This Day in History

[Amnorix]

Today...

[Amnorix]

July 11

1798. After having been disbanded immediately after the Revolutionary War, the Marine Corps is re-established.

1804. Vice President Aaron Burr mortally wounds former Secretary of the Treasury, leader of the Federalist Party and longtime political enemy Alexander Hamilton in a duel.

1859. Dickens publishes A Tale of Two Cities, the most-printed book in history that was originally written in English. Its lead is considable in that category -- 200 million copies printed, putting it 50 million ahead of the Boy Scout handbook, the Book of Mormon, and The Lord of the Rings, which are all at about 150 million copies. It is also the most-printed novel in history -- the only works ahead of it are the Bible, the Koran, a Chinese dictionary, and three works by former Chinese dictator Mao Zedong -- the Little Red Book (the top printed book in history other than the Bible), a book of his poetry, and a book of selected articles.

1914. Babe Ruth makes his MLB debut.

1960. To Kill a Mockingbird is first published.

1972. The first game of the World Chess Championship begins, between American Bobby Fischer and defending champion Russian Boris Spassky. Dubbed the Match of the Century (though in all fairness other matches have also been accorded this title), the match had heightened scrutiny as a result of the Cold War. Fischer will win, becoming the first American champion since Wilhelm Steinitz, the first chess champion, became a naturalized citizen in 1888, and ending 24 years of Soviet Champions.

Fischer, the brilliant chess wunderkind, would fail to defend his title in 1975 when he couldnt' reach agreement with the governing international body of chess regarding the rules of the match. Always eccentric, he will become increasingly erratic, withdrawing from the public eye and all matches until a 1992 rematch against Spassky, which he also won. That match, however, got him no benefit in the US, as the match was held in Yugoslavia, then under strict UN sanctions. The resulting conflict with the US government led to him never returning ot his native country. He would go on to live in a number of foreign countries, with his few public statements being increasingly anti-American and anti-Semitic, notwithstanding his own Jewish heritage. In the early 2000s, he was held in Japan under threat of deportation, and eventually was granted a passport and then citizenship in Iceland -- the site of his famous 1972 match against Spassky -- where he lived until his death in 2008.

Originally Posted by Bobby Fischer, whose mother was Jewish

[The United States is] a farce controlled by dirty, hook-nosed, circumcised Jew bastards.

After his death, a draft letter was found among his papers. It's unclear whether it was ever finalized and/or sent.

Originally Posted by Bobby Fischer

Dear Mr. Osama bin Laden allow me to introduce myself. I am Bobby Fischer, the World Chess Champion. First of all you should know that I share your hatred of the murderous bandit state of "Israel" and its chief backer the Jew-controlled U.S.A. also know [sic] as the "Jewnited States" or "Israel West." We also have something else in common: We are both fugitives from the U.S. "justice" system.

[Amnorix]

July 12

A pretty slow day. I'll limit it to this:

1962. The Rolling Stones perform their first concert, at the Marquee Club in London.

[Sofa King]

Originally Posted by Amnorix

July 12

A pretty slow day. I'll limit it to this:

1962. The Rolling Stones perform their first concert, at the Marquee Club in London.

[Amnorix]

July 13

1787. The NOrthwest Ordinance is passed. It establishes rules for admissions to statehood and limits the expansion of slavery.

1863. The worst rioting in United States history occurs in New York City, in resistance to the newly adopted draft.

1923. The original sign in the hills above Hollywood, Los Angeles is dedicated. It reads "Hollywoodland". The last four letters are dropped in 1949.

1973. Alexander Butterfield reveals the existence of the Nixon tapes to the staff of a Senate committee in preparation for his appearing before the committee. At this point he was the head of the Federal Aviation Administration, but he had previously been an assistant to H.R. Haldeman and his job included the preservation of historical documents, including the operations of the secret taping system. John Dean had previously mentioned to the Senators investigating the Watergate break in that he thought there was a secret taping system, so Senators were routinely asking witnesses what they knew about such a system. Butterfield had resolved that he wouldn't volunteer the existence of the system unless directly asked. Republican counsel Donald Sanders did ask him directly, and so he responded honestly.

Originally Posted by Alexander Butterfield

everything was taped ... as long as the President was in attendance. There was not so much as a hint that something should not be taped.

Butterfield was promptly brought before the full committee where minority counsel Fred Thompson propelled himself into fame by asking

Originally Posted by Fred Thompson

Mr. Butterfield, are you aware of the installation of any listening devices in the Oval Office of the president?

[Amnorix]

July 14. (hallelujah, caught up at last!)

1789. Citizens of Paris storm the Bastille and free seven prisoners.

1798. The SEdition Act becomes law, making it a crime to write, publish or utter a false or malicious statement about the US government.

1881. Pat Garrett shoots and kills Billy the Kidd.

1933. Germany outlaws all political parties other than the Nazi party.

1969. The $500, $1,000, $5,000 and $10,000 bills are officially withdrawn from circulation.

[Amnorix]

July 15

1099. The Crusaders of the First Crusade capture the site of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, the believed site of Christ's crucifixion and one of the main goals of the First Crusade.

1799. A corps of approximately 170 technical experts traveling with Napoleon's French Army in Egypt spot a slab of stone a few miles northeast of the port city of Rashid. There is writing visible on one side, and they report the find to General Menou, commanding at the city of Rosetta. It turns out to be the key to unlocking the previously incomprehensible Egyptian hieroglyphic writing system as it contains three inscriptions -- one written in Greek, one in Demotic, and another in Hieroglyphic. The language had been lost since about the year 400, before the fall of the Roman Empire.

A partial translation into English:

Originally Posted by The Rosetta Stone

In the reign of the young one—who has received the royalty from his father—lord of crowns, glorious, who has established Egypt, and is pious towards the gods, superior to his foes, who has restored the civilized life of men, lord of the Thirty Years' Feasts, even as Hephaistos the Great; a king, like the Sun, the great king of the upper and lower regions; offspring of the Gods Philopatores, one whom Hephaistos has approved, to whom the Sun has given the victory, the living image of Zeus, son of the Sun, Ptolemy living-for‑ever beloved of Ptah; in the ninth year, when Aëtus, son of Aëtus, was priest of Alexander [...];
The chief priests and prophets and those that enter the inner shrine for the robing of the gods, and the feather-bearers and the sacred scribes, and all the other priests [...] being assembled in the temple in Memphis on this day, declared:
Since king Ptolemy, the everliving, the beloved of Ptah, the God Epiphanes Eucharistos, the son of king Ptolemy and queen Arsinoe, Gods Philopatores, has much benefited both the temples and those that dwell in them, as well as all those that are his subjects, being a god sprung from a god and goddess (like Horus, the son of Isis and Osiris, who avenged his father Osiris), and being benevolently disposed towards the gods, has dedicated to the temples revenues in money and corn, and has undertaken much outlay to bring Egypt into prosperity, and to establish the temples, and has been generous with all his own means, and of the revenues and taxes which he receives from Egypt some has wholly remitted and others has lightened, in order that the people and all the rest might be in prosperity during his reign [...];
It seemed good to the priests of all the temples in the land to increase greatly the existing honours of king Ptolemy, the everliving, the beloved of Ptah [...] And a feast shall be kept for king Ptolemy, the everliving, the beloved of Ptah, the God Epiphanes Eucharistos, yearly in all the temples of the land from the first of Thoth for 5 days; in which they shall wear garlands, and perform sacrifices, and the other usual honours; and the priests shall be called priests of the God Epiphanes Eucharistos in addition to the names of the other gods whom they serve; and his priesthood shall be entered upon all formal documents and private individuals shall also be allowed to keep the feast and set up the aforementioned shrine, and have it in their houses, performing the customary honours at the feasts, both monthly and yearly, in order that it may be known to all that the men of Egypt magnify and honour the God Epiphanes Eucharistos the king, according to the law.

1815. Napoleon formally surrenders to the British, aboard a British warship.

1916. William Boeing and George Westervelt incorporate Pacific Aero Products, later renamed Boeing.

1979. Jimmy Carter gives his famous (perhaps infamous would be a better description) "malaise" speech regarding "this crisis in the growing doubt about the meaning of our own lives and in the loss of a unity of purpose for our nation."

[Amnorix]

July 16

622. The first day of the Muslim calendar, which was adopted for the year in which Muhammed traveled from Mecca to Medina.

1054. The Great Schism. It is hard for us to fathom now, but in the first centuries of Christianity, the struggle for leadership of the Christian religion was not fought solely in Rome. Rather, there were five leading centers of Christian thought, and they fought between and among themselves to establish their primary. These five centers were Rome, Constantinople, Antioch, Alexandria and Jerusalem. During these early centuries, the concept of the primacy of the Roman See, and Papal Infallability, did not exist. Ecumenical councils would be held to resolve the most contentious of the differences between the various Patriarchs.

Two in particular, however, stood out even then -- Rome and Constantinople. Rome, because of its history to the founders of the Church, and Constantinople because it was the seat of the Roman Empire, and what would become known to us as the Byzantine Empire, which for a time was among the most powerful empires in the world, and certainly in the Mediterranean. As Rome was being sacked by Visigoths and the Roman pontiffs were being made the puppet of secular powers, the archbishop of Constantinople was inviolate and surrounded by the trappings of Byzantium.

The sword of the Muslim infidels ended any claims of the sees of Jerusalem, Antioch and Alexandria to Christian leadership. By the year 700, each of these cities had fallen to the sword, and were largely converted.

As the centuries went along, however, there were increasing differences between the theological views of the Roman and Constantinople sees. At various times, the two were at odds and were not speaking with each other.

A series of arguments led to an increasing rift and hostility. On this date, 1054, a Papal legate entered the Church of the Hagia Sophia, during the Divine Liturgy, and placed a Bull of Excommunication on the altar. The Eastern patriarchs supported Constinople, and the Christian Church (remember, this is before Protestantism even existed) was forever after split into what we now know as the Roman Catholic Church and the Greek Orthodox Church. The split would have very important repercussions regarding Crusades, the eventual sacking of Constinople in the so-called Fourth "Crusade" in 1254, and the fall of the Byzantine Empire in 1453.

1918. Tsar Nicholas II and his family are executed by the Bolsheviks.

1945. Stalin, Churchill and Truman meet at Potsdam. On that same day, the Atomic Age begins, as the US successfully tests the first nuclear weapon, near Alamagordo, New Mexico.

[Amnorix]

July 17

180. 12 inhabitants of Scillium, North Africa, are executed for being Christians -- the first record in history of Christians in that part of the world.

1203. In one of the most embarassing misadventures in western history, the Fourth "Crusade" captures Constantinople, the capital city of the extremely Christian Empire of Byzantium. The capture is led by the famous Venetian Doge, Enrico Dandolo who, despite being over 80 years of age and blind, was almost single-handedly responsible for diverting the Crusade to Constantinople and then was instrumental in personally exhorting the Crusaders to success. Indeed, out of the entire fiasco only Venice profited really. The other nations involved in the Crusade saw their early returns turn to dust as events increasingly turned against them despite their half-century possession of Constantinople.

1762. Catherine the Great becomes Tsar of Russia.

1867. The first dental school in America is established, at Harvard University.

1917. After being locked in the deadliest war in history against, primarily, Germany, the King of England, George V, decrees a change of the royal family's surname to Windsor, from the rather embarassingly Germanic Saxe-Coburg and Gotha (or Wettin -- the actual surname was so complicated that Queen Victoria had to order an inquiry to determine her surname after her marriage to Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha).

1942. The Battle of Stalingrad commences.

1944. Napalm is used for the first time, near St. Lo, France.

1968. The Ba'ath Party takes power in Iraq, led by Ahmed Hassan Al-Bakr. He will rule until the late 1970s, when he is replaced by his chosen successor, his cousin, Saddam Hussein.

[Amnorix]

July 18

390 (though more probably, 387) BC. Roman forces are defeated in the Battle of Allia, leading to Rome being sacked for the last time until 410 AD.

64. A bad day in Roman history. A fire breaks out in the merchant's quarter of Rome, and quickly spreads, leading to the Great Fire of Rome. It lasts for over five days, and 11 of Rome's 15 districts escape damage, and three are completely destroyed. Numerous rumors abound regarding the actions of Emperor Nero, varying from leading herioc relief efforts to having committed the arson personally. One thing is clear -- he didn't play the fiddle. If anything, he played the lyre, which is the only instrument he is known to have been able to play.

1290. King Edward I of England issues the Edict of Expulsion, banning all Jews from England.

1863. The first formal African-American military unit, the Massachusetts 54th regiment, fails in its assault on the Confederate Battery Wagner, a fortification on Morris Island, South Carolina. The events of the unit and assault are memorialized in the movie, Glory. After the failed assault the fort is besieged, and is abandoned due to lack of fresh water in September.

1870. The First Vatican Council decrees the dogma of Papal Infallability. (Seems to me it shouldn't have taken 1,870 years to figure that one out, but call me a skeptic). It is not, however, a decree that the Pope is never wrong. Rather, only that when he promulgates an article of faith to the Church. There is only one instance of Papal Infallability that everyone agrees on -- the 1950 decree by Pope Pius XII regarding the Assumption of Mary (that the body and soul of the mother of Christ went directly to heaven upon her death).

1925. Adolf (not Adolph) Hitler publishes his ravings in Mein Kampf. The name was suggested by his publisher, over Hitler's preference for the wordy title "Four and a half years (of struggle) against Lies, Stupidity and Cowardice."

1936. Military rebels attempt a coup d'etat against the government, setting off the Spanish Civil War which will serve as a precursor and proving ground for the upcoming WWII.

1942. German tests the ME-262, using only jet engines, for the first time.

1944. Prime Minister Hideki Tojo resigns, due to numerous military set backs. He will ultimately be sentenced to death, and hang for, war crimes.

1969. Ted Kennedy drives off a bridge in Chappaquiddock, Massachusetts, resulting in the death of his passenger, Mary Jo Kopechne.

[Dave Lane]

Originally Posted by Jenson71

And probably with a lot of Missourians on this board, especially in the KC area, they would know that a lot of Mormons hang out in Independence, MO, as well.

It is the garden of Eden after all.

[Hydrae]

One thing is clear -- he didn't play the fiddle. If anything, he played the lyre, which is the only instrument he is known to have been able to play.

It is more polite to call him a fiddler than a liar though.

[Amnorix]

July 19

1588. The Battle of Gravelines. The "defeat" of the Spanish Armada was not accomplished in one titanic battle. Rather, it was a series of negative events that resulted in the failure of the Armada to accomplish its strategic objective of bringing an army of invasion to Southern England. Of these events, the Battle of Gravelines (named after the port in Spanish Flanders located near the battle) was one of the most significant, wherein several Spanish ships were lost, several others punished, against light English losses. Further, the English harried the fleet over the next several days, and prevented it from meeting up with the army of the Duke of Parma which was poised to be ferried to England as the invasion force.

1848. A two day Women's Rights convention is held in Seneca Falls, NY. There, "bloomers" are introduced.

1870. France declares war on Prussia, kicking off the Franco-Prussian War, or alternatively the War of 1870. In hindsight, this turns out to be a very bad idea for France.

[Amnorix]

July 20

356 BC. Alexander the Great is born.

1402. Timur (sometimes Tamerlane) crushes the Ottoman forces at the Battle of Ankara, capturing Sultan Bayezid I, who will die in captivity. This victory, heaped on all the others across his life when he rampaged without fail from modern day Turkey to India, cements his legacy as one of the greatest conquerors and killers in history.

1864. Battle of Peachtree Creek. William T. Sherman had set out from Tennessee some months ago with Atlanta as his objective. General Joseph Johnston commanded the Confederate troops opposing him, and had steadily retreated before Sherman's numerically superior, veteran troops. Confederate leadership, however, was unhappy with Johston's performance, and relieved him, appointing General John Bell Hood, who formerly served under Robert E. Lee, to replace him.

In retrospect, this was a grave mistake. Johnston was a very able and intelligent commander. Hood was a fighter, but it takes more than a fighter to lead an army.

Originally Posted by Robert E. Lee

Hood is a bold fighter. I am doubtful as to the other qualities necessary.

Originally Posted by Union General Jacob Cox

...the change of Confederate commanders was learned with satisfaction by every officer and man in the National Army."

The Battle of Peachtree Creek was the first of several unsuccessful attacks by Confederate troops defending in the immediate vicinity of Atlanta. Ultimately, these attacks would wreck Hood's army and put Sherman in possession of Atlanta in time for the upcoming elections.

Fort Hood, Texas, is named in honor of John Bell Hood.

1938. The US Department of Justice files a lawsuit against the motion picture industry alleging that the studio system violated the Sherman Antitrust Act. The studio system was the system by which major movie studios had vertically integrated ownership of all levels of movie production and distribution, and effectively "owned" major movie stars via long term contracts. The suit would result in the break up of the industry in 1948.

1941. Stalin consolidates the Commisariats of Home Affairs and National Security, forming the NKVD, a significant component of which will soon be better known as the KGB, and names Lavrenti Beria as its chief.

1944. Hitler survives an assassination attempt led by Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg.

1973. Assistant Secretary of Defense Jerry Friedheim admits that the Department of Defense lied to Congress about bombings in Cambodia. (I hope whoever did the lying, or ordered the lying, was suitably punished )

[Amnorix]

July 21

356 BC. Herostratus, apparently a lunatic seeking fame at any cost (hence the phrase "Herostratic fame"), sets fire to the Temple of ARtemis, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, destroying it.

Originally Posted by Antipater of Sidon, who compiled the list of the Seven Wonders

I have set eyes on the wall of lofty Babylon on which is a road for chariots, and the statue of Zeus by the Alpheus, and the hanging gardens, and the colossus of the Sun, and the huge labour of the high pyramids, and the vast tomb of Mausolus; but when I saw the house of Artemis that mounted to the clouds, those other marvels lost their brilliancy, and I said, "Lo, apart from Olympus, the Sun never looked on aught so grand.

1861. The First Battle of Bull Run, the first major battle of the Civil War is fought. It ends in a stunning Confederate victory. Idiots of all types from Washington DC, including some politicians and their wives, trailed along the Union Army and witnessed the battle, thinking it would be some kind of grand show that would obviously end in Union victory. They quickly retreat to the city, disillusioned.

1873. At Adair, Iowa, Jesse James and the James-Younger Gang pull off the first successful train robbery in the "Old West".

1925. John T. Scopes is found guilty in the Scopes Trial, and fined $100.

1969. Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin become the first men to walk on the moon.

1983. The world's lowest temperature ever is recorded, -129 degrees Fahrenheit, in Antarctica.

[Sofa King]

Originally Posted by Amnorix

July 21


1861. The First Battle of Bull Run, the first major battle of the Civil War is fought. It ends in a stunning Confederate victory. Idiots of all types from Washington DC, including some politicians and their wives, trailed along the Union Army and witnessed the battle, thinking it would be some kind of grand show that would obviously end in Union victory. They quickly retreat to the city, disillusioned.


1983. The world's lowest temperature ever is recorded, -129 degrees Fahrenheit, in Antarctica.

Sounds like something our media does..... idiots...


and DAYAM THAT'S COLD!