Jesse Owens Wins Congressional Gold

It will be a brief one this evening.

The very fact that you’ve arrived at this website indicates that either you have an interest in historical events or a search engine believes you do.  But regardless of the exact reason, I’ve (to this point) written nothing about events in the 21st century, so something historical drove you here, willingly or no.

Since you’re here, I’m going to assume you know a little something about Jesse Owens, the famed African-American sprinter who set the 1936 Olympic Games on its head.  If you want a little more background, I put together a little piece years ago that will flesh out some of the story.

The story of James Cleveland Owens – the name “Jesse” originated from the heavily accented way in which he pronounced the initials “J. C.” – is remarkable both as an athletic story and as a “social conciousness” story.  The 1936 Olympics were, as you might know, held in Berlin, Germany.  Hitler’s National Socialist party was incredibly racist, believing its own German people were ethnically superior.  Others, particularly Jews and Africans, were seen as second class or even sub-human.

So while Owens was shattering records on the track, he was also shattering the racist myth that “blond hair and blue eyes” was better physically and intellectually.  It is said that Hitler’s disdain (and embarrassment) at Owens’ dominance caused him to leave the Games early…I don’t know for sure, but that sounds like the guy.

I wasn’t there, but for Americans back home, the news of Owens’ exploits was probably received with mixed reviews.  Our country’s founding principles stated that, in God’s eyes (ok…the Creator’s eyes if you want to be technical), everyone is created equal.  But in practice, America was way more than a little hypocritical.  Certain people, especially those of a different color, were considerably less free than others, and forced separation of the races (we called it Segregation) was the order of the day in many southern states.

Jesse Owens probably felt that hypocrisy when returned to America.  Four Gold Medals was an astonishing feat, yet he wasn’t invited to the White House to be honored or celebrated.  Owens was quoted as saying, “…it was FDR who snubbed me.  The President didn’t even send me a telegram.”  It took nearly thirty-five years to be enshrined in Alabama’s Hall of Fame.  Now maybe there are timing rules for that, but it seems ridiculously long to me.

Fortunately, our time has been kinder to Owens than Owens’ time was.  President Ford awarded this athletic giant the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1976 (shown above).  And on this day, March 28, 1990, President Bush posthumously awarded him the Congressional Gold Medal.  These awards together constitute the highest honors that the government can give a civilian.

It was about time.

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Von Gersdorff’s Run to the Restroom Nearly Bombs

Rudolf Christoph Freiherr von Gersdorff was a man with a mission.  But I suppose that, for a Colonel in the German Army, having “a mission” was pretty obvious, especially in the spring of 1943.  Hitler’s forces had just suffered devastating defeat along the Volga, and things were not going well in the African desert.  So there were plans to make, and troops to move, and battles to fight (and from this point on, mostly battles to lose).

But this specific mission was different.  For von Gersdorff, it was life-changing.  In fact, it was life-ending.

You see, von Gersdorff was a conspirator.  He was one of many involved in the numerous plots to assassinate Der Fuhrer.  Officially, he was an intelligence officer in the Abwehr and part of Army Group Center, having been transferred there for the start of Operation Barbarossa.  Army Group Center was commanded by another conspirator, Field Marshal Fedor von Bock.  One of von Bock’s officers was Lt. Fabian von Schlabrendorff, yet another conspirator who happened to be von Gersdorff’s cousin…you now see how Gersdorff ended up where he did.

These men, who correctly believed that Hitler was leading the nation to humiliation and defeat, had put together several plans to either arrest or kill Adolf Hitler.  To this point, none of them had succeeded.

On March 21, 1943 (which happened to be Germany’s Memorial Day to those killed in WWI), they tried again.  Each year, the German leader attended a memorial service.  But rather than arrest him or – what was tried on other occasions – place a bomb where Hitler would be, it was decided to carry the bombs right to the man.  Von Gersdorff volunteered to a suicide mission.  He placed bombs, each with a ten-minute fuse, in his pockets.  During Hitler’s stroll among the memorials, von Gersdorff would get close and detonate the bombs.

It was a good plan, until he arrived at the museum.  He got near Hitler, started the fuses, and waited for the bang.  Unfortunately, the German dictator was in a tremendous hurry and stayed at the museum for just eight minutes before being whisked off.  With the opportunity gone, and not wishing to blow himself to smithereens for nothing, Von Gersdorff quickly excused himself to the restroom, where he worked feverishly and successfully defused the bombs.

Freiherr von Gersdorff escaped detection and arrest.  But even more miraculous than that, he was not implicated in the famous July 20 assassination plot, which nearly succeeded.  His role in that attempt was to hide the explosives that Count von Stauffenberg eventually carried in his briefcase.

One other interesting note about Col. von Gersdorff.  Less than one month after he successfully defused the bombs in his pockets, he discovered the remnants of the Russian massacres in the Katyn Forest.

Recommended Reading: Valkyrie: An Insider’s Account of the Plot to Kill Hitler

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Parliament Stamps out the Stamp Act

As Garrison Keillor would say, “Well, it’s been a quiet week…“.  I thought about writing every day last week, but I have this silly little birth defect in my lower back that flares up from time to time.  It’s usually not too much trouble – a little discomfort, a little inconvenience – but this time it was worse.  While walking and riding my bike weren’t too bad, it was pretty painful to sit.  So I spent a lot of time standing around the house, and standing isn’t really conducive to typing on the computer.

I’m a little better today, so much so that I was able to do a few things around the house while my wife was off at a baby shower.  The small of my back is still quite tender, but it seems the worst may have passed.  So while things are good, let’s have a quick write here.

We’ll head back to pre-Revolutionary days.  After all, if I’m not on a World War Two battlefield, I’m pretty much in the Colonies.

The Stamp Act was created by a vote of British Parliament in March of 1765.  It was levied on the Colonies in November of that year.  And to say it was unpopular would be a gross understatement.  But it’s not as though taxes were a new thing.  The Thirteen Colonies had seen their share in recent years, particularly since Britain had stopped fighting with France.  The government had put down its sword and taken up its fiscal pen, only to find itself mired in the all-consuming quicksand of debt.

The interest payment alone on the debt amounted to more than half of the overall yearly budget.  And regardless of the actual number, that’s a staggering percentage.  So the British decided to raise taxes.  Sometimes that’s a necessity.  Living in 21st-century America and up to our eyeballs in government debt, we understand the reality of taxes.  If any government (American, British, or Quatloo) wants to spend lots and lots of money, the people outside of the government are going to have to provide that money.  It was no different in the 18th-century British empire.  But the British also maintained a solid military presence in the Colonies, and Parliament believed it was reasonable that the Colonies pay for the benefits they received.

It wasn’t so much that taxes angered the Colonies.  As I just wrote, taxes weren’t new.  But as we all know, the Colonies were required to pay the taxes without any participation in the process.  They weren’t allowed to offer up alternative ideas, no “colonial” representatives were given any voting power in Parliament, and Colonists had no say in how the revenue would be spent.

So while the tax wasn’t really all that evil, the Colonists were pretty unhappy.

And when it went into effect, the British discovered that enforcing the tax was really difficult.  More troubling was the fact that many colonial merchants were now refusing to import British products until the Stamp Act was repealed.  As a result, British companies were feeling a pinch.  Most troubling of all was the discontent that the taxes had created in America.  People were taking to the streets.  There was shouting.  They were burning tax collectors in effigy (see the image above).  There were inflammatory articles in newspapers that fanned the emotions of the readers.

The British realized that no good thing was coming out of what amounted to a one-penny tax.  So on March 18, 1766, Parliament and King George III repealed the Stamp Act.  For the Colonists, it was a victory of principle and the end of a hated four-month tax.  For the British, it was “back to the drawing board” for new ideas on getting the Colonists to pony up and help pay down the debt.

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LeMay’s Bombers Turn From Tokyo to Nagoya

My grandmother celebrates her 98th birthday today.  So a bunch of us gathered yesterday at the assisted living care facility where she lives.  After taking her out to lunch, we had a little party with cake and ice cream.  I think she really enjoyed it, even though all the attention and all the movement probably wore her out.  She was also quick to remind us that Sunday (the 11th) was her birthday, not Saturday.

I’ve mentioned it before, but grandma has lived through a mammoth amount of change.  Yesterday she looked in wonder at a smartphone.  She probably began her life in a home without any phone at all, and lived most of it with a corded phone hooked to the wall.  And that’s just one thing…there are countless other examples.

Grandma is finally beginning to forget things.  I’m not complaining, because it’s taken her nearly a century of living to reach that point.  But I’m really grateful for our ability to write stuff down.  As we age, our brains lose their capacity to process and remember information.  So fifty years from now, if I’m still around and these pages still exist, I might not remember going to visit grandma on her 98th birthday, but at least I’ll be able to read about such an event…if I can still see.

Today we remember the one-year anniversary of the terrible earthquake-driven tsunami that ravaged parts of Japan.  In the days of instant video and those smartphones that grandma just discovered, the events of that day are compressed to a series of ones and zeroes and stored on a hard drive, just waiting for a mouse click or finger tap to be brought back to the surface of YouTube as a sobering reminder.

Had smartphones and YouTube been around in Japan on March 11, 1945, they would have recorded the earth shaking.  They would have brought images of fire and destruction to your video screen.  Terror and death might have been your vista.  But it wasn’t an earthquake and it wasn’t a tsunami.

Grandma’s 31st birthday was the day the U.S. Air Force paid a visit to Nagoya, Japan.  It was not the first time.  Indeed, bombs had fallen on the city several times, beginning in December of the following year.  There was a Mitsubishi factory located there that supplied the dwindling Japanese war effort, and it was the first target.  But this was the first time Nagoya had been hit using new tactics.

Taking a page from the European theater, General Curtis LeMay had recently decided to mass large groups of bombers as a single force when attacking Japan.  Previous attempts using small packages was proving ineffective.  The first real test, a couple of days before against Tokyo, had been (from the perspective of the U.S. military) a resounding success.

So while Tokyo was still smouldering, LeMay’s massed Superfortresses hit Nagoya.  And while the damage may not have been as bad as the Tokyo raid (sixteen square miles turned to dust and nearly 200,000 killed and wounded), it was extensive.

With this result, General LeMay and the U.S. Air Force believed they had found a weapon that would finally end the war against Japan.

Recommended Reading: Superfortress: The B-29 and American Air Power

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The (Almost) Boston Massacre

Pretty much everybody has heard of the Boston Massacre.  Even if one doesn’t know all the details, almost anyone can put enough facts together to get the gist of the story.  Way back in 2008, when Today’s History Lesson was newborn, my good friend Michael covered the Boston Massacre.  I don’t feel any real need to add to his very good synopsis, but let’s take a couple minutes and cover a related issue.

The Fifth Anniversary of the Boston Massacre.

March 5, 1775 was the date and the Old South Meeting House was the venue.  The gathering included, of course, Samuel Adams and John Hancock.  There were several men that spoke, including Hancock and Benjamin Church.  They were followed by Dr. Joseph Warren, wearing a white toga (reminiscent of the orators in the ancient Roman Senate).  He spoke of the Pilgrims leaving Europe, comparing it to Noah’s year in the ark, leaving a sin-stained world for a fresh, new existence.  He talked about Britain’s committment to its taxation of the Colonies.

But Warren’s most colorful language was spared for the memories of those killed on that fateful day five years earlier, and Ira Stoll records it in his biography of Samuel Adams.  “Take heed, ye orphan babes, lest, whilst your streaming eyes are fixed upon the ghastly corpse, your feet glide on the stones bespattered with your father’s brains. . . . We wildly stare about, and with amazement ask, who spread this ruin round us?  what wretch has dared deface the image of his God?  has haughty France, or cruel Spain, sent forth her myrmidons?  has the grim savage rused again from the far distant wilderness?  or does some fiend, fierce from the depth of hell, with all the rancorous malice, which the apostate damned can feel, twang her destructive bow, and hurl her deadly arrows at our breast?  no, none of these; but, how astonishing!  It is the hand of Britain that inflicts the wound.”

Warren’s goal of winding up those gathered was achieved.  But more than that, the British officers that were present (and seated towards the front) also got excited, but for entirely different reasons.  As he finished, Samuel Adams told those assembled to return the following year to again commemorate the bloody massacre.

And it was the word “bloody” that set the officers off.  A bit of a melee ensued, and some report that Adams was challenged to a duel.  Others report that Adams accepted.  Fortunately, cooler heads prevailed, and a second Boston Massacre was avoided…barely.

But there is little doubt that Colonists like Church, Adams, and Hancock left the Meeting House with big British targets on their backs.  And you could add Joseph Warren to the list as well.  He joined the Massachusetts militia, but his Revolution (and his life) ended just three months later when he was killed at Bunker Hill.

Recommended Reading: Samuel Adams: A Life

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Washington & Hamilton: The Dynamic Duo

In our world, there are lots of famous pairs.  There are a lot of things that just work really well together, like they were meant to be.  And as we start the fifth year of Today’s History Lesson, let’s name some.

Chocolate and peanut butter.
Donnie and Marie.
Spaghetti and meatballs.
The Lone Ranger and Tonto.
Calvin and Hobbes.
Blue Falcon and Dog Wonder.
Abbott and Costello.
Sonny and Cher (ok…admittedly, they worked slightly less well together).
Starksy and Hutch.
Brooks and Dunn.

You get the picture.  In the political world, there have famous pairings, too.  We immediately think of duos like Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, or maybe John and Abigail Adams.  Lexington and Concord.  Valley Forge and Baron von Steuben.  Republicans and tax breaks for the wealthy…I jest, I jest!!!  Hmmm…Democrats and deficits…there, does that even it out?  Anyways, we could go on and on, but I’ll focus instead in one.

George Washington and Alexander Hamilton.  We’ve talked about both of these immensely influential Founders on many occasions, but it’s time we put them together.

Hamilton and Washington were a team for the better part of twenty-five years.  Washington, the first President, was the calm, steady leader.  Hamilton, the first Treasury Secretary, was the impetuous, forceful subordinate.  It fact, it’s very safe to say that during Washington’s first term (and much of his second), Alexander was the second most powerful man in America.  He was more powerful than Vice President Adams.  He was more powerful than Secretary of State Jefferson.

Hamilton’s influence made him a lot of enemies, and Washington’s deference to Hamilton made a great many exceedingly jealous.  Thomas Jefferson, in particular, came to believe that Washington was little more than a marionette, dancing on the strings manipulated from above by a power-maddened Hamilton.

But George Washington’s trust in Hamilton was built on years of experience in close proximity to the man.  Whether you like Hamilton or hate him (or are completely indifferent), you must know that Washington was a pretty good judge of people, and he knew Hamilton better than most.

Their collaboration began on this day in history…March 1, 1777.  George Washington was a General…in fact, he was the General of the army.  Alexander Hamilton was an artillery company Captain, who had distinguished himself in the Battle of White Plains and the Battle of Trenton.  His leadership abilities and good performance under pressure (and under fire) had made him something of a desirable commodity.  General Nathanael Greene had requested his services.  Henry Knox (at that time a Brigadier General) had also sought out Hamilton to be an aide.  Hamilton had refused both, preferring to earn his Revolutionary glory on the field of battle.

But when General Washington invited Hamilton to join his staff as an aide-de-camp, it was an offer he simply couldn’t refuse.  He accepted the General’s offer and joined his staff on this day with the elevated rank of Lieutenant Colonel.  And that’s where this “dynamic duo” got its start.

Speaking of Captains, our son learned today that he has been promoted to the rank of Captain.  Congratulations to him!!

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