Phil Ochs

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January 8, 1815 — The Battle of New Orleans takes place

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In the annals of military pointlessness, few battles are quite as ridiculous as the Battle of New Orleans. It was fought 16 days after the official end of the War of 1812, of which it was a part, due to the fact that the peace treaty was signed in Europe, and the news took two months to reach America.

The Battle of New Orleans was important to later American history, though. It ended the war with a decisive American victory (in a war where neither side had managed to seize the advantage over the other), and it brought to prominence a commander named Andrew Jackson, who would later become the seventh President of the USA.

Battle of New Orleans, Jean Hyacinthe de Laclotte.jpg
By Painting by Jean Hyacinthe de Laclotte (1766 – 1829), a member of the Louisiana Militia who participated in the battle; painted by him after the victory based on his sketches made at the scene. – New Orleans Museum of Art, Public Domain, Link

As mentioned in:

I Ain’t Marching Anymore — Phil Ochs
Lydia the Tattooed Lady — Groucho Marx
The Battle of New Orleans — Johnny Horton

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June 25, 1876 — Custer is defeated and killed at Little Big Horn

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General George Armstrong Custer went into battle at Little Big Horn under a number of false impressions.

He was under the impression that he would be facing no more than 800 Native Americans, rather than more than twice that number – Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse had recruited assiduously, knowing that a battle was coming. He was under the impression that his major challenge would be preventing the escape of the enemy forces, rather than defeating them. And finally, he was under the impression, based on these assumptions, that the force under the command of his subordinate Major Reno would be far more effective in battle than it proved.

But with Reno’s forces isolated and routed, Custer’s forces were outnumbered and surrendered. More than 200 men in Custer’s army, including Custer himself, were killed.

Charles Marion Russell - The Custer Fight (1903).jpg
By Charles Marion Russell – This image is available from the United States Library of Congress‘s Prints and Photographs division
under the digital ID cph.3g07160.
This tag does not indicate the copyright status of the attached work. A normal copyright tag is still required. See Commons:Licensing for more information., Public Domain, Link

As mentioned in:

Custer — Johnny Cash
General Custer — Swan
Jim Bridger — Johnny Horton
Little Big Horn — Running Wild
I Love America — Alice Cooper
Custer Had It Coming — Redbone
The Punch Line — The Minutemen
Custer Song — Buffy Sainte-Marie
Custer Died A-Runnin’ — David Wilkie
I Ain’t Marching Anymore — Phil Ochs
Some Fool Made A Soldier Of Me — The Kingston Trio
Please Mister Custer, I Don’t Wanna Go — Larry Verne
History is Made By Stupid People — The Arrogant Worms

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November 22, 1963 — U.S. President John F Kennedy is assassinated

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One of the defining events of its era, the assassination of President Kennedy remains a remarkably controversial one, even today. Conspiracy theories abound as to who shot Kennedy and why.

While the official story, that Lee Harvey Oswald did it, with the rifle, in the book depository, is plausible, it is also notably incomplete – there are any number of holes and anomalies in it. The murder of Oswald only two days later, before he could stand trial, has done nothing to quell these uncertainties.

On a symbolic level, the death of Kennedy was the end of an era in many ways. Quite aside from the idealism that he brought to the nation, his death marked a change in the way America saw itself – no longer the lily-white paladin, but more the grim avenger willing do the dirty work no one else would – although in fairness, this change of self-image would take the rest of the decade to be complete.

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March 13, 1964 — Kitty Genovese murdered by Winston Mosely

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It is one of the most controversial murders in recent history – less that it took place, but the more for how it is remembered.

Kitty Genovese was a 28 year old woman who worked as the night manager of Ev’s Eleventh Hour Sports Bar in Hollis and lived in nearby Kew Gardens (both located in the Queens area of New York City). A little after 3AM on the morning of March 13, 1964, she was attacked by Winston Moseley outside the building where she lived.

Mosely stabbed her repeatedly, and although she managed to escape him at first, he caught her again and stabbed her once more, this time puncturing her lung. Finally, he pursued her into the atrium of her building, where he raped her and stabbed her to death.

Infamously, it was claimed that there were 38 witnesses to the crime, all of whom did nothing, and the murder became one of the best known “proofs” of the apathy and callousness of big city life. In fact, the number was much smaller, several of them did call the police (although their accounts were incomplete) and the police did arrive soon after they were called. No one just watched (although it has been claimed that they did). Many of those who were witnesses heard only the screams of Genovese, and some of these were misinterpreted – only two witnesses actually saw any of the stabbings, one the first and one the last, and of these, the latter did call the police.

Genovese died of her wounds in the ambulance later that night, but her legacy – other than the urban myth version of her attack – is widespread. Reforms to police phone reporting procedures and neighbourhood watch programs were instituted, and a great deal of research into the “bystander effect” (sometimes even called the “Genovese syndrome”) has also taken place. Mosely was imprisoned for his crimes (this murder and two others) and later died in prison in 2016.

KittyGenovese(1).jpg
By New York Police Department – Mug shot created by the Queens, New York police department (see [1]).
Seth Ilys (talk · contribs) downloaded this version from http://psych.wisc.edu/henriques/resources/Images.html; this version from The Nation., Public Domain, Link

As mentioned in:

Outside of a Small Circle of Friends — Phil Ochs

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April 9, 1976 — Phil Ochs dies

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Born on December 19, 1940, Phil Ochs would become one of the best known protest singers in America (although he himself preferred the descriptor ‘topical singer’). He had his roots in the folk scene of Greenwich Village in the early Sixties. Although he never achieved the commercial success of some of his contemporaries, such as Bob Dylan, Pete Seeger or Peter, Paul and Mary, he was an influential composer. His song “I Ain’t Marching Anymore” was a popular rallying cry of anti-Vietnam War protests, and was even once broadcast on the news by Walter Cronkite.

Ochs’ life took a turn for the worse in the Seventies. His troubles with bipolar disorder and alcoholism grew worse, and his behaviour grew paranoid and erratic. Ochs hanged himself on April 9, 1976, bitter and disillusioned by the Nixon era and the assassinations of 1968.