This Day in History: Jun 20, 1900: Boxer Rebellion begins in China

 

 

In response to widespread foreign encroachment upon China's national affairs, Chinese nationalists launch the so-called Boxer Rebellion in Peking. Calling themselves I Ho Ch'uan, or "the Righteous and Harmonious Fists," the nationalists occupied Peking, killed several Westerners, including German ambassador Baron von Ketteler, and besieged the foreign legations in the diplomatic quarter of the city.

 

 

By the end of the 19th century, the Western powers and Japan had forced China's ruling Qing dynasty to accept wide foreign control over the country's economic affairs. In the Opium Wars, popular rebellions, and the Sino-Japanese War, China had fought to resist the foreigners, but it lacked a modernized military and suffered millions of casualties. In 1898, Tzu'u Hzi, the dowager empress and an anti-imperialist, began supporting the I Ho Ch'uan, who were known as the "Boxers" by the British because of their martial arts fighting style. The Boxers soon grew powerful, and in late 1899 regular attacks on foreigners and Chinese Christians began.

 

 

On June 20, 1900, the Boxers, now more than 100,000 strong and led by the court of Tzu'u Hzi, besieged the foreigners in Peking's diplomatic quarter, burned Christian churches in the city, and destroyed the Peking-Tientsin railway line. As the Western powers and Japan organized a multinational force to crush the rebellion, the siege of the Peking legations stretched into weeks, and the diplomats, their families, and guards suffered through hunger and degrading conditions as they fought to keep the Boxers at bay. On August 14, the international force, featuring British, Russian, American, Japanese, French, and German troops, relieved Peking after fighting its way through much of northern China.

 

 

 

Due to mutual jealousies between the powers, it was agreed that China would not be partitioned further, and in September 1901, the Peking Protocol was signed, formally ending the Boxer Rebellion. By the terms of agreement, the foreign nations received extremely favorable commercial treaties with China, foreign troops were permanently stationed in Peking, and China was forced to pay $333 million dollars as penalty for its rebellion. China was effectively a subject nation.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Taken from:  http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/boxer-rebellion-begins-in-china [20.06.2014]

WARNING! Below might be too graphical!

Boxer Rebellion - Execution of Boxer Rebels by Chinese Officials

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This Day in History: Jun 19,1978: Garfield makes its debut.

Garfield is a comic strip created by Jim Davis. Published since June 19, 1978, it chronicles the life of the title character, the cat Garfield (named after Davis's grandfather); his owner, Jon Arbuckle; and Jon's dog, Odie. As of 2013, it was syndicated in roughly 2,580 newspapers and journals, and held the Guinness World Record for being the world's most widely syndicated comic strip.^[1]

 

Though this is rarely mentioned in print, Garfield is set in Muncie, Indiana, the home of Jim Davis, according to the television special Happy Birthday, Garfield. Common themes in the strip include Garfield's laziness, obsessive eating, and hatred of Mondays and diets. The strip's focus is mostly on the interactions among Garfield, Jon, and Odie, but recurring minor characters appear as well. Originally created with the intentions to "come up with a good, marketable character", Garfield has spawned merchandise earning $750 million to $1 billion annually. In addition to the various merchandise and commercial tie-ins, the strip has spawned several animated television specials, two animated television series, two theatrical feature-length live-action films and three CGI animated direct-to-video movies. Part of the strip's broad appeal is due to its lack of social or political commentary; though this was Davis's original intention, he also admitted that his "grasp of politics isn't strong", remarking that, for many years, he thought "OPEC was a denture adhesive".^[2][3]

 

 In the 1970s the comic strip artist Jim Davis authored a strip, Gnorm Gnat, which met with little success. One editor said that "his art was good, his gags were great," but "nobody can identify with bugs." Davis took his advice and created a new strip with a cat as its main character.^[4] The strip originally consisted of four main characters. Garfield, the titular character, was based on the cats Davis was around growing up; he took his name and personality from Davis's grandfather James A. Garfield Davis,^[5] who was, in Davis's words, "a large cantankerous man". Jon Arbuckle came from a coffee commercial from the 1950s, and Odie was based on a car dealership commercial written by Jim Davis, which featured Odie the Village Idiot. Early on in the strip Odie's owner was a man named Lyman. He was written in to give Jon someone to talk with. Davis later realized that Garfield and Jon could "communicate nonverbally". The strip originally centered on Jon, being rejected by the King Features, Post-Hall and the Chicago Tribune-New York News agencies, all which asked Davis to focus on the cat, who in their opinion, got the better lines. United Feature Syndicate accepted the retooled strip in 1978 and debuted it in 41 newspapers on June 19^[6] of that year (however after a test run, the Chicago Sun-Times dropped it, only to reinstate it after readers' complaints).^[1][7]  

 

Garfield's first Sunday page ran on June 25, 1978,^[8] being featured as a third-pager until March 22, 1981.^[9] A half page debuted the following Sunday (March 29),^[10] with the strips for March 14^[11] and 21, 1982,^[12] having a unique nine-panel format, but UFS curtailed further use of it (but it allowed Davis to use the format for his U.S. Acres strip).

The strip's subject matter in the early months varied from the pattern it later settled into. Some could be seen today as politically incorrect, such as strips involving Jon's pipe smoking^[13][14][15] or his subscription to a bachelor magazine.^[16] Another point which has distanced these strips was the U.S./Canada-centric humor, with a few jokes being totally untranslatable to some languages,^[17] however by 1980, the strip became the universal family fare product for which it is now known.

More notably, the strip underwent stylistic changes with 1978–83 strips being more realistic, while comics from 1984 onwards have been more cartoony. This change has essentially affected Garfield's design; who underwent a "Darwinian evolution" in which he began walking on his hind legs, "slimmed down", and "stopped looking [...] through squinty little eyes". His evolution, according to Davis, was to make it easier to "push Odie off the table" or "reach for a piece of pie". Jon also underwent major changes, and still currently is. Now, he looks older than 1990 strips; he is taller and he has larger features.

Garfield quickly became a commercial success. In 1981, less than three years after its release, the strip appeared in 850 newspapers and accumulated over $15 million in merchandise. To manage the merchandise, Davis founded Paws, Inc.^[19] By 2002, Garfield became the world's most syndicated strip, appearing in 2,570 newspapers with 263 million readers worldwide;^[1] by 2004, Garfield appeared in nearly 2,600 newspapers and sold from $750 million to $1 billion worth of merchandise in 111 countries.^[20] In 1994, Davis's company, Paws, Inc., purchased all rights to the strips from 1978 to 1993 from United Feature. The strip is currently distributed by Universal Press Syndicate, while rights for the strip remain with Paws.

While retaining creative control and being the only signer, Davis now only writes and usually does the rough sketches. Since the late 1990s most of the work has been done by long-time assistants Brett Koth and Gary Barker. Inking and coloring work is done by other artists while Davis spends most of the time supervising production and merchandising of his characters.^[20]

 

 

References

1. ^ ^{a b c} "Garfield Named World's Most Syndicated Comic Strip.". Business Wire. January 22, 2002. Retrieved July 26, 2008.
2. ^ Johnson, Beth (June 19, 1998). "Tales of the Kitty". Entertainment Weekly. Retrieved August 4, 2008.
3. ^ "Everybody loves Garfield". The Star. Retrieved August 4, 2008.
4. ^ Davis. 20 Years & Still Kicking!: Garfield's Twentieth Anniversary Collection. p. 14.
5. ^ Hall, Gerrard (October 6, 2000). "The cat's meow". CNN. Retrieved July 26, 2008.
6. ^ "The Garfield Vault Strip". June 19, 1978. Retrieved June 19, 2012.
7. ^ "Those Catty Cartoonists (fee required)". Time. December 7, 1981. Retrieved July 26, 2008.
8. ^ "The Garfield Vault Strip". June 25, 1978. Retrieved April 7, 2012.
9. ^ "The Garfield Vault Strip". March 22, 1981. Retrieved April 7, 2012.
10. ^ "The Garfield Vault Strip". March 29, 1981. Retrieved April 7, 2012.
11. ^ "The Garfield Vault Strip". March 14, 1982. Retrieved April 7, 2012.
12. ^ "The Garfield Vault Strip". March 21, 1982. Retrieved April 7, 2012.
13. ^ "The Garfield Vault Strip". July 27, 1978. Retrieved April 7, 2012.
14. ^ "The Garfield Vault Strip". July 28, 1978. Retrieved April 7, 2012.
15. ^ "The Garfield Vault Strip". March 20, 1979. Retrieved April 7, 2012.
16. ^ "The Garfield Vault Strip". October 28, 1978. Retrieved April 7, 2012.
17. ^ "The Garfield Vault Strip". September 29, 1978. Retrieved April 7, 2012.
18. ^ Barron, James (April 19, 2001). "Boldface Names". New York Times. Retrieved July 26, 2008.
19. ^ "Those Catty Cartoonists". Time. December 7, 1981. p. 2. Retrieved July 26, 2008.
20. ^ ^{a b c d} Suellentrop, Chris (June 11, 2004). "Why we don't hate Garfield.". Slate. Retrieved April 30, 2008.

 

 

  Taken from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garfield [19.06.2013]

This Day in History: Jun 18, 1815: Napoleon defeated at Waterloo

 

At Waterloo in Belgium, Napoleon Bonaparte suffers defeat at the hands of the Duke of Wellington, bringing an end to the Napoleonic era of European history.

 

The Corsica-born Napoleon, one of the greatest military strategists in history, rapidly rose in the ranks of the French Revolutionary Army during the late 1790s. By 1799, France was at war with most of Europe, and Napoleon returned home from his Egyptian campaign to take over the reigns of the French government and save his nation from collapse. After becoming first consul in February 1800, he reorganized his armies and defeated Austria. In 1802, he established the Napoleonic Code, a new system of French law, and in 1804 was crowned emperor of France in Notre Dame Cathedral. By 1807, Napoleon controlled an empire that stretched from the River Elbe in the north, down through Italy in the south, and from the Pyrenees to the Dalmatian coast.

 

 

 

Beginning in 1812, Napoleon began to encounter the first significant defeats of his military career, suffering through a disastrous invasion of Russia, losing Spain to the Duke of Wellington in the Peninsula War, and enduring total defeat against an allied force by 1814. Exiled to the island of Elba in the Mediterranean, he escaped to France in early 1815 and set up a new regime. As allied troops mustered on the French frontiers, he raised a new Grand Army and marched into Belgium. He intended to defeat the allied armies one by one before they could launch a united attack.

 

On June 16, 1815, he defeated the Prussians under Gebhard Leberecht von Blucher at Ligny, and sent 33,000 men, or about one-third of his total force, in pursuit of the retreating Prussians. On June 18, Napoleon led his remaining 72,000 troops against the Duke of Wellington's 68,000-man allied army, which had taken up a strong position 12 miles south of Brussels near the village of Waterloo.

 

 

In a fatal blunder, Napoleon waited until mid-day to give the command to attack in order to let the ground dry. The delay in fighting gave Blucher's troops, who had eluded their pursuers, time to march to Waterloo and join the battle by the late afternoon.

 

 

In repeated attacks, Napoleon failed to break the center of the allied center. Meanwhile, the Prussians gradually arrived and put pressure on Napoleon's eastern flank. At 6 p.m., the French under Marshal Michel Ney managed to capture a farmhouse in the allied center and began decimating Wellington's troops with artillery. Napoleon, however, was preoccupied with the 30,000 Prussians attacking his flank and did not release troops to aid Ney's attack until after 7 p.m. By that time, Wellington had reorganized his defenses, and the French attack was repulsed.

 

 

 

Fifteen minutes later, the allied army launched a general advance, and the Prussians attacked in the east, throwing the French troops into panic and then a disorganized retreat. The Prussians pursued the remnants of the French army, and Napoleon left the field. French casualties in the Battle of Waterloo were 25,000 men killed and wounded and 9,000 captured, while the allies lost about 23,000.

 

 

 Napoleon returned to Paris and on June 22 abdicated in favor of his son. He decided to leave France before counterrevolutionary forces could rally against him, and on July 15 he surrendered to British protection at the port of Rochefort. He hoped to travel to the United States, but the British instead sent him to Saint Helena, a remote island in the Atlantic off the coast of Africa. Napoleon protested but had no choice but to accept the exile. With a group of followers, he lived quietly on St. Helena for six years.

 

 

In May 1821, he died, most likely of stomach cancer. He was only 51 years old. In 1840, his body was returned to Paris, and a magnificent funeral was held. Napoleon's body was conveyed through the Arc de Triomphe and entombed under the dome of the Invalides.

 

 

 

 

Taken from: http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/napoleon-defeated-at-waterloo [18.06.2013]