In 1701, the governor of New France and representatives from 39 First Nations signed the Great Peace of Montreal. The document was meant to bring peace to France’s North American colony and the regional First Nations, especially the Iroquois, who received aid from the British. Once it was signed, trade and commerce in the region between the parties involved resumed. This treaty is still considered valid by those First Nations involved.
In 1944, Gestapo agents operating in the Netherlands follow the tip-off from a Dutch informant and discover a sealed off area of a warehouse in Amsterdam. Within, they come upon a Jewish family, who is all arrested and later shipped to different concentration camps. Among those discovered is Anne Frank, whose diary would later be gathered and published by her father, following the Second World War.
In 1964, the USS Maddox and Turner Joy, deployed to the Gulf of Tonkin where the former had come into limited conflict with Northern Vietnamese naval ships two days prior, falsely reported a second attack. This incident would be used by President Johnson to distort the truth of what was occurring in Southeast Asia and led to his signing of the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, allowing him to deploy forces in Vietnam without congressional approval.
A Notable Birth
1792 – Percy Bysshe Shelley (d. 1822) was an English poet and political writer. His close circle of writers included Lord Byron, Keats, and Mary Shelley, his wife. Among his work was “Ozymandias”, Queen Mab, and Prometheus Unbound. His political writings would influence nonviolent activists in the following centuries.
A Notable Death
1997 – Jeanne Calment (b. 1875) was a French super centenarian who first came to public attention in 1986 at the age of 111. She would reach the age of 122, and despite theories and efforts, nobody ever proved she was not as old as she was.
