History: Berlin Wall, Patton, Adams, Antoinette, Somme, Bolsheviks, Boone, Maccabeus, Chattanooga, Yorktown, Keats, Armistice &More
It has been over a month since I did a history roundup, as I was reporting on the history being made in real time, with the 2024 election, global conflicts, and other world-shaping events. The events of the past are equally important in helping us understand the events of the present, however, so I would like to share just a few highlights from history that occurred during October and November.
October 19
1781 - The Battle of Yorktown, last major engagement of the American Revolution, ends with a decisive American-French victory.
October 25
1774 - 51 North Carolina women swear not to buy or use products the British tax at the Edenton Tea Party.
October 28
1886 - The Statue of Liberty is dedicated in New York harbor.
October 29
1950 - The Communist Chinese invade Tibet, in what will lead to a genocide of Tibetans.
October 30
1735 - John Adams, key delegate to the Continental Congress and signer of the Declaration of Independence, is born. “John Adams, a remarkable political philosopher, served as the second President of the United States (1797-1801), after serving as the first Vice President under President George Washington.”
October 31
1517 - Martin Luther nails his 95 Theses onto the door of Wittenburg’s cathedral, beginning the Protestant Revolt, which has since splintered Christianity into tens of thousands of denominations. Luther himself admitted that he changed his thinking on the Mass and the papacy based on what Satan told him. Luther initially removed over 20 books from the Bible (that didn’t fit well with his theology), and many of his teachings are directly contradicted by the Bible. For instance “faith alone”—see James 2:17; or “sola scriptura”—see 2 Thess. 2:15 or 2 Peter 1:20 or 1 Tim. 3:15. Luther evidently thought he knew better than God what God should have said in the Bible, because he added the word “alone” to Romans 3:28. Read more here.
1795 - English Romantic poet John Keats is born.
1893 - The Chicago World’s Fair closes.
1941 - Mt. Rushmore National Memorial is completed.
November 1
1814 - The Congress of Vienna meets to redraw the map of Europe (thanks to the Napoleonic wars).
November 2
1734 - Frontiersman and American legend Daniel Boone is born in Pennsylvania. “Daniel Boone was an early American frontiersman who gained fame for his hunting and trailblazing expeditions through the Cumberland Gap, a natural pass through the Appalachian Mountains of Virginia, Tennessee and Kentucky. Boone achieved folk hero status during his lifetime.”
1755 - Austrian princess and future French queen Marie Antoinette is born. Contrary to legend, Marie Antoinette never said “Let them eat cake,” and she and her husband were actually democratically-minded monarchs; Louis, unfortunately too weak to stop the inevitable crisis after years of aristocratic and royal corruption, was attempting reforms.1 Marie Antoinette was a woman with a compassionate heart, a devoted mother to her children, and she certainly tried to help the poor. Read more here.
1917 - Balfour Declaration: The British endorse the proposal of a Jewish nation in the area of the Jews’ ancient land of Israel.
1963 - South Vietnamese President Ngo Dinh Diem is assassinated during a U.S.-backed military coup. Ngo Dinh Diem was not a “brutal tyrant”; he was an imperfect politician, but a devout Catholic who wanted to restore Vietnamese nationalism after French rule. He was certainly better than the mass murdering Communist Viet Cong who ultimately took over.
November 3
644 - Reported date on which second Muslim caliph Umar I dies after being attacked by a Persian Christian slave.
1534 - British Parliament passes the first Act of Supremacy, declaring heretic and mass murderer King Henry VIII the Supreme Head of the Church of England.
1839 - First Opium War begins between China and Great Britain.
November 4
1847 - Composer Felix Mendelssohn dies.
1922 - Howard Carter discovers the tomb of King Tut.
1979 - Iranian hostage crisis begins.
November 5
1556 - The Second Battle of Panipat occurs in northern India.
1605 - The discovery of the idiotic “Gunpowder Plot” of a small group of upper-class Catholics (including Guy Fawkes), who were seemingly driven to insanity by the persecution of Catholicism in England at the time and foolishly planned to blow up Parliament. Afterwards, persecution subsequently worsened for British Catholics.
1775 - George Washington bans the celebration of “Guy Fawkes Day” in the American Revolutionary Army due to the holiday’s anti-Catholicism.
1942 - American composer and entertainer George Cohan dies.
1991 - Talented actor and Disney Legend Fred MacMurray dies.
2024 - Donald Trump wins a second non-consecutive presidential term.
November 6
1854 - Famous U.S. composer and conductor John Philip Sousa is born.
November 7
1811 - Americans and Native American Indians clash at the Battle of Tippecanoe.
1867 - Nobel-winning physicist Marie Curie is born.
1917 - The Bolshevik Revolution under Vladimir Ilyich Lenin overthrows the provisional government of Russia with an armed uprising.
November 8
1519 - Spain’s Hernan Cortes and his men enter Tenochtitlan, the Aztec capital. Read more here.
1745 - Catholic Stuart royal and claimant to the British throne “Bonnie Prince Charlie” and his Jacobite army enter England, aiming to restore the rightful line to the throne.
1847 - “Dracula” author Bram Stoker is born in Ireland.
1923 - Hitler tries to seize power in the Beer Hall Putsch.
1942 - Operation Torch, the Allied (British and American) invasion of French North Africa during WWII, begins.
November 9
1938 - Kristallnacht (the “Night of Broken Glass”) happens in Nazi Germany as Nazis riot, killing Jews and destroying their property.
1989 - The Soviets’ Berlin Wall falls, and East and West Germans are reunited, a great victory for freedom. Read more here.
November 10
1775 - The U.S. Marine Corps is born in Philadelphia. Read more here.
1917 - The bloody, months-long WWI Third Battle of Ypres (Belgium) ends.
November 11
1620 - The historic Mayflower Compact is signed.
1885 - Gen. George Patton is born in California. According to the Museum of the American G.I., “he is recognized as the greatest battlefield commander and well-known American general from the modern war era.” Read more here.
1918 - Armistice Day: WWI ends.
November 12
1942 - WWII: Naval Battle of Guadalcanal begins.
November 13
1850 - Scottish writer Robert Louis Stevenson is born.
November 14
1971 - America’s Mariner 9 becomes the first spacecraft to orbit another planet.
November 15
1777 - The Articles of Confederation are adopted by the Continental Congress.
1864 - Date during the “Burning of Atlanta,” one of the most lied-about events in American history. Firstly, Confederates under Gen. Hood had already destroyed certain targets to prevent Union capture, including burning an ammunition train; furthermore, the city had been bombarded and seriously damaged during the Union siege. Sherman specifically aimed to destroy certain targets valuable from a military perspective upon evacuation. Union officer Major Hitchcock estimated conservatively that about 25% of Atlanta was burned by Union troops, and Union officer Captain Poe estimated about 37%. Atlantan Zachariah Rice was in Atlanta only days after Sherman was gone and urged people to return, declaring much of the city was still fit to be lived in. Rice specifically noted that churches (with one exception) had been spared entirely by the Union. Other accounts at the time caused Dr. Gordon Jones, writing for a Georgia society, to estimate 40% of Atlanta was seriously damaged. The Confederates who later claimed differently are the same people who defended the wholesale massacre of black Union soldiers and their Union officers, and the enslavement of any and every black person the Confederate Army encountered. It is a fact that the Union troops tried to clear all civilians out of Atlanta before burning even military targets—Sherman specifically had a 10-day truce to ensure evacuation—whereas the Confederate military rampaged through multiple Union states rounding up all the black citizens to ship South as slaves. Read more here.
November 16
42 BC - Future Roman emperor and paranoiac Tiberius is born.
534 - The foundational Codex Justinianus, named for Eastern Roman Emperor Justinian, is published.
November 17
1558 - Queen Elizabeth I becomes monarch of England. Though Protestants have long built around her the myth of “Good Queen Bess,” and she supported important exploratory efforts in the New World, English Catholics faced harsh persecution under her reign (including hundreds of executions). Many more Catholics were arrested and killed in Ireland, including the great Irish hero Hugh O’Neill.
1989 - The Velvet Revolution begins in Czechoslovakia against Communist rule.
November 18
1626 - Construction on the current St. Peter’s Basilica is completed.
1909 - Singer and songwriter Johnny Mercer is born.
1916 - The Battle of the Somme ends as British Commander in Chief Sir Douglas Haig calls his army to a halt. The Allies had succeeded in advancing only six miles at the bloody cost of 146,000 soldiers killed and more than 200,000 more injured.
1928 - Debut of Walt Disney and Ub Iwerks’ “Steamboat Willie,” the first sound cartoon and the debut of Mickey Mouse. Read more here.
November 19
1863 - President Abraham Lincoln delivers one of the most famous and memorable speeches in all history, the immortal Gettysburg Address, while dedicating a cemetery on the site of the Union victory at the Battle of Gettysburg. Read more here.
1942 - The Soviets launch a counterattack against the Nazis at Stalingrad during WWII.
November 20
1780 - American militia defeat the British Butcher Banastre “Bloody Ban” Tarleton in South Carolina, a key victory for morale.
1789 - New Jersey becomes the first state to ratify the first ten Constitutional amendments known as the “Bill of Rights.”
1943 - America begins its WWII Central Pacific Campaign against the Japanese with the Battle of Tarawa, a bloody clash that brought heavy casualties to both sides.
November 21
164 BC - Reported date of Jewish hero Judas Maccabeus recapturing Jerusalem, during the Maccabean Revolt against the Seleucid Empire (see 2 Macc. 10). Judas cleansed and rededicated the Temple to the worship of the true God.
1877 - American Thomas Edison announces his invention the phonograph.
November 22
1497 - Portuguese navigator Vasco da Gama, sailing from Europe to India, becomes the first person to sail around the tip of Africa.
1744 - Abigail Adams, wife and mother of U.S. presidents, is born.
1943 - Start of the WWII Cairo Conference between Allied leaders.
1963 - U.S. President John F. Kennedy is assassinated.
November 23
1248 - The Siege of Seville ends with the surrender of Muslims and a victory for King St. Ferdinand III of Castilla (Spain).
1887 - British actor Boris Karloff is born.
1888 - Comedian and musician Harpo Marx is born. Read more here.
November 24
1784 - Military hero and U.S. president Zachary Taylor, “Old Rough and Ready,” is born.
1863 - The U.S. Civil War Battle of Chattanooga, also known as the Battle of Missionary Ridge, is fought, a major victory for brilliant Union Gen. U.S. Grant.
November 25
1177 - Christian Crusaders under King Baldwin IV of Jerusalem defeat a much larger Muslim army under Saladin at the Battle of Montgisard.
November 26
43 BC - Reported date of the formation of the Roman Second Triumvirate alliance of Octavian (Augustus), Marcus Aemilius Lepidus, and Mark Antony.
1789 - Designated by President George Washington as a national Day of Thanksgiving to God. Read more here.
1940 - Nazis begin to wall off the Warsaw Ghetto, which held about 400,000 Jews in terrible living conditions. Only about 60,000 Jews ultimately survived.
1942 - The iconic WWII movie “Casablanca” has its world premier.
1950 - Communist China enters the Korean War.
Marie Antoinette’s husband Louis XVI was in the process of instituting reforms, including giving the commoners more representation in the Estates General; and when the Third Estate (commoners), joined with some nobles (Second Estate) and clergy (Third Estate) formed the National Assembly, Louis initially though reluctantly attempted to work with the body, which rapidly turned into a radical entity and later a terroristic organization out for blood and every bit as—nay, more tyrannical than the monarchy had been. The French Revolution has been whitewashed and praised, but, in stark contrast to the American Revolution, it did little but destroy what came before it and slaughter anyone and everyone it could get its hands on. The French poor were worse off at the end and many innocent people, including holy priests, nuns, and poor people, were beheaded along with the aristocrats.
There is a General Store ledger in a Museum up by the Cumberland Gap where both the Boones and the Crocketts were in the Store on the same day. Smaller world back then. Renegade Indians skinned Boone’s eldest son alive to try to draw out the whole Boone family to scalp them all. We take for granted the Shoulders of the Saints and Explorers we stand on today. Especially the Wokesters wandering around “creating their own reality” now. Pray it Forward, 🙏✝️🙏