History of the Week: Alamo, Boston Massacre, Dred Scott, Feb. Revolution, Punic War, Cape Canaveral Battle, H.Tubman, &More
History of the Week: Alamo, Boston Massacre, Dred Scott, Feb. Revolution, Punic War, Cape Canaveral Battle, H.Tubman, &More
Visiting a Communist museum about the Vietnam War in Saigon this week and seeing how aggressive and effective historical propaganda can be reminded me just how much a flawed understanding of history can impact a whole nation’s trajectory. In light of the importance of studying true history, below are a few of the births, deaths, and events that occurred this past week in history.
March 2
1791 - John Wesley, co-founder of heretical Methodist Protestantism, dies.
1807 - The U.S. Congress passes the Act to Prohibit the Importation of Slaves, abolishing the slave trade in America.
1876 - The future Pope Pius XII is born. Arguably his most praiseworthy effort was his helping save hundreds of thousands of Jews from the Nazis during WWII.
1943 - The Battle of the Bismarck Sea begins. American and Australian planes attacked Japanese ships, in what was “an utter disaster” for the Japanese.
1956 - The French-Moroccan Agreement is signed, granting Morocco independence.
1965 - “Sound of Music” starring Julie Andrews and Christopher Plummer, one of the most popular musical films ever, premiers. The movie won multiple Oscars.
March 3
1575 - Battle of Tukaroi, which was a “conflict between the forces of the Indian Mughal emperor Akbar under Munʿīm Khan and Dāʾūd Khan, the Afghan sultan of Bengal. The battle, which took place at a village between Midnapore and Jalesar in western Bengal, was decisive in scattering the Bengali army.”
1847 - Scottish-born American inventor of the telephone Alexander Graham Bell is born.
1861 - Czar Alexander II issues the Emancipation Manifesto, freeing Russian serfs.
1946 - Marxist Ho Chi Minh is elected president of North Vietnam. He would go on to lead the brutal and vicious Viet Cong during the Vietnam War, Saigon was renamed “Ho Chi Minh City” for him, and remains so to this day.
March 4
1238 - Reported date of the Battle of Sit River, in which Mongols soundly defeat the Russians.
1801 - Thomas Jefferson is the first U.S. president to be inaugurated in the new capital of Washington, DC.
1861 - Abraham Lincoln is inaugurated as the first Republican president. Seven slavery-loving Democrat states had already seceded from the Union since Lincoln’s election.
March 5
1770 - The Boston Massacre happens in Massachusetts. Colonists angry at British abuses, especially taxation without representation, began yelling at and throwing objects at British soldiers. The soldiers were ordered not to fire, but when one soldier was hit the soldiers began firing into the crowd. The first and most famous victim was black sailor Crispus Attucks. In all, five Americans were killed and five injured. The event shocked and angered many Americans, proving a key event in the path to Revolution.
1946 - Winston Churchill’s “Iron Curtain” speech in Missouri popularizes the term and highlights the division of Europe thanks to the power-hungry Soviet Communists. Seen as the start of the Cold War.
2013 - Hugo Chavez, the tyrannical leader of Venezuela, dies.
March 6
1475 - Italian artist Michelangelo, who created many of the most beautiful and famous statues and paintings in history, is born. Among his iconic works are the Pieta, Moses, the Sistine Chapel paintings, the design of St. Peter’s Basilica, and David.
1480 - Spain ratifies the Treaty of Alcacovas: “Afonso V of Portugal renounced his claims to the Crown of Castile, and he also recognized Castilian possession of the Canaries in return for Spanish recognition of Portuguese possession of the Azores (in the Atlantic Ocean west of Portugal), the Cape Verde Islands (off West Africa), and Madeira (north of the Canaries).”
1857 - The U.S. Supreme Court led by Roger Taney handed down the infamous Dred Scott decision, arguing that the enslaved Scott, who had been residing in a free state, did not have the legal right to request his freedom. It was a devastating blow to anti-slavery, civil rights activists and black Americans. It was also out of line with the Founding documents and vision of the Founders, as Taney argued blacks were inherently inferior and not capable of being citizens (even though free blacks were voting citizens in multiple states after the Constitution was first ratified, and no racial limits were placed on citizenship by the Constitution). Read more analysis here.
1836 - The fateful Battle of the Alamo occurs. During the Texas Revolution fought by Texan Mexicans and Americans seeking liberty from authoritarian Gen. Santa Anna, president of Mexico, a diverse group of Irish, English, German, Scottish, American, and Hispanic freedom fighters (including Davy Crockett, WB Travis, and James Bowie) defended a former mission church from Mexican troops. While all the defenders were killed by Santa Anna, their heroism inspired the Texans who ultimately defeated Santa Anna and won Texan independence. “Remember the Alamo!” was a famous American rallying cry. Read my previous piece for the full story of the Alamo’s brave defenders.
1869 - Dmitri Mendeleev presents the first periodic table.
1932 - Iconic American composer and conductor John Philip Sousa, famous for such marches as “The Stars and Stripes Forever,” dies.
March 7
161 - Roman emperor Antoninus Pius dies, one of the so-called “five good emperors” overseeing a period of Roman imperial prosperity and peace.
1274 - Italian Dominican St. Thomas Aquinas, one of the most influential of the Scholastic philosophers and theologians, dies.
1876 - “[LOC] Alexander Graham Bell successfully received a patent for the telephone and secured the rights to the discovery. Days later, he made the first ever telephone call to his partner, Thomas Watson.”
1912 - Norwegian Roald Amundsen announces he was first to discover the South Pole (which he did in Dec. 1911).
1936 - Nazi Adolf Hitler breaks WWI’s Treaty of Versailles by having German troops occupy the de-militarized Rhineland.
March 8
1822 - Birth of Ignacy Łukasiewicz, Polish philanthropist, pharmacist, and inventor of the kerosene lamp.
1917 - The Russian “February Revolution,” that would end up leading to the end of the czars’ rule and the start of Communist control in Russia, begins. (In the Julian calendar Russia used the events occurred during February; in the Gregorian calendar we use, in March.) Part of the reason for the violence was WWI’s harmful effects on Russia.
March 9
1451 - Amerigo Vespucci, the navigator after whom the Americas are named, is born.
1522 - Heretic Martin Luther begins preaching the Invocavit Sermons, calling for the abolition of various Catholic doctrines and liturgies. Read more about Luther, including his dealings with Satan and attempts to remove many books from the Bible, in my previous piece.
1776 - Scottish philosopher Adam Smith’s influential book “Wealth of Nations” is published.
1933 - Congress convenes as Democrat U.S. President Franklin D Roosevelt’s first “100 Days” begins, a period of frenzied legislating. Roosevelt openly violated the Constitution and greatly expanded the federal government.
1945 - Americans bomb Tokyo in the single deadliest air raid of WWII.
March 10
241 BC - The Battle of the Aegates Islands, the final battle of the First Punic War, occurs—a Roman victory over Carthage.
1783 - “The last naval battle of the American Revolution took place off of Cape Canaveral on March 10, 1783. Two American ships, the Alliance and the Duc de Lauzun, were on a mission to bring 72,000 Spanish silver dollars from Cuba to the American colonies to pay the Continental soldiers…[they] met with the British ships determined to stop them…The HMS Sybil was under the command of James Vashon, and the USS Alliance was under the command of John Barry…The Americans won the last naval battle of the American Revolution, and the mission to bring funds back from Cuba was successful.” Read more at Florida Today.
1913 - Harriet Tubman, the former slave who became famous as a conductor on the Underground Railroad, the first woman to help lead American troops in battle (during a Civil War mission), and a civil rights champion, dies.
March 11
843 - A procession at Constantinople’s Hagia Sophia celebrated the Empress Theodora restoring the use of icons, reversing imperially enforced heretical iconoclasm in the Byzantine empire.1
2011 - The Fukushima nuclear disaster (the second worst nuclear disaster in history) is triggered by a massive earthquake in Japan.
2018 - The Chinese Communist legislature changed their constitution for term limits, allowing President—or rather dictator—Xi Jinping to be president indefinitely.
2020 - The World Health Organization (WHO) declares COVID-19. The Chinese-influenced WHO’s recommendations, including masking, lockdowns, and “vaccines,” were adopted around the world and caused millions of deaths and injuries, and devastating economic and psychological impacts. There is evidence the virus was deliberately created in a lab in Wuhan, China, with the help of US government funding. The COVID pandemic saw almost unprecedented violation of rights and lying in America and elsewhere.
From L. Garland’s “Theodora, restorer of Orthodoxy.”
It is too bad you didn’t get to see the Picture taken down in the war muesem of John F’n Kerry being congratulated by North Vietnamese officials for helping them “win” the war. It was taken down for Kerry’s reporting for duty failed presidential run. For some reason failed DemonCrat presidents like Kerry and Algore get the GoreBull Warming money laundering payoffs.