Today in History 08/20 (Yellowstone on Fire)

Date: 1988

The Clover Mist fire races north across the Mirror Plateau
wiki/Yellowstone_fires_of_1988
(1988) Massive fires consume 150,000 acres of Yellowstone.
Also on this day,
636 BCE | Decisive Arab victory at Battle of Yarmouk banishes the Byzantines from Syria
Also on this day,
636 BCE | Decisive Arab victory at Battle of Yarmouk banishes the Byzantines from Syria
The seesawing power grabs between Arabs and the Byzantine Empire in the Levant comes to a close as Khālid ibn al-Walīd and his 40,000 troops take on Emperor Heraclius’ 150,000-strong force and decisively defeat them. The win will be a springboard for Arab expansion in the region.1882 | Napoleon’s Russian loss inspires a sonic boom and ‘1812 Overture’ premieres
Listeners gather under a Moscow tent to get the first public earful of Tchaikovsky’s new ‘Festival overture.’ Blasts of cannon fire finish this feisty 70th anniversary tribute to Russia’s rout of Napoleon, and the ‘1812 Overture’ will survive down the ages as everyone’s favorite fireworks soundtrack.1940 | Former Bolshevist hero Trotsky gets on the wrong side of Stalin and is assassinated
Twice exiled to Siberia for revolutionary acts, then a key player in the Bolshevik Revolution, Leon Trotsky has fallen out of favor with the new Soviet premier, Joseph Stalin, and is living in Mexico City when an assassin’s ice-axe attack fatally wounds him, killing him the next day.
Today in History 08/20/17

Lived: Nov 07, 1879 - Aug 21, 1940 (age 60)
Height: 5' 9" (1.74 m)
Spouse: Natalia Sedova (m. 1903 - 1940) · Aleksandra Sokolovskaya (m. 1899 - 1902)
Children: Zinaida Volkova (Daughter) · Lev Sedov (Son) · Sergei Sedov (Son) · Nina Nevelson (Daughter) · Howard Fung (Son)
Movies: The Assassination of Trotsky
Founded: Red Army · Fourth International · Communist International · Left Opposition · Petrograd Soviet · International Committee of the Fourth InternationalHighlights
- 1903: Leon Trotsky married Natalia Sedova in 1903.
- 1917: He was, alongside Lenin, Zinoviev, Kamenev, Stalin, Sokolnikov and Bubnov, one of the seven members of the first Politburo, founded in 1917 to manage the Bolshevik Revolution.
- 1920: The Red Army was defeated by Poland and the offensive was turned back during the Battle of Warsaw in August 1920, in part because of Stalin's failure to obey Trotsky's orders in the run-up to the decisive engagements.
- 1924: Shortly after Lenin's death in 1924, the letter was found and publicized by Trotsky's opponents within the Communist Party to portray him as Lenin's enemy.
- 1926: In early 1926, Zinoviev, Kamenev and their supporters in the "New Opposition" gravitated closer to Trotsky's supporters, and the two groups soon formed an alliance, which also incorporated some smaller opposition groups within the Communist Party.
- 1940: On Stalin's orders, he was assassinated in Mexico in August 1940 by Ramón Mercader, a Spanish-born Soviet agent.
wiki/Leon_Trotsky