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On this Day In History

Birthdates which occurred on December 18:
1707 Charles Wesley, co-founder (Methodist movement)
1778 Joseph Grimaldi, known as the "greatest clown in history,"
1856 Joseph John Thomson, Eng, physicist discovered electron (Nobel 1906)
1879 Paul Klee, Swiss abstract painter.
1886 Ty (Tyrus Raymond) Cobb, American baseball player, first man to be elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame.
1890 Edwin Howard Armstrong, NYC, radio pioneer inventor (FM)
1913 Willy Brandt, Mayor of Berlin and Chancellor of West Germany.
1913 Betty Grable (Elisabeth Grasle) (actress: The Gay Divorcee, Follow the Fleet)
1917 Ossie Davis (writer, actor: A Raisin in the Sun)
1919 Anita O'Day (Colton) (jazz singer)
1927 Ramsey Clark (U.S. Attorney General under President Lyndon Johnson [1967-1969]){never met a dictator he didn't like}
1943 Keith Richards (guitar: group: The Rolling Stones:)
1947 Stephen Spielberg (Academy Award-winning director)
1955 Ray Liotta (Actor: Good Fellas)

Deaths which occurred on December 18:
0468 Huna Mari bar Mar Zutra, rabbi, executed in Pumpedita
1505 John IX van Horne, prince-bishop of Lieges, executed
1565 Benedetto Varchi, Italian humanist/historian (L'Ercolano), dies at 62
1737 Antonio Stradivari, renowned violin-maker, dies in Cremona Italy at 93
1829 Jean-Baptiste de Lamarck, French nature investigator, dies at about 85
1919 Horatio William Parker, composer, dies at 56
1931 John T "Legs" Diamond US gangster, murdered at 35
1959 Dorothy L Sayers, writer, dies at 66
1977 Cyril Ritchard, actor (Peter Pan), dies at 80
1980 Alexei N Kosygin, Soviet PM (1964-80), suffers heart attack at 76
1996 Arthur Jacobs, musicologist, dies at 74
1997 Chris Farley, comedian (SNL, Tommy Boy), dies at 33
2000 Newspaper heir Randolph Apperson Hearst, the last surviving son of William Randolph Hearst, died in New York at age 85.

Reported: MISSING in ACTION

1968 BARRAS GREGORY I---JACKSON MS.
["REMAINS RETURNED, IDENTIFIED 12/03/98"]
1971 HILDEBRAND LELAND L.---FIFIELD WI.
[03/28/73 RELEASED BY DRV, ALIVE AND WELL 1998]
1971 WELLS KENNETH---VANCOUVER WA.
[03/28/73 RELEASED BY DRV, ALIVE AND WELL 98]
1972 CERTAIN ROBERT G.---SILVER SPRINGS MD.
[03/29/73 RELEASED BY DRV, ALIVE AND WELL 98]
1972 FERGUSON WALTER L.---DETROIT MI.
[08/23/78 REMAINS RETURNED]
1972 JOHNSON RICHARD E.---OCEANSIDE CA.
[03/29/73 RELEASED BY DRV, ALIVE IN 98]
1972 MC ELVAIN JAMES R.---LA VERNE CA.
1972 RISSI DONALD L.---COLLINSVILLE IL.
[08/23/78 REMAINS RETURNED]
1972 SIMPSON RICHARD T.---ANDERSON SC.
[03/29/73 RELEASED BY DRV, ALIVE AND WELL 98]
1972 THOMAS ROBERT J.---MIAMI FL.
[08/23/78 REMAINS RETURNED]
1972 WARD RONALD J.---ANADARKO OK.

POW / MIA Data & Bios supplied by
the P.O.W. NETWORK. Skidmore, MO. USA.

On this day...
1118 Afonso the Battler, the Christian King of Aragon captures Saragossa, Spain, a major blow to Muslim Spain.
1378 Charles V denounces the treachery of John IV of Brittany and confiscates his duchy.
1719 Thomas Fleet publishes "Mother Goose's Melodies For Children"
1774 Jews expelled from Prague, Bohemia & Moravia by Empress Maria Theresa
1787 New Jersey becomes 3rd state to ratify constitution
1796 1st US newspaper to appear on Sunday (Baltimore Monitor)
1799 George Washington's body interred at Mount Vernon
1812 Napoleon Bonaparte arrives in Paris after his disastrous campaign in Russia.
1813 British take Fort Niagara in the War of 1812
1849 William Bond obtains 1st photograph of Moon through a telescope
1862 Nathan B. Forrest engages and defeats a Federal cavalry force near Lexington in his continued effort to disrupt supply lines.
1862 Union General Ulysses S. Grant announces the organization of his army in the West. Sherman, Hurlbut, McPherson, and McClernand are to be corps commanders.
1892 Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky's ballet "Nutcracker Suite" premieres
1898 Automobile speed record set-63 kph (39 mph)
1915 President Wilson, widowed the year before, marries Edith Bolling Galt
1915 In a single night, about 20,000 Australian and New Zealand troops withdraw from Gallipoli, Turkey, undetected by the Turks defending the peninsula.
1916 The Battle of Verdun ends with the French and Germans each having suffered more than 330,000 killed and wounded in 10 months.
1925 Soviet leaders Lev Kamenev and Grigori Zinoviev break with Joseph Stalin.
1932 Chicago Bears beat Portsmouth Spartans 9-0 in 1st NFL playoff game
1940 Adolf Hitler issues his secret plans for the invasion of the Soviet Union--Operation Barbarossa.
1941 Defended by 610 fighting men, the American-held island of Guam falls to more than 5,000 Japanese invaders in a three-hour battle.
1944 Japanese forces are repelled from northern Burma by British troops.
1947 Pope Pius XII publishes encyclical Optissima Pax
1948 Indonesia begins its 2nd political election
1951 North Koreans give the United Nations a list of 3,100 POWs.
1956 Japan is admitted to the United Nations.
1960 A rightist government is installed under Prince Boun Oum in Laos as the United States resumes arms shipments.
1963 Muskegon MI gets 3' of snow
1965 U.S. Marines attack VC units in the Que Son Valley during Operation Harvest Moon.
1966 Dr Seuss' "How the Grinch Stole Christmas" airs for 1st time on CBS
1970 An atomic leak in Nevada forces hundreds of citizens to flee the test site.
1972 President Richard M. Nixon declares that the bombing of North Vietnam will continue until an accord can be reached.
1985 Congress approved the biggest overhaul of farm legislation since the Depression, trimming price supports.
1985 UN Security Council unanimously condemns "acts of hostage-taking"(WOW!!Bold!)
1991 DeForest Kelly (Dr McCoy on Star Trek) gets a star in Hollywood
2000 The Electoral College cast its ballots, with President-elect Bush receiving the expected 271; Al Gore, however, received 266, one fewer than expected, because of a District of Columbia Democrat who left her ballot blank to protest the district's lack of representation in Congress.

Holidays
Note: Some Holidays are only applicable on a given "day of the week"

New Jersey : Ratification Day (1787)
Niger : Republic Day (1958)
World : Underdog Day (Friday)
US : Pantotime Day
US : Crazy From Xmas Shopping Day (1 week warning!)
Stress-Free Family Holidays Month

Religious Observances
Christian : Feast of Our Lady of Solitude, patron of lonely

Religious History
1819 Birth of Isaac Thomas Hecker, American Roman Catholic leader. He entered the Redemptorist Order in 1845, and in 1858 founded the Missionary Society of St. Paul the Apostle (the Paulist Fathers). He was superior general of the Paulist Society during his last 30 years (1858_88).
1834 Emory College was chartered in Oxford, GA, under Methodist auspices. In 1915 it changed its name to Emory University and in 1919 the campus was relocated in Atlanta, GA.
1892 Rabbi H. Rosenberg was expelled from Temple Beth_Jacob in Brooklyn, NY, for eating pork.
1904 Indian mystic Sundar Singh, 15, was converted to Christianity through a vision. Baptized into the Church of England in 1905, Singh afterward donned the robe of a Sadhu (holy man) in an endeavor to present Christianity in a Hindu form. (He disappeared in April 1929, while undertaking a strenuous work in Tibet.)
1943 German theologian and Nazi martyr Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote in a letter from prison: 'The man who finds God in his earthly happiness...does not lack reminder that earthly things are transient...and...there will be times when he can say in all sincerity, "I wish I were home."'

Source: William D. Blake. ALMANAC OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. Minneapolis: Bethany House, 1987.

Thought for the day :
"Enjoy yourself. It's later than you think."

Question of the day...
A stitch in time saves nine what?

Murphys Law of the day...(Getty's Reminder)
The meek shall inherit the earth, but NOT its mineral rights.

Astounding fact #76,981...
Elizabeth I of England suffered from anthophobia, a fear of roses.

1941 Defended by 610 fighting men, the American-held island of Guam falls to more than 5,000 Japanese invaders in a three-hour battle.

When Japanese planes began bombing Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941 another attack was taking place in the Pacific on the island of Guam.

But unlike Hawaii a Japanese invasion force of 5,000 hit beaches three days later. In the capital city of Agana, eight Marines prepared for the invaders.

“I told my men it wasn’t fair. There was only 5,000 of them, we figured they didn’t stand a chance,” said Ray Church, who fought on Guam as a Marine sergeant. “The night before the invasion these four sailors were heading down to the beach. They had about three rifles, 12 rounds of ammunition and a case of beer. They told me they were going to meet the Japanese navy on the beach. None of us knew what war was then, we weren’t afraid of anything.”

Church, who lives in Ogden, and friend and neighbor, James Thurell, a retired Loadmaster for the Air Force, went to Guam in January, so Church could honor his fallen comrades and lay a wreath at the 3rd Marine Division World War II monument in their honor.

When the two men arrived at Guam they were greeted by the island’s protocol officer, Frank J. Salas, who took them on a limousine tour of the island Church had defended 60 years before.

“We met Governor Carl T.C. Gutierrez and he knew how important the visit was to me. He told our driver to take us any place we wanted to go to let us see anything we wanted to see,” Church said. “I met the governor’s wife whose mother was on the island when the Japanese invaded. She was beaten to death a week before the Americans liberated Guam.”

Church and Thurell visited cemeteries and monuments in remembrance of those fateful days. The two went to the Plaza de Espana where Church and his comrades had made their last stand against the Japanese. For Church it was a trip necessary to close a chapter of his life and to remember the friends who were killed.

“I lost some good friends there. They were outstanding fellows who were poorly armed,” Church said. “We didn’t have any anti-aircraft guns so the Japanese would strafe the city at will. A couple of us climbed to the top of a hill before the Japanese would start their attack from and set up a little surprise for them. They would come so close to the top you could hit the plane with a rock. We shot one plane down and let the others know we were there. Finally we were ordered to come down, we were pretty mad about that because we felt we were doing something. Before any of us could complain, after we came down, the Japanese bombed the top of that hill flat.”

Among some of the first Americans captured during the war, Church was forced to surrender to the Japanese on Dec.10, 1941 and would spend the rest of the war forced into slave labor. But first he and 120 Navy and 130 Marine personnel would have to get to the camp.

“They put us on cargo boats, by then our Navy had submarines in the area and they were sinking cargo boats going to and from Japan. Only one of the three boats they loaded us on to made it through,” Church said.

The Americans quickly learned their captors had little respect for their prisoners’ fate.

“I was 180 pounds when I was caught and I weighed 112 when I was liberated. We had a fellow who had been an all-American football player. He started out at well over 200 pounds, then after a while he was just skin and bones. He would walk around and say ‘130 pounds of spit and polish ready to go!’ He had a sense of humor about it,” Church said. “One guy snuck a little American flag into the camp. When spirits were at their lowest and some of the guys were just not going to make it he would pull it out and say ‘God bless America.’ That little flag saved a lot of guys and kept us going.”

Church was made to unload heavy cargo from Japanese ships, but would find ways of sneaking out bits of food to give to fellow soldiers who were being starved to death. When the chaplain at the camp died, the commandant asked Church to lead the camp in a daily recital of the Lord’s Prayer.

As the war progressed their Japanese captors told the American prisoners they would be shot if the allies ever invaded Japan. Church and his comrades decided the only way to save themselves would be to capture a boat and head for the open seas because there would be no place to escape in Japan when the invasion came. Little did any of them know the end was near, the camp was near the city of Hiroshima, separated by a series of rolling hills.

“We saw the mushroom cloud and didn’t know what it was. We figured the invasion was coming. The Japanese were very excited, the villagers started putting their things in carts and heading for the hills. We got tense because we thought the guards would start executing us. One guard told me the Americans had a bomb that exploded 100 meters above the ground and could wipe out an entire city. None of us had any idea what he was talking about,” Church said. “After we were freed, they took us by train through Hiroshima. There was nothing left, total devastation. I had seen bombed cities, but there wasn’t a building standing, it was just flattened.”

The camp was discovered by a B-29, which dropped food for the men. Many had reached a point of malnutrition so that eating a whole egg could kill them. The planes came every few hours delivering food and clothing, according to Church.

On Oct. 12, 1945 from the deck of a ship Church saw Point Loma off the coast of California. After five years of interment he was finally home. For his bravery while under extreme circumstances he received a personal letter from President Harry S Truman and a special citation from the Marine Corps for service above and beyond duty.