1238 Russia, History: Mongols occupied Vladimir near Moscow. Vladimir had been the seat of Russian Tsars like the Ivans. The Mongols were keen on acquiring real estate. Strangely enough we have been there. In a monastery there the German officers captured at Stalingrad were interrogated and incarcerated.
1839 Washington, D.C., Politics: Henry Clay said ‘I’d rather be right than president’ in the well of the Senate. Nonetheless he remained a perennial candidate. He made the remark during negotiations to prevent regional conflict over slavery. His willingness to negotiate and compromise irked many. He was known as ‘The Great Compromiser’ for his continued efforts to broker peaceful relations among the states. He was right and he never became president. The firebrands who preferred war to talk got their way in 1861.
1928 London, Transportation: Making the first solo flight from England to Australia, Bert Hinkler took off from Corydon and landed sixteen days later in Darwin, going on from there to his home town of Bundaberg.
1990 Moscow, Politics: With nary a gunshot, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics endorsed a resolution that read in part that the Party should make ‘no claim for any particular role encoded in the Constitution’ which was in the process of extensive revision thanks to first Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev. The meeting lasted three days and was acrimonious and stormy, to say the least. The change was so quick and sweeping that it took the world by surprise. As usual the journalists were caught napping in hotel bars.
1992 The Netherlands, Politics: Members of the European Union, after centuries of bloody conflicts that engulfed the world, signed the Maastricht Treaty. I spent a day in Maastricht once at the European Institute for Administration. Unlike everywhere else in the Netherlands, Masstricht is not pancake flat. In its end-of-year visual summary in 1992 the ABC ignored this event in favour of a bus crash in India. Such is the news judgement of those sanctimonious keepers of the faith.
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