1284: A piper dressed in multi-color (“pied”) clothing lures one hundred thirty children away from Hamelin, Germany. They are never heard from again. The roots of this story are deep and persistent, and although the details vary, there are many constants: the town itself (Hamelin), the number (130), the date (Feast of St. John and Paul (June 26th)), the sudden disappearance, and a nefarious, colorful “leader” who takes them all away. Scholars have proposed any number of theories: options include a bout of Black Death, an actual mass kidnapping by a real rat-trapper (consistent with both the basic rat story and the Black Death), mass kidnapping by a murderous pedophile, participation in the infamous Children’s Crusade (which actually occurred in 1212), or a recruitment by the medieval equivalent of a land speculator (a “lokator”). The latter theory is supported by known emigration patterns into Eastern Europe during this period, after the fall of the Mongol invasions into the region. The “children” in this case could be young adults recruited to start a new life in now-open land. Consistent with this is a pattern of Hamelin-derived family surnames living in a corridor running between Hamelin, northern Berlin and into Polish Pomerania.
1314: First day of the two-day Battle of Bannockburn, a major victory of Robert the Bruce over England’s Edward II. Bruce distinguished himself at the outset of the battle when he was surveying the potential battleground alone on horseback, un-armoured and armed only with an axe. Paraphrasing from the Wikipedia: “He was identified by Henry de Bohun, nephew of the Earl of Hereford, who immediately lowered his lance and charged the Scottish king. As the great war-horse thundered toward him, Bruce stood his ground, watched with mounting anxiety by his own army. With the Englishman only feet away, Bruce turned aside, stood in his stirrups and hit the knight so hard with his axe that he split his helmet and head in two. This small incident became in a sense a symbol of the war itself: the one side heavily armed but lacking agility; the other highly mobile and open to opportunity. Rebuked by his commanders for the enormous risk he had taken, the king only expressed regret that he had broken the shaft of his axe.”
1788: The Commonwealth of Virginia becomes the 10th state to ratify the U.S. Constitution.
1812: Having subdued virtually the entire continent of Europe under his rule, Napoleon invades Russia.
1848: Beginning of the “June Days Uprising” in Paris, the culminating event in what is more widely recognized as the European Revolutions of 1848. The Paris revolts were characterized by left wing students rioting in the streets, setting up barricades to fight the police and army troops sent in to break up the violence. The proximate trigger for the event was the government shutting down the “National Workshops,” make-work programs* set up earlier in the year in response to radical agitating for a “right to work.” The uprising was eventually suppressed by a re-invigorated conservative government under Louis Napoleon, who deposed the constitutional monarch Louis XVIII and established the Second Empire under himself as Napoleon III. This revolt was the background for Victor Hugo’s novel Les Miserables.
1870: Christmas is officially declared a U.S. Federal Holiday.
1876: Under the leadership of George Armstrong Custer, the United States Army Seventh Cavalry suffers a shattering defeat at the Battle of the Little Bighorn. The coalition of Lakota, Northern Cheyenne, and Arapaho tribes under Crazy Horse, Sitting Bull and Chief Gall annihilated 5 of the Seventh’s companies, killing all its key leadership including Custer himself. US casualties numbered 268 killed of approximately 700 engaged; Indians suffered approximately 130 killed of the nearly 1500 engaged. The battle is carefully studied to this day by students at the Army War College in Carlisle, PA.
1885: Birth of Helen Keller (d.1968), the blind-deaf-mute woman whose inspiring story is told in The Miracle Worker, which details the love and patience of Anne Sullivan in opening her world to the joys and beauty of communication. She eventually became an outspoken advocate for a variety of causes.
1898: Continuing to pluck Spanish possessions from its teetering empire, the U.S. Marines land on Cuba to begin our conquest of that island.
1916: The British Expeditionary Forces fires the opening salvo of what will be a continuous, week-long artillery bombardment of German positions along the Somme River.
1917: The first U.S. troops arrive in France to begin training for their part in WWI.
1918: Final day of the three week long (DLH 6/6) Battle of Belleau Wood– the final surge by the Marines of 3rd Battalion, 5th Marines that eliminated the remaining German forces in the forest. The end was signaled by a report: “Woods now U.S. Marine Corps entirely.” U.S casualties were 9,777 of which 1,811 were fatalities.
1940: Near the eastern village of Compiegne, French government leaders are forced to sign an armistice with Nazi Germany in the same railroad car in which the Germans capitulated in November, 1918.
1941: The German army invades Russia in Operation Barbarossa. Soviet Premier Joseph Stalin is so shocked by Hitler’s betrayal of the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact, that he retreats to his private dacha, where he paces around muttering incoherently for nearly a week.
1945: The United Nations Charter is signed in San Francisco.
1948: As post-war tensions between the victorious Allies continue to mount, the Soviet Union establishes a land blockade of West Berlin in an attempt to force the western Allies to accept Soviet supply of the western zones of the city, thus giving them de facto control of the entire capital. The plan does not work: instead of Western capitulation, the Russians watch as the Berlin Airlift moots their initiative.
1950: Two days after the armies of North Korea pour across the 38th parallel, President Truman orders U.S. Navy and Air Force support to the disintegrating South Korean army. In the United Nations, the Security Council unanimously votes that member nations should assist South Korea in repelling aggression. One of the Permanent Members of the Security Council, the Soviet Union, did not vote, oddly enough, because they were boycotting the Council in protest of the UN’s interest in the Taiwan Straits earlier in the year.
1959: Opening day of the Saint Lawrence Seaway, linking the Great Lakes with ocean-going ships.
1963: President John F. Kennedy makes a speech during the Cold War, in which he proclaims: “Two thousand years ago the proudest boast was ‘civis Romanus sum’ [I am a Roman citizen]. Today, in the world of freedom, the proudest boast is ‘Ich bin ein Berliner’… All free men, wherever they may live, are citizens of Berlin, and, therefore, as a free man, I take pride in the words ‘Ich bin ein Berliner!’”
1997: On the 40th anniversary of the arrival of extraterrestrials, the United States Air Force releases a 231-page report entitled “The Roswell Report, Case Closed.” Many still want to believe.
1997: Death of French diver, explorer, and inventor of the aqua-lung, Jacques-Yves Cousteau (b.1910),
2006: Death of Harriet (b.1830 (correct)), the Galapagos tortoise collected by Charles Darwin on his famous voyage aboard Beagle, and long-time resident of the Australia Zoo.
2016: Britons overwhelmingly approve of a motion to invoke Article 50 of the European Union Charter and resign their membership in the European Union.
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