February 27

1885  F. E. Warren commences his first period as Territorial Governor. This one would be brief, as President Cleveland would remove him from this office in 1886.

1915  Governor Kendrick approves a Workers Compensation act establishing a state maintained Workers Compensation fund.  While heavily litigated, occasionally amended, and often castigated the basic structure of the groundbreaking 1915 act remains today.  Somewhat unique in the US, the Wyoming act created a wholly state administered Workers Compensation system in which workmen surrendered their rights to bring certain workplace civil actions, and employers gave up their common law defenses, so that certain suits that had traditionally been available for personal injury in the workplace were eliminated in favor of a system of insurance, modeled on that pioneered in Imperial Germany.

The system remains exclusively state administered and run today, and is funded by levies on employers, making it one of the few, and perhaps the only, solely state run system in the US today.  Most states use a system that incorporates employer privately purchased Workers Compensation insurance.

1917   The Cheyenne State Leader for February 27, 1917: Cheyenne to Welcome "Border Boys"
 

Cheyenne's other paper ran the story of returning Guardsmen in bigger headlines.

At the same time, another story assured readers that the US had "plenty" of men and arms. . . a story that would soon prove to be untrue.  And obviously untrue at that.  If the Guard had to have been called up for the near war with Mexico, what made anyone assume we were ready to fight Germany?

And Congress was looking at giving Wilson war powers.

The Wyoming Tribune for February 27, 1917: Reception for the National Guard planned

 

In Cheyenne plans were well underway to welcome the boys back home.

But you have to wonder why? The way things were going, why the President was even demobilizing the Guard is a bit of a mystery.  War was pretty clearly around the corner, and Congress was upset that Wilson wasn't being aggressive enough with Germany

1933  Malcolm Wallop born in New York City.  He was U.S. Senator from Wyoming from 1977 to 1995.

1936   John Meldrum died.  He had been Yellowstone National Park's first Commissioner, serving from 1894 to 1935.

1965  Flynn Robinson became the University of Wyoming's leading scorer.  Attribution:  Wyoming State Historical Society.

1968

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1973     Members of the American Indian Movement (AIM) occupied Wounded Knee, S.D.

Sunday, February 27, 1973. The occupation of Wounded Knee.

Flag of the Independent Ogalala Nation.

Today In Wyoming's History: February 27: 1973     Members of the American Indian Movement (AIM) and the Independent Ogalala National  occupied Wounded Knee, S.D.

By Tripodero - Own work [1], CC0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=65312096

The occupation grew out of protests on the Pine Ridge Reservation regarding tribal government, something that's generally been forgotten about the dramatic occupation, with its immediate cause being the failed impeachment of Tribal Council Chairman Dick Wilson.  It spread to a larger set of grievances soon thereafter, but Wilson remained the center of the controversy in significant ways.  He'd be reelected in 1974, although the reelection was controversial, and the reservation, which remains the poorest reservation in the United States, endured a period of violence thereafter.

Poster made from one of the photographs of Bobby Onco.

I can recall this event fairly well, even though I was ten years old at the time.  One of the things I oddly recall is discussion of one of the occupiers being armed with an AKM (AK47), something that was extremely unusual at the time.  The man in question was Bobby Onco, who died in 2014 at age 63.  Onco was actually a member of the Kiowa nation, and was a Vietnam Veteran.  Perhaps surprising to many now, it was possible to bring captured weapons back from Vietnam, with some paperwork being required in order to do it.  The iconoic Soviet assault rifle was likely a legally returned weapon from his Vietnam service.

Onco would move to New York, where he married a member of the Shinnecock Nation.  He lived on their reservation there until his death.

The occupation was not universally well received by residents of Pine Ridge, which is part of what ultimately brought it to an end.  From the outside, but in the region, it was one of the events that gave the late 60s and early 70s the feeling that things were coming apart.

1986  The Worland House added to the National Registry of Historic Places.

Elsewhere:

1943  Bishop Count Konrad von Preysing, Catholic Bishop of Berlin, made another in a series of outspoken attacks on Nazi rule. In a pastoral letter issued throughout Germany he protested against totalitarianism, the execution of hostages and the Jewish persecution, stating "It is a Divine principle that the life of an innocent individual, whether an unborn child or an aged person, is sacred, and that the innocent shall not be punished with the guilty, or in place of the guilty. Neither the individual nor the community can create a law against this."  Bishop von Preysing had gone on record early about his opinions on the Nazis, having declared "We have fallen into the hands of criminals and fools" when they came to power, and in 1940 he'd ordered that prayers be said throughout his diocese for arrested Lutheran ministers.  He'd later go on to decry the German Communist postwar who declared that he was an "agent" of "American Imperialism".  He died in 1950.

1991     President George H.W. Bush announced the end of the Persian Gulf War declaring that the allies would suspend combat operations at midnight.

1998     Britain's House of Lords agreed to end 1,000 years of male preference by giving a monarch's first-born daughter the same claim to the throne as a first-born son.