On this day, March 17, 1943, one week after he was inducted into the army, my dad, John Fox Maney, departed on a train from Van Wert, OH for basic training, first at Camp Perry on Lake Erie and then at Ft. Leonard Wood. He was 20 years old at the time. What a way to spend St. Patrick’s Day!

On this day in 1943 my dad, John F. Maney, was inducted into the army at the age of 20 (the tree in this picture under which dad sat is outside a house in Uffculme England that was used as battalion HQ. I have a picture of that tree 40 years later when dad and I visited in June 1984). A week later he left on a train from Van Wert, OH for Camp Perry on Lake Erie. What a way to start the decade of your 20s.

They are both gone now. Sad.

The sailor shown kissing a woman in New York’s Time Square in an iconic photo that captured the ecstatic celebrations at the end of World War II died Sunday in Rhode Island, according to family members.

George Mendonsa was two days short of his 96th birthday when he died at an assisted living facility in Middletown.

Mendonsa’s daughter, Sharon Molleur, told the Providence Journal her 95-year-old father had fallen and had a seizure before he was pronounced dead. He lived at the facility with his wife of 70 years.

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Washington’s Birthday was celebrated on February 22nd until well into the 20th Century. However, in 1968 Congress passed the Monday Holiday Law to “provide uniform annual observances of certain legal public holidays on Mondays.” By creating more 3-day weekends, Congress hoped to “bring substantial benefits to both the spiritual and economic life of the Nation.”

One of the provisions of this act changed the observance of Washington’s Birthday from February 22nd to the third Monday in February. Ironically, this guaranteed that the holiday would never be celebrated on Washington’s actual birthday, as the third Monday in February cannot fall any later than February 21.

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I happen temporarily to occupy this big White House. I am living witness that any one of your children may look to come here as my father’s child has.

—Abraham Lincoln, Quotations of Abraham Lincoln

I have endured a great deal of ridicule without much malice; and have received a great deal of kindness, not quite free from ridicule. I am used to it.

—Abraham Lincoln, Quotations of Abraham Lincoln

When the conduct of men is designed to be influenced, persuasion, kind, unassuming persuasion, should ever be adopted.

—Abraham Lincoln, Quotations of Abraham Lincoln

In regard to this Great Book [the Bible], I have but to say, it is the best gift God has given to man. All the good the Savior gave to the world was communicated through this book.

—Abraham Lincoln, Quotations of Abraham Lincoln

I have never studied the art of paying compliments to women; but I must say that if all that has been said by orators and poets since the creation of the world in praise of women were applied to the women of America, it would not do them justice for their conduct during this war. God bless the women of America!

—Abraham Lincoln, Quotations of Abraham Lincoln

I have stepped out upon this platform that I may see you and that you may see me, and in the arrangement, I have the best of the bargain.

—Abraham Lincoln, Quotations of Abraham Lincoln

Those who deny freedom to others, deserve it not for themselves.

—Abraham Lincoln, Quotations of Abraham Lincoln