TODAY IN HISTORY
September 4, 476: Odoacer and his army depose the very young western Roman Emperor Romulus Augustus (“Augustulus”) at Ravenna. This is the conventional date given for the final end of the Roman Empire in the west, though there were other claimants to the throne still kicking around. Modern historians tend to discount the notion that there was one specific end date for the western empire, with this date instead serving as one of several markers in a lengthy transition from the Roman world to something we would recognize as “medieval.”
September 4, 1839: Four British boats open fire on a group of Chinese junks enforcing a blockade on the English community in Hong Kong, killing two in what’s known as the Battle of Kowloon. This minor engagement sparked the First Opium War, which ended with Britain in control of Hong Kong and China forced to agree to major trade concessions.
September 4, 1912: The Albanian Revolt of 1912 ends with Ottoman authorities agreeing to a list of rebel demands that gave the empire’s predominantly Albanian provinces a significant degree of autonomy. The Ottoman Empire was at war with Italy when the revolt broke out and simply lacked the capacity to deal with both struggles at once, so it more or less acceded to Albanian demands (the Ottomans lost the war with Italy anyway). The First Balkan War, which broke out on October 8, short circuited the autonomy plan but ended in mid-1913 with, among other things, the creation of a fully independent Albanian nation.
INTERNATIONAL
The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization reported on Friday that global food prices rose last month to their highest level since November 2022. A combination of extreme El Niño- and climate change-driven weather and disruptions caused by the Ukraine and Iran wars are fueling price increases for staples including “cereals, vegetable oils, sugar, meat and dairy.”
The UN General Assembly voted on Friday to adopt the “Equal Earth” map, which aims to replace the Mercator projection as the main world map in general use. Unlike Mercator, which overstates the size of land masses near the Earth’s northern and southern poles (making Europe, in particular, look a lot bigger than it actually is), the Equal Earth projection offers a more accurate picture. In particular Africa and South America appear much larger. The vote doesn’t force anyone to change maps, but the US nevertheless voted against the resolution because it’s Woke, or whatever. It was the only country to vote no.
MIDDLE EAST
LEBANON
The Israeli military (IDF) killed at least two people in an airstrike in southern Lebanon’s Nabatieh province on Friday and at least one more in an airstrike near the city of Tyre. The Nabatieh incident took place near the Ali al-Taher ridge, which the IDF claimed to have seized the previous day. Also on Friday, the Israelis released four more Lebanese civilians as part of a deal under which the Lebanese government is assisting in the search for the remains of several Lebanese Jewish community leaders who were killed in the 1980s.
