History of Today: KKK Trials, Huns Defeated, French Revolution, Cuddalore, Victoria, Boxers, Barbary Pirates &More
The events and men of the past, the decisions and actions taken hundreds or even thousands of years ago, still impact us today. On June 20, many world-shaping events occurred, and only by understanding them can we truly understand our own present situation and plan for the future. From France to England, from America to Ireland, from Siam to Iceland, below are a few of the key events that occurred this day in history.
451 AD - The Battle of the Catalaunian Fields “took place in the Catalaunian Plains, located in northeastern France…The battle was fought between the forces of the Roman Empire and a coalition of Germanic tribes led by Attila the Hun…The battle was fought between the Roman Empire, led by General Flavius Aetius, and a coalition of Germanic tribes, against Attila the Hun and another group of Germanic tribes. The battle was fierce, with both sides suffering heavy losses. However, in the end, the Roman Empire emerged victorious, and Attila was forced to retreat. The battle is considered to be one of the most significant battles in European history, as it prevented Attila from further expanding his empire and helped preserve the Roman Empire’s power for a few more years.”
840 - Louis I “the Pious,” the son and imperial successor of Charlemagne, dies.
1566 - Sigismund III Vasa, the king who tried to unite Poland and Sweden, is born.
1627 - Barbary pirates first strike Icelandic settlements in raids that would result in hundreds of captives.
1631 - The Irish fishing village of Baltimore is sacked and its inhabitants enslaved by Barbary pirates.
1632 - George Calvert, Lord Baltimore, is granted a charter by British King James I to establish the colony of Maryland, which was founded as a safe haven for Catholics amidst harsh and bloody Protestant persecution.
1675 - King Philip’s War begins in North America as a band of native Wampanoag warriors raid Swansea, an English border settlement in Massachusetts, and massacre the English colonists living there.
1763 - Irish revolutionary Theobald Wolfe Tone, leader of the unsuccessful 1798 Irish Rebellion (which resulted in his execution by the British), is born.
1782 - The Confederation Congress approves the Great Seal of the United States of America with its iconic bald eagle.
1783 - The Battle of Cuddalore, considered the last battle of the American Revolution, is fought—off the coast of India! While the battle occurred some months after hostilities officially ended in America, the news had not reached the British and French naval and land forces both vying for control of the port of Cuddalore. While the French did win the battle—or at least retaining the port—negotiations after the war ended up ceding the port to the British.
1789 - Radical members of the Third Estate (from the French Estates General) swear the infamous Tennis Court Oath, refusing to disband until a new constitutional assembly is formed. The oath was sworn at the tennis court at Versailles. King Louis XVI, a democratically minded but not very far-sighted man, eventually agrees, and the National Assembly is formed. The National Assembly, during the French Revolution, would go on to be the engine of mass murder and a tyranny even more despotic than that exercised by the nobility it reviled.
1791 - During the French Revolution, King Louis XVI and his family attempt to flee Paris, but are thwarted. Louis and his wife Marie Antoinette were very good people—the queen especially—and democratically inclined, but unfortunately they were made to suffer for the many sins of their despotic predecessors. The execution of the king and queen, and the horrific abuses imposed on them and their son by the French Revolutionaries, are a dark stain on the pages of history and help illustrate how morally perverted and vicious the Revolutionaries were.
1819 - The SS Savannah becomes the first steamship to cross the Atlantic Ocean as it arrives at Liverpool.
1819 - Prussian-born composer Jacques Offenbach is born.
1826 - Treaty of Friendship is concluded between Siam (Thailand) and Great Britain.
1837 - The young English princess Victoria is awakened early and told that visitors have important news for her. The young teen wrote in her diary, “I got out of bed and went into my sitting-room (only in my dressing-gown), and alone, and saw them. Lord Conyngham (the Lord Chamberlain) then acquainted me that my poor Uncle, the King, was no more, and had expired at 12 minutes p.2 this morning, and consequently that I am Queen.” Victoria, who had nine children with her much-beloved husband Albert, and who gave her name to the Victorian Age, has been called the “Grandmother of Europe.”
1840 - American Samuel Morse receives the patent for his telegraph code, the “Morse Code.”
1863 - West Virginia, having broken from traitorous Virginia to stay in the Union during the Civil War, becomes the 35th state.
1871 - “The first anti-Ku Klux Klan trials begin in Oxford, Miss. The trials were part of an effort begun by President Ulysses S. Grant to crush the Klan, which was populated by defeated Confederate soldiers from the Civil War [and Democrats] and which was becoming increasingly powerful throughout the South. In Mississippi, White doctors, lawyers and even ministers were indicted for violating Black [Americans’] rights and conspiring against the U.S. government. More than 900 were indicted in Mississippi and 243 convicted. Similar trials took place throughout the South—most notably in South Carolina and North Carolina. Grant’s efforts succeeded in crushing the terrorist organization and it would not rise again until 1915.”
1900 - Chinese nationalist militants, the “Boxers,” occupy China’s capital of Peking and kill several Westerners, including German ambassador Baron von Ketteler, during the Boxer Rebellion. The Boxers not only attacked Westerners but Chinese they perceived as being Westernized, including hundreds and possibly thousands of Christians.
1909 - Errol Flynn, popular star of the Golden Age of Hollywood, is born.
1919 - As the Versailles Peace Conference ending WWI comes to a close, the German cabinet, furious at how harsh the proposed treaty was on Germany, resigns en masse.
1936 - Ground-breaking black athlete Jesse Owens breaks the 100m World Record with a time of 10.2 seconds.
1942 - Nazi troops capture the British fortress of Tobruk in North Africa during WWII.