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Highlights for August 29
1533 PIZARRO EXECUTES LAST INCA EMPEROR:
Atahuallpa, the 13th and last emperor of the Incas, dies by strangulation at the hands of Francisco Pizarro's Spanish conquistadors. The execution of Atahuallpa, the last free reigning emperor, marked the end of 300 years of Inca civilization.
High in the Andes Mountains of Peru, the Inca built a dazzling empire that governed a population of 12 million people. Although they had no writing system, they had an elaborate government, great public works, and a brilliant agricultural system. In the five years before the Spanish arrival, a devastating war of succession gripped the empire. In 1532, Atahuallpa's army defeated the forces of his half-brother Huáscar in a battle near Cuzco. Atahuallpa was consolidating his rule when Pizarro and his 180 soldiers appeared.
Francisco Pizarro was the son of a Spanish gentleman and worked as a swineherd in his youth. He became a soldier and in 1502 went to Hispaniola with the new Spanish governor of the New World colony. Pizarro served under Spanish conquistador Alonso de Ojeda during his expedition to Colombia in 1510 and was with Vasco Núñez de Balboa when he discovered the Pacific Ocean in 1513. Hearing legends of the great wealth of an Indian civilization in South America, Pizarro formed an alliance with fellow conquistador Diego de Almagro in 1524 and sailed down the west coast of South America from Panama. The first expedition only penetrated as far as present-day Ecuador, but a second reached farther, to present-day Peru. There they heard firsthand accounts of the Inca empire and obtained Inca artifacts. The Spanish christened the new land Peru, probably after the Virú River.
Returning to Panama, Pizarro planned an expedition of conquest, but the Spanish governor refused to back the scheme. In 1528, Pizarro sailed back to Spain to ask the support of Emperor Charles V. Hernán Cortés had recently brought the emperor great wealth through his conquest of the Aztec Empire, and Charles approved Pizarro's plan. He also promised that Pizarro, not Almagro, would receive the majority of the expedition's profits. In 1530, Pizarro returned to Panama.
In 1531, he sailed down to Peru, landing at Tumbes. He led his army up the Andes Mountains and on November 15, 1532, reached the Inca town of Cajamarca, where Atahuallpa was enjoying the hot springs in preparation for his march on Cuzco, the capital of his brother's kingdom. Pizarro invited Atahuallpa to attend a feast in his honor, and the emperor accepted. Having just won one of the largest battles in Inca history, and with an army of 30,000 men at his disposal, Atahuallpa thought he had nothing to fear from the bearded white stranger and his 180 men. Pizarro, however, planned an ambush, setting up his artillery at the square of Cajamarca.
On November 16, Atahuallpa arrived at the meeting place with an escort of several thousand men, all apparently unarmed. Pizarro sent out a priest to exhort the emperor to accept the sovereignty of Christianity and Emperor Charles V, and Atahuallpa refused, flinging a Bible handed to him to the ground in disgust. Pizarro immediately ordered an attack. Buckling under an assault by the terrifying Spanish artillery, guns, and cavalry (all of which were alien to the Incas), thousands of Incas were slaughtered, and the emperor was captured.
Atahuallpa offered to fill a room with treasure as ransom for his release, and Pizarro accepted. Eventually, some 24 tons of gold and silver were brought to the Spanish from throughout the Inca empire. Although Atahuallpa had provided the richest ransom in the history of the world, Pizarro treacherously put him on trial for plotting to overthrow the Spanish, for having his half-brother Huáscar murdered, and for several other lesser charges. A Spanish tribunal convicted Atahuallpa and sentenced him to die. On August 29, 1533, the emperor was tied to a stake and offered the choice of being burned alive or strangled by garrote if he converted to Christianity. In the hope of preserving his body for mummification, Atahuallpa chose the latter, and an iron collar was tightened around his neck until he died.
With Spanish reinforcements that had arrived at Cajamarca earlier that year, Pizarro then marched on Cuzco, and the Inca capital fell without a struggle in November 1533. Huáscar's brother Manco Capac was installed as a puppet emperor, and the city of Quito was subdued. Pizarro established himself as Spanish governor of Inca territory and offered Diego Almagro the conquest of Chile as appeasement for claiming the riches of the Inca civilization for himself. In 1535, Pizarro established the city of Lima on the coast to facilitate communication with Panama. The next year, Manco Capac escaped from Spanish supervision and led an unsuccessful uprising that was quickly crushed. That marked the end of Inca resistance to Spanish rule.
Diego Almagro returned from Chile embittered by the poverty of that country and demanded his share of the spoils of the former Inca empire. Civil war soon broke out over the dispute, and Almagro seized Cuzco in 1538. Pizarro sent his half brother, Hernando, to reclaim the city, and Almagro was defeated and put to death. On June 26, 1541, allies of Diego el Monzo--Almagro's son--penetrated Pizarro's palace in Lima and assassinated the conquistador while he was eating dinner. Diego el Monzo proclaimed himself governor of Peru, but an agent of the Spanish crown refused to recognize him, and in 1542 Diego was captured and executed. Conflict and intrigue among the conquistadors of Peru persisted until Spanish Viceroy Andrés Hurtado de Mendoza established order in the late 1550s.
1862 Second Battle of Bull Run
Confederate General Robert E. Lee deals a stinging defeat to Union General John Pope at the Second Battle of Bull Run—a battle that arose out of the failure of Union General George McClellan's Peninsular campaign earlier in the summer. Frustrated with McClellan, who was still camped on the James Peninsula southeast of Richmond, President Lincoln and General-in-Chief Henry Halleck decided to pull a substantial part of McClellan's Army of the Potomac and send it to General John Pope's newly formed Army of Virginia.
Lee correctly guessed that McClellan had no plans to attack Richmond, so he sent General Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson north to keep an eye on Pope's force. When it became clear that the Yankees were abandoning the peninsula, Lee moved more of his force northward to defeat Pope before reinforcements arrived.
The plan worked perfectly, and Jackson raided a major Union supply depot at Manassas. Realizing that the Confederates were split, Pope began to pursue Jackson. But he could not find the Rebel force, which was hidden in the woods around Bull Run, the site of the war's first major battle more than a year earlier. Pope was confused, and issued contradictory orders that frustrated his troops, who marched back and forth for two days.
By August 28, Jackson knew that help was nearby in the form of General James Longstreet's corps. Jackson's men emerged from the woods and attacked a Union division late in the day, but the fighting ended in a standstill. On August 29, Pope attacked, but his army did not fare well. The Confederates mauled the Union troops, and by August 30 Pope had to retreat. His army lost over 16,000 men to the Confederates' 9,000.
Most shocking was the response of McClellan, now back from the peninsula. He was in nearby Alexandria, Virginia, and resisted sending a corps to aid Pope. Still smarting from the transfer of his troops to Pope's command, he "wanted Pope defeated," as Lincoln later wrote. But Lincoln could not remove McClellan for his treachery, because Lee soon began moving his army into Maryland for an invasion of the North.
More Highlights of the American Civil War
Eamon de Valera, the most dominant Irish political figure of the 20th century, dies at the age of 92.
Eamon de Valera was born in New York City in 1882, the son of a Spanish father and Irish mother. When his father died two years later, he was sent to live with his mother's family in County Limerick, Ireland. He attended the Royal University in Dublin and became an important figure in the Irish-language revival movement.
In 1913, he joined the Irish Volunteers, a militant group that advocated Ireland's independence from Britain, and in 1916 participated in the Easter Rising against the British in Dublin. He was the last Irish rebel leader to surrender and was saved from execution because of his American birth. Imprisoned, he was released in 1917 under a general amnesty and became president of the nationalist Sinn Féin Party. In May 1918, he was deported to England and imprisoned again, and in December Sinn Féin won an Irish national election, making him the unofficial leader of Ireland.
In February 1919, he escaped from jail and fled to the United States, where he raised funds for the Irish Republican movement. When he returned to Ireland in 1920, Sinn Féin and the Irish Republican Army (IRA) were engaged in a widespread and effective guerrilla campaign against British forces. In 1921, a truce was declared, and in 1922 Arthur Griffith and other former Sinn Féin leaders broke with de Valera and signed a treaty with Britain, which called for the partition of Ireland, with the south becoming autonomous and the six northern counties of the island remaining part of the United Kingdom. In the period of civil war that followed, de Valera supported the Republicans against the Irish Free State (the new government of the autonomous south) and was imprisoned by William Cosgrave's Irish Free State ministry.
In 1924, he was released and two years later left Sinn Féin, which had become the unofficial political wing of the underground movement for northern independence. He formed Fianna Fáil, and in 1932 the party gained control of the Dáil Éireann (the Irish assembly), and de Valera became taoiseach, or Irish prime minister. For the next 16 years, de Valera pursued a policy of political separation from Great Britain, including the introduction of a new constitution in 1937, which declared Ireland the fully sovereign state of Éire. During World War II, he maintained a policy of neutrality but repressed anti-British intrigues within the IRA.
In 1948, he narrowly lost reelection because of negative public reaction to his party's long monopoly of power. Out of office, he toured the world advocating the unification and independence of Ireland. His successor as taoiseach, John Costello, officially made Ireland an independent republic in 1949 but nonetheless lost the prime minister's office to de Valera in the 1951 election. The relative Irish economic prosperity of the 1940s declined in the 1950s, and Costello began a second ministry in 1954, only to be replaced again by de Valera in 1957. In 1959, de Valera resigned as prime minister and was elected Irish president--a largely ceremonial post. On June 24, 1973, de Valera, then the world's oldest statesman, retired from Irish politics at the age of 90. He died two years later.
1987 - Academy Award-winning actor Lee Marvin died in Tucson, Ariz., at age 63.
Many people have always been a bit offended that Lee Marvin is buried in a grove of 3 and 4 star generals at Arlington. His marker gives his name, rank (PVT) and service (USMC). Nothing else. Here's a guy who was only a famous movie star who served his time, why the heck does he rate burial with these guys?
Well, following is the amazing answer:
I always liked Lee Marvin, but did not know the extent of his Corps experiences. Including award of the Navy Cross. There is only one higher award...the Medal Of Honor.
Anyone remember the dialog from a Tonight Show? Johnny Carson's guest was Lee Marvin. Johnny said, "Lee, I'll bet a lot of people are unaware that you were a Marine in the initial landing at Iwo Jima ... and that during the course of that action you earned the Navy Cross and were severely wounded."
And you know how Lee was ..."Yeah, yeah ... I got shot square in the ass and they gave me the cross for securing a hot spot about halfway up Suribachi ... bad thing about getting shot up on a mountain is guys gettin' shot hauling you down. But Johnny, at Iwo I served under the bravest man I ever knew ... We both got the Cross the same day but what he did for his Cross made mine look cheap in comparison. The dumb bastard actually stood up on Red Beach and directed his troops to move forward and get the hell off the beach. That Sergeant and I have been life long friends. "When they brought me off Suribachi we passed the Sergeant and he lit a smoke and passed it to me lying on my belly on the litter...
"Where'd they get you Lee?"...
"Well Bob ... if you make it home before me, tell Mom to sell the outhouse."....."Johnny, I'm not lying ... Sergeant Keeshan was the bravest man I ever knew.
Bob Keeshan ...You and the world know him as Captain Kangaroo."
If you have other Birthdays or events to add for this day please E-Mail me.
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