Christmas Every Day

1981 The assassination of Anwar Sadat

Since its overthrow of the corrupt King Farouk in 1952, Egypt’s government has struggled with the forces demanding a truly Islamic state. Leaders in this push came largely from the Islamic Brotherhood, a group demanding sharia law and opposed to secular rule and westernization. The military officers involved in the coup at first cooperated with the Brotherhood but soon realized it was incompatible with their view of the future. The new dictator, Colonel Gamal Abdel Nasser, cracked down on the movement, arrested its leadership and executed Sayyid Qutb, the theorist behind Islamic supremacism. The Brotherhood went underground but developed popular support in its mosques and charitable organizations. When Nasser died in 1970 and was succeeded by Anwar Sadat, most oppressive measures against it were lifted, its members were released from prison and the influence of the Brotherhood and Islamicization grew grew.

When Sadat signed a peace treaty with Israel and shared the Noble Prize with Israeli prime minister Menachem Begin, Islamic discontent in Egypt grew. Groups more radical than the Brotherhood such al-Jihad and Gama’a Islamiyya began to plan violent action against the ruling regime. On October 6, 1981 in the midst of a military parade to celebrate the crossing of the Suez Canal in the 1973 war with Israel, a truck full of troops stopped in front of the reviewing stand and attacked the dignitaries with grendades and submachine guns. President Sadat and ten others were killed.

One of the assassins was shot on the spot and three others were put on trial and executed. Sadat’s assassin proudly proclaimed “I have killed Pharoah! I am not afraid to die.” Though this plot failed to spark a Muslim uprising, the ideology that hopes to overthrow all existing Arab governments and replace them with a Sunni Islamic state remains strong.

1871

The Pembina Raid

Since 1866, Irish nationalists in the United States had been launching cross-border attacks into Canada hoping that military success in that British territory would lead to an end to the occupation of Ireland. The raids on Quebec, Ontario and New Brunswick by these well-armed bands (most of them veterans of the Civil War) had been bloody but unsuccessful. A last desperate plan was launched in 1871 to invade Manitoba from the Dakota Territory and link up with dissident Métis under Louis Riel. The Fenian leadership gave the plan little chance of success but supplied arms for the effort.

The leaders in this scheme were W.B. O’Donoghue and John O’Neill. O’Neill was an Irish immigrant who had fought in the American Army on the western frontier and in the Civil War, reaching the rank of captain, and had taken part in two previous Fenian raids in 1866 and 1870. O’Donoghue had taken part in the Red River rebellion in 1870 as an associate of Louis Riel and had served as treasurer of the provisional government; he accompanied Riel in fleeing to the United States after the arrival of Canadian troops. He favoured involving the American government on the side of Métis inhabitants of what had become Manitoba but, when Riel demurred, Donoghue approached the Fenians. He had drawn up a constitution for the Republic of Rupert’s Land, the new state he intended to establish (with himself as President).

With 35 men recruited from the unemployed of Minnesota and disgruntled Manitoba Métis, O’Donoghue and O’Neill launched an attack on Canadian soil — or what they thought was Canadian soil. They had, in fact, captured a Hudson’s Bay Company post on the American side of the border. Most were arrested by American authorities and O’Donoghue fell into the hands of Métis who returned him to the United States. This was the last of the Fenian raids. Though it looks farcical at this distance the Canadian government had been deeply worried lest the Red River Métis joined the venture and turn Manitobans’ thoughts toward union with the U.S.A.

610 Hercalius deposes Phocas

Phocas was a very bad emperor indeed. He ascended the throne of the Byzantine (or Eastern Roman) Empire in 602 with the support of the army and the Constantinople mob, murdering the incumbent emperor Maurice and his six sons. This was the first successful violent coup in almost three hundred years and with no inherent legitimacy he had to maintain his rule with terror and violence. The borders collapsed under barbarian pressure from the north and Persian pressure in the east; rebel generals began marching on the capital, rioting broke out in the empire’s cities. Phocas responded with more terror, including the murder of Maurice’s wife and daughters.

In 610 a fleet lead by Heraclius, the son of the governor of the African provinces, landed near Constantinople. The local military and civil service went over to him and declared him the new emperor; Phocas’s bodyguard deserted him, and Heraclius entered the capital in triumph. When Phocas was dragged before him, Heraclius sneered “Is this how you have ruled, wretch?” Phocas replied, “And will you rule better?” Heraclius personally killed his predecessor on the spot and had his head paraded through the capital.

Heraclius went on to a long, if troubled reign, ruling until 641.

October 1

1910 Domestic Terrorism

The early 20^th century saw epic struggles between employers’ groups and the American labour movement, with violence – kidnappings, sabotage, beatings and murder – frequently used by both sides. On this date in 1910 a bomb, planted by a labour organizer working for the Iron Workers Union, exploded outside the building housing the Los Angeles Times. The explosion killed 21 newspaper employees and injured 100 others.

Private detectives working for employers soon identified a number of suspects and, using corrupt and illegal practices, arrested three union officials and brought them to Los Angeles for trial. The Iron Workers hired famed attorney Clarence Darrow to defend two of them, brothers J.B. and J.J. McNamara, while the third arrested man agreed to testify for the prosecution. Despite claims by socialists and their supporters that the pair had been framed, it was clear that the evidence would convict them. Darrow agreed to a plea bargain that sent J.B. McNamara to jail for life on the charge of murder whil J.J. pled guilty to a lesser charge and received a light sentence.

The effects of the trial were significant. Capitalists were worried about class war and labour leaders feared a backlash; both sides agreed to cooperate with the federal government in setting up a Commission on Industrial Relations that led to an 8-hour day and reduced tension between employers and workers.

From the Wikipedia article:

The 1892 Wyoming Seminary vs. Mansfield State Normal football game, played September 28, 1892, was the first-ever American football game played at night. The game was played between Wyoming Seminary (a private college preparatory school located in the Wyoming Valley of northeastern Pennsylvania) and Mansfield State Normal School in Mansfield, Pennsylvania.

The lighting system brought in turned out to be inadequate for gameplay. The game itself lasted only 20 minutes and there were only 10 plays. Both sides agreed to end at halftime with a 0–0 tie after several players had an unfortunate run-in with a light pole.

This historic game is celebrated by a yearly reenactment of the original game played between Wyoming Seminary and Mansfield State Normal School during an autumn festival known as the “Fabulous 1890s Weekend.” The re-enactment of the game is a play-by-play version of the actual game as recorded. Fans who watch the game are sometimes known to correct players when they deviate from the original recorded plays.

The 100th anniversary of the game happened to occur on Monday, September 28, 1992. Monday Night Football celebrated “100 years of night football” with a game between the Los Angeles Raiders and the Kansas City Chiefs at Arrowhead Stadium. The Chiefs won 27–7 in front of 77,486 fans.

1915 The death of John Kipling

The life expectancy of a junior officer in the British Army on the Western Front in the First World War was rather short — six weeks was the average length of time an officer in a front-line unit could be expected to serve before being killed or wounded. Armed only with a swagger stick or a pistol, they were required to walk ahead of  their men across no-man’s-land into the teeth of withering rifle and machine-gun fire. Tens of thousands of young men of the educated class perished in the mud of Flanders. Such a one was John Kipling, only son of the great poet Rudyard Kipling whose hymns to British imperialism had shaped much of the moral landscape of his country.

When the war erupted in 1914 many, including Rudyard Kipling, saw the struggle as one of civilization against barbarism, especially after news of German atrocities in Belgium and the sinking of civilian passenger ships became widespread. Kipling Senior was employed in the development of propaganda to support the war effort and his son was eager to join the armed forces. John tried to join the Royal Navy but his eyesight was too weak to allow him a naval career. He was rejected twice for the same reason by the Army, but his father had connections high up in the chain of command and convinced the generals that his son should be given a commission in a prestige unit, the Irish Guards. After months of training in England, John was sent as an 18-year-old second lieutenant to the front lines just in time for the disastrous Battle of Loos. This was the first British attack to use poisonous chlorine gas, a weapon pioneered by the Germans at Ypres, and the first to employ aircraft as tactical bombers. Nonetheless, the infantry charge on the German trenches failed — on one afternoon, the twelve attacking battalions suffered 8,000 casualties out of 10,000 men in four hours. John Kipling was one of those casualties.

The website “Epitaphs of the Great War” notes that letters of condolence arrived from all over the world. A few of them remain in the Kipling Archive at Sussex. Words of comfort took a different form in those days; I’m not sure we’d appreciate them today, I’m not sure the Kiplings appreciated them then: “I do not imagine that any two parents in England will more cheerfully make the sacrifice or more heroically bear the loss,” (Lord Curzon); “There are so many things worse than death” (Theodore Roosevelt). The novelist Marie Corelli struck the right note when she wrote, “You foresaw what was coming years ago – but few listened to your clarion call of warning”. To her the soldiers were the innocent and their fathers the guilty ones, guilty because they had ignored the warnings about German militarism. This is exactly how Kipling felt, and it is the meaning behind his famous epitaph:

If any question why we died,
Tell them, because our fathers lied.

His father, who was at the Front as a war correspondent, searched desperately for his son’s body but it was not until 1992 that his burial place was located. Kipling’s search and grief are recounted in the play (and later movie) My Boy Jack.