In Calendar Form

July 9

0118 Hadrian, Rome's new emperor, makes his entry into the city.

0455 Avitus, the Roman military commander in Gaul, becomes Emperor of the West.

Berengaria

1191 It's Good To Be King: Richard I (the Lionheart) marries Berengaria. Note: Although Queen, she never sets foot on English soil.   

1228 Death: Stephen Langton (b.ca.1155), Archbishop of Canterbury. Note: It is Langton who formulated the original division of the Bible into chapters in the late 1100s.

Anne

1540 It's Good To Be King II: England's King Henry VIII has his 6-month-old marriage to his fourth wife, Anne of Cleves, annulled. Note: She is nicknamed 'The Flanders Mare.'

1553 Mouthfulls: Maurice of Saxony is mortally wounded at Sievershausen, Germany, while defeating Albert of Brandenburg-Kulmbach.

1595 Johannes Kepler inscribes the geometric solid construction of the universe.

1609 In a letter to the crown, the emperor Rudolf II grants Bohemia freedom of worship.

1755 French and Indian War: General Edward Braddock is killed when French and Indian troops ambush his force of British regulars and colonial militia. "General Braddock liked the young Virginia major and invited George (Washington) to go along with him. He knew the ground and could give advice, which, of course, Braddock never took. Washington knew the tactics of the French and the Indians. They fired from cover of trees and rocks, offering little target to lines of regular British troops. He and others urged Braddock to......"

Washington's Flag

1776 American Revolution: The American Declaration of Independence is read aloud (proclaimed)  to General George Washington's troops in New York.

1789 French Revolution: In Versailles, the French National Assembly declares itself the Constituent Assembly and begins to prepare a French constitution.

1790 The Swedish navy captures one third of the Russian fleet at the naval battle of Svensksund in the Baltic Sea.

1816 Argentina declares independence from Spain.

1847 A 10-hour work day is established for workers in the state of New Hampshire.

1850 Death: The Bab, Baha'i prophet. The Bab is the martyr-herald of The Baha'i faith who had declared his Mission in 1844. He is executed in Tabriz, Iran, at the age of 31, because of his religious teachings.

1850 Death: Zachary 'Old Rough and Ready' Taylor, 12th US President 1849-50, succumbs suddenly of cholera in the White House, Washington DC at the age of 55. He is buried at Louisville, Jefferson County, Kentucky. Married to Margaret Smith, they had one son and five daughters. He only serves 16 months of his term and is succeeded by Millard Fillmore.

1856 Birth: Nicola Tesla, the inventor of Alternating Current. The link is illuminating.

1862 US Civil War: General John Hunt Morgan captures Tompkinsville, Kentucky.

1863 US Civil War: Port Hudson, Louisiana, the last Confederate fort on the Mississippi, surrenders.

1877 Alexander Graham Bell, Gardiner Greene Hubbard, Thomas Sanders and Thomas Watson form the Bell Telephone Company.

1878 The corncob pipe is patented by Henry Tibbe.

1893 Dr. Daniel Hale Williams performs the first successful open-heart surgery at Provident Hospital in Chicago. With the aid of six surgeons, Williams operates on the artery of a patient who has received a knife wound to his heart. An African American physician, Williams helped found Provident Hospital at a time when Chicago hospitals did not allow black doctors to use their facilities.

1900 The Commonwealth of Australia is established by an act of the British Parliament, uniting the separate colonies under a federal government.

1910 The First Frequent Flier Mile: Walter R. Brookins, in Atlantic City, New Jersey, becomes the first to fly an airplane a mile in the air.

1915 Germany surrenders South West Africa to the Union of South Africa.

1916 The first cargo submarine to cross the Atlantic arrives in the US from Germany.

1917 The British warship Vanguard explodes at Scapa Flow killing 800.

1918 The US Army's Distinguished Service Cross is authorized.

1933 Church and Reich: Adolf 'Never Excommunicated' Hitler releases a public statement announcing that a Concordat has been initialed by Nazi Germany and the Holy See. Public opinion generally regards this as a great diplomatic victory for Hitler, but the Papal Secretary of State Eugenio Pacelli, the future Pope Pius XII, has himself worked toward this very goal since 1920 when he was first appointed Papal Nuncio in Germany. (Lewy)  Note: The Vatican was not so much for what Hitler stood for, as what he stood against: Communism and Judaism. Not one of the church's finest moments.

1935 The torture chamber of Ivan the Terrible is unearthed in Moscow.

1936 Holocaust: Josef Goebbels, Reich Propaganda Minister and leader of the Nazi Party in Berlin, orders a halt to anti-Jewish propaganda until after the Berlin Olympics.

1938 35 million gas masks are issued to Britain's civilian population in anticipation of war with Germany.

1939 Strange Bedfellows: Churchill urges a British military alliance with the Soviet Union.

1943 July 9/10 The British and Americans launch Operation Husky, the invasion of Sicily. The British 8th Army lands at Cape Passero and then advances up the eastern coast. The U.S. Seventh Army, led by General George S. Patton wins a beachhead at Gela. General Omar Bradley's II Corps and General Lucian K. Truscott's task force cut through the center of the island and sweep up the western coast.

1944 WW2: Hitler, a victim of Allied misinformation, rejects Rommel's urgent request to withdraw his troops in Normandy in order to regroup.

1944 Holocaust: Raoul Wallenberg arrives in Budapest. His nominal role is as an attache for the Swedish legation, but he is in Budapest primarily at the instigation of the War Refugee Board, a new U.S. government agency established to help Jewish victims. He quickly begins issuing safe conduct passes. (Apparatus)

1944 WW2: German Army Group North is cut off in the Baltic.

Hitler' 'Wolf's Lair' Today

1944 WW2: Hitler returns to the Wolf's Lair from Obersalzberg. Note: Hitler's Wolf's Lair lies in the woods of Gierloz, just east of Ketrzyn. It once consisted of a group of 80 strong bunkers built in the years 1940-44, a small railway station and an airfield, and it had a direct telephone link with Berlin. In eight of the bunkers the thickness of the walls was from 1 to 6 m., and the thickness of the roof from 6 to 8 m. Hitler's headquarters was a fortress surrounded by a belt of minefields, with anti-aircraft gun emplacements; and the buildings were camouflaged with nets holding imitation foliage, the colour of which was changed from season to season. Hitler used this headquarters from 24 June 1941 to 20 November 1944, although he was not constantly in residence there. The Wolf's Lair was destroyed by the German army as it withdrew in late January 1945. The area which housed Hitler's headquarters, with the ruins of the bunkers, can today be visited by tourists.

1944 WWII: American forces secure Saipan as the last Japanese defenses fall.

Blanchfield

1947 In a ceremony held at the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia, General Dwight 'Delighted' Eisenhower appoints Florence Blanchfield to be a lieutenant colonel in the US Army, making her the first woman in US history to hold permanent military rank. Note: A member of the Army Nurse Corps since 1917, Blanchfield secures her commission following the passage of the Army-Navy Nurse Act of 1947 by Congress. Blanchfield had served as superintendent of the Army Nurse Corps during World War II and was instrumental in securing passage of the Army-Navy Nurse Act, which was advocated by Representative Frances Payne Bolton. In 1951, Blanchfield receives the Florence Nightingale Award from the International Red Cross. In 1978, a US Army hospital in Fort Campbell, Kentucky, is named in her honor.

1955 The first black executive takes his place on the White House staff, E. Frederic Morrow.   

Khrushchev

1960 Cold War: Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev threatens the United States with rockets if American forces attempt to oust the communist government of Cuba.

1951 U.S. President Harry 'Stymied By Stalin' Truman asks Congress to formally end the state of war between the United States and Germany.

1971 The Nam: The United States turns over complete responsibility of the Demilitarized Zone to South Vietnamese units.

1974 Death: Former US Chief Justice Earl Warren, in Washington. Note: The Warren Court was the most controversial in recent American History because of its activist support of 'Affirmative Action,' and its attempts at 'Desegregation,' utilizing the bussing of school children to promote racial balance.

1976 Hubris: Uganda asks the UN to condemn the Israeli hostage rescue raid on Entebbe.   

1978 Diverse Aims: The American Nazi Party holds a rally in Marquette Park, Chicago, as nearly 100,000 demonstrators march on Washington DC in support of the ERA. Note: That's Equal Rights Amendment, NOT Earned Run Average!

1987 Iran-Contra: Lieutenant Colonel Oliver 'Stick These In Your Drawers' North testifies on national television that he had shredded documents under the very noses of Justice Department aides investigating his office. Note: The hearings will reveal that North had run a secret, and illegal, war against Nicaragua, and he is eventually convicted for destroying and falsifying documents, failing to pay for a 13,800 security system, and aiding the obstruction of Congress; three of the twelve counts against him, being acquitted of the nine most serious charges. In a performance reminiscent of Hitler's Munich Putsch Trial, North wins the hearts of many conservative Americans during these much viewed televised hearings. Despite his part in the contras, selling weapons to Iran, obstructing justice, misappropriating government funds for personal gain, and helping 'friendly' terrorists launder drug money, North emerges a hero and a media celebrity. His convictions will later be overturned due to the willingness of the lawers, we the people elect to Congress, to grandstand for the media, instead of pursuing the matter in a manner consistent with justice, and worthy of Americas nobler ideals.

1990 G-7: Leaders of the world's seven richest nations open a three-day economic summit in Houston, the first such gathering in the post-Cold War era.

1992 Democratic presidential hopeful Bill Clinton picks Tennessee's Senator Al Gore as his running mate.

1995 French commandoes seize the Greenpeace ship, Rainbow Warrior II, after it enters French waters off Mururoa Atoll.

2002 The stock market continues to drop in the wake of corporate accounting scandals. President George W. Bush urges Congress to enact reform measures aimed at what is seen as a climate of greed among top business executives.

2004