History Notes this week of Dec 30

69 A.D.: Roman Legions in Germania Superior (present-day Alsace region) refuse to swear allegiance to the Emperor Galba, instead casting their support for the accession of Vitellius, whose short reign (April-December of this year) made him the third in a uniquely turbulent period of Roman history known as The Year of Four Emperors, all of whom were powerful generals, and all vying for control of the post-Nero Roman throne by the power of the armies they commanded in the far-flung provinces of the Empire. 

406 AD: Traditional date for the beginning of the great Barbarian invasion of the Roman Empire, with waves of Vandals, Alans and Suebians crossing the un-bridged but frozen Rhine River to begin a massive campaign of pillage along a broad front of Roman Gaul.

537A.D.: Dedication of the world’s largest Christian Church, the Hagia Sophia, in Constantinople. This was the third iteration of the center of imperial Byzantine worship to be constructed on the site, and is the structure that you can visit today in Istanbul. During the Moslem conquest of Constantinople in 1453, Sultan Mehmet II allowed his troops three days of unbridled looting of the city, including the Hagia Sophia, where thousands of Christians sheltered themselves behind their prayers and the massive walls of the church. The invaders eventually battered down the doors and proceeded to do what invading armies did: killing, rape, torture, looting, and taking into slavery those that they did not kill. The priests in the church continued to perform their duties at the altar until cut down by the Moslem conquerors.Once the prescribed looting was complete, Mehmet ordered the church converted to a mosque, melting gold fixtures and plastering over the centuries-old mosaics that decorated the domes and pillars of the structure. It remained an active mosque until 1935, when the father of modern, secular Turkey, Kemal Attaturk, expelled the Moslem staff and converted the structure to a museum that explicitly recognized its powerful Christian roots. The current government of Turkey, while leaving the structure open as a museum, has reinstated muezzin calls from the minarets, and a lively debate is in progress with both Muslim and Christian groups demanding the building be reopened as a place of worship. 

1065: Formal consecration in London of Westminster Abbey, site of the coronation of every English and British monarch beginning with William the Conqueror in 1066. The abbey’s close proximity to the royal palace of Westminster ensured its unique position in British culture, being spared from the iconoclastic excesses of the Cromwell period, and becoming the burial site for the most prominent Britons, as well as the Royals. 

1066: In Grenada, the capital of the recently conquered al-Andalus region of the Iberian Peninsula, an enraged Arab mob storms the royal citadel and murders the Grand Vizier of the realm, locally born Joseph ibn Naghrela, son of Granada’s rabbi and, until this point, the second most powerful man in the Moslem kingdom. With blood on their hands, the mob then surged down into the city and conducted a brutal pogrom against the rest of the Jewish population there, killing upwards of 4,000 of them.
       

​1170: Death of Thomas Becket (b.1118), Archbishop of Canterbury, murdered while singing vespers at the altar of Canterbury Cathedral, by four knights of King Henry II. Becket’s death became a cultural touchstone, as well as prominent marker in the long-running and ongoing debate over the limits of authority between Church and State.

1229: James I of Aragon enters the port city of Palma de Majorca, completing the reconquista of the Baleric Islands from the invading Moors of North Africa.

1446: Death of the Antipope Clement VIII (b.1369), one of the last of the 9 Avignon Popes who sat for nearly 130 years across 12 papacies in opposition of the Bishop of Rome. 

1512: Imperial Spain promulgates the Leyes de Burgos, a set of laws that codifies humane relations between the Spanish colonial overlords and the indigenous peoples of the conquered territories. Although it is was designed to ensure a decent level of stewardship and care for the people, it was largely honored in the breech, and was soon derided as simply the rationalization for the widespread abuses that characterized the Spanish Empire in the Americas.

1600: Queen Elizabeth I grants a Royal Charter to “Governor and Company of Merchants of London trading with the East Indies” better known today as the British East India Company. The charter awarded a monopoly on all trade with all countries east of the Cape of Good Hope and west of the Strait of Magellan. The estimable Wikipedia summarizes the bottom line: “Any traders, in breach of the charter without a license from the Company, were liable to forfeiture of their ships and cargo (half of which went to the Crown and the other half to the Company), as well as imprisonment at the ‘royal pleasure’.”

1687: The first organized group of approximately 180-200 French Huguenots, fleeing the continuing religious persecution of Cardinal Richelieu and the Edict of Fountainebleau, set sail for the Cape of Good Hope, where they are warmly welcomed by their coreligionist Dutch settlers in the Cape Colony. They eventually settle in the area of West Cape in an area quickly known as le Coin Francais (i.e., the French Quarter) and within a generation, Franschhoek, the Dutch version of the same name. Not surprisingly, the region is one of South Africa’s premier wine districts, with many places retaining their original francophone place names

 1721: Birth of Madame de Pompadour (d.1764), favorite of King Louis XV, and head of the liveliest and most intellectual of the Paris salons of the early 18th Century. The acerbic Voltaire practiced the majority of his philosophical work at her salon, writing after her death,  “It seems absurd that while an ancient pen-pusher, hardly able to walk, should still be alive, a beautiful woman, in the midst of a splendid career, should die at the age of forty-two.” Her salons are regularly cited as the intellectual birthplace of the French Revolution; no little irony, given her deep engagement and privileged position within the French Court.

1773: First use in public worship of the venerable and lovely hymn, Amazing Grace, sung in the parish of its author, the Reverend John Newton, in Olney, England.

1775: The Battle of Quebec. Fought by an American army under the command of General Richard Montgomery and supported by Colonel Benedict Arnold, who had just completed an astonishing forced march through the Maine wilderness with about 1,100 veterans of the Siege of Boston, 600 of whom completed the arduous trek. The two forces combined at the base of the city walls, and on this night initiate an attack on the fortified British Canadian redoubt of Quebec, with the intention of driving the British away from the Saint Lawrence River and claiming Canadian lands for the nascent United States. The night attack in a blinding snowstorm seemed like a good idea, and might have even worked if the plan wasn’t betrayed to the British garrison, who set up a devastating ambuscade that shattered any hope for a concentrated offense. 34 Americans were killed, including General Montgomery, and another 50 wounded and 431 captured, against 19 casualties for the British, who not only successfully defended their position, but also captured virtually the entire American force, keeping them out of the fight for the remainder of the hostilities.

1776: Incensed by his being run out of his royal colonial capitol in Williamsburg, John Murray, the 4^th Lord Dunmore and last Royal Governor of Virginia, orders the three ships of his refugee fleet to set fire to the waterfront buildings of Norfolk, Virginia. Using a heated shot, the mission was a complete success, made even more successful by rebel forces finishing the job to prevent the seaport’s continued use by royalist forces. By the end of the day, virtually the entire city had burned to ashes. One of the few buildings that remained standing after the fire was Saint Paul’s Church, whose three-foot thick masonry walls simply absorbed the shot and withstood the flames all around. One of Lord Dunmore’s cannonballs remains lodged in a corner wall of the church, where you can visit it today.

1781: The Pennsylvania contingent of the Continental Army, suffering in winter quarters near Morristown, New Jersey, mutinies against its officers and General “Mad” Anthony Wayne over not only the dire living conditions in camp, but also for the failure of Pennsylvania legislature  to provide current and adequate pay and some positive indication concerning the legal status of their enlistments, whose supposed three-year term was long expired. Other regiments sent in to suppress the insurrection agreed with their grievances and instead of suppressing, joined them instead. During negotiations between the mutineers and Pennsylvania authorities, British Commanding General Sir Henry Clinton sent over an emissary who offered immediate full back pay to the Americans if they would join forces with the British army. Clinton, however, mis-judged the nature of the Continentals: they arrested the British delegation and sent them packing with the message that there was no way they would defect to the British side. By the end of the month, enlistment contracts were re-negotiated and the regiment marched to Trenton, where they were either discharged with back pay or re-enlisted for a $20 bounty. 
        The Pennsylvania Line Mutiny was by far the most dangerous internal insurrection of the entire war, but its conclusion reinforced the resolve of Americans continuing fight for independence. Two of the formerly mutinous and re-formed Pennsylvania regiments participated in General Washington’s siege and victory at Yorktown, Virginia in October.

1800: Birth of American engineer Charles Goodyear (d.1860), who was awarded a patent for the process of vulcanizing raw rubber, carefully heating it to create a stable and commercially useful material.

1804: After a vicious uprising against their French masters, and supported in part by the infant United States, the former plantation colony of Haiti declares its independence from France, becoming the Western Hemisphere’s second independent state and the first one governed as a free black republic.

1822: Birth of Louis Pasteur (d.1895), whose studies in chemistry and microbiology created the basis for understanding the germ theory of disease, and the principles of vaccination and sterilization of milk and wine to prevent the spread of bacterial infections, a process now known as pasteurization. He is one of the Greats of the scientific revolution, whose work is directly responsible for the health and longevity of today’s world.

1832: U.S. Vice-President John C. Calhoun resigns his position, the first sitting VP to do so. Having served as VP for the presidencies of both John Quincy Adams and Andrew Jackson, Calhoun’s belief in the absolute supremacy of the States over the federal government led him into increasingly bitter conflict with President Jackson’s policies and certain members of his Cabinet.

1845: New York Morning News journalist John O’Sullivan publishes an editorial advocating for the admission of the Oregon Territory into the United States as the logical result of the country’s manifest destiny to rule the entire continent of North America. It is the first explicit use of the term, which eventually helped rationalize the virtues and scale of our western expansion all through the 19th Century.

1853: Less than five years after annexing by conquest a massive swath of Mexico’s North American territory, the United States completes the Gadsen Purchase, adding nearly 30,000 square miles of railroad-friendly geography to the southern tier of the Arizona and New Mexico territories. It is the final annexation of new continent-spanning United States, specifically negotiated with the government of Mexico to create a viable transcontinental railroad route that could service the economies of the southern states. Final cost was $10,000,000.00. Railroad interests aside, the purchase became yet another flashpoint in the increasingly bitter sectionalism that was dividing the country into explicit slave and free states. James Gadsen was the U.S. Ambassador to Mexico. 

1857: Britain’s Queen Victoria, easing her Canadian subjects towards a velvety independence from the Mother Country, selects the trading village of Ottawa as the capital of the British Dominion of Canada. 

1860: Launch of the Royal Navy’s first iron warship, HMS Warrior. The ship today is restored and on public display at the Royal Dockyards in Portsmouth (UK), a few hundred yards away from the spectacular HMS Victory.

1862:  President Abraham Lincoln signs an enabling act that admits West Virginia into the Union as a Free State. 

1863: Three months after announcing his intent to do so, President Abraham Lincoln signs the Emancipation Proclamation, legally freeing slaves from their servitude in the states still in rebellion on this date.

1879: Inventor Thomas Alva Edison publicly demonstrates the incandescent light bulb in his Menlo Park laboratory. 

1884: Birth of Hideki Tojo (d.1948), Prime Minister of Japan during World War II. He assumed the Prime Ministership from the top ranks of the army as a direct result of his negotiatiations with the Vichy French government that allowed Japanese soldiers to be stationed in French Indo-China, all the while expanding Japan’s brutal war against China, and exacerbating tensions with the United States. It was Tojo who gave the execution order for the attack on Pearl Harbor. After Japan’s surrender, Tojo was arrested, tried and convicted for war crimes by the International Military Tribunal for the Far East, and on December 23rd, 1948, was hanged by the neck until dead.

1885: Twenty-five industrialized nations adopt the concept of “standard time,” which we now know as Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) or “Zulu” time, from which all other clock times are derived, basing their local times on the concurrent establishment of 24 time zones world-wide.

1890: Soldiers of the US 7th Cavalry, enter a Lakota Indian camp in Wounded Knee, South Dakota to disarm the tribe. A predictable scuffle ensued, a shot was fired, and within minutes, a general melee broke out, with the Army indiscriminately killing over 250 Lakota men, women and children, while suffering 25 soldiers killed in the return fire. 

1890: The city of Pasadena, California, hosts its first Tournament of Roses Parade.

1907: The first public New Year’s Eve celebration is held in the former Longacre Square in the middle of Manhattan.

1929: Chairman of the Supreme Soviet, Joseph Stalin, announces “The liquidation of the Kulaks as a class” as a means to bring socialist collective production into the agricultural sector. The Kulaks were independent farmers who had little time or inclination to join in with the communist movement that had been violently sweeping through the major industrial cities of Russia since 1917. With civil war still festering between the communist Reds and the anti-communist Whites, Stalin took the opportunity to completely consolidate the communist model across the entirety of Russian society, particularly the agricultural heartland. The brutality of this order cannot be overstated: by the end of January, a formal resolution “On measures for the elimination of kulak households in districts of comprehensive collectivization” was issued, and offered local commissars three alternatives for dealing with their restive farmers:
        1) Be shot or imprisoned based on the judgment of the commissar;
        2) Be sent to prison camps in Siberia after confiscation of all property;
        3) Be evicted from their property and used as forced labor at collective farms in their local districts.
        No surprise, resistance to the order was widespread, particularly in Ukraine, where the events through 1933 are memorialized as the Holodomor, the starvation-induced genocide of over 5,000,000 Ukrainians in the heart of “Russia’s Breadbasket.” The sheer numbers of intentional deaths of Russian citizens at the hand of its own government are staggering beyond belief. Conventional estimates have settled on 14,500,000 deaths nationwide by famine and “judicial” deaths under the order. Stalin himself was un-moved, leaving us with such banal remarks as, “If you want to make an omelet, you have to break a few eggs” and “A single death is a tragedy. A thousand deaths is a statistic.” Stalin’s murderous legacy was conveniently overshadowed in the eyes of the Left by the Nazi holocaust of the Jews, conducted in the heart of Europe and exposed by the conquering Allied armies. Russia’s self-genocide, on the other hand, remained shrouded by the remoteness and secrecy of the Soviet state. 

1939: Finnish soldiers hold off advancing Soviet troops in the Battle of Kelja, part of the Winter War with the Soviet Union. Despite huge pressure and overwhelming odds from the Red Army and air force, Finland was never conquered by the Soviets, eventually ceding only about 10% of its territory at the conclusion of hostilities in 1940. Finland remained, like Spain, studiously neutral in the continuing war between Germany and the Allied forces, which tainted them as pro-Nazi for years after the fact. They also walked a fine line during the Cold War, leaning West but warily looking East until the final collapse of the Soviet Union, after which they enthusiastically participated NATO’s Partnership For Peace exercises, with an eventual goal of actually joining the alliance by the mid-‘20s. Russian President Vladimir Putin’s February, 2022 invasion of Ukraine sealed the deal for both Finland and Sweden, with both nations formally requesting their accession to NATO in direct defiance of Putin’s explicit desire to reduce NATO’s influence on his western frontiers.

1947: Death of King Victor Emmanuel III of Italy (b.1869), in exile in Alexandria, Egypt, after abdicating the throne of Savoy in favor of his son Umberto III. After a 46-year reign, his abdication was an attempt to build post-war unity around the Italian monarchy in the face of a burgeoning referendum movement to abolish it. His efforts failed on both counts, and his move to Alexandria was in accordance with one of the stipulations of the referendum, to wit, that every male from the House of Savoy had to leave the territory of Italy and never return. 

1951: After a four year expenditure of just under $13,000,000.000.00 on rebuilding the business and infrastructure needs of the shattered societies of Western Europe, the European Recovery Program, a.k.a. the Marshall Plan, is terminated.
 
1968: Two and a half days after their dramatic telecast from lunar orbit, the crew of Apollo 8 makes a perfect re-entry into the earth’s atmosphere, splashing down within two miles of the Pacific Ocean recovery ship, USS Yorktown (CV-10). You’ll recall that one of the most crucial engineering test from this mission was the ability of the Apollo capsule to accurately navigate to the narrow re-entry window into the atmosphere: too shallow an angle and the capsule would skip off and drift into eternity; too steep and it would be crushed by the deceleration and burned to a cinder. In the end, it was a 6G deceleration, as planned, with the system’s automated systems working flawlessly.

1973: Congress passes the Endangered Species Act.

1983: Formal break-up date for the AT&T – Bell Labs regulated monopoly, an act that freed AT&T to exploit all of its lab work into the burgeoning field of digital telecommunications and personal computing.

About the Author

Wayne Creed

Administrator

View All Posts