[Although the US government now maintains that the strange craft seen above New Mexico on this day in 1947 was a spy balloon known as Mogul, at a press conference the following day an official with the Roswell Army Air Field referred to the materials recovered as being from 'a flying disc'; it wasn't until noted ufologist Stanton T. Friedman interviewed Major Jesse Marcel in 1978, however, that the conspiracy theories began flying almost as fast as those crazy flying saucers the kids are so wild about...]
1456 - At the insistence of France's King
Charles VII Joan of Arc was acquitted of heresy by the Inquisitor-General
Jean Brehal at a so-called 'nullification retrial' authorized by Pope
Callixtus III; held 25 years after an
ecclesiastical trial called by her English captors and presided over by Bishop
Pierre Cauchon found her guilty and ordered her burned at the stake, the phrase 'too little too late' leaps immediately to mind...
1585 - The
Treaty of Nemours - signed by Queen Mother
Catherine de' Medici and representatives of the
House of Guise - abolished what little tolerance (official or otherwise) that had once been shown toward the
Huguenots of France.
1777 - During the
American Revolution the
Battle of Hubbardton pitted the American forces of
Seth Warner, Ebenezer Francis, and
Nathan Hale against the British, commanded by
Simon Fraser and Baron
Friedrich Adolf Riedesel of
Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel in the territory of the
New Hampshire Grants (modern-day Vermont). Both an American strategic victory and a British tactical victory, the engagement (near the middle of the
Saratoga campaign, following the
withdrawal from Fort Ticonderoga) cost the Americans a commander in Francis, who died in battle, and saw Hale surrender both himself and a detachment of 70 men to the British; it did, however, convince the French to enjoin the battle on the American side, giving them and their cause a much needed boost when it mattered most.
1798 - The US Congress rescinded its various treaties with France, sparking the
Quasi-War.
1807 - The
Peace of Tilsit between France, Prussia and Russia ended the
Fourth Coalition, marking the start of a new phase in the
Napoleonic Wars.
1846 - Near the outset of the
Mexican-American War American troops occupied
Monterey and
Yerba Buena (modern-day San Francisco), while Commodore
John Drake Sloat undertook a naval blockade of the harbour at Yerba Buena - thus beginning the US conquest of
Alta California.
1865 - Four of the co-conspirators in the assassination of US President
Abraham Lincoln -
Mary Surratt,
Lewis Powell,
David Herold, and
George Atzerodt - were hanged before an audience of more than 1,000 at the
Old Arsenal Penitentiary in Washington, DC; Suratt, in fact, was the first woman in US history to be executed by the federal government.
1892 - The Revolutionary Philippine Brotherhood known as
Katipunan was established; their activities would contribute to the fall of the
Spanish Empire in Asia.
1898 - US President
William McKinley signed the
Newlands Resolution, annexing the sovereign nation of
Hawaii as a territory of the United States.
1915 - A
Great Gorge and International Railway trolley with an extreme overload of 157 passengers crashed near
Queenston, Ontario, killing 15.
1928 -
Sliced bread was sold for the first time by Missouri's Chillicothe Baking Company; described as 'the greatest forward step in the baking industry since bread was wrapped', this little bit of advertising hyperbole gave rise to the expression 'the greatest thing since sliced bread'.
1930 - Industrialist
Henry J. Kaiser began construction of the Boulder Dam, which is now known as
Hoover Dam.
1937 -
During the Battle of Lugou Bridge, the
Imperial Japanese Army overwhelmed China's
National Revolutionary Army and invaded Beijing, provoking the
Second Sino-Japanese War.
1946 - Mother
Frances Xavier Cabrini was canonized by Pope
Pius XII, the first American to be so honoured.
1947 - The alleged and disputed Roswell UFO Incident took place... Or did it?
1953 -
Ernesto 'Che' Guevara set out on a
trip through Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Panama, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Honduras, and El Salvador... Although less well-known than the nine-month journey around South America in 1952 which later became famous when its exploits were published as
The Motorcycle Diaries, the 1953 trip was equally crucial in the development of Guevara as a committed foe of imperialism and capitalism - embodied throughout this particular journey by the
United Fruit Company. It was also during this trip that Che married his first wife,
Hilda Gadea Acosta.
1978 - The
Solomon Islands became independent from the United Kingdom.
1983 - At the height of the
Cold War,
Samantha Smith, an American schoolgirl, visited the Soviet Union at the invitation of Secretary General
Yuri Andropov; Smith had written a letter to Andropov which captured his - and shortly thereafter the world's - attention.
2007 - Pope
Benedict XVI issued an
Apostolic Letter entitled
Summorum Pontificum, removing restrictions on celebrating the old
Latin Mass - all part of a modernization campaign by a hip, cutting-edge papacy*.
*Uh, yeah... Sarcasm!
*
share on:
facebook
Although never elected (she was defeated 7 times between 1942 and 1963), it was as head of the Parti social democratique du Quebec (an offshoot of the CCF, itself a forerunner of the NDP) that Casgrain lead the charge against the monstrous tyrannies of Maurice Duplessis.
