August 23

Home / Today in History / August 23
by gerryadmin

1939

The Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact

By the summer of 1939 it was clear that Adolf Hitler had no intention of keeping the peace in Europe; all of his previous promises had been broken and the German army was being put on a war footing. In order to head off more German aggression, the British and French had guaranteed their military support to Poland and sought to involve the Soviet Union in an anti-German alliance. The Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin feared the western nations as much as he did the Germans. He demanded as a price for allying against Germany the right of the Red Army to enter Poland; the Poles, quite rightly, feared that once the Russians were in their country there would be no getting them out. Stalin, therefore, entered secret negotiations with his arch-enemies in Nazi Germany and received the German foreign minister Joachim von Ribbentrop for talks with Vyacheslav Molotov, the People’s Commissar for Foreign Affairs. The result, which staggered the world, was the Treaty of Non-Aggression between Germany and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, the so-called Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact.

On the surface, the treaty was a pledge of neutrality should either country go to war against another country, and a ten-year pledge of peace between the signatories. It was seen, at once, as a carte blanche for Hitler to go to war against Poland, secure that the USSR would not intervene. As such, it made World War II inevitable. Around the world, it also shocked Communist supporters  who had been told that Nazi German was the supreme enemy; the Soviet excuse that the two countries shared a common anti-capitalist stance was met with derision. Many western intellectuals and artists who had seen Stalin as the bulwark against fascism never got over their disillusionment and abandoned Communism; others continued to toe the Party line and to oppose war with Germany until 1941 when Hitler broke the pact and invaded the Soviet Union. The folk-singer Woodie Guthrie was in the latter camp, making a mockery of the motto on his guitar which read “This Machine Kills Fascists”.

What the world did not know in August of 1939 was that there were secret articles of the treaty that were even more sinister. In return for its acquiescence in the invasion of Poland, Germany would allow the Soviet Union to occupy Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Bessarabia and the eastern part of Poland. Once war started in September, the two tyrannies cooperated in massacres of Poles, Jews, and prisoners of war.

August 22

Home / Today in Church History / August 22
by gerryadmin

Death of a rebel Earl

For the first ten years of her reign Elizabeth I ordained a religious settlement that forbade any public worship other than the Anglican variety of Protestantism, but which tactfully looked the other way if Catholic families complied only minimally. The Queen was said to have announced that she did not wish to make windows into peoples’ hearts. Thus many Catholics worshipped as they wished in secret, paid a small fine for non-attendance at Anglican services, or made sure that at least one member of the family attended the state church.  That there were prominent noblemen and gentry who were secret Catholics was well known. Elizabeth imprisoned the Catholic bishops she inherited but did not burn the members of the dissident episcopacy as her sister Bloody Mary had.

This changed in 1569 with the first of two horribly ill-advised acts by Catholics. The first was the Rising of the Earls (or the Northern Rising), a rebellion by two prominent Catholic nobles in the north of the country: Thomas Percy, Earl of Northumberland and Charles Neville, Earl of Westmorland. For a time their army controlled Durham and celebrated the Mass openly but royal forces soon rallied and defeated the rebels, forcing the earls into Scottish exile. Then, far too late to aid the Rising, Pope Pius V issued the bull Regnans in Excelsis which declared Elizabeth a heretic, absolved English Catholics of their obedience to her and declared the throne vacant.

The results were catastrophic for English Catholicism. They inspired assassination attempts on the life of Elizabeth and hardened the Queen’s heart against Catholics; persecutions became the order of the day and many believers and priests were martyred. It would not be until the early 19th century before English Catholics were accorded their full civil rights. On this day in 1572, the Earl of Northumberland, having been sold by his Scottish hosts for £2,000 to Elizabeth, was beheaded for treason.

August 21

Home / Today in History / August 21
by gerryadmin

1965

Barry McGuire’s “Eve Of Destruction” released

No song captures the political vibrations of an era as well as “Eve of Destruction” sung by folk-rock singer Barry McGuire and written by P.F. Sloan, who also wrote hits for The Turtles, Herman’s Hermits and Johnny Rivers. Its burning topicality made it a controversial song for pop radio stations; many banned it. It called forth several reply songs, as was typical of the period: “The Dawn of Correction” offered a much more optimistic view of the 1960s; Sgt Barry Sadler’s “Ballad of the Green Beret” and Johnny Seay’s 5 ½-minute “Day of Decision” were also considered rebuttals.

The eastern world, it is explodin’,
Violence flarin’, bullets loadin’,
You’re old enough to kill but not for votin’,
You don’t believe in war, but what’s that gun you’re totin’,
And even the Jordan river has bodies floatin’,
But you tell me over and over and over again my friend,
Ah, you don’t believe we’re on the eve of destruction.

Don’t you understand, what I’m trying to say?
And can’t you feel the fears I’m feeling today?
If the button is pushed, there’s no running away,
There’ll be no one to save with the world in a grave,
Take a look around you, boy, it’s bound to scare you, boy,
And you tell me over and over and over again my friend,
Ah, you don’t believe we’re on the eve of destruction.

Yeah, my blood’s so mad, feels like coagulatin’,
I’m sittin’ here, just contemplatin’,
I can’t twist the truth, it knows no regulation,
Handful of Senators don’t pass legislation,
And marches alone can’t bring integration,
When human respect is disintegratin’,
This whole crazy world is just too frustratin’,
And you tell me over and over and over again my friend,
Ah, you don’t believe we’re on the eve of destruction.

August 20

Home / Today in History / August 20
by gerryadmin

A particularly grim day in history

1672

The murder of Jan de Witt

Jan de Witt was the leading Dutch politician of his age, known for his opposition to the Orange family’s dynasty in his country. After a series of military defeats Jan and his brother Cornelis were set upon by a well-organized mob in The Hague, tortured, murdered, and, then cannibalized. De Witt’s supporters and most historians blame William of Orange for instigating the violence. William later assumed the throne of the Netherlands and England.

1940

The attack on Leon Trotsky

The creator of the Red Army, the instigator of the Red Terror, and brilliant Marxist theoretician, Leon Trotsky was one of the chief architects of the Bolshevik success in the Russian Revolution. He fell out, however, with Joseph Stalin and was exiled from the Soviet Union in 1929. Stalin’s wrath was not pacified by Trotsky’s absence and the dictator continued to seek his rival’s destruction, condemning him in absentia to death in a show trial. A couple of murderous attempts on his life during Trotsky’s exile in Mexico had failed but in August, 1940 Ramón Mercader, a KGB agent, struck him with an ice axe, causing his death the next day.

1968

The end of the Prague Spring

Under Premier Alexander Dubcek, the Czechoslovakian Communist party had attempted a policy of relaxing controls on freedom of expression, producing more consumer goods, and hinting at multi-party democracy. This “socialism with a human face” aroused fears among Party hardliners and their masters in Moscow. Fearing lest Dubcek’s ideas spread, Soviet leader Brezhnev ordered an invasion of Czechoslovakia by Warsaw Pact forces. Under the pretext of foiling a pro-Western coup, 20,000 troops and 2,000 tanks from the USSR, Poland, and East Germany crossed the borders and took control of the country. Dubček was deposed, replaced by a hard-liner, expelled from the Communist Party and given a job as a forestry official. His reforms were undone but his example seems to have inspired Soviet thinkers 20 years later in the period of glasnost.

 

August 19

Home / Today in Church History / August 19
by gerryadmin

1612

The trial of the Salmesbury Witches

The European Witch Craze took the life of about 40,000 women and men in the fifteenth to seventeenth centuries and it has been the subject of much study and debate ever since. Was it caused by the clash between Protestantism and Catholicism? Was it a war on women? Did it emerge more in mountainous regions or on the plains? Was there an economic basis for it? Did the views of witches vary among the social classes? Were witches really the practitioners of an ancient folk religion? The arguments continue.

One thing is certain and that is that the accusations of witchcraft were far more numerous in countries using a form of Roman law which allowed the torture of witnesses. In places such as England and Ireland, under common law, torture was generally forbidden and witch trials were far fewer. This changed somewhat, after the accession to the English throne of King James of Scotland. James was a believer in witchcraft and he even wrote a book on it, Daemonologie, where he stated: “The fearefull aboundinge at this time in this countrie, of these detestable slaves of the Devil, the Witches or enchanters, hath moved me (beloved reader) to dispatch in post, this following treatise of mine … to resolve the doubting … both that such assaults of Satan are most certainly practised, and that the instrument thereof merits most severely to be punished.”

In 1612, Grace Sowerbutts, a Lancashire girl, aged twelve, accused three women of the village of Salmesbury of being witches, and of practising infanticide and cannibalism. Jane Southworth, and Grace’s grandmother and mother, Jennet Bierley, and Ellen Bierley were said to be able to transform themselves into dogs and consort with demons. They had killed a local baby and disinterred the child and eaten it. Neighbours testified that one of the women had the reputation of being a witch. Things looked bad for the three accused until the judge re-examined Grace and her story fell apart. She confessed that she had lied and had been coached in her testimony by a Jesuit priest, hiding illegally in the area. The judge instructed the jury to find the defendants not guilty.

Others accused of witchcraft at the same time were less lucky and some of their trials resulted in them being hanged by the same judge who had released the Salmesbury Three.

August 18

Home / Something Wise / August 18
by gerryadmin

“Poets have been mysteriously silent on the subject of cheese.” So said G.K. Chesterton, in his 1910 Alarms and Discursions. “Not silent enough,” is the verdict of poetry lovers who have encountered the following:

Ode on the Mammoth Cheese Weighing over 7,000 Pounds


We have seen the Queen of cheese,

Laying quietly at your ease,

Gently fanned by evening breeze --

Thy fair form no flies dare seize.


All gaily dressed soon you'll go

To the great Provincial Show,

To be admired by many a beau

In the city of Toronto.


Cows numerous as a swarm of bees --

Or as the leaves upon the trees --

It did require to make thee please,

And stand unrivalled Queen of Cheese.


May you not receive a scar as

We have heard that Mr. Harris

Intends to send you off as far as

The great World's show at Paris.


Of the youth -- beware of these --

For some of them might rudely squeeze

And bite your cheek; then songs or glees

We could not sing o' Queen of Cheese.


We'rt thou suspended from a balloon,

You'd caste a shade, even at noon;

Folks would think it was the moon

About to fall and crush them soon. 

– James McIntyre, 1884

Scotsmen may boast of William McGonnigal as the world’s worst poet but Canadian hearts beat faster at the mention of James McIntyre. To be sure, McIntyre was born in Scotland in 1828 and emigrated to Canada in 1851, but is in the True North where McIntyre’s muse led him to a career of hymning the praises of cheese. His greatest work is printed above but connoisseurs of the pressed curds of milk also point to his “Oxford Cheese Ode”: The ancient poets ne’er did dream/ That Canada was land of cream,/ They ne’er imagined it could flow/ In this cold land of ice and snow,/ Where everything did solid freeze/ They ne’er hoped or looked for cheese.

An annual cheese-themed poetry competition is held in his adopted home of Ingersoll, Ontario.

August 17

Home / Today in Church History / August 17
by gerryadmin

1549

The End of the Prayer Book Rebellion

The English reformation of religion in the sixteenth century was a notoriously top-down affair and many government mandates were met with violent resistance. During the reign of Henry VIII, the dissolution of the monasteries prompted the massive Pilgrimage of Grace when the conservative north of the country rose in defence of the monks. Caught unawares the king was forced to conciliate the rebels with sweet promises until he had assembled enough of a military force to crush them. When Henry was succeeded by his Protestant son Edward VI attempts to enforce the new religious order was also met with outrage and violence.

The Prayer Book Rebellion (or the Western Rebellion) broke out in Cornwall and Devon in 1549. There the peasantry was already upset by the imposition of new taxes, painful price inflation, and the destruction of ancient religious sites by outside commissioners. The announcement that the old Latin rite that the countrymen had worshipped with for centuries was to be replaced by the English-language Prayer Book sparked riots and mass gatherings of armed men. Local landowners took leadership of the rebellion; the city of Exeter was besieged and gentry fled to their manor houses for safety as the two western counties saw thousands of angry Catholics under arms.

Judging by the list of demands drawn up by the rebels, the rising was a combination of religious grievances and social unrest. We can see the former in these three articles:

“First we will have the general counsel and holy decrees of our forefathers observed, kept and performed, and who so ever shall speak against them, we hold them as heretics.” 

“Item we will have the Lawes of our Sovereign Lord Kyng Henry the VIII concerning the Six Articles, to be used as they were in his time.”

“Item we will have the mass in Latin, as was before, and celebrated by the priest without any man or woman communicating with them.”

But the dire economic situation of what historians have called the Iron Century also led the rebels to demand that lords restrict the number of their servants and to reform landholding practices.

Though successful at first, the rebels were ultimately defeated by royal armies containing large numbers of hardened foreign mercenaries. On this day in 1549 the decisive battle of Sampford Courtney was fought. Thousands of the men of Devon and Cornwall died in battle and thousands more were rounded up and killed out of hand by government troops. This would not be the last English rebellion over religious reform.

August 16

Home / Uncategorized / August 16
by gerryadmin

Some pithy observations drawn from the very words of “A Curmudgeon’s Commonplace Book”.

You might as well hope to detect typographical errors in Finnegans Wake, as hope to detect factual or logical errors in Barthes, Foucault, Derrida, Heidegger, etc. It is a perfect waste of time to read authors, and wonder whether they have got things right, when there is no possible way one could tell if they had gone wrong. – David Stove, Cricket versus Republicanism, 1995

A pessimist is an optimist in full possession of the facts. – Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860)

It is, above all, autumn that moves the heart to tears. – Yoshida Kenko, Essays in Idleness, c. 1330

Alonso of Aragon was wont to say in commendation of old age, that age appears to be best in four things: old wood best to burn, old wine to drink, old friends to trust, and old authors to read. – Francis Bacon, Apothegms New and Old, 1625

One melancholy lesson of advancing years is the realization that you can’t make old friends. — Christopher Hitchens, Harper’s, 1999

August 15

Home / Today in Church History / August 15
by gerryadmin

 

636

Christians lose control of the Levant

On this day in 636 began the Battle of Yarmouk in which forces of the first Islamic Caliphate defeated a Byzantine army in what is now Syria. It was a long-held part of Byzantine strategy to avoid major winner-take-all battles but the arrival of a massive Arab army that had already rolled up Persian and Christian holdings in the Middle East forced the Byzantines to concentrate their forces. They were outmaneuvered and driven from the field leading to a rapid Islamic conquest of the eastern shore of the Mediterranean, territory that would not be regained until the First Crusade in 1099.

A plethora of other Church-related activity also took place on this day.

747

Frankish co-ruler Carloman retires to a monastery leaving his brother Pepin the Short in charge. Within a few years Pepin will win papal approval for deposing the Merovingian dynasty and setting up the Carolingian line. In return Pepin will invade Italy to defeat enemies of the pope and grant the Bishop of Rome the lands that become the Papal States.

1070

Lanfanc, a Benedictine monk from Italy, will be named Archbishop of Canterbury. Working with the recently-victorious William the Conqueror he will reform the English church, cutting down on corruption and sexual immorality in the clergy. He will also resist papal pressure and avoid entangling England in the battles between church and state that raged on the Continent.

1248

The cornerstone for the most striking of all Gothic cathedrals will be laid in Cologne. The building would house the relics of the Three Magi and be finished only in 1880.

1309

The Knights of St John seize the island of Rhodes and use it as a base against Islamic states in the eastern Mediterranean. They will stay in their huge fortress until being driven out by Suleiman the Magnificent in 1521.

1483

Pope Sixtus IV consecrates the Sistine Chapel.

Take the gorgeous Virtual Tour. Copy this link into your browser.

http://www.vatican.va/various/cappelle/sistina_vr/index.html

August 14

Home / Uncategorized / August 14
by gerryadmin

1040 Macbeth’s forces slay King Duncan

William Shakespeare was not one for historical accuracy if altering the facts could make for a better plot. His 1606 thriller Macbeth portrayed Duncan’s death as a midnight murder at the hands of the thane of Cawdor and his wife, but, in reality ,the king of Scotland was killed in a punitive raid on Macbeth territory. Serves him right.

1385 Battle of Aljubarotta

This was the fight that secured Portuguese independence from Spanish kingdoms. Aided by French heavy cavalry, King John I of Castile invaded his neighbour in an attempt to incorporate the Portuguese realm into his own. He was met by a combined force of English longbow men and Portuguese infantry protected by ditches and the slope of a hill. The result was a bloody encounter that ended in a massacre of the invaders and the establishment of the Aviz dynasty.

1720 Defeat of the Villasur expedition

In the early 18th-century, penetration of the interior of North America by the French and the Spanish led to clashes as claims to territory overlapped. In 1720 the Spanish authorities in New Mexico sent a small force of cavalry and native Apache and Pueblo warriors into the Great Plains, where French priests and traders had been becoming active. At the confluence of the Loup and Platte Rivers in what is now Nebraska, the Spanish were ambushed by Otoe and Pawnee fighters who resented the intrusion. Very few survivors made it back to Santa Fe and the result of the battle was an end to Spanish interest in that area.