And now the headline story to this hour…… Today in History, Sunday, November 22, 2015……
An actual photo of Senator Vitter used against him during this campaign
Senator David Vitter’s political career is coming to an end, in part because the eight-year-old scandal of allegedly hiring prostitutes is proving, finally, to be too much to overcome.
The Republican lost a deeply negative battle for the Louisiana governor’s office Saturday to Democratic state Rep. John Bel Edwards.
As he conceded Saturday night after losing by 12 percentage points, Vitter announced he’s retiring from the Senate when his term ends, rather than running for re-election in 2016.
“I have reached my personal term limit,” he said.
Vitter told his supporters that while “I came up short — you all were fabulous.”
“I’ve lost one political campaign in my life, tonight. And ironically, it’s the campaign and the political effort I am most proud of,” Vitter said.
Edwards will succeed Republican Gov. Bobby Jindal and becomes the first Democratic governor to be elected in the Deep South in 12 years.
The Democrat thanked his supporters in a tweet.
Vitter had been dogged from the start of his gubernatorial bid about his purported history with hookers. In the summer of 2007, he apologized for committing “a serious sin” after his phone number appeared on the client list of Deborah Jeane Palfrey, known as the “D.C. Madam.” Democrats tried to make it an issue in Vitter’s 2010 re-election bid. But in a heavily Republican year, he skated to victory.
Running for state office, though, the charges stuck. A state trial lawyers’ group ran an independent spot prior to the October 24 all-party “jungle primary” hitting Vitter for the alleged past solicitation.
Vitter limped into the runoff, finishing a distant second behind Edwards. A defeated Republican rival, Lt. Gov. Jay Dardenne, endorsed Democratic candidate Edwards. Another vanquished GOP foe, Public Service Commissioner Scott Angelle, stayed neutral.
The Edwards campaign hammered on the prostitution allegations relentlessly, capped by one of the hardest-hitting spots in recent political history. Going back to Vitter’s House days, in 2001, the Edwards television ad argued the Republican “answered a prostitute’s call minutes after he skipped a vote honoring 28 soldiers who gave their lives in defense of our freedom,” thereby choosing “prostitutes over patriots.”
Vitter’s campaign tried to change the subject by seizing on controversy over whether Syrian refuges should be allowed into the United States, in the wake of the Paris massacre. Edwards’ position, opposing resettlement on American soil, was virtually indistinguishable from Vitter’s, though he didn’t dwell on it while campaigning.
Vitter’s defeat is a harsh blow in a once-promising political career. The Harvard grad and Rhodes Scholar had been seen as a rising Republican political force before the scandal broke. Vitter could seek re-election to the Senate in 2016, though Republican colleagues are hardly enthusiastic about that scenario, concerned his unpopularity could throw the seat to a Democratic opponent.
Edwards brings a varied background to the governor’s office. A 1988 West Point graduate, Edwards served as an Army Ranger, among other duties, during an eight-year military career. After earning a law degree at Louisiana State University and working as an attorney, Edwards won election to the state House in 2008.
Once Edwards takes office in January, there will be 31 Republican governors, 18 Democrats and one independent.
The Vitter defeat will have ripple effects in Louisiana politics. Two Republican House members, Charles Boustany and John Fleming, had openly angled for appointment to the Senate by Vitter, had he won. So has state Treasurer John Kennedy. Now each pol will have to stay in his current job.
Republicans said they will keep control of the Legislature.
“Despite a disappointing result in the gubernatorial race, we’re confident that our Republican Legislature and activists across the state will hold governor-elect Edwards accountable to his campaign promises of not raising taxes, protecting school choice and defending our conservative family values,” said Roger Villere, chairman of the Republican Party of Louisiana.
The worst train crash in the Long Island Railroad’s history
Two Long Island Railroad (LIRR) commuter trains collided on this day in 1950, killing 79 people. Defective equipment caused this horrific rear-end collision, the worst in the history of the LIRR.
The accident occurred in the Richmond Hills section of Queens. A 12-car train carrying commuters from Manhattan to Hempstead on Long Island was ordered to slow down as it entered the station in Queens. Engineer William Murphy cut the speed to 15 miles per hour and then to a complete stop. As the train stood still on the tracks, rear flagman Bertram Biggin got off the train with a red lamp in order to warn any approaching trains of its presence.
Soon, the train got a green light to move on and the Hempstead train attempted to restart its journey. Biggin got back on the train, but the stop had caused the train’s brakes to lock. The express train to Babylon was on the same tracks just minutes behind and had green lights to proceed. It hit the rear of the Hempstead train going 40 miles per hour, smashing into and under the rear car, throwing it high into the air. Benjamin Pokorney, the motorman of the Babylon train, was killed, along with everyone traveling in the rear car. Another 363 people suffered significant injuries.
New York City Mayor Vincent Impellitari called the LIRR a “disgraceful common carrier” following the discovery that defective equipment that was not maintained properly was responsible for the accident. Millions of dollars in damages were eventually paid to the victims and their families.
November 22, 1963, John Fitzgerald Kennedy, the 35th president of the United States, was assassinated while traveling in a parade through Dallas, Texas, in an open-top convertible.
First lady Jacqueline Kennedy rarely accompanied her husband on political outings, but she was beside him, along with Texas Governor John Connally and his wife, for a 10-mile motorcade through the streets of downtown Dallas on November 22. Sitting in a Lincoln convertible, the Kennedys and Connallys waved at the large and enthusiastic crowds gathered along the parade route. As their vehicle passed the Texas School Book Depository Building at 12:30 p.m., Lee Harvey Oswald allegedly fired three shots from the sixth floor, fatally wounding President Kennedy and seriously injuring Governor Connally. Kennedy was pronounced dead 30 minutes later at Dallas’ Parkland Hospital. He was 46.
Vice President Lyndon Johnson, who was three cars behind President Kennedy in the motorcade, was sworn in as the 36th president of the United States at 2:39 p.m. He took the presidential oath of office aboard Air Force One as it sat on the runway at Dallas Love Field airport. The swearing in was witnessed by some 30 people, including Jacqueline Kennedy, who was still wearing clothes stained with her husband’s blood. Seven minutes later, the presidential jet took off for Washington.
The next day, November 23, President Johnson issued his first proclamation, declaring November 25 to be a day of national mourning for the slain president. On that Monday, hundreds of thousands of people lined the streets of Washington to watch a horse-drawn caisson bear Kennedy’s body from the Capitol Rotunda to St. Matthew’s Catholic Cathedral for a requiem Mass. The solemn procession then continued on to Arlington National Cemetery, where leaders of 99 nations gathered for the state funeral. Kennedy was buried with full military honors on a slope below Arlington House, where an eternal flame was lit by his widow to forever mark the grave.
Lee Harvey Oswald, born in New Orleans in 1939, joined the U.S. Marines in 1956. He was discharged in 1959 and nine days later left for the Soviet Union, where he tried unsuccessfully to become a citizen. He worked in Minsk and married a Soviet woman and in 1962 was allowed to return to the United States with his wife and infant daughter. In early 1963, he bought a .38 revolver and rifle with a telescopic sight by mail order, and on April 10 in Dallas he allegedly shot at and missed former U.S. Army general Edwin Walker, a figure known for his extreme right-wing views. Later that month, Oswald went to New Orleans and founded a branch of the Fair Play for Cuba Committee, a pro-Castro organization. In September 1963, he went to Mexico City, where investigators allege that he attempted to secure a visa to travel to Cuba or return to the USSR. In October, he returned to Dallas and took a job at the Texas School Book Depository Building.
Less than an hour after Kennedy was shot, Oswald killed a policeman who questioned him on the street near his rooming house in Dallas. Thirty minutes later, Oswald was arrested in a movie theater by police responding to reports of a suspect. He was formally arraigned on November 23 for the murders of President Kennedy and Officer J.D. Tippit.
On November 24, Oswald was brought to the basement of the Dallas police headquarters on his way to a more secure county jail. A crowd of police and press with live television cameras rolling gathered to witness his departure. As Oswald came into the room, Jack Ruby emerged from the crowd and fatally wounded him with a single shot from a concealed .38 revolver. Ruby, who was immediately detained, claimed that rage at Kennedy’s murder was the motive for his action. Some called him a hero, but he was nonetheless charged with first-degree murder.
Jack Ruby, originally known as Jacob Rubenstein, operated strip joints and dance halls in Dallas and had minor connections to organized crime. He features prominently in Kennedy-assassination theories, and many believe he killed Oswald to keep him from revealing a larger conspiracy. In his trial, Ruby denied the allegation and pleaded innocent on the grounds that his great grief over Kennedy’s murder had caused him to suffer “psychomotor epilepsy” and shoot Oswald unconsciously. The jury found Ruby guilty of “murder with malice” and sentenced him to die.
In October 1966, the Texas Court of Appeals reversed the decision on the grounds of improper admission of testimony and the fact that Ruby could not have received a fair trial in Dallas at the time. In January 1967, while awaiting a new trial, to be held in Wichita Falls, Ruby died of lung cancer in a Dallas hospital.
The official Warren Commission report of 1964 concluded that neither Oswald nor Ruby were part of a larger conspiracy, either domestic or international, to assassinate President Kennedy. Despite its seemingly firm conclusions, the report failed to silence conspiracy theories surrounding the event, and in 1978 the House Select Committee on Assassinations concluded in a preliminary report that Kennedy was “probably assassinated as a result of a conspiracy” that may have involved multiple shooters and organized crime. The committee’s findings, as with those of the Warren Commission, continue to be widely disputed.
CL Lewis
1963
Because of the worldwide news in every media regarding the assassination of President John Kennedy, the death of C. S. Lewis, beloved apologist, scholar and author was all but ignored. C.S. Lewis was a 65-year-old Anglican scholar, novelist and Christian apologist. He was well-known and loved throughout the world too for his children’s classic, “The Chronicles of Narnia” (1950-56), “The Screwtape Letters” (1943) and “Screwtape Letters” (1942).
CS Lewis was born Clive Staples Lewis in 1898. His mother died of cancer when he was still very young and he and his brother, Warren, was 3 years older. When he was 10, his mother died of cancer. Just like the Pevensie children in “The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe,” their father sent the boys away to a boarding school. At that school, CS Lewis abandoned his childhood faith in Christ.
In 1916, Lewis won a scholarship to University College in Oxford. One year later, he enlisted in the British Army during World War I. He was sent to the front lines to fight on his 19th birthday and he was wounded during the Battle of Arras. He was returned to duty later that year once the war was over he was discharged. One of his great griefs was that his best friend and roommate in high school was killed and buried in the field during the war. It was during the next year that CS Lewis wrote his first magazine article titled “Death in Battle.” He went on to write book after book. The book that began gain CS Lewis real attention was the first book of his Space Trilogy “Out of the Silent Planet” which he wrote in 1938. These were followed by “Screwtape Letters” that he wrote in weekly segments for the English newspaper The Guardian in 1941.
Because “The Chronicles of Narnia” are still the most popular 7 books on reachmorenow.com and Reach More Now YouTube, I’m going to list the real order in which he wrote his magnificent series – 1950 “The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe”; 1951 “Prince Caspian”; 1952 “The Voyage of the ‘Dawn Treader"”; 1953 “The Silver Chair”; 1954 “The Horse and His Boy”; 1955 “The Magician’s Nephew”; 1956 “The Last Battle”. CS Lewis received the Carnegie Metal in recognition of the 7 books. On and on went his books and all of them are well worth reading.
One of CS Lewis’s closest friends for several years was Lord of the Rings author J. R. Tolkien with whom he met for lunch every week. A group of very distinguished authors met together in the same group to share what they were writing. But Lewis and Tolkien were limited to lunch time get-togethers.
CS Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien
Lewis died on November 22, one week before his 65th birthday. He had a variety of illnesses including heart and kidney trouble. He had resigned his position of Professor at Cambridge during that summer.
Mike Tyson
November 22, 1986, 20-year-old Mike Tyson knocked out 33-year-old Trevor Berbick in just five minutes and 35 seconds. Joyfully, he yelled into the microphone “I’m the youngest heavyweight boxing champion in history,” Tyson told his manager after the fight, “and I’m going to be the oldest.”
Tyson’s bravado wasn’t misplaced: When he walked into the ring to face Berbick, he had won all 27 of the matches he’d fought, knocking out 26 of his opponents. He threw unbelievably hard punches–”pineapples,” trainer Angelo Dundee called them. Ref Mills Lane agreed: “Everything he’s got has ‘good night’ written all over it,” he said. Berbick refused to be intimidated by the younger man’s furious arm and decided–unwisely, it turned out–to stand up to Tyson instead of boxing him. He didn’t bob or weave or even throw punches. He just stood there, wanting to show the world that he could take whatever Tyson was dishing out. “I was trying to prove to myself that I could take his best shot,” Berbick said, but “he punches pretty hard.”
Tyson had a plan, too: “I wanted to throw every punch with bad intentions,” he said after the fight. “I was throwing–what can I say–hydrogen bombs.” During the first round, Berbick had fought in such slow motion that he looked like he was underwater; early in the second, Tyson walloped him to the mat with a powerful left hook. The older man bounced up, but Tyson thumped him again. Berbick froze; then his legs buckled and he fell. The ref began to count while the champ struggled to get up. He lifted himself off the mat twice, and twice his legs wobbled so much that he fell again. He finally made it up, but Lane stopped the fight anyway. “Berbick was up,” he said later, “but to allow somebody to get hit in that condition, that’s criminal.”
Tyson kept his title for nine more bouts, until Buster Douglas beat him in 1990. After that, his life unraveled. He was sent to prison for three years for rape. Then, five fights into his comeback in 1995, he bit off a part of Evander Holyfield’s ear and was disqualified. He retired for good in 2005. Berbick didn’t fare much better: He, too, spent time in prison for rape, and was found dead (of “chop wounds” to his head, according to the coroner’s report) in a church courtyard in Jamaica in 2006.
November 22, 1988 – In the presence of members of Congress and the media, the Northrop B-2 “stealth” bomber is shown publicly for the first time at Air Force Plant 42 in Palmdale, California.
The aircraft, which was developed in great secrecy for nearly a decade, was designed with stealth characteristics that would allow it to penetrate an enemy’s most sophisticated defenses unnoticed. At the time of its public unveiling, the B-2 had not even been flown on a test flight. It rapidly came under fire for its massive cost–more than $40 billion for development and a $1 billion price tag for each unit.
In 1989, the B-2 was successfully flown, performing favorably. Although the aircraft had a wingspan of nearly half a football field, its radar signal was as negligible as that of a bird. The B-2 also successfully evaded infrared, sound detectors, and the visible eye.
Following the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the original order for the production of 132 stealth bombers was reduced to 21 aircraft. The B-2 has won a prominent place in the modern U.S. Air Force fleet, serving well in bombing missions during the 1990s.
Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, Margaret Thatcher
November 22, 1990 – Margaret Thatcher, the first woman prime minister in British history, announced her resignation after 11 years in Britain’s top office.
Margaret Hilda Roberts was born in Grantham, England, in 1925. In 1959, after marrying businessman Denis Thatcher and giving birth to twins, she was elected to Parliament as a Conservative for Finchley, a north London district. During the 1960s, she rose rapidly in the ranks of the Conservative Party and in 1967 joined the shadow cabinet sitting in opposition to Harold Wilson’s ruling Labour cabinet. With the victory of the Conservative Party under Edward Health in 1970, Thatcher became secretary of state for education and science.
In 1974, the Labour Party returned to power, and Thatcher served as joint shadow chancellor before replacing Edward Health as the leader of the Conservative Party in February 1975. She was the first woman to head the Conservatives. Under her leadership, the Conservative Party shifted further right in its politics, calling for privatization of national industries and utilities and promising a resolute defense of Britain’s interests abroad. She also sharply criticized Prime Minister James Callaghan’s ineffectual handling of the chaotic labor strikes of 1978 and 1979.
In March 1979, Callaghan was defeated by a vote of no confidence, and on May 3 a general election gave Thatcher’s Conservatives a 44-seat majority in Parliament. Sworn in the next day, Prime Minister Thatcher immediately set about dismantling socialism in Britain. She privatized numerous industries, cut back government expenditures, and gradually reduced the rights of trade unions. In 1983, despite the worst unemployment figures for half a decade, Thatcher was reelected to a second term, thanks largely to the decisive British victory in the 1982 Falklands War with Argentina.
In other foreign affairs, the “Iron Lady” presided over the orderly establishment of an independent Zimbabwe (formerly Rhodesia) in 1980 and took a hard stance against Irish separatists in Northern Ireland. In October 1984, an Irish Republican Army (IRA) bomb exploded at the Conservative Party conference in Brighton. The prime minister narrowly escaped harm.
In 1987, an upswing in the economy led to her election to a third term, but Thatcher soon alienated some members of her own party because of her poll-tax policies and opposition to further British integration into the European Community. In November 1990, she failed to receive a majority in the Conservative Party’s annual vote for selection of a leader. She withdrew her nomination, and John Major, the chancellor of the Exchequer since 1989, was chosen as Conservative leader. On November 22, she announced her resignation and six days later was succeeded by Major. Thatcher’s three consecutive terms in office marked the longest continuous tenure of a British prime minister since 1827. In 1992, she was made a baroness and took a seat in the House of Lords.
In 2011, the former prime minister was the subject of an award-winning (and controversial) biographical film, “The Iron Lady,” which depicted her political rise and fall. Margaret Thatcher died on April 8, 2013, at the age of 87, following a stroke.
On November 22, 1718 – Edward Teach, also known as Blackbeard the pirate, was killed off North Carolina’s Outer Banks during a bloody battle with a British navy force sent from Virginia.
Believed to be a native of England, Edward Teach likely began his pirating career in 1713, when he became a crewman aboard a Caribbean sloop commanded by pirate Benjamin Hornigold. In 1717, after Hornigold accepted an offer of general amnesty by the British crown and retired as a pirate, Teach took over a captured 26-gun French merchantman, increased its armament to 40 guns, and renamed it the Queen Anne’s Revenge.
During the next six months, the Queen Anne’s Revenge served as the flagship of a pirate fleet featuring up to four vessels and more than 200 men. Teach became the most infamous pirate of his day, winning the popular name of Blackbeard for his long, dark beard, which he was said to light on fire during battles to intimidate his enemies. Blackbeard’s pirate forces terrorized the Caribbean and the southern coast of North America and were notorious for their cruelty.
In May 1718, the Queen Anne’s Revenge and another vessel were shipwrecked, forcing Blackbeard to desert a third ship and most of his men because of a lack of supplies. With the single remaining ship, Blackbeard sailed to Bath in North Carolina and met with Governor Charles Eden. Eden agreed to pardon Blackbeard in exchange for a share of his sizable booty.
At the request of North Carolina planters, Governor Alexander Spotswood of Virginia dispatched a British naval force under Lieutenant Robert Maynard to North Carolina to deal with Blackbeard. On November 22, Blackbeard’s forces were defeated and he was killed in a bloody battle of Ocracoke Island. Legend has it that Blackbeard, who captured more than 30 ships in his brief pirating career, received five musket-ball wounds and 20 sword lacerations before dying.
Daniel Marshall with a very small part of his congregation of Sandy Creek Baptist Church
ACCORDING TO ONE of Daniel Marshall’s friends, historian Morgan Edwards, Marshall was “a weak man, a stammerer, and no scholar…a man of no bright parts, nor eloquence nor learning. Piety, earnestness and honesty are all he can boast of.” Marshall’s brother-in-law Shubal Stearns was a short man with little education. Nonetheless, their zeal was so great that a thousand Baptists churches in the south look back to them as founding fathers.
Both men were from New England—Marshall from Connecticut and Stearns from Massachusetts—and both had been profoundly influenced by the ministry of George Whitefield. Although neither knew the other to begin with, their zeal to convert others drew their paths together. Finding the established Congregational churches lifeless, they became “Separates” and eventually Baptists. Both were evangelists and pastors when they met in Virginia. They attempted to found a church at Cacapon Creek, Virginia without much success.
In 1755 the two headed southward with their families. They settled near Greensboro, North Carolina. On
this day, 22 November 1755, Shubal Stearns, Daniel Marshall and fourteen others founded the Sandy Creek Baptist Church in North Carolina. Although they were ridiculed because of the trembling and screams of those who heard them preach, the church soon had six hundred members. From the very start, even while their own numbers were small, they spread the gospel into the surrounding region, and several other Baptist churches sprang up. Within three years, they formed those churches into an association.
Marshall moved to South Carolina, where he planted more Separate Baptist churches and then moved on to Georgia where he continued to plant churches even when he was old and infirm. Baptists of the day were persecuted and Marshall certainly received the brunt of it. Arrested in Georgia and told never to preach again, he simply replied that he must obey God, not man. Three of those involved in his arrest became converts.
Marshall’s last words were, “My breath is almost gone. I have been praying that I may go home to-night. I had great happiness in our worship this morning; particularly in singing, which will make a part of my exercises in a blessed eternity.”
Stearns remained at Sandy Creek. In 1771, its congregation plunged to just fifteen people. Many of the democratically-inclined Separates had joined a rebellion (the War of Regulation). When it was crushed, they fled west. They founded new churches wherever they settled, so that by Stearns’s death that year, there were forty-two Separate Baptist churches. Sandy Creek had sent out one hundred and twenty-five ministers. Many Separate churches were eventually assimilated by other Baptist denominations.
November 22, 1873, Horatio Spafford’s four daughters are drowned in a shipping accident when the French ship Ville du Havre sinks.
Horatio Spafford (1828-1888) was a wealthy Chicago lawyer with a thriving legal practice, a beautiful home, a wife, four daughters and a son. He was also a devout Christian and faithful student of the Scriptures. His circle of friends included Dwight L. Moody, Ira Sankey and various other well-known Christians of the day.
At the very height of his financial and professional success, Horatio and his wife Anna suffered the tragic loss of their young son. Shortly thereafter on October 8, 1871, the Great Chicago Fire destroyed almost every real estate investment that Spafford had.
In 1873, Spafford scheduled a boat trip to Europe in order to give his wife and daughters a much needed vacation and time to recover from the tragedy. He also went to join Moody and Sankey on an evangelistic campaign in England. Spafford sent his wife and daughters ahead of him while he remained in Chicago to take care of some unexpected last minute business. Several days later he received notice that his family’s ship had encountered a collision. All four of his daughters drowned; only his wife had survived.
With a heavy heart, Spafford boarded a boat that would take him to his grieving Anna in England. It was on this trip that he penned those now famous words, When sorrow like sea billows roll; it is well, it is well with my soul..
Philip Bliss (1838-1876), composer of many songs including Hold the Fort and Let the Lower Lights be Burning, was so impressed with Spafford’s life and the words of his hymn that he composed a beautiful piece of music to accompany the lyrics. The song was published by Bliss and Sankey, in 1876.
For more than a century, the tragic story of one man has given hope to countless thousands who have lifted their voices to sing, It Is Well With My Soul.
It Is Well With My Soul
When peace, like a river, attendeth my way, When sorrows like sea billows roll; Whatever my lot, Thou hast taught me to say, It is well, it is well with my soul.
Refrain: It is well (it is well), with my soul (with my soul), It is well, it is well with my soul.
Though Satan should buffet, though trials should come, Let this blest assurance control, That Christ hath regarded my helpless estate, And hath shed His own blood for my soul.
Refrain
My sin, oh the bliss of this glorious thought! My sin, not in part but the whole, Is nailed to His cross, and I bear it no more, Praise the Lord, praise the Lord, O my soul!
Refrain
For me, be it Christ, be it Christ hence to live: If Jordan above me shall roll, No pang shall be mine, for in death as in life Thou wilt whisper Thy peace to my soul.
Refrain
And Lord haste the day, when my faith shall be sight, The clouds be rolled back as a scroll; The trump shall resound, and the Lord shall descend, Even so, it is well with my soul.
“Be careful for nothing; but in every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God. And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus. (Philippians 4:6-7)
Swaziland
Christian historian Susan E. Elliott has written about Dorothy Davis. On a Sunday afternoon in September 1928, sixteen-year-old Dorothy Davis heard the voice of God calling her to Africa. The key verse that day was Psalm 2:8—”Ask of me, and I shall give thee the heathen for thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession.” Dorothy didn’t know that day that her inheritance, her children, would be the Swazi women she raised and trained to be Christian nurses.
Dorothy Fay Davis was born in Hugo, Colorado, on March 29, 1912. Raised in a Christian home, she spent the majority of her childhood in Alhambra, California. She graduated from Pasadena College (now Point Loma Nazarene University) in 1934. She got her hands on training at Nazarene the Samaritan Hospital in Nampa, Idaho. She then completed her bachelor of science degree at Northwest Nazarene College, also in Nampa. She was appointed to Nazarene missionary service on November 22, 1939.
Dorothy then spent 6 weeks at sea, crossing the Atlantic. That was no small feat because the Atlantic Ocean was a World War II battlefield at that time – June 1940. Davis, on arrival in Swaziland, began learning the Zulu language and the importance of prayer in a missionary’s life. King Subhuza was always known there as “the Lion of Swaziland” and reigned from 1921 until 1982 (61 years). On request of this king, the Nazarene hospital was moved from a more remote area to a larger city that was more in the center of this small country. In 1943, Dorothy Davis placed herself on night duty in the hospital so that her mornings and evenings would be free for teaching and for clinic visits. She constantly studied diseases common to Swaziland.
Dorothy lived in a cramped little house and later meals with the nurses. She wrote about her experiences and included this: “My first classroom my first night of teaching was directly next to the morgue. I asked if we could be moved and was told yes, but I never knew beforehand where our classroom would be at any time.” Nothing hindered Dorothy’s faith that Christ would give her the power to do anything. She wrote for books for nurses and many other countries received healing through those books. She also became editor of a newspaper for nurses. All the time she was doing these things, she was sharing the love of Christ and his Gospel.
Dorothy Davis is known to this day in Swaziland as “the Mother of Swazi Nurses”. For her amazing service, by order of Queen Elizabeth II, she was honored with the Member of the British Empire award and the Dorothy Fay Davis Silver Medal was established to reward the nursing student from the 3 territories in Swaziland who received the highest score on their final examinations.
Dorothy left Swaziland in 1972. In a final letter to the nurses she wrote “Thank you for loving me, for understanding by strange foreign ways, for your patience, for your kindness. Today I am rich because of you. You are my inheritance. I am going. The time for my departure is at hand. I have finished the work God gave me to do in Swaziland. I wish I could have done better. However, it is a great comfort to me to know that you have grown up and that the work is in good and efficient hands. Your Mother and your Teacher, Dorothy Davis.”
Stalingrad survivors
On this day in 1942, a Soviet counteroffensive against the German armies pays off as the Red Army trapped about a quarter-million German soldiers south of Kalach, on the Don River, within Stalingrad. As the Soviets’ circle tightened, German General Friedrich Paulus requested permission from Berlin to withdraw.
The Battle of Stalingrad began in the summer of 1942, as German forces assaulted the city, a major industrial center and a prize strategic coup, if it could be occupied. But despite repeated attempts, the German 6th Army, under Paulus, and part of the 4th Panzer Army, under Ewald von Kleist, could not break past the adamantine defense by the Soviet 62nd Army, commanded by Gen. Vasily I. Chuikov, despite having pushed the Soviets almost to the Volga River in mid-October and encircling Stalingrad.
Diminishing resources, partisan guerilla attacks, and the cruelty of the Russian winter began to take their toll on the Germans. On November 19, the Soviets made their move, launching a counteroffensive that began with a massive artillery bombardment of the German position. The Soviets then assaulted the weakest link in the German force-inexperienced Romanian troops; 65,000 were ultimately taken prisoner by the Soviets.
The Soviets then made a bold strategic move, encircling the enemy, launching pincer movements from north and south simultaneously, even as the Germans encircled Stalingrad. The Germans should have withdrawn, but Hitler wouldn’t allow it. He wanted his armies to hold out until they could be reinforced. By the time those fresh troops arrived in December, it was too late. The Soviet position was too strong, and the Germans were exhausted. It was then only a matter of time before the Germans would be forced to surrender.
