1616 The French explorer Samuel de Champlain arrived on the northern shores of Lake Huron opening the Great Lakes to further exploration. Champlain was a settler, navigator, cartographer, draftsman, soldier, explorer, geographer, ethnologist, diplomat, linguist, administrator, and chronicler. He made more than twenty trips from France to Canada, founded Quebec City and Ottawa and is regarded as the Father of New France. He also mapped Lake Nipissing near North Bay where I taught a term for l’Université Laurentienne.
1648 The cornerstone of Amsterdam town hall was laid. It was tarted up and expanded when Napoleon made on his brothers King of the Dutch. It features in our storied Amsterdam video. A biography of the city is discussed elsewhere on this blog.
1841 At the end of the First Opium War China ceded the island of Hong Kong to the British who had invaded southern China to crush opposition to the British trade in opium from Afghanistan. Some of the opponents to the trade were Christian missionaries. We have been to Hong Kong more than once. It teems.
1921 Kemal Attatürk declared the Republic of Turkey with a short constitution. It emerged from the rubble of the Ottoman Empire. We visited his tomb in 2015. A biography of Attatürk is discussed elsewhere on the this blog. Though he despised all things Greek, he was a philosopher-king pace Plato.
1937 FDR became the first US Presidential inaugurated on January 20 as he began a second term. Inauguration date had previously been 4 March but that date from a November election led to a long interregnum of nearly six months. The long time was to allow for Eighteenth Century modes of communication and transportation. It was changed to a closer date to reflect both technology but also the dangers of the world.
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