THIS DAY IN HISTORY!

[LongRider]

31 minutes ago, Fragile Bird said:

I highly recommend Leigh Bardugo’s Ninth House if you want to know the real reason the university was founded!

Is that an history or historical fiction?  

[Fragile Bird]

1 hour ago, LongRider said:

Is that an history or historical fiction?  

Neither. It's utter fantasy. 

Spoiler

New Haven is supposed to be a center of magic, and magicians started to immigrate to the US hundreds of years ago and were drawn to the location because of the emanations of magic. All the secret societies are secret because they're run by magicians. Skull and Bones et al. It's very amusing, and I am amazed Leigh has not been strung up from a lamppost for some of the things she says. Maybe people are just laughing too hard! She is actually a graduate of Yale and a member of one of the secret societies.

 

[LongRider]

1 hour ago, Fragile Bird said:

Neither. It's utter fantasy. 

I've never read her, so I guess I'll have to check her out.  Thanks for the tip.   

[Fragile Bird]

1 minute ago, LongRider said:

I've never read her, so I guess I'll have to check her out.  Thanks for the tip.   

Her YA books, The Grishaverse, starting with Shadow and Bone, are a tv series. The books are very good, I’ve not seen any of the tv series.

[LongRider]

17 October...is the 290th day of the year 2023. There are 75 days remaining until the end of this year.

539 BC  Cyrus the Great marches into the city of Babylon, releasing the Jews from almost 70 years of exile. Cyrus allows the Jews to return to Yehud Medinata and rebuild the Temple in Jerusalem.

1091  London Tornado of 1091: A tornado thought to be of strength T8/F4 strikes the heart of London.

1604  Kepler’s Star: German astronomer Johannes Kepler observes a supernova in the constellation Ophiuchus.

1662  Charles II of England sells Dunkirk to France for 40,000 pounds.

1806  Former leader of the Haitian Revolution, Emperor Jacques I of Haiti is assassinated after an oppressive rule.

1814  London Beer Flood occurs in London, killing nine.

1956  The first commercial nuclear power station is officially opened by Queen Elizabeth II in Sellafield,in Cumbria, England.

1956   Mae Jemison American physician and astronaut Born on this day Decatur, Alabama.  She will be the first African American woman to become an astronaut and spend more than a week orbiting the Earth in the space shuttle Endeavour in 1992.

2018  Recreational marijuana became legal in Canada.

Edited October 17, 2023 by LongRider

[LongRider]

The London Beer Flood sounded so interesting I had to follow up.

"On Monday 17th October 1814, a terrible disaster claimed the lives of at least 8 people in St Giles, London. A bizarre industrial accident resulted in the release of a beer tsunami onto the streets around Tottenham Court Road.

The Horse Shoe Brewery stood at the corner of Great Russell Street and Tottenham Court Road. In 1810 the brewery, Meux and Company, had had a 22 foot high wooden fermentation tank installed on the premises. Held together with massive iron rings, this huge vat held the equivalent of over 3,500 barrels of brown porter ale, a beer not unlike stout.

On the afternoon of October 17th 1814 one of the iron rings around the tank snapped. About an hour later the whole tank ruptured, releasing the hot fermenting ale with such force that the back wall of the brewery collapsed. The force also blasted open several more vats, adding their contents to the flood which now burst forth onto the street. More than 320,000 gallons of beer were released into the area. This was St Giles Rookery, a densely populated London slum of cheap housing and tenements inhabited by the poor, the destitute, prostitutes and criminals.

The flood reached George Street and New Street within minutes, swamping them with a tide of alcohol. The 15 foot high wave of beer and debris inundated the basements of two houses, causing them to collapse. In one of the houses, Mary Banfield and her daughter Hannah were taking tea when the flood hit; both were killed...."

More here..   The London Beer Flood of 1814 (historic-uk.com)

The beer flood was a tragedy, even though 'beer flood' sounds comedic.  

[maarsen]

14 hours ago, LongRider said:

The London Beer Flood sounded so interesting I had to follow up.

"On Monday 17th October 1814, a terrible disaster claimed the lives of at least 8 people in St Giles, London. A bizarre industrial accident resulted in the release of a beer tsunami onto the streets around Tottenham Court Road.

The Horse Shoe Brewery stood at the corner of Great Russell Street and Tottenham Court Road. In 1810 the brewery, Meux and Company, had had a 22 foot high wooden fermentation tank installed on the premises. Held together with massive iron rings, this huge vat held the equivalent of over 3,500 barrels of brown porter ale, a beer not unlike stout.

On the afternoon of October 17th 1814 one of the iron rings around the tank snapped. About an hour later the whole tank ruptured, releasing the hot fermenting ale with such force that the back wall of the brewery collapsed. The force also blasted open several more vats, adding their contents to the flood which now burst forth onto the street. More than 320,000 gallons of beer were released into the area. This was St Giles Rookery, a densely populated London slum of cheap housing and tenements inhabited by the poor, the destitute, prostitutes and criminals.

The flood reached George Street and New Street within minutes, swamping them with a tide of alcohol. The 15 foot high wave of beer and debris inundated the basements of two houses, causing them to collapse. In one of the houses, Mary Banfield and her daughter Hannah were taking tea when the flood hit; both were killed...."

More here..   The London Beer Flood of 1814 (historic-uk.com)

The beer flood was a tragedy, even though 'beer flood' sounds comedic.  

Well Boston had the great molasses flood. That sounds even more comedic but it wasn't.

[LongRider]

5 minutes ago, maarsen said:

Well Boston had the great molasses flood. That sounds even more comedic but it wasn't.

Two million gallons of molasses!  Holy Shit!  Floods of food really are disasters that are quite deadly.   Scary stuff.

Great Molasses Flood, disaster in Boston that occurred after a storage tank collapsed on January 15, 1919, sending more than two million gallons (eight million litres) of molasses flowing through the city’s North End. The deluge caused extensive damage and killed 21 people.    Great Molasses Flood | Definition, Fatalities, & Facts | Britannica

[Prince of the North]

@LongRider @maarsen I had to look into the Great Beer Flood a bit more, too.  From the article linked by Longrider, the next article was on the Great Gobals Whisky Flood of 1906 as well!

Quote

Whilst researching our article on the London Beer Flood of 1814, we were surprised to find out that it wasn’t the only alcohol-related disaster to strike one of the UK’s great cities…

Built in 1826, the Loch Katrine (Adelphi) Distillery was situated in Muirhead Street in the Gorbals district of Glasgow. It was at this distillery in 1906 that an unfortunate accident resulted in a massive flood of over 150,000 gallons of hot whisky. The torrent engulfed both the distillery yard and the neighbouring street. One man drowned and many others were lucky to escape.

 

[LongRider]

20 minutes ago, Prince of the North said:

the next article was on the Great Gobals Whisky Flood of 1906 as well!

Thanks Prince of the North, over 150,000 gallons of hot whiskey?  Ouch!  Not as deadly as beer or molasses, but still a disaster. 

Built in 1826, the Loch Katrine (Adelphi) Distillery was situated in Muirhead Street in the Gorbals district of Glasgow. It was at this distillery in 1906 that an unfortunate accident resulted in a massive flood of over 150,000 gallons of hot whisky. The torrent engulfed both the distillery yard and the neighbouring street. One man drowned and many others were lucky to escape.

[LongRider]

18 October... is the 291st day of the year 2023. There are 74 days remaining until the end of this year. 

1016  The Danes defeat the Saxons in the Battle of Ashingdon.

1081  The Normans defeat the Byzantine Empire in the Battle of Dyrrhachium.

1356  Basel earthquake, the most significant historic seismological event north of the Alps, destroys the town of Basel, Switzerland.

1775  African-American poet Phillis Wheatley freed from slavery.

1851  Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick is first published as The Whale by Richard Bentley of London.

1929  The Judicial Committee of the Privy Council overrules the Supreme Court of Canada in Edwards v. Canada when it declares that women are considered “Persons” under Canadian law.

1945  The USSR’s nuclear program receives plans for the United States plutonium bomb from Klaus Fuchs at the Los Alamos National Laboratory.

1991  The Supreme Council of Azerbaijan adopts a declaration of independence from the Soviet Union.

1905  Jan Gies, Dutch resistance fighter, he and his wife Miep helped hide Anne Frank and her family from the Nazi's in Amsterdam, was born this day. 

[LongRider]

19 October...is the 292^nd day of the year 2023. There are 73 days remaining until the end of this year.

1386  The Universität Heidelberg held its first lecture, making it the oldest German university.

1813  The Battle of Leipzig concludes, giving Napoleon Bonaparte one of his worst defeats.

1864  Confederate soldiers based in Canada cross into St. Albans, Vermont, and rob three banks in order to agitate the Union during the American Civil War.

1943  Streptomycin, the first antibiotic remedy for tuberculosis, is isolated by researchers at Rutgers University.

1959  The first discothèque opens, the Scotch-Club in Aachen, Germany.

 

[LongRider]

20 October...is the 293rd day of the year 2023. There are 72 days remaining until the end of this year.

1720  Caribbean pirate Calico Jack is captured by the Royal Navy.

1781  Patent of Toleration, providing limited freedom of worship, is approved in Habsburg Monarchy.

1818  The Convention of 1818 signed between the United States and the United Kingdom which, among other things, settled the Canada – United States border on the 49th parallel for most of its length.

1947  The House Un-American Activities Committee begins its investigation into Communist infiltration of Hollywood, resulting in a blacklist that prevents some from working in the industry for years.

1967  A purported bigfoot is filmed by Patterson and Gimlin.

A youtube clip of the bigfoot film. 

 

 

 

[Corvinus85]

20 October 2011 - Gaddafi's death during the Lybian Civil War

[LongRider]

21 October... is the 294th day of the year 2023. There are 71 days remaining until the end of this year. 

1097  First Crusade: Crusaders led by Godfrey of Bouillon, Bohemund of Taranto, and Raymond IV of Toulouse, begin the Siege of Antioch.

1209  Otto IV is crowned emperor of the Holy Roman Empire by Pope Innocent III.

1867  Manifest Destiny: Medicine Lodge Treaty – Near Medicine Lodge, Kansas a landmark treaty is signed by southern Great Plains Indian leaders. The treaty requires Native American Plains tribes to relocate a reservation in western Oklahoma.

1945  Women’s suffrage: Women are allowed to vote in France for the first time.

1955  Mary Louise Smith, 18, arrested for not giving up her seat on a city bus.  A housekeeper, she refused to give her seat to a white passenger in Montgomery, Alabama. Link to her story.

1959  In New York City, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, opens to the public.

1965  Comet Ikeya-Seki approaches perihelion, passing 450,000 kilometers from the sun.

1967  Vietnam War: More than 100,000 war protesters gather in Washington, D.C. A peaceful rally at the Lincoln Memorial is followed by a march to The Pentagon. Similar demonstrations occurred simultaneously in Japan and Western Europe.

1983  The metre is defined at the seventeenth General Conference on Weights and Measures as the distance light travels in a vacuum in 1/299,792,458 of a second.

[A Horse Named Stranger]

21. October

1854 Florence Nightinggale travels with 38 nurses to Turkey to treat the injured soldier from the Crimean war.

1944 after three weeks of battle. The first major city, Aachen, fall to the allies after three weeks of battle

 

[LongRider]

22 October... is the 295th day of the year 2023. There are 70 days remaining until the end of this year. 

 362...A mysterious fire destroys the Temple of Apollo at Daphne outside Antioch.

1707  Scilly naval disaster: four British Royal Navy ships run aground near the Isles of Scilly because of faulty navigation. Admiral Sir Cloudesley Shovell and thousands of sailors drown.

1797  One thousand meters (3,200 feet) above Paris, André-Jacques Garnerin makes the first recorded parachute jump.

1844  The Great Anticipation: Millerites, followers of William Miller, anticipate the end of the world in conjunction with the Second Advent of Christ. The following day became known as the Great Disappointment.

1875  First telegraphic connection in Argentina.

1895  In Paris a train overruns a buffer stop and crosses more than 30 metres of concourse before plummeting through a window at Gare Montparnasse.   Train wreck at Montparnasse 1895 - Montparnasse derailment - Wikipedia

1962  Cuban Missile Crisis: US President John F. Kennedy, announces that American reconnaissance planes have discovered Soviet nuclear weapons in Cuba, and that he has ordered a naval “quarantine” of the Communist nation.

1964  Canada: A Multi-Party Parliamentary Committee selects the design which becomes the new official Flag of Canada.

1966  The Supremes become the first all-female music group to attain a No. 1 selling album (The Supremes A' Go-Go).

[RhaenysBee]

23rd October 

1956 Hungarian Revolution against the USSR occupation.
 

[LongRider]

23 October... is the 296th day of the year 2023. There are 69 days remaining until the end of this year.

42 BC  Roman Republican civil wars: Second Battle of Philippi – Mark Antony and Octavian decisively defeat Brutus’s army. Brutus commits suicide.

1157  The Battle of Grathe Heath ends the civil war in Denmark. King Sweyn III is killed and Valdemar I restores the country.

1641  Outbreak of the Irish Rebellion of 1641.

1906  Gertrude Ederle, the first woman to swim the English Channel, was born today in NYC.

1917  Lenin calls for the October Revolution.

1970  Gary Gabelich sets a land speed record in a rocket-powered automobile called the Blue Flame, fueled with natural gas.

1973  The Watergate Scandal: US President Richard M. Nixon agrees to turn over subpoenaed audio tapes of his Oval Office conversations.

2001  Apple introduced the iPod.

1940  Pelé, Brazilian athlete, born this day in Tres Coracoes, Brazil.

[Fragile Bird]

At various times there are mentions of losses of ships at sea, like the ships sinking off the Scilly Isles. I was watching an episode of Digging for Britain (they do ship wrecks as well) and they told the story of a very large trading flotilla, escorted by British naval ships to protect them from pirates. The ships went from England to the coast of Africa, where they presumably picked up slaves, and then to North America, where the slaves were dropped off and the ships loaded with trade goods. They got very delayed in Africa, a month or two, and delayed again in North America, and then set home across the North Atlantic in November, the damn fools. Iirc, there were almost 200 ships, and they hit very bad weather approaching the continent. I think only 24 ships limped into port. I’ve tried to Google the story but nothing comes up. Anyone know the story?

Sorry for the distraction, it was the disaster of the 4 naval ships, absolutely nothing by comparison.

Edited October 23, 2023 by Fragile Bird