This Day…

1898  – US Congress passes the Private Mailing Card Act, allowing private publishers and printers to produce postcards, had to be labelled “Private Mailing Cards” until 1901, known as “souvenir cards”.

1929  – Al Capone is today in prison following his plea of guilty to the minor charge of carrying a concealed weapon, it is believed he pled guilty to these offences to help him stay safe in prison, he is best known for his domination of the Chicago Beer Runners and is believed to have been behind the St Valentines Day massacre.

1846 – The United States declares war on Mexico after fighting has already begun.

1887 – The Swan Land and Cattle Company of Wyoming, only four years old, declares bankruptcy, following the devastating winter of 1886-87.  The demise of the huge livestock corporation is symbolic of the Depression that will grip the cattle industry on the Great Plains during the next ten years.

1915 – American motion-picture actor and director Orson Welles was born in Kenosha, Wisconsin.

1893 – Cowboy Bill Pickett invents bulldogging, the skill of grabbing cattle by the horns and wrestling them to the ground.

1945 – US Army liberates 31,601 people from the Dachau Nazi concentration camp in Germany.

1861 – U.S. President Lincoln issued an order to General Winfield Scott that authorized him to suspend the writ of habeas corpus between Philadelphia and Washington at or near any military line.

1882 – The Earp posse got itself dusted up at Mescal Springs by some bandits who robbed a store in Charleston.  Wyatt claimed to have killed Curly Bill there but it was another of his many lies.  Curly Bill had previously left the territory.  Wyatt and Doc then prudently fled to Colorado in order to avoid arrest by Behan’s posse on the Stillwater warrant.

1889  – The Oklahoma Land run begins with an estimated 50,000 people lined up at noon hoping to stake a claim for a homestead ( the claim could be up to 160 acres in size ), it included most of the following Oklahoma Counties, Canadian, Cleveland, Kingfisher, Logan, Oklahoma, and Payne ( in total about 2 million acres ). This land had previously been occupied by Indians but the Indian Appropriations Bill approved the transfer of two million acres for settlement.