1093: Dedication of Winchester Cathedral, the nominal home of King
Arthur’s round table.
1388: An army of Swiss soldiers, outnumbered 16:1, defeats a Hapsburg army of over 6,500 in the Battle of Nafels, an astounding rout by about 400 armed citizens of the cantonment of Glarus and a handful of knights from other parts of Swiss* Confederation. The battle was the final act in the long-running conflict between the ever-expansionist Hapsburg Empire and the ever-stubborn and independent minded farmers and shop keepers of the central Alps. After this battle, the Swiss kept their independence and the Emperor decided to leave them alone.
1413: After five years of increasingly bitter fighting with the Welsh, the 27 year old Henry of Monmouth is crowned King Henry V of England on the death of his father, Henry IV. The young king almost immediately turned his attentions to regaining historic landholdings in France against the Valois dynasty.
1585: Departure from England of a five-ship fleet, organized and funded by Sir Walter Raleigh, to create a permanent English colony in the New World. The group eventually landed and set up camp on the shores of Roanoke Island on North Carolina’s Albemarle Sound. The little settlement maintained a tenuous toehold on the land; between conflict with the local Indian tribes, and lack of a viable means to sustain their need for food, the success of the enterprise was very much on the edge of maintaining viability. Raleigh commissioned his friend John White two years later to go back to Roanoke with a small fleet for re-supply and reinforcement, including 115 more colonists. When they arrived they found no one except a bleached out skeleton. White stayed long enough to help the new group get re-established, and promised to return with more supplies the following Spring. Multiple delays- war, piracy, hurricanes…the usual- intervened, and when he finally stepped ashore in August of 1590, not a trace of the new colony could be found. The only clue was the word “CROATOAN” carved into a tree, and the letters “CRO-” in another. The Lost Colony remains lost to this day, but it fuels a vibrant tourism economy down in the Outer Banks. After the English colonies actually did take hold up and down the coast, there were for years reports of blue-eyed Indians who inhabited the tidewater regions of North Carolina and Virginia colonies, providing some degree of explanation about the fate of the little colony.
1606: King James I grants a royal charter to the Virginia Company of London, a joint stock company that will finance British colonization of North America north of Cape Fear (Roanoke Colony) and south of Plymouth (Massachusetts Bay Colony).
1730: Dedication of Shearith Israel– the first synagogue in NYC.
1778: Commanding his brig USS Ranger, Captain John Paul Jones departs Brest, France on a raiding mission against British interests in the Irish Sea. It is the first offensive naval action of the American Revolution, and the attacks take the British completely by surprise. During a raid into his native Scotland, Jones sails into Kirkcudbright Bay with a view to abduct the Earl of Selkirk and hold him hostage for the release of American sailors held by the British. The earl is not at home but the crew takes the liberty to steal his silver, including his wife’s teapot, still warm and full of her morning tea. The raids continue for several more weeks, and after capturing HMS Duke, Jones returns to Brest where he will seek a larger ship and make plans for more raids as the year progresses.
1814: Napoleon Bonaparte abdicates as Emperor and departs for exile on the Mediterranean island of Elba.
1820: Venus de Milo (b.130 BC) is discovered on the Greek island of Melos, and is promptly transported to Paris for public display at the Louvre.
1849: Walter Hunt of New York patents the safety pin. He later sells the rights for $100.
1865: Confederate General Robert E. Lee meets with Union General Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Courthouse, Virginia ending, for all practical purposes, The War Between the States (or the Civil War, or the War of Northern Aggression).
1865: After his Appomattox meeting with Union Lieutenant General Ulysses S. Grant, General Robert E. Lee, CSA, issues General Order #9, his last: “After four years of arduous service, marked by unsurpassed courage and fortitude, the Army of Northern Virginia has been compelled to yield to overwhelming numbers and resources. I need not tell the brave survivors of so many hard-fought battles, who have remained steadfast to the last, that I have consented to the result from no distrust of them…I determined to avoid the useless sacrifice of those whose past services have endeared them to their countrymen…I bid you an affectionate farewell.” — Robert E. Lee.
1865: Shouting “Sic Semper Tyrannis– the South is avenged!” actor John Wilkes Booth shoots President Lincoln at Ford’s Theater. He breaks his left leg leaping from the Presidential box onto the stage but succeeds in escaping Washington D.C. After getting his leg set by Dr. Mudd (‘your name is Mud’) he continues his flight but is cornered and killed in a burning barn near Bowling Green, Virginia. Lincoln dies the morning of the 15th at 7:22. Secretary of War Edwin Stanton is at the President’s bedside and declaims, “Now he belongs to the ages.”
1867: The United States Senate ratifies a treaty with Russia that purchases Alaska for $7,200,000, or approximately $0.02 per acre.
1893: Birth of Dean Acheson (d.1971), Secretary of State for President Harry Truman, and the man most deeply engaged in bringing the Truman Doctrine, the Marshall Plan, and NATO into practical operation.
1900: The U.S. Navy accepts delivery of its first submarine, USS Holland (SS-1).
1904: Great Britain and France sign a mostly secret Entente Cordial which, although structured around their spheres of influence in their global empires, actually signaled the end of over a century of near-continuous hostility and occasional war between the two countries. Of more pertinence, the treaty solidified the obligations of one another against potential hostilities with the burgeoning Central Powers: Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Italy, also treaty-bound by their own Triple Alliance. By 1907 Russia grew increasingly concerned over the conduct of the Central Powers, particularly Austria-Hungary in the Balkans, leading them to join with France and Britain to create the Triple Entente. This process, my dear history students, is exactly what George Washington warned against when he spoke of the dangers of “entangling alliances,” as we shall see in July and August.
1912: RMS Titanic sets out from Southampton, England on her first transatlantic voyage.
1912: Cruising through the North Atlantic at normal speed, RMS Titanic strikes an iceberg and sinks. Over 1500 passengers drown in what remains the single biggest non-combat transportation disaster in history.
1913: Ratification of the 17th Amendment, specifying the direct election of Senators, a key political goal of the Progressive movement. Prior to this, Senators were appointed by state legislatures and represented the interests of the several States themselves, serving as a powerful check on Federal overreach.
1916: Two months into an increasing ineffective campaign to dislodge the French from their border fortresses at Verdun, German Field Marshall Falkenhayen initiates a third major surge against the French lines, with near-constant artillery bombardment and repeated infantry assaults back and forth across the battle front.
1917: The Canadian Corps of the British Expeditionary Force opens its attack on Vimy Ridge, a German controlled piece of high ground that dominated the northern area of the British Arras Offensive. The four day battle achieved its objectives against ferocious resistance, and its all-Canadian nature became a nationalistic touchstone for our northern cousins.
1939: Contralto Marian Anderson sings an Easter concert on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial before a crowd of over 75,000, plus a nation-wide radio audience. The critically acclaimed concert came about after the D.A.R. refused to allow her to perform in their Constitution Hall. Anderson went on to a sterling career as a classical singer both here and in Europe, and was one of the leading lights of the post-war civil rights movement.
1940: Norwegian politician Vidkun Quisling seizes control of the Norwegian government as the Nazi invasion tightens its grip on the country. He forms a collaborationist, pro-Nazi puppet government, serving as Minister-President under the control of the Germans. After the war, he is convicted and executed for high treason. His name has become synonymous with “traitor” ever since.
1945: The United States Third Army liberates the Nazi concentration camp at Buchenwald.
1947: Jackie Robinson opens his major league career with the Brooklyn Dodgers.
1951: President Truman fires General of the Army Douglas MacArthur from command of the forces fighting in Korea. MacArthur had made repeated calls to attack Red China if the communists would not lay down their arms. The President directly ordered MacArthur to cease making political statements. When the general ignored him and kept making public comments Truman relieved him of command saying, “The cause of world peace is more important than any individual.” MacArthur comes home to a hero’s welcome and an address to a joint session of Congress, where he gave his “Old Soldiers never die, they simply fade away…” speech. LTG Mathew Ridgeway replaced him in Korea.
1959: NASA announces the first corps of United States astronauts, seven test pilots from the Navy and Air Force, who will be at the pointy end, literally, of America’s first steps into outer space-the Mercury 7 Astronauts.
1961: The genocide trial of Adolf Eichman begins in Tel Aviv. Eichman escaped from Allied control in 1945 and re-surfaced in Argentina in 1950. Israeli agents kidnapped him in 1960 and brought him back to Israel for the trial. He was found guilty in December, 1961 and hanged the following June.
1963: On a test dive after a completed major overhaul, USS Thresher (SSN-593) sinks 220 miles off of Cape Cod with the loss of all hands (112 crew and 12 civilian).
1965: Opening game of baseball in the Houston Astrodome, introducing the world to artificial turf, Astroturf.
1970: At 13:13 Eastern Time, Apollo 13 launches for the moon.
1970: The Beatles last song, “Let it Be” rises to a #1 rating, where it remains for two weeks.
1976: Release of the Apple I personal computer. It went on sale in July for $666.66 (Steve Jobs reportedly liked repeating digits (not that an Apple is Satanic or anything)). Only 200 were built, of which reportedly only 40-50 remain. As a point of reference, in November of 2010, serial number 82 sold at Christie’s auction house for $178,000.
1986: The U.S. launches air strikes on Libya, dubbed Operation Eldorado Canyon.
1988: USS Samuel B. Roberts (FFG-58) strikes an Iranian mine floating free in international waters. The blast tears a fifteen foot hole in the hull, breaks the keel, and floods an engine room. The crew fought fire and flooding for over five hours, decisively saving the ship from otherwise certain destruction. Roberts was eventually lifted aboard a Dutch heavy-lift barge, the Mighty Servant 2, and returned to the United States for repairs. After forensics proved a direct link from the mine to the Islamic Republic of Iran, the Navy launched Operation Praying Mantis, a one-day retaliation that destroyed two Iranian oil platforms they had converted to command and control stations, sank an Iranian frigate, heavily damaged another, and sank three Iranian high speed patrol boats. None of Roberts’ crew was killed, although ten were injured as a result of the blast.
1990: Disguised as “oil pipeline equipment,” several shipments of Gerald Bull designed “Project Babylon” supergun parts are intercepted in Great Britain enroute to Iraq. Bull himself was found murdered in Brussels a week prior to the discovery of the gun components.
1991: Georgia, the home of Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin, declares its independence from the collapsing Soviet Union.
1991: With ground combat essentially over, a cease-fire is declared in the Persian Gulf War.
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