TODAY IN HISTORY: JUNE 5

June 5 1916: British War Minister Lord Kitchener drowned
In the icy waters of the North Sea on June 5, 1916, the British cruiser Hampshire striked a German mine and sank off the Orkney Islands; among the passengers and crew drowned is Lord Horatio Herbert Kitchener, the British secretary of state for war.

Kitchener was a war hero who earned the lord distinction with his triumphant leadership of the British army in the Sudan in 1898. Serving as chief of staff during the Boer War (1899-1902), he drew criticism from such liberal politicians as David Lloyd George for his bold prosecution of the successful war effort, including the destruction of Boer farms and the internment of civilians in concentration camps. After serving in the colonial administrations of both India and Egypt, Kitchener was appointed secretary of war by Prime Minister H.H. Asquith upon the outbreak of World War I in the summer of 1914.

Kitchener, the first member of the military to hold the post, was responsible for building up Britain’s army to face Germany—a country that, after steadily building and improving its armed forces for the past 40 years, was by 1914 in possession of the European continent’s most powerful land army. All the regular divisions of the British army went into action in the summer of 1914 and the campaign for volunteers—based around the slogan “Your King and Country Need You!—began in earnest in August of that year. New volunteers were rapidly enlisted and trained, many of them joining what were known as Pals battalions, or regiments of men from the same town or from similar professional backgrounds. Over the first two years of the war, over 3 million British men volunteered to serve in the so-called Kitchener’s New Armies.

By the summer of 1916, however, Kitchener had become a controversial figure, especially in the wake of the Allied failure to gain a victory against the Turks in their ambitious land invasion of the Gallipoli peninsula the previous spring. After Gallipoli, Kitchener had forfeited a good deal of credibility as a military strategist, and many of his fellow ministers had long lost faith in his efficacy and nerve. The British public, on the other hand, still regarded him as the man who embodied the strength and resolve behind the government’s war strategy.

In early June 1916, Kitchener left London aboard the cruiser Hampshire on a diplomatic mission to Russia, where he was to encourage that volatile ally to continue mounting a stiff resistance to their common enemy, Germany, on the Eastern Front of the war. On June 5, while traveling off the Orkney Islands, northwest of Scapa Flow in the North Sea, the Hampshire was sunk by a German mine, killing the war secretary and his colleagues.

Journalist Charles Repington wrote in his journal of Kitchener’s drowning and its effect on the British population: We hoped against hope, but no doubt now remains. A great figure gone. The services which he rendered in the early days of the war cannot be forgotten. They transcend those of all the lesser men who were his colleagues, some few of whom envied his popularity. His old manner of working alone did not consort with the needs of this huge syndicalism, modern war. The thing was too big. He made many mistakes. He was not a good Cabinet man. His methods did not suit a democracy. But there he was, towering above the others in character as in inches, by far the most popular man in the country to the end, and a firm rock which stood out amidst the raging tempest.

June 5 1933: FDR took United States off gold standard

On June 5, 1933, the United States went off the gold standard, a monetary system in which currency was backed by gold, when Congress enacted a joint resolution nullifying the right of creditors to demand payment in gold. The United States had been on a gold standard since 1879, except for an embargo on gold exports during World War I, but bank failures during the Great Depression of the 1930s frightened the public into hoarding gold, making the policy untenable.

Soon after taking office in March 1933, Roosevelt declared a nationwide bank moratorium in order to prevent a run on the banks by consumers lacking confidence in the economy. He also forbade banks to pay out gold or to export it. According to Keynesian economic theory, one of the best ways to fight off an economic downturn is to inflate the money supply. And increasing the amount of gold held by the Federal Reserve would in turn increase its power to inflate the money supply. Facing similar pressures, Britain had dropped the gold standard in 1931, and Roosevelt had taken note.

On April 5, 1933, Roosevelt ordered all gold coins and gold certificates in denominations of more than $100 turned in for other money. It required all persons to deliver all gold coin, gold bullion and gold certificates owned by them to the Federal Reserve by May 1 for the set price of $20.67 per ounce. By May 10, the government had taken in $300 million of gold coin and $470 million of gold certificates. Two months later, a joint resolution of Congress abrogated the gold clauses in many public and private obligations that required the debtor to repay the creditor in gold dollars of the same weight and fineness as those borrowed. In 1934, the government price of gold was increased to $35 per ounce, effectively increasing the gold on the Federal Reserve’s balance sheets by 69 percent. This increase in assets allowed the Federal Reserve to further inflate the money supply.

The government held the $35 per ounce price until August 15, 1971, when President Richard Nixon announced that the United States would no longer convert dollars to gold at a fixed value, thus completely abandoning the gold standard. In 1974, President Gerald Ford signed legislation that permitted Americans again to own gold bullion.

June 5 1934

Fusion between JMB Hertzog's (South African Prime Minister from 1924-39) National Party and Jan Smuts' (South African Prime Minister from 1920-24 and 1939-48) South African Party to create the United South African Party. DF Malan, and like minded nationalists reject the merge and form the Gesuiwerde Nationale Party, (GNP, Purified National Party).

June 5 1967

There are reports of heavy fighting between Egyptian and Israeli forces in the Sinai.

June 5 1975

After eight years the Suez Canal is finally reopened.

June 5 1977

President James Mancham and his Seychelles Peoples United Party (SPUP) government are removed from office by his one-time independence struggle ally, France-Albert René, and the Seychelles Democratic Party (SDP).

June 5 1986

A United Nations report estimates the number of people who have HIV/AIDS in Africa at 50,000.

Source: history.com, africanhistory.about.com