This Day In History Thread: Because We Need One?

[Eldan]

Sep 29:

-480: Sea battle of Salamis. The Greek fleet under Themistokles defeats Xerxes' fleet. Herodotus claims that the Greeks had 271 ships, while the Persians had 1200+ battle ships and more than 3000 other ships, which historians think is just slightly exaggerated.

1399: The English King Richard II is forced to abdicate for his Tyranny.

1818: Congress of Aachen. Tsar Alexander I of Russia, Emperor Franz I of Austria, Friedrich Wilhelm III of Prussia, the Duke of Wellington for Great Britain and Armand du Plessis, Duke of Richelieu for France meet to discuss how revolutionary democrats across Europe can be stopped. They all agree that the borders of 1815 have to be kept and that they will all support each other to keep all current regimes existing, especially the one in France.

1938: Great Britain, France, Italy and Germany meet in Munich to solve the Sudeten Crisis, as part of Appeasement politics. As a result, Czechoslovakia, which did not get to send any politicians to the summit, is split into two parts, one of which becomes part of the Reich.

[Asta Kask]

Sep 29:

1938: Great Britain, France, Italy and Germany meet in Munich to solve the Sudeten Crisis, as part of Appeasement politics. As a result, Czechoslovakia, which did not get to send any politicians to the summit, is split into two parts, one of which becomes part of the Reich.

I'll quote HTTYD2 here:

"A man who kills without reason cannot be reasoned with."

[factotum]

Sep 29th, 1988: the first manned Shuttle mission since the Challenger disaster halted all shuttle flights blasts off.

[Gwynfrid]

I'll quote HTTYD2 here

Whether the quote applies to this case is highly debatable, but debating it would be clearly against the rules.

On a related note:

September 29, 1892: Otto von Bismarck, newly appointed Minister President and Foreign Minister of Prussia, declares: "The great questions of the day will not be decided by speeches and the resolution of majorities, but by iron and blood."

[Mx.Silver]

29th of September 1902

Emile Zola, esteemed French writer, sometimes called the father of literary Naturalism, dies in his home in Paris from carbon monoxide poisoning.
Later that same day, the famously terrible poet William McGonagall, responsible for some of the worst poetry ever to come out of the British Isles, suffers a fatal cerebral haemorrhage at his residence in Edinburgh.

The two deaths were completely unrelated, but do perhaps make for an interesting coincidence.

[Aedilred]

Later that same day, the famously terrible poet William McGonagall, responsible for some of the worst poetry ever to come out of the British Isles, suffers a fatal cerebral haemorrhage at his residence in Edinburgh.

I am not a very good poet, but I sleep easier knowing that it will be very difficult to plumb depths lower than those reached by William McGonagall.

The Tay Bridge Disaster is by far his best known poem. How it became so is unclear. By his own account, it was his initial address to The Railway Bridge of the Silvery Tay that “was the only poem that made me famous universally”. Nor did the poem figure prominently in his live performances... Yet somehow this unhappy story of the Tay Bridge has become the definitive McGonagall poem. Perhaps, since it deals with visionary ideals plunged into total disaster, it’s a fitting commemoration of his career.

[Eldan]

September 30

2004: Japanese researchers produce the first photographic evidence of Architeuthis dux, the giant squid.

1954: The first nuclear submarine, the USS Nautilus, is launched.

1484: the last great knightly tournament in Germany, in Ingolstadt.

1846: William Thomas Green Morton performs the first pain free tooth extraction using ether. After presenting his findings to the Massachusetts General Hospital, he'd go into a twenty year patent dispute over his anesthesia technique, which would end with his death, in poverty.

[Gwynfrid]

September 30, 1968: The Boeing 747 is shown in public for the first time. The development program is a huge gamble, nearly bankrupting the company, but it pays off very well as the aircraft proves to be a great, long-lasting commercial success.

September 30, 1938: This is the actual date of the signing of the Munich Agreement (at 2am).

[Neli42]

1 October

1847 Maria Mitchell, American astronomer, discovers a comet. She is elected the same day to the American Academy of Arts - the first woman thus honored. The King of Denmark awards her a gold medal for her discovery.

1947 Dave Arneson, game designer who worked with Gary Gygax to co-create the Dungeons & Dragons roleplaying game, is born.

1977 Pelé (Brazil), the greatest soccer/fútbol player EVER (IMHO), retires with 1,281 goals in 1,363 games.

[thorgrim29]

Wow, Pelé is 73? I saw him on the daily show a few months ago and the guy looks great.

[Aedilred]

1977 Pelé (Brazil), the greatest soccer/fútbol player EVER (IMHO), retires with 1,281 goals in 1,363 games.
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Although I'm not going to dispute Pelé's awesomeness (I'm still tempted to rate Alfredo di Stéfano higher, but that's largely out of perversity) the fetishisation of his career has led to some dubious claims. Those figures might well be correct, but given that it includes non-league games and unofficial friendlies, the usefulness of it is questionable: few other players will have had their career analysed in such exhaustive detail to get a full record of all goals scored. It strikes me in some ways as another example of the surprising amateurishness in football administration and record-keeping: there's relatively little segregation by "class" to get even a basic idea of which figures are relevant for direct comparison and which are junk.

Some dates of my own:

959 - Edgar the Peaceable, the last strong Anglo-Saxon king of England, takes the throne.
1814 - Start of the Congress of Vienna to discuss life after Napoleon, in some ways setting a new diplomatic precedent.

[Neli42]

Although I'm not going to dispute Pelé's awesomeness (I'm still tempted to rate Alfredo di Stéfano higher, but that's largely out of perversity) the fetishisation of his career has led to some dubious claims.

I was actually a bigger fan of Diego Maradona until he sullied his career with cocaine addiction. I'm happy for him and Argentina that he's clean now, but it was a huge slap in the face to Boca Juniors, Napoli, and the other clubs he played for.

(Can't go for di Stéfano, because he played for River Plate. )

Keeping an eye on Messi and Agüero now.

[Gwynfrid]

October 2, 1187: Ṣalāḥ ad-Dīn Yūsuf ibn Ayyūb (Saladin) takes Jerusalem back from the Crusaders who had conquered the city 88 years earlier.

[Eldan]

2nd of October

1836: The HMS Beagle, carrying a certain Charles Darwin, lands back in England after an expedition to map South America.
1941: Heini Dittmar is the first man to fly faster than 1000 km/h in a plane.
1955: ENIAC, the first (one of the first?) purely electronic computers is shut down.
1959: The first episode of The Twilight Zone is broadcast

[Gwynfrid]

October 3, 1990: Germany is reunited.

[rs2excelsior]

October 3rd, 52 BC: Vercingetorix surrenders to Julius Caesar, ending both the Siege of Alesia and (effectively) Caesar's war in Gaul.
42 BC: Exactly ten years later, the forces of Mark Antony and Octavian fight those of Marcus Junius Brutus and Gaius Cassius, Caesar's assassins, at Phillippi. The latter are defeated, which sets the stage for the civil war between Octavian and Antony which will result in the founding of the Roman Empire.
1789 AD: George Washington designates the first Thanksgiving Day established by the US government.
1849: Edgar Allen Poe is found delirious in a gutter in Baltimore. He dies four days later in a hospital. The reason for his condition is never definitively determined.
1873: Captain Jack, a Native American leader of the Mudoc War--one of the last wars fought between Native American tribes and the US government--is hanged.
1942: A V-2 rocket from Peenemünde, Germany becomes the first man-made object to reach space.
1985: First flight of the Space Shuttle Atlantis.

That's all I have for now.

EDIT:

September 22, 480 BC: The Greek fleet under Themistocles defeats the fleet of Persian King Xerxes I at Salamis.

Sep 29:

-480: Sea battle of Salamis.

It's funny when ancient historians can't agree on dates...

[factotum]

It's funny when ancient historians can't agree on dates...

Given they were using a massively different calendar to ours (Gregorian calendar was introduced in 1582, but not adopted immediately in most places; Julian calendar which preceded it came in 46 BC) I'd imagine it's extremely difficult to lock down a date so far back.

[Sylthia]

Given they were using a massively different calendar to ours (Gregorian calendar was introduced in 1582, but not adopted immediately in most places; Julian calendar which preceded it came in 46 BC) I'd imagine it's extremely difficult to lock down a date so far back.

For example, George Washington was born on February 11, 1731 on the Julian Calendar, and February 22, 1732 on the Gregorian Calendar. So any date before stuff was tracked on the Gregorian Calendar is likely to be off to some extent.

[Gwynfrid]

For example, George Washington was born on February 11, 1731 on the Julian Calendar, and February 22, 1732 on the Gregorian Calendar. So any date before stuff was tracked on the Gregorian Calendar is likely to be off to some extent.

Interesting. I didn't know there had been such a big difference in adoption of the Gregorian calendar between countries. It's nearly 2 centuries right there. I guess the discrepancy didn't create so many problems that the change was compelling until much later. It truly was a larger world back then...

[Asta Kask]

Interesting. I didn't know there had been such a big difference in adoption of the Gregorian calendar between countries. It's nearly 2 centuries right there. I guess the discrepancy didn't create so many problems that the change was compelling until much later. It truly was a larger world back then...

There was that, and the Gregorian calendar was a papist invention - Protestant countries refused to introduce it for a long time on principle.

[Gwynfrid]

There was that, and the Gregorian calendar was a papist invention - Protestant countries refused to introduce it for a long time on principle.

There was no globalization but the NIH syndrome already existed

[Aedilred]

Interesting. I didn't know there had been such a big difference in adoption of the Gregorian calendar between countries. It's nearly 2 centuries right there. I guess the discrepancy didn't create so many problems that the change was compelling until much later. It truly was a larger world back then...

Russia didn't adopt the Gregorian Calendar until 1917. This had previously caused problems - the Ulm campaign in 1805 was a disaster at least in part because the allies failed to account for the differences in the calendars...

[Neli42]

3 OCT

1226 - (Saint) Francis of Assisi, founder of the mendicant Franciscan order, dies.

1974 - Frank Robinson took over the management position of the Cleveland Indians baseball team, making him the first black manager in major league baseball.

1994 - Former football star O.J. Simpson is acquitted of the brutal double murder of his estranged wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend, Ronald Goldman.

2003 - Ray Horn, of the duo "Siegfried & Roy," was attacked by a 7-year-old male tiger during a performance. Roy survived the attack after being dragged offstage.

[factotum]

Oct 4:

1957: The world's first artificial satellite, Sputnik I, is launched from the Soviet Union.

1992: A cargo plane crashes into an apartment building in Amsterdam, killing all four crew members and around 100 people on the ground.

1927: Sculptor Gutzon Borglum starts work on the president's heads on Mount Rushmore.

[Gwynfrid]

This one is timely, as it relates to the conversation above...

October 4, 1582: Pope Gregory XIII's reform of the Julian Calendar comes into effect, adopted first by Portugal, Spain, Poland and most of Italy, soon followed by most Catholic countries and much later by Protestant countries. The new Gregorian calendar has 3 less leap years per 400 years (years divisible by 100 are no longer leap years, unless they're divisible by 400; so that 2000 was a leap year but 2100 will not be one). The motive is to get the date of Easter back in alignement with the spring equinox as decided by the Council of Nicea in 325. As a consequence, 10 days are skipped in order to cancel the accumulated shift of the equinox since 325: The following day is therefore October 15, 1582. The new calendar is much more precise, with an error of 1 day every 3300 years compared to 1 day every 128 years (with respect to the mean tropical year).

[Killer Angel]

October 5:

1962 – The Beatles' first single, "Love Me Do", is released in the United Kingdom.
1969 – The first episode of Monty Python's Flying Circus airs on BBC One.

[Neli42]

Hooray for Monty Python's Flying Circus!

5 OCTOBER

1877 - After falling only 40 miles short in a 1700-mile trek to reach Canada, Nez Perce Chief Joseph surrenders to Colonel Nelson Miles in Montana Territory.

1947 - The first ever televised presidential address from the White House is given by President Harry Truman, urging Americans to reduce grain consumption in order to make more supplies available for post-war relief effort sin Europe.

1951 - Bob Geldof is born.

1968 - "The Troubles" begin in Northern Ireland with a police attack on civil rights demonstrators in Derry.

[Gwynfrid]

October 5, 2000: Massive crowds demonstrate in Belgrade, calling for President Slobodan Milošević to accept his defeat in the September 24 election. As the Serbian military deny him support, Milošević is forced to resign two days later. In the next year, he will be arrested on corruption charges, then extradited for judgment by the International Court of Justice for Former Yugoslavia for war crimes and crimes against humanity.

[Mx.Silver]

6th of October, 1896
The (in)famous Moulin Rouge opens its doors for the first time in Paris.

[Gwynfrid]

October 6, 1995: The first exoplanet is discovered, orbiting around the star 51 Pegasi, a little over 50 light-years from Earth.