What Happened Today

"The Battle of May Island" was not actually a battle at all, but the macabre name given by sailors to a catastrophic accident involving a number of K-class submarines. On that night, two submarines were lost, while five others were significantly damaged, and 104 sailors lost their lives. The K-class submarine was a steam powered submarine which invited so much disaster it was said the K stood for "Kalamity." Yet the Battle of May Island was the worst incident in the history of the Royal Navy's submarine program. It was supposed to be a fleet exercise, but the heavy and difficult to manage submarines ended up running into each other as they were leaving the Firth of Forth for the North Sea. Once the first ships ran into each other, then other ships couldn't get out of the way, and the cruisers accompanying the submarines turned back to help, but only created more issues. Within less than two hours, two submarines were at the bottom of the seabed, with much of their crew lost.

Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi was such an influential figure as a leader of the Indian independence movement that as India gained independence from Great Britain in 1947, he was universally known as "Mahatma," the great soul, and widely called "Bapu," an endearing term for father. Yet the independence of India had seen what was British India split into two, with Muslim majority areas in the East and West becoming Pakistan. This then led to mass migration, violence, and intense conflicts. Gandhi tried to ease the suffering of all people and resolve the disputes. For that, he raised the ire of many right-wing Hindu nationalists, such as Nathuram Godse. Godse followed Gandhi for weeks, seeking to assassinate him because of what Godse saw as a betrayal of Hindus. Finally, on the next to last day of January 1948, Godse was able to approach Gandhi as he walked to prayers and fired three shots at point blank range. Gandhi would die that evening, and Godse would be executed for the assassination.

During his first State of the Union Address after the September 11th terrorist attacks, President George W. Bush specifically cited the threat of an "Axis of Evil," which consisted of Iraq, Iran, and North Korea. Other than all seeking chemical or nuclear weapons, these states had very little in common. More strikingly, none of them had anything to do with the September 11th attacks. Instead, speechwriter David Frum was given the brief of detailing an argument for going to war against Saddam Hussein's government in Iraq. He made a larger point, making an ominous warning about possible future, unknown attacks from state actors. Just a little over a year later, fueled by the emotions generated by the September 11th attacks, the Bush administration led the country into a war with Iraq. Osama bin Laden, the actual mastermind of the terror attacks, would not be killed until 2011.

The Franco-Prussian War was not a large scale war in terms of its casualties, engagements, or scale. It was massive in the geopolitical results in the aftermath of the war, however, and a large reason was that it ended with a months long siege of Paris. Before that siege had even begun, the Empire of France had lost its Emperor, Napoleon III, after he lost the Battle of Sedan. Now France was facing a large Prussian Army staring down its capital, while its government was a provisional one known as the Government of National Defense. This government tried its best to hold on, but also was trying to argue for peace. Eventually, after a few small skirmishes on the outskirts of Paris, the leaders of the French government agree to Armistice terms with Otto von Bismarck, newly christened Chancellor of Germany. The former King of Prussia had also been turned into the German Kaiser, gaining acclaim and territory as the French have to rebuild a Republican government.

The Agreement on Ending the War and Restoring Peace in Vietnam, better known as the Paris Peace Accords, were what officially ended the involvement of the United States in the Vietnam War. The Paris Peace Accords only came together after a long, drawn out negotiation process. Although the Vietnam War had seemed problematic and unwinnable since 1968 and the Lyndon Johnson administration, the task of working out the Paris Peace Accords fell to President Richard Nixon and his National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger. In fact, domestic American politics seemed to drive the American willingness to move talks forward. For the Vietnamese, the issue was including the revolutionary National Liberation Front, better known as the Viet Cong, as well as the official governments of South Vietnam and North Vietnam in talks. Eventually,, a willingness to simply end the conflict meant America was willing to pull out if the North Vietnamese simply kept their lines where they were. Just two years later, they would conquer South Vietnam and take Saigon.

The Spanish Civil War was a complex conflict, featuring the right-wing Nationalists fighting against the left-wing Republicans. The conservatives were the rebels, the socialists were fighting for the legitimate government, and both sides were hodge-podge groups of various loyalties. Yet the war was also one featuring back and forth fighting in its early years. In 1938, everything changed. Under Francisco Franco and the backing of Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany, the Nationalists won the Battle of the Ebro and cut the Republican territory in two. At that point, Franco targeted Catalonia, the autonomous, distinct region around Barcelona, which was a Republican stronghold. From Christmas 1938 to late January 1939, the Nationalist forces pushed back Republicans in Catalonia, collapsing the Republican government. After the city was abandoned, Nationalists rolled into the city, effectively ending serious opposition by Republican forces and allowing Francisco Franco to take control of the entire nation.

Nellie Bly was just 25 years old in 1890, but she had already written a well regarded travel book called Six Months in Mexico that revealed the problems with Porfirio Diaz's government and a series of articles in the New York World that exposed the Blackwell's Island Women's Asylum as an undercover reporter. So when she suggested she beat Jules Verne's fictional record of traveling Around the World in 80 Days, her editor let her go ahead with just two days' notice. She traveled with just one dress and one satchel. She mostly completed the voyage on a combination of trains and steamships. Throughout her trip, Nellie Bly could send back telegraphs to the New York World, updating readers of her trip's progress. It looked like she would not make it when she arrived two days late to San Francisco after a rough trip on the Pacific Ocean. At that point, Joseph Pulitzer, publisher of the New York World, chartered a record-breaking train just so Nellie Bly could make it back to New York in time. In the end, she had eight days to spare, making the trip in 72 days.

When Marion Barry was arrested after being caught on videotape smoking crack in an undercover sting operation, he was also in his third term as the Mayor of Washington, D.C. He was arrested with a girlfriend who had asked him to come and persuaded him to smoke the crack she had brought. Still, Barry had been dogged by rumors of drug use and sexual scandals since he took office in 1979. As Mayor, Barry was more of a character than an effective reformer. A former civil rights advocate and City Council member, Barry's best attribute was simple politicking. After being reelected twice, the effects of his serious drug and alcohol addictions began to show, but Marion Barry managed to survive. In fact, his arrest didn't even end his career. The obvious entrapment meant Barry was only convicted on one earlier possession charge, which led to a 6 month sentence in Federal Prison. He would be out of jail in 1992, returning almost instantly to his position on the City Council. In 1994, he was elected to an unprecedented fourth term as Mayor. When that term was over, he would remain on the City Council until his death in 2014, but he would always be most famous as the Mayor caught smoking crack on videotape.

Raoul Wallenberg was a Swedish special envoy to Hungary who devoted himself in the last few months of 1944 to save many Jews from being deported to concentration camps. Wallenberg was a businessman who could come and go between Sweden and Hungary, as Sweden was neutral in World War II. Hungary was technically an ally of Nazi Germany under the rule of Miklos Horthy, then became an uneasy ally, then became a puppet state of the Nazis in 1944, after Horthy sought peace terms with the Allies. In the summer of 1944, under the leadership of Adolf Eichmann, Nazis in Hungary deported over 400,00 Jews in just a few months. Raoul Wallenberg came in July of that year specifically to help Jews, which he did by giving them special passports in the name of Sweden. He was remarkably successful, helping thousands, Yet, for reasons that might forever remain unknown, once the Soviets took over Budapest in December 1944, he was seen as a problem and Wallenberg was never seen after visting Soviet Authorities.

The Pendleton Civil Service Reform Act was a direct reaction to the assassination of President James Garfield, who was killed by Charles Guiteau because Guiteau believed he deserved a government appointment. The issue of civil service reform was a long simmering political issue, with the main ire being directed at the spoils system, which gave jobs to political donors. Despite the assasination of Garfield, a bill for civil service reform seemed unlikely to be signed by the new President, Chester A. Arthur. Arthur was a "Stalwart," one of the chief opponents in the Republican Party to reform, and a former Collector of the Port of New York, a job he got through the spoils system. Yet Arthur seemed to see the need for change, and passed the law initiated by Ohio Senator George Pendleton. After that, the Pendleton Civil Service Reform Act would drastically change the way the American government worked.