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Anyway, Alaric was a Visigoth, and he's the guy that sacked Rome in 410. By 451, however, the Western Roman Empire was a terminally ill cancer patient who really didn't resemble even remotely what he looked liked even in his middle years. The seat of government had been moved to Ravenna, and the empire was "Roman" really in name only. So yes, odd alliances, etc. sprang up. If you look at the map, you can see why they allied themselves to the Visigoths. Those huns were much scarier than people with some dark makeup. Heck, the entire goth problem was largely self-made, as the Romans allowed the goths to cross the border (decades earlier), as they were fleeing from the Huns. |
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Sure, fine, skip ahead if you want. :p |
June 21
This is a really painfully slow day, so I'll go with this. 1582. The "Incident at Honno-Ji" takes place in Kyoto, Japan. I'll describe this in a somewhat odd way -- in the novel Shogun, by James Clavell, one of the main protagonists is a woman named Mariko, who is the daughter of one Akechi Jintai. Akechi Jintai was a Lord General to the Dictator, Goroda, and in that novel her father, Akechi, betrayed and murdered the Dictator, resulting in the forced seppuku of her entire family. Mariko, already married to Lord Buntaro, was forbidden by her husband to commit seppuku, and was instead banished for a protracted period, living in perpetual shame that her father was a traitor and that she is not permitted to perform the ritual suicide that she feels she must to restore her honor. Many of the events depicted in the novel are based on historical events in Shogunate Japan, and the events surrounding Akechi Jintai are based on the Incident at Honno-Ji. The actual events are as follows. In 1581-82 the Daimyo (powerful lord) Oda Nobunaga was consolidating power in Japan. He had destroyed the Takeda family, his main rivals for power, and his only serious opponents had been weakened by various strategems and inner turmoil. To more quickly consolidate his power, Nobunaga had dispersed his generals and forces to chase down the remaining factions opposing him. Included in these orders were those for his General, Akechi Mitsuhide, to assist an ally whose forces were besieged. Nobunaga then retired to Honno-ji, a temple, his usual resting place when he visited Kyoto. Akechi instead marched his army to Honno-ji, where the Daimyo was practically undefended. He and his servants and bodyguards resisted, but realized they were overwhelmed by Akechi's army. Nobunaga ordered his assistant to set the temple ablaze so that his head would not be recovered intact, and committed suicide. His assistant faithfully set the temple on fire and then joined his master by committing suicide, earning everlasting fame in Japan for devotion to duty. Akechi quickly moved to consolidate his old master's power. Instead, however, Nobunaga's other generals consolidated forces, met Akechi on the field of battle, and defeated his forces. Akechi himself was then killed while trying to flee back to his castle. One of Nobunaga's supporters, Toyotomi Hideyoshi, would become his successor and unify Japan for the first time in over a century. 15 years later, his health failing, Hideyoshi would call together his advisors and appoint a council of five regents to govern the country until his son turned of age. One of the five was Ieyasu Tokugawa. Tokugawa would go on to seize power himself and institute the Tokugawa Shogunate, which would rule Japan until she was forced to modernize herself by the Meiji Restoration. Back to Shogun, the novel -- Hideyoshi is the Taiko, and Ieyasu Tokugawa is Lord Toronaga, Ruler of the Kwanto and, eventually, Shogun. |
June 22
168 BC. The Battle of Pydna. Roman forces defeat the forces of King Perseus of Macedon in the Third Macedonian War, extending their power over the near East and ending the Antigonid line of kings, who traced their lineage to Alexander the Great. 1633. The Roman Catholic Church forces Galileo to recant his views regarding heliocentricity. 1940. The Germans and French sign the Second Armistice of Compiegne Forest, by which the French agree to German occupation of Northern and Western France. The armistice is signed in the same railway car, in the same forest, as that used when Germany signed its armistice which ended WWI. 1941. Germany launches Operation Barbarossa, the invasion of the Soviet Union. 1942. Erwin Rommel is elevated to Field Marshall after the capture of Tobruk. 1944. President Roosevelt signs the GI bill into law. 1945. The Battle of Okinawa comes to an end with a US victory. The battle has been refererd to as the Typhoon of Steel, or Rain of Steel, in both US and Japanese, in reference to the intensity of the fight and the sheer volume of Allied warships and armor. Japan lost over 100,000 troops, adn the US suffered 50,000 casualties. Approximately 25% of teh civilian population died as a result as well. 1969. The Cuyahoga River catches fire, leading Time Magazine to describe it as a river that "oozes rather than flows" and leading to a cracking down on polluting of the river and of other rivers across the country. |
On this day 50 years ago John Albert Elway Jr. was born.
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June 23
1611. After spending the winter ashore in the New World after his ship had become trapped in the ice during his fourth voyage, Henry Hudson wished to continue exploring. His crew rather vehemently disagreed. Matters came to a head on this date, when his crew mutinied. Hudson, his teenage son John and six crew members were set adrift in a small open boat. None of them were ever seen again. Hudson Bay and Hudson Strait in Canada, the Hudson River, and Hudson County (one in each of NY and NJ) are named after him. 1812. Great Britain revokes restrictions on American trade, eliminating most of the reasons for the War of 1812. America rather stupidly continues to pursue the war. 1812. Happily, America's stupidity is far exceeded on this date in history. Today, Napoleon invades Russia. 1917. Best substitute pitcher ever. After Red Sox pitcher Babe Ruth walks the first batter in the game, he engages in a heated argument with the umpire, and eventually is ejected and punches the umpire (a glancing blow). Ernie Shore comes in in "relief". The runner at first is caught stealing, and Shore retires the next 26 batters in a row. 1926. The first SAT exam is administered. 1940. Hitler visits Paris. 1972. President Nixon and aide H.R. Haldemann are taped discussing using the CIA to interfere with the FBI's investigation of the Watergate hotel break in. |
June 24
1314. The Battle of Bannockburn, when Robert the Bruce leads Scottish forces to a decisive victory over the English. As a direct, though delayed, result, England recognizes Scottish independence in 1328. 1916. The Battle of the Somme begins with a weeklong bombardment by the French of German forces. 1948. The Soviet Union blocks all efforts to travel from West German to WEstern Berlin, beginning the Berlin Blockade. |
June 25
1876. The Battle of Little Bighorn is fought between the Cheyenne and Lakota Indian tribes led by Sitting Bull, and the US Army's 7th Cavalry Regiment of about 700 men. It results in a decisive defeat for the US Army which suffered the loss of 268 men including its leader, George Armstrong Custer, two of his brothers, a brother-in-law, and a nephew. The Army lost mainly because it relied on inaccurate information, believing it was up against about 800 Native Americans, instead of thousands. 1948. As a result of the blockade of Western Berlin, the Berlin Airlift begins. 1950. North Korea crosses the 38th parallel and invades South Korea, beginning the Korean War. As a result of superior training and equipment (partly as a result of US refusals to sell them advanced equipment, including tanks), the North Korean army easily smashes through the ineffectual South Korean defenses. |
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And then drive to the beaches of Normandy. |
June 26
1284. The Pied Piper leads the children of Hamelin, Germany, out of town. The full story of the Pied Piper supposedly occurred around this date in Hamelin, Germany, in 1284. The full story is that a man in pied clothing (motley-colored patches or multicolored clothing) arrived in Hamelin while it was suffering a serious rat infestation, offered the town a solution, which the town leaders agreed to. They also agreed on the price to be paid for his services. He played a musical tune, leading the rats to the Weser River, where they drowned. The town, however, refused to pay. He returned on Saint John and Paul's and, while the adults were in church, played a tune to lure the town's children away. According to the story, he lured 130 boys and girls to a cave, and they were never seen again. Other versions have the piper leading the children to also drown in the Weser, or returning them to the town upon payment of triple the original price, or leading them over the mountaints to a far off land. The historical precedent for the story is shrouded in time. Several interesting facts exist, however. First, the earliest written history of the town known to exist was written in 1384 and begins with the line "It is 100 years since our children left". Second, there are descriptions of a stained glass window in the Church of Hamelin which depicted the event and was first put in place around 1300. The stained glass was destroyed in 1660. The rats, however, are clearly just a latter-day add on, with no accounts of them appearing before the middle 1500s. Despite exhaustive research by historians, no agreement exists regarding the actual facts. Speculation includes a serial killer/pedophile who may have murdered a large number of children, or that the plague carried away a very large percentage of the town's children in 1284. More widely believed, however, is that a large number of children left Hamelin to join a migration to Eastern Europe, with the pied piper serving as a recruiter of sorts, a practice that was not entirely uncommon, in which case the parents may well have sold their children to the "piper". 1870. The Christian holiday of Christmas is declared a federal holiday in the United States. 1917. The first US troops begin to arrive in Europe to join English and French troops fighting WWI. 1918. The Battle of Belleau Wood. The US troops in WWI, especially the Marines, are instrumental in a victory against German forces. 1936. The first flight of the Focke-Wulf Fw-61, the first practical helicopter. 1953. Lavrentia Beria, whom Josef Stalin had introduced to President Roosevelt at Yalta as "our Himmler" is arrested by the Politburo. He will soon be executed as part of the power struggle to control the Soviet Union post-Stalin. Beria may have poisoned and killed Stalin himself, who fell ill shortly after a dinner with Beria and certain other party members, dying four days later. The poison Warfarin would have produced symptoms similar to those experienced by Stalin. 1974. The Universal Product Code (UPC) is used for the first time, to sell a package of Wrigley's chewing gum at Marsh Supermarket in Troy, Ohio. |
A little story regarding the Pied Piper. In the play The Pillowman there several short tales told. One of them is about a boy who is sitting beside the road and helps a traveller passing by him. The traveller thanks him by chopping off his feet. Then the traveller continues on to town, where it turns out he's the Pied Piper. He leads all the children away except the one who has no feet, who can't go because he can't walk.
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June 27
1844. Joseph Smith, Jr., founder of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (i.e. Mormons) is killed by a mob while awaiting trial. Five men were tried for his murder, but acquitted. 1950. The United States decides to send troops to defend South Korea. 1967. The world's first ATM is installed in Enfield, London. 1976. Air France Flight 139, a flight with 248 passengers, 12 crewmembers and scheduled to travel from Tel Aviv to Paris via Athens, is hijacked and rerouted to Entebbe, Uganda. The hijackers consist of two Palestinians of the PLO and two Germans of the PLO's "External Operations". Four additional Palestinians joined the hijackers after the plane landed, as their efforts were supported by Uganadan President Idi Amin. The hijackers demanded the release of 40 prisoners held by Israel and 13 held by Kenya, France, Switzerland and West Germany. One hostage, a Holocaust survivor, showed a Nazi concentration camp identification tattoo on his arm to one of the German terrorists who responded that he "was no Nazi, I'm an idealist". After a week, the terrorists announced that the non-Jews would be released. The captain of the plane, however, and his crew, and one French nun, declared they would not leave the Jewish hostages behind. The French nun tried to have another person released in her place, but was forced off the plane. 105 hostages remained, and the terrorists threatened to begin killing them if their demands were not met. On the night of July 3rd, four Israeli C-130 cargo planes had landed in Entebbe under cover of night and without the assistance of Ugandan ground control. They were followed by two 707s, one of which contained medical facilities and supplies and landed in Kenya, and the other of which circled Entebbe airport. For much of the flight the planes flew no more than 100 feet off the ground, to avoid radar detection. They landed and quickly made their way to the terminal where the hostages were being held. They quickly killed all the terrorists and took the hostages back to the planes, where armored personnel carriers had already been unloaded to defend hte planes from any Ugandan forces. The entire operation lasted 53 minutes and of the 105 remaining hostages, only three were killed and approximately 10 wounded. The only Israeli commando killed was Yonathan Netanyahu, the force's commander, possibly by a Ugandan sniper. He was the older brother of future Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Natanyahu. One reason the operation went so well is that the hostages were being held in a terminal that had been built by an Israeli construction firm, which had all the blueprints of the building and provided them to Mossad, the Israeli secret service. In addition, some of the previously released hostages provided critical information. One in particular, a Frenchman of Jewish descent who was a former military officer and reported had a phenomenal memory, was particularly helpful. Following the rescue mission, Dora Bloch, a 75 year old British woman who had been held hostage but evacuated to a hospital in the Ugandan capital of Kampala, was murdered by Ugandan security forces along with, reported, some doctors and/or nurses who had tried to intervene. Her body was recovered in 1979 after the fall of the Amin government. |
June 28
1519. Charles V, already ruler of the Spanish Empire and only 19 years of age, is crowned Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire. He will spend much of his life at war, defending his vast realm. Upon his voluntary abdication of the throne, his empire is split, with his son inheriting the Spanish element with the German going to his younger brother. The two empires would remain mostly in alliance for the next 200+ years. 1778. The Battle of Monmouth Courthouse, New Jersey, is fought between the Americans and British. It is one of the largest battles of the Revolutionary War (by number of participants) and the last major battle in the northern theater. The battle was essentially won by the Americans, after the British retired at night to continue their withdrawal to New York. 1914. Franz Ferdinand, Archduke of Austria, and his wife Sophie are assassinated in Sarajevo by a young Serbian nationalist. Serbia is one of the many constituent states that form the ill-fated Austro-Hungarian Empire. The assassination pushes an incredible tense situation among hte major powers in Europe over the edge, and results in WWI, which involved over 70 million men in combat, including 60 million in Europe. The war will result in the dissolution of both the Austro-Hungarian Empire and Tsarist Russia, and soon lead to the failure of the Ottoman Empire in Turkey. Germany, also defeated, is humiliated by the terms of her defeat as memorailized in the Treaty of Versailles, and which in turn will help pave the path to the even more significant WWII. 1950. Seoul is captured by North Korea. South Korean troops reel backwards, thoroughly demoralized and defeated and unable to deal effectively with North Korean armor, especially. |
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