View From the Shore

At 12:22 on Monday May 4, 1970, 29 members of a group of 77 National Guard troops from A Company and Troop G fired shots towards a group of students at Kent State. 13 seconds and about 67 shots later it ended. Some shots were in the air as warnings, others to induce injury and not kill. The outcome was 4 deaths and another 9 receiving injuries.

The National Guard had been called to the campus after a war protest of May 1st got out of hand. They arrived on campus on the morning of May 2nd. At the time of the shooting they were in the process of clearing a scheduled but a campus declared unauthorized protest.

The students who died as a result of the wounds they suffered that day were:
(Name, distance from Guard, Injury)
Jeffrey Glen Miller, 265 ft, shot through the mouth – killed instantly
Allison Krause, 343 ft, fatal left chest wound
William Knox Schroeder, 382 ft, fatal chest wound
Sandra Lee Scheuer, 390 ft, fatal neck wound

The Wounded:
Joseph Lewis Jr., 71 ft, hit twice in the right abdomen and left lower leg
John R. Cleary, 110 ft, upper left chest wound
Thomas Mark Grace, 225 ft, struck in left ankle
Alan Canfora, 225 ft, hit in his right wrist
Dean Kahler, 300 ft, back wound fracturing the vertebrae – permanently paralyzed from the chest down
Douglas A. Wrentmore, 329 ft, hit in his right knee
James Dennis Russell, 375 ft, hit in his right thigh from a bullet and in the right forehead by birdshot – both wounds minor
Robert F. Stamps, 495 ft, hit in his right buttock
Donald Scott MacKenzie, 750 ft, neck wound

Even now 50 years later the reason for the shooting has not been fully determined. It may have been that the Guardsmen felt in danger. Some students were approaching them throwing objects and one reports has it that a sniper fired upon the guard.

One of the widely read book about the shootings is James Michener Kent State: What Happened and Why published in 1971. The book does contain a number of errors probably because it was produced so quickly and release so soon after the event. The Kent May 4 Center does list this as a non-recommended book. T

Neil Young after seeing pictures of the shooting wrote the song Ohio. Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young recorded the song on May 15 and released it as a single in June. The song became to many an anthem for the times giving a tribute that may last forever to the ‘Four dead in Ohio’.

Today is April 20th. 420 is a text code to signify illegal drug use or more specifically the use of marijuana. From that April 20th has counterculture holiday.

But where did the term come from.

According to snopes.com it started to be used by a group of students at San Rafael High School in California as the time, 4:20 in the afternoon, that they would get together to smoke some weed. This was way back in the early 1970s. 1971.

Also on snopes it is said not to have any relationship to police codes for marijuana use in progress

The California Bill that legalized the use of medical marijuana is Senate Bill 420, but it was signed in 2004, long after the term was in use. Although I suppose some may have started using the bill number without realizing that the term was already being used by others.

April 20th is also the birthday of one of the most despised man in History. Adolf Hitler was born on April 20, 1889.

On October 27, 1810 President James Madison declared parts of the region known as West Florida as part of the United States. His reason for the annexation was he claimed it was part of the Louisiana Purchase. On December 10, 1810, the Republic of West Florida’s lone star came down and the Stars and Stripes took its place. This ended the existence of the Republic of West Florida.

Beginning in the 17th century through 1763 the French, the Spanish and the English each laid claim, at different times, to the region that now includes parts of the states of Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida.

At the conclusion of the French and Indian War (also known as the Seven Year War) Great Britain received from the French portion of Louisiana between the Mississippi and Perdidio Rivers and the Spanish Colony of Florida. The British divided the region into East and West Florida. Boundaries of West Florida were the Mississippi to the Chattahoochee Rivers and North at the 31st parallel. The Gulf of Mexico was the Southern Boundary.

The colony had been invited to the 1st Continental Congress, but did not send representatives. They were one of 5 continental colonies that did not send representatives, the others being East Florida, Quebec, St. John’s Isle, and Nova Scotia.

The Treaty of Paris, which ended the American Revolution, the British set the American Boundary at the 31st Parallel and ceded both Florida Colonies to the Spanish. This was just the beginning of a number of border disagreements between the United States, Spain and France.

In 1810, American’s who had settled in the region resented the Spanish Rule. This lead to a rebellion and on September 23 when the rebellion took the Spanish fort at Baton Rouge the Republic of West Florida was born.