Today in history: 1738: Ethan Allen is born On this day 1738, Ethan Allen, future Revolutionary War hero and key founder of the Republic of Vermont, is born in Litchfield, Connecticut. Allens father, Joseph, intended Ethan to attend Yale University, but his death in 1755 precluded that option. Instead, Ethan, the oldest of seven children, took over the family landholdings. Two years later, Ethan made his first visit to the New Hampshire Grants, land that is now within the state of Vermont, as part of the Litchfield County militia during the Seven Years War. Having acquired land in the area, in 1770 Ethan Allen became the colonel-commandant of the Green Mountain Boys, a militia founded in what is now Bennington, Vermont, to defend the New Hampshire Grants. In an inter-colonial fracas, both New Englanders, like Allen, and colonial New Yorkers claimed land in the Green Mountains. Although Allens vigilantes took no lives, they were willing to use lesser forms of physical intimidation to scare New Yorkers into leaving the area. Allen and his boys proposed political independence for their district between the Connecticut River and Lake Champlain before the American Revolution caused their attention to shift towards independence from Britain. In 1775, Allen and the Green Mountain Boys captured Fort Ticonderoga from the British in a joint effort with Colonel Benedict Arnold, who had been commissioned by Massachusetts and Connecticut to stage an attack to prevent British forces from marching on Boston. The same force took control of Crown Point, New York, the following day without facing any opposition. The two easy victories garnered for the Patriots much-needed cannon that they then used to drive the British from Boston. Later in the year, the British captured Allen during the botched Patriot attempt to seize Quebec. In 1777, Vermonters formally declared their independence from Britain and their fellow colonies when they created the Republic of Vermont. After the war concluded, the independent Vermont could not join the new republic as a state, because New York, Massachusetts and Connecticut all claimed the territory as their own. In response, frustrated Vermonters, including Allen, went so far as to negotiate with the Canadian governor, Frederick Haldimand, about possibly rejoining the British empire. Ethan Allen died on his farm along the Winooski River in the still independent Republic of Vermont on February 12, 1789. Two years later, Vermont finally managed to join the new republic as its 14th state. 1793: King Louis XVI executed One day after being convicted of conspiracy with foreign powers and sentenced to death by the French National Convention, King Louis XVI is executed by guillotine in the Place de la Revolution in Paris. Louis ascended to the French throne in 1774 and from the start was unsuited to deal with the severe financial problems that he had inherited from his grandfather, King Louis XV. In 1789, in a last-ditch attempt to resolve his countrys financial crisis, Louis assembled the States-General, a national assembly that represented the three estates of the French people--the nobles, the clergy, and the commons. The States-General had not been assembled since 1614, and the third estate--the commons--used the opportunity to declare itself the National Assembly, igniting the French Revolution. On July 14, 1789, violence erupted when Parisians stormed the Bastille--a state prison where they believed ammunition was stored. Although outwardly accepting the revolution, Louis resisted the advice of constitutional monarchists who sought to reform the monarchy in order to save it; he also permitted the reactionary plotting of his unpopular queen, Marie Antoinette. In October 1789, a mob marched on Versailles and forced the royal couple to move to Tuileries; in June 1791, opposition to the royal pair had become so fierce that the two were forced to flee to Austria. During their trip, Marie and Louis were apprehended at Varennes, France, and carried back to Paris. There, Louis was forced to accept the constitution of 1791, which reduced him to a mere figurehead. In August 1792, the royal couple was arrested by the sans-cullottes and imprisoned, and in September the monarchy was abolished by the National Convention (which had replaced the National Assembly). In November, evidence of Louis XVIs counterrevolutionary intrigues with Austria and other foreign nations was discovered, and he was put on trial for treason by the National Convention. The next January, Louis was convicted and condemned to death by a narrow majority. On January 21, he walked steadfastly to the guillotine and was executed. Nine months later, Marie Antoinette was convicted of treason by a tribunal, and on October 16 she followed her husband to the guillotine. 1924: Vladimir Lenin dies Vladimir Lenin, the architect of the Bolshevik Revolution and the first leader of the Soviet Union, dies of a brain hemorrhage at the age of 54. In the early 1890s, Lenin abandoned his law career to devote himself to Marxist study and the provocation of revolutionary activity among Russian workers. Arrested and exiled to Siberia in 1897, he later traveled to Western Europe, where in 1903 he established the Bolshevik faction of the Russian Social Democratic Workers Party. The Bolsheviks were a militant party of professional revolutionaries who sought to overthrow the czarist government and set up a Marxist government in its place. In 1905, workers rebelled across Russia, but it was not until 1917, and Russias disastrous involvement in World War I, that Lenin realized that the opportunity for Communist revolution had come. In March 1917, the Russian army garrison at Petrograd defected to the Bolshevik cause, and Czar Nicholas II was forced to abdicate. Lenin immediately left Switzerland and crossed German enemy lines to arrive at Petrograd on April 16, 1917. Six months later, under his leadership, the Bolsheviks seized power in Russia, and Lenin became virtual dictator of the country. However, civil war and foreign intervention delayed complete Bolshevik control of Russia until 1920. Lenins government nationalized industry and distributed land, and on December 30, 1922, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) was established. Upon Lenins death in early 1924, his body was embalmed and placed in a mausoleum near the Moscow Kremlin. Petrograd was renamed Leningrad in his honor. Fellow revolutionary Joseph Stalin succeeded him as leader of the Soviet Union. 1976: Concorde takes off From Londons Heathrow Airport and Orly Airport outside Paris, the first Concordes with commercial passengers simultaneously take flight on January 21, 1976. The London flight was headed to Bahrain in the Persian Gulf, and the Paris to Rio de Janeiro via Senegal in West Africa. At their cruising speeds, the innovative Concordes flew well over the sound barrier at 1,350 miles an hour, cutting air travel time by more than half. The flights were the culmination of a 12-year effort that pitted English and French engineers against their counterparts in the USSR. In 1962, 15 years after U.S. pilot Chuck Yeager first broke the sound barrier, Britain and France signed a treaty to develop the worlds first supersonic passenger airline. The next year, President John F. Kennedy proposed a similar U.S. project. Meanwhile, in the USSR, Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev ordered his top aviation engineers to beat the West to the achievement. There were immense technical challenges in building a supersonic airliner. Engines would need to be twice as powerful as those built for normal jets, and the aircrafts frame would have to withstand immense pressure from shock waves and endure high temperatures caused by air friction. In the United States, Boeing tackled the supersonic project but soon ran into trouble with its swing-wing design. In England and France, however, early results were much more promising, and Khrushchev ordered Soviet intelligence to find out as much as possible about the Anglo-French prototypes. In 1965, the French arrested Sergei Pavlov, head of the Paris office of the Soviet airliner Aeroflot, for illegally obtaining classified information about Frances supersonic project. Another high-level Soviet spy remained unknown, however, and continued to feed the Soviets information about the Concorde until his arrest in 1977. On December 31, 1968, just three months before the first scheduled flight of the Concorde prototype, the fruits of Soviet industrial espionage were revealed when the Soviets TU-144 became the worlds first supersonic airliner to fly. The aircraft looked so much like the Concorde that the Western press dubbed it Konkordski. In 1969, the Concorde began its test flights. Two years later, the United States abandoned its supersonic program, citing budget and environmental concerns. It was now up to Western Europe to make supersonic airline service viable before the Soviets. Tests continued, and in 1973 the TU-144 came to the West to appear alongside the Concorde at the Paris Air Show at Le Bourget airport. On June 3, in front of 200,000 spectators, the Concorde flew a flawless demonstration. Then it was the TU-144s turn. The aircraft made a successful 360-degree turn and then began a steep ascent. Abruptly, it leveled off and began a sharp descent. Some 1,500 feet above the ground, it broke up from overstress and came crashing into the ground, killing all six Soviet crew members and eight French civilians. Soviet and French investigators ruled that pilot error was the cause of the accident. However, in recent years, several of the Russian investigators have disclosed that a French Mirage intelligence aircraft was photographing the TU-144 from above during the flight. A French investigator confirmed that the Soviet pilot was not told that the Mirage was there, a breach of air regulations. After beginning his ascent, the pilot may have abruptly leveled off the TU-144 for fear of crashing into this aircraft. In the sudden evasive maneuver, the thrust probably failed, and the pilot then tried to restart the engines by entering a dive. He was too close to the ground, however, and tried to pull up too soon, thus overstressing the aircraft. In exchange for Soviet cooperation in the cover-up, the French investigators agreed not to criticize the TU-144s design or engineering. Nevertheless, further problems with the TU-144, which was designed hastily in its bid to beat the Concorde into the air, delayed the beginning of Soviet commercial service. Concorde passenger service began with much fanfare in January 1976. Western Europe had won its supersonic race with the Soviets, who eventually allowed just 100 domestic flights with the TU-144 before discontinuing the airliner. The Concorde was not a great commercial success, however, and people complained bitterly about the noise pollution caused by its sonic booms and loud engines. Most airlines declined to purchase the aircraft, and just 16 Concordes were built for British Airways and Air France. Service was eventually limited between London and New York and Paris and New York, and luxury travelers appreciated the less than four-hour journey across the Atlantic. On July 25, 2000, an Air France Concorde crashed 60 seconds after taking off from Paris en route to New York. All 109 people aboard and four on the ground were killed. The accident was caused by a burst tire that ruptured a fuel tank, creating a fire that led to engine failure. The fatal accident--the first in Concordes history--signaled the decline of the aircraft. On October 24, 2003, the Concorde took its last regular commercial flight. Happy National Hugging Day National Granola Bar Day Squirrel Appreciation Day!
Posted on: Wed, 21 Jan 2015 07:28:52 +0000
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