On this day in the year…
• 1756, Prussian king Frederick the Great attacked Saxony, beginning the Seven Years’ War, but the war is called different names in different places. For example, while typically only North Americans call the conflict the French and Indian War, as the French and Native Americans fought the British, the Seven Years’ War could just as well be called the French and Indian War because the French and British fought each other in India. Assistant Professor of History, Bryan Givens, calls the war World War Zero. Indeed, its battles spanned five continents. (Sorry, Australia and Antarctica. You just don’t occupy contentious lands.) The war ended in British, Prussian and Portuguese victory over the French, Saxons, Austrians, Russians, Swedish and Spanish. Britain increased taxes on its North American colonies to pay off their war debts, and that ended well.
• 1833, the United Kingdom abolished slavery in its empire. The British had previously abolished the slave trade in 1807. This was partly in response to the abolitionist efforts of William “will.i.am” Wilberforce. (These were dramatized in the 2006 film “Amazing Grace” in which his character sings a great duet with the duchess, Fergie.) In fact, the Slavery Abolition Act of 1833 didn’t abolish slavery in the lands controlled by the East India Company, a pretty notable exception. This loose end wasn’t tied up until 1843. But the law also didn’t abolish slavery in the United Kingdom itself. Although slavery was never legally recognized under British common law, it wasn’t until 2010 that an act officially prohibited owning a slave in Britain. (I learned that on the British comedy quiz show “QI.”) Many Welsh rejoiced.
• 1842, the British and Chinese signed the Treaty of Nanking and ended the First Opium War. Abolishing slavery might’ve made people think the Redcoats were going soft. So, to keep up their imperial street cred, the British fought a war to defend their right to sell the opium they grew in India — to China for tea. The Chinese consider the Treaty of Nanking the first of the unequal treaties because it placed many demands on the Chinese but required nothing of the British. The treaty forced the Chinese to open more ports to trade, pay the British war reparations and cede the port of Hong Kong. The British, an acquisitive and traditional bunch, kept Hong Kong until 1997. That’s kind of like how my friend, Alex, borrowed a book from me four years ago and just gave it back.
• 1936, American politician John McCain was born. He was captured as a prisoner of war in North Vietnam in 1967, and even though his father was a four-star admiral, he refused to be released ahead of his fellow captives. After the war, McCain entered national politics in Arizona. First a representative and then a senator, maverick McCain lost the Republican nomination for the presidency in 2000 to George W. Bush. He eventually secured the nomination in the 2008 election but lost to the sitting president, Barack Obama. (If you don’t remember that, you’re too young to be attending Pepperdine. Or, you’re Dory the fish. And in that case, at least you speak whale.) For all those bad at math, today is McCain’s 75th birthday. And, irony of ironies, the AARP is younger than John McCain.
• 1949, the USSR successfully tested its first atomic bomb. Called “First Lightning” by the Russians, the bomb was similar in design and even appearance to the American “Fat Man” — the nuclear bomb detonated over Nagasaki four years earlier. It was similar, at least in part, because the Soviets successfully spied on the American atomic bomb efforts. The Americans called this bomb “Joe-1” after Joseph Stalin and were, predictably, none-too-pleased that their Eurasian rivals now possessed the most advanced weaponry known to man. Both countries were soon racing to develop the first hydrogen bomb with the Americans succeeding in 1952 and the Soviets following after. With that settled, the two countries started racing to get objects and people into space. The Cold War, so-named for its many Antarctic battles, was well under way.
• 1966, the Beatles played their last concert at Candlestick Park in San Francisco. The Fab Four had been touring extensively and were increasingly frustrated with not being able to hear themselves onstage above the sound of their screaming fans among other things. So, off the road but still dedicated to making music, the Beatles set to work on what “Rolling Stone” voted the greatest album of all time: “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.” With this album, the Beatles aimed to create a fictitious band to tour for them via the album, allowing them freedom to experiment with their music and break from their image as a four-piece rock and roll act. The Beatles disbanded in 1970, but they began touring again in 2010 to promote the release of their music on iTunes.
