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Home > Joe's Daily U.S. History Lesson > Joe's Daily U.S. History Lesson -- May 12
Podcast: Joe's Daily U.S. History Lesson
Episode:

Joe's Daily U.S. History Lesson -- May 12
Category: Education
Duration: 00:05:23
Publish Date: 2018-05-11 22:49:27
Description:

APRIL 12 1932 – The Lindbergh baby is found dead …near the woods in the biggest story since the Resurrection. Not sure what that means, but that’s how the story read in the newspapers. Just five years prior, Charles Lindbergh became famous by flying a single seater non-stop across the Atlantic.

In 1932 his twenty month old son Charles junior was kidnapped in his New Jersey home on the second floor. A ransom note demanding $50,000 was found in the baby’s pillow in his bedroom. The ensuing investigation didn’t find anything for a few days until a second note showed up, this one with the ransom changed to $70,000.

When the money was delivered the Lindbergh’s were informed that the baby was on a boat off the coast of Massachusetts, but the boat was never found. However the baby was found on May 12 in the woods near the Lindbergh residence. The autopsy revealed that the baby died of a skull fracture. The unsolved mystery finally got a lead in September two years later when a gas station attendant reported being handed a marked bill from the ransom, which led police to Bruno Hauptman, who found $13,000 of the money. Hauptmann denied involvement, but was found guilty and fried in the electric chair in 1935. In Cold War news…

1949 – The USSR stops blocking Berlin from the Allies. …In Post WWII, Germany as well as its capital Berlin was divided into four sections, the Soviet, British, French, and American sections. Friendly relations between the Soviet Union and the rest of the Allies went sour and Berlin was literally and figuratively right in the middle. The question of what to do with Germany was a tough one. The city was in ruins, the shelter and warmth was scarce, the black market subjugated the economic life, and starvation was a problem.

It seemed as though the Marshall Plan and the Truman Doctrine, both written for the intention of recovering Germany, was just escalating hostilities between the east and the west. When the allies started printing a Deutch mark the West Berliners and Germans could use for currency, the Soviets retaliated blocking rail, road and water access to allied-controlled areas of Berlin. This included power and coal. The Soviet intentions were to squeeze the life out of West Germany until they submitted to communism.

So the American and British allies airlifted food, supplies and coal to the west. The pilots encountered harsh weather, strict time limits, and hostile enemies in the Soviets just waiting to attack. At the airlift’s peak, there was an allied plane dropping supplies every minute. The winter was especially brutal for this mission, but the Allies endured, and by the time winter broke in 1949, and hundreds of thousands of tons of supplies and food were dropped off every month. They even dropped off chocolate for the kids.

The Soviet plans, as usual, didn’t work, and the Russians caved and lifted the blockade. On May 12, 1949 at one minute after midnight following the blockade lift, a British convoy drove right through to Berlin and the first train reached West Berlin several hours later.

1970-Slugger Ernie Banks hits his 500th home run for the Chicago Clubs. And although he was an NL all-star 11 seasons, he never played a playoff game.
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