On this day in history: 1530 – St. Felix’s Flood, also known as Evil Saturday, kills more than 100,000 people in the Netherlands. 1757 – The Battle of Roßbach is fought in Roßbach, Saxony, during the Seven Years’ War; 169 Prussian soldiers are killed and 379 are wounded; an estimated 5,000 French and Austrian soldiers are killed or wounded and 5,000 captured. 1799 – British sloop HMS Orestes disappears in the Indian Ocean, possibly due to a hurricane, and her entire crew of 125 is lost. 1799 – British ship HMS Sceptre is caught in a storm near the Cape of Good Hope and is battered to pieces. About 349 sailors and marines are lost. One officer, two midshipmen, 47 sailors, and one marine are saved but nine of them die on the beach. 1831 – Nat Turner, American slave rebellion leader, is tried, convicted, and sentenced to death in Virginia. 1854 – The Battle of Inkerman is fought in Inkerman, Russia, during the Crimean War; 597 British soldiers are killed and 2,163 are wounded; 229 French soldiers are killed and 1,551 are wounded; 3,288 Russian soldiers are killed and 6,928 are wounded. 1862 – In Minnesota, more than 300 Santee Sioux are found guilty of raping and murdering Anglo settlers and are sentenced to hang. A month later, President Abraham Lincoln commutes all but 39 of the death sentences. One of the Indians is granted a last-minute reprieve, but the other 38 are hanged simultaneously on December 26 in a bizarre mass execution witnessed by a large crowd of approving Minnesotans. The Santee Sioux are found guilty of joining in the so-called “Minnesota Uprising,” which is actually part of the wider Indian wars that plague the West during the second half of the nineteenth century. For nearly half a century, Anglo settlers invaded the Santee Sioux territory in the beautiful Minnesota Valley, and government pressure gradually forced the Indians to relocate to smaller reservations along the Minnesota River. At the reservations, the Santee were badly mistreated by corrupt federal Indian agents and contractors; during July 1862, the agents pushed the Indians to the brink of starvation by refusing to distribute stores of food because they had not yet received their customary kickback payments. The contractors callously ignored the Santees’ pleas for help. Outraged and at the limits of their endurance, the Santee finally struck back, killing Anglo settlers and taking women as hostages. The initial efforts of the US Army to stop the Santee warriors failed, and in a battle at Birch Coulee, Santee Sioux killed 13 American soldiers and wounded another 47 soldiers. However, on September 23, a force under the leadership of General Henry H. Sibley finally defeated the main body of Santee warriors at Wood Lake, recovering many of the hostages and forcing most of the Indians to surrender. The subsequent trials of the prisoners gave little attention to the injustices the Indians had suffered on the reservations and largely catered to the popular desire for revenge. However, President Lincolns commutation of the majority of the death sentences clearly reflected his understanding that the Minnesota Uprising had been rooted in a long history of Anglo abuse of the Santee Sioux. 1912 – José Luis Conde murders one and injures 14 on the steamboat La Cataluña. 1914 – France and the British Empire declare war on the Ottoman Empire. 1916 – The Everett Massacre takes place in Everett, Washington, as political differences lead to a shoot-out between the Industrial Workers of the World organizers and local police. At least five workers are killed, 27 are injured, and 75 are arrested. 1923 – Two unnamed Moros run amok and kill nine Dutch soldiers on the S.S. Van Linschoten near the Philippines. Nineteen others are injured. The Moros then jump overboard and the Dutch shoot and kill them. 1923 – In Lahore, India, a man named Matin runs amok, firing indiscriminately at people in the streets. Two people are killed and 12 injured, several seriously. He is later found by police dead in his home. 1930 – An explosion at the at the Sunday Creek Coal Company Poston Mine Number 6 in Dover Township, Ohio, kills 82 men. 1940 – The British Armed Merchant Cruiser HMS Jervis Bay is sunk by a German battleship. Only 68 members of a crew of 254 survive, but three later die of their injuries. 1944 – Japanese heavy cruiser Nachi is attacked by US planes and also torpedoed and sinks in Manila Bay, killing 881 people. 1944 – US Navy blimp K-34 crashes off the coast of Georgia, killing two of eleven crewmen. 1949 – An unidentified Malay runs amok with a golok (machete) in Sungei Dua, Malaysia, after an argument over the price of some goods in a provision shop. Seven people are killed and another five are wounded before he is captured by the police. 1950 – The Battle of Pakchon is fought in Pakchon, North Korea, during the Korean War. Fourteen UN soldiers are killed and 84 wounded; 270 Chinese and North Korean soldiers are killed and estimated 200 are wounded. 1953 – Farmhand Camille-Joseph van Laethem Thy-le-Chateau runs amok in Thy-le-Chateau, Belgium, killing six people with a bread knife and a hammer before shooting himself. 1961 – A fire in a school in Elbarusovo, Soviet Union, kills 110 people, among them 44 children under the age of eight. The fire starts when a teacher tries to light a fire using benzene. 1961 – A fire in the Bel Air community of Los Angeles, California, destroys 484 homes and burns 16,090 acres were burned. 1962 – An explosion in a coal mine in Ny-Ålesund, Norway, kills 21 workers. 1967 – The Hither Green rail crash in England kills 49 people. Survivors include Robin Gibb of the Bee Gees. 1971 – A local bus plunges from a 900 feet-high mountain slope at Yeongdo-gu, Busan, South Korea, killing 26 people and injuring 30. 1983 – In the North Sea, the Byford Dolphin oil drilling platform experiences an explosive decompression in its decompression chamber that kills five workers and badly injures one. 1990 – Meir Kahane, head of Israel’s Koch party and founder of the American vigilante group the Jewish Defense League, is assassinated in a New York City hotel lobby by early elements of Al Qaeda. 1991 – Tropical Storm Thelma causes severe and massive floods in the Philippines, killing nearly 3,000 people. It is the second major disaster of the year for the island nation, as it comes on the heels of the violent June 12 eruption of Mount Pinatubo. 1992 – In Israel five soldiers are killed and six are injured in a training accident when a live missile is inadvertently used. The training is in preparation for an assassination attempt on Iraqi President Saddam Hussein; the plan is called off after the accident. 2000 – Near Ibadan, Nigeria, dozens of people are killed when a fuel tanker crashes into a line of stopped vehicles. 2006 – An explosion at the Jiaojiazhai coal mine in Shanxi, China, kills 40 with seven left missing. 2008 – Luo Xiaoji drives a truck into a group of people in Zhuhai, China, killing five and wounding 19 before being shot by police. 2009 – Gunman Malik Nadal Hasan, a Major in the US Army, kills 12 soldiers and one civilian, and wounded at least 30 on the base at Ft. Hood. 2012 – At least five homemade bombs explode in Manama, Bahrain, killing two workers and injuring another. 2013 – A minibus accident in southeastern Turkey kills at least six people and injures another 11 people. They were workers being transported to a textile factory.
Posted on: Wed, 05 Nov 2014 12:56:29 +0000
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