&&000 History's 100 Greatest Events p1
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Israelites flee =Egypt; receive commandments.
Led by the indomitable patriarch, =Moses, the tribes
of =Israel marched out of =Egypt, where they had lived
so long in bondage, and started their eventful journey
to the Promised Land. It was to be a turbulent journey,
in many ways symbolic of the tragic and heroic history
of the Jewish people, but in the end they reached the
Promised Land, just as in modern times they achieved
in the new nation of =Israel their age old ambition
of a country of their own.

To the people of =Israel, the Exodus from =Egypt marks the
origin of their national and religious traditions; for the
Bible tells us it was during this journey that the covenant
was established between =Jehovah and the people of =Moses.
To the rest of the world, also, the event retains
significance; for when =Moses brought the Ten Commandments
down from Mount =Sinai, he brought into the world a moral
influence that has penetrated to every part of the globe.

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Now stripped more thoroughly then ever before of resources,
=Carthage nevertheless achieved another commercial comeback.
=Cato, visiting the capital on a government mission, was so
impressed with its prosperity that he promptly coined the
famous slogan "=Carthago =est =delanda" (=Carthage must be
destroyed) and repeated it over and over again to his Roman
colleagues, who, with an increasing interest in business affairs
were suspicious of competition and susceptible to the idea.
In =149 =BC the Roman legions found an excuse to attack and
after a heroic three year defense =Carthage fell. The =50,000
survivors of its more than half million population were sold into
slavery, the city was burned to the ground and its site
consigned to the infernal gods, forever barred to human habitation.


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It was a Saturday in October, clear and cool, of the year =732. For
seven days and seven nights the armies of valiant =CharlesMartel and
the invader, Moorish =Abd-ar-Rahma, had faced each other quietly a
little south of the French city of =Tours. Neither, probably,
realized that the fate of Europe hung on that day.  But it did.
=Abd-ar-Rahman at last made up his mind and gave the order. In the
morning sun the swift dread horsemen of Islam dug their heels into
the flanks of their Arab steeds and burst headlong on the close-knit
ranks of the Frankish footsoldiers under =Charles. Then they fell away.
The Christian infantrymen were an "immovable wall", firm "as a rock of ice."
The Arabs tried again, and again, and again. But the defenders would
not be dislodged, would not break ranks, would not give an inch.


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Only =600 men answered the muster of =HernandoCortez when he invaded Mexico
in the spring of =1519. But they came in ships, they had horses, they had
cannon, and their faces were white. All these things were new to the
Aztecs and filled them with terror and awe. In the beginning, as a result,
conquest for =Cortes was largely a matter of accepting =Aztec surrenders.

The whole operation was on a shoestring and even that was cut off before the
Spaniards landed. =Cortez had received his commission from =DiegodeValasquez,
Mayor of =Santiago in Cuba, but =Velasquez changed his mind and rescinded the
orders. =Cortez went on anyhow and put his troops ashore in March of =1519,
scuttling his ships behind him. =Tabasco was the first town in Mexico they
occupied, and there =Cortez learned about the Aztec empire of =Montezuma,
including some pertinent political weaknesses. Out of this knowledge he made
alliances with some of the lesser chieftains hostile to the emperor, then
marched toward the Aztec captical of =Tenochtitlan, now Mexico City. On the
way he fought and defeated the army of the =Tlaxcala republic, promptly
bringing these forces over to his side against =Montezuma.

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His three laws of motion -- (1) that any body stays at rest or in uniform motion
in a straight line unless an external force acts upon it, (2) that any change in
velocity is proportional to the force causing it and takes place in the direction
in which the force acts, and (3) that to every action there is an equal and
opposite reaction -- plus his law of universal gravitation are so familiar that it's
hard to think they required discovery. Yet, despite =Copernicus and =Galileo, it was
not possible to consider the relative motions of all bodies, celestial and
otherwise, before publication of the =Principia. And =Einstein depended on them in
our time for his still more elaborate view of the universe.

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A kind of =18th-century Englishman of the Renaissance, =EdwardJenner had a lot of
talent strings in his bow. A physician primarily, he was also a fair musician and
a minor poet. He studies the geology of =Gloucestershire district with avid
interest, constructed the first ballon to be seen in the area and was a keen
enough bird watcher to earn the title of ornithologist. It was as a naturalist
that Sir =JosephBanks employed him in London in =1771, to arrange zoological
specimens collected on the famous first voyage of Captain =JamesCook in the
South Seas, and he was invited to go along on the second voyage in that
capacity.  His decision to turn down the offer and return to humdrum medical practice
at home could hardly have seemed worth attention in the newspapers of the time,
but it has contributed to the health of uncountable millions of human beings
ever since.

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But al of these apparent contradictions were clearly to be foreseen from the basic
concepts of =Marx and =Engles. They believed that any government merely reflected
and enforced the economic power of the class that ruled the country. They believed
the class that should rule every country was the proletarian class, the workers.
And for the proletariat to achieve rule they believed violent, bloody revolution
was essential. Moreover, they had no confidence in the ability of the proletariat
as a whole to make the necessary long united effort: only a small percentage of
intelligent workers could be trusted to carry out the revolution. During a lengthy
transition period this small intelligent percentage would have to be a dictatorship,
and it would have to rule, quite deliberately, by terror. At least a generation
would have to pass before old capitalist and bourgeois ideas could be entirely
eradicated and the new Communist economy be trusted to operate on the Utopian lines
originally envisaged. Meanwhile, all kinds of compromises might have to be made
and contradictions permitted to appear. These would make no difference to the
long-term aim, the founders believed, which was ownership of all productive
capacity by the people as a whole and its operation for their benefit.

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=Sherman had marched destructively through Georgia. Ruthless =Grant, despite his
incredible losses of the past year in the Wilderness campaign, at =Spotsylvania
Courthouse, at =ColdHarbor, pressed on toward =Richmond. The West was lost,
and =Atlanta and =NewOrleans. =Sherman was bringing his victorious forces to join
with =Grant. Then =PhilSeridan won at =FiveForks and the long siege of
=Petersburg began to show breaches in the Confederate lines. =Richmond became
untenable, and the Union flag was run up there April =3. There was still a little
hope of retiring westward to =Danville for a junction with =Johnston's North
Carolina army, but =Grant pursued the Confederates hotly and =Sheridan blocked
the road of retreat at =Appomattox Courthouse. The last hope disappeared and
General =Lee surrendered, April =9, =1865.

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Most of today's plastics are the result of a boy's enthusiasm for =BenjaminFranklin
and a young man's enthusiasm for his professor's daughter.
=LeoHendrikBaekeland was a chemist who left Europe in =1889 because he felt that
his world was too small and only the New World could offer him enough space to
develop the ideas he felt bursting from his brain. He had spent only six years in
his new country before he invented the =Velox process, which is the basis for all
modern film developments. Ten years later, in =1905, he revolutionized the whole
plastics world, which had theretofore depended on inflammable celluloid, by his
research on the combinations of phenol and formaldehyde.

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Unemployment, strikes and general social unrest continued to win supporters for
=Mussolini's program. Italy fell further and further into turmoil. In May =1921
the agitator became a respectable member of the Italian parliament and in
November his Facist Party was officially organized. Not quite a year later Italy
was know a the first Facist state.
=Mussolini's career and philosophy influenced those of =AdolphHitler in Germany.
=Mussulini was at first scornful of and cool to =Hitler, whose wish to annex
Austria he opposed. However, after Mussolini's invasion of Ethiopia in =1935,
resulting in his diplomatic isolation from other European countries, the two
came together.