Genealogist- This will make you feel legendary- December 3, 2022

01 Dec Genealogist- This will make you feel legendary- December 3, 2022

GENEALOGIST- THE GREAT RAILROAD STRIKE OF 1877

The Great Railroad Strike of 1877, sometimes referred to as the Great Upheaval, began on July 14 in Martinsburg, West Virginia, after the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad (B&O) cut wages for the third time in a year. This strike finally ended 52 days later, after it was put down by unofficial militias, the National Guard, and federal troops. Because of economic problems and pressure on wages by the railroads, workers in numerous other cities, in New York, Pennsylvania, and Maryland, into Illinois and Missouri, also went out on strike. An estimated 100 people were killed in the unrest across the country. In Martinsburg (see picture), Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, and other cities, workers burned down and destroyed both physical facilities and the rolling stock of the railroads—engines and railroad cars. Local populations feared that workers were rising in revolution such as the Paris Commune of 1871.

At the time, the workers were not represented by trade unions. The city and state governments were aided by unofficial militias, the National Guard, federal troops and private militias organized by the railroads, who all fought against the workers. Disruption was widespread and at its height, the strikes were supported by about 100,000 workers. With the intervention of federal troops in several locations, most of the strikes were suppressed by early August. Labor continued to work to organize into unions to work for better wages and conditions. Fearing the social disruption, many cities built armories to support the local National Guard units; these defensive buildings still stand as symbols of the effort to suppress the labor unrest of this period.

With public attention on workers’ wages and conditions, the B&O in 1880 founded an Employee Relief Association to provide death benefits and some health care. In 1884, it established a worker pension plan. Other improvements were implemented later. GENEALOGIST.

GENEALOGIST- DID YOU SAY THIS PLANE CAUGHT A DESCENDING SPACE CAPSULE?

The Fairchild C-119 Flying Boxcar (Navy and Marine Corps designation R4Q) was an American military transport aircraft developed from the World War II-era Fairchild C-82 Packet, designed to carry cargo, personnel, litter patients, and mechanized equipment, and to drop cargo and troops by parachute. The first C-119 made its initial flight in November 1947, and by the time production ceased in 1955, more than 1,100 C-119s had been built.

Perhaps the most remarkable use of the C-119 was the aerial recovery of balloons, UAVs, and even satellites. The first use of this technique was in 1955, when C-119s were used to recover Ryan AQM-34 Firebee unmanned targets. The 456th Troop Carrier Wing, which was attached to the Strategic Air Command (SAC) from 25 April 1955 – 26 May 1956, used C-119s to retrieve instrument packages from high-altitude reconnaissance balloons. C-119s from the 6593rd Test Squadron based at Hickam Air Force Base, Hawaii performed several aerial recoveries of film-return capsules during the early years of the Corona spy satellite program. On 19 August 1960, the recovery by a C-119 of film from the Corona mission code-named Discoverer 14 was the first successful recovery of film from an orbiting satellite and the first aerial recovery of an object returning from Earth orbit.

One aircraft was specially modified for the mid-air retrieval of space capsules reentering the atmosphere from orbit. On 19 August 1960 this aircraft made the world’s first mid-air recovery of a capsule returning from space when it “snagged” the parachute lowering the Discoverer 14 satellite at 8,000 feet (2,400 m) altitude 360 miles (580 km) southwest of Honolulu, Hawaii.

GENEALOGIST- OLDEST MESSAGE IN A BOTTLE?

A 135-year-old message was recently found beneath the floorboards of a house in Scotland. Although the note did not disclose the location of any rare treasure, nor any words of wisdom from Sting, it did contain a funny message from two (definitely not drunk) Victorians.
The whiskey bottle and note were recently discovered by Paul Allan, owner of the WF Wightman Plumbing company while carrying out some work at a house in the Morningside area of Edinburgh, as first reported by BBC Scotland.

Amazed by his chance discovery, Allan rushed downstairs to tell the owner of the house, Eilidh Stimpson. She decided to wait until her two kids returned home from school before smashing open the bottle with a hammer to reveal the note itself.

“We were desperately trying to get the note out with tweezers and pliers, but it started to rip a little bit. We didn’t want to damage it further, so regrettably had to smash the bottle,” Stimpson, the mum-of-two doctor, told Edinburgh Live.

They unraveled the ripped sheet of paper that was covered in scrawled handwriting, which read: “James Ritchie and John Grieve laid this floor, but they did not drink the whisky. October 6th, 1887.”

“Whoever finds this bottle may think our dust is blowing along the road.”

Allan suspects the note was discovered under what would have been a maid’s room when the house was first built, but little else is known about the identity of the note’s authors.

At 135 years old, this is an exceptionally old message in a bottle – perhaps the oldest ever found.

Prior to this discovery, the record holder was a 132-year-old bottle found in Australia. In 2018, the bottle was found by a family walking along the beach in West Australia. It turned out, the bottle was a genuine Dutch gin bottle from the late 19th century. Inside they found a rolled-up note written in German, explaining that it had been dropped off by a boat around 950 kilometers (590 miles) from the coast in the Indian Ocean. Most incredible of all, the note was dated June 12, 1886.

If this recent find in Scotland is authentic and dated accurately, however, then it could steal the title for the world’s oldest message in a bottle.

Courtesy of Tim Hale

GENEALOGIST FOR HIRE- HOLY ROMAN EMPEROR’S SECRET CASE BROKEN AFTER 500 YEARS, REVEALING FEARS OF ASSASSINATION

A letter written in secret code by Charles V, the former King of Spain and Holy Roman Emperor, has finally been deciphered by cryptographers after almost five centuries. The frustratingly enigmatic cipher initially proved too complex for codebreaking software to crack. Yet, a team of researchers eventually managed to interpret the message, revealing Charles’s worries about a rumored assassination plot.

Read more here: https://www.iflscience.com/holy-roman-emperor-s-secret-code-broken-after-500-years-revealing-assassination-fears-66387?mibextid=Zxz2cZ

https://assets.iflscience.com/assets/articleNo/66387/aImg/63711/charles-v-secret-code-letter-l.webp

GENEALOGIST

GENEALOGIST- YOUR ANCESTORS ARE WAITING TO BE DISCOVERED!

Reach out to Dancestors and let us research, discover, and preserve your family history. No one is getting any younger, and stories disappear from memory every year and eventually from our potential ability to find them. Paper gets thrown in the trash, and books survive! So do not hesitate and call me @ 214-914-3598. GENEALOGIST.