POPnews - December 11th

[Those responsible for the French Revolution were to blame for some of the most heinous miscarriages of justice in the history of jurisprudence, including the trial of King Louis XVI, shown above; the fact that many of them were lawyers only made things worse. On the plus side, though, they did make the whole genre of lawyer jokes possible.]
1282 - Llywelyn ap Gruffydd, the last Welsh-born Prince of Wales recognized by the British Crown, was killed at Cilmeri by soldiers in the service of England's Edward I; the Welsh remember him as Llywelyn Ein Llyw Olaf.

1789 - The University of North Carolina was chartered by the North Carolina General Assembly.

1792 - The former Louis XVI of France - having been captured following the Insurrection and forced to abdicate in August 1791 - was put on trial; his conviction on the grounds of high treason before the National Convention was a foregone conclusion. Citizen Louis Capet would be executed in January 1793 by Charles Henri Sanson.

1816 - Indiana became the 19th US state.

1905 - An uprising by workers in Ukraine occurred, temporarily establishing the Shuliavka Republic in the capital, Kiev.

1907 - The New Zealand Parliament Buildings were almost completely destroyed by fire.

1925 - Pope Pius XI's encyclical Quas Primas introduced the Feast of Christ the King.

1931 - The Statute of Westminster - an important step towards sovereignty for dominions within the British Empire such as Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Newfoundland, and South Africa - was enacted by the British Parliament.

1941 - Germany and Italy declared war against the United States in retaliation for the United States' declaration of war against the Empire of Japan on December 8th, which was itself in reaction to the attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7th.

1946 - The United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund (UNICEF) was established.

1958 - French Upper Volta gained self-governing status from France, becoming the Republic of Upper Volta with full membership in the French Community.

1964 - Che Guevara addressed the United Nations as head of the Cuban delegation; during his speech there an unknown assailant fired a mortar shell at the UN Building.

1971 - The Libertarian Party was formed in the United States.

1972 - The Apollo 17 mission landed on the Moon.

1981 - At the El Mozote massacre armed forces in El Salvador killed an estimated 900 civilians in an anti-guerrilla campaign during the Salvadoran Civil War.

1993 - Forty-eight people were killed when a block of the Highland Towers collapsed near the Malaysian capital of Kuala Lumpur.

1994 - Russian President Boris Yeltsin ordered Russian troops into Chechnya at the outset of the First Chechen War.

1997 - The Kyoto Protocol was opened for signature; to date 183 parties have signed it.

2005 - The Buncefield Oil Depot caught fire in the English town of Hemel Hempstead.
*
share on: facebook

POPnews - March 30th

[Russia's sale of Alaska to the United States was accompanied by this cheque for $7.2 million, the equivalent of $104 million in today's money; it is said the sale went ahead because Russia feared losing the territory without compensation, either to the Americans or the British, who were then pretty firmly entrenched in Canada.]
1282 - On Easter Monday the people of Sicily had finally had enough, and undertook a popular rebellion against their hated Angevin king Charles I during what became known as the War of the Sicilian Vespers; Giuseppe Verdi's opera Les vêpres siciliennes would later be based on this conflict.

1296 - England's King Edward I sacked the border town of Berwick-upon-Tweed (now in Northumberland but then in Scotland) during his strenuous effort to subdue that country; in all some 8,000 residents fell beneath English swords - even those who had sheltered in churches - laying the groundwork for the First War of Scottish Independence.

1822 - The US Government created the Florida Territory.

1842 - Anesthesia was used for the first time in an operation when Dr. Crawford Long used diethyl ether while removing a tumour from the neck of James M. Venable in Jefferson, Georgia.

1855 - So-called Border Ruffians from Missouri invaded Kansas and forced the election of a pro-slavery legislature during the Bleeding Kansas era which led directly to the American Civil War.

1856 - The Treaty of Paris was signed, ending the Crimean War.

1858 - Hymen Lipman patented a pencil with an attached eraser.

1863 - Danish prince Wilhelm Georg was chosen to serve as King George I of Greece.

1867 - Alaska was purchased from Russia for $7.2 million - about 2 cents an acre or $4.19/km² - by US Secretary of State William H. Seward; the news media instantly dubbed it Seward's Folly, but history would make them eat their words. There's thought to be some $450 billion in oil still to be found beneath its surface, in addition to a rich natural wilderness above it, although how much of the latter will be spared in the unremitting zeal to get at the former is anybody's guess.

1870 - Texas was readmitted to the Union during the period of US history known as Reconstruction.

1885 - The Battle for Kushka triggered the Pandjeh Incident which nearly gave rise to war between the British and Russian empires.

1909 - The Queensboro Bridge opened linking Manhattan and Queens.

1912 - Sultan Abdelhafid signed the Treaty of Fez, making Morocco a French protectorate.

1939 - The Heinkel He 100 fighter jet set the world airspeed record of 463 mph.

1949 - A riot broke out in Reykjavík's Austurvöllur Square when Iceland joined NATO.

1954 - Toronto's Yonge Street subway line opened, making it the first of its kind in Canada.

1979 - British politician Airey Neave was killed by a car bomb as he drove out of the Palace of Westminster car park; a group calling itself the Irish National Liberation Army later claimed responsibility. As Shadow Secretary for Northern Ireland (and poised to become the minister in that post in the upcoming general election) Neave was an unremitting hardliner who many felt would have brought The Troubles to an abrupt end with savage tyranny - or, more likely, made the situation much, much worse.

1997 - Channel Five began broadcasting in the UK.

2006 - Marcos Pontes became the first Brazilian astronaut.
*
share on: facebook