What Happened Today

The Salvadoran Civil War was essentially a series of paramilitary actions, killing left-wing groups and anyone perceived as an enemy. Yet the murder of six priests and scholars, as well as their housekeeper and her daughter, at the Universidad Centroamericano by the Salvadoran Army's Atlacatl Batallion was something particularly horrifying. Part of it was that this killing took place a full decade after the Civil War actually began, but it also was that killing six priests in a reckless and bloody manner was a bridge too far. The desire for a peace accord was strengthened in its aftermath, although this caused paramilitary action to increase. A trial was actually convened in 1990 and found two military officers guilty of the murders, but after the Chapultepec Peace Accords ended the Salvadoran Civil War, they got out. Still, a Truth and Reconciliation Commission absolutely pinned the blame on the Atlacatl Batallion.

Union General William T. Sherman had captured the city of Atlanta, Georgia in early September of 1864, after a summer of fighting to get it. This victory set the Confederate Army under John Bell Hood in retreat and essentially guaranteed victory for Republican President Abraham Lincoln's reelection campaign. Yet this did not make the Confederacy surrender in any way whatsoever. So a new plan was put in place by Sherman. Instead of focusing on the opposing army to gain specific tactical goals, Sherman proposed a strategy of total war. Beginning on November 15, Sherman marched his army from Atlanta to Savannah, taking crops, livestock, and supplies while cutting a wide swath through Georgia. By the time Sherman reached Savannah on December 21, the Confederacy had litte hope of victory. They still kept fighting, though, because they were fighting an ideological war, and waited to be routed before surrendering.

A large number of Mafia leaders met at the compound of crime boss Joseph Barbara, in the small town of Apalachin in Upstate New York, in order to settle disputes and make the various families achieve a new status quo after the assassination of Albert Anastasia. Instead, they mostly got arrested, because a local highway patrolman realized lots of luxury cars registered to known criminals were all gathering at a large estate. After local law enforcement busted the meeting, dozens of mafioso were arrested, with twenty eventually having charges brought against them, although their convictions would be overturned on appeal. More importantly, the Apalachin Meeting and subsequent arrests meant that the FBI and Director J. Edgar Hoover had to acknowledge there actually was an organized mafia, which he had never done before.

Queen Mary I of England was not the obvious candidate for the throne when her half-brother Edward VI died at the age of 15. Although she was the oldest remaining child of Henry VII, Mary was also a Catholic in a Protestant nation. For this reason, Edward had excluded her from the succession and named his cousin Lady Jane Grey as his real successor. Propped up by Edward's allies the Dudleys, Lady Jane was proclaimed Queen of England. Meanwhile, Mary was building a power base and an army in East Anglia. This army would allow Mary to successfully take the throne herself. After some promises for reconciliation, Mary decided to arrest Lady Jane Grey and try her for treason. She also brought up Thomas Cranmer, Archbishop of Canterbury, on charges of treason for promulgating the English Reformation. These trials and subsequent executions would be a preview of Mary's reign, which featured a number of executions of Protestant leaders, ill health, and dwindling popularity.

The My Lai Massacre was one of the worst atrocities ever committed by the United States Armed Forces. Yet despite the fact the killing of hundred of Vietnamese villagers had taken place in March of 1968, the public had no knowledge of the events until investigative reporter Seymour Hersh got a story about the massacre on the Associated Press. Hersh had been able to talk to William Calley, the leader of the platoon who actually committed the massacre. This busted the story into the open and made America realize how terrible the actions at My Lai were. While the soldiers were ostensibly rooting out the Viet Cong, Calley and his men treated everyone in the village as the enemy, burning their homes, committing sexual assault, and slaughtering everyone in sight, including children. Calley would be the only servicemember found guilty of war crimes in a court martial, but he would only serve three years of house arrest. Hugh Thompson, the helicopter pilot who had seen the massacre and alerted officials, would be alienated in th Army and not receive a commendation for thirty years.

The actual Armistice that famously began on "the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month" was something both sides knew was coming for over a month. By late September 1918, the German Army knew they could fight no longer, and a ceasefire had been in effect since September 29. In the midst of European wide social unrest, Germany experiences a revolution itself, which sees Kaiser Wilhelm II abdicate the throne and the end of the German Empire. So the Germans agreed to rather extreme terms, because they had no other option. The Americans wanted Germany to accept conditions based on the Fourteen Points of Woodrow Wilson, while the other Allies wanted to see the German army destroyed. They all got their wish with the Treaty of Versailles, but the Armistice that ended fighting in the War to End All Wars set conditions that led to a Second World War.

Before Sesame Street premiered, children's television was basically an afterthought. Some programming was simply basic children's entertainment thrown on a screen, which kids liked, but had no other value. Attempts at educational television were usually quite dull, focusing on the learning with little concern for the quality of the programming. Sesame Street was the attempt to change this. Joan Ganz Cooney, a documentary producer, partnered with the Carnegie Foundation to establish the Children's Television Workshop. Before the actual show was even made, CTW made sure to have volumes of research behind them about how kids learned. Then, as the show was being made, more research was done to specifically gather information about the show itself. This meant that Sesame Street became what it was meant to be, a simultaneously entertaining and educational show, and then went on to be a cultural touchstone.

The French Revolution was really a series of revolutions that brought about various kinds of revolutionary governments, all of which fought a series of foreign wars. This meant that after the Directory, the government that took over after the bloody Reign of Terror in 1795, was continually hamstrung financially and greatly distrusted. Meanwhile, the French Revolutionary Army had a series of successes under the very young General Napoleon Bonaparte. Napoleon Bonaparte saw a chance to take power in 1799, or Year VIII of the French Republican Calendar. On 18 Brumaire in the Republican Calendar, Napoleon took control of the legislative bodies, then forced the Directory to resolve. This gave him de facto power, which would be legally enshrined with the formation of the Consulate. Eventually, he would become the first Emperor of the brand new French Empire.

Adolf Hitler and his Nazi Party first attempted to take power by capturing the Staatskomissar, effectively regional dictator, for the State of Bavaria Gustav von Kahr while he was giving a speech to a large crowd in a beer hall. This attempted putsch succeeded initially in holding Kahr, but he refused to give up his own power to the Nazis, and when the Nazis decided to march to the Munich city council, they ran into the military. Hitler would end up being jailed for treason, although his five year sentence ended up being only nine months. His entire experience would reshape the nature of the Nazi Party and the course of Hitler's political career, making him focus on regular democratic means to take power.

Jeannette Rankin won her election for one of Montana's two at-large seats in the House of Representatives four years before the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment, which gave women the right to vote. In the Congress, she actively worked for an amendment to the Constitution that gave women the right to vote. But most notably, as a committed pacifist, she voted against the US entrance into World War I. She sought a Senate seat in 1918, lost, and then seemed to retire from elected office. Rankin worked on behalf of pacifist groups. Then, in 1940, she got elected as a Representative once more, defeating a notable ant-Semite. So Jeannette Rankin had the opportunity to vote once more against a World War, which she did, becoming the only member of Congress to vote against going to war against Japan. Although this really did end her political career, in the 1960s, Rankin was embraced by a new group of political activists just before her death.