Today will forever be known as the “Global Day of Jihad,” following calls by Hamas leadership earlier this week, but it was already known as Disaster Day.
True to its name, in 2010 the Copiapó mining accident in Chile came to an end, and all 33 miners reached the surface after surviving 69 days underground. In case you need a lighter celebration, it’s also National M&M Day and World Egg Day!
It’s also AOC’s birthday. She is 34.
54: Nero succeeds Claudius as Roman Emperor
Claudius, Emperor of Rome died on this day in 54 AD, when he ate poison mushrooms. He was 63 years old and succeeded by Nero, who was 16. Nero was pretty messed up. From The New Yorker:
“Nero…developed a reputation for tyranny, murderous cruelty, and decadence that has survived for nearly two thousand years. According to various Roman historians, he commissioned the assassination of Agrippina the Younger—his mother and sometime lover. He sought to poison her, then to have her crushed by a falling ceiling or drowned in a self-sinking boat, before ultimately having her murder disguised as a suicide. Nero was betrothed at eleven and married at fifteen, to his adoptive stepsister, Claudia Octavia, the daughter of the emperor Claudius. At the age of twenty-four, Nero divorced her, banished her, ordered her bound with her wrists slit, and had her suffocated in a steam bath. He received her decapitated head when it was delivered to his court. He also murdered his second wife, the noblewoman Poppaea Sabina, by kicking her in the belly while she was pregnant.”
He sounds like a terrible guy.
The US Navy was formed on this day in 1775, when the Continental Congress ordered construction of a naval fleet. Yesterday, we discussed how Teddy Roosevelt changed the name to White House, and today we go back even further as, in 1792, the Cornerstone for the Executive Mansion was laid in Washington.
Speaking of Teddy Roosevelt, he threatened to start using Army troops to work coal mines during the Coal Strike of 1902. The owners eventually agreed to abide by a Commission of Arbitration. From the Department of Labor:
“Samuel Gompers, near the end of his long career, wrote, ‘Several times I have been asked what in my opinion was the most important single incident in the labor movement in the United States and I have invariably replied: the strike of the anthracite miners in Pennsylvania ... from then on the miners became not merely human machines to produce coal but men and citizens.’”
In case you missed it, my latest in Badlands covers the historic labor strikes that are happening now across industries and across the nation.
In 1960, Fidel Castro executed his opponents in Cuba. Have you ever noticed how much Justin Trudeau looks like Fidel Castro? Oh, Canada.
It was also a bloody day in the Civil War with 50 dead in the 1863 Skirmish at Blountsville, Tennessee, 337 killed in the 1864 Battle at Darbytown Road in Virginia and the Battle of Harpers Ferry in West Virginia, also known as Mosby’s Raid. Lafayette Curry Baker, an American investigator spy and Union Brigadier General (Union Army) was born on this day in 1826 in Stafford, New York.
Finally, in 1999, the US Senate rejected ratifying the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty.
1307: Grand Master and Knights Templar Arrested and Charged with Idolatry and Corruption
Politics is a nasty game, and in 1307, the Knights Templar in France were arrested and charged with idolatry and corruption. According to Britannica:
“October 13, 1307, all the Templars in France, including Molay, were arrested and interrogated by command of Philip IV, who was intent on crushing the order and seizing its wealth. On October 24, 1307, Molay, probably under torture, confessed that some of the charges brought against the order were true, but he rejected a charge of sodomy. He wrote to Templars throughout France, enjoining confession, but, when the pope sent his own delegates to conduct
Centuries later in 1924, Mecca fell without struggle to Saudi forces led by Abdulaziz Ibn Saud.
In 2018, Pope Francis “defrocked” two Chilean bishops for their alleged sexual abuse of minors. All on the same day!
1792: First "Old Farmer's Almanac" is Published
I love the Old Farmer’s Almanac, and it was first published on this day in 1792. Now it’s all online, and full of great information. For example, you can see information about tomorrow’s “Ring of Fire” Solar Eclipse! (Here’s the path – I’m not in it, darn!)
2016: Jim Prentice Dies in a Plane Crash at 60
Prentice was a Canadian politician who served as the Premier of Alberta from 2014 to 2015, and this is another rough day for plane crashes. In 1972, 176 died when Aeroflot Il-62 crashed outside Moscow.
The same day in the same year, 45 people went down in the Andes Mountains, and they had to eat each other to survive. 16 of the 45 were rescued two months later. Four years later in 1976, a Bolivian cargo jet crashed in Santa Cruz, Bolivia. The plane plowed across a soccer field and 97, mostly children, were killed on the ground. Total fatalities: 100.
11,000 Jewish children and elderly were killed by Nazis in Dnipropetrovsk, Ukraine on this day in 1941 and, in 1970, the IRA had another accidental explosion when a bomb prematurely went off in Dublin, killing one. Other horrible events on this day:
2012: 15 killed by a market suicide bombing in Pakistan
2013 109 killed in a bridge stampede in India
2017: 2 dead due to hungry bear crisis in Russia – 83 hostile bears shot
2021: 5 dead and 2 injured by bow and arrow terrorist in Norway
2017: Rose McGowan Accuses Harvey Weinstein of 1997 Rape
The entertainment industry was rocked in 2017 when Rose McGowan spawned the #metoo movement after accusing Harvey Weinstein of raping her in 2017. It hasn’t really recovered, and there hasn’t been nearly enough accountability. But there is lots of less horrifying entertainment history today.
The term Beatlemania was coined in 1963, after the Beatles appeared at the Palladium in London. Three years later in 1966, the Jimi Hendrix Experience debuted in Normandy, France with Jimi Hendrix, Noel Redding, and Mitch Mitchell. In 1975, John Denver won the 9th Country Music Association Award and, in 2016, Bob Dylan was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature.
In movies, “All About Eve” debuted in 1950, starring Bette Davis, and it won the Academy Award for Best Picture the following year in 1951. "Badlands" starring Martin Sheen and Sissy Spacek premiered at the New York Film Festival in 1973.
In the more pretentious arts, in 1724 satirist Jonathan Swift published the last of Drapier's letters, and Edward Albee's "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" opened on Broadway on this day in 1962. Gerhard Richter's “Abstraktes Bild” made history in 2012 when it sold for $34 million, the highest selling artwork by a living artist.
Since sports are also entertainment, I should mention that, in 2019, Simone Bile won her 25th medal in Germany, becoming the most decorated gymnast in history.
2021: William Shatner Becomes the Oldest Person to Reach Space
It’s debatable that Blue Origin’s New Shepard rocket goes to space, but a couple years ago, Captain Kirk took a 10 minute flight and became the oldest person to reach “space.” He was 90 years old. I have taken his flight video and overlaid it with Australian soprano Nellie Melba, who made her operatic debut as Gilda in "Rigoletto" on this day in 1887 – watch the podcast to check it out.
This is also the day the Whirlpool Galaxy was discovered by French astronomer Charles Messier, and James "Jim" McDivitt, American Air Force Brigadier General and NASA astronaut (Gemini 4, Apollo 9), died at 93 on this day in 2022.
In other innovations, Ameritech Mobile Communications, the predecessor to Cingular, launched the first US cellular network in Chicago, Illinois in 1983.
Birthdays
1925: Margaret Thatcher (British Prime Minister)
1941: Paul Simon (Musician)
1958: Jamal Khashoggi (Journalist)
1959: Marie Osmond (Musician)
1969: Nancy Kerrigan (Figure Skater)
1971: Sacha Baron Cohen (Actor)
1989: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (Politician)
1993: Tiffany Trump (First Daughter)
Death Days
1795: William Prescott (American Revolutionary)
1945: Milton S. Hershey (Chocolate Tycoon)
1974: Ed Sullivan (Entertainer)
2016: Jim Prentice (Canadian Politician)
2021: Gary Paulsen (Author)
On This Day is published Monday through Friday. Watch the Today’s History podcast weekdays at 12PM ET! Don’t forget to visit bootlegproducts.com and use coupon code ASHE1776!