Today In History – December 15

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Ray Mossholder with Today In History – December 15

While the Constitution of the United States was being debated, several states requested the addition of amendments to spell out more strongly the rights of citizens and states. The congress of 1789 complied by proposing twelve amendments. Ten of them were ratified on this day, 15 December 1791. They are known as the Bill of Rights. The first words of the first amendment prohibited the government from meddling with religion.

QUOTE

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof…”

Union General George Thomas

December 15, 1864, the once powerful Confederate Army of Tennessee is nearly destroyed when a Union army commanded by General George Thomas swarmed over the Rebel trenches around Nashville.

The Battle of Nashvillewas thefinale in a disastrous year for General John Bell Hood’s Confederates. The Rebels lost a long summer campaign for Atlanta in September 1864 when Hood abandoned the city to the army of William T. Sherman. Hood then took his diminished force north into Tennessee. He hoped to draw Sherman out of the Deep South, but Sherman had enough troops to split his force and send part of it to chase Hood into Tennessee. In November, Sherman took the remainder of his army on his march across Georgia. On November 30, Hood attacked the troops of General John Schofield at Franklin, Tennessee. The Confederates suffered heavy casualties and much of the army’s leadership structure was destroyed: Twelve generals were killed or wounded along with 60 regimental leaders. When Schofield moved north to Nashville to join Thomas, Hood followed him and dug his army in outside of Nashville’s formidable defenses.

Thomas saw his chance to deal a decisive blow to Hood. More than 50,000 Yankees faced a Rebel force that now totaled less than 20,000. Historians have long questioned why Hood even approached the strongly fortified city with the odds so stacked against him. Early in the morning of December 15, Thomas sent a force under General James Steedman against the Confederates’ right flank. The Union troops overran the Confederate trenches and drove the Rebels back more than a mile. The short December day halted the fighting, but Thomas struck again on December 16. This time, the entire Confederate line gave way and sent Hood’s men from the field in a total rout. Only General Stephen Lee’s valiant rear-guard action prevented complete destruction of the Confederate army.

More than 6,000 Rebels were killed or wounded and 3,000 Yankees lost their lives. Hood and his damaged army retreated to Mississippi, the Army of Tennessee no longer a viable offensive fighting force.

Sitting Bull

After many years of successfully resisting white efforts to destroy him and the Sioux people, the great Sioux chief Sitting Bull was killed by Indian police at the Standing Rock reservation in South Dakota on December 15, 1890.

One of the most famous Native Americans of the 19th century, Sitting Bull (Tatanka Iyotake) was a fierce enemy of Anglo-Americans from a young age. Deeply devoted to the traditional ways, Sitting Bull believed that contact with non-Indians undermined the strength and identity of the Sioux and would lead to their ultimate decline. However, Sitting Bull’s tactics were generally more defensive than aggressive, especially as he grew older and became a Sioux leader. Fundamentally, Sitting Bull and those associated with his tribe wished only to be left alone to pursue their traditional ways, but the Anglo settlers’ growing interest in the land and the resulting confinement of Indians to government-controlled reservations inevitably led to conflicts. Sitting Bull’s refusal to follow an 1875 order to bring his people to the Sioux reservation directly led to the famous Battle of the Little Bighorn, during which the Sioux and Cheyenne wiped out five troops of Custer’s 7th Cavalry.

After the Battle of the Little Bighorn, Sitting Bull and his followers fled to Canada for four years. Faced with mass starvation among his people, Sitting Bull finally returned to the United States and surrendered in 1883. Sitting Bull was assigned to the Standing Rock reservation in present-day South Dakota, where he maintained considerable power despite the best efforts of the Indian bureau agents to undermine his influence. When the apocalyptic spiritual revival movement known as the Ghost Dance began to grow in popularity among the Sioux in 1890, Indian agents feared it might lead to an Indian uprising. Wrongly believing that Sitting Bull was the driving force behind the Ghost Dance, agent James McLaughlin sent Indian police to arrest the chief at his small cabin on the Grand River.

The Indian police rousted the naked chief from his bed at 6:00 in the morning, hoping to spirit him away before his guards and neighbors knew what had happened. When the fifty-nine-year-old chief refused to go quietly, a crowd gathered and a few hotheaded young men threatened the Indian police. Someone fired a shot that hit one of the Indian police; they retaliated by shooting Sitting Bull in the chest and head. The great chief was killed instantly. Before the ensuing gunfight ended, twelve other Indians were dead and three were wounded.

The man who had nobly resisted the encroachment of whites and their culture for nearly three decades was buried in a far corner of the post cemetery at Fort Yates. Two weeks later, the army brutally suppressed the Ghost Dance movement with the massacre of a band of Sioux at Wounded Knee, the final act in the long and tragic history of the American war against the Plains Indians.

Adolf Eichmann

December 15, 1961 – In Tel Aviv, Israel, Adolf Eichmann, the Nazi SS officer who organized Adolf Hitler’s “final solution of the Jewish question,” was condemned to death by an Israeli war crimes tribunal.

Eichmann was born in Solingen, Germany, in 1906. In November 1932, he joined the Nazi’s elite SS (Schutzstaffel) organization, whose members came to have broad responsibilities in Nazi Germany, including policing, intelligence, and the enforcement of Adolf Hitler’s anti-Semitic policies. Eichmann steadily rose in the SS hierarchy, and with the German annexation of Austria in 1938 he was sent to Vienna with the mission of ridding the city of Jews. He set up an efficient Jewish deportment center and in 1939 was sent to Prague on a similar mission. That year, Eichmann was appointed to the Jewish section of the SS central security office in Berlin.

In January 1942, Eichmann met with top Nazi officials at the Wannsee Conference near Berlin for the purpose of planning a “final solution of the Jewish question,” as Nazi leader Hermann Goering put it. The Nazis decided to exterminate Europe’s Jewish population. Eichmann was appointed to coordinate the identification, assembly, and transportation of millions of Jews from occupied Europe to the Nazi death camps, where Jews were gassed or worked to death. He carried this duty out with horrifying efficiency, and between three to four million Jews perished in the extermination camps before the end of World War II. Close to two million were executed elsewhere.

Following the war, Eichmann was captured by U.S. troops, but he escaped a prison camp in 1946 before having to face the Nuremberg International War Crimes Tribunal. Eichmann traveled under an assumed identity between Europe and the Middle East, and in 1950 he arrived in Argentina, which maintained lax immigration policies and was a safe haven for many Nazi war criminals. In 1957, a German prosecutor secretly informed Israel that Eichmann was living in Argentina. Agents from Israel’s intelligence service, the Mossad, were deployed to Argentina, and in early 1960 they located Eichmann living in the San Fernando section of Buenos Aires under the name of Ricardo Klement.

In May 1960, Argentina was celebrating the 150th anniversary of its revolution against Spain, and many tourists were traveling to Argentina from abroad to attend the festivities. The Mossad used the opportunity to smuggle more agents into the country. Israel, knowing that Argentina might never extradite Eichmann for trial, had decided to abduct him and take him to Israel illegally. On May 11, Mossad operatives descended on Garibaldi Street in San Fernando and snatched Eichmann away as he was walking from the bus to his home. His family called local hospitals but not the police, and Argentina knew nothing of the operation. On May 20, a drugged Eichmann was flown out of Argentina disguised as an Israeli airline worker who had suffered head trauma in an accident. Three days later, Israeli Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion announced that Eichmann was in Israeli custody.

Argentina demanded Eichmann’s return, but Israel argued that his status as an international war criminal gave them the right to proceed with a trial. On April 11, 1961, Eichmann’s trial began in Jerusalem. It was the first televised trial in history. Eichmann faced 15 charges, including crimes against humanity, crimes against the Jewish people, and war crimes. He claimed he was just following orders, but the judges disagreed, finding him guilty on all counts on December 15 and sentencing him to die. On May 31, 1962, he was hanged near Tel Aviv. His body was cremated and his ashes thrown into the sea.

John Paul Getty III

On this day in 1973, Jean Paul Getty III, the grandson of American billionaire J. Paul Getty, was found alive near Naples, five months after his kidnapping by an Italian gang. J. Paul Getty, who became the richest man in the world in 1957, had initially refused to pay his 16-year-old grandson’s $17 million ransom but finally agreed to cooperate after the boy’s severed right ear was sent to a newspaper in Rome. He eventually secured his grandson’s release by paying just $2.7 million, the maximum amount that he claimed he was able to raise.

Born in Minneapolis in 1892, Getty inherited a small oil company from his father. Through his autocratic rule and skillful manipulation of the stock market, Getty soon shaped Getty Oil into a massive financial empire. By 1968, Getty’s fortune exceeded $1 billion. However, the world’s wealthiest man did not live an ideal life. He is remembered as an eccentric billionaire who married and divorced five times and had serious relationship problems with most of his five sons.

In the final 25 years of his life, Getty lived near London, England, in an estate surrounded by double barbed-wire fences and protected by plainclothes guards and more than 20 German shepherd attack dogs. He was also a notorious miser–his installation of a payphone for guests in his English mansion is a famous example. Three years after failing to pay his grandson’s ransom in a timely manner, J. Paul Getty died at the age of 83.

His children and former wives fought bitterly over the inheritance of his fortune in court, but ultimately the bulk of his billions went to the J. Paul Getty Museum “for the diffusion of artistic and general knowledge.” Today, the Getty Museum, based in Los Angeles, is the most richly endowed museum on earth.

1965

The United States dropped 12 tons of bombs on an industrial center near Haiphong Harbor, North Vietnam.

December 15, 1988 – The man who always sang with his whole heart and who once told me that I was “a real gentleman” – Legendary singer James Brown, also known as the “Godfather of Soul” and the “Hardest Working Man in Show Business,” became inmate number 155413 at the State Park Correctional Institute in South Carolina. Brown had had several run-ins with the law during the summer of 1988 that landed him on probation, but his reckless spree on September 24 resulted in numerous criminal charges, including assault and battery with intent to kill.

On September 24, Brown entered an insurance seminar in Augusta, Georgia, armed with a shotgun and a pistol, and ordered everyone to leave. He then took off in his pickup truck and attempted to outrun police, who chased him into South Carolina and then back into Georgia. Even after police had shot out three of his tires, Brown continued to drive on wheel rims until he ended up in a ditch six miles down the road. After the incident, Brown’s wife, Adrienne, said that he was on medication for jaw surgery and was “not in his right mind.”

Although several police officers claimed that they shot out Brown’s tires because he had tried to run them over, Brown offered a different version of the story. He claimed that while he was in the process of surrendering to a black police officer, a group of white policemen who had just arrived on the scene began smashing the windows of Brown’s truck. Purportedly fearing for his life, Brown then took off as the officers began firing. Brown, who had already been charged with carrying a pistol and PCP possession earlier that year, was sentenced to six years and six months in prison on charges of failing to stop for a police officer and aggravated assault. After his release three years later, he managed to stay out of trouble for a while and even went on tour, which—considering his wild stage antics—was quite an accomplishment for a man well into his 60s. But in 1998, Brown was again charged with drug possession—this time for marijuana—and was required to enter a 90-day drug treatment program. Brown died in December 2006, at the age of 73.

Actual picture of Hillary on the NBC program that day

On December 15, 1998, the U.S. House of Representatives’ Committee on the Judiciary releases a 265-page report recommending the impeachment of President Bill Clinton for high crimes and misdemeanors.

The subsequent impeachment proceedings were the culmination of a slew of scandals involving the president and first lady Hillary Clinton. The Clintons were suspected of arranging improper real-estate deals, fundraising violations and cronyism in involving the firing of White House travel agents. Added to the mix were stories of Clinton’s extra-marital affairs and a sexual harassment claim filed against him. An independent counsel, Kenneth Starr, was appointed to investigate the Paula Jones sexual harassment case; the ensuing investigation led Starr to Monica Lewinsky, a former White House intern who had been accused of having an affair with Clinton. In early 1998, the Lewinsky scandal broke to the press and Clinton vehemently denied the affair. A year of federal grand jury testimony from various individuals in both camps followed, while Clinton continued to refute the allegations and invoked executive privilege when subpoenaed in August 1998.

Clinton’s attempt to cover up the affair, which he later admitted to and apologized for, prompted incensed House Republican leaders to pass Resolution No. 611 on December 15, 1998. The resolution launched the impeachment process for high crimes and misdemeanors, including perjury and obstruction of justice. The report accused Clinton of concealing evidence, giving misleading testimony and influencing witnesses. In the opinion of the majority of the House, Clinton’s actions “undermined the integrity of his office.” Democratic leaders also disapproved of Clinton’s conduct but preferred to formally censure the president over impeachment.

After heated debate, the Republican-dominated House of Representatives voted to impeach Clinton on December 19. On January 7, 1999, the impeachment trial began in the Senate–it was the first such trial since President Andrew Johnson was accused of illegally removing the secretary of war from office and violating several Congressional acts in 1868. Like Johnson, Clinton was acquitted on February 12, 1999.

On this day in 2001, Italy’s Leaning Tower of Pisa reopens after a team of experts spent 11 years and $27 million to fortify the tower without eliminating its famous lean.

In the 12th century, construction began on the bell tower for the cathedral of Pisa, a busy trade center on the Arno River in western Italy, some 50 miles from Florence. While construction was still in progress, the tower’s foundation began to sink into the soft, marshy ground, causing it to lean to one side. Its builders tried to compensate for the lean by making the top stories slightly taller on one side, but the extra masonry required only made the tower sink further. By the time it was completed in 1360, modern-day engineers say it was a miracle it didn’t fall down completely.

Though the cathedral itself and the adjoining baptistery also leaned slightly, it was the Torre Pendente di Pisa, or Leaning Tower of Pisa, that became the city’s most famous tourist attraction. By the 20th century, the 190-foot-high white marble tower leaned a dramatic 15 feet off the perpendicular. In the year before its closing in 1990, 1 million people visited the old tower, climbing its 293 weathered steps to the top and gazing out over the green Campo dei Miracoli (Field of Miracles) outside. Fearing it was about to collapse, officials appointed a group of 14 archeologists, architects and soil experts to figure out how to take some–but not all–of the famous tilt away.

Though an initial attempt in 1994 almost toppled the tower, engineers were eventually able to reduce the lean by between 16 and 17 inches by removing earth from underneath the foundations. When the tower reopened on December 15, 2001, engineers predicted it would take 300 years to return to its 1990 position. Though entrance to the tower is now limited to guided tours, hordes of tourists can still be found outside, striking the classic pose–standing next to the tower pretending to hold it up–as cameras flash.

And the major story on this day – December 15, 2015…………
debate

Published December 15, 2015

FoxNews.com

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The once-friendly rivalry between Ted Cruz and Donald Trump is getting edgy as the Texas senator cuts into the business mogul’s lead, setting up a potential showdown in the GOP presidential primary debate Tuesday.

Cruz has largely avoided public attacks on Trump — likely in part to avoid his withering counter-attacks and also in hopes of gathering Trump supporters should he falter or quit the race.

Trump has mostly left Cruz alone — at least until recently, when Cruz apparently criticized him at private fundraisers.

The Texan then pulled ahead in Iowa, according to polls released over the past few days.

“He said it behind my back. Somebody taped that conversation,” Trump said about Cruz on “Fox News Sunday.”

“I don’t think he’s qualified to be president. …  I don’t think he’s got the right judgment.”

Tuesday’s debate, hosted by CNN, will be the fourth of 12 sanctioned GOP White House primary debates and the final one of the year.

It also comes less than 50 days before the Iowa Caucus, the first voting in the 2016 election cycle.

Cruz and Trump will be joined on the main stage in Las Vegas by Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul, retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson, Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, Ohio Gov. John Kasich, former Hewlett Packard CEO Carly Fiorina and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie.

On Sunday, Trump suggested that Cruz’s tactics on Capitol Hill are devoid of the compromising skills needed to run the country.

“He goes in there … like a bit of a maniac,” Trump said.

“You never get things done that way. You can’t walk into the Senate and scream and call people liars and not be able to cajole and get along with people. … That’s the problem with Ted.”

When the reports surfaced last week of Cruz at New York fundraisers questioning Trump’s judgement, Cruz promptly tweeted: “The Establishment’s only hope: Trump & me in a cage match. Sorry to disappoint.”

And within hours of Trump’s attack Sunday, Cruz responded on Twitter by posting a link to the song “Maniac” from the movie “Flashdance” and writing: “In honor of my friend @realDonaldTrump and good-hearted maniacs everywhere …”

CNN will also host a debate for the second-tier GOP candidates — former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum, South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham and former New York Gov. George Pataki.

The network said Paul squeezed into the main debate “by showing viability in Iowa in a Fox News poll released Sunday morning.”

Christie returns to the main stage, largely because of his strong poll numbers in early-voting state New Hampshire.

Carson last month surged in national polls and briefly held second place behind Trump in Iowa. But his campaign has since plummeted roughly 12 percentage points, from 24.8 to 12.6 percent.

Bush is also looking for a comeback, after being considered the presumptive frontrunner early in the election cycle. However, his campaign has failed to catch fire, despite its infrastructure and fundraising prowess.

Rubio has also improved his poll rankings in recent weeks but is competing with Cruz for essentially the same voters, which could bring fireworks to the debate.

Cruz’s national poll numbers didn’t reach double-digits until early November, according to a RealClearPoltics.com averaging.

But he could indeed win Iowa, considering his support among evangelicals and other social-conservative voters is similar to that of Mike Huckabee and Rick Santorum, who in 2008 and 2012, respectively, won the caucus despite average numbers in national polls.

A Fox News Poll released Sunday showed Cruz edging Trump in Iowa, 28-26 percent among likely caucus-goers. The poll was taken Dec. 7-10 and had a margin of error of 4.5 percentage points.

Cruz has a 10-point lead over Cruz according to a new Des Moines Register/Bloomberg Politics poll, which previously had him trailing Trump in Iowa by 11 percentage points.

And a new Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll shows the freshman senator edging closer to Trump nationally, 22-to-27 percent, after trailing by 15 percentage points in October.

Today In History – December 15

1981

In what is often called the first modern suicide bombing, a suicide car bomb killed 61 people at the Iraqi embassy in Beirut, Lebanon; Iraq’s ambassador to Lebanon was among the casualties.