History, anything goes, including pictures

The key to the Bastille.

On the morning of 14 July 1789, the city of Paris was in a state of alarm. Crowds gathered outside the Bastille around mid-morning, calling for the surrender of the prison, the removal of the cannon and the release of the arms and gunpowder within. Around 1.30 pm, the crowd surged into the undefended outer courtyard. Governor de Launay ordered a cease-fire at 5 pm but could not repel the attack. Accordingly he opened the gates to the inner courtyard, and the vainqueurs swept in to liberate the fortress at 5.30 pm.

The Marquis de La Fayette, was a French aristocrat and military officer who fought in the American Revolutionary War. A close friend of George Washington, Alexander Hamilton, and Thomas Jefferson, Lafayette was a key figure in the French Revolution of 1789 and the July Revolution of 1830.

Marquis de La Fayette. The key to the Bastille displayed Washington's residence, Mount Vernon.

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In 1790, Lafayette gave the cast-iron, one-pound and three-ounce key to the Bastille to American President George Washington. Washington displayed it prominently at government facilities and events in New York and in Philadelphia until shortly before his retirement in 1797. The key remains on display at Washington's residence of Mount Vernon.
 

15 July 1799 – The Rosetta Stone is found in the Egyptian village of Rosetta by French Captain Pierre-François Bouchard during Napoleon's Egyptian Campaign.

The Rosetta Stone is a granodiorite stele discovered in 1799 which is inscribed with three versions of a decree issued in Memphis, Egypt in 196 BC during the Ptolemaic dynasty on behalf of King Ptolemy V Epiphanes. The top and middle texts are in Ancient Egyptian using hieroglyphic and Demotic scripts respectively, while the bottom is in Ancient Greek. The decree has only minor differences between the three versions, making the Rosetta Stone key to deciphering Egyptian hieroglyphs. The aroused widespread public interest.

Top section of the Rosetta Stone showing the Egyptian hieroglyphics. The stone's top and middle texts are in Ancient Egyptian using hieroglyphic script and Demotic script, respectively, while the bottom is in Ancient Greek. The Rosetta Stone has been on public display at the British Museum almost continuously since 1802 and is the most-visited object in the museum.

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On 15 July 1799, French soldiers were strengthening the defences of Fort Julien, just north-east of the Egyptian port city of Rosetta, now Rashid. Lieutenant Pierre-François Bouchard spotted a slab with inscriptions on one side that the soldiers had uncovered. He and his commander Colonel d'Hautpoul saw at once that it might be important and informed General Jacques-François Menou, who happened to be at Rosetta. The find was announced to Napoleon's newly founded scientific association in Cairo, the Institut d'Égypte.
 
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Sturgeon fishing on the Volga river, Russia, 1924.

Caviar is unfertilized eggs—also known as roe—that are harvested exclusively from the sturgeon family of fish and then salt-cured. There are other popular types of fish roe—like the bright orange salmon roe (ikura) which sits atop sushi—but only sturgeon roe is considered caviar.
 

16 July 1661 – The first banknotes in Europe are issued by the Swedish bank Stockholms Banco.

Stockholms Banco in Sweden was the first European bank to print banknotes. The bank was founded in 1657 by Johan Palmstruch, a commissioner in the National Board of Trade, and began printing banknotes ion 16 July 1661.

The first paper money in Europe. A Swedish daler at the Coin Cabinet exhibit at The Historical Museum in Lund, Sweden.

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Stockholms Banco was the immediate precursor to the central bank of Sweden, founded in 1668 as Riksens Ständers Bank and renamed in 1866 as Sveriges Riksbank, which is the world's oldest surviving central bank.


These banknotes became very popular very quickly ... simply because they were much easier to carry than the large copper daler Swedish coin, especially for making big payments. A note could be sent in an envelope, previously the heavy coins had to be transported by horse and cart for large transactions. The largest copper coin weighed almost 20 kilograms.
 
16 July 1935 – The world's first parking meter is installed in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.

Conceptualised in 1932 by the chair of the Traffic Committee of the Oklahoma City Chamber of Commerce, Carl C. Magee, the parking meter was a modern solution to a modern vexation, parking congestion. By 1930 there were five hundred thousand cars in the area, most of which were registered in Oklahoma County and the capital city. The problem was that people who worked downtown occupied all of the parking spots every day, forcing retail customers to park far away from stores. Magee received a patent for the apparatus on 24 May 1938.

Carl Magee at work. The world's first parking meter was installed in Oklahoma City on 16 July 1935.


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Also on 16 July ...

1969 – Apollo 11, the first mission to land astronauts on the Moon, is launched from the Kennedy Space Center at Cape Kennedy, Florida.

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1999 – John F. Kennedy Jr., piloting a Piper Saratoga aircraft, dies when his plane crashes into the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Martha's Vineyard. His wife and sister-in-law are also killed.

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Who knew you could pearls from fresh water mussels? Not me. :)

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Pearl diver using a car's old gas tank for a helmet, prepares to descend into the river, 1938. taken near the Mississippi river.

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In 1884, a German by the name of J.F. Boepple founded the Mississippi River pearl button industry by applying his native trade to the abundant Mississippi River mussels. By 1890, Muscatine was known as the Pearl Button Capital of the World. 2,500 workers were employed in 43 different button-related businesses.
 
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Notorious as the emperor who fiddled while Rome burnt, recent archaeological and historical studies have absolved Nero of blame for the great fire.

The newspaper La Repubblica marked the anniversary yesterday of the outbreak in 64 AD with an article by the documentary maker Alberto Angela arguing that the maligned ruler had tried to put out the flames
 
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Two French men restrain a woman while another cuts her hair after she has been accused of collaborating with the Germans during the occupation, 1945.

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Norwegian woman with a German soldier in the summer of 1940
 
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Mountbatten and Gandhi take tea
1 April 1947

The midnight between August 14 and 15, 1947, was one of history’s truly momentous moments: It marked the birth of Pakistan, an independent India and the beginning of the end of an era of colonialism.

As the great grandson of Queen Victoria, Lord Louis Mountbatten was responsible for planning the departure of the British from India and for finding a solution to the deadlock between the different Indian political parties.

Mountbatten had been dispatched to India by the British prime minister, Clement Attlee, with instructions to secure the fastest possible transfer of power. Within two months of his arrival, he had finalised a plan to partition the subcontinent into two separate states – Muslim-majority Pakistan and Hindu-majority India – and transferred power a year faster than anyone had expected.
 
The Loyal Wives of Weinsberg

The year of our Lord 1140. The king [Conrad] besieged the city of the duke Welf of Bavaria, which was called Weinsberg, and accepted its surrender, having granted with royal magnanimity permission to the wives and other women found there that they might take with them whatever they could carry on their shoulders. Taking thought both for their loyalty for their husbands and the safety of the others, they disregarded their household goods and came down carrying the men on their shoulders. When Duke Friedrich said that such things should not happen, the king, showing favour to the women's cunning, said that it would not be fitting to change his royal word.[8]

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Weinsberg
 
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Mikhail Gorbachev, head of the Communist party from 1985 to 1991 is a reforming politician who introduces policies of perestroika and glasnost (restructuring and openness) at the 27th party congress in 1986. Photograph: AFP/Getty Images.

Although he survives the August coup, Gorbachev’s political career is over. On 25 December 1991 he announces his resignation on television and by the end of the year the USSR has collapsed. Yeltsin, his former friend turned nemesis, remains as head of the Russian Federation.
 

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Sheriff Pat Garrett finally caught up with Billy the Kid at Fort Sumner, New Mexico, in 1881. The Colt he used to kill the outlaw goes under the hammer next month
GETTY IMAGES

One of the most revered weapons of the American Wild West — the gun used to kill the 19th-century outlaw Billy the Kid — is to be auctioned next month.
 
On April 21, 1865, a train carrying the coffin of assassinated President Abraham Lincoln leaves Washington, D.C. on its way to Springfield, Illinois, where he would be buried on May 4.

The train carrying Lincoln’s body traveled through 180 cities and seven states on its way to Lincoln’s home state of Illinois. Scheduled stops for the special funeral train were published in newspapers. At each stop, Lincoln’s coffin was taken off the train, placed on an elaborately decorated horse-drawn hearse and led by solemn processions to a public building for viewing. In cities as large as Columbus, Ohio, and as small as Herkimer, New York, thousands of mourners flocked to pay tribute to the slain president. In Philadelphia, Lincoln’s body lay in state on in the east wing of Independence Hall, the same site where the Declaration of Independence was signed. Newspapers reported that people had to wait more than five hours to pass by the president’s coffin in some cities.

Lincoln’s funeral train was dubbed The Lincoln Special. (His portrait was fastened to the front of the engine above the cattle guard.) Approximately 300 people accompanied Lincoln’s body on the 1,654-mile journey, including his eldest son Robert. Also on the train was a coffin containing the body of Lincoln’s son Willie, who had died in 1862 at the age of 11 of typhoid fever during Lincoln’s second year in office. Willie’s body had been disinterred from a plot in Washington, D.C. after Lincoln’s death so he could be buried alongside his father at the family plot in Springfield.
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Photo Credit: North Carolina State Archives, Raleigh, NC.

Cooking pork over an open pit, Braswell Plantation, near Rocky Mount, North Carolina, USA, September 1944.
 
Today in Local History:

Civil War Letter
July 27th, 1863
Pvt. Edward Hoyt of Walton, NY wrote this letter to his wife about crossing the Potomac on July 27, 1863

Dear wife Helen,
Again I write to you a few lines to let you know just where I am and that I am very well and hearty, although I have a cold in my head, but it is working good. I have not had a letter in 2 weeks till last night when we got 2 weeks mail. Something like 5 or 6 bushels of letters and papers came. It took several hours to sort them. I got 5 letters – 3 from yourself and one from Fitch and one from Thad Hoyt. I have sent you letters as often as I had a chance. I have written some to our folks so you would know where I was if I did not write directly to you. We have been moving so fast and so much of the time I have had a chance to write as often as I would like. We have made some awful marches. One night we marched till 12 o’clock, and have made some days near 30 miles. One week ago yesterday morning we crossed the Potomac at Berlin and Sat. we came here from New Baltimore, about 15 miles. Started at daylight and got in 11 o’clock and was ordered a forced march. We stayed here on Sunday and I am on guard today, drawn on last night.
Have had a pleasant time, but it rains some today. Don’t know how long we will stay here, are liable to move at any time, all depends on Lee’s movements. He is reported at Trout Royal just west of the Blue Ridge.
I think I shall try for a furlough this fall if things don’t look pretty flattering as to the close of the war. It looks now as if the thing might be driven through before cold weather with a good degree of energy put forth by our army. Helen, I guess you may knit one pair of socks but do not send them till I can get me a pair of boots. I can let you know when I want them.
Ed Smith and Erastus Rogers are both with the reg’t but are very poorly. Smith wished me to say he had a letter from Lew and would answer as soon as he felt able. They are about, but poor and weak. I think they will be shipped out soon or by the fall. I don’t know if either of them has a particular disease on them but they are tired and weak. I think perhaps Rogers may be homesick, but I don’t say it so please mind. I must close, goodbye one and all, yours in haste and love absently, Ed Hoyt

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Taken in 1967 by photographer Rocco Morabito, the photo below called “The Kiss of Life” shows utility worker J.D. Thompson giving mouth-to-mouth to co-worker Randall G. Champion after the latter went unconscious following contact with a low voltage line. Thompson, who had been ascending below him, quickly reached Champion and performed mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. Thompson was unable to perform CPR given the circumstances, but he breathed into Champion’s lungs until he felt a slight pulse, then unbuckled his harness and carried him down on his shoulders.

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From the 1906 book The Bitter Cry of the Children by labor reformer John Spargo:

Work in the coal breakers is exceedingly hard and dangerous. Crouched over the chutes, the boys sit hour after hour, picking out the pieces of slate and other refuse from the coal as it rushes past to the washers. From the cramped position they have to assume, most of them become more or less deformed and bent-backed like old men. When a boy has been working for some time and begins to get round-shouldered, his fellows say that “He’s got his boy to carry round wherever he goes.”
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1979
16-year-old Brenda Spencer leaves court in Santa Ana, California, after pleading guilty to two counts of murder in a sniper attack. She killed two people and wounded nine others.
 


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