Scott Allsop's Blog, page 220

16th June 1958: Execution of Hungarian Communist leader Imre Nagy

On June 16th 1958, Hungarian Communist politician Imre Nagy was executed. Arrested after Soviet forces brought the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 to an end, Nagy was found guilty of treason in a secret trial and executed by hanging. Nagy had been sacked from his position as Chairman of the Council of Ministers in April 1955 due to his independent attitude that favoured a “New Course” in Socialism. Although his moderate reforms were met with hostility from the USSR, they garnered significant sup...

15th June 1859: The Pig War begins between the USA and Britain

The Pig War border confrontation began when Lyman Cutlar shot a British-owned pig on San Juan Island. The archipelago of which San Juan Island is part lies between Washington State on the United States mainland and Vancouver, in what was then British North America. The 1846 Oregon Treaty had established a boundary along the 49th parallel along ‘the middle of the channel which separates the continent from Vancouver’s Island’. The problem was that San Juan Island itself lies in the middle of th...

14th June 1777: Stars and Stripes adopted as the flag of the USA

On the 14th June 1777, the Second Continental Congress passed the so-called Flag Resolution and adopted the stars and stripes as the flag of the United States. The day is now celebrated as Flag Day, which first proclaimed by President Woodrow Wilson in 1916 although it is not an official federal holiday. The Flag Resolution stated some general parameters for the appearance of the flag.  Specifically it said that there should be thirteen alternate red and white stripes and a group of white sta...

13th June 1966: Miranda Warning introduced after US Supreme Court says suspects must be told their rights

Any suspect arrested in the USA must be informed of four key rights. ‘You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can, and will, be used against you in court of law. You have the right to an attorney. If you cannot afford one, one will be appointed for you.’ Known as the Miranda warning, the requirement for the police to inform all criminal suspects of these rights came about as the result of Arizona labourer Ernesto Miranda’s 1963 conviction for kidnapping and rape. A confession ma...

12th June 1942: Anne Frank receives a diary for her 13th birthday

On the 12th June 1942, Anne Frank received a diary as a thirteenth birthday present from her father. Barely three weeks later, Anne and her family went into hiding in Nazi-occupied Amsterdam. Her diary, which chronicled her experiences over the next two years, was published posthumously after the war under the title The Diary of a Young Girl and became one of the twentieth century’s most celebrated books. The Frank family originated in Frankfurt, Germany, but moved away after the Nazi party w...

11th June 1963: Vietnamese Buddhist monk Thích Quảng Đức burns himself to death

Vietnamese Buddhist monk Thích Quảng Đức burned himself to death at a busy crossroads in Saigon. Quảng Đức's self-immolation came in response to the persecution of Buddhists by the government under Diệm, who belonged to the Catholic minority and was supported by the USA. Buddhists were regularly subjected to discriminatory policies that ranged from limited access to United States aid to employment. Even the military saw some Buddhists convert in order to improve their chance of promotion. In...

10th June 1916: Battle of Mecca starts the full Arab Revolt

The Arab Revolt began fully on June 10th 1916 when Grand Sharif Hussein bin Ali, the guardian of the holy city of Mecca, ordered his troops to attack the Ottoman Caliphate’s garrison in the city. Hussein’s troops, drawn from his tribe, significantly outnumbered the Ottoman soldiers but were considerably less well equipped. Consequently, despite impressive initial gains, Hussein’s troops were unable to win the battle until Egyptian troops sent by the British arrived to provide artillery suppor...

9th June 68: Emperor Nero commits suicide

Nero, the last Roman emperor of the Julio-Claudian dynasty, committed suicide. Nero was Augustus’ great-great grandson and was adopted by his great-uncle, Claudius, after he married his mother Agrippina the Younger. Following Claudius’ death in 54 CE, the sixteen year old Nero became emperor with the support of the Praetorian Guard whose leaders were loyal to his mother. There are few surviving sources relating to Nero’s reign, with the majority of what we know being drawn from Tacitus, Sueto...

8th June 1972: Photo taken of Vietnamese girl running from napalm

On the 8th June 1972 one of the most iconic photographs of the Vietnam War was taken of Phan Thị Kim Phúc, a nine-year-old girl from the South Vietnamese village of Trang Bang. In the photograph, she is shown running away from a napalm attack, having stripped off her clothes after being severely burned. The photograph, which went on to win a Pulitzer Prize, was taken by Nick Ut, a Vietnamese photographer for the Associated Press. He was one of number of press photographers who were with the g...

7th June 1520: Henry VIII and Francis I meet at the Field of Cloth of Gold

In 1518 the English Cardinal Wolsey had negotiated the Treaty of London, a non-aggression pact that was signed by the twenty major European powers of the time. However, peace held for barely a year before two of the signatories went to war and Wolsey began to arrange meetings between Henry VIII and the other monarchs to salvage the agreement. Francis I of France was barely three years younger than Henry and, like his English counterpart, was keen to display the grandeur of his court. Conseque...