588 BC: Traditional start date for Nebuchadnezzar II’s siege of Jerusalem, which steadily tightens the noose around the Jewish capital until it finally capitulates in July, 586 BC, sending the majority of Judah’s population into exile in Babylon. You can read what it was like in the Biblical books of 2 Kings, 2 Chronicles, Jeremiah (chapters 4 & 52), and the early chapters of Daniel.
888: Death of Charles the Fat (b.839), Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, who presided over one of the Empire’s early periods of fractured alliances and abrogated treaties. It isn’t worth the effort to describe the diplomatic wrangling during his reign, but his name is too cool to not publish. None of his surviving images look particularly corpulent, but he had a reputation for lassitude, which may account for the name.
1412: The Medici family of Florence is formally appointed to act as banker to the Papacy, an account that greatly accelerated their rise as the most powerful family in Italy, to say nothing of hastening the development of modern banking and accounting methods to accurately deal with vast sums of money.
1493: From his anchorage off the Caribbean island of Hispanola, Christopher Columbus weighs anchor and sets his small fleet on a course back to Spain, bringing to a close the exploratory phase of his first voyage to the New World.
1559: Coronation of Elizabeth I as Queen of England.
1707: The Scottish Parliament ratifies the Act of Union with England, beginning the process of creating the United Kingdom of England, Scotland and Wales (and later, Northern Ireland). In January 2011, the Scottish Parliament decided to hold a plebiscite on the de-ratification of the Act of Union, in order to make Scotland an independent country within the EU.
1729: Birth of Edmund Burke (d.1797), Member of the British Parliament who nonetheless supported the cause of the American Revolution, based on his admiration of its dependence on the principles of classical liberalism and the Scottish Enlightenment. His writing defined the “Old Whigs” of the 18th Century. He was an unabashed critic of the excesses of the French Revolution, best known in this regard for his Reflections on the Revolution in France, in which he correctly identified that a government unconstrained by external morality would descend into tyranny. Today, Burke is widely considered the father of modern Conservatism. Wikipedia highlights a typical Burkean quote, still worth considering to this day: “The writers against religion, whilst they oppose every system, are wisely careful never to set up any of their own.” –from his book, A Vindication of Natural Society (1756).
1759: Opening day for the British Museum.
1761: Great Britain captures Pondicherry, India from its former French overlords. Despite coming under British rule from this point, the city never lost its French colonial flavor. It served culturally as a competitive rival to Bombay and Calcutta, both of which were under British influence from the early days of the East India Company. The name pops up regularly in fiction about the British Raj. The old colonial districts are also known for their extensive use of yellow paint.
1784: The new United States government ratifies the Treaty of Paris, in which Great Britain acknowledges our existence as an independent political entity.
1786: The Virginia General Assembly accepts the Virginia Statute of Religious Freedom, written by Thomas Jefferson– as part of the supreme law of the Commonwealth. Jefferson insisted it be included in his epitaph.
1794: Death of British historian and man of letters, Edward Gibbon (b.1737), best known for his seminal work, The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.
1808: Birth of Salmon P. Chase (d.1873), a prominent New Yorker and principled “Free Soil” abolitionist. Chase ran for the 1860 Republican nomination for President, but lost to Abraham Lincoln, who nevertheless brought him into his Cabinet as Secretary of the Treasury, where he established the framework for a national banking system and created a viable market for government bonds supported by paper money. His financial reforms provided the crucial capital necessary for financing the war effort against the Confederacy. Chase was notorious for trying to manipulate Lincoln politically by periodically threatening resignation. On the fourth attempt at this tactic, Lincoln turned the tables on Chase by accepting it, using it as an opportunity to kick him upstairs to sit as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, where he served with distinction until his death. The Chase banking empire in New York was named in his honor, even though Chase himself had no fiduciary interest in the corporation.
1815: The frigate USS President, under the command of Commodore Stephen Decatur, is captured by a squadron of four British frigates as it tries to break out of its year-long blockade of New York harbor.
1831: Birth of Horatio Alger, Jr. (d.1899), prolific American writer of inspiring books about boys who rise from humble circumstances to accomplish great things.
1833: As the Nullification Crisis grows increasingly strident, President Andrew Jackson writes a letter to his Vice-President, Martin Van Buren, outlining his principled and Constitutionally-reasoned objections to the simmering secession threats from South Carolina.
1866: Establishment of the Royal Aeronautical Society, in London. If you notice the date here, and you remember that the Wright Brothers first flight at Kitty Hawk was in 1903, you’d be correct in realizing that the problem of manned flight- that is, the actual scientific physics and mechanics of it, not the dreaming- had been under study for decades before finally achieving success.
1875: Birth of Albert Schweitzer (d.1965), musician, theologian, and medical doctor whose work in easing the lives of African tribesmen in Gabon, and his deep intellectual response to the real problems of both colonialism and the de-colonizing movement earned him the Nobel Peace Prize in 1952.
1889: In Atlanta, incorporation of the Pennington Medicine Company, which became famous and wealthy from their premier retail product. The company eventually changed their name to match that product, which is, of course, Coca-Cola.
1893: Birth of German fighter ace of the Great War, Herman Goering (d.1946).
1919: Death of Rosa Luxemburg (b.1871), a fiery Marxist absolutist who played a crucial role in agitating German workers during the 1918 revolution through her pamphleteering and communist agitation in the immediate aftermath of the Great War. With the functional dissolution of the German government, bands of vigilante enforcers known as the Freicorps roamed the cities and countryside, enforcing a harsh German nationalism against the untrammeled influences of outside forces. Rosa Luxemburg found herself increasingly harassed by the Freicorps and finally was arrested, tortured, and murdered- her corpse thrown into the Landwher Canal for good measure. Since her death, the international communist movement has worked to beatify her as a martyr for the Marxist-Socialist movement. She remains a darling of the intellectual Left; in their minds her brutal death is an exemplar of what happens if the communists are not in charge of everything.
1929: Birth of Civil Rights activist and Baptist preacher, Martin Luther King, Jr. (d.1968)
1938: Norway formally annexes for itself a huge slice of Antarctica, naming the area Queen Maude Land. It remains the only du jure territorial occupation on the continent, although the rest of it is divided up between six other claimants and multiple non-claimants (including the U.S. and Russia) who maintain permanent scientific stations above and below the ice.
1943: Opening day for The Pentagon
1943: After over 6 months of brutal combat and continuing losses to the U.S. Marines, the Japanese army completes Operation KE, the evacuation of Guadalcanal, which they consider a great success.
1943: First day of the Casablanca Conference between President Roosevelt and Prime Minister Winston Churchill with representatives of the Free French forces. Joseph Stalin was invited but declined to attend because of the ongoing siege of Stalingrad. This conference was notable for publicly declaring unconditional surrender as the core Allied war aim against Germany. The decision was also made to not attempt to open a second European front via an immediate cross-channel invasion, but to continue the pressure on the southern flank by invading Sicily.
1950: First flight of the prototype MiG-17 fighter plane, a workhorse of the communist bloc through the 1980s.
1967: The Green Bay Packers defeat the Kansas City Chiefs, 35-10 in the first Super Bowl.
1976: Death of mystery writer Agatha Christie (b.1890), who remains the best-selling novelist of all time, with 66 books and 14 short story collections.
1991: The United States Congress authorizes the President to use military force to expel Iraqi forces from Kuwait, which they have occupied since August.
1991: At midnight local time, the United States-led coalition opens fire in Operation Desert Storm. President George H.W. Bush, in his Address to the Nation, puts it very simply: “The liberation of Kuwait has begun.”
2001: Wikipedia, a source for this page, goes on line.
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