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#1
The Tailgate / Today in history 7-7
Last post by remrogers - Today at 09:24:36 AM
1797
July 7
First impeachment of a U.S. Senator

For the first time in U.S. history, the House of Representatives exercises its constitutional power of impeachment and votes to charge Senator William Blount of Tennessee with "a high misdemeanor, entirely inconsistent with his public duty and trust as a Senator."

In 1790, President George Washington appointed Blount, who had fought in the American Revolution, as governor of the "Territory South of the River Ohio," now known as Tennessee. Although he was a successful territorial governor, personal financial problems led him to enter into a conspiracy with British officers to enlist frontiersmen and Cherokee Indians to assist the British in conquering parts of Spanish Florida and Louisiana. Before the conspiracy was uncovered, Blount presided over the Tennessee Constitutional Convention and in 1796 became the state's first U.S. senator.

The plot was revealed in 1797, and on July 7 the House of Representatives voted to impeach Senator Blount. The next day, the Senate voted by a two-thirds majority to expel him from its ranks. On December 17, 1798, the Senate exercised its "sole power to try all impeachments," as granted by the Constitution, and initiated a Senate trial against Blount. As vice president of the United States, Thomas Jefferson was president of the Senate and thus presided over the impeachment trial proceedings. After two months, Jefferson and the Senate decided to dismiss the charges against Blount, determining that the Senate had no jurisdiction over its own members beyond its constitutional right to expel members by a two-thirds majority vote. By the time of the dismissal, Blount had already been elected as a senator to the Tennessee state legislature, where he was appointed speaker. The constitutional conundrum of conducting a trial of an impeached senator has not yet been resolved.
#2
Fishing Photos / Re: River Wolf
Last post by nastygunz - Yesterday at 12:29:30 PM
Biggun!
#3
Fishing Photos / Re: River Wolf
Last post by Hawks Feather - Yesterday at 11:08:48 AM
Looked like you still had all of your fingers at the end which is a good thing.
#4
The Tailgate / Today in history 7-6
Last post by remrogers - Yesterday at 09:34:49 AM
1785
July 6
Continental Congress sets the dollar as the official  U.S. currency

On July 6, 1785, the Continental Congress establishes the dollar as the official currency of the newly established United States, paving the way for a national monetary system.

The fledgling nation had just won the Revolutionary War, and the creation of a national currency marked one of its first steps in stabilizing and establishing its newly independent economy.

Prior to the war, England would not supply the colonies with a sufficient number of pence and shilling coins, It also would not allow the colonies to create their own coin currency. So the colonists would often use coins from other European nations, including Spain, France and Portugal, or they would barter for goods using such things as Indian wampum or tobacco.

To get around Britain's rules, the Massachusetts Bay Colony started producing its own paper currency in 1690. Other colonies followed Massachusetts' lead and produced paper notes, which were then used for the exchange of goods or payments within the state or colony that issued it. Among other things, these notes—called bills of credit—were issued as mortgage loans to residents of the individual colonies. As collateral, the residents pledged their lands.

While the issuance of paper currency helped alleviate the coin shortage, it also created confusion since it was difficult to determine the true value of the various paper and coin currencies in circulation. It also gave rise to a rash of counterfeiting.

It wasn't until 1775 that the Continental Congress issued a universal paper currency to help fund the Revolutionary War. But the currency, which was issued in the form of $2 notes known as "Continentals," quickly became worthless due to a lack of solid backing by the government.

After the war, the new nation sought to stabilize its economy. In 1785, it established the dollar as America's new monetary unit, basing it on the widely used Spanish silver dollar. (And the dollar sign was adapted from the Spanish-American symbol for the peso.) The founding fathers then adopted a base-10 monetary system, in which ten cents make a dime and ten dimes make a dollar.

It took decades before the dollar was fully adopted and embraced in the U.S., but today, it evolved into one of the most widely held currencies in the world.
#5
Fishing Photos / River Wolf
Last post by FinsnFur - Yesterday at 08:32:40 AM
Wish I woulda had the Go Pro on this one, took several minutes to get her calmed down enough to pluck it out without a net.  :whew:

#6
The Tailgate / Re: Happy Independence Day
Last post by FinsnFur - Yesterday at 06:39:02 AM
Quote from: Hawks Feather on July 04, 2025, 10:27:45 AMThanks and right back at you.

I assume you will be working on your tan again by going to the river and claiming to fish.

I've been accused of that before and thats how it seems as of late. :laf:  Been pretty tough to catch anything lately.
#7
The Tailgate / Today in history 7-5
Last post by remrogers - July 05, 2025, 10:01:16 AM
1911
July 5
Heat wave strikes Northeast, killing hundreds

On July 5, 1911, the mercury in Nashua, New Hampshire peaks at 106 degrees Fahrenheit, one of many record temperatures that are set in the northeastern United States as a deadly, 11-day heat wave hits the area. It would go on to kill at least 380 people—and by some estimates, as many as 2,000.

The heat wave first descended on July 2, and the area from Pennsylvania northeast to Maine was most affected by the stifling heat. New York City was particularly hard hit. In fact, the New York City Health Department put out one of its very first heat advisories during July 1911. Mayor William Gaynor tried to make sure that the city's ice dealers could keep up their deliveries; in the time before refrigeration, ice was critical in keeping the food supply from spoiling.

By July 13, New York had reported 211 people dead from the excessive heat. One man, apparently disoriented from heat exhaustion, overdosed on strychnine. In Philadelphia, 159 people died from the heat. The types of deaths ascribed to the heat could vary quite a bit in 1911, with some authorities including in the count those who drowned while attempting to cool off by swimming. Most came from heat stroke, when the body's temperature-regulation mechanisms fail, causing body heat to rise to dangerous levels. Heat also sometimes bent rail lines, causing train derailments; deaths in any resulting accidents might also be attributed to the heat.

The end of the 1911 heat wave was marked by a severe thunderstorm that killed five people.
#8
Non Hunting/Fishing Photos / Capt. Kirk!
Last post by nastygunz - July 05, 2025, 03:46:27 AM
 :alscalls:
#9
The Tailgate / Today in history 7-4
Last post by remrogers - July 04, 2025, 10:51:38 AM
1776
July 4
Continental Congress adopts the Declaration of Independence

In Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on July 4, 1776, the Continental Congress adopts the Declaration of Independence, which proclaims the independence of the United States of America from Great Britain and its king.

The declaration came 442 days after the first volleys of the American Revolution were fired at Lexington and Concord in Massachusetts and marked an ideological expansion of the conflict that would eventually encourage France's intervention on behalf of the Patriots.

The first major American opposition to British policy came in 1765 after Parliament passed the Stamp Act, a taxation measure to raise revenues for a standing British army in America. Under the banner of "no taxation without representation," colonists convened the Stamp Act Congress in October 1765 to vocalize their opposition to the tax.

With its enactment in November, most colonists called for a boycott of British goods, and some organized attacks on the customhouses and homes of tax collectors. After months of protest in the colonies, Parliament voted to repeal the Stamp Act in March 1766.

Most colonists continued to quietly accept British rule until Parliament's enactment of the Tea Act in 1773, a bill designed to save the faltering East India Company by greatly lowering its tea tax and granting it a monopoly on the American tea trade.

The low tax allowed the East India Company to undercut even tea smuggled into America by Dutch traders, and many colonists viewed the act as another example of taxation tyranny. In response, militant Patriots in Massachusetts organized the "Boston Tea Party," which saw British tea valued at some 18,000 pounds dumped into Boston Harbor.

The British Parliament, outraged by the Boston Tea Party and other blatant acts of destruction of British property, enacted the Coercive Acts, also known as the Intolerable Acts, in 1774. The Coercive Acts closed Boston to merchant shipping, established formal British military rule in Massachusetts, made British officials immune to criminal prosecution in America, and required colonists to quarter British troops.

The colonists subsequently called the first Continental Congress to consider a united American resistance to the British.

With the other colonies watching intently, Massachusetts led the resistance to the British, forming a shadow revolutionary government and establishing militias to resist the increasing British military presence across the colony.

In April 1775, Thomas Gage, the British governor of Massachusetts, ordered British troops to march to Concord, Massachusetts, where a Patriot arsenal was known to be located. On April 19, 1775, the British regulars encountered a group of American militiamen at Lexington, and the first shots of the American Revolution were fired.

Initially, both the Americans and the British saw the conflict as a kind of civil war within the British Empire: To King George III it was a colonial rebellion, and to the Americans it was a struggle for their rights as British citizens.

However, Parliament remained unwilling to negotiate with the American rebels and instead purchased German mercenaries to help the British army crush the rebellion. In response to Britain's continued opposition to reform, the Continental Congress began to pass measures abolishing British authority in the colonies.
#10
The Tailgate / Re: Happy Independence Day
Last post by nastygunz - July 04, 2025, 10:41:30 AM
Ribs and fireworks, thats the plan of the day  :yoyo: