Today in History - July 2
• Henry "the Fowler" Defeats the Magyars
• President James A. Garfield Assassinated
• First Zeppelin Flight
-- Compiled by James Finlayson-Bald
A Hungarian warrior fighting from horseback. Henry "the Fowler" won an important victory over the Magyars (Hungarians) in the Battle of Riade in 933. (Source: 10th century fresco from Patriarchate of Aquileia, Italy.)
On this date:
311 -- St. Miltiades was crowned Pope.
936 -- Henry "the Fowler", King of Germany, died. Birdwatching had given him patience, and he put it to good use. He regained Lorraine and extended German rule over the Slavs beyond the Rhine and enforced the submission of Wenceslas, Duke of Bohemia. His greatest gift to Germany though was his defeat of the Magyars in battle at Riade in 933. The Magyar, who were of the Finnish persuasion were at that time the terror of Europe, and after Henry's victory, though they gave Germany a wide berth, galloped off in other directions in search of "protection money", their chief source of income. At one stage they were bought off under the very walls of Constantinople. They were Not Liked.
1439 -- The Portuguese crown gave permission for settlement of the Azores Islands.
1468 -- Charles the Bold, Duke of Burgundy, married Margaret of York.
1566 -- Nostradamus, French astrologer and physician, died.
1627 -- Lord Carlisle given all the Caribbean Islands by the King of England.
1644 -- The Parliamentarians defeated Prince Rupert at the Battle of Marston Moor.
1645 -- Lord Montrose defeated the Covenanters at Alford in Scotland.
1747 -- The Allies were defeated by the French at Lawford in the War of the Austrian Succession.
1809 -- Lord Byron sailed from England on a Portuguese packet, beginning "Childe Harold's Pilgrimage".
1849 -- Rome fell to the French.
1859 -- Discovery of Nevada's Comstock Lode was announced in the Nevada City "Journal". It was one of the richest deposits of precious metal known in the world.
1881 -- Garfield Assassinated! The twentieth President of the U.S. James Abram Garfield was a teacher, lawyer, and a general in the American Civil War. In 1880 he emerged as a compromise candidate for the presidency and was narrowly elected. Four months after his inauguration he was shot by Charles Jules Guiteau, a disappointed office seeker, on Washington Railway Station. He died in September.
1900 -- The first zeppelin flight, by Count Ferdinand von Zeffelin from a field on the outskirts of Berlin.
1922 -- Beginning of heavy fighting in Dublin.
1937 -- Amelia Earhart, pioneer aviator, disappeared over the Pacific on a round the world flight.
1961 -- Ernest Hemingway, novelist and journalist, commited suicide.
Birthdays:
-- Jacopo Tatti Sansovini, sculptor (1486-1529)
-- Herman Hesse, novelist (1877-1962)
Quote:
"Fear is an instructor of great sagacity and the herald of all revolutions."
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson.
The above article was written by James Finlayson-Bald.
Edited and illustrations added by David Paul Wagner.
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