The Cooper Union Speech, February 27, 1860

Most of history's great moments can only be imagined. There are no photos of Roman legions in battle or of Gutenberg as he perfected movable type. Even though photography has been with us for nearly 200 years, many events have nonetheless been lost to us and only remain as the recorded memories of eyewitnesses.

But every once in a while the camera is present at a moment in history. February 27, 1860 saw one such moment, for on that day in New York City, a tall, rail-thin lawyer from Illinois sat for a picture, one of the few three-quarters length portraits of him ever produced. The photographer was Matthew Brady, who would soon be known the world over for the pictures that he and his employees took on the battlefields of the US Civil War. We can only wonder what Brady thought of his subject. Fifteen years earlier a Lieutenant Colonel in the US Army named Robert E. Lee had sat for Brady; he would sit for him again in 1865 as a man broken by war. One wonders if he saw the same fierce determination in both men.

The lawyer was due to speak at The Cooper Union in lower Manhattan later in the day. The Cooper Union was a college that had only opened the previous year. It's main offerings were night classes for adults with subjects like applied sciences and architectural drawing. Anyone could attend the school regardless of race, religion or sex, a policy that was almost unheard of in mid-19th century America. The school's founder, Peter Cooper, was a self-taught inventor and businessman. If you enjoy Jello, you have Cooper to thank----he invented instant gelatin and his wife, Sarah, came up with the idea of adding fruit to it.

The Illinois lawyer was, of course, Abraham Lincoln. He had accepted an invitation sent to him in October, 1859 by Henry Ward Beecher to speak at Beecher's church in Brooklyn. By the time Lincoln arrived in New York in February of 1860, however, the venue had changed and the Young Men's Republican Union had taken over sponsorship of the speech. The Republican Union opposed William Seward, a strong contender for the Republican Presidential nomination. It was hoped that Lincoln, who had still not announced his candidacy, would move to the front runner's position in the party.

The Cooper Union's Grand Hall was packed with a capacity crowd of 1,500 that evening. Lincoln was to speak on the topic of slavery, but more specifically, whether or not the federal government should control slavery in the nation's territories and not allow the institution to expand. Lincoln and his party believed that the federal government had the right to enforce slave-free settlement of new territories. For weeks before the speech, Lincoln had researched the 39 signers of the Constitution. 21 of them believed as Lincoln did on the issue of expansion of slavery. Thus, according to him, following the path of the Founders should not alarms Southerners.

To the 21st century mind, the logic of Lincoln's argument seems clear. But the United States was a nation bitterly divided over the question of slavery in 1860, so much so that Lincoln spent a part of his speech addressing the people of the South directly. He spoke of how members of the Republican Party, which supported abolition, were considered outlaws south of the Mason-Dixon line. He called for logical examination of the issue, and then proceeded to discuss every instance in which the federal government had somehow limited slavery in a new state or territory. He also accused Southerners of being willing to break up the Union instead of submitting to a denial of what they considered to be their Constitutional right.

He then addressed the Republicans gathered there, stressing how important it was to keep the Union together. But, almost as a contradiction, he clearly stated his belief that the South would not be satisfied until the North not only recognized the right to own slaves, but fully embraced the practice.

Lincoln finished:

"Neither let us be slandered from our duty by false accusations against us, nor frightened from it by menaces of destruction to the Government nor of dungeons to ourselves. LET US HAVE FAITH THAT RIGHT MAKES MIGHT, AND IN THAT FAITH, LET US, TO THE END, DARE TO DO OUR DUTY AS WE UNDERSTAND IT."

The crowd was electrified. Abraham Lincoln, the humble man born in a Kentucky log cabin, walked out of The Cooper Union as the man to beat for the Republican nomination for President. His speech was printed in local papers and was later circulated in the form of campaign pamphlets.

And so we look back at the picture taken by Matthew Brady earlier that day. Abraham Lincoln, a man who had turned 51 just two weeks before, is beardless and stoic. His eyes, though deep set, seem intense. His hair is still dark. Although he is not smiling (it was not customary to smile in photographs), he is not frowning. He is confident.

The last picture taken of Lincoln while he was alive was taken a little over five years after his Cooper Union speech. Although he has that same steady gaze, he has tremendous bags under his eyes. He is now grey at the temples. His face is more weathered and lined. He is only 56, but could pass for a man 15 years older.

One can not but help wonder if Lincoln ever considered how much his life and the course of his nation changed on February 27, 1860. If he had known in advance what his election would cost the country and that it would ultimately cost him his life, we have to ask if he would still have made the speech that winter evening in lower Manhattan. If you believe, as I do, that great men rise during troubled times, then the answer must be yes.

Buffalo Bill Cody Born, February 26, 1846

Today in 1846, William Frederick Cody was born in Scott County, Iowa. Known to the world as Buffalo Bill, Cody helped define the image of the Old West with his work as a showman and became one of the best-known celebrities of the 19th and early 20th centuries.

Cody was just 11 when the death of his father and his family's subsequent financial difficulties forced him to take a job as a messenger for a freight company. He would ride back and forth along the length of wagon trains and deliver messages from group to another. It was his first chance to see the open prairie. He soon found himself acting as a scout for a contingent of the US Army as it made its way to Utah to put down a non-existant rebellion by Mormons in Salt Lake City. He was barely a teenager.

At the ripe old age of 14, Cody took the decision to seek his fortune as a prospector. On his way west, however, he met a representative of the Pony Express. He went to work for the service, first as a builder of way stations and then as a rider. This job was cut short by news of his mother's grave health. He hurried home to find his mother recovering. He then tried to enlist in the Army, but was turned away for being too young.

Cody's mother's health failed again, and she died in 1863. With the Civil War raging and his age now 17, Cody enlisted with the 7th Kansas Cavalry Regiment. He fought on the Union side with this unit for the rest of the war. While stationed in St. Louis, he met Louisa Frederici, the woman who would become his wife. The two were married in March, 1866. They would have four children, but two of them died while still very young. Bill and Louisa's marriage was full of trials and tribulations, but the two remained together for the rest of the Bill's life.

Cody became a civilian scout for the US Army for the next several years. It was during this time he earned his nickname "Buffalo Bill" for his ability to supply bison meat for the Kansas Pacific Railroad. Incredibly, Cody was not the first person to have this nickname. That honor goes to William Averill Comstock, chief of scouts and an interpreter at Fort Wallace, Kansas. The two eventually squared off in Monument, Kansas to see who was the better hunter. In the end Cody killed 69 bison while Comstock bagged 46. The prize was $500 and the exclusive use of the nickname "Buffalo Bill".

Cody's time with the Army saw many skirmishes with Native Americans, one of which resulted in his being awarded the Medal of Honor for "gallantry in action" in 1872. His time in the national spotlight began soon thereafter when Ned Buntline, the creator of the dime novel, wrote a dramatized biography of Cody, who was not yet 30.

His growing reputation convinced Cody that show business was in his future. In 1873, he formed a touring company called the Buffalo Bill Combination which recreated scenes from Cody's adventures. His group remained together ten years and for one season included Wild Bill Hickok, a war hero, army scout, lawman and legendary gunfighter.

In 1883, Cody formed the company that would make his name familiar all over the world: Buffalo Bill's Wild West. Circuses were all the rage at this time, and Cody's show was similar in many ways. But whereas circuses offered curiosities, Cody offered recreations of the Wild West that many people never got to experience in real life. With as many as 1200 performers at a time, the show would always begin with a horse parade full of US calvary men, Native Americans, Arabs, Mongols, Cossacks and Turks, all in full uniform or costume. Then would come races, shooting competitions featuring the likes of Annie Oakley and Calamity Jane, and reenactments of battles between the US Army and Native American tribes. The shows most often ended with a recreation of Custer's Last Stand with Cody playing General Custer.

Buffalo Bill's Wild West toured for 20 years, touring Europe and performing in front of Queen Victoria and Pope Leo XIII. He was not allowed to be a part of the Chicago World's Fair of 1893, so he instead set up shop right outside the fair's gates. Most visitors to the fair assumed the show was part of the fair, especially since the Native Americans he employed brought their families on tour and lived just as they had in the west in plain sight of attendees.

In 1895, Cody helped found the town of Cody, Wyoming. Today, it is a city of 8,900 people. As the 20th century dawned, Cody was one of the most famous people in the world, but the west that he loved so much was no longer the Wild West of his show. Native American tribes had been forced onto reservations, train tracks crisscrossed the countryside and ranchers were fencing in once open prairie. Buffalo Bill's Wild West came to an end in 1903, after which Cody used his continuing fame to speak out on causes he supported, such as Native American rights and the need for conservation of natural resources.

Bill Cody died on January 10, 1917 at his sister's house in Denver, Colorado. Many have said that he was destitute when he died; while this is not true, most of his enormous fortune was gone. He is today buried on Lookout Mountain near Golden, Colorado, from which there is a beautiful view of the Great Plains.

Podshow Announcement - Please Listen!

United States Granted Panama Canal Zone, February 23, 1904

Today in 1904, the United States was granted control of the Panama Canal Zone, a twenty-mile wide strip of land running from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific across the newly-formed country of Panama. This marked the culmination of a struggle for control of the tiny strip of land that, in the end, resulted in a canal that would help usher the planet into a new age of commerce and rapid transit.

Panama is an isthmus, a narrow strip of land connecting Central and South America. The idea of building a canal there linking the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans dates to the early 17th century, but it was not until the latter half of the 19th century that the technology existed for such a task. Between 1850 and 1875, numerous surveys were made of not just Panama, but of Nicaragua as well, for it also offered a possible path for a canal. After French engineers completed the Suez Canal in 1869, it seemed as if it would only be a matter of time before another grand canal would weave its way into history.

In 1878, a French-led international consortium led by Ferdinand de Lesseps, the man who had overseen the building of the Suez Canal, was formed. de Lesseps was a national hero in France and thus had no problem raising money from businesses, wealthy patrons and even average citizens of an amount totaling almost $400 million. The canal would be built at sea level without locks of any kind, just like the Suez. It would be 90 feet wide and 30 feet deep, large enough for the biggest ships of that era. It would also be finished in eight years.

The problem with these magnificent specifications is that they were unrealistic. Panama was not Egypt; whereas the Suez Canal is essentially a giant ditch dug through the flat desert, the Panama Canal would need to travel through hills and past raging rivers. A sea-level canal would have required excavation on a scale that was impossible given the technological limitations of the late 19th century. de Lesseps was not an engineer and neither were most of the people who signed off on the plan. Eight years into the project, nearly $235 million had been spent, over 22,000 people had died of injuries and disease and the canal plan that had been changed to include locks was nowhere near completion. Work was suspended on May 15, 1889.

A new French company was formed five years later, but the project never got off the ground again. By this time, American speculators were beginning to talk about a canal in Nicaragua, which would make the Panama Canal redundant. In June, 1902, the French agreed to sell the project to the United States.

US President Theodore Roosevelt, who had been in office since 1901, thought a canal through Panama was of vital strategic interest to the United States. This would allow battleships to transfer from the Atlantic to the Pacific or vice versa almost a month faster than they could by going around Cape Horn, the southern tip of South America. Roosevelt contacted the Columbian government, which at that time controlled Panama, and sought permission to finish what the French had begun. The Hay-Herran Treaty of 1903 was the result, but it did not pass muster with the Senate in Columbia. The canal once again became a dead issue, at least to the casual observer. Behind closed doors, however, Roosevelt was hard at work.

A significant portion of the Panamanian population wanted to be independent of Columbia. President Roosevelt believed that a successful rebellion would allow him to cut a deal with a newly-independent Panama. Via back channels, the White House let it be known that were open rebellion to ensue in Panama, the US Navy would help the rebels. Independence from Columbia was declared on November 3, 1903, just about the time the gunboat USS Nashville arrived on station in local waters. US troops arrived soon thereafter, and the Republic of Panama was formed.

The US still did not have permission to build a canal in Panama. This was solved on November 18, barely two weeks after Panama became an independent nation, with the signing of the Hay-Bunau-Varilla Treaty. The treaty gave the United States rights to a canal zone 20 miles wide, for which the United States would pay $10 million up front and $250,000 yearly in rental payments. The treaty also stated that the French would be paid $40 million for their company assets in Panama.

The problem with the treaty was that it was not signed by anyone of Panamanian citizenship. Phillipe Bunau-Varilla, the man who brokered the treaty in Washington, was French and was only connected with Panama in that he was a shareholder in the second French canal company. The Panamanian government eventually accepted the terms of the treaty, although it would remain a bitter dividing point between Panama and the United States for nearly a century.

The Panama Canal opened to traffic in 1914, ten years after the United States began work on it. During that time, 5,000 workers died, making for a total of 27,000 people who died to make a canal linking two oceans a reality. On January 1, 2000, Panama assumed control of the canal as the result of Torrijos-Carter Treaties of 1977.

Executive Order 9066 Issued, February 19, 1942

Today in 1942, US President Franklin Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9066, which gave military authorities the right to declare large sections of the United States to be military areas. Once so declared, these areas could be cleared of any and all persons who were perceived to be a threat to the national security of the United States. While the order did not mention Americans of Japanese ancestry specifically, it was aimed squarely at them. What followed was the largest forced internment of American citizens in history.

While the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor ultimately prompted the issue of the executive order, anti-Asian sentiment in some parts of the United States had existed for generations. Some California farmers publicly supported the internment not for national security reasons, but simply because they saw Japanese-American farmers as a threat to their profitability. As one farmer told the Saturday Evening Post in 1942: "And we don't want them back when the war ends, either."

The executive order would result in the removal of 120,000 Japanese and Americans of Japanese descent from their homes in military areas. Most of this land was along the Pacific coast, which also happened to be where most first- and second-generation Japanese-Americans lived. Several thousand Italian and German nationals were also forced to move or were interned as a result of the order, but those of Japanese descent were by far the group most impacted.

Of the 120,000 people forced to move from their homes, 62 percent were Nisei; that is, second-generation Japanese-Americans. The remainder were Issei; either first-generation Japanese-Americans or resident aliens. Thus, the vast majority of those forced to relocate were American citizens with the same rights as those whose ancestors came from elsewhere. They were singled out because of their race.

10,000 of those forced to relocate were able to move to other parts of the country. The remainder, 110,000 men, women and children, were sent to "War Relocation Centers", internment camps hastily built in remote areas of the country. The War Relocation Authority, the government agency created to oversee the camps, ran 10 such camps in Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Idaho, Utah and Wyoming. The Department of Justice also ran camps, but these were for people actually accused of criminal activity or deemed too dangerous to remain in the other facilities.

The buildings in the camps were built from designs meant for army barracks, meaning that families had no private bathrooms, kitchens or living rooms---everything was communal. Some of the camps, such as those in Utah and Wyoming, were not built to protect their inhabitants against the bitterly cold winters. Furthermore, most of the internees did not have winter clothing as they had lived in much gentler climates.

The internment program was overseen by Lieutenant General John Dewitt, who repeatedly told West Coast newspapers that "a Jap's a Jap." He, along with some in his chain of command, feared that a significant Japanese fifth column existed in the United States and would one day attack military and industrial targets within the country. They sited the fact that many people of Japanese descent living in the US had received at least part of their education in Japan, where loyalty to the Emperor was a central part of schools' curricula.

Almost everyone interred as a result of the Executive Order 9066 lost property,a business, money or a combination of the three. They were given little time to get their affairs in order and many left home with only the items they could carry. Some who were landowners tried to sell their property, but ended up receiving only pennies on the dollar because all sales had to be concluded in such a short period of time. More than one land speculator became wealthy overnight because of the order.

By early 1944, when it was becoming clear that Japan would lose the war, the government began letting people at the internment camps return home on a case-by-case basis. In January, 1945, the order restricting Americans of Japanese descent from living in military areas was lifted entirely. The camps stayed open for the rest of the year as the people there tried to put their lives back together and move back home. Many never regained their economic status and many never looked at their neighbors the same way again. Almost all who went to the camps did so without a fight, believing that as loyal citizens they should abide by the orders of their government.

One of the opponents of the internment was FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover, who stated that there was no basis for the belief that Japanese-Americans were more likely to pose a security risk than any other citizen. In fact, not one act or suspected act of sabotage in the United States during the Second World War was traced to anyone of Japanese ancestry.

The US Army's 442nd Regimental Combat Team fought in Europe and was the most highly decorated unit of its size in that theater of the war. It was comprised almost entirely of men who had volunteered to join the Army while living in the internment camps. Many others had volunteered to fight on the condition that they or their families be granted their rights as Americans, but these demands were denied.

In August, 1988, President Ronald Reagan signed the Civil Liberties Act of 1988, which granted reparations to Japanese-Americans interned during the war. Each surviving internee was granted $20,000 with payments beginning in 1990. The act stated that the government actions of 1942-1945 in relation to the internment were based on "race prejudice, war hysteria and a failure of political leadership."

Robert Hanssen Arrested, February 18, 2007

Today in 2001, FBI agent Robert Hanssen was arrested at a park near his home in Vienna, Virginia. He would later be charged with selling secrets to the Soviet and Russian governments for more than 15 years. Much of what Hanssen revealed to his handlers is still classified, but he without a doubt did more damage to the United States' security and intelligence establishment than any spy in the nation's history.

Hanssen was born in Chicago in April, 1944. He later claimed that his father was both physically and mentally abusive towards him when he was a child. After college, where Hanssen earned a reputation for having an incredible memory for details, he joined the Chicago police in the Internal Affairs department. His direct supervisor, John Clarke, later stated that Hanssen seemed, even then, to be a sort of double agent. Clarke always believed that Hanssen had been placed in the department to spy on them.

By 1975, Hanssen was tired of Chicago Internal Affairs. He applied to FBI, but was not accepted the first time. He persisted and was accepted in early 1976 at the age of 32. By 1979, he was working in the FBI field office in New York City, where he first made contact with Soviet agents. Hanssen told the KGB that a GRU general had been selling secrets to the US for some time, information for which he was paid $20,000. The door had been opened.

Hanssen did not make another move towards selling secrets to the Soviets until 1985; by this time, Hanssen had spent time working in the FBI's Soviet Analytical Unit and had a security clearance above Top Secret. He acted aggressively, sending a letter to Victor I. Cherkashin, the Soviet embassy employee who headed that country's espionage operations in Washington. In the letter, Hanssen named three KGB officers who were working for the US. He also promised to send a box of original classified documents to Cherkashin as proof of his abilities. In the next three years, two of the KGB officers Hanssen named were executed and the third was given a hard labor sentence. This was only the first of many people who would die because of the information Hanssen sold.

Between 1985 and the fall of the Soviet Union in late 1991, Hanssen sent his Soviet handlers more than 6,000 documents and assorted computer data. He was incredibly thorough in the precautions he took, so much so that the Soviets never learned his true identity. He was one of the United States' premier counter-intelligence experts and he used that knowledge to evade detection by both his handlers and the FBI. The money he was given for handing over secrets, a little more than $1.4 million in cash and jewelry, was used in part to send his children to very expensive private schools. A devout Catholic, Hanssen believed that a holy war was in America's future and that his children needed to be prepared for it. Whether or not this was a motivation for his betrayal is unknown.

Many of those who knew and worked with Hanssen considered him eccentric; others suspected the truth about him. His brother-in-law, who himself worked for the FBI, began to notice that Hanssen kept thousands of dollars in cash at his house. In 1990, he reported to his superiors what he knew about Hanssen and recommended that he be placed under surveillance.

The exact reason the FBI began to suspect Hanssen of being a double agent remains clouded in secrecy. It could be the opening of the KGB archives in the 1990's or the confessions of other spies. Regardless, the bureau moved Hanssen to a new, fictitious position in 2000 and assigned him an aide, Eric O'Neill. In reality, O'Neill's assignment was to spy on Hanssen and keep detailed records of his behavior. He learned that Hanssen kept his most confidential information on a PDA that rarely left his sight. O'Neill was eventually able to get ahold of the device long enough to copy the data on it. Once decrypted, the data revealed what the FBI feared most: one of their own had gone over to the other side.

Robert Hanssen now spends his days at a supermax prison in Florence, Colorado. He will spend the rest of his life there. The FBI originally pushed for him to receive the death penalty for his crimes, but a deal was struck wherein Hanssen agreed to talk in exchange for a life sentence with no parole and a half pension paid to his wife.

Captain James Cook Dies, February 14, 1779

Today in 1779, Royal Navy Captain James Cook died while visiting the Hawaiian Islands. Cook's exceptional skills made him an expert in three areas: exploration, navigation and cartography. Much of what Europeans learned during the 18th century about the lands bordering the Pacific Ocean is due to Cook's diligence, intelligence and superior leadership.

James Cook was born on October 27, 1728 at Marton in North Yorkshire, England as one of five children. His father was a farm laborer, so young James knew from an early age that a long formal education was not in his future. He began to work with his father at the age of 13, but was soon working as an apprentice in a nearby fishing village. This is where Cook fell in love with the sea. Before long, he began a three year apprenticeship in the merchant navy. He studied math and astronomy on his own with the awareness that these skills were needed if he was to become anything more than a deckhand. In 1755, at the age of 27, Cook was offered a command of his own, but he turned it down to join the Royal Navy as an able seaman.

Cook entered the Royal Navy as the Seven Year's War (called the French and Indian War in North America) was heating up and the nation was readying for an extended conflict. While he certainly loved his country, Cook's decision to join the Navy was not entirely based on patriotism. He realized that advancement came more quickly in the military, and he was correct; within two years he became qualified as a navigator and ship's handler, or master.

Cook found himself off the coast of North America during the war, first participating in the siege of Quebec City. While there, he mapped the entrance to the Saint Lawrence River, a feat that brought him to the attention of his superiors. He went on to map the coast of Newfoundland over the course of the next four years.

Cook's first voyage to the Pacific set sail in 1768 on the HM Bark Endeavour. While it was a Royal Navy ship and crew, the main mission was created by the Royal Society: the Endeavour was to record the transit of Venus across the Sun from Tahiti. An astronomer joined the crew for the purpose and the mission was successful. With that completed, Cook opened his sealed orders for the second phase of his journey: he and his crew were to search the southern reaches of the Pacific in hope of finding the fabled southern continent, Terra Australis. This was a fabled land at the bottom of the world and if it contained anything of value, the Admiralty and the King wanted to make sure that England claimed it first.

Cook doubted the existence of the continent, but he followed orders and began a search. What he found was the continent of Australia. While Cook and his crew were probably not the first Europeans to see the continent, they were the first to make contact. 18 years later, a penal colony would be established at Sydney Cove, not far from where Cook came ashore. That colony is today known as the city of Sydney.

The Endeavour later ran aground on the Great Barrier Reef, delaying the voyage for seven weeks while repairs were made. This allowed the botanists on board to collect a large number of plant specimens. They also met Aboriginal people for the first time, who taught the white men a new term for the strange jumping creatures they saw: kangaroo. The Endeavour returned to England via the Cape of Good Hope, thus completing a circumnavigation of the globe.

Cook's second voyage took place between 1772 and 1775 and saw him in command of HMS Resolution and joined by HMS Adventure. The crews became one of the first to cross the Antarctic Circle, which they did during their continued search for the fabled southern continent. The two ships became separated in a thick fog, after which the Adventure made her way back to New Zealand and then home. Although he did not know it at the time, Cook came very close to discovering the Antarctic mainland. He did discover the South Georgia and South Sandwich Islands and proved that neither New Zealand or Australia were connected to a larger land mass at the bottom of the world. The myth of Terra Australis was put to rest forever.

Cook set out again in command of the Resolution in 1776. This third voyage explored the northwest of the North American continent in hope of finding the fabled Northwest Passage. In the process, Cook mapped the coast of California all the way to Alaska and the Bering Strait. The strait proved impassable, which frustrated Cook. It is now believed that he was beginning to suffer from a stomach ailment about this time, for his behavior towards the crew turned harsh and bizarre. Previously, Cook had been known as a fair leader who did such unheard of things as feeding his men the same food his officers ate. Now, a more irrational man began to emerge.

The Resolution put into Hawaii in 1779. The ship had been there the year before, at which time Cook named the island chain the Sandwich Islands after the First Lord of the Admiralty, the Earl of Sandwich. Although not known for certain, it is believed by some historians that Cook and his crew arrived during a season of worship, which helped to explain why they were treated with near god-like respect. They stayed a month and then set sail for the North Pacific and another go at the Bering Strait. Not long into the voyage, Resolution's foremast broke, requiring her to return to Hawaii. This caused tension among the island's natives. One of the ship's boats was stolen, which caused a chain of events leading to a confrontation between Cook and his landing party and a large crowd of Hawaiians. The natives began to attack the men, who opened fire on the crowd. They retreated to the beach and were making for their boats when Cook was struck in the back of head and then stabbed to death. He died face down in the surf. It was February 14, 1779; Captain James Cook was 51 years old.

The James-Younger Gang's First Robbery, February 13, 1866

Today in 1866, the group that would become known as the James-Younger gang committed the first peacetime bank robbery in United States history. A member of the gang, Jesse James, would become one of the most famous outlaws in American history.

Jesse Woodson James was born in September, 1847 near what is today Kearney, Missouri. His father died when he was three, leaving Jesse with his mother, his older brother Frank (who was seven) and their little sister Susan. The three would gain four half-siblings when their mother remarried in 1855. They moved to a farm, also in Missouri, that grew tobacco and was home to seven slaves. The decade before the Civil War was a bad time to live in Missouri, for the state was divided into two camps: those who wanted to abolish slavery and stay with the Union, and those who wanted to keep the institution, even if it meant secession. The issue became so contentious that after the Civil War began in 1861, both groups formed competing governments in the state.

Frank joined the Confederate cause soon after the outbreak of hostilities; Jesse joined when he turned 16 in 1863. The two brothers served in Quantrill's Raiders, a group of irregulars who rode throughout Missouri and preyed upon towns, farms and individuals who remained loyal to the Union. The Raiders earned the scorn of even their supporters in 1863 when they killed nearly 200 men and boys in Lawrence, Kansas, an anti-slavery town. William Quantrill, the leader of the group, was technically a Confederate officer but acted without orders from any superiors. He took the Raiders to Texas later that year, where their lawless activities proved to be embarrassing to southern commanders despite their successful raids and ambushes. The group broke up on the way home from the Lone Star State, never to reform.

When the Civil War ended in 1865, Republicans gained control of the Missouri state government and quickly passed laws making it illegal for any former Confederate soldier or sympathizer to hold public office or even vote. Jesse, Frank and their former comrades found it difficult to settle down under such circumstances, but Jesse soon found that he had little choice: a month after the end of the war, he was shot and nearly killed by a Union soldier. His first cousin, Zerelda Mimms, nursed him back to health. The two were later married and had four children, although only two of them lived to adulthood.

It is a point of debate among historians as to whether Jesse James was present at the James-Younger gang's first robbery in 1866, as he was possibly still recovering from his gunshot wound. Either way, the bandits successfully robbed the Clay County Savings Association in Liberty, Missouri on February 13, taking away over $60,000. The gang robbed three more banks in Missouri before hitting a bank in Russellville, Kentucky in 1868. This is the first robbery in which there is certain proof that Frank James, Jesse James and Cole Younger were all present at the same time.

The James-Younger gang, and especially Jesse, did not begin receiving widespread media attention until December 1869, when he and Frank robbed a savings and loan in Gallatin, Missouri. Jesse shot and killed the bank's cashier, having mistaken him for a militia officer whom he had fought against during the war. The brothers made their way through the middle of an encroaching posse, a narrow escape that captured readers' attention.

As news of the James-Younger gang spread, they began to be seen as local heroes by many in Missouri, especially those with lingering Confederate sympathies. Whether Jesse fanned the flames of this adoration is unknown, but it certainly helped the gang as they traveled the countryside and moved further afield to rob banks in Kansas, Iowa, Texas and even as far away as West Virginia. Some of their robberies took place in front of large crowds and some had the air of a stage performance.

The gang further bolstered their image when they began robbing trains in 1873. As a general rule, they did not rob passengers of their personal belongings but rather went for the safe that most trains carried in the baggage car. While this may have given the men a Robin Hood-like reputation, it did very little for the railroad companies. They hired the Pinkerton Detective Agency to stop the James-Younger gang, something that was new for the business. In the past, they had focused their efforts on crimes that would today be considered white-collar, such as con-men and counterfeiters. Nonetheless, the Pinkerton Agency took the job.

The gang proved to be slippery, especially when they operated in Missouri. There were simply too many sympathetic farmers and townspeople around the state who would supply a bed, a hot meal or even a rifle and ammunition when needed. Two agents were killed in their pursuit of the gang, although one of them killed John Younger, the brother of Cole Younger, before he was shot. In desperation, Allan Pinkerton ordered a raid on the house of Jesse and Frank's mother in January, 1875. The men assigned to the task threw a crude bomb through one of the home's windows; it killed Jesse and Frank's half-brother and removed one their mother's arms. The botched attack made the James brothers into sympathetic characters and became a black eye for the Pinkerton Agency.

The James-Younger gang met its demise while robbing the First National Bank in Northfield, Minnesota. The men got away with little money only to find that local men had been alerted to the situation and were approaching the bank with their weapons in hand. The James brothers split from the group and made their own escape back to Missouri. The Youngers and the rest of the gang ended up either dead or in custody.

Jesse eventually settled in Saint Joseph, Missouri; Frank moved to Virginia. Jesse was in constant fear for his life and asked two brothers who he trusted, Bob and Charley Ford, to move in with him. He did not know that Bob Ford had negotiated with Missouri's governor to capture Jesse. On April 3, 1882, Ford shot Jesse in the back of the head as he dusted a picture hanging on the wall of his home. He was killed instantly. Ford asserted that he killed Jesse because he did not believe he could capture him alive. He was found guilty of murder but was immediately pardoned by the governor. In essence, the senior elected official of a state had conspired in the murder of a citizen who had never been convicted of a crime.

Frank James worked a variety of jobs over the next 30 years before his death in 1915. He, too, was never convicted of a crime.

King Henry VIII Named Head Of English Church, February 11, 1531

Today in 1531, The Catholic Church in England recognized King Henry VIII as its supreme head. This day marked an important step in the formation of the Church of England as a separate entity independent of papal authority. Like the Protestant Reformation that rocked mainland Europe during the 16th century, England's break from the Vatican and Roman Catholicism was long in coming and fraught with strife.

By the time of Henry's ascension to the throne, the Church of Rome had been a major power in Europe for a thousand years. This power was not just spiritual in nature, but political as well. Because of this, local monarchies often clashed with the Pope over issues such as taxation, the right to appoint bishops and the legal status of priests. The Vatican often won these disputes because it wielded the ultimate weapon: the threat of ex-communication. But as discontent with the Church grew, more and more people began to question the Pope's authority over faith and law, both canonical and political.

Henry VIII was not one of those people, at least during the early years of his reign. He allied himself and his nation with the Vatican, both religiously and militarily. He even went so far as to attack Martin Luther by authoring the work "Assertio Septem Sacramentorum", for which Pope Leo X granted Henry the title Defender of the Faith. But the king's loyalty to Rome would be severely tested when his personal desires began to run against those of Pope Clement VII.

Catherine of Aragon, Henry's first wife, was proving to be a thorn in his side by 1525. She had produced no living sons to carry on the Tudor line and, in fact, had only one surviving child, Princess Mary. Catherine was now over 40 years of age and the likelihood of her producing a male heir was highly unlikely. Henry's wandering eyes made matters worse when he found himself infatuated with Anne Boleyn, a young woman who was a member of the Queen's entourage. He ordered Cardinal Wolsey, the Church's most senior man in England, to begin a dialogue with the Vatican on the issue of an annulment of his marriage to Catherine. This was not an unheard of request from European royalty, but Henry's request met a major hurdle in the form of Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor. At that time, Charles essentially controlled Italy and, thus, the Vatican. Pope Clement VII was, for all intents and purposes, a prisoner. Charles had a personal interest in Henry and Catherine's marriage because Catherine was his aunt.

The formal request for an annulment arrived in Rome in 1527. Under pressure from Charles V, Pope Clement turned down the request. Henry would not accept this as the final answer on the matter. He ordered the creation of a document, with reference to early Church sources, stating that a nation's monarch was the supreme spiritual authority. In Henry's mind, at least, this meant that the Pope was acting illegally when he denied the annulment. The king turned up the pressure even more in 1531 when he demanded 100,000 pounds, an incredible fortune at that time, from England's clergy in exchange for a pardon for the crime of enforcing canon law as stated by the Church in Rome, which by Henry's assertion was out of its jurisdiction. Finally, he demanded that the Church in England recognize the king as its head and protector. This was done formally on February 11, 1531.

While this act may be thought to have been the last straw in the deteriorating relationship between Henry and Rome, this was not the case. As late as early 1532, representatives of the monarchy were still trying to reach a compromise with the Pope. Little came of these negotiations, however, and in 1533 the Statute in Restraint of Appeals came into being. This statute removed the right of English priests, bishops, archbishops and cardinals to appeal to Rome on most Church matters and instead ruled that all such appeals would be directed to the Archbishops of Canterbury and York. This allowed Henry to be granted his annulment and marry Anne Boleyn, which he did soon thereafter. Pope Clement VII excommunicated the king that same year. In 1534, the Act of Submission of the Clergy removed the right of any appeal to Rome, which ended the Vatican's influence with regard to the Church of England.

Although England would once again become a Roman Catholic nation during the reign of Mary I from 1553-1558, the die of an independent church had been cast. Today, the ruling English monarch is no longer referred to as the 'Supreme Head' of the Church of England, but rather the 'Supreme Governor', a title that is more administrative and more fitting to the actual duties of the monarch with regard to the church.

The Devil's Footprints, February 8, 1855

Today in 1855, citizens of the English county of Devon woke to a sight that was at once both interesting and disturbing. While the mystery seen that day was not entirely unique, its true origins remain unknown to us to this day.

On the night of February 7th, a light snow blanketed the county. The next morning, residents discovered U-shaped marks in the snow which resembled hoof marks. They measured from 1.5 to 2.5 inches wide and were roughly eight inches apart. Details vary, but most observers thought that the marks were left by something with two legs instead of four. What made the tracks mysterious was not just their shape, but the fact that they ran in an almost straight line for nearly one hundred miles. They crossed rivers, roofs, haystacks, carts and everything else in their path, only veering slightly over the course of the route.

At either end of the trail, the prints abruptly stopped as if whatever made them either flew away or disappeared into thin air. Most of the citizens of Devon assumed that the tracks were made by an animal. However, as the length of the trail was learned, it seemed unlikely that any creature would be able to cover such a distance overnight. What's more, the snow had stopped some time around midnight and the first tracks were discovered at daybreak. Thus, whatever made them covered 100 miles in about 6 hours, meaning that it ran continuously at a speed greater than 16 miles per hour.

The tracks gave little indication of the size of the creature that made them, but the trail it followed did. The tracks went through small drainage pipes and appeared on both sides of fences with only six-inch diameter holes in them. It was able to jump high walls and navigate thickets too tangled for dogs to enter. Some witnesses claimed that the tracks looked as if they had not been left in the snow because of the weight of the creature, but were created by heat, like a branding iron. This led some townspeople to speculate that the tracks were left by Satan himself wandering the countryside looking for sinners. What made this speculation terrifying was the fact that the tracks veered towards several homes' front doors before continuing on their base course.

It didn't take long for local ministers to make the tracks, now being called the Devil's Footprints, the subject of their Sunday sermons. The idea of Satan wandering around Devon in the dark of night caused a startling increase in church attendance. However, some people tried to find an explanation that was less supernatural. Reverend G.M. Musgrave wrote a letter to the Illustrated London News, claiming that two kangaroos had escaped from a private zoo in Sidmouth and had not been found. However attractive this explanation may have been, it did not explain the enormous distance the tracks covered.

Another explanation was soon presented: Spring-Heeled Jack, a high-jumping man-like creature first seen in the 1840's near London. Jack would attack women or cause carriages to run off the road, then run off with a high-pitched, mocking laugh. According to those who encountered him, Spring-Heeled Jack had red eyes and breathed fire. While this may seem ridiculous to us today, sightings of him were taken very seriously, enough so that the mayor of London had to appeal for calm while the demon-like creature was investigated. Sightings of Jack would continue well into the 20th century, but no conclusive explanation has ever been offered.

As with Spring-Heeled Jack, the Devil's Footprints defy explanation to this day. Researchers have found records of such tracks in places other than England----Poland and the Arctic just to name two. It seems the tracks also appeared in England during the 13th century after a particularly fierce thunderstorm. The latest sighting of similar tracks occurred in Cleveland, Ohio in 2000. These tracks seemed to indicate a stride of four feet, much larger than the Devon tracks. These, too, traveled into small places, although not for as great a distance. Investigators claimed that the tracks were made by a rabbit and obtained their odd shape due to deterioration of the prints and degradation of the snow. According to them, this would also explain the English tracks of 1855. While this theory has solved the mystery for some, others consider it a little too convenient.

The Washington Naval Treaty Signed, February 6, 1922

Today in 1922, the Washington Naval Treaty was signed by representatives of five nations: the United States, the British Empire, France, Italy and the Empire of Japan. The agreement, also known as the Five-Power Treaty, was the first treaty intended to limit the size and strength of the signatory nations' naval forces. It would change the balance of power in both the Atlantic and Pacific and force a re-thinking of naval strategy for the first time in nearly a century.

It is said by military historians that nations' military machines always prepare to fight the last war. In the case of naval strategy during the decade after the First World War, this was especially true. There had been only one large sea engagement during the war---the Battle of Jutland. While neither the German or British fleets won a decisive victory, the battle showed the world the awesome power of battleships and heavy cruisers. In the mind of admirals around the world, many of who had come of age during the last decades of the 19th century, there was simply no replacement for big guns and heavy armor mounted on a fast ship. While airplanes had proved their worth over the battlefields of Europe, the aircraft carrier was still seen as an experiment by the establishment.

During and after the war, Japan, the UK and the United States all embarked on massive shipbuilding programs aimed at producing the world's largest navy. Just like the nuclear arms buildup that would begin thirty years later, there seemed to be no end to the plans put forth for more and more powerful battleships and battlecruisers.

But other factors had to be taken into consideration. Of the five major sea powers, the British had the largest navy, but the United States had an economy larger than England, France, Japan and Italy combined. The Americans were worried about the Anglo-Japanese Alliance, which dated back to 1902 and called for the two empires to provide for a mutual defense. The US government also had to contend with a population that was increasingly isolationist. For their part, the Japanese considered themselves the major power in Asia and wanted a navy large enough to prove it.

To keep the naval arms race from growing out of control, US President Warren G. Harding created the Washington Naval Conference. While the major European powers were all invited (with the exception of Soviet Russia), the main intention of the American delegation was to limit the growth of Japanese naval power in the Pacific. To make sure the US had an upper hand in the negotiations, all the delegations' cables to their governments were tapped. Thus, the Americans knew the highest level of cuts the Japanese would accept without walking out of the negotiations.

The treaty that came out of the Washington Naval Conference limited the total tonnage that each of the five signatory nations could have in battleships. It also clearly defined what a battleship was and limited the caliber of guns to sixteen inches. The US and Britain were given the same tonnage allotment at 525,000 tons. Japan was given 315,000 tons while France and Italy were each given 175,000 tons. The difference in allotments was justified by the US because, according to the American delegation, America was responsible for defending coasts on two oceans. The British had a worldwide empire to defend, thus justifying their allotment. None of the other three signatory nations was in such a distributed position.

One unintended consequence of the Washington Naval Treaty was the acceptance of the aircraft carrier. Almost every unfinished ship that was outside of the treaty limits was converted to an aircraft carrier because there were virtually no limits on that type of ship other than the restriction on the size of the guns they carried. Thus, naval aviation slowly moved to the center of fleet operations and took on an offensive role instead of just acting as the eyes of the battleships.

For its part, the United States did not build another battleship until 1937.

The Day The Music Died, February 3, 1959

Today in 1959, a Beechcraft Bonanza aircraft crashed in a field five miles from the Mason City, Iowa airport. All three passengers and the pilot died instantly. In that moment, on a cold February morning, early rock and roll lost three shining stars; the genre would never be the same.

Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and J.P. "The Big Bopper" Richardson were all part of "The Winter Dance Party", an early rock and roll tour that planned stops in 24 cities in three weeks. All the cities were in the Midwestern part of the United States, an area known for bitterly cold winters. The organizers of the tour were evidently ignorant of this as well as the geography of the region. As a result, the bus used to carry the musicians was drafty and had a faulty heater. Instead of traveling to the cities based on their distance from one another, the tour zigzagged back and forth across the countryside, often backtracking down highways that had been traveled just days earlier.

By February, everyone was tired of life on the bus and the demanding pace of performances. Carl Bunch, who was a drummer for Buddy Holly's band The Crickets, suffered frostbite and had to leave the tour on the last day of January. Since The Crickets served as the band for all the performers on the tour, someone had to pull double-duty, playing the drums while the other performers were on stage. Normally, this was done by Holly or Valens. The mood of the musicians was later described as rebellious.

The Clear Lake, Iowa performance was not originally part of the tour, but an open date meant less money, so the tour's promoters offered a show to the owner of The Surf Ballroom; he accepted the offer and a performance was scheduled for February 2.

Before the show that night, Buddy Holly told his bandmates that he was tired of the bus. He said that he was going to charter a plane from a local company and fly to Fargo, North Dakota, which was a short distance from Moorhead, Minnesota, the site of the next performance. He contacted Dwyer Flying Service in Mason City, Iowa and bought the services of a pilot and a single-engine Beechcraft Bonanza. The Bonanza could carry four people: the pilot and three passengers. Holly would be one of the passengers; the other two would be Waylon Jennings and Tommy Allsup. They would arrive in Minnesota hours before the tour bus, meaning that they could sleep in a real bed in a heated room.

After the show, J.P. Richardson approached Waylon Jennings and asked for Jennings' seat on the plane. Richardson was a big man and the bus seats were uncomfortable for him. In addition, he had developed a case of the flu during the tour; he was hoping that a good night's rest would help him feel better. Jennings agreed to the swap.

Ritchie Valens asked Tommy Allsup to give up his seat as well. Valens had never flown before. Later stories mention that Valens also had a cold, but this is unconfirmed. Allsup was less than eager to give up his seat, but he offered to let a coin toss decide who would stay on the bus and who would go on the plane. Valens won the toss.

There was a fourth performer who had been offered in on the plane deal earlier in the evening---Dion of Dion and the Belmonts fame. The price for the plane rental was $36 per person, which had been the exact amount Dion's parents had paid monthly for their apartment when he was a child. He had heard them argue about the rent many times; to him, therefore, $36 was too much to pay for a frivolous plane ride.

In his 1996 autobiography, Waylon Jennings told of an exchange between him and Buddy Holly as they went their separate ways that fateful evening. Holly said to Jennings, "I hope your ole bus freezes up!" to which Jennings replied, "I hope your damn plane crashes!" Jennings would feel guilt for the rest of his life over the remark.

The pilot of the Bonanza was Roger Peterson, an employee of Dwyer Flying Service. Peterson was not an experienced pilot. He was not instrument rated, meaning that he should not have been flying at night in potentially severe weather. However, no one else was available. The foursome took off at 1AM local time. Eyewitnesses later said that they saw the plane's lights dip to the horizon soon after takeoff, but they assumed it either an optical illusion or the curvature of the Earth.

When the plane did not arrive at Fargo by 3:30AM, the authorities were contacted a search was begun. Jerry Dwyer, who owned the plane, flew Peterson's known flight path and at 9:15AM found the plane in a cornfield barely five miles from the airport. Subsequent investigation showed that the plane had hit the ground at 170 miles an hour, throwing the passengers from the plane and pinning the pilot inside. All were killed instantly.

Jiles Perry Richardson, The Big Bopper, was 28. Buddy Holly was 22. Roger Peterson, the pilot, was 21. Ritchie Valens was 17.

Crash investigators concluded that a combination of weather and pilot error caused the accident. Coincidentally, February 3, 1959 saw another plane crash, this one American Airlines Flight 320. This flight crashed into the East River while on approach to LaGuardia Airport in New York. 65 of the 73 people on board were killed. The American Airlines crash was front page news in most big city newspapers, relegating the death of the three rock and rollers to a smaller space.

The Nome Serum Run, February 2, 1925

Today in 1925, a team of tired, cold sled dogs and their equally exhausted musher arrived on Front Street in Nome, Alaska. The cargo the man and his dogs carried helped save possibly hundreds of lives. Theirs was the last leg of a relay race against time that is today recalled as the Great Race of Mercy or the Nome Serum Run

Nome, Alaska lies just below the Arctic Circle. In 1925, it was a town of about 1400 people, a mixture of American settlers and Inuit natives. During the winter, when daylight was scarce and temperatures could drop to almost 100 degrees below zero Fahrenheit, the only lifeline between Nome and outside world was the Iditarod Trail, a path 938 miles long that began far to the south in the port town of Seward. The trail crosses mountain ranges and drives through the vast and potentially deadly interior region of Alaska. By the 1920's, the first bush pilots were beginning to set up shop in Alaska, hoping to haul mail and other goods to remote towns and villages. This would come to pass in the next decade, but in 1925 airplanes were fragile things that did not take well to severe weather and cold. The only trustworthy way in and out of Nome was by sled.

The first sign of trouble in Nome actually came from a nearby village in the form of a young Inuit boy who was brought to the area's only doctor, Curtis Welch. Doctor Welch diagnosed the child as having tonsillitis, but he unexpectedly died the next day. Cases of what was thought to be tonsillitis cropped up in the town and surrounding area over the course of the next month, including four other children who died suddenly. The last of these children was 3-year old Bill Barnett; it was during his examination that Doctor Welch discovered not tonsillitis, but something much more sinister: diphtheria.

The town hospital had 8,000 units of expired diphtheria anti-toxin on hand, not enough to handle a full-blown epidemic. Welch and Nome's mayor called an emergency meeting in which they announced a quarantine and put out the call for one million units of the anti-toxin. This would be enough to treat hundreds of citizens. The mayor sent radio messages to the governor of Alaska and to the US Public Health Service in Washington, DC. He told them of the need for anti-toxin, stating that an epidemic of diphtheria was "inevitable." All of northwest Alaska, with a population of about 10,000, was threatened. Without the anti-toxin, the mortality rate for those infected would be near 100 percent.

At that time, a railway ran from the southern Alaska coast north to the small town of Nenana. 300,000 units of anti-toxin were brought via train to this northern terminus from Anchorage. It was not enough to stop an epidemic, but it was enough to allow the town to hold on until more units could be brought in from the United States. It was decided that a relay of dog sled teams would carry the precious vials the remaining way to Nome, a distance of 630 miles. The mayor of Nome was pulling for aircraft to make the run, but only three planes were operating in the territory that year, all of them open cockpit biplanes that were crated for the winter. The dogs and the mushers would have to pull through.

A relay was quickly organized. The best teams from the interior were tasked with the mission and all of them accepted the risks without hesitation. Some were in the middle of mail runs and were sent back to their stations. A series of handoffs to new teams would allow the anti-toxin to travel both day and night.

The trip began at 9PM on January 27 when "Wild Bill" Shannon accepted the package of anti-toxin at the train station in Nenana. It was 50 degrees below zero Fahrenheit. By the time he reached the town of Minto at 3AM the next morning, his nose was black from frostbite and he had lost four dogs. Nonetheless, he pushed on to Tolovana, a total of 52 miles.

Edgar Kallands took the next leg of the journey as the temperature fell to 56 degrees below zero. When he arrived at Manley Hot Springs at 4PM on the 28th, a local man had to pour hot water on his hands to unstick him from his sled's handlebar.

In the meantime, Norwegian Leonhard Seppala left Nome on January 27th and headed south for 170 miles into the teeth of a storm with a wind chill of 85 degrees below zero. The anti-toxin was still racing north, having changed hands several more times. It was with Henry Ivanoff and his team of dogs when they met Seppala heading the other way. Seppala, serum in hand, turned around and headed back north. He would travel the farthest of any of the teams, over 90 miles north after his 170 mile southbound run. He stopped at the village of Golovin, where he passed the serum to Charlie Olsen on February 1st.

The only mixup during the relay occurred when Gunnar Kaasen, having traveled through a storm so intense that he could not see his dog team in front of him, arrived at Point Safety only to find his relief asleep. Instead of waiting for the man to get his team together, Kaasen decided to make the run into Nome himself. He arrived in Nome at 5:30AM on February 2nd, 1925. Not a single vial of the anti-toxin was broken.

A second relay was run beginning on February 8th, using many of the same men who made the first trip. Unbeknownst to them, their first run had garnered front page attention in every major newspaper in the United States and even some in Europe. Some of the drivers and their teams, including Kaasen and Seppala, would tour the United States in the next few years and draw enormous crowds.

It is not known for sure how many people died as a result of diphtheria in and around Nome, Alaska that winter. While the official estimates range between 5 and 7 people, it is likely much higher due to the fact that the native Inuits did not always report deaths. Either way, the number is exponentially lower than it would have been if not for the bravery and perseverance of a few men and their dogs.