History
The Circus Maximus, which is Latin for largest circus is an ancient Roman chariot-racing stadium and mass entertainment venue in Rome, Italy. It is located in the valley between the Aventine and Palatine hills, and it was the first and largest stadium in ancient Rome and its later Empire. It measured 2,037 feet in length and 387 feet in width and could accommodate over 150,000 spectators. In its fully developed form, it became the model for circuses throughout the Roman Empire. The site is now a public park. In its beginning, it might have been planned for good, clean-cut entertainment, but in at least part of its history, it was used for much more sinister things. It was during the Roman Empire, when the empire decided that anyone who was not a Roman citizen was basically unimportant.
As it has been throughout history, the Roman Empire was notorious for its persecution of Christian and Jewish people. During those years, the Circus Maximus was used for the execution of Christian and Jewish prisoners, as part of the Roman Triumph, along with chariot racing, of course. As we all know, the Roman Empire worshiped a number of gods, which put them in direct conflict with the one true God, and thereby, put them at odds with the Christians and Jews. During those years, Christians were persecuted and prosecuted, throughout the Roman Empire.
Pagan practices such as making sacrifices to the deified emperors or other gods were abhorrent to Christians as their beliefs prohibited idolatry. When they would not comply with the pagan practices, they were prosecuted by the state and other members of civic society and severely punished for “treason, various rumored crimes, illegal assembly, and for introducing an alien cult that led to Roman apostasy.” The first, localized Neronian persecution occurred under Emperor Nero (BC54-BC68) in Rome. A more general persecution occurred during the reign of Marcus Aurelius (BC161-BC180). After a lull, persecution resumed under Emperors Decius (BC249–BC251) and Trebonianus Gallus (BC251–BC253). The Decian persecution was particularly extensive. The persecution of Emperor Valerian (BC253–BC260) ceased with his notable capture by the Sasanian Empire’s Shapur I (BC240–BC270) at the Battle of Edessa during the Roman–Persian Wars. His successor, Gallienus 
(BC253–BC268), halted the persecutions. Most, if not all of these emperors were viciously wicked men, including Gallienus, who finally stopped this horrific practice. Nevertheless, he did stop it, so that is a good thing. There is a right and wrong way to put someone on trial, and most importantly, there should always be freedom of religion, but not all countries allow freedom of religion.
The Law of Return is an Israeli law, which was passed on July 5, 1950. I this law, Jewish people with one or more Jewish grandparent, and their spouses were granted the right to relocate to Israel and acquire Israeli citizenship. Many of the Jewish people had been deported during the Nazi regime and many of these did not survive. Other Jewish people fled Nazi persecution, and now they and the survivors of the holocaust would be given the right to return.
Section 1 of the Law of Return declares “that ‘every Jew has the right to come to this country as an oleh [immigrant].’ In the Law of Return, the State of Israel gave effect to the Zionist movement’s ‘credo’ which called for the establishment of Israel as a Jewish state. In 1970, the right of entry and settlement was extended to people with at least one Jewish grandparent and a person who is married to a Jew, whether or not they are considered Jewish under Orthodox interpretations of Jewish law.”
Each oleh (immigrant) under the Law of Return, was to be given on the day of arrival in Israel, or occasionally at a later date, a certificate confirming their oleh status. At that point, the person then has three months to decide whether they wish to become a citizen and can renounce their prior citizenship during this time. This is a decision that they must think over carefully, even before they make the decision to immigrate. They would have to quit jobs, sell homes (or at least rent them out), pull children out of school, etc. Still, the big decision must be made withing three months. Do they want to stay? If so, they must take the steps to proceed.
There have been changes to the law over the years. Since 2005, the right does not apply to residents of the West Bank or the Gaza strip due to the Citizenship and Entry into Israel Law. The right to an oleh certificate may be denied if the person is engaged in anti-Jewish activity, is a hazard to the public health or security of the state, or has a criminal past that may endanger public welfare. All reasonable reasons to refuse entry. I wish the United States took some of these things seriously.
When Israel became a nation again on May 15, 1948, there was a need to “re-populate” the country with their own people. As of 2021, 3,340,000 Jews have immigrated to Israel. Hundreds of thousands of people who do not have Jewish status under Orthodox Jewish interpretations of halakha received Israeli citizenship, as the law confers citizenship to all offspring of a Jew (including grandchildren) and their spouses. Halakha is often translated as “Jewish Law,” although a more literal translation of it might be “the way to behave” or “the way of 
walking.” The Bible also makes reference to this in Isaiah 43:5-6, “Fear not, for I am with you. I will bring your descendants from the east and gather you from the west. I will say to the north, ‘Give them up!’ And to the south, ‘Do not keep them back!’ Bring My sons from afar, and My daughters from the ends of the earth.”
Recently, my sisters, Cheryl Masterson, Caryl Reed, Alena Stevens, Allyn Hadlock, and I started a book club. Before each meeting, we read a book, on our own time, and then come together to discuss the book we read. We chose the Presidents of the United States as our topics, and each time we progress to the next president. We began at the beginning, President George Washington. We went on to John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and next will be James Monroe. One takeaway from these books has been that while our founding fathers may have had their faults, and some more than others, each tried to do what they saw as the best thing for this nation. They also knew that more than anything, we needed freedom. We could not continue to live under British rule.
We had to be free of England, and so it was that Independence Day, also known as the Fourth of July, is now a federal holiday in the United States commemorating that freedom, and the Declaration of Independence, which 
was ratified by the Second Continental Congress on July 4, 1776, establishing the United States of America. The Declaration of Independence was largely written by Thomas Jefferson but was collectively the work of the Committee of Five, which also included John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Roger Sherman, and Robert Livingston. The Founding Father delegates of the Second Continental Congress declared that “the Thirteen Colonies were no longer subject (and subordinate) to the monarch of Britain, King George III, and were now united, free, and independent states.” The Congress voted to approve independence by passing the Lee Resolution on July 2 and adopted the Declaration of Independence two days later, on July 4. We were a free nation, but that did not mean that Great Britain would willingly accept that. In fact, Great Britain did not accept US independence until 1783…a full seven years after it was first declared.
Like many “start-up” countries, the United States met with heavy opposition the minute it tried to get going. The “Mother Country” didn’t want to let go. Great Britain called the United States the “Colonies” long after we 
were actually a free nation. Even when they knew they had lost any control over the United States, they tried to get it back, and in the absence of getting their control back, they downplayed the importance of the United States. That was probably the most ridiculous part of it, because the United States became the most powerful nation in the world. While some might disagree, and while we have had our ups and downs, this nation will always stand. Today, we celebrate the nation that we love. The United States of America…the home of the free, because of the brave. Happy Independence Day to this great nation!! Let the celebration begin!!
Soldiers are trained to obey orders without thought of the moral aspects the order might have carried. Nevertheless, not every order is a good one. Still, there have been a number of times when disobeying an order was very questionable, such as the order given to General Daniel Sickles at the Battle of Gettysburg. Sickles was a Tammany Hall politician with ambitions of becoming president. Tammany Hall, which was also known as the Society of Saint Tammany, the Sons of Saint Tammany, or the Columbian Order, was an American political organization founded in 1786 and incorporated on May 12, 1789, as the Tammany Society. In New York City and New York state politics, and it had become the main local political machine of the Democratic Party. The Tammany Hall politicians focused on bringing immigrants, most notably the Irish, into American politics from the 1850s, and into the 1960s. Tammany Hall politicians virtually controlled the Democratic nominations and political patronage in Manhattan for over 100 years following the mayoral victory of Fernando Wood in 1854. These politicians used their patronage resources to build a loyal, well-rewarded core of district and precinct leaders, and after 1850, the vast majority were Irish Catholics due to mass immigration from Ireland during and after the Irish Famine of the late 1840s.
With the outbreak of the American Civil War in 1861, Sickles raised a brigade with himself as its commander, hoping to improve his reputation, which had suffered greatly when he murdered his wife’s lover. On July 2, Sickles’s III Corps was ordered to defend a portion of Cemetery Ridge. This area included Little Round Top, and it was a central position between two other divisions. It seemed like the perfect strategy, but Sickles, feeling that the lay of the land made his position indefensible, asked Major General George S Meade for permission to advance three-quarters of a mile to the Emmitsburg Road. When Meade refused, Sickles ended up advancing, against a direct order, to the forward position anyway. That shift of position left his unit vulnerable to flanking attacks and also left Little Round Top undefended. Clearly, Sickles didn’t understand the strategies of war that were well known to Major General Meade. I guess soldiers are promoted for a reason.
Sickles was forced to retreat and lost almost 40% of his force in the Confederate attack that followed. After Sickles had abandoned his post, the task of defending Little Round Top fell to the 3rd Brigade, 1st Division, V corps, and in fact made famous the 20th Maine brigade, under Colonel Joshua Chamberlain. In the end, they famously managed to repel the Confederate advance, but the victory would not have needed the heroics if Sickles had stayed at his post. Of course, typical of those who rebel and ignore the orders given, Sickles 
maintained to the end of his days that his insubordination helped the Army of the Potomac survive the day’s assaults. It was a crazy declaration, but I guess it helped him sleep at night. There are those on both sides of the coin on that one, but in the end, the disobedience cost him much more than he might have imagined, since he was never the president.
In the world of criminal justice, you might think that the punishment should fit the crime, and in that case, murder should get the death penalty. Of course, no one would dispute the fact that there could be extenuating circumstances. Sometimes, the murder was accidental, or the perpetrator was truly insane, whether temporarily or permanently. Those aren’t the common reasons for murder though. Nevertheless, there are those who believe that there shouldn’t be a death penalty for any reason. They call it cruel and unusual punishment, even if the perpetrator is not sorry for their crime, but the reality is that the killer took a life, and that should usually bring the death penalty.
Over the years, there have been multiple pushes by activist groups that were against the death penalty under any circumstances. Finally, in the case of Furman v. Georgia, the US Supreme Court ruled by a vote of 5-4 that capital punishment, as it is currently employed on the state and federal level, is unconstitutional. In that case, the majority of the judges held that, “in violation of the Eighth Amendment to the Constitution, the death penalty qualified as 
‘cruel and unusual punishment,’ primarily because states employed execution in ‘arbitrary and capricious ways,’ especially in regard to race.” That decision was the first time that the nation’s highest court had ruled against capital punishment. In the case, they didn’t say that the death penalty, in and of itself, was unconstitutional, but rather left room for new legislation that could make death sentences constitutional again. These included the development of standardized guidelines for uries that decide sentences. Because there was room for changes to the way things were done, the decision was not an outright victory for opponents of the death penalty.
Finally, in 1976, with 66 percent of Americans still supporting capital punishment, the Supreme Court acknowledged that progress had been made in jury guidelines and reinstated the death penalty under a “model of guided discretion.” Then in 1977, Gary Gilmore, a career criminal who had murdered an elderly couple simply because they would not lend him their car, was the first person to be executed since the end of the ban. Gilmore was defiant…facing a firing squad in Utah. His last words to his executioners before they shot him through the heart were, “Let’s do it.” Gilmore was one of those criminals who had no respect for life…not even his own. He was a brutal killer, and he died a justified death. He wasn’t brave at the time of his death. He was 
just stubborn and defiant. I suppose he might have seen himself as a martyr, but the reality was that he was simply a cold-blooded criminal, who got what he deserved…the same thing he gave to his victims. Some of his victims even cooperated, but it made no difference. He killed them anyway. He received exactly what he should have…and he wanted it too. During the time Gilmore was on death row awaiting his execution, he attempted suicide twice; the first time on November 16 after the first stay was issued, and again one month later on December 16. On the day of his execution, he was smiling as he was led to the chair the strapped him to for his execution. Gilmore was put to death on January 17, 1977.
Fort Yukon is a city in the Yukon-Koyukuk Census Area in the state of Alaska. The city actually straddles the Arctic Circle. Most of the people who live there are Alaskan natives from the Gwich’in tribe. This “city” is barely a village by the standards most of us use. In the 2020 census, there were 428 people living there, and that was down from the 2000 census, when the city boasted 595 people. According to the United States Census Bureau, Yukon City occupies a total area of 7.4 square miles, of which 7.0 square miles is land and 0.4 square miles is water. It’s not that “nobody” comes from Fort Yukon, because Fort Yukon was the hometown of the late Alaska Congressman Don Young. Still, I heard someone joke once about asking if any famous people were born in a certain place, and the old man they asked said, “Nope, only babies.” Hahaha!! I suppose that’s true. What we become doesn’t depend on where we were born, but rather on who we choose to become.
We normally think of Alaska as a frozen tundra that never thaws, and there are places in Alaska that don’t, but then there are places elsewhere that normally don’t thaw too, and they are much further south than Alaska. While Fort Yukon can have pretty cold temperatures, they also hold the state record for the highest temperature, which was 100°F too. Until 1971, Fort Yukon held the all-time lowest temperature record for Alaska and the United States at ?78 °F, and it still holds the record for the lowest mean monthly temperature when the notoriously cold month of December 1917 had an average daily temperature of ?48.3 °F and the minimum averaged ?58 °F. That has got to be the most extreme temperature shift anywhere. Of course, it didn’t happen in one day, so people might not have noticed that. You would have to brave those really cold temperatures, but if you did, you would find that Fort Yukon is among the best places in the world for observing the Aurora Borealis…someday, maybe I’ll get there for that. In the summer Fort Yukon has midnight sun and in December the sun appears for only a few hours each day…another interesting tidbit of information.
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Originally Fort Yukon was a trading post established by Alexander Hunter Murray of the Hudson’s Bay Company, on June 25, 1847. He wanted to let people know about the place, so Murray drew numerous sketches of fur trade posts and of people and wrote the Journal of the Yukon, 1847–48, which gave valuable insight into the culture of the Gwich’in at the time. At the time, the post was in Russian America, the Hudson’s Bay Company continued to trade there until the American traders expelled it in 1869, following the Alaska Purchase when the Alaska Commercial Company took over the post.
The Klondike Gold Rush brough the largest influx of people to the area in the winter of 1897–1898. During that time, Fort Yukon received two hundred prospectors from Dawson City, which was short on supplies. A post office was established on July 12, 1898, with John Hawksly as its first postmaster. The settlement suffered over the following decades as a result of several infectious disease epidemics and a 1949 flood, but it was revived in the 1950s, when the United States Air Force established a base and radar station there. The town was officially 
incorporated in 1959. Probably some of the best things that could have happed to Fort Yukon was its newly established value as a tourist destination, which came about in the late 20th century, due in part to its extreme northerly location and its proximity to Fairbanks. I’ve been to Alaska, but not to this area. Alaska holds a lifelong interest for me, but I’m not sure I could be a full-time resident of the area. Still, I’d like to visit again, and this time maybe in the Winter.
With summer comes thunderstorms in many areas of the world. Lake Maracaibo in Venezuela has been listed as the lightning capital of the world, with storms lighting up the skies almost 300 nights each year, according to a NASA study. Lightning kills approximately 73 people a year in the United States alone. Most strikes kill one victim at a time, but on June 26, 1807, lightning hit a gunpowder factory in the small European country of Luxembourg, and that day, the lightning killed more than 300 people. The Luxembourg disaster may have been the deadliest lightning strike in history.
Luxembourg was occupied by Napoleon’s army in 1807. The French dictator used the country to stockpile weapons and ammunition, or shall we say hide them from the view of those he didn’t want to know about them. Napoleon built a number of underground bunkers for this very purpose. In the southern part of Luxembourg city of Kirchberg, a fortress built in 1732 was used as an armory. It was here, on June 26, when lightning struck the fortress that disaster followed. When lightning struck, the ammunition located in the structure ignited on contact. The explosion that followed was massive. The blast took out two entire blocks, which caused several other fires to rage nearby. The London Times later reported, “This city has been plunged into the greatest consternation and distress.” This strike has been considered one of the worst lightning disasters of all time…mostly because of the number of lives lost.
The earth receives 8 to 9 million lightning strikes every day…wow!! The United States alone sees about 70,000 thunderstorms a typical year. In those storms, approximately 20 million lightning strikes are produced in a year. Lightning can create beautiful shots for photographers, and I doubt if there is one person who can honestly say they are not enamored with the beauty of lightning, but the thing to understand is that a bolt of lightning can reach 50,000 degrees Fahrenheit in that instant when it strikes. In that beauty hides an average of 100 million volts of electricity, and a lightning bolt can be as much as five miles long. Lightning can strike from a storm that is miles away, so when you hear that rumble, it really is time to seek shelter. Of course, you can and should act in a preventative way when it comes to lightning safety. Keep an eye on the forecast and plan with the weather in mind, especially if those plans were going to take you near the water. Beaches are dangerous because lightning tends to strike the highest object, and water is a good conductor of electricity, so you don’t want to be 
in it. If someone nearby does get hit by lightning, remember that the lightning victim doesn’t hold the electric charge. Call 911 and begin first aid right away. About 90% of lightning victims survive, but they need immediate medical attention. Remember, that while lightning is beautiful, it is best viewed from a safe place indoors.
Mafia boss John “Teflon Don” Gotti, so nicknamed after escaping unscathed from several trials during the 1980s, seemed like a guy who was impossible to convict. Gotti was born and educated in New York City. He became head of the powerful Gambino family after boss Paul Castellano was murdered outside a steakhouse in Manhattan in December 1985. There had not been a gang assassination in New York in three decades. Gotti and his colleague Sammy “The Bull” Gravano changed all that. The Gambino family was well-known for its illegal narcotics operations, gambling activities, and car thefts. When Gotti took over, he wanted to show his new-found power, so he expanded the criminal empire over the next five years. Under Gotti, the family grew into the nation’s most powerful Mafia family.
Over the years he was in charge, Gotti managed to avoid conviction several times, despite wide publicity of his criminal activities. Gotti had no problem ordering witness intimidation any time he had a scrape with the law. His plan seemed to be working well, until 1990, when he was indicted for conspiracy to commit murder in the death of Paul Castellano. This time was going to be different. Gravano wasn’t real keen on prison time, and the thought of a deal, any kind of a deal, was very appealing. So, Gravano agreed to testify against Gotti in a federal district court in exchange for a reduced prison sentence. With Gravano’s testimony, John Gotti was found guilty on all 14 counts of conspiracy to commit murder and racketeering, on April 2, 1992. Then, on June 
23, 1992, “Teflon Don” finally ran out of his non-stick coating. He was sentenced to multiple life terms without the possibility of parole. All his prior intimidations had done him no good. He might have been able to get away with it for a while, but now it had all come back to haunt him…and there was no escape.
While his life was essentially over, Gotti had many supporters, and just moments after his sentence was read in a federal courthouse in Brooklyn, hundreds of those supporters stormed the building. They also overturned and smashed cars before being forced back by police reinforcements. It made no difference. While still imprisoned, Gotti died of throat cancer on June 10, 2022.
There are some people who are just mean. You can’t look at it any other way. Cullen Montgomery Baker was one of those mean men…a cold-blooded and ruthless killer who left a long trail of bodies across the American Frontier. Baker was a Confederate guerrilla during the Civil War, but he didn’t want to give up the fight once the war was over, so afterward he ambushed reconstructionists, killed former slaves, and generally terrorized the states of Texas and Arkansas for four years.
Born in Weakley County, Tennessee, on June 22, 1835, to John Baker and his wife, Elizabeth, his father was an honest but poor farmer who also owned cattle. The family moved to Clarksville, Arkansas soon after he was born. Times were no better there, so in 1839, after just a few years, the family moved to Texas, eventually settling in Davis County. There, things looked like they might get better when his father received a land grant of 640 acres, but even with the acreage, the family was still poor, and because of his homespun trousers and bare feet, Cullen was teased by students at school, probably triggering his anger. Though he was a slender and withdrawn youth, he began to fight back. It was at this time, that he obtained an old pistol and a rusty but workable rifle. He practiced diligently until he was very proficient with both weapons.
At the tender age of 15 years, Baker began to drink whiskey. Emboldened by alcohol, he began to challenge both boys and men who annoyed him to “go for your guns.” As often happens when people get hooked on alcohol, he spent much of his time in saloons, where his quick temper got him into several brawls. Soon, he was well known as a hard drinker, a braggart, and generally a quarrelsome and mean-spirited young man. He almost learned his lesson in one fight, when he was knocked unconscious by a man named Morgan Culp, who hit him in the head with a tomahawk. This incident seemingly calmed his temper for a little while, or maybe scared him a little bit, but that wouldn’t last.
Baker was rather a spontaneous man, and so some weeks later, on January 11, 1854, while still wearing a head bandage from the tomahawk incident, Baker married 17-year-old Martha Jane Petty and settled down to a quiet farming life. It looked like the marriage might have been the turnaround moment for him, but he grew tired of this routine and was back to his old ways just eight months later. One night when he was out drinking, he got into an argument with a teenager named Stallcup. As the discussion devolved, Baker became enraged. He grabbed a whip and beat the boy nearly to death. For that, Baker was charged with the crime. He went to the home of witness, Wesley Bailey, and shot him in both legs with a shotgun. He then left him lying in front of his house. Bailey died a few days later, but before Baker could be arrested for the murder, he fled to Perry County, Arkansas, where he hid out at the home of his mother’s brother, Thomas Young, for almost two years.
While there, not bothering to lay low, he stabbed a man named Wartham to death in an argument about horses in 1856 and fled back to Texas. His stay in Texas was short-lived, when he learned he was still wanted for murder in the killing of Bailey, so he returned to Arkansas. While he was gone, his wife Martha gave birth to a baby girl, Louisa Jane, on May 24, 1857. Returning to Texas briefly the following year, he retrieved his wife and daughter. Unfortunately, his wife died on July 2, 1860, and Baker took their child to Sulphur County, Texas. He left her with his in-laws, and that was the last he saw of her. I’m sure his in-laws were thankful for that.
In November 1861, Baker joined Company G of Morgan’s Regimental Cavalry to fight in the Confederate Army. In July 1862, he married a second time to Martha Foster, who was unaware he was wanted for murder. Baker’s name appears on the muster roll for September-October 1862, and he actually received pay through August 31, but by January 10, 1863, he had deserted and was listed on the muster roll as such.
It was at this point that Baker joined a guerilla group called the “Independent Rangers,” loosely associated with the Confederate Home Guard. My guess is that the Confederate regular army was a little “too tame” for his kind of fighting. The guerilla group suited his style better, as their objective was to pursue and capture deserters from the Confederate Army. That work held no real interest for Baker, but it allowed him a certain measure of freedom to do what he really wanted to do, which was to take advantage of most of the men being away at war and committing atrocities of intimidation, rape, theft, and violence. Any man who had property was considered an enemy and was declared to be a Union man to Baker, and therefore fair game. The attacks in some areas became so bad that everyone who could, left the area. Then, shortly after Baker joined the “Independent Rangers,” they began an ongoing feud with another band called the “Mountain Boomers,” who were Union guerrillas…basically having their own war between the North and South. Both bands ran throughout Arkansas, robbing, burning, and murdering indiscriminately…and fighting with each other.
In November 1864, a small band of mostly old men, women, and children, who were trying to escape from the turmoil, started west with their teams and valuables. When the group crossed the Saline River in the Ouachita Mountains, Cullen Baker and the Independent Rangers caught up to them. Baker’s story was that he and his men considered the group’s attempted escape “unpatriotic,” but, in reality, they needed little reason to harass them. When the group refused to return to their homes, Baker drew his pistol and shot and killed their leader. He then assured the rest of the group that he would not kill anyone else, if they agreed to return to their homes. But being the liar he was, as soon as the settlers returned to Baker’s side of the river, he led his 
“Rangers” in shooting and killing nine other men and stealing all the valuables. The event became known locally as the Massacre of Saline.
It was at this point that the local citizens had had enough. The began to organize and make active preparations to take out the murderous gang. However, being the stellar, brave men they were, when the ruffians got word of this, they ran, taking their booty and the many horses and mules they had stolen with them.
At the end of 1864, Baker was seen in a saloon wearing a Confederate hat in Spanish Bluffs, Arkansas. He was approached by four African American Union soldiers who asked for identification. With his pistol drawn, Baker turned to face them, shooting and killing a sergeant and the three other soldiers. One report tells that when the war was over, as he was making his way home, he came upon a group of travelers in Sevier County, Tennessee. In the group was a black woman who he began to verbally harass and then shot and killed her.
Following this rampage, he settled down with his wife Martha near the Sulphur River area in southwestern Arkansas, where he became the manager of the Line Ferry. Again, this break from the violence was short-lived. Martha soon took ill and died on March 1, 1866. Apparently, Baker very much-loved Martha and grieved her loss deeply. Still, losing his second wife didn’t stop him from proposing to her 16-year-old sister, Belle Foster, just two months later. Belle rejected his proposal and instead married a schoolteacher and political activist named Thomas Orr. This enrages Baker, who began to harass Orr, trying to pick fights with the man, hitting him over the head with a tree limb, and going to his school to ridicule, curse, and threaten the man in front of his students. I’m sure Belle Foster was thankful she married the man she did, after seeing the horrible acts of the man who had married her older sister.
Reconstruction had begun in Arkansas and Texas around this time, and Baker despised the idea. He and another outlaw named Lee Rames organized a gang that operated out of the Sulphur River bottoms near Bright Star, Arkansas. Baker continued his acts of robbery and murder, along with the Rames gang. They were said to have killed at least 30 people, many of whom were outnumbered, ambushed, or shot in the back. Baker and his gang also traveled to Texas, where he killed John Salmons in retaliation for the killing of Seth Rames, who was the brother of gang member Lee Rames. Baker also killed WG Kirkman, a Reconstruction official, and a man named George W Barron, who had previously taken part as a member of a posse hunting him. Baker was “happy” to kill anyone who annoyed him, or who might have annoyed someone he knew, or might have done the slightest thing against him…real or perceived. The gang continued their outlaw spree in Queen City, Texas, and Texarkana, Arkansas.
On June 1, 1867, he returned to Cass County. In need of supplies, Baker entered the Rowden General Store, helped himself to some items without paying. The proprietor, John Rowden rode with a shotgun to Baker’s house and demanded payment. Seemingly compliant, Baker said he would come back and pay him, but on June 5, he killed Rowden instead. Again, Baker fled to Arkansas, where he recognized by a Union sergeant when he boarded a ferry. He killed the Union officer, but a private was able to get away and reported the murder. With the eyewitness account, Baker became a hunted man, pursued relentlessly by Union forces.
On July 25, 1867, following an argument with several Union Soldiers near New Boston, Texas, which quickly escalated to violence, Baker was shot in the arm in a gunfight in which he killed army Private Albert E Titus. A $1,000 reward was set for his capture, dead or alive.
In December 1867, Baker went to Bright Star, Arkansas, where he met up with several men who were planning a raid on the farm of Howell Smith. They were upset because Smith had hired several freed slaves. In the attack, one of Smith’s daughters was stabbed, another clubbed, and a black man was shot and killed. Still, Smith resisted, and in the ensuing shootout, several of the raiders were wounded, including Baker, who was shot in the leg.
On October 24, 1868, Baker and his gang were reported to have been involved in the killings of Major P J Andrews, Lieutenant H F Willis, and an unnamed black man in Little Rock, Arkansas. Wounded in the attack was Sheriff Standel.
By this time, Baker’s co-leader, Lee Rames, began to get nervous about Baker’s leadership style and felt that his actions would lead to the downfall of the entire gang. Rames defied Baker, who backed down, and the gang broke up in December 1868. All members, except “Dummy” Kirby, sided with Rames. Baker and Kirby went to Bloomburg, Texas, to the house of Baker’s in-laws in January 1869. It would be there that Cullen Baker and “Dummy” Kirby would die on January 6, 1869.
Exactly how they were killed is unknown. One version says that “his father-in-law and friends laced a bottle of whiskey and some food with strychnine and both men died from poisoning. Afterward, their bodies were riddled 
with bullets. Another version says that Thomas Orr, with whom Baker had long feuded, led a small band of men who ambushed Baker and Kirby at the Foster home, shooting and killing them.” In reality, it doesn’t matter how they died, because so many people were glad that Baker was gone, that after the men were killed, their bodies were dragged through the town of Bloomburg and then taken to the US Army outpost near Jefferson, where they were placed on public display. Thomas Orr was said to have collected some of the reward money offered for Baker. Baker was buried in the Oakwood Cemetery in Jefferson, Texas. Though he was a deserter from Morgan’s Squadron, the Confederate cavalry unit is shown on his grave marker.
Some people have romanticized him for his defense of the “Southern honor,” but the reality is that Baker was a ruthless killer who killed anyone who angered him, regardless of their loyalties. It is thought that he killed between 50-60 people, and authorities and historians alike rank him among the most ruthless killers who ever lived.
After the November 11, 1918 German surrender in World War I, the German fleet was interned at Scapa Flow under the terms of the Armistice of 11 November, while negotiations took place over its fate. There was talk of the fleet being divided between the Allied nations, and there were those who really wanted that, but this brought the fear that the British would seize the ships, and the Germans worried that if the German government at the time might rejected the Treaty of Versailles and resumed the war effort, the newly confiscated German ships could be used against Germany. Amid all the speculation, Admiral Ludwig von Reuter decided to scuttle the fleet.
Scapa Flow was a naval base in the Orkney Islands in Scotland. When the German ships arrived, they had full crews and in all, there were more than 20,000 German sailors aboard, the number of sailors was reduced in the ensuing months. When the full fleet was at Scapa Flow, there were 74 ships there during negotiations between the Allies and Germany over a peace treaty that would become Versailles. The discussion was about what to do with the ships, since they didn’t really want Germany to have a full fleet ready, should they decide to wage war again. The French and Italians wanted a portion of the fleet, but the British wanted them destroyed. They were concerned about their own naval superiority, should the ships be distributed among the other Allied nations.
The Germans didn’t want their ships in the hand of their enemies, so Admiral Ludwig von Reuter began to prepare for the scuttling in May 1919, after hearing about the potential terms of the Versailles Treaty. Shortly before the treaty was signed on June 21, Reuter sent the signal to his men. The men began opening flood valves, smashing water pipes, and opening sewage tanks. As the scuttle was taking place, nine German crew members who abandoned ship and attempted to come ashore were shot by British forces. As the ships were being scuttled, the intervening British guard ships were able to beach some of the ships. In all, 52 of the 74 ships were sunk. While he wouldn’t say so out loud, British Admiral Wemyss was delighted that the ships were 
sunk, because that meant they wouldn’t be distributed to the French and Italians navies. Since the scuttling, many ships have been refloated and salvaged in the years since. Nevertheless, some remain in the seas at Scapa Flow. Those that remain are popular diving sites and a source of low-background steel.
