History of the Week: Longfellow, Buffalo Bill, R.Livingston, Han Dynasty, Constantine, Salem Witches, Reichstag, H.McDaniel, &More
The late, great Winston Churchill once advised, “Study history, study history. In history lies all the secrets of statecraft.” Our politics and thus our society are in such crisis today partly because so many Americans are either ignorant of or deliberately rewriting history. We need to correct that problem. Below are some of the important births, deaths, and events that occurred this past week in history.
February 25
1570 - Pope Pius V issues the bull Regnans in Excelsis, excommunicating heretic English Queen Elizabeth I and absolving her orthodox subjects of loyalty to her.
1634 - Albrecht von Wallenstein, Bohemian nobleman and influential Catholic general during the Thirty Years’ War, is assassinated.
1778 - José de San Martín, leader of multiple South American revolutions against Spanish rule, is born.
1862 - The first U.S. Legal Tender Act aims to provide money to fund the Civil War, issuing fiat money (not backed by a hard commodity like gold). Millions of dollars of paper “greenbacks” were eventually put into circulation.
1983 - American dramatist Tennessee Williams, author of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof and A Streetcar Named Desire, dies.
February 26
1522 - Cuauhtémoc, the last Aztec emperor, dies.
1802 - French writer Victor Hugo is born. Most famous for his novels The Hunchback of Notre Dame and Les Misérables.
1813 - Death of “Robert R. Livingston, ‘The Chancellor,’ [who was] a Founding Father and served on the committee that drafted the Declaration of Independence. He also helped negotiate the Lousiana Purchase…In 1777, he became Chancellor of New York. In 1781, he served as United States Secretary of Foreign Affairs under the Articles of Confederation. In 1784, he was elected to the Confederation Congress. He continued in his role as Chancellor of New York and administered the oath of office to [President] George Washington on April 30, 1789…President Thomas Jefferson appointed him as Minister to France and he negotiated the Louisiana Purchase [American History Central].”
1815 - Napoleon Bonaparte, erstwhile emperor of France, escapes Elba to seize back control of France.
1846 - Internationally acclaimed Wild West star “Buffalo Bill” Cody is born. “Born near LeClaire in Scott County, Iowa, in 1846, Buffalo Bill Cody rode on the Pony Express at the age of 14, fought in the American Civil War, served as a scout for the Army, and was already an Old West legend before mounting his famous Wild West show, which traveled the United States and Europe [Biography.com].” He rose to fame thanks to Gen. Sheridan while leading visiting VIPs on hunting trips at a time when dime novel writers were eager for Western figures to romanticize. Eventually Bill portrayed himself in a play, launching his show business career!
February 27
c.280 - Constantine I is born. Also known as Constantine the Great, he was a Roman emperor who famously legalized Christianity after a military victory achieved through the Christian symbol (either a chi rho or a cross) he saw in a vision. Founded Constantinople and launched the influential Byzantine imperial era. He converted to Christianity on his deathbed, but unfortunately as an Arian heretic.
1807 - Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, arguably the quintessential American poet, is born. He wrote such beautiful poems as Song of Hiawatha, Evangeline, Paul Revere’s Ride, Excelsior, and The Courtship of Miles Standish. Read my previous piece for excerpts from and reflections on Longfellow’s inspiring poetry.
1933 - The infamous Reichstag fire, in which the German parliament building burned. While a Dutch Communist was blamed and executed for the fire, it was quite possibly a plot of the Nazis, who used the event to justify assuming dictatorial powers to persecute political opponents.
1951 - The 22nd Amendment to the U.S. Constitution is ratified, imposing a two-term limit for presidents.
1960 - The original and nearly-forgotten “Miracle on Ice” as the underdog U.S. Olympic ice hockey team wins its first gold medal, having beat the Soviets and Czechoslovakia.
February 28
202 BC - Reported date on which former peasant Liu Bang was crowned emperor of China as Gaozu, founding the Han dynasty. The Han Chinese are still today the predominant and favored ethnic group in China.
1710 - “The Battle of Helsingborg … was Denmark's failed and final attempt to regain the Scanian lands, lost to Sweden in 1658 … On the Ringstorp heights northeast of Helsingborg, 14,000 Danish invaders under Jørgen Rantzau were decisively defeated by an equally large Swedish army under Magnus Stenbock.”
1947 - The “228 Massacre” occurs in Taiwan, as the ruling Nationalist party kills protestors rising up in mobs on the island. The event is debated still today, as the Nationalists said they were reacting to protests maliciously fomented by the Chinese Communist Party or Japan while victims’ relatives accuse the authorities of bloody crimes.
1986 - Swedish PM Olof Palme is murdered after coming out of a movie theater.
1991 - An approximately 100-hour ground war ends with the U.S. winning a decisive victory against Iraq and Kuwait in Operation Desert Storm.
February 29
1692 - The first arrest warrants are issued in Salem, Massachusetts, ahead of what is now infamously known in history as the Salem Witch Trials. Sarah Good, Sarah Osborne, and Tituba (a slave woman) were accused of being witches who cursed two local girls.
1940 - Hattie McDaniel becomes the first black actress (or actor) to win an Oscar. She received the Best Supporting Actress Academy Award for her portrayal of “Mammy” in the 1939 film Gone with the Wind.
1960 - Massive earthquake in Moroccan port Agadir kills nearly 15,000 people and wrecks about 90% of the city.
March 1
1780 - “Pennsylvania passed ‘An Act for the Gradual Abolition of Slavery,’ which stopped the importation of slaves into the State, required all slaves to be registered, and established that all children born in the State were free regardless of race or parentage. While individuals who were slaves before 1780 remained in slavery, this Act was the first Act abolishing slavery in a democratic society. This Act became the model for abolition laws across the Northern states [American Battlefield Trust].”
1781 - The Articles of Confederation are ratified, establishing the loose unity of the American states. The Articles would be used to govern the states until the Constitution was ratified and came into force in 1789.
1904 - Hugely popular U.S. bandleader and musician Glenn Miller is born in Iowa. During WWII, he headed up the U.S. Army Air Force Band, but his plane went missing in 1944.
Did I miss any important events? Let me know in the comments.