JULY 3 — 1903 RIP Harriet Lane, former first lady and neice of James Buchanan; 1754 Washington’s only military surrender at Ft. Necessity; 1981 AIDS outbreak hits New York Times
JULY 3
1903 Former first lady Harriet Lane passes away.
She was James Buchanan’s niece! Born Franklin County in PA, May 9 1830 on a large family plantation. Uncle Buck, or Nunc, as she called him, started taking care of young Harriet, or Hal, when she was around 11 years old as the result of losing both of her parents.
Nunc made sure Hal lived comfortably ad had a good education. James Buchanan, Secretary of State during 1854, had taken his favorite niece to England where she , met Queen Victoria, and by this point had become a darling in America as well. The United States was going through turmoil at that time, President Franklin Pierce had been a failure in reducing tensions between the north and south, and would not be denominated in his party to run for a second term. Buchanan would become the new Democratic Presi9dent of the United States, and Hal charmed every single person on his campaign trail.
Buchanan, like Pierce, also failed to keep the union at peace, and by the end of his failed first term, seven southern states seceded. All along, Hal managed to keep enemy delegates apart from each other while arranging seating arrangements at White House dinners, and offending absolutely nobody in the process. Young, innocent, and beautiful, golden-haired Hal wouldn’t marry until long after Nunc’s presidential term ended, not until she was 35 when she married prominent bankers, with Nunc’s approval, of course. Tragically, she would lose so many closes to her, her two sons, her husband, and Uncle Buck.
She moved back to Washington, and She dedicated $400,000, or around $10M by today’s earnings to establish the Harriet Lane Home for Invalid Children, and published Harriet Lane Handbook, which gives advice on pediatrics.
The Handbook continues to print to this day. She died on this day in 1903.
1890- Happy birthday Idaho!
…It’s the 43 state admitted to the union, it’s the 14th largest, the 39th most populous, and the 7th least densely populated of the country. Idaho was part of the Oregon Country, which was claimed by the US and Great Britain until the US gained possession in 1846. Some fun facts about Idaho, courtesy of 50states.com. The Elk River is the home of the Idaho champion Western Red Cedar Tree, the largest tree in the state.
Estimated to be over 3000 years old, this giant is more than 18 feet in diameter and stands 177 feet tall. In Idaho the law forbids a citizen to give another citizen a box of candy that weights; more than 50 pounds! The world famous hot springs of Idaho are located in Lava Hot Springs. Sun valley is recognized as the home of America’s first destination ski resort. Finally if you’re into fly fishing, Anderson Dam is the place you want to be for catching blue ribbon.
1988 – American shoot down Iranian flight 655,
…killing hundreds on board.
In 1979, the Islamic revolution led to the Iran-Iraq war. When Iraq invaded Iran in 1980, according to the Washington post, the US supported Iraq leader Saddam Hussein against the two countries mutual Iranian enemy. Toward the end of the war, on July 3, 1988, a US aNavy ship called the Vincennes was exchanging fire with small Iranian ships in the Persian Gulf. The US Navy kept ships there, and still does, to protect oil trade routes.
As the American and Iranian ships skirmished, Iran Air Flight 655 took off from nearby Bandar Abbas International Airport, bound for Dubai. The Vincennes allegedly mistook the airliner for an F-14 and shot it down, killing all 290 passengers and crew members on board.
US officials defended the action, stating the airliner was out of its commercial flight path and lying too low. However a month later, US authorities reversed that angle,m acknowledging that the plane was within it’s commercial flight path and did not appear to be a threat. In 1996, the US agreed to pay $62 million in damages to the families of the Iranians killed in the attack.
The impact of that is believed to have tensions between the US and Iran to this day.
3 1754 — Battle of Ft. Necessity.
George Washington and the British-American army V Louis Coulson de Villers and French colonials and Native Americans from Ottowas, Huron, Iroquois and Ohio tribes. The result: French and Native American victory, and Washington’s first and last military surrender.
The Battle of Jumonville on May 28th started the French and Indian Wars, in which Washington ambushed the French and Canadian team that took over his fort in what would become Pittsburgh Pennsylvania. Washington had previously warned the French to move away from the fort, the French ignored, the warning, and hence the ambush.
French commander Joseph Coulon de Villers de Jumonville, though surrendered peacefully, was tomahawked by Iroquian Mingo chief Tanacharison, although that has been historically disputed. Supposedly, nine other French captives were scalped, and one escaped back to his camp, warning the French.
Now Washington was anticipating a counterattack, and wrote to governors of other colonies asking for help. Now, Washington, still in his early 20s, ran all military operations: he commanded at the tactical level, while working at the operational, strategic and political levels.
About 1,00 French and Native American allies were headed towards him, and Washington dug in, ready for battle. He built the redoubt Ft. Necessity in Great Meadows, these days Farmington in Fayette County PA, completed on June 3rd. But was really nothing more than a flimsy post surrounded by trenches and earthworks which had no overhead fortification, no clear lines of fire and no drainage system, and worst of all, on the bottom of a hill.
Then the rain started and the French came in. The fort became flooded and Washington’s men were cut to pieces in a buddy muddy mess. Miles away from British safety and a third of his army defeated, George Washington surrendered. The French released Washington and the remainder of unit and they maundered their way back to the safety of the British in Virginia, under constant harassment of the Indian stealing from their convoy.
After the Duke of Burgesses examined the situation, they would send Major General Edward Braddock to dislodge the French from their positions. Lt. Col. Washington would try and warn General Braddock how to fight the Indians but Braddock wouldn’t listen to the young whippersnapper, and lose the Braddock expedition at the French Fort Duquesne.
1981 — New York Times reports: Rare Cancer Seen in 41 Homosexuals. Outbreak Occurs Among Men in New York and California 8 Died Inside 2 Years.
For those of us old enough to remember this, and I was a teenager when AIDS was breaking out, it was the scariest reality next to the Cold War. The Human imunodefency virus, or HIV, is transmitted through bodily fluids, most popularly through unprotected sex, sharing drug needs or mothers passing it onto their children.
It attacks T-cells which fight infection, leaving a recipient vulnerable to sickness. If it turns into AIDS, a simply cold can become deadly. Researchers and scientists link the disease to chimpanzees in Africa and the Congo through the simian immunodeficiency virus was found. Somehow it affected humans, possibly hunters, with the earliest case found in 1920.
From there the disease turned into HIV in humans and spread to the Caribbean, and eventually to New York City in 1970 and then San Francisco less than a decade later. It was initially called GRID, or gay-0related immune deficiency, but then started being found in heterosexual couples as well. The name was changed to AIDS, and in 1982 started to spread to Europe.
By 1985 there were over 20,000 known cases throughout the world, gay men were no longer able to give blood, and actor Rock Hudson died of the disease, which really freaked out Americans, as I recall vividly. In 1991 basketball legend Magic Johnson, definitely not a gay man, announced he was HIV positive. Then rock band Queen lead singer Freddie Mercury announced he had the AIDS and died the next day. These days treatment is available and helps folks that are HIV positive to live a mostly normal life.
The red ribbon has become a symbol for the disease. As of 2016 10 million people died, 36 million throughout the world were infected, and there are nearly two million cases per year.
1863 – Picketts Charge.
…It was the last day of fighting during the Battle of Gettysburg, the turning point for the Union in the Civil War. General Robert E. Lee’s confidence took over the best of him, and on July 3rd he concentrated his full force against Maj. Gen. George G. Meade’s Army of the Potomac at Gettysburg.
The Charge’s commander, Lt. gen. James Longstreet predicted that this would be an epic fail. During the last two days, the Confederates were unable to take Cemetery Ridge from the left and right Union flanks,
On the night of July 2nd, Meade correctly predicted that Lee would attack on his lines in the center, and sure enough the next day, after a preliminary artillery bombardment by 150 or so Confederate guns they began advancing.
Initially they were able to pierce the Union line but the Union regiments from New York, Vermont and Ohio had opened fire on both flanks of Pickett’s Charge. The Confederates were completely overwhelmed, and wound up losing about half of their men within a few hours, about 28,000 men.
In fact, it was such a crushing defeat on the Confederates, Lee’s campaign into Pennsylvania was over. Lee was so deflated he offered his resignation to Confederate President Jefferson Davis but was refused.
According to encyclopediavirginia.org, films like Gettysburg, 1993, glorified the attack even while historians continued to debate Lee’s decision, sometimes comparing it to Union general Ulysses S Grant’s equally futile attacks at Cold harbor in Hanover County in 1864.