Maryland adopted a constitutional amendment disenfranchising mot African Americans from voting.
Farmer N.F. Wright claimed responsibility for rainfall and temperatures dropping following a mortar based cloud seeding experiment at his far ner Lincoln, Nebraska.
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The last Imperial German Army troops left China following the Boxer Rebellion.
The Alabama constitutional convention began the first of its measures to disenfranchise African Americans from voting by limiting the right to register to vote to those persons whose ancestors were war veterans.
Given Southern conscription during the Civil War, that would have been a fairly large body of white Alabamans. It's interesting to note, however, that if that provision existed today, which thankfully it cannot, Not one Trump could vote, and locally, none of Wyoming's Congressional delegation could.
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Howard C. Petersen, Assistant Secretary of War, announced that 131,028 American and Filipino citizens, mostly civilians, had died "as a result of war crimes" from December 7, 1941 until the end of World War II. All but 595 of that figure were Filipino.
St. Alphonsa of the Immaculate Conception, an Indian native, died at age 35. She is the first woman of Indian origin to be canonized as a saint by the Catholic Church, and the first canonized saint of the Syro-Malabar Catholic Church.
Orson Welles read the affidavit of Sergeant Isaac Woodard on his radio show. Woodard had been blinded in a race based assault.
The Muslim League rejected British plans for a united independent India.
Lynchings in Georgia hit the nationwide press.
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The first underwater nuclear explosion.
African American World War Two veteran Maceo Snipes was murdered after voting in the Taylor County Georgia Democratic Party primary. He was the only Black person to vote in the entire county. Four men were involved in the killing, two were later identified as Edward Williamson and Lynwood Harvey, also WWII veterans. The KKK had been particularly active in the county. Williamson claimed self defense, asserting that Snipes had pulled a knife on him in a confrontation about a debt. In 1985 he committed suicide, overcome by guilt.
Snipes and his mother were both sharecroppers on Homer Chapman's land in Butler, Georgia.
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African Americans were allowed to vote in Georgia's primary election for the first time.
At the time Georgia used an odd primary system similar to the archaic electoral college, which needs to be abolished. In this instance, "county units" determined the candidates, so while James V. Carmichael received more votes than former Governor Eugene Talmadge, with the help of the African American vote, Talmadge received the nomination.
The county unit system was abolished in 1964.
U.S. trademark protection was reestablished for Austrians.
The Second World War was extremely complicated in Yugoslavia, and unlike the movie treatment you'll occasionally see regarding them, the loyalties of various partisan bands in the country were varied and changed. The Chetniks started as a royalist anti German movement and actually fought alongside the Communist partisans in the early part of World War Two, but by the end, they were collaborating with the Germans.
The Rocky Mountain News ran an article about a 16 year old girl who was, well, a creepy fan of a trombonist and made up a lurid tale of how he was involved with her, in the hopes that it'd destroy his marriage and he'd marry her. The headline referred to her as a "Bobby Soxer", the oldest use of that term, which I'd associated with the 1950s, that I've ever seen, although apparently that's just a misimpression on my part. The Wikipedia article on the demographic subset composed of teenage girls has several photos from 1946.
Months ago colored bobby sox folded at the top were decreed, not by anyone or any group but, as usual, by a sudden mysterious and universal acceptance of the new idea. Now no teen-ager dares wear anything but pure white socks without a fold. [
Life magazine, Dec. 11, 1944.
The term was particularly associated, apparently, with the fans of Frank Sinatra and oddly enough the Rocky Mountain News used it in that context on the same day as Life did in the quote immediately above. The News used it as late as 1972 in the context of an all girls softball league.
I probably shouldn't have been surprised, as I'm aware of, but have not seen, the film The Bachelor and the Bobby Soxer, which is a well known film featuring Cary Grant and an 18 year old Shirley Temple. It was released in 1947.
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An AP Headline:
Umm. . . .why?
There's something more than a little creepy about this.
Presumably female troops won't have to be tested for testosterone.
And then there's this:
The Secretary's campaign against female officers I'd guess to be part of a back door move toward limiting the role of women in the military, but what's up with the seeming bias against black officers? Maybe it's just a statistical glitch, but then we have the taking down and relocation of a portrait of black Air Force Gen. Daniel “Chappie” James Jr. a genuine hero. The excuse was that it was being relocated due to renovations or something. Chappie actually stared down Muammar Qaddafi during the latter's 1969 coup and nearly drew his M1911 on him in a true Western style standoff.
Maybe it's all a coincidence but it's an odd one.
For that matter, the entire Trump Administration is the whitest administration imaginable, which we could chalk up to coincidence too but for all the recent rumblings about who is and isn't a "real" American. Black have of course been in the country since before it was a country, indeed since 1619. At that time the Trumps were just doing whatever it is they did in Germany. Nonetheless, I can't think of any prominent black members of the current illegitimate administration.
Even the Joint Chiefs, who represent members of the Armed Forces, which have 30 to 33% minorities in the ranks, are lily white, and of course all male. African Americans, who are 13.5% of the population and 20% of the military, don't show up there.
Seems a bit odd.
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The Aragon Ballroom opened in Chicago.
King Albert of Belgium was given six months of dictatorial powers in an effort to address inflation.
The USSR's Central Committee approved a plan to resettle 570,400 Jewish families from the Ukrainian SSR and the Byelorussian SSR to the Crimea.
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Lex Anteinternet: Tuesday, July 6, 1976. First women at Anapolis.: The first women to do so entered the United States Naval Academy. Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II began a "Bicentennial tour" of se...
We ran this a few days ago.
And now we see this article:
It's no secret that Pete Hegseth is hostile to women in combat (one of the very few things I agree with Pete about), but that's not the same thing as not noting this milestone, which is pretty darned close to saying that women don't have a place in the Navy.
Well, actually, it's exactly the same thing as saying women don't have a place in the Navy.
Women have been in the Navy since March 21, 1917, as we noted on the anniversary of that occurrence:
Incorporating women into the Navy has been sort of a peculiar problem in some ways, and those ways are heavily biological, although honesty compels us to note that it's not as problematic now as it once was, or would be suspected as being.
Approximately 75% of all sailors are assigned to sea-intensive ratings rather than shore duty ones. Only about 19% to 20% of the active fleet is deployed or underway at any one time, however. About 20% of the Navy's manpower if female, with that figure applying to both the enlisted and officers. There are instances you can find of ships that end up with a problematic number of female sailors pregnant, but on average only 0.7% to 1.5% of a female crew find that to be the case.
Not that there are not problems.* Having young men and young women in that level of close proximity is going to cause problems. Again, I'm not in favor of women in combat and while I don't think of the Navy all that much, about any ship at sea can be a combat vessel in some fashion.
The Navy changed its billeting policy in 2024 in order to allow pregnant female sailors to find land billets more easily than it had previously, so the Navy, in pre Hegseth Department of Defense it was moving towards being more accomodating.
So what's going on here?
I don't know, but it's part of a sub silentio drift in the DoD. If the Hegseth run DoD just wants women out, or out of some roles, it can move in that directly openly. Instead, it's been sort of just being hostile to them, of which this is one example.
And its not just female sailors, or servicemembers. It's being silently hostile to minorities as well. People who normally would have been promoted to senior positions are not being if they're women, or black, etc. A portrait of a legendary senior black Air Force officer was removed from display without explanation.
Without explanation, it has the appearance of a harassment campaign to quietly discourage women and blacks from joining the service.
And I have to wonder, to some degree, if the DoD is trying to make it through November before it takes a formal step of eliminating women from all combat roles. It can't eliminate blacks from the service, of course, but it's also allowing Evangelical Protestant campaigning in the service, which is hostile to various religions, including various Christian religions. At some point that has the effect of telling Catholic Hispanics and African Methodist blacks maybe they aren't welcome, or at least that they don't want to hang around with a bunch of troops who look and act like Confederate Partisan Rangers.
Or maybe it's not that extreme. Be that as it may, the treatment of women in this fashion is hard to ignore.
Footnotes
*In recent years the bigger problem has been with the Department of the Navy's female Marines, who had to be expressly told to wear shirts while doing PT overseas. Their omission of shirts clearly wasn't because it was just hot where they were.
An event in which two white farmers, on July 4, had tried to pass through African American drilling militia resulted in a court hearing on a complaint brought by the farmers on this day in Hamburg, South Carolina, a mostly black town.. There was a demand for disbandment of the militia, even though the charge was obstruction of a public road.
Bands of armed white men descended on the town, quite a few of which were members of local rifle clubs. The militia mustered and took up positions in a stone warehouse. A battle erupted. The white besiegers deployed a cannon. Ultimately the town was taken over them and ultimately six black men and one white farmer were killed, with four of the black militiamen executed.
The entire event would be used by white politicians, in spite of the lopsided black deaths, as a campaign issue in the fall in the state, which had a majority black population.
The War Department issued a report on Little Big Horn to President Grant.
To the PRESIDENT:
To enable you to answer the inclosed resolution of the Senate of July 7, I have the honor to submit the following brief statement of facts as exhibited by the records of this Department:
The Sioux or Dakota Nation of Indians, embracing various tribes, as the Yanktons, Yanctonnais, Brules, Ogallalas, Minneconjous, Sans Arcs, Two Kettles, &c., have long been know as the most brave and warlike savages of this continent. They have for centuries been pushed westward by the advancing tide of civilization, till in 1868 an arrangement or treaty was made with them by a special commission named by Congress, whereby for certain payments and stipulations they agreed to surrender their claim to all that vast region which lies west of the Missouri River and north of the Platte, to live at peace with their neighbors, and to restrict themselves to a territory bounded east by the Missouri River, south by Nebraska, west by the 104th meridian, and north by the forty-sixth parallel, a territory as large as the State of Missouri. The terms of this treaty have been liberally performed on the part of the United States, and have also been complied with by the great mass of Sioux Indians. Some of these Indians, however, have never recognized the binding force of this treaty, but have always treated it contempt, have continued to rove at pleasure, attacking scattered settlements in Nebraska, Wyoming, Montana, and Dakota, stealing horses and cattle, and murdering peaceful inhabitants and travelers.
On the 9th of November, 1875, United States Indian Inspector E. C. Watkins made an elaborate report to the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, in which he uses this language:
"I have the honor to address you in relation to the attitude of certain wild and hostile bands of Sioux Indians in Dakota and Montana that came under my observation during my recent tour through their country, and what I think should be the policy of the Government toward them. I refer to Sitting Bull's band and other bands of the Sioux Nation under chiefs or "head-men" of less note, but no less untamable and hostile. These Indians occupy the center, so to speak, and roam over Western Dakota, and Eastern Montana, including the rich valleys of the Yellowstone and Powder Rivers, and make war on the Arickarees, Mandans, Gros Ventres, Assinaboines, Blackfeet, Piegans, Crows, and other friendly tribes on the circumference.
From their central position they strike to the East, North, and West, steal horses, and plunder from all the surrounding tribes, as well as frontier settlers and luckless white hunters or emigrants who are not in sufficient force to resist them."
After describing at great length their character and supposed numbers, given at a few hundred, he says:
"The true policy, in my judgment, is to send troops against them in the winter, the sooner the better, and whip them into subjection. They richly merit punishment for their incessant warfare, and their numerous murders of white settlers and their families, or white men wherever found unarmed."
The force estimated as necessary to whip them was one thousand men. This communication was submitted by the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, Hon. Edward P. Smith, to the honorable Secretary of the Interior, Z. Chandler, who in turn submitted it to the then Secretary of War, General Belknap, for his "consideration and action."
In subsequent communication of the Secretary of the Interior, of December 3, 1875, to the Secretary of War, occurs this language:
"I have the honor to inform you that I have this day directed the Commissioner of Indian Affairs to notify said Indians (Sitting Bull and others outside their reservation) that they must remove to the reservation before the 31st day of January, 1876; that if they neglect or refuse so to remove, that they will be reported to the War Department as hostile Indians, and that a military force will be sent to compel them to obey the orders of the Indian Office."
On the 1st day of February the Secretary of the Interior further notified the Secretary of War:
"The time given him (Sitting Bull) in which to return to an agency having expired, and the advice received at the Indian Office being to the effect that Sitting Bull still refuses to comply with the directions of the Commissioner, the said Indians are hereby turned over to the War Department for such action on the part of the Army as you may deem proper under the circumstances."
During all the stages of this correspondence, the General of the Army and his subordinate commanders were duly notified, and were making preparations for striking a blow at these hostile savages, an enterprise of almost insurmountable difficulty in a country where, in winter, the thermometer often falls to forty degrees below zero, and where it is impossible to procure food for man or beast. An expedition was fitted out under the personal command of Brig. Gen. George Crook, an officer of great merit and experience, which, in March last , marched from Forts Fetterman and Laramie to the Powder River and Yellowstone Valleys, struck and destroyed the village of Crazy Horse, one of those hostile bands referred to by Indian Inspector Watkins, but the weather was found so bitter cold, and other difficulties so great arose, that General Crook returned to Fort Laramie in a measure unsuccessful so far as the main purpose was concerned. These Indians occupy parts of the Departments of Dakota and Platte, commanded by Generals Terry and Crook, respectively, but the whole is immediately commanded by Lieutenant-General Sheridan, who has given the matter his special attention. Preparations were then made on a larger scale, and three columns were put in motion as early in May as possible, from Fort Abe Lincoln, on the Missouri River, under General Terry; from Fort Ellis, in Montana, under General Gibbon; and from Fort Fetterman under General Crook. These columns were as strong as could be maintained in that inhospitable region, or could be spared from other pressing necessities, and their operations are not yet concluded, nor is a more detailed report deemed necessary to explain the subject-matter of this inquiry.
The present military operations are not against the Sioux Nation at all, but against certain hostile parts of it which defy the Government, and are undertaken at the special request of that bureau of the Government charged with their supervision, and wholly to make the civilization of the remainder possible. No part of these operations are on or near the Sioux reservation. The accidental discovery of gold on the western border of the Sioux reservation, and the intrusion of our people thereon, have not caused this war, and have only complicated it by the uncertainty of numbers to be encountered. The young warriors love war, and frequently escape their agents to go on the hunt, or warpath, their only idea of the object of life. The object of these military expeditions was in the interest of the peaceful parts of the Sioux Nation, supposed to embrace at least nine- tenths of the whole, and not one of these peaceful or treaty Indians have been molested by the military authorities.
The recent reports touching the disaster which befell a part of the Seventh Regular Cavalry, led by General Custer in person are believed to be true. For some reason as yet unexplained, General Custer, who commanded the Seventh Cavalry, and had been detached by his commander, General Terry, at the mouth of Rosebud, to made a wide detour up the Rosebud, a tributary of the Yellowstone, across to the Little Big Horn and down to the mouth of the Yellowstone River. The wounded were carried back to the mouth of the Big Horn, in the Yellowstone River, which is navigable, and where there were two steamboats, one of which was sent down the river to Fort Abe Lincoln with the wounded, and to communicate these sad facts.
General Terry is therefore at the mouth of the Big Horn, refitting, and will promptly receive re-enforcement and supplies, and will resume his operations immediately.
Meantime, General Crook had also advanced from Fort Fetterman, and on the 17th of June, eight days before General Custer's attack, had encountered this same force of warriors on the head of the Rosebud, with whom he fought several hours, driving the Indians from the field, losing nine men in killed; one officer and twenty men wounded. General Crook reports his camp as on Tongue River, Wyoming. Re-enforcement and supplies are also enroute to him, and every possible means have been adopted to accomplish a concert of action between these two forces, which are necessarily separated, and are only able to communicate by immense distances around their rear.
The task committed to the military authorities is one of unusual difficulty, has been anticipated for years, and must be met and accomplished. It can no longer be delayed, and everything will be done by the Department to insure success, which is necessary to give even an assurance of comparative safety to the important but scattered interests which have grown up in that remote and almost inaccessible portion of our national domain.
It is again earnestly recommends that the appropriation asked for repeatedly by General Sheridan, of $200,000, be made, to build two posts on the Yellowstone, at or near the mouths of the Big Horn and Tongue Rivers.
Inclosed herewith please find copies of General Terry's report, just received by telegraph since the preparation of this letter.
Very respectfully, your obedient servant,
J. D. CAMERON, Secretary of War.
Gen. Terry issued a supplemental report.
Philadelphia, July 8, 1876
General W. T. Sherman, U.S.A.
War Department, Washington, D. C.:
Chicago, Ill., July 8.
General P. H. Sheridan,
Continental Hotel, Philadelphia, Pa.:
At the mouth of the Rosebud I informed General Custer that I should take the supply-steamer Far West up the Yellowstone to ferry General Gibbon's column over the river; that I should personally accompany that column, and that it would, in all probability, reach the mouth of the Little Big Horn on the 26th instant. The steamer reached General Gibbon's troops, near the mouth of the Big Horn, early in the morning of the 24th, and at 4 o'clock in the afternoon all his men and animals were across the Yellowstone. At 5 o'clock the column, consisting of five companies of the Seventh Infantry, four companies of the Second Cavalry, and a battery of Gattling guns, marched out to and crossed Tullock's Creek. Starting soon after 5 o'clock in the morning of the 25th, the infantry made a march of twenty-two miles over the most difficult country which I have ever seen. In order that scouts might be sent into the valley of the Little Big Horn, the cavalry, with the battery, were then pushed on thirteen or fourteen miles farther, reaching camp at midnight. The scouts were sent out. At half past four, on the morning of the 26th, they discovered three Indians, who were at first supposed to be Sioux, but when overtaken they proved to be Crows who had been with General Custer. They brought the first intelligence of the battle. Their story was not credited. It was supposed that some fighting, perhaps severe fighting, had taken place, but it was not believed that disaster could have overtaken so large a force as twelve companies of cavalry. The infantry, which had broken camp very early, soon came up, and the whole column entered and moved up the valley of the Little Big Horn. During the afternoon efforts were made to send scouts through to what was supposed to be General Custer's position, and to obtain information of the condition of affairs; but those who were sent out were driven back by parties of Indians, who, in increasing numbers, were seen hovering in General Gibbon's front. At twenty minutes before 9 o'clock in the evening the infantry had marched between twenty- nine and thirty miles. The men were very weary, daylight was failing; the column was therefore halted for the night at a point about eleven miles in a straight line above the mouth of the stream. In the morning the march was resumed, and after marching nine miles Major Reno's intrenched position was reached. The withdrawal of the Indians from around Major Reno's command and from the valley was undoubtedly caused by the appearance of General Gibbon's troops. Major Reno and Captain Benteen, both of who are officers of great experience, accustomed to see large masses of mounted men, estimate the number of Indians engaged at not less than 2,500; other officers think the number greater than this. The village in the valley was about three miles in length and about a mile in width; besides the lodges proper, a great number of temporary brushwood shelter was found in it, indicating that many men besides its proper inhabitants had gathered together there. Major Reno is very confident that there was a number of white men fighting with the Indians. It is believed that the loss of the Indians was larger. I have as yet received no official reports in regard to the battle, but what is stated herein is gathered from the officers who were on the ground there, and from those who have been over it since.
ALFRED H. TERRY, Brigadier-General.
R. C. DRUM, Assistant Adjutant-General.
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The US recognized the independence of the Republic of the Philippines.
An armed uprising sparked by rent issues occured in Kadavendi, India.
The Kielce pogrom took place in Poland in which 40 Jews were murdered by a mob in Kielce, Poland. The police did not intervene. The event, in which soldiers and police participated, was sparked by a false accusation of kidnapping.
Female Stutthof Concentration Camp Guards Elisabeth Becker, Wanda Klaff was hung for war crimes.
Stutthhof is unusual in that the majority of the inmates there were Catholic Poles, many of whom were ethnic Germans.
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U.S. Senator Theodore G. Bilbo of Mississippi, a former Governor of that state, running for re-election in the Democratic primary, said in a radio broadcast that he was calling on every "red-blooded Anglo-Saxon man in Mississippi to resort to any means to keep hundreds of Negroes from the polls in the July 2 primary.And if you don't know what the means, you are just not up on your persuasive measures.
He won the primary and the generals, but the Senate would refuse to swear him in due to his racist comments.
Today he'd be a Republican, they'd excuse his comments, and he'd be sworn in.
Bilbo retired and wrote a book entitled; Take Your Choice: Separation or Mongrelization. He died in 1947.
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