History of the Week: Ethan Allen, MacArthur, Queen Victoria, Lenin, Churchill, Roe, Orwell, New Guinea, Ivan the Great, & More
Humans are terrified of neurological diseases such as amnesia and Alzheimer’s that cause a person to forget his past, thus triggering tragedy and crisis in the present. But there is also such a thing as amnesia of history, and we must fight it by learning about and teaching the truth of history at every opportunity. Below are some of the important events, deaths, and birthdays that occurred this past week.
January 21
1738 - Ethan Allen is born in Connecticut. He was famously leader of the Green Mountain Boys militia and was key in declaring the independence of the Republic of Vermont, which did not become part of the United States until after Allen’s death (though he hoped Vermont would become a state). Allen is most well-known to history as having captured Fort Ticonderoga and Crown Point, New York, from the British during the American Revolution, thus seizing cannon that would be key for future Patriot fights.
1793 - Louis XVI, erstwhile king of France, is guillotined by bloodthirsty French Revolutionaries. Louis and his wife Marie Antoinette were actually democratically-minded monarchs; Louis, unfortunately too weak to stop the inevitable crisis after years of aristocratic and royal corruption, was attempting reforms.
Those reforms included 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) and 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.
1924 - Vladimir Lenin, “founder of the Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks), inspirer and leader of the Bolshevik Revolution (1917), and the architect, builder, and first head (1917–24) of the Soviet state,” dies.
1950 - George Orwell, author of famous novels 1984 and Animal Farm, dies.
1959 - Hollywood producer-director Cecil B. DeMille, whose highly successful films include The Ten Commandments, dies.
1968 - The Battle of Khe Sanh begins during the Vietnam War.
January 22
1440 - Ivan the Great of Russia is born. He greatly expanded Russian territory.
1561 - English philosopher and statesman Francis Bacon is born.
1879 - The Battle of Rorke's Drift begins, in which 139 British soldiers fought off over 4,000 Zulu warriors.
1901 - Great Britain’s Queen Victoria dies, one of the longest reigning British monarchs. Highly influential as the leader of what was arguably the world’s most powerful empire at the time, Victoria oversaw an age of reform and technological modernization. She had nine children with her much beloved husband Albert, and her descendants married into the royal families of and reigned/reign over many of the nations of Europe. The period of her reign is known as the “Victorian Age.”
1905 - Over 100 Russian protestors are killed by security police in St. Petersburg as they march to the Winter Palace to request reforms, marking the start of the violent phase in the 1905 Russian Revolution (which failed). Known as “Bloody Sunday,” the killings were not ordered by the Czar, but the latter is often blamed since his uncle was the guilty party.
1973 - The Supreme Court hands down the infamous Roe v. Wade decision, federally and preposterously recognizing a “right” to abortion. Roe marked the beginning of decades of mass murder in America, with 63.5 million babies aborted between 1973 and January 2022. In June 2022, the Supreme Court overturned Roe, as the latter was an anti-constitutional decision.
January 23
971 - Estimated date of a defeat of the Southern Han war elephants by the Song Dynasty. Marked the first use of a regular war elephant corps in the Chinese army.
1556 - The Shaanxi province earthquake kills an estimated 830,000 people in northern China; believed to be the deadliest earthquake in history.
1565 - Battle of Talikota, India. It was a victory for allied Muslim sultans and broke up the Hindu Vijayanagar empire.
1579 - Provinces and cities of the Low Countries form the Union of Utrecht, committed to becoming independent from Spanish rule, ultimately leading to the formation of the Dutch Republic.
1907 - Charles Curtis becomes the first U.S. senator of Native American Indian ancestry. A Republican, he later served as Herbert Hoover’s Vice President.
1943 - The Allied campaign in New Guinea begins, as part of the U.S. campaign in the Pacific and, ultimately, with the goal of liberating the Philippines from the Japanese. From History.Army.mil: “New Guinea was the story of the courage of the GI who could always be counted on to move forward against a determined foe. It was the ordinary American soldier who endured the worst deprivations that the debilitating New Guinea climate and terrain could offer. It was the lowly GI who was the brains, the muscle, the blood, and the heart and soul of the great army that came of age in the Southwest Pacific Area in 1943 and 1944. In one tough fight after another, he never lost a battle to the Japanese. Those accomplishments and sacrifices are forever his and deserve to be remembered by all.” New Guinea marked the first defeat for Japanese land forces.
1950 - The Israeli Knesset declares Jerusalem is the capital of Israel, as it was in ancient times.
1968 - “[History.com] USS Pueblo, a Navy intelligence vessel, is engaged in a routine surveillance of the North Korean coast when it is intercepted by North Korean patrol boats…On December 23, 1968, exactly 11 months after the Pueblo‘s capture, U.S. and North Korean negotiators reached a settlement…the surviving 82 crewmen walked one by one across the ‘Bridge of No Return’ at Panmunjon to freedom in South Korea.”
January 24
41 AD - Roman Emperor Caligula is assassinated. His reign was marked by murder, corruption, debauchery, and crimes to such a terrible degree that he is generally considered to have been insane.
1848 - Gold is discovered at Sutter’s Mill in California, sparking what would become the California Gold Rush.
1893 - A group of American sugar planters stage a successful coup against Hawaii’s Queen Liliuokalani, marking the end of Hawaiian monarchy and independence.
1965 - Winston Churchill, former British Prime Minister, dies. Churchill served in various official capacities in Great Britain throughout his life, including as Prime Minister more than once, and fought heroically in the military in multiple conflicts, including WWI. 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, literary and political genius, and powerful orator, his written works and speeches still ring in people’s memories today. Watch below for Gary Oldman’s brilliant performance as Churchill, delivering one of the PM’s most famous speeches:
1972 - Shoichi Yokoi is discovered living a meager existence on the island of Guam. He had been a Japanese soldier during WWII who refused to surrender to Americans and become a prisoner of war (a great shame in the Japanese code of honor), instead hiding out on Guam ever since. He had regarded the scraps of information about the end of the war as American propaganda, and continued to hide to avoid becoming a POW. “We Japanese soldiers were told to prefer death to the disgrace of getting captured alive,” Yokoi recalled.
January 25
1554 - Jesuits founded a college that would eventually become the city of São Paulo, Brazil.
1947 - Al Capone, one of the most infamous of American gangsters, dies.
1949 - The first election for the Israeli Knesset (legislature) occurs.
1971 - Idi Amin carries out a successful coup to seize control in Uganda. His bloody regime caused the massacre of an estimated 300,000 civilians. Amin particularly targeted Christian tribes loyal to his predecessor.
January 26
1482 - The first printed edition of the Torah in Hebrew is completed in Bologna, Italy.
1788 - “[History.com] Captain Arthur Phillip guides a fleet of 11 British ships carrying convicts to the colony of New South Wales, effectively founding Australia.”
1880 - Douglas MacArthur is born on an Army base in Arkansas. “MacArthur fought in World War I, and in World War II was the commander of Allied forces in the Pacific. When he criticized President Harry Truman's handling of the Korean War, he was relieved of his command.” He famously promised the Philippines during WWII, “I shall return,” and fulfilled his promise with the liberation of the Philippines from Japanese control. He received the Congressional Medal of Honor.
1998 - U.S. President Bill Clinton lied about having sexual relations with Monica Lewinsky in the Oval Office. Clinton perjured himself by denying the affair under oath.
Did I miss any important events? Let me know in the comments.
Re US forces in New Guinea. Actually, there were 5 Australian divisions there before the US arrived, most of the Australian Navy, and a good part of the Australian Air Force. (Mr Ryan, my English teacher was in the Air Force.)
I mention here that he, and another teacher, spoke very highly of the US soldiers competence, as did a commando friend who was integrated into some U.S. section in the Vietnam war. At the armed forces level there was a great spirit of comradeship.
1848 - Gold is discovered at Sutter’s Mill in California, sparking what would become the California Gold Rush.
After the California Goober$Mint imported scalp hunting from Mexico, the 49ers went on to chop up women and children with hatchets to sell their scalps to said Goober$Mint. The survivors were sold to 49er gold mine death camps at San Francisco slave markets. And slowly starved and worked to death. Adolf would later copy these death-labor camps at Auschwitz. And the Democrat Jim Crow laws modified against Jews. Enforced by the AntiFa of their day, the Brown Shirts.