LEGIONS AND TELEPHONES

The French Foreign Legion was created by Louis Philippe, the King of the French, on 10^th  March 1831. The direct reason was that foreigners were forbidden to serve in the French Army after the 1830 July Revolution (which became known as the July Monarchy) so the foreign legion was created to allow the government a way around this restriction. The purpose of the foreign legion was to remove disruptive elements from society and put them to use fighting the enemies of France. Recruits included failed revolutionaries from the rest of Europe, soldiers from the disbanded foreign regiments, and troublemakers in general, both foreign and French. Algeria was designated as the foreign legion's home.

The foreign legion was primarily used, as part of the Armée d’Afrique, to protect and expand the French colonial empire during the 19th century, but it also fought in almost all French wars including the Franco Prussian War and both World Wars. The Foreign Legion has remained an important part of the French Army, surviving three Republics, The Second French Empire, two World Wars, the rise and fall of mass conscript armies, the dismantling of the French colonial empire and the French loss of the Foreign Legion's base, Algeria.

On 10^th March 1876, three days after his patent was issued, Alexander Graham Bell succeeded in getting his telephone to work, using a liquid transmitter. Vibration of the diaphragm caused a needle to vibrate in the water, varying the electrical resistance in the circuit. When Bell spoke the famous sentence "Mr Watson—Come here—I want to see you" into the liquid transmitter, Watson, listening at the receiving end in an adjoining room, heard the words clearly.

Strowger

                                                                                                                               Almon Brown Strowger, an undertaker in Topeka, Kansas,  gave his name to the electromechanical telephone exchange technology that his invention and patent inspired. His patent application identifies him as being a resident of Kansas City, Missouri on 10^th March, 1891.

According to legend, Almon Strowger was motivated to invent an automatic telephone exchange after having difficulties with the local telephone operators, where the wife of a competitor was one of them. He was said to be convinced that she, as one of the manual telephone exchange operators was sending calls "to the undertaker" to her husband, who ran a competing undertaker business.

He first conceived his invention in 1888, and patented the automatic telephone exchange on 10^th March 1891. It is reported that he initially constructed a model of his invention from a round collar box and some straight pins.

MARRIAGE - THE COURT - PUBLIC OPINION

The 9^th March events of which more later:

On this day in 1796 Napoléon Bonaparte married Josephine de Beauharnais.

On the 9^th March 1841, the United States Supreme Court ruled that the captive Africans who had seized control of the ship carrying them had been taken into slavery illegally.

United States v. Libellants and Claimants of the Schooner Amistad, 40 U.S. 518 (1841)

"Upon the whole, our opinion is, that the decree of the circuit court, affirming that of the district court, ought to be affirmed, except so far as it directs the negroes to be delivered to the president, to be transported to Africa, in pursuance of the act of the 3rd of March 1819; and as to this, it ought to be reversed: and that the said negroes be declared to be free, and be dismissed from the custody of the court, and go without delay"

On the 9^th March 1954 CBS television broadcast the “See It Now” episode ‘ A Report on Senator Joseph McCarthy” by Edward R. Murrow.

These are the closing remarks of that programme.

"No one familiar with the history of this country can deny that congressional committees are useful. It is necessary to investigate before legislating, but the line between investigating and persecuting is a very fine one and the junior Senator from Wisconsin has stepped over it repeatedly. His primary achievement has been in confusing the public mind, as between the internal and the external threats of Communism. We must not confuse dissent with disloyalty. We must remember always that accusation is not proof and that conviction depends upon evidence and due process of law. We will not walk in fear, one of another. We will not be driven by fear into an age of unreason, if we dig deep in our history and our doctrine, and remember that we are not descended from fearful men -- not from men who feared to write, to speak, to associate and to defend causes that were, for the moment, unpopular.

This is no time for men who oppose Senator McCarthy's methods to keep silent, or for those who approve. We can deny our heritage and our history, but we cannot escape responsibility for the result. There is no way for a citizen of a republic to abdicate his responsibilities. As a nation we have come into our full inheritance at a tender age. We proclaim ourselves, as indeed we are, the defenders of freedom, wherever it continues to exist in the world, but we cannot defend freedom abroad by deserting it at home.

The actions of the junior Senator from Wisconsin have caused alarm and dismay amongst our allies abroad, and given considerable comfort to our enemies. And whose fault is that? Not really his. He didn't create this situation of fear; he merely exploited it -- and rather successfully. Cassius was right. "The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves."

Good night, and good luck."

A SHORT RÉSUMÉ OF SYRIAN POLITICS

The 8^th of March Revolution, also referred to the 1963 March Revolution, was a coup which followed a successful Ba’athist coup d’état in Iraq on 8th February 1963. The Iraqi Ba’ath took power after violently overthrowing nationalist Iraqi military officer Abd al-Karim Qasim and quashing communist-led resistance. Qasim was given a short trial and he was quickly shot. Later, footage of his execution was broadcast to prove he was dead. This coup has been reported to have been carried out with the backing of the British government and the American CIA.

Salah al-Din al Bitar

In March 1963, the Syrian party’s military committee succeeded in persuading Nasserist and independent officers to make common cause with it, and successfully carried out a military coup on the 8^th March. A National Revolutionary Command Council took control and assigned itself legislative power; it appointed Salah al-Din al Bitar as head of a "national front" government. The Ba'ath participated in this government along with the Arab Nationalist Movement, the United Arab Front and the Socialist Unity Movement.

As historian Hanna Batatu notes, this took place without the fundamental disagreement over immediate or "considered" reunification having been resolved. The Ba'ath moved to consolidate its power within the new regime, purging Nasserist officers in April. Subsequent disturbances led to the fall of the al-Bitar government, and in the aftermath of Jasim Alwan’s failed Nasserist coup in July, the Ba'ath monopolized power.

About 800 people were reported killed during the takeover and another 20 were executed shortly afterwards.

In 1966, another military coup was carried out by neo-Ba'athist party members. As a result of the overthrow, the party's historical founders fled the country and spent the rest of their lives in exile. The overthrow also created a permanent schism between the Syrian and Iraqi branches of the party.

The 1970 Syrian Corrective Revolution, referred to as the Syrian Corrective Movement, was a military-pragmatist faction's takeover within the Ba’ath Party regime of Syria on 13 November 1970, bringing Hafez al-Assad to power. Hafez ibn 'Ali ibn Sulayman al-Assad or more commonly Hafez al-Assad was the President of Syria for three decades. His rule brought changes, including the 1973 constitution which stated that it guaranteed women's "equal status in society".(One sees precious little of that)  Assad attempted to industrialize the country, and it was opened up to foreign markets. He invested in infrastructure, education, medicine, literacy and urban construction. As a result of the discovery of oil, the economy expanded. On the other hand, he also drew criticism for repression of his own people, in particular for ordering the 1982 Hama massacre, which has been described as "the single deadliest act by any Arab government against its own people in the modern Middle East"; as well as others such as the April 1981 Hama massacre (not to be confused with the 1982 event), the Tadmor Prison massacre (June 1980), the Siege of Aleppo (July 1980), Tel al-Zaatar massacre (August 1976) and the 13 October massacre when hundreds of Lebanese soldiers were executed after they surrendered to Syrian forces. Additionally, Human Rights groups have detailed thousands of extrajudicial executions he committed against opponents of his regime.

It should be noted that on 21^st July 1980 Salah ad-Din al-Bitar (see above) was shot dead in Paris. The identity of his actual killer was never discovered, but it was reported that Hafez al Assad  had ordered the assassination.

Hafez

Bashar

He was succeeded by his son Bashar al-Assad, current president, in 2000. When the elder Assad died in 2000, Bashar was appointed leader of the Ba'ath Party and the Army, and was elected president unopposed in what the regime claimed to be a massive popular support (97.2% of the votes), after the Majlis Al Sha’ab (Parliament) swiftly voted to lower the minimum age for candidates from 40 to 34 (Assad's age when he was elected). On 27 May 2007, Bashar was approved as president for another seven-year term, with the official result of 97.6% of the votes in a referendum without another candidate.

Let us not forget however that, back in 1963, the Ba’athists were supported by the British Government and the CIA. That support no doubt continued for some time. So who is responsible for all this, and is it any wonder, given the track record of Syrian politics that the present Syrian Government behaves as it does.

The 8^th of March also marks a couple of openings:

On the 8^th March 1957 Egypt re-opened the Suez Canal after the Suez Crisis.

On the 8^th March 1974 Charles de Gaulle Airport opened in Paris, France.