post a random historical fact

Post Reply New Topic

The Cedar Fire Spreads in Southern California (2003)
The Cedar Fire was the second largest wildfire in the history of California. It was one of 15 fires fanned by Santa Ana Winds that ravaged Southern California during October 2003.

The 26th February 1658, Sweden reached its greatest extension ever by forcing Denmark to sign the peace treaty of Roskilde. The Swedes, under command of Charles X Gustaf, had simply marched over the ice of the Baltic Sea and captured the Danish capital.

At this time Norway was part of the Danish Empire and Finland was part of the Swedish. Denmark had to cede the Norwegian county of Trondhjem, which parted Norway in two, the Norwegian county of Baahus, which was renamed Bohuslän ("län" is Swedish for "county") and all parts of Denmark itself situated on the Scandinavian mainland, namely the provinces Halland, Skåne and Blekinge as well as the islands Anholt, Saltholm, Bornholm and Hven. All these provinces stayed Swedish except for the county of Trondhjem and the islands Anholt, Saltholm and Bornholm.

Denmark lost 1/3 of its own territory and it has been estimated that people in Denmark starved to death up to 50 years after the peace treaty, because the cessions and destructions that were brought on it by the Swedish invasion shorted the food access so much.

Sweden was almost 1 million sq km big then. Now its only 450000 sq km.

On Oct. 25, 1854, the "Charge of the Light Brigade" took place during the Crimean War as an English brigade of more than 600 men, facing hopeless odds, charged the Russian army during the Battle of Balaclava and suffered heavy losses.

On the 20th of November 1700 about 3000 Swedes and Finns defeated over 10000 Russians at the battle at Narva, in todays Estonia. The Commander in Chief, king Charles XII, took part in the battle himself, as he always did. Sweden had been attacked by Denmark-Norway, Poland-Saxony and Russia at the same time. All these empires had lost great portions of land to Sweden during the last 100 years and wanted revenge and reconquista.

Albert Eistein hated being called "The Father of The Atomic Bomb." Post WWII that's how reporters labelled him. Most people today think it was his famous equation that lead to this labelling. Balderdash. He wrote a letter to Pres. Roosevelt encouraaging him to start a research group to build an atomic bomb before Germany did. After we smashed the Nazi regime, we found out they were nowhere near to building an atomic bomb, and never had been.

Pierre Charles L'Enfant designed the layout of Washington, D.C..

October 23rd marked the fifth anniversary of the Ipod. When Steve Jobs introduced it in 2001 he said it would change the way people listened to music. (Is that guy smart, or what?)

Except for a poor French invasion attempt in the Saarland after the fall of Poland 1939, the first allied troops to cross the pre-war border of Germany was an American patrol. It happened on the night between 10 and 11 of September 1944 and the first villages that were captured were Eschweiler and Stohlberg in a mining district near Aachen.

1983: US troops invaded Grenada

American forces seized control of the Caribbean island of Grenada less than a week after a left-wing coup in which the prime minister, Maurice Bishop, was killed.

The last time Sweden had a military invasion on it's own turf was 1809, when the Russians invaded northern Sweden and some islands in the Baltic Sea. Sweden had to cede Finland and some parts of what was considered the northern- and easternmost part of Sweden itself. The most parts that were ceded were Finnish- or Laplandish-speaking parts, though, except for the Åland (Ahvenmaa) isles, which have a Swedish-speaking population but is geographically closer to Finland.

1964: President Kaunda took power in Zambia.
Zambia was the ninth African state to gain independence from the British crown.

Litigious
I've often wondered about the explanation for sweden's neutrality. I understand they've been that way since 1812. It's not like they've always been a peace loving people, and they're definitely not the only nation that ever got its butt kicked. What's going on up there?

Well, it's said that the Swedish Air Force was sufficient to give the Luftwaffe the idea of leaving them alone. Certainly SAAB was building some planes that were the equal of the Germans. I don't know about the Army or Navy.