This Day in History

[Amnorix]

Today...

[rockymtnchief]

IIRC, today is the day Lincoln was shot and the Titanic sank.

[Amnorix]

April 14.

1775. Benjamin Franklin and Benjamin Rush organize the first abolitionist society in North America.

1828. Noah Webster copyrights the first edition of his dictionary.

1865. John Wilkes Booth shoots Abraham Lincoln at the Ford Theater in Washington DC.

1912. HMS Titanic hits an iceberg in the Atlantic Ocean at 11:35 p.m., and sinks the following morning.

1927. The first Volvo car premiers in Sweden.

1988. At a UN ceremony held in Geneva, Switzerland, the Soviet Union signs a pledge to withdraw its troops from Afghanistan.

[Amnorix]

Originally Posted by rockymtnchief

IIRC, today is the day Lincoln was shot and the Titanic sank.

You apparently have a good memory for the dates of tragic events.

[Donger]

Originally Posted by Amnorix

1988. At a UN ceremony held in Geneva, Switzerland, the Soviet Union signs a pledge to withdraw its troops from Afghanistan.

.

[rockymtnchief]

Originally Posted by Amnorix

You apparently have a good memory for the dates of tragic events.

Too much History Channel.

[Donger]

Originally Posted by rockymtnchief

Too much History Channel.

That's blasphemy.

[Amnorix]

April 15.

1892. General Electric corporation is formed.

1920. Anarchists Sacco and Vanzetti murder two security guards while robbing a shoe store.

1923. Insulin becomes generally available for diabetics.

1947. Jackie Robinson debuts for the Brooklyn Dodgers. The first African-American MLB player.

1952. Maiden flight of the B-52 Stratofortress.

1986. The United States bombs Libya, which among other things results in the cancellation of Amnorix's school trip to France and leaving him annoyed for the rest of his life about it.

[JOhn]

Originally Posted by Amnorix

April 15.


1952. Maiden flight of the B-52 Stratofortress.

.

57 years later it's STILL flying, and will for the foreseeable future...Amazing

[Rain Man]

Originally Posted by rockymtnchief

IIRC, today is the day Lincoln was shot and the Titanic sank.

That was a helluva ricochet.

[JOhn]

Originally Posted by Rain Man

That was a helluva ricochet.

omg, leave it to you to make the connection.

I swear you missed your calling as a standup

[Amnorix]

April 16

73 BC. The Jewish fortress of Masada falls to Roman forces after a siege lasting many months. The Roman besiegers finally gain access to teh fortress only to find that the Jews have committed suicide rather than permit themselves to be captured.

1945. The Red Army begins the final assault on German forces in Berlin.

1947. Bernard Baruch coins the term "the Cold War" to describe Soviet-US relations.

[Amnorix]

Incidentally -- anyone else seen the Masada miniseries? I remember it being truly excellent, but I haven't seen it since I was a kid. If anyone saw it when they were an adult, I'd appreciate hearing their thoughts. Now that I have it in mind, I might go out and get it.

They made a movie out of it -- some 2 hour deal -- but it was stupid. So abbreviated as to be useless.

[Rain Man]

I know the most basic elements of the Masada story, but I don't know why they committed suicide. Were the Romans going to do gruesome things to them? Were they really, really not wanting to become slaves? Was it a weird religious thing? I'm curious.

[Rain Man]

Here we go. Not a very pragmatic thing to do, but I'll give them credit for standing on principle.


http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/...sm/masada.html


Once it became apparent that the Tenth Legion's battering rams and catapults would soon succeed in breaching Masada's walls, Elazar ben Yair, the Zealots’ leader, decided that all the Jewish defenders should commit suicide. Because Jewish law strictly forbids suicide, this decision sounds more shocking today than it probably did to his compatriots. There was nothing of Jonestown in the suicide pact carried out at Masada. The alternative facing the fortress’s defenders were hardly more attractive than death. Once the Romans defeated them, the men could expect to be sold off as slaves, the women as slaves and prostitutes.

Ironically, the little information we have about the final hours of Masada comes from a man whom the Jews there considered a traitor and happily would have killed: Flavius Josephus. When he wrote the history of the Jewish revolt against Rome, he included an extensive, largely sympathetic section on Masada’s fall. According to Josephus, two women and five children managed to hide themselves during the mass suicide, and it was from one of these women that he heard an account of Elazar ben Yair's final speech. Josephus probably added some rhetorical flourishes of his own, but Elazar’s speech clearly was a masterful oration: "Since we long ago resolved," Elazar began, "never to be servants to the Romans, nor to any other than to God Himself, Who alone is the true and just Lord of mankind, the time is now come that obliges us to make that resolution true in practice.... We were the very first that revolted [against Rome], and we are the last that fight against them; and I cannot but esteem it as a favor that God has granted us, that it is still in our power to die bravely, and in a state of freedom." Even at this late juncture, Elazar could not accept that the main reason the revolt had failed was because Rome's army was vastly superior. Instead, he dwelt on his belief that the Lord had turned against the Jewish people. Finally, he came to an inescapable conclusion: "Let our wives die before they are abused, and our children before they have tasted of slavery, and after we have slain them, let us bestow that glorious benefit upon one another mutually." Elazar ordered that all the Jews' possessions except food be destroyed, for "[the food] will be a testimonial when we are dead that we were not subdued for want of necessities; but that, according to our original resolution, we have preferred death before slavery."

[rockymtnchief]

Originally Posted by Rain Man

That was a helluva ricochet.