January 12
1628 Birth: Charles Perrault, in Paris; author of Little Red Riding Hood, Sleeping Beauty and Puss in Boots. (Bradley)
1729 Birth: Edmund Burke, statesman, philosopher, “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” "...Burke was Irish, born in Dublin in 1729. His father, a solicitor, was Protestant, his mother Roman Catholic. He entered Trinity college, Dublin, in 1744, and came to London in 1750. Burke's A Vindication of Natural Society was published in 1756 and in 1757 A Philosophical Inquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful appeared. Also in 1757, Burke married Jane Nugent, the daughter of an Irish Catholic doctor. His political career started in 1765 when he became the private secretary of one of the Whig leaders in Parliament, the marquess of Rockingham. Burke soon proved to be one of the main characters in the constitutional controversy in Britain under George III, who at the time was trying to establish more actual power for the crown. Although the crown had lost some influence under the first two Georges, one of the major political problems in 18th century Britain was the fact that both the king and Parliament had considerable control over the executive. Burke responded to these affairs in his pamphlet Thoughts on the Cause of the Present Discontents (1770), in which he argued that although George's actions were legal in the sense that they were not against the letter of the constitution, they were all the more against it in spirit. In the pamphlet Burke elaborates on his famous and new justification of a party, defined as :... a body of men united on public principle, which could act as a constitutional link between king and parliament, providing consistency and strength in administration, or principled criticism in opposition." Concerning the imperial controversy at the time Burke argued that the British government had acted in a both unwise and inconsistent manner. Again, Burke claimed that Britain's way of dealing with the colony question was strictly legal and he urged that also "claims of circumstance, utility, and moral principle should be considered, as well as precedent." In other words, if the British, persistently clinging to their narrow legalism, were not to clash with the ideas and opinions of the colonists on these matters, they would have to offer more respect and regard for the colonies' cause. Burke called for "legislative reason" in two of his parliamentary speeches on the subject..."
1773 The first public museum in America is organized in Charleston, South Carolina. (Bradley)
1781 US Revolutionary War: A British naval expedition led by Benedict Arnold burns Richmond, Virginia.
1816 France decrees that the Bonaparte family should be excluded from the country forever.
1829 Death: Friedrich von Schlegel, German writer and critic, at 56.
1856 Birth: John Singer Sargent, American portrait painter. Born in Florence of American parents, he will study there and in Paris, then settle in London around 1885. He will leave Paris after a scandal concerning his decollete portrait of Madame Gautreau 1884 (below).
Later subjects will include the actress Ellen Terry, President Theodore Roosevelt, and the writer Robert Louis Stevenson. Girl in a Pink Dress, Lady Agnew of Lochnaw, Mrs. Fiske Warren and Her Daughter. (Bradley)
1866 The Royal Aeronautical Society is founded.
1876 Birth: Jack London (John Griffith Chaney), US novelist and author, born in San Francisco. He is best known for adventure stories; The Call Of The Wild (1903), The Sea Wolf (1904), and White Fang (1906).
1879 The Zulu War begins between the British of the Cape Colony and the natives of Zululand.
1886 Quatuor Coronati Lodge No. 2076 is consecrated at a ceremony in the City of London. The lodge's warrant had been issued by the United Grand Lodge of England on November 28, 1884. According to its official history, it is founded by a group of nine Freemasons: Colonel Sir Charles Warren (later general), W. Harry Rylands, Robert Gould, the Rev. Adolfus F.A. Woodford, Sir Walter Besant, John P. Rylands, Major Sisson C. Pratt, William James Hugan and George W. Speth. All are scholars and several Are highly distinguished in the field of Masonic study. Note: Sir Charles Warren served as London Commissioner of Police during the Jack the Ripper murders and was District Grand Master in Masonry, 1891-5.
1893 Birth: Hermann Gring, in Rosenheim, Bavaria; during WW1, he will become a highly decorated fighter pilot and commander of the famous Richthofen Wing; will join Adolf Hitler in Munich in 1922 and participate in the 1923 Munich Putsch. Gravely wounded, he will flee abroad for four years, earning a living as a representative of several Swedish armament firms; will return to Germany and be elected president of the Reichstag in 1931; Prussian prime minister in 1934. Later minister of aviation, chief of secret police, field marshal, and marshal of the Reich. At one point, he will be the highest ranking military man on the planet. He will be designated as Hitler's successor in 1939. During WW2, Goering wIll be virtual dictator of the German economy and responsible for Germany's total air war. On 31 July, 1941, Goering will write to Reinhard Heydrich directly authorizing him to organize the "Final Solution." Goering will be sentenced to death for war crimes in September 1946, but commit suicide less than two hours before his execution on October 15, 1946.
1893 Birth: Alfred Rosenberg, Baltic emigrant who will become a German citizen in 1922, the Nazi party's semiofficial philosopher; editor-in-chief of Volkischer Beobachter in 1923; Director of Foreign Policy Office of NSDAP in 1933. Minister for occupied eastern territories in 1941. Will be sentenced to death and executed at Nuremberg. "...It was Alfred Rosenberg's tragedy that he really believed in National Socialism. The pedantic certainty with which he saw himself as the scribe of a new gospel of salvation made him something of an oddity among the top leadership of the NSDAP, an object of covert smiles - the 'philosopher' of a movement whose philosophy almost always boiled down to power. Rosenberg himself never realized and certainly never admitted this, and so in the course of the years, as the idea of power itself visibly outweighed its ideological drapings, he came to be the forgotten disciple: scarcely taken seriously any longer, insolently overlooked and pushed around, a prop from the party's recruiting phase when ideology determined action. For a long time he failed to realize that the philosophy he so fervently advocated carried no weight, at least at the centres of power. With heavy consistency he treated the fool's paradise of his faith to the last as the political, social and religious answer to the problems of the time and saw in National Socialism, as he wrote in his 'confession' in the Nuremberg cell, 'the noblest idea to which a German could devote the strength he has been given.' The relation of National Socialism as a whole to its own ideology is difficult to unravel. It was not a programme exclusively determined by tactical considerations and aiming at success and power, which set itself up as an absolute and used ideological props whenever they served its purpose - as the formula has it, 'the revolution of nihilism.' On the other hand it cannot be interpreted as part of the history of ideas, isolated from its dependence upon the technique of gaining power. It was at one and the same time the practice of domination and a doctrine, inextricably interwoven together, and even, in the shameless admissions that have come down to us, a drive for power divorced from any other purpose. Hitler and his close associates always reveal reveal themselves as..."
1895 French Captain Alfred Dreyfus, is convicted of treason, and is publicly stripped of his rank.
1895 The National Trust is founded in England.
1896 H. L. Smith takes the first x-ray photograph. It is a hand with a bullet in it. The hand is attached to a corpse.
1912 Volkishness: Hermann Pohl writes a manifesto for the "loyal lodges" of the Germanenorden, which stresses his desire for a fervent, rather than numerous, following, which would usher in an "Aryan-Germanic religious revival" stressing obedience and devotion to the cause of a pan-German "Armanist Empire" (Armanenreich) and the rebirth of a racially pure German nation, in which the "parasitic and revolutionary mob-races" (Jews, anarchist crossbreeds and gypsies) would be deported. (Bundesarchiv, Koblenz; Roots)
1919 The Soviets launch Operation Target Wisla hoping to capture Warsaw and start an uprising in Germany. Soviets had occupied Wilno and Minsk with large Polish populations, in the wake of German retreat.
1922 Adolf Hitler is sentenced to three months imprisonment for a physical attack on opponent Otto Ballerstedt. (See Sep 14)
1934 Holocaust: The Gestapo permits the Zionist Federation of Germany to hold a Palestine exhibition in Berlin.
1937 Zionism: The Grand Mufti of Jerusalem testifies before the Peel Commission in Palestine.
1940 Holocaust: The killing of mental patients by means of carbon monoxide gas is tried out in the jail at Brandenburg. By September 1941, more than 70,000 German mental patients will have been "euthanized" in hospitals at Grafeneck, Brandenburg, Bernburg, Hartheim, Sonnenstein, and Hadamar, using carbon monoxide provided by the I.G. Farben corporation.
1943 Stalingrad: The western nose of the pocket is overrun. It costs the Don Front 26,000 casualties and half its force of 257 tanks. German casualties are also high. (Messenger)
1943 WW2: The Office of Price Administration in Britain announces that standard frankfurters/hot dogs/wieners will be replaced by ‘Victory Sausages’; made of meat and soybean meal.
1945 WW2: The US Navy destroys 41 Japanese ships in the Battle of South China Sea.
1945 World War II: The Soviets begin a major offensive all along the front from the Baltic to the Carpathians. German troops fight fiercely although outnumbered by at least four to five to one. Meanwhile, German forces in Belgium retreat in Battle of the Bulge.
1945 Diary of Leon Gladun: Furlough in the town of Fiumana.
1949 In his State of the Union address, President Harry S. Truman labels his administration the 'Fair Deal.' (Bradley)
1950 The Soviet Union reintroduces the death penalty for treason, espionage and sabotage.
1950 A Swedish tanker strikes the British submarine Truculent during the submarine's trials in the River Thames. Only 15 of 70 men on the submarine survive. (Bradley)
1951 Birth: Rush Limbaugh, in Cape Girardeau, Missouri; political commentator, radio & TV broadcaster, radio talk show host, demagogue, drug addict, author.
1954 Queen Elizabeth opens a special session of the New Zealand parliament, the first time the Queen had opened a Commonwealth parliament outside the United Kingdom.
1960 The only feature film made in 'Smell-O-Vision', Scent of Mystery, opens in Chicago.
1964 One month after Zanzibar became independent, the ruling Zanzibar National Party government is overthrown in a coup.
1970 Joseph A. Yablonski, an unsuccessful candidate for the presidency of the United Mine Workers, is found murdered with his wife and daughter at their Clarksville, Pennsylvania, home.
1971 President Richard M. Nixon orders development of the NASA space shuttle.
1974 Libya and Tunisia announce that they are to merge under the combined name of the Islamic Arab Republic.
1976 Death: Dame Agatha Christie, queen of the detective story and creator of detectives Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple.
1977 Anti-French demonstrations take place in Israel after Paris releases Abu Daoud, responsible for leading the 1972 Munich massacre of Israeli athletes.
1981 A temperature of -35ºF is recorded in Massachusetts.
1986 Columbia 7: The 24th Space Shuttle Mission is launched.
1990 Romania outlaws the Communist Party, the first East European state and Warsaw Pact member to do so.
1990 The breakup of the USSR begins as the Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania prepare for secession.
1991 Desert Shield: Both houses of the United States Congress vote to authorize President George HW Bush to use force to compel Iraq to withdraw from Kuwait.
1992 The second round of Algeria's general elections are canceled after strong gains by the Islamic Salvation Front in the first round.
1996 Russian troops arrive in Bosnia at the start of the first joint operation with US forces in a potential combat zone since WW2.
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