History of the Week: J.Warren, 14th Amend., M.Evers, Nero, Alexander, Washington Takes Command, Magna Carta, Troy& More
“To be a successful Soldier,” said Gen. George Patton, “you must know history.” We could say just as truly that to be a successful man, in any field or any endeavor, you must know history. Without an understanding of the past to illumine the present, you are essentially doing guesswork in the dark. Below are a few of the important births, deaths, and events that occurred this past week in history.
June 9
68 AD - Roman Emperor Nero dies, having asked his servant to assist him in committing suicide as the Roman Senate had passed sentence on him. Nero, who had fancied himself a great actor, musician, and composer, spoke his last words: “What an artist dies in me.” For most of history he was believed to have deliberately started the fire that devastated Rome, and he falsely blamed the Christians for it, launching a bloody persecution of them. Nero was undoubtedly a vicious, brutal, murderous, lecherous, perverted, selfish, corrupt, crazy individual—a terrible friend and a deadly enemy. Among the saints martyred under Nero were Peter and Paul the Apostles. Below is actor Peter Ustinov’s brilliant portrayal of Nero in the movie Quo Vadis.
721 - Aquitanian Christian troops under Duke Odo defeat an Umayyad army and decisively halt Muslim expansion into Europe at the Battle of Toulouse.
1672 - Tsar Peter “the Great” of Russia is born, famous for the “reforms”, secularizations, and changes he made to politics, education, the military, and religion in Russia.
1781 - Engineer George Stephenson, “father of the railways,” is born in England.
1815 - The Final Act of the post-Napoleonic wars Congress of Vienna is signed, shifting territorial boundaries and setting a standard for European politics that would continue with some changes until WWI.
1870 - British novelist Charles Dickens dies. His novels are among the most popular and influential works in the English language, including Oliver Twist, A Tale of Two Cities, Our Mutual Friend (my personal favorite), David Copperfield, Little Dorrit, Pickwick Papers, and Great Expectations. His Christmas novel A Christmas Carol so shaped the modern celebration of that holiday that he has been called “The Man Who Invented Christmas.”
1891 - Hugely popular and influential American songwriter Cole Porter is born. His songs include “Don’t Fence Me In,” “I’ve Got You Under My Skin,” “True Love,” “Night and Day,” and “You’re the Top.”
1963 - Eccentric award-winning actor Johnny Depp is born in Kentucky.
2019 - An estimated 1 million Hong Kongers protest dictatorial new Chinese Communist Party (CCP) legislation, including extradition of prisoners from Hong Kong to mainland China. The CCP harshly cracked down on the protests.
June 10
323 BC - Estimated date on which Alexander the Great dies at age 32. The king of Macedonia and a pupil of Aristotle, the young Alexander conquered much of the known world in astoundingly rapid and effective campaigns. Even during his life, Alexander claimed demigod status, and he has figured prominently in both history and legend ever since his death.
1190 - In a disaster for the Third Crusade, Holy Roman Emperor Frederick I Barbarossa drowns in the River Saleph while leading his army toward Jerusalem.
1786 - A landslide and dam breach triggered by an earthquake on China’s Dadu River kill an estimated 100,000 people.
1895 - Hattie McDaniel, the first black actress to win an Academy Award, is born in Kansas.
1898 - U.S. Marines land in Cuba at Guantanamo during the Spanish-American War.
1916 - The Great Arab Revolt begins against Ottoman Turkish rule.
1922 - Iconic American actress Frances Gumm, better known as “Judy Garland,” is born.
2003 - U.S. launches the Spirit Rover, the start of NASA’s Mars Exploration Rover mission.
June 11
1184 BC - Greek mathematician Eratosthenes believed this was the date of the brutal Greek sack of Troy (another proposed date is April 24). Having pretended to depart Troy leaving behind a large wooden horse, the Greeks led by the underhanded and vicious Odysseus came out of the Horse at night and set to slaughtering the Trojans wholesale (including the children), excepting the women they took as sex slaves. For an historical-mythical account of the Trojan Horse and the Sack of Troy, see Vergil’s Aeneid, Book II.
1572 - Estimated date of the birth of English dramatist, poet, and critic Ben Johnson.
1741 - Dr. Joseph Warren is born. Besides being a skilled surgeon, he was one of the most fiery and influential members of the Sons of Liberty. Warren sent Paul Revere on his famous midnight ride and led militia harassing British troops on the day of the Battles of Lexington and Concord, the first engagement of the Revolution. “Where danger is, dear mother, there must your son be. Now is no time for any of American’s children to shrink from any hazard. I will set her free or die,” Warren declared. Sadly, he did die soon after, being shot by a British officer at the Battle of Bunker Hill. The British stripped and repeatedly stabbed Warren’s corpse. British Gen. Thomas Gage admitted of Warren that his death was “worth the death of 500 men.”
1776 - The Second Continental Congress forms a committee of five delegates to write a draft of the Declaration of Independence. The delegates were John Adams from Massachusetts, Benjamin Franklin from Pennsylvania, Roger Sherman from Connecticut, Robert R. Livingston from New York, and young Thomas Jefferson from Virginia.
1910 - French explorer, filmmaker, and oceanographer Jacques Cousteau is born (his ship was the Calypso).
1959 - English comedic actor Hugh Laurie is born.
1962 - Robbers Frank Morris and the Anglin brothers successfully escape from the hitherto escape-proof prison on Alcatraz Island. The prison was closed less than a year later.
1979 - Iconic American actor John Wayne, “the Duke,” dies.
1987 - Conservative UK PM Margaret Thatcher becomes the first in over 160 years to win three consecutive terms in office.
2014 - The Fall of Mosul, as Islamic State jihadis seize control of the Iraqi city. Disastrous for many inhabitants, especially Christians.
June 12
1864 - End of the Battle at Trevilian Station, the biggest all-cavalry battle of the U.S. Civil War. While Union troops under Gen. Sheridan did manage to capture some Confederate supplies and tear up a few miles of rails, but while they succeeded in distracting the Confederates from U.S. Grant’s movements, ultimately and unfortunately there was no long-term disruption of Confederate supply lines. The battle did include what is called “Custer’s First Last Stand,” as Union Gen. George Custer and his men were surrounded by Confederates while capturing supplies. Sheridan fortunately arrived to save them.
1918 - WWI: “The 96th Aero Squadron bombs the Dommary-Baroncourt railway yards in France in the first daylight bombing raid carried out by the AEF [American Expeditionary Force].”
1942 - Anne Frank receives a diary as a 13th birthday present. Now famous as she recorded her experiences hiding from Nazis in it before she became a victim of the Holocaust.
1944 - Pope Pius XII meets with Irish troops who helped liberate Rome during WWII. Read my full article for more details.
1963 - Mississippi NAACP field secretary Medgar Evers is assassinated by a member of the terrorist KKK. WWII soldier, civil rights champion, and family man, Evers’s heroism inspired many others to fight racism and segregation. As he said, “You can kill a man, but you can’t kill an idea.”
1964 - South African activist and founder of the sabotage movement Nelson Mandela sentenced to life imprisonment.
1981 - Iconic film “Raiders of the Lost Ark,” first in the Indiana Jones movie series, premieres.
June 13
1774 - “Rhode Island became the first [American] colony to ban the importation of slaves.”
1866 - The 14th Amendment passes Congress. It would give freedom and civil rights to slaves. “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.” While Abraham Lincoln did not live to see the Amendment passed, he had worked hard to further it.
1892 - British actor Basil Rathbone, most famous for his portrayal of Sherlock Holmes, is born.
1956 - Reported date on which the last British troops leave the Egyptian Suez Canal.
June 14
1381 - For the first time in history, a hostile force captures the Tower of London, led by Wat Tyler. Wat Tyler led the Peasants’ Revolt in England, the originating factors of which included harsh economic times brought on by the Black Death and onerous taxes. Unfortunately, the peasants did execute the Archbishop of Canterbury; also unfortunately, no good came from the revolt. While King Richard II met with the peasants and initially made concessions, the elitist mayor of London, galled by Tyler over-confident demands of the king, killed Tyler. The king subsequently had some hundreds of the rebels executed and refused to go through with any of the concessions he had made.
1645 - The English Parliamentary troops under Oliver Cromwell win a victory over the Royalists at the Battle of Naseby. King Charles I would eventually be executed and Cromwell would take over England as dictator.
1775 - Considered the birthday of the U.S. Army. The Continental Congress "Resolved, That six companies of expert riflemen, be immediately raised in Pennsylvania, two in Maryland, and two in Virginia… [and] as soon as completed, shall march and join the army near Boston, to be there employed as light infantry, under the command of the chief Officer in that army.” The next day, George Washington was appointed commander-in-chief.
1777 - “Flag Day”: The Second Continental Congress adopts the flag we now know as the “Stars and Stripes” to be the official flag of the United States. It is believed that Francis Hopkinson, a signer of the Declaration of Independence, designed the flag. Betsy Ross sewed the first flag at the request of the Congress.
1801 - Benedict Arnold, most infamous traitor in American history, dies in England. Originally a daring officer for the American Revolutionaries, and particularly beloved by George Washington, Arnold’s greed, arrogance, impatience, and Loyalist wife all contributed to cause him to defect to the British. When he learned of Arnold’s loathsome betrayal, Washington was crushed, and exclaimed to aides Hamilton and Lafayette, “Whom can we trust now?” Arnold had planned to surrender the West Point fort to the British, but his treachery was fortunately discovered in time. Arnold served with the British during the remainder of the Revolution and later engaged in both business and privateering before dying in London.
1811 - Authoress Harriet Beecher Stowe is born in Connecticut. Her anti-slavery novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin made a massive impact on American culture and helped spur the abolitionist movement. The novel was a major best-seller in both England and the U.S., with 300,000 copies sold just in the first year in America. When he met Stowe during the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln is said to have commented, “So this is the little lady who started this Great War.”
1821 - Reportedly the date on which the Sudanese Sultanate ended with surrender to the conquering Ottomans.
1864 - Pioneering German psychiatrist Alois Alzheimer is born.
1898 - The Battle of Cuzco Well, a victory for U.S. Marines and Cuban rebels against Spanish forces during the Spanish-American War.
1928 - Argentinian Marxist revolutionary Che Guevara, a major figure in the disastrous Cuban Revolution, is born. He was a racist, womanizing, vicious mass murderer who enjoyed killing people.
1940 - Nazi troops occupy Paris during WWII. Millions of Parisians fled, and soon “arrests, interrogations, and spying were the order of the day, as a swastika flew above the Arc de Triomphe.”
1941 - During WWII, “more than 10,000 Estonians were exiled to Siberia by the Soviet Union.”
1946 - Donald Trump, future president of the United States, is born.
June 15
763 BC - The city of Nineveh, in the Assyrian empire, experiences a full solar eclipse. Considered a significant and ominous event in Assyrian records.
1215 - King John, under duress from barons, signs the Magna Carta. “By declaring the sovereign to be subject to the rule of law and documenting the liberties held by ‘free men,’ the Magna Carta provided the foundation for individual rights in Anglo-American jurisprudence.”
1219 - “[Denmark] In the early 13th century, the Danish king Valdemar Sejr (Valdemar the Victorious) led his army on a crusade in present-day Estonia. During a battle on June 15, 1219, the Danes were on the defensive when suddenly a red banner with a white cross fell from the sky. As a result, the luck changed, the Danish army won, and Denmark got its flag.”
1330 - Edward the “Black Prince” of England, a key figure in the Hundred Years’ War between England and France, is born. “His military prowess and chivalric reputation made him an exemplar of medieval knighthood, embodying both the virtues and the violence of his era.”
1467 - Philip “the Good”, most influential of the Valois Dukes of Burgundy, founder of the Burgundian state that proved to be a rival to France, dies.
1775 - George Washington is appointed commander-in-chief of the Continental Army. He would prove to be the indispensable man in achieving victory during the American Revolution. Washington declined a salary, asking only for reimbursement of expenses. “I am truly sensible of the high Honor done me in this Appointment… I do not think myself equal to the Command I am honored with,” he said in his acceptance speech.
1849 - James K. Polk, U.S. president during the Mexican-American War who therefore oversaw the expansion of America, dies.
1953 - Xi Jinping, the Chinese Communist dictator currently overseeing one of history’s worst dictatorships, is born.
Did I miss any important events? Let me know in the comments.