jgo
jgo's JournalOn This Day: Quantum experiment "transformed our understanding of the world" - Apr. 24, 1914
(edited from Wikipedia)
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Franck-Hertz experiment
The Franck–Hertz experiment was the first electrical measurement to clearly show the quantum nature of atoms, and thus "transformed our understanding of the world". It was presented on April 24, 1914, to the German Physical Society in a paper by James Franck and Gustav Hertz.
Franck and Hertz had designed a vacuum tube for studying energetic electrons that flew through a thin vapor of mercury atoms. They discovered that, when an electron collided with a mercury atom, it could lose only a specific quantity (4.9 electron volts) of its kinetic energy before flying away. This energy loss corresponds to decelerating the electron from a speed of about 1.3 million meters per second to zero. A faster electron does not decelerate completely after a collision, but loses precisely the same amount of its kinetic energy. Slower electrons merely bounce off mercury atoms without losing any significant speed or kinetic energy.
[Quantum energy levels]
These experimental results proved to be consistent with the Bohr model for atoms that had been proposed the previous year by Niels Bohr. The Bohr model was a precursor of quantum mechanics and of the electron shell model of atoms. Its key feature was that an electron inside an atom occupies one of the atom's "quantum energy levels".
Before the collision, an electron inside the mercury atom occupies its lowest available energy level. After the collision, the electron inside occupies a higher energy level with 4.9 electron volts (eV) more energy. This means that the electron is more loosely bound to the mercury atom. There were no intermediate levels or possibilities in Bohr's quantum model. This feature was "revolutionary" because it was inconsistent with the expectation that an electron could be bound to an atom's nucleus by any amount of energy.
[Mercury atoms]
In a second paper presented in May 1914, Franck and Hertz reported on the light emission by the mercury atoms that had absorbed energy from collisions. They showed that the wavelength of this ultraviolet light corresponded exactly to the 4.9 eV of energy that the flying electron had lost. The relationship of energy and wavelength had also been predicted by Bohr because he had followed the structure laid out by Hendrik Lorentz at the 1911 Solvay Congress. At Solvay, Hendrik Lorentz suggested after Einstein’s talk on quantum structure that the energy of a rotator be set equal to nhv. Therefore, Bohr had followed the instructions given in 1911 and copied the formula proposed by Lorentz and others into his 1913 atomic model. Lorentz had been correct. The quantization of the atoms matched his formula incorporated into the Bohr model.
["... it makes you cry"]
After a presentation of these results by Franck a few years later, Albert Einstein is said to have remarked, "It's so lovely it makes you cry."
On December 10, 1926, Franck and Hertz were awarded the 1925 Nobel Prize in Physics "for their discovery of the laws governing the impact of an electron upon an atom".
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franck%E2%80%93Hertz_experiment
(edited from article)
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The Franck-Hertz Experiment
In 1914, James Franck and Gustav Hertz performed an experiment which demonstrated the existence of excited states in mercury atoms, helping to confirm the quantum theory which predicted that electrons occupied only discrete, quantized energy states. Electrons were accelerated by a voltage toward a positively charged grid in a glass envelope filled with mercury vapor. Past the grid was a collection plate held at a small negative voltage with respect to the grid. The values of accelerating voltage where the current dropped gave a measure of the energy necessary to force an electron to an excited state.
Electrons are accelerated in the Franck-Hertz apparatus and the collected current rises with accelerated voltage. As the Franck-Hertz data shows, when the accelerating voltage reaches 4.9 volts, the current sharply drops, indicating the sharp onset of a new phenomenon which takes enough energy away from the electrons that they cannot reach the collector. This drop is attributed to inelastic collisions between the accelerated electrons and atomic electrons in the mercury atoms. The sudden onset suggests that the mercury electrons cannot accept energy until it reaches the threshold for elevating them to an excited state. This 4.9 volt excited state corresponds to a strong line in the ultraviolet emission spectrum of mercury at 254 nm (a 4.9eV photon). Drops in the collected current occur at multiples of 4.9 volts since an accelerated electron which has 4.9 eV of energy removed in a collision can be re-accelerated to produce other such collisions at multiples of 4.9 volts. This experiment was strong confirmation of the idea of quantized atomic energy levels.
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http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/FrHz.html
(edited from article)
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The Franck-Hertz Experiment
[Bohr model]
In 1913 Niels Bohr introduced his model of the hydrogen atom. One of the predictions was that the electrons occupied only certain energy levels. This was in agreement with the observed spectrum, but physicists were eager to find another experiment that would also show this result.
[Experiment described]
In 1914 James Franck and Gustav Hertz (nephew of Heinrich) performed an experiment on a vacuum tube with a small amount of mercury enclosed. The tube was heated in an oven in order to vaporize the mercury, and then a series of voltages was applied to the tube. A small voltage was used to heat a filament for use as an electron source. Three more voltages were used to establish electric fields inside the tube.
The first field is a small field, it used in order sweep the electrons away from the filament. It is observed that when filaments eject electrons they become slightly positive, and the region around the filament becomes slightly negative due to the cloud of electrons. If a small field isn't put in place to draw the electrons away from the filament, it becomes hard to draw out more electrons. The second field is an accelerating field, this is what gives the electrons the bulk of their kinetic energy. This is usually called the grid voltage because it is established by a grid that the electrons can penetrate. Once the electrons go through the grid there is a reverse field that acts to retard electrons from the counter. If there is only vacuum in the tube then the grid voltage will accelerate electrons to the counter, and if the retarding voltage is less than the grid voltage a current will be detected.
The main key here is that electrons are drawn off of a filament, and are excited by a potential. They speed up, gaining kinetic energy. They must pass through a dilute gas, and when they collide with the gas atoms they give up energy in discrete packets. There is also a retarding voltage to make sure that only electrons with enough kinetic energy get counted as part of the current.
In the Franck-Hertz experiment the low-pressure mercury vapor affects the detected current. At low grid voltages the electrons gain kinetic energy. They collide with mercury atoms, but these are elastic collisions, and since electrons have such a smaller mass than mercury the electrons retain most of their kinetic energy. As the voltage increases, so does the current. However, once the electrons gain kinetic energy equal to the excitation energy of mercury they can have inelastic collisions - the kinetic energy of the electron exciting the mercury atom. If an electron with exactly the excitation energy had an inelastic collision, it would have a final velocity of zero. This is why the experiment also features a retarding field. Only electrons with a kinetic energy that can overcome the retarding field get counted in the current. As the grid voltage is increased to the excitation voltage, the current will drop because many of the filament electrons have lost their kinetic energy to inelastic collisions and cannot overcome the retarding field. If the observed current is plotted against voltage, the there will be a series of peaks and valleys. The peak-to-peak (or valley-to-valley) spacing will correspond to the excitation energy of the vapor (the multiple valleys are due to multiple inelastic collisions).
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https://foothill.edu/psme/marasco/4dlabs/4dlab8.html
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On This Day: Romans double-up on temples to Venus to promote harmony and cooperation - Apr. 23, 181 BC
https://www.democraticunderground.com/1016376365
On This Day: German Army releases 168 tons of chlorine gas - Apr. 22, 1915
https://www.democraticunderground.com/1016376343
On This Day: U.S. blockades Cuba, leading to control of former Spanish colonies worldwide - Apr. 21, 1898
https://www.democraticunderground.com/1016376278
On This Day: Louis Pasteur disproves spontaneous generation, and invents pasteurization - Apr. 20, 1862
https://www.democraticunderground.com/1016376268
On This Day: Oklahoma City bombing continues to inspire extremists - Apr. 19, 1995
https://www.democraticunderground.com/1016376164
On This Day: Romans double-up on temples to Venus to promote harmony and cooperation - Apr. 23, 181 BC
(edited from article)
"
The Second Temple for Venus Erycina. April 23, 181 BC.
By Marisa Ollero
April 22, 2020
On April 23, 181 BC Lucius Porcius Licinus dedicated the temple to Venus Erycina at the Colline gate that his father had vowed during a campaign against the Ligurians three years earlier. At first glance, this event seems unremarkable; it had long been the practice in Rome for new temples to be built following a vow made by a general on campaign, and sons had previously dedicated temples vowed by their fathers.
Most obviously, Rome already had one temple to this goddess, The Temple of Venus Erycina on the Capitoline Hill was built by the dictator Quintus Fabius Maximus. He was appointed dictator after the disastrous Battle of Trasimene in 217 BC, during the Second Punic War, and promised this temple to Venus after consulting the Sibylline Books, hoping thereby to reverse his fate.
The goddess herself is not a typical Roman deity, but rather an incarnation of a Sicilian goddess. Why would Romans build a second temple to the same goddess only 34 years after the erection of the first one? Why to this particular goddess? These questions find their answers in the matter of multiple temples dedicated to the same divinity during a major transitional period in the Roman Republic.
Many of the events of the 180´s had separated individuals or groups into various categories, and deliberately created exclusions on many levels. Bacchic worshippers throughout Italy had been isolated and repressed. The Books of Numa had been ritually excluded from Roman society by a formal sacrifice in the comitium. Individual magistrates had been marked out from the collegial body of the Senate and used as examples so that the Senate could reassert its supremacy. By 181, the Senate had to restore a sense of harmony and cooperation that was essential to the success of the Roman enterprise. A temple to Venus Erycina to straddle the Roman/non-Roman boundary, as the uniter of disparate categories, offered a prime opportunity to accomplish this goal. Through this single goddess, the Senate could not only indicate its willingness to assimilate foreign traditions, but also to work together with its magistrates. The repression of the cult of Bacchus had affected women, the lower classes and the non-Roman inhabitants of Italy, so the same message of conciliation and unity could be conveyed to them by this new cult.
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https://social.vcoins.com/twih/second-temple-venus-erycina-april-23-181-bc/
(edited from Wikipedia)
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Venus
Venus is a Roman goddess, whose functions encompass love, beauty, desire, sex, fertility, prosperity, and victory. In Roman mythology, she was the ancestor of the Roman people through her son, Aeneas, who survived the fall of Troy and fled to Italy. Julius Caesar claimed her as his ancestor. Venus was central to many religious festivals, and was revered in Roman religion under numerous cult titles.
Epithets
Like other major Roman deities, Venus was given a number of epithets that referred to her different cult aspects, roles, and her functional similarities to other deities. Her "original powers seem to have been extended largely by the fondness of the Romans for folk-etymology, and by the prevalence of the religious idea nomen-omen which sanctioned any identifications made in this way."
Venus Erycina ("Erycine Venus " ), a Punic statue of Astarte captured from Eryx, in Sicily, and worshiped in Romanised form by the elite and respectable matrons at a temple on the Capitoline Hill. A later temple, outside the Porta Collina and Rome's sacred boundary, may have preserved some Erycine features of her cult. It was considered suitable for "common girls" and prostitutes.
Cult history and temples - Venus Erycina's image comes from Carthage
In 217 BC, in the early stages of the Second Punic War with Carthage, Rome suffered a disastrous defeat at the battle of Lake Trasimene. The Sibylline oracle suggested that Carthage might be defeated if the Venus of Eryx (Venus Erycina), patron goddess of Carthage's Sicilian allies, could be persuaded to change her allegiance.
Rome laid siege to Eryx and promised its goddess a magnificent temple as reward for her defection. They captured her image, brought it to Rome and installed it in a temple on the Capitoline Hill, as one of Rome's twelve dii consentes. Shorn of her more overtly Carthaginian characteristics, this "foreign Venus" became Rome's Venus Genetrix ("Venus the Mother " ).
Roman tradition made Venus the mother and protector of the Trojan prince Aeneas, ancestor of the Romans, so as far as the Romans were concerned, this was the homecoming of an ancestral goddess to her people. Soon after, Rome's defeat of Carthage confirmed Venus's goodwill to Rome, her links to its mythical Trojan past, and her support of its political and military hegemony.
The Capitoline cult to Venus seems to have been reserved to higher status Romans. A separate cult to Venus Erycina as a fertility deity, was established in 181 BC, in a traditionally plebeian district just outside Rome's sacred boundary, near the Colline Gate. The temple, cult and goddess probably retained much of the original's character and rites. Likewise, a shrine to Venus Verticordia ("Venus the changer of hearts " ), established in 114 BC but with links to an ancient cult of Venus-Fortuna, was "bound to the peculiar milieu of the Aventine and the Circus Maximus" – a strongly plebeian context for Venus's cult, in contrast to her aristocratic cultivation as a Stoic and Epicurian "all-goddess".
[Later in the Roman Republic]
Towards the end of the Roman Republic, some leading Romans laid personal claims to Venus' favour. The general and dictator Sulla adopted Felix ("Lucky " ) as a surname, acknowledging his debt to heaven-sent good fortune and his particular debt to Venus Felix, for his extraordinarily fortunate political and military career. His protégé Pompey competed for Venus' support, dedicating (in 55 BC) a large temple to Venus Victrix as part of his lavishly appointed new theatre, and celebrating his triumph of 54 BC with coins that showed her crowned with triumphal laurels.
[Julius Caesar]
Pompey's erstwhile friend, ally, and later opponent Julius Caesar went still further. He claimed the favours of Venus Victrix in his military success and Venus Genetrix as a personal, divine ancestress – apparently a long-standing family tradition among the Julii. When Caesar was assassinated, his heir, Augustus, adopted both claims as evidence of his inherent fitness for office, and divine approval of his rule. Augustus' new temple to Mars Ultor, divine father of Rome's legendary founder Romulus, would have underlined the point, with the image of avenging Mars "almost certainly" accompanied by that of his divine consort Venus, and possibly a statue of the deceased and deified Caesar.
[Hadrian and the largest temple in Ancient Rome]
In 135 AD the Emperor Hadrian inaugurated a temple to Venus and Roma Aeterna (Eternal Rome) on Rome's Velian Hill, underlining the Imperial unity of Rome and its provinces, and making Venus the protective genetrix of the entire Roman state, its people and fortunes. It was the largest temple in Ancient Rome.
Festivals
Venus was offered official (state-sponsored) cult in certain festivals of the Roman calendar. Her sacred month was April (Latin Mensis Aprilis) which Roman etymologists understood to derive from aperire, "to open", with reference to the springtime blossoming of trees and flowers. In the interpretatio romana of the Germanic pantheon during the early centuries AD, Venus became identified with the Germanic goddess Frijjo, giving rise to the loan translation "Friday" for dies Veneris.
Veneralia (April 1) was held in honour of Venus Verticordia ("Venus the Changer of Hearts " ), and Fortuna Virilis (Virile or strong Good Fortune), whose cult was probably by far the older of the two.
Vinalia urbana (April 23), a wine festival shared by Venus and Jupiter, king of the gods. It offered opportunity to supplicants to ask Venus' intercession with Jupiter, who was thought to be susceptible to her charms, and amenable to the effects of her wine.
Vinalia Rustica (August 19), originally a rustic Latin festival of wine, vegetable growth and fertility. This was almost certainly Venus' oldest festival and was associated with her earliest known form, Venus Obsequens. Kitchen gardens and market-gardens, and presumably vineyards were dedicated to her.
A festival of Venus Genetrix (September 26) was held under state auspices from 46 BC at her Temple in the Forum of Caesar, in fulfillment of a vow by Julius Caesar, who claimed her personal favour as his divine patron, and ancestral goddess of the Julian clan. Caesar dedicated the temple during his extraordinarily lavish quadruple triumph. At the same time, he was pontifex maximus and Rome's senior magistrate; the festival is thought to mark the unprecedented promotion of a personal, family cult to one of the Roman state. Caesar's heir, Augustus, made much of these personal and family associations with Venus as an Imperial deity. The festival's rites are not known.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venus_(mythology)
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On This Day: German Army releases 168 tons of chlorine gas - Apr. 22, 1915
https://www.democraticunderground.com/1016376343
On This Day: U.S. blockades Cuba, leading to control of former Spanish colonies worldwide - Apr. 21, 1898
https://www.democraticunderground.com/1016376278
On This Day: Louis Pasteur disproves spontaneous generation, and invents pasteurization - Apr. 20, 1862
https://www.democraticunderground.com/1016376268
On This Day: Oklahoma City bombing continues to inspire extremists - Apr. 19, 1995
https://www.democraticunderground.com/1016376164
On This Day: 7.9 earthquake and fires (some set on purpose) destroy much of San Francisco, killing 3,000+ -Apr. 18, 1906
https://www.democraticunderground.com/1016376110
On This Day: German Army releases 168 tons of chlorine gas - Apr. 22, 1915
(edited from Wikipedia)
"
Chemical weapons in World War I
The use of toxic chemicals as weapons dates back thousands of years, but the first large-scale use of chemical weapons was during World War I. They were primarily used to demoralize, injure, and kill entrenched defenders, against whom the indiscriminate and generally very slow-moving or static nature of gas clouds would be most effective.
The types of weapons employed ranged from disabling chemicals, such as tear gas, to lethal agents like phosgene, chlorine, and mustard gas. These chemical weapons caused medical problems. This chemical warfare was a major component of the first global war and first total war of the 20th century. The killing capacity of gas was limited, with about 90,000 fatalities from a total of 1.3 million casualties caused by gas attacks.
Gas was unlike most other weapons of the period because it was possible to develop countermeasures, such as gas masks. In the later stages of the war, as the use of gas increased, its overall effectiveness diminished. The widespread use of these agents of chemical warfare, and wartime advances in the composition of high explosives, gave rise to an occasionally expressed view of World War I as "the chemist's war" and also the era where weapons of mass destruction were created.
The use of poison gas by all major belligerents throughout World War I constituted war crimes as its use violated the 1899 Hague Declaration Concerning Asphyxiating Gases and the 1907 Hague Convention on Land Warfare, which prohibited the use of "poison or poisoned weapons" in warfare. Widespread horror and public revulsion at the use of gas and its consequences led to far less use of chemical weapons by combatants during World War II.
Chlorine
The first killing agent was chlorine, used by the German military. Chlorine is a powerful irritant that can inflict damage to the eyes, nose, throat and lungs. At high concentrations and prolonged exposure it can cause death by asphyxiation. German chemical companies BASF, Hoechst and Bayer (which formed the IG Farben conglomerate in 1925) had been making chlorine as a by-product of their dye manufacturing. In cooperation with Fritz Haber of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Chemistry in Berlin, they began developing methods of discharging chlorine gas against enemy trenches.
By 22 April 1915, the German Army had 168 tons of chlorine deployed in 5,730 cylinders from Langemark-Poelkapelle, north of Ypres. At 17:30, in a slight easterly breeze, the liquid chlorine was siphoned from the tanks, producing gas which formed a grey-green cloud that drifted across positions held by French Colonial troops from Martinique, as well as Algeria. The Entente governments claimed the attack was a flagrant violation of international law but Germany argued that the Hague treaty had only banned chemical shells, rather than the use of gas projectors.
In what became the Second Battle of Ypres, the Germans used gas on three more occasions.
On 6 August, German troops under Field Marshal Paul von Hindenburg used chlorine gas against Russian troops.
Germany used chemical weapons on the Eastern Front in an attack at Rawka (river), west of Warsaw. The Russian Army took 9,000 casualties, with more than 1,000 fatalities. In response, the artillery branch of the Russian Army organised a commission to study the delivery of poison gas in shells.
Effectiveness
It quickly became evident that the men who stayed in their places suffered less than those who ran away, as any movement worsened the effects of the gas, and that those who stood up on the fire step suffered less—indeed they often escaped any serious effects—than those who lay down or sat at the bottom of a trench. Men who stood on the parapet suffered least, as the gas was denser near the ground. The worst sufferers were the wounded lying on the ground, or on stretchers, and the men who moved back with the cloud.[24] Chlorine was less effective as a weapon than the Germans had hoped, particularly as soon as simple countermeasures were introduced. The gas produced a visible greenish cloud and strong odour, making it easy to detect. It was water-soluble, so the simple expedient of covering the mouth and nose with a damp cloth was effective at reducing the effect of the gas. It was thought to be even more effective to use urine rather than water, as it was known at the time that chlorine reacted with urea (present in urine) to form dichloro urea.
Chlorine required a concentration of 1,000 parts per million to be fatal, destroying tissue in the lungs, likely through the formation of hypochlorous and hydrochloric acids when dissolved in the water in the lungs. Despite its limitations, chlorine was an effective psychological weapon—the sight of an oncoming cloud of the gas was a continual source of dread for the infantry.
Countermeaures
Countermeasures were quickly introduced in response to the use of chlorine. The Germans issued their troops with small gauze pads filled with cotton waste, and bottles of a bicarbonate solution with which to dampen the pads. Immediately following the use of chlorine gas by the Germans, instructions were sent to British and French troops to hold wet handkerchiefs or cloths over their mouths. Simple pad respirators similar to those issued to German troops were soon proposed. Pad respirators were sent up with rations to British troops in the line as early as the evening of 24 April.
The race was then on between the introduction of new and more effective poison gases and the production of effective countermeasures, which marked gas warfare until the armistice in November 1918.
British gas attacks
The British expressed outrage at Germany's use of poison gas at Ypres and responded by developing their own gas warfare capability. The commander of II Corps, Lieutenant General Sir Charles Ferguson, said of gas:
It is a cowardly form of warfare which does not commend itself to me or other English soldiers ... We cannot win this war unless we kill or incapacitate more of our enemies than they do of us, and if this can only be done by our copying the enemy in his choice of weapons, we must not refuse to do so.
The first use of gas by the British was at the Battle of Loos, 25 September 1915, but the attempt was a disaster.
1915: More deadly gases
Microscopic section of human lung from phosgene shell poisoning from An Atlas of Gas Poisoning, 1918
The deficiencies of chlorine were overcome with the introduction of phosgene, which was prepared by a group of French chemists. Colourless and having an odour likened to "mouldy hay," phosgene was difficult to detect, making it a more effective weapon. Phosgene was sometimes used on its own, but was more often used mixed with an equal volume of chlorine, with the chlorine helping to spread the denser phosgene.
Phosgene was a potent killing agent, deadlier than chlorine. It had a potential drawback in that some of the symptoms of exposure took 24 hours or more to manifest. This meant that the victims were initially still capable of putting up a fight; this could also mean that apparently fit troops would be incapacitated by the effects of the gas on the following day.
Around 36,600 tons of phosgene were manufactured during the war, out of a total of 190,000 tons for all chemical weapons, making it second only to chlorine (93,800 tons) in the quantity manufactured.
Phosgene was never as notorious in public consciousness as mustard gas, but it killed far more people: about 85% of the 90,000 deaths caused by chemical weapons during World War I.
1917: Mustard gas
The most widely reported chemical agent of the First World War was mustard gas. Despite the name it is not a gas but a volatile oily liquid, and is dispersed as a fine mist of liquid droplets.
Mustard gas is not an effective killing agent (though in high enough doses it is fatal) but can be used to harass and disable the enemy and pollute the battlefield. Delivered in artillery shells, mustard gas was heavier than air, and it settled to the ground as an oily liquid. Once in the soil, mustard gas remained active for several days, weeks, or even months, depending on the weather conditions.
The skin of victims of mustard gas blistered, their eyes became very sore and they began to vomit. Mustard gas caused internal and external bleeding and attacked the bronchial tubes, stripping off the mucous membrane. This was extremely painful. Fatally injured victims sometimes took four or five weeks to die of mustard gas exposure.
[A standard weapon]
Gas never reproduced the dramatic success of 22 April 1915; it became a standard weapon which, combined with conventional artillery, was used to support most attacks in the later stages of the war.
[Use by Allies]
It took the British more than a year to develop their own mustard gas weapon, with production of the chemicals centred on Avonmouth Docks.
The Allies mounted more gas attacks than the Germans in 1917 and 1918 because of a marked increase in production of gas from the Allied nations. Germany was unable to keep up with this pace despite creating various new gases for use in battle, mostly as a result of very costly methods of production. Entry into the war by the United States allowed the Allies to increase mustard gas production far more than Germany. Also the prevailing wind on the Western Front was blowing from west to east, which meant the Allies more frequently had favourable conditions for a gas release than did the Germans.
When the United States entered the war, it was already mobilizing resources from academic, industry and military sectors for research and development into poison gas. The United States began large-scale production of an improved vesicant gas known as Lewisite, for use in an offensive planned for early 1919. By the time of the armistice on 11 November, a plant near Willoughby, Ohio was producing 10 tons per day of the substance, for a total of about 150 tons. It is uncertain what effect this new chemical would have had on the battlefield, as it degrades in moist conditions.
Post-war
By the end of the war, chemical weapons had lost much of their effectiveness against well trained and equipped troops. By that time, chemical weapon agents had inflicted an estimated 1.3 million casualties.
Nevertheless, in the following years, chemical weapons were used in several, mainly colonial, wars where one side had an advantage in equipment over the other.
Public opinion had by then turned against the use of such weapons which led to the Geneva Protocol, an updated and extensive prohibition of poison weapons. The Protocol, which was signed by most First World War combatants in 1925, bans the use (but not the stockpiling) of lethal gas and bacteriological weapons. Most countries that signed ratified it within around five years; a few took much longer—Brazil, Japan, Uruguay, and the United States did not do so until the 1970s, and Nicaragua ratified it in 1990. The signatory nations agreed not to use poison gas in the future, stating "the use in war of asphyxiating, poisonous or other gases, and of all analogous liquids, materials or devices, has been justly condemned by the general opinion of the civilized world."
Chemical weapons have been used in at least a dozen wars since the end of the First World War; they were not used in combat on a large scale until Iraq used mustard gas and the more deadly nerve agents in the Halabja chemical attack near the end of the eight-year Iran–Iraq War. The full conflict's use of such weaponry killed around 20,000 Iranian troops (and injured another 80,000), around a quarter of the number of deaths caused by chemical weapons during the First World War.
[Blindness and scarring]
A common fate of those exposed to gas was blindness, chlorine gas or mustard gas being the main causes. One of the most famous First World War paintings, Gassed by John Singer Sargent, captures such a scene of mustard gas casualties which he witnessed at a dressing station at Le Bac-du-Sud near Arras in July 1918.
Many of those who survived a gas attack were scarred for life. Respiratory disease and failing eyesight were common post-war afflictions. Of the Canadians who, without any effective protection, had withstood the first chlorine attacks during Second Ypres, 60% of the casualties had to be repatriated and half of these were still unfit by the end of the war, over three years later.
Many of those who were fairly soon recorded as fit for service were left with scar tissue in their lungs. This tissue was susceptible to tuberculosis attack. It was from this that many of the 1918 casualties died, around the time of the Second World War, shortly before sulfa drugs became widely available for its treatment.
Civilian casualties
The distribution of gas cloud casualties was not limited to the front. Nearby towns were at risk from winds blowing the poison gases through. An estimated 100,000–260,000 civilian casualties were caused by chemical weapons during the conflict and tens of thousands (along with military personnel) died from scarring of the lungs, skin damage, and cerebral damage in the years after the conflict ended.
[Health effects]
Although the health effects are generally chronic in nature, the exposures were generally acute. A positive correlation has been proven between exposure to mustard agents and skin cancers, other respiratory and skin conditions, leukemia, several eye conditions, bone marrow depression and subsequent immunosuppression, psychological disorders and sexual dysfunction. Chemicals used in the production of chemical weapons also left residues in the soil where the weapons were used. The chemicals that were detected can cause cancer and can affect the brain, blood, liver, kidneys and skin. The development and production of chemical weapons threatened public health and introduced a new set of challenges. Not only did war gasses like mustard and chlorine endanger the lives of soldiers, but also threatened the safety of workers who manufactured them.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chemical_weapons_in_World_War_I
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On This Day: U.S. blockades Cuba, leading to control of former Spanish colonies worldwide - Apr. 21, 1898
https://www.democraticunderground.com/1016376278
On This Day: Louis Pasteur disproves spontaneous generation, and invents pasteurization - Apr. 20, 1862
https://www.democraticunderground.com/1016376268
On This Day: Oklahoma City bombing continues to inspire extremists - Apr. 19, 1995
https://www.democraticunderground.com/1016376164
On This Day: 7.9 earthquake and fires (some set on purpose) destroy much of San Francisco, killing 3,000+ -Apr. 18, 1906
https://www.democraticunderground.com/1016376110
On This Day: Bay of Pigs fiasco leads to term "groupthink"; President Kennedy adjusts - Apr. 17, 1961
https://www.democraticunderground.com/1016376068
On This Day: U.S. blockades Cuba, leading to control of former Spanish colonies worldwide - Apr. 21, 1898
(edited from Wikipedia)
"
Spanish–American War
The Spanish–American War (April 21 – December 10, 1898) began in the aftermath of the internal explosion of USS Maine in Havana Harbor in Cuba, leading to United States intervention in the Cuban War of Independence. The war led to the United States emerging predominant in the Caribbean region, and resulted in U.S. acquisition of Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Philippines. It also led to United States involvement in the Philippine Revolution and later to the Philippine–American War.
[Spanish decline]
The 19th century represented a clear decline for the Spanish Empire, while the United States went from becoming a newly founded country to becoming a rising power. Spain's descent had begun in previous centuries, and accelerated during the Napoleonic invasion, which in turn triggered the independence of a large part of the American colonies.
Later political instability, including declarations of independence, revolutions, and civil wars, cost the country socially and economically. The U.S., on the other hand, expanded economically throughout that century by purchasing territories such as Louisiana and Alaska, militarily by actions such as the Mexican–American War, and by receiving large numbers of European immigrants. That process was interrupted only for a few years by the American Civil War and Reconstruction era.
[Cuban independence and yellow journalism]
The main issue was Cuban independence. Revolts had been occurring for some years in Cuba against Spanish colonial rule. The United States backed these revolts upon entering the Spanish–American War. There had been war scares before, as in the Virginius Affair in 1873. But in the late 1890s, American public opinion swayed in support of the rebellion because of reports of concentration camps set up to control the populace. Yellow journalism exaggerated the atrocities to further increase public fervor and to sell more newspapers and magazines.
[McKinley tries to broker peace]
The business community had just recovered from a deep depression and feared that a war would reverse the gains. Accordingly, most business interests lobbied vigorously against going to war. President William McKinley ignored the exaggerated news reporting and sought a peaceful settlement. Though not seeking a war, McKinley made preparations in readiness for one. He unsuccessfully sought accommodation with Spain on the issue of independence for Cuba. However, after the U.S. Navy armored cruiser Maine mysteriously exploded and sank in Havana Harbor on February 15, 1898, political pressures pushed McKinley into a war that he had wished to avoid.
[Spain opts for "controlled demolition"]
As far as Spain was concerned, there was a nationalist agitation, in which the written press had a key influence, causing the Spanish government to not give in and abandon Cuba as it had abandoned Spanish Florida when faced with a troublesome colonial situation there, transferring it to the U.S. in 1821 in exchange for payment of Spanish debts. If the Spanish government had transferred Cuba it would have been seen as a betrayal by a part of Spanish society and there would probably have been a new revolution. So, the government preferred to wage a war lost beforehand in order to preserve the Restoration regime, thereby opting for a "controlled demolition" rather than risking a revolution.
[Declarations of war, with no allies]
On April 20, 1898, McKinley signed a joint Congressional resolution demanding Spanish withdrawal and authorizing the President to use military force to help Cuba gain independence. In response, Spain severed diplomatic relations with the United States on April 21. On the same day, the United States Navy began a blockade of Cuba. Both sides declared war; neither had allies.
[U.S. naval power]
The war was fought in both the Caribbean and the Pacific. American war advocates correctly anticipated that the United States' naval power would prove decisive, allowing expeditionary forces to disembark in Cuba against a Spanish garrison already facing nationwide Cuban insurgent attacks and further devastated by yellow fever. The invaders obtained the surrender of Santiago de Cuba and Manila despite the good performance of some Spanish infantry units, and fierce fighting for positions such as El Caney and San Juan Hill. Madrid sued for peace after two Spanish squadrons were sunk in the battles of Santiago de Cuba and Manila Bay, and a third, more modern fleet was recalled home to protect the Spanish coasts.
[Puerto Rico, Guam, the Philippines, and Cuba, to the United States]
The war ended with the 1898 Treaty of Paris, negotiated on terms favorable to the United States. The treaty ceded ownership of Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Philippines from Spain to the United States and granted the United States temporary control of Cuba. The cession of the Philippines involved payment of $20 million ($730 million today) to Spain by the U.S. to cover infrastructure owned by Spain.
The Spanish–American War brought an end to almost four centuries of Spanish presence in the Americas, Asia, and the Pacific. The defeat and loss of the Spanish Empire's last remnants was a profound shock to Spain's national psyche and provoked a thorough philosophical and artistic reevaluation of Spanish society known as the Generation of '98. The United States meanwhile not only became a major power, but also gained several island possessions spanning the globe, which provoked rancorous debate over the wisdom of expansionism.
USS Maine
McKinley sent USS Maine to Havana to ensure the safety of American citizens and interests, and to underscore the urgent need for reform.
At 9:40 P.M. on February 15, 1898, Maine sank in Havana Harbor after suffering a massive explosion. More than 3/4 of the ship's crew of 355 sailors, officers and Marines died as a result of the explosion.
While McKinley urged patience and did not declare that Spain had caused the explosion, the deaths of hundreds of American sailors held the public's attention.
The U.S. Navy's investigation, made public on March 28, concluded that the ship's powder magazines were ignited when an external explosion was set off under the ship's hull. This report poured fuel on popular indignation in the U.S., making war virtually inevitable. Spain's investigation came to the opposite conclusion: the explosion originated within the ship. In 1974, Admiral Hyman George Rickover had his staff look at the documents and decided there was an internal explosion. A study commissioned by National Geographic magazine in 1999, using AME computer modeling, reported: "By examining the bottom plating of the ship and how it bent and folded, AME concluded that the destruction could have been caused by a mine."
Declaring war
After Maine was destroyed, New York City newspaper publishers Hearst and Pulitzer decided that the Spanish were to blame, and they publicized this theory as fact in their papers. Even prior to the explosion, both had published sensationalistic accounts of "atrocities" committed by the Spanish in Cuba; headlines such as "Spanish Murderers" were commonplace in their newspapers. Following the explosion, this tone escalated with the headline "Remember The Maine, To Hell with Spain!", quickly appearing. Their press exaggerated what was happening and how the Spanish were treating the Cuban prisoners.
However, this new "yellow journalism" was uncommon outside New York City, and historians no longer consider it the major force shaping the national mood. Public opinion nationwide did demand immediate action, overwhelming the efforts of President McKinley. Historian Nick Kapur argues that McKinley's actions as he moved toward war were rooted not in various pressure groups but in his deeply held "Victorian" values, especially arbitration, pacifism, humanitarianism, and manly self-restraint.
A speech delivered by Republican Senator Redfield Proctor of Vermont on March 17, 1898, thoroughly analyzed the situation and greatly strengthened the pro-war cause. Proctor concluded that war was the only answer. Many in the business and religious communities which had until then opposed war, switched sides, leaving McKinley and Speaker Reed almost alone in their resistance to a war. On April 11, McKinley ended his resistance and asked Congress for authority to send American troops to Cuba to end the civil war there, knowing that Congress would force a war.
[Calls for volunteers]
President McKinley issued two calls for volunteers, the first on April 23 which called for 125,000 men to enlist, followed by a second appeal for a further 75,000 volunteers. States in the Northeast, Midwest, and the West quickly filled their volunteer quota. In response to the surplus influx of volunteers, several Northern states had their quotas increased. Contrastingly, some Southern states struggled to fullfil even the first mandated quota, namely Alabama, Kentucky, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Virginia.
The majority of states did not allow African American men to volunteer which impeded recruitment in Southern states, especially those with large African American populations.
Historiography
The overwhelming consensus of observers in the 1890s, and historians ever since, is that an upsurge of humanitarian concern with the plight of the Cubans was the main motivating force that caused the war with Spain in 1898.
By the 1950s, however, American political scientists began attacking the war as a mistake based on idealism, arguing that a better policy would be realism. They discredited the idealism by suggesting the people were deliberately misled by propaganda and sensationalist yellow journalism. Political scientist Robert Osgood, writing in 1953, led the attack on the American decision process as a confused mix of "self-righteousness and genuine moral fervor," in the form of a "crusade" and a combination of "knight-errantry and national self- assertiveness."
In his autobiography, Theodore Roosevelt gave his views of the origins of the war:
Our own direct interests were great, because of the Cuban tobacco and sugar, and especially because of Cuba's relation to the projected Isthmian [Panama] Canal. But even greater were our interests from the standpoint of humanity. ... It was our duty, even more from the standpoint of National honor than from the standpoint of National interest, to stop the devastation and destruction. Because of these considerations I favored war.
Aftermath
The war lasted 16 weeks.
The war marked American entry into world affairs. Since then, the U.S. has had a significant hand in various conflicts around the world, and entered many treaties and agreements. The Panic of 1893 was over by this point, and the U.S. entered a long and prosperous period of economic and population growth, and technological innovation that lasted through the 1920s.
The war redefined national identity, served as a solution of sorts to the social divisions plaguing the American mind, and provided a model for all future news reporting.
The idea of American imperialism changed in the public's mind after the short and successful Spanish–American War. Because of the United States' powerful influence diplomatically and militarily, Cuba's status after the war relied heavily upon American actions. Two major developments emerged from the Spanish–American War: one, it firmly established the United States' vision of itself as a "defender of democracy" and as a major world power, and two, it had severe implications for Cuban–American relations in the future.
Platt Amendment
The Platt Amendment granted the United States the right to stabilize Cuba militarily as needed. It permitted the United States to deploy Marines to Cuba if Cuban freedom and independence were ever threatened or jeopardized by an external or internal force. Thus, despite that Cuba technically gained its independence after the war ended, the United States government ensured that it had some form of power and control over Cuban affairs.
Aftermath in the United States
The U.S. annexed the former Spanish colonies of Puerto Rico, the Philippines and Guam. The notion of the United States as an imperial power, with colonies, was hotly debated domestically with President McKinley and the Pro-Imperialists winning their way over vocal opposition led by Democrat William Jennings Bryan, who had supported the war. The American public largely supported the possession of colonies, but there were many outspoken critics such as Mark Twain, who wrote The War Prayer in protest.
The war served to further repair relations between the American North and South. The war gave both sides a common enemy for the first time since the end of the Civil War in 1865, and many friendships were formed between soldiers of northern and southern states during their tours of duty. This was an important development, since many soldiers in this war were the children of Civil War veterans on both sides.
The African American community strongly supported the rebels in Cuba, supported entry into the war, and gained prestige from their wartime performance in the Army.
[How to pay for a war]
To pay the costs of the war, Congress passed an excise tax on long-distance phone service. At the time, it affected only wealthy Americans who owned telephones. However, the Congress neglected to repeal the tax after the war ended four months later. The tax remained in place for over 100 years until, on August 1, 2006, it was announced that the U.S. Department of the Treasury and the IRS would no longer collect it.
Impact on the Marine Corps
The U.S. Marine Corps during the 18th and 19th centuries was primarily a ship-borne force. During the Spanish–American War though, the Marines conducted several successful combined operations with both the Army and the Navy. Marine forces helped in the Army-led assault on Santiago and Marines also supported the Navy's operations by securing the entrance to Guantanamo Bay so American vessels could clear the harbor of mines and use it as a refueling station without fear of Spanish harassment.
The Marine Corps began to be regarded as America's premier fighting force thanks in large part to the actions of Marines during the Spanish–American War and to the reporters who covered their exploits. The success of the Marines also led to increased funding for the Corps from Congress during a time that many high-placed Navy officials were questioning the efficacy and necessity of the Marine Corps. This battle for Congressional funding and support would continue until the National Security Act of 1947, but Marine actions at Guantanamo and in the Philippines provided a major boost to the Corps' status.
Aftermath in acquired territories
Article IX of The Treaty of Paris stated that the U.S. Congress were responsible for decisions regarding the civil and political rights of the indigenous populations of the newly acquired territories of the Philippines, Puerto Rico, and Guam. With McKinley's victory, Congress began to pass legislation that marked the United States' “deliberate turn toward imperialism.”
Puerto Rico
In 1900, Congress enacted the Foraker Act, this established that Puerto Ricans would not have U.S. citizenship, despite being under U.S. sovereignty. Instead, the Act declared that they were only “citizens of Porto Rico,” and therefore, would not gain the civil, political, or constitutional rights that came with U.S. citizenship. The Foraker Act also established a system of taxation. Puerto Ricans were required to pay tax to fund the imposed system of government, and goods imported from the U.S. to Puerto Rico had tariffs placed upon them.
The treatment of Puerto Rico was considered unconstitutional by some due to the Citizenship Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment which declares that "persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States.
Guam
The territory of Guam was placed under the control of the U.S. Navy Department. A naval base was upkept, with the commanders of the base acquiring the role of colonial governor who presided over all legislation and policies on the territory.
Postwar American investment in Puerto Rico
The change in sovereignty of Puerto Rico, like the occupation of Cuba, brought about major changes in both the insular and U.S. economies. Before 1898 the sugar industry in Puerto Rico was in decline for nearly half a century. In the second half of the nineteenth century, technological advances increased the capital requirements to remain competitive in the sugar industry. Agriculture began to shift toward coffee production, which required less capital and land accumulation. However, these trends were reversed with U.S. hegemony. Early U.S. monetary and legal policies made it both harder for local farmers to continue operations and easier for American businesses to accumulate land. This, along with the large capital reserves of American businesses, led to a resurgence in the Puerto Rican nuts and sugar industry in the form of large American owned agro-industrial complexes.
At the same time, Cuba and Spain, traditionally the largest importers of Puerto Rican coffee, now subjected Puerto Rico to previously nonexistent import tariffs. These two effects led to a decline in the coffee industry. From 1897 to 1901, coffee went from 65.8 percent of exports to 19.6 percent while sugar went from 21.6 percent to 55 percent. The tariff system also provided a protected market-place for Puerto Rican tobacco exports. The tobacco industry went from nearly nonexistent in Puerto Rico to a major part of the country's agricultural sector.
"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish%E2%80%93American_War
(edited from article)
"
March 17, 1898: Senator Proctor Exposes Spain's Brutality in Cuba
Senator Redfield ProctorOn March 17, 1898, Vermont Senator Redfield Proctor (1831-1908) delivered one of the most significant speeches of the Spanish-American War era. After an observation visit to Cuba, Senator Proctor returned to the United States and told Congress about Cuba's bleak situation:
"I went to Cuba with a strong conviction that the picture had been overdrawn. I could not believe that out of a population of one million six hundred thousand, two hundred thousand had died within these Spanish forts...My inquiries were entirely outside of sensational sources...What I saw I cannot tell so that others can see it. It must be seen with one's own eyes to be realized...To me the strongest appeal is not the barbarity practiced by Weyler, nor the loss of the Maine...but the spectacle of a million and a half people, the entire native population of Cuba, struggling for freedom and deliverance from the worst misgovernment of which I ever had knowledge..."
Senator Proctor's words, unlike those of the sensationalist press, were taken seriously by Congressional Republicans and the U.S. business community. Proctor, a former Civil War colonel, Vermont governor, and businessman, was highly respected and trusted by U.S. conservatives. When Senator Proctor spoke, the pro-war feeling among the U.S. business community grew and the United States moved even closer to war.
"
https://www.pbs.org/crucible/tl11.html
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On This Day: Louis Pasteur disproves spontaneous generation, and invents pasteurization - Apr. 20, 1862
https://www.democraticunderground.com/1016376268
On This Day: Oklahoma City bombing continues to inspire extremists - Apr. 19, 1995
https://www.democraticunderground.com/1016376164
On This Day: 7.9 earthquake and fires (some set on purpose) destroy much of San Francisco, killing 3,000+ -Apr. 18, 1906
https://www.democraticunderground.com/1016376110
On This Day: Bay of Pigs fiasco leads to term "groupthink"; President Kennedy adjusts - Apr. 17, 1961
https://www.democraticunderground.com/1016376068
On This Day: U.S. and Britain de-escalate war on Great Lakes following War of 1812 - Apr. 16, 1818
https://www.democraticunderground.com/1016376023
On This Day: Louis Pasteur disproves spontaneous generation, and invents pasteurization - Apr. 20, 1862
(edited from article)
"
Introducing the man who is commonly dubbed "the father of microbiology," Louis Pasteur
Today’s Hero of Progress is Louis Pasteur, a 19th century French scientist, who is commonly dubbed the “father of microbiology.” Pasteur is renowned for developing the germ theory of disease, creating the process of pasteurization (which prevents the spoiling of many food products), and for changing the way that scientists create vaccines.
Before Pasteur, people believed in a doctrine of “spontaneous generation,” which held that life spontaneously appeared from non-living matter. That faulty reasoning was used to explain why food spoiled and how infections developed.
To disprove the theory of spontaneous generation, Pasteur “exposed freshly boiled broth to air in vessels that contained a filter to stop all particles passing through to the growth medium, and even with no filter at all, with air being admitted via a long tortuous tube that would not pass dust particles. Nothing grew in the broths: therefore the living organisms, which grew in the broths that had not been heated, came from outside as spores on dust, rather than being generated within the broth.”
Furthermore, Pasteur found that heating of beverages to a temperature ranging from 140F to 212F (60°C-100°C) killed the bacteria in those liquids. His first successful test was completed on April 20, 1862, and the process he developed came to be known as pasteurization. Pasteur patented his discovery in 1865.
"
https://humanprogress.org/heroes-of-progress-pt-19-louis-pasteur/
(edited from Wikipedia)
"
Spontaneous generation
Spontaneous generation is a superseded scientific theory that held that living creatures could arise from nonliving matter and that such processes were commonplace and regular. It was hypothesized that certain forms, such as fleas, could arise from inanimate matter such as dust, or that maggots could arise from dead flesh. The doctrine of spontaneous generation was coherently synthesized by the Greek philosopher and naturalist Aristotle, who compiled and expanded the work of earlier natural philosophers and the various ancient explanations for the appearance of organisms. Spontaneous generation was taken as scientific fact for two millennia. Though challenged in the 17th and 18th centuries by the experiments of the Italian biologists Francesco Redi and Lazzaro Spallanzani, it was not discredited until the work of the French chemist Louis Pasteur and the Irish physicist John Tyndall in the mid-19th century.
Rejection of spontaneous generation is no longer controversial among biologists. By the middle of the 19th century, experiments by Pasteur and others were considered to have disproven the traditional theory of spontaneous generation. Attention has turned instead to the origin of life, since all life seems to have evolved from a single form around four billion years ago.
Pasteur, fermentation, and germ theory of diseases
Pasteur was motivated to investigate fermentation while working at Lille. In 1856 a local wine manufacturer, M. Bigot, whose son was one of Pasteur's students, sought for his advice on the problems of making beetroot alcohol and souring. Pasteur began his research in the topic by repeating and confirming works of Theodor Schwann, who demonstrated a decade earlier that yeast were alive.
Pasteur also wrote about alcoholic fermentation. It was published in full form in 1858. Jöns Jacob Berzelius and Justus von Liebig had proposed the theory that fermentation was caused by decomposition. Pasteur demonstrated that this theory was incorrect, and that yeast was responsible for fermentation to produce alcohol from sugar. He also demonstrated that, when a different microorganism contaminated the wine, lactic acid was produced, making the wine sour. In 1861, Pasteur observed that less sugar fermented per part of yeast when the yeast was exposed to air. The lower rate of fermentation aerobically became known as the Pasteur effect.
Pasteur's research also showed that the growth of micro-organisms was responsible for spoiling beverages, such as beer, wine and milk. With this established, he invented a process in which liquids such as milk were heated to a temperature between 60 and 100 °C. This killed most bacteria and moulds already present within them. Pasteur and Claude Bernard completed tests on blood and urine on 20 April 1862. Pasteur patented the process, to fight the "diseases" of wine, in 1865. The method became known as pasteurization, and was soon applied to beer and milk.
[Human disease]
Beverage contamination led Pasteur to the idea that micro-organisms infecting animals and humans cause disease. He proposed preventing the entry of micro-organisms into the human body, leading Joseph Lister to develop antiseptic methods in surgery.
In 1866, Pasteur published Etudes sur le Vin, about the diseases of wine, and he published Etudes sur la Bière in 1876, concerning the diseases of beer.
In the early 19th century, Agostino Bassi had shown that muscardine was caused by a fungus that infected silkworms. Since 1853, two diseases called pébrine and flacherie had been infecting great numbers of silkworms in southern France, and by 1865 they were causing huge losses to farmers. In 1865, Pasteur went to Alès and worked for five years until 1870.
Spontaneous generation
Louis Pasteur's pasteurization experiment illustrates the fact that the spoilage of liquid was caused by particles in the air rather than the air itself. These experiments were important pieces of evidence supporting the germ theory of disease.
Following his fermentation experiments, Pasteur demonstrated that the skin of grapes was the natural source of yeasts, and that sterilized grapes and grape juice never fermented. He drew grape juice from under the skin with sterilized needles, and also covered grapes with sterilized cloth. Both experiments could not produce wine in sterilized containers.
[Cash prize offered to settle spontaneous generation]
His findings and ideas were against the prevailing notion of spontaneous generation. He received a particularly stern criticism from Félix Archimède Pouchet, who was director of the Rouen Museum of Natural History. To settle the debate between the eminent scientists, the French Academy of Sciences offered the Alhumbert Prize carrying 2,500 francs to whoever could experimentally demonstrate for or against the doctrine.
Pouchet stated that air everywhere could cause spontaneous generation of living organisms in liquids. In the late 1850s, he performed experiments and claimed that they were evidence of spontaneous generation. Francesco Redi and Lazzaro Spallanzani had provided some evidence against spontaneous generation in the 17th and 18th centuries, respectively. Spallanzani's experiments in 1765 suggested that air contaminated broths with bacteria. In the 1860s, Pasteur repeated Spallanzani's experiments, but Pouchet reported a different result using a different broth.
Pasteur performed several experiments to disprove spontaneous generation. He placed boiled liquid in a flask and let hot air enter the flask. Then he closed the flask, and no organisms grew in it. In another experiment, when he opened flasks containing boiled liquid, dust entered the flasks, causing organisms to grow in some of them. The number of flasks in which organisms grew was lower at higher altitudes, showing that air at high altitudes contained less dust and fewer organisms. Pasteur also used swan neck flasks containing a fermentable liquid. Air was allowed to enter the flask via a long curving tube that made dust particles stick to it. Nothing grew in the broths unless the flasks were tilted, making the liquid touch the contaminated walls of the neck. This showed that the living organisms that grew in such broths came from outside, on dust, rather than spontaneously generating within the liquid or from the action of pure air.
["this simple experiment"]
These were some of the most important experiments disproving the theory of spontaneous generation. Pasteur gave a series of five presentations of his findings before the French Academy of Sciences in 1881, which were published in 1882 as Mémoire Sur les corpuscules organisés qui existent dans l'atmosphère: Examen de la doctrine des générations spontanées (Account of Organized Corpuscles Existing in the Atmosphere: Examining the Doctrine of Spontaneous Generation). Pasteur won the Alhumbert Prize in 1862. He concluded that:
Never will the doctrine of spontaneous generation recover from the mortal blow of this simple experiment. There is no known circumstance in which it can be confirmed that microscopic beings came into the world without germs, without parents similar to themselves.
"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spontaneous_generation
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_Pasteur
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On This Day: Oklahoma City bombing continues to inspire extremists - Apr. 19, 1995
https://www.democraticunderground.com/1016376164
On This Day: 7.9 earthquake and fires (some set on purpose) destroy much of San Francisco, killing 3,000+ -Apr. 18, 1906
https://www.democraticunderground.com/1016376110
On This Day: Bay of Pigs fiasco leads to term "groupthink"; President Kennedy adjusts - Apr. 17, 1961
https://www.democraticunderground.com/1016376068
On This Day: U.S. and Britain de-escalate war on Great Lakes following War of 1812 - Apr. 16, 1818
https://www.democraticunderground.com/1016376023
On This Day: Titanic sinks two hours forty min. after hitting an iceberg - 710 of 2,224 survive - Apr. 15, 1912
https://www.democraticunderground.com/1016375941
On This Day: Oklahoma City bombing continues to inspire extremists - Apr. 19, 1995
(edited from article)
"
Why the Oklahoma bombing continues to cast a shadow over America
Timothy McVeigh’s actions and ideas have inspired a new generation of radical Right extremists
August 2021
The bloody attack continues to influence the radical Right. This is clear in later terrorist attacks, like those committed by Anders Brevik and Dylann Roof, who praised McVeigh. This influence also appears in radical Right propaganda material, recruitment tactics, as well as the stockpiling of guns, ammo, and explosives.
In fact, before his attacks, McVeigh read ‘The Turner Diaries’ a novel about the violent overthrow of the federal government that eventually leads to a race war. The novel plays a crucial role in solidifying white dominance by glorifying violence and continues to be a source of inspiration for radical Right organisations and lone actors today. It provides the narrative for a race war and a ‘blueprint’ for an attack.
White supremacist groups, like the League of the South (LOS) and the Order, and some militia movements, like American Patriots USA (APUSA), sometimes require members to read ‘The Turner Diaries’ as part of their training. Other self-proclaimed militia groups focus on some parts of McVeigh’s tactics, like using explosives to target vulnerable populations to show the government that no one is untouchable, including children, in the hopes of inspiring others to do the same and start a race war.
McVeigh is known as “the most ruthless domestic terrorist in US history,” which is a coveted title to some on the radical Right. Organisations like the Oath Keepers, the Three Percenters, and other ‘patriot’ militias take great pride in being called domestic terrorists and idolise McVeigh’s ability to cause massive destruction to a US government building in a way that continues to be talked about to this day.
"
https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/countering-radical-right/why-oklahoma-bombing-continues-cast-shadow-over-america/
(edited from Wikipedia)
"
Oklahoma City bombing
The Oklahoma City bombing was a domestic terrorist truck bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, United States, on April 19, 1995, the second anniversary of the end to the Waco siege. It also occurred on the same day as the execution of Arkansas white supremacist Richard Snell, who had "predicted" a bombing would take place that day; despite rumors, it remains unclear if Snell's execution served as a motive for the bombing. The bombing was the deadliest act of terrorism in U.S. history prior to the September 11 attacks in 2001, and remains the deadliest act of domestic terrorism in U.S. history.
On April 19, 2000, the Oklahoma City National Memorial was dedicated on the site of the Murrah Federal Building, commemorating the victims of the bombing. Remembrance services are held every year on April 19, at the time of the explosion.
Perpetrated by anti-government extremists Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols, the bombing occurred at 9:02 AM and killed 168 people, injured 680, and destroyed more than one-third of the building, which had to be demolished. The blast destroyed or damaged 324 other buildings and caused an estimated $652 million worth of damage.
Local, state, federal, and worldwide agencies engaged in extensive rescue efforts in the wake of the bombing. The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) activated 11 of its Urban Search and Rescue Task Forces, consisting of 665 rescue workers.
Within 90 minutes of the explosion, McVeigh was stopped by Oklahoma Highway Patrolman Charlie Hanger for driving without a license plate and arrested for illegal weapons possession. Forensic evidence quickly linked McVeigh and Nichols to the attack; Nichols was arrested, and within days, both were charged. Michael and Lori Fortier were later identified as accomplices. McVeigh, a veteran of the Gulf War and a sympathizer with the U.S. militia movement, had detonated a Ryder rental truck full of explosives he parked in front of the building. Nichols had assisted with the bomb's preparation.
Motivated by his dislike for the U.S. federal government and its handling of Ruby Ridge in 1992 and the Waco siege in 1993, McVeigh timed his attack to coincide with the second anniversary of the fire that ended the siege in Waco. Though not confirmed to be a direct connection to the bombing, Snell previously expressed a desire to blow up the Murrah Federal Building 12 years before the bombing took place.
The official FBI investigation, known as "OKBOMB", involved 28,000 interviews, 3,200 kg of evidence, and nearly one billion pieces of information. When the FBI raided McVeigh's home, they found a telephone number that led them to a farm where McVeigh had purchased supplies for the bombing.
The bombers were tried and convicted in 1997. McVeigh was executed by lethal injection on June 11, 2001, at the U.S. federal penitentiary in Terre Haute, Indiana. Nichols was sentenced to life in prison in 2004.
In response to the bombing, the U.S. Congress passed the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996, which limited access to habeas corpus in the United States, among other provisions. It also passed legislation to increase the protection around federal buildings to deter future terrorist attacks.
"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oklahoma_City_bombing
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On This Day: 7.9 earthquake and fires (some set on purpose) destroy much of San Francisco, killing 3,000+ -Apr. 18, 1906
https://www.democraticunderground.com/1016376110
On This Day: Bay of Pigs fiasco leads to term "groupthink"; President Kennedy adjusts - Apr. 17, 1961
https://www.democraticunderground.com/1016376068
On This Day: U.S. and Britain de-escalate war on Great Lakes following War of 1812 - Apr. 16, 1818
https://www.democraticunderground.com/1016376023
On This Day: Titanic sinks two hours forty min. after hitting an iceberg - 710 of 2,224 survive - Apr. 15, 1912
https://www.democraticunderground.com/1016375941
On This Day: For J.W. Booth, voting rights for freed slaves was final grievance among many - Apr. 14, 1865
https://www.democraticunderground.com/1016375905
On This Day: 7.9 earthquake and fires (some set on purpose) destroy much of San Francisco, killing 3,000+ -Apr. 18, 1906
(edited from Wikipedia)
"
1906 San Francisco earthquake
At 05:12 Pacific Standard Time on Wednesday, April 18, 1906, the coast of Northern California was struck by a major earthquake with an estimated moment magnitude of 7.9 and a maximum Mercalli intensity of XI (Extreme). High-intensity shaking was felt from Eureka on the North Coast to the Salinas Valley, an agricultural region to the south of the San Francisco Bay Area. Devastating fires soon broke out in San Francisco and lasted for several days. More than 3,000 people died, and over 80% of the city was destroyed. The event is remembered as the deadliest earthquake in the history of the United States. The death toll remains the greatest loss of life from a natural disaster in California's history and high on the lists of American disasters.
Earthquake
The 1906 earthquake preceded the development of the Richter magnitude scale by three decades. The most widely accepted estimate for the magnitude of the quake on the modern moment magnitude scale is 7.9; values from 7.7 to as high as 8.3 have been proposed. According to findings published in the Journal of Geophysical Research, severe deformations in the Earth's crust took place both before and after the earthquake's impact. The 1906 rupture propagated both northward and southward for a total of 296 miles. Shaking was felt from Oregon to Los Angeles, and as far inland as central Nevada.
Recently, using old photographs and eyewitness accounts, researchers were able to estimate the location of the hypocenter of the earthquake as offshore from San Francisco or near San Juan Bautista, confirming previous estimates.
Damage
The total number of deaths is still uncertain, but various reports presented a range of 700–3,000+. In 2005, the city's Board of Supervisors voted unanimously in support of a resolution written by novelist James Dalessandro ("1906 " ) and city historian Gladys Hansen ("Denial of Disaster " ) to recognize the figure of 3,000+ as the official total.
Between 227,000 and 300,000 people were left homeless out of a population of about 410,000; half of those who evacuated fled across the bay to Oakland and Berkeley. Newspapers described Golden Gate Park, the Presidio, the Panhandle and the beaches between Ingleside and North Beach as covered with makeshift tents. More than two years later, many of these refugee camps were still in operation.
The earthquake and fire left long-standing and significant pressures on the development of California. At the time of the disaster, San Francisco had been the ninth-largest city in the United States and the largest on the West Coast. Over a period of 60 years, the city had become the financial, trade, and cultural center of the West, operating the busiest port on the West Coast. It was the "gateway to the Pacific", through which growing U.S. economic and military power was projected into the Pacific and Asia.
Over 80% of the city was destroyed by the earthquake and fire. Though San Francisco rebuilt quickly, the disaster diverted trade, industry, and population growth south to Los Angeles, which during the 20th century became the largest and most important urban area in the West. Many of the city's leading poets and writers retreated to Carmel-by-the-Sea where, as "The Barness", they established the arts colony reputation that continues today.
Fires
As damaging as the earthquake and its aftershocks were, the fires that burned out of control afterward were far more destructive. It has been estimated that up to 90% of the total destruction was the result of the subsequent fires. Within three days, over 30 fires, caused by ruptured gas mains, destroyed approximately 25,000 buildings on 490 city blocks. The fires cost an estimated $350 million at the time (equivalent to $8.9 billion in 2023).
The Ham and Eggs fire, in the morning on the 18th, at Hayes and Gough Streets, in Hayes Valley, was started by a woman who lit her stove to prepare breakfast, unaware of the badly damaged chimney, destroying a 30-block area, including a college, the Hall of Records and City Hall.
Some of the fires were started when San Francisco Fire Department firefighters, untrained in the use of dynamite, attempted to demolish buildings to create firebreaks. The dynamited buildings often caught fire. The city's fire chief, Dennis T. Sullivan, who would have been responsible for coordinating firefighting efforts, had died from injuries sustained in the initial quake. In total, the fires burned for four days and nights.
Most of the destruction in the city was attributed to the fires, since widespread practice by insurers was to indemnify San Francisco properties from fire but not from earthquake damage. Some property owners deliberately set fire to damaged properties to claim them on their insurance. Captain Leonard D. Wildman of the U.S. Army Signal Corps reported that he "was stopped by a fireman who told me that people in that neighborhood were firing their houses...they were told that they would not get their insurance on buildings damaged by the earthquake unless they were damaged by fire".
Some of the greatest losses from fire were in scientific laboratories. Alice Eastwood, the curator of botany at the California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco, is credited with saving nearly 1,500 specimens, including the entire type specimen collection for a newly discovered and extremely rare species, before the remainder of the largest botanical collection in the western United States was destroyed in the fire. The entire laboratory and all the records of Benjamin R. Jacobs, a biochemist who was researching the nutrition of everyday foods, were destroyed.
Response
The city's fire chief, Dennis T. Sullivan, was gravely injured when the earthquake first struck and later died from his injuries. The interim fire chief sent an urgent request to the Presidio, a United States Army post on the edge of the stricken city, for dynamite. General Frederick Funston had already decided that the situation required the use of federal troops. Telephoning a San Francisco Police Department officer, he sent word to Mayor Eugene Schmitz of his decision to assist and then ordered federal troops from nearby Angel Island to mobilize and enter the city. Explosives were ferried across the bay from the California Powder Works in what is now Hercules.
Soldiers looting during the fire
During the first few days, soldiers provided valuable services like patrolling streets to discourage looting and guarding buildings such as the U.S. Mint, post office, and county jail. They aided the fire department in dynamiting to demolish buildings in the path of the fires. The Army also became responsible for feeding, sheltering, and clothing the tens of thousands of displaced residents of the city. Under the command of Funston's superior, Major General Adolphus Greely, Commanding Officer of the Pacific Division, over 4,000 federal troops saw service during the emergency. Police officers, firefighters, and soldiers would regularly commandeer passing civilians for work details to remove rubble and assist in rescues. On July 1, 1906, non-military authorities assumed responsibility for relief efforts, and the Army withdrew from the city.
On April 18, in response to riots among evacuees and looting, Mayor Schmitz issued and ordered posted a proclamation that "The Federal Troops, the members of the Regular Police Force and all Special Police Officers have been authorized by me to kill any and all persons found engaged in Looting or in the Commission of Any Other Crime". Accusations of soldiers engaging in looting also surfaced. Retired Captain Edward Ord of the 22nd Infantry Regiment was appointed a special police officer by Schmitz and liaised with Greely for relief work with the 22nd Infantry and other military units involved in the emergency. Ord later wrote a long letter[52] to his mother on April 20 regarding Schmitz's "Shoot-to-Kill" order and some "despicable" behavior of certain soldiers of the 22nd Infantry who were looting. He also made it clear that the majority of soldiers served the community well.
Aftermath
Political and business leaders strongly downplayed the effects of the earthquake, fearing loss of outside investment in the city which was badly needed to rebuild. In his first public statement, California Governor George Pardee emphasized the need to rebuild quickly: "This is not the first time that San Francisco has been destroyed by fire, I have not the slightest doubt that the City by the Golden Gate will be speedily rebuilt, and will, almost before we know it, resume her former great activity". The earthquake is not even mentioned in the statement. Fatality and monetary damage estimates were manipulated.
Almost immediately after the quake (and even during the disaster), planning and reconstruction plans were hatched to quickly rebuild the city. Rebuilding funds were immediately tied up by the fact that virtually all the major banks had been sites of the conflagration, requiring a lengthy wait of seven to ten days before their fire-proof vaults could cool sufficiently to be safely opened. The Bank of Italy (now Bank of America) had evacuated its funds and was able to provide liquidity in the immediate aftermath. Its president also immediately chartered and financed the sending of two ships to return with shiploads of lumber from Washington and Oregon mills which provided the initial reconstruction materials and surge.
In an article written in 1913, John C. Branner, who was the first to begin study of the San Andreas fault in 1891 complained that the Federal Government of the United States had not conducted the serious studies that were needed to gather data about earthquakes on the west coast. He said public discussion was being stifled by fears that acknowledgement of earthquakes would drive away business and investors, and that geologists were told not to gather information about the 1906 earthquake, and certainly to not publish it. Some people went as far as to deny that an earthquake had happened.
Eleven days after the earthquake a rare Sunday baseball game was played in New York City (which would not allow regular Sunday baseball until 1919) between the Highlanders (soon to be the Yankees) and the Philadelphia Athletics to raise money for quake survivors. William James, the pioneering American psychologist, was teaching at Stanford at the time of the earthquake and traveled into San Francisco to observe first-hand its aftermath. He was most impressed by the positive attitude of the survivors and the speed with which they improvised services and created order out of chaos.
H. G. Wells had just arrived in New York on his first visit to America when he learned of the San Francisco earthquake. What struck him about the reaction of those around him was that "it does not seem to have affected any one with a sense of final destruction, with any foreboding of irreparable disaster ..."
The earthquake was crucial in the development of the University of California, San Francisco and its medical facilities. Until 1906, the school faculty had provided care at the City-County Hospital (now the San Francisco General Hospital), but did not have a hospital of its own. Following the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, more than 40,000 people were relocated to a makeshift tent city in Golden Gate Park and were treated by the faculty of the Affiliated Colleges. This brought the school, which until then was located on the western outskirts of the city, in contact with significant population and fueled the commitment of the school towards civic responsibility and health care, increasing the momentum towards the construction of its own health facilities.
The grandeur of citywide reconstruction schemes required investment from Eastern monetary sources, hence the spin and de-emphasis of the earthquake, the promulgation of the tough new building codes, and subsequent reputation sensitive actions such as the official low death toll.
City fathers likewise attempted at the time to eliminate the Chinese population and export Chinatown (and other poor populations) to the edge of the county where the Chinese could still contribute to the local taxbase. The Chinese occupants had other ideas and prevailed instead. Chinatown was rebuilt in the newer, modern, Western form that exists today. The destruction of City Hall and the Hall of Records enabled thousands of Chinese immigrants to claim residency and citizenship, creating a backdoor to the Chinese Exclusion Act, and bring in their relatives from China.
The earthquake was also responsible for the development of the Pacific Heights neighborhood. The immense power of the earthquake had destroyed almost all of the mansions on Nob Hill except for the James C. Flood Mansion. Others that had not been destroyed were dynamited by the Army forces aiding the firefighting efforts in attempts to create firebreaks. As one indirect result, the wealthy looked westward where the land was cheap and relatively undeveloped, and where there were better views.
Reconstruction was swift, and largely completed by 1915, in time for the 1915 Panama–Pacific International Exposition which celebrated the reconstruction of the city and its "rise from the ashes". Since 1915, the city has officially commemorated the disaster each year by gathering the remaining survivors at Lotta's Fountain, a fountain in the city's financial district that served as a meeting point during the disaster for people to look for loved ones and exchange information.
Insurance payments
Insurance companies, faced with staggering claims of $250 million, paid out between $235 million and $265 million on policyholders' claims, often for fire damage only, since shake damage from earthquakes was excluded from coverage under most policies.
At least 137 insurance companies were directly involved and another 17 as reinsurers. Twenty companies went bankrupt. Lloyd's of London reports having paid all claims in full, more than $50 million, thanks to the leadership of Cuthbert Heath. Insurance companies in Hartford, Connecticut, report paying every claim in full, with the Hartford Fire Insurance Company paying over $11 million and Aetna Insurance Company almost $3 million.
The insurance payments heavily affected the international financial system. Gold transfers from European insurance companies to policyholders in San Francisco led to a rise in interest rates, subsequently to a lack of available loans and finally to the Knickerbocker Trust Company crisis of October 1907 which led to the Panic of 1907.
After the 1906 earthquake, global discussion arose concerning a legally flawless exclusion of the earthquake hazard from fire insurance contracts. It was pressed ahead mainly by re-insurers. Their aim: a uniform solution to insurance payouts resulting from fires caused by earthquakes. Until 1910, a few countries, especially in Europe, followed the call for an exclusion of the earthquake hazard from all fire insurance contracts. In the U.S., the question was discussed differently. But the traumatized public reacted with fierce opposition. On August 1, 1909, the California Senate enacted the California Standard Form of Fire Insurance Policy, which did not contain any earthquake clause. Thus the state decided that insurers would have to pay again if another earthquake was followed by fires. Other earthquake-endangered countries followed the California example.
"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1906_San_Francisco_earthquake
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On This Day: Bay of Pigs fiasco leads to term "groupthink"; President Kennedy adjusts - Apr. 17, 1961
https://www.democraticunderground.com/1016376068
On This Day: U.S. and Britain de-escalate war on Great Lakes following War of 1812 - Apr. 16, 1818
https://www.democraticunderground.com/1016376023
On This Day: Titanic sinks two hours forty min. after hitting an iceberg - 710 of 2,224 survive - Apr. 15, 1912
https://www.democraticunderground.com/1016375941
On This Day: For J.W. Booth, voting rights for freed slaves was final grievance among many - Apr. 14, 1865
https://www.democraticunderground.com/1016375905
On This Day: 50 industrialists, artists, and scientists found the Met art museum. Recent controversies. - Apr. 13, 1870
https://www.democraticunderground.com/1016375851
On This Day: Bay of Pigs fiasco leads to term "groupthink"; President Kennedy adjusts - Apr. 17, 1961
(edited from Wikipedia)
"
Bay of Pigs Invasion
The Bay of Pigs Invasion was a failed military landing operation on the southwestern coast of Cuba in 1961 by Cuban Democratic Revolutionary Front (DRF), consisting of Cuban exiles who opposed Fidel Castro's Cuban Revolution, clandestinely financed and directed by the U.S. government. The operation took place at the height of the Cold War, and its failure influenced relations between Cuba, the United States, and the Soviet Union.
In 1952, the American-allied dictator General Fulgencio Batista led a coup against President Carlos Prío and forced Prío into exile in Miami, Florida. Prío's exile inspired Castro's 26th of July Movement against Batista. The movement succeeded in overthrowing Batista during the Cuban Revolution in January 1959. Castro nationalized American businesses, including banks, oil refineries, and sugar and coffee plantations.
The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) began planning the overthrow of Castro, which U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower approved in March 1960, and the U.S. began its embargo of the island. This led Castro to reach out to its Cold War rival, the Soviet Union, after which the US severed diplomatic relations. Cuban exiles who had moved to the U.S. following Castro's takeover had formed the counter-revolutionary military unit, Brigade 2506, which was the armed wing of the DRF. The CIA funded the brigade, which also included approximately 60 members of the Alabama Air National Guard, and trained the unit in Guatemala.
Over 1,400 paramilitaries, divided into five infantry battalions and one paratrooper battalion, assembled and launched from Guatemala and Nicaragua by boat on 17 April 1961. Two days earlier, eight CIA-supplied B-26 bombers had attacked Cuban airfields and then returned to the U.S. On the night of 17 April, the main invasion force landed on the beach at Playa Girón in the Bay of Pigs, where it overwhelmed a local revolutionary militia. Initially, José Ramón Fernández led the Cuban Revolutionary Army counter-offensive; later, Castro took personal control.
As the invasion force lost the strategic initiative, the international community found out about the invasion, and U.S. President John F. Kennedy decided to withhold further air support. The plan, devised during Eisenhower's presidency, had required the involvement of U.S. air and naval forces. Without further air support, the invasion was being conducted with fewer forces than the CIA had deemed necessary. The American force, Brigade 2506 invading force were defeated within three days by the Cuban Revolutionary Armed Forces and surrendered on 20 April. Most of the surrendered counter-revolutionary troops were publicly interrogated and put into Cuban prisons.
The invasion was a U.S. foreign policy failure. The Cuban government's victory solidified Castro's role as a national hero and widened the political division between the two formerly allied countries, as well as embolden other Latin American groups to undermine US influence in the region. It also pushed Cuba closer to the Soviet Union, setting the stage for the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962.
Casualties
67 Cuban exiles from Brigade 2506 were killed in action, additionally, 10 more were executed by firing squad, 10 lost their lives on the boat Celia trying to escape, 9 captured exiles in the sealed truck container on the way to Havana, 4 by accident, 2 in prison, and 4 American aviators, for a total of 106 deaths.
The final toll for Cuban armed forces during the conflict was 176 killed in action. This figure includes only the Cuban Army and it is estimated that about 2,000 militiamen were killed or wounded during the fighting. Other Cuban forces casualties were between 500 and 4,000 (killed, wounded or missing).
In 2011, the National Security Archive, under the Freedom of Information Act, released over 1,200 pages of documents. Included within these documents were descriptions of incidents of friendly fire.
Prisoners
Between April and October 1961, hundreds of executions took place in response to the invasion. They took place at various prisons, including the Fortaleza de la Cabaña and Morro Castle. Infiltration team leaders Antonio Diaz Pou and Raimundo E. Lopez, as well as underground students Virgilio Campaneria, Alberto Tapia Ruano, and more than one hundred other insurgents were executed.
Political reaction
The failed invasion severely embarrassed the Kennedy administration and made Castro wary of future U.S. intervention in Cuba. On 21 April, in a State Department press conference, Kennedy said: "There's an old saying that victory has a hundred fathers and defeat is an orphan... Further statements, detailed discussions, are not to conceal responsibility because I'm the responsible officer of the Government..."
Later, Kennedy told Khrushchev that the Bay of Pigs invasions was a mistake.
In August 1961, during an economic conference of the OAS in Punta del Este, Uruguay, Che Guevara sent a note to Kennedy via Richard N. Goodwin, a secretary of the White House. It read: "Thanks for Playa Girón. Before the invasion, the revolution was weak. Now it's stronger than ever".
As Allen Dulles later stated, CIA planners believed that once the troops were on the ground, Kennedy would authorize any action required to prevent failure – as Eisenhower had done in Guatemala in 1954 after that invasion looked as if it would collapse. Kennedy was deeply depressed and angered with the failure. Several years after his death, The New York Times reported that he told an unspecified high administration official of wanting "to splinter the CIA in a thousand pieces and scatter it to the winds." However, following a "rigorous inquiry into the agency's affairs, methods, and problems... [Kennedy] did not 'splinter' it after all and did not recommend Congressional supervision."
Kennedy commented to his journalist friend Ben Bradlee, "The first advice I'm going to give my successor is to watch the generals and to avoid feeling that because they were military men their opinions on military matters were worth a damn."
According to author Jim Rasenberger, the Kennedy administration became very aggressive with regard to overthrowing Castro following the failure of the Bay of Pigs Invasion, reportedly doubling its efforts. Rasenberger elaborated on the fact that almost every decision that was made by Kennedy following the Bay of Pigs had some correlation with the destruction of the Castro administration. Shortly after the invasion ended, Kennedy ordered the Pentagon to design secret operations to overthrow the Castro regime. Also, President Kennedy persuaded his brother Robert to set up a covert action against Castro which was known as "Operation Mongoose."
CIA report
In November 1961, CIA Inspector-General Lyman Kirkpatrick authored a report, "Survey of the Cuban Operation", that remained classified until 1998. Conclusions were:
The CIA exceeded its capabilities in developing the project from guerrilla support to overt armed action without any plausible deniability.
Failure to realistically assess risks and to adequately communicate information and decisions internally and with other government principals.
Insufficient involvement of leaders of the exiles.
Failure to sufficiently organize internal resistance in Cuba.
[etc.]
[Dulles out]
In spite of vigorous objections by CIA management to the findings, CIA Director Allen Dulles, CIA Deputy Director Charles Cabell, and deputy director for Plans Richard M. Bissell Jr. were all forced to resign by early 1962. In later years, the CIA's behavior in the event became the prime example cited for the psychology paradigm known as groupthink syndrome. Further study shows that among various components of groupthink analyzed by Irving Janis, the Bay of Pigs Invasion followed the structural characteristics that led to irrational decision making in foreign policy pushed by deficiency in impartial leadership. An account on the process of invasion decision reads,
At each meeting, instead of opening up the agenda to permit a full airing of the opposing considerations, [President Kennedy] allowed the CIA representatives to dominate the entire discussion. The president permitted them to refute each tentative doubt immediately that one of the others might express, instead of asking whether anyone else had the same doubt or wanted to pursue the implications of the new worrisome issue that had been raised.
Looking at both the Survey of the Cuban Operation and Groupthink: Psychological Studies of Policy Decisions and Fiascoes by Irving Janis, it identifies the lack of communication and the mere assumption of concurrence to be the main causes behind the CIA and the president's collective failure to efficiently evaluate the facts before them. A considerable amount of information presented before President Kennedy proved to be false in reality, such as the support of the Cuban people for Fidel Castro, making it difficult to assess the actual situation and the future of the operation.
In mid-1960, CIA operative E. Howard Hunt had interviewed Cubans in Havana; in a 1997 interview with CNN, he said, "...all I could find was a lot of enthusiasm for Fidel Castro."
Invasion legacy in Cuba
For many Latin Americans, the invasion reinforced the belief that the U.S. could not be trusted. It also showed that the U.S. could be defeated, and thus encouraged political groups in Latin America to undermine U.S. influence. Victory made Castro even more popular, fuelling nationalistic support for his economic policies.
There are still yearly nationwide drills in Cuba during the 'Dia de la Defensa' (Defense Day), to prepare the population for an invasion.
American public reaction
Only 3 percent of Americans supported military action in 1960. According to Gallup, 72% of people had a negative view of Fidel Castro in 1960. After the conflict, 61% of Americans approved of the action, while 15% disapproved and 24% were unsure.
Kennedy's general approval rating increased in the first survey after the invasion, rising from 78 percent in mid-April to 83 percent in late April and early May. Dr. Gallup's headline for this poll read, "Public Rallies Behind Kennedy in Aftermath of Cuban Crisis." In 1963 a public opinion poll showed 60 percent of Americans believed that Cuba is "a serious threat to world peace," yet 63 percent of Americans did not want the U.S. to remove Castro.
"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bay_of_Pigs_Invasion
(edited from article)
"
How John F. Kennedy Changed Decision Making for Us All
by Morten T. Hansen
...
Eighteen months earlier, [President Kennedy] made arguably the worst decision he ever made, to support an ill-conceived covert operation to unseat Fidel Castro, known today as the Bay of Pigs fiasco. Yale psychologist Irving Janis used the debacle to coin the term “groupthink,” which refers to a psychological drive for consensus at any cost that suppresses dissent and appraisal of alternatives. Historian Arthur Schlesinger, who took part in that decision process, later wrote that “our meetings were taking place in a curious atmosphere of assumed consensus, [and] not one spoke against it.”
And yet, as I write in more detail in Collaboration, after the Bay of Pigs Kennedy brilliantly retooled his group decision-making process. He ordered a review (keep in mind that not even the military was doing formal after-action reviews at the time) and subsequently instituted four changes to how his top team would make critical decisions:
Each participant should function as a “skeptical generalist,” focusing on the problem as a whole rather than approaching it from his or her department’s standpoint.
To stimulate freewheeling discussions, the group should use informal settings, with no formal agenda and protocol, so as to avoid the status-laden meetings in the White House.
The team should be broken into sub-groups that would work on alternatives and then reconvene.
The team should sometimes meet without Kennedy present, so as to avoid people simply following his views.
It would be easy to assume that we’d always made high-stakes decisions through a structured method of seeking different options and debating which was right. But that would be wrong; first, someone had to decide to invent it."
"
https://hbr.org/2013/11/how-john-f-kennedy-changed-decision-making
(edited from article)
"
Victims of Groupthink
Groupthink prevails when the "need to conform" is operating. It is believed that Groupthink was operating during the "Bay of Pigs." There are other situations where Groupthink is thought to have been operating, including mass suicides and juries delivering illogical verdicts. Similarly, in "The Abilene Paradox," people end up going where they do not want to go, because they think the others want to go there and failed to express their honest preferences. In Groupthink, what is achieved is a false sense of consensus. Irving Janis in his book Victims of Groupthink originated the term groupthink. It is considered a disease of healthy groups, making them inefficient, unproductive, and irrational. Janis identifies a number of causes including: cohesiveness, working in isolation, biased leadership, and decisional stress.
After Kennedy got elected, Eisenhower saw that he was briefed on the upcoming Bay of Pigs operation. President Kennedy was briefed on the Agency's plans weeks before he took office, and had not raised objection to them. Once he was in office, planning for the invasion continued. On 10 March 1961, Dulles provided a detailed briefing to the CIA subcommittee of the HASC on the Agency's operational activities against Castro: its efforts to mount a propaganda campaign, organize the Cuban resistance parties, and train a paramilitary force to invade the island. He said the paramilitary force numbered about a thousand Cubans and had its own "air force." Although several members wondered how an army of 1,000 exiles could be expected to defeat a Cuban army of 200,000, Dulles replied that he expected the exiles to "light the fuse" that would spark a general uprising on the island.
"
https://www.globalsecurity.org/intell/ops/bay-of-pigs-groupthink.htm
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On This Day: U.S. and Britain de-escalate war on Great Lakes following War of 1812 - Apr. 16, 1818
https://www.democraticunderground.com/1016376023
On This Day: Titanic sinks two hours forty min. after hitting an iceberg - 710 of 2,224 survive - Apr. 15, 1912
https://www.democraticunderground.com/1016375941
On This Day: For J.W. Booth, voting rights for freed slaves was final grievance among many - Apr. 14, 1865
https://www.democraticunderground.com/1016375905
On This Day: 50 industrialists, artists, and scientists found the Met art museum. Recent controversies. - Apr. 13, 1870
https://www.democraticunderground.com/1016375851
On This Day: Polio vaccine found safe and effective. Now, polio returns with anti-vax movement. - Apr. 12, 1955
https://www.democraticunderground.com/1016375800
On This Day: U.S. and Britain de-escalate war on Great Lakes following War of 1812 - Apr. 16, 1818
(edited from Wikipedia)
"
Rush-Bagot Treaty
The Rush–Bagot Treaty or Rush–Bagot Disarmament was a treaty between the United States and Great Britain limiting naval armaments on the Great Lakes and Lake Champlain, following the War of 1812. It was ratified by the United States Senate on April 16, 1818, and was confirmed by Canada, following Confederation in 1867.
The treaty provided for a large demilitarization of lakes along the international boundary, where many British naval arrangements and forts remained. The treaty stipulated that the United States and British North America could each maintain one military vessel (no more than 100 tons burden) as well as one cannon (no more than eighteen pounds) on Lake Ontario and Lake Champlain. The remaining Great Lakes permitted the United States and British North America to keep two military vessels "of like burden" on the waters armed with "like force". The treaty, and the separate Treaty of 1818, laid the basis for a demilitarized boundary between the U.S. and British North America.
History
The origins of the Rush–Bagot Treaty can be traced to a correspondence of letters between Acting United States Secretary of State Richard Rush and the British Minister to Washington Sir Charles Bagot, which were exchanged and signed on April 27 and 28, 1817. After the terms of the notes were agreed upon by Rush and Bagot, the Rush–Bagot Agreement was unofficially recognized by both countries. On April 6, 1818, it was submitted to the United States Senate and formally ratified on April 16, 1818. The treaty eventually led to the Treaty of Washington of 1871, which completed disarmament. The United States and Canada agreed in 1946, through an exchange of diplomatic notes, that the stationing of naval vessels for training purposes was permissible provided each government was fully notified in advance.
In 2004, the U.S. Coast Guard decided to arm 11 of its small cutters stationed on Lake Erie and Lake Huron with M240 7.62 mm machine guns. The U.S. decision was based on a climbing number of smuggling operations as well as the increased threat of terrorist activity after the September 11, 2001, attacks. The Canadian government decided that the armament did not violate the treaty, as the guns were to be used for law enforcement rather than military activities. Canada reserved the right to arm its law enforcement vessels with similar weapons.
Military installations
There are still military facilities near or next to the Great Lakes - [see source for list]
Outcome
The Canada–United States border was demilitarized, including the Great Lakes and Lake Champlain. The U.S. and the British agreed to joint control over the Oregon Territory. The Rush–Bagot Agreement laid the foundation for the world's longest international boundary—5,525 mi, and the longest demilitarized border in the world.
Although the treaty had caused difficulties during World War I, its terms were not changed. Similar problems occurred before World War II, but Secretary of State Cordell Hull wanted to preserve the agreement because of its historical importance. In 1939 and 1940, Canada and the United States agreed to interpret the treaty so that weapons could be installed in the Great Lakes but could not be operable until the ships left the Lakes. In 1942, the United States, by then having entered the war and allied with Canada, successfully proposed that until the end of the war weapons could be completely installed and tested in the Lakes. After discussions in the Permanent Joint Board on Defense, in 1946, Canada similarly proposed to interpret the agreement as permitting using ships for training purposes if each country notified the other.
"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rush%E2%80%93Bagot_Treaty
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On This Day: Titanic sinks two hours forty min. after hitting an iceberg - 710 of 2,224 survive - Apr. 15, 1912
https://www.democraticunderground.com/1016375941
On This Day: For J.W. Booth, voting rights for freed slaves was final grievance among many - Apr. 14, 1865
https://www.democraticunderground.com/1016375905
On This Day: 50 industrialists, artists, and scientists found the Met art museum. Recent controversies. - Apr. 13, 1870
https://www.democraticunderground.com/1016375851
On This Day: Polio vaccine found safe and effective. Now, polio returns with anti-vax movement. - Apr. 12, 1955
https://www.democraticunderground.com/1016375800
On This Day: Truman fires MacArthur. Top brass criticize MacArthur's dangerous ideas in secret sessions. - Apr. 11, 1951
https://www.democraticunderground.com/1016375745
On This Day: Titanic sinks two hours forty min. after hitting an iceberg - 710 of 2,224 survive - Apr. 15, 1912
(edited from Wikipedia)
"
Sinking of the Titanic
RMS Titanic sank in the early morning hours of 15 April 1912 in the North Atlantic Ocean, four days into her maiden voyage from Southampton to New York City. The largest ocean liner in service at the time, Titanic had an estimated 2,224 people on board when she struck an iceberg at around 23:40 (ship's time) on Sunday, 14 April 1912. Her sinking two hours and forty minutes later at 02:20 ship's time (05:18 GMT) on Monday, 15 April, resulted in the deaths of more than 1,500 people, making it one of the deadliest peacetime maritime disasters in history.
Titanic received six warnings of sea ice on 14 April but was travelling at a speed of roughly 22 knots (41 km/h) when her lookouts sighted the iceberg. Unable to turn quickly enough, the ship suffered a glancing blow that buckled her starboard side and opened six of her sixteen compartments to the sea. Titanic had been designed to stay afloat with up to four of her forward compartments flooded, and the crew used distress flares and radio (wireless) messages to attract help as the passengers were put into lifeboats.
In accordance with existing practice, the Titanic's lifeboat system was designed to ferry passengers to nearby rescue vessels, not to hold everyone on board simultaneously; therefore, with the ship sinking rapidly and help still hours away, there was no safe refuge for many of the passengers and crew with only twenty lifeboats, including four collapsible lifeboats. Poor preparation for and management of the evacuation meant many boats were launched before they were completely full.
The Titanic sank with over a thousand passengers and crew still on board. Almost all of those who jumped or fell into the sea drowned or died within minutes due to the effects of cold shock and incapacitation. RMS Carpathia arrived about an hour and a half after the sinking and rescued all of the 710 survivors by 09:15 on 15 April, some nine and a half hours after the collision. The disaster shocked the world and caused widespread outrage over the lack of lifeboats, lax regulations, and the unequal treatment of third-class passengers during the evacuation. Subsequent inquiries recommended sweeping changes to maritime regulations, leading to the establishment in 1914 of the International Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea (SOLAS) which still governs maritime safety today.
[Unprecedented scale]
At the time of her entry into service on 2 April 1912, the Titanic was the second of three Olympic-class ocean liners, and was the largest ship in the world. She and the earlier RMS Olympic were almost one and a half times the gross register tonnage of Cunard's RMS Lusitania and RMS Mauretania, the previous record holders, and were nearly 100 feet longer. The Titanic could carry 3,547 people in speed and comfort, and was built on an unprecedented scale. Her reciprocating engines were the largest that had ever been built, standing 40 feet high and with cylinders 9 feet in diameter requiring the burning of 600 long tons (610 t) of coal per day.
[Steep first class fares]
The passenger accommodation, especially the first class section, was said to be "of unrivalled extent and magnificence", indicated by the fares that first class accommodation commanded. The Parlour Suites (the most expensive and most luxurious suites on the ship) with private promenade cost over $4,350 (equivalent to $137,000 today) for a one-way transatlantic passage. Even third class, though considerably less luxurious than second and first classes, was unusually comfortable by contemporary standards and was supplied with plentiful quantities of good food, providing her passengers with better conditions than many of them had experienced at home.
[Titanic's builder on board]
Captain Smith felt the collision in his cabin and immediately came to the bridge. Informed of the situation, he summoned Thomas Andrews, Titanic's builder, who was among a party of engineers from Harland and Wolff observing the ship's first passenger voyage. The ship was listing five degrees to starboard and was two degrees down by the head within a few minutes of the collision. Smith and Andrews went below and found that the forward cargo holds, the mail room and the squash court were flooded, while No. 6 boiler room was already filled to a depth of 14 feet. Water was spilling over into No. 5 boiler room, and crewmen there were battling to pump it out.
Within 45 minutes of the collision, at least 13,500 long tons (13,700 t) of water had entered the ship. This was far too much for Titanic's ballast and bilge pumps to handle; the total pumping capacity of all the pumps combined was only 1,700 long tons (1,700 t) per hour. Andrews informed the captain that the first five compartments were flooded, and therefore Titanic was doomed. Andrews accurately predicted that she could remain afloat for no longer than roughly two hours.
[Passengers skeptical at first]
Few passengers at first were willing to board the lifeboats and the officers in charge of the evacuation found it difficult to persuade them. Millionaire John Jacob Astor declared: "We are safer here than in that little boat." Some passengers refused flatly to embark. J. Bruce Ismay, realising the urgency of the situation, roamed the starboard boat deck urging passengers and crew to board the boats. A trickle of women, couples and single men were persuaded to board starboard lifeboat No. 7, which became the first lifeboat to be lowered.
The lifeboats were lowered every few minutes on each side, but most of the boats were greatly under-filled. No. 5 left with 41 aboard, No. 3 had 32 aboard, No. 8 left with 39 and No. 1 left with just 12 out of a capacity of 40. The evacuation did not go smoothly and passengers suffered accidents and injuries as it progressed.
By 01:20, the seriousness of the situation was now apparent to the passengers above decks, who began saying their goodbyes, with husbands escorting their wives and children to the lifeboats. Distress flares were fired every few minutes to attract the attention of any ships nearby and the radio operators repeatedly sent the distress signal CQD.
By this time, it was clear to those on Titanic that the ship was indeed sinking and there would not be enough lifeboat places for everyone. Some still clung to the hope that the worst would not happen. Other couples refused to be separated.
The industrialist Benjamin Guggenheim changed out of his life vest and sweater into top hat and evening dress and declared his wish to go down like a gentleman.
[Immigration laws and treatment of third-class passengers]
At this point, the vast majority of passengers who had boarded lifeboats were from first- and second-class. Few third-class (steerage) passengers had made it up onto the deck, and most were still lost in the maze of corridors or trapped behind gates and partitions that segregated the accommodation for the steerage passengers from the first- and second-class areas.
This segregation was not simply for social reasons, but was a requirement of United States immigration laws, which mandated that third-class passengers be segregated to control immigration and to prevent the spread of infectious diseases.
First- and second-class passengers on transatlantic liners disembarked at the main piers on Manhattan Island, but steerage passengers had to go through health checks and processing at Ellis Island.
In at least some places, Titanic's crew appear to have actively hindered the steerage passengers' escape. Some of the gates were locked and guarded by crew members, apparently to prevent the steerage passengers from rushing the lifeboats.
A long and winding route had to be taken to reach topside; the steerage-class accommodation, located on C through G decks, was at the extreme ends of the decks, and so was the farthest away from the lifeboats. By contrast, the first-class accommodation was located on the upper decks and so was nearest. Proximity to the lifeboats thus became a key factor in determining who got into them. To add to the difficulty, many of the steerage passengers did not understand or speak English. It was perhaps no coincidence that English-speaking Irish immigrants were disproportionately represented among the steerage passengers who survived. Many of those who did survive owed their lives to third-class steward John Edward Hart, who organised three trips into the ship's interior to escort groups of third-class passengers up to the boat deck. Others made their way through open gates or climbed emergency ladders.
["Stoic passivity"]
Some, perhaps overwhelmed by it all, made no attempt to escape and stayed in their cabins or congregated in prayer in the third-class dining room. Leading Fireman Charles Hendrickson saw crowds of third-class passengers below decks with their trunks and possessions, as if waiting for someone to direct them. Psychologist Wynn Craig Wade attributes this to "stoic passivity" produced by generations of being told what to do by social superiors. August Wennerström, one of the male steerage passengers to survive, commented later that many of his companions had made no effort to save themselves. He wrote:
Hundreds were in a circle [in the third-class dining saloon] with a preacher in the middle, praying, crying, asking God and Mary to help them. They lay there and yelled, never lifting a hand to help themselves. They had lost their own will power and expected God to do all the work for them.
The remaining boats were filled much closer to capacity and in an increasing rush.
[Fate of Andrews and Smith]
The ship's designer, Thomas Andrews, was reportedly last seen in the first-class smoking room after approximately 02:05, apparently making no attempt to escape. However, there is circumstantial evidence to suggest that Andrews was sighted in the smoking room prior to 01:40, as well as other reports that indicate that Andrews then continued assisting with the evacuation. He was reportedly seen throwing deck chairs into the ocean for passengers to cling to in the water, heading to the bridge, perhaps in search of Captain Smith. Mess steward Cecil Fitzpatrick claimed to have seen Andrews jump overboard from the bridge with Smith. Neither man survived.
As most of the passengers and crew headed to the stern, where the priest Thomas Byles, a second-class passenger, was hearing confessions and giving absolutions, Titanic's band played outside the gymnasium.
Part of the enduring folklore of the Titanic sinking is that the musicians played the hymn "Nearer, My God, to Thee" as the ship sank, though some regard this as dubious. Nonetheless, the claim surfaced among the earliest reports of the sinking, and the hymn became so closely associated with the Titanic disaster that its opening bars were carved on the grave monument of Titanic's bandmaster, Wallace Hartley, one of those who perished.
[Legislation]
The disaster led to major changes in maritime regulations to implement new safety measures, such as ensuring that more lifeboats were provided, that lifeboat drills were properly carried out and that radio equipment on passenger ships was manned around the clock. Radio operators were to give priority to emergency and hazard messages over private messages and to use the Q code to minimize language problems. Shore stations of the rival international "wireless" networks, Marconi of Britain and Telefunken of Germany, were required to handle all radio calls including those of the other network. An International Ice Patrol was set up to monitor the presence of icebergs in the North Atlantic, and maritime safety regulations were harmonised internationally through the International Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea (SOLAS).
"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinking_of_the_Titanic
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