History Notes this week of June 1

70AD: Roman legions, under the command of Titus, breach the middle wall of Jerusalem and commence to destroy the city.

1661: The young student Isaac Newton begins his studies at Trinity College.

1664: Nieu Amsterdam is renamed New York.

1738: Birth of George, Son of Frederick Prince of Wales and Princess Augusta of Saxe-Gotha, in London (d.1820). In 1751 he will assume the British throne as George III.

1755: Birth of Nathan Hale (d.1776), who famously gave his one life for his country, hanged by a British noose for espionage.

1763: A month into the vicious war between colonial British forces and a coalition of Indian tribes led by Chief Pontiac of the Chippewa Nation, the warring tribes begin to sequentially capture five small forts in the upper Ohio valley and Michigan. The fifth to fall is Fort Michilimackinac, captured this day by Indians who entertained the British garrison with an exhibition game of lacrosse outside the walls of the fort. One player then lobbed the ball through the gates, and the rest of the “team” rushed through to get it, collecting weapons stashed just inside the gate by native women. 15 of the 35 defenders were killed outright and five more died by torture. The Indians kept control of the fort for over a year until the British negotiated them out with promises of regular supplies of goods.

1769: The Transit of Venus, predicted seven years earlier, sends multiple groups of scientists all around the world to make observations of Venus’ movement across the face of the sun from as many locations as possible. Captain James Cook was earlier sent to Tahiti in the South Pacific on the farthest-flung expedition, others of which include Hudson Bay, Baja California, Newfoundland, Madagascar and the Cape of Good Hope. The observations were used by the scientific community to confirm Earth’s diameter and distance from the sun–all by longhand.

1776: Virginia delegate Richard Henry “Lighthorse” Lee rises to submit to the Continental Congress meeting in Philadelphia, a resolution calling for independence from Great Britain. The stirring text of his message still carries force today:
“That these United Colonies are, and of right out to be, free and independent States, that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain is, and ought to be, totally dissolved; that measures should be immediately taken for procuring the assistance of foreign powers, and a Confederation be formed to bind the colonies more closely together.”
A lively debate ensued and the Congress agreed to two propositions: 1) A committee would be appointed to draft a formal declaration of independence, and; 2) a vote on Lee’s resolution would be delayed until July 1^st.

1779: Colonel Benedict Arnold, hero of the attack on Quebec and multiple engagements throughout New England, is court-martialed for “malfeasance” including misuse of government wagons, illegal buying and selling of government goods. The trial is interrupted until December but the seeds of resentment are planted for his ultimate treason the following year.

1794: The first six captains of the United States Navy are appointed to superintend construction of the Six Ship Navy earlier authorized by Congress. Those of us around the USNavy will recognize the names of: John Barry, Samuel Nicholson, Silas Talbot, Joshua Barney, Richard Dale and Thomas Truxtun. Multiple USN ships bear or have borne their names. 

1805: President and Mrs. John Adams move in as the first residents of the new presidential mansion, nicknamed the White House.

1808: Birth of Jefferson Davis (d.1889). The West Point graduate served with distinction in the Mexican-American War, was later elected Congressman and Senator from Mississippi, and served as President Franklin Pierce’s Secretary of War 1853-57. Best remembered as the first and only President of the Confederate States of America. Captured by Union troops after Lee’s surrender at Appomattox, he was held two years as prisoner in Fort Monroe, released on $100,000 bail raised by prominent citizens of both the North and the South. His indictment for treason was dropped in 1868. He died in New Orleans and was buried in Richmond after a funeral cortege that was attended by a continuous stream of mourners spanning the entire distance between New Orleans and his final resting place. 

1813: In a short, sharp naval battle just offshore from Boston harbor, HMS Shannon decisively defeats  and captures USS Chesapeake. Chesapeake’s mortally wounded Captain James Lawrence is evacuated from the battle in a small boat. As he is lowered from the ship into the boat he utters what quickly becomes the Navy’s motto: “Don’t give up the ship!” 

1864: First day of the two week long Battle of Cold Harbor, Virginia. In the summer of 1864, the Union Army of the Potomac was fighting its way south toward Richmond, Virginia.  In a series of battles collectively known as the Overland Campaign, the Federals had suffered more than 50,000 casualties but had also forced Robert E. Lee’s Confederate veterans to abandon much of northern Virginia.  The small crossroads of Cold Harbor, just 10 miles north of Richmond, became the focal point of the action in late May.  From May 31–June 3, Ulysses S. Grant ordered repeated attacks against entrenched Confederate positions, culminating in an enormously bloody repulse on June 3.  Both armies held their ground and kept up a withering fire between the lines until June 12, at which point Grant withdrew but continued to move east and south.  The Army of the Potomac crossed the James River and, by June 16, was in position to directly threaten the manufacturing and rail center of Petersburg—a critical gateway to Richmond.

1864: Union General U.S. Grant orders a third day of direct assaults against the fortified Confederate breastworks at the Battle of Cold Harbor near Mechanicsville, Virginia. The results are similar to the futile Union assault on Fredericksburg two years earlier, with multiple waves of uphill Union assaults repulsed by artillery, musketry, and in the end, vicious hand-to-hand fighting. Toward the end of this day Grant orders yet another push, but his Corps commanders Hancock and Meade resist, having witnessed firsthand the slaughter and complete lack of progress. Grant relents and allows for a strategic pause, and as the Union soldiers entrench for the night, many of them dig into the skeletal remains of their comrades who fell at the Battle of Gaines Mill, fought over the same ground during the Seven Days campaign in 1862. The next two weeks saw no further massed attacks, but settled into sniper fire and random artillery exchanges. The numbers are telling: Union casualties over 12,700 (1,844 dead) versus around 4,500 (83 dead) for the Confederates. Coming so late in the war, the battle provides a singular shock* to the country, including to Grant himself:  “I have always regretted that the last assault at Cold Harbor was ever made… At Cold Harbor no advantage whatever was gained to compensate for the heavy loss we sustained.”

1878: Birth of Barney Oldfield (d.1946), pioneer automobile racer and protégé of Henry Ford, he was the first to drive faster than 60 miles an hour.

1886: President Grover Cleveland marries Miss Frances Folsom in the White House. The wedding is a social sensation and remains the sole presidential WH marriage to date. 

1914: Secretary of the Navy Josephus Daniels issues General Order #99, prohibiting alcohol aboard naval vessels, navy yards and stations. He substitutes traditional spirits with mass produced coffee, giving rise to the angry (at the time) expression to “have a cup of Joe.”

1918: First day of the first U.S. offensive in the Great War. Led by the Second “Indian Head” Division of the US Army, the Battle of Belleau Wood rages for three weeks and generates 10,000 U.S. casualties. German General Ludendorf resists with a furious onslaught of machine guns, artillery and poison gas but the American force presses forward to eventually drive the German army from its key salient in the Western Front.

1940: First flight of the German Focke-Wulf FW-190 Würger (D-OPZE) fighter. Although the Messerschmitt Bf-109 gets most of the press, the FW-190 was produced in numbers that nearly overtook the Bf-109: 29,001 to 30,480. 

1940: Completion of the Allied evacuation from the beaches of Dunkirk.

1940: The Luftwaffe makes its first bombing raids on Paris, killing over 500 civilians. The attacks were carefully calibrated to create a sense of impending panic without causing a complete collapse of order in the city. 

1941: Death of Lou Gehrig (b.1903), the New York Yankees’ great first baseman and slugger, of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), the wasting neurological disease that now bears his name. Nicknamed “The Iron Horse” for his consistency and perseverance on the field, he held the record for most consecutive games played (2,130) until surpassed by Cal Ripkin in 1995. Over seventeen seasons he maintained a career batting average of .340, and he still holds the record for the most career grand slams (23). On the day of his emotional retirement ceremony in 1939, the Yankees retired his number 4, the first such retirement in baseball.

1942: First day of the three-day Battle of Midway. Three U.S. Navy carriers USS Yorktown (CV-5), USS Enterprise (CV-6) and USS Hornet (CV-8), the sole operational carriers in the Pacific Fleet, follow up their nominal victory at the Battle of Coral Sea with a crushing victory against the combined Japanese battle fleet. The individual stories of the intelligence buildup to the U.S. rendezvous and attacks, the dramatic three day post-Coral Sea repairs to the Yorktown, the loss of Torpedo Squadron 8 and the luck that put LCDR Wade McClusky’s strike group right on top of the re-arming Japanese carriers are the stuff of legend and are fantastic in their own right. But the importance of the larger battle is strategically decisive. Despite the eventual loss of Yorktown, four front line Japanese carriers, Kaga, Akagi, Soryu and Hiryu, are sunk, and as a result, Admiral Yamamoto cancels his plans for the invasion of Midway Island itself. Coming six months after Pearl Harbor, the battle halts the Japanese juggernaut in its tracks and turns initiative in the Pacific War to the United States.

1944: The USS Guadalcanal (CVE-60) anti-submarine Hunter-Killer Group under the command of Captain Dan Gallery captures the German submarine U-505 in mid-Atlantic. It is the first capture of an enemy warship since the War of 1812 and provides a treasure trove of intelligence data that helps undercut the German wolfpack attacks on Atlantic convoys. 

1944: D-DAY, Operation OVERLORD: The Allied invasion of German-occupied Normandy- a feat of arms, organization and raw courage that will never be duplicated.

1944: Major League Baseball cancels all games this day in honor of the Normandy invasion.

1947: At Harvard University, Secretary of State George Marshall lays out his plan for the European Economic Recovery Program, eventually known world-wide as the Marshall Plan. Over the course of its existence, 1947-52, the United States invested over $13 billion (1948 GDP of $258b) in re-organizing the economies and industrial base of western Europe along the American model. The plan was offered as well to Russia, who rejected it, and by extension forced its rejection by the eastern European countries under Soviet occupation.

1949: Publication of British author George Orwell’s novel Nineteen-Eighty-four.

1953: In Westminster Abbey, the 27 year old Elizabeth II is crowned Defender of the Faith and Queen of the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Her Other Realms and Territories & Head of the Commonwealth.

1965: Launch of Gemini 4, NASA’s first multi-day (4) mission, and the first extravehicular activity by an American astronaut. 

1966: NASA’s lunar probe Surveyor 1 makes a controlled descent to a soft landing on the Moon. The spacecraft broadcast live television from the surface, albeit at an exceptionally slow data rate. During its active life it transmitted over 10,000 images from Moon’s surface, finally going dormant at the beginning of its second lunar sunset on 14^th July, 1966.

1967: After months of Arab military buildup on its borders, the state of Israel launches a preemptive strike on Egyptian forces in Sinai. The attack expands into a decisive six-day rout of Arab armies on three fronts. Israel essentially tripled the land area under its control, taking all of the Sinai Peninsula and Gaza Strip from Egypt, the West Bank and Jerusalem from Jordan, and the Golan Heights from Syria. The Egyptian Air Forces loses over 300 of their 450 Soviet-built planes and the Syrians lose 2/3 of their air force as well. 

1968: Senator Robert Kennedy, stepping off the stage from his victory speech in the California Democratic primary, is shot and killed by Palestinian radical Sirhan Sirhan. After receiving the death sentence, Sirhan’s penalty is changed to life imprisonment. Despite several clemency hearings Sirhan remains imprisoned to this day.

1975: Eight years after its closure, Egyptian President Anwar Sadat re-opens the Suez Canal. 

1985: In Brazil, the grave of a certain Wolfgang Gerhard is exhumed. The body is then examined and re-identified as none other than Joseph Mengele, the doctor known as “The Angel of Death” at Auschwitz. His experiments conducted on prisoners included subjecting individuals to multiple recurrences of progressively deeper hypothermia to see how low a body’s core temperature could get and still remain alive. Similar experiments were conducted in hypobaric chambers to study the effects of hypoxia to the point of death. He also performed grizzly surgeries on twins, switching body parts from one to the other, or killing both and performing dual dissections to compare parts. He escaped Allied custody in 1949 and lived out his life in South America, beginning in Argentina, and fled to Paraguay after Mossad captured Adolf Eichm.

1986: After six weeks of student protests that grew increasingly assertive against the government, China’s communist leadership orders the Peoples Liberation Army to enter Tienanmen Square to decisively break up the demonstrations. Two days of violence result in the deaths of thousands and trigger virtually universal condemnation by governments around the world. The iconic image from the final days of the protests was taken on the 5^th as the PLA was completing its encirclement and occupation of the square. The unidentified Tank Man intentionally stopped in front of the column of tanks, climbed up onto the lead machine and spoke to the driver. He then climbed down and defiantly remained in place until hustled away by police. He was never seen or heard from again. His identity remains unknown.