Tuesday, October 21, 2014

Today in the Sobel Timeline: October 21

On October 21, 1777, General Horatio Gates of the Continental Army attacked the army of British General John Burgoyne in a desperate attempt to avoid being caught between Burgoyne and the approaching army of General Sir Henry Clinton. Despite repeated assaults, the rebel army failed to overrun Burgoyne's position.

On October 21, 1897, Russian Foreign Minister Prince Pyotr Sviatopolk-Mirsky drafted a memorandum in which he claimed that the Alaskan mineral concession he had negotiated with the Mexican corporation Kramer Associates three years before covered only copper, and not the gold that K.A.'s prospectors had discovered the previous year. "Since little or no copper has been discovered in the Yukon region, the mines, when opened, will be controlled by the Imperial government." K.A. would be allowed to operate the mines, "for which the company would, of course, be well-compensated." When K.A. President Diego Cortez y Catalán received the memorandum, he responded by rushing from his office shouting that he had never been treated in such a way before. Cortez immediately telephoned Mexican Chief of State Benito Hermión to request a meeting on October 25.

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