Saturday, January 18, 2014

On This Day in History - January 18 Peace Conference Ending WWI Begins in Paris

Once again, it should be reiterated, that this does not pretend to be a very extensive history of what happened on this day (nor is it the most original - the links can be found down below). If you know something that I am missing, by all means, shoot me an email or leave a comment, and let me know!

http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history

Jan 18, 1919: Post-World War I peace conference begins in Paris   

On this day in Paris, France, some of the most powerful people in the world meet to begin the long, complicated negotiations that would officially mark the end of the First World War.  

Leaders of the victorious Allied powers--France, Great Britain, the United States and Italy--would make most of the crucial decisions in Paris over the next six months. For most of the conference, U.S. President Woodrow Wilson struggled to support his idea of a "peace without victory" and make sure that Germany, the leader of the Central Powers and the major loser of the war, was not treated too harshly. On the other hand, Prime Ministers Georges Clemenceau of France and David Lloyd George of Britain argued that punishing Germany adequately and ensuring its weakness was the only way to justify the immense costs of the war. In the end, Wilson compromised on the treatment of Germany in order to push through the creation of his pet project, an international peacekeeping organization called the League of Nations.  

Representatives from Germany were excluded from the peace conference until May, when they arrived in Paris and were presented with a draft of the Versailles Treaty. Having put great faith in Wilson's promises, the Germans were deeply frustrated and disillusioned by the treaty, which required them to forfeit a great deal of territory and pay reparations. Even worse, the infamous Article 231 forced Germany to accept sole blame for the war. This was a bitter pill many Germans could not swallow.  

The Treaty of Versailles was signed on June 28, 1919, five years to the day after a Serbian nationalist's bullet ended the life of Austrian Archduke Franz Ferdinand and sparked the beginning of World War I. In the decades to come, anger and resentment of the treaty and its authors festered in Germany. Extremists like Adolf Hitler's National Socialist (Nazi) Party capitalized on these emotions to gain power, a process that led almost directly to the exact thing Wilson and the other negotiators in Paris in 1919 had wanted to prevent--a second, equally devastating global war.











Jan 18, 1778: Cook discovers Hawaii  

On January 18, 1778, the English explorer Captain James Cook becomes the first European to discover the Hawaiian Islands when he sails past the island of Oahu. Two days later, he landed at Waimea on the island of Kauai and named the island group the Sandwich Islands, in honor of John Montague, who was the earl of Sandwich and one his patrons.  

In 1768, Cook, a surveyor in the Royal Navy, was commissioned a lieutenant in command of the H.M.S. Endeavor and led an expedition that took scientists to Tahiti to chart the course of the planet Venus. In 1771, he returned to England, having explored the coast of New Zealand and Australia and circumnavigated the globe. Beginning in 1772, he commanded a major mission to the South Pacific and during the next three years explored the Antarctic region, charted the New Hebrides, and discovered New Caledonia. In 1776, he sailed from England again as commander of the H.M.S. Resolution and Discovery and in 1778 made his first visit to the Hawaiian Islands.  

Cook and his crew were welcomed by the Hawaiians, who were fascinated by the Europeans' ships and their use of iron. Cook provisioned his ships by trading the metal, and his sailors traded iron nails for sex. The ships then made a brief stop at Ni'ihau and headed north to look for the western end of a northwest passage from the North Atlantic to the Pacific. Almost one year later, Cook's two ships returned to the Hawaiian Islands and found a safe harbor in Hawaii's Kealakekua Bay.  

It is suspected that the Hawaiians attached religious significance to the first stay of the Europeans on their islands. In Cook's second visit, there was no question of this phenomenon. Kealakekua Bay was considered the sacred harbor of Lono, the fertility god of the Hawaiians, and at the time of Cook's arrival the locals were engaged in a festival dedicated to Lono. Cook and his compatriots were welcomed as gods and for the next month exploited the Hawaiians' good will. After one of the crewmembers died, exposing the Europeans as mere mortals, relations became strained. On February 4, 1779, the British ships sailed from Kealakekua Bay, but rough seas damaged the foremast of the Resolution, and after only a week at sea the expedition was forced to return to Hawaii.  

The Hawaiians greeted Cook and his men by hurling rocks; they then stole a small cutter vessel from the Discovery. Negotiations with King Kalaniopuu for the return of the cutter collapsed after a lesser Hawaiian chief was shot to death and a mob of Hawaiians descended on Cook's party. The captain and his men fired on the angry Hawaiians, but they were soon overwhelmed, and only a few managed to escape to the safety of the Resolution. Captain Cook himself was killed by the mob. A few days later, the Englishmen retaliated by firing their cannons and muskets at the shore, killing some 30 Hawaiians. The Resolution and Discovery eventually returned to England.    

Here's a more detailed look at events that transpired on this date throughout history:

336 - St Mark elected Catholic Pope
350 - General Maxentius drives out Western Roman emperor Constans
474 - Leo II briefly becomes Byzantine emperor.
532 - Nika uprising at Constantinople fails, 30-40,000 die
1126 - Emperor Huizong abdicates the Chinese throne in favour of his son Emperor Qinzong.
1307 - German king Albrecht I makes his son Rudolf king of Bohemia
1478 - Grand Duke Ivan II of Moscow occupies Novgorod
1520 - Christian II of Denmark & Norway defeats Swedes at Lake Asunde
1535 - Francisco Pizarro founds the city of Lima, Peru
1591 - King Naresuan of Siam kills Crown Prince Minchit Sra of Burma in single combat, for which this date is now observed marked as Royal Thai Armed Forces day.
1644 - Perplexed Pilgrims in Boston reported America's 1st UFO sighting
1650 - French Prince Louis II of Condé captured
1671 - Pirate Henry Morgan defeats Spanish defenders, captures Panama
1691 - English king Willem III travels to The Hague
1701 - Frederick I and Sophie Charlotte van Hanover crowned king/queen of Prussia
1733 - 1st polar bear exhibited in America (Boston)
1776 - James Wright, Royal Governor of Georgia, is placed under house arrest by Major Joseph Habersham
1777 - San Jose California, founded
1778 - Capt James Cook stumbles over Sandwich Islands (Hawaiian Islands)
Captain/Explorer James CookCaptain/Explorer James Cook 1788 - The first elements of the First Fleet carrying 736 convicts from England to Australia arrives at Botany Bay to setup a penal colony
1795 - French admitted to Amsterdam without resistance
1795 - governor/viceroy Willem V flees Scheveningen to England
1817 - San Martinleads a revolutionary army over Andes
1840 - Electro-Magnetic Intelligencer, 1st US electrical journal, appears
1850 - British blockade Piraeus, Greece to enforce mercantile claims
1854 - Filibuster William Walker proclaims Republic of Sonora in NW Mexico
1861 - American Civil War - Georgia joins South Carolina, Florida, Mississippi, and Alabama in seceding from the United States.
1862 - Confederate Territory of Arizona forms
1865 - Battle of Ft Moultrie, SC
1869 - Elegant California Theater opens in SF
1871 - 2nd German Empire proclaimed by Kaiser Wilhelm I & Bismarck
1884 - General Charles Gordon departs London for Khartoum
1884 - Dr. William Price attempts to cremate the body of his infant son, Jesus Christ Price, setting a legal precedent for cremation in the United Kingdom.
1886 - Modern field hockey is born with the formation of The Hockey Association in England.
Politician Otto Von BismarckPolitician Otto Von Bismarck 1895 - Amsterdam's AFC soccer team forms
1896 - 1st demonstration of an X-ray machine in US (NYC)
1896 - British troops occupy Kumasi, West Africa
1900 - Jan Blockx's "Tÿl Uilenspiegel" premieres in Brussels
1901 - Pope Leo XIII publishes encyclical Graves De Communi Re
1905 - French government of Combes falls
1908 - Frederick Delius' "Brigg Fair," premieres
1911 - 1st shipboard landing of a plane (Tanforan Park to USS Pennsylvania)
1913 - Turkish-Greek sea battle near Troy
1915 - Train crashes at Colima-Guadalajara Mexico, about 600 die
1915 - Japan issues the "Twenty-One Demands" to the Republic of China in a bid to increase its power in East Asia.
1916 - A 611 gram chondrite type meteorite stikes a house near the village of Baxter in Stone County, Missouri.
1919 - WW I Peace Congress opens in Versailles, France
1919 - Bentley Motors Limited is founded.
1921 - William Archer's "Green Goddess," premieres in NYC
1922 - Irish author Liam O'Flaherty & others occupy Rotunda in Dublin
1923 - 1st radio telegraph message from Netherlands to Dutch East Indies
1929 - "NY Daily Mirror" columnist Walter Winchell debuts on radio
Soviet Union Premier Joseph StalinSoviet Union Premier Joseph Stalin 1929 - Stalin proposes to ban Trotsky from the Politburo
1930 - -27°F (-33°C), Watts, Oklahoma (state record)
1930 - Shostakovitch' opera "The Nose," premieres in Leningrad
1933 - White Sands National Monument, NM established
1934 - Eugene O'Neill's "Days Without End," premieres in NYC
1938 - Bradman scores 104* for South Australia v NSW at the SCG
1938 - Pitcher Grover Cleveland Alexander is elected to Hall of Fame
1939 - SA wicketkeeper Bradman gets his 6th straight ton, 135* v NSW
1942 - Nazi's arrest Frans Goedhart & Wiardi Beckman
1943 - Presliced bread sale banned to reduce bakery demand for metal parts
1943 - Soviets announce they broke long Nazi siege of Leningrad
1943 - US rations bread & metal
1944 - 1st Chinese naturalized US citizen since repeal of exclusion acts
1944 - The Metropolitan Opera House in New York City hosts a jazz concert for the first time. The performers were Louis Armstrong, Benny Goodman, Lionel Hampton, Artie Shaw, Roy Eldridge and Jack Teagarden.
1945 - Warsaw freed by Soviet army
Jazz Musician Louis ArmstrongJazz Musician Louis Armstrong 1947 - "Red Mill" closes at Ziegfeld Theater NYC after 831 performances
1947 - Detroit Tigers sell Hank Greenberg to Pirates (for $25-35,000)
1947 - Small river steamer sank on Yangtze River, kills 400
1948 - 1st courses begin at University of Ibadan, Nigeria
1948 - Ted Mack's "Original Amateur Hour" begins, DuMont (later NBC/ABC/CBS)
1949 - "They Stand Accused" courtroom drama premieres on CBS (later DuMont)
1949 - 1st US Congressional standing committee headed by Negro (W Dawson)
1950 - Christopher Fry's "Venus Observed," premieres in London
1950 - Indians pitcher Bob Feller, after 15-14 season, takes $20,000 salary cut to $45,000, pay cut is Feller's own suggestion
1951 - 1st use of lie detector in Netherlands
1951 - Hermann Flake sentenced to death due to "hate campaign against GDR"
1951 - NFL rules tackles, guards & centers ineligible for forward pass
1951 - NFL takes control of failing Baltimore Colts
1953 - Louise Suggs wins LPGA Tampa Golf Open
1954 - Fanfani forms Italian government
Baseball Player Hank GreenbergBaseball Player Hank Greenberg 1955 - Battle of Yijiangshan occurred.
1956 - German DR forms own army (National People's Army)
1957 - 3 B-52's set record for around-the-world flight, 45 hr 19 min
1958 - 1st black in NHL (William O'Ree, Boston Bruins)
1959 - Ruth Jessen wins LPGA Tampa Golf Open
1960 - US & Japan sign joint defense treaty
1961 - Zanzibar's Afro-Shirazi party wins 1 seat by a single vote & parliament by a single seat
1962 - Southern University closed due to demonstrations
1962 - US begins spraying foliage in Vietnam to reveal Viet Cong guerrillas
1962 - US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site
1963 - Reinier Paping wins Dutch 11-Cities Skating Race (10:59)
1964 - Beatles 1st appear on Billboard Chart (I Want to Hold Your Hand-#35)
1964 - Plans for World Trade Center announced (NYC)
1965 - H L de Vries appointed Dutch governor of Suriname
1966 - Robert C Weaver, confirmed as 1st black cabinet member (HUD)
1967 - 20th NHL All-Star Game: Montreal beat All-Stars 3-0 at Montreal
1967 - Albert DeSalvo (Boston Strangler) sentenced to life in prison
1967 - US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site
1967 - Yellowknife replaces Ottawa as capital of NW Territories, Canada
1968 - "Happy Time" opens at Broadway Theater NYC for 286 performances
1968 - Hester & Appolinar's musical "Your Own Thing," premieres in NYC
1968 - USSR performs nuclear test at Eastern Kazakh/Semipalitinsk USSR
1969 - Expanded 4 party Vietnam peace talks began in Paris
1970 - Hasse Borjes skates world record 500m in 38.9 sec
1970 - NFL Pro Bowl: West beats East 16-13
1971 - Ivan Koloff beats Bruno Sammartino in NY, to become WWF champ
1973 - Boston Red Sox sign Orlando Cepeda as 1st player signed as a DH
1973 - Islanders break 12 game losing streak, 20 game road winless streak
1973 - John Cleese's final episode on "Monty Python's Flying Circus," on BBC
1974 - "$6 Million Man" starring Lee Majors premieres on ABC TV
1974 - Israel & Egypt sign weapons accord
1975 - "Jeffersons" spinoff from "All in the Family" premieres on CBS
1976 - Superbowl X: Pittsburgh Steelers beat Dallas Cowboys, 21-17 in Miami Superbowl MVP: Lynn Swann, Pittsburgh, WR
1977 - Imran Khan takes 12 wickets in match for Pakistan win at the SCG
1977 - Scientists identify a previously unknown bacterium as the cause of the mysterious Legionnaires' disease.
1978 - Geoff Boycott captains England for the 1st time, v Pak Karachi
1978 - Roof of 3-yr-old Civic Center in Hartford, Ct collapses (no injuries)
1978 - Thiokol conducts 2nd test firing of space shuttle's SRB
1979 - Peter Jenkins finishes "A Walk Across America," Florence Oregon
1980 - Gold reaches $1,000 an oz
1980 - Pink Floyd's "Wall" hits #1
1980 - Studio 54 owners Steve Rubell & Ian Schrager sentenced to 3½ years in prison for tax evasion & fined $20,000
1981 - Iran accepts US offer of $7.9 billion in frozen assets
1981 - Wendy O Williams arrested in Milwaukee for on-stage obscenity
Versatile Athlete Jim ThorpeVersatile Athlete Jim Thorpe 1983 - IOC restores Jim Thorpe's Olympic medals 70 years after they were taken from him for being paid $25 in semipro baseball
1984 - 80th Islander & 3rd dual hat trick (Carroll & Bossy) 9-1 win
1985 - US renounces jurisdiction of World Court despite previous promise
1986 - 24th Space Shuttle (61-C) Mission-Columbia 7-returns to Earth
1986 - AIDS charity record "That's What Friends are For," hits #1
1986 - NY Lotto pays $30.5 million to one winner (#s are 19-20-27-34-41-46)
1987 - 11th Soap Opera Digest Poll Awards - Days of Our Live wins
1988 - Airliner crashes in SW China, killing all 108 on board
1989 - Astronomers discover pulsar in remnants of Supernova 1987A (LMC)
1989 - IBM announces earnings up 10.4% in 1988
1989 - Otis Redding, Dion, Rolling Stones, Temptations & Stevie Wonder
1989 - West Indies beat Australia 2-1 to win the World Series Cup
1990 - South Africa says its reconsidering ban on African Natl Congress
1990 - Wash DC, Mayor Marion Barry arrested in drug enforcement sting
1991 - Iraq launches SCUD missiles against Israel
1991 - US acknowledges CIA & US Army paid Noriega $320,000 over his career
1991 - WLAF's NY Knights become NY-NJ Knights
1991 - Longest tennis match at the Australian Open, Boris Becker beats Italy's Omar Camporese in 5 hours & 11 mins
1991 - Eastern Air Lines goes out of business after 62 years, citing financial problems.
1992 - 43rd NHL All-Star Game: Campbell beat Wales 10-6 at Phila
1992 - 49th Golden Globes
1992 - Comedian Pat McCormick injured in a car accident
1992 - NHL All Star Game - Campbell-10, Wales-6 (Brett Hull, MVP) at Phila
Clergyman and Civil Rights Activist Martin Luther King Jr.Clergyman and Civil Rights Activist Martin Luther King Jr. 1993 - Martin Luther King Jr holiday observed in all 50 states for 1st time
1993 - West Indies win the World Series Cup, beating Australia 2-0
1994 - The Cando event, a possible bolide impact in Cando, Spain. Witnesses claim to have seen a fireball in the sky lasting for almost one minute.
1995 - Kumble takes 16-99 in match for Karnataka v Kerala
1995 - Pope John Paul II begins visit to Australia
1996 - Baseball owners unanimously approve interleague play in 1997
1997 - 47th NHL All-Star Game: East beat West 11-7 at San Jose Arena
1997 - In north west Rwanda, Hutu militia members kill 3 Spanish aid workers, 3 soldiers and seriously wound one other.
1997 - Boerge Ousland of Norway becomes the first person to cross Antarctica alone and unaided.
1998 - "Ragtime," opens at Ford Theater NYC
1998 - 48th NHL All-Star Game: North America beats World 8-7 at Vancouver
1998 - ABL All-Star Game at Disney complex in Orlando
1998 - Boston Celtics retire Robert Parrish's #00
1998 - Kelly Robbins wins Healthsouth Golf Inaugural
1998 - UCP Telethon
264th Pope John Paul II264th Pope John Paul II 2000 - The Tagish Lake meteorite impacts the Earth.
2002 - Sierra Leone Civil War was finally declared over.
2003 - A bushfire kills 4 people and destroys more than 500 homes in Canberra, Australia.
2007 - The strongest storm in the United Kingdom in 17 years kills 14 people, Germany sees the worst storm since 1999 with 13 deaths. Hurricane Kyrill, causes at least 44 deaths across 20 countries in Western Europe. Other losses include the Container Ship MSC Napoli destroyed by the storm off the coast of Devon, England.

2012 - Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) blackout becomes the largest protest in the history of the internet






1803 - Thomas Jefferson, in secret communication with Congress, sopught authorization for the first official exploration by the U.S. government.   1778 - English navigator Captain James Cook discovered the Hawaiian Islands, which he called the "Sandwich Islands."   1788 - The first English settlers arrived in Australia's Botany Bay to establish a penal colony. The group moved north eight days later and settled at Port Jackson.   1871 - Wilhelm, King of Prussia from 1861, was proclaimed the first German Emperor.   1886 - The Hockey Association was formed in England. This date is the birthday of modern field hockey.   1896 - The x-ray machine was exhibited for the first time.   1911 - For the first time an aircraft landed on a ship. Pilot Eugene B. Ely flew onto the deck of the USS Pennsylvania in San Francisco harbor.   1919 - The World War I Peace Congress opened in Versailles, France.   1929 - Walter Winchell made his debut on radio.   1937 - CBS radio debuted "Aunt Jenny’s Real Life Stories".   1939 - Louis Armstrong and his orchestra recorded "Jeepers Creepers."   1943 - During World War II, the Soviets announced that they had broken the Nazi siege of Leningrad, which had began in September of 1941.   1943 - U.S. commercial bakers stopped selling sliced bread. Only whole loaves were sold during the ban until the end of World War II.   1948 - "The Original Amateur Hour" debuted. The show was on the air for 22 years.   1950 - The federal tax on oleomargarine was repealed.   1951 - Joan Blondell made her TV debut on "Pot of Gold" episode of "Airflyte Theatre" on CBS-TV.   1957 - The first, non-stop, around-the-world, jet flight came to an end at Riverside, CA. The plane was refueled in mid-flight by huge aerial tankers.   1958 - Willie O'Ree made his NHL debut with the Boston Bruins. He was the first black player to enter the league.   1964 - The plans for the World Trade Center in New York were disclosed.   1967 - Albert DeSalvo, who claimed to be the "Boston Strangler," was convicted in Cambridge, MA, of armed robbery, assault and sex offenses. He was sentenced to life in prison. Desalvo was killed in 1973 by a fellow inmate.   1972 - Former Rhodesian prime minister Garfield Todd and his daughter were placed under house arrest for campaigning against Rhodesian independence.   1975 - "The Jeffersons" debuted on CBS-TV.   1978 - The European Court of Human Rights cleared the British government of torture but found it guilty of inhuman and degrading treatment of prisoners in Northern Ireland.   1985 - Mary Decker broke a world, indoor record when she ran the women’s, 2,000-meter race in 5:34.2. She also ran the outdoor mile in 4:16.7.   1987 - For the first time in history the Public Broadcasting System (PBS) was seen by over 100 million viewers. The audience was measured during the week of January 12-18.   1990 - A jury in Los Angeles, CA, acquitted former preschool operators Raymond Buckey and his mother, Peggy McMartin Buckey, of 52 child molestation charges.   1990 - In an FBI sting, Washington, DC, Mayor Marion Barry was arrested for drug possession. He was later convicted of a misdemeanor.   1991 - Eastern Airlines shut down after 62 years in business due to financial problems.   1993 - The Martin Luther King Jr. holiday was observed in all 50 U.S. states for the first time.   1995 - A network of caves were discovered near the town of Vallon-Pont-d'Arc in southern France. The caves contained paintings and engravings that were 17,000 to 20,000 years old.   1997 - Hutu militiamen killed three Spanish aid workers and three soldiers and seriously wound an American in a night attack in NW Rwanda.  2002 - The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced the approval of a saliva-based ovulation test.   2012 - Wikipedia began a 24-hour "blackout" in protest against proposed anti-piracy legislation (S. 968 and H.R. 3261) known as the Protect Intellectual Property Act (PIPA) in the Senate and the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) in the House. Many websites, including Reddit, Google, Facebook, Amazon and others, contended would make it challenging if not impossible for them to operate.



1733 The first polar bear was exhibited in America, in Boston. 1778 Captain James Cook became the first European to visit the Sandwich Islands (Hawaii). 1782 Daniel Webster was born in Salisbury, New Hampshire. 1788 The First Fleet, carrying convicts and sheep, arrived in Australia's Botany Bay. 1912 The ill-fated Scott expedition reached the South Pole, only to discover Amundsen had been there first. 1943 The Nazi siege of Leningrad was broken. 1993 All 50 states joined in the observance of the Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday.   Read more: This Day in History: January 18 | Infoplease.com http://www.infoplease.com/dayinhistory/January-18#ixzz2qYvdeei7


The following links are to web sites that were used to complete this blog entry:

http://www.historyorb.com/today/events.php

http://on-this-day.com/onthisday/thedays/alldays/jan18.htm


http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history

http://www.infoplease.com/dayinhistory

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