Anniversaries and commemorations come and go daily. Most of us, even the best historians, miss most occasions. If we think of history as events then we are faced with a continually showering in the grains of sand. Nevertheless, we do pick out certain patterns in the remembrance of historical dates. The blog here reminds us of some dates where the local, state, national, and global perspectives entwine.
What Time is It? It is flow of a sandstorm that will on each day compress somewhere into a structure – sandstone, selected and only remembered in the longue durée.
On 4 September 1870, Emperor Napoleon III of France is deposed, and the Third Republic is declared. Empress Eugénie flees to England with her children.
On Tuesday, 4 September 1945, WWII: Japanese forces surrender on Wake Island after hearing word of their country’s surrender.
On Tuesday, 4 September 1990, Geoffrey Palmer resigns as Prime Minister of New Zealand and is replaced by Mike Moore.
On Tuesday, 4 September 1990, Premier of North Korea Yon Hyong-muk meets with President of South Korea Roh Tae-woo, the highest level contact between leaders of the two Koreas since 1945.
On Monday, 4 September 1995, The Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing with over 4,750 delegates from 181 countries in attendance. [September 4–15]
On Saturday, 4 September 2010, Widespread flooding across Victoria leads to the evacuation of hundreds of people and millions of dollars of property damage.
On Saturday, 4 September 2010, A 7.1 magnitude earthquake rocks Christchurch, New Zealand causing large amounts of damage but no direct fatalities. It is the first in a series of earthquakes between 2010 and 2012 that resulted in the deaths of 187 people and over $40 billion worth of damage. Seismologists noted that the earthquake sequence was highly unusual, and likely to never happen again anywhere else in the world.
On Friday, 4 September 2015, died Geoffrey Bolton, 83, historian
Images Citations in Composite: ID 17208541 © Anhong | Dreamstime.com; ID 35001957 © DiversityStudio1 | Dreamstime.com; ID 156394527 © Gerd Zahn | Dreamstime.com
Neville Buch
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