What Happened Today

In 1862, Union General Ulysses S. Grant was faced with taking his Army to Vicksburg on the Mississippi River, controlling the recently conquered territory in Western Tennessee and Mississippi, and dealing with traders trying to sell cotton on the black market. In order to face the last problem, Grant issued General Order No. 11. General Order No. 11 expelled all Jews from the territory in Grant's military district, from Kentucky to Mississippi. This was done by Grant because some of the traders were Jewish, but it was a bizarre and hugely problematic decree. Not all illicit traders were Jews, and most Jews living in the area played no part in the black market. Grant's order sparked outrage throughout the American Jewish community and severe annoyance from his superiors. President Abraham Lincoln immediately commanded Grant, through General-in-Chief, to rescind General Order No. 11. Officially, the order was only in place for a month, as Grant did rescind the order. Yet General Order No. 11 would become one of Grant's lowest moments in the Civil War and a political millstone when he ran for President in 1868.

Robert Smith Vance was a Federal judge on the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals, which meant that when he opened a mailbomb in his home and died many people were extremely worried. A long-term civil rights advocate and important appellate justice, Vance was someone whose killer could have been many people. Then an African-American civil rights lawyer in Savannah, Robert Robinson, opened a similar mailbomb and was instantly killed. Two defused bombs were then found sent to the NAACP in Jacksonville and the Eleventh Circuit headquarters in Atlanta. These bombs were similar to one in a 1972 case where a woman opened a package bomb her husband had prepared. The husband, Walter Leroy Moody, became the prime suspect, when it was discovered all of the bombs could be traced to his vicinity. Moody was a con-man with a variety of schemes, but his exact motivation for the bombings was unclear. Clarification never came during his trials, as he would decry the justice system, switch lawyers multiple times, and assert his innocence. Nonetheless, he was easily convicted in both Federal court and Alabama state court, where he would be sentenced to death.

Roald Amundsen made history by being the leader of the first expedition to reach the South Pole. He was not well recognized for this effort, though, for a wide range of reasons. Amundsen's rather utilitarian approach, which included eating some of his sled dogs, did not endear him to many people, especially the British. The other reason many Brits were unhappy with Amundsen was that he beat Robert Falcon Scott's simultaneous British expedition. Then a strange circumstance happened. Instead of being lauded for finding the best method for reaching the South Pole, Amundsen fell well behind Scott in many appreciations, despite the fact that Scott perished on his return. Scott became a martyr, while Amundsen became the nasty, underhanded trickster. This odd view of the two expeditons would hold for decades, despite Amundsen being objectively much more successful.

The Battle of Fredericksburg was perhaps the worst defeat for the Union Army in the Virginia Theater of the Civil War, which is saying quite a bit. Certainly, it was one of the worst performances by a Union General, as the day saw a series of odd strategic choices from General Ambrose Burnside. Burnside had been named commander of the Army of Northern Virginia after General George B. McClellan refused to follow-up his victory at Antietam with a pursuit of General Robert E. Lee's Confederate Forces. So Burnside began his command by trying to outmarch Lee and cross the Rappahannock River at Fredericksburg, Virginia. Instead, he was stalled out waiting for pontoon bridges to make his crossing, and Lee fortified on heights above the town. In a series of charges, the Union continually faced an army on superior ground, with heavy guns, and in position to fire on them. The Union troops stood little chance, and most of the Battle of Fredericksburg was a slaughter. Although it was an embarrassing and overwhelming defeat for the Union, it would also prove the lowpoint from which the Union would begin to move on from to eventual victory.

When the Metropolitan Police entered a flat on Balcombe Street after a six day standoff, they successfully arrested the four men who were holding the couple who lived in the flat hostage. The four, Joe O'Connell, Hugh Doherty, Edward Butler, and Harry Duggan, were also members of the Provisional Irish Republican Army who had been conducting a series of bombings and assassinations in and around London for fourteen months. This seeming victory for authorities in Britain proved a bit fleeting. Although the men were willing to acknowledge their culpability and were initially chased to Balcombe Street after being seen firing guns into a restaurant, they also told their lawyers that there were innocent people in jail for some of their crimes. Specifically, the "Guildford Four," four young people who were arrested for bombing a pub in Guildford, were pointed to as completely innocent. This proved highly problematic for the British authorities, who celebrated their victory in placing the Guildford Four in jail. This also made the actual arrest of the four men in the Balcombe Street siege more troubling than it should have been.

Jay Berwanger of the University of Chicago Maroons was honored by the Downtown Athletic Club as the best collegiate football player east of the Mississippi for the 1935 season, which makes him stand as the very first Heisman Trophy winner. Although this would seem to place Berwanger in a line with subsequent winners and NFL legends, really Berwanger stands out to modern eyes for the difference between his game and the modern game. Berwanger didn't even, technically, win the Heisman, as the trophy only was named after John Heisman after his death the next year. Berwanger was known as the "one man football team" for being not just a capable runner at halfback, but also a passer, kicker, punter, and notable defensive player. Berwanger played before face masks, racial integration, or even a significant pro football culture. Although he was selected by the Philadelphia Eagles as the first selection in the first NFL draft, Berwanger never played in the NFL, even after being traded to the Bears. Instead, going into business and seeking to compete in the decathlon in the Olympics, Berwanger would end his football career with winning the Downtown Athletic Club's honor.

The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor sunk multiple ships and killed over 2,000 people at the Naval Base on Oahu. As soon as it happened, it appeared that Japan had brought America into World War II. Yet America's formal declaration of war was so important and crucial that President Franklin Roosevelt went before a joint session of Congress to urge a declaration of war the next day. Roosevelt's speech, in which he famously said that the Japanese attack would make December 7, 1941 "a date which will live in infamy," built a case for America already being at war with Japan. After dealing with a significant isolationist movement in America and a disinterest in participating in a second World War, Roosevelt's urging was key. Immediately after his 7 minute speech, the Senate and the House took up the vote. The Senate unanimously voted for the Declaration of War by a margin of 82-0; the House voted for it by a margin of 388-1. Only the pacifist Jeannette Rankin refused to vote for the declaration. The entry of the United States of America would turn the tide of the war significantly, changing the shape of the conflict.

The Winecoff Hotel in Atlanta, Georgia promoted itself as being "Absolutely Fireproof," so much so that it was put on the hotel stationery. Despite that, a massive fire broke out in the early morning hours of December 7, 1946, when a mattress placed in the one stairway in the hotel caught fire. The smoke and fire shot through the stairwell, spreading to upper floors. Above the fifth floor, every single person was trapped. While a large number of people died from the fire, both because they were burned alive and from smoke inhalation, many others died from jumping out of windows to their deaths. The fire would kill 119 people, including the hotel's owner and his wife as well as a large number of teenagers from around Georgia who were attending a YMCA program. One of the people who jumped was Daisy McCumber, who would be captured by Georgia Tech graduate student Arnold Hardy in a photograph that would win the Pulitzer Prize for Photography that year. In the aftermath of the Winecoff Hotel fire, fire codes throughout the nation were drastically changed to prevent something similar fro ever happening again.

When the New Model Army's leaders wanted the English Parliament to put King Charles I on trial for treason, they faced the problem that most Members of Parliament did not want to put the King on trial. So Colonel Thomas Pride and his Regiment of Foot were placed on the steps of Parliament, only allowing sympathetic members inside. Essentially, Pride's Purge was a coup d'etat which happened so easily no one even fought back. Partly, this was because Parliament had been fighting the King for eight years. In a Civil War, England had seen pitched battles where Parliament's New Model Army, led by Oliver Cromwell, beat the Royalist forces of Charles I. Officially, Charles had accepted Parliament's demands, until he decided to flee. That led to a second Civil War, which saw a military occupation of London, where Thomas Pride was a commander. That's why the New Model Army stationed his Regiment of Foot in the way of Parliament. The strategy worked so well that only 200 of the 471 Members were left in what became known as the "Rump Parliament." It was that Parliament that would subsequently and swiftly try King Charles and execute him.

When Londoners woke up on December 5 in 1952, they found the entire city covered in a mass of smog. London had been battling pollution from coal burning since the 13th century, and large smog events had taken place elsewhere in the world in the preceding two centuries. Yet the Great Smog of London, as it would become known, was something truly different. It occurred because of an anticyclone, a spinning of air that actually creates a layer of still, unmoving air and a dense fog. When that fog mixed with the ever present pollution in London, a special kind of "pea soup fog," so called for its resemblance to the foodstuff, had overwhelmed the entire city. Visibility was reduced to just a few metres, and very few events took place outside. Trains could only run with the help of loud auditory aids. At the time, hospitals recorded 4,000 deaths, but that was low because ambulances were not running. Most likely, something like 12,000 people passed away from breathing problems and visibility related deaths. In 1956, Parliament passed the Clean Air Act, which helped to ensure that no further great smogs could take place.