Tuesday, February 4, 2014

Today in the Sobel Timeline: February 4

On February 4, 1839, the newly-formed Jefferson and California Railroad Company began laying tracks in Henrytown, Jefferson as the first step in their plan to build a railroad connecting Henrytown to San Francisco, California. The formation of the railroad had been a response to the discovery of gold in California a year earlier. Although President Andrew Jackson had adamantly opposed building the "iron monsters" in the United States of Mexico, the California Gold Rush had forced him to concede the necessity for a rail link between California and the Gulf Coast.

On February 4, 1959, Governor-General Richard Mason gave a vitavised speech in which he rejected calls for increased defense spending in the Confederation of North America, in spite of the growing militarization of the Caribbean by Mexican dictator Vincent Mercator. "Nothing has ever been solved by war," he told his audience. "If we have learned one thing from the horrors of the Global War, it is that arms solve no problems, but only bring disaster."

Mason's remarks were reported the next day in the Burgoyne Times.

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