HISTORICAL ACTS / MARCH 4TH & 5TH

Here are a couple of historical acts that took place this weekend. They are related if you think about it.......................PEACE.......................Scott


THE BOSTON MASSACRE:
March 5, 1770

On the cold, snowy night of March 5, 1770, a mob of American colonists gathers
at the Customs House in Boston and begins taunting the British soldiers guarding
the building. The protesters, who called themselves Patriots, were protesting
the occupation of their city by British troops, who were sent to Boston in 1768
to enforce unpopular taxation measures passed by a British parliament that
lacked American representation.British Captain Thomas Preston, the commanding
officer at the Customs House, ordered his men to fix their bayonets and join the
guard outside the building. The colonists responded by throwing snowballs and
other objects at the British regulars, and Private Hugh Montgomery was hit,
leading him to discharge his rifle at the crowd. The other soldiers began firing
a moment later, and when the smoke cleared, five colonists were dead or dying -
Crispus Attucks, Patrick Carr, Samuel Gray, Samuel Maverick, and James Caldwell
- and three more were injured. Although it is unclear whether Crispus Attucks,
an African American, was the first to fall as is commonly believed, the deaths
of the five men are regarded by some historians as the first fatalities in the
American Revolutionary War.The British soldiers were put on trial, and patriots
John Adams and Josiah Quincy agreed to defend the soldiersin a show of support
of the colonial justice system. When the trial ended in December 1770, two
British soldiers were found guilty of manslaughter and had their thumbs branded
with an "M" for murder as punishment.The Sons of Liberty, a Patriot group formed
in 1765 to oppose the Stamp Act, advertised the "Boston Massacre" as a battle
for American liberty and just cause for the removal of British troops from
Boston. Patriot Paul Revere made a provocative engraving of the incident,
depicting the British soldiers lining up like an organized army to suppress an
idealized representation of the colonist uprising. Copies of the engraving were
distributed throughout the colonies and helped reinforce negative American
sentiments about British rule.In April 1775, the American Revolution began when
British troops from Boston skirmished with American militiamen at the battles of
Lexington and Concord. The British troops were under orders to capture Patriot
leaders Samuel Adams and John Hancock in Lexington and to confiscate the Patriot
arsenal at Concord. Neither missions were accomplished because of Paul Revere
and William Dawes, who rode ahead of the British, warning Adams and Hancock and
rousing the Patriot minutemen. Eleven months later, in March 1776, British
forces had to evacuate Boston following American General George Washington's
successful placement of fortifications and cannons on Dorchester Heights. This
bloodless liberation of Boston brought an end to the hated eight-year British
occupation of the city. For the victory, General Washington, commander of the
Continental Army, was presented with the first medal ever awarded by the
Continental Congress. It would be more than five years before the Revolutionary
War came to an end with British General Charles Cornwallis' surrender to
Washington at Yorktown, Virginia.



FDR INAUGURATED:
March 4, 1933

On March 4, 1933, at the height of the Great Depression, Franklin Delano
Roosevelt is inaugurated as the 32nd president of the United States. In his
famous inaugural address, delivered outside the east wing of the U.S. Capitol,
Roosevelt outlined his "New Deal"--an expansion of the federal government as an
instrument of employment opportunity and welfare--and told Americans that "the
only thing we have to fear is fear itself." Although it was a rainy day in
Washington, and gusts of rain blew over Roosevelt as he spoke, he delivered a
speech that radiated optimism and competence, and a broad majority of Americans
united behind their new president and his radical economic proposals to lead the
nation out of the Great Depression.Born into an upper-class family in Hyde Park,
New York, in 1882, Roosevelt was the fifth cousin of Theodore Roosevelt, who
served as the 26th U.S. president from 1901 to 1909. In 1905, Franklin
Roosevelt, who was at the time a student at Columbia University Law School,
married Anna Eleanor Roosevelt, the niece of Theodore Roosevelt. After three
years as a lawyer, he decided to follow his cousin Theodore's lead and sought
public office, winning election to the New York State Senate in 1910 as a
Democrat. He soon won a reputation as a charismatic politician dedicated to
social and economic reform.Roosevelt supported the progressive New Jersey
governor Woodrow Wilson in his bid for the Democratic presidential nomination,
and after Wilson's election in 1912 Roosevelt was appointed assistant secretary
of the U.S. Navy, a post that Theodore Roosevelt once held. In 1920, Roosevelt,
who had proved himself a gifted administrator, won the Democratic nomination for
vice president on a ticket with James Cox. The Democrats lost in a landslide to
Republicans Warren Harding and Calvin Coolidge, and Roosevelt returned to his
law practice and undertook several business ventures.In 1921, he was stricken
with poliomyelitis, the virus that causes the crippling disease of polio. He
spent several years recovering from what was at first nearly total paralysis,
and his wife, Eleanor, kept his name alive in Democratic circles. He never fully
covered and was forced to use braces or a wheelchair to move around for the rest
of his life.In 1924, Roosevelt returned to politics when he nominated New York
Governor Alfred E. Smith for the presidency with a rousing speech at the
Democratic National Convention. In 1928, he again nominated Smith, and the
outgoing New York governor urged Roosevelt to run for his gubernatorial seat.
Roosevelt campaigned across the state by automobile and was elected even as the
state voted for Republican Herbert Hoover in the presidential election.As
governor, Roosevelt worked for tax relief for farmers and in 1930 won a
resounding electoral victory just as the economic recession brought on by the
October 1929 stock market crash was turning into a major depression. During his
second term, Governor Roosevelt mobilized the state government to play an active
role in providing relief and spurring economic recovery. His aggressive approach
to the economic crisis, coupled with his obvious political abilities, gave him
the Democratic presidential nomination in 1932.Roosevelt had no trouble
defeating President Herbert Hoover, who many blamed for the Depression, and the
governor carried all but six states. During the next four months, the economy
continued to decline, and when Roosevelt took office on March 4, 1933, most
banks were closed, farms were suffering, 13 million workers were unemployed, and
industrial production stood at just over half its 1929 level.Aided by a
Democratic Congress, Roosevelt took prompt, decisive action, and most of his New
Deal proposals, such as the Agricultural Adjustment Act, National Industrial
Recovery Act, and creation of the Public Works Administration and Tennessee
Valley Authority, were approved within his first 100 days in office. Although
criticized by many in the business community, Roosevelt's progressive
legislation improved America's economic climate, and in 1936 he easily won
reelection.During his second term, he became increasingly concerned with German
and Japanese aggression and so began a long campaign to awaken America from its
isolationist slumber. In 1940, with World War II raging in Europe and the
Pacific, Roosevelt agreed to run for an unprecedented third term. Reelected by
Americans who valued his strong leadership, he proved a highly effective
commander in chief after the December 1941 U.S. entrance into the war. Under
Roosevelt's guidance, America became, in his own words, the "great arsenal of
democracy" and succeeded in shifting the balance of power in World War II firmly
in the Allies' favor. In 1944, with the war not yet won, he was reelected to a
fourth term.Three months after his inauguration, while resting at his retreat at
Warm Springs, Georgia, Roosevelt died of a massive cerebral hemorrhage at the
age of 63. Following a solemn parade of his coffin through the streets of the
nation's capital, his body was buried in a family plot in Hyde Park. Millions of
Americans mourned the death of the man who led the United States through two of
the greatest crises of the 20th century: the Great Depression and World War II.
Roosevelt's unparalleled 13 years as president led to the passing of the 22nd
Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which limited future presidents to a maximum
of two consecutive elected terms in office.