A Brief History Due to the implementation of the Gregorian calendar, October 7th was skipped in Italy, Poland, Portugal, and Spain in 1582. Digging Deeper Our calendar has changed a number of times in history and with those changes came the skipping and in some cases outright elimination of certain days of the year. October 7, 1582 was one such date that does not exist in several countries’ history. The omission of this particular date came with one of history’s most significant updates to the calendar most widely used in the world today: the Gregorian calendar. Prior to 1582, people…
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A Brief History On October 5, 1789, the women of Paris marched to Versailles to confront King Louis XVI about his refusal to abolish feudalism, to demand bread, and to force the King and his court to move to Paris. Digging Deeper English playwright and poet William Congreve (January 24, 1670 – January 19, 1729) famously noted, “Heav’n has no rage like love to hatred turn’d, Nor Hell a fury, like a woman scorn’d.” Perhaps his words were prescient for the violent chaos of the French Revolution as best exhibited when a veritable mob of weapons wielding women wanted to…
A Brief History On October 4, 610 A.D., Heraclius arrived by ship from Africa at Constantinople, overthrew Byzantine Emperor Phocas in one of the most badass coups in history, and became Emperor. Digging Deeper Future emperor Phocas, seen on the coin above, did not have an easy life. When he and others in the Byzantine army attempted to express their grievances to then Emperor Maurice’s government, not only were their requests rejected, but Phocas was himself humiliated by court officials by being slapped. Subsequently, Phocas led a rebellion of Byzantium’s Balkan army that forced Maurice to abdicate, but that was…
A Brief History From October 2, 1919 and for some weeks afterwards, First Lady Edith Wilson (October 15, 1872 — December 28, 1961) unofficially ran the U.S. government following her husband’s (then President Woodrow Wilson’s) life-changing stroke. Digging Deeper In the aftermath of America’s participation in what was then the world’s worst war (World War I) and his diplomatic wrangling at the Paris Peace Conference that followed the war’s conclusion in 1919, a worn-out President Wilson returned to America only to experience a series of medical crises. First, he endured a bout of influenza early in the year. Second, on…
A Brief History On October 2, 1187, one of history’s most significant sieges ended: The Siege of Jerusalem in which Saladin captured Jerusalem after 88 years of Crusader rule. Digging Deeper Jerusalem must hold some kind of record for the number of times a city has been besieged or at least sought after by so many different people over such a long expanse of history. Long before the Crusades, the originally Hebrew city had been besieged by Egyptians in 925 B.C., Assyrians in 701 B.C., Babylonians in 597 B.C. and again in 587 B.C., Romans in 63 B.C., Herodians in…
