The People's History Project: On This Day

On this day in the year 202 before the common era (BCE) the coronation ceremony of Liu Bang as emperor Gaozu of Han takes place, beginning four centuries of the Han dynasty's rule over China; two thousand, one hundred and forty-nine years later, in 1947 of the common era (CE) the February 28^th Massacre takes place, beginning a period known as the “White Terror” when an anti-government uprising in Taiwan is violently put down by the Chiang Kai-shek government, led by the Kuomintang forces of the Republic of China, twenty-eight people are killed.

On this day in in the year 1646 of the common era (CE), Roger Scott is put on trial in Massachusetts for the crime of sleeping in church…seriously folks; this is what happens in a theocracy; one hundred and thirty-eight years later, John Wesley charters the Methodist Church.

On this day in the year 1700 CE, Sweden adopts the modern calendar, its first national calendar, marking the succeeding day (tomorrow) as March 1^st; one hundred and twenty-six years later, Biela's Comet is rediscovered by Austrian astronomer Wilhelm von Biela, who claimed to have originally discovered it in 1772, only to lose track of it before finding it again.

On this day in 1704 CE, Frenchman Elias Neau opens a school for people of African descent in New York, New York; one hundred and fifty-five years later, the Arkansas legislature requires free slaves to choose exile or return to the condition of slavery.

In 1810 CE the first fire insurance joint-stock company in the United States is organized in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; seventeen years later the first commercial railroad is chartered in the United States, the Baltimore & Ohio (B&O) line.

In 1850 CE the University of Utah opens in Salt Lake City, Utah; thirty-three years later, the first vaudeville theatre in the United States open in Boston, Massachusetts. Eleven years after that, the Legislative Assembly of the Territory of New Mexico passes legislation founding the University of New Mexico, to be established in (or near) Albuquerque.

In 1871 CE the Second Enforcement Act cedes authority to establishes guidelines in congressional elections in the United States to the federal government; nineteen years later the Massachusetts Battalion is organized, becoming the first state run naval militia.

1878 Congress overrides United States president Rutherford B. Hayes' veto of the Bland-Allison Act, requiring the Treasury to buy a certain amount of silver and put it into circulation as silver dollars, it then authorizes a large-size silver certificate.

In 1909 CE the first National Woman's Day is observed in the United States, organized by the Socialist Party of America in honor of the 1908 garment workers' strike in New York, New York where women protested against working conditions; twenty-four years later, Frances Perkins is appointed Secretary of Labor, the first female to serve in the Cabinet of the United States president.

Also on this day in 1933 CE, on Adolf Hitler's advice, German president Paul von Hindenburg signs the Reichstag Fire Decree after the building is destroyed in a false flag operation by members of the Nazi party in in Berlin; they blame communists, then arrest and execute a Dutch communist after framing him for the crime. The Reichstag Decree eliminates many civil liberties in Germany, the German Communist Party (KPD) is essentially outlawed (though not formally banned); other arrests took place, like that of pacifist and anti-fascist writer Carl Von Ossietzky who was sent to the Esterwegen-Papenburg concentration camp.

In 1935 CE Wallace Carothers manufactures the first nylon polymer; eighteen years later; Francis Crick and James Watson discover the chemical structure of the DNA molecule (double-helix polymer) using X-ray diffraction studies stolen from Rosalind Franklin and Maurice Wilkins and published the findings as their own without accrediting the source. Three years after that, American engineer Wright Forrester is issued a patent for his computer core memory.

In 1940 CE the United States population was 131,669,275 with 12,865,518 people of African descent among the population (9.8%); though there are many white nationalist-Christian theocrats, neo-Nazis and members of the Klu Klux Klan who would have you believe that United States population is in some kind of a death spiral, the population in the united today is estimated to be about three hundred and forty-nine million, with the percentage of people who are of African descent, (including those identifying as mixed-race) is estimated to be 15.2% of the total U.S. population.

In 1954 CE the United States performs atmospheric nuclear test at Bikini Island; twenty-one years later at the Nevada Test Site, and again in Nevada five years after that.

In 1961 CE, United States president John F. Kennedy names Henry Kissinger to the post of special advisor to the president, twenty-two years later, the final TV episode of M*A*S*H airs on CBS, a two-hour special directed by series star Alan Alda titled: Goodbye, Farewell, and Amen; a record one hundred and twenty-five million viewers watch in the U.S.. On that same day, in 1983 CE, the Irish supergroup U2 release their third (and only relevant) studio album titled: War, featuring protest song, Sunday Bloody Sunday. It becomes their first number one album in the United Kingdom. Three years after that, the European Economic Community signs "Special Act" for European free trade.

In 1991 CE the first Gulf War ends after Iraq accepts a ceasefire following their retreat from Kuwait; six years later, an agent with the Federal Bureau of Investigations, Earl Pitts pleads guilty to selling secrets to Russia. One year after that, the first flight of the RQ-4 Global Hawk takes place; the Hawk is an unmanned aerial vehicle certified to file its own flight plans and fly regularly in civilian airspace within the United States.

In 2019 CE, it is announced that a lost Caravaggio painting: Judith and Holofernes (c. 1607 CE) has been found in a Toulouse attic five years earlier, it sells at auction for one hundred and seventy-one million dollars.

In 2022 CE, the Russian Federation shells the Ukrainian city of Kharkiv, while a forty-mile-long Russian military convoy approaches the capital city of Kyiv…their advance is halted, and they are forced to retreat.