History Today

Today marks two notable historical events:  the birth of President James Buchanan and the 669^th Anniversary of the Saint George’s Night Uprising.  Neither one ended very well.

 James Buchanan was our fifteenth president, our only bachelor president, the only president from Pennsylvania, and (until Jimmy Carter came along), our worst president.  Buchanan was born in Cove Gap, Pennsylvania (now the site of the “Buchanan’s Birthplace State Park” – proving once again that any disaster can be turned into a profit) in 1791.  Buchanan first displayed his talent for confusion when he simultaneously opposed the War of 1812 and served in it.  It was obvious that Buchanan had no set convictions, so he was sent to Congress.  There he was one of the leaders in the impeachment of a federal judge, who was completely acquitted – observing Buchanan’s role in this affair, President Andrew Jackson sent him out of the country as Minister to Russia (where, he undoubtedly hoped, some Cossack would do his duty).  Buchanan survived Russia and returned to the US, where he was Secretary of State under James K. Polk.  Buchanan’s star continued to inexplicably rise, and in 1856 (having again been conveniently out of the country and out of people’s minds) he was nominated as a compromise candidate for President.  Finally at the top, Buchanan really started to show his incompetence:  he meddled in the Dred Scott Decision (hey, let’s make it easier to catch those slaves), antagonized both North and South be vacillating between both of them, and in a typical Buchanan-ian burst of logic, declared that the Southern states had no right to secede from the Union, and the Union had no right to make them not secede.  Fortunately, Abraham Lincoln was waiting in the wings.  Buchanan was the first president to write a presidential memoir, an unfortunate tradition that continues to this day.

Today also marks the Anniversary of the St. George’s Day Uprising (see earlier post today for information on St. George.)  The St. George’s Day Uprising was a result of the German invasion and occupation on Estonia in the 1200s.    On St. George’s Day (April 23,  1343), the Estonians had had enough and began to kill large numbers of Germans in their country.  The Germans, taking the cue, began to slaughter even larger numbers of Estonians; eventually restoring control over much of the country.  Small pockets of resistance remained, however; and in 1345, the Germans invited four Estonian Kings to negotiate.  When the kings refused to surrender their country, they were killed.  Eventually, the Germans left Estonia, paving the way for it to be conquered by the Dutch, the Finns and the Russians.  Estonia did not truly become free until the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991.