September 5 in History

The Jourdan Law forces French men into military service, instantly swelling Napoleon's ranks to conquer much of Europe. This conscription model reshaped modern warfare by establishing the first large-scale national armies based on citizenship rather than mercenaries.

Tsar Peter I imposed a tax on beards as part of his aggressive campaign to Westernize the Russian nobility, requiring those who kept their facial hair to carry a copper token as proof of payment. The decree provoked outrage among the Orthodox faithful who considered beards a religious obligation, but it succeeded in visually separating the modernizing elite from the traditional peasantry.

Nicolas Fouquet had thrown a party for the King — a housewarming at his château at Vaux-le-Vicomte, so lavish it reportedly made Louis XIV silently furious that a finance minister lived better than the Crown. Three weeks later, D'Artagnan — the real one, not Dumas's version — arrested Fouquet in Nantes on charges of embezzlement. Fouquet spent the remaining nineteen years of his life in prison. And Louis XIV promptly hired Fouquet's architect, his landscape designer, and his decorator to build a somewhat larger project: Versailles.

The Great Fire burned for four days and nights through 13,200 houses and 87 churches, leaving 100,000 people homeless in the ruins of medieval London. The official death toll was six. Historians have argued for centuries that number is impossibly low — but documented mass graves haven't been found, and the crowded tenements that should've trapped the poorest Londoners burned mostly at night when many were awake. What rose from the ash was Christopher Wren's new St Paul's, 51 new parish churches, and the first city in Europe built with fire insurance in mind.

Pierre Le Moyne d'Iberville fought his way into Hudson Bay through waters most European commanders refused to enter. In 1697 his single ship, the Pélican, engaged three English vessels at once after arriving separated from his convoy — sinking one, capturing another, forcing the third to flee. He'd already traded in those waters for years and knew every current. D'Iberville went on to found the first permanent French settlements in Louisiana, including a town that would eventually become New Orleans. One ship, one morning, in a freezing bay, changed the map of North America.

In 1698, Tsar Peter I of Russia imposed a tax on beards in an effort to modernize Russian society and reduce the influence of traditional customs. This unusual tax was part of Peter's broader campaign to westernize Russia and promote a more European lifestyle among his subjects. The beard tax exemplifies the cultural shifts occurring during Peter's reign and his determination to transform Russia into a modern state.

The British lost the American Revolution at sea before they lost it on land. When Admiral de Grasse's French fleet blocked the entrance to the Chesapeake Bay and forced the British squadron to withdraw, Cornwallis's army at Yorktown lost its only escape route and supply line. The actual battle lasted just over two hours. No ships sank. But by sailing away intact, the British navy sealed the fate of 8,000 soldiers on shore. Cornwallis surrendered six weeks later. The French fleet's departure afterward barely made the news.

Two soldiers stepped out of Fort Wayne to use the outhouse on the morning of September 5th, 1812, and Chief Winamac's warriors attacked them — launching a siege that drew in multiple tribes allied with the British and lasted eleven days. The fort held. General William Henry Harrison arrived with a relief column and the siege collapsed. Harrison would use his frontier campaigns, including the battles surrounding this siege, to build a political reputation summarized in one phrase: Tippecanoe. Nine years later, that reputation put him in the White House.