October 14

Today is Columbus Day for 2013.

1066. Duke William of Normandy defeats King Harold Godwinson as the Battle of Hastings.  The result of this battle would bring feudalism into England and result in the birth of English Common Law.

The Bayeux Tapestry depicting the vents of October, 1066.

1884  State Democratic Convention held in Carbon County.  Attribution:  Wyoming State Historical Society.

1912. John Schrank, suffering from delusions about the late William McKinley, shoots Theodore Roosevelt at a campaign stop.

1916   Bull Moose Carey goes for Wilson: Cheyenne Leader for October 14, 1916.
 

Illustrating the ongoing split in the GOP, and perhaps providing us something that sounds a little familiar for us today, the Cheyenne Leader for October 14, 1916 lead with a story about respected former Republican Governor Carey supporting Woodrow Wilson.

Joseph M. Carey was born in Delaware and studied law at the University of Pennsylvania before coming to Wyoming as its first, territorial, Attorney General.  He went very rapidly from that post to being a Wyoming Territorial Supreme Court justice, and just as rapidly left that post to start ranching, founding a large ranch near what is now Casper Wyoming, the CY Ranch. The ranch house, indeed, still exists in a much updated form near today's Casper College.

Almost as soon as he took up ranching, he took up politics, first serving on the  Cheyenne City Council and then as the Territorial Representative to the U.S. House of Representatives.  He served in the U.S. Senate from 1890 to 1895 but lost that position thereafter.  At that time Senators were elected by the Legislature and there was a great upheaval in the Wyoming Legislature following the Johnson County War which, for a time, threatened the Republican hold on the state.

He returned to politics in 1911 and was elected Governor, but he was one of the Republican Governors who followed Theodore Roosevelt out of the GOP in the 1912 election, at which time he joined the Progressive Party.  He was sincere in his Progressive convictions and like some of the more dedicated Progressives he did not make peace with the GOP like Roosevelt himself did in this election year.  He remained in the Progressive Party until his death in 1924.

The 1916 election year saw quite a few instances like this.  While Roosevelt made peace with the GOP and returned to it, after some indication that he might run as Progressive against Wilson, not everyone did. And some of those Progressives were leaning towards Wilson, with some even going more leftward than that.

1918  Countdown on the Great War. October 14, 1918. Saying no to the Boche, Sinkings in the Atlantic, Americans resume the offensive in the Meuse Argonne and the British in Flanders.

Camp Funston, Kansas, which some believe if the locus of the origin of the Spanish Flu.

1.  The Battle of Courtrai commences in which the Groupe d'Armees des Flanders, made up of twelve Belgian, ten British and six French divisions under the command of King Albert I of Belgian attacked German forces in the hopes of continuing the Allied advance as far as possible before the oncoming winter made further advances impossible.  It was still anticiapted at the time that the war would drag into 1919.

British forces found, to their expectation, that the Germans offered much reduced resistance and they had achived all of their objectives, reaching the Scheldt, by the 22nd.

The Germans were basically collapsing while still offering resistance.  The nearness to a complete German disaster was not apparent, but it was coming.

2. The U.S. resumes the offensive in the Meuse Argonne with assaults near Montfaucon.

Senencourt (Muese) France. "Kamerad," a figure by the soldiers in the yard of the American Red Cross Canteen at Senencourt. The Red Cross girls are, from left to right: Miss Louise Adams of 10 Arlington Place, Brooklyn, N.Y.; Miss Alice Birdall, of 310 Third Ave. Reselle Ave., N.J.; and Miss Gertrude Nichols, #849 West Galen Street, Butte, Montana; Capt. Beverly Rautoul of #17 Winter Street, Salem, Mass., and Private Geo. St. Clair Preston, both of the American Red Cross Evacuation Hospital #8, are on the extreme left

3.  The air wing of the United States Marine Corps engaged in its first all Marine air action by bombing Pitthem, Belgium.  Marines Ralph Talbot and gunner Robert Guy Robinson won the Medal of Honor for heroism associated with holding off German air attacks on their Airco bomber when they became separated and had to return to attempt to return to their base alone.

Airco DH4, which was used in the tactical role.

4.  The provisional government for Czechoslovakia formed.


5.  The U-139 attacked the Portoguese steamer Sao Miguel and its escort the Portuguese Navy trawler NRP Augusto de Castilho on the Action of 14 October 1918.  The trawler was lightly armed and while it fought for several hours, it was actually outgunned by the submarine and surrendered to it, and was thereafter scuttled by the German submariners.  The engagement is regarded as the only high seas naval battle of the Great War to take place in the North Atlantic.

On the same day, German submarines sank the Bayard, a French fishing vessel, the Stifinder, a Norwegian barque, which was scuttled due an engagement with the U-152 and the British passenger ship Dundalk, with the loss of 21 lives.  The German minsweeper SMS M22 was sunk by mines.

6.

1919  October 14, 1919. Missing the Mark and Other Dangers

There was already a winner, but the 1919 Air Derby, which saw plans stationed in the east fly west, and planes stationed in the west, continued on and continued to make news inWyoming.

Two of those planes that arrived over Cheyenne in the dark had to come down, with one missing the field.

In other news, things in Gary Indiana were getting out of hand, in terms of labor strikes. And two members of the Arapaho Tribe were recounting their experiences at the Battle of the Little Big Horn to interviewers.

And an interesting observation was made about not owning a car.

1943  Hunters were asked to donate animal skins to the war effort.  Attribution: Wyoming State Historical Society.

A Wisconsin deer camp in 1943.  I couldn't find a Wyoming example and this one was available for use. The rifle on the wall appears to be a nice Mauser with a set trigger, perhaps a rebuild of a World War One prize rifle.  Photograph courtesy of the Wisconsin Department of Fish and Game, which retains all rights to the same.

If this seems like an unusual request, we have to keep in mind that the leather requirements for the service during World War Two were quite high, and moreover various uniform items used different types of leather.  Cowhide was the most common leather in use, of course, but elk hide was specifically required for mounted service boots, which were used by cavalrymen, horse artillerymen and other mounted soldiers.  While its common to believe that mounted soldiers did not exist in the U.S. Army during the Second World War, this is in fact incorrect and only horse artillery was actually phased out during the war.  Mounted service boots continued to be made for service use as late as the late 1940s.

1963  The State Penitentiary's Shaw High School graduated its first class.  Attribution:  Wyoming State Historical Society.