History Notes this week of Feb 15

399 BC — Socrates Sentenced to Death Athens’ self-described “gadfly” is convicted of corrupting youth and impiety, then executed by hemlock before his students.

1473 — Birth of Nicolaus Copernicus The Polish astronomer who would upend humanity’s understanding of the cosmos by placing the Sun, not the Earth, at the center.

1542 — Execution of Catherine Howard Henry VIII’s fifth wife is beheaded at age 19 after only 17 months of marriage, charged with adultery.

1564 — Birth of Galileo Galilei Born in Pisa, he would become the father of observational astronomy and a champion of the Copernican model.

1621 — Myles Standish Elected Commander of Plymouth Colony The newly arrived Pilgrims choose their military leader, a post he held by repeated re-election for the rest of his life.

1778 — First Foreign Salute of the American Flag Captain John Paul Jones aboard USS Ranger receives the first official salute of the Stars and Stripes from a foreign power at Quiberon, France.

1779 — Death of Captain James Cook The great explorer is killed by Hawaiian islanders in a dispute over a stolen longboat during his third Pacific voyage.

1797 — Battle of Cape Saint Vincent Admiral Jervis’s 15 British ships of the line defeat 27 Spanish vessels; a young Horatio Nelson wins fame by boarding and capturing two enemy ships in succession.

1801 — Thomas Jefferson Elected President After 35 House ballots and a months-long deadlock with running mate Aaron Burr, Jefferson finally wins the presidency just 15 days before inauguration.

1818 — Birth of Frederick Douglass The escaped slave who became one of America’s greatest abolitionists and most electrifying public speakers.

1846 — U.S. Navy Replaces “Larboard” with “Port” A General Order ends the confusion between the too-similar-sounding “starboard” and “larboard” — a welcome change in any gale.

1847 — First Rescuers Reach the Donner Party After four months stranded in the Sierra Nevada, only 45 of the original 89 pioneers survived, some resorting to cannibalism.

1864 — CSS Hunley Sinks USS Housatonic The Confederate hand-crank submarine becomes the first sub to sink an enemy warship in combat, then mysteriously sinks herself with all eight crew aboard.

1865 — Sherman’s Army Burns Columbia, South Carolina Over two-thirds of the city is consumed by fire as Sherman’s march continues; he later said it “hastened the end of the War.”

1867 — First Ship Transits the Suez Canal The waterway connecting the Mediterranean and Red Sea opens to its first vessel, revolutionizing global maritime trade.

1894 — Birth of Jack Benny The beloved comedian whose deadpan timing and perpetual cheapskate persona made him one of America’s favorite entertainers for decades.

1898 — USS Maine Explodes in Havana Harbor The mysterious sinking whips up war fever, leading to the Spanish-American War, Teddy Roosevelt’s Rough Riders, and new American territories.

1898 — Birth of Enzo Ferrari The Alfa Romeo driver turned founder of the legendary Italian racing and sports car marque — il Commendatore himself.

1915 — Gallipoli Campaign Opens British warships begin shelling Ottoman positions on the Gallipoli peninsula, launching a futile eight-month campaign to seize Constantinople.

1923 — Birth of Chuck Yeager The laconic West Virginia test pilot who would break the sound barrier in 1947 aboard the Bell X-1 Glamorous Glennis.

1924 — King Tut’s Tomb Opened Three months after Howard Carter’s discovery, the burial chamber is formally entered — “Yes, I see wonderful things.”

1930 — Clyde Tombaugh Discovers Pluto Using a blink comparator at Lowell Observatory, the young astronomer spots the tiny world at the edge of the solar system (later reclassified as a dwarf planet in 2006).

1933 — FDR Survives Assassination Attempt In Miami, an unemployed bricklayer fires six shots at the President-elect, missing him but mortally wounding the Mayor of Chicago.

1936 — Death of Brigadier General Billy Mitchell The controversial air power prophet, court-martialed for insubordination in 1925, is vindicated posthumously as aviation transforms warfare.

1939 — Launch of the Battleship Bismarck Germany’s fearsome new capital ship slides down the ways, destined for a dramatic but short career on the high seas.

1942 — The Channel Dash Scharnhorst, Gneisenau, and Prinz Eugen sprint through the English Channel under Luftwaffe cover, catching British defenses completely off guard — a tactical triumph but a strategic dead end.

1942 — Fall of Singapore Over 60,000 British and Imperial troops surrender after the Japanese attack from the undefended landward side — one of Britain’s worst military disasters.

1942 — Executive Order 9066 Signed FDR authorizes the forced internment of nearly 120,000 Japanese Americans, one of the darkest civil liberties episodes in U.S. history.

1943 — Battle of Kasserine Pass American troops suffer their first major defeat against German forces in Tunisia; Eisenhower responds by putting Patton in command.

1945 — Firebombing of Dresden A 13-hour Allied air raid ignites a firestorm that devastates 1,600 acres of the city and kills an enormous number of civilians, many of them refugees.

1945 — FDR Meets Ibn Saud Aboard USS Quincy in the Suez Canal, the President and the Saudi King formally establish U.S.–Saudi diplomatic relations — with oil concessions very much on the agenda.

1953 — Ted Williams Shot Down over Korea The Red Sox legend and Marine combat pilot survives being shot down, then rejoins Boston late in the season.

1956 — Khrushchev’s “Secret Speech” In a four-hour closed-door address, the Soviet leader denounces Stalin’s cult of personality and wholesale abuses — a watershed moment that nonetheless fails to reform the system.

1961 — The Coso Artifact Discovered A 1920s spark plug found inside a supposedly 500,000-year-old rock near Olancha, California, sparks delightful theories involving Atlantis, aliens, and time travelers.

1967 — Death of J. Robert Oppenheimer The father of the atomic bomb, who quoted the Bhagavad Gita after Trinity — “I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds” — dies after years of political exile.

1971 — Britain Goes Decimal The UK officially drops the ancient pounds-shillings-pence system in favor of decimal currency.

1972 — Nixon Departs for China The President embarks on his historic visit to Communist China, reshaping Cold War geopolitics.

1976 — Ford Rescinds Executive Order 9066 Presidential Proclamation 4417 formally ends the legal framework for Japanese American internment and opens the door for reparations.

1989 — Khomeini Issues Fatwa Against Salman Rushdie Iran’s supreme leader calls on Muslims worldwide to kill the British author over The Satanic Verses.

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Wayne Creed

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