The FReeper Foxhole Remembers The Assassination of William McKinley (9/6/1901) - Aug. 11th, 2005

American History Magazine | Wyatt Kingseed

[SAMWolf]

Lord,

Keep our Troops forever in Your care

Give them victory over the enemy...

Grant them a safe and swift return...

Bless those who mourn the lost.
.

FReepers from the Foxhole join in prayer
for all those serving their country at this time.

.................................................................. .................... ...........................................

U.S. Military History, Current Events and Veterans Issues

Where Duty, Honor and Country
are acknowledged, affirmed and commemorated.

Our Mission:

The FReeper Foxhole is dedicated to Veterans of our Nation's military forces and to others who are affected in their relationships with Veterans.

In the FReeper Foxhole, Veterans or their family members should feel free to address their specific circumstances or whatever issues concern them in an atmosphere of peace, understanding, brotherhood and support.

The FReeper Foxhole hopes to share with it's readers an open forum where we can learn about and discuss military history, military news and other topics of concern or interest to our readers be they Veteran's, Current Duty or anyone interested in what we have to offer.

If the Foxhole makes someone appreciate, even a little, what others have sacrificed for us, then it has accomplished one of it's missions.

We hope the Foxhole in some small way helps us to remember and honor those who came before us.

To read previous Foxhole threads or
to add the Foxhole to your sidebar,
click on the books below.

The Assassination of William McKinley

Anarchist Leon Czolgosz came to Buffalo, New York, with a mission. He believed that government was evil, and he planned to stamp out that evil, beginning at the top.

Leon Czolgosz stood in line and counted the people between him and the president of the United States. Nondescript, dressed in a dark suit, and wearing an innocent expression, Czolgosz (pronounced chôlgôsh) looked younger than his 28 years. He had waited for more than two hours in 82-degree heat on September 6, 1901, for his turn to shake hands with President William McKinley, who was visiting the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, New York.

It was the first year of the new century, a perfect time to reflect on the nation’s rise in world prominence and to speculate on the future. The exposition, a world’s fair that celebrated the Americas’ industrial progress and achievement, had attracted visitors from around the world. The event was more than halfway through its six-month run when President McKinley, the most popular chief executive since Abraham Lincoln, arrived.


Leon Czolgosz (1873—1901)

McKinley’s final public appearance in Buffalo was an afternoon reception in the Temple of Music, an ornate red-brick hall on the exposition grounds. Since being elected president in 1896, McKinley had been notorious for discounting his own personal safety at public appearances, and he had repeatedly resisted attempts by his personal secretary, George Cortelyou, to cancel this event. Cortelyou had argued that it wasn’t worth the risk to greet such a small number of people, but the 58-year-old president refused to change his mind. "Why should I?" he asked. "Who would want to hurt me?"

Cortelyou, always nervous about public receptions, tightened security as best he could. The people who wished to greet the president at the Temple had to file down a narrow aisle under the scrutiny of a special guard provided for the occasion. Outside, mounted police and soldiers controlled the massive crowd seeking entrance.

Just months into his second presidential term, McKinley -- who had easily won reelection in 1900 -- had made the most significant speech of his presidency the day before, announcing a policy of reciprocal trade agreements with foreign nations to encourage improved markets for American goods. It marked the culmination of a decade-long evolution in thinking for the long-time isolationist and exemplified his statesmanship in recognition of changing times.


President McKinley seated at his desk, 1900.

McKinley’s star first rose on the national scene some 10 years earlier as the Republican Party’s staunchest advocate of protectionism. He believed that high tariffs discouraged the importation of foreign goods, thereby helping keep prices high for American goods and producing profits for industries and high wages for workers. Using protectionism as his platform for election to the U.S. House of Representatives and the Ohio statehouse, where he served two terms as governor, McKinley established himself as his party’s standard-bearer. According to biographer Margaret Leech, McKinley "carried to Congress an emotional conviction that the solution for all the country’s economic ills was to make the already high tariff rates higher still." By 1900, however, he saw reciprocity as a means for commercial expansion and a way to promote world peace.

McKinley was a veteran of the Civil War and retained vivid memories of the bloody conflict. As president, he was reluctantly drawn into the Spanish-American War of 1898. At first he downplayed stories of Spanish atrocities against Cuban nationals. But the yellow journalism of competing newspaper publishers William Randolph Hearst and Joseph Pulitzer fired passions after the battleship Maine exploded and sank in Havana’s harbor. Big business, looking to expand markets, added to the inexorable forces pushing the president toward war.


Temple of Music Building. President William McKinley was shot twice outside there by a deranged anarchist, Leon Czolgosz and died eight days later.

Spain proved little challenge though, as American forces easily defeated the outnumbered and out-gunned army and navy of the Old World power. As the victor, the United States gained Puerto Rico, Wake, Guam, and the Philippines. The Pacific Islands were particularly significant as they established an American presence in a new hemisphere. Moreover, the United States annexed the Hawaiian Islands that summer. American business concerns became ecstatic over the prospects for expanded influence overseas. But not everyone supported the president. Hearst in particular continued to publicly criticize him. The condemnation reached a low point on April 10, 1901, when the publisher’s Journal printed an editorial that declared, "If bad institutions and bad men can be got rid of only by killing, then the killing must be done." Although Hearst had been responsible for many attacks on McKinley, he maintained that the editorial had been published without his knowledge. He ordered the presses stopped, but a number of newspapers were already on the streets.

On September 5 an estimated 50,000 people, including Leon Czolgosz, had listened to the president’s speech. "Isolation is no longer possible or desirable," McKinley said. "The period of exclusiveness is past. The expansion of our trade and commerce is the pressing problem. Commercial wars are unprofitable. A policy of good-will and friendly trade relations will prevent reprisals." The New York Times, remarking on the president’s about-face, wrote, "Unquestionably the President has learned much in the last few years."


Leon Czolgosz

Unfortunately, America’s move toward imperialism had done little for the common workingman. Already frustrated by years of economic depression that began with the Panic of 1893, and by the lack of progress toward more humane working conditions, American workers wondered why some of the vast wealth of the industrial boom wasn’t trickling down to them. Millionaires like railroad king Cornelius Vanderbilt, oil baron John D. Rockefeller, steel magnate Andrew Carnegie, and banker J.P. Morgan had accumulated unprecedented private wealth and were known to spend more on an evening’s entertainment than a coal miner or tradesman could earn in a lifetime. Such ostentatious displays bred discontent. Rubbing salt in the wound, the industrialists routinely relied on the government to help squelch worker uprisings.

Employee unions had progressively become a more dominant force in American life during the last quarter of the nineteenth century as they sought to improve working conditions. Strikers had clashed violently with police and the military in Chicago’s Haymarket Riot in 1886 and again in the Pullman strike eight years later, leaving scores of people dead in the streets. In 1892, Pinkerton detectives in Homestead, Pennsylvania, suppressed a steel strike and protected scab laborers. The government had sided with management against workers in each instance.


Emma Goldman

A more dangerous element -- anarchism -- exacerbated the situation when it arrived from Europe. Anarchists brought a more radical philosophy to the scene, maintaining that any form of government exploited and oppressed the people. They believed that one way to combat government was to eliminate those in power. Since 1894, anarchists had assassinated four European leaders -- President Sadi Carnot of France, Empress Elizabeth of Austria, King Humbert of Italy, and Spanish statesman Cánovas del Castillo. In the United States, an anarchist had attacked industrialist Henry Clay Frick, in part for his role in the failed Homestead strike.

For some individuals with little or no formal education, few skills, and no hope of improvement, anarchism offered a natural outlet for their frustration. Cleveland resident Leon Czolgosz fit the profile perfectly. Poor, reclusive, and often unemployed, he had been born in Detroit to Polish parents in 1873. He left school after five and a half years and worked at various jobs and later drifted to Chicago and became interested in the socialist movement. The interest continued in Cleveland, where he took a job in the city’s wire mills. Two weeks before he traveled to Buffalo, Czolgosz attended a lecture given by the nation’s most notorious anarchist leader, Emma Goldman. She spoke of the struggle between the classes and why the time had come for action against government.

[SAMWolf]

Surrounded by his entourage inside the Temple of Music, McKinley enjoyed the opportunity to meet his admirers. Host John Milburn, the exposition’s president, stood on the president’s left, so he could introduce acquaintances to McKinley as they approached. Secret Service agent George Foster, the president’s chief bodyguard, usually held that position, but he found himself five feet away from the president and standing opposite him. To McKinley’s right stood Cortelyou, who looked into the face of each person as they came close to his boss. He intended to signal the guards to close the doors after 10 minutes to stop the parade of well-wishers and then rush the president on to his next appointment.


Leon Czolgosz after assassinating William McKinley

President McKinley greeted each person with a warm smile and a handshake, pausing briefly to exchange words with any children who had accompanied their parents. The line moved quickly. Many in attendance held cloths to dab the sweat from their foreheads on the warm, humid day. As the waiting people shuffled forward, Foster noticed one man in line who had his right hand wrapped in a handkerchief. Foster wondered if it covered an embarrassing injury.

McKinley saw the man’s apparent disability, and he reached to shake his left hand. Suddenly, Leon Czolgosz thrust his bandaged right hand into the president’s chest. Onlookers heard two sharp popping sounds, like small firecrackers, and a thin veil of gray smoke rose up in front of the president. McKinley looked confused and rose up on his toes, clutched his chest, and leaned forward. Members of his entourage moved to support the slumping president and help him to a nearby chair as the blood spread across his white vest. "Be careful how you tell my wife," McKinley said, his strength already waning.


Drawing of the McKinley assassination

Foster and others pounced on the assailant, knocking him roughly to the floor as he tried to aim his revolver for a third shot. McKinley managed a weak, "Don’t let them hurt him," when he saw Czolgosz being pummeled beneath a mass of angry guards. As the pandemonium continued, aides rushed the president to a hospital on the exposition grounds. One bullet had struck his sternum a glancing blow, causing only a superficial wound, but the other had penetrated his abdomen, a potentially fatal injury.

Dr. Roswell Park, the exposition’s medical director and a surgeon with an international reputation, was performing a cancer operation in nearby Niagara Falls. Rather than wait for his return, the doctors present believed it imperative to act immediately, and they decided to operate as soon as prominent Buffalo surgeon Dr. Matthew Mann arrived.



At 5:20 p.m., an hour and 13 minutes after the shooting, President McKinley went under the knife. As he slipped into an ether-induced sleep, he murmured the Lord’s Prayer. Operating conditions were far from ideal, and professional lapses occurred that in retrospect probably raised an eyebrow or two, but the grave emergency required snap judgment. At one time doctors had to reflect the waning sun’s rays onto the patient with a mirror because of inadequate lighting.

An anxious crowd awaited word of the president’s condition. At 7:00 p.m. the physicians released a statement detailing the extent of McKinley’s injuries and describing the surgery, during which they had searched for but could not find the second bullet. Summing up, they said the president’s "condition at the conclusion of the operation was gratifying. The result cannot be foretold. His condition at present justifies hope of recovery."



While initial reports were optimistic, as they would be for the next six days, one presidential adviser felt an uneasy foreboding. Secretary of State John Hay had already experienced the assassinations of two presidents -- the first as a personal secretary to Abraham Lincoln and the second as a personal friend and confidant of James Garfield. Called to Buffalo from Washington, Hay reportedly told his escort that the president would surely die. But the secretary of state’s fear was an exception. The optimism of other reports prompted cabinet officials to return to their duties elsewhere. Vice President Theodore Roosevelt, who had rushed to the president’s bedside when he received news of the shooting, left Buffalo "with a light heart" and joined his family on vacation in the Adirondacks.

The president improved daily, and he felt strong enough on the morning of September 12 to receive his first food orally -- toast and coffee. McKinley’s spirits were good, but by afternoon he began to experience discomfort, and his condition rapidly worsened. Within 36 hours Hay’s prediction came true. Gangrene, unseen, had been forming along the path of the bullet for nearly a week. Some 40 years before penicillin became generally available, McKinley had been doomed the moment Czolgosz fired his revolver. The president died in the early morning hours of September 14, surrounded by a small group of family and friends. That afternoon Theodore Roosevelt was sworn in as president of the United States.



As doctors had removed the president to John Milburn’s house after surgery, another spectacle was playing out across town at police headquarters, where the anarchist’s life was in as great a peril as McKinley’s had been. Police brandishing rifles and soldiers with bayonets transported the assailant through an angry mob of thousands who called for Czolgosz’s head. Now an estimated crowd of 30,000 stood ready to rush the station to drag the prisoner from his cell. "Kill him! Lynch him!" they demanded. One observer commented that the "roar of the crowd was never to be forgotten by anyone who heard it." Buffalo Police Superintendent William Bull’s quick action probably saved the prisoner’s life. Bull and his men, some of them mounted, used nightsticks to beat back the surging crowd and eventually managed to cordon off the street and surround the police station three deep, a daunting presence that discouraged mob action.

District Attorney Thomas Penney interrogated the would-be assassin inside the station. Czolgosz readily confessed. A self-described anarchist and disciple of Emma Goldman, Czolgosz said he had acted alone. "I killed President McKinley because I done my duty," he explained without emotion. "I didn’t believe one man should have so much service and another man should have none."



From his cell across the street from city hall, Czolgosz must have heard the caisson carrying McKinley’s remains roll slowly through the streets of Buffalo on September 16 on its way to the train station for its journey to Washington, D.C. There the president’s body was placed under the Capitol dome in the same chamber that once housed the remains of Lincoln and Garfield, before completing its trip for burial in McKinley’s hometown of Canton, Ohio.

[SAMWolf]

Czolgosz was indicted and arraigned on September 16, and the trial commenced one week later in Buffalo’s city hall. The accused, resigned and unrepentant, pled guilty, but Judge Truman C. White, one of the most experienced of New York’s supreme court justices, instructed the court clerk to enter a plea of not guilty in accordance with New York state law. Loran L. Lewis and Robert C. Titus, the two retired justices of the state supreme court appointed to serve as defense counsel, didn’t hide their disgust at having been handed the assignment.



District Attorney Penney focused on the medical aspects of the president’s wound and death. During cross-examination, Dr. Herman Mynter, one of the attending physicians, discussed why the doctors did not find the second bullet. He explained that given McKinley’s weakened condition, further search risked killing him on the operating table. Doctors did not find the bullet during the autopsy, he noted, because the McKinley family did not want the body mutilated.

The prosecution then established beyond any doubt that the defendant had committed the crime. Czolgosz’s signed confession and interrogation immediately after the shooting confirmed his guilt. The only hope for a not-guilty verdict remained with the question of the defendant’s mental state, a matter of much newspaper speculation in the weeks preceding the trial. The prosecution and the defense had engaged six psychiatrists to examine Czolgosz, but the alienists, as they were then known, found no evidence of insanity. Defense counsel never even raised the issue until closing arguments, and then only weakly. In fact, defense counsel called no witnesses on Czolgosz’s behalf. In fairness, though, the defendant refused to discuss the matter with either attorney, leaving them little on which to base a defense.


President William McKinley's funeral

The state rested its case after just one and a half days, and the judge issued his instructions to the jury. In 30 minutes they returned with the expected verdict -- guilty in the first degree. The trial had been a model of expediency, but it hardly represented an example of a strong defense. By today’s standards it would likely result in a mistrial on appeal. But in 1901, given the crime’s dastardly nature and a public calling for blood, defense counsel did not file an appeal.


President William McKinley's funeral

The following month, the state of New York carried out Czolgosz’s death sentence at the penitentiary in Auburn. The warden received more than 1,000 requests for invitations to the execution, but he allowed only 26 witnesses in accordance with state law. Prison officials also rejected two morbid proposals -- one from a museum curator to buy the corpse for $5,000 and another from a kinescope operator for $2,000 to film the condemned man’s walk to the death chamber. On October 29 the executioner threw a switch and sent 1,700 volts of electricity through Czolgosz’s body. Officials were afraid that removal of Czolgosz’s corpse might cause a spectacle, so they secured the family’s permission to inter it in the prison cemetery. Prison guards doused the body with sulfuric acid to render it unrecognizable. At Czolgosz’s request, the prison chaplain did not conduct a religious ceremony.


President William McKinley's funeral

In spite of death threats made towards McKinley during his presidency, he had been protected by the most casual and primitive security. The president had often walked unattended in Canton and strolled alone on the White House grounds without George Foster in attendance. After his death -- the third presidential assassination in 36 years -- Congress stepped up security for United States presidents by directing the Secret Service to add the protection of the president to its duties. Two years later, Congress enacted legislation that made presidential protection a permanent Secret Service responsibility.



The images showing the execution of Leon Czolgosz are from a collection of original films shot by Thomas Edision at the Pan-American. However the "execution" shown in these films is actually a reinactment and does not depict the actual death of Czolgosz.

Additional Sources:

www.americanpresident.org
www.reformation.org
www.nndb.com
www.crimelibrary.com
www.answers.com
aboutfacts.net/
www.buffalohistoryworks.com
blog.topix.net

[SAMWolf]

William McKinley (1897-1901)
25th President of the United States


President William McKinley

Vice President: Garret A. Hobart (1897-1899), Theodore Roosevelt (1901)

Born: January 29, 1843, Niles, Ohio

Nickname: "Idol of Ohio"

Education: Allegheny College

Religion: Methodist

Marriage: January 25, 1871, to Ida Saxton (1847-1907)

Children: Katherine McKinley (1871-1875), Ida McKinley (1873)

Career: Lawyer

Political Party: Republican

Writings: The Tariff in the Days of Henry Clay and Since (1896)

Died: September 14, 1901, Buffalo, New York

Buried: Canton, Ohio (adjacent to Westlawn Cemetery)

Biography: A Life in Brief

For a long time, William McKinley was considered a mediocre President, a chief executive who was controlled by his political cronies and who was pressured into war with Spain by the press. Recent historians have been kinder to McKinley, seeing him instead as a decisive President who put America on the road to world power. McKinley's difficult foreign policy decisions, especially his policy toward China and his decision to go to war with Spain over Cuban independence, helped the U.S. enter the twentieth century as a new and powerful empire on the world stage.

Political Opportunities

Born in 1843 and raised in Ohio, William McKinley planned as a young man to become a Methodist minister. When the Civil War started, McKinley proved a valiant soldier, rising in the ranks from a private to a brevet major on the staff of Colonel Rutherford B. Hayes, who became a lifelong friend and mentor. When he returned to Ohio to practice law, he used his connections with Hayes to rise rapidly in Ohio politics. He served in Congress from 1877 to 1891 before becoming governor of Ohio. Congressman McKinley was the Republican Party's leading spokesman for protectionism in foreign trade. His McKinley Tariff of 1890 established substantially higher tariff rates on imported goods in order to protect U.S. business and manufacturing.


Young Major McKinley

The nation's devastating economic collapse in 1893 turned voters against the Democratic Party’s hold on the presidency, giving McKinley a good shot at the White House in 1896. McKinley argued that his commitment to protective tariffs on imported goods would cure unemployment and stimulate industrial growth. McKinley’s political ally from Ohio, the industrialist Marcus Hanna, helped McKinley organize and fund his campaign. McKinley beat Democrat William Jennings Bryan in the greatest electoral sweep in twenty-five years. Four years later, the popular McKinley ran on a strong record and defeated Bryan again, by even larger margins.

Strong International Presence

McKinley led the U.S. into its first international war with a European power since the War of 1812. The decision to come to the aid of the Cubans struggling to throw off Spanish rule was hastened by reports that Spain was responsible for the explosion of the U.S. battleship Maine. On April 25, 1898, Congress declared war, promising to secure independence for Cuba once the war ended. To secure America's position in the Pacific, McKinley immediately pushed a joint resolution through Congress to annex the Hawaiian Islands. After three short months of fighting, the U.S. was victorious. The peace treaty between the United States and Spain granted Cuba its independence -- although the island became a U.S. protectorate -- and gave the United States control of former Spanish colonies, the Philippines, Puerto Rico, and Guam. Practically overnight, the United States became a colonial power, but not without costs. The United States almost immediately entered into a brutal conflict with Filipino nationalists who rejected American rule.


Ida McKinley on her wedding trip.

Further asserting American power on the global scene, McKinley sent 2,000 troops to China to help the Europeans put down the Boxer Rebellion. He also intervened twice in Nicaragua to protect U.S. property interests. Both of these actions were examples of the U.S. as a rising hemispheric and world power.

To obtain a hold on world markets, McKinley authorized his secretary of state, John Hay, to issue the "Open Door" notes on China. These notes declared U.S. support for an independent China and expressed the American desire that all nations with commercial interests in China compete on an equal footing. The war with Spain and the Open Door strategy laid the groundwork for a new American empire.

Personal Challenges and Assassination



First Lady Ida Saxton McKinley never recovered from the devastating loss of both her infant children as well as her mother within three years of her marriage to McKinley. She developed epilepsy, a disease for which there was no treatment in the late nineteenth century. McKinley gave the First Lady his full attention, breaking White House protocol in seating her by his side at State dinners. When he was shot by an assassin in 1901, McKinley said to his personal secretary, George B. Cortelyou, "My wife, be careful, Cortelyou, how you tell her -- oh, be careful." McKinley died from his wounds eight days later, on September 14, 1901.



Despite criticism from contemporaries and historians, many of whom disagreed with his policies and found his leadership wanting, McKinley was a President who acted decisively in going to war with Spain, asserted great presidential authority over his cabinet and generals, and understood the link between foreign markets and national prosperity. During his administration, the U.S. acquired possessions that allowed it to become a major world power.

[SAMWolf]

Showcasing America's finest, and those who betray them!

Please click on the banner above and check out this newly created (and still under construction) website created by FReeper Coop!

---

Veterans for Constitution Restoration is a non-profit, non-partisan educational and grassroots activist organization. The primary area of concern to all VetsCoR members is that our national and local educational systems fall short in teaching students and all American citizens the history and underlying principles on which our Constitutional republic-based system of self-government was founded. VetsCoR members are also very concerned that the Federal government long ago over-stepped its limited authority as clearly specified in the United States Constitution, as well as the Founding Fathers' supporting letters, essays, and other public documents.

---

Actively seeking volunteers to provide this valuable service to Veterans and their families.

---

We here at Blue Stars For A Safe Return are working hard to honor all of our military, past and present, and their families. Inlcuding the veterans, and POW/MIA's. I feel that not enough is done to recognize the past efforts of the veterans, and remember those who have never been found.

I realized that our Veterans have no "official" seal, so we created one as part of that recognition. To see what it looks like and the Star that we have dedicated to you, the Veteran, please check out our site.

Veterans Wall of Honor

Blue Stars for a Safe Return

---

UPDATED THROUGH APRIL 2004



The FReeper Foxhole. America's History. America's Soul

Click on Hagar for
"The FReeper Foxhole Compiled List of Daily Threads"

---

LINK TO FOXHOLE THREADS INDEXED by PAR35

[Uncle Joe Cannon]

Very interesting. A tragic event in our nation's history.

[snippy_about_it]

Emma Goldman

She looks like she'd fit right in with today's leftists.

btw, like your tagline today.

[w_over_w]

Evening Grace Sam~

Ping for an AM read tomorrow.

All secure . . . goodnight!

[lunarbicep]

BTTT

[Diver Dave]

Very interesting presentation on President McKinley.

Sounds like he would have survived the gunshot wounds if penicillin and operating techniques like today's were employed.

[sasportas]

As an Alaskan, this article hits a nerve. The hippie types and leftists are always screaming change the name of Mt. McKinley (named after Pres. McKinley) to Denali, the native's name for the mountain.

It's the highest mountain in North America. Deserving of the name of such a great American president(and Republican).

[alfa6]

Tis a fine mornin' bump for the Freeper Foxhole.

Regards

alfa6 ;>}

[Valin]

On This Day In History


Birthdates which occurred on August 11:
1778 Friedrich Ludwig Jahn founder of turnverein (gymnastics) movement
1807 David Atchison legislator: president pro tempore of the U.S. Senate, president of U.S. for one day [March 4, 1849], the Sunday before Zachary Taylor was sworn in
1823 Charlotte Mary Yonge England, writer (Heir of Redclyffe)
1833 Robert Green Ingersoll NY, author/politician/agnostic (Att Gen-R-Ill)
1862 Carrie Jacobs Bond Janesville Wisc, songwriter (I Love You Truly)
1867 Joseph Weber comedian (Weber & Fields)
1892 Hugh MacDiarmid Scotland, writer (Scots Unbound)
1897 Louise Bogan Maine, writer (Sleeping Fury)
1900 Alexander Mosolov Kiev Russia, composer (Zavod)
1900 Charles Paddock sprinter (world's fastest human of 1920s)
1902 Lloyd Nolan SF Calif, actor (A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, Peyton Place)
1911 Henry Kulky Hastings-on-Hudson NY, actor (Otto-Life of Riley)
1912 Jean Parker Montana, actress (Beyond Tomorrow, Little Women)
1920 William Masselos Niagara Falls NY, pianist/prof (Juiliard 1976)
1921 Alex Haley US, author (Roots)
1924 Arlene Dahl Minneapolis Minnesota, actress/TV panelist (Ambush)
1925 Carl Rowan gun-toting newspaper columnist (Wash Post)
1925 Mike Douglas Chicago Ill, talk show host (Mike Douglas Show)
1926 Claus Von Bulow accused of murdering his wife
1927 Raymond Leppard London England, conductor (St Louis Symphony Orch)
1933 Jerry Falwell televangelist, Moral Majority head
1937 Anna Massey actress (De Sade, Doll's House)
1941 Elizabeth Holtzman Bkln DA (D-Rep-NY, Watergate Committee)
1942 Mike Hugg drummer (Manfred Mann)
1946 Marilyn Vos Savant St Louis Mo, writer/world's highest IQ (Guinness)
1947 Jeff Hanna singer/guitarist (Nitty Gritty Dirt Band)
1947 Sergey Kovalneko USSR, basketball (Olympic-bronze-1968)
1949 Eric Carmen Cleveland, Ohio, rocker (All by Myself)
1949 Ian Charleson Edinburgh Scotland, actor (Jamie-Master of the Game)
1950 Erik Brann guitarist (Iron Butterfly)
1950 Steve Wozniak cofounded Apple Computer
1952 Ann Michelle England, actress (Virigin Witch)
1953 Hulk Hogan [Terry Bollea], Ga, WWF heavyweight champion (1984-89)
1953 Sanford Jensen South Haven Mich, actor (Foley Square)
1954 Lina Polito Naples Italy, actress (Love & Anarchy)
1955 Joe Jackson England, singer (Steppin' Out)
1959 Linda Rhys Vaughn Grossmont Ca, playmate (Apr, 1982)
1964 Hamish rocker (The Pasedenas-Riding on the Train)
1969 Eddie Garcia LA, actor/musician (Guys Next Door-I Was Made For You)

---

Deaths which occurred on August 11:
0991 Ealdorman Brihtnoth killed in battle
1180 Guillaume de Sens, French master builder (Canterbury)
1259 Mongke, Mongol great-khan/grandson of Ghengis Khan
1868 Thaddeus Stevens architect of Radical Reconstruction, dies at 76
1956 Jackson Pollock abstract artist, dies in auto accident (East Hampton)
1973 Peggy Castle actress (Lily Merrill-Lawman), dies at 46
1975 Alfred Loomis (d.1975), financier and amateur physicist, Loomis led research that enhanced radar and led to the atom bomb
1975 Anthony C. McAuliffe (77), US gen, commandant 101st airborne div. (Nuts!), died.
1982 Tom Drake actor, dies of lung cancer at 63
1984 Alfred A Knopf, US publisher
1988 Anne Ramsey actress, dies of cancer at 59
1988 Jean-Pierre Ponnele opera director (Carmina Burana), dies at 56
2002 Jiri Kolar (87), Czech poet and artist known mainly for his pioneering work in the art of collage, died in Prague
2003 Herb Brooks, who coached the U.S. Olympic hockey team to the "Miracle on Ice" victory over the Soviet Union in 1980, died in a car wreck near Minneapolis at age 66.

---

Take A Moment To Remember
GWOT Casualties

Iraq
11-Aug-2004 2 | US: 2 | UK: 0 | Other: 0
US Lance Corporal Tavon L. Hubbard Al Anbar Province Non-hostile - helicopter crash
US Staff Sergeant John R. Howard Al Anbar Province Non-hostile - helicopter crash

Afghanistan
A GOOD DAY

http://icasualties.org/oif/
Data research by Pat Kneisler
Designed and maintained by Michael White
//////////
Go here and I'll stop nagging.
http://www.taps.org/
(subtle hint SEND MONEY)

---

On this day...
0117 Hadrian learns of death of emperor Trajan
0991 Danes under Olaf Tryggvason kill Ealdorman Brihtnoth and defeat the Saxons at Maldon.
1492 Rodrigo Borgia is elected to the papacy as Pope Alexander VI.
1772 Explosive eruption blows 4,000' off Papandayan Java, kills 3,000
1780 Barbados hurricane begins
1835 George B Airy begins 46-year reign as England's Astronomer Royal
1860 Nation's 1st successful silver mill (Virginia City, Nev)
1862 Union General Henry Halleck appointed general in chief of the Union Army.
1866 World's 1st roller rink opens (Newport, RI)
1877 Asaph Hall discovers Mars's moon Deimos
1907 St Louis Card Ed Karger pitches perfect game vs Braves, 4-0 in 7 inn
1909 SOS 1st used by an American ship, Arapahoe, off Cape Hatteras, NC
1912 Moroccan Sultan Mulai Hafid abdicates his throne in the face of internal dissent
1914 Jews are expelled from Mitchenick Poland
1916 Russian army captures Stanislau, Poland, from the Germans
1918 Battle of Amiens ends in WW I, Allies defeat Germans ("the black day of the German Army in the history of the war."- General Erich Ludendorff)
1919 Green Bay Packers football club founded
1926 Cleve Indian Tris Speaker hits his 700th double
1929 Babe Ruth becomes 1st to hit 500 homers
1933 Temp reaches 136ø F at San Luis Potos¡, Mex (world record)
1934 1st federal prisoners arrive at Alcatraz in SF Bay
1942 Vichy government official Pierre Laval publicly declares that "the hour of liberation for France is the hour when Germany wins the war."
1942 U-73 attacks and sinks the HMS Eagle
1945 Allies refuse Japan's surrender offer to retain Emperor Hirohito
1948 Summer Olympics opens in London
1949 1st Naples-Capri swim, 17 miles (27 km) (Giovanni Gambi)
1950 Boston Brave Vern Bickford no-hits Bkln Dodgers, 7-0
1951 1st color baseball game (Braves vs Dodgers) telecast (WCBS-NYC)
1952 Hussein proclaimed king of Jordan
1954 Formal peace takes place, ending 7+ yrs of fighting in Indochina between French & Communist Vietminh
1956 Elvis Presley releases "Don't Be Cruel"
1960 Chad declares independence
1961 Warren Spahn records victory #300, beats Cubs 2-1
1962 Andrian G Nikolayev, becomes 3rd Russian in space aboard Vostok 3
1962 Beach Boys release "Surfin' Safari"
1963 The Kingston Trio are the mystery guest on "What's My Line?"
1964 Beatles' "A Hard Day's Night" opens in NYC
1964 Race riot in Paterson NJ
1965 6 day riot starts in Watts section of Los Angeles
1965 Beatles movie "Help" opens in NYC
1966 Last Beatle concert tour of the US begins
1967 Al Downing becomes 12th to strike-out side on 9 pitches
1968 The Beatles launch the "Apple Records" label
1970 Jim Bunning becomes 2nd (Cy Young) to win 100 games in both leagues
1970 Tony Perez becomes the 1st to hit a HR in the red seats at Riverfront
1971 Construction begins on the Louisiana Superdome
1971 Harmon Killebrew hits HRs #500 & 501
1972 The last U.S. ground forces withdraw from Vietnam.
1972 "Cheech & Chong Day" in San Antonio Texas
1974 Head-on collision between two buses kills 21 (Ankara, Turkey)
1974 Lee Trevino wins PGA championship
1975 US vetoes proposed admission of North & South Vietnam to UN
1976 Keith Moon, drummer for the Who, collapses & is hospitalized in Miami
1978 Funeral of Pope Paul VI
1979 28ø F in Embarrass Minnesota(more proof of global warming)
1980 Reggie Jackson hits his 400th homer
1984 Carl Lewis duplicates Jesse Owens' 1936 feat, wins 4 Olym track golds
1984 Cincinatti Reds retire Johnny Bench's #5 uniform

1984 During a radio voice test Pres Reagan joked he "signed legislation that would outlaw Russia forever. We begin bombing in 5 minutes"

1985 Challenger flies to Kennedy Space Center via Davis-Monthan AFB, Ariz
1985 Hubert Green wins PGA championship
1985 Oakland A's Dave Kingman becomes the 21st to hit 400 HR
1985 Rudolf Povarnitsin of USSR sets new high jump world record (7'10"12)
1986 Bob Tway wins PGA championship
1988 Meir Kahane renounced US citizenship to stay in Israeli Parliament
1989 "Nightmare on Elm Street 5: The Dream Child" premiers
1989 Voyager 2 discovers 2 partial rings of Neptune
1990 Egypt & Morocco troops land in Saudi Arabia to prevent Iraqi invasion
1990 NY Yankee Kevin Maas is fastest to get 13 HRs (110 at bats)
1991 John Daly, rookie golfer wins the PGA title
1991 Shite Muslims release US hostage Edward Tracy
1991 Space shuttle STS 43 (Atlantis 9) lands
1992 The Mall of America, the biggest shopping mall in the country, opens in Bloomington, Minn.
1993 President Clinton names Army Gen. John Shalikashvili to be the new chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, succeeding the retiring Gen. Colin Powell
1999 Total eclipse of the sun in the UK
1999 Buford O. Furrow Jr., a white supremacist,surrenders to the FBI in Las Vegas and confessed to wounding 5 people in LA and killing mail carrier Joseph Ileto (39). He said that he wanted his act to be "a wakeup call to America to kill Jews."
(thank you so much for the advice Buford (you POS!), rest assured we will give it all the consideration it deserves....FLUUUUUUSH)
2000 Pat Buchanan wins the Reform Party’s presidential nomination and named Ezola Foster (62), a black former teacher, as his running mate.
2003 Hambali (39), an Indonesian whose real name is Riduan Isamuddin, was captured in a raid in the ancient temple city of Ayutthaya, Thailand. Hambali, the operational head of Jemaah Islamiyah, was handed over to US authorities and flown out of the country. He was al Qaeda's top man in Southeast Asia and the suspected mastermind behind a string of deadly bombings including the Bali attacks

---

Holidays
Note: Some Holidays are only applicable on a given "day of the week"

Central African Republic, Chad : Independence Day (1960)
Jordan : Coronation Day/Accession of King Hussein
Zambia : Youth Day ( Monday )
Yukon : Klondike Gold Day (1896) ( Friday )
Don't Wait...Celebrate Week (Day 4)
Son and Daughter Day
Psychic Month

---

Religious Observances
RC : Commemoration of SS Tiburtius & Susanna, martyrs
Ang, old RC, RC : Memorial of St Clare, virgin, Abbess at Assisi

---

Religious History
1775 Anglican clergyman and hymnwriter John Newton wrote in a letter: 'Scriptural faith is a very different thing from a rational assent to the Gospel. Christ is not only the object, but the Author and Finisher of faith.'
1914 Birth of Lee Shelley, missions pioneer. In 1957 he founded Christians in Action Missions in Huntington Park, California an interdenominational agency working overseas in evangelism, church planting and missionary training.
1930 In Toledo, Ohio, three Lutheran synods merged to form the American Lutheran Church. (In 1960 the ALC merged with two other branches of Evangelical Lutheranism, and in 1988 joined with a third Lutheran group to form the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America ELCA.)
1933 Birth of Jerry Falwell, U.S. Baptist clergyman. Pastor of Thomas Road Baptist Church in Lynchburg, Virginia, he has also been an active political lobbyist and once headed the Liberty Federation (formerly called Moral Majority), a Christian lobby which Falwell founded in 1979.
1968 Presbyterian apologist Francis Schaeffer wrote in a letter: 'We live in an abnormal world and all kinds of things do exist, but this does not make them right.'

Source: William D. Blake. ALMANAC OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. Minneapolis: Bethany House, 1987.

---

New bikini will stop sunburn

August 11, 2005
From: Agence France-Presse

A BIKINI which bleeps every 15 minutes to prevent holidaymakers from sleeping in the sun is to be shown off in Britain today.

The invention could stop the traditional ghastly seaside sight of bright-red Britons on beaches across the world.
New Look, Britain's third-biggest women's clothes retailer, was to launch the Tan-Timer Bikini on Brighton beach on the south coast.

About 59 per cent of Britons admit to nodding off in the sun, so the electronic device, which attaches to the swimsuit, bleeps every quarter of an hour to remind dozy Brits to wake up and seek shade or roll over to toast the other side.

The bikini is to hit stores across the country next week.

"As well as the health implication of over-exposing your skin to the sun, burnt or peeling skin is not a good look for the image-conscious," New Look's marketing director, Hash Ladha, said.


"With 56 per cent of men finding sunburnt peeling skin unattractive, we hope the Tan-Timer Bikini will help our customers avoid that mistake and feel confident when slipping on their summer dresses."
A spokeswoman for the company said a male version could be in the pipeline.

---

Thought for the day :
"Never trust a computer you can't throw out a window."
Steve Wozniak

[Soaring Feather]

Good morning everyone.

[Pippin]

Hi, Sam!

I'm bookmarking this thread to my profile page.

as a history buff and collector of presidential memorablia, this caughyt my eye.

I have a memorial plate with McKinley's picture on it and a breadplate dating back to the early 1900's commemorating the assassiantion.

[Professional Engineer]

Good morning ladies. Flag-o-Gram.

[Professional Engineer]

Wow, a visit from the World Tallest Hobbit. Howdy.

[Coop]

Excellent work, Sam! I learned a great deal from your post.

[w_over_w]

MORNING GLORY FOLKS!

[w_over_w]

Very informative read on a part of history I had yet to visit. McKinley sounds like a true industrialist. His vision for America and his stalwartness is very telling . . . reminds of someone else.

As for Leon Czolgosz . . . who was it that coined the phrase about how, "one motivated nutjob" can accomplish a lot?

[w_over_w]

Ping for last nights episode of "Over There". As always, it was entertaining but would like to here your comments.

I gotta say it was hard to believe that the interrogator was a Col. Seemed more like a contract operative. Also, there's something really sexy about a female soldier that gets in a guys face and calls him "sh!tbird". Sweet.