1814Francis Scott Key sees the flag over Fort McHenry and writes ‘The Star-Spangled Banner’
In the summer of 1814, two years into its war with the United States, Britain sent an army and fleet into Chesapeake Bay. In August they burned the public buildings of Washington, and in September they turned on Baltimore, a rich port and a base for American privateers. The way in by water was guarded by Fort McHenry, and on the morning of 13 September British warships began to bombard it with shells and rockets. Francis Scott Key, a Washington lawyer, watched from a truce ship a few miles away: he had gone out to the fleet to ask for the release of an American doctor and was held there until the attack was over.
The bombardment went on for about 25 hours, through a night of rain. At dawn on 14 September 1814 the guns fell silent, and the garrison hauled up its great flag, 30 feet by 42, sewn the year before by the Baltimore flag-maker Mary Pickersgill. Seeing it, Key knew the fort had not surrendered, and he began to write verses on the back of a letter. They were printed within days as ‘Defence of Fort M’Henry’, to be sung to a popular English tune. The song became the national anthem of the United States in 1931, and the flag itself is kept at the Smithsonian in Washington.
Read the full storyHistory & Timeline →Source: Smithsonian National Museum of American History: The Star-Spangled Banner, a moment of triumph ↗
1812Napoleon enters Moscow, and the city begins to burn
Napoleon invaded Russia in June 1812 with the largest army Europe had seen, expecting to force Tsar Alexander I to terms after one great battle. The Russians fell back for more than two months before standing at Borodino on 7 September, the bloodiest day of the Napoleonic Wars. Their army survived, and its commander, Marshal Kutuzov, chose to save it by giving up Moscow without another fight. Most of the city’s people, some 270,000, left with the troops.
On 14 September 1812 Napoleon’s advance guard marched into Moscow. He waited at the gates for a deputation to bring him the keys of the city; nobody came. That evening the first fires broke out, and over the next four days, fanned by high winds and with the fire engines removed on the governor’s orders, they destroyed about two-thirds of the mostly wooden city. Napoleon waited in the ruins for five weeks for a peace offer that never arrived, then began the retreat that destroyed his army.
Read the full storyHistory & Timeline →Source: Fondation Napoléon: The burning of Moscow, Napoleon’s trial by fire, 1812 ↗
1960Five oil-producing countries found OPEC in Baghdad
In 1960 the world’s oil trade was run by a handful of large Western companies, which pumped the oil of the Middle East and Venezuela under concessions and set the ‘posted price’ on which the producing countries’ income was calculated. In 1959, and again in August 1960, the companies cut that price without consulting the governments concerned, taking a slice out of their national budgets at a stroke.
Venezuela’s oil minister, Juan Pablo Pérez Alfonzo, and his Saudi counterpart, Abdullah al-Tariki, had already been urging the producers to act together. From 10 to 14 September 1960 delegates from Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and Venezuela met in Baghdad, and the conference ended with an agreement to create the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, to co-ordinate their oil policies and defend prices. Little noticed at first, OPEC set up its office in Geneva and moved to Vienna in 1965. Within a decade its members had taken control of their own oil, and in the 1970s its decisions shook the world economy.
Read the full storyHistory & Timeline →Source: OPEC: Brief history ↗
1847General Scott’s army enters Mexico City
War between the United States and Mexico broke out in 1846, after the United States annexed Texas and the two countries disputed where its border lay. American armies occupied northern Mexico and California, but the Mexican government would not make peace. In March 1847 General Winfield Scott therefore landed an army at Veracruz, on the Gulf coast, and marched inland towards the capital along the route once taken by Cortés, winning at Cerro Gordo in April and at Contreras and Churubusco, on the edge of the city, in August.
After an armistice failed, Scott attacked again. On 13 September his troops stormed the hilltop castle of Chapultepec, defended among others by the young cadets of Mexico’s military academy, who are remembered in Mexico as the Niños Héroes, and fought their way to the city gates. On 14 September 1847 the Americans entered Mexico City and raised their flag over the National Palace on the great central square. The peace signed the following February cost Mexico about half its territory, from Texas to California.
Read the full storyHistory & Timeline →Source: Britannica: Winfield Scott ↗
