THIS DAY IN HISTORY: 22 JULY, 2012 Suicide bomb kills three, injured 48 others in Bauchi church

On 22 July, 2012, a suicide bomber who tried to ram an explosives-packed car into a church Sunday at St. John’s Catholic Church in Wunti area of Bauchi city, capital of Bauchi state, killed a woman, a child and self while badly wounding dozens more.

Tight security was imposed on churches after incessant bombings claimed by the radical Islamist group Boko Haram.

The head of the Red Cross in Bauchi, Adamu Abubakar disclosed that worshippers were being screened outside the church building when the bomber approached, ramming his car into the line of people waiting to enter Sunday services.

“We have three dead in all, including the bomber, a woman and a child. Forty-eight others were seriously injured in the explosion,” Abubakar disclosed.

Although there was no immediate claim of responsibility, the attack resembled those previously claimed by Boko Haram, blamed for killing more than 1,400 people in northern and central Nigeria between 2010 and July 22, when the attack occurred.

Boko Haram claimed responsibility for a similar attack on June 3 in Bauchi city in which a suicide bomber tried to drive a vehicle packed with explosives into a church, killing at least 15 people and wounding dozens more.

Since re-launching its insurgency in 2010, the group’s attacks have grown increasingly deadly and sophisticated, including suicide bombings at the UN headquarters in Abuja and an office for one of the country’s most prominent newspapers.

The deadliest attack at the time included January 2012 in Kano when at least 185 people died in a series of coordinated bombings and shootings.

Muslims have often been its victims, but the then President Goodluck Jonathan warned that the group was seeking to spark a religious conflict with the series of attacks on Christians.

Nigeria, Africa’s most populous nation and largest oil producer, is divided between a mainly Muslim north and predominately Christian south.

The Jonathan-led federal government said that it was engaging in back-channel talks in an effort to halt the violence.

A previous attempt at dialogue in 2012 collapsed when a mediator quit over leaks to the media and a Boko Haram spokesman said they could not trust the government.

Boko Haram was believed to have several factions, including a hardcore Islamist wing.

THIS DAY IN HISTORY: JULY 21, 365 AD Tsunami wrecks havoc on Alexandria, Egypt

On July 21, 365 AD, a powerful earthquake off the coast of Greece causes a tsunami that devastates the city of Alexandria, Egypt. Although there were no measuring tools at the time, scientists now estimate that the quake was actually two tremors in succession, the largest of which is thought to have had a magnitude of 8.0.

The quake was centered near the plate boundary called the Hellenic Arc and quickly sent a wall of water across the Mediterranean Sea toward the Egyptian coast. Ships in the harbor at Alexandria were overturned as the water near the coast receded suddenly. Reports indicate that many people rushed out to loot the hapless ships. The tsunami wave then rushed in and carried the ships over the sea walls, landing many on top of buildings. In Alexandria, approximately 5,000 people lost their lives and 50,000 homes were destroyed.

The surrounding villages and towns suffered even greater destruction. Many were virtually wiped off the map. Outside the city, 45,000 people were killed. In addition, the inundation of saltwater rendered farmland useless for years to come. Evidence indicates that the area’s shoreline was permanently changed by the disaster. Slowly, but steadily, the buildings of Alexandria’s Royal Quarter were overtaken by the sea following the tsunami. It was not until 1995 that archaeologists discovered the ruins of the old city off the coast of present-day Alexandria.

 Courtesy of:

History.com Editors

THIS DAY IN HISTORY: JULY 21, 2005 Bombers launch attack on London transit system

On this day in July, 2005, terrorists launched an attack on London transit system by planting bombs on three subways and on one bus; but none of the bombs detonate completely.

The bombers who were four in number, included; Muktar Said Ibrahim, 29, Yasin Hassan Omar, 26, Ramzi Mohammed, 25, and Hussain Osman, 28.

The July attack came exactly two weeks after terrorists killed 56 people, including themselves, and wounded 700 others in the largest attack on Great Britain since World War II. The previous attack also targeted three subways and one bus.

The failed bombs were found at the London Underground’s Oval, Warren Street and Shepherd’s Bush stations and on a bus in Hackney. Two days later, a fifth bomb, apparently abandoned, was found in some bushes near a park in Little Wormwood Scrubs.

The bombers were found guilty of conspiracy to murder and sentenced to life in prison. 

An estimated 3 million people ride the London Underground every day, with another 6.5 million using the city’s bus system.

Adapted from:

History.com Editors

THIS DAY IN HISTORY JULY 21, 1960 German government passes “Volkswagen Law”

On July 21, 1960, Germany passes the “Law Concerning the Transfer of the Share Rights in Volkswagenwerk Limited Liability Company into Private Hands,” known informally as the “Volkswagen Law.”

The company was founded in 1937 and originally under the control of Adolf Hitler’s National Socialist (Nazi) Party, Volkswagen would eventually grow into Europe’s largest car manufacturer and a symbol of Germany’s economic recovery after the devastation of World War II. 

The Volkswagen Law, passed in July 1960, changed the company to a joint stock corporation, with 20 percent held each by Germany and Lower Saxony, the region in which Volkswagen is still headquartered. By limiting the share of any other stockholder to 20 percent, regardless of how many shares owned, the law effectively protected the company from any attempt at a hostile takeover.

By 2007, the controversial legislation had come under full-blown attack from the European Commission as part of a campaign against protectionist measures in several European capitals. The commission objected not only to the 20 percent voting rights cap but to the law’s stipulation that measures taken at the annual stockholders’ meeting must be passed by more than four-fifths of VW shareholders—a requirement that gave Lower Saxony the ability to block any such measures as it saw fit.

In March of that year, fellow German automaker Porsche announced that it had raised its stake in Volkswagen to 30.9 percent, triggering a takeover bid under a German law requiring a company to bid for the entirety of any other company after acquiring more than 30 percent of its stock. Porsche announced it did not intend to take over VW, but was buying the stock as a way of protecting it from being dismantled by hedge funds. Porsche’s history was already entwined with Volkswagen, as the Austrian-born engineer Ferdinand Porsche designed the original “people’s car” for Volkswagen in 1938.

On October 23, 2007, the European Court of Justice formally struck down the Volkswagen Law, ruling that its protectionism illegally restricted the free movement of capital in European markets. The decision cleared the way for Porsche to move forward with its takeover, which it did, maintaining that it will still preserve the Volkswagen corporate structure. By early 2009, Porsche owned more than 50 percent of Volkswagen shares. Later the two companies moved forward with a merger.

Author

History.com Editors

THIS DAY IN HISTORY JULY 21, 1899 American literary icon, Ernest Hemingway is born

On July 21, 1899, the influential American literary giant, Ernest Miller Hemingway, is born in Oak Park, Illinois. The author of several novels such, as “For Whom the Bell Tolls” and “The Old Man and the Sea,” became known for his straightforward prose and use of understatement. Hemingway, who tackled topics such as bullfighting and war in his work, also became famous for his own macho, hard-drinking persona.

Hemingway who was the second of six children of Clarence Hemingway, a doctor, and Grace Hall Hemingway, a musician, learned to fish and hunt, which would remain lifelong passions. After graduating from Oak Park and River Forest High School in 1917, he worked as a reporter for the Kansas City Star in Missouri. During the World War in 1919, he he worked as a volunteer ambulance driver for the red cross in Italy wherd he got wounded by mortar fire and spent months recuperating.

In the 1920s, Ernest Hemingway lived in Paris, France, and was part of a group of expatriate writers and artists that included F. Scott Fitzgerald, Gertrude Stein and Ezra Pound. He published his first collection of short stories in the U.S in 1925, which was followed by his well-received 1926 debut novel “The Sun Also Rises,” about a group of American and British expatriates in the 1920s who journey from Paris to Pamplona, Spain, to watch bullfighting.

The literary icon published “A Farewell to Arms” in 1929, after he had left Europe and moved to key West, Florida. The novel picturised an American ambulance driver on the Italian front during World War I and his love for a beautiful English nurse. In 1932, his non-fiction book “Death in the Afternoon,” about bullfighting in Spain, was released. It was followed in 1935 by another non-fiction work, “Green Hills of Africa,” about a safari Hemingway made to East Africa in the early 1930s. During the late 1930s, Hemingway traveled to Spain to report on that country’s civil war, and also spent time living in Cuba. 

In 1937, “To Have and Have Not,” a novel about a fishing boat captain forced to run contraband between Key West and Cuba, was published.

In 1940, the acclaimed “For Whom the Bell Tolls,” about a young American fighting with a band of guerrillas in the Spanish civil war, made its debut. Hemingway went on to work as a war correspondent in Europe during World War II, and release the 1950 novel “Across the River and into the Trees.”

Hemingway’s last significant work to be published during his lifetime was “The Old Man and the Sea,” a short heroic novel published in 1952 and awarded the 1953 Pulitzer Prize for fiction. It was a novella about an aging Cuban fisherman that was an allegory referring to the writer’s own struggles to preserve his art in the face of fame and attention.

Ernest Hemingway became a cult figure whose four marriages and adventurous exploits in big-game hunting and fishing were widely covered in the press. But despite his fame, he had not produced a major literary work in the decade before “The Old Man and the Sea” debuted.

His father, Clarence Hemingway died by suicide in 1928 and Ernest, after surviving two plane crashes in Africa in 1953, he became increasingly anxious and depressed. On July 2, 1961, he also killed himself with a shotgun at his home in Ketchum, Idaho.

Three novels by Hemingway were released posthumously—“Islands in the Stream” (1970), “The Garden of Eden” (1986) and “True at First Light” (1999)—as was the memoir “A Moveable Feast” (1964), which he wrote about his time in Paris in the 1920s.

Adapted from:

History.com Editors

THIS DAY IN HISTORY: JULY 20, 1977 Great flood in Johnstown kills 84, hundreds of people homeless

A flash flood hits Johnstown, Pennsylvania, on July 20, 1977, killing 84 people and causing millions of dollars in damages. This flood came 88 years after the infamous Great Flood of 1889 that killed more than 2,000 people in Johnstown. As they had in the first flood, the dams in the Conemaugh Valley failed, bringing disaster to the town.

The flood occurred when an extraordinary amount of rain came down in the Conemaugh Valley in a short period of time. Nearly 12 inches were measured in 10 hours. The National Weather Service later estimated that this amount of rain in that location should happen less than once every 1,000 years.

The largest dam that burst was at Laurel Run. This 10-year-old earthen dam held back 100 million gallons of water. Despite having a 42-foot-high spillway, the dam failed and the resulting flood devastated the town of Tanneryville. Five other dams in the area also burst, releasing another 30 million gallons of water over the landscape.

The failure of the dams came as a big surprise. Johnstown had constructed an entire system designed to completely eliminate the flood risk. In addition, regular inspections had turned up no defects. Still, the dams were no match for the thunderstorm that stalled over the area on July 20.

In addition to the 84 people who lost their lives to the flood, $300 million in damages were suffered and hundreds of people lost their homes. President Jimmy Carter declared the region a federal disaster area and the National Guard was sent to assist in the relief efforts. Despite millions spent to rehabilitate the Johnstown area, the economy never recovered. The city’s population decreased nearly 15 percent in the aftermath of the flood, as people moved away to rebuild their lives elsewhere.

Author

History.com Editors

THIS DAY IN HISTORY: JULY 20, 1944 Adolf Hitler survives assassination plot by German elites

On July 20, 1944, Hitler cheats death as a bomb planted in a briefcase goes off, but fails to kill him.

High-ranking German officials had made up their minds that Hitler must die. He was leading Germany in a suicidal war on two fronts, and assassination was the only way to stop him. A coup d’etat would follow, and a new government in Berlin would save Germany from complete destruction at the hands of the Allies.

That was the plan. This was the reality: Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg, chief of the army reserve, had been given the task of planting a bomb during a conference that was to be held at Berchtesgaden, but was later moved to Hitler’s “Wolf’s Lair, a command post at Rastenburg, Prussia. Stauffenberg planted the explosive in a briefcase, which he placed under a table, then left quickly. Hitler was studying a map of the Eastern front as Colonel Heinz Brandt, trying to get a better look at the map, moved the briefcase out of place, farther away from where the Fuhrer was standing. 

At 12:42 p.m. the bomb went off. When the smoke cleared, Hitler was wounded, charred, and even suffered the temporary paralysis of one arm—but he was very much alive. (He was even well enough to keep an appointment with Benito Mussolini that very afternoon. He gave Il Duce a tour of the bomb site.) Four others present died from their wounds.

As the bomb went off, Stauffenberg was making his way to Berlin to carry out Operation Valkyrie, the overthrow of the central government. In Berlin, he and co-conspirator General Olbricht arrested the commander of the reserve army, General Fromm, and began issuing orders for the commandeering of various government buildings. And then the news came through from Herman Goering—Hitler was alive. 

Fromm, released from custody under the assumption he would nevertheless join the effort to throw Hitler out of office, turned on the conspirators. Stauffenberg and Olbricht were shot that same day. Once Hitler figured out the extent of the conspiracy (it reached all the way to occupied French), he began the systematic liquidation of his enemies. More than 7,000 Germans would be arrested (including evangelical pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer), and up to 5,000 would wind up dead—either executed or as suicides. 

Hitler, Himmler and Goering took an even firmer grip on Germany and its war machine. Hitler became convinced that fate had spared him—”I regard this as a confirmation of the task imposed upon me by Providence”—and that “nothing is going to happen to me… [T]he great cause which I serve will be brought through its present perils and…everything can be brought to a good end.”

Adapted from:

History.com Editors

THIS DAY IN HISTORY: JULY 20, 1973 Movie icon and martial-arts expert, Bruce Lee dies in Hong Kong at 32

On July 20, 1973, the movie star and martial-arts expert Bruce Lee dies in Hong Kong at age 32 from a brain edema possibly caused by a reaction to a prescription painkiller. During Lee’s all-too-brief career, he became a movie star in Asia and, posthumously, in America.

Jun Fan (Bruce) Lee was born on November 27, 1940, in San Francisco, California. At the time, his father, a Chinese opera star, was on tour in the United States. The family moved back to Hong Kong in 1941. Growing up, Lee was a child actor who appeared in some 20 Chinese films; he also studied dancing and trained in the Wing Chun style of gung fu (also known as “kung fu”). In 1959, Lee returned to America, where he eventually attended the University of Washington and opened a martial-arts school in Seattle. In 1964, Lee married Linda Emery, who in 1965 gave birth to Brandon Lee, the first of the couple’s two children. In 1966, the Lees moved to Los Angeles and Bruce appeared on the television program The Green Hornet (1966-1967), playing the Hornet’s acrobatic sidekick Kato. Lee also appeared in karate tournaments around the United States and continued to teach martial arts to private clients including the actor Steve McQueen.

In search of better acting roles than Hollywood was offering, Lee returned to Hong Kong in the early 1970s and successfully established himself as a star in Asia with the action movies The Big Boss (1971) and The Way of the Dragon (1972), which he wrote, directed and starred in. Lee’s next film, Enter the Dragon, was released in the United States by Hollywood studio Warner Bros. in August 1973. Tragically, Lee had died one month earlier, on July 20, in Hong Kong, after suffering a brain edema. Enter the Dragon was a box-office hit, eventually grossing more than $200 million, and Lee posthumously became a movie icon in America.

Lee’s body was returned to Seattle, where he was buried. His sudden death at the young age of 32 led to rumors and speculation about the cause of his demise. One theory held that Lee had been murdered by Chinese gangsters while another rumor circulated that the actor had been the victim of a curse. The family-curse theory resurfaced when Lee’s 28-year-old son Brandon, who had followed in his father’s footsteps to become an actor, died in an accidental shooting on the set of the movie The Crow on March 31, 1993. The younger Lee was buried next to his father at Seattle’s Lake View Cemetery.

Adapted from:

History.com Editors

THIS DAY IN HISTORY: JULY 20, 1969 American astronaut, Neil Armstrong walks on moon

At 10:56 p.m. EDT, American astronaut Neil Armstrong, 240,000 miles from Earth, speaks these words to more than a billion people listening at home: “That’s one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind.” Stepping off the lunar landing module Eagle, Armstrong became the first human to walk on the surface of the moon.

The American effort to send astronauts to the moon has its origins in a famous appeal President John F. Kennedy made to a special joint session of Congress on May 25, 1961: “I believe this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to Earth.” At the time, the United States was still trailing the Soviet Union in space developments, and Cold War-era America welcomed Kennedy’s bold proposal.

In 1966, after five years of work by an international team of scientists and engineers, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) conducted the first unmanned Apollo mission, testing the structural integrity of the proposed launch vehicle and spacecraft combination. Then, on January 27, 1967, tragedy struck at Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, when a fire broke out during a manned launch-pad test of the Apollo spacecraft and Saturn rocket. Three astronauts were killed in the fire

Despite the setback, NASA and its thousands of employees forged ahead, and in October 1968, Apollo 7, the first manned Apollo mission, orbited Earth and successfully tested many of the sophisticated systems needed to conduct a moon journey and landing. In December of the same year, Apollo 8 took three astronauts to the far side of the moon and orbited it 10 times before returning, and in March 1969 Apollo 9 tested the lunar module for the first time while in Earth orbit. Then in May, the three astronauts of Apollo 10 took the first complete Apollo spacecraft in 31 orbits around the moon in a dry run for the scheduled July landing mission.

At 9:32 a.m. on July 16, with the world watching, Apollo 11 took off from Kennedy Space Center with astronauts Neil Armstrong, Edwin Aldrin Jr., and Michael Collins aboard. Armstrong, a 38-year-old research pilot, was the commander of the mission. After traveling 240,000 miles in 76 hours, Apollo 11 entered into a lunar orbit on July 19. The next day, at 1:46 p.m., the lunar module Eagle, manned by Armstrong and Aldrin, separated from the command module, where Collins remained. Two hours later, the Eagle began its descent to the lunar surface, and at 4:18 p.m. the craft touched down on the southwestern edge of the Sea of Tranquility. Armstrong immediately radioed to Mission Control in Houston, Texas, a famous message: “The Eagle has landed.”

At 10:39 p.m., five hours ahead of the original schedule, Armstrong opened the hatch of the lunar module. As he made his way down the lunar module’s ladder, a television camera attached to the craft recorded his progress and beamed the signal back to Earth, where hundreds of millions watched in great anticipation. At 10:56 p.m., Armstrong spoke his famous quote, which he later contended was slightly garbled by his microphone and meant to be “that’s one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind.” He then planted his left foot on the gray, powdery surface, took a cautious step forward, and humanity had walked on the moon.

“Buzz” Aldrin joined him on the moon’s surface at 11:11 p.m., and together they took photographs of the terrain, planted a U.S. flag, ran a few simple scientific tests, and spoke with President Richard M. Nixon via Houston. By 1:11 a.m. on July 21, both astronauts were back in the lunar module and the hatch was closed. The two men slept that night on the surface of the moon, and at 1:54 p.m. the Eagle began its ascent back to the command module. Among the items left on the surface of the moon was a plaque that read: “Here men from the planet Earth first set foot upon the moon–July 1969 A.D–We came in peace for all mankind.”

At 5:35 p.m., Armstrong and Aldrin successfully docked and rejoined Collins, and at 12:56 a.m. on July 22 Apollo 11 began its journey home, safely splashing down in the Pacific Ocean at 12:51 p.m. on July 24.

There would be five more successful lunar landing missions, and one unplanned lunar swing-by, Apollo 13. The last men to walk on the moon, astronauts Eugene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt of the Apollo 17 mission, left the lunar surface on December 14, 1972. The Apollo program was a costly and labor intensive endeavor, involving an estimated 400,000 engineers, technicians, and scientists, and costing $24 billion (close to $100 billion in today’s dollars). The expense was justified by Kennedy’s 1961 mandate to beat the Soviets to the moon, and after the feat was accomplished ongoing missions lost their viability.

 Adapted from:

History.com Editors

THIS DAY IN HISTORY JULY 19, 1799 FRENCH SOLDIER DISCOVERS ROSETTA STONE IN EGYPT

Although there is some debate about the exact date, on what was likely July 19, 1799, during Napoleon Bonaparte’s Egyptian campaign, a French soldier discovers a black basalt slab inscribed with ancient writing near the town of Rosetta, about 35 miles east of Alexandria. The irregularly shaped stone contained fragments of passages written in three different scripts: Greek, Egyptian hieroglyphics and Egyptian demotic. 

The ancient Greek on the Rosetta Stone told archaeologists that it was inscribed by priests honoring the king of Egypt, Ptolemy V, in the second century B.C. More startlingly, the Greek passage announced that the three scripts were all of identical meaning. The artifact thus held the key to solving the riddle of hieroglyphics, a written language that had been “dead” for nearly 2,000 years.

When Napoleon, an emperor known for his enlightened view of education, art and culture, invaded Egypt in 1798, he took along a group of scholars and told them to seize all important cultural artifacts for France. Pierre Bouchard, one of Napoleon’s soldiers, was aware of this order when he found the basalt stone, which was almost four feet long and two-and-a-half feet wide, at a fort near Rosetta. When the British defeated Napoleon in 1801, they took possession of the Rosetta Stone.

Several scholars, including Englishman Thomas Young made progress with the initial hieroglyphics analysis of the Rosetta Stone. French Egyptologist Jean-Francois Champollion (1790-1832), who had taught himself ancient languages, ultimately cracked the code and deciphered the hieroglyphics using his knowledge of Greek as a guide. Hieroglyphics used pictures to represent objects, sounds and groups of sounds. Once the Rosetta Stone inscriptions were translated, the language and culture of ancient Egypt was suddenly open to scientists as never before.

Today, the Rosetta Stone is housed in the British Museum in London, despite repeated calls for it to be returned to Egypt. 

Adapted from:

History.com Editors

THIS DAY IN HISTORY JULY 19 1956 UNITED STATES REVOKES OFFER OF AID FOR ASWAN DAM

The then Secretary of State John Foster Dulles announces that the United States is pulling out its offer of financial aid to Egypt to help with the construction of the Aswan Dam on the Nile River. The action drove Egypt further toward an alliance with the Soviet Union and was a contributing factor to the Suez Crisis later in 1956.

In December 1955, Secretary Dulles announced that the United States, together with Great Britain, was providing nearly $70 million in aid to Egypt to help in the construction of the Aswan Dam on the Nile River. Dulles had agreed to this assistance only reluctantly. He was deeply suspicious of Egyptian leader Gamal Abdel Nasser, who he believed to be a reckless and dangerous nationalist. However, others in the Eisenhower administration convinced Dulles that the American aid might pull Nasser back from his relationship with the Soviet Union and prevent the growth of Soviet power in the Middle East. Just seven months after the announcement, however, Dulles declared that the American offer was being revoked. He cited difficulties in arranging the financial details of the U.S. grant with the Egyptian government, but his real motivation was Nasser’s unceasing attacks on Western colonialism and imperialism and Egypt’s continued dalliance with the Soviet Union.

Dulles might have believed that without the American aid, the dam project would fold. On this point, he was wrong. The Soviets rushed to Egypt’s aid, and the Aswan Dam was officially opened in 1964. Nasser, of course, was furious with the U.S. action. So, too, were the British, who believed that America’s withdrawal of aid had provided the opening for Soviet penetration of Egypt. In October 1956, British, French, and Israeli forces attacked Egypt, claiming that they were protecting the Suez Canal. The incident nearly provoked a U.S.-Soviet confrontation, but President Dwight D. Eisenhower coupled stern warnings against any Soviet military action with a refusal to support the British, French and Israeli invasion. The invading forces withdrew from Egypt in early 1957. Nevertheless, the damage to U.S. relations with the Middle East was done and the area would remain a Cold War hotspot throughout the next 35 years.

Adapted from

History.com

THIS DAY IN HISTORY JULY 19 1553 LADY JANE GREY DETHRONED AS QUEEN OF ENGLAND

After only nine days as the Queen of England, Lady Jane Grey is deposed in favor of her cousin Mary. The 15-year-old Lady Jane, beautiful and intelligent, had only reluctantly agreed to be put on the throne. The decision would result in her execution.

Lady Jane Grey who was the great-granddaughter of King Henry VII and the cousin of King Edward VI, were the same age, and they had almost been married in 1549. In May 1553 she was married to Lord Guildford Dudley, the son of John Dudley, the duke of Northumberland. When King Edward fell deathly ill with tuberculosis soon after, Jane’s father-in-law, John Dudley persuaded the dying king that Jane, a Protestant, should be chosen the royal successor over Edward’s half-sister Mary, a Catholic. On July 6, 1553, Edward died, and four days later Lady Jane Grey was declared queen of England.

Lady Jane’s ascendance to the throne was supported by the Royal Council, but the populace supported Mary, the rightful heir. Two days into Lady Jane’s reign, Dudley departed London with an army to suppress Mary’s forces, and in his absence the Council declared him a traitor and Mary the queen, ending Jane’s nine-day reign.

By July 20, most of Dudley’s army had deserted him, and he was arrested. The same day, Jane was imprisoned in the Tower of London. Her father-in-law was condemned for high treason, and on August 23 he was executed. On November 13, Jane and her husband, Guildford Dudley, were likewise found guilty of treason and sentenced to death, but because of their youth and relative innocence Mary did not carry out the death sentences.

However, in early 1554, Jane’s father, Henry Grey, joined Sir Thomas Wyatt in an insurrection against Mary that broke out after her announcement of her intention to marry Philip II of Spain. While suppressing the revolt, Mary decided it was also necessary to eliminate all her political opponents, and on February 7 she signed the death warrants of Jane and her husband. On the morning of February 12, Jane watched her husband being carried away to execution from the window of her cell in the Tower of London, and two hours later she was also executed. As British tradition tells the story, after the 16-year-old girl was beheaded, her executioner held Jane’s head aloft and recited the words: “So perish all the queen’s enemies! Behold, the head of a traitor!”

 Adapted from:

History.com Editors

Nollywood actress, Eucharia Anunobi ‘backs’ sex before marriage

Popular Nollywood actress Eucharia Anunobi had described the concept of not having sexual intercourse, especially among intending couples, as wicked.

In an Instagram video on Monday, the actress-turned-evangelist described those who hold such positions as castrated, eunuchs and frigid females.

The actress said: “What’s this whole noise about no sex before marriage? How can someone, how can anyone, say that someone should not indulge in sexual activity with someone who has already proposed?”

Anunobi noted that the proponents of what she described as a wicked agenda are not okay.

She said: “Yes! If they are out of their minds, how can they recommend such a wicked thing? Ok, let me ask this question. How do I know if my intending spouse is good in bed?”

Although, as it turns out, the actress was employing sarcasm to send a different message home.

In the full video posted on her YouTube page, Ms Anunobi opines that sex before marriage does not augur or do anyone good.

According to her, indulging in premarital sex not only prematurely binds partners together but also blindfolds them.

“There are so many people who can bear witness to this fact. I, I can bear witness to the fact that premarital sex colours your eyes and deceives you, as a matter of fact, from not noticing things that are wrong in your partner,” she added.

The ‘Glamour Girls’ actress backed her sermon up with scriptures from the bible.

In 2016, Ms Anunobi, 56, announced that she is now an evangelist and has gone into preaching the gospel as a full-time deliverance minister.

She informed her fans that she had been from town to town and country to country, preaching the gospel of salvation and conducting deliverance for the afflicted.

Life took a new turn for the Nollywood actress Eucharia Anunobi when she buried the remains of Raymond, her 15- year old son at the Ikoyi, Lagos cemetery, September 2017.

The deceased, Raymond Ekwu, died from complications associated with sickle cell anaemia on August 23, 2017.

The actress married Charles Ekwu in 2000, and the marriage lasted till 2006 before trouble set in. Raymond was the only product of the union, which ended in a messy divorce.

She dragged her ex-husband to court and slammed him with an N100 million lawsuit in 2010.

The monetary demand, according to her, was on the grounds of ‘abandonment, irresponsibility and assault.’

Osun Decides: Controversy trails alleged arrest of commissioner’s aide

Controversy has surrounded the alleged arrest of the Personal Assistant of the Commissioner for Regional Integration and Special Duties, Olalekan Badmus.

The PUNCH reported that the PA was allegedly detained at the Oke Baale Police Station but the commissioner denied the allegation.

When contacted, the Osun State Police Public Relations Officer, Opalola Yemisi, promised to get back to our correspondent on the matter.

In a viral post, the commissioner’s PA was said to be arrested with thumbprinted ballot papers.

“The Personal Assistant to Hon. Lekan Badmus (Commissioner for Special Duties) of Osun State has just been arrested with thumb printed ballots and a bag full of money for vote buying.

“He is been called has been handed over to the police and currently cooling off in the cell of Oke Baale Police Station. We admonished the people to be extremely vigilant,” the post read.

Reacting in a statement, the commissioner described the alleged arrest as a “shock”.

The statement was titled, ‘News of my personal assistant caught with thumbprinted ballot papers, fake totally untrue’.

It read, “I wish to emphatically state that myself, and every other person working closely with me have not engaged in any activities to sabotage the integrity of this on-going election.

“It is rather a rude shock to me that some mischief makers have been spreading false information online that my Personal Assistant was caught with thumbprinted ballot papers in Osogbo ward 2 and had been handed over to the security agents. This is completely untrue.

“I am a man of integrity who believes in hardwork and not cheap means to success. The claim that I was, by extension, involved in electoral malpractice contradicts the value I stand for.

“Members of the public are hereby urged to disregard any claim or accusation of sorts suggesting that I and the people working with me were involved in electoral fraud.”

Osun Decides: Ademola Adeleke arrives polling unit

The governorship candidate of the PDP, Ademola Adeleke arrives at his polling unit to cast his vote.

The BVAs devise failed to recognize the fingerprint of the PDP governorship candidate until the facial recognition method was used.

Ohanaeze breaks silence why it has not endorse any presidential candidate

The apex Igbo socio-political group, Ohanaeze Ndigbo, has broken its silence on why it has not announced its preferred candidate for the 2023 presidential election, despite the endorsement of the candidate of the Labour Party, Peter Obi, by the Yoruba socio-political group, Afenifere.

The group said the Igbo knew where they were going but did not disclose who among the presidential candidates of the various political parties would be endorsed.

Like Afenifere, the Pan-Niger Delta Forum and the Middle Belt Forum, Ohanaeze had called on political parties to zone their presidential tickets to the South-East.

The leader of Yoruba Socio-cultural group,Afenifere , Pa Ayo Adebanjo, had on Tuesday has announced that candidate of the Labour Party, Peter Obi, as the group’s preferred Candidate adding that the South-East deserved a shot at the presidency based on equity and the need to unite the country.

He said, “The North has no right to come back again after eight years, just as I am opposed to (Bola) Tinubu. It is not the right of the South-West to come and claim the presidency. If we want peace in Nigeria. We want equity, justice, if we want to be united, we are talking of rotation, we are talking of federal character.

“It has gone to the North, now to the South. Should it come to the South to the region that has had it with (former president Olusegun) Obasanjo for eight years, with (Prof) Yemi Osinbajo in eight years as vice-president? The South-South has had it with (former president) Jonathan. Is the South-East not part of Nigeria to have that equity?

But Ohanaeze explained that it had yet to endorse any candidate because such a decision that would affect the Igbo, as a democratic ethnic group, ought to be taken in consultation with Igbo interest groups.

In a statement, the spokesperson of Ohanaeze Ndigbo, Chief Alex Ogbonnia ssid, “Ohanaeze’s modus operandi is clearly different from that of Afenifere. You know the Igbo are a very democratic set of people, so, we usually call a meeting of a wider Igbo assemblage and we look at the issue so that when we take a decision and an endorsement, it will be seen to be carrying everyone along.

“That is why we have not endorsed any (candidate) even when we know where we are going. We must call a meeting of all Igbo interest groups and we look at everything so that if we say something, it will carry the weight of the whole Igbo assemblage.”

My past is an old house, I don’t live there anymore – Kate Henshaw

Celebrated actress, Kate Henshaw has left her detractors some words to ponder on.

Henshaw in a video said it will be absolutely futile trying to break her with her past.

“Trying to hurt me by bringing up my past I like trying to rob my old house …..I don’t live there anymore,” she said.

Sri Lanka's PM Wickremesinghe, sworn in as acting president

Sri Lanka’s Prime Minister, Ranil Wickremesinghe, was sworn in Friday as acting president.

His office said, replacing Gotabaya Rajapaksa who fled to Singapore following months of protest against him.

Primerosenews reports that Mr Rajapaksa, who was expected to resign on Wednesday, had fled Sri Lanka first to the Maldives and then to Singapore from where he sent his resignation letter via email to the parliament speaker on Thursday.

Wickremesinghe, 73, took his oath of office before chief justice Jayantha Jayasuriya, Wickremesinghe’s office said in a brief statement.

Ayade polls 252 votes to clinch APC senatorial candidate for C’River North

The Cross River State Governor, Prof Ben Ayade, has emerged as the candidate of the All Progressives Congress for Cross River North Senatorial District in the 2023 election.

This followed the conduct of fresh primaries on Thursday in line with the provisions of the new Electoral Act after the voluntary withdrawal of the previous candidate, Martins Orim.

Ayade, who emerged unopposed at the primary, which was held at the Ogoja Local Government headquarters, polled 252 votes of the 255 votes cast.

The chairman of the electoral committee, Sameera Tabo, declared Ayade the winner and said three votes were invalid.

In his acceptance speech, Ayade expressed gratitude to the delegates for electing him and explained that “after running for the office of the president of Nigeria, I returned home and then came under tremendous pressure from my people.

“They said I did very well when I was a Senator from 2011 to 2015 and insisted I go back and today I have answered their call. Of course, they recognised that this country requires a legislator that has both executive and legislative experience.”

Ayade said he was well equipped for the senate and would bring his wealth of experience to bear in the upper legislative chamber if elected.

“I am very experienced, I know the challenges of our people, and I possess all the essential elements that will help us make the appropriate laws and legislations that will change the narrative of our people.

“More importantly, it is imperative to work with the incoming APC president of the Federal Republic of Nigeria to reconstruct the concept of development within the African context. Development is about the people and in a sluggish, developing economy, emphasis cannot be put on infrastructure alone.

“We will target people, medium scale industries, small scale businesses will be put under sufficient grants and support until they begin to migrate away from poverty.

“So I am happy that I am going back to the legislature where I can add additional value to the next government and this country,” he said

BREAKING: Gotabaya Rajapaksa resigns as Sri Lanka's President

Following months of mass protests that hit the island country of Sri Lanka, President, Gotabaya Rajapaksa, has resigned.

Mr Rajapaksa, who was expected to resign on Wednesday, had fled Sri Lanka first to the Maldives and then to Singapore from where he sent his resignation letter via email to the parliament speaker on Thursday.

According to BBC, the speaker will complete legal processes and announce the resignation officially on Friday.

Mr Rajapaksa fled the country before resigning, allegedly over fears that he might be arrested.

“He has not asked for asylum and neither has he been granted any asylum. Singapore generally does not grant requests for asylum,” BBC quoted Singapore’s foreign ministry as saying when they confirmed the president’s arrival.

A BBC footage from Colombo, the country’s capital, showed protesters celebrating Mr Rajapaksa’s resignation.

Sri Lanka’s Prime Minister, Ranil Wickremesinghe, who was on Wednesday appointed acting president, will now be sworn in as interim president.

Mr Wickremesinghe Wednesday declared a nationwide state of emergency and imposed a curfew in certain parts of the country.

The prime minister had also said he would leave office when a new government is in place. No date has been fixed for his resignation.

Lawmakers say they will elect a new president by July 20.

The 22 million Sri Lankans have been suffering a horrifying financial turmoil with severe shortages of fuel, medicine, food and other essentials amid record-high inflation and a devaluation of the country’s currency. A severe lack of foreign exchange has stalled imports.

The acute shortage of fuel has crippled transportation systems in the country and stopped children from going to school among others.

The same economic crisis and protests led to the resignations of Basil Rajapaksa, a brother to Sri Lanka’s outgoing president and the country’s former finance minister, from parliament in June and their older brother Mahinda Rajapaksa, as prime minister, in May.

Sri Lanka is nearly bankrupt and has suspended repayment of its foreign loans with foreign reserves near empty. It announced in April that it was suspending repayment of foreign loans due to a foreign currency shortage.

Its total foreign debt amounts to $51 billion. Out of this, it must repay $28 billion by the end of 2027.

Source: Premium Times