This article is about King Henry IV of England. For the plays by Shakespeare based around his life, see Henry IV, Part 1 and Part 2 Henry IV (15 April 1367 – 20 March1413 ) was King of England and Lord of Ireland (1399–1413). He was the tenth King of England of the House of Plantagenet and also asserted his grandfather's claim to the title King of France. He was born at Bolingbroke Castle in Lincolnshire, hence his other name, Henry (of) Bolingbrioke His father, John of Gaunt, was the third son of Edward III, and enjoyed a position of considerable influence during much of the reign of Henry's cousin Richard II, whom Henry eventually deposed. Henry's mother was Blanche, heiress to the considerable Lancaster estates, and thus Henry became the first King of England from the Lancaster branch of the Plantagenets.
Sunday 28 September 2014
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Friday 26 September 2014
1903 Sept. 27th. Wreck of the Old 97
Old 97 was a Southern Railwaytrain officially known as the Fast Mail. The train started its career on December, 1902, close to two years after Casey Jones's death. It ran from Washington DC to Atlanta, Georgia. On September 27, 1903 while en route from Monroe, Virginia, to Spencer, North Carolina, the train derailed at Stillhouse
Trestlenear Danville, Virginia. The wreck inspired a famous railroad ballad, which was the focus of a convoluted copyright lawsuit but became seminal in the genre of country music.
The wreck of Old 97 occurred when the engineer, 33 year old Joseph A. ("Steve") Broady, at the controls of engine number 1102, was operating the train at high speed in order to stay on schedule and arrive at Spencer on time (Fast Mail had a reputation for never being late).Locomotive 1102, a ten wheeler (4-6-0) engine built by Baldwin Locomotive Works in Philadelphia, had rolled out of the factory in early 1903, less than a year before the wreck. After the wreck the engine was rebuilt and served for slightly over 32 years before being scrapped on July 9, 1935. While the train was discontinued on January 6, 1907 this was not due to the wreck of the Old 97.
On the day of the accident, Old 97 was behind schedule when it left Washington, DC and was one hour late when it arrived in Monroe, Virginia. When the train arrived in
Monroe, it switched train crews and when it left Monroe there were 17 people on board. The train personnel included Joseph A. Broady (the engineer) dubbed "Steve" by his friends, John Blair (the conductor), A.C. Clapp (a fireman), John Hodge (a student fireman) sometimes known as Dodge in other documents, and James Robert Moody (the flagman). Also aboard were various mail clerks including J.L. Thompson, Scott Chambers, Daniel Flory, Paul Argenbright, Lewis Spies, Frank Brooks, Percival Indermauer, Charles Reames, Jennings Dunlap, Napoleon Maupin, J. H. Thompson, and W. R. Pinckney, an express messenger. When the train pulled into Lynchburg, VA, Wentworth Armistead (a safe locker) boarded the train so at the time of the wreck, there were 18 men aboard. Eleven of them died and seven were injured. Among the deceased were the conductor Blair, engineer Broady, and flagman Moody. The bodies of both firemen were recovered, but they were mangled so badly they were unrecognizable. There were several survivors to the wreck who believed they survived because they jumped from the train just before the fatal plunge. Among the three survivors was an individual named J. Harris Thompson of Lexington. Harris was a mail-clerk who served on the Southern Railroad. He later retired on May 1, 1941. W. R. Pinckney, the express messenger who also survived went home, located in Charlotte, N.C, and immediately resigned after his life changing experience. Two other survivors included Jennings J. Dunlap, and M.C. Maupin. These two men did not resign and continued their work, although they started in new departments. Dunlap went to work on a train that ran between Washington and Charlotte, while Maupin worked at the Charlotte union station.
Wednesday 24 September 2014
1645 September 24th. Rowton Heath.
1645 September 24th. Battle of Rowton Heath, took place at Rowton, near of city of Chester in England, late in the
English civil war, resulted in a decisive Parliamentarian victory over a Royalist army commanded in person by
Charles I as a result of his defeat, Charles I was prevented from relieving the besieged city of Chester, and
subsequently marching north to join the Royalists in Scotland under General James Graham (Marquess of
Montrose) (a move which would in any case have proved fruitless).
The Campaign. After the destruction of his main army at the decisive Battle of Naseby on June 14th.1645. Charles I made several attempts to break through an encirclement by Parliamentarian and Scots Covenanter armies into the north of England.
The Campaign. After the destruction of his main army at the decisive Battle of Naseby on June 14th.1645. Charles I made several attempts to break through an encirclement by Parliamentarian and Scots Covenanter armies into the north of England.
Monday 22 September 2014
1692 September 22nd Salem Witch Trial.
Salem witch trials.
The central figure in this 1876 illustration of the courtroom is usually identified as Mary Walcott.The Salem witch trials were a series of hearings and prosecutions of people accused of witchcraft in colonial Massachusetts between February 1692 and May 1693. The trials resulted in the executions of twenty people, most of them women. Despite being generally known as the Salem witch trials, the preliminary hearings in 1692 were conducted in several towns in the Province of Massachusetts Bay: Salem Village (now Danvers), Ipswich, Andover, and Salem Tow
The most infamous trials were conducted by the Court of Oyer and Terminer in 1692 in Salem Town. One contemporary writer summarized the results of the trials:And now Nineteen persons having been hang'd, and one prest to death, and Eight more condemned, in all Twenty and Eight, of which above a third part were Members of some of the Churches of N. England, and more than half of them of a good Conversation in general, and not one clear'd; about Fifty having confest themselves to be Witches, of which not one Executed; above an Hundred and Fifty in Prison, and Two Hundred more accused; the Special Commision of Oyer and Terminer comes to a period.— Robert Calef At least five more of the accused died in prison.When I put an end to the Court there ware at least fifty persons in prision in great misery by reason of the extream cold and their poverty, most of them having only spectre evidence against them and their mittimusses Bering defective, I caused some of them to be let-tout upon bayle and put the Judges upon consideration of a way to reliefe others and to prevent them from perishing in prision, upon which some of them were convinced and acknowledged that their former proceedings were too violent and not grounded upon a right foundation ... The stop put to the first method of proceedings hath dissipated the blak cloud that threatened this Province with destruccion.— Governor William Phips, February 21st, 1693 The episode is one of the nation's most notorious cases of mass hysteria, and has been used in political rhetoric and popular literature as a vivid cautionary tale about the dangers of isolationism, religious extremism, false accusations and lapses in due process. It was not unique, but simply an American example of the much broader phenomenon of witch trials in the Early Modern period. Many historians consider the lasting effects of the trials to have been highly influential in subsequent United States history.
Sunday 21 September 2014
1741 Sept.21st. Benedict Arnold.
Benedict Arnold (January 14, 1741 [O.S. January 3, 1740]–June 14, 1801) was a general during the American Revolutionary War who originally fought for the American Continental Army but defected to the British Army. While a general on the American side, he obtained command of the fortifications at West Point, New York (future site of the U.S. Military Academy after 1802), overlooking the cliffs at the Hudson River (upriver from British- occupied New York City), and planned to surrender it to the British forces. After the plan was exposed in September 1780, he was commissioned into the British Army as a brigadier general.
Born in Connecticut,
Arnold was a merchant operating ships on the Atlantic Ocean when the war broke out in 1775. After joining the growing army outside Boston, he distinguished himself through acts of intelligence and bravery. His actions included the Capture of Fort Ticonderoga in 1775, defensive and delaying tactics despite losing the Battle of Valcour
Island on Lake
Champlain in 1776, the Battle of Ridgefield,Connecticut (after which he was promoted to major general), operations in relief of the Siege of Fort Stanwix, and key actions during the pivotal Battles of Saratoga in1777, in which he suffered leg injuries that ended his combat career for several years. Despite Arnold's successes, he was passed over
for promotion by the
Continental Congress while other officers claimed credit for some of his accomplishments. Adversaries in military and political circles brought charges of corruption or other malfeasance, but most often he was acquitted in formal inquiries. Congress investigated his accounts and found he was indebted to Congress after spending much of his own money on the war effort. Frustrated and bitter at this, as well the alliance with France and failure of Congress to accept Britain's 1778 proposal to grant full self-governance in the colonies, Arnold decided to change sides and opened secret negotiations with the British. In July 1780, he was offered, continued to pursue and was awarded command of West Point. Arnold's scheme to surrender the fort to the British was exposed when American forces captured British MajorJohn André carrying papers that revealed the plot. Upon learning of André's capture, Arnold fled down the Hudson River to the British sloop-of-war Vulture, narrowly avoiding capture by the forces of George Washington, who had been alerted to the plot.
Born in Connecticut,
Arnold was a merchant operating ships on the Atlantic Ocean when the war broke out in 1775. After joining the growing army outside Boston, he distinguished himself through acts of intelligence and bravery. His actions included the Capture of Fort Ticonderoga in 1775, defensive and delaying tactics despite losing the Battle of Valcour
Island on Lake
Champlain in 1776, the Battle of Ridgefield,Connecticut (after which he was promoted to major general), operations in relief of the Siege of Fort Stanwix, and key actions during the pivotal Battles of Saratoga in1777, in which he suffered leg injuries that ended his combat career for several years. Despite Arnold's successes, he was passed over
for promotion by the
Continental Congress while other officers claimed credit for some of his accomplishments. Adversaries in military and political circles brought charges of corruption or other malfeasance, but most often he was acquitted in formal inquiries. Congress investigated his accounts and found he was indebted to Congress after spending much of his own money on the war effort. Frustrated and bitter at this, as well the alliance with France and failure of Congress to accept Britain's 1778 proposal to grant full self-governance in the colonies, Arnold decided to change sides and opened secret negotiations with the British. In July 1780, he was offered, continued to pursue and was awarded command of West Point. Arnold's scheme to surrender the fort to the British was exposed when American forces captured British MajorJohn André carrying papers that revealed the plot. Upon learning of André's capture, Arnold fled down the Hudson River to the British sloop-of-war Vulture, narrowly avoiding capture by the forces of George Washington, who had been alerted to the plot.
Arnold received a commission as a brigadier general in the British Army, an annual pension of £360, and a lump sum of over £6,000. He led British forces on raids in Virginia, and against New London and Groton, Connecticut, before the war effectively ended with the American victory at Yorktown. In the winter of 1782, Arnold moved to London with his second wife, Margaret "Peggy" Shippen Arnold. He was well received by King George III and the Tories, but frowned upon by the Whigs. In 1787, he returned to the merchant business with his sons Richard and Henry in Saint John, New Brunswick. He returned to London to settle permanently in 1791, where he died ten years later. Because of the way he changed sides, his name quickly became a byword in the United States for treason or betrayal. His conflicting legacy is recalled in the ambiguous nature of some of the memorials that have been placed in his honour.
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