TODAY IN HISTORY

12th February 1797

More than 1,000 French troops, led by Irish-American General William Tate attempt an invasion of Britain but surrender shortly after landing in Pembrokeshire on the Welsh coast.
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The last successful invasion of Britain was way back in 1066. There have been many attempts since, but all failed - Spanish Armada, Napoleon, Hitler, etc. However, Britain WAS invaded in 1797, but you can'treally consider it a proper invasion as it didn't last long as the French (led by an American) surrendered quickly. It is the last known "invasion" of Britain-

The last invasion of Britain little known: On 22 February 1797 French troops landed near Fishguard in Pembrokeshire, South Wales, lead by an American in French service, Brigadier-General William Tate. The mission was intended to incite an uprising and attack and destroy Bristol, then Britain’s largest city. Then cross over to Wales and march north to Chester and Liverpool.

The annals of history record the name of Hastings as the site of the last invasion of Britain by French, or Norman, forces in 1066, which was the last successful invasion. However, little is reported about the French invasion of Fishguard.



In 1797, Napoleon Bonaparte was busy conquering in central Europe. In his absence the newly formed French revolutionary government, the Directory, appears to have devised a ‘cunning plan’ that involved the poor country folk of Britain rallying to the support of their French liberators.

Obviously the Directory had recently taken delivery of some newly liberated Brandy!

The invasion force of 1400 sailed from Camaret, France. The invasion force was under the leadership of a South Carolina, Irish-American, adventurer-mercenary Colonel William Tate. Tate was not a dashing leader; in his seventies, it has been suggested the Directory wanted the troublemaker out of Paris and perhaps England was a good place.



The mission was ill-conceived. Tate was nearly in his 70s, and his troops, a ragtag collection of soldiers including many newly released jailbirds, were considered expendable.


Wind conditions made it impossible for the four French warships to land anywhere near Bristol, so Tate moved to ‘cunning plan’ B, and set a course for Cardigan Bay in southwest Wales. The landing was completed during the night and at daybreak on a small sandy beach near the village of Llanwnda. Men, arms and gunpowder were unloaded and the four ships returned to France reporting of a successful landing.. On the 23rd the French set out, many soon drunk on plundered wine the locals had recently removed from a grounded Portuguese ship.

At the coming evening they were met by British troops led by Lord John Cawdor who had mustered the nearby yeomanry and militia, although there were just 500 men available. After a looting spree, many of the invaders were too drunk to fight and within two days, the invasion had collapsed, and Tate's force surrendered.

With little confidence in his men, and obviously mistaken the numerous women who had come to watch the show for soldiers, which was reported to Tate as “troops of the line to the number of several thousand…” the invasion collapsed. It was one of those confusing footnotes in history since no British troops had ever been near Fishguard

When the 47-year-old Jemima Nicholas, the wife of a Fishguard cobbler, heard of the invasion, she marched out to Llanwnda, pitchfork in hand and rounded up 12 Frenchmen. She brought them into town and promptly left to look for some more.

Jon Latimer wrote in Military History Magazine, February 1997, that “Most of the prisoners captured at Fishguard were returned in exchanges within two years. Among them was their American commander, William Tate, of whom little more was heard. He had, however, at least achieved something that Napoleon himself had never managed -- he had invaded Britain.”

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LOLOLOL! A pitiful attempt by the American/French force to "invade" Britain.

DRESDEN DEVASTATED:
February 13, 1945

On the evening of February 13, 1945, the most controversial episode in the Allied air war against Germany begins as hundreds of British bombers loaded with incendiaries and high-explosive bombs descend on Dresden, a historic city located in eastern Germany. Dresden was neither a war production city nor a major industrial center, and before the massive air raid of February 1945 it had not suffered a major Allied attack. By February 15, the city was a smoldering ruin and an unknown number of civilians--somewhere between 35,000 and 135,000--were dead.

By February 1945, the jaws of the Allied vise were closing shut on Nazi Germany. In the west, Nazi leader Adolf Hitler's desperate counteroffensive against the Allies in Belgium's Ardennes forest had ended in total failure. In the east, the Red Army had captured East Prussia and reached the Oder River--less than 50 miles from Berlin. The once-proud Luftwaffe was a skeleton of an air fleet, and the Allies ruled the skies over Europe, dropping thousands of tons of bombs on Germany every day.

From February 4 to February 11, the "Big Three" Allied leaders--U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, and Soviet Premier Joseph Stalin--met at Yalta in the USSR and compromised on their visions of the postwar world. Other than deciding on what German territory would be conquered by which power, little time was given to military considerations in the war against the Third Reich. Churchill and Roosevelt, however, did promise Stalin to continue their bombing campaign against eastern Germany in preparation for the advancing Soviet forces.

An important aspect of the Allied air war against Germany involved what is known as "area" or "saturation" bombing. In area bombing, all enemy industry--not just war munitions--is targeted, and civilian portions of cities are obliterated along with troop areas. Before the advent of the atomic bomb, cities were most effectively destroyed through the use of incendiary bombs that caused unnaturally fierce fires in the enemy cities. Such attacks, Allied command reasoned, would ravage the German economy, break the morale of the German people, and force an early surrender.

Germany was the first to employ area bombing tactics during its assault on Poland in September 1939. In 1940, during the Battle of Britain, the Luftwaffe failed to bring Britain to it knees by targeting London and other heavily populated areas with area bombing attacks. Stung but unbowed, the RAF avenged the bombings of London and Coventry in 1942 when it launched the first of many saturation bombing attacks against Germany. In 1944, Adolf Hitler named the world's first long-range offensive missile V-1, after Vergeltung, the German word for "vengeance" and an expression of his desire to repay Britain for its devastating bombardment of Germany.

The Allies never overtly admitted that they were engaged in saturation bombing; specific military targets were announced in relation to every attack. It was but a veneer, however, and few mourned the destruction of German cities that built the weapons and bred the soldiers that by 1945 had killed more than 10 million Allied soldiers and even more civilians. The firebombing of Dresden would prove the exception to this rule.

Before World War II, Dresden was called "the Florence of the Elbe" and was regarded as one the world's most beautiful cities for its architecture and museums. Although no German city remained isolated from Hitler's war machine, Dresden's contribution to the war effort was minimal compared with other German cities. In February 1945, refugees fleeing the Russian advance in the east took refuge there. As Hitler had thrown much of his surviving forces into a defense of Berlin in the north, city defenses were minimal, and the Russians would have had little trouble capturing Dresden. It seemed an unlikely target for a major Allied air attack.

On the night of February 13, hundreds of RAF bombers descended on Dresden in two waves, dropping their lethal cargo indiscriminately over the city. The city's air defenses were so weak that only six Lancaster bombers were shot down. By the morning, some 800 British bombers had dropped 1,478 tons of high-explosive bombs and 1,182 tons of incendiaries on Dresden, creating a great firestorm that destroyed most of the city and killed numerous civilians. Later that day, as survivors made their way out of the smoldering city, over 300 U.S. bombers began bombing Dresden's railways, bridges, and transportation facilities, killing thousands more. On February 15, another 200 U.S. bombers continued their assault on the city's infrastructure. All told, the bombers of the U.S. Eighth Air Force dropped 954 tons of high-explosive bombs and 294 tons of incendiaries on Dresden. Later, the Eighth Air Force would drop 2,800 more tons of bombs on Dresden in three other attacks before the war's end.

The Allies claimed that by bombing Dresden, they were disrupting important lines of communication that would have hindered the Soviet offensive. This may be true, but there is no disputing that the British incendiary attack on the night of February 13-14 was conducted also, if not primarily, for the purpose of terrorizing the German population and forcing an early surrender. It should be noted that Germany, unlike Japan later in the year, did not surrender until nearly the last possible moment--when its capital had fallen and its Fýhrer was dead.

Because there were an unknown number of refugees in Dresden at the time of the Allied attack, it is impossible to know exactly how many civilians perished. After the war, investigators from various countries, and with varying political motives, calculated the number of civilians killed to be as little as 8,000 to more than 200,000. Estimates today range from 35,000 to 135,000. Looking at photographs of Dresden after the attack, in which the few buildings still standing are completely gutted, it seems improbable that only 35,000 of the million or so people in Dresden that night were killed. Cellars and other shelters would have been meager protection against a firestorm that blew poisonous air heated to hundreds of degrees Fahrenheit across the city at hurricane-like speeds.

At the end of the war, Dresden was so badly damaged that the city was basically leveled. A handful of historic buildings--the Zwinger Palace, the Dresden State Opera House, and several fine churches--were carefully reconstructed out of the rubble, but the rest of the city was rebuilt with plain modern buildings. American author Kurt Vonnegut, who was a prisoner of war in Dresden during the Allied attack and tackled the controversial event in his book Slaughterhouse-Five, said of postwar Dresden, "It looked a lot like Dayton, Ohio, more open spaces than Dayton has. There must be tons of human bone meal in the ground."

The British did not create the fire and the wheel.

Come on now Jersay, the Brits know best, according to Blackleaf anyway.

Well that is Blackleaf's opinion, but how could we as a people survive if we didnt have fire.

And what about the Roman Chariot.

13th February 1542 - Catherine Howard, the fifth wife of Henry VIII, was excuted for adultery.


Miniature portrait of Catherine Howard by Hans Holbein the Younger

Catherine Howard (1520/1525? - February 13, 1542) was the fifth queen consort of Henry VIII of England 1540-1542, sometimes known as "the rose without a thorn." She was born between 1520 and 1525, maybe 1521, probably in London, the daughter of Lord Edmund Howard and granddaughter of the 2nd Duke of Norfolk. She married Henry VIII on July 28, 1540, at Oatlands Palace in Surrey, having caught his eye even before his divorce from Anne of Cleves was arranged.

The Rise and Fall of Catherine Howard

It is hard to say precisely when Catherine was born, although it seems fair to say that it was at some point between 1520 and 1525. She was the niece of the Duke of Norfolk and a first cousin of Anne Boleyn. Catherine's father was Lord Edmund Howard, but he was constantly in debt and begging for handouts. His powerful niece, Anne Boleyn, got him a government job working for the king in Calais in 1531. At this point, young Catherine was sent to live with her step-grandmother, Agnes Tilney the Dowager Duchess of Norfolk.

The Dowager Duchess ran a large household, and she had numerous female and male attendants. The Dowager was often at Court and took little interest in her wards. Thus, Catherine soon became involved in the numerous romances that existed in the house. At the age of eleven or twelve she began a romance with her music teacher, Henry Mannox. Although the two did not go so far as to become lovers, they did participate in some far-reaching foreplay. This affair came to an end when Catherine fell for a handsome young secretary, Francis Dereham. They did become lovers, and many of Catherine's room-mates knew of the affair. It ended in 1539 when Catherine's uncle found her a place as lady-in-waiting to Henry VIII's new German wife, Queen Anne of Cleves.

As a young and very attractive teenager, Catherine soon caught the eye of Anne's disenchanted husband, King Henry. Henry divorced Anne in July 1540 and married Catherine, who had been his mistress for the last few months. Henry was almost fifty, Catherine was still in her teens.

Henry, old and obese, showered his young bride with wealth, jewels and many more fantastically expensive gifts. Of course, he was unaware of her past and Catherine was praised throughout court as a young, virtuous queen.

However, despite her wealth and power, Catherine found her marital relations unappealing. She was repulsed by her husband's grotesque body, and sought romantic amusement elsewhere. She embarked upon a light-hearted romance with Henry's favourite male courtier, Thomas Culpeper. Their meetings were arranged by one of Catherine's older ladies-in-waiting, Lady Jane Rochford. It is unclear whether Catherine and Thomas were ever lovers in the full sense of the word, but it is certainly possible.

As Catherine's liaison with Culpeper progressed, she was contacted by people who had lived with her at her grandmother's. In order to buy their silence, she appointed many of them to her household. Most disastrously, she appointed Henry Mannox as one of her musicians and Francis Dereham as her private secretary.

In 1541, rumours began to grow about the queen's conduct. Protestant courtiers who resented her family's power were delighted when one of Catherine's old companions revealed the truth about Francis Dereham. The King refused to believe the charges at first, but there was too much evidence to ignore them.

Catherine was placed under close guard in her chambers, accompanied only by Lady Rochford. She was interrogated by the King's councillors many times. There was talk that she would be divorced and exiled, until someone discovered a love letter she had written to Culpeper. The charge now changed to adultery which, in a queen, meant treason.

Catherine was imprisoned in an abbey in Middlesex through the winter of 1541 and stripped of her title as queen. Thomas Culpeper and Francis Dereham were executed at Tyburn on December 8, 1541. The Queen's case was brought before parliament in January.

She was taken to the Tower of London on 10 February 1542. The night before her execution, Catherine spent many hours practising how to lay her head upon the block. She died with dignity, but looked pale and terrified. Her speech asked for mercy for her family and prayers for her soul. Her death was extremely quick and she was buried in the nearby chapel where her cousin, Anne Boleyn, also lay.

wikipedia.org

February 14, 1943 the battle of Kasserine Pass, Tunisia. About 1000 US dead and hundreds taken prisoner. Most equipment abandoned to the germans. (also fits into the Rommel thread)

16th February 1838 - Charles Darwin was elected as secretary of the Geological Soviety -



Darwin in 1842.

Charles Robert Darwin (12 February 1809 – 19 April 1882) was a British naturalist who achieved lasting fame by convincing the scientific community of the occurrence of evolution and proposing the theory that this could be explained through natural and sexual selection. This theory is now considered the central explanatory paradigm in biology.

He developed an interest in natural history while studying first medicine, then theology, at university. Darwin's five-year voyage on the Beagle and subsequent writings brought him eminence as a geologist and fame as a popular author. His biological observations led him to study the transmutation of species and, in 1838, develop his theory of natural selection. Fully aware that others had been severely punished for such "heretical" ideas, he only confided in his closest friends and continued his research to meet anticipated objections. However, in 1858 the information that Alfred Russel Wallace had developed a similar theory forced early joint publication of the theory.

His 1859 book On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or The Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life (usually abbreviated to The Origin of Species) established evolution by common descent as the dominant scientific explanation of diversification in nature. He was made a Fellow of the Royal Society, continued his research, and wrote a series of books on plants and animals, including humankind, notably The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex and The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals.

Darwin died in 1882.
In recognition of Darwin's pre-eminence, he was buried in Westminster Abbey, close to William Herschel and Isaac Newton.

CASTRO SWORN IN:
February 16, 1959

On February 16, 1959, Fidel Castro is sworn in as prime minister of Cuba after leading a guerrilla campaign that forced right-wing dictator Fulgencio Batista into exile. Castro, who became commander in chief of Cuba's armed forces after Batista was ousted on January 1, replaced the more moderate Mir Cardona as head of the country's new provisional government.

Castro was born in the Oriente province in eastern Cuba, the son of a Spanish immigrant who had made a fortune building rail systems to transport sugar cane. He became involved in revolutionary politics while a student and in 1947 took part in an abortive attempt by Dominican exiles and Cubans to overthrow Dominican dictator Rafael Trujillo. In the next year, he took part in urban riots in Bogotý, Colombia. The most outstanding feature of his politics during the period was his anti-American beliefs; he was not yet an overt Marxist.

In 1951, he ran for a seat in the Cuban House of Representatives as a member of the reformist Ortodoxo Party, but General Batista seized power in a bloodless coup d'etat before the election could be held.

Various groups formed to oppose Batista's dictatorship, and on July 26, 1953, Castro led some 160 rebels in an attack on the Moncada Barracks in Santiago de Cuba--Cuba's second largest military base. Castro hoped to seize weapons and announce his revolution from the base radio station, but the barracks were heavily defended, and more than half his men were captured or killed.

Castro was himself arrested and put on trial for conspiring to overthrow the Cuban government. During his trial, he argued that he and his rebels were fighting to restore democracy to Cuba, but he was nonetheless found guilty and sentenced to 15 years in prison.

Two years later, Batista felt confident enough in his power that he granted a general amnesty for all political prisoners, including Castro. Castro then went with his brother Raýl to Mexico, and they organized the revolutionary 26th of July Movement, enlisting recruits and joining up with Ernesto "Che" Guevara, an idealist Marxist from Argentina.

On December 2, 1956, Castro and 81 armed men landed on the Cuban coast. All of them were killed or captured except for Castro, Raýl, Che, and nine others, who retreated into the Sierra Maestra mountain range to wage a guerrilla war against the Batista government. They were joined by revolutionary volunteers from all over Cuba and won a series of victories over Batista's demoralized army. Castro was supported by the peasantry, to whom he promised land reform, while Batista received aid from the United States, which bombed suspected revolutionary positions.

By mid-1958, a number of other Cuban groups were also opposing Batista, and the United States ended military aid to his regime. In December, the 26th of July forces under Che Guevara attacked the city of Santa Clara, and Batista's forces crumbled. Batista fled for the Dominican Republic on January 1, 1959. Castro, who had fewer than 1,000 men left at the time, took control of the Cuban government's 30,000-man army. The other rebel leaders lacked the popular support the young and charismatic Castro enjoyed, and on February 16 he was sworn in as prime minister.

The United States initially recognized the new Cuban dictator but withdrew its support after Castro launched a program of agrarian reform, nationalized U.S. assets on the island, and declared a Marxist government. Many of Cuba's wealthier citizens fled to the United States, where they joined the CIA in its efforts to overthrow Castro's regime.

In April 1961, with training and support by the CIA, the Cuban exiles launched an ill-fated and unsuccessful invasion of Cuba known as the "Bay of Pigs." The Soviet Union reacted to the attack by escalating its support to Castro's communist government and in 1962 placed offensive nuclear missiles in Cuba. The discovery of the missiles by U.S. intelligence led to the tense "Cuban Missile Crisis," which ended after the Soviets agreed to remove the weapons in exchange for a U.S. pledge not to invade Cuba.

Castro's Cuba was the first communist state in the Western Hemisphere, and he would retain control of it into the 21st century, outlasting nine U.S. presidents who opposed him with economic embargoes and political rhetoric. After the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, Castro lost a valuable source of aid, but he made up for it by courting European and Canadian investment and tourism. Cubans, though poor and politically repressed, enjoyed excellent education and other social services under the Castro regime.

Mrs Thatcher's modern England

Peter Jenkins
Tuesday February 17, 1981
The Guardian


[Extracts from a diary of a journey]

Coventry

I wake up to the news of the monthly unemployment figures. The familiar voice of Jim Prior tells us it's going to get worse before it gets better. For the United Kingdom the average is now 10%. In the West Midlands it is 11.3%, in Birmingham 12% and in Coventry 13%. Coventry, the proverbial Klondike of the post-war affluent society - the idea of 13% unemployment takes some getting used to. I've heard several people say already, "we're not used to recessions like this round here" or, "unemployment is a new experience for us".

Rolls Royce had to be nationalised in the 1971-72 downturn, in 1975 British Leyland was taken over and Chrysler baled out, but this time it's far worse.

Birmingham

I switch stations. The local commercial station is running a feature called Lucky Breaks. The lucky break is a job vacancy for a teenager. Today's lucky lad can be an apprentice joiner.

Our highest hopes for equality were vested in education. For teachers and children the process of reorganisation has been almost as disruptive as the collectivisation of the farms. Nor is the aggravation at an end; in Birmingham, like many other cities, the school rolls are failing.

Birmingham is a city of metals and nostalgia. The buildings here are worthy and solid; the statues recall the golden age of enterprise. It is that vanished entrepreneurial world which Thatcher would like to restore.

Birkenhead

Opposite the gates of Cammell Laird's is the Royal Castle Hotel. In a back room a dozen or so shop stewards are waiting for Frank Field, the local MP.

Because I'm going to be there - the press! - the Cammell Laird management has refused permission for the meeting to be in the yard. In the chair is a man called Gerry Reeves. He is vice-chairman of the stewards' committee. On the table before him is a pint and the latest issue of the Militant.

Liverpool

There is too much of past glory about Liverpool. The smell of the sea makes it worse. Economic decline is turning the place into a Carthage. The "T" has already fallen off the side of the St George's Hotel. The Adelphi Hotel is a deserted morgue of marble today. It was here in the early hours of October 16 1964 that some of us opened a bottle of champagne for the new prime minister [Harold Wilson], who was going to build the New Britain.

guardian.co.uk

I've been there. Watch out for the pot holes....

Yeah it's odd when I was there the "revolution" still has a lot of support. Though most of the people I spoke to didn't talk of communism they usually called themselves, Socialists, Humanists, or Liberals. As most Cuban's still work for the government 3-4 days a week to get there pay but they are also allowed to have there own job or there own small busisness, which it would seem every other person has. Also the average Cuban when I was there seemed to have a few things which we have. It's odd, there were no rich but no extremly poor either. Very few except for big families it would seem had everything. The houses in Havana look very nice and spacy for a communist nation. Though as I said unless you had a pretty big family you'd be missing things. Some small families would only have something like a colour tv but no air conditioning. Another family had air conditioning but no colour tv. It pissed me off when I was eatting because I didn't get to eat and watch tv at the same time in a air conditioned house.

I would say there police are generally nice. I was staying with Cubans when I was there and the Cuban I was with that day was stoped by the cops and the cop didn't know I was Canadian. My sponcer while I was there was about to get a ticket for driving down a one way road on a bike (the ticket was for 25 cents) but when he mentioned I was from Canada the cop let him off and gave me a smile.

When I was at the airport playing hacky sack (this was a few years ago) some cops came over to us and asked us where we were from and we said "Canada", they then asked us if they could join in and play. Which they did.

Every night in Cuba they party it would seem, on the streets and in the clubs. They have the worst bear in the world but meh can't have everything I guess. The woman are so hot there and everyone has such a free spirit when it comes to parting. There was none of this soviet repression here.

Ok I could go on about the good and odd things I saw in Cuba, so I'll get down to when I asked people about repression. Very few had many negitive things to say (in havana) I met one guy who was a begger who gave me a story saying that he had no job and he asked me for a dollar (which will go a long way in cuba btw). I gave him a dollar but I was chastized by a cuban friend with me saying that I shouldn't had given him money and I was making things worse because that was basically the guys job and he could make more money begging then a honest day of work.

When I asked a few families about repression I was told they thought the government should have a different electoral process, but generally they didn't mind it so much. I think they were lieing as the electoral process in Cuba is worse then Canada's in theory. They directly elect there muncipal members, and then those local members elect the next level and then the next level elects the next and then they "elect" Castro. The Communist party doesn't officially run in the elections as there are not supposed to be any parties. But if you walk Havana for awhile it won't take you long to run into a communist party HQ, club, office, or whatnot. THERE are NO other parties or political clubs like these. They all have at least one armed guard at the door. Though this guard usually has a very small gun. I didn't get to see what type of gun it was. These guards are extremly stand offish (at least the ones I tried to go up to) and won't let you inside at all. They looked at me or my friends with suspician and when I asked one of them if I could go inside and that I was a Communist from Canada (I lied) they still didn't let me in.


Well there's a lot more which I could say about Cuba but meh. Oh I got to see Castro from a distance.

DE VALERA RESIGNS:
February 18, 1948


After 16 years as head of independent Ireland, Eamon de Valera steps down as the taoiseach, or Irish prime minister, after his Fianna Fýil Party fails to win a majority in the Dýil ýireann (the Irish assembly). As a result of the general election, the Fianna Fýil won 68 of the 147 seats in the Dýil, and de Valera resigned rather than lead a coalition government. In his place, John A. Costello, leader of the Fine Gael Party, joins with several smaller groups to achieve a majority and becomes Irish prime minister.

Eamon de Valera, the most dominant Irish political figure of the 20th century, was born in New York City in 1882, the son of a Spanish father and Irish mother. When his father died two years later, he was sent to live with his mother's family in County Limerick, Ireland. He attended the Royal University in Dublin and became an important figure in the Irish-language revival movement.

In 1913, he joined the Irish Volunteers, a militant group that advocated Ireland's independence from Britain, and in 1916 participated in the Easter Rising against the British in Dublin. He was the last Irish rebel leader to surrender and was saved from execution because of his American birth. Imprisoned, he was released in 1917 under a general amnesty and became president of the nationalist Sinn Fýin Party. In May 1918, he was deported to England and imprisoned again, and in December Sinn Fýin won an Irish national election, making him the unofficial leader of Ireland.

In February 1919, he escaped from jail and fled to the United States, where he raised funds for the Irish Republican movement. When he returned to Ireland in 1920, Sinn Fýin and the Irish Republican Army (IRA) were engaged in a widespread and effective guerrilla campaign against British forces.

In 1921, a truce was declared, and in 1922 Arthur Griffith and other former Sinn Fýin leaders broke with de Valera and signed a treaty with Britain, which called for the partition of Ireland, with the south becoming autonomous and the six northern counties of the island remaining part of the United Kingdom. In the period of civil war that followed, de Valera supported the Republicans against the Irish Free State (the new government of the autonomous south), and was imprisoned by William Cosgrave's Irish Free State ministry.

In 1924, he was released and two years later left Sinn Fýin, which had become the unofficial political wing of the underground movement for northern independence. He formed Fianna Fýil, and in 1932 the party gained control of the Dýil ýireann and de Valera became Irish prime minister.

For the next 16 years, de Valera pursued a policy of political separation from Great Britain, including the introduction of a new constitution in 1937 that declared Ireland the fully sovereign state of ýire. During World War II, he maintained a policy of neutrality but repressed anti-British intrigues within the IRA.

In 1948, he narrowly lost re-election due to a negative public reaction against his party's long monopoly of power. Out of office, he toured the world advocating the unification and independence of Ireland. His successor as taoiseach, John Costello, officially made Ireland an independent republic in 1949 but nonetheless lost the prime minister's office to de Valera in the 1951 election. The relative Irish economic prosperity of the 1940s declined in the 1950s, and Costello began a second ministry in 1954, only to be replaced again by de Valera in 1957.

In 1959, de Valera resigned as prime minister and was elected Irish president--a largely ceremonial post. On June 24, 1973, de Valera, then the world's oldest head of state, retired from Irish politics at the age of 90. He passed away two years later.

19th February 1900 - Lord Roberts arrives in Paardenburg to lead the British army against the Boers during the Battle of Paardenburg in the Boer war.

The battle was between 15,000 British soldiers and 7000 Boers.

It was a British victory. British casualties were 1,270, the highest for any day in the war. 4,500 Boer surrendered.

Following the battle and Cronje’s surrender Roberts marched to Bloemfontein and took the surrender of the capital of the Orange Free State.


The Royal Field Artillery fought with 15 pounder guns; the Royal Horse Artillery with 12 pounders and the Royal Garrison Artillery batteries with 5 inch howitzers. The Royal Navy provided heavy field artillery with a number of 4.7 inch naval guns mounted on field carriages devised by Captain Percy Scott of HMS Terrible.


HMS Terrible.

Automatic weapons were used by the British usually mounted on special carriages accompanying the cavalry.

Winner: The British

British Regiments:

Sixth Division (commanded by Lieutenant General Kelly-Kenny)
12th Brigade:
2nd Bedfordshire.
1st Royal Irish Regiment.
2nd Worcestershire.
2nd Wiltshire.

13th Brigade (commanded by Major General Knox)
2nd East Kents.
2nd Gloucesters.
1st West Riding Regiment.
1st Oxfordshire Light Infantry.

Royal Field Artillery: 76th, 81st and 82nd Batteries.
Royal Engineers: 38th Company.

Ninth Division (commanded by Major General Colville)
3rd Highland Brigade (Major General McDonald)
2nd Black Watch.
1st Highland Light Infantry.
2nd Seaforth Highlanders.
1st Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders.

18th Brigade:
2nd Royal Warwickshire.
1st Yorkshire.
1st Welsh.
1st Essex.

The Cavalry Division (commanded by Lieutenant General French)
1st Brigade (Broadwood)
Household Cavalry Regiment.
10th Hussars.
12th Lancers.

2nd Brigade (Porter)
6th Dragoon Guards (Carabineers)
2nd Dragoons (Royal Scots Greys)
6th Dragons (Inniskillings)
New Zealanders.
Australians.

3rd Brigade (Gordon)
9th Lancers.
16th Lancers.

Royal Horse Artillery: G, P, O, R, Q, T and U Batteries.

Reserve:
2nd Duke of Cornwall’s Light Infantry.
2nd Shropshire Light Infantry.
2nd Gordon Highlanders.
Royal Canadian Regiment.
Robert’s Horse.
Kitchener’s Horse.
City of London Imperial Volunteers.
Royal Field Artillery: 2nd, 38th, 39th, 44th and 88th Field Batteries.
A Battery RHA.
37th and 65th Howitzer Batteries.
3 Royal Naval 4.7 inch guns.
Siege Train.

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COPERNICUS BORN:
February 19, 1473

On February 19, 1473, Nicolaus Copernicus is born in Torun, a city in north-central Poland on the Vistula River. The father of modern astronomy, he was the first modern European scientist to propose that Earth and other planets revolve around the sun.

Copernicus was born into a family of well-to-do merchants, and after his father's death, his uncle--soon to be a bishop--took the boy under his wing. He was given the best education of the day and bred for a career in canon (church) law. At the University of Krakw, he studied liberal arts, including astronomy and astrology, and then, like many Poles of his social class, was sent to Italy to study medicine and law.

While studying at the University of Bologna, he lived for a time in the home of Domenico Maria de Novara, the principal astronomer at the university. Astronomy and astrology were at the time closely related and equally regarded, and Novara had the responsibility of issuing astrological prognostications for Bologna. Copernicus sometimes assisted him in his observations, and Novara exposed him to criticism of both astrology and aspects of the Ptolemaic system, which placed Earth at the center of the universe.

Copernicus later studied at the University of Padua and in 1503 received a doctorate in canon law from the University of Ferrara. He returned to Poland, where he became a church administrator and doctor. In his free time, he dedicated himself to scholarly pursuits, which sometimes included astronomical work. By 1514, his reputation as an astronomer was such that he was consulted by church leaders attempting to reform the Julian calendar.

The cosmology of early 16th-century Europe held that Earth sat stationary and motionless at the center of several rotating, concentric spheres that bore the celestial bodies: the sun, the moon, the known planets, and the stars. From ancient times, philosophers adhered to the belief that the heavens were arranged in circles (which by definition are perfectly round), causing confusion among astronomers who recorded the often eccentric motion of the planets, which sometimes appeared to halt in their orbit of Earth and move retrograde across the sky.

In the second century A.D., the Alexandrian geographer and astronomer Ptolemy sought to resolve this problem by arguing that the sun, planets, and moon move in small circles around much larger circles that revolve around Earth. These small circles he called epicycles, and by incorporating numerous epicycles rotating at varying speeds he made his celestial system correspond with most astronomical observations on record.

The Ptolemaic system remained Europe's accepted cosmology for more than 1,000 years, but by Copernicus' day accumulated astronomical evidence had thrown some of his theories into confusion. Astronomers disagreed on the order of the planets from Earth, and it was this problem that Copernicus addressed at the beginning of the 16th century.

Sometime between 1508 and 1514, he wrote a short astronomical treatise commonly called the Commentariolus, or "Little Commentary," which laid the basis for his heliocentric (sun-centered) system. The work was not published in his lifetime. In the treatise, he correctly postulated the order of the known planets, including Earth, from the sun, and estimated their orbital periods relatively accurately.

For Copernicus, his heliocentric theory was by no means a watershed, for it created as many problems as it solved. For instance, heavy objects were always assumed to fall to the ground because Earth was the center of the universe. Why would they do so in a sun-centered system? He retained the ancient belief that circles governed the heavens, but his evidence showed that even in a sun-centered universe the planets and stars did not revolve around the sun in circular orbits. Because of these problems and others, Copernicus delayed publication of his major astronomical work, De revolutionibus orbium coelestium libri vi, or "Six Books Concerning the Revolutions of the Heavenly Orbs," nearly all his life. Completed around 1530, it was not published until 1543--the year of his death.

In the work, Copernicus' groundbreaking argument that Earth and the planets revolve around the sun led him to make a number of other major astronomical discoveries. While revolving around the sun, Earth, he argued, spins on its axis daily. Earth takes one year to orbit the sun and during this time wobbles gradually on its axis, which accounts for the precession of the equinoxes. Major flaws in the work include his concept of the sun as the center of the whole universe, not just the solar system, and his failure to grasp the reality of elliptical orbits, which forced him to incorporate numerous epicycles into his system, as did Ptolemy. With no concept of gravity, Earth and the planets still revolved around the sun on giant transparent spheres.

In his dedication to De revolutionibus--an extremely dense scientific work--Copernicus noted that "mathematics is written for mathematicians." If the work were more accessible, many would have objected to its non-biblical and hence heretical concept of the universe. For decades, De revolutionibus remained unknown to all but the most sophisticated astronomers, and most of these men, while admiring some of Copernicus' arguments, rejected his heliocentric basis. It was not until the early 17th century that Galileo and Johannes Kepler developed and popularized the Copernican theory, which for Galileo resulted in a trial and conviction for heresy. Following Isaac Newton's work in celestial mechanics in the late 17th century, acceptance of the Copernican theory spread rapidly in non-Catholic countries, and by the late 18th century it was almost universally accepted.

21st February 1803 - Edward Despard became the last person in Britain to be hanged, drawn and quartered after he plotted to assassinate King George III.
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Edward Marcus Despard (1751-1803), Irish-born British colonel turned revolutionary, was born in Queens Co., Ireland, in 1751 (Ireland became part of Britain in 1801).

In 1766 he entered the British navy, was promoted lieutenant in 1772, and stationed at Jamaica, where he soon proved himself to have considerable engineering talent. He served in the West Indies with credit, being promoted captain after the San Juan expedition (1779). In 1782 he commanded a successful expedition against the Spanish possessions on the Black River. He was subsequently made Superintendent of the Bay of Honduras on the Mosquito Coast (present-day Belize).

He administered this British enclave until 1790 when, upon frivolous charges, he was suspended by Lord Grenville and recalled to England. From 1790 to 1792 these charges were investigated, and he was suspended on half pay with his expenses from the Bay of Honduras witheld. Pursued by a further law suit from his enemies in the Bay, he was arrested and confined in the King's Bench debtor's prison from 1792 to 1794. On his release he joined the London Corresponding Society and in 1798 was arrested on suspicion of involvement in the Irish Rebellion. Habeas Corpus had been suspended in 1794, and Despard was held without trial for nearly three years in a succession of prisons, notably Coldbath Fields in Clerkenwell, until he was released without charge in 1801. In late 1802 he was named by government informers and disaffected soldiers as a member of a conspiracy engaged in a plot to seize the Tower of London and Bank of England and assassinate George III. The evidence was thin but Despard was arrested and prosecuted by the Attorney General, Spencer Percival, before Lord Ellenborough, the Lord Chief Justice. Despite a dramatic appearance by Lord Nelson as character witness on his behalf, Despard was found guilty by the jury of high treason, and sentenced, with six of his fellow-conspirators, to be hanged, drawn and quartered.

These were the last men to be so sentenced in England, although prior to execution the sentence was commuted to simple hanging and beheading, amid fears that the draconian punishment might spark public dissent. Despard was executed on the roof of Horsemonger Lane prison, in front of a crowd of at least 20,000 spectators, on the 21st of February 1803.

wikipedia.org

MARX PUBLISHES MANIFESTO:
February 21, 1848

On February 21, 1848, The Communist Manifesto, written by Karl Marx with the assistance of Friedrich Engels, is published in London by a group of German-born revolutionary socialists known as the Communist League. The political pamphlet--arguably the most influential in history--proclaimed that "the history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles" and that the inevitable victory of the proletariat, or working class, would put an end to class society forever. Originally published in German as Manifest der Kommunistischen Partei ("Manifesto of the Communist Party"), the work had little immediate impact. Its ideas, however, reverberated with increasing force into the 20th century, and by 1950 nearly half the world's population lived under Marxist governments.

Karl Marx was born in Trier, Prussia, in 1818--the son of a Jewish lawyer who converted to Lutheranism. He studied law and philosophy at the universities of Berlin and Jena and initially was a follower of G.W.F. Hegel, the 19th-century German philosopher who sought a dialectical and all-embracing system of philosophy. In 1842, Marx became editor of the Rheinische Zeitung, a liberal democratic newspaper in Cologne. The newspaper grew considerably under his guidance, but in 1843 the Prussian authorities shut it down for being too outspoken. That year, Marx moved to Paris to co-edit a new political review.

Paris was at the time a center for socialist thought, and Marx adopted the more extreme form of socialism known as communism, which called for a revolution by the working class that would tear down the capitalist world. In Paris, Marx befriended Friedrich Engels, a fellow Prussian who shared his views and was to become a lifelong collaborator. In 1845, Marx was expelled from France and settled in Brussels, where he renounced his Prussian nationality and was joined by Engels.

During the next two years, Marx and Engels developed their philosophy of communism and became the intellectual leaders of the working-class movement. In 1847, the League of the Just, a secret society made up of revolutionary German workers living in London, asked Marx to join their organization. Marx obliged and with Engels renamed the group the Communist League and planned to unite it with other German worker committees across Europe. The pair were commissioned to draw up a manifesto summarizing the doctrines of the League.

Back in Brussels, Marx wrote The Communist Manifesto in January 1848, using as a model a tract Engels wrote for the League in 1847. In early February, Marx sent the work to London, and the League immediately adopted it as their manifesto. Many of the ideas in The Communist Manifesto were not new, but Marx had achieved a powerful synthesis of disparate ideas through his materialistic conception of history. The Manifesto opens with the dramatic words, "A spectre is haunting Europe--the spectre of communism," and ends by declaring: "The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains. They have a world to win. Workers of the world, unite!"

In The Communist Manifesto, Marx predicted imminent revolution in Europe. The pamphlet had hardly cooled after coming off the presses in London when revolution broke out in France on February 22 over the banning of political meetings held by socialists and other opposition groups. Isolated riots led to popular revolt, and on February 24 King Louis-Philippe was forced to abdicate. The revolution spread like brushfire across continental Europe. Marx was in Paris on the invitation of the provincial government when the Belgian government, fearful that the revolutionary tide would soon engulf Belgium, banished him. Later that year, he went to the Rhineland, where he agitated for armed revolt.

The bourgeoisie of Europe soon crushed the Revolution of 1848, and Marx would have to wait longer for his revolution. He went to London to live and continued to write with Engels as they further organized the international communist movement. In 1864, Marx helped found the International Workingmen's Association--known as the First International--and in 1867 published the first volume of his monumental Das Kapital--the foundation work of communist theory. By his death in 1884, communism had become a movement to be reckoned with in Europe. Twenty-three years later, in 1917, Vladimir Lenin, a Marxist, led the world's first successful communist revolution in Russia.

22nd February 1371 - Robert II succeeded to the throne of Scotland, beginning the Stuart dynasty.



Robert II, 1316–90, king of Scotland (1371–90) (over 300 years before Scotland joined the Union), nephew and successor of David II. He was the first sovereign of the house of Stuart, or Stewart (see Stuart, family), which eventually succeeded to the English as well as the Scottish throne. The son of Walter the Steward and Marjory, daughter of Robert I, he was regent three times (1333–35, 1338–41, and 1346–58 ) for David II during the latter's exile and captivity. He thus led the resistance to Edward de Baliol and Edward III of England. Robert rebelled against his uncle in 1363 when David recognized Edward III as his successor. On David's death (1371), however, he succeeded peacefully to the throne, in accordance with the succession law adopted in 1318. Robert's first marriage took place after the birth of several of his sons, but their succession to the throne was legitimized by an act of Parliament in 1373. Through most of his reign the government was dominated by two of these sons—John, earl of Carrick (later Robert III) and Robert Stuart, later 1st duke of Albany. The Scots in alliance with France fought off several English invasions; they invaded England without assistance in 1388 and won a great victory at Otterburn. Robert was succeeded by Robert III.

infoplease.com

America Attacks England: In 1797.general William Tate, an American mercenary, leads a force of French troops and convicts in an attack on Great Britain. This was very short lived, as instead of landing at Bristol,they alit at the Welsh village of Fishguard.

23rd February 1820 - the Cato Street Conspiracy is uncovered by police.
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The Cato Street Conspiracy was an attempt to murder all the British cabinet ministers in 1820. The name comes from the meeting place near Edgware Road in London.

The conspirators were members of a group of Spencean Philanthropists, named after the British radical speaker Thomas Spence. Some of them, especially Arthur Thistlewood, had been involved with the Spa Fields riots in 1816. Thistlewood came to dominate the group.

Angered by the Six Acts and the Peterloo Massacre, the plan was to assassinate a number of cabinet ministers, overthrow the government and set up a Committee of Public Safety to oversee a radical revolution. According to later prosecutor of their trial, they would have formed a provisional government headquartered in the Mansion House.

George III's death on January 29, 1820 caused a governmental crisis. In a meeting held February 22, one of the Spenceans, George Edwards, suggested that the group could exploit the political situation and kill all the cabinet ministers. They planned to invade a cabinet dinner at the home of Lord Harrowby, Lord President of the Council armed with pistols and grenades.

Thistlewood thought the act would create a massive uprising against the government. James Ings, a coffee shop keeper and former butcher, later announced that he would have decapitated all the cabinet members and taken two heads to exhibit on the Westminster Bridge. Thistlewood spent the next hours trying to recruit more men for the attack. Only 27 men joined the effort.

When Jamaican-born William Davidson, who had worked for Lord Harrowby, went to look for more details about the cabinet dinner, a servant in Lord Harrowby's house told him that his master was not home at all. When Davidson told this to Thistlewood, he refused to believe it and demanded that the operation commence at once. John Harrison rented a small house in the Cato Street as the base of operations.

However, George Edwards was working for the Home Office and had become an agent provocateur; in fact, some of the other members had suspected him but Thistlewood had made him his aide-de-camp. Edwards had presented the idea with the full knowledge of the Home Office, who had also put the advertisement about the supposed dinner in The New Times. When he reported that his would-be-comrades would be ready to follow his suggestion, the Home Office decided to act.

On February 23, Richard Bimie, Bow Street magistrate, and George Ruthwen, another police spy, went to wait at a public house on the other side of the street of the Cato Street building with 12 officers of the Bow Street Runners. Bimie and Ruthwen waited for the afternoon because they had been promised reinforcements from Coldstream Guards. Thistlewood's group arrived during that time. At 7.30pm, the Bow Street Runners decided to apprehend the conspirators themselves.

In the resulting brawl, Thistlewood killed a police officer, Richard Smithers, with a sword. Some conspirators surrendered peacefully, while others resisted forcefully. William Davidson failed to fight his way out. Thistlewood, Robert Adams, John Brunt and John Harrison slipped out the back window but they were arrested a few days later.

Eleven men were later charged for the plot. During the trial, the defence argued that the statement of Edwards, a government spy, was unreliable and he was therefore never called to testify. Police convinced two of the men, Robert Adams and John Monument, to testify against other conspirators in exchange of dropped charges. Most of the accused were sentenced to death for high treason on April 28.

John Brunt, William Davidson, James Ings, Arthur Thistlewood and Richard Tidd were hanged at Newgate Prison May 1 1820; death sentences of Charles Copper, Richard Bradburn, John Harrison, James Wilson and John Strange were commuted to transportation for life.

The British government used the incident to justify the Six Acts that had been passed the previous year. However, in the House of Commons, Matthew Wood accused the government of purposeful entrapment of the conspirators to smear the campaign for parliamentary reform. The otherwise pro-government newspaper The Observer ignored the order of the Lord Chief Justice Sir Charles Abbott not to report the trial before the sentencing.

wikipedia.org

Also on this day -


Plan of the Alamo

1836 - In America, the beginning of the seige of the Alamo.


1855 - The medal for the battle of Balaklava (on 25th October 1854) was authorised for British troops by Queen Victoria.

1863 - British explorers John Speke and J A Grant announce they have discovered the source of the River Nile in Africa.

That was a pathetic, and laughable, attempt at an invasion of the then most powerful nation on the planet.

24th February 1807 - the world's first passenger railway (the Oystermouth Railway) was opened in Britain. Its carriages were horse-drawn -


A share of the Oystermouth railway, dated 1808.

In 1804 the British Parliament approved the laying of a railway line between Swansea and Oystermouth in South Wales, and in the autumn of that year the first tracks were laid. At this stage, the railway was known as the Oystermouth Railway. It later became the Swansea and Mumbles Railway, but its popular name was the Mumbles Train.

There was no road link between Swansea and Oystermouth and the original purpose of the railway was to transport coal, iron-ore and limestone. Operations began in 1806 with horse-drawn cars.

In 1807 approval was given to carry passengers along the line and Benjamin French paid the railroad company (The Oystermouth Railway Company) the princely sum of twenty pounds for the right to do so. On March 25 1807, the first REGULAR service carrying passengers between Swansea and Mumbles began, thus giving the railway the claim of being the first passenger railway in the world.

Steam power inevitably replaced the horses and in 1893 the railway was extended to nearby Southend and in 1898 the line was further extended to the Mumbles Pier.

The line was electrified using overhead cables – so this line has seen three forms of locomotive power over the years – and on March 2, 1929 the first electrical cars were used. These cars were the largest built for use in Britain and each could seat 106 passengers.

During the late 1950s, The South Wales Transport Company (which operated a large motor bus fleet in the area) managed to purchase the railway and despite vociferous local opposition proceeded to close the line down. At 11.52 on January 5, 1960, the last train left Swansea for Mumbles driven by Frank Duncan, who had driven the train since 1907. Within a very short time of the train returning to its Rutland Street base, work began on dismantling the track.

The Mumbles Railway Preservation Society was formed in the 1970s to formally archive material and to maintain the hope that one day the line would re-open.

wikipedia.org


Also on this day -


1804 - Britain mobilises to protect against French invasion.

1807 - in England, 7 die and 15 wounded in a crush to witness the execution of Holloway, Heggerty and Elizabeth Godfrey.

1809 - Charles Darwin was born.

1838 - the British steamship The Great Western, built by Isambard Kingdom Brunel, the largest ship in the world at the time, makes its maiden voyage.

1840 - the Penny Black, the world's first postage stamp, is introduced in Britain.

25th February 1601 - the execution of Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex. He was the last person to be beheaded inside the Tower of London, but his execution wasn't as straightforward as he would probably have liked - it took three strokes of the axe to finally lop his head off.

He was executed because Elizabeth's refusal to renew his licence that allowed him to import sweet wines and grow rich eventually plunged the Earl into poverty and drove him to stage a popular uprising, attempting to murder the members of the Privy Council.
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Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex, was one of the most charismatic and dashing figures in Elizabethan history. Yet 400 years ago, on 25th February 1601, he was beheaded within the walls of the Tower of London. Three strokes of the axe were needed to sever Essex's head.

A young and stylish courtier, Essex soon became chief favourite of the ageing 'Virgin Queen' Elizabeth I and was the last in a long line of men she kept in her inner circle of confidants. Brave, handsome and gallant, he was also ambitious and arrogant, qualities which eventually led to his downfall.

Essex held a monopoly on the duties from imported sweet wines, an income which made him a wealthy man. But Elizabeth's refusal to renew this licence plunged the Earl into poverty and drove him to stage a popular uprising which wrought his own destruction. On 19 February he was tried for high treason, condemned and six days later was executed in the Great Court of the Tower (the current Parade Ground) at the age of 35. He is buried in the Chapel Royal of St Peter ad Vincula within the walls of the Tower of London.

Essex was the last person to be beheaded within the walls of the Tower of London, a 'privilege' normally afforded to members of the royal family. He was executed there because the authorities feared a major disturbance - perhaps even a rescue attempt - if he were to have been put to death on Tower Hill.

A special scaffold three yards square was erected for Essex's execution and stood to the north of the White Tower. A bench was set three yards back from the scaffold where the officials chosen by the government were to sit to witness the execution. To be sure the beheading took place, two executioners were sent to the Tower for the event, apparently in case one found himself unable to perform the task.

Dressed in black, but with a bright red waistcoat, Essex made a speech from the scaffold in which he prayed for the welfare of Elizabeth and said that he had never waivered in his loyalty to her. Over 100 people witnessed the execution, including, according to one source, Sir Walter Raleigh who was a great rival of his for the Queen's affections.

HITLER ORGANIZES LUFTWAFFE:
February 26, 1935

On February 26, 1935, Nazi leader Adolf Hitler signs a secret decree authorizing the founding of the Reich Luftwaffe as a third German military service to join the Reich army and navy. In the same decree, Hitler appointed Hermann Goering, a German air hero from World War I and high-ranking Nazi, as commander in chief of the new German air force.

The Versailles Treaty that ended World War I prohibited military aviation in Germany, but a German civilian airline--Lufthansa--was founded in 1926 and provided flight training for the men who would later become Luftwaffe pilots. After coming to power in 1933, Nazi leader Adolf Hitler began to secretly develop a state-of-the-art military air force and appointed Goering as German air minister. (During World War I, Goering commanded the celebrated air squadron in which the great German ace Manfred von Richthofen--"The Red Baron"--served.) In February 1935, Hitler formally organized the Luftwaffe as a major step in his program of German rearmament.

The Luftwaffe was to be uncamouflaged step-by-step so as not to alarm foreign governments, and the size and composition of Luftwaffe units were to remain secret as before. However, in March 1935, Britain announced it was strengthening its Royal Air Force (RAF), and Hitler, not to be outdone, revealed his Luftwaffe, which was rapidly growing into a formidable air force.

As German rearmament moved forward at an alarming rate, Britain and France protested but failed to keep up with German war production. The German air fleet grew dramatically, and the new German fighter--the Me-109--was far more sophisticated than its counterparts in Britain, France, or Russia. The Me-109 was bloodied during the Spanish Civil War; Luftwaffe pilots received combat training as they tried out new aerial attack formations on Spanish towns such as Guernica, which suffered more than 1,000 killed during a brutal bombing by the Luftwaffe in April 1937.

The Luftwaffe was configured to serve as a crucial part of the German blitzkrieg, or "lightning war"--the deadly military strategy developed by General Heinz Guderian. As German panzer divisions burst deep into enemy territory, lethal Luftwaffe dive-bombers would decimate the enemy's supply and communication lines and cause panic. By the outbreak of World War II in September 1939, the Luftwaffe had an operational force of 1,000 fighters and 1,050 bombers.

First Poland and then Denmark, Norway, Holland, Belgium, and France fell to the blitzkrieg. After the surrender of France, Germany turned the Luftwaffe against Britain, hoping to destroy the RAF in preparation for a proposed German landing. However, in the epic air battle known as the Battle of Britain, the outnumbered RAF fliers successfully resisted the Luftwaffe, relying on radar technology, their new, highly maneuverable Spitfire aircraft, bravery, and luck. For every British plane shot down, two German warplanes were destroyed. In the face of British resistance, Hitler changed strategy in the Battle of Britain, abandoning his invasion plans and attempting to bomb London into submission. However, in this campaign, the Luftwaffe was hampered by its lack of strategic, long-range bombers, and in early 1941 the Battle of Britain ended in failure.

Britain had handed the Luftwaffe its first defeat. Later that year, Hitler ordered an invasion of the USSR, which after initial triumphs turned into an unqualified disaster. As Hitler stubbornly fought to overcome Russia's bitter resistance, the depleted Luftwaffe steadily lost air superiority over Europe in the face of increasing British and American air attacks. By the time of the D-Day invasion of Normandy in June 1944, the Luftwaffe air fleet was a skeleton of its former self.

26th February1815: Napoleon Bonaparte escapes from exile on the Island of Elba.


Napoleon: an arrogant ponce.

Somewhat hypocritically, the defeated Napoleon wrote one last letter to Josephine, in which he said, "Never forget him who has never forgotten you and will never forget you." On April 20, 1814, the dethroned Emperor left France for the isle of Elba, where he was exiled under the terms of the Treaty of Fontainebleau.

Napoleon would be allowed to rule Elba, which had 12,000 inhabitants. Perhaps cruelly, the treaty allowed him to retain the title "Emperor." On May 4 1814, Napoleon, now 45 years old, arrived at Elba's capital, Portoferraio. Saying, "I want to live from now on like a justice of the peace," Napoleon actually worked hard to improve Elba, and to all observers, it seemed as though Napoleon was content to a life of relative retirement. All the while, however, he was plotting his return to Europe.

On Elba, Napoleon was under the constant watch of Austrian and French guards. Nonetheless, he was not isolated: he received thousands of letters from all over Europe and read major newspapers that kept him abreast of events throughout the world. It was probably via these sources that he learned of Josephine's death on May 29, 1814.

On February 26, 1815, Napoleon managed to sneak past his guards and somehow escape from Elba, slip past interception by a British ship, and return to France. Immediately, people and troops began to rally to the returned Emperor. French police forces were sent to arrest him, but upon arriving in his presence, they kneeled before him. Triumphantly, Napoleon returned to Paris on March 20, 1815. Paris welcomed him with celebration, and Louis XVIII, the new king, fled to Belgium. With Louis only just gone, Napoleon moved back into the Tuileries. The period known as the Hundred Days had begun.

Napoleon, trying to increase his support, started making minor reforms, promising a more liberal, democratic society. His major action was the hollowly worded "Additional Act to the Constitution of the Empire." However, people were quick to discern the half-hearted spirit of the reforms this act provided for, and Napoleon's support base began to decline. Meanwhile, in Western France, pro-Bourbon Royalists remained active.
At the Congress of Vienna, where the European powers were meeting to discuss how to rearrange Europe in the aftermath of Napoleon's conquests, news of Napoleon's escape from Elba delivered an intense shock to all. On March 13, 1815, the nations represented there declared Napoleon an outlaw.

Europe in 1815 -



--

February 26th -

1797 - Bank of England launches the first £1 note.

1936 - Hitler launches the Volkswagen Beetle.

1560 - The Treaty of Berwick, which would expel the French from Scotland, is signed by England and the Congregation of Scotland.
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The Treaty of Berwick was an agreement of amity made on July 6, 1586 between Queen Elizabeth I of England and King James VI of Scotland.

Represented by Thomas Manners, Earl of Rutland (for the English) and Francis Stewart, soon to be Earl of Bothwell (for the Scots), the two countries signed a mutual defensive alliance pact to guarantee aid should an invasion of either homeland, take place. The two largely Protestant countries were threatened from abroad by the Catholic powers, Spain and France.

Some believe Elizabeth only entered into the agreement to soften the blow of her next political move - the execution of James' mother, Mary Queen of Scots. For James, his motivation was the chance of succeeding to the English throne upon Elizabeth's death. A part of the agreement ensured James would receive an annual pension of £4,000 from the English state, which led many to assume Elizabeth already considered James as an heir to her throne. James would succeed to the English throne in 1603.

wikipedia.org

27th January -

1812 - Poet Lord Byron gives his first address as a member of the House of Lords, in defence of Luddite violence against Industrialism in his home county of Nottinghamshire.

1900 - Second Boer War: In South Africa, British military leaders receive an unconditional notice of surrender from Boer General Piet Cronje at the Battle of Paardeberg.

1900 - The formation of the Labour Representation Committee in Britain by the Independent Labour Party, the Fabian Society, the Social Democratic Federation and trade unions at a conference in London. Aim: to increase the independent representation of working people in Parliament. Committee secretary was future Labour Prime Minister Ramsey MacDonald.

From the archive

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Captain Swing recruits a Mansfield vicar*

Monday February 28, 1831
The Guardian


The Rev Wm Bowerbank, of Mansfield, has been committed to Nottingham gaol for sending "Swing" letters to John Coke, Esq, the high sheriff of the county.

Stack-Burning in Hertfordshire.


It is with considerable regret we have to communicate to the public the total destruction, by fire, of five stacks, the property of Mr Crawley, tenant of Hill Farm. The fire burned from 11 at night until 10 on Monday morning.

Suspicion first fell upon a man named Dye, who in company with William Webb and other labouring men, had been drinking at the White Lipon public house. Dye was taken into custody and a summons issued requiring attendance by Webb as witness. Webb confessed to being one of the party who fired the ricks which, if corroborated, will lead to the conviction of another person in custody.

[From 1830-1831 in Britain, property was damaged and big landowners were sent letters signed Captain Swing in direct action against low farm wages.]

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Sentenced to 2 months' hard labour - for stealing 3 drinking glasses.*

Among the too frequent results of habits of intoxication, particularly among the weaker sex, is the commission of trifling peculations, in order to obtain a supply of ardent spirits, when no honest means are left.

The most ready temptation is offered in the drinking glass from which the unhappy creature has just swallowed the dram that has drawn her last penny from her pocket. She slips the glass under her shawl or cloak, skulks out, and soon disposes of her ill-gotten booty, for as much as will obtain her "one glass more".

On Saturday last, at the New Bailey, Emma Stubbs was charged with having stolen three drinking glasses from a public-house. A girl pursued her, and found them concealed under her shawl. The prisoner had been in custody for a similar offence; and was committed for trial at the sessions.

On Tuesday, Martha Clare was brought up on a charge of stealing a glass but, no-one appearing against her, she was discharged

The same day saw a man, George Cole. Three drinking glasses were found on his person, two in different pockets and one in his hat which had the dregs of ale remaining in it. One of the glasses was ascertained to have been been stolen from the Feathers Inn, another, only about five minutes before his apprehension, from the Red Lion, Salford. The third was identified as belonging to a publican in Gravel Lane, Salford.

The prisoner was committed to hard labour for two months.
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* Not the actual 1831 headlines for these news stories.
guardian.co.uk

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28th February -

1844 - A gun on USS Princeton explodes while the boat is on a Potomac River cruise, killing two United States Cabinet members and several others.

1900 - The Second Boer War: The 118-day "Siege of Ladysmith" is lifted. Ladysmith made world headlines at the turn of the century when it was besieged for 118 days, from 2 November 1899 to 28 February 1900, during the most crucial stage of the Anglo-Boer War. 3,000 British soldiers died during the siege. The British commander was Redvers Buller.

1922 - Egypt gets its independence from Britain.

1948 - The last British troops leave India.

1975 - 42 people are killed on the London Underground when a train crashes at Moorgate Station.

1st March 1587 - English parliament leader and Puritan Peter Wentworth confined in the Tower of London.
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Peter Wentworth (1530 - November 10, 1596) was the elder brother of Paul Wentworth, and like his brother was a prominent puritan leader in parliament, which he first entered as member for Barnstaple, Devon in 1571.

He took a firm attitude in support of the liberties of parliament against encroachments of the royal prerogative, on which subject he delivered a memorable speech on February 8, 1576, for which after examination by the Star Chamber he was committed to the Tower.

In February 1587 Sir Anthony Cope (1548-1614) presented to the Speaker a bill abrogating the existing ecclesiastical law, together with a puritan revision of the Prayer Book, and Wentworth supported him by bringing forward certain articles touching the liberties of the House of Commons; Cope and Wentworth were both committed to the Tower for interference with the queen's ecclesiastical prerogative.

In 1593 Wentworth again suffered imprisonment for presenting a petition on the subject of the succession to the Crown; and it is probable that he did not regain his freedom, for he died in the Tower on the l0th of November 1596. While in the Tower he wrote A Pithie Exhortation to her Majesty for establishing her Successor to the Crown, a famous treatise preserved in the British Museum.

Peter Wentworth was twice married; his first wife, by whom he had no children, was a cousin of Catherine Parr, and his second a sister of Sir Francis Walsingham, Elizabeth's secretary of state.

His third son, Thomas Wentworth (c. 1568-1623), was an ardent and sometimes a violent opponent of royal prerogative in parliament, of which he became a member in 1604, continuing to represent the city of Oxford from that year until his death. He was called to the bar in 1594 and became recorder of Oxford in 1607. Another son, Walter Wentworth, was also a member of parliament.

wikipedia.org

March 1 -

1692 - The Salem witch trials begin in Salem Village, Massachusetts.

1711 - "The Spectator" begins publishing (London)

1854 - SS City of Glasgow leaves Liverpool harbour and is never
seen again.

1864 - Rebecca Lee (US) becomes 1st black woman to receive a medical degree

2nd March 1882 - Queen Victoria survives an assassination attempt. It was one of several attempts to assassinate her - and the last. Scotsman Roderick Maclean was the culprit.
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The trial of Maclean.

Roderick Maclean attempted to assassinate Queen Victoria of England in 1882 with a pistol. This was the last of six attempts over a period of forty years to kill or assault Victoria, and it was the only one in which the gun in use was actually loaded. Maclean's motive was puportedly a curt reply to poetry of his mailed to the Queen.

Tried for high treason, the jury found the Scotsman Maclean "not guilty, but insane" and he lived out his remaining days in an asylum. The verdict prompted the Queen to change English law regarding cases with similar outcomes to be considered as "guilty, but insane."

A poem was later written about Maclean's attempt on the Queen's life by William Topaz McGonagall, considered by some the "worst" poet in the English language.

McGonagall's poem -

God prosper long our noble Queen,
And long may she reign!
Maclean he tried to shoot her,
But it was all in vain.

For God He turned the ball aside
Maclean aimed at her head;
And he felt very angry
Because he didn't shoot her dead.

There's a divinity that hedges a king,
And so it does seem,
And my opinion is, it has hedged
Our most gracious Queen.

Maclean must be a madman,
Which is obvious to be seen,
Or else he wouldn't have tried to shoot
Our most beloved Queen.

Victoria is a good Queen,
Which all her subjects know,
And for that God has protected her
From all her deadly foes.

She is noble and generous,
Her subjects must confess;
There hasn't been her equal
Since the days of good Queen Bess.

Long may she be spared to roam
Among the bonnie Highland floral,
And spend many a happy day
In the palace of Balmoral.

Because she is very kind
To the old women there,
And allows them bread, tea, and sugar,
And each one get a share.

And when they know of her coming,
Their hearts feel overjoy'd,
Because, in general, she finds work
For men that's unemploy'd.

And she also gives the gipsies money
While at Balmoral, I've been told,
And, mind ye, seldom silver,
But very often gold.

I hope God will protect her
By night and by day,
At home and abroad,
When she's far away.

May He be as a hedge around her,
As he's been all along,
And let her live and die in peace
Is the end of my song.


wikipedia.org

2nd March -

1970 - Rhodesia (later Zimbabwe) gets its independence from Britain.

1986 - Australia gets its legal independence from Britain.

3rd March 1857 - Britain and France declare war on China to start the Second Opium War. It was also known as the Arrow War.
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Not very frightening: Chinese soldiers during the Second Opium War.

The war may be viewed as a continuation of the First Opium War (1839-1842), thus the title of the Second Opium War.

On October 8, 1856, Qing officials boarded the Arrow, a Chinese-owned ship that had been registered in Hong Kong and was suspected of piracy and smuggling. Twelve Chinese subjects were arrested and imprisoned. This has come to be known as the "Arrow Incident". The British officials in Guangzhou demanded the release of the sailors claiming that because the ship had recently been British-registered it was protected under the Unequal Treaties. Only when this was shown to be a weak argument did the British insist that the Arrow had been flying a British ensign and that the Qing soldiers had insulted the flag. Faced with fighting the Taiping Rebellion the Qing government was in no position to resist the West militarily.

Although the British were delayed by the Indian Mutiny, they responded to the "Arrow Incident" in 1857 and attacked Guangzhou from the Pearl River. Ye Mingshen, the then governor of Guangdong and Guangxi provinces ordered a non-resistance command to all of the Chinese soldiers on the forts. After taking the fort near Guangzhou with no effort, the British Army attacked Guangzhou. American warships, including Levant, bombed Guangzhou. The people in Guangzhou and soldiers launched a resistance against the invaders and forced them to retreat from Humen.

The British Parliament decided to seek redress from China based on the report about the "Arrow Incident" submitted by Harry Parkes, British Consul to Guangzhou. France, the USA, and Russia received requests from Britain to form an alliance. France joined the British action against China, prompted by the execution of a French missionary, Father August Chapdelaine ("Father Chapdelaine Incident"), by Chinese local authorities in Guangxi province. The USA and Russia sent envoys to Hong Kong to offer help to the British and French, though in the end they sent no military aid.

The British and the French joined forces under Admiral Sir Michael Seymour. The British army led by Lord Elgin, and the French army led by Gros, attacked and occupied Guangzhou in late 1857. Ye Mingshen was captured, and Bo-gui, the governor of Guangdong, surrendered. A joint committee of the Alliance was formed. Bo-gui remained at his original post to maintain order on behalf of the aggressors. The British-French Alliance maintained control of Guangzhou for nearly four years. Ye Mingshen was exiled to Calcutta in India where he starved himself to death.

The coalition then cruised north to briefly capture the Taku forts near Tientsin (Tianjin) in May 1858.

wikipedia.org

3rd March -

1845 - Florida becomes the 27th state of America.

1934 - Largest English football crowd outside of Wembley. 84,569 watched the game between Manchester United v Stoke City.

4th March 1890 - The Prince of Wales opens the Forth Rail Bridge, the most marvellous piece of engineering the world had ever seen at that time. When it was being built, Britain was the world's engineering and industrial powerhouse - the "Workshop of the World."
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The bridge is, even today, regarded as an engineering marvel. It is 2.5 km (1.5 miles) in length, and the double track is elevated 46 m (approx. 150 ft) above high tide. It consists of two main spans of 1,710 ft, two side spans of 675 ft, 15 approach spans of 168 ft and five of 25 ft. The main spans comprise two 680 feet cantilever arms supporting a central 350 ft span girder bridges. The three great four-tower cantilever structures are 340 ft (104 m) tall, each 70 ft diameter foot resting on separate foundations. The southern group of foundations had to be constructed as caissons under compressed air, to a depth of 90 ft. At its peak approximately 4,600 workers were employed in its construction. Initially, it was recorded that 57 lives were lost, however after extensive research by local historians the figure has been revised upwards to 79. As well as the large number of deaths, eight more men were saved by boats positioned in the river under the working areas. Hundreds more were left crippled by serious accidents and one log book of accidents and sickness had 26,000 entries. In 2005, a project was set up by South Queensferry Historical Society to establish a memorial to those workers who died during the bridge's construction. In North Queensferry, a decision was also made to set up memorial benches to commemorate those who died during the construction of both the rail and the road bridges, and to seek support for this project from Fife Council.

More than 55,000 tons of steel were used, as well as 18,122 m3 of granite and over eight million rivets. The bridge was opened by the Prince of Wales, later King Edward VII, who drove home the last rivet, which was gold plated and suitably inscribed. A contemporary materials analysis of the bridge, circa 2002, found that the steel in the bridge is of good quality, with little variation.

The use of a cantilever in bridge design was not a new idea, but the scale of Baker's undertaking was a real pioneering effort, afterwards extensively followed in different parts of the world. Much of the work done was without precedent, including calculations for incidence of erection stresses, provisions made for reducing future maintenance costs, calculations for wind pressures made evident by the Tay Bridge disaster, the effect of temperature stresses on the structure, and so on.

Also on this day -

1461 - Wars of the Roses in England: Lancastrian King Henry VI was deposed by his Yorkist cousin, who then became King Edward IV.

1681 - King Charles II of England granted William Penn a charter for the Pennsylvania Colony.

wikipedia.org