Augustoacosta

[History With Jacob @HistoryWJacob]

Germany thought America was too weak to make a difference. Eighteen months later, two million American soldiers were in France.

When the United States declared war in April 1917, the German high command barely recognized it. The US Army was small by European standards: just 130,000 men, 500 machine guns and no tanks.

European armies were in the millions and had been bleeding each other for three years. Germany's generals were sure the Americans could never raise, train, and ship a real army across an ocean full of U-boats. They bet on unrestricted submarine warfare.

It was the worst miscalculation of the war. Within eighteen months the United States sent over two million men to France, arriving at 25,000 a week by that summer. While Germany bled out. The army they laughed at helped end the war.

They underestimated America.

Kaiser Wilhelm II, photographed here in 1913, at the height of his power. Within five years the empire was gone and he was in exile.

[Echoes of War @EchoesofWarYT]

In November 1900, five men who had just taken $32,000 out of a bank in Nevada sat down and decided the right move was a group photo.

The gang was Butch Cassidy's Wild Bunch. The five were Butch, the Sundance Kid, Harvey Logan who went by Kid Curry, Will Carver, and Ben Kilpatrick.

On September 19, 1900, they had hit the First National Bank of Winnemucca and gotten away with about $32,640, which was serious money and, because of how it was insured and pursued, serious heat. Their usual hideout in Wyoming was too hot to go back to. So they drifted down to Fort Worth and settled into Hell's Half Acre, the red light district, with a lot of cash and nothing to do.

They bought new suits. They bought new derby hats, which was a formal city hat that men in the West mostly did not wear.

And on November 21, 1900, all five of them walked into John Swartz's photography studio on Main Street and posed.

The result is one of the most recognizable photographs in American history. Five men in wool suits and vests and watch chains, three standing, two seated, everybody groomed, everybody relaxed, looking for all the world like the board of directors of a small savings bank.

Swartz was proud of it. He printed a copy and put it up in his gallery window on Main Street.

Fort Worth was a major railroad town, which meant it was crawling with railroad and express company detectives. Somebody walking down Main Street stopped at that window and recognized a face. Sources disagree on who exactly, either a Fort Worth police detective named Charles Scott or the Wells Fargo detective Fred Dodge.

The photograph went to the Pinkerton National Detective Agency, who described it as their first real break in the case.

Understand what they had before that. Aliases, physical descriptions, a lot of contradictory eyewitness guesses. What they suddenly had instead was a crisp studio portrait of the entire leadership of the gang, correctly identified, all five faces looking straight at the camera.

By May 1901 the Pinkertons had circulars going out with those faces on them to law enforcement across North America and South America.

Here is what happened to the men in the picture.

Will Carver was dead within five months. Sheriff Lige Briant and his deputies moved on him in a bakery in Sonora, Texas in April 1901. He was hit six times before his gun cleared the holster.

Harvey Logan was captured, escaped a jail in Knoxville, and in 1904, wounded and surrounded after a botched train robbery near Parachute, Colorado, killed himself rather than be taken.

Ben Kilpatrick was arrested in 1901 and did about ten years in federal prison. He got out and immediately went back to robbing trains. In 1912 he and a partner took over an express car outside Sanderson, Texas, not knowing the messenger inside, David Trousdale, was sitting with a shipment of frozen oysters and the heavy mallet used to break up the ice. Trousdale caved in the partner's skull with the mallet, took his rifle, and shot Kilpatrick in the head when he came to the window. Wells Fargo gave Trousdale a thousand dollars and an engraved gold watch.

Butch and Sundance left the country. Argentina in 1901, ranching in Patagonia for a while with Etta Place, then back to robbery, and most likely dead in a shootout with soldiers at San Vicente, Bolivia in 1908.

There is a great old story that Butch mailed a print of the photograph to the Winnemucca bank with a thank you note. It is almost certainly not true.

It did not need to be. The Pinkertons had hunted these men for years without ever getting a decent picture of a single one of them.

In the end the gang commissioned that picture themselves, paid for it, dressed up for it, and sat still.

[SparksN123 @SparksN123]

GET-R-Done. The smart choice. Yeah!

[MJ👑 @iam__Jezreel]

"I don't understand the Bible"

You are welcome👇🏽

[Augustoacosta @danielkt_71]

@waitmaya 31

[Trad West @trad_west_]

1,800-year-old Christian mosaic declares Jesus Christ is God ✝️

[Carolina Blitz @KeepBlitzin]

Xavier Legette opens up about remodeling his childhood home.

Via @SInow

[Jon Root @JonnyRoot_]

Pat McAfee made fun of Fauci on his show live on ESPN

No other personality at the network would dare do this or be able to get away with it like Pat. That’s why he’s a national treasure & a blessing to sports media.

[Augustoacosta @danielkt_71]

@England @FIFAWorldCup Royal heist

[Augustoacosta @danielkt_71]

@GuntherEagleman Please educate me,how in the world he’s gotten elected?

[Nick Searcy, Actor/Director/Producer/Author @yesnicksearcy]

The most hilarious thing about this clip is what an uncomfortable tool @StephenAtHome is when confronted with sarcasm about how stupid you had to be to believe Fauci’s bullshit.

[il Donaldo Trumpo @PapiTrumpo]

STOP IT!!!😂😂😂

[Josh Hawley @HawleyMO]

Anthony Fauci has ZERO rights under the Fifth Amendment because Joe Biden pardoned him.

He got RICH while people were DYING.

He used federal employees with taxpayer money to apply for and solicit cash prizes

He needs to answer for it

[Laura Ingraham @IngrahamAngle]

Thank you for reposting this. Regular people like this man were on to the con—and the con artists. The “educated” idiots just followed in lockstep.

[Alexander Delarge 655321 @AlexDelarge6553]

Fuck it! It's Monday!

[Ned Ryun @nedryun]

#1 song of the decade.

[Augustoacosta @danielkt_71]

@elonmusk Like a fine wine….

[Elon Musk @elonmusk]

That’s what he said

[Buzz Patterson @BuzzPatterson]

New York, how did you elect an Israel-hating, Muslim jihadist mayor 25 years after this? Have you lost your collective minds?