First Confidential

THIS DAY IN HISTORY - JANUARY 10th

Robert Louis Stevenson, Quote

“The best things in life are nearest: Breath in your nostrils, light in your eyes, flowers at your feet, duties at your hand, the path of right just before you. Then do not grasp at the stars, but do life's plain, common work as it comes, certain that daily duties and daily bread are the sweetest things in life.”

~ Robert Louis Stevenson

Wikiquote (Robert Louis Stevenson (November 13, 1850 – December 3, 1894) was a Scottish novelist, poet, and travel writer, and a leading representative of Neo-romanticism in English literature.)

This Day in History

January 10th, 49 BC

Ancient Rome was a thriving civilization that began growing on the Italian Peninsula as early as the 8th century BC. Located along the Mediterranean Sea and centered on the city of Rome, it expanded to become one of the largest empires in the ancient world Roman Empire Decline and Fall of Rome

Roman Empire:
49 BC - Julius Caesar crosses the Rubicon, signaling the start of civil war.
69 - Lucius Calpurnius Piso Licinianus is appointed by Galba to deputy Roman Emperor.
236 - Pope Fabian succeeds Anterus as the twentieth pope of Rome.

Wikipedia  Photo: ● Ancient roman statue ● Detail of Head from Roman Statue of Antinous, credit Corbis ● Statue of Neptune, Trevi Fountain, Rome ● International Sand Sculpture Festival, FIESA 7 ancient Rome.
Relief from a 3rd-century sarcophagus depicting a battle between Romans and Germanic warriors; the central figure is perhaps the emperor Hostilian / Depiction of the Menorah on the Arch of Titus in Rome.

January 10th, 1645

Tower of London: The Tower with the River Thames and Tower Bridge to the south (The outer curtain walls were erected in the 13th century); Saint John's Chapel - inside the 'White Tower' inside the Tower of London, and was built sometime between 1066 and 1087, credit Neil Alderney, Flickr

Archbishop William Laud is beheaded at the Tower of London.

Wikipedia  Photo: Tower of London; The Tower with the River Thames and Tower Bridge to the south (The outer curtain walls were erected in the 13th century); Saint John's Chapel - inside the "White Tower" inside the Tower of London, and was built sometime between 1066 and 1087, credit Neil Alderney, Flickr”

January 10th, 1776

American Revolutionary War Collage Thomas Paine oil painting by Auguste Millière (1880); The American Crisis, a pamphlet series by 18th century Enlightenment philosopher and author Thomas Paine, originally published from 1776 to 1783 during the American Revolution

American Revolutionary War:
1776 - Thomas Paine publishes Common Sense.

Wikipedia  Paintings: Washington Crossing the Delaware, by Emanuel Leutz; Battle of the Chesapeake, French (left) and British (right) lines; Battle of Bunker Hill, The Death of General Warren at the Battle of Bunker Hill by John Trumbull; The Defeat of the Floating Batteries at Gibraltar, September 13, 1782, by John Singleton Copley; Washington and the Comte de Rochambeau at Yorktown, 1781; "The surrender at Saratoga" shows General Daniel Morgan in front of a French de Vallière 4-pounder; Surrender of Cornwallis at Yorktown by (John Trumbull, 1797).
Thomas Paine oil painting by Auguste Millière (1880); The American Crisis, a pamphlet series by 18th century Enlightenment philosopher and author Thomas Paine, originally published from 1776 to 1783 during the American Revolution.

January 10th, 1806

The first occupation by United Kingdom of Cape Colony, South Africa

Dutch settlers in Cape Town surrender to the British.

Wikipedia  Photo: Cape Town, South Africa

January 10th, 1861

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 American Civil War: Battle of Antietam; Stone Bridge at Antietam Battlefield - Sharpsburg, Maryland American Civil War, Battle of Mobile Bay: at Mobile Bay near Mobile, Alabama, Admiral David Farragut leads a Union flotilla through Confederate defenses and seals one of the last major Southern ports

American Civil War:
1861 - Florida secedes from the Union.

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 10th, 1870

John D. Rockefeller (July 8, 1839 – May 23, 1937) was an American industrialist and philanthropist. (founder of the Standard Oil Company, which dominated the oil industry and was the first great U.S. business trust)

John D. Rockefeller incorporates Standard Oil.

Wikipedia  Photo: John D. Rockefeller (July 8, 1839 – May 23, 1937) was an American industrialist and philanthropist. (founder of the Standard Oil Company, which dominated the oil industry and was the first great U.S. business trust)

January 10th, 1901

Texas - The name, based on the Caddo word tejas meaning 'friends' or 'allies', was applied by the Spanish to the Caddo themselves and to the region of their settlement in East Texas Spindletop's Boiler Avenue, 1903, Spindletop is a salt dome oil field located in the southern portion of Beaumont, Texas (The Spindletop dome was derived from the Louann Salt evaporite layer of the Jurassic geologic period), credit Priweb.org, W.W.Bryant

The first great Texas oil gusher is discovered at Spindletop in Beaumont, Texas.

Wikipedia  Map: Texas - The name, based on the Caddo word tejas meaning "friends" or "allies", was applied by the Spanish to the Caddo themselves and to the region of their settlement in East Texas, credit map of Texas, Geomart.
Spindletop's Boiler Avenue, 1903, Spindletop is a salt dome oil field located in the southern portion of Beaumont, Texas (The Spindletop dome was derived from the Louann Salt evaporite layer of the Jurassic geologic period), credit Priweb.org, W.W.Bryant.

January 10th, 1916

World War I: Collage

World War I:
1916 - Erzurum Offensive; Russian victory over Ottoman Empire.
1920 - The Treaty of Versailles; takes effect, officially ending World War I
Post World War I:
1923 - Lithuania seizes and annexes the Memel Territory.

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, 1927

Fritz Lang's futuristic film Metropolis is released in Germany (Original 1927 theatrical release poster; Tower of Babel; Brigitte Helm as Maria; Mad scientist Rotwang (Rudolf Klein-Rogge) prepares to transform his robot into the likeness of Maria (Brigitte Helm))

Fritz Lang's futuristic film Metropolis is released in Germany.

Wikipedia  Image: Metropolis Original 1927 theatrical release poster; Tower of Babel; Brigitte Helm as Maria; Mad scientist Rotwang (Rudolf Klein-Rogge) prepares to transform his robot into the likeness of Maria (Brigitte Helm).

January 10th, 1941

World War II: Second firestorm raid on Germany, the Royal Air Force conducts an air raid on the town of Kassel, killing 10,000 and rendering 150,000 homeless World War II: Battle of Leyte Gulf; Battle of Leyte Gulf; The first kamikaze attack: A Japanese plane carrying a 200-kilogram (440 lb) bomb attacks HMAS Australia off Leyte Island World War II: German V1 flying-bomb and V2 Rockets - Preparations for a Salvo Launch of V-2 Rockets in the Heidelager near Blizna (Poland) (1944) World War II: Eastern Front (World War II); was a theatre of World War II between the European Axis powers and co-belligerent Finland against the Soviet Union, Poland, and some other Allies which encompassed Northern, Southern and Eastern Europe from 22 June 1941 to 9 May 1945

World War II:
1941 - The Greek army captures Kleisoura.
Post World War II:
1946 - The United Nations General Assembly opens in London. Fifty-one nations are represented.

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 10th, 1962

Apollo Program: Apollo 11 first manned Moon landing and the first walk on the surface on the moon. Astronaut Buzz Aldrin walks on the surface of the moon near the leg of the lunar module Eagle. Apollo 11 Commander Neil Armstrong took this photograph with a 70mm lunar surface camera. Armstrong and Aldrin explored the Sea of Tranquility for two and a half hours while crewmate Michael Collins orbited above in the command module Columbia. The Blue Marble is a famous photograph of the Earth, taken on December 7, 1972, by the crew of the Apollo 17 spacecraft, at a distance of about 45,000 kilometres (28,000 mi)

Apollo program: NASA announces plans to build the C-5 (Saturn V) rocket launch vehicle. (It became better known as the Saturn V Moon rocket, which launched every Apollo Moon mission)

Wikipedia  Photo: Apollo Program: Apollo 11 first manned Moon landing and the first walk on the surface on the moon. Astronaut Buzz Aldrin walks on the surface of the moon near the leg of the lunar module Eagle. Apollo 11 Commander Neil Armstrong took this photograph with a 70mm lunar surface camera. Armstrong and Aldrin explored the Sea of Tranquility for two and a half hours while crewmate Michael Collins orbited above in the command module Columbia.
The Blue Marble is a famous photograph of the Earth, taken on December 7, 1972, by the crew of the Apollo 17 spacecraft, at a distance of about 45,000 kilometres (28,000 mi).

January 10th, 1984

Having invaded the Papal States, the Italian Army lays siege to Rome, after which the Pope described himself as a Pope described himself as a Prisoner in the Vatican Pope Sixtus IV consecrates the Sistine Chapel

The United States and Vatican City establish full diplomatic relations after 117 years.

Wikipedia  Photo: Vatican City The Measure of Genius: Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel at 500; The ceiling of the Sistine Chapel (left: West, right: East), "an artistic vision without precedent"; The Creation of Adam; The prophet Daniel; Detail from the Great Flood.; Detail of the Face of God; The pendentive of the Brazen serpent with its crowded composition was imitated by Mannerist painters. (unrestored state); The composition is similar to a Flight into Egypt.

January 10th, 2016

List of modern conflicts in the Middle East

Modern conflicts in the Middle East, social unrest and terrorist attacks:
2016 - December 2016 Istanbul bombings; outside a football stadium in Istanbul, Istanbul, Turkey, kill 38 people and injure 166 others.
2014 - Palestinian minister Ziad Abu Ein was killed after the suppression of a demonstration by Israeli forces in the village Turmus'ayya in Ramallah.

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)