Showing posts with label George Washington. Show all posts
Showing posts with label George Washington. Show all posts

Saturday, May 19, 2018

This was their finest hour - Perspective on a #TurningPoint: Winston Churchill - Their Finest Hour speech (Complete) His most-famous speech made after reflection at the most-famous moment in British history

This was their finest hour - Perspective on a #TurningPoint: Winston Churchill - Their Finest Hour speech (Complete) His most-famous speech made after reflection at the most-famous moment in British history

Meant to post this yesterday afternoon...












So, naturally, with me, as always, there's a backstory...

Family Trivia: My paternal ancestors, the ones who came to America in the 17th Century, left an area of central England corresponding roughly to where the story of Robin Hood and his Merry Men in Sherwood Forest was set, eventually making their way to a town in New England where history of a different sort was made - Salem, Massachusetts, before and during the infamous Witch Trials.
That same family had the second Minister of the very first Baptist Church in the Colonies, in that very Baptist city of... Newport, Rhode Island! :-)

One of their descendents marched in the French and Indian War with British Gen. Braddock, directly under a young and overly-confident George Washington, from present day Alexandria, VA towards French-held Fort Duquesne (Pittsburgh), in a quite disastrous effort by the British that killed Braddock and which was nearly the undoing for good of Washington and his reputation. Same ancestor, years later, was a spy for Gen. Washington against the British in the American Revolution -he knew his way around the area like a realtor!- and for his efforts, was later given land in the Ohio Territories.

Which is why my family has been in Ohio since before it became a state in 1803, settling in a town on the Ohio River south of Canton, where the NFL was born, southwest of Pittsburgh.
That's why my late father was born in Steubenville, a couple of years after singer Dean Martin.


https://youtu.be/esU7kPQLEck
David Cameron's Favourite Past Prime Minister
10 Downing Street
Published on Mar 13, 2012

Prime Minister David Cameron's personal reflections on why Winston Churchill is his favourite former Prime Minister.


PRIME MINISTER DAVID CAMERON "My favourite Prime Minister is this man right here, Winston Churchill. He was an incredible leader for our country and indeed for the whole free world at the most impossibly difficult time. Just a few yards away from here is the Cabinet Room, and Winston Churchill, as Prime Minister, sat in that Cabinet Room and decided, with his colleagues, to fight on against Nazi Germany and Hitler, even after France had fallen. That was a heroic decision, a right decision, and actually meant that the world was saved from Nazi tyranny. It was the most important moment in British history, and I think it's because of his courage and guts that we made the right call."

ARCHIVE NEWS FOOTAGE "Behind Winston Churchill we stand united as never before in history."

PRIME MINISTER DAVID CAMERON "Well obviously he came to office in Nineteen Forty at a desperately difficult time; France was about to fall, the war was going extraordinarily badly from Britain's point of view, Hitler was rampant across Europe, it looked like the end for the free world, the end for Britain, and the end for Churchill too. But he showed incredible bravery, incredible courage, at bringing the nation together, forging a courageous spirit, taking on Hitler, and eventually winning. So it was a very difficult time for Britain, a time when you needed the best possible leader, the most courageous possible leader to come forward, and in Winston Churchill we were incredibly fortunate to have that man."


Winston Churchill - Their Finest Hour Speech - Complete

"If the Empire lasts a thousand years men will say, this was their finest hour."










Tuesday, July 4, 2017

Musings on American Independence Day #241

On this Fourth of July, Independence Day #241, so much to be grateful for, including among others things:

High-flying friends who think of me and tweet me from the most-unlikely of places... like an SAS Airbus 330















I also think of lost-dead ancestors who, when it mattered most, stepped-up and did what what was needed in order to make that dream they had for a free and independent nation, a living reality.




On IndependenceDay, I always think about a particular paternal ancestor of mine who was a spy for Gen. Washington during the American RevolutionaryWar, and think about all the problems and the daily peril he knowingly put himself in, to serve, knowing that he'd be killed if caught by the #British Redcoats.




When they were both younger, this same ancestor had marched with George Washington 21 years before under British Gen. Edward Braddock from Alexandria, Virgina to Fort Duquesne (Pittsburgh) to fight in The #FrenchandIndianWar, 1755.


Having survived that living hell, and many years of being a Revolutionary War spy, he lived to see the Thirteen Colonies full of vary different cultures and traditions become one free nation.

He was the first of many ancestors of mine who were to live in Ohio over the next 200-plus years, living there on bounty-land he was given by Congress as partial payment for his services during the war effort. 

He was in Ohio even before it became a state in 1805, and was then part of the Northwest Territory, the Ohio Territory, settling in an area north of Steubenville, where the U.S. land grant office was established.

And there he lived right near the Ohio river, an hour southwest from Pittsburgh and the general area where he had witnessed firsthand wholesale bloodshed of a sort that he never saw before and never wanted to see afterwards.



@HamiltonQuotes: There is a certain enthusiasm in liberty, that makes human nature rise above itself, in acts of bravery and heroism. #Hamilton

In case you are new to the blog or unaware of the good news, starting in October, SAS, @SAS, will start flying non-stop flights between Stockholm Arlanda Airport, @Arlanda and Miami International Airport, @iflymia, after SAS initiated flights last fall between Copehangen @CPHAirports and Oslo @Oslolufthavn and Miami..





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Wednesday, November 11, 2009

My oldest military ancestor: Continental Army spy for Gen. Washington

The oldest military veteran that I've been
able to find in my family thru my up-and-down
genealogy pursuits over the past 25 years,
where I've spent what's seemed like entire
months at both The National Archives
and the Local History and Genealogy
Reading Room of the Library of Congress
is a paternal ancestor who was a spy for
Gen. George Washington in the Continental
Army.

(See http://www.archives.gov/,
http://www.archives.gov/genealogy/,
http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/,
http://www.loc.gov/rr/genealogy/,

http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/index.html ,
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/award99/icuhtml/
)


Over twenty years previously, in 1755,
he'd been an enlisted man under a young
Washington when they marched en masse
from Alexandria to Fort Duquesne (Pittsburgh)
with British Gen. Edward Braddock on his
ill-fated expedition to capture that strategic
French fort.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Braddock
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Braddock_expedition

(One of the Washington, D.C. Metrorail
stations in Old Town Alexandria is actually
called Braddock Road.
http://transit.schuminweb.com/transit/wmata/blue-line.php?station=C12
It's the Metro station that's only a few
hundred feet from the HQ of PBS.
Here in South Florida. as we all know,
they'd name the station after a living politician!)



After the Revolutionary War ended
and my ancestor manged to avoid
being captured and having a British
Army noose wrapped around his neck,
for his efforts, he received some land
way out in the Ohio Territories
,
about an hour from current-day
Pittsburgh, .

Which is why my paternal ancestors
and family have lived continuously
in Jefferson County, Ohio, right off
the Ohio River, since before it
became a state.


And me, I was born at the Lackland
Air Force Base hospital in San Antonio,
where
my mother worked right next door,
directly under the Base Commander at
Kelly AFB, where my father was in the
Flight Surgeon's Office.
http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/facility/kelly.htm
http://www.mysanantonio.com/military

They each saw President and
Mrs. Kennedy
the day before he was
killed, when Air Force
One flew into
Kelly and went thru the official
receiving
line.

Our family has a photograph
of them
at the base that day that I've never
seen
published anywhere else in the myriad

books and film footage of their time in
Texas.
One day...

Happy Veteran's Day!

U.S. Flag over the Pentagon
United we stand...