Thursday Thirteen

Today, I offer up 13 things that happened on this date. All of this came from Wikepedia.


1. In 1540, which was a very long time ago, Thomas Cromwell, an English statesman, was beheaded. He served Henry VIII of England as his chief minister. They apparently had a falling out. The king married his fifth wife, Catherine Howard, on the same day. Maybe the minister's head was a wedding present?

2. In 1750, Johann Sebastian Bach, a German composer died. He was born 1685. He was a great German composer. You can hear a young man playing Bach on a guitar at this link.

3. In 1844, Gerard Manly Hopkins, an English poet, was born. (He died in 1889). He wrote this:

As kingfishers catch fire, dragonflies draw flame;
As tumbled over rim in roundy wells
Stones ring; like each tucked string tells, each hung bell’s
Bow swung finds tongue to fling out broad its name;

4. In 1864, the Battle of Ezra Church took place near Atlanta, GA as Confederate troops attempted to drive out Union forces. They were unsuccessful.

5. In 1866, Beatrix Potter was born. She died in 1943. She was the author of The Tale of Peter Rabbit and other stories.

6. In 1929, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis was born. She died in 1994. She was the wife of John F. Kennedy and was with him when he was shot in Texas. She later married a Greek shipping magnate, Aristotle Onassis.

7. In 1932,U.S. President Herbert Hoover orders the United States Army to forcibly evict the "Bonus Army" of World War I veterans gathered in Washington, D.C. The Bonus Army was a gathering of 43,000 WWI vets who wanted cash redemption of their service certificates. The certificates were not redeemable until 1945, though they had been given in exchange for service in the first World War. During the skirmish on this date, two veterans were shot and killed.

8. In 1945, A US Army B-25 bomber crashed into the 78th floor of the Empire State Building. Fourteen people were killed and 26 were injured.

9. In 1965, U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson announces his order to increase the number of United States troops in South Vietnam from 75,000 to 125,000. The Vietnam War was well underway.

10. In 1973, 600,000 people attend a rock festival at the Watkins Glen International Raceway. The Allman Brothers Band and the Grateful Dead were among the performers.

11. In 1976, An earthquake measuring between 7.8 and 8.2 on the scale demolished Tangshan in the People's Republic of China. It killed 242,769 people and injured 164,851. It is thought to be the largest earthquake of the 20th century.

12. In 1996, The Kennewick Man, that is to say, the remains of a prehistoric man, were found near Kennewick, Washington. The skeletal remains are thought to be between 5600 and 9500 years old. The remains were the subject of a very long court battle as scientists, the federal government, and Native Americans fought over ownership.

13. Today is a Christian Feast Day. This has something to do with honoring saints. I confess I don't really know what this is even after reading the Wiki article on it.


 Thursday Thirteen is played by lots of people; there is a list here. I've been playing for a while and this is my 201st time to do a list of 13 on a Thursday.