DECEMBER 29 –1693 Happy birthday Ohio explorer and military leader Pierre Joseph Celeron de Blainville; INVENTIONS/PATENTS: 1900 Happy Birthday Charles Goodyear, 1921 Happy Birthday Robert Baker (invented chicken nugget), 1891 Edison patents radio
DECEMBER 29
1693 — happy birthday Pierre Joseph Celeron de Blainville, French Canadian military leader and Ohio explorer.
Between 1744 and 1748 the French and British fought King George’s War, or the third French and Indian War which led to the British cutting off the fur trade at the mouth of the St. Lawrence River. Fur trade with the Indians was better than giold , and the French needed to take back their customers in the Ohio territories.
The French and British both claimed the land at the end of the war, but the British were the ones trading with the Native Americans. The French commander dispatched Pierre Joseph Celeron to kick the British out of the territories and renew their trade relationships with the Natives. Celeron, born in Montreal on this day in 1693, was a military lifer since he was thirteen years old.
He led the Chickasaw Campaign in 1739 in Louisiana, which was essentially a draw. In 1749 he would lead a company of 200 soldiers and 30 Indians down the Alleghany River to present day Pittsburgh, into Ohio Country. He buried lead plates into the ground that claimed French ownership to the territory, and leave a sign on a tree indicating there :”proof of title” was buried nearby, which was a popular and respected custom in some parts of Europe at the time.
But in America, it was a joke. The British simply refused to leave, and the Indians got hostile against Celeron , forcing him and his men to retreat back to Montreal. His missions were an utter failure. Later in life, Celeron would be reappointed to Detroit where he was promoted to Major, back to Montreal, and died on April 11, 1759.
The conflict in Ohio would continue meanwhile, and the British would ultimately emerge victorious in the French and Indian Wars.
1808 — Happy birthday Andrew Tailor of the Tennessee Johnson, #17. Johnson was born in a log cabin in Raleigh, North Carolina. His father died when Young Andrew was only three years old. Growing up in poverty, he and his brother were apprenticed to a tailor, but ran away. The two boys returned home, and the family moved to Greeneville, TN. Young Andrew never went to school but became very successful as a tailor.
At age 18, he married 16 year old Eliza McCardle. Johnson remains the youngest president ever to get married. The couple had five children together. His tailor shop became an area of political discussion as the slavery institution became a big question in new western states. A skilled orator, Johnson won the support of the local townsmen and became an alderman, then in 1834 was elected mayor of Greenville. In 1835, Johnson was elected to the state legislature, where he served for a short time. He was voted into the House of Representatives in 1843, and there he advocated a homestead bill to provide a free farm for the poor man. He was elected governor of Tennessee in 1853, then to the Senate four years later.
Though he was a slave owner, the Tailor of Tennesse Johnson took a firm stand on holding the Union together when southern states began seceding from the United States. When Tennessee chose to join the Confederate States of America, Johnson was the only Southern senator to retain his seat with the U.S. Senate. He was vilified by Southerners; his house was confiscated and Eliza and their two kids split down, driven out of Tennessee. After Union troops took back Tennessee from the Confederates in 1862, President Lincoln appointed Johnson Military Governor of Tennessee, but Johnson had little control.
When Lincoln an for reelection in 1864, he chose Johnson, a War Democrat and Southern Unionist, to be his running mate. After all the National Union Party was for all loyal men. Now when Lincoln was assassinated, his killer John Wilkes Booth had conspired with Lewis Powell and George Atzerodt to take out the top part of the cabinet of the U.S. Government, namely the president, vice president and secretary of state, thereby hopefully reigniting the Civil War. Atzerodt was sent to shoot and kill Vice President Johnson, but Atzerodt instead lost his nerve, got drunk and passed out in the same apartment building where Johnson was staying. Now that Andrew Sir Veto Johnson was president, he lost popularity with almost everybody very quickly.
It didn’t help that he was drunk during his inauguration. Then for the next eight months, while Congress was on recess, Johnson pushed through legislation for his version of a Reconstruction Act, which included pardons for rebel soldiers and top officials of the Confederate States Government, as well as “black codes” which controlled and oppressed freed slaves. Then in December, Congress came back from recess. The first thing the Radical Republicans did was refuse to seat any Senator or Representative from the CSA. In fact, they would later on make Johnson pay dearly with the Tenure of Office Act, which I’ll get to in a minute. Next, they passed measures protecting former slaves.
Johnson vetoed it, and the Republicans got enough votes to pass measures over his veto, which by the way was the first time Congress has successfully overridden the President on a major bill. This led to the 14th Amendment, which says that no state should “deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.” That of course includes African Americans. The Tailor of Tennessee Johnson urged Southern states to not ratify it, but all of them did a month later anyway in July 1866.
All except for one, that is, guess which state. Hint: Johnson used to be a tailor there. He tried to regain some respect by going on a tour of the western states, giving speeches and trying to sell his audiences on his Reconstruction policies. It was a disaster. He was often drunk during his speeches and had a tendency to antagonize his crowd instead of talking to them. That fall, Radical Republicans won majority in both houses of Congress and started their own plan of Reconstruction, placing southern states under military rule.
Meanwhile, inside the White House, Andrew Johnson had two Jersey cows, a couple white mice, loved checkers and baseball, posted a $100,000 bounty on CSA President Jefferson Davis, once used Senator Charles Sumner’s hat as a spittoon, and was seriously disliked by Mary Todd Lincoln, who was still living in the White House mourning over her husband’s death. Oh yeah, one other thing: President Johnson was the first president to be impeached. Getting back to the Tenure of Office Act, the Radical Republicans passed laws placing restrictions on the President. The Tenure of Office Act denied the President’s ability to remove federal officials without the Senate’s consent.
After Johnson removed Secretary of War Edwin Stanton, the House voted eleven articles of impeachment against him. Johnson was tried in 1868, and in May was acquitted by one vote. Needless to say, Andrew Johnson didn’t bother to seek reelection, especially after losing the Democratic nomination to New York governor Horatio Seymour, who would in turn, lose the presidential election to Ulysses Grant. Johnson is considered by many historians as one of America’s worst presidents.
However, he is the only former president to become a senator after his term, which happened In 1875, However his term was short; a few months later he suffered from a stroke and died July 31st while visiting his family in Tennessee. He was 66 years old. “When I die, I desire no better winding sheet that the Stars and Stripes and no softer pillow that the constitution of my country.” Andrew Johnson got his wish. Happy birthday Andrew!
1800 – happy birthday Charles Goodyear. Although vulcanized rubber was used by Mesoamericans since the 1600s, Goodyear gets the credit for the process Great way to make tires! Goodyear died in 1860, and it wasn’t until almost forty years later in 1898 The Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company was formed.
1921 – Happy birthday Robert C. Baker. Guess what he did for a living? Yeah he was a baker. He invented the chicken nugget, yet another reason the world needs America. McDonalds often gets credit for inventing the nugget, but in fact, Baker made this recipe in the 1950s and McDonalds didn’t come out with their chicken nugget until 1979, so there. 1891 – Thomas Edison patents transmission of signals electrically, otherwise known as radio.