History & Comment for March 19, 2025

A look at historical and current events on this day, comment and humor so dry it would make a camel thirsty. 

Transcript

This is History and Comment for Wednesday the 19th day of March, 2025.   Here in flyover country it is storm season.  A few events over the weekend and more tonight and for the next couple of days.     Really no region of the country is completely immune  to natural disasters, except maybe the northern part of the great plains.   But then the winters there are brutal.    This is the last day of astronomical winter.   The sun will be directly over the equator at 5:01 AM, tomorrow marking the beginning of Spring.     If you were asleep in science class,  picture this.  Think of the earth as a tennis ball, with a pencil punched through it.   Now rotate the ball with the pencil as the axis.   If you do this in a dark room with a single light source, as you rotate the ball you will see the concept of night and day.   Now tilt the axis 23 degrees.   Straight up is zero,  horizontal is 90 degrees,   half is 45, and have of that is about 23 degrees.      If the light source is in the middle of a room,  walk around it with the ball,   at one point the axis will point away from the light and the top portion of the ball will be dark. That is the first day of Winter,  as you turn the ball on its axis, part will never receive light.   Welcome to the Area above the artic circle and dark for much of the winter.   Now if you moved one quarter around the light, with the axis still pointing in the same direction as before.   This is the first day of Spring.   If you moved another quarter, the top of the ball nearest the axis will be closer to the light and receive light all day. That is the first day of summer.   The last quarter will bring the center of the ball back to closest point or the first day of Fall.   

It took a few centuries but England may have been one of the earliest nations to consider the opinions of the common folks in Government.     The Magna Carta was signed in 1215  and established that the King was not above the law.    We also see the idea that taxation should be with consent.  The Kingdom had  the Magnum Concilium (Latin for "Great Council") since the 10th century, it was more of an advisory group, by the end of the 13th Century it is looking more like the modern Parliament.        

The Great Council was comprised of bishops and noblemen.   Most of the seats where held by peerage and they were not elected but passed by inheritance.     This concept passed to the House of Lords when it became Parliament.    About the same time the House of Commons took shape,   it was comprised of knights of the Shire and representative of selected towns.   There were two knights from each Shire or we might say Counties.    Clerics below the status of Bishop were also invited to the House of Commons.       

Since the two houses represent class status, there has long been a rub, over the House of Lords and tradition changes slowly.     For centuries many of the seats were inherited or hereditary peers.    They are still a lifetime appointment.      On this day in 1649, the House of Commons pass an act to abolish the House of Lords.   They declare it useless and dangerous to the people of England.   This was a time of great upheaval in the country.  The King had been found guilt of treason and executed the previous January and there is a very strong push to create a republic.    Some changes will have long term affects, overall the monarchy and peerage will resurface in a few years.   

To put this into perspective,   The Plymouth Colony was thirty years old by this time.    

French Explorer Robert de La Salles,   had spent several years exploring North America, often by canoe along the Ohio, Illinois and Mississippi Rivers.   He had claimed the Mississippi Watershed for France.     After returning to France he and a crew sail back to North America to establish a colony on the Gulf Coast.    Plagued with problems their last ship runs aground on the Coast. They set off on foot to find the Mouth of the Mississippi River.    The trek is hard and the crew mutany in 1687 and La Salle is killed.  

The First documented bank robbery in US History takes place in New York City in 1831.   When $245,000 is taken from City Bank.   That is in period dollars and not adjusted to 2024.   Most of it was recovered.    Two men with copied keys hauled off the money.   They were eventually captured and convicted.    

Old West Lawman, Wyatt Earp was born on this day in 1848.   It is very hard to separate the man from the myth.    We would like to think of him something in the pattern of Matt Dillon of TV fame. Always the model of virtue and right.   That might not be the case, it certainly is complicated.    In fact,  brother Virgil had more law experience than did Wyatt.   Wyatt in later years did become a consultant to Hollywood, which may have helped the image.   One young actor spent a good deal of time with the aging law man and may have affected our image of the old west as well. That would be Marion Morrison,  but you know him as John Wayne.  

The Idea of time zones and Daylight savings time is approved by Congress in 1918.   While the idea of 9pm sunsets in summer is neat.   This places solar noon or the point where the sun is directly South and at its high point for the day at 2 in the afternoon here in the western portion of the Eastern Time Zone.  

The Senate is having trouble with the terms of the Treaty of Versailles in 1920. They reject it for the second time.  The issue was largely partisan.  Democrate Woodrow Wilson, was a strong proponent of the League of Nations, a forerunner to the UN.   The other allied powers wanted to greatly punish Germany.   Republicans controlled the Senate and were not happy that Wilson had not included them in the discussions.   They also had reservations about the league of Nations and feared the US might be dragged into another European War.    The war will not formally end until there is a change in administration, then the US signs its own Treaty with Germany.   

In the Spring of 1945, with the end of WW II was in sight. Allied Troops were pushing deep into German Territory.  On this day. Adolf Hitler issues what is called his “Nero Decree”    after the first Century Roman Emperor who burned Rome.     Hitler order infrastructure and industrial facilities destroyed before they could fall in to allied hands.    His logic was that in time Germany would regain the lost territory and the allied forces would destroy them when they pulled out.   This would prevent them from aiding the enemy in the mean time.   At this point Hitler is a bit delusional about future prospects of the tide turning.    The Japanese knew or at least some of the military leaders knew that in time the American industrial might would come to bear and they could not survive that in the long term.  Hitler seemed not to have this understanding.   The order was generally ignored by his subordinates.    That may have been wise as Hitler will commit suicide in about 40 days and the war come to an end.  

Actor Bruce Willis is 70 today.  Afflicted with Alzheimer’s he is not doing to well. 

The wreckage of the Confederate cruiser SS Georgiana is discovered in 1965.   The diver was 17-year-old Edward Lee Spence.   There is not much information available about Spences early life, beyond he was born in Munich and found his first shipwreck at the age of 12.    This raises lots of questions.    He has devoted his life to underwater archelogy and is also responsible for the discover of the USS Hunley, a civil war era submarine. 

In 1979,  the US house begins broadcasting proceeding via C-Span. Giving the public a glimpse of how laws are made.  

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