First Confidential

THIS DAY IN HISTORY - FEBRUARY 22nd

George Washington, Quote

“The Citizens of the United States of America have a right to applaud themselves for giving to Mankind examples of an enlarged and liberal policy: a policy worthy of imitation. All possess alike liberty of conscience and immunities of citizenship. It is now no more that toleration is spoken of, as if it was by the indulgence of one class of people that another enjoyed the exercise of their inherent natural rights. For happily the Government of the United States, which gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance, requires only that they who live under its protection should demean themselves as good citizens in giving it on all occasions their effectual support.”

~ George Washington

Wikipedia (George Washington (February 22, 1732 [O.S. February 11, 1731] – December 14, 1799) was one of the Founding Fathers of the United States, serving as the commander-in-chief of the Continental Army during the American Revolutionary War.)

(Washington Crossing the Delaware / George Washington 1780 by John Trumbull / First President of the United States by Gilbert Stuart, Williamstown Portrait)

This Day in History

February 22nd, 1371

Kings & Queens (House of Stuart) Stamp Set, credit Great Britain Concise Stamp Catalogue ● Mount Stewart House, Isle of Bute (Mount Stuart is Britain's most astounding Victorian gothic mansion. Home to the Stuarts of Bute, descendants of the Royal House of Stuart, this magnificent house sits proudly on the Isle of Bute - ancient stronghold of Scottish kings.), credit Nikond90fan Flickr

House of Stuart: Robert II becomes King of Scotland, beginning the Stuart dynasty.

Wikipedia  Image: Kings & Queens (House of Stuart) Stamp Set, credit Great Britain Concise Stamp Catalogue ● Mount Stewart House, Isle of Bute (Mount Stuart is Britain's most astounding Victorian gothic mansion. Home to the Stuarts of Bute, descendants of the Royal House of Stuart, this magnificent house sits proudly on the Isle of Bute - ancient stronghold of Scottish kings.) credit Nikond90fan Flickr.

February 22nd, 1856

Cartoon by Thomas Nast in Harper's Weekly, is considered the first important use of an elephant as a symbol for the United States Republican Party

The United States Republican Party opens its first national meeting in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

Wikipedia  Image: Cartoon by Thomas Nast in Harper's Weekly, is considered the first important use of an elephant as a symbol for the United States Republican Party
The elephant has been a symbol of strength since Roman times. Its first use by the Republican Party is believed to date from a printer’s cut (pre-made pictures kept ready to use as illustrations when needed) of an elephant used by an Illinois newspaper during Abraham Lincoln’s 1860 presidential campaign, credit Oklahoma State University.

February 22nd, 1862

Lincoln Memorial: an American national monument built to honor the 16th President of the United States, Abraham Lincoln - located on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. across from the Washington Monument American Civil War: Battle of Antietam; Stone Bridge at Antietam Battlefield - Sharpsburg, Maryland American Civil War, Battle of Mobile Bay: at Mobile Bay near Mobile, Alabama, Admiral David Farragut leads a Union flotilla through Confederate defenses and seals one of the last major Southern ports

American Civil War:
1862 - Jefferson Davis is officially inaugurated for a six-year term as the President of the Confederate States of America in Richmond, Virginia. (He was previously inaugurated as a provisional president on February 18, 1861.)

Wikipedia  Image: ● Lincoln Memorial; an American national monument built to honor the 16th President of the United States, Abraham Lincoln - located on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. across from the Washington Monument.
● The northern army led by George McClellan and the southern army led by Robert E. Lee met at Antietam Creek, Maryland in September, 1862. It was a bloody battle where 13,000 Confederates and 12,000 Union troops died in just one day. McClellan had hesitated to attack before the battle thus letting the southern troops regroup. Also, he had saved reserves and refused to use them at the end of the battle thinking that Lee was holding reserves for a counterattack, even though those reserves didn't exist. The Union victory stopped Lee's northward advance and was a turning point in the war.
● Battle of Antietam / Stone Bridge at Antietam Battlefield - Sharpsburg, Maryland
● Battle of Mobile Bay (1890) by Xanthus Russell Smith.
● Although photography was still in its infancy, war correspondents produced thousands of images, bringing the harsh realities of the frontlines to those on the home front in a new and visceral way. The Atlantic.

February 22nd, 1889

North and South Dakota are admitted as the 39th and 40th U.S. states Montana is admitted as the 41st U.S. state The State of Washington is admitted as the 42nd State of the United States

United States President Grover Cleveland signs a bill admitting North Dakota, South Dakota, Montana and Washington as U.S. states.

Wikipedia  Photo: The Dakotas; The great granite likenesses of Washington, Jefferson, Roosevelt, and Lincoln stare impassively at South Dakota's Black Hills, by James Randklev / Getty Images; South Dakota landscapes, by Bill Fearn; Buffalo roam in South Dakota's Black Hills, by Michael Hanson / Getty Images; Cheyenne River Sioux Tribal Park, South Dakota, by Jack Dykinga; Stallions Fighting, South Dakota, by Melissa Farlow, © credit National Geographic.
Montana; © Mountain Goat Glacier National Park, Montana; Montana Mountains Barn, by Christine Paniecosi; Beartooth Mountains - Montana; Mountains of Montana, by Evan Millitello; Montana Rocky Mountains; Northwest Rocky Mountains, Montana; Glacier national park montana mountains; credit National Geographic, Rocky Mountain Magazine.
Washington; Seattle Skyline, Washington; Olympic Mountains Olympic National Park; Olympic National Park by Melissa Farlow; The Cascade Loop, Washington State's Scenic Loop Highway; Washington State's Mount St. Helens, by USGS. credit National Geographic.

February 22nd, 1904

Map of the Falkland Islands and Patagonia; Perito Moreno glacier and Lago Argentino, credit Wideview.it

United Kingdom sells a meteorological station on the South Orkney Islands to Argentina, the islands are subsequently claimed by the United Kingdom in 1908.

Wikipedia  Image: Falkland Islands; Map of the Falkland Islands and Patagonia; Perito Moreno glacier and Lago Argentino, credit Wideview.it

February 22nd, 1915

World War I: Collage

World War I:
1915 - Germany institutes unrestricted submarine warfare.

Wikipedia  Photo: Trenches on the Western Front; a British Mark IV Tank crossing a trench; Royal Navy battleship HMS Irresistible sinking after striking a mine at the Battle of the Dardanelles; a Vickers machine gun crew with gas masks, and German Albatros D.III biplanes. National Archives and Records Administration.

February 22nd, 1942

World War II: Second firestorm raid on Germany, the Royal Air Force conducts an air raid on the town of Kassel, killing 10,000 and rendering 150,000 homeless World War II: Battle of Leyte Gulf; Battle of Leyte Gulf; The first kamikaze attack: A Japanese plane carrying a 200-kilogram (440 lb) bomb attacks HMAS Australia off Leyte Island World War II: German V1 flying-bomb and V2 Rockets - Preparations for a Salvo Launch of V-2 Rockets in the Heidelager near Blizna (Poland) (1944) World War II: Eastern Front (World War II); was a theatre of World War II between the European Axis powers and co-belligerent Finland against the Soviet Union, Poland, and some other Allies which encompassed Northern, Southern and Eastern Europe from 22 June 1941 to 9 May 1945

World War II:
1942 - United States President Franklin D. Roosevelt orders General Douglas MacArthur out of the Philippines as the Japanese victory becomes inevitable.
1943 - Members of White Rose are executed in Nazi Germany.
1944 - American aircraft mistakenly bomb the Dutch towns of Nijmegen, Arnhem, Enschede and Deventer.

Wikipedia  Photo: Bombing of Dresden in World War II; August Schreitmüller's sculpture 'Goodness' surveys Dresden after a firestorm started by Allied bombers in 1945. USS Bunker Hill was hit by kamikazes piloted by Ensign Kiyoshi Ogawa and another airman on 11 May 1945. 389 personnel were killed or missing from a crew of 2,600; Ensign Kiyoshi Ogawa, who flew his aircraft into the USS Bunker Hill during a Kamikaze mission on 11 May 1945; Kamikaze Missions - Lt Yoshinori Yamaguchi's Yokosuka D4Y3 (Type 33 Suisei) "Judy" in a suicide dive against USS Essex. The dive brakes are extended and the non-self-sealing port wing tank is trailing fuel vapor and/or smoke 25 November 1944.
German V1 flying-bomb and V2 Rockets - Preparations for a Salvo Launch of V-2 Rockets in the Heidelager near Blizna (Poland) (1944), credit German History in Documents and Images GHDI.

Eastern Front (World War II); Germans race towards Stalingrad. August 1942; Soviet children during a German air raid in the first days of the war, June 1941, by RIA Novosti archive; Soviet sniper Roza Shanina in 1944. About 400,000 Soviet women served in front-line duty units Caucasus Mountains, winter 1942/43; Finnish ski patrol: the invisible enemy of the Soviet Army with an unlimited supply of skis; Men of the German Engineers Corps cross a river which is swollen after the first autumn rains, to strengthen bridges linking the German positions on the central front in Russia. by Keystone / Getty Images. October 1942; Russian snipers fighting on the Leningrad front during a blizzard. Photo by Hulton Archive / Getty Images, 1943; German soldiers surrendering to the Russians in Stalingrad, the soldier holding the white flag of surrender is dressed in white so that there could be no doubt of his intentions, a Russian soldier is on the right of the photograph. by Keystone / Getty Images, January 1943.

February 22nd, 1948

Cold War: often dated from 1947–1991, was a sustained state of political and military tension between the powers of the Western world, led by the United States and its NATO allies, and the communist world, led by the Soviet Union, its satellite states and allies Cold War: in Moscow, downed American U-2 pilot Francis Gary Powers is sentenced to ten years imprisonment by the Soviet Union for espionage

Cold War:
1948 - Communist revolution in Czechoslovakia.
1973 - Nixon visit to China: Following United States President Richard Nixon's visit to the People's Republic of China, the two countries agree to establish liaison offices.

Wikipedia  Photo: Lockheed C-130 Hercules; RAF Menwith Hill, a large site in the United Kingdom, part of ECHELON and the UKUSA Agreement; New Zealand nuclear test, British nuclear tests near the Malden and Christmas Islands in the mid-Pacific in 1957 and 1958; Nevada nuclear tests, Nevada Division of Environmental Protection Bureau of Federal Facilities.
U2, Lockheed TR-1 in flight.

February 22nd, 1980

Miracle on Ice: 1980 Winter Olympics at Lake Placid, New York; The March 3, 1980 cover of Sports Illustrated ran without any accompanying captions or headlines ● The U.S. Olympic Hockey Team Defeated the heavy favored, four time Olympic Gold winning Soviet Union Hockey Team in the XIII Winter Olympics

Miracle on Ice: In Lake Placid, New York, the United States hockey team defeats the Soviet Union hockey team 4-3.

Wikipedia  Photo: Miracle on Ice at Lake Placid, New York; The March 3, 1980 cover of Sports Illustrated ran without any accompanying captions or headlines ● The U.S. Olympic Hockey Team Defeated the heavy favored, four time Olympic Gold winning Soviet Union Hockey Team in the XIII Winter Olympics. (The Soviets had not lost an Olympic hockey game since 1964 prior to this 4-3 loss to the U.S. The U.S. team was made up of collegiate players who went on to beat Finland 4-2 to clinch the gold medal.)

February 22nd, 2006

Convicted members of the Securitas gang (from left) Lea Rusha, Stuart Royle, Roger Coutts, Emir Hysenaj and Jetmir Bucpapa. Photographs: Kent Police / PA

At least six men stage Britain's biggest robbery, stealing £53m (about $92.5 million or €78 million) from a Securitas depot in Tonbridge, Kent.

Wikipedia  Image: Convicted members of the Securitas gang (from left) Lea Rusha, Stuart Royle, Roger Coutts, Emir Hysenaj and Jetmir Bucpapa. Photographs: Kent Police / PA, credit The Guardian UK.

February 22nd, 2011

Global Earthquake epicenters

Earthquake:
2011 - Christchurch earthquake; An earthquake measuring 6.3 in magnitude strikes Christchurch, New Zealand, killing 185 people.

Wikipedia  Image: Preliminary Determination of Epicenters / Aleppo Syria; Anchorage, Alaska - March 28, 1964 Prince William Sound USA earthquake and tsunami; 8.9 Mega Earthquake Strikes Japan; Tsunami Swirls Japan's Ibaraki Prefecture March 12 2011. credit NOAA / NGDC, NOAA National Geophysical Data Center, USGS, National Geographics.