The Political Asylum

BlueEmperor · Posted: Mon Jun 02, 2008 3:15 am Post subject: On This Day

Sorry, I told Mum I'd start doing an 'On This Day' thread and meant to start at the beginning of the month but I attended a wedding reception last night so wasn't around to make an entry for the 1st June. I'll do it now and hopefully I can come back on some time later today to do an entry for the 2nd.

On 1st June 987 AD - Hugh Capet was elected King of the Franks in succession to King Louis the Indolent, the last Carolingian king of France, and thus founded the eponymous Capetian dynasty - the oldest and largest royal dynasty in European history, of which King Juan Carlos of Spain and Grand Duke Henri of Luxembourg are reigning members. Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II is also a direct descendent of King Hugh Capet.

King Hugh Capet of France

On 1st June 1533 - the former Lady Anne Boleyn was crowned Queen Consort of England, following her marriage to King Henry VIII, whose first marriage to Princess Catherine of Aragon had recently been annulled by the new Protestant archbishop, Thomas Cranmer (chaplain to the Boleyn family). Three years later, Archbishop Cranmer would declare her own marriage void. Queen Anne was executed at Tower Green on 19th May 1536.

Queen Anne Boleyn of England

On 1st June 1831 - British Arctic explorer Sir James Clark Ross discovered the North Pole.

Sir James Clark Ross

On 1st June 1879 - HIH Prince Louis Napoléon, the Prince Imperial, son of Emperor Napoléon III and Bonapartists pretender to the French throne, died gallantly in the service of the British Army during the Anglo-Zulu War, causing an international sensation and pretty much ending any hope of a Bonapartist restoration in France.

HIH Prince Imperial Napoléon IV of France

On 1st June 1922 - the Royal Ulster Constabulary was founded.

The Royal Ulster Constabulary GC

On 1st June 1946 - World War II Romanian dictator, Marshal Ion Antonescu, was executed. In December 2006, the Bucharest Court of Appeals overturned Marshal Antonescu's conviction for certain crimes against peace but this decision was overturned by the Romanian Supreme Court just last month.

Marshal Ion Antonescu, Conducător of Romania (1940-4)

On 1st June 1962 - Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann was executed in Israel.

SS-Obersturmbannführer Adolf Eichmann

On 1st June 2001 - Crown Prince Dipendra of Nepal slaughtered the Napali Royal Family, including his father King Birendra, and turns the gun on himself. He died three days later and was succeeded as King of Nepal by his uncle, Prince Gyanendra. Following a disasterous period of personal rule in 2005, King Gyanendra was forced to concede power and turned into a ceremonial monarch. The 240-year-old Nepalese monarchy was abolished last week, to my great sadness.

Crown Prince (briefly King) Dipendra of Nepal

On 1st June 2005 - The Dutch referendum on the European Constitution resulted in its rejection. Much of it is now being stealthily implemented under the Treaty of Lisbon.

The Dutch 'No' Vote.

B.E.
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JuanaLaLoca · Posted: Mon Jun 02, 2008 4:06 pm Post subject:

Are the Capetians and the Bourbons the same thing? I know that Juan Carlos is a Bourbon, but I don't know if that is a separate thing.

BlueEmperor · Posted: Mon Jun 02, 2008 8:17 pm Post subject:

The House of Bourbon is a cadet branch of the Capetian dynasty. They emerged around the 13th-Century as a noble family, who were vassals of the Kings of France. When Robert, Count of Clermont, a younger son of King Louis IX, married Beatrix of Burgundy, heiress to the lordship of Bourbon, the King made their son, Louis, the first Duke of Bourbon. This orginal Bourbon line died out in 1527 and the modern House of Bourbon is the successor to a junior Bourbon line, known as the La Marche-Vendôme line. It was this line of the House of Bourbon who eventually rose to become kings of Navarre and, ultimately, of France (when King Henry III of Navarre succeeded King Henry III of France - King Henry III of France was the last French monarch of the House of Valois, which was also a cadet branch of the Capetian dynasty).

The Spanish House of Bourbon (or Borbón, as it's known in Spain) was founded by Philippe, Duc d'Anjou, a younger son of Louis, le Grand Dauphin and grandson of King Louis XIV. He was adopted by the dying King Charles II, the childless Habsburg king of Spain, as his heir and succeeded him as King Philip V in 1700, thus sparking the War of the Spanish Succession, which culminated in the signing of the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713 (recognising him as King). The Borbóns have remained on the Spanish throne ever since, on and off. The monarchy was most recently abolished in 1931 and restored in 1975 under King Juan Carlos I.

As I have said, HRH Grand Duke Henri of Luxembourg is also a member of the Capetian dynasty, being a member of the House of Nassau-Weilburg, the members of which are agnatically members of the House of Bourbon-Parma.

At present the senior male dynast of the ancient Capetian dynasty is HRH The Duc d'Anjou, the Legitimist claimant to the French throne.

B.E.
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BlueEmperor · Posted: Mon Jun 02, 2008 9:39 pm Post subject:

On this day, first of all, let me wish the entire board a Happy Coronation Day!!

On 2nd June 1780 - The first Derby Stakes race was held at Epsom Downs racecourse. The first recorded race at Epsom had taken place 119 years earlier but the modern 'Derby' originated in 1779, following a celebration of the first running of the Epsom Oaks, in which 'Bridget', owned by the 12th Earl of Derby, had won the day. During the party, Lord Derby and his friend the MP for Suffolk, Sir Charles Bunbury, are said to have flipped a coin to decide who was to have the race named after him. Lord Derby won the toss but Sir Charles went on to win the inaugural race with his horse Diomed, collecting the grand prize of £1,065 and 15 shillings.

The Earl of Derby

On 2nd June 1793 - The French revolutionary Jean-Paul Marat recited the names of twenty-nine people in the French National Convention, almost all of whom ended up being guillotined, along with 17,000 others during the course of the next year - during what became known as 'the Reign of Terror'.

Jean-Paul Marat

On 2nd June 1896 - The Marchese Guglielmo Marconi patented the radio.

The Marchese Guglielmo Marconi

On 2nd June 1946 - The people of Italy voted in a referendum to abolish the 85-year-old unified Italian monarchy and King Umberto II went into exile.

HM King Umberto II of Italy

On 2nd June 1953 - Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II is crowned at Westminster Abbey in the first ever coronation ceremony to be televised live to the nation.

HM The Queen

On 2nd June 1979 - His late Holiness Pope John Paul II makes his historic visit to his homeland, Poland, becoming the first Roman Catholic pontiff to visit a (then) communist country.

HH Pope John Paul II

B.E.
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Vintage Girl · Posted: Mon Jun 02, 2008 10:46 pm Post subject:

Glad you finally got round to doing this. It's really interesting.

Happy Coronation Day everyone! Very Happy

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BlueEmperor · Posted: Tue Jun 03, 2008 2:50 am Post subject:

On 3rd June 1098 - The eight-month Siege of Antioch ends with the city finally falling to the crusaders, led by Prince Bohemond I of Taranto, during the First Crusade.

The Siege of Antioch

On 3rd June 1665 - Forces led by Prince James, Duke of York (the future King James II/VII) defeated the Dutch Fleet off the coast of Lowestoft during the Anglo-Dutch War.

The Battle of Lowestoft

On 3rd June 1937 - HRH The Duke of Windsor (the former King Edward VIII) married the American divorcee Miss Wallis Warfield (formerly Mrs Ernest Simpson) in a private ceremony at the Chateau de Candé, near Tours, France. The Church of England refused to sanction the marriage, owing to Miss Warfield's being divorced, and the new King George VI strictly forbade any members of the Royal Family or British Government representatives from attending the wedding.

HRH The Duke of Windsor and Wallis, Duchess of Windsor

On 3rd June 1940 - Surviving members of the British Expeditionary Force under General Viscount Gort are successfully evacuated from Dunkirk. The indomitable spirit of the troops and the plucky heroism of the "little ships" marked the beginning of the legend of the "Dunkirk Spirit".

The Evacuation of Dunkirk

On 3rd June 1982 - The Israeli Ambassador - the late Shlomo Argov - was shot on a London street. He survived but was permanently paralysed.

Shlomo Argov

B.E.
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BlueEmperor · Posted: Wed Jun 04, 2008 1:22 am Post subject:

On 4th June 1584 - The English explorer Sir Walter Raleigh established the first English colony on Roanoke Island, old Virginia (modern day North Carolina)

Sir Walter Raleigh

On 4th June 1913 - Suffragette Emily Davison threw herself in front of King George V's horse at the Epsom Derby. She was trampled and died several days later having never regained consciousness.

Emily Davison

On 4th June 1940 - German forces enter and occupy Paris during the Second World War.

Occupied Paris

On June 4th 1942 - The Battle of Midway commences in the Pacific, culminating three days later in a decisive American victory.

The Battle of Midway

The following were all born on 4th June:

HM King George III (1738)
Baron Carl Gustaf Mannerheim, President of Finland (1867)
Sir Christopher Cockerell, inventor of the hovercraft (1910)

The following died:

Queen Mary de Bohun, consort of King Henry IV (1394)
William Juxton, Archbishop of Canterbury (1663)
Giacomo Casanova (1798)
Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany (1941)

B.E.
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BlueEmperor · Posted: Fri Jun 06, 2008 7:35 am Post subject:

Sorry, chaps, I know one ought to do the On This Day thread actually on the day but I was tied up all day yesterday.

On 5th June 1798 - Commencement of the Battle of New Ross, which was the bloodiest confrontation of the Irish Rebellion of 1798. The forces of the Crown emerged triumphant and the rebellion was halted.

The Battle of New Ross

On 5th June 1900 - British forces, led by Field Marshal Lord Roberts of Kandahar, marched into Pretoria, appearing to bring an end to the Second Boer War. In fact, it marked the beginning of a new type of warfare - a long-term guerrilla campaign that went on until 1902 and would see some of the worst atrocities of human warfare (including the invention of the 'concentration camp').

Field Marshal The Earl Roberts of Kandahar, VC KG KP &c., Commander-in-Chief, British Forces

On 5th June 1947 - US Secretary of State, General George Marshall, delivered a speech at Harvard University in which he called for economic aid to war-torn Europe... leading to the creation of the Marshall Plan.

Gen George C. Marshall

On 5th June 1963 - John Profumo, the Secretary for War in the Macmillan Ministry, resigned after a sex scandal that revealed that Mr Profumo had been sharing a mistress with a senior KGB agent.

The late John Profumo

On 5th June 1967 - The State of Israel kicks off the Six-Day War with simultaneous pre-emptive attacks on the air forces of Egypt, Jordan, and Syria.

The Six-Day War

On 5th June 1968 - Senator Bobby Kennedy - brother of President John F. Kennedy - was assassinated at the Ambassador Hotel, LA, by a Palestinian gunman.

The late Robert F. Kennedy

On 5th June 1975 - The Wilson Ministry holds the United Kingdom's first (and so far only) nation-wide referendum, on whether or not the UK should remain part of the European Economic Community. The result was a 'Yes' vote.

The late Lord Wilson of Rievaulx, KG

On 5th June 1977 - The first practical personal computer, the Apple II, goes on sale.

The Apple II

On 5th June 1989 - For half-an-hour, an 'Unknown Rebel' halts the progress of a column of Chinese Government tanks advancing on the Tiananmen Square protests simply by standing in front of them. It becomes one of the most potent images of the 20th-Century.

"Tank Man"

B.E.
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JuanaLaLoca · Posted: Fri Jun 06, 2008 4:14 pm Post subject:

I was only 10 when Bobby Kennedy was killed, but I remember being devastated by it. In 1980/81, I lived down the street from the Ambassador Hotel. Not on the same street, but it was right at the head of my street, so if I went out of the apartment building into the middle of the road, I could look up the road and see it a couple of blocks up, facing me. It was difficult to look at it without remembering Bobby.

BlueEmperor · Posted: Fri Jun 06, 2008 9:11 pm Post subject:

Funnily enough, I was reading an interview with Gore Vidal in The Spectator the other day, in which Mr Vidal described the late Senator Kennedy as "the biggest son of a bitch who ever came into American politics". In all honesty, I can't say I know much about the man but I know he is a hero to many in the US. Mr Vidal, according to the article, is 'related' to Jackie Kennedy "in a roundabout way". Apparently her mother married the discarded second husband of Mr Vidal's mother. When the interviewer, Mary Wakefield, asked Mr Vidal why he so disliked Senator Kennedy, Mr Vidal replied: "Everyone thinks he had this terrific conscience but as far as I can tell, he never thought at all except how to get ahead".

B.E.
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BlueEmperor · Posted: Fri Jun 06, 2008 9:56 pm Post subject:

On 6th June 1523 - Gustav Vasa was elected King of Sweden, following a rebellion two years earlier in which he had deposed King Christian the Tyrant and brought the Kalmar Union (which united the kingdoms of Denmark, Norway and Sweden) to an end. He was the first Swedish monarch of the House of Vasa, bringing to an end for the last time the reign of the Oldenburg dynasty, which had ruled Sweden on and off since 1457. The House of Vasa would rule Sweden for nearly 200 years.

King Gustav I of Sweden

On 6th June 1644 - Manchu forces led by the Shunzhi Emperor capture Peking, deposing the Ming dynasty and establishing the Qing dynasty, which would rule China until 1912 and the birth of the Chinese republic.

The Shunzhi Emperor of China

On 6th June 1813 - A British force of 700 men under the command of General John Vincent score a decisive victory at the Battle of Stoney Creek, during the War of 1812, defeating an American force three times that size. It was a major turning point in the defence of Upper Canada.

The Battle of Stoney Creek

On 6th June 1944 - D-Day. Need I say more? The Battle of Normandy began, code-named 'Operation Overlord', with the landing of 155,000 Allied troops on the beaches of Normandy, France. Allied soldiers quickly broke through the Atlantic Wall and pushed inland in the largest amphibious military operation ever before seen in the history of warfare.

The Battle of Normandy

Births:

Capt Robert Falcon Scott, explorer (1868)
Henry Allingham, English World War I veteran (1896 - and a very Happy Birthday to Mr Allingham, who is 112 today and is Great Britain's oldest living man!)
Aram Khachaturian, Armenian composer (1903)
HM King Albert II of the Belgians (1934)
The Rt Hon David Blunkett, former Home Secretary (1947)
Sandra Bernhard, American actress/comdienne (1955)
BjÃ¶rn Borg, Swedish tennis player (1956)

Deaths

Jeremy Bentham, English philosopher (1832)
Count Camillo di Cavour, Italian premier (1961)
Carl Jung, Swiss psychiatrist (1961)
Anne Bancroft, American actress (2005)

B.E.
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BlueEmperor · Posted: Sat Jun 07, 2008 3:43 pm Post subject:

On 7th June 1099 - Following their success at the Siege of Antioch, the Crusaders of the First Crusade laid siege to the City of Jerusalem. This resulted in a decisive Crusader victory and their commander, Godfrey of Bouillon, was made Advocatus Sancti Sepulchri (Protector of the Holy Sepulchre). Duke Godfrey refused to be named 'king' in the city where Christ had died, saying that he refused to "wear a crown of gold in the city where Christ wore a crown of thorns" but nevertheless went on to establish the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem as its first ruler, albeit without the title 'king'. At his death in 1100, he was succeeded by his brother, Count Baldwin of Edessa, who was crowned King Baldwin I of Jerusalem.

Godfrey of Bouillon, Defender of the Holy Sepulchre

On 7th June 1905 - The Norwegian Storting formally dissolved the 91-year union between Norway and Sweden, bringing to an end the personal union of the crowns under King Oscar II of Sweden and the House of Bernadotte. At the same time as renouncing his own claims, King Oscar forbade any Swedish prince from accepting the Throne of Norway, leading to a power-struggle between Europe's royal families - particularly between Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany and his uncle, King Edward VII of the United Kingdom - as to who should be chosen. King Edward emerged victorious when his son-in-law, Prince Carl of Denmark (a younger son of King Frederick VIII of Denmark), was offered the throne. Prince Carl's appointment was given the overwhelming approval of the Norwegian people in a plebiscite and he was duly crowned as King Haakon VII of Norway.

HM King Haakon VII of Norway

On 7th June 1917 - The British 2nd Army under the command of General Sir Herbert Plumer scored a decisive victory over the German 4th Army, commanded by General Sixt von Armin. Over a period beginning more than a year before the attack, British, Canadian and Australian engineers had tunneled under the German trenches and laid twenty-one mines totaling 455 tonnes of ammonal explosive. These were detonated immediately prior to the infantry assault, killing 10,000 German troops instantly. Reports were made that the explosion was heard as far away as London and Dublin. Although the operation was successful, it had the effect of over-inflating expectations and led to misplaced confidence on the part of Field Marshal Sir Douglas Haig and the other British commanders and subsequent attempts to apply similar tactics elsewhere resulted in genocidal failure, notably at the Battle of Passchendaele.

The Battle of Messines

On 7th June 1981 - Irsaeli Prime Minister, Menachem Begin, authorised Operation Opera, an Israeli Air Force mission to destroy the Osirak nuclear reactor in Iraq. Israel claimed, with some justification, that the Iraqis were planning to use the facility to make nuclear weapons.

Menachem Begin, Prime Minister of Israel (1977-83)

On 7th June 1991 - Mount Pinatubo, a volcano on the island of Luzon, in the Philippines, erupted. It generated an ash column four and a half miles high.

Mount Pinatubo, The Philippines

Births:

The 2nd Earl of Liverpool, Prime Minister of the UK, 1812-27 (1770)
Beau Brummell, arbiter of men's fashion in Regency England and close personal friend of King George IV (1778)
Jessica Tandy, English-born American actress (1909)
Dean Martin, American actor (1917)
Sir Tom Jones, Welsh singer (1940)
Liam Neeson - Northern Irish actor (1952)
Prince, eccentric musician (1958)

Deaths:

King Robert the Bruce (1329)
Queen Anne of Bohemia, consort of King Richard II (1394)
The 3rd Lord De La Warr, English Governor of Virginia, after whom 'Delaware' is named (1618)
King Frederick William III of Prussia (1840)
Jean Harlow, American actress (1937)
Alan Turing, British mathematician and computer scientist (1954)
E.M. Forster, English author (1970)
Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, Jordanian-born terrorist (2006)

B.E.
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BlueEmperor · Posted: Sun Jun 08, 2008 2:15 pm Post subject:

On 8th June 1191 - King Richard the Lionheart landed at Acre, thus entering the Third Crusade. His forces aided in the capture of the city, despite the King's serious illness. At one point, while sick from scurvy, King Richard is said to have picked off guards on the walls with a crossbow while being carried on a stretcher. Eventually, Conrad of Montferrat, King of Jerusalem, concluded the surrender with the Sultan Saladin. King Richard kept 2,700 Moslem prisoners as hostages against the Sultan fulfilling all the terms of the surrender. However, King Richard feared his forces being bottled up in Acre, as he believed his campaign could not advance with the prisoners in train, so he ordered them all executed before heading south, defeating the Sultan's forces at the subsequent Battle of Arsuf.

King Richard the Lionheart

On 8th June 1405 - Richard le Scrope, Archbishop of York and the 4th Earl of Norfolk are summarily executed without trial on the orders of King Henry IV for their part in a rebellion against him organised by the Percy family of Northumberland.

King Henry IV

On 8th June 1789 - Congressman James Madison from Virginia, and later 4th President of the United States, proposes the Bill of Rights to the US House of Representatives.

President Madison

On 8th June 1941 - Allied forces under the command of Lt Gen Sir Henry Wilson launched Operation Exporter - the Allied invasion of Syria and the Lebanon.

Soldiers of the Australian 7th Division with their commander, Maj Gen A.S. Allen, pictured here at Hammana, Sept 1941

Births:

Ercole Cardinal Consalvi, formidable Vatican diplomat (1757)
Robert Schumann, German composer (1810)
President Suharto of Indonesia (1921)
Barbara Bush, US First Lady, 1989-93 (1925)
Joan Rivers, American comedienne (1933)
Sir Tim Berners-Lee, Father of the Internet (1955) - Happy Birthday to Sir Tim, without whom none of this would be possible!

Deaths:

The Prophet Muhammad (AD 218)
King Canute III/II of Denmark and England (1042)
Edward, the Black Prince of Wales (1376)
The Electress Sophia of Hanover (1714)
Tom Paine, American revolutionary (1809)
US President Andrew Jackson (1845)

B.E.
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The doctor is in!