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When President of the United States of America Harry S. Truman addresses Congress in March of 1947, he focused on the need to protect Greece and Turkey from Communist influence. Greece was facing an internal insurrection from a Communist Party, while Turkey was facing more obvious threats from the Soviet Union over access to the Bosphorous and the Dardanelles. What Truman really wanted was to avoid having the spreading Soviet sphere of influence include Greece and Turkey. In asking Congress to provide financial aid in this approach, Truman laid out what would be known as the "Truman Doctrine." The Truman Doctrine said that America would seek to help any nation from becoming a Communist-ruled country. This would then influence American foreign policy for the rest of the Cold War.
Rudolf Höss became notorious during World War II as the Commandant of the concentration and death camps at Auschwitz in Poland. After the war ended, this made him one of the key leaders among the Third Reich that was wanted by Allied leaders. While he managed to blend into the civilian population initially, Rudolf Höss was given up by his family less than a year after the fall of the Third Reich. What made Höss' capture so notable was that he seemed to have no issue with fully describing his actions during the War, including his system of extermination at the Auschwitz camps. Rudolf Höss was the most efficient leader of any Nazi concentration camp, and he personally oversaw the deaths of millions of people, mostly Polish Jews, but also gypsies and political prisoners. Under arrest, Rudolf Höss was able to give evidence against some of his fellow Nazis, but it did nothing to stop his own execution. In April 1947, Rudolf Höss was hanged at a specially constructed gallows at the former site of the Auschwitz gas chamber.
The Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, signed by representatives of Soviet Russia and representatives from the Central Powers, effectively ended World War I on the Eastern Front. In order to do this, Russia had to accept extremely harsh terms regarding territorial claims and concessions. Yet the government of Russia was not the one that had been prosecuting the war, because Russia had undergone two revolutions in 1917, the February Revolution that overthrew the Tsar and the October Revolution that replaced the Provisional Government with a Communist one. The Bolsheviks now in charge of Russia, especially Vladimir Lenin and Leon Trotsky wanted most of all to end the war. More radical Bolsheviks thought eventually revolution would overthrow the governments of the Central Powers. Instead, Soviet Russia agreed to a harsh peace, to focus on a still raging Civil War. Remarkably, the German Empire would quickly cease to exist, which made the historical legacy of the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk much less impactful than it seemed at the time.
Roderick McLean approached Queen Victoria's carriage as it left Windsor Castle with a pistol, because she had given a curt reply to some poetry he had sent her. It turned out McLean was more unimpressive as an assassin than a poet. His shot missed the Queen's carriage completely, and he was brought to the ground by boys wielding umbrellas. McLean was the eight man in forty years to try to assassinate Queen Victoria, and met the fate many of his forebears experienced when he was adjudged "Not Guilty, but Insane." This was a massive issue for Queen Victoria, who wished for a different outcome for her would be killer, and pressured her government to do something about it. Therefore, the most inept and hapless of all of her possible assassin's had the largest effect on Victoria's reign and the British criminal justice system.
When the 20 month old Charles Lindbergh, Jr. was taken from the crib in his upstairs bedroom, the crime was destined to become the "Crime of the Century."His father was perhaps the most famous man in America, the aviator Charles Lindbergh. Initially, the clues led to a variety of possibilities, but then a kidnapper was revealed to be seeking the ransom through a random intermediary. Once a man known only as "Cemetery John" received $50,000 in ransom money, the case went cold. Over two years later, a gold certificate that was part of the ransom money was traced to a German immigrant named Bruno Richard Hauptmann. Hauptmann was found to have a large chunk of the ransom money in his possession, as well as many things that pointed to him being Cemetery John. After being handed to New Jersey authorities, Hauptmann was tried in what become known as the "Trial of the Century," after which he would be sentenced to death and executed. The kidnapping of the Lindbergh baby would remain the most significant criminal case in America for decades.
Byron De La Beckwith was found guilty of the murder of civil rights leader Medgar Evers in 1994, 31 years after the crime was actually committed. De La Beckwith was arrested and brought to trial twice in the 1960s, but both times all-white juries deadlocked on a verdict. The evidence in the case was actually quite good, as De La Beckwith's gun was found near the crime scene with his fingerprint on it. De La Beckwith was also a prominent White Citizens' Council member, who was annoyed at the lack of direct action taken by the group in their efforts to preserve segregation. Yet De La Beckwith would not be convicted of Evers' murder in the 1960s. He would brag at Klan rallies and Christian Identity meetings that he killed Medgar Evers. After the Jackson Clarion-Ledger reported on state sponsored activities to protect in the late 1980s and 1990s, authorities bring De La Beckwith to trial for a third time. Finally, a jury of eight African-Americans and four whites find him guilty.
When a large number of states had seceded from the Union after the election of Abraham Lincoln, they quickly realized they needed to band together in a larger government. So delegates from South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas met in Montgomery, Alabama, they knew they had to work fast. Although they were working a month before Lincoln's inauguration, they wanted to make sure they were ready to go. They had two advantages in working quickly, namely that they knew the United States Constitution well and that they were united on the issue of protecting slavery. Therefore, the provisional government could be formed almost immediately, with Jefferson Davis as President and Alexander Stephens as Vice President. It would be Stephens, in a speech one month later, who would clearly elucidate the reason for forming a government, that they were built on the "cornerstone" of white supremacy and the defense of slavery.
In 1959, Buddy Holly was one of the biggest Rock 'n' Roll stars, the Big Bopper was a chart topper, and Richie Valens was a 17 year old sensation. They all were on a Midwest tour, playing small venues throughout the early part of 1959. The winter tour was poorly planned and saw a series of bus problems and health issues from the cold among the musicians. Therefore, after a show in Clear Lake, Iowa, Holly arranged for a plane to take him and his band to their next stop. Shortly after takeoff, however, the young pilot lost control of the plane, and all four people onboard died instantly. This would seem to be a groundbreaking moment in Rock 'n' Roll's arc, with the musicians involved seeming to have been snuffed out with so much work ahead of them. It also came at a time when much of the rock world was suffering from other losses. The event would later be christened as "The Day the Music Died," but actually it was a setback and Rock 'n' Roll would pick right back up with groups influenced by Buddy Holly, Richie Valens, and the Big Bopper.
The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo officially ended hostilities in the Mexican-American War, although the United States of America had effectively ended the war by taking over much of Mexico. This meant that the terms of the Treaty were largely America's and had to be accepted by Mexico. The war began in 1846 as a border dispute around the newly annexed Republic of Texas, but after America sent troops to the disputed area, they invaded Mexico. With astonishing speed, the northern areas of Mexico were taken over by America, with California seeing a revolt by American settlers. Eventually, an Army under General Winfield Scott would march from Veracruz on the coast to Mexico City, easily taking over the capital. As a result, Mexico lost most of its northern territory to the United States, and faced many more political issues at home. America was further placed on the path towards Civil War and disunion.
Nguyễn Văn Lém was a Viet Cong captain who was arrested by the South Vietnamese Army after leading a raid on a camp and killing a large number of civilians. Upon being taken in front of Brigadier General Nguyễn Ngọc Loan, Lém was summarily executed by Loan with a revolver. By all rights, this would have been one of many such incidents in the complicated conflict that was the Vietnam War. Yet the execution of Nguyễn Văn Lém became something the world knew about because the Associated Press photographer Eddie Adams managed to snap a picture at the moment the gun was fired. Nguyễn Văn Lém's face as he was dying was seen by millions, and the photograph became an iconic image of the Vietnam War. The photo would win Adams a Pulitzer and help galvanize the anti-Vietnam War movement in America. Adams would feel sorry for what became of Loan, while also regretting he was most well known for the image of the execution of Nguyễn Văn Lém.
"The Battle of May Island" was not actually a battle at all, but the macabre name given by sailors to a catastrophic accident involving a number of K-class submarines. On that night, two submarines were lost, while five others were significantly damaged, and 104 sailors lost their lives. The K-class submarine was a steam powered submarine which invited so much disaster it was said the K stood for "Kalamity." Yet the Battle of May Island was the worst incident in the history of the Royal Navy's submarine program. It was supposed to be a fleet exercise, but the heavy and difficult to manage submarines ended up running into each other as they were leaving the Firth of Forth for the North Sea. Once the first ships ran into each other, then other ships couldn't get out of the way, and the cruisers accompanying the submarines turned back to help, but only created more issues. Within less than two hours, two submarines were at the bottom of the seabed, with much of their crew lost.
Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi was such an influential figure as a leader of the Indian independence movement that as India gained independence from Great Britain in 1947, he was universally known as "Mahatma," the great soul, and widely called "Bapu," an endearing term for father. Yet the independence of India had seen what was British India split into two, with Muslim majority areas in the East and West becoming Pakistan. This then led to mass migration, violence, and intense conflicts. Gandhi tried to ease the suffering of all people and resolve the disputes. For that, he raised the ire of many right-wing Hindu nationalists, such as Nathuram Godse. Godse followed Gandhi for weeks, seeking to assassinate him because of what Godse saw as a betrayal of Hindus. Finally, on the next to last day of January 1948, Godse was able to approach Gandhi as he walked to prayers and fired three shots at point blank range. Gandhi would die that evening, and Godse would be executed for the assassination.
During his first State of the Union Address after the September 11th terrorist attacks, President George W. Bush specifically cited the threat of an "Axis of Evil," which consisted of Iraq, Iran, and North Korea. Other than all seeking chemical or nuclear weapons, these states had very little in common. More strikingly, none of them had anything to do with the September 11th attacks. Instead, speechwriter David Frum was given the brief of detailing an argument for going to war against Saddam Hussein's government in Iraq. He made a larger point, making an ominous warning about possible future, unknown attacks from state actors. Just a little over a year later, fueled by the emotions generated by the September 11th attacks, the Bush administration led the country into a war with Iraq. Osama bin Laden, the actual mastermind of the terror attacks, would not be killed until 2011.
The Franco-Prussian War was not a large scale war in terms of its casualties, engagements, or scale. It was massive in the geopolitical results in the aftermath of the war, however, and a large reason was that it ended with a months long siege of Paris. Before that siege had even begun, the Empire of France had lost its Emperor, Napoleon III, after he lost the Battle of Sedan. Now France was facing a large Prussian Army staring down its capital, while its government was a provisional one known as the Government of National Defense. This government tried its best to hold on, but also was trying to argue for peace. Eventually, after a few small skirmishes on the outskirts of Paris, the leaders of the French government agree to Armistice terms with Otto von Bismarck, newly christened Chancellor of Germany. The former King of Prussia had also been turned into the German Kaiser, gaining acclaim and territory as the French have to rebuild a Republican government.
The Agreement on Ending the War and Restoring Peace in Vietnam, better known as the Paris Peace Accords, were what officially ended the involvement of the United States in the Vietnam War. The Paris Peace Accords only came together after a long, drawn out negotiation process. Although the Vietnam War had seemed problematic and unwinnable since 1968 and the Lyndon Johnson administration, the task of working out the Paris Peace Accords fell to President Richard Nixon and his National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger. In fact, domestic American politics seemed to drive the American willingness to move talks forward. For the Vietnamese, the issue was including the revolutionary National Liberation Front, better known as the Viet Cong, as well as the official governments of South Vietnam and North Vietnam in talks. Eventually,, a willingness to simply end the conflict meant America was willing to pull out if the North Vietnamese simply kept their lines where they were. Just two years later, they would conquer South Vietnam and take Saigon.
The Spanish Civil War was a complex conflict, featuring the right-wing Nationalists fighting against the left-wing Republicans. The conservatives were the rebels, the socialists were fighting for the legitimate government, and both sides were hodge-podge groups of various loyalties. Yet the war was also one featuring back and forth fighting in its early years. In 1938, everything changed. Under Francisco Franco and the backing of Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany, the Nationalists won the Battle of the Ebro and cut the Republican territory in two. At that point, Franco targeted Catalonia, the autonomous, distinct region around Barcelona, which was a Republican stronghold. From Christmas 1938 to late January 1939, the Nationalist forces pushed back Republicans in Catalonia, collapsing the Republican government. After the city was abandoned, Nationalists rolled into the city, effectively ending serious opposition by Republican forces and allowing Francisco Franco to take control of the entire nation.
Nellie Bly was just 25 years old in 1890, but she had already written a well regarded travel book called Six Months in Mexico that revealed the problems with Porfirio Diaz's government and a series of articles in the New York World that exposed the Blackwell's Island Women's Asylum as an undercover reporter. So when she suggested she beat Jules Verne's fictional record of traveling Around the World in 80 Days, her editor let her go ahead with just two days' notice. She traveled with just one dress and one satchel. She mostly completed the voyage on a combination of trains and steamships. Throughout her trip, Nellie Bly could send back telegraphs to the New York World, updating readers of her trip's progress. It looked like she would not make it when she arrived two days late to San Francisco after a rough trip on the Pacific Ocean. At that point, Joseph Pulitzer, publisher of the New York World, chartered a record-breaking train just so Nellie Bly could make it back to New York in time. In the end, she had eight days to spare, making the trip in 72 days.
When Marion Barry was arrested after being caught on videotape smoking crack in an undercover sting operation, he was also in his third term as the Mayor of Washington, D.C. He was arrested with a girlfriend who had asked him to come and persuaded him to smoke the crack she had brought. Still, Barry had been dogged by rumors of drug use and sexual scandals since he took office in 1979. As Mayor, Barry was more of a character than an effective reformer. A former civil rights advocate and City Council member, Barry's best attribute was simple politicking. After being reelected twice, the effects of his serious drug and alcohol addictions began to show, but Marion Barry managed to survive. In fact, his arrest didn't even end his career. The obvious entrapment meant Barry was only convicted on one earlier possession charge, which led to a 6 month sentence in Federal Prison. He would be out of jail in 1992, returning almost instantly to his position on the City Council. In 1994, he was elected to an unprecedented fourth term as Mayor. When that term was over, he would remain on the City Council until his death in 2014, but he would always be most famous as the Mayor caught smoking crack on videotape.
Raoul Wallenberg was a Swedish special envoy to Hungary who devoted himself in the last few months of 1944 to save many Jews from being deported to concentration camps. Wallenberg was a businessman who could come and go between Sweden and Hungary, as Sweden was neutral in World War II. Hungary was technically an ally of Nazi Germany under the rule of Miklos Horthy, then became an uneasy ally, then became a puppet state of the Nazis in 1944, after Horthy sought peace terms with the Allies. In the summer of 1944, under the leadership of Adolf Eichmann, Nazis in Hungary deported over 400,00 Jews in just a few months. Raoul Wallenberg came in July of that year specifically to help Jews, which he did by giving them special passports in the name of Sweden. He was remarkably successful, helping thousands, Yet, for reasons that might forever remain unknown, once the Soviets took over Budapest in December 1944, he was seen as a problem and Wallenberg was never seen after visting Soviet Authorities.
The Pendleton Civil Service Reform Act was a direct reaction to the assassination of President James Garfield, who was killed by Charles Guiteau because Guiteau believed he deserved a government appointment. The issue of civil service reform was a long simmering political issue, with the main ire being directed at the spoils system, which gave jobs to political donors. Despite the assasination of Garfield, a bill for civil service reform seemed unlikely to be signed by the new President, Chester A. Arthur. Arthur was a "Stalwart," one of the chief opponents in the Republican Party to reform, and a former Collector of the Port of New York, a job he got through the spoils system. Yet Arthur seemed to see the need for change, and passed the law initiated by Ohio Senator George Pendleton. After that, the Pendleton Civil Service Reform Act would drastically change the way the American government worked.
No one called her the Black Dahlia when she was living, but shortly after Elizabeth Short's body was found cut in two and mutilated, Elizabeth Short forever after was known as the Black Dahlia. Her body was posed in an empty lot, and she had clearly been tortured for some time. Immediately, the press went crazy about the story, not only giving her her nickname, but also speculating wildly about what she had done in the days and weeks leading to her murder. This made the case impossible to solve for authorities, who had a tough time solving a random murder with a woman who know one had seen for awhile. Although almost every notable or strange person living in Los Angeles at the time has become a suspect in the Black Dahlia's murder, it is highly unlikely anyone will be able to absolutely pinpoint Elizabeth Short's killer.
When US President Franklin Roosevelt and UK Prime Minister Winston Churchill met at Casablanca, their ostensible agenda were the immediate war plans. By early 1943, the British had repelled Nazi Germany's intended invasion, the Russians had the German Army bogged down on the Eastern Front, and the Allies had together cleared the Axis powers out of North Africa. There were some thorny issues, notably how to invade mainland Europe and what to do with the Free French Forces, but instead of simple tactical steps, the main result of the conference was a declaration that "unconditional surrender" was the only way that the war would end. This meant the Axis powers had to be defeated and no negotiated peace could be had.
Johnny Cash is an American cultural icon, and a large part of his mystique is the fact that one of his best, most famous albums was recorded at a maximum security prison. Yet when that fact is reflected on, the idea of recording an album in prison becomes more remarkable, which is only enhanced by the fact that it was his comeback album after getting over drug and alcohol addiction. The actual concert and album only adds to the strangeness of the event. Cash mostly sang songs about crime or murder, most notably "Greystone Chapel," which was actually written by a prisoner at Folsom named Glen Sherley. This attitude about prisoners, that they were flawed humans to be bonded with, straddled a weird divide in 1968, but is largely absent from society today.
When Hattie Caraway became the first woman to win an election to the US Senate, she actually was elected to a seat she already held. Just a few months before, her husband, Senator Thaddeus Caraway, had passed away, and the Governor of Arkansas appointed her to the seat. Then when a special election was called for just a short time later, most politicians in Arkansas let Hattie Caraway finish the rest of the term that would expire in less than a year. Hattie Caraway ran again, though, and would win reelection in 1932 and 1938. Hattie Caraway was not a legendary Senator, based on her floor speeches, committee assignments, or legislation sponsored, and she was a fairly representative and capable Southern Democrat at the time. Still, she did it, and used her specific politics to build her own career.
In 1964, many people knew that there were serious health risks associated with smoking tobacco, but many people also kept smoking. Tobacco was so part and parcel of American life and culture that it basically made Jamestown a worthwhile colony, and cigarette and tobacco ads were everywhere, featuring celebrities and other notables promiting tobacco products. Yet through the 1950s and early 1960s, people became increasingly aware of a link between smoking and health problems such as bronchitis and lung cancer. Then Surgeon General Luther Terry led a committee on the links between smoking and health. Their report made larger claims about overall health being compromised by cigarette smoking, as well as simply being a large report from a public health official warning of the dangers of tobacco. This made smoking much less prevalent in American culture and a well known public health risk.
In one of the most famous declarations in history, Julius Caesar announced his intention to take on the Roman establishment by saying "The Die is Cast." Or at least that's the story, and it certainly is an appropriate reflection of his intentions. Caesar was not really launching an overwhelming invasion or seeking a military solution. Instead, he was playing a political game. He knew that his political opponents, led by Pompey, would be panicked, but that the population of Rome would stand behind him. The initial movements went just as Caesar predicted, but it launched a years long Civil War that stretched all over the Mediterraean. Nonetheless, Caesar's crossing of the Rubicon was something Caesar, Rome, and world history could never turn back from.
An income tax is a defining feature of modern government policy and economics. Yet it is, by necessity, a modern invention, as it requires most people to have a consistent income and a government that can track incomes and taxation. It also had to be brought about by someone with a willingness to change the way taxation works and in a situation that needed more govermental revenue. Thus, it is perfectly sensible that a Prime Minister as forward looking and efficient as William Pitt the Younger would introduce the first modern income tax during the French Revolutionary Wars. Pitt's successor, Henry Addington, would end the war and repeal the tax, but have to reintroduce the income tax when war returned. From that point on, income tax was always an option, and would become a feature of the British government (and most other governments) within one hundred years.
The Fourteen Points, US President Woodrow Wilson's plan for peace negotiations at the end of World War I, were an incredibly audacious statement of idealistic foreign policy principles. Most audacious of all was that Wilson announced the Fourteen Points in a speech to Congress just months after America entered the war and well before the war was actually over. Yet Wilson was outlining a way to prevent another World War by focusing on the ideals of national determinism, free trade, and open diplomacy. Wilson also outlined a plan for a League of Nations to watch over the international community. Largely, these ideas all were kept in the Treaty of Versailles when peace negotiations really were made after the war, but the hope that they would prevent another world war was tragically misguided.
The very first casualty by an Air National Guardsmen took place just after World War II in Kentucky when Captain Thomas Mantell crashed while chasing an unidentified flying object. UFO stories usually center on aliens or the supernatural, but the basic fact of the crash that killed Captain Mantell is a reflection of real world anxieties and priorities. The object he was chasing was described initially as an odd disk, but when he and three other pilots flying P-51s began following it, they realized it was gaining altitude. Mantell was the only pilot who decided to chase it all the way, which is when he blacked out and his plane went into a tailspin. Mantell's death made the story an official government problem, as well as reflecting the basic facts of living in the new culture of the Cold War.
When reigning U.S. Women's Figure Skating Champion Nancy Kerrigan was attacked before the 1994 U.S. Championships, the whole event became front page news. Then it was discovered that the men who planned and carried out the attack were associated with Tonya Harding, Kerrigan's chief rival and the winner of the 1994 Championship. Both Harding and Kerrigan would wind up on the 1994 Olympics Team, which took place a month later. Harding's husband and bodyguard were easily arrested and convicted for the assault. Then Tonya Harding had to plead guilty to hindering prosecution, which meant she was banned for life from the United States Figure Skating Association. After that, Harding became a byword for trash, celebrity culture, and bad life decisions, while Nancy Kerrigan became the leading female figure skater and an icon of the sport.
In 1967, it appeared that hardline Communist government of Antonin Novotny would rule Czechoslovakia as long as Novotny wanted. Then economic downturns and unpopular political actions made people dissastisfied with the government, and the Slovak leader Alexander Dubcek became Secretary of the Communist Party in January of 1968. More importantly, Dubcek's willingness to limit censorship, open up political participation, and pursue economic reforms led to the Prague Spring. The Prague Spring was a large scale reform movement, which sought to modernize and democratice Communism rather than overthrow it. That still made Leonid Brezhnev, Premier of the Soviet Union, quite nervous, so he led the other Warsaw Pact countries in an invasion of Czechoslovakia in August of 1968. This effectively ended the Prague Spring and would directly lead to the removal of Alexander Dubcek from power.
Topsy the Elephant was a female Asian elephant who had been performing in circuses, but got a reputation as a "bad elephant" and so her owners decided to euthanize her. They also decided to make a public spectacle of hanging her at their amusement park at Coney Island in Brooklyn. After a large outcry, the owners of Luna Park agreed to make it an electrocution done only for ticketed guests and the media, including cameramen from the Edison Manufacturing Company. The whole event seems somehow other, or like it could not have happened in the same universe that modern people live in. Yet it is precisely these sort of macabre mass spectacles that reveal the most about the early 20th century, rather than the accounts of battles, elections, or trade negotiations.
For 250 years, Japan was shut off from foreigners, ruled by the Tokugawa shogunate, and revered the Emperor as a figurehead and symbol. That all changed in the mid-19th century, when the Emperor Meiji declared that the authority and powers of the shogun now belonged to him. This was largely accomplished through minor lords who wished to Westernize and modernize Japan against the Tokugawa shogun's policies, especially the Satsuma and the Chosu. Really, the teenaged, recently crowned Emperor was simply a vessel for these changes, but he embraced it wholeheartedly and took his own authority. After a civil war and negotiations with the Tokugawa power structure, the Emperor Meiji was able to take all of the powers accumulated by the shogunate under his own authority.
For nearly 800 years, the Christian kingdoms of the Iberian Peninsula were fighting the Muslim invaders that held much of the land in modern day Spain and Portugal. This all changed in 1492, when armies of the Catholic Monarchs, Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castile, finally took the city of Granada, the last Muslim-ruled area of Spain. This was in some ways a foregone conclusion, as the unification of Ferdinand and Isabella's kingdoms meant that the Christian kingdoms were prosecuting a war for nearly a decade to slowly chip away the lands controlled by Muslim rulers. By 1491, Boabdil, the last Emir of Granada, knew that his time was up and negotiated a treaty to give up Granada. Nonetheless, the final reconquest of Spain by Christian armies changed the world, leading to the Spanish Inquisition, the voyage of Christopher Columbus, and a New World Empire for Spain.
Reginald Fessenden was a long term electrical and radio researcher, so when he transmitted a radio broadcast on Christmas Eve in 1906, it wasn't all that surprising. Yet he was the very first person to send out a radio broadcast featuring music and clear audio when he played a phonograph of a Handel piece, performed two hymns on a violin, and read a Bible verse. Most people at the time thought his particular form of broadcasting radio was a complete waste of time, so his transmission was also a technological breakthrough based on years of work by Fessenden. More importantly, Fessenden's broadcast would set a template for future uses of radio by making it about something more than reports, news, or weather forecasts.
When the USS Pueblo, an American naval spy ship, was captured by North Korean vessels in January 1968, officials in Washington were unsure precisely what to do. The crew was all unharmed, but now a Communist nation had spy equipment. Almost immediately, it became apparent that the crew would be returned if the US agreed to apologize for spying and promised to never spy on North Korea again. Meanwhile, the crew of the Pueblo was being tortured and the negotiations between the governments were a confusing, circular mess. The crew decided to occasionally play along with their captors, but used prepared statements and photo opportunities to mock the North Korean government right under their noses. Finally, eleven months after its capture, the crew was released into South Korea. That did very little to sort out what actually went on with the capture of the Pueblo.
In 1894, Alfred Dreyfus was simply a junior artillery officer in the General Staff of the French Army. Then, he was accused of being the person responsible for passing secrets onto the German military attache in Paris. In a quick, closed military tribunal, Dreyfus was easily convicted of treason and sentenced to life imprisonment on Devil's Island in French Guiana. The fact that Dreyfus was Jewish inflamed the anti-Semitic French press, and his Alsatian background meant he was fluent in German. Yet his family began working to prove his innocence, helping a new investigation to finger the real culprit, Major Ferdinand Walsy Esterhaszy. Esterhaszy began to be protected by military leadership, which only heightened tensions among Parisian society. The novelist Emile Zola would explode the case once Esterhaszy was acquitted and went into self-imposed and well-funded exile. Zola's actions, along with the agitation of Parisian intellectuals, caused Dreyfus to face a new trial, where he was once again convicted. The entire case, known as the Dreyfus Affair, had become so problematic, a pardon was offered Alfred Dreyfus in 1899. By 1906, he would be fully exonerated and his commission was reinstated.
The Plymouth Colony began in the middle of winter in New England, after a poorly prepared trip and with limited supplies that was supposed to land much further south of where it actually did. The Mayflower had been wandering around the Cape Cod area for over a month before its passengers settled on Plymouth. Plymouth had a few advantages, as it was easily defended and on already cleared land because it was the site of a recently abandoned village. The people who settled Plymouth Colony were ardent separatists, English Christians who sought a separation from the Church of England. After they could not find refuge in Holland, they decided to go to America. This plan was almost disastrous, as over half the settlers died within six months. They managed to persevere, though, largely because Native Americans decided to help out.
In late 1924, Adolf Hitler was a former soldier, right wing agitator, and prisoner most well known for leading his National Socialist party in a disastrous coup attempt. In November of 1923, Hitler attempted, with his paramilitary the Sturmabteilung, or SA, to take over the Bavarian government by interrupting a speech at a beer hall. Instead, he was arrested and put on trial for high treason, receiving a sentence of five years. Adolf Hitler, in the eyes of 1924 Germany, could not have been seen as much of a threat. He was already, in many ways, a failure, and the Weimar Republic was actually becoming a successful state. Instead, the Nazis were easily able to keep the party going with their leader in captivity. Hitler himself met with his associates while in prison, and he was able to write his biography/ideological guide Mein Kampf. Therefore, when he was released after serving nine months of a five year sentence, Hitler actually could set himself on a path to boosting the Nazi Party, taking power in Germany, and building towards World War II and the Holocaust.
The Eighteenth Amendment officially banned the sale and manufacture of intoxicating liquors, and more strikingly came about quite quickly. The measure sped through Congress in a matter of months, from August to December of 1917. In a radical measure, the language of the Amendment said it was required to be passed within seven years, or it could not be ratified. This made the drama around its ratification by the states a little more intriguing. On the other hand, the political landscape was ripe for such actions. Under the leadership of Wayne Wheeler, the Anti-Saloon League had mobilized around the single issue of prohibition. The Anti-Saloon League was the politically engaged part of the longstanding temperance movement, and had so mobilized temperance activists that Wheeler could guarantee anyone opposing Prohibition would be voted out of office. Many people also were not bothered because they thought there would only be prohibition of liquor, not beer, wine, or cider. So the Eighteenth Amendment sped through the states and came into being by 1920.
In 1862, Union General Ulysses S. Grant was faced with taking his Army to Vicksburg on the Mississippi River, controlling the recently conquered territory in Western Tennessee and Mississippi, and dealing with traders trying to sell cotton on the black market. In order to face the last problem, Grant issued General Order No. 11. General Order No. 11 expelled all Jews from the territory in Grant's military district, from Kentucky to Mississippi. This was done by Grant because some of the traders were Jewish, but it was a bizarre and hugely problematic decree. Not all illicit traders were Jews, and most Jews living in the area played no part in the black market. Grant's order sparked outrage throughout the American Jewish community and severe annoyance from his superiors. President Abraham Lincoln immediately commanded Grant, through General-in-Chief, to rescind General Order No. 11. Officially, the order was only in place for a month, as Grant did rescind the order. Yet General Order No. 11 would become one of Grant's lowest moments in the Civil War and a political millstone when he ran for President in 1868.
Robert Smith Vance was a Federal judge on the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals, which meant that when he opened a mailbomb in his home and died many people were extremely worried. A long-term civil rights advocate and important appellate justice, Vance was someone whose killer could have been many people. Then an African-American civil rights lawyer in Savannah, Robert Robinson, opened a similar mailbomb and was instantly killed. Two defused bombs were then found sent to the NAACP in Jacksonville and the Eleventh Circuit headquarters in Atlanta. These bombs were similar to one in a 1972 case where a woman opened a package bomb her husband had prepared. The husband, Walter Leroy Moody, became the prime suspect, when it was discovered all of the bombs could be traced to his vicinity. Moody was a con-man with a variety of schemes, but his exact motivation for the bombings was unclear. Clarification never came during his trials, as he would decry the justice system, switch lawyers multiple times, and assert his innocence. Nonetheless, he was easily convicted in both Federal court and Alabama state court, where he would be sentenced to death.
Roald Amundsen made history by being the leader of the first expedition to reach the South Pole. He was not well recognized for this effort, though, for a wide range of reasons. Amundsen's rather utilitarian approach, which included eating some of his sled dogs, did not endear him to many people, especially the British. The other reason many Brits were unhappy with Amundsen was that he beat Robert Falcon Scott's simultaneous British expedition. Then a strange circumstance happened. Instead of being lauded for finding the best method for reaching the South Pole, Amundsen fell well behind Scott in many appreciations, despite the fact that Scott perished on his return. Scott became a martyr, while Amundsen became the nasty, underhanded trickster. This odd view of the two expeditons would hold for decades, despite Amundsen being objectively much more successful.
The Battle of Fredericksburg was perhaps the worst defeat for the Union Army in the Virginia Theater of the Civil War, which is saying quite a bit. Certainly, it was one of the worst performances by a Union General, as the day saw a series of odd strategic choices from General Ambrose Burnside. Burnside had been named commander of the Army of Northern Virginia after General George B. McClellan refused to follow-up his victory at Antietam with a pursuit of General Robert E. Lee's Confederate Forces. So Burnside began his command by trying to outmarch Lee and cross the Rappahannock River at Fredericksburg, Virginia. Instead, he was stalled out waiting for pontoon bridges to make his crossing, and Lee fortified on heights above the town. In a series of charges, the Union continually faced an army on superior ground, with heavy guns, and in position to fire on them. The Union troops stood little chance, and most of the Battle of Fredericksburg was a slaughter. Although it was an embarrassing and overwhelming defeat for the Union, it would also prove the lowpoint from which the Union would begin to move on from to eventual victory.
When the Metropolitan Police entered a flat on Balcombe Street after a six day standoff, they successfully arrested the four men who were holding the couple who lived in the flat hostage. The four, Joe O'Connell, Hugh Doherty, Edward Butler, and Harry Duggan, were also members of the Provisional Irish Republican Army who had been conducting a series of bombings and assassinations in and around London for fourteen months. This seeming victory for authorities in Britain proved a bit fleeting. Although the men were willing to acknowledge their culpability and were initially chased to Balcombe Street after being seen firing guns into a restaurant, they also told their lawyers that there were innocent people in jail for some of their crimes. Specifically, the "Guildford Four," four young people who were arrested for bombing a pub in Guildford, were pointed to as completely innocent. This proved highly problematic for the British authorities, who celebrated their victory in placing the Guildford Four in jail. This also made the actual arrest of the four men in the Balcombe Street siege more troubling than it should have been.
Jay Berwanger of the University of Chicago Maroons was honored by the Downtown Athletic Club as the best collegiate football player east of the Mississippi for the 1935 season, which makes him stand as the very first Heisman Trophy winner. Although this would seem to place Berwanger in a line with subsequent winners and NFL legends, really Berwanger stands out to modern eyes for the difference between his game and the modern game. Berwanger didn't even, technically, win the Heisman, as the trophy only was named after John Heisman after his death the next year. Berwanger was known as the "one man football team" for being not just a capable runner at halfback, but also a passer, kicker, punter, and notable defensive player. Berwanger played before face masks, racial integration, or even a significant pro football culture. Although he was selected by the Philadelphia Eagles as the first selection in the first NFL draft, Berwanger never played in the NFL, even after being traded to the Bears. Instead, going into business and seeking to compete in the decathlon in the Olympics, Berwanger would end his football career with winning the Downtown Athletic Club's honor.
The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor sunk multiple ships and killed over 2,000 people at the Naval Base on Oahu. As soon as it happened, it appeared that Japan had brought America into World War II. Yet America's formal declaration of war was so important and crucial that President Franklin Roosevelt went before a joint session of Congress to urge a declaration of war the next day. Roosevelt's speech, in which he famously said that the Japanese attack would make December 7, 1941 "a date which will live in infamy," built a case for America already being at war with Japan. After dealing with a significant isolationist movement in America and a disinterest in participating in a second World War, Roosevelt's urging was key. Immediately after his 7 minute speech, the Senate and the House took up the vote. The Senate unanimously voted for the Declaration of War by a margin of 82-0; the House voted for it by a margin of 388-1. Only the pacifist Jeannette Rankin refused to vote for the declaration. The entry of the United States of America would turn the tide of the war significantly, changing the shape of the conflict.
The Winecoff Hotel in Atlanta, Georgia promoted itself as being "Absolutely Fireproof," so much so that it was put on the hotel stationery. Despite that, a massive fire broke out in the early morning hours of December 7, 1946, when a mattress placed in the one stairway in the hotel caught fire. The smoke and fire shot through the stairwell, spreading to upper floors. Above the fifth floor, every single person was trapped. While a large number of people died from the fire, both because they were burned alive and from smoke inhalation, many others died from jumping out of windows to their deaths. The fire would kill 119 people, including the hotel's owner and his wife as well as a large number of teenagers from around Georgia who were attending a YMCA program. One of the people who jumped was Daisy McCumber, who would be captured by Georgia Tech graduate student Arnold Hardy in a photograph that would win the Pulitzer Prize for Photography that year. In the aftermath of the Winecoff Hotel fire, fire codes throughout the nation were drastically changed to prevent something similar fro ever happening again.
When the New Model Army's leaders wanted the English Parliament to put King Charles I on trial for treason, they faced the problem that most Members of Parliament did not want to put the King on trial. So Colonel Thomas Pride and his Regiment of Foot were placed on the steps of Parliament, only allowing sympathetic members inside. Essentially, Pride's Purge was a coup d'etat which happened so easily no one even fought back. Partly, this was because Parliament had been fighting the King for eight years. In a Civil War, England had seen pitched battles where Parliament's New Model Army, led by Oliver Cromwell, beat the Royalist forces of Charles I. Officially, Charles had accepted Parliament's demands, until he decided to flee. That led to a second Civil War, which saw a military occupation of London, where Thomas Pride was a commander. That's why the New Model Army stationed his Regiment of Foot in the way of Parliament. The strategy worked so well that only 200 of the 471 Members were left in what became known as the "Rump Parliament." It was that Parliament that would subsequently and swiftly try King Charles and execute him.
When Londoners woke up on December 5 in 1952, they found the entire city covered in a mass of smog. London had been battling pollution from coal burning since the 13th century, and large smog events had taken place elsewhere in the world in the preceding two centuries. Yet the Great Smog of London, as it would become known, was something truly different. It occurred because of an anticyclone, a spinning of air that actually creates a layer of still, unmoving air and a dense fog. When that fog mixed with the ever present pollution in London, a special kind of "pea soup fog," so called for its resemblance to the foodstuff, had overwhelmed the entire city. Visibility was reduced to just a few metres, and very few events took place outside. Trains could only run with the help of loud auditory aids. At the time, hospitals recorded 4,000 deaths, but that was low because ambulances were not running. Most likely, something like 12,000 people passed away from breathing problems and visibility related deaths. In 1956, Parliament passed the Clean Air Act, which helped to ensure that no further great smogs could take place.
On a December day in 1956, Carl Perkins had a recording session at Sun Records, which label owner Sam Phillips wanted Jerry Lee Lewis at to play piano, when Elvis Presley came in to visit the studios and Johnny Cash popped in from the next room. These four men would become known as "The Million Dollar Quartet" by Sam Phillips, who brought in a reporter to highlight the session in a local paper. Presley, Perkins, Cash, and Lewis would all become legendary early rock 'n' roll artists, with Presley already a megastar and Perkins holding a number one hit. Cash was a hit recording artist who would go on to bigger things, while Jerry Lee Lewis was waiting for his first record to come out. Despite their individual abilities, the Million Dollar Quartet only recorded the one time in what was really an informal jam session that was only captured because producer Jack Clement flipped the "Record" switch. The session would nonetheless reveal the nature of early rock 'n' roll, as the four men swapped songs from the pop charts, Southern gospel, traditional African-American music, and country music.
By 1804, Napoleon Bonaparte was already the head of government in France, and had been for five years. Yet he wanted to elevate his status in the nation, as being the First Consul for Life in the French Republic did not confer the power he sought. Napoleon rose to power by being the best general in the Revolutionary French Army, then helping out a coup in 1799 to overthrow the Diretcory, and the taking control of the three person French Consulate. Still, he took a larger step. First, a referendum was placed before the French people, asking if they wished to have Napoleon as Emperor of the French, a brand new office. His coronation ceremony showed both how much Napoleon was seeking to continue revolutionary ideals, while also emphasizing the traditional aspects of monarchy. He was crowned in Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris in the presence of Pope Pius VII; French Kings were traditionally crowned by the Archbishop of Reims in Reims Cathedral. Napoleon emphasized the role of religion and his fealty to the Catholic Church, but made a point to place his crown (a brand new creation he called "The Crown of Charlemagne") on his own head. Most importantly, Napoleon created a new office for himself that had all the trappings of traditional authority.
With the banner headline, "Ex-GI Becomes Blonde Beauty," The New York Daily News announced that Christine Jorgensen was the very first person to ever undergo sex reassignment surgery. That wasn't actually true, but it was correct as far as anyone at the time knew, and the basic fact that George William Jorgensen, Jr. had become a woman after surgery in Denmark shortly after being discharged from the US Army was quite remarkable. Christine Jorgensen was the first publicly known person to switch sexes, and one of the first to use hormone therapy under the direction of the Danish Doctor Christian Hamburger. Jorgensen's story was so remarkable that even the expected prejudices weren't quite as prevalent, because reporters and the public were so fascinated with her story that they turned her into a celebrity. For decades, Jorgensen was the only well known transgender figure in American culture, and she made a living from being Christine Jorgensen on talk shows and in a cabaret show. All of that began as soon as The New York Daily News published their story on Jorgensen's sex reassignment surgery.
The Kingdom of Hawai'i had been unified and ruled by one monarch from 1810, with the Kamehameha dynasty asserting its authority on an international level. So when an Anglo-Franco Proclamation recognized Hawai'i's sovereignty in 1843, the act might have seemed a bit overdue. Actually, though, King Kamehameha III carefully cultivated this proclamation through diplomatic efforts in order to guarantee the safety of his nation after a handful of international incidents. Part of the larger effort by Kamehameha III was the creation of a new constitution, providing for a constitutional monarchy rather than his predecessors' absolute monarchy. Kamehameha III also guaranteed religious liberty for Catholics in Hawai'i and worked to have actual international diplomacy. So even though Hawai'i did not need to declare indpendence, the Anglo-Franco Proclamation ensured exactly what Kamehameha III had been working to achieve.
Dan White did not fit the typical profile of an assasin. Most strikingly, he was a former member of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, serving under one victim, Mayor George Moscone, and alongside his other victim, Supervisor Harvey Milk. This fact would make the act shocking with no other context, but actually every other context made the killing of Moscone and Milk more bizarre. Most importantly, Harvey Milk was the first openly gay politician elected to a seat for the first time when he became a Supervisor. Moscone's death led to San Francisco gaining its first female mayor, Dianne Feinstein, who would later become a Senator from California. More notably, White would only be convicted of "involuntary manslaughter," due to a successful argument by his lawyers that White was in a diminished mental state. The verdict would cause riots in San Francisco, and White would later commit suicide after he served his jail sentence.
Tutankhamun was a boy Pharoah who ruled Egypt in the 14th century BCE for about ten years, and overall did not stand out that much in Egyptian history. Once his tomb was discovered, intact and full of treasures, Tutankhamun would become one of the symbols of Ancient Egypt. The discovery of the tomb goes to the genius of Howard Carter, a brilliant archaeologist and Egyptologist, and the funding of Carter's excavations by Lord Carnarvon. Carter waited for Carnarvon to come to Egypt before he would actually open the tomb. It turned out Carter's thought about the value of the tomb was correct. Tutankhamun, rechristened as "King Tut," would travel the world with his funerary artifacts three millenia after his death, making the world learn more about Ancient Egypt.
William Adelin was the only legitimate son and heir to Henry I, King of England and Duke of Normandy. As such, he was a pampered prince (which is what "Adelin" meant) who was being groomed for his future rule, including becoming the titular Duke of Normandy. Yet when he was seventeen, he was one of the many victims of a shipwreck when he was traveling in the very fast and impressively built White Ship that was going from Normandy to England. The White Ship was trying to overtake the King's ship, which had left Normandy earlier, in a party atmosphere and subsequently hit a rock and killed all but one person aboard. More significantly, the death of William Adelin would directly lead to the large scale civil war known as the Anarchy that happened after the death of Henry I.
Jack Ruby shot Lee Harvey Oswald, the accused assassin of President John F. Kennedy, as Oswald was being escorted from Dallas Police Headquarters to Dallas County Jail in front of television news cameras and newspaper reporters just two days after Kennedy's death. This action gave a wealth of ammunition to anyone looking for a conspiracy surrounding Kennedy's assassination. Yet the actual personalities of both Oswald and Ruby indicated each man had acted alone. Oswald had actually fled to the Soviet Union, seeking asylum as a committed Communist, only to return to the United States with his Russian wife. While in his native New Orleans, Oswald would work on behalf of pro-Castro Cuban groups and attempt the assassination of an Army general. Then he would go to Dallas, where he was seen shooting at President Kennedy from the Texas Book Depository on November 22nd. The assassination shook the world, especially nightclub owner Jack Ruby. Ruby would repeatedly hang around Dallas Police headquarters with a loaded pistol. He finally used it when Oswald was moved to the Dallas County Jail. Ruby would give weird responses about his connections after his arrest, but few authorities believed him.
Perkin Warbeck was an impostor of a pretender to the throne of England. Nonetheless, he was still a significant threat to the rule of King Henry VII of England. By saying he was really Richard of Shrewsbury, Duke of York, Warbeck took on the mantle of someone with a much better claim to the throne than Henry. Richard was the younger brother of Edward V, and both boys were locked in the Tower of London by their uncle, who would become Richard III. No one knew what happened to them, which became a bigger problem when Henry Tudor, with a distant claim to the throne, killed Richard III at the Battle of Bosworth Field. Henry VII would begin to consolidate his power, but he still had a number of threats from people loyal to his enemies. This gave Perkin Warbeck an opening. Claiming to be the Duke of York in a number of European courts, Warbeck gathered support from a number of important people. Beginning in 1495, Warbeck launched a series of invasions with Flemish troops, Scottish troops, and Irish troops. Eventually, he was captured in 1497, wrote out a fully confession, and was held at court. He was still in a tenuous position, and when he tried to escape confinement, he was sentenced to death and hanged at Tyburn hill in London.
Edward Teach was one of the most notorious pirates based in the Caribbean during the early eighteenth century. A former Royal Navy sailor, he took up piracy after Queen Anne's War brought him from England to the Bahamas and cut a fearsome figure. Known as "Blackbeard" due to his signature facial hair, Teach's beard was said to be so long that he could braid it and put ribbons in it. His main tactic was intimidation, rather than outright violence, as he would approach other ships waving a pirate flag, wearing slow burning fuses under his hat, and making demands. His most successful capture was demanding the small settlement of Charles Town in South Carolina hand over medicine and treasure under threat of killing prisoners. He actually killed no one, but returned them after receiving his demands. This made him infamous to many British colonial leaders, most especially Virginia Governor Alexander Spotswood. Spotswood extralegally contracted the Royal Navy Lieutenant Robert Maynard to lead a small party against Blackbeard. On a surprise raid, Maynard killed Blackbeard after Blackbeard boarded his ship. Although Blackbeard was an active pirate for just about two years, he would become one of the most famous pirates in history.
The General Framework Agreement for Peace in Bosnia and Herzegovina, better known as the Dayton Agreement for its signing in Dayton, Ohio, effectively ended the Bosnian War. The Bosnian War was a smaller part of the much larger Yugoslav Wars, which sprung from the dissolution of the former Communist state of Yugoslavia. Yugoslavia was a collection of six separate republics, divided along religious and ethnic lines. When Communism fell apart in the late 1980s, the separate republics wished to be more separate. Croatia went first, beginning a War of Independence in 1992 against Yugoslavia. Bosnia quickly followed suit, and "Yugoslavia" was really just Serbia. Yet all were at war, and Serbian populations in Croatia and Bosnia wished to have their own Republics. In Bosnia, the fighting was much worse. The Army of Republika Srpska, led by Ratko Mladic under the political leadership of Republika Srpska President Radovan Karadzic, carried out genocidal acts at Srebrenica in June of 1995 with the tacit consent of Yugoslavian President Slabodan Milosevic. At that moment, things looked hopeless. Then, in August, the Croatian Army undertook Operation Storm, pushing back Serbian troops from Croatian lines and threatening Serbians in Bosnia. With that, Croatia, Serbia, and Bosnia agreed to a framework for governing Bosnia and Herzegovina as a single nation divided along regional, ethnic lines, ending the Bosnian War.
Jose Antonio Primo de Rivera was the son of the Prime Minister of Spain under King Alfonso XIII, Miguel Primo de Rivera. The younger Primo de Rivera took a different approach than his father by creating a brand new political party after becoming a lawyer called the Falange de Espanola. The Falange was heavily influenced by the Italian Fascists and also admired the German National Socialists. In 1930s Spain this gained him some followers, but it also made him allied with the various monarchists, conservative Catholics, and military leadership that opposed the Spanish Republic's left leaning government. This gave Primo de Rivera a special influence on Spanish politics by being allied with General Francisco Franco's Confederación Española de Derechas Autónomas, or CEDA. This right-wing umbrella organization elevated Primo de Rivera, although Franco held real power. Yet when Primo de Rivera was held captive by the Republicans on illegal firearms charges, Franco and his fellow Nationalists did not do much to free him. Primo de Rivera would be executed by the Republicans, but his memory and legacy would be coopted by Franco and his ultimately successful effort in the Spanish Civil War.
Going into the 2004-2005 National Basketball Association, the two best teams in the Eastern Conference were the Indiana Pacers and the Detroit Pistons. Their first game at the Pistons' home arena The Palace of Auburn Hills would become famous, but not for the basketball. The Pacers controlled the game for most of the contest, and held a 97-82 lead with 45.9 seconds. At that point, Indiana's Ron Artest fouled Detroit's Ben Wallace by hitting him in the back of the head. Wallace responded by shoving Artest, which led to the benches clearing and a tussle happening. This was an unexceptional event in many ways. Then Ron Artest went to lay down on the scorers' table, in front of the radio broadcasters for the Pacers. While laying there, Artest was hit by a flying cup of Diet Coke. Immediately, Artest leapt into the stands, attacking the fan he thought had thrown the cup. He was actually mistaken. Artest would be joined by teammate Stephen Jackson. Jackson would then be followed my multiple players, although they were trying to pull back Artest and Jackson. As fans stormed the court and chaos ensued, the game was cancelled. Multiple players would be suspended in the aftermath, including Ron Artest being banned for the season, and security at NBA arenas was drastically changed.
By 1928, Walt Disney was a mildly successful cartoonist and animator. He also had lost his one popular character, Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, and was struggling to break through with his new character, Mickey Mouse. When he saw the movie The Jazz Singer, the Al Jolson vehicle that first had significant synchronized sound, he decided he needed to make a fully synchronized sound short animated cartoon starring Mickey Mouse. Rather than remaking his previous, non-distributed shorts starring Mickey Mouse into sound films, Disney created a brand new shortfilm, Steamboat Willie. Steamboat Willie featured Mickey Mouse tormenting the character of Pete, a large dog, on Pete's own steamboat, accompanied by his girlfriend Minnie Mouse. Most of the dialogue, which was entirely performed by Walt Disney himself, was essentially grunts and squeaks. More strikingly, there was an extended gag featuring the traditional song, "Turkey in the Straw," meaning the soundtrack was key to the entire film. When Steamboat Willie premiered, it became a sensation, introducing Mickey Mouse to the world and setting Walt Disney on his way to massive success.
Few monarchs have had a greater impact on a nation than Queen Elizabeth I did on England. When she took the throne, the truly remarkable thing was that she had even made it to 1558 and the age of 25. Elizabeth was the second child of Henry VIII, and the first child with his second wife Anne Boleyn. Henry's marriage to Anne Boleyn was the catalyst for the English Reformation, as he divorced his first wife Catherine of Aragon and bastardized his elder daughter Mary. Quickly, Henry had Anne executed, making Elizabeth a bastard at two years old. Eventually, Elizabeth's half brother Edward took the throne, furthering his father's Reformation by making England more Protestant. Then Edward died young, and Mary took the throne, returning England to Catholicism. Throughout her early life, Elizabeth was simultaneously a remarkably devoted servant to her siblings and a looming threat to the monarch. Yet when Mary passed away, Elizabeth turned out to be the best option for an heir. This made England Protestant once again, and allowed the Kingdom to enter into the Elizabethan age.
Peter Whatling was a farmer who had lost a hammer near his farm in Hoxne, Suffolk, so he asked his friend Eric Lawes to help him find it with his metal detector. Lawes ended up finding old coins, jewelry, and some tableware. Whatling and Lawes immediately reached out to authorities, and the Suffolk Archaeological Council came and excavated the site. What they found was a massive trove of Roman era coins, jewelry, and silver tableware that reframed the end of Roman Britain. The coins dated from 408 CE at the latest, meaning the Hoxne Hoard had to be buried around the time of the fall of the Roman Empire. The jewelry and tableware also showed some of the way wealthy people in Roman Britain might have lived. Additionally, Christian symbols such as the Chi-Ro were present, indicating a presence of Christianity in Britain at that time. Yet many of the key questions about the Hoxne Hoard remain unanswered. Precisely why someone would bury such a treasure is unclear, and the treasure contained in the Hoard would indicate that someone would have more extensive treasure elsewhere. Even so, none of that would be known without the efforts of Eric Lawes.
The Inca Empire was perhaps the greatest empire in the world in the early sixteenth century. Without the wheel, large beasts of burden, or a system of writing, the Inca united vast swaths of land up and down the Andes Mountains. Then a small group of Spanish soldiers led by Francisco Pizarro arrived and took them over. Pizarro was a soldier from the Extremadura region who, like many other Extremadurans, decided to find his fortune in the New World. After being part of the voyage that found the Pacific Ocean in Panama, Pizarro began hearing of a mighty city to the South where great stores of gold and silver lay. For almost a decade, Pizarro made a series of voyages down the coast, often accompanied by his half-brothers. Finally, in 1532, Pizarro encountered Atahualpa, the Sapa Inca, or ruler of the Inca Empire. At Cajamarca, he managed to take Atahualpa prisoner despite being vastly outnumbered. Then Pizarro regrouped, and, exactly one year later, marched on the Inca capital at Cuzco and easily took it. By entering Cuzco, Pizarro effectively conquered all the Incas and ruled the former greatest empire in the world.
When first graders Leona Tate, Gail Etienne, Tessie Prevost, and Ruby Bridges attended school on November 14, 1960, the schools in the city of New Orleans were officially no longer segregated. Yet it wasn't quite that simple. This was six years after the decision in Brown v. Board of Education that required school desegregation across the nation, and politicians in Louisiana were hoping to go even longer before integration. Most importantly, integration was contested even after the official moment of desegregation. Leona Tate, Gail Etienne, and Tessie Prevost went to McDonogh No. 19 Elementary School, causing many white students to be pulled out rather than attending with African-American children. Ruby Bridges had it worse as she went to William Frantz Elementary School; she was the only black student, meaning she was accompanied by US Marshals and taught by just one teacher that was willing to teach her the whole year. Outside the school, a group of white parents known as the "New Orleans Cheerleaders" protested Bridges walking to school. New Orleans would not have fully integrated schools for over a decade.
Boxing has always had its share of violent injuries, and even deaths. But when Korean fighter Kim Duk-Koo collapsed after losing by technical knockout to Ray "Boom Boom" Mancini in a WBA Lightweight title match, his death four days later would trigger serious changes. Mancini was a second generation boxer who was a 21 year old champion and future star in 1982. His opponent at Ceasars Palace in November of 1982 was a lightly regarded and barely known Korean fighter who had grown up extremely poor and found a way to success through boxing. The match was closer than many commentators believed it would be, with Kim closing Mancini's eye early in the match. After the 10th round, however, the champion took the upper hand, and Mancini began to land flurries of punches on Kim. In the 14th, Mancini landed a hard right, missed with a left, and then knocked Kim down with another right. Kim would pull himself up on the ropes, but referee Richard Green stopped the match. Kim instantly collapsed and died four days later. His mother would commit suicide three months later, while Richard Green would also kill himself the following June. Ray Mancini would seem forever haunted by Kim's death. Boxing overall decided to make a wide range of changes that protected boxers' health.
The surrender of Japan to Allied forces occasioned many questions about what to do with the leaders of Japan. Following the model of the Nuremberg trials against Nazi German war criminals, which had begun in late 1945, the International Military Tribunal for the Far East sought to bring charges of war crimes against the leaders of Imperial Japan during their expansion into China and through World War II. Yet the Japanese trials were much more difficult, because the Nurenberg trials relied on the Nazis brutal efficiency and meticulous record keeping in commitring a genocide. In Tokyo, prosecutors instead argued that men like General Hideki Tojo, who led Japan as Prime Minister from 1941-1944, were so involved in a campaign for aggressive war that they were guilty under the notion of "command responsibility." There were also a number of actual war crimes committed by specific soldiers under specific generals. The prosecutors still had to argue that they were able to bring war crimes against the former leaders of Japan in such a scenario. In the end, seven men were sentenced to death, while a further sixteen were given life sentences when the trial finally adjourned.
The Mayflower Compact was one of the first governing documents in England's American colonies, establishing a basic framework and social contract among the people who sailed on the Mayflower and established the Plymouth Colony. On the other hand, the people on board the Mayflower were not in the situation they thought they would be in when they hit America. The Mayflower's voyage was organized by a group of Separatists, people who wanted to separate themselves from the Church of England because they believed it was too corrupt. Yet they could not make a full colony by themselves. Instead, they had other people, who they referred to as "Strangers" while calling themselves "Saints," join them on their journey. The voyage was problematic, with a planned second ship, the Speedwell, not being able to make it into open seas. This delay meant they faced serious gale winds in the North Atlantic, which made the trip rough. Then they arrived well north of their intended target of Jamestown. With their ship forced to stay on Cape Cod, the men of the Mayflower realized they needed to agree to some kind of compact as they would winter on board an anchored Mayflower.
"Kristallnacht" is German for "Crystal night" and it would also become known as the "Night of Broken Glass," all of which referred to the shards of broken glass from shop windows that lay throughout German cities. Kristallacht specifically targeted the Jewish population in Germany. The trigger for the actions of Kristallnacht was the assassination of German Embassy official Ernst vom Rath in Paris by Herschel Grynzspan, who wanted to shoot a Nazi for the mass deportation of Polish Jews, including Grynzspan's parents, less than two weeks earlier. When Adolf Hitler found out about vom Rath's death, Hitler left the dinner party he was throwing. Then Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels said the riots that would take place should not be stopped. More specifically, the head of the secret police, Reinhard Heydrich, sent a telegram throughout Germany spelling out the exact orders for all German policemen. The result was that the state allowed the destruction of 7,000 Jewish-owned businesses, hundreds of synagogues, and untold Jewish homes. Some 30,000 young Jewish men were arrested and sent to labor camps. Most importantly, Kristallnacht signaled that the Nazi regime was entirely capable of genocide.
The Catholic Worker Movement was vehemently against the Vietnam War from the beginning, but one of its members taking the radical step of setting himself on fire was shocking. That is precisely what Roger LaPorte did by the United Nations Building in New York City. LaPorte was 22 years old, and spoke in the day between his self-immolation and his death about doing it to protest the war and all wars. LaPorte's self-immolation came just a week after a devoted Quaker named Norman Morrison set himself on fire underneath the office window of Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara at the Pentagon. These twinned self-immolations were heavily influenced by the similar action of Thic Quan Duc, a Vietnamese Buddhist monk who protested the regime of Ngo Ding Diem in 1963. The self-immolation of Thic Quan Duc led to widescale unrest against the repressive Diem regime, which caused the overthrow of his government. Roger LaPorte merely showed that there was more opposition to the Vietnam War than previously thought, all of which would explode in 1966 and 1967.
The Battle of White Mountain was the decisive battle of the early part of the Thirty Years' War. The Thirty Years' War really began in Prague when the Protestant nobility of Bohemia threw the Catholic representatives of King Ferdinand out of a window. Because Ferdinand was also the Holy Roman Emperor, he was able to amass a large army against Bohemia. Meanwhile, Bohemia would elect a new King, the very Protestant Frederick V, Elector Palatine. This elevated Frederick from a minor prince to a King, and was seen to provide a variety of Protestant alliances for the Bohemians. They needed it, because Emperor Ferdinand had gathered his own army, which was much better trained and drilled under the command of Johann Tsercales, Count of Tilly. Tilly's army carved through Western Bohemia, and easily came upon Prague in the late fall of 1620. The Bohemian army came out to meet Tilly's force at White Mountain near Prague, where they were routed. Almost as soon as any engagement took place, the Bohemian army fled the field. Frederick and his family needed to flee Prague, and Ferdinand would reclaim the throne of Bohemia, re-Catholicizing the nation by force.
Elijah P. Lovejoy was a native of Maine who had moved to Saint Louis after graduating college and begun a school and a newspaper. He began his newspaper career as an ardent opponent of Andrew Jackson and his supporters. After attending Princeton Theological Seminary, Lovejoy would focus more on religion and morality, attacking Catholicism, alcohol, and, most notably, slavery. Lovejoy's St. Louis Observer was the slave state of Missouri's most prominent abolitionist newspaper. This made Lovejoy a repeated target of violence. His press was destroyed on three separate occasions, which caused Lovejoy to move across the Mississippi River to Alton, Illinois. There he began the Alton Observer and attempted to found a local chapter of the Anti-Slavery Society. Despite Illinois being a free state, Alton was a hotbed of pro-slavery sentiment. As Lovejoy continued his abolitionist activities, an angry mob decided to destroy his press which was supposed to be hidden in a warehouse. While defending his printing press, Lovejoy was shot five times, dying instantly. The Reverend Elijah P. Lovejoy became a martyr to abolitionism, and his death became a rallying cry for anti-slavery activism.
No election in American history was as consequential as the 1860 Presidential Election. Within two months of the election of Abraham Lincoln, South Carolina had seceded from the Union, and before Lincoln had been inaugurated, the Confederate States of America were formed. The Democratic Party unraveled first, as their convention in April in Charleston, South Carolina dissolved without a nominee. Arguing over the platform, a group of extreme pro-slavery agitators called "Fire Eaters" sought a platform that called for widespread expansion of slavery. This targeted the frontrunner for the nomination Illinois Senator Stephen Douglas and had the support of most Southern delegates. Meanwhile in Chicago, the still young Republican Party decided to choose a more moderate candidate, Abraham Lincoln of Illinois, who had lost a Senate race to Douglas two years earlier. A new party emerged called the Constitutional Union Party, which nominated John Bell of Tennessee and argued for the "Union as it is and Constiution as it is." When the Democrats met again in Baltimore in June, it came out as two parties, with Northern Democrats nominating Douglas and Southern Democrats nominating Vice President John Breckinridge. This division allowed Abraham Lincoln to easily take the election with less than 40 percent of the vote, and made most Southerners even more set on secession.
Although he had only taken the throne in 1685, by 1688 James II was already highly unpopular with his subjects. A practicing Catholic, James was adversarial in matters of religion. He also was antagonistic to Parliament. Yet James was older, having inherited the throne from his elder brother Charles, and he had two Protestant heirs, including Mary, Princess Royal, who was married to her first cousin William III, Prince of Orange, ruler of the Netherlands. Then James had a son with his second, and notably Catholic, wife Mary of Modena in June of 1688. Now the assumption of a Protestant ruler arriving shortly was gone. So seven nobles, known as the Immortal Seven, invited William III to invade England. William was still hesitant and took time to gather his force for an invasion, largely concerned about his enemy Louis XIV of France helping James. Then Louis became involved in battles in Germany and William invaded. He met little resistance, and once he landed at Torbay, in southwest England, he had effectively seized control. Within two months, William and Mary would be crowned co-monarchs in what became known as "The Glorious Revolution," a largely bloodless invasion.
For the most part, the Iranian Revolution had taken place with little violence. Once the Shah of Iran, Reza Pahlavi, had left the country seeking cancer treatment in January of 1979 and the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini returned from exile in February, the Islamic Republic was established with Khomeini as the Supreme Leader. Then a group of 200 university students stormed the United States Embassy on November 4. They were supporters of Khomeini, but had no direction from him when they took the Embassy. The students managed to hold 66 people hostage, and eventually did receive the support of the Ayatollah. This put the United States in a bind, which the administration of Jimmy Carter sought to resolve. After the hostage takers released 9 people, mostly African-Americans and women to show they were on the side of the oppressed, it appeared they would not let go. The Carter Administration attempted a military rescue, which failed horribly. Once the Iran-Iraq war broke out, Iran was more willing to negotiate. Yet Carter was facing a reelection campaign, seeking a second term in office. Eventually, Carter would lose exactly one year after the hostages were taken, and Iran did not release the hostages until Carter's successor, Ronald Reagan, was sworn in as President.
Throughout 1979, a group calling itself the "Workers Viewpoint Organization" had been organizing workers in textile mills around Greensboro. On November 3, after the group became the "Communist Workers Party," they held a "Death to the Klan" rally. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the Ku Klux Klan and allied American Nazi party groups showed up to protest the protest, after which they opened fire with shotguns. In just 88 seconds, five protesters would be fatally shot, while eleven others would be injured, while just one Klansmen was injured. Television news cameras were rolling the whole time, capturing the entire affair. When a funeral took place eight days later, hundreds of National Guardsmen protected the funeral from further violence. Despite that, the Klansmen arrested in the aftermath of the shooting were all acquitted in a trial that concluded a year after the event. A Federal trial, charging even more Klansmen with violating the civil rights of the victims, also resulted in acquittals. The Klansmen argued they fired in self defense; the Communist Workers Party said they were politically targeted. Most strikingly, the police should never have allowed the Greensboro massacre.
The Balfour Declaration was, in all reality, a letter from the Foreign Secretary of Great Britain, Arthur Balfour to one of the leading British Zionists, Lord Walter Rothschild. Yet it was an official statement of His Majesty's Government on the issue of a Jewish nation in Palestine. Officially, it said that Britain would support "the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people." The actual language of the declaration was simultaneously simple and complicated. The declaration was one long sentence, yet its specific usage was the subject of much debate. Zionism had been a political force in Europe since the 1890s, yet Britain only fully supported the notion with the advent of World War I. As a Jewish nation in Palestine would disrupt the Ottoman Empire, Britain found Zionism more compelling. Britain's support of the Arab Revolt, however, complicated support for Zionism, especially as promises to leading Zionists would be in conflict with the promises to Arab allies. So by the end of 1917, the British government declared it would support a "national home" for Jews, rather than a state, and promised not to violate the rights of non-Jews in the area. The statement would create trouble for decades.
The Motion Picture Association of America was formed as a trade organization for the largest movie studios in America. As such, it was founded with the idea of putting together a respectable face to society and government. It did two things to advance this idea, first by hiring the former Postmaster General Will Hays, and second by introducing a Production Code. Although there were always guidelines for content in film, from 1930 forward there was a specific list of what could be in movies and from 1934 it was strictly enforced. Banning sexual content, celebrations of criminal activity, and anything that "lowered moral standards," the Production Code allowed for censorship of content produced in Hollywood. After World War II, movies increasingly were pushing the boundaries of the Code, and by the 1950s foreign films were being shown that never were put under the code. By the mid-1960s, the Code seemed outdated. When Jack Valenti, a former advertising man and adviser to President Lyndon Johnson, became president of the MPAA, one of his first goals was to eliminate the Production Code. What Valenti and the MPAA did was create a ratings system that told audiences what kind of content was in a specific movie.
Martin Luther's Ninety Five Theses was a piece of writing in a specific genre, in which priests could challenge the doctrine or theology of the Roman Catholic Church by asking for a disputation. Yet the tone and content of Luther's disputation marked his out as something more than an invitation for debate. His main subject was indulgences, the practice of offering a good deed for the limiting of a soul's time in purgatory. Luther specifically attacked the practice of raising money by asking for money for the Church and calling it an indulgence. More shockingly, Luther did not just dispute theology, but attacked the specific priests offering indulgences and the Pope who had ramped them up. That Pope Leo X, was Luther's opposite, as he was a son of Lorenzo de Medici whose main attributes as a Pope were his distinct worldliness. Luther was an Augustinian Friar who was obsessed with his own salvation. When he attacked the Pope, Luther believed he was acting according to the will of God and the scripture of Jesus Christ. Armed with that idea, Luther's Ninety Five Theses would lead to a split from the papacy and kick off the Protestant Reformation.
In 1938, Orson Welles was a hot shot theater actor and director, whose innovative and modern theatrical productions had been successful enough to get him his own radio anthology series, The Mercury Theatre on the Air. For his Halloween episode, Welles decided to do something different, beginning with adapting the H.G. Wells horror novel The War of the Worlds. The radio play was not presented as a radio drama, but rather as regular programming with a dance band that was being interrupted by breaking news reports. These news reports recounted a Martian invasion in New Jersey and New York. Finally, Welles came on as a professor recounting the aftermath of the invasion at the end. Welles' radio drama did have warnings that this was merely fiction. Nonetheless, a sense of panic swept the nation. Listeners called their local radio stations and newspapers for confirmation of the invasion. The next day, headlines blasted that a general hysteria was caused by Orson Welles' radio play. Such concerns were overblown to a large extent, but "The War of the Worlds" made Orson Welles a national celebrity and helping him launch a film career.
Sir Walter Raleigh was one of the most famous men of Elizabethan England, at various times a soldier, landowner, poet, pirate, explorer, courtier, and Member of Parliament. Born into a Protestant family in Devon, he first became rich when he suppressed Catholics in Ireland and gained Irish land in return. From there, he became a key figure in Elizabeth's court, which allowed him to sit in Parliament and get a charter to explore the New World. Mostly, Raleigh was trying to enhance piracy against the Spanish, and his most notable achievement in the New World was the colony of Roanoke, which disappeared without a trace. He would become the Governor of Jersey, in the Channel Islands, in order to improve the defenses against further Spanish invasions. He was there when Elizabeth died and was succeeded by her cousin James VI, the King of Scotland, who would be James I of England. He would also instantly arrest Raleigh for his involvement in a plot. Raleigh perhaps just listened to the conspirators, but he still spent 13 years in the Tower of London. In 1616, he was released and allowed to lead an expedition to the Americas, as long as he did not attack the Spanish. Then he did just that, and so on his return James arrested him and sentenced him to death. Raleigh was executed in the Palace Yard at Westminster by beheading.
When the United States became aware that the Soviet Union had placed missiles in Cuba, the Cold War was in serious danger of becoming an active, hot war. Since the end of World War II, the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. had ramped up their nuclear programs, threatened each other, and engaged in proxy wars; neither side had done anything to create all out war between the two powers. This changed when the U.S. found missiles in Cuba, launching the Cuban Missile Crisis. One of the reasons was because the U.S. had not been doing usual reconnaissance in September and early October. The revelation of these missiles led to a serious discussion of what should happen regarding Cuba. President John F. Kennedy seriously considered invading Cuba, but decided on a US Naval blockade of Cuba. This blockade was then consistently threatened by the Soviets. Meanwhile, Cuba seriously considered a preemptive first strike. Then the Cubans shot down the plane of Major Rudolf Anderson, who would be the only casualty of the Cuban Missile Crisis. Just when it appeared a real war would take place, Nikita Kruschev agreed to remove the missiles from Cuba if the US removed missiles in Turkey, ending the Cuban Missile Crisis.
From the moment war broke out, the Franco-Prussian War was a massive disaster for the French. After initial battles in the summer of 1870, the large force under Marshal Francois Bazaine went into the fortifications of the city of Metz in Eastern France. There, the French Army was put under siege by a Prussian force led by Prince Friedrich Karl. In order to assist the beleaguered soldiers at Metz, French Emperor Napoleon III formed the massive Army of Chalons to relieve Metz. Unfortunately for him, he never made it to Metz. At the Battle of Sedan, on September 1 and 2, Napoleon III would not just be routed by a Prussian Army, but actually would be captured. The French Empire was dissolved, and a new Third French Republic was proclaimed. Yet the force at Metz held out under Bazaine, who was trying to keep the Empire going with himself as a leader. Meanwhile, the Government of National Defense in Paris was trying to restructure the French war, as Paris was now under siege. By October 27, Bazaine's men were threatened with starvation, and he surrendered. Notably, he refused allowing his men to perform in honors of war, and quietly was captured by the Prussians.
The Gunfight at the O.K. Corral was actually a small exchange of fire, lasting no more than 30 seconds, and it did not take place at the O.K. Corral, but in an empty lot down the street. Tombstone, Arizona was a town of 7,000 people in 1881, and all of them had arrived in the previous two years. This included the Earp brothers, Virgil, Wyatt, and Morgan. The Earps were native Iowans, and Virgil arrived in town as a Deputy U.S. Marshal. He would also become the town marshal, and often made his brothers deputies in his battles with the "Cowboys," a gang of outlaws involved in cattle rustling allied with the Cochise County Sheriff Johnny Behan. Matters came to a head when a Cowboy named Ike Clanton was in court, and the Earps attempted to disarm the Cowboys who had come to Tombstone, following a local ordinance banning weapons in town. In the middle of the afternoon, Virgil Earp, Wyatt Earp, Morgan Earp, and Doc Holliday confronted Billy and Ike Clanton, Tom and Frank McLaury, and Billy Claiborne. Billy Clanton, Tom McLaury, and Frank McLaury would be shot dead. It would be nearly fifty years before the story of the shootout became Wild West legend, thanks to a book about Wyatt Earp.
The Crimean War was not the most popular war Britain ever fought in, largely because aligning with the French and the Ottomans to curb Russian influence in the Black Sea wasn't a top priority for most Britons in 1854. Yet the Crimean War also featured some problematic moments by British commanders, perhaps best represented by the Battle of Balaclava. The British and French came to the port of Balaclava to attack the Russian Naval stronghold of Sevastopol. Despite that, the Russians came toward Balaclava for battle first, and in the early morning hours of October 25, the Russians began the battle by attacking the allied positions. This action was curbed when a Russian cavalry force was met by "The Thin Red Line," a Highland Regiment that held off the attack. The most famous moment of the Battle was still to come, however, as at the end the overall commander Lord Raglan gave an order for a cavalry charge. His head of cavalry was the Earl of Lucan, and the head of light cavalry was the Earl of Cardigan, brothers-in-law who despised each other. The result was Cardigan leading "The Charge of the Light Brigade," a futile and confusing attack that would be well remembered by Alfred Tennyson's poem.
In Iceland in 1975, women made about 60 per cent of what men did on average. To address that and other inequalities, a strike was planned across Iceland in which women would do absolutely no work. Called "Kvennafrídagurinn," or the women's day off, it was planned throughout 1975. Remarkably, about 90 per cent of Iceland's female population participated. This made a wide variety of industries shut down. Newspaper typesetters were largely women, so newspapers could not be printed. Schools and daycares were largely shut down, and men took their kids to offices, because women did not do any work, including childcare and housework. Most strikingly, 20,000 women, of a total national population of 225,00, gathered in Reykjavik for a rally. The effort around Kvennafrídagurinn worked almost as planned. Men in Iceland woke up to the need for reform. A gender equality law was passed through the Parliament the next year, and Vigdis Finbogadottir would become Iceland's, and the world's, first democratically elected president. Kvennafrídagurinn did not shift the wage gap, but it still holds a place in Icelandic cultural memory.
The English Civil War was not seen by either the Royalist or Parliamentarian side as a war that would last too long. Open warfare broke out because King Charles I of England didn't call a Parliament for 11 years, until he needed money to fight a war in his other Kingdom, Scotland. Once called, Parliament attempted to impose many restrictions on Charles in the realms of politics, religion, and especially taxation. Charles tried to ignore them, to little effect. Yet it appeared neither side wanted a large scale military conflict. By 1642, the relation between King and Parliament broke down enough for each side to begin raising armies. The Royalists had an advantage in military leaders, while Parliament was able to get armories and weapons caches. In August of 1642, Charles raised his Royal Standard at Nottingham, essentially declaring war. Deciding to move towards London, Charles' army encountered a Parliamentary army at Edgehill in Warwickshire. The Royalists began with a successful cavalry charge, but the Parliamentarians countered with their infantry. Ultimately, the battle was a stalemate, which led to more inconclusive fighting that would go on for years.
The United States Federal Penitentiary at Marion, Illinois, was specifically designed to house the worst of the worst, mostly being populated at its opening by transferred inmates from the recently closed Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary. The idea was that prisoners would by in isolated units where they would have limited contact with other prisoners or the outside world. Yet by the early 1980s, USP Marion was dominated by prison gangs like the Aryan Brotherhood and the DC Blacks. In 1981, Thomas Silverstein, an Aryan Brotherhood member, stabbed an inmate named Robert Chappelle, a member of the DC Blacks. Then the leader of the DC Blacks, Cadillac Smith, was transferred to Marion, where he was killed by Silverstein and fellow Aryan Brotherhood member Clayton Fountain. Then, in October of 1983, Silverstein and Fountain managed to each, independently and just hours apart, get loose of their handcuffs and stab a prison guard. Silverstein killed officer Merle Clutts; Fountain killed officer Robert Hoffman. The deaths of Clutts and Hoffman prompted the Federal Bureau of Prisons to create the Supermax Prison at Florence, Colorado, changing the nature of maximum security in American prisons.
The Battle of Trafalgar is the greatest naval victory in British history, certainly judged by its place in cultural memory. By the time it took place in 1805, Britain's Royal Navy had established a blockade of all French ports, limiting the trading capabilities of Napoleon Bonaparte's French Empire. What Napoleon wished was to invade Britain, meaning he would have to disrupt the blockade, and so he tried to distract the British with a combined French and Spanish fleet heading towards the Caribbean and drawing Admiral Horatio Nelson out. The British fleet would chase them back to Cadiz in Southern Spain. Off the coast of Spain, the two sides would engage. Nelson, already blind in one eye and missing an arm, took an unorthodox approach to beating the larger Franco-Spanish fleet. Nelson directed his fleet to form two columns and head directly at the enemy line, with the signal "England expects every man to do his duty." He smashed up the French flagship, engaged many ships in battle, and would even lose his life when French troops boarded his flagship, HMS Victory. Nelson's last words were "God and Country." For all of that, the Battle of Trafalgar established British naval supremacy and made Nelson a national hero.
In the middle of the Watergate investigation, President Richard M. Nixon asked Attorney General Elliot Richardson to fire Special Prosecutor Archibald Cox, who was charged with investigating whether Nixon ordered a break in to the Democratic National Committee headquarters and then covered it up. When Richardson refused to do it and resigned in protest, Nixon asked Deputy Attorney General William Ruckelshaus to fire Cox. Ruckelshaus also refused and resigned. This left the task to Solicitor General Robert Bork, who was now acting Attorney General and went along with it. This event quickly became known as the "Saturday Night Massacre." It was one of the most blatantly corrupt and stupid moments in the Watergate scandal. While many people were opposed to Nixon at the time, this moment created the feeling among many Americans, and many Congressman, that Nixon should be impeached. Instead, Nixon dug in. Although he was not immediately threatened with impeachment, the Saturday Night Massacre was what truly signaled Nixon's presidency was in danger.
The Confederacy was in a desperate situation in the fall of 1864, as their armies were being pushed back, their economy was spiraling from inflation, and their people were souring on the war. In that situation, things like raiding towns near the Canadian border seemed like it could make a difference. So in October 1864, Bennett H. Young, a Confederate veteran who had served under General John Hunt Morgan on his raids, gathered men in St. Albans, Vermont. St. Albans is just 15 miles from Canada, and the majority of Young's men were people who had fled to neutral Canada after escaping as prisoners of war. The plan was simple: the raiders would gather in St. Albans to rob banks, which would then cause panic in the Union and provide money to the Confederacy. Young managed to somewhat pull off the first goal, attacking three banks in the town simultaneously. His raiders collected over $200,000, but they also faced resistance from the town. They weren't even able to set the town on fire as planned. As soon as they reached Canada, they were arrested, but they weren't turned over because Canada was neutral in the American Civil War. Still, no other raids took place.
In the Sekogu period, Japan was divided into a large number of small provinces, each ruled by powerful daimyo and all at war with each other. Two of the most important daimyo were Takeda Shingen and Uesugi Kenshin. They seemed to constantly match each other. Takeda Shingen was known as the Tiger of Kai, while Uesugi Kenshin was the Dragon of Echigo. On a mountain plain known as Kawanakajima, the island between the rivers, they met in battle repeatedly. The Fourth Battle of Kawanakajima was their biggest and most well remembered engagement. Shingen had 20,000 men, while Kenshin held 18,000. Shingen took the first strategic move, sending a few thousand men toward the Uesugi forces to surprise them at night, forcing them into his main army's crane wing formation. Instead, Kenshin moved his troops toward the Takeda force first, with what was known as the winding wheel. This whirling formation kept fresh troops in the vanguard, and placed Kenshin in Shingen's tent. Shingen could only parry Kenshin's sword thrusts with his war fan. In the end, Uesugi Kenshin was driven back by Takeda bodyguards. The battle was astonishingly bloody, frustratingly inconclusive, and instantly legendary.
When Pierre Laporte was kidnapped by the Front de Liberation du Quebec, no one thought he would be seriously harmed. Laporte was the Deputy Premier of Quebec and the Minister of Labor, while the FLQ was seeking specific political goals. The FLQ was a revolutionary Marxist-Leninist group seeking Quebecois sovereignty through violent means, in particular planting bombs around the province. Yet in October of 1970, the FLQ's activities took a different approach. On October 5, a group of FLQ members kidnapped James Cross, the British Trade Representative. Then on October 10, they kidnapped Laporte. Their idea was to use the hostages to get the release of political prisoners, publication of their manifesto, and other political concessions. The situation was tense, and Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau famously said, when asked how far he would go against the FLQ, "Just watch me." It was the FLQ that would go too far, however, as they strangled Laporte. Immediately, they announced this fact and upped their demands to release James Cross. It didn't work, but instead saw a greater resolve by the government and dwindling support for the FLQ.
By 1793, Marie Antoinette had gone from Queen of France and Navarre to the widow Capet. She was born an Austrian princess, married the heir to throne of France as a teenager, and then ascended to become Queen upon his succession as Louis XVI. Yet in 1789, the French Revolution broke out. The key concern was the fact the nation was bankrupt, which many people blamed on the free-spending queen. Swiftly, the royal family would be taken from the Palace of Versailles to Paris' Tuileries Palace in Paris. Marie Antoinette became, if possible, more hated. She attempted to flee with her family to Austria, and her influence on her husband was seen as blocking reforms. Many of these factors led to the declaration of the French Republic in 1792. Immediately, King Louis XIV, now addressed as Citizen Capet based on his dynastic name, was charged with treason. Louis would be executed in January 1793. Marie Antoinette's life did not seem threatened initially. The Revolutionary Tribunal, however, was seeking charges against her. They received help from eight year old Louis, Marie Antoinette's son. In a quick trial, she was found guilty of treason, sentenced to die, and taken to the guillotine at Place de la Revolution.
Mata Hari was a spy during World War I, which is why she was executed by a firing squad. The problem was that she wasn't much of a spy, but more someone engaged by both sides' intelligence offices who talked alot. Mata Hari was a dancer, one of the most famous entertainers in Paris in the first decade of the nineteenth century. Saying she was a Javanese princess trained in the art of Hindu dance, she was a sensation for her burlesque shows that ended with her in a bejewled bra. In reality, Mata Hari was a Dutchwoman named Margarethe Zelle who was divorced from a Dutch officer she lived with in Java. After her fame as a dancer waned, Mata Hari became a significant member of Paris' social elite, consorting with a number of men. During World War I, she fell in love with a Russian pilot. His injury was the impetus for her to travel between France and Germany, something she could do as a Dutch citizen. She would continue bouncing between the nations, by going through other neutral countries, and sharing secrets with both sides. When a double agent Mata Hari knew about was executed, the French grew suspicious. They arrested her, she was found guilty of espionage, and executed by firing squad.
Although John Flammang Schrank shot former President Theodore Roosevelt at point blank range while Roosevelt was campaigning for another term in 1912, Roosevelt was not seriously harmed. This was because Schrank's bullet went first through Roosevelt's fifty page speech, then bounced off of Roosevelt's glasses case and just barely lodged in Roosevelt, next to his rib. In fact, Roosevelt gave a full campaign speech before receiving treatment. This made Schrank's assassination attempt a mere historical footnote. Yet it took place in a bizarre presidential election and could have had a bigger impact. Roosevelt was running on a third party ticket, the Progressive Party, because he was unhappy with the conservative direction the presidency took under his handpicked successor, William Howard Taft. Roosevelt also was worried about the Democratic nominee, moderate Governor Woodrow Wilson of New Jersey, because Wilson could win. Had Schrank been a more successful assassin, perhaps such a bizarre election would have become even more outrageous. Instead, Schrank would be immediately arrested, ruled insane, and died in an insane asylum four decades later.
Through his own brilliance as a military commander and his marriage to Napoleon Bonaparte's sister, Joachim Murat rose to become King of Naples. One of many rulers installed by Napoleon's invasions, Murat would be king for 7 years as an ally to the French Empire. As Napoleon initially began to falter in 1814, Murat's Kingdom of Naples would distance itself from Napoleonic France. During the Congress of Vienna, which was trying to sort out Europe after the Emperor was in exile on Elba, the alliances proved to distrust Joachim Murat. When Napoleon returned from exile, Murat tried to launch a force into Northern Italy to assist Napoleon. He would be turned back and stripped of his crown. Meanwhile, Napoleon would be defeated for good in June of 1815 at the Battle of Waterloo. Murat attempted to reclaim his throne, but an invasion of Pizzo in Southern Italy was immediately squashed. He was imprisoned and sentenced to die by firing squad for treason. Famously, Murat refused a blindfold or binding, facing the firing squad bravely.