2000 William Simon, 72, in Santa Barbara, California,
former US Treasury Secretary and onetime "energy czar"
^
1995 John
Presper Eckert
John Presper Eckert, born on 09 April 1919, a research associate at
the University of Pennsylvania's Moore School of engineering, worked
with John Mauchly to develop ENIAC, one of the first electronic computers.
Eckert, who was in his early twenties when ENIAC was developed, went
on to obtain more than eighty-five patents for his inventions. However,
Eckert and Mauchly's patents on ENIAC were overturned in 1973 by a
judge who claimed they had not filed their patent claims in time to
preserve their intellectual property rights.
Eckert and Mauchly left the Moore School in 1946 and formed one of
the first computer start-ups, Electronic Control Company, to manufacture
the first commercial computer, UNIVAC. Eckert and Mauchly received
their first order in the spring of 1946 from the Census Bureau. The
new machine, UNIVAC (Universal Automatic Computer), took five years
to develop. Along the way, the company ran out of funding and sold
itself to Remington Rand in 1950.
UNIVAC caught the public's imagination on election night, 1952, when
the computer's election picks were televised. Contradicting opinion
polls by Gallup and Roper, the computer predicted a landslide for
Eisenhower. For a time, UNIVAC became the generic term for "computer."
|
1991 Mount Unzen erupts in Japan. Worst eruption in Japanese
history
^
1989 Hundreds of sympathizers
of the Tiananmen demonstrators, beaten to death, shot,
crushed by tanks.
With protests
for democratic reforms entering their seventh week, the Chinese government
authorizes its soldiers and tanks to reclaim Beijing’s Tiananmen Square
at all cost. By the end of the next day, Chinese troops had forcibly
cleared Tiananmen Square and Beijing's streets, killing hundreds of
demonstrators and arresting thousands of protestors and other suspected
dissidents. Few, if any, of the killings were at Tiananmen itself,
and those killed were not mainly students, but workers, which the
regime feared more, and ordinary citizens.
On 15 April, the death of Hu Yaobang, a former Communist Party head
who supported democratic reforms, roused some 100'000 students to
gather at Beijing's Tiananmen Square to commemorate Hu and voice their
discontent with China's authoritative Communist government. On 22
April, an official memorial service for Hu Yaobang was held in Tiananmen's
Great Hall of the People, and student representatives carried a petition
to the steps of the Great Hall, demanding to meet with Premier Li
Peng. The Chinese government refused such a meeting, leading to a
general boycott of Chinese universities across the country and widespread
calls for democratic reforms.
Ignoring government warnings of violent suppression of any mass demonstration,
students from more than forty universities began a march to Tiananmen
on 27 April. The students were joined by workers, intellectuals, and
civil servants, and by mid-May over a million people filled the square,
the site of Communist leader's Mao Zedong's proclamation of the People's
Republic of China in 1949.
On
May 20, the government formally declared martial law in Beijing, and
troops and tanks were called in to disperse the dissidents. However,
large numbers of students and citizens blocked the army's advance,
and by May 23, government forces had pulled back to the outskirts
of Beijing.
On June 3, with negotiations
to end the protests stalled and calls for democratic reforms escalating,
the troops receive orders from the Chinese government to seize control
of Tiananmen Square and the streets of Beijing. Hundreds are killed
and thousands are arrested. In the weeks after the government crackdown,
an unknown number of dissidents are executed and hard-liners in the
government take firm control of the country.
The international community was outraged by the incident, and economic
sanctions imposed by the United States and other countries sent China's
economy into decline. However, by late 1990, international trade had
resumed, thanks in part to China's release of several hundred imprisoned
dissidents.
Troops and Demonstrators Clash; Martial-Law Headquarters
Issues Stern Statement http://www.cnd.org/June4th/1989.06-03.hz8.html
At dawn
hours, tens of thousands of troops entered Beijing, once again they
were blocked by residents, and they withdrew.
In the morning, students and residents
stopped armed military vehicles near Xinhuamen.
In the afternoon, troops and police used tear-gas grenades to
disperse crowds, regained control of the stalled vehicles. For a
period of time at the western gate of Great Hall of the People,
tens of thousands of troops stood face-to-face against the students.
Starting around 10 pm, armored vehicles
and tanks led martial law troops into the city, opened gun-fires
on people who tried to stop them as well as bystanders. Many killed
or injured.
BEIJING — Violence began Saturday afternoon
890603 when troops firing tear gas outside the Zhongnanhai
compund housing the party and government headquarters clashed with
thousands of demonstrators, many hurling stones and insults. Several
hundred workers hurled stones and bricks at the Great Hall of the
People, after bloody clashes with troops. The stones and bricks smashed
ornate lampposts lining the western side of the vast hall.
Students tried in vain to stop the angry workers. Two thousand helmeted
troops looked on, blocked by a sea of protesters. Between 10 and 30
demonstrators and several soldiers were injured in earlier clashes
outside the hall.
Earlier the
soldiers, numbering several thousand, dragged a youth into their midst
and beat him relentlessly with clubs, fists and feet. Bloodied and
apparently badly injured, the man managed to stagger out of his circle
of assailants.
Witnesses saw
two more men dragged out of the crowd and beaten and a fourth carried
away unconscious by demonstrators after the fighting, in which troops
were outnumbered by protesters.
The midafternoon confrontation unfolded after an earlier attempt to
move soldiers to the square during the predawn hours had failed.
The number of citizens in the square
after midnight today was unusually high because of an incident Friday
evening in which a police van or military vehicle traveling at excessive
speed on the west side of the city ran down several pedestrians or
bicyclists. Accounts of the incident varied, but it appeared that
at least one person was killed and three others seriously injured.
The mood among the students in Tian
An Men Square as the troops advanced was one of quiet tension and
determination, mixed with a belief that the army would not use violence
against them. "We will stay here and resist with all our strength,"
said one student after the troop advance was reported over student-run
loudspeakers. "We will struggle for democracy and freedom."
As dawn approached and it became clear
that another night would pass without the soldiers reaching the square,
the loudspeaker in the square began broadcasting popular music hits.
"The students are happy," said one of the students camped in the square.
"Now there have been several attempts like this, and each time the
people have blocked the soldiers." This man said that the students
are strong because whatever happens now, they win — either by
winning concessions leading to democratic reforms, or by being suppressed.
Student demonstrators, reaching deeper
into a so-far bottomless reservoir of innovative ideas, staged a raucous
parody of recent government-organized demonstrations. About 500 students,
some displaying swastikas and wearing masks of pigs or demons, staged
a march ridiculing martial law and chanting, "Oppose Freedom! Oppose
Freedom!"
China's official media
on Saturday scathingly attacked a "small group" they accused of plotting
to overthrow communist rule and said the group had help from the highest
level of the party. The front-page article, printed in every major
newspaper in the Chinese capital and read in full on state television
and radio, also accused the plotters of getting help from abroad.
China's martial-law headquarters issued
stern warnings to thousands of anti-government demonstrators Saturday
evening after clashes with troops who used teargas and clubs in central
Peking. "Nobody may use any pretext to stop military trucks, stop
soldiers, obstruct troops carrying out martial-law orders ... We will
resolutely carry out the Beijing government's three decrees of martial
law... We hope the broad masses of Beijing will obey martial law decrees,"
the martial-law headquarters said in a broadcast statement. Soldiers
and police sent into the center of the capital had the "right to use
all methods" to deal with protesters, the headquarters said. |
1989 Ruhollah Khomeini, ayatollah, Iran's spiritual-political
leader.
1988 All 290 aboard an Iran Airbus A300 shot down
by US warship Vincennes over the Persian Gulf, in the
last weeks of the Iran-Iraq war.
1980 Naum
Iliych Akhiezer, Ukrainian mathematician born in Belarus on
06 March 1901. Author of Theory of Approximation, which won the
Chebyshev Prize; of Theory of Operators in Hilbert Space and of
6 other books.
1971 Heinz
Hopf, Jewish German mathematician born on 19 November 1894.
He work was in algebraic topology. He studied vector fields and extended
Lefschetz's fixed point formula. He also studied homotopy classes and defined
what is now known as the Hopf
invariant.
1970 Roger Colne, a Frenchman, sound
technician of NBC, presumably murdered by the Khmer Rouge at Takeo in Cambodia,
after having been taken hostage with others on 31 May 1970.
1963 Pope John XXIII, born Angelo Roncalli on 25 November 1881.
He would be succeeded by Pope Paul VI. Roncalli was ordained a priest on
10 August 1904. He was consecrated an archbishop in 1925 and served in the
Vatican diplomatic corps. At age 72 he was made a cardinal and patriarch
of Venice. He was elected Pope two weeks after the 09 October 1958 death
of Pope Pius XII.
1955 Barbara Graham, executed in
the gas chamber in Calfornia.
1949 Amadeo Peter Giannini,
79, US banker, founder of the California-based Bank of Italy — later
the Bank of America — which, by the 1930s, was the world's largest
commercial bank. He was a major pioneer of branch banking.
1944
Yvonne Renée Weinbach (née Jacob) [20 Sep 1881–],
in the Birkenau death camp to which she had been deported from France, where
she was born in Paris (16e arrondissement).
^
1940:: 254 persons in Paris,
bombed by the German air force.
Determined
to wreck France's economy and military, reduce its population, and
in short, cripple its morale as well as its ability to rally support
for other occupied nations, the Germans bomb the French capital without
regard to the fact that most of the victims are civilians, including
schoolchildren. The bombing succeeds in provoking just the right amount
of terror; France's minister of the interior can only keep government
officials from fleeing Paris by threatening them with severe penalties.
|
1926* Lionel Noël Royer, French artist born on 25 December
1852, who died on “31 June 1926”* (my source says!... but is
it really 03 or 30 Jun or 31 Jul 1926???).
1921 Some 120 by a sudden cloudburst near Pikes Peak,
Colorado
1903 Leopold
Bernhard Gegenbauer, Austrian mathematician born on 02 February
1849.
1886 (Ascension Thursday)
Charles Lwanga, 21; Lukka Baanabakintu, 30; James Buzabaliao, 29; Gyavire,
17; Ambrosio Kibuuka, 18; Anatoli Kiriggwajjo, 20; Mukasa Kiriwawanvu,
20; Achilles Kiwanuka, 17; Kizito, 14; Adolphus Mukasa Ludigo, 24; Mugagga,
16; Bruno Sserunkuumba, 30; Mbaga Tuzinde, 17; Noe Mwahhali, 35
Charles Lwanga, age 25>21
Luke Banabakintu, age 30
James Buzabaliawo, age 25>29
Gyavira, age 17
Ambrose Kibuka, age 18
Anatole Kiriggwajjo, age 20
Mukasa Kiriwawanvu, age 20
Achilles Kiwanuka, age 17
Kizito, age 14
Dolphus Mukasa Ludigo, age 24
Mugagga, age 16
Bruno Serunkuma, age 30
Mbaga Tuzinde, age 17
Noe Mwahhali, age 35
Joseph Mukasa Balikuddembe, age 25
Andrew Kaggwa, age 30
Pontian Ngondwe, age 35
Denis Ssebuggwawo, age 16
Athanasius Bazzeketta, age 20
Gonzaga Gonza, age 24
Matthias Kalemba, age 50
Jean-Marie Muzeyi, age 30
pages at the court of Mwanda, kabaka (king) of Buganda (now Uganda), who
orders them atrociously tortured and killed by burning because they refuse
to abandon their Catholic faith and to submit to homosexual acts. They
were canonized on 18 October 1964 together with these others (who died
on the dates shown):
15
Nov 1885: Joseph Mukasa Balikuddembe, 25;
26
May 1886: Anderea Kaggwa, 30; Pontian Ngondwe, 35; Denis Ssebuggwawo,
16.
27
May 1886 Antanansio Bazzekuketta, 20; Gonzaga Gonza, 24.
30
May 1886 Matiya Murumba Kalemba; 50.
27
Jan 1887: Jean-Marie Muzeyi, 30.
The feast day of “the Ugandan martyrs, Charles
Lwanga and his 21 companions” is on 03 June. Some 100 other Ugandan
Catholics, whose name are not know, were martyred during the same period.
Protestant missionaries came to Buganda in 1877 and
Father Simeon Lourdel with other Catholic White Fathers (now the Missionaries
of Africa) in 1879. King Mutesa welcomed them all at first. But later,
he favored Islam and forced the White Fathers out of the country. The
priests returned after the 1884 death of Mutesa, who was succeeded by
his son Mwanga. During the absence of the missionaries, the Catholics
they had left had won new converts, who renounced polygamy and slavery.
An outstanding example, Joseph Mukasa Balikuddembe
had converted a number of the 500 or so pages at the court, of whom he
was the supervisor. But king Mwanga became outraged after Mukasa tried
unsuccessfully to dissuade him from ordering the death of the missionary
Anglican “bishop” James Hannington
[03 Sep 1847 – 29 Oct 1885] and opposed the king's homosexual abuse
of pages. Mwanga ordered that Mukasa be slowly tortured to death by gradual
burning starting with the feet. Mukasa told the executioner: “a
Christian who gives his life for God has no reason to fear death. Tell
Mwanga that he has condemned me unjustly, but I forgive him with all my
heart.” At that the executioner contravened the kings order by sparing
Mukasa from the torture, beheading him before burning his corpse.
Mwanga replaced Mukasa by Charles Lwanga as supervisor
of the pages. But Lwanga inspired the Christian (Catholic and Anglican)
pages to resist the king's demand that they abjure the Faith and submit
to his homosexuality or be killed. The catechumens among the pages asked
to be baptized before they died. One evening, King Mwanga learned that
page Denis Ssebuggwawo had been teaching the catechism to a younger boy,
Mwanga’s favorite sex victim. The king gave Denis a brutal beating
and ordered him hacked him to pieces. The next morning Mwanga had all
the pages assemble in front of the palace. He ordered “those who
do not pray” to his right and “those who pray” to his
left. These he orders to be marched 30 kilometers to the traditional place
of execution in the village Namugongo, and there burned..
Father Lourdel, who tried to save them, reported
afterwards that “they were tied so closely that they could scarcely
walk, and I saw little Kizito laughing merrily at this, as though it were
a game.” Another page said to the priest:“Father, why be sad?
What I suffer now is little compared with the eternal happiness you have
taught me to look forward to!” During the long march to the execution
site, the condemned pages prayed aloud and recited the catechism. Three
of them were speared to death before reaching the village. The martyrs
cheered and encouraged each other while they were wrapped in reeds and
placed on the fire. “Call on your God, and see if he can save you,”
yelled one executioner. “Poor madman,” replied Lwanga. “You
are burning me, but it is as if you are pouring water over my body.”
In the fire the pages were still praying and singing until their last
breath..
Andrew Kaggwa, a friend of the king’s, was beheaded. Impatient to
meet his fate, he said to his executioner, “Why don’t you
carry out your orders? I’m afraid delay will get you into serious
trouble.” Noe Mawaggali was speared, then attacked by wild dogs.
Matthias Kalemba was dismembered and pieces of his flesh roasted before
his eyes. Before he died, he said, “Surely Katonda [God] will deliver
me, but you will not see how he does it. He will take my soul and leave
you my body.”
— There
is no valid Anglican bishop
—(090603)
1881 Japanese giant salamander, 55, in Dutch zoo; oldest
amphibian.
1875 Georges Bizet France, composer (...and that's no
Bull!)
^
1864 Thousands of Yanks, fewer
Rebs, in one hour at Cold Harbor.
Union General Ulysses S. Grant makes what he later recognizes to be
his greatest mistake by ordering a frontal assault on entrenched Confederates
at Cold Harbor. The result was some 7000 Union casualties in less
than an hour of fighting.
Grant's
Army of the Potomac and Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia
had already inflicted frightful losses upon each other as they wheeled
along an arc around Richmond—from the Wilderness to Spotsylvania and
numerous smaller battle sites—the previous month. On 30 May Lee and
Grant collided at Bethesda Church. The next day, the advance units
of the armies arrived at the strategic crossroads of Cold Harbor,
just 16 km from Richmond, where a Yankee attack seized the intersection.
Sensing that there was a chance to destroy Lee at the gates of Richmond,
Grant prepared for a major assault along the entire Confederate front
on June 2. But when Winfield Hancock's Union corps did not arrive
on schedule, the operation was postponed until the following day.
The delay was tragic for the Union, because it gave Lee's troops time
to entrench. Perhaps frustrated with the protracted pursuit of Lee's
army, Grant gave the order to attack on 03 June — a decision that
resulted in an unmitigated disaster. The Yankees met murderous fire,
and were only able to reach the Confederate trenches in a few places.
The 7000 Union casualties, compared to only 1500 for the Confederates,
were all lost in under an hour. Grant pulled out of Cold Harbor nine
days later and continued to try to flank Lee's army. The next stop
was Petersburg, south of Richmond, where a nine-month siege ensued.
There would be no more attacks on the scale of Cold Harbor. |
1861 Stephen A. Douglas
1850 Telokite, Tomahas,
Clokomas, Isiaasheluckas, and Kiamasumkin, Cayute Indians publicly
executed for being guilty of the Whitman
massacre of 20 November 1847.
1813 Johann-Christian-Jacob
Friedrich, German artist born on 13 October 1746. |
2003
Loudeye (LOUD) announces that it was selected by The Orchard, a distributor
of non-major label music, to provide digital media fulfillment and distribution
services to support the digital delivery of The Orchard's music catalog
to customers, retailers and partners worldwide. Under the agreement, Loudeye
is encoding, processing and distributing more than 120'000 songs from over
30 genres in The Orchard's music catalog, which will be integrated with
Loudeye's current music archive of more than 3.3 million tracks. The Orchard
holds agreements with more than 3000 record labels and 10'000 artists from
over 30 countries. On the NASDAQ, 15 million of the 46 million LOUD shares
are traded, surging from their previous close of $0.53 to an intraday high
of $1.29 and close at $1.27. They had traded as low as $0.18 as recently
as 17 April 2003. The had started trading on 13 March 2000, at $40.00. [3~year
price chart >]
Tyco International's board forces the resignation of its CEO Dennis Kozlowski.
If it had fired him, Tyco would have probably had to pay Kozlowski a severance
package of at least $120 million. Kozlowski also resigned on 03 June as
a director of the Raytheon Company. 
2002
The US Supreme Court unanimously rejects an appeal by Texas, which wanted
to execute Calvin Jerold Burdine, even though his lawyer Joe Frank Cannon
(died since) slept some 10 times for up to 10 minutes each during Burdine's
23~27 Jan 1984 trial in Houston for the 18 April 1983 stabbing murder of
his homosexual mate W.T. “Dub” Wise at the trailer home the two
shared in Houston during a robbery which Burdine admits perpetrating jointly
with Douglas McCreight. Burdine said he was angry because Wise had asked
him to prostitute himself to earn more money. However Burdine pled not guilty,
and McCreight pled guilty to the actual murder, yet McCreight was released
from prison on parole after serving 8 years.
[photo:
Toledo greets supporters from a boat after a trip on Nanai river, in Iquitos,
29 May 2001 >] 
2007
