Monthly Archives: September 2014
Black American History: The Patterson-Greenfield Automobile Company. The Only African American Automobile Company.
#AH2RN2014 – Perfect for Ace History 2 Research News – Great post and well researched #MustRead
Uncurrent Events 9.28.14
Today In The Past
Events
48 BC – Pompey the Great is assassinated on orders of King Ptolemy of Egypt after landing in Egypt.
351 – Battle at Mursa: emperor Constantine II beats emperor Maxentius
365 – Roman usurper Procopius bribes two legions passing by Constantinople, and proclaims himself Roman emperor.
935 – Saint Wenceslas is murdered by his brother, Boleslaus I of Bohemia.
1066 – William the Conqueror invade England landing at Pevensey Bay, Sussex
1106 – Battle at Tinchebrai: English King Henry I beats his brother Robert
1322 – Battle of Muhldorf
1521 – Turkish sultan Suleiman I’s troops occupy Belgrade
1528 – Spanish fleet sinks in Florida hurricane; about 380 die
1779 – American Revolution: Samuel Huntington is elected President of the Continental Congress, succeeding John Jay.
1781 – 9,000 American forces & 7,000 French forces begin siege of Yorktown
1787 – Congress sends Constitution to state legislatures for their approval
1904 – Woman arrested for smoking a cigarette in…
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H. L. Mencken was prophetic in this statement from 1920
‘ Civil War Soldier Cushing Receives Medal of Honour’
#AceHistory2ResearchNews – DELAFIELD – September 25 – A 94-year-old woman has been fighting for decades to see a Civil War soldier honoured for his sacrifice on the battlefield.
If you’re from Delafield you might recognize the name “Cushing,” but you may not know the story of the man behind the name.
Sitting along the Bark River, Margaret Zerwekh feels a special connection to the man who lived on the land a century and a half ago.
Since she moved to Delafield in the 1980s, Zerwekh has held a deep respect for Alonzo Cushing, whose face is carved into a monument in Cushing Memorial Park.
Alonzo Cushing was born along the Bark River in 1841. A lieutenant during the Civil War, Cushing’s actions during the Battle of Gettysburg helped secure a victory for the Union.
“Leading his 110 men and six cannons, he was gravely wounded a number of times and his unit was decimated by artillery fire. Instead of retreating, Alonzo asked for permission for move his gun forward. As he was growing weaker, he wouldn’t desert his men or his position,” said David Krueger of Delafield.
At 22-years-old, Cushing’s life ended on the battle field.
Cushing’s legacy lives on in Delafield at Cushing Memorial Park, Cushing Road and Cushing Elementary School. At Gettysburg, there’s a stone monument marking the place he died.
Zerwekh was troubled by the honor Cushing never received: the Medal of Honor.
“He gave his life and he was not recognized at the time, ” said Zerwekh.
In 1987, Margaret started petitioning lawmakers. She has a folder filled with decades of correspondence.
The Medal of Honor was not awarded posthumously during the Civil War. Thanks to Zerwekh, Congress just passed some new legislation.
It makes it possible to waive the requirement that Medal of Honor recommendations be made within two years and awarded within three.
Cushing is being awarded the Medal of Honor this fall.
The U.S. Army will accept the medal on Cushing’s behalf. Where the medal will end up is unclear. Zerwekh thinks it should go to Delafield so it can be on display.
SNIPPETS OF HISTORY: ‘ Sea-Biscuit Champion and Symbol of Hope During Great Depression ‘
#AceHistoryNews – September 25 – Story of Seabiscuit (May 23, 1933 – May 17, 1947) was a champion Thoroughbred racehorse in the United States. A small horse, Seabiscuit had an inauspicious start to his racing career, but became an unlikely champion and a symbol of hope to many Americans during the Great Depression.
Seabiscuit was the subject of a 1949 film,The Story of Seabiscuit; a 2001 book, Seabiscuit: An American Legend by Laura Hillenbrand; and a 2003 film, Seabiscuit, which was based on the Hillenbrand book and was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture.
Seabiscuit was foaled on May 23, 1933, from the mare Swing On and sired by Hard Tack, a son of Man o’ War.[1]
Seabiscuit was named for his father, as hardtack or “sea biscuit” is the name for a type of cracker eaten by sailors.[2]
Early Life:
The bay colt grew up on Claiborne Farm in Paris, Kentucky, where he was trained. He was undersized, knobby-kneed,[1] and given to sleeping and eating for long periods.
Initially, Seabiscuit was owned by the powerful Wheatley Stable and trained by Sunny Jim Fitzsimmons, who had taken Gallant Fox to the United States Triple Crown of Thoroughbred Racing.
Fitzsimmons saw some potential in Seabiscuit, but felt the horse was too lazy. He devoted most of his time to training Omaha, who won the 1935 Triple Crown.
Seabiscuit was relegated to a heavy schedule of smaller races.
He failed to win his first seventeen races, usually finishing back in the field. After that, Fitzsimmons did not spend much time on him, and the horse was sometimes the butt of stable jokes. Seabiscuit began to gain attention after winning two races at Narragansett Park and setting a new track record in the second – a Claiming Stakes race. As a two-year-old, Seabiscuit raced thirty-five times (a heavy racing schedule),[1] coming in first five times and finishing second seven times.
These included three claiming races, in which he could have been purchased for $2500, but he had no takers.[1]
On April 10, Seabiscuit’s retirement from racing was officially announced. When he was retired to the Ridgewood Ranch near Willits, California, he was horse racing’s all-time leading money winner. Put out to stud, Seabiscuit sired 108 foals, including two moderately successful racehorses: Sea Sovereign and Sea Swallow.
Over 50,000 visitors went to Ridgewood Ranch to see Seabiscuit in his seven years there before his death.
His burial site is Willits Ranch in Mendocino County, California.[9][10]
‘ Voting Rights Act 1965 Section 5 Ruled Unconstitutional in 2013 by Congress ‘
#AceHistory2ResearchNews – September 22 – The Voting Rights Act of 1965 is a landmark piece of American federal legislation that prohibits racial discrimination in voting. President Lyndon B.
Johnson signed the Act into law (pictured) during the height of the Civil Rights Movement on August 6, 1965, and Congress later amended it five times.
The Act allowed for a mass enfranchisement of racial minorities across the country, especially in the South. Section 2 of the Act prohibits state and local governments from imposing any voting law that has a discriminatory effect on racial or language minorities, and other provisions specifically ban literacy-tests and similar discriminatory devices.
Some provisions apply only to jurisdictions covered by the Act’s “coverage formula”, which was designed to encompass jurisdictions that engaged in egregious voting discrimination.
Chiefly, Section 5 prohibits these jurisdictions from changing their election practices without first receiving approval from the federal government that the change is not discriminatory.
In Shelby County v. Holder (2013), the Supreme Court struck down the coverage formula as unconstitutional, reasoning that it no longer responded to current conditions.
Shelby County v. Holder, 570 U.S. ___(2013), is a landmark United States Supreme Court case regarding the constitutionality of two provisions of the Voting Rights Act of 1965: Section 5, which requires certain states and local governments to obtain federal pre-clearance before implementing any changes to their voting laws or practices; and Section 4(b), which contains the coverage formula that determines which jurisdictions are subjected to pre-clearance based on their histories of discrimination in voting.
On June 25, 2013, the Court ruled by a 5-to-4 vote that Section 4(b) is unconstitutional because the coverage formula is based on data over 40 years old, making it no longer responsive to current needs and therefore an impermissible burden on the constitutional principles of federalism and equal sovereignty of the states.
The Court did not strike down Section 5, but without Section 4(b), no jurisdiction will be subject to Section 5 pre-clearance unless Congress enacts a new coverage formula.
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SNIPPETS OF HISTORY: ‘ Australian Contribution to Battle of Normandy ‘
#AceHistoryNews – AUSTRALIA – September 22 – The Australian contribution to the Battle of Normandy involved more than 3,000 military personnel serving under British command, the majority from the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF).
After participating in the Allied landings on 6 June 1944, Australian air force and army personnel fought in the subsequent Battle of Normandy between June and August 1944, and an RAAF fighter squadron operated from airfields in Normandy.
Throughout the campaign, Australian airmen provided direct support to the Allied ground forces by attacking German military units and their supply lines, as well as forming part of the force which defended the beachhead from air attack.
Australians also indirectly contributed to the campaign by attacking German submarines and ships which posed a threat to the invasion force.
Australia’s contribution to the fighting in Normandy is commemorated in memorials and cemeteries in London and Normandy.
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Back to Kabul
#AceHistory2ResearchNews – September 16 – These were not all though. The consignment also included the large carved schist statue of Buddha which was identified in a private collection in Japan, privately bought and donated and again temporarily exhibited at the British Museum last year. Another much smaller private donation was a medieval coin belonging to the twelfth century Ghorid dynasty. The coin had been found on the surface at Bamiyan in 1970 by an English lady who kindly offered it as a donation to the Kabul museum after seeing the exhibition at the British Museum and meeting some of its staff at a Guardian debate hosted here. Last but not least there were as many as 821 additional objects which had been seized by the UK Border Force and the Art and Antiques Unit of the Metropolitan Police, which we had identified as originating in Afghanistan (of which more anon in another post).
#AH2RN2014
St John Simpson, Curator, Middle East
This weekend sees the official hand-over in the National Museum of Afghanistan in Kabul of a large consignment of antiquities which was recently sent there by the British Museum with the logistic support of the British Armed Forces.
These objects included the 20 ivory and bone furniture inlays excavated at Begram which were stolen from the National Museum of Afghanistan during the civil war (1992–1994). They were generously acquired and donated by a private individual, and conserved at the British Museum with the support of a grant from Bank of America Merrill Lynch through its Art Conservation Project. These decorative inlays were exhibited last year at the conclusion of our exhibition Afghanistan: Crossroads of the Ancient World, also supported by Bank of America Merrill Lynch.
One of the returned objects: a double-tube cosmetic flask in the form of a camel with each hump…
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Traces of the past: rock art and life in ancient North Africa
#AceHistory2ResearchNews – September 16 – In a valley of Libya’s Acacus Mountains, in the middle of the Sahara Desert, an elephant steps out from under an overhang of red rock. Giraffes, cows, camels, people, a horse and a hare are there too. They may seem out of place in such a harsh environment, but they are not lost: they have been there for thousands of years, painted and engraved on the rock shelter wall.
#AH2RN2014
Victoria Suzman, project cataloguer, African rock art image project, British Museum
Engraved elephant, from Wadi Raharmellen, Acacus Mountains, Fezzan District, Libya (all images below are from this same site). © TARA / David Coulson 2013,2034.1630
Engraved elephant (image digitally modified). © TARA / David Coulson 2013,2034.1630
In a valley of Libya’s Acacus Mountains, in the middle of the Sahara Desert, an elephant steps out from under an overhang of red rock. Giraffes, cows, camels, people, a horse and a hare are there too. They may seem out of place in such a harsh environment, but they are not lost: they have been there for thousands of years, painted and engraved on the rock shelter wall.
Rock shelter wall with multiple paintings and engravings of humans, cows, camels, ostriches, giraffes, an elephant, Libyan-Berber script and unidentified quadrupeds. © TARA / David Coulson. 2013,2034.1563
The African rock art image project team here…
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