It's a good day to be Elizabeth Tudor. I gather she had mixed feelings today- her big (half-) sister Mary dies (oh damn, I gave it away!) and leaves her most precious possession to her sister Liz. In case you haven't already pegged it, that possession would be the Crown of England. In the end, Liz oversees what has been called "An Elizabethan Police State", but she survives on the throne, and does a pretty good job of it too. For a girl.
In 1863, Confederate forces under James Longstreet, in his first major independent command, begin to lay siege to Union forces in Knoxville, under the command of our old friend Ambrose Burnside. It doesn't go terribly well, and frankly, even Burnside manages to survive the siege. It seems to be one of those "if they ever notice that we're besieging them, they're gonna be pretty annoyed" situations. (Here's a hint: We'll soon encounter the epitome of that situation, but not for a few weeks).
In 1970, Lt. William Calley goes on trial for the My Lai Massacre. He's guilty as hell, of course. BUT, in fairness to him, guerrillas from the town had been shooting at his men shortly before, and then everyone in the town denied any knowledge of the attackers, who might well have been still in the town. It's a tough situation for a young officer to be in. And it might be useful to remember too that if the tables had been turned, the Vietcong wouldn't have hesitated to kill innocent people. I guess that's why they say "War is hell."
And finally, it was on this date in 2004 that Kmart announced they were buying Sears Roebuck, and merging the two into a company that would have crappy customer service and even lower customer satisfaction. My friend Joe Michaels just did a post on his marketing blog about how simply walking into Kmart triggers bad memories for him (and many others). So there you have it.
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