First Confidential

THIS DAY IN HISTORY - APRIL 16th

George Bernard Shaw, Quote

“People are always blaming their circumstances for what they are. I don’t believe in circumstances. The people who get on in this world are the people who get up and look for the circumstances they want, and if they can’t find them, make them.”

~ George Bernard Shaw

Wikiquote (George Bernard Shaw (July 26, 1856 – November 2, 1950) was an Irish playwright, who received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1925.)

This Day in History

April 16th, 1457 BC

Ancient Egypt: Giza Pyramids ● Great Sphinx ● Abu Simbel Temples ● Egyptian King Tutankhamun ● Beautiful images of Egyptian gods and goddesses adorn tomb walls in the Valley of the Kings - The god Ptah, a creator deity, in the tomb of Ramesses III ● Abu Simbel Egypt

1457 BC - Likely date of the Battle of Megiddo (15th century BC): Thutmose III and a large Canaanite coalition under the King of Kadesh (the first battle to have been recorded in what is accepted as relatively reliable detail).

Wikipedia  Photo: Ancient Egypt; ● Giza Pyramids ● Great Sphinx ● Abu Simbel Temples Egypt, credit National Geographic ● Egyptian King Tutankhamun, credit National Geographic ● Beautiful images of Egyptian gods and goddesses adorn tomb walls in the Valley of the Kings - The god Ptah, a creator deity, in the tomb of Ramesses III. ● Abu Simbel Egypt.

April 16th, 1178 BC

Trojan War: Troy is sacked and burned, according to calculations by Eratosthenes

1178 BC – Trojan War: The calculated date of the Greek king Odysseus' return home from the Trojan War.

Stanford.edu / Wikipedia  Image: The Trojan War was the beginning of a series of wars which ultimately led to the destruction of the Persian empire at the hands of Alexander; Persian war chariot; The story of the Trojan Horse, whether true or mythical, profoundly influenced Western civilization and inspired many artists.

April 16th, 73

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:
73 - Siege of Jerusalem; Masada a Jewish fortress, falls to the Romans after several months of siege, ending the Jewish Revolt.

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.

April 16th, 1521

Diet of Worms 1521: was a diet (a formal deliberative assembly, specifically an Imperial Diet) that took place in Worms, Germany, and is most memorable for the Edict of Worms (Wormser Edikt), which addressed Martin Luther and the effects of the Protestant Reformation

Diet of Worms: Martin Luther's first appearance before the Diet of Worms to be examined by the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V and the other estates of the empire.

Wikipedia  Painting: Diet of Worms 1521 ("Luther at the Diet of Worms"): was a diet (a formal deliberative assembly, specifically an Imperial Diet) that took place in Worms, Germany, and is most memorable for the Edict of Worms (Wormser Edikt), which addressed Martin Luther and the effects of the Protestant Reformation.

April 16th, 1582

Conquistadors (Spanish 'conquerors') were soldiers, explorers, and adventurers at the service of the Spanish Empire (sailing beyond Europe, conquering territory and opening trade routes, colonizing much of the world for Spain and Portugal in the 15th, 16th, and 17th centuries)

Conquistador:
1582 - Spanish conquistador Hernando de Lerma founds the settlement of Salta, Argentina.

Wikipedia  Image: Conquistadors (Spanish "conquerors") were soldiers, explorers, and adventurers at the service of the Spanish Empire (sailing beyond Europe, conquering territory and opening trade routes, colonizing much of the world for Spain and Portugal in the 15th, 16th, and 17th centuries)
● Christopher Columbus setting foot in the New World in 1492 ● Conquistadors praying before a battle ● Conquistadors and their Tlaxcalan allies enter Tenochtitlan ● The surrender of Granada in 1492. Muhammad XII before Ferdinand and Isabella ● Detail of Velázquez's Portrait of Juan de Pareja a contemporary morisco Spaniard, slave and afterwards freedman, assistant and trust man of Diego Velazquez ● Conquistador, jQuey-deviantart.

April 16th, 1799

Napoleonic Wars: (1803–15) were a series of wars declared against Napoleon's French Empire by opposing coalitions French Revolutionary Wars, Battle of the Nile (Battle of Aboukir Bay): Battle begins when a British fleet engages the French Revolutionary Navy fleet in an unusual night action

French Revolutionary Wars / Napoleonic Wars:
1799 - Battle of Mount Tabor; drives Ottoman Turks across the River Jordan near Acre.

Wikipedia  Painting: Battle of Trafalgar: The British HMS Sandwich fires to the French flagship Bucentaure (completely dismasted) in the battle of Trafalgar; Napoleon in Berlin (Meynier). After defeating Prussian forces at Jena, the French Army entered Berlin on 27 October 1806; Battle of the Bridge of Arcole Napoleon Bonaparte leading his troops over the bridge of Arcole, by Horace Vernet; Napoleon as King of Italy (Appiani); Napoleon Crossing the Alps (David). In 1800 Bonaparte took the French Army across the Alps, eventually defeating the Austrians at Marengo; Charge of the Russian Imperial Guard cavalry against French cuirassiers at the Battle of Friedland, 14 June 1807; Battle of Borodino as depicted by Louis Lejeune. The battle was the largest and bloodiest single-day action of the Napoleonic Wars; Napoleon's withdrawal from Russia, a painting by Adolph Northen; Wellington at Waterloo by Robert Alexander Hillingford; Napoleon is often represented in his green colonel uniform of the Chasseur à Cheval, with a large bicorne and a hand-in-waistcoat gesture.
Battle of the Nile (Battle of Aboukir Bay).

April 16th, 1818

The Convention of 1818: signed between the United States and the United Kingdom which, among other things, settled the Canada – United States border

Treaty of 1818: (Rush–Bagot Treaty) The United States ratifies the treaty with the United Kingdom which, among other things, settled the Canada - United States border.

Wikipedia  Map: The Treaty of 1818 set the boundary between the United States and British North America along the 49th parallel. Oregon Treaty of 1845 set the U.S. and British North American border at the 49th parallel with the exception of Vancouver Island, which was retained in its entirety by the British and constituted, with all coastal islands, as the Colony of Vancouver Island in 1849.

April 16th, 1847

Second Maori War begins in New Zealand

New Zealand land wars: Wanganui Campaign; The accidental shooting of a Māori by an English sailor results in the opening of the Wanganui Campaign.

Wikipedia  Image: Rewi Manga Maniapoto (died 1894) was a Waikato chief who led Maori forces during the British Invasion of Waikato during the New Zealand Wars; Satellite image of New Zealand, NASA's Visible Earth; Bay of Islands.

April 16th, 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 at Lee's Mills; (Siege of Yorktown, 1862) in Virginia.
1862 - District of Columbia Compensated Emancipation Act; a bill ending slavery in the District of Columbia, becomes law.
1863 - Siege of Vicksburg; ships led by Union Admiral David Dixon Porter move through heavy Confederate artillery fire on approach to Vicksburg, Mississippi.

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 16th, 1917

Russian Revolution Collage

Russian Revolution:
Lenin returns to Petrograd (Saint Petersburg) from exile in Switzerland.

Wikipedia  Image: The Russian Revolution is the collective term for a series of revolutions in Russia in 1917, which destroyed the Tsarist autocracy and led to the creation of the Soviet Union

April 16th, 1919

Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (October 2, 1869 – January 30, 1948): commonly known as Mahatma Gandhi, was the preeminent leader of Indian nationalism in British-ruled India (Employing non-violent civil disobedience, Gandhi led India to independence and inspired movements for non-violence, civil rights and freedom across the world)

Indian leader Mohanda Gandhi organizes a day of "prayer and fasting" in response to the killing of Indian protesters in the Amritsar Massacre by British forces.

Wikipedia  Photo: Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (October 2, 1869 – January 30, 1948): commonly known as Mahatma Gandhi, was the preeminent leader of Indian nationalism in British-ruled India. (Employing non-violent civil disobedience, Gandhi led India to independence and inspired movements for non-violence, civil rights and freedom across the world.)

April 16th, 1919

World War I: Collage

Post World War I:
1919 - Polish–Soviet War; The Polish army launches the Vilna offensive to capture Vilnius in modern Lithuania.
1922 - Treaty of Rapallo; pursuant to which Germany and the Soviet Union re-establish diplomatic relations, is signed.
1925 - Saint Nedelya Church assault; During the Communist assult in Sofia, 150 are killed and 500 are wounded.

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.

April 16th, 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 Italian convoy Duisburg, directed to Tunisia, is attacked and destroyed by British ships.
1944 - Allied forces start the bombing of Belgrade, killing about 1,100 people. This bombing fell on the Orthodox Christian Easter.
1945 - Battle of Berlin; Battle of the Seelow Heights - The Red Army begins the final assault on German forces around Berlin, with nearly one million troops fighting.
1945 - The United States Army liberates Nazi Sonderlager (high security prisoner-of-war camp Oflag IV-C (better known as Colditz).
1945 - More than 7,000 die when the German refugee ship Goya is sunk by a Soviet submarine torpedo.

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 16th, 1947

Cold War: often dated from 1947–1991, was a sustained state of political and military tension between the powers of the Western world, led by the United States and its NATO allies, and the communist world, led by the Soviet Union, its satellite states and allies Cold War: in Moscow, downed American U-2 pilot Francis Gary Powers is sentenced to ten years imprisonment by the Soviet Union for espionage Cold War: The Iron Curtain symbolized the ideological conflict and physical boundary dividing Europe into two separate areas from the end of World War II in 1945 until the end of the Cold War in 1991

Cold War:
1947 - Bernard Baruch coins the term "Cold War" to describe the relationship between the United States and the Soviet Union.

Wikipedia  Photo: Lockheed C-130 Hercules; RAF Menwith Hill, a large site in the United Kingdom, part of ECHELON and the UKUSA Agreement; New Zealand nuclear test, British nuclear tests near the Malden and Christmas Islands in the mid-Pacific in 1957 and 1958; Nevada nuclear tests, Nevada Division of Environmental Protection Bureau of Federal Facilities.
U2, Lockheed TR-1 in flight.

April 16th, 1972

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's Apollo 16 - launches from Cape Canaveral, Florida.

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).

April 16th, 1990

Computer Virus

The "Doctor of Death", Dr. Jack Kevorkian, participates in his first assisted suicide.

Wikipedia  Image: Dr. Jack Kevorkian pictured on the May 31, 1993 cover of Time magazine ● Dr. Jack Kevorkian was known as "Dr. Death" since at least 1956, when he conducted a study photographing patients' eyes as they died.

April 16th, 2003

European Union (EU) is a unique economic and political union of 27 member states which are located primarily in Europe

European Union:
2003 - The Treaty of Accession signed in Athens admitting 10 new member states to the European Union.

Wikipedia  Image: European Union (EU) is a unique economic and political union of 27 member states which are located primarily in Europe (Western Europe Satellite Map).

April 16th, 2013

Global Earthquake epicenters

Earthquake:
2013 - Sistan and Baluchestan earthquake; A 7.8-magnitude earthquake strikes Sistan and Baluchestan Province, Iran, the strongest in the country in 40 years, killing at least 35 people.

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 16th, 2013

List of modern conflicts in the Middle East

Modern conflicts in the Middle East and terrorist attacks:
2013 - Baga massacre; The 2013 Baga massacre is started when Boko Haram militants engage government soldiers in Baga, Nigeria.

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)