Wednesday, August 5 1925. Plaid Cymru.

The Welsh independence party Plaid Cymru was founded. At the time its goal was to make Welsh the official language of Wales.

Sefydlwyd y blaid annibyniaeth Gymreig Plaid Cymru. Ar y pryd ei nod oedd gwneud y Gymraeg yn iaith swyddogol Cymru.

Turkey's President Mustafa Kemal (Atatürk) divorced his wife of less than two years, Latife Uşaki, after her public efforts to in favor of women's rights and to encourage their independence on choice of clothing.

She'd retreat into life long seclusion, passing away in 1975.

Last edition:

Tuesday, August 4, 1925. Marines leaving . . .

Labels: 1910s, 1912, 1920s, 1925, Nicaragua, United States Marine Corps

Sunday, August 5, 1900. The Battle of Beicang 北倉之戰)

At the Battle of Beicang 北倉之戰) the Eight National Alliance forced Chinese troops out of their positions and into retreat.

Bishop of Portland James Augustine Healy died at age 70.  He was the first African American Bishop.

He'd been born into slavery to an Irish immigrant father and enslaved mother who had a species, sort of, of common law marriage.  The union occured when he was 33 and she was 16.  Her ancestry included a fair degree of European heritage, which would lead to their children appearing to be of European ethnicity.  The union was not as surprising as it might seem and inspite of the burden of slavery, such unions occured, but could only have common law status.

The ten children to the union had apparently originally also been enslaved but were freed.  The family, in spite of the lack of a licit marriage, must have been religious as Bishop Healy was not its only member to enter religious life.  His brother Patrick was a Jesuit, his brother Alexander was a Priest, his sister Amanda a member of the  Religious Hospitallers of St. Joseph, and his sister Eliza a member of the Congregation of Notre Dame of Montreal and the first African American abbess.  Those who had secular vocations were also high achieving.  They were remarkably well educated, something that had been secured by their parents with some difficulty.

Apparently their parents had intended later in their lives to sell their plantation and move north, but death intervened.

Last edition:

Saturday, August 4, 1900. Eight Nation Advance.

Labels: 1900, 1900s, Boxer Rebellion, China, China (Beijing), Chinese Army, Civil War, Eight Nation Alliance, Personalities, Qing Dynasty

Saturday, August 4, 1900. Eight Nation Advance.

20,000 troops of the Eight Nation Alliance began an advance from Tianjin to Beijing.  2,500 of those troops were American.  The largest contingent, 9000, was Japanese.

Imperial Chinese troops were also traveling to Beijing to reinforce the city.

Jacob Dolson Cox, Civil War general and also lawyer, Republican politician from Ohio, Liberal Republican Party founder, educator, author, and microbiologist passed away at age 78.

Last edition:

Thursday August 2, 1900 and Tuesday, August 2, 1910. Odd racist coincidence.

Labels: 1900, 1900s, 1910, 1910s, law, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Racism

Blog Mirror: “In the Cause of American Liberty:” Catholic Contributions to Independence

 

“In the Cause of American Liberty:” Catholic Contributions to Independence

Sunday, August 1, 1915. Max Immelmann shot down his first aircraft.

Max Immelmann shot down his first aircraft.

Like most of the famous aces, he didn't survive the war.

Irish nationalist Jeremiah O'Donovan Rossa was buried at Glasnevin Cemetery in Dublin.  Patrick Pearse delivered a graveside speech including the phrase "Ireland unfree shall never be at peace".

The Endurance broke up.

Last edition:

Saturday, July 31, 1915. The Russians.

Labels: 1910s, 1915, Art, Battle of Jastków, Battle of Kara Kilisse, Central Powers, Imperial Russian Army, Ottoman Empire, Polish Legion, Russia, World War One

Saturday, July 28, 1900. Paying for his opposition.

Hsi Ching-ch'eng, formerly China's ambassador to Russia, Germany, Austria, and the Netherlands, was executed for his opposition to the Boxer faction in the Imperial Court.

Albert Einstein received his diploma from technical school, the Eidgenossische Technische Hochschule (ETH) in  Zürich, Switzerland.

Last edition:

Friday, July 27, 1900. Huns.

Labels: 1900, 1900s, Boxer Rebellion, German Army, Germany, Kaiser Wilhelm II, Louisiana (New Orleans), New Orleans Louisiana, Racism, the spoken word

Wednesday, July 22, 1925. Battle of al-Kafr.

John Henry "Harry" Selby, legendary African big game hunter, was born in South Africa.  After a lifetime as a ph, he died in Botswana, at age 92 in 2018.

In Memoriam: Harry Selby, Hunter And Rifleman, Dies At 92

Selby was part of the post World War Two generation of professional hunters in Africa, who are more associated with guiding than market hunting.  He obtained his professional license in 1945.

The Battle of al-Kafr saw the Druze shoot down a French military aircraft and ambush a column of French soldiers, killing 111 out of 174 members.

Last edition:

Tuesday, July 21, 1925. Scopes verdict and the Great Syrian Revolt.

Labels: 1920s, 1925, Court, Evolutionary Biology, French League of Nation Mandates, Great Syrian Revolt, law, Science, Syria, Tennessee, USSR

University of Wyoming announces President Seidel’s departure 3 months after no confidence vote

University of Wyoming announces President Seidel’s departure 3 months after no confidence vote: UW’s chief executive faced unexpected challenges from start of tenure. Supporters laud his innovation. Critics say he never fit in.

I don't think Seidel did a bad job, and in the current political atmosphere, UW faculty ought to fear who might end up with his job. 

2025 Elections In Other Countries.

February 24, 2025.

The Christian Democratic Union and the Bavarian Christian Social Union won the German election with about 29% of the vote.  The AfD came in second, but underperformed.   The overall breakdown of seats is as follows:

CDU/CSU 14,158,432 28.52 208

AfD                 10,327,148 20.80 152

SPD                     8,148,284 16.41 120

Greens             5,761,476 11.61 85

Die Linke     4,355,382 8.77 64

Others            2,273,817 4.58 1

BSW             2,468,670 4.97 0

FDP                     2,148,878 4.33 0

The Social Democratic Party had been in power.

The government will be a coalition government with Friedrich Merz as the Chancellor.  Like me, Merz is Catholic, a lawyer, and had served as an artilleryman.

March 10, 2025

Not really a popular election, but an internal party one in a parliamentary system, the Liberal Party of Canada has chosen Mark Carney to be head of its party and hence the new Prime Minster, replacing Justin Trudeau.

Trudeau had become deeply unpopular, but rallied the country nonetheless when Canada became the subject of economic attack due to the closeted autarkic policies of demented infant, Donny Trump.  Trump, who has the brain of a two year old, took to insulting Trudeau repeatedly and now Canadians hate the United States.  Carney is an economist who is well suited for the role of dealing with "but I learned this in the Classic Comics cartoon about William B. McKinley" approach to taxation being exhibited by Mango Mussolini.

Carney also holds British and Irish citizenship, and in 2015 was declared the most influential Catholic in Britain. Both outgoing Trudeau and incoming Carney made it once again clear that Canada will not be entering the United States.

April 29, 2025.

Canada

The Liberal Party narrowly won a fourth term.  It's unclear at the present time if they won a plurality or majority of the votes, but a plurality that's a near majority seems likely, which means they'll need the cooperation of minor parties, which they've gained in the past.

The result is a stunning reversal in fortune. The party's fortunes just several months ago made it appear that it was doomed to defeat, but Donald Trump's assisinne ramblings about annexing Canada as s state revived its fortunes as it's last premier, Justin Trudeau, resisted such calls and insults, and the current one, Mark Carney, stepped out aggressively against them and American tariffs.

May 3, 2025

Australia

Australia's center-left government dramatically increased its majority after the conservative Liberal-National coalition suffered a major defeat.

Conservatives noted that Donald Trump's spastic bizarre example of the far right in the US helped boost the fortunes of the left, making this the second election in an English speaking country where that has occurred.

July 21, 2015

Japan

Japan's Liberal Democrats a minority party in both houses of Parliament, while two new nationalist parties gained.  Whether it can remain in power as a minority government, which it has vowed to do, is not yet known.

The result is at least partially a Japanese reaction to be bullied by Donald Trump.

Last edition:

2024 Elections In Other Countries.

Monday, July 13, 1925. Pregnant lady.

Archbishop Vasileios Georgiadis was elected by his peers as the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople.

A figurine of a pregnant woman was unearthed in Czechoslovakia that is believed to be 31,000 years old, one of the oldest examples of the same.

Walt Disney married Lillian Bounds in Idaho.

Last edition:

Saturday, July 11, 1925. Spain and Morocco agree to cooperate.

Labels: 1920s, 1925, Art, Norman Rockwell, Rif War, Sports, Teenagers, Women

Thursday, July 12, 1945. Delivering plutonium.

Sgt. Herbert Lehr delivering the plutonium core for Fat Man in its shock-mounted case to the McDonald Ranch assembly room at approximately 6 P.M., July 12, 1945.  Lehr was discharged on February 6, 1946, but returned to Los Alamos to prepare for the Operation Crossroads tests at Bikini Atoll   He went on to work as an administrative officer for the Physics Department at Brookhaven National Laboratory under Samuel Goudsmit, and later worked for Boeing as an engineering supervisor for thirty years before retiring in 1987.  He passed away on  January 13, 2018 at the age of 95 in Seattle, Washington.

Australians landed near Andus on Borneo and took Maradi.

The US dropped napalm on targets on Luzon.

British Field Marshal Montgomery awarded Soviet Marshal Zhukov with the Grand Cross of the Order of Bath, Marshal Rokossovsky with the KCB and Generals Sokolovsky and Malinin with the KBE. 

The British King's Company of the Grenadier Guards formed the guard of honor and tanks of the King's 8th Royal Irish Hussars were drawn up on either side.

Concentration camp survivors carried a large cross through Paris in memory of the French victims of the Nazis.

Last edition:

Wednesday, July 11, 1945. Redeploying.

Labels: 1940s, 1945, Germany (Berlin), Imperial Japanese Navy, Okinawa, Operation Downfall, Post WWII Occupation of Germany, U.S. Air Force, United Kingdom, United States, USSR, World War Two, Yugoslavia

Tuesday, July 1, 1975. ARPANET.

The ARPANET, the proto Internet, was declared operational within the Department of Defense.

The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora.

Former President Richard Nixon said, in an affidavit to federal court, that he had secretly begun taping Oval Office conversations at the suggestion of his predecessor, President Lyndon Johnson.

Advice columnist Ann Landers announced that she and her husband were divorcing.

The name "Ann Landers" was a pen name, and was actually started by the Chicago Sun Times for their advice columnist Ruth Crowley, who died in 1955 at age 48.  After that, the column was taken over by Esther Pauline Lederer, who is the person commonly associated with the pen name.

Lederer early in her career as Ann Landers.

Lederer's twin sister, Pauline Esther Phillips,  followed her lead and started writing as Abigail Van Buren shortly thereafter, leading to a longstanding rift between the two.

It's hard to appreciate the extent to which both sisters, Lederer in particular, became major cultural figures.  Both sisters associated with cultural figures of the the day.

Last edition:

Monday, June 30, 1975. Changes in the Service.

Labels: 1970s, 1975, Aircraft, Korean War, Military, U.S. Air Force, Vietnam War, Women, World War Two

Sunday, July 1, 1945. Battle of Balikpapan. The Post War German Map. Blondie.

Today in World War II History—July 1, 1940 & 1945: 85 Years Ago—July 1, 1940: Germans occupy Jersey and Guernsey in the British Channel Islands. 80 Years Ago—July 1, 1945: Australians land at Balikpapan, Borneo.

US occupation forces arrive in Berlin.

Col. Benjamin O. Davis Jr. (former commander of the Tuskegee Airmen) assumes command of Godman Field, KY, the first Black officer to command a major US air base.

US resumes production of cars, with the first rolling off the assembly line on August 30.

From Sarah Sundin's blog. 

The Australian and Dutch (mostly Australian) landing at Balikpapan was a major one, which had been preceded by an Allied naval bombardment that lasted for days.

US landing craft landing Australian infantry, July 1, 1945.

The Inner German Border was established and the British withdrew from Magdeburg which was part of the Soviet zone.

German Gen. Willibald Borowietz, 51, committed suicide at the Camp Clinton, Mississippi POW camp.  He had been a POW since 1943, having surrendered with the Afrika Korps.  His wife, Eva Ledien, was of Jewish decent and had killed herself in 1938 so that their children could be Aryanized. Her sister, Käthe (Ledien) Bosse, was killed in Ravensbrück concentration camp in 1944.

Debbie Harry (Angela Trimble), lead singer of Blondie, was born in Miami, Florida.  She was given up for adoption by her parents and adopted by parents of the lsat name of Harry, who renamed her.  Her birth mother, whom she later located, was a pianist, but who chose not to reunite with her.

When I was in high school I was a big fan of Blondie.  I have all of their lps.

Harry started off as a folk singer.  She became a New Wave trend setter with Blondie at age 33, late for a pop musician.  

Last edition:

Saturday, June 30, 1945. Mopping up.

Labels: 1940s, 1945, Armor, Army, China, Chinese Army, French Foreign Legion, French Indochina, Harry S. Truman, Imperial Japanese Army, Okinawa, Philippines, United States Marine Corps, World War Two

June 28, 1975. Death of Rod Serling.

American screenwriter and television producer Rod Sterling died at age 50 of a heart attack.

Serling was an extremely heavy smoker, which was no doubt the cause of his death.  He'd been a paratrooper during World War Two, serving in the Pacific.

He's best remembered for The Twilight Zone.

Serling in 1959, at which time he would have only been 34 years old.  This photo gives us a good example of what we've noted elsewhere, about how people aged more rapidly in the past.  The cigarette in hand would have helped contribute to that.  World War Two probably didn't help either.  Serling's bracelet features Army jump wings.

Last edition:

Thursday, June 12, 1975. Searching for the meaning of Vietnam.

Labels: 1970s, 1975, Australia, It was because of Vietnam, law, Marriage, The relationship between men and women, Vietnam War

Monday, June 24, 1945. Brandenburg Ballerina.

Junior Sergeant Lydia Spivak (Лидия Спивак), Red Army Traffic Regulator, June 1945.  She became locally famous in this role and was tagged the Brandenburg Ballerina or The Mistress of Brandenburg Gate.  She would have been 19 or 20 years old at the time and had been in the Red Army since she was 17.  She was a Ukrainian, and served in a transportation unit.  Like most Red Army soldiers, not that much is known about her in the West and indeed she's often confused with another female Soviet soldier who served in the same role.  Having said that, this role did make her into a type of celebrity and she did resurface from time to time, including once in the 1950s when she toured the area in which this video was shot.*  She passed away at age 59.  This is a truncated interview, and there is more to it.  It was impromptu, which is impressive.

US forces took Tuguegarao and Gattaran on Luzon.

Australian forces completed the occupation of the Miro oilfield on Borneo.

The Simla Conference to discuss the future Indian government of India began in Simla, India.

Seán T. O'Kelly became 2nd President of Ireland and Einar Gerhardsen became Prime Minister of Norway.

Footnotes:

*Ms. Spivak by that time was aging rapidly. By the 50s she'd gained a lot of weight and by the time of her sad early death she had aged rapidly  by western standards and looked much older than her 59 years.  She was undeniably cute and lively in 1945, and in later photographs the liveliness seems undiminished in spite of her aging.  She achieved her original goal of becoming a teacher, and in fact became a university professor and married another professor

Spivak is often confused with Maria Limanskaya (Мария Лиманскаяwho) served in the same role in Berlin.  She was a Russian and lived to age 100, dying last year, although oddly enough in some ways had a harder post war life, marrying than divorcing her first husband, and raising two children for a time on her own.

Last edition:

Sunday, June 24, 1945. A parade in Moscow.

Labels: 1940s, 1945, USSR, World War Two

Monday, June 18, 1945. The death of Gen. Simon Bolivar Buckner, Jr.

Gen. Simon Bolivar Buckner, Jr. was killed by Japanese artillery on Okinawa.  He was 58 years old, making him one of the older U.S. Generals of the Second World War.

The artillery projectile was of the flat shooting rifle type, and the projectile had actually ricocheted off of a coral reef, and then hit Buckner.

Prior to World War Two, Buckner had principally been involved in the education and training of troops.  He had seen overseas duty, however, in the Philippines in 1908.

His father, the senior Simon Bolivar Buckner, had been an American Army officer during the Mexican War, and a Confederate general during the Civil war.

Prime Minister Kantarō Suzuki informed the Japanese Supreme Council of Emperor Hirohito's intention to seek peace with the Allies as soon as possible.

The USS Bonefish was sunk in Toyama Bay.

The Chinese Army took Wenchow.

The Soviets put sixteen officers of the Polish Home Army on trial for fighting the Soviets.

William Joyce, Lord Haw Haw, was put on trial for treason.

The British Army began demobilizing.

Last edition:

Sunday, June 17, 1945. Taking Kuishi Ridge.

Labels: 1940s, 1945, Army, Clothing, Japanese Americans, Luzon, Okinawa, Prisoners of War, United States Marine Corps, World War Two

Thursday, June 18, 1925. Death of Robert La Follette.

"Battling Bob" La Follette, Socialist Senator from Wisconsin, died at age 70.  He'd been ill since 1923.

The German  Reichsgericht, struck down a law confiscating of all the demesne lands of the Dukes of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha to widespread public dissatisfaction.

Last edition:

Wednesday, June 17, 1925. The Geneva Protocol.

Labels: 1920s, 1925, Cartoons, children, It was because of World War One, law, Marriage, Soviet-Afghan War, The relationship between men and women, Vietnam War, Weapons