EMMETT TILL IS MURDERED

Image: Emmett Till (Wikimedia Commons)

On August 28, 1955, while visiting family in Money, Mississippi, 14-year-old Emmett Till, an African American boy from Chicago, is viciously murdered for allegedly flirting with a white woman four days earlier.

His murderers—the white woman’s husband and his brother—made Emmett carry a 75-pound cotton gin fan to the bank of the Tallahatchie River and ordered him to take off his clothes. The two men then beat him nearly to death, gouged out his eye, shot him in the head, and then threw his body, tied to the cotton gin fan with barbed wire, into the river.

Three days later, his body was recovered but was so disfigured that he could only identify it by an initialed ring. Authorities wanted to bury the body quickly, but Till’s mother, Mamie Bradley, requested it be sent back to Chicago.

After seeing the mutilated remains, she decided to have an open-casket funeral so that all the world could see what racist murderers had done to her only son. Jet, an African-American magazine, published a photo of Emmett’s corpse, and soon the mainstream media picked up on the story.

Less than two weeks after Emmett’s body was buried, Milam and Bryant, the two murderers, went on trial in a segregated courthouse in Sumner, Mississippi. There were few witnesses besides Mose Wright, who positively identified the defendants as Emmett’s killers.

On September 23, the all-white jury deliberated for less than an hour before issuing a verdict of “not guilty,” explaining that they believed the state had failed to prove the identity of the body. Many people around the country were furious by the decision and by the state’s decision not to indict Milam and Bryant on the separate charge of kidnapping.

The Emmett Till murder trial brought to light the brutality of Jim Crow segregation in the South and was an early impetus of the civil rights movement.

HORSE IN RACE AGAINST A TRAIN

Image: Passengers enjoy their ride in a carriage pulled by the replica Tom Thumb.

Roaring, hissing, growling, clanking, the locomotives of the steam era not only resembled great beasts but were given names to match their status: Big Boys that hurled freight across the craggy American landscape; the UK’s Flying Scotsman; and the Fairy Queen, which still occasionally travels the tracks between New Delhi and Alwar in India.

But none of this was of great concern to no-nonsense Peter Cooper, the inventor and industrialist who designed and built the first American steam locomotive. He called it . . . Tom Thumb.

On August 28, 1830, Cooper accepted a challenge to prove that his mechanical power was greater than horsepower.

Until this point in time, rail companies in America, such as the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad (B&O) relied on horses to pull their passenger and freight trains, even though steam locomotives were used elsewhere in the world.

But that tradition was about to end when B&O directors were given a ride aboard Tom Thumb from Baltimore to Ellicott Mills, Maryland (now Ellicott City). They were amazed that the locomotive could achieve speeds of 10-14 miles per hour.

Then, according to legend, Tom Thumb took part in a famous race with a horse-drawn car while returning from a trip to Ellicott Mills. The locomotive was well ahead of the horse-drawn car until a mechanical fault caused the engine to lose steam, and the horse reached the finishing line first.

The event is a staple of American folklore though there is no documentation to substantiate it. Nevertheless, B&O was clearly impressed with Tom Thumb and ran this notice in newspapers:

The Baltimore and Ohio Rail Road Company being desirous of obtaining a supply of locomotive steam engines of American manufacture, adapted to their road, have given public notice that they will pay the sum of Four Thousand Dollars (equivalent to $136,000 in 2022 dollars) for the most approved engine which shall be delivered for trial upon the road on or before the first of June, 1831.

Although Tom Thumb is known as the first successful American steam locomotive, hauling passengers until at least March 1831, it was never put into regular service.

But a replica was built in 1927 for the B&O Railroad Museum and still runs today. The locomotive appeared on a US postage stamp in 1952.

GERMANY GETS READY TO INVADE POLAND

August 28, 1939. Journalist Care Hollingworth observes the “large numbers of troops, literally hundreds of tanks, armored cars and field guns” Germany had aligned along the Polish border. Three days later, Hitler invades Poland and WWII begins.

Image: Left to right, top to bottom: Luftwaffe bombers over Poland; Schleswig-Holstein attacking the Westerplatte; Danzig Police destroying the Polish border post; German tank and armored car formation; German and Soviet troops shaking hands; bombing of Warsaw. (Wikimedia Commons.)