July 18th 64CE - Nero, who was in Antium on the coast therefore wasn't in Rome when the great fire started that evening, allegedly in some small shops situated on the eastern side of the Circus Maximus. So he didn't play a fiddle (which didn't exist as an instrument yet), or even a lyre (though that was an instrument that existed and which Nero could actually play) while watching the conflagration, despite the best efforts of Suetonius, Cassius Dio and Tacitus to convince us otherwise (Tacitus produced two versions actually - one with Nero as villain and one as hero).



Nero actually set aside his own personal funds for the vast relief effort that he put in motion and supervised after six days of carnage had destroyed ten of Rome's residential districts. He opened his palace as temporary lodging space for the thousands now rendered homeless. Tacitus's passage in his Annals regarding Nero's scapegoating of Rome's Christians and his use of the fire as a pretext to persecute them has been questioned by some with regard to its authenticity. The majority however still regard it as sound, and the martyrdoms of St Peter and St Paul are traditionally dated to the fire's immediate aftermath.

21 July 1620, French astronomer Jean Picard is born;


21 July 1969, US astronauts, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin carry out their first moonwalk

24 July 1967, Charles de Gaulle gives his "Vive le Quebec libre" speech;

Wednesday, July 28th, 1540.

Without wishing to give away the end of Hilary Mantel's trilogy (well I will anyway) this was the day that Thomas Cromwell, the late Chancellor of the Exchequer, Secretary of State, Master of the Rolls, Lord Privy Seal, Lord Great Chamberlain, Earl of Essex and Governor of the Isle of Wight, became just Thomas Cromwell - late - thanks to an executioner's axe on Tower Hill. As if this wasn't bad enough poor Thomas's demise so early in the day meant that he missed the royal wedding later that afternoon between his ex-boss and Catherine Howard.

Thomas's downfall was sudden, even by political standards, and quite complex. The final coup, organised by his arch enemies the Duke of Norfolk and Bishop (Wily Winchester) Gardiner, was possible thanks to the debacle of the proposed, negotiated, performed and then annulled marriage of Henry VIII with Anne of Cleeves all within ten months and the fact that it was upon Cromwell's face (rightly or wrongly - historians differ) that the greatest amount of egg ended up, at least of all the schemers who had ostensibly stood to gain .

What Cromwell stood to gain however is a very moot point indeed, except of course a happy monarch and a European alliance out of the deal had it succeeded. What is undeniable is that the scheme and its collapse exposed Cromwell completely and such is evident in the popular and official charges levelled against him in its wake. His actual religious stance in an age of transition to Protestantism is hard to analyse now without finding always some little thing that appears to contradict whatever one deduces. And such apparent ambivalence - prompted largely by Cromwell himself having studiously avoided nailing too many colours to the mast of a ship of state sailed so erratically by its monarch - led to his detractors accusing him on the one hand of being "too Catholic in his beliefs" while others during his trial said that he was encouraging the Anabaptists (a sect viewed with suspicion bordering on hatred by almost everyone else).

His political approach to foreign policy is probably the soundest area in which to deduce what, if any, consistency can be found in his religious and secular views. His employer's dynastic requirements at home were to be balanced with his equally urgent need to forge strong and permanent alliances abroad. Cromwell, charged with balancing these requirements sought to link them and make each work for the other and, to his credit, appeared to be managing this superbly - even when the negotiations to secure the hand of Anne of Cleeves were reaching conclusion.

It is no surprise therefore that Cromwell's bitterest enemies were to be found within what might be called England's "professional clergy", the leaders of which were increasingly marginalised as Cromwell amassed power and function. Traditionalists (those who would readily have re-embraced Catholicism had the king decided it) were already against him for his prominent role in dismantling the monastery system and stealing its revenues for the crown. As time went on however the more radically reformist Protestant leadership grew to detest him also, probably even more so, as they too found themselves excluded from the centre of power.

It is said that his death brought about great rejoicing, though in truth the chroniclers of the time were none too fond of the man and might here have been reflecting their own relief at his passing. We do however know of one man who grew to bitterly regret Cromwell's execution - the monarch who had had him executed! Less than a year later Henry was to tell the French ambassador how deeply he rued having killed "his most faithful servant".


The late Leo McKern playing Thomas Cromwell. Well actually it's the real Cromwell playing Leo McKern in a painting by Holbein.

Vienna
28 July 1914
The Royal Serbian Government not having answered in a satisfactory manner the note of July 23, 1914, presented by the Austro-Hungarian Minister at Belgrade, the Imperial and Royal Government are themselves compelled to see to the safeguarding of their rights and interests, and, with this object, to have recourse to force of arms.
Austria-Hungary consequently considers herself henceforward in state of war with Serbia.
Count Berchtold

nordmann wrote:

The late Leo McKern playing Thomas Cromwell. Well actually it's the real Cromwell playing Leo McKern in a painting by Holbein.

Holbein never lied - not even about Anne of Cleves. He tried - artist of genius that he was - to do what all artists should do: in Titian's words, he set out "to capture the intention of a man's soul". Or a woman's for that matter. Holbein's infamous miniature of Anne captured her soul all right, even as it may have lied about her face and body: hers was a serene soul - she was a good woman. Henry might have been happier had he stuck with Anna von Cleves. She may have ben a "big" woman, and not a pretty one, but, ironically enough, those generous hips and that healthily nourished body of hers - a body that Henry so sneered at - may well have been capable of producing children far more efficiently than the royal bodies of her more delicately boned and prettier rivals. And her kind nature and common sense would have ensured that her children - and their ill-assorted step-siblings by various unhappy mothers - might have had some chance of a happy and comparatively sane - even if royal - upbringing.   

But the intention of Cromwell's soul? Just look at the man's picture.

Foreign policy and factional infighting certainly played their part in the man's downfall, but ultimately Cromwell fell - like Anne Boleyn - because Henry had had enough of him: he had exposed Henry's weaknesses and that was unforgivable. Starkey says Cromwell was the "jackal to Henry's lion" - absolutely correct - and when the jackal gets too uppity and thinks he knows better than the boss, he has to go.

31 July 1970, Black Tot Day. The Royal Navy's rum ration comes to an end;

http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_8859000/8859506.stm

1 August 1944,

The Warsaw Uprising begins;




http://warsawuprising.com

1 August 1714, the last Stuart monarch, Anne, dies;

Addendum to Triceratop's Battle of Warsaw...



Reading about it I understand the Polish Antoninia on Historum, when we discussed the Belgian resistance in comparison with the Polish one...but as one see it it was a complete other occupation in Belgium as in Poland...perhaps that's also a reason why the Belgian resistance was so "tame"... and perhaps the Belgians not that intended by that to risk their lifes...? not that patriotic and more looking for the preservation of the own personal life...? perhaps with the same antecedents as in Poland perhaps also in Belgium the same reactions...?

Kind regards and with esteem,

Paul.

Monday 3 August 1914

Germany declares war on France and, having already massed troops on the Belgian frontier, demands free access through Belgium to attack France. King Albert I of Belgium sends an urgent telegram to George V appealing for British support, and President Poincare of France writes direct to the British Foreign Secretary, Sir Edward Grey, urging Britain to declare war against Germany.

Grey addresses a packed House of Commons that same bank-holiday afternoon, and while insisting that he had done all he could to avert war he concludes that, "it is clear the peace of Europe cannot be preserved". There is no Commons vote, and indeed many in the government remained bitterly opposed to Britain's involvement, but although two Cabinet ministers resign, all the party leaders, with the exception of Labour's Ramsay Macdonald, back the Liberal government of Herbert Asquith ... and so Britain takes her final steps to war.

That evening from his office window in Whitehall, Grey watches a lamplighter lighting up the street lights and uttered his prophetic words:
"The lamps are going out all over Europe. We shall not see them lit again in our lifetime."

Meles meles wrote:

Monday 3 August 1914

Germany declared war on France and, having already massed troops on the Belgian frontier, demanded free access through Belgium to attack France. King Albert I of Belgium sent an urgent telegram to George V appealing for British support, and President Poincare of France wrote direct to the British Foreign Secretary, Sir Edward Grey, urging Britain to declare war against Germany.

Grey addressed a packed House of Commons that same bank-holiday afternoon, and while insisting that he had done all he could to avert war he concluded that, "it is clear the peace of Europe cannot be preserved". There was no Commons vote, and indeed many in the government remained bitterly opposed to Britain's involvement, but although two Cabinet ministers resigned, all the party leaders, with the exception of Labour's Ramsay Macdonald, backed the Liberal government of Herbert Asquith ... and so Britain took her final steps to war.

That evening from his office window in Whitehall, Grey saw a lamplighter lighting up the street lights and uttered his prophetic words:
"The lamps are going out all over Europe. We shall not see them lit again in our lifetime."

And yes the forts of Liège as in WWII...
http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/german-assault-on-liege-begins-first-battle-of-world-war-i



http://www.belgiumtheplaceto.be/thefirstandthelast/a-story-to-tell

""We've got a story to tell you

http://www.raybishophistory.co.uk/bronze-figures-and-silent-cities-ww1/aspects-of-identity/the-belgian-lancer/#fig3

I didn't find anything in English about the Belgian soldier Antoine Fonck...something in French because most of you understand better French than Dutch...
http://www.lalibre.be/regions/liege/le-cavalier-fonck-premier-soldat-belge-tombe-sous-les-balles-ennemies-en-1914-51b88571e4b0de6db9aac1a0



Kind regards and with esteem from your friend, PauL

4 August 1914

Germany invades Belgium (whose neutrality is guaranteed by the 1839 Treaty of London) and so consequently Great Britain, together with all her colonies, dominions, provinces and protectorates, declares war on Imperial Germany.



On the same day the United States of America declares that it will, "remain neutral throughout any forthcoming hostilities".

PaulRyckier wrote:

Typing "WWI first soldier killed" in Google I received only sites with British and commonwelth soldiers... "Parr" can that be...?

There seems to be quite a lot of uncertainty about Parr's death.

BBC - WW1 Mystery: Who killed Private John Parr?

The first soldiers to be killed were a Frenchman and a German killed during a border violation on the 2nd August, before the official declaration of war between France and Germany;

http://www.westernfrontassociation.com/great-war-people/brothers-arms/1515-the-first-to-fall-peugeot-and-mayer-2-august-1914.html

The Belgian French language newspaper, Le Soir, edition 4th August 1914, announcing the German violation of Belgian neutrality;

Meles meles wrote:

PaulRyckier wrote:

Typing "WWI first soldier killed" in Google I received only sites with British and commonwelth soldiers... "Parr" can that be...?

There seems to be quite a lot of uncertainty about Parr's death.

BBC - WW1 Mystery: Who killed Private John Parr?

 NB: Parr may have been the first British soldier killed but the first British servicemen to be killed were from HMS Amphion on the morning of the 6th August 1914.

HMS Amphion's casualty list includes one George Jennings, Canteen Server, who is listed as an Admiralty civilian - probably the first civilian casualty Britain suffered to enemy action in the Great War.

August 6 1888.  Dozens of war things on this day over the years, but the death of one single woman began a fascination with a crime that lasts till today.  Martha Turner, thought to be Jack the Ripper's first victim in East London, was killed on this day, the first of at least five women to die at the hand of the still unknown killer. Unknown but not unspeculated on by any means, with surgeons, royalty, artists, Polish immigrants, Russians all suggested over the years.  The murders, with their careful surgical removal of organs, and mocking letters to the press, caused huge consternation and panic in the area, despite the killings being only of women working as prostitutes.  (Perhaps because so many women in this poor area of London had to resort to selling their bodies to make ends nearly meet.) 

This is just as much uncertainly about why he stopped killing, with death or emigration the most popular theories.

6 August 1890, in a shambolic execution lasting eight minutes, murderer William Kemmler becomes the first man to be executed in the electric chair;



The chair used in Kemmler's execution.

7 August 1947,  101 days after leaving Peru, Thor Heyerdal's raft, Kon Tiki, lands on Raroia Atoll;

In the early hours of Thursday 8th August 1963, the Glasgow-London mail train is robbed;

Parr was killed in Europe. The first British soldier believed to have been killed in WW1 was RSM Alhaji Grunshi of the Gold Coast Regiment during fighting in Togoland.


from Wiki:
RSM Alhaji Grunshi of the Gold Coast Regiment of the West African Frontier Force, was believed to be the first British soldier to fire a rifle shot in the Great War, on 12 August at Togblekove.

14 August 1969, Operation Banner. British Army deployed to Northern Ireland;

15 August 1965; the Beatles concert at Shea Stadium.

August 18th 1969 was also, like today, a Monday. Today the big news is that Britney Spears was caught lip syncing a ditty called "Perfume" to Sia's vocals at a Las Vegas concert. In 1969 however the world got this ...

19th August 1682 - this appeared in the skies over England;



A member of the Royal Society, Edmund Halley, set about measuring its trajectory and realised quite quickly that it matched a similar event recorded by Kepler in 1607. Tycho Brahe had long ago proven that Aristotle's claim that these "long haired stars" were atmospheric phenomena had to be completely wrong. Brahe could demonstrate that they were well beyond the moon's orbit and the only remaining question was whether they orbited the earth or the sun.

Halley proved that not only was this event similar to Kepler's but that it had to be the same comet. Later he would answer the other question also and even make a prediction for its return based on its orbital trajectory, speed and adjustments to these through gravitational pull exerted by the planets in our solar system.

Fellow Society member Isaac Newton, whose own discovery of a comet the year before had led to no such exact conclusions on his own behalf, was extremely begrudging and resentful of his editor's success (not to mention that the comet would for ever after be known as "Halley's"). Great thinker, but one narky sod by all accounts!

20 August 1989, 51 people are killed when the Thames river boat Marchioness collides with a dredger;

August 20, 1619: The first Africans arrive in the United States, brought in by the Dutch, who sold them as indentured servants at Jamestown Colony in Virginia, the beginning of American slavery.

21 August 1911, Louvre employee Vincenzo Peruggia walks out with this under his coat:



The painting was returned two years later after Peruggia was caught trying to sell it to the Uffizi Gallery in Florence.

22 August 1485;




http://www.bosworthbattlefield.com

August 25th 357CE - Julian Caesar defeats the Alemanni tribe at the battle of Argentoratum

Not a series of typos but an actual event. Julian (though Caesar he was still "deputy emperor" at the time) wiped out the Alemanni threat in a huge battle fought around modern day Strasbourg on this day in 357 despite being heavily outnumbered. The Alemanni who, despite their contribution to many languages' description of Germany today, probably numbered no more than 200,000 Germans in their population of double that amount. The force they sent into battle however was almost exclusively Germanic and numbered up to 35,000 hardened warriors against Julians' 15,000 troops and cavalry.

Julian is notorious in Christian history as "the Apostate", the guy who attempted to stamp them out and reinstate paganism when he became outright emperor of the Western Roman Empire. What he actually legislated to do was remove Christians from the top echelons of politics. He had no problem with the faith itself and did not destroy any bishoprics or buildings. In Jerusalem he even authorised the rebuilding of the Jewish temple, convinced as he was that religious freedom and the right to worship according to anyone's cultural preferences was a good thing - just not so good that one faith from any sub-culture should again dare to supplant the Roman one.

In defeating the Alemanni Julian brought the empire politically and militarily as close to its golden heyday as it had been for many years, freeing up resorces to tackle other dangerous issues (such as Britain being invaded by Picts and Irish) that had been left on hold. His religious and internal civic reforms when appointed Augustus attempted to secure this status, undoing all that he considered divisive which had occurred prior to his reign (including the rise to power of the Christians). His confidence boosted by the obvious success and popularity of his reforms (except amongst Christians) he set out against that eternal nemesis of Rome, the Persians, with great hopes of success.

A random spear cast in battle put paid to all that. The Saracen who chucked it might feel a little aggrieved however with what transpired next. Not only did he never get credit for his marksmanship but within a decade the Christians (now reinstated as top religious dogs in Rome) claimed the assassination for themselves. The first version was that a Christian bodyguard of the emperor had done an "Indira Gandhi" on him. The second and more popular version was that Saint Mercurius himself had descended from heaven kitted out with holy weapons on a holy horse and made the fatal hole in the emperor.

Nordmann,

reading your message I had a vague remembrance of a Roman emperor letting the Salian Franks in Toxandria and from there Childeric, Clovis, Charlemagne...
Did an in depth research for a Frenchman on a French messageboard as to what language the inhabitants of the coastal area, the future Low Countries spoke in the time of Julius Caesar and later with Clovis and all that...the question can not been solved with the nowadays knowledge it seems...but in the meantime I discovered the whole ancient history of the Low Countries...

And indeed:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julian_(emperor)

And:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salian_Franks
And from this article:

"The subsequent "insolent" settlement of the Salians within Roman territory in Toxandria (between the Meuse and the Scheldt rivers in the Netherlands and Belgium) was rejected by the future Roman Emperor Julian the Apostate, who attacked them. The Salians surrendered to him in 358 AD and accepted Roman terms.^[9] According to Zosimus, when the Salians in Batavia came under attack from Saxons, who were this time raiding Roman (and the Salians) from the sea, Julian took the opportunity to peacefully allow the Salii to settle in Toxandria, where they had previously been expelled:

Quote :

"[Julian] commanded his army to attack them briskly; but not to kill any of the Salii, or prevent them from entering the Roman territories, because they came not as enemies, but were forced there [...] As soon as the Salii heard of the kindness of Caesar, some of them went with their king into the Roman territory, and others fled to the extremity of their country, but all humbly committed their lives and fortunes to Caesar's gracious protection." The Salians were then brought into Roman units defending the empire from other Frankish raiders.^[10]

One particular Salian family comes to light of Frankish history in the early fifth century, in time to become the Merovingians – Salian kings named after Childeric's mythical father Merovech, whose birth was attributed with supernatural elements.
From the 420s onwards, headed by a certain Chlodio, they expanded their territory to the Somme into northern France. They formed a kingdom in that area with the Belgian city of Tournai becoming the center of their domain. This kingdom was extended further by Childeric and especially Clovis, who gained control over Roman Gaul, i.e. France, whose current name was derived from the Franks.
In 451, Flavius Aëtius, de facto ruler of the Western Roman Empire, called upon his Germanic allies on Roman soil to help fight off an invasion by Attila's Huns. The Salian Franks answered the call and fought in the battle of the Catalaunian Fields in a temporary alliance with Romans and Visigoths, which de facto ended the Hunnic threat to Western Europe.
Clovis, king of the Salian Franks, became the absolute ruler of a Germanic kingdom of mixed Roman-Germanic population in 486. He consolidated his rule with victories over the Gallo-Romans and all the other Frankish tribes and established his capital in Paris. After he had beaten the Visigoths and the Alemanni, his sons drove the Visigoths to Spain and subdued the Burgundians, Alemanni and Thuringians. After 250 years of this dynasty, however, marked by internecine struggles, a gradual decline occurred. The position in society of the Merovingians was taken over by Carolingians, who came from a northern area around the river Maas in what is now Belgium and southern Netherlands."


Kind regards and with esteem as always,

Paul?

The Lego version ...

28 August 1914, the first significant naval battle of World War One takes place in the Heligoland Bight;

British sailors watch the German cruiser Mainz sinking;

28 August 1810, after a week of combat operations in Mauritius, the survivors of a British frigate squadron surrender in what was the Royal Navy's biggest defeat of the Napoleonic Wars;

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Grand_Port

29th August 1914: New Zealand started its world war one campaign by taking Samoa off the Germans at the behest of Britain.  The soldiers may well have been a bit disappointed not to be heading to Europe to fight the Huns, but their relatives might well have been happier, though perhaps there was more fraternising with the Germans than they might have wished. Some of the Germans and their Samoan servants were made prisoners of war at Somes/Matui Island.  It was a bloodless coup, but I think the Samoan community had preferred their German rulers to the ones from Aotearoa.  A few years ago the government here issued an apology to Samoa for its treatment of people there. 

After the war there was consideration of who should rule Samoa, and NZ thought it should be them.  http://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/cgi-bin/paperspast?a=d&d=CHP19190131.2.53
And it was till 1962.

After several thousand years of human inhabitation the Scottish island of St Kilda is finally evacuated on this day, August 29th, in 1930.

In a move that today seems absurd, if not actually cruel, the Scottish Office at the time forbade news reporters or newsreel journalists from recording the event as the last 36 St Kildans were moved to their new mainland home, having voluntarily opted to abandon an island that had become increasingly isolated and difficult to live on since the cessation of naval activity in the area during World War One had severely restricted subsequent supply and transport opportunities. The last straw had been the death of a young married woman earlier in 1930, Mary Gillies. Suffering from terrible abdominal pains her transfer to hospital on the mainland for treatment had taken weeks, a passing trawler having first to be informed to deliver the request for help and bad weather then preventing the lighthouse ship sent to collect her from setting out. Her son Norman was to learn only 61 years later that the "appendicitis" with which she had been diagnosed was pregnancy complicated by severe pneumonia. When he lost his mother he had also lost a baby sister he never knew he had.

Despite the Scottish Office ban (blissfully unaware of it in fact as he wasn't actually a journalist) an egg collector and amateur film camera enthusiast John P. Ritchie happened to be on the island in the days running-up to the evacuation, capturing images of several of the islanders (and a lot of birds), as well as the ship and boats that would eventually be used to transport them and their belongings to their new lives. The Scottish Screen Archive has a copy that can be viewed online.

Scottish Screen Archive: St Kilda


"Posting the Mailboat, 1897". A St Kildan "posts" a letter to the mainland. Sealed in a watertight container and kept afloat with an inflated sheep's bladder the islander lets the currents and tide (and the hopeful cooperation of a mainland beachcomber) take care of the rest of the process.

August 29th, 1966. The Beatles play their last concert before a paying public at Candlestick Park, San Francisco.



August 14th this year and one of the band members returns to Candlestick Park to check if the amps have improved somewhat in the intervening 48 years.

Paul MacCartney Concert preparations

1 September 1870; the Battle of Sedan during the Franco-Prussian War is a decisive defeat for the Second French Empire;

Photograph of German skirmishers moving towards the French positions;

I don't know if the battle of Sedan cited by Trike actually rang the death-knell of the series, but I remember reading that Emile Zola never wrote quite as many novels in his Rougon-Macquart saga as originally planned because the subject matter was the history of a family under the Second French Empire and the empire folded with the Franco-Prussian war.  Mind you, I wonder if he had tired of writing them.

I've only ever read The Debacle , in which the battle of Sedan features, of any of Zola's books, LiR. Though it is one of my all time favourites.

2 September 1898, what for me is  the high water mark of the Victorian Empire, the Battle of Omdurman;

3 September 1939 – that evening on the very day that Britain declared war on Germany, the country experienced its first civilian fatality directly attributable to the war.  

An overly conscientious policeman, 25 year old PC George Rodney Southworth, noticing a light shining from an upper-storey room in London’s Harley Street, and unable to rouse the occupants to alert them to their inadequate blackout, shinned up a drainpipe with his torch clenched between his teeth. But he lost his grip as he reached the third-floor and plunged to his death.

I don't know about civilian deaths in either wars here, MM, but the first soldier death in NZ in WWI was also the result of a fall. Sapper Robert Hislop was guarding the Parnell Bridge in Auckland when he took a step backwards and fell.  This was on August 13th and he died on August 19th.  Then another young man died of pneumonia in camp still in NZ on the 25th August.

3 September 1967, Dagen H, Sweden switches from driving on the left to driving on the right;

Contrary to rumours, Trike, they did it at one time, even though it was considered doing it in steps by starting with lorries and buses, and then cars and bikes following ...

Which reminded me of this brilliant film, which prompted me to search for it online, which led me to the wondrous fact that it's available in its entirety on YouTube (for the moment).

Nielsen wrote:

Contrary to rumours, Trike, they did it at one time, even though it was considered doing it in steps by starting with lorries and buses, and then cars and bikes following ...

I had to think about that for a minute, Nielsen !!!!!!!

4 September 1964, 50 years old today, the Forth Road Bridge:

Trike, you might enjoy this, it was only on in Scotland, I think, and is available until Sunday.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b04g80p8/the-bridge-fifty-years-across-the-forth

Ferval - alas, it's only available to viewers within the UK.

It's a little late but 100 years ago on September 1st Martha died.  Martha was the last passenger pigeon left, apparently, out of the millions that had flown over America until the 19th century. I do find it hard to understand how, no matter what sort of hunting went on and how mechanized, a species that was so incredibly numerous only decades before could become extinct in such a short period of time.  And why did no one notice in time to contain more in zoos, etc.