Falmanac: The Fallston Almanac of American History
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(WoCCP) Clang, clang, clang went the trolley as it screeched to a stop in Warwick. The door swung open, passengers piled in, and the car creaked forward. It rolled on down the line, through farmland and fields, while warm summer air flowed through open windows. As it approached the end of the line, the motorman threw on the brakes while the car hissed gently to a stop in Cecilton. That was the dream a group of investors promoted in February 1904. Continued
Image: MDRails
(Wikipedia) The Skirmish of Sporting Hill was a relatively small skirmish during the Gettysburg Campaign of the American Civil War, taking place on June 30, 1863, at various locations in present day Camp Hill, East Pennsboro Township and Hampden Township in Cumberland County, Pennsylvania. It is known as the northernmost engagement of Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia during the Civil War. Continued
Zoologist Mike Dickison talks about the PhD research he's been doing on a flightless bird. (Via boingboing)
(NYTimes) In Santa Cruz, Calif., volunteers will re-enact every word and movement in the famous courtroom scene. In Monroeville, Ala., residents dressed in 1930s garb will read aloud from memorable passages. In Rhinebeck, N.Y., Oblong Books will host a party with Mocktails and recorded music by the indie band the Boo Radleys.
(Wikipedia) John Hunn (June 29, 1849 – September 1, 1926) was an American businessman and politician from Camden, in Kent County, Delaware. He was a member of the Republican Party who served as Governor of Delaware.
... Hunn's father, also John Hunn, was a noted abolitionist and chief engineer of the Underground Railroad in Delaware. Shortly after the younger John's birth, the family lost their New Castle County farm, "Happy Valley," in a sheriff's sales because of fines assessed for helping runaway slaves. They then went to live with family at Magnolia, Delaware. Continued
(Baltimore Sun) Max Hurley, 63, operates – and writes for – the 1926-era Wurlitzer Band Organ, Style 165, in Glen Echo Park, one of just three in the world still making their timeless music Continued
Image: Carousel house, Glen Echo Park, MD (Library of Congress).
(Wikipedia) ... To prevent the advance of Confederate troops across the river from the Wrightsville (York County) side during the Civil War, the bridge was burned by Union militia under Maj. Granville O. Haller and Col. Jacob G. Frick on June 28, 1863. Civilian volunteers from Columbia had mined the bridge at the fourth span from the Wrightsville side, originally hoping to drop the whole 200-foot (61 m) span into the river, but when the charges were detonated, only small portions of the support arch splintered, leaving the span passable. As Confederates advanced onto the bridge, Union forces set fire to it near the Wrightsville side. Earlier they had saturated the structure with crude oil from a Columbia refinery.
The entire structure soon caught fire and completely burned in six hours. Confederate generals Jubal A. Early and John B. Gordon had originally planned to save the bridge despite orders from General Robert E. Lee to burn it, and Union forces under the command of Colonel Jacob G. Frick had burned the bridge, originally hoping to defend and save it. Afterwards, the Columbia Bank and Bridge Company appealed to the federal government for reimbursement for damages incurred from the bridge burning, but none were ever paid. Conservative estimates put the cost of damages with interest today at well over $170 million.
In 1864, the bank sold all interest in the bridge and bridge piers to the Pennsylvania Railroad for $57,000. The bank eventually went out of business, although the original building is now being renovated into a museum at Second and Locust Streets. Continued
(Wired) Russell Kirsch says he’s sorry. More than 50 years ago, Kirsch took a picture of his infant son and scanned it into a computer. It was the first digital image: a grainy, black-and-white baby picture that literally changed the way we view the world. With it, the smoothness of images captured on film was shattered to bits.
The square pixel became the norm, thanks in part to Kirsch, and the world got a little bit rougher around the edges. Continued
(LoC) A Bosnian Serb, Gavrilo Princip, assassinated Archduke Francis Ferdinand of Austria and his wife Sofia in Sarajevo on June 28, 1914, setting off a chain of events that would culminate in a world war by August. Five years later, on June 28, 1919, Germany and the Allies signed the Treaty of Versailles, formally ending World War I and providing for the creation of the League of Nations.
After the 1914 assassinations, an elaborate network of treaties among the nations of Europe led to a rapid escalation in the "Great War" between the Central Powers—including Germany, the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and the Ottoman Empire, and the Allied nations of Britain, France, Italy, and Russia. On April 6, 1917, the United States entered the war on the side of the Allies. Continued
(NYTimes) ... Within months of its release in July 1980 “Airplane!” became the highest-grossing comedy in box office history, a distinction that held until “Ghostbusters” came along in 1984. And it remains one of the most influential. Its anything-goes slapstick and furious pop culture riffs can be seen in the 20-gags-a-minute relentlessness of “The Simpsons,” “South Park” and “Family Guy” and grab-bag big-screen parodies like “Epic Movie, “Date Movie” and the “Scary Movie” franchise (the third and fourth installments of which were directed by none other than David Zucker). It also inspired “Airplane II: The Sequel” in 1982. Continued
(Wikipedia) The Royal Blue was the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad (B&O)'s flagship passenger train between New York City and Washington, D.C., in the United States, beginning in 1890. The Baltimore-based B&O also used the name between 1890 and 1917 for its improved passenger service between New York and Washington launched in the 1890s, collectively dubbed the Royal Blue Line. Using variants such as the Royal Limited and Royal Special for individual Royal Blue trains, the B&O operated the service in partnership with the Reading Railroad and the Central Railroad of New Jersey. Principal intermediate cities served were Philadelphia, Wilmington, and Baltimore. Later, as Europe reeled from the carnage of World War I and connotations of European royalty fell into disfavor, the B&O discreetly omitted the sobriquet Royal Blue Line from its New York passenger service and the Royal Blue disappeared from B&O timetables. Beginning in 1917, former Royal Blue Line trains were renamed: the Royal Limited (inaugurated on May 15, 1898), for example, became the National Limited, continuing west from Washington to St. Louis via Cincinnati. During the Depression, the B&O hearkened back to the halcyon pre-World War I era when it launched a re-christened Royal Blue train between New York and Washington in 1935. The B&O finally discontinued passenger service north of Baltimore on April 26, 1958, and the Royal Blue faded into history. Continued
Images: MDRails
(Dick Cavett) ... Arthur Godfrey was not just an entertainer. If the phrase ever applied to a human being, he was an industry.
Advertisers so craved his then-revolutionary and greatly successful practice of personally delivering, live and ad lib, each and every commercial that sponsors waited in line. He was top salesman in radio and television — so it is said. So large was his take for the network on his morning show that it was avowed in the ad industry that by the time William Paley (Mr. CBS) finished his breakfast, Arthur had paid the network’s bills for the day.
Image: Library of Congress
(National Zoo) It was love at first sight for Shama and Tate, the Zoo's red pandas, and now, nearly a year and a half after they were introduced, the pair has a cub as evidence of their strong bond. On June 16, Shama gave birth to a single cub—the first for both of the Zoo’s red pandas and the first red panda cub born at the Zoo's D.C. campus in 15 years.
Three-year-old Tate came to the Zoo from the Nashville Zoo in February 2009 to breed with two-year-old Shama as recommended by the Association of Zoos and Aquariums’ red panda Species Survival Plan, which manages breeding in order to maintain a genetically diverse zoo population. Continued
(LoC) On June 26, 1870, the first section of the Atlantic City Boardwalk opened along the New Jersey beach. ... Alexander Boardman, a railroad conductor, and Jacob Keim, a hotelier, conceived of the idea of constructing a boardwalk as a means of keeping sand out of the railroad cars and hotels. The city used its tax revenues to build an eight-foot-wide temporary wooden walkway from the beach into town that could be dismantled during the winter.
... Any consideration of the boardwalk demands at least a nod to salt water taffy, a favorite beachside treat. Taffy, a candy made of corn syrup and white sugar is boiled; the confection is pulled and folded, then rolled into a long strip from which shorter (about two-inch-long) strips are cut, wrapped in stick resistant paper, and sold. Along the Atlantic City Boardwalk folks have purchased the product since at least the early 1880s. In 1925, the Supreme Court ruled that the term "salt water taffy" could not be trademarked, a decision which saved candy manufacturers from paying millions of dollars to John R. Edmiston of Wildwood, New Jersey, who claimed to be the originator of the candy and had applied for registration of the term with the U.S. Patent Office. Continued
(New York Times) When told with enough four-letter words and forensic research, the back stories of antiques can make for the kind of nonfiction thrillers that publishers save up for summer release.
One of this year’s page turners, David Howard’s “Lost Rights: The Misadventures of a Stolen American Relic” (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt), tracks the covert travels of North Carolina’s copy of the Bill of Rights. Mr. Howard, an editor at Bicycling magazine, explains that, in 1789, a state clerk tucked the document into the files, where it stayed until a Union soldier looted the place in 1865. Continued
Famed neurosurgeon had been active in the Hungarian underground during World War II and as a young physician treated Eva Peron
(Baltimore Sun) Dr. George B. Udvarhelyi, an internationally known Johns Hopkins neurosurgeon who established the Office of Cultural Affairs at the East Baltimore medical school, died Tuesday evening at Roland Park Place of complications from a neck fracture. He was 90. Continued
(Wikipedia) The Korean War (1950–53) was a military conflict between the Republic of Korea, supported by the United Nations, and the Democratic People's Republic of Korea and People's Republic of China (PRC), with air support from the Soviet Union. The war began on 25 June 1950 and an armistice was signed on 27 July 1953. The war was a result of the political division of Korea by agreement of the victorious Allies at the conclusion of the Pacific War. The Korean peninsula had been ruled by Japan prior to the end of the war. In 1945, following the surrender of Japan, American administrators divided the peninsula along the 38th parallel, with United States troops occupying the southern part and Soviet troops occupying the northern part. Continued
(Baltimore Sun) Sixty years ago today, President Harry S. Truman crossed the Potomac and boarded a propeller-driven military DC-6, the 1950 version of Air Force One, and took a short flight to dedicate a new airport carved out of Anne Arundel County farmland. The landing spot, which Truman hailed as "the creation of men who look ahead and have faith in the future," was called Friendship International Airport — a name it would retain for 23 years before becoming Baltimore- Washington International. Today, the airport is the nation's 23rd busiest, serving about 21 million passengers a year, and a mainstay of the regional economy. Continued
Image: Strongbad/Wikipedia
(Wikipedia) Thomas McKean (March 19, 1734 – June 24, 1817) was an American lawyer and politician from New Castle, in New Castle County, Delaware and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. During the American Revolution he was a delegate to the Continental Congress where he signed the United States Declaration of Independence and served as a President of Congress. He was at various times a member of the Federalist and Democratic-Republican parties, who served as President of Delaware, Chief Justice of Pennsylvania, and Governor of Pennsylvania. Continued
Abraham Lincoln was never one to be overly enamored of his generals. Once, when he heard that a general and several dozen horses had been captured in a raid, he said something to the effect of, "I can make more generals, but I can't make more horses." And he made a lot of generals, fired a lot of them too:
1. Irvin McDowell, fired after losing the 1st battle of Bull Run.
2. George B. McClellan, fired after retreating from the vicinity of Richmond in 1862.
3. John Pope, fired after being routed at the 2nd battle of Bull Run.
4. George B. McClellan, rehired, for the battle of Antietam, re-fired, after Antietam.
5. "Fighting Joe Hooker," wasn't that fighting after all, fired after Chancellorsville, 1863.
6. Franz Sigal, fired twice.
7. John C. Frémont, another two-fer.
8. William Rosecrans, fired after the battle of Chickamauga, where Lincoln said he acted like a "duck hit over the head."
I'm sure there were more, but that's a list of the most famous ones.
(NYTimes) First came shock — the venerated Politics and Prose bookstore here was up for sale. Then, almost immediately, the fantasies started — what would it be like to be the new owner, an influential tastemaker at the intersection of the nation’s political and literary worlds? Continued
(Reuters) A nurse famously photographed being kissed by an American sailor in New York’s Times Square in 1945 to celebrate the end of World War Two has died at the age of 91, her family said on Tuesday.
The V-J Day picture of the white-clad Edith Shain by photographer Alfred Eisenstaedt captured an epic moment in U.S. history and became an iconic image marking the end of the war after being published in Life magazine. Continued
(Wikipedia) Fort Towson was a frontier outpost for Frontier Army Quartermasters along the Permanent Indian Frontier located about two miles (3 km) northeast of the present community of Fort Towson, Oklahoma. It was established in May 1824, under Col. Matthew Arbuckle, on the southern edge of Indian Territory to guard the Spanish border. It was named for Nathaniel Towson, Paymaster General of the Army. ... The last remaining Confederate Army troops, commanded by General Stand Watie, surrendered to Union forces at Fort Towson on June 23, 1865, following the Battle of Doaksville. Continued
(Milwaukee Journal Sentinel) On Sept. 15, 1918, with World War I nearing an end, United States Marine George Henry Humphrey was killed by a machine gun bullet through his helmet.
Pinned down by the Germans, George's fellow soldiers hastily buried him in the woods of rural northern France.
They drew a map and later tried to explain the location to George's family, but the grave could not be found.
Until now. Continued
Images: Library of Congress
(Baltimore Sun) ... Part campout, part emergency preparedness exercise, Field Day sets aside 24 hours during which hams around the world set up their gear away from home, try to contact as many of their global counterparts as possible using only emergency power sources, and in general have a grand time "rag-chewing" (gabbing), eating barbecue and crashing in tents." One reason ham radio exists is that it serves as an emergency backup system," says Bruce McPherson, president of the Maryland Mobileers Amateur Radio Club, one of the two based in Anne Arundel County that will hold Field Day exercises that are free and open to the public. "Field Day keeps us sharp, but we wouldn't do it if it weren't fun." Continued
Image: Library of Congress
(YDR) There only a few men left to tell the story of the greatest upset in World Cup history.
So when the United States played England for the first time since that legendary game 60 years ago, John Souza and Walter Bahr watched, though quietly at home on TV. ... Souza turns 90 next month and has lived in York County for years.
Bahr, 83, coached the Penn State soccer team and still lives in State College. Continued
(Errol Morris) ... Wheeler had walked into two Pittsburgh banks and attempted to rob them in broad daylight. What made the case peculiar is that he made no visible attempt at disguise. The surveillance tapes were key to his arrest. There he is with a gun, standing in front of a teller demanding money. Yet, when arrested, Wheeler was completely disbelieving. “But I wore the juice,” he said. Apparently, he was under the deeply misguided impression that rubbing one’s face with lemon juice rendered it invisible to video cameras. Continued
(Find A Grave) Thorne Smith: Author.
Birth: Mar. 27, 1892. Death: Jun. 21, 1934. He was known for his lighthearted fantasy novels, the most successful of which was "Topper" (1926), about a mild-mannered bank executive who is rescued from a drab existence by two fun-loving ghosts. The book spawned a sequel, "Topper Takes a Trip" (1932), and was made into a classic 1937 film starring Cary Grant and Constance Bennett; Leo G. Carroll played Topper in a popular 1950's tv series. The son of a naval officer, Smith was born in Annapolis, Maryland, and served in the Navy during World War I. He died of a heart attack at 42, leaving a novel, "The Passionate Witch", unfinished. Published in 1941, it was filmed as "I Married a Witch" (1942) and later inspired the 1960's sitcom "Bewitched". (bio by: Robert Edwards) Link
(LoC) June 21 marks the beginning of summer in the Northern Hemisphere. Children and adults look forward to the beginning of the season and to beating its heat with rites of summer such as swimming and eating ice cream. The date on which the season commences, the summer solstice, is the longest day of the year and the moment when the perceived pattern of the sun is farthest from the equator. Continued
(Baltimore Sun) ... The object of their veneration is the majestic Thomas Viaduct, the 704-foot-long, eight-arched, stone Baltimore and Ohio Railroad bridge that spans the Patapsco between Baltimore and Howard counties, and has been carrying trains since it opened for business in 1835. A moment later, a heavy southbound freight train whistled in the narrowing distance and then several growling CSX diesel locomotives rolled by as squealing flanges from its mix of cars produced notes only found on the upper register of a violin, interrupting conversation. Continued
Images: MDRails, Library of Congress
(Wikipedia) William Murray Werber (June 20, 1908 – January 22, 2009) was a third baseman in Major League Baseball who played for the New York Yankees (1930, 1933), Boston Red Sox (1933-1936), Philadelphia Athletics (1937-1938), Cincinnati Reds (1939-1941) and New York Giants (1942). He led American League third basemen in putouts and assists once each, and also led National League third basemen in assists, double plays and fielding percentage once each. A strong baserunner, he led the AL in stolen bases three times and led the NL in runs in 1939 as the Reds won the pennant. He was born in Berwyn Heights, Maryland and batted and threw right-handed. Continued
(NYTimes) From the Oval Office the other night, President Obama called the oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico “the worst environmental disaster America has ever faced.” Senior people in the government have echoed that language.
The motive seems clear. The words signal sympathy for the people of the Gulf Coast, an acknowledgment of the magnitude of their struggle. And if this is really the worst environmental disaster, the wording seems to suggest, maybe people need to cut the government some slack for failing to get it under control right away.
But is the description accurate? Continued
(Wikipedia) Mildred Natwick (June 19, 1905 – October 25, 1994) was an American stage and film actress. A native of Baltimore, Maryland, after graduating from Bennett College with a degree in theater arts, Mildred Natwick toured with a number of stage productions before her first Broadway production, Carry Nation.
Throughout the 1930s she starred in a number of plays, frequently collaborating with friend and actor-director-playwright Joshua Logan. On Broadway, She played the role of Prossy in theatrical actress Katharine Cornell's production of Candida. Natwick made her film debut in John Ford's The Long Voyage Home as a cockney prostitute, and she movingly portrayed the landlady, an important character in The Enchanted Cottage (1945).
Natwick is remembered for small but memorable roles in several of John Ford classics, including 3 Godfathers (1948), She Wore a Yellow Ribbon (1948), and The Quiet Man (1952), as the sheltered widow Mrs. Tillane. Continued
(Aegis) “History.” The word brings many things to mind, but in the case of the Hays-Heighe House on the campus of Harford Community College, the word simply does not do justice.
Indeed, the newly-renovated Hays-Heighe House’s latest incarnation as a “living classroom” may better serve its legacy, for the house’s new purpose is to educate about past history and possibly make future history. Continued
Image: Maryland Historical Trust
(BBC) Fathers of yesteryear tend to be portrayed as cold, detached, even callous creatures. But, says Steve Humphries, the cuddly, hands-on, sentimental dads we know today are by no means a modern-day creation. Continued
(LoC) James Montgomery Flagg, creator of this illustration of Uncle Sam, was born on June 18, 1877, in Pelham Manor, New York. Flagg claimed that his illustration, an indelible American icon, had become the most famous poster in the world. Dressed in his own Uncle Sam suit, he used himself as the model for this poster and his other Uncle Sam illustrations.
An illustrator and portrait artist best known for his commercial art, Flagg contributed forty-six works in support of the war effort during World War I. Leslie's Weekly first published his picture of Uncle Sam as the cover of the July 6, 1916, issue with the title "What Are You Doing for Preparedness?" More than four million copies were printed between 1917 and 1918. The image also was used extensively during World War II.
In 1961, Congress passed a resolution that officially recognized meat packer Samuel Wilson (1766-1854) as Uncle Sam's namesake. Wilson, who supplied meat to the army during the War of 1812, is reputed to have been a man of great fairness, reliability, and honesty who was devoted to his country. Continued
"If H. L. Mencken was the Sage of Baltimore, Waters is, at least, the parsley. Just for fun, consider what these two share: impudence, contrariness, uproarious insults to bourgeois values that made them controversial, then fashionable, then had them prematurely posing for their native-son statues. That they’d have horrified each other is just your usual Balmer lagniappe." - Tom Carson
Photo of John Waters by Entheta, some rights reserved.
(Wikipedia) The Battle of Aldie took place on June 17, 1863, in Loudoun County, Virginia, as part of the Gettysburg Campaign of the American Civil War.
Maj. Gen. J.E.B. Stuart's cavalry screened Gen. Robert E. Lee's Confederate infantry as it marched north in the Shenandoah Valley behind the sheltering Blue Ridge Mountains. The pursuing Union cavalry of Brig. Gen. Judson Kilpatrick's brigade, in the advance of Brig. Gen. David McM. Gregg's division, encountered Col. Thomas T. Munford's troopers near the village of Aldie, resulting in four hours of stubborn fighting. Both sides made mounted assaults by regiments and squadrons. Kilpatrick was reinforced in the afternoon, and Munford finally withdrew toward Middleburg. Continued
(Baltimore Sun) Baltimore Museum of Art leaders unveiled plans on Tuesday to complete a $24 million renovation in time for the institution's 100th anniversary in 2014, a three-year project that will require some galleries to be closed in phases starting early next year. The museum's director, Doreen Bolger, and its fundraising campaign co-chair, Sandra Levi Gerstung, announced that the museum has raised more than half the funds needed for the project, including a commitment of $10 million over four years from the state of Maryland and a $1.25 million bond issue from the city of Baltimore. City voters will be asked to approve another $1.2 million loan for the renovations on the ballot in November. Continued
(Daily Mail) The face is instantly familiar, the two-fingered salute unmistakable.
But are these actually the same photograph of Sir Winston Churchill?
In the original photograph the war leader has his cigar gripped firmly in the corner of his mouth.
But in the other image - currently greeting visitors to a London museum - his favourite smoke has been digitally extinguished. Continued
(via Firecured)
