26 August: On this day in history

On 26 August 1346, thousands of English and French troops lined up against one another near the town of Crécy-en-Ponthieu in the north-eastern corner of France. Ahead of them lay one of the most famous battles of the Hundred Years’ War – that protracted contest for the throne of France – and, on the face of it, there could only be one winner. The French king Philip VI was feeling mightily confident that morning as his troops readied themselves for battle. And with good reason. Philip boasted the larger army and had at his disposal thousands of mounted knights that had dominated European war for centuries.

The English army consisted mainly of footsoldiers. Led by Edward III, they had landed in Normandy in July and plundered and razed every town in their way. Now, with the French in hot pursuit, they set up a defensive position and waited.

According to contemporary chronicler Jean le Bel, Philip VI was seen in the vicinity around noon and immediately ordered an attack of mercenary crossbowmen hired from Genoa. But the English and Welsh troops had the superior technology, the longbow, which allowed them to shoot at a much higher rate than crossbows and over a longer distance. The Genoese, who had left their shields behind, were routed.

French warhorses now hurled towards the English line, but many were felled by further volleys of arrows. The knights who got through were cut down in a melee. By the time the sun was setting there had been more than a dozen French waves, and their forces had been almost entirely annihilated.

It was not until the following morning that the English army knew they had won the battle of Crécy: a clash that, for a short while at least, left the French at Edward’s mercy.

26 August 1882

Birth in Hamburg of German physicist James Franck. In 1925 he and Gustav Hertz were jointly awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics for their discovery of the laws governing the impact of an electron upon an atom.

26 August 1910

Mother Teresa of Calcutta was born Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu in Skopje, Macedonia. In 1979 she was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for her humanitarian work with the Missionaries of Charity.

26 August 1929

Historian and lexicographer Edith Thompson died in Bath, aged 81. She had been one of the principal contributors to the Oxford English Dictionary.

26 August 1970: Women’s Strike for Equality unites activists across US

Senator blasts ‘bubbleheads’ as marches paralyse cities

It was five o’clock on the afternoon of 26 August 1970: rush hour in New York City. But on Fifth Avenue, nothing was moving. The street was impassable, blocked by thousands – tens of thousands, some said – of women. On the news, there were already reports of similar demonstrations elsewhere. In Boston, thousands of women had gathered on the common. In Washington, they marched down Connecticut Avenue, holding a banner reading: “We Demand Equal Rights Now.” mAnd in Detroit they even invaded a men’s toilet, staging a sit-in to demand equal facilities.

Organised to mark the 50th anniversary of the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment, which had given women the right to vote, the Women’s Strike for Equality was a landmark in feminist history. Its prime mover was the writer Betty Friedan, the co-founder of the National Organization for Women, who argued that they should draw Americans’ attention to the fact that millions of women were still denied equal legal rights, financial rights and access to education. The build-up was chaotic, and many people expected it to be a disaster. In fact, even Friedan herself was astonished by its success.

The placards that afternoon in New York captured the tone. “I Am Not a Barbie Doll”, “We are the 51% Minority”, “Don’t Iron While the Strike is Hot”. Yet not everybody applauded the protests. Senator Jennings Randolph dismissed the strikers as a “band of braless bubbleheads”, while one baffled onlooker in LA told reporters: “I don’t know what these women are thinking of. I love the idea of looking delectable and having men whistle at me.”

On TV, the reaction of most male presenters was utter scorn. ABC’s Howard K Smith judged the action “abhorrent”. Women were equal already, he said – if anybody needed liberating, it was American men: “Women dominate our elections; they probably own most of the nation’s capital wealth; any man who thinks he, and not his wife, runs his family is dreaming.” | Written by Dominic Sandbrook

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