On This Day in History

[Schmidt Meister]

On November 30, 1939, the Red Army crosses the Soviet-Finnish border with 465,000 men and 1,000 aircraft. Helsinki was bombed, and 61 Finns were killed in an air raid that steeled the Finns for resistance, not capitulation.
The overwhelming forces arrayed against Finland convinced most Western nations, as well as the Soviets themselves, that the invasion of Finland would be a cakewalk. The Soviet soldiers even wore summer uniforms, despite the onset of the Scandinavian winter; it was simply assumed that no outdoor activity, such as fighting, would be taking place. But the Helsinki raid had produced many casualties, and many photographs, including those of mothers holding dead babies, and preteen girls crippled by the bombing. Those photos were hung up everywhere to spur on Finn resistance. Although that resistance consisted of only small numbers of trained soldiers, on skis and bicycles, fighting it out in the forests, and partisans throwing Molotov cocktails into the turrets of Soviet tanks, the refusal to submit made headlines around the world.
President Roosevelt quickly extended $10 million in credit to Finland, while also noting that the Finns were the only people to pay back their World War I war debt to the United States in full. But by the time the Soviets had a chance to regroup, and send in massive reinforcements, the Finnish resistance was spent. By March 1940, negotiations with the Soviets began, and Finland soon lost the Karelian Isthmus, the land bridge that gave access to Leningrad, which the Soviets wanted to control.

[Schmidt Meister]

On November 30, 1874, Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill, the British leader who guided Great Britain and the Allies through the crisis of World War II, is born at Blenheim Palace in Oxfordshire, England.
Churchill came from a prestigious family with a long history of military service and joined the British Fourth Hussars upon his father’s death in 1895. During the next five years, he enjoyed an illustrious military career, serving in India, the Sudan, and South Africa, and distinguishing himself several times in battle. In 1899, he resigned his commission to concentrate on his literary and political career and in 1900 was elected to Parliament as a Conservative MP from Oldham. In 1904, he joined the Liberals, serving in a number of important posts before being appointed Britain’s First Lord of the Admiralty in 1911, where he worked to bring the British navy to a readiness for the war he foresaw.
In 1915, in the second year of World War I, Churchill was held responsible for the disastrous Dardanelles and Gallipoli campaigns, and he was excluded from the war coalition government. He resigned and volunteered to command an infantry battalion in France. However, in 1917, he returned to politics as a cabinet member in the Liberal government of Lloyd George. From 1919 to 1921, he was secretary of state for war and in 1924 returned to the Conservative Party, where two years later he played a leading role in the defeat of the General Strike of 1926. Out of office from 1929 to 1939, Churchill issued unheeded warnings of the threat of German and Japanese aggression.
After the outbreak of World War II in Europe, Churchill was called back to his post as First Lord of the Admiralty and eight months later replaced the ineffectual Neville Chamberlain as prime minister of a new coalition government. In the first year of his administration, Britain stood alone against Nazi Germany, but Churchill promised his country and the world that the British people would “never surrender.” He rallied the British people to a resolute resistance and expertly orchestrated Franklin D. Roosevelt and Joseph Stalin into an alliance that eventually crushed the Axis.
In July 1945, 10 weeks after Germany’s defeat, his Conservative government suffered an electoral loss against Clement Attlee’s Labour Party, and Churchill resigned as prime minister. He became leader of the opposition and in 1951 was again elected prime minister. Two years later, he was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II and awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature for his six-volume historical study of World War II and for his political speeches. In 1955, he retired as prime minister but remained in Parliament until 1964, the year before his death.

[Schmidt Meister]

November 30th In Music

1979 - Pink Floyd's album The Wall is released, and sells over 13 million copies. The powerful concept album's themes of isolation and despair resonate with legions of fans, and it even spawns a No. 1 single - "Another Brick In The Wall (part II).

Birthdays:

1929 - Dick Clark. The "world's oldest teenager," he becomes a cultural icon as host of US TV's longest running music show American Bandstand and he created and produced the annual American Music Awards show. Born in Mount Vernon, New York. Clark died on 4.18.2012.

1945 - Roger Glover. Bassist with Deep Purple who had the 1970 single 'Black Night' and the 1973 US No. 4 single 'Smoke On The Water'. Born in Wales.

1954 - George McArdale. From Australian group, Little River Band who scored the 1978 US No. 3 single 'Reminiscing' plus 12 other US Top 40 singles selling more than 30 million records.

1955 - Billy Idol. Born in Stanmore, Middlesex, England.

[Schmidt Meister]

On December 1, 1913, Henry Ford installs the first moving assembly line for the mass production of an entire automobile. His innovation reduced the time it took to build a car from more than 12 hours to one hour and 33 minutes.
Ford’s Model T, introduced in 1908, was simple, sturdy and relatively inexpensive, but not inexpensive enough for Ford, who was determined to build “motor car[s] for the great multitude.” (“When I’m through,” he said, “about everybody will have one.”) In order to lower the price of his cars, Ford figured, he would just have to find a way to build them more efficiently.
Ford had been trying to increase his factories’ productivity for years. The workers who built his Model N cars (the Model T’s predecessor) arranged the parts in a row on the floor, put the under-construction auto on skids and dragged it down the line as they worked. Later, the streamlining process grew more sophisticated. Ford broke the Model T’s assembly into 84 discrete steps, for example, and trained each of his workers to do just one. He also hired motion-study expert Frederick Taylor to make those jobs even more efficient. Meanwhile, he built machines that could stamp out parts automatically (and much more quickly than even the fastest human worker could).
The most significant piece of Ford’s efficiency crusade was the assembly line. Inspired by the continuous-flow production methods used by flour mills, breweries, canneries and industrial bakeries, along with the disassembly of animal carcasses in Chicago’s meat-packing plants, Ford installed moving lines for bits and pieces of the manufacturing process: For instance, workers built motors and transmissions on rope-and-pulley powered conveyor belts. In December 1913, he unveiled the pièce de résistance: the moving-chassis assembly line.
In February 1914, he added a mechanized belt that chugged along at a speed of six feet per minute. As the pace accelerated, Ford produced more and more cars, and on June 4, 1924, the 10-millionth Model T rolled off the Highland Park assembly line. Though the Model T did not last much longer, by the middle of the 1920s, customers wanted a car that was inexpensive and had all the bells and whistles that the Model T scorned, it had ushered in the era of the automobile for everyone.

[Schmidt Meister]

On December 1, 1862, President Abraham Lincoln addresses the U.S. Congress and speaks some of his most memorable words as he discusses the Northern war effort.
Lincoln used the address to present a moderate message concerning his policy towards slavery. Just ten weeks before, he had issued his Emancipation Proclamation, which declared that enslaved people in territories still in rebellion as of January 1, 1863, would be free. The measure was not welcomed by everyone in the North, it met with considerable resistance from conservative Democrats who did not want to fight a war to free enslaved people.
The November 1862 elections were widely interpreted as a condemnation of the emancipation plan. The Democrats won the New York governorship and 34 seats in the U.S. House of Representatives, though the Republicans gained five Senate seats and maintained control of most state legislatures. Lincoln used the State of the Union address to present a more moderate position on emancipation. He mentioned gradual, compensated emancipation of enslaved people, which many moderates and conservatives desired, but he also asserted that the enslaved people liberated thus far by Union armies would remain forever free.
Lincoln’s closing paragraph was a statement on the trials of the time: “The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present…fellow citizens, we cannot escape history…The fiery trial through which we pass will light us down, in honor or dishonor, to the latest generation. We say we are for the Union. The world will not forget that we say this. We know how to save the Union…In giving freedom to the slave, we ensure freedom to the free, honorable alike in what we give, and what we preserve. We shall nobly save, or meanly lose, the last, best hope of earth.”

[Schmidt Meister]

December 1st In Music

1966 - The Mamas and The Papas' album ‘Cass, John, Michelle and Denny’ is certified gold.

1967 - The Jimi Hendrix Experience released their second studio album Axis: Bold as Love.

2012 - San Diego mayor Jerry Sanders declares "Peaceful Easy Feeling Day" in honor of Jack Tempchin, who wrote the Eagles hit ’In the city’. The ceremony takes place at a hot dog joint called “Der Wienerschnitzel,” where he wrote the last verse while waiting for his order. Tempchin is presented with a golden wiener at the event.

Birthdays:

1944 - Eric Bloom. Guitar, vocals, Blue Öyster Cult. Scored the 1976 US No. 12 single '(Don't Fear) The Reaper'. Blue Öyster Cult have sold over 24 million records worldwide. Born in New York City.

1944 - John Densmore. Drums, The Doors, who had the 1967 US No. 1 single 'Light My Fire' & 1971 single 'Riders On The Storm'. Densmore allowed 'Riders on the Storm' to be used to sell Pirelli Tyres, in the UK only and later stated that he "heard Jim's voice" in his ears and ended up donating the money earned to charity. In 2002, Densmore vetoed an offer by Cadillac for $15 million for 'Break on Through (To the Other Side)' because of Morrison's vehement opposition to licensing the Doors' music for commercial use. Born in Los Angeles, California.

[Schmidt Meister]

On December 2, 1942, Enrico Fermi, the Italian-born Nobel Prize-winning physicist, directs and controls the first nuclear chain reaction in his laboratory beneath the bleachers of Stagg Field at the University of Chicago, ushering in the nuclear age. Upon successful completion of the experiment, a coded message was transmitted to President Roosevelt: “The Italian navigator has landed in the new world.”
Following on England’s Sir James Chadwick’s discovery of the neutron and the Curies’ production of artificial radioactivity, Fermi, a full-time professor of physics at the University of Florence, focused his work on producing radioactivity by manipulating the speed of neutrons derived from radioactive beryllium. Further similar experimentation with other elements, including uranium 92, produced new radioactive substances; Fermi’s colleagues believed he had created a new “transuranic” element with an atomic number of 93, the result of uranium 92 capturing a neuron while under bombardment, thus increasing its atomic weight. Fermi remained skeptical about his discovery, despite the enthusiasm of his fellow physicists. He became a believer in 1938, when he was awarded the Nobel Prize in physics for “his identification of new radioactive elements.” Although travel was restricted for men whose work was deemed vital to national security, Fermi was given permission to leave Italy and go to Sweden to receive his prize. He and his wife, Laura, who was Jewish, never returned; both feared and despised Mussolini’s fascist regime.
Fermi immigrated to New York City, Columbia University, specifically, where he recreated many of his experiments with Niels Bohr, the Danish-born physicist, who suggested the possibility of a nuclear chain reaction. Fermi and others saw the possible military applications of such an explosive power, and quickly composed a letter warning President Roosevelt of the perils of a German atomic bomb. The letter was signed and delivered to the president by Albert Einstein on October 11, 1939. The Manhattan Project, the American program to create its own atomic bomb, was the result.
It fell to Fermi to produce the first nuclear chain reaction, without which such a bomb was impossible. He created a jury-rigged laboratory with the necessary equipment, which he called an “atomic pile,” in a squash court in the basement of Stagg Field at the University of Chicago. With colleagues and other physicists looking on, Fermi produced the first self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction and the “new world” of nuclear power was born.

[Schmidt Meister]

On December 2, 1961, following a year of severely strained relations between the United States and Cuba, Cuban leader Fidel Castro openly declares that he is a Marxist-Leninist. The announcement sealed the bitter Cold War animosity between the two nations.
Castro came to power in 1959 after leading a successful revolution against the dictatorial regime of Fulgencio Batista. Almost from the start, the United States worried that Castro was too leftist in his politics. He implemented agrarian reform, expropriated foreign oil company holdings, and eventually seized all foreign-owned property in Cuba. He also established close diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union, and the Russians were soon providing economic and military aid. By January 1961, the United States had severed diplomatic relations with Cuba. In April, the ill-fated Bay of Pigs invasion took place, wherein hundreds of rebels, armed and trained by the United States, attempted a landing in Cuba with the intent of overthrowing the Castro government. The attack ended in a dismal military defeat for the rebels and an embarrassing diplomatic setback for the United States.
In December 1961, Castro made clear what most U.S. officials already believed. In a televised address on December 2, Castro declared, “I am a Marxist-Leninist and shall be one until the end of my life.” He went on to state that, “Marxism or scientific socialism has become the revolutionary movement of the working class.” He also noted that communism would be the dominant force in Cuban politics: “There cannot be three or four movements.” Some questioned Castro’s dedication to the communist cause, believing that his announcement was simply a stunt to get more Soviet assistance. Castro, however, never deviated from his declared principles, and went on to become one of the world’s longest-ruling heads of state. In late July 2006, an unwell Fidel Castro temporarily ceded power to his younger brother Raul. Fidel Castro officially stepped down in February 2008. Castro died on November 25, 2016, at 90.

[Schmidt Meister]

On December 2,1823, during his annual address to Congress, President James Monroe proclaims a new U.S. foreign policy initiative that becomes known as the “Monroe Doctrine.” Primarily the work of Secretary of State John Quincy Adams, the Monroe Doctrine forbade European interference in the American hemisphere but also asserted U.S. neutrality in regard to future European conflicts.
The origins of the Monroe Doctrine stem from attempts by several European powers to reassert their influence in the Americas in the early 1820s. In North America, Russia had attempted to expand its influence in the Alaska territory, and in Central and South America the U.S. government feared a Spanish colonial resurgence. Britain too was actively seeking a major role in the political and economic future of the Americas, and Adams feared a subservient role for the United States in an Anglo-American alliance.
The United States invoked the Monroe Doctrine to defend its increasingly imperialistic role in the Americas in the mid-19th century, but it was not until the Spanish-American War in 1898 that the United States declared war against a European power over its interference in the American hemisphere. The isolationist position of the Monroe Doctrine was also a cornerstone of U.S. foreign policy in the 19th century, and it took the two world wars of the 20th century to draw a hesitant America into its new role as a major global power.

[Schmidt Meister]

December 2nd In Music

1972 - The Temptations "Papa Was A Rolling Stone" hits No. 1 in the US. Running 6:58, it's one of the longest chart-topping singles.

Birthdays:

1906 - Dr Peter Carl Goldmark, who invented the long-playing microgroove record in 1945. The invention went on to revolutionize the way people listened to music.

1941 - Tom McGuinness. Guitar, vocals, Manfred Mann, who had the 1964 US No. 1 single 'Do Wah Diddy Diddy'. McGuinness later became a member of The Blues Band. Born in Wimbledon, South London, England.

1960 - Rick Savage. Bass player, Def Leppard, (1987 single 'Animal’, 1987 world wide No. 1 album Hysteria, 1988 US No. 1 single 'Love Bites'). Born in Sheffield, South Yorkshire, England.

[Eric]

On December 1, 1928, the Duesenberg Model J was first introduced. 
 

 

[Schmidt Meister]

On December 3, 1976, a giant 40 ft inflatable pig could be seen floating above London, England after breaking free from its moorings. The pig, nicknamed Algie, was being photographed for the forthcoming Pink Floyd Animals album cover. The Civil Aviation Authority issued a warning to all pilots that a flying pig was on the run, the pig reaches a height of 18,000 feet before descending and the pig eventually crashed into a barn in Godmersham, Kent, where the farmer was incensed  because of his cows being scared by the incident.

[Schmidt Meister]

1964 - The animated TV special Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer debuts on CBS, with Burl Ives as the voice of Sam the Snowman. The special is based on the 1949 song, which has become a perennial favorite.

1968 - Cream's ‘Fresh Cream’ album is certified gold.

1968 - Iron Butterfly's In-a-Gadda-da-Vida album is certified gold.

1971 - Deep Purple arrive in Montreux, Switzerland to record their Machine Head album at the Montreux Casino. It doesn't go as planned: The casino burns down the next day and they end up recording in a hotel using the Rolling Stones' mobile unit. They tell the tale in the song "Smoke On The Water."

1976 - During the shoot for Pink Floyd’s Animals album cover, a 40-foot inflatable pig being photographed at Battersea Power Station on the River Thames in London breaks free. Pilots in the area are warned of a pig loose in the skies, which reaches a height of 18,000 feet before coming down in Kent.

1994 - Adam Sandler performs "The Chanukah Song" on the Weekend Update segment of Saturday Night Live, enlightening us to the fact that Harrison Ford, Paul Newman and David Lee Roth (among many others) are, in fact, Jewish. Released as a single the following year, the song reaches No. 10 in the US and become a seasonal favorite.

Birthdays:

1948 - Ozzy Osbourne. He becomes the lead singer of Black Sabbath who had the 1970 UK No. 4 single 'Paranoid'. The bands self-titled 1970 album was voted as the best British rock album ever by Kerrang! in 2005. He had the 1986 solo UK No. 20 single 'Shot In The Dark’. Born in Birmingham, England.

1949 - Mickey Thomas. Best known as one of the lead vocalists of Jefferson Starship and Starship, (1987 US No. 1 single 'Nothing's Gonna Stop Us'). Thomas also worked with the Elvin Bishop Group. Born in Cairo, Georgia.

1951 - Kimberley Rew. British-American rock band Katrina And The Waves, best known for the 1985 hit 'Walking on Sunshine'

1952 - Duane Roland. Guitarist from American Southern rock/hard rock band Molly Hatchet who had the 1980 album 'Beatin' The Odds and their hit song 'Flirtin' with Disaster'. Born in Jeffersonville, Indiana.

[Eric]

On December 2,1939, New York’s Municipal Airport, which would later be renamed LaGuardia Airport, began operations.

 

[Eric]

This was LAGuardia in 1953, after a complete redesign. It was named LaGuardia in 1947, after the death of Fiorello LaGuardia, the NYC mayor who spearheaded the airport’s transformation. It held a couple different names before that.

 

[Huaco Kid]

When Dad came home from a business trip (Pittsburgh),  we'd wait on the tarmac for the plane to pull up,  and meet him when he came down the steps.

He'd get his bags from the hold and we'd walk to the car.

He'd give us all the swag he got from TWA.

[Huaco Kid]

And, somehow, he always had 400 mini-bottles of gin.

We didn't get those.

[Huaco Kid]

Pittsburgh airport is currently going through a major renovation.

Hidden away, downstairs, is a very cool docu-museum of "Yesterday's Airport of Tomorrow" (the old airport).

Once US Air pulled it's hub,  the current airport turned into a wasteland.

The new one is fully woke, and promising a better "experience" for all of humanity.

[Schmidt Meister]

On December 4, 1942, in Warsaw, a group of Polish Christians put their own lives at risk when they set up the Council for the Assistance of the Jews. The group was led by two women, Zofia Kossak and Wanda Filipowicz.
Since the German invasion of Poland in 1939, the Jewish population had been either thrust into ghettos, transported to concentration and labor camps, or murdered. Jewish homes and shops were confiscated and synagogues were burned to the ground. Word about the Jews’ fate finally leaked out in June of 1942, when a Warsaw underground newspaper, the Liberty Brigade, made public the news that tens of thousands of Jews were being gassed at Chelmno, a death camp in Poland, almost seven months after the extermination of prisoners began.
Despite the growing public knowledge of the “Final Solution,” the mass extermination of European Jewry and the growing network of extermination camps in Poland, little was done to stop it. Outside Poland, there were only angry speeches from politicians and promises of postwar reprisals. Within Poland, non-Jewish Poles were themselves often the objects of persecution and forced labor at the hands of their Nazi occupiers; being Slavs, they too were considered “inferior” to the Aryan Germans.
But this did not stop Zofia Kossak and Wanda Filipowicz, two Polish Christians who were determined to do what they could to protect their Jewish neighbors. The fates of Kossak and Filipowicz are unclear so it is uncertain whether their mission was successful, but the very fact that they established the Council is evidence that some brave souls were willing to risk everything to help persecuted Jews. Kossak and Filipowicz were not alone in their struggle to help; in fact, only two days after the Council was established, the SS, Hitler’s “political” terror police force, rounded up 23 men, women, and children, and locked some in a cottage and some in a barn, then burned them alive. Their crime: suspicion of harboring Jews.
Despite the bravery of some Polish Christians, and Jewish resistance fighters within the Warsaw ghetto, who rebelled in 1943 (some of whom found refuge among their Christian neighbors as they attempted to elude the SS), the Nazi death machine proved overwhelming. Poland became the killing ground for not only Poland’s Jewish citizens, but much of Europe’s: Approximately 4.5 million Jews were killed in Poland’s death and labor camps by war’s end.

[Schmidt Meister]

On December 4, 1783, future President George Washington, then commanding general of the Continental Army, summons his military officers to Fraunces Tavern in New York City to inform them that he will be resigning his commission and returning to civilian life.
Washington had led the army through six long years of war against the British before the American forces finally prevailed at the Battle of Yorktown in 1781. There, Washington received the formal surrender of British General Lord Charles Cornwallis, effectively ending the Revolutionary War, although it took almost two more years to conclude a peace treaty and slightly longer for all British troops to leave New York.
Although Washington had often during the war privately lamented the sorry state of his largely undisciplined and unhealthy troops and the ineffectiveness of most of his officer corps, he expressed genuine appreciation for his brotherhood of soldiers on this day in 1783. Observers of the intimate scene at Fraunces Tavern described Washington as “suffused in tears,” embracing his officers one by one after issuing his farewell. Washington left the tavern for Annapolis, Maryland, where he officially resigned his commission on December 23. He then returned to his beloved estate at Mount Vernon, Virginia, where he planned to live out his days as a gentleman farmer.
Washington was not out of the public spotlight for long, however. In 1789, he was coaxed out of retirement and elected as the first president of the United States, a position he held until 1797.

[Schmidt Meister]

December 4th In Music

1954 - The Chordettes' "Mr. Sandman" hits No. 1 in America.

1960 - The Crickets released the single 'I Fought the Law' on Coral Records. Written by Sonny Curtis of the Crickets.

1965 - The Byrds started a three week run at No. 1 on the US singles chart with 'Turn! Turn! Turn!' the group's second No. 1. Mr. Tambourine Man being their first No. 1.

1971 - Led Zeppelin released the Four Symbols album, otherwise known as Led Zeppelin IV. Featuring the 8-minute track 'Stairway To Heaven', the album stayed on the US chart for one week short of five years, selling over 23 million copies in the US alone.

1971 - During a Frank Zappa concert, the Montreux Casino in Switzerland catches fire when someone fires a flare gun, inspiring Deep Purple's "Smoke On The Water." Deep Purple are there to record their album Machine Head the following day, but end up using the Grand Hotel and including the song as a last-minute addition.

1975 - Kiss earn their first Gold album with Alive!

1980 - Two months after the tragic death of drummer John Bonham, Led Zeppelin made the decision to break up. The surviving members decided that it was not right to tamper with their legacy by bringing someone else in to play drums. In a statement, the band explained their decision: "We wish it to be known, that the loss of our dear friend and the deep respect we have for his family, together with the deep sense of undivided harmony felt by ourselves and our manager, have led us to decide that we could not continue as we were." They never fully re-form, but do play some memorial shows with Jason Bonham filling in for his father.

Birthdays:

1944 - Dennis Wilson. American musician, singer, and songwriter who co-founded The Beach Boys. He is best remembered as their drummer and as the middle brother of bandmates Brian and Carl Wilson. (1966 US No. 1 single 'Good Vibrations', plus over 25 other UK Top 40 singles).  Born in Inglewood, CA. Wilson died on 12.28.1983.

1944 - Chris Hillman. American musician who with The Byrds had the 1965 US No. 1 single 'Mr Tambourine Man'. He was also a member of Flying Burrito Brothers, and The Souther, Hillman, Furay Band. Hillman was a key figure in the development of country rock. Born in Los Angeles, California.

1951 - Gary Rossington. American musician best known as a founder of southern rock band Lynyrd Skynyrd who had the 1974 US No. 8 single 'Sweet Home Alabama' the 1977 US No. 5 album Street Survivors and the 1982 UK No.21 single 'Freebird'. Born in Jacksonville, FL.

[railfancwb]

There was a half hour musical variety show - black and white I think - called “Your Hit Parade” and/or “Lucky Strike Hit Parade”. It featured dance routines with costumes and set pieces for each of the week’s top ten recordings. “Mr Sandman” stayed in the top ten for so many weeks I became convinced it led to the demise of the TV show. 

[Schmidt Meister]

On December 5, 1945, at 2:10 p.m., five U.S. Navy Avenger torpedo-bombers comprising Flight 19 take off from the Ft. Lauderdale Naval Air Station in Florida on a routine three-hour training mission. After having completed their objective, Flight 19 was scheduled to take them due east for an additional 67 miles, then turn north for 73 miles, and back to the air station after that, totaling a distance of 120 miles. They never returned.
Two hours after the flight began, the leader of the squadron, who had been flying in the area for more than six months, reported that his compass and backup compass had failed and that his position was unknown. The other planes experienced similar instrument malfunctions. Radio facilities on land were contacted to find the location of the lost squadron, but none were successful. After two more hours of confused messages from the fliers, a distorted radio transmission from the squadron leader was heard at 6:20 p.m., apparently calling for his men to prepare to ditch their aircraft simultaneously because of lack of fuel.
By this time, several land radar stations finally determined that Flight 19 was somewhere north of the Bahamas and east of the Florida coast, and at 7:27 p.m. a search and rescue Mariner aircraft took off with a 13-man crew. Three minutes later, the Mariner aircraft radioed to its home base that its mission was underway. The Mariner was never heard from again. Later, there was a report from a tanker cruising off the coast of Florida of a visible explosion seen at 7:50 p.m.
The disappearance of the 14 men of Flight 19 and the 13 men of the Mariner led to one of the largest air and seas searches to that date, and hundreds of ships and aircraft combed thousands of square miles of the Atlantic Ocean, the Gulf of Mexico, and remote locations within the interior of Florida. No trace of the bodies or aircraft was ever found.
Although naval officials maintained that the remains of the six aircraft and 27 men were not found because stormy weather destroyed the evidence, the story of the “Lost Squadron” helped cement the legend of the Bermuda Triangle, an area of the Atlantic Ocean where ships and aircraft are said to disappear without a trace. The Bermuda Triangle is said to stretch from the southern U.S. coast across to Bermuda and down to the Atlantic coast of Cuba and Santo Domingo.

[Schmidt Meister]

On December 5, 1933, the 21st Amendment to the U.S. Constitution is ratified, repealing the 18th Amendment and bringing an end to the era of national prohibition of alcohol in America. At 5:32 p.m. EST, Utah became the 36th state to ratify the amendment, achieving the requisite three-fourths majority of states’ approval. Pennsylvania and Ohio had ratified it earlier in the day.
The movement for the prohibition of alcohol began in the early 19th century, when Americans concerned about the adverse effects of drinking began forming temperance societies. By the late 19th century, these groups had become a powerful political force, campaigning on the state level and calling for national liquor abstinence. Several states outlawed the manufacture or sale of alcohol within their own borders. In December 1917, the 18th Amendment, prohibiting the “manufacture, sale, or transportation of intoxicating liquors for beverage purposes,” was passed by Congress and sent to the states for ratification. On January 29, 1919, the 18th Amendment achieved the necessary three-fourths majority of state ratification. Prohibition essentially began in June of that year, but the amendment did not officially take effect until January 29, 1920.
In the meantime, Congress passed the Volstead Act on October 28, 1919, over President Woodrow Wilson’s veto. The Volstead Act provided for the enforcement of Prohibition, including the creation of a special Prohibition unit of the Treasury Department. In its first six months, the unit destroyed thousands of illicit stills run by bootleggers. However, federal agents and police did little more than slow the flow of booze, and organized crime flourished in America. Large-scale bootleggers like Al Capone of Chicago built criminal empires out of illegal distribution efforts, and federal and state governments lost billions in tax revenue. In most urban areas, the individual consumption of alcohol was largely tolerated and drinkers gathered at “speakeasies,” the Prohibition-era term for saloons.
Prohibition, failing fully to enforce sobriety and costing billions, rapidly lost popular support in the early 1930s. In 1933, the 21st Amendment to the Constitution was passed and ratified, ending national Prohibition. After the repeal of the 18th Amendment, some states continued Prohibition by maintaining statewide temperance laws. Mississippi, the last dry state in the Union, ended Prohibition in 1966.

[Schmidt Meister]

On December 5, 1872, The Dei Gratia, a small British brig under Captain David Morehouse, spots the Mary Celeste, an American vessel, sailing erratically but at full sail near the Azores Islands in the Atlantic Ocean. The ship was seaworthy, its stores and supplies were untouched, but not a soul was onboard.
On November 7, the brigantine Mary Celeste sailed from New York harbor for Genoa, Italy, carrying Captain Benjamin S. Briggs, his wife and two-year-old daughter, a crew of eight, and a cargo of some 1,700 barrels of crude alcohol. After the Dei Gratia sighted the vessel on December 4, Captain Morehouse and his men boarded the ship to find it abandoned, with its sails slightly damaged, several feet of water in the hold, and the lifeboat and navigational instruments missing. However, the ship was in good order, the cargo intact, and reserves of food and water remained on board.
The last entry in the captain’s log shows that the Mary Celeste had been nine days and 500 miles away from where the ship was found by the Dei Gratia. Apparently, the Mary Celeste had been drifting toward Genoa on her intended course for 11 days with no one at the wheel to guide her. Captain Briggs, his family, and the crew of the vessel were never found, and the reason for the abandonment of the Mary Celeste has never been determined.