Joe's Daily U.S. History Lesson -- July 1

JULY 1 -- 1731 Ben Franklin opens the first library; 1862 Legend of the Hazard Circular; 1941 Comet becomes first comic book superhero to die

1731 -- Benjamin Franklin creates the first library. .

He was in his mid20s at the time, and when he reached age 42, exactly half his life span, he would retire from inventing so much cool stuff and get into diplomacy and politics.  Before he came up with the lightning rod or bifocals, and long before he was drafting the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, Ben was a writer printer publisher.

At age 15 he began working at his brother James’s printing press, writing memoirs under the pseudoname Mrs. Silence Dogood, who was a make-believe widow.  Ben got so into the character he managed to fool all his readers as well as James, that the character was real. When his brother found out Ben was Mrs.Dogood he was not happy.

At age 17, Ben ran away from home in Boston and moved to Philadelphia. In 1727, Franklin created the Junto, a thinking tank of like-minded  aspiring artisans and tradesmen who hope to improve themselves while they improved their community. Ben Franklin had laid out his 13 values much later on in his autobiography, but at a young age they were all setting in and defining his life: temperance, silence, order, resolution, frugality, industry, sincerity, justice, moderation, cleanliness, tranquility, chastity and humility. Ben Franklin understood the value of networking, taking calculated risks, and had a knack of solving problems of the day.

If he were alive today no doubt he would’ve made an app that could transport us to Mars. 1731 was, as usual, a busy year for Ben. He joined the Freemason’s Lodge, opened another printing press in South Carolina that would be managed by Thomas Whitmarsh and thereby coming up with the colonies only printing franchise, he began renting a commercial space to his mother-in law so she could sell burn and itch ointment, and published a piece for the Gazette criticizing the upcoming . Molasses Act.

His Junto think tank had a hard time getting books because they were rare and expensive. Ben came up with a plan to pool their resource0s together to buy books for all to read.

This concept would become Library Company, the first lending library in the country. It was on this day in 1731 that  a very young Benjamin Franklin, who’s been compared to Steve Jobs, Mark Zuckerberg, Henry /Ford and Thomas Edison all rolled into one, wrote the Articles of association for the Library Company.

1862 – The Hazard Circular either does or does not go into publication.

The legend goes as follows: Early on in the Civil War the United States needed a way to fund the military, so President Lincoln came up with a Greenback system that was a new issuance of paper money to be used in all debts and transactions. A plentiful but limited amount was pumped into the economy and was managed by Congress. This is a bad idea for big banks. The moneychangers didn’t care much for this idea, as they couldn’t control the greenback. The purposes of the Hazard Circular vary in its reason for existence. Some believe that England wanted to use the American Civil War as an opportunity to take back control of the northern states, and pressured Congress for central banking to control the US economy.

To illustrate, the following quote was issued by either Charles Hazzard, who represented the Bank of England, or Congressman Charles Lindbergh Senior, father of the legendary aviator, and it goes like this: Slavery is likely to be abolished by the war power, and chattel slavery destroyed.  This, I and my European friends are in favor of, for slavery is but the owning of labor, and carries with it the care of the laborer;  while the European plan, led on by England, is capital’s control on labor, by controlling wages.  This can be done by controlling the money.  The great debt that capitalists will see to it is made out of the war, must be used as a measure to control the volume of money.  To accomplish this, bonds must be used as a banking basis.  We are now waiting to get the Secretary of the Treasury to make this recommendation to Congress.  It will not do to allow the ‘greenback,’ as it is called, to circulate as money, any length of time, for we cannot control them.  But we can control the bonds, and through them the bank issue.”

This quote is well documented, but so what? Does that make it real? I tried to Google Hazard Circular and found very little information on it.  The letter didn’t even get discovered until 1886. To this day it’s hard to find evidence of its true authenticity. According to fileandclaw.com, the letter with the infamous quote I mentioned was leaked by a bank owner from Kansas who partnered up with some Congressman who dealt with bankers. The Kansas banker was Isaac Sharp, there’s an affidavit from James Nesbette, which claims it’s all true, but the bank that leaked the circular, or private letter, or whatever you want to call it, is H.S. Northrup and J.S. Chick.

Interestingly enough, there’s no Wikipedia doesn’t talk about the Hazard Circular. In fact, the only talk you can find about this publication is on conspiracy theory sites. There is one thing that we can take away from this, and that is somebody is lying.

1863 – Battle of Gettysburg begins. …This slaughter-fest had the most casualties of the entire war. Maj. Gen. George Meade and the Army of the Potomac V Confederate Gen. Robert E Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia. The result: Decisive Union Victory, in fact most likely the turning point for the Union during the entire Civil War.

Lee had just won big-time in Chancellorsville a month prior, and now was ready to go on the offense from Virginia to Pennsylvania, sending 60,000 troops and planning to destroy military posts along the way through Maryland while counting on the fact that the north would be occupied elsewhere, protecting Washington DC.

It was more of a political move than a strategic one, attempting to rally support from Britain and France to sympathize with the south. But the Army of the Potomac, known as the Iron Brigade was a tough army and was coming in to the west of Gettysburg.

During the skirmish on July 1st, the Confederates were able to drive the Union defenders to Cemetery Ridge. This put the Union army at an advantage, as three more Union regiments arrived to secure the hill in a fishhook formation. The following day on July 2nd, despite the advise of Lee’s second-in-command James Longstreet, Lee decided to go on the attack.

The bloody Battle raged at Little Round Top, the Whitfield Devil’s Den and the Peach Orchard. One of the Minnesota regiments held the position strongly for the Union despite huge losses. In the two days fighting, there were probably 35,000 casualties. As usual, the field was laid out with thousands and thousands of dead soldiers. Then on the third day, came Pickett’s Charge. And we’ll get to the on the 3rd of July.

PHILLY ZOO 1874 – On the west bank of the Schuylkill River, the very first zoo in America opened its doors in Philadelphia. Admission was 25 cents, . It’s one of the first zoos in the world for breeding animals that have found it difficult to breed in captivity. It has a 42-acre Victorian garden, home to more than 1300 animals, many of them rare and endangered.

The Furness Victorian gates and gatehouses and the Zoo’s location are the same today as they were on the day the zoo opened, accoutering to their website. On fact John Penn’s home is still there; he was the grandson of William Penn, founder of Pennsylvania. Where all the pencil’s come from.

1928 – Happy birthday Popeye. …Not the chicken place, although that’s great too, the sailor man. Popeye wouldn’t show up on Thimble Theater until January 17. He had really huge forearms and tiny biceps. Moms and dads listen up here. According to the August 2010 edition of the Toronto Globe and Mail, a study revealed that children increased their vegetable consumption after watching Popeye cartoons.

In fact, wiki says that the spinach growing community of Crystal City, TX, erected a statue of Popeye in recognition of the character’s positive effects open the spinach industry. Apparently it was believed much more in the 1930s that spinach had a much stronger iron content than the large amounts of Vitamin A that it actually has.

The Popeye Picnic is held every year in Chester, IL on the weekend after Labor Day. In 2004 the Empire state building illuminated its notable tower lights green one January weekend as a tribute to Popeye’s 75 anniversary in Thimble Theater, his original comic strip. In 2002, TV Guide ranked Popeye #20 on its 50 greatest cartoon characters of all time list.

1941 --  Comet becomes the first comic book superhero to die.

For Pep Comics #1, released Jan1 1939, the Shield was the main story, but Comet, written by Jack Cole, would turn out to be the hero. Comet started out by beating a gang of thugs who were killing typhoid fever patients to collect their insurance.

Once Comet caught up to the ring’s head guy and delivered justice, he was hypnotized, became a bad guy, snapped out of it, and became a refugee. He would die in Pep Comics #17 and be replaced by another ferocious figure, the Hangman.

1970 – Casey Kasem’s top 40 debuts ...nationally and become a big hit every Sunday morning for years to come.