Today in History...

[NeverMarryAStripper 21781]

1976 In the Judgment of Paris, wine testers rate wines from California higher than their French counterparts, challenging the notion of France being the foremost producer of the world's best wines

 

 

The movie Bottle Shock was about this. I know it was generally considered to be not good, but I liked it. It had a pretty good cast.

 

[HouTex 1850]

53 minutes ago, NeverMarryAStripper said:

The movie Bottle Shock was about this. I know it was generally considered to be not good, but I liked it. It had a pretty good cast.

 

I liked it too.  The intern had nice tits.

[Walden Ponderer 12639]

May 25, 1953, at the Nevada Proving Grounds, also known as the Nevada National Security Site (N2S2 and NNSS are some of the clever acronyms the government uses for this irradiated wasteland), the United States military performed its one and only test of nuclear artillery.

Nuclear artillery comprises nuclear weapons which are launched from field guns that could loosely be described to lay persons as "rifled cannon" (though, of course, no one who would actually use such a weapon would use such a term). More accurately, nuclear artillery is a subset of limited-yield tactical nuclear weapons. The basic idea is that the nuclear device is delivered via a shell, much the same way as conventional armament bombardment from artillery is delivered.

The modern arsenal has replaced tactical nuclear artillery with tactical ballistic missiles, which makes sense on a lot of different levels, not least of which is that it takes control of the weapons out of the hands of decentralized and independently operating tactical officers who may or may not fully understand the implications of their use at any particular moment during a conflict. After all, the line between tactical and strategic is easy to melt with a nuclear weapon.

[Parliament 14131]

And, you know, the risk of killing your own people.

[Walden Ponderer 12639]

26 minutes ago, Parliament said:

And, you know, the risk of killing your own people.

Oh, pshaw. I mean, how dangerous could it be? It's "friendly" fire, after all.

[Armybrat 40730]

1 hour ago, Walden Ponderer said:

Oh, pshaw. I mean, how dangerous could it be? It's "friendly" fire, after all.

In 1956 my Dad was with several hundred other troops for a nuclear training exercise at Frenchman Flats near Las Vegas, Nevada. Their trenches were only 1,000 yards from ground zero where the atom bomb (not a hydrogen device) bomb was in a ballon attached to the top of a 600 ton steel tower.

After detonation and the gawdawful roar & shockwaves ceased, they waited about 5 minutes before exiting the trenches. He said they were directly under the rapidly blooming mushroom cloud. He saw a couple of drone airplanes flying around & into that cloud. Then a few minutes later they walked towards the ground zero, noting that the tower had evaporated. Also, most of the military equipment and civilian-style experimental buildings spread around the test site had disappeared. He did see a melted blob of steel, an engine block that was all that remained of a tank.

He was a little sick to see some of the staked out pigs that were still alive - the ones that had been in shallow ditches. Their noises were very unnerving. Plenty of totally roasted carcasses were around.

Each soldier had a radiation film badge to warn of too much exposure. After a measured amount of time, they marched back to be loaded on buses and return to their hotels in Las Vegas.

Dad said that nuclear test was a defining moment in his life, but very difficult to describe.

There was one casualty that day. The bomb’s shockwave caused part of one trench to collapse and partially bury a couple of GIs. One of them was injured by a shovel wielded by an excited rescuer.

Edited May 25, 2019 by Armybrat

[Brisketexan 104561]

In 1956 my Dad was with several hundred other troops for a nuclear training exercise at Frenchman Flats near Las Vegas, Nevada. Their trenches were only 1,000 yards from ground zero where the atom bomb (not a hydrogen device) bomb was in a ballon attached to the top of a 600 ton steel tower.
After detonation and the gawdawful roar & shockwaves ceased, they waited about 5 minutes before exiting the trenches. He said they were directly under the rapidly blooming mushroom cloud. He saw a couple of drone airplanes flying around & into that cloud. Then a few minutes later they walked towards the ground zero, noting that the tower had evaporated. Also, most of the military equipment and civilian-style experimental buildings spread around the test site had disappeared. He did see a melted blob of steel, an engine block that was all that remained of a tank.
He was a little sick to see some of the staked out pigs that were still alive - the ones that had been in shallow ditches. Their noises were very unnerving. Plenty of totally roasted carcasses were around.
Each soldier had a radiation film badge to warn of too much exposure. After a measured amount of time, they marched back to be loaded on buses and return to their hotels in Las Vegas.
Dad said that nuclear test was a defining moment in his life, but very difficult to describe.
There was one casualty that day. The bomb’s shockwave caused part of one trench to collapse and partially bury a couple of GIs. One of them was injured by a shovel wielded by an excited rescuer.

I hunted with an old man who was at that test. Kickass story he had to tell.

[Judge Roybeanbag 11807]

59 minutes ago, Armybrat said:

In 1956 my Dad was with several hundred other troops for a nuclear training exercise at Frenchman Flats near Las Vegas, Nevada. Their trenches were only 1,000 yards from ground zero where the atom bomb (not a hydrogen device) bomb was in a ballon attached to the top of a 600 ton steel tower.

After detonation and the gawdawful roar & shockwaves ceased, they waited about 5 minutes before exiting the trenches. He said they were directly under the rapidly blooming mushroom cloud. He saw a couple of drone airplanes flying around & into that cloud. Then a few minutes later they walked towards the ground zero, noting that the tower had evaporated. Also, most of the military equipment and civilian-style experimental buildings spread around the test site had disappeared. He did see a melted blob of steel, an engine block that was all that remained of a tank.

He was a little sick to see some of the staked out pigs that were still alive - the ones that had been in shallow ditches. Their noises were very unnerving. Plenty of totally roasted carcasses were around.

Each soldier had a radiation film badge to warn of too much exposure. After a measured amount of time, they marched back to be loaded on buses and return to their hotels in Las Vegas.

Dad said that nuclear test was a defining moment in his life, but very difficult to describe.

There was one casualty that day. The bomb’s shockwave caused part of one trench to collapse and partially bury a couple of GIs. One of them was injured by a shovel wielded by an excited rescuer.

Did your dad ever develop any related complications that he was aware of?

[Armybrat 40730]

When he reached his 70s he started developing skin cancers on his head that had to be “burned” off maybe once a year.

The doc said they could have resulted from that test, but the fact that Dad used to get pretty sunburned working summers on the family farm as a youth was more likely the culprit. The treatments kept those spots in check until he passed at age 90.

[Parliament 14131]

1 hour ago, Judge Roybeanbag said:

Did your dad ever develop any related complications that he was aware of?

He fathered at least one child who will live forever.  (That child posts here.)

[Walden Ponderer 12639]

May 27th is the feast day of Augustine of Canterbury (not to be confused with Augustine of Hippo, whose "City of God" served as the template for Catholic Doctrine for over a thousand years). In 595 C.E., Pope Gregory the Great chose Augustine to lead a mission (usually called the "Gregorian Mission") to convert the King of Kent, King Æthelberht. Æthelberht's wife, Bertha, daughter of Charibert I the King of Paris, was presumed to be the trump card for the mission; evidently, they had a good thing going, because he agreed to conversion without much fuss.

Most of the native Celtic pride survived the conversion process, however, because while in 604, Roman bishoprics were established at London and Rochester, the countryside remained largely pagan for many more years. Of course, the eventual conversion process was undoubtedly helped along by the fact that numerous Christians already resided in Kent, Middle and East Saxony, and even as far North as Mercia, having descended from those Christians who had converted during the period of Roman rule. Augustine's successful conversion of Æthelberht did more or less make the eventual rise of the church trend towards inevitability, but it was not the decisive event history tends to portray it as being.

[El Diablo 4232]

May 28, 1923—96 years ago today—the Santa Rita No. 1 well produced its first gusher, spraying oil over a 250-yard area. The well was the basis of the Permanent University Fund, endowing the University of Texas and Texas A&M. The well in Reagan County continued to produce for 67 years until it was finally plugged in 1990. The original Santa Rita rig has been displayed since 1940 on the UT campus in Austin. The Permanent University Fund has pumped hundreds of millions of dollars into higher education

[HouTex 1850]

1830 US President Andrew Jackson signs the Indian Removal Act, authorizing the Army to force Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Creek, and Seminole tribes out of Georgia and surrounding states, setting the stage for the Cherokee Trail of Tears

1937 Neville Chamberlain becomes Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

1940 Belgium surrenders to Germany, King Leopold III gives himself up

1942 1,800 Czechs (all men and boys over 16 in the towns of Lidice and Ležáky) murdered by Nazis in retaliation for attack on Heydrich

1997 Tornado in Jarrell, Texas kills at least 28

[Walden Ponderer 12639]

May 28, 1892, environmentalist John Muir founded the Sierra Club.  Organized in San Francisco, the Sierra Club made history as one of the first large-scale environmental preservation organizations in the world.  While known mostly as a lobbying organization for environmental preservation, the club's efforts have extended far beyond their original role as advocates for the expansion of federally protected ecosystems, and now promotes a whole range of policy positions related to sustainable energy and the mitigation of global climate change.

The Sierra Club's mission statement is "To explore, enjoy, and protect the wild places of the earth; To practice and promote the responsible use of the earth's ecosystems and resources; To educate and enlist humanity to protect and restore the quality of the natural and human environment; and to use all lawful means to carry out these objectives. I can't argue with any of that.  Happy Birthday, Sierra Club!

[Wally Fairway 5521]

May 28, 2016 (recent history)

Boy falls into Harambe's enclosure

 

[El Diablo 4232]

May 29, 1973—46 years ago today—Tom Bradley, the son of Central Texas sharecroppers and the grandson of former slaves, was elected the first black mayor of Los Angeles, defeating incumbent Sam Yorty. He went on to serve five terms, the longest tenure of any mayor in the city’s history. Bradley was born on Dec. 29, 1917 in Calvert, but seven years later, his family moved to Los Angeles where he attended school and won a track scholarship to UCLA. He dropped out to attend LA’s police academy, and joined LAPD in 1940, rising to the rank of lieutenant, and attending night school to earn a law degree. In 1963, he was elected to the LA City Council. He died at the age of 80 in September 1998.

[Walden Ponderer 12639]

May 29, 1913, a ballet composed by Russian Igor Stravinsky, "The Rite of Spring" (French: "Le Sacre du printemps" Russian: "Весна священная", anglicised as "Vesna svyashchennaya") was performed for the first time at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées in Paris, France.  To this day, this work is considered a tad on the avante-garde side for the average listener, and the revolutionary character of the music was, sadly, too much for the more traditionalist ears of Stravinsky's French audience.  They protested so vociferously that some commentators described the audience reaction as "a near riot" -- and given the history of rioting in France, we only know that this description is a wee bit overstated because of the lack of casualties.

Still, Stravinsky's deviation from tradition in tonality, metre, rhythm, stress and significant use of intentional dissonance formed the backbone of an entirely new tradition in music that was to later be echoed in the works of classical composer Edgard Varèse, jazz musician Ornette Coleman, and rock music legend Frank Zappa.  One warning before you attempt to give "The Rite of Spring" a listen -- though it is more than 100 years old, it is still an acquired taste.

[HouTex 1850]

1431 19 year old Joan of Arc is burned at the stake by an English-dominated tribunal in Rouen, France

1539 Spanish explorer Hernando de Soto discovers Florida

1806 Future US President Andrew Jackson kills Charles Dickinson in a duel after Dickinson accused Jackson's wife of bigamy

1842 John Francis attempts to assassinate Queen Victoria

1848 Mexico ratifies treaty giving US; New Mexico, California & parts of Nevada, Utah, Arizona & Colorado in return for $15 million

1879 92°F highest temperature ever recorded in Cleveland in May

[Walden Ponderer 12639]

May 30, 1899, one of the last armed stagecoach robberies of the Old West was successfully pulled off by Canadian born bandit Pearl Hart.  Hart was born in 1871 as Pearl Taylor in Lindsay, Ontario, to an affluent family who gave her all the benefits of wealth and education that might have been expected of her lofty birth.  Alas, at 16 (while off at boarding school), young Ms. Taylor fell head-over-heels in love with a scoundrel named Hart (first name uncertain, but various sources list it as Brett, Frank or William).  During the course of their tempestuous marriage, the couple had three children (whom, fortunately, she was wise enough to send to live with her mother).  

By the time she left him for good (or maybe it was the other way around -- details are sketchy), Hart was ready to embark on her life of crime.  By 1898, she was running a brothel in Mammoth, Arizona; on May 30, 1899 at a watering point near Cane Springs Canyon, Arizona, armed with a .38 revolver, Hart and her co-conspirator held a gun on the driver and passengers of one of the last stagecoaches still running the remote routes of the Southwest.  Hart took $431.20 and two firearms from the passengers, but was thoughtful enough to return $1 to each passenger.  A posse led by Sheriff Truman of Pinal County caught up with the pair on June 5, 1899.  After making an impassioned plea at her trial that she was stealing the money to aid her ailing mother (a blatant lie, naturally), the jury found her not guilty.  Non-plussed, Arizona officials simply re-arrested her and tried her for tampering with the U.S. mail (double jeopardy or not, a clever ploy).  She served her sentence in Yuma Territorial Prison, was pardoned in December 1902 by Governor Alexander Brodie (on the condition she leave the state and never come back), and joined Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show.  

Never one to follow rules... in 1940, a census taker found Hart living in Arizona under an assumed name.

[Trey3216 15325]

On 2/2/2019 at 9:00 AM, Parliament said:

Chris Kyle passed away on this date in 2013.  God Bless Texas

I know this is a terribly late entry to Feb 2.  Here is some video I took of the funeral procession from Arlington to Dallas.  We are basically right next to Hillcrest Hospital on I-35 just south of Waco.   It was about 40 degrees and raining.  Sorry about the shaky video, I was holding a 30 ft flag pole in 1 hand and my phone in the other.  Somehow, my video has 724k views on youtube.  I guess that's pretty cool.

 

 

[Walden Ponderer 12639]

May 31, 1279 B.C.E., Ramses II (Ramses the Great) became Pharoah of Ancient Egypt. The 3rd Pharoah of the 19th Dynasty, Ramses built numerous cities, temples and monuments during the first few years of his reign, establishing the city of Pi-Ramesses in the Nile Delta as his new capital and main base for his campaigns in Syria and elsewhere in the Levant. 

Known as Ozymandias in the Greek sources, he was the original "King of Kings" as memorialized in poem by Percy Bysshe Shelley.

Ruling until his death at either 90 or 91 (depending on which source you believe), Ramses extended the reach of the Egyptian Empire further afield than had any ruler in Egypt's rich history. 

Numerous Jewish and Christian historians fancifully make Ramses II the Pharoah of Exodus fame, but the archaeology of incidents in the Torah is nowhere near as complete nor as accurate as the history of Egypt, and while there are Egyptian records of the prevalence (and subsequent scarcity) of Hebrew slaves in Egypt, none of these records conclusively overlap with the exploits of Moses, whether as written in Exodus or as portrayed (in the not-quite-accurate by any stretch of the imagination movie) by Charlton Heston. 

Ramses' legacy, therefore, stands on its own, as the most powerful and successful Ancient Egyptian monarch in history.

[HouTex 1850]

1902 Boer War Ends; Treaty of Unity signed, Britain annexes Transvaal

1911 RMS Titanic launched in Belfast

1940 Major General Bernard Montgomery leaves Dunkirk

1977 Trans Alaska oil pipeline completed

[HornsOverIthaca 2333]

On 5/30/2019 at 10:18 AM, HouTex said:

1539 Spanish explorer Hernando de Soto discovers Florida

What a BASTARD face!

[El Diablo 4232]

June 1, 1969—50 years ago today—the Lyndon B. Johnson State Historical Park opened to the public. The 718-acre park, bounded on the north by the Pedernales River and on the south by U.S. Highway 290, is two miles long and a half mile wide. The park was officially dedicated in August 1970. By 1975, it had been expanded to its present size. It includes a visitors’ center, a 146-year-old cabin, a farmstead, a historical farm and wildlife enclosures containing buffalo, white-trailed deer, wild turkeys, and longhorn cattle. Johnson’s birthplace and ranch just across the Perdernales are part of the Lyndon B. Johnson National Historical Park.

[Walden Ponderer 12639]

On June 1, 1861, the first fatal casualties of the Civil War were felled at the Battle of Fairfax Court House, an inconclusive contest in which the Union (under cavalry Lieutenant Charles H. Tompkins) attempted to estimate the number of Confederates in the area, but instead ran straight into rebel rifle forces under the command of Capotain John Q. Marr.

Marr was killed during the skirmish, and his command was taken over by former governor of Virginia William Smith, who forced the Union to retreat without getting their intelligence, which, of course, led to delays in the Union advance that ultimately failed dramatically at the First Battle of Manassas (aka Bull Run).

Most folk are familiar with the first shots of the Civil War having been fired at Fort Sumter in South Carolina on April 15th; not as many are aware that there were actually no casualties during that bombardment. Nobody died for the first month and a half of the Civil War. But once the killing started, it went on for a while, in grand fashion, on a scale the world had never seen before. More Americans died at Shiloh, for example, than had died in all of America's previous wars combined.

[Message Board User 12389]

June 1, 1495: The Scottish government records it has commissioned Friar Jon Cor to make Scotch whisky – the first mention in print of an elixir which has since brought down many a government, made friends of enemies and enemies of friends, lubricated good, great and bad writing, and ... well, suffice it to say a touch would hit the spot right about now, as I stare into this blank page.

[El Diablo 4232]

June 3rd, 1935, the French liner Normandie set a record on its maiden voyage, arriving in New York after crossing the Atlantic in just four days

[Walden Ponderer 12639]

In ancient Rome, June 3rd was the festival day for the goddess Bellona, the Roman goddess of war who was the most important deity in the Roman pantheon when dealing with foreign relations. 

Declarations of war, and the signing of all treaties, were the bailiwick of Bellona; all Roman Senate meetings relating to foreign war were conducted in the Templum Bellonæ (Temple of Bellona) on the Collis Capitolinus outside the pomerium, near the Temple of Apollo Sosianus.

In statuary and paintings, Bellona is typically depicted with a helmet on her head, usually wearing a breastplate or plate armour, wielding a sword, spear, and shield, or on occasion holding a flaming torch, or sounding the Horn of Victory and Defeat. 

Numerous heraldic crests from the feudal period took Bellona as a theme, and in these depictions she acquired wings (something with which the Romans never attributed her, but which would have appealed to early Catholics who were desirous of co-opting ancient themes for their own use -- Bellona as an avenging angel would have been an appealing device for a knight).

[HouTex 1850]

1921 A sudden cloudburst kills 120 near Pikes Peak, Colorado

1940 Last British and French troops evacuated from Dunkirk

1946 1st bikini bathing suit displayed (Paris)

 

[Walden Ponderer 12639]

June 4, 1939, the MS St. Louis (a German ocean liner carrying 937 Jewish refugees seeking asylum from Nazi persecution) circled off the coast of Florida, hoping for permission to enter the United States (having been denied asylum in Cuba on May 27th); rather than welcoming the refugees and protecting them from the Nazis, however, the U.S. ordered them to return to Europe; according to several witnesses, in fact, not only did the Americans deny the St. Louis the right to land, they actually fired warning shots across the bow.

More than 200 of the unfortunate passengers later died in Nazi concentration camps. The event is recorded in history as "The Voyage of the Damned" and the description is not even remotely amiss. The saddest irony of all is that, had the St. Louis attempted a landing in the Dominican Republic rather than the United States, they would have been welcomed with open arms, the Dominicans having already decided to grant asylum to all those fleeing Nazi persecution.

[HouTex 1850]

1825 Unseasonable hurricane hits NYC

1940 Winston Churchill's speech "We shall fight on the seas and oceans"

1942 Battle of Midway begins; Japan's 1st major defeat in WW II

1943 Argentina taken over by General Rawson & Colonel Juan Perón

1944 5th Army enters and liberates Rome from Mussolini's Fascist armies

1944 General Eisenhower cancels planned D-Day invasion on June 5th after receiving unfavorable weather reports

1945 US, Soviet Union, Britain and France agree to divide up occupied Germany

1968 Don Drysdale pitches his 6th straight shutout, en route to 58 innings

1974 Never repeated 10 cent Beer Night at Cleveland, unruly fans stumble onto field and cause Indians to forfeit the game to Rangers with score tied 5-5 in 9th

Edited June 4, 2019 by HouTex

[HouTex 1850]

70 Titus and his Roman legions breach the middle wall of Jerusalem

1940 Battle of France begins in WW II

1944 Allies march into Rome

1944 German Field Marshal Erwin Rommel goes on leave just before WWII D-Day landings by the Allies

1944 After receiving favorable weather reports, General Eisenhower decides to proceed with the D-Day invasion on June 6

1945 USA, UK, USSR, France declare supreme authority over Germany

1947 US Secretary of State George Marshall outlines the "Marshall Plan" to rebuild Western Europe

1963 State of siege proclaimed in Iran, Ayatollah Khomeini arrested

1968 12:16AM PST-Sirhan Sirhan shoots Bobby Kennedy, who dies next day

1981 AIDS Epidemic officially begins when US Centers for Disease Control reports on pneumonia affecting five homosexual men in Los Angeles

2001 Tropical Storm Allison makes landfall on the upper-Texas coastline as a strong tropical storm and dumps large amounts of rain over Houston. The storm caused $5.5 billion in damages, making Allison the costliest tropical storm in U.S. history.

[Walden Ponderer 12639]

June 6th is, among other things, an important date in the history of the Swiss military, which has been somewhat limited since the 1814-1815 Congress of Vienna saw the European powers guarantee the neutrality of Switzerland.

On June 6, 1513, one of the more notable Swiss victories took place at the Battle of Novara, in Northern Italy. This was one of the more significant battles in the War of the League of Cambrai, in which Milanese and Swiss forces routed the French. Novara was a particularly bloody contest, with at least 5,000 French casualties, against 1,500 Swiss losses.

After this defeat, Louis the XII was forced to withdraw the French forces from Milan and Italy; Switzerland, meanwhile, developed a reputation for neutrality that somewhat hides a fairly martial culture -- the Swiss Guard defending the Vatican is perhaps the most notable Swiss military presence, dating from the 16th century, but there were a number of brutal conflicts involving Swiss forces in the years intervening between the Italian campaign and the onset of official neutraility, including the Swiss Peasant War of 1653, the First War of Villmergen, the Second War of Villmergen, and the Sonderbund War, which led to the formation of the federal state system in Switzerland in the mid-19th century.

And Switzerland has had a standing army ever since, which has served them well when needing to guarantee their neutrality for themselves, as during the Franco-Prussian War, and World Wars I and II.

[HouTex 1850]

In addition to 1944, D-Day, some other interesting things occurred:

1816 10" of snowfall in New England, part of a "year without a summer" which followed the eruption of Mount Tambora in Indonesia

1966 NFL & AFL announce their merger

1968 Senator Robert F. Kennedy dies from his wounds after he was shot the previous night

1983 Emmy 10th Daytime Award presentation - Susan Lucci loses for 4th time

1991 NBC announces Jay Leno will succeed Johnny Carson as host on "The Tonight Show" on May 25, 1991

[Walden Ponderer 12639]

June 7, 1494, The Treaty of Tordesillas (Portuguese: "Tratado de Tordesilhas"; Spanish: "Tratado de Tordesillas") was signed at (wait for it) Tordesillas, a city in what is now the Valladolid Province in Spain.

The treaty divided the newly discovered lands outside Europe between Portugal and Castile along a line of demarcation roughly halfway between the Cape Verde Islands and Cuba and Hispaniola, granting the Eastern half of the world to Portugal, and the Western half to Castile (soon to be Spain).

The general upshot (and, as with any treaty of this scope, there were numerous exceptions, provisos, and strange circumstances leading to argument) was Spanish dominance in most of the colonial Americas not under French or English control (comprising the majority of Central and South America), and Portuguese control of Brazil, a handful of Atlantic island territories, and any new lands discovered in Africa, India, China, Japan and the Philippines.

As a practical matter, the Spanish were much more successful than the Portuguese in exploiting these self-appointed spoils, as shown by a cursory review of places in the world where each language is spoken. Spanish has a global reach (including in the Philippines, which were "discovered" by Portuguese explorer Magellan... who claimed them for Spain!), whereas Portuguese is mostly limited to Brazil, Indonesia, and Portugal. Shout out to Portuguese Goa, of course, though when you think about it "discovering" India was an even more preposterous notion than "discovering" the Americas.

[HouTex 1850]

1776 Richard Lee (Virginia) moves to declare independence in Continental Congress

1939 George VI and Elizabeth become the 1st king and queen of Britain to visit USA

1989 For one second this morning, the time is 01:23:45, 6-7-89

1991 Mount Pinatubo (Philippines) erupts for 1st time

1998 James Byrd, Jr. is dragged to death by Shawn Allen Berry, Lawrence Russel Brewer, and John William King in Jasper, Texas in a racially-motivated hate crime

[Walden Ponderer 12639]

6 hours ago, HouTex said:

1939 George VI and Elizabeth become the 1st king and queen of Britain to visit USA

Word is, he saw Lincoln's ghost. 

[Walden Ponderer 12639]

June 8, 793 C.E., the Viking invasion of England began with a raid on Lindisfarne, where Irish monk Saint Aidan had established a Catholic priory in 634, and which had been the focal point for the Christianization of northeastern England for over 150 years.

A Northumbrian scholar employed by King Charlemagne of the Franks (and roughly ten years later, declared Holy Roman Emperor) described the event thusly:

"Never before has such terror appeared in Britain as we have now suffered from a pagan race. . . .The heathens poured out the blood of saints around the altar, and trampled on the bodies of saints in the temple of God, like dung in the streets."

Probably a bit overstated, in reality. While we have sensationalized accounts of Viking depredations, most of the actual "invading" done by the Nordic seafarers was in Scotland and Ireland, with raids in England mostly consisting of looting, pillaging, burning, and leaving -- much like what the English military did, in fact, when raiding (wait for it) anyone not English, well into the 20th century.

[Walden Ponderer 12639]

June 9, 747 C.E., General Abu Muslim Abd al-Rahman ibn Muslim Khorasani (often referred to simply as "Abu Muslim" or alternatively as "al-Khurasani") led the successful Abbasid Revolution against the Umayyad Caliphate.

Umayyad rule was the second of the four major Caliphates following the death of Prophet Muhammad in 632. The Umayyad family conquered far and wide, from Portugal in the West, along the northern coast of Africa, to modern day Pakistan and Afghanistan, making it at the time the largest empire in history (and is still, in fact, fifth largest on the historical record).

As might be imagined with an empire of that size, the majority of the population was non-Muslim (and, just as importantly, non-Arab) with non-Muslims treated as 2nd class citizens... and non-Arabs hardly treated much better, facing higher taxation and less autonomy than the Arabic Muslims closer to the central authority in Damascus. Ethnic concerns, as well as the concern of more moderate Muslims who viewed tolerant treatment of conquered non-Muslims as central to the teachings of the Q'uran, made the Umayyads exceptionally unpopular.

Abu Muslim's personal ethnicity is the subject of great debate amongst historians, with various sources citing him as Persian, Yaminite, Kurdish, Tajik, or even (ironically) Arabic. Knowing where he was born might be helpful, in theory, but even that knowledge is sketchy at best.

By ushering in Abbasid rule (which lasted from 750–1258, ended only by Mongol invasion), Abu Muslim helped end the era of Arabic domination of the Muslim world, which greatly aided in the rise of other Islamic cultures, most notably Persian and Turkic influences, evidenced in modern Iran, Turkey, and the Central Asian Turkic states.

[HouTex 1850]

1549 Book of Common Prayer is adopted by the Church of England

1942 Nazis kill all inhabitants of Lidice, which had been implicated in the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich, Nazi controller of Bohemia and Moravia, to “teach the Czechs a final lesson of subservience and humility”

1973 105th Belmont: Ron Turcotte aboard Secretariat wins in 2:24, becoming the 1st Triple Crown winner in 25 years

1980 Comedian Richard Pryor suffers burns from free basing cocaine

1983 Margaret Thatcher's Conservative Party wins British parliamentary election

 

[HouTex 1850]

1776 Continental Congress creates committee (Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Roger Sherman, and Robert R. Livingston) to draft a Declaration of Independence

1939 King and Queen of England taste 1st "hot dogs" at FDR's party

1947 WW II sugar rationing finally ends in US (began May 28, 1942)

1950 50th US Open Men's Golf, Merion GC: 16 months after being severely injured in an auto accident, Ben Hogan beats Lloyd Mangrum by 4 shots and George Fazio by 6 in an 18-hole playoff; the "Miracle at Merion"

1955 Le Mans race car accident kills 83 spectators (race continues)

1963 Buddhist monk Thích Quảng Đức immolates himself at a Saigon intersection, creating one of the Vietnam War's most iconic images

1964 Queen Elizabeth orders Beatles to her birthday party, they attend

1982 "E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial" is released

1987 Margaret Thatcher is 1st British Prime Minister in 160 years to win a third consecutive term

2004 Ronald Reagan's funeral is held at Washington National Cathedral.

 

[Walden Ponderer 12639]

June 11th is Kamehameha Day in Hawaii. Kamehameha the Great was the monarch who unified the unified Kingdom of Hawaii, which until 1810 had been divided amongst the several islands. 

On December 22, 1871, Kamehameha V decreed the celebration of his grandfather, to be observed every year on June 11, and this celebration continued even after Hawaii became the 50th state in the United States in 1959 -- in fact, recognition of Kamehameha Day was one of the first acts of the new state legislature.

On all the islands, various civic parades and formal celebrations take place during daylight hours, to be followed by Ho'olaule'a ("Celebration") which is basically a big street party featuring dancing and carousing (think Luau, but not confined to the beach -- though occasionally the Elvis-ish cheese factor can be pretty high).

[HouTex 1850]

1871 Hurricane kills 300 in Labrador

1942 Germany lands 4 saboteurs on Long Island

1947 1st night game at Fenway Park (Red Sox 5, White Sox 3)

1948 Babe Ruth's final farewell at Yankee Stadium, he dies Aug 16th

1955 Mercedes racing car kills 77 at Le Mans, France

 

[Walden Ponderer 12639]

June 13, 313 C.E., the Edict of Milan, signed by Western Roman Emperor Constantine I, and Eastern ruler Licinius, whose territory had been reduced to little more than modern Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria, decreed religious tolerance throughout what was left of the Roman Empire.

The "Edictum Mediolanense" is actually controversial amongst historians because there is no physical relic, no piece of parchment, remaining, only two contemporary accounts which contradict each other. The practical implications of policy, however, are known from the fact that the persecution of Christians had marked the rise and fall of various Roman politicians since the fall of the Severan dynasty in 235 C.E.

For almost a hundred years, the fickle opinion of Roman mobs either favorable or antagonistic to the new religion dictated who got to do what to whom. Until the ironic rise of Catholic Christian oppression of everyone else, the Edict of Milan granted a brief respite in which government minded their own business.

It was not until progressive-thinking Unitarian preacher Ferenc Dávid (Francis David) of Transylvania penned tolerance legislation for that small kingdom in the 16th century that the idea of letting people come to their own conclusions on religious and ethical matters began to take hold again in the formerly Roman territories.

[El Diablo 4232]

June 14th, 1968, the Iron Butterfly single "In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida" was released by Atco Records.

 

[HouTex 1850]

1775 US Army first forms as the Continental Army to fight American Revolutionary War

1917 1st German air attack on England, 100+ killed in East London

1940 German forces enter Paris during WWII

1940 Auschwitz concentration camp opens in Nazi controlled Poland with Polish POWs (approx. 3 million would die within its walls)

1961 106°F, hottest temperature in San Francisco

1974 Angels' Nolan Ryan strikes out 19 Red Sox in 12 innings

1982 Argentina surrenders to Great Britain, ending the 74-day Falklands Islands conflict

1995 49th NBA Championship: Houston Rockets sweep Orlando Magic in 4 games

 

[HouTex 1850]

1215 King John signs Magna Carta at Runnymede, near Windsor, England

1775 George Washington appointed commander-in-chief of the Continental Army, the day after Congress establishes the force

1864 Robert E. Lee's home area (Arlington, Virginia) becomes a military cemetery

1924 J. Edgar Hoover assumes leadership of the FBI

1940 World War II: France surrenders to NAZI Germany, German troops occupy Paris

1976 Rain out! Astrodome cancels game heavy rains make it difficult for visiting team and umpires to get through flooded streets to the stadium

1986 Pravda announces high-level Chernobyl staff fired for stupidity

1991 Climactic eruption of the Mount Pinatubo volcano in the Philippines, the second-largest volcanic eruption on Earth of the 20th century
 

[Walden Ponderer 12639]

June 15, 1215 C.E., the Magna Carta Libertatum (Latin for "the Great Charter of the Liberties") was signed at Runnymede, near Windsor, by King John of England. 

As the progenitor of the modern institution of democracy in the Western world, the Magna Carta was essentially a peace treaty between John and his rebellious nobility. It promised the protection of church rights, granted habeus corpus rights to the English nobility, granted landholders the right to a speedy trial, and reduced royal taxes. Just as significant, it established a council of 25 barons which was the forerunner to the House of Lords... which in turn was the forerunner of the House of Commons, the first truly significant democratically elected national assembly in a nation with imperial aspirations.

Of course, much about the Magna Carta is not found in high school history books, including the fact that it was annulled by Pope Innocent III. Occasionally, you'll find the odd American who is aware that no English king since that time has taken the name "John" -- what has recently come to light thanks to advances in genealogy research is the odd fact that all but one American president has claims as a descendant of King John. And no, that one is not Barack Obama -- he, too, claims King John as an ancestor. If you're curious, I'll leave that research to your own devices.

Spoiler alert! About 50% of the claims, including that of Donald Trump, are simply fabricated by overzealous amateur historians.

Edited June 15, 2019 by Walden Ponderer
Typo. "Thakn"? Really?

[Hpara759 1777]

On ‎6‎/‎14‎/‎2019 at 9:28 AM, HouTex said:

 

1974 Angels' Nolan Ryan strikes out 19 Red Sox in 12 innings

 

 

235 pitches

pitched 4 days later (4 man rotation)  and won that game

All others are pussies in comparison

 

 

[El Diablo 4232]

June 16, 2015, Tropical Storm Bill made landfall on the Texas coast.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tropical_Storm_Bill_(2015)