Saturday, August 12, 1876. The Hamburg Massacre in Harper's Weekly.

 

Last edition:

Friday, August 11, 1876. Grant asks for more troops.

Labels: 1870s, 1876, 44th Congress, Army, Great Sioux War, U.S. Grant

Tuesday, August 10, 1926. Executions in Mexico, Hurricane in Nova Scotia.

The Mexican government executed 20 people by firing squad. They'd participated in the uprising several days prior.

A hurricane struck Nova Scotia, sinking two fishing boats and causing the death of 26 crewmembers.

Out Our Way featured the cowboys for today.

Last edition:

Saturday, August 7, 1926. Calles rejects foreign mediation.

Labels: 1920s, 1926, Art, Automobile racing, Cristero War, Italy, Plutarco Elías Calles, Spain, United Kingdom

Friday, August 2, 1946. Vlasov executed.

Vlasov reviewing his troops.  Note the light machineguns, which are captured Russian weapons.  The solider without an insignia on his helmet is wearing a World War One vintage M16 helmet.

Andrey Vlasov, age 45, Red Army General, and then collaborationist general with the Germans, and then against the Germans again, but against the Soviets at the very end, was executed. 

Vlasov has an interesting personal history.  In his adult years he started off, like Stalin, as a student at a Russian Orthodox seminary. While there, he switched to agriculture and in 1919 joined the Red Army.  He did not join the Communist Party until 1930.  He was part of the Soviet military mission from 1938 until 1940 and was regarded as highly effective.

Early in World War Two his performance in the Red Army was sterling, but his forces were encircled and forced to surrender.  He refused to be evacuated by air to avoid becoming a POW.

As a POW, well actually a true prisoner, he met Baltic German Wilfried Strik-Strikfeldt, who was serving in the German army and attempting to foster a Russian Liberation Movement with the assistance of some of the figures who later were party of the July 20 plot.  The movement never had the full support of the Germans, and indeed, the opposite is the case to a large extent.  While it was allowed to raise troops, for the most part, they did not fight, and indeed the one significant action they engaged in was right at the end of the war against the Germans.  An attempt by the unit to surrender to the American Army in Czechoslovakia was rejected by the Americans and they fell into Soviet hands.  They were accordingly repatriated to the Soviet Union, an effort that continued on after the war into 1947.*

The Russian Liberation Army, as it was styled, was not, it should be noted, the only group of Soviet citizens or for that matter former members of the Red Army to fight with the Germans.  Sizable numbers did. But the RLA was the largest such group.

A memorial to Vlasov was erected at the Novo-Diveevo Russian Orthodox convent and cemetery in Nanuet, New York. Twice annually, on the anniversary of Vlasov's execution and on the Sunday following Orthodox Easter, a memorial service is held for Vlasov and the forces of the Russian Liberation Army there.

Cartoon by Jewish Polish American cartoonist Arthur Szyk.  Szyk was an illustrator who drew and painted amazingly detailed illustrations.

Vlasov and his men are a good example of the way in which World War Two was not necessarily viewed as a war between fascism and liberty everywhere, and indeed, in the East, it was never that.  The Germans had no intentions whatsoever of liberating Soviet citizens, which is why they never actually deployed the ROA. But many Soviet citizens saw it as a chance to overthrow the Communists, even if that was naive as to what it would actually achieve with the Germans in the lead.  The Finns of course were fighting their own war entirely. Some Frenchmen saw it as a war between the West and Communism, and volunteered, albeit in small numbers to sever in the German war effort.  Spanish fascists saw it as a war between Communism and Fascism.  

Likewise, in Asia, the war on a local level was complicated in ways that we generally don't appreciate.  The Japanese were outright barbaric against the Chinese, but the fighting was done by the Nationalist. The Communists were armed, but largely sat the war out. The Soviet Union did not support the Chinese Communists until the very end of the war.  The Nationalist, for its part, had significant military missions for the USSR and Nazi Germany until just before the war.  Some Chinese fought for the Japanese in collaborationist armies that would be destroyed, post war, when the Nationalist conscripted them in the civil war.  The post war leaders of Indonesia were outright collaborationist with the Japanese, and at least a few member of the Philippine collaborationist government would go on to have political careers in the post war republic.

Radioactive isotopes were sold for medical treatment purposes for the first time.

It was day 2 of the Battle of Athens. The discharged GI's would prevail.

Footnotes:

*The repatriation of Soviet citizens is a topic that's barely mentioned in the story of post World War Two Europe. Naturally, there was very little sympathy for them even though, to a large extent, those who sided with the Germans can be regarded as very misguided anti communists for the most part, although the liberation movement itself included some Communists.  Large-scale suicide occurred amongst those being sent back. Some made it to the United States one way or another where they were generally extremely quiet about their past.  All in all, about one third of the troops in this category managed to avoid being repatriated one way or another.  Gen. Patton largely refused to repatriate Soviet civilians and soldiers and released 5,000 ROA soldiers in 1945.

Repatriated soldiers were sent to the gulags. Senior officers, like Vlasov, were executed. Survivors of the gulags were released in 1953 upon Stalin's death.

The ROA troops who Patton held were those who had been under a German commander, Theodor Oberländer.  Oberländer.is an interesting guy in that he was a Nazi official who was an expert in the East, had a falling out with his commanders, and was released from the German Army.  He went on to be an officer in the ROA.  After the war he served in the Bundestag and became the Federal Ministry of Displaced Persons.  He died in 1998.

Wilfried Strik-Strikfeldt survived the war.  When the ROA was formed the SS tried to have him join it, but he managed to avoid that. After the war he was held in the West with prominent German war criminals.  He had been an Olympian in the 1936 Munich Olympics and prior to that had fought as an Imperial Russian officer in World War One and with the Whites in the Russian Civil War.

Last edition:

Thursday, August 1, 1946. Battle of Athens.

Labels: 1940s, 1946, Aircraft, Atomic Energy Commission, Denmark, Education, It was because of World War Two, Norway, Post War United States (and Canada), Sweden, Tennessee, Transportation

Friday, May 3, 1946. War Crime Trials in Tokyo and the Battle of Alcatraz

1946         Military Tribunal in Tokyo begins war crimes trials.  One of the principal Japanese defendants was defended by Cheyenne lawyer George Guy.

A prison riot was ongoing at Alcatraz.

Our Our Way took a look at the changing workplace.

Last edition:

Monday, April 29, 1946. Indictment of Japanese leaders.

Labels: 1940s, 1946, Carlsbad Caverns National Park, Japan, Personalities, War Crimes, World War Two

Saturday, April 24, 1926. Neutral but hedging bets.

The Soviet Union and Weimar Germany pledged to remain neutral if either nation got into a war in the next five  years.

A Flapper Fanny cartoon for the day:

It was a Saturday.

The Saturday Evening Post had a Rockwell that would go on to be one of his favored illustrations.

Last edition:

Wednesday, April 21, 1926. The Day of Sorrow.

Labels: 1920s, 1926, Islam, Monarchy, Saudi Arabia (Medina), United Kingdom

Monday, April 15, 1946. Introductions.

1946  End of Special Session of the Legislature concerning funding of the University of Wyoming.

The first television network, DuMont Television Network, came into being.

It at served New York and Washington D.C. by coaxial cable before ultimately having a broader reach.

The Florida Foods Corporation introduced frozen concentrated orange juice.  The product was called Minute Maid, which of course still exists.

Nikon cameras were introduced.

The comic strip Mark Trail was introduced.

Last edition:

Sunday, April 14, 1946. Chinese Civil War resumes.

Labels: 1940s, 1946, baseball, Chinese Civil War, German SS, Manchuria, Post WWII Occupation of Germany, Red Army, The Holocaust, Unions

Tuesday, March 25, 1946. Crisis in Iran averted. Navy veteran turns out to be 10th Mountain Division deserter.

 A Second World War, over Iran, was averted.

An sailor about to receive an honorable discharged confessed to deserting from the 10th Mountain Division.

The day's cartoons.

Last edition:

Saturday, March 23, 1946. Marilyn Monroe and the Wedding Industrial Complex. Truman warns Stalin, and holds up testing the bomb. No public necking in Japan.

Labels: 1940s, 1946, Antarctic, Indonesian National Revolution, Iran, J.R. Williams, Marilyn Monroe, Marriage, Occupation of Japan, Playboy, pornography, The Cold War, The relationship between men and women, Women, Work

Saturday, March 16, 1946. Route 66. George Mikan turns pro.

Route 66 was recorded for the first time, the introductory edition of the Bobby Troup work by Nat King Cole.

Troup was a songwriter and actor, married to actress Julie London

London and Troup in Emergency, a nighttime television drama of the 1970s.

He was also a graduate of Wharton, which produced the unfortunate Trump and Gray, but that's another matter.  He served in the Marine Corps in World War Two, by which time he was already a songwriter. The war did not really interrupt his songwriting.

Route 66 was an absolute masterpiece, and has been recorded an innumerable number of times, and was even used for the basis of a television series that ran from 1960 to 1964.

In some very real ways, Route 66 symbolized the post war world and its sense of youth, indicability, and automotive freedom.

Route 66 itself was one of the original U.S. Highways of the United States Numbered Highway System.  It was established on November 11, 1926, with road signs erected the following year.  It became a huge factor in Depression Era migration to California, which makes the way its nostaglically remembered somewhat ironic, but as 

College basketball player George Mikan, who was hugely popular turned pro.

He was a great player, and notably played with glasses.  He struggled with diabetes in his final years, which focused attention on the plight of pre big money players.

He died in 2005 at age 80, a basketball great.

The Rocky Mountain News focused again on gambling.

An intersting service was being offered:

A tryst with a German Madchen went rather poorly.

To popular one panel cartoons of the day:

Last edition:

Friday, March 15, 1946. Soviets in Iran.

Labels: 1930s, 1940s, 1946, Harry S. Truman, Iran, Nazi Germany, Propaganda, Radio, Skiing, United States, USSR, World War Two

Tuesday, March 16, 1926. Sgt. Stubby crosses the Rainbow Bridge.

Boston Terrier Sgt. Stubby, mascot of the mascot of the 102nd Infantry Regiment, died at age 10.  He'd served for 18 months in France in the Great War, participating in 100 battles and four offensives.  He provided warnings of attacks and of the use of mustard gas, and captured a German soldier by holding him by the seat of his pants.

He was a genuinely heroic dog.

The Casper recaptured fugitives indicated that they'd left Casper by rail.

I posted this page for the bus schedule.  I have a detailed thread coming up on trains, and then noted this.  I wasn't aware that there was a bus by 1926.

A closer look.

What isn't clear is how long the bus trip took.

There is bus service from Casper today.  Greyhound.  We'll take a look at that in some future post.

Apparently unrestrained immigration was worrying some.  Others were worrying about Wyoming's oilfield population leaving for Texas.

Robert Goddard launched the first liquid fuel rocket in the United States at his Aunt Effie's farm in Auburn, Massachusetts.

Rocketry, like aviation, advanced like crazy.  By World War Two rockets would be in use as ground weapons, air to air weapons, and of course, with the first ballistic missiles.

Last edition:

Monday, March 15, 1926. Boxer Rebellion Echoes, Manhunt ends, National Guard Cavalry Inspection.

Labels: 1920s, 1926, Boxer Rebellion, cavalry, China, Costa Rica, Crime, Disaster, French Navy, Idaho Army National Guard, Imperial Japanese Navy, Italian Navy, Railroads, Royal Navy, U.S. Navy, Wyoming National Guard

Sunday, March 14, 1926. Reddy Kilowatt introduced. Manhunt in Natrona County.

 

Introduced on this day in 1926, the cartoon emphasized, in its introduction, electrical appliances and how they made life easier.  Power companies used the cartoon figure for decades.  I well recall it from when I was a kid.

There'd been a jail brake in Casper.

A railway disaster in Costa Rica resulted in the deaths of 248 people.

One via Reddit's 100 Years Ago sub, 16 year old Maybelle Addington married 27-year old Ezra J. "Eck" Carter, brother of A.P. Carter, in Virginia giving rise to the "first family of country music".

Country music, we'd note, is a bit deceptive in this context. As we've discussed before, Country & Western were actually two categories of music identified by early record companies, as was Rhythm & Blues.  Western ballads, associated with cowboys and ranching, was really its own distinct genre, as was "Country", which was sometimes referred to as "Hillbilly Music".  The current categories of C&W, Folk, etc, really hadn't set in, in a hard and fast way, either.  Folk and Country music were in fact very rapidly evolving.  Blues, which of course also had a Southern rural origin, was frequently picked up by Country artists at the time, even while it was breaking out in new directions in the Midwest and East coast, where it has already given rise to Jazz.

Last edition:

Saturday, March 13, 1926. Daydreaming.

Labels: 1920s, 1926, Art, Clothing, Daily Living

Monday, January 14, 1946. Wartime and Post War foodstuffs.

 

I"m putting up this interesting Out Our Way cartoon from this day in 1946 as it refers to something we've discussed here before, and its a bit surprising.

What we've discussed here before is hunting during World War Two.

Here's where we looked at it earlier:

Lex Anteinternet: So you're living in Wyoming (or the West in genera...So what about World War Two?

Labels: 1940s, Food, hunting, Rationing, World War Two

I've always thought this was one of the more interesting threads on this blog, and it's one of the many ones I post and wonder why there's never any comments on it.  But that's common for blogs.  Usually, they don't get posts.

Anyhow, this cartoon by J. R. Williams sort of confirms what I'd suspected.  Some people supplemented their table fare during the war by hunting.

Williams was, as we've discussed before, a Canadian cartoonist who moved to the U.S. with his family at age 15, locating in Detroit.  He soon dropped out of school and became an apprentice machinist, providing topics for his cartoons which frequently depicted machine shops.  He drifted after that, something not uncommon in that era, and worked as a cowboy in the West, as well as serving a three year stint on the U.S. Army as a cavalryman.  All of that experience likewise reflected itself in his cartoons.  Family life, in spite of his being a bit short (again, not all that uncommon for the time) also featured frequently.  

He became a professional cartoonist in 1922 and remained one until his death in 1957 at age 69.  He'd used the proceeds of his cartoons to buy a ranch in Arizona, before relocating later on to Pasadena, California.  His cartoons carried on to some extent after his death in the hands of other artists.

Anyhow, one of the things about his cartoons is that depict fairly accurate slices of life, and this running gag from 1945-46 no doubt did.  The father has taken an elk and a deer, and the family is keeping it in the ice box.  The part that surprises me is that I really like venison, and these cartoons suggest that this venison was bad, which may be explained in an earlier cartoon I'm not familiar with.

Eighteen nations entered into an Agreement on Reparation from Germany.

The USSR ratified its August 16, 1945 treat with Poland stealing the eastern portions of the country, and giving parts of Prussia to Poland.

"Southern Resorts Fashions" were on the cover of Life.

Last edition:

Sunday, January 13, 1946. The relentless advance of malevolent technology.

Labels: 1940s, 1946, Cartoons, Chinese Civil War, Japan, Marshall, Newspapers, Smoking, technology, Technology is ruining everything, tobacco

In Memoriam. Scott Adams.

Scott Adams, creator of Dilbert, has died at age 68.

Adams was a peculiar character and its fairly clear that his character Dilbert was based on him.  It was a hugely popular cartoon until some remarks he made, reported as racist (I can't recall what they were) got him into trouble the cartoon was widely cancelled.