Hollow Leg Podcast

Baseball season is officially here with pitchers & catchers reported this week. I talk about the new managers that were replacing the abrupt firings of the Mets, Red Sox, and Astros.

I also talk about the Mookie Betts trade as well as the retirement of two good players.

Finally wrapping it up by complaining about the new baseball playoff format MLB is moving towards. Bad idea, MLB.

Surprising results in this year's results.

Talking about the signing of Josh Donaldson, Astros scandal wrapping up, and how the teams will fare in 2020.

Talking about recent transactions in the Hot Stove, covering the first week of the new year. Mostly Nationals signings.

Talking about the Hot Stove transactions that happened over the Holiday season.

Looks like the Blue Jays and the White Sox are poised for a breakout year in 2020.

Talking about the Christmas Truce of 1914, the greatest moment in WW1.

Apologies for being a day late; I was unable to upload to Anchor yesterday, the file would remain at 0% uploaded. Seems fixed today.

⦁ DECEMBER 14

1799.  George Washington dies.

1911. Roald Amundsen becomes first explorer to reach the South Pole.

1939. USSR is expelled from the League of Nations.

2012. Sandy Hook Shooting.

⦁ DECEMBER 15

1890. Sitting Bull killed by Indian police.

1961. Architect of the Holocaust sentenced to die.

1978. United States announces that it will recognize communist China.

⦁ DECEMBER 16

1773. Boston Tea Party.

1944. Battle of the Bulge begins.

1950. President Truman declares state of emergency over Korean War.

1998. President Clinton orders air attack on Iraq.

⦁ DECEMBER 17

1777. France formally recognizes the United States.

1862. Union General Ulysses S. Grant expels Jews from his military district.

1903. First Airplane Recorded Flight.

1941. Commander at Pearl Harbor relieved of his duties.

1944. U.S. approves end to internment of Japanese Americans.

1991. Boris Yeltsin announces the Soviet Union will cease to exist by New Year’s Eve.

2011. Kim Jong Il dies.

⦁ DECEMBER 18

1620. Mayflower lands at Plymouth Harbor.

1916. Battle of Verdun ends.

1941. Japan invades Hong Kong. The War Powers Act was passed by Congress on the same day

⦁ DECEMBER 19

1777. Continental Army enters winter camp at Valley Forge.

1917. National Hockey League (NHL) opens its first season.

1941. Hitler takes command of the German army.

⦁ DECEMBER 20

1963. Berlin Wall opened for the first time.

1989. US Invades Panama.

1995. NATO assumes peacekeeping duties in Bosnia.

Quick podcast of the big happenings in the Hot Stove of baseball this past week!

⦁ DECEMBER 7

1787. Delaware becomes the first state to ratify the Constitution.

1941. Pearl Harbor bombed.

1988. Earthquakes wreak havoc in Armenia

⦁ DECEMBER 8

1914. Battle of the Falkland Islands starts.

1940. Bears beat Redskins 73-0 in NFL Championship game.

1941. Jeannette Rankin casts sole vote against joining WW2.

1949. Chinese Nationalists move capital to Taiwan.

1969. President Nixon announces Vietnam War will end.

1980. John Lennon shot.

⦁ DECEMBER 9

1835. The Texan Army captures San Antonio.

1917. Jerusalem surrenders to British troops.

1979. Smallpox is officially declared eradicated.

⦁ DECEMBER 10

1864. General William T. Sherman completes March to the Sea.

1898. Treaty of Paris ends Spanish-American War.

1915. Ford builds its 1 millionth car.

1963. Frank Sinatra Jr. endures a frightening ordeal.

⦁ DECEMBER 11

1915. Yuan Shih-kai accepts Chinese throne.

1936. King Edward VIII abdicates.

1941. Germany declares war on the US.

1994. Russian forces enter Chechnya.

⦁ DECEMBER 12

1963. Kenya declares independence from Britain.

⦁ DECEMBER 13

1577. Explorer Francis Drake sets sail from England.

1916. Soldiers perish in avalanche as World War I rages.

1937. The Rape of Nanking.

2000. Al Gore cencedes presidential election.

2003. Saddam Hussein captured.

We talk about the signings and trades that have been made this week in baseball.

Here I go over the guys missed on the HoF Vet ballot this year.

The Case for Whitaker

He was a star 2B for the Detroit Tigers his entire career, spanning 1977-1995. His .276 average, 2369 hits, and 244 homers don’t look impressive on their own, but they’re only part of a larger skill set. Whitaker had a great batting eye, taking 1197 walks and bumping his OBP up to a very respectable .363. And while he wasn’t a slugger, he had solid doubles power, adding 420 of them to his totals and bumping his slugging percentage up to .426. All in all, that makes for a .789 OPS and a 117 OPS+. When he retired, he was also #4 on HR leaders at 2B, only surpassed by Joe Gordon, Joe Morgan, Rogers Hornsby, all hall of famers at the time.

On top of that, his OPS+ never went below the league average of 100 after 1980, which shows remarkable consistency with the bat. On top of providing a lot of offense at a tough position, he was a really good fielder there, as well! WAR has him in the top-25 all-time defensively at second. He even managed three Gold Gloves. Whitaker is very likely one of the twenty best hitters and fielders all-time at his position; that should be enough for Cooperstown.

The case for Tommy John.

If you think you recognize this name, that's because he was the first pitcher to get the Ulnar collateral ligament reconstruction surgery that now bears his name. His career numbers are "respectable" with a couple standouts but with the caveat that is was more of a "compiler" than a overwhelming pitcher. His 61.5 WAR is good, but not what you would expect from the loft Hall standards for starting pitchers.  He didn't get the sacred 300 wins, only won 20+ games 3 seasons out of 26... oh did I not mention this guy pitched for 26 seasons?

That's right, he had surprising longevity, compiling 4710.1 innings good for 11th on the liveball era for innings pitched, and the only other pitchers with 4500+ innings not in Cooperstown right now are Roger Clemens and Jim Kaat. Back in the day , that was probably written off as part of his eponymous surgery, but given that so few people since has matched him, it’s probably just as much that he was extremely durable, especially given how he pitched til 46 on a rebuilt ligament.

He wasn't an overpowering pitcher, but he did compile 2245 K's, limited HR's with only a 0.6 HR/9, and an above average ERA+ of 111. He also had an extremely long, albeit not steep, peak, posting solid season numbers from 1965 all the way until 1984 when his numbers and analytics start to fall off. I normally prefer players who had better peaks to players who "compiled" as it were, but I think Tommy did enough to join the Hall.

The Case for Thurmon Munson

Saving the best for last, we come to Thurman Munson. Thurman Monson was the catcher for the New York Yankees from 1969-1979. His is a tragic case, as he passed away in the middle of the 1979 season due to a plane accident. He was only 32 years old. Even with his career cut short, he is 12th all time on the JAWS ranking for catchers, with every catcher above him already in the hall, save for Joe Mauer who only just retired last season. In his 11 seasons, he managed 1558 hits, 113 HR, a .292 BA, and an 116 OPS+. He was also great on defence, saving 32 runs defensively over his career. He made the all star squad 7 times, took home the 1976 AL MVP, and was the 1970 RoY. So why isn't he in the hall?

He played at an unfortunate time. Not only was he not the best catcher in baseball, but he wasn't even the best catcher in his league. His career started at the same time as Johnny Bench,  and Carlton Fisk, while the mid 70's saw the emergence of Gary Carter. Remember how I said he was 12th all-time according to JAWS? He shared his career with the top 3 all-time (until Ivan Rodriguez). To have half the career and still be that good is amazing.

We talk about some of the free agent signings that have been done so far.

Overview

In Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, Napoleon Bonaparte is crowned Napoleon I, the first Frenchman to hold the title of emperor in a thousand years. Pope Pius VII handed Napoleon the crown that the 35-year-old conqueror of Europe placed on his own head.

The Corsican-born Napoleon, one of the greatest military strategists in history, rapidly rose in the ranks of the French Revolutionary Army during the late 1790s. By 1799, France was at war with most of Europe, and Napoleon returned home from his Egyptian campaign to take over the reigns of the French government and save his nation from collapse. After becoming first consul in February 1800, he reorganized his armies and defeated Austria. In 1802, he established the Napoleonic Code, a new system of French law, and in 1804 he established the French empire. By 1807, Napoleon’s empire stretched from the River Elbe in the north, down through Italy in the south, and from the Pyrenees to the Dalmatian coast.

Beginning in 1812, Napoleon began to encounter the first significant defeats of his military career, suffering through a disastrous invasion of Russia, losing Spain to the Duke of Wellington in the Peninsula War, and enduring total defeat against an allied force by 1814. Exiled to the island of Elba, he escaped to France in early 1815 and raised a new Grand Army that enjoyed temporary success before its crushing defeat at Waterloo against an allied force under Wellington on June 18, 1815.

Napoleon was subsequently exiled to the island of Saint Helena off the coast of Africa, where he lived under house arrest with a few followers. In May 1821, he died, most likely of stomach cancer. He was only 51 years old. In 1840, his body was returned to Paris, and a magnificent funeral was held. Napoleon’s body was conveyed through the Arc de Triomphe and entombed under the dome of the Invalides.

The French Civil Code

The French Civil Code was enacted on March 21, 1804. The Code represents a comprehensive reformation and codification of the French civil law and was considered by Napoleon himself to be one of his most significant achievements. Nowadays it remains a strong legal, sociological and cultural landmark for the French nation. And in spite of some revisions that were introduced later, the Napoleonic code is still very applicable in the French Republic and Law today.

Was Napoleon a force for good, or evil?

Napoleon had a vision for Europe and he succeeded in making that vision a reality, at least for a while. Whether he was a saviour of the people or a war-mad megalomaniac might simply be down to the loudest propaganda. Whatever else, he was an enigma, and someone who will continue to fascinate, inspire and disgust down the generations.

I decide to talk about baseball again, and the 2020 Hall of Fame ballot. Who I think will stay on the ballot, who falls off, and who gets in as well as some opinions on the players.

Still working on my Facebook page, Facebook is a royal pain to navigate!

Just a quick update, today's episode is taking a bit longer to write than I expected, sorry for the delay. Episode should be out later today or tomorrow.

Just wanted to let you all know I will be taking a brief hiatus from doing the podcast; I will return on Nov 25th.

Why the hiatus?

1. I plan on restructuring and reorganizing the daily history podcast to have more content and delve into greater depth.

2. I plan on expanding into different topics. I always wanted this to be a variety podcast, and I think I am ready to start. You can expect to see "one off" episodes as well as a series on the history of the World Series this winter.

3. I want to focus on growing my social media presence, and I have virtually no experience with any social platform. So I will become active on my twitter and create a facebook page, and maybe even a YouTube channel.

Hope you all enjoy your holiday and we look forward to seeing you all on Nov 25th!

1528

The Spanish conquistador Alvar Nunez Cabeza de Vaca is shipwrecked on a low sandy island off the coast of Texas. Starving, dehydrated, and desperate, he is the first European to set foot on the soil of the future Lone Star state.

1917

Led by Bolshevik Party leader Vladimir Lenin, leftist revolutionaries launch a nearly bloodless coup d’État against Russia’s ineffectual Provisional Government.

1962

The United Nations General Assembly adopts a resolution condemning South Africa’s racist apartheid policies and calling on all its members to end economic and military relations with the country.

1985

The Palace of Justice siege was an attack on the Supreme Court of Colombia, in which members of the M-19 Marxist guerrilla group took over the Palace of Justice in Bogotá, Colombia, and held the Supreme Court hostage, intending to hold a trial against President Belisario Betancur.

1922

British archaeologist Howard Carter and his workmen discover a step leading to the tomb of King Tutankhamen in the Valley of the Kings in Egypt. After World War I, Carter began an intensive search for “King Tut’s Tomb,” finally finding steps to the burial room hidden in the debris near the entrance of the nearby tomb of King Ramses VI in the Valley of the Kings. On November 26, 1922, Carter and fellow archaeologist Lord Carnarvon entered the interior chambers of the tomb, finding them miraculously intact. Thus began a monumental excavation process in which Carter carefully explored the four-room tomb over several years, uncovering an incredible collection of several thousand objects. The most splendid architectural find was a stone sarcophagus containing three coffins nested within each other. Inside the final coffin, which was made out of solid gold, was the mummy of the boy-king Tutankhamen, preserved for more than 3,000 years. Most of these treasures are now housed in the Cairo Museum.

1956

A spontaneous national uprising that began 12 days before in Hungary is viciously crushed by Soviet tanks and troops on November 4, 1956. Thousands were killed and wounded and nearly a quarter-million Hungarians fled the country. The problems in Hungary began in October 1956, when thousands of protesters took to the streets demanding a more democratic political system and freedom from Soviet oppression. In response, Communist Party officials appointed Imre Nagy, a former premier who had been dismissed from the party for his criticisms of Stalinist policies, as the new premier. Nagy tried to restore peace and asked the Soviets to withdraw their troops. The Soviets did so, but Nagy then tried to push the Hungarian revolt forward by abolishing one-party rule. He also announced that Hungary was withdrawing from the Warsaw Pact (the Soviet bloc’s equivalent of NATO). Soviet tanks rolled into Budapest to crush, once and for all, the national uprising. Vicious street fighting broke out, but the Soviets’ great power ensured victory. At 5:20 a.m., Hungarian Prime Minister Imre Nagy announced the invasion to the nation in a grim, 35-second broadcast, declaring: “Our troops are fighting. The Government is in place.” Within hours, though, Nagy sought asylum at the Yugoslav Embassy in Budapest. He was captured shortly thereafter and executed two years later.

1995

Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin is fatally shot after attending a peace rally held in Tel Aviv’s Kings Square in Israel. Rabin later died in surgery. The 73-year-old prime minister was walking to his car when he was shot in the arm and the back by Yigal Amir, a 27-year-old Jewish law student who had connections to the far-right Jewish group Eyal. Israeli police arrested Amir at the scene of the shooting, and he later confessed to the assassination, explaining at his arraignment that he killed Rabin because the prime minister wanted “to give our country to the Arabs.” Born in Jerusalem, Rabin was a leader of the Arab-Israeli war of 1948 and served as chief-of-staff of Israel’s armed forces during the Six-Day War of 1967. After serving as Israel’s ambassador to the United States, Rabin entered the Labour Party and became prime minister in 1974. In 1977, Rabin resigned as prime minister over a scandal involving his holding of bank accounts in the United States in violation of Israeli law. In 1992, Rabin led the Labour Party to election victory and became Israel’s prime minister again. In 1993, he signed the historic Israeli-Palestinian Declaration of Principles with Palestinian leader Yasir Arafat and in 1994 concluded a formal peace agreement with the Palestinians.

1415

During the Hundred Years’ War between England and France, Henry V, the young king of England, leads his forces to victory at the Battle of Agincourt in northern France. Two months before, Henry had crossed the English Channel with 11,000 men and laid siege to Harfleur in Normandy. After five weeks the town surrendered, but Henry lost half his men to disease and battle casualties. He decided to march his army northeast to Calais, where he would meet the English fleet and return to England. At Agincourt, however, a vast French army of 20,000 men stood in his path, greatly outnumbering the exhausted English archers, knights, and men-at-arms. The battlefield lay on 1,000 yards of open ground between two woods, which prevented large-scale maneuvers and thus worked to Henry’s advantage. The English stood their ground as French knights, weighed down by their heavy armor, began a slow advance across the muddy battlefield. The French were met by a furious bombardment of artillery from the English archers, who wielded longbows with a range of 250 yards. French cavalrymen tried and failed to overwhelm the English positions, but the archers were protected by a line of pointed stakes. As more and more French knights made their way onto the crowded battlefield, their mobility decreased further, and some lacked even the room to raise their arms and strike a blow. At this point, Henry ordered his lightly equipped archers to rush forward with swords and axes, and the unencumbered Englishmen massacred the French. Almost 6,000 Frenchmen lost their lives during the Battle of Agincourt, while English deaths amounted to just over 400. With odds greater than three to one, Henry had won one of the great victories of military history.

1774

The First Continental Congress sends a respectful petition to King George III to inform his majesty that if it had not been for the acts of oppression forced upon the colonies by the British Parliament, the American people would be standing behind British rule. Despite the anger that the American public felt towards the United Kingdom after the British Parliament established the Coercive Acts—called the Intolerable Acts by the colonists—Congress was still willing to assert its loyalty to the king. In return for this loyalty, Congress asked the king to address and resolve the specific grievances of the colonies. The petition, written by Continental Congressman John Dickinson, laid out what Congress felt was undo oppression of the colonies by the British Parliament. Their grievances mainly had to do with the Coercive Acts, a series of four acts that were established to punish colonists and to restore order in Massachusetts following the Boston Tea Party. The first of the Coercive Acts was the Boston Port Act, which closed the port of Boston to all colonists until damages from the Boston Tea Party were paid. The second, the Massachusetts Government Act, gave the British government total control of town meetings, taking all decisions out of the hands of the colonists. The third, the Administration of Justice Act, made British officials immune to criminal prosecution in America and the fourth, the Quartering Act, required colonists to house and quarter British troops on demand, including in private homes as a last resort.

1983

President Ronald Reagan, citing the threat posed to American nationals on the Caribbean nation of Grenada by that nation’s Marxist regime, orders the Marines to invade and secure their safety. There were nearly 1,000 Americans in Grenada at the time, many of them students at the island’s medical school. In little more than a week, Grenada’s government was overthrown. A number of Americans were skeptical of Reagan’s defense of the invasion, noting that it took place just days after a disastrous explosion in a U.S. military installation in Lebanon killed over 240 U.S. troops, calling into question the use of military force to achieve U.S. goals.

42 BC

Marcus Junius Brutus, a leading conspirator in the assassination of Julius Caesar, dies by suicide after his defeat at the second battle of Philippi. Two years before, Brutus had joined Gaius Cassius Longinus in the plot against the Roman dictator Julius Caesar, believing he was striking a blow for the restoration of the Roman Republic. However, the result of Caesar’s assassination was to plunge the Roman world into a new round of civil wars, with the Republican forces of Brutus and Cassius vying for supremacy against Octavian and Mark Antony. After being defeated by Antony at a battle in Philippi, Greece, in October 42 B.C., Cassius killed himself. On October 23, Brutus’ army was crushed by Octavian and Antony at a second encounter at Philippi, and Brutus took his own life. Antony and Octavian soon turned against each other, and in 27 B.C. the Roman Republic was lost forever with the ascendance of Octavian as Augustus Caesar, the first emperor of Rome.

1641

Irish Rebellion of 1641 starts as an attempted coup d'état by Irish Catholic gentry, who tried to seize control of the English administration in Ireland to force concessions for Catholics. The coup failed and the rebellion developed into an ethnic conflict between the Gaelic Irish and old English Catholics on one side, and both ethnically English Protestants and Scottish/Presbyterian planters on the other. This began a conflict known as the Irish Confederate Wars. The Irish Confederate Wars, also called the Eleven Years' War would end in English victory and a crushing of Irish Catholic power in Ireland that would last for nearly two centuries. The death toll of the conflict was huge. William Petty, a Cromwellian who conducted the first scientific land and demographic survey of Ireland in the 1650s, concluded that at least 400,000 people and maybe as many as 620,000 had died in Ireland between 1641 and 1653. The true figure may well be lower given Petty's outmoded methodology, but the lowest suggested is about 200,000. It is estimated that about two thirds of the deaths were civilian; at the time of the conflict, the population of Ireland stood at around 1.5 million people, putting casualties at around 1/5 - 1/3 of the total population.

1983

A suicide bomber drives a truck packed with explosives into the U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut, killing 241 U.S. military personnel. That same morning, 58 French soldiers were killed in their barracks two miles away in a separate suicide terrorist attack. The U.S. Marines were part of a multinational force sent to Lebanon in August 1982 to oversee the Palestinian withdrawal from Lebanon. A terrorist plowed his bomb-laden truck through three guard posts, a barbed-wire fence, and into the lobby of the Marines Corps headquarters in Beirut, where he detonated a massive bomb, killing 241 marine, navy, and army personnel. The bomb, which was made of a sophisticated explosive enhanced by gas, had an explosive power equivalent to 18,000 pounds of dynamite.

2002

About 50 Chechen rebels storm a Moscow theater, taking up to 700 people hostage during a sold-out performance of a popular musical.The second act of the musical “Nord Ost” was just beginning at the Moscow Ball-Bearing Plant’s Palace of Culture when an armed man walked onstage and fired a machine gun into the air. The terrorists—including a number of women with explosives strapped to their bodies—identified themselves as members of the Chechen Army. They had one demand: that Russian military forces begin an immediate and complete withdrawal from Chechnya, the war-torn region located north of the Caucasus Mountains. The siege lasted for about 3 days and ended after Russian security forces released a chemical gas in the theater. All of the rebels and about 170 hostages died during the siege.

1805

In one of the most decisive naval battles in history, a British fleet under Admiral Lord Horatio Nelson defeats a combined French and Spanish fleet at the Battle of Trafalgar, fought off the coast of Spain. At sea, Lord Nelson and the Royal Navy consistently thwarted Napoleon Bonaparte, who led France to preeminence on the European mainland. Nelson’s last and greatest victory against the French was the Battle of Trafalgar, which began after Nelson caught sight of a Franco-Spanish force of 33 ships. Preparing to engage the enemy force, Nelson divided his 27 ships into two divisions and signaled a famous message from the flagship Victory: “England expects that every man will do his duty.” In five hours of fighting, the British devastated the enemy fleet, destroying 19 enemy ships. No British ships were lost, but 1,500 British seamen were killed or wounded in the heavy fighting. The battle raged at its fiercest around the Victory, and a French sniper shot Nelson in the shoulder and chest. The admiral was taken below and died about 30 minutes before the end of the battle. Nelson’s last words, after being informed that victory was imminent, were “Now I am satisfied. Thank God I have done my duty.” Victory at the Battle of Trafalgar ensured that Napoleon would never invade Britain. Nelson, hailed as the savior of his nation, was given a magnificent funeral in St. Paul’s Cathedral in London. A column was erected to his memory in the newly named Trafalgar Square, and numerous streets were renamed in his honor.

1921

President Warren G. Harding delivers a speech in Alabama in which he condemns lynchings—illegal hangings committed primarily by white supremacists against African Americans in the Deep South.Although his administration was much maligned for scandal and corruption, Harding was a progressive Republican politician who advocated full civil rights for African Americans and suffrage for women. He supported the Dyer Anti-lynching Bill in 1920. As a presidential candidate that year, he gained support for his views on women’s suffrage, but faced intense opposition on civil rights for blacks. The 1920s was a period of intense racism in the American South, characterized by frequent lynchings. In fact, the NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People) reported that, in 1920, lynching claimed, on average, the lives of two African Americans every week. During the 1920 presidential campaign, Harding’s ethnicity became a subject of debate and was used by his opponents to cast him in a negative light. Opponents claimed that one of Harding’s great-great-grandfathers was a native of the West Indies. Harding rebuffed the rumors, saying he was from white “pioneer stock” and persisted in his support of anti-lynching laws. Although the anti-lynching bill made it through the House of Representatives, it died in the Senate. Several other attempts to pass similar laws in the first half of the 20th century failed. In fact, civil rights for blacks were not encoded into law until Lyndon Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act in 1964.

1967

In Washington, D.C. nearly 100,000 people gather to protest the American war effort in Vietnam. More than 50,000 of the protesters marched to the Pentagon to ask for an end to the conflict. The protest was the most dramatic sign of waning U.S. support for President Lyndon Johnson’s war in Vietnam. The protest was also important in showing  that the domestic Cold War consensus was beginning to fracture. Many of the protesters were not simply questioning America’s conduct in Vietnam, but very basis of the nation’s Cold War foreign policy.

1851 

Moby Dick is Published for the First Time. The epic written by American novelist, Herman Melville, is about a sailor's obsession with tracking down and killing an elusive whale that took his leg in a previous encounter. The book was published as The Whale in London for the first time and then a month later as Moby Dick in the United States. It is thought to be one of the best works of fiction written in modern times.

1867

The U.S. formally takes possession of Alaska after purchasing the territory from Russia for $7.2 million, or less than two cents an acre. The Alaska purchase comprised 586,412 square miles, about twice the size of Texas, and was championed by William Henry Seward, the enthusiastically expansionist secretary of state under President Andrew Johnson. Russia wanted to sell its Alaska territory, which was remote, sparsely populated and difficult to defend, to the U.S. rather than risk losing it in battle with a rival such as Great Britain. the American public believed the land to be barren and worthless and dubbed the purchase “Seward’s Folly” and “Andrew Johnson’s Polar Bear Garden,” among other derogatory names. Public opinion of the purchase turned more favorable when gold was discovered in a tributary of Alaska’s Klondike River in 1896, sparking a gold rush. Today, 25 percent of America’s oil and over 50 percent of its seafood come from Alaska.

U.S. takes control of Puerto Rico. Only one year after Spain granted Puerto Rico self-rule, American troops raise the U.S. flag over the Caribbean nation, formalizing U.S. authority over the island’s one million inhabitants. In July 1898, near the end of the Spanish-American War, U.S. forces launched an invasion of Puerto Rico, the 108-mile-long, 40-mile-wide island that was one of Spain’s two principal possessions in the Caribbean. With little resistance and only seven American deaths, U.S. troops were able to secure the island by mid August. After the signing of an armistice with Spain, the island was turned over to the U.S forces on October 18. U.S. General John R. Brooke became military governor. In December, the Treaty of Paris was signed, ending the Spanish-American War and officially approving the cession of Puerto Rico to the United States.

1968

Two days after sprinters Tommie Smith and John Carlos stood atop the Olympic medal stand and raised their fists in a 'Black Power' salute, they are suspended from the US team and banned from Mexico City's Olympic village. Their civil rights protest draws both criticism and praise. Smith and Carlos, who had won gold and bronze medals respectively in the 200-meter running event of the 1968 Summer Olympics, turned to face the US flag and then kept their hands raised until the anthem had finished. In addition, Smith, Carlos, and Australian silver medalist Peter Norman all wore human-rights badges on their jackets. International Olympic Committee (IOC) president Avery Brundage deemed it to be a domestic political statement unfit for the apolitical, international forum the Olympic Games were intended to be. In response to their actions, he ordered Smith and Carlos suspended from the US team and banned from the Olympic Village. When the US Olympic Committee refused, Brundage threatened to ban the entire US track team. This threat led to the expulsion of the two athletes from the Games. A spokesman for the IOC said Smith and Carlos's actions were "a deliberate and violent breach of the fundamental principles of the Olympic spirit." Brundage, who was president of the United States Olympic Committee in 1936, had made no objections against Nazi salutes during the Berlin Olympics. He argued that the Nazi salute, being a national salute at the time, was acceptable in a competition of nations, while the athletes' salute was not of a nation and therefore unacceptable. Smith and Carlos were largely ostracized by the US sporting establishment and they were subject to criticism.

Having a head cold at the moment, hopefully I can get an episode up tomorrow or over the weekend. If not, next week. Have a good rest of the week!

1066

Battle of Hastings. Almost three weeks after landing his invasion force in England, Duke William I of Normandy takes on King Harold II and his infantry at the Battle of Hastings. By sunset, the Anglo-Saxon Age ends and William the Conqueror's Norman rule begins, with Harold dead and William soon to be crowned king.

1912

Before a campaign speech in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Theodore Roosevelt, the presidential candidate for the Progressive Party, is shot at close range by saloonkeeper John Schrank while greeting the public in front of the Gilpatrick Hotel. Schrank’s .32-caliber bullet, aimed directly at Roosevelt’s heart, failed to mortally wound the former president because its force was slowed by a glasses case and a bundle of manuscript in the breast pocket of Roosevelt’s heavy coat–a manuscript containing Roosevelt’s evening speech. Schrank was immediately detained and reportedly offered as his motive that “any man looking for a third term ought to be shot.” Roosevelt, who suffered only a flesh wound from the attack, went on to deliver his scheduled speech with the bullet still in his body. After a few words, the former “Rough Rider” pulled the torn and bloodstained manuscript from his breast pocket and declared, “You see, it takes more than one bullet to kill a Bull Moose.” He spoke for nearly an hour and then was rushed to the hospital.

1926

Winnie-the-Pooh Makes his Literary Debut. The popular children’s book character was created by British author A.A. Milne and first appeared in a collection of short stories called Winnie-the-Pooh. Winnie, a teddy bear, lives in Ashdown Forest, Sussex, England. The book followed his adventures in the forest with his friends Piglet, Owl, Rabbit, and Eeyore.

1944

German General Erwin Rommel—aka “The Desert Fox”—dies by suicide. Rommel is given the option of facing a public trial for treason, as a co-conspirator in the plot to assassinate Adolf Hitler, or taking cyanide. He chooses the latter.

1947

U.S. Air Force Captain Chuck Yeager becomes the first person to fly faster than the speed of sound. Captain Yeager was a combat fighter during World War II and flew 64 missions over Europe. He shot down 13 German planes and was himself shot down over France, but he escaped capture with the assistance of the French Underground. After the war, he was among several volunteers chosen to test-fly the experimental X-1 rocket plane, built by the Bell Aircraft Company to explore the possibility of supersonic flight. For years, many aviators believed that man was not meant to fly faster than the speed of sound, theorizing that transonic drag rise would tear any aircraft apart. All that changed on today, when Yeager flew the X-1 over Rogers Dry Lake in Southern California. The X-1 was lifted to an altitude of 25,000 feet by a B-29 aircraft and then released through the bomb bay, rocketing to 40,000 feet and exceeding 662 miles per hour (the sound barrier at that altitude).

1962

Missiles in Cuba bring the world to the brink of nuclear war. The Cold War burns hot as a US spy plane documents the first photographic evidence of Soviet nuclear warheads stockpiled in San Cristobal, Cuba, just 90 miles from Florida. What follows will be weeks of crisis negotiations between the US and USSR that bring the world perilously close to a nuclear exchange.

1964

Nikita Khrushchev is ousted as both premier of the Soviet Union and chief of the Communist Party after 10 years in power. He was succeeded as head of the Communist Party by his former protégé Leonid Brezhnev, who would eventually become the chief of state as well. The new Soviet leadership increased military aid to the North Vietnamese without trying to persuade them to attempt a negotiated end to hostilities. With this support and no external pressure to negotiate, the North Vietnamese leadership was free to carry on the war as they saw fit.

1809

Famous explorer Meriwether Lewis dies under mysterious circumstances in the early hours of the morning after stopping for the night at Grinder’s Tavern along the Natchez Trace in Tennessee.  Bankrupt and in debt, unmarried, his journals of the expedition unpublished, Lewis’s life was a shambles. It was all quite a comedown from the heroic expedition. Most recent historians have concluded that Lewis’ death was a suicide brought on by deep depression and the heavy weight of worries he bore. 

1899 

Second Boer War Begins. The almost 3-year long conflict was fought between British troops and the Boers from the Transvaal and Orange Free State. The war began as a result of disagreements between the two sides over the ownership of gold and diamond mines in the region. The two countries were annexed by the British at the end of the war in May 1902. The word Boer is the Afrikaans word for farmer and it was used at that time to refer to Afrikaans-speaking settlers in the region. By mid June 1900, British forces had captured most major Boer cities and formally annexed their territories, but the Boers launched a guerrilla war that frustrated the British occupiers. Beginning in 1901, the British began a strategy of systematically searching out and destroying these guerrilla units, while herding the families of the Boer soldiers into concentration camps. By 1902, the British had crushed the Boer resistance.

1954

The Viet Minh formally take over Hanoi and control of North Vietnam. The Viet Minh was a Communist front organization founded by Ho Chi Minh in 1941 to organize resistance against French colonial rule and occupying Japanese forces. With the end of the Japanese occupation in 1945, the French attempted to reimpose colonial rule. The Viet Minh launched a long and bloody guerrilla war against French colonial forces in what came to be known as the First Indochina War. Ultimately, the Viet Minh, decisively defeated the French at the Battle of Dien Bien Phu in May 1954, with an armistice ending the war on August 1 later that year. Under the provisions of the agreement signed, Vietnam was to be separated by a Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) running along the 17th parallel. The northern half was to be governed by the Democratic Republic of Vietnam, which had been proclaimed by Ho Chi Minh, and the southern half would be governed by the non-communist State of Vietnam until 1956, at which time the two zones were to be reunified following internationally supervised elections. Ngo Dinh Diem, who had become premier of the State of Vietnam in June, was a Catholic and staunchly anticommunist. Diem disliked the Geneva Accords and set about to consolidate his power in the south. By the middle of 1955, Diem had effectively gained control of most of South Vietnam, and in July of that year, he declared his refusal to permit the elections called for at Geneva. This announcement led to a stepped-up insurgency in the south and ultimately to the Second Indochina War, more commonly known as the Vietnam War.

732

At the Battle of Tours near Poitiers, France, Frankish leader Charles Martel, a Christian, defeats a large army of Spanish and North African Moors, halting the Muslim advance into Western Europe. Abd-ar-Rahman, the Muslim governor of Cordoba, was killed in the fighting, and the Moors retreated from France, never to return in such force. Victory at Tours ensured the ruling dynasty of Martel’s family, the Carolingians. His son Pepin became the first Carolingian king of the Franks, and his grandson Charlemagne carved out a vast empire that stretched across Europe.

1845

The United States Naval Academy opens in Annapolis, Maryland, with 50 midshipmen students and seven professors. Known as the Naval School until 1850, the curriculum included mathematics and navigation, gunnery and steam, chemistry, English, natural philosophy, and French. The Naval School officially became the U.S. Naval Academy in 1850, and a new curriculum went into effect, requiring midshipmen to study at the academy for four years and to train aboard ships each summer–the basic format that remains at the academy to this day.

1911

The building of railways by foreign powers in China stokes nationalistic fervor, and unfair financial gain for those same foreign powers leads to violent protests. Today's Wuchang Uprising will start the Xinhai Revolution, the overthrow of the Qing dynasty, ending more than 2 millennia of imperial rule, and establishing the Republic of China. The Revolution begins with a bomb explosion and the discovery of revolutionary headquarters in Hankow. The revolutionary movement spread rapidly through west and southern China, forcing the abdication of the last Qing emperor, six-year-old Henry Pu-Yi. By October 26, the Chinese Republic will be proclaimed, and on December 4, Premier Yuan Shih-K'ai will sign a truce with rebel general Li Yuan-hung.

1964

The Tokyo Summer Olympics Begin, as 93 countries participated in the first Olympics to be held in Asia. As a tribute to the horrors of the Second World War, Yoshinori Sakai, who was born in Hiroshima on August 6, 1945, the day an atomic bomb destroyed the city, was chosen as the torchbearer to light the Olympic flame during the opening. The Tokyo Olympics was also the first Olympic Games that used satellites - Syncom 3 in the United States and Relay 1 in Europe - to telecast the games. Some of the games were also broadcasted in color for the first time.

1970

The paramilitary group Front de libération du Québec is demanding independence for Canada's primarily French-speaking province of Quebec and has already kidnapped British Trade Commissioner James Cross. Now its members kidnap Quebec's Labour Minister, Pierre Laporte, ratcheting up tensions in this 'October Crisis.' In response, Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau invoked the only peacetime use of the War Measures Act, deploying Canadian soldiers on the streets of Ottawa and Montreal. Police were also given more power in arrest and detention, which is ambiguous to say the least. The kidnappers would murder Laporte one week later.

1934

In Marseilles, a Bulgarian/Macedonian revolutionary Vlado Chernozemski, associated with Croat terrorists in Hungary and Italy, assassinates King Alexander of Yugoslavia and French Foreign Minister Louis Barthou. The two had been on a tour of European capitals in quest of an alliance against Nazi Germany.

The French Foreign Minister Louis Barthou had attempted in 1934 to build an alliance meant to contain Germany consisting of France's allies in Eastern Europe like Yugoslavia together with Italy and the Soviet Union. The long-standing rivalry between Benito Mussolini and King Alexander had complicated Barthou's work as Alexander complained about Italian claims against his country together with support for Hungarian revisionism and the Croat Ustaše terrorist group. During a visit to Belgrade in June 1934, Barthou promised the King that France would pressure Mussolini into signing a treaty under which he would renounce his claims against Yugoslavia. Alexander was skeptical of Barthou's plan, noting that there were hundreds of Ustašhi being sheltered in Italy and it was rumoured that Mussolini had financed an unsuccessful attempt by the Ustaše to assassinate him in December 1933. Mussolini had come to believe that it was only the personality of Alexander that was holding Yugoslavia together and if the King were assassinated, then Yugoslavia would descend into civil war. However, France was Yugoslavia's closest ally and Barthou invited Alexander for a visit to France to sign a Franco-Yugoslav agreement that would allow Barthou to, in his words, "go to Rome with the certainty of success".

Chernozemski was able to emerge from the crowd, approach the king's car and leap onto its running board while concealing his pistol in a bouquet of flowers. He shot Alexander repeatedly, hitting him twice, once in the abdomen and the other in the heart; King Alexander died within minutes. The chauffeur—who tried to push Chernozemski off the car—and Alexander's companion in the car, French Foreign Minister Louis Barthou, were also shot. Chernozemski killed the chauffeur, apparently unintentionally. A police officer fired at Chernozemski but missed and fatally wounded Barthou. The chauffeur died almost immediately, with his foot pressed on the brake of the car, providing the opportunity for a photographer outside the car to photograph most of the grisly affair. After shooting a policeman who tried to seize him and inadvertently killing two bystanders, Chernozemski fired his handgun over ten times, killing or wounding a total of 15 people, then attempted to flee the scene but was struck by a slash from an escorting cavalryman's sabre. He then received a non-mortal bullet wound in the head from a nearby police officer, before being savagely beaten by the enraged crowd while the police stood back and watched.

Pierre Laval, who succeeded Barthou as foreign minister, wished to continue the rapprochement with Rome, and saw the assassinations in Marseille as an inconvenience that was best forgotten. Both London and Paris made it clear that they regarded Mussolini as a responsible European statesman and in private told Belgrade that under no circumstances would they allow Mussolini to be blamed. In a speech in Northampton on 19 October 1934, the British Foreign Secretary, Sir John Simon, expressed his sympathy to the people of Yugoslavia over the king's assassination while also saying he was convinced by Mussolini's speech in Milan denying his involvement in the assassination. When Yugoslavia made an extradition request to Italy for Pavelić on charges of regicide, the Quai d'Orsay expressed concern that if Pavelić were extradited, he might incriminate Mussolini and were greatly reassured when their counterparts at the Palazzo Chigi stated there was no possibility of Pavelić being extradited.

Vlado Chernozemski is considered a hero in Bulgaria today.

1871 

The Great Chicago Fire starts in the barn of Patrick and Catherine O’Leary, igniting a two-day blaze that kills between 200 and 300 people, destroys 17,450 buildings, leaves 100,000 homeless and causes an estimated $200 million (in 1871 dollars; $3 billion in 2007 dollars) in damages. Legend has it that a cow kicked over a lantern in the O’Leary barn and started the fire, but other theories hold that humans or even a comet may have been responsible for the event that left four square miles of the Windy City, including its business district, in ruins. Dry weather and an abundance of wooden buildings, streets and sidewalks made Chicago vulnerable to fire. The city averaged two fires per day in 1870; there were 20 fires throughout Chicago the week before the Great Fire of 1871. Reconstruction efforts began quickly and spurred great economic development and population growth, as architects laid the foundation for a modern city featuring the world’s first skyscrapers. At the time of the fire, Chicago’s population was approximately 324,000; within nine years, there were 500,000 Chicagoans. By 1893, the city was a major economic and transportation hub with an estimated population of 1.5 million. That same year, Chicago was chosen to host the World’s Columbian Exposition, a major tourist attraction visited by 27.5 million people, or approximately half the U.S. population at the time.

1912

First Balkan war begins. Montenegro started the conflict by declaring war on the Ottoman Empire. A few days later Greece, Bulgaria, and Serbia joined the war and created the Balkan League. The 7-month long war ended with a decisive Balkan League victory. Dissatisfaction over the spoils of the war led to the Second Balkan War a year later, between Bulgaria and it's former allies.

1956

Yankees pitcher Don Larsen starts game five of the World Series at Yankee Stadium against local rivals, the Brooklyn Dodgers. Larsen completes the first perfect game in MLB postseason history, retiring 27 batters, and the Bronx Bombers will go on to win their 17th World Series.

1967

Native of Argentina, revolutionary in Cuba, writer and doctor, Che Guevara is caught in Bolivia after 1,800 CIA-backed soldiers surround his guerrilla encampment. Guevara was wounded, captured and executed the next day. Since his death, Guevara has been idolized as a hero of leftist Third World revolution.

1571

The Battle of Lepanto takes place as a fleet of the Holy League, a coalition of European Catholic states arranged by Pope Pius V, inflicted a major defeat on the fleet of the Ottoman Empire in the Gulf of Patras, in the Ionian Sea off of Greece. The Ottoman forces were sailing westward from their naval station in Lepanto when they met the fleet of the Holy League which was sailing east from Messina, Sicily. The Spanish Empire and the Venetian Republic were the main powers of the coalition, as the league was largely financed by Philip II of Spain and Venice was the main contributor of ships. Lepanto marks the last major engagement in the Western world to be fought almost entirely between rowing vessels, the galleys a direct descendant trireme warships, used since before the Roman Republic. The battle was in essence an "infantry battle on floating platforms", as well as the largest naval battle in Western history since classical antiquity, involving more than 400 warships. The victory of the Holy League is of great importance in the history of Europe and of the Ottoman Empire, marking the turning-point of Ottoman military expansion into the Mediterranean, although the Ottoman wars in Europe would continue for another century.

1780

During the American Revolution, Patriot irregulars under Colonel William Campbell defeat Tories under Major Patrick Ferguson at the Battle of King’s Mountain in South Carolina. Major Ferguson’s Tory force, made up mostly of American Loyalists from South Carolina and elsewhere, was the western wing of General Lord Cornwallis’ North Carolina invasion force. One thousand American frontiersmen under Colonel Campbell of Virginia gathered in the backcountry to resist Ferguson’s advance. Pursued by the Patriots, Ferguson positioned his Tory force in defense of a rocky, treeless ridge named King’s Mountain. The Patriots charged the hillside multiple times, demonstrating lethal marksmanship against the surrounded Loyalists. Unwilling to surrender to a “band of bandits,” Ferguson led a suicidal charge down the mountain and was cut down in a hail of bullets. After his death, some of his men tried to surrender, but they were slaughtered in cold blood by the frontiersmen, who were bitter over British excesses in the Carolinas.

1849

Edgar Allan Poe, aged 40, dies a tragic death in Baltimore. Never able to overcome his drinking habits, he was found in a delirious condition outside a saloon that was used as a voting place.

1913

In attempting to find ways to lower the cost of the automobile and make it more affordable to ordinary Americans, Henry Ford took note of the work of efficiency experts like Frederick Taylor, the "father of scientific management." The result was the assembly line that reduced the time it took to manufacture a car, from 12 hours to 93 minutes.

1943

Rear Adm. Shigematsu Sakaibara, commander of the Japanese garrison on Wake Island, orders the execution of 96 Americans POWs, claiming they were trying to make radio contact with U.S. forces.

1949

East Germany is created less than five months after Great Britain, the United States, and France established the Federal Republic of Germany in West Germany. The Democratic Republic of Germany is criticized by the West as an un-autonomous Soviet creation, Wilhelm Pieck was named East Germany’s first president, with Otto Grotewohl as prime minister.

2001 

War in Afghanistan begins as American and British troops began air strikes against Al Qaeda and Taliban targets after the Taliban refused to hand over Osama bin-Laden, the alleged mastermind of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, and other Al Qaeda operatives, to the United States. Nicknamed Operation Enduring Freedom, the military strikes were part of the so-called Global War on Terror.

1263

The Battle of Largs takes place. It was an indecisive engagement between the kingdoms of Norway and Scotland, on the Firth of Clyde near Largs, Scotland. The conflict formed part of the Norwegian expedition against Scotland in 1263, in which Haakon Haakonsson, King of Norway attempted to reassert Norwegian sovereignty over the western seaboard of Scotland. Since the beginning of the 12th century this region had lain within the Norwegian realm, ruled by magnates who recognised the overlordship of the Kings of Norway. In the mid-13th century, two Scottish kings, Alexander II and his son Alexander III, attempted to incorporate the region into their own realm. Following failed attempts to purchase the islands from the Norwegian king, the Scots launched military operations. Haakon responded to the Scottish aggression by leading a massive fleet from Norway. The battle of Largs has been romanticised by later historians as a great Scottish victory, but it only involved a small part of the Norwegian fleet. With his fleet and forces intact, Haakon planned to continue to campaign after spending the winter in Orkney, but he was unexpectedly taken ill and died there.

1835

The first military engagement of the Texas War of Independence, the Battle of Gonzales, occurred on this day between Texas rebels and Mexican troops. The growing tensions between Mexico and Texas erupt into violence when Mexican soldiers attempt to disarm the people of Gonzales, sparking the Texan war for independence. President of Mexico, Antonio Lopez de Santa Ana, overthrew the Mexican constitution and appointed himself dictator. Recognizing that the American Texans who emigrated into Texas were likely to use his rise to power as an excuse to secede, Santa Anna ordered the Mexican military to begin disarming the Texans whenever possible. Mexican soldiers attempting to take a small cannon from the village of Gonzales encountered stiff resistance from a hastily assembled militia of Texans. After a brief fight, the Mexicans retreated and the Texans kept their cannon.

1941

Operation Typhoon is launched as the Germans begin their surge to Moscow, led by the 1st Army Group and Gen. Fedor von Bock. Russian peasants in the path of Hitler’s army employ a “scorched-earth” policy. Although some German generals had warned Hitler against launching Operation Typhoon as the harsh Russian winter was just beginning, remembering the fate that befell Napoleon—who got bogged down in horrendous conditions, losing serious numbers of men and horses—Bock urged him on. This encouragement, coupled with the fact that the Germany army had taken the city of Kiev in late September, caused Hitler to declare, “The enemy is broken and will never be in a position to rise again.” So for 10 days, starting October 2, the 1st Army Group drove east, drawing closer to the Soviet capital each day. But the Russians also remembered Napoleon and began destroying everything as they fled their villages, fields, and farms.

1944

The Warsaw Uprising ends, with the surrender of the surviving Polish rebels to German forces. Two months earlier, the approach of the Red Army to Warsaw prompted Polish resistance forces to launch a rebellion against the Nazi occupation. The rebels, who supported the democratic Polish government-in-exile in London, hoped to gain control of the city before the Soviets “liberated” it. The Poles feared that if they failed to take the city the Soviet conquerors would forcibly set up a pro-Soviet communist regime in Poland. In brutal street fighting, the Poles were gradually overcome by superior German weaponry. Meanwhile, the Red Army occupied a suburb of Warsaw but made no efforts to aid the Polish rebels. The Soviets also rejected a request by the British to use Soviet air bases to airlift supplies to the beleaguered Poles. After 63 days, the Poles—out of arms, supplies, food, and water—were forced to surrender.

Just an announcement that there will be an interview publishing on Friday with local author Rex Barton! It will be the first in a series of interviews that we will have with him.

It will be published on Friday, Oct 4 at 12:00pm Pacific time. Hope you all enjoy!

1540

Ignatius of Loyola's Society of Jesus becomes an official part of the Catholic Church. Known as the Jesuits, or 'God's Soldiers,' the order will send missionaries throughout the world to evangelize their faith. The Jesuit movement was founded by Ignatius de Loyola, a Spanish soldier turned priest, in August 1534. In September 1540, Pope Paul III approved Ignatius’ outline of the Society of Jesus, and the Jesuit order was born. Under Ignatius’ charismatic leadership, the Society of Jesus grew quickly. Jesuit missionaries played a leading role in the Counter-Reformation and won back many of the European faithful who had been lost to Protestantism. In Ignatius’ lifetime, Jesuits were also dispatched to India, Brazil, the Congo region, and Ethiopia. Education was of utmost importance to the Jesuits, and in Rome Ignatius founded the Roman College. When Ignatius de Loyola died in July 1556, there were more than 1,000 Jesuit priests.

1939

Poland surrenders as 140,000 Polish troops are taken prisoner by the German invaders as Warsaw surrenders to the superior mechanized forces of Hitler’s army. The Poles fought bravely, but were able to hold on for only 26 days. On the heels of its victory, the Germans began a systematic program of terror, murder, and cruelty, executing members of Poland’s middle and upper classes: Doctors, teachers, priests, landowners, and businessmen were rounded up and killed. The Nazis had given this operation the benign-sounding name “Extraordinary Pacification Action.” The Roman Catholic Church, too, was targeted, because it was a possible source of dissent and counterinsurgency. In one west Poland church diocese alone, 214 priests were shot. Hundreds of thousands more Poles were driven from their homes and relocated east, as Germans settled in the vacated areas. This was all part of Hitler's master plan as back in August, Hitler warned his own officers that he was preparing Poland for that “which would not be to the taste of German generals”–including the rounding up of Polish Jews into ghettos, a prelude to their liquidation.

1940

The Axis powers are formed as Germany, Italy, and Japan become allies with the signing of the Tripartite Pact in Berlin. The Pact provided for mutual assistance should any of the signatories suffer attack by any nation not already involved in the war. This formalizing of the alliance was aimed directly at “neutral” America–designed to force the United States to think twice before venturing in on the side of the Allies. The Pact also recognized the two spheres of influence. Japan acknowledged “the leadership of Germany and Italy in the establishment of a new order in Europe,” while Japan was granted lordship over “Greater East Asia.” Hungary, would later join the Axis alliance in November of 1940.

1993

The Sukhumi massacre takes place, during and after the fall of Sukhumi into separatist hands in the course of the War in Abkhazia. It was perpetrated against Georgian civilians of Sukhumi, mainly by militia forces of Abkhaz separatists, as well as their North Caucasian and Russian allies. It became part of a violent ethnic cleansing campaign carried out by the separatists. Separatist forces violated the ceasefire initiated by the United Nations and guaranteed by the Russian Federation, which barred both sides from performing military operations. As part of the ceasefire, Georgian forces had withdrawn their heavy artillery and tanks from Sukhumi. Militants stormed early in the morning and started to sweep through the streets of Sukhumi rounding up all civilians that they found. Men, women and children were executed in the streets, on the roads and inside their own apartments, houses and back yards. According to the witnesses, many people became objects of torture, and some were forced to watch as their own family members were killed—children in front of their parents, and parents in front of their children. 

1687

Having stood more than 2,000 years, the grand and glorious Parthenon of Athens is nearly destroyed during the Morean War (1684–1699) when a Venetian mortar round ignites Ottoman Turk gunpowder stored inside.

1918

Meuse-Argonne offensive opens after a six-hour-long bombardment over the previous night. More than 700 Allied tanks, followed closely by infantry troops, and supported by some 500 aircraft from the U.S. Air Service advance against German positions in the Argonne Forest and along the Meuse River.

1944

Operation Market Garden, a plan to seize bridges in the Dutch town of Arnhem, fails, as thousands of British and Polish troops are killed, wounded, or taken prisoner.

1945

America’s first casualty in Vietnam; Lt. Col. Peter Dewey, a U.S. Army officer with the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), is shot and killed in Saigon.

1960

For the first time in U.S. history, a debate between major party presidential candidates is shown on television. 

1066 

Battle of Stamford Bridge: English army under King Harold Godwinson defeat invading Norwegians led by King Harald Hardrada and Harold's brother Tostig, who were both killed. Although Harold Godwinson repelled the Norwegian invaders, his victory was short-lived. Three days after the battle, on 28 September, a second invasion army led by William, Duke of Normandy, landed in Pevensey Bay, Sussex, on the south coast of England. Harold had to immediately turn his troops around and force-march them southwards to intercept the Norman army. Less than three weeks after Stamford Bridge, the English army was decisively defeated and King Harold II fell in action at the Battle of Hastings. The battle has traditionally been presented as symbolising the end of the Viking Age, although major Scandinavian campaigns in Britain and Ireland occurred in the following decades. Harald Hardrada invaded England in the hopes of securing the English crown for himself.

1396

One of the last large-scale Christian crusades, the Crusade of Nicopolis, led jointly by John the Fearless of Nevers and King Sigismund of Hungary, ends in disaster at the hands of Sultan Bayezid I's Ottoman army at Nicopolis. By their victory at Nicopolis, the Turks discouraged the formation of future European coalitions against them. They maintained their pressure on Constantinople (modern day Istanbul; eventually capturing it in 1453), tightened their control over the Balkans, and became a greater threat to central Europe. No new expedition was launched from Western Europe to stop the Turkish advance in the Balkans after this defeat, until 1444 when an army of Hungarians, Poles and Walachians were defeated at the Battle of Varna.

1965

The Kansas City Athletics start ageless wonder Satchel Paige in a game against the Boston Red Sox. The 59-year-old Paige, a Negro League legend, proved his greatness once again by giving up only one hit in his three innings of play. Before the game, Paige sat in the bullpen in a rocking chair while a nurse rubbed liniment into his pitching arm for the entire crowd to see. Any doubts about Paige’s ability were put to rest when he set down each of the Red Sox batters he faced except for Carl Yastremski, who hit a double. Arguably the greatest pitcher of his era, Paige was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1971.

2005

The Irish Republican Army (IRA) gives up its weapons in front of independent weapons inspectors. The decommissioning of the group's substantial arsenal took place in secret locations in the Republic of Ireland. One Protestant and one Catholic priest as well as officials from Finland and the United States served as witnesses to the historic event. Automatic weapons, ammunition, missiles and explosives were among the arms found in the cache, which the head weapons inspector described as “enormous.” Originally founded in 1919 to militarily oppose British rule in Ireland, the IRA had operated since about the 1960s as the military arm of Sinn Fein, the Irish nationalist political party. The IRA (and splinter groups using various derivatives of the name) had used terrorist tactics and assassinations for more than 30 years in their struggle to free Northern Ireland from British rule.

622

The prophet Muhammad completes his Hegira, or “flight,” from Mecca to Medina to escape persecution. In Medina, Muhammad set about building the followers of his religion—Islam—into an organized community and Arabian power. The Hegira would later mark the beginning (year 1) of the Muslim calendar.

1789

The Judiciary Act of 1789 is passed by Congress and signed by President George Washington, establishing the Supreme Court of the United States as a tribunal made up of six justices who were to serve on the court until death or retirement. That day, President Washington nominated John Jay to preside as chief justice, and John Rutledge, William Cushing, John Blair, Robert Harrison, and James Wilson to be associate justices. On September 26, all six appointments were confirmed by the U.S. Senate.

1960

The USS Enterprise (CVN-65), the first nuclear powered aircraft carrier, is launched. The only ship of her class, Enterprise was, at the time of inactivation, the third-oldest commissioned vessel in the United States Navy after the wooden-hulled USS Constitution and environmental research ship USS Pueblo. She was inactivated on 1 December 2012, and officially decommissioned on 3 February 2017, after over 55 years of service. She was stricken from the Naval Vessel Register the same day.

2005

Hurricane Rita made landfall as a Category 3 Major Hurricane near Johnson's Bayou, Louisiana, between Sabine Pass, Texas and Holly Beach, Louisiana. Rita was the 4th named storm to make landfall during the 2005 season, and the 3rd hurricane to strike the US. Rita was the 4th most intense hurricane on record in the Atlantic Basin as the time, and the most intense hurricane ever observed in the Gulf of Mexico. Rita caused $12 billion in damages and a state of disaster was declared in 9 Texas Counties and 5 Louisiana Parishes as a result of the devastation.

1642

Harvard holds its first graduation ceremony as nine graduates participate in Harvard College's first commencement exercise. Fourteen undergrads, family members, clergy, plus Governor Winthrop of the Massachusetts Bay Company, look on. America's first college will go on to become one of the world's most prestigious universities.

1806

Amid much public excitement, American explorers Meriwether Lewis and William Clark return to St. Louis, Missouri, from the first recorded overland journey from the Mississippi River to the Pacific coast and back. The Lewis and Clark Expedition had set off more than two years before to explore the territory of the Louisiana Purchase. They would bring back a wealth of information about the largely unexplored region, as well as valuable U.S. claims to Oregon Territory.

1846

Neptune is plotted, discovered. French mathematician Urbain Le Verrier has used celestial mechanics to plot the coordinates of a faraway planet that can't be seen by the naked eye, and five days later, German astronomer Johann Gottfried Galle's telescope spies Neptune almost exactly where Le Verrier calculated it would be.

1889 

Nintendo is Founded. The Japanese gaming company was created by entrepreneur Fusajiro Yamauchi as a card company called Nintendo Koppai, which was based in Kyoto. The company originally produced and sold playing cards called Hanafuda. The release of Donkey Kong, an arcade game in 1981, brought Nintendo to the forefront of the electronic and video games industry.

1356

English forces under Edward the Black Prince defeat the French at Battle of Poitiers and capture the French King John II. The Battle of Poitiers was a major English victory in the Hundred Years' War. Edward, the Black Prince, led an army of English, Welsh, Breton and Gascon troops, many of them veterans of the Battle of Crécy. They were attacked by a larger French force led by King John II of France, which included allied Scottish forces. The French were heavily defeated; an English counter-attack captured King John II along with his youngest son and much of the French nobility. Jean de Venette, a Carmelite friar, vividly describes the chaos that ensued following the battle. The demise of the French nobility at the battle, only ten years from the catastrophe at Crécy, threw the kingdom into chaos. The realm was left in the hands of the Dauphin Charles, who faced popular rebellion across the kingdom in the wake of the defeat. Jean writes that the French nobles brutally repressed the rebellions, robbing, despoiling, and pillaging the peasants' goods. Mercenary companies hired by both sides added to the destruction, plundering the peasants and the churches. Poitiers was the second major English victory of the Hundred Years' War. Poitiers was fought ten years after the Battle of Crécy (the first major victory), and about half a century before the third, the Battle of Agincourt (1415).

1692

A part of the Salem Witch Trials, Giles Corey is pressed to death for standing mute and refusing to answer charges of witchcraft brought against him. He is the only person in America to have suffered this punishment. Giles Corey seems to have been a man of steel; as he was steadfast in refusal to plead, nor did he cry out in pain as the rocks were added on the boards. After two days, Corey was asked three times to enter a plea, but each time he replied, "More weight."

1881

President James A. Garfield, who had been in office just under four months, succumbs to wounds inflicted by an assassin 80 days earlier, on July 2. Garfield’s assassin was an attorney and political office-seeker named Charles Guiteau. Guiteau was a relative stranger to the president and his administration in an era when federal positions were doled out on a “who you know” basis. When his requests for an appointment were ignored, a furious Guiteau stalked the president, vowing revenge. Guiteau was deemed sane by a jury, convicted of murder and hanged on June 30, 1882. Garfield’s spine, which shows the hole created by the bullet, is kept as a historical artifact by the National Museum of Health and Medicine in Washington, D.C.

1944

Hürtgen Forest swallows up an advancing US army. Allied forces advance eastward after the Normandy invasion, and as the US 60th Infantry Regiment enters Germany's Hürtgen Forest, a bloody fight begins that will be named the longest single battle in US Army history, and later almost forgotten in the shadow of the Battle of the Bulge. The battle of the Hurtgen ended in a German defensive victory and the whole offensive was a dismal failure for the Allies The Americans suffered between 33,000 - 55,000 casualties, included 9,000 non-combat losses and represented a 25 percent casualty rate. The Germans had also suffered heavy losses with 28,000 casualties - many of these were non combat and prisoners of war.

2010 

Oil rig Deepwater Horizon is declared sealed after a 5-month long spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Thought to be one of the biggest accidents in the oil and gas industry, the Deepwater Horizon spill or the BP oil spill began on April 20, 2010, when an explosion destroyed the rig and killed 11 people.

1793

George Washington lays the cornerstone to the United States Capitol building, the home of the legislative branch of American government. The building would take nearly a century to complete, as architects came and went, the British set fire to it and it was called into use during the Civil War by Union troops as a hospital and barracks. Today, the Capitol building, with its famous cast-iron dome and important collection of American art, is part of the Capitol Complex, which includes six Congressional office buildings and three Library of Congress buildings, all developed in the 19th and 20th centuries.

1810

Chile's first junta proclaims autonomous republic. A nine-member junta takes control of the government, starting the Chilean War of Independence. Spain will attempt to reimpose its rule over the country, but after more than a decade of fighting, the last Spanish troops will finally surrender on January 15, 1826.

1851

Whig Party politician Henry Raymond and ex-banker George Jones publish the inaugural issue of 'The New-York Daily Times.' It'll become better known by a shortened name, 'The New York Times,' go on to win more than a hundred Pulitzer Prizes, and be deemed the US newspaper of record.

1870

A cone geyser that shoots thousands of gallons of boiling water 125 feet into the air is named 'Old Faithful' by members of an expedition. The geyser's astounding show, repeated at regular intervals, will soon make it a star attraction, with some visitors using it to wash laundry, at what will soon be the world's first national park.

1960

Fidel Castro arrives in New York City as the head of the Cuban delegation to the United Nations. He and his entourage caused an immediate sensation by deciding to stay at the Theresa Hotel in Harlem. While there, Castro met with a number of African-American leaders, including Malcolm X from the Nation of Islam and the poet Langston Hughes. On September 26, Castro delivered a blistering attack on what he termed American “aggression” and “imperialism.” For over four hours, Castro lambasted U.S. policy toward Cuba and other nations in Latin America, Asia, and Africa. The United States, he declared, had “decreed the destruction” of his revolutionary government. By the time Castro arrived in New York City relations between the United States and Cuba were rapidly deteriorating. Since taking power in January 1959, Castro had infuriated the American government with his policies of nationalizing U.S. companies and investments in Cuba. 

1394

Charles VI suddenly published an ordinance in which he declared, in substance, that for a long time he had been taking note of the many complaints provoked by the excesses and misdemeanors which the Jews committed against Christians; and that the prosecutors, having made several investigations, had discovered many violations by the Jews of the agreement they had made with him. Therefore, he decreed as an irrevocable law and statute that thenceforth no Jew should dwell in his domains. According to the Religieux de St. Denis, the king signed this decree at the insistence of the queen, Isabeau of Bavaria.

1787

Following a speech by Benjamin Franklin, The Constitution of the United States of America is signed by 38 of 41 delegates present at the conclusion of the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia. The day will later be observed as I Am an American Day, which will be renamed to Constitution Day and Citizenship Day. Today, the U.S. Constitution is the oldest written constitution in operation in the world.

1859

San Franciscan Joshua A. Norton, frustrated by government bureaucracy, declares himself, 'Norton I, Emperor of the United States.' His edicts, including the abolition of the US Congress, endear him to many of his fellow residents, who encourage his delusions of grandeur. Norton had no official political power; nevertheless, he was treated deferentially in San Francisco, and currency issued in his name was honored in the establishments that he frequented. His "reign" would last for 21 years.

1868

Major George A. Forsyth and a volunteer force of 50 frontiersmen in Colorado come under a surprise attack by a large band of Cheyenne and Sioux natives.

Retreating to a small sandbar in the Arikaree River that thereafter became known as Beecher’s Island, Forsyth and his men succeeded in repulsing three massed Indian charges. Thanks to the rapid fire capability of their seven-shot Spencer rifles, Forsyth’s volunteers were able to kill or wound many of the Indian attackers, including the war chief Roman Nose. But as evening came and the fighting temporarily halted, Forsyth found he had 22 men either dead or wounded, and he estimated the survivors were surrounded by a force of 600 Indians. The men faced certain annihilation unless they could somehow bring help. Two men-Jack Stilwell and Pierre Trudeau-volunteered to attempt a daring escape through the Indian lines and silently melted into the night.

The battle raged for five more days. Forsyth’s effective fighting force was reduced to ten men before the Indians finally withdrew, perhaps reasoning that they had inflicted enough damage.

1939

With the German army already attacking western Poland, the Soviet Union launches an invasion of eastern Poland.  Soviet Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov declares that the Polish government has ceased to exist, as the U.S.S.R. exercises the “fine print” of the Hitler-Stalin Non-aggression pact—the invasion and occupation of eastern Poland. The “reason” given was that Russia had to come to the aid of its “blood brothers,” the Ukrainians and Byelorussians, who were trapped in territory that had been illegally annexed by Poland. Now Poland was squeezed from West and East—trapped between two behemoths. Its forces overwhelmed by the modern German army, Poland had nothing left with which to fight the Soviets. The Soviet Union would wind up with about three-fifths of Poland and 13 million of its people as a result of the invasion.

335

Church of the Holy Sepulchre consecrated. In Jerusalem, Constantine the Great, Roman Emperor responsible for the legalization of Christianity in the Roman Empire, consecrates a new church built over the purported sites of Jesus Christ's crucifixion, burial, and resurrection. Deemed by many as Christendom's holiest place, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre will be destroyed and rebuilt more than once.

1899

First Recorded Automobile Fatality in the US takes place. Henry H. Bliss was struck by a taxi cab while crossing the street in New York City. He died the next day due to his injuries.

1933 

A Woman is Elected to New Zealand Parliament for the first time. Elizabeth McCombs won the by-elections for the parliamentary seat of Lyttelton, which was held by her husband before he died in August 1933. New Zealand extended suffrage to women in 1893.

1971

Massacre at Attica Prison. A four-day revolt at the maximum-security Attica Correctional Facility near Buffalo, New York, ends when hundreds of state police officers storm the complex in a hail of gunfire. On the rainy Monday morning of September 13, helicopters flew over the yard, dropping tear gas as state police and corrections officers stormed in with guns blazing. The police fired 3,000 rounds into the tear gas haze, killing 29 inmates and 10 of the hostages and wounding 89. Most were shot in the initial indiscriminate barrage of gunfire, but other prisoners were shot or killed after they surrendered. In the aftermath of the bloody raid, authorities said that the inmates had killed the slain hostages by slitting their throats. However, autopsies showed that these charges were false and that all 10 hostages had been shot to death by police. The attempted cover-up increased public condemnation of the raid and prompted a Congressional investigation. In the week after its conclusion, police engaged in brutal reprisals against the prisoners, forcing them to run a gauntlet of nightsticks and crawl naked across broken glass, among other tortures. The many injured inmates received substandard medical treatment, if any.

1993 

Oslo Accords Signed. US President Bill Clinton hosts Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and Palestinian Liberation Organization Chairman Yasser Arafat at the White House as their representatives sign the 'Oslo Accords,' another step in the complex Israeli-Palestinian peace process. The Oslo Accords created a Palestinian Authority tasked with limited self-governance of parts of the West Bank and Gaza Strip; and acknowledged the PLO as Israel's partner in permanent-status negotiations about remaining questions. The Oslo Accords, however, did not create a Palestinian state.

490 BC

Battle of Marathon. During the first Persian invasion of Greece, the citizen army of Athens, aided by Plataea, defeat a much larger Persian force. The battle was the culmination of the first attempt by Persia, under King Darius I, to subjugate Greece. The Battle of Marathon was a watershed in the Greco-Persian wars, showing the Greeks that the Persians could be beaten; the eventual Greek triumph in these wars can be seen to have begun at Marathon. The battle also showed the Greeks that they were able to win battles without the Spartans, as they had heavily relied on Sparta previously. This victory was largely due to the Athenians, and Marathon raised Greek esteem of them. The following two hundred years saw the rise of the Classical Greek civilization, which has been enduringly influential in western society and so the Battle of Marathon is often seen as a pivotal moment in Mediterranean and European history. Legend states an Athenian runner named Pheidippides running from Marathon to Athens (about 25 miles) after the battle, to announce the Greek victory, whereupon he promptly died of exhaustion. That is where the modern marathon run originates.

1940

Lascaux cave paintings discovered. Marcel Ravidat, 18, finds a narrow entrance into a series of caves beneath the fields of Dordogne, France, and comes back with three friends to explore the subterranean world. There they gaze upon the vivid Lascaux cave . The walls of the cavern are decorated with some 600 painted and drawn animals and symbols and nearly 1,500 engravings. The pictures depict in excellent detail numerous types of animals, including horses, red deer, stags, bovines, felines, and what appear to be mythical creatures.

1953

Nikita Khrushchev elected Soviet leader. Six months after the death of Soviet leader Joseph Stalin, Nikita Khrushchev succeeds him with his election as first secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. Khrushchev denounced Stalin and his totalitarian policies at the 20th Party Congress, three years later, leading to a “thaw” in the USSR that saw the release of millions of political prisoners. Almost immediately, the new atmosphere of freedom led to anti-Soviet uprisings in Poland and Hungary. Khrushchev flew to Poland and negotiated a diplomatic solution, but the Hungarian rebellion was crushed by Warsaw Pact troops and tanks.

1990

East and West Germany, along with the UK, US and USSR—the Allied nations that had occupied post-WWII Germany—sign the final settlement for reunification of Germany. On 15 March 1991, the treaty would go into full effect.

2001

September 11th attacks on the US.

9 AD

The Battle of the Teutoburg Forest. 

1297

Scots under William Wallace and Andrew Moray defeat the English at Stirling Bridge during the First War of Scottish Independence. 

1792

King Louis XIV's 68-carat 'French Blue' diamond is stolen.

1921

Silent-film star Fatty Arbuckle arrested for murder.

1973

Chilean coup. 

2007

Russia detonates a nano-bomb; dubbed the "Father of All Bombs."

2012

US consulate in Benghazi, Libya, is attacked and burned down.

1813

American flotilla under Oliver Hazard Perry wrests naval supremacy from the British on Lake Erie. Nine vessels of the United States Navy defeated and captured six vessels of the British Royal Navy. This ensured American control of the lake for the rest of the war, which in turn allowed the Americans to recover Detroit and win the Battle of the Thames to break the Indian confederation of Tecumseh. It was one of the biggest naval battles of the War of 1812. The Americans controlled Lake Erie for the remainder of the war. This accounted for much of the Americans' successes on the Niagara peninsula in 1814 and also removed the threat of a British attack on Ohio, Pennsylvania, or Western New York.

1897

First Drunk Driving Arrest. A 25-year-old London taxi driver named George Smith becomes the first person ever arrested for drunk driving after slamming his cab into a building. Smith later pleaded guilty and was fined 25 shillings.

1967

Gibraltar votes to remain a British dependency instead of becoming part of Spain. The vote was overwhelming, with over 12,000 votes to remain, and only 44 votes to join Spain. The sovereignty of Gibraltar is a point of contention in Anglo-Spanish relations because Spain asserts a claim to the territory. In 1969, the Spanish government closed the border between Spain and Gibraltar, cutting off all contacts and severely restricting movement. The border was not fully reopened until February 1985.

1977

Last Person to be Executed in France, Hamida Djandoubi was also the last person to be executed by a guillotine. Djandoubi was convicted and sentenced to death for the murder of 21-year old Elisabeth Bousquet.

2008

Scientists successfully flip the switch for the first time on the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) lab in Geneva, kicking off what many called history’s biggest science experiment. The world’s largest particle collider was built by the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN). It is an 18-mile (27km) long experimental machine which passes through the French-Swiss border. The Collider was constructed to find the Higgs Boson particle, an elementary particle in physics.

1522

Victoria Becomes the First Ship to Circumnavigate the World. The Spanish ship, which was commanded by the Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan, set sail from Spain September 20, 1519, to find a better route to Indonesia. The expedition began with 5 ships including Victoria and 260 crew members. Magellan himself died during the voyage. After three years and 42,000 miles only the Victoria manned by 18 crew members would return to Seville, Spain, after circumnavigating the world.

1870 

A Woman casts her Vote in the US for the first time. Louisa Ann Swain voted during state elections in the state of Wyoming. Although women weren’t extended the right to vote in the US until 1920, the governor of Wyoming, John A. Campbell, had signed a bill that gave women the right to vote on December 13, 1869. This meant that women could vote in local and state elections, but not country-wide elections.

1901

President William McKinley assassinated. Visiting the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, New York, half a year into his second term, US President William McKinley is shot twice by anarchist Leon Czolgosz. The president rose slightly on his toes before collapsing forward, saying “be careful how you tell my wife.” McKinley will at first survive, and even seem to be improving after doctors operate, but will succumb to his wounds on September 14. McKinley died from gangrene that had gone undetected in the internal wound. Vice President Theodore Roosevelt was immediately sworn in as president. Czolgosz claimed to have killed McKinley because he was the head of what he thought was a corrupt government. Czolgosz was convicted and executed in an electric chair on October 29, 1901. The unrepentant killer’s last words were “I killed the president because he was the enemy of the good people—the working people.”

1968 

Swaziland Gains Independence From the British. The Southern African state became a British protectorate in 1902 after the Anglo-Boer war. King Sobhuza became the head of the nation in and reigned even after independence until 1982. He was succeeded by Mswati III, his son, who currently rules the country.

1976

Lieutenant Viktor Belenko, a Soviet air force pilot defects, flying a MiG-25 jet fighter to Japan and requesting political asylum in US. George H. W. Bush, the Director of Central Intelligence at the time, called the opportunity to examine the plane up close an "intelligence bonanza" for the West. Belenko almost never appears in interviews. However, in a brief and informal bar interview in 2000 where he posed for pictures and responded to questions, he stated that he was happy in the United States, remarking that "[Americans] have tolerance regarding other people's opinion. In certain cultures, if you do not accept the mainstream, you would be booted out or might disappear. Here we have people, you know, who hug trees, and people who want to cut them down -- and they live side by side!"

1995

Cal Ripken Jr. breaks Lou Gehrig's record. The Baltimore Orioles' shortstop plays in his 2,131st consecutive game, breaking Lou Gehrig's record which had stood since 1939. Ripken will continue his streak for three more years, ending it in 1998 after 2,632 games played over 16 years.

1877

Oglala Sioux chief Crazy Horse is fatally bayoneted by a U.S. soldier after resisting confinement in a guardhouse at Fort Robinson, Nebraska. A year earlier, Crazy Horse was among the Sioux leaders who defeated George Armstrong Custer’s Seventh Cavalry at the Battle of Little Bighorn in Montana Territory. The battle, in which 265 members of the Seventh Cavalry, including Custer, were killed, was the worst defeat of the U.S. Army in its long history of warfare with the Native Americans.

After the victory at Little Bighorn, U.S. Army forces led by Colonel Nelson Miles pursued Crazy Horse and his followers. His tribe suffered from cold and starvation, and on May 6, 1877, Crazy Horse surrendered to General George Crook at the Red Cloud Indian Agency in Nebraska. He was sent to Fort Robinson, where he was killed in a scuffle with soldiers who were trying to imprison him in a cell.

1972 

A group of Palestinian militants belonging to the Black September terrorist group stormed the apartment Israeli athletes were staying at the Olympic Village in Munich, Germany several days after the XX Olympic Summer Games had begun. They killed 2 athletes and took 9 hostages, demanding the release of release over 230 Arab prisoners being held in Israel. The ensuing violence to release the hostages ended with the death of all 9 hostages and 5 militants. All Olympic events were suspended for a day to mourn and pay respects to the slain members of the Israeli delegation.

1975

Gerald Ford survives first assassination attempt. A woman named Lynette Fromme, approached the president while he was walking near the California Capitol Building and raised a handgun toward him. Before she was able to fire off a shot, Secret Service agents tackled her and wrestled her to the ground. Fromme was a member of the Charles Manson cult "The Family." After Charles Manson was arrested in 1969, Fromme and other female members of the cult started an order of “nuns” within a new group called the International People’s Court of Retribution. Fromme herself was still so enamored of Manson that she devised the plot to kill President Ford in order to win Manson’s approval.

476 

Romulus Augustulus, last Roman Emperor in the West, abdicates the throne after forces led by Odoacer invade Rome. Flavius Odoacer becomes the first king of Italy after leading a successful rebellion against Western Rome's young emperor. The beginning of his reign will traditionally mark the end of the Ancient Roman epoch and the start of the Middle Ages.

1781

Los Angeles, first an Indian village Yangma, is founded by Spanish decree.

1862

Robert E. Lee's Confederate army invades Maryland, starting the Antietam Campaign. It will eventually result in the Battle of Antietam, 13 days later, the bloodiest battle in history on American soil at that point.

1886

Apache leader Goyalkla, or as he's known to non-Native Americans, Geronimo, formally surrenders after the US Army 4th Cavalry relentlessly pursues him and his band of warriors throughout southern Arizona. For 30 years, the mighty Native American warrior had battled to protect his tribe’s homeland; however, by 1886 the Apaches were exhausted and hopelessly outnumbered. General Nelson Miles accepted Geronimo’s surrender, making him the last Native American warrior to formally give in to U.S. forces and signaling the end of the Indian Wars in the Southwest.

1941

German submarine U-652 fires at the U.S. destroyer Greer patrolling off Iceland. At this point there was no decleration of war between Germany and USA. President Roosevelt would later cite the incident as the catalyst for the "shoot-on-sight" policy US Naval vessels would follow until the formal declaration of war in December, after Pearl Harbor.  It would later be known the the Greer had chased the sub and held contact with the sub for 3 hours and 28 minutes before the sub fired its first torpedo. The definition of "attack" is "an onset, an aggressive initiation of combat, a move which is the antithesis of 'defense.'" In that definition, the USS Greer had attacked the German submarine.

1998

Google is founded. The internet company, now synonymous with the act of finding information on the world wide web was created by Larry Page and Sergey Brin. It started as a research project when Page and Brin were doctoral students at Stanford University.

36 BC 

In the Battle of Naulochus, Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa, admiral of Octavian, defeats Sextus Pompeius, son of Pompey, thus ending Pompeian resistance to the Second Triumvirate.

301 

San Marino, one of the smallest nations in the world and the world's oldest republic still in existence, founded by Saint Marinus.

1189 

Richard the Lionheart is crowned in Westminster, after the death of Henry II. Jewish dignitaries who showed up bearing gifts for the new monarch were stripped, whipped and banished from the court. As they fled, rumors spread in London that the new king detested "infidels" and meant to kill them all, and a pogrom ensued. The Jews of London were plundered and murdered, their houses were burned down and some were baptized against their will. 30 Jews are massacred after the coronation - Richard ordered the perpetrators be executed.

1650

The English under Oliver Cromwell defeat a superior Scottish army under David Leslie at the Battle of Dunbar. The battle is noteworthy for the fact that more Scottish soldiers died from the forced march and imprisonment after being captured, than in the battle itself.

1777

The American flag (stars & stripes), approved by Congress on June 14th, is carried into battle for the first time at a skirmish at Cooch’s Bridge, Delaware. Patriot General William Maxwell ordered the stars and strips banner raised as a detachment of his infantry and cavalry met an advance guard of British and Hessian troops. The rebels were defeated and forced to retreat.

1783

The Treaty of Paris is signed by Great Britain and the new United States, formally bringing the American Revolution to an end.

1914

The French capital is moved from Paris to Bordeaux as the Battle of the Marne begins.

1939

After Germany ignores Great Britain's ultimatum to stop the invasion of Poland, Great Britain declares war on Germany, marking the beginning of World War II in Europe.

1969

Ho Chi Minh, the leader of North Vietnam, dies.

1971 

Qatar independence. The Persian Gulf state gained its independence after 55 years of British rule.