November 1, 1950: The Attempted Assassination of President Harry Truman

November 1, 1950, 75 years ago: President Harry Truman faces an assassination attempt. The Truman family is staying at Blair House, across Pennsylvania Avenue from the White House, while the White House is being renovated. Oscar Collazo and Griselio Torresola, Puerto Rican independence activists, approached Blair House with guns, hoping that killing Truman would help their cause.

Blair House

Collazo shot D.C. police officer Donald Birdzell. He survived, and lived until 1991. Secret Service Agent Vincent Mroz heard this, came outside, and shot Collazo in the chest. He survived. Torresola shot White House Police Officer Leslie Coffelt. He then shot Officer Joseph Downs, but Downs was able to get up and secure a door into the house. He survived, and lived until 1978.

Torresola was reloading when Truman, having heard the shots, made a potentially terrible mistake, and looked outside his 2nd floor window, exposing him to the shooters. Secret Service Agents shouted at him to get away. He did.

Coffelt managed to return fire, hitting Torresola in the head and killing him instantly. But Coffelt was mortally wounded, and died 4 hours later. He was the 1st person ever to, as the Secret Service's saying goes, "take a bullet for the President."

Officer Leslie Coffelt

Collazo was convicted and sentenced to death. Truman, a World War I veteran who said he wasn't scared, because had already "been shot at by professionals," commuted Collazo's sentence to life imprisonment. In 1979, President Jimmy Carter further commuted his sentence to time served, which turned out to be 29 years. He returned to Puerto Rico, continued to support its independence, and died in 1994.

Truman served out his term until January 20, 1953, did not run for another, and retired to his home in Independence, Missouri, outside Kansas City. He died on December 26, 1972. Agent Mroz, who had played football at the University of Michigan, was the last survivor of the incident, living until 2008.

Trying to tie this event to more recent events: In 1948, the White House was seen to be in such poor condition that a major renovation was necessary. It took 4 years, including most of Truman's 2nd term, requiring him and his family to stay at Blair House, although the West Wing, including the Oval Office, were retained. It was done through proper channels, and not on the whim of the incumbent President. It wasn't like the recent demolition of the East Wing by Donald Trump.

Also, the assassination attempt on Truman was real, not staged.

January 20, 1945: FDR's Last Inauguration

January 20, 1945, 80 years ago: For the 4th time, Franklin Delano Roosevelt is inaugurated as President of the United States. For the 1st time, an official Inauguration ceremony is held at the White House, instead of the Capitol Building.

The most important traditions were held. Outgoing Vice President Henry A. Wallace, as was then traditional, swore in his replacement, former Senator Harry S Truman of Missouri, who then gave a short speech. From 1949 onward, Vice Presidents have usually been sworn in by an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. From 1973 onward, they have not given their own Inaugural Addresses.

Then, the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, Harlan Stone, asked FDR to repeat the Oath of Office, which he did, with a voice considerably weaker than just 4 years earlier: "I, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, do solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and will, to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States, so help me, God." And then, he delivered an Inaugural Address.

It would not be like his 1st, on March 4, 1933. The country's economy was then on the brink of absolute collapse. There was no need for him to ask Congress for "action, and action now!" There was no need for him to tell the American people, "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself!" Thanks to his leadership and the actions of Congress, the American economy was now as strong as ever.

It would not be like his 2nd, on January 20, 1937. He had addressed the need for further work to alleviate the Depression, saying, "I see one-third of a nation ill-housed, ill-clad, ill-nourished." Additional "New Deal" programs had lowered that percentage.

It would not be like his 3rd, on January 20, 1941. The threat of America being dragged into World War II loomed overhead, and no one knew what the result would be. He called on Americans to face the threats of Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan: "There are men who believe that democracy, as a form of government and a frame of life, is limited or measured by a kind of mystical and artificial fate that, for some unexplained reason, tyranny and slavery have become the surging wave of the future, and that freedom is an ebbing tide. But we Americans know that this is not true."

On this 4th Inauguration Day for him, FDR had seen America enter that war, and make great progress in it. He knew that the war could be won in this new calendar year. He also knew his own health, as he approached his 63rd birthday, was precarious: His constant smoking had given him heart disease, and that and the pressures of the war had given him unacceptably high blood pressure. It was now a race as to whether he would see the end of the war, and begin to implement the plans he already had for after the victory, at home and abroad.

Due to his health, FDR asked that the ceremony be held on the South Portico of the White House, not at the Capitol; and that the traditional Inaugural Parade and Inaugural Balls be canceled. And guests were limited to wounded personnel who had returned from serving.

Due to these conditions, and those of the weather -- it was 36 degrees, and there was snow on the ground -- he kept the speech short. His 1st 3 Inaugural Addresses had been 1,880, 1,808 and 1,359 words, respectively, in no case particularly long. (The 3 previous Republican Presidents, even the famously taciturn Calvin Coolidge, had each spoken over 3,300 words.) This speech lasted just 559 words, the shortest ever except for George Washington's 135 words of 1793. It lasted just 6 minutes:

Mr. Chief Justice, Mr. Vice President, my friends: You will understand and, I believe, agree with my wish that the form of this Inauguration be simple, and its words brief.

We Americans of today, together with our allies, are passing through a period of supreme test. It is a test of our courage, of our resolve, of our wisdom, our essential democracy. If we meet that test, successfully and honorably, we shall perform a service of historic importance which men and women and children will honor throughout all time.

As I stand here today, having taken the solemn oath of office in the presence of my fellow countrymen, in the presence of our God, I know that it is America's purpose that we shall not fail.

In the days and in the years that are to come, we shall work for a just and honorable peace, a durable peace, as today we work and fight for total victory in war. We can and we will achieve such a peace.

We shall strive for perfection. We shall not achieve it immediately, but we still shall strive. We may make mistakes, but they must never be mistakes which result from faintness of heart or abandonment of moral principle.

I remember that my old schoolmaster, Dr. Peabody, said, in days that seemed to us then to be secure and untroubled: "Things in life will not always run smoothly. Sometimes we will be rising toward the heights. Then, all will seem to reverse itself and start downward. The great fact to remember is that the trend of civilization itself is forever upward; that a line drawn through the middle of the peaks and the valleys of the centuries always has an upward trend."

Our Constitution of 1787 was not a perfect instrument. It is not perfect yet. But it provided a firm base upon which all manner of men, of all races and colors and creeds, could build our solid structure of democracy.

And so today, in this year of war, 1945, we have learned lessons, at a fearful cost, and we shall profit by them. We have learned that we cannot live alone, at peace; that our own well-being is dependent on the well-being of other nations far away. We have learned that we must live as men, not as ostriches, nor as dogs in the manger. We have learned to be citizens of the world, members of the human community.

We have learned the simple truth, as Emerson said, that, "The only way to have a friend is to be one." We can gain no lasting peace if we approach it with suspicion and mistrust or with fear. We can gain it only if we proceed with the understanding, the confidence, and the courage which flow from conviction.

The Almighty God has blessed our land in many ways. He has given our people stout hearts and strong arms with which to strike mighty blows for freedom and truth. He has given to our country a faith which has become the hope of all peoples in an anguished world.

So we pray to Him now for the vision to see our way clearly, to see the way that leads to a better life for ourselves and for all our fellow men, to the achievement of His will to peace on earth.

Just 82 days later, Franklin Delano Roosevelt was dead. Just 18 days after that, so was Adolf Hitler. Just 8 days after that, the Nazis surrendered. And 98 days after that, Japan surrendered. World War II was over.

To borrow an analogy that would later be used by Martin Luther King Jr.: FDR had been to the mountaintop, and had seen the Promised Land, knew he wouldn't get there with us, but also knew that we, as a people, would get there.

In 1947, Congress approved the 22nd Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, limiting the President to 2 terms. In 1951, enough States ratified it to make it official.

Since 1945, every intentional Inauguration ceremony has been held at the Capitol. Unforeseen circumstances have required 2 Presidents to be sworn in during a predecessor's term: In 1963, John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, and Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson was sworn in aboard Air Force One; and in 1974, Richard Nixon resigned due to the Watergate scandal, and Vice President Gerald Ford was sworn in at the White House, indoors in the East Room.

On January 20, 2025, the Inauguration is being properly held at the Capitol -- although, due to cold weather, it is, like Ronald Reagan's 2nd Inauguration in 1985, being held inside, in the Rotunda.

Of course, the President taking the Oath has proven once before that he doesn't mean it. He is the kind of man Franklin Roosevelt would have opposed with everything he had. On March 15, 1941, he attended the White House Correspondents' Association Dinner, and said, "They seek to establish systems of government based on the regimentation of all human beings by a handful of individual rulers... call this a new order. It is not new, and it is not order."

Donald Trump, born 304 days after V-J Day, talks about wanting law and order. He despises the law, and what he offers is far from order.

FDR told us the only thing we had to fear was fear itself. DJT offers us nothing but fear. But, as FDR taught us, under very different circumstances, "This great nation will endure, as it has endured, will revive, and will prosper."

December 31, 1934: The Oval Office Opens

December 31, 1934, 90 years ago: The modern Oval Office opens, in the West Wing of the White House in Washington. It has been the seat of power for every President of the United States from Franklin Delano Roosevelt onward.

There is an Oval Room on the 2nd floor of the main building of the White House, and it inspired previous Oval Offices. In 1903, Theodore Roosevelt had the greenhouse on the west side of the building torn down, to make for more office space. He took a corner office, and had it built in an oval shape.

His successor, William Howard Taft, didn't like the design, and had it totally rebuilt. In 1929, a fire gutted the West Wing, and Herbert Hoover had to have it redone. Finally, FDR, wanting to remove every last vestige of Hoover, had it torn down and rebuilt.

That office has been the site of some of the most important speeches broadcast from the White House: FDR's "Fireside Chats" from 1935 to 1944, Dwight D. Eisenhower's announcement of sending federal troops to desegregate Little Rock Central High School in 1957, his Farewell Address warning of the dangers of the military-industrial complex in 1961, John F. Kennedy's announcement of the naval blockade during the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962, his announcement of a civil rights bill in 1963, Lyndon Johnson's announcement that he wouldn't seek re-election in 1968, Richard Nixon's "Silent Majority" address in 1969, his resignation in 1974, Jimmy Carter's "Crisis of Confidence" speech in 1979, and Ronald Reagan's memorial to the Space Shuttle Challenger victims in 1986.

To this day, people working in the West Wing feel that others measure their influence by how close they are to "The Oval." Its importance is emphasized in its recreation in every Presidential Library from FDR's onward, decorated to look as it did during that President's tenure. 

August 9, 1974: President Richard Nixon Resigns

August 9, 1974, 50 years ago today: Richard Nixon resigns as President of the United States, due to the crimes he committed that fell under the umbrella term "Watergate."

We may never know for sure if Nixon authorized the break-in of the offices of the Democratic National Committee at the Watergate hotel and office complex on the Potomac River in Washington, D.C. on June 17, 1972. What we do know, thanks to the audiotaping system he had in the Oval Office at the White House, is that, on June 23, 6 days after the break-in, he told his White House Chief of Staff, H.R. "Bob" Haldeman, to tell the FBI to back off on their investigation of the break-in.

That was obstruction of justice. On July 27, 1974, the Committee on the Judiciary of the U.S. House of Representatives approved an Article of Impeachment against Nixon, on the charge of obstruction of justice. On July 29, they approved another, on the charge of abuse of power. On July 30, they approved a third, for contempt of congress.

On August 5, in United States v. Nixon, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled unanimously that Nixon had to turn over all the tapes. This 8-0 vote included 3 of the 4 Justices that Nixon himself had appointed: Chief Justice Warren Burger, Harry Blackmun and Lewis Powell. Nixon had also appointed William Rehnquist, who recused himself, because he had worked in the U.S. Department of Justice for the 1st 3 years of the Nixon Administration.

And the tape of the June 23, 1972 order from Nixon to Haldeman was made public. It became known as "the Smoking Gun Tape." On August 7, Republican Congressional leaders visited Nixon at the White House, and told him they didn't have the votes to save from from being impeached by the House, or convicted in a trial by the Senate. He would be removed from office, unless he did it by himself, by resigning.

On August 8, at 9:01 PM Eastern Time, he addressed the nation in prime time, and spoke for 16 minutes, telling the nation what it was more than ready to hear:

I have never been a quitter. To leave office before my term is completed is abhorrent to every instinct in my body. But as President, I must put the interest of America first.

America needs a full-time President and a full-time Congress, particularly at this time with problems we face, at home and abroad.

To continue to fight through the months ahead for my personal vindication would almost totally absorb the time and attention of both the President and the Congress in a period when our entire focus should be on the great issues of peace abroad and prosperity without inflation at home.

Therefore, I shall resign the Presidency effective at noon tomorrow. Vice President Ford will be sworn in as President at that hour in this office.

The next day, at 9:00 AM Eastern, Nixon gave a tearful Farewell Address to his staff in the East Room of the White House. After it, the President and First Lady Pat Nixon were escorted to a waiting helicopter, Marine One, by Vice President Ford and his wife Betty. Mrs. Nixon got in. Mr. Nixon got to the top step, gave a wave to his staff, and did one more "V for Victory" salute before boarding.

At 11:35 AM, a letter arrived at the office of U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, reading, in its entirety: "Dear Mr. Secretary: I hereby resign the office of President of the United States. Sincerely, Richard Nixon." As soon as Nixon received it, officially, Nixon was no longer in office, and Vice President Gerald Ford was now the President, regardless of whether there was an actual swearing-in.

At 12:05 PM, in the East Room, Gerald Rudolph Ford Jr. was sworn in as the 38th President of the United States by Chief Justice Warren Burger. He told the nation, "My fellow Americans, our long national nightmare is over. Our Constitution works. Our great republic is a government of laws, and not of men. Here, the people rule."

Nixon had been nominated at 5 different Republican Conventions: In 1952 and 1956 for Vice President; and in 1960, 1968 and 1972 for President. After 1972, he could never attend another. It would take until 2004, and Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger of California, for a speaker at a Republican Convention, to even mention him again, so toxic was his name considered to be, even in his own Party.

By 2004, of course, the Republicans had lurched so far to the right that, not only was it possible for Nixon's name to be both spoken aloud and cheered at a Republican Convention, but for people in the Republican Party to come to a consensus that Nixon did nothing wrong, except get caught.

UPDATE: It took me until 2024 to think of this, but the 1970s were Schrödinger's Decade. There was too much Republican competence, and too much crimefighting; and, at the same time, not enough of either of those things.

Nixon's Presidential Library was built adjacent to his birthplace in Yorba Linda, California, 30 miles southeast of downtown Los Angeles. Yorba Linda also has a Richard M. Nixon Parkway and a Richard M. Nixon Elementary School.

Comedians David Frye and Rich Little became famous for their impersonations of Nixon, among other political figures. Frye leaned on the phrase, "Let me just say this," while Little preferred, "Let me make this perfectly clear." Dan Aykroyd played Nixon as a bitter former President on Saturday Night Live, although he refused to shave the mustache he had at the time.

Nixon frequently features in time-travel and alternate-history pieces. These include Robert Wisdom as an alternate-history 5th-term Nixon in 1985 in the superhero film Watchmen in 2009, Stuart Milligan on Doctor Who in 2011, John H. Tobin in Transformers: Dark of the Moon the same year, Mark Camacho in X-Men: Days of Future Past in 2014, and Paul Ganus on DC's Legends of Tomorrow in 2019. Two films have been made about Nixon's 1970 meeting with Elvis Presley: He was played by Bob Gunton in Elvis Meets Nixon in 1997, and Kevin Spacey in Elvis & Nixon in 2016.

Among the other actors to play Nixon have been Rip Torn in Blind Ambition (based on the memoir of John Dean) in 1979, Philip Baker Hall in Secret Honor in 1984, Lane Smith in The Final Days in 1989, Anthony Hopkins in Oliver Stone's film Nixon in 1995,  Dan Hedaya in the comedy Dick in 1999, Frank Langella reprising his Tony Award-winning Broadway role in Frost/Nixon in 2008, and John Cusack in The Butler in 2013.

Ford is the only President whose Presidential Library and Presidential Museum are in 2 different locations: The former is at his alma mater, the University of Michigan; while the latter is in his hometown, Grand Rapids, Michigan. He has a statue in the Capitol Rotunda in Washington, and a House of Representatives Office Building is named for him, due to his service as House Minority Leader.

Despite looking and sounding nothing like Ford, Chevy Chase played him on Saturday Night Live. He was also played by Dick Crockett in The Pink Panther Strikes Again in 1976, Josef Sommer in The Betty Ford Story in 1987, Larry Lindsay in Hot Shots! Part Deux in 1993, Drew Snyder in Dark Skies in 1997, Jeffrey Ventimilia in That '70s Show in 1998, Corbin Bernsen in The Commission in 2003, and Bill Camp in Vice (about Ford's former Chief of Staff, Dick Cheney) in 2018.

The State where he was born, Nebraska, and the State where he grew up, Michigan, both have a Gerald R. Ford Freeway, and Interstate 70 in Eagle County in Colorado is the Gerald Ford Memorial Highway. In 2017, the USS Gerald R. Ford, a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, CVN-78, was launched, and is the largest warship ever built. So far, despite also having served in the Navy during World War II, Nixon doesn't have a ship named for him. Maybe he'll get a pirate ship.

August 7, 1974: The Republican Leaders Tell President Nixon the Truth

Senator Hugh Scott addresses the media after the meeting.

Behind him is Senator Barry Goldwater.

Facing Scott is Representative John Rhodes.

August 7, 1974, 50 years ago: President Richard Nixon sees 3 leaders of the Republican Party at the White House: Representative John Rhodes of Arizona, the House Minority Leader; Senator Hugh Scott of Pennsylvania, the Senate Minority Leader Hugh Scott; and Senator Barry Goldwater of Arizona, the Party's 1964 nominee for President, and the unofficial leader of what had come to be known as "the conservative movement."

They had bad news for him.

On June 17, 1972, 5 men working for the Committee to Re-Elect the President had broken into the headquarters of the Democratic National Committee, at the Watergate hotel and office complex in Washington. Whether Nixon knew that this was going to happen, and approved of it, or not, only he knew for sure.

But, 6 days later, on June 23, he met with his White House Chief of Staff, Harry Robbins "Bob" Haldeman. The conversation was captured on an audiotape, in a system Nixon had installed in the Oval Office of the White House, for the purpose of historical records, because he didn't want anything to be distorted by outside historians. Ironically, this taping system would, instead, be his downfall, as it recorded these words, among others:

Haldeman: That the way to handle this now is for us to have Walters call Pat Gray and just say, "Stay the hell out of this… This is ah, business here, we don't want you to go any further on it."

Nixon: Just say this is sort of a comedy of errors, bizarre, without getting into it, "The President believes that it is going to open the whole Bay of Pigs thing up again. And, ah, because these people are plugging for, for keeps, and that they should call the FBI in and say that we wish for the country, don't go any further into this case, period!"

Haldeman: OK.

"Walters" was Vernon C. Walters, a former 3-star General in the U.S. Army, who was then the Deputy Director of the CIA. "Pat Gray" was L. Patrick Gray III, the Acting Director of the FBI following the death of J. Edgar Hoover on May 2, 1972.

In other words, Haldeman had suggested to Nixon that he tell the FBI to back off on investigating the scandal that had become known as "Watergate," Nixon had agreed to it, and Haldeman understood that Nixon had agreed to it. This was obstruction of justice. Given that there were two men discussing it, this was also conspiracy to obstruct justice. Each of these was a felony; and, in Nixon's case, an impeachable offense.

But no one else knew that at the time, and Nixon was overwhelmingly re-elected. But the scandal broke out at the start of his 2nd term, and the Senate began holding hearings. Alexander Butterfield, Director of the Federal Aviation Administration and a former Nixon White House aide, was asked by the Senate committee if he had installed a taping system in the Oval Office. He told the truth: He had.

The fight by Congress to get those tapes, and the fight by Nixon to keep Congress from getting them, went all the way to the Supreme Court. On August 5, 1974, the Court unanimously ruled that they had to be released. When the tape featuring Nixon agreeing to Haldeman's plan to get the FBI to back off was released, it was proof of felonious guilt. It became known as "The Smoking Gun Tape."

On July 27, the House Judiciary Committee voted 27-11 to approve 3 Articles of Impeachment against Nixon. All 11 voting against it were Republicans, On August 5, having heard the tape, all 11 of those Republicans said they would vote to impeach him when the Articles came to a vote before the full House.

And so, Rhodes, Scott and Goldwater went to see Nixon at the White House. Rhodes said he couldn't save Nixon from impeachment in the House, since only 30 Republicans were willing to vote against impeachment. Scott told him there might be half a dozen Senators willing to acquit, and that was with the remaining segregationist Democrats, a.k.a. Dixiecrats, being counted. And Goldwater told him the conservative movement, which had stopped trusting him during the 1960 Presidential campaign, wouldn't save him.

Upon leaving the White House, the three men then told the media that impeachment and conviction were a near-certainty, and that the only thing that could prevent it was if Nixon resigned the Presidency, and that they had told him this. They didn't tell Nixon that they thought he should resign, only that it was the only way to avoid impeachment and removal.

After talking it over with his family and his remaining loyalists the next day, August 8, Nixon spoke to the nation that night, and announced his resignation, effective at 12:00 Noon the next day, August 9.

Scott served out his term in the Senate, and left after the 1976 election. He died in 1994, 3 months after Nixon. Rhodes retired after the 1980 election, and lived until 2003. Goldwater was running for re-election in 1974, and won, and won again in 1980. He retired after the 1986 election, and died in 1998.

In 1998, when it looked like Bill Clinton might be impeached at the height (or depth, depending on your point of view) of the Monica Lewinsky scandal, there was speculation that Clinton might receive a similar visit: House Minority Leader Dick Gephardt of Missouri, Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle of South Dakota, and Ted Kennedy of Massachusetts, the Senate's leading liberal and the brother of Clinton's hero, President John F. Kennedy.

But that delegation never came together, because Clinton was never in danger of being removed from office: The Republican-controlled house had enough hatred to impeach him, but the Senate had neither enough evidence nor enough Republicans to convict him.

In 2019, Donald Trump was impeached. But there would be no Republican delegation of House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy of California, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, and the leader of the conservative movement, whoever that was then believed to be, going to tell Trump he had to resign -- not for the good of the country, not for the good of the Republican Party, not for the good of the conservative movement, and not even for Trump's own good. There didn't have to be: McConnell had a hammerlock on the Senate's Republican caucus, and the Senate acquitted Trump.

Trump got to serve out his term. He even got to come back and be nominated for another in 2024. Nobody in the Republican Party has had the courage -- moral or otherwise -- to tell him that he is unacceptable. For America, for the Party, for anything. We, the people, must show him that. We've done it before. We must do it again.

Top 10 Worst Days In American History

December 7, 1941, 75 years ago: The U.S. Navy base at Pearl Harbor, in Honolulu, Hawaii, is bombed by Japanese planes. The attack begins at 7:48 AM Hawaii time – 1:48 PM Eastern time. As President Franklin D. Roosevelt predicted the next day that it would, it is a date which lives in infamy.

Yes, that color photograph is real, not colorized. It is reminiscent of some of the more familiar black-and-white photos of the event, such as this one.

American casualties and losses: 2 battleships totally lost, 2 battleships sunk and recovered, 3 battleships damaged, 1 battleship grounded, 2 other ships sunk, 3 cruisers damaged, 3 destroyers damaged, 3 other ships damaged, 188 aircraft destroyed, 159 aircraft damaged, 2,403 people killed, 1,178 wounded.

To put that in perspective: In 1941, the U.S. had about 130 million people, and we lost 2,400 in Honolulu that day. In 2001, we had about 300 million, and lost 3,000 on 9/11. Proportionately, we lost about twice as many people at Pearl Harbor as we did at the World Trade Center and the Pentagon combined 60 years later.

About 18,000 people were stationed at Pearl Harbor at the time. In 2013, 2,000 to 2,500 survivors were thought to be still alive, according to Eileen Martinez, chief of interpretation for the USS Arizona Memorial. Of the 16,112,566 people who served in the armed forces of the United States of America from December 7, 1941 to August 14, 1945, about 620,000 are estimated to still be alive, 71 to 75 years later -- under 4 percent.

*

Top 10 Worst Days In American History

These are listed in chronological order.

1. August 27, 1776: The Evacuation of New York. Just 54 days after the announcement of the Declaration of Independence, the Battle of Long Island is fought, in what we now call Brooklyn Heights. In terms of number of men fighting -- 20,000 British, 10,000 American -- it is the largest battle of the War of the American Revolution. And John Bull kicked Uncle Sam's ass.

Somehow, using the cover of fog, General George Washington got his men across the East River to Manhattan, in a maneuver that historian David McCullough, in his book 1776, called "America's Dunkirk," referring to the British Army's naval evacuation from France in 1940.

But it's worse than that: The British chase the Continental Army all the way up Manhattan Island, until they cross yet another river, the Hudson, at a location that would come to be called Washington Heights -- and now you know why the bridge that was built there in 1931 is named for Washington.

But they had to escape to New Jersey, abandoning New York, which the British burn -- and now you know why there's almost nothing left in Manhattan from the pre-Independence era. General William Howe had conquered New York. A year later, after beating Washington in the Battle of Brandywine, he would conquer Philadelphia, Britain's momentum only being stopped shortly thereafter at Saratoga, in Upstate New York.

In between, Washington got his men across New Jersey, one step ahead of the Brits, and across more rivers: The Hackensack, the Passaic, the Elizabeth, the Rahway, the Raritan, and, finally, the Delaware, into Pennsylvania. And he knew that his men's enlistments ran out on December 31.

If he couldn't get them to re-enlist, the Army would be gone, and the war would be lost. He had hardly any food, hardly any supplies, and an army that was tired, hungry and cold. Indeed, McCullough argues that, while we celebrate the 4th of July as a great day, 1776 was actually the worst year in American history.

Washington needed a victory, desperately. America needed a victory, desperately.

On Christmas Day, December 25, 1776, he put all his river-crossing know-how to work, and got his men back across the icy Delaware in the dead of night. The next morning, he marched them down the river, 9 miles to what's now downtown Trenton, and found the Hessian troops the British had hired to guard the city, sleeping off their holiday hangovers and turkey comas, and beat them.

Big George had his victory, he got his re-enlistments, he got another victory at Princeton just after the New Year, and the U.S.A. lived to fight another day.

Oh yeah: Howe's second-in-command that day was Charles Cornwallis. In 1778, Howe would retire from the British Army. On October 19, 1781, Cornwallis surrendered to Washington at Yorktown, Virginia, and that was the decisive battle of the war -- if not the last one, as is commonly believed.

2. August 24, 1814: The Burning of Washington. Just 29 years after the Treaty of Paris made Britain's recognition of America's independence official, the 2 countries butted heads again, in what came to be called the War of 1812. And it was totally pointless: Just 10 days after America declared war, Lord Liverpool, the British Prime Minister, made the concessions that would have satisfied our Congress and President James Madison. But, communications being what they were at the time, it took 3 weeks for information to get across the Atlantic Ocean.

It was a disaster for both sides. Within a month, the Americans surrendered Detroit without firing a shot. A year later, American troops invaded Canada, and burned Fort York -- present-day Toronto. In an action that showed how well the British remembered -- like the Alamo, Fredericksburg, the Maine and Pearl Harbor -- they decided, If the Americans want to burn our capital on the continent, we will burn theirs. And they did: Washington, D.C. was put to the torch, including the Capitol Building and the White House. Madison and his wife Dolley had barely fled the capital in time.

Note: It has been suggested that what was officially known as the Executive Mansion from its 1800 completion until Theodore Roosevelt formalized the name in 1901 was nicknamed "The White House" because of the paint used to cover the burn marks on the building's outer shell, which was pretty much all that remained of the structure. But this isn't true: The nickname had already been in place, pretty much from the start.

It would be another 3 weeks before the republic was saved in the Battle of Baltimore, including "The Defense of Fort McHenry" -- which was the original title of the poem written by Francis Scott Key, who was there, and later became our National Anthem, "The Star-Spangled Banner."

Had Baltimore fallen as well, it would have been all over, and, if they had so chosen, the British could have taken us back into their Empire. But that wasn't the United Kingdom's goal. They didn't want to take us back. They just wanted us to beg them for peace, so that we would be able to leave each other alone.

By Christmas, the Treaty of Ghent ended the war in stalemate, giving both sides what they really wanted: Peace. Which was victory enough. But, again, it took weeks for the news to get across the ocean. By the time that it did, after January 8, 1815, Andrew Jackson had already stunned the British, despite a 10-to-1 manpower disadvantage, in the Battle of New Orleans.

3. March 6, 1857: The Dred Scott Decision. Dred Scott and his wife were slaves, brought into what was then the Wisconsin Territory by their master. Slavery was illegal there, and Scott sued for their right to be declared free.

The only known photograph of Dred Scott

The case of Dred Scott vs. Sandford took 11 years to reach the Supreme Court, and Chief Justice Roger Taney wrote the majority opinion himself:

In the opinion of the court, the legislation and histories of the times, and the language used in the Declaration of Independence, show, that neither the class of persons who had been imported as slaves, nor their descendants, whether they had become free or not, were then acknowledged as a part of the people, nor intended to be included in the general words used in that memorable instrument.

In 1776, Thomas Jefferson -- admittedly, a slaveholder himself -- wrote, "We hold these truths to be self-evident: That all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; that to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed." In 1857, 81 years later -- as Abraham Lincoln would put it, four score and one year later -- Roger Taney essentially said, "Fuck you, (N-word)s. Fuck you, too, Tommy Jeff."

Taney also said that the Northwest Ordinance, the Missouri Compromise, and every other measure enacted by Congress to restrict the spread of slavery was beyond Congress' powers, and therefore unconstitutional. If the American Civil War was still a question of "if," it had now become a question of "when."

Know their names. The 7 who voted to deny Scott his freedom and citizenship: Roger Taney, James M. Wayne, John Catron, Peter V. Daniel, Samuel Nelson, Robert C. Grier and John A. Campbell. The 2 who voted to grant Scott his freedom and citizenship: John McLean and Benjamin R. Curtis.

Disgusted, Curtis resigned from the Court, the only Justice ever to do so over a matter of principle. He lived on until 1874, outliving all but 1 of the 7. McLean died in office in 1861, just before the outbreak of the war.

Daniel died in 1860, Taney in 1864, Catron in 1865, Wayne in 1867. Campbell resigned from the Supreme Court in 1861, because his home State of Alabama had seceded from the Union, and served in the Confederate Cabinet, and lived until 1889, the last survivor of the 7. Grier retired due to ill health in 1870 and died soon thereafter. Nelson, already beset by the illness that would kill him, retired in 1872, the last remaining member on the Court, and died the next year. (He is buried in Cooperstown, New York, home of the Baseball Hall of Fame.)

On May 26, 1857, 81 days after the decision, the Scotts' current owners sold them, and their new owner, Henry Taylor Blow, freed them. Blow was later elected to Congress from Missouri, and served as an Ambassador. Dred Scott already had tuberculosis, and died on September 17, 1858 -- with some irony, on the anniversary of the day in 1787 that the Continental Congress approved the Constitution. He was probably (slave records were frequently unavailable) 63 years old, had been a free man for 478 days.

He was survived by his wife, Harriet, who lived on until 1876; and 2 daughters. They, at least, lived to see the abolition of slavery, and the departure from the Supreme Court of all 7 people who had affirmed their slave status.

4. April 12, 1861: The Attack on Fort Sumter. South Carolina was the 1st State to secede, but the U.S. Army refused the State's demand to give up Fort Sumter, in Charleston Harbor. So the Confederate Navy attacked.

What it meant was this: There was a group of men who thought it was better to commit treason than to accept that slavery was wrong.

The American Civil War lasted 4 years, and killed 365,000 heroic liberators, and 290,000 traitors. The Union, the North, the good guys, won it. The Confederacy, the South, the bad guys, lost it.

The bigots lost the war. But they won the peace.

5. April 14, 1865: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln. Actor and Confederate sympathizer John Wilkes Booth wasn't man enough to actually fight for his cause. But he was petty enough and cowardly enough to sneak up behind a man and shoot him in the back of the head.

This he did, to President Abraham Lincoln, at Ford's Theatre in Washington, during a production of the comedy play Our American Cousin. Lincoln never regained consciousness, and died the next morning. He was 56 years old.

Booth made his escape, but was hunted down by the U.S. Army in Port Royal, Virginia and killed on April 26. He was just short of turning 27.

6. October 24, 1929: The Stock Market Crash. Stock prices had been artificially increased by rampant, unregulated speculation. The drop in prices that began on "Black Thursday" continued until October 29, "Black Tuesday," and the Great Depression was underway.

The Depression spread around the world. The rise of fascism in Europe, and the war that resulted, would not have happened without it. There might still have been a conflict large enough to have been called World War II, but it would not have happened so soon, and the alliances may have been very different. After all, Japan was on the same side of World War I as America, Britain, France and Russia. That was not to be the case in World War II. Which brings us back to...

7. December 7, 1941: The Attack on Pearl Harbor. The impact of World War II on sports (just to bring this blog back to its usual topic) was far-reaching, as many of the world's greatest athletes went off to military service, including baseball superstars Joe DiMaggio, Ted Williams, Hank Greenberg and Bob Feller (and, for 1 year, Stan Musial); and Heavyweight Champion Joe Louis.

Some actually saw combat: Feller was a Navy gunner, Yogi Berra was part of the D-Day invasion, and Warren Spahn was decorated for his role in the Battle of the Bulge. Two MLB players, both briefly in the majors in 1939, were killed in action: Elmer Gedeon of the Washington Senators in France, and Harry O'Neill of the Philadelphia Athletics at Iwo Jima.

In addition, some of the world's premier sporting competitions were canceled. There was no Olympics, Summer or Winter, in 1940 and 1944. The World Cup was canceled for 1942, and, because qualifying matches couldn't be played in war-torn Europe, the 1946 World Cup was canceled as well. England canceled Football League play, the FA Cup, Wimbledon and the British Open. The French and Australian Opens were also canceled.

American sports persevered, but, in fear of a Japanese attack getting all the way to the Pacific Coast, the Rose Bowl, scheduled for January 1, 1942 at Pasadena, California, between Oregon State University and Duke University, was canceled. Duke officials offered the use of their stadium in Durham, North Carolina, and the game was rescheduled. Despite Duke being the Number 2-ranked team in the country and playing at home, Oregon State won.

And, despite being set for after V-E Day, baseball canceled the 1945 All-Star Game, as wartime travel restrictions became too severe. It remains the only time the All-Star Game has been canceled, although it was postponed in 1981 due to a strike.

Less well-known is the story of a football game played the day of the attack. At the time, there were NFL teams called the New York Giants and the Brooklyn Dodgers. The Giants went into the game 8-2, the Dodgers 6-4. The Giants had clinched the NFL Eastern Division, and a place in the NFL Championship Game against the defending Champion Chicago Bears. Their 2 losses were to the Dodgers and the Chicago Cardinals, by a combined 6 points, so they may have been the best team in the League. But Dodger fans, as their baseball brethren would have been under similar circumstances, were excited over the possibility of beating the Giants twice.

The game was played on December 7, 1941, kicking off at 12:00 noon, as if nothing out of the ordinary was happening. Actually, something out of the ordinary was happening: It was Tuffy Leemans Day, honoring two-way back Alphonse Emil Leemans, having his 2nd All-Pro season, following 1938, when he helped the Giants win the NFL Championship. He was presented with a silver tray, a watch, and -- the cloud of war was already over America, even if we weren't yet in it -- $1,500 in defense bonds. (They were not yet called "war bonds." He would later be elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame and the New York Giants Ring of Honor, and his Number 4 was retired by the team.)

The attack began at 1:48 PM, New York time. During the 2nd half, the public address announcer paged Colonel William Donovan to come to the stadium office, to take a phone call from Washington. This was a bit unusual: Ordinarily, a person would only be paged over the PA system if he was a doctor, and there was a medical emergency. As the game went on, other officers were paged. Eventually, an announcement went out that all servicemen at the game had to leave and return to their units, and reporters -- not just sportswriters -- had to call their offices.

The Brooklyn Eagle, December 8, 1941

Similar announcements were made at the other 2 NFL games played that day. At Comiskey Park in Chicago, the Bears beat the host Cardinals 34-24. And at Griffith Stadium in Washington, in the capital so the number of government officials and military officers present was considerably larger than in New York and Chicago, the host Redskins beat the Philadelphia Eagles 20-14.

When the game in New York ended, in a 21-7 Dodger victory, Dodger fans could not celebrate, and Giant fans didn't care, either, because the announcement was made that Pearl Harbor had been attacked. The NFL Championship Game was played as scheduled, at Wrigley Field in Chicago on December 21, and, despite a 9-9 deadlock in the 3rd quarter, the Bears went on to beat the Giants 37-9.

Not until April 16, 1946 would a Major League Baseball game by played with all wartime conditions removed. For the NFL, not until September 29, 1946.

8A. November 22, 1963: The Assassination of JFK. "In the final analysis," President John F. Kennedy had said earlier in the year, "our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet. We all breathe the same air. We all cherish our children's futures. And we are all mortal."

Lee Harvey Oswald -- or somebody else, and/or a group of somebody elses -- proved him right in downtown Dallas.

It wasn't immediately clear that things would go downhill. But, eventually, his successor, Lyndon B. Johnson, would turn away from his Great Society dream (and JFK's New Frontier dream) and pay more and more attention to fighting in Vietnam. And there would be race riots. And there would be rising crime.

I'm not saying a still-living JFK, presuming he was re-elected in 1964, would have prevented all of it. But I would have liked to have seen him try. Especially since it might have prevented...

8B. November 5, 1968: The Election of Richard Nixon. Just a few hundred thousand votes in a few key States would have meant no Tricky Dick in the White House, an earlier end to the Vietnam War, no Kent State, no Killing Fields, no Watergate.

But American liberals abandoned Hubert Humphrey, and stayed home on Election Day. Just as they did to Jimmy Carter in 1980. And Al Gore in 2000. And Hillary Clinton in 2016. When will we ever learn? And where have all the flowers gone?

9. December 12, 2000: Bush v. Gore. Four Justices of the Supreme Court -- John Paul Stevens, David Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer -- said that the Florida recount should continue. They weren't trying to insure any particular result, only that we get the correct one, whatever that was.

But five Justices -- William Rehnquist, Sandra Day O'Connor, Antonin Scalia, Anthony Kennedy and Clarence Thomas -- decided to ensure that the only votes in the Presidential election that counted were theirs, and George W. Bush became President instead of Al Gore.

Note the differences in the headlines: The conservative Post 

wanted everyone to believe Bush had won, while the liberal Daily News 

decided responsible journalism was more important.

Essentially, those 5 Justices were telling over 100 million people -- the 50,999,897 people who voted for Gore, and the 50,456,002 people who voted for Bush -- that their vote didn't matter. When the Supreme Court is supposed to be the last line of defense for fairness, justice, and the rule of law in America. They spat in the face of human rights and in the face of States' rights (which, you'd think, the conservative Justices would've wanted to uphold, by letting the State of Florida handle its own election).

Rehnquist died in 2005, shortly after O'Connor retired. Scalia died earlier this year. Kennedy and Thomas are still on the Court.

10. September 11, 2001: The 9/11 Attacks. I'm not saying Gore would have prevented them. Maybe he would have. Even if he hadn't, you can be sure he would have made getting Osama bin Laden, and not Saddam Hussein, who had nothing to do with them, his priority.

Many people wish we had the unity we had on September 12, 2001. These same people would have wanted Gore impeached if it had happened on his watch. They can go to Hell.

It remains to be seen whether November 8, 2016, the "election" of Donald Trump, will join these.

(UPDATE: I'm not sure which of the Top 10 I would take down to install Trump's "election." Maybe the attack on Fort Sumter, since the Dred Scott Decision made something like that inevitable.)