IMPORANT EVENT ABOUT HISTORY

4

The American Revolution

The establishment of America as a nation all its own occurred from 19 April 1775 to October 1781. Hostilities were required because the British considered the Thirteen Colonies nothing more than another exclave of the global British Empire, and King George wanted the lion’s share of all the Colonies’ wealth. America’s Founding Fathers had had enough, and when 8 Minutemen were killed on Lexington Green, the fight was on.

The next year, in one of the Continental Congress’s many meetings, Benjamin Franklin, on signing the Declaration of Independence, said, “Now, gentlemen, if we don’t all hang together in this, we’ll all hang separately.” They were traitors to the Crown. The only reason they are not thought of as such today is because George Washington, with a lot of help from the French, won the War.

He lost about 6 major battles, and won only about 3, but the three he won were the three that mattered in the end. His primary enemy was Charles Lord Cornwallis, who was more than a match for him many times. But when Washington combined all his American forces with those of the French of Gilbert du Motier, the Marquis de Lafayette, Cornwallis could not overcome them. When he surrendered, The United States of America became a nation all its own.

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IMPORANT EVENT ABOUT HISTORY

3

The Civil War

This war ranks higher than that of #3 because #3 left one question unanswered after the drafting of the Constitution: if all men are created equal, why are blacks bought and sold, families of them broken up, and in other ways inhumanely treated for the purpose of using them like farm animals? Why aren’t blacks allowed to vote? Are they, at long last, men?

In order to circumvent this last question, most white citizens, especially in the South, actually argued that black people were not humans, but slightly subhuman. They weren’t even counted in censuses until 1787, and even then, only 3/5 of all blacks would be counted in a given area. The causes of the Civil War, or more properly, the War over States’ Rights, include much more than slavery, but the sustenance or abolition of slavery was the result everyone watched for, and what all the politicians fought for. At no other time in American history was the nation more polarized over any issue. In hindsight, fighting over it was the only resolution. No compromise could avail itself forever.

Many war experts consider it the first modern war, not because of the Gatling gun, but because of musket rifling and the Minie ball. As said in #10, 600,000 Americans died. This was horror on a scale no American ever saw before or since. Most of the common soldiers enlisted and fought for the money and three square meals a day. This was a job, and the promise of adventure, for the price of possible death or injury. By the time it was over, Richmond had been bombed into a moonscape, General Sherman had burned Atlanta to the ground, and the President was killed.

But with the unconditional surrender of the South, the Union was able to welcome back all seceded states, per Lincoln’s wishes, and permanently outlaw slavery of any kind. The Constitution was amended to this effect, Blacks were given the right to vote and hold office, and a nation much more similar to that of the present finally existed in the Western Hemisphere.

IMPORANT EVENT ABOUT HISTORY

2

September 11, 2001

The current global generation’s “JFK moment” took place on a Tuesday morning, when Islamic extremists indoctrinated (brainwashed) by Osama bin Laden hijacked 4 commercial passenger jets and deliberately flew them into major American landmarks. Their sole intent was indiscriminate mass murder, for the purpose of causing as much physical, emotional, mental, psychological and financial harm on America as they possibly could. Their motives were, and still are, convoluted, complicated, and completely spurious. America is not the Great Satan some in the Middle East have made it out to be.

The plane crashes instigated a decade-long, ongoing “war on terror,” and played a substantial role in the global economic downturn. These crimes’ most important aspect on American, and in this case global, history is a permanent end to “hijackings for ransom.” Ransoms are what the innocent passengers in the four planes expected would be demanded, requiring the planes to land peacefully, and then boarded by military force. This why no one fought back against the terrorists until word reached the fourth plane that three others had been hijacked and deliberately turned into weapons.

The terrorists had no intention of ransoming innocent people, but were resigned to what they were taught would be a glorious martyrdom, by killing American citizens. The fourth plane was probably destined for the U. S. Capitol building in Washington, D. C., but the nation’s last line of defense succeeded in saving the icon and a worse loss of life, at the cost of its passengers’ own martyrdom.

Today, the entire world can rest assured that never again will an American airplane be overtaken by anyone for any reason, because no terrorist of any culture or motive can ever again be trusted not to kill himself and innocent bystanders for the goal of entering Heaven. Terrorists can no longer be reasoned with, and thus, the global war against splinter cell terrorism is, from the morning of 9/11/2001 until its end, one of attrition. The terrorists will not stop until there are no terrorists. And now the civilized world knows it.

10Abdullah Catli

Photo credit: Son Dakika Haberleri

Turkish killer Abdullah Catli made a name for himself as a leader of a far-right nationalist group known as the Grey Wolves. In 1978, he and other members of the group murdered seven students whom they believed to be communist revolutionaries. The students were members of the left-wing Turkish Workers’ Party, and the Grey Wolves raided their apartment expecting to find weapons, but the students were completely unarmed. The militants tied them up and shot them anyway.

Another member of Catli’s Grey Wolves was Mehmet Ali Agca, who tried toassassinate Pope John Paul II in 1981. Two years before that, Agca had been locked up for the murder of a journalist, and Catli got him out of prison. Some believe Catli arranged the assassination attempt on the Pope for money.

After this, Catli was recruited by Turkish intelligence agency MIT. He carried out attacks against the Armenian liberation movement, for which MIT paid him in heroin. Smuggling drugs landed Catli in prison in France in 1984, then in Switzerland in 1988.

He escaped in 1990 and once again became a killer, this time working for the Turkish police. Starting in 1993, the police began kidnapping and executing members of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, which fought for autonomy for the Kurds in Turkey. Catli not only carried out the killings, he also conned money from his victims by promising to protect them, before having them kidnapped and murdered.

Catli died in a car crash in 1996, an event that caused a scandal in Turkey. He was traveling with a senior police officer and a member of parliament though he was still officially wanted by the police for his murders during the 1970s. The crash revealed the relationship between authorities and the Turkish mafia.

Estimates suggest Catli’s gang murdered 4,000 people whose activities were thought contrary to state interests.

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IMPORANT EVENT ABOUT HISTORY

1

Apollo 11

For once, we will end on a major chord. In just about a week we remember the significant events of July 20, 1969, when humanity did itself proud, in spite of all its wars, sadism, hatred, and insanity. We set foot on another world. We have no choice but to remember the awful things our species has perpetrated on itself and on Planet Earth. But we can now choose to think of ourselves as ultimately good. Beneath it all, we are a decent species. We did not, until this date, possess or even deserve a universal common ground on which to agree. Now, no matter what else happens, if extraterrestrial life ever learns of us, they will learn that we walked on our own moon, studied it up close and personal, and returned safe and sound.

And it was the United States of America who saw it through. After tragedies uncountable, the most notorious of which was the fiery death of Virgil Grissom, Ed White, and Roger Chaffee. But NASA and most Americans understood that the prize at the end of the race was worth finishing. England can claim some pride, in that Sir Isaac Newton was proven right about everything he said. Without him, NASA wouldn’t have known which way was up.

Yet, some have detracted from America’s almighty achievement of the Moon Landing with the argument that America achieved its goal in order to beat the Soviets to it. Thus, it was an achievement born out of hatred and distrust. But that isn’t fair. Once the Cold War was over, Russia and America worked, and have worked, together in space exploration, interested only in science and discovery. It is not NASA’s fault, nor the fault of Russia’s space program, that Capitalism and Communism didn’t get along.

America’s distrust and loathing of Communism is most directly attributable to Senator Joseph McCarthy, who saw in denouncing it a chance to gain power for himself. He preyed on people’s fear, and this works like a charm. Today, Russia is no longer Communist, and cooperates with America’s and other space programs to study and reach the stars.

But only Americans have walked on the Moon, 12 of them. No one of any other nation has. There are five different flags on the Moon: the first planted is from the USA; out of respect for other superpowers, the USA has planted the flags of the Soviet Union, Japan, the European Union, and India.

NASA is now very intent on going back, and someday the next, much more giant leap will be taken: to Mars. Whoever it is who speaks first on Mars must remember the sentiment Neil Armstrong expressed, “We came in peace for all mankind.”