1930 46ºC, Greensburg, Kentucky (state record)
1920 Revolutionary and bandit Pancho Villa surrenders to the Mexican government.
1915 US forces invade Haiti, stay until 1924
1915 10'000 blacks march on 5th Ave (NYC) protesting lynchings
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1914 Tuesday : in the war crisis following the June 28 assassination
of Archduke Francis Ferdinand: |
1898 Start of Sherlock Holmes Adventure of the Retired Colourman
1898 Spain, through the French embassy in Washington, D.C., requests peace terms in its war with the United States.
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1868 Fourteenth
Amendment adopted Following its ratification by the necessary three-quarters of the US states, the Fourteenth Amendment, ensuring African Americans citizenship and all its privileges, is officially adopted into the US Constitution. In 1867, in the aftermath of the Civil War, the Reconstruction Acts divided the South into five military districts where new state governments, based on universal male suffrage, were to be established. Thus began the period known as Radical Reconstruction, which sees the Fourteenth Amendment, passed by Congress in 1866, finally ratified in July of 1868. The amendment, in its Section 1, resolves pre-Civil War controversies about African-American citizenship, reaffirms the privileges and rights of all citizens, and grants all citizens the "equal protection of the laws." Amendment XIV Section 1 — All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.In the decades after its adoption, the equal protection clause was cited by a number of African Americans who argued that racial segregation denied them the equal protection of law. However, on 18 May 1896, the US Supreme Court ruled in Plessy v. Ferguson [163 US 537] that states could constitutionally provide segregated facilities for African Americans, so long as they were equal to those afforded white persons. The Plessy v. Ferguson decision, which announced the federal toleration of the so-called "separate but equal" doctrine, was eventually used to justify segregating all public facilities, including railroad cars, restaurants, hospitals, and schools. However, "colored" facilities were never equal to their white counterparts, and African Americans suffered through decades of debilitating discrimination in the South and elsewhere. On 17 May 1954, Plessy vs. Ferguson was finally struck down by the Supreme Court in its historic ruling in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka. [347 US 483] as argued by Thurgood Marshall. equal protection. — in US law, the constitutional guarantee that no person or group will be denied that protection under the law which is enjoyed by similar persons or groups—i.e., persons similarly situated must be similarly treated. Equal protection is extended when the rules of law are applied equally in all like cases and when persons are exempt from obligations greater than those imposed upon others in like circumstances. In the United States, the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution, one of three post-Civil War amendments, prohibits states from denying any person “the equal protection of the laws.” Traditionally, until the 1960s, the Supreme Court held that the postwar amendments had but one purpose: to guarantee “the freedom of the slave race . . . and the protection of the newly-made freeman and citizen from the oppressions of those who had formerly exercised unlimited domination over him.” Thus, the equal-protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment was applied minimally, except in cases of racial discrimination. As late as 1927, in Buck v. Bell, Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes referred to equal protection as “the usual last resort of constitutional arguments.” |
| 1864 Atlanta Campaign —
Battle of Ezra Church, Georgia, begins Confederates under General John Bell Hood make a third attempt to break General William T. Sherman's hold on Atlanta. Like the first two, this attack failed, destroying the Confederate Army of Tennessee's offensive capabilities. Hood had replaced Joseph Johnston as commander of the Army of Tennessee on 18 July 1864, because Johnston had failed to keep Sherman away from Atlanta. Upon assuming command of the army, Hood quickly scrapped Johnston's defensive strategy and attacked Sherman, first on 20 July at Peachtree Creek, and then on 22 July at the Battle of Atlanta. Both failed, but that did not deter Hood from making another attempt to break the Union hold on the important Southern city. When Sherman sent General Oliver O. Howard southeast of Atlanta to cut the Macon and Western Railroad, one of the remaining supply lines, Hood sent Stephen D. Lee's corps to block the move. Lee attacked at Ezra Church, but the battle did not go as planned for the Confederates. Instead of striking the Union flank, Lee's corps hit the Union center, where the Yankee troops were positioned behind barricades made from logs and pews taken from the church. Throughout the afternoon, Lee made several attacks on the Union lines. Each was turned back, and Lee was not able to get around the Union flank. The battle was costly for an army that was already outnumbered. Lee lost 3000 men to the Union's 630. More important, Hood lost his offensive capability. For the next month, he could do no more than sit in trenches around Atlanta and wait for Sherman to deal him the knockout blow. |
1863 Siege of Fort Wagner, Charleston Harbor, South Carolina continues
1862 Confederate forces defeated at More's Hill, Mo
| 1858 Transatlantic cable joined
^top^ Four British and American ships splice a telegraph cable together, then set sail for home the following day. The cable was laid out until the ships reached Ireland and Newfoundland. The cable, which stretched more than 3140 km and was laid as deep as 3 km under the ocean in some places, established transatlantic telegraph communication, and an initial message was exchanged by President James Buchanan and Queen Victoria in August. However, the cable's weak signal was insufficient for regular communication and service ended on September 1. |
1849 Memmon is first clipper to reach SF, 120 days out of NY
| 1841 Senate tries to revive
Bank of US under another name ^top^ Forces from the national bank movement receive a glimmer of hope as the Senate narrowly passes the Fiscal Bank Bill. An initiative of the embattled Whig party, this bill called for the creation of the Fiscal Bank of the United States, a federal financial institution to be located in the District of Columbia. The bank's starchy name barely disguised the ideological intent of its inventors: the Whigs sought nothing less than the revival of the Second Bank of the United States, the ill-fated institution that Andrew Jackson had putatively killed in the name of states' rights earlier in the 1830s. For a brief spell during the summer of 1841, it looked as though the Whigs would have their day; however, despite the Fiscal Bank Bill passing through the House in early August, the legislation — and its Whig advocates — was doomed to failure. On 16 August, President John Tyler, a staunch state supporter, announced that he was vetoing the bill. The legislation bounced back to the Senate, but the Whigs failed to marshal sufficient support to override Tyler's veto. |
1830 Revolution in France replaces Charles X with Louis Philippe
1821 Peru declares independence from Spain (National Day)
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1814 Shelley
elopes away from wife with 17-year-old ^top^ One week before his 22nd birthday, Poet Percy Bysshe Shelley (04 Aug 1792 – 08 Jul 1822) arrives in France the day after he eloped with 17-year-old Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin, despite the fact that he's already married. Shelley, the heir to his wealthy grandfather's estate, was expelled from Oxford in March 1811 when he refused to acknowledge authorship of The Necessity of Atheism. He eloped with his first wife, Harriet Westbrook, the daughter of a tavern owner, in late August 1811. However, just a few years later, Shelley fell in love with the young Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin, daughter of a prominent reformer and early feminist writer. Shelley and Godwin flee to Europe, and would marry on 30 December 1816, after Shelley's wife drowns herself. Shelley's inheritance did not pay all the bills, and the couple spent much of their married life abroad, fleeing Shelley's creditors. While living in Geneva, the Shelleys and their dear friend Lord Byron challenged each other to write a compelling ghost story. Only Mary Shelley finished hers, later publishing the story as Frankenstein (1818). The Shelleys had five children but only one lived to adulthood. After Shelley drowned in a sailing accident on 18 July 1822, when Mary Shelley was only 24, she edited his Posthumous Poems (1824), Poetical Works (1839), and his prose works. She lived on a small stipend from her father-in-law, Lord Shelley, until her surviving son inherited his fortune and title in 1844. She died on 01 February 1851 at the age of 53. Although she was a respected writer for many years, only Frankenstein and her journals are still widely read. Shelley, Percy Bysshe — He was born on 04 Aug 1792, Field Place, near Horsham, Sussex, Eng. died 08 July 1822, at sea off Livorno, Tuscany. English Romantic poet whose passionate search for personal love and social justice was gradually channeled from overt actions into poems that rank with the greatest in the English language. Shelley was the heir to rich estates acquired by his grandfather, Bysshe (pronounced “Bish”) Shelley. Timothy Shelley, the poet's father, was a weak, conventional man who was caught between an overbearing father and a rebellious son. The young Shelley was educated at Syon House Academy (1802–04) and then at Eton (1804–10), where he resisted physical and mental bullying by indulging in imaginative escapism and literary pranks. Between the spring of 1810 and that of 1811, he published two Gothic novels and two volumes of juvenile verse. In the fall of 1810 Shelley entered University College, Oxford, where he enlisted his fellow student Thomas Jefferson Hogg as a disciple. But in March 1811, University College expelled both Shelley and Hogg for refusing to admit Shelley's authorship of The Necessity of Atheism. Hogg submitted to his family, but Shelley refused to apologize to his. Shelley, Mary Wollstonecraft, née Godwin. — She was born 30 Aug 1797, London, Eng. died 01 Feb 1851, London. English Romantic novelist best known as the author of Frankenstein (1818). She was the only daughter of William Godwin and daughter of prominent reformer and early feminist writer Mary Wollstonecraft (27 Apr 1759 – 10 Sep 1797). She met the young poet Percy Bysshe Shelley in the spring of 1814 and eloped with him to France in July of that year. The couple were married in 1816, after Shelley's first wife had committed suicide. Mary Shelley apparently came as near as any woman could to meeting Percy Shelley's requirements for his life's partner: “one who can feel poetry and understand philosophy.” After her husband's death in 1822, she returned to England and devoted herself to publicizing Shelley's writings and to educating their only surviving child, Percy Florence Shelley. She published her late husband's Posthumous Poems (1824), and she also edited his Poetical Works (1839), with long and invaluable notes, and his prose works. Her Journal is a rich source of Shelley biography, and her letters are an indispensable adjunct. |
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| PERCY SHELLEY ONLINE:
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MARY SHELLEY ONLINE:
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| Prometheus Unbound:
a lyrical drama (1819) was the keystone of Shelley's
poetic achievement, a masterpiece that combines supple blank verse
with a variety of complex lyric measures. In Act I, Prometheus, tortured on Jupiter's orders for having given mankind the gift of moral freedom, recalls his earlier curse of Jupiter and forgives him ("I wish no living thing to suffer pain"). By eschewing revenge, Prometheus, who embodies the moral will, can be reunited with his beloved Asia, a spiritual ideal transcending humanity; her love prevents him from becoming another tyrant when Jupiter is overthrown by the mysterious power known as Demogorgon. Act II traces Asia's awakening and journey toward Prometheus, beginning with her descent into the depths of nature to confront and question Demogorgon. Act III depicts the overthrow of Jupiter and the union of Asia and Prometheus, who — leaving Jupiter's throne vacant — retreat to a cave from which they influence the world through ideals embodied in the creative arts. The end of the act describes the renovation of both human society and the natural world. Act IV opens with joyful lyrics by spirits who describe the benevolent transformation of the human consciousness that has occurred. Next, other spirits hymn the beatitude of humanity and nature in this new millennial age; and finally, Demogorgon returns to tell all creatures that, should the fragile state of grace be lost, they can restore their moral freedom through these "spells": To suffer woes which Hope thinks infinite; To forgive wrongs darker than Death or Night; To defy Power which seems Omnipotent; To love, and bear; to hope, till Hope creates From its own wreck the thing it contemplates. . . |
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1615 French explorer Samuel de Champlain discovers Lake Huron on his seventh voyage to the New World.
1588 Spanish Armada sails to overthrow England's Queen Elizabeth I
1586 Sir Thomas Harriot introduces potatoes to Europe
 1540
Henry VIII of England marries Catherine Howard.
^top^ Catherine Howard becomes the fifth wife of King Henry VIII, a fatal mistake on her part (she ought to have seen as an omen that, on this very day, Henry VIII has his faithful adviser, Thomas Cromwell, decapitated). Catherine was one of 10 children of Lord Edmund Howard (died 1539), a poverty-stricken younger son of Thomas Howard, 2nd duke of Norfolk. Henry VIII first became attracted to the young girl in 1540, when he was seeking to end his politically motivated marriage to Anne of Cleves, to whom Catherine was a maid of honor. He had his marriage to Anne annulled on 09 July, and on 28 July Henry and Catherine are privately married. He would publicly acknowledge her as queen on 08 August. Catherine's downfall came when Henry learned of her premarital affairs. He had her tried for them as treason against the state, and beheaded on 13 February 1542. [Click here for 1840 portrait of Henry VIII by Holbein] Henry VIII had been born on 28 June 1491, at Greenwich, near London, and was king of England from 1509. Henry VIII was never satisfied for long with any of his six wives, who were, successively, 1. Catherine of Aragon (married at age 23 in 1509, gave birth on 18 February 1816 to the future queen Mary I, Henry left her in July 1531, and got the Anglican Church started for it to annul his marriage, which it did on 23 May 1533. She died on 07 January 1536 of natural causes), 2. Anne Boleyn (married at age 26 on 25 January 1533, gave birth on 07 September 1533 to the future queen Elizabeth I, was beheaded on 19 May 1536 for adultery, almost certainly falsely alleged, while Henry was guilty of same). 3. Jane Seymour (married at age 27 on 30 May 1536, gave birth on 12 October 1537 to Henry's successor, Edward VI, and died of natural causes on 24 October 1537)), 4. Anne of Cleves, (married at age 24 on 6 January 1940, marriage annulled by Anglican Church on 09 July 1540, she died on 16 July 1557 of natural causes) 5. Catherine Howard, (married on 28 July 1540, proclaimed queen on 08 August 1540, beheaded on 13 February 1542 for treason, namely her premarital affairs) 6. Catherine Parr. (married at age 31 on 12 July 1543, Henry died 28 January 1547, she remarried, and, on 07 September 1548, died shortly after giving birth). |
