1582Oda Nobunaga dies at the Honnō-ji temple in Kyoto
In the second half of the 16th century Japan was divided among rival warlords, and Oda Nobunaga was the most formidable of them. From his base in Owari he fought his way to Kyoto, drove out the last Ashikaga shogun in 1573 and brought much of central Japan under his control, using massed musketeers and ruthless force against his rivals and against armed Buddhist temples.
In the summer of 1582 he stopped in Kyoto with only a small guard, lodging at the Honnō-ji temple on his way to support his general Toyotomi Hideyoshi in the west. Another of his generals, Akechi Mitsuhide, who had been ordered west with his army, turned it on the capital instead. Before dawn on 21 June 1582 his troops surrounded the temple. Hopelessly outnumbered, Nobunaga died as the building burned, by his own hand according to most accounts, and his eldest son and heir was killed in Kyoto the same day. Mitsuhide’s motives have been argued over ever since. He held power for less than two weeks before Hideyoshi defeated him, and it was Hideyoshi who went on to finish the work of unifying Japan.
Read the full storyHistory & Timeline →Source: Britannica: Oda Nobunaga ↗
1788New Hampshire’s vote brings the US Constitution into force
The Constitution drawn up at Philadelphia in the summer of 1787 was only a proposal until the states accepted it. Its seventh article laid down that it would take effect once conventions in nine of the thirteen states had ratified it. Over the following months the debate between its Federalist supporters and Anti-Federalist critics was fought out in pamphlets, newspapers and state conventions, and by the late spring of 1788 eight states had said yes.
New Hampshire’s convention had first met early in 1788 and adjourned without a vote, as its supporters feared defeat. When it met again in June the Federalists had won over enough delegates, and on 21 June 1788 the convention voted to ratify, by 57 votes to 47. New Hampshire was the ninth state, so its vote made the Constitution binding on the states that had accepted it. Virginia and New York narrowly followed within weeks, and the Congress of the old Confederation then fixed March 1789 for the new government to begin in New York City.
Read the full storyHistory & Timeline →Source: National Archives: The Real Constitution Day? ↗
1791Louis XVI’s flight from Paris ends at Varennes
Since October 1789 Louis XVI and his family had lived under watch in the Tuileries palace in Paris, as the Revolution stripped away the powers of the crown. With help from loyal friends the king planned an escape to the fortress of Montmédy near the eastern frontier, where royalist troops were waiting and from where he hoped to deal with the Revolution on his own terms.
Around midnight on 20 to 21 June 1791 the family slipped out of the palace in disguise and set off east in a large, slow coach. The journey fell behind schedule, and at Sainte-Menehould the postmaster, Jean-Baptiste Drouet, recognised the king and rode ahead to raise the alarm. Late on 21 June the coach was stopped at the little town of Varennes and the family were held there, only a short distance from safety. They were brought back to Paris under guard. The flight destroyed much of the trust that remained in the king and gave strength to those who wanted a republic. Just over a year later the monarchy fell.
Read the full storyHistory & Timeline →Source: Britannica: Jean-Baptiste Drouet ↗
1900China’s court declares war on the foreign powers
At the end of the 19th century northern China was suffering from drought and poverty, and anger was growing at foreign missionaries, foreign railways and the concessions the great powers had forced from the Qing dynasty. A secret society known to foreigners as the Boxers, for its martial-arts rituals, spread from Shandong province, attacking missionaries and Chinese Christians, and by June 1900 its followers had poured into Beijing and Tianjin.
At first the court of the Empress Dowager Cixi hesitated between crushing the Boxers and using them. When foreign troops landed and pressed their demands, the hardliners won. On 21 June 1900 the court issued an edict declaring war on the foreign powers and threw its support behind the Boxers. Qing troops and Boxers besieged the foreign legations in Beijing, where diplomats, soldiers and Chinese Christians held out for weeks until an international army fought its way into the capital in August. The settlement that followed forced China to pay a crushing indemnity.
Read the full storyHistory & Timeline →Source: Ohio State University, Origins: The Boxer Rebellion ↗
1919The interned German fleet sinks itself at Scapa Flow
Under the armistice of November 1918 the pride of Germany’s navy, 74 warships of the High Seas Fleet, sailed into British custody and was held in Scapa Flow, the great natural harbour in Orkney. Skeleton crews stayed aboard under Rear Admiral Ludwig von Reuter while the victorious Allies argued in Paris over the peace terms and the fate of the ships.
Reuter believed that the talks had broken down and that his ships were about to be seized. On the morning of 21 June 1919, while most of the British squadron guarding them was away on exercise, he gave the signal to scuttle. His crews opened valves, portholes and torpedo tubes, and within about five hours 52 ships had gone to the bottom, one of the greatest losses of shipping in a single day. In the confusion British forces shot and killed nine German sailors, among the last German deaths of the war. Most of the wrecks were later raised for scrap.
Read the full storyHistory & Timeline →Source: Imperial War Museums: The Scuttling of the German Fleet, 1919 ↗
