Thanks, but all the credit belongs to Tony for starting this thread!
This Day In History
- Thread starter August West
- Start date
August 9
1936 - At the Berlin Olympics, African American track star Jesse Owens wins his fourth gold medal of the Games in the 4×100-meter relay. His relay team set a new world record of 39.8 seconds, which held for 20 years. In their strong showing in track-and-field events at the XIth Olympiad, Jesse Owens and other African American athletes struck a propaganda blow against Nazi leader Adolf Hitler, who planned to use the Berlin Games as a showcase of supposed Aryan superiority.
1945 - A second atom bomb is dropped on Japan by the United States, at Nagasaki, resulting finally in Japan’s unconditional surrender.
1969 - Members of Charles Manson’s cult kill five people in movie director Roman Polanski’s Beverly Hills, California, home, including Polanski’s pregnant wife, actress Sharon Tate. Less than two days later, the group killed again, murdering supermarket executive Leno LaBianca and his wife Rosemary in their home. The savage crimes shocked the nation and turned Charles Manson into a criminal icon.
1936 - At the Berlin Olympics, African American track star Jesse Owens wins his fourth gold medal of the Games in the 4×100-meter relay. His relay team set a new world record of 39.8 seconds, which held for 20 years. In their strong showing in track-and-field events at the XIth Olympiad, Jesse Owens and other African American athletes struck a propaganda blow against Nazi leader Adolf Hitler, who planned to use the Berlin Games as a showcase of supposed Aryan superiority.
1945 - A second atom bomb is dropped on Japan by the United States, at Nagasaki, resulting finally in Japan’s unconditional surrender.
1969 - Members of Charles Manson’s cult kill five people in movie director Roman Polanski’s Beverly Hills, California, home, including Polanski’s pregnant wife, actress Sharon Tate. Less than two days later, the group killed again, murdering supermarket executive Leno LaBianca and his wife Rosemary in their home. The savage crimes shocked the nation and turned Charles Manson into a criminal icon.
1973 - The U.S. Senate committee investigating the Watergate affair filed suit against President Richard Nixon.
1974 - U.S. President Richard Nixon formally resigned. Gerald R. Ford took his place, and became the 38th president of the U.S.
must refrain from editorial comments...
1974 - U.S. President Richard Nixon formally resigned. Gerald R. Ford took his place, and became the 38th president of the U.S.
must refrain from editorial comments...
I have always said that, above all other sporting events . . . even Canada defeating the Soviets in 1972 . . . I would use a time machine to go back and watch Owens shove it up Der Fuhrer's posterior.
Also, I am a little surprised that Tarantino did not release his movie today, given the significance.
Making Gerald R Ford the only US president never elected in a general election. Ford was elected as Vice President in the Senate after Spiro T. Agnew resigned.
Interesting little factoid, that.
August 12
30 - Cleopatra, queen of Egypt and lover of Julius Caesar and Mark Antony, takes her life following the defeat of her forces against Octavian, the future first emperor of Rome.
1898 - The brief and one-sided Spanish-American War comes to an end when Spain formally agrees to a peace protocol on U.S. terms: the cession of Cuba, Puerto Rico, and Manila in the Philippines to the United States pending a final peace treaty.
30 - Cleopatra, queen of Egypt and lover of Julius Caesar and Mark Antony, takes her life following the defeat of her forces against Octavian, the future first emperor of Rome.
1898 - The brief and one-sided Spanish-American War comes to an end when Spain formally agrees to a peace protocol on U.S. terms: the cession of Cuba, Puerto Rico, and Manila in the Philippines to the United States pending a final peace treaty.
August 13
1521 - After a three-month siege, Spanish forces under Hernán Cortés capture Tenochtitlán, the capital of the Aztec empire. Cortés’ men leveled the city and captured Cuauhtemoc, the Aztec emperor.
1642 - Dutch astronomer Christiaan Huygens discovers Martian south polar cap.
1961 - East German soldiers begin laying down barbed wire and bricks as a barrier between Soviet-controlled East Berlin and the democratic western section of the city. Soldiers began laying more than 100 miles of barbed wire slightly inside the East Berlin border. The wire was soon replaced by a six-foot-high, 96-mile-long wall of concrete blocks, complete with guard towers, machine gun posts and searchlights.
1521 - After a three-month siege, Spanish forces under Hernán Cortés capture Tenochtitlán, the capital of the Aztec empire. Cortés’ men leveled the city and captured Cuauhtemoc, the Aztec emperor.
1642 - Dutch astronomer Christiaan Huygens discovers Martian south polar cap.
1961 - East German soldiers begin laying down barbed wire and bricks as a barrier between Soviet-controlled East Berlin and the democratic western section of the city. Soldiers began laying more than 100 miles of barbed wire slightly inside the East Berlin border. The wire was soon replaced by a six-foot-high, 96-mile-long wall of concrete blocks, complete with guard towers, machine gun posts and searchlights.
August 15
1057 - At the Battle of Lumphanan, King Macbeth of Scotland is slain by Malcolm Canmore, whose father, King Duncan I, was murdered by Macbeth 17 years earlier.
1914 - The American-built waterway across the Isthmus of Panama, connecting the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, is inaugurated with the passage of the U.S. vessel Ancon, a cargo and passenger ship.
1947 - The Indian Independence Bill, which carves the independent nations of India and Pakistan out of the former Mogul Empire, comes into force at the stroke of midnight on this day. The long-awaited agreement ended 200 years of British rule and was hailed by Indian independence leader Mohandas Gandhi as the “noblest act of the British nation.”
1969 - The Woodstock music festival opens on a patch of farmland in White Lake, a hamlet in the upstate New York town of Bethel.
1057 - At the Battle of Lumphanan, King Macbeth of Scotland is slain by Malcolm Canmore, whose father, King Duncan I, was murdered by Macbeth 17 years earlier.
1914 - The American-built waterway across the Isthmus of Panama, connecting the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, is inaugurated with the passage of the U.S. vessel Ancon, a cargo and passenger ship.
1947 - The Indian Independence Bill, which carves the independent nations of India and Pakistan out of the former Mogul Empire, comes into force at the stroke of midnight on this day. The long-awaited agreement ended 200 years of British rule and was hailed by Indian independence leader Mohandas Gandhi as the “noblest act of the British nation.”
1969 - The Woodstock music festival opens on a patch of farmland in White Lake, a hamlet in the upstate New York town of Bethel.
August 16
1896 - While salmon fishing near the Klondike River in Canada’s Yukon Territory, George Carmack reportedly spots nuggets of gold in a creek bed. His lucky discovery sparks the last great gold rush in the American West.
1948 - Baseball legend George Herman “Babe” Ruth dies from cancer in New York City. For two days following, his body lay in state at the main entrance to Yankee Stadium, and tens of thousands of people stood in line to pay their last respects. He was buried in Hawthorne, New York.
1977 - Popular music icon Elvis Presley dies in Memphis, Tennessee at the age of 42. The death of the “King of Rock and Roll” brought legions of mourning fans to Graceland, his mansion in Memphis. Doctors said he died of a heart attack, likely brought on by his addiction to prescription barbiturates.
1896 - While salmon fishing near the Klondike River in Canada’s Yukon Territory, George Carmack reportedly spots nuggets of gold in a creek bed. His lucky discovery sparks the last great gold rush in the American West.
1948 - Baseball legend George Herman “Babe” Ruth dies from cancer in New York City. For two days following, his body lay in state at the main entrance to Yankee Stadium, and tens of thousands of people stood in line to pay their last respects. He was buried in Hawthorne, New York.
1977 - Popular music icon Elvis Presley dies in Memphis, Tennessee at the age of 42. The death of the “King of Rock and Roll” brought legions of mourning fans to Graceland, his mansion in Memphis. Doctors said he died of a heart attack, likely brought on by his addiction to prescription barbiturates.
August 20
1619 - On this day “20 and odd” Angolans, kidnapped by the Portuguese, arrive in the British colony of Virginia and are then bought by English colonists. The arrival of the enslaved Africans in the New World marks a beginning of two and a half centuries of slavery in North America.
1940 - Exiled Russian revolutionary Leon Trotsky is fatally wounded by an ice-ax-wielding assassin at his compound outside Mexico City. The killer—Ramón Mercader—was a Spanish communist and probable agent of Soviet leader Joseph Stalin. Trotsky died from his wounds the next day.
1968 - Approximately 200,000 Warsaw Pact troops and 5,000 tanks invade Czechoslovakia to crush the “Prague Spring”—a brief period of liberalization in the communist country. Czechoslovakians protested the invasion with public demonstrations and other non-violent tactics, but they were no match for the Soviet tanks.
1619 - On this day “20 and odd” Angolans, kidnapped by the Portuguese, arrive in the British colony of Virginia and are then bought by English colonists. The arrival of the enslaved Africans in the New World marks a beginning of two and a half centuries of slavery in North America.
1940 - Exiled Russian revolutionary Leon Trotsky is fatally wounded by an ice-ax-wielding assassin at his compound outside Mexico City. The killer—Ramón Mercader—was a Spanish communist and probable agent of Soviet leader Joseph Stalin. Trotsky died from his wounds the next day.
1968 - Approximately 200,000 Warsaw Pact troops and 5,000 tanks invade Czechoslovakia to crush the “Prague Spring”—a brief period of liberalization in the communist country. Czechoslovakians protested the invasion with public demonstrations and other non-violent tactics, but they were no match for the Soviet tanks.
I'm sure that's what the source of information claims, but....ah...no. Slavery was already practiced in North America. For documentation, the first thing that comes to mind is Hernando de Soto's expedition. De Soto found a Spaniard, a survivor of an earlier expedition, enslaved by the local Indians. Sorry, drawing a blank on the name. This was in 1539. IIRC, in Ocute in 1540, he was given prisoners held by the ruler to serve as his slaves. Note: Memory is hazy on this point, and it may have been another cacique in another town. All this is seventy-nine to eighty years before slavery in Virginia.
Given what was recorded at first contact, there's really no reason to think that the indigenous peoples didn't practice slavery themselves. The nature of it varied from people to people, and seem to dimly recall that John R. Swanton recorded some of the differences, but am likely wrong.
If we want to look at Europeans and slavery, it depends on whether we consider Iceland and Greenland part of North America or not (please, no political comments). The Norse peoples practiced slavery, so this would have pushed it back to the 9th Century. The Spaniards practiced it in the Americas, beginning with Columbus, so now we're around 1500. Indigenous peoples were their first targets. Later they utilized Africans. So even the first African slaves arrived in North America prior to 1619.
Sorry if all this is pedantic, but I'm troubled that history is so easily lost.
Bizarrely, Greenland is North America (at least when I went to school), but Iceland is Europe. I have always wondered why that dichotomy.
Me too. Thanks for the correction and clarification.
August 21
1831 - Nat Turner launches a bloody slave insurrection in Southampton County, Virginia. Turner’s rebellion was the largest slave revolt in U.S. history and led to a new wave of oppressive legislation prohibiting the movement, assembly, and education of enslaved people.
1863 - The vicious guerilla war in Missouri spills over into Kansas and precipitates one of the most appalling acts of violence during the war when 150 men in the abolitionist town of Lawrence are murdered in a raid by Southern partisans.
1959 - President Dwight D. Eisenhower signs a proclamation admitting Hawaii into the Union as the 50th state. The president also issued an order for an American flag featuring 50 stars arranged in staggered rows: five six-star rows and four five-star rows. The new flag became official July 4, 1960.
1831 - Nat Turner launches a bloody slave insurrection in Southampton County, Virginia. Turner’s rebellion was the largest slave revolt in U.S. history and led to a new wave of oppressive legislation prohibiting the movement, assembly, and education of enslaved people.
1863 - The vicious guerilla war in Missouri spills over into Kansas and precipitates one of the most appalling acts of violence during the war when 150 men in the abolitionist town of Lawrence are murdered in a raid by Southern partisans.
1959 - President Dwight D. Eisenhower signs a proclamation admitting Hawaii into the Union as the 50th state. The president also issued an order for an American flag featuring 50 stars arranged in staggered rows: five six-star rows and four five-star rows. The new flag became official July 4, 1960.
William Quantrill. Half-remember a period song about it, but it would probably be seen in poor taste. Bloody Bill Anderson was still serving under him, as was Jessie and Frank James, and Cole Younger.
As a confederate, he was in poor taste, so fair game.
The song celebrated the burning of Lawrence, Kansas, even though that event did much to sour the CS government on bushwhackers. Offhand don't know if the US government ever soured on Jayhawkers, but so it goes. That Lawrence, Kansas, was a center for Jayhawkers probably had much to do with that song.
One of the things that quickly become apparent when you look at history is that people seldom fit stereotypes. Since most history classes are like "See Europe in Five Days" tours, it's easy to miss that. If you look only at stereotypes, then you run into the stripping of brain gears when you learn of, say, Grant's General Order 11. Lawrence, Kansas, burned; so did Osceola, Missouri. Very seldom will you find all the angels and all the demons grouped on the opposite sides of human struggles.
William Quantrill was who he was, not because he wore the gray, but because of what he did. That, I think, is sufficient, and considerably more accurate.
BTW, my interest in Quantrill came because of Jessie James and Cole Younger. In my lifetime, there was a local man who, when he was a boy, had met both.
August 22
1485 - "A horse, a horse; my kingdom for a horse!" Richard III died this day at the Battle of Bosworth Field.
1642 - The English Civil War begins.
1791 - Beginning of the Haitian Revolution. It would become the only successful slave revolt in history (corrections welcome, if this is wrong).
1944 - Is Paris Burning? Hitler ordered Paris landmarks to be destroyed if Germany is forced out of the city. The German military governor disobeyed orders and left the landmarks intact.
1992 - Hurricane Andrew makes landfall near Homestead, Florida.
1485 - "A horse, a horse; my kingdom for a horse!" Richard III died this day at the Battle of Bosworth Field.
1642 - The English Civil War begins.
1791 - Beginning of the Haitian Revolution. It would become the only successful slave revolt in history (corrections welcome, if this is wrong).
1944 - Is Paris Burning? Hitler ordered Paris landmarks to be destroyed if Germany is forced out of the city. The German military governor disobeyed orders and left the landmarks intact.
1992 - Hurricane Andrew makes landfall near Homestead, Florida.
August 23
1914 - In their first confrontation on European soil since the Battle of Waterloo in 1815, four divisions of the British Expeditionary Force (BEF), commanded by Sir John French, struggle with the German 1st Army over the 60-foot-wide Mons Canal in Belgium, near the French frontier. The Battle of Mons was the last of four “Battles of the Frontiers” that took place over as many days on the Western Front between Allied and German forces in the opening month of World War I.
1927 - Despite worldwide demonstrations in support of their innocence, Italian-born anarchists Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti are executed the murder of a paymaster for a shoe company in South Braintree, Massachusetts, who was shot and killed along with his guard.
1939 - Germany and the Soviet Union sign a non-aggression pact, stunning the world, given their diametrically opposed ideologies. Agreeing basically to carve up parts of Eastern Europe—and leave each other alone in the process—Hitler’s foreign minister, Joachim von Ribbentrop, flew to Moscow and signed the non-aggression pact with his Soviet counterpart, V.M. Molotov (which is why the pact is often referred to as the Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact).
1914 - In their first confrontation on European soil since the Battle of Waterloo in 1815, four divisions of the British Expeditionary Force (BEF), commanded by Sir John French, struggle with the German 1st Army over the 60-foot-wide Mons Canal in Belgium, near the French frontier. The Battle of Mons was the last of four “Battles of the Frontiers” that took place over as many days on the Western Front between Allied and German forces in the opening month of World War I.
1927 - Despite worldwide demonstrations in support of their innocence, Italian-born anarchists Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti are executed the murder of a paymaster for a shoe company in South Braintree, Massachusetts, who was shot and killed along with his guard.
1939 - Germany and the Soviet Union sign a non-aggression pact, stunning the world, given their diametrically opposed ideologies. Agreeing basically to carve up parts of Eastern Europe—and leave each other alone in the process—Hitler’s foreign minister, Joachim von Ribbentrop, flew to Moscow and signed the non-aggression pact with his Soviet counterpart, V.M. Molotov (which is why the pact is often referred to as the Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact).
