What Happened Today

When James Marshall saw flecks of gold in the American River as he was building a sawmill for John Sutter, he knew he had discovered something special. John Sutter was the most significant property owner in the Northern Central Valley of California at the time, and he thought keeping the discovery of gold a secret would benefit his ability to profit from it. Instead, his employees paid shopkeeper Samuel Brannan in pieces of gold. Brannan publicized the presence of gold in California, but only after starting a store selling mining equipment. At that point, the California Gold Rush was inaugurated. Coming right after the conclusion of the Mexican-American War and the transfer of California to America, the California Gold Rush transformed the area, making San Francisco a significant port and creating boom towns all around Sutter's Mill. It would also enrich men like Brannan and Levi Strauss, but left Marshall and Sutter no richer than before.

Typically, emperors are members of royal houses or noble families or high ranking military castes. The Hongwu Emperor, who overthrew the Mongol-led Yuan Dynasty and consolidated control over all of China, was actually a poor peasant from a farming family named Zhu Yuanzhang. Zhu was orphaned at 16 after a serious drought and famine, which is when he became a novice at a Buddhist monastery. When the monastery could not afford keeping him, he became a wandering beggar. Finally, as a young man, he joined a rebellion group known as the Red Turbans, who were fighting the Yuan Emperors. Zhu would turn out to be the best, most capable general, becoming leader of the Red Turbans and then controlling Southern China. From Nanjing, he would declare the formation of the Ming Dynasty and make himself the "Hongwu Emperor." Within a year, he would unseat the Yuan from the North and control all of China, going on to reform the way Chinese government and society functioned.

Roe v. Wade is, put simply, the Supreme Court Case that legalized abortion throughout the United States. Yet the details of the case make it much, much more complicated. In a case brought by a Texas woman who had been unable to obtain an abortion either legally or illegally, Justice Harry Blackmun crafted a legal framework based on the trimesters of pregnancy, with abortion always being banned in the third trimester. This reasoning made the entire legal framework guaranteeing a right to privacy regarding abortion immensely confusing. Many people who agreed with the outcome thought it got there in a strange way. Blackmun's opinion, coupled with the dissenting opinion of Justice Byron White, would explode the discussion around abortion in the public and political sphere.

The execution of Louis XVI of France during the French Revolution was one of the signature moments in history. Regicide is always shocking, but when a Republic, based on revolutionary ideals, kills their former King with no thought of replacing him, it becomes something else entirely, an epochal shift. Yet the execution of Louis XVI was really the culmination of many smaller events in the Revolution. The French Revolution began as a reform, with Louis himself seeking to have a constitutional monarchy. Then a Republic is formed, after which Louis is held prisoner, and then the monarchy is abolished. Once Louis is tried for treason at the end of 1792, it is obvious he will be found guilty. Although it is less obvious he would be executed, the punishment meted out was death by guillotine, which did in fact cement the truly revolutionary act of executing a king.

The Iran Hostage Crisis became the defining feature of 1980, both in terms of world events and the domestic political scene of the United States of America. The Presidency of Jimmy Carter got bogged down in attempting to free the 52 hostages taken in the US Embassy in Tehran after they were taken on November 4, 1979. A rescue mission failed and negotians stalled by summer, which meant that Carter had a political problem in the midst of his reelection campaign. His opponent, Ronald Reagan, used this to his advantage, and rumors were that his campaign even looked to have Iran hold onto the hostages past the election. Whether that happened or not, and no one will probably ever be able to definitively say, the Islamic Republic of Iran under the leadership of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini waited until just after Ronald Reagan was inaugurated as the 40th President of the United States to actually release the hostages, despite having negotiated the deal with the Carter Administration.

For decades, states throughout the American South celebrated January 19 as Robert E. Lee's Birthday as a state holiday. On a surface level, Robert E. Lee is perhaps an odd figure to honor in such a way. As the General of the Army of Northern Virginia for the Confederate States of America, Lee was both a traitor and a loser in the American Civil War. Lee was truly a brilliant general who brought a few great Confederate victories, but he was also the man who turned his back on over 30 years of service to the United States, lost at Antietam and Gettysburg, and surrendered at Appomattox. Still, the South was looking for heroes among the Confederate leadership in the post-Civil War era, lionizing the rebellious goverment founded on the basis of continuing slavery and white supremacy. Lee became the best figure, the gentleman soldier who valiantly fought for the Confederate government and the South, in all that would mean.

The First Fleet were 11 ships with over 1,000 people aboard that had the task of establishing a brand new penal colony in Australia. Thanks to the voyage of Captain James Cook some two decades before, the First Fleet knew exactly where they were headed, Botany Bay on the continent's southeast coast. When Commodore Arthur Philip arrived at the head of the Fleet after a 250 day voyage, he realized that Botany Bay was not a good site for a new colony. It was one of the early indications that launching a sizable colony with convicted criminals might be quite difficult. The entire fleet had to stay on their ships for over a week while officers figured out where they could actually settle. They would arrive in Port Jackson and found Sydney on January 26, which would actually be celebrated as Australia's founding even though they had been in Australia for days.

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.

No one called her the Black Dahlia when she was living, but shortly after Elizabeth Short's body was found cut in two and mutilated, Elizabeth Short forever after was known as the Black Dahlia. Her body was posed in an empty lot, and she had clearly been tortured for some time. Immediately, the press went crazy about the story, not only giving her her nickname, but also speculating wildly about what she had done in the days and weeks leading to her murder. This made the case impossible to solve for authorities, who had a tough time solving a random murder with a woman who know one had seen for awhile. Although almost every notable or strange person living in Los Angeles at the time has become a suspect in the Black Dahlia's murder, it is highly unlikely anyone will be able to absolutely pinpoint Elizabeth Short's killer.