All Things in Moderation

1972 – Just before midnight, amidst the backdrop of the twentieth Olympic games, 9 Israeli Olympic athletes are massacred on the tarmac at the Munich airport after a botched rescue attempt turns into a firefight between their Palestinian captors and German security forces. The athletes, most of them members of the Israeli wrestling team, had been taken hostage (2 others were killed) by members of the terrorist organization Black September after the terrorists had sneaked into the Olympic Village and stormed the Israeli apartment complex in the early morning hours. After an initial demand for the release of some 230 prisoners held in Israeli prisons, a day of negotiations is played out in front of a worldwide television audience of millions. Eventually the attackers request a plane to take them to Cairo, a request ostensibly granted by German authorities, who prepare to ambush the attackers after transporting them to an air base in helicopters. The plan, to the extent there really was one, goes drastically awry when security forces posing as airplane attendants take it upon themselves to abort the mission, thus tipping off the terrorists to the trap. In the ensuing firefight, the terrorists turn their fire on the bound hostages in the helicopter, and then toss a grenade into it, incinerating anyone who was still alive.

1836 – Sam Houston is elected as the first president of the Republic of Texas. A year earlier Houston had been appointed to be a military commander of the Texas army during the nascent movement to establish Texas independence from Mexico. Under Houston’s leadership the Texas army had recovered from a disastrous defeat at the Alamo in early 1836, and had gone on to defeat the Mexican army, capturing its general Santa Anna in the process. Santa Anna was subsequently forced to sign an armistice granting Texas its independence. Houston actually gets elected as Texas’ president twice, serving from 1836-1838, and then again from 1841-1844. He would go on to serve as a Senator in the US congress after helping Texas gain admission as state in the US in 1845.

1774 – In response to the passage of the Coercive Acts, more locally known as the Intolerable Acts, 56 delegates representing 12 of the 13 colonies (Georgia was unrepresented) gather in Philadelphia for the first ever session of the Continental Congress. It is the first formal act of unified opposition to British rule among the American colonies. The delegates, who will draft a declaration of rights and grievances to be sent to the King, include Patrick Henry, John Adams, and George Washington.

Title added by Michi

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1972 – US swimmer Mark Spitz helps his team win the medley relay in a record setting time, thus winning his 7th gold medal at the Munich Olympic games, setting a record that would last for 40 years. Spitz also set new world records in each of the other 6 events in which he won the gold. His tally of 7 golds will remain a record until 2012 when Michael Phelps took home 8 at the Beijing Olympics.

1957 – The Edsel, the first new car brand to be introduced by one of the Big 3 motor companies in 20 years, and perhaps the most infamous flop in car manufacturing history, is presented to the public by the Ford Motor Company. Veiled in secrecy, Ford had hyped the new car with a marketing campaign that showed only the hood ornament and promised simply “The Edsel is coming.” But when it was finally unveiled, the public was not impressed. Coming amidst a changing economic landscape, the car was too big and too expensive, and had a myriad of technical problems, including a hood ornament that tended to fly off on the highway. After only 3 years, and a loss of $250 million, the Edsel division folded.

1886 – The Indian wars of the American southwest effectively come to an end when Geronimo, the last remaining warrior chief to organize resistance to US forces, surrenders. Geronimo is sent to reservations first in Florida and then in Louisiana, finally ending up in Oklahoma, where he converted to Christianity, became a successful farmer, and even participated in Theodore Roosevelt’s inaugural parade.

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2004 – A three-day hostage crisis in a school in the town of Beslan, Russia comes to a violent end when a gun battle between Russian security forces and the hostage takers erupts following an explosion. Three days earlier Chechen terrorists had surrounded and then taken over the school, holding some 1,200 children, parents and teachers, who had been celebrating the first day of school, in the school gym. The gym was then rigged with explosives as the terrorists demanded a Russian troop withdrawal from Chechnya. On the third day of the siege, an explosion in the gym, which witnesses later say was accidentally set off, sparks a firefight between the terrorists and security forces. By the time it is over, 31 of the 32 terrorists are dead, along with 331 of the hostages, including 186 children.

1783 – America is officially recognized as an independent nation with the signing of the Treaty of Paris, formally ending the American Revolution. The last major battle of the Revolution had ended two years previously with the surrender of British General Cornwallis to French and American troops, but final peach negotiations had continued throughout 1782 and 1783. The final agreement granted America its independence as well as granting all lands from Florida to the Great Lakes and between the Atlantic and the Mississippi to the US, essentially doubling its size.

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1969 – Chemical Bank in Rockville Center, New York introduces the automated teller machine to its customers, the first ATM to appear in the US. ATM’s will go on to alter the face of personal banking across the world, and have become an indispensable feature to every day life.

1959 – Responding to the increasing appeal of smaller imported cars, Ford introduces the Falcon, its first compact, fuel efficient car dubbed “the small car with the big car feel”. Priced at only $1,900, the car is a huge hit, with dealers ordering 97,000 of the cars on the first day alone, and more than 2 million of them are sold in its first two years. My dad had a Falcon when I was a kid.

1945 – Aboard the USS Missourri, Japanese Foreign Minister Mamoru Shigemitsu and General Yoshijiro Umezu of the Imperial Army formally sign unconditional surrender documents, officially ending World War II. The surrender ceremony in color.

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1985 – The R.M.S. Titanic is discovered on the ocean floor 12,000 feet below the surface of the Atlantic by an expedition headed by Robert S. Ballard. Ballard is actually on a secret mission chartered by the US Navy to locate and photograph two sunken nuclear submarines, the USS Thresher and USS Scorpion. Using the search for the Titanic as a cover story, Ballard is allowed to search for the remains of the ship after having located the two submarines. Scanning the ocean floor with an unmanned submersible sub named Argo, Ballard discovers one of Titanic‘s massive boilers, which leads to the wider debris field and eventually the ship itself.

1939 – One week after signing the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, a non-aggression treaty between Germany and the Soviet Union, World War II begins when Germany invades Poland. The move prompts both Britain and France to declare war on Germany two days later, and the Soviets will join in the invasion of Poland by mid-September, effectively splitting the nation between Germany and the Soviets. Despite Germany’s defeat 6 years later, it will be 50 years before Poland will regain its independence from the Soviet Union.

1864 – In one of the most decisive battles of the Civil War, Union forces under the command of William Tecumseh Sherman capture Atlanta, an important supply hub for the South. The battle for the city had begun in May, and it will remain occupied by Union forces until November 15 when Sherman leaves the city in ruins and begins his infamous March to the Sea.

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