almanac


	Today in History
	26 August

	55 BC - Miltary expedition to Britain under Julius Caesar sets sail. The infantry embarked at Boulogne (Portus Itius) and the cavalry six miles up the coast at Ambleteuese (Portus Ulterior). The embarkation of the cavalry was delayed, and when they finally set sail they were forced to turn back by adverse tides. The first ships carrying the infantry with Caesar in the lead reached Britain at about 9 o'clock the next morning (August 27), and saw the British warriors lining the cliffs of Dover. Julius Caesar made two attempts at invading Britain. This one in 55BC and one in 54BC. Both times he made some progress into England before returning to Gaul having not successfully conquered Britain. Caesar reported that the Britons were a strange breed of people. He said that they dyed themselves blue and were very barbaric. Caesar's visit may not have overwhelmed the island but the Romans now knew that Britain really did exist (many people thought that it was a magical or even made up Island before his visit) and that it had lots of valuable crops and minerals.He accepted a promise of tribute from local chiefs and then returned to Gaul. Another reason for a hasty return to Gaul was that Caesar had heard of rebellion in Gaul and went back to crush it. The Britons were beaten, but no territory was added to Roman power, no garrison was left behind, no wealth was taken to Rome, and no prisoners were taken. Caesar never again came to Britain. For the next few years, he was at war with Pompey, and then he was assassinated, just when he was on the verge of becoming emperor. The Romans did not conquer Britain until AD 43 under Emperor Claudius.
	1071 Turkish Seljuks beat the Byzantine forces at Malazgirt battle, gaining entry into Anatolia and opening the road to Europe.	John Dudley
	1316 Artillery is reportedly used for first time in history in the Battle of Crecy in northern France.
	1278 Rudolf I of Hapsburg defeats King Ottokar II of Bohemia in the Battle on the Marchfield. Ottokar was killed during the battle and was succeedded by his son Winceslaus II as king who died in 1305. Following this Austria and Styria become part of the House of Hapsburg. The area called "Marchfield" is near Durnkrut, Austria.
	1346 (Hundred Years War) A small English army of 10,000 men under Edward III defeated Philip VI's superior French forces in the battle of Crecy. It was the first battle during which the English used only infantry and longbowmen.
	1541 Suleiman I of Turkey captured Buda and annexed Hungary up to the left bank of the Danube River after a dispute with Archduke Ferdinand of Hapsburg over claims to the Hungarian kingdom.
	1545 Pope Paul III names his son Pierluigi Farnese, duke of Parma
	1549 John Dudley (from 1551 duke of Northumberland) suppressed the rebellion of Robert Kett at Dussingdale near Norwich. Dudley was born in 1502? and died in 1553 and was an English statesman and soldier. He was one of the executors of Henry VIII's will and he helped Edward Seymour, later duke of Somerset, become protector of the young Edward VI. He was created earl of Warwick and Lord High Chamberlain. Robert Kett (or Ket or Ketts) born in Wymondham in 1492 and died (executed) in 1549. Robert Kett was a tanner by trade but also a substantial landowner in the area. He is best known as a rebel although he was very wealthy by the standards of the time. Through pure chance he found himself leader of an agrarian revolt in 1549 as a protest against the "Enclosure" of common land for sheep grazing. Ketts at one point had at his command 16,000 men with which he blockaded Norwich. Warwick had professional soldiers including cavalry at his command as well as military training. Ketts and his men were defeated. Subsequently Robert Ketts and his brother William were both captured and hanged for treason.
	1596 Frederik V, king of Bohemia (White Mountain) was born	Sir Robert Walpole
	1629 Signing of the Cambridge Agreement in which the Puritan stockholders of the Massachusetts Bay Company agreed to emigrate to New England on the condition that they would have control of the government of the colony. The Company was set up to manage the Massachusetts Bay Colony which in the same year (1629) King Charles I gave the Puritans a right to settle and govern a colony in the Massachusetts Bay area. The colony established political freedom and a representative government.
	1634 Battle at Nordlingen Bavaria during the Thirty Years War (1618-1648). An imperial army under Gallas defeated Protestant troops led by Duke Bernhard of Saxe-Weimar. The imperial camp during the 30 Years War was led by King Ferdinand of Habsburg who was also Holy Roman Emperor Ferdinand II. The Thirty Years War was the last major war of religion in Europe with the fighting being between Catholics from Austria and Spain on the one side and Protestants from Sweden and from the German states under the leadership of Swedish King Gustavus Adolphus on the other. France (that was mainly Catholic) under Loius XIII and Cardinal Richelieu later became involved on the Protestant side.
	1641 West India Company conquerors Sao Paulo de Loanda, Angola
	1648 People's uprising against Anna of Austria and Cardinal Mazarin in France
	1676 Birth of Sir Robert Walpole, British statesman and politician. Chancellor of the exchequer (finance minister) under King George I, he chaired a group of ministers and was therefore seen as England’s first prime minister.
	1740 Birth of Joseph-Michel Montgolfier, French inventor. He and his brother Jacques-Etienne invented the hot air balloon in 1783.
	1743 Birth of Antoine Lavoisier, French chemist. Often described as the founder of modern chemistry, he discovered "dephlogisticated air" which he called oxygen. He was executed during the French Revolution in 1794.
	1745 England, Prussia and Hannover sign treaty
	1791 John Fitch grants US patent for his working steamboat
	1813 After an initial victory, the French under Marshal Jacques Macdonald were beaten by the Prussians under Gen. Blucher at the battle of Katzbach, Germany. Following the disastrous Russian campaign of 1812 and although Napoleon and the French army had been victorious at the battles of Lutzen (2 May 1813) and Bautzen (20 May 1813), its position was far from strong and Napoleon agreed to an armistice with Prussia and Russia. The armistice was largely organized by Prince Metternich who desired to maintain Austria's position as an armed mediator. The armistice was signed on 4 June 1813 and lasted until 11 August 1813. The Congress of Prague opened on the 29th July 1813 with discussions among Austria, Prussia, Russia and France. While these discussions were proceeding the Austrians were resupplying the Prussian and Russian armies. Napoleon was fully aware of this activity. After much negotiation the outcome of the Congress resulted in Austria openly allying itself with Prussia and Russia against Napoleon and declaring war on France on August 12th, 1813. The series of battles fought during the latter half of 1813 led to the loss of Germany by the French and then Napoleon's brief exile on the Isle of Elba (Italy).
	1843 Charles Thurber patents a typewriter	Joseph-Michel Montgolfier
	1846 W A Bartlett appointed 1st US mayor of Yerba Buena (Spanish for "Good Grass" later known as San Francisco, California)
	1847 Liberia is proclaimed an independent republic.
	1858 The Treaty of Edo was signed which provided for the opening up of Japan to British trade and establishes British residency.
	1873 1st public school kindergarten opens in St Louis
	1883 A massive eruption of a volcano on the island of Krakatoa in the Sunda Strait between Java and Sumatra started. The two-day eruption and associated tidal waves killed some 36,000 people and destroyed two-thirds of the island. The noise of the eruption was said to have been heard at many hundreds of miles away.
	1884 The French governor of Cochinchina (southern Viet Nam) orders the construction of the shipyard Bassin de Radoub in Saøi Goøn.
	1894 The Social-Democratic Worker's party (SDAP) forms in the Netherlands
	1895 Electric power plant at Niagara Falls produces 1st steam
	1896 Insurrection begins in the Philippines against the Spanish.
	1896 Armenian revolutionaries attacked the Ottoman Bank in Constantinople, provoking a three-day battle in which at least 6,000 Armenians died.
	1906 Albert Bruce Sabin, US virologist, is born in Poland. In 1955, he developed an oral vaccine against polio.
	1907 Illusionist Harry Houdini escapes from chains underwater at Aquatic Park in 57 sec
	1914 In World War I, the Russians under Renenkampf and Samsonov were heavily out-maneuvered by the Germans under Hindenburg and Ludendorff at the battle of Tannenberg. Over 30,000 Russians were killed.
	1915 German troops over run Brest-Litovsk, Russia	Montgolfier
	1920 The 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was ratified giving women the vote
	1922 Japanese cruiser Niitaka leaves in storm at Kamchatka, 300 killed
	1929 1st US roller coaster built
	1937 Franco's troops conquer Santander, Spain
	1937 Pumping to build Treasure Island in San Francisco Bay is finished
	1938 British leaders and Arabians fight in Palestine
	1939 Belgium mobilizes against Germany
	1939 Kroatia gets autonomous status
	1944 In World War II, Bulgaria announced that it had withdrawn from the war and that German troops were to be disarmed.
	1942 7,000 Jews are rounded up in Vichy-France
	1942 Japanse troops land at Milne Bay, New Guinea,
	1942 Russian counter offensive begins in Moscow
	1944 Bulgaria announces withdrawal and German troops are to be disarmed
	1944 De Gaulle marches at the head of Free French in Paris on the Champs Elysées
	1946 George Orwell publishes "Animal Farm"
	1951 Jongbloed in Paris demonstrates artificial heart
	1957 USSR announces successful test of intercontinental ballistic missile
	1964 Italians Communist Party selects Luigi Longo as chairman
	1967 Dutch 2nd Chamber demands US stop bombing North Vietnam
	1971 Dutch Queen Juliana and Prince Bernhard visit Indonesia
	1972 20th Olympic games open at Munich German FR
	1973 10-year-old Mary Boitano is 1st woman to win 6.8-mile Dipsea Race
	1973 David Eisenhower writes his last sports column
	1974 Guinee-Bissau becomes independent of Portugal
	1976 Prince Bernhard, husband of Queen Juliana of the Netherlands, agreed to resign his positions with the Dutch armed forces and industry following severe criticism of his behavior by a commission of inquiry into a Lockheed bribery scandal.
	1977 Frank Martinus Arion forms Surinamese Writers group 77
	1978 Cardinal Albino Luciani of Venice was elected as Pope John Paul I. He served only 33 days before dying of a heart attack on September 28.
	1978 Sigmund Jahn became the first German in space when he blasted off aboard Russia's Soyuz 31.
	1981 Voyager 2 takes photo's of Saturn's moon Titan
	1982 NASA launches Telesat-F
	1982 The Argentine government lifted a ban on political parties.
	1993 Russian President Boris Yeltsin signed a friendship treaty with the Czech Republic after condemning the 1968 Soviet-led invasion of Czechoslovakia.
	1997 South Africa's last white president, F.W. de Klerk, announced he was quitting as leader of the opposition National Party

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