February 10

1763 The French and Indian War ends:

The Seven Years' War, a global conflict known in America as the French and Indian War, ends with the signing of the Treaty of Paris by France, Great Britain, and Spain.

In the early 1750s, France's expansion into the Ohio River valley repeatedly brought the country into armed conflict with the British colonies. In 1756, the British formally declared war against France.

In the first year of the war, the British suffered a series of defeats at the hands of the French and their broad network of Native American alliances. However, in 1757, British Prime Minister William Pitt (the older) recognized the potential of imperial expansion that would come out of victory against the French and borrowed heavily to fund an expanded war effort. Pitt financed Prussia's struggle against France and her allies in Europe and reimbursed the colonies for the raising of armies in North America. By 1760, the French had been expelled from Canada, and by 1763 all of France's allies in Europe had either made a separate peace with Prussia or had been defeated. [For further information, click here.]

1840 Marriage: Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom and Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha:

It should be noted that their eldest daughter, Princess Victoria, was to marry Frederick William of Prussia, briefly the second Kaiser of Germany, succeeded by their son, Wilhelm II.

1894 Birth: Harold Macmillan:

His grandfather had founded Macmillan Publishers. Macmillan was educated at Oxford University and served with distinction in World War One. He became [a] Conservative member of parliament . . . . His advocacy of social reform and his support for Winston Churchill's anti-appeasement stance brought him few rewards in the 1930s. With the outbreak of war his political fortunes changed. In 1942 - 1945, he was minister resident at the allied headquarters in the Mediterranean, where he became a friend of General (later President) Dwight Eisenhower. . . .

Between 1951 - 1954 Macmillan served as minister of housing, and then became, in quick succession, minister of defence, foreign secretary and chancellor of the exchequer. Despite bearing some responsibility for the Suez debacle of 1956, Macmillan proved to be a beneficiary of the crisis, which forced the resignation of the prime minister, Anthony Eden in January 1957. Macmillan took his place. He succeeded in restoring the fortunes of the Conservative party after Suez, and increased the government's parliamentary majority in the 1959 general election. He also improved relations between Britain and the USA, which had been badly compromised by the intervention in Egypt.

Macmillan's second term was beset with crises. Britain's application for membership of the European Economic Community split the Conservative party, and was eventually vetoed by France. There were also economic difficulties. In 1962, the government's unpopularity led Macmillan to abruptly dismiss six cabinet members, an event which became known as the 'night of the long knives'. His subsequent inept handling of the scandals surrounding minister John Profumo in 1963 proved fatal, and he resigned in October 1963. His patrician, Edwardian style increasingly seemed to sit awkwardly with a more modern form of politics, represented by Labour under Harold Wilson, who came to power the following year.

Macmillan became chairman of his family's publishing firm and died on 29 December 1986. [For further information, click here]

1898 Birth: Bertolt Brecht::

Brecht was born . . . in Augsburg, Germany and one of the country's most influential poets, playwrights and screenwriters. His most famous work was the musical "The Threepenny Opera" (with Kurt Weill), but his dramas such as "Mother Courage and Her Children" or "The Good Person of Sezuan" were equally successful. As he opposed the upcoming Nazi movement, he fled Germany in 1933 and finally emigrated to the United States. After testifying before the House Un-American Activities Committee in 1947, he left Hollywood and returned to Europe. He settled down in East Germany, where he founded the famous "Berliner Ensemble" and became the state's intellectual hero. He died on 14 August 1956 in East Berlin. [For further information, click here]

1899 Herbert Hoover marries Lou Henry:

On this day in 1899, future President Herbert Hoover marries his fellow Stanford University geology student and sweetheart Lou Henry in Monterey, California.

After their nuptials, the newlyweds departed on a honeymoon cruise to China, where Hoover had accepted a position as mining consultant to the Chinese emperor. Barely a year into their married life, the Hoovers got caught in China's Boxer Rebellion of 1900, in which Chinese nationalists rebelled against European colonial control and besieged 800 westerners in the city of Tientsin. Hoover led a group of westerners in building protective barricades while Lou volunteered in a nearby hospital. After the rebellion was put down by an international coalition of troops, the Hoovers left China, splitting their time between residences in California and London and traveling the world.

Raised in Monterey, California, Lou Henry shared her husband's appreciation of the outdoors and athletics. While Hoover served as secretary of commerce in the early 1920s, she helped build the Girl Scouts organization and presided over the Women's Division of the National Amateur Athletic Federation. The Hoovers' experience in China inspired them to also engage in relief work for refugees and tourists stranded in hostile countries. During World War I, Lou chaired the American Women's War Relief Fund and other war-related charitable organizations. In 1929, she became the first president's wife to invite the wife of an African-American congressman to a social function at the White House. The civic-minded and intelligent Mrs. Hoover spoke five languages, authored books and articles and received eight honorary degrees in her lifetime.

Hoover's tenure as president coincided with the Great Depression. Although he had warned against the type of market speculation that led to the stock market crash of 1929, the country blamed him for the Depression for the rest of his term. Lou Hoover stepped up her charitable work during the crisis, but received harsh criticism for continuing to hold lavish White House social events at a time when unprecedented numbers of American citizens suffered utter poverty. Her actions contributed to the president's unpopularity and Hoover left office in disgrace after one term. (History.com)

1904 Russo-Japanese War: Three days after a Japanese sneak-attack on Port Arthur, Japan and Russia declare war on each other.

The war with Japan, one of the most terrible blunders made during the reign of Nicholas II, had disastrous consequences and marked the beginning of our misfortunes. Russia was not prepared for war, and those who encouraged the Tsar in his purpose betrayed their Sovereign as well as their country. Russia's enemies took advantage of the general dissatisfaction to set the Government and the masses against each other.

1906 Various:

HMS Dreadnought: Britain's first modern, and largest battleship is launched:

German advocates of naval power, like Admiral Tirpitz and Kaiser Wilhelm, who wanted to have a navy like his grandmother, Queen Victoria, got a serious building program launched in 1898. Then, because of German identification with and interference in the Boer War (1899-1902), this program was doubled in 1900, with a clearly hostile intent toward Britain. The naval race thus started was therefore only five years old when Britain, with the building of the Dreadnought, reset the whole process to zero. The British simply figured that they could build faster than the Germans, which they could. As it happened, the essential design shift, all big guns, had already been planned by the Americans, though the South Carolina ships were only built very slowly, not being finished until 1910. The Dreadnought itself was built in a year. In Jane's Fighting Ships of 1906, Germany was still ranked as only fifth among naval powers. The United States was second, behind Britain, followed by Franceand Japan.

Birth: Walraven van Hall: Dutch banker and a Nazi-resister:

The growth of the Dutch Resistance developed slowly for several reasons. First, because of Holland's geographic proximity and cultural ties with Germany, many Dutch were sympathetic with the ideas of German nationalism. This sympathy extended beyond collaboration; there was also a significant portion of the population who actively supported the Germans by joining the Dutch Nazi party and even the Wehrmacht. Even more assiduously, there were also Dutch civilians who actively informed on their neighbors to the Nazis.

1914 World War I: War at Sea: Six days after the German Admiralty issued a formal declaration which warned neutral shipping to stay away from the waters surrounding Britain and Ireland, US President Woodrow Wilson issues a thinly veiled warning to the German government:

If the commanders of German vessels of war should act upon the presumption that the flag of the United States was not being used in good faith and should destroy on the high seas an American vessel or the lives of American citizens, it would be difficult for the Government of the United States to view the act in any other light than as an indefensible violation of neutral rights, which it would be very hard, indeed, to reconcile with the friendly relations now happily subsisting between the two governments. If such a deplorable situation should arise, the Imperial German Government can readily appreciate that the Government of the United States would be constrained to hold the Imperial Government of Germany to a strict accountability.

1915 World War I: War at Sea: President Wilson blasts the British for using the US flag on merchant ships to deceive the Germans.

1916 USA: Secretary of War Lindley M. Garrison resigns, as a result of bitter disagreements with President Woodrow Wilson over America's national defense strategies,

Garrison came to Wilson's attention while serving as vice-chancellor of New Jersey (in addition to running a legal practice) and was appointed secretary of war in January 1913 upon Wilson's ascent to the White House. After the outbreak of war in Europe in 1914, Garrison clashed repeatedly with many in the Wilson administration, including the president himself, who regarded the secretary as notably hawkish with respect to America's national defense. . . . . 

In his letter of resignation to the president, Mr. Garrison wrote, "It is evident that we hopelessly disagree upon what I conceive to be fundamental principles. This makes manifest the impropriety of my longer remaining your seeming representative with respect to those matters. I hereby tender my resignation as Secretary of War, to take effect at your convenience." Assistant Secretary of War Henry Breckinridge also resigned his position out of loyalty to Mr. Garrison.

Newton D. Baker, a former mayor of Cleveland, took over as secretary of war upon Garrison's resignation. Chosen by Wilson for his pacifist leanings‑‑and distrusted by such hawks as Wilson's steadfast Republican opponent, Senator Henry Cabot Lodge‑‑Baker would nonetheless help the president reach the decision to enter the war in April 1917, submit a plan for universal military conscription to Congress and preside over the mobilization of some 4 million American soldiers. (History.com)

1918 World War I: German ultimatum at Brest-Litovsk is issued by Foreign Secretary von Kuhlmann, and is considered by the Russians as annexationist. This causes division within the Soviet leadership.

The peace negotiations are at an end. The German capitalists, bankers, and landlords, supported by the silent cooperation of the English and French bourgeoisie, submitted to our comrades, members of the peace delegations at Brest-Litovsk, conditions such as could not be subscribed to by the Russian revolution. The Governments of Germany and Austria possess countries and peoples vanquished by force of arms. To this authority the Russian people, workmen and peasants, could not give its acquiescence. We could not sign a peace which would bring with it sadness, oppression, and suffering to millions of workmen and peasants. But we also cannot, will not, and must not continue a war begun by Tsars and capitalists in alliance with Tsars and capitalists. We will not and we must not continue to be at war with the Germans and Austrians: workmen and peasants like ourselves . . . . 

1919 Wunderwaffen: A Method of Reaching Extreme Altitudes by Robert Goddard is published. The book will heavily influence the work of rocket pioneers Sergey Korolev, Hermann Oberth, and Wernher von Braun. (Gruntman, Riper, Piszkiewicz) [See: Wunderwaffen: Hitler's Deception and the History of Rocketry.]

1934 Church and Reich: The Sacred Congregation of the Holy Office in Rome announces that Alfred Rosenberg's The Myth of the 20th Century has been placed on the Church's Index of Forbidden Books.

The Myth of the Twentieth Century (Der Mythus des zwanzigsten Jahrhunderts) is a book by Alfred Rosenberg, one of the principal ideologists of the Nazi party and editor of the Nazi paper Voelkischer Beobachter. It was the most influential Nazi text after Hitler's Mein Kampf. The "myth" is "the myth of blood, which under the sign of the swastika unchains the racial world-revolution. It is the awakening of the race soul, which after long sleep victoriously ends the race chaos" (quoted in Viereck, 2003, p. 229). Rosenberg was inspired by Meister Eckhart, the racist theories of Houston Stewart Chamberlain, Richard Wagner's romanticism and also by Aryanism. He believed that God created man as separate races, not as individuals or mankind as a whole, and that only the race has a soul. The Myth of the Twentieth Century was conceived of as a sequel to Chamberlain's The Foundation of the Nineteenth Century (Yahil, 1991, p. 41). Rosenberg's racial interpretation of history concentrates on the supposedly negative influence of the Jewish race in contrast to the Aryan race. He equates the latter with the Nordic peoples of northern Europe.

1934 USSR: Joseph Stalin ends the 17th CPSU-congress and declares that "Life becomes merrier."

1935 Unity Mitford—dining alone at the Osteria Bavaria restaurant in Munich—is invited by Hitler to join him and his party for lunch. This is their first meeting, but according to her diaries, they will meet or talk 140 times during the next five years. (THP)

1936 Second Italo-Abyssinian War: The Battle of Amba Aradam begins, ending nine days later in a decisive tactical victory for Italy and the neutralisation of almost the entire Ethiopian army as a fighting force. [For further information, click here.]

1939 Various:

Death: Pope Pius XI:

Pius was eager to negotiate concordats with any country that was willing to do so, thinking that written treaties were the best way to protect the Church's rights against governments increasingly inclined to interfere in such matters. Twelve concordats were signed in all in Pius' reign with various types of governments, including some German state governments and with Austria. When Adolf Hitler became Chancellor of Germany in January 1933 and asked for a concordat, Pius was therefore inclined to assume his sincerity and accept. Negotiations were conducted on his behalf by Cardinal Eugenio Pacelli, who later became Pope Pius XII. The Reichskonkordat was signed by Pacelli and by the German government in June 1933, and included guarantees of liberty for the Church, independence for Catholic organisations and youth groups, and religious teaching in schools. Hitler, however, never intended to honour the agreement. He had merely wanted to neutralise potential Church opposition in the vital early months and years of his government to make his establishment of a dictatorship easier. As the years went by, Hitler's totalitarian ambitions, much greater even than Mussolini's, were made clear. The Church was a rival for people's total devotion and therefore would be slowly squeezed out of existence. Clause after clause of the concordat was broken: Catholic youth groups were abolished and all youth were forced into the Hitler Youth; religious education in schools was cut back and finally abolished; show trials of priests were held to discredit the clergy; vandalism of churches by Hitler Youth members was tacitly encouraged; seminaries were interfered with and closed. Pius XI responded by issuing in 1937 the encyclical Mit Brennender Sorge condemning the Nazi ideology of racism and totalitarianism.

Countdown to Infamy: The Japanese occupy the island of Hainan in French Indochina:

Occupied by the Japanese in 1939, Chinese Communists and the Li natives fought a vigorous guerrilla campaign against the Japanese occupation of 1939-45, but in retaliation over one third of the male population were killed by the Japanese. After the Japanese surrender in 1945, the Nationalist Party re-established control, and Hainan was one of the last parts of China to fall to the Communists when the Nationalists withdrew in 1950.

Spanish Civil War: The Nationalists conclude their conquest of Catalonia and seal the border with France. [For further information, click here]

1941 World War II: Various:

Iceland is attacked by German planes:

Early in the European conflict both the British and the Germans had recognized what the Vikings had demonstrated ten centuries before, namely, that Iceland was an important steppingstone between Europe and the New World. Hitler several times toyed with the idea of a descent upon the island and laid preliminary plans for it; but to forestall such a move British troops, soon joined by a Canadian force, had landed in Iceland on 10 May 1940. Icelandic annoyance with the British and Canadian garrison, and British losses in the war, which made a withdrawal of the Iceland garrison seem desirable, plus American concern for the Atlantic sea lanes, combined to bring Iceland within the American defense orbit. [See: War Below Zero.]

Netherlands: The anti-Nazi Het Parool (The Password) begins publishing.

1942 World War II: Various:

USA: The war halts civilian car production at Ford:

In spite of President Franklin D. Roosevelt's exhortation that the US auto industry should become the 'great arsenal of democracy,' Detroit's executives were reluctant to join the war cause. However, following the bombing of Pearl Harbor, the country mobilized behind the US declaration of war. The government offered automakers guaranteed profits regardless of production costs throughout the war years.

Japanese sub bombards Midway (a coral atoll used as a U.S. Navy base). It was the fourth bombing of the atoll by Japanese ships since December 7:

The capture of Midway was an important part of the broader Japanese strategy of trying to create a defensive line that would stretch from the western Aleutian Islands in the north to the Midway, Wake, Marshall, and Gilbert Islands in the south, then west to the Dutch West Indies. Occupying Midway would also mean depriving the United States of a submarine base and would provide the perfect launching pad for an all-out assault on Hawaii

Adm. Isoroku Yamamoto, mastermind of the Pearl Harbor attack and commander in chief of the Japanese combined fleet, knew that only the utter destruction of U.S. naval capacity would ensure Japanese free reign in the Pacific. Japanese bombing of the atoll by ship and submarine failed to break through the extraordinary defense put up by Adm. Chester Nimitz, commander of the U.S. Navy in the Pacific, who used every resource available to protect Midway and, by extension, Hawaii. Yamamoto persevered with an elaborate warship operation, called Mi, launched in June, but the Battle of Midway was a disaster for Japan, and was the turning point for ultimate American victory in the Pacific. (History.com)

1943 World War II: Various:

North Africa: The 8th Army sweeps through North Africa to Tunisia:

After the fall of Tripoli to British Eighth Army on 23 January 1943, Rommel retreated hastily across Libya to Tunisia, slowing Montgomery by bombing ports of entry, fighting rear-guard actions, and by mining roads. By 6 February all of Rommel's forces were in Tunisia and he had joined with von Arnim. Rommel took over the Mareth Line, a 22-mile long series of French colonial fortifications in southern Tunisia, where the Germans prepared a defense. [See: The Mediterranean Strategy.]

Netherlands: The Van der Veen Resistance starts a fire in an Amsterdam employment bureau.

1945 World War II: Various:

B-29s bomb the Tokyo area:

In the 1930s, as today, Americans set great store by the principle that civilian populations should not be targeted for bombing. "Inhuman barbarism," President Roosevelt called civilian bombing in 1939. Indeed, that was one reason to fight the Japanese: they targeted civilians, we didn't. By 1945, however, the precision bombing of Japan had proved frustrating.

Yalta Conference: From the record of today's discussions:

The President then said that he had changed his mind in regard to the question of French participation in the Control Commission. He now agreed with the views of the Prime Minister that it would be impossible to give France an area to administer in Germany unless they were members of the Control Commission. He said he thought it would be easier to deal with the French if they were on the Commission than if they were not. Marshal Stalin said he had no objection and he agreed to this. The Prime Minister suggested that there be a joint telegram sent to de Gaulle informing him of these decisions to which there was general agreement.

From Allies at War: The Bitter Rivalry of Churchill, Roosevelt, and de Gaulle by Simon Berthon:

A summit between Roosevelt, Churchill and Stalin had been arranged for February of 1945 at Yalta and de Gaulle believed that he was entitled to be present. Churchill tried gently to persuade Roosevelt that he could at least attend meetings when French affairs were under discussion. Roosevelt replied sharply that de Gaulle's inclusion would 'merely introduce a complicating and undesirable factor.' Despite a visit by de Gaulle in Moscow in December and his oft-expressed pro-Russian sentiments, Stalin also dismissed the idea, wondering with withering contempt what the French had done in the war to deserve a seat at the victories' high table.

By January, Churchill, back on the love-hate switchback, had also changed his mind, writing to Eden: 'I cannot think of anything more unpleasant and impossible than having this menacing and hostile man in our midst, always trying to make himself a reputation in France by claiming a position far above what France occupies, and making faces at the Allies who are doing the work.' Despite that, Churchill, helped by the ailing Harry Hopkins, energetically defended France's position at Yalta, ensuring that she would have a place on the Allied Control Commission for Germany and become a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council. Though he required persuasion, such a concession could not have been without Roosevelt's agreement. If he expected any thanks, he was mistaken. Before Yalta, the American Ambassador had given de Gaulle a personal message from Roosevelt suggesting that they meet at Algiers on his return. De Gaulle gracelessly refused, attempting to draw an unwarranted parallel with Roosevelt's inability to accept an invitation to visit Paris in November. Churchill's doctor, Lord Moran, noted: 'The dreary story of de Gaulle's gaucherie came to its melancholy climax.'

Yalta Conference: FDR pens a note to Stalin with a last minute concern about the likely reaction of US public opinion to the USSR receiving three votes in the UN:

I am somewhat concerned lest it be pointed out that the United States will have only one vote in the Assembly. It may be necessary for me, therefore, if I am to ensure wholehearted expectance by the Congress and the people ... of our participation in the World Organization, to ask for additional votes in the Assembly in order to give parity to the United States. (Harriman)

1962 Cold War: USSR and USA exchange captured spies:

Francis Gary Powers, an American who was shot down over the Soviet Union while flying a CIA spy plane in 1960, is released by the Soviets in exchange for the U.S. release of a Russian spy. The exchange concluded one of the most dramatic episodes of the Cold War.

Powers had been a pilot of one of the high altitude U-2 spy planes developed by the United States in the late-1950s. Supposedly invulnerable to any Soviet antiaircraft defense, the U-2s flew numerous missions over Russia, photographing military installations. On May 1, 1960, Powers' U-2 was shot down by a Soviet missile. Although Powers was supposed to engage the plane's self-destruct system (and commit suicide with poison furnished by the CIA), he and much of the plane were captured. The United States at first denied involvement with the flight, but had to admit that Powers was working for the U.S. government when the Soviets presented incontrovertible evidence. In retaliation, Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev called off a scheduled summit with President Dwight D. Eisenhower.

Powers was put on trial, convicted of espionage, and sentenced to 10 years imprisonment. In February 1962, the Soviet Union announced that it was freeing Powers because of a petition from the prisoner's family. American officials made it quite clear, however, that Abel was being exchanged for Powers: a spy-for-a-spy trade, not a humanitarian gesture on the part of the Soviet Union. The U.S. government announced that in exchange for Powers, it would release Col. Rudolf Abel, a Russian convicted of espionage in the United States. On February 10, Abel and Powers were brought to the Gilenicker Bridge that linked East and West Berlin for the exchange. After the men were successfully exchanged, Powers was flown back to the United States. (History.com)

Edited by Levi Bookin (Copy editor)
levi.bookin@gmail.com









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