On this date in 1772, the British revenue schooner HMS Gaspee ran aground ran aground off Rhode Island while chasing a colonial packet boat. After rowing out to the stranded ship a group of locals boarded and burned the Gaspee to the waterline at the break of dawn, greatly exacerbating tensions between the colonists and the local British officials. Prior to its destruction, the Gaspee was involved in enforcing Britain's Navigation Acts largely by inspecting ships' cargoes to prevent smuggling and ensure compliance with customs provisions. Meanwhile, the colony's traditional businesses primarily involved various forms of participation in the triangular slave trade making the colonists totally antagonistic to the British trade and maritime laws and regulations.

On this day in 1815 the Congress of Vienna ended, permanently fixing the European political situation. Uh HuH. After the end of the Napoleonic Wars the heads representatives of the European powrs other than the Ottoman empire held a series of meetings chaired by Metternich to sort things out. The goal was a stable Europe with a balance of power among the major powers and borders adjusted to remove France's Napoleonic territorial gains and to held achieve said balancing of the major powers, Austria, Britain, Prussia and Russia. Countries were created and countrie wre resized and everybody agreed to have subsequent similar diplomatic gatherings to iron shit out as it arose. Uh HuH. A final agreement as to a great many things was signed by Representatives of Austria, Britain , France, Portugal, Prussia, Russia, and Sweden-Norway.

Spain had explicit reasons for refusing to sign, but eventually signed in 1817, War had hitherto been something of a constant presence in Europe. You can find a list to skim or peruse as you see fit here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_conflicts_in_Europe . The hope was that ws now over and they had achieved "Peace in our time". A search request for the number of wars between 1815 and 1914 (amost a century) returned the miraculous answer of 21. Counting the entries in the list cited above I got 76, but some of these were revolts and rebellions. The degree to which they achieved a serious reduction in the number of conflicts during this period is open to question, but they did try. Meanwhile, of course, most of them did expand their colonial holdings outside of Europe

On this day in history:

411 BC – The Athenian coup succeeded, forming a short-lived oligarchy.

721 – Odo of Aquitaine defeated the Moors in the Battle of Toulouse.

1534 – Jacques Cartier was the first European to describe and map the Saint Lawrence River.

1732 – James Oglethorpe was granted a royal charter for the colony of the future U.S. state of Georgia.

1772 – The British schooner Gaspee was burned in Narragansett Bay, Rhode Island.

1815 – End of the Congress of Vienna: The new European political situation is set.

1885 – Treaty of Tientsin ended the Sino-French War, with China giving most of present-day Vietnam to France.

1928 – Charles Kingsford Smith completed the first trans-Pacific flight in a Fokker Trimotor monoplane

1948 – The International Council on Archives was founded

1959 – The first nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarine, the USS George Washington, was launched.

1965 – The Prime Minister of South Vietnam resigned after being unable to work with a junta led by Nguyễn Cao Kỳ.

1967 – Israel captured the Golan Heights from Syria

1968 – LBJ declared a national day of mourning after the assassination of Senator Robert F. Kennedy.

1972 – Severe rainfall caused a dam in the Black Hills of South Dakota to burst, creating a flood that kills 238 people and causes $160 million in damage.

1999 – Yugoslavia, Serbia, and NATO signed a treaty ending the Kosovo War, but not Kossovo itself, probably none of its business

Some people who were born on this day:

One of the eternal truths is that happiness is created and developed in peace, and one of the eternal rights is the individual's right to live.

~~ Bertha von Suttner

1580 – Daniel Heinsius, poet and scholar
1588 – Johann Andreas Herbst, composer and theorist
1732 – Giuseppe Demachi, violinist and composer
1810 – Otto Nicolai, composer and conductor
1812 – Johann Gottfried Galle, astronomer and academic
1836 – Elizabeth Garrett Anderson, physician, surgeon, suffragist and politician
1837 – Anne Isabella Thackeray Ritchie, author
1843 – Bertha von Suttner, pacifist, journalist and author
1861 – Pierre Duhem, physicist, mathematician, and historian
1865 – Albéric Magnard, composer and educator
1865 – Carl Nielsen, violinist, composer, and conductor
1875 – Henry Hallett Dale, pharmacologist and physiologist
1891 – Cole Porter, composer and songwriter
1900 – Fred Waring, singer, bandleader, and television host
1902 – Skip James, singer, songwriter, and guitarist
1915 – Les Paul, guitarist and songwriter
1926 – Calvin "Fuzz" Jones, singer and bass player
1929 – Johnny Ace, singer and pianist
1930 – Barbara, singer
1934 – Jackie Wilson, singer and songwriter
1941 – Jon Lord, singer, songwriter, and keyboard player
1950 – Trevor Bolder, bass player, songwriter, and producer
1951 – James Newton Howard, composer, conductor, and producer
1952 – Uzi Hitman, singer, songwriter
1953 – Ken Navarro, guitarist and composer
1954 – Pete Byrne, singer and songwriter
1954 – Paul Chapman, guitarist and songwriter
1956 – Francine Raymond, singer and songwriter
1963 – Gilad Atzmon, saxophonist, author, and activist
1971 – Jackie McKeown, singer, songwriter, and guitarist
1974 – Samoth, singer, songwriter, and guitarist
1978 – Matt Bellamy, singer, musician and songwriter
1980 – D'banj, singer, songwriter, and harmonica player
1982 – Christina Stürmer, singer and songwriter
1991 – Aaron M. Johnson, jazz saxophonist

Some people who died on this day:

It is not great wealth in a few individuals that proves a country is prosperous, but great general wealth evenly distributed among the people.

~~ Victoria Woodhull,

1348 – Ambrogio Lorenzetti, painter
1361 – Philippe de Vitry, composer and poet
1656 – Thomas Tomkins, composer
1799 – Chevalier de Saint-Georges, violinist, composer, and conductor
1870 – Charles Dickens, novelist and critic
1871 – Anna Atkins, botanist and photographer
1927 – Victoria Woodhull, activist for women's rights
1952 – Adolf Busch, violinist and composer
1959 – Adolf Otto Reinhold Windaus, chemist and academic
1961 – Camille Guérin, veterinarian, bacteriologist and immunologist
1963 – Jacques Villon, painter
1989 – George Wells Beadle, geneticist and academic
1991 – Claudio Arrau, pianist and educator
2004 – Brian Williamson, activist, co-founded J-FLAG
2006 – Drafi Deutscher, singer and songwriter
2010 – Ken Brown, guitarist who was a member of The Quarrymen
2012 – Abram Wilson, trumpet player and educator
2014 – Elsie Quarterman, ecologist and academic

Some Holidays, Holy Days, Festivals, Feast Days, Days of Recognition, and such:

Coral Triangle Day
National Strawberry-Rhubarb Pie Day
La Rioja Day (La Rioja)

Today's Tunes

Giuseppe Demachi

Cole Porter

Fred Waring

Skip James

Les Paul

Calvin "Fuzz" Jones

Johnny Ace

Barbara

Jackie Wilson

Jon Lord

Trevor Bolder

Ken Navarro

Francine Raymond

Matt Bellamy

Aaron M. Johnson,

Chevalier de Saint-Georges

Abram Wilson

Ok, it's an open thread, so it's up to you folks now. What's on your mind?

Cross posted from http://caucus99percent.com

Open Thread, The Gaspee, Congress of Vienna, Kossovo, Cole Porter, Fred Waring, Les Paul, Johnny Ace, Jackie Wilson