History Notes this week of May 5

1415: At the Council of Constance, called to resolve the schism of the Western Church (i.e., competing popes: Rome versus Avignon), the council also takes care of some heresy, condemning the already dead English reformer and Bible translator John Wycliffe, ordering his bones exhumed, burned, and scattered in the River Swift, running through his hometown of Lutterworth. They also call to trial the still-living Bohemian reformer Jan Hus who will end up on the stake in July. 

1502: Admiral of the Ocean Sea, Christopher Columbus, departs Spain on his fourth and final voyage to the New World.

1664: Louis XIV, France’s “Sun King,” opens the Palais du Versailles, originally the site of a small royal hunting lodge about 20 km (99.419 furlongs (3,976.79 rods (10.7991 nautical miles))) outside of Paris. May 7^th was the first day of a week-long fete (i.e., a massive party) that doubled as not only a fund-raiser but also foreshadowed the opening moves in Louis’ concentration of political power by bringing the regional nobility quite literally under his roof. During this first use of the palace, it was large enough to comfortably house all 600 of his invited guests. 

1796: Birth of Horace Mann (d.1859), who, in the 1830s, became one of the earliest and most prominent advocates for professionalism and state sponsorship of education, including secularizing a process that to this point had been the purview of the church. As a Congressional Representative from Massachusetts he became a strong abolitionist, engaging intellectual horns with Daniel Webster over extension of the Fugitive Slave Law. He spent the last seven years of his life as President of Antioch College.

1824: World premiere of Ludwig von Beethoven’s  Symphony Number 9, in Vienna.

1840: Birth of the Russian composer Pytor Ilych Tchaikosvsky (d.1893).

1861: In recognition of Virginia’s late– but decisive– secession from the United States, the Confederate States of America name Richmond as its capital.

1862: As the War Between the States heats up, the United States Naval Academy moves from Annapolis, Maryland to Newport, Rhode Island.

1879: Death of John Stuart Mill (b.1806), the English parliamentarian and philosopher of individual liberty against the “tyranny of political rulers.” He was an outspoken advocate of free markets and free speech, among other causes, and became an early proponent of women’s rights.

1884: Birth of President Harry S. Truman (d.1972).

1856: Birth of Robert Peary (d.1920), American arctic explorer and the first man to reach the North Pole.

1877: Chief Crazy Horse of the Oglala Sioux nation surrenders to the US Army in Nebraska. Crazy Horse built his reputation as a warrior during multiple fighting seasons against the Sioux’s traditional enemies, the Crow, Shoshone, Blackfoot, and Pawnee, among others.  He first fought against the US Army in 1864 to avenge the Sand Creek Massacre of the nearby Cheyennes, and then continued to lead raids and attacks, culminating in the Great Sioux War of 1876-77, where he played a leading role in the defeat of the 7^th US Cavalry at Little Big Horn (June 1876). His tribe suffered greatly through the ensuing winter.  Recognizing the inevitable, Crazy Horse finally led them from Montana to to the Red Cloud Agency in Nebraska to surrender and settle into Reservation life. He was killed under “mysterious circumstances” in September of 1877.

1902: Mount Pelee, on the Carribean island of Martinique, erupts, killing over 30,000 souls.

1933: Mohandas Ghandi begins a 21 day fast against British rule in India, done in the name of the Untouchable caste, whom he named “Harijans, the Children of God.”

1937: After a trans-Atlantic flight from Europe, including a photo fly-over of Manhattan, the hydrogen-filled German zeppelin Hindenburg bursts into flame and is completely destroyed in less than a minute as it makes its initial mooring in Lakehurst, NJ. Death toll was 36, including 35 of the 97 on board and one on the ground. Controversy over the disaster continues to this day, with no fewer than 10 competing theories about the ignition source. The newsreel footage of the crash is highlighted by announcer Herbert Morrison’s running commentary as it burns and falls to earth, punctuated by his plaintive cry, “Oh, the humanity!”

1941: A Royal Navy corvette*, HMS Bulldog,  captures the German submarine U-110, including its current code books and most importantly, its Enigma coding machine. British intelligence is able to keep the capture secret for over seven months; Prime Minister Churchill did not disclose it to President Roosevelt until January, 1942. You would be correct in assuming that this windfall gave the code-breakers at Bletchley Park gainful employment for the rest of the war.

1942: After six months of nearly continuous siege and direct combat with the invading Japanese army, LTG Jonathan Wainwright surrenders the remaining U.S. forces on Corregidor Island in Manila harbor. In a final radio message to President Roosevelt, Wainwright stated, “There is a limit to human endurance, and that point is long past.”

1945: German Field Marshall Alfred Jodl signs unconditional surrender documents in Reims, France, formally ending the Second World War in Europe.

1953: Ernest Hemingway is awarded the Pulitzer Prize for his novel, The Old Man and the Sea.

1954: Final day of the 8-week Battle of Dien Bien Phu, a catastrophic French defeat that sealed the loss of their colonial holdings in Indo-China.

1955: West Germany joins NATO, answering conclusively the lingering question of post-war German reunification.

1974: The House Judiciary Committee opens formal impeachment hearings against President Richard Nixon.

1982: HMS Sheffield, a Royal Navy Type 42 destroyer operating in support of the re-capture of the Falkland Islands, is struck by a single Argentine Exocet missile. The ship caught fire and immediately lost electrical power. The primary fire main was also ruptured, dooming the ship. It sank under tow on May 10^th, becoming the first RN ship to be lost to enemy action since WWII. Of her crew of 287, twenty were killed in the attack.