First Confidential

THIS DAY IN HISTORY - APRIL 7th

William Ellery Channing, Quote

“Great minds are to make others great. Their superiority is to be used, not to break the multitude to intellectual vassalage, not to establish over them a spiritual tyranny, but to rouse them from lethargy, and to aid them to judge for themselves.”

~ William Ellery Channing

Wikiquote (William Ellery Channing (April 7, 1780 – October 2, 1842) the foremost Unitarian preacher in the United States in the early nineteenth century, one of Unitarianism's leading theologians - known for his articulate and impassioned sermons and public speeches, and as a prominent thinker in the liberal theology of the day.)

This Day in History

April 7th, 451

Map of Mongol Empire at its height; Genghis Khan, credit The Field Museum in Chicago; Genghis Khan various Mongolian tribes joined together in 1206; Mongol warriors was created for an Islamic history book, Rashid al-Din's History of the World of 1307, courtesy of the Edinburgh University Library, Scotland

Mongol Empire:
451 - Attila the Hun sacks the town of Metz and attacks other cities in Gaul.

Wikipedia  Image: Map of Mongol Empire at its height; Genghis Khan, credit The Field Museum in Chicago; Genghis Khan various Mongolian tribes joined together in 1206; Mongol warriors was created for an Islamic history book, Rashid al-Din's History of the World of 1307, courtesy of the Edinburgh University Library, Scotland.


April 7th, 529

Byzantine Empire Collage Byzantine Empire is the great church of Hagia Sophia (Church of the Holy Wisdom) in Constantinople (562)

Byzantine Empire (East Roman Empire):
529 - First draft of the Corpus Juris Civilis (a fundamental work in jurisprudence) is issued by Eastern Roman Emperor Justinian I.

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.
Photo: Byzantine Empire is the great church of Hagia Sophia (Church of the Holy Wisdom) in Constantinople (562).


April 7th, 1767

Burma (Myanmar) is a sovereign state in Southeast Asia. It is bordered by India, Bangladesh, China, Laos and Thailand

Burmese–Siamese War (1765–1767) ends.

Wikipedia  Photo: Burma: ● Topographic map and location of Burma ● Temples at Mrauk U ● Pagodas and temples in present-day Pagan (Bagan), the capital of the Pagan Kingdom ● Stilt houses at Lake Inle, Burma ● Mae La camp or Burmese refugees, Tak, Thailand


April 7th, 1776

American Revolutionary War Collage American Revolutionary War, Battle of the Saintes, 9 April 1782 – 12 April 1782

American Revolutionary War:
1776 - Captain John Barry and the USS Lexington capture the Edward.

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).
Battle of the Saintes (April 9, 1782 – April 12, 1782)


April 7th, 1788

The Continental Congress enacts the Northwest Ordinance establishing governing rules for the Northwest Territory

American Pioneers to the Northwest Territory arrive at the confluence of the Ohio and Muskingum rivers, establishing Marietta, Ohio, as the first permanent American settlement of the new United States in the Northwest Territory, and opening the westward expansion of the new country.

Wikipedia  Map: Michigan Department of Military & Veterans Affairs The Northwest Ordinance of 1787 established an east-west line drawn from the southern tip of Lake Michigan across the base of the peninsula.


April 7th, 1798

Mississippi Territory published ca. 1813 by Mathew Carey. (The right half of the map is the present-day state of Alabama), credit Encyclopediaofalabama.org

Mississippi Territory: is organized from disputed territory claimed by both the United States and Spain. (It is expanded in 1804 and again in 1812.)

Wikipedia  Map: Mississippi Territory published ca. 1813 by Mathew Carey. (The right half of the map is the present-day state of Alabama), credit Encyclopediaofalabama.org.


April 7th, 1862

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: American Civil War: First Battle Between Ironclads; CSS Virginia/Merrimac (left) vs. USS Monitor, in 1862 at the Battle of Hampton Roads

American Civil War:
1862 - Battle of Shiloh; ends – the Union Army under General Ulysses S. Grant defeats the Confederate troops led by General Albert Sidney Johnston near Shiloh, Tennessee.

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
● First Battle Between Ironclads: CSS Virginia/Merrimac (left) vs. USS Monitor, in 1862 at the Battle of Hampton Roads.
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.


April 7th, 1906

Global Earthquake epicenters

Earthquake:
1906 - Mount Vesuvius erupts and devastates Naples.

Wikipedia  Image: Preliminary Determination of Epicenters / Aleppo Syria; Anchorage, Alaska - March 28, 1964 Prince William Sound USA earthquake and tsunami; 8.9 Mega Earthquake Strikes Japan; Tsunami Swirls Japan's Ibaraki Prefecture March 12 2011. credit NOAA / NGDC, NOAA National Geophysical Data Center, USGS, National Geographics.


April 7th, 1939

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:
1939 - Italy invades Albania.
1943 - Ioannis Rallis becomes collaborationist Prime Minister of Greece during the WWII Axis Occupation of Greece.
1945 - The Japanese battleship Yamato, the largest battleship ever constructed, is sunk by American planes 200 miles north of Okinawa while en-route to a suicide mission in Operation Ten-Go.
1945 - Visoko is liberated by the 7th, 9th, and 17th Krajina brigades from the Tenth division of Yugoslav Partisan forces.
Post World War II:
1946 - Syria's independence from France is officially recognized.
1948 - The World Health Organization is established by the United Nations.

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.


April 7th, 1943

World War II, The Holocaust

World War II: Holocaust;
1943 - In Terebovlia, Ukraine, Germans order 1,100 Jews to undress to their underwear and march through the city of Terebovlia to the nearby village of Plebanivka where they are shot dead and buried in ditches.

Wikipedia  Photo: World War II, The Holocaust. Sources: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum USHMM, History 1900s, Internet Masters of Education Technology IMET, Techno Friends, Veterans Today, Concern.


April 7th, 1948

Chinese Civil War Collage

Chinese Civil War:
1948 - A Buddhist monastery burns in United Nations.

Wikipedia  Photo: In 1934, Mao Zedong headed the Long March. The Long March was when the Chinese Nationalists, led by Chiang Kai-shek, forced the Chinese Communists, led by Mao Zedong, on a march to the caves of Shaanxi. (colorized); Government soldiers train with modern machine guns; People's Liberation Army attacking government defensive positions in Shangtang; US diplomat Patrick J. Hurley, Chiang Ching-kuo, Chiang Kai-shek, Chang Ch'ün, Wang Shi Jie (王世杰), Mao Zedong; A Communist leader addressing Long March survivors; The PLA enters Beijing in the Pingjin Campaign and control the later capital of PRC.


April 7th, 1971

Vietnam War: Operation Swift; U.S. Marines engage the North Vietnamese in battle in the Que Son Valley Vietnam War: Boeing B-52 Stratofortress

Vietnam War:
1971 - United States President Richard Nixon announces his decision to increase the rate of American troop withdrawals from Vietnam.

Wikipedia  Photo: Vietnam_War; Side view of an HH-53 helicopter of the 40th Aerospace Rescue and Recovery Squadron as seen from the gunner's position on an A-1 of the 21st Specialist Operations Squadron. (USAF Photo by Ken Hackman), Boston Globe;
Boeing B-52 Stratofortress, credit Free Republic;
Vietnam War: The Big Picture / Boston Globe.


April 7th, 1995

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)

Chechen War:
Samashki massacre; Russian paramilitary troops begin a massacre of civilians in Samashki, forcing the separatist Chechnya.

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.


April 7th, 2001

Mars Odyssey space probe: Conceptual drawing of 2001 Mars Odyssey over Mars, credit NASA

NASA Mars Odyssey space probe is launched heading to map the surface of Mars using its thermal emission imaging system.

Wikipedia  Image: Mars Odyssey space probe - Conceptual drawing of 2001 Mars Odyssey over Mars, credit NASA.
U2, Lockheed TR-1 in flight.


April 7th, 2003

Iraq War: The Persian Gulf War (2 August 1990 – 28 February 1991), codenamed Operation Desert Storm (17 January 1991 – 28 February 1991) commonly referred to as simply the Gulf War, was a war waged by a UN-authorized coalition force from 34 nations led by the United States, against Iraq in response to Iraq's invasion and annexation of Kuwait

Gulf War - Iraq War:
2003 - U.S. troops capture Baghdad; Saddam Hussein's regime falls two days later.

Wikipedia  Photo: USAF F-15Es, F-16s, and a USAF F-15 flying over burning Kuwaiti oil wells; Iraqi Army T-72 main battle tanks. The T-72 tank was a common Iraqi battle tank used in the Gulf War; F-15Es parked during Operation Desert Shield; The oil fires caused were a result of the scorched earth policy of Iraqi military forces retreating from Kuwait; Aerial view of destroyed Iraqi T-72 tank, BMP-1 and Type 63 armored personnel carriers and trucks on Highway 8 in March 1991.


April 7th, 2017

List of modern conflicts in the Middle East

Modern conflicts in the Middle East, social unrest and terrorist attacks:
2017 - Stockholm attack; happened on Drottninggatan in central Stockholm, Sweden. A stolen truck slams into people at high speed, killing five and injuring fifteen others.

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)