23 February 2018

Klazomaniac

noun

This would be a person WHO CAN ONLY SPEAK BY SHOUTING. That’s all we’re going to say ABOUT THAT!

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am zinc koala

Today’s quote

I’ve found that no matter what life throws at me, music softens the blow.

– Unknown

On this day

23 February 1836 – the Battle of the Alamo commences. It was a 13 day siege and a pivotal point in the Texas Revolution, in which Mexican forces attacked Texan forces stationed at the Alamo Mission. All 100 Texans were killed. Several months earlier, all Mexicans had been driven out of Mexican Texas.

23 February 1896 – the Tootsie Roll is invented.

23 February 1915 – death of Robert Smalls, African American who was born into slavery in Beaufort, South Carolina. When he was a teenager, his master sent him to Charleston to work. Smalls ended up working on boats and became adept at all manner of work around wharves and boats, including stevedore, rigger, sail maker and wheelman (essentially a pilot, although slaves were not granted that title). During the Civil War, he was asked to steer a lightly armed Confederate vessel, the CSS Planter. One evening, after the white crew members disembarked, Smalls dressed in the captain’s uniform and commandeered the vessel with the help of seven other slaves, sailing towards Union ships. On the way, he picked up his wife and child, as well as the families of the other slave crewman. As they neared the Union ships, Smalls flew a white bed-sheet from the mast as a symbol of surrender. Smalls was treated as a hero by the Union. He later successfully petitioned President Abraham Lincoln and Secretary of War, Edwin Stanton, to allow black men to fight for the Union. Stanton signed an order allowing 5,000 black men to enlist with Union forces. Smalls was made pilot of the USS Keokuk. After the Civil War, Smalls returned to Beaufort and bought his former master’s house. Smalls became a businessman, operating a store for freed men. He also became politically active, joining the Republican Party. In 1868 Smalls was elected to the State House of Representatives. He worked on passing the Civil Rights Bill and in 1868, the Republican government enacte the Civil Rights Act, which gave citizenship to all Americans, regardless of race. Smalls was elected to the United States House of Representatives in 1874, and served two terms.In 1912, Smalls famously described the Republican Party as, ‘the party of Lincoln … which unshackled the necks of four million human beings‘. In 1913, Smalls stopped a lynch mob from lynching two black men, after he warned their mayor that blacks he’d sent through the city would burn the town down if the mob wasn’t stopped. The mayor and sheriff stopped the mob. Smalls inspirational life went from slave, to hijacker, to defector, to politician and civil rights campaigner. Born 5 April 1839.

23 February 1944 – the Soviet Union begins the forced deportation of Chechen and Ingush people from the North Caucasus to Central Asia.

23 February 1954 – Polio vaccines first become available.

23 February 1958 – Five time Formula 1 racing car driver, Juan Manuel Fangio, is kidnapped by Cuban rebels led by Fidel Castro. The Batista Dictatorship had established a non-Formula 1 race (the Cuban Grand Prix) in 1957, so the rebels were hoping to embarrass Batista by forcing him to cancel the race. The race went ahead and the captors let Fangio listen to it on the radio. Fangio was released unharmed. Castro’s forces overthrew Batista in January 1959 and cancelled the race that year.

23 February 1987 – the light from Supernova 1987A reaches Earth, 170,000 years after it exploded. The supernova was 1 million trillion miles away.

23 February 2010 – death of Cuban plumber and activist, Orlando Zapata. Zapata was arrested in 2002 by Cuban police for contempt. In 2003 he was arrested during a crackdown on dissidents, for undertaking a hunger strike aimed at securing the release of prisoners. He was sentenced to 36 years imprisonment. Amnesty International recognised him as a ‘prisoner of conscience’. In December 2009 he began a hunger strike which ultimately led to his death. Born 15 May 1967.