On May 7

On this day in ...

... 1948, the post-World War II Congress of Europe opened at The Hague in the Netherlands. For the next 3 days, "some 800 activists representing the various European movements: met "under the honorary chairmanship of the former British Prime Minister, Winston Churchill." The meeting concluded with the adoption of a resolution

calling for the convening of a European Assembly, the drafting of a Charter of Human Rights and the establishment a Court of Justice responsible for ensuring that the Charter is properly implemented.

The conference thus was a key step toward European regional integration.

(Prior May 7 posts are here, here, and here)

On September 13

On this day in ...
... 1879 (130 yeas ago today), Annie Kenney (right) was born near Oldham, England, the 5th of 9 children. At age 10 she began the life of a "half-timer," working in a cotton mill in the morning and attending school in the afternoon; by age 13 she was a full-time machine operator at the mill. (photo credit) She began organizing early on, distributing to the girls with whom she toiled literature that ranged from Socialist newspapers to poetry. As depicted in this prior IntLawGrrls post, by 1905 Kenney had joined up with suffragist Christabel Pankhurst and the new Women’s Social and Political Union; Kenney was "the only working-class woman to become part of the senior hierarchy" of the mostly middle-class WPSU. Pankhurst wrote of Kenney:

'Evening by evening, after her day’s work, and on Saturday afternoons, she would take train to Manchester, make for our house and join in whatever work needed doing for the cause ...'

At an October 13, 1905, public rally for Liberal Party candidates -- among them Winston Churchill, who'd later switch parties and twice serve as Britain's Prime Minister --Kenney uttered these words of challenge:

'If you are elected, will you do your best to make women’s suffrage a government measure?'

Ignored, Kenney, Pankhurst, and their colleagues "unfurled a banner with the slogan 'Votes for women.'" Tossed out of the meeting, eventually they were charged with assault based on a police officer's claim that "the women had kicked and spat at him." (A copyright photo of Kenney being dragged away, at one of many such events, is here.) After a raucous trial, also discussed in this post, the women served sentences of several days in Strangeways Gaol. Kenney, who lost interest in politics during World War I, died in 1953.

(Prior September 13 posts are here and here.)

On November 28

On this day ...
... 1843 (165 years ago today), as described at the website of the Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization, the governments of Britain and France entered into this Anglo-Franco proclamation regarding what are now known as the Hawaiian Islands (left):

Her Majesty the Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, and His Majesty the King of the French, taking into consideration the existence in the Sandwich Islands of a government capable of providing for the regularity of its relations with foreign nations, have thought it right to engage, reciprocally, to consider the Sandwich Islands as an Independent State, and never to take possession, neither directly or under the title of Protectorate, or under any other form, of any part of the territory of which they are composed.

The 2 thus officially gave recognition to the Hawaiian Kingdom, which then "entered into treaties with the major nations of the world and ... established over ninety legations and consulates in multiple seaports and cities." Observance of the date as a national independence holiday, Ka La Ku'oko'a, was suspended after U.S. intervention a half-century later, but has been revived in recent years.
... 1943 (65 years ago today), amid World War II, leaders of 3 Allied states met in Tehran, Iran. U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, and Soviet Premier Josef Stalin (right) discussed the waging of the war and sketched postwar plans. They would issue a Declaration at the end of the conference on December 1.

On September 19

On this day in ...

... 1946, in a speech at the University of Zürich in Switzerland (left), on the subject of European integration, Winston Churchill, the once and future British Prime Minister, proposed to avoid European wars like those of the 1st half of the 20th century by means of what he called a "sovereign remedy":

[T]o recreate the European fabric, or as much of it as we can, and to provide it with a structure under which it can dwell in peace, in safety, and in freedom. We must build a kind of United States of Europe. In this way only will hundreds of millions of toilers be able to regain the simple joys and hopes which make life worth living. The process is simple. All that is needed is the resolve of hundreds of millions of men and women to do right instead of wrong and to gain as their reward blessing instead of cursing.

(photo credit)

... 1994, U.S. troops landed in Haiti to secure the return of Jean-Bertrand Aristide, who'd been elected President in 1991 but gone into exile following a military coup. Aristide would serve till 1996 as the President of Haiti (in red on map at right), be elected again in 2000, and then, in 2004, go into exile in South Africa.

On August 14

On this day in ...
... 1908 (100 years ago today), in Folkestone, England, 18-year-old Nellie Jarman won the 1st-ever international beauty contest. She was part of "a field that included six English, three French, one Irish, one Austrian and 'a number of fisher girls from Boulogne.'"
... 1941, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt (l to r below; photo credit) signed the Atlantic Charter. The document, a precursor of the United Nations, set out principles on which the 2 countries were combatting the Axis powers. Their points included the following excerpts:

► no aggrandizement, territorial or other;
► no territorial changes that do not accord with the freely expressed wishes of the peoples concerned;
► sovereign rights and self government restored to those who have been forcibly deprived of them;
► further the enjoyment by all States, great or small, victor or vanquished, of access, on equal terms, to the trade and to the raw materials of the world which are needed for their economic prosperity;
► fullest collaboration between all nations in the economic field with the object of securing, for all, improved labor standards, economic advancement and social security;
► peace which will afford all nations the means of dwelling in safety within their own boundaries, and which will afford assurance that all the men in all lands may live out their lives in freedom from fear and want;
► enable all men to traverse the high seas and oceans without hindrance;
► abandonment of the use of force.

On August 9

On this day in ...

... 1945, the United States dropped a 2d atomic bomb on a Japanese city. Dubbed "'Fat Man" in a reference to Winston Churchill," Britain's Prime Minister, this bomb destroyed nearly "30% of Nagasaki, including almost all the industrial district." As for casualties, "nearly 74,000 were killed and a similar number injured." It came 3 days after the 1st atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima. (credit for before and after aerial photos of Nagasaki)

... 1956, more than 20,000 women marched through Pretoria to protest the pass laws -- legislation that required blacks to carry passports to enter areas the apartheid government had set aside for whites. Leaders of the multiracial demonstration included Lilian Ngoyi, Helen Joseph, Albertina Sisulu, and Sophia Williams-De Bruyn. The event is commemorated every year on this date, as National Women's Day in South Africa. (photo credit)