Martin Hale

Two Bands, One Afternoon By around two in the afternoon on January 21, 1824, the British-led column camped near Nsamankow, close to present-day Bonsaso in what is now Ghana, could hear the Ashanti army moving through the forest before it could see it. Thousands of men were closing on a position held by a few … Read more

Bydgoszcz, October 19, 1984 On the evening of October 19, 1984, Father Jerzy Popiełuszko celebrated Mass at the Church of the Holy Polish Brothers Martyrs in Bydgoszcz, a city in northern Poland. The service began at six o’clock. Afterward he led the congregation in the rosary, the ordinary close to an ordinary pastoral visit. Nothing … Read more

Twelve Nights at the Fire On February 1, 1692, about 120 soldiers of the Earl of Argyll’s Regiment of Foot marched into Glencoe, then commonly written Glen Coe, a valley in the Argyll region of Scotland’s western Highlands. Captain Robert Campbell of Glenlyon commanded them. Their stated business was ordinary: collecting arrears of tax owed … Read more

A Meal He Couldn’t Finish In a letter written in July 1943, a havildar, a junior officer rank in the Indian Army roughly equivalent to a sergeant, described a meal he could not finish. He served with a Sappers and Miners unit, the engineering arm of the Indian Army, responsible for building roads, bridges, and … Read more

The Priors of Tyburn Tyburn, May 4, 1535 On May 4, 1535, three monks were drawn through London to Tyburn, the city’s usual ground for public execution. John Houghton, prior of the London Charterhouse, went first. With him were Robert Lawrence, prior of Beauvale Charterhouse in Nottinghamshire, and Augustine Webster, prior of Axholme Charterhouse in … Read more

The Pastry Shop, December 1828 In December 1828, a riot swept through the Parian, a market for luxury goods in the Zócalo, Mexico City’s central square. Soldiers sent to put it down wrecked the shop of a French pastry maker, sometimes named as Monsieur Remontel, and his damage claim came to 1,000 pesos. (Some accounts … Read more

Beginning in 1973, ranchers across the American West and Midwest started finding cattle stripped of ears, eyes, and genitals, in cuts they called surgical. A few fired on helicopters, convinced Washington was behind it. The explanation a historian eventually settled on involved scavengers, not scalpels. Dugway, 1968 On March 13, 1968, a nerve-agent test went … Read more

The Clear Morning November 1, 1755 was All Saints’ Day, one of the major feast days on the Catholic calendar, and Lisbon’s churches were full that morning. Many households had lit candles for Mass. An English merchant living in the city later wrote that nothing in the sky or the air gave any warning of … Read more

A Court Moves North In 1526, a dynasty fighting to hold its southeastern frontier looked for ground it could keep. As Ottoman forces advanced on Hungary, Ferdinand I of Habsburg took the crowns of Bohemia, Hungary, and Croatia. From then on, the Habsburgs treated Prague, seat of the Bohemian crown, as a place to retreat … Read more

Two Days in Baghdad, June 1941 On April 2, 1941, a group of pro-Axis army officers known as the Golden Square, backed by nationalist politician Rashid Ali al-Gaylani, seized power in Baghdad from the pro-British government. Britain, at war with Germany, moved against the new regime, and by early June al-Gaylani had fled. On June … Read more