Hollow Leg Podcast

1642

Harvard holds its first graduation ceremony as nine graduates participate in Harvard College's first commencement exercise. Fourteen undergrads, family members, clergy, plus Governor Winthrop of the Massachusetts Bay Company, look on. America's first college will go on to become one of the world's most prestigious universities.

1806

Amid much public excitement, American explorers Meriwether Lewis and William Clark return to St. Louis, Missouri, from the first recorded overland journey from the Mississippi River to the Pacific coast and back. The Lewis and Clark Expedition had set off more than two years before to explore the territory of the Louisiana Purchase. They would bring back a wealth of information about the largely unexplored region, as well as valuable U.S. claims to Oregon Territory.

1846

Neptune is plotted, discovered. French mathematician Urbain Le Verrier has used celestial mechanics to plot the coordinates of a faraway planet that can't be seen by the naked eye, and five days later, German astronomer Johann Gottfried Galle's telescope spies Neptune almost exactly where Le Verrier calculated it would be.

1889 

Nintendo is Founded. The Japanese gaming company was created by entrepreneur Fusajiro Yamauchi as a card company called Nintendo Koppai, which was based in Kyoto. The company originally produced and sold playing cards called Hanafuda. The release of Donkey Kong, an arcade game in 1981, brought Nintendo to the forefront of the electronic and video games industry.

1356

English forces under Edward the Black Prince defeat the French at Battle of Poitiers and capture the French King John II. The Battle of Poitiers was a major English victory in the Hundred Years' War. Edward, the Black Prince, led an army of English, Welsh, Breton and Gascon troops, many of them veterans of the Battle of Crécy. They were attacked by a larger French force led by King John II of France, which included allied Scottish forces. The French were heavily defeated; an English counter-attack captured King John II along with his youngest son and much of the French nobility. Jean de Venette, a Carmelite friar, vividly describes the chaos that ensued following the battle. The demise of the French nobility at the battle, only ten years from the catastrophe at Crécy, threw the kingdom into chaos. The realm was left in the hands of the Dauphin Charles, who faced popular rebellion across the kingdom in the wake of the defeat. Jean writes that the French nobles brutally repressed the rebellions, robbing, despoiling, and pillaging the peasants' goods. Mercenary companies hired by both sides added to the destruction, plundering the peasants and the churches. Poitiers was the second major English victory of the Hundred Years' War. Poitiers was fought ten years after the Battle of Crécy (the first major victory), and about half a century before the third, the Battle of Agincourt (1415).

1692

A part of the Salem Witch Trials, Giles Corey is pressed to death for standing mute and refusing to answer charges of witchcraft brought against him. He is the only person in America to have suffered this punishment. Giles Corey seems to have been a man of steel; as he was steadfast in refusal to plead, nor did he cry out in pain as the rocks were added on the boards. After two days, Corey was asked three times to enter a plea, but each time he replied, "More weight."

1881

President James A. Garfield, who had been in office just under four months, succumbs to wounds inflicted by an assassin 80 days earlier, on July 2. Garfield’s assassin was an attorney and political office-seeker named Charles Guiteau. Guiteau was a relative stranger to the president and his administration in an era when federal positions were doled out on a “who you know” basis. When his requests for an appointment were ignored, a furious Guiteau stalked the president, vowing revenge. Guiteau was deemed sane by a jury, convicted of murder and hanged on June 30, 1882. Garfield’s spine, which shows the hole created by the bullet, is kept as a historical artifact by the National Museum of Health and Medicine in Washington, D.C.

1944

Hürtgen Forest swallows up an advancing US army. Allied forces advance eastward after the Normandy invasion, and as the US 60th Infantry Regiment enters Germany's Hürtgen Forest, a bloody fight begins that will be named the longest single battle in US Army history, and later almost forgotten in the shadow of the Battle of the Bulge. The battle of the Hurtgen ended in a German defensive victory and the whole offensive was a dismal failure for the Allies The Americans suffered between 33,000 - 55,000 casualties, included 9,000 non-combat losses and represented a 25 percent casualty rate. The Germans had also suffered heavy losses with 28,000 casualties - many of these were non combat and prisoners of war.

2010 

Oil rig Deepwater Horizon is declared sealed after a 5-month long spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Thought to be one of the biggest accidents in the oil and gas industry, the Deepwater Horizon spill or the BP oil spill began on April 20, 2010, when an explosion destroyed the rig and killed 11 people.

1793

George Washington lays the cornerstone to the United States Capitol building, the home of the legislative branch of American government. The building would take nearly a century to complete, as architects came and went, the British set fire to it and it was called into use during the Civil War by Union troops as a hospital and barracks. Today, the Capitol building, with its famous cast-iron dome and important collection of American art, is part of the Capitol Complex, which includes six Congressional office buildings and three Library of Congress buildings, all developed in the 19th and 20th centuries.

1810

Chile's first junta proclaims autonomous republic. A nine-member junta takes control of the government, starting the Chilean War of Independence. Spain will attempt to reimpose its rule over the country, but after more than a decade of fighting, the last Spanish troops will finally surrender on January 15, 1826.

1851

Whig Party politician Henry Raymond and ex-banker George Jones publish the inaugural issue of 'The New-York Daily Times.' It'll become better known by a shortened name, 'The New York Times,' go on to win more than a hundred Pulitzer Prizes, and be deemed the US newspaper of record.

1870

A cone geyser that shoots thousands of gallons of boiling water 125 feet into the air is named 'Old Faithful' by members of an expedition. The geyser's astounding show, repeated at regular intervals, will soon make it a star attraction, with some visitors using it to wash laundry, at what will soon be the world's first national park.

1960

Fidel Castro arrives in New York City as the head of the Cuban delegation to the United Nations. He and his entourage caused an immediate sensation by deciding to stay at the Theresa Hotel in Harlem. While there, Castro met with a number of African-American leaders, including Malcolm X from the Nation of Islam and the poet Langston Hughes. On September 26, Castro delivered a blistering attack on what he termed American “aggression” and “imperialism.” For over four hours, Castro lambasted U.S. policy toward Cuba and other nations in Latin America, Asia, and Africa. The United States, he declared, had “decreed the destruction” of his revolutionary government. By the time Castro arrived in New York City relations between the United States and Cuba were rapidly deteriorating. Since taking power in January 1959, Castro had infuriated the American government with his policies of nationalizing U.S. companies and investments in Cuba. 

1394

Charles VI suddenly published an ordinance in which he declared, in substance, that for a long time he had been taking note of the many complaints provoked by the excesses and misdemeanors which the Jews committed against Christians; and that the prosecutors, having made several investigations, had discovered many violations by the Jews of the agreement they had made with him. Therefore, he decreed as an irrevocable law and statute that thenceforth no Jew should dwell in his domains. According to the Religieux de St. Denis, the king signed this decree at the insistence of the queen, Isabeau of Bavaria.

1787

Following a speech by Benjamin Franklin, The Constitution of the United States of America is signed by 38 of 41 delegates present at the conclusion of the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia. The day will later be observed as I Am an American Day, which will be renamed to Constitution Day and Citizenship Day. Today, the U.S. Constitution is the oldest written constitution in operation in the world.

1859

San Franciscan Joshua A. Norton, frustrated by government bureaucracy, declares himself, 'Norton I, Emperor of the United States.' His edicts, including the abolition of the US Congress, endear him to many of his fellow residents, who encourage his delusions of grandeur. Norton had no official political power; nevertheless, he was treated deferentially in San Francisco, and currency issued in his name was honored in the establishments that he frequented. His "reign" would last for 21 years.

1868

Major George A. Forsyth and a volunteer force of 50 frontiersmen in Colorado come under a surprise attack by a large band of Cheyenne and Sioux natives.

Retreating to a small sandbar in the Arikaree River that thereafter became known as Beecher’s Island, Forsyth and his men succeeded in repulsing three massed Indian charges. Thanks to the rapid fire capability of their seven-shot Spencer rifles, Forsyth’s volunteers were able to kill or wound many of the Indian attackers, including the war chief Roman Nose. But as evening came and the fighting temporarily halted, Forsyth found he had 22 men either dead or wounded, and he estimated the survivors were surrounded by a force of 600 Indians. The men faced certain annihilation unless they could somehow bring help. Two men-Jack Stilwell and Pierre Trudeau-volunteered to attempt a daring escape through the Indian lines and silently melted into the night.

The battle raged for five more days. Forsyth’s effective fighting force was reduced to ten men before the Indians finally withdrew, perhaps reasoning that they had inflicted enough damage.

1939

With the German army already attacking western Poland, the Soviet Union launches an invasion of eastern Poland.  Soviet Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov declares that the Polish government has ceased to exist, as the U.S.S.R. exercises the “fine print” of the Hitler-Stalin Non-aggression pact—the invasion and occupation of eastern Poland. The “reason” given was that Russia had to come to the aid of its “blood brothers,” the Ukrainians and Byelorussians, who were trapped in territory that had been illegally annexed by Poland. Now Poland was squeezed from West and East—trapped between two behemoths. Its forces overwhelmed by the modern German army, Poland had nothing left with which to fight the Soviets. The Soviet Union would wind up with about three-fifths of Poland and 13 million of its people as a result of the invasion.

335

Church of the Holy Sepulchre consecrated. In Jerusalem, Constantine the Great, Roman Emperor responsible for the legalization of Christianity in the Roman Empire, consecrates a new church built over the purported sites of Jesus Christ's crucifixion, burial, and resurrection. Deemed by many as Christendom's holiest place, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre will be destroyed and rebuilt more than once.

1899

First Recorded Automobile Fatality in the US takes place. Henry H. Bliss was struck by a taxi cab while crossing the street in New York City. He died the next day due to his injuries.

1933 

A Woman is Elected to New Zealand Parliament for the first time. Elizabeth McCombs won the by-elections for the parliamentary seat of Lyttelton, which was held by her husband before he died in August 1933. New Zealand extended suffrage to women in 1893.

1971

Massacre at Attica Prison. A four-day revolt at the maximum-security Attica Correctional Facility near Buffalo, New York, ends when hundreds of state police officers storm the complex in a hail of gunfire. On the rainy Monday morning of September 13, helicopters flew over the yard, dropping tear gas as state police and corrections officers stormed in with guns blazing. The police fired 3,000 rounds into the tear gas haze, killing 29 inmates and 10 of the hostages and wounding 89. Most were shot in the initial indiscriminate barrage of gunfire, but other prisoners were shot or killed after they surrendered. In the aftermath of the bloody raid, authorities said that the inmates had killed the slain hostages by slitting their throats. However, autopsies showed that these charges were false and that all 10 hostages had been shot to death by police. The attempted cover-up increased public condemnation of the raid and prompted a Congressional investigation. In the week after its conclusion, police engaged in brutal reprisals against the prisoners, forcing them to run a gauntlet of nightsticks and crawl naked across broken glass, among other tortures. The many injured inmates received substandard medical treatment, if any.

1993 

Oslo Accords Signed. US President Bill Clinton hosts Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and Palestinian Liberation Organization Chairman Yasser Arafat at the White House as their representatives sign the 'Oslo Accords,' another step in the complex Israeli-Palestinian peace process. The Oslo Accords created a Palestinian Authority tasked with limited self-governance of parts of the West Bank and Gaza Strip; and acknowledged the PLO as Israel's partner in permanent-status negotiations about remaining questions. The Oslo Accords, however, did not create a Palestinian state.

490 BC

Battle of Marathon. During the first Persian invasion of Greece, the citizen army of Athens, aided by Plataea, defeat a much larger Persian force. The battle was the culmination of the first attempt by Persia, under King Darius I, to subjugate Greece. The Battle of Marathon was a watershed in the Greco-Persian wars, showing the Greeks that the Persians could be beaten; the eventual Greek triumph in these wars can be seen to have begun at Marathon. The battle also showed the Greeks that they were able to win battles without the Spartans, as they had heavily relied on Sparta previously. This victory was largely due to the Athenians, and Marathon raised Greek esteem of them. The following two hundred years saw the rise of the Classical Greek civilization, which has been enduringly influential in western society and so the Battle of Marathon is often seen as a pivotal moment in Mediterranean and European history. Legend states an Athenian runner named Pheidippides running from Marathon to Athens (about 25 miles) after the battle, to announce the Greek victory, whereupon he promptly died of exhaustion. That is where the modern marathon run originates.

1940

Lascaux cave paintings discovered. Marcel Ravidat, 18, finds a narrow entrance into a series of caves beneath the fields of Dordogne, France, and comes back with three friends to explore the subterranean world. There they gaze upon the vivid Lascaux cave . The walls of the cavern are decorated with some 600 painted and drawn animals and symbols and nearly 1,500 engravings. The pictures depict in excellent detail numerous types of animals, including horses, red deer, stags, bovines, felines, and what appear to be mythical creatures.

1953

Nikita Khrushchev elected Soviet leader. Six months after the death of Soviet leader Joseph Stalin, Nikita Khrushchev succeeds him with his election as first secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. Khrushchev denounced Stalin and his totalitarian policies at the 20th Party Congress, three years later, leading to a “thaw” in the USSR that saw the release of millions of political prisoners. Almost immediately, the new atmosphere of freedom led to anti-Soviet uprisings in Poland and Hungary. Khrushchev flew to Poland and negotiated a diplomatic solution, but the Hungarian rebellion was crushed by Warsaw Pact troops and tanks.

1990

East and West Germany, along with the UK, US and USSR—the Allied nations that had occupied post-WWII Germany—sign the final settlement for reunification of Germany. On 15 March 1991, the treaty would go into full effect.

2001

September 11th attacks on the US.

9 AD

The Battle of the Teutoburg Forest. 

1297

Scots under William Wallace and Andrew Moray defeat the English at Stirling Bridge during the First War of Scottish Independence. 

1792

King Louis XIV's 68-carat 'French Blue' diamond is stolen.

1921

Silent-film star Fatty Arbuckle arrested for murder.

1973

Chilean coup. 

2007

Russia detonates a nano-bomb; dubbed the "Father of All Bombs."

2012

US consulate in Benghazi, Libya, is attacked and burned down.

1813

American flotilla under Oliver Hazard Perry wrests naval supremacy from the British on Lake Erie. Nine vessels of the United States Navy defeated and captured six vessels of the British Royal Navy. This ensured American control of the lake for the rest of the war, which in turn allowed the Americans to recover Detroit and win the Battle of the Thames to break the Indian confederation of Tecumseh. It was one of the biggest naval battles of the War of 1812. The Americans controlled Lake Erie for the remainder of the war. This accounted for much of the Americans' successes on the Niagara peninsula in 1814 and also removed the threat of a British attack on Ohio, Pennsylvania, or Western New York.

1897

First Drunk Driving Arrest. A 25-year-old London taxi driver named George Smith becomes the first person ever arrested for drunk driving after slamming his cab into a building. Smith later pleaded guilty and was fined 25 shillings.

1967

Gibraltar votes to remain a British dependency instead of becoming part of Spain. The vote was overwhelming, with over 12,000 votes to remain, and only 44 votes to join Spain. The sovereignty of Gibraltar is a point of contention in Anglo-Spanish relations because Spain asserts a claim to the territory. In 1969, the Spanish government closed the border between Spain and Gibraltar, cutting off all contacts and severely restricting movement. The border was not fully reopened until February 1985.

1977

Last Person to be Executed in France, Hamida Djandoubi was also the last person to be executed by a guillotine. Djandoubi was convicted and sentenced to death for the murder of 21-year old Elisabeth Bousquet.

2008

Scientists successfully flip the switch for the first time on the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) lab in Geneva, kicking off what many called history’s biggest science experiment. The world’s largest particle collider was built by the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN). It is an 18-mile (27km) long experimental machine which passes through the French-Swiss border. The Collider was constructed to find the Higgs Boson particle, an elementary particle in physics.

1522

Victoria Becomes the First Ship to Circumnavigate the World. The Spanish ship, which was commanded by the Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan, set sail from Spain September 20, 1519, to find a better route to Indonesia. The expedition began with 5 ships including Victoria and 260 crew members. Magellan himself died during the voyage. After three years and 42,000 miles only the Victoria manned by 18 crew members would return to Seville, Spain, after circumnavigating the world.

1870 

A Woman casts her Vote in the US for the first time. Louisa Ann Swain voted during state elections in the state of Wyoming. Although women weren’t extended the right to vote in the US until 1920, the governor of Wyoming, John A. Campbell, had signed a bill that gave women the right to vote on December 13, 1869. This meant that women could vote in local and state elections, but not country-wide elections.

1901

President William McKinley assassinated. Visiting the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, New York, half a year into his second term, US President William McKinley is shot twice by anarchist Leon Czolgosz. The president rose slightly on his toes before collapsing forward, saying “be careful how you tell my wife.” McKinley will at first survive, and even seem to be improving after doctors operate, but will succumb to his wounds on September 14. McKinley died from gangrene that had gone undetected in the internal wound. Vice President Theodore Roosevelt was immediately sworn in as president. Czolgosz claimed to have killed McKinley because he was the head of what he thought was a corrupt government. Czolgosz was convicted and executed in an electric chair on October 29, 1901. The unrepentant killer’s last words were “I killed the president because he was the enemy of the good people—the working people.”

1968 

Swaziland Gains Independence From the British. The Southern African state became a British protectorate in 1902 after the Anglo-Boer war. King Sobhuza became the head of the nation in and reigned even after independence until 1982. He was succeeded by Mswati III, his son, who currently rules the country.

1976

Lieutenant Viktor Belenko, a Soviet air force pilot defects, flying a MiG-25 jet fighter to Japan and requesting political asylum in US. George H. W. Bush, the Director of Central Intelligence at the time, called the opportunity to examine the plane up close an "intelligence bonanza" for the West. Belenko almost never appears in interviews. However, in a brief and informal bar interview in 2000 where he posed for pictures and responded to questions, he stated that he was happy in the United States, remarking that "[Americans] have tolerance regarding other people's opinion. In certain cultures, if you do not accept the mainstream, you would be booted out or might disappear. Here we have people, you know, who hug trees, and people who want to cut them down -- and they live side by side!"

1995

Cal Ripken Jr. breaks Lou Gehrig's record. The Baltimore Orioles' shortstop plays in his 2,131st consecutive game, breaking Lou Gehrig's record which had stood since 1939. Ripken will continue his streak for three more years, ending it in 1998 after 2,632 games played over 16 years.

1877

Oglala Sioux chief Crazy Horse is fatally bayoneted by a U.S. soldier after resisting confinement in a guardhouse at Fort Robinson, Nebraska. A year earlier, Crazy Horse was among the Sioux leaders who defeated George Armstrong Custer’s Seventh Cavalry at the Battle of Little Bighorn in Montana Territory. The battle, in which 265 members of the Seventh Cavalry, including Custer, were killed, was the worst defeat of the U.S. Army in its long history of warfare with the Native Americans.

After the victory at Little Bighorn, U.S. Army forces led by Colonel Nelson Miles pursued Crazy Horse and his followers. His tribe suffered from cold and starvation, and on May 6, 1877, Crazy Horse surrendered to General George Crook at the Red Cloud Indian Agency in Nebraska. He was sent to Fort Robinson, where he was killed in a scuffle with soldiers who were trying to imprison him in a cell.

1972 

A group of Palestinian militants belonging to the Black September terrorist group stormed the apartment Israeli athletes were staying at the Olympic Village in Munich, Germany several days after the XX Olympic Summer Games had begun. They killed 2 athletes and took 9 hostages, demanding the release of release over 230 Arab prisoners being held in Israel. The ensuing violence to release the hostages ended with the death of all 9 hostages and 5 militants. All Olympic events were suspended for a day to mourn and pay respects to the slain members of the Israeli delegation.

1975

Gerald Ford survives first assassination attempt. A woman named Lynette Fromme, approached the president while he was walking near the California Capitol Building and raised a handgun toward him. Before she was able to fire off a shot, Secret Service agents tackled her and wrestled her to the ground. Fromme was a member of the Charles Manson cult "The Family." After Charles Manson was arrested in 1969, Fromme and other female members of the cult started an order of “nuns” within a new group called the International People’s Court of Retribution. Fromme herself was still so enamored of Manson that she devised the plot to kill President Ford in order to win Manson’s approval.