|
|||||||
|
|
|
|||||
|
|
|||||||
|
|||||||
|
|
|
|||||
|
|
|||||||
Highlights for December 16
1653 Cromwell Becomes Lord Protector
Oliver Cromwell, a leader of the Parliamentarians in the two English civil wars and ruler of England since 1649, is proclaimed "lord protector" of England, a title resembling that of the abolished monarchy. When the first English civil war broke out between the Parliamentarians and the king's Royalist forces in 1642, Cromwell formed his formidable Ironsides force, and won an important victory at Marston Moor in 1644.
As a leader of the New Model Army in the second English civil war, Cromwell repelled the Royalist invasion of Scotland, and in 1649 brought King Charles I to trial, where he was the leading voice demanding the king's execution. Charles was subsequently beheaded, the monarchy abolished, and Cromwell was named leader of the new republican Commonwealth.
By 1651, he had united the three kingdoms of England, Scotland, and Ireland, and in 1652 became lord protector after failing in his effort to establish a new parliamentary government. As lord protector, Cromwell established the Puritan Church in England, but also promoted religious tolerance for most other Christian groups and Jews.
In 1658, Cromwell died and was succeeded by his son, Richard Cromwell. However, in 1659, Richard was forced to flee to France with the restoration of the monarchy, and his father was posthumously convicted of treason. Oliver Cromwell's body was subsequently disinterred from the tomb of the kings in London's Westminster Abbey, and hung from the gallows at Tyburn.
In Boston Harbor, a group of Massachusetts colonists disguised as Mohawk Indians board three British tea ships, and dump 342 chests of tea into the harbor. The midnight raid, popularly known as the "Boston Tea Party," was in protest of the British Parliament's Tea Act of 1773, which granted the East India Company a monopoly on the American tea trade by greatly lowering its tea tax. The low tea taxes allowed the East India Company to undercut even tea smuggled out of America, and many colonists viewed the act as another example of taxation without representation.
When three tea ships, the Dartmouth, the Eleanor, and the Beaver, arrived in Boston Harbor, the colonists demanded that the tea be returned to England. After Massachusetts Governor Thomas Hutchinson refused, Patriot leader Samuel Adams organized the "tea party" with about sixty members of the "Sons of Liberty." The destroyed tea was valued at approximately eighteen thousand pounds. Parliament, outraged by the Boston Tea Party and other blatant destruction of British property, enacted the Coercive Acts, also known as the Intolerable Acts, the following year. The colonists responded by calling the first Continental Congress to consider a united American resistance against the British.
September 30,1961, Mayor Snyder of Oregon who wrote a check for $196, the total cost to replace all tea lost at The Boston Tea Party.
1944 BATTLE OF THE BULGE BEGINS:
With the Anglo-Americans closing in on Germany from the west and the Soviets approaching from the east, Nazi leader Adolf Hitler orders a massive attack against the western Allies by three German armies.
The German counterattack out of the densely wooded Ardennes region of Belgium took the Allies entirely by surprise, and the experienced German troops wrought havoc on the American line, creating a triangular "bulge" 60 miles deep and 50 miles wide along the Allied front. Conditions of fog and mist prevented the unleashing of Allied air superiority, and for several days Hitler's desperate gamble seemed to be paying off. However, unlike the French in 1940, the embattled Americans kept up a fierce resistance even after their lines of communication had been broken, buying time for a three-point counteroffensive led by British General Bernard Montgomery and Americans generals Omar Bradley and George Patton.
Fighting was particularly fierce at the town of Bastogne, where the 101st Airborne Division and part of the 10th Armored Division were encircled by German forces within the bulge. On December 22, the German commander besieging the town demanded that the Americans surrender or face annihilation. U.S. Major General Anthony McAuliffe prepared a typed reply that read simply:
To the German Commander:
Nuts!
From the American Commander
The Americans who delivered the message explained to the perplexed Germans that the one-word reply was translatable as "Go to hell!" Heavy fighting continued at Bastogne, but the 101st held on.
On December 23, the skies finally cleared over the battle areas, and the Allied air forces inflicted heavy damage on German tanks and transport, which were jammed solidly along the main roads. On December 26, Bastogne was relieved by elements of General Patton's 3rd Army. A major Allied counteroffensive began at the end of December, and by January 21 the Germans had been pushed back to their original line.
Germany's last major offensive of the war had cost them 120,000 men, 1,600 planes, and 700 tanks. The Allies suffered some 8,000 killed, wounded, or missing in action, with all but 4,000 of these casualties being American. It was the heaviest single battle toll in U.S. history.
If you have other Birthdays or events to add for this day please E-Mail me.
Today Tomorrow
