Thursday, September 21, 1944. A sort of Estonian civil war.

Estonians, some in the Red Army, and some in German Estonian units, others in Waffen SS units fought each other at Porkuni.

The Red Army units prevailed.

This presents the complicated picture of the war in the Baltics.  The Soviets were widely disposed by most residents of the Baltic States, but there were, and always had been, Baltic communists who saw the Soviet Union as an ally.  Estonian resistance to Soviet occupation, on the other hand, had started with the pre World War Two Soviet invasion and continued on after World War Two in the form of the Estonian Forest Brothers.

The Germans had never desired any sort of independence for Estonia and had not supported it in any sense.  

Interestingly, during the war, Finland never came into play in this even though the Estonians are a Baltic Finnic people and in the 1920s there had been serious considerations given to an Estonian Finnish union, with such efforts being committedly opposed by the Soviets.   The East Karelian Uprising of 1921-22 fit into this, as that territory lay between the two nations to some degree and was occupied by Finnic people as well.

The Battle of Rimini ended in a Canadian, Greek and New Zealander victory.

The Satsuki was sunk by US aircraft in Manila Bay.

The Cardinals took the National League Pennant for the third time in a row, defeating the Boston Braves.

Pfc. Calvin Stempien, Monroe, Mich., levels covering fire from his foxhole while members of his engineer unit construct a bridge over the Meurthe river, under enemy fire. 21 September, 1944.

Last edition:

Wednesday, September 20, 1944 Nijmegen liberated.

Labels: 1940s, 1944, Army, Battle of Arnhem, Battle of Peleliu, British Army, France, Italy, Nijmegen Netherlands, Operation Market Garden, Paratroopers, Red Army

Thursday, July 3, 1924. Linking electricity.

U.S. Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover submitted a paper before the World Power Conference in London urging American power plants to be linked together to save energy.

Hoover was, legitimately, a genius.

Oath taking ceremony, Citizens Military Training Camp, Camp Meade, Md., 7/3/24.

Citizens Military Training Camps were part of a Federal program that offered basic military instruction to civilians who were not part of the Army's reserve system, which principally consisted of the National Guard. First authorized in 1921, they continued through 1940.

Last edition:

Tuesday, July 1, 1924. Airmail.

Labels: 1920s, 1924, Aircraft, Cheyenne Wyoming, Immigration, Japan, Post Office, Rawlins Wyoming, Rock Springs Wyoming, Transportation, Wyoming (Cheyenne), Wyoming (Rawlins), Wyoming (Rock Springs)

Friday, June 13, 1924. Macready jumps into the dark.

Lt. John A Macready, already famous for this; 

The Aerodrome: First "Crop Dusting". August 3, 1921.:

First "Crop Dusting". August 3, 1921.

On this day in 1921, crop dusting, spraying pesticides by air, was performed for the first time in an experiment involving the U.S. Army and the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

First crop dusting being conducted.

The first flight featured Army Air Corps pilot John A. Macready and aircraft engineer Etienne Dormoy who performed the test with a Curtiss JN4 over a field outside of Troy, Ohio.  Lead arsenate was sprayed to attack caterpillars.

Dormay left, Macready right.

Macready would complete an Army career prior to World War Two, leaving the service in 1926, but was recalled to serve in the Second World War.  He retired from the Army Air Force in 1948.  He was a legendary pilot at the time and had many firsts while in the service, including being the first Air Corps pilot to parachute from a stricken aircraft at night.

made his aforementioned night jump.

He landed in a tree, which saved his life.

Which, in an odd way, brings up this item:

Mosquito Control Notification: Aerial Granular Larvicide Scheduled for June 13

Laramie, Wyoming – City of Laramie Mosquito Control has scheduled the application of granular larvicide to control larval mosquitoes in rural areas adjacent to the city.  The application is scheduled for Thursday, June 13th beginning at daylight.   The product is a granular form of Bacillus thuringensis israelensis (Bti) that is designed to penetrate heavy grasses and brushy foliage to reach water sources, especially in maturing hay fields, where larvae are present. The application is targeting both nuisance and vector mosquito larva. The product is environmentally friendly and will not harm fish, amphibians, livestock, or other aquatic invertebrates. If weather conditions are not favorable for the application, it will be postponed until weather conditions allow for the application. 

Treatment areas include irrigated acreages along the Big Laramie River southwest of the city, flooded riparian zones in the Big Laramie flood plain southwest and north of the city, and acreages north and west of the city that are irrigated by the North Canal and the Pioneer Canal.  

Schedules regarding Mosquito Control, Parks, and Cemetery chemical applications for control of weeds and insect pests are available daily through the Mosquito Control and Integrated Pest Management Hotline at 721-5056. The schedule is updated at approximately 4pm daily. Spraying information is also available on the city website. Look for the daily mosquito and chemical application hotline tab on the home page at www.cityoflaramie.org.   For further information contact Hunter Deerman, Mosquito/IPM Supervisor at 721-5258; hdeerman@cityoflaramie.org or Scott Hunter, Parks Manager at 721-5257 SHunter@cityoflaramie.org.

Silent Cal had a brief statement for the Press:

Gaston Doumerque was sworn in as the President of France.

Hermann Suter's Le Laudi was preformed for the first time.

Bene Berak, Palestine, founded, named for a Biblical place name.  It was then a Jewish settlement.   Ibn Ibraq's Arab villagers subsequently renamed it al-Khayriyya. It was depopulated during a military assault as part of Operation Hametz during the 1948 Arab-Israeli War.

A large waste transfer station, known as Hiriya, was built at the ancient/modern site, now converted into the Ariel Sharon Park.

Last prior edition:

Thursday, June 12, 1924. Coolidge nominated, train robbed, disaster on USS Mississippi

Labels: 1920s, 1924, 1950s, 1957, 1980s, boats and ships, Calvin Coolidge, Crime, Disaster, Election of 1924, George H.W. Bush, Railroads, U.S. Navy

Blog Mirror: The Wreck of Shackleton’s “Last Ship” Quest Discovered

 

The Wreck of Shackleton’s “Last Ship” Quest Discovered

Wednesday, January 2, 1924. Kings in Exile.

Bulgaria gave former King Ferdinand, who had been in exile since 1918, permission to return to Sofia.

He had been living in Coburg, Germany, oddly enough, given that the German monarch was also in exile.  He noted, while there:

Kings in exile are more philosophic under reverses than ordinary individuals; but our philosophy is primarily the result of tradition and breeding, and do not forget that pride is an important item in the making of a monarch. We are disciplined from the day of our birth and taught the avoidance of all outward signs of emotion. The skeleton sits forever with us at the feast. It may mean murder, it may mean abdication, but it serves always to remind us of the unexpected. Therefore we are prepared and nothing comes in the nature of a catastrophe. The main thing in life is to support any condition of bodily or spiritual exile with dignity. If one sups with sorrow, one need not invite the world to see you eat.

Yugoslavia issued an ultimatum objecting to his return.

He in fact did not return, and having taken steps to secure his fortune, lived a quasi bucolic life, marked by family tragedy, and carried on in Germany, dying in 1948.  The prior year, he married a third time, to his secretary, age 26.  

Simon & Schuster, the legendary publishing house, was formed.

The U.S. Winter Olympic team left for the first Winter Olympics.

1924 Winter Olympics including Beatrix Loughran, Joe Moore, Valentine Bialis, Richard Donovan, Harry Kaskey, Charles Jewtraw, and William Steinmetz aboard the ship SS President Monroe on January 2, 1924. 

The Constitutionalist government of Mexico reported that is forces had achieved a victory over the rebels of Adolfo de la Huerta at Zacualpan.

The war in Mexico, and other age-old lethal vices, were making headlines far away:

Flooding in Paris closed the railroads.

Sabine Baring-Gould, composer of "Onward, Christian Soldiers", died at age 89.  Clara Abbott, American businesswoman who had been the first woman to serve on the board of a major American corporation, Abbott Laboratories, died at age 66.

United States Senators Frazier and Johnson were photographed working.

A new flag for Iowa was unveiled.

It is, frankly, ugly.

It had been adopted in 1921. Iowa had lacked one before that.

Sunday, October 21, 1923. Trouble in Germany.

The Reichswehr moved heavy weapons into Saxony.

The Rhenish Republic was proclaimed in a part of occupied Rhineland. Aachen was its capital.

German Communist leader Heinrich Brandler called for a general strike as a prelude to revolution, but the call received little support.  A courier for Hamburg sent earlier with a call for the uprising was not in attendance, so he carried the message forward to that city.

Monday, September 25, 1922. Harington bluffs.

British General Sir Charles Harington, who had to deal the prior year with 50,000 Greek troops being deployed to Thrace, now had to deal with Turkish troops who were threatening the neutral zone.  In the first crisis, the Turks offered 20,000 troops to help, which were declined, and in the second, the Greeks offered 20,000 troops, but declined. 

Today, a century ago, Harington issued an ultimatum to the Turks to withdraw from the neutral zone.

General Harington, with Selahattin Adil Paşa, before his final departure from Istanbul, Dolmabahçe wharf

The British were in a bad way, in reality, as their government was not ready to fight without the Dominions, and Canada had refused.

The New York Giants won the National League pennant with a 5 to 4 victory over the St. Louis Cardinals

Scenes from around Boulder Canyon taken on this day, as geologist from the USGS made an epic trip.

Caldville Ruins below the Boulder damsite.  Note the geologist wearing a "wife beater" t-shirt, and hatless.  Very unusual photo for the era.

Saturday January 7, 1922. Orthodox Christmas (for 1921, and 2021).

On the "Old Calendar" (Julian calendar) this was December 25, so this was the date for Christmas, 1921.

This is actually considerably more complicated than it might seem, as the New Calendar is not the Gregorian Calendar used by the West and the Latin Rite of the Church, but rather the New Julian Calendar adopted in May 1923 by the Greek Orthodox Church.  This caused a split over the calendar in the Orthodox Churches.  The Russian Orthodox Church kept the Old Calendar, although by that time the Russian Orthodox Church was engaged in a struggle for its existence inside the Soviet Union, which was dedicated to its distinction.  The civil government in Russia had adopted the Gregorian Calendar, used in the Western World, and now the whole world, on January 31, 1918.

Anyhow, in the Orthodox Churches, this was Christmas for 1921. With the largest Orthodox Church, the Russian Orthodox Church, under siege from the Communist government, and starvation rampant in Russia, it was not a happy one for the Orthodox.

The Dail approved the Anglo-Irish treaty, establishing the Irish Free State as a dominion.  The vote was 64 to 57.

Dogsomyn Bodoo, Prime Minister of Mongolia, resigns after his efforts to make Mongolia into a Soviet style state meet with widespread opposition.  He'd be arrested and executed the following August.

The Washington Naval Treaty agreed to ban the use of poison gas.

____________________________________________________________________________________

This is also, I'd note, Orthodox Christmas for those Orthodox Churches that retain the Old Calendar today, and such Eastern Rite churches as may retain it.

December 31, 1921 Changing Times.

It was a dry New Years Eve. . . at least officially for Americans and most Canadians who, if they were following the law, had to ring in the arrival of 1922 with some non-besotted beverage.  I'm sure many did.

Miss Texanna Loomis, December 31, 1921.  She was a radio engineer.

And there was a lot to celebrate that year.  For Americans, the Great War had officially ended, although the fighting had obviously stopped quite some time prior.  For the many Americans with Irish ancestry, it appeared that Irish independence was about to become a de jure, rather than a de facto, matter.  Americans were moving definitively past World War One, and in a lot of ways definitively past a prior, much more rural, era and country.

Not all was well, however, as the economy was doing quite poorly.  There was hope that would soon change, with that hope being expressed in a regional fashion on the cover of the Casper Daily Tribune.

Also, on the cover of the paper was the news that the County had taken over ownership of the hospital.  It'd run the hospital until 2020, when Banner Health took over it, converting it back into a private hospital after almost a century of public ownership.

Friday December 30, 1921. Cheyenne gets gas.

Brattleboro, Vt. from Mt. Wantastiquet.

 

On this day in 1921, the Rock Springs newspaper published reports of the recent big raid in that town.

In Cheyenne, the exciting news was that natural gas, an abundant resource in the state, was coming to the city.

Thursday December 29, 1921. The Raid hits the news.

 

We reported on this item yesterday.  It hit the news across the state today, receiving front page treatment in both Casper and Cheyenne.

Cheyenne's paper also noted that Governor Short of Illinois was going to appear in front of a grand jury, but the way the headline was written must have caused Gov. Carey in Wyoming to gasp.  Early example of "click bait"?

Mackenzie King became the Prime Minister of Canada.  He'd serve in that role off and on, mostly on, until 1948.  An intellectual with good writing but poor oral skills, he'd become a dominant Canadian political figure for a generation.

Wednesday December 28, 1921. The Raid.

A couple of items from our companion blog, Today In Wyoming's History for December 28: 

1921  A large prohibition  raid occurred in Rock Springs.

Rock Springs had a large Eastern European and Southern European immigrant and first generation population that had never favored prohibition.  As a result, the town predictably became a bootlegging center in Wyoming, leading to a huge evening raid on this day in 1921.

1921  USS Laramie commissioned.

She was a fleet oiler, survived being torpedoed in the Atlantic in 1942, and was decommissioned in 1945.

The Rand Rebellion, a gold miners strike, commenced in South Africa.

Christmas, 1921

 

Saturday December 24, 1921.

 

Friday, December 23, 1921. Cultural introductions.

Little Betty Sze, daughter of the minister from China and Madam Sze meets Santa Claus.

 

Thursday, December 22, 1921.

 

Tuesday December 20, 1921

 

Monday, December 19, 1921. Rockin' 1922

You may have noticed, if you are a regular reader here, that the daily entries for a century ago have very much trailed off. That may have been not noticed as the temporary daily ones for eighty years ago have picked up.

This is a history website, after all.

Anyhow, this 1921 Casper Daily Tribune is put up for two reasons, one in the front page above.

That's the headline "Year 1922 To Rock World".

I guess I've always associated the word "rock" like that, to come from "Rock and Roll". 

Apparently not.

And here's the next one:

528 West Yellowstone Highway today is an auto body shop . In 1921, however, it was the U.S. Army Goods Company, a surplus store. That caught my eye as just a block away, at 254 West 1st Street, there was a store when I was young called War Surplus.  It's now Gear Up, an outdoor clothing store.

We always called War Surplus the "Army store" when I was a kid, and my father referred to it as the "Army Navy Store".  I wonder if this nearby store was the same store, and it just moved a block deeper into the Sand Bar at a later date?

It was an enduring fixture of my youth, at any rate, and in the 60s and 70s it had a lot of genuine war surplus items from the 40s through the 70s.  It also sold Carhartts, and heavy work clothing, much like the store noted here on the way to the Standard Oil Refinery (now also long gone) did.

Anyhow, I've always associated that store with surplus becoming widely available after World War Two.  For whatever reason, I didn't associate the same thing with World War One.  I likely should have, as overproduction of some items occurred on such a vast scale in the Great War it caused a scandal, and a Congressional investigation, later.

Saturday, December 17, 1921. Jolly ol' St. Nick.

The Saturday magazines were out with a Santa Clause by Norman Rockwell gracing the Country Gentleman.

Judge had the same theme, but with a N.C.Wyeth illustration.