1896 Ford's Quadricycle

At approximately 1:30 A.M. on this day in 1896, Henry Ford test drove his Quadricycle, the first automobile he ever designed or drove. 

Ford was working at the Edison Illuminating Company in Detroit at the time that he began building the Quadricycle. He had reportedly seen an article on the gasoline engine in the American Machinist while in the company of friend and fellow engineer Charles King. In King's recollection, Ford claimed: "I want to build one of these." Ford employed the help of his friends in the Detroit engineering community to build an internal combustion engine on his kitchen table. It is important to note to what extent Ford was a visionary and an organizer. He was an engineer, of course, but he didn't, by any means, accomplish his engineering feats alone. Men like King, along with a slew of other engineers, volunteered their time to Ford's projects. 

King provided Ford with a whole crew of workers who labored in the makeshift machine shop Ford had constructed in his garage behind his Bagley Avenue residence in Detroit. Ford even convinced his neighbor, Felix Julian, to donate his half of the shed to the cause. King was building his own vehicle at the time and actually preempted Ford in testing the horseless carriage in March of 1896. Ford followed King's carriage's test-run on his bicycle. Ford did make one major innovation in building his first vehicle: his decision not to attach an engine to an existing carriage but rather to construct a four-wheel body based on the principles of bicycle manufacturing. Ford completed his Quadricycle early in the morning on this day in 1896. He couldn't wait to test the invention. Only one of his associates, Jim Bishop, was present at the time of the vehicle's completion. 

In all of his enthusiasm in getting the car together Ford failed to consider that his contraption was wider than the doors of the shed in which he built it. He and Bishop set upon the door and adjacent walls with axes in order to hack an entrance sufficient for the Quadricycle. The 500-pound, two-cylinder vehicle came to life in the alley behind Ford's house. Ford drove it down Bagley Avenue to Grand River Avenue, to Washington Boulevard, where the Quadricycle stopped. Bishop and Ford pushed the automobile to the Edison plant where they replaced a nut and spring that had come loose. The next month Henry drove his vehicle to his father's farm to show it off. His father apparently walked around it cautiously. Later he expressed his doubts to one of his neighbors: "John and William [Henry's brothers] are alright, but Henry worries me. He doesn't seem to be settled down and I don't know what's going to become of him." Little did his father know that his son Henry would do just fine for himself!

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1919 Congress passes the 19th Amendment

The 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, guaranteeing women the right to vote, is passed by Congress and sent to the states for ratification.

The women's suffrage movement was founded in the mid-19th century by women who had become politically active through their work in the abolitionist and temperance movements. In July 1848, 240 woman suffragists, including Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott, met in Seneca Falls, New York, to assert the right of women to vote. Female enfranchisement was still largely opposed by most Americans, and the distraction of the North-South conflict and subsequent Civil War precluded further discussion. During the Reconstruction Era, the 15th Amendment was adopted, granting African American men the right to vote, but the Republican-dominated Congress failed to expand its progressive radicalism into the sphere of gender.

In 1869, the National Woman Suffrage Association, led by Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, was formed to push for an amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Another organization, the American Woman Suffrage Association, led by Lucy Stone, was organized in the same year to work through the state legislatures. In 1890, these two societies were united as the National American Woman Suffrage Association. That year, Wyoming became the first state to grant women the right to vote.

By the beginning of the 20th century, the role of women in American society was changing drastically; women were working more, receiving a better education, bearing fewer children, and several states had authorized female suffrage. In 1913, the National Woman's party organized the voting power of these enfranchised women to elect congressional representatives who supported woman suffrage, and by 1916 both the Democratic and Republican parties openly endorsed female enfranchisement. In 1919, the 19th Amendment, which stated that "the rights of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex," passed both houses of Congress and was sent to the states for ratification. On August 18, 1920, Tennessee became the 36th state to ratify the amendment, giving it the two-thirds majority of state ratification necessary to make it the law of the land. Eight days later, the 19th Amendment took effect.

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1940 The evacuation of Dunkirk ends:

On June 4, 1940, the evacuation of Allied forces from Dunkirk on the Belgian coast ends as German forces capture the beach port. The nine-day evacuation, the largest of its kind in history and an unexpected success, saved 338,000 Allied troops from capture by the Nazis.

On May 10, 1940, the Germans launched their attack against the West, storming into Belgium, Holland, and Luxembourg. Faced with far superior airpower, more unified command, and highly mobile armored forces, the Allied defenders were a poor match for the German Wehrmacht. In a lightning attack, the Germans raced across Western Europe. On May 12, they entered France, out-flanking the northwest corners of the Maginot Line, previously alleged by French military command to be an impregnable defense of their eastern border. On May 15, the Dutch surrendered.

The Germans advanced in an arc westward from the Ardennes in Belgium, along France's Somme River, and to the English Channel, cutting off communication between the Allies' northern and southern forces. The Allied armies in the north, which comprised the main body of Allied forces, were quickly being encircled. By May 19, Lord John Gort, the British commander, was already considering the withdrawal of the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) by sea.

Reluctant to retreat so soon, the Allies fought on and launched an ineffective counterattack on May 21. By May 24, Walther von Brauchitsch, the German army commander in chief, was poised to take Dunkirk, the last port available for the withdrawal of the mass of the BEF from Europe. Fortunately for the Allies, Nazi leader Adolf Hitler suddenly intervened, halting the German advance. Hitler had been assured by Hermann Göring, head of the Luftwaffe, that his aircraft could destroy the Allied forces trapped on the beaches at Dunkirk, so Hitler ordered the forces besieging Dunkirk to pull back.

On May 26, the British finally initiated Operation Dynamo--the evacuation of Allied forces from Dunkirk. The next day, the Allies learned that King Leopold III of Belgium was surrendering, and the Germans resumed the land attack on Dunkirk. By then, the British had fortified their defenses, but the Germans would not be held for long, and the evacuation was escalated. As there were not enough ships to transport the huge masses of men stranded at Dunkirk, the British Admiralty called on all British citizens in possession of sea-worthy vessels to lend their ships to the effort. Fishing boats, pleasure yachts, lifeboats, and other civilian ships raced to Dunkirk, braving mines, bombs, and torpedoes.

During the evacuation, the Royal Air Force (RAF) successfully resisted the Luftwaffe, saving the operation from failure. Still, the German fighters bombarded the beach, destroyed numerous vessels, and pursued other ships within a few miles of the English coast. The harbor at Dunkirk was bombed out of use, and small civilian vessels had to ferry the soldiers from the beaches to the warships waiting at sea. But for nine days, the evacuation continued, a miracle to the Allied commanders who had expected disaster. By June 4, when the Germans closed in and the operation came to an end, 198,000 British and 140,000 French troops were saved. These experienced soldiers would play a crucial role in future resistance against Nazi Germany.

With Western Europe abandoned by its main defenders, the German army swept through the rest of France, and Paris fell on June 14. Eight days later, Henri Pétain signed an armistice with the Nazis at Compiegne. Germany annexed half the country, leaving the other half in the hands of their puppet French rulers.

But as Britain withdrew, a major question remained: Why had Hitler let the BEF elude his grasp?
Just as the German army cut off the BEF's main army from its communications base and was about to pounce, Hitler held them back, giving the BEF a chance to regroup and ultimately make its retreat, while also giving Britain an opportunity to rally new forces and prepare for invasion. Hitler's misstep may have in the long run cost Germany the war. Why did he do it? Speculation remains rampant. It may have been an effort to spare Britain utter humiliation (Hitler admitted admiration for Britain and its empire, even describing it as a stabilizing force in the world), in hopes of making a dignified peace, once Germany was acknowledged as dominant on the Continent. It may also have been a result of bad advice from Herman Goering, who did not want the German army alone to take credit for the victory, thereby discrediting the Luftwaffe. Or was it fear that a depleted panzer force would be unable to do the job? The question continues to puzzle historians.