JUNE 2 — ELECTIONS: Garfield enters the 1880 presidential race; 1886 Happy Anniversary Grover Cleveland/Frances Folsom; 2016 Steven Jobe makes world’s largest Hurdy Gurdy
JUNE 2
1880 Garfield enters the presidential race.
The election of 1880 was wide open for the Republican Party since incumbent Rutherford B. Hayes had fulfilled his 1876 campaign promise but being a one-term only president. The Republican National Party, which began on this day in 1880, saw a wide variety of candidates.
There was John Sherman, former Secretary of States, Secretary of Treasurer and Civil War general from Ohio. There was James Blaine, former House speaker from Maine. Roscoe Conkling from New York who served both in the House and Senate. Even former president Ulysses Grant had thrown his hat in the ring for an unprecedented third term.
Even though his reputation was riddled with scandals when he was president, he went on a world tour and got the public to favor him once again. Grant got the most votes in the RNC, Blaine came in second, but neither got the majority required. Then the Canal Boy showed up. FA Ohio Congressman James, Boatman Jim Garfield threw his hat, along with Chet Arthur from New York. Meanwhile, even though the Democrats were hoping Samuel Tilden, former New York Governor would run, Tilden did not care to ride that same brutal race for president like he attempted in 1876.
The Democrats felt they were ripped off in that election because of mass corruption during the vote count, and made that their main issue in 1880. Instead of Tilden, it would be Union Major General Winfield Scott Hancock from Pennsylvania and Delaware Senator Thomas F. Bayard. Several other political parties arose during this campaign. The main issue of this election was high tariffs, which the northern Republicans favo9red, versus lower tariffs, which the southern Democrats favored.
There were other issues, too, and different political factions began to split. The Greenback party favored more safety regulations in factories and eight hour workdays, and and end to child labor, nominated another Civil War general James Weaver. The Prohibition Party, and temperance party that wanted to ban the sale of alcohol, was led by a Civil War general from Maine named Neil Dow. The stage was set, and ding ding, it was on. The popular vote was close. After the Republican and the Democrat received 4 and a half million votes, Boatman Ji, incidentally nicknamed so from a job he had as a teenager, won by a little over 9,000. All the southern states voted for Of Fuss and Feathers Winfield Scott, and all the northern states voted for the Canal Boy. Garfield had completely dismantled Scott in the Electoral College, winning 214-155. Garfield would be assassinated during his first year as president, and Chester Arthur would finish Garfield’s presidential term.
1997 – McVeigh is convicted for Oklahoma City Bombing.
…McVeigh started out as a loner, parents divorced when he was a kid, bullied non-stop throughout high school, never had a girlfriend or any other friends for that matter. He was into guns, science fiction, and survivalist. He joined the Army and served in the Gulf War, but when he tried out for the Green Berets he didn’t make the cut, and requested and received an honorable discharge in December 1991.
His life went downhill from there, became more politically paranoid and anti-federal government, whom he considered the biggest bully of all. McVeigh started working at gun shows and other part time jobs.
When the Waco Texas standoff at the branch of Davidians ended at the Mount Carmel compound of the Davidians between agents from BATF, bureau of alcohol, tobacco and firearms and Branch Davidians ended badly, with 74 Davidian men, women and children killed, McVeigh became so angry with the way the US Government handled it, he became a terrorist. He befriended Nazis, white supremacists, and other American haters.
He developed a nasty methamphetamines habit and began robbing various institutions to get his ammonium nitrate, nitro methane, explosives, blasting caps, etc. etc. On April 19, exactly 2 years after the Branch Davidian standoff, McVeigh became the greatest mass murdered in American history, blowing the north face off an Oklahoma City federal building where 168 people were killed, including children in the second story day care center.
On June 2, 1997, McVeigh was convicted on 15 counts of murder and conspiracy, and on August 14, under the unanimous recommendations of the jury, he was sentenced to die by lethal injection. When he was executed in June 2001, Timothy McVeigh’s execution was the first federal death penalty to be carried out since 1963.
1944 – Operation Frantic begins
…as American bombers of the 145th AF launch a series of bombing raids over Central Europe, alighting from airbases in southern Italy, but landing at airbases in Poltava, in the Viet Union, in what is called Shuitt bombing. Operation Frantic, although considered an American-Soviet strategic failure, it demonstrated the flexibility and reach of American logistics operating under trying conditions.
It also demonstrated the political role of airlift logistics in terms of operational support that would have been impossible by conventional ground-based means. However, Frantic had not been a good use of Allied resources. The Germans judged it to be a propaganda exercise to impress the Soviets, but all it really accomplished was to make the strains in the Allied alliance more obvious.
2004—Ken Jennings begins his Jeopardy rampage.
Born May 23, 1974, Kenneth Wayne Jennings began a record setting for longest winning streak on Jeopoardy! And as being the second highest –earning contestant in American game show history. He was 74 wins before being defeated by challenger Nancy Zerg on his 75th appearance. His total earnings on Jeopardy are over 3 mill.
Not surpriginjsly, he wrote a book after his Jeopardy streak about his experience and explored American trivia history and culture, the book was titled Brainiac: Adventures in the Curious, Competitive, Compulsive World of Trivia Buffs.
1886 happy anniversary Grover and Frances Cleveland.
First lady Mrs. C has plenty of firsts, youngest first lady, first and thus far the only to get married to an incumbent in the White House, longest living former first lady who survived 51 years after leaving the White House, and probably a few others I’m forgetting.
In Buffalo New York, Grover was a partner with Frances’s dad Oscar Folsom, who died in a carriage accident in 1875. Frances was around eleven at the time, and Grover became head of the Folsom estate. He wasn’t legally her guardian, but she confided in him nonetheless. As she grew up she attended Wells College in Aurora in New York, and Grover was elected president in 1886. A
ccording to history.com, Frances widowed mother Emma figured Grover would ask her to marry, but instead the grumpy old man asked Emma’s daughter that he kinda rose. And Francis or Frankie as Uncle Jumbo called her accepted. They told nobody until days before the wedding and America was shocked that His Obstinacy, at 50 years old, was getting married to a beautiful 21 year old woman. But at the president’s request, the paparazzi were not allowed at the wedding which took place in the Blue Room on this day in 1886.
For the wedding Grover did it all; the fifty invitations, procuring the minister and arranging the honeymoon, while his sister handled the food and flowers. And boy, did Frankie smile for the camera. Where Big Steve hated the press, Frankie loved it. She was an extremely popular first lady, nonpartisan, good natured and was very photogenic for the press. Now of course Grover Big Steve Cleveland would be the only president to serve nonconsecutive terms, being numbers #22 and #24.
By the time he became his second term, Frances had a little girl named Ruth and another on the way. In fact Big Steve and Frankie would have five children together. Little Ruth died at the age of twelve, is buried in Princeton New Jersey and has a candy bar named after her called Baby Ruth. I found that interesting. I always thought it was named after the baseball player, but not according to Wikipedia. Esther was born in 1893 and she grew up to marry a captain in the British army and they would have a daughter named Philippa Foot who was a British philosopher. Marion Cleveland was born in 1895 and would grow up to be a director for the Girl Scouts. Richard was born in 1897, served as a Marine in WWI and became a lawyer, and finally little brother Frances Grover grew up to became an actor and founder of the Barnstormers Theater in New Hampshire.
While first lady, Frankie would receive letters by the thousands from fans asking her opinion on all sorts of subjects ranging from the best hand cream to sewing kits, cigar boxes you name it. Then the endorsements started, as her pretty smiling picture wound up on a range of all sorts of commercial items whether she endorsed it or not. President Uncle Jumbo tried to pass legislation disallowing these fragrantly false advertisement gimmicks, but to no avail as Mrs. C was showing up on ads everywhere.
By the time Big Steve’s second term was up, she was only 32 years old, making her the youngest first lady to leave office to this day. See I knew I was forgetting another record. Grover Cleveland passed on in 1908, but Frankie lived on, marrying an Art professor named Thomas Preston Jr. from her old college at Wells. As former first lady, Frances remained popular, becoming part of the National Security League and the Needlework Group Guild. She lived 35 years after leaving the white house and died at the age of 83 on October 29, 1947.
Happy anniversary Grover and Frances!
2016 — Steven Jobe makes the largest Hurdy Gordy ever. You’ll have to forgive him for this one. A Hurdy Gordy is an instrument which uses a crank with a wheel as a perpetual bow and the musical harmonies that can come from it are so magical even Nickleback figured out how to write a decent song using this instrument.
1968—Happy birthday to Beetlejuice, part of radio shock jock Howard Stern’s whack pack.