September 5th in History

Biruni lunar eclipse illustration
and calculations

  973   Birth of Abu Rayhan Biruni, Khwarezmi-born Persian polymath (d. 1048) Alberonius, in the Latin version of his name, he was a prominent scholar of the 11th century, one of the most brilliant minds of the Islamic Golden Age. 
He was born in what is now Uzbekistan and is buried in Afghanistan.  While only a fraction of his writing remain, he was a man of exceptional range in his areas of interest and expertise, and applied empiric experimental methods to his scientific inquiries. He emphasized repeated experiment, and an understanding of both systematic errors in experimentation, and random errors, including errors by human observers. A partial list of his areas of experimentation and publications include physics, anthropology, comparative sociology, astronomy, astrology, chemistry, history, geography, mathematics, medicine, psychology, philosophy, mineralogy and mechanics.  He is considered one of the earliest to pursue a study of Indology (the study of India).  The crater Al-Biruni on the moon is named for him. He was a contemporary and colleague of Abu Ali ibn Sina, better known as Avicenna, another of the great scientists of the Islamic Golden Age. Biruni studied mathematics and astronomy with Abu Nasr Mansur, another great mind of the era; history and philosophy with Ibn Miskayawa at Islamic Universities. He became fluent in not only his own language, Khwarezmian, but also Greek, Sanskrit, Syriac and Berber.  Islamic scholars were influential in the globalization of scientific knowledge as well as the arts, connecting the advances of cultures as diverse as China and India to the east to Europe and Africa in the west.
 

Modern reproduction
of the Date Maru

1567   Birth of Date Masamune, Japanese Samurai and Daimyo (d. 1636).  Known as the 'one eyed dragon', he lost his sight in one eye to small pox as a child.  He was militarily aggressive, and was rewarded with land grants under Shogun Tokugawa Ieyasu.  Unlike Tokugawa Ieyasu, who was xenophobic and isolationist, Date Masamune encouraged contacts with foreigners visiting Japan, including missionaries.  He funded and promoted an envoy to the Pope in Rome, and the first Japanese expedition to sail around the world, in a ship he had designed on western lines, the Date Maru.  His expedition visited the Philippines, and Mexico and Spain as well as Rome.  It is speculated that Date Masamune may have been an early Christian convert, and that members of his family and household converted.  Five members of the Japanese expedition to the Pope stayed in Europe to avoid Christian persecution by Shogun Tokugawa Ieyasu.


1638    Birth of Louis XIV of France (d. 1715, of gangrene)

historic portrait of the real
Comte D'Artagnan

1661    Fall of Nicolas Fouquet: Louis XIV Superintendent of Finances is arrested in Nantes by D'Artagnan, captain of the king's musketeers.  Fouquet was a close ally of Cardinal Mazarin, the successor to Cardinal Richelieu. Mazarin was succeeded by Jean-Baptiste Colbert, who went after Fouquet for corruption as part of his fiscal house-cleaning and attempts to save the French economy.  After a three-year long trial, Fouquet was sentenced to life in prison. While in prison, Fouquet had as his servant the real life 'man in the iron mask' of the famous Alexandre Dumas novel, Eustache Dauger. As with the fictionalized version of the Man in the Iron Mask, the Dumas versions of the exploits of D'Artagnan in the Three Musketeers and other novels differed from the factual exploits. The real life Charles de Batz-Castlemore, Comte D'Artangnan had also been an ally and confidante of Mazarin, and conducted espionage for Mazarin as well as secret and confidential missions for Louis XIV. D'Artagnan was also Fouquet's jailer for the duration of his trial after his arrest.  Fouquet died in prison in 1680; D'Artagnan died in combat at the Siege of Maastricht in 1673.

1698   In an effort to Westernize his nobility, Tsar Peter I of Russia imposes a tax on beards for all men except the clergy and peasantry.

1725 – Wedding of Louis XV, great grandson of Louis XIV, and Maria Leszczyńska. Louis XV became King of France at the age of 5, and after early popularity, became one of the most unpopular Kings in the country's history.  His ill-advised policies weakened the country, and, with a series of military losses, became one of the principle causes for the French Revolution.  Some of the crazier rumors about Louis XV were that he bathed in the blood of virgins, and had ninety illegitimate children.  He had 11 legitimate children, and several illegitimate children, and he was famous for his mistresses, including the Marquise de Pompadour and the Comtesse du Barry.

Friedrich's 'The Tree of Crows' 1822

1774    First Continental Congress assembles in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
            Birth of Caspar David Friedrich, German artist (d. 1840) in the romantic movement noted for his emotion-evoking landscapes. He sought through a depiction of nature "to turn the viewer's gaze towards metaphysical dimension" according to one art historian.

1793   French Revolution the French National Convention initiates the Reign of Terror.

1798   Conscription is made mandatory in France by the Jourdan law.

1800   Napoleon surrenders Malta to Great Britain.

Pierre Choderlos de Laclos

1638   Louis XIV of France (d. 1715)1803   Death of Pierre Choderlos de Laclos, French general who invented the modern artillery shell, and author of the scandalous 18th century literary masterpiece, Les Liaisons Dangereuses.(b. 1741)

1812   War of 1812: The Siege of Fort Wayne begins when Chief Winamac's forces attack two soldiers returning from the fort's outhouses.

Louis XVIII

1816   Louis XVIII has to dissolve the Chambre Introuvable ("Unobtainable Chamber"). The chambre introuvable was a sort of cabinet of advisers selected for their monarchist political views, and their repudiation of the changes and principles of the French Revolution.  Louis XVIII, grandson of Louis XV,  became King of France in exile when Louis XVII died in prison during the French Revolution. He ruled as a Constitutional Monarch after the end of the First Republic under Napoleon, except for 100 days in 1815 when Napoleon Bonaparte briefly returned to power.  Under Louis XVIII the second "White Terror" campaign arrested and executed bureaucrats and sympathizers with Napoleon and / or the French Revolution designated by the counter-revolutionary 'Chambre Introuvable".  The term 'white terror', coined by Louis XVIII, came to mean in subsequent revolutions any counter-revolutionary campaign, especially of arrests, imprisonment, and executions.  Louis XVIII, like his predecessor Louis XIV, died of gangrene.

1836    Sam Houston is elected as the first president of the Republic of Texas.

opium poppy field in flower

1839    The First Opium War begins in China. In 1799, China reaffirmed their ban on the importation of opium, recoginizing the problems in their population relating to drug addiction.  In 1810, the Emperor of China issued an official decree stating:
Opium has a harm. Opium is a poison, undermining our good customs and morality. Its use is prohibited by law. Now the commoner, Yang, dares to bring it into the Forbidden City. Indeed, he flouts the law! However, recently the purchasers, eaters, and consumers of opium have become numerous. Deceitful merchants buy and sell it to gain profit. The customs house at the Ch'ung-wen Gate was originally set up to supervise the collection of imports (it had no responsibility with regard to opium smuggling). If we confine our search for opium to the seaports, we fear the search will not be sufficiently thorough. We should also order the general commandant of the police and police- censors at the five gates to prohibit opium and to search for it at all gates. If they capture any violators, they should immediately punish them and should destroy the opium at once. As to Kwangtung and Fukien, the provinces from which opium comes, we order their viceroys, governors, and superintendents of the maritime customs to conduct a thorough search for opium, and cut off its supply. They should in no ways consider this order a dead letter and allow opium to be smuggled out!

Despite the considerable resources China dedicated to eradicating opium use and importation, the British continued to successfully smuggle opium into China, supported and organized by the East India Company, and backed by the military forces of England in order to reduce their balance of trade deficits.  Demand in Europe for the products of China - tea, silk, porcelain, etc. - was high, while demand for European manufactured products in China was low; further, China demanded all transactions be paid in silver, not national currency. By 1838, China had begun executing particpants in the drug trade. In 1839, in frustration with the success of the trade and the harm done to the Chinese, Chinese Trade Commissioner Len Zexu blockaded traders in their factories and warehouses, cutting off their food supply.  The traders eventually had to surrender their supplies of opium, roughly a year's worth, for destruction.  Charles Elliot, the British Superintendant of Trade exceeded his authority by promising all the Traders that the English Government would compensate them - which the English government refused to do.  On the pretext that the Chinese had destroyed English property, the English launched a war on China, including landing the Anglo-Indian army.  Because of the technical weapons superiority of the Europeans, they prevailed over the Chinese, forcing the first of the 'Unequal Treaties', the Treaty of Nanjing and the Treaty of Bogue, including giving Europeans extraterratorial privliges, which like a sort of diplomatic immunity, exempted foreigners from being subjected to Chinese law.  The United States and France subsequently estracted similar treaties, the Treaty of Wanghia, and the Treaty of Whamppoa.  A background in understanding of the Opium Wars is useful in understanding modern Chinese relations with industrialized western countries, as well as useful in appreciating some of the similar problems in the modern U.S. "War on Drugs".  It is a sort of international karma that the opium trade in what was then India and Afghanistan under the auspices of the western nations has come back to haunt them in the guise of the modern drug trade, with its political, economic and social consequences, particularly the opium trade in Afghanistan.

Distiller Jack Daniel

1846    Birth of distiller Jack Daniel, Creator of Jack Daniel's Tennessee Whiskey(d. 1911).  He became a licensed distiller at the age of 16. Daniel died of blood poisoning from a toe injury when he kicked his office safe after being unable to open it, having forgotten the combination.

1862    James Glaisher, pioneering meteorologist and Henry Tracey Coxwell break world record for altitude whilst collecting data in their balloon.

1877    Indian Wars: Oglala Sioux Chief Crazy Horse is bayoneted by a United States soldier after resisting confinement in a guardhouse at Fort Robinson in Nebraska.

1882   The first United States Labor Day parade is held in New York City, predating the recognition of an official federal holiday.

Sarah Edmonds as Franklin Thompson

1898   Death of Sarah Edmonds, Canadian nurse, soldier, and spy (b. 1841) Sarah Edmonds was a Canadian who served with the Union forces in the American Civil War.  She had left home to escape abusive parents who were trying to force her to marry a man she detested.  She fled to Flint, Michigan, eventually disguising herself as a man, using the name Franklin Flint Thompson to enlist in the 2nd Michigan Infantry.  She served as a soldier, including as a male field nurse, through the some of the bloodiest Civil War battles, including the First and Second Battle of Bull Run, Antietam, the Peninsular Campaign, Vicksburg and others. Edmonds then applied for a position in the field of intelligence gathering, expanding on her repertoire of disguises, including disguising herself as a black man named 'Cuff', as a black laundress, and as an Irish peddler named Bridget O'Shea.  She became ill with malaria, and went AWOL to a private hospital in order to avoid being discovered to be a woman if she went to a military hospital for care.  When her persona of Franklin Flint Thompson was listed as a deserter, she returned to a female identity, seeking employment as a white, female nurse in Washington DC, providing medical care for injured union soldiers through the United States Christian Commission.  Her story eventually came out, and she was awarded a military pension of $12 a month, and an honorable discharge.  She married in 1867, and had three children, subsequently leading a relatively ordinairy life until her death.

1905   Russo-Japanese War: In New Hampshire, USA, the Treaty of Portsmouth, mediated by US President Theodore Roosevelt, ends the war.

1914   World War I: First Battle of the Marne begins. Northeast of Paris, the French attack and defeat German forces who are advancing on the capital.

1918   Decree "On Red Terror" is published in Russia (as distinct from 'White Terror')

1927   The first Oswald the Lucky Rabbit cartoon, Trolley Troubles, produced by Walt Disney, is released by Universal Pictures
          Birth of Paul Volcker, American economist

1938   Chile: A group of youths affiliated with the fascist National Socialist Movement of Chile are assassinated in the Seguro Obrero massacre.

1942   World War II: Japanese high command orders withdrawal at Milne Bay, first Japanese defeat in the Pacific War.

1944   Belgium, Netherlands and Luxembourg constitute Benelux.

1945   Cold War: Igor Gouzenko, a Soviet Union embassy clerk, defects to Canada, exposing Soviet espionage in North America, signalling the beginning of the Cold War.
            Iva Toguri D'Aquino, a Japanese-American suspected of being wartime radio propagandist Tokyo Rose, is arrested in Yokohama.

1948    In France, Robert Schuman becomes President of the Council while being Foreign minister, As such, he is the negotiator of the major treaties of the end of World War II.

1957    Cuba: Fulgencio Batista bombs the revolt in Cienfuegos.

1961    The first conference of the Non Aligned Countries is held in Belgrade.

1969    My Lai Massacre: U.S. Army Lt. William Calley is charged with six specifications of premeditated murder for the death of 109 Vietnamese civilians in My Lai.

1972    Munich Massacre: A Palestinian terrorist group called "Black September" attack and take hostage 11 Israel athletes at the Munich Olympic Games. 2 die in the attack and 9 die the following day.

1975    Sacramento, California: Lynette "Squeaky" Fromme, member of Charles Manson's cult, attempts to assassinate U.S. President Gerald Ford

1977    Hanns Martin Schleyer, is kidnapped in Cologne, West Germany by the Red Army Faction and is later murdered.

1977   Voyager 1 is launched after a brief delay.

1978   Camp David Accords: Menachem Begin and Anwar Sadat begin peace process at Camp David, Maryland.

1980   The St. Gotthard Tunnel opens in Switzerland as the world's longest highway tunnel at 10.14 miles (16.224 km) stretching from Goschenen to Airolo.

1982    Death of Douglas Bader, RAF ace fighter pilot while a double amputee, in World War II (b. 1910).

1984    STS-41-D: The Space Shuttle Discovery lands after its maiden voyage.

1984   Western Australia becomes the last Australian state to abolish capital punishment.

1991   The current international treaty defending indigenous peoples, Indigenous and Tribal Peoples Convention, 1989, came into force.

2007   Three terrorists suspected to be a part of Al-Qaeda are arrested in Germany after allegedly planning attacks on both the Frankfurt International airport and US military installations.