1932
Henry Martyn Leland, 89, founder of Cadillac and Lincoln,
in Detroit. ^top^
Leland was born in Vermont, the eighth child of New England farmer
Leander Barton Leland and his wife Zilpha Tifft Leland. He began his
industrial career as an apprentice engineer at Knowles Loom Works
in Worcester, Massachusetts. With the outbreak of the Civil War, Leland
began work at the US Armory in Springfield, Massachusetts. After the
war, Leland served as an engineer and mechanic in a series of manufacturing
firms in New England. He distinguished himself as a tireless worker
and an exacting supervisor only satisfied with his own high standard
of quality. Leland was real New Englander, a Presbyterian stickler
with good manners and a titan’s work ethic. He moved to Detroit to
run a company with his old partner Charles Norton that was to be financed
by Detroit lumber mogul Robert Faulconer. After running successfully
for a few years as a supplier of various machine-shop products, Leland
and Falconer gained entrance into the automobile industry at the request
of Ransom Olds. Olds needed a supplier of transmissions for his Olds
Runabouts. Leland wasn’t the only major player in the automotive industry
to get his start with Olds. Olds also hired the Dodge brothers to
manufacture the bodies for his cars.
After a successful run supplying Olds transmissions, Leland was asked
by the Detroit Automobile Company to appraise their holdings, which
they were preparing to liquidate. Leland surprised them by recommending
that they hang on to their facilities; he offered to run their car
company for them and revealed to them an engine design he had come
up with which produced three times the horsepower of Olds’ engines.
The Cadillac Car Company was born, named after Antoine de la Mothe
Cadillac, the founder of Detroit. The first Cadillacs came on the
market as low-priced cars, but soon, due to Leland’s high standards,
the car was marketed as a luxury item. The car company that became
a symbol of excess and ostentation in the 1950s began as the product
of a puritanical perfectionist. Cadillac distinguished itself further
by becoming the first car company to introduce a self-starting mechanism.
Charles Kettering invented the system at the urging of Leland, who
was said to be distraught over the death of a friend caused when an
errant crank-shaft broke the man’s arm and jaw
. In 1908 William Durant and GM bought the Cadillac Motor Car Company
for $4.4 million in cash. Leland continued to run Cadillac and it
became GM’s most successful marque. Eventually Leland and Durant fell
out over GM’s participation in World War I. Leland had been to Europe
just before the war and become convinced that the war was inevitable
and that it would decide the future of Western Civilization. Durant’s
disinterest in the war cause infuriated Leland so much that he quit.
He went on to found Lincoln, which he named after the man he admired
most and for whom he had cast his first vote as a twenty-one year
old in 1864, Abraham Lincoln. Leland was never able to escape financial
trouble with Lincoln and he ended up selling the company to Henry
Ford. Ford eventually ran Leland out of the business, most likely
as a result of some personal jealousy on Ford’s part. Nevertheless
Leland was responsible for creating the luxury marques for America’s
two largest automotive manufacturers. |
1917 Thousands
of British, Turkish, and German soldiers, in the Battle of Gaza.
^top^
After
occupying El Arish in Sinai in December 1916, the ANZAC mounted division
led British forces up to the Palestine
border. With his forces needed elsewhere, General Archibald
Murray, Commander in Chief of the British Forces in the Middle
East, postponed making further advances.
General Friedrich Kressenstein, commander of the Turkish Expeditionary
Force, occupied the coastal fortress of Gaza, blocking the main route
into Palestine. General Murray was determined to take Gaza and sent
General Dobell, commander of the Eastern Forces, in March 1917. Kressenstein
had 18'000 men but was outnumbered 2 to 1 by Dobell's forces.
General Dobell massed the main bulk
of his men 8 km from Gaza. Undetected in a dense sea fog, Dobell's
cavalry was able to cut off the town's rear on 26 March. The main
infantry attack that followed was less successful. A Turkish counterattack
and water shortages forced Dobell to order his men to retreat. General
Dobell lost 4000 men against about 2400 Turkish and German casualties.
Dobell estimated that the Turks lost three times that number and at
the time the battle was reported as a British victory.
In June 1917, General Edmund
Allenby was transferred from the command of the Third Army in
France to become commander of the British Forces in Palestine. Lieutenant-General
Harry Chauvel was given command of the Desert Mounted Troops and the
infantry divisions were allotted to Lieutenant-General Philip Chetwode
(XX Corps) and Major General Edward Bulfin (XXI Corps).
The British plan was for a preliminary operation against Beersheba
to enable them to take the higher ground. Once established at Beersheba
the forces would be deployed to roll-up the Turkish flank. Chetwode
and XX Corps and the Desert Mounted Corps formed the main striking
force, whereas Bulfin and XXI Corps would make the attack on Gaza
itself.
On the night of 30 October,
over 40'000 British soldiers moved into position for the attack on
Beersheba. It was hoped that the diversionary attack would encourage
the Turks to reinforce their right at expense of their left and make
it easier for the XX Corps. Gaza was also bombarded by French and
British ships offshore.
The first
phase of the assault on Beersheba began early on 31 October. By late
afternoon the British forces had driven the Turks back into Gaza.
At 16:30 Brigadier Grant led two cavalry regiments against the eastern
defences of the town. Although faced with Turkish machine-guns,
the cavalry managed to gallop into Beersheba. The Turks were captured
before their plans to destroy the wells and evacuate the town could
take place.
The main attack against
the Turkish left took place on 06 November. Although the Turkish trenches
ran for thirteen kilometers all British objectives were taken by mid-afternoon.
That evening the Turks began to retreat. When XXI arrived on the morning
of 7th November, Gaza had been abandoned.
General Allenby's victory at Gaza had unlocked the defences of the
Turks. In the weeks that followed, the Turks retreated 120 km and
on 09 December the allied forces took Jerusalem. Although a clear
victory, between October and December 1917, the British and Empire
forces lost 19'702 men during the campaign in the Middle East. |
1917 Ferdinand Meyer-Wismar, German artist
born on 14 January 1833.
1911 Sara Kupla, from a
fractured right leg (plus probably some internal injuries) she suffered
the previous afternoon while escaping from the Triangle
Shirtwaist fire, which claimed 145 lives before hers.
1907
Léon Richet , French artist born in 1847.
1901
Virgilio Tojetti, Italian artist born on 15 March 1851.
1902
Cecil John Rhodes, político británico y sudafricano.
1900
Isaac Mayer Wise, Bohemian-born (29 March 1819) US rabbi; organized
Reform Jewish institutions in US. [That was Wise.]
1892
Walter
Whitman, US poet, journalist, and essayist, in
Camden, NJ. ^top^
Born
on 31 May 1819, Walt Whitman was raised in Brooklyn. At the age of
twelve Whitman began to learn the printer's trade. Largely self-taught,
he read voraciously, becoming acquainted with the works of Homer,
Dante, Shakespeare, and the Bible. Whitman worked as a printer in
New York City until a devastating fire in the printing district demolished
the industry. In 1836, at the age of 17, he began his career as teacher
in the one-room school houses of Long Island. He continued to teach
until 1841, when he turned to journalism as a full-time career. He
founded a weekly newspaper, Long-Islander, and later edited
a number of Brooklyn and New York papers. In 1848, Whitman left the
Brooklyn Daily Eagle to become editor of the New Orleans
Crescent. It was in New Orleans that he experienced at first
hand the viciousness of slavery in the slave markets of that city.
On his return to Brooklyn in the fall of 1848, he founded a "free
soil" newspaper, the Brooklyn Freeman, and continued to develop
his unique style of poetry.
In 1855, he self-published a slim volume of poems called Leaves
of Grass, which carried his picture but not his name. With this
book, Whitman hoped to become a truly American poet, as envisioned
in Ralph Waldo Emerson's essay "The
Poet" (1843). Whitman spent much time in Manhattan, Brooklyn,
and Long Island, attending cultural events, taking long walks, and
sometimes riding on coaches and ferries as an excuse to talk with
people.
In 1856, the second edition
of Leaves of Grass included his "Sundown Poem,"
later called "Crossing
Brooklyn Ferry." In 1862, Whitman's brother was wounded at
Fredericksburg, and Whitman went to care for him. He spent the rest
of the war comforting both Union and Confederate soldiers. Some of
Whitman's poems were inspired by his Civil War experience as a hospital
volunteer in Washington. Although a staunch supporter of the Union
cause, Whitman comforted dying soldiers of both sides, as described
in one of the poet's wartime newspaper dispatches: "I stayed a long
time by the bedside of a new patient.... In an adjoining ward I found
his brother...It was in the same battle both were hit. One was a strong
Unionist, the other Secesh; both fought for their respective sides,
both badly wounded, and both brought together after a separation of
four years. Each died for his cause."
His
poem "Oh
Captain, My Captain," mourned Lincoln's assassination. Whitman
worked for several government departments after the war until he suffered
a stroke in 1873. He spent the rest of his life in Camden, New Jersey,
and continued to issue revised editions of Leaves
of Grass until shortly before his death (on the 18th birthday
of Robert Frost)
(other poetry: When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd, Passage
to India)
WHITMAN ONLINE: Leaves
of Grass — Leaves
of Grass (multiple editions) — Leaves
of Grass (1855) — Leaves
of Grass (1881-82) — Leaves
of Grass (1891-92) — Leaves
of Grass (post-1855) — Leaves
of Grass (post-1855) — Prose
Works — Selected
Works |
1891 Herman Frederik Carel Ten Kate, Dutch artist born
on 16 February 1822. — [Son of Nine Kate? Father of Eleven Kate? Or
did his parents name all their children the same except for a number?]
1870 Pierre Raymond Quinsac Monvoisin, French painter born
on 03 August 1794. — LINKS
1827 Ludwig van Beethoven, composer, in Vienna.
1804 Lazare Bruandet, French artist born on 03 July
1755.
1638 Stevaerts Palamedes I, Dutch artist born
in 1607.
1350 Alfonso XI, rey de Castilla y León.
0752
Pope Stephen II (exact date uncertain: give or take
a day or two), of apoplexy, only 3 days after his election.
^top^
On the death of pope Saint
Zachary, Stephen, a Roman cardinal-priest of Saint Chrysogonus,
was unanimously elected to succeed him (about 23 March 752); but on
the third day after his election, whilst transacting some domestic
affairs, Stephen is struck with apoplexy, and expires on the next
day. As he died before his consecration, earlier writers do not appear
to have included him in the list of the popes or in the Liber Pontificalis.
But, in accordance with the long standing practice of the Roman Church,
he is now generally counted among them. This divergent practice has
introduced confusion into the way of counting the Popes Stephen. His
successor, who also took the name Stephen, is called both Stephen
II and Stephen III. Hence, the succession of Stephens is somewhat
irregular. |
|
1973
Rerun's first run in the Peanuts cartoon
^top^ 
2001
