This Day In History - 24 June: Scotland Wins At Bannockburn, Medieval Dance Fever, & A Poor General Haig Cost The UK

Art: Tantallon Castle, North Berwick, Scotland, Thomas Moran

1314 – : The Battle of Bannockburn concludes outside of Stirling Castle with a decisive victory of the 6.500 Scottish forces led by Robert the Bruce over a much larger English force. It was the decisive battle of the First War of Scottish Independence with Scotland regaining its independence a decade later.

1340 – A large French fleet that had been gathered for the invasion of England was engaged and destroyed by Edward III of England in the Battle of Sluys, an early and important battle in the Hundred Years' War. It destroyed most of France's naval capacity and virtually insured that the war would be fought on French soil.

1374 – A sudden outbreak of St. John's Dance causes people in the streets of Aachen, Germany, to experience hallucinations and begin to jump and twitch uncontrollably until they collapse from exhaustion. It was likely caused by ergot poisoning.

1812 – Napoleon's Grande Armée of 650,000 soldiers crosses the Neman River, beginning the invasion of Russia. By November, the Army would be in full retreat, with only 27,000 able bodied soldiers left, the rest ravaged by starvation, disease, or fallen to the war.

1916 – Mary Pickford, a slient film star, is the first actress to get a million dollar contract.

1916 – The Battle of the Somme begins with a week long artillery bombardment on the German Line. There is likely no better example of poor generalship and the cost that means in blood. General Sir Douglas Haig, commander of the British forces, used a cookie cutter strategy of artillery fire followed by massed, slow moving frontal attacks on an enemy dug in and firing machine guns. In two weeks of battle, the Brits would suffer 350,000 casualties, with the 1st day of infantry attacks, July 1, being the bloodiest day in English history. The British suffered 57,470 casualties, including 19,240 dead. Haig should have been executed.

1948 – Start of the Berlin Blockade. The Soviet Union cut off overland travel from the West to West Berlin in an effort to take de facto control over the city. They would maintain the blockade for almost a year in one of the first battles of the Cold War.

1957 – The U.S. Supreme Court rules that obscenity is not protected by the First Amendment in Roth v. United States, a fractured decision that actually led to the vast expansion of the porn industry and the Sexual Revolution of the 60's.


Births

1813 – Henry Ward Beecher, American clergyman and reformer (d. 1887)

1895 – Jack Dempsey, American boxer (d. 1983)


Deaths

803 – Higbald of Lindisfarne. He had been the Bishop of Lindisfarne from 780 until his death. He was present for the famous Viking raid and slaughter at Lindisfarne in 793 and is remembered for memorializing the event in his letters to Alcuin of York.

1519 – Lucrezia Borgia, Duchess of Ferrara and a member of the infamous Borgia family that "came to epitomize the ruthless Machiavellian politics and sexual corruption alleged to be characteristic of the Renaissance Papacy."

1908 – Grover Cleveland, President of the United States (b. 1837)

1987 – Jackie Gleason, American actor and musician (b. 1916)

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This Day In History - 18 June: Its Their Finest Hour In The UK, Waterloo For Napolean, & War In 1812

1940: Prime Minister Churchill address the people of Britain from the House of Commons during the darkest days of WWII, when Britain stood alone againt a triumphant Hitler who had just succeeded in overruning virtually all of Europe.

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618 – The Tang Dynasty begins in China when Li Yuan becomes Emperor Gaozu of Tang. The dynasty would rule for the next three centuries and bring a golden age to Chinese culture.

1178 – Five Canterbury monks reported to the abbey's chronicler, Gervase, that shortly after sunset they saw "two horns of light" on the shaded part of the Moon. What they observed was a lunar impact that formed the Giordano Bruno crater. It is believed that the current oscillations of the moon's distance (on the order of metres) are a result of this collision.

1429 – Joan of Arc leads the French to defeat the main English army under Sir John Fastolf at the Battle of Patay. This turns the tide of the Hundred Years' War.

1757 – Frederick the Great of Prussia was handed his first defeat in the Seven Year's War by an Austrian Army at the Battle of Kolín. During the battle, Frederick was able to stave off an even worse defeat when he rallied his troops with the now famous cry "Rogues, do you want to live forever?"

1778 – British troops abandon Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in order to reinforce New York.

1812 – The U.S. Congress declares war on the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, giving a formal start to the War of 1812. The war was caused by a combination of American desire to expand, British support of Indians on the borders, and British interference with U.S. maritime trade. The war would last for two years, see the White House burned, the Star Spangled banner written, and the U.S. achieve its goal of cutting off the Indians from British support.

1815 – The Duke of Wellington and a Prussian force defeat Napoleon at the Battle of Waterloo in Belgium. Pursuing Coalition forces entered France and restored Louis XVIII to the French throne. Napoleon abdicated, surrendering to the British, and was exiled to Saint Helena, where he died in 1821.

1830 – France invades Algeria, starting a long and bloody war that would not end for 70 years and that would reduce the Algerian population by a third. The French occupation would end 130 years later following a successful guierilla war that sapped the French will to fight. The lessons of that guerilla war would form the basis for our successful strategy in Iraq under General Petraeus.

1858 – Charles Darwin receives a paper from Alfred Russel Wallace that includes nearly identical conclusions about evolution as Darwin's own. This prompted Darwin to publish his theory.

1873 – Susan B. Anthony is fined $100 for attempting to vote in the 1872 presidential election.

1940 – With Paris fallen and Vichy France opting to cooperate with the Nazis, Charles de Gaulle, speaking by radio from London, broadcast a speech to France now known as the Appeal of June 18. He declared that the war for France was not yet over, and rallied the country in support of the Resistance. It is one of the most important speeches in French history.

1940 – Perhaps the greatest leader of the 20th century, Winston Churchill, delivered his "Finest Hour" speech. He gave it a time when Germany had just overrun Europe and British troops had been forced to retreat back to Britain from Dunkirk. The full text is at the bottom of this post.

1945 – William Joyce, nicknamed Lord Haw-Haw, was a U.S. born citizen who moved to the U.K. and joined the facist movement in the 1930's. During WWII, he broadcast Nazi propaganda into Britain. On this day in 1945, following his capture, he was charged with treason, the crime for which he would later be hung.

1953 – A coup led by Gamal Abdel Nasser ended Egypt's monarchy.

1959 – Louisiana politics reared its head when the eccentric Governor of Louisiana Earl K. Long was committed to a state mental hospital by a group of politicians and his wife, who in reality was probably really upset that the governor had been carrying on with the famous stripper of the era, Blaze Starr. Long responded by having the hospital's director fired and replaced with a crony who proceeds to proclaim him perfectly sane.

1979 – Jimmy Carter and Leonid Brezhnev signed SALT II, an agreement to limit the manufacture of nuclear weapons.

1981 – The AIDS epidemic is formally recognized by medical professionals in San Francisco, California.

1983 – Astronaut Sally Ride becomes the first American woman in space.

1984 – A major clash between about 5,000 police and a similar number of miners takes place at Orgreave, South Yorkshire, during the 1984-1985 UK miners' strike. Defeating that strike was a major victory for PM Margaret Thacher in her effort to reform Britain's moribund socialist economy. True to form, the left still portrays her as the heavy, most recently in the 2000 film Billy Elliot.

1996 – The Unabomber, Ted Kaczynski, is indicted on ten criminal counts.

2006 – The first Kazakh space satellite, KazSat is launched. I can't remember if that made it into Borat.

Births

1269 – Princess Eleanor of England (d. 1298)

1318 – Princess Eleanor of Woodstock (d. 1355)

1942 – Paul McCartney, English singer and songwriter (The Beatles)

Deaths

1536 – Henry Fitzroy, bastard son of Henry VIII (b. 1519)

1588 – Robert Crowley, English printer and poet

1680 – Samuel Butler, English poet (b. 1612)

1704 – Tom Brown, English satirist (b. 1662)

1974 – Georgy Zhukov, Marshal of the Soviet Union (b. 1896)

Holidays and observances

Today is Waterloo Day in the UK.

Churchill's Finest Hour Speech

The full text of Churchill's speech at the House of Commons, 18 June, 1940

I spoke the other day of the colossal military disaster which occurred when the French High Command failed to withdraw the northern Armies from Belgium at the moment when they knew that the French front was decisively broken at Sedan and on the Meuse. This delay entailed the loss of fifteen or sixteen French divisions and threw out of action for the critical period the whole of the British Expeditionary Force. Our Army and 120,000 French troops were indeed rescued by the British Navy from Dunkirk but only with the loss of their cannon, vehicles and modern equipment. This loss inevitably took some weeks to repair, and in the first two of those weeks the battle in France has been lost. When we consider the heroic resistance made by the French Army against heavy odds in this battle, the enormous losses inflicted upon the enemy and the evident exhaustion of the enemy, it may well be the thought that these 25 divisions of the best-trained and best-equipped troops might have turned the scale. However, General Weygand had to fight without them. Only three British divisions or their equivalent were able to stand in the line with their French comrades. They have suffered severely, but they have fought well. We sent every man we could to France as fast as we could re-equip and transport their formations.

I am not reciting these facts for the purpose of recrimination. That I judge to be utterly futile and even harmful. We cannot afford it. I recite them in order to explain why it was we did not have, as we could have had, between twelve and fourteen British divisions fighting in the line in this great battle instead of only three. Now I put all this aside. I put it on the shelf, from which the historians, when they have time, will select their documents to tell their stories. We have to think of the future and not of the past. This also applies in a small way to our own affairs at home. There are many who would hold an inquest in the House of Commons on the conduct of the Governments--and of Parliaments, for they are in it, too--during the years which led up to this catastrophe. They seek to indict those who were responsible for the guidance of our affairs. This also would be a foolish and pernicious process. There are too many in it. Let each man search his conscience and search his speeches. I frequently search mine.

Of this I am quite sure, that if we open a quarrel between the past and the present, we shall find that we have lost the future. Therefore, I cannot accept the drawing of any distinctions between members of the present Government. It was formed at a moment of crisis in order to unite all the Parties and all sections of opinion. It has received the almost unanimous support of both Houses of Parliament. Its members are going to stand together, and, subject to the authority of the House of Commons, we are going to govern the country and fight the war. It is absolutely necessary at a time like this that every Minister who tries each day to do his duty shall be respected; and their subordinates must know that their chiefs are not threatened men, men who are here today and gone tomorrow, but that their directions must be punctually and faithfully obeyed. Without this concentrated power we cannot face what lies before us. I should not think it would be very advantageous for the House to prolong this debate this afternoon under conditions of public stress. Many facts are not clear that will be clear in a short time. We are to have a secret session on Thursday, and I should think that would be a better opportunity for the many earnest expressions of opinion which members will desire to make and for the House to discuss vital matters without having everything read the next morning by our dangerous foes.

The disastrous military events which have happened during the past fortnight have not come to me with any sense of surprise. Indeed, I indicated a fortnight ago as clearly as I could to the House that the worst possibilities were open; and I made it perfectly clear then that whatever happened in France would make no difference to the resolve of Britain and the British Empire to fight on, if necessary for years, if necessary alone.

During the last few days we have successfully brought off the great majority of the troops we had on the line of communication in France; and seven-eighths of the troops we have sent to France since the beginning of the war--that is to say, about 350,000 out of 400,000 men--are safely back in this country. Others are still fighting with the French, and fighting with considerable success in their local encounters against the enemy. We have also brought back a great mass of stores, rifles and munitions of all kinds which had been accumulated in France during the last nine months.

We have, therefore, in this Island today a very large and powerful military force. This force comprises all our best-trained and our finest troops, including scores of thousands of those who have already measured their quality against the Germans and found themselves at no disadvantage. We have under arms at the present time in this Island over a million and a quarter men. Behind these we have the Local Defense Volunteers, numbering half a million, only a portion of whom, however, are yet armed with rifles or other firearms. We have incorporated into our Defense Forces every man for whom we have a weapon. We expect very large additions to our weapons in the near future, and in preparation for this we intend forthwith to call up, drill and train further large numbers. Those who are not called up, or else are employed during the vast business of munitions production in all its branches--and their ramifications are innumerable--will serve their country best by remaining at their ordinary work until they receive their summons. We have also over here Dominions armies. The Canadians had actually landed in France, but have now been safely withdrawn, much disappointed, but in perfect order, with all their artillery and equipment. And these very high-class forces from the Dominions will now take part in the defense of the Mother Country.

Lest the account which I have given of these large forces should raise the question: Why did they not take part in the great battle in France? I must make it clear that, apart from the divisions training and organizing at home, only twelve divisions were equipped to fight upon a scale which justified their being sent abroad. And this was fully up to the number which the French had been led to expect would be available in France at the ninth month of the war. The rest of our forces at home have a fighting value for home defense which will, of course, steadily increase every week that passes. Thus, the invasion of Great Britain would at this time require the transportation across the sea of hostile armies on a very large scale, and after they had been so transported they would have to be continually maintained with all the masses of munitions and supplies which are required for continuous battle--as continuous battle it will surely be.

Here is where we come to the Navy--and after all, we have a Navy. Some people seem to forget that we have a Navy. We must remind them. For the last thirty years I have been concerned in discussions about the possibilities of oversea invasion, and I took the responsibility on behalf of the Admiralty, at the beginning of the last war, of allowing all regular troops to be sent out of the country. That was a very serious step to take, because our Territorials had only just been called up and were quite untrained. Therefore, this Island was for several months particularly denuded of fighting troops. The Admiralty had confidence at that time in their ability to prevent a mass invasion even though at that time the Germans had a magnificent battle fleet in the proportion of 10 to 16, even though they were capable of fighting a general engagement every day and any day, whereas now they have only a couple of heavy ships worth speaking of--the Scharnhorst and the Gneisenau. We are also told that the Italian Navy is to come out and gain sea superiority in these waters. If they seriously intend it, I shall only say that we shall be delighted to offer Signor Mussolini a free and safeguarded passage through the Strait of Gibraltar in order that he may play the part to which he aspires. There is a general curiosity in the British Fleet to find out whether the Italians are up to the level they were at in the last war or whether they have fallen off at all.

Therefore, it seems to me that as far as sea-borne invasion on a great scale is concerned, we are far more capable of meeting it today than we were at many periods in the last war and during the early months of this war, before our other troops were trained, and while the B.E.F. had proceeded abroad. Now, the Navy have never pretended to be able to prevent raids by bodies of 5,000 or 10,000 men flung suddenly across and thrown ashore at several points on the coast some dark night or foggy morning. The efficacy of sea power, especially under modern conditions, depends upon the invading force being of large size; It has to be of large size, in view of our military strength, to be of any use. If it is of large size, then the Navy have something they can find and meet and, as it were, bite on. Now, we must remember that even five divisions, however lightly equipped, would require 200 to 250 ships, and with modern air reconnaissance and photography it would not be easy to collect such an armada, marshal it, and conduct it across the sea without any powerful naval forces to escort it; and there would be very great possibilities, to put it mildly, that this armada would be intercepted long before it reached the coast, and all the men drowned in the sea or, at the worst blown to pieces with their equipment while they were trying to land. We also have a great system of minefields, recently strongly reinforced, through which we alone know the channels. If the enemy tries to sweep passages through these minefields, it will be the task of the Navy to destroy the mine-sweepers and any other forces employed to protect them. There should be no difficulty in this, owing to our great superiority at sea.

Those are the regular, well-tested, well-proved arguments on which we have relied during many years in peace and war. But the question is whether there are any new methods by which those solid assurances can be circumvented. Odd as it may seem, some attention has been given to this by the Admiralty, whose prime duty and responsibility is to destroy any large sea-borne expedition before it reaches, or at the moment when it reaches, these shores. It would not be a good thing for me to go into details of this. It might suggest ideas to other people which they have not thought of, and they would not be likely to give us any of their ideas in exchange. All I will say is that untiring vigilance and mind-searching must be devoted to the subject, because the enemy is crafty and cunning and full of novel treacheries and stratagems. The House may be assured that the utmost ingenuity is being displayed and imagination is being evoked from large numbers of competent officers, well-trained in tactics and thoroughly up to date, to measure and counterwork novel possibilities. Untiring vigilance and untiring searching of the mind is being, and must be, devoted to the subject, because, remember, the enemy is crafty and there is no dirty trick he will not do.

Some people will ask why, then, was it that the British Navy was not able to prevent the movement of a large army from Germany into Norway across the Skagerrak? But the conditions in the Channel and in the North Sea are in no way like those which prevail in the Skagerrak. In the Skagerrak, because of the distance, we could give no air support to our surface ships, and consequently, lying as we did close to the enemy's main air power, we were compelled to use only our submarines. We could not enforce the decisive blockade or interruption which is possible from surface vessels. Our submarines took a heavy toll but could not, by themselves, prevent the invasion of Norway. In the Channel and in the North Sea, on the other hand, our superior naval surface forces, aided by our submarines, will operate with close and effective air assistance.

This brings me, naturally, to the great question of invasion from the air, and of the impending struggle between the British and German Air Forces. It seems quite clear that no invasion on a scale beyond the capacity of our land forces to crush speedily is likely to take place from the air until our Air Force has been definitely overpowered. In the meantime, there may be raids by parachute troops and attempted descents of airborne soldiers. We should be able to give those gentry a warm reception both in the air and on the ground, if they reach it in any condition to continue the dispute. But the great question is: Can we break Hitler's air weapon? Now, of course, it is a very great pity that we have not got an Air Force at least equal to that of the most powerful enemy within striking distance of these shores. But we have a very powerful Air Force which has proved itself far superior in quality, both in men and in many types of machine, to what we have met so far in the numerous and fierce air battles which have been fought with the Germans. In France, where we were at a considerable disadvantage and lost many machines on the ground when they were standing round the aerodromes, we were accustomed to inflict in the air losses of as much as two and two-and-a-half to one. In the fighting over Dunkirk, which was a sort of no-man's-land, we undoubtedly beat the German Air Force, and gained the mastery of the local air, inflicting here a loss of three or four to one day after day. Anyone who looks at the photographs which were published a week or so ago of the re-embarkation, showing the masses of troops assembled on the beach and forming an ideal target for hours at a time, must realize that this re-embarkation would not have been possible unless the enemy had resigned all hope of recovering air superiority at that time and at that place.

In the defense of this Island the advantages to the defenders will be much greater than they were in the fighting around Dunkirk. We hope to improve on the rate of three or four to one which was realized at Dunkirk; and in addition all our injured machines and their crews which get down safely--and, surprisingly, a very great many injured machines and men do get down safely in modern air fighting--all of these will fall, in an attack upon these Islands, on friendly soil and live to fight another day; whereas all the injured enemy machines and their complements will be total losses as far as the war is concerned.

During the great battle in France, we gave very powerful and continuous aid to the French Army, both by fighters and bombers; but in spite of every kind of pressure we never would allow the entire metropolitan fighter strength of the Air Force to be consumed. This decision was painful, but it was also right, because the fortunes of the battle in France could not have been decisively affected even if we had thrown in our entire fighter force. That battle was lost by the unfortunate strategical opening, by the extraordinary and unforseen power of the armored columns, and by the great preponderance of the German Army in numbers. Our fighter Air Force might easily have been exhausted as a mere accident in that great struggle, and then we should have found ourselves at the present time in a very serious plight. But as it is, I am happy to inform the House that our fighter strength is stronger at the present time relatively to the Germans, who have suffered terrible losses, than it has ever been; and consequently we believe ourselves possessed of the capacity to continue the war in the air under better conditions than we have ever experienced before. I look forward confidently to the exploits of our fighter pilots--these splendid men, this brilliant youth--who will have the glory of saving their native land, their island home, and all they love, from the most deadly of all attacks.

There remains, of course, the danger of bombing attacks, which will certainly be made very soon upon us by the bomber forces of the enemy. It is true that the German bomber force is superior in numbers to ours; but we have a very large bomber force also, which we shall use to strike at military targets in Germany without intermission. I do not at all underrate the severity of the ordeal which lies before us; but I believe our countrymen will show themselves capable of standing up to it, like the brave men of Barcelona, and will be able to stand up to it, and carry on in spite of it, at least as well as any other people in the world. Much will depend upon this; every man and every woman will have the chance to show the finest qualities of their race, and render the highest service to their cause. For all of us, at this time, whatever our sphere, our station, our occupation or our duties, it will be a help to remember the famous lines:

He nothing common did or mean, Upon that memorable scene.

I have thought it right upon this occasion to give the House and the country some indication of the solid, practical grounds upon which we base our inflexible resolve to continue the war. There are a good many people who say, 'Never mind. Win or lose, sink or swim, better die than submit to tyranny--and such a tyranny.' And I do not dissociate myself from them. But I can assure them that our professional advisers of the three Services unitedly advise that we should carry on the war, and that there are good and reasonable hopes of final victory. We have fully informed and consulted all the self-governing Dominions, these great communities far beyond the oceans who have been built up on our laws and on our civilization, and who are absolutely free to choose their course, but are absolutely devoted to the ancient Motherland, and who feel themselves inspired by the same emotions which lead me to stake our all upon duty and honor. We have fully consulted them, and I have received from their Prime Ministers, Mr. Mackenzie King of Canada, Mr. Menzies of Australia, Mr. Fraser of New Zealand, and General Smuts of South Africa--that wonderful man, with his immense profound mind, and his eye watching from a distance the whole panorama of European affairs--I have received from all these eminent men, who all have Governments behind them elected on wide franchises, who are all there because they represent the will of their people, messages couched in the most moving terms in which they endorse our decision to fight on, and declare themselves ready to share our fortunes and to persevere to the end. That is what we are going to do.

We may now ask ourselves: In what way has our position worsened since the beginning of the war? It has worsened by the fact that the Germans have conquered a large part of the coast line of Western Europe, and many small countries have been overrun by them. This aggravates the possibilities of air attack and adds to our naval preoccupations. It in no way diminishes, but on the contrary definitely increases, the power of our long-distance blockade. Similarly, the entrance of Italy into the war increases the power of our long-distance blockade. We have stopped the worst leak by that. We do not know whether military resistance will come to an end in France or not, but should it do so, then of course the Germans will be able to concentrate their forces, both military and industrial, upon us. But for the reasons I have given to the House these will not be found so easy to apply. If invasion has become more imminent, as no doubt it has, we, being relieved from the task of maintaining a large army in France, have far larger and more efficient forces to meet it.

If Hitler can bring under his despotic control the industries of the countries he has conquered, this will add greatly to his already vast armament output. On the other hand, this will not happen immediately, and we are now assured of immense, continuous and increasing support in supplies and munitions of all kinds from the United States; and especially of aeroplanes and pilots from the Dominions and across the oceans coming from regions which are beyond the reach of enemy bombers.

I do not see how any of these factors can operate to our detriment on balance before the winter comes; and the winter will impose a strain upon the Nazi regime, with almost all Europe writhing and starving under its cruel heel, which, for all their ruthlessness, will run them very hard. We must not forget that from the moment when we declared war on the 3rd September it was always possible for Germany to turn all her Air Force upon this country, together with any other devices of invasion she might conceive, and that France could have done little or nothing to prevent her doing so. We have, therefore, lived under this danger, in principle and in a slightly modified form, during all these months. In the meanwhile, however, we have enormously improved our methods of defense, and we have learned what we had no right to assume at the beginning, namely, that the individual aircraft and the individual British pilot have a sure and definite superiority. Therefore, in casting up this dread balance sheet and contemplating our dangers with a disillusioned eye, I see great reason for intense vigilance and exertion, but none whatever for panic or despair.

During the first four years of the last war the Allies experienced nothing but disaster and disappointment. That was our constant fear: one blow after another, terrible losses, frightful dangers. Everything miscarried. And yet at the end of those four years the morale of the Allies was higher than that of the Germans, who had moved from one aggressive triumph to another, and who stood everywhere triumphant invaders of the lands into which they had broken. During that war we repeatedly asked ourselves the question: 'How are we going to win?' And no one was able ever to answer it with much precision, until at the end, quite suddenly, quite unexpectedly, our terrible foe collapsed before us, and we were so glutted with victory that in our folly we threw it away.

We do not yet know what will happen in France or whether the French resistance will be prolonged, both in France and in the French Empire overseas. The French Government will be throwing away great opportunities and casting adrift their future if they do not continue the war in accordance with their treaty obligations, from which we have not felt able to release them. The House will have read the historic declaration in which, at the desire of many Frenchmen--and of our own hearts--we have proclaimed our willingness at the darkest hour in French history to conclude a union of common citizenship in this struggle. However matters may go in France or with the French Government, or other French Governments, we in this Island and in the British Empire will never lose our sense of comradeship with the French people. If we are now called upon to endure what they have been suffering, we shall emulate their courage, and if final victory rewards our toils they shall share the gains, aye, and freedom shall be restored to all. We abate nothing of our just demands; not one jot or tittle do we recede. Czechs, Poles, Norwegians, Dutch, Belgians have joined their causes to our own. All these shall be restored.

What General Weygand called the Battle of France is over. I expect that the Battle of Britain is about to begin. Upon this battle depends the survival of Christian civilization. Upon it depends our own British life, and the long continuity of our institutions and our Empire. The whole fury and might of the enemy must very soon be turned on us.

Hitler knows that he will have to break us in this Island or lose the war. If we can stand up to him, all Europe may be free and the life of the world may move forward into broad, sunlit uplands. But if we fail, then the whole world, including the United States, including all that we have known and cared for, will sink into the abyss of a new Dark Age made more sinister, and perhaps more protracted, by the lights of perverted science.

Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties, and so bear ourselves that if the British Empire and its Commonwealth last for a thousand years, men will still say, 'This was their finest hour.'

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This Day In History - June 14: Birthdays of the Army, Bourbon & Superman; Peasants & Californians Revolt

Art: Napoleon In Berlin, Charles Meynier

1381 – A major development in our traditions of democracy and freedom for all traces back to the Great Revolt, also called the Peasant Revolt. And on this day in 1381, leaders of Peasants' Revolt met with Richard II on the field at Blackheath, where they presented their demands, including the dismissal of corrupt and unpopular ministers, "an end to the much-hated poll tax; an end to serfdom; and the repeal of the law that unfairly [froze] their wages to pre-Black Death rates." While the meeting was ongoing, some of the other rebels took matter into their own hands and stormed the Tower of London. There they found two of most hated ministers, Simon of Sudbury, the Archbishop of Canterbury, and the Lord Treasurer Robert de Hales, beheading them both. Not finding the king's uncle John of Gaunt, they burnt his home, the Savoy Palace, to the ground. Do read the entry at Brits at Their Best on the role of John Wycliffe in the Great Revolt and the revolt's aftermath.

1645 – In the pivotal battle of the English First Civil War, a Parliamentarian army under the command of Sir Thomas Fairfax and Oliver Cromwell decisively beat the main Royalist army loyal to King Charles I at the Battle of Naseby. The King lost his veteran infantry, including 500 officers, and all of his artillery. The war would end in a year.

1648 – Margaret Jones was hung in Boston for witchcraft.

1775 – The United States Army was born when Continental Congress authorized the formation of the Continental Army.

1777 – The Stars and Stripes was adopted by Congress as the Flag of the United States.

1789 – Survivors of the famed Mutiny on the Bounty, including Captain William Bligh and 18 others, reach Timor after a nearly 7,400 km (4,000-mile) journey in an open boat.

1789 – Bourbon - a from of whisky distilled from corn, is born on this day when the first batch is distilled by the Rev. Elijah Craig in Bourbon County, Kentucky.

1800 – Having installed himself as the leader of France in a coup in 1799, Napoleon began his famous wars of conquest of the European continent. On this date in 1800, in one of his most famous battles, he defeated the Austrians at the Battle of Marengo in Northern Italy and re-conquered Italy.

1807 – Napoleon decisively defeated a Russian Army at the Battle of Friedland, ending the War of the Fourth Coalition.

1821 – The Ottoman Empire completed the conquest of the Sudan when Badi VII, king of Sennar, surrendered his throne to Ottoman General Ismail Pasha.

1846 – Anglo settlers in Sonoma, California, start a rebellion against Mexico and proclaim the California Republic, kicking off the Bear Flag Revolt.

1900 – Hawaii becomes a United States territory.

1907 – Norway adopts female suffrage.

1938 – Action Comics issue one was released, introducing Superman.

1940 – Paris surrenders to German occupation. In less than a month, the Vichy Regime would be established and the French would begin active collaboration with Hitler.

1940 – Auschwitz concentration camp began operations when the first group of 728 prisoners, Poles from Tarnów, arrived at the camp.

1941 – In June 1940, the Red Army occupied Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, and installed new, pro-Soviet governments in all three countries. A year later, facing an ongoing guerrilla war against their occupation, the Soviets began the mass deportations and murder of Estonians, Lithuanians and Latvians with the "June deportation." Men were generally imprisoned and most of them died in Siberian gulags. Women and children were resettled in Kirov oblast and Novosibirsk oblast and about a half of them eventually survived..

1954 – President Dwight D. Eisenhower signs a bill into law that places the words "under God" into the United States' Pledge of Allegiance.

1962 – Albert DeSalvo, better known as the Boston Strangler, murders Anna Slesers, his first victim.

1962 – The New Mexico Supreme Court in the case of Montoya v. Bolack, 70 N.M. 196, prohibits state and local governments from denying Indians the right to vote because they live on a reservation.

1966 – In an effort to prevent the spread of heresy, the Vatican had begun banning books in 1557 by listing them in the Church's "index librorum prohibitum." Making the list over the years were books by Jean Paul Sartre, Voltaire, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, David Hume, Rene Descartes, Francis Bacon, John Milton, John Locke, Galileo Galilei, and Blaise Pascal. This practice came to an end on this day in 1966 by the order of then Pope Paul VI.

1967 – Mariner 5 is launched toward Venus.

1976 – The trial begins at Oxford Crown Court of Donald Neilson, the killer known as the Black Panther.

1982 – The Falklands War ends when Argentine forces in the capital Stanley unconditionally surrender to British forces.

1985 – TWA Flight 847 is hijacked by four members of Hezbollah, including Imad Mugniyah, shortly after take-off from Athens, Greece. Iran was directly involved in this hijacking. The kidnappers beat and murdered one of the passengers, U.S. Navy diver, Robert Stethem, and threw his body to the tarmac.

Births

1811 – Harriet Beecher Stowe, American author (d. 1896)

1928 – Ernesto "Che" Guevara, Marxist Revolutionary and mass murderer for whom justice would be delayed until 1967.

1932 – Joe Arpaio, sheriff of Maricopa County, Arizona

1946 – Donald Trump, American businessman

1950 – Rowan Williams, 104th Archbishop of Canterbury and, arguably, one of the most ineffective and misguided individuals to ever hold the position.


Deaths

1381 – Simon Sudbury, Archbishop of Canterbury, who lost his head to rampaging peasants over the poll tax.

1497 – Giovanni Borgia, Duke of Borgia, he was the son of Pope Alexander VI and the Pope's mistress, Vannozza dei Cattanei. He was murdered on the night of 14 June in a crime that has never been solved. Speculation is that either his brother had a hand in his death or that he was murdered by the father of a young woman whom he sought to seduce.

1914 – Adlai Stevenson I, American politician, 23rd Vice President (b. 1835)

1928 – Emmeline Pankhurst, British feminist (b. 1857)

1936 – G. K. Chesterton, English author (b. 1874)


Holidays and observances

Today is Liberation Day in the Falkland Islands, Flag Day in the U.S., and the feast day of St. Eliseus, the Prophet whose story appears in the Old Testament. he became the attendant and disciple of Elijah (1 Kings 19:16-19), and after Elijah was taken up in a fiery chariot into the whirlwind, he was accepted as the leader of the sons of the prophets, and became noted in Israel. He possessed, according to his own request, "a double portion" of Elijah's spirit (2 Kings 2:9); and for sixty years (892-832 BC) held the office of "prophet in Israel" (2 Kings 5:8).

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