History: Cicero, Lewis, Churchill, Mary of Scots, Twain, 13th Amend., Irish State, Pearl Harbor, Irving, Dickinson &More
Winston Churchill, the anniversary of whose birth we recently commemorated, said, “Study history, study history. In history lies all the secrets of statecraft.” Therein lie the secrets of many things, and we would do well to take Churchill’s advice and study history. Below are some of the important births, deaths, and events that occurred during winter in history.
November 27
1095 - Pope Urban II makes his powerful speech at the Council of Clermont which triggers the First Crusade, in which European Christian warriors set out to reclaim the Holy Land from the control of the ruthless and intolerant Muslims who had conquered it. The Crusaders largely impoverished themselves to go on the expedition, and the majority of them returned to Europe after they successfully accomplished their mission.
November 28
1757 - Romantic poet William Blake is born in England.
1820 - Friedrich Engels, co-author of the Communist Manifesto with Karl Marx, is born in Prussia. Communism is the most deadly ideology in history.
1859 - Brilliant American fiction writer, historian, satirist, and creator of the Headless Horseman Washington Irving is born. Read my full article.
1943 - Beginning of the Tehran Conference, the first face-to-face meeting of all three of the major WWII Allied leaders.
November 29
1832 - American authoress Louisa May Alcott is born.
1890 - First meeting of the Japanese national legislature the Imperial Diet.
1898 - Clive Staples “C.S.” Lewis is born, a very popular and influential Irish-born British writer of the 20th century. Lewis’s works include Mere Christianity, the Chronicles of Narnia series, The Great Divorce, The Space Trilogy, and The Screwtape Letters.
1947 - Marks the UN Partition Plan, which aimed to create both Arab and Jewish states in the area of ancient Israel. The Arabs, though gifted with Jordan, have waged continual jihad against Israel since.
November 30
1016 - With the death of King Edmund Ironsides, Danish Cnut “the Great” becomes the king of all England.
1700 - Battle of Narva: Swedes beat Russians.
1807 - Napoleonic forces arrive to occupy Lisbon, but the Portuguese royal family has already fled.
1835 - US author Samuel Clemens, more famously known under his pen name “Mark Twain,” is born. His Huck Finn, which addressed the evil of race-based slavery, is considered by some to be the greatest American novel.
1874 - Winston Churchill is born. Churchill led Britain through the nightmare of WWII, being an absolutely essential factor in the Allied victory and the defeat of the Nazis. A prolific writer, a literary and political genius, and a powerful orator. Hear Gary Oldman’s rendition of Churchill’s most famous speech.
1900 - Irish writer Oscar Wilde, having converted to Catholicism, dies.
December 1
1640 - Portuguese overthrow Spanish rule in Lisbon.
1955 - Rosa Parks is arrested in Montgomery, Alabama, allegedly for refusing to move to the back of a segregated bus. It was not Parks’s first encounter with that particular bus driver. She was an activist and this incident was then specifically selected to become the basis of a movement. The famous photo of Parks on a bus supposedly being shunned by a white man was staged, and Claudette Colvin was actually the first black woman to be arrested for refusing to move to the back of the bus. She was considered less of a popular sympathetic figure, so Rosa was chosen instead as the figurehead.
December 2
1805 - Napoleon is victor at the Battle of Austerlitz.
1859 - Radical U.S. abolitionist John Brown is executed by hanging for treason, murder and insurrection after his unsuccessful slave revolt at Harpers Ferry. Brown was kind and well-intentioned toward slaves, and he inspired many abolitionists and slaves seeking freedom, but he killed white men in brutal ways (see Pottawatomie Massacre), and he definitely displayed characteristics of crazy fanaticism; his character is still debated today. See my previous piece.
December 3
1775 - First Lt. John Paul Jones raises the Grand Union Flag, the first “official” U.S. flag, aboard the U.S. Navy’s first flagship, the USS Alfred.
1989 - U.S. President George H.W. Bush and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev declare an end to the Cold War.
December 4
1563 - Last session of the nearly two-decade-long Council of Trent, a hugely important, inspiring, and influential council of the Catholic Church, concludes.
1829 - The British ban the barbaric practice of “suttee” in India, in which a living widow was burned on her husband’s funeral pyre. See Around the World in 80 Days.
December 5
771 - Charlemagne becomes sole King of the Franks.
1791 - Great composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart dies a pauper at age 35.
1839 - George Armstrong Custer, a heroic and admired Union officer during the Civil War, is born.
1848 - The U.S. Gold Rush begins.
1901 - Genius American artist, actor, and visionary Walt Disney is born. Read my full piece.
December 6
1240 - The Mongols break into Kyiv, the beautiful cultural and political center of Rus (now Ukraine and Russia), where they commit mass slaughter and destroy priceless religious and cultural treasures.
1865 - The 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution is ratified, abolishing slavery. It was Abraham Lincoln’s dream, though he did not live to see it ratified. Since the words “slave” and “slavery” do not appear in the Constitution, the Amendment was more an overriding of state laws than altering the Founders’ original vision.
1884 - The Washington Monument is finally completed, honoring the Father of our Country. It is the highest structure in Washington, D.C. At the pinnacle of the obelisk are the Latin words “Laus Deo,” or “Glory to God.”
1896 - Popular songwriter Ira Gershwin is born to a Russian Jewish immigrant in New York.
1886 - American Catholic poet Joyce Kilmer is born. He was killed in action during WWI.
1921 - History.com: “The Irish Free State, comprising four-fifths of Ireland, is declared, ending a five-year Irish struggle for independence from Britain”.
December 7
43 BC - Roman orator and thinker Marcus Tullius Cicero, of whom John Adams said “all the ages of the world have not produced a greater statesman and philosopher united,” is murdered, after being hunted by the ruthless Mark Antony. Cicero was the great defender of the Roman Republic, and thus opposed Julius Caesar and Mark Antony in their unquenchable thirst for dictatorial power.
1787 - Delaware becomes the first state to ratify the U.S. Constitution.
1941 - On Dec. 7, 1941, the paradise of Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, became hell on earth as Japanese planes swooped from the sky and Japanese torpedoes slammed into naval vessels. Read my previous article on a hero of Pearl Harbor.
December 8
1542 - Birthday of Mary, Queen of Scots, later overthrown by treacherous Protestants who resented Mary’s Catholicism and rightful claim both to the Scottish and English thrones. Her son turned his back on his mother’s religion and later became British King James I, a persecutor of Catholics. Mary was unjustly executed by her ruthless cousin Queen Elizabeth I. The great English authoress Jane Austen was a fervent admirer of Mary (see “History of England”).
1765 - Inventor Eli Whitney is born.
1941 - U.S. declares war on Japan.
1965 - Vatican Council II closes. The council would trigger radical changes to Catholic liturgy and practice, ultimately leading to a huge loss of Church membership and religious vocations.
December 9
536 - Byzantine general Belisarius enters Rome as the Ostrogothic garrison flees, returning control to the Eastern Roman Empire.
1941 - China officially declares a state of war exists with Japan, Germany, and Italy during WWII. The Japanese massacred millions of Chinese during the war.
December 10
1830 - Secluded but brilliant poetess Emily Dickinson is born in Massachusetts
1864 - Union Gen. Sherman’s troops arrive at Savannah, Georgia, reaching the objective of his March to the Sea during the Civil War.
1898 - Treaty of Paris ends the Spanish-American War.
1932 - The Australian Emu War ends. It was a military operation to try and stop crop damage in Australia from emus: big, flightless birds. And yes, really, the emus won.