This Week In History
El Álamo. February 23, 1836.
The Battle of El Álamo (that took place from February 23 to March 6, 1836) was a major military conflict in the Texan Revolution. It started with a 13-days siege that ended with the final confrontation between the parts on March 6. It confronted the Mexican army, led by General Antonio López de Santana, against a Texan secessionist militia, formed in its majority by American colonists. It took place in San Antonio de Béxar, that was at that time part of the Mexican province of Coahuila y Texas (today, US state of Texas). All the combatants for the Republic of Texas died, except for two of them, which inspired a lot of Texan colonists as well as American mavericks to join the Texan army. Heated by the desire of vengeance because of the cruelty shown by General Santana during the siege, Texa...
The Met. February 20, 1872.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art (colloquially known nowadays as The Met) is one of the most well-known museums of the world. It is placed in Manhattan, in the City of New York, and it first opened to the public on February 20, 1872. The collection of the museum has over 2 million pieces from all the world, from treasures from the Classical antiquity, represented in it´s Cyprus and Greece galleries, to paintings and sculptures from almost all the great European masters, as well as a huge collection of American Art. The Museum houses masterpieces of Raphael, Tiziano, El Greco, Rembrandt, Velázquez, Picasso, Pollock, Braque among many others. The Museum houses also a great repertory of Egyptian art, African, Asian, Byzantine and European heritage. In April 13, 1870, the New York State Legislat...
Bardas Phocas against Basil II. February 7, 987.
Bardas Phocas was descendant of the Phocas Clan, an aristocratic family who consistently produced very competent generals that acted supplanting the actual heirs of the Macedonian Dynasty by acting as the authentic rulers of the Byzantine Empire. Let´s not forget that the Byzantine Empire at this time (during the second half of the tenth century) was characterized by long periods of military campaigns and many territories were conquered during this period. When Basil II ascended to the power at the death of his brother John I Tzimiskes in 976, tensions began to surface between the court and the emperor, that tried to rule without any exterior influence. This situation finally resulted in a major rebellion led by Bardas Phocas the Younger, the most powerful man left of the old Phocas Clan. ...
February 1, 1851. Mary Shelley.
Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin, better known by her husband´s surname, Mary Shelley, was a British writer, mostly remembered for being the author of the Gothic novel Frankenstein or the Modern Prometheus (1818), which is actually considered to be the first modern science-fiction novel, starting the genre. She also published and promoted Percy Bysshe Shelley´s works, romantic poet and philosopher, as well as her husband. Both her father and her mother were reputed philosophers and politicians, her mother being also a famous feminist activist that unfortunately died after giving birth of puerperal fever. She received from her father, William Godwin, an education that urged her to join liberal politics, and gave her to read her mother´s memoirs and books, that incremented Mary´s devotion t...
The Murder of Caligula. January 24, 41 AD.
Formally known as Gaius (Gaius Caesar Augustus Germanicus), but better known as Caligula, the third Roman emperor, from 37 to 41 AD, was born to the Julio-Claudian dynasty. He was son of Germanicus, one of the greatest generals of Roman history and adoptive son of Emperor Tiberius. His mother was Agrippina the Elder, a fiercely independent woman, who was married to Germanicus by order of Tiberius in order to bring him closer to the Julian family. As a child he accompanied his father on campaigns in the north of Germania, where he received the nickname of Caligula meaning “little (soldier’s) boot” in Latin, after the small boots (caligae) he wore… a nickname he grew to hate. Germanicus died in Syria, possibly poisoned by order of Tiberius, who saw him and his descendants a...
The Conquer of Mecca. January 11, 630.
The Conquer of Mecca meant the fall of this city (in actual Saudi Arabia) to the hands of Muslims lead by Prophet Muhammad in January 630 AD (8 AH). In 628, the Meccan tribe of the Quraysh and the Islamic community of Medina had signed a truce for 10 years, the Treaty of Hudaybiyyah. According to the terms of the Treaty, the Arabic tribes were offered to join whatever side they chose, either the Muslims or the Quraysh. If any of the tribes was attacked, its allies had the right to retaliate. As a consequence, the Banu Bakr aligned with the Quraysh and the Khuza´ah joined Prophet Muhammad. Peace reigned for some time, but motives with origins that date back to pre-islamic era, triggered hostilities that lead to the Banu Bakr attacking the Banu Khuza´ah disregarding the dispositions of the t...
Romanus Pontifex and the Age of Imperialism. January 8, 1455.
From the point of view of European History, the coast of Guinea has always been mainly associated to slavery. In fact, one of the names used commonly for this region is “The Slaves Coast”. When Portuguese arrived at the Atlantic coast of Africa around 1430, they were mainly interested in gold. Since Mansa Musa´s, king of the Empire of Mali, hajj to Mecca in 1325 with 500 slaves and 100 camels, each of them loaded with gold, the region was famous for its richness. The commerce of Subsaharan Africa had been until then controlled by the Islamic Empire that extended along the north of Africa. The commercial routes of the Muslims crossed the Sahara Desert. These routes had existed for centuries and the main goods were salt, textiles, fish, grain and slaves. When the Portuguese extended their in...
The Consecration of Westminster Abbey. December 28, 1065.
Before either pagan temple or Christian church was erected on it, the site of Westminster Abbey was a place of marsh and forest. From its dense bushes of thorn derived its ancient name of Thorn Ey (the Island of Thorns). According to monastic tradition, the earliest building on the Isle of Thorns was the Roman temple of Apollo, destroyed by an earthquake in A.D. 154. King Edward I the Confessor was ultra-religious with a special devotion to Saint Peter. Before he acceeded the throne, he had vowed that he would make a pilgrimage to the apostle‘s tomb in Rome, and soon after his coronation he announced his intention of keeping his oath. The Great Council was afraid of the dangers of the journey and a deputation was therefore sent to Leo IX to persuade him to release Edward from his vow...
Christmas, the Birth of the New Man. December 25.
He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible. Paul the Apostle had a view of the birth of Jesus as a major cosmic event which brought a “new man” who would undo the damage caused by the fall of the first man, Adam. The Pauline perspective puts an emphasis in the birth of a new man and a new world with the birth of Jesus Christ. The first source stating December 25 as the date of birth of Jesus was Hippolytus of Rome, one of the most important early Christian theologians, assuming that the conception of Jesus took place at the Spring equinox, on March 25, and then added nine months. There is historical evidence that by the middle of the 4th century the Christian churches of...
The Battle of Trebia. December 18, 218 BC.
The Second Punic War (218–201 BC) was the second war fought between Carthage and Rome, the two main powers of the Mediterranean in the 3rd century BC. For 17 years, the two powers struggled for supremacy, first in Italy and Iberia, but also in Sicily and Sardinia and, facing the end of the war, in North Africa. After immense losses on both sides, the Carthaginians were defeated. Macedonia, Syracuse and several Numidian kingdoms were drawn into the war; and Iberian and Gallic forces fought on both sides. There were three main military scenaries during the war: Italy, where the Carthaginian general Hannibal defeated the Roman legions repeatedly, with occasional subsidiary campaigns in Sicily, Sardinia and Greece; Iberia, where Hasdrubal, a younger brother of Hannibal, defended the Carthagini...
A woman on stage for Shakespeare´s Desdemona. December 8, 1660.
Margaret Hughes became an actress during a period of great change in English drama. English drama had suffered greatly during the English Civil War and the Interregnum, being banned by the Puritan Long Parliament in 1642. This ban was finally lifted upon the Restoration of King Charles II. Charles was a keen theatre-goer, and promptly gave two royal patents to Sir Thomas Killigrew and Sir William Davenant. During the Renaissance women had been virtually banned from appearing as actresses on the stage, resulting in male actors in female roles. One incident occurred when a play which the King was watching suddenly stopped. When he sent servants to see what the problem was, it was found that the male who was supposed to play one of the female parts was still shaving. There were also concerns ...
The Monroe Doctrine. December 2, 1823.
The U.S. government feared the victorious European powers that emerged from the Congress of Vienna (1814–1815) would revive monarchical government. France had already agreed to restore the Spanish monarchy in exchange for Cuba. As the revolutionary Napoleonic Wars (1803–1815) ended, Prussia, Austria, and Russia formed the Holy Alliance to defend monarchism. In particular, the Holy Alliance authorized military incursions to re-establish Bourbon rule over Spain and its colonies, which were establishing their independence. The Monroe Doctrine was a United States policy that opposed European colonialism in the Americas. It argued that any intervention in the politics of the Americas by foreign powers was a potentially hostile act against the United States. It began in 1823; however, the term &...