This Date in History

  • Thread starter Thread starter nycfan
  • Start date Start date
  • Replies: 363
  • Views: 5K
  • Politics 
IMG_6771.jpeg

Carolina and State were scheduled for a 9 pm tip in Chapel Hill on January 16, 1991 but the launch of the U.S. and Coalition forces attack on Iraq, dubbed Desert Storm, led UNC and NCSU officials to postpone the game. Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein had invaded Kuwait on August 2, 1990, requiring but 2 days to occupy that country. A United Nations resolution gave Hussein until January 15, 1991 to renounce their conquest and withdraw their troops from Kuwait. When that did not happen Operation Desert Storm was initiated.

IMG_6773.jpeg

President George H.W. Bush spoke on television at 9:00 pm, announcing the opening of air attacks on Iraq. Bombardment, backed by a 42 nation coalition, began immediately. The 9:05 scheduled game was postponed by 8:00 pm. State was 8-3 and Carolina 13-1 (ranked #5). Both teams were 2-0 in league play. And it was Carolina/State. Tar Heel star Pete Chilcutt’s brother was a Marine and preparing to deploy. Team Captains Rick Fox and King Rice spoke to the Press in support of the postponement and expressed their concern for their teammate and his family. Coach Smith said the action made the game “inconsequential.” Carolina and State went on to play back-to-back, in Raleigh on February 6 (the Wolfpack won at home) and the next night Carolina took a win at home. That year UNC finished in 2nd place in the ACC (10-4) and won the conference tournament and lost to a Roy Williams-led Kansas team in the Final Four.

IMG_6776.jpeg

There was great concern on campus and around the country and world on that January night. Constant war had yet to become the norm. CNN brought the 42-day aerial attack on Baghdad into our homes 24-7. This conflict was the first Video Game War. Concomitantly, the processing of our sensibilities and the packaging of violence as ordinary was only a-borning. And the world was as yet intolerant of authoritarians taking territory by the Right of their Might. The numbness is pervasive of late.
I was in my car heading up to the game from our apartment when they announced it was officially postponed on the radio.

The postponement led to a back-to-back home and home tilt with State later in the season with the same referee crew. As a result, some mouthing off that Corchiani did at the refs the first night carried over to the start of the second game and Paparro (I think it was) called a technical foul on Corch in like the first minute or two of the game.

IMG_4577.jpeg
 
Not a bad deal.

1917 The United States purchased three of the Virgin Islands—St. Thomas, St. John, and St. Croix—from Denmark for $25 million.

The U.S. Virgin Islands are a group of Caribbean islands and islets. A U.S. territory, it's known for white-sand beaches, reefs and verdant hills. St. Thomas island is home to the capital, Charlotte Amalie. To the east is the island of St. John, most of which comprises Virgin Islands National Park. St. Croix island and its historic towns, Christiansted and Frederiksted, are to the south.

Virgin-Gorda-Island-British-Islands.jpg

political-physical-map-US-Virgin-Islands.gif
 
Not a bad deal.

1917 The United States purchased three of the Virgin Islands—St. Thomas, St. John, and St. Croix—from Denmark for $25 million.

The U.S. Virgin Islands are a group of Caribbean islands and islets. A U.S. territory, it's known for white-sand beaches, reefs and verdant hills. St. Thomas island is home to the capital, Charlotte Amalie. To the east is the island of St. John, most of which comprises Virgin Islands National Park. St. Croix island and its historic towns, Christiansted and Frederiksted, are to the south.

Virgin-Gorda-Island-British-Islands.jpg

political-physical-map-US-Virgin-Islands.gif
Maybe the Danes would be willing to take the same amount for Greenland?
 
1943 To save on the costs of labour and equipment, the United States banned the sale of presliced bread during World War II.

Sliced bread is a loaf of bread that has been sliced with a machine and packaged for convenience, as opposed to the consumer cutting it with a knife. It was first sold in 1928, advertised as "the greatest forward step in the baking industry since bread was wrapped". By 1933, around 80% of bread sold in the US was pre-sliced, leading to the popular idiom "greatest thing since sliced bread".

 
Hedy Lamarr (/ˈhɛdi/; born Hedwig Eva Maria Kiesler; November 9, 1914[a] – January 19, 2000) was an Austrian-born American actress and inventor. After a brief early film career in Czechoslovakia, including the controversial erotic romantic drama Ecstasy (1933), she fled from her first husband, Friedrich Mandl, and secretly moved to Paris. Traveling to London, she met Louis B. Mayer, who offered her a film contract in Hollywood. Lamarr became a film star with her performance in the romantic drama Algiers (1938).[2] She achieved further success with the Western Boom Town (1940) and the drama White Cargo (1942). Lamarr's most successful film was the religious epic Samson and Delilah (1949).[3] She also acted on television before the release of her final film in 1958. She was honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1960.

At the beginning of World War II, along with George Antheil, Lamarr co-invented a radio guidance system for Allied torpedoes that used spread spectrum and frequency hopping technology to defeat the threat of radio jamming by the Axis powers. However, the technology was not used in operational systems until after World War II, and then independently of their patent.[4]

1737296928199.jpeg

 
IMG_6835.jpeg

‪#OTD in 1854 Furnifold M Simmons was born in Jones County NC. Duke grad & 5 term US Senator who dominated DemPartyNC (then deeply conservative). Led successful White Supremacy campaigns of 1898 & 1900. Murders of Wilmington 1898 were on his watch. The campaign button below was proudly worn by his backers. Furnifold Simmons, Democratic Power Broker
 
Would the US be a different country if not for this? I'm no legal eagle but along the line I learned about the importance of his decisions.

1801 U.S. President John Adams nominated John Marshall to be chief justice of the Supreme Court of the United States.

John Marshall (born September 24, 1755, near Germantown [now Midland], Virginia—died July 6, 1835, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania) was the fourth chief justice of the United States and principal founder of the U.S. system of constitutional law.

As perhaps the Supreme Court’s most influential chief justice, Marshall was responsible for constructing and defending both the foundation of judicial power and the principles of American federalism.

The first of his great cases in more than 30 years of service was Marbury v. Madison (1803), which established the Supreme Court’s right to expound constitutional law and exercise judicial review by declaring laws unconstitutional. His defense of federalism was articulated in McCulloch v. Maryland (1819), which upheld the authority of Congress to create the Bank of the United States and declared unconstitutional the right of a state to tax an instrument of the federal government. In his ruling on McCulloch, Marshall at once explained the authority of the court to interpret the constitution, the nature of federal-state relations inherent in a federal system of government, and the democratic nature of both the U.S. government and its governing. During his tenure as chief justice, Marshall participated in more than 1,000 decisions, writing more than 500 of them himself.

John-Marshall.jpg
 
Thanks for the additional info.

1) Any idea what shape it’s in today?

2) Now that I think about it, we had a lot of black Alstons in the Chapel Hill/Carrboro schools.

3) Chatham Jack had at least 168 slaves. That was sizable in this area. A guy named Chatham Jack sounds like he fathered a lot of children - slave and white.


“What was life like for one of Chatham's wealthiest plantation families in the 1800s? The Alston name is often associated with wealth and success, but we have few details about the family or their lives. Papers discovered in the Alston-DeGraffenreidt House, which still stands between Pittsboro and Siler City, shed some light on this topic.

For forty-four years, what is now called the Alston-DeGraffenreidt House was the home of Adeline Williams Alston, widow of John Alston. John was one of the sons of Chatham Jack Alston. Adeline was widowed early and at the time of her husband's death had eight children and was pregnant with a ninth. She never remarried and managed the plantation with the help of her wealthy and well-connected family and the labor of hundreds of enslaved persons.

Adeline's story is clearly not that of the average Chatham farm widow, but it is the story of an important aspect of Chatham's history. CCHA volunteers Steven Brooks, Jim and Beverly Wiggins have researched and documented this history and provided a paper that is now available on the Chatham County Historical Association website.

In Adeline’s time, slave ownership was, to most, a measure of wealth and success. And even now, the wealth and success of families or individuals in the planter class is often remembered without acknowledgment of the inhuman practice that created and supported their privileged way of life. While narratives that focus only on the positive attributes of those who were much admired in their day are less disturbing, they are also incomplete and thus untrue. The authors have chosen to include the uncomfortable truths in this narrative.

One available document lists the family's enslaved workers by name, and is included in hopes that it might provide difficult-to-find information for descendants of those persons.

You can read the paper on our website:

#ChathamNCHistory #ChathamCountyNC #ChathamHistory #ChathamNC #AdelineAlston #Alston #plantation #AlstonDeGraffenreidtHouse #EnslavedPeople #1800s”

IMG_6867.jpeg
 
2010 In Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission , the U.S. Supreme Court ruled (5–4) that laws preventing corporations and unions from using general treasury funds for independent electioneering communications violated the First Amendment's guarantee of freedom of speech.

One of the worst decisions ever by the court. Look where it got us, :cry:
 
Continuing on this theme

Roe v. Wade was a landmark Supreme Court case in 1973 where the court ruled that the U.S. Constitution protects a woman's right to have an abortion, establishing a right to privacy that encompasses the decision to terminate a pregnancy, effectively striking down many state laws restricting abortion access; however, this decision was later overturned in 2022 by the Supreme Court, leaving abortion regulation largely up to individual states.

Key points about Roe v. Wade:

Decision:

The court ruled 7-2 that a Texas law criminalizing most abortions was unconstitutional, finding a right to privacy within the Fourteenth Amendment's Due Process Clause that protects a woman's right to choose abortion.

Trimester framework:

The ruling established a trimester framework, allowing for increasing state regulation of abortion as pregnancy progresses, with the most restrictions permitted in the third trimester when fetal viability is possible.

Impact:

This decision sparked intense debate about abortion rights in the United States, with ongoing legal challenges and political activism on both sides.
Well it was a nice 50 years.

A big finger to these current SCOTUS aholes.

takeover_2500.jpg
 
Hey Story Lovers...I'm telling stories tomorrow (Thurs, 1/23) from noon until one. If anyone wants the Zoom Link drop me a message and I'll pass it along.
 
Don't know how many lurk this thread but damn if you don't reply with a comment or story.

Playeda bunch in the Grime/Manly quad whatever I can't remembet it's name dammit. May have thrown wiyh @heelinhell.


On January 23, 1957, machines at the Wham-O toy company roll out the first batch of their aerodynamic plastic discs—now known to millions of fans all over the world as Frisbees.

The story of the Frisbee began in Bridgeport, Connecticut, where William Frisbie opened the Frisbie Pie Company in 1871. Students from nearby universities would throw the empty pie tins to each other, yelling “Frisbie!” as they let go. In 1948, Walter Frederick Morrison and his partner Warren Franscioni invented a plastic version of the disc called the “Flying Saucer” that could fly further and more accurately than the tin pie plates. After splitting with Franscioni, Morrison made an improved model in 1955 and sold it to the new toy company Wham-O as the “Pluto Platter”–an attempt to cash in on the public craze over space and Unidentified Flying Objects (UFOs).

The 1950s

In 1958, a year after the toy’s first release, Wham-O—the company behind such top-sellers as the Hula-Hoop, the Super Ball and the Water Wiggle—changed its name to the Frisbee disc, misspelling the name of the historic pie company. A company designer, Ed Headrick, patented the design for the modern Frisbee in December 1967, adding a band of raised ridges on the disc’s surface–called the Rings–to stabilize flight. By aggressively marketing Frisbee-playing as a new sport, Wham-O sold over 100 million units of its famous toy by 1977.

High school students in Maplewood, New Jersey, invented Ultimate Frisbee, a cross between football, soccer and basketball, in 1967. In the 1970s, Headrick himself invented Frisbee Golf, in which discs are tossed into metal baskets; there are now hundreds of courses in the U.S., with millions of devotees. There is also Freestyle Frisbee, with choreographed routines set to music and multiple discs in play, and various Frisbee competitions for both humans and dogs–the best natural Frisbee players.

Today, at least 60 manufacturers produce the flying discs—generally made out of plastic and measuring roughly 20-25 centimeters (8-10 inches) in diameter with a curved lip. The official Frisbee is owned by Mattel Toy Manufacturers, who bought the toy from Wham-O in 1994.

images.jpg
 
Last edited:
IMG_6835.jpeg

‪#OTD in 1854 Furnifold M Simmons was born in Jones County NC. Duke grad & 5 term US Senator who dominated DemPartyNC (then deeply conservative). Led successful White Supremacy campaigns of 1898 & 1900. Murders of Wilmington 1898 were on his watch. The campaign button below was proudly worn by his backers. Furnifold Simmons, Democratic Power Broker
Change the photo to Willis Smith, and that button could be used in 1950.

Change it to Jesse Helms, and it works in ‘72, ‘78, ‘84, ‘90, and ‘96.
 
January 24th, 1940

The German government ordered the registration of all Jewish-owned property in Poland.
 
Canned beer was first sold on January 24, 1935.

In partnership with the American Can Company, the Gottfried Krueger Brewing Company delivered 2,000 cans of Krueger’s Finest Beer and Krueger’s Cream Ale to faithful Krueger drinkers in Richmond. Ninety-one percent of the drinkers approved of the canned beer, driving Krueger to give the green light to further production.
 
"On this day in 1995: Fourteen years after being convicted of the rape and murder of a N.C. Wesleyan College cheerleader, Kermit Smith is executed by lethal injection at Central Prison in Raleigh.

Smith becomes the first white person in North Carolina — and the second in the nation the Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1976 — to be executed for killing a black person."

 
On January 24, 1961

I remember when this happened. I lived about 15 miles from where the bombs landed. When my Dad told me where it was, the description was, "It's in that empty field, just down the road from . . .," and I knew exactly where he was describing. Eventhough I was young, it was talked about, ALOT. And nothing that I have subsequently heard/read contradicted what I heard in the immediate aftermath of the incident. Which actually surprises me. You would think something like this would be TOP SECRET HUSH-HUSH. But it wasn't. Nothing I have read in the past 64 years has materially altered or contradicted my understanding of what happened from what I learned during the first few days after the "incident."

There has to be some lesson in "crisis control management" here. As in, just telling people the truth upfront is always better than the tales we will invent when we sense a cover-up. Or maybe this was a cover-up and the cover story was so horrendous, that no one ever thought, "Well there has to be more."
 
Back
Top