History of the Week: Battle of Chattanooga, Nuremberg, Bill of Rights, Reconquista, Judas Maccabeus, Vasco da Gama, 2nd Triumvirate, & More
History of the Week: Battle of Chattanooga, Nuremberg, Bill of Rights, Reconquista, Judas Maccabeus, Vasco da Gama, 2nd Triumvirate, & More
I saw a social media post this week with the comment, “You have heard it said: ‘Those who don’t learn from history are doomed to repeat it.’ Maybe more important: ‘Those preventing history from being taught INTEND to repeat it.’” In the interests of breaking through the Orwellian wall of lies about history, and preventing the disasters of history from repeating themselves, here are some of the key events that occurred this week throughout the centuries.
November 20
284 - Diocletian is acclaimed Roman emperor of east and west. While he enacted helpful political and financial reforms, he is also guilty of the last and worst of the Roman persecutions of Christians.
762 - Estimated date that “Bögü, Khan of the Uyghurs, conquers Lo-Yang, capital of the Chinese Empire.”
1789 - New Jersey becomes the first state to ratify the first ten Constitutional amendments known as the “Bill of Rights.”
1889 - American astronomer Edwin Hubble, after whom the Hubble Telescope is named, is born.
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. According to History.com, “In the 76-hour Battle of Tarawa, U.S. Marines suffered almost as many killed-in-action casualties as U.S. troops suffered in the six-month campaign at Guadalcanal Island.” After just three days, there were over 1,000 Americans dead and around 2,000 more injured. Such brutal experiences with small islands like Tarawa brought home the hard truth that the Japanese were perfectly serious when they vowed to fight to the last man, and for every single inch of Japanese soil. It’s a key fact to keep in mind when understanding why the U.S. dropped the atom bombs on Japan instead of attempting an inevitably devastating land invasion, that would have ended in massacre for both Americans and Japanese.
1945 - The Allies’ famous Nuremberg War Crime Trials of Nazis begin.
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.
1694 - Radical French Enlightenment philosopher François-Marie Arouet, better known as “Voltaire,” is born.
1783 - The first free ascent of a hot air balloon that had passengers takes place in France. US Founder Ben Franklin was part of the audience.
1789 - North Carolina officially becomes the twelfth American state by ratifying the Constitution.
1877 - American Thomas Edison announces his invention to record and play back sound: 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, the “Cape of Good Hope.”
1744 - Abigail Adams is born. The beloved wife of John Adams, she was America’s second First Lady and is one of only two women who was both a wife and a mother (to John Quincy Adams) to presidents.
1935 - Pan American’s (Pan Am) flying boat “China Clipper” sets off on the first-ever trans-Pacific airmail flight. “China Clipper had planned to fly over the incomplete San Francisco–Oakland Bay Bridge shortly after taking off. However, the pilot realized he wouldn’t make it over the bridge and flew under instead – narrowly avoiding a crash. The plane completed its historic 8,000-mile island-hopping journey across the Pacific on November 29, delivering 58 mailbags with more than 110,000 pieces of mail.” The next year, Pan Am began offering flights to passengers too.
1943 - Start of the WWII Cairo Conference between Allied leaders Winston Churchill of Great Britain, Franklin D. Roosevelt of the United States, and Chiang Kai-shek of China.
1963 - President John F. Kennedy is fatally shot while being driven through Dallas, Texas. The assassination has been a source of mystery and controversy ever since; recently, an unnamed insider claimed to Tucker Carlson that America’s own CIA was involved in the assassination.
1963 - Clive Staples “C.S.” Lewis dies. He was a very popular and influential Irish-born British writer of the 20th century, friends with J.R.R. Tolkien. Lewis’s works include Mere Christianity, the Chronicles of Narnia series, The Great Divorce, The Space Trilogy, and The Screwtape Letters.
1975 - Coronation of King Juan Carlos of Spain, restoring the Spanish monarchy after the death of authoritarian Gen. Franco.
November 23
1248 - The Siege of Seville ends with the surrender of Muslims and a victory for King St. Ferdinand III of Castilla (Spain). Seville was returned to Christian hands more than 500 years after the Muslims seized it.
1859 - Estimated birthday of notorious Wild West outlaw and cattle rustler “Billy the Kid,” who was guilty of at least nine murders himself before he was killed in his turn by Sheriff Pat Garrett at the young age of 21.
1887 - Birthday of British actor William Henry Pratt, who became a horror film icon under the name Boris Karloff.
1888 - Birthday of “Harpo” Marx (born Adolph Marx), one of the famous Marx Brothers comedians. Besides being talented at comedy, Harpo was a superb musician, hence his nickname:
November 24
1784 - Zachary Taylor, “Old Rough and Ready,” is born. He later became a military hero of the Mexican-American War and became president in 1849, though he died the next year.
1859 - Charles Darwin’s “On the Origin of Species” is published. While Darwin’s version of evolution has been scientifically debunked, his underlying ideology continues to shape science, philosophy, and religion to this day. Darwin impacted Karl Marx, who appears to have adapted Darwin’s theories to the political sphere for his own ideology of Marxism.
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. It included the famous and successful Union charge up Missionary Ridge, a spontaneous action after Grant adapted his plans mid-battle and sent troops to capture rifle pits; the charge was described by one officer as “the grandest sight I had ever witnessed.” While Grant’s original plan did not succeed, he was still able—with the help of Gens. Sherman and Thomas—to pull off a major victory for the Union Army against Confederate Braxton Bragg’s troops.
1868 - Famous American composer Scott Joplin, the “king of ragtime,” is born.
1887 - German (Nazi) Field Marshal Erich von Manstein is born. “His plan for the German invasion of France in 1940 involved staging a surprise attack through the Ardennes Forest, and was a stunning success. He went on to achieve several important victories over the Russians in the East, but was dismissed by Hitler in 1944 following a series of arguments over military strategy.” He was tried for war crimes and imprisoned until 1953, after which he advised the West German government.
November 25
1177 - Christian Crusaders under King Baldwin IV of Jerusalem (who was suffering from the horrible disease of leprosy) defeat a much larger Muslim army under Saladin at the Battle of Montgisard.
1783 - The last British troops finally leave New York, their only remaining military position, some three months after the Treaty of Paris officially ended the American Revolutionary conflict against Great Britain.
1835 - Andrew Carnegie is born in Scotland. He later emigrated to America and became a hugely successful businessman. While he is usually described as a highly philanthropic man, he was a corrupt “robber baron.”
1881 - The future Pope John XXIII is born in Italy. He is famous for convening Vatican Council II, which later led to the altering of the Mass liturgy after more than a thousand years and the implementing of numerous other confusing changes in practice that led to a loss of Catholic Church membership and a major drop in religious vocations.
1936 - The signing of the Anti-Comintern Pact, in which Nazi Germany and imperial Japan agreed to work against the Soviet Union.
1992 - Czechoslovakia splits into two separate nations, the Czech Republic and Slovakia.
November 26
43 BC - Reported date of the formation of the “Second Triumvirate alliance of Roman leader Octavian (later Caesar Augustus), Marcus Aemilius Lepidus, and Mark Antony.”
1504 - Death of Queen Isabel I of Castilla (Spain). While some of her actions, including the expulsion of Spanish Jews, have not unjustly raised criticism and controversy, she and her husband Ferdinand accomplished the monumental achievement of retaking Spanish land from the Muslims, thus completing the 8-century-long Reconquista.
1703 - One of the worst storms in British recorded history, the “Great Storm,” begins to do serious damage; it ultimately killed more than 8,000 people, including wrecking 300 British Royal Navy ships filled with sailors.
1789 - Arguably the first federally-ordered American national holiday, as it was designated by President George Washington as a Day of Thanksgiving to God for the blessings bestowed on the new nation.
1832 - Dr. Mary Edwards Walker, only female recipient of the U.S. Medal of Honor (for her service during the Civil War), is born.
1940 - Nazis begin to wall off the Warsaw Ghetto, which held about 400,000 Jews in terrible living conditions. Only about 60,000 Jews survived—some died of starvation or disease in the ghetto, while others were transported to and murdered in concentration camps.
1942 - The WWII movie “Casablanca” has its world premier. The film, which features a magnificent all-star cast, has long been considered by critics to be one of the greatest—if not the greatest—movies of all time.
1950 - Communist China enters the Korean War, fighting United Nations, American, and South Korean forces.
Did I miss any important events? Let me know in the comments!
Thank you, Catherine. That was awesome!