History & Comment for April 11, 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 Friday the 11th of April 2025. 

William and Mary are crowned joint sovereigns of Great Britian in 1689.  William has strong Dutch roots and he and Mary are cousins.   Mary is the niece of King Charles the 2nd and the Daughter of King James the 2nd of England.  The take home point is again the Royals of Europe are grossly interbred. 

The Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks is organized in 1876.   One of many such organization of the period. 

The former capital of Israel, Tel Aviv is founded in 1909.   Note that is almost four decades before the formation of the modern Nation of Israel.   The name is clearly middle eastern.  Tel is a common word or place name meaning a man-made mound with layers of artifacts.   An ancient city that has been rebuild many times on the ruins of an older settlement. 

In midst of the Korean War, President Truman relieves General Douglas MacArthur. This was in 1951.   There was a long rub between the powerful General and the President.   This type of friction was not uncommon between a president and a commanding General.  Lincoln and General George McClellan was also noteworthy.   Lincoln fired him twice.   McClelland and MacArthur both thought the President meddled too much.   And both Presidents felt it was their choice as CinC.     

Truman’s comment on the matter:  “I fired him because he wouldn't respect the authority of the President. I didn't fire him because he was a dumb SOB, although he was, but that's not against the law for generals. If it was, half to three-quarters of them would be in jail.”

The fact might be that both were very strong-willed and outspoken individuals.  

Tradition is a major thing in Great Britain especially in Government and the monarchy.  We loose sight of that here in America, partly because we do not have centuries of history.  At our founding we made a major reset and distanced ourselves from those of Britian.    As such we have trouble understanding the significance of some protocols and relics.    In 1951, the stone of scone.   An actual carved stone, not one of those stiff biscuits.      Which brings up a strange twist of American English vs British English.   Here we have a cracker, a biscuit and a cookie.    Three types of bread for basic intents.       If you go back in history,   a Cracker was called a biscuit.  Yet a dog biscuit is a type of cookie.   In Britian a Biscuit is generally what we would call a cookie.    Biscuit is a broader term for several items.       Look on the grocery shelf,  NABISCO, is a well know brand, that started as National Biscuit Company,  in 1898 and used that name until 1941.

But we were talking about the Stone of Scone,   Traditionally it was under the throne when Scottish Monarchs were crowned and transitioned to British Monarchs.  It was stolen from Westminster Abby and found in an Abby in Scotland on this day in 1951.  The 300-pound rock has been used in ceremonies, dating back to the 1200’s. 

The war crimes trial of Adolf Eichmann begins in 1961.   Like many higher Nazi officers, he had alluded capture in Germany under assumed names and with the aid of Nazi sympathizers.   Eventually, taking up residence in Argentina, still under an alias.  He was located by the Israeli Mousad, captured and whisked out of the country under covert means.   Once he was in Israel, it was publicly announced.     Israel had made a long and concerted effort to locate Nazi leaders.      At the trial which lasted,  four months, Eichmann claimed he was just a Nazi officer following orders.    History shows that was not completely accurate.     He was responsible for the transport of Jews from the Ghettos to concentration camps.   Most likely we could place him on the third level, reporting to Heinrich Heimler.    Heimler certainly was the architect of the holocaust and a direct report to Hitler.    Eichmann was hanged on First of June 1962.      As for Heimler, he was carrying cyanide capsules when captured and committed suicide during an interrogation by British officers.   

Pope John the 23rd issues a call for world peace on Holy Thursday in 1963.  Calling it his Easter Gift to all Christians.   The Pope was dying of cancer at the time.    The document sets out the responsibilities of all people to work for world peace.       The concept is a nice thought.    I was watching a bible study on the tower of Babel.   While that is a topic for a much longer discussion, God confounded the languages because man and specifically the leaders at Babel had set their minds against God.     If you follow the Biblical timeline,  the Tower of Babel was within a couple of centuries after the Flood and in fact Noah was still alive at the time.    The confounding of languages instantly inserted distrust and fear.     We can see ethnic biases rampant in all of society today.     While the Pope and an long list of people have called and pursued world peach, it will not happen.   God has and continues to allow man to be what man will be, when he rejects God.     The skeptic might ask why does God allow evil?    Because man does not submit to God’s will.    Even in the most religious settings.   Self will and promotion will always be the orders of the day.       Simply, God has commanded people to Love their neighbor.   We cannot do that to any great extent.   

We have had a major series of storms across the Midwest and South this Spring thus far.    April 11th was Palm Sunday in 1965, when a series of 55 tornadoes straffed the Midwest.   The 55 included 18 at the F4 level including an omnious twin funnel at Midway, Indiana.   

The Apple 1 Computer is released in 1976.   While Apple is doiminate today,   it was one of several players at the time.  Another early garage built computer was the Sol-20 which like the Apple had direct video output.   In fact the Apple 1 was just the motherboard while the Sol-20 included a keyboard and was in a case.    By the next year Apple will get funding and Commoder and Tandy will ramp up, creating what will be known as the computer trinity.   Apple’s niche was they catered to arts interest, music and graphics, while the others looked towards business applications.   Apple developed a cult following.    More than two decades later there was still debate if a program was more efficient on Apple or PC.     Windows has mostly dropped that, as PCs are dominated by that system.  Today the laptop is loosing popularity with Apple focusing on the smart device market.    The question is what will the next technology be?  With Google the main counter to Apple on smart devices,  Windows may fade as laptops do.   +

There was a YouTube video that came up on the subject of short-earth geology.   Or the Geology field of Creation Science.   That last term gives some folks concern because they consider Creation to be a religious subject and therefore counter to science.   That is not correct, many if not most of the classic scientist, were coming from a religious angle trying to explain the natural world.     Again I digress, the geology discussion was looking at sites of earthquakes and how the earth can liquify and disrupt layers of strata.     They were comparing sites where the tremblor events were known and then looking that the level of disturbance.   Comparing various sites they were able to correlate the amount of disturbance to the strength of the quake.    Then they looked at much older disturbances and found them to be much larger than more modern ones.     This suggests that at some point there were earthquakes several orders of magnitude greater than any we have records of.     That portion was purely observation and correlation.   They suggested these events would fit with a profoundly massive and violent

 events during the early weeks of the flood.     

Most folks know the top level story that it rained for 40 days and 40 nights. They have not read the story close enough to recall the part about the fountains of the deep opening up.  We simply do not know what this was.   And the flood lasted for over a year from the time Noah entered the Ark and the day he walked out.    

The story is quite intriguing even from a scientific perspective.

                                                                                        11