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Today in History 06/08/17

Painting of Vikings landing at a beach before a raid, circa 800 (© ullstein bild/Getty Images)(793) Shocking raid from the north ushers in a new age
The Kingdom of Northumbria sees uninvited guests arrive on Lindisfarne, an island off of England’s northeast coast. What these ‘Northmen’ do there, including destroying the abbey and killing its monks, will jolt Europe and earn the Vikings a fierce reputation for the ages.
The Viking Age is the period from the late 8th century to the mid-11th century in European history, especially Northern European and Scandinavian history, between the Germanic Iron Age and the Middle Ages, from a general Scandinavian perspective. It is the period of history when Scandinavian Norsemen explored Europe by its seas and rivers for trade, raids, colonisation and conquest. In this period, the Norsemen settled in Norse Greenland, Newfoundland, and present-day Faroe Islands, Iceland, Norway, Scotland, England, Ireland, the Netherlands, Germany, Ukraine, Russia, and Turkey. Though Viking travellers and colonists were seen at many points in history as brutal raiders, many historical documents suggest that their invasion of other countries was retaliation in response to the encroachment upon tribal lands by Christian missionaries, and perhaps by the Saxon Wars prosecuted by Charlemagne and his kin to the south, or, were motivated by overpopulation, trade inequities, and the lack of viable farmland in their homeland. Information about the Viking Age is drawn largely from what was written about the Vikings by their enemies, and primary sources of archaeology, supplied with secondary sources like the Icelandic Sagas. But the Vikingers were not illiterates. Some history can be found on Runestones, a good example of this is the larger of the two Jelling Stones. Further did travellers like Adam of Bremen and Ansgar visit Scandinavia by the end of the Viking Age, and wrote imperative works of chronicle-style. And later did Saxo do the same. Also some Scandinavian early Middle-Ages works like Hávamál, Codex Regius, the Scanian Law have also been of historical help.
Start date: 800 AD
End date: 1066
Viking Expansion

wiki/Viking_Age
George Orwell (© ullstein bild via Getty Images)(1949) Big Brother is watching you as ‘1984’ is published
Newspeak, thoughtcrimes, and Big Brother are introduced as George Orwell’s vision of a dystopian future is published. ‘Nineteen Eighty-Four’ will be seen as both a great literary work and an accurate warning of the “double plus ungood” rise of totalitarianism and surveillance.
Nineteen Eighty-Four, often published as 1984, is a dystopian novel published in 1949 by English author George Orwell. The novel is set in Airstrip One, a province of the superstate Oceania in a world of perpetual war, omnipresent government surveillance, and public manipulation. The superstate and its residents are dictated to by a political regime euphemistically named English Socialism, shortened to “Ingsoc” in Newspeak, the government’s invented language. The superstate is under the control of the privileged elite of the Inner Party, a party and government that persecutes individualism and independent thinking as “thoughtcrime”, which is enforced by the “Thought Police”.
Author: George Orwell
First published: Jun 08, 1949
Number of pages: 298
Characters: Big Brother · Winston Smith · Emmanuel Goldstein · O’Brien · Julia · Syme
Preceded by: Animal Farm
Adaptations: Nineteen Eighty-Four (1984) · 1984 (1956) · Brazil (1985) · Nineteen Eighty-Four (1954) · 1984 · 1984: A Personal View of Orwell’s ‘Nineteen Eighty Four’ (1983) · 1984 · 1984
1984 First Run Cover1984 Manuscript Draft with Development

wiki/Nineteen_Eighty-Four
USS Barbero (Public Domain)(1959) US Post Office delivers mail by rocket
Three thousand letters streak through the sky at 600 mph, encased in a guided missile shot from the nuclear submarine USS Barbero. This newfangled airmail travels a distance of more than 100 miles in 22 minutes, but Missile Mail delivery will prove cost-prohibitive and won’t catch on.
Rocket mail is the delivery of mail by rocket or missile. The rocket lands by deploying an internal parachute upon arrival. It has been attempted by various organizations in many different countries, with varying levels of success. It has never become widely seen as being a viable option for delivering mail, due to the cost of the schemes and numerous failures.
wiki/Rocket_mail
James Earl Ray, assassin of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., being taken to his cell by Sheriff William Morris, upon his arrival in Memphis, Tennessee on July 19, 1968 (© REX Features)(1968) Suspected killer of Martin Luther King, Jr. arrested
Two months after civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr. was gunned down in Memphis, Tennessee, his suspected assassin is apprehended at London’s Heathrow Airport. James Earl Ray will be extradited back to the US, stand trial, and be convicted and sentenced to 99 years in prison.
James Earl Ray was a convicted murderer who assassinated Martin Luther King Jr. on April 4, 1968 in Memphis, Tennessee. Ray was convicted on his 41st birthday after entering a guilty plea to forgo a jury trial. Had he been found guilty by jury trial, he would have been eligible for the death penalty.
Born: Mar 10, 1928 · Alton, IL
Died: Apr 23, 1998 · Nashville, TN
Movies: Who Killed Martin Luther King?
Parents: Lucille Ray (Mother) · James Gerald Ray (Father)
Highlights
  • 1959: In 1959 he was caught stealing $120 in an armed robbery of a St. Louis Kroger store.

  • 1968: Arriving in Atlanta on March 24, 1968, Ray checked into a rooming house.

  • 1968: There, on March 30, 1968, he bought a Remington Model 760 Gamemaster .30-06-caliber rifle and a box of 20 cartridges from the Aeromarine Supply Company.

  • 1968: On April 4, 1968, Ray killed Martin Luther King with a single shot fired from his Remington rifle, while King was standing on the second-floor balcony of the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee.

  • 1968: On June 8, 1968, two months after King’s death, Ray was arrested at London’s Heathrow Airport while trying to leave the United Kingdom on the false Canadian passport.

  • 1998: Ray died at age 70 on April 23, 1998, at the Columbia Nashville Memorial Hospital from complications related to kidney disease and liver failure caused by hepatitis C.

wiki/James_Earl_Ray
4.2.m17

A Historical Day

(793) Shocking raid from the north ushers in a new age
793 The Kingdom of Northumbria sees uninvited guests arrive on Lindisfarne, an island off of England’s northeast coast. What these ‘Northmen’ do there, including destroying the abbey and killing its monks, will jolt Europe and earn the Vikings a fierce reputation for the ages..
(1949) Big Brother is watching you as ‘1984’ is published
Newspeak, thoughtcrimes, and Big Brother are introduced as George Orwell’s vision of a dystopian future is published. ‘Nineteen Eighty-Four’ will be seen as both a great literary work and an accurate warning of the “double plus ungood” rise of totalitarianism and surveillance. . 1949
(1959) US Post Office delivers mail by rocket
1959 Three thousand letters streak through the sky at 600 mph, encased in a guided missile shot from the nuclear submarine USS Barbero. This newfangled airmail travels a distance of more than 100 miles in 22 minutes, but Missile Mail delivery will prove cost-prohibitive and won’t catch on. .
(1968) Suspected killer of Martin Luther King, Jr. arrested
Two months after civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr. was gunned down in Memphis, Tennessee, his suspected assassin is apprehended at London’s Heathrow Airport. James Earl Ray will be extradited back to the US, stand trial, and be convicted and sentenced to 99 years in prison. . 1968