Category: Past

On this day 34 years ago the Camp David Accords were signed by the heads of state of Israel and Egypt, Menachem Begin and Anwar Sadat, at the country retreat of the US president Jimmy Carter, after almost two weeks of negotiations. Later that year Begin and Sadat were jointly awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. The peace agreements were the culmination of an 18-month effort started when Jimmy Carter had become the US president.

Carter’s initial efforts met with little success. King Hussein of Jordan was reluctant to get involved for fear of being isolated from the Arab world. Hafez al-Assad, president of Syria, had no interest in peace and refused to visit America. Menachem Begin was sceptical. Then on 6 August 1978, prompted by a phone call from a US citizen, Begin called Sadat to see if high level talks could occur on the basis that Israel return the Sinai to Egypt.

A meeting was scheduled to occur at Camp David in the US on 5 September. Begin and Sadat arrived with their negotiating teams, and a tense period of secret negotiations followed. Finally an agreement was reached on 17 September. A fragile peace ensued, but the peace became surer as time wore on and further agreements were reached. In 1980 Egypt and Israel normalised relations, and since then peace has largely prevailed.

On this day 52 years ago, Abebe Bikila became the first-ever sub-Saharan African to win a gold medal at the Olympic Games. Just before the Ethiopian team was due to fly to Rome for the Olympics, one of the team members broke his ankle, and Abebe, a member of Ethiopia’s Imperial Bodyguard, was called in as a replacement. The shoes he was given for the marathon in Rome were uncomfortable, so he decided to run in bare feet.

The marathon race began in the warm mid-afternoon. Abebe settled in at the back of the leading pack as the race went past the Colosseum and the Circus Maximus and along the Via Cristoforo Colombo before heading back via the Appian Way as darkness fell, to finish at the Arch of Constantine. In the 1930s the Italians had invaded Ethiopia, but at the 1960 Rome Olympics Ethiopia invaded Italy as Abebe drew away from the other runners to win in world record time, smashing the Olympic record by almost 8 minutes.

Four years later, Abebe was selected in Ethiopia’s team for the 1964 Tokyo Olympics, but collapsed with appendicitis just 40 days before the games. With no time to recover after his operation, he ran in the marathon anyway, and won again, setting another world record. In 1969 he was severely injured in a car accident, and in 1973 he died of a cerebral haemorrhage resulting from that accident.

The oldest surviving sovereign state and constitutional republic in the world was founded on this day 1711 years ago as a monastic community by a stonecutter named Marinus. As a Christian, Marinus was subject to persecution by the Roman authorities, and he had fled from the Roman-controlled island of Arba (now known as Rab) some years previously to escape the persecution, eventually living as a hermit on Monte Titano.

Marinus built a chapel and monastery on Monte Titano, and the monastic community founded on 3 September 301AD became the state of San Marino, an enclave within Italy near the east coast. The largest and bloodies official persecution of Christians continued in the Roman Empire for another decade under the Emperor Diocletian until the practice of Christianity became lawful under Emperor Constantine.

In the year 1600 the Constitution of San Marino was adopted. It is the oldest written constitution still if effect anywhere in the world. With a territory of just over 60 square kilometres and a population of around 33,000, the country is the world’s smallest republic. Some 97% of the population claim to be Roman Catholic.

An international agreement designed to end wars was signed on this day 84 years ago. One of the co-authors of the agreement was Aristide Briand, the French Foreign Minister and former Prime Minister, and the other was Frank Kellogg, the US Secretary of State, and so the agreement became known as the Kellogg-Briand Pact. The original signatory countries were the US, France and Germany, and numerous other countries including Australia signed before the commencement date of 24 July 1929.

In the agreement, the party states pledged not to use war to resolve disputes or conflicts which may arise among them. Kellogg was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1929 for his efforts, and Briand had already been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1926 jointly with German Foreign Minister Gustav Stresemann. However, Stresemann died in 1929, Briand died in 1932 and Kellogg died in 1937, and the agreement did not prevent further wars.

To get around the promises made by the Kellogg-Briand Pact, countries engaged in armed conflict without calling it “war”. Nonetheless the agreement is still in force and it formed the basis for the crimes that numerous people were charged with at the Nuremburg trials. The theme of the agreement is reflected in the wording of the United Nations Charter.

On this day 62 years ago the British prime minister Winston Churchill made one of his most famous speeches. Britain had entered the Second World War almost a year before, declaring war on Germany, but progress for the next several months had been slow. A lack of confidence in the efforts of the British government had led to Churchill being appointed prime minister in May 1940 just as the country was suffering disastrous defeats in Europe.

Most of the British Army had successfully been rescued from the continent during June 1940, and a battle for supremacy between the German Air Force and the British Air Force had ensued, a battle which Churchill called the Battle of Britain. Over the next two months the British Air Force managed to keep the Germans at bay, although a land invasion was still expected, and on 20th August Churchill gave his famous speech in the House of Commons:

“The gratitude of every home in our Island, in our Empire, and indeed throughout the world, except in the abodes of the guilty, goes out to the British airmen who, undaunted by odds, unwearied in their constant challenge and mortal danger, are turning the tide of the World War by their prowess and by their devotion. Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few. All hearts go out to the fighter pilots, whose brilliant actions we see with our own eyes day after day, but we must never forget that all the time, night after night, month after month, our bomber squadrons travel far into Germany, find their targets in the darkness by the highest navigational skill, aim their attacks, often under the heaviest fire, often with serious loss, with deliberate, careful discrimination, and inflict shattering blows upon the whole of the technical and war-making structure of the Nazi power.”

On this day 52 years ago, the Central African Republic declared independence from France. In 1889 the French had established a post at Bangui, and the region became a French colony. Negotiations with the Belgians and the Germans in 1894 established borders with the Congo Free State and Cameroon, and the border with Sudan along the Congo-Nile watershed was fixed in 1899. To fund its administration costs, France granted a number of private companies rights to exploit the land in exchange for rent payments.

The private companies engaged in exploitation with due vigour, using brutal methods to extract forced labour from the locals. In 1958, as the movement towards independence was occurring across Africa, the colony became an autonomous territory under the name Central African Republic, but the leading nationalist politician Barthélemy Boganda was killed in a plane crash in 1959, so that a power struggle ensued leading up to the country’s independence in 1960.

Colonel Jean-Bédel Bokassa seized the presidency through a military coup in 1965, subsequently declaring himself president for life and taking the title Emperor Bokassa I. Bokassa was ejected in a coup in 1979, and power changed hands again in 1981 through another coup. The country has since had a troubled political history and, as one of the poorest countries in the world, is dependent on foreign aid.

On this day 131 years ago, James Springer White died. Born in 1821 in Maine, White became a teacher and then a preacher of the Millerite message. William Miller had in 1833 predicted that Christ would return in 1843. White took up the theme of Christ’s imminent return, and through his preaching many people came to accept the Millerite message. As the predicted time drew near, the predicted return date became somewhere between Spring 1843 and Spring 1844.

As 1844 progressed, the expected date for the return of Christ became 22nd October 1844, which the Adventists calculated to be the Biblical Day of Atonement. The Millerites prepared for the big occasion, but the day came and went without any visible evidence of the second coming, leaving many of the followers disillusioned. Most of those who had believed the message believed no more and returned to their original churches.

However, some of the Adventists became convinced that the Bible had foretold that on 22nd October 1844 Christ would enter the Most Holy Place, not that he would return to earth. White was one of the leaders of this movement, and published the periodical Second Advent Review and Sabbath Herald. It was out of this movement that the Seventh Day Adventist Church arose.

The founder of the Ford Motor Company, Henry Ford, was born on this day 149 years ago near Detroit in Michigan. He left home at the age of 16 to become an apprentice machinist, and was later hired by Westinghouse to service their steam engines. He became an engineer with the Edison Illuminating Company in 1891, and chief engineer in 1893, while working on personal experiments to create a self-propelled vehicle.

In 1896 he created his first car, the Ford Quadricycle. After more experiments he founded the Detroit Automobile Company in 1899, but that company failed to produce cost-effective cars, and was dissolved in 1901. Another company which he co-founded later in 1901 became the Cadillac Automobile Company. After leaving that company, Ford co-founded a third company which became the Ford Motor Company, aiming to produce low-cost cars.

The Model T car was introduced in 1908. It was simple to drive and easy to repair. Ford used an extensive advertising and publicity campaign to market his car, and developed the concept of assembly-line manufacturing to produce the vehicles in the fastest possible time at the lowest possible cost. The profitability of the business enabled Ford to pay high rates to his workers, which in turn attracted the best mechanics and resulted in increased productivity.

On this day 29 years ago, Air Canada Flight 143, a Boeing 767, was refuelled ready to fly from Montreal to Edmonton. The fuel quantity indicator system was not working, so the amount of fuel had to be calculated manually. Canada was in the process of converting to the metric system, so the quantity of fuel required had to be measured in metric units. Both ground crew and flight crew used incorrect conversions factors, so the amount of fuel on board was half of what was required.

While over Red Lake, Ontario, a warning sounded to indicate a fuel pressure problem, and shortly thereafter the left engine stopped. The pilots decided to divert to Winnipeg, and prepared for a single-engine landing; however, the right engine also stopped, cutting off the electrical power to most of the aircraft’s navigational systems. The plane’s emergency checklist gave no guidance on how to land without any engines working.

After calculating that the plane would not be able to glide as far as Winnipeg, the pilots decided to aim for a decommissioned air force base at Gimli. Unknown to them, the facility was now being used as a motorsports complex, and a race was underway that day. Because of the problems with the plane’s electrical power, the landing gear did not lock properly, and the plane landed on its nose, narrowly avoiding hitting anyone. All of the passengers and crew survived.

On this day 43 years ago, the Apollo 11 space rocket launched from Cape Kennedy, Florida in front of a live audience of 1 million people and via television a global audience of many millions more. On board the spaceship were three astronauts, Neil Armstrong, Michael Collins and Buzz Aldrin, and their aim was to fulfil the vision of former president John F Kennedy announced in September 1962: “We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard…”

Within 3 hours the Astronauts had escaped the earth’s atmosphere and accelerated to a speed of around 40,000 km/h, bound for a rendezvous with the moon. Several days later, Apollo 11’s lunar module touched down on the moon in the Sea of Tranquillity, and Neil Armstrong became the first human ever to set foot on the moon. Shortly afterwards, Armstrong was joined by Buzz Aldrin, in an event watched live on televisions across the world.

After the first visit in July 1969, there have been five more human visits to the moon in which people have walked on the moon. All of these occurred in a three year period between November 1969 and December 1972, and in total only 12 different men, all Americans and all aged between 36 and 47, have had the privilege of walking on the moon.