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This Date in History | Archibald Henderson, G.B. Shaw, and Mark Twain
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On this date in 1920, one of history’s Bloody Sunday happened in Ireland
IRA members killed about a dozen suspected English spies and in retaliation that afternoon the Black and Tans decided to stop a soccer match and search for weapons among the patrons, leading to shots fired. About a dozen were killed and sixty more shot in the ensuing melee.
[There were subsequent spasms of Sunday violence also referred to as Bloody Sunday over the years in Ireland — I think a lot of folks my age think of the one in 1972 when British troops fired on unarmed civilians, several shot while running away from the soldiers]
IRA members killed about a dozen suspected English spies and in retaliation that afternoon the Black and Tans decided to stop a soccer match and search for weapons among the patrons, leading to shots fired. About a dozen were killed and sixty more shot in the ensuing melee.
[There were subsequent spasms of Sunday violence also referred to as Bloody Sunday over the years in Ireland — I think a lot of folks my age think of the one in 1972 when British troops fired on unarmed civilians, several shot while running away from the soldiers]
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Voltaire (born November 21, 1694, Paris, France—died May 30, 1778, Paris)
Voltaire” is the pen name under which French author-philosopher François-Marie Arouet published a number of books and pamphlets in the 18th century. He was a key figure in the European intellectual movement known as the Enlightenment. Voltaire was quite controversial in his day, in no small part because of the critical nature of his work. His books and pamphlets contained scores of assaults on church authority and clerical power. They criticized French political institutions too, and many incorporated elaborate defenses of civil liberty. Voltaire’s ideas ultimately found expression in the French and American revolutions.
Voltaire” is the pen name under which French author-philosopher François-Marie Arouet published a number of books and pamphlets in the 18th century. He was a key figure in the European intellectual movement known as the Enlightenment. Voltaire was quite controversial in his day, in no small part because of the critical nature of his work. His books and pamphlets contained scores of assaults on church authority and clerical power. They criticized French political institutions too, and many incorporated elaborate defenses of civil liberty. Voltaire’s ideas ultimately found expression in the French and American revolutions.
donbosco
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On November 22, 1963 President John F. Kennedy was shot and killed. I was 5. I don’t remember anything about the day of the shooting but I do remember the funeral. It was broadcast live on TV. As I watched while seated on the floor of our #Bonlee den, the young African American woman that cared for me - Luby Degraffenreaidt - ironed clothes and wept. This I vividly remember. The funeral parade included a flag-draped casson followed by an unruly riderless horse. A pair of high boots were turned backwards in the stirrups. Luby ‘watched’ after me in those days. She was small even to little me and I cared for her and her tears distressed me. Soon afterward she left #DeepChatham — for Philadelphia as part of The Great Migration out of The South by some 6 million African Americans that took place during the middle third of the 20th century.
John F. Kennedy was inspiring evidently - I’ve heard his voice - I must have heard it as a child. The effect on the adults and world around me of his violent death clearly made lifelong impressions. In those days I knew about Camelot, the musical was in the news and even filtered down to #DeepChatham by way of "The Ed Sullivan Show" and other television broadcasts. Conflating the handsome John, the beautiful and stylish Jackie, and the telegenic children John-John and Caroline and King Arthur's Court wasn't really that difficult for a 5 year old. We all went from Camelot to the Nightmare on Deeley Plaza in what seems like seconds. I’d propose that it may very well have been the beginning of a new way of seeing the world.
In the years afterward assassins played a prominent role in my perception of the world. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. And Bobby Kennedy both fell to the bullets of mad men. George Wallace was shot and survived, though he would spread hate from a wheelchair thereafter (some suggest a late life epiphany and divergence from that path - I know what he stood for in the 1960s). In those days I did not know of the many other assassinations of men who challenged the status quo like Medgar Evers and Malcolm X. To assassinate is a political act and killing an idea, an ideal, or a dream is most often implicit. We’ll likely never truly know how many murders actually occurred then, or since, assassinations of men and women that stood against, and resisted, power and the status quo.
Of course the assassination of Abraham Lincoln hangs over our nation still. Losing his vision in the closing days of our Civil War and being without it in the aftermath doubtless assured that those crucial historic moments would be badly bungled with repercussions down to the present. In September of 1975, within the span of 18 days there were two attempts at murdering President Gerald Ford. Our first, (and thus far only) unelected President, Ford followed the crimes and disgrace of Nixon.
Ford pardoned Nixon, depriving us all of justice and perpetuating a sorry history of elected criminals paying inadequate penance for deadly blows struck against the Constitution and the body politic. In an editorial,’The New York Times’ called the Nixon pardon a “profoundly unwise, divisive and unjust act" that also destroyed the new president's "credibility as a man of judgment, candor and competence.” Nixon damaged and sullied the office, lowering the bar to a subterranean level. Ford was apparently a good man with bad vision who took an expedient path for which we all currently pay. When the opportunity presented itself to raise that bar back up he failed.
Perhaps the violence done before Nixon and Ford, robbing us of leadership in crucial times, has contributed to fostering an environment in which service is seen as coming at too big a price, making it far too attractive to few but those deeply driven by flawed ways of seeing, or worse still, the greedy men-without-a-country and lumps of coal for a heart that find the unfettered pursuit of profit to be the only worthy motivation. Granted, there are, at least I believe there are, people that serve who bring strong, essentially good ideals to the table.
Still, when bullets tore through aspiring heroes in the ‘60s it seems that the fabric of our national soul was also shot through with holes. Ethics have been the loser all around. When Luby Degraffenreaidt shed those tears with so many other Americans back in 1963 it now seems a foretelling of the struggle ahead. And make no mistake, we are in the fight of our lives right here, right now. We go the way of the bullet and the pardon or we go the way of justice. That time weighs upon us still. Justice has forsaken our nation.
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On this date 1963, we were let out of 6th grade early. It was my birthday and thought it was neat until I found out why. Got home and TV on. Mom was quite upset most of the day. I was somewhat empathetic but at the same time as a dumb kid, was bummed my birthday had turned to shit.
This was just one of many things to come that made me the cynic and skeptic I have been my whole life. Over the years my naive love affair with Kennedy/Camelot eroded as I learned more and more of what his administration did and did not do.
My uncle owned a building next to the Texas Book Depository. He always believed it was the CIA and Mafia that did it. Visited the whole scene that next summer. Even the grassy knoll...
This was just one of many things to come that made me the cynic and skeptic I have been my whole life. Over the years my naive love affair with Kennedy/Camelot eroded as I learned more and more of what his administration did and did not do.
My uncle owned a building next to the Texas Book Depository. He always believed it was the CIA and Mafia that did it. Visited the whole scene that next summer. Even the grassy knoll...
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Paine
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Hey, my sister’s birthday is 11/22 as well. I’m also someone who believes in the mafia “conspiracy theory.”
When you learn about how much the mafia was involved with the Batista regime in Cuba, the mafia angle starts to make a lot more sense.
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You should share this story with Michael Beschloss (the historian). He solicits and collects them.
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Cormac McCarthy's final two novels, well the longer one (The Passenger), suggests that he, too, was a believer in the mafia conspiracy theory. He has a character pontificate at some length about it.
Great novel, IMO.
Ddseddse
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OTD in 1718, just south of Ocracoke, Eward Teach aka Blackbeard "fell with five shot in him and twenty dismal cuts in several parts of his body”.
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HISTORY
The HISTORY Channel - Geschichte erleben! The HISTORY Channel ist der deutschsprachige Pay-TV-Sender für spannende Dokumentationen und macht die Faszination von Menschen und Ereignissen täglich greifbar!
nashcounty
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The Beatles (a k.a. The White Album) was released November 22, 1968.
nashcounty
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On November 22, 1963, Rocky Mount Senior High defeated Winston-Salem Reynolds 14-13 to win the state 4-A football championship. It was Rocky Mount's fourth straight state title in major sports. The Blackbirds had previously won state championships in football in 1962, and basketball and baseball in 1963.
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donbosco
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When KC wanted to break his rice diet vows he often visited The Hardback Cafe for coffee and cake.
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Those horn stabs are still badass.
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I saw him around Durham a time or two, my man really did blow up.
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1963 was the year that intercoms were placed in my elementary school classrooms. Pretty much the only time they were used were to announce an early dismissal of school. So I was expectantly excited when the intercom came on. It was the principal announcing that President Kennedy had been shot, school was dismissed, and we should go home. By the time I walked home, It was a mile, my mother was listening to the radio, we didn't have a TV. I got home just in time to hear the announcement that JFK had died. My Dad had been the county chairman for JFK in 1960 and I knew he was going to be hit hard. Some years later my Dad told me a story about a local man came by his store that afternoon just to tell my father that the (n-word)-lover had gotten what he deserved. A couple of weeks later, the same man stopped by my Dad's store to apologize for what he said on November 22nd.