Timeline for September 22nd

Thank you for your comments.  One thing I do not like about this WordPress template is the deplorable comments to articles — so small and diminutive that it is so hard to see for anyone other than myself and the original poster.

Here is the anniversaries for September 22nd.  I have liberally borrowed from Wikipedia for this and most of my journal entries on Teaspoon.  I don’t generally allow the redirects back to Wikipedia because I find it difficult to read and also stifles the discussion on the various anniversaries and dates.

I would like to know if you like this or not.  I think it makes it too busy to read effectively.

• 480 BC – Battle of Salamis: The Greek fleet under Themistocles defeats the Persian fleet under Xerxes I.
• 904 – The warlord Zhu Quanzhong kills Emperor Zhaozong, the penultimate emperor of the Tang dynasty, after seizing control of the imperial government.
• 1236 – The Lithuanians and Semigallians defeat the Livonian Brothers of the Sword in the Battle of Saule.
• 1499 – Treaty of Basel
• 1586 – Battle of Zutphen: Spanish victory over the English and Dutch.
• 1598 – English playwright Ben Jonson kills an actor in a duel and is indicted for manslaughter.
• 1692 – The last people hanged for witchcraft in England’s North American colonies takes place.
• 1711 – The Tuscarora War begins in present-day North Carolina.
• 1761 – George III and Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz are crowned King and Queen, respectively, of the Kingdom of Great Britain.
• 1776 – Nathan Hale is hanged for spying during American Revolution.
• 1789 – The office of United States Postmaster General is established.
• 1789 – Battle of Rymnik establishes Alexander Suvorov as a pre-eminent Russian military commander after his allied army defeat superior Ottoman Empire forces.
• 1792 – Primidi Vendémiaire of year one of the French Republican Calendar as the French First Republic comes into being.
• 1823 – Joseph Smith states he found the Golden plates on this date after being directed by God through the Angel Moroni to the place where they were buried.
• 1857 – The Russian warship Lefort capsizes and sinks during a storm in the Gulf of Finland, killing all 826 aboard.
• 1862 – Slavery in the United States: A preliminary version of the Emancipation Proclamation is released.
• 1866 – Battle of Curupayty in the Paraguayan War.
• 1869 – Richard Wagner‘s opera Das Rheingold premieres in Munich.
• 1885 – Lord Randolph Churchill makes a speech in Ulster in opposition to Home Rule.
• 1888 – The first issue of National Geographic Magazine is published.
• 1896 – Queen Victoria surpasses her grandfather King George III as the longest reigning monarch in British history.
• 1908 – The Bulgarian Declaration of Independence is proclaimed.
• 1910 – The Duke of York’s Picture House opens in Brighton, now the oldest continually operating cinema in Britain.
• 1914 – German submarine SM U-9 torpedoes and sinks the British cruisers HMS Aboukir, Hogue and Cressy on the Broad Fourteens off the Dutch coast with the loss of over 1,400 men.
• 1919 – The steel strike of 1919, led by the Amalgamated Association of Iron and Steel Workers, begins in Pennsylvania before spreading across the United States.
• 1927 – Jack Dempsey loses the “Long Count” boxing match to Gene Tunney.
• 1934 – An explosion takes place at Gresford Colliery in Wales, leading to the deaths of 266 miners and rescuers.
• 1937 – Spanish Civil War: Peña Blanca is taken; the end of the Battle of El Mazuco.
• 1939 – Joint victory parade of Wehrmacht and Red Army in Brest-Litovsk at the end of the Invasion of Poland.
• 1941 – World War II: On Jewish New Year Day, the German SS murder 6,000 Jews in Vinnytsia, Ukraine. Those are the survivors of the previous killings that took place a few days earlier in which about 24,000 Jews were executed.
• 1955 – In the United Kingdom, the television channel ITV goes live for the first time.
• 1957 – In Haiti, François Duvalier is elected president.
• 1960 – The Sudanese Republic is renamed Mali after the withdrawal of Senegal from the Mali Federation.
• 1965 – The Indo-Pakistani War of 1965 (also known as the Second Kashmir War) between India and Pakistan over Kashmir, ends after the UN calls for a ceasefire.

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Today in History: September 17th

• 456 – Remistus, Roman general (magister militum), is besieged by a Gothic force at Ravenna and later executed in the Palace in Classis, outside the city.
• 1111 – Highest Galician nobility led by Pedro Fróilaz de Traba and the bishop Diego Gelmírez crown Alfonso VII as “King of Galicia“.
• 1176 – The Battle of Myriokephalon is fought between the Byzantine Empire and the Seljuk Turks.
• 1382 – Louis the Great‘s daughter, Mary, is crowned “king” of Hungary.
• 1462 – The Battle of Świecino (also known as the Battle of Żarnowiec) is fought during Thirteen Years’ War.
• 1577 – The Treaty of Bergerac is signed between Henry III of France and the Huguenots.
• 1630 – The city of Boston, Massachusetts is founded.
• 1631 – Sweden wins a major victory at the Battle of Breitenfeld against the Holy Roman Empire during the Thirty Years’ War.
• 1683 – Antonie van Leeuwenhoek writes a letter to the Royal Society describing “animalcules“: the first known description of protozoa.
• 1716 – Jean Thurel enlists in the Touraine Regiment at the age of 18, the first day of a military career that would span for over 90 years.
• 1761 – The Battle of Kosabroma is fought.
• 1775 – American Revolutionary War: The Invasion of Canada begins with the Siege of Fort St. Jean.
• 1776 – The Presidio of San Francisco is founded in New Spain.
• 1778 – The Treaty of Fort Pitt is signed. It is the first formal treaty between the United States and a Native American tribe (the Lenape or Delaware Indians).
• 1787 – The United States Constitution is signed in Philadelphia.
• 1793 – The Battle of Peyrestortes is fought.
• 1794 – The Battle of Sprimont is fought.
• 1809 – Peace between Sweden and Russia in the Finnish War. The territory to become Finland is ceded to Russia by the Treaty of Fredrikshamn.
• 1813 – The Second Battle of Kulm is fought.
• 1814 – Francis Scott Key finishes his poem “Defence of Fort McHenry”, later to be the lyrics of “The Star-Spangled Banner“.
• 1849 – American abolitionist Harriet Tubman escapes from slavery.
• 1859 – Joshua A. Norton declares himself “Norton I, Emperor of the United States.”
• 1861 – Battle of Pavón is fought.
• 1862 – American Civil War: George B. McClellan halts the northward drive of Robert E. Lee‘s Confederate Army in the single-day Battle of Antietam, the bloodiest day in American military history.
• 1862 – American Civil War: The Allegheny Arsenal explosion results in the single largest civilian disaster during the war.
• 1894 – Battle of the Yalu River, the largest naval engagement of the First Sino-Japanese War.
• 1900 – Philippine–American War: Filipinos under Juan Cailles defeat Americans under Colonel Benjamin F. Cheatham at Mabitac.
• 1901 – The Battle of Blood River Poort is fought.
• 1901 – The Battle of Elands River is fought.
• 1908 – The Wright Flyer flown by Orville Wright, with Lieutenant Thomas Selfridge as passenger, crashes, killing Selfridge. He becomes the first airplane fatality.
• 1914 – Andrew Fisher becomes Prime Minister of Australia for the third time.
• 1914 – World War I: The Race to the Sea begins.
• 1916 – World War I: Manfred von Richthofen (“The Red Baron”), a flying ace of the German Luftstreitkräfte, wins his first aerial combat near Cambrai, France.
• 1924 – The Border Protection Corps is established in the Second Polish Republic for the defence of the eastern border against armed Soviet raids and local bandits.
• 1924 – The Church of Central Africa Presbyterian is formed.
• 1928 – The Okeechobee hurricane strikes southeastern Florida, killing more than 2,500 people. It is the third deadliest natural disaster in United States history, behind the Galveston hurricane of 1900 and the 1906 San Francisco earthquake.
• 1930 – The Ararat rebellion is suppressed.
• 1932 – A speech by Laureano Gómez leads to the escalation of the Leticia Incident.
• 1939 – World War II: The Soviet Union joins Nazi Germany‘s invasion of Poland during the Polish Defensive War of 1939.
• 1939 – World War II: German submarine U-29 sinks the British aircraft carrier HMS Courageous.
• 1939 – Taisto Mäki becomes the first man to run the 10,000 metres in under 30 minutes, in a time of 29:52.6.
• 1940 – World War II: Following the German defeat in the Battle of Britain, Hitler postpones Operation Sea Lion indefinitely.
• 1941 – World War II: A decree of the Soviet State Committee of Defense, restoring Vsevobuch in the face of the Great Patriotic War, is issued.
• 1941 – World War II: Soviet forces enter Tehran marking the end of the Anglo-Soviet invasion of Iran.
• 1943 – World War II: The Russian city of Bryansk is liberated from Germans.
• 1944 – World War II: Allied Airborne troops parachute into the Netherlands as the “Market” half of Operation Market Garden.
• 1944 – World War II: Soviet troops launch the Tallinn Offensive against Germany and pro independence Estonian units.
• 1944 – World War II: German forces are attacked by the Allies in the Battle of San Marino.
• 1948 – The Lehi (also known as the Stern gang) assassinates Count Folke Bernadotte, who was appointed by the United Nations to mediate between the Arab nations and Israel.
• 1948 – The Nizam of Hyderabad surrenders his sovereignty over the Hyderabad State and joins the Indian Union.
• 1949 – The Canadian steamship SS Noronic burns in Toronto Harbour with the loss of over 118 lives.
• 1957 – Malaysia joins the United Nations.
• 1961 – The world’s first retractable-dome stadium, the Civic Arena, opens in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

Today in History: September 15th!

668 Eastern Roman Emperor Constans II is assassinated in his bath at Syracuse, Italy.

921 At Tetin, Saint Ludmila is murdered at the command of her daughter-in-law.

994 Major Fatimid victory over the Byzantine Empire at the Battle of the Orontes.

1440 Gilles de Rais, one of the earliest known serial killers, is taken into custody upon an accusation brought against him by the Jean de Malestroit, Bishop of Nantes.

1556 Departing from Vlissingen, ex-Holy Roman Emperor Charles V returns to Spain.

1762 Battle of Signal Hill.

1776 British forces land at Kip’s Bay during the New York Campaign.

1789 The United States “Department of Foreign Affairs”, established by law in July, is renamed the Department of State and given a variety of domestic duties.

1812 The French army under Napoleon reaches the Kremlin in Moscow.

1812 A second supply train sent to relieve Fort Harrison is ambushed in the Attack at the Narrows.

1816 HMS Whiting runs aground on the Doom Bar

1820 Constitutionalist revolution in Lisbon, Portugal.

1821 Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica jointly declare independence from Spain.

1830 The Liverpool to Manchester railway line opens.

1831 The locomotive John Bull operates for the first time in New Jersey on the Camden and Amboy Railroad.

1835 HMS Beagle, with Charles Darwin aboard, reaches the Galápagos Islands. The ship lands at Chatham or San Cristobal, the easternmost of the archipelago.

1851 Saint Joseph’s University is founded in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

1862 Confederate forces capture Harpers Ferry, Virginia.

1873 The last German troops leave France upon completion of payment of indemnity.

1894 Japan defeats Qing dynasty China in the Battle of Pyongyang.

1916 Tanks are used for the first time in battle, at the Battle of the Somme.

1918 World War I:The Battle of Dobro Pole is fought, Entente troops break through the Bulgarian defenses on the Macedonian Front eventually liberating Vardar Macedonia and forcing Bulgaria to sign the Armistice of Salonica.

1935 The Nuremberg Laws deprive German Jews of citizenship.

1935 Nazi Germany adopts a new national flag bearing the swastika.

1940 The climax of the Battle of Britain, when the Royal Air Force shoots down large numbers of Luftwaffe aircraft.

1942  U.S. Navy aircraft carrier USS Wasp is sunk by a Japanese torpedo at Guadalcanal.

1944 Franklin D. Roosevelt and Winston Churchill meet in Quebec as part of the Octagon Conference to discuss strategy.

1944 Battle of Peleliu begins as the United States Marine Corps’ 1st Marine Division and the United States Army’s 81st Infantry Division hit White and Orange beaches under heavy fire from Japanese infantry and artillery.

1945 A hurricane in southern Florida and the Bahamas destroys 366 planes and 25 blimps at Naval Air Station Richmond.

1947 RCA releases the 12AX7 vacuum tube.

1947 Typhoon Kathleen hit the Kanto Region in Japan killing 1,077.

1948 The F-86 Sabre sets the world aircraft speed record at 671 miles per hour (1,080 km/h).

1950 Korean War: United States forces land at Inchon

1952 The United Nations cedes Eritrea to Ethiopia.

1958 A Central Railroad of New Jersey commuter train runs through an open drawbridge at the Newark Bay, killing 48

1959 Nikita Khrushchev becomes the first Soviet leader to visit the United States.

1961 Hurricane Carla strikes Texas with winds of 175 miles per hour.

1962 The Soviet ship Poltava heads toward Cuba, one of the events that sets into motion the Cuban Missile Crisis.

1963 Four children killed at an African-American church in Birmingham, Alabama, United States

Today in History: September 10th

506 The bishops of Visigothic Gaul meet in the Council of Agde.

1419 John the Fearless, Duke of Burgundy is assassinated by adherents of the Dauphin, the future Charles VII of France.

1509 An earthquake known as “The Lesser Judgment Day” hits Constantinople.

1515 Thomas Wolsey is invested as a Cardinal

1547 The Battle of Pinkie Cleugh, the last full-scale military confrontation between England and Scotland, resulting in a decisive victory for the forces of Edward VI.

1561 Fourth Battle of Kawanakajima Takeda Shingen defeats Uesugi Kenshin in the climax of their ongoing conflicts.

1570 Spanish Jesuit missionaries land in present-day Virginia to establish the short-lived Ajacán Mission.

1608 John Smith is elected council president of Jamestown, Virginia.

1776 American Revolutionary War: Nathan Hale volunteers to spy for the Continental Army.

1798 At the Battle of St. George’s Caye, British Honduras defeats Spain.

1813 The United States defeats the British Fleet at the Battle of Lake Erie during the War of 1812.

1823 Simón Bolívar is named President of Peru.

1846 Elias Howe is granted a patent for the sewing machine.

1858 George Mary Searle discovers the asteroid 55 Pandora.

1897 Lattimer massacre: A sheriff’s posse kills 20 unarmed immigrant miners in Pennsylvania, United States.

1898 Empress Elisabeth of Austria is assassinated by Luigi Lucheni.

1918 The Red Army captures Kazan.

1919 Austria and the Allies sign the Treaty of Saint-Germain-en-Laye recognizing the independence of Poland, Hungary, Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia.

1932 The New York City Subway’s third competing subway system, the municipally-owned IND, is opened.

1935 India’s first all-boys public school, The Doon School, is founded.

1936 First World Individual Motorcycle Speedway Championship, Held at London’s (England) Wembley Stadium

1937 Nine nations attend the Nyon Conference to address international piracy in the Mediterranean Sea.

1939  The submarine HMS Oxley is mistakenly sunk by the submarine HMS Triton near Norway and becomes the Royal Navy’s first loss.

1939  Canada declares war on Nazi Germany, joining the Allies Poland, France, the United Kingdom, New Zealand and Australia.

1942 The British Army carries out an amphibious landing on Madagascar to re-launch Allied offensive operations in the Madagascar Campaign.

1943 German forces begin their occupation of Rome.

1946 While riding a train to Darjeeling, Sister Teresa Bojaxhiu of the Loreto Sisters’ Convent claimed to have heard the call of God, directing her “to leave the convent and help the poor while living among them”. She would become known as Mother Teresa.

1955 The television series Gunsmoke premieres on CBS . It was the second western television series written for adults. The first was the Lone Ranger.

1960 At the 1960 Summer Olympics in Rome, Abebe Bikila becomes the first sub-Saharan African to win a gold medal, winning the marathon in bare feet.

1961 Italian Grand Prix, a crash causes the death of German Formula One driver Wolfgang von Trips and 13 spectators who are hit by his Ferrari.

August Comic Book Awards

I don’t normally cross link my articles between my blogs, but for those who are unfamiliar with my more esoteric blog The Emerald Tablet, I invite you over to take a look. This article was written by my friend and fellow comic book aficionado Nandor Shaffer. Each month he gives his opinion on the state of various comic books and the industry. If you like this sort of article, I ask you to stop over at the ET more often as there is plenty to see. The Emerald Tablet has been around for 8 long years!

Emerald Tablet: Home

~Nandor Shaffer

If you are an obsessive Doctor Who fan (or a “whovian”, as they say), you may have heard of the little new comic book event being published by Titan Comics, Doctor Who: Four Doctors. This weekly event made its debut on August 12th, and will be running for five weeks (although I just read #5 was delayed, sadly). My point is, since I’m a positively diehard fan of the TV series, Doctor Who: Four Doctors, a timey-wimey adventure involving the 10th, 11th, and 12th Doctors as well as the War Doctor portrayed by John Hurt from the epic Day of the Doctor episode, is more than fanatically exciting for me. The good news is that the first three issues have not disappointed so far, and the great, surprising news is that it dominated August’s pile of comics in terms of superb quality. Speaking of Doctor Who, Year One…

View original post 1,175 more words

War & technology

One must consider was it technology that was fostered by war, or was it war that fostered technology? The two are forever linked in history as structures of man’s escalation of control and dominion over the Earth. It was technology that allowed man to conquer and colonize every continent on the planet, but it was war that gave society impetus to do so.

It can be argued that it was the innovation of the phalanx in Western culture that was the first progeny of technological warfare, but to be truthful prior to the rise of the Greek city-state there were tens of thousands of years of amazing development of crude weapons and the use of them on other tribes in the form of limited engagements, battles, and cultural wars.

As the Greeks were refining their hoplite technology, which included the phalanx as well as the panoply of breastplate, greaves, helmet, shield and spear, the Persians were cultivating their Immortals, a strong imperial force that was highly mobile and maneuverable. This came to a head with the battle at Marathon in 490 BCE in the first Greco Wars. In the battle of Thermopylae in 480 BCE the forces clashed in a historical battle that left the Persians humiliated and the losers even though they outnumbered the Greeks 20 to 1. Once again the Persians and Greeks fought a battle of Salamis in which the older and slower naval fleets sparred with the Greeks trireme and discovered again that sheer numbers do not mean victory.

The trireme was an advancement of the Greeks brought about by the explosion of technological achievements after the Dorian empire faded and the Greek city-state blossomed. The ship had a very shallow draft, less than three feet but was able to sustain speeds of four knots and a ramming speed up to ten knots. The speed with the addition of a giant ramming horn was the primary attack of the ship, much like the phalanx that was all about forced thrusting force upon the enemy. The trireme was the backbone of the Delian League and was more than 120 feet long with as many as one hundred seventy oarsman.

Phillip the 2nd, the father to Alexander the Great, brought all of Greece under his control in 338 BCE by using Macedonian infantry utilizing eighteen fot long spears, lighter armor, and a refined use of phalanx tactics. Alexander continues to use these tactics, but being a highly educated general, he also uses new developments of warfare including the siege engine.

The siege engine is a large apparatus used to bridge castle walls and sometimes used to throw projectiles such as stones, but also could throw dead cattle for an early form of biological warfare. There were many names for these devices such as a catapult, scorpion, and trebuchet.

Romans developed and refined the idea that all males of a society served in the army. It was typical for a Roman citizen to serve sixteen years in the infantry or ten years in the cavalry. Upon completing the “tour of duty” the soldier was allowed to retire and gain 2 acres of land, but these men were always still required to defend the local lands and could be called upon to fight in the legions at any time. The Romans had a triple axis of men with the Hastati (young men) the Pricipes (experienced veterans), and the triarti (the older men). The standard panoply of the Roman soldier was a two foot long sword called a gladius, a short spear called a pilum, simple armor of either boiled leather or chainmail, and a large rectangular shield. The Romans embraced Total War, unlike the Greeks who disdained its use. Romans were always on the offensive, much like the Greeks, but waged war at any cost and fought enemy soldiers as well as citizens of other empires. Rome developed most of its strategies and tactics during the three Punic Wars that they fought with Carthage. Towards the end of their reign, the Romans continued use of general phalanx style combat caused havoc and continued losses against the Barbarian Horde against such people as the Goths and Attila the Hun.

In the medieval era, technology and war found a new consort with religion, which changed why war was waged. Instead of fighting a specific civilization or an area of the map, the new paradigm of war was fought against religious differences; thus the Crusades or the Jihads. The Aristocracy was landed nobility based on a feudal society, where knights were drawn from the aristocracy and peasantry were serfs drawn from the feudal holdings. It was because of the Crusades that resulted in the Magna Carta, which changed the political discourse of Western civilization.

It was during this period that saw the development of the fifteen foot pikes that were used to thwart heavy cavalry. It also saw the development of the long bow, which was used in the battle of Agincourt in the year 1415 and that provided enough physical power to negate the capabilities of heavy armor. Slowly the soldiers were changing from noble gentry with heavy plate armor and highly trained war horses, to divisions of serfs with little armor and guns that required little training to aim, shoot, and load.

Shortly thereafter, the invention of black powder in China, circa 800 CE, and its subsequent import into Europe by 1324 in early gunpowder weapons such as the arquebus started to be used in battle. By 1350 the first handguns were being used in Europe, notably the hacquebutts and arquebutts. Cannons and bombards, heavy bronze guns invented in 1400, fired cannonball projectiles at walls, defenses, ships, and at groups of men in tight formation.

The rifle went through several iterations of improvement as black powder changed into smokeless gunpowder and the barrels of the guns became rifled which led to better accuracy. The firing mechanisms of guns also improved. Originally guns were fired from a lit tap at the breach of the gun, but this was augmented with the matchlock that struck flint to steel and caused a spark.

It was during the final stages of the American Civil War that saw breach loading guns; instead of pouring gunpowder down the barrel and tapping down the powder and then firing it with a matchlock mechanism, a shell of metal encasing both the bullet and powder was loaded into the gun. Up until the Civil War, forces still marched in phalanx style squares of soldiers. With the invention of the rifled gun, however, accuracy improved so much as to make marching in formation suicidal.

During World War I, led to guns with magazines that could fire anywhere between six bullets to thousands of bullets before being reloaded. Consequently, the invention of the machine gun turned simple hand guns into deadly weapons that could spray the battlefield with high cyclic rates of shells. The invention of explosives other than black powder, such as nitro glycerin, manifested into HE (High Explosive) rounds used to penetrate armored vehicles and fortified positions.

The turn of the century also saw the innovation of many new forms of combat technology including trench warfare, tank warfare, chemical weapons, aerial dog fighting, aerial bombardment, mortars, machine guns, and artillery. Trench warfare was brought about by the inability of either side to conquer the enemy territory, thus resulting in trackless miles of ditches where men slept, ate, and died. New diseases ravaged these heinous muddy prisons such as trench-foot. Chemical weapons were tried to dislodge enemies from their trenches and included the use of Chlorine, Mustard, and Phosphate gas.

It was also during this time that aerial vehicles were starting to appear in the skies over battlefields. Airplanes allowed warriors to disengage themselves from the terrain and to fly directly to the enemy’s cities and manufacturing sites, circumventing the need to initially take control of large expanses of enemy controlled land.

Aerial bombardment reached an apex during World War II with the constant bombing of cities, as in the Battle of Britain and the subsequent firebombing of most German and Japanese cities. Epic aerial battles such as the infamous attack at Pearl Harbor and to the Battle of Midway and Coral Sea were arguably air battles with naval ships as in auxiliary to the overall fight.

The zenith of bombing raids was the dropping of two atomic bombs in Japan, signaling the end of global warfare and the rise of nuclear Armageddon. It was after this that led to the Cold War, since any true battle between super powers would have ended in planetary devastation. Instead of the two giants fighting, it resulted in both sides funneling equipment and resources to third party rogue nations or political identities. The War (Police Action, if you will) in Korea and Vietnam was really the United States and the Soviet Union pummeling each other with small countries as their means to the end – so too one could argue that the war in Afghanistan, first with the Russian invasion in the 80s and the United States in the early twentieth century, was fueled by both super powers.

As early as World War II, the citizens of warring nations had the capacity to watch battles in theatres and later at home on the television. At first vicariously through film, but later in video, and recently in live coverage by the internet and satellite communication, citizens could view fighting and the death of their own soldiers. The oddity of viewing battle, without necessarily being in harm’s way, impacts greatly on the perception of war and conflagrations. Evening news broadcasts of Vietnam, stoked the riots in America. Even today, it is easy to watch almost instantaneously of troops from both sides as they wage war against each other. Only time will tell if such images galvanizes or desensitizes the common citizen.

Today September 3rd in History

36 BC In the Battle of Naulochus, Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa, admiral of Octavian, defeats Sextus Pompeius, son of Pompey, thus ending Pompeian resistance to the Second Triumvirate.

301 San Marino, one of the smallest nations in the world and the world’s oldest republic still in existence, is founded by Saint Marinus.

590 Consecration of Pope Gregory I (Gregory the Great).

673 King Wamba of the Visigoths puts down a revolt by Hilderic, governor of Nîmes (France) and rival for the throne.

863 Major Byzantine victory at the Battle of Lalakaon against an Arab raid.

1189 Richard I of England (a.k.a. Richard “the Lionheart”) is crowned at Westminster.

1260 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.

1650 Third English Civil War: In the Battle of Dunbar, English Parliamentarian forces led by Oliver Cromwell defeat an army loyal to King Charles II of England and led by David Leslie, Lord Newark.

1651 Battle of Worcester: Charles II of England is defeated in the last main battle of the war.

1658 Richard Cromwell becomes Lord Protector of England.

1666 The Royal Exchange burns down in the Great Fire of London.

1777 American Revolutionary War: During the Battle of Cooch’s Bridge, the Flag of the United States is flown in battle for the first time.

1783 American Revolutionary War: The war ends with the signing of the Treaty of Paris by the United States and the Kingdom of Great Britain.

1798 The week long battle of St. George’s Caye begins between Spain and Britain off the coast of Belize.

1802 William Wordsworth composes the sonnet Composed upon Westminster Bridge, September 3, 1802.

1812 Twenty-four settlers are killed in the Pigeon Roost Massacre in Indiana.

1838 Future abolitionist Frederick Douglass escapes from slavery.

1843 King Otto of Greece is forced to grant a constitution following an uprising in Athens.

1855 American Indian Wars: In Nebraska, 700 soldiers under United States General William S. Harney avenge the Grattan massacre by attacking a Sioux village and killing 100 men, women and children.

1861  Confederate General Leonidas Polk invades neutral Kentucky, prompting the state legislature to ask for Union assistance.

1870 The Siege of Metz begins, resulting in a decisive Prussian victory on October 23.

1874 The congress of the State of Mexico elevates Naucalpan to the category of Villa, with the title of “Villa de Juárez”.

1875 The first official game of polo is played in Argentina after being introduced by British ranchers.

1878 Over 640 die when the crowded pleasure boat Princess Alice collides with the Bywell Castle in the River Thames.

1879 Siege of the British Residency in Kabul: British envoy Sir Louis Cavagnari and 72 men of the The Guides are massacred by Afghan troops while defending the British Residency in Kabul. Their heroism and loyalty became famous and revered throughout the British Empire.

1895 John Brallier becomes the first openly professional American football player, when he was paid US$10 by David Berry, to play for the Latrobe Athletic Association in a 12–0 win over the Jeanette Athletic Association.

1914 William, Prince of Albania leaves the country after just six months due to opposition to his rule.

1914 French composer Albéric Magnard is killed defending his estate against invading German soldiers.

1914 World War I: Start of the Battle of Grand Couronné, a German assault against French positions on high ground near the city of Nancy.
1916 World War I: Leefe Robinson destroys the German airship Schütte-Lanz SL 11 over Cuffley, north of London; the first German airship to be shot down on British soil.

1925 USS Shenandoah, the United States’ first American-built rigid airship, was destroyed in a squall line over Noble County, Ohio. Fourteen of her 42-man crew perished, including her commander, Zachary Lansdowne.

1933 Yevgeniy Abalakov is the first man to reach the highest point in the Soviet Union, Communism Peak (now called Ismoil Somoni Peak and situated in Tajikistan) (7495 m).

1935 Sir Malcolm Campbell reaches a 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.

1939 World War II: France, the United Kingdom, New Zealand and Australia declare war on Germany after the invasion of Poland, forming the Allies.

1939 World War II: The United Kingdom and France begin a naval blockade of Germany that lasts until the end of the war. This also marks the beginning of the Battle of the Atlantic.

1941 The Holocaust: Karl Fritzsch, deputy camp commandant of the Auschwitz concentration camp, experiments with the use of Zyklon B in the gassing of Soviet POWs.
1942 World War II: In response to news of its coming liquidation, Dov Lopatyn leads an uprising in the Ghetto of Lakhva, in present-day Belarus.

1943 World War II: The Allied invasion of Italy begins on the same day that U.S. General Dwight D. Eisenhower and Italian Marshal Pietro Badoglio sign the Armistice of Cassibile aboard the Royal Navy battleship HMS Nelson off Malta.

1944 Holocaust: Diarist Anne Frank and her family are placed on the last transport train from the Westerbork transit camp to the Auschwitz concentration camp, arriving three days later.

1945 A three-day celebration begins in China, following the Victory over Japan Day on September 2.

1950 “Nino” Farina becomes the first Formula One Drivers’ champion after winning the 1950 Italian Grand Prix.

1951 The first long-running American television soap opera, Search for Tomorrow, airs its first episode on the CBS network.

1954 The People’s Liberation Army begins shelling the Republic of China-controlled islands of Quemoy, starting the First Taiwan Strait Crisis.

1954 The German U-boat U-505 begins its move from a specially constructed dock to its site at Chicago’s Museum of Science and Industry.

Today in History!

It has been far too long since I posted on my favorite blog.  It has been just a rather dreary and convoluted year so far with many lost expectations and dwindling aspirations.  I am renewing my commitment to share interesting historical anniversaries and perhaps raise some interesting questions at the same time.

Here are today’s historical anniversary, edited and selected by me.  Certainly anything after 1964 isn’t history but in modern times. 🙂

47 BC Pharaoh Cleopatra VII of Egypt declares her son co-ruler as Ptolemy XV Caesarion.

44 BC Cicero launches the first of his Philippics (oratorical attacks) on Mark Antony. He will make 14 of  them over the following months.

31 BC Final War of the Roman Republic Off the western coast of Greece, forces of Octavian  defeat troops under Mark Antony and Cleopatra.

Wow!! More than a thousand years go by without any historical significant event on this day. . .

1192 The Treaty of Jaffa is signed between Richard I of England and Saladin, leading to the end of the Third Crusade.

1649 The Italian city of Castro is completely destroyed by the forces of Pope Innocent X, ending the Wars of Castro.

1666 The Great Fire of London breaks out and burns for three days, destroying 10,000 buildings including St  Paul’s Cathedral.

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.

1807 The Royal Navy bombards Copenhagen with fire bombs and phosphorus rockets to prevent Denmark from surrendering its fleet to Napoleon.

1811 The University of Oslo is founded as The Royal Fredericks University, after Frederick VI of Denmark and  Norway.

1859 A solar super storm affects electrical telegraph service.

1862 American Civil War: United States 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.

1864 American Civil War: Union forces enter Atlanta, a day after the Confederate defenders flee the city,  ending the Atlanta Campaign.

1867 Mutsuhito, Emperor Meiji of Japan, marries Masako Ichijō. The Empress consort is thereafter known as  Lady Haruko. Since her death in 1914, she is called by the posthumous name Empress Shōken.

1870 Franco-Prussian War Prussian forces take Napoleon III of France and 100,000 of his soldiers prisoner.

1885 Rock Springs massacre: 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.

1912 Arthur Rose Eldred is awarded the first Eagle Scout award of the Boy Scouts of America.

1935 The 1935 Labor Day hurricane hits the Florida Keys, killing 423.

1945 World War II: The Japanese Instrument of Surrender is signed by  Japanese Foreign Minister Mamoru Shigemitsu and accepted aboard the battleship USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay.

1945 Vietnam declares its independence, forming the Democratic Republic of Vietnam.

1946 The Interim Government of India is formed, headed by Jawaharlal Nehru as Vice President with the powers  of a Prime Minister.

1963 CBS Evening News becomes U.S. network television’s first half-hour weeknight news broadcast, when the show is lengthened from 15 to 30 minutes.

Historical Anniversaries for February 4th

All of these events occurred on February 4th on the indicated year.

211 Roman Emperor Septimius Severus dies at Eboracum (modern York, England) while preparing to lead a campaign against the Caledonians. He leaves the empire in the control of his two quarrelling sons.

634  Rashidun forces under Yazid ibn Abi Sufyan defeat the Christian Arabs around Gaza (Palestine).

960 The coronation of Zhao Kuangyin as Emperor Taizu of Song, initiating the Song dynasty period of China that would last more than three centuries.

1169 A strong earthquake struck the Ionian coast of Sicily, causing tens of thousands of injuries and deaths, especially in Catania.

1454 In the Thirteen Years’ War, the Secret Council of the Prussian Confederation sends a formal act of disobedience to the Grand Master.

1703 In Edo (now Tokyo), 46 of the Forty-seven Ronin commit seppuku (ritual suicide) as recompense for avenging their master’s death.

1758 Macapá, Brazil is founded.

1789 George Washington is unanimously elected as the first President of the United States by the U.S. Electoral College.

1794 The French legislature abolishes slavery throughout all territories of the French First Republic. It will be reestablished in the French West Indies in 1802.

1797 The Riobamba earthquake strikes Ecuador, causing up to 40,000 casualties.

1801 John Marshall is sworn in as Chief Justice of the United States.

1810 The Royal Navy seizes Guadeloupe.

1820 The Chilean Navy under the command of Lord Cochrane completes the 2-day long Capture of Valdivia with just 300 men and 2 ships.

1825 The Ohio Legislature authorizes the construction of the Ohio and Erie Canal and the Miami and Erie Canal.

1846 The first Mormon pioneers make their exodus from Nauvoo, Illinois, westward towards Salt Lake Valley.

1859 The Codex Sinaiticus is discovered in Egypt.

1861 American Civil War: In Montgomery, Alabama, delegates from six break-away U.S. states meet and form the Confederate States of America.

1899 The Philippine–American War begins with the Battle of Manila.

1932 Second Sino-Japanese War: Harbin, Manchuria, falls to Japan.

1936 Radium becomes the first radioactive element to be made synthetically.

1941 The United Service Organization (USO) is created to entertain American troops.

1945 Santo Tomas Internment Camp is liberated from Japanese authority.

1945 The Yalta Conference between the “Big Three” (Churchill, Roosevelt, and Stalin) opens at the Livadia Palace in the Crimea.

1945 The British Indian Army and Imperial Japanese Army begin a series of battles known as the Battle of Pokoku and Irrawaddy River operations.

1948 Ceylon (later renamed Sri Lanka) becomes independent within the British Commonwealth.

What happened today in history

For February 2nd all these things happened on this day:

506 Alaric II, eighth king of the Visigoths promulgates the Breviary of Alaric , a collection of “Roman law”.

962 Translatio imperii: Pope John XII crowns Otto I, Holy Roman Emperor, the first Holy Roman Emperor in nearly 40 years.

1032 Conrad II, Holy Roman Emperor becomes King of Burgundy.

1141 The Battle of Lincoln, at which King Stephen is defeated and captured by the allies of Empress Matilda, presenting her with the unfulfilled opportunity to become the first queen of medieval England.

1207 Terra Mariana, comprising present-day Estonia and Latvia, is established.

1461 Wars of the Roses: The Battle of Mortimer’s Cross is fought in Herefordshire, England.

1536 Spaniard Pedro de Mendoza founds Buenos Aires, Argentina.

1542 Portuguese forces under Cristóvão da Gama capture a Muslim-occupied hill fort in northern Ethiopia in the Battle of Baçente.

1653 New Amsterdam (later renamed The City of New York) is incorporated.

1709 Alexander Selkirk is rescued after being shipwrecked on a desert island, inspiring the book Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe.

1848 Mexican–American War: The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo is signed.

1848 California Gold Rush: The first ship with Chinese immigrants arrives in San Francisco.

1868 Pro-Imperial forces captured Osaka Castle from the Tokugawa shogunate and burned it to the ground.

1876 The National League of Professional Baseball Clubs of Major League Baseball is formed.

1887 In Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania the first Groundhog Day is observed.

1899 The Australian Premiers’ Conference held in Melbourne decides to locate Australia’s capital city, Canberra, between Sydney and Melbourne.

1901 Funeral of Queen Victoria.

1913 Grand Central Terminal is opened in New York City.

1914 Charlie Chaplin’s first film appearance, Making a Living premieres.

1920 The Tartu Peace Treaty is signed between Estonia and Russia.

1920 France occupies Memel.

1922 Ulysses by James Joyce is published.

1925 Serum run to Nome: Dog sleds reach Nome, Alaska with diphtheria serum, inspiring the Iditarod race.

1933 Working as maids, the sisters Christine and Léa Papin murder their employer’s wife and daughter in Le Mans, France. The case is the subject of a number of French films and plays.

1934 The Export-Import Bank of the United States is incorporated.

1935 Leonarde Keeler tests the first polygraph machine.

1943 World War II: The Battle of Stalingrad comes to conclusion as Soviet troops accept the surrender of 91,000 remnants of the Axis forces.

1957 Iskander Mirza of Pakistan lays the foundation-stone of the Guddu Barrage.

1959 Dyatlov Pass incident