Today in History 05/27/17

Jedediah Smith, only known likeness, drawing circa 1835 (© REX Features)(1831) Pioneering mountain man meets his end
Jedediah Strong Smith, 32, has earned his middle name by surviving three massacres, a bear mauling, and travels through the vast wilds of the American West, including the unforgiving Mojave Desert. Exploring near the Santa Fe Trail in present day Kansas, Smith is killed by Comanche warriors.
Jedediah Strong Smith, was a clerk, frontiersman, hunter, trapper, author, cartographer, and explorer of the Rocky Mountains, the North American West, and the Southwest during the early 19th century. After 75 years of obscurity following his death, Smith was rediscovered as the American whose explorations led to the use of the 20-mile-wide South Pass as the dominant point of crossing the Continental Divide for pioneers on the Oregon Trail.
Born: Jan 06, 1799 · Bainbridge, NY
Died: May 27, 1831 · Ulysses, KS
Romance: NN Smith
Parents: Sally Smith (Mother) · Jedediah Strong Smith, I (Father)
Children: Gordon Smith (Son)
Siblings: Austin Smith · Peter Smith · Ira Smith
Highlights
  • 1822: Coming from a modest family background, Smith traveled to St. Louis and joined William H. Ashley and Andrew Henry’s fur trading company in 1822.

  • 1826: Smith and his party of 15 other men left the Bear River on August 7, 1826, and after retrieving the cache he had left earlier, headed south through present-day Utah and Nevada to the Colorado River, finding increasingly harsh conditions and difficult travel.

  • 1828: Smith and his party of 15 other men left the Bear River on August 7, 1826, and after retrieving the cache he had left earlier, headed south through present-day Utah and Nevada to the Colorado River, finding increasingly harsh conditions and difficult travel.

  • 1829: Late in 1829, Smith Jackson and Sublette wrote another letter to William Clark.

  • 1830: Smith later wrote a letter to Secretary of War John Eaton in 1830 making the location of the South Pass public information.

  • 1831: The only known portrait of Jedediah Smith, painted after his death in 1831, showed the long hair he wore over the side of his head, to hide his scars.

wiki/Jedediah_Smith
Russian and Japanese warships clash at the Battle of Tsushima during the Russo-Japanese War, 27-28 May 1905 (© Hulton Archive/Getty Images)(1905) First naval battle of its kind pits Russia vs. Japan
The first and only ‘decisive’ naval battle fought by modern steel battleship fleets, and also the first in which radio communications play a decisive role, the Battle of Tsushima will result in a crushing blow to the mighty Russian Imperial Navy, as Japanese forces destroy almost their entire fleet.
The Battle of Tsushima, also known as the Battle of Tsushima Strait and the Naval Battle of the Sea of Japan in Japan, was a major naval battle fought between Russia and Japan during the Russo-Japanese War. It was naval history’s only decisive sea battle fought by modern steel battleship fleets, and the first naval battle in which wireless telegraphy played a critically important role. It has been characterized as the “dying echo of the old era – for the last time in the history of naval warfare ships of the line of a beaten fleet surrendered on the high seas.”
Start date: May 27, 1905
End date: May 28, 1905

wiki/Battle_of_Tsushima
Louis Zamperini peers out of the hatch nose of a bomber on Jan 1, 1943 (© Jack Rice/AP Photo)(1943) A survivor’s incredible odyssey begins
Former Olympic track runner and now US Army Air Corps bombardier, Louie Zamperini is shot down 850 miles south of Oahu, Hawaii. He will survive 47 days on the open ocean, only to be captured, imprisoned, and tortured in Japanese POW camps, all of which prove Zamperini is “unbreakable.”
Louis Silvie “Louie” Zamperini was a US prisoner of war survivor in World War II, a Christian evangelist and an Olympic distance runner. Zamperini took up running in high school and qualified for the US in the 5000m race for the 1936 Berlin Olympics. He finished 8th in the event. In 1941 he was commissioned into the United States Army Air Forces as a Lieutenant. He served as a bombardier in B-24 Liberators in the Pacific. On a search and rescue mission, mechanical difficulties forced Zamperini’s plane to crash in the ocean. After drifting at sea for 46-47 days he landed on the Japanese occupied Marshall Islands and was captured. He was taken to a prison camp in Japan where he was tortured. Following the war he initially struggled to overcome his ordeal. Later he became a Christian Evangelist with a strong belief in forgiveness. Zamperini is the subject of two biographical films, the 2014 Unbroken and the 2015 Captured by Grace.
Lived: Jan 26, 1917 – Jul 02, 2014 (age 97)
Height: 5′ 11″ (1.80 m)
Spouse: Cynthia Applewhite (m. 1946 – 2001)
Movies: Zamperini: Still Carrying the Torch
Education: Torrance High School · University of Southern California
Children: Cissy Zamperini (Daughter) · Luke Zamperini (Son)
Highlights
  • 1943: His death had mistakenly been announced previously, when the US government classified him as KIA during World War II, after his B-24 Liberator aircraft went down in 1943, and no survivors were located by the military.

  • 1946: Louis Zamperini married Cynthia Applewhite on May 25, 1946; their marriage lasted 55 years till 2001.

  • 2010: In 2010, Zamperini detailed his experiences in Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption, written by Laura Hillenbrand.

  • 2011: In May 2011, Zamperini was guest of honor at Magellan Christian Academy’s graduation ceremony with over 700 attendees at the University of North Florida in Jacksonville, Florida.

  • 2011: In late July 2011, Zamperini received the Kappa Sigma Golden Heart Award during the Kappa Sigma 68th Biennial Grand Conclave held at the Flamingo Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada.

  • 2014: After Zamperini’s death on July 2, 2014, the Tournament announced that it is “committed to honoring him as the Grand Marshal of the 2015 Rose Parade”.

wiki/Louis_Zamperini
Russian writer and former Nobel Prize-winner Alexander Solzhenitsyn arrives at Vladivostok airport on May 27, 1994 (© Michael Evstafiev/AFP/Getty Images)(1994) Banished son of Russia returns to his motherland
Winner of 1970’s Nobel Prize in Literature, author Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn returns to the homeland that exiled him for the very writing that garnered him acclaim. Communism’s fall now allows the author of ‘The Gulag Archipelago’ to be reunited with a country he hasn’t seen for 20 years.
Aleksandr Isayevich Solzhenitsyn was a Russian novelist, historian, and short story writer. He was an outspoken critic of the Soviet Union and communism and helped to raise global awareness of its Gulag forced labor camp system. He was allowed to publish only one work in the Soviet Union, One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, in the periodical Novy Mir. After this he had to publish in the West, most notably Cancer Ward, August 1914, and The Gulag Archipelago. Solzhenitsyn was awarded the 1970 Nobel Prize in Literature “for the ethical force with which he has pursued the indispensable traditions of Russian literature”. Solzhenitsyn was afraid to go to Stockholm to receive his award for fear that he would not be allowed to reenter. He was eventually expelled from the Soviet Union in 1974, but returned to Russia in 1994 after the state’s dissolution.
Lived: Dec 11, 1918 – Aug 03, 2008 (age 89)
Spouse: Natalia Dmitrievna Svetlova (m. 1973 – 2008) · Natalia Alekseevna Reshetovskaya (m. 1957 – 1972) · Natalia Alekseevna Reshetovskaya (m. 1940 – 1952)
Awards: Nobel Prize in Literature (1970) · State Prize of the Russian Federation (2006) · Templeton Prize (1983)
Education: Southern Federal University · Rostov State University
Children: Ignat Solzhenitsyn (Son) · Stepan Solzhenitsyn (Son) · Yermolai Solzhenitsyn (Son)
Parents: Taisiya Solzhenitsyna (Mother) · Isaakiy Solzhenitsyn (Father)

wiki/Aleksandr_Solzhenitsyn
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