AUGUST 22, 1485 = The Battle of Bosworth Field

The Battle of Bosworth Field, which was fought on today's date, August 22 in the year 1486, was the climactic engagement in the English Civil War which took up the later half of the 15th Century, called "the War of the Roses". The war was essentially  a struggle between the houses of Lancaster and York over which of them would hold the throne of England and thus rule the country.  The Battle was won by the forces of Henry Tudor, the Earl of Richmond who would afterword would ascend to the throne as Henry VII, having vanquished the forces of King Richard III of the house of York whom he believed had usurped the throne via murder. Richard was killed during the battle; the last English king to suffer that fate in battle. As this marked a change to the house of York and the end of the Plantagenet dynasty over to the Tudors it is a very important moment in the history of England.

Richard Usurps the Throne

The murder which Richard was suspected was that of his nephew Edward V. Richard had become Lord High Protector when Edward IV died and his only successor was his son the 12 year old Edward V. But Richard managed to get himself declared King on July 6 1483 after

which date the young Edward was not seen in public again. Richard III (right) was of course widely suspected of having him murdered. Richard was also rumored to have murdered his own wife Queen Anne. There was also some troubles regarding the Princess Elizabeth, the elder sister of the murdered Prince, and whom she was going to marry.  She was already engaged to marry Henry Tudor, the Earl of Richmond who had been across the English Channel in France waiting for the right opportunity to go and knock the usurper Richard off the throne. With Richard under a cloud of suspicion, now was the time.

Henry Lands in Wales, the Armies Clash at Bosworth

Henry, (below) with an army of 6,000 men landed unopposed at Milford Haven on the southwest coast of Wales on August 11, 1485. He

pushed immediately towards Richard, gathering support as he marched toward Richard's forces in London. Richard quickly gathered his forces, between 7,500 and 12,000 men, and the two finally clashed at Bosworth Field, near Leicestershire.  A large portion of Richard's army was under and Sir William Stanley but he held back while they decided which side it would be most advantageous to support. Thus leaving Richard with fewer men at his disposal than he thought, Richard divided his army into three portions each with a specific goal. Stanley's inaction left the battle swaying back and forth until Richard apparently decided to bring it to an end by charging his group directly at Henry. When he saw Richard apart from the rest of his forces,  Stanley decided to throw in with Henry which turned the tide against Richard.  Seeing Henry fairly close by, Richard swung at him mightily, but was unable to get at him and was soon overwhelmed by Henry's men, who knocked him to the ground, and killed him there on that ground. thus ended the troublesome reign of the Richard III of the house of York.


Sources =

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Bosworth_Field

https://www.historic-uk.com/HistoryMagazine/DestinationsUK/The-Battle-of-Bosworth-Field/

"Kingdoms of  Europe" by Gene Gurney, Crown Publ., New York, 1982.

AUGUST 16 = Gold is Discovered in Alaska, 1896.

"To Whom It May Concern:

I do, this day, locate and claim, by right of discovery, five hundred feet, running up stream from this notice. Located this the seventeenth day of August, 1896."

With this simple hand-made sign, prospector George Carmack set off the last great Gold rush that our country would ever see.

George Carmack and His Find

  There had been reports of gold in Alaska and in adjacent parts of Canada for years. There were smaller parties of men looking for gold along the Klondike River in parts  of the United States and Canada's Yukon Territory.  The Gold Rush of 1848 was a not too distant memory,

so at about this time, Carnack having found nothing in California heard about gold to be found along the Klondike River.  So he moved into the area with a pair of Native American cohorts: Tagish Charlie, and Skookim Jim. On today's date August 16 in 1896 while camped near Rabbit Creek, Carmack said that he saw a nugget of gold in one part of the creek, The three men looked further and found more gold in many of the rocks at their spot.  Carmack posted the sign quoted above the very next day. As it turned out there was gold to be found all around this portion of Rabbit Creek which was renamed "Bonanza" as many of the local prospectors began setting up claims in the area as news of the find began to spread.

News of Gold Goes National

While the men who were already on the spot at the time became rich, the Yukon was in a fairly remote spot.  So it was nearly a year before the news spread around the country. But on July 27, 1897 news got to the rest of the world. This was when the steamship Portland arrived in Seattle filled with Gold from these original finds. And the newspapers just couldn't resist from trumpeting the news in their largest print. As a

result over the next several months nearly 100,000 men made their way north to Canada and Alaska hoping to strike it rich quickly. Although most of the easy to find gold had been snapped up by the men like Carmack, they made it as best they could to the Klondike river. The fact is that only about 30,000 actually got there.  It was a long and very cold journey by foot or using pack animals or sleds.  And many just gave up or were killed. Said one prospector: "“It is impossible to give one an idea of the slowness with which things are moving. It takes a day to go four or five miles and back; it takes a dollar to do what ten cents would do at home.”

Klondike Fever Rises!

  The excitement was extreme according to further reports in the Seattle Post Intelligencer: "It is safe to say that never in the history of the Northwest has there been such excitement as has prevailed in this city all day long and which is raging to-night.  It is due to the arrival ... of the steamer Portland, carrying sixty-eight men, from the Clondyke

gold fields, every one of whom brings down a fortune." The hopefuls would land at such tent city ports as Skagaway and Deya, And from there they would start the 600 mile trek to the Gold fields (they hoped). There were many routes, one of which was the steep climb of Chillkoot  Pass (left).  They of course needed all manner of supplies, like snowshoes, winter coats, boots, picks and shovels... everything. and of course there were many men who got rich providing these supplies.


The End Result....

Dawson City (below) became the largest genuine city north of San Francisco;  not just a giant tent city but a town with modern amenities such as proper plumbing, electric lighting and fire hydrants. The growth of Dawson City was one of the key reasons that the Yukon became a new Canadian Territory on June 13, 1898.  Those original groups that found gold (known as "the Klondike Kings") became very rich. It is estimated that over one billion dollars worth of gold was found (adjusted for

modern standards). The original "Klondike King", George Carmack, wound up leaving the area with $1 million in his account. There was an environmental impact on the  area due to soil erosion, and deforestation. And the Native American peoples also suffered from the introduction of white men's diseases such a venereal diseases and small pox. The gold began to run out around 1898-99 with many of the small claims selling off to large mining companies.  Also world events started crowding out the Gold Rush for national attention, such as the looming Spanish/American War. Also gold was found elsewhere in the area such as Nome, Alaska. But a handful had gotten very rich very quickly in this, the last great gold rush in our country's history



Sources =

https://www.nps.gov/klgo/learn/goldrush.htm

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Klondike_Gold_Rush

https://www.historynet.com/klondike-gold-rush

http://content.lib.washington.edu/extras/goldrush.html

http://alaskaweb.org/mining/klongoldrushstrts.html

https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/gold-discovered-in-the-yukon

AUGUST 3 = Jesse Owens Wins Olympic Gold

On today's date, August 3, in 1936 at the Olympic games held in Berlin, the American track star Jesse Owens won the gold medal for his 1st place finish in the 100 meter dash. This was no ordinary feat.  This was because it had happened just three days after Adolf Hitler, the Nazi leader of Germany had opened the games as a tribute to his regime which glorified the White Aryan as the master race. And Owens who would go on to win three more gold medals was an African American.  In the words of  ESPN: " When Owens finished competing, the African-American son of a sharecropper and the grandson of slaves had single-handedly crushed Hitler's myth of Aryan supremacy."

The Olympics: Hitler's Showpiece

As I wrote in my blog posting of three days ago (Aug.1 "Hitler Opens 1936 Olympics in Berlin"), the Nazi regime fully intended to use the Olympic stage as a propaganda tool for their new Germany. And as William Shirer told us, the Nazis saw these games as a perfect time for them to impress  the whole world with the scope of their achievements in their Third Reich.  And although the Nazis tried their best to put on a good public face, removing the most obvious signs of their Antisemitic policies, they could only go so far with that charade.  As ESPN further wrote: "Berlin, on the verge of World War II, was bristling with Nazism, red-and-black swastikas flying everywhere. Brown-shirted Storm Troopers goose-stepped while Adolf Hitler postured, harangued, threatened. A montage of evil was played over the chillingly familiar Nazi anthem: "Deutschland Uber Alles."

Jesse Takes Charge and Wins - FOUR times!

  It was into all of these symbols of the Nazi's racist pageantry James Cleveland "Jesse" Owens of Alabama standing 5-10, and weighing 157 lbs. dashed forward at the sound of the starter's pistol, and sprinted down the 100 meter track in a world record tying 10.3 seconds beating

Tinus Osendarp of the Netherlands, and just edging out his own team mate Ralph Metcalfe, thus securing the gold medal (above). And this would only be the first of a total of FOUR gold medals that Owens would collect. In the next few days he would win three more gold medals for the 200 meters dash, the long jump and part of the U.S. team in the 4x100 meters relay, overtaking world records in each category. This total of four gold medals was a record unmatched in that time and for years after.

Hitler Wasn't Happy.....

  In his book "Inside the Third Reich" Albert Speer, one of Hitler's closest associates wrote that Hitler "was highly annoyed by the series of triumphs by the marvelous colored American runner, Jesse Owens. People whose antecedents came from the jungle were primitive, Hitler said with a shrug; their physiques were stronger than those of civilized whites and hence should be excluded from future games." On this day Hitler was only willing to shake the hands of the German athletes who had won medals, leaving the stadium immediately thereafter. When International Olympic Committee president Henri de Baillet-Latour protested saying that Hitler should shake hands with all the medalists or none at all.  Hitler took the suggestion, and in his Nazi snit skipped all of the remaining medal awards.

  Jesse Owens himself was not overly upset one way or another. A calm rational man, he took it all in stride, knowing that in his own country as an African American his treatment would not be much better. "When I came back to my native country, after all the stories about Hitler, I couldn't ride in the front of the bus," Owens said. "I had to go to the back door. I couldn't live where I wanted. I wasn't invited to shake hands with Hitler, but I wasn't invited to the White House to shake hands with the President, either." This was certainly a regrettable reality for Jesse Owens' time, but that would eventually change and he would get the accolades due to him as a winner of the record four gold medals in the Olympics. Among many other honors he was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Gerald Ford, in 1976 (below).

Sources =

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesse_Owens

"Inside the Third Reich" by Albert Speer, Simon & Schuster, New York, 1970

https://www.sports-reference.com/olympics/athletes/ow/jesse-owens-1.html

http://www.espn.com/sportscentury/features/00016393.html

https://home.bt.com/news/on-this-day/august-3-1936-jesse-owens-wins-100m-gold-in-front-of-adolf-hitler-at-the-berlin-olympics-11363995389348