So much went on in history on this day I decided to pack it all into one post. Why not? First we have the Battle of the Haly's River. I'd never heard of it either, but it's significant because the Greek philosopher Thales predicted that a solar eclipse would occur on this day in 585 BC. The Medes and the Lydians were scheduled to have a battle near the Halys River in northeastern Turkey on that day, but the eclipse frightened them and they quickly signed a truce that ended their six year war. A Lydian princess was married to a Medan prince and the Halys became the boundary between the two kingdoms.
On a personal note I remember as a kid watching movies set in Africa where the explorer and his girlfriend would be about to be burned at the stake. The explorer happened to know a solar eclipse was about to take place and would make signs to the man about to light the pyre that he would extinguish the sun if he or his friend were harmed. Sure enough, the sun would go dark, the belligerents would go nuts, and the explorer would be released and worshipped as a god. I always intended to carry a list of upcoming eclipses with me just in case, but never remembered to do it.
The next big thing happened almost two thousand years later. I know I said lots happened on this day, but please be patient. On this day in 1533 HenryVIII's marriage to Anne Boleyn was declared valid. Henry had previously been married to Catherine of Aragon, but she had not produced the son Henry needed to succeed him, only a daughter, Mary. Henry tried to get the pope to annul his marriage to Catherine, but the pope was a prisoner of Catherine's nephew at the time and couldn't help, so Henry went over the pope's head and got the Archbishop of Canterbury to do his bidding.
Anne and Henry quickly produced a daughter, Elizabeth. Catherine meanwhile was demoted to Dowager Princess of Wales and lodged in a series less and less nice castles. She died two years after Anne's marriage to Henry. Anne miscarried a son on the day of Catherine's funeral. Now Henry started looking for wife number three. He had charges of adultery and treason trumped up against Anne and she was beheaded less than four years into her marriage.
In 1588 on this day the Spanish Armada set sail for England. This could be seen as a revenge mission for Henry's shabby treatment of Catherine. But Anne's daughter Queen Elizabeth I was ready for them. Thanks to England's navy and English weather, the attack of the Armada turned into a fiasco.
One more, and this one's my favorite. It's May 28th, 1754: George Washington, age 22, kicks off the French and Indian War in a little skirmish in the wilderness of western Pennsylvania. The French and Indian War precipitated the world-wide Seven Years War. Of course one thing always leads to another. The British won the war and kicked the French out of North America. The American colonists no longer felt any need of British protection and decided to go it alone. The British objected and Washington was appointed to meet those objections. Everyone loved him. He could have been King of America, but he said, "Kings are for dummies. I'll be your president."
Don't you just love history?
A partial solar eclipse will take place on June 10.
ReplyDeleteYes, I do love history - the way you tell it.
ReplyDeleteHenry's Catherine didn't have it so bad when compared to her predecessors.
Ah, the unfortunate and mistreated Catherines of history.
Catherine of Sienna died in Rome, on 29 April 1380, at the age of thirty-three, having eight days earlier suffered a massive stroke which paralyzed her from the waist down. Her last words were, "Father, into Your Hands I commend my soul and my spirit."
Catherine wheel or breaking wheel, an instrument of torturous execution originally associated with Saint Catherine of Alexandria. The Catherine Wheel consisted of a large wooden wagon wheel which consisted of several radial spokes. A condemned person was lashed to the wheel and a club or iron cudgel was used to beat their limbs. ...
At the end of the torture the victim was killed by decapitation or stabbing to the abdomen or the chest (or both). They also found that the two buckles were found on each side of the body, which might have been used with a shroud in order to keep the body parts inside. The victim's body, after his death, could also be displayed on the wheel.
There you have it . . . another dark side mirroring your sunny side.
Henry's sixth and final wife was also a Catherine. They got along just fine, though court enemies tried to poison the relationship. She was only 35 when Henry died and she married an old boyfriend, but died a year later in childbirth.
DeleteThreatened by immolation at the stake, in deepest Africa, had this occurred with you and your lovely wife, your wife would've simply charmed them into submission and they would've worshipped her as a goddess-- the way you do. You, on the other hand, might not fare so well, maybe suffering a few spearpoint burns across your forehead that, in a mirror, spelled 'GOOFUS.'
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