From the Annals of  If Only You Could Turn Back the Clock –   In 2001, after an extremely close and hotly contested election, Vice President Al Gore presided over a joint session of Congress that certified Texas Governor George W. Bush as the winner of the 2000 Presidential election.  The decision came two months after the election due to a heavily-criticized Supreme Court decision ending Gore’s attempts to have Florida recount  disputed ballots. Gore became the third Presidential candidate to win the popular vote but lose the election after the Supreme Court ruled 5-4 to halt Florida’s manual recount. The ruling in effect gave Florida’s 25 electoral votes to Bush giving him 271 to Gore’s 266 exactly one more than needed to win the election.  Bush’s two-term presidency ultimately ended in disaster with two unfinished and costly wars and an economy closing in on a depression.  He is consistently ranked near the bottom in the all-time worst presidents category.   He now paints dogs at his home in Dallas.

From the Annals of Foresight –  In 1941, James O. Richardson was removed as commander of the United States naval fleet by Pres. Franklin D. Roosevelt.  A native of Paris, Texas, Richardson graduated from the United States Naval Academy and throughout a steady career rose in the ranks until promotion to the temporary rank of admiral in 1939. In 1940, he was made commander-in-chief of the U.S. fleet.  Under his command, the Pacific Fleet was transferred from the mainland to Pearl Harbor.  Richardson strongly opposed the transfer arguing that the U.S. was not ready for war with Japan and that the Navy would be better prepared at the existing West Coast ports. Curiously, he also dismissed concerns over Japanese expansion in the Pacific.  The move turned out to be disastrous as most military historians believe that the Japanese would never have attempted a surprise attack on the Pacific Fleet at a mainland port.

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From the Annals of Banishment  —  In1844, President Anson Jones banished Duff Green from the Republic of Texas. Green was a political of John C. Calhoun who had been appointed United States consul at Galveston.  Green was also charged with communicating with Mexico in the interest of acquiring Texas, New Mexico, and California for the United States.  Green sought to have the Texas Congress pass a bill establishing the Texas Land Company and the Del Norte Company purportedly to occupy and claim for Texas the northern provinces of Mexico with the aid of the Texas Army and some Indian tribes. Green essentially offered to bribe Jones with stock in the proposed companies if he would support the plan.  After Jones refused, Green threatened to start a revolution and overthrow the Jones administration. Jones gave Green his passport and barred him from Texas as a consular official.

From the Annals of the Tejanos –  In 1832, San Antonio presented the Bexar Remonstrance to the legislature of Coahuila and Texas. The document was a list of grievances and was signed by José Ángel Navarro, alcalde of San Antonio. Among other things, it sought repeal of the ban on immigration from the United States contained in the Law of April 6, 1830.  It also sought tot make Texas a separate state from Coahuila.  We all know what happened next.

From the Annals of Comancheria – In 1883, Ranald Slidell Mackenzie, a renowned U.S. Army cavalry officer, was diagnosed as suffering from “paralysis of the insane.” Mackenzie was a native New Yorker but gained fame during the Civil War and later in Texas.  He was first in the 1862 class at West Point and immediately began active service in the Union cavalry during the Civil War.  By the end of the war he was a Brevet Major General.  His best known service after the war was a commander of the Fourth United States Cavalry stationed primarily at Fort Griffin near Albany, Texas.  Alone among commanders of the day, Mackenzie formulated a plan for dealing with the Comanches and their allies.  He was the first to take the fight effectively to the Comanche stomping grounds of the Llano Estacado.  He is best known for his victory against the Comanches at Palo Duro Canyon and for the extralegal Remolino raid into Mexico in pursuit of Kickapoo raiders. Mackenzie’s plans to marry and to retire near Boerne, Texas, in 1883 never materialized as he was plagued by increasing mental problems which resulted in commitment to a New York asylum in 1884. He died on Staten Island in 1889.

From the Annals of Country Folklore  –  In 1951, the “John Henry Faulk” show was first broadcast on  WCBS.  Faulk was from Austin and considered to be a master story-teller.  The show featured Faulk’s humor as well as music and some listener participation.  The show lasted for six years when it was discontinued largely because of the Cold War and McCarthyite blacklisting of the 1950s.  Because of his political views, Faulk was branded a Communist by AWARE, Inc.  a company that allegedly investigated the political attitudes of entertainers.  The ridiculous charge resulted in a spineless CBS removing Faulk from the airwaves.  Faulk sued AWARE in 1957 and ultimately recovered $3.5 million which was the largest libel judgment in history to that date.  Faulk’s book, Fear on Trial, described his battle against AWARE.  Austin TV and Radio personality Cactus Pryor was a major Faulk supporter during his blacklist troubles.  Pres. Lyndon B. Johnson resisted pressure to remove Pryor from his position because of his support for Faulk.   Faulk later appeared on Hee Haw.  He died in Austin in 1990.

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From the Annals of the Marx Brothers  –  In 1826, Benjamin Edwards and about 30 men arrived in the then Mexican village of Nacogdoches and boldly proclaimed himself as the ruler of the new Republic of Fredonia.  Edwards was the brother of Empresario Haden Edwards who had received a grant near Nacogdoches and had settled 50 families in the area.  While his brother was away in the U.S. raising money for the colony, Edwards apparently became concerned that they were about to lose their land and foolishly decided to declare independence from Mexico.  Edwards believed that many of the American settlers would support his attempt to break away from Mexico.  Accompanied by his men, Edwards seized a stone fort in Nacogdoches and declared independence for the new “Republic of Fredonia” which he claimed extended from from the Sabine River to the Rio Grande River.  The new nation would be governed under the principles of “Independence, Liberty, and Justice.”

Mexico moved quickly to suppress the rebellion forcing Edwards to negotiate an agreement with the Cherokee nation offering to share Texas in exchange for military aid.  But Edwards failed to gain much support from the local Anglo and Mexican residents of Nacogdoches. Consequently, Edwards’ ill-conceived and poorly executed revolution quickly fell apart as soon as the Mexican militia approached Nacogdoches.  He fled back to the U.S. and his brief moment in history was gone.

From the Annals of the Cattle Barons –  In 1929, Charles Goodnight, co-founder of the famous Goodnight-Loving Trail, died at the age of 93.  Goodnight came to  Texas at the age of 9 and was apparently born to live the rugged frontier life.  Using his frontier and scouting skills he was appointed as a regimental guide during the Civil War. By the end of the war, Goodnight had somehow built up a herd of cattle on his ranch in Palo Pinto County.  Combining his ranching and trailblazing skills, Goodnight decided to drive his cattle to New Mexico and Colorado instead of the standard route to the railheads in Abilene and other towns in Kansas for shipment East.

In preparing for the long drive, Goodnight met Oliver Loving, another cattleman similarly noted for his frontier and livestock skills. Loving joined with Goodnight and in 1866, they blazed a 500-mile route from Fort Belknap, Texas, to Fort Sumner, New Mexico, which became known as the Goodnight-Loving Trail. The Trail quickly became one the most heavily used cattle trails in the Southwest.  The route entailed risks as demonstrated when Loving was killed by Commanches in his third trip on the trail.

In 1875, Goodnight extended the trail from New Mexico to Colorado and then retired from trail driving to work on his new ranch in Colorado.  Unfortunately, that venture was a failure and Goodnight was forced to relocate his remaining cattle to Palo Duro Canyon.  With help from other investors, Goodnight built the JA Ranch into a hugely profitable operation eventually running more than 100,000 cattle. At his death he was recognized as one of the great cattle barons of Texas.

From the Annals of Fascism –  In 1941, Germany declared war on the U.S.  The U.S. had been officially neutral in the European conflict until that point, but the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor changed everything.  Adolf Hitler had an oral agreement with Japan that Germany would join a war against the United States, but the sneak attack surprised even him. On December 8, Japanese Ambassador Oshima met with German Foreign Minister von Ribbentrop to secure Germany’s agreement to declare war against the U.S. Germany and Japan were parties to the Axis Power’s  Tripartite Pact, which promised help if Japan was attacked.  But here Japan was the aggressor and Germany was not obligated to assist. Von Ribbentrop rightly calculated that the entry of the U.S. into the European Theater would assure a German defeat.

Hitler had other ideas and was convinced that a declaration of war from the U.S. was imminent.  A low grade war in the Atlantic was already underway with the U.S. Navy attacking German U-boats.  Hitler also miscalculated the ability of Japan to win the Pacific War believing that it would defeat the U.S. and then attack Russia from the east.  A delusional Hitler ordered the German charge d’affaires in Washington to deliver a declaration of war to American Secretary of State Cordell Hull.

In his address to the Reichstag to defend the declaration, Hitler was at his odious best claiming that the failure of New Deal was the real cause of the war and that Roosevelt, supported by plutocrats and Jews, were attempting to divert attention from America’s economic troubles. “First he incites war, then falsifies the causes, then odiously wraps himself in a cloak of Christian hypocrisy and slowly but surely leads mankind to war,” declared Hitler.  The members of the Reichstag leaped to their feet in thunderous applause. One can only hope that they all died miserable and painful deaths.

By the end of the war some 750,000 Texans, including 12,000 women, served in the armed forces. Most served in the Army or the Army Air Force, but nearly one-fourth served in the navy, marines, or the coast guard. During the war 22,022 Texans were killed or died of wounds. One-third of these fatalities were in the navy, marines, or coast guard.

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From the Annals of the Republic –  In 1838, Mirabeau Buonaparte Lamar was inaugurated as the second president of the Republic of Texas.  In 1837, Lamar had been promoting Texas in Georgia in his office as Vice-President.  Upon his return to Texas he discovered that his campaign for the presidency was already underway thanks to anti-Houston forces.  His election was all but assured when the two other candidates, Peter Grayson and James Collingsworth, both committed suicide.  The outgoing president, Sam Houston, was never one to miss the chance for a speech.  At the inauguration Houston gave a 3 hour “Farewell Address” while dressed in colonial costume and powdered wig.  Lamar was apparently ill, so his secretary Algernon P. Thompson, gave his inaugural address. Lamar’s inaugural speech declared the purposes of his administration to be awakening into vigorous activity the wealth, talent, and enterprises of the country and laying the foundations of higher institutions for moral and mental culture. Lamar’s term in office was a mixed bag at best.  He was a staunch opponent of annexation believing that Texas should expand westward to the Pacific.  His efforts to create a national bank failed, but he did succeed in his plan to move the capital to Austin.  He was a literary man and is best remembered for his support of public education.  His proposal to establish a system of education endowed by public land grants resulted in the act of January 26, 1839, which set aside land for public schools and two universities. Although it was decades before the school system was established, Lamar’s advocacy of the program earned for him the nickname “Father of Texas Education.”  His namesake is Lamar University in Beaumont and numerous other Texas schools are named after him.