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“When there are no more memories of heroes and martyrs, And when all life and all the souls of men and women are discharged from any part of the earth, Then only shall liberty or the idea of liberty be discharged from that part of the earth, And the infidel come into full possession.”
~ Walt Whitman
Wikiquote (Walt Whitman (Walter "Walt" Whitman (May 31, 1819 – March 26, 1892) was an American poet, essayist and journalist. A humanist, he was a part of the transition between transcendentalism and realism, incorporating both views in his works. Whitman is among the most influential poets in the American canon, often called the father of free verse. His work was very controversial in its time, particularly his poetry collection Leaves of Grass, which was described as obscene for its overt sexuality.)
May 31st, 1279 BC
Ancient Egypt:
1279 BC - Rameses II (The Great) (19th dynasty) becomes pharaoh of Ancient Egypt.
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.
Hatshepsut, Egyptian limestone statue, 485 BCE; The Granger Collection, New York / Statue of Cleopatra VII (This statue is very rare. It is one of seven in the world identified as the most famous queen of Egypt: Cleopatra VII. credit Tiffany Silva).
May 31st, 455
Roman Empire:
455 - Emperor Petronius Maximus is stoned to death by an angry mob while fleeing Rome.
Wikipedia Image: 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.
May 31st, 1678
Godiva procession through Coventry begins.
Wikipedia Photo: Lady Godiva statue by Sir William Reid Dick unveiled at midday on October 22, 1949 in Broadgate, Coventry.
May 31st, 1775
American Revolutionary War:
1775 - The Mecklenburg Resolutions are allegedly adopted in the Province of North Carolina.
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).
Grand Union - Stars and Stripes Flag
May 31st, 1790
The first U.S. Copyright Law was enacted, protecting books, maps, and other original materials.
Wikipedia Painting: George Washington, 1st President of the United States, Gilbert Stuart Williamstown Portrait.
March 31st, 1795
French Revolution, French Revolutionary Wars:
1795 - The Revolutionary Tribunal is suppressed.
Wikipedia Painting: The National Assembly, by Jacques-Louis David.
May 31st, 1805
French Revolutionary Wars / Napoleonic Wars:
1805 - Battle of Diamond Rock; French and Spanish forces begin the assault against British forces occupying Diamond Rock.
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).
May 31st, 1859
1859 - The clock tower at the Houses of Parliament, which houses Big Ben, starts keeping time.
Wikipedia Photo: Close-Up of the Clock Face of Big Ben Houses of Parliament Westminster London England; The Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament
May 31st, 1862
American Civil War:
1862 - Peninsula Campaign; Battle of Seven Pines (Battle of Fair Oaks) - Confederate forces under Joseph E. Johnston and G. W. Smith engage Union forces under George B. McClellan outside Richmond, Virginia.
1864 - Overland Campaign; Battle of Cold Harbor The Army of Northern Virginia under Robert E. Lee engages the Army of the Potomac under Ulysses S. Grant and George G. Meade.
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.
May 31st, 1889
Johnstown Flood: Over 2,200 people die after a dam break sends a 60-foot (18-meter) wall of water over the town of Johnstown, Pennsylvania.
Wikipedia Photo: Johnstown Flood; Johnstown, Pennsylvania.
May 31st, 1911
The hull of the RMS Titanic was launched in Belfast. At the ceremony, a White Star Line employee claimed, “Not even God himself could sink this ship”.
Wikipedia Image: RMS Titanic was a British passenger liner that sank in the North Atlantic Ocean on April 15, 1912 after colliding with an iceberg during her maiden voyage from Southampton, UK to New York City, US. The sinking of Titanic caused the deaths of 1,502 people in one of the deadliest peacetime maritime disasters in modern history.
May 31st, 1916
World War I:
1916 - Battle of Jutland; The British Grand Fleet under the command of Sir John Jellicoe and Sir David Beatty engage the Kaiserliche Marine under the command of Reinhard Scheer and Franz von Hipper in the largest naval battle of the war, which proves indecisive.
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.
May 31st, 1927
The last Ford Model T rolls off the assembly line after a production run of 15,007,003 vehicles.
Wikipedia Photo: Ford Model T-100 / Assembly line for the Ford Model T
May 31st, 1941
World War II:
1941 - A Luftwaffe air raid in Dublin, Ireland.
1941 - Anglo-Iraqi War; The United Kingdom completes the re-occupation of Iraq and returns 'Abd al-Ilah to power as regent for Faisal II.
1942 - Attack on Sydney Harbour; Imperial Japanese Navy midget submarines begin a series of attacks on Sydney, Australia.
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.
May 31st, 1961
South Africa became an Independent Republic.
Wikipedia Photo: Hout Bay from Chapman's Peak Drive, Cape Peninsula. Lonely Planet
May 31st, 1962
World War II: Holocaust;
1962 - Adolf Eichmann is hanged in Israel.
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.
Adolf Eichmann (March 19, 1906 – May 31, 1962) a German Nazi SS-Obersturmbannführer (lieutenant colonel) and one of the major organizers of the Holocaust.
May 31st, 1970
Earthquake:
1970 - Ancash earthquake (1970); causes a landslide that buries the town of Yungay, Peru - more than 47,000 people are killed.
1935 - A 7.7 Mw earthquake destroys Quetta in modern-day Pakistan, killing 40,000.
526 - A devastating earthquake strikes Antioch, Turkey, killing 250,000.
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.
March 31st, 1977
Construction of the Trans-Alaska Pipeline System is completed.
Wikipedia Photo: Trans-Alaska Pipeline System; The pipeline passes underneath many smaller rivers and streams but employs pipeline bridges at longer crossings; The pipeline terminal in Valdez; The pipeline is on slider supports where it crosses the Denali Fault.
March 31st, 1985
Tornadoes:
1985 - United States-Canadian tornado outbreak (1985); Forty-one tornadoes hit Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York and Ontario, leaving 76 dead.
2013 - El Reno tornado (2013); A powerful EF5 tornado devastates El Reno, Oklahoma, killing nine people, and become the widest tornado in recorded history, with an astounding diameter of 2.6 miles (4.2 km).
Wikipedia Photo: Weather Front System; Tornado near Anadarko, Oklahoma; North Dakota Tornado; F3 Category Tornado Swirls Across A South Dakota Prairie by Carsten Peter; A waterspout parallels a lightning strike over Lake Okeechobee in Florida, by Fred K. Smith, National Geographics, Extream Instability.
May 31st, 2004
Alberta Martin, 97, one of the last widows of a U.S. Civil War veteran, dies at 97 nearly 140 years after the Civil War ended. She had married Confederate veteran William Jasper Martin in 1927 when she was 21 and he was 81.
MSNBC Photo: Drake Library
May 31st, 2017
Modern conflicts in the Middle East, social unrest and terrorist attacks:
2017 - Kabul attack; A car bomb exploded in a crowded intersection in Kabul, Afghanistan near the German embassy during rush hour, killing over 90 and injuring 463.
2013 - In Gaza flotilla raid; Israeli Shayetet 13 commandos boarded the Gaza Freedom Flotilla while still in international waters trying to break the ongoing blockade of the Gaza Strip; nine Turkish civilians on the flotilla were killed in the ensuing violent affray.
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)