Good Morning & God Bless To Every One !
Today is March 10, the 69th day of 2014 and there are 296 days left this year where it is another Blessed Day in the pleasure of our service for our Lord here at:
For God’s Glory Alone Ministries !!!
Hello my friends. I’d like to take this opportunity to offer my regrets for having been ‘offline’ for a couple of weeks here. Without going into great detail, life here at the Stambaugh residence has been somewhat hectic with a number of issues. While the issues have not all been resolved to date, things are becoming somewhat ‘more normal’ than they have been; at least, down to a more manageable level. I’m hoping to be able to now continue posting my daily “Today In History” and with God’s help, in the near future, re-assume doing some other posts for the Pastors here at their glorious site “For God’s Glory Alone Ministries”, fggam.org. Many have offered prayers over this troubling period we are experiencing and we want to thank everyone for that. It is by God’s will and direction that I’m attempting to re-establish myself here on the site and ask for everyone’s continued prayers for my precious family.
So, What Happened Today In 1945?
United States firebombing of Tokyo, Japan in World War II continues
Near the end of World War II and barely known as it was overshadowed by the dropping of the first atomic bombs a little later in the year, 300 American bombers continue to drop almost 2,000 tons of incendiaries on Tokyo, Japan, in a mission that had begun the previous day. The attack destroyed large portions of the Japanese capital.
The fire bombing had begun the previous day, when U.S. warplanes launched a new bombing offensive against Japan. Almost 16 square miles in and around the Japanese capital were incinerated, and between 80,000 and 130,000 Japanese civilians were killed in the worst single firestorm in recorded history. That raid lasted slightly longer than three hours on March 9. “In the black Sumida River, countless bodies were floating, clothed bodies, naked bodies, all black as charcoal. It was unreal,” recorded one doctor at the scene. Only 243 American airmen were lost which was considered an acceptable loss.
In the closing months of the war, the United States had turned to incendiary bombing tactics against Japan, also known as “area bombing,” in an attempt to break Japanese morale and force a surrender. The firebombing of Tokyo was the first major bombing operation of this sort against Japan.
Early in the morning, the B-29s dropped their bombs of napalm and magnesium incendiaries over the packed residential districts along the Sumida River in eastern Tokyo. The conflagration quickly engulfed Tokyo’s wooden residential structures, and the subsequent firestorm replaced oxygen with lethal gases, superheated the atmosphere, and caused hurricane-like winds that blew a wall of fire across the city. The majority of those who perished died from carbon monoxide poisoning and the sudden lack of oxygen, but others died horrible deaths within the firestorm, such as those who attempted to find protection in the Sumida River and were boiled alive, or those who were trampled to death in the rush to escape the burning city. As a result of the attack, 10 square miles of eastern Tokyo were entirely obliterated, and an estimated 250,000 buildings were destroyed.
During the next nine days, U.S. bombers flew similar missions against Nagoya, Osaka, and Kobe. In August, U.S. atomic attacks against Hiroshima and Nagasaki finally forced Japan’s hand and on September 2, 1945 Japan formally surrenders to the allies aboard the USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay, bringing an end to World War II.
Other Memorable Or Interesting Events Occurring On March 10 In History:
515 BC – The building of the great Jewish temple in Jerusalem is completed;
241 BC – In the battle of the Aegates Islands, the Romans sink the Carthaginian fleet bringing the First Punic War to an end;
418 – Jews are excluded from public office in the Roman Empire;
1656 – In the colony of Virginia, suffrage is extended to all free men regardless of their religion;
1785 – Thomas Jefferson was appointed America’s minister to France, succeeding Benjamin Franklin;
1792 – John Stuart, 3rd earl of Bute and advisor to the British king, George III, dies in London. Although most Americans have never heard his name, Lord Bute played a significant role in the politics of the British empire that spawned the American Revolution;
1848 – The treaty of Guadeloupe-Hidalgo is signed which ends the United States’ war with Mexico;
1862 – U.S. issues 1st paper money ($5, $10, $20, $50, $100, $500 and $1000);
1864 – President Abraham Lincoln signs a brief document officially promoting then-Major General Ulysses S. Grant to the rank of lieutenant general of the U.S. Army, tasking the future president with the job of leading all Union troops against the Confederate Army. Although Grant enjoyed a distinguished career in the military, he later wrote that he never consciously chose the life of a soldier. As a student at West Point, he never expected to graduate, let alone lead the entire U.S. Army in a desperate but ultimately successful struggle to preserve the Union. In 1869, Grant became the 18th president of the United States;
1864 – Local hell-raiser Jack Slade is hanged in one of the more troubling incidents of frontier vigilantism. Slade stood out even among the many rabble-rousers who inhabited the wild frontier-mining town of Virginia City, Montana. Not long after vigilantes executed Slade, legitimate courts and prisons began to function in Virginia City. Though sporadic vigilante “justice” continued until 1867, it increasingly attracted public concern. In March 1867, miners in one Montana mining district posted a notice in the local newspaper that they would hang five vigilantes for every one man hanged by vigilantes. Thereafter, vigilante action faded away;
1865 – Confederate General William Henry Chase Whiting dies in prison from wounds suffered during the fall of Fort Fisher, North Carolina. Whiting’s Fort Fisher was a formidable barrier to the Union capture of Wilmington. General Benjamin Butler led a Yankee force against Fort Fisher in December 1864, but the garrison fended off the attack. The next month, General Alfred Terry launched another assault; this time, Fort Fisher fell to the Yankees. Whiting was badly wounded and captured during the attack. He was shipped to New York and died at age 40 while imprisoned at Governors Island;
1876 – The first discernible speech is transmitted over a telephone system when inventor Alexander Graham Bell summons his assistant in another room by saying, “Mr. Watson, come here; I want you.” Bell had received a comprehensive telephone patent just three days before. Bell died in 1922 at his summer home and laboratory on Cape Breton Island, Canada;
In 1880 – The Salvation Army arrived in the United States from England;
1893 – New Mexico State University cancels its first graduation ceremony, because the only graduate was robbed and killed the night before;
1906 – A devastating mine disaster kills over 1,000 workers in Courrieres, France. An underground fire sparked a massive explosion that virtually destroyed a vast maze of mines. As bodies began to be found, a mortuary was established near the mine. It took weeks for the all of the bodies to be recovered and identified. In the end, the casualty toll from this disaster was 1,060 miners killed, with hundreds more suffering serious injuries;
1910 – Slavery is abolished in China;
1917 – In World War I, less than two weeks after their victorious recapture of the strategically placed city of Kut-al-Amara on the Tigris River in Mesopotamia, British troops under the regional command of Sir Frederick Stanley Maude bear down on Baghdad, causing their Turkish opponents to begin a full-scale evacuation of the city;
1933 – Nevada becomes the first U.S. state to regulate drugs;
1948 – The communist-controlled government of Czechoslovakia reports that Foreign Minister Jan Masaryk has committed suicide. The reaction in the West was characterized by deep suspicion. Secretary of State George Marshall stated that Czechoslovakia was under a “reign of terror,” and that Masaryk’s “suicide” indicated “very plainly what is going on.” Despite suspicions that the communists had murdered Masaryk, nothing has been proven definitively and his death remains one of the great mysteries of the (first) Cold War era;
1953 – In the Korean War, North Korean gunners at Wonsan fire on the USS Missouri, the ship responds by firing 998 rounds at the enemy position;
1959 – Tibetans band together in revolt, surrounding the summer palace of the Dalai Lama in defiance of Chinese occupation forces. China’s occupation of Tibet began nearly a decade before, in October 1950, when troops from its People’s Liberation Army (PLA) invaded the country, barely one year after the Communists gained full control of mainland China. China’s stranglehold on Tibet and its brutal suppression of separatist activity has continued in the decades following the unsuccessful uprising. Tens of thousands of Tibetans followed their leader to India, where the Dalai Lama has long maintained a government-in-exile in the foothills of the Himalayas;
1966 – In the Vietnam War, The North Vietnamese capture a Green Beret camp at Ashau Valley;
1969 – James Earl Ray pleads guilty to the assassination of African American civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. and is sentenced to 99 years in prison. On April 4, 1968, in Memphis, Tennessee, King was fatally wounded by a sniper’s bullet while standing on the balcony outside his second-story room at the Motel Lorraine. According to his family and friends, Ray was an outspoken racist who told them of his intent to kill Martin Luther King. He died in 1998;
1970 – During the Vietnam War, the U.S. Army accuses Capt. Ernest Medina and four other soldiers of committing crimes at My Lai in March 1968. The charges ranged from premeditated murder to rape and the “maiming” of a suspect under interrogation. Medina was the company commander of Lt. William Calley and other soldiers charged with murder and numerous crimes at My Lai 4 in Song My village. All eventually had their charges dismissed or were acquitted by courts-martial except Calley, who was found guilty of murdering 22 civilians. He was sentenced to life imprisonment, but his sentence was reduced to 20 years by the Court of Military Appeals and further reduced later to 10 years by the Secretary of the Army. Proclaimed by much of the public as a “scapegoat,” Calley was paroled in 1974 after having served about three years;
1971 – The Senate approves a Constitutional amendment to lower the voting age to 18;
1975 – Dog spectacles are patented in England;
1975 – At the end of the Vietnam War, the North Vietnamese surround and attack the city of Ban Me Thuot, as heavy fighting erupts in the Central Highlands. This action, initiated in late January 1975, just two years after a cease-fire was established by the Paris Peace Accords, was part of what the North Vietnamese called Campaign 275. The battle for Ban Me Thuot began on March 4, when North Vietnamese encircled the city with five main force divisions and effectively cut it off from outside support. The South Vietnamese 23rd Division was vastly outnumbered and quickly succumbed to the communists. The South Vietnamese soon collapsed as a cogent fighting force and the North Vietnamese continued the attack all the way to Saigon. South Vietnam surrendered unconditionally on April 30, 1975;
1993 – In somewhat of a setback for anti-abortion efforts, Dr. David Gunn is shot and killed during an anti-abortion protest at the Pensacola Women’s Medical Services clinic. Dr. Gunn performed abortions at several clinics in Florida and Alabama and was getting out of his car in the clinic’s parking lot when Michael Griffin shouted, “Don’t kill any more babies!” and shot the doctor three times in the back. Griffin immediately surrendered to a nearby police officer. In response, both states and the federal government passed new laws protecting abortion clinics. Pro-choice advocates also successfully sued anti-abortion groups under broad racketeering laws. However, the threat of violence against doctors who provide abortion services has severely limited the number of doctors who practice in the field;
2004 – Teenage sniper Lee Boyd Malvo was sentenced in Chesapeake, Va., to life in prison for his role in the Oct. 2002 killing rampage in the Washington, D.C., area that left 10 people dead. (Malvo, 19, was sentenced a day after sniper mastermind John Allen Muhammad was given the death penalty.);
2009 – A gunman, 28-year-old Michael McLendon, killed 10 people, including his mother, four other relatives and the wife and child of a local sheriff’s deputy across two rural Alabama counties before committing suicide;
2012 – At least 130 rockets are fired into Israel from the Gaza Strip;
2013 – The president of Afghanistan, Hamid Karzai, accused the Taliban and the United States of working in concert to convince Afghans that violence would worsen if most foreign troops left;
2013 – It was one year ago today !
Now, Off To The Fun Stuff !!!
Today’s Wonderful Thing About Dogs:
Today’s Funny Animal Video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7bGEEFovolw
Today’s Picture Taken With Impeccable Timing:
Today’s It’s Just An Observation:
Just last week, Barack Obama told ObamaCare volunteers that they’re doing “God’s work.” Now his wife, First Lady Michelle Obama, has picked up on the talking point. Gushing over the work of ObamaCare application counselors, Michelle said, “You’re changing lives. You realize that. … Keep it up.” Then she reiterated her husband’s phrase: “You are doing God’s work.” The hypocrisy is just too much. This is the same couple, after all, that works to promote abortion in the name of health care and forces a Catholic nuns’ charity to offer an insurance plan that covers the life-taking procedure. That’s not God’s work!!!
Today’s Thought For The Day:
“Open-mindedness is not the same as empty-mindedness. To hang out a sign saying, ‘Come right in; there is no one at home’ is not the equivalent of hospitality.” — John Dewey, American philosopher and educator (1859-1952)
Today’s Did You Know:
Less than 1% of the Caribbean Islands are inhabited
Today’s Patriotic Quote For The Day:
“To suppress free speech is a double wrong. It violates the rights of the hearer as well as those of the speaker.”
– Frederick Douglass
Today’s Founders Quote:
“Let us disappoint the Men who are raising themselves on the ruin of this Country. Let us convince every invader of our freedom, that we will be as free as the constitution our fathers recognized, will justify.”
– Samuel Adams, A State of the Rights of the Colonists, 1772
Today’s Least We Forget Video:
If I Don’t Make It Back – https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=9r_b01VFIJw
Today’s I’m As Cute Now As I Was Then:
Today’s Clever Words For Clever People:
MISTY: How golfers create divots!
Today’s Lexophile Word Play:
When you’ve seen one shopping Center you’ve seen a mall.
Today’s It’s A Dogs Life:
Today’s Fact Of The Day:
Studies show that before a man even speaks a word, the way he stands (whether he is slouching or not) counts for over 80% of woman’s first impression.
Today’s Word For The Day:
Ravenous (rav·en·ous) adj. 1. Extremely hungry; voracious. 2. Rapacious; predatory. 3. Greedy for gratification: “Ravenous for power.”
Today’s Life’s Lessons:
(No one can go back and make a brand new start – Anyone can start from now and make a brand new ending..)
Today’s Trivia:
Tigers have striped skin, not just striped fur.
Today’s Crazy Law:
Florida law forbids rats to leave the ships docked in Tampa Bay.
Today’s Awe Of God Picture:
Today’s Positive Quote:
Life is an opportunity, benefit from it. Life is a beauty, admire it. Life is a dream, realize it. Life is a challenge, meet it. Life is a duty, complete it. Life is a game, play it. Life is a promise, fulfill it. Life is sorrow, overcome it. Life is a song, sing it. Life is a struggle, accept it. Life is a tragedy, confront it. Life is an adventure, dare it. Life is luck, make it. Life is life, fight for it!
– Mother Teresa
Today’s Inspirational Music Video:
I Stumble In The Wind – https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=cbRGksthTHQ
Today’s Verse & Prayer:
For God saved us and called us to live a holy life. He did this, not because we deserved it, but because that was his plan from before the beginning of time – to show us his grace through Christ Jesus.
– 2 Timothy 1:9
Thank you so much, Father, for knowing me and thinking of my needs even before there was a world. I dedicate this day, and all the days that follow, to your honor as I try to live a life that reflects your righteousness and grace. In the name of Jesus I pray. Amen
Today’s Funny Church Sign:
Until Tomorrow – America, Bless God !!!
