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Contact Info
Home Town Newport, Kentucky
Last Address Great Neck, New York
Date of Passing Jun 21, 1940
Location of Interment U.S. Military Academy West Point Post Cemetery (VLM) - West Point, New York
U.S. Army Brigadier General, Inventor of the Thompson Submachine Gun. Born in Newport, Kentucky, he was the son of a Union Civil War Colonel and career Army Officer, James Thompson. He grew up at military posts in the mid-west and later attended Indiana University for a year. He graduated from the United States Military Academy at West Point in 1882, 11th in his class. Thompson became a 2nd Lieutenant and was assigned to the 2nd U.S. Artillery. He served at various posts until he was assigned to the Army Ordnance Department in 1890. During the Spanish-American War, he was promoted to Lieutenant Colonel and appointed as Chief Ordnance Officer. Thompson became a small arms specialist and was instrumental in developing the .45 caliber rimless cartridge for use with automatic weapons and eventually for use with the Colt Model 1911 .45 Automatic handgun. After years of failing to persuade the Army to adopt automatic weapons, he resigned in 1914 and accepted a position as a director with the Remington Arms Corporation. Remington built a factory to support the European War Effort and produced rifles for the British and Russian Armies. When the United States entered World War I, Thompson was recalled to active duty and was commissioned as a Brigadier General. He was awarded the Distinguished Service Medal for his service as Director of Arsenals. After the war, he retired from the Army and concentrated on developing a practical automatic rifle. He invented the Thompson Submachine Gun, using .45 caliber ammunition, and sold the weapon in large quantities to law enforcement agencies after proving its effectiveness. The weapon popularly became known as the "Tommy Gun" and earned notoriety for its use by gangsters in the 1920s. His invention was later adopted by the U.S. Marine Corps and was put to great use during World War II. Thompson died at his residence in Newport in 1940 when he was 79 years old.
Description The Spanish–American War (Spanish: Guerra hispano-estadounidense or Guerra hispano-americana; Filipino: Digmaang Espanyol-Amerikano) was a conflict fought between Spain and the United States in 1898. Hostilities began in the aftermath of the internal explosion of the USS Maine in Havana harbor in Cuba leading to United States intervention in the Cuban War of Independence. American acquisition of Spain's Pacific possessions led to its involvement in the Philippine Revolution and ultimately in the Philippine–American War.
Revolts had been occurring for some years in Cuba against Spanish rule. The U.S. later backed these revolts upon entering the Spanish–American War. There had been war scares before, as in the Virginius Affair in 1873. In the late 1890s, US public opinion was agitated by anti-Spanish propaganda led by newspaper publishers such as Joseph Pulitzer and William Randolph Hearst which used yellow journalism to call for war. The business community across the United States had just recovered from a deep depression, and feared that a war would reverse the gains. They lobbied vigorously against going to war.
The US Navy battleship Maine was mysteriously sunk in Havana harbor; political pressures from the Democratic Party pushed the administration of Republican President William McKinley into a war that he had wished to avoid.[9] Spain promised time and time again that it would reform, but never delivered. The United States sent an ultimatum to Spain demanding that it surrender control of Cuba. First Madrid declared war, and Washington then followed suit.
The main issue was Cuban independence; the ten-week war was fought in both the Caribbean and the Pacific. US naval power proved decisive, allowing expeditionary forces to disembark in Cuba against a Spanish garrison already facing nationwide Cuban insurgent attacks and further wasted by yellow fever. Numerically superior Cuban, Philippine, and US forces obtained the surrender of Santiago de Cuba and Manila despite the good performance of some Spanish infantry units and fierce fighting for positions such as San Juan Hill. Madrid sued for peace with two obsolete Spanish squadrons sunk in Santiago de Cuba and Manila Bay and a third, more modern fleet recalled home to protect the Spanish coasts.
The result was the 1898 Treaty of Paris, negotiated on terms favorable to the US which allowed it temporary control of Cuba and ceded ownership of Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Philippine islands. The cession of the Philippines involved payment of $20 million ($575,760,000 today) to Spain by the US to cover infrastructure owned by Spain.
The defeat and collapse of the Spanish Empire was a profound shock to Spain's national psyche, and provoked a thorough philosophical and artistic revaluation of Spanish society known as the Generation of '98.[ The United States gained several island possessions spanning the globe and a rancorous new debate over the wisdom of expansionism. It was one of only five US wars (against a total of eleven sovereign states) to have been formally declared by Congress.