July 21, 1918 – U-156 shells Nauset Beach, in Orleans, Massachusetts.

The Attack on Orleans, in July 1918 was a naval and air action during the First World War. An Imperial German U-boat opened fire on the American town of Orleans, Massachusetts and several merchant vessels nearby. A tugboat was sunk, but shells fired in the direction of the town landed harmlessly in a marsh and on a beach.

On the morning on July 21, 1918, under the command of Richard Feldt, SM U-156 was positioned off Nauset Beach, located in Orleans, Massachusetts. She was armed with two torpedo tubes and 18 torpedoes as well as two 105 millimeter deck guns, with 1672 shells. U-156 surfaced and opened fire on the town with her deck guns, then with torpedoes and her deck guns on the 140 foot tugboat, Perth Amboy, which was surrounded by four wooden barges.

Men from the nearby Coast Guard station rushed up to the observation tower to see what the commotion was. One of them called Chatham Naval Air Station to inform them of the ongoing U-boat attack. Reuben Hopkins, a Coast Guard veteran of the engagement, reached the tower rail in time to see an enemy shell explode over the tugboat. The tug was quickly sunk and U-156 then started firing upon the barges. Escaping from the now burning Perth Amboy and barges were 32 merchant sailors and civilians, including the captain's wife and children.

Reuben Hopkins stayed behind as other men went to rescue the tugboat survivors who were coming ashore in lifeboats. Soon, Curtiss HS-2L and R-9 seaplanes arrived to bomb the U-boat, but the ordnance dropped either were duds or failed to hit the target and the warplanes had to fly back to Chatham, Massachusetts to reload.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attack_on_Orleans

July 20,1934 In Seattle, Washington, police fire tear gas on and club 2,000 striking longshoremen.

The 1934 West Coast Waterfront Strike (also known as the 1934 West Coast Longshoremen's Strike, as well as a number of variations on these names) lasted eighty-three days, triggered by sailors and a four-day general strike in San Francisco, and led to the unionization of all of the West Coast ports of the United States.
The San Francisco General Strike, along with the 1934 Toledo Auto-Lite Strike led by the American Workers Party and the Minneapolis Teamsters Strike of 1934 led by the Communist League of America, were important catalysts for the rise of industrial unionism in the 1930s, much of which was organized through the Congress of Industrial Organizations.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1934_West_Coast_waterfront_strike

July 20, 1934 – Police in Minneapolis fire upon striking truck drivers,

during the Minneapolis Teamsters Strike of 1934, killing two and wounding sixty-seven.

The Minneapolis General Strike of 1934 grew out of a strike by Teamsters against most of the trucking companies operating in Minneapolis, a major distribution center for the Upper Midwest. The strike began on May 16, 1934 in the Market District (the modern day Warehouse District) and ensuing violence lasted periodically throughout the summer. Led by local leaders associated with the Trotskyist Communist League of America, a group that later founded the Socialist Workers Party (United States), the strike paved the way for the organization of over-the-road drivers and the growth of the Teamsters labor union. It, along with the 1934 West Coast Longshore Strike and the 1934 Toledo Auto-Lite Strike led by the American Workers Party, were also important catalysts for the rise of industrial unionism in the 1930s, much of which was organized through the Congress of Industrial Organizations.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minneapolis_Teamsters_Strike_of_1934

July 20: National Lollipop Day, National Hot Dog Day & National Ice Cream Soda Day.

July 19: National Daiquiri Day

July 17: National Peach Ice Cream Day

Full list of Missouri Governor Nixon's vetoes

Excluding line item budget vetoes, Gov. Jay Nixon vetoed 29 bills this session – more than his previous five years in office. Below are brief description of the bills – as well as a link to Nixon’s veto letters.

https://www.stlbeacon.org/#!/content/31844/nixon_veto_list

The entire list of 29 bills is at the link. Each bill vetoed provides a link to the Governor's Veto Letter.

Who’s dependent on food stamps? Cheapskate corporations

The House of Representatives passed a farm bill on July 11 that, for the first time in 40 years, excludes authorization for food stamps. Although this omission doesn’t eliminate spending on what’s known formally as the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program (SNAP), which can still receive congressional appropriations, it will likely result in substantial cuts. That’s because SNAP’s expansion has become a source of growing complaint among Republicans—most famously during the 2012 Republican primaries, when Newt Gingrich labeled Barack Obama “the food stamp president.”

The GOP’s objection to food stamps is that they create welfare dependency among recipients (even though they can’t be used for anything except food). As Rep. Paul Ryan put it in his 2013 budget document, “State governments have little incentive to make sure that able-bodied adults on SNAP are working, looking for work, or enrolled in job training programs.”

But this gets the problem exactly backwards. A majority of food-stamp families with an able-bodied adult do work, and more than 60% of such families work when they have children. They just don’t get paid enough to feed their families. SNAP is therefore principally a program to subsidize cheapskate employers like Walmart that don’t give employees enough salary to live on. It’s actually been called “the Walmart Syndrome.”

The main reason SNAP has been expanding lately is, of course, the Great Recession. Robert Rector and Katherine Bradley of the Heritage Foundation, observing that spending on food stamps has increased from $20 billion in 2000 to $85 billion in 2011, have proposed lowering SNAP’s budget to pre-recession levels.

http://tv.msnbc.com/2013/07/12/walmart-whos-dependent-on-food-stamps-cheapskate-corporations/

St. Louis County Police sues county seeking to hasten negotiations

CLAYTON • The bargaining agent representing St. County Police officers accelerated its bid for a new contract Friday in court papers charging that St. Louis County has intentionally stalled negotiations on a pact for the rank and file.

“We entered this process with high hopes and have given the (County Administrator Charlie) Dooley Administration every opportunity to move this process along,” St. Louis County Police Association President Gabe Crocker said in a prepared statement. “It has become apparent that this administration is simply not interested in addressing the needs of police officers and their families.”

In the nine-page brief submitted Friday, the association asked the St. Louis County Circuit Court to order the county to “immediately” enter into “good faith” collective bargaining.

The association also asked the court to appoint a special master to oversee the negotiations.

http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/metro/eb28c248-972b-56bd-aeb8-c213984267bf.html

July 15, 1806 – US Army Lieutenant Zebulon Pike begins an expedition to explore the West

The Pike Expedition (July 15, 1806 – July 1, 1807) was a military effort authorized by the United States government to explore the south and west of the recent Louisiana Purchase. Roughly contemporaneous with the Lewis and Clark Expedition, it was led by United States Army Lieutenant Zebulon Pike, Jr. (He was promoted to captain while on the trip.) It was the first official American effort to explore the western Great Plains and the Rocky Mountains in present-day Colorado. Pike contacted several Native American tribes during his travels and informed them of the new US rule over the territory. The expedition documented the United States' discovery of Pikes Peak. After splitting up his men, Pike led the larger contingent to find the headwaters of the Red River. A smaller group returned safely to the US Army fort in St. Louis, Missouri before winter set in.

Pike's company made several errors and ended up in Spanish territory in southern present-day Colorado, where the Americans built a fort to survive the winter. Captured by the Spanish and taken into Mexico in February, their travels through present-day New Mexico, Mexico, and Texas provided Pike with important data about Spanish military strength and civilian populations. Although he and most of his men were released because the nations were not at war, some of his soldiers were held in Mexican prisons for years, despite US objections. In 1810, Pike published an account of his expeditions, which was so popular that it was translated into French, German, and Dutch for publication in Europe.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pike_expedition