History of the Week: Articles of Confederation, St. Peter’s, Burning of Atlanta, Somme, Lewis & Clark, Hungarian Republic, Elizabeth I, & More
As this week’s disturbing pro-terrorist trend on TikTok showed, ignorance of history can lead to a culture’s and a nation’s self-destructing. We must know the truth of the past if we are not to be fooled by lies in the present. Below are some of the important events that occurred this week in history.
November 13
1850 - “Scottish author Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-1894) was born in Edinburgh, Scotland. Best known for Treasure Island, Kidnapped and The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.”
1942 - All five of the Sullivan brothers are killed when the ship USS Juneau is destroyed off Guadalcanal during WWII, reportedly the worst loss to any single family in the history of U.S. wars. Two different Navy ships have been named after the brothers.
1945 - Gen. Charles de Gaulle becomes head of the provisional government of liberated France.
November 14
1666 - Reported date of the first experimental blood transfusion, which occurred in England between two dogs.
1765 - Robert Fulton, inventor of the steamboat, is born in the American colonies.
1840 - Claude Monet, famous and influential French Impressionist painter, is born.
1889 - American journalist Nellie Bly, aka Elizabeth Cochrane, begins her 25,000-mile trip around the world in imitation of Jules Verne’s fictional character Phileas Fogg in Around the World in 80 Days. Bly beat the fictional record by completing the trip in 72 days.
1971 - America’s Mariner 9 becomes the first spacecraft to orbit another planet.
November 15
1533 - Spaniard Francisco Pizarro captures and enters the Incan capital of Cuzco (Cusco).
1777 - The Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union are finalized by the Continental Congress, though they did not come into force until 1881 when the 13 colonies had all ratified them. The Articles were the governing document of what would become the original 13 United States until the Constitution was crafted.
1805 - History Link: “On November 15, 1805, Lewis and Clark and the Corps of Volunteers for Northwestern Discovery reach the Pacific Ocean at the mouth of the Columbia River, one year, six months, and one day after leaving St. Louis, Missouri, in search of the legendary ‘Northwest Passage’ to the sea.” The “Northwest Passage”, or a ladder of waterways from one ocean to the other, did not exist, but Lewis and Clark and their men (and their Indian guide Sacagawea) had reached from one coast of North America to the other in an impressive and daring feat, for which they and President Thomas Jefferson had aimed.
1864 - Date during the “Burning of Atlanta,” one of the most lied-about events in American history (unsurprising, since Democrat/Confederate propaganda was involved). Firstly, Confederates under Gen. Hood had already destroyed certain targets to prevent Union capture, including burning an ammunition train, which caused a huge explosion. Furthermore, the city had been bombarded during the Union siege; a fair amount of damage was done in the back-and-forth of battle, not from Union soldiers gleefully thrusting torches into buildings. 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%. It seems pretty clear that more of Atlanta was burned than was intended by Sherman, who had specifically mapped out military targets. Some Union troops themselves admit to having burned houses and on how the fires apparently burned more than originally planned; they were fighting an unnecessary war with fellow Americans that had cost the lives of many of their comrades, and they were angry. But Union officers weren’t the only ones who noted that their troops didn’t destroy the entire city, despite what Confederate propagandists later claimed.
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 (NOTE: fitting with Poe’s estimate of 37%). Sure, other Confederate officials or propagandists afterwards claimed the city was completely devastated; these 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. Confederate officials also lied when they accused Lincoln of being a tyrant (in fact, the states seceded before he even took office). Not to mention they were proud traitors who falsely claimed that slavery was sacred in the Constitution (the words “slave” and “slavery” never appear there, and the Founders originally aimed to phase out slavery).
Indeed, a fair amount of the damage blamed on Sherman throughout the South was actually committed by the Confederates themselves (including the burning of Colombia)! They were not mere innocent victims. They were proudly and aggressively defending an evil cause. 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; or, at Ft. Pillow, deliberately and gleefully massacred Union troops who’d surrendered. Sherman did destroy civilian property in various areas, just as the Allies in WWII bombed Nazi and Japanese cities to end a brutal war against a vicious enemy. But the Confederates committed much worse atrocities than ever Sherman would have conceived of.
The list of Confederate lies and war crimes is disturbingly extensive; we are supposed to believe these liars and criminals and their claims about what happened in Atlanta? As well believe Kamala Harris when she said Jan. 6 was as awful as Pearl Harbor. Democrats have always been excellent propagandists.
1889 - Brazil becomes a republic.
1891 - German Field Marshal Erwin Rommel is born. During WWII, Rommel achieved legendary status for his fighting prowess; his most worthy opponent was US Gen. George Patton, though bungling British Gen. Montgomery was in command when Allied troops finally won against Rommel at El Alamein. Implicated in the assassination attempt on Hitler, Rommel was pressured into committing suicide in 1944.
1969 - The largest anti-war protest in U.S. history occurs in Washington, D.C., to protest the Vietnam War. For years, ignorant and self-righteous hippies viciously abused U.S. soldiers and their families, never understanding that those soldiers alone stood between the South Vietnamese and the bloody slaughter that the Communist Viet Cong committed after American troops withdrew from Vietnam.
November 16
42 BC - Future Roman Emperor Tiberius is born. Successor to Caesar Augustus, he appears to have suffered from paranoia and is said to have been a “tyrannical recluse” in his later years (tyranny being rather a favorite pastime of the Julio-Claudian dynasty).
534 - The final revised version of the Codex Justinianus, named for Eastern Roman Emperor Justinian, is published. The codex comprises the foundational jurisprudence documents of the Western legal tradition.
1918 - Hungary becomes an independent republic for the first time, due to the WWI fracturing of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
1933 - U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt resumes relations with the Soviet Russians, which had been broken off after the violent Bolshevik Revolution some 16 years earlier.
2001 - The first of the hugely popular Harry Potter films is released.
November 17
9 AD - Future Roman Emperor Vespasian, founder of the Flavian dynasty, is born.
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 killed in Ireland. The great Irish hero Hugh O’Neill, who suffered under years of British persecution from Elizabeth’s government but then successfully jeopardized British rule in Ireland before his untimely death, certainly did not know her as “Good Queen Bess.” Brilliant English authoress Jane Austen satirically described the universal corruption of Elizabeth I’s government: “It was the peculiar misfortune of this Woman to have bad Ministers — Since wicked as she herself was, she could not have committed such extensive mischief, had not these vile and abandoned Men connived at, and encouraged her in her Crimes.”
1800 - U.S. Congress meets in the then-new capital of Washington, D.C., for the first time (the first, temporary capital was Philadelphia).
1869 - The Suez Canal connecting the Mediterranean and Red Seas opens.
1989 - The Velvet or Gentle Revolution protests against Communist rule begin in Czechoslovakia, eventually involving hundreds of thousands.
1993 - The United Nations war crimes tribunal for alleged mass killings in former Yugoslavia opens.
November 18
1307 - Having defied Austrian authority, Swiss William Tell is forced to do a trial of marksmanship, and famously succeeded in shooting an apple off his son’s head.
1473 - William Caxton prints the first English language book on a printing press, Raoul Lefevre’s The Recuyell of the Historyes of Troye.
1626 - Construction on the current St. Peter’s Basilica is completed. Two different popes aimed to rebuild the ancient basilica, and construction was begun on it in 1506. Among the principle designers were Michelangelo, Bernini, Donato Bramante, and Carlo Maderno. St. Peter’s is one of the most iconic and magnificent churches in the world, a triumph of Renaissance and Baroque architecture and art. The Basilica is built over the site of St. Peter the Apostle’s tomb.
1787 - “Photography inventor Louis Daguerre (1789-1851) was born in Cormeilles, near Paris. In 1839, at a meeting of the French Academy of Sciences, he announced his daguerreotype process, the first practical photographic process that produced lasting pictures.”
1909 - American lyricist, singer, songwriter, and multiple-Oscar-winner Johnny Mercer is born, a descendant of famous Revolutionary hero Hugh Mercer.
1916 - The First 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’s animated short “Steamboat Willie”—and thus the debut of one of the most popular and iconic fictional characters in history, Mickey Mouse. Walt Disney was a pioneer in so many ways, a genius who spawned whole new industries of animation, theme parks, and more. Walt’s brother Roy said that Walt was inspired to do a sound cartoon after seeing the first “talking” movie, “The Jazz Singer.” On Nov. 18, 1928, Mickey and Minnie Mouse came to the screen, voiced by Walt, in the now 95-year-old short you can watch below (see also a page from the original script of “Steamboat Willie,” found in Walt’s desk and published online by the Walt Disney Company). According to Rebecca Cline, the director of the Walt Disney Archives, Walt believed Mickey exemplified the “Everyman” (at least as the Everyman was in the America of his time); often facing failure and setbacks, but always getting up again with the optimistic belief that this time he’ll succeed: “When asked why Mickey was so popular, Walt once said, ‘when people laugh at Mickey Mouse it’s because he’s so human; and that is the secret of his popularity.’” Read my full piece on “Steamboat Willie” for more details.
November 19
1530 - Issuance of “‘The Recess’, the final decree of the Diet of Augsburg signed by Charles V and Catholic princes reaffirming Catholic rites and principles (after departure of Protestant Princes).”
1600 - Future British King Charles I is born. He was eventually executed by Puritan revolutionaries under Oliver Cromwell.
1863 - President Abraham Lincoln delivers one of the most famous and memorable speeches in all history, the immortal Gettysburg Address. The famous Battle of Gettysburg, the great Union victory that was “the bloodiest single battle” of the Civil War but also began turning the tide for an ultimate victory against the Confederacy and slavery, occurred on July 1-3, 1863. Months after that battle, President Abraham Lincoln came to Gettysburg to dedicate a cemetery for the war dead. Facing an exhausted, sorrowful crowd, Lincoln delivered ten sentences that made history. Lincoln ended, “It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they here gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”
1942 - The Soviets launch a counterattack against the Nazis at Stalingrad during WWII.
1978 - “The biggest mass suicide in history occurred as Reverend Jim Jones led over 900 followers to their deaths at Jonestown, Guyana. Members of his "Peoples Temple" religious cult were ordered to drink a cyanide-laced fruit drink. Those who refused were forcibly injected. Precipitating the tragedy a day earlier, California Congressman Leo J. Ryan, along with four associates and several reporters, had been shot to death during an ambush at a nearby airstrip. They were attempting to return home after investigating the cult's remote jungle location. Jones and his mistress killed themselves after watching his entire membership die. Only a few cult members managed to escape.” The mass suicide gave rise to the phrase “drinking the kool-aid,” meaning people who swallow whatever nonsense they’re told.
Did I miss any important events? Let me know in the comments!
Really enjoy reading these weekly history compilations.