Saturday, December 9, 2023

Dec. 9 history: P.B.S. Pinchback

Dec. 9 history

In 1854, The Examiner prints Alfred Lord Tennyson’s poem “The Charge of the Light Brigade,” which commemorates the courage of 600 British soldiers charging a heavily defended position during the Battle of Balaklava, in the Crimea, just six weeks earlier. Tennyson had been named poet laureate in 1850 by Queen Victoria

In 1872, P.B.S. Pinchback became governor in Louisiana - the first Black officeholder to do so in the U.S. He was appointed to the position during impeachment proceedings against the elected governor. His father was a white Mississippi plantation owner, and his mother had been freed from slavery before her son was born. On this day in 1872, P.B.S. Pinchback became governor in Louisiana - Mississippi Today 

In 1958, in Indianapolis, retired candy manufacturer Robert H.W. Welch, Jr., establishes the John Birch Society, a right-wing organization dedicated to fighting what it perceives to be the extensive infiltration of communism into American society.

In 1972, smallpox officially declared eradicated.

In 1983, the movie 'Scarface', starring Al Pacino, opens in theaters.

In 1987, in the Israeli-occupied Gaza Strip, the first riots of the Palestinian intifada, or “shaking off” in Arabic, begin one day after an Israeli truck crashed into a station wagon carrying Palestinian workers in the Jabalya refugee district of Gaza, killing four and wounding 10. Gaza Palestinians saw the incident as a deliberate act of retaliation against the killing of a Jew in Gaza several days before, and on December 9 they took to the streets in protest, burning tires and throwing rocks and Molotov cocktails at Israeli police and troops. At Jabalya, an Israeli army patrol car fired on Palestinian attackers, killing a 17-year-old and wounding 16 others. The next day, crack Israeli paratroopers were sent into Gaza to quell the violence, and riots spread to the Israeli-occupied West Bank.

In 1990, Lech Walesa elected president of Poland.

In 1992, separation between Prince Charles and Princess Diana announced.

In 2016, World Anti-Doping Agency details a vast "institutional conspiracy" involving Russian officials and more than 1,000 athletes in systematic doping at major athletic competitions, including the Olympics. A second WADA report says the conspiracy involves the Russian Sports Ministry, national anti-doping agency and the FSB intelligence service and that the cheating and cover-ups were on an "unprecedented scale" from 2011-15. (History.com 12/09/23)

No comments: