A Brief History On May 4, 1979, Margaret Thatcher, the leader of the Conservative Party, was sworn in as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, the first woman to lead a major Western Power in the era of elected leaders. Known as “The Iron Lady,” a name bestowed upon her by Soviets, Thatcher served from 1979 to 1990, resigning in 1990 after maintaining only a slim majority of support of her own party. Digging Deeper Thatcher, born Margaret Hilda Roberts in 1925, was Oxford educated in Chemistry and went on to work as a chemist before studying the law and…
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A Brief History On April 29, 1945, the British Royal Air Force aided by units of the Australian, New Zealand, Canadian, and Polish Air Forces began Operation Manna over the occupied part of the Netherlands (Holland) with the acquiescence of the German occupiers. The United States Army Air Forces started their own, similar, operation 2 days later called Operation Chowhound. As you may guess from the code names given the operations, the military action was feeding the starving civilian population of occupied Netherlands, dropping food from bomber aircraft. Digging Deeper In all, more than 11,0000 tons of food were dropped…
A Brief History On September 24, 1272, Prince Edward of England, leader of the Ninth Crusade, left Acre (Syria) for Sicily to recover from wounds. There he heard of the death of his son and later the death of his father. The evacuation of Edward marked the end of the Ninth Crusade, the last of the Medieval religious Crusades (though there is sometimes referenced a Tenth Crusade that is not really related to what we think of as the Historical Crusades). Digging Deeper Edward’s wounds were caused by an assassin wielding a poisoned dagger. Though Edward was able to kill…
A Brief History On April 28, 1192, the Christian King of Jerusalem, Conrad of Montferrat, perhaps better known as Conrad I, was murdered by an Islamic organization called the Order of Assassins, or the Hashshashins. A nobleman from Northern Italy, Conrad was one of the chief architects of the Third Crusade (1189-1192) and had only served as the elected King of Jerusalem for mere days before being assassinated. Digging Deeper Conrad was murdered while walking back to his home from a visit to Bishop Phillip of Dreux, Bishop of Beauvais, stabbed in the back and side by 2 assassins even…
A Brief History On November 27, 1095, Pope Urban II announced at the Council of Clermont (in Clermont, France) before a mixed council of clergy and lay people (landholding nobles) a call to arms that would become known as the First Crusade, a Catholic invasion of the Moslem world with the goal of “liberating” Jerusalem and the Holy Sites and putting them back in Christian hands. Digging Deeper The call to arms was made in part at the request of the Byzantine Emperor Alexius I Comnenus (various spellings) based in Constantinople (modern Istanbul) who was having trouble dealing with constant…