January 21

1645: The Tonga archipelago, consisting of 171 islands stretching over 500 miles, is discovered. Lavell Edwards begins recruiting January 22.

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June 25

1940: France surrenders to Germany after less than two months of open warfare

Following the invasion of Poland in September 1939, the major powers adopted a policie of Sitzkrieg known as the Phoney War. This came to an end on May 10, 1940 when German armored units launched Fall Gelb (Case Yellow). In the course of a month, the German army pushed through the Ardennes in an effort to surround the Allied units that had advanced into Belgium. Fall Gelb is considered to be the birth of blitzkrieg, in which an army conducts a strategic envelopment using mechanized forces, with overwhelming air-support, leading to the operational collapse of the enemy.

While the British Expeditionary Force, as well as many French units, was evacuated from Dunkirk, Fall Gelb was considered a success. It removed from the field of battle the best units of the French Army and virtually all Allied support. More importantly, it provided Germany’s following operation, Fall Rot (Case Red) jump-off point that flanked the Maginot Line to attack the larger territory of France. Paris was occupied on June 14, and France capitulated on June 25 following the surrender of the French Second Army Group on June 22. Frances surrender was received at Compiègne Forest in the same railway car where the 1918 Armistice was signed ending the First World War.

Interestingly, modern strategic battlefield simulations of the campaign it is hard to make the Allied side lose. This has led historians to attribute France's stunning defeat to non-military factors, including a moral crisis, weak and sclerotic leadership, political divisiveness, and a declining birth rate.

It has also led to a fresh generation of jokes.

Q: Did you hear about the new French tanks?
A: They have 5 gears...4 in reverse, and one forward gear just in case they're attacked from behind!
Q: Why don't they have fireworks at Euro Disney?
A: Because every time they shoot them off, the French try to surrender.
Q: Why do they have trees in Paris?
A: So the Germans can march in the shade instead of the sun.
Q: How many Frenchmen would it take to defend Paris?
A: It's not known, it's never been tried.
Q: Why is it good to be French?
A: You can surrender at the beginning of the war and the U.S. will win it for you.
Q: What does "Maginot" mean in English?
A: The translation is unclear, but it is either "Welcome!" or "Speed bump ahead."
Q: What's the difference between Frenchmen and toast?
A: You can make soldiers out of toast.
Q: What is the first thing you are taught when joining the French army?
A: To say "I surrender" in German.
Q: What do you call 100,000 Frenchmen with their hands up?
A: The Army.
Q: How do you confuse a French Soldier?
A: Give him a rifle and ask him to shoot it.
Q. Why don't Master Card and Visa work well in France?
A. They do not know how to say "CHARGE!"
Q: What is the most useful thing in the French Army?
A: A rearview mirror, so they can see the war.
Q: Why did the French celebrate their World Cup Championship in 2000 so wildly?
A: It was their first time they won anything without the help of the U.S.
The French have only one actual fighting war hero, Joan of Arc, and they turned her over to the enemy!A French rifle is for sale on eBay. It's never been fired but I heard it's been dropped once.

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June 19

1893: Lizzie Borden is acquitted of the murder of her father and step-mother.
1953: Not as fortunate as Ms. Borden, Julius and Ethel Rosenberg became the first, and only, Americans to be executed by the U.S. government for espionage.

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June 6

1944: At 6:30 a.m., British Double Summer time, 135,000 British, American, and Canadian troops assaulted five primary beach heads along the coasts of Normandy. Over the next month, more than one million Allied soldiers would follow, and begin the liberation of Europe from the Nazi Reich.

Thank you.

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June 4

1989: The June Fourth Incident, known outside of China as the Tienanmen Square Massacre, results in the deaths of hundreds of Chinese university students.

The Tienanmen Square Protests were a series of demonstrations led by labor activists, intellectuals, and students between April 15 and June 4, 1989. They had their beginning in the funeral for former Secretary General of the CPC, Hu Yaobang. Yaobang was in favor of rapid reform, and had openly derided what he termed as Maoist excesses. As such, he was positioned as a scapegoat for the pro-democracy protests of 1986-1987 and then forced out of the party. Before his funeral, tens of thousands of students staged sit ins across China, with the largest gathering (over 100,000 being at Tienanmen Square, demanding the party revise their official view of him.

The protests escalated across the country to include demands for free media reform and open dialogue between party leaders and elected representatives of the students. As the protests continued to escalate, party leaders were divided in how best to respond. Then General Secretary Zhao Ziyang advocated a soft approach, while Li Peng was in strongly in favor of a crackdown.

Martial law was declared on May 20, with the actual assault on Tienanmen Square by the 27th and 28th Armies of the People's Liberation Army occurring the night of June 3. Troops with fixed bayonets and armored personnel carriers advanced on the square from various positions, attacking protesters who continued to resist as well as those who attempted to flee. The event was immortalized by the photograph of one man standing in front of a column of tanks, easily one of the most famous photographs taken that earned the unknown man a spot on Time Magazine's list of the 100 most influential people of the 20th Century. His fate is remains unknown, with various sources indicating that he was ultimately arrested, killed, or escaped untouched. Unknown to many who view this photograph, the tanks were actually attempting to drive out of Tienanmen Square along the Avenue of Eternal Peace when the photo was taken.

The Square was cleared by 5:40 a.m. It is unknown how many were ultimately killed, but estimates range wildly from 200 to 10,000. Protests continued around the country for a few more days before the Chinese government was able to fully regain control. Afterward, there was a purge through out the CPC, as members viewed as sympathetic to the protestors. This included Zhao Ziyang, who was removed from his position as General Secretary and would ultimately die in prison.

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June 1

1967: The Beatles release Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.

Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band was The Beatles eighth studio album, following Revolver (1966) and preceding Magical Mystery Tour (1967) in the U.S. and The Beatles (1967), more commonly known as The White Album, in the U.K.

The release came at a time when Beatlemania was waning as The Beatles had quit touring the previous August. With Sgt. Pepper's, the intent was to create a record that could, along with promotional film clips made over the previous years, tour for them.

To that end, McCartney decided they should create fictitious characters for each member of The Beatles and record an album that would be a performance by that fictitious band. To that end, the song begins with the title track introducing the band, and then segues into "With a Little Help From My Friends" performed by the band leader, Billy Shears (Starr). The album has a bookend effect by reprising the title track at the end of the album prior to "A Day in the Life."

McCartney's vision of recording a performance by a fictitious band was never fully realized. Lennon was adamant that the tracks he had written for the album had nothing to do with the Sgt. Pepper's concept. At the same time, The Beatles had been working on several songs thematically linked to childhood and everyday life. Two of these, "Penny Lane" and "Strawberry Fields Forever," were intended to be a part of Sgt. Pepper's, but were pulled after The Beatles were pressured into releasing them as singles (Sgt. Pepper's has no singles, similar to the earlier release, Rubber Soul). However, this theme is still present in "Lovely Rita," "Good Morning Good Morning," "She's Leaving Home," "When I'm Sixty-Four," and "A Day in the Life."

The album cover, featuring a collage of life-sized cardboard models of famous people, received a Grammy and is one of the most famous, and most parodied, of all time. The collage, known as "People We Like," included over 70 famous and historic characters, including the original bass player for The Beatles, Stuart Sutcliffe who had passed away five years earlier. Lennon had requested that Adolf Hitler be included. Though this was ultimately decided against, Hitler's cut out can be seen in production photos from the time, along with another rejected cut out that has a cloth draped over its head. It is speculated that this unknown character was Elvis Presley.Sgt. Pepper's received both popular and critical acclaim upon release. The album spent 175 weeks on the Billboard 200 in the U.S. (15 weeks at number one), and 201 weeks on the UK Albums Chart (27 weeks at number one). At the same time, many critics and contemporaries held the album to be The Beatles magnum opus, a perception that has persisted largely until today with Rolling Stone labeling it the greatest album of all time as recently as 2003. Personally, I hold The White Album as The Beatles greatest album, although Sgt. Pepper's does contain one of my two favorite songs by The Beatles in "A Day in the Life," the other being "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" from The White Album.

Track listing:

1. "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band"
2. "With a Little Help From My Friends"
3. "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds"
4. "Getting Better"
5. "Fixing a Hole"
6. "She's Leaving Home"
7. "Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite!"
8. "Within You Without You"
9. "When I'm Sixty-Four"
10. "Lovely Rita"
11. "Good Morning Good Morning"
12. "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (reprise)"
13. "A Day in the Life"

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May 30

May 30, 1431: 19-year-old Joan of Arc, also known as “the Maid of Orléans,” is burned at the stake by the direction of John of Lancaster, First Duke of Bedford, in Rouen, France.

Jeanne d’Arc was born January 6, 1412. In 1429, when she was 17, she claimed to have had visions from God that told her to recover her homeland from English domination. These claims coincided with vague prophecies concerning an armed maid who would rescue France.

After meeting the uncrowned King Charles VII and the Dauphin, Joan of Arc was sent to Orléans as part of an effort to lift the siege there. Prior to departing Blois, she sent a letter to the Earl of Salisbury, calling upon the English forces to quit the siege, surrender all cities and territories in France, and to return to England. If they refused, she promised that she would raise a "War cry against them that would last forever....I shall not write any further.” Her audacity in this regard was only to be matched by her accomplishments. Nine days later the siege was lifted after a Joan of Arc led a series of successful attacks against English positions around Orléans. The victory was Joan of Arc’s first major military accomplishment, the first major French success since the Battle of Agincourt in 1415, and marked a turning point in The Hundred Years War. Several more swift victories along the Loire River led to Charles VII's coronation at Reims.

On May 23, 1830, Joan was captured by the English and Burgundians as part of a rear-guard action after a minor skirmish. Eight months later, she was tried by an ecclesiastical court led by Bishop Pierre Cachon, an English partisan at the instance of the First Duke of Bedford. Transcripts from her trial continue in existence today, and George Bernard Shaw found much of this dialogue so compelling that sections of his play Saint Joan are literal translations of the trial record. The most famous exchange is “Asked if she knew she was in God's grace, [Joan of Arc] answered ‘If I am not, may God put me there; and if I am, may God so keep me.’” The question is a scholarly trap. Church doctrine of the age held that no one could be certain of being in God’s grace. If Joan of Arc had answered yes, then she would have convicted herself of heresy. However, if she had answered no, then she would have confessed her own guilt. Notary Boisguillaume would later testify that at the moment the court heard this reply, “Those who were interrogating her were stupefied.”

The court convicted Joan of Arc of heresy and she was burned at the stake by the English on May 30, 1431 at nineteen years old. After she had died, the English raked back the coals to expose her charred body so that no one could claim she had escaped alive, then burned the body twice more to reduce it to ashes and cast her remains into the Seine. The executioner, Geoffroy Therage, later stated that he “…greatly feared to be damned” for his part in the execution.

A posthumous retrial, under the authorization of Pope Callixtus III, opened 24 years later to investigate whether the trial and its verdict had been handled justly and according to canon law. The final summary, put down in June, 1456, styles Joan as a martyr and implicates the late Pierre Cauchon with heresy for having convicted an innocent woman in pursuit of a secular end. The court declared her innocence on July 7, 1456. She was beatified in 1909 and canonized in 1920.

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