On this day:

On May 2, 2011, Osama bin Laden, the mastermind behind the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in the United States, is killed by U.S. forces during a raid on his compound hideout in Pakistan. The notorious, 54-year-old leader of Al Qaeda, the terrorist network of Islamic extremists, had been the target of a nearly decade-long international manhunt.

The raid began around 1 a.m. local time, when 23 U.S. Navy SEALs in two Black Hawk helicopters descended on the compound in Abbottabad, a tourist and military center north of Pakistan’s capital, Islamabad. One of the helicopters crash-landed into the compound but no one aboard was hurt. During the raid, which lasted approximately 40 minutes, five people, including bin Laden and one of his adult sons, were killed by U.S. gunfire. No Americans were injured in the assault. Afterward, bin Laden’s body was flown by helicopter to Afghanistan for official identification, then buried at an undisclosed location in the Arabian Sea less than 24 hours after his death, in accordance with Islamic practice.

Just after 11:30 p.m. EST on May 1 (Pakistan’s time zone is 9 hours ahead of Washington, D.C.), President Barack Obama, who monitored the raid in real time via footage shot by a drone flying high above Abbottabad, made a televised address from the White House, announcing bin Laden’s death. “Justice has been done,” the president said. After hearing the news, cheering crowds gathered outside the White House and in New York City’s Times Square and the Ground Zero site.

Based on computer files and other evidence the SEALs collected during the raid, it was later determined that bin Laden was making plans to assassinate President Obama and carry out a series of additional attacks against America, including one on the anniversary of September 11, the largest terrorist attack ever on U.S. soil, which left nearly 3,000 people dead. Shortly after the 2001 attack, President George W. Bush declared bin Laden, who was born into a wealthy family in Saudi Arabia in 1957 and used his multi-million-dollar inheritance to help establish al Qaeda and fund its activities, would be captured dead or alive. In December of that year, American-backed forces came close to capturing bin Laden in a cave complex in Afghanistan’s Tora Bora region; however, he escaped and would continue to elude U.S. authorities for years.

A break in the hunt for bin Laden came in August 2010, when C.I.A. analysts tracked the terrorist leader’s courier to the Abbottabad compound, located behind tall security walls in a residential neighborhood. (U.S. intelligence officials spent the ensuing months keeping the compound under surveillance; however, they were never certain bin Laden was hiding there until the raid took place.) The U.S. media had long reported bin Laden was believed to be hiding in the remote tribal areas along the Afghan-Pakistani border, so many Americans were surprised to learn the world’s most famous fugitive had likely spent the last five years of his life in a well-populated area less than a mile from an elite Pakistani military academy. After the raid, which the U.S. reportedly carried out without informing the Pakistani government in advance, some American officials suspected Pakistani authorities of helping to shelter bin Laden in Abbottabad, although there was no concrete evidence to confirm this.

Osama bin Laden’s Death Implications and Considerations
Operation Neptune Spear and Role of Technology
Getting Bin Laden

The modern legend of the Loch Ness Monster is born when a sighting makes local news on May 2, 1933. The newspaper Inverness Courier relates an account of a local couple who claim to have seen “an enormous animal rolling and plunging on the surface.” The story of the “monster” (a moniker chosen by the Courier editor) becomes a media phenomenon, with London newspapers sending correspondents to Scotland and a circus offering a 20,000 pound sterling reward for capture of the beast.

After the April 1933 sighting was reported in the newspaper on May 2, interest steadily grew, especially after another couple claimed to have seen the animal on land.

Amateur investigators have for decades kept an almost constant vigil, and in the 1960s several British universities launched sonar expeditions to the lake. Nothing conclusive was found, but in each expedition the sonar operators detected some type of large, moving underwater objects. In 1975, another expedition combined sonar and underwater photography in Loch Ness. A photo resulted that, after enhancement, appeared to show what vaguely resembled the giant flipper of an aquatic animal.

Further sonar expeditions in the 1980s and 1990s resulted in more inconclusive readings. Revelations in 1994 that the famous 1934 photo was a complete hoax has only slightly dampened the enthusiasm of tourists and investigators for the legendary beast of Loch Ness.

BarnBuster said:

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May 1, 1785 – Kamehameha I, the king of Hawaiʻi, defeats Kalanikūpule and establishes the Kingdom of Hawaiʻi. The Battle of Nuʻuanu, fought on the southern part of the island of Oʻahu, was a key battle in the final days of King Kamehameha I’s wars to unify the Hawaiian Islands. It is known in the Hawaiian language as Kalelekaʻanae, which means “the leaping mullet”, and refers to a number of Oahu warriors driven off the cliff in the final phase of the battle. The Battle of Nuʻuanu began when Kamehameha’s forces landed on the southeastern portion of Oʻahu near Waiʻalae and Waikiki. After spending several days gathering supplies and scouting Kalanikupule’s positions, Kamehameha’s army advanced westward, encountering Kalanikupule’s first line of defense near the Punchbowl Crater. Splitting his army into two, Kamehameha sent one half in a flanking maneuver around the crater and the other straight at Kalanikupule. Pressed from both sides, the Oʻahu forces retreated to Kalanikupule’s next line of defense near Laʻimi. While Kamehameha pursued, he secretly detached a portion of his army to clear the surrounding heights of the Nuʻuanu Valley of Kalanikupule’s cannons. Kamehameha also brought up his own cannons to shell Laʻimi. During this part of the battle, both Kalanikupule and Kaiana were wounded, Kaiana fatally. With its leadership in chaos, the Oʻahu army slowly fell back north through the Nuʻuanu Valley to the cliffs at Nuʻuanu Pali. Caught between the Hawaiian Army and a 1000-foot drop, over 400 Oʻahu warriors either jumped or were pushed over the edge of the Pali (cliff). In 1898 construction workers working on the Pali road discovered 800 skulls which were believed to be the remains of the warriors that fell to their deaths from the cliff above.

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A couple three years ago when Night Crawler did the PCT, the fellow who was hiking with him early on (who's name I forget) went to the islands while waiting out the snow in the Cascades. He camped the two weeks he was there, and in every park there was graffiti saying Hawaii will never be American. I figure they will split long before Texas does.

Margaret Thatcher, leader of the Conservative Party, becomes Britain’s first female prime minister on May 4, 1979. The Oxford-educated chemist and lawyer took office the day after the Conservatives won a 44-seat majority in general parliamentary elections.

Margaret Hilda Roberts was born in Grantham, England, in 1925. She was the first woman president of the Oxford University Conservative Association and in 1950 ran for Parliament in Dartford. She was defeated but garnered an impressive number of votes in the generally liberal district. In 1959, after marrying businessman Denis Thatcher and later giving birth to twins, she was elected to Parliament as a Conservative for Finchley, a north London district. During the 1960s, she rose rapidly in the ranks of the Conservative Party and in 1967 joined the shadow cabinet sitting in opposition to Harold Wilson’s ruling Labour cabinet. With the victory of the Conservative Party under Edward Heath in 1970, Thatcher became secretary of state for education and science.

In 1974, the Labour Party returned to power, and Thatcher served as joint shadow chancellor before replacing Edward Heath as the leader of the Conservative Party in February 1975. She was the first woman to head the Conservatives. Under her leadership, the Conservative Party shifted further right in its politics, calling for privatization of national industries and utilities and promising a resolute defense of Britain’s interests abroad. She also sharply criticized Prime Minister James Callaghan’s ineffectual handling of the chaotic labor strikes of 1978 and 1979.

In March 1979, Callaghan was defeated by a vote of no confidence, and on May 3 a general election gave Thatcher’s Conservatives a majority in Parliament. The next day, Prime Minister Thatcher immediately set about dismantling socialism in Britain. She privatized numerous industries, cut back government expenditures, and gradually reduced the rights of trade unions. In 1983, despite the worst unemployment figures for half a decade, Thatcher was reelected to a second term, thanks largely to the decisive British victory in the 1982 Falklands War with Argentina.

In other foreign affairs, the “Iron Lady” presided over the orderly establishment of an independent Zimbabwe (formerly Rhodesia) in 1980 and took a hard stance against Irish separatists in Northern Ireland. In October 1984, an Irish Republican Army (IRA) bomb exploded at the Conservative Party conference in Brighton. The prime minister narrowly escaped harm.

In 1987, an upswing in the economy led to her election to a third term, but Thatcher soon alienated some members of her own party because of her poll-tax policies and opposition to further British integration into the European Community. In November 1990, she failed to received a majority in the Conservative Party’s annual vote for selection of a leader. She withdrew her nomination, and John Major, the chancellor of the Exchequer since 1989, was chosen as Conservative leader. On November 28, Thatcher resigned as prime minister and was succeeded by Major. Thatcher’s three consecutive terms in office marked the longest continuous tenure of a British prime minister since 1827. In 1992, she was made a baroness and took a seat in the House of Lords.

In later years, Thatcher worked as a consultant, served as the chancellor of the College of William and Mary and wrote her memoirs, as well as other books on politics. She continued to work with the Thatcher Foundation, which she created to foster the ideals of democracy, free trade and cooperation among nations. Though she stopped appearing in public after suffering a series of small strokes in the early 2000s, her influence remained strong. In 2011, the former prime minister was the subject of an award-winning (and controversial) biographical film, The Iron Lady, which depicted her political rise and fall. Margaret Thatcher died on April 8, 2013, at the age of 87

"On May 4, 1970, in Kent, Ohio, 28 National Guardsmen fire their weapons at a group of anti-war demonstrators on the Kent State University campus, killing four students, wounding eight, and permanently paralyzing another. The tragedy was a watershed moment for a nation divided by the conflict in Vietnam, and further galvanized the anti-war movement.

Shock and disbelief of the tragic events spread worldwide within hours. By the following morning, James A. Rhodes, governor of Ohio, had called in the FBI. Richard Nixon, president of the United States, invited six Kent student representatives to meet with him after their meeting with a state congressman.

On May 21, 1970, Attorney General John Mitchell announced that the justice department would investigate the shootings to determine whether there had been criminal violations of federal laws. Two weeks later, the Ohio legislature passed a new campus riot bill providing for swift action and stiff penalties for those charged in connection with disturbances at state-assisted COLLEGES AND UNIVERSITIES.

By June 10, the first private lawsuit for wrongful death was filed in federal court by the father of a killed student. Governor Rhodes and two Ohio National Guard commanders were named as defendants. The parent also filed a second suit against the state of Ohio in local Portage County Court of Common Pleas. A few days later, the White House announced the naming of a special commission to investigate campus unrest at Kent, as well as the deaths of two black students at Jackson State University in Mississippi.

In September 1970, the President's Commission on Campus Unrest released its general report, which found the National Guard shootings "unwarranted." The report also found that the "violent and criminal" actions by students contributed to the tragedy and caused them to bear responsibility for deaths and injuries of fellow students. According to Kent State University Library archives, the report concluded that "The Kent State tragedy must surely mark the last time that loaded rifles are issued as a matter of course to guardsmen confronting student demonstrators."

A special state grand jury issued indictments against 25 persons in October 1970, but found, in its 18-page report, that the guardsmen were not subject to criminal prosecution because they "fired their weapons in the honest and sincere belief … that they would suffer serious bodily injury had they not done so." A federal district judge upheld the indictments against the individuals in January 1971. However, several private lawsuits against the state of Ohio were dismissed on grounds of sovereign immunity. Ohio's Eighth District Court of Appeals then ordered a lower court to consider on the merits any suits in which liability was based on the actions of individual Ohio state agents.

The Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals, meanwhile, upheld the Portage County Court's gag order prohibiting discussion of the shootings by 300 witnesses and others connected with the grand jury indictments. It also upheld the federal grand jury's 25 indictments and the district court's order to destroy the grand jury's report as prejudicial.

Going all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court was a challenge to Ohio's new anti-riot laws, but the Court, in a 6–1 decision, took no action and refused to delay scheduled trials. In November 1972, the first student was tried and convicted of the misdemeanor of interfering with a fireman. The jury could not reach a verdict on felony charges of arson, rioting, and throwing rocks at firemen. A few more students pleaded guilty to first-degree riot charges. Prosecutors then dropped all charges against 20 remaining defendants on grounds of lack of evidence, having put their strongest cases first and not being successful in any felony convictions.

In May 1972, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) filed several suits totaling $12 million in damages in federal district court against the Ohio National Guard and the State of Ohio. More than a year later, in August 1973, the Justice Department announced that it would reopen its investigation. Also in 1973, a federal grand jury reviewed Justice Department evidence and issued indictments against eight former guardsmen, officially charging them with violating the civil rights of students. In 1974, a federal district judge acquitted the guardsmen of all charges, ruling that U.S. prosecutors failed to prove willful or intentional deprivation of civil rights.

Once again, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a decision related to the tragedy. In the 1974 case of Scheur v. Rhodes, the Court reversed a lower court that found state officials immune from private suits by the parents of slain students. In 1975, all individual civil suits were consolidated into one case, Krause v. Rhodes. Following a 15-week trial, a federal jury, by a 9–3 vote, acquitted all 29 defendants, including Ohio Governor James Rhodes. The decision was appealed and in 1977, the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit ordered a retrial, based on evidence that at least one member of the jury had been threatened and assaulted. In January 1979, an out-of-court settlement was reached in all of the consolidated civil cases and approved by the Ohio State Controlling Board.

The $675,000 settlement was dispersed among 13 plaintiffs, the largest amount going to an injured student who was paralyzed in the incident. According to Kent University Library archived documents, the compensation was accompanied by a statement from the defendants that the May 4, 1970, tragedy "should not have occurred." The statement also noted that the Sixth Circuit had upheld as "lawful" the university's ban on rallies and its May 4 order for the students to disperse. The statement concluded, "We hope that the agreement to end this litigation will help assuage the tragic moments regarding that sad day.""

May 5, 1961. Just 23 days after Yuri Gagarin of the Soviet Union became the first person in space, NASA launched astronaut Alan Shepard aboard the Freedom 7 capsule powered by a Redstone booster to become the first American in space. His historic flight began from Cape Canaveral in Florida and lasted 15 minutes, 28 seconds, before a splashdown in the Atlantic Ocean.

During the rocket’s acceleration, Shepard experienced 6.3 g, or 6.3 times his normal weight, just before shutdown of the Redstone engine two minutes and 22 seconds after liftoff. Soon after, America’s first space traveler got his first view of the Earth and became one of the first astronauts to say: "What a beautiful view".

His spacecraft splashed down in the Atlantic, 302 miles (486 km) from Cape Canaveral, where he and Freedom 7 were recovered by helicopter and transported to the awaiting aircraft carrier USS Lake Champlain. After his flight, the astronaut said humorously: "It’s a very sobering feeling to be up in space and realize that one’s safety factor was determined by the lowest bidder on a government contract."

Alan Shepard was one of 110 test flight pilots who had volunteered for NASA’s manned space flight program – Project Mercury – in 1959. NASA selected him and six other pilots to be part of the project. All of the pilots went through a rigorous training regimen before NASA made a final selection. Of these magnificent seven, America’s first astronauts, NASA chose Shepard to become the first American to travel into space.

The first American to orbit Earth was John Glenn, aboard Friendship 7 on February 20, 1962.

NASA launched Alan Shepard into space against a backdrop of the Cold War. The Soviet Union had launched Yuri Gagarin on April 12, 1961, aboard a spacecraft named Vostok (Russian for East). Gagarin completed a single orbit of the Earth, landing after a flight of one hour and 29 minutes. He became a hero in the Soviet Union and around the world.

Three weeks later, NASA astronaut Alan Shepard flew aboard a Mercury spacecraft, which he had named Freedom 7. Kurt Debus, who was NASA’s Launch Operations director at the time and who would go on to serve as the first director of the Kennedy Space Center, said years later: "We knew we were in a competitive situation. But, we never permitted the pressure to make us take risks that might endanger Shepard’s life or the success of the mission."

Just weeks after Shepard’s flight, the Space Race began to heat up. On May 25, 1961, President John F. Kennedy gave a stirring speech before a joint session of Congress, in which he declared his intention to focus U.S. efforts on landing humans on the moon within a decade. Among other things, he said: "I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the Earth."

On February 5, 1971, Alan Shepard, the first American in space, became the fifth astronaut to walk on the moon as part of the Apollo 14 lunar landing mission.

injinji said:

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One of my favorite performers. Saw him lots in the 70's and 80's. Still going strong after all these years.

The airship Hindenburg, the largest dirigible ever built and the pride of Nazi Germany, bursts into flames upon touching its mooring mast in Lakehurst, New Jersey, killing 36 passengers and crew-members, on May 6, 1937.

Frenchman Henri Giffard constructed the first successful airship in 1852. His hydrogen-filled blimp carried a three-horsepower steam engine that turned a large propeller and flew at a speed of six miles per hour. The rigid airship, often known as the “zeppelin” after the last name of its innovator, Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin, was developed by the Germans in the late 19th century. Unlike French airships, the German ships had a light framework of metal girders that protected a gas-filled interior. However, like Giffard’s airship, they were lifted by highly flammable hydrogen gas and vulnerable to explosion. Large enough to carry substantial numbers of passengers, one of the most famous rigid airships was the Graf Zeppelin, a dirigible that traveled around the world in 1929. In the 1930s, the Graf Zeppelin pioneered the first transatlantic air service, leading to the construction of the Hindenburg, a larger passenger airship.

On May 3, 1937, the Hindenburg left Frankfurt, Germany, for a journey across the Atlantic to Lakehurst’s Navy Air Base. Stretching 804 feet from stern to bow, it carried 36 passengers and crew of 61. While attempting to moor at Lakehurst, the airship suddenly burst into flames, probably after a spark ignited its hydrogen core. Rapidly falling 200 feet to the ground, the hull of the airship incinerated within seconds. Thirteen passengers, 21 crewmen, and 1 civilian member of the ground crew lost their lives, and most of the survivors suffered substantial injuries.

Radio announcer Herb Morrison, who came to Lakehurst to record a routine voice-over for an NBC newsreel, immortalized the Hindenberg disaster in a famous on-the-scene description in which he emotionally declared, “Oh, the humanity!” The recording of Morrison’s commentary was immediately flown to New York, where it was aired as part of America’s first coast-to-coast radio news broadcast. Lighter-than-air passenger travel rapidly fell out of favor after the Hindenberg disaster, and no rigid airships survived World War II.

The Hindenburg Disaster | Airships.net

The Hindenburg disaster at Lakehurst, New Jersey on May 6, 1937 brought an end to the age of the rigid airship. The disaster killed 35...

www.airships.net

On May 8, 1902, Mount Pelee, a volcano on the Island of Martinique in the Lesser Antilles, Caribbean, erupted and destroyed Saint-Pierre, a city of 30,000 people that was located about four miles from the volcano. Every person in the city, with a few exceptions, was killed. The eruption burst out of the side of the volcano rather than from the top. As a result the cloud of pyroclastic material swept rapidly across the ground, overwhelming the city of Saint-Pierre.

A pyroclastic flow of superheated gases and fragments of volcanic material had swept rapidly along the surface of the ground instead of moving upward into the atmosphere as often happens with volcanic eruptions. In this case it seems that a mass of magma had solidified near the top of the volcano, preventing the escape of material vertically when internal pressures reached the point of eruption, thus forcing a horizontal outburst of hot lava and gases.

The people of Saint-Pierre as well as those on ships in the harbor were overwhelmed by a mass of red-hot volcanic material racing toward the city at 100 mph.

The city’s entire population died almost instantly. The volcano had provided many warnings of an impending eruption, if only the science of volcanology had been far enough advanced for the warnings to have been understood. Andtragically, for political reasons, government authorities on Martinique discouraged, and in at least one town prohibited ,the evacuation of people despite obvious indications of volcanic activity. The catastrophe also ended a political movement that could have led to a more representative form of government on that island colony of France.

BarnBuster said:

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The airship Hindenburg, the largest dirigible ever built and the pride of Nazi Germany, bursts into flames upon touching its mooring mast in Lakehurst, New Jersey, killing 36 passengers and crew-members, on May 6, 1937.

Frenchman Henri Giffard constructed the first successful airship in 1852. His hydrogen-filled blimp carried a three-horsepower steam engine that turned a large propeller and flew at a speed of six miles per hour. The rigid airship, often known as the “zeppelin” after the last name of its innovator, Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin, was developed by the Germans in the late 19th century. Unlike French airships, the German ships had a light framework of metal girders that protected a gas-filled interior. However, like Giffard’s airship, they were lifted by highly flammable hydrogen gas and vulnerable to explosion. Large enough to carry substantial numbers of passengers, one of the most famous rigid airships was the Graf Zeppelin, a dirigible that traveled around the world in 1929. In the 1930s, the Graf Zeppelin pioneered the first transatlantic air service, leading to the construction of the Hindenburg, a larger passenger airship.

On May 3, 1937, the Hindenburg left Frankfurt, Germany, for a journey across the Atlantic to Lakehurst’s Navy Air Base. Stretching 804 feet from stern to bow, it carried 36 passengers and crew of 61. While attempting to moor at Lakehurst, the airship suddenly burst into flames, probably after a spark ignited its hydrogen core. Rapidly falling 200 feet to the ground, the hull of the airship incinerated within seconds. Thirteen passengers, 21 crewmen, and 1 civilian member of the ground crew lost their lives, and most of the survivors suffered substantial injuries.

Radio announcer Herb Morrison, who came to Lakehurst to record a routine voice-over for an NBC newsreel, immortalized the Hindenberg disaster in a famous on-the-scene description in which he emotionally declared, “Oh, the humanity!” The recording of Morrison’s commentary was immediately flown to New York, where it was aired as part of America’s first coast-to-coast radio news broadcast. Lighter-than-air passenger travel rapidly fell out of favor after the Hindenberg disaster, and no rigid airships survived World War II.

The Hindenburg Disaster | Airships.net

The Hindenburg disaster at Lakehurst, New Jersey on May 6, 1937 brought an end to the age of the rigid airship. The disaster killed 35...

www.airships.net

What Really Felled the Hindenburg?

On the anniversary of the conflagration, mysteries still remain

www.smithsonianmag.com

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The whole PBS science show lineup on Wednesday night was about this. (it was all re-runs though, so I worked on my seed trays instead of watching it all again) They showed how the sparks started due to a combination of rain and the grounding lines, and one of the gas bags was leaking at the time.

"On May 8, 1980, the 33rd World Health Assembly declared the world free of smallpox. This followed approximately 2 1/2 years after the last documented naturally occurring case of smallpox was diagnosed in a hospital worker in Merca, Somalia. A major breakthrough for the eventual control of this disease was the discovery of an effective vaccine by Edward Jenner in 1796. In 1966 the World Health Assembly voted a special budget to eliminate smallpox from the world. At that time, smallpox was endemic in more than 30 countries. Mass vaccination programs were successful in many Western countries; however, a different approach was taken in developing countries. This approach was known as surveillance and containment. Surveillance was aided by extensive house-to-house searches and rewards offered for persons reporting smallpox cases. Containment measures included ring vaccination and isolation of cases and contacts. Hospitals played a major role in transmission in a number of smallpox outbreaks. The World Health Organization is currently supporting several control programs and has not singled out another disease for eradication. The lessons learned from the smallpox campaign can be readily applied to other public health programs."

On May 10, 1869, the presidents of the Union Pacific and Central Pacific railroads meet in Promontory, Utah, and drive a ceremonial last spike into a rail line that connects their railroads. This made transcontinental railroad travel possible for the first time in U.S. history. No longer would western-bound travelers need to take the long and dangerous journey by wagon train.

Since at least 1832, both Eastern and frontier statesmen realized a need to connect the two coasts. It was not until 1853, though, that Congress appropriated funds to survey several routes for the transcontinental railroad. The actual building of the railroad would have to wait even longer, as North-South tensions prevented Congress from reaching an agreement on where the line would begin.

One year into the Civil War, a Republican-controlled Congress passed the Pacific Railroad Act (1862), guaranteeing public land grants and loans to the two railroads it chose to build the transcontinental line, the Union Pacific and the Central Pacific. With these in hand, the railroads began work in 1866 from Omaha and Sacramento, forging a northern route across the country. In their eagerness for land, the two lines built right past each other, and the final meeting place had to be renegotiated.

Harsh winters, staggering summer heat and the lawless, rough-and-tumble conditions of newly settled western towns made conditions for the Union Pacific laborers—mainly Civil War veterans of Irish descent—miserable. The overwhelmingly immigrant Chinese work force of the Central Pacific also had its fair share of problems, including brutal 12-hour work days laying tracks over the Sierra Nevada Mountains (they also received lower wages than their white counterparts). On more than one occasion, whole crews would be lost to avalanches, or mishaps with explosives would leave several dead.

For all the adversity they suffered, the Union Pacific and Central Pacific workers were able to finish the railroad–laying nearly 2,000 miles of track–by 1869, ahead of schedule and under budget. Journeys that had taken months by wagon train or weeks by boat now took only days. Their work had an immediate impact: The years following the construction of the railway were years of rapid growth and expansion for the United States, due in large part to the speed and ease of travel that the railroad provided.

"On May 11, 1934, a massive storm sends millions of tons of topsoil flying from across the parched Great Plains region of the United States as far east as New York, Boston and Atlanta.

At the time the Great Plains were settled in the mid-1800s, the land was covered by prairie grass, which held moisture in the earth and kept most of the soil from blowing away even during dry spells. By the early 20th century, however, farmers had plowed under much of the grass to create fields. The U.S. entry into World War I in 1917 caused a great need for wheat, and farms began to push their fields to the limit, plowing under more and more grassland with the newly invented tractor. The plowing continued after the war, when the introduction of even more powerful gasoline tractors sped up the process. During the 1920s, wheat production increased by 300 percent, causing a glut in the market by 1931.

That year, a severe drought spread across the region. As crops died, wind began to carry dust from the over-plowed and over-grazed lands. The number of dust storms reported jumped from 14 in 1932 to 28 in 1933. The following year, the storms decreased in frequency but increased in intensity, culminating in the most severe storm yet in May 1934. Over a period of two days, high-level winds caught and carried some 350 million tons of silt all the way from the northern Great Plains to the eastern seaboard. According to The New York Times, dust “lodged itself in the eyes and throats of weeping and coughing New Yorkers,” and even ships some 300 miles offshore saw dust collect on their decks.

The dust storms forced thousands of families from Texas, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Colorado, Kansas and New Mexico to uproot and migrate to California, where they were derisively known as “Okies”–no matter which state they were from. These transplants found life out West not much easier than what they had left, as work was scarce and pay meager during the worst years of the Great Depression"

On Sunday, May 12, 1985, police began going around a West Philadelphia neighborhood and telling residents to evacuate within 12 hours.

Police erected barricades around a four-block area and established a command post. At midnight, police went door to door, asking residents still in their homes to evacuate quickly. At 12:15 a.m. Monday, a radical group known as MOVE warned police using its public-address system. The message was, “You’re going to see something you’ve never seen before.”

At 5:27 p.m. on May 13 police dropped a "percussion" bomb (this is a misnomer, it was actually 2 one pound sticks of Du Pont Tovex TR-2 [an explosive gel used mainly in mining and quarry applications], similar to dynamite placed in a satchel and dropped from a helicopter onto MOVE’s roof. It was also purported but never definitely proven that the military explosive C-4 was used in it's place or as a kicker. )bb. on the MOVE rowhouse on Osage Avenue that left six adults and five children dead and 60 homes destroyed.

What happened that night actually started years before. The origins, according to a United Press International story published on May 14, 1985, “traces its origins to the waning days of the 1960s counter-culture era. MOVE was founded in 1972 by Vincent Leaphart, a Black third-grade dropout, and Donald Glassey, a white college teacher with a master’s degree in social work. In 1973, the pair moved into a twin, Victorian home in Philadelphia’s Powelton Village section, near the University of Pennsylvania and Drexel University. They began to write a book containing the beliefs of Leaphart, who had changed his name to John Africa.

Early on, the group was known as the Community Action Movement but the name was later shortened to MOVE. The group was, and still is, predominantly Black. All its members use the surname Africa. Under John Africa’s direction, MOVE espoused a back-to-nature philosophy, eschewing modern convenience such as electricity. It opposed the killing of any animals, including the rats seen scurrying around the run-down house in Powelton Village, situated about three miles from the scene of yesterday’s action in West Philadelphia.

MOVE members refused to use soap or to cut their hair, worn in a braided style known as dreadlocks. Believing that food should be recycled into the earth, they routinely threw garbage on the ground around the house. Neighbors began complaining about the health hazards posed by MOVE’s lifestyle.”

In the late 1970s, according to the report, MOVE had run-ins with city officials and the police including a nine-hour confrontation in May 1977. Eleven MOVE members were charged with weapons offenses as a result. “In March 1978, police, in a tactic approved by the state Supreme Court, sealed off a four-block area around the house and prevented the group from obtaining food and water. The blockade was designed to force the 11 to surrender.

The 50-day siege ended on May 3, 1978, when MOVE members agreed to lay down their arms and surrender. But, as time passed, they refused to adhere to the agreement. A judge ordered the arrest of 21 of them on contempt charges. On the morning of Aug. 8, 1978, several hundred police and firefighters converged on the house to enforce the judge’s order. Gunshots erupted from the house and Officer James Ramp, 52, was shot to death. Police returned fire.

Before the shooting ended, four other officers, four firefighters and one MOVE member were wounded. The same day, the city bulldozed the MOVE house. ‘We demonstrated patience and tolerance for their abuses against our community for and beyond what civilized people have a right to expect,’ said then-Mayor Frank Rizzo. ‘There is no question that MOVE fired the first shot.’

On Dec. 10, 1979, nine MOVE members went on trial in Ramp’s death. They were convicted five months later and sentenced to serve 30 to 300 days in jail. Three police officers were acquitted of charges they beat a MOVE member, Delbert Orr Africa, after the shoot-out. On May 13, 1981, after three years of being a fugitive, John Africa was arrested on federal charges of bomb making and rioting in Rochester, N.Y. He was later acquitted.

MOVE members began moving into their present home in 1981.” On May 14, 1985, United Press International reported, “A police helicopter dropped a percussion bomb on a filthy inner-city row house yesterday to flush out members of the radical group MOVE, injuring two occupants and engulfing as many as 16 buildings in flames, authorities said.”

The news source reported that that the MOVE house “burst into flames, its roof collapsed and thick brown smoke billowed out of the building and five adjoining houses.” The report said the MOVE house was “filthy and rat-infested.” After the bomb was dropped, UPI reported that it was more than a hour before firefighters began using their hoses on the flames.

Mayor W. Wilson Goode, when asked why police would drop a bomb when they knew children were in the house, said, “There’s no way you could avoid it. I don’t believe there is any way to extradite them without an armed confrontation.” Goode previously had said that he was convinced MOVE wanted a violent confrontation and was not interested in negotiations. “Whenever you are engaged in a difficult attack of this kind, you always have the worst case scenario. What you see here is the worst that could happen – loss of property. I said last week [it was] a very explosive situation.”

A report issued in 1986 determined police “used grossly negligent” tactics and “committed an unconscionable act by dropping a bomb on an occupied row house.” MOVE survivors later sued the city and police and in 1996 were awarded a $1.5 million settlement.

Philadelphia earned the reputation as “the city that bombed itself"

The mystery of the C-4 explosive remains unsolved | 1986

Thirty 1 1/4-pound blocks of C-4 definitely is not a small amount. So, why did the agent do it?

www.inquirer.com

Remains Of Black Children Killed In MOVE Bombing Cannot Be Located

Six adults and five children lost their lives during the 1985 attack on Philadelphia's MOVE compound. And now two Ivy League universities can't confirm the whereabouts of the remains of two children.

www.npr.org

Remains of children killed in MOVE bombing sat in a box at Penn Museum for decades

Where are they now, and who is responsible for them? No one seems to know.

billypenn.com

On May 15, 1972, During an outdoor rally in Laurel, Maryland, George Wallace, the governor of Alabama and a presidential candidate, is shot by 21-year-old Arthur Bremer. Three others were wounded, and Wallace was permanently paralyzed from the waist down. The next day, while fighting for his life in a hospital, he won major primary victories in Michigan and Maryland. On June 8, Shirley Chisholm, the first Black woman elected to Congress and one of Wallace's opponents for the Democratic nomination, famously visited him in the hospital to wish him well. He remained in the hospital for several months, bringing his third presidential campaign to an irrevocable end.

Wallace, one of the most controversial politicians in U.S. history, was elected governor of Alabama in 1962 under an ultra-segregationist platform. In his 1963 inaugural address, Wallace promised his white followers: “Segregation now! Segregation tomorrow! Segregation forever!” However, the promise lasted only six months. In June 1963, under federal pressure, he was forced to end his blockade of the University of Alabama and allow the enrollment of African American students.

Despite his failures in slowing the accelerating civil rights movement in the South, Wallace became a national spokesman for resistance to racial change and in 1964 entered the race for the U.S. presidency. Although defeated in most Democratic presidential primaries he entered, his modest successes demonstrated the extent of popular backlash against integration. In 1968, he made another strong run as the candidate of the American Independent Party and managed to get on the ballot in all 50 states. On Election Day, he drew 10 million votes from across the country.

In 1972, Governor Wallace returned to the Democratic Party for his third presidential campaign and, under a slightly more moderate platform, was showing promising returns when Arthur Bremer shot him on May 15, 1972. After his recovery, he faded from national prominence and made a poor showing in his fourth and final presidential campaign in 1976. During the 1980s, Wallace’s politics shifted dramatically, especially in regard to race. He contacted civil rights leaders he had so forcibly opposed in the past and asked their forgiveness. In time, he gained the political support of Alabama’s growing African American electorate and in 1983 was elected Alabama governor for the last time with their overwhelming support. During the next four years, the man who had promised segregation forever made more African American political appointments than any other figure in Alabama history.

He announced his retirement in 1986, telling the Alabama electorate in a tearful address that “I’ve climbed my last political mountain, but there are still some personal hills I must climb. But for now, I must pass the rope and the pick to another climber and say climb on, climb on to higher heights. Climb on ’til you reach the very peak. Then look back and wave at me. I, too, will still be climbing.” He died in 1998.

Bremer was found guilty and sentenced to 63 years (53 years after an appeal) in a Maryland prison for the shooting of Wallace and three bystanders.
After 35 years of incarceration, Bremer was released from prison on November 9, 2007.