November 11, 1918: The Armistice Ends World War I

November 11, 1918: At the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month, an armistice was declared, ending what was then called "The Great War," or "The World War," and nicknamed "The War to End All Wars."

It wasn't, of course. Over the next 4 years, there would be, or already were, wars of independence going on in Ireland, Poland, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia; wars fought by Poland against both Russia and Ukraine; and civil wars in Germany, Russia, Finland, Turkey and Ireland.

And then, in 1936, there was the Spanish Civil War, in which Germany and Italy aided their fellow fascists in taking over Spain. And when the fascists weren't stopped, it meant that this war was a warmup: There would be a World War II.

The German Empire, as a country, was on the verge of collapse. The Army was besieged with several mutinies. Civilians were starving. On November 9, Kaiser Wilhelm II abdicated his throne, and fled to the neutral Netherlands. (November 9 has become "Germany's Day of Destiny": In the years to come, on that date would came the Beer Hall Putsch in 1923, Kristallnacht in 1938, and the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989.)

The Armistice was signed in a train car in Compiègne, France. The site is now known as the Glade of the Armistice. When the Nazis conquered France's Third Republic in World War II, which the Second Reich couldn't do in World War I, Adolf Hitler had the original train car found, brought back from Paris to the same location, and had the surrender signed in it. Then it was brought back to Berlin, put on display in a museum, and later destroyed in an Allied air raid. A replica now stands in the Glade.

The Republic of Poland was also founded on the day of the Armistice, with Russia having withdrawn, and the Germans having retreated from their formerly occupied territories. For the first time since the Third Partition in 1795, there was a country named Poland, not just a "Duchy of Poland" or a "Congress Poland." I have a separate entry for this event.

My father served in the U.S. Army during the Vietnam War, though not in Vietnam itself. Both of my grandfathers served in World War II, one in the Aleutian Islands of Alaska, the other with George S. Patton's 3rd Army in North Africa and Italy. I have no information about any of my 4 great-grandfathers in World War I, but I do know that, while all 4 were already in America at the time that it broke out on August 1, 1914, only 1 of them was both American-born and then of draft age. (Another was of draft age but not a U.S. citizen, and the other 2 were too old to be drafted.)

The last surviving American veteran of World War I was Army Corporal Frank Buckles of Walker, Missouri, who ended up serving in World War II, and becoming a prisoner of war. He lived until February 27, 2011, at age 110.

The last surviving veteran of any country was Florence Green of North London, a nurse in the Women's Royal Air Force, who lived until February 4, 2012, 95 years after the war's end.

Ever since the Armistice, every 11th of November, at 11:00 AM, London time, the British monarch, or another member of the royal family, has laid a wreath at the Cenotaph, near the Houses of Parliament in Westminster.

Every British soccer team, in their home game nearest but not after November 11, holds a minute's silence before kickoff. And everyone in the stadium honors it. Every player wears an emblem of a red poppy on their shirt, although some -- particularly players from Ireland, whose homeland was fighting a separate war for independence against their British colonizers at the time -- have controversially refused.

For many years, North London's Arsenal traveled to France, hit harder by the war than Britain was, and played a "friendly" against Racing Club Paris, which is no longer a major team. On November 11, 2011, the U.S. national team played France at the Stade de France in Paris, and lost 1-0.

In America, the tradition is for the President of the United States to lay a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia, across the Potomac River from Washington, D.C. Unless, of course, there is an anniversary commemoration in Paris, in which case, the President of France invites him to come and participate.

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

-- Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae, Canadian Expeditionary Force, M.D., May 3, 1915. He died -- not from combat injuries, but from meningitis, caught from one of his patients -- on January 28, 1918, 10 months before the war's end, at Boulogne-sur-Mer, France. He was 45 years old.

*

November 11, 1918 was a Monday. Baseball season was over. There was no NBA yet. The NHL season wouldn't start for another month. And there was no Monday Night Football, or even an NFL, back then. So there were no scores on this historic day.

The prominent people born on this day include comedian Stubby Kaye; Alabama politician and civil rights attorney Richmond Flowers; and Louise Tobin, a jazz singer, known for singing with the Benny Goodman Orchestra. Her hits included "I Didn't Know What Time It Was" and "There'll Be Some Changes Made." Once married to another bandleader, Harry James, she turns 104 on November 11, 2022. (UPDATE: She died on November 26, 2022.)

July 3, 1905: France Finally Separates Church and State

Émile Loubet

July 3, 1905: The Chamber of Deputies, the lower house of France's national legislature, passes a bill for the separation of church and state, 341 to 233. It becomes law in the nation's Third Republic, and remains so into its Fifth Republic.

This is bigger than it might appear to a 21st Century audience. It is often presumed that the French Revolution of 1789 to 1795 fully overturned the established order, known as the Ancien Régime. Certainly, there was a desire to overturn the Roman Catholic Church, as much as there was to overturn the royal House of Bourbon. Writer and philosopher Denis Diderot, who died a few years before the Revolution, is credited with saying, "Man will never be free until the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest."

But the Revolution fell into the Reign of Terror, and ultimately failed. The stated ideals of Liberté, égalité, fraternité -- liberty, equality and brotherhood --  were tossed aside for the dictatorship, and then the empire, of Napoleon Bonaparte.

This was followed by a conservative retrenchment, a new monarchy that teamed up with the Church to reassert the old values and turn back a few attempted revolutions, including the June Rebellion of 1832, the centerpiece of Victor Hugo's 1862 novel Les Misérables. This was followed by the Second Empire, run by Napoleon's grandnephew, Emperor Napoleon III, before it fell in the Franco-Prussian War in 1870. The Third Republic was subsequently founded.

The Dreyfus Affair that began in 1894 uncovered a considerable amount of anti-Semitism in France, particularly among the nation's Catholics. Finally, in 1905, President Émile Loubet wanted full separation. His popularity, having grown through his settling of the Dreyfus Affair and his diplomacy in building the Triple Entente with Britain and Russia, helped to pass it.

And so, 116 years after 1789, when France had its Revolution, and America's Bill of Rights enshrined freedom of religion into the First Amendment to its federal Constitution, France also had an official separation of church and state -- something that Canada took until 1982, with its Charter of Rights and Freedoms, to have; and that Britain still does not have, as it is officially tied to the Church of England. France has been a largely secular nation ever since, though Catholicism remains the leading religion.

Speaking of Canada: It has been noted that, due to its separation from France proper, the Canadian Province of Quebec, formerly known as New France, faced a tighter grip from the Church than did the "mother country." It would take until the "Quiet Revolution" of the 1960s for that grip to be broken.

This is not to say that the Catholic Church said, "Oh well, we lost this one. Let's move on." Hardly. On February 11, 1906, Pope Pius X wrote a papal open letter titled Vehementer Nos, which is Latin for "We strongly." Given that the Pope is, technically, the Church's monarch, he was speaking for the Church and using "the Royal We."

Pope Pius X

He wrote, "Our soul is full of sorrowful solicitude and Our heart overflows with grief... How, indeed, could it be otherwise, immediately after the promulgation of that law which, by sundering violently the old ties that linked your nation with the Apostolic See, creates for the Catholic Church in France a situation unworthy of her and ever to be lamented?"

He said the new law "must be deplored by all the right-minded." Why? Because it was "disastrous to society as it is to religion." He called it a "great calamity." He wrote, "That the State must be separated from the Church is a thesis absolutely false, a most pernicious error." And why is that? Because it was "a great injustice to God."

God's thoughts on the matter were not recorded by the media that existed at the time.

*

July 3, 1905 was a Monday. Johnny Gibson was born. From my original hometown of Bloomfield, New Jersey, he was a runner who competed in the 1928 Olympics in Amsterdam, although he did not win a medal. He later served as the longtime track & field coach at Seton Hall University, and lived to be 101 years old.

These baseball games were played that day:

* The New York Highlanders beat the Philadelphia Athletics, 5-0 at Hilltop Park in Upper Manhattan. Al Orth, a pitcher known as "The Curveless Wonder," pitched a 4-hit shutout. Willie Keeler went 3-for-4 with an RBI for the Highlanders, who became the New York Yankees in 1913.

* The New York Giants beat the Philadelphia Phillies, 9-1 at National League Park (later renamed Baker Bowl) in Philadelphia.

* The Brooklyn Superbas beat the Boston Beaneaters, 2-1 at Washington Park in Brooklyn. The Superbas became the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1911, and the Boston team became the Braves in 1912.

* The Boston Americans, forerunners of the Red Sox, beat the Washington Senators, 6-2 at the Huntington Avenue Grounds in Boston.

* The Pittsburgh Pirates beat the Cincinnati Reds, 4-3 at Exposition Park in Pittsburgh. Honus Wagner went 2-for-3 with a walk and an RBI.

* And the Chicago White Sox, the Cleveland Naps (forerunners of the Indians and the Guardians), the Detroit Tigers, the St. Louis Browns, the Chicago Cubs and the St. Louis Cardinals were not scheduled.

June 22, 1940: The Surrender of France's Third Republic

June 22, 1940: The French Third Republic and Nazi Germany sign an armistice, ending the Battle of France in World War II.

When Imperial Germany surrendered to France to end World War I, on November 11, 1918, it was in a Compagnie Internationale des Wagons-Lits railroad car, used by Marshal Ferdinand Foch, in the Forest of Compiègne.

German Chancellor Adolf Hitler had the original train car found, brought back from Paris to the same location, and had the surrender signed in it. Then it was brought back to Berlin, and put on display as a trophy in a museum.

This new armistice divided France into a Zone occupée in the north and west under the Military Administration in France, controlled from Paris by Nazi Germany; and a southern Zone libre, run by collaborators with the Nazis, in the city of Vichy, known as the Régime de Vichy, a.k.a. "Vichy France." Marshal Philippe Pétain, one of the aging heroes of the previous war, was installed as a puppet head of state.

The next day, Hitler himself visited Paris. The City of Love endured a visit from its conqueror, the Prophet of Hate. He enjoyed the visit as the conqueror of Paris, much as Otto von Bismarck had, 70 years earlier. Except, unlike the Iron Chancellor, Hitler fully intended to keep Paris, and all of France, for himself.

Supposedly, he wanted to dismantle the Eiffel Tower, and rebuild it in Berlin. Someone suggested it would be better to build a taller one from scratch. He agreed that this would be a better idea. As it turned out, neither was ever done.

At the time, anyone suggesting that, 5 years later, Western Europe would be free, Germany would be under the control of its enemies, and Hitler would be dead, would have been considered as crazy as Hitler was.

As the Allies were closing in in Spring 1945, the Nazis burned the Armistice car to prevent the Allies from retaking it; the restored French government had a replica built. It now stands at the original's location, known as the Glade of the Armistice.

On October 13, 1946, a new constitution was ratified, forming the French Fourth Republic. It was replaced by the French Fifth Republic in 1958.

*

June 22, 1940 was a Saturday. These baseball games were played:

* The New York Yankees lost to the Detroit Tigers, 3-2 at Briggs Stadium (later Tiger Stadium) in Detroit. Spurgeon "Spud" Chandler and Tommy Bridges dueled for 8 innings. But Yankee manager Joe McCarthy brought Oral Hildebrand in to pitch the bottom of the 9th, and he gave up a double to Hank Greenberg, and intentional walk to Bruce Campbell (no relation to the later Evil Dead actor of the same name), and a game-winning single to Pinky Higgins.

Greenberg went 2-for-4. Joe Gordon hit a home run for the Yankees. Joe DiMaggio went 1-for-3 with a walk and an RBI.

* The New York Giants lost to the Cincinnati Reds, 3-1 at the Polo Grounds. Ernie Lombardi went 3-for-4 with a home run and 2 RBIs. Mel Ott went 0-for-3.

* The Brooklyn Dodgers lost to the Pittsburgh Pirates, 7-2 at Ebbets Field. Elbie Fletcher hit 2 home runs for the Bucs, and Vince DiMaggio (Joe's brother) hit 1.

* The St. Louis Cardinals beat the Boston Bees, 9-2 at National League Park in Boston. This was the last of 5 seasons of the Boston team's rebrand. The next year, they would go back to the team and ballpark names they had until 1935: "Boston Braves" and "Braves Field."

* The Chicago Cubs beat the Philadelphia Phillies, 10-2 at Shibe Park in Philadelphia.

* The Cleveland Indians beat the Boston Red Sox, 7-5 at League Park in Cleveland. Mel Harder outpitched Jim Bagby Jr., who, the next year, would be traded to the Indians, for whom his father, Jim Bagby Sr., played. Lou Boudreau went 4-for-5 with 3 RBIs. For the Red Sox, Ted Williams went 2-for-5.

* The Washington Senators beat the St. Louis Browns, 11-10 at Sportsman's Park in St. Louis.

* And the Chicago White Sox and the Philadelphia Athletics were rained out at Comiskey Park in Chicago. The game was made up as part of a doubleheader on September 12. The A's swept, 1-0 and 4-3. In the opener, Bill Dietrich pitched a 4-hit shutout, outpitching Buck Ross. The only run came in the bottom of the 8th inning, when Taffy Wright singled Moose Solters home. Ken Silvestri won the nightcap with a home run in the bottom of the 9th.

June 14, 1940: The Fall of Paris

June 14, 1940: The government of France flees the capital of Paris, for Bordeaux, just ahead of the advancing Heer, the army of Nazi Germany. The City of Light has fallen to the forces of darkness. The Third Republic is dead.

France, along with its ally Britain, had been at war with the Nazis since September 3, 1939, when the Nazis invaded Poland. For a while, it was called a sitzkrieg, a "sit-down war" or a "phony war," because nothing seemed to be happening.

But on May 10, 1940, the blitzkrieg, or "lightning war," began. German forces invaded the Low Countries: Tiny Luxembourg was conquered by the end of the 1st day, the Netherlands fell on May 17, and Belgium was conquered on May 28.

With those events, the British policy of appeasement saw its failure completed. Neville Chamberlain resigned as Prime Minister, and Winston Churchill was given the job. On May 13, he gave his first speech to Parliament, saying, "I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat."

On that same day, the Germans faced the supposedly unbreachable Maginot Line at Sedan, the site of their greatest victory in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870, and simply went around it, over ground the French thought couldn't be gone over. The Maginot Line proved to be the most overrated thing since the "unsinkable" cruiseliner RMS Titanic, 28 years earlier.

On May 20, the Nazis opened their largest concentration camp, near Oświęcim, Poland. In German, the town's name becomes "Auschwitz." Their "Final Solution" was still a year and a half away from beginning. On May 26, the 300,000-man British Expeditionary Force began evacuating from France at the port of Dunkirk.

On June 3, The Nazi Air Force, the Luftwaffe, bombed Paris for the 1st time. On June 4, the Dunkirk evacuation was completed. Churchill told Parliament that it didn't matter when, or how, the Nazis came for Britain: 

Even though large tracts of Europe and many old and famous States have fallen, or may fall, into the grip of the Gestapo and all the odious apparatus of Nazi rule, we shall not flag or fail.

We shall go on to the end. We shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be.

We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills. We shall never surrender. And if, which I do not for a moment believe, this island or a large part of it were subjugated and starving, then our Empire beyond the seas, armed and guarded by the British Fleet, would carry on the struggle, until, in God's good time, the New World, with all its power and might, steps forth to the rescue and the liberation of the old.

The Nazi advance continued. On June 7, the royal family of Norway evacuated their country. And on June 13, knowing that the Nazis were now close, the French government declared Paris to be an open city. They fled the next day.

The bad news continued. Also on June 14, on the Eastern Front, the Soviet Union annexed the Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. While decrying the "imperialism" of the West. They would hold on to those "republics" for half a century.

It was a great day for Adolf Hitler. It was a great day for Joseph Stalin. It was a great day for the concept of dictatorship in general. It was a horrible day for civilization. It might have been the worst day in human history.

France's humiliation continued. On June 15, the fortress of Verdun, which had famously refused to surrender in World War I, surrendered. On June 16, Philippe Pétain, known as the Lion of Verdun for his refusal to surrender at that place and at that time (declaring, "They shall not pass!"), accepted the post of France's head of state, and began negotiating with the Nazis.

On June 18, General Charles de Gaulle began a series of radio broadcasts from exile in London, calling on French people, wherever they were in the world, to join him in resistance. He said, "France has lost a battle. But France has not lost the war."

Also on June 18, Churchill spoke to the world from Parliament:

The Battle of France is over. The Battle of Britain is about to begin. Upon this battle depends the survival of Christian civilization. Upon it depends our own British life, and the long continuity of our institutions and our Empire. The whole fury and might of the enemy must very soon be turned on us. Hitler knows that he will have to break us in this island or lose the war. If we can stand up to him, all Europe may be freed and the life of the world may move forward into broad, sunlit uplands.

But if we fail, then the whole world, including the United States, including all that we have known and cared for, will sink into the abyss of a new dark age made more sinister, and perhaps more protracted, by the lights of perverted science. Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties, and so bear ourselves, that if the British Empire and its Commonwealth last for a thousand years, men will still say, "This was their finest hour."

On June 23, Nazi Chancellor Adolf Hitler visited Paris, copying the visit of Kaiser Wilhelm I in 1871, and achieving what Kaiser Wilhelm II could not do from 1914 to 1918.

The Battle of Britain began on July 10. No hour in the war seemed to remain the darkest for long.

The film Casablanca dramatized the events of the fall of Paris in a flashback sequence. And there was this sequence in the film's "present," in December 1941, right before the U.S. entered the war, in the title city, in the French colony of Morocco:

Major Heinrich Strasser (played by Conrad Veidt): Are you one of those people who cannot imagine the Germans in their beloved Paris?

Rick Blaine (Humphrey Bogart): It's not exactly MY beloved Paris.

Colonel Heinze (Richard Ryen): Can you imagine us in London?

Rick, knowing they haven't gotten there yet: When you get there, ask me!

Captain Louis Renault (Claude Rains): Hm! Diplomats!

Strasser, feeling full of himself: How about New York?

Rick: Well, there are certain sections of New York, Major, that I wouldn't advise you to invade.

On August 25, 1944, after 4 years, 2 months and 15 days of the city under Nazi control, the Allies liberated Paris. On April 30, 1945, Hitler killed himself. On May 8, the Nazis surrendered.

*

June 14, 1940 was a Friday. It was the off-season for the NFL and the NHL, and the NBA had not yet been founded. But there was a full slate of Major League Baseball games that day:

* The New York Yankees beat the St. Louis Browns, 12-3 at Sportsman's Park in St. Louis. Charlie Keller hit 2 home runs in support of Monte Pearson.

* The Brooklyn Dodgers beat the Cincinnati Reds, 2-0 at Ebbets Field. Luke Hamlin pitched a 2-hit shutout.

* The New York Giants beat the Pittsburgh Pirates, 8-6 at the Polo Grounds.

* The Boston Bees beat the Chicago Cubs, 4-2 at Braves Field in Boston. This would be the last of the Boston National League team's 5 seasons under the Bees name, as it just didn't catch on, and they once again became the Braves for 1941.

* The St. Louis Cardinals beat the Philadelphia Phillies, 6-2 at Shibe Park in Philadelphia.

* The Cleveland Indians beat the Philadelphia Athletics, 8-0 at League Park in Cleveland. Johnny Allen pitched a 2-hit shutout.

* The Detroit Tigers beat the Washington Senators, 10-1 at Briggs Stadium (later Tiger Stadium) in Detroit.

* And the Boston Red Sox beat the Chicago White Sox, 5-1 at Comiskey Park in Chicago.

May 28, 1871: The Fall of the Paris Commune

May 28, 1871: The Paris Commune, the world's first attempt at a Communist government, falls.

During the Franco-Prussian War of 1870 to 1871, the French National Guard had defended the capital of Paris, and working-class radicalism grew among its soldiers. Following the establishment of the Third Republic in September 1870, and the complete defeat of the French Army by the Germans, soldiers of the National Guard seized control of the city on March 18, 1871. They killed two French army generals and refused to accept the authority of the Third Republic, instead attempting to establish an independent government.

The Commune governed Paris for two months, establishing policies that tended toward a progressive, anti-religious system of social democracy, including the separation of church and state, self-policing, the remission of rent, the abolition of child labor, and the right of employees to take over an enterprise that had been deserted by its owner. Feminist, socialist, communist and anarchist currents played important roles in the Commune. However, the various Communards had little more than two months to achieve their respective goals.

The national French Army suppressed the Commune at the end of May during La semaine sanglante ("The Bloody Week"), beginning on May 21. The national forces killed in battle or quickly executed between 10,000 and 20,000 Communards.

In its final days, the Commune executed the Archbishop of Paris, Georges Darboy, and about one hundred hostages, mostly gendarmes and priests. A total of 43,522 Communards were taken prisoner, including 1,054 women. More than half were quickly released. Fifteen thousand were tried, 13,500 of whom were found guilty. Ninety-five were sentenced to death, 251 to forced labor, and 1,169 to deportation, mostly to France's South Pacific colony of New Caledonia. Thousands of other Commune members, including several of the leaders, fled abroad, mostly to England, Belgium and Switzerland. All the prisoners and exiles received pardons in 1880 and could return home, where some resumed political careers in the now-firmly-established Third Republic.

Debates over the policies and outcome of the Commune had significant influence on the ideas of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, authors of The Communist Manifesto in 1848. Engels described the Commune as follows: "Of late, the Social-Democratic philistine has once more been filled with wholesome terror at the words: Dictatorship of the Proletariat. Well and good, gentlemen, do you want to know what this dictatorship looks like? Look at the Paris Commune. That was the Dictatorship of the Proletariat."

In America, the Republican Party's hatred of Communism long predated Senator Joe McCarthy in the early 1950s. As early as 1896, while Police Commissioner of New York City, Theodore Roosevelt -- 12 years old at the time of the Commune -- gave campaign speeches for Presidential candidate William McKinley, suggesting that McKinley's Democratic opponent, William Jennings Bryan, and his populist ideas were comparable to the Paris Commune. 

Adrien Lejeune was the last surviving Communard, having lived until 1942, dying under the Nazi occupation.

The most lasting legacy of the Commune is "The Internationale," a song written in June 1871 by Eugène Pottier, to be sung to the tune of the French national anthem, "La Marseillaise." In 1888, Pierre De Geyter wrote its more familiar backing music. With such memorable lines as, "Arise, ye wretched of the Earth," and, "We have been nought, we shall be all," it has been the anthem of leftist movements ever since.

*

May 28, 1871 was a Sunday. This was the 1st season of the 1st professional baseball league, the National Association. However, it was then considered taboo to play sports on Sundays, and some States prohibited it by law. Therefore, there were no games on this historic day.

January 18, 1871: The Unification of Germany

Kaiser Wilhelm I

January 18, 1871: The member states of the North German Confederation and the south German states, aside from Austria, unite into a single nation-state, known as the German Empire. It would later be retroactively called the Second Reich. (The Holy Roman Empire, of AD 962 to 1806, was the First Reich.)

The Empire is proclaimed not in Germany, but in conquered territory: The Hall of Mirrors at the Palace of Versailles, outside Paris, France.

Wilhelm Friedrich Ludwig, King of Prussia, is declared Wilhelm I, Deutscher Kaiser – Emperor of Germany. (Like the Russian term "Czar," the German term "Kaiser” is derived from the ancient Roman term "Caesar." We pronounce it "SEE-zer," but the Romans pronounced it "KIGH-zer.") The Constitution of the German Confederation comes into effect, abolishing all restrictions on Jewish marriage, choice of occupation, place of residence, and property ownership.

Otto von Bismarck

Otto Eduard Leopold, Prince of Bismarck, Duke of Lauenburg, was proclaimed the 1st Chancellor of Germany. "The Iron Chancellor" would serve for 19 years, outlasting Kaiser Wilhelm I and his son Kaiser Friedrich I, before being dismissed by Friedrich's son, Kaiser Wilhelm II. Thanks to the ambitions and incompetence of Wilhelm II, the Empire ended after only 48 years.

France replaced its Second Empire with its Third Republic. That would be ended in 1940, by Germany's Third Reich.

*

January 18, 1871 was a Wednesday. The only professional team sport yet to have taken hold in America was baseball, and this was the off-season. So there were no scores on this historic day.