This Day in History – January 22

Jan 22, 2023 News

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Christopher Columbus and St.Vincent

Kaieteur News – Before the time of European contact, Saint Vincent was first inhabited by the Ciboney, who were joined and eventually displaced or conquered by an Arawak people, who had originated in Venezuela, and settled in the West Indies.

About a century before the arrival of European explorers, the Arawaks were themselves displaced by another group, the Caribs, who originated from South America.

It was formerly thought that Christopher Columbus first visited the island and named it Saint Vincent, on January 22, 1498, a day that used to be celebrated as “Discovery Day.” It is now known that Columbus was actually in Spain on that day, and there is no evidence to suggest that he ever visited Saint Vincent. In the 17th century, a group of so-called “Black Caribs,” also known as the Garifuna, was formed from intermarriage between the indigenous Caribs and the more-recent African arrivals. The Africans were mainly slaves who had escaped from plantations in Barbados or were taken from raids on European plantations; other Africans came from a party of slaves who were shipwrecked in the Grenadines in either 1635 or 1673 (both dates are frequently given) and eventually reached the Saint Vincent mainland. (Britannia)

Zulu nation faces the British for first time in Anglo-Zulu

The Battle of Isandlwana, January 22, 1879, was the first engagement of the Anglo-Zulu War and would prove to be a significant and unexpected victory for the Zulu in a war which they ultimately lost to the British.

Since the British arrival in South Africa at the beginning of the 19th Century, Zululand had proved a troublesome nation in their efforts to control the region. During the first three decades of the century the British made no attempt to challenge Shaka, the founder of the Zulu Empire, and his immediate successors. From the 1840s through the 1860s however, British (and Boer) power gradually increased as Zulu military control grew weaker. By the 1870s the Zulu Empire threatened British expansion into the diamond and gold-rich interior. In 1878 the British High Commissioner of Southern Africa, Sir Bartle Frere, provoked a war with the Zulu, hoping for a sharp, short attack leading to the destruction of Zulu military power.

On December 11, 1878 Frere sent an ultimatum to Zulu King Cetshwayo, ordering him either to dismantle the military system of his nation or else face war with the British Empire. Cetshwayo had long made efforts to avoid outright war with the British; however, he found it impossible to comply with this request and, just as Frere had anticipated, he refused to disband his army and instead prepared for war against the British.

On the 22nd January 1879, the British invaded Zululand. Their army was composed of nearly 1,800 troops, made up of both British and African men from the neighbouring British colony of Natal. Although they faced a force of roughly 20,000 Zulu warriors, the British felt assured of their victory due to their superior military resources. However, the battle which ensued would prove to be an embarrassing defeat for the British as they were out-manoeuvred by Cetshwayo’s men. By the end of the battle the British had lost around 1,300 of their force of 1,800 while the Zulus suffered a relatively light loss of around 1,000 men. (blackpast.org.)

More than 600 people killed in Mexico train accident

The Guadalajara train disaster occurred around January 22, 1915, in Mexico, and killed over 600 people.

The Mexican Revolution was in full swing by 1915. After the assassination of Francisco Madero two years earlier, the presidency of the country was assumed by Victoriano Huerta, but revolutionary forces led by Venustiano Carranza and Pancho Villa overthrew him and Carranza became president in 1914. Villa however wanted to continue the revolution and an armed struggle ensued. On January 18, 1915, Carranza’s troops captured Guadalajara in southwestern Mexico. He immediately ordered that the families of his troops be transported by train from Colima on the Pacific coast to his newly captured stronghold.

Around January 22, 1915, a special train of twenty cars left Colima. It was packed with people even clinging to the roofs and undercarriages. Somewhere between Colima and Guadalajara, the engineer lost control of the train on a long steep descent. As the train gathered speed many people were thrown off as the train negotiated sharp curves. Eventually the entire train plunged off the tracks and into a deep canyon, with fewer than 300 of the 900 on board surviving the disaster. Some of Carranza’s troops, Yaqui Indians committed suicide when hearing of the death of their families. Others swore vengeance on the train crew, but they had also been killed in the disaster. The Mexico tragedy remains the deadliest railway accident in North American history. (Wikipedia-Haine, Edgar A. (1993). Railroad Wrecks)

The Central Intelligence Group, forerunner of the CIA is created

On January 24 1946, US President Harry S. Truman appointed the first Director of Central Intelligence, Sidney W. Souers. Souers had served as Deputy Director of Naval Intelligence during World War II, and before then, had been a St. Louis banker and insurance executive, as well as a pillar of the Democratic Party in Missouri.

In late 1945 he had coordinated the various intelligence reform plans considered by the White House in the drafting of the President’s January 22, 1946 directive that created the Central Intelligence Group (CIG). CIG was responsible for coordinating, planning, evaluating and disseminating intelligence. CIG also acquired a clandestine collection capability as well as authority to conduct independent research and analysis. This was key, as CIG was no longer just coordinating the intelligence it received from government agencies, but was now producing intelligence on its own. This enlarged CIG’s personnel strength considerably.

The new organization spied overseas with employees seconded from the Army, Navy and Department of State. CIG functioned under the National Intelligence Authority, which was composed of a presidential representative and the secretaries of State, War and Navy. Within months of its creation, CIG became the nation’s primary agency for strategic warning and management of clandestine activities abroad. Yet, it was shackled to the constraints and resistance of the Department of State and the armed services. And so, to free itself, CIG became an independent department and was renamed the Central Intelligence Agency. The CIA was created under the National Security Act of 1947. Two years later, President Truman signed the Central Intelligence Agency Act, which authorized the CIA to secretly fund intelligence operations and conduct personnel actions outside of standard US Government procedures. (Inteltody.org.)

George Foreman wins world heavyweight boxing championship in Jamaica

Joe Frazier vs. George Foreman, billed as ‘The Sunshine Showdown’, was a professional boxing match in Kingston, Jamaica, on January 22, 1973, for the WBA, WBC and The Ring heavyweight championships. The fight lasted only two rounds, with Foreman scoring a technical knockout at 1:35 of the second round, to dethrone Frazier and become the new undisputed heavyweight champion. Foreman brutalized Frazier for the duration of the fight, scoring six knockdowns over the champion

  Australian missionary, two sons are burned alive by radical Hindus

Graham Stuart Staines (18 January 1941 – 23 January 1999) was an Australian Christian missionary, who along with his two sons, Philip (aged 10) and Timothy (aged 6), were burnt to death in India, by members of a Hindu fundamentalist group named Bajrang Dal.

In 2003, Bajrang Dal activist Dara Singh was convicted of leading the murderers and was sentenced to life in prison. Staines had been working in Odisha since 1965 as part of an evangelical missionary organisation named ‘Mayurbhanj Leprosy Home’, caring for people who had leprosy and looking after the tribal people in the area who lived in abject poverty. However, some Hindu groups alleged that during this time he had lured or forcibly coerced many Hindus into believing in the Christian faith. The Wadhwa Commission found that although some tribals had been baptised at the camps, there was no evidence of forced conversions.

Staines’s widow, Gladys, also denies forced conversions ever happened. She continued to live and work in India caring for those who were poor and were affected by leprosy, until she returned home to her native country of Australia in 2004. In 2005, she was awarded the fourth highest honor a civilian can receive in India, the Padma Shree, in recognition for her work in Odisha. In 2016, she received the Mother Teresa Memorial International Award for Social Justice.

 

 

 

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