Friday, June 18, 1926. Egyptian troops at Mecca.

Egyptian soldiers fired into a crowed of Muslims Najadis, killing 25 of them, following a protest that began when the Egyptians were playing music while carrying the Mahmal through the holy city of Mecca during the Hajj pilgrimage, to which the Najadis took offense.

It's often forgotten in the West that Islam is far more internally divided than Christianity, a fact that's aided by the fact that there is no central head of Islam.

The Fédération Internationale de Philatélie was formed for stamp collecting and other branches of philately in at Castagnola in Switzerland.

It's the oldest such organization in the world.

Princess Olga Constantinovna of Russia, 74, former Queen Consort of Greece from 1867 to 1913 as the wife of King Geórgios I, and briefly regent for one month in 1920, died in exile in Rome.

Congress was getting ready to go home.

Congress of that era, and all the way up into at least the 90s, really did work harder than it currently does.  I've heard an interview of a member of Congress who was out of office for a decade or more and who was shocked when he went back about how much real work had decreased.  It's not hard to see that the current Congress is a model of being ineffective.

I wonder, in part, if modern transportation contributes to that.  And the net definitely does.

You could get really fresh butter in Casper.

I knew that you could get locally produced butter in the 20s (and 30s, and 40s, and at least the early 50s), but I didn't really give that all that much thought.

Weirdest coffee ad ever.

And Out Our Way explored a misunderstanding.

Last edition:

Monday, June 14, 1926. The Calles Law.

Labels: 1920s, 1926, Brazil, Catholic, Christianity, Cristero War, Emiliano Zapata, It was because of the Mexican Revolution, League of Nations, Mexican Revolution, Mexico, Plutarco Elías Calles, Porfirio Díaz, religion

Wednesday, October 10, 1973. Vice President Agnew resigns.

Vice President Spiro T. Agnew resigned as Vice President and then, on the same day, plead no contest to income tax evasion, this baack in the day when such accusations would doom your position in office.

Angew was the son of a Greek immigrant father and an American mother of English background.  Mixed marriages were unusual for those of Greek ethnicity in the first place and even more unusually, he was raised as an Episcopalian rather than as Greek Orthodox.  He served in the Army during World War Two and entered politics thereafter.

His tax troubles lead Maryland to disbar him as "morally obtuse", back when there was such a thing as a state bar that would disbar somebody for being morally obtuse.  He died in 1996.

The USSR began airlifting military equipment to Egypt and Syria.

The Senate passed the War Powers Act.  It'd be vetoed, but Congress over road the veto.

Famed economist Ludwig Heinrich Edler von Mises died in New York at age 92.

Saturday, October 6, 1973. The October War commences.

Egypt and Syria launched a surprise attack on Israel timed for the Yom Kippur holy day.  The attack oddly commenced at 2:05 p.m.

It would be the largest of the Arab Israeli Wars, and one in which the Israeli Defense Force fared much more poorly than it had previously.  Egypt's goals were limited, involving crossing the Suez Canal, which they succeeded in doing.  Israeli forces would ultimately repulse the invading forces and come very near the Syrian capital of Damascus, but the results allowed the Egyptians to bargain for peace terms with Israel in later years.

Arab forces fared very well at first, catching the IDF off guard.  Syrian advances caused the Israeli government to distribute Israel's small stock of nuclear weapons to is air force in case Arab forces advanced inside Israel itself, making this a non superpower war that came relatively close to becoming a nuclear one.