Milestones: March 13, 2024

March 13, 2024 Brooklyn Eagle Staff

Share this:

CZAR ASSASSINATED — THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION DIDN’T BEGIN UNTIL MARCH 1917, BUT THE PEOPLE WERE already resisting the Czarist government. Czar Alexander II, the ruler of Russia since 1855, was assassinated on March 13, 1881, in the streets of St. Petersburg when a member of the revolutionary “People’s Will” group threw a bomb. The People’s Will, organized in 1879, employed terrorism and assassination in their attempt to overthrow Russia’s czarist autocracy. They murdered officials and made several attempts on the czar’s life. Although Czar Alexander II was progressive for a ruler, modernizing the country and abolishing serfdom just five years after ascending to power, he did not like when people challenged his authority. He opposed political reform movements.

On the very day of his assassination, Alexander II had signed the Loris-Melikov constitution that would have provided for an indirectly related legislature had he lived. His heir, Alexander II rejected that constitution, hanged his father’s assassin and suppressed the People’s Will.

✰✰✰

PLANET URANUS DISCOVERED — THE PLANET URANUS WAS DISCOVERED ON MARCH 13, 1781, THE FIRST in modern times and through the use of a telescope. German-born astronomer William Herschel, who later moved to England, used a telescope to view the heavens, which enabled him to distinguish Uranus as being a planet rather than a star, the prevailing belief of the time. Uranus, the seventh planet from the sun is beyond Jupiter and Saturn and is a gas giant like them, with hydrogen and methane as the dominant molecules. as well as helium. Uranus’ solar orbit lasts 84 Earth years and the planet is unique in that it spins perpendicular to its solar orbital plane, and its weather is cold and windy, according to NASA’s website.

Herschel, who was later knighted for his historic discovery, named the planet Georgium Sidus, or the “Georgian Planet,” in honor of his patron, King George III of England, the same monarch who reigned during the American Revolution. However, the name of Uranus, for the ancient Greek god, won out.

✰✰✰

SAM HOUSTON TRAINS AN ARMY — LESS THAN A WEEK AFTER THE DISASTROUS DEFEAT OF TEXAS REBELS AT THE ALAMO, ON March 6, 1836, the newly commissioned Texan General Sam Houston begins a series of strategic retreats on March 13, 1836 to buy time to train his revolutionary army, which was ill-prepared for battle. Texans had formally announced their independence from Mexico. Houston, arriving at Gonzales, Texas, where most of the army was stationed, found them ill-equipped, poorly-clad, lacking proper weapons and short on food rations. After retreating, Houston then equipped and trained his soldiers for the inevitable meeting with Mexican General Santa Anna.

Finally, on April 21, 1836, Houston deemed his troops ready, and led them to attack Santa Anna’s force, in a surprise offensive and the battle cry, “Remember the Alamo!”

✰✰✰

ARMY K-9 CORPS STARTS TRAINING — TRAINING BEGAN ON MARCH 13, 1942, FOR A NEW CORPS OF THE UNITED STATES ARMY’S War Dog Program. This “K-9 Corps,” as it was called, was newly established, and a revival actually of war dog programs that were in place during World War I. These K-9s, the most famous of which was Rin Tin Tin, carried messages along the complex network of trenches and gave psychological comfort to the soldiers. Although the war dogs program was no longer running after World War I, the American Kennel Association and a group called Dogs for Defense after Pearl Harbor attack began a movement to mobilize dog owners to donate healthy and capable animals to the Quartermaster Corps of the U.S. Army, which trained canines for the U.S. Navy, Marines, and Coast Guard. as well as for the Army.

Rin Tin Tin, who had been an abandoned German Shepherd puppy, found his niche with the soldiers. He also made his movie debut in the 1922 silent film” The Man from Hell’s River”. He thus became the film industry’s first animal star.

✰✰✰

FIRST POPE FROM AMERICAS — A PAPAL CONCLAVE THAT HAD CONVENED FOLLOWING THE RESIGNATION OF BENEDICT XVI ON MARCH 13, 2013, ELECTED THE 266TH POPE OF THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH — the man who became Pope Francis. The newly-elected pontiff, Argentine cardinal and Archbishop of Buenos Aires Jorge Mario Bergoglio brought with him several firsts. Bergoglio was the first to come from the Americas, and the Southern Hemisphere, and he was the first Jesuit to become Pope. Before receiving his vocation to the priesthood, Bergoglio had trained as a chemical technician. He became a Jesuit on March 11, 1958, the religious missionary society that the Spanish saint, St. Ignatius of Loyola (1491-1556) had cofounded.

Though normally beloved for his pastoral and compassionate approach to many issues, including homosexuality and women clergy, Pope Francis this week made some controversial statements regarding Ukraine’s continuing its two-year fight against what that deems as Russian oppression.

✰✰✰

DISCOVERED OXYGEN — JOSEPH PRIESTLY, ANOTHER SCIENTIST WHO HAD TRAINED AS A CLERGYMAN AND WHO IS CREDITED WITH HAVING DISCOVERED OXYGEN, was born on March 13, 1733 (Old-Style/Julian calendar). Bearing a surname that would reflect his later vocation, Joseph Priestly, was also an educator, and scientist who, at the time of his discovery, was experimenting with the effect of sunlight on mercuric oxide. He also invented carbonated water.

Priestly’s religious and political views were unpopular with others, and an angry mob attacked his home, causing him and his family to narrowly escape. They moved to the United States, settling in Pennsylvania, in 1794.

See previous milestones, here.