Fourth of July fireworks
Fourth of July fireworks
As the Fourth of July approaches: If you are traveling somewhere, travel safely! If you are celebrating, celebrate smartly, leave the fireworks to the professionals. Please remember to commemorate the founding of our country on the anniversary of its independence!
RUSH at Anchor. Circa Early 1950s. Courtesy of Joseph Koye (1930-1984)
Hotel for REUNION 2009 is the Holiday Inn West, Portland, Maine. Call the DIRECT phone number for the hotel to make reservations.
REUNION 2009 Registration and Tour information should be in your hands now. RUSH GRAM 55 - the REUNION 2009 Special Edition has been mailed......... This issue also includes the list of members who have entered the Early Registration Contest. That contest ended at Midnight April 15, 2009. Please let us know if you have not received your copy.
Please note that the MEMBER's ONLY area of the website is experiencing technical problems. The webmaster will get that area repaired as soon as he can. Please be patient!! Thanks!!
Just three days after the United Nations Security Council voted to provide military assistance to South Korea, President Harry S. Truman ordered U.S. armed forces to assist in defending that nation from invading North Korean armies on June 30, 1950. Truman's dramatic step marked the official entry of the United States into the Korean War. U.S. ground forces entered South Korea that same day. At the same time, Truman ordered the U.S. Air Force to bomb military targets in North Korea and directed the U.S. Navy to blockade the North Korean coast.
On July 1, 1995, legendary radio disk jockey Wolfman Jack, born Robert Smith, died. Brooklyn-born Smith became famous when he was broadcasting from Mexico in the 1960s. Because Mexican stations broadcasted with five times more power than U.S. stations, a large portion of the United States could receive Wolfman Jack's show every night, on which he played blues and early rock and roll. He died in North Carolina.
On July 2, 1776, the Second Continental Congress, assembled in Philadelphia, formally adopted Richard Henry Lee's resolution for independence from Great Britain. The vote was unanimous, with only New York abstaining. The resolution had originally been presented to Congress on June 7, but it soon became clear that New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland and South Carolina were as yet unwilling to declare independence, though they would likely be ready to vote in favor of a break with England in due course.
Troops under Confederate General George Pickett begin a massive attack against the center of the Union lines at Gettysburg on the climactic third day of the Battle of Gettysburg. On July 3 1863, General Robert E. Lee decided to attack the Union center, stationed on Cemetery Ridge. The majority of the force consisted of Pickett's division, but there were other units represented among the 15,000 attackers. After a long Confederate artillery bombardment, the Rebel force moved through the open field and up the slight rise of Cemetery Ridge. But by the time they reached the Union line, the attack had been broken into many small units, and they were unable to penetrate the Yankee center. The failed attack effectively ended the battle of Gettysburg. The casualties for both armies were staggering. Lee lost 28,000 of his 75,000 soldiers, and Union losses stood at over 22,000. It was the last time Lee threatened Northern territory.
On July 4, 1776, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the Continental Congress formaly declared independence from Great Britain and its king by ratifying the Declaration of Independence and forming the a new United States of America. The declaration came 442 days after the first shots of the American Revolution were fired at Lexington and Concord in Massachusetts and marked an ideological expansion of the conflict that would eventually involve France's intervention on behalf of the Americans.
Near Sojong, South Korea, Private Kenneth Shadrick, a 19-year-old infantryman from Skin Fork, West Virginia, became the first American reported killed in the Korean War. Shadrick, a member of a bazooka squad, had just fired the weapon at a Soviet-made tank when he looked up to check his aim and was cut down by enemy machine-gun fire on July 5, 1950. In 1953, an armistice was signed, ending the war and reestablishing the 1945 division of Korea that still exists today. Approximately 150,000 troops from South Korea, the United States, and participating U.N. nations were killed in the Korean War, and as many as one million South Korean civilians perished. An estimated 800,000 communist soldiers were killed, and more than 200,000 North Korean civilians died.
In Hartford, Connecticut, a fire broke out under the big top of the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus, killing 167 people and injuring 682 on July 6, 1944. Two-thirds of those who perished were children. The cause of the fire was unknown, but it spread at incredible speed, racing up the canvas of the circus tent. Scarcely before the 8,000 spectators inside the big top could react, patches of burning canvas began falling on them from above, and a stampede for the exits began. Many were trapped under fallen canvas, but most were able to rip through it and escape. However, after the tent's ropes burned and its poles gave way, the whole burning big top came crashing down, consuming those who remained inside. Within 10 minutes it was over, and some 100 children and 60 of their adult escorts were dead or dying.
Samantha Smith, an 11-year-old American girl, began a two-week visit to the Soviet Union at the invitation of Soviet leader Yuri Andropov on July 7, 1983. Some American observers believed that Smith was merely being used by the Soviets for their own propaganda purposes, while others saw her visit as a positive step toward improving U.S.-Russian relations. In April 1983, the Soviet government released a letter written by Smith to Andropov. In the letter, Smith asked Andropov about his country and whether he wanted peace with the United States. Surprisingly, Andropov answered the letter personally, assuring Smith that he had the greatest friendliness toward America and wished only for peace and mutual understanding.
On July 8, 1959, Maj. Dale R. Ruis and Master Sgt. Chester M. Ovnand become the first Americans killed in the American phase of the Vietnam War when guerrillas struck a Military Assistance Advisory Group (MAAG) compound in Bien Hoa, 20 miles northeast of Saigon. The group had arrived in South Vietnam on November 1, 1955, to provide military assistance. The organization consisted of U.S. Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marine Corps personnel who provided advice and assistance to the Ministry of Defense, Joint General Staff, corps and division commanders, training centers, and province and district headquarters.
On July 9, 1877, the All England Croquet and Lawn Tennis Club began its first lawn tennis tournament at Wimbledon, then an outer-suburb of London. Twenty-one amateurs showed up to compete in the Gentlemen's Singles tournament, the only event at the first Wimbledon. The Wimbledon Championships, the only major tennis event still played on grass, is held annually in late June and early July.
On July 10, 1943, the Allies begin their invasion of Axis-controlled Europe with landings on the island of Sicily, off mainland Italy. Encountering little resistance from the demoralized Sicilian troops, the British 8th Army under Field Marshal Bernard Law Montgomery came ashore on the southeast of the island, while the U.S. 7th Army under General George S. Patton landed on Sicily's south coast. Within three days, 150,000 Allied troops were ashore.
Parts of Skylab, America's first space station, came crashing down on Australia and into the Indian Ocean five years after the last manned Skylab mission ended on July 11, 1979. No one was injured. Launched in 1973, Skylab was the world's first successful space station. The first manned Skylab mission came two years after the Soviet Union launched Salynut 1, the world's first space station, into orbit around the earth.
President Abraham Lincoln signed into law a measure calling for the awarding of a U.S. Army Medal of Honor, in the name of Congress, "to such noncommissioned officers and privates as shall most distinguish themselves by their gallantry in action, and other soldier-like qualities during the present insurrection," on July 12, 1862. The previous December, Lincoln had approved a provision creating a U.S. Navy Medal of Valor, which was the basis of the Army Medal of Honor created by Congress in July 1862. The first U.S. Army soldiers to receive what would become the nation's highest military honor were six members of a Union raiding party who in 1862 penetrated deep into Confederate territory to destroy bridges and railroad tracks between Chattanooga, Tennessee, and Atlanta, Georgia.
On July 13, 1995, the Chrysler Corporation opened a car dealership in downtown Hanoi, Vietnam. One week later, Chrysler opened another dealership in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, with the intention of marketing 200 import vehicles per year through the two dealerships. The openings were a part of Chrysler's long-term goal of implementing auto production in Vietnam--something that rivals Ford and Toyota were also pursuing at the time. On September 6, Chrysler received permission from the Vietnamese government to assemble vehicles in Vietnam.
Born on date: 12/1/1995
And still going strong!
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