Louis XVI assembled the Estates-General, a national assembly that represented the three “estates” of the French people–the nobles, the clergy, and the commons. The Estates-General had not been assembled since 1614, and its deputies drew up long lists of grievances and called for sweeping political and social reforms. The Third Estate, which had the most representatives, declared itself the National Assembly and took an oath to force a new constitution on the king. Initially seeming to yield, Louis legalized the National Assembly under the Third Estate but then surrounded Versailles with troops and dismissed Jacques Necker, a popular minister of state who had supported reforms. In response, Parisians mobilized and on July 14 stormed the Bastille–a state prison where they believed ammunition was stored–and the French Revolution began;
1819 – The paddle-wheel steamship SS Savannah arrives in Liverpool, England, after a voyage of 27 days and 11 hours–the first steamship to successfully cross the Atlantic;
1837 – Queen Victoria, at 18, ascends British throne following death of uncle King William IV. She ruled for 63 years ending in 1901;
1840 – Samuel Morse patents his telegraph;
1863 – During the American Civil War, West Virginia is admitted into the Union as the 35th U.S. state, or the 24th state if the secession of the 11 Southern states were taken into account. The same day, Arthur Boreman was inaugurated as West Virginia’s first state governor. Settlement of the western lands of Virginia came gradually in the 18th century as settlers slowly made their way across the natural Allegheny Plateau barrier. The region became increasingly important to the Virginia state government at Richmond in the 19th century, but the prevalence of small farms and absence of slavery began to estrange it from the east. Because slaves were counted in allotting representation, wealthy eastern planters dominated the Virginia legislature, and demands by western Virginians for lower taxes and infrastructure development were not met. When Virginia voted to secede after the outbreak of the Civil War, the majority of West Virginians opposed the secession. Delegates met at Wheeling, and on June 11, 1861, nullified the Virginian ordinance of secession and proclaimed “The Restored Government of Virginia,” headed by Francis Pierpont. Confederate forces occupied a portion of West Virginia during the war, but West Virginian statehood was nonetheless approved in a referendum and a state constitution drawn up. In April 1863, U.S. President Abraham Lincoln proclaimed the admission of West Virginia into the Union;
1893 – A jury in New Bedford, Massachusetts, found Lizzie Borden not guilty of the ax murders of her father and stepmother;
1898 – On the way to the Philippines to fight the Spanish, the United States Navy seizes the island of Guam;
1900 – In response to widespread foreign encroachment upon China’s national affairs, Chinese nationalists launch the so-called Boxer Rebellion in Peking;
1910 – Mexican President Porfirio Diaz proclaims martial law and arrests hundreds;
1919 – At the end of World War I, during the final days of the Versailles Peace Conference held in Paris, France, the German cabinet deadlocks over whether to accept the peace terms presented to its delegation by the other nations at the peace conference–most notably the Council of Four: France, Britain, the United States and Italy–and ratify the Versailles Treaty. Presented with the terms of the treaty on May 7, 1919, the German delegation was given two weeks to examine the document and submit their official comments in writing. After the delegation passed a unanimous recommendation to reject the treaty, the German cabinet, which had previously been leaning towards signing, deadlocked in its vote on June 20 and subsequently resigned en masse. Friedrich Ebert, the German president since late 1918, was persuaded to stay on, however, and as the Allied deadline of June 23 approached, he managed to assemble another cabinet to put the issue to a vote. After a last-minute flurry of activity, the German National Assembly voted to sign the treaty and its answer was delivered to the Council of Four at 5:40 p.m. on June 23. The Treaty of Versailles was signed on June 28, 1919, in the Hall of Mirrors at Versailles;
1921 – United States Representative Alice Mary Robertson, R-Okla., became the first woman to preside over a session of the House of Representatives;
1923 – Following the end of World War I, France announces it will seize the Rhineland to assist Germany in paying her war debts;
1941 – The United States Army Air Force is established, replacing the Army Air Corps;
1941 – After a long and bitter struggle on the part of Henry Ford against cooperation with organized labor unions, Ford Motor Company signs its first contract with the United Automobile Workers of America and Congress of Industrial Organizations (UAW-CIO). In 1935, President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s allies in Congress passed the landmark National Labor Relations Act–also known as the Wagner Act, after one of its authors, Senator Robert Wagner of New York, which established workers’ rights to collective bargaining and attempted to regulate unfair practices by employers, employees and unions. Edsel Ford, president of Ford Motor, recognized that the Wagner Act had made unionization inevitable, and tried to reason with his father. The elder Ford, who despised labor unions, instead put his trust in Harry Bennett, head of Ford’s Service Department, who promised to keep the unions at bay. In the much-publicized “Battle of the Overpass” on May 26, 1937, Ford henchmen brutally beat several UAW organizers (including Walter Reuther and Richard Frankensteen) attempting to hand out leaflets at Ford’s River Rouge plant. In the aftermath of this incident, Ford Motor Company was found guilty of violating the Wagner Act, and in early 1941 the National Labor Relations Board ordered the company to stop interfering with the union’s attempts to organize. On April 1, 1941, a walkout by Ford workers protesting the firing of several union members closed down the River Rouge plant. The strike inflamed racial tensions, as many African-American Ford employees returned to work before their white colleagues, breaking the strike. Though Henry Ford had initially threatened to shut down his plants rather than sign with the UAW-CIO, he changed his position and signed a contract with the union that June 20. Ford’s change of heart was reportedly due to the urging of his wife, Clara, who feared that more riots and bloodshed would result from her husband’s refusal to work with the unions and threatened to leave him if he did not sign the contract;
1943 – Race-related rioting erupted in Detroit; federal troops were sent in two days later to quell the violence that resulted in more than 30 deaths;
1943 – In World War II, Britain launches Operation Bellicose as British bombers perform the first “shuttle bombing” raid of the war, attacking sites in Germany and Italy. Taking off from airbases in Britain, bombers made for the southwestern German city of Friedrichshafen, at one time the home to Zeppelin airship construction. It now was the site of steel construction works, which were heavily damaged in the British attack. The Brits then flew, not back to Britain, but to airbases in Algeria. Refueled, they then headed north for the Italian naval base in La Spezia, in Liguria. This “shuttle” strategy enabled the bombers to kill two enemies with one operation-Bellicose. The damage done to the steel works in Germany was so extensive that the assembly line had to be completely abandoned. Unbeknownst to Britain, that assembly line included the manufacture of more than just steel, but also new V2 rockets, to be spun out at the rate of 300 a month. The Brits unwittingly spared themselves retaliation-at least from V2s;
1944 – During World War II, Japanese naval forces retreated in the Battle of the Philippine Sea after suffering heavy losses to the victorious American fleet;
1947 – Benjamin “Bugsy” Siegel, the man who brought organized crime to the West Coast, is shot and killed at his mistress Virginia Hill’s home in Beverly Hills, California. Siegel had been talking to his associate Allen Smiley when three bullets were fired through the window and into his head, killing him instantly. Siegel’s childhood had been pretty similar to that of other organized crime leaders: Growing up with little money in Brooklyn, he managed to establish himself as a teenage thug. With his pal Meyer Lansky, Siegel terrorized local peddlers and collected protection money. Before long, they had a business that included bootlegging and gambling all over New York City. By the late 1930s, Siegel had become one of the major players of a highly powerful crime syndicate, which gave him $500,000 to set up a Los Angeles franchise. In 1945, Siegel had a brilliant idea. Just hours away from Los Angeles sat the sleepy desert town of Las Vegas, Nevada. It had nothing going for it except for a compliant local government and legal gambling. Siegel decided to build the Flamingo Hotel in the middle of the desert with $6,000,000, a chunk of which came from the New York syndicate. The Flamingo wasn’t immediately profitable and Siegel ended up in an argument with Lucky Luciano over paying back the money used to build it. Around the same time that Siegel was killed in Beverly Hills, Luciano’s men walked into the Flamingo and announced that they were now in charge. Even Siegel probably never imagined the astounding growth and success of Las Vegas in the subsequent years;
1963 – During the (first) Cold War, to lessen the threat of an accidental nuclear war, the United States and the Soviet Union agree to establish a “hot line” communication system between the two nations. The need for nearly instantaneous and full-time communication between the U.S. and Soviet governments became apparent during the Cuban Missile Crises of October 1962. The United States had discovered that the Soviets were building missile sites in Cuba capable of firing missiles with nuclear warheads. Eventually, the administration of President John F. Kennedy instituted a naval “quarantine” around Cuba to block the delivery of such missiles. Possible nuclear conflict was avoided only when Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev agreed that his country would not install nuclear weapons in Cuba. In exchange, the United States vowed not to threaten the sovereignty of Cuba. Prior to the settlement, the world sat through several very tense days of waiting to see whether World War III would begin. In an attempt to reduce the tensions brought about by the October 1962 crisis, and hopefully avert any future misunderstandings that might trigger a nuclear conflict, the United States and the Soviet Union agreed in June 1963 to establish a “hot line.” It would be a 24-hour-a-day communications link between Washington, D.C. and Moscow. President Kennedy declared, “This age of fast-moving events requires quick, dependable communication in time of emergency.” The agreement was a “first step to help reduce the risk of war occurring by accident or miscalculation”;
1964 – During the Vietnam War, General William Westmoreland succeeds Gen. Paul Harkins as head of U.S. Military Assistance Command Vietnam (MACV). Westmoreland’s initial task was to provide military advice and assistance to the government of South Vietnam. However, he soon found himself in command of American armed forces in combat as the war rapidly escalated and U.S. combat forces were committed to the war. One of the war’s most controversial figures, Westmoreland was given many honors when the fighting was going well, but many Americans later blamed him for problems in Vietnam. Negative feeling about Westmoreland grew particularly strong following the Tet Offensive of 1968, when he requested a large number of additional troops for deployment to Vietnam. In the wake of the offensive, there was a review of U.S. policy by the Johnson administration. It was decided to de-escalate the war, halt the bombing of North Vietnam, and go to the negotiating table. On July 1, 1968, General Creighton Abrams replaced Westmoreland as MACV Commander. Westmoreland was reassigned to be the Army Chief of Staff, a post he held until he retired in 1972;
1972 – During the Vietnam War, President Richard Nixon appoints General Creighton W. Abrams, commander of U.S. Military Assistance Command Vietnam. Abrams had become General William Westmoreland’s deputy in 1967, and succeeded him as commander of all U.S. forces in Vietnam in July 1968 when Westmoreland returned to the United States to become the Chief of Staff of the Army. Abrams faced the difficult task of implementing the Vietnamization program instituted by the Nixon administration. This included the gradual reduction of American forces in Vietnam while attempting to increase the combat capabilities of the South Vietnamese armed forces. At the same time, he had to keep the North Vietnamese forces at bay; the Cambodian “incursion” in 1970 was part of his plan to take pressure off the Vietnamization effort and the U.S. troop withdrawals. It was hoped that a successful campaign in Cambodia would reduce the infiltration of North Vietnamese troops and equipment into South Vietnam while the effort continued to increase the combat capability of the South Vietnamese armed forces so that U.S. troops could be withdrawn on schedule;
1977 – With a flip of a switch in Prudhoe Bay, crude oil from the nation’s largest oil field begins flowing south down the trans-Alaska pipeline to the ice-free port of Valdez, Alaska. The steel pipeline, 48 inches in diameter, winds through 800 miles of Alaskan wilderness, crossing three Arctic mountain ranges and hundreds of rivers and streams. Environmentalists fought to prevent its construction, saying it would destroy a pristine ecosystem, but they were ultimately overruled by Congress, who saw it as a way of lessening America’s dependence on foreign oil. The trans-Alaska pipeline was the world’s largest privately funded construction project to that date, costing $8 billion and taking three years to build. On June 20, 1977, oil began flowing down the pipeline. It got off to a rocky start, however, as power supply problems, a cracked section of pipe, faulty welds, and an unsuccessful dynamite attack on the pipeline outside of Fairbanks delayed the arrival of oil at Valdez for several weeks. In August, the first oil tanker left Valdez en route to the lower 48 states. The trans-Alaska pipeline proved a great boon to the Alaskan economy. Today, about 800,000 barrels move through the pipeline each day. Altogether, the pipeline has carried more than 14 billion barrels of oil in its lifetime;
1994 – Former airman Dean Allen Mellberg went on a shooting rampage at Fairchild Air Force Base near Spokane, Washington, killing four people and wounding 22 others before being killed by a military police sharpshooter;
1999 – The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) declares an official end to its bombing campaign of Yugoslavia in the Kosovo war;
2002 – A gas explosion in a Chinese coal mine kills 111 workers on this day in 2002. Perhaps the most disturbing aspect of this tragic incident is that it was not unique. Poor safety regulations in China have long made mining there an extremely hazardous occupation. In the first five years of the 21st century, there were five mining disasters in China that killed more than 100 people. On February 14, 2005, a gas explosion killed more than 200 people at the Sunjiawan mine in Liaoning province. Two months earlier, 166 people lost their lives, 141 by poison gas, at the Chenjiashen mine in Shanxi province. And just one month before that disaster, 148 workers were killed at the Daping mine in Henan. In 2004, approximately 6,300 people were killed in Chinese mines. Most of these disasters are barely reported, even in the Chinese media, so little effort has been made to correct the problem. China’s worst-ever mining disaster happened in 1942, when 1,549 miners were killed in Manchuria, then under Japanese occupation during World War II;
2004 – The Arab satellite TV network Al-Jazeera aired a videotape from al-Qaida-linked militants showing a South Korean hostage begging for his life and pleading with his government to withdraw troops from Iraq. The hostage, Kim Sun-il, was beheaded two days later;
2009 – Iranian music student Neda Agha Soltan, 27, was gunned down during election protests in Tehran; her dying moments were caught on video and circulated widely on the Internet, making her name a rallying cry for the opposition and sparking international outrage;
2012 – U.S. CEO of Oracle Corp, Larry Ellison, agrees to purchase 98 percent of Hawaii’s island of Lanai;
2013 – The Food and Drug Administration approved unrestricted sales of the morning-after pill, lifting all age limits on the emergency contraceptive;
2013 – It was one year ago TODAY!!!
Another reason I still enjoy reading the newspaper!
Number 45 of 50 beautiful pictures from 50 beautiful states:
Peacham, Caledonia County, Vermont
As I
A thought
We chase after so many different things. Only one thing is needful. Having a fist full of dollars, a great estate, and lots of prestige doesn’t mean a whole lot if you’ve gone to your ultimate address without the Lord. Even worse is to find that in the middle of your busy-ness, you awake to find yourself in the barren land where Christ does not dwell and life is not found. Let’s not lose our life, our soul, our meaning, chasing after what is not lasting.
Leads to a verse
What good is it for a man to gain the whole world, yet forfeit his very soul?
– Mark 8:36
That brings a prayer
Father, help me to keep my priorities right, my life holy, and my heart open to your will rather than being blinded with my own self-seeking. In Jesus’ precious name I pray. Amen
Until the next time – America, Bless GOD!!!
