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ALTERNATE SITES   ANY DAY OF THE YEAR IN HISTORY    ART “4” FEB 24    wikipedia
• Gregorian Calendar is promulgated... • Gulf War ground offensive... • Right to satirize... • “Victory or death” at the Alamo ... • Perón elected president of Argentina... • Finns counterattack against Soviet aggressors... • Mass deportation of Chechens... • Germany seeks Mexican alliance against US... • Impeachment of US president... • Pétain at Verdun... • Wilhelm Grimm is born... • Winslow Homer is born... • Apple Computer co~founder is born... • Hudson Motor Car Company is founded... • US anti~Communist aid in Carribean... • Hue recaptured... • Tariff Act of 1869... • US guerillas in Burma... • Talkies demonstated...
• Rightists, to the left!...
^  On a February 24:

2004 Russian President Vladimir Putin [07 Oct 1952~] fires Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov (and with him the whole government, as required by the constitution) and names Deputy Prime Minister Viktor Khristenko as acting prime minister. Putin has long expressed impatience with Kasyanov, who is associated with the former administration of Boris Yeltsin, for not proceeding quickly enough with reform and not producing strong enough economic growth. Putin wants a more compliant prime minister to serve him into the new term he is expected to win in the 14 March 2003 presidential election.
AHO price chart
2003 The world's third largest retailer is Dutch global operator of supermarkets Royal Ahold NV, (AHO), surpassed by Wal~Mart (WMT) and Carrefour. AHO announces that its earnings for 2002 and earlier were grossly overestimated and that its President and Chief Executive Officer, Cees van der Hoeven, and Chief Financial Officer, Michael Meurs, will resign. On the NYSE 16 million of the 931 million AHO shares are traded, dropping from their previous close of $10.69 to an intraday low of $3.60 and closing at $4.16. The next day they close at $3.47. They had traded as high as $26.69 as recently as 03 April 2002 and $41.56 on 12 April 1999. [5~year price chart >]
2002 Shadiya Shehadah, Palestinian about to give birth, being driven to the hospital by her husband, Esam, 31, is shot in the shoulder by Israeli soldiers, after the car has been searched at a checkpoint. The Israelis say that they had moved a temporary roadblock, which the Shehadahs say they did not notice. The baby is born unharmed.
2001 From their jungle strongholds in Chiapas, Zapatista leaders start a well-publicized 16-day caravan to Mexico City, with 33 public events planned along the way, to pressure the Mexican Congress to adopt constitutional amendments that would extend indigenous rights.
2000 The U.N. Security Council approved a US-drafted plan to send an observer force into Congo to monitor a fragile cease-fire.
2000 Pope John Paul II arrived in Egypt on a pilgrimage to retrace some of the most epic passages from the Bible.
^1999 Clinton impeachment aftermath
(1) NBC finally airs its interview with Juanita Broaddrick, 56, the woman who alleges Bill Clinton [19 Aug 1946~] raped her in an Arkansas hotel room in 1978.
  • Broaddrick, then a registered nurse who had started a nursing home in Van Buren, Arkansas, says the two met for the first time earlier in the year when Clinton made a campaign stop at the nursing home.
  • According to Broaddrick, Clinton invited her to "please stop by our campaign office" on her next visit to Little Rock.
  • Broaddrick says she called Clinton's campaign office when she arrived in Little Rock for a nursing administrators' conference and was given the phone number of his apartment. At first, she says, he offered to meet her at the hotel coffee shop, but then suggested he come to her room because there were reporters in the coffee shop.
  • Broaddrick says she felt no danger when she let Clinton into her Little Rock hotel room. But she says once Clinton was in the room, he forced himself on her even though she rejected his advances by pushing him away and saying "no."
  • Broaddrick says, "I first pushed him away and just told him, No, please don't do that ... I said, I'm married, and I have other things going on in my life, and this is something that I'm not interested in."
  • She tells Myers, "...I tried to get away from him and I told him, No, that I didn't want this to happen, but he wouldn't listen to me."
  • Broaddrick is asked: "You're saying that Bill Clinton sexually assaulted you, that he raped you?" "Yes," she answers.
    "It was a real panicky, panicky situation," Broaddrick tells Myers. "I was even to the point where I was getting very noisy, you know, yelling, to — you know — to please stop. But that's when he would press down on my right shoulder and he would bite on my lip."
    MYERS: You're saying that Bill Clinton sexually assaulted you, that he raped?
    Ms. BROADDRICK: Yes.
    MYERS: And you have no — there's no doubt in your mind that that's what happened?
    Ms. BROADDRICK: No doubt whatsoever.
  • Broaddrick says she didn't report the alleged incident at the time because she didn't think she would be believed. Since Clinton was the attorney general of Arkansas at the time, "I didn't think anyone would believe me in the world," she says.
  • She says she went to a fund-raising event for Clinton weeks after the alleged assault. "I think I was still in denial," she says. "And I still felt very guilty at that time that it was my fault by letting him come to the room."
  • In the NBC interview, Broaddrick cries briefly as she details the alleged assault. Asked what she now thought of Clinton, she replies: "My hatred for him is overwhelming."
  • Broaddrick tells NBC nobody tried to intimidate her to remain silent and no one paid her to keep quiet or to speak out.
  • She says she had filed an affidavit in the Jones case denying she'd had any unwelcome advances from Clinton because she was unwilling to tell her story at that time.
  • "I just couldn't hold it inside any longer," Broaddrick says in trying to explain why she is finally coming forward with her account. She says she didn't want her granddaughters and nieces asking her, "Why didn't you tell what this man did to you?" Broaddrick says, "... I don't want to do anything. I do not have an agenda. I want to put all these rumors to rest."

    (2) Clinton refuses comment earlier in the day on Broaddrick's allegations, saying he stands by the statement of his attorney, David Kendall.

    (3) The NBC interview of Broaddrick was taped January 20 but held by NBC until tonight's airing.
  • Clinton opponents accuse NBC of sitting on the interview in order to protect the president and say that the interview, had it appeared earlier, could have had an impact on the Senate impeachment trial that ended with Clinton's acquittal February 12.
  • NBC says it had needed time to complete reporting on a complicated story.
  • While the network tried to check out Broaddrick's account, The Wall Street Journal did its own interview with Broaddrick, and other media organizations followed.
    • (4) The question of whether Attorney General Janet Reno has authority to investigate allegations of misconduct by Ken Starr's office may be decided by the three-judge panel that appointed him. CNN reports that the panel has given Reno and Starr 15 days to outline their positions on the question of whether the Justice Department should investigate the independent counsel. The three-judge panel is headed by David Sentelle of Washington.
  • The panel's action is in response to a motion filed by the Landmark Legal Foundation, a conservative public interest law firm. The foundation has asked the court to bar Reno from probing allegations of wrongdoing by Starr's staff. "We hope the court's order is the first step towards stopping the attorney general's persistent efforts to undermine Judge Starr's authority and independence," says Mark Levin, president of Landmark Legal Foundation.
  • Originally, Reno had proposed that the Justice Department's Office of Professional Responsibility conduct the investigation of Starr and his staff.
  • However, Starr expressed concerns about the agency's involvement in a potential probe in a recent letter to Reno. Since that time, Justice officials have been struggling to construct a plan that would appear fair to Starr.
  • Reno now is considering bringing in an outside investigator to look into allegations of misconduct by Starr's office.
  • Among the options being discussed is having someone from a US attorney's office outside of the Justice Department headquarters lead the investigation.
  • Also under consideration is choosing someone completely outside of the Justice Department, such as a former or retired judge.
  • According to sources, the ideal situation would be to appoint someone with a Republican background or an independent.
  • There are two primary allegations of misconduct against Starr's office:
  • The first concerns the discussion of an immunity deal by members of Starr's team with Monica Lewinsky without her attorney present during the January 1998 sting operation set up by the independent counsel's office with the help of Linda Tripp. That would have been against Justice Department guidelines.
  • The other allegation concerns whether the Office of the Independent Counsel withheld information about its contact with attorneys affiliated with Paula Jones, who had filed a sexual harassment claim against President Clinton, when Starr approached Reno for authorization to expand his investigation into the Lewinsky matter. The key question there is whether the attorney general would have thought contacts with Jones' associates would have presented a conflict of interest as Starr investigated the harassment claim.
  • In addition, the Justice Department also is awaiting the results of an investigation into alleged leaks of grand jury material. That investigation was set in motion by Judge Norma Holloway Johnson, who oversees the Starr grand jury.

    (5) Created in the wake of the Watergate scandal, but increasingly under assault from Republican and Democratic lawmakers, the Independent Counsel Act will likely undergo a major overhaul, if it survives at all. Battered by years of criticism first by Republican administrations under investigation, and now by Democrats in the wake of Kenneth Starr's five-year investigation of President Bill Clinton, the statute has few fans on Capitol Hill.
  • Mechanics of the OIC law:
  • The law requires the attorney general to seek the appointment of an independent counsel when there is substantial and credible evidence of a crime by any one of 49 top federal officials, including the president.
  • A panel of three federal judges then picks an attorney for the job. The prosecutor has an unlimited budget to hire aides and investigate his target — a frequent point of criticism. Starr has spent nearly $50 million on the Clinton investigation.
  • With approval from the attorney general and the appointing judges, the independent counsel can broaden investigations far beyond the original mandate, another target of the law's critics. Starr's mandate, for example, began with inquiries into Clinton's Whitewater land deals and widened repeatedly, finally to the Monica Lewinsky scandal that led to his impeachment and trial.
  • Congress' frosty regard for the law began when Starr was still on the bench of the US Court of Appeals in the 1980s. Republicans were the first to complain of the law's abuse during Independent Counsel Lawrence Walsh's seven-year Iran-Contra investigation. The controversy prompted Congress to let the law lapse for 18 months during the early 1990s.
  • Ironically, it was Clinton who successfully campaigned for the law's renewal in 1994. But two years ago, already under investigation by Starr, Clinton said that the its costs had outweighed the benefits.
    		•
    1998 El FBI y la policía de EE.UU destapan una red dedicada a la venta de órganos humanos procedentes de presos chinos ejecutados en su país.
    1998 La Asamblea Nacional de Poder Popular (Parlamento) elige por unanimidad a Fidel Castro Ruz como presidente del Consejo de Estado, el máximo órgano de poder en Cuba.
    1997 US Robotics ships its 56K modems, a week later than expected. Shortly after, Rockwell would announce its own 56K modem, which worked on a different standard than the US Robotics version. Many confused consumers hold off purchasing higher-speed modems until the two companies agree on a standard in early 1998.
    1997 South Africa announces that it is constructing largest modern day blimp
    1996 Cuba downs two small American planes that it claims were violating Cuban airspace.
    1995 The Dow-Jones Industrial Average reaches a record 4011.74
    ^1991 Gulf War ground offensive begins
          After six weeks of intensive bombing against Iraq and its armed forces, US-led coalition forces launch a ground invasion of Kuwait and Iraq. On 02 August 1990, Iraq invaded Kuwait, its tiny, oil rich neighbor, and within hours Iraqi forces had occupied most strategic positions in the country. One week later, Operation Shield, the American defense of Saudi Arabia, began as US forces massed in the Persian Gulf. On 29 November 1990, the United Nations Security Council passed a resolution authorizing the use of force against Iraq if it failed to withdraw from Kuwait by 15 January 1991.
          At 16:30 EST on 16 January 1991, Operation Desert Storm, a massive US-led offensive against Iraq, began as the first fighter aircraft were launched from Saudi Arabia and off of US and British aircraft carriers in the Persian Gulf. All evening, aircraft from the US-led military coalition pounded targets in and around Baghdad as the world watched the events transpire in television footage transmitted live via satellite from Baghdad and elsewhere. Operation Desert Storm was conducted by an international coalition under the command of US General Norman Schwarzkopf and featured forces from thirty-two nations, including Britain, Egypt, France, Saudi Arabia, and Kuwait. Over the next six weeks, the allied force engaged in a massive air war against Iraq's military and civil infrastructure, encountering little effective resistance from the Iraqi air force. Iraqi ground forces were also helpless during this stage of the war, and Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein's only significant retaliatory measure was the launching of SCUD missile attacks against Israel and Saudi Arabia. Saddam hoped that the missile attacks would provoke Israel, and thus other Arab nations, to enter the conflict; however, at the request of the US, Israel remained out of the war.
          On 24 February, a massive coalition ground offensive begins and Iraq's outdated and poorly supplied armed forces are rapidly overwhelmed. By the end of the day, the Iraqi army had effectively folded, 10'000 of its soldiers were held as prisoners, and a US air base had been established deep inside Iraq. After less than four days, Kuwait was liberated and the majority of Iraq's armed forces had either been destroyed, surrendered, or retreated to Iraq. On 28 February US President George Bush (Sr.) declared a cease-fire, and Iraq pledged to honor future coalition and U.N. peace terms. 125 US soldiers were killed in the Persian Gulf War with another 21 regarded as missing in action.
    1989 150-million-year-old fossil egg (oldest dinosaur embryo) found.
    ^ 1988 Supreme Court affirms right to satirize public figures
          The US Supreme Court votes eight to zero to overturn the $200'000 settlement awarded to the Reverend Jerry Falwell for his emotional distress at being parodied in Hustler, a pornographic magazine. In 1983, Hustler ran a piece parodying Falwell's first sexual experience as a drunken, incestuous, childhood encounter with his mother in an outhouse. Falwell, an important religious conservative and founder of the Moral Majority political party, sued Hustler, and its publisher, Larry Flynt, for libel. Falwell won the case, but Flynt appealed, leading the Supreme Court to hear the case due to its constitutional implications. On 24 February, the Supreme Court unanimously overturns the lower court's decision, ruling that, although in poor taste, Hustler's parody fell within the First Amendment's protection of freedom of speech and the press.
    1988 South African apartheid regime bans the UDF
    1985 Birendra, Bir Bikram Shah Dev crowned King of Nepal
    1984 Iraq resumes air attack on Iran.
    1984 Brunei celebra su independencia de la Corona británica.
    1983 Dow Jones closes above 1100 mark for first time
    1983 A US congressional commission releases a report condemning the internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II as a "grave injustice."
    ^1982 US anti-Communist aid to Caribbean governments.
         US President Ronald Reagan announces a new program of economic and military assistance to nations of the Caribbean designed to "prevent the overthrow of the governments in the region" by the "brutal and totalitarian" forces of Communism. The Caribbean Basin Initiative (CBI) was part of the Reagan administration's effort to curb what it perceived to be the dangerous rise in communist activity in Central America and the Caribbean. In the course of an address to the Organization of American States, Reagan argued that a massive new aid program to the Caribbean region was vitally necessary. "If we do not act promptly and decisively in defense of freedom, new Cubas will arise from the ruins of today's conflicts. We will face more totalitarian regimes tied militarily to the Soviet Union, more regimes exporting subversion, more regimes so incompetent yet so totalitarian that their citizens' only hope becomes that of one day migrating to other American nations as in recent years they have come to the United States."
          Specifically, the President called for increases of $350 million in economic aid and $60 million in military assistance to the Caribbean. He also pledged US assistance in increasing Caribbean trade with the United States and encouraging private investment in the Caribbean. Reagan's proposal was in response to what he and his advisors believed to be an increasing Soviet presence in the Caribbean and Central America. In Nicaragua, the leftist Sandinista regime had come to power in 1979. El Salvador was involved in a bloody and brutal conflict between government forces supported by the United States and leftist rebels. And on the island nation of Grenada, the government of Maurice Bishop was establishing close ties to Cuba and Fidel Castro. The CBI, however, had little impact on improving the economic situation of the nations it was trying to aid. Eventually the entire concept was allowed to simply fade away, and the Reagan administration chose to employ more forceful anti-communist measures in the region. These included support of the anti-Sandinista Contras, massive military aid to the Salvadoran government, and, in 1983, the invasion of Grenada to remove its leftist government.
    1981 El teniente coronel Antonio Tejero Molina , tras mantener secuestrado al Gobierno y a los diputados españoles casi 20 horas, se entrega. Es detenido, también, el general Jaime Milans del Bosch y otros colaboradores en el fallido golpe de Estado.
    1979 War between North and South Yemen begins.
    1979 Highest price ever paid for a pig, $42'500, Stamford TX
    1978 Enrique Fuentes Quintana, vicepresidente segundo y ministro de Asuntos Económicos de España, presenta su dimisión, circunstancia que aprovecha Adolfo Suárez González para realizar otros cambios en el Gabinete formado hace un año.
    1977 President Carter announces US foreign aid will consider human rights
    1976 Cuba adopts its constitution. — Entra en vigor la actual Constitución cubana, aprobada un año antes por el Comité Central del Partido Comunista de Cuba.
    1974 Pakistan officially recognizes Bangladesh.
    1971 Algeria nationalizes French oil companies.
    1968 first pulsar discovered (CP 1919 by Jocelyn Burnell at Cambridge)
    ^1968 Tet offensive halted as Hue is reconquered.
          The Imperial Palace in Hue is recaptured by South Vietnamese troops. Although the Battle of Hue was not officially declared over for another week, it was the last major engagement of the Tet Offensive. At dawn on the first day of the Tet holiday truce, Viet Cong forces, supported by large numbers of North Vietnamese troops, launched the largest and best-coordinated offensive of the war, driving into the center of South Vietnam's seven largest cities and attacking 30 provincial capitals ranging from the Delta to the DMZ. Among the cities taken during the first four days of the offensive were Hue, Dalat, Kontum, and Quang Tri; in the north, all five provincial capitals were overrun. At the same time, enemy forces shelled numerous allied airfields and bases.
          Nearly 1000 Viet Cong were believed to have infiltrated Saigon, and it required a week of intense fighting by an estimated 11'000 US and South Vietnamese troops to dislodge them. By February 10, the offensive was largely crushed, but with heavy casualties on both sides. The former Imperial capital of Hue took almost a month of savage house-to-house combat to regain. The city had come under attack by two North Vietnamese regiments on January 31 and eventually elements of three North Vietnamese divisions were involved in the fight. The main battle centered on the Citadel, a five-square-kilometer fortress with walls 10 m high and 6 m thick built in 1802. It took eight battalions of US Marines and troopers from the 1st Cavalry Division plus eleven South Vietnamese battalions to evict the communists from the city. It was a costly battle. The US Army suffered 74 dead and 507 wounded; the US Marines lost 142 dead and 857 wounded. South Vietnamese losses totaled 384 dead and 1830 wounded. North Vietnamese casualties included 5000 dead and countless more wounded.
         The Tet Offensive ends as US and South Vietnamese troops recapture the ancient capital of Hué from communist forces. Although scattered fighting continued across South Vietnam for another week, the battle for Hué was the last major engagement of the offensive, which saw communist attacks on all of South Vietnam's major cities. In the aftermath of Tet, public opinion in the United States decisively turned against the Vietnam War. As 1968 began — the third year of US ground-troop fighting in Vietnam — US military leadership was still confident that a favorable peace agreement would soon be forced on the North Vietnamese and their allies in South Vietnam, the Viet Cong. Despite growing calls at home for an immediate US withdrawal, President Lyndon Johnson's administration planned to keep the pressure on the communists through increased bombing and other attrition strategies. General William Westmoreland, commander of US operations in Vietnam, claimed to see clearly "the light at the end of the tunnel," and Johnson hoped that soon the shell-shocked communists would stumble out of the jungle to the bargaining table. However, on January 30, 1968, the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese launched their massive Tet Offensive all across South Vietnam. It was the first day of Tet — Vietnam's lunar new year and most important holiday — and many South Vietnamese soldiers, expecting an unofficial truce, had gone home.
          The Viet Cong were known for guerrilla tactics and had never launched an offensive on this scale; consequently, US and South Vietnamese forces were caught completely by surprise. In the first day of the offensive, tens of thousands of Viet Cong soldiers, supported by North Vietnamese forces, overran the five largest cities of South Vietnam, scores of smaller cities and towns, and a number of US and South Vietnamese bases. The Viet Cong struck at Saigon — South Vietnam's capital — and even attacked, and for several hours held, the US embassy there. The action was caught by US television news crews, which also recorded the brutal impromptu street execution of a Viet Cong rebel by a South Vietnamese military official. As the US and South Vietnamese fought to regain control of Saigon, the cities of Hué, Dalat, Kontum, and Quangtri fell to the communists. US and South Vietnamese forces recaptured most of these cities within a few days, but Hué was fiercely contested by the communist soldiers occupying it.
          After 26 days of costly house-to-house fighting, the South Vietnamese flag is raised again above Hué on 24 February, and the Tet Offensive came to an end. During the communist occupation of Hué, numerous South Vietnamese government officials and civilians were massacred, and many civilians died in US bombing attacks that preceded the liberation of the city. In many respects, the Tet Offensive was a military disaster for the communists: They suffered 10 times more casualties than their enemy and failed to control any of the areas captured in the opening days of the offensive. They had hoped that the offensive would ignite a popular uprising against South Vietnam's government and the US occupation. This did not occur. In addition, the Viet Cong, which had come out into the open for the first time in the war, were all but wiped out.
          However, because the Tet Offensive crushed US hopes for an imminent end to the conflict, it dealt a fatal blow to the US military mission in Vietnam. In Tet's aftermath, President Johnson came under fire on all sides for his Vietnam policy. General Westmoreland requested 200'000 more soldiers to overwhelm the communists, and a national uproar ensued after this request was disclosed, forcing Johnson to recall Westmoreland to Washington. On 31 March, Johnson announced that the United States would begin de-escalation in Vietnam, halt the bombing of North Vietnam, and seek a peace agreement to end the conflict. In the same speech, he also announced that he would not seek reelection to the presidency, citing what he perceived to be his responsibility in creating the national division over Vietnam.
    1967 Swiss Reformed theologian Karl Barth writes in a letter: 'The statement that God is dead comes from Nietzsche and has recently been trumpeted abroad by some German and American theologians. But the good Lord has not died of this; He who dwells in the heaven laughs at them.' [as well as anyone who notices that it is Nietzsche that is dead!]
    1967 El Cantar de Mio Cid, el manuscrito más valioso de la Biblioteca Nacional de España, es adquirido en 10 millones de pesetas por la Fundación Juan March.
    1966 Coup ousts President Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana (celebrated as Liberation Day) — El general Joseph A. Ankrah encabeza un golpe de Estado en Ghana, aprovechando que el presidente Kwame Nkrumah se encuentra de viaje por Asia.
    1965 East German President Ulbricht visits Egypt.
    1962 General mobilization in Indonesia over New-Guinea.
    1960 Italian government of Segni falls.
    1955 Pact of Baghdad between Iraq and Turkey signed
    1950 Labour wins British parliamentary election.
    1949 Israel and Egypt sign an armistice agreement. — Se firma en la isla de Rodas el armisticio que pone fin a la primera guerra árabe-israelí.
    1949 El líder sionista Chaim Weizmann es elegido presidente de Israel.
    1948 Communist Party seizes complete control of Czechoslovakia.
    ^ 1946 Perón elected Argentine President in landslide victory
          In Argentina, Juan Domingo Perón, who led a military coup in 1943, is elected president by a wide electoral majority. The year before, Perón was imprisoned after declaring himself a presidential candidate, but mass demonstrations by Argentine workers and public appeals from his charismatic wife, Eva Duarte de Perón, forced his release. After becoming president, Perón constructs an impressive populist alliance that includes workers, the military, nationalists, clerics, and industrialists. Perón's vision of self-sufficiency for his country wins wide support from the Argentine people, but over the next decade he becomes increasingly authoritarian, jailing political opponents, restricting freedom of the press, and organizing trade unions into a militant groups along Fascist lines. In 1952, the president's greatest political resource, Eva Perón, dies, and his unusual social coalition collapses, leading to a military coup in September of 1955 that forces him to flee the country. However, his economic reforms remain popular with the majority of Argentineans long after his departure, and in 1973 he returns triumphantly to Argentina, called back by the military to end factional violence. Perón subsequently wins another overwhelming electoral victory, and his third wife, Isabelita Perón, is elected as vice president. After his sudden death in the following year, Isabelita succeeds him, becoming the Western Hemisphere's first female head of state.
    1945 US soldiers liberate Manila from Japanese control during World War II.
    1945 Egypt and Syria declares war on Nazi-Germany.
    ^1944 US guerrillas attack in northern Burma
          Maj. Gen. Frank Merrill's guerrilla force, nicknamed "Merrill's Marauders," begin a campaign in northern Burma. In August 1942, President Franklin D. Roosevelt and Prime Minister Winston Churchill agreed to create an American ground unit whose sole purpose would be to engage in a "long-range penetration mission" in Japanese-occupied Burma. This mission would consist of cutting Japanese communications and supply lines and otherwise throwing the enemy's positions into chaos. It was hoped that this commando force could thus prepare the way for Gen. Joseph Stillwell's Chinese American Force to reopen the Burma Road, which was closed in April 1942 by the Japanese invaders, and once again allow supplies and war material into China through this route.
          Within the military, a type of "Help Wanted" ad was put up with the president's authority, an appeal for applicants to participate in a "dangerous and hazardous mission." About 3000 soldiers volunteered from stateside units to create what was officially called the 5307th Composite Unit, code named "Galahad." It would go into history as Merrill's Marauders, after Brig. Gen. Frank Merrill, their commander.
          Brigadier General Merrill trained his men in the art of guerrilla warfare in the jungles of India, for secrecy's sake. The commando force was formed into six combat units — Red, White, Blue, Green, Orange, and Khaki — with 400 men in each (the remaining 600 men or so were part of a rear-echelon headquarters that remained in India to coordinate the air-drops of equipment to the men in the field).
          The Marauders' mission began with a 1600-km walk through dense jungle, without artillery support, into Burma. On 24 February 1944, they began their Burmese campaign, which, when done, consisted of five major and 30 minor engagements with a far more numerous Japanese enemy. They had to carry their supplies on their backs and on pack mules, and were resupplied only with airdrops in the middle of the jungle. Merrill's Marauders succeeded in maneuvering behind Japanese forces to cause the disruptions necessary to throw the enemy into confusion. They were so successful, the Marauders managed even to capture the Myitkyina Airfield in northern Burma.
          When their mission was completed, all surviving Merrill's Marauders had to be evacuated to hospitals to be treated for everything from exhaustion and various tropical diseases to malnutrition or A.O.E. ("Accumulation of Everything"). They were awarded the Distinguished Unit Citation in July 1944, which was re-designated the Presidential Unit Citation in 1966. Every member of the commando force also received the Bronze Star, a very rare distinction for an entire unit. Merrill remained in the Far East and was made an aide to General Stillwell.
    1944 Argentina coup by Juan Perón minister of war
    ^1944 Mass deportation of Chechens and Ingush.    ^top^
          On February 23-24, the Chechens and their neighbors the Ingush are systematically rounded up by Russian troops and shipped off to the east in freight trains. The Soviet census of 1939 had counted 407,690 Chechens and 92,074 Ingush; altogether some 400,000 Chechens and Ingush are deported to Soviet Central Asia, the majority to Kazakhstan. It is estimated that 30% or more died during their detention and transport from the Caucasus or within the first year of their forcible resettlement.
          This action was reasoned as follows: "During the Great Patriotic War, and especially during the time the German-Fascist army was operating in the Caucasus, many Chechens and Ingush betrayed their motherland, went over to the side of the fascist occupiers, enlisted in detachments of saboteurs and spies sent by the Germans into the rear of the Red Army, in response to German orders formed armed bands to fight against Soviet power, for several years have also taken part in armed actions against the Soviet authorities, and for a long time without engaging in honest work have conducted bandit raids against the collective farms of neighboring regions, robbing and killing Soviet people. Therefore, the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet orders: Deportation to other regions of the USSR of all Chechens and Ingush living on or adjacent to the territory of the Chechen-Ingush ASSR, and liquidation of the Chechen-Ingush ASSR."
          The behavior of the Chechens in exile in Kazakhstan has been described in "The Gulag Archipelago" by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn: "there was one nation that would not give in, would not acquire the mental habits of submission — and not just individual rebels among them, but the whole nation to a man. These were the Chechens. They were capable of rustling cattle, robbing a house, or sometimes simply taking what they wanted by force. They respected only rebels. And here is an extraordinary thing — everyone was afraid of them. No one could stop them from living as they did. The regime which had ruled the land for thirty years could not force them to respect its laws."
          On February 25, 1956, in Khrushchev's speech to the 20th Party Congress exposing Stalin's crimes, he mentioned the Chechens among the peoples deported toward the close of World War II, commenting: "no reasonable man can grasp how it is possible to make whole nations responsible for hostile activity, including women, children, old people, Communists and Komsomols, to use mass repression against them, and to expose them to misery and suffering for the hostile acts of individuals or groups of individuals." On July 16, 1956, the Presidium of the USSR Supreme Soviet issued a decree abolishing the legal restrictions that had been imposed on the deported Chechens, but specifically ruled out claims for return to their homeland and restitution of confiscated property.
          On January 8, 1957, a further decree of the Presidium reconstituted the Chechen-Ingush ASSR, and cancelled the ban on the return of Chechens and Ingush. The horror of their mass deportation and the misery of their resettlement regimen in Kazakhstan and Kirghizstan have not been forgotten or forgiven by the Chechens
    1942 Voice of America begins broadcasting (in German)
    1942 El embajador alemán Franz Von Papen sufre un atentado en Ankara.
    1938 Du Pont begins commercial production of nylon toothbrush bristles.
    1937 La Unión Soviética prohíbe el envío de voluntarios a la Guerra Civil Española.
    1933 Final demonstration of German Communist party in Berlin.
    1933 League of Nations tells Japanese to pull out of Manchuria (Japan does nothing of the sort).
    1933 Las Cortes españolas ratifican la confianza al Gobierno por 173 votos contra 130 en el debate de los sucesos de Casas Viejas.
    1932 Las Cortes de la Segunda República Española aprueban la Ley del Divorcio.
    1932 Malcolm Campbell consigue en Daytona, con un Napier-Campbell, un nuevo récord de velocidad sobre tierra: 408,714 km/h.
    1924 Greek parliament proclaims republic.
    1924 Mahatma Gandhi released from jail.
    1923 Mass arrests in US of Mafia.
    1922 Alemania concede la extradición de Nicolau, asesino del presidente del Consejo español Eduardo Dato Iradier.
    1920 Peace treaty gives Estonia independence (celebrated as National Day).
    1920 A fledgling German political party holds its first meeting of importance in Munich; it would become known as the Nazi Party, and its chief spokesman is Adolf Hitler. — Hitler da a conocer en Múnich los veinticinco puntos del Partido Obrero Alemán.
    1918 Estonia declares independence from Russia.
    ^1917 US is informed that Germany incites Mexico to war against the US.
         British authorities give to the US ambassador to Britain a copy of the "Zimmermann Note," a coded message from German foreign secretary Arthur Zimmermann to Count Johann von Bernstorff, the German ambassador to Mexico. In the telegram, intercepted and deciphered by British intelligence, Zimmermann stated that, in the event of war with the United States, Mexico should be asked to enter the conflict as a German ally. In return, Germany promised to restore to Mexico the lost territories of Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona. On March 1, the US State Department would publish the note, and American public opinion would be galvanized against Germany.
          On 22 February, the US Congress had passed a $250 million arms appropriations bill intended to make the United States ready for war with Germany, which, on 31 January had announced the renewal of unlimited submarine warfare in the Atlantic German torpedo-armed submarines were prepared to attack any and all ships, including civilian passenger carriers, said to be sited in war-zone waters. On 3 February, the United States broke diplomatic relations with Germany, and just hours after that the American liner Housatonic was sunk by a German U-boat. None of the 25 Americans on board were killed, and all were later picked up by a British steamer.
          When World War I erupted in 1914, President Woodrow Wilson had pledged neutrality for the United States, a position that the vast majority of Americans favored. Britain, however, was one of America's closest trading partners, and tension soon arose between the United States and Germany over the latter's attempted quarantine of the British isles. Several US ships traveling to Britain were damaged or sunk by German mines, and in February 1915 Germany announced unrestricted warfare against all ships, neutral or otherwise, that entered the war zone around Britain.
          One month later, Germany announced that a German cruiser had sunk the William P. Frye, a private American vessel that was transporting grain to England when it disappeared. President Wilson was outraged, but the German government apologized and called the attack an unfortunate mistake. The Germans' most formidable naval weapon was the U-boat, a submarine far more sophisticated than those built by other nations at the time. The typical U-boat was 65 m long, carried 35 men and 12 torpedoes, and could travel underwater for two hours at a time. In the first few years of World War I, the U-boats took a terrible toll on Allied shipping. In early May 1915, several New York newspapers published a warning by the German embassy in Washington that Americans traveling on British or Allied ships in war zones did so at their own risk. The announcement was placed on the same page as an advertisement of the imminent sailing of the British-owned Lusitania ocean liner from New York to Liverpool.
          On 07 May, the Lusitania was torpedoed without warning just off the coast of Ireland. Of the 1959 passengers, 1198 were killed, including 128 Americans. The German government maintained that the Lusitania was carrying munitions, but the US demanded reparations and an end to German attacks on unarmed passenger and merchant ships. In August, Germany pledged to see to the safety of passengers before sinking unarmed vessels but in November sunk an Italian liner without warning, killing 272 people, including 27 Americans. Public opinion in the United States began to turn irrevocably against Germany. In 1917, Germany, determined to win its war of attrition against the Allies, announces the resumption of unrestricted warfare.
          In late March, Germany sunk four more US merchant ships, and on April 2 President Wilson appeared before Congress and called for a declaration of war against Germany. On 04 April, the Senate voted 82 to six to declare war against Germany. Two days later, the House of Representatives endorsed the declaration by a vote of 373 to 50, and America formally entered World War I. On 26 June, the first 14'000 US infantrymen landed in France to begin training for combat. After four years of bloody stalemate along the western front, the entrance of America's well-supplied forces into the conflict was a major turning point in the war. When the war finally ended, on 11 November 1918, more than two million American soldiers had served on the battlefields of Western Europe, and some 50'000 of these men had lost their lives.
     —    During World War I, British authorities give Walter H. Page, the US ambassador to Britain, a copy of the "Zimmermann Note," a coded message from German foreign secretary Arthur Zimmermann to Count Johann von Bernstorff, the German ambassador to Mexico. In the telegram, intercepted and deciphered by British intelligence in late January, Zimmermann states that, in the event of war with the United States, Mexico should be asked to enter the conflict as a German ally. In return, Germany promised to restore to Mexico the lost territories of Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona. After receiving the telegram, Ambassador Page promptly sends a copy to US President Woodrow Wilson, who, on 01 March 1917, allows the US State Department to publish the note. The press initially treats the telegram as a hoax, but Arthur Zimmermann himself confirms its authenticity. The Zimmermann Note helps turn US public opinion, already severely strained by repeated German attacks on US ships, firmly against Germany. On 02 April, President Wilson, who had initially sought a peaceful resolution to end World War I, urges the immediate US entrance into the war. Four days later, Congress formally declares war against Germany.
    1917 Russian revolution breaks out.
    1914 El primer ministro británico Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill consigue créditos suplementarios para la armada.
    1911 Se produce la dimisión del primer ministro francés Aristide Briand, al que sucede Monis, que recibe el apoyo de radicales y radicalsocialistas.
    1909 Se presenta, en la localidad inglesa de Brighton, por primera vez al público el cine en color.
    1905 El ministro de Agricultura ruso, Alexei Yermolov, somete al zar Nicolás II la idea de una Constitución.
    1905 Simplon tunnel in Switzerland completed.
    1903 US signs agreement acquiring a naval station at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
    1902 Battle at Yzer Spruit Boer General De la Rey beats British.
    1896 El físico francés Antoine Henri Becquerel anuncia el descubrimiento de una radiación emitida por el uranio.
    1895 Cuban war of independence begins. — Comienza la sublevación independentista en Cuba con el llamado Grito de Baire.
    1894 Nicaragua captures Tegucigalpa, Honduras (National Day, sort of).
    1891 Se promulga una Constitución Federal en Brasil.
    1891 French troops under Captain Archinard occupy Diéna West Sudan.
    1881 De Lesseps' Company begins work on Panama Canal.
    ^1869 Morrill's Tariff increase 
          The US Congress passes the Morrill Tariff Act, which increases duties on imports to an average rate of 47%. The legislation was also another victory for Congressman Justin Morrill, who, starting in 1861, had drafted a series of tariffs designed to protect US industry from the specter of international competition. However, as some historians have noted, overseas rivals didn't pose much of a threat to American manufacturers in 1869; Morrill's latest tariff seemingly padded industrialists’ pocketbooks at the expense of the poor, who were forced to pay ever-higher prices for import goods. Over the next few years, though, lawmakers reversed course and rolled back some of the protectionist duties. The Tariff of 1870 placed 130 items — primarily raw materials — on the "free list," while tariff law passed in 1872 effectively slashed rates on manufacturing goods by 10%.
    ^1868 US President Andrew Johnson impeached
          The US House of Representatives votes, 126 to 47, eleven articles of impeachment against President Andrew Johnson, nine of which cite Johnson's removal of Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton in violation of the Tenure of Office Act. The House vote makes President Johnson the first president to be impeached in US history. At the outbreak of the Civil War in 1861, Andrew Johnson, a senator from Tennessee, was the only US senator from a seceding state who remained loyal to the Union. In 1862, President Abraham Lincoln appointed him military governor of Tennessee, and in 1864, he was elected vice president of the United States. Inaugurated after Lincoln's assassination in April of 1865, President Johnson enacted a lenient Reconstruction policy for the defeated South, including almost total amnesty to ex-Confederates, a program of rapid restoration of US state status for the seceded states, and the approval of new, local Southern governments, which were able to legislate "Black Codes" that preserved the system of slavery in all but its name.
          The Republican-dominated Congress greatly opposed Johnson's Reconstruction program, and on 02 March 1867, passed the Tenure of Office Act over the president's veto. The bill prohibited the president from removing officials confirmed by the Senate without senatorial approval, and was designed to shield members of Johnson's cabinet like Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton who had been a leading Republican radical in the Lincoln administration. In the fall of 1867, President Johnson attempted to test the constitutionality of the act by replacing Stanton with General Ulysses S. Grant. However, the US Supreme Court refused to rule on the case and Grant turned the office back to Stanton after the Senate passed a measure refusing the dismissal. On 21 February 1868, Johnson decided to rid himself of Stanton once and for all and appointed General Lorenzo Thomas, an individual far less favorable to the Congress than Grant, as Secretary of War. Stanton refused to yield, barricading himself in his office, and the House of Representatives, which had already discussed impeachment after Johnson's first dismissal of Stanton, initiated formal impeachment proceedings against the president. On 24 February the House votes eleven impeachment articles against Johnson, and on 13 March, the Senate impeachment trial of President Andrew Johnson began under the direction of US Supreme Court Chief Justice Salmon P. Chase. On 26 May, the trial ended with Johnson's opponents narrowly failing to achieve the two-thirds majority necessary to convict him.
    1864 Skirmish near Canton, Mississippi.
    1864 Battle of Tunnel Hill GA (Buzzard's Roost)
    1863 Forrest's raid on Brentwood TN.
    1863 Arizona Territory created
    1852 Between January 15th and February 24th a total of 1378 railroad cars were drawn by horses across the frozen Susquehanna River (the ferry could not pass) to engines waiting at Havre De Grace MD.
    1848 King Louis-Philippe abdicates, 2nd French republic declared. — Tras la revuelta de 1848, la familia real borbónica huye y jamás vuelve a reinar en Francia.
    ^Alamo flag1836 Travis vows victory or death in besieged Alamo.
          During the Texas War for Independence, on 23 February 1836, Mexican president and general Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna orders the first assault on the fortified Alamo mission in San Antonio, Texas, held by 144 Texans and Americans under the leadership of Colonel William B. Travis, Jim Bowie, and Davy Crockett. [flag flown by the Texans at the Alamo >]
         On 24 February 1836, Texan Colonel William Travis sends a desperate plea for help for the besieged defenders of the Alamo, ending the message with the famous last words, "Victory or Death." Travis' path to the Alamo began five years earlier when he moved to the Mexican state of Texas to start fresh after a failed marriage in Alabama. Trained as a lawyer, he established a law office in Anahuac, where he quickly gained a reputation for his willingness to defy the local Mexican officials. In 1832, a minor confrontation with the Mexican government landed Travis in jail. When he was freed a month later, many Anglo settlers hailed him as a hero. As Anglo-American resentment toward the Mexican government grew, Travis was increasingly viewed as a strong leader among those seeking an independent Texan republic.
          When the Texas revolution began in 1835, Travis joined the revolutionary army. In February 1936, he was made a lieutenant colonel and given command of the regular Texas troops in San Antonio. On 23 February, the Mexican army under Santa Ana arrived in the city unexpectedly. Travis and his troops retreated to the Alamo, an old Spanish mission and fortress, where they were soon joined by James Bowie's volunteer force. The Mexican army of 5000 soldiers badly outnumbered the several hundred defenders of the Alamo. Their determination was fierce, though, and when Santa Ana asked for their surrender the following day, Travis answered with a cannon shot.
          Furious, Santa Ana began a siege. Recognizing he was doomed to defeat without reinforcements, Travis dispatched via couriers several messages asking for help. The most famous was addressed to "The People of Texas and All Americans in the World" and was signed "Victory or Death." Unfortunately, it was to be death for the defenders: only 32 men from nearby Gonzales responded to Travis' call for reinforcements. On March 6, the Mexicans stormed the Alamo and Travis, Bowie, and about 190 of their comrades were killed. The Texans made Santa Ana pay for his victory, though, having claimed at least 600 of his men during the attack.
          Although Travis' defense of the Alamo was a miserable failure militarily, symbolically it was a tremendous success. "Remember the Alamo" quickly became the rallying cry for the Texas revolution. By April, Travis' countrymen had beaten the Mexicans and won their independence. Travis' daring defiance of the overwhelmingly superior Mexican forces has since become the stuff of myth, and a facsimile of his famous call for help is on permanent display at the Texas State Library in Austin.
          Texan Colonel William Travis sends a desperate plea for help for the besieged defenders of the Alamo, ending the message with the famous last words, "Victory or Death." Travis' path to the Alamo began five years earlier when he moved to the Mexican state of Texas to start fresh after a failed marriage in Alabama. Trained as a lawyer, he established a law office in Anahuac, where he quickly gained a reputation for his willingness to defy the local Mexican officials. In 1832, a minor confrontation with the Mexican government landed Travis in jail. When he was freed a month later, many Anglo settlers hailed him as a hero. As Anglo-American resentment toward the Mexican government grew, Travis was increasingly viewed as a strong leader among those seeking an independent Texan republic. When the Texas revolution began in 1835, Travis joined the revolutionary army. In February 1936, he was made a lieutenant colonel and given command of the regular Texas troops in San Antonio. On 23 February, the Mexican army under Santa Ana arrived in the city unexpectedly. Travis and his troops retreated to the Alamo, an old Spanish mission and fortress, where they were soon joined by James Bowie's volunteer force. The Mexican army of 5000 soldiers badly outnumbered the several hundred defenders of the Alamo. Their determination was fierce, though, and when Santa Ana asked for their surrender the following day, Travis answered with a cannon shot. Furious, Santa Ana began a siege. Recognizing he was doomed to defeat without reinforcements, Travis dispatched via couriers several messages asking for help. The most famous was addressed to "The People of Texas and All Americans in the World" and was signed "Victory or Death." Unfortunately, it was to be death for the defenders: only 32 men from nearby Gonzales responded to Travis' call for reinforcements. On 06 March, the Mexicans stormed the Alamo and Travis, Bowie, and about 190 of their comrades were killed. The Texans made Santa Ana pay for his victory, though, having claimed at least 600 of his men during the attack. Although Travis' defense of the Alamo was a miserable failure militarily, symbolically it was a tremendous success. "Remember the Alamo" quickly became the rallying cry for the Texas revolution. By April, Travis' countrymen had beaten the Mexicans and won their independence. Travis' daring defiance of the overwhelmingly superior Mexican forces has since become the stuff of myth, and a facsimile of his famous call for help is on permanent display at the Texas State Library in Austin.
          After gaining independence from Spain in 1821, Mexico welcomed foreign settlers to sparsely populated Texas, and a large group of Americans led by Stephen F. Austin settled along the Brazos River. The Americans soon outnumbered the resident Mexicans, and by the 1830s, attempts by the Mexican government to regulate these semi-autonomous communities were, in their opinion, against the 1824 Mexican constitution, and led them to rebellion. In October of 1835, residents of Gonzales, eighty kilometers east of San Antonio, responded to Santa Anna’s demand that they return a cannon loaned for defense against Indian attack by discharging it against the Mexican troops sent to reclaim it.
          Two months later, Texas volunteers commanded by Ben Milam drove Mexican troops out of San Antonio and settled in around the Alamo, a mission compound adapted to military purposes after the 1790s.
          In January of 1836, Santa Anna concentrated a force of several thousand men south of the Rio Grande and General Sam Houston, the commander of the Texas revolutionary troops, ordered the Alamo abandoned.
          However, Colonel Jim Bowie realized that the Alamo’s twenty-five captured cannons could not be removed before Santa Anna’s arrival, so he remained entrenched with his men in order to give Houston time to raise a revolutionary army. On 02 February, Bowie and his twenty-five men were joined by a small cavalry company under Colonel William Travis, bringing the total number of Alamo defenders to about one hundred and thirty. One week later, Davy Crockett arrived in command of fourteen Tennessee Mounted Volunteers.
          On 23 February, Santa Anna and some 4000 Mexican troops besieged the Alamo, and the Mexican leader ordered the former mission bombarded with cannon and rifle fire for twelve days. The next day, in the chaos of the siege, Colonel Travis smuggled out a letter that read:
    Commandancy of the Alamo
    Bexar, Feby. 24th, 1836
    To the People of Texas and all Americans in the World —
    Fellow Citizens and Compatriots —

    I am besieged by a thousand or more of the Mexicans under Santa Anna — I have sustained a continual Bombardment and cannonade for 24 hours and have not lost a man — The enemy has demanded a surrender at discretion, otherwise the garrison are to be put to the sword, if the fort is taken — I have answered the demand with a cannon shot, and our flag still waves proudly from the walls — I shall never surrender or retreat. Then, I call on you in the name of Liberty, of patriotism and everything dear to the American character, to come to our aid with all despatch — The enemy is receiving reinforcements daily and will no doubt increase to three or four thousand in four or five days. If this call is neglected, I am determined to sustain myself as long as possible and die like a soldier who never forgets what is due to his own honor and that of his country — Victory or Death.

               William Barret Travis Lt. Col. comdt.

    P.S. The Lord is on our side — When the enemy appeared in sight we had not three bushels of corn — We have since found in deserted houses 80 or 90 bushels, and got into the walls 20 or 30 head of Beeves —
                                                                                Travis

    Send this to San Felipe by Express night and day —
         On 02 March, the last Texan reinforcements from nearby Gonzales broke through the enemy’s lines and into the Alamo, bringing the total defenders to one hundred and eighty-five. The same day, Texas’ revolutionary government formally declared its independence from Mexico.
          In the early morning of 06 March, Santa Anna ordered the first assault on the Alamo. Travis’s artillery decimated the first and then the second Mexican charge, but within ninety minutes the Texans were overwhelmed, and the Alamo was taken. All 188 Texan defenders were killed, along with some 1544 of Santa Anna’s troops. The only survivors of the Alamo were a mother, her child, and an African-American slave.
          Six weeks later, a large Texan army under Sam Houston surprised Santa Anna’s army at San Jacinto. Shouting "Remember the Alamo!" the Texans defeated the Mexicans and captured Santa Anna. Texas independence was won.
    1821 Mexico declares its independence from Spain. — Se proclama el Plan de Iguala, documento redactado por Agustín de Iturbide que contiene las bases de la Independencia de México.
    1803 The US Supreme Court rules itself to be the final interpreter of constitutional issues, in Marbury v. Madison.
    1793 French troops conquer Breda
    1786 Charles Cornwallis appointed Governor-General of India
    ^1582 Gregorian Calendar is promulgated.
          Pope Gregory XIII publishes a bull which announces the New Style (Gregorian) calendar which corrects the errors of the Julian (or Old Style) calendar created by Julius Caesar in 46 BC.
    — The Julian calendar year of 365.25 was too long, since the “tropical” year is 365.242199 days. The papal bull decrees that, in order to bring the vernal equinox back to 21 March, 05 October 1582 (Julian) will be followed by 15 October 1582 (Gregorian). The years divisible by 100 but not by 400 will no longer be leap years. The bull also promulgates rules for calculating the date of Easter.
        The new calendar was adopted on the date set by the bull only in some of the Catholic countries: the Italian countries, Spain, Portugal, France, and Luxembourg. In Great Britain and its possessions, the Gregorian calendar came into use on 14 September 1752 (Gregorian), the day following 02 September 1752 (Julian). Among the last countries to make the switch were the Soviet Union in 1918 and Greece in 1923 (resulting in much confusion about their dates since 15 October 1582. On this site an attempt is made to list those events only their Gregorian dates while mentioning the Julian date. Please report any errors which you may find)
    1581 Pope Gregory XIII approves the results of his calendar reform commission whose principal members are the Neapolitan astronomer Luigi Lilio Ghiraldi (died in 1576) and the German Jesuit mathematician Christopher Clavius (1537-1612).
    1538 King Ferdinand of Austria and King János Zápolyai of Hungary sign Peace of Grosswardein.
    1530 first imperial coronation by a Pope, Charles V crowned by Clement V.
    1528 János Zápolyai, Hungarian king, recognizes Sultan Suleiman's suzerainty.
    1527 Ferdinand of Austria crowned as king of Bohemia — Tras el fallecimiento de Luis II de Mohács, su cuñado Fernando y su esposa Ana de Hungría son coronados reyes de Hungría y de Bohemia.
    1524 El papa Clemente VII concede a la Inquisición de Aragón poder jurisdiccional sobre la sodomía, conlleve o no herejía.
    1510 Pope Julius II excommunicates the republic of Venice
    1389 Battle at Falköping Danes defeat King Albert of Sweden.
    1296 Pope Boniface VIII degree Clericis Iaicos
    1208 Saint Francis of Assisi [1182 – 03 Oct 1226], received his vocation in the Italian village of Portiuncula. He founded the Franciscans the following year, and is regarded by many as the greatest of all Christian saints of the second millenium.
    0303 The first official Roman edict for the persecution of Christians is issued by Roman Emperor Diocletian [245-316], incited by the caesar Galerius Valerius Maximianus. When Diocletian abdicated on 01 May 305, Galerius became augustus (senior emperor) of the East and continued the persecution, In the winter of 310-311, however, he became incapacitated with a painful disease. Fearing, perhaps, that his illness was the vengeance of the Christian God, he issued, on 30 April 311, an edict grudgingly granting toleration. Shortly afterward he died.
    TO THE TOP
    < 23 Feb 25 Feb >
    ^ Deaths which occurred on a 24 February:

    2006 Two guards, and Muhammed Al-Gaith (or Mohamed Saleh Al-Ghaith), 24; and Abdullah Al-Tuwaijri (or Abdullah Abdul Aziz Al-Tuwaijeri), 22; who are driving two pickup-truck bombs which explode when fired upon by guards at the Abqaiq oil processing facility in Saudi Arabia, which is not damaged. Some guards and workers are injured. — (060228)
    Jessica Lunsford
    2005 Jessica Marie Lunsford [06 Oct 1995–] [photo >], killed by John Evander Couey [19 Sep 1958~], who had abducted her in the early hours from her bedroom in Homosassa, Citrus County, Florida, and then sexually molested her. Her fate is not known until after the police checks on known sex offenders in the area, find that Couey is gone, violating parole, and he is found in Georgia, where he confesses on 18 March 2005, and her body is found at 03:30 (08:30 UT) on 19 March 2005, some 150 meters from Jessica's home and, across the street, the home of Couey's half-sister, where he would sometimes stay. Couey has a criminal history dating to the 1970s, including 24 arrests on charges of burglary, indecent exposure, fraud, insufficient funds, larceny, and carrying a concealed weapon. During a 1978 Citrus County burglary, Couey grabbed a girl and kissed her. Couey was sentenced to 10 years in prison but was paroled in 1980. He was designated a sexual offender after a 1991 arrest in Kissimmee for fondling a child.

    2005 Mark Allen Wilson, 52; Maribel Estrada, 41; and her ex-husband, David Hernandez Arroyo Sr., 43, wearing a flak jacket and a bullet-proof vest, who, at 13:25 (19:25 UT), on the steps of the courthouse in Tyler, Texas, meets his ex-wife Maribel and their adult son, David Arroyo Jr., about a proceeding involving unpaid child support, then shoots some 50 AK-47 rounds at them, at bystander Wilson, who had a concealed gun permit and who had started shooting at Arroyo Sr. diverting him from finishing off Arroyo Jr., and at policemen, who confront him and then pursue him for 3 kilometers as he flees in his pickup truck and kill him after they catch up with him off US Highway 271 near Duncan Street and he keeps shooting at them. Arroyo Jr., five policemen, and two bystanders are wounded. Estrada and Arroyo divorced in 2004 after 22 years of marriage. He had recently threatened to kill her if she pursued her demand for the child support.

    2005 Seven Taliban mujahideen, killed from US military helicopters in a raid in Khost province, Afghanistan.

    2005 Ahmed Mahmoud and Kahtan Ahmed, Iraqi police officers assassinated in Baqouba, Iraq, late in the evening.

    2005 Four Iraqi National Guardsmen, by two roadside bombs in Qaim, Iraq.

    2005 Fifteen policemen and a suicide car bomber wearing a police uniform lieutenant, inside the main police compound in Tikrit, Iraq, at the time of the morning shift change. 22 policemen are wounded.

    2005 Two persons in a bakery in eastern Baghdad, Iraq, fired upon by terrorists. One person is wounded.

    2005 Two policemen in a patrol, by a roadside bomb in Kirkuk, Iraq. Three policemen are injured.

    2005 Six persons, including a suicide bomber, in front of in front of the local headquarters of the Shiite Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, in Iskandariyah, Iraq. Targeted police Col. Salman Ali in unhurt.
    Loiseau
    2004 Some 500 persons in 6.5 magnitude earthquake at 02:28 (local = UT) with epicenter 2 km deep at 35°14'N 3°58'W under the Mediterranean near Al Hoceima, Morocco. Devastation is worst in nearby villages Ait Kamra, Tamassint, and Imzourn, where some 30'000 persons lived in adobe houses.

    2003 Bernard Loiseau, 52 [1999 photo >], suicide by hunting rifle, in Saulieu (Côte d'Or), France. His rating as a chef dropped from 19/20 to 17/20 in the GaultMillau guide published earlier in February 2003.

    2003 Billy Dewayne Copeland, 26, shot by police at about 10:30 (15:30 UT) in a gunfight during an 8-km chase on I-65 southbound in Fultondale, Alabama, where Copeland and his accomplice who drives the stolen car had just robbed the town's only bank, the Bank of Alabama on Decatur Highway. The driver takes exit 263 at 33rd Avenue North in Birmingham and crashes two blocks away in the 3200 block of 17th Street North (zip 35207-4210), where he resumes the gunfight and is wounded and arrested.

    2003 At least 260 persons in magnitude 6.3 earthquake at 10:04 (02:04 UT) with epicenter 33-km-deep at 39º38'N 77º12'E, near Chongku Qiake in the southwest of Xinjiang province, China, near the Kyrgyzstan border. Over 1000 are injured. More than 30'000 are homeless. The temperature drops to –10ºC at night.

    2003 Christopher Hill, born on 06 February 1912, British Marxist historian of 17th-century England. Author of The World Turned Upside Down (1972)

    2001 Charles Fletcher-Cooke, político británico.
    2000 Betty Lou Beets, 62, executed by lethal injection, in Texas, for murdering her fifth husband. Gov. George W. Bush had refused to intervene.
    1990 Sandro Pertini, político y presidente de Italia.
    1990 Malcolm Forbes, 70, CEO (Forbes Publishing), of a heart attack.
    1983 Tennessee Williams, 71, US playwright (Cat on a Hot Tin Roof)
    1975 Nikolai A Bulganin, 79, marshal/premier of USSR (1955-58)
    1964 Alexander Archipenko, escultor ruso nacionalizado estadounidense.
    ^1940 Day 86 of Winter War: USSR aggression against Finland.
    More deaths due to Stalin's desire to grab Finnish territory.
    Finnish troops take Reuhkavaara 'motti'
           Karelian Isthmus: the Finnish 23rd Division takes advantage of a momentary lull in enemy pressure to attempt a counterattack to improve their defensive positions to the east of Lake Näykkijärvi. The counterattack is launched at 02:30, but almost immediately breaks down. At daybreak the Finnish troops withdraw to their defensive positions. Enemy attacks on the intermediary defensive positions are unsuccessful.
          In the north, the Finnish guerrillas operating in Salla are suffering from stiffer countermeasures by the Soviet troops in the area. The independent Company Kojonen pulls off a successful surprise attack on a Red Army logistics centre at Kuusivaara in Salla, causing considerable losses among the Soviet troops.
          In Petsamo, a 180-strong enemy ski company attacks Heteoja, bringing to an end a phase of guerrilla activity which had lasted almost two months. They are surrounded by Finnish troops, but half their strength manage to break out.
          In Kuhmo, Finnish troops take the Reuhkavaara 'motti'. Enemy dead total 174. Finnish casualties are three dead and five wounded. The Finns capture a considerable amount of materiel, including two tanks, four lorries and over 200 small arms.
          Finland's Foreign Minister meets the new British diplomatic representative in Finland, Mr. Vereker, and the military envoy, General Ling, who has just visited General Headquarters in Mikkeli. According to Vereker, the Allies are ready to send 20'000 soldiers to Finland on March 15.
          The exhibition of captured war materiel in Helsinki Exhibition Hall is a great success. 13'000 persons have visited the exhibition during the first week alone.
          The foreign ministers of Norway, Denmark and Sweden meet in Copenhagen. The Nordic countries make a joint decision not to give military assistance to Finland nor to allow foreign troops to pass through their territory. Finland therefore stands alone.
    ^ Suomalaiset kukistavat Reuhkavaaran motin Talvisodan 87. päivä, 24.helmikuuta.1940
           Vihollisen paineen hetkeksi hellittäessä Suomen 23. Divisioonan joukot yrittävät vastahyökkäyksellä parantaa puolustusasemiaan Näykkijärven itäpuolella Karjalan kannaksella. Vastahyökkäys alkaa klo 2.30, mutta tyrehtyy miltei heti. Aamun valjetessa suomalaiset vetäytyvät takaisin puolustus-asemiin. Vihollisen hyökkäykset väliasemaan torjutaan.
          Sissisota Sallassa on vaikeutunut neuvostojoukkojen vastatoimientehostuessa. Erillinen Komppania Kojonen tekee menestyksekkään yllätys-hyökkäyksen vihollisen Sallan Kuusivaarassa sijaitsevaan huoltokeskukseen aiheuttaen huomattavia tappioita.
          Petsamossa vihollisen 180-miehinen hiihtokomppania hyökkää Heteojalle päättäen näin lähes kaksi kuukautta kestäneen sissisotavaiheen. Viholliskomppania saarrostetaan, mutta puolet siitä onnistuu murtautumaan ulos.
          Kuhmossa suomalaiset kukistavat Reuhkavaaran motin. Taistelualueelle jää 174 kaatunutta vihollista. Omat tappiot ovat kolme kaatunutta ja viisi haavoittunutta. Sotasaalista saadaan runsaasti, mm. kaksi pansarivaunua, neljä autoa ja yli 200 käsiasetta.
          Ulkoministeri Tanner tapaa Englannin uuden lähettilään Verekerin ja Päämajassa Mikkelissä vierailleen kenraali Lingin. Englannin lähettilään mukaan liittoutuneet ovat valmiit lähettämään Suomeen maaliskuun 15. päivä 20 000 sotilasta.
          Sotasaalisnäyttely Helsingin Messuhallissa on menestys. Ensimmäisen viikon aikana näyttelyyn on tutustunut jo 13 000 ihmistä.
          Kööpenhaminassa kokoontuvat Ruotsin, Tanskan ja Norjan ulkoministerit. Yhteisellä päätöksellä Pohjoismaat eivät anna Suomelle sotilaallista tukea, eivätkä salli vieraiden joukkojen läpikulkua alueillaan. - Suomi on yksin.
    ^Finnarna slår mottin i Reuhkavaara Vinterkrigets 87 dag, den 24 februari 1940
          När fiendens tryck tillfälligt lättar försöker trupperna i den finska 23. Divisionen genom en motattack förbättra sina försvarsställningar öster om Näykkijärvi på Karelska näset. Motoffensiven startar kl. 2.30 men kvävs nästan omedelbart. När morgonen gryr tvingas finnarna retirera till försvarsställningarna. Fiendens anfall mot mellanställningen avvärjs.
          Gerillakriget i Salla har försvårats av de allt effektivare ryska motåtgärderna. Det avdelta kompaniet Kojonen gör ett överraskande anfall mot fiendens försörjningscentrum i Kuusivaara, Salla. Anfallet är framgångsrikt och förorsakar betydande förluster för fienden.
          I Petsamo anfaller ett fientligt skidlöparkompani på 180 man i Heteoja och avslutar därmed ett gerillakrigsskede som har räckt nästan två månader. Fiendens kompani omringas, men hälften av soldaterna lyckas bryta ut.
          I Kuhmo slår finnarna mottin i Reuhkavaara. Kvar på stridsområdet blir 174 stupade ryska soldater. De egna förlusterna är tre stupade och fem sårade. Finland får ett rejält krigsbyte, bl.a. två pansarvagnar, fyra bilar och över 200 handvapen.
          Utrikesminister Tanner träffar Englands nye ambassadör Vereker och general Ling som har besökt huvudkvarteret i S:t Michel. Enligt den engelske ambassadören är de allierade redo att sända 20 000 soldater till Finland den 15 mars.
          Krigsutställningen i Helsingfors Mässhall är en framgång. Under den första veckan har utställningen 13 000 besökare.
          Sveriges, Danmarks och Norges utrikesministrar samlas i Köpenhamn. De nordiska länderna fattar gemensamt beslutet att inte sända militärt stöd till Finland och tillåter inte heller att främmande trupper reser igenom deras territorier. - Finland är ensamt.
    1933 Bertini, mathematician.
    1920 Paul Albert Girard, French artist born on 13 December 1839.
    ^ 1916 More casualties at Verdun as Pétain takes command.
          During the First World War Verdun was a fortified French garrison town on the River Meuse 200 km east of Paris. In December 1915, General Erich von Falkenhayn, Chief of Staff of the German Army, decided to attack Verdun. Although he admitted he would be unable to break through at these point on the Western Front, he argued that in defending Verdun, the Germans would "bleed the French army white".
          The German attack on Verdun started on 21 February 1916. A million troops, led by Crown Prince Wilhelm, faced only about 200'000 French defenders. The following day the French was forced to retreat to their second line of trenches. By 24 February the French had moved back to the third line and were only 8km from Verdun.
          On 24th February, General Henri-Philippe Pétain was appointed commander of the Verdun sector. He gave orders that no more withdrawals would take place. He arranged for every spare French soldier to this part of the Western Front. Of the 330 infantry regiments of the French Army, 259 eventually fought at Verdun.
          The German advance was brought to a halt at the end of February. On 6 March, the German Fifth Army launched a new attack at Verdun. The Germans advanced 3km before they were stopped in front of the area around Mort Homme Hill. The French held this strategic point until it was finally secured by the Germans on 29 May, and Fort Vaux fell on 7th June, after a long siege.
          Further attacks continued throughout the summer and early autumn. However, the scale of the German attacks were reduced by the need to transfer troops to defend their front-line at the Somme. The French now counter-attacked and General Charles Mangin became a national hero when the forts at Douaumont and Vaux were recaptured by 2 November 1916. Over the next six weeks the French infantry gained another 2 km at Verdun.
          Verdun, the longest battle of the First World War, ended on the 18th December. The French Army lost about 550'000 men at Verdun. It is estimated that the German Army suffered 434'000 casualties. About half of all casualties at Verdun were killed.
    1911 Jules-Joseph Lefebvre, French Academic painter born on 14 March 1836. — MORE ON LEFEBVRE AT ART “4” FEBRUARY with links to images.
    1910 Osman Edhem Pacha Zadeh Hamby-Bey, Turkish artist born in 1842.
    1871 Julius Weisbach, mathematician.
    1856 Nikolay Lobachevsky, 63, mathematician.
    1844 Reynaud, mathematician.
    1839 Caspar Johann Schneider, German artist born on 19 April 1753.
    1819 Jean François Sablet “le Romain”, Swiss artist born on 23 November 1745. — more
    1815 Robert Fulton, US steamboat pioneer.
    1812 Malus, mathematician.
    1810 Henry Cavendish physicist/chemist
    1785 Carlo Bonaparte, 39, Corsican attorney
    1728 Reyneau, mathematician.
    1704 Marc-Antoine Charpentier French composer (church music)
    ^ 1563 François de Lorraine, 2ème duc de Guise, duc d'Aumale, prince de Joinville, “le Balafré”, dies on his 44th birthday after being mortally wounded by a Huguenot assassin. He was the most famous member of the House of Guise, a man of action, a political intriguer, a soldier loved by his men and feared by his enemies. He was generally loyal to the French crown and served it well.
          As comte d'Aumale he fought in the army of François I [12 Sep 1494 – 21 Mar 1547] and was wounded almost fatally at the siege of Boulogne (1545); there he received the scar that won him his byname. In 1547 his countship of Aumale was turned into a duchy. On the 1547 accession of Henri II he was made master of the king's hunt and great chamberlain. He had to share the King's favor, however, with the constable Anne de Montmorency [15 Mar 1493 – 12 Nov 1567].
          François succeeded to the duchy of Guise in April 1550 and soon after became prince de Joinville. In 1552 he was placed in charge of the defense of Metz against the emperor Charles V and obliged the Emperor to withdraw; on 13 August 1554 Guise again distinguished himself by routing an imperial army at Renty.
          On account of the jealousy of the Montmorencies, he was sent in 1557 to conquer Naples and would have added another to the long roll of reputations ruined by Italy, had he not been suddenly recalled to repel a Spanish army, which had invaded northern France; it was no mean achievement that he was able to bring back his army virtually intact. He attacked the English in Calais and within six days forced them to surrender (06 Jan 1558); he then completed their expulsion from France by capturing Guines and Ham.
          The 1559 accession of François II [31 Mar 1519 – 10 Jul 1559] produced a change of ministers: Montmorency was replaced as grand master of the royal household by Guise, who shared the chief power in the state with his brother Charles, cardinal de Lorraine. The Bourbons, as first princes of the blood, had a stronger claim to being the king's advisers but were deficient in political sense. Their leader, Antoine de Bourbon, was principally interested in recovering his wife's kingdom of Navarre from Spain and would not ally himself with Montmorency, whom he accused of having overlooked his interests at the recent peace talks. Anthony's brother Louis, prince de Condé, however, was more inclined to take advantage of the discontent caused among the nobles and Huguenots by the government's economic and religious reforms. With Condé's approval a conspiracy was formed to overthrow the Guises; but the Guises got wind of the plot. The Duc de Guise was appointed lieutenant general of the kingdom with full powers to deal with the conspirators (17 Mar 1560). His ruthless handling of the situation intensified hatred of the Guises in certain quarters.
          On the accession of the young Charles IX to the French crown, the queen mother, Catherine de Médicis, emerged as the dominant figure in the state. By assuming the regency herself and restoring Montmorency to favor, she indicated clearly that Guise domination would no longer be tolerated. The subsequent rise of the Bourbons, who were leaders of the Huguenot movement, and the policy of religious toleration pursued by the government brought about the dramatic reconciliation of Guise and Montmorency (March 1561); together with the Marshal de Saint-André (Jacques d'Albon) they formed a “triumvirate” in defense of the Catholic faith. The first of the resultant Wars of Religion again showed Guise to be an outstanding soldier. His timely intervention in the Battle of Dreux (19 Dec 1561) ensured the defeat of the Huguenots. When Montmorency was captured, Guise became the sole commander of the royal army; and when Condé was captured, the admiral Gaspard de Coligny took over the direction of the Huguenot troops. As lieutenant general of the kingdom, Guise moved to besiege Orléans; but in February 1563 he was mortally wounded by a Huguenot assassin.
    ^ 1525 Some 8700 dead in Battle at Pavia. The troops of the Habsburg Holy Roman Emperor Charles V [24 Feb 1500 – 21 Sep 1558] beat those of the French king, François I [12 Sep 1494 – 31 Mar 1547], who is taken prisoner.
          It was the decisive battle engagement of the war in Italy between François I and Charles V, in which the French army of 28'000 was almost annihilated and François I himself, commanding the French army, was taken prisoner. François I was sent to Madrid, where, the following year, he concluded peace and surrendered French claims to Italy.
          The French army had been besieging the city of Pavia, 30 kilometers south of Milan, when the 23'000-man Habsburg army under Fernando Francisco de Avalos, marchese di Pescara, arrived to aid the 6000-man garrison and lift the siege. A hasty French attack was on the point of encircling Pescara when 1500 Spanish arquebusiers opened fire on the rear of the French cavalry and riddled the ranks of the French and their allied Swiss infantry. The French attacks thereafter, made by German and Swiss mercenary infantry, were routed. The Spanish counterattack, supported by the Pavia garrison, which joined in the battle, completely swept the French from the field, destroying the army of François I army as a fighting force in the process. Spanish hegemony in Italy dates from this battle.
     
    < 23 Feb 25 Feb >
    Births which occurred on a February 24:

    ^ 1955 Steven Paul Jobs, co-founder of Apple Computer.
          Jobs, the controversial co-founder of Apple Computer, started out selling his friend Stephen Wozniak's computers door-to-door at electronic hobbyist shops. By 1979, Apple Computer had become the fastest growing company in history, worth more than $1 billion. That year, Jobs led a team of several Apple developers, working on a new project called Lisa, on a visit to Xerox Palo Alto Research Center, where the team saw the Alto, an early computer with a graphical user interface using icons, a mouse, and built-in networking capacity. Both the Lisa and the Macintosh adopted key elements of the Alto. Jobs, whose impulsive personal style irritated some of Apple's key managers, was forced to leave Apple in 1985. He formed NeXT Inc., became president of Pixar animation studios, and returned to Apple in 1997 as acting president.
          Jobs was raised by adoptive parents in Cupertino, California, located in what is now known as Silicon Valley. Though he was interested in engineering, his passions of youth varied. He dropped out of Reed College, Portland, Oregon, took a job at Atari Corporation as a video game designer early in 1974, and saved enough money for a pilgrimageto India to experience Buddhism.
          Back in Silicon Valley in the autumn of 1974, Jobs reconnected with Stephen Wozniak [11 Aug 1950~], a former high school friend who was working for the Hewlett-Packard Company. When Wozniak told Jobs of his progress in designing his own computer logic board, Jobs suggested that they go into business together, which they did after Hewlett-Packard formally turned down Wozniak's design in 1976. The Apple I, as they called the logic board,was built in the Jobses' family garage with money they obtained by selling Jobs's Volkswagen minibus and Wozniak's programmable calculator.
          Jobs was one of the first entrepreneurs to understand that the personal computer would appeal to a broad audience, at least if it did not appear to belong in a junior high school science fair. With Jobs's encouragement, Wozniak designed an improved model, the Apple II, complete with a keyboard, and they arranged to have a sleek, molded plastic case manufactured to enclose the unit.
          Though Jobs had long, unkempt hair and eschewed business garb, he managed to obtain financing, distribution, and publicity for the company, Apple Computer, incorporated in 1977, the same year that the Apple II was completed. The machine was an immediate success, becoming synonymous with the boom in personal computers. In 1981 the company had a record-setting public stock offering and, in 1983, made the quickest entrance (to that time) into the Fortune 500 list of the US's top companies. In 1983 the company recruited PepsiCo, Inc., president John Sculley to be its chief executive officer and, implicitly, Jobs's mentor in the fine points of running a large corporation. Jobs had convinced Sculley to accept the position by challenging him: “Do you want to sell sugar water for the rest of your life?” The line was shrewdly effective, but it also revealed Jobs's own near-messianic belief in the computer revolution.
          During that same period, Jobs was heading the most important project in the company's history. In 1979 he led a small group of Apple engineers to a technology demonstration at the Xerox Corporation's Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) to see how the graphical user interface could make computers easier to use and more efficient. Soon afterward, Jobs left the engineering team that was designing Lisa, a $10'000 business computer, to head a smaller group building a lower-cost computer. Both computers were redesigned to exploit and refine the PARC ideas, but Jobs was explicit in favoring the Macintosh, or Mac, as the new computer became known. Jobs coddled his engineers and referred to them as artists, but his style was uncompromising; at one point he demanded a redesign of an internal circuit board simply because he considered it unattractive. He would later be renowned for his insistence that the Macintosh be not merely great but “insanely great.” In January 1984 Jobs himself introduced the Macintosh in a brilliantly choreographed demonstration that was the centerpiece of an extraordinary publicity campaign. It would later be pointed to as the archetype of “event marketing.”
          However, the first Macs were underpowered and expensive, and they had few software applications, all of which resulted in disappointing sales. Apple steadily improved the machine, so that it eventually became the company's lifeblood as well as the model for all subsequent computer interfaces. But Jobs's apparent failure to correct the problem quickly led to tensions in the company, and in 1985 Sculley convinced Apple's board of directors to remove the company's famous cofounder.
          Jobs quickly started another firm, the NeXT Corporation, designing powerful workstation computers for the education market. His funding partners included Texan entrepreneur Ross Perot [27 Jun 1930~] and Canon Inc., a Japanese electronics company. Although the Next computer was notable for its engineering design, it was eclipsed by less costly computers from competitors such as Sun Microsystems, Inc. In the early 1990s, Jobs focused the company on its innovative software system, NextStep.
          Meanwhile, in 1986 Jobs bought Pixar Animation Studios, a computer-graphics firm founded by Hollywood movie director George Lucas [14 May 1944~]. Over the following decade Jobs built Pixar into a major animation studio that, among other achievements, produced the first full-length feature film to be completely computer-animated, Toy Story, in 1995. Also in 1995, Pixar's public stock offering made Jobs, for the first time, a billionaire.
          In late 1996, Apple, saddled by huge financial losses and on the verge of collapse, hired a new chief executive, semiconductor executive Gilbert Amelio [01 Mar 1943~]. When Amelio learned that the company, following intense and prolonged research efforts, had failed to develop an acceptable replacement for the Macintosh's aging operating system, he chose NextStep, buying Jobs' company for over $400 million, and bringing Jobs back to Apple as a consultant. However, Apple's board of directors soon became disenchanted with Amelio's inability to turn the company's finances around and in June 1997 requested Apple's prodigal cofounder to lead the company once again. Jobs quickly forged an alliance with Apple's erstwhile foe, the Microsoft Corporation, scrapped Amelio's Mac-clone agreements, and simplified the company's product line. He also engineered an award-winning advertising campaign that urged potential customers to “think different” and buy Macintoshes. Just as important is what he did not do: he resisted the temptation to make machines that ran Microsoft's Windows operating system; nor did he, as some urged, spin off Apple as a software-only company. Jobs believed that Apple, as the only major personal computer maker with its own operating system, was in a unique position to innovate.
          Innovate he did. In 1998, Jobs introduced the iMac, an egg-shaped, one-piece computer that offered high-speed processing at a relatively modest price and initiated a trend of high-fashion computers. (Subsequent models came in five different bright colors.) By the end of the year, the iMac was the nation's highest-selling personal computer, and Jobs was able to announce consistent profits for the once-moribund company. The following year, he triumphed once more with the stylish iBook, a laptop computer built with students in mind, and the G4, a desktop computer sufficiently powerful that (so Apple boasted) it could not be exported under certain circumstances because it qualified as a supercomputer. Though Apple did not regain the industry dominance it once had, Steve Jobs had saved his company, and in the process reestablished himself as a master high-technology marketer and visionary.
    1950 Miguel Arias Cañete, político español, ministro de Agricultura.
    1942 Joseph Isadore “Joe” Lieberman, who would become a US Senator from Connecticut (first elected on 08 Nov 1988) and the first Jew nominated for Vice President (Aug 2000) by a major political party, campaign unsuccessfully for the 2004 Democratic nomination for President, and, because of his support for US President “Dubya” Bush's war in Iraq, lose to Ned Lamont [Jan 1954~] on 08 August 2006 the Democratic nomination for his reelection as Senator in the 07 November 2006 election, in which he would then run (and lose) as an Independent, splitting the Democratic vote, but failing to cause the election of Republican Alan Schlesinger. —(060809)
    1946 Margulis, mathematician.
    1934 Bettino Craxi, político socialista italiano.
    1929 Luis Carandell Robuste, escritor y periodista español.
    1928 Michael Harrington St Louis, socialist/author (Fragments of Century)
    1927 Mark Lane (attorney, author: Rush to Judgment, Eyewitness Chicago; conspiracy theorist: the Kennedy assassination)
    ^1927 Movietone sound movies demonstrated.
          Fox demonstrated its new Movietone sound process to the media by filming a group of reporters in the morning, then showing the film, with sound, at night. In 1927, movie studios and theaters had developed competing sound systems, which caused a problem for s