This day in history - February 1

[seamusTX]

1861 - The Texas Legislature voted to secede from the Union, the 7th state do secede.

President of the Republic of Texas Sam Houston opposed secession and had refused to call the Legislature into special session. He was ignored.

A special election had been held in January to elect delegates to a special convention on secession. Houston had then called the Legislature into special session, hoping to overrule the convention. He failed, and the Legislature voted 166 to 8 to secede.

http://www.tsl.state.tx.us/exhibits/civ ... ssion.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

I don't know whether this bill did not require the President's signature, or if the normal rules of legislation were simply ignored. In any case, it was a veto-proof majority.

1968 - The police chief of Saigon, Nguyen Ngoc Loan, executed a Viet Cong officer with a pistol shot to the head. News photographer Eddie Adams caught the act in one of the most shocking photos from that war. (Adams won the Pulitzer prize for this photo.)



The photo helped turn public opinion in the U.S. further against the war, despite the fact that the shooting victim had committed atrocities.

1979 - Ayatollah Khomeini returned to Tehran after years in exile, capping off the Iranian Islamic revolution.

2003 - The space shuttle Columbia broke up during re-entry, killing all seven crew members.

- Jim

[jbirds1210]

Gotta love the little S&W Bodyguard. My Father carries one and loves it.

http://www.snubnose.info/docs/bodyguard.htm" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

"Perhaps the most infamous photograph of a pistol from the Twentieth Century involves the Smith & Wesson Bodyguard. It was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 1969. It is the picture of South Vietnamese General Nguyen Ngoc Loan shooting a Viet Cong captain named Bay Lop in the head. I hesitate to bring up this incident, but at the same time, it is impossible for me to chart the history of this hand gun without acknowledging this moment in history."

[seamusTX]

I never knew what type of handgun was in that photo.

I'm surprised that Smith & Wesson didn't hire Gen. Nguyen as a spokesman.

Not really the kind of visibility any company wants.

- Jim