JULY 28 — 1929 HB Jackie Kennedy Onassis; 1961 Happy Birthday Dr. Parazynski (only astronaut to climb Mt. Everest); 1864 Batle of Ezra Church; 1945 FDR announces end of coffee rations; 1976 Lockheed’s SR-71 Blackbird flies 85,000 horizontal altitutde
JULY 28
1929 – HAPPY BIRT5HDAY Jackie Kennedy Onassis.
…She was born to a wealthy family in New York, her dad was a stockbroker nicknamed Black Jack. She graduated from George Washington university in 1951 and began a career as the Inquiring Camera girl for the Washington Times Herald. She met JFK when he was Massachusetts Senator, and the two married on September 12 1953 at St. Mary’s Church in Newport Rhode Island. She raised two children in the white house and restored the building to historic conditions.
1961 – Happy birthday Dr. Scott Parazynski. NASA thanks you for your service. Check this out.
5 space shuttle flights and seven spacewalks. It isn’t about making it to the top, he says. It’s about making the roundtrip. I supposed that’s why space just wasn’t big enough for him so on May 20 2009 Scott Parazynski became the only astronaut to summit Mt. Everest. When he reached the top, he left behind a moon rock that was collected by the crew of Apollo 11.
So class, for extra credit, scale Mt. Everest and see if you can find that rock. Thank you.
1907 – Happy birthday Earl Tupper
…from Berlin, New Hampshire. Guess what he invented. Here’s a hint: it was at the DuPont Chemical company. Yeah you don’t need to use clay for bowls, plates and cups anymore! You can also use inflexible pieces of polyethylene slag. Tupperware parties of course were really big back in the day before direct marketing became another way to sell the product. In Civil War news…
1864 – Battle of Ezra Church.
…William T. Sherman and Oliver Otis Howard v john B., Hood. The result was a Union victory. Otherwise known as the Battle of the Poor House, it was part of the Atlanta Campaign. In fact, it was the third shot that Hood took to break through Sherman’s hold on Atlanta. That’s right. After Army of the Tennessee CDR Joseph Johnston was unable to keep Sherman from Atlanta, Hood replaced Johnston on July 18. On Jul 20, Hood couldn’t get past Sherman at the Battle of Peach tree Creed, nor would he succeed against the Yankees, at the Battle of Atlanta. So Hood decided to take Sherman from the south. Now the Georgia Railroad was cut, Sherman ordered Maj. Gen. Howard and the Army of the Tennessee to the Macon & Western Railroads.
According to nps.gov, Howard moved from the left wing to the right and cut Hood’s last railroad supply line between East Point and Atlanta. Surprise! Not really. Hood foresaw such a maneuver and determined to send the two corps of Lt. Gen. Stephen D. Lee and Lt. Gen. Alexander P. Stewart to intercept and destroy the Union force.
Alright. Instead of attacking the flank, Lee went for the center. Howard saw it coming. on the afternoon of July 28, at Ezra Church, Howard was able to entrench one of his corps in the way of the Confederates’ path, and used church pews, logs, and rails to repulse Hood’s army.
On a side note, according to the U.S. Army of Military History, Another notable participant was Ernst R. Torgler, a 24-year-old sergeant in the 37th Ohio Infantry, who was later awarded the Medal of Honor for his action during the battle. Torgler saved the life of his commanding officer, Major Charles Hipp. His citation reads (in part): “At great hazard of his life he saved his commanding officer, then badly wounded, from capture”.[3]
Though a clear Confederate loss, Howard, however, failed to cut the railroad. Howard’s army lost more than 650 men. The Confederates lost about 2,800-3,000.
1943 – Great news…FDR announces end of the coffee rationing in US.
1997 – NY Ranger Mark Messier
…signs on to Vancouver. Normally I don’t talk about hocky on th is show since it’s kind of a Canadian game, and Mark Messier is after all Canadian. I guess it’s kind of fun to mention the NHL once in awhile since the Canadians haven’t even won the Stanley Cup since 1993. Daaamn.
1945 – Happy birthday Jim Davis! And Garfield has become the most widely published comic strip in the world would you believe Jim’s first wife was allergic to cats? Key word there: first wife.
1976 – USAF Captain Robert Helt and Major Larry Elliott fly the Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird 85,000 horizontal altitude.
In the late 1950’s, the Skunk Tank was the name of Lockheed’s finest engineering team. They designed the SR-71 which had many cool features at a time before computers-aided design. Drag-induced surface heat of more than 1,000 degrees Fahrenheit at Mach 3 sparked a revolution in design, according to airforcemag.com.
90% of the surface was titanium alloy; it developed special hydraulic fluids, lubricants and sealants. On July 28 1976, at Beale AFB in California, the SR-71 set the FAI record for Altitude in horizontal flight at 85, 068 feet, which by the way is twice the Boeing 747 cruising altitude of 35,000 feet. Just sayin’.
2014-Linda Ronstadt was honored with a National Medal of Arts
…at the White House in Washington, D.C. During the ceremony, President Barack Obama revealed, “I had a little crush on her back in the day.”