August 9

480BC – Xerxes receives the response by Leonidas of Sparta to his demand that the Greeks hand over their arms; μολὼν λαβέ “Come and take them!”, then immediately orders his forces to attack.

48 BC – Julius Caesar’s army decisively defeats Pompey’s at Pharsalus. Pompey flees to Egypt.

378 – A Roman army led by Emperor Valens is defeated by the Visigoths at Adrianople.

1173 – Construction of the campanile of the Cathedral of Pisa is started. It begins leaning almost as soon as it is completed.

1610 – The First Anglo-Powhatan War begins in colonial Virginia.

1814 – The Creek nation signs the Treaty of Fort Jackson, giving up huge parts of Alabama and Georgia.

1842 – The Webster–Ashburton Treaty is signed, establishing the United States–Canada border east of the Rocky Mountains.

1862 – At Cedar Mountain, Virginia, Confederate General Stonewall Jackson narrowly defeats Union forces under General John Pope.

1892 – Thomas Edison receives a patent for a two-way telegraph.

1914 – The French begin their first offensive against Germany when the VII Corps attacks the city of Mulhouse, ceded to Germany at the end of the Franco-Prussian war 43 years earlier.

1936 – Jesse Owens wins his fourth gold medal at the XI Olympiad games.

1942 – Allied naval forces protecting amphibious forces during the initial stages of the Battle of Guadalcanal are surprised off Savo Island by a  Japanese Navy cruiser force resulting in the loss of the HMAS Canberra, USS Vincennes, USS Quincy  and USS Astoria

1944 – The United States Forest Service releases posters featuring Smokey Bear

1945 – Major Charles Sweeney and crew aboard the B29 bomber Bockscar, drops “Fat Man” atomic bomb #F-31 on their secondary target, Nagasaki after the primary target of Kokura is obscured by clouds and smoke

1969 – Followers of Charles Manson murder actress Sharon Tate, coffee heiress Abigail Folger, Polish actor Wojciech Frykowski, men’s hairstylist Jay Sebring and recent high-school graduate Steven Parent.

1974 – President Nixon resigns from office. Vice President Gerald Ford is sworn in to become the 38th President.

Births*
1593 – Izaak Walton
1776 – Amedeo Avogadro
1896 – Erich Hückel
1918 – Kermit Beahan (bombardier on Bockscar, what a birthday present)
1921 – Ernest Angley
1927 – Robert Shaw
1943 – Ken Norton
1944 – Sam Elliott
1957 – Melanie Griffith
1963 – Whitney Houston
1968 – Gillian Anderson, Eric Bana

Deaths†
378 –  Flavius Imperator Valens
1048 – Pope Damasus II
1107 – Horikawa Tenno
1516 – Hieronymus Bosch
1945 – LT Robert Hampton Gray RCNVR VC
1948 – Hugo Boss
1975 – Dmitri Shostakovich
1995 – Jerry Garcia
1996 – Frank Whittle
2003 – Gregory Hines
2010 – Ted Stevens
2015 – Frank Gifford

The Long, Hot Summer of 1967: A Forgotten Season of Riots and Urban Unrest Across America

The Book of Ecclesiastes says that there is nothing new under the sun. And while many have spoken of the “unprecedented” nature of the rioting in the early summer of 2020, it is actually quite precedented.

The Long, Hot Summer of 1967 was the peak of urban unrest and rioting in the United States in the lead up to the 1968 election. While there are certainly a number of key differences, there are also a number of striking parallels that make the topic worthy of discussion and examination.

The long-term impact of the urban unrest of the summer of 2020 is unclear, but the long-term impact of the Long, Hot Summer of 1967 and related urban rioting was a victory for Richard Nixon in 1968, and a landslide re-election in 1972. One must resist the temptation to make mechanistic comparisons between the two, and we will refrain from doing so here. But the reader is encouraged to look for connections between these events and more recent ones. Continue reading “”

August 8

1503 – King James IV of Scotland marries Margaret Tudor, daughter of King Henry VII of England. This is what sets up the way her grandson, James VI becomes King of Scotland and England.

1576 – The cornerstone for Tycho Brahe’s Uraniborg observatory is laid on the island of Hven.

1585 – John Davis enters Cumberland Sound in Nunavut in search of the Northwest Passage

1794 – Joseph Whidbey leads an expedition starting from Juneau, Alaska in the search of the Northwest Passage

1831 – The Treaty of Wapakoneta is signed by the Shawnee peoples living in that area, exchanging land in Ohio for land west of the Mississippi River.

1863 – Confederate President Jefferson Davis refuses upon receipt, a letter of resignation by General Robert E. Lee after his defeat at Gettyburg.

1876 – Thomas Edison receives a patent for his mimeograph.

1908 – Wilbur Wright makes his first public flight at the racecourse at Le Mans, France.

1918 – The Battle of Amiens begins the Hundred Days Offensive a string of almost continuous Allied victories through the German front lines

1942 – 6 of the 8 German saboteurs caught after landing on Long Island are executed by electrocution at the Washington D.C. District Jail.

1946 – The Convair B-36 bomber makes its first flight

1974 – President Nixon announces on nationwide television his resignation from the office of the President effective noon the next day.

2000 – The Confederate submarine CSS H.L. Hunley is raised to the surface 136 years after sinking

Births*
1170 – Domingo Félix de Guzmán
1754 – Hipólito Ruiz López
1839 – Nelson A. Miles
1879 – Emiliano Zapata
1921 – Esther Williams
1922 – Rory Calhoun
1926 – Richard Anderson
1932 – Mel Tillis
1935 – Donald P. Bellisario
1937 – Dustin Hoffman
1938 – Connie Stevens
1949 – Keith Carradine
1951 – Mohamed Morsi

Deaths†
117 – Caesar Nerva Trajanus Imperator Trajan
869 – Lothair II of Lotharingia
1828 – Carl Peter Thunberg
1887 – Alexander William Doniphan
1898 – Eugène Boudin
1902 – James Tissot
1944 – Generalfeldmarschall Erwin von Witzleben
1984 – Richard Deacon
1991 – James Irwin
2004 – Fay Wray
2005 – Barbara Bel Geddes
2010 – Patricia Neal
2013 – Karen Black
2014 – Menahem Golan
2017 – Glen Campbell