The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 17

Charles F. (Charles Francis) Horne, John [Editor] Rudd, Rossiter Johnson

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• Publié par: ormu
• Publié le: 08 décembre 2010
• Nombre de lectures: 74
• Langue: English

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The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Great Events
by Famous Historians, Vol. 17, by Charles Francis
Horne
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Title: The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol.
17
Author: Charles Francis Horne
Release Date: November 19, 2003 [EBook #10128]
Language: English
*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG
EBOOK GREAT EVENTS 17 ***
Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Keith M. Eckrich,
Tom Allen and the Online Distributed Proofreading
Team.VOL. XVII
THE GREAT EVENTS BY FAMOUS HISTORIANS
A comprehensive and readable account of the
world's history, emphasizing the more important
events, and presenting these as complete
narratives in the master-words of the most eminent
historians.
Non-sectarian, non-partisan and non-sectional.
On the plan evolved from a consensus of opinions
gathered from the most distinguished scholars of
America and Europe, including brief introductions
by specialists to connect and explain the
celebrated narratives, arranged chronologically,
with thorough indices, bibliographies, chronologies,
and courses of reading.
Editor-in-Chief: Rossiter Johnson, LL.D.
Associate Editors: Charles F. Horne, Ph.D. and
John Rudd, LL.D.
With a staff of specialistsCONTENTS of VOLUME XVII
AN OUTLINE NARRATIVE OF THE GREAT
EVENTS, Charles F. Horne
(1844) THE INVENTION OF THE TELEGRAPH,
Alonzo B. Cornell
(1846) REPEAL OF THE ENGLISH CORN LAWS,
Justin McCarthy
(1846) THE DISCOVERY OF NEPTUNE, Sir Oliver
Lodge
(1846) THE ACQUISITION OF CALIFORNIA,
Henry B. Dawson
(1847) THE FALL OF ABD-EL-KADER, Edgar
Sanderson
(1847) THE MEXICAN WAR, John Bonner
(1847) FAMINE IN IRELAND, Sir Charles Gavan
Duffy
(1848) MIGRATIONS OF THE MORMONS,
Thomas L. Kane
(1848) THE REFORMS OF PIUS IX; HIS FLIGHT
FROM ROME, Francis Bowen
(1848) THE REVOLUTION OF FEBRUARY IN
FRANCE, François P.G. Guizot and Mme. Guizot
de Witt(1848) REVOLUTIONARY MOVEMENTS IN
GERMAN, C. Edmund Maurice
(1848) THE REVOLT IN HUNGARY, Arminius
Vembery
(1848) THE DISCOVERY OF GOLD IN
CALIFORNIA, John S. Hittell
(1849) THE RISE AND FALL OF THE ROMAN
REPUBLIC, Jessie White Mario
(1849) LIVINGSTONE'S AFRICAN DISCOVERIES,
David Livingstone and Thomas Hughes
(1851) THE COUP D'ETAT OF LOUIS
NAPOLEON, Alexis de Tocqueville
(1851) THE DISCOVERY OF GOLD IN
AUSTRALIA, Edward Jenks
(1854) THE RISE OF THE REPUBLICAN PARTY,
Abraham Lincoln
(1854) THE OPENING OF JAPAN, Matthew C.
Perry
(1855) THE CAPTURE OF SEBASTOPOL, Sir
Edward B. Hamley and Sir Evelyn Wood
(1857) THE INDIAN MUTINY, J. Talboys Wheeler
(1859) THE BATTLES OF MAGENTA and
SOLFERINO, Pietro Orsi(1859) DARWIN PUBLISHES HIS ORIGIN OF
SPECIES, Charles Robert Darwin
(1860) THE KINGDOM OF ITALY ESTABLISHED,
Giuseppe Garibaldi and John
Webb Probyn
(1861) THE EMANCIPATION OF RUSSIAN
SERFS, Andrew D. White and Nikolai
Turgenieff
(1844-1861) UNIVERSAL CHRONOLOGY, Daniel
Edwin WheelerILLUSTRATIONS:
The mutinous Sepoys blown from the mouths of
cannon by the English at
Cawnpore, Painting by Basil Verestchagin.
Charge of the Six Hundred at Balaklava, Painting
by Stanley Berkeley.
AN OUTLINE NARRATIVE (Tracing briefly the
causes, connections, and consequences of the
great events.)
THE TRIUMPH OF DEMOCRACY, Charles F.
Horne
In the year 1844 electricity, last and mightiest of
the servants of man, was seized and harnessed
and made to do practical work. A telegraph line
was erected between Washington and Baltimore.
[Footnote: See Invention of the Telegraph.] In 1846
mathematics achieved perhaps the greatest
triumph of abstract science. It pointed out where in
the heavens there should be a planet, never before
known by man. Strong telescopes were directed to
the spot and the planet was discovered. [Footnote:
See The Discovery of Neptune.] Man had found
guides more subtle and more accurate than hisown five ancient senses. The age of figures, the
age of electricity, began.
The changes were symbolic, perhaps, of the more
rapid rate at which the forces of society were soon
to move. Over all Europe and America great
events were shaping themselves with lightning
speed. Tremendous changes political and
economic, social and scientific, were hurrying to an
issue.
THE MEXICAN WAR
In America the Mexican War, vast in its territorial
results, still more so in its effect upon society,
broke out in 1846 over the admission of Texas to
the United States. The superior fighting strength of
the more northern race was at once made evident.
Small bodies of United States troops repeatedly
defeated far larger numbers of the Mexican militia.
The entire northern half of Mexico was soon
occupied by the enemy. Expeditions, half of
conquest, half of exploration, seized New Mexico,
California, and all the vast region which now
composes the southwestern quarter of the United
States. [Footnote: See The Acquisition of
California.]
Farther south, however, the more populous region
wherein lay the chief Mexican cities remained
resolute in its defiance; and the Washington
Government despatched against it that truly
marvellous expedition under General Scott. Theheroisms and the triumphs of Scott's spectacular
campaign deserve to be sung in epic form. The
dubious justice of the war was forgotten in its
overwhelming success. From the captured
Mexican capital the conquerors dictated such
peace terms as added to the United States almost
half the territory of her helpless neighbor. Europe
at last awoke to the fact that there was but one
Power on the American continent, a power with
which even the mightiest monarch could ill afford to
quarrel. [Footnote: See The Mexican War.] The
very year in which the final treaty of peace was
signed (1848) the Mormons, a religious sect,
finding themselves unwelcome and out of place in
Illinois, moved westward in a body. Enduring every
hardship, every privation, perishing by hundreds in
the trackless deserts, captured and put to torture
by the Indians, they still persevered in their
migration, and, halting at last in the valleys of Utah,
began the settlement of the Central West.
[Footnote: See Migrations of the Mormons.]
Also in that same year, gold was discovered in
California. Thousands of eager adventurers flocked
thither, and thus the vast wilderness that Mexico
had lightly surrendered had hardly become United
States territory ere it was filled with people, not
listless semi-savages, but eager, energetic men,
resolute and resourceful. The West joined the
march of progress; it doubled the wealth and
prowess of the East. [Footnote: See Discovery of
Gold in California.]THE UPRISING OF THE PEOPLES
Important indeed was that year of 1848,
noteworthy above most in the story of mankind. In
Europe it witnessed the greatest of all the
outbursts of democracy. The common people,
easily suppressed by the armies of the Holy
Alliance in 1820, had been subdued with difficulty in
1830. Now in 1848 they rose again. Their gradual
accumulation of power and passion would soon be
irresistible. Even the petted armies of autocracy
became possessed with the new belief in
mankind's brotherhood.
This time the outburst began in Italy. Mazzini, the
celebrated founder of the political society "Young
Italy," inspired his countrymen with something of
his own ardent devotion to the cause of liberty and
Italian union. Then in 1846 Pius IX, last of the
heads of the Roman Church to possess a temporal
authority as well, ascended the throne of the Papal
dominions. The new Pope was in sympathy with
the democratic spirit of the times, and he
established in his own States a constitutional
government, granting to his people more and more
of power as he judged them fitted for it. Soon,
however, the most radical elements asserted
themselves in the new Government. All that the
Pope could find it in his heart to grant, seemed to
them not half enough. The mighty spirit which he
had let loose broke from his control. Before the
close of 1848 there were riots, fighting in the
streets; the Pope's chief counsellor was murdered,
and he himself had to flee by night in secrecy, a