A Brief History On March 24, 1199, while fighting in France at Limousin, an administrative region in the South-Central part of France that is now Nouvelle-Aquitaine, the King of England known as Richard I, the Lionheart, was struck in the shoulder by a bolt launched by a crossbow, leading to the King’s death on April 6, 1199. Bearing a famous name among English Kings and the subject of numerous (usually fictional) stories, movies and the like, Richard was famous as a Crusader King and curiously, hardly spent any time at all in England! Today we take a look at the…
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A Brief History On March 22, 1621, the European (basically British) colonists of Plymouth Colony, a “Pilgrim” venture for displaced religious zealots to find a place to practice their religion in peace, signed a peace treaty with Chief (or “Sachem”) Massasoit of the Wampanoag Native American coalition of tribes that had occupied what is now Massachusetts. Only a year later, at Jamestown, Virginia, the European (mostly British) colonists suffered a catastrophic attack from Algonquian Native Americans, resulting in the deaths of about a third of the entire population of colonists at and around Jamestown, leaving 347 White colonists dead, part…
A Brief History On March 19, 1945, the Essex class aircraft carrier USS Franklin while on station off the coast of Japan, was struck by a Japanese dive bomber flying a virtually suicidal mission through intense defenses, causing massive damage, but not sinking the ship. Still, an incredibly high fatality count had been inflicted upon the crew of the stricken ship, with at least 740 men killed and perhaps more. Is the Franklin the ship that suffered the highest death toll in a single battle that did not sink of damage inflicted in that battle? While we could not find…
A Brief History On March 18, 1915, the Allied naval operation at the Dardanelles, the straits that provide entry to the Black Sea from the Mediterranean, ended in one of the worst defeats of the British Royal Navy when 3 battleships were lost and another 4 capital ships were seriously damaged. A cruiser was also damaged. Digging Deeper Worse than just the loss of the ships, the British and French suffered 700 men killed on ships alone, along with several dozen killed on shore raids. The Turks suffered only 40 dead and 78 wounded. The stunning part about the failed…
A Brief History On March 15, 493, Ravenna, Italy was a scene right out of the HBO cable television series Game of Thrones when King Theodoric the Great of the Ostrogoths invited his defeated enemy, King Odoacer of Italy to a great banquet marking the “end” of hostilities. Odoacer, the first barbarian King of Italy, whose reign marked the end of the Western Roman Empire, was walking into a trap! Digging Deeper Theodoric used the banquet as a lure to draw in Odoacer so that the erstwhile King of Italy could be killed. In the manner typical of both fictional…