Happy Labor Day Yonkersites, Monday is not so mundane when its a holiday. Currently Yonkers is cloudy and 73 degrees with west/south-west winds at 2 mph, the humidity is 88%, the dew point is 69 degrees, the barometer is 30.0 inches and steady, and the visibility is 9 miles. Yonkers will have areas of patchy fog early then mostly cloudy with isolated thunderstorms developing this afternoon, a high of 86 degrees with west/south-west winds at 5 to 10 mph. There is a 30% chance of rain. A stray thunderstorm is possible throughout the evening, partly cloudy skies, a low of 72 degrees with south-west winds at 5 to 10 mph. Sun-up occurs at 6:23 AM and descends gracefully beyond the Palisades at 7:27 PM. You’ll have 13 hours and 04 minutes of available daylight. Ocean View, Hawaii County, Hawaii, Population:2,178. At Sun 11:37 PM HST Ocean View is cloudy and 81 degrees. Some clouds around tonight in Ocean View, a low near 70 degrees with east/north-east winds at 10 to 20 mph. Generally sunny tomorrow with a few afternoon clouds, a high around 80 degrees with east winds at 10 to 20 mph. Tomorrow night will have a few clouds from time to time, a low around 70 degrees with east/north-east winds at 10 to 20 mph. Brisbane, Queensland, Australia, Population: 2,238,394. At 7:44 PM AEST Brisbane is fair and 66 degrees. There will be a few passing clouds tonight in Brisbane, a low of 54 degrees with north/north-west winds at 10 to 15 mph. Tomorrow Brisbane some clouds in the morning giving way to sunny skies for the afternoon, A high of 84 degrees with west/north-west winds at 10 to 20 mph. Mostly clear skies for tomorrow night, a low of 51 degrees with west/south-west winds at 10 to 20 mph. Dothan, Houston County, Alabama. At 4:49 AM CDT Dothan is clear and 73 degrees. Dothan will me mainly clear early and then a few afternoon clouds, a stray afternoon thunderstorm may arise, a high of 97 degrees with south/south-west winds at 5 to 10 mph. A stray thunderstorm may appear anytime throughout the evening, partly cloudy, a low of 73 degrees with winds light and variable. Today 9/01 In HISTORY: 1 - 1775 - American Revolution - Richard Penn and Arthur Lee, representing the Continental Congress, present the so-called Olive Branch Petition to the Earl of Dartmouth on this day in 1775. Britains King George III, however, refused to receive the petition, which, written by John Dickinson, appealed directly to the king and expressed hope for reconciliation between the colonies and Great Britain. Dickinson, who hoped desperately to avoid a final break with Britain, phrased colonial opposition to British policy this way: Your Majestys Ministers, persevering in their measures, and proceeding to open hostilities for enforcing them, have compelled us to arm in our own defence, and have engaged us in a controversy so peculiarly abhorrent to the affections of your still faithful Colonists, that when we consider whom we must oppose in this contest, and if it continues, what may be the consequences, our own particular misfortunes are accounted by us only as parts of our distress. By phrasing their discontent this way, Congress attempted to notify the king that American colonists were unhappy with ministerial policy, not his own. They then concluded their plea with a final statement of fidelity to the crown: That your Majesty may enjoy long and prosperous reign, and that your descendants may govern your Dominions with honour to themselves and happiness to their subjects, is our sincere prayer. By July 1776, though, the Declaration of Independence proclaimed something very different: The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. In fact, Congress insisted that Thomas Jefferson remove any language from the declaration that implicated the people of Great Britain or their elected representatives in Parliament. The fundamental grounds upon which Americans were taking up arms had shifted. The militia that had fired upon Redcoats at Lexington and Concord in April 1775 had been angry with Parliament, not the king, who they still trusted to desire only good for all of his subjects around the globe. This belief changed after Congress learned that King George refused to so much as receive the Olive Branch Petition. Americans had hoped that Parliament had curtailed colonial rights without the kings full knowledge, and that the petition would cause him to come to his subjects defense. When George III refused to read the petition, many Americans realized that Parliament was acting with royal knowledge and support. Americans patriotic rage was further intensified by the January 1776 publication by English-born radical Thomas Paine of Common Sense, an influential pamphlet that attacked the monarchy, which Paine claimed had allowed crowned ruffians to impoverish the nation and set it together by the ears. 2 - 1864 - Civil War - Union Army General William Tecumseh Sherman lays siege to Atlanta, Georgia, a critical Confederate hub, shelling civilians and cutting off supply lines. The Confederates retreated, destroying the citys munitions as they went. On November 15 of that year, Shermans troops burned much of the city before continuing their march through the South. Shermans Atlanta campaign was one of the most decisive victories of the Civil War. William Sherman, born May 8, 1820, in Lancaster, Ohio, attended West Point and served in the army before becoming a banker and then president of a military school in Louisiana. When the Civil War broke out in 1861 after 11 Southern slave states seceded from the Union, Sherman joined the Union Army and eventually commanded large numbers of troops, under General Ulysses S. Grant, at the battles of Shiloh (1862), Vicksburg (1863) and Chattanooga (1863). In the spring of 1864, Sherman became supreme commander of the armies in the West and was ordered by Grant to take the city of Atlanta, then a key military supply center and railroad hub for the Confederates. Shermans Atlanta campaign began on May 4, 1864, and in the first few months his troops engaged in several fierce battles with Confederate soldiers on the outskirts of the city, including the Battle of Kennesaw Mountain, which the Union forces lost. However, on September 1, Shermans men successfully captured Atlanta and continued to defend it through mid-November against Confederate forces led by John Hood. Before he set off on his famous March to the Sea on November 15, Sherman ordered that Atlantas military resources, including munitions factories, clothing mills and railway yards, be burned. The fire got out of control and left Atlanta in ruins. Sherman and 60,000 of his soldiers then headed toward Savannah, Georgia, destroying everything in their path that could help the Confederates. They captured Savannah and completed their March to the Sea on December 23, 1864. The Civil War ended on April 9, 1865, when the Confederate commander in chief, Robert E. Lee, surrendered to Grant at Appomattox Courthouse, Virginia. After the war, Sherman succeeded Grant as commander in chief of the U.S. Army, serving from 1869 to 1883. Sherman, who is credited with the phrase war is hell, died February 14, 1891, in New York City. The city of Atlanta swiftly recovered from the war and became the capital of Georgia in 1868, first on a temporary basis and then permanently by popular vote in 1877. 3 - 1862 - Civil War - Following his brilliant victory at the Second Battle of Bull Run two days earlier, Confederate General Robert E. Lee strikes retreating Union forces at Chantilly, Virginia, and drives them away in the middle of an intense thunderstorm. Although his army routed the Yankee forces of General John Pope at Bull Run, Lee was not satisfied. By attacking the retreating Federals, Lee hoped to push them back into Washington, D.C., and achieve a decisive victory by destroying the Union army. The Bull Run battlefield lay 25 miles east of the capital, allowing Lee room to send General Thomas J. Stonewall Jacksons corps on a quick march to cut off part of the Union retreat before reaching the defenses of the capital. Jackson departed with his corps on August 31. Using General J.E.B. Stuarts Rebel cavalry as a screen, he swung north and then east toward Washington. Under orders of Union General-in-Chief Henry Halleck, Pope tried to hold the town of Centerville from the advancing Confederates. Jackson moved north around Centerville, placing the bulk of Popes force in grave danger as the Southerners moved towards Fairfax. By the afternoon of September 1, Pope evacuated Centerville and Jackson pressed to the north of the main Yankee army. Late in the afternoon, a Union division commanded by General Isaac Stevens attacked Jackson near Chantilly. In a driving rainstorm punctuated by thunder and lightning, Stevenss men drove into the Confederates and scattered a Louisiana brigade. But after Stevens was struck in the head by a Rebel bullet and killed, Jacksons men drove the Union troops back. Another Yankee general, Philip Kearney, was killed when he accidentally rode behind the Confederate line in the storm. The battle was over within 90 minutes, although the storm persisted. Confederate casualties numbered about 500, while the Union lost 700. Lee could not flank Popes army, so he turned his army northward for an invasion of Maryland. The result was the Battle of Antietam on September 17. 4 - 1983 - Cold War - Soviet jet fighters intercept a Korean Airlines passenger flight in Russian airspace and shoot the plane down, killing 269 passengers and crewmembers. The incident dramatically increased tensions between the Soviet Union and the United States. On September 1, 1983, Korean Airlines (KAL) flight 007 was on the last leg of a flight from New York City to Seoul, with a stopover in Anchorage, Alaska. As it approached its final destination, the plane began to veer far off its normal course. In just a short time, the plane flew into Russian airspace and crossed over the Kamchatka Peninsula, where some top-secret Soviet military installations were known to be located. The Soviets sent two fighters to intercept the plane. According to tapes of the conversations between the fighter pilots and Soviet ground control, the fighters quickly located the KAL flight and tried to make contact with the passenger jet. Failing to receive a response, one of the fighters fired a heat-seeking missile. KAL 007 was hit and plummeted into the Sea of Japan. All 269 people on board were killed. This was not the first time a South Korean flight had run into trouble over Russia. In 1978, the Soviets forced a passenger jet down over Murmansk; two passengers were killed during the emergency landing. In its first public statement concerning the September 1983 incident, the Soviet government merely noted that an unidentified aircraft had been shot down flying over Russian territory. The United States government reacted with horror to the disaster. The Department of State suggested that the Soviets knew the plane was an unarmed civilian passenger aircraft. President Ronald Reagan called the incident a massacre and issued a statement in which he declared that the Soviets had turned against the world and the moral precepts which guide human relations among people everywhere. Five days after the incident, the Soviets admitted that the plane had indeed been a passenger jet, but that Russian pilots had no way of knowing this. A high ranking Soviet military official stated that the KAL flight had been involved in espionage activities. The Reagan administration responded by suspending all Soviet passenger air service to the United States, and dropped several agreements being negotiated with the Soviets. Despite the heated public rhetoric, many Soviets and American officials and analysts privately agreed that the incident was simply a tragic misunderstanding. The KAL flight had veered into a course that was close to one being simultaneously flown by a U.S. spy plane; perhaps Soviet radar operators mistook the two. In the Soviet Union, several of the military officials responsible for air defense in the Far East were fired or demoted. It has never been determined how the KAL flight ended up nearly 200 miles off course. 5 - 1969 - Muammar al-Qaddafi, a 27-year-old Libyan army captain, leads a successful military coup against King Idris I of Libya. Idris was deposed and Qaddafi was named chairman of Libyas new governing body, the Revolutionary Command Council. 6 - 2004 - An armed gang of Chechen separatist rebels enters a school in southern Russia and takes more than 1,000 people hostage. The rebels demanded the withdrawal of Russian troops from the disputed nearby region of Chechnya. September 1 was the first day of a new school year for millions of students across Russia, a day of celebration in schools that both parents and students traditionally attend. Nearly 340 people, about half of them children, died in the ensuing three-day ordeal. The rebels stormed the school at 9:30 a.m. on September 1, just after a ceremony celebrating the new school year had ended. They initially held more than 1,000 hostages, though some were released later that day. The hostages were crowded into the schools gym, where they were surrounded by mines and bombs to prevent them from escaping. The rebels placed children along the rooms windows to discourage Russian authorities from storming the building and randomly shot off their guns to intimidate the hostages. Temperatures quickly rose in the overcrowded gym, forcing the hostages to strip nearly naked to stay cool. The captors refused to allow food or drink into the school; some hostages were forced to drink their own urine to keep from dehydrating in the hot building. Finally, on the morning of September 3, the rebels allowed Russian emergency workers in to retrieve the bodies of those who had been killed in their initial assault on the school. Soon after, two bombs in the gym were accidentally detonated, one of which caused the gyms roof to collapse. In the subsequent chaos, some hostages escaped. When the rebels began to shoot children, Russian special forces stormed the school. Over the course of the next few hours, the Russian troops secured the building, killing all but one of the 32 attackers. Rescue workers found hundreds of bodies in the debris of the burned-out former school gym. More than 700 others were wounded. The secondary school was located in Beslan, North Ossetia, near Chechnya in the war-torn North Caucasus region of Russia. The people of North Ossetia are predominately Christian and have strong ties to Russia. Chechens, on the other hand, are mainly Muslim. Chechen separatists have demanded their freedom from Russia since soon after the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union and have increasingly turned to terrorist tactics to further their cause. Chechnya is important to the Russian economy because of several oil and gas pipelines that run through Chechen territory. It is estimated that at least 200,000 people have been killed in the ongoing Chechen-Russian conflict. 7 - 1968 - Vietnam War - Lt. Col. William A. Jones III leads a mission near Dong Hoi, North Vietnam, to rescue a downed pilot. Locating the pilot, who had activated his emergency locator beacon, Colonel Jones attacked a nearby gun emplacement. On his second pass, Colonel Jones aircraft was hit and the cockpit of his Douglas A-1H Skyraider was set ablaze. He tried to eject, but the ejection system failed. He then returned to base and reported the exact position of the downed pilot before receiving medical treatment for his burns. The downed pilot was rescued by helicopter the next day. Colonel Jones was nominated for the Medal of Honor for his actions during the rescue attempt, but he died in an aircraft accident in the United States before he could be presented with the award. 8 - 1970 - Vietnam War - The U.S. Senate rejects the McGovern-Hatfield amendment by a vote of 55-39. This legislation, proposed by Senators George McGovern of South Dakota and Mark Hatfield of Oregon, would have set a deadline of December 31, 1971, for complete withdrawal of American troops from South Vietnam. The Senate also turned down 71-22, a proposal forbidding the Army from sending draftees to Vietnam. Despite the defeat of these two measures, the proposed legislation indicated the growing dissatisfaction with President Nixons handling of the war. 9 - 1917 - World War One - American soldier Stull Holt writes a letter home recounting some of his battlefield experiences on the Western Front at Verdun, France. Born in New York City in 1896, Holt served during World War I as a driver with the American Ambulance Field Service. He later joined the American Air Service, receiving his pilot commission as a first lieutenant. Dear Lois, Holt began his letter, written while he was in Paris on leave, enjoying the luxuries of life including ice cream, sheets, cafes and things. The bulk of Holt’s letter discussed his experiences at the fortress city of Verdun, where French and German troops had battled for an excruciating 10 months in 1916 and where fighting continued throughout the following year. The French have a saying to the effect that no one comes out of Verdun the same. As the fighting is stiff there always the statement is probably true for all times, it certainly is true of Verdun during an attack. It would take a book to tell about all that happened there and when I try to write, little incidents entirely unconnected come to my mind so I dont know where or how to begin. Holt described the ruined countryside and villages around Verdun, as well as the sights—and stench—of constant battle. Besides the desolation visible to the eye there was the desolation visible to the nose. You could often see old bones, boots, clothing and things besides lots of recent ones. The letter’s most vivid passage, however, recounted his own experiences under fire, including an incident in which he was struck by a shell containing poisonous gas. Something hit me on the head, making a big dent in my helmet and raising a bump on my head. If it hadnt been for my helmet my head would have been cracked. As it was I was dazed, knocked down and my gas mask knocked off. I got several breathes [sic] of the strong solution right from the shell before it got diluted with much air. If it hadnt been for the fellow with me I probably wouldnt be writing this letter because I couldnt see, my eyes were running water and burning, so was my nose and I could hardly breathe. I gasped, choked and felt the extreme terror of the man who goes under in the water and will clutch at a straw. The fellow with me grabbed me and led me the hundred yards or so to the post where the doctor gave me a little stuff and where I became alright again in a few hours except that I was a little intoxicated from the gas for a while. I had other close calls but that was the closest and shook me up most. I think the hardest thing I did was to go back again alone the next night. I had to call myself names before I got up nerve enough. Holt’s letters were later published in The Great War at Home and Abroad: The World War I Diaries and Letters of W. Stull Holt (1999). 10 - 1939 - World War Two - German forces bombard Poland on land and from the air, as Adolf Hitler seeks to regain lost territory and ultimately rule Poland. World War II had begun. The German invasion of Poland was a primer on how Hitler intended to wage war--what would become the blitzkrieg strategy. This was characterized by extensive bombing early on to destroy the enemys air capacity, railroads, communication lines, and munitions dumps, followed by a massive land invasion with overwhelming numbers of troops, tanks, and artillery. Once the German forces had plowed their way through, devastating a swath of territory, infantry moved in, picking off any remaining resistance. Once Hitler had a base of operations within the target country, he immediately began setting up security forces to annihilate all enemies of his Nazi ideology, whether racial, religious, or political. Concentration camps for slave laborers and the extermination of civilians went hand in hand with German rule of a conquered nation. For example, within one day of the German invasion of Poland, Hitler was already setting up SS Deaths Head regiments to terrorize the populace. The Polish army made several severe strategic miscalculations early on. Although 1 million strong, the Polish forces were severely under-equipped and attempted to take the Germans head-on with horsed cavaliers in a forward concentration, rather than falling back to more natural defensive positions. The outmoded thinking of the Polish commanders coupled with the antiquated state of its military was simply no match for the overwhelming and modern mechanized German forces. And, of course, any hope the Poles might have had of a Soviet counter-response was dashed with the signing of the Ribbentrop-Molotov Nonaggression Pact. Great Britain would respond with bombing raids over Germany three days later. The Yankees were dealt a goose-egg yesterday losing to the Blue Jays 2-0, the Orioles increased their lead over the Yankees by beating the Twins in a slugfest 12-8, and the Red Sox shut out the Rays 3-0. The Mets edged the Phillies 6-5 in the Senior League. The extended four day forecast for Yonkers: Tuesday, mostly sunny, 20% chance of rain, 91/71; Wednesday, sunny, 0% chance of rain, 87/65; Thursday, mostly sunny, 0% chance of rain, 86/66; Friday, sunny, 20% chance of rain, 88/70. We appear to have a hot week ahead with a cooling trend coming next Sunday. I hope everybody is enjoying the weekend, if you had a bbq yesterday at least the rain held off until a little later than mid-afternoon, and if you have one today you might be spared that isolated thunderstorm. We needed the rain we received yesterday, things were starting to get a little dry. Everbody the last day of the extended weekend and as always keep safe and keep smiling!
Posted on: Mon, 01 Sep 2014 10:06:29 +0000
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