This Day In History - 20 June: Attila Defeated, Oxford Chartered, Victoria's Coronation, & Maliki's Birthday

Art: Le Guepier, William Bouguereau

451 – This day began with "the whole fate of western civilization hanging in the balance." Attila the Hun threatened to overrun Rome and establish a pagan empire in the West. He was met on the field of battle by a Christian army composed of Visigoths under Theodoric I and Romans led by Flavius Aetius. In the end, they defeated Attilla at the Battle of Chalons.

1214 – In a critical development during the medieval period, the University of Oxford received its charter from King Edward III, bcoming the first, and today, the oldest university in the English speaking world. By 1209, it boasted over 3,000 students.

1631 – Muslim pirates sack the Irish village of Baltimore, carrying off 108 Christian men, women and children as slaves. Some are made galley slaves, others sex slaves in harems, with only two ever making it back to Ireland.

1756 – Indian rebels who captured a British garrison then imprisoned the men in what became infamously known as the Black Hole of Calcutta. It was actually the guard room in the old Fort William, Calcutta, India. Conditions were so cramped and the heat so great that within a day, of the 146 imprisoned there, 123 men died.

1782 – The U.S. Congress adopted the Great Seal of the United States. Obama later adopted it during his campaign.

1789 – Deputies of the French Third Estate took the Tennis Court Oath, it being one of the final events leading to the French Revolution.

1791 – King Louis XVI of France and his immediate family begin the Flight to Varennes disguised as the servants of a Russian baroness during The French Revolution. This attempt at escape was ultimately unsuccessful. They were captured, returned to Paris under guard, and would loose their heads with two years.

1819 – The SS Savannah arrives at Liverpool, UK. She is the first steam-propelled vessel to cross the Atlantic, although most of the journey was made under sail.

1837 – Queen Victoria succeeds to the British throne. She would rule Britain for over 67 years, overseeing the growth of Britain into the superpower of the era.

1840 – Samuel Morse received a patent for the telegraph.

1877 – Alexander Graham Bell installed the world's first commercial telephone service in Canada.

1893 – Lizzie Borden, accused of axe murdering her family, was acquitted by a Massachusetts court. The crime of which she was accused has never been solded.

1944 – The Japanese air and naval forces, decimated at Guadalcanal and replaced by inexperienced troops, suffered an overwhelming defeat at the Battle of the Philippine Sea, also known as the “Great Marianas Turkey Shoot”.

1963 – The "red telephone" is established between the Soviet Union and the United States following the Cuban Missile Crisis.

1991 – Following the reunification with East Germany, the German parliament decides to move the capital from Bonn back to Berlin.

Births

236 BC – Scipio Africanus, the finest Roman general of his era. He would finally defeat Rome's mortal enemy, Hannibal at the battle of Zama, bringing an end to the Second Punic War.

1005 – Ali az-Zahir, Seventh Caliph of the Egyptian Fatimid dynasty. He would try to repair some of the damage done to relations with Christians by his predecesor who had destroyed Christianity's holiest site, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. But it was too little, too late, and Pope Urban II would eventually call for the first Crusade to liberate Jerusalem.

1924 – Audie Murphy, American actor and war hero. He lied about his age and enlisted in the Army in 1942 at the age of 16. In 27 months of combat action, Murphy became one of the most highly decorated United States soldiers of World War II. He received the Medal of Honor, the U.S. military's highest award for valor, along with 32 additional U.S. and foreign medals and citations.

1950 – Nouri Al-Maliki, the current Prime Minister of Iraq. He was origninally challenged as weak and as a tool of Iran, not given any chance of succeeding in leading Iraq to peace and stability. But when the "surge" began, Maliki threw his entire weight behind it, turning on Iranian interests. He has already earned a place in Iraqi history, and that place will be high in the pantheon indeed if he is able to finally unify Iraq and strengthen its democracy.

Deaths

451 – Theodorid, King of the Visigoths, died defending Western Civilization against the mortal threat of Attilla the Hun.

Holidays and observances

Today is the feast day for the tenth century Saint, Adalbert of Magdeburg. He was the first Archbishop of Magdeburg from 968 and a successful missionary to the Slavic peoples to the east of Germany.

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The Rot Of British Socialism

There is an utter rot at the heart of British socialism. Four stories over the past few days from across the pond highlight that rot - the joint attack on British identity by socialists and Muslims, the refusal to let Ghurkas immigrate to the UK, Health and Safety nazis run wild, and the British government's disarming of its citizenry, leaving them unable to defend themselves when their lives are at stake:

The Trinity Cross is a medal that has been awarded to "62 distinguished residents of the former colony of Trinidad and Tobago over more than 40 years." No longer. It has now been ruled "too Christian" and its design changed after a complaint was lodged by a Muslim lawyer. If the people of Trinidad and Tobago wish not to receive an award of a Trinity Cross, they can certainly refuse it. Why on earth should Britain acquiesce in order to assuage what is clearly just one more in a series of relentless attacks from today's politicized Muslims aimed at discrediting Britain's history and destroying it's Christian identity? Obviously, it suits the socialists of Britain who have in fact, since acquiesced to the Muslim demands. As I pointed out in the post Change and the Cessation of British History, the UK's socialists fully share the same interim goals as the radical Muslims - to defeat Christianity and discredit British history as something evil.

In Britain, immigration is at crisis proportions, largely because EU law mandates open borders. This has led to an ever growing spike in the radical Muslim population. Now, the Labour government has finally seen fit to draw a line in the sand as to that portion of immigration which it can control. Hundreds of thousands of Muslims who wish to destroy Western Civilization, they can immigrate. A few thousand Ghurkas, famed warriors whose regiments have fought and died for British freedom and the protection of Western civilization in all of her wars since WWI, they can't.

It is impossible to imagine a more skewed view. Indeed, the most recent idiotic justification for this policy was offered yesterday by Phil Woolas, the socialist Labour Party's Immigration Minister, who said "I can't say "let the nice people in and the nasty people not". We have to have a law." That statement came on the day another Ghurka died fighting for the UK in Afghanistan.

The socialist chattering class in Britain is so deeply immersed in multiculturalism that they seem congenitally unable to distinguish real friend from real foe. The UK's governing socialists reach out to Muslims without distinguishing between the non-radical and the radical, pretending they are all benign because they see in them a reliable voting bloc. They ignore the brutal reality that the huge portion of radicals among them are a viper in their midst that will, at the first chance, consume them and all of Britain whole. (I wrote on a similar, though exponentialy less severe problem in the U.S. here).

It would seem that the socialist's see their greatest enemy as those citizens within their borders who threaten socialist dogma. Thus we see socialists spend their greatest efforts in a war on free speech and Christianity (see also here) in an effort to destroy traditional society and remake it in their own secular marxian vision. As to actual external enemies, socialists invariably rationalize their hostility as justified using the canard of moral relativism. Thus these socialists clearly feel no great compulsion to act with loyalty to those who have defended Britain's traditional values against an enemy the socialists view as equal or morally superior to Britain itself. It is a travesty and a national disgrace.

Then there are the Health and Safety Nazis - another innovation of the socialists taken with the best of intentions - to protect the public from themselves by exercising intrusive control over their daily lives. The latest comes from Oxford University's Bodleian library, where a series of historic books have been kept on equally historic high shelves that, for four centuries, have been accessed, by step ladders. No longer. The public can't access these books anymore because the Health & Safety Officer has decided that using a step ladder is too dangerous for the general public. Using the dictatorial powers of her office, she has effectively shut down a portion of the library to the public.

This mentality, of not trusting the average person to take care of themselves, is a hallmark of the socialist left. Under Health and Safety laws, it simply stifles daily life. Its consequences turn deadly, however, when the government takes away all means for a person to defend themselves from society's predators. In Britain of today, you cannot protect yourself with a handgun as they are illegal. You cannot use a taser to momentarily stun an attacker, they too are illegal. You cannot even use pepper spray, as even that is illegal. What is left to allow the weak to defend themselves from the strong, the prey to fend off the human predator?

Well, there is the government, acting through the police. But police act retrospectively to arrest for crimes committed. They are not, as a rule, a particularly effective means to stop attacks before they happen. By the very nature of crime and predation, the chance of police being on the scene and able to intervene to stop an attack as it occurs is infinitesimal. And thus do you have people such as Melanie Griffiths, 39 year old mother of three, murdered in her house by a man who stalked her for over a month and after she called the police and asked for help on the eve of her murder. This from the Daily Times:

Mary Griffiths, a 38-year- old fitness instructor, had told friends that she was concerned for her safety because of the unwanted attentions of a man. At around 6pm on Tuesday she dialled 999 saying she was being harassed and asking for help.

Police assured her they would be with her within an hour, but never showed up.
She was discovered dying from stab wounds to the chest at her home in Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk, in the early hours of Wednesday.

. . . IPCC Commissioner Len Jackson said: 'People will be understandably shocked and concerned by this vicious attack on a woman in her own home. It is important that we look carefully at how the police chose to respond to contact from Mary Griffiths prior to her death. 'We will therefore carry out a full and independent investigation into the police response.'

The investigation is far too limited. It needs to include an examination of why Ms. Griffiths was denied all means of protecting herself by the British government. Indeed, as I wrote in the post A Constitutional Lesson In British History, the right to own a weapon for self protection is a part of the 1689 British Bill of Rights and, until less then a century ago, in a much more peaceful and law abiding Britain, anyone could own a firearm and travel about with it. Is the enlightened socialist Britain of today better off? If Ms. Griffith, who had been stalked for some time according to the article, knew full well the dangerousness of her situation, why was she not allowed the tools for her own defense. Are we all children in the eyes of the socialists, unable to live life without their constant adult supervision?

The Socialists of Britain can be credited with solving the class distinction problems that existed in the UK when they took power decades ago. Britain of today is much more of a meritocracy today, and the better for it. But that necessary cure was imposed along with a bevy of unnecessary toxins. Those toxins will destroy Britain if it stays on its current trajectory. I oft wonder when the rank and file of Britain will finally say, enough is enough, and force the issue.

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