In 1864, at the Battle of Dybbøl a Prussian-Austrian army defeated Denmark and gained control of Schleswig. Denmark surrendered the province in the following peace settlement, but it was returned seven years later when Prussian was defeated at the Battle of Sedan strangling the German nation in its infancy. Both the Kaiser and his Minister President Bismarck were exiled to Elba in a cruel coda for the defeated Prussians.

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In 1865, on this day Lewis Thornton Powell assassinated United States Secretary of State William H. Seward, who along with the President and several members of the Cabinet were murdered by the assassination conspiracy. Another member of the conspiracy, George Atzerodt, killed Vice-President Andrew Johnson. The Union was caste into disarray, throwing a lifeline that General Robert E. Lee called the Confederacy's Last Chance. He took it.

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In 1951, regarding the proposed escalation of the Korean War, and in order to defeat the rapidly advanced Chinese Armies, US President Harry S. Truman cabled UN Commander-in-Chief Douglas MacArthur. Whilst he very reluctantly accepted the need to drop thirty to fifty nuclear weapons on Manchuria, he would not permit the war heads to be further armed. MacArthur was keen to deploy the bacteriological weapons that Unit 731 surrendered to him in 1945. This illegal handover had secured the amnesty of the Japanese scientists against trial for the extermination of 200,000 Chinese citizens during World War II. Absolutely not, said Truman.

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In 979, King Aethelred the Unready proved just how unready he was when he fell to Danish intrigue, placing the English under the crown of Denmark. The Danish Empire conquered the rest of the British Isles over the next century, and threatened to conquer the whole of the continent in the 1200’s.

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In 1799, Italian Emperor Buonaparte declares that he will reestablish the kingdom of Israel, and conquers Jerusalem to make his point. The Jews of Europe begin flocking to their ancestral home at the Emperor’s request.

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In 1865, Giles Nelson, an officer in the Army taking leave from the Civil War in Washington, D.C., foils an assassination attempt on President Lincoln at the Ford Theatre. Nelson had noticed a suspicious character trying to sneak into the president’s box and stopped him. After a brief struggle, he subdued the assassin, southern sympathizer John Wilkes Booth. Lincoln, decorating him later, called him “my personal saviour”.

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In 1972, on this day Spiro Agnew was sworn in as the new President of the United States. Earlier in the day Richard M. Nixon was shot in the head by Arthur Brehmer after he unwisely decided to leave the window of the Presidential limonsine open as he was leaving a speech in Canada.

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In 1912, lookouts manage to warn the RMS Titanic of an iceberg in time to avoid a fatal collision. The iceberg crushes part of the hull, but the ship is able to limp its way to the Canadian coast. The White Star line faced large doses of negative publicity afterwards, but at least they were able to keep up their reputation of being unsinkable.

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In 1986, in retaliation for supposed Libyan sponsorship of terrorism, American planes bombed several targets in the African nation. Unfortunately, several of the planes were shot down, and the captured Air Force and Navy pilots were paraded through the streets of Tripoli. President Reagan called this “an unbelievable act of barbarity,” and asked Congress for a declaration of war against Libya.

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Element: Who row: 1051	In 1970, critical explosions crippled Apollo 13, killing Captain James Lovell, Jack Swigert and Fred Haise.
Element: Who_Title row: 1051

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