{"id":7840,"date":"2011-03-26T12:33:46","date_gmt":"2011-03-26T19:33:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.struat.com\/election\/?p=7840"},"modified":"2011-03-26T12:33:46","modified_gmt":"2011-03-26T19:33:46","slug":"two-squares","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.struat.com\/election\/2011\/03\/26\/two-squares\/","title":{"rendered":"two squares"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I saw this on an Internet message board for a topic relating to events of Libya&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>&#8230; and an argument against that there Intervention&#8230; after a brief that &#8220;I&#8217;m not really paying attention&#8221;, but\u00c2\u00a0 tending toward an Isolationist impulse, and a weariness of American military being in firing zones&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The US didn&#8217;t do anything when Trafalgar Square happened.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>This amused me.\u00c2\u00a0 She meant Tiananmen Square, surely &#8212; of quickly developing Superpower China fame, but just for the sake of Trafalgar Square&#8230; what is it?<\/p>\n<p><em><strong>Trafalgar Square<\/strong> is a square in <\/em><span style=\"color: #0645ad;\"><em>central London<\/em><\/span><em>,  England. With its position in the heart of London, it is a tourist  attraction, and one of the most famous squares in the United Kingdom and  the world. At its centre is <\/em><span style=\"color: #0645ad;\"><em>Nelson&#8217;s Column<\/em><\/span><em>,  which is guarded by four lion statues at its base. Statues and  sculptures are on display in the square, including a fourth plinth  displaying changing pieces of contemporary art. The square is also used  as a location for political <\/em><span style=\"color: #0645ad;\"><em>demonstrations<\/em><\/span><em> and community gatherings, such as the celebration of New Year&#8217;s Eve in London.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Did she have a vague idea of a Square that begins with &#8220;T&#8221;, look it up on google and have Trafalgar Square pop up?\u00c2\u00a0 I think so.<em><br \/>\n<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>The name commemorates the <\/em><span style=\"color: #0645ad;\"><em>Battle of Trafalgar<\/em><\/span><em> (1805), a <\/em><span style=\"color: #0645ad;\"><em>British naval<\/em><\/span><em> victory of the <\/em><span style=\"color: #0645ad;\"><em>Napoleonic Wars<\/em><\/span><em>. The original name was to have been &#8220;<\/em><span style=\"color: #0645ad;\"><em>King William the Fourth&#8217;s<\/em><\/span><em> Square&#8221;, but <\/em><span style=\"color: #0645ad;\"><em>George Ledwell Taylor<\/em><\/span><em> suggested the name &#8220;Trafalgar Square&#8221;.<sup id=\"cite_ref-0\"><span style=\"color: #0645ad;\">[1]<\/span><\/sup><\/em><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #0645ad;\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\">I agree.\u00c2\u00a0 It&#8217;s a good  thing America didn&#8217;t intervene in the Battle of Trafagalar and the whole  Napoleonic Wars.\u00c2\u00a0 Or is this referring to one of these incidents?<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><em>By March of the year Nelson&#8217;s column opened, the authorities had started banning <\/em><span style=\"color: #0645ad;\"><em>Chartist<\/em><\/span><em> meetings in the square. A general ban on political rallies remained in effect until the 1880s, when the emerging <\/em><span style=\"color: #0645ad;\"><em>Labour movement<\/em><\/span><em>, particularly the <\/em><span style=\"color: #0645ad;\"><em>Social Democratic Federation<\/em><\/span><em>, began holding protests there.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>On &#8220;<span style=\"color: #0645ad;\">Black Monday<\/span>&#8221; (8 February 1886), protesters rallied against unemployment; this led to a riot in <span style=\"color: #0645ad;\">Pall Mall<\/span>. A larger riot (called &#8220;<span style=\"color: #0645ad;\">Bloody Sunday<\/span>&#8220;) occurred in the square on 13 November 1887.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>One of the first significant demonstrations of the modern era was held in the square on 19 September 1961 by the <\/em><span style=\"color: #0645ad;\"><em>Committee of 100<\/em><\/span><em>, which included the philosopher <\/em><span style=\"color: #0645ad;\"><em>Bertrand Russell<\/em><\/span><em>. The protesters rallied for peace and against war and nuclear weapons.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>There are, of course, more current and relevant examples that would have made her point than&#8230; well, both the events at Tiananmen Square, and the events at Trafalgar square&#8230; no need to drap Bertrand Russell into this.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I saw this on an Internet message board for a topic relating to events of Libya&#8230; &#8230; and an argument against that there Intervention&#8230; after a brief that &#8220;I&#8217;m not really paying attention&#8221;, but\u00c2\u00a0 tending toward an Isolationist impulse, and a weariness of American military being in firing zones&#8230; &#8220;The US didn&#8217;t do anything when [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7840","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.struat.com\/election\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7840","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.struat.com\/election\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.struat.com\/election\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.struat.com\/election\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.struat.com\/election\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7840"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.struat.com\/election\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7840\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7841,"href":"http:\/\/www.struat.com\/election\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7840\/revisions\/7841"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.struat.com\/election\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7840"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.struat.com\/election\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7840"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.struat.com\/election\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7840"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}