In 1938, on this day the 40th President of the United States (1981-1989) and the 34th Governor of California (1975-1980) Edmund G. "Jerry" Brown, Jr. was born in San Francisco. Article from the Reagan wins in 1976 thread.

Birth of President BrownBrown was born in San Fransisco, California attending several prestigious Universities as his father was elected Governor of California in 1958. Upon his graduation, Brown passed the state bar in California and later served on the board of trustees of Los Angeles Community College. He was elected California Secretary of State in 1970. He successfully argued before the California Supreme Court against a variety of corporations accused of making campaign donation violations.

Brown was later elected Governor of California in 1974, where his Fiscal-Conservatism produced a large surplus and was subsequently re-elected in 1978. Following his unexpectedly strong showing in the 1976 Democratic Primaries, Brown was positioned for a more successful campaign, managing to capture the Democratic Nomination in 1980 and defeat incumbent President Ronald Reagan.

As president, Brown implemented sweeping new political and economic initiatives. His economic policies, involved reducing government spending to build a budget surplus while refusing to lower taxes. In his first term he survived an assassination attempt, supported labor unions and began energy and environmental reform. He was reelected handily in 1984, proclaiming a "turning point in American History". His second term was primarily marked by foreign matters, such as the beginning of closer relations with the Soviet Union, the signing of SALT III, as well as the landmark revamping of the American education system.

Brown left office in 1989, continuing to be a visible face of the Democratic Party nationally while advancing the cause of Health-Care reform. He is a widely recognized icon of the modern Democratic Party.

In 783 AUC, on this day radical Judean sicarii (pictured) ambush the Roman legionnaires and drag the good Rabbi Joshua away from Calvary despite his pleas that they should put up their swords in their scabbards.

The Calvary AmbushAlthough their justice had miscarried, the High Priests of the Sanhedrin dared not interfere because the sicarrii would call them traitors and cowards and then slit their throats in front of the crowd.

But instead the real resistance came from the rescue victim himself. He argued that he must do his father's bidding, but the sicarrii assured him that Joseph would never ask him to let himself be crucified. Nevertheless, even though their rash actions might have harmed all humanity, he knew that they performed them for the best of reasons and at great risk to themselves, so eternal blessings await them. That thought would comfort them during the Masada revolt, when they were all killed, along with the other defenders .. after telling the Good Rabbi to leave the country and keep preaching his word, perhaps across the sea.

In 1786, on this day the fourteenth President of the United States, William Rufus DeVane King (pictured) was born in Sampson County, North Carolina.

William R. King
14^th US PresidentAfter graduating from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, he was admitted to the bar in 1806. He was a member of the North Carolina House of Commons and city solicitor of Wilmington, North Carolina, before his election to the Twelfth, Thirteenth and Fourteenth Congresses. He resigned to serve as Secretary of the Legation to William Pinkney at Naples, Italy, and later at St. Petersburg, Russia. He returned to the United States and purchased property in Alabama where he and his relatives were reportedly one of the largest slave-holding families, collectively owning as many as five hundred slaves.

He was a delegate to the convention which organized the Alabama state government, and upon the admission of Alabama as a State he was elected as a Democratic-Republican to the United States Senate, and was reelected as a Jacksonian in 1822, 1828, 1834, and 1841, serving from December 14, 1819, until April 15, 1844, when he resigned. He served as President pro tempore of the United States Senate during the 24th through 27th Congresses. King was Chairman of the Committee on Public Lands and the Committee on Commerce. He was Minister to France from 1844 to 1846.

King was elected Vice President of the United States on the Democratic ticket with Franklin Pierce in 1852. But fate intervened when Pierce and his family were crushed to death when the train car that they had boarded in Boston was derailed and then rolled down an embankment near Andover, Massachusetts. But King was dying of tuberculosis and succumbed to the disease just six weeks later, so that the presidency fell to the President Pro Tempore of the Senate, David Rice Atchison.

In 1950, the invasion of Germany by Soviet armored divisions commenced, marking the beginning of World War 3. Merely five years after the crushing of Hitler and the Nazi's, the climactic confrontation between Communism and Democracy would begin with an unbridled fury.

Operation Solstice #4
By Steven FisherSoviet tanks quickly encircle Berlin, despite fierce resistance from NATO troops, who are overwhelmed by the amount of Soviet forces. The soviets refrain from using their nuclear weapons, since Stalin is gambling that NATO would not use nuclear weapons first. Soviet spearheads also drive into Czechoslovakia, and crush the defenses there. Within hours of the invasion, every member of NATO declares war on the Warsaw Pact.

The basic NATO strategy is quickly agreed upon. Hold the line against the Soviets, keep them from taking all of Germany, and wait for the Americans to arrive. As the Soviets slammed forward, NATO made a stand on the Elbe River, which was bloodily crushed through large Soviet usage of artillery. Slovakia fell, and the Soviets rolled forward. However, NATO's strategy seemed to be working, as the Soviets were having to rely more on the concentration of force to break through as their supply lines stretched.

Three weeks after the Soviet invasion of Germany, the first American divisions arrived in France. With the arrival of the Americans, the face of the war changed drastically, as NATO now had to manpower to have a stand up fight with Russia. Things became increasingly more brutal as the Soviets began using chemical weapons as they neared the Rhine River. They knew that if they could cross it then NATO's back would be broken and they could sweep France.

NATO countered with their own usage of chemical weapons, and the main forces of the Soviets and the Americans clashed in the Rhine River Valley. On one side, the NATO forces under US General Patton. On the other side, the Soviet forces under Field Marshal Zhukov. The clash is one of the largest armored battles in world history, and by the end, over 5,000 tanks have engaged. It is the training of the respective commanders that decides it, and when the smoke clears, Zhukov stands master over the field. But it is a pyrrhic victory for him, as his armored spearheads have been stopped, and much of his armor destroyed. The Russians were forced to halt on the Rhine, giving NATO vital time to regroup their forces.

They would need it, because the war would soon expand in another, new direction.
The whole thread is available at the Operation Solstice.

In 1926, on this day His Excellency Benito Mussolini, Head of Government, Duce of Fascism, and Founder of the Empire was shot dead at close quarters in the Campidoglio Square in Central Rome.

A morbid, delirious impulseThe assassin who finally brought down Il Duce was fifty years old Violet Gibson who was born into a prominent and powerful Anglo-Protestant Family in 1876. Because of her innocuous appearance she was able to approach Mussolini while he sat in a car after leaving an assembly of the International Congress of Surgeons, to whom he had delivered a speech on the wonders of modern medicine. Incredible she was able to shoot at the Italian Fascist Leader three times twice hitting him in the head.

Even more amazingly, earlier in the year she had been spotted at the trial of the Fascists who murdered Socialist Deputy Giacomo Matteotti. The handing down of lenient sentences had caused a scandal across the world and ironically it was this absurb whitewash which had sealed Il Duce's fate.

Gibson had been treated in various mental institutions in England, France and Switzerland for her delusional belief that she had been given a moral duty to kill for a higher good. A 1923 medical report concluded "She might want to try again to kill someone else". And since arriving in Rome in November 1924, she had always carried a small revolver in her luggage.

After a brief hearing concluded that she had acted out of a "a morbid, delirious impulse" she was smuggled out of Italy in May 1927 and spent the rest of her life in an asylum in Northampton where she ranted insanely about a British Government plot to stop Fascism in its tracks.

In 2011, on this day the Mount Vernon Ladies' Association announced the chance discovery of the letters from the First US President George Washington to his wife Martha that she had claimed to have burnt following his death in 1799.

Washington's Missing LettersTo the surprise of many the correspondence confirmed the widely hinted suggestion that he did seriously consider (1) Becoming King instead of President (2) Negotiating with the British to reach a deal short of Independence

However dismissive the modern historian's view that "these things happened" no amount of cynicism could disguise the shock generated by the verifiable confirmation of behind the scenes involvement of both the centuries-old Count of St Germaine and also the Roscrucian Old Professor. Because without their careful shaping of events, Washington would have surely acquiesed to either of these two temptations. And therein lie the reason for Martha's concealment of the letters; not a man of destiny at all, Washington was a military leader whose governance actions were entirely guided by a secret political class. But reassuringly, his wife had protected his status as a necessary role model at the formation of the Republic when the Office of President was in very real danger of mis-definition, not least from George Washington himself.

In 1926, in Rome, the Englishwoman Violet Gibson, daughter of Edward Gibson, first Earl Ashbourne, fired three shots at Italian dictator Benito Mussolini while he sat in a car after leaving an assembly of the International Congress of Surgeons, to whom he had delivered a speech on the wonders of modern medicine.

Death of Il Duce by Eric LippsTwo of the shots struck Mussolini in the face, inflicting what would have been comparatively minor injuries had the third not struck him in the eye, penetrating the ocular cavity to reach his brain.

Mussolini was rushed to the hospital, but doctors were unable to save him. At 3:15 A.M., Rome time, on the morning of April 8, he was pronounced dead.

His assassin, who had been arrested by Rome police at the scene, did not give her reason for attacking the self-styled modern Caesar. She was sentenced to death, but after a diplomatic outcry she was deported to Britain on the condition that she be confined to a mental institution. She died at St. Andrews Hospital in Northampton, England, on May 2, 1956.

Mussolini's assassination destabilized Italian politics. After a round of what contemporary humorists dubbed "musical prime ministers", during which tensions between radicals of the right and left escalated into street warfare, a Communist uprising installed a government of the far left, which swiftly established an authoritarian regime at least as repressive as Mussolini's, justifying its actions by pointing to the real and alleged actions of its rightist opponents as threatening "the integrity of the Italian state". In 1929, the new regime signed a treaty of "socialist fraternity" with the Soviet Union.

The Communist order in Italy, however, would not survive for long. In March 1939, with the tacit approval of the West, Hitler's Wehrmacht invaded the country, swiftly overrunning it and instituting its own reign of terror, which would last until the Allied liberation in 1943. The Western acquiescence in Hitler's occupation of Italy would later be described by journalist and author William Shirer as the "last surrender" to the Nazis; in September 1939, following the invasion of Poland by Germany and the USSR, the West would finally move against Hitler, months too late to save Italians from being ground under the Reich's jackboots.

After World War II, U.S. General Mark Clark would prove instrumental in establishing a new government, as his colleague Douglas MacArthur would do in Japan. Italy's postwar government would be dominated by center-right parties, many with ties to the Catholic Church. Socialists would be relegated to the fringes, and Communists, while not formally banned, would be kept from regaining any political power via a variety of political maneuvers in the name of preserving Italy from absorption into the Soviet bloc. By 1955, the U.S.-supported Center Party had emerged as the leading political faction; it would dominate Italian politics until the mid-1980s, when a series of scandals would finally break its hold on power.

In 1893, CIA Director Allen Welsh Dulles was born on this day in Watertown, New York and grew up in a family where public service was valued and world affairs were a common topic of discussion.

Dulles was appointed by William J. Donovan to become head of operations in New York for the Coordinator of Information (COI), which was set up in Room 3603 of Rockefeller Center, taking over offices staffed by Britain's MI6. The COI was the precursor to the Office of Strategic Services, renamed in 1942.Sunrise for the Waffen-SS ~ re-armed for World War IIIDuring the 1930s Allen Dulles gained much experience in Germany. An early foe of Adolf Hitler, Dulles was transferred from Britain to Berne, Switzerland for the rest of World War II, and notably was heavily involved in the controversial and secret Operation Sunrise a series of secret negotiations conducted in March 1945 in Switzerland between representatives of the Nazi Germany and the U.S. to arrange a local surrender of German forces in northern Italy.

One of the most notable parts of the operation were secret negotiations between Waffen-SS General Karl Wolff and Allen Dulles on March 8, 1945 in Luzern. Wolff offered the following plan: Army Group C gets a possibility to go into Germany, while Allied Forces Commander Harold Alexander advances in Southern Alps direction. Subsequently, on March 15 and March 19, Wolff conducted further secret negotiations on the surrender with American general Lyman Lemnitzer and British general Terence Airey.

Although being an ally of the British and American Forces, the Soviet Union was not informed by them of the negotiations, but received information from Soviet spies and accused western powers of trying to reach a separate peace. Among Soviet intelligence officers, who uncovered the operation, was Kim Philby.

On March 12 the U.S. ambassador in the USSR, W. Averell Harriman, notified Vyacheslav Molotov of the possibility of Wolff's arrival in Lugano to conduct negotiations on the German Forces surrender in Italy. On the same day Molotov replied that the Soviet government would not object to negotiations between American and British officers and Wolff, provided that representatives of Soviet Military Command could also take part in them. However, on March 16 the Soviet side was informed that its representatives would not be allowed to take part in negotiations with Wolff in any case.

On March 22 Molotov, in his letter to the American ambassador, wrote that 'for two weeks, in Bern, behind the back of the Soviet Union, negotiations between representatives of the German Military Command on one side and representatives of American and British Command on the other side are conducted. The Soviet government considers this absolutely inadmissible.' This led to Roosevelt's letter to Stalin on March 25 and Stalin's reply on March 29. The actual surrender in Italy occurred on April 29, 1945.

As Dulles had rightly anticipated, Army Group C alongside irregulars such as the Nazi stay-behind forces (codename Werwolf) made a decisive contribution in the early battles of World War 3.

In 1453, with his capital city besieged by a vast Ottoman Turk force Byzantine Emperor Constantine XI Palaiologos reluctantly declared "Better the Cardinal's hat turban than the Sultan's turban!".

Better the Cardinal's hat than the Sultan's turban!Of course seven weeks later the siege was lifted by Venetian, German, and Genoese troops under the direct command of Pope Nicholas V. It would serve as the crowning moment of his impressive eight-year term as pope and herald a new age of military security in Christendom from outside threats.

But the inside story was simply incredible; even though the Tenth Crusade was the Byzantine's last hope, their plight was in no small part due to the earlier Crusades and caused by schismatic differences between the Orthodox and Catholic Churches. And much as Constantine XI had feared, the triumph meant the end of the Byzantine period and domination over the European Muslims. Eventually though the "Third Rome" would rise again, but not until the emergence of Tsarist Russia, the new vanguard of the Orthodox Church.

In 1937, the United States Government was outraged to discover that Nazi Germany had formed a contractual agreement for the supply of helium, a byproduct of oil from certain geological strata located in the Republic of Texas.

Hindenburg DisasterIn an attempt to defuse the diplomatic dispute escalating between the three Governments, a technical statement was issued to the public by industry sources in Berlin. Hindenburg Airship Designer, Herr Fritz August Breuhaus and the former head of the Zeppelin Company Dr. Hugo Eckener presented reasoned arguments that supply was absolutely necessary to ensure the safe continuation of transatlantic passenger travel. Both Germans politely reminded Americans that helium had been selected for the lifting gas because it was the safest to use in airships as it was not flammable.

However the US Government had designated the gas as a material with "military value" and banned exportation under the Neutrality Act. Accordingly, Washington advised the German Embassy that henceforth airships fueled by helium would be denied use of the hangar and mooring mast at the Lakehurst Naval Air Station in New Jersey (pictured).

For Germany, the cessation of the transatlantic lighter-than-air program was a transportation public relations disaster matched only by the Kriegsmarine sinking the Titanic. No longer would wealthy German Citizens travel in luxury to the East Coast. But it was not to be the last time that the swastika could be seen emblazening aircraft over New York City. Because the dispute was also just one step on the long road to war; within five years, anti-submarine patrol blimps were operated from Lakehurst and the only aircraft crossing the Atlantic were dispatched by the Luftwaffe.

In 1929, Huey Pierce Long, then governor of Louisiana, was impeached in the state's House of Representatives on a variety of charges ranging from corruption to "blasphemy". It was the beginning of a two-month drama which would end with his conviction in the Louisiana Senate by a single vote after the failure of an effort to derail the impeachment by obtaining sworn statements from one-third of the body?s members saying that they would vote to acquit regardless because the charges themselves were unconstitutional.

Kingfish Impeached by Eric LippsLong had run afoul of powerful business interests, in particular Standard Oil, which had been angered by his efforts to raise revenue for his ambitious social and construction programs through a five-cents-per-barrel tax on oil refining. Standard Oil had played a crucial role in building support for Long's impeachment. Ironically, though, this was to work to the ousted governor's advantage.

In October 1929, the stock market collapsed, touching off the cascade of economic failures which would produce the Great Depression. Long, quick to seize the moment, branded his Standard Oil adversaries as among those responsible for the spreading misery. In 1930, he won election to the U.S. Senate, and in 1932 ran for president of the United States, posing such a serious challenge to New York Governor Franklin D. Roosevelt that upon winning the Democratic nomination FDR offered the vice-presidential slot to Long.

Long accepted, despite privately sharing the pungent view of Texan John Nance Garner as to the worth of the vice-presidency. His acceptance, however, came with conditions: he demanded FDR's assurance that he would be allowed to speak and travel freely. Badly needing Long's support in the South, where he was viewed as deeply suspect for his liberal politics and Yankee background, FDR agreed.

Long would prove a capable second - so much so that Roosevelt would retain him through the 1936, 1940 and 1944 elections despite strong pressure from within the party to dump the outspoken and flamboyant Louisianan. As a result, when President Roosevelt died in April 1945, it would be Huey Long who would become the 33rd president of the United States.

In 1941, on this day Adolf Hitler came to the much needed assistance of an old ally, Benito Mussolini - rescuing him from the painful consequences of his misadventure in Greece.

Mussolini's Botched Greek CampaignThe struggling political journalist had catastrophically underestimated the resources he would require for his occupation in Greece. By late 1940, it was absolutely clear that his ambitious plans to generate income with a decisive headline in the Italian press had failed. Not only was the prospect of "the leader" becoming increasingly remote, it was increasingly obvious that Benito would need a trust friend to bail him out - and big time.

And yet, while Mussolini's exploits in Greece created numerous problems for Hitler, Walt Disney's favourite cartoonist went out of his way to reaffirm his commitment to his Italian partner during a meeting with his agent. "From this city of Vienna," Hitler told the agent as the two men parted, "on the day of the Anschluss, I sent Mussolini a cable to assure him that I would never forget his help. I confirm it today, and I am at his side with all my strength". But it was the emotion with which these words were uttered that struck the agent. "He had two big tears in his eyes," he noted in his diary. "What a strange man!"

The grandly named anschluss was of course the union with Eva Braun who met Hitler, 23 years her senior, at Hoffmann's studio of Munich in 1929. He had been introduced to her as "Herr Wolff" (a childhood nickname). She described him to friends as a "gentleman of a certain age with a funny moustache, a light-coloured English overcoat, and carrying a big felt hat". He appreciated her eye colour, which was said to be close to his mother's. Her family was strongly against the relationship and little is known about it during the first two years until Mussolini provided a strong letter of recommendation for the then little known cartoonist.

In 1965, police in Birmingham, Alabama, arrest 45 demonstrators marching on behalf of desegregation and civil rights. The next day, 150 more people are arrested, including the Revs. Ralph Abernathy and Martin Luther King, Jr. King is placed in solitary confinement, and while in custody pens an impassioned letter on behalf of his cause. He is released two weeks later, on April 20.Ministers and Marches by Eric LippsOn May 3, under the aegis of the Southern Christian Leadership Congress, over 1,000 children, ranging from six to 18 years old, are kept out of school by their parents to participate in a mass civil rights demonstration. When they attempt to march downtown from their gathering point at Kelly Ingram Park, police close in and begin arresting them. Soon the city's police vans are packed and arrested children are being stuffed into school buses for transport to holding. The following day, a thousand more children are arrested in a second day of SCLC-organized civil rights protests in Birmingham, Alabama. In breaking up that day's demonstrations, Birmingham public safety commissioner 'Bull' Connor orders the use of high-pressure fire hoses whose streams are powerful enough to break bones and roll protesters down the street. In addition, he mobilizes K-9 units, whose dogs attack and injure a number of demonstrators. The Birmingham jails are crammed to overflowing.

In the aftermath, Connor responds angrily to criticism, blaming the children's parents for 'allowing innocent children to be used in the service of subversion.' He demands that these parents be sued for damages by the city. However, television coverage of the Birmingham demonstrations, including interviews with some of those involved, casts Connor in a bad light. Worse still from the viewpoint of the city council and the local business community, it casts Birmingham itself in a bad light. Fearing that the city's economy will be harmed by the damage to its reputation, the business community, with the reluctant assent of the city council, agrees to integrate lunch counters and hire more blacks. It is a welcome victory for the civil rights movement after a string of failures.

In Washington, President Johnson responds to the events in Birmingham by deciding to support a federal civil rights bill. His choice is driven by more than altruism: international media coverage of Birmingham has already embarrassed the United States. The Soviet news agency TASS has played up images of children being menaced by snarling dogs, knocked over by high-pressure fire hose bursts, and herded into police vans at gunpoint, and reports in the Western European media aren't much better. The only U.S. ally to be openly sympathetic to the Birmingham police is South Africa. Johnson fears that if the federal government does not distance itself from the racism on display in these reports, the reputation - and more importantly, the political influence - of the United States will be undermined, particularly in the Third World.

The reaction in some quarters is predictably hostile. On May 9, in a follow-up to his 'Ministers and Marches' sermon of March 21 condemning the involvement of clergymen in the civil rights movement, Rev. Jerry Falwell of Lynchburg, Virginia cites the violent Birmingham confrontation as evidence of 'what happens when ministers of the Gospel allow themselves to serve the purposes of politics.' The Lynchburg pastor declares, 'No man can serve two masters. Anyone called to the service of the Lord must forgo service to the causes of this world, however virtuous those causes may appear. If he will not, he risks substituting the fallen spirit of man for the Holy Spirit in his heart.'

In 1199, King Richard I of England dies from an infected arrow-wound.

King Geoffrey I
by Robbie TaylorHis heart was buried at Rouen in Normandy, the entrails in Châlus (where he died) and the rest of his body was buried at the feet of his father at Fontevraud Abbey in Anjou. The infamous mercenary captain Mercadier had the crossbowman flayed alive and hanged.

Through the subtle maneuvering that he had been known for, his brother Geoffrey claims the throne, overthrowing John, who had been ruling in Richard's place as he crusaded. King Geoffrey I became an even more powerful king than his father, Henry II, conquering the whole of France and adding it to England's empire.

In 1614, the first recorded interracial in the New World between the planter John Rolfe and the "Mother of the Confederation" Pocahontas took place in Jamestown, Virginia. Initially, Rolfe saw marriage to a daughter of the paramount chief of the then already relatively powerful Native Powhatan Confederation as a good idea to secure his expanding tobacco plantations. What agenda Pocahontas and her father, known as Chief Powhatan may have pursued originally is unclear, but the baptised and newly-wed Native Princess took her husband to a visit of the English mother country, accompanied by trusted Powhatan advisors. She met with King James I in England who almost had Rolfe executed for high treason for forming an alliance without royal consent and excluded him from the meetings on grounds of his lower social status. Pocahontas fell ill when the couple was about to return to Virginia, but finally recovered and returned to the New World in the spring of 1618.
This post was written by Dirk Puehl the highly recommended author of #onthisday #history Google+ posts.

Mother of the ConfederationPocahontas went to the territory of the Powhatan soon after and was rarely seen in the colony for quite a while, probably dealing together with her father with the uprising of Tomocomo, a shaman who accompanied the Rolfes to England and was quite obviously set against teaming up with the English settlers with a vengeance. While the Powhatan territory became more and more a holding centre for refugees from the colony - two thirds of its inhabitants were actually there against their will, coloured slaves bought from a Dutch man-of-war as well as the deported from England who all fled west to Werowocomoco, the Powhatan capital on the York River - traditional elements within the tribal confederation pursued a policy of isolation against the foreigners. After the death of Pocahontas' father in 1618, his brother Opechancanough tried to turn the tide - the princess was acclaimed "High Chief" of all Tsenacommacah or tribes while her uncle collected the dissatisfied elements and began a guerilla war. Against the new "Mother of the Confederation" as well as the English invaders. Though Governor Thomas Dale repulsed the haphazard invasion of Opechancanough along the James River, he called to the mother country for reinforcements and Pocahontas' Powhatan Confederation had a full fledged war at her hands in the early 1620s.

Nonetheless, the English colonial troops were not strong enough to fundamentally harm the Powhatan Confederation but managed to dislocate the Tsenacommacah settlements east of the headland of the headwaters of the James River, securing the colony and allowing a permanent settlement of the Confederation in the Appalachian region between the new Pennsylvania and the territory of the Shawnee and Cherokee in what was to become Kentucky. After Pocahontas death in 1646 she was succeeded by her son Thomas Rolfe. His descendants dominated the Powhatan Confederation for the next 150 years until Powhatan joined the rebellion as 14th colony in 1776.

In 1242, Novgorod was under heavy pressure from both the East and the West. In the east the Golden Horde loomed, while Novgorod was repeatedly invaded from the west during the Northern Crusades. And when the Teutonic Order invaded once again Alexander, elected Prince of Novgorod, marched against them with a substantial army. Meeting the Teutonic forces, led by Hermann the Prince-Bishop of Dorpat, near the bank of Lake Peipus. Hoping to draw the knights into a disadvantageous position Alexander withdrew across the narrow strait connecting Lake Peipus with neighbouring Lake Pskovskoe.

Alexander Nevsky defeated at the Battle of Lake PeipusLake Peipus is unusually shallow for it's size and is frozen throughout winter, thawing out only at the end of April. The lake thus formed a solid surface for the combatants that 5th of April, but the heavily armoured mounted Teutonic Knights were at a disadvantage when having to charge across the ice. Although the knights drew up in wedge formation Hermann called of the assault when he saw the strength of the Russian position, deciding instead to go around it to find a better approach.

Seeing the Teutonic forces move towards the east bank of the lake Alexander sent out his own cavalry in an attempt to provoke Hermann into an attack. The lighter Russian cavalry was swift enough, even on the ice, to freely harass the Estonian infantry that made up the bulk of Hermann's force. But rather than being goaded into a frontal assault on the Russian position Hermann lined up his infantry in a defensive position, while sending most of his knights to the shore to move around the enemy position.

What was intended by Hermann to be a temporary position, to hold of the harassing cavalry in anticipation of an assault on Alexander's position, would become the focal point of the battle. Alexander seeing the opportunity to attack the outnumbered Teutonic forces, and worried about the knights working his flank moved his troops on the ice as well. Leaving behind only a token force to delay the knights moving against them. The battle soon developed into a furious melee as the remaining knights prevented the Russian cavalry from outflanking the Teutonic troops.

Alexander's ploy failed however when the Teutonic Knights returned, having heard the sounds of battle carried on the wind (a 'Zeichen Gottes' according to the knights own chronicler). The knights unexpectedly fell on the left flank of the army of Novgorod and panic swept across the battleline, quickly turning into a full rout. Only Alexander and the 'druzhina' (the "fellowship" or retinue, numbering a thousand of the best warriors) held and tried to fight their way back to their original position.

Badly outnumbered they never made it off the ice, Alexander fell among many of his men and the remainder surrendered after being completely encircled. The Teutons then marched South to take Pskov, which they had lost to Alexander the previous year. After receiving further reinforcement from the Livonian Order Hermann marched on Novgorod itself in the summer. It seemed that history would repeat itself as on the approach to Novgorod a Russian army marched to meet the Teutonic forces and oppose them in battle. But this Novgorod had not had the time to recover from it's losses, the Battle of Lake Peipus had not only cost the Republic most of it's seasoned warriors but also it's most capable military leader. The army of Novgorod was swept aside by the invading knights.

But even before Hermann reached the city walls of Novgorod he was met by envoys of the Council of Nobles, and they made a fantastic offer. The republic of Novgorod would submit to the Teutonic Order on the condition that the Republic would continue to exist and maintain it's current structure. It was a offer that Hermann could hardly refuse, but being a devout Catholic he could not allow Novgorod to remain Orthodox. He sent the envoy back with the message that he would only accept if Novgorod would only elect Catholic Princes, and marched on to lay siege to Novgorod.

Upon reaching the city Hermann found the gates open and messengers proclaiming himself the newly elected Prince of Novgorod. It was a devious political move as it effectively ended the war, but left the Teutons with an Orthodox country in their possession. It would only be the start of of political maneuvering that would see the Archbishop of Novgorod pledged allegiance to the Pope, but maintaining orthodox customs and traditions.

The Teutonic Order thus acted as the sword and shield of Orthodox Novgorod against it's neighbours and the mongol horde. It was an uneasy alliance held together by Novgorod's profitable position as gateway to the Baltic Sea and a slow conversion to Catholicism. But it ensured Novgorod's continued survival into the late Middle Ages and it provided the Teutonic Order with the means to maintain the large armies that were it's raison d'etre.

In 1081, on this day Alexios Komnenos was executed. Still considered by many the eastern Roman Empire, Byzantium fell into renewed chaos in the second millennium after centuries of rule reestablished by military strength of Justinian, Maurice, and Heraclitus. Justinian had pushed the empire to its zenith in the sixth century, and other great emperors worked to hold onto its expansive territory. However, the cost in manpower and resources gradually weakened the empire as Arab strength grew. The Macedonian dynasty of Basil the first restored much of the declining Byzantine strength, but the death of Empress Theodora, childless at 76, left the empire without clear leadership in 1056. Her successor Michael VI abdicated to become a monk, and his successor Isaac I abdicated after nearly being struck by lightning, leaving rule to the wealthy Doukas family. They bloated the bureaucracy with highly paid but ineffectual leadership, undercutting the soldiers, who began to rebel on the frontiers.

April 5, 1081 - Alexios Komnenos ExecutedIn 1074, rebellion broke out in Asia Minor, which was put down by Alexios Komnenos. The Komnenoi were a successful military family, and Alexios fought bravely in wars against the Seljuk Turks and in putting down rebellions in the Balkans. During the political turmoil, generals Nikephoros Bryennios and Nikephoros Botaneiates revolted simultaneously, and Botaneiates successfully overthrew Michael VII Doukas in 1078. He effectively politicked for religious and public support and offered Bryennios the position as junior co-emperor. Bryennios refused and was subsequently defeated by Alexios, blinded, and forcibly retired.

As Nikephoros III Botaneiates, he attempted to establish a new court, but his efforts only worsened the confusion. The established bureaucracy became alienated and even more ineffective while Botaneiates' co-emperor John Doukas and the old court began plots to overthrow Botaneiates. They concentrated their efforts on Alexios, who had continued to serve as a heroic general in the West and prepared to battle against invading Normans who fought to return the rule of the deposed Michael VII. Empress Maria of Alania, former wife of Michael VII and then wife of Botaneiates, adopted Alexios as her son and sent him to raise an army along with his natural and adoptive brothers. His mother, Anna Dalassena, escaped the suspicious palace guard and sought sanctuary at Hagia Sofia. The guards attempted to bring her home, but she exclaimed falsehoods of a plan to blind Alexios and his brother, whom she said had fled the city so that they might continue to serve the emperor. Although they tried to quiet her, she swore that she would only leave the church if Botaneiates gave his cross to her along with the vow that he would do no harm to her family.

Botaneiates became suspicious of her theatrical appeal and refused to give such a vow. He sent agents to find Alexios and his brother, who were indeed raising an army. They were brought back to Constantinople on April 1, imprisoned, and executed. Anna Dalassena hid in Hagia Sofia, which Botaneiates surrounded in a "siege" that prevented food other than sacrament to enter. Embarrassed, she was forced to leave the church and resigned to the convent of Petrion. Botaneiates set about rooting out the rest of the conspirators, which crippled the government in a crucial time.

The Normans under Duke Robert Guiscard continued their invasion of Byzantine lands after securing Sicily and Malta from the Muslim forces to the south. Using the political instability as a pretense, his forces conquered southern Italy and began an invasion of the Balkans with papal blessing. His army overwhelmed Botaneiates' defenses at Dyrrachium and moved toward Constantinople. Botaneiates attempted to defeat the army in the field, but his armies were repeatedly crushed, and the loot won by the Normans kept dissension at a minimum. Finally, in 1085, Robert sacked Constantinople and ended the Byzantine Empire.

Robert died after a few years' rule in Constantinople, and the Norman kingdom there collapsed under Seljuk attack. The ruling Seljuk emperor, Alp Arslan, had established a frontier of feudal "beyliks" (states) after defeating the Byzantines in Anatolia in 1071 at Manzikert. When the Seljuks splintered after the death of Malik Shah, Kilij Arslan founded the Sultanate of Rum in Asia Minor, pushing westward with the Emir Chaka of Smyrna until the Normans retreated back to Italy and Sicily. Muslim control rolled westward across the Balkans, butting up against Christendom's strongest center in Italy. Many talked of a united Christian force to drive back the Turks, but the most that Pope Urban II was able to manage was a bolstering of defenses for Italy and a push to retake lands along the North African coast to affirm Spain's Reconquista.

Meanwhile, trade flourished between the Italian city-states, such as Venice. With the Byzantine stranglehold on east-west trade removed, the Muslims gained great influence shipping good westward. Trade with Kiev at the north of the Black Sea brought Islam to Russia, where it made great advances overriding the Orthodox Christian beliefs adopted in the century before. Constantinople continued being one of the main hubs of the world, and Europe continued as a rich market for Islamic traders for centuries to come. Christian kingdoms, meanwhile, expanded southward and across the Atlantic Ocean to the New World there. While Europe underwent a Renaissance in the seventeenth century, many great minds traveled to the libraries of Constantinople to study, keeping the Islamic world apace with innovations in medicine, mathematics, and science.

In 1991, on this day the thirty-ninth Vice President of the United States John Goodwin Tower was tragically killed (along with twenty other people including his middle daughter, Marian, and the astronaut Sonny Carter) in the crash of Atlantic Southeast Airlines Flight 2311 on approach for landing at Brunswick, Georgia. He was sixty-five years old.

VP John Tower killedTributes were led by George Romney the thirty-seventh President of the United States with whom he had won back-to-back elections before his own narrow defeat to Senator Birch Evans Bayh, Jr. in his own bid for the White House during 1976.

Despite the enduring warmth of their personal popularity ratings, they had a modest record. The main achievements included pulling out of Vietnam also beginning a period of detente with the Soviet Union and China, but they failed at several attempts to reform government programs.

A remarkable figure of the Cold War era, he had been become famous through his historic election to the Senate: (1) first Republican U.S. senator from Texas since Reconstruction, (2) third Republican from the former Confederacy since Reconstruction, (3) first Republican from a former Confederate state since Newell Sanders of Tennessee left office in 1913 (a gap of forty-eight years), and (4) first Republican from the former Confederacy ever to win a Senate seat by popular election. it was a platform from which George Walker Bush would build in his own run for the Senate during the early 1990s.

In 1916, on this day Irish-American actor and statesman Eldred Gregory Peck was born in La Jolla, California.

Gregory Peck's Great AdventureOne of the world's most popular film stars from the 1940s to the 1960s, he was appointed United States Ambassador (Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary) to Ireland by President Lyndon Baines Johnson.

Needless to say the appointment of a lifelong supporter of the Democratic Party would have been unthinkable had the Republicans won the recent Presidential election. The GOP nominee, Richard Nixon had actually placed him on his enemies list due to his liberal activism. This was primarily due to his opposition to Hollywood blacklisting; in 1947 he signed a letter which deplored a House Un-American Activities Committee investigation of alleged communists in the film industry.

An intensely private man, Peck had only accepted the "great adventure" because of his Irish ancestry. That flowery description of the new role was his own phrase, but surely the timing of his arrival in Ireland on the eve of the sectarian violence surrounding the "Battle of the Bogside was precipitous.

Peck had not sought political office. He had politely, but firmly declined, offers to run against Ronald Reagan for State Senate in 1964, and later the Governship of California in 1968. After the elections, Democrat supporters (including the defeated incumbent Governor Edmund Brown) were convinced that his charisma, and celebrity status, could have defeated his fellow actor.

A political confrontation between the two actors finally occurred in 1987 when Peck did the voice over on television commercials opposing Reagan's Supreme Court nomination of conservative jurist Robert Bork. Bork's nomination was defeated to the disgust of many, including another actor Charlton Heston who registered his protest by formally joining the Republican Party.

In 2008, the fortieth President of the United States Charlton Heston died in Beverly Hills, California. He was eighty-four years old.

President Charlton Heston passes awayHis tenure was dominated by the contra war against the left-wing government of Ernesto "Che" Guevara in Bolivia which re-opened an eighty year old dispute which began in the 49th State.

By 1898 armed hostilities in the Spanish-American War had come to an end. Ignominiously defeated, Spain was forced to relinquish control of Cuba, Puerto Rico, Guam and the Philippine Islands to the United States.


Debate over what to do with America's new possessions was fierce. In the case of Cuba in particular, there had been considerable sentiment in favor of independence prior to the outbreak of war, when lurid articles regarding the real and alleged brutalities of the Spanish colonial regime appeared regularly in the newspapers of media baron William Randolph Hearst. Once Cuba passed into U.S. hands, however, ardor for freeing it cooled considerably. Businessmen liked the cheap sugar and other products Cuba provided, while naval officers saw it as an ideal site for bases.

The colonialist faction would ultimately triumph. In formal peace traty, signed in Paris on December 10, 1898, no mention was made of independence for Cuba. The following year, by act of Congress, the possessions taken from Spain was be declared U.S. territories.

On January 1, 1959, Cuba became the 49th U.S. state. That same year, Hawaii, also annexed in 1898, will become the 50th; Alaska formally became the 51st state the following year, and in 1965, the Philippines became the 52nd. In 1970, Puerto Rico at last became the 53rd U.S. state. Of the territories taken from Spain in 1898, only Guam would not have become a state by the turn of the century, chiefly due to its small population.

In 1964, the youthful and charismatic Lieut. Gov. Fidel Castro of Cuba was elected to the U.S. Senate. Castro, a former law student who entered politics in the 1950s, would be an impassioned voice for America's growing Spanish-speaking populace, and would be one of the sponsors of the Senate resolution formally granting statehood to the Philippines.

In the Senate, Castro would start out as a solidly moderate Democrat who initially supported the war in Vietnam, but will grow disillusioned, finally announcing his outright opposition in 1969. His change of heart would anger many conservatives in his home state, sparking a challenge from Republican Rep. Fulgencio Batista, a decorated Korean War veteran, in 1970. Sen. Castro survived, however, and in his new incarnation as foreign-policy liberal opposed President Heston's contra war against the left-wing government of Ernesto "Che" Guevara in Bolivia in the 1980s.

In 2000, in a hotly-contested election, Democratic nominee Fidel Castro narrowly defeated former Texas governor George W. Bush to win the U.S. presidency, becoming the first native Spanish-speaker to hold that office.

In 1992, upon the death of founder Sam Walton his successors on the board of Wal-mart committed the long-term future of the retailer to American-made merchandise.

Wal-mart People save America By Ed & Jen GreenupWalton began his retail career in 1940 at a JC Penney store in Des Moines, Iowa. Five years later came his big breakthrough when he met Butler Brothers, a regional retailer. He was offered a store in Newport, Arkansas. But unable to agree a renewal on the lease, he opened a new franchise called "Walton's Five and Dime". In 1962 he opened the first Wal-Mart Discount City and within five years, the company expanded to twenty-four stores across Arkansas turning over $12.6 million in sales.

Key to his success in achieving higher sales volume was a pricing strategy of marking up products slightly less than his competitors who accused Walton of "running them out of town". By the time Walton tried to expand out of Arkansas, emerging markets were beginning to threaten to run America itself out of the global market place. But he stuck doggedly to his core belief in "buying American" insisting that Wal-Mart stores only sold American-made products.

After his death the policy of "Made in U.S.A". gave the retailer huge competitive problems. Advocates of NAFTA also had a big headache. Because opponents of the agreement used Wal-mart as a case study for arguing against "Made in China" products dominating Main Street.