1791

Today in History 12/15 (Sitting Bull)

Portrait of Sitting Bull (© O.S. Goff/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)(1890) Sioux Chief Sitting Bull is killed by police
Indian agency police shoot the powerful holy man in the head and chest during a scuffle at his reservation cabin as they attempted to arrest him. Local authorities thought Sitting Bull was behind the growing Ghost Dance movement, which they feared would spark an Indian uprising.
Sitting Bull was a Hunkpapa Lakota leader who led his people during years of resistance to United States government policies. He was killed by Indian agency police on the Standing Rock Indian Reservation during an attempt to arrest him, at a time when authorities feared that he would join the Ghost Dance movement.
Lived: 1831 – Dec 15, 1890
Height: 5′ 9″
Spouse: Snow-on-Her · Seen-by-her-Nation · Light Hair · Four Robes
Children: Crow Foot (Son) · Many Horses (Daughter)
Parents: Jumping Bull (Father) · Her-Holy-Door (Mother)
Siblings: Spotted Elk (Brother)
Highlights
  • 1874: Although Sitting Bull did not attack Custer’s expedition in 1874, the US government was increasingly pressured by citizens to open the Black Hills to mining and settlement.

  • 1875: In 1875, the Northern Cheyenne, Hunkpapa, Oglala, Sans Arc, and Minneconjou camped together for a Sun Dance, with both the Cheyenne medicine man White Bull or Ice and Sitting Bull in association.

  • 1876: About three weeks later, the confederated Lakota tribes with the Northern Cheyenne defeated the 7th Cavalry under Lt. Col. George Armstrong Custer on June 25, 1876, annihilating Custer’s battalion and seeming to bear out Sitting Bull’s prophetic vision.

  • 1881: On August 26, 1881, he was visited by census taker William T. Selwyn, who counted twelve people in the Hunkpapa leader’s immediate family.

  • 1884: In 1884 show promoter Alvaren Allen asked Agent James McLaughlin to allow Sitting Bull to tour parts of Canada and the northern United States.

  • 1885: In 1885, Sitting Bull was allowed to leave the reservation to go Wild Westing with Buffalo Bill Cody’s Buffalo Bill’s Wild West.

Sitting Bull (Tatonka-I-Yatanka), a Hunkpapa Sioux, 1885
Sitting Bull, 1885
wiki/Sitting_Bull
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(1890) Sioux Chief Sitting Bull is killed by police.
Also on this day,

1791 | The Bill of Rights is ratified and becomes law
When Virginia ratifies the first 10 amendments to the US Constitution, the Bill of Rights passes the threshold of state ratifications needed to make the amendments law, and the young nation now has codified the freedom of speech, press, and religion, among other bedrock rights of the American system.
1961 | Nazi SS officer Adolf Eichmann sentenced to die
As one of the main organizers of WWII’s Nazi Holocaust, which killed 6 million Jews as well as many others, the former SS officer is to be hanged for war crimes. After the war, Eichmann escaped a prison camp and fled to Argentina, a safe harbor for ex-Nazis. But on May 11, 1960, Mossad agents abducted him and smuggled him to Israel for trial.
1979 | Trivial Pursuit invented as two Canadian friends devise board game
When photo editor Chris Haney and reporter Scott Abbott sit down for a night of Scrabble, they find some tiles missing and so instead sketch out an idea for a game based on inconsequential facts, trivia. When Trivial Pursuit rolls out commercially, it will become one of the most successful board games ever.

Today in History 12/15/17

Painting of the signing of the US Constitution (© MPI/Getty Images)(1791) The Bill of Rights is ratified and becomes law
When Virginia ratifies the first 10 amendments to the US Constitution, the Bill of Rights passes the threshold of state ratifications needed to make the amendments law, and the young nation now has codified the freedom of speech, press, and religion, among other bedrock rights of the American system.

The Bill of Rights is the first ten amendments to the United States Constitution. Proposed following the oftentimes bitter 1787–88 battle over ratification of the U.S. Constitution, and crafted to address the objections raised by Anti-Federalists, the Bill of Rights amendments add to the Constitution specific guarantees of personal freedoms and rights, clear limitations on the government's power in judicial and other proceedings, and explicit declarations that all powers not specifically delegated to Congress by the Constitution are reserved for the states or the people. The concepts codified in these amendments are built upon those found in several earlier documents, including the Virginia Declaration of Rights and the English Bill of Rights 1689, along with earlier documents such as Magna Carta (1215). In practice, the amendments had little impact on judgements by the courts for the first 150 years after ratification.

On June 8, 1789, Representative James Madison introduced nine amendments to the constitution in the House of Representatives. Among his recommendations Madison proposed opening up the Constitution and inserting specific rights limiting the power of Congress in Article One, Section 9. Seven of these limitations would become part of the ten ratified Bill of Rights amendments. Ultimately, on September 25, 1789, Congress approved twelve articles of amendment to the Constitution, each consisting of one one-sentence paragraph, and submitted them to the states for ratification. Contrary to Madison's original proposal that the articles be incorporated into the main body of the Constitution, they were proposed as supplemental additions (codicils) to it. Articles Three through Twelve were ratified as additions to the Constitution on December 15, 1791, and became Amendments One through Ten of the Constitution. Article Two became part of the Constitution on May 5, 1992, as the Twenty-seventh Amendment. Article One is technically still pending before the states.

Although Madison's proposed amendments included a provision to extend the protection of some of the Bill of Rights to the states, the amendments that were finally submitted for ratification applied only to the federal government. The door for their application upon state governments was opened in the 1860s, following ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment. Since the early 20th century both federal and state courts have used the Fourteenth Amendment to apply portions of the Bill of Rights to state and local governments. The process is known as incorporation.

There are several original engrossed copies of the Bill of Rights still in existence. One of these is on permanent public display at the National Archives in Washington, D.C.


Bill of Rights Pg 1 of 1
The Bill of Rights, twelve articles of amendment to the to the United States Constitution proposed in 1789, ten of which, Articles three through twelve, became part of the United States Constitution in 1791. Note that the First Amendment is actually "Article the third" on the document, Second Amendment is "Article the fourth", and so on. "Article the second" is now the 27th Amendment. "Article the first" has not been ratified.

wiki/United_States_Bill_of_Rights
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Today in History 12/05 (Bermuda Triangle Incident)

Five TBF Avenger torpedo bombers, like those that disappeared over the Bermuda Triangle, flying in formation over Norfolk, Virginia in 1942 (Public domain)(1945) US naval squadron disappears in the ‘Bermuda Triangle’
Two hours into a routine mission off Florida, the squadron’s flight leader reports his instruments have failed and communication drops. The rescue flight, too, disappears over the same waters. No trace of the aircrafts will be found, but the incident fuels the legend of the ‘Bermuda Triangle.’
Flight 19 was the designation of a group of five Grumman TBM Avenger torpedo bombers that disappeared over the Bermuda Triangle on December 5, 1945, after losing contact during a United States Navy overwater navigation training flight from Naval Air Station Fort Lauderdale, Florida. All 14 airmen on the flight were lost, as were all 13 crew members of a Martin PBM Mariner flying boat that subsequently launched from Naval Air Station Banana River to search for Flight 19. The PBM aircraft was known to accumulate flammable gasoline vapors in its bilges, and professional investigators have assumed that the PBM most likely exploded in mid-air while searching for the flight. Navy investigators could not determine the exact cause of the loss of Flight 19.
Date: Dec 05, 1945
Fatalities: 27
Destination: Naval Air Station Fort Lauderdale
Survivors: 0
Crew: 14
Aircraft type: Grumman TBF Avenger

Flight 19's scheduled navigation exercise on December 5, 1945
Flight 19’s scheduled navigation exercise on December 5, 1945. 1. Leave NAS Fort Lauderdale 14:10 on heading 091°, drop bombs at Hen and Chickens shoals (B) until about 15:00 then continue on heading 091° for 73 nautical miles (140 km) 2. Turn left to heading 346° and fly 73 nautical miles (140 km). 3. Turn left to heading 241° for 120 nautical miles (220 km) to end exercise north of NAS Fort Lauderdale. 4. 17:50 radio triangulation establishes flight’s position to within 50 nautical miles (93 km) of 29°N 79°W and their last reported course, 270°. 5. PBM Mariner leaves NAS Banana River 19:27. 6. 19:50 Mariner explodes near 28°N 80°W.
wiki/Flight_19
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(1945) US naval squadron disappears in the ‘Bermuda Triangle’.
Also on this day,

1791 | Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart dies at age 35
Ill for weeks and rushing to finish composing his requiem, Mozart dies in Vienna. During his final years, he wrote some of his most enduring music and his financial situation had brightened, slightly. What killed him? Historians largely dismiss rumors that his rival poisoned him and point to natural causes.
1933 | Champagne corks pop as prohibition ends in America
Utah casts the last vote needed to ratify the 21st Amendment to the Constitution that repeals the now-reviled 18th Amendment, which had made the manufacture, sale, and transport of alcohol illegal. Some states will opt to stay dry for years, and Mississippi won’t repeal prohibition until 1966.
1952 | Smog kills thousands in London
A heavy smog forms over London in the afternoon, and “The Great Smog,” a toxic mix of pollution from nearby factories, cars, and wood smoke, will become so dense over the following days that it’ll block out sunlight. Over 4,000 people will die from respiratory distress in the choking haze.

Today in History 12/05/17

Dorothy Wentworth (right) and a friend drink a cocktail at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York on December 5, 1933 (© AP)(1933) Champagne corks pop as prohibition ends in America
Utah casts the last vote needed to ratify the 21st Amendment to the Constitution that repeals the now-reviled 18th Amendment, which had made the manufacture, sale, and transport of alcohol illegal. Some states will opt to stay dry for years, and Mississippi won't repeal prohibition until 1966.

Prohibition in the United States was a nationwide constitutional ban on the production, importation, transportation, and sale of alcoholic beverages that remained in place from 1920 to 1933. During the 19th century, alcoholism, family violence, and saloon-based political corruption prompted activists, led by pietistic Protestants, to end the alcoholic beverage trade to cure the ill society and weaken the political opposition. One result was that many communities in the late 19th and early 20th centuries introduced alcohol prohibition, with the subsequent enforcement in law becoming a hotly debated issue. Prohibition supporters, called drys, presented it as a victory for public morals and health.

Promoted by the "dry" crusaders, the movement was led by pietistic Protestants and social Progressives in the Prohibition, Democratic, and Republican parties. It gained a national grass roots base through the Woman's Christian Temperance Union. After 1900 it was coordinated by the Anti-Saloon League. Opposition from the beer industry mobilized "wet" supporters from the Catholic and German Lutheran communities. They had funding to fight back but by 1917–18 the German community had been marginalized by the nation's war against Germany, and the brewing industry was shut down in state after state by the legislatures and finally nationwide under the Eighteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution in 1920. Enabling legislation, known as the Volstead Act, set down the rules for enforcing the federal ban and defined the types of alcoholic beverages that were prohibited. For example, religious use of wine was allowed. Private ownership and consumption of alcohol were not made illegal under federal law, but local laws were stricter in many areas, with some states banning possession outright.

In the 1920s the laws were widely disregarded, and tax revenues were lost. Very well organized criminal gangs took control of the beer and liquor supply for many cities, unleashing a crime wave that shocked the nation. By the late 1920s a new opposition mobilized nationwide. Wets attacked prohibition as causing crime, lowering local revenues, and imposing rural Protestant religious values on urban America. Prohibition ended with the ratification of the Twenty-first Amendment, which repealed the Eighteenth Amendment on December 5, 1933. Some states continued statewide prohibition, marking one of the last stages of the Progressive Era.

Although popular opinion believes that Prohibition failed, it succeeded in cutting overall alcohol consumption in half during the 1920s, and consumption remained below pre-Prohibition levels until the 1940s, suggesting that Prohibition did socialize a significant proportion of the population in temperate habits, at least temporarily. Some researchers contend that its political failure is attributable more to a changing historical context than to characteristics of the law itself. Criticism remains that Prohibition led to unintended consequences such as the growth of urban crime organizations and a century of Prohibition-influenced legislation. As an experiment it lost supporters every year, and lost tax revenue that governments needed when the Great Depression began in 1929.


Alcohol control in the United States
Map showing dry (red), wet (blue), and mixed (yellow) counties in the United States as of March 2012. (See List of dry communities by U.S. state.)

wiki/Prohibition_in_the_United_States
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