On this day in history: 1066 – The Battle of Fulford is fought in Fulford, North Yorkshire, England. An estimated 900 fighters from the Kingdom of Norway and Earldom of Orkney, as well as English rebels, are killed or wounded; an estimated 750 fighters from the Kingdom of England are killed or wounded. 1187 – Saladin begins the Siege of Jerusalem, which lasts until October 2. Saladin prefers to take the city without bloodshed and offered generous terms, but those inside refuse to leave their holy city, vowing to destroy it in a fight to the death rather than see it handed over peacefully. Thus the siege begins. 1378 – Cardinal Robert of Geneva, called by some the “Butcher of Cesena,” is elected as Avignon Pope Clement VII, beginning the Papal schism. He earned his nickname because in 1377, while serving as papal legate in upper Italy, in order to put down a rebellion in the Papal States, known as the War of the Eight Saints, he personally commanded troops lent to the papacy by the condottiere John Hawkwood to reduce the small city of Cesena in the territory of Forlì, which resisted being added to the Patrimony of Peter for the second time in a generation; there he authorized the massacre of 3,000 - 8,000 civilians, an atrocity even by the rules of war at the time. 1498 – The Meiō Nankaidō earthquake and tsunami in Japan kills 31,000 people. 1565 – Spanish forces under Pedro Menéndez de Avilés capture the French Huguenot settlement of Fort Caroline, near present-day Jacksonville, Florida. The French lose 135 men in the first instance of colonial warfare between European powers in America. Most of those killed are massacred on the order of Aviles, who allegedly have the slain hanged on trees beside the inscription “Not as Frenchmen, but as heretics.” 1777 – Near Paoli, Pennsylvania, General Charles Grey and nearly 5,000 British soldiers launch a surprise attack on a small regiment of Patriot troops commanded by General Anthony Wayne in what becomes known as the Paoli Massacre. Not wanting to lose the element of surprise, Grey orders his troops to empty their muskets and to use only bayonets or swords to attack the sleeping Americans under the cover of darkness. It is also alleged that the British soldiers take no prisoners during the attack, stabbing or setting fire to those who try to surrender. Before it is over, nearly 200 Americans are killed or wounded. 1835 – Ragamuffin rebels capture Porto Alegre, then capital of the Brazilian imperial province of Rio Grande do Sul, triggering the start of ten-year-long Ragamuffin War. By the time it ends on March 1, 1845, at least 20,000 people are dead or wounded. 1854 – The Battle of Alma is fought at the River Alma in Ukraine. There are 1,340 French soldiers, 2,002 British soldiers, and 5,709 Russian soldiers killed or wounded. 1938 – Benito Torres kills eight members of his family and wounds three others in Palma Soriano, Cuba. The dead are his mother; stepuncle; three sisters, 10, 14, and 16 years old; and three brothers, 18, 5, and 2 years old. He also wounds a sister, 7, and two brothers, 14 and 3. 1942 – In Letychiv, Ukraine, the German SS murders at least 3,000 Jews over the course of two days. 1958 – Martin Luther King Jr. is stabbed in the chest at a New York City department store by an apparently deranged black woman. 1968 – US military spokesmen defend the use of defoliants in Vietnam at a news conference in Saigon, claiming that the use of the agents in selected areas of South Vietnam had neither appreciably altered the country’s ecology, nor produced any harmful effects on human or animal life. However, a paper released at the same news conference by Dr. Fred T. Shirley, a US Agriculture Department expert, suggests that US officials in Saigon are underestimating the extent of ecological damage caused in Vietnam by defoliating agents and that they had caused “undeniable ecological damage” and that “recovery may take a long time.” Beginning in the late 1970s, Vietnam veterans begin to cite the herbicides, especially Agent Orange, as the cause of health problems ranging from skin rashes to cancer and birth defects in their children. Similar problems, including an abnormally high incidence of miscarriages and congenital malformations, have been reported among the Vietnamese people who lived in the areas where the defoliate agents were used. 1980 – In Olathe, Kansas, Danny Eugene Crump, blows up the home of his former wife Diane’s parents, killing 20-year-old Diane; her parents, Robert Post, 51, and Norma Jeane, 47; and their other children, James, 10; Susan, 20, and Richard 21. Seriously injured are his 4-month-old son, Randy Crump, and Kraig Weber, 8, who is visiting the home at the time of the explosion. 1984 – A suicide bomber in a car attacks the US embassy in Beirut, Lebanon, killing 22-25 people. 1987 – A bomb blast in Raja bazaar area, Rawalpindi, Pakistan, where 15 shops, telephone exchange center and many vehicles damaged, kills 10 and injures 40. 1994 – People’s Liberation Army officer First Lieutenant Tian Mingjian kills his officer as well as his battalion of 24 at his military base in Tongxian County, China, and afterwards drives towards Jianguomen, where he continues his shooting spree and indiscriminately fires at people in the streets. Dozens re killed and wounded, including an Iranian diplomat and his son, before Lt. Tian is finally shot dead by a police sniper. 1997 – In Iecava, Latvia, Yuri Chubarov shoots seven people to death with a hunting rifle and injures one person, before committing suicide in a forest. 1998 – Hurricane Georges hit the Caribbean, Florida Keys, and the Gulf Coast. About 600 people are killed, mostly in the Dominican Republic (September 20-29). 2000 – The United Kingdom’s MI6 Secret Intelligence Service building is attacked by individuals using a Russian-built RPG-22 anti-tank missile. 2001 – John Bauer murders six members of his family in Kirkland, Canada, before committing suicide. 2002 – The Kolka-Karmadon glacial avalanche in Karmadon, Russia, kills 125 people, including a film crew of 27 people and Russian actor Sergei Bodrov Jr. Finding victims’ remains proves to be much more difficult work. Even weeks after the avalanche, less than half the150 people who had been reported missing had been found. In total, the avalanche causes $20 million in damages. 2003 – The beating death of prisoner Hassan Evan Naseem at Maafushi Prison sparks a day of rioting in Malé, Maldives, and at the prison. A total of 20 people, including a security officer, are shot at the prison and three are killed. Many government buildings, vehicles, and other public properties are set on fire and some are destroyed. 2004 – Four students from the Faculty of Islamic Law and Jurisprudence in Baghdad University in Iraq are killed and seven other wounded when an armed group opens fire on them. 2008 – The Marriott Hotel in Islamabad, Pakistan, is attacked by a massive suicide car bomb, killing over 60 and injuring 250. 2012 – At least 15 people are killed and dozens injured in a twin suicide bombing at a well-known restaurant close to the Presidential Palace in Mogadishu, Somalia. Among the victims are three prominent journalists. 2012 – Sixteen members of a dissident Amish group in Ohio are convicted of federal hate crimes and conspiracy for forcibly cutting the beards and hair of fellow Amish with whom they had religious differences. 2013 – A suicide car bomber drives his explosive-laden vehicle into a barracks in al-Mayfaa, Yemen, killing 38 people.
Posted on: Sat, 20 Sep 2014 13:43:38 +0000
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