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Events, deaths, births, of 24 AUG v.8.70
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whale calf and mother^  On a 24 August:
2002 In the southeastern Bering Sea, fisheries researchers sight, swimming alongside its mother, the first northern right whale calf to be seen in the eastern North Pacific Ocean in perhaps a century. The northern right whale (Eubalaena glacialis) is the most endangered whale in the world. Between 1900 and 1994 there were only 29 reliable sightings of right whales in the eastern North Pacific. Since then scientific expeditions have found a few right whales — between about four and 13 individuals — in the eastern North Pacific each year. Right whales were hunted extensively in the early 1900s because they were easy to catch (the “right” whale to hunt), and floated after they were killed. Right whale flesh is very rich in oil.
1999 Chechnya war: Chechen fighters announce withdrawal from the Botlikh region, first stage of the war ends. Rebels add they are switching to a new stage of operation using guerilla and "military-political" tactics.
The village of Tando, long occupied by the Chechens, is reported to be completely destroyed by Russian bombardment.
Moscow bars radio and television networks from carrying interviews with Chechen and Dagestani leaders. http://www.cdi.org/issues/Europe/aug.html
1998 It is discovered that 2^3'021'377 – 1 is a Mersenne prime (the 37th) (Mersenne prime numbers are primes of the form 2^n – 1, which requires n to be prime; and it is equivalent to [2^(n–1)]×(2^n – 1) being equal to the sum of its factors other than itself, i.e. a “perfect number”). . They can all be found (with their date of discovery) at http://www.isthe.com/chongo/tech/math/prime/mersenne.html.
1995 El Gobierno de Zaire establece con la Alta Comisaría de Naciones Unidas para los Refugiados (ACNUR) un acuerdo sobre las deportaciones de unos 13'000 ruandeses y burundeses, mientras otros 130'000 se esconden en las montañas.
1991 Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev resigned as head of the USSR Communist Party, culminating a stunning Kremlin shakeup that followed the failed coup by hard-liners. In Moscow, thousands of people held a martyrs' funeral for three men killed fighting the coup.
1991 Ukraine declares independence from the USSR.
1990 Iraqi troops surround US and other embassies in Kuwait City
1989 The Voyager 2 space probe flew by Neptune, sending back striking photographs.
1988 El nuevo presidente de Myanmar (Birmania), Maung Maung, levanta la ley marcial en su país.
1982 Insider trading plot      ^top^
      Martin Siegel meets Ivan Boesky at the Harvard Club in New York City to discuss his mounting financial pressures. Arbitrageur Boesky offered Siegel, a mergers-and-acquisitions executive at Kidder, Peabody & Co., a job, but Siegel, who was looking for some kind of consulting arrangement, declined. Boesky then suggested that if Siegel would supply him with early inside information on upcoming mergers there would be something in it for him.
      By the end of 1982, although little information had been exchanged, Boesky sent a courier with a secret code and a briefcase containing $150'000 in $100 bills to be delivered to Siegel at the Plaza Hotel. Over the next couple of years, Siegel passed inside information to Boesky on several occasions. With Siegel's inside tips, Boesky made $28 million dollars investing in Carnation stock before its takeover. But his success began to fuel investigative inquiries by both the press and the Securities and Exchange Commission. Rumors that Siegel and Kidder, Peabody & Co. were involved in illegal activities began floating around.
      Despite the pressure, Siegel and Boesky met at Pastrami 'n' Things in January 1985, where Siegel demanded $400'000. This time, the cash drop-off was made at a phone booth. Siegel, who was apprehensive about his relationship with Boesky, decided to put an end to it after he had received his money. Still, he continued to trade inside information with other Wall Street executives. In 1986, the illegal schemes, which by then included many of the biggest traders in the country, came crashing down. Arrests were made up and down Wall Street, and Boesky and Michael Milken, the junk bond king charged with violating federal securities laws, were no exception.
      Siegel turned out to be one of the few cooperative witnesses for the government and virtually the only one who showed remorse for his role in the fraud, causing him to be ostracized on Wall Street. Nevertheless, he did fare better than the others: Milken received a 10-year sentence, Boesky received 3 years, and Siegel escaped with only a 2-month sentence and a large fine. The entire incident came to symbolize the era of unfettered greed on Wall Street in the mid-1980s.
1981 Mark David Chapman is sentenced in New York to 20 years to life in prison for murdering rock star John Lennon.
1970 Vietnam: B-52s conduct heavy raids along the DMZ      ^top^
      US B-52s carry out heavy bombing raids along the DMZ. In the United States, a radical protest group calling themselves the New Year's Gang blew up in the Army Mathematics Research Center at the University of Wisconsin Army Mathematics Research Center in Madison. A graduate student who was working late was killed in the blast. The center, which reportedly was involved in war research, had been a focus for protest in the past, but previously protests had all been nonviolent. —
^ 1969 Vietnam: US unit refuses commander's order
      Company A of the Third Battalion, 196th Light Infantry Brigade refuses the order of its commander, Lieutenant Eugene Schurtz, Jr., to continue an attack that had been launched to reach a downed helicopter shot down in the Que Son valley, 30 miles south of Da Nang. The unit had been in fierce combat for five days against entrenched North Vietnamese forces and had taken heavy casualties. Schurtz called his battalion commander, Lieutenant Colonel Robert C. Bacon, and informed him that his men had refused to follow his order to move out because they had "simply had enough" and that they were "broken." The unit eventually moved out when Bacon sent his executive officer and a sergeant to give Schurtz's troops "a pep talk," but when they reached the downed helicopter on August 25, they found all eight men aboard dead. Schurtz was relieved of his command and transferred to another assignment in the division. Neither he nor his men were disciplined. This case of "combat refusal," as the Army described it, was reported widely in US newspapers.
1968 France became the world's fifth thermonuclear power as it exploded a nuclear fusion device in the South Pacific.
1967 Liberian flag designed
1963 Vietnam: US pulls out the rug from under Diem      ^top^
      Washington changes policy on support for President Diem Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge receives a State Department cable stating that the United States can no longer tolerate Ngo Dinh Nhu's influence in President Ngo Dinh Diem's regime. This message was in response to the raids on the Buddhist pagodas; it also directed Lodge to tell the South Vietnamese generals that Washington was prepared to discontinue economic and military aid to Diem. This was no doubt a major factor in convincing the opposition generals to launch the coup that resulted in Diem's death in the early morning hours of November 2, 1963.
1961 Former nazi leader Johannes Vorster becomes South Africa's minister of justice (if the shoe fits...)
1960 -88ºC, Vostok, Antarctica (world record)
1959 Hiram L Fong sworn in as 1st Chinese-American US senator while Daniel K Inouye sworn in as 1st Japanese-American Rep (Both from Hawaii)
1956 First non-stop transcontinental helicopter flight arrives in Washington DC
^ 1954 US Congress passes Communist Control Act
      Congress passes the Communist Control Act in response to the growing anticommunist hysteria in the United States. Though full of ominous language, many found the purpose of the act unclear. In 1954, the Red Scare still raged in the United States. Although Senator Joseph McCarthy, the most famous of the "red hunters" in the US, had been disgraced earlier in the summer of 1954 when he tried to prove that Communists were in the US Army, most people in the US still believed that Communists were at work subverting the country. Responding to this fear, Congress passed the Communist Control Act in August 1954. The act declared that, "The Communist Party of the United States, though purportedly a political party, is in fact an instrumentality of a conspiracy to overthrow the Government of the United States." The act went on to charge that the party's "role as the agency of a hostile foreign power renders its existence a clear and continuing danger to the security of the United States." The conclusion seemed inescapable: "The Communist Party should be outlawed." Indeed, that is what many people at the time believed the Communist Control Act accomplished. A careful reading of the act, however, indicates that the reality was a bit fuzzier.
      In 1950, Congress passed the Internal Security Act. In many respects, it was merely a version of the Communist Control Act passed four years later. It used the same language to condemn communism and the Communist Party of the United States, and established penalties for anyone belonging to a group calling for the violent overthrow of the US government. However, it very specifically noted that mere membership in the Communist Party, or affiliated organizations, was not in and of itself sufficient cause for arrest or penalty. The 1954 act went one step further by removing the "rights, privileges, and immunities attendant upon legal bodies created under the jurisdiction of the laws of the United States" from the Communist Party. The Communist Control Act made it clear that "nothing in this section shall be construed as amending the Internal Security Act of 1950." Thus, while the Communist Control Act may have declared that the Communist Party should be outlawed, the act itself did not take this decisive step.
      In the years to come, the Communist Party of the United States continued to exist, although the US government used legislation such as the Communist Control Act to harass Communist Party members. More ominously, the government also used such acts to investigate and harass numerous other organizations that were deemed to have communist "leanings." These included the American Civil Liberties Union, labor unions, and the NAACP. By the mid-to-late 1960s, however, the Red Scare had run its course and a more liberal Supreme Court began to chip away at the immense tangle of anticommunist legislation that had been passed during the 1940s and 1950s. Today, the Communist Party of the United States continues to exist and regularly runs candidates for local, state, and national elections
1950 Operation Magic Carpet-45'000 Yemenite Jews move to Israel
1949 North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) established as the North Atlantic Treaty goes into effect.
1949 Termina practicamente la guerra civil en Grecia, una lucha de tres años contra la guerrilla comunista.
1945 Last Cadillac tank
      The last Cadillac-built M-24 tank is produced, ending the company’s World War II effort. Civilian auto production virtually ceased after the attack on Pearl Harbor, as the US automotive industry turned to war production. Between 1940 and 1945, automotive firms made almost $29 billion worth of military materials, including jeeps, trucks, machine guns, carbines, tanks, helmets, and aerial bombs.
^ 1942 Sea battle of the East Solomons, the third carrier-versus-carrier battle of the WW II.
      US naval forces defeat a Japanese force attempting to screen reinforcements for the Guadalcanal fighting.
      US forces continue to deliver crushing blows to the Japanese, sinking the aircraft carrier Ryuho in the Battle of the East Solomon Islands. Key to the US's success in this battle was the work of coastwatchers, a group of volunteers whose job it is to report on Japanese ship and aircraft movement. The Marines had landed on Guadalcanal, on the Solomon Islands, on 07 August. This was the first US offensive maneuver of the war and would deliver the first real defeat to the Japanese.
      On 23 August, coastwatchers, comprised mostly of Australian and New Zealander volunteers, hidden throughout the Solomon and Bismarck islands and protected by anti-Japanese natives, spotted heavy Japanese reinforcements headed for Guadalcanal. The coastwatchers alerted three US carriers that were within 160 km of Guadalcanal, which then raced to the scene to intercept the Japanese.
      By the time the Battle of the Eastern Solomons was over, the Japanese lost a light carrier, a destroyer, and a submarine and the Ryuho. The US fleet suffered damage to the USS Enterprise, the most decorated carrier of the war; the Enterprise would see action again, though, in the US landings on Okinawa in 1945. As for the coastwatchers, Vice Adm. William F. Halsey said, "The coastwatchers saved Guadalcanal, and Guadalcanal saved the Pacific."
      It was a coastwatcher who arranged for the deliverance and safe return of John F. Kennedy and his crew when they were stranded in the Solomons in 1943.
1941 II Guerra Mundial. Fuerzas británicas, por el sur y el oeste, y rusas, por el norte, ocupan pacíficamente Irán.
1939 Nazi Germany and USSR sign 10-year non-aggression pact
1936 Australian Antarctic Territory created
1932 Earhart flies nonstop across the US.      ^top^
      Amelia Earhart begins the first transcontinental nonstop flight by a woman when she takes off from Los Angeles, California, in her red Wasp-powered Lockheed airplane. She landed in Newark, New Jersey, the next day, having flown the 4200 km journey in nineteen hours and five minutes. Three months earlier, Earhart had become the first women to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean, flying nonstop from Newfoundland to Ireland in fourteen hours. She completed the transatlantic flight on 21 May, five years to the day that US aviator Charles Lindbergh became the first pilot to ever accomplish the feat.
      However, unlike Charles Lindbergh before her, Earhart was well known to the public before her solo transatlantic flight. In 1928, as a member of a three-member crew, she had become the first woman to cross the Atlantic in an aircraft. Although her only function during the crossing was to keep the plane's log, the event won her national fame, and Americans were enamored with the daring and modest young pilot. For her solo transatlantic crossing in 1932, she was awarded a Distinguished Flying Cross by the US Congress. In 1935, in the first flight of its kind, she flew solo from Wheeler Field in Honolulu, Hawaii, to Oakland, California, winning a $10'000 award posted by Hawaiian commercial interests. Two years later, she attempted, along with copilot Frederick J. Noonan, to fly around the world, but her plane was lost somewhere between New Guinea and Howland Island in the South Pacific on 02 July 1937. The details of the plane's disappearance remain a mystery.
1926 El pleno del Comité Central del Partido Comunista de la URSS expulsa a Zinoviev del Politburó y del Comité Central por la llamada "declaración de los 13", contraria a las tesis de Stalin.
1921 Se inaugura la torre Einstein, en la cima del Telegrafenberg, cerca de Potsdam (Alemania), en homenaje al gran científico.
1912 Territory of Alaska organized
1912 US passes Anti-gag law, federal employees right to petition the govt
1909 Workers start pouring concrete for Panama Canal
1894 The US Congress passes the US's first graduated income tax law, which is ruled unconstitutional the next year.
1891 Thomas Edison files a patent for the motion picture camera.
1863 Siege of Fort Wagner, Charleston Harbor, South Carolina continues
^ 1862 C.S.S. Alabama is commissioned
      The C.S.S. Alabama was commissioned at sea off Portugal's Azore Islands, beginning an illustrious career that would see over sixty Union merchant vessels sunk or destroyed by the Confederate raider. Built in secrecy for the Confederacy in Liverpool shipyards, the construction of the Alabama was uncovered by the Union, creating a significant diplomatic crisis between the US government and Britain. Nevertheless, the ship set off into the open seas captained by Confederate Raphael Semmes and manned by an international crew in which Southerners were the minority. Leaving sunk US merchant ships in its wake, the Alabama cruised the Atlantic, rounded Africa, and visited Southeast Asia, before redoubling the Cape of Good Hope back to Europe.
      On 11 June 1864, the Alabama arrived at Cherbourg, and Captain Semmes requested permission to dock and repair his ship. The US sloop-of-war Kearsarge, which had been pursuing the Alabama, arrived three days later and waited outside of the harbor. On 19 June, the Alabama sailed out to meet its foe. However, unlike the sixty-odd merchant ships that the Confederate raider had sunk during its two-year rampage, the Kearsarge was prepared. After an initial exchange of gunfire, the battle quickly turned against the Alabama, which lacked the type of high quality powder and shells necessary to penetrate the Kearsarge's chain-cable armor. Within an hour, the Alabama was reduced to a sinking wreck, and Captain Semmes struck his colors and abandoned ship with the other survivors. While the victorious Union vessel rescued much of the Alabama's surviving crew, Semmes and a number of others were picked up by a British yacht that had been observing the sea battle, and escaped to England.
^ 1857 The Panic of 1857
      The New York branch of the Ohio Life Insurance and Trust Company closes, plunging America into the Panic of 1857. The Ohio Life closing was neither a surprise nor the sole reason for crisis: America had been boom-busting its way through the nineteenth century, riding rampant overspeculation in railroad and real estate securities to bursts of development which were inevitably followed by bad droughts. And the pattern held true with the Panic, which had been preceded by a flush period of expansion. This particular crisis was brief but painful: 4,923 businesses closed before the end of the year. Eastern cities were ravaged by unemployment, prompting people to take to the streets to protest joblessness and hunger. The financial fog finally lifted by 1859 and development once again charged ahead.
1854 The Evangelical Lutheran Synod of Iowa was organized by German Lutherans. In 1930 this synod merged with the synods of Ohio and Buffalo to form the American Lutheran Church.
^ 1847 Charlotte Brontë [21 Apr 1816 – 31 Mar 1855], using the pseudonym Currer Bell, sends to her publisher in London a manuscript of Jane Eyre.
     This novel presents a thinking, feeling woman, craving for love but able to renounce it at the call of impassioned self-respect and moral conviction. The book's narrator and main character, Jane Eyre, is an orphan and is governess to the ward of Mr. Rochester, the Byronic and enigmatic employer with whom she falls in love. Her love is reciprocated, but on the wedding morning it comes out that Rochester is already married and keeps his mad and depraved wife in the attics of his mansion.
      Jane leaves him, suffers hardship, and finds work as a village schoolmistress. When Jane learns, however, that Rochester has been maimed and blinded while trying vainly to rescue his wife from the burning house that she herself had set afire, Jane seeks him out and marries him.
      There are melodramatic naïvetés in the story, and Charlotte's elevated rhetorical passages do not much appeal to modern taste, but she maintains her hold on the reader. The novel is subtitled An Autobiography and is written in the first person; but the autobiography is not Charlotte's. Personal experience is fused with suggestions from widely different sources, and the Cinderella theme may well come from Samuel Richardson's Pamela. The action is carefully motivated, and apparently episodic sections are seen to be necessary to the full expression of Jane's character and the working out of the threefold moral theme of love, independence, and forgiveness.

CHARLOTTE BRONTE ONLINE: CHARLOTTE BRONTË ONLINE:
  • Jane Eyre
  • Jane Eyre (2rd site)
  • Jane Eyre (3rd site)
  • Jane Eyre (zipped PDF)
  • Poems by Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell (i.e.the 3 Brontë sisters)
  • Poems (same, another site)
  • The Professor
  • The Professor (another site)
  • The Professor (zipped PDF)
  • Shirley
  • Shirley (another site)
  • Villette
    • 1853 1st potato chips prepared by Chef George Crum (Saratoga Springs, NY)
    1821 Juan O'Donoju y O'Rian [30 julio 1762 – 08 octubre 1821], enviado del gobierno español, y el insurgente Agustín de Iturbide [27 septiembre 1783 – 19 julio 1824] firman el Pacto de Córdoba, en el que se reconoce la Independencia de México; sin embargo, ésta no fue aceptada por España por carecer O'Donoju de facultades para concertarlo.
    1814 British troops under General Robert Ross capture Washington, D.C., which they set on fire (including White House) in retaliation for the American burning of the parliament building in York (Toronto), the capital of Upper Canada.
    ^ 1814 British capture and burn Washington
         During the War of 1812, British forces under General Robert Ross overwhelmed American militamen at the Battle of Bladensburg, Maryland, and marched unopposed into Washington, D.C. Most congressmen and officials fled the nation's capital as soon as word came of the American defeat, but President James Madison and his wife Dolley escaped just before the invaders arrived. Earlier in the day, Madison had been present at the Battle of Bladensburg, and had at one point actually taken command of one of the few remaining American batteries, thus becoming the first and only president to exercise in battle his authority as commander-in-chief.
          The British army entered Washington in the late afternoon, and General Ross and British officers dined that night at the deserted Executive Mansion. Meanwhile, the British troops, ecstatic that they had captured their enemy's capital, began setting the city aflame in revenge for the burning of the parliament building in York (Toronto), capital of Upper Canada, by US troops. The White House, the Treasury Building, a number of other federal buildings, and several private homes were destroyed. The still uncompleted Capitol building was also lit, and the House of Representatives and the Library of Congress were gutted before a torrential downpour doused the flames.
          On August 26, General Ross, realizing his untenable hold on the capital area, ordered a withdrawal from Washington. The next day, President Madison returned to a smoking and charred Washington, and vowed to rebuild the city. James Hoban, the original architect of the Executive Mansion, completed reconstruction of the White House in 1817.
    1791 Una escuadra española bombardea la ciudad marroquí de Tánger, en represalia por el ataque de fuerzas de Marruecos a la guarnición de Ceuta.
    1780 King Louis XVI abolishes torture as a means to get suspects to confess.
    ^ 1682 William Penn acquires the "Lower Counties"
          The Duke of York awards to Englishman William Penn the three "lower counties" in the American colonies which later became the state of Delaware. Penn acquired this land just west of the Delaware River and Bay in order to prevent his Pennsylvania colony from being landlocked. The Delaware territory remained part of Pennsylvania until 1704, when it was given its own assembly. On December 7, 1787, Delaware ratified the new US Constitution, becoming the "first state" of the United States.
    1662 Act of Uniformity requires English to accept book of Common Prayer
    1542 In South America, Gonzalo Pizarro returns to the mouth of the Amazon River after having sailed the length of the great river as far as the Andes Mountains.
    1535 Sale de Sanlúcar de Barrameda (Cádiz) la expedición de Pedro de Mendoza, compuesta de 14 naves y 2150 hombres, que exploró y conquistó una parte de la actual República Argentina.
    1456 In Mainz, Germany, volume two of the famed Gutenberg Bible was bound, completing a two-year publishing project, and making it the first full-length book to be printed using movable type.
    0410 The Visigoths, led by Alaric [370-410], conquer Rome, symbolizing fall of Western Roman Empire and disillusioning Christians who were trusting in God's protection of this ecclesiastical center of Christianity. St. Augustine [13 Nov 354 – 28 Aug 430] later confronted this religious problem in his monumental work, City of God (413). Born a nobleman in Peuce Island (now in Romania), Alaric served for a time as commander of Gothic troops in the Roman army, but shortly after the death of the emperor Theodosius I in 395, he left the army and was elected chief of the Visigoths. Charging that his tribe had not been given subsidies promised by the Romans, Alaric marched westward toward Constantinople (now Istanbul) until he was diverted by Roman forces. He then moved southward into Greece, where he sacked Piraeus (the port of Athens) and ravaged Corinth, Megara, Argos, and Sparta. The Eastern emperor Flavius Arcadius [377-408] finally placated the Visigoths in 397, probably by appointing Alaric magister militum in Illyricum. In 401 Alaric invaded Italy, but he was defeated by the Roman general Flavius Stilicho [365 – 22 Aug 408] at Pollenza on 06 April 402, and forced to withdraw from Italy. A second invasion also ended in defeat, though Alaric eventually compelled the Senate at Rome to pay a large subsidy to the Visigoths. After Stilicho was murdered, an antibarbarian party took power in Rome and incited the Roman troops to massacre the wives and children of tribesmen who were serving in the Roman army. These tribal soldiers thereupon defected to Alaric, substantially increasing his military strength. Although Alaric was eager for peace, the Western emperor Flavius Honorius [09 Sep 384 – 15 Aug 423] refused his requests for land and supplies. Alaric thereupon laid siege to Rome (408) until the Senate granted him another subsidy and assistance in his negotiations with Honorius. Honorius remained intransigent, however, and in 409 Alaric again surrounded Rome. He lifted his blockade after proclaiming Attalus as Western emperor. Attalus appointed him magister utriusque militiae but refused to allow him to send an army into Africa. Negotiations with Honorius broke down, and Alaric deposed Attalus in the summer of 410, besieging Rome for the third time. Allies within the capital opened the gates for him on 24 August 410, and for three days his troops occupied the city, which had not been captured by a foreign enemy for nearly 800 years. Although the Visigoths plundered Rome, they treated its inhabitants humanely and burned only a few buildings. Having abandoned a plan to occupy Africa. Alaric died at Cosenza as the Visigoths were marching northward. —(070813)
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    ^  Deaths which occurred on a 24 August:

    2006 Charles D. Smith, shot in the chest late in the night, near the intersection of 28th and Gaulbert in the west end of Louisville, Kentucky. —(060827)
    2006 Gil Wilkins, aka Gilbert Harris, 22, from being shot multiple times in the afternoon of 22 August 2006, at 43rd and Market Streets in the west end of Louisville, Kentucky. —(060827)
    2005 Anas Abu Zeina, 17; Mohammed Othman, 17; Mahmoud Ahadib, 17; Adel Abu Khalil (Al-Gawi), 26; and Majdi Atiya, 18; unarmed, unresisting Palestinians shot in cold blood at 23:25 (19:25 UT) by Israeli troops supposed to be conducting an arrest raid in Tul Karm, West Bank. (050907)
    Yassin2004 All 46 aboard Sibir Airlines Flight 1047, a Tu-154 jet, which crashes near village Gluboky, north of Rostov-on-Don, Russia, at at 22:59, four minutes after emitting an SOS signal. It had left Moscow's Domodedovo airport at 21:35, bound to Sochi. This and the Flight 1303 (next) crashes were caused by Chechen women suicide bombers Satsita Dzhebirkhanova and Amnat Nagayeva (whose sister Roza Nagayeva would be the 31 August 2004 suicide bomber at the Rizhskaya metro station in Moscow).
    2004 All 43 aboard a Tu-134 airliner, Flight 1303 of the small regional airline Volga-Aviaexpress (piloted by its director), which crashes near village Buchalki in the Tula region of Russia at 22:56. It had left Moscow's Domodedovo airport at 22:15, bound to Volgograd.
    2003 Three bodyguards of Mohammed Saeed al-Hakim, by terrorist bomb made with a gas cylinder, which explodes just after noon prayers near the Imam Ali mosque in Najaf, Iraq, along the outside wall of the home of al-Hakim, who is lightly wounded. He is a high-ranking Shi'ite ayatollah and the uncle of ayatollah Mohammed Baqir al-Hakim, who would die among some 20 others in a terrorist bombing on 29 August 2003.
    2003 US Army Spc. Michael Andrade, 28, of the 115th Military Police Company, in a vehicle accident 65 km north of Baghdad, Iraq.
    2002 Ikhlas Yassin, 35, Palestinian mother of 3, shot in the chest and head by al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades militants, in the evening, on the town square of Tulkarm, West Bank, after they made her confess on videotape [photo >] that she had passed on information to her brother about the movements of a wanted militant who was later killed by Israeli forces.
    ^ 2000 John Kaiser, 67.
         A native of Minnesota, he was a Catholic missionary priest among the Masai of Kenya for the past 36 years and human rights activist. His body, shot in the back of the head, is found early today along a highway near Naivasha, 80 km northwest of Nairobi. Documents found on the priest's body link two Kenyan Cabinet ministers to violent tribal clashes. Kaiser intended to hand the documents over to a government commission looking into the clashes, which took place in the Rift Valley Province between 1992 and 1997. "Father Kaiser always loved the truth," would say later Bishop Joseph Mairura, who studied under Kaiser in the seminary. "Because he witnessed to the truth, and some powerful people feared the truth, he was killed. Instead of repenting, they killed him."
    1995 Alfred Eisenstaedt, US photographer and photojournalist born in Prussia on 06 December 1898. He worked for Life magazine from 1936 to 1972.
    1991 Bernard Castro, 87, patented convertible couch
    1982 Hitoshi Kumano-Go, of a brain tumor for which he had been hospitalized since May 1981. He was a Japanese mathematician born on 04 October 1935. Author of Pseudo Differential Operators (1974), Partial differential equations (1978).
    1971 Wallace John Eckert, US astronomer born on 19 June 1902.
    1967 Henry J. Kaiser, 85, in Honolulu. Along with a construction company, a shipyard, an aircraft company, and an aluminum manufacturing plant, Kaiser owned an automobile company. Co-founded with Joseph W. Frazer in 1945, the company produced only a few models before production was ceased in 1954.
    1945 At least 524 Koreans and 25 Japanese crew members of the Imperial Japanese navy transport vessel Ukishima Maru which was carrying 4000 Koreans home when an explosion occurs, in Maizuru port in Kyoto.
    1943 Simone Weil, escritora francesa.
    1940 Paul Nipkow, television pioneer. German engineer Paul Nipkow invented a rotating disk perforated with small openings called the "Nipkow disk." This invention made it possible to scan, analyze, and transmit small portions of a television image. The Nipkow disk was a key piece of television technology until the early 1930s, when it was replaced by electronic scanning devices.
    1929 Más de 500 personas en enfrentamientos armados en Jerusalén entre árabes y judíos.
    ^ 1923 Kate Douglas (Smith) Wiggin (Riggs), 66.
         She was a US author who led the kindergarten education movement in the United States. Her works include The Story of Patsy (1883), The Birds' Christmas Carol (1887), Timothy's Quest (1890), Penelope's Progress (1898); Penelope's English Experiences (1900); Susanna and Sue (1909); Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm (1910), probably her most popular work (dramatized by Wiggin in 1910 and first filmed in 1917); Penelope's Postscripts (1915); Homespun Tales (1920).
    WIGGIN ONLINE:
  • The Birds' Christmas Carol
  • A Cathedral Courtship
  • The Diary of a Goose Girl
  • The Flag-Raising
  • New Chronicles of Rebecca
  • The Old Peabody Pew: A Christmas Romance of a Country Church
  • Penelope's English Experiences
  • Penelope's Experiences in Scotland
  • Penelope's Irish Experiences
  • Penelope's Postscripts
  • Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm
  • Rose O' the River
  • The Story of Waitstill Baxter
  • The Village Watch-Tower
    • 1911 Johan Tiren, Swedish artist born on 12 October 1853.
    1906 Alfred Stevens, Belgian painter born on 11 May 1823. — Not to be confused with English painter Alfred Stevens [1817-1875] — MORE ON STEVENS AT ART “4” AUGUST with links to images.
    1903 Charles Henry Smith, who under the pseudonym of Bill Arp wrote From the Uncivil War to Date, 1861-1903
    1901 Margaret Fairless Barber, author. MARGARET BARBER ONLINE: The Gathering of Brother Hilarius, The Grey Brethren and Other Fragments in Prose and Verse, The Roadmender
    1899 Josef Reznicek Gisela, Austrian artist born on 17 November 1854.
    1888 Rudolf Clausius, German physicist, born on 02 January 1822, who did important work in thermodynamics. In 1865 Clausius stated the First and Second laws of thermodynamics thus: 1. Die Energie der Welt ist konstant. 2. Die Entroopie der Welt strebt einem Maximum zu..
    1884 Giuseppe de Nittis, Italian artist born on 22 February 1846.
    1832 Nicolas-Léonard-Sadi Carnot, 36, dies in Paris during the cholera epidemic. He was an efficiency expert best known for his theory of thermodynamics, pioneer in the development of the internal combustion engine. The importation of advanced British engines dismayed Carnot, for he saw how far behind French design had fallen. However, his own work would change that. He would go on to develop the Carnot cycle and Carnot efficiency, improving the efficiency of all types of engines. He was born on 01 June 1796, the eldest son of French conservative Revolutionary “the Great” Lazare Carnot [13 May 1753 – 02 August 1823].
    1809 Lorenzo Hervás y Panduro, polígrafo español.
    1758 Bartolomeo Nazari, Italian artist born on 10 May 1699.
    1751 Thomas Colley executed in England for drowning alleged witch
    ^ 1683 John Owen, 67, English Puritan minister, prolific writer, and controversialist.
          He was an advocate of Congregationalism and an aide to Oliver Cromwell, the lord protector (i.e. dictator) of England (1653-1658). Among his works are historical treatises on religion, several studies of the doctrine of the Holy Spirit, and defenses of Nonconformist, or Puritan, views. An edition of his Works fills 24 volumes (1850-1855).
    OWEN ONLINE:
  • A Brief Declaration and Vindication of the Doctrine of the Trinity
  • The Doctrine of Justification by Faith )
  • Gospel Grounds and Evidences of the Faith of God's Elect
  • Meditations and Discourses on the Glory of Christ — part 1 -/ — - part 2 —
  • A Vindication of Some Passages in a Discourse Concerning Communion with God
  • Of Communion with God the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost
  • Christologia
  • Of Temptation
  • Of the Mortification of Sin in Believers
  • A Practical Exposition of Psalm CXXX
  • Two Short Catechisms
    • 1670 John Michael Neile, mathematician born on 07 December 1637.
    1648 Diego de Saavedra Fajardo, escritor político español.
    1595 Thomas Digges, English military officer, politician, astronomer, mathematician born in 1546.
    ^ 1572 Gaspard II de Coligny, 53, and thousands of Huguenots on the first day of the Saint Barthélémy massacre
         The Massacre of St. Bartholomew's Day had for its background the political and religious rivalries of the court of France. Admiral Gaspard II de Coligny, a Huguenot leader, supported a war in the Low Countries against Spain as a means to prevent a resumption of civil war, a plan that the French king, Charles IX, was coming to approve in the summer of 1572.
          Catherine de Médicis, the mother of Charles, feared Admiral Coligny's growing influence over her son. She accordingly gave her approval to a plot that the Roman Catholic house of Guise had been hatching to assassinate Coligny, whom it held responsible for the murder of François de Guise in 1563. On 18 August 1572, Catherine's daughter, Margaret of France (Marguerite de Valois), was married to the Huguenot Henry of Navarre (the future Henry IV of France), and a large part of the Huguenot nobility came to Paris for the wedding. The attempt on Admiral Coligny's life four days later failed; he was only wounded.
          To placate the angry Huguenots, the government agreed to investigate the assassination attempt. Fearing discovery of her complicity, Catherine met secretly with a group of nobles at the Tuileries Palace to plot the complete extermination of the Huguenot leaders, who were still in Paris for the wedding festivities. Charles was told that the Huguenots were plotting his death, and, enraged, approved of the scheme. On the night of August 23, members of the Paris municipality were called to the Louvre and given their orders.
          Shortly before dawn on 24 August the bell of Saint-Germain-l'Auxerrois begins to toll and the massacre began. One of the first victims is Coligny, who was killed under the supervision of Henry de Guise himself. At dawn on the 24th, mercenaries of Henri de Guise attack Coligny at his house, strike blow after blow, and finally throw him, still living, from the window; his head was then cut off by one of Guise's henchmen. The king had calmed down and countermanded the slaughter, but the message arrived when Coligny was already dead and was ignored.
          Even within the Louvre, Navarre's attendants were slaughtered, though Navarre and Henry I de Bourbon, 2nd Prince de Condé, were spared. The homes and shops of Huguenots were pillaged, and their occupants brutally murdered; many bodies were thrown into the Seine. Bloodshed continued in Paris even after a royal order of 25 August to stop the killing, and it spread to the provinces. Huguenots in Rouen, Lyon, Bourges, Orléans, and Bordeaux were among the victims. Estimates of the number that perished in the disturbances, which lasted to the beginning of October, have varied from 2000 by a Roman Catholic apologist to 70'000 by the contemporary Huguenot Duke de Sully, who himself barely escaped death. Modern writers put the number at 3000 in Paris alone.
          The news of the massacre was welcomed by Philip II of Spain, and Pope Gregory XIII had a medal struck to celebrate the event. Protestant nations were horrified. To explain the massacre, Charles, assuming responsibility for it, claimed that there had been a Huguenot plot against the crown. Instead of crippling the Huguenot party as Catherine had hoped it would do, the massacre revived hatred between Roman Catholics and Huguenots and helped provoke a renewal of hostilities. Thenceforth the Huguenots abandoned John Calvin's principle of obedience to the civil magistrate, that is, to the royal authority, and adopted the view that rebellion and tyrannicide were justifiable under certain circumstances.
         — Estalla en París la Matanza de San Bartolomé, en la que se asesinan a los principales cabecillas hugonotes, lo que desequilibra políticamente el poder a favor de los Guisa.
    1540 Girolamo Francesco Maria Mazzola “Parmigianino” “Le Parmesan”, Italian Mannerist painter, draftsman, and printmaker, born on 11 January 1503. — MORE ON PARMIGIANINO AT ART “4” AUGUST with links to images.
    1313 Enrique VII, emperador de Alemania.
    ^ 0079 Gaius Plinius Secundus, 56, among thousands in Pompeii, Stabiae, Herculaneum and other, smaller settlements, from Vesuvius eruption.
         Mount Vesuvius erupts near Pompeii in southern Italy. Although roughly half the citizens of Pompeii escape towards the sea, more than 2000 are choked by gases and buried under two meters of lava, ash, and pumice. Some 1700 years later, the excavation of Pompeii presented a picture of the everyday life of an ancient civilization, startlingly preserved in sudden death.
          After centuries of dormancy, Mount Vesuvius erupts in southern Italy, devastating the prosperous Roman cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum and killing thousands. The cities, buried under a thick layer of volcanic material and mud, were never rebuilt and largely forgotten in the course of history. In the 18th century, Pompeii and Herculaneum were rediscovered and excavated, providing an unprecedented archaeological record of the everyday life of an ancient civilization, startlingly preserved in sudden death.
          The ancient cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum thrived near the base of Mount Vesuvius at the Bay of Naples. In the time of the early Roman Empire, 20'000 people lived in Pompeii, including merchants, manufacturers, and farmers who exploited the rich soil of the region with numerous vineyards and orchards. None suspected that the black fertile earth was the legacy of earlier eruptions of Mount Vesuvius. Herculaneum was a city of 5000 and a favorite summer destination for rich Romans. Named for the mythic hero Hercules, Herculaneum housed opulent villas and grand Roman baths. Gambling artifacts found in Herculaneum and a brothel unearthed in Pompeii attest to the decadent nature of the cities. There were smaller resort communities in the area as well, such as the quiet little town of Stabiae.
          At noon on August 24, 79 A.D., this pleasure and prosperity came to an end when the peak of Mount Vesuvius exploded, propelling a 15-km mushroom cloud of ash and pumice into the stratosphere. For the next 12 hours, volcanic ash and a hail of pumice stones up to 3 inches in diameter showered Pompeii, forcing the city's occupants to flee in terror. Some 2000 persons stayed in Pompeii, holed up in cellars or stone structures, hoping to wait out the eruption.
          A westerly wind protected Herculaneum from the initial stage of the eruption, but then a giant cloud of hot ash and gas surged down the western flank of Vesuvius, engulfing the city and burning or asphyxiating all who remained. This lethal cloud was followed by a flood of volcanic mud and rock, burying the city. The people who remained in Pompeii were killed on the morning of 25 August when a cloud of toxic gas poured into the city, suffocating all that remained. A flow of rock and ash followed, collapsing roofs and walls and burying the dead.
          Much of what we know about the eruption comes from an account by Pliny the Younger [62-113], who was staying west along the Bay of Naples when Vesuvius exploded. In two letters to the historian Tacitus, he told of how "people covered their heads with pillows, the only defense against a shower of stones," and of how "a dark and horrible cloud charged with combustible matter suddenly broke and set forth. Some bewailed their own fate. Others prayed to die." Pliny, only 17 at the time, escaped the catastrophe and later became a noted Roman writer and administrator. His uncle and adoptive father, Pliny the Elder [23 – 24 Aug 79], was less lucky. Pliny the Elder, a celebrated naturalist, at the time of the eruption was the commander of the Roman fleet in the Bay of Naples. After Vesuvius exploded, he took his boats across the bay to Stabiae, to investigate the eruption and reassure terrified citizens. After going ashore, he was overcome by toxic gas and died.
          According to Pliny the Younger's account, the eruption lasted 18 hours. Pompeii was buried under 4 to 5 meters of ash and pumice, and the nearby seacoast was drastically changed. Herculaneum was buried under 20 meters of mud and volcanic material. Some residents of Pompeii later returned to dig out their destroyed homes and salvage their valuables, but many treasures were left and then forgotten.
          In the 18th century, a well digger unearthed a marble statue on the site of Herculaneum. The local government excavated some other valuable art objects, but the project was abandoned. In 1748, a farmer found traces of Pompeii beneath his vineyard. Since then, excavations have gone on nearly without interruption until the present. In 1927, the Italian government resumed the excavation of Herculaneum, retrieving numerous art treasures, including bronze and marble statues and paintings.
          The remains of 2000 men, women, and children were found at Pompeii. After perishing from asphyxiation, their bodies were covered with ash that hardened and preserved the outline of their bodies. Later, their bodies decomposed to skeletal remains, leaving a kind of plaster mold behind. Archaeologists who found these molds filled the hollows with plaster, revealing in grim detail the death pose of the victims of Vesuvius. The rest of the city is likewise frozen in time, and ordinary objects that tell the story of everyday life in Pompeii are as valuable to archaeologists as the great unearthed statues and frescoes. It was not until 1982 that the first human remains were found at Herculaneum, and these hundreds of skeletons bear ghastly burn marks that testifies to horrifying deaths.
          Today, Mount Vesuvius is the only active volcano on the European mainland. Its last eruption was in 1944 and its last major eruption was in 1631. Another eruption, expected in the near future, could be devastating for the 700'000 persons who live in the "death zones" around Vesuvius.
     
    < 23 Aug 25 Aug >
    ^  Births which occurred on a 24 August:

    ^ 1995 Windows 95 released
          In the most publicized software release in history, Microsoft's Windows 95 software went on sale on this day in 1995. Some buyers lined up at software stores the night before to purchase the new software system, which provided improved speed, the ability to multitask, and an easier to use icon-driven interface. The operating system became a smashing success, selling some seven million units within six weeks of its release. The product launch coincided with the launch of Microsoft's online service, the Microsoft Network. Despite much hype, the network did not ultimately pose a threat to AOL, the leading proprietary online service, and Microsoft refocused its efforts on the World Wide Web.
    ^ 1951 Oscar Hijuelos, US novelist
         His writing chronicles the pre-Castro Cuban immigrant experience in the United States, particularly in New York City. He wrote Our House in the Last World (1983), about the immigrant Santinio family which tries to integrate into its Cuban identity and values the rhythms and culture of life in New York City's Spanish Harlem. In the novel Hijuelos employed surreal effects suggestive of modern Latin-American fiction.
          In The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love (1989; Pulitzer 1990; filmed as The Mambo Kings, 1992). he again writes about Cuban immigrants, their quest for the American dream, and their eventual disillusionment. It vividly re-creates the musical and social environment of North America in the 1950s when the dance music of Cuban immigrants, the rumba and the mambo, began to achieve mainstream success. The novel begins with:
         It was a Saturday afternoon on La Salle Street, years and years ago when I was a little kid, and around three o'clock Mrs. Shannon, the heavy Irish woman in her perpetually soup-stained dress, opened her back window and shouted out into the courtyard, "Hey, Cesar, yoo-hoo, I think you're on television, I swear it's you!"
          Empress of the Splendid Season (1999) continues the examination of immigrant life, this time revealing the discrepancy between the characters' rich self-images and their banal lives. Lydia España, pampered daughter of a pre-Castro Cuban small-town mayor, violates the family's moral code and is forced to leave home and winds up in New York as a cleaning lady. There she falls in love with the waiter Raoul, who sees her as his "empress of the most beautiful and splendid season, which is love." When Raoul falls ill, Lydia becomes the head of the family, working as a domestic to afford the upper class education she feels her children are due. Along the way a reserved and kindly lawyer takes an interest in her family's well-being and intervenes at a critical juncture in her teenage son's life, during the sixties. Throughout Lydia remains a sensuous and powerful woman, who meets the trials of her life with humor and a gleam of triumph in her eye. Hijuelos simultaneously tells Lydia's tale as well as stories of the secret lives she uncovers in her clients' apartments. [marked down to $5.99 from $25 at amazon.com, 2000]
          Other novels by Hijuelos include The Fourteen Sisters of Emilio Montez O'Brien (1993), which follows a huge Irish-Cuban family across the span of a century; and Mr. Ives' Christmas (1995). Mr. Ives has a successful career in advertising, a wife and two children, and believes he is on his way to pursuing the typical American dream. But the dream is shattered when his son Robert, who is studying for the priesthood, is killed violently at Christmas. Overwhelmed by grief and threatened by a loss of faith in humankind, Mr. Ives begins to question the very foundations of his life. This is partly a love story — of a man for his wife, for his children, for God — and partly a meditation on how a person can find spiritual peace in the midst of crisis,
    1942 Karen K. Uhlenbeck, a leading expert on partial differential equations. [her home page]
    1944 Gregory B Jarvis Detroit Mich, astronaut (STS 25)
    1941 Carlos Casares Mouriño, escritor español.
    ^ 1936 Antonia Susan Drabble, who will be A.S. Byatt, author of Possession, in the industrial town of Sheffield in Yorkshire.
         She is a sister of successful novelist Margaret Drabble, Byatt will be known for both her scholarly works and fiction.
          Byatt, the daughter of a Quaker judge and a Cambridge-educated mother, was painfully shy and awkward as a child. She read avidly, especially the poet Robert Browning, who served as a model for a 19th-century poet in her bestselling novel Possession. She went to Quaker boarding school, then Cambridge. She studied in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, where she met her first husband and later studied at Oxford.
          Most of her efforts in her early career went toward academic writing, though she was interested in fiction. In addition to teaching and writing, she raised two children from her first marriage and two from her second. Her son Charles was killed by a drunk driver when he was 11 years old.
          Not long after the death of her son, Byatt began teaching at University College in London, where she taught until 1983. She wrote well-regarded academic works, including the first full-length study of English writer Iris Murdoch. In 1964, she published a novel, The Shadow of a Sun, followed by The Game in 1957. Her 1978 novel, The Virgin in the Garden, brought her a popular following. Her 1990 novel, Possession, told two stories at once: It traced the relationship between two academics who are uncovering a long, secret relationship between two 19th-century poets. Part mystery, part romance, the highly literary story won the Booker Price for 1990.
    1932 Xavier Arzalluz Antía, político español.
    click for different photo^ 1929 Rahman 'Abd Arra'uf al-Qudwah “Yasir 'Arafat”, chairman of the PLO, head of the Palestinian Authority, who died on 11 November 2004.
         Arafat may have assumed that name [my guess] from Jabal (“Mount”) Arafat, near Mecca, where pilgrims hear a sermon and spend an afternoon during the hajj. (According to the Palestinian authority, he was born on 04 August 1929).
         His mother was related to the anti-Zionist grand mufti of Jerusalem, Amin al-Husayni [1897 – 04 Jul 1974]. Arafat graduated from the University of Cairo as a civil engineer. In Egypt he had joined the Muslim Brotherhood and the Union of Palestinian Students, of which he was president during 1952-1956.
         After participating in the 1956 war with Israel as an Egyptian officer, Arafat worked as an engineer in Kuwait, where he co-founded Al-Fatah, which would become the military wing of the Palestinian Liberation Organization. Arafat became chairman of the PLO in 1968, commander in chief of the Palestinian Revolutionary Forces in 1971, head of the PLO's political department in 1973.
         At the end of August 1982, the Israeli invasion of Lebanon forced Arafat to move his headquarters from Beirut to Tunisia, he moved them to Baghdad in 1987. On 15 November 1982 the State of Palestine was proclaimed (in exile) and on 02 April 1989, Arafat became its president.
         On 13 December 1993, in Washington, Arafat signed a peace accord with Israel's prime minister Yitzhak Rabin, establishing the Palestinian National Authority with limited authority on the West Bank and in the Gaza Strip. Arafat became its president, confirmed by a general election on 30 March 1989. Arafat, Rabin, and Israeli foreign minister Shimon Peres received the 1994 Nobel Peace Prize “for their efforts to create peace in the Middle East”.
         “Yasir 'Arafat” is the byname of Muhammad 'Abd ar-Ra'uf al-Qudwah al-Husayni (or Mohammed Abdel-Raouf Arafat al-Qudwa al-Husseini), president (from 1996) of the Palestinian Authority, chairman (from 1969) of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), and leader of Fatah, the largest of the constituent PLO groups. In 1993 he led the PLO to a peace agreement with the Israeli government. 'Arafat and Yitzhak Rabin [01 Mar 1922 – 04 Nov 1995] and Shimon Peres [16 Aug 1923~] of Israel were jointly awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace in 1994.
          'Arafat was one of seven children of a well-to-do merchant whose wife was related to the anti-Zionist grand mufti of Jerusalem, Amin al-Husayni. The date and place of 'Arafat's birth are disputed. A birth certificate registered in Cairo, Egypt, gives 24 August 1929. Some sources, however, have supported 'Arafat's claim to have been born in “Al Quds” (as Palestinians call Jerusalem) on 04 August 1929, and still others have given Gaza, Palestine, as his birthplace. 'Arafat attended the University of Cairo, graduating as a civil engineer. He joined the Muslim Brotherhood and the Union of Palestinian Students, of which he became president (1952–1956), and was commissioned into the Egyptian army. In 1956 he served in the Suez campaign.
          After Suez, 'Arafat went to Kuwait, where he worked as an engineer and set up his own contracting firm. In Kuwait he helped found Fatah, which was to become the leading military component of the PLO. After being named chairman of the PLO in 1969, he became commander in chief of the Palestinian Revolutionary Forces in 1971 and, two years later, head of the PLO's political department. Subsequently, he directed his efforts increasingly toward political persuasion rather than confrontation and terrorism against Israel. In November 1974 'Arafat became the first representative of a nongovernmental organization, the PLO, to address a plenary session of the UN General Assembly.
          In 1982 'Arafat became the target of criticism from Syria and from various Syrian-supported factions within the PLO. The criticisms escalated after the Israeli invasion of Lebanon forced 'Arafat to abandon his Beirut headquarters at the end of August 1982 and set up a new base in Tunisia; he shifted to Baghdad, Iraq, in 1987. 'Arafat was subsequently able to reaffirm his leadership as the split in the PLO's ranks healed.
          On 02 April 1989, 'Arafat was elected by the Central Council of the Palestine National Council (the governing body of the PLO) to be the president of a hypothetical Palestinian state. In 1993 'Arafat took a further step toward peace when, as head of the PLO, he formally recognized Israel's right to exist and helped negotiate the Israel-PLO accord, which envisaged the gradual implementation of Palestinian self-rule in the West Bank and Gaza Strip over a five-year period. 'Arafat began directing Palestinian self-rule in 1994, and in 1996 he was elected president of the Palestinian Authority, which governed Palestinian-controlled areas of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.
          In mid-1996 Israeli-Palestinian relations became acrimonious with the election of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu [21 Oct 1949~], who favored a slower transition (if any) to self-rule. Growing distrust between 'Arafat and Netanyahu resulted in a 19-month-long deadlock, and in 1998 US President Bill Clinton [19 Aug 1946~] intervened, arranging a summit meeting with the two leaders. The resulting Wye Memorandum detailed the steps to be taken by Israel and Palestine to complete the peace process. 'Arafat pledged to continue the process with Netanyahu's successor, Ehud Barak [12 Feb 1942~]. click for big photoKey dates in Yasser Arafat's life:
    04 Aug or 24 Aug 1929: Born in Cairo, Jerusalem, or Gaza; fifth child of Palestinian merchant Abdel Raouf al-Qudwa al-Husseini.
    1933: Mother Zahwa dies. Arafat and infant brother Fathi sent to Jerusalem to live with uncle.
    1949: Moves back to Cairo; forms Palestinian Students' League.
    August 1956: Attends international student congress in Prague, Czechoslovakia, secures membership for Palestine. For first time, wears Palestinian headdress, or keffiyeh, that becomes his trademark.
    01 Jan 1965: Forms Fatah guerrilla movement; two days later attempts first attack on Israel, abortive bombing of water canal in Galilee.
    21 Mar 1968: Israeli army attack on PLO base at Karameh, Jordan, inflicts heavy losses, but seen as victory for Arafat and his group; thousands join PLO.
    04 Feb 1969: Arafat takes over PLO chairmanship, transforms it into dynamic force that makes Palestinian cause known worldwide.
    13 Nov 1974: Arafat addresses UN General Assembly.
    06 Jun 1982: Israel invades Lebanon to crush PLO, forcing Arafat and loyalists to flee Beirut.
    01 Oct 1985: Arafat narrowly escapes death in Israeli air raid on PLO headquarters in Tunis, Tunisia.
    16 Apr 1988: Khalil al-Wazir, Arafat's military commander, also known as Abu Jihad, assassinated in Tunis; Israel blamed.
    12 Dec 1988: Arafat accepts Israel's right to exist, renounces terrorism.
    02 Aug 1990: Iraq invades Kuwait; Arafat stupidly supports Saddam Hussein, resulting in PLO's isolation.
    November 1991: Arafat secretly marries secretary Suha Tawil, 28, in Tunis. Their daughter Zahwa is born on 24 July 1995, in Paris.
    07 Apr 1992: Arafat rescued after plane crash lands in Libyan desert during sandstorm, killing two pilots and engineer and leaving Arafat bruised and shaken.
    1344 Sep 1993: Israel and PLO sign accord on Palestinian autonomy in Oslo, Norway, giving Arafat control of most of Gaza Strip and 27% of West Bank. Arafat shakes hands with Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin on White House lawn.
    01 Jul 1994: Returning from exile, a triumphant Arafat sets foot on Palestinian soil for the first time in 26 years.
    10 Dec 1994: Arafat receives Nobel Peace Prize, along with Rabin and Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres.
    04 Nov 1995: Ultranationalist Jew assassinates Rabin at peace rally in Tel Aviv, Israel.
    09 Nov 1995: Arafat makes first visit to Israel in secret trip to offer condolences to Rabin's widow.
    20 Jan 1996: Arafat elected president of Palestinian Authority in first Palestinian elections.
    15 Jan 1997: Arafat and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu sign accord on Israeli pullout from 80% of West Bank city of Hebron.
    23 Oct 1998: Israeli and Palestinian leaders meeting at Wye River, Maryland, agree on interim land-for-peace deal on West Bank.
    11 Jul 2000: Seeking final peace deal, US President Clinton convenes "Camp David II" and sequesters Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak and Arafat for nine days. Afterward, White House declares summit failure.
    28 Sep 2000: Israel's then opposition leader, Ariel Sharon, provocatively visits Jerusalem shrine holy to Jews (Temple Mount) and Muslims (al-Aqsa Mosque), leading to clashes that escalate into second Palestinian intifadah.
    03 Dec 2001: After three suicide bombings, Israel destroys Arafat's three helicopters in Gaza City, grounding him and effectively confining him to West Bank town of Ramallah, while making him more popular among Palestinians.
    18 Jan 2002: Two Israeli tanks and armored personnel carrier park outside Arafat's Ramallah headquarters, confining him to office complex after Palestinian gunman bursts into banquet hall and kills six Israelis. In three ensuing military sieges, compound's walls torn down, along with most buildings, except for Arafat's three-story tan stucco office.
    27 Mar 2002: Palestinian suicide bomber kills 29 people at Passover holiday meal at Park Hotel in Netanya, prompting Israeli incursion into West Bank.
    29 March 2002: Israeli Cabinet declares Arafat an "enemy." Troops seize Ramallah, including most of Arafat's headquarters compound, further pinning in once globe-trotting leader.
    02 Apr 2002: Arafat, responding to Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's offer of permanent exile, says he would rather die than leave West Bank.
    24 Jun 2002: Siding with Sharon, USurper President Bush stupidly calls on Palestinians to replace Arafat as leader.
    29 Apr 2003: Palestinian parliament confirms Arafat's deputy, Mahmoud Abbas, as first Palestinian prime minister, appointment pushed for by United States and Israel in a counterproductive effort to sideline Arafat.
    04 Jun 2003: At first major Israeli-Palestinian summit without Arafat, Sharon and Bush launch "road map" peace plan, which allegedly aims to end fighting and create Palestinian state by 2005.
    06 Sep 2003: Abbas, weakened by power struggle with Arafat, resigns and replaced by parliament speaker Ahmed Qureia.
    29 Oct 2003: Having been seriously ill for two weeks, and having collapsed into unconsciousness for 10 minutes two days earlier, Arafat is flown to Paris for diagnosis and treatment. He soon falls into a coma and he dies in the morning of 11 November 2004.
    — Yasir Arafat, político palestino
         Mohammed Abed Ar´ouf Arafat nació el 24 de agosto de 1929, en Gaza, Palestina, entonces dominio británico. Estudió en la Universidad de El Cairo (1952-1956), donde llegó a ser presidente de la Asociación General de los estudiantes palestinos. Después trabajó como ingeniero en Kuwait. Colaboró en la fundación del movimiento "Al-Fatah", en 1958, el más importante de los grupos guerrilleros reivindicadores del territorio de Palestina ocupado por Israel, del que, posteriormente, se convertiría en portavoz y líder. En 1968, después de la derrota de los árabes frente a Israel en la denominada "Guerra de los Siete Días", surge con nueva fuerza política la Organización para la Liberación de Palestina (OLP), fundada en 1964 por Ahmed es-Suqueiri, y controlada, ahora, por Al-Fatah. En 1969, es elegido presidente del comité ejecutivo de la OLP, representando al sector moderado de esta Organización. En 1982 Israel invade el Líbano, derrota a los guerrilleros palestinos instalados allí y expulsa a Arafat, que traslada su cuartel general a Túnez. Dos años más tarde, presenta su dimisión ante el Congreso Nacional Palestino, pero es rechazada, por lo que refuerza su figura dentro de la OLP. A partir de este momento, estalla en los territorios ocupados de Gaza y Cisjordania la revuelta conocida con el nombre de la "Intifada", que se va incrementando hasta 1988. A finales de este año, Arafat proclama la primera Constitución del Estado Palestino, en una ceremonia celebrada en Argel durante la reunión del Consejo Nacional.
          El 13 Dec 1988 del mismo año, Arafat interviene ante la Asamblea General de la ONU, en Ginebra, con una rama de olivo y una piedra en sus manos, como presidente del nuevo Estado de Palestina. En 1989, durante la celebración de un congreso del grupo Al-Fatah, se hace un llamamiento a la lucha armada para poner fin a la ocupación de Israel de los territorios palestinos, y se nombra por unanimidad a Yasser Arafat presidente del Comité Central de Al-Fatah.
          El apoyo prestado a Saddam Hussein en la crisis del Golfo, en 1990, le valió a Arafat la pérdida de la confianza internacional, pronto restablecida al apoyar la participación de Palestina en la Conferencia de Paz de Oriente Medio celebrada, en su primera fase, en Madrid, y la segunda, en Washington, en 1991. A pesar de ser criticado y acosado por los palestinos más exaltados por utilizar la vía negociadora para conseguir el reconocimiento del Estado de Palestina, Yasser Arafat e Itzhak Rabin, en presencia de Bill Clinton, firmaron la paz en Washington, el 13 Dec 1993, consiguiendo así el reconocimiento de la autonomía de Palestina. A pesar de ello, prosiguen las manifestaciones de los radicales integristas que mantienen la inestabilidad en un país en el que Yasser Arafat sigue siendo el líder más aclamado por el pueblo. En 1994 le fue otorgado el Premio Nobel de la Paz.
    1927 Harry M. Markowitz, teórico de los sistemas financieros modernos, Premio Nobel de Economía en 1990.
    1922 René Lévesque Québec premier (1976-85)
    1915 Fernando Claudín, teórico marxista español.
    1915 Alice H.B. Sheldon, science fiction writer and artist, CIA photo-intelligence operative, lecturer at American University and major in the US Army Air Force.
    1903 Graham Vivian Sutherland, etcher, lithographer, and painter, who died on 17 February 1980. — MORE ON SUTHERLAND AT ART “4” AUGUST with links to images.
    1902 Fernand Braudel French historian (Civililization & Capitalism)
    1902 Felipe Alfau, poeta, escritor y traductor español.
    1899 Jorge Luis Borges Argentina, writer of fiction, essays (Labyrinths, Ficciones)
    BORGES ONLINE: [in English translations]: The Library of Babel, The Zahir, Circular Ruins, Borges and I, The Mirrors of Enigma, POEMS: Limits, Susana Soca, The History of Night, The Art of Poetry, Remorse for any Death, That One, Instants, Elegy
    1898 Malcolm Cowley, poet, translator, literary critic and social historian.
    1898 Albert Claude Belgium, physician (Nobel 1974)
    1898 Malcolm Cowley Belsano Penn, author (Flowering of New England)
    1896 Thomas Brooks, shot by an unknown assailant, begining a six year feud with the McFarland family. The long simmering feud between the brooks and McFarland clans erupted into gunfire at the new railroad town in Indian territory.
    ^ 1895 Richard Cushing, in Boston, where he would spend his whole life.
           He would be ordained a Catholic priest on 26 May 1921. Named Assistant director of Society for Propagation of Faith in 1922 and then director in 1929, a post which he would hold until 1944. He was consecrated as Auxiliary Bishop of Boston on 29 June 1939, asd became Archbishop of Boston on 25 September 1944. He was made a cardinal on 15 December 1958.
          In addition to the pastoral and spiritual leadership of his archdiocese, he was deeply committed to the foreign missions. He organized the St. James Society in 1958, in which US diocesan priests may volunteer to serve periods of at least five years as missionaries in South America. A total of 300 priests from 108 dioceses have served in this continuing program, with seventy-three priests from the US, Canada, Ireland, England, Wales, Scotland, and New Zealand now providing pastoral care to more than 500'000 people in 40 parishes in the coastal jungle and mountainous areas of Bolivia, Peru, and Ecuador.
         J. Edgar Hoover, head of the FBI, cultivated a friendship with Cardinal Cushing, with whom he shared an ardent anticommunism, as documented in an 802-page FBI file. Cardinal Cushing died on 02 November 1970.
         Preaching in the slums of Lima, Peru, in August 1964, Cushing said:
         "Mindful of the fact you live in an agricultural country, I presume you know what an ass is. We read in the New Testament that our blessed Lord rode on an ass in triumph into the city of Jerusalem. Today the Lord rides on another ass: I myself."
    1891 La primera cámara cinematográfica: Thomas Edison obtiene su patente.
    1890 Ella Gwendolen Rees Williams West Indies, author who, under the name Jean Rhys, wrote the short story collections The Left Bank (1927), Tigers Are Better-Looking, with a Selection from the Left Bank (1968) and Sleep It Off Lady (1976);the novels Postures (1928), After Leaving Mr. Mackenzie (1931), Voyage in the Dark (1934), and Good Morning, Midnight (1939); and an unfinished autobiography, Smile Please (1979).
          Wide Sargasso Sea (1966), her most successful novel, reconstructs the earlier life of the fictional character Antoinette Cosway, who was Mr. Rochester's mad first wife in Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre.
    1874 Ernest Rouart, French artist who died on 27 February 1942.
    1872 Sir Henry Maximilian Beerbohm —  English caricaturist, writer, dandy, and wit, who died on 20 May 1956. — MORE ON BEERBOHM AT ART “4” AUGUST with links to images.
    WRITINGS BY BEERBOHM ONLINE:
  • And Even Now
  • And Even Now
  • Seven Men
  • The Works of Max Beerbohm
  • Yet Again
  • Yet Again
  • Zuleika Dobson
  • Zuleika Dobson
    • 1860 Alfons Maria Mucha, Czech Art Nouveau illustrator, designer, painter, who died on 14 July 1939. — MORE ON MUCHA AT ART “4” AUGUST (MUCHO MUCHA:-) with links to images.
    1848 José Villegas y Cordero, Spanish artist who died on 10 November 1922.
    ^ 1828 George Hume "Maryland" Steuart, in Baltimore, future Confederate General
          Steuart would attend West Point and graduate in 1844. He served in various capacities in Texas, Kansas, and Nebraska, and he was part of General Albert S. Johnston's expedition against the Mormons in Utah. Steuart resigned his commission after the firing on Fort Sumter in April 1861, because he anticipated that his native state would follow the other Southern states that had already seceded from the Union, and he was appointed major general of the Maryland volunteers who supported secession. When Maryland did not secede, Steuart accepted a commission as lieutenant colonel in the Confederate army. He earned his nickname from his close association with troops from Maryland. Steuart became colonel when his regiment commander was promoted to brigadier general.
          He fought at the First Battle of Bull Run and in the spring of 1862 he was promoted to command a brigade. Steuart's force served in the brilliant 1862 Shenandoah Valley campaign of General Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson [21 Jan 1824 – 10 May 1863], and he fought at Gettysburg with Richard Ewell's corps, where his brigade participated in the unsuccessful attacks against Culp's Hill. Steuart was also part of the 1864 campaign in Virginia between Union General Ulysses S. Grant [27 Apr 1822 – 23 Jul 1885] and Confederate General Robert E. Lee [19 Jan 1807 – 12 Oct 1870]. At Spotsylvania Court House in May, he and his entire brigade were captured when Union forces overran the Bloody Angle. He was exchanged in August, and received command of a brigade in the division of George Edward Pickett [25 Jan 1825 – 30 Jul 1875] . Steuart remained with the Army of Northern Virginia until the surrender at Appomattox Court House. After the war, Steuart returned to Maryland, where he farmed and remained active in Confederate veterans' groups until his death on 22 November 1903.
    Geoffrey Plantagenet1816 Sir Daniel Gooch laid 1st successful transatlantic cables
    1810 Theodore Parker, anti-slavery movement leader. THEODORE PARKER ONLINE: The Function and Place of Conscience in Relation to the Laws of Men, The Nebraska Question, The New Crime Against Humanity, The Trial of Theodore Parker, for the "Misdemeanor" of a Speech in Faneuil Hall Against Kidnapping
    1787 James Weddell Ostend England, Antarctic explorer (Weddell Sea)
    1766 Adrian Meulemans, Dutch artist who died on 30 May 1835.
    1759 Etienne-Barthélémy Garnier, French artist who died on 16 November 1849.
    1759 Wilbur Wilberforce England, crusaded against slavery.
    1724 George Stubbs, British artist specialized in horses, who died on 10 July 1806. — MORE ON STUBBS AT ART “4” AUGUST with links to images.
    1670 Louis Galloche, French artist who died on 21 July 1761.
    1591 Robert Herrick England, poet (Gather ye rosebuds) (baptized)
    1561 Bartholomeo Pitiscus, German Calvinist minister and mathematician who died on 02 July 1613. Author of Trigonometria (1595, he invented the word), Thesaurus Mathematicus.
    1113 Geoffrey IV Plantagenet “le Bel”, comte d'Anjou, duc de Normandie, France, conquered Normandy. He died on 07 September 1151. [portrait >]
         Geoffroy IV Plantagenet est le fils de Foulques V le Jeune [1092 – Nov 1142] et de Eremburge du Maine, né le 24 août 1113, mort le 07 septembre 1151 au Mans. Il est Comte d'Anjou, Maine, et Touraine de 1131 à 1151. Il épouse au Mans le 17 Jun 1128 Mathilda [1103-1169] fille de Henri I Beauclerc Roi d'Angleterre (en premières noces elle avait épousé l'Empereur Germanique Henri V). Il est le père de Henri II, le fondateur de l'Empire Plantagenet.
         Après le départ de son père, Foulques, en Terre Sainte (qui y deviendra Roi de Jérusalem), Geoffroy est confronté en 1131 à une coalition de ses vassaux d'Anjou, conduite par Lisiard Seigneur de Sablé. Il vient à bout des révoltés un à un. Il s'empare et brûle Meslay en Mayenne et oblige Guy IV de Laval à demander la paix. Il enlève Thouars, fait raser le Donjon du château et soumet le Vicomte Aimery VI [–1139]. Les Seigneurs de Blaison et Parthenay se rendent et Mirebeau se soumet après un siège de quarante jours. Il s'empare de l'Ile Bouchard dont le Seigneur, Peloquin, se soumet. Geoffroy enlève Briollay et La Suze au Seigneur de Sablé et fait construire un château à Châteauneuf-sur-Sarthe pour le contrôler.
          A la mort de son beau-père Henri I, en 1135, Mathilde d'Angleterre est écartée du trone par Étienne de Blois qui devient Roi d'Angleterrre et Duc de Normandie. Geoffroy Plantagenet réclame le Duché de Normandie, il engage la lutte en 1136 et prend Lisieux. Blessé, il ne reprend le combat qu'en 1137 et une trève de deux ans est achetée par Etienne de Blois.
          A partir de 1141 Geoffroy engage une conquête systématique et méthodique de la Normandie. Il est reconnu Duc par tous les Seigneurs Normands en 1144. Il cèdera le Duché de Normandie à son fils Henri en 1150. En 1145 Geoffroy doit réduire son frère Hélie qui réclamait le Comté du Maine. Il le capture et le maintient en prison jusqu'à sa mort le 15 janvier 1151. Il doit également réduire Giraud de Berlai Seigneur de Montreuil-Bellay. Geoffroy Plantagenet est populaire en Normandie. Après une courte guerre avec Louis VII Roi de France, il traita avec lui en Août 1151 et lui cèda le Vexin Normand. Geoffroy est mort à Château-du-Loir le 07 septembre 1151 et a été inhumé dans la Cathédrale du Mans. C'est sur son tombeau que fut posée la plaque émaillée dont la photo est ci-contre.
          Il a eu trois fils avec Mathilde d'Angleterre:
    - Henri II, né le 05 May 1133 au Mans, le fondateur de l' Empire Plantagenet, qui meurt en 1189;
    - Geoffroy né le 03 Jun 1134,
    - Guillaume né le 22 Jul 1136.
          Il a également eu une fille naturelle, Emma, épouse de David de Norfolk.
          Geoffroy est donc à l'origine de la famille Plantagenet qui a possédé pendant 60 ans plus de la moitiè de la France et régné plus de 300 ans sur l'Angleterre.
     
    Santoral: Santos Bartolomé, Cándido, Eutiquio, Jorge Limniota, Patricio y Román.
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    Thoughts for the day:
    “Heaven is where the police are British, cooks are French, lovers are Italian, and mechanics are German. Hell is where the chef is British, the mechanic is French, lovers are Swiss, police are German, and everyone is organized by the Italians.”

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