Official "This Day In History" thread

[Dr Sardonicus]

On January 6, 2021, a mob of supporters of the outgoing occupant of the White House left a rally and rioted at the US Capitol.

One rioter was shot dead by police. One died of an accidental methamphetamine overdose.

Two other rally participants died of natural causes, apparently without participating in the riot.

Approximately 80 Capitol Police officers and 60 DC Police officers were assaulted.

One responding officer died of a stroke the next day.

Four other responding officers subsequently committed suicide.

Approximately 150 Capitol Police officers have left the force since the riot.

Over 700 people have been charged with crimes in the riot.

To this day, over 2/3 of Republicans polled claim to believe the Big Lie of the "stolen election."

Some, including US Senator Ron Johnson (R-WI) have called the riot a "peaceful protest."

In November 2021, the then former occupant of the White House said it was "common sense" for his supporters to chant "Hang Mike Pence" [then the Vice President] during the riot.

And the band played on.

[tServo]

Originally Posted by Dr Sardonicus

On January 6, 2021, a mob of supporters of the outgoing occupant of the White House left a rally and rioted at the US Capitol.

.
And the band played on.

When I was watching this unfold on live TV I had a bad flashback that this is what the burning of the Reichstag must have looked like.

[kriesel]

Originally Posted by Dr Sardonicus

Some, including US Senator Ron Johnson (R-WI) have called the riot a "peaceful protest."

Similar to newscasts over many months featuring "journalists" pronouncing the various lootings, rampant vandalism, many arsons, and numerous murders mostly of people of color "mostly peaceful protests", often with the blazing buildings and other crimes in progress visible behind them simultaneously. Roughly, "Truth is the first casualty of war" comes to mind. This is a very long standing tradition. https://quoteinvestigator.com/2020/04/11/casualty/

[Dr Sardonicus]

Originally Posted by kriesel

Similar to newscasts over many months featuring "journalists" pronouncing the various lootings, rampant vandalism, many arsons, and numerous murders mostly of people of color "mostly peaceful protests", often with the blazing buildings and other crimes in progress visible behind them simultaneously. Roughly, "Truth is the first casualty of war" comes to mind. This is a very long standing tradition. https://quoteinvestigator.com/2020/04/11/casualty/

I'm not sure what "war" you're referring to in the present context.

Describing vandals, looters and arsonists as "protesters" has long been a pet peeve of mine.

It seems to be the case that most of the many thousands of public protests in 2020 related to police brutality were peaceful. So the protests as a whole might reasonably be described as "mostly peaceful" in that sense. Making such a statement while disregarding the hundreds of "protests" that became violent and destructive is IMO lying by omission. Describing an individual "protest" that turned violent as "mostly peaceful" would IMO simply be lying,

I have found it difficult to find an answer to the question, "In which US cities were riots actually declared in 2020?" I had no trouble pulling up news stories about specific cities - Minneapolis, Portland, and Seattle, where riots had been declared. The worst damage I found quantitative descriptions of occurred in Minneapolis, where news accounts gave figures of 1300 properties damaged and almost 100 destroyed. I found a figure of $550 million for these losses.

I found a figure of $50 million in damage for Kenosha, WI.

I found descriptions of the damage to federal facilities from various disorders.

I also found an Insurance Information Institute page giving a figure of $2 billion in insured losses for the 2020 disorders in 20 states, which were all lumped togther as a single event.

The same page gave the figure $775 million for the losses from the 1992 riots after the verdict in the Rodney King beating case was announced, which was said to be $1.4 billion in 2020 dollars.

I found a table, said to have also come from the same source, posted at Axios. Curiously, the link given there did not lead me to the table, but rather to the page I link to above.

I find it very misleading, on the one hand, to lump all the losses from the 2020 civil disorders all across the country together, but only list figures for individual riots which occurred during the "long hot summer" of 1967 which saw riots in over 100 US cities; and especially for 1968, when riots all over the country were sparked by the same thing, the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr.

[Dr Sardonicus]

Also on January 6:

1066 King Harold Godwinson of England crowned

1649 The English Rump Parliament votes to put Charles I on trial for treason and other "high crimes"

[kruoli]

Originally Posted by Dr Sardonicus

1649 The English Rump Parliament votes to put Charles I on trial for treason and other "high crimes"

For the interested! I like the visually abstract presentation.

[Dr Sardonicus]

Originally Posted by kruoli

For the interested! I like the visually abstract presentation.

Abridge, v.t. To shorten.

When in the course of human events it becomes necessary for a people to abridge their king, a decent respect for the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
— Oliver Cromwell

-- Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary

[rudy235]

Better known as MOLIÈRE


Baptised on January 15, 1622, and probably born a day or two before, Molière – real name Jean-Baptiste Poquelin – remains as central to French culture as Shakespeare is to the English-speaking world.

When the French refer to their native tongue, it is as the "language of Moliere". Same thing for William Shakespeare in the English speaking nations.and Miguel de Cervantes y Saavedra in Spain and its ex-colonies

Many of the celebrations will be staged in places that marked his life as an actor, company director and playwright, but above all at the Comedie-Française, created by King Louis XIV in 1680, seven years after Molière's death.

The following a Google translation of an article. My knowledge of French is scant, certainly not enough to proofread it.

Dehours!

France and theater lovers around the world celebrate, starting this Saturday, the 400th anniversary of the birth of Jean-Baptiste Poquelin, Molière, the most popular playwright in the French language.

Known primarily for his comedies, Molière created characters such as "The Bourgeois Gentleman", "The Miser" or "Tartuffe" who have become part of world literature, such as Cervantes' Quixote or William Shakespeare's Hamlet.

The French capital will be the main stage for tributes to Jean-Baptiste Poquelin, baptized on January 15, 1622. Versailles, where he triumphed at the court of his great protector, King Louis XIV, will also honor him.

The celebrations will take place in the places that marked the career of the actor, director and author, beginning with his "home", the French Comedy, which was created seven years after his death to house his theater company.

Until July, the actors of the French Comedy will exclusively perform works by the playwright, starting with "Tartuffe or the Hypocrite" from January 15, in an original and uncensored version, based on the work of the great current biographer of Molière, Georges Forestier.

Molière was born and lived most of his life two steps away from what would become the French Comedy. The royal court was still located in the heart of Paris when he began his theatrical career.

In Versailles, which houses its own opera house, the "comedies-ballets" that Molière created in complicity with the baroque composer Lully will return to the stage. The palace will also host an exhibition starting this Saturday.

Molière triumphed in Paris, but before that he had to travel for many years through the French provinces, in the special in the south of the country.

[Dr Sardonicus]

Today being the third Monday in January, it is Martin Luther King Day in the United States. It is a Federal holiday. The law creating the holiday was enacted in 1983, and the holiday was first observed in 1986. It took until 2000 before it was observed as a State holiday in all 50 states.

When the bill was before the US Senate, Senator Jesse Helms, a racist from North Carolina, tried to filibuster the bill, claiming that King was a "Marxist." He was swiftly denounced by Senators of both parties. Imagine that.

On April 3, 1968, King was in Memphis, TN to support striking sanitation workers. That evening, he gave a speech, since then known as the "Mountaintop speech." It was the last speech he gave. He was murdered the next day. More about the sanitation workers' strike in this post. I quote the same passage of the speech here I quoted then.

Now, let me say as I move to my conclusion that we've got to give ourselves to this struggle until the end. Nothing would be more tragic than to stop at this point in Memphis. We've got to see it through. And when we have our march, you need to be there. If it means leaving work, if it means leaving school -- be there. Be concerned about your brother. You may not be on strike. But either we go up together, or we go down together.

Let us develop a kind of dangerous unselfishness. One day a man came to Jesus, and he wanted to raise some questions about some vital matters of life. At points he wanted to trick Jesus, and show him that he knew a little more than Jesus knew and throw him off base....

Now that question could have easily ended up in a philosophical and theological debate. But Jesus immediately pulled that question from mid-air, and placed it on a dangerous curve between Jerusalem and Jericho. And he talked about a certain man, who fell among thieves. You remember that a Levite and a priest passed by on the other side. They didn't stop to help him. And finally a man of another race came by. He got down from his beast, decided not to be compassionate by proxy. But he got down with him, administered first aid, and helped the man in need. Jesus ended up saying, this was the good man, this was the great man, because he had the capacity to project the "I" into the "thou," and to be concerned about his brother.

Now you know, we use our imagination a great deal to try to determine why the priest and the Levite didn't stop. At times we say they were busy going to a church meeting, an ecclesiastical gathering, and they had to get on down to Jerusalem so they wouldn't be late for their meeting. At other times we would speculate that there was a religious law that "One who was engaged in religious ceremonials was not to touch a human body twenty-four hours before the ceremony." And every now and then we begin to wonder whether maybe they were not going down to Jerusalem -- or down to Jericho, rather to organize a "Jericho Road Improvement Association." That's a possibility. Maybe they felt that it was better to deal with the problem from the causal root, rather than to get bogged down with an individual effect.

But I'm going to tell you what my imagination tells me. It's possible that those men were afraid. You see, the Jericho road is a dangerous road. I remember when Mrs. King and I were first in Jerusalem. We rented a car and drove from Jerusalem down to Jericho. And as soon as we got on that road, I said to my wife, "I can see why Jesus used this as the setting for his parable." It's a winding, meandering road. It's really conducive for ambushing. You start out in Jerusalem, which is about 1200 miles -- or rather 1200 feet above sea level. And by the time you get down to Jericho, fifteen or twenty minutes later, you're about 2200 feet below sea level. That's a dangerous road. In the days of Jesus it came to be known as the "Bloody Pass." And you know, it's possible that the priest and the Levite looked over that man on the ground and wondered if the robbers were still around. Or it's possible that they felt that the man on the ground was merely faking. And he was acting like he had been robbed and hurt, in order to seize them over there, lure them there for quick and easy seizure. And so the first question that the priest asked -- the first question that the Levite asked was, "If I stop to help this man, what will happen to me?" But then the Good Samaritan came by. And he reversed the question: "If I do not stop to help this man, what will happen to him?"

That's the question before you tonight. Not, "If I stop to help the sanitation workers, what will happen to my job. Not, "If I stop to help the sanitation workers what will happen to all of the hours that I usually spend in my office every day and every week as a pastor?" The question is not, "If I stop to help this man in need, what will happen to me?" The question is, "If I do not stop to help the sanitation workers, what will happen to them?" That's the question.

For ease of reference, I mention that the specific question Jesus gave the Parable of the Good Samaritan in answer to was (Luke 10:29), "And who is my neighbor?" The parable (Luke 10, KJV) concludes:

36 Which now of these three, thinkest thou, was neighbour unto him that fell among the thieves?

37 And he said, He that shewed mercy on him. Then said Jesus unto him, Go, and do thou likewise.

Imagine that.

[xilman]

On 17 January in 1893, the Kingdom of Hawaii was overthrown by a group of American businessmen, supported by the US Marines.

The colony was subsequently absorbed into the motherland on 27 June 1959.

[tServo]

80 years ago, on Jan 20, 1942 Nazi Reinhard Heydrich hosted a meeting at a villa on Lake Wannsee, Germany to plan the Holocaust.

There was only one point on the agenda: “The organizational, logistical and material steps for a final solution of the Jewish question in Europe.”


The notes from the meeting showed they planned to kill 11,000,000 Jews.


The meeting took 90 minutes.