Evan Thomas

Guest Writer at GetHistory

Evan Thomas is the author of thirteen books, including the New York Times bestsellers John Paul Jones, Sea of Thunder, and First: Sandra Day O’Connor. Thomas was a writer, correspondent, and editor for 33 years at Time and Newsweek, including ten years as Newsweek’s Washington bureau chief. He appears regularly on many TV and radio talk shows. Thomas has taught at Harvard and Princeton.

Image © Edwin Tse

The Latest from Evan Thomas

Second World War

Road to Surrender: Three Men and the Countdown to the End of World War II

In school and college, many had been exposed to books and scholarship that argued that, by August 1945, Japan was ready to surrender, and that America’s real motivation in dropping the A-bomb was to intimidate Russia in the earliest days of the Cold War. The facts are otherwise.

by Evan Thomas

On this day in history

1097 - The first major siege of the First Crusade began at Nicaea. The heavily fortified city withstood the siege for over a month, until it was taken on 19 June with the help of a Byzantine naval fleet.

1264 - The rebel forces of Simon de Montfort met Henry III's army at the Battle of Lewes. It ended with Henry and his son, the future Edward I, being taken into custody and Simon de Montfort ruling as an uncrowned king.

1610 - The tolerant Henri IV of France was assassinated by the extremist Roman Catholic François Ravaillac. Less than two weeks later, Ravaillac was executed - torn apart by four horses - for regicide.

1643 - Louis XIV - the Sun King - became king of France, aged just four years old. During his 72 years on the throne he built up the system of absolute monarchy that existed in France until the French Revolution.

1796 - British doctor Edward Jenner administered the first successful vaccination against a contagious disease - smallpox - on eight-year-old James Phipps. The technique was quickly adopted across Europe and the subsequent programme of vaccination contributed to the eradication of the disease worldwide.

1878 - The last American witchcraft trial began in Salem, Massachusetts, after the Christian Scientist Lucretia Brown accused an ex-fellow member, Daniel Spofford, of hurting her through witchcraft. Unlike the trials two hundred years previously, Spofford didn't even bother to attend, and the case was dismissed.

1894 - Blackpool Tower opened to the public. At the time it was the tallest building in the British Empire, reaching to 158m high.

1938 - The England football team en masse gave the Nazi salute during a friendly game with Germany. They had been recommended to do so by the British establishment in an effort to further the appeasement programme with Hitler. England won the game by six goals to three.

1948 - The Israeli Declaration of Independence was proclaimed by the prime minister David Ben-Gurion, following the termination of the British Mandate for Palestine. It established the first Jewish state in millennia, but also resulted in ongoing Arab-Israeli military conflict.