At Rouen in English-controlled Normandy, Joan of Arc, the
peasant girl who became the savior of France, is burned at the stake for
heresy.
Joan was born in 1412, the daughter of a tenant farmer at Domremy, on
the borders of the duchies of Bar and Lorraine. In 1415, the Hundred
Years War between England and France entered a crucial phase when the
young King Henry V of England invaded France and won a series of
decisive victories against the forces of King Charles VI. By the time of
Henry's death in August 1422, the English and their French-Burgundian
allies controlled Aquitaine and most of northern France, including
Paris. Charles VI, long incapacitated, died one month later, and his
son, Charles, regent from 1418, prepared to take the throne. However,
Reims, the traditional city of French coronation, was held by the
Anglo-Burgundians, and the Dauphin (heir apparent to the French throne)
remained uncrowned. Meanwhile, King Henry VI of England, the infant son
of Henry V and Catherine of Valois, the daughter of Charles VI, was
proclaimed king of France by the English.
Joan's village of Domremy lay on the frontier between the France of
the Dauphin and that of the Anglo-Burgundians. In the midst of this
unstable environment, Joan began hearing "voices" of three Christian
saints—St. Michael, St. Catherine, and St. Margaret. When she was about
16, these voices exhorted her to aid the Dauphin in capturing Reims and
therefore the French throne. In May 1428, she traveled to Vaucouleurs, a
stronghold of the Dauphin, and told the captain of the garrison of her
visions. Disbelieving the young peasant girl, he sent her home. In
January 1429, she returned, and the captain, impressed by her piety and
determination, agreed to allow her passage to the Dauphin at Chinon.
Dressed in men's clothes and accompanied by six soldiers, she reached
the Dauphin's castle at Chinon in February 1429 and was granted an
audience. Charles hid himself among his courtiers, but Joan immediately
picked him out and informed him of her divine mission. For several
weeks, Charles had Joan questioned by theologians at Poitiers, who
concluded that, given his desperate straits, the Dauphin would be
well-advised to make use of this strange and charismatic girl.
Charles furnished her with a small army, and on April 27, 1429, she
set out for Orleans, besieged by the English since October 1428. On
April 29, as a French sortie distracted the English troops on the west
side of Orleans, Joan entered unopposed by its eastern gate. She brought
greatly needed supplies and reinforcements and inspired the French to a
passionate resistance. She personally led the charge in several battles
and on May 7 was struck by an arrow. After quickly dressing her wound,
she returned to the fight, and the French won the day. On May 8, the
English retreated from Orleans.
During the next five weeks, Joan and the French commanders led the
French into a string of stunning victories over the English. On July 16,
the royal army reached Reims, which opened its gates to Joan and the
Dauphin. The next day, Charles VII was crowned king of France, with Joan
standing nearby holding up her standard: an image of Christ in
judgment. After the ceremony, she knelt before Charles, joyously calling
him king for the first time.
On September 8, the king and Joan attacked Paris. During the battle,
Joan carried her standard up to the earthworks and called on the
Parisians to surrender the city to the king of France. She was wounded
but continued to rally the king's troops until Charles ordered an end to
the unsuccessful siege. That year, she led several more small
campaigns, capturing the town of Saint-Pierre-le-Moitier. In December,
Charles ennobled Joan, her parents, and her brothers.
In May 1430, the Burgundians laid siege to Compiegne, and Joan stole
into the town under the cover of darkness to aid in its defense. On May
23, while leading a sortie against the Burgundians, she was captured.
The Burgundians sold her to the English, and in March 1431 she went on
trial before ecclesiastical authorities in Rouen on charges of heresy.
Her most serious crime, according to the tribunal, was her rejection of
church authority in favor of direct inspiration from God. After refusing
to submit to the church, her sentence was read on May 24: She was to be
turned over to secular authorities and executed. Reacting with horror
to the pronouncement, Joan agreed to recant and was condemned instead to
perpetual imprisonment.
Ordered to put on women's clothes, she obeyed, but a few days later
the judges went to her cell and found her dressed again in male attire.
Questioned, she told them that St. Catherine and St. Margaret had
reproached her for giving in to the church against their will. She was
found to be a relapsed heretic and on May 29 ordered handed over to
secular officials. On May 30, Joan, 19 years old, was burned at the
stake at the Place du Vieux-Marche in Rouen. Before the pyre was lit,
she instructed a priest to hold high a crucifix for her to see and to
shout out prayers loud enough to be heard above the roar of the flames.
As a source of military inspiration, Joan of Arc helped turn the
Hundred Years War firmly in France's favor. By 1453, Charles VII had
reconquered all of France except for Calais, which the English
relinquished in 1558. In 1920, Joan of Arc, one of the great heroes of
French history, was recognized as a Christian saint by the Roman
Catholic Church. Her feast day is May 30.
Taken from: http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history [30.05.12]
The famous tower clock known as Big Ben, located at the top
of the 320-foot-high St. Stephen's Tower, rings out over the Houses of
Parliament in Westminster, London, for the first time on this day in
1859.
After a fire destroyed much of the Palace of Westminster--the
headquarters of the British Parliament--in October 1834, a standout
feature of the design for the new palace was a large clock atop a tower.
The royal astronomer, Sir George Airy, wanted the clock to have
pinpoint accuracy, including twice-a-day checks with the Royal Greenwich
Observatory. While many clockmakers dismissed this goal as impossible,
Airy counted on the help of Edmund Beckett Denison, a formidable
barrister known for his expertise in horology, or the science of
measuring time.
Denison's design, built by the company E.J. Dent & Co., was
completed in 1854; five years later, St. Stephen's Tower itself was
finished. Weighing in at more than 13 tons, its massive bell was dragged
to the tower through the streets of London by a team of 16 horses, to
the cheers of onlookers. Once it was installed, Big Ben struck its first
chimes on May 31, 1859. Just two months later, however, the heavy
striker designed by Denison cracked the bell. Three more years passed
before a lighter hammer was added and the clock went into service again.
The bell was rotated so that the hammer would strike another surface,
but the crack was never repaired.
The name "Big Ben" originally just applied to the bell but later came
to refer to the clock itself. Two main stories exist about how Big Ben
got its name. Many claim it was named after the famously long-winded Sir
Benjamin Hall, the London commissioner of works at the time it was
built. Another famous story argues that the bell was named for the
popular heavyweight boxer Benjamin Caunt, because it was the largest of
its kind.
