Today in History: February 10-12
Today in History: February 10-12
Nelson Mandela leaves prison, the Republic of China is born, and more
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February 10, 1258: The Mongols sack Baghdad and topple the Abbasid Caliphate. The end of the caliphate sent a shockwave throughout the Islamic world, even though it had been centuries since the Abbasids had been a real geopolitical power in their own right. Of even greater significance may have been what the Mongols did to Baghdad, which until this point was one of the greatest cities on Earth. In the aftermath of the siege Mongol warriors massacred tens and perhaps hundreds of thousands of Baghdad residents and destroyed much of the city including the fabled House of Wisdom, a repository of scholarly manuscripts whose loss was probably incalculable. Although Baghdad regained some of its importance under the Mongols it never returned to the heights it had enjoyed prior to this event.
February 10, 1763: Representatives from France, Great Britain, Portugal, and Spain sign the Treaty of Paris, one of several diplomatic agreements ending the 1756-1763 Seven Years’ War. Reflecting the overall victory of the British-Prussian alliance, the treaty saw France cede considerable territory to Britain in North America (where the conflict was known as the French and Indian War). This included Canada and the eastern part of the Louisiana Territory (everything east of the Mississippi River). Ironically the treaty itself damaged Britain’s relationship with Prussia, as Prussian ruler Frederick II (“the Great”) was forced to cut a separate peace in the Treaty of Hubertusburg and was angered by Britain’s decision to go it alone at Paris.
February 10, 1972: Ras Al Khaimah becomes the seventh and final Gulf state to join the United Arab Emirates, roughly two months after the UAE and its member states gained independence.
February 11, 1990: Nelson Mandela is released from South Africa’s Victor Verster Prison after serving 27 years for resisting the apartheid government. Mandela, whose remarkable life story probably doesn’t need to be recounted here and would be beyond the scope of this newsletter, became after his release the key figure in the negotiations to dismantle South Africa’s apartheid regime and in 1994 was elected overwhelmingly as South Africa’s first truly democratically elected president.
February 11, 2011: After over two weeks of protests, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak resigns, becoming the second Arab leader to step down as a result of the Arab Spring movement after Tunisia’s Zine El Abidine Ben Ali. Egypt underwent a transition to a democratic election in 2012, all of which was undone by the 2013 military coup that installed current president Abdel Fattah el-Sisi.
February 12, 1502: Queen Isabella of Castile promulgates an edict outlawing Islam in her kingdom. The edict built on previous forced conversions in Granada and indeed was premised on the somewhat dubious rationale that it would be unfair to keep Islam legal in the rest of Castile when it had been outlawed in Granada. Muslims living in the kingdom were obliged to leave or convert, and since leaving cost money and meant uprooting one’s entire life, most chose conversion. Of course that only bought people about a century before King Philip III of Spain expelled the Moriscos, the descendants of converted Muslims, in 1609.
February 12, 1691: A papal conclave, called upon the death of Alexander VIII on February 1, opens in the Vatican. Papal conclaves are not terribly uncommon, but what sets this one somewhat apart is that it would last for a full five months before electors finally made Cardinal Antonio Pignatelli the new pope, under the name Innocent XII. Cardinal Gregorio Barbarigo was considered the likely pick, but he was opposed by leading European monarch (including Holy Roman Emperor Leopold I) and a number of cardinals (who thought him too strict with respect to corruption) and so the conclave foundered without a clear favorite. Ultimately Pignatelli emerged as the compromise pick, with holdout French cardinals finally voting for him in large part because they wanted to escape the sweltering Roman summer. Innocent XII wound up being known primarily for his anti-corruption policies.
February 12, 1912: Puyi, the final emperor of both the Qing dynasty and China overall, abdicates, giving way to the Republic of China and marking the end of the Xinhai Revolution. Rebel leader Sun Yat-sen succeeded him as the first president of the provisional government of the Republic of China. Puyi would later serve as the “ruler” of the “Empire of Manchuria,” a puppet state established by Japan in northern China and Inner Mongolia that existed from 1932-1945.