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“The individual is defined only by his relationship to the world and to other individuals; he exists only by transcending himself, and his freedom can be achieved only through the freedom of others.”
~ Simone de Beauvoir
Wikiquote (Simone de Beauvoir (January 9, 1908 – April 14, 1986) a French author and existentialist philosopher. She is now most famous for her 1949 treatise The Second Sex [Le Deuxième Sexe], a detailed analysis of women's oppression and a foundational tract of contemporary feminism, and her long personal relationship with Jean-Paul Sartre.)
January 9th, 475
Byzantine Empire (East Roman Empire):
475 - Byzantine Emperor Zeno is forced to flee his capital at Constantinople, and his general, Basiliscus gains control of the empire.
Wikipedia Image: The Baptism of Constantine painted by Raphael's pupils (1520–1524, fresco, Vatican City, Apostolic Palace); Mural of Saints Cyril and Methodius, 19th century, Troyan Monastery, Bulgaria; Justinian I depicted on one of the famous mosaics of the Basilica of San Vitale, Ravenna; The Greek fire was first used by the Byzantine Navy during the Byzantine-Arab Wars (from the Madrid Skylitzes, Biblioteca Nacional de España, Madrid); Alexios I, founder of the Komnenos dynasty.
January 9th, 1127
China - Jin Dynasty:
1127 - Invading Jurchen soldiers from the Jin Dynasty besiege and sack Bianjing (Kaifeng), the capital of the Song Dynasty of China, and abduct Emperor Qinzong and others, ending the Northern Song Dynasty.
Wikipedia Photo: China from NASA Wordwind Satellite; © Great Wall of China, credit National Geographic; LongJi Terrace, credit National Geographic; Great Bear Rainforest, credit Paul Nicklen, National Geographic; Platoons of clay soldiers were buried with China's first emperor, Qin Shi Huang Di, (required a labor force of 700,000 to build), credit O. Louis Mazzatenta, National Geographic.
January 9th, 1349
The Jewish population of Basel, Switzerland believed by the residents to be the cause of the ongoing Black Death, is rounded up and incinerated.
Wikipedia Painting: Plague Physician in the William Shakespeare Era / Bubonic Plague, ”Ring around the rosy”
January 9th, 1431
Hundred Years' War, Joan of Arc:
1431 - Judges' investigations for the trial of Joan of Arc begin in Rouen, France, the seat of the English occupation government.
Wikipedia Painting: Joan of Arc: An artist's interpretation, since the only known direct portrait has not survived. (Centre Historique des Archives Nationales, Paris, AE II 2490) (1485); Joan of Arc's Death at the Stake, by Hermann Stilke (1843); Jeanne d' Arc, by Eugene Thirion (1876); Joan at the coronation of Charles VII, by Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres in (1854); Joan of Arc and Prophet-French Pilgrimage; Joan interrogated in her prison cell by Cardinal Winchester, by Hippolyte Delaroche, (1824); Saint Joan of Arc, Vatican City; Joan of Arc in Battle, by Hermann Anton Stilke.
January 9th, 1768
London, England: Philip Astley stages the first modern circus.
Wikipedia Image: Advertisement for the Barnum & Bailey Circus, 1900; Astley's Amphitheatre in London 1808; Trapeze artists, in lithograph by Calvert Litho. Co., 1890; Lion tamer, in lithograph by Gibson & Co., 1873; Circus parade around tents, in lithograph by Gibson & Co., 1874.
January 9th, 1788
Connecticut becomes the fifth state to be admitted to the United States.
Wikipedia Photo: Connecticut is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States.
January 9th, 1793
Frenchman Jean-Pierre Blanchard becomes the first person to fly in a balloon in the United States.
Wikipedia Painting: Joseph and Jacques Montgolfier - the Montgolfier brothers' first balloon lifts off on its first test flight.
January 9th, 1816
Sir Humphry Davy tests the Davy lamp for miners at Hebburn Colliery.
Wikipedia Image: Sir Humphry Davy (A type of Davy lamp with apertures for gauging flame height)
January 9th, 1839
The French Academy of Sciences announces the Daguerreotype photography process.
Wikipedia Photo: photography (Cannon SM RF 85mm f1.9 telephoto lens)
January 9th, 1861
American Civil War:
1861 - "Star of the West" incident occurs near Charleston, South Carolina . It is considered by some historians to be the "First Shots of the American Civil War".
1861 - Mississippi becomes the second state to secede from the Union before the outbreak of the American Civil War.
1863 - Battle of Fort Hindman begins in Arkansas.
Wikipedia Image: ● Lincoln Memorial; an American national monument built to honor the 16th President of the United States, Abraham Lincoln - located on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. across from the Washington Monument.
● The northern army led by George McClellan and the southern army led by Robert E. Lee met at Antietam Creek, Maryland in September, 1862. It was a bloody battle where 13,000 Confederates and 12,000 Union troops died in just one day. McClellan had hesitated to attack before the battle thus letting the southern troops regroup. Also, he had saved reserves and refused to use them at the end of the battle thinking that Lee was holding reserves for a counterattack, even though those reserves didn't exist. The Union victory stopped Lee's northward advance and was a turning point in the war.
● Battle of Antietam / Stone Bridge at Antietam Battlefield - Sharpsburg, Maryland
● Battle of Mobile Bay (1890) by Xanthus Russell Smith.
● Although photography was still in its infancy, war correspondents produced thousands of images, bringing the harsh realities of the frontlines to those on the home front in a new and visceral way. The Atlantic.
January 9th, 1905
Russian Revolution of 1905: Russian workers stage a march on the Winter Palace that ends in the massacre by Czarist troops known as Bloody Sunday.
Wikipedia Image: Russian Revolution of 1905: Ilya Repin, 17 October 1905; Bloody Sunday (January 22. Father Gapon near Narva Gate. Unknown painter - Soviet painting - Bloody Sunday massacre in St. Petersburg).
January 9th, 1916
World War I:
1916 - Battle of Gallipoli; concludes with an Ottoman Empire victory when the last Allied forces are evacuated from the peninsula.
1917 - Battle of Rafa; occurs near the Egyptian border with Palestine.
Post World War I:
1921 - Greco-Turkish War; First Battle of İnönü - the first battle of the war, began near Eskişehir in Anatolia.
1923 - Lithuanian residents of the Memel Territory revolt against the League of Nations decision to leave the area as a mandated region under French control.
Wikipedia Photo: Trenches on the Western Front; a British Mark IV Tank crossing a trench; Royal Navy battleship HMS Irresistible sinking after striking a mine at the Battle of the Dardanelles; a Vickers machine gun crew with gas masks, and German Albatros D.III biplanes. National Archives and Records Administration.
January 8th, 1918
American Indian Wars:
1918 - Battle of Bear Valley; The last battle of the American Indian Wars.
Wikipedia Photos: American Indians - Chief Crazy Horse, Tashunca-uitco (1849 - 1877); Geronimo Apache Chief (1829 - 1909); Indian Chief 'Two Eagles'; Crow Indian Chief; Snake Cheif; Band of Chiricahua Apache Indians, followers of legendary renegade Geronimo, attending a peace negotiation after a long struggle against U.S. government attempts to force them onto reservations - Tombstone, Arizona (1886).
January 9th, 1941
World War II:
1941 - First flight of the Avro Lancaster.
1941 - The Greek Triton (Y-5) sinks the Italian submarine Neghelli in Otranto.
1945 - The United States invades Luzon in the Philippines.
Wikipedia Photo: Bombing of Dresden in World War II; August Schreitmüller's sculpture 'Goodness' surveys Dresden after a firestorm started by Allied bombers in 1945.
USS Bunker Hill was hit by kamikazes piloted by Ensign Kiyoshi Ogawa and another airman on 11 May 1945. 389 personnel were killed or missing from a crew of 2,600; Ensign Kiyoshi Ogawa, who flew his aircraft into the USS Bunker Hill during a Kamikaze mission on 11 May 1945; Kamikaze Missions - Lt Yoshinori Yamaguchi's Yokosuka D4Y3 (Type 33 Suisei) "Judy" in a suicide dive against USS Essex. The dive brakes are extended and the non-self-sealing port wing tank is trailing fuel vapor and/or smoke 25 November 1944.
German V1 flying-bomb and V2 Rockets - Preparations for a Salvo Launch of V-2 Rockets in the Heidelager near Blizna (Poland) (1944), credit German History in Documents and Images GHDI.
Eastern Front (World War II); Germans race towards Stalingrad. August 1942; Soviet children during a German air raid in the first days of the war, June 1941, by RIA Novosti archive; Soviet sniper Roza Shanina in 1944. About 400,000 Soviet women served in front-line duty units Caucasus Mountains, winter 1942/43; Finnish ski patrol: the invisible enemy of the Soviet Army with an unlimited supply of skis; Men of the German Engineers Corps cross a river which is swollen after the first autumn rains, to strengthen bridges linking the German positions on the central front in Russia. by Keystone / Getty Images. October 1942; Russian snipers fighting on the Leningrad front during a blizzard. Photo by Hulton Archive / Getty Images, 1943; German soldiers surrendering to the Russians in Stalingrad, the soldier holding the white flag of surrender is dressed in white so that there could be no doubt of his intentions, a Russian soldier is on the right of the photograph. by Keystone / Getty Images, January 1943.
January 9th, 1960
President of Egypt Gamal Abdel Nasser opens construction on the Aswan High Dam by detonating ten tons of dynamite to demolish twenty tons of granite on the east bank of the Nile.
Wikipedia Photo: Aswan High Dam; Located near Aswan, was an engineering miracle when it was built in the 1960s.
January 9th, 1964
Martyrs' Day: Several Panamanian youths try to raise the Panamanian flag on the U.S.-controlled Panama Canal Zone, leading to fighting between U.S. military and Panamanian civilians.
Wikipedia Map of Panama
January 9th, 1996
Chechen War:
Kizlyar-Pervomayskoye hostage crisis; Chechen separatists launch a raid against the helicopter airfield and later a civilian hospital in the city of Kizlyar in the neighboring Dagestan, which turns into a massive hostage crisis involving thousands of civilians.
Wikipedia Photo: Chechen_War: War in Chechnya, was a conflict between the Russian Federation and the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria (Chechen guerrilla warfare and raids on the flatlands vs Russia's overwhelming manpower, weaponry, and air support); Russian Mil Mi-8 helicopter brought down by Chechen fighters near the capital Grozny in 1994; Second Battle of Grozny; Battle of Grozny, Russian federal forces attempted to seize control of the mountainous area of Chechnya but were set back by Chechen guerrilla warfare and raids; Chechen little boy with makeshift wooden rifle.
January 9th, 2007
Apple Inc. CEO Steve Jobs unveils the first IPhone (original).
Wikipedia Photo: Apple Store, credit Lukas Barth, DAPD / Associated Press, February 29, 2012 ● IPhone (original), credit Ciccarese Design.
January 9th, 2016
Modern conflicts in the Middle East, social unrest and terrorist attacks:
2016 - Madagali suicide bombings; At least 57 people are killed and a further 177 injured when two schoolgirl suicide bombers attack a market area in Madagali, Northeastern Nigeria in the Madagali suicide bombings.
Wikipedia Photo: Middle East satellite image, NASA. ● Camels are seen early morning on a beach in the Marina area of Dubai October 16, 2008. (Steve Crisp, Reuters) ● A portrait of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad burns during clashes between rebels and Syrian troops in Selehattin, near Aleppo, on July 23, 2012. (Bulent Kilic, AFP / GettyImages) ● Egyptians gather in their thousands in Tahrir Square to mark the one year anniversary of the revolution on Jan. 25, 2012 in Cairo Egypt. Tens of thousands have gathered in the square on the first anniversary of the Arab uprising which toppled President Hosni Mubarak. (Jeff J Mitchell, Getty Images) ● Black smoke rises above the Tehran skyline as supporters of Mir Hossein Mousavi burn tires and other material in the streets as they fight running battles with police to protest the declared results of the Iranian presidential election in Tehran, Iran, Saturday, June 13, 2009. (Ben Curtis, AP) ● The Iron Dome defense system fires to interecpt incoming missiles from Gaza in the port town of Ashdod, Thursday, Nov. 15, 2012. (Tsafrir Abayov, AP)
January 9th, 2017
Marriage Amendment (Definition and Religious Freedoms) Act 2017: Australiabecomes the 26th country to legalize same-sex marriage.
Wikipedia Image: Commonwealth Coat of Arms of Australia granted by Royal Warrant signed by King George V on September 19, 1912.