On This Day

On December 16, 1689, Parliament passed the (English) Bill of Rights.

In 1773, the Sons of Liberty dump crates of tea into Boston Harbor as a protest against unfair taxation.

In 2013. Joshua turned 25. Huzzah!

Alvin York

Everyone has heard of Sergeant York, but it is good to be reminded.

On this day in 1918, the 328th Infantry engaged German forces near Chatel-Chehery, France. As York recalled:

The Germans got us, and they got us right smart. They just stopped us dead in our tracks. Their machine guns were up there on the heights overlooking us and well hidden, and we couldn't tell for certain where the terrible heavy fire was coming from... And I'm telling you they were shooting straight. Our boys just went down like the long grass before the mowing machine at home...

Seventeen men, including York, were ordered to infiltrate and take out the machine guns. The patrol had captured a group of the enemy, when they came under fire from German guns; of the seventeen, six were killed and three wounded. York, the ranking NCO, left his men under cover, guarding the prisoners, while he advanced and engaged the guns. His Medal of Honor citation reads:

After his platoon suffered heavy casualties and 3 other noncommissioned officers had become casualties, Cpl. York assumed command. Fearlessly leading 7 men, he charged with great daring a machine gun nest which was pouring deadly and incessant fire upon his platoon. In this heroic feat the machine gun nest was taken, together with 4 officers and 128 men and several guns.

D Day

Sixty nine years ago today, 12,000 men gave their lives in the invasion of Normandy.

Kola Superdeep

On this day in 1970, Russian scientists began drilling on the Kola Peninsula, with the intention to penetrate the Earth's crust as deeply as possible. The deepest borehole reached a depth of over 40,200 feet in 1989. Due to the 180°C / 355° F temperature at that depth, further drilling was considered unfeasible and the project focus switched to analysis of the core samples that had been retrieved. The project was finally shut down in 2005.

Defenestration

On this day in 1618, the Second Defenestration of Prague took place, igniting the first phase of the Thirty Years War. The hardline Catholic Ferdinand,King of Bohemia and shortly to be Emperor, reversed concessions made to the Protestants by the previous two kings; when the Bohemian Estates objected, Ferdinand dissolved the assembly and sent representatives to the Estates with a letter declaring their leaders' lives and honor forfeit; the leaders responded by throwing the representatives out the window; they fell 70 feet but survived. When Ferdinand was elected Holy Roman Emperor in 1619, the  Bohemian Estates deposed him as king and invited Frederick V, Elector Palatine, to the throne; Ferdinand, with the assistance of Bavaria, invaded Bohemia in 1620 and suppressed the rebellion.

Also, on May 23, 1829, the accordion was patented.

Magdeburg

The city of Magdeburg had survived a siege by Wallenstein's forces in 1629; however, it was besieged again in 1631 by Imperial forces under Tilly. On May 20, 1631, Tilly's troops stormed the city and sacked it, killing at least two thirds of the 30,000 inhabitants and burning the town.

On this Day

On May 9, 1671, Colonel Thomas Blood attempted to steal the British Crown Jewels from the Tower of London. Technically, he did steal them--hammered a crown flat and tucked it into his clothing, and his confederates picked up a sceptre and an orb--but they were chased and caught after leaving the Tower.  However, Kind Charles II was apparently amused by this Blood's bravado and not only pardoned him, but granted him an estate in Ireland.

Action of 6 May 1801

On this day in 1801, HM brig Speedy, under command of Thomas, Lord Cochrane, attacked and captured the 32 gun Spanish frigate El Gamo, despite the fact that the Spanish ship was four times the size, with six times the crew and weight of broadside. The Speedy approached under American colors until she got so close that the Spanish broadside passed over her, and returned fire with double-shotted guns. After exchanging fire and repelling several Spanish attempts to board, Cochrane sent over his entire crew, leaving only one man aboard the Speedy; he then told that one to "send over the rest of the men!" and tore down the Spanish colors, whereupon the El Gamo's crew surrendered. The British took 12 casualties, the Spanish 55 killed and wounded and 261 captured. 

Communism vs Capitalism

On April 17, a fertilizer plant in the town of West, Texas, blew up, with over 160 casualties. I've heard people saying "The explosion happened because, CAPITALISM! It hadn't been inspected by OSHA since 1985 because, CAPITALISM!"

On this day in 1986--three years before the fall of the Berlin wall--the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in the Ukraine suffered an explosion and fire which spread contamination over much of western Europe. Over 130,000 people were evacuated; deaths from radiation exposure and cancers were estimated as at least 4000.

So disasters happen because humans are greedy, careless, ignorant, or lazy; it doesn't seem to matter much which economic system they're operating in.

December 6th

On this day:

• 1240: Kiev falls to the Mongols
• 1768: first edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica is published
• 1865: Slavery banned in the US by the ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment (not the Emancipation Proclamation)

Atmosphere

On this day in 2001, the Hubble Space Telescope discovered the first known planetary atmosphere outside the solar system, on the planet Osiris.

October 12

On this day in 1799, the first female parachutist made her first jump--so to speak. Jeanne-Genevieve Labrosse ascended in a balloon to 900m altitude. The parachute was attached to the balloon basket, so she cut loose the balloon's hot air bag and rode down in the basket.

Also, on this day in 1979, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy was published.

Abolition

On this day in 1833, the United Kingdom abolished slavery within the empire.

Antimatter

On this day in 1932, Carl David Anderson discovered the positron. I had no idea people were fooling around with antimatter in 1932.

On this day

In 1203, the Fourth Crusade captures Constantinople, which is about the same as if the Americans in World War 2 had assaulted and captured London.

In 1453, the French defeat the English at the battle of Castillon, the last battle of the Hundred Years War.

In 1918, Bolsheviks murder Tsar Nicholas II and his family.

Declaration of Independence

An excerpt:

We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.

That to secure these Rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the Consent of the Governed;

that whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these Ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or abolish it, and to institute a new Government, laying its Foundation on such Principles, and organizing its Powers in such Form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient Causes; and accordingly all Experience hath shewn, that Mankind are more disposed to suffer, while Evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the Forms to which they are accustomed.

But when a long Train of Abuses and Usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object, evinces a Design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their Right, it is their Duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future Security.

On this day

In 1864, a few days after the Battle of Trevilian Station, Union forces under Grant withdrew from the Battle of Cold Harbor.

In 1987, speaking in Berlin at the Brandenburg Gate, Ronald Reagan challenged the Soviet Union to "tear down this wall".

Declaration of Independence

On this day in 1776, the Continental Congress appointed Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Ben Franklin, Roger Sherman and Robert Livingston as a committee to draft a declaration of independence for the Thirteen Colonies.

D Day

In 1944 on this day, 160,000 Allied troops landed along a 50 mile stretch of German-occupied France.

In 1918, the United States Marine Corps took its heaviest day of casualties, in the Battle of Belleau Woods.

And in 1984, Tetris was released.

Tsushima

On this day in 1905, at Tsushima Straits, the Japanese Navy destroyed a Russian fleet which had sailed from the Baltic to the Far East, attempting to reach. This was the only tactically decisive battle fought by modern battleships, and is considered one of the major naval battles of history.