Here's your Today in History -
King James I of Scotland was assassinated on February 21, 1437. James I's grandfather, Robert II, had married twice and the awkward circumstances of the first marriage (the one with James's grandmother Elizabeth Mure - he didn't get around to marrying her until several years and children into their relationship) led some to dispute its validity. Conflict broke out between the descendants of the first marriage and the unquestionably legitimate descendants of the second marriage over who had the better right to the Scottish throne. Matters came to a head on February 21, 1437, when a group of Scots led by Sir Robert Graham assassinated James at the Friars Preachers Monastery in Perth. He attempted to escape his assailants through a sewer. However, three days previously, he had had the other end of the drain blocked up because of its connection to the tennis court outside, balls habitually got lost in it. I'm sure the irony was not lost on James while he scrambled around in the sewer.
February 21, 1803 -
Edward Despard and six co-conspirators were executed at Horsemonger Lane Gaol for plotting to assassinate England's King George III and to destroy the Bank of England, in front of a crowd of at least 20,000 spectators. Despard was originally sentenced, with six of his fellow-conspirators (John Wood and John Francis, both privates in the army, carpenter Thomas Broughton, shoemaker James Sedgwick Wratton, slater Arthur Graham, and John Macnamara), to be hanged, drawn and quartered.
These were the last men to be so sentenced in England, although prior to execution the sentence was commuted to simple hanging and beheading, amid fears that the Draconian punishment might spark public dissent.
February 21, 1885 -
America's greatest phallic symbol, the Washington Monument, is dedicated by President Chester A. Arthur. The shaft towers over 555 into the air, and sports an aluminum foreskin.
February 21, 1916 -
Start of the Battle of Verdun, which in nine months yielded 975,000 casualties and almost no change in the front line. It is the bloodiest battle in history, and often the one remarked as having the "highest density of dead per square yard."
February 21, 1931 -
The first attempted hijacking of an airplane occurs when revolutionary soldiers in Peru seize a Ford Tri-motor and demand pilots drop propaganda leaflets over the capital, Lima.
February 21, 1965 -
Malcolm X assassinated in a Manhattan ballroom, probably by fellow black muslims.
February 21, 1972 -
Nixon visits Red China, fulfilling the old Vulcan proverb, "Only Nixon could go to China."
February 21, 1988 -
Television evangelist Jimmy Swaggart of the Assemblies of God, with tears streaming down his face, confesses sinning with a prostitute in a Louisiana hotel room. A second scandal with yet another prostitute emerges in 1991, further killing his evangelical career.
And so it goes.
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