May 21, 1349 – Dušan's Code, the constitution of the Serbian Empire, is enacted by Dušan the Mighty.5/21/2021 Dušan's Code (Serbian: Душанов законик, Dušanov zakonik, known historically as Закон благовјернаго цара Стефана – Law of the pious Emperor Stefan) is a compilation of several legal systems that was enacted by Stefan Uroš IV Dušan of Serbia in 1349. It was used in the Serbian Empire and the succeeding Serbian Despotate. It is considered an early constitution, or close to it; an advanced set of laws which regulated all aspects of life.
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The development of the telegraph in the early 19th century changed the way people communicated on the local and international levels. Between 1849 and 1865, a series of bilateral and regional agreements among Western European states attempted to standardize international communications. By 1865 it was agreed that a comprehensive agreement was needed in order to create a framework that would standardize telegraphy equipment, set uniform operating instructions, and lay down common international tariff and accounting rules. Between 1 March and 17 May 1865, the French Government hosted delegations from 20 European states at the first International Telegraph Conference in Paris. This meeting culminated in the International Telegraph Convention which was signed on 17 May 1865. As a result of the 1865 Conference, the International Telegraph Union, the predecessor to the modern ITU, was founded as the first international standards organization. The Union was tasked with implementing basic principles for international telegraphy. This included: the use of the Morse code as the international telegraph alphabet, the protection of the secrecy of correspondence, and the right of everybody to use the international telegraphy. The ITU was subsequently amalgamated into the International Telecommunications Union, an agency of the United Nations.
Gran Columbia ("Greater Columbia") was established in 1819 as part of the movement among Spanish colonies throughout the world seeking independence. It was roughly the same territory that comprised the Viceroyalty of New Grenada. Simón Bolívar, the great advocate for South American independence dreamed of uniting more of the Central and Southern American Spanish Colonies into a "United States of South America," but the ambitions of regional leaders constantly caused frication and revolt. The secession of Ecuador from Gran Colombia on May 13, 1830 was a bitter pill for Bolívar, who died just seven months later. Ecuador's early history was marked by periods of instability alternating with periods of dictatorial rule. Today, Ecuador is classified by the Global Freedom Index as "partly free" with a score of 67/100 and has shown slow but steady improvement in promotion democratic government under the Rule of Law.
It may at first seem odd to include in a topic dedicated to the history of the Rule of Law the arrest of an obscure Elizabethan playwright on a charge of libel. However, there is much more to the story than that. First, though obscure, Kyd is considered by scholars to be one of the most important figures in the development of Elizabethan drama. An intimate of Christopher Marlow, Kyd is thought to be the author of the Ur-Hamlet, the term used to describe a play, now lost, that appeared several years before Shakespeare's Hamlet. Likewise, he is thought to have been the author of King Leir, which preceded Shakespeare's King Lear by almost a decade. Kyd's The Spanish Tragedy is considered to be on par with the other great works of the age.
Estelle Sylvia Pankhurst was an English campaigner for the suffrage and suffragette movement, a socialist and later a prominent left communist and activist in the cause of anti-fascism and the international auxiliary language movement. Her parents were Richard Pankhurst and Emmeline Pankhurst, who both later became founding members of the Independent Labour Party and were much concerned with women's rights.
The National Assembly in the Philippines announced the plebiscite in 1937, which would decide whether or not women should gain the right to vote. Multiple women's movement started during 1910 which led to the plebiscite in 1937 where women voted for or against for women's suffrage rights. Filipino women worked hard to mobilize and fight for women's suffrage in the early 1900s and on April 30 gained victory after 447,725 out of 500,000 votes affirmed to having women's right to vote.
The mutiny on the Royal Navy vessel HMS Bounty occurred in the South Pacific Ocean on 28 April 1789. Disaffected crewmen, led by acting-Lieutenant Fletcher Christian, seized control of the ship from their captain, Lieutenant William Bligh, and set him and 18 loyalists adrift in the ship's open launch. The mutineers variously settled on Tahiti or on Pitcairn Island. Bligh navigated more than 3,500 nautical miles (6,500 km; 4,000 mi) in the launch to reach safety, and began the process of bringing the mutineers to justice. In October 1790, Bligh was honorably acquitted at the court-martial inquiring into the loss of Bounty. He eventual rose to the rank of Vice Admiral of the Blue Squadron.
Though often portrayed as a tyrant who drive his crew to mutiny, a reexamination of Bligh's manner of command arguably suggests that far from being to hard on his crew, he was too lenient and failed to curd their excesses during the many months that they were in Tahiti. One example of his failure to exercise some modicum of control related to the use of ships nails as barter items. The iron nails were much prized by the native, who could fashion them into many different utensils, but were also necessary for keeping the ship in repair. Eventually, the crew pilfered all of the fresh nails, and even began prying nails from the Bounty's woodwork to trade for food, drink, and female companionship. After Bligh reached England in April 1790, the Admiralty dispatched HMS Pandora to apprehend the mutineers. Fourteen were captured in Tahiti and imprisoned on board Pandora, which then searched without success for Christian's party that had hidden on Pitcairn Island. After turning back towards England, Pandora ran aground on the Great Barrier Reef, with the loss of 31 crew and four prisoners from Bounty. The 10 surviving detainees reached England in June 1792 and were court martialed; four were acquitted, three were pardoned and three were hanged. Christian's group remained undiscovered on Pitcairn until 1808, by which time only one mutineer, John Adams, remained alive. Almost all of his fellow mutineers, including Christian, had been killed, either by each other or by their Polynesian companions. No action was taken against Adams; descendants of the mutineers and their Tahitian captives live on Pitcairn into the 21st century. Bligh's logbooks documenting the mutiny were officially inscribed on the UNESCO Australian Memory of the World register on 26 February 2021 |
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