History Notes this week of Sept 14

122AD: Roman Emperor Hadrian begins construction of a massive wall across the borderlands between present-day Scotland and England. 

1776: Guarding the northernmost portions of Alta California, Spain establishes the Presidio of San Francisco on the tip of land that borders the entrance to San Francisco Bay. It remained in Army hands until the BRAC rolled through in 1988. The facility was turned over to the National Parks Service in 1994 as mixed use historic, recreational, and commercial sector of the City. One of Presidio’s distinguishing features was its lack of a perimeter fence.

1789: Representatives from the Several States, in congress, after over two years of intense discussion and negotiation, sign The Constitution of the United States in Philadelphia, and send the document to the States themselves for ratification.

1793: George Washington lays the first cornerstone for the capitol building in the District of Columbia.

1812: A day after Napoleon’s entry into Moscow, a series of fires begin just after midnight, spreading and building into a three day firestorm that consumes nearly ¾ of the mostly wooden city. The French evacuate until the fire is contained, but remain in occupation of the Russian capital.

1850: As part of the Compromise of 1850 Congress passes the Fugitive Slave Act, a statute passed by the 31st United States Congress on September 18, 1850, as part of the Compromise of 1850 between Southern interests in slavery and Northern Free-Soilers. The act required that slaves be returned to their owners, even if they were in a free state. The act also made the federal government responsible for finding, returning, and trying escaped slaves.

1851: Birth of U.S. Army physician and biologist Walter Reed (d.1902), whose research and identification of tropical diseases, particularly mosquito-borne Yellow Fever, permitted substantial control of the disease and allowed the U.S. to continue work on the Panama Canal. 

1862: Union Corporal Barton W. Mitchell of the 27^th Indiana Volunteers, picking through debris in a recently abandoned Confederate encampment, finds three cigars wrapped in a sheet of paper. Unrolling it, he reads Special Order 191, from General Robert E. Lee, detailing for his Corps commanders their routes and objectives in the opening phases of the Maryland campaign. The order quickly makes its way into the hands of Union General George McClellan, who exclaims, “Now I know what to do!” He adds, “Here is a paper with which, if I cannot whip Bobby Lee, I will be willing to go home.” The intelligence gained from the order proves crucial in setting up the coming confrontation between the armies near Sharpsburg, Maryland.

1862: The Union Army of the Potomac halts Confederate General Robert E. Lee’s first foray into the northern states a the Battle of Antietam (Sharpsburg), the single bloodiest day of combat in American history, with 23,000 casualties (10,000 Union, 13,000 Confederate).

1862: Local Lawrenceville, PA wagoner Joseph R. Frick after unloading cylinders, gunpowder, and ammunition to Allegheny Arsenal, notices on the ground between macadam road and the porch of the laboratory, “…a flame of fire as from powder mixed with dirt; it made a fizzing noise.” Indeed it did. His attention was then drawn to the line of spilled gunpowder leading up the porch into the lab, followed by a titanic explosion that blew him over his wagon and against a fence. Two more explosions destroyed the lab, killing 78 civilian workers, mostly young women who worked in the lab. The Pittsburgh papers* reported lurid descriptions of the shattered and burning corpses that littered the ground. 54 bodies remained unidentified and were buried in a mass grave.  The explosion was the single biggest industrial accident during the Civil War. It is still memorialized annually in Pittsburgh, but the national-level shock was overshadowed by the carnage at Antietam.

1875: Birth of James C. Penny (d.1971), who opened his first dry-goods store in Kemmerer, Wyoming, in 1902. In 1940, visiting one of his stores in Iowa, he trained a young employee named Sam Walton how to tie a package with a minimal amount of ribbon. 

1891: Birth of Karl Donitz (d.1980), German submariner and intellect behind the highly effective “Wolfpack” strategy in World War II. Donitz had the dubious distinction of being named in Hitler’s will as his successor as head of the Third Reich.  As such, he issued the surrender order to the German armed forces after a week in office, carefully working the timing of the event so that the bulk of the German armed forces would fall under the control of the Western Allies instead of the Soviet Union.

1905: Birth of Swedish screen goddess Greta Garbo (d.1990). Known for her alluring screen presence and ability to convey emotions with subtle expressions, Garbo was one of the few actors to successfully transition from silent to sound films. Her roles in Mata Hari, Anna Karenina, and Camille cemented her reputation. 

1908: On an Army demonstration flight at Fort Meyer, Virginia, the Wright Brothers’ first commercial aircraft Model A, piloted by Orville Wright, crashes when one of the propellers breaks, slicing a guy wire and severing the rear control surfaces of the machine. Wright is severely injured by the plunge into the ground, and his passenger, Lieutenant Thomas Selfridge dies, becoming the world’s first aviation fatality. 

1914: Two months into the Great War, with the German juggernaut threatening the environs of Paris itself, the Allied armies of France and Great Britain launch a massive counter-attack at the Marne River on the 6^th of September that knocks the over-extended Germans into their own series of massive retreats. The week-long battle is known as the Battle of the Marne, or more popularly as the Miracle on the Marne, as it reversed for the first time the deadly efficiency of the Von Schlieffen Plan. A week into advance, the morning fog burned off to find the advancing Allies lightly dug in on exposed ground near the Aisne River, with the Germans occupying well-defended heights above. The First Battle of Aisne that opened this day raged for nearly two weeks, with neither side gaining an advantage, and both sides digging ever deeper into defensive trenches. By the 28^th it was clear that the period of rapid movement of the Schlieffen plan, and the tactical flexibility of careful retreats and counter-attacks by the Allies, was permanently stalled. Both sides suddenly shifted their objectives toward attempts to outflank the other, which led to a period known as the Race to the Sea, which by November resulted in a continuous line of defensive trenches running from the Belgium’s North Sea coast all the way to the Swiss border, a line that would move little over the course of the next four years.

1919: Congress officially authorizes U.S. veterans of the American Expeditionary Force (AEF), fresh from their victorious return from the Great War, to incorporate The American Legion as a veterans support group under Title 36 U.S.C.

1939: First broadcast by Nazi propagandist Lord Haw Haw, who railed against British combat and diplomatic activities across the European continent.

1944: Birth of Italian mountaineer Reinhold Messner, first man to climb all of the world’s 14 peaks over 8,000 meters (26,000 feet), and the first to solo to the summit of Mount Everest (29,029 feet) without supplemental oxygen.

1948: Margaret Chase Smith is elected Senator from Maine, becoming the first woman to be both Representative and Senator.

1956: Introduction of the first computer disc storage system, IBM’s RAMAC 305.

1970: Death of guitarist Jimmi Hendrix (b.1942). Jimi Hendrix was famous for revolutionizing rock guitar by pioneering innovative techniques such as fuzz, feedback, and the use of effects pedals to create unique sounds. A self-taught, left-handed player with a distinctive on-stage persona and wild showmanship, he also gained recognition for his powerful songwriting and legendary performances, like his iconic rendition of “The Star-Spangled Banner” at Woodstock. Widely regarded as the greatest electric guitarist of all time, his influence extends across many musical genres and continues to inspire musicians. Cause of Death: Asphyxia due to aspiration of vomit while intoxicated with barbiturates. Substance Involved: A large overdose of Vesparax sleeping tablets, far exceeding the prescribed dosage. Circumstances: Hendrix was found deceased in his flat in London by his girlfriend, Monika Dannemann.

1970: Jordan’s King Hussein declares martial law in response to an attempted fedeyeen coup against his Hashemite throne. The conspirators, organized around Yassir Arafat’s Fatah movement, vow revenge over their failure and form a new militant group known as Black September Organization in memory of this day. Two years later, the Black September kidnapped and assassinated eleven members of the Israeli Olympic team in Munich, ensuring that the terms “Palestinian” and “terrorist” would be forever linked. You might consider it ironic in the extreme that the group’s first attacks were against the internationally recognized Palestinian state of Jordan, but that would mean that you would be using logic to evaluate the situation.

1975: Kidnapped heiress Patty Hearst is arrested a year after her inclusion on the FBI’s Most Wanted list.

1984: Retired USAF test pilot Joe Kittenger (DLH 8/16) complete the first solo balloon crossing of the Atlantic Ocean.

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Wayne Creed

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