This Day in History

[Amnorix]

Today...

[patteeu]

There was nothing of Jonestown in the suicide pact carried out at Masada.

Given the primitive weapons of the time, it must have been a slightly tougher thing to do than just chugging some koolaid.

[Amnorix]

April 17.

1397. Commonly accepted date on which Geoffrey Chaucer tells the Canterbury Tales for the first time at the Court of King Richard II.

1521. Martin Luther speaks before the Diet of Worms, refusing to recant his theories and teachings.

1949. 26 Irish counties officially leave the British Commonwealth, forming the Republic of Ireland.

1961. A group of Cuban refugees trained by the CIA invades Cuba, resulting in the Bay of Pigs fiasco.

1970. Apollo 13 returns to Earth safely.

1975. The Cambodian Civil War ends with a Khmer Rouge victory. Over the next four years they will commit mass genocide on their own population. Estimated at 1.5 million, the deaths total nearly 20% of the country's population.

[Amnorix]

April 18

1506. The cornerstone of St. Peter's Basilica is laid.

1775. The British decide to advance "by sea". Paul Revere rides.

1783. Fighting in the American Revolution ends -- 8 years to the day after it began.

1906. San Francisco suffers a tremendous earthquake.

1923. The original Yankee Stadium opens.

1924. The first crossword puzzle is published.

[Amnorix]

April 19.

1770. James Cook first sights Australia.

1770. Marie Antoinette marries King Louis XVI.

1775. The battles of Lexington and Concord.

1782. Future President John Adams obtains Dutch recognition of the independent sovereignty of the United States. The house that he purchased in the Hague becomes the first American Embassy.

1861. A mob of succession supporters in Baltimore, Maryland, attack Union troops marching through the city.

1943. German troops enter Warsaw to round up the last of the Jews, beginning the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising.

1971. Vietnam Veterans Against the War begin a five day protest in Washington DC.

1987. The Simpsons premiers as a short cartoon on the Tracy Ullman Show.

1993. The 51 day siege of the Branch Davidians in Waco, Texas, ends when a fire breaks out. 81 people die.

1995. The Murrah federal building in Oklahoma City is destroyed in an act of domestic terrorism. 168 people are killed.

2005. Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger is elected Pope Benedict XVI.

[Amnorix]

April 20.

1861. One day after Virginia secedes, General Robert E. Lee resigns his commission in the United States Army to fight for his home state.

1862. Louis Pasteur completes the first pasteurization tests.

1912. Tiger Stadium and Fenway Park open.

1918. Manfred von Richtofen, a/k/a the Red Baron, shoots down his 79th and 80th victims, a day before his death.

1945. Adolf Hitler leaves his bunker for the last time, to award Iron Crosses to members of teh Hitler Youth.

[Amnorix]

April 21.

753 BC. The traditional date on which Romulus and Remus founded Rome.

1509. Henry VIII ascends the throne of England.

1836. The decisive battle of the Texas Revolution, the Battle of San Jacinto -- Texans under Sam Houston defeat the Mexicans under Santa Anna.

[Amnorix]

April 22.

1864. The US passes the Coinage Act, mandating that US minted coins bear the inscription "In God We Trust"

1915. The use of chemical weapons in World War I expands dramatically with the use of chlorine gas by the Germans at the Second Battle of Ypres.

1954. The Army-McCarthy hearings begin during the Red Scare. They last for some time, and ultimately severely undercut McCarthy's popularity. It is during these hearings that the lawyer for the Army, Joseph Welch, uttered his famous phrase to McCarthy:

Originally Posted by Joseph Welch

"Let us not assassinate this lad further, Senator.... You've done enough. Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last? Have you left no sense of decency?"

[Jenson71]

I've been to Ypers (Ieper), walked through some of the battlefields, cemetaries, and memorials of WWI there. Even had a waffle.

But the highlight was the Menin Gate Memorial. Every single night they have a Last Post ceremony there. That's incredible.

[Jenson71]

Here is a link of the class trip my old school has for the European History class where you can see the Menin Gate Memorial.

http://columbushigh.org/Organization.../MeninGate.mov

Various groups can ask to be part of the ceremony, and lay the wreath down. And although my group didn't, I think every class after me has.

[Jenson71]

Here is a link to a few of the pictures of when I went: http://columbushigh.org/Organization...APEURO05.shtml

I'm in two of the them, wearing the blue Royals hat, the grayish-green coat, and really white shoes, leaning against a cannon and looking at a memorial at a cemetary.

I can't wait to go back. Maybe next year I'll tag along with the class.

[patteeu]

Originally Posted by Jenson71

Here is a link to a few of the pictures of when I went: http://columbushigh.org/Organization...APEURO05.shtml

I'm in two of the them, wearing the blue Royals hat, the grayish-green coat, and really white shoes, leaning against a cannon and looking at a memorial at a cemetary.

I can't wait to go back. Maybe next year I'll tag along with the class.

Cool pictures, Jenson71.

I assume that zig zag gully is an old trench from the war? That's my favorite picture. It must have been pretty horrible to fight in those wars.

[Jenson71]

Yeah, that's a trench. Now nature has run its course on some of them and they are looking less like trenches.

In some of the more regulated ones, you are no longer able to walk through them. In others, they have built walkways through them to support more tourists. My teacher says he sees this more and more each year most likely because they are planning for large events being that it will soon be the 100th anniversary of the Great War.

We also went to Normandy. That's Omaha Beach where my two classmates made the "USA" with rocks. And the four below that one were also taken at Normandy. Like Menin Gate, there is a ceremony every day involving the hoisting of French and American flags, and the class now takes part in that each year. And last year they met an American veteran who had fought on D-Day right as they were doing the ceremony.

[Amnorix]

April 23


1661. Charles II is crowned King of England. This ends the Interregnum (or English Commonwealth), the 12 year period immediately following the beheading of King Charles I (the new king's father) that ended the English Civil War. During the Interregnum, England was effectively a republic, led by Oliver Cromwell. Following Cromwell's death in 1658 and some internal problems, the Parliament invites Charles back to to restore the monarchy. Charles goes on to do a reasonably decent job as ruler, and is nicknamed the Merry Monarch, a term designed to capture both the relief of Britons over a return to normalcy and the lively and somewhat hedonistic character of Charles II's court. Leaving no legitimate heir, but 12 illegitimate offspring by his numerous mistresses, he is succeeded by his brother, James. Diana, future Princess of Wales can trace her ancestry back to Charles II through two of his illegitimate offspring.

1920. The Turkish Grand National Assembly is formed under the leadership of Mustafa Kemal (Ataturk), denouncing the rule of Sultan Mehmet IV and drafting a temporary constitution. This begins the process that will end two years later when the National Assembly abolishes the Sultanate.

1985. Coca-Cola switches to "New Coke", one of the biggest marketing disasters in corporate history. Three months later they switch back to their classic formula, with ABC News' Peter Jennings interrupting regular programming to announce this dramatic event. The resulting dramatic increase in sales -- by year end Coke sales had grown at twice the rate of Pepsi, and Coke had regained its throne as the #1 soda, which it has held ever since -- makes pundits wonder whether Coca-Cola wasn't crazy like a fox all along...

2010. With inauspicious timing given the hoopla over the 2010 NFL draft, Amnorix resurrects this thread after a one year hiatus.

[FAX]

Good bump, Mr. Amnorix.

I do believe that the "new coke" deal was completely contrived. Of course, so was Chuck The Deuce and all that "Charles II" stuff.

Also on this date in history, the first effort to breastfeed a gorilla baby at the San Diego Zoo was attempted by a human lady animal trainer named Brenda Potts who survived both a violent strangulation and massive nipple reconstruction surgery to become the first woman to be arrested and put on trial for attempting to stomp a newly born member of an endangered species to death.

FAX

[CHIEF4EVER]

April 23 2010 - The largest riot in American history is finally quelled in Denver by the Colorado National Guard. The riot was allegedly precipitated by the NFL draft selection of Tim Tebow.