April 29

1252 The death of Peter of Verona

Butler’s Book of Saints gives a very laudatory account of this Dominican:

In 1205 the glorious martyr Peter was born at Verona of heretical parents. He went to a Catholic school, and his Manichean uncle asked what he learnt. “The Creed,” answered Peter; “I believe in God, Creator of heaven and earth.” No persuasion could shake his faith, and at fifteen he received the habit from St. Dominic himself at Bologna. After ordination, he preached to the heretics of Lombardy, and converted multitudes. St. Peter was constantly obliged to dispute with heretics, and although he was able to confound them, still the devil took occasion thence to tempt him once against faith. Instantly he had recourse to prayer before an image of Our Lady, and heard a voice saying to him the words of Jesus Christ in the Gospel, “I have prayed for thee, Peter, that thy faith may not fail; and thou shalt confirm thy brethren in it.” Once when exhorting a vast crowd under the burning sun, the heretics defied him to procure shade. He prayed, and a cloud overshadowed the audience.

In spite of his sanctity, he was foully slandered and even punished for immorality. He submitted humbly, but complained in prayer to Jesus crucified. The crucifix spoke, “And I, Peter, what did I do?” Every day, as he elevated at Mass the precious blood, he prayed, “Grant, Lord, that I may die for Thee, Who for me didst die.” His prayer was answered. The heretics, confounded by him, sought his life. Two of them attacked him as he was returning to Milan, and struck his head with an axe. St. Peter fell, commended himself to God, dipped his finger in his own blood, and wrote on the ground, “I believe in God, Creator of heaven and earth.” They then stabbed him in the side, and he received his crown.

Despite Butler’s assertion, the heretics in question were not, strictly speaking, Manicheans, but rather Catharites (aka Albigensians), members of a dualist sect with deep support in northern Italy and southern France. They appeared to the casual observer to be Christians but rejected the God of the Old Testament, believing that material Creation was evil. Their goal was to escape the world of flesh and be reincarnated — thus they rejected eating meat, marriage, and having sex. They were pacifists at first, but persecution led them first to targeted assassination of priests and then to outright rebellion.

Peter of Verona was an Inquisitor (in fact the Chief Inquisitor for northern Italy) and thus a suitable victim for Catharite assassins. He became known as Peter the Martyr and the name “Pietro Martire” became a popular one for boys in the late Medieval period.

April 28

1955

The birth of Nicky Gumbel

Nicholas Glyn Paul Gumbel was born the son of a prosperous London family; his father, a refugee from Nazi Germany, was a secular Jewish lawyer and his politician mother was not a church-goer. He received the most elite of English educations at Eton and Trinity College, Cambridge (the same pedigree as the former British Prime Minister, David Cameron, and Justin Welby, the Archbishop of Canterbury.) At Trinity, Gumbel was converted from a grumpy atheism to Christianity. He trained as a barrister and practised law but left the legal profession in 1982 to study theology and become an Anglican priest.

After he was posted to the London parish of Holy Trinity, Brompton, he became associated with the Alpha Course, an introductory series of lessons in Christianity. Alpha had been started in 1977 by Reverend Charles Marnham but it became a global phenomenon when Gumbel assumed its leadership in 1990. It claims to have reached 20,000,000 people in 169 countries. Despite this success, Alpha has fierce critics inside Christianity who mistrust its ecumenicism and interest in glossolalia while those outside the church often refer to it as a cult.

Gumbel is the author of  Questions of Life which has sold over 1,000,000 copies. Voted “Christian Book of the Year” in 1994, it has been published in 48 languages. Other books include Why Jesus, Searching Issues, Telling Others, A Life Worth Living, Challenging Lifestyle, Heart of Revival and 30 Days.

April 27

If you have lost your keys, or if you are a domestic worker, particularly an abused one, I advise you to have recourse to the saintly powers of  Zita of Lucca.

At the age of 12, Zica became a servant in the Fatinelli household where she laboured for the rest of her life. Despised at first by her employers and her fellow servants (who found her too industrious) she eventually overcame their opposition by unfailing kindness and dutifulness.

Zita was known for giving her own food (or that of her master) to the poor. One day, when she had neglected her baking in order to care for someone in need, one of her spiteful colleagues ratted on her to the Fatinellis. However, when they came to investigate they found angels in the kitchen, baking the bread for her.

By the time of her death, she had become venerated by the family she served and revered in her town. Her fame spread so quickly and widely that Dante, in his Inferno, referred to Lucca as “Santa Zita”. After 150 miracles had been attributed to Zita’s intercession and recognized by the church, she was canonized in 1696. Her body was exhumed in 1580 and discovered to be incorrupt. Saint Zita’s mummified remains are currently on display in the Basilica di San Frediano in Lucca.

On this, her feast day, Italian families bake a loaf of bread in celebration of her career of service and piety. She is the patron of servants of all sorts, those who have lost their keys, and the city of Lucca. Zita is a model for those who live lives of little outward distinction but of great devotion to their tasks and integrity.

April 26

Home / Today in History / April 26

1944 The abduction of General Kreipe

In May 1941, Germany launched a daring parachute attack on the island of Crete which was garrisoned by Greek, British, and Commonwealth troops. Though the price paid in blood was so high that Germany never again attempted another airborne attack like it, the paratroopers secured airfields into which reinforcements could fly, and, after 11 days of bitter fighting, victory was largely achieved. Guerrilla resistance by native Cretans and Allied troops hiding in the hills continually took its toll on the Wehrmacht, prompting harsh reprisals and atrocities. 

The British Special Operations Executive (S.O.E., responsible for violent behind-the-lines activities) decided that its agents should kidnap the brutal head of the German occupation, the so-called “Butcher of Crete”, Friedrich Wilhelm Müller, but, by the time the plan was to be put into effect, Müller was replaced by the milder General Heinrich Kreipe. With Kreipe now the target, Major Patrick Leigh Fermor (the brilliant travel writer whose works should be read by all of you) and Captain William Stanley Moss, with their team of native resistance fighters, plotted to abduct the general as he drove home. 

On the night of April 26, disguised as German troops, they stopped Kreipe’s car, knocked the driver unconscious, and, holding the general at gunpoint, drove unmolested through 22 German roadblocks. Kreipe had a reputation for grumpiness and impatience with delays, so his kidnappers had an easier time. Eventually they abandoned the car and headed into the mountains, leaving false clues that they hoped would lead the Germans to believe that the team would be quickly evacuated by submarine. They eluded a vast Wehrmacht manhunt while they tried to arrange contact for a pickup that would take them to Egypt. 

Kreipe was a decent sort of chap, not a Nazi, and he had Fermor had many conversations. One morning, the captive German began to greet the dawning sun’s glint on a mountaintop with lines from an ode by the Roman poet, Horace, and, Fermor finished the recitation, as they both knew the Latin by heart. “We had both drunk at the same fountains,” wrote Fermor about the incident.

Though the general was successfully taken by boat to captivity in Egypt, the reprisals by the German army, led again by Müller, were bloody. Here is his order:

Because the town of Anogia is the centre of the English Intelligence on Crete, because the people of Anogia committed the murder of the Sergeant Commander of the Yeni-Gave, as well as of the garrison under his orders, because the people of Anogia carried out the sabotage of Damasta, because in Anogia the guerrillas of the various groups of resistance take refuge and find protection and because it was through Anogia that the kidnappers with General Von Kreipe passed using Anogia as a transit camp, we order its COMPLETE DESTRUCTION and the execution of every male person of Anogia who would happen to be within the village and around it within a distance of one kilometre.

CHANEA 13TH AUGUST 1944, THE GENERAL COMMANDER OF THE GARRISON OF CRETE, H. MULLER.

For this and other war crimes, Müller was executed by the Allies in 1947

April 25

Home / Today in History / April 25

1951

Canadians defeat the Chinese at Kapyong

The Korean War began with a North Korean invasion of the South, a surprise attack which just about succeeded in conquering the whole peninsula but which was eventually driven back by American troops. The American occupying forces were joined by units from other countries in a war authorized by the United Nations. Among them were Canadian soldiers.

The U.N. counterattack pushed the North Koreans deep into their own territory but, in October 1950, hundreds of thousands of Communist Chinese troops crossed the Yalu river and forced U.N. units to retreat. The front gradually stabilized around the original border on the 38th parallel. The Canadian Encyclopedia tells the story of the epic battle at Kapyong:

In mid-April, the Chinese withdrew just past the 38th Parallel as part of a plan to lure UN forces into a position where they would be vulnerable to a major counter attack, which was unleashed on the South Korean army on 22 April 1951. The South Koreans were dislodged by the Chinese offensive, and the following day the British brigade was ordered to protect the South Korean withdrawal through the Kapyong River valley (about 20 kilometers south of the 38th parallel in central Korea).

The second battalion of Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry (2PPCLI), and the 3rd Battalion of the Royal Australian Regiment, were assigned forward hilltop positions, the Canadians on the west side of the valley and the Australians on the east.

The Australians bore the brunt of the initial attack and after heavy combat were forced to withdraw, with 155 casualties, late on 24 April. While the Australians fought, Stone ordered his Canadians, about 700 troops, to dig in on Hill 677 and prepare to repel a large brigade of massing Chinese forces, estimated at nearly 5,000-strong. After attacking the Australians, the Chinese turned their attention to the PPCLI, which managed — through heavy all-night fighting on 24 and 25 April — to stop the Chinese advance.

At one point in the battle, 400 Chinese soldiers descended on a single Canadian company of roughly 100 men, but the attack was repelled with numerous examples of valour: Private Wayne Mitchell, despite being wounded, charged the enemy three times with his Bren gun. He earned the Distinguished Conduct medal for his efforts.

The Chinese launched most of their attacks at night, in successive waves, using an intensive and aggressive approach of mortars, grenades and machine gun fire close to the Canadian front. On the night of the 24th, the Canadian battalion headquarters was attacked, and the assault was repelled with heavy fire.

The relentless waves of Chinese soldiers almost overran the position of D Company. With his men securely entrenched below ground, company commander Captain J. G. W. Mills, desperate and overrun, called for an artillery strike on the position of his own 10 Platoon. A battery of New Zealander guns obliged, firing 2,300 rounds of shells in less than an hour, destroying the Chinese forces on that position. The following night, Private Kenneth Barwise recovered the lost Vickers machine gun position in D Company, grabbed the gun, and ran back to his platoon. He had also single-handedly killed six Chinese soldiers during the attack on D Company, earning the Military Medal.

Amid the fighting, Stone refused to allow his men to withdraw — believing that the hill was a critical strategic point on the UN front — thereby stemming the tide of the Chinese offensive. While they defended the hill, the Canadians were cut off, and had to be supplied via air drop, allowing them to continue the fight until the Chinese retreated. As Canadian soldier Gerald Gowing remembered: “We were surrounded on the hills of Kapyong and there was a lot of fire. We were pretty well out of ammunition and out of food too. We did get some air supplies dropped in, but we were actually surrounded . . . that was a scary moment, let me tell you.”

The 2PPCLI were eventually relieved on the front line by a battalion of the 1st US Cavalry Division

The holding action of the Australians and Canadians at Kapyong allowed the UN forces to consolidate their troops for the next stage of operations. The Canadians had fought tenaciously against a Chinese army with a force several times their size. Stone, and other veterans of the Second World War, utilized their experiences in fighting on the rugged terrain of Sicily and Italy and applied it to the hills of Korea to good effect, but at a price. There were 23 Canadian casualties, including 10 soldiers killed, as well as an estimated 2,000 Chinese casualties.

The battle contributed significantly to the defeat of the general Chinese offensive against the South that spring, protecting the capital city of Seoul from re-occupation, and plugging the hole in the UN line to give the South Koreans time to retreat. The wider Communist offensive of 1951 was halted about a week after the battle, and from that point on the Korean conflict became largely a war of patrols and enemy harassment, rather than large-scale attacks, as the front lines stabilized and the two sides embarked on peace talks.

Both the Canadians and the Australians received the United States Presidential Unit Citation from the American government, the first time a Canadian unit had been so honoured.

April 24

Home / Today in History / April 24

1184 BC

The end of the Trojan War

Now as for the carrying off of women, it is the deed, they say, of a rogue: but to make a stir about such as are carried off, argues a man a fool. Men of sense care nothing for such women, since it is plain that without their own consent they would never be forced away. The Asiatics, when the Greeks ran off with their women, never troubled themselves about the matter; but the Greeks, for the sake of a single Lacedaemonian girl, collected a vast armament, invaded Asia, and destroyed the kingdom of Priam.

So said Herodotus, the inventor of history. In trying to explain the centuries-old antipathy between Europe and Asia, he had recourse to the story of the Trojan war, a 10-year siege prompted by the kidnapping of Helen of Sparta by a prince of Troy. This story was told most famously by Homer in the Iliad and the Odyssey but also by dozens of oral bards, Greek playwrights, and Roman poets.

For centuries, scholars debated the truth of these legends and most were sceptical; it was not until the excavations undertaken in 1873 by Heinrich Schliemann on a mound near Hisarlik that academics began to take the existence of a Bronze Age Troy seriously. Schliemann’s discovery of golden treasures there and at Mycenae in Greece convinced many that the events described by Homer had actually taken place (even though the archaeological layer Schliemann declared to be Homeric was later shown to be too early in time.)

If the Trojan War legends do describe a real conflict between a prosperous city guarding the entrance to the Black Sea and a confederation of Greek raiders, when did it take place? My money is on the calculation by the Alexandrian Greek genius, Eratosthenes, who placed the end of the war at 1184 BC, a date that corresponds to Level VII on the chart below.

April 23

St George’s Day

It is impossible to better this encomium to St George, found in Butler’s Lives of the Saints:

GEORGE is honoured in the Catholic church as one of the most illustrious martyrs of Christ. The Greeks have long distinguished him by the title of The Great Martyr, and keep his festival a holiday of obligation. There stood formerly in Constantinople five or six churches dedicated in his honour; the oldest of which was always said to have been built by Constantine the Great; who seems also to have been the founder of the church of St. George, which stood over his tomb in Palestine. Both these churches were certainly built under the first Christian emperors. In the middle of the sixth age the Emperor Justinian erected a new church, in honour of this saint, at Bizanes, in Lesser Armenia: the Emperor Mauritius founded one in Constantinople. It is related in the life of St. Theodorus of Siceon, that he served God a long while in a chapel which bore the name of St. George, had a particular devotion to this glorious martyr, and strongly recommended the same to Mauritius, when he foretold him the empire. One of the churches of St. George in Constantinople, called Manganes, with a monastery adjoining, gave to the Hellespont the name of the Arm of St. George. To this day is St. George honoured as principal patron or tutelar saint by several eastern nations, particularly the Georgians. The Byzantine historians relate several battles to have been gained, and other miracles wrought through his intercession. From frequent pilgrimages to his church and tomb in Palestine, performed by those who visited the Holy Land, his veneration was much propagated over the West. St. Gregory of Tours mentions him as highly celebrated in France in the sixth century. St. Gregory the Great ordered an old church of St. George, which was fallen to decay, to be repaired. His office is found in the sacramentary of that pope, and many others. St. Clotildis, wife of Clovis, the first Christian king of France, erected altars under his name; and the church of Chelles, built by her, was originally dedicated in his honour. The ancient life of Droctovæus mentions, that certain relics of St. George were placed in the church of St. Vincent, now called St. Germaris, in Paris, when it was first consecrated. Fortunatus of Poitiers wrote an epigram on a church of St. George, in Mentz. The intercession of this saint was implored especially in battles, and by warriors, as appears by several instances in the Byzantine history, and he is said to have been himself a great soldier. He is at this day the tutelar saint of the republic of Genoa; and was chosen by our ancestors in the same quality under our first Norman kings. The great national council, held at Oxford in 1222, commanded his feast to be kept a holiday of the lesser rank throughout all England. Under his name and ensign was instituted by our victorious King Edward III in 1330, the most noble Order of knighthood in Europe, consisting of twenty-five knights, besides the sovereign. Its establishment is dated fifty years before the knights of St. Michael were instituted in France, by Lewis XI, eighty years before the Order of the Golden Fleece, established by Philip the Good, duke of Burgundy; and one hundred and ninety before the Order of St. Andrew was set up in Scotland by James V. The Emperor Frederick IV. instituted, in 1470, an Order of knights in honour of St. George; and an honourable military Order in Venice bears his name.

The extraordinary devotion of all Christendom to this saint, is an authentic proof how glorious his triumph and name have always been in the church. All his acts relate, that he suffered under Dioclesian, at Nicomedia. Joseph Assemani shows, from the unanimous consent of all churches, that he was crowned on the 23rd of April. According to the account given us by Metaphrastes, he was born in Cappadocia, of noble Christian parents. After the death of his father, he went with his mother into Palestine, she being a native of that country, and having there a considerable estate, which fell to her son George. He was strong and robust in body, and having embraced the profession of a soldier, was made a tribune, or colonel in the army. By his courage and conduct, he was soon preferred to higher stations by the Emperor Dioclesian. When that prince waged war against the Christian religion, St. George laid aside the marks of his dignity, threw up his commission and posts, and complained to the emperor himself of his severities and bloody edicts. He was immediately cast into prison, and tried, first by promises, and afterwards put to the question, and tortured with great cruelty; but nothing could shake his constancy. The next day he was led through the city and beheaded. Some think him to have been the same illustrious young man who tore down the edicts when they were first fixed up at Nicomedia, as Lactantius relates in his book, On the Death of the Persecutors, and Eusebius in his history. The reason why St. George has been regarded as the patron of military men, is partly upon the score of his profession, and partly upon the credit of a relation of his appearing to the Christian army in the holy war, before the battle of Antioch. The success of this battle proving fortunate to the Christians, under Godfrey of Bouillon, made the name of St. George more famous in Europe, and disposed the military men to implore more particularly his intercession. This devotion was confirmed, as it is said, by an apparition of St. George to our king, Richard I, in his expedition against the Saracens: which vision, being declared to the troops, was to them a great encouragement, and they soon after defeated the enemy. St. George is usually painted on horseback, and tilting at a dragon, under his feet; but this representation is no more than an emblematical figure, purporting, that, by his faith and Christian fortitude, he conquered the devil, called the dragon in the Apocalypse.

Though many dishonour the profession of arms by a licentiousness of manners, yet, to show us that perfect sanctity is attainable in all states, we find the names of more soldiers recorded in the martyrologies than almost of any other profession. Every true disciple of Christ must be a martyr in the disposition of his heart, as he must be ready to lose all, and to suffer anything, rather than to offend God. Every good Christian is also a martyr, by the patience and courage with which he bears all trials. There is no virtue more necessary, nor of which the exercise ought to be more frequent, than patience. In this mortal life we have continually something to suffer from disappointments in affairs, from the severity of the seasons, from the injustice, caprice, peevishness, jealousy, or antipathy of others; and from ourselves, in pains either of mind or body. Even our own weaknesses and faults are to us subjects of patience. And as we have continually many burdens, both of our own and others, to bear, it is only in patience that we are to possess our souls. This affords us comfort in all our sufferings, and maintains our souls in unshaken tranquillity and peace. This is true greatness of mind, and the virtue of heroic souls. But, alas! every accident ruffles and disturbs us: and we are insupportable even to ourselves. What comfort should we find, what peace should we enjoy, what treasures of virtue should we heap up, what an harvest of merits should we reap, if we had learned the true spirit of Christian patience! This is the martyrdom, and the crown of every faithful disciple of Christ.

April 22

1538

John Calvin is expelled from Geneva

John Calvin (1509-64) was a French preacher and theologian inextricably linked with the Reformation in Geneva, a town which he would fashion into the Protestant version of the Vatican, a headquarters for an international religious movement.

Calvin was born into a Catholic family in northern France and moved to Paris as a young man to study philosophy; later he enrolled in the University of Orleans as a law student. He gained a reputation as a brilliant humanist, publishing a translation of Seneca’s De Clementia or On Mercy. Back in Paris he fell into the controversy over religious reform which was dividing the royal court and the intellectual class. He sided with the reformers and had to flee France in 1534 during a crack-down on dissidents after the brazen “Affair of the Placards” in which Protestant tracts appeared surreptitiously in the king’s quarters. Calvin ended up in Basel which was undergoing a reformation and there he wrote his first edition of The Institutes of Christian Religion in 1536. Continuing his enforced wanderings he ended up in Geneva where he was asked by William Farel (1489-1565), the leading reformer, to stay and assist him in converting the townsfolk. The two of them drew up a new confession of faith and a revised church structure but they ran into heavy opposition from some leading families. Finally, in April 1538 after Calvin and Farel had disobeyed the town council and refused to administer communion with unleavened bread (part of a plan to harmonize Protestant practices in the Swiss cities) riots broke out, opposition coalesced and the two reformers were given three days to get out of Geneva.

Farel would find employment in Neuchâtel and Calvin in Strasbourg, but in 1541 Geneva asked for him to return and complete his reforms. He replied, “Rather would I submit to death a hundred times than to that cross on which I had to perish daily a thousand times over” but in the end he agreed to come back on his terms. During his second term Geneva would become the leading city of the Protestant Reformation.

April 21

Home / Today in History / April 21

1970

The Hutt River Principality is declared

The Principality of Hutt River, situated 595 km north of Perth, Western Australia and about 75 square km in area, declared its independence from Australia under the rule of His Royal Highness Prince Leonard I of Hutt, born Leonard Casley. His wife was styled “Her Royal Highness Princess Shirley of Hutt, Dame of the Rose of Sharon.” His son, Prince Graeme, succeeded to the throne upon his father’s abdication at the age of 91.

The declaration of sovereignty arose over a dispute about a wheat production quota. When Casley got nowhere with his protests, he renounced Australian claims on his land and set up his own sovereign state which has issued its own stamps and coins for some decades. The principality has been engaged in legal wrangles with the Australian government which refuses to recognize its independence and Australian courts have declared that “the arguments advanced by the applicants [were] fatuous, frivolous and vexatious.” Nonetheless the Crasley dynasty maintains its claims and attracts thousands of tourists a year to its desolate domain.

April 20

1653

Oliver Cromwell dissolves the Rump Parliament

“You have sat too long for any good you have been doing lately … Depart, I say; and let us have done with you. In the name of God, go!” With these words General Oliver Cromwell ordered the English Parliament, called “the Rump” because it was all that remained after the last legitimate Parliament elected in 1640 had been purged of dissident members, disbanded at the point of the sword.

The Rump had been instrumental in reshaping the religious landscape of Britain. They had abolished the requirement that all worship must be in an Anglican church, allowing some other forms of Protestantism to flourish while cracking down on extremists such as Quakers and Ranters. They mandated a government license to preach and tried to enforce sexual morality with stiff penalties against adultery or fornication.

On April 20, 1653, when it seemed as if the Rump would not honour its pledge to dissolve itself Cromwell dismissed them with a troop of soldiers and hard words:

It is high time for me to put an end to your sitting in this place, which you have dishonored by your contempt of all virtue, and defiled by your practice of every vice. Ye are a factious crew, and enemies to all good government. Ye are a pack of mercenary wretches, and would like Esau sell your country for a mess of pottage, and like Judas betray your God for a few pieces of money. Is there a single virtue now remaining amongst you? Is there one vice you do not possess? Ye have no more religion than my horse. Gold is your God. Which of you have not bartered your conscience for bribes? Is there a man amongst you that has the least care for the good of the Commonwealth?

Ye sordid prostitutes have you not defiled this sacred place, and turned the Lord’s temple into a den of thieves, by your immoral principles and wicked practices? Ye are grown intolerably odious to the whole nation. You were deputed here by the people to get grievances redressed, are yourselves become the greatest grievance. Your country therefore calls upon me to cleanse this Augean stable, by putting a final period to your iniquitous proceedings in this House; and which by God’s help, and the strength he has given me, I am now come to do.

I command ye therefore, upon the peril of your lives, to depart immediately out of this place. Go, get you out! Make haste! Ye venal slaves be gone! So! Take away that shining bauble there [the Speaker’s Mace], and lock up the doors. In the name of God, go!

The body that Cromwell appointed to replace the Rump was supposed to be filled only by godly Puritans; it came to be known as “Barebone’s Parliament” after one its more famous members, Praise-God-and-Flee-Fornication Barebones (brother of the equally wonderfully-named Fear-God Barebones or, according to another source, Rise-Up-and-Tell-the-Glory-of-Emmanuel Barebones or, according to yet another source, Christ-Came-Into-The-World-To-Save-Thee Barebone and If-Christ-Had-Not-Died, Thou-Hadst-Been-Damned Barebone. The latter was known locally simply as Damned Barebone).