Hollow Leg History | What Happened on This Date, October 11?

Hollow Leg Podcast

1809

Famous explorer Meriwether Lewis dies under mysterious circumstances in the early hours of the morning after stopping for the night at Grinder’s Tavern along the Natchez Trace in Tennessee. Bankrupt and in debt, unmarried, his journals of the expedition unpublished, Lewis’s life was a shambles. It was all quite a comedown from the heroic expedition. Most recent historians have concluded that Lewis’ death was a suicide brought on by deep depression and the heavy weight of worries he bore.

1899

Second Boer War Begins. The almost 3-year long conflict was fought between British troops and the Boers from the Transvaal and Orange Free State. The war began as a result of disagreements between the two sides over the ownership of gold and diamond mines in the region. The two countries were annexed by the British at the end of the war in May 1902. The word Boer is the Afrikaans word for farmer and it was used at that time to refer to Afrikaans-speaking settlers in the region. By mid June 1900, British forces had captured most major Boer cities and formally annexed their territories, but the Boers launched a guerrilla war that frustrated the British occupiers. Beginning in 1901, the British began a strategy of systematically searching out and destroying these guerrilla units, while herding the families of the Boer soldiers into concentration camps. By 1902, the British had crushed the Boer resistance.

1954

The Viet Minh formally take over Hanoi and control of North Vietnam. The Viet Minh was a Communist front organization founded by Ho Chi Minh in 1941 to organize resistance against French colonial rule and occupying Japanese forces. With the end of the Japanese occupation in 1945, the French attempted to reimpose colonial rule. The Viet Minh launched a long and bloody guerrilla war against French colonial forces in what came to be known as the First Indochina War. Ultimately, the Viet Minh, decisively defeated the French at the Battle of Dien Bien Phu in May 1954, with an armistice ending the war on August 1 later that year. Under the provisions of the agreement signed, Vietnam was to be separated by a Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) running along the 17th parallel. The northern half was to be governed by the Democratic Republic of Vietnam, which had been proclaimed by Ho Chi Minh, and the southern half would be governed by the non-communist State of Vietnam until 1956, at which time the two zones were to be reunified following internationally supervised elections. Ngo Dinh Diem, who had become premier of the State of Vietnam in June, was a Catholic and staunchly anticommunist. Diem disliked the Geneva Accords and set about to consolidate his power in the south. By the middle of 1955, Diem had effectively gained control of most of South Vietnam, and in July of that year, he declared his refusal to permit the elections called for at Geneva. This announcement led to a stepped-up insurgency in the south and ultimately to the Second Indochina War, more commonly known as the Vietnam War.