Today in History!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[n11pilot]

1340 - Battle of Rio Salado Battle (or Tarifa): King Afonso IV of Portugal and King Alfonso XI of Castile defeat Sultan Abu al-Hasan 'Ali of Morocco and Yusuf I of Granada, last Marīnids invasion of Iberian Peninsula.

1817 - The independent government of Venezuela was established by Simon Bolivar.

1831 - Escaped slave Nat Turner was apprehended in Southampton County, VA, several weeks after leading the bloodiest slave uprising in American history.

1893 - The U.S. Senate gave final approval to repeal the Sherman Silver Purchase Act of 1890. This act not only required the US Government to buy twice as much silver but also increased the amount of money in general circulation.

1899 - Battle of Ladysmith, Natal: Boers defeat the British, leading to the Siege of Ladysmith.

1905 - "October Manifesto" Russian Tsar Nicholas II grants civil liberties and accepts the first Duma (Parliament).

1917 - British government gives final approval to Balfour Declaration. The declaration itself was a letter written from the British Foreign Secretary Balfour to prominent Jewish leader Lionel Rothschild stating intent to support the establishing of a Jewish homeland in Palestine.

300px-Balfour_declaration_unmarked.jpg (43.83 KiB) Viewed 31001 times

1943 - In Moscow, a declaration was signed by the Governments of the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, the United States and China called for an early establishment of an international organization to maintain peace and security. The goal was supported on December 1, 1943, at a meeting in Tehran.

1945 - The U.S. government announced the end of shoe rationing. Women celebrate.

1961 - The Soviet Union tested a hydrogen bomb with a force of approximately 58 megatons.

1984 - In Poland, police found the body of kidnapped pro-Solidarity priest Father Jerry Popieluszko. His death was blamed on four security officers.

[Cousi]

I've seen a few documentaries on the rule of Tsar Nicholas II and the lead-up to the Russian Revolution but I can't remember if he was as bad as his predecessors. I have the impression he wasn't, but honestly I've heard evidence supporting that and contradicting it.

[n11pilot]

I've seen a few documentaries on the rule of Tsar Nicholas II and the lead-up to the Russian Revolution but I can't remember if he was as bad as his predecessors. I have the impression he wasn't, but honestly I've heard evidence supporting that and contradicting it.

Nicholas II was an interesting man. They called him "Bloody Nicholas" but out of all the Tsars he probably deserved that title the least. Having said that he wasn't a good ruler in that he was weak minded, he was easily influenced by those he trusted and this circle ranged from his cousin Kaiser Wilhelm II to the infamous Rasputin. He believed in the autocracy but had no idea how to be an autocrat so even if he wanted to be a tyrant he wouldn't have been able to pull it off. He was so insulated from the people he governed that he continually made mistakes as to exactly what they wanted and this led the people to believe that he was indifferent to them. He lacked the moral courage to be a good leader and avoided confrontation. An example of this is how he handled ministers who brought up points that went against his leanings. He would nod and smile at them then later send them a letter firing them from their posts.

Nicholas II had personal problems as well, not the least of which being that his son and heir, Tasrevich Alexi suffered from hemophilia which in those days was nearly always at best a slow motion death sentence. This may have led Nicholas to place his family above his nation in his concerns. I guess it can be said that Nicholas was the wrong man, in the wrong place, at the wrong time.

If you are interested a good read on this man is "The Last Tsar: The Life and Death of Nicholas II" by Radzinsky. It was originally published in 1993 but is still a good reference work based on primary Russian sources. A new paperback version is about $17.00.

[Cousi]

Thank you sir! I'll have to look that book up.

Given what you've said, I completely understand the conflicting presentations. It sounds like what he wanted to be ran counter to his ability to be that. A sort of tragic figure, really.

[Blackthorn]

All very interesting!

[n11pilot]

Thank you sir! I'll have to look that book up.

Given what you've said, I completely understand the conflicting presentations. It sounds like what he wanted to be ran counter to his ability to be that. A sort of tragic figure, really.

No problem, my friend.

Tragic sums it up. Many historians believe that if Russia had been a constitutional "monarchy" like Great Britain, Nicholas would have been an ideal head of state. He actually did care about his people but he needed a lot of the right kind of guidance.

[n11pilot]

All very interesting!

Thank you, my friend. It was an interesting time.

[n11pilot]

1517 - Martin Luther posted the 95 Theses on the door of the Wittenberg Palace Church. The event marked the start of the Protestant Reformation in Germany.

1541 - Michelangelo finishes painting "The Last Judgement" in the Sistine Chapel.

1864 - Nevada became the 36th state to join the U.S.

1876 - Great Backerganj Cyclone of 1876 ravages British India (Modern-day Bangladesh), over 200,000 killed.

1914 - The Ottoman Empire (Turkey) joined the Central Powers (Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Bulgaria).

1917 World War I: Battle of Beersheba in southern Palestine - "last successful cavalry charge in history" performed by the 4th Australian Light Horse. Ah, I know of 12 guys who may disagree with that "Last successful cavalry charge" thing.

1926 - Magician Harry Houdini died of gangrene and peritonitis resulting from a ruptured appendix. His appendix had been damaged twelve days earlier when he had been punched in the stomach by a student unexpectedly. During a lecture Houdini had commented on the strength of his stomach muscles and their ability to withstand hard blows.

1940 - The British air victory in the Battle of Britain prevented Germany from invading Britain.

1941 - The U.S. Navy destroyer Reuben James was torpedoed by a German submarine near Iceland. The U.S. had not yet entered World War II. More than 100 men were killed.

1959 - Lee Harvey Oswald, a former U.S. Marine from Fort Worth, TX, announced that he would never return to the U.S. At the time he was in Moscow, Russia.

1968 - U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson ordered a halt to all U.S. bombing of North Vietnam.

1998 - Iraq announced that it was halting all dealings with U.N. arms inspectors. The inspectors were investigating the country's weapons of mass destruction stemming from Iraq's invasion of Kuwait in 1990.

1999 - Leaders from the Roman Catholic Church and the Lutheran Church signed the Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification. The event ended a centuries-old doctrinal dispute over the nature of faith and salvation.

[n11pilot]

1604 - "Othello," the tragedy by William Shakespeare, was first presented at Whitehall Palace in London.

1755 - At least 60,000 people were killed in Lisbon, Portugal by an earthquake, its aftershocks and the ensuing tsunami.

1765 - The British Parliament enacted The Stamp Act in the American colonies. The act was repealed in March of 1766 on the same day that the Parliament passed the Declaratory Acts which asserted that the British government had free and total legislative power of the colonies.

1800 - U.S. President John Adams became the first president to live in the White House when he moved in.

1814 - Congress of Vienna opens to re-draw the European political map after the defeat of France, in the Napoleonic Wars.

1848 - The first medical school for women, founded by Samuel Gregory, opened in Boston, MA. The Boston Female Medical School later merged with Boston University School of Medicine.

1856 - The first photography magazine, Daguerreian Journal, was published in New York City, NY.

1861 - Gen. George B. McClellan was made the general-in-chief of the American Union armies. As an aggressive fighting general McClellan was a great saddle designer.

1894 - Vaccine for diphtheria announced by Dr Roux of Paris.

1894 - Russian Emperor Alexander III died.

1904 - The Army War College in Washington, DC, enrolled the first class.

1949 - In Washington, 55 people were killed when a fighter plane hit an airliner.

1950 - Two Puerto Rican nationalists tried to assassinate U.S. President Harry Truman. One of the men was killed when they tried to force their way into Blair House in Washington, DC.

1979 - Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini urged all Iranians to demonstrate on November 4 and to expand their attacks against the U.S. and Israel. On November 4, Iranian militants seized the U.S. embassy in Tehran and took 63 Americans hostage.

[n11pilot]

1721 - Peter the Great (Peter I), ruler of Russia, changed his title to emperor. Apparently the man was nothing if not modest.

1776 - During the American Revolutionary War, William Demont, became the first traitor of the American Revolution when he deserted. This asshat, er, I mean Ensign in the 5TH Pennsylvania BN not only deserted he took the plans of FT Washington (New York) with him and presented them to the the British.

1783 - U.S. Gen. George Washington gave his "Farewell Address to the Army" near Princeton, NJ.

1875 - Verney Cameroon reaches Benguela in Angola, from Africa's east coast, 1st European to cross equatorial Africa.

1883 - Thomas Edison executed a patent application for an electrical indicator using the Edison effect lamp (U.S. Pat. 307,031).

1889 - North Dakota and South Dakota were admitted into the union as the 39th and 40th states.

1930 - Haile Selassie was crowned emperor of Ethiopia.

1947 - Howard Hughes flew his "Spruce Goose," a huge wooden airplane, for eight minutes in California. It was the plane's first and only flight. The "Spruce Goose," nicknamed because of the white-gray color of the spruce used to build it, never went into production.

1948 - Harry S. Truman defeated Thomas E. Dewey for the U.S. presidency. The Chicago Tribune published an early edition that had the headline "DEWEY DEFEATS TRUMAN." The Truman victory surprised many polls and newspapers.

1962 - U.S. President Kennedy announced that the U.S.S.R. was dismantling the missile sites in Cuba.

1963 - South Vietnamese President Ngo Dihn Diem was assassinated in a military coup.

1986 - American hostage David Jacobson was released after being held in Lebanon for 17 months by Shiite Muslims kidnappers.