Category: Past

On this day 37 years ago the Republic of Mozambique gained its independence from Portugal. The great Portuguese explorer Vasco da Gama is the first recorded European to have landed in the area in 1498 after sailing round the Cape of Good Hope. He met the Sultan of Mozambique before sailing northwards for Mombasa. Less than a decade later, Portuguese traders arrived in force to take control of Indian Ocean trade and colonise the area.

Following the second world war, independence movements gained in popularity and power across Africa. A number of pro-independence movements arose in Mozambique, and in 1964 FRELIMO (the Front for the Liberation of Mozambique) began an intermittent guerrilla war against Portuguese rule. Then, following a military coup in Portugal in 1974, FRELIMO seized control of Mozambique and most of the Portuguese residents left voluntarily or involuntarily.

Mozambique became independent of Portugal on 25 June 1975, but when the new government supported the South African and Zimbabwean rebel movements, the governments of those countries helped to build up a new Mozambican rebel movement, RENAMO. A civil war began in 1977 and ended in 1992 after peace accords were negotiated by the churches. The country is now a multi-party democracy, although plagued by the corruption and political troubles experienced by many poor countries.

On this day 72 years ago, the British prime minister Winston Churchill gave one of his most memorable speeches. Just two weeks previously the British had completed evacuation of troops from Dunkirk after the collapse of the Belgian resistance, leaving France vulnerable to the German invasion. During those two weeks the situation had continued to decline, with Paris being abandoned to the Germans on 14 June 1940 and a new German-controlled French regime being set up on 17 June.

The situation was looking very grim for Britain at the time. Hitler’s Germany now had control of essentially all of mainland Europe, with Britain alone standing against it. The US, still counting the cost of involvement in the First World War, was not willing to get involved. Objectively speaking, it seemed unlikely that Britain would be able to continue to resist the might of Germany for much longer. Churchill was in his finest form in the darkest hour:

[T]he Battle of France is over. I expect that the Battle of Britain is about to begin. Upon this battle depends the survival of Christian civilization. Upon it depends our own British life, and the long continuity of our institutions and our Empire. The whole fury and might of the enemy must very soon be turned on us… Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties, and so bear ourselves, that if the British Empire and its Commonwealth last for a thousand years, men will still say, “This was their finest hour”.

On this day 120 years ago, the Limelight Department was established by the Salvation Army in Melbourne, as one of the world’s first film studios. Joseph Perry, a Salvation Army officer who had set up a photography studio to provide income for the Salvation Army’s work, had become an expert at using lantern slides with hand coloured images, and he now decided to expand into the new technology of film. Just three years earlier, the Lumière brothers had invented movies and used their cinématographe to record and show the first movie.

In 1898 Perry created a visual presentation called Social Salvation, using lantern slides in conjunction with film segments. The following year he created a series of thirteen 90-second film segments on the life of Jesus, while also starting work on a much larger project, a two-and-a-half-hour presentation called Soldiers of the Cross, including fifteen 90-second film segments and 200 lantern slides. The presentation was first shown to an audience of more than 3,000 at the Melbourne Town Hall in 1901.

Subsequently, Soldiers of the Cross was taken throughout Australia for showings in local halls. The Limelight Department continued to produce evangelistic films, while also producing films for the government and private clients in order to fund its operations and to provide income for the Salvation Army. However, the Limelight Department was shut down in 1910 by the new Commissioner who felt that the cinema was incompatible with the church.

On this day 72 years ago, British prime minister Winston Churchill gave one of his most memorable speeches in the House of Commons. He had been prime minister for less than a month, having been appointed on 10th May 1940. The Second World War had been proceeding for 9 months, and Britain was faring so poorly that a week of prayer was held for the British soldiers in dire peril in France. After the collapse of the Belgian army, the British army was trapped at Dunkirk on the French coast near the Belgian border, with the German army closing in.

The British authorities commandeered a vast fleet of boats including life boats, pleasure craft and fishing boats, in an attempt to evacuate the trapped British and French troops. Under the cover of poor weather and the Royal Air Force, the evacuation operation was successful, and by 4th June some 338,000 men had been rescued. Enormous quantities of vehicles, armaments and fuel were left behind, but the bulk of the British army was saved.

Although the success of the Dunkirk evacuation brought some relief, Britain’s prospects in the war were looking increasingly grim. France was likely to capitulate soon, leaving Britain to stand on its own against the Germans. Churchill rose to the occasion with one of his most inspiring speeches: “We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender…”

On this day 424 years ago, the most formidable fleet in the world, the Spanish Armada, started sailing from Lisbon, with the aim of invading England. With 151 ships, the Spanish Armada included 8000 sailors and 18000 soldiers. The initial plan was to shepherd an army of 30,000 soldiers from the Netherlands across to England on barges. However, bad weather forced delays, and the Armada did not come within sight of England until 19th July 1588.

Some 55 English ships under the command of Lord Howard of Effingham and Sir Francis Drake set out from Plymouth to confront them, and on the night of 20 July sailed upwind of the Armada ready to attack at daybreak the next day. After a few days of skirmishes, the Armada anchored off Calais, but the army waiting there was not ready. The English attacked again, using the greater manoeuvrability of their smaller ships to advantage, and five Spanish ships were destroyed.

The Armada retreated northwards, pursued by the English, and in September 1588 attempted to return to Spain by going around Scotland and Ireland. By then the Spanish ships had run out of food and water, and many of the ships were wrecked as a result of stormy weather. Only 67 ships and 10,000 men survived to return to Spain. By comparison, total English losses were between 50 and 100 dead and 400 wounded, with no loss of ships, although many thousands subsequently died of typhus and dysentery.

On this day 21 years ago, the Ethiopian Civil War effectively ended when the president Mengistu Haile Mariam fled the country. Mengistu, who was subsequently convicted in absentia of genocide, was the chairman of the Derg, a military junta which seized power in Ethiopia from Emperor Haile Selassie in 1974. The Derg embraced communism in 1975 and later the same year Haile Selassie died, perhaps murdered on the orders of Mengistu.

The period between 1975 and 1977 was marked by power struggles and became known as the Red Terror, with violent suppression of opponents and extensive killings and violations of human rights. This was the start of the Ethiopian Civil War, during which the country suffered rapid decline in agricultural productivity due to insecurity, corruption, and the nationalisation of land, eventually leading to severe famine.

The Derg was officially replaced by a civilian government in 1987, but the surviving members of the Derg became the leaders of the new civilian regime. However, Soviet aid came to an end in 1990, giving Ethiopian rebel forces a more even playing field, and by early 1991 the rebel forces were gaining the upper hand. On 21 May Mengistu fled to Zimbabwe, where he still resides under the protection of Robert Mugabe’s regime.

On this day 64 years ago the Jewish People’s Council approved a proclamation which declared the establishment of the State of Israel. Some 6 months previously, the United Nations had recommended adoption of a plan to partition Palestine, with the British Mandate to be replaced by independent Arab and Jewish states, but the plan was opposed by the Arab community, and civil war broke out after the UN resolution, so the plan was never fully implemented.

In December 1947 Britain announced that the Mandate would end at midnight on 14 May 1948, so it was on that day that the proclamation establishing the State of Israel was made. The Arab States invaded on the next day, starting the 1948 Arab-Israeli War. The war carried on, with some interruptions, until the following year when Israel signed a series of Armistice Agreements with neighbouring countries, establishing the Green Line between Israel and surrounding countries.

Several more Arab-Israeli wars followed in ensuing years, with Israel being mostly successful. Israel is a prosperous country, with the highest living standard in the Middle East and one of the highest life expectancies in the world. 75% of the almost 8 million inhabitants are Jewish, although there is a broad spectrum of religious beliefs amongst them, ranging from secularism to ultra-Orthodox.

On this day 218 years ago, Maximilien Robespierre announced to the French National Convention the Cult of the Supreme Being as the proper revolutionary religion. Robespierre had become the sole remaining strong man of the French Revolution, and the Reign of Terror was in progress. The revolution had rejected religion because of the perceived links between the Roman Catholic church and corrupt power, giving rise to the Cult of Reason.

However, Robespierre believed that reason is only a means to the end of civic-minded public virtue of a type which he ascribed to the Romans and Greeks. He thought that belief in the existence of a god, immortality of the human soul, and a higher moral code, were essential elements of a republican society because they were constant reminders of justice. Thus he devised his own version of a religion.

The Cult of the Supreme Being did not seem to win the divine protection of any supreme being. Less than 3 months later, on 27 July 1794, Robespierre was overthrown and the Reign of Terror came to an end. He was executed at the guillotine on the next day, and the Cult of the Supreme Being lost its official status. Some years later, it was officially banned by Napoleon.

Francis Bacon died on this day 386 years ago, at the age of 65. He had sought a life of influence at an early age, becoming a member of parliament at the age of 20, and a barrister the following year. He sympathised with Puritans and opposed religious persecution, while supporting simplification of the law. He became Queen’s Counsel in 1596, was knighted in 1603, became Solicitor-General in 1607, and then Attorney-General in 1613.

Despite his apparent public success, Bacon constantly struggled with payment of debts, and in 1621 a parliamentary committee charged him with numerous counts of corruption. He pleaded guilty to these and was sentenced to a large fine and imprisonment in the Tower of London. The fine was remitted by the king, and his imprisonment was short-lived, but his public disgrace brought an end to his parliamentary career.

Perhaps Bacon’s biggest legacy has been his ideas about the scientific method. Some writers have referred to him as the father of experimental science, and he is regarded as one of the key influencers behind the start of the Industrial age, as a promoter of practical science and inventions. The Statute of Monopolies, regarded as the root of modern patent law, was passed in 1624. Bacon died in 1626 of pneumonia, said to be contracted while experimenting with freezing to preserve meat.

On this day 82 years ago, the Empress Zewditu died and Haile Selassie was proclaimed Emperor of Ethiopia. Born Lij Tafari Makonnen in 1892, and later known as Ras Tafari Makonnen, upon coronation he took the name Haile Selassie, meaning “Power of the Trinity”. He started making tentative steps towards democracy in Ethiopia, but these were overtaken when Mussolini’s Italian army invaded in 1935-36.

Haile Selassie was exiled from Ethiopia in May 1936, and went to the League of Nations to protest about the Italian invasion and the use of chemical weapons. The League of Nations failed to show much interest, and Haile Selassie spent the next 5 years in exile in England, unsuccessfully trying to obtain support until Italy joined the German side in the Second World War. British and Australian soldiers and Ethiopian patriots led a guerrilla campaign against the Italian occupation forces, and in May 1941 Haile Selassie’s reign was restored.

After the war, Ethiopia became a charter member of the United Nations. A famine and the global oil crisis in 1973 led to unrest, and in 1974 Haile Selassie was deposed by the Derg, a committee of low-ranking military officers and enlisted men. He was imprisoned, and numerous government officials were killed. He died in August 1975, possibly as the result of assassination, and the Derg continued its bloody reign until 1991.