Speaking of the American Revolution, which is a theme that sort of winds it's way through today's posts, the first name on our list today is Seth Warner. Born in 1743, he became a member of Ethan Allen's famous (or infamous) Green Mountain Boys (the men were cousins, which I didn't know until just now). He was a bit eccentric, and tended to want little to do with the folderol of being in command of a military unit in a war. However, his biggest moment came in the summer of 1777, when Burgoyne and his army were moving down from Canada towards a planned rendezvous with the army of General Howe. Burgoyne had run into various and sundry problems in upstate New York, and finally had the "brainstorm" of sending out some Hessians to raid the town of Bennington Vermont to get horses and supplies. Whether there were any horses or supplies there is sorta unclear, but what the hell. The Hessians were met by General John Stark and his men, who wiped out the first column. There was a second column of Hessians coming along behind, and Stark and Warner beat the crap out of them, and chased the few remnants back to Burgoyne. That was the first big repulse of Burgoyne's campaign, but far from the last. At any rate, Warner died in 1784 on this date, a penniless man. Congress did grant him a pile of land for his services, but let's face it- Congress was more useless then than they are now, so they only did that a few years after Warner died.
A very interesting man died on this date in 1890, Heinrich Schliemann. He's the man who discovered and first excavated Hisarlik in Turkey- or what was known back in the day as Troy. Sadly, he was more enthusiastic than competent in the relatively new field of archaelogy, and did a massive amount of damage to the site. It's believed now that he actually ruined some of the best findings from the period of the Trojan War, because he foolishly believed that the stuff he wanted must be buried, so he just dug up and tossed away a ton of materiel. Sigh. He also worked at "Golden Mycenae" (in Homer's words), where he found some ancient tombs which he typically branded as the grave (and jewels) of Agamemnon. They weren't, but he got a lot of press out of that one. He also dug at "Tiryns of The Great Walls", and I don't recall reading or hearing that he wrecked anything there. So that was an improvement. For more info, despite being about 25-30 years old, I can't recommend strongly enough that you watch "In search of the Trojan War" by Michael Wood.
Also leaving us on this date was Harry S Truman, former president, better known as "Give 'em Hell Harry". He was a feisty one, and did a few good things- he had the moral courage to drop the Bomb on Japan, and also to decide on a dime that Korea was worth defending. Not to mention that he fired the arrogant and insubordinate General MacArthur. However, his attempts to nationalize the steel industry and some of his other attempts to remake the US into a nice leftist society fell down (thankfully) and have led to a re-evaluation of his days in office. We've had much worse presidents, but I don't think that he's ranked as highly today as he was 30-40 years ago. Certainly not in my estimation. He died in 1972, and if my memory serves correctly, I was at a slumber party at my friend Bill's house when the news broke. Or not. It was a long time ago, after all.
Two years later, famous entertainer Jack Benny died. He was funnier than he got credit for, and also was a better violinist too. But he knew his audience, and he knew how to get laughs. A couple famous stories on him. Once, he was invited to the White House to perform. He approached the guard shack, violin case in hand. The guard asked him what was inside, and he responded "a machine gun". The guard came back with "Oh thank God. I was afraid it was your violin". Everyone's a comedian... Another story is that he was having a party at his home in L.A. The party seemed kind of dull, and he asked his friend George Burns what he could do to liven it up. Big mistake. Burns told him he should go upstairs, and then come back down the stairs naked, playing his violin. Burns assured him that he would get a great reaction from the surprised guests. Then, as soon as Benny left, Burns warned all the guests about what was coming, and told them all to ignore Benny. They did. And Benny lost again. Ah well. There's a lesson to be learned there- don't trust George Burns. I tell myself that every day, and never once has he humiliated me.
Another sad case today. It was this date in 1985, when gorilla researcher Dian Fossey was murdered in the mountains of Rwanda, presumably by gorilla poachers. She sounds like a difficult woman, but her intentions were good. And reading the article on her just now, she had a point: while seeing gorillas in a zoo is impressive, and I'm not totally convinced it's a bad thing, apparently the elder gorillas would fight to the death to protect a young one that was being kidnapped. So the act of grabbing one gorilla to take to a zoo could result in the deaths of 10-20 mature ones. That's insane! BTW, in her will she left all her money to her foundation in order to protect the gorillas. Her mother apparently challenged the will and won. Good job mom. Nice to put your desires above that of your dead daughter.
In 1999, we lost Curtis Mayfield. He'd been in poor shape for a while, especially after a stage rig fell on him and left him paralyzed in 1990. He was a musical genius, one of the godfathers of funk. His best known songs are "People get ready", which was covered by Jeff Beck and Rod Stewart; and my personal favorite, "If There's a Hell Below, We're All Gonna Go" which is probably true.
It's a bad day to be an ex-president, since Gerald Ford also died on this date, in 2006. He was nowhere near as big a lunkhead as he's portrayed. It was said of him that he restored honor to the presidency after Nixon, but then sold that honor when he left office, by serving on any board that would pay him money. He loved gold, which is not a terribly bad thing, and was a huge football fan, having played for the University of Michigan.
And that's that. Until the next time.
No comments:
Post a Comment