History of the Week: Hamilton’s Duel, John Q.Adams, El Cid, Crusades, Forrest, Calvin, Battle of Britain, Caesar &More
History of the Week: Hamilton’s Duel, John Q.Adams, El Cid, Crusades, Forrest, Calvin, Battle of Britain, Caesar &More
Today we witnessed history in the making as two men tried to assassinate President Donald Trump. But if we look to the past, we can see that Democrats and Marxists have been killing or trying to kill their political opponents for years. This is why it is so important to study history, to understand how evil groups and individuals acted in the past to protect ourselves in the present. Below are some of the important births, deaths, and events that happened this past week in history.
July 6
1016 - The Battle of Pontlevoy, one of the largest battles of early medieval France, a victory for the troops of Fulk III of Anjou and Herbert I of Maine over Odo II of Blois.
1044 - The Germans defeat the Hungarian Magyars at the Battle of Ménfő.
1348 - “[Haartez] Pope Clement VI issued the first of two bulls instructing Christians not to blame the Jews for the plague epidemic then sweeping across Europe. Noting that Jews too were dying from the Black Death, Clement announced that people who cast blame on the Jews ‘had been seduced by that liar, the devil.’”
1189 - King Henry II of England, foe of St. Thomas Becket and father of Richard the Lionheart, dies.
1535 - St. Thomas More is executed for refusing to approve King Henry VIII’s heresy, divorce and remarriage. More told the crowd, “I die the King’s good servant, and God’s first.” Below is from an eyewitness account:
Then kneeling, [More] repeated the Miserere Psalm with much Devotion; and, rising up the Executioner asked him Forgiveness. He kissed him, and said, Pick up thy Spirits, Man, and be not afraid to do thine Office; my Neck is very short, take heed therefore thou strike not awry for having thine Honesty. Laying his Head upon the Block, he bid the Executioner stay till he had put his Beard aside, for that had committed no Treason. Thus he suffered with much Cheerfulness; his Head was taken off at one Blow, and was placed upon London-Bridge.
1553 - Teenaged King Edward VI of England dies. It is ironic that Henry VIII broke from the Catholic Church and persecuted those who refused heresy as he divorced and remarried to have a male heir (Edward), only to have that male heir die soon after he did.
1775 - Thomas Jefferson and John Dickinson’s Declaration, The Causes and Necessity of Taking Up Arms, is issued explaining why the Americans are fighting the British, detailing grievances, but denying the intention of becoming independent from Great Britain.
1785 - The Continental Congress establishes the dollar as U.S. national currency, based off the Spanish silver dollar, and adopts a decimal monetary system.
1885 - Significant medical breakthrough: young Joseph Meister, bitten by a rabid dog, is vaccinated with Louis Pasteur’s inoculation and his life saved.
1923 - The Russian Central Executive Committee ratifies “the Fundamental Law (Constitution) of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics” and puts it into force.
1967 - Amidst ethnic warfare and the attempted breakaway of several states, the Nigerian Civil War begins.
1971 - Jazz great Louis “Satchmo” Armstrong dies.
July 7
1520 - In the Battle of Otumba, Hernán Cortés and his Tlaxcalan allies defeat the Aztec Empire decisively.
1550 - Chocolate is introduced in Europe.
1807 - The first of the Treaties of Tilsit is signed. Napoleon of France, Alexander I, and Frederick William III of Prussia made the treaties.
1906 - Leroy Robert "Satchel” Paige is born. “A trailblazing player in the Negro Leagues, baseball pitcher Satchel Paige also became the oldest rookie in Major League history and was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1971.”
1930 - Scottish writer Arthur Conan Doyle, creator of detective Sherlock Holmes, dies.
1937 - Chinese and Japanese troops clash at the Marco Polo Bridge Incident, which snowballs into a conflict that continued into WWII.
2005 - 4 Muslim “suicide bombers with rucksacks full of explosives attacked central London, killing 52 people and injuring hundreds more. It was the worst single terrorist atrocity on British soil.”
July 8
1099 - “15,000 starving Christian [Crusader] soldiers marched barefoot around Jerusalem while its Muslim defenders mocked them from the battlements. One week later, the situation would be astonishingly altered.”
1497 - Explorer Vasco da Gama departs on his historic voyage to India on behalf of Portugal.
1777 - Vermont becomes the first American colony to ban slavery outright.
1853 - “Commodore Matthew Calbraith Perry, representing the U.S. government, sails into Tokyo Bay, Japan, with a squadron of four vessels… the United States [becomes] the first Western nation to establish relations with Japan since it had been declared closed to foreigners two centuries before.”
1967 - British actress Vivien Leigh is found dead.
1994 - Kim Il-Sung, founding dictator of North Korea, dies.
2012 - Oscar-winning American actor Ernest Borgnine dies.
2022 - Former Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe is assassinated at point blank range amidst suspicious circumstances.
July 9
1401 - Turco-Mongol leader Timur (Tamerlane) sacks Baghdad and orders his men each to behead at least two people; 20,000+ were massacred.
1788 - The Second Battle of Svensksund occurs, with the Swedish navy completely defeating the Russian navy.
1868 - Former slaveholding strongholds Louisiana and South Carolina, a year after rejecting the 14th Amendment granting citizenship rights to all born or naturalized Americans, ratify the Amendment, making it officially part of the Constitution.
1956 - Oscar-winning American actor Tom Hanks is born.
1971 - Insidious Henry Kissinger visits China secretly to make a deal between the U.S. and the genocidal Chinese Communist Party.
July 10
138 - Roman Emperor Hadrian, most famous for the defensive wall he had built in Britain, dies.
1099 - Famed Spanish warrior Rodrigo Díaz de Vivar, better known as “El Cid,” dies. Read about how “the Spanish superhero broke out of Valencia, crushed a Muslim army, and inspired Christian crusaders.”
1509 - Heretic and political despot John Calvin, a key figure in the Protestant Revolt that fractured Christianity, is born.
1723 - William Blackstone, jurist famous for his commentaries on English law, is born.
1940 - The Battle of Britain begins as the Nazis start bombing England during WWII. The raids would last for more than three months.
1991 - Boris Yeltsin is sworn in as the first elected president of the Russian republic following the end of the Soviet era.
July 11
1274 - Robert the Bruce is born. He “was the king of Scotland (1306–29), who freed Scotland from English rule, winning the decisive Battle of Bannockburn (1314) and ultimately confirming Scottish independence in the Treaty of Northampton (1328).”
1405 - Chinese Muslim Adm. Zheng He sets sail on an expedition to the Strait of Malacca, Sumatra, Ceylon, and India with 317 ships and 27,870 men.
1533 - Pope Clement VII declares King Henry VIII’s second marriage to Anne Boleyn null and void, and says Henry will be excommunicated unless he returns to his real wife Catherine of Aragon and abandons his claim to being Supreme Head of the Church in England.
1767 - The great John Quincy Adams, son of Founder John Adams and Abigail, is born in Massachusetts. The sixth U.S. president, John Quincy Adams was grossly and falsely maligned by his Democrat opponent Andrew Jackson, who wanted the Constitution ignored and himself declared winner of the election because he won the popular vote. Jackson ended up managing to oust Adams from the White House with despicable lies.
In addition to being an occupant of the White House, Adams was also secretary of state, a U.S. senator and a member of both the Massachusetts General Assembly and the House of Representatives. But Quincy Adams was much more than a politician and a diplomat. "He was the best traveled American of his era," [Prof. Randall] Woods added. "He spoke or wrote six languages and was the father of the Smithsonian. During his stint in the House, J.Q.A. became the best known and most effective critic of slavery in the nation. Slave-holding senator Henry Wise of Virginia described him as 'the acutest, the astutist, the archest enemy of Southern slavery that ever existed.'"
Read my full piece on Adams.
1920 - Actor Yul Brynner is born in Russia.
1937 - George Gershwin dies. “Gershwin was one of the most significant American composers of the 20th century, known for popular stage and screen numbers as well as classical compositions.”
1944 - Dying but power-hungry Democrat Franklin Delano Roosevelt announces he will run for a fourth term as president during WWII.
1960 - Harper Lee’s iconic novel “To Kill a Mockingbird,” exposing the evils of racism in the American South, is published. “The one thing that doesn’t abide by majority rule is a person’s conscience.”
1989 - Great English actor Laurence Olivier dies. “He was the first member of his profession to be elevated to a life peerage.”
July 12
927 - “The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle records that in this year Æthelstan succeeded to Northumbria, and that he brought under his rule all the kings of the island, Hywel of the West Welsh, Constantine of the Scots, Owain of Gwent, and Ealdred, son of Eadwulf of Bamburgh. At a meeting at Eamont (in Cumbria) on 12 July they made peace with pledge and oaths. William of Malmesbury in the 12th century mentions a meeting at Dacre where Constantine of the Scots and Owain of Strathclylde pledged peace to Æthelstan, so it may be that Owain of Strathclyde should be added to the Eamont list.”
1191 - The Muslim forces surrender the City of Acre to the Crusaders under King Richard the Lionheart.
1536 - Dutch Renaissance thinker and cleric Erasmus dies.
1790 - The French Revolution’s National Assembly adopts the Civil Constitution of the Clergy, claiming government control over the Catholic Church in France. Many priests and religious were massacred during the Revolution for refusing to comply.
1804 - In a great loss to the USA, “Alexander Hamilton, a Founding Father living most of his life in New York City, died July 12, 1804, having been mortally wounded in a duel with [corrupt VP] Aaron Burr on the morning of the 11th. Statesmen, Revolutionary War Artillery Man, Aide de Camp for General George Washington, Founding Father, first Secretary of the Treasury and a major shaper of our economic system with a Central Bank, and the founder of the Bank of New York.”
Hamilton, from the letter he wrote his wife ahead of the duel, apparently believed he was duty-bound to participate in the duel, but all the time planned not to shoot Burr. He also pretty clearly thought it was likely he was therefore going to die. Below is an excerpt from the end of his beautiful and moving letter to his wife, emphasizing that in Hamilton, not only did the world lose a great man and a genius, but his family lost a noble and affectionate husband and father.
If it had been possible for me to have avoided the interview, my love for you and my precious children would have been alone a decisive motive. But it was not possible, without sacrifices which would have rendered me unworthy of your esteem. I need not tell you of the pangs I feel, from the idea of quitting you and exposing you to the anguish which I know you would feel. Nor could I dwell on the topic lest it should unman me.
The consolations of Religion, my beloved, can alone support you; and these you have a right to enjoy. Fly to the bosom of your God and be comforted. With my last idea; I shall cherish the sweet hope of meeting you in a better world.
Adieu best of wives and best of Women. Embrace all my darling Children for me.
1817 - American writer Henry David Thoreau is born.
1843 - Crazy founder of Mormonism Joseph Smith claims God revealed to him an “everlasting covenant” permitting polygamy.
1863 - British troops invade Waikato in New Zealand by crossing the Mangatāwhiri Stream, which had been a dividing line for the Māori King movement.
1913 - The British having promised Irish Home Rule to the Irish nationalists, Anglo Ulstermen vow armed resistance to the policy and civil war threatens to erupt. The Ulstermen wanted Ireland to remain fully under oppressive British rule.
1942 - Nazis kill 5,000 Jews in a forest near Kostopol.
1943 - The Battle of Prokhorovka, reportedly the largest tank battle in history, is fought between the Nazis and Soviets during WWII.
1944 - Nazis finish liquidating the thousands of detainees in the Theresienstadt family camp in Birkenau.
July 13
100 BC - Estimated date of the birth of dictatorial Roman military and political leader Julius Caesar.
1787 - “ON THIS DAY, JULY 13 in 1787, Congress enacted the Northwest Ordinance, important legislation for our young American republic. The legislation provided for the government of a huge region then called the Northwest Territory—the modern states of Ohio, Indiana, Michigan, Illinois, Wisconsin, and part of Minnesota. The Ordinance of 1787 forever banned slavery in those lands. Further, the lands were divided into townships 6 miles square and subdivided into 36 sections of 640 acres each. One of these sections was donated for the purposes of public education…Settlers in the territories could establish free governments and write constitutions, and once they had achieved 60,000 inhabitants, they could apply for admission to the Union as new states.”
1793 - Jean-Paul Marat, radical figure of the French Revolution’s Reign of Terror, is assassinated in his bath by Charlotte Corday.
1821 - Confederate General, KKK founder, traitor, raging racist, and mass murderer Nathan Bedford Forrest is born. Forrest was responsible for the Ft. Pillow massacre, killing hundreds of surrendering black and white Union soldiers, after which he bragged, “The river was dyed with the blood of the slaughtered for two hundred yards. The approximate loss was upward of five hundred killed, but few of the officers escaping. My loss was about twenty killed. It is hoped that these facts will demonstrate to the Northern people that negro soldiers cannot cope with Southerners.” Tragically, instead of being hanged for his crimes, Forrest survived to be the founding Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan.
1832 - Reported date on which the source of the Mississippi River is discovered.
1870 - The Ems Telegram is sent about a meeting between a French ambassador and King William I of Prussia. Prussian chancellor Otto von Bismarck publishes an edited version deliberately meant to provoke hostilities, launching the Franco-German War.
1942 - The Nazis kill between 1,300-1,500 Jews in Jozefow.
1949 - Pope Pius XII excommunicates all Communists from the Catholic Church.
2024 - A shooter, possibly Antifa, attempts to assassinate Donald Trump as he speaks at a campaign rally in Pennsylvania. Trump’s ear is shot but he survives and defiantly pumps his fist as he leaves the stage. Two people are killed.
Did I miss any important events? Let me know in the comments.