US president Grover Cleveland wrote: "I am ashamed of the whole affair." The reign of Hawaii's only queen was determined by Americans, and three presidents were involved - Benjamin Harrison, Cleveland, and William McKinley. That would be two who should have been ashamed and one who was. The 1993 "Apology Resolution" that Bill Clinton signed even specifically acknowledges that the transfer of sovereignty was accomplished outside any legal process. The US business interests that took control of Hawaii, with the unauthorized support of US troops, never dared to put annexation to a vote - there was little popular support for it. I notice that Clinton didn't offer to put it up for a vote a century later either.
Twisted History is, by design, chained to the calendar, which gives us the mechanism for dishing up the history of our culture in handy parcels, but represents two problems. I have included a few items that simply have no verifiable date because records didn't exist, but at least a couple of times every week there are items that don't appear at all because I can't confirm a date. (Shakespeare appeared on 23 April by agreement that he was probably born three days before his baptism. Laffite appeared on 29 August because somebody made a guess and nobody could prove it wrong.) The other problem is that most of the dates in history are probably wrong anyway! When Ugo Buoncompagni, better known as Pope Gregory XIII, introduced a new calendar in 1582 that skipped ten days (4 October was followed by 15 October) the catholic countries obeyed, but most of the world did not. On this day, 170 years later, England and her colonies skipped 11 days to synchronize with the rest of Europe. Protestant Germany accepted itin 1700, but didn't fully convert until 1775. Japan came along in 1873, Russia in 1917, Greece in 1924, and China in 1949.
A very few sources identify dates with the suffix "N.S." to indicate New Style, which was used in the newspapers in England immediately following the change. The difference between the Julian calendar (created by Julius Caesar in 45 BC) and the Gregorian calendar was 14 days when Russia finally caught up. The date reported for an event that happened in Italy in 1600 depends on whether the story originated in Italy under the Gregorian calendar and was translated into English, or was written in England under the Julian calendar in effect there. Pope Gregory, born under the old calendar actually had his date of birth restated under the new, although nobody else probably made that effort. Which means that the date of the battle on the Plain of Marathon and the birth of the Hawaiian queen are both likely to have been exactly 2,490 and 162 years ago respectively, but the Great Fire in London was really 334 years and ten days ago.
490 BC - Phidippides of Athens ran 140 miles from the Plain of Marathon to Sparta to ask for help to fight an invading Persian army. The request is declined for religious reasons, on the 4th he ran back to Marathon. The Athenians won the battle anyway, and after fighting in armor all day, Phidippides finally ran the 36.2 km (22.5 miles) to Athens to announce the victory and fell down dead.
1666 - Embers left in the bakery oven in the home of Thomas Farynor ignited stacked firewood at about 1 am. The baker, his wife, daughter, and one servant escaped through a window, the maid did not. Sparks travelling on the wind ignited thatched roofs. In five days an area of one and an half by one half mile was reduced to ash, 436 acres that had contained 13,200 houses, 87 churches, six chapels, 44 Company Halls, the Royal Exchange, the Custom House, St Paul's Cathedral, four bridges and three city gates. Only six persons are known to have died, and it is thought that the fire may have ended the Great Plague of the previous year.
1752 - The last day of the Julian Calendar in England and her colonies, the following day being 14 September "N.S." for New Style, the first day under the Gregorian Calendar, a correction first suggested by Roger Bacon in 1267. There were riots with chants of "Give us back our 11 days."
1957 - Arkansas governor Orval Faubus called out the state's National Guard to surround Central High School in Little Rock and prevent black students from entering. He claimed concern over violence by protestors en route to Little Rock. The city's public buses, zoo, library, and parks system were already integrated, and the school board had unanimously approved a plan to integrate the school in three years, starting with the high school. Nine black students began their high school education on the 25th under the protection of the 101st Airborne Division of the US Army.
1963 - Alabama governor George C. Wallace prevented admission of black students to Tuskegee High School in Huntsville, Alabama by encircling the building with state troopers. Eight days later, President John F. Kennedy federalized the Alabama National Guard to prevent Wallace from using it to block integration.
Day of the Nation and Ho Chi Minh Memorial Day, Vietnam - Originally observed as Independence Day from the official Japanese surrender on this day in 1945, now marks the creation of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam by the Viet-Minh coalition on the same day.
1838
- Queen Lydia Liliuokalani, Hawaiian politician - Born Lydia Paki
Kamekeha Liliuokalani, she was adopted at birth by two councilors to King
Kamehameha III and attended the Royal School, married John Owen Dominis,
son of a US sea captain, in 1862. Her brother King David Kalakaua assumed
the throne in the Iolani Palace in 1874, but granted most power to a cabinet
of Americans, and was forced to accept the Bayonet Constitution in 1887.
This made the monarch a figurehead, extended the vote to foreign residents,
and required property ownership for voters that disenfranchised most natives
and all Asians. After the death of the king on 20 January 1891 Liliuokalani
became the first queen in Hawaii's history, reluctantly swearing to uphold
the Bayonet Constitution. Her husband died seven months later. After the
close of the legislative session on 14 January 1893 the queen was ready
to promulgae a new constitution restoring some power to the monarchy and
voting rights to native Hawaiians, but was convinced to delay to avoid
bloodshed. The Annexation Club appointed a Committee of Safety to overthrow
the queen and was supported by the US minister in Hawaii, John L. Stevens,
who provided troops from the USS Boston who came ashore on the 16th, the
Committee of Safety established a provisional government on the 17th and
at dusk the queen surrendered her throne under protest. Only one shot
was fired, one policeman was injured. The annexationists went to Washington
City, but arrived too late for Harrison to take the treaty with the provisional
government to Congress, and his successor, Grover Cleveland, refused.
Cleveland sent James H. Blount to investigate, his report led the president
to order the restoration of the queen, the queen agreed to amnesty for
those who had taken control (although with exile for the leaders), but
the provisional government simply refused to comply and, on 4 July 1894,
estabished the Republic of Hawaii and put the queen under house arrest
on 16 January 1895. She abdicated when promised that her supporters would
be freed as a result, but five were shot and the rest remained in jail
for a year. The queen was released in late 1896, by which time William
McKinley was coming to office and the Spanish American War made annexation
of the strategic islands agreeable to Congress. The Territory of Hawaii
was created in 1898 with Sanford Dole as governor, the queen, an accomplished
musician, composed "Alohe Oe" as a farewell to her country. She lived
as a private citizen at Washington Place in Honolulu until her death on
11 November 1917.
The Hawaiian people have been from time immemorial lovers of poetry and
music, and have been apt in improvising historic poems, songs of love,
and chants of worship, so that praises of the living or wails over the
dead were with them but the natural expression of their feelings.
- Lydia Kamekeha Liliuokalani,
Hawaii's Story by Hawaii's Queen
It doesn't matter if a cat is black or white, so long as it catches mice.
- Deng Xiaoping
When they kept you out it was because you were black; when they let you
in, it is because you are black. That's progress?
- Marilyn French
An age is called Dark not because the light fails to shine, but because
people refuse to see it.
- James Michener
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