On This Day in History

[Schmidt Meister]

On May 4, 1916, Germany responds to a demand by U.S. President Woodrow Wilson by agreeing to limit its submarine warfare in order to avert a diplomatic break with the United States.
Unrestricted submarine warfare was first introduced in World War I in early 1915, when Germany declared the area around the British Isles a war zone, in which all merchant ships, including those from neutral countries, would be attacked by the German navy. A string of German attacks on merchant ships, culminating in the sinking of the British passenger ship Lusitania on May 7, 1915, led President Wilson to put pressure on the Germans to curb their navy. Fearful of antagonizing the Americans, the German government agreed to put restrictions on the submarine policy going forward, incurring the anger and frustration of many naval leaders, including the naval commander in chief, Admiral Alfred von Tirpitz, who resigned in March 1916.
On March 24, 1916, soon after Tirpitz’s resignation, a German U-boat submarine attacked the French passenger steamer Sussex, in the English Channel, thinking it was a British ship equipped to lay explosive mines. Although the ship did not sink, 50 people were killed, and many more injured, including several Americans. On April 19, in an address to the U.S. Congress, President Wilson took a firm stance, stating that unless the Imperial German Government should now immediately declare and effect an abandonment of its present methods of warfare against passenger and freight carrying vessels this Government can have no choice but to sever diplomatic relations with the Government of the German Empire altogether.
To follow up on Wilson’s speech, the U.S. ambassador to Germany, James W. Gerard, spoke directly to Kaiser Wilhelm on May 1 at the German army headquarters at Charleville in eastern France. After Gerard protested the continued German submarine attacks on merchant ships, the kaiser in turn denounced the American government’s compliance with the Allied naval blockade of Germany, in place since late 1914. Germany could not risk American entry into the war against them, however, and when Gerard urged the kaiser to provide assurances of a change in the submarine policy, the latter agreed.
On May 6, the German government signed the so-called Sussex Pledge, promising to stop the indiscriminate sinking of non-military ships. According to the pledge, merchant ships would be searched, and sunk only if they were found to be carrying contraband materials. Furthermore, no ship would be sunk before safe passage had been provided for the ship’s crew and its passengers. Gerard was skeptical, writing in a letter to the U.S. State Department that German leaders, forced by public opinion, and by the von Tirpitz and Conservative parties would take up ruthless submarine warfare again, possibly in the autumn, but at any rate about February or March, 1917.
Gerard’s words proved accurate, as on February 1, 1917, Germany announced the resumption of unrestricted submarine warfare. Two days later, Wilson announced a break in diplomatic relations with the German government, and on April 6, 1917, the United States formally entered World War I on the side of the Allies.

[Schmidt Meister]

On May 4, 1905, a ceremony marks the official beginning of the second attempt to build the Panama Canal. This second attempt to bridge the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans will succeed, dramatically altering world trade as well as the physical and geopolitical landscape of Central America.
For decades before it was attempted, merchants and engineers fixated on the idea of creating a passage through Central America for ocean-going vessels, sparing them thousands of nautical miles and the dangerous trip around Cape Horn. A French company was the first to attempt building such a canal, but the results were disastrous: roughly 20,000 workers perished due to accidents and tropical diseases, and the company collapsed without coming close to completing the canal.
In 1902, the United States Congress passed the Spooner Act, authorizing the acquisition of the defunct French company. After failing to reach a deal with Colombia to dig the canal, the Unites States backed separatists in the Isthmus of Panama, leading to the birth of a new nation as well as the Panama Canal Zone, a strip of land 10 miles wide along the route of the canal over which the United States would hold jurisdiction.
On May 4, 1905, dubbed “Acquisition Day,” the project became official. The Americans largely avoided the mistakes that had doomed the French project. Engineers used dams to create an inland lake, connected to the oceans by locks, rather than building a sea-level canal all the way across the isthmus. In addition to creating Gatún Lake, then the largest artificial lake in the world, the project also required the blasting of the Galliard Cut, also known as the Culebra Cut, an artificial gorge which was dynamited out of the rock of the Continental Divide so that the canal could flow through.
In October of 1913, nearly 10 years after construction had resumed, a telegraph from President Woodrow Wilson triggered the detonation of a dike and the flooding of the Culebra Cut, joining the waters of the Atlantic and Pacific. The following August, the Panama Canal officially opened, immediately altering patterns of world trade in ways comparable only to the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869.
Accidents, disease and the extremely hot conditions killed 5,609 workers over the decade it took to complete the canal. The United States remained the de facto sovereign of the canal and the Canal Zone until 1979 when, under President Jimmy Carter, he makes the momentously stupid decision for the U.S. to transfer management of the canal to Panama on December 31, 1999.

[Schmidt Meister]

On May 4, 1979, Margaret Thatcher, leader of the Conservative Party, becomes Britain’s first female prime minister. The Oxford-educated chemist and lawyer took office the day after the Conservatives won a 44-seat majority in general parliamentary elections.
Margaret Hilda Roberts was born in Grantham, England, in 1925. She was the first woman president of the Oxford University Conservative Association and in 1950 ran for Parliament in Dartford. She was defeated but garnered an impressive number of votes in the generally liberal district. In 1959, after marrying businessman Denis Thatcher and giving birth to twins, she was elected to Parliament as a Conservative for Finchley, a north London district. During the 1960s, she rose rapidly in the ranks of the Conservative Party and in 1967 joined the shadow cabinet sitting in opposition to Harold Wilson’s ruling Labour cabinet. With the victory of the Conservative Party under Edward Heath in 1970, Thatcher became secretary of state for education and science.
In 1974, the Labour Party returned to power, and Thatcher served as joint shadow chancellor before replacing Edward Heath as the leader of the Conservative Party in February 1975. She was the first woman to head the Conservatives. Under her leadership, the Conservative Party shifted further right in its politics, calling for privatization of national industries and utilities and promising a resolute defense of Britain’s interests abroad. She also sharply criticized Prime Minister James Callaghan’s ineffectual handling of the chaotic labor strikes of 1978 and 1979.
In March 1979, Callaghan was defeated by a vote of no confidence, and on May 3 a general election gave Thatcher’s Conservatives a majority in Parliament. The next day, Prime Minister Thatcher immediately set about dismantling socialism in Britain. She privatized numerous industries, cutback government expenditures, and gradually reduced the rights of trade unions. In 1983, despite the worst unemployment figures for half a decade, Thatcher was reelected to a second term, thanks largely to the decisive British victory in the 1982 Falklands War with Argentina.
In other foreign affairs, the “Iron Lady” presided over the orderly establishment of an independent Zimbabwe (formerly Rhodesia) in 1980 and took a hard stance against Irish separatists in Northern Ireland. In October 1984, an Irish Republican Army (IRA) bomb exploded at the Conservative Party conference in Brighton. The prime minister narrowly escaped harm.
In 1987, an upswing in the economy led to her election to a third term, but Thatcher soon alienated some members of her own party because of her poll-tax policies and opposition to further British integration into the European Community. In November 1990, she failed to received a majority in the Conservative Party’s annual vote for selection of a leader. She withdrew her nomination, and John Major, the chancellor of the Exchequer since 1989, was chosen as Conservative leader. On November 28, Thatcher resigned as prime minister and was succeeded by Major. Thatcher’s three consecutive terms in office marked the longest continuous tenure of a British prime minister since 1827. In 1992, she was made a baroness and took a seat in the House of Lords.
In later years, Thatcher worked as a consultant, served as the chancellor of the College of William and Mary and wrote her memoirs, as well as other books on politics. She continued to work with the Thatcher Foundation, which she created to foster the ideals of democracy, free trade and cooperation among nations. Though she stopped appearing in public after suffering a series of small strokes in the early 2000s, her influence remained strong. In 2011, the former prime minister was the subject of an award-winning (and controversial) biographical film, The Iron Lady, which depicted her political rise and fall. Margaret Thatcher died on April 8, 2013, at the age of 87.

[Schmidt Meister]

May 4th In Music

1961 - The Marcels were at No. 1 on the UK singles chart with the Rodgers & Hart song from the 1930s 'Blue Moon', their only UK No. 1.

1967 - The Young Rascals started a four week run at No. 1 on the US singles chart with 'Groovin.'

1967 - The Turtles' "Happy Together" is certified Gold.

1968 - Steppenwolf make their US television debut, performing "Born to Be Wild" on American Bandstand.

1974 - ABBA were at No. 1 on the UK singles chart with 'Waterloo', the group's first of nine UK No. 1 singles was the 1974 Eurovision song contest winner for Sweden. The song was first called 'Honey Pie'.

1974 - Grand Funk Railroad started a two week run at No. 1 on the US singles chart with their version of the Little Eva hit 'The Loco-Motion.' It was only the second time that a cover version had been a No. 1 (1962) as well as the original.

1974 - The Sting soundtrack, featuring Marvin Hamlisch's adaptations of Scott Joplin's ragtime piano tunes, hits No. 1 in America, where it stays for five weeks.

1978 - Jefferson Starship's album Earth is certified Platinum.

1991 - Governor Ann Richards declares "ZZ Top Day" in Texas, honoring the group for "bringing the powerful beat of Texas boogie to enthusiastic audiences across the globe."

Birthdays:

1942 - Ronnie Bond. Drummer with English garage rock band The Troggs, who had the 1966 US No. 1 single 'Wild Thing' and the hits 'With a Girl Like You' and 'Love Is All Around'. Born in Andover, Hampshire, England. Bond died on 11.13.1992.

1942 - Nicholas Ashford. From husband-and-wife songwriting-production team Ashford and Simpson, who had the 1985 UK No. 3 single 'Solid'. They wrote hits such as: 'Ain't No Mountain High Enough', 'You're All I Need To Get By', 'Ain't Nothing Like the Real Thing', and 'Reach Out and Touch (Somebody's Hand)'. Ashford died on 8.22.2011.

1945 - George Wadenius. From jazz-rock American music group Blood Sweat & Tears. They scored the 1969 US No. 2 single 'Spinning Wheel', and the 1969 US No. 12 single 'You've Made Me So Very Happy'. They had a US No. 1 with their second album Blood, Sweat & Tears in 1968. Born in Stockholm, Sweden.

1951 - Bruce Day. American bassist and vocalist for the California smooth rock band Pablo Cruise. He previously played in a San Francisco high school band with Carlos Santana. He died on 6.30.1999 at the age of 48.

[tous]

Forgive me for interrupting, amigo, but aside from some dopey Star Wars May the Fourth Be With You silliness, 04 May 1970 was the day that National Guardsmen in Kent, Ohio opened fire on a student mob protesting Nixon's incursion into Cambodia, wounding nine, killing four.

History and the Marxist media has whitewashed this event into, Evil National Guard Brownshirts murder four innocent college students.

Consider that thee had been mass protests on the Kent State campus all of the week before and it spilled over into the town, were vandalism and looting took place.

The day before, the so-called peaceful protesters burned down the ROTC building, a popular sport amongst juvenile Marxists.

The governor, fearing for his cities and citizen's safety called in the National Guard, which withstood two days of the mobs, that threw rocks and bottles at them,  without incident.

Did those nine wounded and four dead deserve what they got?

I don't think so, but I also know, I was around at the time, that the protesters were just innocent college students and blameless.

 

Folk hardly remember what happened at Kent State  so many years (52) ago, but the story that is remembered it shows that the hippie Marxists didn't begin lying, cheating, propagandizing and indoctrinating  just yesterday.

[Schmidt Meister]

On May 5, 1961, from Cape Canaveral, Florida, Navy Commander Alan Bartlett Shepard Jr. is launched into space aboard the Freedom 7 space capsule, becoming the first American astronaut to travel into space. The suborbital flight, which lasted 15 minutes and reached a height of 116 miles into the atmosphere, was a major triumph for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).
NASA was established in 1958 to keep U.S. space efforts abreast of recent Soviet achievements, such as the launching of the world’s first artificial satellite, Sputnik 1, in 1957. In the late 1950s and early 1960s, the two superpowers raced to become the first country to put a man in space and return him to Earth. On April 12, 1961, the Soviet space program won the race when cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin was launched into space, put in orbit around the planet, and safely returned to Earth. One month later, Shepard’s suborbital flight restored faith in the U.S. space program.
NASA continued to trail the Soviets closely until the late 1960s and the successes of the Apollo lunar program. In July 1969, the Americans took a giant leap forward with Apollo 11, a three-stage spacecraft that took U.S. astronauts to the surface of the moon and returned them to Earth. On February 5, 1971, Alan Shepard, the first American in space, became the fifth astronaut to walk on the moon as part of the Apollo 14 lunar landing mission.

[Schmidt Meister]

Cinco de Mayo

On May 5, 1862, during the French-Mexican War (1861-1867), an outnumbered Mexican army defeats a powerful invading French force at Puebla. The retreat of the French troops at the Battle of Puebla represented a great moral victory for the people of Mexico, symbolizing the country’s ability to defend its sovereignty against a powerful foreign nation.
In 1861, Benito Juarez became president of Mexico, a country in financial ruin, and he was forced to default on his debts to European governments. In response, France, Britain, and Spain sent naval forces to Veracruz to demand reimbursement.
Britain and Spain negotiated with Mexico and withdrew, but France, ruled by Napoleon III, decided to use the opportunity to carve a dependent empire out of Mexican territory. Late in 1861, a well-armed French fleet stormed Veracruz, landing a large French force and driving President Juarez and his government into retreat.
Certain that French victory would come swiftly in Mexico, 6,000 French troops under General Charles de Lorencez set out in May, 1862, to attack Puebla de Los Angeles. From his new headquarters in the north, Juarez rounded up a ragtag force of loyal men and sent them to Puebla.
Led by General Ignacio Zaragoza, an estimated 2,000—5,000 Mexicans fortified the town and prepared for the assault by the well-equipped French force.
On the fifth of May, or Cinco de Mayo, Lorencez gathered his army and began an attack from the north side of Puebla.
The battle lasted from daybreak to early evening. After Lorencez realized his superior French force was loosing far more troops than the Mexicans, he completely withdrew his defeated army.
Though not a major strategic victory in the overall war against the French, Zaragoza’s victory at Puebla galvanized Mexican resistance, and six years later France withdrew. Later that same year, Austrian Archduke Ferdinand Maximilian, who had been installed as emperor of Mexico by Napoleon in 1864, was captured and executed by a firing squad.
Puebla de Los Angeles, the site of Zaragoza’s historic victory, was renamed Puebla de Zaragoza in honor of the general. Today, Mexicans (and Mexican Americans) celebrate the anniversary of the Battle of Puebla as Cinco de Mayo, a holiday in the state of Puebla.

[Schmidt Meister]

On May 5, 1945, in Lakeview, Oregon, Mrs. Elsie Mitchell and five neighborhood children are killed while attempting to drag a Japanese balloon out the woods. Unbeknownst to Mitchell and the children, the balloon was armed, and it exploded soon after they began tampering with it. They were the first and only known American civilians to be killed in the continental United States during World War II. The U.S. government eventually gave $5,000 in compensation to Mitchell’s husband, and $3,000 each to the families of Edward Engen, Sherman Shoemaker, Jay Gifford, and Richard and Ethel Patzke, the five slain children.
The explosive balloon found at Lakeview was a product of one of only a handful of Japanese attacks against the continental United States, which were conducted early in the war by Japanese submarines and later by high-altitude balloons carrying explosives or incendiaries. In comparison, three years earlier, on April 18, 1942, the first squadron of U.S. bombers dropped bombs on the Japanese cities of Tokyo, Kobe, and Nagoyo, surprising the Japanese military command, who believed their home islands to be out of reach of Allied air attacks. When the war ended on August 14, 1945, some 160,000 tons of conventional explosives and two atomic bombs had been dropped on Japan by the United States. Approximately 500,000 Japanese civilians were killed as a result of these bombing attacks.

[Schmidt Meister]

On May 5, 1955, The Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany) becomes a sovereign state when the United States, France, and Great Britain end their military occupation, which had begun in 1945. With this action, West Germany was given the right to rearm and become a full-fledged member of the western alliance against the Soviet Union.
In 1945, the United States, Great Britain, and France had assumed the occupation of the western portion of Germany (as well as the western half of Berlin, situated in eastern Germany). The Soviet Union occupied eastern Germany, as well as the eastern half of Berlin. As Cold War animosities began to harden between the western powers and Russia, it became increasingly obvious that Germany would not be reunified. By the late-1940s, the United States acted to formalize the split and establish western Germany as an independent republic, and in May 1949, the Federal Republic of Germany was formally announced.
In 1954, West Germany joined the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), the mutual defense alliance between the United States and several European nations. All that remained was for the Americans, British, and French to end their nearly 10-year occupation. This was accomplished on May 5, 1955, when those nations issued a proclamation declaring an end to the military occupation of West Germany. Under the terms of an agreement reached earlier, West Germany would now be allowed to establish a military force of up to a half-million men and resume the manufacture of arms, though it was forbidden from producing any chemical or atomic weapons.
The end of the Allied occupation of West Germany meant a full recognition of the republic as a member of the western alliance against the Soviet Union. While the Russians were less than thrilled by the prospect of a rearmed West Germany, they were nonetheless pleased that German reunification had officially become a dead issue. Shortly after the May 5 proclamation was issued, the Soviet Union formally recognized the Federal Republic of Germany. The two Germany’s remained separated until 1990, when they were formally reunited and once again became a single democratic country.

[Schmidt Meister]

March 5th In Music

1953 - America learns of Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin's death when future country music star, Air Force Staff Sergeant Johnny Cash intercepts a coded message from Russia. Cash enlisted in 1950 after he turned 18 and was assigned to the 12th Radio Squadron Mobile of the US Air Force Security Service at Landsberg, West Germany, where he proved his skill as a Morse Code operator.

1956 - Elvis Presley scored his first US No. 1 single and album when 'Heartbreak Hotel' went to the top of the charts. 'Heartbreak Hotel' became his first million-seller, and was the best-selling single of 1956. The lyrics were based on a newspaper article about the suicide of a lonely man who jumped from a hotel window.

1969 - Creedence Clearwater Revival release "Bad Moon Rising."

Birthdays:

1951 - Rex Goh. Guitarist, for the Australian soft rock band Air Supply who scored the 1980 UK No. 11 single 'All Out Of Love' and the 1981 US No. 1 single 'The One That You Love'.

[Schmidt Meister]

On May 6, 1937, the airship Hindenburg, the largest dirigible ever built and the pride of Nazi Germany, bursts into flames upon touching its mooring mast in Lakehurst, New Jersey, killing 36 passengers and crewmembers.
Frenchman Henri Giffard constructed the first successful airship in 1852. His hydrogen-filled blimp carried a three-horsepower steam engine that turned a large propeller and flew at a speed of six miles per hour. The rigid airship, often known as the “zeppelin” after the last name of its innovator, Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin, was developed by the Germans in the late 19th century. Unlike French airships, the German ships had a light framework of metal girders that protected a gas-filled interior. However, like Giffard’s airship, they were lifted by highly flammable hydrogen gas and vulnerable to explosion. Large enough to carry substantial numbers of passengers, one of the most famous rigid airships was the Graf Zeppelin, a dirigible that traveled around the world in 1929. In the 1930s, the Graf Zeppelin pioneered the first transatlantic air service, leading to the construction of the Hindenburg, a larger passenger airship.
On May 3, 1937, the Hindenburg left Frankfurt, Germany, for a journey across the Atlantic to Lakehurst’s Navy Air Base. Stretching 804 feet from stern to bow, it carried 36 passengers and crew of 61. While attempting to moor at Lakehurst, the airship suddenly burst into flames, probably after a spark ignited its hydrogen core. Rapidly falling 200 feet to the ground, the hull of the airship incinerated within seconds. Thirteen passengers, 21 crewmen, and 1 civilian member of the ground crew lost their lives, and most of the survivors suffered substantial injuries.
Radio announcer Herb Morrison, who came to Lakehurst to record a routine voice-over for an NBC newsreel, immortalized the Hindenberg disaster in a famous on-the-scene description in which he emotionally declared, “Oh, the humanity!” The recording of Morrison’s commentary was immediately flown to New York, where it was aired as part of America’s first coast-to-coast radio news broadcast. Lighter-than-air passenger travel rapidly fell out of favor after the Hindenberg disaster, and no rigid airships survived World War II.

[Schmidt Meister]

On May 6, 1942, U.S. Lieutenant General Jonathan Wainwright surrenders all U.S. troops in the Philippines to the Japanese.
The island of Corregidor remained the last Allied stronghold in the Philippines after the Japanese victory at Bataan (from which General Wainwright had managed to flee, to Corregidor). Constant artillery shelling and aerial bombardment attacks ate away at the American and Filipino defenders. Although still managing to sink many Japanese barges as they approached the northern shores of the island, the Allied troops could hold the invader off no longer. General Wainwright, only recently promoted to the rank of lieutenant general and commander of the U.S. armed forces in the Philippines, offered to surrender Corregidor to Japanese General Homma, but Homma wanted the complete, unconditional capitulation of all American forces throughout the Philippines. Wainwright had little choice given the odds against him and the poor physical condition of his troops (he had already lost 800 men). He surrendered at midnight. All 11,500 surviving Allied troops were evacuated to a prison stockade in Manila.
General Wainwright remained a POW until 1945. As a sort of consolation for the massive defeat he suffered, he was present on the USS Missouri for the formal Japanese surrender ceremony on September 2, 1945. He would also be awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor by President Harry S. Truman. Wainwright died in 1953, exactly eight years to the day of the Japanese surrender ceremony.

[Schmidt Meister]

May 6th In Music

1965 - The Rolling Stones, Mick Jagger and Keith Richards, in their Clearwater, Florida hotel room, finalize the opening guitar riff of ’(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction’ following Richard's purchase of a Gibson fuzz-box earlier that day. The song is considered to be one of the all-time greatest rock songs ever recorded. In 2004 Rolling Stone magazine placed 'Satisfaction' in the second spot on its list of The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time.

2002 - 'Bohemian Rhapsody' by Queen was voted the UK's favourite single of all time in a poll by the Guinness Hit Singles book.

Birthdays:

1942 - Colin Earl. Pianist for Foghat and Mungo Jerry, who had the 1970 US No. 3 single 'In The Summertime' as well as the hits 'Baby Jump' and 'Lady Rose'. Born Hampton Court, London, England.

1945 - Bob Seger. American singer-songwriter, guitarist and pianist, who scored the 1977 hit 'Night Moves', the 1987 US No. 1 single 'Shakedown', and the 1995 hit single 'We've Got Tonight'. Seger has sold more than 100 million records worldwide. Born in Lincoln Park, Michigan.

1948 - Mary MacGregor. American singe who scored the 1977 US No. 1 single 'Torn Between Two Lovers'. Born in St. Paul, Minnesota.

1967 - Mark Bryan. Guitarist with American rock band Hootie & the Blowfish who had the 1995 US No. 1 album Cracked Rear View which sold over 15m copies. Born in Silver Spring, Maryland.

[ChuteTheMall]

May 6, 1996. 

It's not everyday that a former CIA director is found dead under suspicious circumstances.

Less than 3 years after Vince Foster.   The Deep State is powerful.

He began his career with the OSS in WW2.

He was really "the man who knew too much"

https://apnews.com/article/15163c14ce9e9c8387bf4c8f7a5c8eec

https://www.justsecurity.org/68065/how-late-dci-william-colby-saved-the-cia-and-what-that-can-teach-us-today/

https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1996/05/07/colbys-body-found-along-river-shore/97b484d0-6f52-4ec2-958b-a9efb3a76ffe/

 

 

[railfancwb]

For a while when I was growing up, a beautiful creek entered town on one side and left as an open sewer on the other side. Seems a metaphor for some aspects of government.

The creek was cleaned up and now leaves town as beautiful as when it entered. 

[Schmidt Meister]

On May 7, 1915, the British ocean liner Lusitania is torpedoed without warning by a German submarine off the south coast of Ireland. Within 20 minutes, the vessel sank into the Celtic Sea. Of 1,959 passengers and crew, 1,198 people were drowned, including 128 Americans. The attack aroused considerable indignation in the United States, but Germany defended the action, noting that it had issued warnings of its intent to attack all ships, neutral or otherwise, that entered the war zone around Britain.
When World War I erupted in 1914, President Woodrow Wilson pledged neutrality for the United States, a position that the vast majority of Americans favored. Britain, however, was one of America’s closest trading partners, and tension soon arose between the United States and Germany over the latter’s attempted quarantine of the British isles. Several U.S. ships traveling to Britain were damaged or sunk by German mines, and in February 1915 Germany announced unrestricted submarine warfare in the waters around Britain.
In early May 1915, several New York newspapers published a warning by the German embassy in Washington that Americans traveling on British or Allied ships in war zones did so at their own risk. The announcement was placed on the same page as an advertisement of the imminent sailing of the Lusitania liner from New York back to Liverpool. The sinkings of merchant ships off the south coast of Ireland prompted the British Admiralty to warn the Lusitania to avoid the area or take simple evasive action, such as zigzagging to confuse U-boats plotting the vessel’s course. The captain of the Lusitania ignored these recommendations, and at 2:12 p.m. on May 7 the 32,000-ton ship was hit by an exploding torpedo on its starboard side. The torpedo blast was followed by a larger explosion, probably of the ship’s boilers, and the ship sunk in 20 minutes.
It was revealed that the Lusitania was carrying about 173 tons of war munitions for Britain, which the Germans cited as further justification for the attack. The United States eventually sent three notes to Berlin protesting the action, and Germany apologized and pledged to end unrestricted submarine warfare. In November, however, a U-boat sunk an Italian liner without warning, killing 272 people, including 27 Americans. Public opinion in the United States began to turn irrevocably against Germany.
On January 31, 1917, Germany, determined to win its war of attrition against the Allies, announced that it would resume unrestricted warfare in war-zone waters. Three days later, the United States broke diplomatic relations with Germany, and just hours after that the American liner Housatonic was sunk by a German U-boat. On February 22, Congress passed a $250 million arms appropriations bill intended to make the United States ready for war. In late March, Germany sunk four more U.S. merchant ships, and on April 2 President Wilson appeared before Congress and called for a declaration of war against Germany. On April 4, the Senate voted to declare war against Germany, and two days later the House of Representatives endorsed the declaration. With that, America entered World War I.

[Schmidt Meister]

On May 7, 1945, the German High Command, in the person of General Alfred Jodl, signs the unconditional surrender of all German forces, East and West, at Reims, in northeastern France.
At first, General Jodl hoped to limit the terms of German surrender to only those forces still fighting the Western Allies. But General Dwight Eisenhower demanded complete surrender of all German forces, those fighting in the East as well as in the West. If this demand was not met, Eisenhower was prepared to seal off the Western front, preventing Germans from fleeing to the West in order to surrender, thereby leaving them in the hands of the enveloping Soviet forces. Jodl radioed Grand Admiral Karl Donitz, Hitler’s successor, with the terms. Donitz ordered him to sign. So with Russian General Ivan Susloparov and French General Francois Sevez signing as witnesses, and General Walter Bedell Smith, Ike’s chief of staff, signing for the Allied Expeditionary Force, Germany was, at least on paper, defeated. Fighting would still go on in the East for almost another day. But the war in the West was over.
Since General Susloparov did not have explicit permission from Soviet Premier Stalin to sign the surrender papers, even as a witness, he was quickly hustled back East and into the hands of the Soviet secret police. Alfred Jodl, who was wounded in the assassination attempt on Hitler on July 20, 1944, would be found guilty of war crimes (which included the shooting of hostages) at Nuremberg and hanged on October 16, 1946. He was later granted a pardon, posthumously, in 1953, after a German appeals court found him not guilty of breaking international law.

[Schmidt Meister]

On May 7, 1998, the German automobile company Daimler-Benz, maker of the world-famous luxury car brand Mercedes-Benz, announces a $36 billion merger with the United States based Chrysler Corporation.
The purchase of Chrysler, America’s third largest car company, by the Stuttgart based Daimler-Benz marked the biggest acquisition by a foreign buyer of any U.S. company in history. Though marketed to investors as an equal pairing, it soon emerged that Daimler would be the dominant partner, with its stockholders owning the majority of the new company’s shares. For Chrysler, headquartered in Auburn Hills, Michigan, the end of independence was a surprising twist in a striking comeback story. After a near-collapse and a government bailout in 1979 that saved it from bankruptcy, the company surged back in the 1980s under the leadership of the former Ford executive Lee Iacocca, in a revival spurred in part by the tremendous success of its trendsetting minivan.
The new company, DaimlerChrysler AG, began trading on the Frankfurt and New York stock exchanges the following November. A few months later, according to a 2001 article in The New York Times, its stock price rose to an impressive high of $108.62 per share. The euphoria proved to be short lived, however. While Daimler had been attracted by the profitability of Chrysler’s minivans and Jeeps, over the next few years profits were up and down, and by the fall of 2003 the Chrysler Group had cut some 26,000 jobs and was still losing money.
In 2006, according to the Times, Chrysler posted a loss of $1.5 billion and fell behind Toyota to fourth place in the American car market. This loss came despite the company’s splashy launch of 10 new Chrysler models that year, with plans to unveil eight more. The following May, however, after reportedly negotiating with General Motors about a potential sale, DaimlerChrysler announced it was selling 80.1 percent of Chrysler to the private equity firm Cerberus Capital Management for $7.4 billion. DaimlerChrysler, soon renamed Daimler AG, kept a 19.9 percent stake in the new company, known as Chrysler LLC.
By late 2008, increasingly dismal sales led Chrysler to seek federal funds to the tune of $4 billion to stay afloat. Under pressure from the Obama administration, the company filed for bankruptcy protection in April 2009 and entered into a partnership with the Italian automaker Fiat. In 2014, the two companies became Fiat Chrysler Automobiles.

[Schmidt Meister]

On May 7, 1867, Swedish chemist Alfred Nobel patents dynamite in England, the first of three patents he would receive for the explosive material.

[Schmidt Meister]

May 7th In Music

1966 - The Mamas & the Papas started a three week run at No. 1 on the US singles chart with 'Monday Monday' becoming the first song with a day of the week in the title to top the chart. The Mamas & the Papas won a Grammy Award for Best Pop Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal for this song.

1977 - The Eagles went to No. 1 on the US singles chart with 'Hotel California', the group's fourth US No. 1. The Eagles also won the 1977 Grammy Award for Record of the Year for 'Hotel California' at the 20th Annual Grammy Awards in 1978. The song's guitar solo is ranked 8th on Guitar Magazine's Top 100 Guitar Solos and was voted the best solo of all time by readers of Guitarist magazine.

Birthdays:

1945 - Cornelius Bumpus. American woodwind, keyboard player and vocalist who toured with The Doobie Brothers and Steely Dan.

1946 - Bill Danoff. American pop group Starland Vocal Band, who had the 1976 US No. 1 single 'Afternoon Delight' one of the biggest-selling singles of 1976. Born in Springfield, Massachusetts.

1946 - Bill Kreutzmann. Drummer of Grateful Dead. He played with the Grateful Dead for its entire thirty-year career, usually alongside fellow drummer Mickey Hart. The group released more than 140 albums, the majority of them recorded live in concert. Born in Palo Alto, California.

[Schmidt Meister]

On May 8, 1945, both Great Britain and the United States celebrate Victory in Europe Day (V-E Day). Cities in both nations, as well as formerly occupied cities in Western Europe, put out flags and banners, rejoicing in the defeat of the Nazi war machine during World War II.
The eighth of May spelled the day when German troops throughout Europe finally laid down their arms: In Prague, Germans surrendered to their Soviet antagonists, after the latter had lost more than 8,000 soldiers, and the Germans considerably more; in Copenhagen and Oslo; at Karlshorst, near Berlin; in northern Latvia; on the Channel Island of Sark, the German surrender was realized in a final cease-fire. More surrender documents were signed in Berlin and in eastern Germany.
The main concern of many German soldiers was to elude the grasp of Soviet forces, to keep from being taken prisoner. About 1 million Germans attempted a mass exodus to the West when the fighting in Czechoslovakia ended, but were stopped by the Russians and taken captive. The Russians took approximately 2 million prisoners in the period just before and after the German surrender.
Meanwhile, more than 13,000 British POWs were released and sent back to Great Britain.
Pockets of German-Soviet confrontation would continue into the next day. On May 9, the Soviets would lose 600 more soldiers in Silesia before the Germans finally surrendered. Consequently, V-E Day was not celebrated until the ninth in Moscow, with a radio broadcast salute from Stalin himself: “The age-long struggle of the Slav nations… has ended in victory. Your courage has defeated the Nazis. The war is over.”

[Schmidt Meister]

On May 8, 1792, Congress passes the second portion of the Militia Act, requiring that every free able-bodied white male citizen of the respective States, resident therein, who is or shall be of age eighteen years, and under the age of forty-five years be enrolled in the militia.
Six days before, Congress had established the president’s right to call out the militia. The outbreak of Shay’s Rebellion, a protest against taxation and debt prosecution in western Massachusetts in 1786-87, had first convinced many Americans that the federal government should be given the power to put down rebellions within the states. The inability of the Continental Congress under the Articles of Confederation to respond to the crisis was a major motivation for the peaceful overthrow of the government and the drafting of a new federal Constitution.
The Militia Act was tested shortly after its passage, when farmers in western Pennsylvania, angered by a federal excise tax on whiskey, attacked the home of a tax collector and then, with their ranks swollen to 6,000 camped outside Pittsburgh, threatened to march on the town. In response, President Washington, under the auspices of the Militia Act, assembled 15,000 men from the surrounding states and eastern Pennsylvania as a federal militia commanded by Virginia’s Henry Lee to march upon the Pittsburgh encampment. Upon its arrival, the federal militia found none of the rebels willing to fight. The mere threat of federal force had quelled the rebellion and established the supremacy of the federal government.

[Schmidt Meister]

May 8th In Music

1976 - ABBA scored their third UK No. 1 single with 'Fernando', the song went on to become ABBA's biggest selling single, with sales over 10 million.

1976 - Abba started a nine-week run at No. 1 on the UK album chart with their 'Greatest Hits' album.

1993 - Aerosmith entered the US album chart at No. 1 with 'Get A Grip'. The album went on to sell over 20 million copies worldwide as well as winning the band two Grammy awards.

Birthdays:

1943 - Danny Whitten. Guitarist, singer, songwriter. Member of Neil Young's Crazy Horse and writer of 'I Don't Wanna Talk About It’. The Neil Young song ‘The Needle and the Damage Done’ was written about Whitten’s heroin use. Born in Columbus, Georgia. Whitten died on 11.18.1972.

1943 - Paul Samwell-Smith. English musician, bassist with The Yardbirds, who had the 1965 US No. 6 single 'For Your Love'. The Yardbirds spawned such noteworthy musicians as Jeff Beck, Eric Clapton and Jimmy Page. Born in Richmond, Surrey, England.

1943 - Toni Tennille. From husband-and-wife duo The Captain and Tennille who had the 1980 US No. 1 single 'Do That To Me One More Time' and the hit 'Love Will Keep Us Together'. They divorced in July 2014. Born in Montgomery, Alabama.

1951 - Chris Frantz. American musician, drummer, with Talking Heads, who had the 1983 US No. 9 single 'Burning Down The House', 1985 UK No. 6 single 'Road To Nowhere'. Born in the Army hospital at Fort Campbell, Kentucky.

1951 - Philip Bailey. American R&B, soul, gospel and funk singer, songwriter with Earth, Wind & Fire, who had the 1975 US No. 1 single 'Shining Star', and the 1981 UK No. 3 single 'Let's Groove'. The band has received 20 Grammy nominations and were the first African-American act to sell out Madison Square Garden. As a solo artist he scored the 1985 UK No. 1 single 'Easy Lover' a duet with Phil Collins. Born in Denver, Colorado.

1953 - Billy Burnette. Guitarist for Fleetwood Mac. Born in Memphis, Tennessee.

[Schmidt Meister]

On May 9, 1955, ten years after the Nazis were defeated in World War II, West Germany formally joins the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), a mutual defense group aimed at containing Soviet expansion in Europe. This action marked the final step of West Germany’s integration into the Western European defense system.
Germany had been a divided nation since 1945. The Americans, British, and French held zones of occupation in Western Germany and West Berlin; the Soviets controlled Eastern Germany and East Berlin. Although publicly both the Americans and the Soviets proclaimed their desire for a reunited and independent Germany, it quickly became apparent that each of these Cold War opponents would only accept a reunified Germany that served their own nation’s specific interests. In 1949, the Americans, British, and French combined their zones of occupation in West Germany to establish a new nation, the Federal Republic of Germany. The Soviets responded by setting up the German Democratic Republic in East Germany.
On May 5, 1955, the American, French, and British forces formally ended their military occupation of West Germany, which became an independent country. Four days later, West Germany was made a member of NATO. For U.S. policymakers, this was an essential step in the defense of Western Europe. Despite the reluctance of some European nations, such as France, to see a rearmed Germany, even as an ally, the United States believed that remilitarizing West Germany was absolutely vital in terms of setting up a defensive perimeter to contain any possible Soviet attempts at expansion. The Soviet response was immediate. On May 14, 1955, the Soviet Union established the Warsaw Pact, a military alliance between Russia and its Eastern European satellites, including East Germany.
The entrance of West Germany into NATO was the final step in integrating that nation into the defense system of Western Europe. It was also the final nail in the coffin as far as any possibility of a reunited Germany in the near future. For the next 35 years, East and West Germany came to symbolize the animosities of the Cold War. In 1990, Germany was finally reunified; the new German state remained a member of NATO.

[Schmidt Meister]

On May 9, 1945, Herman Goering, commander in chief of the Luftwaffe, president of the Reichstag, head of the Gestapo, prime minister of Prussia, and Hitler’s designated successor is taken prisoner by the U.S. Seventh Army in Bavaria.
Goering was an early member of the Nazi Party and was wounded in the failed Munich Beer Hall Putsch in 1923. That wound would have long-term effects; Goering became increasingly addicted to painkillers. Not long after Hitler’s accession to power, Goering was instrumental in creating concentration camps for political enemies. Ostentatious and self-indulgent, he changed his uniform five times a day and was notorious for flaunting his decorations, jewelry, and stolen artwork. It was Goering who ordered the purging of German Jews from the economy following the Kristallnacht pogrom in 1938, initiating an “Aryanization” policy that confiscated Jewish property and businesses.
Goering’s failure to win the Battle of Britain and prevent the Allied bombing of Germany led to his loss of stature within the Party, aggravated by the low esteem with which he was always held by fellow officers because of his egocentrism and position as Hitler’s right-hand man. As the war progressed, he dropped into depressions and battled drug addiction.
When Goering fell into U.S. hands after Germany’s surrender, he had in his possession a rich stash of pills. He was tried at Nuremberg and charged with various crimes against humanity. Despite a vigorous attempt at self acquittal, he was found guilty and sentenced to be hanged, but before he could be executed, he died by suicide by swallowing a cyanide tablet he had hidden from his guards.