This day in history - June 12

[seamusTX]

1665 - A municipal government was established under British authority in New York City, formerly ruled by the Dutch.

1776 - Virginia Convention of Delegates adopted a bill of rights.

Though colonies had declarations of rights earlier, this was the most detailed and unambiguous. It remains in effect to the present, and many of its provisions were incorporated into the U.S. Constitution.

1898 - Philippine nationalists declared their independence from Spain. This event led to the first U.S. military misadventure overseas.

1963 - Civil rights worker Medgar Evers was fatally shot in Jackson, Mississippi.

1967 - The U.S. Supreme Court struck down state laws that prohibited interracial marriage, in the ironically styled case of Loving v. Virginia.

The Mideast Six Day War ended.

1978 - David Berkowitz was sentenced to 25 years to life in prison for the "Son of Sam" murders. He remains in prison in New York. He has become a Christian minister and refused parole.

1987 - President Ronald Reagan, speaking at the Brandenberg gate in Berlin, said,

'Secretary General Gorbachev, if you seek peace - if you seek prosperity for the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe - if you seek liberalization: come here, to this gate. Mr. Gorbachev, open this gate. Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall.

It was one of Mr. Reagan's finest hours.

Of course, the wall wasn't Gorbachev's to tear down. The German people themselves did it two years later.

- Jim

[seamusTX]

1911 - The battleships Vermont, Minnesota, and Mississippi visited Galveston and were viewed by about 10,000 tourists.

The Vermont and Minnesota had finished the voyage of the Great White Fleet two years earlier, and probably were still quite well known. The were Connecticut-class ships.

USS Vermont

The recently launched Mississippi was the first of its class.

USS Mississippi

All these ships are long gone. Vermont and Minnesota were scrapped in the 1920s. Mississippi was transferred to Greece during WW II and sunk by the Germans.

All this activity of minor historic interest was happening in Galveston at the time because the Seawall had recently been completed and the city fathers were attempting to rebuild the tourist industry, which had been a casualty of the 1900 Storm and the obstruction of the beaches during Seawall construction.

- Jim

[FL450]

I miss you day in history and your day in Texas History.
Thanks for the post

[WildBill]

I miss you day in history and your day in Texas History.
Thanks for the post

I have learned much from Jim's posts.

[seamusTX]

Thanks, guys.

Today is the 26th anniversary of Reagan's speech, which was an opposite bookend to JFK's "Ich bin ein Berliner" speech at the Berlin Wall in 1963. It was an eventful day in any case.

The upshot of the Berlin Wall falling is here, November 9, 1989:
http://texaschlforum.com/viewtopic.php?f=83&t=29286" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

This was a triumph of freedom over tyranny. The USSR and the Warsaw Pact fell like a deflated balloon (with little bloodshed).

Today small chunks of the Berlin Wall fetch high prices at auctions. There is one short segment left that the German government had to make a historic site.

- Jim

[SQLGeek]

There is a section of the wall on display at the Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, CA. A triumph indeed.