^
Births
which occurred on a 09 June:
1989 Gregory Smith, in West Reading, Pennsylvania. He who would
solve math problems at age 14 months, and read by age 2. He started school
in August 1994 and graduated from high school in Orange Park, Florida, on
11 June 1999. In September 1999, he enrolled at Randolph-Macon College in
Ashland, Virginia. He graduated cum laude on 31 May 2003 with a BS in Mathematics
and minors in History and Biology [photo >]. Starting on
09 June 2003, he studies for a Ph.D. in mathematics at the University of
Virginia. Meanwhile he has founded International
Youth Advocates to champion nonviolence and children's rights.
1959 George Washington, first ballistic missile sub,
is launched in Groton, Connecticut. 1958 Donald Michael
Santini, Mass, murderer (FBI Most Wanted List)
^
1956 Patricia Cornwall,
bestselling crime novelist Patricia
Cornwall, creator of crime-solving medical examiner Kay Scarpetta,
in Miami, Florida. Cornwall's
family moved to North Carolina when she was seven, shortly after her
parents divorced. Her mother had a nervous breakdown when Cornwall
was nine and tried to give the children away to evangelist Billy Graham
and his wife, Ruth. The Grahams placed the children in foster care
and kept an eye on them for years. Cornwall, who attended Davidson
College in North Carolina and became a newspaper reporter in Charlotte,
later wrote a profile of Ruth Graham, which she turned into her first
book, a biography of Graham.
Cornwall married an English professor some 17 years her senior, who
later became a minister. The couple moved to Richmond, Virginia, where
Cornwall's character Scarpetta would be based. The couple later divorced.
Hoping to become a crime novelist, Cornwall spent six years studying
forensic science and working at the morgue. She wrote three novels
between 1984 and 1988, all featuring a dashing, adventurous, and poetic
detective hero, with a minor medical-examiner character named Kay
Scarpetta. An editor advised
Cornwall to focus on Scarpetta and to write grittier fiction based
on everyday crime situations faced by the morgue. Cornwall wrote Postmortem,
which was finally accepted by Scribner's after seven other publishers
rejected it. The novel won five major mystery awards that year and
sold hundreds of thousands of copies in paperback. Cornwall's subsequent
Scarpetta novels, including Cruel and Unusual (1993) and
Cause of Death (1996), sold in the millions and have been
translated into 22 languages, earning her multimillion-dollar advances.
|
1954 Lon Tomohisa Horiuchi, US Asian, Catholic, son of
a US Army officer, he grows up in Hawaii and would graduate from West Point
in 1976. He would join the FBI in 1984. He would become notorious as the
sniper who shot and killed Vicki Weaver on 22 August 1992 as she was holding
her infant daughter, during the Ruby Ridge standoff. Horiuchi was never
punished for that.
^
1951 Ayman Mohamed Rabie El Zawahri, "docteur" du Jihad égyptien
En Egypte, on le surnomme "le Docteur"
car il est diplômé de médecine. Ayman El Zawahri, qui figure dans
la liste établie par les Etats-Unis, a mis sa conception radicale
de l'islamisme au service d'Oussama Ben Laden, dont il est parfois
considéré comme le bras droit. Pour un membre des services égyptiens
de sécurité, qui l'a interrogé au début des années 1980, le chirurgien
serait "un maître cerveau de la planification". De là à en faire le
"chef du service Action" d'Al-Qaida, l'organisation de Ben Laden,
il n'y a qu'un pas que beaucoup d'experts de l'antiterrorisme se hâtent
de franchir. Né le 09 Jun 1951
à Guiza, au pied des Pyramides, Ayman El Zawahri est le fils d'un
professeur de pharmacologie à l'université du Caire. Riche et puissante,
sa famille a compté un premier secrétaire de la Ligue arabe et des
responsables d'Al-Azhar, la mosquée-université millénaire qui reste
la référence de l'islam sunnite. Ayman s'est très vite lancé dans
la politique en rejoignant les Frères musulmans, à une époque où beaucoup
de dirigeants de la confrérie étaient pendus ou internés. Cela lui
a valu, en 1966, son premier dossier à la police de la sécurité de
l'Etat. A la faculté de médecine du Caire, Zawahri est devenu un membre
actif de ce qui était alors l'embryon de l'organisation extrémiste
égyptienne Al-Jihad (guerre sainte) avant de prendre la tête de cette
organisation au début des années 1970. Quelques années plus tard,
les islamistes sont entrés en conflit ouvert avec le président Anouar
El Sadate, qui ne voulait pas leur accorder une charia (législation
islamique) pure et dure. Cela allait valoir son arrêt de mort au président,
exécuté par Al-Guihad, le 06 octobre 1981.
Zawahri a figuré parmi les milliers d'islamistes arrêtés après l'assassinat.
Mais il a été relaxé trois ans plus tard, par manque de preuves. Tout
comme le cheikh Omar Abdel Rahman, la figure de proue de l'autre organisation
extrémiste musulmane, la Gamaa islamiya. Les deux hommes ont cheminé
ensemble pendant le conflit afghan : le cheikh prêchait pour convaincre
de nouvelles recrues arabes et le chirurgien organisait un camp de
"moudjahidins arabes" en Afghanistan. La victoire assurée, Zawahri
a sillonné l'Europe, au Danemark (1991) et en Suisse (1993), où les
extrémistes avaient commencé à s'installer pour prolonger leur combat.
A cette époque de guerre ouverte
avec le régime du président Moubarak, Al-Jihad monte des attentats
contre plusieurs ministres. En 1995, à Addis Abeba, le président lui-même
échappe de peu à l'assassinat. Le Caire accuse Zawahri, qui se trouverait
alors au Soudan. La même année, l'ambassade d'Egypte à Islamabad est
détruite par un attentat. Les soupçons se portent sur Zawahri, qui
est condamné à mort par contumace en Egypte.
En 1998, celui qui était déjà très proche de Ben Laden le rejoint
officiellement pour combattre "les Américains et les Juifs", en cosignant
sa fatwa autorisant l'assassinat des civils dans le cadre du djihad.
Le FBI trouve sa patte dans les attentats contre les ambassades américaines
du Kenya et de Tanzanie (07 Aug 1998), et plus tard dans l'attaque
du destroyer USS Cole au Yémen (12 Oct 2000). |
1944: 23 puppies (record litter) born to Lena, a foxhound,
Ambler, Pennsylvania. 1924 John Colin Scott,
New Zealand architect who died on 30 July 1992. He is best known for the
Futuna
Chapel.
^
1916 Robert Strange
McNamara, in San Francisco
McNamara grew up to receive a degree in Economics from the University
of California at Berkeley and an M.B.A from Harvard Business School.
At the age of twenty-four, following a brief stint at the accounting
firm of Price Waterhouse (now Price Waterhouse Cooper), McNamara returned
to Harvard Business School as an accounting instructor. Rejected from
the army due to poor eyesight at the outbreak of World War II, McNamara
volunteered as an instructor for a Harvard program teaching Army Air
Corps officers the principles of systematic management, especially
the allocation of personnel, materials, and money. McNamara’s excellence
in this field eventually earned him a commission as a Captain in the
Army Air Corps, where he was one of the first members of a special
unit, the Office of Statistical Control (OSC). Led by Col. Charles
Thornton, the OSC was charged with assembling and analyzing data to
provide logistical support for American bombers.
After the war, Thornton marketed his team’s management skills to private
companies. Enter Ford Motor Corporation. Reigning atop a messy, outdated
family company registering heavy losses, Henry Ford II was smart enough
to recognize that the system he had inherited form his grandfather
was in need of an overhaul. He hired Thornton’s group, en masse, to
begin work in February 1946. The members of the group, labeled the
"Whiz Kids," ranged in age from 26 to 34, signaling a major change
in Ford’s stodgy hierarchy. The
Whiz Kids instituted a modern economic approach to Ford’s business
administration, implementing organizational changes to make planning
and production processes more systematic. Six of them eventually became
vice-presidents, and two, McNamara and fellow Whiz Kid Arjay Miller,
rose to the position of company president. At Col. Thornton’s departure
from Ford, McNamara became the de facto leader of the Whiz Kids. He
instituted the systematic sampling of public opinion, known now as
"market research"; he hired Ford president Lee Iacocca; and he conceived
the Ford Falcon, Ford’s most successful car until the release of the
Mustang in 1964. A registered
Republican, McNamara was offered a cabinet position by John F. Kennedy
after the 1960 presidential election, and given the choice of becoming
Secretary of Defense or Secretary of the Treasury, he chose the Defense
Department. McNamara remained Secretary of Defense until 1968, when
his changing attitude toward the war in Vietnam led him to resign.
Later he was president of World Bank. |
1893 Cole Porter Indiana, composer/lyricist (Anything Goes,
Kiss Me Kate) 1885 John
Edensor Littlewood, mathematician who died on 06 September
1977. He collaborated with Godfrey
Harold Hardy [07 Feb 1877 – 01 Dec 1947], working on the theory
of series, the Riemann zeta function, inequalities, and the theory of functions.
1865 Carl Nielsen Norre-Lyndelse Denmark, composer (Det
Uuslukkelige) 1864 Floris Arntzenius, Duch artist
who died in 1925. 1849 Michael-Peter Ancher, Danish
painter who died on 19 September 1927. MORE
ON ANCHER AT ART 4 JUNE with
links to images. 1843 Bertha von Suttner
^
1843 Bertha Sophia Felicita Gräfin
Kinsky von Chinic und Tettau (Bertha von Suttner),
Austria, novelist, pacifist (Peace Nobel 1905)
Als eine der einflußreichsten, politischen Journalisten ihrer
Zeit wurde sie zur Begründerin der deutschen, österreichischen
und ungarischen Friedensgesellschaften. Ebenso kämpfte sie gegen
die Unterdrückung der Frauen und den Antisemitismus. Ihr Buch
Die Waffen nieder (1889) entwickelte sich zum Bestseller.
Sie regte die Stiftung des Friedensnobelpreises an und wurde
später selbst die erste weibliche Trägerin dieses Preises
(1905). Bertha
von Suttner und Alfred Nobel freilich verband nicht nur eine enge
persönliche Beziehung (allein aus seinem Todesjahr 1896 sind
24 meist sehr lange Briefe von Bertha erhalten), sondern auch darüber
hinaus gehende Interessen: Beide arbeiteten sie für den Frieden
und gegen den Krieg - wenn auch mit unterschiedlichen Wegvorstellungen.
Er hoffte auf Abschreckung durch Entwicklung eines neuen, zu bedrohlichen
Kriegsmittels, also auf Technik. Während sie auf Kommunikation,
auf internationale Vereinbarungen und Verständigung, auf Verhinderung
der Kriegsursachen und Aufklärung setzte. Im Gegensatz zu Bertha
von Suttner hatte Nobel an seiner eigenen Haltung aber durchaus Zweifel.
Neben der Entwicklung neuer Sprengstoffe förderte er die Friedensbewegung
mit erheblichen Geldsummen und verfolgte mit Interesse ihre Entwicklung.
Mit seinen noblen Spenden war der Schwede immerhin das großzügigste
Mitglied der "Österreichischen Gesellschaft der Friedensfreunde".
Berthas Buch Die Waffen nieder
(1890) begeisterte ihn. Der Entschluß der beiden 1892, gemeinsam
ein Buch zu schreiben, wurde zwar nie ausgeführt, doch mündete
damals Berthas ständiges Thema, wie Alfred sein Geld am besten
für den Frieden einsetzen könne, erstmals in konkrete Pläne
eines Friedenspreises. Nobels Testament sollte schließlich enthüllen,
welchen Weg diese Idee genommen hatte: Finanziert aus den Zinsen des
Vermögens, werden seit 1901 jährlich am 10. Dezember, dem
Todestag Nobels (wie auch von Berthas geliebten Gatten Arthur) fünf
Preise verliehen. Einer davon steht im Dienste des Friedens. 1905
endlich erhielt Bertha von Suttner als erste Frau diesen Friedensnobelpreis,
der nicht zuletzt auf die Anregungen der großen Österreicherin
zurückgeht. Gestorben ist
Bertha von Suttner am 21.Juni 1914, sieben Tage vor Beginn des 1.
Weltkrieges. |
1812 Johann Gottfried Galle, German astronomer who, on
23 September 1846, discovered the planet Neptune at the Berlin Observatory.
Neptune, the eighth planet from the sun, was postulated by the French astronomer
Urbain Le Verrier [11 Mar 1811 – 23 Sep 1877] who calculated the approximate
location of the planet by studying gravity-induced disturbances in the motions
of the planets, particularly Uranus. A few days after Leverrier announced
his findings, after only an hour of searching, Galle (helped by student
Heinrich Louis d'Arrest) found Neptune within one degree of the position
that had been computed by Le Verrier. 3 years before Le Verrier, John Couch
Adams [05 Jun 1819 – 21 Jan 1892] had become the first person to predict
the position of a planet beyond Uranus, but this was not published. Galle
died on 10 July 1910.
^
1791 John Howard Payne,
US playwright, actor, diplomat. Payne
followed the techniques and themes of the European Romantic blank-verse
dramatists. A precocious actor and writer, Payne wrote his first play,
Julia, or, The Wanderer, when he was 15. Its success caused
him to be sent to Union College, Schenectady, N.Y., but family finances
forced him to leave two years later. At 18 he made his first stage
appearance in John Home's Douglas, but he encountered much opposition
from established actors, and in 1813, at the height of the War of
1812, he sailed for England. At first interned as an enemy national,
he was later released and triumphed at Drury Lane in Douglas, repeating
his success in other European capitals. In Paris Payne met the actor
Talma, who introduced him to French drama, from which many of his
more than 60 plays were adapted, and to Washington Irving, with whom
he was to collaborate on two of his best plays. The finest play Payne
authored, Brutus: or, The Fall of Tarquin, was produced at
Drury Lane on 03 December 1818. Brutus persisted for 70 years, serving
as a vehicle for three of the greatest tragedians of the 19th century:
Edwin Booth, Edwin Forrest, and Edmund Kean. Other important plays
were Clari: or, The Maid of Milan, which included Payne's
famous song "Home, Sweet Home"; Charles the Second (1824),
written with Irving; and Thérèse (1821), a French adaptation.
Because of weak copyright laws, Payne received little return from
his successful plays, and in 1842 he accepted a consular post in Tunis.
He died on 09 April 1852 in Tunis.
PAYNE ONLINE: The
Lament of the Cherokee |
HOME, SWEET HOME
'MID PLEASURES and palaces though we may roam,
Be it ever so humble, there's no place like home;
A charm from the sky seems to hallow us there,
Which, seek through the world, is ne'er met with elsewhere.
Home, home, sweet, sweet home!
There's no place like home, oh, there's no place like home!
An exile from home, splendor dazzles in vain;
Oh, give me my lowly thatched cottage again!
The birds singing gayly, that came at my call-
Give me them-and the peace of mind, dearer than all!
Home, home, sweet, sweet home!
There's no place like home, oh, there's no place like home! |
I gaze on the moon as I tread the drear wild,
And feel that my mother now thinks of her child,
As she looks on that moon from our own cottage door
the woodbine, whose fragrance shall cheer me no more.
Home, home, sweet, sweet home!
There's no place like home, oh, there's no place like home!
How sweet 'tis to sit 'neath a fond father's smile,
And the caress of a mother to soothe and beguile!
Let others delight 'mid new pleasure to roam,
But give me, oh, give me, the pleasures of home,
Home, home, sweet, sweet home!
There's no place like home, oh, there's no place like home!
To thee I'll return, overburdened with care;
The heart's dearest solace will smile on me there;
No more from that cottage again will I roam;
Be it ever so humble, there's no place like home.
Home, home, sweet, sweet home
There's no place like home, oh, there's no place like home! |
1781 George Stephenson inventor (principle RR locomotive)
1737 Henri-Joseph Antonissen, Flemish artist who died on
04 April 1794.
^
1672 (30 May Julian) Pyotr Alekseyevich,
who would be Peter I “the Great”,
tsar of Russia, jointly with his half-brother Ivan V from 1682 to
1696, then alone until his 08 February (28 Jan Julian) 1725 death,
after having greatly modernized and expanded Russia, and having been
proclaimed imperator in 1721, quite fittingly, as Russia has been
an imperialist power ever since. [Click
on image for portraits of Peter the Great >]
Pyotr was the son of Tsar Alexis [19
Mar 1629 – 08 Feb 1876] by his second wife, Natalya Kirillovna
Naryshkina [1651-1694]. Unlike his half-brothers, sons of his father's
first wife, the pious Mariya Ilinichna Miloslavskaya [1625-1669],
Peter was a healthy child, lively and inquisitive. It is probably
significant to his development that his mother's former guardian,
Artamon Sergeyevich Matveyev [1625 – 25 May 1682], had raised
her in an atmosphere open to progressive influences from the West.
When Alexis died, Peter was only four
years old. His elder half-brother, a sickly youth, then succeeded
to the throne as Fyodor III [09 Jun 1661 – 07 May 1682]; but,
in fact, power fell into the hands of the Miloslavskys, relatives
of Fyodor's mother, who deliberately pushed Peter and the Naryshkin
circle aside. When Fyodor died childless in 1682, a fierce struggle
for power ensued between the Miloslavskys and the Naryshkins: the
former wanted to put Fyodor's brother, the sickly and feebleminded
Ivan V [06 Sep 1666 – 08 Feb 1696], on the throne; the Naryshkins
stood for the healthy and intelligent Peter. Representatives of the
various orders of society, assembled in the Kremlin, declared themselves
for Peter, who was then proclaimed tsar; but the Miloslavsky faction
exploited a revolt of the Moscow streltsy (musketeers of the sovereign's
bodyguard} who killed some of Peter's adherents, including Matveyev.
Ivan and Peter were then proclaimed joint tsars (Ivan the senior one)
on 05 June 1682 by the boyar duma; and, because of Ivan's precarious
health and Peter's youth, Ivan's sister Sophia Alekseyevna [27 Sep
1657 – 14 Jul 1704] was made regent when the two were crowned
on 05 July 1682. Clever and influential, Sophia took control of the
government; excluded from public affairs, Peter lived with his mother
in the village of Preobrazhenskoye, near Moscow, often fearing for
his safety. All this left an ineradicable impression on the young
tsar and determined his negative attitude toward the streltsy.
One result of Sophia's overt exclusion
of Peter from the government was that he did not receive the usual
education of a Russian tsar; he grew up in a free atmosphere instead
of being confined within the narrow bounds of a palace. While his
first tutor, the former church clerk Nikita Zotov, could give little
to satisfy Peter's curiosity, the boy enjoyed noisy outdoor games
and took especial interest in military matters, his favorite toys
being arms of one sort or another. He also occupied himself with carpentry,
joinery, blacksmith's work, and printing.
Near Preobrazhenskoye there was a nemetskaya sloboda (“German colony”)
where foreigners were allowed to reside. Acquaintance with its inhabitants
aroused Peter's interest in the life of other nations, and an English
sailboat, found derelict in a shed, whetted his passion for seafaring.
Mathematics, fortification, and navigation were the sciences that
appealed most strongly to Peter. A model fortress was built for his
amusement, and he organized his first “play” troops, from which, in
1687, the Preobrazhensky and Semyonovsky Guards regiments were formed,
to become the nucleus of a new Russian Army.
Early in 1689 Natalya Naryshkina arranged Peter's marriage to the
beautiful Eudoxia Fyodorovna Lopukhina [09 Aug 1669 – 07 Sep
1731]. This was obviously a political act, intended to demonstrate
the fact that the 17-year-old Peter was now a grown man, with a right
to rule in his own name. The marriage did not last long: Peter soon
began to ignore his wife, and in 1698 he relegated her to a convent.
There she took vows in 1699 but left six months later and resumed
life as a laywoman. Following the torture, trial, death sentence,
and murder of her son, Tsarevich Alexis [28 Feb 1690 – 07 Jul
1718], for alleged treason, she was kept in confinement at a fortress
east of St. Petersburg on Lake Ladoga. Upon the 18 May 1727 crowning
of her grandson Peter II [23 Oct 1715 – 29 Jan 1730] as emperor,
she was released and later installed at the Voznesensky Convent in
Moscow and provided with a generous allowance. After the death of
Peter II, she made a feeble, unsuccessful attempt to succeed him.
In August 1689 a new revolt of
the streltsy took place. Sophia and her faction tried to use it to
their own advantage for another coup d'état, but events this time
turned decisively in Peter's favor. He removed Sophia from power and
banished her to the Novodevichy convent; she was forced to become
a nun after a streltsy rebellion in 1698. Though Ivan V remained nominally
joint tsar with Peter, the administration was now largely given over
to Peter's kinsmen, the Naryshkins, until Ivan's death in 1696. Peter,
meanwhile continuing his military and nautical amusements, sailed
the first seaworthy ships to be built in Russia. His games proved
to be good training for the tasks ahead.
At the beginning of Peter's reign, Russia had a huge territory, but
with no access to the Black Sea, the Caspian, or to the Baltic, and
to win such an outlet became the main goal of Peter's foreign policy.
The first steps taken in this direction
were the campaigns of 1695 and 1696, with the object of capturing
Azov from the Crimean Tatar vassals of Turkey. On the one hand, these
Azov campaigns could be seen as fulfilling Russia's commitments, undertaken
during Sophia's regency, to the anti-Turkish “Holy League” of 1684
(Austria, Poland, and Venice); on the other they were intended to
secure the southern frontier against Tatar raids, as well as to approach
the Black Sea. The first campaign ended in failure (1695), but this
did not discourage Peter: he promptly built a fleet at Voronezh to
sail down the Don River and in 1696 Azov was captured. To consolidate
this success Taganrog was founded on the northern shore of the Don
Estuary, and the building of a large navy was started. The Grand Embassy
(1697–1698) Having already sent
some young nobles abroad to study nautical matters, Peter, in 1697,
went with the so-called Grand Embassy to western Europe. The embassy
comprised about 250 persons, with the “grand ambassadors” Franz Lefort,
Fyodor.Alekseyevich Golovin [1650 – 10 Aug 1706], and P.B. Voznitsyn
at its head. Its chief purposes were to examine the international
situation and to strengthen the anti-Turkish coalition, but it was
also intended to gather information on the economic and cultural life
of Europe. Traveling incognito under the name of Sgt. Pyotr Mikhaylov,
Peter familiarized himself with conditions in the advanced countries
of the West. For four months he studied shipbuilding, working as a
ship's carpenter in the yard of the Dutch East India Company at Saardam;
after that he went to Great Britain, where he continued his study
of shipbuilding, working in the Royal Navy's dockyard at Deptford,
and he also visited factories, arsenals, schools, and museums and
even attended a session of Parliament. Meanwhile, the services of
foreign experts were engaged for work in Russia.
On the diplomatic side of the Grand Embassy, Peter conducted negotiations
with the Dutch and British governments for alliances against Turkey;
but the Maritime Powers did not wish to involve themselves with him
because they were preoccupied with the problems that were soon to
come to a crisis, for them, in the War of the Spanish Succession.
From England, Peter went on to Austria;
but while he was negotiating in Vienna for a continuance of the anti-Turkish
alliance, he received news of a fresh revolt of the streltsy in Moscow.
In the summer of 1698 he was back in Moscow, where he suppressed the
revolt. Hundreds of the streltsy were executed, the rest of the rebels
were exiled to distant towns, and the corps of the streltsy was disbanded.
The Northern War (1700–1721) When
it became clear that Austria, no less than the Maritime Powers, was
preparing to fight for the Spanish Succession and to make peace with
Turkey, Peter saw that Russia could not contemplate a war without
allies against the Turks, and he abandoned his plans for pushing forward
from the Sea of Azov to the Black Sea. By the Russo-Turkish Peace
of Constantinople (Istanbul, 1700) he retained possession of Azov.
He was now turning his attention to the Baltic instead, following
the tradition of his predecessors.
The Swedes occupied Karelia, Ingria, Estonia, and Livonia and blocked
Russia's way to the Baltic coast. To dislodge them, Peter took an
active part in forming the great alliance, comprising Russia, Saxony,
and Denmark–Norway, which started the Northern War in 1700. This war
lasted for 21 years and was Peter's main military enterprise. In planning
it and in sustaining it he displayed iron willpower, extraordinary
energy, and outstanding gifts of statesmanship, generalship, and diplomacy.
Mobilizing all the resources of Russia for the triumph of his cause,
constantly keeping himself abreast of events, and actively concerning
himself with all important undertakings, often at his personal risk,
he could be seen sometimes in a sailor's jacket on a warship, sometimes
in an officer's uniform on the battlefield, and sometimes in a laborer's
apron and gloves with an axe in a shipyard.
The defeat of the Russians at Narva (1700), very early in the war,
did not deter Peter and, in fact, he later described it as a blessing:
“Necessity drove away sloth and forced me to work night and day.”
He subsequently took part in the siege that led to the Russian capture
of Narva (1704) and in the battles of Lesnaya (1708) and of Poltava
(08 Jul 1709). At Poltava, where Charles XII of Sweden suffered a
catastrophic defeat, the plan of operations was Peter's own: it was
his idea to transform the battlefield by works of his military engineers—the
redoubts erected in the path of the Swedish troops to break their
combat order, to split them into little groups, and to halt their
onslaught. Peter also took part in the naval battle of Gangut (Hanko,
or Hangö) in 1714, the first major Russian victory at sea.
The treaties concluded by Russia in the course of the war were made
under Peter's personal direction. He also traveled abroad again for
diplomatic reasons—e.g., to Pomerania in 1712 and to Denmark, northern
Germany, Holland, and France in 1716–1717.
In 1703, on the banks of the Neva River, where it flows into the Gulf
of Finland, Peter began construction of the city of St. Petersburg
(now Leningrad) and established it as the new capital of Russia in
1712. By th | |