#ending the french-norman era with french troops

[gardenofkore]

Vere novo , priori jam mutato consilio , Alienora virgo regia , insignis facie , sed prudentia & honestate prestantior , futura Regina Sicilie , atque cum ea Nymphe obsequiis apte regalibus , accepta benedictione parentum , ab urbe Neapoli gloriosas discessit , per Calabriam , propter maris tedium , usque Regium iter agens : quam discedentem Neapolitane matres , quantum spectantes oculi capere potuerunt , effusis pre gaudio lacrimis affequute sunt.

Gregorio Rosario, Bibliotheca scriptorum qui res in Sicilia gestas sub Aragonum imperio retulere, I, p.456-457

Eleonora was born in Naples in the summer of 1289 as the tenth child (third daughter) of Carlo II lo Zoppo of Anjou, King of Naples, Count of Anjou and Maine, Count of Provence and Forcalquier, Prince of Achaea, and of Maria of Hungary.

Nothing, in particular, is known about her childhood, which she must have spent with her numerous siblings in the many castles of the Kingdom.

She is first mentioned in a Papal bull dated 1300 in which Boniface VIII annulled the marriage of 10 years-old Eleonora to Philippe de Toucy, Prince of Antioch and Count of Tripoli, (the contract had been signed the year before) on account of the bride’s young age and the fact that family hadn’t asked for the Pope’s dispensation.

Two years later, there were discussions of a match with Sancho, the second son (and later successor) of Jaume II of Majorca, but the engagement never occurred.

Finally, in 1302, Eleonora’s fate was sealed. On August 31st 1302 the Houses of Anjou-Naples and of Barcelona signed the Peace of Caltabellotta, which ended the first part of the War of the Sicilian Vespers and settled (or tried to) the problem of which House should have ruled over Sicily. Following this treaty, the old Norman Kingdom’s territory (disputed between the French and Spanish born ruling houses) was to be divided into two parts, with Messina Strait as the ideal boundary line. The peninsular part, the Kingdom of Sicily, now designed as citra farum (on this side of the farum, meaning the strait, later simply known as the Kingdom of Naples ), and the island of Sicily, renamed the Kingdom of Trinacria, designed as ultra farum (beyond the farum).

The Peace of Caltabellotta stipulated that Angevin troops should evacuate the island, while the Aragonese ones should leave the peninsular part. Foundation of the peace would have been the marriage between princess Eleonora of Anjou and King Federico III (or II) of Sicily (“e la pau fo axi feyta , quel rey Carles lexava la illa de Sicilia al rey Fraderich, que li donava a Lieonor, qui era e es encara de les pus savies chrestianes, e la millor qui el mon fos, si no tant solament madona Blanca, sa germana, regina Darago. E lo rey de Sicilia desemparava li tot quant tenia en Calabria e en tot lo regne: e aço se ferma de cascuna de les parts, e que lentredit ques llevava de Sicilia; si que tot lo regne nach gran goig." in Ramon Muntaner, Crónica catalana, ch. CXCVIII). The pact dictated also that once Federico had died, the two kingdoms would be reunited under the Angevin rule. This clause won’t be fulfilled.

The bridal party had to wait until spring 1303 before setting off for her new country since sea storms had damaged part of the fleet and thus delayed the departure. The voyage had cost 610 ounces, where the Florentine bankers Bardi and Peruzzi were asked to advance the payment, and the groom pledged to repay them 140 ounces.

By May 1303, Eleonora and her companions arrived in Messina where she was warmly welcomed and where on Pentecost, May 26th, of the same year she got married to Federico in Messina’s Cathedral (“E a poch de temps lo rey Carles trames madona la infanta molt honrradament a Macina, hon fo lo senyor rey Fraderich, qui la reebe ab gran solemnitat. E aqui a Macina, a la sgleya de madona sancta Maria la Nova, ell la pres per muller e aquell dia fo llevat lentredit per lola la terra de Sicilia per un llegat del Papa, qui era archebisbe, que hi vench de part del Papa, e foren perdonats a tot hom tots los pe cats quen la guerra haguessen feyts: e aquell dia fo posada corona en lesta a madona la regina de Sicilia, e fo la festa la major a Macina que hanch si faes.” in Ramon Muntaner, Crónica catalana, ch. CXCVIII).

After the wedding, most of the bridal party returned to Naples, while the newlyweds proceeded to Palermo.

On July 14th 1305 Eleonora gave birth to the heir, who was called Pietro in honour of the child’s paternal grandfather, Pere III of Aragon. To celebrate his son’s birth, Federico III gifted his bride of Avola castle and the surrounding land, to which will be added the city of Siracusa (in 1314), Lentini, Mineo, Vizzini, Paternò, Castiglione, Francavilla and the farmhouses in Val di Stefano di Briga. This gift would mark the creation of the Camera reginale, which would become the traditional wedding present given to Sicilian Queen consorts, and eventually would be abolished in 1537.

Including Pietro, she would give birth to nine children: Costanza (1304 – post 1344), future Queen consort of Cyprus, Armenia and Princess consort of Antiochia; Ruggero (born circa in 1305 - ?) who would die young; Manfredi (1306-1317) first among his brothers to hold the title of Duke of Athens and Neopatras; Isabella (1310-1349) Duchess consort of Bavaria; Guglielmo (1312-1338) Prince of Taranto and heir to the Duchy of Athens and Neopatras following the death of his brother; Giovanni (1317-1348) Duke of Randazzo, Count of Malta, later also Duke of Athens and Neopatras and Regent of Sicily; Caterina (1320-1342) Abbess of St. Claire Nunnery in Messina; Margherita (1331-1377) Countess Palatine consort of the Rhine.

Through these donations Eleonora became a full-fledged vassal, and had to pay homage to her husband the King. Thanks to official documents, we get the idea that Eleonora tried to manage her lands as much personally as she could do, naming herself vicars, administrators, and granting tariff reductions. Federico indulged his wife as much as he could, although in some cases (like the management of the city of Siracusa) his will was the only one taken into account.

Despite almost every time she was unsuccessful, Eleonora fully embraced her role as mediator between the Aragonese and Angevins. For example, in 1312 her brother-in-law, King Jaume II of Aragon, asked her to dissuade her husband (Jaume’s brother) to ally himself with the Holy Roman Emperor Heinrich VII of Luxembourg since this alliance could generate new friction with the Angevin Kingdom, as well as with the Papacy (with the risk of stalling the Aragonese occupation of Sardinia). After the King of Aragon, it was Pope Clemente’s turn to ask Eleonora to convince Federico to make peace with Roberto of Anjou. In both cases, though, her conciliatory efforts didn’t work.

In 1321 she witnessed her son Pietro being associated to the throne and thus crowned in Palermo (“Anno domini millesimo tricentesimo vicesimo primo, dum Johannes Romanus Pontifex contra Fridericum Regem, & Siculos propter invasionem bonorum Ecclesiarum precipue fulminaret, Fridericus Rex primogenitum suum Petrum, convenientibus Siculis, coronavit in Regem, & patris obitum, inopinatum premetuens, & ut filius qui purus videbatur & simplex, ab adoloscentia regnare cum patre affuesceret patrisque regnando vestigiis inhereret […]” in Gregorio Rosario, Bibliotheca scriptorum ..., I, p. 482). Pietro’s coronation publicly violated the Treaty of Caltabellotta (as the Kingdom should have returned to the House of Anjou), causing the pursuing of warfare between Naples and Palermo. Once again Eleonora’s attempts at peace-making failed miserably, with her nephew, Carlo Duke of Calabria, refusing to even meet her in 1325, after he had successfully raided the outskirts of Messina.

The Queen didn’t have much luck in internal policy too as she failed to appease her husband and her protegé, Giovanni II Chiaramonte. After gravely wounding Count Francesco I Ventimiglia of Geraci (his brother-in-law and one of the King’s trustees), all that Eleonora could do was advise Chiaramonte to flee to avoid the death penalty.

Nevertheless, the Pope still hoped to use the Queen (who, at that time and alone in her Kingdom,  was exempted from the Papal interdict) as mediator with her husband, promising to lift the excommunication in exchange for Federico’s backing down. Once again nothing happened.

On June 25th 1337 Federico III died near Paternò. He was buried in Catania since it was too hot for the body to be transported to Palermo (“Feretrum humeris nobiliores efferunt. Adsunt Regii filii, proceresque Regni. Exequias Regina, illustribus comitata matronis, prosequitur.” in Francesco Testa, De vita, et rebus gestis Federici 2. Siciliæ Regis, p.225). After the death of her husband, the now Dowager Queen turned to religion, following the example of those in her family who had consecrated themself to Christ (“At Heleonora certiorem fe de illa consolandi rationem inivit. Ipsa enim , ut Rex excessit e vita, ei, qui omnis consolationis fons est, fese in Virginum collegio Franciscanæ familiæ Catinæ devovit; in hoc Catharinan , & Margaritam filias imitata, quæ in ætatis flore, falsis terrestribus, contemptis bonis, Christ, cui fervire regnare est, in sacrarum Virginum Messanensi Collegio, de Basicò dicto, ejusdem Franciscanæ familiæ fese consecrarant; quod Collegium posteaquam Catharina fancte gubernavit, sanctitatis opinione commendata deceffit” in Francesco Testa, De vita..., p.226).

If Eleonora might have hoped to exert some kind of influence as many other Queen mothers did in the past and would do in the future over their weak-willed royal children, she would soon realize she had a powerful rival in the new Queen consort, her daughter-in-law, Elisabetta of Carinthia. Like Eleonora, the new Queen supported the Latin faction (a group of Sicilian noblemen who opposed the Aragonese rulership over Sicily, hoping the island would be returned under the influence of the Angevins instead). But, while Elisabetta had managed to raise the Palizzis to the highest positions at court, her mother-in-law still supported the Chiaramonte, making it possible for the exiled Giovanni II to return to Sicily, be pardoned by the King and see all his goods be returned. Soon though Chiaramonte resumed his personal feud against the Ventimiglia (also part of the Latin faction) and once again Eleonora's attempt to bring peace failed miserably. Only through Grand Justiciar Blasco II d'Alagona's intervetion, the crisis was averted.

In 1340, the Dowager Queen made a last attempt to appease the new Pope, Benedict XII. Unfortunately, the Sicilian envoys sent to Avignon to take an oath of vassalage (since Norman times Sicily theoretically belonged to the Papacy, who granted it to the Sovereigns who acted as Papal Legates) were treated roughly by the Pope, who declared Roberto of Anjou (Eleonora's brother) as Sicily's legitimate King.

Deeply distraught, the Dowager Queen resolved to definitely retire from public life. She spent what it remained on her life visiting the monastery of San Nicolo' d'Arena (Catania), joining the monks in their religious life. She died in one of the monastery's cells on August 10th 1341. Her body would be buried in the Church of San Francesco d'Assisi all'Immacolata (Catania), the construction of which she had personally promoted in 1329 to thank the Virgin Mary for protecting the city from one of many Mount Etna's eruptions.

Sources

AMARI MICHELE, La guerra del Vespro siciliano

CORRAO PIETRO, PIETRO II, re di Sicilia in Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani, Vol. 83

DE COURCELLES JEAN BAPTISTE PIERRE JULLIEN, Histoire généalogique et héraldique des pairs de France: des grands dignitaires de la couronne, des principales familles nobles du royaume et des maisons princières de l'Europe, Vol. XI,

FODALE SALVATORE, Federico III d’Aragona, re di Sicilia, in Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani, Vol. 45

GREGORIO ROSARIO, Bibliotheca scriptorum qui res in Sicilia gestas sub Aragonum imperio retulere, I,

KIESEWETTER ANDREAS, ELEONORA d'Angiò, regina di Sicilia, in Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani, Vol. 42

de MAS LATRIE LOUIS, Histoire de l'île de Chypre sous le règne des princes de la maison de Lusignan. 3

MUNTANER RAMON, Crónica catalana

Sicily/naples: counts & kings

TESTA FRANCESCO, De vita, et rebus gestis Federici 2. Siciliæ Regis

[qqueenofhades]

hello friendly tumblr historian! i have a question that might be stupid haha i was wondering why england hasnt been invaded for such a long time? i have just started the first war & peace email and it has a footnote talking about napoleon invading his way around Europe, and im thinking abt the nazis invading people etc, and im wondering why england hasnt been invaded since (am i right in this?) the normans?

Several factors, namely luck, geographical position, and political circumstances. The last successful invasion of England was in 1066 under William the Conqueror, so yes, the Normans were the last ones to pull it off. After that, the kings of England were simultaneously the dukes/counts/lords of large parts of France, including eventually Normandy, Brittany, Maine, Anjou, Aquitaine, Gascony, and Poitiers. They were also, until about 1204 (when Philip II of France recaptured Normandy), generally far more powerful than the French kings, and were not shy in popping back over to France in attempts to win more chunks of it. As such, the Anglo-French skirmishes/wars took place in France, since that is where the disputed lands were located, and not in England.

Secondly, the UK is (obviously) an island, and it is a LOT harder to successfully invade it than it is to just march your troops over into your neighbor's kingdom on land. The English were wise to this fact early on, and had a functioning navy by the 11th century, when it was ruled by the Vikings for a while. In the late medieval and early modern era, the navy continued to develop, and by the Age of Sail (17th/18th centuries), British naval power considerably outstripped comparable European nations. However, before that, in 1588, the Spanish Armada famously tried to invade in order to remove Queen Elizabeth I from the throne, and was only defeated by an EXTREMELY fortunately timed storm. If said storm hadn't happened, things could have gone very differently. However, of such coincidences is history made.

By the late 18th/early 19th centuries, Britain was the unquestioned naval power in the world, was busily engaged in colonial and imperial expansion and thereby invading everywhere else instead. And in another much-mythologized victory, they defeated Napoleon's forces in the sea battle of Trafalgar in 1805, reducing the likelihood of any attempted direct attack. So yes, various armies HAVE tried to invade since 1066, but for one reason or another, they haven't been successful.

During the early days of WWII, Hitler was drawing up plans for a full-scale invasion of Britain, and the Blitz, which began in September 1940, was the prelude to this. Hitler's strategy was to pummel the UK into submission and weaken them up for the subsequent invasion, but that did not end up working and Hitler was, of course, never able to actually pull it off. So while it's possible to count both the Blitz and its predecessor in WWI, the German zeppelin raids, as invasions of a sort due to the territory of the country being physically attacked, it wasn't an actual large-scale occupying force, and it didn't end up succeeding in either case.

[brookstonalmanac]

Events 3.6 (after 1940)

1943 – Norman Rockwell published Freedom from Want in The Saturday Evening Post with a matching essay by Carlos Bulosan as part of the Four Freedoms series. 1943 – World War II: Generalfeldmarschall Erwin Rommel launches the Battle of Medenine in an attempt to slow down the British Eight Army. It fails, and he leaves Africa three days later. 1943 – World War II: The Battle of Fardykambos, one of the first major battles between the Greek Resistance and the occupying Royal Italian Army, ends with the surrender of an entire Italian battalion, the bulk of the garrison of the town of Grevena, leading to its liberation a fortnight later. 1944 – World War II: Soviet Air Forces bomb an evacuated town of Narva in German-occupied Estonia, destroying the entire historical Swedish-era town. 1945 – World War II: Cologne is captured by American troops. On the same day, Operation Spring Awakening, the last major German offensive of the war, begins. 1946 – Ho Chi Minh signs an agreement with France which recognizes Vietnam as an autonomous state in the Indochinese Federation and the French Union. 1951 – Cold War: The trial of Ethel and Julius Rosenberg begins. 1953 – Georgy Malenkov succeeds Joseph Stalin as Premier of the Soviet Union and First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. 1957 – Ghana becomes the first Sub-Saharan country to gain independence from the British. 1964 – Nation of Islam leader Elijah Muhammad officially gives boxing champion Cassius Clay the name Muhammad Ali. 1964 – Constantine II becomes the last King of Greece. 1965 – Premier Tom Playford of South Australia loses power after 27 years in office. 1967 – Cold War: Joseph Stalin's daughter Svetlana Alliluyeva defects to the United States. 1968 – Three rebels are executed by Rhodesia, the first executions since UDI, prompting international condemnation. 1970 – An explosion at the Weather Underground safe house in Greenwich Village kills three. 1975 – For the first time the Zapruder film of the assassination of John F. Kennedy is shown in motion to a national TV audience by Robert J. Groden and Dick Gregory. 1975 – Algiers Accord: Iran and Iraq announce a settlement of their border dispute. 1984 – In the United Kingdom, a walkout at Cortonwood Colliery in Brampton Bierlow signals the start of a strike that lasted almost a year and involved the majority of the country's miners. 1987 – The British ferry MS Herald of Free Enterprise capsizes in about 90 seconds, killing 193. 1988 – Three Provisional Irish Republican Army volunteers are shot dead by the SAS in Gibraltar in Operation Flavius. 1992 – The Michelangelo computer virus begins to affect computers. 2003 – Air Algérie Flight 6289 crashes at the Aguenar – Hadj Bey Akhamok Airport in Tamanrasset, Algeria, killing 102 out of the 103 people on board. 2008 – A suicide bomber kills 68 people (including first responders) in Baghdad on the same day that a gunman kills eight students in Jerusalem. 2018 – Forbes names Jeff Bezos as the world's richest person, for the first time, at $112 billion net worth. 2020 – Thirty-two people are killed and 81 are injured when gunmen open fire on a ceremony in Kabul, Afghanistan. The Islamic State claims responsibility for the attack.

[blackboar]

Journey to Bosworth: Behind Henry Tudor, the hand of France.

Today we're not talking about a particular figure that was vindicated or wronged at Bosworth field but about a country whose support was important, if not decisive, in the Tudor triumph: France.

France's support for the Tudor cause is a primal example of internal policy shaping the foreign one. During Louis XI's reign (1461-1483), France became more centralized country, destroying many powerful vassal's fiefdoms (Anjou, Burgundy, Armagnac, etc.…). Louis had made plans to incorporate one of the last large feudal demesnes autonomous from royal power: the duchy of Britanny. Britanny had been sometimes an English ally during the Hundred Years War, and it had a very fragile succession as Francis II of Britanny had only two daughters and cousins eager to take their place when he died. The issue was that Louis XI died before and left as ruler thirteen years of Charles VIII under his elder sister, Anne de Beaujeu. Anne wanted to pursue her father's expansionist policy. Still, as a regent, her position was far less secure, and there was a backlash from the nobility against her father's legacy. So France was quite unstable during the beginning of Charles VIII's reign, culminating in the 1485-1488 'Mad War' between the regency and various nobles supported by foreign powers.

The last thing Anne and her councilors wanted was English involvement during the difficult steps of a minority. England had shown itself troublesome in the previous centuries, and their kings still claimed the French crown. They also had an important stronghold in the country with the town of Calais, nearby northern France. Louis XI was very eager to not meddle with England and have it as neutral or as an ally against his enemies. This is why he gave help to the Lancastrians during the 1460s and supported Henry VI's restoration in 1470. He wanted English help against Burgundy, and Lancastrian England did declare war on the duchy prematurely in 1471, before Edward IV's invasion and restoration a few months later.

Failing to make England an ally, Louis XI at least succeeded at buying its neutrality. In 1474, he immediately made his peace with the triumphant Yorkist king in exchange for £10,000 per year and £15,000. He also promised his heir Charles to Elizabeth of York. But their relationship faded soon after. In 1480, England waged war against France's ally Scotland. Louis XI, who finally made his peace with the Burgundian estates in 1482, had no desire to neutralize Edward IV anymore. He stopped paying his pension and broke his son's marriage toward Elizabeth of York in exchange for a much more promising one with Margaret of Burgundy. It was a foreign policy disaster for Edward IV, who lost his Burgundian ally and his compensations for doing so.

1482 was a geopolitical disaster for England, which made Edward IV look like a fool. He made an unpopular peace that looked like he was bribed by England's traditional foe and got fooled by it.

Richard, who was duke of Gloucester by that time, was vindicated. He was the one who argued against peace. When Louis XI made his peace with Edward IV in 1475, he made sure to sustain it by giving pensions to many magnates like Lord Stanley, lord Howard or Lord Hastings. Richard refused to get money from the enemy and returned to the north shortly after, with rumors of tensions between him and his brother. Between 1480 and 1482, he spearheaded the efforts against Scotland, returning Berwick to England after its loss during Henry VI's reign. His prestige was enormous and no doubt played its part in his subsequent usurpation. Richard III had by 1483 the image of the greatest living warrior in England and an uncompromising foe to England's enemies.

When Edward IV died, Louis XI's last days were focused on events across the Channel. No doubt he was happy to see a minority that could neutralize England for many years. But by June, it was clear that his brother Richard would be king and shape his realm's foreign policy. Louis XI saw himself dying in the summer of 1483, and his worst fears were becoming real. It wouldn't be a child king in England closely monitored by the experienced Louis XI, but a bellicist and able king in England facing a frail regency in France.

Thus, Louis XI's last days might have been focused on the English situation. With Burgundy finally cowed and many other French magnates disappeared, London was the biggest threat. And Louis XI himself had broken the Picquigny deal, while Scotland was in no shape to help its French ally (they would have internal strife until James III died in 1488). Louis XI might have died advising his daughter and son-in-law, the future regents, to take care of the English problem first.

Anne would take up the regency and be a dominant figure in French politics. Her first target was Britanny, with an aging duke Francis II with only daughters to succeed. Francis II also had Henry Tudor in his custody. In late 1483, he would support an ill-fated attempt to overthrow Richard III hoping that the Tudor pretender would help Britanny against the regency. Its failure would condemn Francis II's hopes of immediate English help.

Anne de Beaujeu, regent of France, didn't look kindly on those attempts and had no cards to play in this game. She was too busy enforcing the regency and organizing the General Estates (reunion of the representatives of the three orders of France) at Tours in 1484. In short, she was in a fight for the regency against her male cousin and brother-in-law Louis II of Orléans. However, she never lost attention from the English question, as in the Tours General Estates. The chancellor of France, Guillaume de Rochefort, would discuss Edward V's fate compared to their own child-king Charles VIII. French propagandists and servants like Philippe de Commynes or the chancellor of France itself would accuse Richard III of killing his nephews. In short: the French regency was doing everything in its power to slander Richard III in the eyes of the French and continental public. The General Estates of Tours was the first to assemble deputies from the whole kingdom of France and the surest way to make sure those rumors would widely spread.

In September 1484, an opening would create itself for Anne. Henry Tudor would flee the destabilized court of Francis II (one of his councilors tried to sell him to Richard III) and come forward to his cousins of France. There, Anne would welcome him and secure the extradition of his other supporters stuck in Britanny. The Tudor card was now in French hands, and Britanny had now lost control of the English situation.

What did Anne think of the cousin she saw for the first time? They had a common ancestor in Charles VI of France, but familial solidarity was secondary to preserving one's estate and positions. Anne's position as a regent was precarious, and she certainly saw in 1484 the burgeoning of the feudal coalition against her. It was crucial to deter English involvement in the war. Indeed, Henry Tudor might have promised support to Britanny in 1483 in exchange for their help during Buckingham's rebellion. However, Briton's treasurer Pierre Landais did try to sell him to Richard III in exchange for support against France. This might have deterred Henry toward any promises he had made to Britanny in the past, but it was also worrying news for Anne, as it shows that Richard III was more than ready to intervene in France. For Anne de Beaujeu, Henry Tudor was free to ally with France and might be her best pawn against Richard III.

In March 1485, Richard III's wife died. It weakened his position, as rumors were spread accusing Richard III of poisoning his wife to marry his niece, Elizabeth of York. But that was another threat for Anne as Richard III was now free to use his marriage to create an alliance on the international stage. He might have considered Francis II of Brittany's heir, Anne, catastrophic for France. Henry Tudor would finally secure French support indispensable for his expedition.

When he landed at Milford Haven in Wales, Henry Tudor was accompanied by various exiles and opponents of Richard III. Those magnates (Wells, his uncle Jasper, the earl of Oxford) didn't bring many troops with them, and the bulk of the Tudor forces were French (and maybe Scottish) mercenaries led by Philibert de Chandée. Those mercenaries might have been 5,000 but were more probably 2,000 strong. With them, Henry Tudor received from the French king 40,000 Livres tournois for his expenses. Without France, Henry Tudor wouldn't be capable of being a challenge for Richard III. It is not sure if Anne and her allies thought that Henry Tudor would win. However, it would prevent Richard III from interfering in France for a time.

Thus, during 1485, in which Louis of Orleans would try various methods to overthrow the regency, England would not intervene. It was infringed by its internal matters, with Henry Tudor's expedition and ascension to the throne. Anne would succeed at overthrowing a dangerous bellicist king for a king untested in battle. Better, Henry Tudor's hand was promised to Elizabeth of York so that Anne wouldn't fear any dangerous marriage from him.

It's important to note that Henry Tudor wasn't a French puppet. The rumors that Henry VII would surrender Calais to the French in exchange for their help would prove unfounded. Henry VII would also support Britanny's support for independence in 1488, but on a small scale (he sent at best 700 men). His invasion of France in 1492 would be aborted, and Henry VII would resort to Edward IV's policies of getting pensions from France.

What Anne planned to achieve by putting France's weight behind Henry Tudor was, in the short term, to neutralize England. In the long-term, it was to replace Richard III, a dangerous, bellicist king whose anti-french policies were an indication that England might intervene in the continent on a large scale. Contrary to Edward IV or Henry VII, there was every evidence that Richard III wouldn't back down in exchange for cash. Bosworth was, indirectly, a French victory, which is deeply ironic as it marks for some the end of the French era.

If Richard III won at Bosworth, we might have looked at a whole different timeline. Richard might have sought revenge on France and court Anne of Britanny's hand. We could look at an alternative timeline in which Richard III land in Britanny, marry the heiress, and wage war against the regency.

[paulinedorchester]

Mosley, Leonard. Backs to the Wall: London Under Fire, 1939-1954. London: George Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1971; reprint, as Backs to the Wall: The Heroic Story of the People of London During World War II, New York: Random House, 1971.

Each generation gets the history that it needs — or wants, or demands. That’s what kept going through my head as I read Backs to the Wall, which appeared three years after France’s youth explicitly rejected both Charles de Gaulle, the self-appointed leader of the Free French during World War II, and the political ideology that he represented, and amidst ongoing unrest over the Vietnam War. (It’s also worth mentioning that it was published in the same year as Norman Longmate’s How We Lived Then: A History of Everyday Life During the Second World War and two years after Angus Calder’s The People’s War.) This book gives up a World War II narrative in which Churchill was an improvement on Chamberlain only in that he wasn’t an appeaser, de Gaulle was worse than both of them put together, the Allied leaders all cordially loathed each other, half the British public wanted to sue for peace, and there was across-the-board mutual dislike between London civilians and American troops (and British dismay at the way African-American troops were treated by their white counterparts was far from universal). Do I exaggerate? Only slightly. Backs to the Wall is a sort of distant, city-specific pre-echo of Juliet Gardner’s sour 2004 book Wartime: Britain, 1939-45.

As with Wartime, however, this book does have the virtue of introducing us to a number of very interesting people. I became interested in reading it because it brought Vere Hodgson’s wartime diary to public attention. Mosley quotes or paraphrases Hodgson’s writing from the beginning of the war through its end, and also seems to have interviewed her extensively. His primary villain, meanwhile, is not Chamberlain but Chamberlain’s chief acolyte, Henry “Chips” Channon, from whose diary he quotes widely (and who turns out to have been born and raised in the United States, to my surprise). We hear a great deal from the chemist and novelist C.P. Snow and follow the misadventures of two civilians, Jenny Martin and Polly Wright, whose consistency in both bad luck and bad choices meant that neither of them was able to stay out of serious trouble for any length of time.

There are many glimpses of the London home front through the eyes of two boys, both eight when the war began: John Hardiman, of Canning Town and later of Aldgate, who was evacuated in 1939 but soon returned to London, and Donald Ketley of Chadwell Heath, who was never evacuated at all. Donald, who thoroughly enjoyed himself during the war, had an experience that speaks to our own recent reality:

Another good thing: quite early in the Blitz, his school had been totally destroyed by a bomb. Since Donald was shy, a poor student and unpopular with his teacher, he was overjoyed when he heard the place was gone. Thereafter he went each day to his teacher’s home to pick up lessons, which he brought back the next day for marking. In the following months he changed from a poor student to an excellent one, and although he was aware that his teacher rather resented it, he didn’t care. 

Mosley also introduces us to Archibald McIndoe, the real-life counterpart of Patrick Jamieson, Bill Patterson’s character in the Foyle’s War episode ‘Enemy Fire.’ Art seems to have imitated life pretty accurately in that instance: he and his burn hospital in East Grinstead were apparently exactly like what was depicted, the only difference being that the hospital was set up in an existing hospital building, not in a requisitioned stately home.

Backs to the Wall seems to have been one of the earliest books to make substantial use of Mass-Observation writings. Most M-O diaries are anonymous, but there are two named diarists here who stand out. John James Donald was a committed pacifist whose air of lofty detachment as he observes the reactions of those around him to air-raids and other wartime event and prepares for his tribunal — which, in the end, he decides not to attend — quickly grows irritating. More interesting is Rosemary Black, a 28-year-old widow, in no small part because she differs markedly from what I had thought of as the archetypical M-O writer. Here’s her self-description on M-O documents: “Upper-middle-class; mother of two children (girls aged 3 and 2); of independent means.” Mosley continues:

She lived in a trim three-story house in a quiet street of the fashionable part of Maida Vale, a short taxi ride from the center of the West End, whose restaurants and theatres she knew well. She was chic and attractive, and lacked very few of the niceties of life: there was Irene, a Hungarian refugee, to look after the children; Helen, a Scottish maid, to look after herself and the house; and a daily cleaning woman to do the major chores.

Black took her children out of London at the beginning of the war but quickly brought them back, and when bombs began falling she kept them in place — air raids might be disruptive for them, but apparently relocation had been worse. She was very much aware that she was riding out the war in a position of privilege, and she often expressed guilt feelings; but this tended to fade away before her irritation at the dominance of “the muddling amateur or the soulless bureaucrat” in the war effort. Offering her services, even as a volunteer, proved very frustrating. “She was young, strong and willing; she typed, spoke languages, was an expert driver and had taken a course in first aid,” Mosley tells us, “but finding a job even as a chauffeur was proving difficult” in September 1940. (She actually wasn’t all that strong physically: as we learn, she suffered from rheumatism which grew worse during the war years and probably affected her outlook.)

Black was greeted with “apathy and indifference” by both A.R.P. and the Women’s Voluntary Service. Early in 1941 she was finally able to get a place handing out tea, sandwiches, cake, and so on to rescue and clean-up workers at bomb sites from a Y.M.C.A. mobile canteen. She was a bit intimidated by the women with whom she found herself working:

Their class is right up to the county family level. Nearly everyone is tall above the average and remarkably hefty, even definitely large, not necessarily fat but broad and brawny. Perhaps this is something to do with the survival of the fittest.

And the work did bring her some satisfaction, even if it was of the type that lent itself to being recorded with tongue placed firmly in cheek:

We had a pleasant and uneventful day’s work serving City fire sites, the General Post Office, demolition workers and Home Guard Stations, etc. We were complimented at least half a dozen times on the quality of our tea ... I think the provision of saccharine for the tea urns to compensate for the mean sugar allowance is my most successful piece of war work. What did you do in the Great War, Mummy? Sneaked pills into the tea urns, darling.

For all her good humor and astute observations, Mrs. Black was far from immune to tiny-mindedness. After an evening out in 1943 she wrote:

I had to wait some time for the others in the cinema foyer, and I was much struck, as often before, by the almost complete absence of English people these days, from the capital of England. Almost every person who came in was either a foreigner, a roaring Jew, or both. The Cumberland [Hotel] has always been a complete New Jerusalem, but this evening it really struck me as no worse than anywhere else! It is really dismaying to see that this should be the result of this war in defence of our country.

Indeed, Mosley cites the results of a multi-year Mass-Observation study that showed a marked increase in anti-Jewish views London’s general population over the course of the war. Since it’s just one study, and since I haven’t seen that study mentioned anywhere else, I am reluctant to trust blindly in its accuracy; and there’s also this:

The small flat which George [Hardiman] had procured for [his family] ... in Aldgate was cleaner and airier than the old house in Canning Town [which had been bombed], and the little Jewish children with whom John now went to school seemed to be cleaner than the ones in Elm Road; at any rate, he no longer came home with nits in his hair.

On the other hand, Mosley himself gives us only a fragmentary view of London’s wartime Jewish population: everyone seems to be either a terrified refugee or an impoverished East Ender. We hear nothing about the substantial middle- and upper-middle class population — mostly of German descent and in some cases German birth — that had already taken shape in Northwest London; and while we are briefly introduced to Sir David Waley, a Treasury official, in connection with the case of an interned Jewish refugee, we aren’t told that Waley himself was Jewish, a member of “the cousinhood.” On yet a third hand, Mosley also quotes other M-O surveys from the same period that indicate largely hostile attitudes to most foreigners in London, with Poles at the bottom of the ladder and the small Dutch contingent on top. (Incidentally, the book’s extremely patchy index identifies Vere Hodgson as a Mass-Observation diarist, which she wasn’t.)

Backs to the Wall closes with a very brief, remarkably non-partisan account of the 1945 general election and its immediate aftermath. “Neither side had any inkling of the way the minds of the British voters were turning,” he writes.

When [Churchill’s] friends suggested that he was a victim of base ingratitude, he shook his head. He would not have such a charge leveled against his beloved countrymen. Ingratitude? "Oh, no," he said quietly, "I wouldn’t call it that. They have had a very hard time."

The book is worth reading for the primary materials that it includes, but it probably tells us as much about the era in which it was written as about the period that it covers.  

[somethingusefulfromflorida]

The upcoming Iran War is basically just a response to the ongoing Iraq War, to maintain an American presence in the Middle Eat.

The Iraq War was a continuation of the Persian Gulf War, Operations Desert Storm and Desert Shield, which were started by father and son.

The Gulf War was just another proxy war of the Cold War, the end of one era, the start of another

The Cold War was born out of World War II, which itself was born out of World War I

World War I was a direct consequence of the Austro-Prussian and Franco-Prussian Wars of the 1860s and 70s, which established Germany as a world superpower and set the Austrian Empire up for dissolution

In the Austro-Prussian War, General Helmut von Moltke the elder based some of his strategies on the Union victory of the American Civil War; they were both industrial wars of attrition, whichever side could rally the troops and set up supply lines faster would win.

The American Civil War was an ideological war about slavery, and has its origins in the various legislative compromises of the first half of the 19th century (Kansas-Nebraska, Dredd Scott, the Missouri Compromise).  Ultimately though, this war is largely a  result of the American Revolution some 80 years earlier.

The American Revolution was a response to the Seven Years’ War; Britain nearly went bankrupt defending its colonies in the war, and started taxing them after the fact to pay for it.

The Seven Years’ War was just another example of the rivalry between Britain and France over who was the dominant power in Europe.

The British-French rivalry can be traced as far back as the Norman Conquest of 1066, when the Normans (French) took over the island

The island of Great Britain was supposedly discovered and named after the legendary Brutus of Troy, son of Aeneas, whose descendants Romulus and Remus would later found Rome.

Aeneas led the defeated Trojans to a new homeland after the Greeks lay siege to their city at the end of the Trojan War in around 1200 BC

The Trojan War was fought between Achaea (Greece) and Ilium (Troy); the Achaeans were part of the Mycenaean Civilization, which represented the end of the Bronze Age and the start of the Iron Age, as well as the birth of what we today recognize as true Ancient Greece.

The Mycenaeans came from the Minoans on Crete, the first advanced civilization in Europe.

Civilization itself in this region came from Mesopotamia, the Land Between the Rivers, in the Fertile Crescent, which owes its existence to the Neolithic/Agricultural Revolutions some 12,000 years ago

Before that, hunter-gatherer societies roamed the steppes of Eurasia, having spent thousands of years migrating northward out of their ancestral homes in Africa 200,000 years ago

Ultimately, hominids flourished because mammals rose up as the dominant clade following the Cretaceous-Paleogene Extinction 66 million years ago, which killed the dinosaurs

Dinosaurs reigned for hundreds of millions of years, but all life came from the sea; the tiktaalik was the first lobe-finned fish to take the monumentous step onto land 375 million years ago, which could only happen because fish themselves appeared 530 million years ago, which wouldn’t exist without the evolution of eukaryotes 2.7 billion years ago, which wouldn’t exist if the first prokaryotes hadn’t sprung from the primordial soup some 4.3 billion years ago, which could only have happened after the oceans formed 4.4 billion years ago, because the planet formed 4.5 billion years ago, which only happened because the sun formed 4.6 billion years ago, which when you think about it was a direct result of the Big Bang 13.8 billion years ago

“The story so far: In the beginning the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move.” -Douglas Adams

[caveartfair]

Auction Sales Rose 25% in 2017—and the 9 Other Biggest News Stories This Week

01  Global auction sales increased 25% to $11.21 billion in 2017, according to a report from ArtTactic.

(via The Art Newspaper)

The analysis by the London-based firm looked at publicly available data from Sotheby’s, Christie’s, and Phillips, finding improved sales across the board. The overall increase came even as consignments dipped 9.3%. Christie’s saw the greatest overall turnover and improvement from 2016, with total auction sales of $5.89 billion, a rise of 34% over 2016 performance thanks partly to the record-breaking sale of Leonardo da Vinci’s Salvator Mundi in November. Sotheby’s sales totaled $4.69 billion, a 15% increase, with improved performance of sales in London accounting for much of the rise. Phillips remained a distant third in terms of overall turnover, with sales of $624.4 million, a notable 28% increase from the year before. Together, the findings “suggest the auction market is in full recovery after slumping by almost a third between 2014 and 2016,” reported The Art Newspaper.

02  French President Emmanuel Macron agreed to loan the fabled Bayeux Tapestry to the United Kingdom.

(via The Guardian, AFP, and the Washington Post)

The decision, announced at an Anglo-French summit in Britain on Thursday, symbolizes the continued strength of relations between the two countries even amid the forthcoming exit of the U.K from the European Union in 2019. A major historical object for both Britain and France, the 68-meter (223-foot)  tapestry depicts the 11th-century Battle of Hastings between Norman-French and English troops. It was created shortly after the battle and has has not left France in 950 years. The loan won’t begin until 2022 so that preservation work can be done to ensure the tapestry can be moved safely. The fragility has led some French experts to criticize the announcement, with Pierre Bouet, the curator who cares for the tapestry at the Normandy museum where it is on view, saying he thought the announcement was a “hoax” at first. It has not yet been announced where in the U.K. the work will ultimately be displayed once it is restored. Regardless of the location, British Museum director Hartwig Fischer told The Guardian it was “probably the most significant” loan ever from France to the U.K.

03  The Tate and National Galleries Scotland suspended ties with prominent British art dealer and major donor Anthony d’Offay after allegations of sexual harassment.

(Artsy, Hyperallergic, and the New York Times)

Three allegations against the 78-year-old d’Offay, first reported on Sunday by the London-based Observer newspaper, date between 1997 and 2004, and include unwanted kisses, demeaning language, and inappropriate workplace behavior. A fourth woman filed a complaint on December 20th, alleging that d’Offay had sent her malicious messages. The charge is currently under investigation by London police. D’Offay told the Observer that he was “appalled” by the allegations and “categorically” denies the claims, adding that he was unaware of the investigation and believes that “police time is being wasted.” The sexual harassment claims against d’Offay were not the only to emerge against figures in the art world over the weekend. Thirteen male models and assistants accused legendary fashion photographer Mario Testino of sexual exploitation and misconduct, while 15 male models leveled accusations against Bruce Weber in a New York Times story published last Saturday. “Both photographers said they were dismayed and surprised by the allegations,” the paper reported. And on Tuesday, Hyperallergic reported four new allegations of sexual misconduct against artist Chuck Close, who said he had “never received any complaints prior to reading about them in recent news reports,” and apologized.

04  The European Fine Art Fair (TEFAF) will no longer publish its annual art market report.

(via the Financial Times)

The TEFAF report was a key barometer in the art industry for years, providing a comprehensive and sweeping overview of the often opaque and diverse market. A statement from TEFAF cited “consultation with both stakeholders and industry experts” as the reason for canceling the art market report. Instead, the fair will produce “very in-depth and highly focused reports that concentrate on a variety of subjects in the art market,” the statement read. The future of TEFAF’s art market report has been uncertain after its author since 2008, economist Dr. Clare McAndrew, left in 2016 to compile a new report for Art Basel and UBS. New methodology used for the 2017 TEFAF report by McAndrew’s replacement, Maastricht University professor Rachel Pownall, found the overall size of the market in 2016 to be $45 billion, while McAndrew put it closer to $57 billion. McAndrew’s analysis saw the market contracting by about $6 billion from 2015 to 2016, while Pownall’s methodology found that the overall size of the market hovered at around $45 billion both years. “Such inconsistencies raised pertinent questions about how to measure an opaque market and it’s a shame that the debate has in effect stopped,” wrote Melanie Gerlis in the Financial Times.

05  Prominent curators, dealers, and scholars questioned the Museum of Fine Arts in Ghent’s Russian Modernism exhibition, calling it “highly questionable.”

(via The Art Newspaper & artnet news)

The Art Newspaper published an open letter on Monday, signed by leading scholars and dealers, raising authenticity concerns over 26 Russian avant-garde works attributed to artists such as Wassily Kandinsky, Kasimir Malevich, and El Lissitzky on view in the exhibition. They suggested the works be removed until the museum addresses the questions raised. On loan from the Russian art collector Igor Toporovski’s charitable organization, the purportedly 20th-century artworks have been on display at the Museum voor Schone Kunsten in Ghent, Belgium, since mid-October 2017. Signatories of the letter include renowned art historians, writers, curators, and dealers who have expressed concern that the paintings “have no exhibition history, have never before been reproduced in serious scholarly publications, and have no traceable sales records.” A spokesperson for the museum told artnet News that “the museum followed standard procedures to review the loans ahead of the exhibition,” but deferred to Toporovski for provenance and expert examination. Toporovski has affirmed to artnet News that his foundation can provide “provenance, history, and technical description…on request, for research, scholars, and professionals” and invited a reporter to view the materials in person; however, he refused to discuss further details via email.

06  Over 100 figures from the German and international art world have signed an open letter questioning the firing of Documenta CEO Annette Kulenkampff.

(via e-flux)

The letter challenges the actions taken by Documenta’s supervisory board in the wake of a multi-million deficit run up by Documenta 14, curated by Adam Szymczyk. In November, it was announced that Kulenkampff would not complete the final year of her contract. But the letter argues that blame has been disproportionately placed on Kulenkampff even though the quinquennial’s imperiled financials “arose through a program concept for which all involved parties shared responsibility.” The letter also accuses local and state politicians on the advisory board of conspiring to end Documenta’s nonprofit status and not adequately challenging the far-right German officials who have attacked work included in the exhibition as “disfigured art,” a phrase that invokes the Nazi-era classification “degenerate art.” Among other recommendations, the letter called on the supervisory board to adapt Documenta’s budget to the “requirements of a global art event with worldwide impact that is unique in its dimensions,” affirm its nonprofit status, and reinstate Kulenkampff to a board position.

07  Simon de Pury declared his victory in a legal tussle over a privately sold $210 million Paul Gauguin painting.

(via artnet news)

The Swiss art dealer, curator, and auctioneer Simon de Pury ammounced on Instagram this week that he and his wife, Michaela, had won their lawsuit seeking $10 million in connection to a 2015 Gauguin sale that de Pury helped broker. He said he was owed the fee due to a “gentleman’s agreement” with former Sotheby’s executive director Rudolf Staechelin, the seller of Gauguin’s 1892 work Nafea Faa Ipoipo (When Will You Marry)?. The painting was sold to Guy Bennett, a former Christie’s expert who now directs the collections and acquisitions for Qatar’s museums. When de Pury first approached Staechelin about selling the painting to Bennett, the auctioneer said he was verbally promised a handsome commission. However, Staechelin claimed de Pury set the price at $230 million, despite knowing the Qataris would max out at $210 million. Although the sale eventually occurred, Staechelin’s lawyer, John Wardell, told the Telegraph in June that de Pury’s behavior constituted “a clear breach of fiduciary duty and all commission has been forfeited if any right ever existed.”

08  A historic Frank Lloyd Wright building in Montana was razed last week despite efforts by preservation groups to save the structure.

(via Hyperallergic)

Bulldozers descended on the Frank Lloyd Wright-designed Lockridge Medical Clinic late on January 10th, demolishing the 5,000-square-foot structure designed by the famous architect in 1958. The Frank Lloyd Wright Building Conservancy (FLWBC), which had fought for over a year to save the historic Whitefish, Montana, building, reacted with shock and anger. Developer Mick Ruis bought the property in 2016, though he temporarily halted his plans to replace the building with a multi-use development after an initial backlash. Ruis said he’d part with the building for the same $1.6 million he paid to acquire it and the FLWBC had worked to devise plans to preserve the structure. On January 4th, Ruis announced that any buyer would have to close the deal by January 10th. Though the FLWBC made an offer on the 8th, Ruis demanded that the group submit a larger and nonrefundable deposit by the following afternoon, Hyperallergic reported. The FLWBC appealed for an extra day; however, Ruis rejected the request last Wednesday and the building was destroyed within hours. The demolition triggered complaints that preservationists weren’t given sufficient forewarning, yet Ruis’s attorney maintained to The Daily Beast that the developer had already given them “plenty of time.”

09  Christie’s suspended an employee that U.S. investigators suspect of leaking classified information to the Chinese government.

(via the Wall Street Journal)

A former Central Intelligence Agency officer who has been serving as head of security at Christie’s in Hong Kong was suspended this week after being arrested at New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport on Monday. The man, identified as Jerry Chun Shing Lee by the Wall Street Journal, was charged with unlawfully retaining classified information, and is suspected to have provided China with information that compromised a major network of U.S. informants in the country, leading to the systematic killing of several of them. Christie’s confirmed in a statement to the Wall Street Journal that Lee was an employee and had been suspended. “The allegations predate his employment with the company. Due to the ongoing nature of the investigation we have no additional comments,” an auction house spokesperson told the paper. Lee left the CIA in 2007; he had worked at the agency for over a decade. After temporarily leaving the country, Lee and his family settled in northern Virginia in 2012. He was recently allowed to travel to Hong Kong, even as the investigation into his activity ramped up. When FBI agents learned he would be returning to the U.S., they obtained a warrant for his arrest.

10  Two newly authenticated drawings by Vincent van Gogh are now on display at the Singer Laren museum in the Netherlands.

(via Smithsonian Magazine)

The Van Gogh Museum confirmed the authenticity of the two drawings that date back to Vincent van Gogh’s early years among the Impressionists in Paris on Tuesday. The works depict the famous French landmark, the hill of Montmartre. According Smithsonian Magazine, The Hill of Montmartre with Stone Quarry (1886) and The Hill of Montmartre (1886) reveal an important part of the artist’s artistic development, reflecting a “shift towards the more experimental style of the Impressionists” he met in Paris. The Hill of Montmartre with Stone Quarry, which was held by the artist’s sister-in-law until 1911, was eventually acquired by the Van Vlissingen Art Foundation in 2014. The foundation also authenticated the work. That led to a subsequent re-examination and authentication of TheHill of Montmartre, which had been removed from two of the artist’s catalogues raisonnés due to questions over its origin. The drawings, put on display as part of the “Impressionism & Beyond” exhibition on Tuesday at Singer Laren, will be on display until May 6th.

from Artsy News

[brookstonalmanac]

Events 3.6

12 BCE – The Roman emperor Augustus is named Pontifex Maximus, incorporating the position into that of the emperor. 632 – The Farewell Sermon (Khutbah, Khutbatul Wada') of the Islamic prophet Muhammad. 845 – The 42 Martyrs of Amorium are killed after refusing to convert to Islam. 961 – Byzantine conquest of Chandax by Nikephoros Phokas, end of the Emirate of Crete. 1204 – The Siege of Château Gaillard ends in a French victory over King John of England, who loses control of Normandy to King Philip II Augustus. 1323 – Treaty of Paris of 1323 is signed. 1454 – Thirteen Years' War: Delegates of the Prussian Confederation pledge allegiance to King Casimir IV of Poland who agrees to commit his forces in aiding the Confederation's struggle for independence from the Teutonic Knights. 1521 – Ferdinand Magellan arrives at Guam. 1665 – The first joint Secretary of the Royal Society, Henry Oldenburg, publishes the first issue of Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, the world's longest-running scientific journal. 1788 – The First Fleet arrives at Norfolk Island in order to found a convict settlement. 1820 – The Missouri Compromise is signed into law by President James Monroe. The compromise allows Missouri to enter the Union as a slave state, brings Maine into the Union as a free state, and makes the rest of the northern part of the Louisiana Purchase territory slavery-free. 1834 – York, Upper Canada, is incorporated as Toronto. 1836 – Texas Revolution: Battle of the Alamo: After a thirteen-day siege by an army of 3,000 Mexican troops, the 187 Texas volunteers, including frontiersman Davy Crockett and colonel Jim Bowie, defending the Alamo are killed and the fort is captured. 1857 – The Supreme Court of the United States rules 7–2 in the Dred Scott v. Sandford case that the Constitution does not confer citizenship on black people. 1869 – Dmitri Mendeleev presents the first periodic table to the Russian Chemical Society. 1882 – The Serbian kingdom is re-founded. 1899 – Bayer registers "Aspirin" as a trademark. 1901 – Anarchist assassin tries to kill German Emperor Wilhelm II. 1904 – Scottish National Antarctic Expedition: Led by William Speirs Bruce, the Antarctic region of Coats Land was discovered from the Scotia. 1912 – Italo-Turkish War: Italian forces become the first to use airships in war, as two dirigibles drop bombs on Turkish troops encamped at Janzur, from an altitude of 1,800 m. 1930 – International Unemployment Day demonstrations globally initiated by the Comintern. 1933 – Great Depression: President Franklin D. Roosevelt declares a "bank holiday", closing all U.S. banks and freezing all financial transactions. 1943 – Norman Rockwell published Freedom from Want in The Saturday Evening Post with a matching essay by Carlos Bulosan as part of the Four Freedoms series. 1943 – World War II: Generalfeldmarschall Erwin Rommel launches the Battle of Medenine in an attempt to slow down the British Eight Army. It fails, and he leaves Africa three days later. 1943 – World War II: The Battle of Fardykambos, one of the first major battles between the Greek Resistance and the occupying Royal Italian Army, ends with the surrender of an entire Italian battalion, the bulk of the garrison of the town of Grevena, leading to its liberation a fortnight later. 1944 – World War II: Soviet Air Forces bomb an evacuated town of Narva in German-occupied Estonia, destroying the entire historical Swedish-era town. 1945 – World War II: Cologne is captured by American troops. On the same day, Operation Spring Awakening, the last major German offensive of the war, begins. 1946 – Ho Chi Minh signs an agreement with France which recognizes Vietnam as an autonomous state in the Indochinese Federation and the French Union. 1951 – Cold War: The trial of Ethel and Julius Rosenberg begins. 1953 – Georgy Malenkov succeeds Joseph Stalin as Premier of the Soviet Union and First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. 1957 – Ghana becomes the first Sub-Saharan country to gain independence from the British. 1964 – Nation of Islam leader Elijah Muhammad officially gives boxing champion Cassius Clay the name Muhammad Ali. 1964 – Constantine II becomes the last King of Greece. 1965 – Premier Tom Playford of South Australia loses power after 27 years in office. 1967 – Cold War: Joseph Stalin's daughter Svetlana Alliluyeva defects to the United States. 1968 – Three rebels are executed by Rhodesia, the first executions since UDI, prompting international condemnation. 1970 – An explosion at the Weather Underground safe house in Greenwich Village kills three. 1975 – For the first time the Zapruder film of the assassination of John F. Kennedy is shown in motion to a national TV audience by Robert J. Groden and Dick Gregory. 1975 – Algiers Accord: Iran and Iraq announce a settlement of their border dispute. 1984 – In the United Kingdom, a walkout at Cortonwood Colliery in Brampton Bierlow signals the start of a strike that lasted almost a year and involved the majority of the country's miners. 1987 – The British ferry MS Herald of Free Enterprise capsizes in about 90 seconds, killing 193. 1988 – Three Provisional Irish Republican Army volunteers are shot dead by the SAS in Gibraltar in Operation Flavius. 1992 – The Michelangelo computer virus begins to affect computers. 2003 – Air Algérie Flight 6289 crashes at the Aguenar – Hadj Bey Akhamok Airport in Tamanrasset, Algeria, killing 102 out of the 103 people on board. 2008 – A suicide bomber kills 68 people (including first responders) in Baghdad on the same day that a gunman kills eight students in Jerusalem. 2018 – Forbes names Jeff Bezos as the world's richest person, for the first time, at $112 billion net worth. 2020 – Thirty-two people are killed and 81 are injured when gunmen open fire on a ceremony in Kabul, Afghanistan. The Islamic State claims responsibility for the attack.

[blackboar]

Journey to Bosworth, conclusion. Why did Richard III lose?

Before starting, I have to say that this is my personal opinion. For me, this is why the last Plantagenet king falled. As you will see, I do not consider that it was the most probable outcome, far from it.

At Bosworth, Richard III lost while he had more men, more support and was an experienced commander with experienced lieutenants

Many argued that he lost because he was sold out by the magnates. After all, Northumberland and Lord Stanley didn't move to help him, and Sir William Stanley 'betrayed' him.

This explanation is helpful but reductive and simplistic. Betrayal was very common in the War of the Roses. Richard III had witnessed it all his life. In 1459, while Richard was seven years old, his father fled to Ireland because one of his lieutenants had defected to Henry VI. He saw his father's castle in Ludlow be stormed out by Lancastrians. Richard III also saw his closest ally, the duke of Buckingham, turn on him for little reason in 1483. He was used to it. Stanley and Northumberland's defection was utterly predictable Richard III knew that Northumberland intentionally brought as little troops as he could and Richard put so little faith toward lord Stanley that he took hostage his heir (a maneuver which did work at buying his neutrality).

As for Sir William Stanley's decisive defection, it wasn't even a surprise. Richard III branded him a traitor a few weeks before. He acted accordingly. Nor did Richard III lacked information about his enemies. Henry Tudor was openly his rival since the beginning of his reign. His chief commander, John de Vere, was known from Richard. He fought against him at Barnet, stole his lands, and tried to have him executed in 1484. He also knew that the french disliked him as well as he disliked them. Their investment in the Tudor cause is hardly surprising.

To sum it up: there was little asymmetry of information between Richard III and his rivals. Richard knew his friends, knew who wasn't reliable, and knew his enemies. True, he didn't know some key information such as where would Henry Tudor would land, just as some minor defections came out as a bitter surprise. Seeing Rhys ap Thomas defect to the Tudors after he pensioned him 10 marks a year was an unwelcome surprise, but hardly a fatal one.

Few contemporaries thought that Henry Tudor would actually win (partly because they didn't know the intentions of some key magnates). There are many examples of that. In 1484, Queen Elizabeth Woodville accepted to quit her sanctuary and made peace with her (alleged) brother-in-law in exchange for a correct treatment of her daughters. She did hand some of her daughters to him. Her brother Richard Woodville did make his peace with Richard III, and her son the Marquess of Dorset also attempted to run from France to make his personal peace before being stopped by the Tudors. Pierre Landais tried to sold-out Henry Tudor to Richard III in 1484, showing how little faith he had in a Tudor victory. After Henry landed and marched from Wales toward England, the city of Swhresbury obstinately refused to let him pass, fearing Richard's wrath (and possible lawlessness). Only Sir William Stanley's intervention would convince them.

In no way Henry Tudor had massive support. From his landing to the battle of Bosworth, defections to his side were few. Rhys ap Thomas, Sir John Savage, Sir Gilbert Talbot, and lesser noteworthy welsh were all local figures. Compared to the 1483 rebellion (ill-named Buckingham's rebellion) in which three different areas revolted with some major rebellious figures such as the duke of Buckingham, Sir Thomas Saint-Leger, and the Wydevilles, the defections during the invasion look marginal. Especially when one considers that Henry Tudor landed in Wales because he thought he had support there, and conversely Richard III had little.

Henry Tudor had little chance of winning. He tried because no compromise was possible with Richard III, who showed often his ruthlessness. Most of the surviving rebels in 1483 had joined Henry in exile and pressed him to act. Their lands were already forfeited and distributed to Richard's supporters, and only Richard's death could vindicate and restore their wealth completely. As Henry Tudor knew in the Britton court, foreign support to English pretenders was erratic and highly conjunctural at best. The Brittons supported him in 1483, and a court faction attempted to sell him out the very next year. So, when France proposed limited financial and military support during the summer of 1485, he couldn't hesitate. It was his best shot.

Richard III on the reverse had real reasons to quiet himself and be confident in his victory. Why he most certainly wasn't might be due to private reasons. His wife and son died during his brief reign. This might have awakened a sense of insecurity. At its core, Richard might have felt insecure about his legitimacy. He had parliamentary approval of his regal title with Titus Regulus, he had been sacred and anointed but was he legitimate? The allegation of bastardy toward his nephews was based on oral claims, which was weak evidence at best.

The best proof of his legitimacy, and that God approved his reign was a battle. A winning battle would re-assert his reputation as a martial ruler, and more importantly, showed that God favored his claim in an ordeal by combat. In a martial, zealously religious society, a battle would be the final seal of his legitimacy, just as his brother, who reasserted his claim during numerous victorious battles. This was a fitting narrative for him. He was one of the best English military commanders alive, with an undeniably good military record. He could surely win against a nobody with no military experience. His spiteful royal denunciation of Henry Tudor in 1484 might be evidence that Richard III viewed the Tudor challenge as highly personal. Henry itself was the threat, more than those that supported him or were propping him up. During Buckingham's rebellion, Richard III didn't fight despite rushing to the south where the rebels were. The Howards and Sir Humphrey Stafford put down the rebellion without him. And Henry Tudor could flee. So Richard III had a practical and a theological/theoretical reason to force combat between his and the Tudor. Reasserting and confirming his legitimacy was one, and making sure that Henry Tudor would cause no more trouble was the other.

A decay in mental health is also possible from Richard III. He was a man who was highly confident in his skills and his worth. However, the atmosphere of betrayal and the loss of his family in the last few years did pull a tool on him. His legendary 'bad dream' on the eve of Bosworth was the most remarkable example of that. So when the rebel army did come in England, Richard III rushed toward them. He had reinforcement still coming on the day of the battle. York men were on their way and more forces certainly were coming from elsewhere. Time was on his side. He rushed toward the enemy perhaps because, in a spike of paranoia, he didn't want more defections and more betrayal, or because he wanted to put an end to it. What if the rebels fled at the sight of his numerically larger army, like his father at Ludlow? He didn't want that, he didn't want to endure a decade-long pretender like Edward IV would endure with Henry VI or Henry Tudor with 'Richard' (Perkin Warbeck)

When Northumberland refused to support Howard against Oxford, it didn't matter for Richard III. He knew Northumberland's opportunism. Catesby proposed to retreat like his father at Ludlow, like his brother when key magnates turned on him in 1470. He refused. Richard III simply couldn't admit his defeat on the battlefield, even as a temporary setback. His desire for legitimacy, his pride forbid it. He told so to Diego de Valera, the Spanish Ambassador, who reported it to his masters about the battle: "Now when Salazar, your little vassal, who was there in King Richard's service, saw the treason of the king's people, he went up to him and said: 'Sire, take steps to put your person in safety without expecting to have the victory in today's battle, owing to the manifest treason in your following.' But the King replied: 'Salazar, God forbid I yield one step. This day I will die as King or win'. "

At the battle, he wanted personal physical contact. He wanted to perform the deed of a knight, personally slain the Tudor dragon. He was a proud man of action, and couldn't let Howard once again defeat the core of the rebels while he was on the fence. Hence his fateful charge. This decision, more than any other, was fatal.

Richard III wanted Bosworth, Richard III made Bosworth. He accepted every odds. He accepted the disloyalty of Northumberland instead of assuming its consequences and retreat to reorganize. He ignored Sir William Stanley on his rear when he charged because he wanted to stick to his narrative. He was supremely confident in his skills and his capacity to slain Henry Tudor before Stanley could destroy him. And he was too insecure and proud to run. Run would be admitting his illegitimacy.

In other words, Richard III never admitted retreat as an option. Richard III also desperately wanted personal challenges. It is no coincidence that the last Plantagenet was both the last English king to die in battle and the only one to do so since the dawn of the Norman era.

When Richard III, in his last instants, shout 'treason' it was partly because Sir William Stanley's betrayal was relatively fresh in his mind, and to him, it was an English subject killing their king. It might have also been a way to cope. He was losing, he couldn't perform his martial ability in a winning way. Putting his failure on betrayal and a rigged battle was simply a way to cope

In conclusion, Richard III consciously and unconsciously shut down options that didn't fit his preferred narrative. This dysfunctional decision-making was partly created from his personal identity and value, and partly due to his society's views. This makes us understand why he chooses options that didn't favor his self-preservation and why he didn't retreat or acted differently. And it destroyed him.

[brookstonalmanac]

Events 3.6

12 BCE – The Roman Emperor Augustus is named Pontifex Maximus, incorporating the position into that of the emperor. 632 – The Farewell Sermon (Khutbah, Khutbatul Wada') of the Islamic prophet Muhammad. 845 – The 42 Martyrs of Amorium are killed after refusing to convert to Islam. 961 – Byzantine conquest of Chandax by Nikephoros Phokas, end of the Emirate of Crete. 1204 – The Siege of Château Gaillard ends in a French victory over King John of England, who loses control of Normandy to King Philip II Augustus. 1323 – Treaty of Paris of 1323 is signed. 1454 – Thirteen Years' War: Delegates of the Prussian Confederation pledge allegiance to King Casimir IV of Poland who agrees to commit his forces in aiding the Confederation's struggle for independence from the Teutonic Knights. 1521 – Ferdinand Magellan arrives at Guam. 1665 – The first joint Secretary of the Royal Society, Henry Oldenburg, publishes the first issue of Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, the world's longest-running scientific journal. 1788 – The First Fleet arrives at Norfolk Island in order to found a convict settlement. 1820 – The Missouri Compromise is signed into law by President James Monroe. The compromise allows Missouri to enter the Union as a slave state, brings Maine into the Union as a free state, and makes the rest of the northern part of the Louisiana Purchase territory slavery-free. 1834 – York, Upper Canada, is incorporated as Toronto. 1836 – Texas Revolution: Battle of the Alamo: After a thirteen-day siege by an army of 3,000 Mexican troops, the 187 Texas volunteers, including frontiersman Davy Crockett and colonel Jim Bowie, defending the Alamo are killed and the fort is captured. 1857 – The Supreme Court of the United States rules 7–2 in the Dred Scott v. Sandford case that the Constitution does not confer citizenship on black people. 1869 – Dmitri Mendeleev presents the first periodic table to the Russian Chemical Society. 1882 – The Serbian kingdom is re-founded. 1899 – Bayer registers "Aspirin" as a trademark. 1912 – Italo-Turkish War: Italian forces become the first to use airships in war, as two dirigibles drop bombs on Turkish troops encamped at Janzur, from an altitude of 6,000 feet. 1930 – International Unemployment Day demonstrations globally initiated by the Comintern. 1933 – Great Depression: President Franklin D. Roosevelt declares a "bank holiday", closing all U.S. banks and freezing all financial transactions. 1943 – Norman Rockwell published Freedom from Want in The Saturday Evening Post with a matching essay by Carlos Bulosan as part of the Four Freedoms series. 1943 – World War II: Generalfeldmarschall Erwin Rommel launches the Battle of Medenine in an attempt to slow down the British Eight Army. It fails, and he leaves Africa three days later. 1943 – World War II: The Battle of Fardykambos, one of the first major battles between the Greek Resistance and the occupying Royal Italian Army, ends with the surrender of an entire Italian battalion, the bulk of the garrison of the town of Grevena, leading to its liberation a fortnight later. 1944 – World War II: Soviet Air Forces bomb an evacuated town of Narva in German-occupied Estonia, destroying the entire historical Swedish-era town. 1945 – World War II: Cologne is captured by American troops. On the same day, Operation Spring Awakening, the last major German offensive of the war, begins. 1946 – Ho Chi Minh signs an agreement with France which recognizes Vietnam as an autonomous state in the Indochinese Federation and the French Union. 1951 – Cold War: The trial of Ethel and Julius Rosenberg begins. 1953 – Georgy Malenkov succeeds Joseph Stalin as Premier of the Soviet Union and First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. 1957 – Ghana becomes the first Sub-Saharan country to gain independence from the British. 1964 – Nation of Islam leader Elijah Muhammad officially gives boxing champion Cassius Clay the name Muhammad Ali. 1964 – Constantine II becomes the last King of Greece. 1965 – Premier Tom Playford of South Australia loses power after 27 years in office. 1967 – Cold War: Joseph Stalin's daughter Svetlana Alliluyeva defects to the United States. 1968 – Three rebels are executed by Rhodesia, the first executions since UDI, prompting international condemnation. 1970 – An explosion at the Weather Underground safe house in Greenwich Village kills three. 1975 – For the first time the Zapruder film of the assassination of John F. Kennedy is shown in motion to a national TV audience by Robert J. Groden and Dick Gregory. 1975 – Algiers Accord: Iran and Iraq announce a settlement of their border dispute. 1984 – In the United Kingdom, a walkout at Cortonwood Colliery in Brampton Bierlow signals the start of a strike that lasted almost a year and involved the majority of the country's miners. 1987 – The British ferry MS Herald of Free Enterprise capsizes in about 90 seconds, killing 193. 1988 – Three Provisional Irish Republican Army volunteers are shot dead by the SAS in Gibraltar in Operation Flavius. 1992 – The Michelangelo computer virus begins to affect computers. 2003 – Air Algérie Flight 6289 crashes at the Aguenar – Hadj Bey Akhamok Airport in Tamanrasset, Algeria, killing 102 out of the 103 people on board. 2008 – A suicide bomber kills 68 people (including first responders) in Baghdad on the same day that a gunman kills eight students in Jerusalem.

[brookstonalmanac]

Events 3.6

12 BCE – The Roman emperor Augustus is named Pontifex Maximus, incorporating the position into that of the emperor. 632 – The Farewell Sermon (Khutbah, Khutbatul Wada') of the Islamic prophet Muhammad. 845 – The 42 Martyrs of Amorium are killed after refusing to convert to Islam. 961 – Byzantine conquest of Chandax by Nikephoros Phokas, end of the Emirate of Crete. 1204 – The Siege of Château Gaillard ends in a French victory over King John of England, who loses control of Normandy to King Philip II Augustus. 1323 – Treaty of Paris of 1323 is signed. 1454 – Thirteen Years' War: Delegates of the Prussian Confederation pledge allegiance to King Casimir IV of Poland who agrees to commit his forces in aiding the Confederation's struggle for independence from the Teutonic Knights. 1521 – Ferdinand Magellan arrives at Guam. 1665 – The first joint Secretary of the Royal Society, Henry Oldenburg, publishes the first issue of Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, the world's longest-running scientific journal. 1788 – The First Fleet arrives at Norfolk Island in order to found a convict settlement. 1820 – The Missouri Compromise is signed into law by President James Monroe. The compromise allows Missouri to enter the Union as a slave state, brings Maine into the Union as a free state, and makes the rest of the northern part of the Louisiana Purchase territory slavery-free. 1834 – York, Upper Canada, is incorporated as Toronto. 1836 – Texas Revolution: Battle of the Alamo: After a thirteen-day siege by an army of 3,000 Mexican troops, the 187 Texas volunteers, including frontiersman Davy Crockett and colonel Jim Bowie, defending the Alamo are killed and the fort is captured. 1857 – The Supreme Court of the United States rules 7–2 in the Dred Scott v. Sandford case that the Constitution does not confer citizenship on black people. 1869 – Dmitri Mendeleev presents the first periodic table to the Russian Chemical Society. 1882 – The Serbian kingdom is re-founded. 1899 – Bayer registers "Aspirin" as a trademark. 1901 – Anarchist assassin tries to kill German Emperor Wilhelm II. 1912 – Italo-Turkish War: Italian forces become the first to use airships in war, as two dirigibles drop bombs on Turkish troops encamped at Janzur, from an altitude of 6,000 feet. 1930 – International Unemployment Day demonstrations globally initiated by the Comintern. 1933 – Great Depression: President Franklin D. Roosevelt declares a "bank holiday", closing all U.S. banks and freezing all financial transactions. 1943 – Norman Rockwell published Freedom from Want in The Saturday Evening Post with a matching essay by Carlos Bulosan as part of the Four Freedoms series. 1943 – World War II: Generalfeldmarschall Erwin Rommel launches the Battle of Medenine in an attempt to slow down the British Eight Army. It fails, and he leaves Africa three days later. 1943 – World War II: The Battle of Fardykambos, one of the first major battles between the Greek Resistance and the occupying Royal Italian Army, ends with the surrender of an entire Italian battalion, the bulk of the garrison of the town of Grevena, leading to its liberation a fortnight later. 1944 – World War II: Soviet Air Forces bomb an evacuated town of Narva in German-occupied Estonia, destroying the entire historical Swedish-era town. 1945 – World War II: Cologne is captured by American troops. On the same day, Operation Spring Awakening, the last major German offensive of the war, begins. 1946 – Ho Chi Minh signs an agreement with France which recognizes Vietnam as an autonomous state in the Indochinese Federation and the French Union. 1951 – Cold War: The trial of Ethel and Julius Rosenberg begins. 1953 – Georgy Malenkov succeeds Joseph Stalin as Premier of the Soviet Union and First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. 1957 – Ghana becomes the first Sub-Saharan country to gain independence from the British. 1964 – Nation of Islam leader Elijah Muhammad officially gives boxing champion Cassius Clay the name Muhammad Ali. 1964 – Constantine II becomes the last King of Greece. 1965 – Premier Tom Playford of South Australia loses power after 27 years in office. 1967 – Cold War: Joseph Stalin's daughter Svetlana Alliluyeva defects to the United States. 1968 – Three rebels are executed by Rhodesia, the first executions since UDI, prompting international condemnation. 1970 – An explosion at the Weather Underground safe house in Greenwich Village kills three. 1975 – For the first time the Zapruder film of the assassination of John F. Kennedy is shown in motion to a national TV audience by Robert J. Groden and Dick Gregory. 1975 – Algiers Accord: Iran and Iraq announce a settlement of their border dispute. 1984 – In the United Kingdom, a walkout at Cortonwood Colliery in Brampton Bierlow signals the start of a strike that lasted almost a year and involved the majority of the country's miners. 1987 – The British ferry MS Herald of Free Enterprise capsizes in about 90 seconds, killing 193. 1988 – Three Provisional Irish Republican Army volunteers are shot dead by the SAS in Gibraltar in Operation Flavius. 1992 – The Michelangelo computer virus begins to affect computers. 2003 – Air Algérie Flight 6289 crashes at the Aguenar – Hadj Bey Akhamok Airport in Tamanrasset, Algeria, killing 102 out of the 103 people on board. 2008 – A suicide bomber kills 68 people (including first responders) in Baghdad on the same day that a gunman kills eight students in Jerusalem. 2018 – Forbes names Jeff Bezos as the world's richest person, for the first time, at $112 billion net worth.

[brookstonalmanac]

Events 3.6

12 BC – The Roman Emperor Augustus is named Pontifex Maximus, incorporating the position into that of the emperor. 632 – The Farewell Sermon (Khutbah, Khutbatul Wada') of the Islamic prophet Muhammad. 845 – Execution of the 42 Martyrs of Amorium at Samarra. 961 – Byzantine conquest of Chandax by Nikephoros Phokas, end of the Emirate of Crete. 1204 – The Siege of Château Gaillard ends in a French victory over King John of England, who loses control of Normandy to King Philip II Augustus. 1323 – Treaty of Paris of 1323 is signed. 1454 – Thirteen Years' War: Delegates of the Prussian Confederation pledge allegiance to King Casimir IV of Poland who agrees to commit his forces in aiding the Confederation's struggle for independence from the Teutonic Knights. 1521 – Ferdinand Magellan arrives at Guam. 1665 – The first joint Secretary of the Royal Society, Henry Oldenburg, publishes the first issue of Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, the world's longest-running scientific journal. 1788 – The First Fleet arrives at Norfolk Island in order to found a convict settlement. 1820 – The Missouri Compromise is signed into law by President James Monroe. The compromise allows Missouri to enter the Union as a slave state, brings Maine into the Union as a free state, and makes the rest of the northern part of the Louisiana Purchase territory slavery-free. 1834 – York, Upper Canada, is incorporated as Toronto. 1836 – Texas Revolution: Battle of the Alamo: After a thirteen-day siege by an army of 3,000 Mexican troops, the 187 Texas volunteers, including frontiersman Davy Crockett and colonel Jim Bowie, defending the Alamo are killed and the fort is captured. 1857 – The Supreme Court of the United States rules in the Dred Scott v. Sandford case. 1869 – Dmitri Mendeleev presents the first periodic table to the Russian Chemical Society. 1882 – The Serbian kingdom is re-founded. 1899 – Bayer registers "Aspirin" as a trademark. 1902 – Real Madrid CF is founded. 1912 – Italo-Turkish War: Italian forces become the first to use airships in war, as two dirigibles drop bombs on Turkish troops encamped at Janzur, from an altitude of 6,000 feet. 1921 – Portuguese Communist Party is founded as the Portuguese Section of the Communist International. 1930 – International Unemployment Day demonstrations globally initiated by the Comintern. 1933 – Great Depression: President Franklin D. Roosevelt declares a "bank holiday", closing all U.S. banks and freezing all financial transactions. 1943 – Norman Rockwell published Freedom from Want in The Saturday Evening Post with a matching essay by Carlos Bulosan as part of the Four Freedoms series. 1943 – World War II: The Battle of Fardykambos, one of the first major battles between the Greek Resistance and the occupying Royal Italian Army, ends with the surrender of an entire Italian battalion, the bulk of the garrison of the town of Grevena, leading to its liberation a fortnight later. 1944 – World War II: Soviet Air Forces bomb an evacuated town of Narva in German-occupied Estonia, destroying the entire historical Swedish-era town. 1945 – World War II: Cologne is captured by American troops. On the same day, Operation Spring Awakening, the last major German offensive of the war, begins. 1946 – Ho Chi Minh signs an agreement with France which recognizes Vietnam as an autonomous state in the Indochinese Federation and the French Union. 1951 – Cold War: The trial of Ethel and Julius Rosenberg begins. 1953 – Georgy Malenkov succeeds Joseph Stalin as Premier of the Soviet Union and First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. 1957 – Ghana becomes the first Sub-Saharan country to gain independence from the British. 1964 – Nation of Islam leader Elijah Muhammad officially gives boxing champion Cassius Clay the name Muhammad Ali. 1964 – Constantine II becomes King of Greece. 1965 – Premier Tom Playford of South Australia loses power after 27 years in office. 1967 – Cold War: Joseph Stalin's daughter Svetlana Alliluyeva defects to the United States. 1968 – Three rebels are executed by Rhodesia, the first executions since UDI, prompting international condemnation. 1970 – An explosion at the Weather Underground safe house in Greenwich Village kills three. 1975 – For the first time the Zapruder film of the assassination of John F. Kennedy is shown in motion to a national TV audience by Robert J. Groden and Dick Gregory. 1975 – Algiers Accord: Iran and Iraq announce a settlement of their border dispute. 1983 – The first United States Football League games are played. 1984 – In the United Kingdom, a walkout at Cortonwood Colliery in Brampton Bierlow signals the start of a strike that lasted almost a year and involved the majority of the country's miners. 1987 – The British ferry MS Herald of Free Enterprise capsizes in about 90 seconds, killing 193. 1988 – Three Provisional Irish Republican Army volunteers are shot dead by the SAS in Gibraltar in Operation Flavius. 1992 – The Michelangelo computer virus begins to affect computers. 2003 – Air Algérie Flight 6289 crashes at the Aguenar – Hadj Bey Akhamok Airport in Tamanrasset, Algeria, killing 102 out of the 103 people on board. 2008 – A suicide bomber kills 68 people (including first responders) in Baghdad on the same day that a gunman kills eight students in Jerusalem.