What Happened Today

Julius Caesar was declared "dictator for life" in early 44 BCE, which was a natural contradiction, as the dictator was supposed to rule in times of crisis and return to the normal function of Republic when the crisis ended. A few of Caesar's political opponents, led by Marcus Junius Brutus, sought to do something about his increasing power and authority, seeking to preserve the Roman Republic. Among Senators and important figures, the idea of killing Caesar grew in popularity, and the threats on his life grew quite ominous. The assassins came upon Caesar in the Theater of Pompey in the middle of Rome on the Ides of March, or March 15th. Stabbed multiple times, Caesar was left for dead as his assassins went into the streets proclaiming that Rome was free. Roman citizens disagreed with them and stayed in their houses. Instead of preserving the Roman Republic, the assassins helped launch Rome into a series of civil wars that culminated in the creation of the Roman Empire with Caesar's grandnephew and heir Octavius becoming the first Emperor as Augustus Caesar.

Eli Whitney was a native New Englander and Yale man who wound up outside Savannah, Georgia shortly after the American Revolution as a tutor on a plantation. There, Whitney became familiar with the issue of separating the seeds from the fiber on short staple cotton, the only cotton that would grow in the inland south, on a large scale. By putting two rotating drums with teeth inside of a box, Eli Whitney was able to solve this problem fairly quickly, receiving a patent from the U.S. Patent Office shortly after he arrived in Georgia. Whether Whitney came up with this entirely on his own is doubtful, but he got the patent in his own name and started up a business with his partner Phineas Miller and Miller's new wife Catherine Greene. Whitney's goal was to have people bring him their cotton, which he would process for them. Plantation owners just decided it was better to pirate Whitney's simple design. This expanded cotton production throughout the South, but did not give Whitney a fortune. Most importantly, throughout the inland south, slavery and cotton production grew exponentially, defining the culture of the American South through the Civil War.

Had the Battle of Badr turned out the other way, the history of the Middle East, Islam, and the whole world would have been completely different. Muhammad commanded the forces from the city of Medina, who he had gathered under the Constitution of Medina in 622, and was largely assisted by early Muslims. Facing off against him were members of the Qurayshi tribe from Mecca, the tribe of Muhammad's people and the city where he grew up. The Meccans hated their opponent for being an outcast who was promulgating a new monotheistic religion, but especially because the city of Medina, now led by Muhammad, was attacking Meccan caravans. Abu Jahl, the leader of the Meccans, had an army that vastly outnumbered Muhammad's Medinan forces, and had even seemed to surprise the Medinans by appearing near to Medina at Badr. Through discipline, organization, and general tactical brilliance, Muhammad led his troops to an incredible victory. In Islam, the Battle of Badr would be seen as a miracle that was assisted by angelic forces. In the Arabian Peninsula, it made Muhammad the leading authority and allowed Islam to flourish even further.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt took office not just in the midst of the Great Depression, but in the middle of a banking crisis featuring a series of runs on banks across the country. The failure of many banks to give money to customers on demand in such large quantities threatened the banking system as a whole. Legislatively, Roosevelt helped an Emergency Banking bill make it through the Congress almost instantly. Yet he still faced the problem of convincing Americans he was really addressing the problems of the country. Roosevelt then gave a small radio address to the nation, outlining how the banking system was being reformed to benefit everyday Americans. Roosevelt's address was a simple statement describing what would happen next, but also encouraged citizens throughout the nation. It would be Roosevelt's very first "fireside chat," a tool Roosevelt would use to be able to speak directly to Americans. The name "fireside chat" described Roosevelt's style, which sounded like he was discussing the problems facing America around a fire with just a few people.

Private Albert Gitchell reported to the infirmary at Camp Funston, part of Fort Riley in Kansas, with the typical symptoms of the flu early on March 11, 1918. By noon, over 100 soldiers had reported feeling ill. This breakout was well noted by the Army, but it took until a much more widespread outbreak in the late summer and early fall in Boston and Brest, France for people to realize that an epidemic was taking place. This particular flu was especially deadly, and strikingly seemed to effect the healthiest people, young adults, the most. As World War I was being fought and people were moving around the world more than usual, the flu was able to become truly global. It also acquired its famous name, "The Spanish Flu," because the press in neutral Spain did not have war time censorship and they reported on it the most. In certain remote areas, the South Pacific and the northern parts of Alaska, saw almost everyone become infected. In total, somewhere between 50 and 100 million people died all around the world.

Tibet's peculiar situation in geopolitics, being an autonomous region of China while also having a government-in-exile in India led by the Buddhist spiritual leader the Dalai Lama, is the direct result of the 1959 Tibetan Uprising. On the other hand, Tibet's relationship to China was always muddied. After the Chinese Civil War, Communist forces menaced the outer regions of Tibet in the Battle of Chamdo, and the Seventeen Point Agreement said Tibet was under the rule of Beijing while also granting authority to the Dalai Lama. This arrangement was doomed to break. In 1959, after Tibetans had shown less and less acquiescence to the Chinese Government, it broke because of a theatrical performance. Once the Chinese Army said they would handle the Dalai Lama's security for the performance, people took to the streets of the Tibetan capital Lhasa to prevent an abduction of the Dalai Lama on March 10, 1959. The Chinese forces moved in and began shelling the Dalai Lama's palaces, which made the Dalai Lama flee to India. Then the Chinese Army crushed the Tibetan forces on March 21. Since that day, the Tibetan Government under the Dalai Lama has been in exile.

The Battle of Hampton Roads was a stalemate, which did little of note for the overall shape of the American Civil War. For naval warfare, however, the battle was revolutionary. The Battle of Hampton Roads was the first engagement between two ironclad warships. As often happens in large wars, both the Union and the Confederacy took chances with naval designs to build warships decked out in iron, which could withstand new exploding shells on warships. The Confederacy salvaged the former USS Merrimack, refitted it with iron plating and a large battering ram, then renamed it the CSS Virginia. The Union turned to the Swedish inventor John Ericsson, who created a ship that sat low in the water with a rotating gun turret and was entirely made of iron called the USS Monitor. The Virginia went out first, and created immense havoc by ramming into a series of wooden Union ships on the evening of March 8. By the morning of March 9, the USS Monitor showed up, saving the Union ships, but largely battling the Virginia to a draw. While neither of these revolutionary ironclads would survive the year, the use of ironclad warships changed naval warfare forever.

John Casor was an African who became an indentured servant in the Virginia Colony during the mid-seventeenth century. None of that was remarkable, yet when he believed his indentured servitude had ended, he sought paying work as was typical of indentured servants who had served their term. Instead, his master as an indentured servant, a free black man named Anthony Johnson, argued Casor was still his servant and had no end to his term in a suit against Casor's new employer Robert Parker. A court in Virginia agreed with Johnson, ruling that Casor had no right to seek free work. This effectively made John Casor the first slave in America that was officially considered a slave, that is a servant who is duty bound to serve for life. Slavery, of course, would grow into the system of life in the American South. The Casor case would make slavery a possibility, then set a template for legally enshrining slavery throughout the Colony of Virginia and other British colonies.

"Bloody Sunday," in all honesty, could have been much bloodier, but it was not through the intent of the sheriff's deputies and other law enforcement officers who attacked protesters marching for voting rights after they crossed the Edmund Pettus Bridge outside of Selma, Alabama. On the day, 17 protesters had to go to a hospital and 50 others were injured, but more strikingly they were all attacked on camera. People across the country saw John Lewis and Hosea Williams attacked head on while standing still at the front of the protesters. This moment broke open the long fight for voting rights in Selma and the rest of Alabama in the spring of 1965, which saw a number of barriers. In Selma, the white power structure featured multiple approaches to shutting down civil rights protesters. Additionally, national help for voting rights laws was difficult to get. Within weeks of Bloody Sunday, all of this changed, largely because people all over the nation saw civil rights protesters bloodied and beaten while seeking basic civil rights.

"Remember the Alamo" became a rallying cry for the Texas Revolution almost as soon as it concluded. Interestingly, it was remembered as a noble stand by legendary heroes. In reality, the Alamo was a poor military decision that should never have happened. The Battle of the Alamo saw about 200 or so Texan defenders stand their ground against a few thousand Mexican troops under President Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna in an old colonial mission. They never stood a chance, even though Santa Anna probably should have ignored the Alamo and even the town of San Antonio de Bexar on his march into Texas. Texan Commander Sam Houston even sent James Bowie to the Alamo to have it evacuated and destroyed. Instead, Bowie stayed and, like everyone else in the Alamo, died after a 10 day siege when Santa Anna finally decided to attack the building on the early morning of March 6. Santa Anna's refusal of any surrender terms and decision to kill everyone in the Alamo makes him a villain in Texas. His incompetence would see his defeat a month and a half later at the Battle of San Jacinto.