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



Zachary Taylor (November 24, 1784 – July 9, 1850) was the 12th president of the United States, serving from March 1849 until his death in July 1850. Taylor previously was a career officer in the United States Army, rose to the rank of major general and became a national hero as a result of his victories in the Mexican–American War. As a result, he won election to the White House despite his vague political beliefs. His top priority as president was preserving the Union, but he died sixteen months into his term, before making any progress on the status of slavery, which had been inflaming tensions in Congress.

Taylor was born into a prominent family of plantation owners who moved westward from Virginia to Kentucky in his youth. He was commissioned as an officer in the U.S. Army in 1808 and made a name for himself as a captain in the War of 1812. He climbed the ranks establishing military forts along the Mississippi River and entered the Black Hawk War as a colonel in 1832. His success in the Second Seminole War attracted national attention and earned him the nickname "Old Rough and Ready". In 1845, during the annexation of Texas, President James K. Polk dispatched Taylor to the Rio Grande in anticipation of a battle with Mexico over the disputed Texas–Mexico border. The Mexican–American War broke out in April 1846, and Taylor defeated Mexican troops commanded by General Mariano Arista at the battles of Palo Alto and Resaca de la Palma and drove his troops out of Texas. Taylor then led his troops into Mexico, where they defeated Mexican troops commanded by Pedro de Ampudia at the Battle of Monterrey. Defying orders, Taylor led his troops further south and, despite being severely outnumbered, dealt a crushing blow to Mexican forces under Antonio López de Santa Anna at the Battle of Buena Vista. Taylor's troops were transferred to the command of Major General Winfield Scott, but Taylor retained his popularity.

The Whig Party convinced the reluctant Taylor to lead their ticket in the 1848 presidential election, despite his unclear political tenets and lack of interest in politics. At the 1848 Whig National Convention, Taylor defeated Scott and former Senator Henry Clay to take the nomination. He won the general election alongside New York politician Millard Fillmore, defeating Democratic Party candidates Lewis Cass and William Orlando Butler, as well as a third-party effort led by former president Martin Van Buren and Charles Francis Adams, Sr. of the Free Soil Party. Taylor became the first president to be elected without having served in a prior political office.

As president, Taylor kept his distance from Congress and his cabinet, even though partisan tensions threatened to divide the Union. Debate over the status of slavery in the Mexican Cession dominated the political agenda and led to threats of secession from Southerners. Despite being a Southerner and a slaveholder himself, Taylor did not push for the expansion of slavery, and sought sectional harmony above all other concerns. To avoid the issue of slavery, he urged settlers in New Mexico and California to bypass the territorial stage and draft constitutions for statehood, setting the stage for the Compromise of 1850. Taylor died suddenly of a stomach disease on July 9, 1850, with his administration having accomplished little aside from the ratification of the Clayton–Bulwer Treaty. Fillmore served the remainder of his term. Historians and scholars have ranked Taylor in the bottom quartile of U.S. presidents, owing in part to his short term of office (16 months), and he has been described as "more a forgettable president than a failed one."

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Death


An 1850 print depicting the death of Zachary Taylor

On July 4, 1850, Taylor reportedly consumed copious amounts of raw fruit and iced milk while attending holiday celebrations during a fund-raising event at the Washington Monument, which was then under construction. Over the course of several days, he became severely ill with an unknown digestive ailment. His doctor "diagnosed the illness as cholera morbus, a flexible mid-nineteenth-century term for intestinal ailments as diverse as diarrhea and dysentery but not related to Asiatic cholera", the latter being a widespread epidemic at the time of Taylor's death. The identity and source of Taylor's illness are the subject of historical speculation (see below), although it is known that several of his cabinet members had come down with a similar illness.

Fever ensued and Taylor's chance of recovery was small. On July 8, Taylor remarked to a medical attendant:

I should not be surprised if this were to terminate in my death. I did not expect to encounter what has beset me since my elevation to the Presidency. God knows I have endeavored to fulfill what I conceived to be an honest duty. But I have been mistaken. My motives have been misconstrued, and my feelings most grossly outraged.

Despite treatment, Taylor died at 10:35 p.m. on July 9, 1850. He was 65 years old. After his death, Vice President Fillmore assumed the presidency and completed Taylor's term, which ended on March 4, 1853. Soon after taking office, Fillmore signed into law the Compromise of 1850, which settled many of the issues faced by the Taylor administration.

Taylor was interred in the Public Vault of the Congressional Cemetery in Washington, D.C., from July 13, 1850, to October 25, 1850 (which was built in 1835 to hold remains of notables until either the grave site could be prepared or transportation arranged to another city). His body was transported to the Taylor Family plot where his parents were buried on the old Taylor homestead plantation known as "Springfield" in Louisville, Kentucky.

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https://twitter.com/itsJeffTiedrich/status/1147883019119878145
Jeff Tiedrich @itsJeffTiedrich

like all devout Christians, Trump believes that marriage is a sacred institution between a man and a woman and a another woman after that and then another woman after that and also some paid-off porn actresses and Playboy models and of course whoever Jeffrey Epstein brings along

11:00 AM - Jul 7, 2019

https://twitter.com/gtconway3d/status/1147843633397284864
George Conway @gtconway3d

From a 2010 deposition of Jeffrey Epstein:

“Q. Have you ever socialized with Donald Trump in the presence of females under the age of 18?
“A: Though I'd like to answer that question, at least today I'm going to have to assert my Fifth, Sixth, and 14th Amendment rights, sir.”

VICE News ✔ @vicenews
The salacious ammo even Donald Trump won't use in a fight against Hillary Clinton: http://bit.ly/1SwNtj2

8:23 AM - Jul 7, 2019 · Ventnor City, NJ

https://twitter.com/PaulMcCartney/status/1147836432121237505
Paul McCartney ✔ @PaulMcCartney



Happy Birthday to the best drummer in the world. Have a great one @ringostarrmusic. Love, Paul

7:55 AM - Jul 7, 2019

https://twitter.com/tedlieu/status/1147733621010128896
Ted Lieu ✔ @tedlieu

@realDonaldTrump Labor Secretary @SecretaryAcosta gave child molester Jeffrey Epstein a sweetheart deal when Acosta was an US Attorney. Now it turns out Epstein may have molested more individuals.

Why is Acosta still Labor Secretary?

Elie Honig ✔ @eliehonig

Good. The SDNY won’t be bought like Alex Acosta was to make a charge go away on a rich, powerful sexual predator. (I would say “alleged” but Epstein has already been convicted of procuring a minor for prostitution).https://www.thedailybeast.com/jeffrey-epstein-arrested-for-sex-trafficking-of-minors-source …

1:06 AM - Jul 7, 2019

https://twitter.com/funder/status/1147728686373904385
Scott Dworkin ✔ @funder

Convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein deposition: Epstein was asked if he socialized with Donald Trump. He responded with “yes.”

Then he was asked if he had ever socialized with Trump in presence of females under age of 18? He plead the fifth.

12:46 AM - Jul 7, 2019

https://twitter.com/robreiner/status/1147705597980078080
Rob Reiner ✔ @robreiner

I’ll bet Trump is wishing he hadn’t said what a great guy Jeffrey Epstein was. And that he liked beautiful girls as much as he does, especially the ones on the younger side. Rest easy, Mr. President.

11:15 PM - Jul 6, 2019

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/07/06/us/migrants-border-patrol-clint.html

CLINT, Tex. — Since the Border Patrol opened its station in Clint, Tex., in 2013, it was a fixture in this West Texas farm town. Separated from the surrounding cotton fields and cattle pastures by a razor-wire fence, the station stood on the town’s main road, near a feed store, the Good News Apostolic Church and La Indita Tortillería. Most people around Clint had little idea of what went on inside. Agents came and went in pickup trucks; buses pulled into the gates with the occasional load of children apprehended at the border, four miles south.

But inside the secretive site that is now on the front lines of the southwest border crisis, the men and women who work there were grappling with the stuff of nightmares.

Outbreaks of scabies, shingles and chickenpox were spreading among the hundreds of children who were being held in cramped cells, agents said. The stench of the children’s dirty clothing was so strong it spread to the agents’ own clothing — people in town would scrunch their noses when they left work. The children cried constantly. One girl seemed likely enough to try to kill herself that the agents made her sleep on a cot in front of them, so they could watch her as they were processing new arrivals.

“It gets to a point where you start to become a robot,” said a veteran Border Patrol agent who has worked at the Clint station since it was built. He described following orders to take beds away from children to make more space in holding cells, part of a daily routine that he said had become “heartbreaking.”

The little-known Border Patrol facility at Clint has suddenly become the public face of the chaos on America’s southern border, after immigration lawyers began reporting on the children they saw — some of them as young as 5 months old — and the filthy, overcrowded conditions in which they were being held.



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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Quarrymen#Paul_McCartney_joins_the_group


The famous photo of the Quarrymen playing at St. Peter's Church garden fête, where Lennon and McCartney first met. From left to right: Griffiths, Hanton, Davis, Lennon, Shotton, Garry

On 6 July 1957, The Quarrymen played at the St. Peter's Church Rose Queen garden fête in Woolton. They first played on the back of a moving flatbed lorry, in a procession of floats that carried the Rose Queen and retiring Rose Queen, Morris dancers, Boy Scouts, Brownies, Girl Guides and Cubs, led by the Band of the Cheshire Yeomanry. At 4:15, they played on a permanent stage in the field behind the church, before a display by the City of Liverpool Police Dogs. They were playing "Come Go with Me" when Paul McCartney arrived, and in the Scout hut after the set, Ivan Vaughan introduced McCartney to Lennon, who chatted for a few minutes before the band set up in the church hall for their performance at that evening's "Grand Dance". McCartney demonstrated how he tuned his guitar and then sang Eddie Cochran's "Twenty Flight Rock", Gene Vincent's "Be-Bop-A-Lula", and a medley of Little Richard songs.

Vaughan and McCartney left before the evening show which started at 8 o'clock. During the performance, there was an unexpected thunderstorm, which made the lights go out. Bob Molyneux, a young schoolmate from Quarry Bank, recorded part of the performance on his Grundig TK8 portable reel-to-reel tape recorder. The tape included versions of Lonnie Donegan's "Puttin' on the Style" and Elvis' "Baby Let's Play House". In 1963, Molyneux offered the tape to Lennon via Ringo Starr, but Lennon never responded, so Molyneux put the tape in a vault.

As they were walking home after the evening performance, Lennon and Shotton discussed the afternoon encounter with McCartney, and Lennon said that perhaps they should invite McCartney to join the band. Two weeks later, Shotton encountered McCartney cycling through Woolton, and conveyed Lennon's casual invitation for him to join the Quarrymen, and Vaughan also invited McCartney to join. McCartney said he would join after Scout camp in Hathersage, and a holiday with his family at Butlins holiday camp in Filey, Yorkshire. Shotton and Davis both left the Quarrymen in August, feeling that the group was moving away from skiffle and towards rock, leaving their instruments superfluous. When McCartney returned from holiday, he began rehearsing with the Quarrymen, playing songs such as "Bye Bye Love" (The Everly Brothers) and "All Shook Up", which Lennon and the group had been trying to learn, without success.

McCartney made his debut with the band on 18 October 1957 at a Conservative Club social held at the New Clubmoor Hall in the Norris Green section of Liverpool. Lennon and McCartney wore cream-coloured sports jackets, which were paid for by the whole group—Walley collected half a crown per week from each member until they were paid for — and the others wore white shirts with tassels and black bootlace ties. To the irritation of the other group members, McCartney endlessly practised the lead guitar intro to "Raunchy". The Quarrymen continued to play sparse gigs throughout the autumn of 1957, mostly for local promoter Charlie McBain. During this period, the group almost entirely excised skiffle from their repertoire, focusing on covers of songs by rock and roll singers such as Elvis Presley, Carl Perkins, Little Richard, and Larry Williams, and the Quarrymen's sound increasingly relied on harmony singing between Lennon and McCartney. An extremely important influence for them at the time was Buddy Holly and his group the Crickets. Around this time, Lennon and McCartney both started writing songs influenced by Holly - Lennon's "Hello Little Girl" and McCartney's "I Lost My Little Girl" - and both were impressed with each other's efforts. The two began writing together, and their writing partnership would become very successful throughout the 1960s.



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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jackie_Robinson#Military_career


Robinson in his Army uniform, ca. 1943, during a visit to his home in Pasadena, California, receiving a military salute from his nephew Frank

Military career
In 1942, Robinson was drafted and assigned to a segregated Army cavalry unit in Fort Riley, Kansas. Having the requisite qualifications, Robinson and several other black soldiers applied for admission to an Officer Candidate School (OCS) then located at Fort Riley. Although the Army's initial July 1941 guidelines for OCS had been drafted as race neutral, few black applicants were admitted into OCS until after subsequent directives by Army leadership. As a result, the applications of Robinson and his colleagues were delayed for several months. After protests by heavyweight boxing champion Joe Louis (then stationed at Fort Riley) and the help of Truman Gibson (then an assistant civilian aide to the Secretary of War), the men were accepted into OCS. The experience led to a personal friendship between Robinson and Louis. Upon finishing OCS, Robinson was commissioned as a second lieutenant in January 1943. Shortly afterward, Robinson and Isum were formally engaged.

After receiving his commission, Robinson was reassigned to Fort Hood, Texas, where he joined the 761st "Black Panthers" Tank Battalion. While at Fort Hood, Robinson often used his weekend leave to visit the Rev. Karl Downs, President of Sam Huston College (now Huston-Tillotson University) in nearby Austin, Texas; Downs had been Robinson's pastor at Scott United Methodist Church while Robinson attended PJC.

An event on July 6, 1944 derailed Robinson's military career. While awaiting results of hospital tests on the ankle he had injured in junior college, Robinson boarded an Army bus with a fellow officer's wife; although the Army had commissioned its own unsegregated bus line, the bus driver ordered Robinson to move to the back of the bus. Robinson refused. The driver backed down, but after reaching the end of the line, summoned the military police, who took Robinson into custody. When Robinson later confronted the investigating duty officer about racist questioning by the officer and his assistant, the officer recommended Robinson be court-martialed. After Robinson's commander in the 761st, Paul L. Bates, refused to authorize the legal action, Robinson was summarily transferred to the 758th Battalion—where the commander quickly consented to charge Robinson with multiple offenses, including, among other charges, public drunkenness, even though Robinson did not drink.

By the time of the court-martial in August 1944, the charges against Robinson had been reduced to two counts of insubordination during questioning. Robinson was acquitted by an all-white panel of nine officers. The experiences Robinson was subjected to during the court proceedings would be remembered when he later joined MLB and was subjected to racist attacks. Although his former unit, the 761st Tank Battalion, became the first black tank unit to see combat in World War II, Robinson's court-martial proceedings prohibited him from being deployed overseas; thus, he never saw combat action.

After his acquittal, he was transferred to Camp Breckinridge, Kentucky, where he served as a coach for army athletics until receiving an honorable discharge in November 1944. While there, Robinson met a former player for the Kansas City Monarchs of the Negro American League, who encouraged Robinson to write the Monarchs and ask for a tryout. Robinson took the former player's advice and wrote to Monarchs' co-owner Thomas Baird.

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