First International Conference of American States And so, as Secretary of State, Blaine sent invitations to all the nations of the Hemisphere to come to Washington in November 1881 with the principal goal of considering and discussing methods to prevent war between the nations of the Hemisphere. But destiny intervened: President Garfield was assassinated on 19 September 1881 and the new President Chester A. Arthur, who was no friend of Blaine's, quickly removed him from the State Department. Shortly afterward, the Conference invitations were withdrawn on the grounds that the unsettled situation at home and abroad would make such an event impossible. Now a private citizen,
Warsaw pogrom (1881) Warsaw pogrom (1881) The Warsaw pogrom was a pogrom that took place in Russian-controlled Warsaw on 25-27 December 1881, then part of Vistula Land in the Russian Empire, resulting in two people dead and 24 injured. A contemporary Jewish-Russian historian, Simon Dubnow, gives details of this event: on Christmas Day 1881 the outbreak of panic after a false warning of fire in the crowded Holy Cross Church resulted in the deaths of twenty-nine persons in a stampede. It was believed that the false alarm was raised by pickpockets, who used the ruse to allow them to rob people during the