https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sacking_of_Lawrence


Ruins of Free State Hotel after the attack

The Sacking of Lawrence occurred on May 21, 1856, when pro-slavery activists, led by Douglas County Sheriff Samuel J. Jones, attacked and ransacked Lawrence, Kansas, a town which had been founded by anti-slavery settlers from Massachusetts who were hoping to make Kansas a "free state". The incident fuelled the irregular conflict in Kansas Territory that later became known as "Bleeding Kansas".

The human cost of the attack was low: only one person—a member of the pro-slavery gang—was killed, and his death was accidental. However, Jones and his men halted production of the free-state newspapers the Kansas Free State and the Herald of Freedom (with the former ceasing publication altogether and the latter taking months to once again start up). The pro-slavery men also destroyed the Free State Hotel and Charles L. Robinson's house.

Background
Lawrence was founded in 1854 by anti-slavery settlers from Massachusetts, many of whom received financial support from the New England Emigrant Aid Company. The town soon became the epicenter of violence in Kansas Territory, as many pro-slavery settlers in the area loathed the free state citizens of the town (and vice versa). While the village had nearly been raided during the so-called Wakarusa War in December 1855, it was not directly attacked at that time.

In regards to the Sacking of Lawrence, many abolitionists regarded the non-fatal shooting of Douglas County Sheriff Samuel J. Jones, who was attempting to arrest free-state settlers in Lawrence, as the immediate cause of the violence. Lawrence residents drove Jones out of town after they shot him, and on May 11, Federal Marshal Israel B. Donaldson proclaimed that the assassination attempt had interfered with the execution of warrants against the extralegal Free-State legislature, which was set up in opposition to the official pro-slavery territorial government. Donaldson's proclamation and the presentment by the first district of Kansas's grand jury that "the building known as the 'Free State' Hotel' [sic] in Lawrence had been constructed with a view to military occupation and defence [sic], regularly parapetted and port holed, for the use of cannon and small arms, thereby endangering the public safety, and encouraging rebellion and sedition in this country" led to Sheriff Jones and Marshal Donaldson assembling an army of roughly 800 southern settlers. This group planned to enter Lawrence, disarm the citizens, destroy the anti-slavery newspaper presses, and level the Free State Hotel.

A number of men from Texas and South Carolina joined Donaldson and Jones's posse. On May 21, 1856, while this group was camping a few miles west of Lawrence, David Rice Atchison gave a speech to these men, promising that they would be "well paid" for their service and that they were working for "the present administration". They were there for "the entire South" and the goal was to spread slavery, and stop anti-slavery newspapers in Lawrence. Atchison promised that he would lead them into this battle, and made them all cheer as a promise to draw blood. He also mentioned that the flag he rode under was the red flag of the South—red for the color of blood they would spill. Elsewhere Atchison had promised to see Kansas in Hell before he let it become a free state.

Sack

The "Old Sacramento" cannon captured by U.S. during the Mexican–American War in 1847 and taken to the Liberty Arsenal. The cannon was fired by pro-slavery forces during the Siege of Lawrence.

On May 21, 1856, Jones and Donaldson neared the town. A large force was stationed on the high ground at Mount Oread, and a cannon was placed to cover and command the area. The house of Charles L. Robinson (later to become the first governor of Kansas) was taken over as Jones's headquarters. Every road to the town and on the opposite side of the river was guarded by Jones's men to prevent the free soilers from fleeing. A number of flags were flown by Jones's men, such as the state banners of Alabama and South Carolina, a flag with black and white stripes, and flags bearing pro-slavery and/or inflammatory inscriptions (i.e. "Kansas the Outpost", "Southern Rights", and "Supremacy of the White Race" ).

Shalor Eldridge, the proprietor of the Free State Hotel, soon learned of the oncoming forces, and he journeyed out to meet them; he was told by Donaldson that the posse would enter into Lawrence and attack if and only if the citizens tried to resist Donaldson and Jones's men. Donaldson and Eldridge then journeyed to the hotel, where, according to the New York Times, Eldridge had prepared "an elegant dinner, the best that the fresh and abundant stores in the cellar could afford" (which included "costly wines" ) so as to placate the marshal and his men. Eldridge was interviewed by Donaldson while the federal agent and his followers ravenously consumed the meal, then left without paying. Shortly afterwards, the marshal dismissed his followers, who were immediately deputized by Jones. Jones then asked to speak to a representative of the town. Samuel C. Pomeroy (who, along with Charles Robinson, had led the second group of settlers to the Lawrence city site in 1854) agreed to meet with the sheriff and discuss with him the situation at hand. Jones was clear in what he wanted: for the citizens of Lawrence to surrender all of their weapons. Pomeroy argued that there was not much he could do in this regard, as it was ultimately up to the individual citizens to give up their arms. However, hoping to encourage Jones to leave the city peacefully, Pomeroy agreed to turn over the city's only artillery piece. While Jones did seize this cannon, it did not appease the sheriff as Pomeroy had hoped. According to the Lawrence minister Richard Cordley:

As soon as Jones had possession of the cannon and other arms, he proceeded to carry out his purpose to destroy the Free-State Hotel. He gave the inmates till five o’clock to get out their personal effects. When all was ready he turned [the posse's very own] cannon upon the hotel and fired. The first ball went completely over the roof, at which all the people cheered, much to the disgust of Jones. The next shot hit the walls but did little damage. After bombarding away with little or no effect till it was becoming monotonous, they attempted to blow up the building with a keg of powder. But this only made a big noise and a big smoke, and did not do much towards demolishing the house. At every failure the citizen spectators along the street set up a shout. At last Jones became desperate, and applied the vulgar torch, and burned the building to the ground. [...] Jones was exultant. His revenge was complete. "This is the happiest moment of my life," he shouted as the walls of the hotel fell. He had made the "fanatics bow to him in the dust." He then dismissed his posse and left.

It was the "Old Sacramento" cannon that the pro-slavers made use of in their initial attempt to bring down the Free State Hotel. This weapon had been stored at the Liberty Arsenal until it was seized by pro-slavery forces in 1855. (The cannon would eventually be captured by free-staters later in 1856 during the Second Battle of Franklin.)

While Jones and his men were trying to bring down the hotel, the printing offices of the Kansas Free State and the Herald of Freedom were trashed; their libraries were thrown out the window, the presses were smashed, the type was thrown in the river, and any remaining papers were either thrown into the blowing wind to be carried off or were used by Jones and his men to burn down the Free State Hotel. When the newspapers were obliterated and the hotel had been brought to the ground, Jones's men then looted the half-deserted town. As they retreated, they burned Robinson's home on Mount Oread for good measure.

One person—a member of Jones's gang—died during the attack when he was struck in the head by a collapsing bit of the Free State Hotel.

Aftermath
While the Free State Hotel was destroyed, Shalor Eldridge purchased the charred remnants of the structure and rebuilt it as the "Eldridge House". This building remained a fixture of Lawrence until 1863, when it was burned down by William Quantrill during the Lawrence Massacre (after which it would be rebuilt two more times in 1866 and 1926, respectively).

For a number of months after the Sack of Lawrence, the city was without a free state newspaper. This was exacerbated by the fact that Josiah Miller, who ran the Kansas Free State, decided not to start his former paper up again. The lack of a Lawrence-based news source ended when George Brown restarted the Herald of Freedom in November.

The Sack of Lawrence resulted in the loss of the city's only cannon. This would be at least one reason that Free-Staters would attack Franklin's Fort in June and August of 1856, as they hoped to secure the "Old Sacramento" cannon for their own use.

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https://twitter.com/BeschlossDC/status/1130181743166787584?s=19


Michael Beschloss ✔
@BeschlossDC
Jacqueline Kennedy and Coretta King on the day of MLK’s funeral, Atlanta, April 1968

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auschwitz_concentration_camp


The Arbeit macht frei ("work sets you free" ) gate to Auschwitz I, the main camp

The Auschwitz concentration camp (Konzentrationslager Auschwitz) was a complex of over 40 concentration and extermination camps built and operated by Nazi Germany in occupied Poland during World War II and the Holocaust. It consisted of Auschwitz I, the main camp (Stammlager) and administrative headquarters in Oświęcim; Auschwitz II–Birkenau, a combined concentration and extermination camp three kilometers away in Brzezinka; Auschwitz III–Monowitz, a labor camp created to staff an IG Farben synthetic-rubber factory; and dozens of other subcamps.

After Germany invaded Poland in September 1939, sparking World War II, the Germans converted Auschwitz I, a former army barracks, to hold Polish political prisoners. The first prisoners, German criminals brought to the camp as functionaries, arrived in May 1940, and the first gassing of prisoners took place in block 11 of Auschwitz I in September 1941. Auschwitz II–Birkenau went on to become a major site of the Nazis' Final Solution to the Jewish Question. From early 1942 until late 1944, transport trains delivered Jews from all over German-occupied Europe to the camp's gas chambers. Of the estimated 1.3 million people sent to Auschwitz, at least 1.1 million died, around 90 percent of them Jews. Approximately one in six Jews killed in the Holocaust died at the camp. Others deported to Auschwitz included 150,000 non-Jewish Poles, 23,000 Roma, 15,000 Soviet prisoners of war, 400 Jehovah's Witnesses, tens of thousands of others of diverse nationalities, and an unknown number of gay men. Many of those not killed in the gas chambers died because of starvation, forced labor, infectious diseases, individual executions, and medical experiments.

In the course of the war, the camp was staffed by 7,000 members of the German Schutzstaffel (SS), approximately 12 percent of whom were later convicted of war crimes; several, including camp commandant Rudolf Höss, were executed. The Allies did not act on early reports of atrocities at the camp, and their failure to bomb the camp or its railways remains controversial. At least 802 prisoners tried to escape from Auschwitz, 144 successfully, and on 7 October 1944 two Sonderkommando units, consisting of prisoners assigned to staff the gas chambers, launched a brief, unsuccessful uprising.

As Soviet troops approached Auschwitz in January 1945, most of its population was sent west on a death march. The remaining prisoners were liberated on 27 January 1945, a day commemorated as International Holocaust Remembrance Day. In the following decades, survivors such as Primo Levi, Viktor Frankl, and Elie Wiesel wrote memoirs of their experiences in Auschwitz, and the camp became a dominant symbol of the Holocaust. In 1947 Poland founded the Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial and Museum on the site of Auschwitz I and II, and in 1979 it was named a World Heritage Site by UNESCO.

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amelia_Earhart




Lockheed Vega 5B flown by Amelia Earhart as seen on display at the National Air and Space Museum

Amelia Mary Earhart (/ˈɛərhɑːrt/, born July 24, 1897; disappeared July 2, 1937) was an American aviation pioneer and author. Earhart was the first female aviator to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean. She received the United States Distinguished Flying Cross for this accomplishment. She set many other records, wrote best-selling books about her flying experiences and was instrumental in the formation of The Ninety-Nines, an organization for female pilots. In 1935, Earhart became a visiting faculty member at Purdue University as an advisor to aeronautical engineering and a career counselor to women students. She was also a member of the National Woman's Party and an early supporter of the Equal Rights Amendment.

During an attempt to make a circumnavigational flight of the globe in 1937 in a Purdue-funded Lockheed Model 10-E Electra, Earhart and navigator Fred Noonan disappeared over the central Pacific Ocean near Howland Island. Fascination with her life, career, and disappearance continues to this day.

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Transatlantic solo flight in 1932
On the morning of May 20, 1932, 34-year-old Earhart set off from Harbour Grace, Newfoundland, with a copy of the Telegraph-Journal, given to her by journalist Stuart Trueman, intended to confirm the date of the flight. She intended to fly to Paris in her single engine Lockheed Vega 5B to emulate Charles Lindbergh's solo flight five years earlier. Her technical advisor for the flight was famed Norwegian American aviator Bernt Balchen who helped prepare her aircraft. He also played the role of "decoy" for the press as he was ostensibly preparing Earhart's Vega for his own Arctic flight.[Note 11] After a flight lasting 14 hours, 56 minutes during which she contended with strong northerly winds, icy conditions and mechanical problems, Earhart landed in a pasture at Culmore, north of Derry, Northern Ireland. The landing was witnessed by Cecil King and T. Sawyer. When a farm hand asked, "Have you flown far?" Earhart replied, "From America".

As the first woman to fly solo nonstop across the Atlantic, Earhart received the Distinguished Flying Cross from Congress, the Cross of Knight of the Legion of Honor from the French Government and the Gold Medal of the National Geographic Society from President Herbert Hoover. As her fame grew, she developed friendships with many people in high offices, most notably First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt. Roosevelt shared many of Earhart's interests and passions, especially women's causes. After flying with Earhart, Roosevelt obtained a student permit but did not further pursue her plans to learn to fly. The two friends communicated frequently throughout their lives. Another flyer, Jacqueline Cochran, who was said to be Earhart's rival also became her confidante during this period.


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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luc_Montagnier



Luc Antoine Montagnier (French: [mɔ̃taɲe]; born 18 August 1932) is a French virologist and joint recipient with Françoise Barré-Sinoussi and Harald zur Hausen of the 2008 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his discovery of the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). A long-time researcher at the Pasteur Institute in Paris, he currently works as a full-time professor at Shanghai Jiao Tong University in China.

In 2009, Montagnier published two controversial research studies that some homeopaths claimed as support for homeopathy. Although Montagnier disputed any such support, many scientists greeted his claims with scorn and harsh criticism.

History of the discovery of HIV
In 1982, Willy Rozenbaum, a clinician at the Hôpital Bichat hospital in Paris, asked Montagnier for assistance in establishing the cause of a mysterious new syndrome, AIDS (known at the time as "gay-related immune deficiency" or GRID). Rozenbaum had suggested at scientific meetings that the cause of the disease might be a retrovirus. Montagnier and members of his group at the Pasteur Institute, notably including Françoise Barré-Sinoussi and Jean-Claude Chermann, had extensive experience with retroviruses. Montagnier and his team examined samples taken from Rozenbaum's AIDS patients and found the virus that would later become known as HIV in a lymph node biopsy. They named it "lymphadenopathy-associated virus", or LAV, since it was not then clear that it was the cause of AIDS, and published their findings in the journal Science on 20 May 1983.

A team led by Robert Gallo of the United States published similar findings in the same issue of Science and later confirmed the discovery of the virus and presented evidence that it caused AIDS. Gallo called the virus "human T-lymphotropic virus type III" (HTLV-III) because of perceived similarities with HTLV-I and -II, which had previously been discovered in his lab. Because of the timing of the discoveries, whether Montagnier's or Gallo's group was first to isolate HIV was for many years the subject of an acrimonious dispute. HIV isolates usually have a high degree of variability because the virus mutates rapidly. In comparison, the first two human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) isolates, Lai/LAV (formerly LAV, isolated at the Pasteur Institute) and Lai/IIIB (formerly HTLV-IIIB, isolated from a pooled culture at the Laboratory of Tumor Cell Biology (LTCB) of the National Cancer Institute) were strikingly similar in sequence, suggesting that the two isolates were in fact the same, or at least shared a common source.

In November 1990, the Office of Scientific Integrity at the National Institutes of Health attempted to clear up the matter by commissioning a group at Roche to analyze archival samples established at the Pasteur Institute and the Laboratory of Tumor Cell Biology (LTCB) of the National Cancer Institute between 1983 and 1985. The group, led by Sheng-Yung Chang, examined archival specimens and concluded in Nature in 1993 that Gallo's virus had come from Montagnier's lab.

Chang determined that the French group's LAV was a virus from one patient that had contaminated a culture from another. On request, Montagnier's group had sent a sample of this culture to Gallo, not knowing it contained two viruses. It then contaminated the pooled culture on which Gallo was working.

Before the 1993 publication of Chang's results, Gallo's lab was accused and initially found guilty of "minor misconduct" by the Office of Scientific Integrity in 1991, and then by the newly created Office of Research Integrity in 1992 for the misappropriation of a sample of HIV produced at the Pasteur Institute. The subsequent publication in 1993 of Chang's investigation cleared Gallo's lab of the charges, although his reputation had already been tainted by the accusations.

Today it is agreed that Montagnier's group first isolated HIV,but Gallo's group is credited with discovering that the virus causes AIDS and with generating much of the science that made the discovery possible, including a technique previously developed by Gallo's lab for growing T cells in the laboratory. When Montagnier's group first published their discovery, they said HIV's role in causing AIDS "remains to be determined."

The question of whether the true discoverers of the virus were French or American was more than a matter of prestige. A US government patent for the AIDS test, filed by the United States Department of Health and Human Services and based on what was claimed to be Gallo's identification of the virus, was at stake. In 1987, both governments attempted to end the dispute by arranging to split the prestige of the discovery and the proceeds from the patent 50–50, naming Montagnier and Gallo co-discoverers. The two scientists continued to dispute each other's claims until 1987.

It was not until French President François Mitterrand and American President Ronald Reagan met in person that the major issues were ironed out. The scientific protagonists finally agreed to share credit for the discovery of HIV, and in 1986, both the French and the US names (LAV and HTLV-III) were dropped in favor of the new term human immunodeficiency virus (virus de l'immunodéficience humaine, abbreviated HIV or VIH) (Coffin, 1986). They concluded that the origin of the HIV-1 Lai/IIIB isolate discovered by Gallo was the same as that discovered by Montagnier (but not known by Montagnier to cause AIDS). This compromise allowed Montagnier and Gallo to end their feud and collaborate with each other again, writing a chronology that appeared in Nature that year.

In 29 November 2002 issue of Science, Gallo and Montagnier published a series of articles, one of which was co-written by both scientists, in which they acknowledged the pivotal roles that each had played in the discovery of HIV.

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1980_eruption_of_Mount_St._Helens



On May 18, 1980, a major volcanic eruption occurred at Mount St. Helens, a volcano located in Skamania County, in the U.S. state of Washington. The eruption (a VEI 5 event) was the most significant volcanic eruption to occur in the contiguous 48 U.S. states since the much smaller 1915 eruption of Lassen Peak in California. It has often been declared the most disastrous volcanic eruption in U.S. history. The eruption was preceded by a two-month series of earthquakes and steam-venting episodes, caused by an injection of magma at shallow depth below the volcano that created a large bulge and a fracture system on the mountain's north slope.

An earthquake at 8:32:17 a.m. PDT (UTC?7) on Sunday, May 18, 1980, caused the entire weakened north face to slide away, creating the largest landslide ever recorded. This allowed the partly molten, high-pressure gas- and steam-rich rock in the volcano to suddenly explode northwards toward Spirit Lake in a hot mix of lava and pulverized older rock, overtaking the avalanching face.

An eruption column rose 80,000 feet (24 km; 15 mi) into the atmosphere and deposited ash in 11 U.S. states and significant ash in two Canadian provinces. At the same time, snow, ice and several entire glaciers on the volcano melted, forming a series of large lahars (volcanic mudslides) that reached as far as the Columbia River, nearly 50 miles (80 km) to the southwest. Less severe outbursts continued into the next day, only to be followed by other large, but not as destructive, eruptions later that year. Thermal energy released during the eruption was equal to 26 megatons.

Approximately 57 people were killed directly, including innkeeper Harry R. Truman, photographers Reid Blackburn and Robert Landsburg, and geologist David A. Johnston. Hundreds of square miles were reduced to wasteland, causing over $1 billion in damage (equivalent to $3.3 billion today), thousands of animals were killed, and Mount St. Helens was left with a crater on its north side. At the time of the eruption, the summit of the volcano was owned by the Burlington Northern Railroad, but afterward the land passed to the United States Forest Service. The area was later preserved, as it was, in the Mount St. Helens National Volcanic Monument.

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As May 18 dawned, Mount St. Helens' activity did not show any change from the pattern of the preceding month. The rate of bulge movement, sulfur dioxide emission, and ground temperature readings did not reveal any changes indicating a catastrophic eruption. USGS volcanologist David A. Johnston was on duty at an observation post approximately six miles (10 km) north of the volcano: as of 6:00 a.m., Johnston's measurements did not indicate any unusual activity.

At 8:32 a.m., a magnitude 5.1 earthquake centered directly below the north slope triggered that part of the volcano to slide, approximately 7–20 seconds after the shock. The landslide, the largest in recorded history, travelled at 110 to 155 miles per hour (177 to 249 km/h) and moved across Spirit Lake's west arm. Part of it hit a 1,150-foot-high (350 m) ridge about six miles (10 km) north. Some of the slide spilled over the ridge, but most of it moved 13 miles (21 km) down the North Fork Toutle River, filling its valley up to 600 feet (180 m) deep with avalanche debris. An area of about 24 square miles (62 km2) was covered, and the total volume of the deposit was about 0.7 cubic miles (2.9 km3).

Scientists were able to reconstruct the motion of the landslide from a series of rapid photographs by Gary Rosenquist, who was camping 11 miles (18 km) away from the blast. Rosenquist, his party and his photographs survived because the blast was deflected by local topography one mile (1.6 km) short of his location.

Most of St. Helens' former north side became a rubble deposit 17 miles (27 km) long, averaging 150 feet (46 m) thick; the slide was thickest at one mile (1.6 km) below Spirit Lake and thinnest at its western margin. The landslide temporarily displaced the waters of Spirit lake to the ridge north of the lake, in a giant wave approximately 600 feet (180 m) high. This in turn created a 295 feet (90 m) avalanche of debris consisting of the returning waters and thousands of uprooted trees and stumps. Some of these remained intact with roots, but most had been sheared off at the stump seconds earlier by the blast of super-heated volcanic gas and ash that had immediately followed and overtook the initial landslide. The debris was transported along with the water as it returned to its basin, raising the surface level of Spirit Lake by about 200 ft (61 m).

More than three decades after the eruption, floating log mats persist on Spirit Lake and nearby St. Helens Lake, changing position with the wind. The rest of the trees, especially those that were not completely detached from their roots, were turned upright by their own weight and became waterlogged, sinking into the muddy sediments at the bottom where they have become petrified in the anaerobic and mineral-rich waters. This provides insight into other sites with a similar fossil record.

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Jacqueline Cochran c. 1943

Jacqueline "Jackie" Cochran (May 11, 1906 – August 9, 1980) was an American pilot and the first woman to break the sound barrier on 18 May 1953. She was a pioneer in the field of aviation and one of the most prominent racing pilots of her generation. She was an important contributor to the formation of the wartime Women's Auxiliary Army Corps (WAAC) and Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASP).

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Contributions to aviation
1938 Bendix Race

Cochran in the cockpit of a Curtiss P-40 Warhawk.

Known by her friends as "Jackie", and maintaining the Cochran name, she was one of three women to compete in the MacRobertson Air Race in 1934. In 1937, she was the only woman to compete in the Bendix race and worked with Amelia Earhart to open the race to women. That year, she also set a new women's national speed record. By 1938, she was considered the best female pilot in the United States. She had won the Bendix and set a new transcontinental speed record as well as altitude records. Cochran was the first woman to fly a bomber across the Atlantic. She won five Harmon Trophies. Sometimes called the "Speed Queen", at the time of her death, no other pilot held more speed, distance, or altitude records in aviation history than Cochran.

Air Transport Auxiliary
Before the United States joined World War II, Cochran was part of "Wings for Britain", an organization that ferried American built aircraft to Britain, becoming the first woman to fly a bomber (a Lockheed Hudson V) across the Atlantic. In Britain, she volunteered her services to the Royal Air Force. For several months she worked for the British Air Transport Auxiliary (ATA), recruiting qualified women pilots in the United States and taking them to England where they joined the ATA. Cochran attained the rank of Flight Captain (equivalent to a Squadron Leader in the RAF or a Major in the U.S. Air Force) in the ATA.

Women Airforce Service Pilots
In September, 1939, Cochran wrote to Eleanor Roosevelt to introduce the proposal of starting a women's flying division in the Army Air Forces. She felt that qualified women pilots could do all of the domestic, noncombat aviation jobs necessary in order to release more male pilots for combat. She pictured herself in command of these women, with the same standings as Colonel Oveta Culp Hobby, who was then the director of the Women's Army Auxiliary Corps (WAAC). (The WAAC was given full military status on July 1, 1943, thus making them part of the Army. At the same time, the unit was renamed Women's Army Corps (WAC).)

That same year, Cochran wrote a letter to Lieutenant Colonel Robert Olds, who was helping to organize the Air Corps Ferrying Command for the Air Corps at the time. (Ferrying Command was originally a courier/aircraft delivery service, but evolved into the air transport branch of the United States Army Air Forces (USAAF) as the Air Transport Command). In the letter, Cochran suggested that women pilots be employed to fly non-combat missions for the new command. In early 1941, Olds asked Cochran to find out how many women pilots there were in the United States, what their flying times were, their skills, their interest in flying for the country, and personal information about them. She used records from the Civil Aeronautics Administration to gather the data.

In spite of pilot shortages, Lieutenant General Henry H. "Hap" Arnold was the person who needed to be convinced that women pilots were the solution to his staffing problems. Arnold, Chief of the Air Corps, continued as commanding general of the Army Air Forces upon its creation in June 1941. He knew that women were being used successfully in the ATA in England so Arnold suggested that Cochran take a group of qualified female pilots to see how the British were doing. He promised her that no decisions regarding women flying for the USAAF would be made until she returned.

When Arnold asked Cochran to go to Britain to study the ATA, Cochran asked 76 of the most qualified female pilots – identified during the research she had done earlier for Olds – to come along and fly for the ATA. Qualifications for these women were high: at least 300 hours of flying time, but most of the women pilots had over 1,000 hours. Those who made it to Canada found out that the washout rate was also high. A total of 25 women passed the tests and, two months later in March 1942 they went to Britain with Cochran to join the ATA.

While Cochran was in England, in September 1942, General Arnold authorized the formation of the Women's Auxiliary Ferrying Squadron (WAFS) under the direction of Nancy Harkness Love. The WAFS began at New Castle Air Base in Wilmington, Delaware, with a group of female pilots whose objective was to ferry military aircraft. Hearing about the WAFS, Cochran immediately returned from England. Cochran's experience in Britain with the ATA convinced her that women pilots could be trained to do much more than ferrying. Lobbying Arnold for expanded flying opportunities for female pilots, he sanctioned the creation of the Women's Flying Training Detachment (WFTD), headed by Cochran. In August 1943, the WAFS and the WFTD merged to create the Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASP) with Cochran as director and Nancy Love as head of the ferrying division.

As director of the WASP, Cochran supervised the training of hundreds of women pilots at the former Avenger Field in Sweetwater, Texas from August 1943 to December 1944.

Award of the Distinguished Service Medal
For her wartime service, she received the Distinguished Service Medal (DSM) in 1945. Her award of the DSM was announced in a War Department press release dated March 1, 1945 which stated that Cochran was the first woman civilian to receive the DSM, which was then the highest non-combat award presented by the United States government. (In actuality, however, a few civilian women received the DSM for service during the First World War. These women included Hannah J. Patterson and Anna Howard Shaw of the Council of National Defense, Evangeline Booth of the Salvation Army as well as Mary V. Andress and Jane A. Delano of the American Red Cross.)

Postwar

Cochran in her record-setting F-86, talking with Charles E. Yeager

At war's end, Cochran was hired by a magazine to report on global postwar events. In this role, she witnessed Japanese General Tomoyuki Yamashita's surrender in the Philippines and was then the first non-Japanese woman to enter Japan after the War and attended the Nuremberg Trials in Germany.

On September 9, 1948, Cochran joined the U.S. Air Force Reserve as a lieutenant colonel. She was promoted to colonel in 1969 and retired in 1970. She was, quite probably, the first woman pilot in the United States Air Force.[citation needed] During her career in the Air Force Reserve, she received three awards of the Distinguished Flying Cross for various achievements from 1947 to 1964.

Flying records
Postwar, Cochran began flying the new jet aircraft, going on to set numerous records; most conspicuously, she became the first woman pilot to "go supersonic".

In 1952, Cochran, then aged 47, decided to challenge the world speed record for women, then held by Jacqueline Auriol. She tried to borrow an F-86 from the U.S. Air Force, but was refused. She was introduced to an Air Vice-Marshal of the RCAF who, with the permission of the Canadian Minister of Defence, arranged for her to borrow 19200, the sole Sabre 3. Canadair sent a 16-man support team to California for the attempt. On 18 May 1953, Ms. Cochran set a new 100 km speed record of 1,050.15 km/h (652.5 mph). Later on 3 June, she set a new 15 km closed circuit record of 1078 km/h (670 mph). Encouraged by then-Major Chuck Yeager, with whom Cochran shared a lifelong friendship, on May 18, 1953, at Rogers Dry Lake, California, Cochran flew the Saber 3 at an average speed of 652.337 mph. During the course of this run the Sabre went supersonic, and Cochran became the first woman to break the sound barrier.

Among her many record accomplishments, from August to October 1961, as a consultant to Northrop Corporation, Cochran set a series of speed, distance and altitude records while flying a Northrop T-38A-30-NO Talon supersonic trainer, serial number 60-0551. On the final day of the record series, she set two Fédération Aéronautique Internationale (FAI) world records, taking the T-38 to altitudes of 55,252.625 feet (16,841 meters) in horizontal flight and reaching a peak altitude of 56,072.835 feet (17,091 meters).

Cochran was also the first woman to land and take off from an aircraft carrier, the first woman to pilot a bomber across the North Atlantic (in 1941) and later to fly a jet aircraft on a transatlantic flight, the first pilot to make a blind (instrument) landing, the only woman ever to be president of the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale (1958–1961), the first woman to fly a fixed-wing, jet aircraft across the Atlantic, the first pilot to fly above 20,000 feet (6,096 meters) with an oxygen mask, and the first woman to enter the Bendix Transcontinental Race. She still holds more distance and speed records than any pilot living or dead, male or female.[34]

Because of her interest in all forms of aviation, Cochran flew the Goodyear Blimp in the early 1960s with Goodyear Blimp Captain R. W. Crosier in Akron, Ohio.

Mercury 13
In the 1960s, Cochran was a sponsor of the Mercury 13 program, an early effort to test the ability of women to be astronauts. Thirteen women pilots passed the same preliminary tests as the male astronauts of the Mercury program before the program was cancelled. It was never a NASA initiative, though it was spearheaded by two members of the NASA Life Sciences Committee, one of whom, William Randolph Lovelace II, was a close friend of Cochran and her husband. Though Cochran initially supported the program, she was later responsible for delaying further phases of testing, and letters from her to members of the Navy and NASA expressing concern over whether the program was to be run properly and in accordance with NASA goals may have significantly contributed to the eventual cancellation of the program. It is generally accepted that Cochran turned against the program out of concern that she would no longer be the most prominent female aviator.

On 17 and 18 July 1962, Representative Victor Anfuso (D-NY) convened public hearings before a special Subcommittee of the House Committee on Science and Astronautics to determine whether or not the exclusion of women from the astronaut program was discriminatory, during which John Glenn and Scott Carpenter testified against admitting women to the astronaut program. Cochran herself argued against bringing women into the space program, saying that time was of the essence, and moving forward as planned was the only way to beat the Soviets in the Space Race. (None of the women who had passed the tests were military jet test pilots, nor did they have engineering degrees, which were the two basic experiential qualifications for potential astronauts. Women were not allowed to be military jet test pilots at that time. On average, however, they all had more flight experience than the male astronauts.) "NASA required all astronauts to be graduates of military jet test piloting programs and have engineering degrees. In 1962, no women could meet these requirements." This ended the Mercury 13 program. However, John Glenn and Scott Carpenter, who were part of the Mercury 7, also did not have engineering degrees when they were selected. Both of them were granted a degree after their flights for NASA.

Significantly, the hearings investigated the possibility of gender discrimination a two full years before the Civil Rights Act of 1964 made that illegal, making these hearings a marker of how ideas about women's rights permeated political discourse even before they were enshrined in law.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bath_School_disaster


Bath Consolidated School before the bombing

The Bath School disaster, also known as the Bath School massacre, was a series of violent attacks perpetrated by Andrew Kehoe on May 18, 1927, in Bath Township, Michigan. The attacks killed 38 elementary schoolchildren and six adults, and also injured at least 58 other people. Prior to his timed explosives going off at the school building, Kehoe had killed his wife and firebombed his farm. Arriving at the site of the school explosion, Kehoe died when he detonated explosives concealed in his truck.

Andrew Kehoe was the 55-year-old school board treasurer and was angered by increased taxes and his defeat in the Spring 1926 election for township clerk. He was thought to have planned his "murderous revenge" after that public defeat. He had a reputation for difficulty on the school board and in personal dealings. In addition, he was notified that his mortgage was going to be foreclosed upon in June 1926. For much of the next year, a neighbor noticed that he had stopped working on his farm and thought that he might be planning suicide. During that period, Kehoe purchased explosives and discreetly planted them on his property and under the school.

Kehoe murdered his wife Nellie sometime between May 16 and the morning of May 18, 1927; she had just been discharged from the hospital with an undefined illness. He then detonated various incendiary devices on his homestead on the morning of May 18 at about 8:45 a.m., causing the house and other farm buildings to be destroyed by the explosives' blasts and subsequent fires.

Almost simultaneously, an explosion devastated the north wing of the Bath Consolidated School building, killing 36 schoolchildren and two teachers. Kehoe had used a timed detonator to detonate hundreds of pounds of dynamite and incendiary pyrotol, which he had secretly planted inside the school over the course of many months. As rescuers began working at the school, Kehoe drove up, stopped, and used a rifle to detonate dynamite inside his shrapnel-filled truck, killing himself, the school superintendent, and several others nearby, as well as injuring more bystanders. During rescue efforts at the school, searchers discovered an additional 500 pounds (230 kg) of unexploded dynamite and pyrotol connected to a timing device set to detonate at the same time as the first explosions; the material was hidden throughout the basement of the south wing. Kehoe had apparently intended to blow up and destroy the entire school.

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Andrew Kehoe, c.?1920

Purchase and planting of explosives
There is no clear indication when Kehoe conceived and planned the steps leading to his massacre of schoolchildren and townspeople, but his neighbor M. J. Ellsworth thought that Kehoe conceived his plan after being defeated in early 1926 for the election as town clerk. The general consensus of the townspeople was that he had worked on his plan at least since the previous August. Bath School Board member M. W. Keyes was quoted by 'The New York Times:

I have no doubt that he made his plans last Fall [1926] to blow up the school… He was an experienced electrician and the board employed him in November to make some repairs on the school lighting system. He had ample opportunity then to plant the explosives and lay the wires for touching it off.

Kehoe had free access to the building during the summer vacation of 1926. From mid-1926, he began buying more than a ton of pyrotol, an incendiary explosive used by farmers during the era for excavation and burning debris. In November 1926, he drove to Lansing and bought two boxes of dynamite at a sporting goods store. Dynamite was also commonly used on farms, so his purchase of small amounts of explosives at different stores and on different dates did not raise any suspicions. Neighbors reported hearing explosions set off on the farm, with one even calling him "the dynamite farmer".

Kehoe purchased a .30-caliber Winchester bolt-action rifle in December 1926, according to the testimony of Lieutenant Lyle Morse, a Michigan State Police investigator with the Department of Public Safety.

Day of the disaster
Prior to the disaster
Prior to May 18, Kehoe had loaded the back seat of his truck with metal debris capable of producing shrapnel during an explosion. He also bought a new set of tires for his truck to avoid breaking down when transporting the explosives. He made many trips to Lansing for more explosives, as well as to the school, town, and his house. A neighbor allegedly saw Kehoe carrying objects into the school building at night numerous times but never thought to mention it to anyone.

Nellie Kehoe was discharged from Lansing's St. Lawrence Hospital on May 16, and her husband murdered her some time between her release and the bombings two days later. He put her body in a wheelbarrow located in the rear of the farm's chicken coop, where it was found in a heavily charred condition after the farm explosions and fire. Piled around the cart were silverware and a metal cash box. Ashes of several bank notes could be seen through a slit in the cash box. Kehoe had placed and wired homemade pyrotol firebombs in the house and all the buildings of the farm. The burned remains of his two horses were found tied in their enclosures with their legs wired together to prevent their rescue during the fire.

Farm bombs
At approximately 8:45 a.m., Kehoe detonated the firebombs in his house and farm buildings, causing some debris to fly into a neighbor's poultry brooding house. Neighbors noticed the fire, and volunteers rushed to the scene.

A fireman named O. H. Bush and several other men crawled through a broken window of the farmhouse in search of survivors. When they determined that no one was in the house, they salvaged what furniture they could before the fire spread into the living room. Bush discovered dynamite in the corner; he picked up an armful of explosives and handed it to one of the men. As Kehoe left his burning farm and house in his Ford truck, he stopped to tell those fighting the fire, "Boys, you're my friends. You better get out of here. You better head down to the school", and drove off.

North wing explosion
Classes began at 8:30 a.m. Kehoe had set an alarm clock in the basement of the north wing of the school, and remotely detonated the dynamite and pyrotol which he had hidden there at about 8:45 a.m.

Rescuers heading to the scene of the Kehoe farm fire heard the explosion at the school building, turned back, and headed toward the school. Parents within the rural community also began rushing to the school. The school building had turned into a war zone with 38 people killed in the initial explosion, mostly children.

First-grade teacher Bernice Sterling told an Associated Press reporter that the explosion was like an earthquake:

"It seemed as though the floor went up several feet", she said. "After the first shock I thought for a moment I was blind. When it came the air seemed to be full of children and flying desks and books. Children were tossed high in the air; some were catapulted out of the building."

The north wing of the school had collapsed. Parts of the walls had crumbled, and the edge of the roof had fallen to the ground. Monty Ellsworth, a neighbor of the Kehoes, recounted:

There was a pile of children of about five or six under the roof and some of them had arms sticking out, some had legs, and some just their heads sticking out. They were unrecognizable because they were covered with dust, plaster, and blood. There were not enough of us to move the roof.

Ellsworth volunteered to drive back to his farm and get a rope heavy enough to pull the school roof off the children's bodies. Returning to his farm, he saw Kehoe driving in the opposite direction, heading toward the school. "He grinned and waved his hand," Ellsworth said. "When he grinned, I could see both rows of his teeth."

The scene was chaotic at the school building. Eye-witness Robert Gates said:

Mother after mother came running into the school yard, and demanded information about her child and, on seeing the lifeless form lying on the lawn, sobbed and swooned...In no time more than 100 men were at work tearing away the debris of the school, and nearly as many women were frantically pawing over the timber and broken bricks for traces of their children. I saw more than one woman lift clusters of bricks held together by mortar heavier than the average man could have handled without a crowbar.

Truck explosion

The remains of Kehoe's Ford truck after the explosion

Kehoe drove up to the school about half an hour after the explosion. He saw Superintendent Huyck and summoned him over to his truck. Charles Hawson testified at the inquest that he saw the two men grapple over some type of long gun before Kehoe detonated the dynamite stored in his truck, killing himself, Superintendent Huyck, Nelson McFarren (a retired farmer), and Cleo Clayton, an 8-year-old second grader. Clayton had survived the first blast and had wandered out of the school building debris; he was killed by the fragmentation from the exploding vehicle. The explosion also mortally wounded postmaster Glenn O. Smith, who lost a leg and died later that day of his wounds, and injured several others.

After Kehoe's truck exploded, Ellsworth recounted:

I saw one mother, Mrs. Eugene Hart, sitting on the bank a short distance from the school with a little dead girl on each side of her and holding a little boy, Percy, who died a short time after they got him to the hospital. This was about the time Kehoe blew his car up in the street, severely wounding Perry, the oldest child of Mr. and Mrs. Hart.

O. H. Bush, foreman of the road crew, recalled the scene after the final explosion:

I began to feel as though the world was coming to an end. I guess I was a bit hazy. Anyway, the next thing I remember I was out on the street. One of our men was binding up the wounds of Glenn Smith, the postmaster. His leg had been blown off. I went back to the building and helped with the rescue work until we were ordered to stop while a search was made for dynamite.

Sign on Andrew Kehoe's fence

Recovery and rescue
Telephone operators stayed at their stations for hours to summon doctors, undertakers, area hospital workers, and anyone else who might help. The Lansing Fire Department sent several firefighters and its chief.

Local physician J. A. Crum and his wife, a nurse, had both served in World War I and had returned to Bath to open a pharmacy. After the explosion, they turned their drugstore into a triage center, with the dead bodies being taken to the town hall, which was being used as a morgue.

Hundreds of people worked in the wreckage all day and into the night in an effort to find and rescue any children pinned underneath. Area contractors had sent all their men to assist, and many other people came to the scene in response to the pleas for help. Eventually, 34 firefighters and the Chief of the Lansing Fire Department arrived on the scene, as did several Michigan State Police officers who managed traffic to and from the scene. The injured and dying were transported to Sparrow Hospital and St. Lawrence Hospital in Lansing. The construction of the St. Lawrence facility had been financed in large part by Lawrence Price, Nellie Kehoe's uncle and formerly an executive in charge of Oldsmobile's Lansing Car Assembly.

Michigan Governor Fred W. Green arrived during the afternoon of the disaster and assisted in the relief work, carting bricks away from the scene. The Lawrence Baking Company of Lansing sent a truck filled with pies and sandwiches which were served to rescuers in the township's community hall.

The bombing had destroyed the north wing of the school. During the search, rescuers found an additional 500 pounds (230 kg) of dynamite which had failed to detonate in the south wing. The search was halted to allow the Michigan State Police to disarm the devices, and they found an alarm clock timed to go off at 8:45 a.m. Investigators speculated that the initial explosion may have caused a short circuit in the second set of bombs, preventing them from detonating. They searched the building and then returned to the recovery work.

Police and fire officials gathered at the Kehoe farm to investigate the fires. State troopers had searched for Nellie Kehoe throughout Michigan, thinking that she was at a tuberculosis sanitorium, but her charred body was found the following day (May 19) among the ruins of the farm. All the Kehoe farm buildings were destroyed and the two horses had died, trapped inside the barn. Investigators found a wooden sign wired to the farm's fence with Kehoe's last message stenciled on it: "Criminals are made, not born".

The American Red Cross set up operations at the Crum drugstore and took the lead in providing aid and comfort to the victims. The Lansing Red Cross headquarters stayed open until 11:30 that night to answer telephone calls, update the list of dead and injured, and provide information and planning services for the following day.

The local community responded generously, as reported at the time by the Associated Press: "a sympathetic public assured the rehabilitation of the stricken community. Aid was tendered freely in the hope that the grief of those who lost loved ones might be even slightly mitigated." The Red Cross managed donations sent to pay for both the medical expenses of the survivors and the burial costs of the dead. In a few weeks, $5,284.15 (equivalent to $76,215 in 2018) was raised through donations, including $2,500 from the Clinton County, Michigan board of supervisors and $2,000 from the Michigan Legislature. In addition to monetary donations, the Red Cross Headquarters received extensive donations of flowers from strangers.

The disaster received nationwide coverage in the days following, sharing headlines with Charles Lindbergh's trans-Atlantic crossing (though Lindbergh's crossing received much more attention) and eliciting a national outpouring of grief. Newspaper headlines from Washington, D.C. to Los Angeles characterized Kehoe as a maniac, madman, and fiend.

People from all around the world provided sympathy to the families and the community of Bath, Michigan, including letters from some Italian schoolchildren. One 5th grader wrote: "Even though we are small, we understand all the sorrow and misfortune that has struck our dear brothers." And another wrote: "We are praying to God to give to the unfortunate mothers and fathers, the strength to bear the great sorrow that has descent on them, we are near to you in spirit."

Andrew Kehoe's body was eventually claimed by one of his sisters. Without ceremony, she had him buried in an unmarked grave in an initially unnamed cemetery. It was later revealed that Kehoe was buried in the paupers' section of Mount Rest Cemetery, St. Johns, Clinton County, Michigan. The Price family buried Nellie Price Kehoe in Lansing's Mount Hope Cemetery under her maiden name.

Vehicles from outlying areas and surrounding states descended upon Bath by the thousands. Over 100,000 vehicles passed through on Saturday alone, an enormous amount of traffic for the area. Some Bath citizens regarded this armada as an unwarranted intrusion into their time of grief, but most accepted it as a show of sympathy and support from surrounding communities. Many of the victims were buried starting Friday, May 20.

Coroner's inquest
The coroner arrived at the scene on the day of the disaster and swore in six community leaders to serve as a jury investigating the death of Superintendent Huyck. A coroner's inquest into the matter was held the following week, starting on May 23. The Clinton County Prosecutor conducted the examination, and more than 50 people testified before the jury. During his testimony, David Hart testified that Kehoe had told him that Kehoe had "killed a horse" and The New York Times reported people as saying that Kehoe had "an ungovernable temper" and "seemed to have a mania for killing things." Neighbors had seen him wiring his house in early April 1927.


Cupola from the school building, today displayed at James Couzens Memorial Park.

Kehoe's neighbor Sidney J. Howell testified that after the fire began, Kehoe warned him and three boys to leave the farm, saying "Boys, you are my friends, you better get out of here, you better go down to the school."

Three telephone linemen working near Bath testified that Kehoe passed them on the road toward the school, and they saw him arrive there. He swerved his truck and stopped in front of the building. In the next instant, according to the linemen, the truck blew up, and one of them was struck by shrapnel. Other witnesses testified that Kehoe paused after stopping, calling Superintendent Huyck over to the truck and that the two men struggled before Kehoe's truck was blown-up.

Although there was never any doubt that Kehoe was the perpetrator, the jury was asked to determine if the school board or its employees were guilty of criminal negligence. After more than a week of testimony, the jury exonerated the school board and its employees. In its verdict, the jury concluded that Kehoe "conducted himself sanely and so concealed his operations that there was no cause to suspect any of his actions; and we further find that the school board, and Frank Smith, janitor of the school building, were not negligent in and about their duties, and were not guilty of any negligence in not discovering Kehoe's plan."

The inquest determined that Kehoe murdered Superintendent Emory Huyck on the morning of May 18. It was also the jury's verdict that the school was blown up as part of a plan and that Kehoe alone, without the aid of conspirators, murdered 43 people in total, including his wife Nellie. Suicide was determined to be the cause of Andrew Kehoe's death, which brought the total number of dead to 44 at the time of the inquest.

On August 22, three months after the bombing, fourth-grader Beatrice Gibbs died following hip surgery. Hers was the 45th and final death directly attributable to the Bath School disaster, which made it the deadliest attack ever to occur in an American school. Richard Fritz, brother of Marjorie Fritz, was injured in the explosion and died almost one year later of myocarditis. Though Richard is not included on many lists of the victims, his death from myocarditis is thought to have been brought on by an infection because of his injuries.

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