(1846) US declares war on its neighborThe US annexation of Texas the previous year lit the tinder between neighboring nations, and now the conflict explodes into the Mexican-American War as the US Congress votes in favor of President Polk’s request for military action. The two-year conflict will end in Mexico’s defeat and the loss of about half its national territory.The Mexican–American War, also known as the Mexican War, the U.S.–Mexican War, the U.S.–Mexico War or the Invasion of Mexico, was an armed conflict between the United States of America and the United Mexican States from 1846 to 1848. It followed in the wake of the 1845 U.S. annexation of Texas, which Mexico considered part of its territory in spite of its de facto secession in the 1836 Texas Revolution.
Start date: Apr 25, 1846 End date: Feb 03, 1848
wiki/Mexican–American_War(1981) Pope John Paul II shot in assassination attemptFour bullets hit Pope John Paul II as he enters Rome’s St. Peter’s Square in Vatican City. While the Pope is rushed to the hospital, police capture Mehmet Ali Ağca, of Turkey. The Pope will later forgive his would-be assassin, asking for his crime to be pardoned, and meeting with him in prison.The first attempted assassination of Pope John Paul II took place on Wednesday, 13 May 1981, in St. Peter’s Square at Vatican City. The Pope was shot and wounded by Mehmet Ali Ağca while he was entering the square. The Pope was struck four times, and suffered severe blood loss. Ağca was apprehended immediately, and later sentenced to life in prison by an Italian court. The Pope later forgave Ağca for the assassination attempt. He was pardoned by Italian president Carlo Azeglio Ciampi at the Pope’s request and was deported to Turkey in June 2000.
Date: May 13, 1981
wiki/Pope_John_Paul_II_assassination_attempt(1995) Everest summited by unassisted female climberAccomplished mountaineer, and 33-year-old mother of two, Alison Hargreaves makes history as the first woman to conquer Mt. Everest without the help of Sherpa guides or bottled oxygen. Sadly, she will perish after summiting another Himalayan giant, K2, exactly three months later.Alison Jane Hargreaves was a British mountain climber. Her accomplishments included scaling Mount Everest alone, without supplementary oxygen or support from a Sherpa team, in 1995. She soloed all the great north faces of the Alps in a single season—a first for any climber. This feat included climbing the difficult north face of the Eiger in the Alps, in 1988. Hargreaves also climbed 6,812-metre Ama Dablam in Nepal.
Born: Feb 17, 1962 · Derbyshire, England Died: Aug 13, 1995 · K2, Pakistan
wiki/Alison_Hargreaves(1938) Armstrong records ‘When the Saints Go Marching In’Jazz trumpeter and singer Louis Armstrong records the traditional gospel hymn in a Dixieland-jazz style. Though it isn’t the first jazz version of the song, Armstrong’s recording will turn it into a jazz standard that will be covered by hundreds of artists and find a place in pop culture and sports.“When the Saints Go Marching In”, often referred to as “The Saints”, is an American gospel hymn. Though it originated as a Christian hymn, it is often played by jazz bands. This song was famously recorded on May 13, 1938 by Louis Armstrong and his Orchestra. The song is sometimes confused with a similarly titled composition “When the Saints are Marching In” from 1896 by Katharine Purvis and James Milton Black.
Album: Hello Louis – The Hit Years (1963-1969) Artists: Louis Armstrong · Fats Domino · Louis Armstrong And His Orchestra · Louis Armstrong & His All-Stars Release year: 1939 Duration: 2:45 Genre: Jazz, Contemporary Jazz
(868) Book printed in ChinaPre-dating the Gutenberg Bible by almost six centuries, a copy of the Buddhist ‘Diamond Sutra’ is created by woodblock printing on a 16-foot-long scroll and affixed with an exact date. The work will survive to become the oldest known printed and dated text in existence.The Diamond Sūtra is a Mahāyāna sūtra from the Prajñāpāramitā, or “Perfection of Wisdom” genre, and emphasizes the practice of non-abiding and non-attachment. The Diamond sutra is one of the most influential Mahayana sutras in East Asia, and is a key object of devotion and study in Zen Buddhism.
wiki/Diamond_Sutra(1647) Stuyvesant arrives to run North American Dutch settlement Peter Stuyvesant, of The Dutch West India Company, arrives in the New Netherland colony to take up his position as Director-General. He will head projects that include precursors to Wall Street and Broadway before turning over the colony to the English in 1664, who then rename the colony ‘New York.’Peter Stuyvesant served as the last Dutch director-general of the colony of New Netherland from 1647 until it was ceded provisionally to the English in 1664, after which it was renamed New York. He was a major figure in the early history of New York City and his name has been given to various landmarks and points of interest throughout the city.
Lived: 1612 – Aug 1672 Spouse: Judith Bayard (m. 1645 – 1672) Education: University of Franeker Children: Nicolas William Stuyvesant (Son) · Balthazar Lazarus Stuyvesant (Son) Parents: Margaretha Hardenstein (Mother) · Balthazar Johannes Stuyvesant, ds. (Father) · Styntie (Steintje) Pieters (Mother) · Rev. Balthazar Johannes Stuyvesant (Father) · Margarethe Stuyvesant (Mother) Previous office: Director of New Netherland (1647 – 1664)
Highlights
1645: In 1645, Stuyvesant married Judith Bayard (c. 1610–1687) of the Bayard family.
1645: A year later, in May 1645, Stuyvesant was selected by the Dutch West India Company to replace Willem Kieft as Director-General of the New Netherland colony, in present-day New York.
1647: In September 1647, he appointed an advisory council of nine men as representatives of the colonists on New Netherland.
1648: In 1648, a conflict started between him and Brant Aertzsz van Slechtenhorst, the commissary of the patroonship Rensselaerwijck, which surrounded Fort Orange (present-day Albany).
1649: In 1649, Stuyvesant marched to Fort Orange with a military escort and ordered bordering settlement houses to be razed to permit a better defense of the fort in case of an attack from the Native Americans.
1672: He died in August 1672 and his body was entombed in the east wall of St. Mark’s Church in-the-Bowery, which sits on the site of Stuyvesant’s family chapel.
wiki/Peter_Stuyvesant(1812) British Prime Minister Spencer Perceval assassinatedSpencer Perceval’s meteoric rise in politics ends as a lone gunman, angry over perceived governmental injustices, enters the British House of Commons lobby and kills the prime minister with a single shot to the chest. The assassin, John Bellingham, will be hanged a week later.Spencer Perceval, KC, PC was the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 4 October 1809 until his death on 11 May 1812. He is the only British prime minister to have been assassinated. He is also the only solicitor general or attorney general to have been prime minister, and the only prime minister until recent years whose entire lifetime was spent in the reign of the sovereign under which he held office, George III.
Lived: Nov 01, 1762 – May 11, 1812 (age 49) Romance: Jane Perceval Children: John Thomas Perceval (Son) · Spencer Perceval (Son) Successor: Robert Jenkinson, 2nd Earl of Liverpool (Prime Minister) Party: Tories Previous offices: Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (1809 – 1812) · Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (1809 – 1812) · First Lord of the Treasury (1809 – 1812) · Leader of the House of Commons (1809 – 1812) · Chancellor of the Exchequer (1807 – 1812) · Chancellor of the Exchequer (1807 – 1812) · Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (1807 – 1812) · Attorney General for England and Wales
Highlights
1782: After five years at Harrow he followed his older brother Charles to Trinity College, Cambridge, where he won the declamation prize in English and graduated in 1782.
1783: Perceval’s mother had died in 1783, and Perceval and his brother Charles, now Lord Arden, rented a house in Charlton, where they fell in love with two sisters who were living in the Percevals’ old childhood home.
1790: When Jane reached 21, in 1790, Perceval’s career was still not prospering, and Sir Thomas still opposed the marriage, so the couple eloped and married by special licence in East Grinstead.
1796: He studied law at Lincoln’s Inn, practised as a barrister on the Midland circuit and in 1796 became a King’s Counsel before entering politics at the age of 33 as a Member of Parliament for Northampton.
1801: He was appointed solicitor general in 1801 and attorney general the following year.
1804: He kept the position of attorney general when Addington resigned and Pitt formed his second ministry in 1804.
wiki/Spencer_Perceval(1981) ‘Cats’ begins its memorable runAndrew Lloyd Webber’s musical debuts in London, where it will run for 8,949 performances over 21 years. The following year it will open in New York, where it will win seven Tony Awards and become the longest-running Broadway show until 2006, when its record will be broken.Cats is a musical composed by Andrew Lloyd Webber, based on Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats by T. S. Eliot, and produced by Cameron Mackintosh. The musical tells the story of a tribe of cats called the Jellicles and the night they make what is known as “the Jellicle choice” and decide which cat will ascend to the Heaviside Layer and come back to a new life. Cats introduced the song standard “Memory”. The first performance of Cats was in 1981.
Author: Andrew Lloyd Webber First performed: 1980 Adaptations: Cats (1998)
(1260) Kublai Khan becomes leader of the Mongol EmpireA grandson of the notoriously fierce Genghis Khan, Kublai Khan ascends the Mongol throne after his older brother dies, but subsequent battles with his younger brother will split the Mongolian Empire apart. Kublai will later go on to found the vast Yuan Dynasty.Kublai Khan, born Kublai and also known by the temple name Shizu, was the fifth Khagan of the Mongol Empire, reigning from 1260 to 1294. He also founded the Yuan dynasty in China as a conquest dynasty in 1271, and ruled as the first Yuan emperor until his death in 1294.
1224: On his way home after the Mongol conquest of Khwarezmia, Genghis Khan performed a ceremony on his grandsons Möngke and Kublai after their first hunt in 1224 near the Ili River.
1257: Möngke Khan sent two tax inspectors, Alamdar (Ariq Böke’s close friend and governor in North China) and Liu Taiping, to audit Kublai’s officials in 1257.
1262: In 1262, Hulagu’s complete purge of the Jochid troops and support for Kublai in his conflict with Ariq Böke brought open war with the Golden Horde.
1286: Kublai Khan married Nambui in 1286.
1287: Threatened by the advance of Kublai’s bureaucratization, Nayan a fourth generation descendant of one of Genghis Khan’s brothers, either Temüge or Belgutei, instigated a revolt in 1287.
1294: Nevertheless, by 1294, the year that Kublai died, the Thai kingdoms of Sukhothai and Chiang Mai had become vassal states of the Yuan dynasty.
wiki/Kublai_Khan(1921) Chanel No. 5 fragrence introducedFrench fashion designer Gabrielle ‘Coco’ Chanel introduces ‘a woman’s perfume with a woman’s scent.’ Dozens of prototypes had been considered, but No. 5 stood out, due in part to its heavy use of aldehydes. The perfume will become iconic for its fragrance, celebrity endorsements, and distinctive glass bottle.Chanel No. 5 is the first perfume launched by French couturier Gabrielle “Coco” Chanel. The chemical formula for the fragrance was compounded by French-Russian chemist and perfumer Ernest Beaux. Traditionally, fragrance worn by women had adhered to two basic categories: respectable women favored the pure essence of a single garden flower, and sexually provocative perfumes heavy with animal musk or jasmine were associated with women of the demi-monde, prostitutes or courtesans. Chanel felt the time was right for the debut of a scent that would epitomize the flapper and would speak to the liberated spirit of the 1920s.
Inventor: Ernest Beaux
wiki/Chanel_No._5(1961) Mercury program sends the first American into spaceNaval officer, test pilot, and astronaut Alan Shepard pilots the Mercury-Redstone 3 mission as he takes a 15-minute suborbital flight to become the first American in outer space. A decade later he’ll venture somewhat farther and visit the moon.Mercury-Redstone 3, or Freedom 7, was the first United States human spaceflight, on May 5, 1961, piloted by astronaut Alan Shepard. It was the first manned flight of Project Mercury, the objective of which was to put an astronaut into orbit around the Earth and return him safely. Shepard’s mission was a 15-minute suborbital flight with the primary objective of demonstrating his ability to withstand the high g forces of launch and atmospheric re-entry.
Mission start: May 05, 1961 Mission end: May 05, 1961 Astronaut: Alan Shepard Space program: Project Mercury
wiki/Mercury-Redstone_3(1981) Irish hunger striker Bobby Sands dies in prisonMember of the Provisional Irish Republican Army, and prisoner in Northern Ireland’s Maze Prison, Bobby Sands, 27, dies after a 66-day hunger strike protesting prison conditions. A month earlier, he had won a seat in the British House of Commons.Robert Gerard Sands, commonly known as Bobby Sands, was an Irish member of the Provisional Irish Republican Army who died on hunger strike while imprisoned at HM Prison Maze.
Lived: Mar 09, 1954 – May 05, 1981 (age 27) Height: 5′ 10″ (1.77 m) Spouse: Geraldine Noade (m. 1972 – 1981) Children: Gerard Sands Party: Sinn Féin Parents: Rosaleen Sands (Mother) · John Sands (Father)
Highlights
1955: His younger sisters, Marcella and Bernadette, were born in 1955 and 1958, respectively.
1972: In 1972, Sands joined the Provisional IRA.
1972: Bobby Sands married Geraldine Noade in 1972.
1972: In June 1972, Sands’ parents’ home was attacked and damaged by a loyalist mob and they were again forced to move, this time to the West Belfast Catholic area of Twinbrook, where Sands, now thoroughly embittered, rejoined them.
1980: In late 1980 Sands was chosen as Officer Commanding of the Provisional IRA prisoners in Long Kesh, succeeding Brendan Hughes who was participating in the first hunger strike.
1981: Sands died on 5 May 1981 in the Maze’s prison hospital after 66 days on hunger strike, aged 27.
(1689) Coronation of William and Mary as co-regents Husband and wife, as well as first cousins, William III and Mary II are crowned King and Queen of England, Scotland, and Ireland. They will reign together as co-rulers until Mary dies of smallpox at the age of 32.William and Mary were the co-regnants over the Kingdoms of England, Scotland, and Ireland, namely the Dutch Prince of Orange King William III and his spouse Queen Mary II. Their joint reign began in February 1689 after they were offered the throne by the Convention Parliament irregularly summoned by William after his victorious invasion of England in November 1688, the Glorious Revolution. They replaced James II, Mary’s father, who fled the country. Parliament offered William and Mary a co-regency, at the couple’s behest. After Mary died in 1694, William ruled alone until his death in 1702. William and Mary were childless and were ultimately succeeded by Mary’s younger sister, Anne. wiki/William_and_Mary(1961) Holocaust criminal Adolf Eichmann stands trial in IsraelFollowing his capture in Argentina by Israeli Mossad agents, Adolf Eichmann, a Nazi fugitive and one of the main organizers of Hitler’s Final Solution, is put on trial for war crimes including the extermination of six million Jews.Otto Adolf Eichmann was a German Nazi SS-Obersturmbannführer and one of the major organisers of the Holocaust. Eichmann was tasked by SS-Obergruppenführer Reinhard Heydrich with facilitating and managing the logistics of mass deportation of Jews to ghettos and extermination camps in German-occupied Eastern Europe during World War II. In 1960, Eichmann was captured in Argentina by Mossad, Israel’s intelligence service. Following a widely publicised trial in Israel, he was found guilty of war crimes and hanged in 1962.
Lived: Mar 19, 1906 – May 31, 1962 (age 56) Height: 5′ 9″ (1.76 m) Spouse: Veronika Liebl (m. 1935 – 1962) Movies: The Eichmann Show Children: Ricardo Francisco Eichmann (Son) · Dieter Helmut Eichmann (Son) · Horst Adolf Eichmann (Son) · Klaus Eichmann (Son) Parents: Adolf Karl Eichmann (Father) · Maria Eichmann (Mother)
Highlights
1933: After returning to Germany in 1933, he joined the Sicherheitsdienst (SD; Security Service), where he was appointed head of the department responsible for Jewish affairs—especially emigration, which the Nazis encouraged through violence and economic pressure.
1935: On 21 March 1935 Eichmann married Veronika (Vera) Liebl (1909–93).
1939: On 19 December 1939, Eichmann was assigned to head RSHA Referat IV B4 (RSHA Sub-Department IV-B4), tasked with overseeing Jewish affairs and evacuation.
1948: In 1948 Eichmann obtained a landing permit for Argentina and false identification under the name of “Ricardo Klement” through an organisation directed by Bishop Alois Hudal, an Austrian cleric then residing in Italy with known Nazi sympathies.
1960: In 1960, Eichmann was captured in Argentina by Mossad, Israel’s intelligence service.
1960: When Eichmann’s father died in 1960, Wiesenthal made arrangements for private detectives to surreptitiously photograph members of the family, as Eichmann’s brother Otto was said to bear a strong family resemblance and there were no current photos of the fugitive.
wiki/Adolf_Eichmann(1976) Steve Wozniak releases the Apple IJust days after forming Apple Computer Company (now Apple Inc.) with his friend Steve Jobs, computer hobbyist Steve Wozniak hand-builds and offers to the public a new machine boasting a 1MHz CPU and 4KB standard memory, dubbing it the Apple I.Apple Computer 1, also known later as the Apple I, or Apple-1, is a desktop computer released by the Apple Computer Company in 1976. It was designed and hand-built by Steve Wozniak. Wozniak’s friend Steve Jobs had the idea of selling the computer. The Apple I was Apple’s first product, and to finance its creation, Jobs sold his only motorized means of transportation, a VW Microbus, for a few hundred dollars, and Wozniak sold his HP-65 calculator for $500; however, Wozniak said that Jobs planned to use his bicycle if necessary. It was demonstrated in July 1976 at the Homebrew Computer Club in Palo Alto, California.
(1981) Brixton riots roil South LondonMonths of simmering tensions between police and the largely Afro-Caribbean residents of London’s Brixton district come to a head with the widespread (but erroneous) belief that police had the night before unjustifiably arrested a young black man. The riots will later be dubbed Bloody Saturday.The 1981 Brixton riot, or Brixton Rising, was a confrontation between the Metropolitan Police and protesters in Lambeth, South London, England, between 10 and 12 April 1981. The main riot on 11 April, dubbed “Bloody Saturday” by Time magazine, resulted in almost 280 injuries to police and 45 injuries to members of the public; over a hundred vehicles were burned, including 56 police vehicles; and almost 150 buildings were damaged, with thirty burned. There were 82 arrests. Reports suggested that up to 5,000 people were involved.
(1867) Seward’s Folly nets the US vast Russian territorySecretary of State William Seward purchases 586,412 square miles of land in the far northwest of Russian America. Many say “Seward’s icebox” isn’t worth $7.2 million, but the future state of Alaska will turn out to be a bargain.
Russia offered to sell Alaska to the United States in 1859, believing the United States would off-set the designs of Russia’s greatest rival in the Pacific, Great Britain. The looming U.S. Civil War delayed the sale, but after the war, Secretary of State William Seward quickly took up a renewed Russian offer and on March 30, 1867, agreed to a proposal from Russian Minister in Washington, Edouard de Stoeckl, to purchase Alaska for $7.2 million. The Senate approved the treaty of purchase on April 9; President Andrew Johnson signed the treaty on May 28, and Alaska was formally transferred to the United States on October 18, 1867. This purchase ended Russia’s presence in North America and ensured U.S. access to the Pacific northern rim.
For three decades after its purchase the United States paid little attention to Alaska, which was governed under military, naval, or Treasury rule or, at times, no visible rule at all. Seeking a way to impose U.S. mining laws, the United States constituted a civil government in 1884. Skeptics had dubbed the purchase of Alaska “Seward’s Folly,” but the former Secretary of State was vindicated when a major gold deposit was discovered in the Yukon in 1896, and Alaska became the gateway to the Klondike gold fields. The strategic importance of Alaska was finally recognized in World War II. Alaska became a state on January 3, 1959.
history.state.gov/milestones/1866-1898/alaska-purchase wiki/Alaska_Purchase(1870) African-American men get the voteFollowing a difficult ratification, the US Constitution’s 15th Amendment is adopted, formally granting all adult black men, regardless of “previous condition of servitude,” the right to vote. By the late 1870s, Southern states will nevertheless take various steps to disenfranchise black voters. It will take another 50 years for American women, of any race, to win the right to vote.The Fifteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution prohibits the federal and state governments from denying a citizen the right to vote based on that citizen’s “race, color, or previous condition of servitude”. It was ratified on February 3, 1870, as the third and last of the Reconstruction Amendments. wiki/Fifteenth_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution(1912) Morocco becomes a French protectorate The North African kingdom of Morocco, with its vast coastline in close proximity to Europe, has long been considered a colonial prize, and the Treaty of Fez now gives France dominion over the land and its people.
By the Treaty of Fez (Arabic: معاهدة فاس), signed March 30, 1912, Sultan Abdelhafid made Morocco a French protectorate, resolving the Agadir Crisis of July 1, 1911.
Germany recognised the French protectorate in Morocco, receiving in return territories in the French Equatorial African colony of Middle Congo (now the Republic of the Congo). This land, known as Neukamerun, became part of the German colony of Kamerun, part of German West Africa, although it only lasted briefly until it was captured by the allies in World War I. As part of the treaty, Germany ceded France a small area of territory to the south-east of Fort Lamy, now part of Chad.
Spain also gained a zone of influence in Northern Morocco which became Spanish Morocco. By the agreement signed with France and Spain in November that year, Spain gained a zone of influence in the Rif and the Cape Juby areas, where the sultan remained nominally the sovereign and was represented by a vice regent under the control of the Spanish high commission.
Private agreements among the United Kingdom, Italy and France in 1904, eg the Entente Cordiale, made without consulting the sultan, had divided the Maghreb into spheres of influence, with France given Morocco. In Morocco, the young sultan Abdelaziz acceded in 1894 at the age of ten, and Europeans became the main advisors at the court, while local rulers became more and more independent from the sultan. The sultan was deposed in 1908. Moroccan law and order continued to deteriorate under his successor, Abdelhafid, who abdicated in favour of his brother Yusef after signing the Treaty of Fez.
The Treaty of Fez granted the concession for exploitation of the iron mines of Mount Uixan to the Spanish Rif Mines Company, which was also given permission to build a railroad to connect the mines with Melilla.
The treaty was perceived as a betrayal by Moroccan nationalists and led to the 1912 Fez riots and the War of the Rif (1919–26) between the Spanish and the Moroccan Rif and the Jebala tribes. Their leader became Abd el-Krim, who, after driving back the Spanish, founded a short-lived nationalist Republic of the Rif.
wiki/Treaty_of_Fez(1981) Gunman opens fire on President ReaganAs he’s leaving a Washington, DC, hotel, President Ronald Reagan is shot in the chest in an assassination attempt by John Hinckley, Jr. Doctors will later reveal that the bullet missed the president’s heart by just an inch.The attempted assassination of United States President Ronald Reagan occurred on March 30, 1981, 69 days into his presidency. While leaving a speaking engagement at the Washington Hilton Hotel in Washington, D.C., President Reagan and three others were shot and wounded by John Hinckley, Jr. One of them died decades later of related injuries. Ronald Reagan was shot in the chest and in the lower right arm. He suffered a punctured lung and heavy internal bleeding, but prompt medical attention allowed him to recover quickly. No formal invocation of presidential succession took place, although Secretary of State Alexander Haig controversially stated that he was “in control here” while Vice President George H. W. Bush returned to Washington. Nobody was initially killed in the attack, but Press Secretary James Brady, who was left paralyzed and permanently disabled from a gunshot wound to the head, died in 2014 of causes a Virginia medical examiner said directly relate to the 1981 shooting.
(1846) US declares war on its neighbor-en.svg)
(1981) Pope John Paul II shot in assassination attempt
(1995) Everest summited by unassisted female climber
(1938) Armstrong records ‘When the Saints Go Marching In’
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