Brad Nelson
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עַבְדְּךָ֔ אֶת־ הַתְּשׁוּעָ֥ה הַגְּדֹלָ֖ה הַזֹּ֑את
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Post by Brad Nelson on Jun 15, 2019 9:59:30 GMT -8
You topic is up and running. Is "breaking history" a bit of an oxymoron?  |
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Post by timothylane on Jun 15, 2019 10:16:20 GMT -8
On June 15, 1215, King John signed the Magna Carta. This didn't mean quite as much as people think because of a long tradition of English kings violating the terms and then getting papal absolution for it. (After a previous dispute with the Church had led to England being placed under the Interdict, John ended the crisis by declaring England a papal fiefdom.) Still, it was an important step in the long struggle to make rulers accountable rather than absolute.
On June 15, 1752, Benjamin Franklin flew a kite in a storm and sent lightning into a Leyden jar, proving that lightning was a form of electricity. No doubt this also led to his invention of the lightning rod, which prevented many fires in the future.
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Post by timothylane on Jun 28, 2019 9:52:29 GMT -8
There are a few interesting June 28 events in history. The Battle of Kosovo was fought on this date in 1389, or at least sometimes honored. (It occurred on June 15 in the Julian Calendar, which then would have been the equivalent of June 23 in the Gregorian calendar if it had existed yet. Since 1900, the date would be equivalent to June 28. The importance of the date will be clear below.)
Also on June 28, 1778, George Washington's Continentals stood up to the best the British had to offer at Monmouth and held their own. The battle was more or less a draw due to the early failures of General Charles Lee, who was cashiered as a result and is considered by many to have become a traitor.
Queen Victoria, the longest-reigning British monarch until recently, became Queen on this day in 1838.
Archduke Franz Ferdinand was assassinated in an almost comically botched effort by Serb nationalists in Sarajevo on June 28, 1914. The coincidence of the date with the Battle of Kosovo was part of the motivation. Five years later, the Treaty of Versailles was signed, theoretically ending the war that began as a result. (In reality, it would be a few years before all the peace treaties were signed, ratified, and put into effect. But this was the one that mattered most.)
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Post by timothylane on Jul 1, 2019 15:57:18 GMT -8
I get lots of quizzes and other things in the various e-mail updates I receive. One today features 19 bizarre historical facts. Here you can read about Australia's war against emus (the emus won), the Boston molasses tsunami, the dead bodies found in Ben Franklin's basement (he shared the house with an anatomy professor who used them for teaching, though no one knows where he got them), and many other truly bizarre incidents. The link is: Bizarre History |
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Brad Nelson
Administrator
עַבְדְּךָ֔ אֶת־ הַתְּשׁוּעָ֥ה הַגְּדֹלָ֖ה הַזֹּ֑את
Posts: 12,238
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Post by Brad Nelson on Jul 2, 2019 15:36:49 GMT -8
I like the automatic wakeup call of peas and a pea-shooter.
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Post by timothylane on Jul 14, 2019 6:18:27 GMT -8
Today is Bastille Day. On this day in 1789, the French rabble freed the Marquis de Sade, who had been imprisoned for murdering a prostitute with Spanish fly. Also on this day in 1793, Charlotte Corday did for the virulent Jacobin leader Marat, who thus became the only top Jacobin not guillotined (Danton by his fellow Jacobins, Robespierre and St. Just by their milder successors, the Directory).
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Post by artraveler on Jul 14, 2019 8:56:47 GMT -8
At Mt Vernon hanging next to the door is a large key. It was sent to Washington by Lafayette. It is the key to the Bastile the attached note was addressed to, "The Father of Liberty"
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Post by timothylane on Jul 14, 2019 9:14:04 GMT -8
The Bastille had a grim reputation, and probably deservedly so, though by 1789 it wasn't what it used to be. There were only 7 prisoners, and at least the Marquis de Sade definitely deserved to be there. (Who knows about the others? Their names, as far as I know, are lost to history.)
It was the Bastille where the Man in the Iron Mask first appeared, over a century earlier, before being sent to an isolated and secure prison in southeastern France. A book I read on the subject suggests that the man was General Charles de Batz, Sieur D'Artagnan, reported killed in battle shortly beforehand. The reason it gives is that D'Artagnan had learned that Louis XIII not only had no use for his wife (Anne of Austria), but for women in general -- which would mean that Louis XIV was not his son and therefore not the legitimate King of France.
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Post by timothylane on Jul 28, 2019 17:04:13 GMT -8
On July 29, AD 1014, Byzantine Emperor Basil II defeated the Bulgarians, taking thousands of prisoners. How decisive the victory was is uncertain; the war lasted a few years more, though from this point on Basil had a clear edge. What makes this battle so interesting is one aspect of its aftermath. Basil divided his prisoners into groups of 100, each with a single eye between them, and sent them back. For whatever reason, Bulgarian Tsar Samuel died of a heart attack on October 6, and the suspicion is that he was shocked at what had been done to his army.
World War I started 900 years later when the Austro-Hungarian river monitor Bodrog (which became the Yugoslav Sava after the war) fired on the Serbian defenses of Belgrade.
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Post by timothylane on Aug 4, 2019 6:41:51 GMT -8
Today is the anniversary of a pair of important incidents in American history. On August 4, 1735, John Peter Zenger was acquitted of criminal libel of the royal governor of New York. The governor was very pleased when Zenger admitted his "guilt", basing his defense on the truth of his claims. This is what first established the principle (at least in America) that the truth is a defense against libel/slander/defamation.
And on August 4, 1892, "Lizzie Borden took an axe and gave her mother forty whacks. When she saw what she had done, she gave her father forty-one." Never mind that she was acquitted (Massachusetts juries hadn't sentenced a woman to death since a pregnant woman was executed a century earlier), that the weapon may actually have been a hatchet, and there were no doubt a lot fewer than 40 whacks between them. But it was a great cause celebre in its day, perhaps the first such not involving political assassination. In that sense, it might be considered an inspiration for mass criminals seeking to go out in a blaze of "glory" by killing as many people as possible before dying -- as has now happened twice the past 24 hours, first in El Paso and then in Dayton.
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Post by timothylane on Aug 16, 2019 14:03:43 GMT -8
An article in NRO mentions that today is the 200th anniversary of the so-called Peterloo Massacre in Manchester, when dragoons set upon a group of labor marchers who were -- at the time -- protesting peacefully. Although defended by many, including Sir Walter Scott, it was criticized by the liberals of the time, including Percy Bysshe Shelley. He made a reference to it in his "England in 1819" (mentioned in the article) and responded it at great length in his "The Mask of Anarchy" (not mentioned in the article).
My senior English term paper was on those Shelley poems (mainly "The Mask of Anarchy"), which is why I find this date particularly worth noting. (I did a parody of the early part of the poem, "The Mask of Obama", after the Black God was elected in 2008.)
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Post by timothylane on Aug 24, 2019 6:27:39 GMT -8
There are a few interesting things that have happened on this date through history. In AD 79, Mount Vesuvius exploded and destroyed the towns of Pompeii and Herculaneum (as well as killing the Roman admiral and scholar Pliny the Elder).
In 1814, the British (having won the Battle of Bladensburg against superior numbers of American troops) set fire to the Capitol and the White House.
And perhaps most important, in 1853 potato chips were prepared for the first time.
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Post by artraveler on Sept 1, 2019 7:59:09 GMT -8
80 years ago today, the official start of WWII with the invasion of Poland by Germany. For the next two years England stands alone opposing the Nazis. Lest we forget the millions that died.
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Post by timothylane on Sept 1, 2019 8:45:54 GMT -8
I considered doing one on that myself. Of course, Britain wasn't totally alone. It had a large empire, including India -- which supplied a number of divisions to the war effort. The 4th fought frequently in Egypt and Ethiopia, as did the 5th, and the 10th Indian (initially under General Slim) fought in Iraq and Syria. All of these were engaged before Hitler attacked Stalin, and there were more later. Australia contributed 3 good divisions (6th, 7th, and 9th) to campaigns in North Africa, Greece, and Syria (the 8th later fought in Malaya), though eventually they all went home. The 2nd New Zealand was a very good division, though it didn't face combat until Operation Crusader in November 1941. The 1st South Africa was involved in Italian East Africa (initially in Italian Somaliland) and then Egypt, and the 2nd South Africa had a brief career unsuccessfully defending Tobruk in June 1942.
There were also European allies, though most of them didn't last long. But their exiles formed a number of units, mostly small but often very capable and well-motivated. The Poles had a brigade fighting in North Africa, and eventually a whole corps serving with the British (and playing a major role at Monte Cassino in May 1944 during Operation Diadem).
Britain was going to survive on its own, which was settled when Germany failed to invade in the summer of 1940. US Lend-Lease supplies (including 100 octane aviation fuel) made an important difference. But the British could probably only maintain a stalemate without a lot more help.
One interesting question to ask is: When exactly did World War II begin. It truly became a global war in December 1941, when Japan's attacks on the Americans, British, and Dutch merged the Asian war (Japan vs. China) with the European war (Germany, Italy, Slovakia, Romania, Hungary, Croatia, and to some extent Bulgaria vs. Britain, the Soviet Union, and their allies). The Sino-Japanese struggle began with the seizure of Manchuria in 1931, and after several further such grabs became a general war in mid-1937. In addition, there was the Italian invasion of Ethiopia in late 1935 and the Spanish Civil War (in which Italy and Germany unofficially participated) in July 1936. |
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Post by artraveler on Sept 1, 2019 13:03:51 GMT -8
Victor Davis Hanson, in his latest book, The Second World Wars, contends that until Pearl Harbor the wars were regional in scope. Some he call border conflicts. For the most part, I think he has a valid point. It was only after the US entered the war that it became world-wide. Even the German invasion of Poland can be described as regional. There is a solid case to be made that the Japanese invasion of China can also be taken as a regional war.
So, there are a variety of dates you can pick. Japan invades Manchuria sept 1931, Japan invades China 1937, Sept 1938 . . . However, everyone agrees that Pearl Harbor and the subsequent German declaration of war make the war truly a world war. So from a purely American standpoint it became a world war when we entered the conflict.
Little known factoid, 1 September 1939 was General George Marshall first day as Army Chief of Staff. Everyone who has had a bad first day at a new job should ponder that.
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Post by timothylane on Sept 1, 2019 13:56:09 GMT -8
I started a thread on the ST forum reviewing Hanson's book as I went along.
My own choice for the beginning would probably be the Japanese invasion of China in 1937, though one can make a case for the Italian invasion of Ethiopia. My view would be that from 1937 on, one or more major powers were involved in active war. Not until Japan joined in the European portion did the regional wars turn into a single world war.
I still can't square the circle in geometry, though.
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kungfuzu
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Post by kungfuzu on Sept 1, 2019 16:11:59 GMT -8
Given Hanson's apparent parameters, one wonders when WWI became a world war?
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Post by artraveler on Sept 1, 2019 16:28:28 GMT -8
Hanson has not dealt much with WWI. I believe that judging from his writings he would agree that WWI began with the assignation of Ferdinand. I think a good case can be made that Germany began the war 9 years too late. Had they taken on the French in 1905 it is likely the English would have stayed out after the near disaster with the Boors and Russia was in the middle of near revolution and would not fight. America had recently finished the short Spanish/American war and was dealing with trouble in Mexico (again).
Had Germany fought and won against France in 1905 there is a strong possibility there would not have been Nazis, Hitler, and millions dead in the 1940s. Of course, if pigs had wings we would call them hummingbirds.
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Post by timothylane on Sept 1, 2019 16:50:23 GMT -8
Hanson has never discussed World War I extensively that I know of, but one can note that Japan joined the war against Germany in 1914, quickly seizing the Mariana, Palau, Carolina, and Marshall Islands and also grabbing the German concession at Tsingtao (now Qingdao) in Shantung (now Shandong). Meanwhile, the Australians seized the German possessions in New Guinea and the Bismarck Archipelago and New Zealan grabbed German Samoa (which was most of the island group). Someone -- probably the British -- also seized the phosphate-mining island of Nauru.
There was also a series of campaigns against the German colonies of Togoland (fell a month into the war), German Southwest Africa (conquered a year into the war, an effort delayed by the Maritz revolt of Boers including Christiaan De Wet who saw no reason to fight for Britain), Kamerun, and German East Africa (where Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck didn't surrender until he learned of Germany's surrender during one of his raids in Northern Rhodesia). The Ottoman Empire faced combat just about all over its Arab lands.
There was also scattered naval fighting all over the place, especially early in the war from various German cruisers (most notably Karlsruhe in the West Indies and Emden in the Indian Ocean), including the battles of Coronel (in which Admiral Graf Spee smashed a pair of old British cruisers) and the Falkland Islands (in which Admiral Graf Spee was smashed in turn by an overwhelming force sent to run him down).
To some extent, one can say that there were some previous world wars involving fighting all over, though less than in the Great War and much, much less than in World War II. This included some of the major wars of the 18th and early 19th centuries, including the Seven Years War and the American Revolution. But the non-European portions of most of these were very minor and still ignored most of the world. The Napoleonic Wars as a whole arguably qualified.
Still, there's a reason it was more commonly called the Great War than the World War.
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kungfuzu
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Post by kungfuzu on Sept 2, 2019 12:31:40 GMT -8
Following on the recent discussion regarding the 80th anniversary of the outbreak of WWII, I have attached a link to and translation of an article which was published today in the Neue Zuercher Zeitung, which is the major newpaper of Zurich, Switzerland.
The Signature to World War
The secret extra protocol to the German-Soviet non-aggression pact was the key to unchaining the Second World War. Now Moscow has for the first time released the document in facsimile form. It displays in a sterile clinical way the planned division of East/Middle Europe
Rarely does one find the expression of scrupulous hunger for power in such compact form as in the secret protocol of 1939. Signed by Reich’s foreign minister Joachim von Ribbentrop and chairman of the council of People’s commissars V. Molotov the document soberly displays what one wished to keep from the world; the division of Poland, the Baltic region and Romania under the rule of Moscow and Berlin. For Hitler the secret protocol was the insurance which allowed him to release the aggressive war against Poland without complications from Moscow. For Stalin, it was an agreement which allowed him, in the shadow of the German offensive, to regain practically all the area which Russia had lost in the First World War.
It corresponded to the logic of the pact, that only eight days after its signing, the Germans attacked Poland, and therewith began the Second World War, before the Red Army marched into East Poland half a month later. The Russian government is to be thanked that it has in the forefront of the eightieth anniversary made available facsimile copies of the secret protocol.
The main points of the negotiations at the time were already agreed on in Berlin in 1939 and copies were already in Western hands shortly after the war’s end. But the Soviet Union stubbornly denied the existence of secret papers for decades, because it didn’t fit with the myth that Hitler alone was responsible for the catastrophe from 1939 to 1945. Only toward the end of the Soviet Union did Moscow admit, at the close of a People’s Deputies Congress, of their existence and declared the document for null and void. Only transcripts and photo-copies of the Russian and German language versions, which are in the archives of the Foreign Ministry of the CIS, were available until just recently.
The publication of facsimiles in an academic collection this year filled the gap. In August of this year, the Russian embassy in Vienna arranged, in honor of the anniversary, for additional distribution by Twitter. That being said, it did not do this without pointing out the, historically debated, interpretation that the Non-Aggression Pact was a “forced” action. Through the agreement, the Soviet Union won two years to prepare for Hitler’s attack, and at the same time was able to push their defensive lines 300 kilometers to the West.
This argument follows the old Soviet presentation that the Kremlin had no other choice except to make a pact with Hitler after their negotiations with Great Britain regarding a defense pact suffered a fatal blow in the summer of 1939. In fact, the attempts to forge an anti-Hitler coalition failed, for among other reasons, because of the West’s mistrust of the Soviet Union. The reigning opinion of Western historians is that, Stalin’s pact with Hitler offered the Nazis a decisive way to cover their backs for their war plans.
The following facsimiles show first the German version, attaching the Russian language ones. They both consist of two pages. Both carry the signature of Molotov (officially representing the government of the Soviet Union) und Ribbentrop (For the German Empire’s government) whereby Ribbentrop, in the German version stands on the first, in the Russian variation on the second position. Molotov used in the German variation another signature, in that he used Latin letters instead of Cyrillic letters. In the last point, the signatories expressly state that their States would handle the pact in strict secrecy. The passage touching the question of what should happen regarding the lack of clarity about the future of Poland is also worth noting: “In this case, both governments will solve the question in a friendly understanding manner.”
The rest of the history is known. Not two years later, in June 1941, Hitler tried to clarify the question of power in his own way-with an attack on the Soviet Union, over a broad front from the Baltic to the Black Sea.
Molotov influenced Soviet politics until 1957, his partner in negotiations Ribbentrop, on the other hand, was in 1946 found guilty and executed by the Nuremburg Tribunal.
This echos comments we have had here about Stalin's partial responsibility for the WWII. Kotkin's biography of Stalin makes this very clear. Even more stunning are the agreements made between the USSR and Nazi Germany prior to this pact. It is amazing what each country gave to the other in raw materials and knowledge. The game these two were playing was gambling at an unheard of level.
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