July 4th 1879: End of Anglo-Zulu WarOn this day in 1879, the...

The Zulu attack at Kambula


The burning of Ulundi

July 4th 1879: End of Anglo-Zulu War

On this day in 1879, the Zulu capital of Ulundi was captured by the British, thus ending the Anglo-Zulu War. The war in South Africa began in 1878 after the murder of several British citizens by Zulus and Zulu king Cetshwayo’s refusal to accept an ultimatum which required the Zulu to surrender parts of their sovereignty. However, authorities in Britain had long been seeking pretense to launch an assault on the Zulu Kingdom to consolidate British rule in the area. The indigenous Zulu warriors had some initial success against the European invaders, including at the battle of Isandlwana in January 1879, though this victory was offset by defeat at Rourke’s Drift. The Zulu forces were decisively defeated in March 1879 at the Battle of Kambula, which paved the way for British victory in the war. On July 4th 1879, British forces attacked the royal villages of King Cetshwayo at Ulundi, where they defeated the last of the Zulu soldiers and burned the capital; this defeat essentially marked the end of the Anlgo-Zulu war. Over 1,000 Zulu died in the fighting, and Cetshwayo fled, eventually being captured in the Ngome forest in August and exiled. British victory spelled the end of independence of the Zulu nation in South Africa, and resulted in the division of Zululand.

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October 22nd 1844: The Great DisappoinmentOn this day in 1844,...

William Miller (1782 - 1849)


1843 prediction chart


Satirical cartoon lampooning Millerites preparing for end-times

October 22nd 1844: The Great Disappoinment

On this day in 1844, the followers of American preacher William Miller expected the world to come to an end with the Second Coming of Christ. In the 1820s, Miller concluded from his close reading of biblical prophetic texts - matching vague quotations from the Book of Daniel to historical events - that the end-times would occur around 1843. In the following decades, Miller garnered a significant following among people convinced that the apocalypse was at hand, and the so-called Millerites devoted themselves to spreading the news of Christ’s imminent return. By 1843, it is estimated that over one million people had attended a Millerite meering. Critics of the movement characterised its adherents as fanatics and fear-mongerers, blaming cases of suicide and commital to mental institutions on terror induced by the Millerites’ talk. The early 1840s were years of trepidation for Miller’s followers, and they grew increasingly frustrated as the apocalypse failed to dawn. Millerites were therefore willing to accept the assertion of Samuel Snow that the exact date of Christ’s return to earth would be October 22nd 1844. On this day, they believed, human history would draw to a close as Jesus Christ descended from heaven to save the souls of the faithful and condemn those of the evil, inaugurating the apocalypse that would lead to an eternal reign of righteousness. Encouraged by the portentious appearance of a comet in the skies, Millerites were determined to purify their lives and set their affairs in order in preparation for the end-times. However, the morning of October 23rd 1844 dawned as usual, to the humiliation and sadness of the Millerites, many of whom had given up their worldly possessions. The failed prediction became known as the ‘Great Disappointment’, and provided a cautionary tale against trying to affix a specific date to the Second Coming. While millennialist and apocalyptic movements such as Miller’s were far from uncommon during this period - indeed, most nineteenth-century Americans believed in the imminent millennium - the Millerites were peculiar for the scope of their movement and their precise timing of the Second Coming.

“The day came and passed, and the darkness of another night closed in upon the world. But with that darkness came a pang of disappointment to the advent believers"
- Account of Millerite Washington Morse

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December 1st 1955: Rosa Parks on the busOn this day in 1955,...

Rosa Parks (1913 - 2005) on a bus


President Obama sits in the Rosa Parks bus, sitting on the same row as she sat when she refused to move

December 1st 1955: Rosa Parks on the bus

On this day in 1955, Rosa Parks, a 42-year-old black seamstress from Alabama, refused to give up her seat on a bus for a white man. A member of the NAACP, Parks was returning home from a long day at work when the bus driver ordered her to give up her seat on the full bus for a white man. No stranger to civil rights activism, she was subsequently arrested for civil disobedience in defying the state’s Jim Crow racial segregation laws. Through this act of defiance, Parks sparked the Montgomery Bus Boycott, during which time African-Americans - under the leadership of a young, charismatic reverend called Martin Luther King Jr. - refused to use the city buses, arguing that they should be integrated per the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision. The boycott was successful in forcing Montgomery to end its discriminatory segregation laws, and marked the beginning of the main phase of what is now known as the Civil Rights Movement. From Montgomery, African-Americans across the United States went on to lead sit-ins, freedom rides, and political marches, in an attempt to bring an end to segregation laws which had oppressed their community for so long. These activists were all indebted to Rosa Parks - known as the ‘mother of the Civil Rights Movement’ - for her simple act of defiance, firmly asserting her humanity and her rights as an American citizen. As the movement grew, Parks remained an influential symbol and leader of the movement, which ultimately brought an end to legal segregation and forced Congress to pass the 1964 Civil Rights and 1965 Voting Rights Acts. As for Parks herself, the affair of her arrest and the subsequent boycott caused her to lose her job and made her a victim of harassment and threats. She moved to Detriot and in 1965 began to work in the office of Congressman John Conyers. In 1999, Rosa Parks was awarded the Congressional Gold Medal for her role in transforming American race relations, and upon her death in 2005 she lay in state at the U.S. Capitol. Today, 60 years on, we remember Rosa Parks’s personal bravery, the successes of the movement she inspired, and the steps yet to be taken as the struggle against systemic racism continues.

“People always say that I didn’t give up my seat because I was tired, but that isn’t true. I was not tired physically, or no more tired than I usually was at the end of a working day…No, the only tired I was, was tired of giving in”

60 years ago today

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May 8th 1945: VE DayOn this day in 1945, at the end of the...

May 8th 1945: VE Day

On this day in 1945, at the end of the Second World War, combat ended in Europe with the Germans accepting unconditional surrender in Rheims, France. The German surrender marked the end of Hitler’s Third Reich, following the dictator’s suicide on April 30th. Germany’s surrender was led by German President Karl Dönitz, and was signed on May 7th and ratified on May 8th. The Western world celebrated the end of the bloody conflict, with huge festivities in Trafalgar Square and outside Buckingham Palace in London, and in New York’s Time Square. British King George VI and Prime Minister Winston Churchill led the celebrations in their country, and U.S. President Harry Truman dedicated the victory to his recently deceased predecessor, remarking his only wish was that “Franklin D. Roosevelt had lived to witness this day”.

“This is your hour. This is your Victory”
- Winston Churchill to crowds on VE Day

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March 15th 1985: Brazilian military government endsOn this day...

1964 coup


Establishment of new constitution in 1986

March 15th 1985: Brazilian military government ends

On this day in 1985, a new president took office in Brazil, marking the end of a twenty-year military government. Brazil’s woes began with a military coup in 1964 which ousted the sitting president. The new military leadership swiftly established a repressive state, issuing a series of military decrees suspending habeas corpus and disbanding congress. Groups opposing the government, notably the Communist Party, were forced undergroud and formed armed resistance movements. Dissent was harshly repressed, and a 2007 report found that 475 people ‘disappeared’ during the twenty-year dictatorship, with thousands imprisoned, tortured, and murdered. Brazil’s military and police officers were trained in torture techniques by American operatives from the CIA, intent on eradicating communist influence in the region. The dictatorship in Brazil was followed by similarly repressive governments in Bolivia, Chile, Uruguay, and Argentina. These Latin American dictatorships violently suppressed opposition to their governments in the US-sponsored Operation Condor. In the 1970s, with the dictatorship at its peak, Brazil’s economy boomed, reaching annual GDP growth rathes of 12 percent. In 1974, the more moderate Ernesto Geisel came to the presidency, and began relaxing the autoritarian aspects of the regime. It was under his leadership that exiles were allowed to return, and habeas corpus was restored. However, the era of military dictatorship did not come to an end until a declining economy and frustration with the lack of democracy caused public protest to reach a fever pitch. In 1985, the electoral college elected a new leader - José Sarney - with his inauguration marking the official end of the dictatorship. A year later, a Constitutional Congress began drafting a new constitution to end dictatorship and establish democracy. The constitution, which was promulgated two years later, restricted the state’s ability to curtail civil liberties and suppress the democratic process. In 1989, a democratic presidential election was held, and Fernando Collor de Mello became Brazil’s president. The painful memories of the repressive dictatorship continue to haunt many Brazilians, including current president Dilma Rousseff, who was among the 30,000 people tortured by the government.

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ju55y: frantzfandom: thegreatnessideserve: dionysias: A... 14

ju55y:

frantzfandom:

thegreatnessideserve:

dionysias:

 

And could we throw in the fact that if you were for a sensible equality  you should be demanding not bombing anybody and not demand that just different people should have been killed?

Okay kids, gather round because you seem to be under the impression that this website owes you an education AND that your education on this subject is sufficient. Neither of those is true, but I’m gonna help you out anyway!

First, let’s discuss the “reasons for dropping the bomb” that are commonly given, but also happen to be totally wrong:

• Japan wasn’t willing to surrender

Actually, Japan was totally down to surrender! America was very good at cracking Japanese codes, and had intercepted several diplomatic messages sent to other countries where Japan expressed the terms of their conditions, with the only major term being that the emperor remain in power (Which would have been necessary to ensure a peaceful transition to foreign government for the Japanese people). Harry Truman ignored these messages and prolonged the war until the completion of the atomic bomb so that it could be used. More on that later.

In his 1965 study, Atomic Diplomacy: Hiroshima and Potsdam (pp. 107, 108), historian Gar Alperovitz writes:

Although Japanese peace feelers had been sent out as early as September 1944 (and [China’s] Chiang Kai-shek had been approached regarding surrender possibilities in December 1944), the real effort to end the war began in the spring of 1945. This effort stressed the role of the Soviet Union …

In mid-April [1945] the [US] Joint Intelligence Committee reported that Japanese leaders were looking for a way to modify the surrender terms to end the war. The State Department was convinced the Emperor was actively seeking a way to stop the fighting.

• It would have saved more lives than it took

Nah. Japan was actually on it’s last legs, and wouldn’t have been able to fight much longer at all, thanks to effective embargoes, blockades, and traditional bombing. They had all but run out of fuel, ammunition, and other war supplies.

Admiral William Leahy – the highest ranking member of the U.S. military from 1942 until retiring in 1949, who was the first de facto Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and who was at the center of all major American military decisions in World War II – wrote (pg. 441):

It is my opinion that the use of this barbarous weapon at Hiroshima and Nagasaki was of no material assistance in our war against Japan. The Japanese were already defeated and ready to surrender because of the effective sea blockade and the successful bombing with conventional weapons.

• Destroying two major military targets helped us out

LOL Nagasaki and Hiroshima weren’t selected because they were military targets (Because they weren’t military targets at all!). They were selected because they were large cities where the bombs would have the most devastating affect.

President Truman steadfastly defended his use of the atomic bomb, claiming that it “saved millions of lives” by bringing the war to a quick end. Justifying his decision, he went so far as to declare: “The world will note that the first atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, a military base. That was because we wished in this first attack to avoid, insofar as possible, the killing of civilians.”

This was a preposterous statement. In fact, almost all of the victims were civilians, and the United States Strategic Bombing Survey (issued in 1946) stated in its official report: “Hiroshima and Nagasaki were chosen as targets because of their concentration of activities and population.”

General George Marshall agreed:

Contemporary documents show that Marshall felt “these weapons might first be used against straight military objectives such as a large naval installation and then if no complete result was derived from the effect of that, he thought we ought to designate a number of large manufacturing areas from which the people would be warned to leave–telling the Japanese that we intend to destroy such centers….”

As the document concerning Marshall’s views suggests, the question of whether the use of the atomic bomb was justified turns  … on whether the bombs had to be used against a largely civilian target rather than a strictly military target—which, in fact, was the explicit choice since although there were Japanese troops in the cities, neither Hiroshima nor Nagasaki was deemed militarily vital by U.S. planners. (This is one of the reasons neither had been heavily bombed up to this point in the war.) Moreover, targeting [at Hiroshima and Nagasaki] was aimed explicitly on non-military facilities surrounded by workers’ homes.

Now, let’s discuss the the actual reasons for dropping the bomb:

• To send a message to the Soviet Union
• That’s it
• It was strictly political

History.com notes:

By August 1945, relations between the Soviet Union and the United States had deteriorated badly. The Potsdam Conference between U.S. President Harry S. Truman, Russian leader Joseph Stalin, and Winston Churchill (before being replaced by Clement Attlee) ended just four days before the bombing of Hiroshima. The meeting was marked by recriminations and suspicion between the Americans and Soviets. Russian armies were occupying most of Eastern Europe. Truman and many of his advisers hoped that the U.S. atomic monopoly might offer diplomatic leverage with the Soviets. In this fashion, the dropping of the atomic bomb on Japan can be seen as the first shot of the Cold War.

New Scientist reportedin 2005:

The US decision to drop atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945 wasmeant to kick-start the Cold Warrather than end the Second World War, according to two nuclear historians who say they have new evidence backing the controversial theory.

Causing a fission reaction in several kilograms of uranium and plutonium and killing over 200,000 people 60 years ago wasdone more to impress the Soviet Union than to cow Japan, they say. And the US President who took the decision, Harry Truman, was culpable, they add.

New studies of the US, Japanese and Soviet diplomatic archives suggest that Truman’s main motive was to limit Soviet expansion in Asia, Kuznick claims. Japan surrendered because the Soviet Union began an invasion a few days after the Hiroshima bombing, not because of the atomic bombs themselves, he says.

According to an account by Walter Brown, assistant to then-US secretary of state James Byrnes, Truman agreed at a meeting three days before the bomb was dropped on Hiroshima that Japan was “looking for peace”. Truman was told by his army generals, Douglas Macarthur and Dwight Eisenhower, and his naval chief of staff, William Leahy, that there was no military need to use the bomb.

“Impressing Russia was more important than ending the war in Japan,” says Selden.

So let’s recap:

Harry Truman purposely killed hundreds of thousands of Japanese civilians to make a political statement.

The US detonated the world’s first weapon of mass destruction simply to send a message to the Soviet Union and stop Red expansion into Asia.

I’m not saying the fact that one group of people (Who happened to be Asian) was viewed as disposable just to put on a show for another group of people (Who happened to also be white) is an act of racism.

I’m also not saying that we should examine the fact that no German or Italian families living in the US were put into containment camps out of fear of spies, but pretty much all Asian-Americans were (Because Asia is a country, obviously).

I AM saying that maybe you should consider that your history lessons in school were taught from books written by old white men, and they might read a little differently if they weren’t. 

Oh, and I’ll leave on this little note from President Truman’s youth. Again, I’m not saying he’s racist or anything, but…

In Hiroshima: Why America Dropped the Bomb, Japanese American historian Ronald Takaki writes about the man who made the final decision to destroy two Japanese cities, President Harry Truman. This was the same man who, when he was younger, wrote the following in a letter to his future wife, Bess:

I think one man is as good as another, so long as he’s honest and decent and not a nigger or a Chinaman. My uncle Will says that the Lord made a white man of dust, a n*gger from mud, then threw up what was left and it came down a Chinaman. He does hate Chinese and Japs. So do I. It is race prejudice I guess. But I am strongly of the opinion that negroes ought to be in Africa, yellow men in Asia, and white men in Europe and America.

Hey look, sources where you can go and educate yourself about all of this, and fact check me while you’re at it!

• Hiroshima Hoax: Japan’s ‘Wllingness to Surrender Before the Bomb
• The REAL Reason America Used Nuclear Weapons Against Japan (It Was Not To End the War Or Save Lives)
• forget the whiteness of the bomb

deleting most of the dumb white bullshit for the historical mic drops

Wow.

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A camp tries to reinvent the Hebrew language, so transgender kids can fit in 14

A camp tries to reinvent the Hebrew language, so transgender kids can fit in:

allthingslinguistic:

ayellowbirds:

Some of the important bits:

When Zev Shofar, a 14-year-old from Takoma Park, started going to Jewish summer camp seven years ago, the children all learned the Hebrew words to introduce themselves. “Chanich” means a male camper; “chanichah” means a female camper.

But what if Zev didn’t feel male or female — neither a chanich nor a chanichah?

Zev’s camp didn’t have a word that worked for Zev. In fact, the Hebrew language doesn’t have any words. Like many other languages — Spanish, French and Russian, for example — Hebrew assigns each noun a gender.

In Israel, or anywhere else that Hebrew is spoken, there’s no linguistic solution, either. But now there is at camp. Zev is a chanichol.

The seven Habonim Dror camps, spread across North America, are pioneering a new gender-neutral form of Hebrew this summer. They hope to set an example that Hebrew-speakers worldwide might someday follow.

…

Those cheers have had to be rewritten this summer to fit the new gender-neutral Hebrew. Plural masculine nouns in Hebrew — including any group of people that includes at least one man — typically end in im, while feminine nouns end in ot. At Camp Moshava, all groups of both boys and girls now end in a blend: imot.

…

In Israel, some LGBT communities have adopted the –imot plural, but few seem to have decided on a non-binary singular.

…

So Habonim Dror decided on its own that –ol would be its singular non-binary ending, based on the word kol, which means “all.”

So…
?אני אישל

An interesting addition to previous descriptions of gender-neutral pronouns in Hebrew:  

The way genderqueer Hebrew speakers have solved the problem is interesting, both grammatically and politically. Gramatically, the genderqueer population has basically invented its own. There are a few methods of making speech genderqueer: either one uses general verbs that have no gender – “I feel like eating,” for instance, which in Hebrew would be “it’s coming to me to eat.” Infinitives aren’t gendered, nor is the phrase “ba li,” which literally means “it’s coming to me,” but really means “I want” or “I feel like” doing or having or being something.

Another way genderqueer folks have gotten around the binary nature of Hebrew is to simply harness it and mix it all up with itself. A genderqueer person might then say something like “I am male-going to the gallery and female-buying art.” Or they will say, “I am male-going/female-going to the gallery and female-buying/male-buying art.” Since the feminine endings of words in Hebrew are usually simply an added suffix, genderqueer folks can play with the pronunciations of words to make them ambiguous.

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Union and Civil Rights: Harrison, McKinley, and Republican Promises 11

The Republican Party abandoned its commitment to the voting rights of black men after their failure to keep the presidency in 1892. The party that former Whigs and abolitionists founded on the slogan “Free Soil, Free Labor, Free Speech, Free Men” maintained a party plank promising “especially to the supreme and sovereign right of every lawful citizen, rich or poor, native or foreign born, white or black, to cast one free ballot in public elections, and to have that ballot duly counted.” (Republican Party Platform, 1888. Third paragraph.) But in 1896, that language dropped, and the party’s standard-bearer spoke instead of reconciliation, and against sectionalism. In the South, the Lost Cause narrative became the grounds for reunion and reconciliation with the North. (David S. Blight. Race and Reunion. 271.) This shift permitted the nation to move forward, forgetting the grievances that had caused the war, but also entrenched the pre-war social order.

There are two sides to this issue. One, to which Benjamin Harrison belonged, would hold to the old Republican principles, never surrendering the view of Ulysses S. Grant that “The cause of the great War of the Rebellion against the United Status will have to be attributed to slavery.” (U. S. Grant. Memoirs) This side pushed the Federal Elections Bill forward, and after it failed did not surrender the bill’s underlying principles. The other side, which William McKinley supported, began on the same line, and supported the Lodge bill less on principle on more on the hope of resurgent Republicanism in the South. When it failed, their hopes turned away from black enfranchisement and toward a possible Southern white Republican voting bloc.

McKinley and Harrison, in the 1880s, had to counter charges that they were “waving the bloody shirt,” inflaming sectional tensions to gain votes, and both men denied the charge. Nevertheless, each maintained that Southerners were wrong to deny voting rights to black men. Harrison, in a campaign speech to the Marquette Club of Chicago, on March 20th, 1888, responded, 

“They say we are trying to revive the strife of the war, to rake over the extinct embers, to kindle the fire again. I want it understood that for one I have no quarrel with the South for what took place between 1861 and 1865. I am willing to forget that they were rebels, at least as soon as they are willing to forget it themselves, and that time does not seem to have come yet to them. But our complaint is against what was done in 1884, not against what was done during the war. Our complaint is against what will be done this year, not what was done between 1861 and 1865. No bloody shirt… (Benjamin Harrison. Speeches, Chicago, March 20th, 1888. ‘Marquette Club Banquet.’ 19-23.)

A few years earlier, McKinley had to make a similar denial. At Ironton, Ohio, on October 1st, 1885, McKinley said that: 

“It will not do to say…‘The war is over,’ that is not a sufficient answer; nor will it lessen the force of these facts to reply, ‘You are waving the bloody shirt.’ All such rejoinders are inadequate to quiet public conscience and stifle public discussion. We are not talking of what occurred during the war, or immediately after, but what took place only last year, and what is of official record and can not be denied.” (William McKinley. Speeches and Addresses of William McKinley. ‘A Campaign Speech at Ironton, Ohio.’ October 1st, 1885, 170.)

But thirteen years later, with Harrison out of the White House and McKinley in it, one of these men had changed his rhetoric. McKinley had adjusted his speech to a unionist, conciliatory tone. During the 1896 election, the New York Times declared,

It is safe to say that the era of Force Bills and Federal interference has passed. …the fear of Force Bills [has kept] the South solid…and Major McKinley has given one indication of his sagacity [by] depreciating sectional division and appealing to a common patriotism to protect the Nation’s honor. (New York Times. October 24th, 1896.)

In his Inaugural Address, McKinley promised that “It will be my constant aim to do nothing, and permit nothing to be done, that will arrest or disturb this growing sentiment of unity and cooperation, this revival of esteem and affiliation, which now animates so many thousands in both the old antagonistic sections, but I shall cheerfully do everything possible to promote and increase it.” (William McKinley. Inaugural Address, March 4th, 1897.) McKinley spoke about the Civil War as if the result had been a fully equal society, “the freest government…governed equally by equal citizens everywhere.” (William McKinley. Speeches. ‘Speech at G.A.R. Camp-fire, Delaware Avenue M.E. Church, Buffalo, New York, August 24th, 1897.’ 41-42.)

And though McKinley counted “these brave black men” (Ibid. ‘Speech at Springfield, Illinois, October 15th, 1898.’ 126-127.) among the heroes of the Spanish American War, he did not include voting rights on his agenda. In fact, counting his successes in an October 6th, 1899 speech in Illinois, he listed first the victory in the War, second economic prosperity, and third, “…the triumph we have had over sectionalism. We are no longer a divided people; and he who would stir up animosities between the North and the South is denied a hearing in both sections.” (Ibid. ‘Speech at Canton, Illinois, October 6th, 1899.’ 229.)
This pivot turned on McKinley’s view on the causes of the Civil War. Major McKinley did not relate slavery as the cause of the war. The end to slavery, McKinley opined, was God’s work.

When the war commenced we had no conception of its length, and we had less conception of the great results…. We thought that the Union to be saved was the Union as it was…. Nobody believed, I mean, of the great mass of the people, that with the end of that war would be the end of human slavery. But not from men was our issue; from Him who is a sovereign of land and of sea came our ordeal of battle, that men might be free. (Ibid. ‘Speech at G.A.R. Camp-fire, Delaware Avenue M.E. Church, Buffalo, New York, August 24th, 1897.’ 41-42.)

Harrison had laid out his own thinking on the cause of the Civil War at the Marquette Club in 1888. General Harrison placed the suppression of human liberty first, and the secession issue first: 

…the Republican party carried that debate from the hustings to the battle-field and forever established the doctrine that human liberty is of natural right and universal. It clinched the matchless logic of Webster in his celebrated debate against the right of secession by a demonstration of its inability. (Benjamin Harrison. Speeches. ‘Chicago, March 20th, 1888. Marquette Club Banquet.’ 19-23.)

Continuing in picturesque tones, Harrison showed that all the Republican party had accomplished all war aims save one: “to make that constitutional grant of citizenship, the franchise to the colored men of the South, a practical and living reality.” (Ibid.)

Ex-President Harrison continued the assert that the war had been fought over slavery. He returned to the Marquette Club on Lincoln’s birthday, 1898, to honor the slain president’s memory. Lincoln, in Harrison’s view, possessed a principled stand against slavery that extended down to a religious imperative, united to the Declaration of Independence: ‘All men’ included the black man. Liberty is the law of nature. The human enactment can not pass the limits of the state; God’s law embraces creation.” (Benjamin Harrison. Views of an ex-President. ‘“Abraham Lincoln” February 12, 1898 at the Lincoln Day Banquet of the Marquette Club, Chicago.’ 476.)

Like McKinley, Harrison believed emancipation to have been at least semi-divine. But unlike McKinley, Harrison directly tied Lincoln to emancipation and the causes of the war. Harrison’s Lincoln had “faith in time,” and had waited from the war’s beginning until the right moment to free the slaves. That placed slavery at the center of the conflict, and commanded that the issue that originated the conflict still commanded attention.

Although Harrison never ran for office after 1892, he joined the campaign in 1896, supporting McKinley. He delivered two large speeches, one at Carnegie Hall in New York in August, and another in Indianapolis in October. The issues of the 1896 campaign were economic: the silverites versus the gold bugs. Harrison delivered precise critiques of Democrat William Jennings Bryan’s economic proposals, and did not veer off into discussion of voter intimidation in the South. However, two key phrases hint at Harrison’s views at this time, after the Federal Elections bill had lain in its grave for five years. In his New York address, the former president expressed his belief in the limits of Federal authority.

My friends, this division of powers between the general and the local authorities is a plain and easy one. A disturbance which is purely local in a state is a state affair. The president can not send troops or lend any aid unless the legislature calls upon him for help, or the governor, if the legislature is not in session. But when a law of the United States is resisted, it is the sworn duty of the president to execute it… (Ibid, “‘At the Republican Ratification Meeting,” Carnegie Hall, New York, August 27, 1896.’ 432.)

Later, in Indianapolis, Harrison repeated his opposition to voter coercion.

I denounce it; I have always denounced it. I have always proclaimed as American doctrine that every man should vote according to the dictates of his own conscience (applause); that no man should coerce him, and that his vote, when cast, should be honestly counted. (Indianapolis Journal, Indianapolis, Marion County, 25 October 1896, Page 1.)

The implications are clear: Harrison believed that the Federal government did not have the authority to intervene in the South without explicit Congressional approval, and then only with regard to national elections. The sentiments in these two speeches echo a letter that President Harrison had sent to the Virginia State Baptist Convention on May 21st, 1892, on the matter of ongoing lynching: 

I have not time to explain to you the limitations of federal power further than to say that under the Constitution and laws, I am, in a large measure, without the power to interfere for the prevention or punishment of these offenses. (Harrison to H. H. Mitchell, quoted in Sinkler, ‘Harrison on the Matter of Race.’)

In 1890, during the hottest debate on the Federal Elections Bill, Republican newspapers turned against the legislation. The Toledo Blade, a Republican paper, asserted that Southern “whites there would divide on the tariff and other questions of the day as they divide in the North, were it not for the incessant agitation of the Force bill bogie and the cry of “No negro domination!” The nation’s politics moved on after the Federal Elections Bill. The Republican Party, beginning in 1896, abandoned support for voting rights in the South in favor of the possibility of a white Republican resurgence in the South.

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Parallels in the Lives of Garfield and Harrison, An Original Essay 11

Reading through Candice Millard’s excellent drama, “The Destiny of the Republic,” the coincidences between the lives of Harrison and Garfield struck me. So I took some time this morning and wrote a short essay paralleling the two, bearded, Ohio Republicans.

Their families came into the Ohio Valley at the beginning of the 19th century. For Garfield, it was his ill-fated father in the 1820s. William Henry Harrison came to the territory in the 1790s as a penniless army ensign. Through marriage and shrewd dealing, the Harrisons of Ohio came into some land.
John Scott and his brother William Henry married a pair of sisters, as did Abram and his brother. The Harrison family luck held better; John Scott lived a full life, while Abram Garfield died at 33 leaving his two-year-old son in a perilous state. Benjamin Harrison had a better beginning in life by the meager standards of frontier living.

Both men left home at the same time, in 1847. Harrison went with his brother to school; Garfield joined the crew of a canal boat. Sickness pushed Garfield back home, where his mother would persuade him to attend school. While Harrison was attending preparatory school at Farmer’s College, Garfield was enrolled at Geauga Seminary. At the end of two years, Garfield was baptized as a Disciple of Christ. Harrison joined the Presbyterian church at the end of his college career.

In 1850, Garfield transferred to Western Reserve Eclectic Institute (now Hiram College). Harrison joined the class of 1852 at Miami University. Latin and Greek were the favorite subjects, and both excelled at mathematics. Garfield’s slow start meant that he attended Western Reserve until 1854 before transferring to Williams College in Massachusetts to finish his degree in 1856. Harrison and Garfield would finish as salutatorian.

Lucretia Randolph and Caroline Scott would meet their husbands at school, but the Garfields would not marry until 1858. The Harrisons married before Ben had acquired a livelihood, in 1853. 

Harrison went directly to study law at Cincinnati, was admitted to the bar, and began practicing law in 1854. Two years later, the Republican party supported his election as Indianapolis city attorney. In 1857, Garfield’s alma mater Western Reserve invited him to become president, and while serving he read law, admitted to the bar in 1861.

Though Harrison had been involved in Republican politics since the party’s inception, Garfield’s experience and ability saw that his star rose faster. He replaced a deceased state senator in 1861, and was elected to Congress in 1862, all without self-promotion. Harrison acquired statewide office on a smaller scale just prior to the Civil War, as Supreme Court Reporter.
Garfield joined the war a year earlier than Harrison. Both men began as colonels, and filled a regiment: the 42nd Ohio and 70th Indiana respectively. The 42nd joined the Army of the Ohio and the 70th joined the Army of the Cumberland, but both started their service in Kentucky. Harrison’s unit protected railroads, where the 42nd was tasked with driving Confederates from eastern Kentucky. Garfield excelled at his work, and earned a promotion to brigadier general at the age of thirty. Harrison earned his promotion to that rank at the same age, in 1864.

Politics pulled them both from the battlefield. While serving as General Rosecrans’ chief of staff, Garfield further distinguished himself for leadership and was promoted to major general, shortly before Lincoln ordered him to report to Congress, in December, 1863. 1864 would see Governor Morton of Indiana order Harrison to report for special assignment: campaigning for Lincoln’s reelection.

After the war, Garfield would serve in Congress until his election to the presidency in 1880. Harrison would rise to the top of Indiana’s Republican party and the Indiana bar, but would not serve in elected office until the legislature sent him to the Senate that same year, 1880.

The two men first crossed paths indirectly, relating to the case of Lamdin P. Milligan. Milligan and three co-conspirators had been convicted in a military tribunal at Indianapolis during the war. They appealed their case to the Supreme Court in 1866, and Garfield along with two others represented them before the high court. Milligan won his case, and afterwards filed a civil suit for damages. President Grant appointed Benjamin Harrison to represent the government against Milligan’s claim. Milligan won his suit, but Harrison so discredited the pro-Confederate Milligan that the jury awarded only $5 to Milligan, plus court costs. Milligan never collected.

As a leader in the Indiana Republican party, Harrison had the attention of Ohio’s distinguished Congressman. Garfield urged on Harrison’s failed campaign for governor in 1876, and the two men met when Garfield joined a Grand Army of the Republic parade at Indianapolis that year. Harrison struck up a friendship with Garfield while giving him a tour of the city.

The crucial moment in their relationship came at the sweltering 1880 Republican National Convention. On the fourth day of the deadlocked convention, Harrison visited Garfield at his room, and asked under what conditions Garfield would accept a nomination. Garfield made it clear that he had come to support John Sherman, and would not allow his name to be used.
On the last day of the convention, the thirty-fourth ballot, 17 Wisconsin delegates sent their votes toward Garfield. The Ohioan protested, but chairman George Frisbie Hoar declined to call a point of order. On the next ballot General Harrison ordered the entire Indiana delegation to shift to Garfield. The final, thirty-sixth ballot nominated Garfield.

The relationship between Garfield and Harrison from that point on was one of friendship and mutual respect. The new president wished to appoint Harrison to a cabinet post, but he declined, choosing his Senate seat instead. Undoubtedly, they looked forward to four years working together for civil service reform, civil rights, and the Republican agenda.

Like Garfield, Harrison knew Charles J. Guiteau, who had bothered him at the hotel that GOP Senators frequented. After the assassination, Harrison consulted with Dr. Bliss, attempted to see the president, and lost sleep with worry. The President died after more than two months of suffering.
Benjamin Harrison would be the next elected Republican. Spoils system office seekers and a divided Republican party would vex him as they had Garfield. Ultimately, Harrison’s contemporaries would regard his presidency as a disappointment, and both Harrison and Garfield would not sustain history’s attention.

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June 14th 1381: Peasants’ Revolt in LondonOn this day in 1381,...

June 14th 1381: Peasants’ Revolt in London

On this day in 1381, King Richard II of England met with rebelling peasants, who had recently brought their revolt to London. The Peasants’ Revolt began at the end of May 1381, when a tax collector attempted to collect a poll tax in Brentwood, Essex. This was the final straw which turned peasant disaffection with the government, and the system of serfdom, into open rebellion. Tensions had been building since the Black Death, which particularly hurt poorer communities, while the Hundred Years’ War with France saw increased taxes. Violence spread across south-east England, as rebels sacked government buildings, demanding a fairer distribution of wealth. A group of rebels, led by Wat Tyler, marched on London, entering the capital on June 13th. They attacked gaols, government buildings, and the homes of government ministers; the 14-year-old King Richard II was forced to retreat into the Tower of London. On June 14th, the young king met the rebels at Mile End and accepted most of their demands, including the abolition of serfdom, asking they leave in peace. That same day, however, the remaining rebels entered the Tower of London and killed the Lord Chancelor and Lord High Treasurer. The next day, the king and his men again met with Tyler’s forces, but this time it ended in violence when the Mayor of London killed Tyler. The royal forces surrounded the rebels, but the situation was defused as the king promised pardons and to meet their demands; the rebels promptly returned home. However, in the coming months, participants in the revolt were executed, and the king reneged on his promises. While the Peasants’ Revolt ultimately failed, it remains a remarkable incident of uprising against the ruling classes in medieval England.

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June 1st 1921: Tulsa riotOn this day in 1921, the black district...

Fires rage in Tulsa (AlJazeera)


Armed white men escort black men in Tulsa (NY Times)


The Greenwood district after the riot (AlJazeera)

June 1st 1921: Tulsa riot

On this day in 1921, the black district of Tulsa, Oklahoma, was destroyed by a white mob. The Greenwood district of Tulsa had one of the most affluent black communities in the United States at this time, earning the nickname ‘Black Wall Street’. On May 30th 1921, a young black man called Dick Rowland rode in an elevator with a white woman; false rumours swirled in the white community that Rowland had attempted to assault her. Rowland was arrested on May 31st, and sensationalist newsaper coverage of the incident fuelled talk of lynching. This led to a confrontation between white and black mobs outside the courthouse, which resulted in a gun being discharged, sparking violence. The following day, June 1st, the Greenwood District was looted and burned by white rioters. The governor declared martial law, and National Guard troops were called to quell the violence. Law enforcement officials imprisoned black Tulsans, with over 6,000 people held for days on end; most white rioters, in contrast, were not arrested. In the wake of the violence, 35 city blocks lay in ruins, thousands of African-Americans were left homeless, and over 800 people had been injured. The dead were buried in mass graves, with the toll initially placed at 36, but revised by a 2001 report which rose the estimation to 300 fatalities. This report, which recommended paying reparations to the survivors and victims’ families, was part of a concerted effort in recent years to end the silence about the event. The scale of the violence was covered up at the time, and the incident was omitted from state and national histories. The Tulsa riot was one of a number of attempted ‘racial cleansings’ by white mobs against black communities in the United States, which had the tacit support of law enforcement and government. It is vital that this event, which saw white mobs destroy an entire black neighborhood, is remembered and placed in the long narrative of systemic racism in the United States.

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Portrait of a group of Spanish POWs in a camp after the end of... 13

Portrait of a group of Spanish POWs in a camp after the end of the Spanish-American War in Cienfuegos, Cuba, 1899. By Strohmeyer and Wyman.

Source.

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June 16th 1976: Soweto Uprising beginsOn this day in 1976,...

June 16th 1976: Soweto Uprising begins

On this day in 1976, police fired upon peaceful anti-apartheid protests in Soweto township, near Johannesburg in South Africa. Black Africans had been marginalised in the education system for many years, with black schools neglected and underfunded. The 1953 Bantu Education Act formalised this discrimination, taking all black schools into state control and declaring that the only role for black Africans in South Africa was one of manual labour. Further legislation excluded blacks from universities and led to overcrowded and underresourced schools. Students became increasingly politicised as they felt the effects of racist apartheid policy, and began articulating their protest with school boycotts. In 1974, Afrikaans - the langauge associated with apartheid -  was made compulsory in schools alongside English. This measure was the immediate cause of the Soweto protest. On June 16th 1976, mobilised by the South African Students Movement and the Black Consciousness Movement, thousands of students and schoolchildren marched peacefully against the government policies, intending to end in a rally at Orlando stadium. However, the march was halted by heavily armed police, who fired tear gas, and, eventually, bullets, on the protestors. In one of the most famous images of the event, Mbuyisa Makhubo can be seen carrying the lifeless body of 13-year-old Hector Pieterson. Outrage at the brutality sparked a nationwide uprising against the government, and prompted condemnation from governments around the world. It is unclear how many people died in the violence that followed Soweto, with estimates ranging up to 700, making it a pivotal moment in the years leading to the formal end of apartheid in 1994.

40 years ago today

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gayvoice: mcdyke: gayvoice: Seeing straight people say “we made it through Reagan!” Is making me... 14

gayvoice:

mcdyke:

gayvoice:

Seeing straight people say “we made it through Reagan!” Is making me go fucking insane and I want to cry

“In 1981 with the emergence of the AIDS epidemic also came the emergence of the Christian Right, who which Reagen ushered into power and disgustingly seized the moment as a sign of God’s abhorrence for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people. Reagan, who saw the first signs of the AIDS epidemic in 1981, his first year in office, . said “maybe the Lord brought down the plague because illicit sex is against the Ten Commandments.”

AIDS research was chronically under-funded. When doctors at the Centers for Disease Control and the National Institutes of Health asked for more funding for their work on AIDS, they were routinely denied it. Between June 1981 and May 1982 the CDC spent less than $1 million on AIDS and $9 million on Legionnaire’s Disease. At that point more than 1,000 of the 2,000 reported AIDS cases resulted in death; there were fewer than 50 deaths from Legionnaire’s Disease. This drastic lack of funding would continue through the Reagan years

In 1986, Reagan ordered Surgeon General C. Everett Koop to prepare a major government report on AIDS. Critics attacked Reagan for ordering the report on the same day he submitted requests to reduce the AIDS budget, according to the Globe. Koop’s report called for mandatory sex education for children as early as elementary school, but Reagan’s education secretary, William Bennett, and his undersecretary of education, Gary Bauer, strenuously opposed those efforts, calling for abstinence-oriented education.

But Reagan still remained silent to the public

Finally near the end of 1986 Reagan requested $85 million for AIDS research, but Congress horrified at the low number bumped that figure up to $244 million only to have Reagan then unsuccessfully try to rescind $50 million of that figure, according to the Boston Globe, he ultimately agreed to Congress’ figure. In 1987, Reagan proposed cutting the research budget for AIDS down to $214 million. Congress again responded dramatically against Reagen by raising it to about $400 million.

It would not be until 1987 when pushed that Reagan would publicly speak about the AIDS epidemic in a major policy address. By the end of that year, 59,572 AIDS cases had been reported and 27,909 of those women and men had died. He and his administration did almost nothing during the first seven years of the epidemic. AIDS research was chronically underfunded. Community education and prevention programs were routinely denied federal funding and would have been even more so if Regan had had his way. Only when pushed did Reagan offer any assistance.”

source

Thank you for this addition! It’s very helpful. I didn’t expect this post to get notes tbh

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enoughtohold: kaijutegu: homologg: I’ve been thinking about... 14

enoughtohold:

kaijutegu:

homologg:

I’ve been thinking about this all morning

I want everyone in America to read this page

Here’s a transcription (for text-to-speech, font changing, translation, whatever): 

The discovery of cyanide in Tylenol capsules occurred in those same weeks of October 1982. The existence of the poisoned capsules, all found in the Chicago area, was first reported on October 1. The New York Times wrote a story on the Tylenol scare every day for the entire month of October and produced twenty-three more pieces in the two months after that. Four of the stories appeared on the front page The poisoning received comparable coverage in media across the country, inspiring an immense government effort. Within days of the discovery of what proved to be the only cyanide-laced capsules, the Food and Drug Administration issued orders removing the drug from store shelves across the country. Federal, state, and local authorities were immediately on hand to coordinate efforts in states thousands of miles from where the tampered boxes appeared. No action was too extreme and no expense too great, they insisted, to save lives.

Investigators poured into Chicago to crack the mystery. More than 100 state, federal, and local agents worked the Illinois end of the case alone, filling twenty-six volumes with 11,500 pages of probe reports. The Food and Drug Administration had more than 1,100 employees testing 1.5 million similar capsules for evidence of poisoning, and chasing down every faint possibility of a victim of the new terror, according to the breathless news reports of the time. Tylenol’s parent company, Johnson & Johnson, estimated spending $100 million in the effort. Within five weeks, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services issued new regulations on tamper-resistant packaging to avert repetition of such a tragedy.

In the end, the millions of dollars for CDC Tylenol investigations yielded little beyond the probability that some lone crackpot had tampered with a few boxes of the pain reliever. NO more cases of poisoning occurred beyond the first handful reported in early October. Yet the crisis showed how the government could spring into action, issue warnings, change regulations, and spend money, lots of money, when they thought the lives of Americans were at stake.

Altogether, seven people died from the cyanide-laced capsules; one other man in Yuba City, California, got sick, but it turned out he was faking it so he could collect damages from Johnson & Johnson.

By comparison, 634 Americans had been stricken with AIDS by October 5, 1982. Of these, 260 were dead. There was no rush to spend money, mobilize public health officials, or issue regulations that might save lives.

The institution that is supposed to be the public’s watchdog, the news media, had gasped a collective yawn over the story of dead and dying homosexuals. In New York City, where half the nation’s AIDS cases resided, The New York Times had written only three stories about the epidemic in 1981 and three more stories in all of 1982. None made the front page. Indeed, one could have lived in New York, or in most of the United States for that matter, and not even have been aware from the daily newspapers that an epidemic was happening, even while government doctors themselves were predicting that the scourge would wipe out the lives of tens of thousands.

Randy Shilts, And the Band Played On (1987)

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March 20th 2003: The Iraq War begins On this day in 2003, in the...

March 20th 2003: The Iraq War begins

On this day in 2003, in the early hours of the morning, the United States, United Kingdom, and their allies began a military invasion of Iraq. The reasons for the invasion were the alleged presence of weapons of mass destruction, and Iraq’s supposed ties to terrorist group Al-Qaeda who perpetrated the 9/11 attacks on New York City in 2001. According to U.S. President George W. Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair the mission was “to disarm Iraq of weapons of mass destruction, to end Saddam Hussein’s support for terrorism, and to free the Iraqi people.” However, in 2005 it was discovered that Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction. On March 19th, an air strike hit the Presidential Palace in Baghdad, and the next day coalition forces began an invasion into Basra province. The forces drove into the country and occupied areas, eventually driving President Saddam Hussein into hiding. With Hussein gone and Iraq occupied, the end of combat was announced on 1st May, marking the transition from invasion to occupation. Hussein was captured in December 2003 and executed in December 2006. UK troops remained in Iraq until April 2009, while U.S. troops withdrew slowly. The occupation continued until December 15th 2011, when U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta declared the Iraq War over.

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lesbiantoccataandfugue: During the United States Red Scare after the end of World War II, the term... 14

lesbiantoccataandfugue:

During the United States Red Scare after the end of World War II, the term “premature anti-fascist” came into currency to describe Americans who had strongly agitated or worked against fascism, such as by fighting for the Republicans in the Spanish Civil War, before fascism was seen as a proximate and existential threat to the United States. The implication was that such persons were Communists or Communist sympathizers whose loyalty to the United States was suspect.

there’s nothing new under the sun

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kontrollsysteme: the end of the world 14

kontrollsysteme:

the end of the world

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February 11th 1889: Meiji Constitution promulgatedOn this day in...

February 11th 1889: Meiji Constitution promulgated

On this day in 1889, the Meiji Constitutiotn was promulgated by the Emperor of Japan. The constitution was drafted following the end of samurai rule and the restoration of the Emperor in the 1868 Meiji Restoration, which also saw a period of modernisation as the nation sought to compete with Western powers. The constitution called for the establishment of a legislative body, thus, when the constitution went into effect on November 29th 1890, the first parliamentary Diet convened. The constitution limited executive power, but retained significant powers to the Emperor, most importantly over the military, which allowed for Japan’s subsequent imperial expansion. After Japan surrendered to the Allies at the end of World War Two, the Meiji Constitution was suspended. However, the Meiji Constitution was later revised to become the Constitution of Japan, which provided for a liberal democracy.

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"…Reforms must begin, and progress, and end within the party, because I do not know of any..." 11

“…Reforms must begin, and progress, and end within the party, because I do not know of any political organization outside of it that has any reformative power to spare. Certainly not the Democratic party. I know that our Mugwump friends think that they have a great deal of surplus reformative energy, but the trouble with those people is that they have put themselves up on the shelf like dried cakes of Fleischmann’s compressed yeast, and they have no power upon the mass that they should leaven because they have ceased to have contact with it.”

-

Benjamin Harrison, Republican Dinner at Delmonico’s, New York, February 12th, 1887

“Mugwumps” were Republican reformers who embraced Cleveland over the machine politician Blaine in the 1884 election. To win in ’88, the GOP needed to keep those members in the party. So they initiated a reform movement of their own, but kept it moderate.

Fleischmann’s is a brand of yeast, still sold in the US today. Harrison implied that the “yeast” was the reform spirit of the GOP itself, and Mugwumps were unable to “rise” without it.

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