Random News and Notes 18 July
On this date in 1863, Union Colonel Robert Gould Shaw, commander of the 54th Massachusetts, and 272 of his troops are killed in an assault on Fort Wagner, near Charleston, South Carolina. Fort Wagner stood on Morris Island, guarding the approach to Charleston harbor. It was a massive earthwork, 600 feet wide and made from sand piled 30 feet high. The only approach to the fort was across a narrow stretch of beach bounded by the Atlantic on one side and a swampy marshland on the other. Union General Quincy Gillmore headed an operation in July 1863 to take the island and seal the approach to Charleston. The 54th was made up of black troopers and white officers.
Shaw’s troops and other Union regiments penetrated the walls at two points but did not have sufficient numbers to take the fort. Over 1,500 Union troops fell or were captured to the Confederates’ 222.
The first volume of failed Austrian artist and moustache enjoyer Adolf Hitler’s book, My Struggle, was first published on this date in 1925. He started his demented scribblings while banged up in Landsberg prison as a result of the failed beer hall putsch of 1923. Despite extremely poor sales at first – fewer than 10,000 copies were sold the first year – Mein Kampf would go on to sell more than 12 million copies by the time Adolf became a good Nazi in 1945.
On this date in 1969 future Lion of the Senate Ted Kennedy would drunkenly drive off a bridge near Chappaquiddick Massachusetts leaving his passenger Mary Jo Kopechne to die.
A pair of fisherman found the car and reported it before Kennedy himself did. In a just world, Kennedy would have faced charges over the incident.
We start the news in Charm City where a street just swallowed a car. The incident happened in the 900 block of North Chester Street near Ashland Avenue where a sinkhole opened up under a freshly paved street. The occupants of the car escaped safely.
Water filled the hole by sunrise, submerging the vehicle completely. Baltimore has struggled with aging infrastructure and a broken water main is the culprit behind the sinkhole.
A father-son duo in California allegedly kidnapped a pair of U.S. forest service biologists late Wednesday. Joseph Henrichsen and Phoenix Henrichsen held the federal employees hostage inside a trailer in a rural area near Mt. Shasta. The FBI sent in hostage negotiators and the standoff ended about 0230 this morning.
The two are facing charges of kidnapping a federal employee.
Ronald Fischer was charged with sex crimes in Rhode Island back in 2005. He disappeared shortly after. Well, after 20+ years on the run, the long arm of the law finally caught up with him. A former anesthesiologist and master yachtsman known for using numerous aliases including Richard Graydon, Fischer was arrested without incident when U.S. Coast Guard intercepted his 56-foot boat about an hour offshore New Jersey following a credible tip.
The multi-state operation by the Rhode Island Violent Fugitive Task Force, FBI Boston, and U.S. Marshals demonstrates long-term interagency efforts that finally ended his 21 years evading justice after in-absentia conviction.