Penigma
A blog dedicated to the rational discussion of politics and current events.Penigmahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05134413210507419937noreply@blogger.comBlogger356125
Updated: 48 min 55 sec ago
September 8th in History
My apologies to Penigma readers for the delay in today's history post. I ask for your patience a little longer, as I get caught up in the next day or two.
Arch of Titus bas relief carving,
section showing the looting of the
Menorah and other items from the
Second Jewish temple in Jerusalem 70 Roman forces under Titus continue the sack Jerusalem. The city was first beseiged and then substantially destroyed. On the Jewish side, the Zealots, one of four religious / nationalistic sects, had been attacking Roman citizens, perceived traitors and collaborators, and staging anti-tax protests, provoking the Romans to crack down on their activities. The larger revolt had begun with objections to Greeks making bird sacrifices as part of their separate religious observances too close to the Jewish temple in Ceasarea in 66. The rebelious Jewish forces had a successful ambush, defeating Roman forces which was part of the catalyst for Emperor Nero back in Rome to send in more troops to crush the rebellion that had previously been simmering but not in full outbreak. The Roman forces started in the north, and worked their way south conquering the region. The Zealots (from the Greek zelotes, in this usage people zealous on behalf of God) and one of their splinter groups, the Sicarii ('dagger men') literally engaged in a kind of stealth 'cloak and dagger' warfare, hiding their daggers under their cloaks before attacking. In an attempt to provoke the majority of the Jewish residents of Jerusalem to join the Zealots and Sicarii in revolt, they assassinated Jonathon, the High Priest; they also destroyed the food supply of Jerusalem in an attempt to force the population to fight the Romans. As a result there were numerous deaths inside Jerusalem from starvation. The Sicarii threatened to kill anyone who advocated for surrenhsder. Some biblical scholars attribute the name of Judas the Iscariot to a corruption over time of the word Sicarii, translating it as Judas the Sicarios.
The Romans were initially unsuccessful in their seige of Jerusalem, encircling the city with a second ring of walls and establishing a permanent encampment. Anyone the Sicarii didn't kill for arguing for surrender, who subsequently tried to escape from inside Jerusalem was caught between the inner Jewish walls around Jerusalem and the outer walls of the Romans. Those caught in between were crucified; historians estimated as many as 500 crucifixions a day. Estimates are 1,100,000 Jews killed in the suppression of the rebellion, with more of those Jewish deaths being caused by the Jews dying from hunger and illness than from the Romans. An estimated 97,000 Jews were captured and sold into slavery, with additional Jews fleeing the Romans into other regions, mostly around the Mediterranean, in the second diaspora (the first was the Babylonian diaspora).
After the conquest of Jerusalem by the Romans, some of the Sicarii escaped to the mountain top stronghold of Masada, holding out until 73 AD. When Masada finally fell, most - but not all - of the rebel Sicarii participated in a murder suicide pact rather than surrender or be captured. Some scholars see the Sicarii as the predecessors of the medieval Hashshashin (or assassins), and 'sicarios' is a term for a class of drug cartel hit men. It is also means hired killer, assasin or cutthroat in Italian as well as Spanish.
701 Death of Pope Sergius I (b. 650) Sergius had been the choice to end the papal schism over the sede vacante in the final Byzantine papacy, between the two anti-popes, Anti-pope Paschal and Anti-pope Theodore. Factions of Paschal and Theodore had actually started military battles with each other for the position, on behalf of their respective candidates. Sergius refused to accept the disciplinary canons of the Quinisext Council, aka the Council of Trullo convened by Byzantine Emperor Justinian II. So Justinian II had Pope Sergius abducted. Which wasn't an entirely new tactic; his predecessor Constans II had kidnapped Pope Martin I. Theodore was the first of the two to acknowledge Sergius as the new pope. Paschal tried to bribe the exarch of Ravenna to provide additional military support for his challenge, and then John Platyn, the exarch, showed up with armed forces, looted the Old St. Peter's Basilica, grabbed the gold offered as a bribe, and then left with his military forces after the consecration as pope of Sergius. Paschal ended up under house arrest at a monastery, charged with witchcraft.
801 Birth of Ansgar, German Christian archbishop (d. 865) St. Ansgar, aka St. Oscar, was one of the early missionaries who was responsible for the 'Christianizing of the North', contributing substantially to the missionary activity of Germany, and the Scandinavian countries, especially Denmark where he is the patron Saint. He had a lot of motivating relgious visions. The lunar crater Ansgarius was named for him.
828 Birth of Ali al-Hadi, Shia Imam, tenth of the 'Twelve Imams' in Islam (d. 868). Similar in a vague sense to the twelve disciples of Christ, in the respect that they continued his message, the twelve imams were the direct successors to the Prophet Mohamed in Islam. To the 'Twelvers' these imams were infallible just rulers, and they were uniquely perfectly qualified to interpret Divine Law. Shia muslims believe the coming of these twelve special infallible authorities was included in the Hadith of the Twelve Successors in which Mohamed describes their existence as a kind of prophecy. Although the Twelve Imams are not prophets, as with the parallel to Christ's disciples, they have an exalted and special relationship with God, and therefore represent a special access to God to provide divine guidance. While Ali al-Hadi was a Shia, the Twelve Imams Hadith is acknowledged by both Sunni and Shia muslims. Each age after the period when Mohamed lived is believed by 'Twelvers' to have a single Imam; the final, twelfth Imam is believed by Twelvers to be alive NOW, hidden, waiting to bring justice to the world. However, this last, current Imam is believed to have been alive since 868 AD and went into hiding at the age of 5. The twelfth final imam is to be the 'Mahdi', a militant redeemer / warrior who will accompany Jesus Christ in his second coming at the same time as the one-eyed Anti-Christ. There will be a lunar AND solar eclipse in the month of Ramadan, there will be a star or comet with a long luminous tail heralding his coming, and he will have 'a broad forehead, prominent nose, and 'natural mascara will ring his eyes', and black hair and beard; he will be good looking, and will arrive in an even-numbered year, in Mecca before conquering the world. And, his face will 'shine on the surface of the moon', (a prophecy which I am embarrassed to admit makes me think of the comic book bat-signal.) Jesus is scheduled to arrive in this scenario only after the Mahdi has ruled for a set period of time (estimates differ). Another interesting prediction is that the Mahdi will judge the people of the Qur'an according to the Qur'an; the people of the Gospels according to the Gospels, the people of the Psalms according to the Psalms, and the people of the Torah according to the Torah. The other portents besides the tailed-star include 'the red death indicating death by the sword; the white death, which is death by plague. The people of Iraq, especially Baghdad will have a fire in the sky which will cover them in redness and be 'afflicted with fear and death'. Foreigners will be thrown out of Muslim lands. And Syria will be the site of conflict, and be destroyed.
1264 The Statute of Kalisz, guaranteeing Jews safety and personal liberties and giving 'battei din' jurisdiction over Jewish matters, is promulgated by Boleslaus the Pious, Duke of Greater Poland.
1331 Stephen Uroš IV Dušan declares himself king of Serbia. He is the only member of the Nemanjic dynasty of Serbian rulers not canonized as a saint. Seven feet tall, he was considered the most powerful ruler in Europe at one time in his reign. He engaged in battles with the neighboring Byzantine Empire, who in turn made an alliance wit
1380 At the Battle of Kulikovo Russian forces defeat a mixed army of Tatars and Mongols, stopping their advance.
1449 In the Battle of Tumu Fortress, the Mongolians capture the Chinese emperor. (They didn't only direct their attention westward to Europe - see above.)
The David1504 Michelangelo's David is unveiled in Florence. Bonus art trivia points if you know Michelangelo's last name.
1514 Battle of Orsha, one of the biggest battles of the century, Lithuanians and Poles defeated the Russian army.
1565 Pedro Menéndez de Avilés establishes the first permanent European settlement in North America which became modern St. Augustine, Fla.
Flag of the Order1565 The Knights of Malta lift the Turkish siege of Malta that began on May 18. One of the bloodiest and most well known battles in European history at one time, it marked the dominance of the Spanish in the mediterranean, and the decline of the muslim Turks. The Knights of Malta had previously been known as the crusader Order of the Knights Hospitaler of St. John of Jerusalem, until they were thrown out of their base on the Isle of Rhodes by Suleman the Magnificent. The Knights of Malta set up a new naval base, from which they attacked and plundered Muslim shipping and were in direct conflict with the Barbary pirates who plundered Christian shipping in the western Mediterranean. The Knights of Malta continue to be an active order in Rome, and there is a protestant branch of the Order in Germany and in the U.K.
1664 The Dutch surrendered New Amsterdam to the British, who renamed it New York.
1761 Marriage of King George III of the United Kingdom to Duchess Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz.
1783 Birth of Nicolai Frederik Severin Grundtvig, Danish writer and philosopher (d. 1872)
1810 The Tonquin sets sail from New York Harbor with 33 employees of John Jacob Astor's newly created Pacific Fur Company on board. After a six-month journey around the tip of South America, the ship arrives at the mouth of the Columbia River and Astor's men establish the fur-trading town of Astoria, Oregon.
1828 Birth of Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain, American Civil War Union soldier (d. 1914) who fanously and gallantly commanded the position "Little Roundtop" in the Battle of Gettysburg.
1831 William IV and Adelaide of Saxe-Meiningen are crowned King and Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.
1841 Birth of Charles J. Guiteau, American assassin of James A. Garfield (d. 1882); and birth of Antonín Dvořák, Czech composer (d. 1904)
1852 Birth of Emperor Gwangmu of Korea (d. 1919)
1863 American Civil War: Second Battle of Sabine Pass – on the Texas-Louisiana border at the mouth of the Sabine River, a small Confederate force thwarts a Union invasion of Texas.
1888 In London, the body of Jack the Ripper's second murder victim, Annie Chapman, is found.
1892 The Pledge of Allegiance is first recited. It was originally created to sell a popular children's magazine. It did not include the words 'under God' until 1954, an addition promoted by the cult-like political religious group, 'the Family', of the recent 'C Street' scandals, promoters of the annual National Prayer Breakfast.
1900 A powerful hurricane hits Galveston, Texas killing about 8,000 people.
1901 Birth of Hendrik Frensch Verwoerd, South African politician (d. 1966)
1922 Birth of Lyndon LaRouche, American politician
1926 Germany is admitted to the League of Nations.
1930 3M begins marketing Scotch transparent tape, which will later be used for some surprising purposes, including the restoration of the Dead Sea Scrolls.
King Faysal, right;
with Dr. Chaim Weizmann, left,
President of the World Zionist Organization,
both in Arab garb in 1918.
In january 1919, they signed the
Faysal-Weizmann Agreement re:
the Balfour Declaration establishing a
Jewish homeland in Palestine.1933 Death of King Faysal I of Iraq and Syria (b. 1883), Faysal was an advocate of Pan-Arabism. He was portrayed by Sir Alec Guiness in the famous movie Lawrence of Arabia, among other biographical film depictions. Faysal made this statement re the Balfour Declaration, in 1919:
"We Arabs... look with the deepest sympathy on the Zionist movement. Our deputation here in Paris is fully acquainted with the proposals submitted yesterday by the Zionist Organisation to the Peace Conference, and we regard them as moderate and proper. We will do our best, in so far as we are concerned, to help them through; we will wish the Jews a most hearty welcome home... I look forward, and my people with me look forward, to a future in which we will help you and you will help us, so that the countries in which we are mutually interested may once again take their places in the community of the civilised peoples of the world."
For those who believe incorrectly that there has always been a desire on the part of Moslem leaders to wipe Israel off the face of the earth. An appropriate quotation in the context of the current U.S. promoted peace talks between the Palestinians and Israelis.
1935 US Senator from Louisiana, Huey Long, nicknamed "Kingfish", is fatally shot in the Louisiana capitol building.
1941 World War II: Siege of Leningrad begins. German forces begin a siege against the Soviet Union's second-largest city, Leningrad.
1943 United States General Dwight D. Eisenhower publicly announces the Allied armistice with Italy.
1944 London is hit by a V2 rocket for the first time. Menton is liberated from Germany.
1945 In the Cold War, United States troops arrive to partition the southern part of Korea in response to Soviet troops occupying the northern part of the peninsula a month earlier.
1949 Death of Richard Strauss, German composer (b. 1864)
1951 In San Francisco, California, 48 nations sign a peace treaty with Japan in formal recognition of the end of the Pacific War.
1954 The Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO) is established.
1959 The Asian Institute of Technology (AIT) is established.
1960 In Huntsville, Alabama, US President Dwight D. Eisenhower formally dedicates the Marshall Space Flight Center (NASA had already activated the facility on July 1).
1965 International Literacy Day, UNESCO is first celebrated.
1966 The first Star Trek series premieres on NBC.
1970 Hijacking (and subsequent destruction) of three airliners to Jordan by Palestinians; the events to follow would later become known as Black September
Death of Percy Spencer, inventor of the microwave oven, (b. 1894)
1971 In Washington, D.C., the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts is inaugurated, with the opening feature being the premiere of Leonard Bernstein's Mass.
1974 Watergate Scandal: US President Gerald Ford pardons former President Richard Nixon for any crimes Nixon may have committed while in office.
1975 1975 Boston's public schools began a court-ordered citywide busing program amid scattered incidents of violence.
US Air Force Tech Sergeant Leonard Matlovich, a decorated veteran of the Vietnam War, appears in his Air Force uniform on the cover of Time magazine with the headline "I Am A Homosexual". He is later given a general discharge.
1991 The Republic of Macedonia becomes independent.
1999 United States Attorney General Janet Reno names former Senator John Danforth to head an independent investigation of the 1993 fire at the Branch Davidian church near Waco, Texas in response to revelations in the film Waco: The Rules of Engagement that contradicted the official government stories.
2004 NASA's unmanned spacecraft Genesis crash-lands when its parachute fails to open.
2003 The Recording Industry Association of America filed 261 copyright lawsuits against Internet users for trading songs online.
2005 Two EMERCOM Il-76 aircraft land at a disaster aid staging area at Little Rock Air Force Base; the first time Russia has flown such a mission to North America.
2006 A Senate report faulted intelligence gathering in the lead-up to the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq, and said Saddam Hussein regarded al-Qaida as a threat rather than a possible ally, contradicting assertions President George W. Bush had used to build support for the war.
Arch of Titus bas relief carving,
section showing the looting of the
Menorah and other items from the
Second Jewish temple in Jerusalem 70 Roman forces under Titus continue the sack Jerusalem. The city was first beseiged and then substantially destroyed. On the Jewish side, the Zealots, one of four religious / nationalistic sects, had been attacking Roman citizens, perceived traitors and collaborators, and staging anti-tax protests, provoking the Romans to crack down on their activities. The larger revolt had begun with objections to Greeks making bird sacrifices as part of their separate religious observances too close to the Jewish temple in Ceasarea in 66. The rebelious Jewish forces had a successful ambush, defeating Roman forces which was part of the catalyst for Emperor Nero back in Rome to send in more troops to crush the rebellion that had previously been simmering but not in full outbreak. The Roman forces started in the north, and worked their way south conquering the region. The Zealots (from the Greek zelotes, in this usage people zealous on behalf of God) and one of their splinter groups, the Sicarii ('dagger men') literally engaged in a kind of stealth 'cloak and dagger' warfare, hiding their daggers under their cloaks before attacking. In an attempt to provoke the majority of the Jewish residents of Jerusalem to join the Zealots and Sicarii in revolt, they assassinated Jonathon, the High Priest; they also destroyed the food supply of Jerusalem in an attempt to force the population to fight the Romans. As a result there were numerous deaths inside Jerusalem from starvation. The Sicarii threatened to kill anyone who advocated for surrenhsder. Some biblical scholars attribute the name of Judas the Iscariot to a corruption over time of the word Sicarii, translating it as Judas the Sicarios.
The Romans were initially unsuccessful in their seige of Jerusalem, encircling the city with a second ring of walls and establishing a permanent encampment. Anyone the Sicarii didn't kill for arguing for surrender, who subsequently tried to escape from inside Jerusalem was caught between the inner Jewish walls around Jerusalem and the outer walls of the Romans. Those caught in between were crucified; historians estimated as many as 500 crucifixions a day. Estimates are 1,100,000 Jews killed in the suppression of the rebellion, with more of those Jewish deaths being caused by the Jews dying from hunger and illness than from the Romans. An estimated 97,000 Jews were captured and sold into slavery, with additional Jews fleeing the Romans into other regions, mostly around the Mediterranean, in the second diaspora (the first was the Babylonian diaspora).
After the conquest of Jerusalem by the Romans, some of the Sicarii escaped to the mountain top stronghold of Masada, holding out until 73 AD. When Masada finally fell, most - but not all - of the rebel Sicarii participated in a murder suicide pact rather than surrender or be captured. Some scholars see the Sicarii as the predecessors of the medieval Hashshashin (or assassins), and 'sicarios' is a term for a class of drug cartel hit men. It is also means hired killer, assasin or cutthroat in Italian as well as Spanish.
701 Death of Pope Sergius I (b. 650) Sergius had been the choice to end the papal schism over the sede vacante in the final Byzantine papacy, between the two anti-popes, Anti-pope Paschal and Anti-pope Theodore. Factions of Paschal and Theodore had actually started military battles with each other for the position, on behalf of their respective candidates. Sergius refused to accept the disciplinary canons of the Quinisext Council, aka the Council of Trullo convened by Byzantine Emperor Justinian II. So Justinian II had Pope Sergius abducted. Which wasn't an entirely new tactic; his predecessor Constans II had kidnapped Pope Martin I. Theodore was the first of the two to acknowledge Sergius as the new pope. Paschal tried to bribe the exarch of Ravenna to provide additional military support for his challenge, and then John Platyn, the exarch, showed up with armed forces, looted the Old St. Peter's Basilica, grabbed the gold offered as a bribe, and then left with his military forces after the consecration as pope of Sergius. Paschal ended up under house arrest at a monastery, charged with witchcraft.
801 Birth of Ansgar, German Christian archbishop (d. 865) St. Ansgar, aka St. Oscar, was one of the early missionaries who was responsible for the 'Christianizing of the North', contributing substantially to the missionary activity of Germany, and the Scandinavian countries, especially Denmark where he is the patron Saint. He had a lot of motivating relgious visions. The lunar crater Ansgarius was named for him.
828 Birth of Ali al-Hadi, Shia Imam, tenth of the 'Twelve Imams' in Islam (d. 868). Similar in a vague sense to the twelve disciples of Christ, in the respect that they continued his message, the twelve imams were the direct successors to the Prophet Mohamed in Islam. To the 'Twelvers' these imams were infallible just rulers, and they were uniquely perfectly qualified to interpret Divine Law. Shia muslims believe the coming of these twelve special infallible authorities was included in the Hadith of the Twelve Successors in which Mohamed describes their existence as a kind of prophecy. Although the Twelve Imams are not prophets, as with the parallel to Christ's disciples, they have an exalted and special relationship with God, and therefore represent a special access to God to provide divine guidance. While Ali al-Hadi was a Shia, the Twelve Imams Hadith is acknowledged by both Sunni and Shia muslims. Each age after the period when Mohamed lived is believed by 'Twelvers' to have a single Imam; the final, twelfth Imam is believed by Twelvers to be alive NOW, hidden, waiting to bring justice to the world. However, this last, current Imam is believed to have been alive since 868 AD and went into hiding at the age of 5. The twelfth final imam is to be the 'Mahdi', a militant redeemer / warrior who will accompany Jesus Christ in his second coming at the same time as the one-eyed Anti-Christ. There will be a lunar AND solar eclipse in the month of Ramadan, there will be a star or comet with a long luminous tail heralding his coming, and he will have 'a broad forehead, prominent nose, and 'natural mascara will ring his eyes', and black hair and beard; he will be good looking, and will arrive in an even-numbered year, in Mecca before conquering the world. And, his face will 'shine on the surface of the moon', (a prophecy which I am embarrassed to admit makes me think of the comic book bat-signal.) Jesus is scheduled to arrive in this scenario only after the Mahdi has ruled for a set period of time (estimates differ). Another interesting prediction is that the Mahdi will judge the people of the Qur'an according to the Qur'an; the people of the Gospels according to the Gospels, the people of the Psalms according to the Psalms, and the people of the Torah according to the Torah. The other portents besides the tailed-star include 'the red death indicating death by the sword; the white death, which is death by plague. The people of Iraq, especially Baghdad will have a fire in the sky which will cover them in redness and be 'afflicted with fear and death'. Foreigners will be thrown out of Muslim lands. And Syria will be the site of conflict, and be destroyed.
1264 The Statute of Kalisz, guaranteeing Jews safety and personal liberties and giving 'battei din' jurisdiction over Jewish matters, is promulgated by Boleslaus the Pious, Duke of Greater Poland.
1331 Stephen Uroš IV Dušan declares himself king of Serbia. He is the only member of the Nemanjic dynasty of Serbian rulers not canonized as a saint. Seven feet tall, he was considered the most powerful ruler in Europe at one time in his reign. He engaged in battles with the neighboring Byzantine Empire, who in turn made an alliance wit
1380 At the Battle of Kulikovo Russian forces defeat a mixed army of Tatars and Mongols, stopping their advance.
1449 In the Battle of Tumu Fortress, the Mongolians capture the Chinese emperor. (They didn't only direct their attention westward to Europe - see above.)
The David1504 Michelangelo's David is unveiled in Florence. Bonus art trivia points if you know Michelangelo's last name.
1514 Battle of Orsha, one of the biggest battles of the century, Lithuanians and Poles defeated the Russian army.
1565 Pedro Menéndez de Avilés establishes the first permanent European settlement in North America which became modern St. Augustine, Fla.
Flag of the Order1565 The Knights of Malta lift the Turkish siege of Malta that began on May 18. One of the bloodiest and most well known battles in European history at one time, it marked the dominance of the Spanish in the mediterranean, and the decline of the muslim Turks. The Knights of Malta had previously been known as the crusader Order of the Knights Hospitaler of St. John of Jerusalem, until they were thrown out of their base on the Isle of Rhodes by Suleman the Magnificent. The Knights of Malta set up a new naval base, from which they attacked and plundered Muslim shipping and were in direct conflict with the Barbary pirates who plundered Christian shipping in the western Mediterranean. The Knights of Malta continue to be an active order in Rome, and there is a protestant branch of the Order in Germany and in the U.K.
1664 The Dutch surrendered New Amsterdam to the British, who renamed it New York.
1761 Marriage of King George III of the United Kingdom to Duchess Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz.
1783 Birth of Nicolai Frederik Severin Grundtvig, Danish writer and philosopher (d. 1872)
1810 The Tonquin sets sail from New York Harbor with 33 employees of John Jacob Astor's newly created Pacific Fur Company on board. After a six-month journey around the tip of South America, the ship arrives at the mouth of the Columbia River and Astor's men establish the fur-trading town of Astoria, Oregon.
1828 Birth of Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain, American Civil War Union soldier (d. 1914) who fanously and gallantly commanded the position "Little Roundtop" in the Battle of Gettysburg.
1831 William IV and Adelaide of Saxe-Meiningen are crowned King and Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.
1841 Birth of Charles J. Guiteau, American assassin of James A. Garfield (d. 1882); and birth of Antonín Dvořák, Czech composer (d. 1904)
1852 Birth of Emperor Gwangmu of Korea (d. 1919)
1863 American Civil War: Second Battle of Sabine Pass – on the Texas-Louisiana border at the mouth of the Sabine River, a small Confederate force thwarts a Union invasion of Texas.
1888 In London, the body of Jack the Ripper's second murder victim, Annie Chapman, is found.
1892 The Pledge of Allegiance is first recited. It was originally created to sell a popular children's magazine. It did not include the words 'under God' until 1954, an addition promoted by the cult-like political religious group, 'the Family', of the recent 'C Street' scandals, promoters of the annual National Prayer Breakfast.
1900 A powerful hurricane hits Galveston, Texas killing about 8,000 people.
1901 Birth of Hendrik Frensch Verwoerd, South African politician (d. 1966)
1922 Birth of Lyndon LaRouche, American politician
1926 Germany is admitted to the League of Nations.
1930 3M begins marketing Scotch transparent tape, which will later be used for some surprising purposes, including the restoration of the Dead Sea Scrolls.
King Faysal, right;
with Dr. Chaim Weizmann, left,
President of the World Zionist Organization,
both in Arab garb in 1918.
In january 1919, they signed the
Faysal-Weizmann Agreement re:
the Balfour Declaration establishing a
Jewish homeland in Palestine.1933 Death of King Faysal I of Iraq and Syria (b. 1883), Faysal was an advocate of Pan-Arabism. He was portrayed by Sir Alec Guiness in the famous movie Lawrence of Arabia, among other biographical film depictions. Faysal made this statement re the Balfour Declaration, in 1919:
"We Arabs... look with the deepest sympathy on the Zionist movement. Our deputation here in Paris is fully acquainted with the proposals submitted yesterday by the Zionist Organisation to the Peace Conference, and we regard them as moderate and proper. We will do our best, in so far as we are concerned, to help them through; we will wish the Jews a most hearty welcome home... I look forward, and my people with me look forward, to a future in which we will help you and you will help us, so that the countries in which we are mutually interested may once again take their places in the community of the civilised peoples of the world."
For those who believe incorrectly that there has always been a desire on the part of Moslem leaders to wipe Israel off the face of the earth. An appropriate quotation in the context of the current U.S. promoted peace talks between the Palestinians and Israelis.
1935 US Senator from Louisiana, Huey Long, nicknamed "Kingfish", is fatally shot in the Louisiana capitol building.
1941 World War II: Siege of Leningrad begins. German forces begin a siege against the Soviet Union's second-largest city, Leningrad.
1943 United States General Dwight D. Eisenhower publicly announces the Allied armistice with Italy.
1944 London is hit by a V2 rocket for the first time. Menton is liberated from Germany.
1945 In the Cold War, United States troops arrive to partition the southern part of Korea in response to Soviet troops occupying the northern part of the peninsula a month earlier.
1949 Death of Richard Strauss, German composer (b. 1864)
1951 In San Francisco, California, 48 nations sign a peace treaty with Japan in formal recognition of the end of the Pacific War.
1954 The Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO) is established.
1959 The Asian Institute of Technology (AIT) is established.
1960 In Huntsville, Alabama, US President Dwight D. Eisenhower formally dedicates the Marshall Space Flight Center (NASA had already activated the facility on July 1).
1965 International Literacy Day, UNESCO is first celebrated.
1966 The first Star Trek series premieres on NBC.
1970 Hijacking (and subsequent destruction) of three airliners to Jordan by Palestinians; the events to follow would later become known as Black September
Death of Percy Spencer, inventor of the microwave oven, (b. 1894)
1971 In Washington, D.C., the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts is inaugurated, with the opening feature being the premiere of Leonard Bernstein's Mass.
1974 Watergate Scandal: US President Gerald Ford pardons former President Richard Nixon for any crimes Nixon may have committed while in office.
1975 1975 Boston's public schools began a court-ordered citywide busing program amid scattered incidents of violence.
US Air Force Tech Sergeant Leonard Matlovich, a decorated veteran of the Vietnam War, appears in his Air Force uniform on the cover of Time magazine with the headline "I Am A Homosexual". He is later given a general discharge.
1991 The Republic of Macedonia becomes independent.
1999 United States Attorney General Janet Reno names former Senator John Danforth to head an independent investigation of the 1993 fire at the Branch Davidian church near Waco, Texas in response to revelations in the film Waco: The Rules of Engagement that contradicted the official government stories.
2004 NASA's unmanned spacecraft Genesis crash-lands when its parachute fails to open.
2003 The Recording Industry Association of America filed 261 copyright lawsuits against Internet users for trading songs online.
2005 Two EMERCOM Il-76 aircraft land at a disaster aid staging area at Little Rock Air Force Base; the first time Russia has flown such a mission to North America.
2006 A Senate report faulted intelligence gathering in the lead-up to the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq, and said Saddam Hussein regarded al-Qaida as a threat rather than a possible ally, contradicting assertions President George W. Bush had used to build support for the war.
Categories: Foes
An Ugly Side to Christianity
"If someone strikes you on one cheek, turn to him the other also. If someone takes your cloak, do not stop him from taking your tunic" - Luke 6:29
The Church that Christ founded on Earth comes in all sorts of flavors these days. There is the Roman Catholic, there are the Orthodox branches, there are several "mainstream" Protestant denominations. And then there are... others.
The Church that Christ founded on Earth comes in all sorts of flavors these days. There is the Roman Catholic, there are the Orthodox branches, there are several "mainstream" Protestant denominations. And then there are... others.
Dove World Outreach Church, in Gainsville, Florida is an example of the "other". The "church" plans to publicly burn over 3,000 copies of the Qur'an in retaliation for the September 11, 2001 World Trade Center and Pentegon destruction. The church claims that it is a "total concept church", whatever that may mean, and that its purpose is to "stand up for righteousness and the truth of the Bible". The leader of this church, Terry Jones, has apparently forgotten to read that very Bible that he supposedly holds so dear.
In a CNN interview, Mr. Jones was asked about the Christian principle of turning the other cheek. To which he replied, "I think in deed that most of the time, we as Christians are indeed called to turn the other cheek. I believe that most of the time, talk and diplomacy is the correct way. But I always think that once in a while, I think you see that in the Bible, there are incidents where enough is enough and you stand up". (Emphasis supplied) Oh, really? I truly wish I could have been there to ask Mr. Jones to show me where Christ said that. I would dearly love to know where Christ said that Christianity was a "part time" faith, or that we can pick and choose which parts we don't like. I have searched, and I can't find that passage. His interpretation of the Bible amounts to heresy. Alas, this type of hypocrisy isn't rare in Christianity, and unfortunately, neither is the ugliness of Mr. Jones' message.
In my research to determine whether I could find where Christ condoned messages of hate and intolerance such as that of Mr. Jones and his "church", I DID, however, see several passages with which Mr. Jones and his church should be familiar, but have apparently chosen not to heed:
Luke 6: 27-28: "But I tell you who hear me: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you."
Luke 6: 37: "Do not judge, and you will not be judged. Do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven."
This "church", and others like it, are not spreading God's love. Their message to Islam is not a message of love and peace, the message that God commanded. Their message is one of hate and disrespect. This is the ugly side to Christianity, and Christians who truly believe Christ's word should publicly repudiate this "church", and the brand of hate they spew masquerading as Christianity.
Our Constitution grants Mr. Jones and his followers the right to believe as they choose. It does not, however, require us to stand silent when a church takes actions which betrays the Christian faith, which effectively ignores the Word of God, and which also will cause untold potential harm to come to the very troops that this church may cheer on in the "fight against the infidel". Gen. David Petreus, the US Forces commander in Afghanistan, has said that the burning of the Qur'an will give the Taliban a recruiting weapon, and will deeply offend those upon we depend for information as our allies.
All Christians, of whatever persuasion, should recognize that Christianity is not a religion of hate, nor is it a religion which encourages retribution. Nay, as demonstrated above, it commands love, and forbids retribution. We should pray for those who endanger their very souls when they listen to false prophets such as Mr. Jones, with his message of hate, as it is written, "Anyone who claims to be in the light but hates his brother is still in the darkness. Whoever loves his brother lives in the light, and there is nothing in him to make him stumble." 1 John 2:9-10. The people of the earth are the Children of God. It is time to put hate aside, to rebuke those who spread these messages of heresy, and to walk in the path of peace.
Categories: Foes
September 7th in history
70CE A Roman army under Titus occupies and plunders Jerusalem, including the destruction of the second temple in the first Jewish-Roman War. The Arch of Titus is still standing in Rome, celebrating the Roman victory. The Jews still mourn the destruction of the first and second temple with the fast of Tisha B'Av.
Geoffrey of AnjouRichard Lionheart1151 Death of Geoffrey of Anjou (b. 1113) aka Geoffrey V, aka Geoffrey le Bel (the Handsome), Count of Anjou, Touraine, Maine, Duke of Norrmandy, grandson of William the Conqueror, father of King Henry II of England, and grandfather of Richard the Lionheart. His widow, Empress Matilda, was 11 years older than he was, and survived him despite it being her second marriage. His brother Elias had revolted against Geoffrey, and was imprisoned from 1145 until 1151. This became unfortunate family trends for his son Henry II - stormy marriages to women who had been prominently married before, who were older by a decade or more, and who were not shy about taking the field with an army to take territory they felt belonged to them; and, family rebellions resulting in imprisonments. Geoffrey was the grandson of William the Conqueror, and the first to use the name 'Plantaganet'. Geoffrey was a redhead, and passed on his distinctive coloring, along with his considerable military talents, to his son Henry II, and grandson, Richard I the Lionheart.
1191 During the Third Crusade, Richard I of England defeats Saladin at Arsuf. You can see the family resemblance, above, between grandfather and grandson.
1524 Birth of Thomas Erastus, Swiss physician and theologian, founder of Erastianism, the premise that the state is supreme in Church matters, and should punish sinners through civil law, rather than the church refusing sacraments. Erastus was part of the reformation.
1552 Death of Guru Angad Dev, second Sikh Guru (b. 1504) one of the ten founders of Sikhism.
1652 Around 15,000 Han Chinese farmers and militia rebells against Dutch rule on Taiwan in the Guo Huaiyi Rebellion. The Dutch East India Company had established a colonial government on the Chinese Island of Formosa (aka Taiwan). The Dutch, in an effort to Christianize the population and to 'civilize' it according to western ideas, was somewhat brutal to the Chinese and aborigines. In the Dutch suprresion of the rebellion, approximately 25% of the rebels were killed. Leader Guo Huaiyi was captured, shot, and decapitated, with his head on display on a pike; approximately 4,000 Chinese Han were executed for the rebellion.
1776 World's first submarine attack: the American submersible craft Turtle attempts to attach a time bomb to the hull of British Admiral Richard Howe's flagship HMS Eagle in New York Harbor. While the submarine functioned well enough, the attempts failed because of the ships having a metal lining installed to prevent hull damage from parasites.
1818 Carl III of Sweden-Norway is crowned king of Norway, in Trondheim. The Union of Sweden and Norway lasted until 1905, after the Swedish-Norwegian War, and after Norway gained independence from Denmark.
1821 The Republic of Gran Colombia (a federation covering much of present day Venezuela, Colombia, Panama, and Ecuador) is established, with Simón Bolívar as the founding President and Francisco de Paula Santander as vice president
Grandma Moses painting1860 Birth of Grandma Moses, self-taught American folk artist who didn't start painting until she was in her 70s. (d. 1961)
1876 In Northfield, Minnesota, Jesse James and the James-Younger Gang attempt to rob the town's bank but are driven off by armed citizens. The bank cashier and a Swedish immigrant to Northfield were both killed, as were most of the gang members. Frank and Jesse James escaped to the Dakotas.
1895 The first game of what would become known as rugby league football is played, in England, starting the 1895-96 Northern Rugby Football Union season.
1901 The Boxer Rebellion, aka the 'Socieity of Rightious and Harmonious Fists ' Uprising, was a rebellion of Chinese opposing colonialism and Christianity imposed on Chinese by westerners, and specifically the opium trade. The movement hoped to expel foreigners from China. In China it officially ended with the signing of the Boxer Protocol. The English called the members of the secret society which trained in unarmed and armed martial arts 'Boxers'. The Boxers had attacked missionary compounds in 1898, and with the support of the Qing Dynasty, the Boxers laid seige to the Foreign Embassy legation quarter in 1900. The 'Eight Nation Alliance' sent 20,000 troops to Beijing to rescue those trapped in the embassy quarter. The Qing Dynasty was subsequently overthrown in the 1911 revolution.
1909 Eugene Lefebvre (1878–1909), while test piloting a new French-built Wright biplane, crashes at Juvisy France when his controls jam. Lefebvre dies, becoming the first 'pilot' in the world to lose his life in a powered heavier-than-air craft.
1911 French poet Guillaume Apollinaire is arrested and put in jail on suspicion of stealing the Mona Lisa from the Louvre museum. Apollinaire was released, and subsequently Pablo Picasso was questioned by police regarding the theft. Eventually an employee of the Louvre was discovered to have stolen the painting, Vincenzo Perrugia. He was caught trying to sell the painting to the Uffizi gallery in Florence; Perrugia believed that the painting belonged in Italy as part of the national heritage. It was exhibited throughout Italy before being returned to the Louvre. Leonardo had completed the painting in France, shortly before he died there.
1912 Birth of David Packard, American engineer, and co-founder of Hewlitt Packard.
1914 Birth of James Alfred Van Allen, American space scientist (d. 2006) for whom the Van Allen radiation belts were named. He was a space scientist at the University of Iowa.
1916 Federal employees win the right to Workers' compensation by(Federal Employers Liability Act (39 Stat. 742; 5 U.S.C. 751)
1921 In Atlantic City, New Jersey, the first Miss America Pageant, a two-day event, is held.
1927 The first fully electronic television system is achieved by Philo Taylor Farnsworth.TV pioneer Philo T. Farnsworth succeeded in transmitting an image through purely electronic means by using a device called an image dissector.
'Benjamin' the last Thylacine1936 The last surviving member of the thylacine species, Benjamin, dies alone in her cage at the Hobart Zoo in Tasmania. The thylacine was better known as variously, the Tasmanian Tiger or the Tasmanian Wolf; but it was neither a feline or canine. It was a large, carnivorous marsupial, related to the Tasmanian Devil. It was hunted to (possible) extinction, in conjunction with habitat encroachment. There are rare reports of thylcacine sightings, but none have been confirmed in the last 50 years, making the official status of an extinct species. Because in this variety of marsupial both male and females had pouches, and in the male the pouch obscured the genitalia from view, 'Benjamin's gender was ambiguous.
1940 World War II: The Blitz,Nazi Germany begins to rain bombs on London. This will be the first of 57 consecutive nights of bombing.
1942 Holocaust: 8,700 Jews of Kolomyia (western Ukraine) sent by German Gestapo to death camp in Belzec.
First flight of the Consolidated B-32 Dominator.
1953 Nikita Khrushchev is elected first secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.
1969 Death of Senate Republican leader Everett M. Dirksen of Illinois at age 73. Dirksen was Senate Minority Leader for the decade of the 1960s, supporting the Viet Nam War, and Civil Rights legislation.
1970 An anti-war rally is held at Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, attended by John Kerry, Jane Fonda and Donald Sutherland.
Fighting occurs between Arab guerillas and government forces in Amman, Jordan.
1977 The Torrijos-Carter Treaties between Panama and the United States on the status of the Panama Canal are signed. The United States agrees to transfer control of the canal to Panama at the end of the 20th century.
Convicted Watergate conspirator G. Gordon Liddy was released after serving more than four years in prison.
1978 While walking across Waterloo Bridge in London, Bulgarian dissident Georgi Markov is assassinated by Bulgarian secret police agent Francesco Giullino by means of a ricin pellet fired from in a specially-designed umbrella.
British Prime Minister James Callaghan announces that he will not call a general election for October, considered to be a major political blunder.
1979 The Entertainment and Sports Programming Network, better known as ESPN, makes its debut.
The Chrysler Corporation asks the United States government for USD $1.5 billion to avoid bankruptcy.
1986 Desmond Tutu becomes the first black man to lead the Anglican Church in South Africa.
Gen. Augusto Pinochet, president of Chile, escapes attempted assassination.
1988 Abdul Ahad Mohmand, the first Afghan in space, returns aboard the Soviet spacecraft Soyuz TM-5 after 9 days on the Mir space station.
'Uzi' Gal1999 A 5.9 magnitude earthquake rocks Athens, rupturing a previously unknown fault, killing 143, injuring more than 500, and leaving 50,000 people homeless.
2002 Death of German-born Uziel Gal, Israeli firearm designer of the 'Uzi' submachine gun (b. 1923). Gal had moved from Germany in 1933 to England; from England he moved to the British Mandate of Palestine in 1936. In 1975 he moved to Pennsylvania.
2005 First presidential election is held in Egypt.
2008 The US Government takes control of the two largest mortgage financing companies in the US, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
Categories: Foes
September 6th in History
Mayan Round / Long Count
Calendar3114 BC According to the proleptic Julian calendar the current era in the Mayan Long Count Calendar started. A proleptic calendar is one which is extended backwards to establish dates, from the date the Calendar is created, instead of the more customary direction of calendars going forwards chronologically. Contrary to the popular myth that the Mayan calendar predicts some cataclysmic end of the world on December 21, 2012, it is in fact simply the beginning of the next calendar calculation period, identified as the 14th "b'ak'tun' in using the Mayan round calendar.
Coin showing likeness of
losing Pagan Western
Roman Emperor EugeniusCoin showing likeness of
winning Christian Eastern
Roman Emperor Theodosius I394 The Christian Eastern Roman Emperor Theodosius I defeats and kills the pagan Western Roman Emperor Eugenius and his Frankish magister militum Arbogast, at the Frigidus River in what is modern Slovenia. The battle was significant for two reasons; one, it unified the Roman Empire again as one, instead of East and West, and two, it allowed Theodosius successfully to Christianize the entire Roe man Empire, making Christianity the only official Roman Empire religion.
1492 Christopher Columbus sails from La Gomera in the Canary Islands, his final port of call before crossing the Atlantic 'Ocean blue' for the first time.
1522 The Victoria, the only surviving ship of Ferdinand Magellan's expedition, returns to Sanlúcar de Barrameda in Spain, becoming the first ship to circumnavigate the world.
Tyndale's execution1536 Death of William Tyndale, Protestant bible translator (b. c.1494) Tyndale was a 16th century scholar; his expertise was in translation. Like his predecessors, Luther and Erasmus, who made translations of the Bible available to non-clergy. Luther translated the Bible into German; Erasmus made the new testament available in Greek. Tyndale in turn translated the Bible into English, and had it printed using the new printing press technology. In making the Bible more directly accessible, Tyndale offended the perogatives of the Roman Catholic Church AND the Anglican Church, which as the official state religion was backed up by the power and authority of the state. The Church did not want the Bible available in the vernacular. Cardinal Wolsey called Tyndale a heretic. Sir Thomas Moore called him a heretic AND a traitor. Not content to stop there, Tyndale wrote a treatise in 1530 that took issue with the divorce of Henry the VIII for violating scrptural law prohibitions. Tyndale was arrested and imprisoned in Belgium, near Brussels by Church authorities - because they could do that. He was tried in 1536 for heresy, found guilty, strangled and burned at the stake - which was a slightly nicer sentence than being burned at the stake while still alive. Ironically, four years after Tyndale was executed for translating the Bible, King Henry VIII had four translation of the Bible published in England, including the official 'Great Bible' which was to be read aloud in Anglican church service - based on Tyndale's translation. In 1611, Tyndale's translation was widely used as the foundational basis for the King James Bible translation; some estimates put around 75% of the Old Testament as Tyndale's work; and nearly 85% of the New Testament as his translation. Tyndale's experience provides an interesting perspective to freedom of religion, official approval of faith, and the vagaries of public opinion towards different religious ideas and practice.
1620 The Pilgrims sail from Plymouth, England, on the Mayflower to settle in North America.
1628 The Puritans settle Salem, which will later become part of Massachusetts Bay Colony.
1634 Thirty Years' War: In the Battle of Nördlingen the Catholic Imperial army defeats Protestant armies of Sweden and Germany.
1757 Birth of Marquis de Lafayette, French soldier and statesman, American Revolutionary War hero (d. 1834)
1766 Birth of John Dalton, British chemist, meteorologist, and physicist (d. 1844), early pioneer in modern atomic theory, and color blindness - a problem for Dalton himself. Dalton's accomplishments are the more remarkable because, as a Quaker, or 'dissenter', he was barred from attending or teaching at English Universities. Dalton was a prestigious scientist in his own time, a member of both the English Royal Society and the French Academie des Sciences.
1870 Louisa Ann Swain of Laramie, Wyoming becomes the first woman in the United States to cast a vote legally after 1807.
Schreck as silent film
vampire villain, Nosferatu1879 Birth of Max Schreck, German actor (d. 1936) of stage and both silent and sound films. He is most famous for his role as Nosferatu in the F. W. Murnau film of the same name. Appropriately, Schreck in Middle High German means 'fright' or 'terror', but as an actor he performed a range of roles, including comedy.
Flying Tigers logo1893 Birth of Lieutenant General Claire Chennault, American pilot (d. 1958), founder and commander of the Flying Tigers in China in WW II. The Flying Tigers flew planes authorized by the U. S. through the Lend Lease program, and the ground staff and pilots were a combination of volunteers and mercenaries. After the December 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor, Cheannault's Flying Tigers were the first American forces to have success against the Japanese military.
1901 Anarchist Leon Czolgosz shoots and fatally wounds US President William McKinley at the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, New York.
1909 American explorer Robert Peary sent word that he had reached the North Pole five months earlier.
1916 The first self-service grocery store, Piggly Wiggly, was opened in Memphis, Tenn., by Clarence Saunders.
Rackham illustration
"Sigfried Awakens
Brunnhilde", Richard
Wagner's "The Ring"1917 Birth of Philipp von Boeselager, German Wehrmacht officer, failed assassin of Adolf Hitler (d. 2008)
1930 Democratically elected Argentine president Hipólito Yrigoyen is deposed in a military coup.
1939 Death of Arthur Rackman, English book illustrator (b. 1867)
1940 King Carol II of Romania abdicates and is succeeded by his son Michael.
1941 Jews over the age of 6 in German-occupied areas were ordered to wear yellow Stars of David.
1943 The Monterrey Institute of Technology, one of the largest and most influential private universities in Latin America, is founded in Monterrey, Mexico.
1949 Allied military authorities relinquish control of former Nazi Germany assets back to German control.
A former sharpshooter in World War II, Howard Unruh kills 13 neighbors in Camden, New Jersey, with a souvenir Luger to become the first U.S. single-episode mass murderer.
1952 Canada's first television station, CBFT-TV, opens in Montreal.
1955 Istanbul Pogrom: Istanbul's Greek and Armenian minority are the target of a government-sponsored pogrom.
1963 The Centre for International Industrial Property Studies (CEIPI) is founded.
1965 War of 1965: India retaliates following Pakistan's failed Operation Grand Slam which resulted in the Indo-Pakistani War of 1965 that is ended following the signing of the Tashkent Declaration.
1966 In Cape Town, South Africa, the architect of Apartheid, Prime Minister Hendrik Verwoerd, is stabbed to death during a parliamentary meeting.
Death of Margaret Sanger, American birth control activist (b. 1879)
1970 Two passenger jets bound from Europe to New York are simultaneously hijacked by Palestinian terrorist members of PFLP and taken to Dawson's Field in Jordan.
1972 Munich Massacre: 9 Israel athletes taken hostage at the Munich Olympic Games by the Palestinian "Black September" terrorist group died (as did a German policeman) at the hands of the kidnappers during a failed rescue attempt. 2 other Israeli athletes are slain in the initial attack the previous day.
1976 Cold War: Soviet air force pilot Lt. Viktor Belenko lands a MiG-25 jet fighter at Hakodate on the island of Hokkaidō in Japan and requests political asylum in the United States.
1983 The Soviet Union admits to shooting down Korean Air Flight KAL-007, stating that the pilots did not know it was a civilian aircraft when it violated Soviet airspace.
1986 In Istanbul, two terrorists from Abu Nidal's organization kill 22 and wound six inside the Neve Shalom synagogue during Shabbat services.
1991 The Soviet Union recognizes the independence of the Baltic states: Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.
The name Saint Petersburg is restored to Russia's second largest city, which had been renamed Leningrad in 1924.
1992 Hunters discover the emaciated body of Christopher Johnson McCandless at his camp 20 miles west of the town of Healy, Alaska.
1998 Death of Akira Kurosawa, Japanese film director (b. 1910)
2002 Meeting outside Washington D.C., for only the second time since 1800, Congress convened in New York to pay homage to the victims and heroes of Sept. 11, 2001.
2005 The California Legislature became the first legislative body in the nation to approve same-sex marriages. (Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger later vetoed the bill.)
2006 President George W. Bush acknowledged previously secret CIA prisons around the world and said 14 high-value terrorism suspects had been transferred from the system to Guantanamo Bay for trials.
2007 Deaths of Madeleine L'Engle, American author (b. 1918), Luciano Pavarotti, Italian tenor (b. 1935),
and Alex, African Grey parrot "student" of Dr. Irene Pepperberg (b. 1976)
Categories: Foes
September 5th in History
Biruni lunar eclipse illustration
and calculations 973 Birth of Abu Rayhan Biruni, Khwarezmi-born Persian polymath (d. 1048) Alberonius, in the Latin version of his name, he was a prominent scholar of the 11th century, one of the most brilliant minds of the Islamic Golden Age.
He was born in what is now Uzbekistan and is buried in Afghanistan. While only a fraction of his writing remain, he was a man of exceptional range in his areas of interest and expertise, and applied empiric experimental methods to his scientific inquiries. He emphasized repeated experiment, and an understanding of both systematic errors in experimentation, and random errors, including errors by human observers. A partial list of his areas of experimentation and publications include physics, anthropology, comparative sociology, astronomy, astrology, chemistry, history, geography, mathematics, medicine, psychology, philosophy, mineralogy and mechanics. He is considered one of the earliest to pursue a study of Indology (the study of India). The crater Al-Biruni on the moon is named for him. He was a contemporary and colleague of Abu Ali ibn Sina, better known as Avicenna, another of the great scientists of the Islamic Golden Age. Biruni studied mathematics and astronomy with Abu Nasr Mansur, another great mind of the era; history and philosophy with Ibn Miskayawa at Islamic Universities. He became fluent in not only his own language, Khwarezmian, but also Greek, Sanskrit, Syriac and Berber. Islamic scholars were influential in the globalization of scientific knowledge as well as the arts, connecting the advances of cultures as diverse as China and India to the east to Europe and Africa in the west.
Modern reproduction
of the Date Maru 1567 Birth of Date Masamune, Japanese Samurai and Daimyo (d. 1636). Known as the 'one eyed dragon', he lost his sight in one eye to small pox as a child. He was militarily aggressive, and was rewarded with land grants under Shogun Tokugawa Ieyasu. Unlike Tokugawa Ieyasu, who was xenophobic and isolationist, Date Masamune encouraged contacts with foreigners visiting Japan, including missionaries. He funded and promoted an envoy to the Pope in Rome, and the first Japanese expedition to sail around the world, in a ship he had designed on western lines, the Date Maru. His expedition visited the Philippines, and Mexico and Spain as well as Rome. It is speculated that Date Masamune may have been an early Christian convert, and that members of his family and household converted. Five members of the Japanese expedition to the Pope stayed in Europe to avoid Christian persecution by Shogun Tokugawa Ieyasu.
1638 Birth of Louis XIV of France (d. 1715, of gangrene)
historic portrait of the real
Comte D'Artagnan1661 Fall of Nicolas Fouquet: Louis XIV Superintendent of Finances is arrested in Nantes by D'Artagnan, captain of the king's musketeers. Fouquet was a close ally of Cardinal Mazarin, the successor to Cardinal Richelieu. Mazarin was succeeded by Jean-Baptiste Colbert, who went after Fouquet for corruption as part of his fiscal house-cleaning and attempts to save the French economy. After a three-year long trial, Fouquet was sentenced to life in prison. While in prison, Fouquet had as his servant the real life 'man in the iron mask' of the famous Alexandre Dumas novel, Eustache Dauger. As with the fictionalized version of the Man in the Iron Mask, the Dumas versions of the exploits of D'Artagnan in the Three Musketeers and other novels differed from the factual exploits. The real life Charles de Batz-Castlemore, Comte D'Artangnan had also been an ally and confidante of Mazarin, and conducted espionage for Mazarin as well as secret and confidential missions for Louis XIV. D'Artagnan was also Fouquet's jailer for the duration of his trial after his arrest. Fouquet died in prison in 1680; D'Artagnan died in combat at the Siege of Maastricht in 1673.
1698 In an effort to Westernize his nobility, Tsar Peter I of Russia imposes a tax on beards for all men except the clergy and peasantry.
1725 – Wedding of Louis XV, great grandson of Louis XIV, and Maria Leszczyńska. Louis XV became King of France at the age of 5, and after early popularity, became one of the most unpopular Kings in the country's history. His ill-advised policies weakened the country, and, with a series of military losses, became one of the principle causes for the French Revolution. Some of the crazier rumors about Louis XV were that he bathed in the blood of virgins, and had ninety illegitimate children. He had 11 legitimate children, and several illegitimate children, and he was famous for his mistresses, including the Marquise de Pompadour and the Comtesse du Barry.
Friedrich's 'The Tree of Crows' 18221774 First Continental Congress assembles in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
Birth of Caspar David Friedrich, German artist (d. 1840) in the romantic movement noted for his emotion-evoking landscapes. He sought through a depiction of nature "to turn the viewer's gaze towards metaphysical dimension" according to one art historian.
1793 French Revolution the French National Convention initiates the Reign of Terror.
1798 Conscription is made mandatory in France by the Jourdan law.
1800 Napoleon surrenders Malta to Great Britain.
Pierre Choderlos de Laclos1638 Louis XIV of France (d. 1715)1803 Death of Pierre Choderlos de Laclos, French general who invented the modern artillery shell, and author of the scandalous 18th century literary masterpiece, Les Liaisons Dangereuses.(b. 1741)
1812 War of 1812: The Siege of Fort Wayne begins when Chief Winamac's forces attack two soldiers returning from the fort's outhouses.
Louis XVIII1816 Louis XVIII has to dissolve the Chambre Introuvable ("Unobtainable Chamber"). The chambre introuvable was a sort of cabinet of advisers selected for their monarchist political views, and their repudiation of the changes and principles of the French Revolution. Louis XVIII, grandson of Louis XV, became King of France in exile when Louis XVII died in prison during the French Revolution. He ruled as a Constitutional Monarch after the end of the First Republic under Napoleon, except for 100 days in 1815 when Napoleon Bonaparte briefly returned to power. Under Louis XVIII the second "White Terror" campaign arrested and executed bureaucrats and sympathizers with Napoleon and / or the French Revolution designated by the counter-revolutionary 'Chambre Introuvable". The term 'white terror', coined by Louis XVIII, came to mean in subsequent revolutions any counter-revolutionary campaign, especially of arrests, imprisonment, and executions. Louis XVIII, like his predecessor Louis XIV, died of gangrene.
1836 Sam Houston is elected as the first president of the Republic of Texas.
opium poppy field in flower1839 The First Opium War begins in China. In 1799, China reaffirmed their ban on the importation of opium, recoginizing the problems in their population relating to drug addiction. In 1810, the Emperor of China issued an official decree stating:
Opium has a harm. Opium is a poison, undermining our good customs and morality. Its use is prohibited by law. Now the commoner, Yang, dares to bring it into the Forbidden City. Indeed, he flouts the law! However, recently the purchasers, eaters, and consumers of opium have become numerous. Deceitful merchants buy and sell it to gain profit. The customs house at the Ch'ung-wen Gate was originally set up to supervise the collection of imports (it had no responsibility with regard to opium smuggling). If we confine our search for opium to the seaports, we fear the search will not be sufficiently thorough. We should also order the general commandant of the police and police- censors at the five gates to prohibit opium and to search for it at all gates. If they capture any violators, they should immediately punish them and should destroy the opium at once. As to Kwangtung and Fukien, the provinces from which opium comes, we order their viceroys, governors, and superintendents of the maritime customs to conduct a thorough search for opium, and cut off its supply. They should in no ways consider this order a dead letter and allow opium to be smuggled out!
Despite the considerable resources China dedicated to eradicating opium use and importation, the British continued to successfully smuggle opium into China, supported and organized by the East India Company, and backed by the military forces of England in order to reduce their balance of trade deficits. Demand in Europe for the products of China - tea, silk, porcelain, etc. - was high, while demand for European manufactured products in China was low; further, China demanded all transactions be paid in silver, not national currency. By 1838, China had begun executing particpants in the drug trade. In 1839, in frustration with the success of the trade and the harm done to the Chinese, Chinese Trade Commissioner Len Zexu blockaded traders in their factories and warehouses, cutting off their food supply. The traders eventually had to surrender their supplies of opium, roughly a year's worth, for destruction. Charles Elliot, the British Superintendant of Trade exceeded his authority by promising all the Traders that the English Government would compensate them - which the English government refused to do. On the pretext that the Chinese had destroyed English property, the English launched a war on China, including landing the Anglo-Indian army. Because of the technical weapons superiority of the Europeans, they prevailed over the Chinese, forcing the first of the 'Unequal Treaties', the Treaty of Nanjing and the Treaty of Bogue, including giving Europeans extraterratorial privliges, which like a sort of diplomatic immunity, exempted foreigners from being subjected to Chinese law. The United States and France subsequently estracted similar treaties, the Treaty of Wanghia, and the Treaty of Whamppoa. A background in understanding of the Opium Wars is useful in understanding modern Chinese relations with industrialized western countries, as well as useful in appreciating some of the similar problems in the modern U.S. "War on Drugs". It is a sort of international karma that the opium trade in what was then India and Afghanistan under the auspices of the western nations has come back to haunt them in the guise of the modern drug trade, with its political, economic and social consequences, particularly the opium trade in Afghanistan.
Distiller Jack Daniel1846 Birth of distiller Jack Daniel, Creator of Jack Daniel's Tennessee Whiskey(d. 1911). He became a licensed distiller at the age of 16. Daniel died of blood poisoning from a toe injury when he kicked his office safe after being unable to open it, having forgotten the combination.
1862 James Glaisher, pioneering meteorologist and Henry Tracey Coxwell break world record for altitude whilst collecting data in their balloon.
1877 Indian Wars: Oglala Sioux Chief Crazy Horse is bayoneted by a United States soldier after resisting confinement in a guardhouse at Fort Robinson in Nebraska.
1882 The first United States Labor Day parade is held in New York City, predating the recognition of an official federal holiday.
Sarah Edmonds as Franklin Thompson1898 Death of Sarah Edmonds, Canadian nurse, soldier, and spy (b. 1841) Sarah Edmonds was a Canadian who served with the Union forces in the American Civil War. She had left home to escape abusive parents who were trying to force her to marry a man she detested. She fled to Flint, Michigan, eventually disguising herself as a man, using the name Franklin Flint Thompson to enlist in the 2nd Michigan Infantry. She served as a soldier, including as a male field nurse, through the some of the bloodiest Civil War battles, including the First and Second Battle of Bull Run, Antietam, the Peninsular Campaign, Vicksburg and others. Edmonds then applied for a position in the field of intelligence gathering, expanding on her repertoire of disguises, including disguising herself as a black man named 'Cuff', as a black laundress, and as an Irish peddler named Bridget O'Shea. She became ill with malaria, and went AWOL to a private hospital in order to avoid being discovered to be a woman if she went to a military hospital for care. When her persona of Franklin Flint Thompson was listed as a deserter, she returned to a female identity, seeking employment as a white, female nurse in Washington DC, providing medical care for injured union soldiers through the United States Christian Commission. Her story eventually came out, and she was awarded a military pension of $12 a month, and an honorable discharge. She married in 1867, and had three children, subsequently leading a relatively ordinairy life until her death.
1905 Russo-Japanese War: In New Hampshire, USA, the Treaty of Portsmouth, mediated by US President Theodore Roosevelt, ends the war.
1914 World War I: First Battle of the Marne begins. Northeast of Paris, the French attack and defeat German forces who are advancing on the capital.
1918 Decree "On Red Terror" is published in Russia (as distinct from 'White Terror')
1927 The first Oswald the Lucky Rabbit cartoon, Trolley Troubles, produced by Walt Disney, is released by Universal Pictures
Birth of Paul Volcker, American economist
1938 Chile: A group of youths affiliated with the fascist National Socialist Movement of Chile are assassinated in the Seguro Obrero massacre.
1942 World War II: Japanese high command orders withdrawal at Milne Bay, first Japanese defeat in the Pacific War.
1944 Belgium, Netherlands and Luxembourg constitute Benelux.
1945 Cold War: Igor Gouzenko, a Soviet Union embassy clerk, defects to Canada, exposing Soviet espionage in North America, signalling the beginning of the Cold War.
Iva Toguri D'Aquino, a Japanese-American suspected of being wartime radio propagandist Tokyo Rose, is arrested in Yokohama.
1948 In France, Robert Schuman becomes President of the Council while being Foreign minister, As such, he is the negotiator of the major treaties of the end of World War II.
1957 Cuba: Fulgencio Batista bombs the revolt in Cienfuegos.
1961 The first conference of the Non Aligned Countries is held in Belgrade.
1969 My Lai Massacre: U.S. Army Lt. William Calley is charged with six specifications of premeditated murder for the death of 109 Vietnamese civilians in My Lai.
1972 Munich Massacre: A Palestinian terrorist group called "Black September" attack and take hostage 11 Israel athletes at the Munich Olympic Games. 2 die in the attack and 9 die the following day.
1975 Sacramento, California: Lynette "Squeaky" Fromme, member of Charles Manson's cult, attempts to assassinate U.S. President Gerald Ford
1977 Hanns Martin Schleyer, is kidnapped in Cologne, West Germany by the Red Army Faction and is later murdered.
1977 Voyager 1 is launched after a brief delay.
1978 Camp David Accords: Menachem Begin and Anwar Sadat begin peace process at Camp David, Maryland.
1980 The St. Gotthard Tunnel opens in Switzerland as the world's longest highway tunnel at 10.14 miles (16.224 km) stretching from Goschenen to Airolo.
1982 Death of Douglas Bader, RAF ace fighter pilot while a double amputee, in World War II (b. 1910).
1984 STS-41-D: The Space Shuttle Discovery lands after its maiden voyage.
1984 Western Australia becomes the last Australian state to abolish capital punishment.
1991 The current international treaty defending indigenous peoples, Indigenous and Tribal Peoples Convention, 1989, came into force.
2007 Three terrorists suspected to be a part of Al-Qaeda are arrested in Germany after allegedly planning attacks on both the Frankfurt International airport and US military installations.
Categories: Foes
September 4th in History
Emperor Taizong 626 Li Shimin, co-founder of the Tang Dynasty, posthumously known as Emperor Taizong of Tang, assumed the throne of China. One of the greatest rulers in Chinese history, his accomplishments, both economic and military, were required study for subsequent emperors. Under his reign, China included modern Viet Nam, Mongolia, and central Asia to Kazakhstan. He ruled as Tian Kehan, which translates as 'Heavenly Khan". His sister, Princess Pingyang commanded her own army in establishing the Tang Dynasty, overthrowing the preceding Sui Dynasty. The Tang Dynasty lasted from 613 to 907, with a brief interruption when another Empress, Wu Zeitan, seized the throne and ruled in her own right as the 2nd Zhou Dynasty.
1260 The Senese Ghibellines, supported by the forces of King Manfred of Sicily, defeat the Florentine Guelphs at Montaperti. The conflict was part of the larger Investiture Controversy, the largest conflict between church and state in the middle ages. It was temporarily resolved by the Concordat of Worms in 1122. At issue was the secular powers and appointments of bishops and other church officials. For example, it wasn't until 1059 that the College of Cardinals became the sole electors of the Pope in the Roman Catholic church. There was an ongoing tension between the jurisdictions of clerical courts and secular courts. In 1075 the Dictatus Papae claimed for the pope the sole power to depose an emperor, while Kings and Emperors appointed bishops within their borders. The 'Welfs', italianized Guelphs, supported the papal / secular power faction, while the Wibbelingens, italianized to Ghibellines, supported the Holy Roman Emperors secular power faction. This conflict dragged on until the Guelphs finally won in 1289, after which they continued fighting with each other as black Guelphs and white Guelph factions. The Ghibellines used as their symbol the war banner of the
Chinese Emperor Wanli,
Ming Dynasty
1563 Birth of Wanli, Emperor of China in the Ming Dynasty, from 1572 at the age of 9, to his death in 1620. During his reign in China, he repelled new invasions of Mongols, defeated the Japanese invasion of Korea, and put down the Yang Yinlong rebellion. While his reign began well, he was a less conscientious and successful ruler at the end of his reign, when the Manchu began to conquer and occupy the edges of his territory. It was also during the reign of Wanli that the first Jesuit missionary arrived in China.
1781 Los Angeles, California, is founded as El Pueblo de Nuestra Señora La Reina de los Ángeles de Porciúncula (The Village of Our Lady, the Queen of the Angels of Porziuncola) by 44 Spanish settlers.
1784 Death of César-François Cassini de Thury, Comte de Cassini, French astronomer and cartographer, member of the French Academy of Science, the third generation of the famous family of astronomers. (b. 1714)
1797 Coup of 18 Fructidor, an V, in France. The coup was another bloody episode in the French Revolution (Napoleon Bonaparte had a part in it). Fructidor was one of the new months that were created as a result of the Revolution, the twelfth month of the French Republican Calendar, used from 1793 to 1805.
Some of the innovations, like the changes to the weights and measures system, which later evolved into the metric system made sense, but the calendar changes never really caught on. It replaced months of approximately 4 weeks, and weeks of 7 days each, with 12 months with new names, having three weeks in them, and weeks were 10 days long. The 'an V' of the coup translates as 'year 5'; they started counting years all over again as well, from the revolution.
horloge republicaineThere were no longer 24 hours in a day, there were 10, and hours lasted 100 decimal minutes, and minutes lasted 100 decimal seconds. They had to make special decimal clocks to accommodate the change, and this was mostly abandoned by 1795, although some cities used it until 1801------which led to a lot of confusion in France, and everywhere else.
During the beginning of the new year, fall had the new months Vendemiare (from Latin vindemia / grape harvest), Brumaire (from French brume, fog), and Frimaire(from French frimas, frost); winter was Nivose (from Latin nivosus, snowy), Pluviose (from Latin pluvius, rainy) and Ventose (from Latin ventosus, windy); spring was Germinal (from Latin germen, germination), Floreal (from Latin flos, flower), and Prairial (from French prairie, pasture) and summer ended the year with Messidor (from Latin messis, harvest), Thermidor / some calendars, Fervidor, (from Greek thermon, summer heat), and ended with Fructidor,(from Latin fructus, fruit). The British response was more fun; they mocked the new French calendar, calling the months Wheezy, Sneezy and Breezy, Slippy, Drippy, and Nippy, Showery, Flowery, and Bowery, and Wheaty, Heaty and Sweety.
Weeks were now called decades, and the new days were named primidi (first day), duodi (second day), tridi (third day), quartidi (fourth day), quintidi (fifth day), sextidi (sixth day), septidi (seventh day), octidi (eighth day), nonidi (ninth day), and decadi (tenth day). Five or six (leap year) days were tacked on to the end of the year each fall as celebration days.
You really, really don't want to know what they did to replace holidays and saint's days...
1812 The Siege of Fort Harrison begins when the fort is set on fire in the War of 1812. The fort was hastily built specifically for this war, and named in honor of General Harrison, who later became President William Henry Harrison. Another commander of the U.S. forces was Zachary Taylor, who became a later president as well, and as both Harrison and Taylor commanded the fort it was sometimes known as the 'fort of the two presidents'. Native Americans fought against the Americans with the British, from the Miami, Potawatomi, Kickapoo (yes, they're real), and Winnebago tribes. The War of 1812 had gone badly for the United States; this was the first major land victory in the war for the U.S.
1862 General Robert E. Lee takes the Army of Northern Virginia, and the war, into the North in the Civil War in the Maryland Campaign, aka the Antietam Campaign. The Battle of Antietam, fought between the Confederate forces of General Lee and the Union forces of General McClellan was the bloodiest single day of fighting in the entire Civil War.
Napoleon III1870 Emperor Napoleon III of France is deposed and the Third Republic is declared. The Third Republic, (which used conventional calendars and clocks), was the government of France from 1870 to 1940 when the Nazis imposed the Vichy government. Napoleon III was the earlier Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte's nephew, and he was named Charles Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte. Bonaparte like his uncle was involved in extensive wars, including the Crimean War, Conquest of Senegal in Africa, the Second Opium War, the Cochinchina War which resulted in the French conquest of Viet Nam, the Second Italian War of Independence, invasion of Mexico, putting in place the French Emperor Maximilian and his wife Carlotta, the Second Italian War of Independence, the Taiping Rebellion, the Korean campaign, the Boshin War, and his final military effort, the Franco-Prussian War which Napoleon III lost, ceding Alsace-Lorraine to the new German Empire. Napoleon III's Second Republic was overthrown 3 days later.
Geronimo photo1884 The United Kingdom ends its policy of penal transportation to New South Wales in Australia.
1886 After almost 30 years of fighting, Apache leader Geronimo, with his remaining warriors, surrenders to General Nelson Miles in Arizona.
1888 George Eastman registers the trademark Kodak and receives a patent for his camera that uses roll film.
1894 In New York City, 12,000 tailors strike against sweatshop working conditions.
Shenandoah1923 Maiden flight of the first U.S. airship,a dirigible, the USS Shenandoah ZR-1.
1941 A German submarine makes the first attack against a United States ship, the USS Greer.
1949 The Peekskill Riots erupt after a Paul Robeson concert in Peekskill, New York. Over 140 people were injured, and vehicles severely damaged by rioters chanting 'go back to Russia, you niggers', 'white niggers', as police observed without intervening to stop the violence. Some of those alleged to have `committed the violence were members of Veterans of Foreign War chapters and American Legion chapters, expressing rabid anti-communist and racist sentiments. Robeson had been outspoken on behalf of civil rights and against the Klu Klux Klan. Included in the shouted slogans of the protesters were anti-Semitic and racist slurs.
1951 The first live transcontinental television broadcast takes place in San Francisco, California, from the Japanese Peace Treaty Conference.
1956 The IBM RAMAC 305 is introduced, the first commercial computer to use magnetic disk storage.
One of the Little Rock 9,
with National Guardsthe Edsel1957 Orval Faubus, governor of Arkansas, calls out the National Guard to prevent the nine African American students, known as the Little Rock Nine, from enrolling in Central High School in defiance of a unanimous decision of the SCOTUS. Faubus later moderated his position on segregation, and in 1984 supported Jesse Jackson in the presidential primaries Debut of the Ford Edsel.
Schweitzer1965 Death of Albert Schweitzer, Alsatian physician and missionary, theologian, humanitarian, organist, and recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize (b. 1875)
1972 Swimmer Mark Spitz becomes the first competitor to win seven medals at a single Olympic Games.
1975 The Sinai Interim Agreement relating to the Arab-Israeli conflict is signed.
1977 The Golden Dragon Massacre took place in San Francisco, California. The Massacre was the result of a failed assassination attempt at the Golden Dragon Restaurant at 2:40 A.M. Five people were killed including two tourists, 11 were injured as the result of gang warfare between two Asian gangs, the Joe Boys, and the Wah Ching. None of the people killed or injured in the massacre were gang members. The incident led to the formation of the San Francisco Police Department's Asian Gang Task Force.
1984 Brian Mulroney leads the Canadian Progressive Conservative Party to power in the 1984 federal election, ending 20 years of nearly uninterrupted Liberal rule.
1995 The Fourth World Conference on Women opens in Beijing with over 4,750 delegates from 181 countries in attendance.
1998 Google is founded by Larry Page and Sergey Brin, two students at Stanford University.
search engine logo
Categories: Foes
Wishing all of our Penigma readers a safe and happy Labor Day weekend.
In celebration of the holiday, here is a Labor Day trivia quiz, questions courtesy of the holiday zone.
1. When is Labor Day observed in the United States and Canada?
A. September 1
B. the first Monday in September
C. the second Monday in September
D. May 1
2. Which of these countries celebrates Labor Day on May 1st?
A. China
B. Canada
C. New Zealand
D. Japan
3. Who is widely believed to be the father of Labor Day in America?
A. Henry Ward Beecher
B. Peter McGuire
C. Abraham Lincoln
D. Samuel Gompers
4. Which President signed the bill making Labor Day a National Holiday?
A. William McKinley
B. Benjamin Harrison
C. Chester Arthur
D. Grover Cleveland
5. Which city in the United States was the first to celebrate Labor Day?
A. Atlanta, Georgia
B. Chicago, Illinois
C. San Francisco, California
D. New York City, New York
6. What nickname was assigned to 19th century labor activist Peter McGuire?
A. Disturber of the Public Peace
B. The People's Spokesperson
C. The Voice of the Multitudes
D. Rabblerouser
7. When is the first labor strike in U. S. history believed to have occurred?
A. 1636
B. 1872
C. 1886
D. 1829
8. When was the first Labor Day parade held in America?
A. 1776
B. 1872
C. 1882
D. 1902
You can either follow the link to the source of this labor day trivia quiz for the answers, or read them at the end of the day on Monday here on Penigma. Enjoy!
1. When is Labor Day observed in the United States and Canada?
A. September 1
B. the first Monday in September
C. the second Monday in September
D. May 1
2. Which of these countries celebrates Labor Day on May 1st?
A. China
B. Canada
C. New Zealand
D. Japan
3. Who is widely believed to be the father of Labor Day in America?
A. Henry Ward Beecher
B. Peter McGuire
C. Abraham Lincoln
D. Samuel Gompers
4. Which President signed the bill making Labor Day a National Holiday?
A. William McKinley
B. Benjamin Harrison
C. Chester Arthur
D. Grover Cleveland
5. Which city in the United States was the first to celebrate Labor Day?
A. Atlanta, Georgia
B. Chicago, Illinois
C. San Francisco, California
D. New York City, New York
6. What nickname was assigned to 19th century labor activist Peter McGuire?
A. Disturber of the Public Peace
B. The People's Spokesperson
C. The Voice of the Multitudes
D. Rabblerouser
7. When is the first labor strike in U. S. history believed to have occurred?
A. 1636
B. 1872
C. 1886
D. 1829
8. When was the first Labor Day parade held in America?
A. 1776
B. 1872
C. 1882
D. 1902
You can either follow the link to the source of this labor day trivia quiz for the answers, or read them at the end of the day on Monday here on Penigma. Enjoy!
Categories: Foes
September 3rd in History
Coronation Procession, Richard Lionheart1189 Richard I of England is crowned at Westminster. He earned the soubriquet of Lionheart in the crusades, or as the Saracens called him, Melek-Ric.
Before that he was Duke of Normandy, Duke of Aquitaine, Duke of Gascony, Lord of Ireland, Lord of Cyprus, Count of Anjou, Count of Maine, Count of Nantes, Overlord of Brittany. Although he was born in England, Richard spent very little time in England, he actually spent little time there and spoke very little English.
Richard's coronation was an eventful episode in English history, not only for the usual reasons. He had barred women and Jews from attending, it was a superstition at the time that it was bad luck to have Jews present for the ceremony. When Jewish leaders attempted to present gifts to the new king, he had them stripped, flogged, and thrown out. This led to a rumor that Richard had issued an order for Jews to be killed, which in turn led to a massacre of London Jews. Some were robbed and beaten to death, some were burned alive when houses in the Jewish ghetto, and businesses were burned to the ground with people inside them. Those who tried to leave the burning buildings were killed. A few Jews were forcibly baptised. Jacob of Orleans, considered one of the most learned men of his era was among those killed, becoming a Jewish martyr. Richard punished some of the rioters, hanging those who accidentally burned down Christian houses by mistake. While romanticized historic novels have portrayed the medieval Jews of England as having willingly donated large sums to ransome Richard Lionheart back to England, coerced large donations were closer to the truth.
Burned out stone remains of
Clifford's Tower, site of the
March 1290 Jewish Massacre of YorkRichard did issue a writ that Jews were not to be persecuted, but there was another massacre, this time in York only six months later, as well as at Lynn, Bury St. Edmonds, Lincoln, Colchester, Thetford, Ospinge. In the York massacre, the local Jews had taken refuge in a tower that was mobbed by local rioters seeking their forced conversion. Rather than give up their religion, the Jews under the guidance of their leaders followed the tradition of the Masada with the male head of the household killing their wives and children and then the leader killing the remaining men. A few Jews survived this mass suicide, and instead surrendered and were proimsed safe passage out of the tower, but were instead killed when they came out, and then the tower itself was burned. Jews were expelled from England entirely in 1290.
Mameluke Cavalry Training
Manual Illustration1260 The Mamluks defeat the Mongols at the Battle of Ain Jalut in Palestine, marking their first decisive defeat and the point of maximum expansion of the Mongol Empire. Mamluks or Mameluks, were slaves who converted to Islam, usually white Christians. They became a prominent and powerful military caste within this period, seizing the Sultanate of Egypt and Syria from 1250 to 1517. They not only fought off the Mongols, they successfully fought on behalf of the Moslems in the crusades. Despite being slaves, many of the Mameluks held positions of trust and power greater than those of free Moslems. They were noted in particular for their excellence in horsemanship as well as their overall military prowess.
Sir Edward Coke1634 Death of Sir Edward Coke, English jurist and Member of Parliament (b. 1552) Coke wrote formative legal opinions on common law which continued to be influential long after his death. He became Solicitor General, and Attorney General, under Queen Elizabeth I. He was the prosecutor of Sir Walter Raleigh and the Gunpowder Plot conspirators in the historic treason trial. He was later made an important Judge in different positions, including Lord Chief Justice of England. James I didn't like him as much as the earlier monarchs, removing him from the bench. So Coke (pronounced COOK) moved over to Parliament, to the House of Commons, where he was an author of the document limiting the powers of the Monarchy, the Petition of Right, a sort of 1628 English predecessor to the U. S. Bill of Rights, affirming Enlightenment political philosophy opposing royal absolutism. The Petition of Right stipulated: No Taxation without Parliament's consent No Forced loans
No Arbitrary arrest
No Imprisonment contrary to Magna Carta
No Arbitrary interference with property rights
Enforcement of habeas corpus
No Forced billeting of troops
No Imposition of martial law in peace time
No Exemption of officials from due process
Coke also wrote an 11 volume Coke's Reports still used in English legal practice, and the 4 volume Institutes of the Lawes of England.
1651 Third English Civil War, in the Battle of Worcester, the Charles II of England is defeated in this final major battle.
1658 Death of Oliver Cromwell, Lord Protector of England from malaria (b. 1599) and possible septicemia from an infection secondary to kidney stones. Charles II returned to the throne of England in 1660, and in 1661 had the remains of Cromwell exhumed, and posthumously executed for having signed the warrant for the execution of Charles I, on the anniversary of the execution of Charles I. Cromwell's body was hanged in chains at Tyburn, and his decapitated head was displayed on a pole outside Westminster Hall until 1685. Cromwell's head had a series of owners, including a sale in 1814 to Josiah Wilkinson; it was eventually buried (without the rest of his body) at Sidney Suxxex College, Cambridge, in 1960. Also posthumously executed along with Cromwell were John Bradshaw and Henry Ireton who was Cromwell's son-in-law, another signatory to the execution of Charles I, and John Bradshaw, the chief presiding judge at Charles I's trial. Bradshaw and Ireton were, like Cromwell, also beheaded and their severed heads put on display outside Westminster Hall.
1783 The American Revolutionary War ends with the signing of the Treaty of Paris by the United States and the Kingdom of Great Britain.
1803 English scientist John Dalton begins using symbols to represent the atoms of different elements.
1811 Sin, Sex, Salvation, and Silverware - Birth of John Humphrey Noyes, American political and religious figure (d. 1886) He founded the Oneida Community in Oneida, New York in 1848. Noyes believed, by careful calculation, that the second coming of Christ had occurred already, back in 70 A.D. He coined the term 'free love', and was an American utopian socialist. At various times his beliefs, both religious and sexual caused him trouble with the local authorities, including an arrest for adultery, and pursuit for statutory rape. His religious community encompassed a number of successful businesses and industries, engaged in plural marriage, and believed that they could lead lives without sin, philosophy called perfectionism. They believed they could bring about Christ's millenial kingdom, along with a list of what might charitably be called unusual beliefs and practices in the communities.
The Oneida Community formally dissolved, and converted to a joint stock company in 1881. The communities' industries were consolidated under Noye's son Pierrepont, and became the largest producer of flatware for most of the 20th century.
1838 Dressed in a sailor's uniform and carrying identification papers provided by a Free Black seaman, future abolitionist Frederick Douglass boards a train in Maryland on his way to freedom from slavery.
1855 In Nebraska, 700 soldiers under United States General William S. Harney avenged the Grattan Massacre, attacking a Sioux village, killing 100 men, women, and children.
1861 Confederate General Leonidas Polk invades neutral Kentucky, prompting the state legislature to ask for Union assistance.
1875 Birth of Ferdinand Porsche, Austrian automotive engineer (d. 1951)
1929 The Dow Jones industrial average closed at 381.17, the pre-crash stock market high.
1935 Sir Malcolm Campbell reaches speed of 304.331 miles per hour on the Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah, becoming the first person to drive an automobile over 300 mph
1941 Karl Fritzsch, deputy camp commandant of the Auschwitz concentration camp, experiments with the use of Zyklon B in the gassing of Soviet POWs.
1942 In response to news of its coming liquidation, Dov Lopatyn leads an uprising in the Lakhva Ghetto.
1944 Holocaust: Diarist Anne Frank and her family are placed on the last transport train from Westerbork to Auschwitz, arriving three days later.
1962 Death of E. E. Cummings, American poet (b. 1894)
1967 Dagen H in Sweden: traffic changes from driving on the left to driving on the right overnight without major accidents.
1976 The Viking 2 spacecraft lands at Utopia Planitia on Mars.
1994 Russia and the People's Republic of China agree to de-target their nuclear weapons against each other.
2003 Death of Paul Jennings Hill, American anti-abortion murderer (b. 1954)
2005 Death of William Rehnquist, Chief Justice of the United States (b. 1924)
Categories: Foes
September 2nd in History
harvested fennel, root, stem
and leaves 490 BC Death of Pheidippides, (530 BC - 490 BC) the ancient Greek hero of the Battle of Marathon during the First Persian Invasion of Greece under Darius I. Pheidippides, as an official herald, ran from Athens to Sparta, a distance of 150 miles, in two days. He then ran another 25 miles from the Marathon battlefield where the Persians had landed, back to Athens with the news of a Greek victory, according to legend dropping dead on the spot after uttering the word in Greece for 'we have won'. The story of Pheidippides extraordinary feats were compiled by Herodotus, the 'Father of History' some 50 years later from multiple less-than-reliable sources. The Greek word 'marathon' translates as fennel, the herb common in Mediterranean cooking, medicine (and later in specialty beverages like absinthe).
According to Herodotus' version, on his way to Sparta, Pheidippides met the Greek God Pan, who wanted to know why he wasn't accorded more respect and attention from the Athenians. In return for promises of more honor to him from the Athenians, Pan then in turn supposedly fought on the side of the Athenians by using one of his special attributes, the ability to instill unreasonable fear - or PANic - in the enemy combatants. In appreciation, the Athenians afterwards held an annual festival that included sacrifices - and a race. This legend was the inspiration for the 'marathon' race in the modern Olympics, and other long races of 26 miles and 385 yards. Although a great legend, it does not have a very good probability of being factual. (Not to be confused with the comic character of Pheidippides in Aristophanes' 'The Clouds'.)
1031 Death of Saint Emeric of Hungary, variants Emmerich, Emericus or Americus. He was killed while hunting wild boar, and afterwards healing miracles were attributed to his grave site. So his bones were dug up and he was canonized, along with other members of his family.
1666 The Great Fire of London breaks out and burns for three days, destroying 10,000 buildings including St Paul's Cathedral. The fire started at the bakery of one Thomas Faryner on a street with the prosaic name "Pudding Lane". Because of the inaction of the Lord Mayor, Sir Thomas Bloodworth, it spread, becoming a firestorm (a technical term with a very specific meaning) when wind spread the fire to buildings built too close together, and nearly all made of wood with thatched roofs that were highly combustible. Accusations that the fire had been set by 'foreigners' intent on a diversion to promote invasions led to the lynchings of French and Dutch immigrants. In the recent civil wars, and the 'restoration' era of Charles II, there were also fears of another Guy-Fawkes-like Gun Powder Plot. (Where have we heard in our own time of irrational and unsubstantiated fear of immigrants, and even resultant threats and violence, or crazy conspiracy theories?) The fire was eventually stopped in part because it ran out of city to burn, and because the wind stopped, -- and because of some nifty fire-fighting by the Tower of London garrison creating fire-breaks using gun-powder for effective demolition of areas creating zones the fire couldn't jump.
illustration of the Great London Fire firestormAnd then London was rebuilt with pretty much all of the same characteristics that had made it a fire-trap in the first place.
1752 Great Britain adopts the Gregorian calendar, nearly two centuries later than most of Western Europe.
1789 The United States Department of the Treasury is founded.
1792 During what became known as the September Massacres of the French Revolution, rampaging mobs slaughter three Roman Catholic Church bishops, more than two hundred priests, and prisoners believed to be royalist sympathizers.
1807 The English Royal Navy bombards Copenhagen with fire bombs and phosphorus rockets to prevent Denmark from surrendering its Dano-Norwegian fleet to Napoleon - so the British could seize it. At the time, Denmark included not only modern Denmark, but also Iceland, and Schleswig-Holstein, and could have potentially completely closed the Baltic to the English shipping, navy, and access to the English allies against Napoleon, Sweden (which at the time included modern Finland), Prussia, and Russia. The English forces were commanded by ....General Wellesely, who hadn't been elevated to the Duke of Wellington title yet. (see a recent 'day in history, the Peninsular Wars).
1820 Death of Jiaqing, Sixth Qing dynasty Emperor of China (b. 1760). He was significant in Chinese history for his relationship with Europeans, especially in his efforts to prevent opium being smuggled into China by the British to offset their balance of trade deficits from importing tea. (See Opium Wars) From 1796 to 1804 Jiaquing contended with the White Lotus Rebellion, an uprising primarily in the southwestern Szechuan province, that started as a tax protest by a secret 'White Lotus Society', with overtones of religion promising personal salvation to its followers, and advocating a sort of nationalistic patriotism desiring to restore an earlier 'more Chinese' dynasty, the Ming Dynasty, to power. The White Lotus Society also predicted the coming of the Buddhist 'Maitreya' which has some parallels to the modern western 'end days' eschatology. Although the Jiaqing military was effective in ending the White Lotus Rebellion, it cost the lives of 16 million people, and weakened the country which never fully recovered.
U. S. Marines overthrowing
the Hawaiian Government
in 1893, in front of the
Honolulu Hotel 1838 Birth of Liliuokalani of Hawaii, last Queen of Hawaii (d. 1917) In 1887, the 'Bayonet Constitution' was forced on Hawaii by militant anti-monarchist white settlers. It created a constitutional monarchy which stripped actual power from the reigning traditional native Hawaiian dynasty. The principle author of the Bayonet Constitution was Lorrin A. Thurston, grandson of the first American Christian missionaries to Hawaii, and a member of the 'Hawaiian League' which was pressing for annexation by the United States. Thurston became the Interior Minister in the new government that was created. Provisions of the new constitution removed the previously existing right to vote from Asian males, restricting it to American, European and Hawaiian males who met certain financial and literacy requirements. Native Hawaiians comprised half or less of the total population. Under the Bayonet Constitution criteria for the franchise, about 75% of Native Hawaiians were denied the vote. In 1893, Thurston and his co-conspirators overthrew the government entirely in an American led coup d'etat, supported by U. S. marines. In 1898, the U.S. formally annexed Hawaii. In 1993, 100 years later, Congress passed, and President Bill Clinton signed, Public Law 103-150, known as the 'Apology Resolution', an official apology for the role of the U.S. government in the overthrow of the lawful government of Hawaii.
1859 A solar super storm affects electrical telegraph service.
1862 American Civil War: President Abraham Lincoln reluctantly restores Union General George B. McClellan to full command after General John Pope's disastrous defeat at the Second Battle of Bull Run.
1885 Rock Springs massacre: In Rock Springs, Wyoming, 150 white miners, who are struggling to unionize so they could strike for better wages and work conditions, attack their Chinese fellow workers, killing 28, wounding 15, and forcing several hundred more out of town.
1898 Battle of Omdurman – British and Egyptian troops defeat Sudanese tribesmen and establish British dominance in Sudan.
1901 Vice President of the United States Theodore Roosevelt utters the famous phrase, "Speak softly and carry a big stick" at the Minnesota State Fair.
1910 Death of Henri Rousseau, French painter (b. 1844) A post-impressionist, he was self-taught. Some of his favorite subjects were very mannered, stylized jungle scenes, although Rousseau never left France. He was inspired by botanical gardens and conservatories with exotic plants, and from taxidermied exotic animals in museums. The painting at right is his final work, The Dream, from 1910, in the collection of the Museum of Modern Art (MOMA) in New York City. The painting was accompanied by this poem:
Yadwigha, falling into sweet sleep,heard in a lovely dreamthe sounds of a musetteplayed by a kind enchanter.While the moon shoneon the flowers, the verdant trees,the wild snakes lent an earto the instrument's gay airs.To view the complete works of Henri Rousseau, see them here
1918 Birth of Martha Mitchell, nee Beall, notorious Watergate figure. Wife of Attorney General John Mitchell, Martha became famous for her phone calls to the press about the events the Watergate co-conspirators were trying to keep secret. In the famous David Frost interviews, President Richard Nixonsaid, "If it hadn't been for Martha Mitchell, there'd have been no Watergate.", a sentiment both unfair, and unduly optimistic.The epitome of the proverbial loose cannon, Martha lived up to the verse in her high school year-book:
I love its gentle warble,I love its gentle flow,I love to wind my tongue upAnd I love to let it go. 1925 The U.S. Zeppelin the USS Shenandoah crashes, killing 14.
1939 World War II: Following the start of the invasion of Poland the previous day, the Free City of Danzig (now Gdańsk, Poland) is annexed by Nazi Germany.
1944 Navy pilot George H.W. Bush was shot down by Japanese forces as he completed a bombing run over the Bonin Islands. The future president was rescued by a U.S. submarine.
1946 Interim Government of India is formed with Jawaharlal Nehru as Vice President. The Nehru-inspired jacket were a fashion fad failure in later years in the west.
1948 Birth of Christa McAuliffe, American schoolteacher and astronaut who died in the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster in 1986.
Death of Sylvanus Morley, American archaeologist specializing in the pre-Columbian Mayan era, and World War I spy in Mexico and Central America (b. 1883)
1960 The first election of the Parliament of the Central Tibetan Administration, in history of Tibet. The Tibetan community observes this date as the Democracy Day.
1963 Alabama Gov. George C. Wallace prevented the integration of Tuskegee High School by encircling the building with state troopers.
1970 NASA announces the cancellation of two Apollo missions to the Moon, Apollo 15 (the designation is re-used by a later mission), and Apollo 19.
characteristic Hobbit-ually hairy feet 1973 Death of J. R. R. Tolkien, CBE, British philologist and professor, poet and fantasy writer (b. 1892) Trivia points (this is especially for my dear colleagues, Pen, ToE, TTuck) if you can correctly identify what the initials J. R. R. stand for in Tolkien's name. A question for readers - how old were you the first time you read Tolkein? If you've read the author more than once - when was the last time you read him?
1991 The United States recognizes the independence of the Baltic states: Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania.
1992 The United States and Russia agreed to build a space station.
1998 The UN's International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda finds Jean Paul Akayesu, the former mayor of a small town in Rwanda, guilty of nine counts of genocide
2005 A National Guard convoy packed with food, water and medicine rolled into New Orleans four days after Hurricane Katrina.
Categories: Foes
September 1st in History
Welcome to September - which used to be the seventh month, back when the calendar year started in March, but that changed when the beginning of the year was moved back to January, and the month of July for Julius Cesar, and August, for Augustus, were inserted into the Calendar. For a more complete explanation, I refer our readers to the September "Hot Word Blog" blog link on our blog roll from dictionary.com.
891 - Count Arnulf the Great of Flanders, grandson of Alfred the Great of England, and part of the Carolingian dynasty which descended from Charles Martel aka Charles the Hammer, as one of the Carolingian dynasty - which also included Charlemagne (which translates roughly as Charles the Magnificent), so he came by his immodest name familialy. He was named - his first name - for another ancestor, St. Arnulf of Metz. Names had a lot to do with legitimacy. In 891, Arnulf defeated the Vikings from Scandinavia at the battle of Louvain in Belgium. Arnulf spent more of his reign in Flanders fighting the Normans as he expanded his borders than he did fighting Vikings from Scandinavia. And when he wasn't fighting the Normans, he was playing politics with Charles the Simple, King of France, son of Louis the Stammerer, and successor of Charles the Fat, from another branch of the prolific and colorful Carolingians, who were dominant in the early middle ages in Europe.
1532 Lady Anne Boleyn is made Marchioness of Pembroke by her fiancé, King Henry VIII of England.Louis XIV
1715 Death of King Louis XIV of France, le Roi Soleil, the Sun King, dies after a reign of 72 years—the longest of any major European monarch. The French monarchy did not survive the 18th century.
1772 Mission San Luis Obispo de Tolosa founded in San Luis Obispo, California. Named for the Spanish version of the name of the French saint, Saint Louis of Anjou, Bishop of Toulouse. It is one of the oldest buildings in the modern state of California, a remnant of an extensive chain of missions which were part religious buildings, part military forts in the Christianizing militant colonialism of the Spanish in the 'New World'. It was the fifth mission built by legendary Father Junipero Serra.
1804 Juno, one of the largest main belt asteroids, was discovered by German astronomer Karl Ludwig Harding.
a younger, pre-exile Aaron Burr1807 Former Vice President Aaron Burr was found innocent of treason in what is known as the Burr conspiracy. Prominent political figures involved in the event included Henry Clay, Andrew Jackson, and President Thomas Jefferson. At issue for Chief Justice John Marshall were claims of executive privilege in providing documents in response to subpoenas, in the context of separation of powers and the checks and balances of the executive and judiciary branches. The absence of documents requested by Chief Justice Marshall were part of Burr being found innocent, and the precedent that the President of the United States IS subject to subpoenas from the SCOTUS were key elements of subsequent juris prudence. (perhaps colleague ToE will find the time to elaborate). This gets more interesting when one considers that Thomas Jefferson had been the second Vice President of the United States under John Adams, and that Aaron Burr had been the third Vice President under Thomas Jefferson, and that Aaron Burr as Vice President had presided over the Senate impeachment of one of the Supreme Court Associate Justices as part of an attempt to remove lifetime SCOTUS justices in order to replace them with his own nominations. This did not mean that Aaron Burr had been Jefferson's running mate; it meant he became VP by losing out in a vote in the House of Representatives at the time settling a tie vote. That there may have been a bit of political pay-back going on is suggested by the allegations that Burr intended to overthrow President Jefferson in his subsequent re-election with Vice President George Clinton replacing Burr. (It is also interesting in unrelated history that the office of VP was vacant after Clinton from April 1812 to March 1813.) After all of this, Burr exiled himself to Europe for most of the remainder of his life.
Englebert Humperdinck, 1910
1810 John J. Wood patented the first plow with interchangeable parts.
1854 Engelbert Humperdinck, German composer (d. 1921) No. The other one.
1858 The East India Company's government of India ended with the British crown taking over its territories and duties.
1859 rail car1859 The Pullman sleeping car, built by George Pullman's company with help from Ben Field, was put into service.
1870 Franco-Prussian War: Battle of Sedan was fought, resulting in a decisive Prussian victory, and the capture of Emperor Napoleon III (for those who thought there had been only one Emperor Napoleon).
'Molly Maguires' meeting1875 A murder conviction effectively forces the violent Irish anti-owner coal miners, the "Molly Maguires", to disband. The Molly Maguires evidence relied on the allegations of a prominent industrialist, Franklin B. Gowan who was president of the Philadelphia and Reading Railroad, and the largest mine owner, and the testimony of a single Pinkerton detective he had hired. There is some indication that the claims may have been the result of both bribery and coercion. Vigilantes went after not only miners trying to get better treatment for miners, but their families, and those vigilantes may have been working either directly or indirectly on behalf of mine owners and industrialists. Anti-Roman Catholic sentiments by successful Protestants was another factor in opposition to the labor protests by coal miners.
Elmo Lincoln,
as Tarzan Birth of Edgar Rice Burroughs, prolific American writer, and World War II war correspondent (d. 1950). He was the creator of the Tarzan of the Apes series of books and stories, which were later made into movies, as well as the John Carter of Mars series, and many others, writing a total of 70 novels, and numerous short stories. The city of Tarzana grew up in the vicinity and is named after Burrough's Tarzana Ranch; the city of Tarzan, Texas was named for the silent film of Tarzan starring Elmo Lincoln; and the Burroughs Crater on Mars is named after him.
1878 Emma Nutt becomes the world's first female telephone operator when she was recruited by Alexander Graham Bell to the Boston Telephone Dispatch Company.
1887 A patent was filed for by Emile Berliner for his invention, the lateral-cut, flat-disk gramophone; better known as the record player. Emile got the patent, but the glory went to Thomas Edison for making his American invention work.
Main Street of Hinckley after the fireanother view of the fire devastation
1894 More than 400 people, possibly as many as 800, die in the Great Hinckley Fire, including Civil War hero Boston Corbett, the Union soldier who killed John Wilkes Booth. The forest fire in and around Hinckley, Minnesota completely destroyed Mission Creek, Hinckley, and Brook Park and three other towns, and partially destroyed the town of Sandstone, Minnesota in a matter of three or four hours, incinerating approximately 420 square miles. Smoke was so heavy it disrupted navigation on the Great Lakes. Several factors contributed to the creation of a firestorm, reaching temperatures of 1000 F, including a method of lumber harvesting, a temperature inversion, and a two month drought with temperatures in the 90s. In a firestorm like this, energy is released equivalent to multiple Hiroshima atomic bombs. Thanks to the collection of Macalaster College for the photos.1902 poster, "A Trip to the Moon"
First Subway, open-style car1897 The Boston subway opens, becoming the first underground rapid transit system in North America.
1902 A Trip to the Moon, considered one of the first science fiction films, is released in France.
1906 The International Federation of Intellectual Property Attorneys is established.
1906 Birth of Eleanor Burford Hibertt, prolific historical fiction, gothic fiction, and even romances as an author under the names Jean Plaidy, Victoria Holt, Philippa Carr, Eleanor Burford, Elbur Ford, Kathleen Kellow, Anne Percival and Ellalice Tate(d. 1993). In her lifetime she sold over 100 million books.
1914 St. Petersburg, Russia, changes its name to Petrograd, (which later changes to the current name of Leningrad).
Martha the last passenger pigeon The last passenger pigeon, a female named Martha, dies in captivity in the Cincinnati Zoo. The passenger pigeon was one of the most proflific birds in North America, systematically killed as a meat source in massive numbers. It became extinct largely due to ruthless and cruel overhunting, but also in part due to loss of habitat through extensive deforestation. It is significant that attempts to keep the species from becoming extinct were unsuccessful, in part due to lack of concern at species extinction; at the time people didn't really believe it could happen. It is an example of extinction due entirely to human actions in a relatively short space of time. 'Martha' is in the Smithsonian collection, preserved by taxidermy for posterity.
1923 The Great Kantō earthquake devastates Tokyo and Yokohama, killing about 105,000 people.
Zog 1 of Albania1928 Ahmet Zogu declares Albania to be a monarchy and proclaims himself king as Zog I.
1939 World War II: Nazi Germany invades Poland, beginning the war in Europe.
George C. Marshall becomes Chief of Staff of the United States Army.
The Wound Badge for Wehrmacht, SS, Kriegsmarine, and Luftwaffe soldiers is instituted. The final version of the Iron Cross is also instituted on this date.
Switzerland mobilizes its forces and the Swiss Parliament elects Henri Guisan to head the Swiss Army (an event that can happen only during war or mobilization).
Japanese American Internment Camp1942 A federal judge in Sacramento, Calif., upheld the wartime detention of Japanese-Americans as well as Japanese nationals. One of the most shameful events of American History, it is an action currently being praised by conservative extremist Michelle Malkin in her new book, and an action for which in 1988 President Ronald Reagan and the U.S. Congress extended an apology, and $1.6 billion in reparations. Congresswoman Michele Bachmann used unfounded fears of subsequent Census data for internment of citizens as a fear tactic in 2009, in advance of the 2010 census.
1945 The United States received official word of Japan's formal surrender that ended World War II. In Japan, it was actually September 2nd.
1951 The United States, Australia and New Zealand sign a mutual defense pact, called the ANZUS Treaty.
1961 The Eritrean War of Independence officially begins with the shooting of the Ethiopian police by Hamid Idris Awate.
1968 Birth of Mohamed Atta, Egyptian terrorist (d. 2001), ring leader of the 9/11 terrorists.
1970 Attempted assassination of King Hussein of Jordan by Palestinian guerrillas, who attacked his motorcade. Death of François Mauriac, French writer, Nobel laureate (b. 1885)
SR-71 Blackbird1974 The SR-71 Blackbird sets (and holds) the record for flying from New York to London in the time of 1 hour, 54 minutes and 56.4 seconds.
1979 The American space probe Pioneer 11 becomes the first spacecraft to visit Saturn when it passes the planet at a distance of 21,000 km.
1981 Albert Speer, a close associate of Adolf Hitler who ran the Nazi war machine, died at a London hospital at age 76.
1982 Canada adopts the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms as part of its Constitution.
1982 The United States Air Force Space Command is founded.
Titanic1983 Cold War: Korean Air Flight 007 is shot down by a Soviet Union jet fighter when the commercial aircraft enters Soviet airspace. All 269 on board die, including Congressman Lawrence McDonald.
1985 A joint American–French expedition locates the wreckage of the RMS Titanic.
1991 Uzbekistan declares independence from the Soviet Union Independence Day, celebrates the independence of Uzbekistan from the Soviet Union in 1991.
1992 The Constitution of Slovakia is ratified
Some of the dead children2004 Beslan school hostage crisis commences when armed terrorists take children and adults hostage in Beslan in North Ossetia, Russia. More than 1,100 people were taken hostage by heavily armed Chechen militants at a school in Beslan in southern Russia; nearly 400 people, most of them children, were killed during the three-day ordeal.
2006 Luxembourg becomes the first country to complete the move to all digital television broadcasting.
2007 Sen. Larry Craig, R-Idaho, announced that he would resign in the wake of fallout over his guilty plea in a Minnesota airport gay sex sting. (Craig later reversed his decision, saying he would serve out the rest of his term.)
Categories: Foes
Eggzactly!
free range (uncaged) large poultry operationMinnesota is a 'fly-over' state, one which is active in producing the food supplies for the entire nation and beyond. In this context, I contacted the office of one of our Minnesota senators, junior Senator Al Franken. My response to that contact was extraordinarily prompt, and as has been my experience when contacting his office on other matters, his response was also substantive and to the point - not some 'blow-off' generic / one-size-fits-all reply. I found the content of that response sufficiently interesting in view of the current egg-recall and related large number of illness, and the subsequent findings of sanitation-related problems with the mega-factory farming operation in our adjoining state of Iowa to be worth sharing here,
minus my redacted personal email information etc.:
Thank you for contacting me about food safety. I appreciate you taking the time to share your concerns with me on this important issue.
While the U.S. food supply is one of the safest in the world, public health officials estimate that each year millions of people (including thousands of Minnesotans) become sick -- and thousands more die -- from foodborne illnesses. The current system relies too heavily on reacting to outbreaks after they have occurred, instead of preventing their occurrence in the first place. There's a lot of room for improvement.
That's why I introduced the Food Safety Enforcement Act. This bill would increase the sentences that prosecutors can seek for people who knowingly contaminate the nation's food supply and endanger Americans' lives. Companies that knowingly sell contaminated or unsafe food need to face serious consequences. In 2009, three Minnesotans died from contaminated peanut butter. Anyone who puts profits before safety is a criminal and needs to be prosecuted as such.
Minnesota is regarded as the national leader in early detection of foodborne diseases, and we have a long record of working effectively with the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on food safety. However, the FDA does not currently have all the tools it needs to ensure the safety of our food. S. 510, the FDA Food Safety Modernization Act, builds on what works in Minnesota and would address many of these inadequacies. Overall, this bill would improve the safety and security of our food and enhance our foodborne illness surveillance systems.
While safety is of critical importance, it is equally important that Minnesotans are still able to go to their neighborhood farms and farmers' markets to purchase food directly from producers. As a member of the Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP), I worked with Senator Merkley from Oregon to include provisions in S. 510 that ensure small farms and organic farmers would not be overburdened by this legislation. These changes ensure that small farms and markets would be exempt from any additional and duplicative food safety record keeping requirements under the bill.
On December 18, 2009, S. 510 was reported favorably out of the HELP Committee. As a member of this committee, I was proud to vote for it. The bill is now expected to come before the full Senate in the near future. As Congress finalizes food safety legislation, I will continue to work with my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to ensure that any legislation will bring safer food to all Minnesotans.
Al Franken, U.S. Senator
In contrast to the track records for introducing successful legislation - or in the case of Michele Bachmann, for comparison, failing to introduce ANY substantive AND successful legislation - I hope our Penigma readers will also find this of interest, both for the content relating to the immediate issue, and as food for thought in the larger context of what our legislators in representative government SHOULD be doing for their constituents. Thank you Senator for the prompt response from your office; this indicates the kind of representation that constituents deserve but do not always receive. Thank you as well, Senator, for putting in the time at what you are supposed to be doing on our behalf instead of grandstanding anywhere but Congress or your home state. Thank you Senator, for being so conscientious and thoughtful in researching and proposing this legislation. I was particularly impressed with the attention given to the differences in regulation appropriate to small business and family farm agricultural operations which could become onerous, as distinct from the issues of food safety regulation appropriate to the risks of big business 'factory farming' operations that Senator Franken demonstrated.
"factory" / caged poultry farming
(the white shape in the center foreground
appears to be a dead chicken)Well done, Senator Franken. Well done.
minus my redacted personal email information etc.:
Thank you for contacting me about food safety. I appreciate you taking the time to share your concerns with me on this important issue.
While the U.S. food supply is one of the safest in the world, public health officials estimate that each year millions of people (including thousands of Minnesotans) become sick -- and thousands more die -- from foodborne illnesses. The current system relies too heavily on reacting to outbreaks after they have occurred, instead of preventing their occurrence in the first place. There's a lot of room for improvement.
That's why I introduced the Food Safety Enforcement Act. This bill would increase the sentences that prosecutors can seek for people who knowingly contaminate the nation's food supply and endanger Americans' lives. Companies that knowingly sell contaminated or unsafe food need to face serious consequences. In 2009, three Minnesotans died from contaminated peanut butter. Anyone who puts profits before safety is a criminal and needs to be prosecuted as such.
Minnesota is regarded as the national leader in early detection of foodborne diseases, and we have a long record of working effectively with the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on food safety. However, the FDA does not currently have all the tools it needs to ensure the safety of our food. S. 510, the FDA Food Safety Modernization Act, builds on what works in Minnesota and would address many of these inadequacies. Overall, this bill would improve the safety and security of our food and enhance our foodborne illness surveillance systems.
While safety is of critical importance, it is equally important that Minnesotans are still able to go to their neighborhood farms and farmers' markets to purchase food directly from producers. As a member of the Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP), I worked with Senator Merkley from Oregon to include provisions in S. 510 that ensure small farms and organic farmers would not be overburdened by this legislation. These changes ensure that small farms and markets would be exempt from any additional and duplicative food safety record keeping requirements under the bill.
On December 18, 2009, S. 510 was reported favorably out of the HELP Committee. As a member of this committee, I was proud to vote for it. The bill is now expected to come before the full Senate in the near future. As Congress finalizes food safety legislation, I will continue to work with my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to ensure that any legislation will bring safer food to all Minnesotans.
Al Franken, U.S. Senator
In contrast to the track records for introducing successful legislation - or in the case of Michele Bachmann, for comparison, failing to introduce ANY substantive AND successful legislation - I hope our Penigma readers will also find this of interest, both for the content relating to the immediate issue, and as food for thought in the larger context of what our legislators in representative government SHOULD be doing for their constituents. Thank you Senator for the prompt response from your office; this indicates the kind of representation that constituents deserve but do not always receive. Thank you as well, Senator, for putting in the time at what you are supposed to be doing on our behalf instead of grandstanding anywhere but Congress or your home state. Thank you Senator, for being so conscientious and thoughtful in researching and proposing this legislation. I was particularly impressed with the attention given to the differences in regulation appropriate to small business and family farm agricultural operations which could become onerous, as distinct from the issues of food safety regulation appropriate to the risks of big business 'factory farming' operations that Senator Franken demonstrated.
"factory" / caged poultry farming
(the white shape in the center foreground
appears to be a dead chicken)Well done, Senator Franken. Well done.
Categories: Foes
August 31st in History
Caligula 12 Birth of the infamous Roman Emperor, Gaius Caligula, (d. 41)
Commodus 161 Birth of Commodus, another Roman Emperor (d. 192) Commodus fancied himself a gladiator, staging spectacles in which it was always arranged for him to win. He was assassinated after behaving in excessive, violent, and grotesque ways, different than the excesses of Caligula, but equally disturbing, prompting the drastic action of his opposition. Historian Edward Gibbon, in his comprehensive 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire' cites Commodus' reign as 'the beginning of the decline' of the Roman Empire.
1218 Al-Kamil becomes Sultan of Egypt, Syria and northern Mesopotamia on the death of his father Al-Adil. He was of Kurdish ethnicity, of the Sunni Ayyubid Sultanate and his territory also included a good part of northern Africa, Israel, Jordan, and parts of modern Saudi Arabia and Yemen. Al Kamil defeated the Fifth and Sixth Crusades. Al Kamil also had a very positive and constructive meeting with St. Francis of Assisi, which later in the Franciscan order being recognized as 'Custodians of the Holy Land' on behalf of Christianity.
Henry VI1422 Henry VI becomes King of England at the age of 9 months. His reign, under regents, included the conflicts in France with Joan of Arc. His reign spanned from 1422 to 1437 under regents, and under his own authority from 1437 to 1461, and again from 1470 to 1471. He had regents ruling again from 1453 to 1454 because he had a nervous breakdown. In the course of the War of the Roses, another civil war between branches of the House of Lancaster - Henry - and the House of York, led by his cousin, Edward of York, York won. Henry VI was kept prisoner in the Tower of London from 1465 until his death in the Tower of London in 1471, where he was possibly murdered by his successor Edward of York, aka Edward IV. Shakespeare in his history plays, Henry VI and Richard III, accuses Richard III, Edward VI's younger brother, of Henry VI's murder. Shakespeare also wrote a three-part history play of the life of Henry VI, as well as the more famous Henry V history play with the famous scenes of Henry V before the Battle of Agincourt, territory lost by Henry VI.
1569 Birth of Jahangir, Mughal Emperor of India (d. 1627). His mother was a Rajput Princess of Jaipur, a Hindu. While he expanded the Mughal empire, he was tolerant of religions; he held Hindu law applied to Hindus and Muslem laws to Muslems in civil cases, to respect the different traditions; with one law applied to everyone in criminal cases.
1803 Lewis and Clark start their expedition to the west by leaving Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania at 11 o clock in the morning. This was the third recorded transcontinental crossing of North America, after the Cabeza de Vaca expedition of 1536, and the Sir Alexander Mackenzie expedition of 1789. Lewis and Clark did not complete their return trip until 1806.
Goya painting of the Peninsular War1813 At the final stage of the Peninsular War, in the larger group of Napoleonic Wars, the British-Portuguese troops capture the town of Donostia-San Sebastian, resulting in a rampage and eventual destruction of the town. It was the Peninsular War for control of Spain and Portugal which gave rise to the modern word Guerillas, from the use of guerilla warfare, also termed asymmetrical warfare. The French forces were driven back over the Pyrenees, weakened by Napoleon's ill-conceived war against Russia which reduced the numbers of the 'grand armee' in Spain. The Peninsular War nominally ended with the Treaty of Valencay, but did not really end until the abdication of Napoleon at the Peace of Fontainbleau in 1814. It was in the Peninsular War against Napoleon that the British forces were led by Arthur Wellesley, who earned multiple battlefield honors, and was eventually made the first Duke of Wellington. Wellesley pursued Napoleon into France, eventually defeating him at the Battle of Waterloo. The destabilization of the various nations involved in European conflicts eventually resulted in some of the colonial possessions breaking away from the respective Eurpoean empires in the 19th century.
1864 During the American Civil War, Union forces led by General William T. Sherman launch an assault on Atlanta, Georgia. Sherman conducted a 'scorched earth'' policy, which included ordering the evacuation of Atlanta, followed by much of Atlanta being burned to the ground.
BaudelaireLes Fleurs du Mal1867 Death of Charles Baudelaire, French poet, essayist, art critic, early translator of the works of Edgar Allan Poe (b. 1821), one of my favorite French poets. "Genius is no more than childhood recaptured at will, childhood equipped now with man's physical means to express itself, and with the analytical mind that enables it to bring order into the sum of experience, involuntarily amassed.” - Charles Baudelaire, Les Fleurs du Mal
(for my long-time friend and sometimes 'day in history' reader, JH)
1876 Ottoman sultan Murat V is deposed after a reign of only 93 days, due to mental illness, and succeeded by his brother Abd-ul-Hamid II.
1886 An earthquake kills 100 in Charleston, South Carolina.
1888 Mary Ann Nichols is murdered. She is the first of Jack the Ripper's known victims.
1897 Thomas Edison patents the Kinetoscope, the first movie projector.
1907 Count Alexander Izvolsky and Sir Arthur Nicolson sign the St. Petersburg Convention, which results in the Triple Entente alliance, which became the 'Allied' side of the war in WW I against the Central Powers.
1920 First radio news program broadcast by station 8MK in Detroit, Michigan.
1935 President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed an act prohibiting the export of U.S. arms to belligerents.
Birth of Eldridge Cleaver, American political activist (d. 1998)
1939 Nazi Germany mounts a staged attack on Gleiwitz radio station, creating an excuse to attack Poland the following day, starting World War II in Europe.
1940 Pennsylvania Central Airlines Trip 19 crashes near Lovettsville, Virginia. The CAB investigation of the accident was the first investigation to be conducted under the Bureau of Air Commerce act of 1938.
1943 The USS Harmon, the first U.S. Navy ship to be named after a black person, is commissioned.
1945 The Liberal Party of Australia is founded by Robert Menzies.
1949 The retreat of the Greek Democratic Army in Albania after its defeat in mountain Grammos marks the end of the Greek Civil War.
1958 A parcel bomb sent by Ngo Dinh Nhu, younger brother and chief adviser of South Vietnamese President Ngo Dinh Diem, failed to kill Sihanouk of Cambodia.
Braque Landscape 1963 Death of Georges Braque, French painter in the Cubism movement. (b. 1882)
1978 William and Emily Harris, founders of the Symbionese Liberation Army, plead guilty to the 1974 kidnapping of newspaper heiress Patricia Hearst.
Sally Rand1979 Death of Sally Rand, American fan and bubble dancer, ecdysiast, and silent film actress (b. 1904), aka Billie Beck, aka Helen Harriet Beck. Her stage name, Sally Rand, was given to her by famous director Cecil B. DeMille in the 1920s when she was acting in silent films.
1980 Solidarity strikes in sympathy with the shipyard workers on strike in Gdansk, Poland, followed by more strikes in 1982 leading to the Polish August Agreement. Effectively organized labor overthrew the dictatorial, corrupt Communist regime. The August Agreement is celebrated by the 'Day of Solidarity and Freedom'.
Moore sculpture1986 Death of Henry Moore, (OM, CH, FBA), English sculptor noted for his massive bronze modern figural works (b. 1898)
1991 Kyrgyzstan declares its independence from the Soviet Union; this day continues to be celebrated as Kyrgyzstan Independence Day.
1992 White separatist Randy Weaver surrendered to authorities in Naples, Idaho, ending an 11-day siege by federal agents that claimed the lives of Weaver's wife and son and a deputy U.S. marshal. This 'Ruby Ridge' incident later is cited as one of the causes for the Oklahoma City Bombing by Timothy McVeigh.
1994 Russia officially ended its military presence in the former East Germany and the Baltics after half a century. The Provisional Irish Republican Army declares a ceasefire.
1998 North Korea reportedly launches Kwangmyongsong, its first satellite.
1999 The first of a series of bombings in Moscow, killing one person and wounding 40 others. Called the Russian Apartment Bombings, the series of bombings killed 293 people, and injured another 651, and was carried out by Chechen Islamist militias in conjunction with the Invasion of Dagestan (see 'Make a New Plan, Stan').
2005 A stampede on Al-Aaimmah bridge in Baghdad kills 1,199 people.
2006 Iran defied a U.N. deadline to stop enriching uranium.
Categories: Foes
You Sir, are no Jack Kennedy
In the 1988 Presidential Election, Senator Lloyd Bentson of Texas debated then Senator Dan Quayle of Indiana. In one of the more famous lines, Bentson rebuked Quayle for likening himself to John F. (Jack) Kennedy. Quayle went on to be elected Vice President as George H. W. Bush's running mate. He also went on to ignominy as a result of being eviscerated weekly on a television show "Murphy Brown" by Candace Bergen, and also due to his many speaking faux pas' which seemed to belie a shallow, vapid man. Since then, the reply "and you Sir, are no Jack Kennedy" has been a political insider's retort to anyone who gets a little too full of him or herself.
Fast forward 22 years and in reading about the Senate election in Wisconsin between Russ Feingold and Ron Johnson. Russ Fiengold has been one of the best examples (imho) of a politician who is not for sale. He worked with John McCain to get finance reform passed in the face of massive opposition and has been (again imho) a tireless worker for the middle-class as well as being one of the most honest Senators in the Senate (yes, I know faint praise). Feingold took on his own party and reached across party lines to get things passed.
Ron Johnson is someone I don't know - he's a plastics executive who currently is in a statistical dead-heat with Feingold. Over the weekend Johnson commented that Feingold's support for a high-speed rail line between Madison (WI) and Milwaukee was, "yet another example of big government spending."
Now, not withstanding that a high-speed rail line is greatly desired by an enormous number of politicians, communities, and businesses, and would be of tremendous economic support if completed through to Minneapolis at some point, I have one reply.
"No, Mr. Johnson, $700 Billion in a needless war, with $5B left behind in Iraq in unfinished redevelopment projects - THAT is big government, wasteful, stupid spending."
Fast forward 22 years and in reading about the Senate election in Wisconsin between Russ Feingold and Ron Johnson. Russ Fiengold has been one of the best examples (imho) of a politician who is not for sale. He worked with John McCain to get finance reform passed in the face of massive opposition and has been (again imho) a tireless worker for the middle-class as well as being one of the most honest Senators in the Senate (yes, I know faint praise). Feingold took on his own party and reached across party lines to get things passed.
Ron Johnson is someone I don't know - he's a plastics executive who currently is in a statistical dead-heat with Feingold. Over the weekend Johnson commented that Feingold's support for a high-speed rail line between Madison (WI) and Milwaukee was, "yet another example of big government spending."
Now, not withstanding that a high-speed rail line is greatly desired by an enormous number of politicians, communities, and businesses, and would be of tremendous economic support if completed through to Minneapolis at some point, I have one reply.
"No, Mr. Johnson, $700 Billion in a needless war, with $5B left behind in Iraq in unfinished redevelopment projects - THAT is big government, wasteful, stupid spending."
Categories: Foes
August 30th in History
Ming Musketeers illustration1363 Beginning date of the Battle of Lake Poyang; the forces of two Chinese rebel leaders— Chen Youliang and Zhu Yuanzhang—are pitted against each other in what is one of the largest naval battles in history, during the last decade of the ailing, Mongol-led Yuan Dynasty that had been founded by Kublai Khan and his Golden Horde.
It was Kublai Khan who constructed the capital of China at Beijing, although he called it Dadu (not to be confused with the summer capital at Xanadu). There were three main groups separately struggling to defeat each other before they could defeat the Mongol Yuan forces, who themselves had as a larger group been weakened by factionalism. In this battle, the Ming forces beat the Han forces, and after the subsequent defeat of the Yuan Dynasty, founded the Ming Dynasty which lasted from 1368 until 1644. The Chinese had invented gunpowder somewhere in the 800's AD, and had used it against Kublai Khan, whom Marco Polo met in his travels. In contrast, gunpowder had been used ineffectively at the Battle of Crecy in 1346 in western Europe, where it was still a relative novelty. The military use in the accompanying illustration demonstrates the very different military use of gunpowder in the earlier era, between east and west. By 1350, some form of guns were equally prevalent in both east and west.
The Golden Temple1574 Guru Ram Das became the Fourth Sikh Guru Master. Sikhism is the fifth largest religion in the world, founded in the Punjab region of India and Pakistan. It was founded in the 15th century, and is monotheistic, teaching belief in a single, universal, non-anthropomorphic God, based on the teachings of eleven Gurus. He founded the sacred city of Sikhism, Amritsar, and the Golden Temple, the Harmandir Sahib.
folding screen painting of Edo Castle1590 Tokugawa Ieyasu enters Edo Castle. Ieyasu was the Shogun in power at the time of the voyage of English navigator William Adams, the real life model for the fictional James Clavell character in the book and miniseries 'Shogun'. Tokugawa Ieyasu founded the Tokugawa shogunate, which lasted from 1603 to 1868, is known as the Edo period of Japan's history, from the name of the city Edo (now Tokyo).
portrait of Capt. Bligh
HMS Bounty1791 HMS Pandora sank after running aground on a reef the previous day on the Great Barrier Reef. The Pandora was sailing the Pacific looking for the mutineers and the HMS Bounty, and had captured 14 prisoners on the Island of Tahiti before sinking, losing 31 of the crew and 4 of the 14 prisoners to drowning. Captain Edward Edwards never found the sunken Bounty or Pitcairn Island, and the remaining mutineers.
Gabriel 'Prosser'1797 Birth of Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, English writer (d. 1851), author of Frankenstein in 1816.
1800 Gabriel Prosser organizes a slave rebellion in Richmond, Virginia. Gabriel (he was not actually named Prosser) was a literate blacksmith slave. He and 26 others in the rebellion were hanged; they never actually started the rebellion.
Information was leaked before it took place. Restrictions as a result of the almost-slave rebellion limited free blacks as well as the hiring out and educating of black slaves.
1835 Melbourne, Australia is founded, and renamed after William Lamb, 2nd Viscount Melbourn in 1837. The original city was founded by Dutch settlers from Tasmania, which had been named after Dutch explorer Abel Tasman, and then renamed Van Diemen's Land. Melbourne had originally been called Bearbrass. Queen Victoria declared Melbourne a city in 1847, and it became the capital of the colony of Victoria in 1851. Today Melbourne is the second largest city in Australia.
Burgess Shale fossil1909 Burgess Shale fossils discovered by Charles Doolittle Walcott, in the Canadian Rocky Mountains. The fossils, mid-Cambrian, are some 505 million years old, and unique for preserving not only fossilized bone but also fossilizes soft tissue. Walcott himself collected 65,000 fossil specimens in his 14 years of excavation. It was not understood until the 1960's that these fossils couldn't be categorized into modern taxonomic classifications, and are distinctly unlike any known modern species. For more information, see both the Smithsonian museum and the Burgess Shale Geoscience Foundation.
Fanny Kaplan1918 Fanny Kaplan shoots and seriously injures Bolshevik leader Vladimir Lenin. This, along with the assassination of Bolshevik senior official Moisei Uritsky days earlier, prompts the decree for Red Terror. Kaplan hit Lenin in the jaw and shoulder, and he is thought never to have fully recovered; it is possible that the lack of medical care Lenin received at the time of his injuries contributed to his death from strokes later. The 'Red Terror' was an official campaign of mass executions and arrests, and subsequent imprisonment of anyone suspected of counter-revolutionary sympathies. It was an opposition move specifically to counter the earlier 'White Terror' anti-Revolutionary similar mass violence.
1945 Hong Kong is liberated from Japan by British Armed Forces. Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces, and General Douglas MacArthur lands at Atsugi Air Force Base.
1962 Japan conducts a test of the NAMC YS-11, its first aircraft since the war and its only successful commercial aircraft from before or after the war.
1963 Hotline between the leaders of the U.S.A. and the Soviet Union goes into operation.
Justice Marshall1967 Thurgood Marshall is confirmed as the first African American Justice of the United States Supreme Court.
1974 A powerful bomb explodes at the Mitsubishi Heavy Industries headquarters in Marunouchi, Tokyo, Japan. 8 killed, 378 injured. Eight left-wing activists are arrested on May 19, 1975 by Japanese authorities.
1984 The Space Shuttle Discovery takes off on its maiden voyage.
1995 NATO launches Operation Deliberate Force against Bosnian Serb forces.
Categories: Foes
August 29th in History
Portuguese explorer Vasco da Gama1498 Vasco da Gama decided to leave Calicut in southwest India, and returned to Portugal. Portuguese trade and imperial expansion encountered conflict with the rival Ottoman Empire in the Indian Ocean and around the Horn of Africa for control of trade routes with India.
Ottoman Navy in the Indian Ocean1521 The Ottoman Turks capture Nándorfehérvár, now known as Belgrade.
1526 Battle of Mohács: The Ottoman Turks led by Suleiman the Magnificent defeat and kill the last Jagiellonian king of Hungary and Bohemia The Jagiellonian dynasty were kings of Lithuania, Hungary, Poland, and Bohemia. Hungary was divided between the Austrian Habsburgs, the Principality of Transylvania, and the Ottoman Empire. A modest soul, Suleiman held the impressive titles "Imperial Majesty, Grand Sultan, Commander of the Faithful, Successor of the Prophet of the Lord of the Universe, Protector of the Holy Cities of Mecca, Medina and Jerusalem, Emperor of the Three Cities of Constantinople, Adrianople and Bursa, and of the Cities of Damascus and Cairo, and went on to a longer laundry list of countries - Serbia, Bosnia, Albania, Greece, somewhere called Bogdania, Turkistan, Circassia, Georgia, and too many others to list here fully. Suleiman the Magnificent had advanced as far west as Vienna, most of the middle east, and northern Africa as far west as Algeria. His navy dominated not only the Mediterranean, but as far south and east as the Red Sea and Persian Gulf. Suleiman was a polymath, spoke four languages (Persian, Arabic, Serbian, and Uighur Turkish). This was the height of the Ottoman Empire, and the push west and north into Europe. He drove the Knights of Rhodes out of their island fortress, relocating to Malta.
1533 The last Incan king, Atahualpa, was murdered on orders from Spanish conqueror Francisco Pizarro.
1541 The Ottoman Turks capture Buda, the capital of the Hungarian Kingdom, half of Buda Pest. Buda was named for the nephew of Attila the Hun, Bleda aka Buda the Hun, part of the 'Great Migration' from central Asia into Europe that finished off the ancient Roman Empire. The capture of Buda was a further expansion eastward by the Moslem Turkish empire.
John Locke1632 Birth of John Locke, English philosopher, physician, and empiricist, died 1704. He was known as the Father of Liberalism, one of the principle advocates for the Enlightenment concept of government as a social contract between the governed and their government. His ideas were central to the Declaration of Independence. He also originated the theory of mind as a basis for a sense of individual identity and awareness or consciousness, and was intrigued by the relationship of the human mind to the human body. Politically, Locke was a strong advocate for separation of church and state.
1655 Warsaw falls without resistance to a small force under the command of Charles X Gustav of Sweden during The Deluge.
1769 Death of Edmund Hoyle, English author and teacher, and famous compiler of the rules for card games. (b. 1672)
1786 Shays' Rebellion, an armed uprising of Massachusetts farmers, begins in response to high debt and tax burdens.
1831 Michael Faraday discovers electromagnetic induction.
1833 The United Kingdom legislates the abolition of slavery in its empire.
1842 Treaty of Nanking signing ends the first Opium Wars, giving Hong Kong to England, and opening 5 ports to international trade with Europe and the U.S. The Treaty was one of the 'unequal' treaties imposed on Asian countries by European countries expanding their colonial empire. England, in an effort to reduce trade imbalances created by the Chinese monopoly on exporting their tea, began growing opium in India specifically to send to China where the problems of opium use, and abuse, expanded dramatically. Attempts to prevent drug addiction in China by ending the opium trade failed. An estimated 2 million Chinese had become addicted. The illegal opium trade was effectively and enthusiastically supported through the UK military backing of the East India Company. The first and second Opium Wars, and drug addiction profits, have interesting parallels in modern 'drug wars', including the origins of growing opium poppies in places like Afghanistan.
1885 Gottlieb Daimler patents the world's first motorcycle.
1891 Death of Pierre Lallement, inventor of the bicycle
1907 The Quebec Bridge collapses during construction, killing 75 workers.
1910 Japan changes Korea's name to Chōsen and appoints a governor-general to rule its new colony.
1916 The United States passes the Philippine Autonomy Act.
1936 Birth of John McCain, American politician.
1944 Slovak National Uprising takes place as 60,000 Slovak troops turn against the Nazis.
1949 Soviet atomic bomb project: The Soviet Union tests its first atomic bomb, known as First Lightning or Joe 1, at Semipalatinsk, Kazakhstan.
1957 Sen. Strom Thurmond, D-S.C., ended the longest filibuster in Senate history after talking for 24 hours, 18 minutes against a civil rights bill.
1981 Death of Lowell Thomas, American writer and pioneer broadcaster (b. 1892)
1991 Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union suspends all activities of the Soviet Communist Party.
2005 Hurricane Katrina devastates much of the U.S. Gulf Coast from Louisiana to the Florida Panhandle, killing more than 1,836 and causing over $80 billion in damage.
2007 United States Air Force nuclear weapons incident: six US cruise missiles armed with nuclear warheads are flown without proper authorization from Minot Air Force Base to Barksdale Air Force Base.
Categories: Foes
August 28th in History
Tiffany stained glass window of St. Augustine 430 Death of Augustine of Hippo, North African saint and theologian (b. 354) Augustine lived in the Roman African Province which was at one time Carthage, and is now Tunisia. He is considered a founding church father of Christianity and is considered the originator of the concepts of original sin and just war in church doctrine.
489 Theodoric, king of the Ostrogoths defeats Odoacer at the Battle of Isonzo, forcing his way into Italy. Both Theodoric and Odoacer were German invaders, marking the end of the Roman Empire, and the beginning of the Middle Ages.
Acre crusader castle interior1189 Third Crusade: the Crusaders begin the Siege of Acre under Guy of Lusignan, more of that conflict between Christian and Moslem political ambitions.
1521 The Ottoman Turks occupy Belgrade, part of the military, political and religious expansion of Islamic empire into Europe, in an ongoing conflict between Islamic and Christian political and territorial ambitions.
De Gama print1542 Turkish-Portuguese War (1538-1557) Battle of Wofla: the Portuguese are scattered, their leader Christovão da Gama is captured and later executed. Christovao de Gama was the son of famous explorer Vasco de Gama. The Battle of Wofla took place in Ethiopia, part of the ongoing conflict, see above.
1609 Henry Hudson discovers Delaware Bay.
1619 Ferdinand II is elected emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, a party to the Thirty Years War which involved most of the countries of Europe, and which changed colonial European empires.
1749 Birth of Johann Wolfgang Goethe, German poet, novelist, playwright and philosopher
Juniper Serra1784 Death of Junípero Serra, born 1713, Spanish missionary responsible for founding an extensive chain of Spanish Roman Catholic missions in California, including the still-extant Mission San Juan Capistrano, the oldest building in California. He was beatified in 1988. Serra learned the language of the Pame Indians, and translated the catechism into their language. During the American Revolutionary War, Serra took up a collection of $137.00, and sent it to George Washington. Serra converted approximately 5,309 from 1770 to 1784.
Herschel1789 Sir Frederick William Herschel discovers a new moon of Saturn. Herschel was born in Hanover, Germany, and emigrated to England as a child with his family because his father was a musician in the employ of George II when he ascended the throne of England. George I of the house of Hanover ascended the English throne on the death of Queen Anne of England, the last of the Stuarts. The German House of Hanover, which later gave us George III and the American Revolution, ascended to the English throne because while 50 potential monarchs were closer by blood to inherit, the Act of Settlement of 1701 prohibited Roman Catholics from being King or Queen of England. William Herschel at first followed his father as a royal musician, before switching to astronomy where he became one of the most exceptional astronomers of his day. He also wrote 24 symphonies, numerous concertos, and was an accomplished player of oboe, harpsichord, organ, violin and cello. Herschel's interest in mathematics, astronomy, and specifically lenses, led him to build his own reflecting telescopes for his astronomy, but also microscopes for the study of cellular structures. Herschel was an extraordinary polymath and polyhistor, eventually in 1782 was appointed King's Astronomer. His sister Caroline shared his interest in astronomy, and was one of the most successful female astronomers in a field dominated by men.
1830 The Tom Thumb presages the first railway service in the United States. The 'Tom Thumb' was an early steam engine which helped steam engines become the primary form of rail power.
1845 The first issue of Scientific American magazine is published.
1859 A geomagnetic storm causes the Aurora Borealis to shine so brightly that it is seen clearly over parts of USA, Europe, and even as far away as Japan.
1867 The United States takes possession of the, at this point unoccupied, Midway Atoll. Midway Atoll is now an unincorporated territory of the United States, and was significant for the June 1942 naval Battle of Midway that was significant in turning the tide of WW II in the Pacific theater.
Cetshwayo1879 Cetshwayo, last king of the Zulus, is captured by the British. This was part of the same Anglo-Zulu war Battle of Roarke's Drift in the movie Zulu. He was nephew of the more well known Shaka Zulu. The Zulus were part of the conflict between the English and the Dutch farmers and settlers in the Boer Wars that shaped the country which became South Africa.
first Pepsi poster1898 Caleb Bradham renames his carbonated soft drink "Pepsi-Cola". Bradham was a North Carolina pharmacist who experimented with creating soft drinks for his soda fountain, a part of his drug store. The success led him to devote himself to the beverage business full time. The artwork for his posters, right, was done by a neighbor.
1903 Birth of Bruno Bettelheim, American psychologist (d. 1990)
Death of Frederick Law Olmsted, American landscape architect, designer of Central Park (b. 1822)
1914 World War I: the Royal Navy defeats the German fleet in the Battle of Heligoland Bight.
World War I: German troops conquer Namur.
1916 World War I: Italy declares war on Germany, after having been neutral. Italy had signed the Treaty of London in 1915, joining the 'Triple Entente' after having previously been part of the 'Triple Alliance with Germany and Austro-Hungary" known as the Central Powers in WW I. It had been a specific alliance dating back to 1882, renewed in 1902, and in other forms, as the Holy Roman Empire before that. What Italy got for secretly signing the Treaty of London was an expansion of their northern border into the Tirol area of the Alps, part of Austria and Hungary, parts of Slovenia and Croatia / Montenegro, a bunch of Greek Islands - the Dodecanese, part of Albania, parts of the Ottoman Empire, and parts of the German empire in Asia and Africa. The pact was supposed to be kept secret, but after the 1917 October Revolution in Russia, it was published in Izvestia in November 1917. More than 650,000 Italian soldiers died in WW I, the economy collapsed, and Italy only gained a very few border territories, not what was promised in the Treaty of London. WW I and the Russian revolution directly contributed to the rise of the Fascists in Italy under Mussolini, and eventually to the politics that led to WW II.
1917 Ten Suffragettes are arrested while picketing the White House. The term 'Suffragette' was intended to be derogatory, coined by the tabloid UK newspaper 'The Daily Mail' in the late 19th century. It was originally applied to UK women who were attempting to gain the right to vote. The action by Suffragettes in 1917 was in part to gain recognition for the support roles, both traditional and non-traditional, which women in the U.S. had assumed during WW I, as an illustration of women having the same competence and capability as their male counterparts. Women in the UK gained the vote in 1918, while it was not changed in the U.S. until 1920; however, there were limitations on the UK rights of women to vote which did not become equal until 1928.
1924 The Georgian opposition stages the August Uprising against the Soviet Union.
1937 Toyota Motors becomes an independent company.
1953 Nippon Television broadcasts Japan's first television show, including its first TV advertisement.
1955 Black teenager Emmett Till is murdered in Mississippi, galvanizing the nascent American Civil Rights Movement.
1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom: Martin Luther King, Jr. gives his I Have a Dream speech
Martin Luther King, "I Have a Dream Speech"Whitmore, left;
Robles, right Emily Hoffert and Janice Wylie are murdered in their Manhattan flat, prompting the events that would lead to the passing of the Miranda Rights. Known as the 'Career Girls' murder, an innocent man, George Whitmore, Jr. was accused of these murders and another attempted rape and murder. Police misconduct in coercing a confession by beating Whitmore, led to the Miranda Rights guidelines being issued by the U. S. Supreme Court. George Whitmore, Jr. was black; the actual murderer was a white drug dealer, Richard Robles. This case was also significant in the ending of the death penalty in New York.
1964 The Philadelphia race riot begins.
1968 Riots in Chicago, Illinois, during the Democratic National Convention, over issues of race related in part to the assassination of Martin Luther King earlier in 1968, and in part as a protest against the Viet Nam War.
1981 The National Centers for Disease Control announce a high incidence of pneumocystis and Kaposi's sarcoma in gay men. These will soon be recognized as symptoms of an immune disorder, which will be called AIDS.
Jerry A. Whitworth1986 United States Navy officer Jerry A. Whitworth is sentenced to 365 years imprisonment for espionage for the Soviet Union, along with another Navy officer, Chief Warrant Officer, John Anthony Walker, Jr. and his son Michael Walker. Walker and Whitworth spied for the soviets during the Cold War from 1968 to 1985. They helped the Soviet Union decipher more than a million encrypted naval messages. The New York Times described them as "the most damaging spy ring in history".
1990 Iraq declares Kuwait to be its newest province, leading to the subsequent Gulf War.
1991 Ukraine declares its independence from the Soviet Union.
Collapse of the Soviet Union – Mikhail Gorbachev resigns as Secretary of the Soviet Communist Party.
1996 Democrats nominated President Bill Clinton for a second term at their national convention in Chicago.
1998 Pakistan's National Assembly passes a constitutional amendment to make the "Qur'an and Sunnah" the "supreme law" but the bill is defeated in the Senate.
2003 An electricity blackout cuts off power to around 500,000 people living in south east England and brings 60% of London's underground rail network to a halt.
Mayor Ray Nagin in a LIFE magazine
photo from September 2005, with
Vice Admiral Thad Allen
of the U.S. Coast Guard (now known for
his efforts in the BP Oil spill disaster)2005 New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin ordered everyone in the city to evacuate ahead of Hurricane Katrina.
2008 Barack Obama accepted the Democratic presidential nomination with a speech at Invesco Field in Denver.
Categories: Foes
August 27th in History
contemporary bas relief of one of the
Persian 'Achamenid' Kings, probably
either Xerxes I or his father Darius I
from Persepolis479 BC In the Greco-Persian Wars, Persian forces led by Mardonius are routed by Pausanias, the Spartan commander of the Greek army in the Battle of Plataea. This was part of the ancient wars between the city states of Greece and Perisa, first under the legendary Persian King, Darius, and later under his son Xerxes. It was during the two separate invasions that the famous battles of Marathon, which they won, and Thermopylae, which they lost. The army Battle of Plataea and the subsequent navy Battle of Mycale effectively ended 50 years of war between Greece and Persia. It was the conquest of parts of Greece, and the establishment of Persian rulers over their occupation which gave rise to the word tyrant. Interestingly, the word originally had a very different meaning from the later one, and simply indicated imposed outside authority as distinct from what the Greeks considered legitimate, native Greek authority rather than a term for a harsh or abusive ruler. It is the subject of some of the earliest recorded histories of the ancient world, principally by the 'Father of History", the ancient Greek Herodotus. This is considered the Hellenic period of ancient Greece, meaning before Alexander the Great; the export of Greek philosophy, art, and language outside Greece, by Alexander and later, is encompassed by the word Hellenistic. I would point out that the historic representations look nothing like the grotesque artistic liberties that have been taken in rendering the historic figures in modern film, video and other portrayals.
663 Battle of Baekgang: Remnants of the Korean Baekje Kingdom and their Yamato Japanese allies engage the combined naval forces of the Tang Chinese and Silla Koreans on the Geum River in Korea. This is from the three kingdom era of Korea, Baekje and Silla were two of the the three (the third was Goguryeo), which lasted from 57 BC to 668. Silla won, and established two new kingdoms, effectively an early North Korea, the Balhae Kingdom and South Korea, the Silla Kingdom - although obviously not with a border defined by the 38th parallel. Silla was actually more east, and Baekje more on the western side of the Korean peninsula. After the Silla Kingdom defeated Baekgang, they subsequently defeated the other Kingdom in Korea, the Goguryeo. The expanded Silla Kingdom lasted until 935. The Balhae Kingdom lasted from 698 to 926.
1172 Henry the Young King and Margaret of France are crowned as junior king and queen of England. Henry was the son of Henry II and Elinor of Aquitaine. He predeceased his father at the age of 28; his father was considered the 'senior king', the senior / junior king arrangement was a French tradition. He was superseded by his brothers King Richard the Lionheart, who was his next oldest brother; and Bad King John Lack-land, his youngest brother. Margaret was not originally crowned with her husband Young Henry - he never got a number of his own - so a second coronation was staged which included her. She was unable to provide heirs to Henry, was alleged to have had an affair with the famous knight Sir William Marshal, and subsequently became Queen of Hungary after she was no longer Queen of England, which entailed the return of the French province of the Vexin which had been her diary.
1538 Venus of Urbino1577 – Death of Titian, Italian artist, aka Tiziano Vecelli, Venetian School painter of the Italian Renaissance. Noted for his use of color, his mastery of brushstroke, and http://www.titian-tizianovecellio.org/his fondness for painting women with a certain shade of auburn hair, sometimes referred to as 'titian'. For a complete collection of his works, and an expansion on his life, see the Titian Foundation, http://www.titian-tizianovecellio.org/
1689 – The Treaty of Nerchinsk is signed by Russia and the Qing empire, establishing a new Russian/Chinese border.
1776 The Battle of Long Island, in what is now Brooklyn, New York, British forces under General William Howe defeat Americans under General George Washington. It was the first major battle of the American Revolution, and the largest.
1798 Wolfe Tone's United Irish and French forces clash with the British Army in the Battle of Castlebar, part of the Irish Rebellion of 1798, resulting in the creation of the French puppet Republic of Connaught, which lasted about 13 days.
1828 Uruguay is formally proclaimed independent at preliminary peace talks brokered by Great Britain between Brazil and Argentina during the Argentina-Brazil War.
1859 Petroleum is discovered in Titusville, Pennsylvania leading to the world's first commercially successful oil well.
1896 Anglo-Zanzibar War: the shortest war in world history (09:00 to 09:45) between the United Kingdom and Zanzibar.
1916 Romania declares war against Austria-Hungary, entering World War I as one of the Allied nations. It spent the first two years of WW I as a neutral country, and had previously been a signatory to treaties supporting the Central Powers, including Austro-Hungarian Empire.
1921 The British install the son of Sharif Hussein bin Ali (leader of the Arab Revolt of 1916 against the Ottoman Empire) as King Faisal I of Iraq.
1928 The Kellogg-Briand Pact outlawing war is signed by the first fifteen nations to do so. Ultimately sixty-one nations will sign it. Also called the General Treaty for the Renunciation of War, it didn't quite work out as planned, see WW II. The initial signing countries were.. the United States, France, Great Britain, Germany, Italy and Japan. The Pact was named for U.S. Secretary of State, Frank B. Kellogg, and French foreign minister, Aristide Briand.
1939 First flight of the turbojet-powered Heinkel He 178, the world's first jet aircraft.
1962 The Mariner 2 unmanned space mission is launched to Venus by NASA.
1965 Death of Le Corbusier, Swiss architect (b. 1887) leading figure in the Modern Architectural movement known as the International style. He was also an urban planner, painter, sculptor, writer, and furniture designer. His nickname 'Corbusier' means crow like. His actual name was Charles-Edouard Jeanneret-Gris.
1969 Israeli commando force penetrates deep into Egyptian territory to stage a mortar attack on regional Egyptian Army headquarters in the Nile Valley of Upper Egypt.
1971 An attempted coup fails in the African nation of Chad. The Government of Chad accuses Egypt of playing a role in the attempt and breaks off diplomatic relations.
1979 An IRA bomb kills British World War II admiral Louis Mountbatten, 1st Earl Mountbatten of Burma and 3 others while they are boating on holiday in Sligo, Republic of Ireland. Another bomb near Warrenpoint, Northern Ireland kills 18 British soldiers.
1982 Turkish military diplomat Colonel Atilla Altıkat is shot and killed in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada's capital. Justice Commandos Against Armenian Genocide claim responsibility, saying they are avenging the massacre of 1.5 million Armenians in the 1915 Armenian Genocide.
1990 Death of Stevie Ray Vaughan, American guitarist (b. 1954)
1991 The European Community recognizes the independence of the Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania from the USSR. Moldova declares independence from the USSR.
Ostankino fire2000 540-metre (1,772 ft)-tall Ostankino Tower - tallest in Europe, and 4th tallest building in the world - in Moscow catches fire, three people are killed. The fire started from outdated wiring; the fire shut down Moscow radio and television broadcasting, because of loss of the tower.
2003 Mars makes its closest approach to Earth in nearly 60,000 years, passing 34,646,418 miles (55,758,005 km) distant.
2007 Bluegrass Army Depot Sarin(GB) leak in Lexington, Kentucky. Officials reported the Sarin levels 85 times above the safe limit. There was a second leak of the nerve gas in 2008.
Categories: Foes
August 26th in History
Chittorgarh fort, national symbol and tourist attraction1303 Alauddin Khilji, Muslim Sultan of Delhi, captures Hindu Chittorgarh, the largest medieval era fort in India, ostensibly out of fascination for the beauty of the Queen/ Rani Padmini, wife of King Rawal Ratan Singh. Rani Padmini threw herself to a fiery death to escape Alauddin Khiliji. That is the romanticized interpretation of historic events; the more pragmatic is
that the Sultan was conquering a rich territory with strategic location value in what is now the largest (by territory) state in India, Rajasthan (there's that suffix 'stan' again) bordered by modern day Pakistan to the west. It remains a largely Hindu region. The real history is that the Mameluk Dynasty expanded south and east from the middle east, and the Delhi Sultanate expanded and contracted its territorial boundaries in conflict with Hindu political rule. The Khiliji was the second of these Moslem dynasties from the west and north. They have left their mark on the regions history in the form of the significant Moslem component of India's multi-ethnic, multi-religious population, which continues to have conflicts into the modern era. Alauddin Khiliji in turn had to contend with the Mongol Expansion that was pushing into the Middle East, Central and Eastern Russia and Europe. Alauddin Khiliji was a Pashto or Pashtun, to give it context with those who have followed the Afghan War and its overflow into Pakistan. Alauddin Khiliji came to power by killing the first Khiliji king/khan/sultan, who was both his uncle and father-in-law, entering Delhi with the first Sultan's head on a pike. To thin out the competition for power, he had his wife's brother, heir to the throne of his decapitated father, blinded; and he imprisoned his mother-in-law. The Hindu and Sikh practice of noble women (and children) throwing themselves on funeral pyres in mass suicide to avoid dishonor, called Jauhar, was supposed to encourage and enrage their husbands and fathers to a special kind of greater valor called saka. Jauhar differed from Sati, in that Sati applied only to widows, while Jauhar applied to wives, children, and sometimes related men of the living and only in times of war. It puts into a larger geographic and multi-religious context both Moslem and Hindu honor killings of women.
Crecy1346 Hundred Years' War: the military supremacy of the English longbow over the French combination of crossbow and armoured knights is established at the Battle of Crécy.
La Pieta1498 Michelangelo is commissioned to carve the Pietà. It is currently housed in St. Peter's Basilica in Vatican City, but was originally commissioned as a funeral monument for French Cardinal Jean de Billheres. It is the only statue Michelangelo ever signed. As a work of art it is significant for the way in which it balances the proportions of Mary with the somewhat small body of Christ after crucifixion, and for portraying Mary as young rather than more mature. Michelangelo did other Pietas, but this was his first, and arguably his best known, compared to the Rodanini and Palestrina Pietas.
beginning of lighter than air flight1740 Birth of Joseph Montgolfier, French inventor of the hot air balloon. (d. 1810)
1743 Birth of Antoine Lavoisier, French chemist (d. 1794)
1748 The first Lutheran denomination in North America, the Pennsylvania Ministerium, is founded in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
Declaration of the
Rights of Man and the
Citizen1789 Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen approved by National Assembly at Palace of Versailles. Later superseded by the 1793 version. It was prepared by the Marquis de Lafayette, and expresses the similar political philosophy of the Enlightenment that were the basis for the American Revolution and subsequent Constitution., and shares some aspects of the American Declaration of Independence. Thomas Jefferson, author of the American Declaration of Independence was at the time the U.S. Ambassador to France, and corresponded with the National Assembly members. The Declaration of the Rights of Man is noted for combining the principles of social contract in the writings of John Locke and Jean-Jacques Rousseau, the 'universal rights of man', sometimes called the 'natural rights of man' which do not derive from religious authority or doctrine in contrast to the divine right of kings, and the concept of separation of powers promoted by Charles-Louis de Secondat, Baron de Montesquieu. It is the foundation for modern human rights documents, but does not, like the U.S. Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution, address either the equality of women, or slavery. It is ironic that suffrage for women in the U.S. begins on this day in 1920, 131 years later than this document, 144 years after the Declaration of Independence, 58 years after the Emancipation Proclamation, and 52 years after the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
Krakatoa, before completely blowing to oblivion1883 The 1883 eruption of Krakatoa, an island that used to be in the Strait of Sundra between Java and Sumatra, begins its final, paroxysmal, stage completely destroying the island. Explosions could be heard 100 miles away, with some heard as far as 2,200 miles away; plumes of ash from multiple vents and volcanic cones reached 17 miles high. There were accompanying earthquakes, pyroclastic lava flows, and tsunamis. The largest explosions sent ash 50 miles high into the atmosphere. Approximately 1,000 people were killed in Sumatra from the ash fall, similar to the ash fall from Mount St. Helen's eruption in 1980, from the lateral blast. Estimates of total dead from the volcano eruption range from 36,417 to 120,000. Dead bodies from the volcano and resulting tsunamis were washed up in Africa and India up to a year later, along with volcanic pumice from the volcano. In the year after the volcano, global temperatures dropped 2.2F, and did not return to more normal patterns for five years. Sulfur dioxide was present in unusual quantities, as acid rain, from the chemicals in the plume reaching the upper atmospheric Jet Stream world wide. The sky turned 'blood red', and was recorded in paintings by various artists, including in Edvard Munch's 'The Scream', and produced a phenomena known as 'the Bishop's Ring', a hazy halo around the sun first recorded after this eruption, named for observer Rev. Serano Bishop of Honolulu, Hawaii.
1906 Birth of Polish-American scientist Dr. Albert Sabin, developer of the Polio vaccine.
Suffragettes picket the White House
before passage of the Amendment1920 The 19th amendment to United States Constitution takes effect, giving women the right to vote. The ratification of the Amendment was certified on this date by Secretary of State, Bainbridge Colby. The state of Tennessee provided the last state ratification necessary for the Amendment to the Constitution on August 18, 1920. Connecticut didn't ratify it until September 1920; and Vermont in February 1921; Delaware didn't ratify it until 1923. Maryland didn't ratify it until 1941, and it wasn't certified until 1958. Virginia didn't ratify it until 1952, and Alabama didn't ratify it until 1953. Florida and South Carolina ratified in in 1969; although South Carolina wasn't certified until 1973. Georgia and Louisiana finally ratified it in 1970, and North Carolina in 1971. Mississippi, sadly last in so many things, ratified the 19th Amendment in 1984.
anti-suffragette political cartoonLeser v. Garnett, 258 U.S. 130, in 1922 challenged the Amendment on the grounds that it violated states rights in modifying state electorates, that it violated several state constitutions so those states could not ratify it, and they wanted to throw out the ratifications of Tennessee and West Virginia on procedural technicalities. SCOTUS upheld the constitutionality of the Amendment. So while in current times, women having the vote seems an obvious matter, it was far more controversial, and less obvious, at the time of the Amendment. See the Declaration of the Rights of Man (but not, apparently, of Women) above. The 19th Amendment provides an interesting historical context to why we have a black U.S. President before we have a woman U.S. President.
"The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.
Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation."
1940 Chad is the first French colony to join the Allies under the administration of Félix Éboué, France's first black colonial governor.
1942 Holocaust in Chortkiv, western Ukraine: At 2.30 am the German Schutzpolizei started driving Jews out of their houses, divided them into groups of 120, packed them in freight cars and deported 2000 to Belzec death camp. 500 of the sick and children were murdered on the spot.
1957 The USSR announces the successful test of an ICBM – a "super long distance intercontinental multistage ballistic rocket ... a few days ago," according to the Soviet news agency, ITAR-TASS.
1970 The then new feminist movement, led by Betty Friedan, leads a nation-wide Women's Strike for Equality.
1971 The United States Congress declares August 26th as an annual Women's Equality Day (even in North Carolina and Mississippi - see above).
1978 Sigmund Jähn becomes first German cosmonaut on board the Soyuz 31 spacecraft.
Harvey's Resort Hotel and
Casino, before Birges' bomb1980 Millionaire John Waldo Birges, Sr. planted a 1,000 lb. bomb at Harvey's Resort Hotel in Stateline, Nevada, in the Lake Tahoe area, successfully blowing it up despite attempts by the FBI to disarm the bomb. Birges was an interesting character, a Hungarian immigrant who had flown for the Luftwaffe in WW II, then been captured by the Soviet forces who sentenced him to 25 years of hard labor in a soviet Gulag. He blew his way out of the Gulag, emigrating to California. Birges tried to use the bomb to extort $3,000,000 from Harvey's resort and casino, which he claimed was the amount he had lost there gambling. Other estimates put the figure closer to half that. The explosion also damaged parts of Harrah's Casino. Birges was tried and convicted; he died in a Nevada prison sixteen years and 1 day later.
1987 President Ronald Reagan proclaims September 11, 1987 as 9-1-1 Emergency Number Day.
1997 Beni-Ali massacre in Algeria; 60-100 people killed, as part of a series of massacres during the Civil War in Algeria after independence from France, between the outlawed Islamic Salvation Front, attempting to establish an Islamic state governed by Sharia law and the military-supported secular government.
2003 The Columbia Accident Investigation Board releases its final reports on Space Shuttle Columbia disaster. Investigators concluded that NASA's overconfidence and lack of safety as a priority contributed to the space shuttle Columbia loss as much as the actual flight damage.
Categories: Foes
Doing Nothing, Simply Because We Can
There was a news story in the local paper a couple of days ago about "straw" gun buyers. In the story, police authorities note that perhaps 90% of gun crimes are committed with guns coming from straw buyers. The gun dealer in the article didn't appear to voice any objection to the laws requiring him to ensure that if he notes a gun will not be used by the buyer but instead by another party, that he not sell such a gun. He also noted that he hands any prospective buyer a federal registration form, something I believe came as an outgrowth of the Bradey law and used to document and confirm the identify of the buyer.
In the same story, there was a comment about the loop-hole in the registration law which allows for private gun-show sellers to not document buyers at such shows. The comment from the National Rifle Association's spokesperson Rachel Parsons, was that such requirements would otherwise prevent a "Grandfather from giving a gun to his grandson." Further, that it's not a problem because only 1% of crimes appear to be related to private gun-show sales. Her recommendation was that the government should enforce the laws already on the books rather than close this loop-hole.
My reaction is.. "HOGWASH!"
First, it's utter nonsense to say that Grandpa couldn't give a gun to his grandson. If I chose to give my son a car, all I have to do is fill out the title transfer section on the title of the car. It takes 5 minutes. I certainly don't see any reason such a transfer document couldn't exist for transferring ownership of a firearm, and it could easily document who the recipient was.
Second, while the story didn't clarify why the NRA felt that Grandpa was somehow prevented, so we are left only to guess. The reaon which comes to mind most quickly is that as a minor "Johnny" can't easily be registered because Johnny may be a minor. If that is the reason, then overriding fact is that Johnny (as a minor) can't legally own that firearm (or anything else really). The weapon (and any other gift generally) is the property of his parents. Any transfer could easily be done by having Grandpa fill out the title transfer to the father or mother, and then give "Johnny" the gift just as he always did before. The legal owner is the parent either way. So this is just a nonsense unless you feel documenting a firearms transfer should be less onerous than something which takes 5 minutes to complete. It MIGHT require someone to update a federal firearms database after the sale, but if so, so what? Is that any different than what is required for a licensed dealer to do in sales from a store? If it isn't, why have any difference at all? Clearly Grandpa can still give Johnny a gun.
Lastly, with respect to "enforcing the laws that exist," this is the height of hubris and hypocrisy coming from the NRA. They vehemently oppose the Bradey law and national registration. Given their choice there wouldn't be any compelling law tracking (or therefore preventing) straw buyers. For them to say that "big gov'mint" should now use that law which they object to entirely to go after straw buyers is them suggesting that they think an authority they don't like should do something they don't want to enforce a law they don't want in the first place. I believe this is just smoke and mirrors from the NRA and their zealous members. It seems they don't want anything done to close the loop-hole, so they've come up with a bogus objection which can easily be dealt with through a process no more difficult than giving someone a car. They don't want crime, and they want straw buyers stopped (supposedly), but they want to repeal the law which would allow authorities to do so.
The Heller decision and the McDonald decision after it made it clear that regulating and documenting gun ownership is fully constitutional so long as gun ownership isn't unfairly prevented. Preventing those who cannot legally own guns from getting them is in everyone's best interests, yet the NRA and other supposed 2nd Amendment defenders would rather we do nothing at all, and will tell us either bogus reasons or lie and suggest we enforce laws which they are working hard to get rid of rather than allow for us to move forward with closing loop-holes. Even if the loop-hole only leads to 1% of crimes, is that any real reason to not act to simply require a private seller to do the same thing a licensed store must do? Consistency in the law is something all of us say we support, there isn't any meaningful reason not to support it here. Well, that is, unless you prefer nothing be done with respect to keeping guns out of the hands of those who should not have them. In the case of the NRA, what seems equally plausible is that they are also opposed because they have consistently shown bent toward making it easier for gun-makers to sell more guns. The 2nd Amendment "zealots" talk about stopping crime and personal protection, but when it comes to adhering to the Constitution or stopping criminals from getting guns, it certainly appears they'd rather we didn't act at all. If there are any of you free and easy gun ownership types out there, please correct this impression if you like, tell me which laws you feel fully comfortable having, which you think the NRA is wrong to try to overturn that attempt to restrict gun buying to those which truly are allowed to buy them for their use, and then give me a good reason not to require private shows to do the same thing other sellers do, for the reason the NRA gave to me is nothing less and nothing more than smoke.
In the same story, there was a comment about the loop-hole in the registration law which allows for private gun-show sellers to not document buyers at such shows. The comment from the National Rifle Association's spokesperson Rachel Parsons, was that such requirements would otherwise prevent a "Grandfather from giving a gun to his grandson." Further, that it's not a problem because only 1% of crimes appear to be related to private gun-show sales. Her recommendation was that the government should enforce the laws already on the books rather than close this loop-hole.
My reaction is.. "HOGWASH!"
First, it's utter nonsense to say that Grandpa couldn't give a gun to his grandson. If I chose to give my son a car, all I have to do is fill out the title transfer section on the title of the car. It takes 5 minutes. I certainly don't see any reason such a transfer document couldn't exist for transferring ownership of a firearm, and it could easily document who the recipient was.
Second, while the story didn't clarify why the NRA felt that Grandpa was somehow prevented, so we are left only to guess. The reaon which comes to mind most quickly is that as a minor "Johnny" can't easily be registered because Johnny may be a minor. If that is the reason, then overriding fact is that Johnny (as a minor) can't legally own that firearm (or anything else really). The weapon (and any other gift generally) is the property of his parents. Any transfer could easily be done by having Grandpa fill out the title transfer to the father or mother, and then give "Johnny" the gift just as he always did before. The legal owner is the parent either way. So this is just a nonsense unless you feel documenting a firearms transfer should be less onerous than something which takes 5 minutes to complete. It MIGHT require someone to update a federal firearms database after the sale, but if so, so what? Is that any different than what is required for a licensed dealer to do in sales from a store? If it isn't, why have any difference at all? Clearly Grandpa can still give Johnny a gun.
Lastly, with respect to "enforcing the laws that exist," this is the height of hubris and hypocrisy coming from the NRA. They vehemently oppose the Bradey law and national registration. Given their choice there wouldn't be any compelling law tracking (or therefore preventing) straw buyers. For them to say that "big gov'mint" should now use that law which they object to entirely to go after straw buyers is them suggesting that they think an authority they don't like should do something they don't want to enforce a law they don't want in the first place. I believe this is just smoke and mirrors from the NRA and their zealous members. It seems they don't want anything done to close the loop-hole, so they've come up with a bogus objection which can easily be dealt with through a process no more difficult than giving someone a car. They don't want crime, and they want straw buyers stopped (supposedly), but they want to repeal the law which would allow authorities to do so.
The Heller decision and the McDonald decision after it made it clear that regulating and documenting gun ownership is fully constitutional so long as gun ownership isn't unfairly prevented. Preventing those who cannot legally own guns from getting them is in everyone's best interests, yet the NRA and other supposed 2nd Amendment defenders would rather we do nothing at all, and will tell us either bogus reasons or lie and suggest we enforce laws which they are working hard to get rid of rather than allow for us to move forward with closing loop-holes. Even if the loop-hole only leads to 1% of crimes, is that any real reason to not act to simply require a private seller to do the same thing a licensed store must do? Consistency in the law is something all of us say we support, there isn't any meaningful reason not to support it here. Well, that is, unless you prefer nothing be done with respect to keeping guns out of the hands of those who should not have them. In the case of the NRA, what seems equally plausible is that they are also opposed because they have consistently shown bent toward making it easier for gun-makers to sell more guns. The 2nd Amendment "zealots" talk about stopping crime and personal protection, but when it comes to adhering to the Constitution or stopping criminals from getting guns, it certainly appears they'd rather we didn't act at all. If there are any of you free and easy gun ownership types out there, please correct this impression if you like, tell me which laws you feel fully comfortable having, which you think the NRA is wrong to try to overturn that attempt to restrict gun buying to those which truly are allowed to buy them for their use, and then give me a good reason not to require private shows to do the same thing other sellers do, for the reason the NRA gave to me is nothing less and nothing more than smoke.
Categories: Foes
August 25th in History
stylized 16th c. iconographic image of Ivan IV1530 – Birth of Tsar Ivan IV of Russia, known as Ivan the Terrible in English (d. 1584) As Grand Prince of Moscow, he expanded Russian borders eastward through military conquest of what had been territory of the Golden Horde. These included the khanate of Kazan, which encompassed Tatarstan and Bashkortostan; the khanate of Astrakhan; and the Khanate of Sibir, which in English is called Siberia. These included some of the most northern ethnic groups of Muslim people, making Russia not only more ethnicly diverse but religiously diverse -- and a WHOLE lot larger. Estimates are that Ivan the Terrible expanded Russian borders through military aggression at the rate of 135 square kilometers a day. This was a sense a reversal of the direction, a push-back, of the conquests of the Golden Horde westward from Mongolia and China that attacked the eastern slavic region of Rus from the 13th century to the beginning of the 16th century. Rus was the region which gave it's name to Russia, and Belarus, and included parts of Poland, the Ukraine, and Slovakia.
Ivan the Terrible was given to violent rages attributed to mental illness; history records he assaulted his daughter in law causing her to miscarry, and that he killed his son and heir (another Ivan) by bashing his head in with his scepter when his son objected to his wife's assault and miscarriage. After his designated heir was killed, his younger son, Feodor the Bellringer, who history records as mentally retarded. His name 'bellringer' came from his habit of travelling the country, piously attending many churches, and vigorously ringing the church bells himself. Governing of the country devolved on his brother in law, Boris Godunov, who had attempted to stop Ivan the Terrible from killing Feodor's older brother. Feodor's reign ended the Rurik dynasty, which lasted from 862 to 1598. See my previous post about the 'stans.
1609 Galileo Galilei demonstrates his first telescope to Venetian lawmakers.
1718 Hundreds of French colonists arrived in Louisiana, with some of them settling in present-day New Orleans.
1776 Death of David Hume, Scottish philosopher and historian (b. 1711)
1814 White House is destroyed by British forces during the War of 1812. Dolly Madison famously escapes just ahead of the arrival of the British with some of the more precious items from the White House, including a famous portrait of George Washington, demonstrating tremendous grace under pressure.
1819 Birth of Allan Pinkerton, American private detective (d. 1884)
Great Moon Hoax illustration
accompanying the 4th of 6 articles
in the New York Sun1835 The New York Sun perpetrates the Great Moon Hoax. Preceding Orson Well's sci-fi hoax broadcast War of the Worlds about a martian invasion, the New York Sun circulated a series of six articles claiming to have discovered life and civilization on the moon, attributing the discovery to the famous real life astronomer Sir John Herschel to give it plausibility. The articles purported to be written by a fictional individual, Dr. Andrew Grant, who represented himself to be Herschel's secretary/ personal assistant. The people he claimed inhabited the moon had bat wings, and there were also unicorns and two-legged tailless beavers, among other novelties. Authorship of the six articles, which ended with the claim that the new telescope used for the discovery had accidentally set the observatory on fire by acting like a magnifying glass in the sun, is attributed to a reporter, Richard A. Locke, but has never been proven - and he never admitted it. It is suspected that it was not only a stunt to improve circulation, but also a satire poking fun at actual scientific papers that were ridiculous, like the 1842 paper by Munich Astronomy Professor Franz von Paula Gruithuisen, who published a paer in 1824 titled ""Discovery of Many Distinct Traces of Lunar Inhabitants, Especially of One of Their Colossal Buildings". The moon hoax is also thought to be a lampoon of the Rev. Thomas Dick, the "Christian Philosopher", who wrote a book claiming the solar system had more than 21 trillion inhabitants, and that the moon would have - by his precise computation - more than 4,200,000,000 inhabitants. Rev. Dick's writings were taken very seriously, and were given credence and authority by intellectuals like Ralph Waldo Emerson. The Sun never did print a retraction or an admission this was a hoax. The periodical, the Southern Literary Messenger, had published an Edgar Alan Poe account in June 1835, "The Unparalleled Adventure of One Hans Pfaall", which claimed a man had flown a hot air balloon to the moon, and lived among the 'lunarians' for five years.
The Mars "Face" imagefrom the side, just a hillIf you think we are too sophisticated to fall for this kind of silliness in our modern era, I give you the hoopla over the supposed face on Mars in contradiction. In the mid 1970's first Viking I and then Viking II photos showed a geographic feature that some people believed to be a giant carving of a human or human-like head, leading to sensational speculation that this was a remnant of a long lost martian civilization, or an indication of extraterrestrial intelligence, visitations to Earth, etc. It turned out to be just a hill. Carl Sagan devoted a chapter about this in his book "The Demon-Haunted World", a book promoting skepticism and critical thinking.
1845 Birth of King Ludwig II of Bavaria aka Mad King Ludwig (same birthday as Ludwig I) (d. 1886)
1894 Shibasaburo Kitasato discovers the infectious agent of the bubonic plague and publishes his findings in The Lancet. See yesterday's 'day in history', the killing of 6,000 Jews in Mainz, Germany, for supposedly causing the bubonic plague hundreds of years before.
1898 700 Greek civilians, 17 British guards and the British Consul of Crete are killed by a Turkish mob in Heraklion, Greece. Crete had been the rope in a sort of political tug of war between Greece, the Ottoman Empire of Turkey, and the British, Egypt, and others for centuries, but a major source of uprisings was religious conflict between Christians and Moslems. In 1913 Crete became an independent kingdom, for less than a year, before ending up a part of Greece again.
1900 Death of Friedrich Nietzsche, German philosopher (b. 1844)
1912 The Kuomintang, the Chinese nationalist party, is founded.
1913 Birth of Walt Kelly, American cartoonist of the strip Pogo. (d. 1973)
1916 The United States National Park Service is created.
1919 Birth of George Wallace, American politician (d. 1998)
Bond, James Bond1930 Birth of Sean Connery, Scottish actor, first to portray fictional spy James Bond in film.
1944 World War II: Paris is liberated by the Allies.
1945 Ten days after World War II ends with Japan announcing its surrender, armed supporters of the Communist Party of China kill Baptist missionary John Birch, regarded by some of the American right as the first victim of the Cold War. His death was the inspiration for the ultra-right wing extremist group, the John Birch Society currently embraced by the Republican Party.
1946 Birth of Charles Ghigna (Father Goose), American poet and children's author
Simmons in Kiss makeup1948 The House Un-American Activities Committee holds first-ever televised congressional hearing: "Confrontation Day" between Whittaker Chambers and Alger Hiss.
1949 Birth of Gene Simmons, Israeli-born musician (Kiss)
1950 President Harry Truman orders the US Army to seize control of the nation's railroads to avert a strike.
1956 Death of Alfred Kinsey, American research biologist noted for the Kinsey Report which made the previously taboo discussion of sex less taboo. (b. 1894) Kinsey founded the Kinsey Institute for Research in Sex, Gender and Reproduction, and published the landmark studies, the two Kinsey Reports. The 2004 movie Kinsey was a biography. His work dramatically changed the understanding of sex and sexuality by applying the scientific method.
1967 Death of George Lincoln Rockwell, American Nazi Party leader (b. 1918) Rockwell had been strongly influenced by Senator Joseph McCarthy. His writings continue to be influential in the political extremist white supremacist movement. Rockwell was assassinated by one of his own American Nazi party members who shot him to death.
1981 Voyager 2 spacecraft makes its closest approach to Saturn.
1989 Voyager 2 spacecraft makes its closest approach to Neptune, the outermost planet in the Solar System.
1997 Egon Krenz, the former East German leader, is convicted of a shoot-to-kill policy at the Berlin Wall during the Cold War.
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