June 28 After realizing the mistake, the driver put his foot on the brake, and began to back up. In doing so he moved slowly past the waiting Princip. Princip stepped forward, drew his gun, and at a distance of about five feet, fired several times into the car. Franz Ferdinand was hit in the neck and Sophia in the abdomen. Sophia, who was later found to be with child at the time of her death, died instantly. Ferdinand, who in disbelief of her death insisted that she wake up, fainted within five minutes and died soon after. Princip (above) tried to kill himself first by ingesting cyanide, and then with his gun, but he vomited the poison (which Cabrinovic had also done, leading the police to believe the group had been deceived and bought a much weaker poison), and the gun was wrestled from his hand before he had a chance to fire another shot. Having been too young at the time of the assassination (19), to face the death penalty, Princip received the maximum sentence of twenty years in prison, where he was held in harsh conditions worsened by the war..."
1098 The armies of the First Crusade take Antioch. "...The crusader army, meanwhile, marched on to Antioch, which lay about half way between Constantinople and Jerusalem. They arrived in October, 1097 and set it to a siege which lasted almost 8 months. Antioch was so large that the crusaders did not have enough troops to fully surround it, and thus it was able to stay partially supplied. As the siege dragged on, it was clear that Bohemund wanted the city for himself. In May 1098 Kerbogha of Mosul approached Antioch to relieve the siege. Bohemond bribed the Armenian guard of the city to open the gates, and in June the crusaders entered the city and killed most of the inhabitants. However, only a few days later the Muslims arrived, laying siege to the former besiegers. At this point a minor monk by the name of Peter Bartholomew claimed to have discovered the Holy Lance in the city, and although some were skeptical, this was seen as a sign that they would be victorious. On June 28 the crusaders defeated Kerbogha in a pitched battle outside the city, as Kerbogha was unable to organize the different factions in his army. According to legend, an army of Christian saints came to the aid of the crusaders during the battle..."
1491 Birth: Henry VIII, King of England, 1509-47. "...Henry was a supreme egotist. He advanced personal desires under the guise of public policy or moral right, forced his ministers to pay extreme penalties for his own mistakes, and summarily executed many with little excuse. In his later years he became grossly fat, paranoid, and unpredictable. Nonetheless he possessed considerable political insight, and he provided England with a visible and active national leader. Although Henry seemed to dominate his Parliaments, the importance of that institution increased significantly during his reign. Other advances made during his reign were the institution of an effective navy and the beginnings of social and religious reform. The navy was organized for the first time as a permanent force. Wales was officially incorporated into England in 1536 with a great improvement in government administration there. In 1521, Henry had been given the title “Defender of the Faith” by the pope for a treatise against Martin Luther, and he remained orthodox in his personal doctrinal views throughout his reign. However, the Six Articles were only fitfully enforced, the use of the English Bible was cautiously increased, seizure of church property continued, and the destruction of relics and shrines was begun. The way had been opened for Protestantism, and Henry presided over the dissolution of Irish monasteries and assumed (1541) the titles of king of Ireland and head of the Church of Ireland. At Henry's death, the council that he had appointed for the minority of Edward VI leaned toward the new doctrines."
1577 Birth: Peter Paul Rubens, Flemish painter; on the short list of all-time great artists. See Also: Fair Use Notice.
1629 The Peace of Alais ends the Huguenot revolt in France.
1635 The French colony of Guadeloupe is established in the Caribbean.
1682 Champagne is invented by Dom Perignon, a blind Benedictine cellarman at Hautevilliers Abbey in France.
1703 Birth: John Wesley, religious leader, founder of Methodism.
1712 Birth: Jean-Jacques Rousseau, French philosopher. "...Rousseau's ideas were influential at the time of the French Revolution although since popular sovereignty was exercised through representatives rather than directly, it cannot be said that the Revolution was in any sense an implementation of Rousseau's ideas. Subsequently, writers such as Benjamin Constant and Hegel sought to blame the excesses of the Revolution and especially the Reign of Terror on Rousseau, but the justice of their claims is a matter of controversy. Rousseau was one of the first modern writers to seriously attack the institution of private property, and therefore is often considered a forebearer of modern socialism and communism (see Karl Marx, though Marx rarely mentions Rousseau in his writings). Rousseau also questioned the assumption that the will of the majority is always correct. He argued that the goal of government should be to secure freedom, equality, and justice for all within the state, regardless of the will of the majority (see democracy). One of the primary principles of Rousseau's political philosophy is that politics and morality should not be separated. When a state fails to act in a moral fashion, it ceases to function in the proper manner and ceases to exert genuine authority over the individual. The second important principle is freedom, which the state is created to preserve. Rousseau's ideas about education have profoundly influenced modern educational theory. He minimizes the importance of book-learning, and recommends that a child's emotions should be educated before his reason..."
1776 American Revolution: The British are defeated at the Battle of Fort Sullivan, Charleston. "...Following their defeat at Bunker Hill, the British now knew they had a real fight on their hands. They looked to a quick compaign in the Southern colonies where they expected resistance to be weakest and support to be strongest. They believed it would a simple matter to capture the Southern port cities of Savannah, Georgia and Charleston, South Carolina. This would eliminate the Rebels there, swell the army's ranks with Tory volunteers and leave only Virginia and New England to be subjugated. After debating the method of attack, the British chose a direct approach to Charleston by way of the harbor, but they found stiff resistance from Fort Sullivan...At 10:30 A.M. on June 28, the winds were favorable and Commodore Parker moved into position to bombard Fort Sullivan. The bomb ship, Thunder, initially anchored too far away and quickly disabled itself when too much powder was used to compensate for the distance. The recoil damaged the ship and left it silent. After about an hour the Actaeon, Syren, and Sphynx attempted to move in closer for enfilading fire on Fort Sullivan, but the pilots were unfamiliar with the harbor and all three ships got stuck fast on Middle Ground shoal, where the famous Fort Sumter would later be built. Syren and Sphynx eventually rejoined the battle. The British continued their bombardment to little effect because of the fort's construction of palmetto logs. Palmetto is soft and spongy and simply absorbed the cannonballs. Meanwhile, the Americans expended roughly one-seventh the amount of powder that the British did, but the slow and steady American fire was quite accurate. The Bristol, Commodore Parker's flagship, was disabled. By 9:30 P.M., all firing ceased. At 11:30 P.M. the British ships withdrew to Five Fathom Hole. The next morning the Actaeon was set afire and abandoned..."
1776 Death: Thomas Hickey, American sergeant, hanged for treason.
1778 American Revolution: Battle of Monmouth. "...General George Washington and his army spent the winter of 1777/8 at Valley Forge in considerably straightened circumstances. As the winter wore on the supply situation was brought under control and something approaching a proper issue of equipment and rations was made to the troops. Memorably the Prussian officer General Steuben trained the American regiments in a form of European battle drill, devised and adapted to suit American troops. The British army spent the winter in Philadelphia. Lieutenant General Howe returned to England, relieved of his appointment in command in America at his own request, to be replaced by General Clinton. Clinton arrived with orders to evacuate Philadelphia and concentrate the British forces at New York. On 18th June 1778 the British army with artillery, supplies and the Loyalist populace of the city left Philadelphia and began the laborious march to the North-East. General Washington marched east from Valley Forge seeking to intercept the slow moving British column. He did so at Monmouth Courthouse. Clinton had originally intended to march to New York. The first week convinced him that his army with its train was too cumbrous to make the journey by land and it was reported that General Gates was moving from the Hudson River valley with his army to block the British retreat. Clinton decided to divert to the coast and take ship. At Allentown the British and German force branched off the main route towards Monmouth to head north east. General Washington hurried his army forward to. An advanced force of some 4,000 troops was allocated to attack the marching British Army and cut it in half.
1778 American Revolution: Molly Pitcher pitches in. "Pitcher, Molly (1754?-1832), was the fictitious name given to a woman who fought in the Battle of Monmouth in the Revolutionary War in America. Her real first name was Mary. Her last name, which may have been Ludwig, is in dispute. Mary was born near Philadelphia, and went to Carlisle, Pa., as a servant at an early age. She married William Hays, a young barber who lived in the village. Her husband enlisted as a gunner in the First Pennsylvania Artillery in 1775 and spent the winter of 1777 and 1778 at Valley Forge. Like many other poor women of the time, Mary traveled with her husband. She received half-rations in the Continental Army in return for cooking, washing, sewing, and doing other work. The Battle of Monmouth was fought on June 28, 1778, one of the hottest days of a hot summer. The great heat and the fighting made the soldiers very thirsty. According to legend, Mary carried water in a pitcher from a nearby spring to her husband's artillery station. The water was used to swab out the cannon after each shot, and to quench the soldiers' thirst. During the battle, Mary's husband fell from a heatstroke. She took his place and helped his crew fire the cannon. From these actions, she gained the nickname Molly Pitcher, representative of all women who fought valiantly in the war. After the war, she and her husband returned to Carlisle. Several years after Hays' death in 1787, she married George McCauly (McCalla). He had been a soldier in the Revolutionary War and a friend of her first husband. In 1822, the Pennsylvania state legislature awarded Molly Pitcher a yearly pension of $40 in recognition of her military service."
1820 Robert Gibbon Johnson proves that tomatoes are not poisonous when he eats two tomatoes in front of a large crowd on the steps of the courthouse in Salem, New Jersey. At the time in the US, tomatoes are believed to be poisonous because of their relationship with some wild plants of the nightshade family that produce toxic berries.
1824 Birth: Paul Broca, in France, brain surgeon; will locate the speech center.
1836 Death: James Madison, 4th US president. "...fourth president of the United States and political theorist. One of the less colorful but most important of America's Founding Fathers, Madison may rightly be considered the principal architect of the political system defined by the U.S. Constitution. His extraordinary career in public life extended over forty years, intersecting every major phase of the history of the American Revolution and the early Republic. Although he served in a number of high offices, including secretary of state (1801-1809) and president (1809-1817), he is best remembered for his accomplishments as a political theorist and for his related role in launching the Constitution during the late 1780s and early 1790s....Elected to the First Congress under the new regime, Madison, who initially enjoyed the trust and respect of President George Washington, immediately became the pivotal figure in drafting laws and establishing precedents that gave tangible shape and force to the new Constitution. Most important, following the advice of his close friend Thomas Jefferson, he guided the process that would produce the first ten amendments, now known as the Bill of Rights. Then, fearful that the new government might be corrupted by aggressive nationalists--principally his collaborator on The Federalist Alexander Hamilton--Madison joined Jefferson in opposing the Federalist administrations of both Washington and his successor John Adams. Most modern historians see significant discontinuity in his career, but Madison defended this apparent retreat from his earlier nationalism as necessary to preserve the Constitution as it had been understood during the ratification process. After 1800, when the Jeffersonians defeated the Federalists in a watershed election, Madison served eight years as Jefferson's secretary of state. His two terms as president followed. Most historians consider Madison to have been a weak chief executive, citing his leadership during the War of 1812 as particularly inept. Nevertheless, the young nation emerged from that "Second War for Independence" with a new measure of unity and self-confidence. Madison thus enjoyed tremendous popularity during his last years as president and his nineteen years in retirement, when he was widely revered for his role both in founding and in securing the first great modern republic..."
1838 The coronation of Queen Victoria takes place in Westminster Abbey, a year after she had ascended the throne. She is just 19. During the ceremony, Austrian waltz king Johann Strauss conducts his orchestra outside the London Reform Club, playing God Save The Queen.
1861 Death: Elizabeth Barrett Browning, writer.
1862 US Civil War: The siege of the Confederate city of Vicksburg, Mississippi, begin when Union naval forces take up position off of the city.
1867 Birth: Luigi Pirandello, in Italy, writer; 6 Characters, Nobel 1934.
1869 R. W. Wood becomes the first Surgeon General of the US Navy.
1873 Birth: Alexis Carrel, in France, surgeon, sociologist, biologist, Nobel 1912.
1889 Death: Maria Mitchell, astronomer, at 71.
1894 By an act of Congress, the first Monday of September is designated a federal holiday in the US; Labor Day.
1900 Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria-Hungary and Countess Sophie von Chotkowa und Wognin wed after having eloped because the Archduke is not allowed to marry a mere Countess, regarded as a commoner.
1902 The US purchases the concession to build a Panama canal from a French company for $40 million.
1902 The US Congress authorizes the Louisiana Purchase Expo $1 gold coin.
1905 Birth: Ashley Montague, author, anthropologist.
1906 Birth: Maria Goeppert Mayer, US atomic physicist, Nobel Prize 1963.
1909 The first French air show, the Concours d'Avation, opens.
1914 Death: Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir to the Austrian-Hungarian throne, and his wife are shot dead in the streets of Bosnia's capital, Sarajevo. "...Just before 10 o'clock on Sunday, the royal couple arrived in Sarajevo by train. In the front car was Fehim Curcic, the Mayor of Sarajevo and Dr. Gerde, the city's Commissioner of Police. Franz Ferdinand and Sophia were in the second car with Oskar Potiorek and Count von Harrach. The car's top was rolled back in order to allow the crowds a good view of its occupants, Franz Ferdinand and his wife. At 10:10, when the six car procession passed the central police station, Nedeljko Cabrinovic hurled a hand grenade at the archduke's car. After Cabrinovic's bomb missed the Archduke's car, he and five other conspirators, including Princip, didn't get an opportunity to attack because of the heavy crowds. It was beginning to look like the assassination would fail. However, Franz Ferdinand decided to go to the hospital and visit the victims of Cabrinovic's bomb. In order to avoid the city centre, General Oskar Potiorek decided that the royal car should travel straight along the Appel Quay to the Sarajevo Hospital. However, Potiorek forgot to tell the driver, Franz Urban, about this decision. On the way to the hospital, Urban took a right turn into Franz Joseph Street. Princip had gone to a nearby shop for a sandwich, apparently giving up, when he spotted Ferdinand's car as it drove past, having taken the wrong turn.
1919 Weimar: The new German chancellor, Gustav Bauer, sends another delegation to Versailles. After informing the Allies that Germany is accepting the treaty now, only because of the need to alleviate the hardships on its people caused by the "inhuman" blockade, the Germans sign. Note: If Germany had refused to sign, Allied Commander-in-Chief Marshal Foch had instructions to occupy all of Germany. Article 23 of the treaty, the so-called "War Guilt Clause," is the suggestion of John Foster Dulles, later Secretary of State under President Dwight Eisenhower. The final treaty does not follow Wilson's Fourteen Points, upon which Germany had agreed to negotiate peace. Hitler will later utilize this fact to claim that Germany had been betrayed, not defeated. (Schlesinger I)
1919 Elizabeth 'Bess' Wallace becomes Bess Truman this day as she weds future President, Harry S. Truman.
1928 New York Governor Alfred E. Smith is nominated for president at the Democratic national convention in Houston.
1930 Frank Whittle of Britain patents a jet engine.
1933 Goebbels, threatening force, publicly demands the dissolution of Germanys Catholic Center Party.
1933 The German Democrats (Staatspartei) dissolve themselves.
1934 Hitler and Goering attend a wedding in western Germany. Himmler telephones constantly from Berlin warning of an imminent coup by Roehm and the SA. (The SS, Time-Life)
1935 US President Franklin Roosevelt orders a federal gold vault to be built at Fort Knox, Kentucky.
1937 The Ninth Congress of the International Chamber of Commerce opens in Berlin.
1938 Germany and Italy officially recognize Switzerland's neutrality.
1939 Pan American Airways begins regular transatlantic air service as the Dixie Clipper leaves Port Washington, New York, for Portugal.
1940 WW2: Soviet troops occupy the Romanian regions of Bessarabia and Bucovina. Romania cedes Bessarabia to the Soviet Union.
1940 WW2: General Charles de Gaulle is recognized by Britain as the "Leader of All Free Frenchmen."
1941 Holocaust: Encouraged by the Germans, Lithuanian police and a group of released convicts beat hundreds of Jews to death with iron bars during a bloodbath in the streets of Kaunas, Lithuania. (Apparatus)
1942
1945 The Polish Provisional Government of National Unity is set up by the Soviets.
1946 Nuremberg War Crimes Trials: On day 166 of deliberations, former Reich propaganda expert Hans Fritzsche continues his defense. "...DR. FRITZ: Some of the Prosecution's witnesses have asserted during this Trial that the German public knew about these murders (of Jews). Now I just want to ask you, as a journalist who worked in the National Socialist State, what was, as far as you know, the attitude of the broad mass of the German people to the Jews? Did the people know about the murder of the Jews? Please be brief. FRITZSCHE: ...I should like to mention only a few observations which to me seem important...When the Jews were forced to wear the emblem of a star and when, for instance, in Berlin they were prohibited from occupying seats on streetcars, the German people openly took sides with the Jews and it happened again and again that Jews were ostentatiously offered seats. In this connection I heard several declarations by Dr. Goebbels, who was extremely bitter about this undesired effect of the marking of the Jews. I, as a journalist who worked during that period, am firmly convinced that the German people were unaware of the mass murders of the Jews and assertions to that effect were considered rumors; and reports which reached the German people from outside were officially denied again and again...If the German people had learned of these mass murders, they would certainly no longer have supported Hitler. They would probably have sacrificed 5 million for a victory, but never would the German people have wished to bring about victory by the murder of 5 million people. I should like to state further that this murder decree of Hitler's seems to me the end of every race theory, every race philosophy, every kind of race propaganda, for after this catastrophe any further advocacy of race theory would be equivalent to approval in theory of further murder. An ideology in the name of which 5 million people were murdered is a theory which cannot continue to exist..."
1946 Enrico de Nicola becomes the first president of Italy.
1948 The Yugoslav Communist Party is expelled from COMINFORM at a meeting in Bucharest, marking the formal breach in relations between Yugoslavia and the rest of the Communist bloc.
1950 Korea: North Korean forces capture Seoul, South Korea.
1956 The first atomic reactor built for private research commences operation in Chicago, Illinois.
1956 Demonstrations in Poznan against the Polish regime and Soviet domination results in 75 killed and 800 wounded at the hands of the army and militia.
1964 The Organization for Afro-American Unity is formed in New York by Malcolm X.
1965 The Nam: The first US ground combat forces arrive in Vietnam.
1968 Daniel Ellsberg is indicted for leaking the Pentagon Papers.
1969 Stonewall Riot: Just after 3am, a police raid of the Stonewall Inn, a gay club located on New York City's Christopher Street, turns violent as patrons and local sympathizers begin rioting against the police. Although the police are legally justified in raiding the club, which is serving liquor without a license among other violations, New York's gay community had grown weary of the police department targeting gay clubs, a majority of which had already been closed. The crowd on the street watches quietly as Stonewall's employees are arrested, but when three drag queens and a lesbian are forced into the paddy wagon, the crowd begins throwing bottles at the police. The officers are forced to take shelter inside the establishment, and two policemen are slightly injured before reinforcements arrive to disperse the mob. The protest, however, spills over into the neighboring streets, and order is not restored until the deployment of New York's riot police. The so-called Stonewall Riot is followed by several days of demonstrations in New York and will become the impetus for the formation of the Gay Liberation Front as well as other gay, lesbian, and bisexual civil rights organizations. It is also regarded by many as history's first major protest on behalf of equal rights for homosexuals.
1970 The Nam: US troops begin their withdrawal from Cambodia.
1971 The US Supreme Court declares that state underwriting of nonreligious instruction in parochial schools is unconstitutional.
1971 The US Supreme Court overturns the draft evasion conviction of Muhammad Ali.
1972 The Nam: President Nixon announces that no more draftees will be sent to Vietnam unless they volunteer.
1975 Death: Rod Serling, producer, writer, at 60.
1976 The beautiful Indian Ocean Islands of the Seychelles become an independent republic within the Commonwealth after 160 years of British rule.
1977 The US Supreme Court allows Federal control of the Nixon tapes and papers.
1978 The Supreme Court orders the University of California at Davis Medical School to admit Allan Bakke, a white man who had argued he was a victim of reverse racial discrimination.
1981 Seventy-four people, including Chief Justice Ayatollah Beheshti, are killed in Iran by a bomb attack on the headquarters of the Islamic Republican Party.
1983 NASA launches Galaxy-A.
1984 Israel and Syria exchange prisoners for the first time in 10 years. 291 Syrian soldiers are traded for three Israelis.
1985 A survey by the US Transportation Department indicates that 42 percent of drivers polled said that they drive faster than the legal 55mph speed limit. Note: Your average American driver functions under the assumption that everyone who drives slower than themselves is an idiot, and anyone who drives faster is a jerk.
1990 Jurors in the drug and perjury trial of Washington, DC Mayor Marion Barry view a videotape showing Barry smoking crack cocaine during an FBI hotel room sting operation. Barry will later be convicted of a single count of misdemeanor drug possession, and will eventually get his old job back.
1991 The Yugoslav army is deployed to Slovenia to take control of airports and border posts and to prevent the republic's declared independence.
1992 Two earthquakes, including the third strongest in the US this century at 7.4 on the Richter scale, rock southern California.
1993 In its last report before disbanding, the White House National Committee on AIDS blasts the George HW Bush administration's response to AIDS and challenges the Clinton administration to do more.
1994 Whitewater: President Clinton and his wife establish a legal defense fund to help cover legal expenses that will be connected with the Whitewater investigation and the sexual harassment suit brought against the president.
1995 The House overwhelmingly approves a constitutional amendment to protect the American flag from desecration. The amendment will be defeated in the Senate.
1996 The Citadel votes to admit women, ending a 153-year-old men-only policy at the South Carolina military school.
1996 President Suleyman Demirel approves Welfare Party leader Necmettin Erbakan as Turkey's first Islamist prime minister in a coalition with conservative Tansu Ciller.
1996 G-7: The G7 leaders meet in Paris to work on antiterrorism plans.
1999 Announcing even bigger projected budget surpluses, President Bill Clinton declares that the government can reduce the national debt while still buttressing Social Security and Medicare.
2000 Elian Gonzalez and his father return to Cuba, hours after the US Supreme Court declines to hear an appeal from the Cuban refugee's Miami relatives who sought to keep him in the United States.
2000 The US Supreme Court rules that the Boy Scouts of America have a constitutional right to exclude gay members.
2001 A US Appeals Court in Washington unanimously throws out a lower court ruling that the Microsoft Corporation must be broken up.
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