On February 19, 1942, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signs Executive Order 9066. The document ordered the removal of resident enemy aliens from parts of the West vaguely identified as military areas. While 9066 also affected Italian and German Americans, the largest numbers of detainees were by far Japanese. Regardless of American citizenship status or length of residence, Japanese immigrants and their descendants were systematically rounded up and placed in detention centers built on remote, barren sites along the west coast. Many lost businesses, farms and loved ones as a result. During the war, the U.S. Supreme Court would hear and throw out two challenges to the constitutionality of EO9066. Eleanor Roosevelt, a fierce civil rights proponent, wrote in her memoirs that she was "completely floored" by her husband's action, but that he refused to even discuss it with her. The War Relocation Authority began the process of closing the camps in late 1944, but the final refugees did not walk out of the camps until early 1946. On February 19, 1976, decades after the war, President Ford signed an order prohibiting the executive branch from re-instituting the notorious and tragic World War II order. In 1988, President Reagan issued a public apology on behalf of the government and authorized reparations for former Japanese internees or their descendants. (Below: the Santa Ana Internment Center) On February 19, 1945, The U.S. Marines launch Operation Detachment, the invasion of Iwo Jima. Located just 660 miles from Japan, the island is prime real estate on which to build airfields to launch bombing raids. It is defended by 21,000 Japanese, defending from positions - many of which are underground - connected by a network of caves. The enemy is so well entrenched and hidden that many of the invading Marines will later say they felt like they were fighting the island itself. More to come.... On February 19, 1847, the first rescuers reach surviving members of the Donner Party, a group of California-bound emigrants stranded by snow in the Sierra Nevada Mountains. The group of 89, led by George Donner, had departed Springfield, Illinois by wagon train the previous spring. All was well until their arrival at Fort Bridger, Wyoming in July. At that point, the emigrants decided to avoid the usual route and try a new trail recently blazed by California promoter Lansford Hastings, the so-called “Hastings Cutoff.” The shortcut was nothing of the sort: It set the Donner Party back nearly three weeks and cost them much-needed supplies. They finally reached the Sierra Nevada Mountains in early October, but an early winter snow completely stopped them northwest of Lake Tahoe, and also blocked any attempt to retrace their steps. The party encamped and sent out fifteen of the stronger emigrants in an attempt to reach Sutter's Fort near San Francisco. Eight of the 15 were lost in the harsh weather, the remaining 7 reached a native American village in early January and got word to Sutter's Fort. The first rescue party brought food - legend says the survivors had resorted to cannibalism in the previous month - and began organizing an evacuation, but the expedition to Sutter's Fort was no easier than survival in the Sierra Nevadas. Only 45 of the original 89 reached California.
On February 20, 1962, John H. Glenn, Jr. becomes the first American to orbit the earth in outer space. Glenn, a USMC Lt. Colonel, is the third American and fifth human launched into space. Launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida aboard Friendship 7, Glenn completes 3 orbits, not without incident. The spacecraft's auto controls began to malfunction before the first orbit was complete, causing Glenn to take manual control. Shortly before re-entry into the atmoshere, the craft signalled that the heat shield might be loose. NASA elected to retain the ship's retrorocket package, which was supposed to be jettisoned before re-entry, as a means of holding the heat shield in place, and Glenn splashed down safely in the Atlantic Ocean after 5 hours in space. In 1988 Glenn, now a US Senator from Ohio, returned to space as the oldest astronaut ever, flying aboard space shuttle Discovery to participate in a NASA health study of health problems associated with aging. On February 20, 1985, the Irish government defies the powerful Catholic Church and approves the sale of contraceptives. Young Irishmen may now walk proudly, head held high into Harold's and say, "Harold, I want you to sell me a condom. In fact, today I think I'll have a French tickler, even though I'm not a Protestant" On February 20, 1939, Madison Square Garden is the site of a "Pro American Rally." The host organization is, in fact, the German American Bund, and the event is a celebration of the rise of the Nazi Party in Germany (this is more than 6 months before Germany invades Poland). More than 20,000 attendees raise Nazi salutes to a 30-foot tall portrait of George Washington, beneath the eagle and swastika symbol of the Nazis. The event agenda is also highly anti-Semetic, with banners reading "Stop Jewish Domination of Christian Americans” and “Wake Up America. Smash Jewish Communism” displayed around the arena. When the Bund’s national leader, Fritz Kuhn, gives his closing speech, he referred to President Roosevelt as “Rosenfield,” and Manhattan District Attorney Thomas Dewey as “Thomas Jewey.” An estimated crowd of 100,000 protesters gathered outside the arena, one of whom managed to get in and disrupt Kuhn's speech before being roughly escorted out by police and charged with disorderly conduct. There were numerous violent clashes between police and protesters outside the arena as well.
February 21 is a busy day, historically.... 1972 - President Nixon arrives in the People's Republic of China for a week-long visit. The goodwill trip helps thaw relations between the two countries, and more importantly, deepens the animosity between the world's two largest communist countries, China and the USSR. 1965 - Former Nation of Islam leader Malcolm X is assassinated in front of a gathering of his followers by black Muslims in NYC. The former racial agitator angered his former group when he returned from a pilgrimage to Mecca with a kinder, gentler attitude toward advancing African American ideals. 1885 - The Washington Monument is dedicated. At 555 feet, its the tallest structure in the world at the time, and thanks to a local zoning law, will always be the tallest structure in Washington, D.C. 1848 - Karl Marx publishes his Communist Manifesto. 1916 - The Battle of Verdun begins. It is the longest battle of World War I at 10 months, and with a combined 337,000 French and German casualties. In terms of ground gained, it was a stalemate, but its strategically a French victory, as the Germans were denied the decisive Western Front victory they sought. 1948 - The National Association for Stock Car Racing (NASCAR) is incorporated as the governing body for stock car racing in America. 1944 - Japanese Prime Minister Hideki Tojo takes over as army chief of staff, giving him a virtual dictatorship over Japan. It will not stem the American momentum in the Pacific War, however. Tojo is captured at the end of the war, fails in a suicide attempt, and is hanged for war crimes in 1948. 1599 - William Shakespeare and 7 other English playwrights sign a lease on a plot of land in the Southwark district of London. It will become the site of the Globe Theatre, where most of Shakespeare's greatest plays will be performed. 1952 - Dick Button wins his 2nd Olympic gold in men's figure skating. Button became the youngest (and first American) figure skating gold medalist in 1948, and remains the only American to have ever won the event twice.
A holiday celebrated at Bernie Sanders house. Or houses now that he is a millionaire and owns 3 of them.
On February 22, 1980, in Lake Placid, NY, the US Olympic hockey team pulls off the Miracle On Ice, beating the 4-time defending champion USSR, 4-3. Coach Herb Brooks has assembled, not only the youngest team at the '80 Olympics, but the youngest team in USA hockey history, a team loaded with college stars, many destined for the NHL. Nevertheless, the young team had been stomped by the Soviets 10-3 in an exhibition 3 days before the Olympics began. But the US shook off that humiliating defeat to go 4-0-1 in the opening round and advance to the medal round, where the Soviets awaited them in the semi-finals. Not just an amazing sports upset, the Miracle on Ice was a huge shot in the arm for a US citizenship that was reeling from a recession, the Iran hostage crisis, and the recent news that the US would boycott the Summer Games over the USSR's invasion of Afghanistan. See LKF for more. February 22, 1942, President Franklin D. Roosevelt orders Gen. Douglas McArthur out of the Philippines, as the American defense of the islands collapses.
On February 23, 1945, 1st Lt. Harold Schrier, USMC, leads a patrol from the 2nd Battalion, 28th Marines up Mt. Suribachi, the highest point on Iwo Jima. The Japanese-held island has been the scene of some of the fiercest fighting in the Pacific Theatre over the past 4 days. But Schrier's patrol meets little resistance this morning as it reaches the summit of Suribachi and raises a small American flag. On the beach, Secretary of the Navy James Forrestal, who has been observing from the invasion fleet, has just come ashore and decides he wants the flag as a souvenir. Battalion commander Colonel Chandler Johnson gets the word and objects. The flag belongs to the battalion and he aims to keep it. Johnson sends a runner, PFC Rene Gagnon, up the mountain with a larger flag and instructions to bring him the first flag. Gagnon passes the new flag off to Sergeant Mike Strank, who recruits Corporal Harlon Block, and PFC's Ira Hayes and Franklin Sousley to help raise the new flag. Gagnon and Navy Corpsman John Bradley, who went up the mountain with the first patrol, also lend a hand. They find a tall sturdy piece of pipe, attach the flag and drive it into the mountaintop. Hovering nearby is Joe Rosenthal, photographer for the Associated Press. He arrived atop the mountain too late to photograph the first flag raising (Marine photographer Louis Lowery got the above shot), and he's eager to get a shot this time. He's stacking rocks to stand on for a better vantage when the flag goes up, and he almost misses this one too, but hurriedly, without even looking through his viewfinder, snaps off one image. That photograph will become arguably the most famous and most reproduced image in the history of photography. It will be another month before Iwo Jima is secured, however, and Strank, Sousley and Block will fall in the next few days. Bradley, Hayes and Gagnon survive and are brought home to a hero's welcome, though Hayes and Bradley will quickly grow to detest the fame brought by the photograph. Bradley's usual comment when cornered into conversation about his "heroism", was "all we did was raise a flag. The real heroes never left that island."……Now, all of the above is drawn from a couple of sources, including the book (“Flags of our Fathers”) written by Bradley’s son James. But about 4 years ago, Marine Corps researchers announced the person believed to be Bradley in the Rosenthal photo was in fact PFC Harold Schultz, based on comparisons with motion picture film and other photos taken that morning. And last year, more research concluded the man thought to be Gagnon was a Corporal Harold Keller. Based on what I read in the Bradley book , I find it shocking that John Bradley didn’t deny his being in the photo all along. Not so much with Gagnon, who thought his appearance in the photo would bring him job opportunities after the war (it didn’t) and whose fiance’ demanded they ride the celebrity gravy train for all it was worth.
