BALLADEER’S BLOG
While most people focus on the assassination of Julius Caesar on the Ides of March, Balladeer’s Blog takes a look at various other historical events on this date.
200 B.C. – The 2nd Macedonian War begins.
221 A.D. – In China, Warlord Liu Bei claimed to be the legitimate successor in the Han Dynasty and declared himself Emperor of Shu-Han.
493 – In Ravenna, Italy the Ostrogoth King Theodoric the Great drew his sword and killed King Odoacer at a banquet.
856 – Empress Theodora of the Byzantine Empire is overthrown by her son, who becomes Emperor Michael the Third.
933 – The Battle of Riade was fought between the East Franks under King Henry the First and the invading Magyars.
1024 – In Muslim-colonized Spain, the Great Al-Andalus Earthquake struck around Cordoba.
1311 – Roger de Flor led the mercenary army called the Great Catalan Company in defeating the army of Duke Walter V in what was then called the Duchy of Athens. The duke had foolishly refused to pay the mercenaries for the military services they had rendered him in recent times.
1360 – During the Hundred Years’ War Jean de Neuville leads French forces in a raid of Winchelsea on the English coast.
1382 – In Florence, Italy the infamous Medici family lead the merchant class called the Popolo Grasso to regaining political dominance.
1493 – Christopher Columbus returned to Spain after his first voyage to the Americas.
1580 – King Philip the Second of Spain offers a bounty of 25,000 gold coins on the head of Prince William of Orange.
1626 – A flood caused by a dam bursting strikes the mining city of Potosi in Bolivia killing thousands.
1744 – King Louis the Fifteenth of France declares the latest war on Britain.
1778 – Explorer Captain James Cook arrives at Nootka Sound on Vancouver Island in Canada.
1781 – During America’s Revolutionary War, rebel General Nathanael Greene is technically defeated by British General Cornwallis in the Battle of Guilford Courthouse in North Carolina but inflicted such massive casualties on the Brits that they ceded the territory and fled.
1783 – In New Windsor, New York victorious General George Washington meets with hostile officers and soldiers to end the Newburgh Conspiracy, an attempted coup which threatened the U.S. before it could truly get rolling.
1820 – Maine, formerly a Department of Massachusetts, was admitted as the 23rd state in the U.S.
1848 – During the multi-nation Revolutions of 1848, the Reform Party in Hungary rebels against the ruling Habsburgs.
1864 – As America’s Civil War rages, Union Army forces reach Alexandria, Louisiana during the Red River Campaign.
1867 – Michigan becomes the first U.S. state to impose a property tax.
1875 – Pope Pius the Ninth invests John McCloskey as the very first American Cardinal.
1887 – In Michigan, William Alden Smith becomes the first professional Fish & Game Warden in the U.S.
1888 – The Anglo-Tibetan War begins.
1889 – During the joint U.S. and German presence in the Samoan Islands, a typhoon strikes Apea Harbor, sinking three American naval vessels and three German naval vessels, killing 51 U.S. sailors and 200 German sailors.
1892 – The world’s first escalator, patented by American Jesse Reno, went into use at Old Iron Pier in Coney Island, New York.
1906 – Rolls Royce Ltd. is formalized in Great Britain.
1907 – Finland’s male legislators make their country the first European nation to give women the right to vote.
1912 – Major League Pitcher Cy Young retires.
1913 – U.S. President Woodrow Wilson holds his first press conference following his inaugration. In the November of 1912 election he had defeated incumbent President William Howard Taft and former President Theodore Roosevelt.
1915 – As part of the general move of the filmmaking industry from the East Coast to California, Carl Laemmle opened Universal Pictures studio in the San Fernando Valley of Los Angeles.
1917 – The last Russian Tsar – Nicholas the Second – abdicates.
1918 – In Finnish Civil War action, the Battle of Tampere begins and will last all the way until April 6th between the Whites and the Reds.
1919 – The American Legion is formed.
1921 – In Berlin, Armenian Soghoman Tehlirian assassinates the Muslim Talaat Pasha, chief architect of the Armenian Genocide.
1922 – Sultan Fuad is crowned King of Egypt.
1930 – The world’s first seaplane glider is flown at Port Washington, New York.
1941 – A blizzard in North Dakota kills 51 people.
1943 – In World War Two action, the Soviet Union’s Red Army evacuates Kharkov.
1944 – Cassino, Italy is destroyed by Allied Nations bombing.
1945 – One-legged pitcher (NOT a one-legged Tarzan for you Peter Cook and Dudley Moore fans) Bert Shepard begins his career with the Washington Senators. Shepard lost his leg in World War Two.
1947 – John Lee becomes the first black commissioned officer in the U.S. Navy.
1948 – Television station WCAU in Philadelphia begins broadcasting.
1951 – In Korean War action, U.N. forces retake Seoul, marking the 4th time the city exchanged hands in the conflict.
1958 – NBA basketball player Oscar Robertson of the Cincinnati Royals sets a new record with 56 points in a game.
1961 – South Africa withdraws from the British Commonwealth.
1962 – Researchers announce the discovery of antimatter.
1971 – Chatrooms debut on ARPANET, a forerunner of the internet.
1977 – The U.S. Congress begins televising its sessions.
1985 – The first internet domain name – symbolics.com – is registered.
1988 – Eugene Marino of Atlanta becomes the first African American Bishop.
1990 – Mikhail Gorbachev is elected President of the Soviet Union, the only man who will hold that title.
1993 – Police Commissioner Mohamed Tabet of Casablanca is convicted of sexually abusing over 1,500 women and is sentenced to death.
2003 – Recep Erdogan becomes Prime Minister of Turkey.
2004 – The celestial body Sedna, named after the Inuit sea goddess, is discovered.
2008 – Twenty-six people are killed when old ammunition explodes in Gerdec, Albania.
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