A Brief History On November 13, 1002, English king Æthelred II the Unready ordered the killing of all Danes in England, known today as the St. Brice’s Day massacre. Digging Deeper When Æthelred became King of the English in 978, his realm had experienced repeated incursions by Danes. The situation was so bad that the English king even had to pay tribute to Denmark’s king starting in 991. Not surprisingly, Æthelred would eventually want some kind of way out of these humiliations. So, he decided to take decisive action on the feast day of a fifth century Bishop of Tours.…
A Brief History On November 12, 1933, Hugh Gray took the first known photos of the Loch Ness Monster. Digging Deeper Outside of maybe Bigfoot, Nessie (the Loch Ness Monster) is probably the most well-known cryptid in the English-speaking world. Claims of the existence of this monster date back possibly as far back as to Saint Columba (December 7, 521 A.D. – June 9, 597 A.D.). According to legend, Columba helped rescue a man from a water beast in Scotland. Of course, humans had not yet invented photographs and so it would not be for another nearly millennium and a…
A Brief History On November 11, 1918, Germany signed an armistice agreement with the Allies in a railroad car in the forest of Compiègne, France, officially ending fighting at the eleventh hour on the eleventh day in the eleventh month, but fighting did not actually end at that exact time and nor did the war! Digging Deeper Today, Belgium, France, Serbia, and New Zealand commemorate the armistice between the Allies of World War I and Germany. The Commonwealth Nations, except Mozambique, similarly observe Remembrance Day, while the United States honors those who served its armed forces on Veterans Day, both…
A Brief History On November 10, 1202, despite letters from Pope Innocent III (a much more popular pope than Guilty III) forbidding it and threatening excommunication, Catholic crusaders on the Fourth Crusade began a siege of the Catholic city of Zara (now Zadar, Croatia). Digging Deeper Whereas the First Crusade successfully restored Jerusalem to Christian rule and laid the basis for the Kingdom of Jerusalem, subsequent crusades were far less productive for the crusaders. Jerusalem was lost after the failed Second Crusade. Nor would it be regained during the Third Crusade, even with the participation of Europe’s three most powerful…
A Brief History November 10, 1898 marks the beginning of the Wilmington Insurrection of 1898, the only instance of a municipal government being overthrown in United States history! Digging Deeper More famous events such as the Whiskey Insurrection (also known as the Whiskey Rebellion) of 1791 tend to receive greater coverage in history textbooks than what occurred in Wilmington in 1898. Nevertheless, as noted above, the Wilmington Insurrection has a unique place in American history, because these rebels actually successfully overthrew their legitimately elected government, whereas just about anything else dubbed an “insurrection” in American history (not counting the American…