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 15 March 1895, Bridget Cleary is killed and her body burned in County Tipperary, Ireland, by her husband, Michael; he is subsequently convicted and imprisoned for manslaughter, his defence being a belief that he had killed a changeling left in his wife’s place after she had been abducted by fairies.
On Monday, 15 March 1920, The Ruhr Red Army, a communist army 60,000 men strong, is formed in Germany.
On Monday, 15 March 1920, [Start date] Constantinople is occupied by British Empire forces, acting for the Allied Powers against the Turkish National Movement. Retrospectively, the Grand National Assembly of Turkey regards this as the dissolution of the Ottoman regime in Istanbul.
On Thursday, 15 March 1945, WWII: The Soviet Red Army carries out the Upper Silesian Offensive [March 15–31].
On Thursday, 15 March 1945, The 17th Academy Awards ceremony is held, broadcast via radio for the first time. Best Picture goes to Going My Way.
On Sunday, 15 March 1970, The Expo ’70 World’s Fair opens in Suita, Osaka, Japan.
On Thursday, 15 March 1990, Iraq hangs British journalist Farzad Bazoft for spying. Daphne Parish, a British nurse, is sentenced to 15 years’ imprisonment as an accomplice.
On Thursday, 15 March 1990, The first high speed (T1) transatlantic Internet connection is made over the TAT-8 fiber optic cable between CERN and Cornell University, allowing faster Internet communication between North America and Europe.
On Thursday, 15 March 1990, Mikhail Gorbachev is elected as the first executive president of the Soviet Union.
On Thursday, 15 March 1990, Singing Revolution: The Soviet Union announces that Lithuania’s declaration of independence is invalid.
On Thursday, 15 March 1990, Fernando Collor de Mello takes office as President of Brazil, Brazil’s first democratically elected president since Jânio Quadros in 1961. The next day, he announces a currency freeze and freezes large bank accounts for 18 months.
Images Citations in Composite: ID 17208541 © Anhong | Dreamstime.com; ID 35001957 © DiversityStudio1 | Dreamstime.com; ID 156394527 © Gerd Zahn | Dreamstime.com
Neville Buch