This Day in Delaware History
1951 After being delayed because somebody stole it, the cornerstone for the new state police Penny Hill station was finally laid by Governor Elbert Carvel.
That makes me laugh.
April 25, 2008
April 3, 2008
This is kind of cool
This Day in Delaware History: 1731 James Nixon, great-great-great-great-grandfather of President Richard Nixon, bought a 100 acre farm in Brandywine Hundred. His other great-great-great- great-grandfather Thomas Milhous lived 9 miles away just over the line in Chester County, Pennsylvania.
January 31, 2008
This Day in Delaware History
1927 - Time magazine, with Pierre S. du Pont, II, featured on its cover, reported that he had already spent $5 million on Delaware schools. He was also credited with building 89 schools for African American children, when the state would not.
Delawareans should never forget the deep debt of gratitude we owe to the generosity of the du Pont family over many years. They've done more for us than we remember and they deserve better from us.
January 3, 2008
This Day in History 1861: Delaware rejects secession
This Day in History 1861: Delaware rejects secession
Just two weeks after South Carolina became the first state to secede from the Union, the state of Delaware rejects a similar proposal.There had been little doubt that Delaware would remain with the North. Delaware was technically a slave state, but the institution was rare by 1861. There were 20,000 blacks living there, but only 1,800 of them were slaves--Delaware was industrializing, and most of the commercial ties were with Pennsylvania. In 1790, 15 percent of Delaware's population was enslaved, but by 1850 that figure had dropped to less than three percent. In the state's largest city, Wilmington, there were only four bondsmen. Most of the slaves were concentrated in Sussex, the southernmost of the state's three counties.
After South Carolina ratified the ordinance of secession on December 20, 1860, other states considered similar proposals. Although there were some Southern sympathizers, Delaware had a Unionist governor and the legislature was dominated by Unionists. On January 3, the legislature voted overwhelmingly to remain with the United States. For the Union, Delaware's decision was only a temporary respite from the parade of seceding states. Over the next several weeks, six states joined South Carolina in seceding; four more left after the South captured Fort Sumter in April 1861.
What I found strange is that Delaware's "This Day in Delaware History" email didn't mention this, but did mention that Generals Grant and Sheridan attended a wedding on this date in 1866. Priorities, people! (By coincidence, some good friends of mine are descendants of General Sheridan, although, they're apparently a little embarrassed about it due to some of tactics he used in prosecuting the war. Having discussed that with people who know far more about the Civil War, they shouldn't be embarrassed by anything he did.)
July 1, 2007
Today in Delaware History
1776 Whether he rode the 73 miles by horse or by carriage, Caesar Rodney arrived in Philadelphia to break the tie between Thomas McKean and George Read in Delaware's vote for the Declaration of Independence from England.
Source: This Day In Delaware History
June 17, 2007
Today in Delaware History
2006 For the sixth year of her tenure, Governor Ruth Ann Minner waded into Rehoboth Bay up to her neck with her tropical blue one piece bathing suit and white sneakers to determine the clarity in Delaware inland bays. The good news? The clarity was better than previous years.
The bad news? Ruth Ann Minner was in a swimsuit.
May 5, 2007
Today in Delaware History
1919 Pierre S. du Pont, II, owner of the Kennett Pike, which led directly to his home in Longwood Gardens, and was the last toll road in Delaware, had it paved at $85,000 per mile and later turned it over to the state for $1.
A similar arrangement happened with US 13. A du Pont built it and gave it to the state. Similarly, du Ponts helped fund the public school system during the Depression. Delaware owes many debts to the du Pont family.
April 17, 2007
This Day in Delaware History
1789 George Washington stayed in Wilmington and left at sunrise on his way to New York to be sworn in as President of the US.
March 7, 2007
Happy Birthday Wilmington!
Today is Wilmington's 175th Birthday. Checkout Wilmington 175.com for all sorts of information.
February 17, 2007
Two days ago in Delaware History
(Feb 15th) 1643 Lt. Col. Johan Printz, described as "weighing 400 lbs. and taking 3 drinks at every meal", arrived in Wilmington as Governor of New Sweden. Also described as being between six and seven feet tall, the Indians called him "Big Tub".
No real purpose to posting this. I jsut found it amusing.
January 31, 2007
Today in Delaware History
1927 Time magazine, with Pierre S. du Pont, II, featured on its cover, reported that he had already spent $5 million on Delaware schools. He was also credited with building 89 schools for African American children, when the state would not.
Delawareans should never forget the great generosity of the duPont family over the years. We'd be in a much worse position without them.
January 22, 2007
Happy Birthday to Delaware's Greatest Governor!
On this day in 1935 Pierre "Pete" du Pont, IV, Congressman (1971-1977) and Governor (1977-1985), was born in Wilmington.
If only we'd elected him in 1988 instead of Bush, the world would be a much different place.
January 10, 2007
Accident on I-95 slowed Tuesday's rush hour
Accoriding [sic] to [state police spokesman Cpl. Jeff] Whitmarsh, Ann Marie Pierson, 29, of Wilmington, was traveling I-95 northbound in a 2003 Ford Taurus in the right exit lane for Concord Pike. A 1997 Nissan Pathfinder, operated by Dennis Porter, 54, of Wilmington, was traveling in the center lane slightly behind the Taurus. Porter attempted to change lanes and hit the Pierson causing the Pathfinder to overturn. The Taurus came to rest approximately 150 feet north of the initial impact.
I drove by this accident on my way home last night. (Fortunately, I was going southbound so I wasn't affected by it.) It's amazing this doesn't happen more often. I deal with similar issues in the morning. What happens is the off ramp to 202 gets backed up. (Sometimes past the on-ramp from 10th street). So people who think they are too important to wait in line cut in further up in the line. Often, they have to wait to cut in, so they sit idling in the center lane, blocking that lane to traffic. This forces people to jump into the third, far-left, lane to travel, reducing I-95 through there to one lane. When it's really bad, we have people in the far-left lane jumping in there suddenly to get around people already waiting and blocking the middle lane to merge so they can merge further ahead.
If people used common sense, this stretch of road wouldn't be so dangerous. That might be a bit too much to ask of people, though.
When I'm absolute dictator, dividers will come up between these lanes so people can't cut in. In the meantime, perhaps DELDOT can look at changes in the light pattern on 202 to reduce the backup onto 95.
January 2, 2007
Britain finishes paying off WWII debt
Sixty years on, we finally pay for the war
On Friday [December 29th] this country [the UK] will make its final repayment on the US$4.33 billion loan given by the United States in 1945. Canada will also receive the last payment on its Can$1.25 billion loan. ... Ed Balls, the City minister, told The Times last night that it was a historic moment. “This week we finally honour in full our commitments to the US and Canada for the support they gave us 60 years ago. It was vital support which helped Britain defeat Nazi Germany and secure peace and prosperity in the postwar period. We honour our commitments to them now as they honoured their commitments to us all those years ago.” ... While Friday's payments will close the book on the UK's Second World War debts, Britain still owes and is owed billions of pounds in relation to loans made and costs incurred during the First World War. However, since a moratorium on all war debts agreed at the height of the Great Depression, no debt repayments have been made to or received from other nations since 1934.
Here's an example of a good sort of national debt. This continues to benefits British citizens today, so it's fair that today's citizen' bear part of the burden for winning the war their fathers fought and won so they could have their freedom today. Debt for social programs, operating expenses or programs with little future benefit is bad debt; debt for capital expenditures or wars is good debt since future generations will benefit from them.
December 29, 2006
Today in History - December 29th
1170: Archbishop Thomas Becket was murdered in Canterbury Cathedral in England.
1607: Powhatan, the Indian Chief, spares John Smith's life after the pleas of his daughter Pocahontas. born
1778: British troops, attempting a new strategy to defeat the colonials in America, capture Savannah, the capital of Georgia. In some of the bloodiest fighting of the Revolutionary War, American and French troops failed to take Savannah.
1808: Andrew Johnson, 17th president of the United States born
1809: British statesman William Gladstone born
1813: The British burned Buffalo, New York, during the War of 1812.
1845: Texas (comprised of the present State of Texas and part of New Mexico, Colorado, and Wyoming) admitted as the 28th state, with the provision that the area (389, 166 square miles) should be divided into no more than five states "of convenient size."
1848: Gas lights were installed at the White House for the first time. (some sources 1849)
1851: The first American Young Men's Christian Association was organized, in Boston.
1890: The last major conflict of the Indian wars takes place at Wounded Knee Creek in South Dakota after Colonel James W. Forsyth of the 7th Cavalry tries to disarm Chief Big Foot and his followers. Some 300 Sioux Indians were killed by US troops sent to disarm them.
1934: Japan renounced the Washington Naval Treaty of 1922 and the London Naval Treaty of 1930.
1940: In a radio interview, President Roosevelt proclaims the U.S. is the arsenal of democracy.
1940: During World War Two, Germany began dropping incendiary bombs on London.
1948: Tito declares Yugoslavia will follow its own Communist line.
1956: President Eisenhower asks Congress for the authority to oppose Soviet aggression in the Mideast.
1981: President Reagan curtails Soviet trade in reprisal for Polish policy.
1983: The United States announced its withdrawal from UNESCO.
1992: The United States and Russia announced agreement on a nuclear arms reduction treaty.
1998: Two top Khmer Rouge leaders apologized for the deaths of as many as two million people during their regime in the 1970s, and asked Cambodians to forget the past.
December 26, 2006
Today in History - December 26th
268: Death of Pope Dionysuis
795: Election of Leo III as Pope
1076: Coronation of Boleslav II as King of Poland
1194: Frederick II, German Emperor born
1492: 1st Spanish settlement in New World founded, by Columbus
1519: Tapestries, designed by Raphael, first hung in the Sistine Chapel
1559: Election of Pope Pius IV
1606: William Shakespeare's "King Lear" is performed at court
1776: American forces under Gen. George Washington, having crossed the Delaware River on Christmas night, defeated Hessian mercenary troops fighting for the British at the Battle of Trenton (The Delaware Regiment, with less than 100 men led by Colonel John Haslet, helped capture the Hessians in Trenton when General Washington's troops crossed the Delaware River)
1786: Daniel Shay leads a rebellion in Massachusetts
1866: Native American's hand the U.S. Army their worst defeat prior to Little Big Horn at the Fetterman Fight in Powder River County in the Dakota territory.
1893: Mao Tse-tung, leader of the Chinese communist revolution born
1917: The federal government took over operation of American railroads for the duration of World War I.
1935: Rhythm-and-blues singer Abdul "Duke" Fakir (The Four Tops- songsBaby I Need Your Loving, I Can't Help Myself, Reach Out I'll Be There, Standing in the Shadows of Love, Seven Rooms of Gloom, Bernadette, Keeper of the Castle, Ain't No Woman like the One I've Got, When She Was My Girl, Don't Walk Away) born
1940: Record producer, singer and songwriter Phil Spector born
1941: Winston Churchill became the first British prime minister to address a joint meeting of the US Congress.
1947: Retired baseball player, catcher Carlton Fisk born
1954: Baseball's `The Wizard of Oz' Ozzie Smith born
1972: The 33rd president of the United States, Harry S. Truman, died in Kansas City, Missouri, at the age of 88.
1989: Romanian television broadcast videotape showing ousted President Nicolae Ceausescu and his wife, Elena, at their secret trial as well as footage of the former leader's body following his execution. That same day, a provisional government took control of Romania.
1990: Nancy Cruzan, the young woman in an irreversible vegetative state whose case led to a US Supreme Court decision on the right to die, died at a Missouri hospital.
December 25, 2006
Today in History - December 25th
800: Charlemagne crowned Holy Roman Emperor
1066: William the Conqueror was crowned King William I of England
1075: Pope Gregory VII kidnapped while saying Mass
1223: St. Francis of Assisi assembled one of the first Nativity scenes, in Greccio, Italy.
1642: British mathematician, physicist and astronomer Sir Isaac Newton born
1776: General George Washington and his troops crossed the Delaware River for a surprise attack against Hessian forces at Trenton, New Jersey
1868: President Andrew Johnson granted an unconditional pardon to all persons involved in the Southern rebellion that resulted in the Civil War.
1896: John Philip Sousa wrote the melody to a song that had haunted him for days. On Christmas Day, that melody was finally titled, "The Stars and Stripes Forever."He had hoped the song would be a ballad - but alas, another march
1899: Actor Humphrey Bogart (The African Queen, The Maltese Falcon, Casablanca, The Caine Mutiny, The Barefoot Contessa, Tokyo Joe, Key Largo) born
1907: Singer and band leader Cab (Cabell) Calloway (`Highness of Hi-De-Ho' Minnie the Moocher) born
1918: Egyptian President Anwar Sadat (Nobel Peace Prize winner with Israel's Menachim Begin in1978) born
1924: Scriptwriter Rod Serling (The Twilight Zone, Requiem for a Heavyweight, Planet of the Apes, Seven Days in May) born
1926: Hirohito became emperor of Japan, suceeding his father, Emperor Yoshihito (Hirohito was formally enthroned almost two years later).
1958: Baseball outfielder Ricky Henderson born
1989: Ousted Romanian President Nicolae Ceausescu and his wife, Elena, were executed following a popular uprising.
1990: Romania's former monarch, King Michael, arrived on his first visit to his homeland since Communist rulers forced him to abdicate four decades earlier -- but he was deported by the new Bucharest government less than 12 hours later.
1991: Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev went on television to announce his resignation as the eighth and final leader of a Communist superpower that had already gone out of existence.
and...
1 AD (approx.) God became Man, and our Lord and Savior was born
December 17, 2006
Today in Delaware History
1777 French authorities informed American officials that they would offer help and assistance to them in their fight with Great Britain.
Not directly Delaware related, but this day did lead to us gaining our independence and bcoming the First State. And is also about the last time the French did anything good for us.
December 7, 2006
Happy Delaware Day!!
Today in 1787 Delaware became The First State, ratifying the United States Constitution and starting a nation.
We're Number 1!!! We're Number 1!!! We're Number 1!!!
December 6, 2006
Today in Delaware History
1632 Dutchman David Peterson De Vries arrived at Lewes to find that the year-old settlement had been completely wiped out by Native American Indians.
An example of how Indians were not peaceful people oppressed by the white man. There was much wrong done on each side. Keep incidents like this in mind when you hear stories about the naked agression of the Europeans against American Indians.
November 16, 2006
Today In Delaware (and National) History
1972 Reapportionment under the US Supreme Court policy of "one man, one vote" was finalized, distributing political representation in the General Assembly according to where the people actually lived in the state. Upstate gained and downstate lost political clout.
Reynolds v. Sims has always struck me as one of the more nonsensical Supreme Court rulings, peraps even more lacking in logic than Roe v. Wade. How can the Constitution forbid a practice that the Constitution expressly requires? The Senate itself is based off regional representation, rather than proportional to population.
You can debate the merits of such a process, but a Court can only interpret the law. Political decisions about the best way of handling something belong with the legislative branch. The Court can only say what is legal, not what is best. Some of the extremes detailed in the WikiPedia article linked above are excessive and shouldn't have taken place, but that's a political decision. The practice is clearly legal since the Constitution explicitly engages in it.
October 8, 2006
Today in Delaware History
1962 Harry Levin of Wilmington founded Discount Center on Marsh Road. Three years later he renamed the store Happy Harry's.
A Delaware institution that, sadly, now exists in name only.
October 4, 2006
Today in Delaware History
1814 For the first time and only time in history, Delaware was entitled to two Congressmen for the next decade: Thomas Clayton and Thomas Cooper.
According to speculation, we may be about to get an additional Congressman soon, possibly even the next reapportionment.
September 30, 2006
Today in Delaware History: Delaware Hero
1944 Lieutenant Joseph Myers of Frederica died instantly in Holland when he threw himself upon a grenade. He was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross.
Eternal rest grant unto him, O Lord, and may his soul, and all the souls of the faithful departed, through the mercy of God, rest in peace.
September 28, 2006
This Day in Delaware History
1978 Former California Governor Ronald Reagan came to Delaware on behalf of incumbent Congressman Thomas B. Evans, Jr. About 700 people paid $10 each to see Ronald Reagan at the Grand Opera House and 45 more spent $500 to have lunch with him at the Hotel du Pont. Two years later, Reagan was a candidate himself, for President.
I was four at the time. Still wish I could have gone and seen The Gipper.
September 11, 2006
Today in Delaware History
September 11, 2001 - Richard Stewart, Davis Sezna, and John Murray of Wilmington, Matthew Flocco of Newark, and Job Grabowski of Milford were killed instantly when terrorists destroyed the World Trade Center Towers in New York City.
May their souls and all the souls of the faithful departed, through the Mercy of God, rest in peace.
July 16, 2006
Today in Delaware (and American) History
1787 - The Great Compromise was passed at the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia stating representation would be by population in the US House, but by state in the Senate. Thus, though little Delaware has but one member in the US House, it has just as many US Senators (two) as populous California, which has 53 members in the former chamber.
July 2, 2006
Today in Delaware History
1776: In the Continental Congress in Philadelphia, Delaware's vote for independence from Great Britain was tied among its delegates until Caesar Rodney arrived. Thomas McKean had voted "yes" while George Read had voted "no". Rodney broke the tie with his "yes" vote.