Sandia Tea Party

In 1607, English colonists arrived off the coast of their future settlement in Jamestown. The site’s marshy setting and humidity would prove to be unhealthful, but the site had several apparent advantages at the time the colony’s leaders chose it: ships could pull up close to it in deep water for easy loading and unloading, it was unoccupied, and it was joined to the mainland only by a narrow neck of land, making it simpler to defend. The settlement, named for James I, was known variously during its existence as James Forte, James Towne, and James Cittie.

In 1871, the Italian government attempted, with the Law of Guarantees, to settle the question of its relationship with the pope, who had been deprived of his lands in the process of Italian national unification. The first section of the law sought to ensure the freedom of the pope to fulfill his spiritual functions despite the loss of his temporal power. It gave the pope special status as a sovereign person, assured him the right to receive ambassadors and to communicate freely with Roman Catholic bishops throughout the world, granted him a substantial annual income, and allowed him perpetual use of the Lateran and Vatican palaces in Rome and of the villa of Castel Gandolfo. The second section, dealing with church–state relations, was a compromise between Count Cavour’s principle of a “free church in a free state” and the demands of the more radical left. Thus the state retained the power to prevent bishops from taking full control of their sees until their appointments had been approved by royal decree.

World War II:    In 1940, Britain’s newly elected Prime Minister Winston Spencer Churchill warned members of Parliament of the hard road ahead—“I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears, and sweat”—and committed himself and the nation to all-out war until victory was achieved. Behind this simplicity of aim lay an elaborate strategy to which he adhered with remarkable consistency throughout the war. Hitler’s Germany was the enemy; nothing should distract the entire British people from the task of effecting its defeat. Anyone who shared this goal, even a Communist, was an acceptable ally. The indispensable ally in this endeavor, whether formally at war or not, was the United States.

In 1943, the Somali Youth Club—a precursor to the Somali Youth League, which in 1960 helped to form Somalia’s first independent government—was formed in Mogadishu.

In 1981, Pope John Paul II was seriously wounded in Saint Peter’s Square when shot by Turkish assailant Mehmet Ali Agca.