History & Comment for March 24, 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 Monday the 24th of March 2025

King Richard the lionhearted is mortally wounded in Battle in 1199.    Richard was an English King and born there, much of his decade rule was spent out of the Country.   One source says he might have spent six months in England over ten years.    

1603, England gets a new King after the very long reign of Queen Elizabeth the First.   She never married and her death left a vacuum.   James Stuart, King of Scotland steps in and will be the first Stuart King.   He was a cousin to Elizabeth.   To keep things confusing, He is known as James the Fourth of Scotland and the First of England,  so there is a dual set of numbers.   James was Protestatn, but tried very hard to keep peace with both factions.    He is also the King James who authorized the translation of the Bible into English.   An act that had previously been suppressed. 

James’ son Charles the First will run amock with parliament and the people, mostly over Religious issues and taxes.   Resulting a period of 11 years without a Monarch.   Then there is a move to return his Son Charles the second, to the throne.   

In 1663,  a charter is granted by Charles the 2nd, to eight Lords Proprietor for the Province of Carolina.  Or Land of Charles, in the new world.  This was partly as a reward for their efforts in restoring Charles to the Throne and to block Spanish moves north from their foothold in Florida. 

More Colonial History,  Parliament passes the Quartering Act or actually a series of acts.    There had been no standing British Army in the Colonies prior to the French and Indian War.  During the war the coloines had raised funding to provision the troops. Now in peacetime Britian wanted to keep the army in place and the locals were not happy with the idea, nor did they want to pay for it.   The acts required the population to house solider on their private property.   This was in 1765 and one of the first acts that lead to the push for Independence.     It was also the genesis of the later Third Amendment to the Constitution.   

Joseph Smith, had some issues with his neighbors well before the Book of Morman was published.   The story of the Book of Morman begins in 1823 and will take seven years to complete.  Even at this early date Smith was shunned from Methodist meetings for practicing folks magic and was labeled a necromancer.   Other terms were near do well.  He was a controversial citizen, well before the founding of the Church.    On this day in 1832,   a mob in Hiram, Ohio tar and feather him.   What the exact issues were is not well reported, LSD sources claim it was over recent revelations.  This will be a continual pattern for the new religion.  Smith will be killed by a mob in   Navaroo, Illinois in 1844. 

The bacterium responsible for the lung disease tuberculosis is discovered in 1882.   In the 19th Century the disease was known as consumption.   During that period it was the cause of as many as 25% of deaths.     It is a latent disease that can go for long periods without symptoms.  Only the active form can be spread.   TB test were common a few decades ago, in attempts to detect and treat patients before the disease becomes active.   It is an airborne transmitted disease.   There is concern of a resurgene with a number of recent cases in the United States. 

Ground is broken in 1900 for a new underground railroad linking Manhattan and Brooklyn.  This was not the first line, that opened in 1870.  The 1870 line was a demonstration that was never expanded and only ran 312 feet.   

Actor Steven McQueen, something of a John Wayne in a different genre was born in 1930.   He has faded a bit due to the fact he died of Lung Cancer at the age of 50.    My favorite McQueen film is the documentary, “On Any Sunday”   look for it on You Tube.   McQueen was no modern Hollywood star.   He had a real life off of the screen.  

There is a rousing sea shanty which asks what do you do with a drunken sailor?  It has several verses, listing various ideas.   In the early 1990’s there was a verse added,  “Make him Captain of an Exxon Tanker”.      On this day in 1989,  the Exxon Valdez drifts out of the channel, runs aground and spills 240,000 barrels of crude oil in Prince William Sound, Alaska.    The Captain was not on the bridge at the time and believed to be intoxicated.   While that sounds like gross negligence, it was not nor was Hazelwood proven to have been drinking in excess.     Large ships of all types employ harbor pilots.   A Qualified person, who is extremely skilled in navigating a specific port    This was the case on the night in 1989.   As was typical, the harbor pilot had disembarked and the third mate tool control of the ship.   Again normal practice.   Due to icebergs in the vicinity, the Mate took a different route than normal.      Most likely it drifted too far out of the channel.    It was a perfect storm.   The third mate was not well-rested and near or beyond his shift end.  The ships radar was not functional.   Etc.    While Hazelwood was made the scapegoat, he most likely was a very small part if any.    

There are a couple of school shootings in the news on this date.   1998 in Jonesboro, Arkansas and 20 years later students across the Country March for our Lives in response to the event in Parkland, Florida.  

These events are tragic and traumatic for a wide swath of society.   What has to be remembered is that if a person has set their mind on doing harm, there is little that can be done to prevent it.    If they are willing to die or want to die, the situation is orders of magnitude worse.    Lessened media attention might be one tool.    

The common cry is for gun control.   That is simply  not a solution.   First off there is a well understood prohibition to shooting people in aggression.    Making more laws does not fix the problem.    Simply, because it is a heart issue.    It is a bit trite but the first Murder reported was  between the third and fourth humans.   There Cain is reported to have used a rock, a big stick or his bare hands.   

The question is not how do we prevent gun violence, it is how do we fix the heart?   It will not make the evening news, but the shooters in several of these cases have been repeatedly victimized by their societies and peers.   That does not justify their actions, still it should be the first discussion point.   What drove a person or teenager to violence?   

In a related story.

A friend on facebook who is a flaming liberal posted at meme, contrasting the right’s response to a school shooting to folks burning teslas.   Both events are criminal acts and should be punished to the full extent of the law.   But, I am not going to call for the removal of guns from society, nor am I going to call for the removal of materials to make fire.  Or every possible incendiary device.     Fire has a place in society, we will not be banning it, just because some nut job has used it in a bad way.   

You might want to consider why when the left is upset they gravitate to anarchy as a mode of protest.   

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