Half Armenian, Full Eagle
One year ago, I posted about the Armenian Genocide, I just wanted to remind people to think about today and what happened and to read articles about it.
Here is the Memorial of the Armenian Genocide in Yerevan, Armenia
When I traveled to Armenia, this is one of the places we visited and it was very emotional because many of my ancestors were killing in the Genocide by the Young Turks.
President Abraham Lincoln was on his way to see “Our American Cousin” at Ford’s Theatre on April 14th, 1865 (the day before) when it was interrupted by the gun shot of John Wilkes Booth. He then proceeded to jump off the balcony screaming “Sic Semper Tyrannis” (Thus always to tyrants). Booth’s leg got caught on the American Flag (which is ironic since he was a confederate sympathizer) and when he fell, he broke his leg.
The unconscious Lincoln was carried across the street to the Petersen House and into the room of a War Department clerk. The bullet had entered behind the left ear and ripped a path through the left side of his brain, mortally wounding him. He died on April 15, 1865.
Here is a copy of the autopsy that was completed on Lincoln:
After President Abraham Lincoln passed away on the morning of April 15, 1865, his body was returned by hearse to the White House shortly after 9:00 A.M. Accompanied by an escort of cavalry, the solemn procession slowly moved up 10th Street to G Street and thence to the White House. Mr. Lincoln’s temporary coffin was wrapped in an American flag. His remains were transported to the Guest Room which was on the second floor at the front right-hand corner of the building (northwest corner). Nine men were present for the autopsy. These included Surgeon General Dr. Joseph K. Barnes, Lincoln family physician, Dr. Robert King Stone, Dr. Charles Sabin Taft, Assistant Surgeon General Dr. Charles H. Crane, Army Assistant Surgeon William Morrow Notson, General Rucker of the Army’s Quartermaster Department (whose men had escorted the hearse back to the White House), Lincoln’s friend, Orville H. Browning, Army Assistant Surgeon Joseph Janvier Woodward (who also assisted with and wrote the details of John Wilkes Booth’s autopsy), and Army Assistant Surgeon Edward Curtis. During the necropsy Mary Todd Lincoln sent a messenger to request a lock of hair, and a tuft was clipped from the head for her. The actual work of the autopsy was done by Dr. Curtis and Dr. Woodward. Dr. Curtis’ informal description of the autopsy (in a letter to his mother) is as follows (Dr. Woodward’s formal report follows Dr. Curtis’ description):
The room…contained but little furniture: a large, heavily curtained bed, a sofa or two, bureau, wardrobe, and chairs comprised all there was. Seated around the room were several general officers and some civilians, silent or conversing in whispers, and to one side, stretched upon a rough framework of boards and covered only with sheets and towels, lay - cold and immovable - what but a few hours before was the soul of a great nation. The Surgeon General was walking up and down the room when I arrived and detailed me the history of the case. He said that the President showed most wonderful tenacity of life, and, had not his wound been necessarily mortal, might have survived an injury to which most men would succumb…Dr. Woodward and I proceeded to open the head and remove the brain down to the track of the ball. The latter had entered a little to the left of the median line at the back of the head, had passed almost directly forwards through the center of the brain and lodged. Not finding it readily, we proceeded to remove the entire brain, when, as I was lifting the latter from the cavity of the skull, suddenly the bullet dropped out through my fingers and fell, breaking the solemn silence of the room with its clatter, into an empty basin that was standing beneath. There it lay upon the white china, a little black mass no bigger than the end of my finger - dull, motionless and harmless, yet the cause of such mighty changes in the world’s history as we may perhaps never realize….silently, in one corner of the room, I prepared the brain for weighing. As I looked at the mass of soft gray and white substance that I was carefully washing, it was impossible to realize that it was that mere clay upon whose workings, but the day before, rested the hopes of the nation. I felt more profoundly impressed than ever with the mystery of that unknown something which may be named ‘vital spark’ as well as anything else, whose absence or presence makes all the immeasurable difference between an inert mass of matter owning obedience to no laws but those covering the physical and chemical forces of the universe, and on the other hand, a living brain by whose silent, subtle machinery a world may be ruled.
The weighing of the brain…gave approximate results only, since there had been some loss of brain substance, in consequence of the wound, during the hours of life after the shooting. But the figures, as they were, seemed to show that the brain weight was not above the ordinary for a man of Lincoln’s size.
Dr. Woodward’s formal report of the autopsy, written to the Surgeon General, is as follows:
Surgeon General’s Office
Washington City D.C.
April 15, 1865
Brigadier General J.K. Barnes
Surgeon General U.S.A.
General:I have the honor to report that in obedience to your orders and aided by Assistant Surgeon E. Curtis, U.S.A., I made in your presence at 12 o’clock this morning an autopsy on the body of President Abraham Lincoln, with the following results: The eyelids and surrounding parts of the face were greatly ecchymosed and the eyes somewhat protuberant from effusion of blood into the orbits.
There was a gunshot wound of the head around which the scalp was greatly thickened by hemorrhage into its tissue. The ball entered through the occipital bone about one inch to the left of the median line and just above the left lateral sinus, which it opened. It then penetrated the dura matter, passed through the left posterior lobe of the cerebrum, entered the left lateral ventricle and lodged in the white matter of the cerebrum just above the anterior portion of the left corpus striatum, where it was found.
The wound in the occipital bone was quite smooth, circular in shape, with bevelled edges. The opening through the internal table being larger than that through the external table. The track of the ball was full of clotted blood and contained several little fragments of bone with small pieces of the ball near its external orifice. The brain around the track was pultaceous and livid from capillary hemorrhage into its substance. The ventricles of the brain were full of clotted blood. A thick clot beneath the dura matter coated the right cerebral lobe.
There was a smaller clot under the dura matter of the left side. But little blood was found at the base of the brain. Both the orbital plates of the frontal bone were fractured and the fragments pushed upwards toward the brain. The dura matter over these fractures was uninjured. The orbits were gorged with blood. I have the honor of being very respectfully your obedient servant.
J.J. Woodward
Assistant Surgeon
U.S.A.
- Source
John Wilkes Booth was an actor and Confederate who had also planned the attack on Secretary of State William H. Seward. Booth hoped to overthrow the Federal government by assassinating Lincoln, Seward, and Vice President Andrew Johnson. Though Booth succeeded in killing Lincoln, the larger plot failed. Seward would recover from his wounds, and Johnson was never attacked because he was not where he was scheduled to be.
Booth had a different plan which was to just kidnap the President and take him south, then to exchange Lincoln for the release of Confederate prisoners of war. That plan changed on April 11, 1865, Booth attended a speech outside the White House in which Lincoln gave support for the idea of voting rights for blacks.
Booth was on the run for days until he was found in Richard Garrett’s barn where the soldiers were ordered to set it on fire. Sergeant Boston Corbett fired at Booth against orders, fatally wounding him in the neck. Booth was dragged from the fire to a porch of the nearby farmhouse. The bullet had severed his spinal cord, paralyzing him. John Wilkes Booth’s last words were reportedly, “Useless, useless.”
March 17, popularly known as St. Patrick’s Day, is believed to be his death date and is the date celebrated as his feast day. The day became a feast day in the universal church due to the influence of the Waterford-born Franciscan scholar Luke Wadding, as a member of the commission for the reform of the Breviary in the early part of the 17th century.
For most of Christianity’s first thousand years, canonisations were done on the diocesan or regional level. Relatively soon after the death of people considered to be very holy people, the local Church affirmed that they could be liturgically celebrated as saints. As a result, St. Patrick has never been formally canonised by a Pope, but he is still widely venerated in Ireland and elsewhere today.
St. Patrick is also venerated in the Orthodox Church, especially among English-speaking Orthodox Christians living in the United Kingdom and Ireland and in North America. There are even Orthodox icons dedicated to him.
St Patrick’s Day is celebrated by many people even those who are not Irish. It is primarily a time when college students go on Spring Break and drink. Even though Boston has the longest running celebration, the parade in New York City is the biggest celebration. The River is dyed green with Fluorescein for the celebration in Chicago.
The longest-running Saint Patrick’s Day celebrations in the U.S. are:
* Boston, Massachusetts, since 1737
* New York City, since 1756
* Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, since 1771
* Morristown, New Jersey, since 1780
* Buffalo, New York, since 1811
* Savannah, Georgia, since 1813
* Carbondale, Pennsylvania, since 1833
* Chicago, Illinois, since 1843
* New Haven, Connecticut, since 1845
* San Francisco, California, since 1852
* Scranton, Pennsylvania, since 1862
* Cleveland, Ohio, since 1867
* Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, since 1869
* Kansas City, Missouri, since 1873
* Butte, Montana, since 1882
On a side note, Irish Boston based band “Drop Kick Murphys” will be the headlining act for the Plymouth State University Spring Fling celebration on May 5, 2007
The boy’s name Timothy \t(i)-mo-thy\ is pronounced TIM-oh-thee. It is of Greek origin, and its meaning is “God’s honor”. Biblical: Timothy was an energetic, well-trained young Christian who was a companion of Saint Paul, who wrote to him, “Let no man look down on your youth”. According to tradition, he was martyred after denouncing worshipers of the Greek moon goddess Diana. 19th-century novelist Charles Dickens gave the name an lasting association in his beloved work “A Christmas Carol”. The story turns on the fate of the crippled but ever-cheerful Tiny Tim, who greets every holiday season with the cry, “God bless us, every one!” The name was uncommon until the 18th century. Timoteo and Timo are Spanish forms.
I wanted to know the meaning of my first name so when I looked it up, I realized that it means “God’s Honor”. That seems very appropriate for who I am 
This day in history 27 years ago, the US Olympic Team beat the Soviets in one of the biggest upsets in sports history. The movie Miracle, starring Kurt Russell as Herb Brooks, was released in 2004. This victory was voted the greatest sports moment of the twentieth century by Sports Illustrated
U.S. vs. USSR (Game review)
Down 2-1, Craig improved his play, turning away many Soviet shots before the U.S. team had another shot on goal. (The Soviet team had 39 shots on goal in the game, the Americans only 16.) In the waning seconds of the first period, Dave Christian fired a desperate slap shot on Tretiak. The Soviet goalie saved the shot but misplayed the rebound, and Mark Johnson scooped it past the goaltender to tie the score with one second left in the period. The frustrated Soviet team played the final second of the period with just three players on the ice, as the rest of the team had retired to their dressing room for the first intermission.
Tikhonov replaced Tretiak with backup goaltender Vladimir Myshkin to start the second period, a move which surprised many players on both teams. Fetisov later identified this as the “turning point of the game.” The switch seemed to work at first, as Myshkin allowed no goals in the second period. Aleksandr Maltsev scored on a power play to make the score 3-2.
8:39 into the final period, Johnson scored again for the U.S., firing a loose puck past Myshkin to tie the score just as a power play was ending. Only a couple shifts later, Mark Pavelich passed to U.S. captain Mike Eruzione, who was left undefended in the high slot. Eruzione fired a shot past Myshkin, who was screened by his own defenseman. This goal gave the U.S. a 4-3 lead with exactly 10 minutes to play in the contest.
Craig withstood another series of Soviet shots to finish the match, though the Soviets did not remove their goalkeeper for an extra attacker. As the U.S. team tried desperately to clear the zone (move the puck over the blue line, which they did with seven seconds remaining), the crowd began to count down the seconds left. Sportscaster Al Michaels, who was calling the game on ABC along with former Montreal Canadians goalie Ken Dryden, picked up on the countdown in his broadcast, and delivered his famous call:
“…Eleven seconds, you’ve got ten seconds. Morrow, up to Silk…five seconds to go in the game…Do you believe in miracles? YES!!!”
United States Team Roster
| Pos. | Name | Age | Hometown | College |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| G | *Jim Craig | 21 | North Easton, MA | Boston U. |
| D | *Ken Morrow | 22 | Flint, MI | Bowling Green |
| D | *Mike Ramsey | 18 | Minneapolis, MN | Minnesota |
| C | *Mark Johnson | 21 | Madison, WI | Wisconsin |
| LW | Mike Eruzione | 25 | Winthrop, MA | Boston U. |
| RW | *Dave Silk | 21 | Scituate, MA | Boston U. |
| D | Bill Baker | 22 | Grand Rapids, MN | Minnesota |
| C | Neal Broten | 20 | Roseau, MN | Minnesota |
| D | Dave Christian | 20 | Warroad, MN | North Dakota |
| RW | Steve Christoff | 21 | Richfield, MN | Minnesota |
| RW | John Harrington | 22 | Virginia, MN | Minnesota-Duluth |
| G | Steve Janaszak | 22 | White Bear Lake, MN | Minnesota |
| LW | *Rob McClanahan | 22 | St. Paul, MN | Minnesota |
| D | Jack O’Callahan | 22 | Charlestown, MA | Boston U. |
| C | Mark Pavelich | 21 | Eveleth, MN | Minnesota-Duluth |
| LW | Buzz Schneider | 25 | Babbitt, MN | Minnesota |
| RW | Eric Strobel | 21 | Rochester, MN | Minnesota |
| D | Bob Suter | 22 | Madison, WI | Wisconsin |
| LW | Phil Verchota | 22 | Duluth, MN | Minnesota |
| C | Mark Wells | 21 | St. Clair Shores, MI | Bowling Green |
* Starters
Most people when they think of February 14th, they think of Valentine’s Day, a day of love. However, most people don’t know that in 1929 seven members of George ‘Bugs’ Moran’s gang were lined up against a wall and shot dead by members of Al “Scarface” Capone’s gang as part of a prohibition era conflict. This horrific killing was known as the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre.
Capone headed a list of “public enemies” corrupting the city compiled in 1930. The list was published by newspapers nationwide and Capone became known as “Public Enemy No. 1”.
Pursuing Capone were Treasury agent Eliot Ness and his hand-picked team of incorruptible U.S. Prohibition agents, “The Untouchables”, and internal revenue agent Frank Wilson of the Treasury Department’s Bureau of Internal Revenue. During a routine warehouse raid they discovered in a desk drawer what was clearly a crudely coded set of accounts. Ness then concentrated on pursuing Capone for his failure to pay tax on this substantial illegal income. This story has become a legend and the subject of books and films.
The massacre was a result of a plan devised by Capone’s gang member Jack ‘Machine Gun’ McGurn to eliminate Moran, Capone’s chief criminal enemy. The massacre was planned by McGurn partly in retaliation for an unsuccessful attempt by Frank and his brother Peter Gusenberg to murder him a month earlier while at a telephone booth. Territorial tensions between “Bugs” Moran and Al Capone about who would own the Chicago bootlegging business and make the most money from it also led Capone to accept Jack’s plan for the killings.
McGurn assembled a team of six men led by Fred Burke with the intent of having Moran lured into an ambush. Bugs and his men would be tricked into visiting a warehouse on North Clark Street on the pretext of buying some bargain hijacked bootleg whiskey; Burke’s team would then enter the building disguised as police officers and kill them. The chief architects of the plan, McGurn and Capone, would be well away from the scene.
Before any shooting had begun, Capone had placed lookouts in the apartments across the street from the warehouse. Capone, wishing to keep the lookouts inconspicuous, chose two men from another state to keep watch. Five members of the McGurn gang drove to the warehouse in a stolen police car at around 10:30 a.m., two dressed in police uniforms and three in ordinary street clothes. Moran, supposedly watching the warehouse, spotted the police car and fled. However, one of McGurn’s lookouts confused one of Moran’s men for Moran himself, and gave the signal to McGurn’s men and they approached the warehouse.
On January 24, 1908, the Boy Scouts movement begins in England with the publication of the first installment of Robert Baden-Powell’s Scouting for Boys. The name Baden-Powell was already well known to many English boys, and thousands of them eagerly bought up the handbook. By the end of April, the serialization of Scouting for Boys was completed, and scores of impromptu Boy Scout troops had sprung up across Britain.
The American version of the Boy Scouts has it origins in an event that occurred in London in 1909. Chicago publisher William Boyce was lost in the fog when a Boy Scout came to his aid. After guiding Boyce to his destination, the boy refused a tip, explaining that as a Boy Scout he would not accept payment for doing a good deed. This anonymous gesture inspired Boyce to organize several regional U.S. youth organizations, specifically the Woodcraft Indians and the Sons of Daniel Boone, into the Boy Scouts of America. Incorporated on February 8, 1910, the movement soon spread throughout the country.
Scouting is an organization that challenges boys to get in touch with nature and to bring them back to a time when there was nothing but nature. To think back to how humans survived without TVs, internet and video games. I for one love each of those and wouldn’t want it any other way, however, what is wrong with forgetting about “technology” for a while and spend time away from everything. Camping, cooking over a wood fire, survival skills, enjoying the outdoors.
On the TV show Survivor, people try and be the only person who could “survive” in an environment where you have no modern luxuries. However, it would be much different if you had to actually survive by yourself in a forest or on a deserted island. Yes, you need to know how to start a fire with kindling and twigs but could you survive by yourself. If you or someone you were with was seriously injured, would you know how to deal with the situation and keep that person or yourself healthy enough to survive. If someone on Survivor had a heat stroke, would there be a trained medical professional there to help them. Yes. When you are in the wilderness with someone who had heat stroke, could you help them and keep them alive?
Boy Scouts has given me that knowledge. Some of the things you need to know how to do is: Show that you know first aid for injuries or illnesses likely to occur in back country outings, including hypothermia, heat stroke, heat exhaustion, frostbite, dehydration, sunburn, stings, tick bites, snakebite, and blisters. Some of them may be simple, but others can be life or death. These are just some of the concepts one can learn through Boy Scouts and though it may not seem important right now, some day it could save my life or the life of someone else.
Boy Scouts and becoming an Eagle Scout has been one of the most rewarding experiences of my life and will always remain a big part of who I am. I will try to “Do a Good Turn Daily” and “Be Prepared” for anything that comes my way. On this day, I thank Robert Baden-Powell for giving me and over 28 million registered Boy Scouts all over the world an opportunity of lifetime. (United States: 10,100,000 registered Boy Scouts).
After writing my posts about the Armenian Genocide and Armenian Genocide Denial = Jail Time, one of my friends sent me a link to this video about Recognizing the Armenian Genocide.
Up to 1982, many former Presidents have made statements saying that the Armenian Genocide happened, but then the US government was afraid that the Turkish Government would get upset over the use of the word “Genocide”. The US Government is worried about citizens of another country getting upset, but what about the almost 400,000 Armenian-Americans indicated in the 2000 US Census. What about their families and what they went through. It seems that the US needs to focus more on our own citizens than upsetting the Turks who are in “Absolut Denial” about what happened.
The land purchased contained parts or all of present-day Arkansas, Missouri, Iowa, Minnesota west of the Mississippi River, North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, New Mexico, northern Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, the portions of Montana, Wyoming, and Colorado east of the Rocky Mountains, the portions of southern Manitoba, southern Saskatchewan and southern Alberta that drain into the Missouri River, and Louisiana on both sides of the Mississippi River, including the city of New Orleans. The land included in the purchase comprises around 23% of the territory of the modern United States.
The Louisiana Purchase was signed on April of 1803 by Robert Livingston, James Monroe, and Barbé Marbois in Paris.
The United States Senate ratified the treaty with a vote of twenty-four to seven on October 20; on the following day, it authorized President Jefferson to take possession of the territory and establish a temporary military government. In legislation enacted on October 31, Congress made temporary provisions for local civil government to continue as it had under French and Spanish rule and authorized the President to use military forces to maintain order. Plans were also set forth for a mission to explore and chart the territory, which would become known as the Lewis and Clark Expedition.
France then turned New Orleans over on December 20, 1803. On March 10, 1804, a formal ceremony was conducted in St. Louis to transfer ownership of the territory from France to the United States.
The 12 Olympians resided on the top of Mount Olympus
The Olympics were first held in honor of Zeus near Mount Olympus, but they were originally called The Olympian Games
The Olympics were of fundamental religious importance, contests alternating with sacrifices and ceremonies honouring both Zeus (whose colossal statue stood at Olympia), and Pelops, divine hero and mythical king of Olympia famous for his legendary chariot race, in whose honour the games were held.
