Events

Barely a month after capturing Jerusalem in a bloodbath that shocked even medieval chroniclers, the armies of the First Crusade rode south to meet the last major Muslim force that could challenge their hold on the Holy Land. On August 12, 1099, near the coastal city of Ascalon, Crusader forces under Godfrey of Bouillon clashed with a Fatimid Egyptian army led by the vizier al-Afdal Shahanshah. The Crusaders won decisively, and the battle effectively ended the First Crusade. The Fatimid army, estimated at between 20,000 and 50,000 men, had marched from Egypt to reclaim Jerusalem, which the Crusaders had taken on July 15. Al-Afdal expected to face an exhausted, diminished force. The Crusaders were indeed reduced from their original numbers, with perhaps 10,000 infantry and 1,200 knights remaining from the tens of thousands who had departed Europe three years earlier. But they moved first, marching through the night to surprise the Egyptian camp at dawn. The Fatimid forces were caught unprepared, many still in their encampment. The Crusader cavalry charged in a coordinated assault, and the Egyptian lines collapsed. Al-Afdal fled by ship, abandoning his camp and its considerable wealth. The Crusaders seized enormous quantities of gold, silver, weapons, and provisions that helped sustain their fragile new territories. The victory at Ascalon secured the Crusader states for a generation. Without a credible Egyptian army in the field, the Kingdom of Jerusalem and its neighboring principalities could consolidate their grip on the Levantine coast. Yet the Crusaders failed to capture Ascalon itself, which remained in Fatimid hands until 1153, serving as a base for Egyptian raids that harassed the Latin kingdoms for decades. The battle was a tactical triumph but a strategic half-measure that left unfinished business for future generations of Crusaders.

The Hawaiian flag descended from Iolani Palace for the last time on August 12, 1898, replaced by the Stars and Stripes in a ceremony that completed one of the most brazen acts of territorial acquisition in American history. The transfer formalized what a group of American sugar planters and businessmen had engineered five years earlier when they overthrew Queen Liliuokalani with the help of U.S. Marines. Hawaii's path to annexation began with sugar. American plantation owners who had settled in the islands during the mid-19th century grew wealthy under favorable trade agreements with the United States. When the McKinley Tariff of 1890 eliminated their preferential access to American markets, the planters concluded that only annexation could protect their profits. In January 1893, with the covert support of U.S. Minister John L. Stevens and 162 Marines from the USS Boston, they staged a coup against the Hawaiian monarchy. Queen Liliuokalani surrendered under protest, yielding authority "until such time as the Government of the United States shall, upon the facts being presented to it, undo the action of its representative." President Grover Cleveland, after investigating, declared the overthrow illegal and called for the queen's restoration. The provisional government simply refused to comply. A Republic of Hawaii was declared in 1894, and the plotters waited for a more sympathetic American president. They found one in William McKinley. Annexation passed Congress in 1898 as a joint resolution, bypassing the two-thirds Senate majority required for a treaty that supporters knew they could not achieve. Native Hawaiians had submitted a petition against annexation signed by 21,269 people, representing more than half the indigenous population. Congress ignored it. The ceremony on August 12 was attended by annexationists; many Native Hawaiians stayed away, mourning the loss of their sovereignty.