03 May History: This Date

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Events, deaths, births, of 03 MAY v.8.42

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ALTERNATE SITES ANY DAY OF THE YEAR IN HISTORY ART “4” MAY 03 wikipedia

• Cops kill unarmed workers... • Japanese war crimes trial... • Condamnés à mort par la Révolution... • Mémoires d'un tortionnaire... • New Zealand becomes a British colony...• Battle of Coral Sea... • Japan gets democratic constitution... • Liberator of Ethiopia is born... • Kidnapped executive murdered... • Excel spreadsheet... • Congressional hearings on MacArthur... • Thatcher becomes UK Prime Minister... • Plane lands at North Pole... • AT&T~Lycos deal... • 173rd Airborne goes to Vietnam... • Paris site of Vietnam peace talks... • Gone with the Wind gets a Pulitzer... • Woman heads the US Mint... • Machiavelli is born... • Byron swims the Hellespont...

^ On a 03 May:
2002 The stock of Aurora Foods (AOR) drops from its previous close of $4.61 to an intraday low of $3.11 and closes at $3.20. It had traded as high as $19.00 on 12 July 1999, soon after it went public, and at $6.25 as recently as 15 April 2002. It is still above its $2.19 low of 04 December 2000. [3-year price chart >]
2000 A man holds up at knifepoint policeman on guard outside a police station in the rural New Territories of Hong Kong before dawn. The mugger steals the policeman's gun, 12 rounds of ammunition, and police radio. [Must be from that gang which specializes in stealing patrol cars from the police parking lot.]

^ 2001 US Is Voted Off Rights Panel of the UN for the First Time
The United States is voted off the United Nations Human Rights Commission for the first time since the panel's founding under US leadership in 1947, in a secret vote apparently supported even by some friends of the United States, frustrated by the Bush administration's go-it-alone approach to issues such as Landmine convention, International tribunal jurisdiction, not paying UN dues, death penalty, disregard of human rights violated by allies (e.g. Israel), School of the Americas, inadequate punishment of US war criminals and police brutality, hypocritical policies on immigrants and asylum, rejection of Kyoto Protocol on global warming, inadequate health care, intention to violate the anti-ballistic missile treaty. — MORE

2000 The trial of two alleged Libyan intelligence agents accused of blowing Pan Am Flight 103 out of the sky over Lockerbie, Scotland, in 1988 opens in the Netherlands, presided by Scottish judges under Scottish law. In January 2001, one of the defendants, Abdel Basset Ali al-Megrahi, would be convicted of murder; and the other defendant, Lamen Khalifa Fhimah, acquitted.

1998 AT&T—Lycos Web deal
ATandT struck a three-year deal allowing AT&T to promote its traditional phone services on Lycos' search site. In return for the promotion, AT&T agreed to use Lycos' Web site as a default starter page for some of its WorldNet Internet service customers.

1997 The “Republic of Texas” fringe group (claiming to be the government of independent Texas) holding two persons hostage, surrenders, ending an armed standoff.
1996 An international conference in Geneva ends 30 months of arduous negotiations over whether to ban land mines with a weak compromise treaty giving countries nine years to switch to detectable, self-destructive devices.
1991 The US government reports that the nation's civilian unemployment rate fell in April to 6.6%
1991 Exxon Corp. and the state of Alaska withdrew from a $1 billion settlement of the Exxon Valdez oil spill (another settlement was reached later).

^ 1985 MS announces Excel spreadsheet,
a new spreadsheet for the Apple Macintosh. At the time, Microsoft was known primarily as a company that produced operating systems.
In 1982, the company had started publishing word processing and other types of programs, and it had quickly become one of the largest suppliers of Macintosh software. The new product, called Excel, was a badly needed business application for the Mac. Spreadsheets had quickly become a "killer app"-software so compelling that it drove people to buy machines to run it-when VisiCalc, the first spreadsheet, was released in December 1979.

^ 1979 Thatcher is elected Prime Minister of Britain
      In British general elections, the Conservative Party defeated the ruling Labour Party, and Margaret Thatcher, leader of the Conservatives, became the first female prime minister in British history.
      Thatcher first entered British politics in 1959 when she was elected as a Conservative MP for Finchley, an area of North London. During the 1960s, Thatcher rose rapidly in the ranks of the Conservative Party, and in 1967, joined the shadow cabinet sitting in opposition to Harold Wilson’s ruling Labour cabinet.
      With the victory of the Conservative Party under Edward Health in 1970, Thatcher became secretary of state for education and science. In 1974, the Labour Party returned to power, and she served as joint shadow chancellor before replacing Edward Health as the leader of the Conservative Party in February of 1975. Under her leadership, the Conservative Party shifted further right in its politics, called for privatization of nationalized industries and utilities, and promised a resolute defense of Britain’s interests abroad.
      On 03 May 1979, Thatcher was elected British prime minister as her Conservative Party won a forty-four-seat majority in Parliament. Her government began a rapid program of privatization and government cutbacks, winning acclaim from some quarters, but also contributing to the most polarized British society in decades.
      In 1983, despite the worst unemployment figures for half a decade, Thatcher was reelected to a second term thanks to the British victory in the Falklands War with Argentina, and, in 1987, to a third term thanks to an upswing in the economy.
      In 1990, the unpopularity of her poll tax, coupled with her uncompromising opposition to further British integration into the European Community, led to her defeat as Conservative Party leader. Thatcher’s three consecutive terms in office marked the longest continuous tenure of a British prime minister in 150 years.

1973 Chicago's Sears Tower, world's tallest building (443 m), topped out
1971 Anti-war protesters calling themselves “the Mayday Tribe” begin four days of demonstrations in Washington DC, during which the Nixon administration arrests 13'000 of them.
1971 National Public Radio begins programming.
1968 En l'absence de Pompidou, parti la veille pour l'Iran, les troubles commencés par des étudiants révolutionnaires menés par Cohn-Bendit à Nanterre s'étendent au Quartier Latin où des barricades s'élèvent. La police fait évacuer la Sorbonne.
1968 After three days of battle, the US Marines retook Dai Do complex in Vietnam. They found that the North Vietnamese had evacuated the area.

^ 1968 Paris is chosen as site for Vietnam peace talks
After 34 days of discussions to select a site, the United States and North Vietnam agree to begin formal negotiations in Paris on 10 May or shortly thereafter. Hanoi disclosed that ex-Foreign Minister Xuan Thuy would head the North Vietnamese delegation at the talks. Ambassador W. Averell Harriman was named as his US counterpart. The start of negotiations brought a flurry of hope that the war might be settled quickly. Instead, the talks rapidly degenerated into a dreary ritual of weekly sessions, during which both sides repeated long-standing positions without seeming to come close to any agreement.

^ 1965: 173rd Airborne Brigade deploys to South Vietnam
The lead element of the 173rd Airborne Brigade ("Sky Soldiers"), stationed in Okinawa, departs for South Vietnam. It was the first US Army ground combat unit committed to the war. Combat elements of the 173rd Airborne Brigade included the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 4th Battalions, 503rd Infantry; the 3rd Battalion, 319th Airborne Artillery; Company D, 16th Armor; Troop E, 17th Cavalry; and the 335th Aviation company. Headquartered at Bien Hoa Air Base near Saigon, the Brigade conducted operations to keep communist forces away from the Saigon-Bien Hoa complex. In February 1967, the Brigade conducted a combat parachute jump into a major communist base area to the north of Saigon near the Cambodian border. In November 1967, the Brigade was ordered to the Central Highlands, where they fought a major battle at Dak To against an entrenched North Vietnamese Army regiment on Hill 875. In some of the most brutal fighting of the war, the paratroopers captured the hill on Thanksgiving Day, winning the Presidential Unit Citation for bravery in action. After more than six years on the battlefield, the Brigade was withdrawn from Vietnam in August 1971. During combat service, they suffered 1606 killed in action and 8435 wounded in action. Twelve paratroopers of the 173rd won the Medal of Honor for conspicuous bravery in battle.

1956 A new range of mountains discovered in Antarctica (2 over 13,000')

^ 1952 Fletcher lands on the North Pole
      A ski-modified US Air Force C-47, piloted by Lieutenant Colonel Joseph O. Fletcher of Oklahoma and Lieutenant Colonel William P. Benedict of California, became the first aircraft to land on the North Pole. A moment later, Fletcher climbed out of the plane and walked to the exact geographic North Pole, probably the first person in history to do so.
      In the early twentieth century, American explorers Robert Peary and Dr. Frederick Cook, both claiming to have separately reached the North Pole by land, publicly disputed each other’s claims. In 1911, Congress formally recognized Peary's claim, and in the ensuing decades a careful study of the evidence indicated that Peary’s expedition indeed came far closer to 90 degrees north than Cook ever did.
      However, whether Peary actually arrived at the exact North Pole is still in dispute, and many believe that Lieutenant Colonel Joseph Fletcher was in fact the first human being to reach the North Pole. Standing alongside Fletcher and Benedict on the top of the world was Dr. Albert P. Crary, a scientist who in 1961 traveled to the South Pole by motorized vehicle, becoming the first person in history to travel to both poles.

^ 1951 Congressional hearings on General MacArthur
      The Senate Armed Services and Foreign Relations Committees, meeting in closed session, begin its hearings into the dismissal of Gen. Douglas MacArthur [26 Jan 1880 – 05 April 1964] by President Harry S. Truman [08 May 1884 – 26 Dec 1972]. The hearings served as a sounding board for MacArthur and his extremist views on how the Cold War should be fought.
      General MacArthur served as commander of US forces during the Korean War until 1951. In late 1950 he made a serious strategic blunder when he dismissed warnings that the People's Republic of China would enter the conflict on the side of its communist ally, North Korea. Hundreds of thousands of Chinese troops smashed into the American lines in November 1950, driving the US troops back with heavy losses. MacArthur, who had earlier complained about President Truman's handling of the war, now went on an all-out public relations attack against the president and his Cold War policies. In numerous public statements and interviews, General MacArthur criticized Truman's timidity. He also asked for permission to carry out bombing attacks against China and to expand the war. President Truman flatly refused, believing that expanding the war would lead to a possible confrontation with the Soviet Union and World War III. On 11 April 1951, President Truman removed MacArthur from his command. Though Truman clearly did not appreciate MacArthur's approach, the American public liked his tough stance on communism, and he returned home to a hero's welcome.
      On 03 May 1951, just a few days after MacArthur's return to the United States, the Senate Armed Forces and Foreign Relations Committees begins hearings into his dismissal. Partisan politics played a significant role in the hearings, which were instigated by Republican senators eager to discredit the Democratic administration of Harry Truman. MacArthur was the featured witness, and he spoke for more than six hours at the opening session of the hearings. He condemned Truman's Cold War foreign policy, arguing that if the president's "inhibitions" about the war in Korea had been removed the conflict could have been "wound up" without a "very great additional complement of ground troops." He went on to suggest that only through a strategy of complete military destruction of the communist empire could the US hope to win the Cold War. The hearings ended after seven weeks, with no definite conclusions reached about MacArthur's dismissal. However, the general's extremist stance and intemperate statements concerning the need for an expanded conflict against communism during the hearings soon eroded his popularity with the American public. MacArthur attempted to garner the Republican presidential nomination in 1952, but lost to the more moderate campaign of another famed military leader, Dwight D. Eisenhower [14 Oct 1890 – 28 Mar 1969].

1949 first firing of a US Viking rocket; reached 80 km
1948 The US Supreme Court rules that covenants prohibiting the sale of real estate to Blacks or members of other racial groups are legally unenforceable.

^ 1947 Democratic, peaceful Japanese constitution
      Instead of demanding reparations from Japan after World War II, the United States infused some two billion dollars into its economy. Hoping to save the country from a Communist takeover, US occupation authorities worked day and night to reconstruct the country along an American model. When the Japanese government failed to come up with an acceptable constitution, Supreme Commander Douglas MacArthur [26 Jan 1880 – 05 April 1964] ordered his young staff to compose the document. Japanese officials accepted the US draft with only minor revisions, and on 03 May 1947, it was officially enacted. The thoroughly progressive constitution granted universal suffrage, stripped Emperor Hirohito of all but symbolic power, stipulated a bill of rights, abolished peerage, and outlawed Japan's right to make war. The document would remain unchanged past the end of the century.
     Japan's postwar constitution goes into effect. The progressive constitution granted universal suffrage, stripped Emperor Hirohito [29 Apr 1901 – 07 Jan 1989] of all but symbolic power, stipulated a bill of rights, abolished peerage, and outlawed Japan's right to make war. The document was largely the work of Supreme Allied Commander Douglas MacArthur and his occupation staff, who had prepared the draft in February 1946 after a Japanese attempt was deemed unacceptable. As the defender of the Philippines from 1941 to 1942, and commander of Allied forces in the Southwest Pacific theater from 1942 to 1945, Douglas MacArthur was the most acclaimed US general in the war against Japan. On 02 September 1945, aboard the USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay, he presided over the official surrender of Japan. According to the terms of surrender, Emperor Hirohito and the Japanese government were subject to the authority of the Supreme Commander for Allied Powers in occupied Japan, a post filled by General MacArthur. On 08 September, Supreme Commander MacArthur made his way by automobile through the ruins of Tokyo to the US embassy, which would be his home for the next five and a half years. The occupation was to be a nominally Allied enterprise, but increasing Cold War division left Japan firmly in the US sphere of influence. From his General Headquarters, which overlooked the Imperial Palace in central Tokyo, MacArthur presided over an extremely productive reconstruction of Japanese government, industry, and society along US models. MacArthur was a gifted administrator, and his progressive reforms were for the most part welcomed by the Japanese people.
      The most important reform carried out by the US occupation was the establishment of a new constitution to replace the 1889 Meiji Constitution. In early 1946, the Japanese government submitted a draft for a new constitution to the General Headquarters, but it was rejected for being too conservative. MacArthur ordered his young staff to draft their own version in one week. The document, submitted to the Japanese government on 13 February 1946, protected the civil liberties MacArthur had introduced and preserved the emperor, though he was stripped of power. Article 9 forbade the Japanese ever to wage war again. Before Japan's defeat, Emperor Hirohito was officially regarded as Japan's absolute ruler and a quasi-divine figure. Although his authority was sharply limited in practice, he was consulted by the Japanese government and approved of its expansionist policies from 1931 through World War II. Hirohito feared, with good reason, that he might be indicted as a war criminal and the Japanese imperial house abolished.
      MacArthur's constitution at least preserved the emperor as the "symbol of the state and of the unity of the people," so Hirohito offered his support. Many conservatives in the government were less enthusiastic, but on 10 April 1946, the new constitution was endorsed in popular elections that allowed Japanese women to vote for the first time. The final draft, slightly revised by the Japanese government, was made public one week later. On 03 November, it was promulgated by the Diet (parliament) and on 03 May 1947, it came into force. In 1948, Yoshida Shigeru's election as prime minister ushered in the Yoshida era, marked by political stability and rapid economic growth in Japan. In 1949, MacArthur gave up much of his authority to the Japanese government, and in September 1951 the United States and 48 other nations signed a formal peace treaty with Japan. On 28 April 1952, the treaty went into effect, and Japan assumed full sovereignty as the Allied occupation came to an end.

^ 1946 Japanese war crimes trial begins
      In Tokyo, Japan, the International Military Tribunal for the Far East began hearing the case against twenty-eight Japanese military and government officials accused of committing war crimes and crimes against humanity during World War II.
      Twenty-nine months later, on 04 November 1948, the trial ended with twenty-five Japanese defendants being found guilty. Of the three other defendants, two had died during the lengthy trial and one had been declared insane. On 12 November, the war crimes tribunal passed death sentences on seven of the men, including General Hideki Tojo [30 Dec 1884–], who served as Japanese premier during the war, and others principals, such as Iwane Matsui, who organized the Rape of Nanking, and Heitaro Kimura, who brutalized Allied prisoners of war. Sixteen others were sentenced to life imprisonment and two were sentenced to lesser terms in prison. On 23 December 1948, Tojo and the six others were executed in Tokyo.
      Unlike at the Nuremberg trial of Nazi war criminals, where there were four chief prosecutors representing Great Britain, France, the US, and the USSR, the Tokyo trial featured only one chief prosecutor, the US's Joseph B. Keenan, a former assistant to the US attorney general. However, other nations, especially China, contributed to the proceedings, and Australian judge William Flood Webb presided. In addition to the central Tokyo trial, various tribunals sitting outside of Japan judged some 5000 Japanese guilty of war crimes, of whom more than 900 were executed.

1945 Indian forces capture Rangoon, Burma, from the Japanese.
1944 End of US wartime rationing of most grades of meats.

^ 1942 The Battle of the Coral Sea begins
      On this, the first day of the first modern naval engagement in history, called the Battle of the Coral Sea, a Japanese invasion force succeeds in occupying Tulagi of the Solomon Islands in an expansion of Japan's defensive perimeter. The United States, having broken Japan's secret war code and forewarned of an impending invasion of Tulagi and Port Moresby, attempted to intercept the Japanese armada.
      Four days of battles between Japanese and US aircraft carriers resulted in 70 Japanese and 66 US warplanes destroyed. This confrontation, called the Battle of the Coral Sea, marked the first air-naval battle in history, as none of the carriers fired at each other, allowing the planes taking off from their decks to do the battling. Among the casualties was the American carrier Lexington; "the Blue Ghost" (so-called because it was not camouflaged like other carriers) suffered such extensive aerial damage that it had to be sunk by its own crew. Two hundred sixteen Lexington crewmen died as a result of the Japanese aerial bombardment.
      Although Japan would go on to occupy all of the Solomon Islands, its victory was a Pyrrhic one: The cost in experienced pilots and aircraft carriers was so great that Japan had to cancel its expedition to Port Moresby, Papua, as well as other South Pacific targets.

1937 The largest dirigible ever built, the 245-meter-long Hindenburg, with thirty-six passengers and a crew of sixty-one, leaves Frankfurt, Germany, on its maiden voyage, across the Atlantic to Lakehurst's Navy Air Base, where it would meet its fiery end on 06 May 1937.

^ 1937 Gone With the Wind wins Pulitzer Prize
Margaret Mitchell's novel, Gone With the Wind, wins the Pulitzer Prize. The book, published in June 1936, became one of the best-selling novels of all time. The motion picture, made in 1939, became one of the most profitable films in history. Mitchell was born in Atlanta in 1900. She became a journalist, reporting for The Atlanta Journal from 1922 to 1926. She married in 1925 and soon after ended her professional journalism career. Instead, she spent 10 years writing and researching the antebellum South and the Civil War in order to produce Gone With the Wind. The book broke publishing records, selling one million copies within six months and more than 12 million copies during the next three decades.

^ 1933 Ross becomes head of US Mint
On this day in 1933, Nellie Taylor Ross continued her trailblazing ways and took control of the United States Mint. Tabbed for the post by President Franklin Roosevelt, Ross became the first woman ever to helm the Mint. During her tenure at the Mint, Ross shepherded through a number of initiatives, including the unveiling of the dime and the production of the steel penny, which was designed to aid the nation's finances during World War II. However, for Ross, the Mint was simply another stop in an eventful political career. Indeed, Ross's run at the Mint was the second time in less than a decade that she had thrown open the doors of political office to women. In 1924, Ross stepped into the fray after her husband, Governor William Bradford Ross of Wyoming, died during the last stages of his re-election bid; Ross successfully steered the campaigning to victory and became the nation's first female governor.

1926 British general strike-3 million workers support miners
1926 US marines land in Nicaragua (9-mo after leaving), stay until 1933
1923 first nonstop transcontinental flight (NY-San Diego) completed
1921 West Virginia imposes the first state sales tax in the US.
1919 America's first passenger flight (NY-Atlantic City)
1906 British-controlled Egypt takes Sinai peninsula from Turkey
1863 Battle of Chancellorsville, Virginia continues — Beaten Union army will have to withdraw
1863 Second Battle of Fredericksburg, Virginia
1863 Confederate General James Longstreet abandons Siege of Suffolk, Virginia
1862 Confederate troops evacuate the Yorktown-Warwick Line in Virginia
1861 Lincoln calls for volunteers to join the army for a three-year term.
1859 France declares war on Austria, which it had provoked into sending in April an ultimatum that demanded immediate disarmament of Piedmont, France's ally. The plan had been agreed upon by Napoléon III (20 Apr 1808 – 09 Jan 1873) and Camillo Benso conte di Cavour (10 Aug 1810 – 06 Jun 1861), premier of Piedmont, at a secret meeting at Plombières in July 1858. Austria was to be evicted from northern Italy and Italy converted into a confederation of states headed by the Pope. France would get Nice and Savoie [many people would have been satisfied if France just got nice and left them alone]. Napoléon III now led his armies across the Alps to victories at Magenta and (24 Jun 1859) Solférino. Napoléon III signed an armistice with Austrian Emperor Francis Joseph I (18 Aug 1830 – 21 Nov 1916) at Villafranca in July 1859. There followed a somewhat premature settlement in which Austria turned over Lombardy to Piedmont. The result was a surge of nationalist sentiment throughout Italy and on 06 May 1860 Giuseppe Garibaldi (04 Jul 1807 – 02 Jun 1882) and his Thousand sailed from Piedmont to conquer Sicily and (on 07 Sep 1860) Naples.
1851 San Francisco catches fire

^ 1841 New Zealand becomes a British colony
      One year after British statesman Edward G. Wakefield established New Zealand’s first British colony at Wellington, the South Pacific island group is formally proclaimed a full-fledged British colony.
      In 1642, Dutch navigator Abel Tasman became the first European to discover the islands that would later become known as New Zealand. While attempting to land, several of Tasman's crew were killed by warriors from the native Maori people, who interpreted the Europeans' exchange of trumpet signals as a prelude to battle.
      The islands, which were named after the Dutch province of Zeeland, did not attract much additional European attention until the late eighteenth century, when English explorer Captain James Cook traveled through the area and wrote detailed accounts of New Zealand. Whalers, missionaries, and traders followed, and in 1840, Britain formally annexed the islands and the first permanent British colonists arrived at Port Nicholson on Auckland Island.
      The same year, the Maori signed the Treaty of Waitangi, by which they recognized British sovereignty in exchange for guaranteed possession of their land. However, armed territorial conflict between the Maori and white settlers continued until 1870, when there were few Maori left to resist the European encroachment.
      Originally part of the Australian colony of New South Wales, New Zealand became an official British colony in 1841, and was made self-governing in 1852. Dominion status was attained in 1907, and full independence was granted in 1931 and ratified by New Zealand in 1947.

1830 first regular steam train passenger service starts
1822 Society for the Propagation of the Faith starts (Lyon, France)

^ 1810 Lord Byron swims the Hellespont
      George Gordon, Lord Byron [22 Jan 1788 – 19 Apr 1824], swims across the Hellespont, a tumultuous strait in Turkey now called the Dardanelles. Legendary Greek hero Leander supposedly swam the same 6-km stretch. Byron's visits to Greece later made him a passionate supporter of Greek independence from Turkey.
      The 22-year-old Byron was taking an extended tour of the European continent when he decided to take his famous swim. His travels inspired his first widely read poetic work, Childe Harold's Pilgrimage. After the publication of the poem's first canto in 1809, Byron became a major British celebrity. The world-weary tone of the poems, describing the travels of a young noble waiting to be knighted, caught the imagination of the public and established the cynical Byronic hero.
      Byron, who was born with a clubfoot, had been raised in near-poverty in Scotland. At age 10, he inherited his title and wealth from a great uncle. He attended top schools, including Trinity College, Cambridge, where he racked up enormous debt and began to publish poetry. When his first volume, Hours of Idleness, was received unkindly by critics, he savaged the literary establishment in his second book, English Bards and Scotch Reviewers (1809).
      Byron married Annabella Milbanke in 1815, after several passionate affairs with other women. The couple had a child but separated in 1816. Byron's reputation was shattered by rumors of an incestuous affair with his half-sister, August Leigh. Forced to flee England, he settled in Geneva near Percy Bysshe Shelley and Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley. He had an affair with Mary Shelley's half-sister, who later bore his child.
      He traveled throughout Italy, engaged in countless amorous liaisons, and published the first two cantos of Don Juan in 1819. In Don Juan, he boasts of his swim across the Hellespont nine years earlier. In 1823, having lost close friends and family, Byron left Italy for Greece, where he trained revolutionary troops until he caught a fever and died in 1824. He became a national hero in Greece.

1793 ROBEC ou DERABEC Magdelaine Françoise Joséphine, femme Kolly, âgée de 32 ans, domiciliée à Paris, est condamnée à mort par le tribunal révolutionnaire séant à Paris, comme contre-révolutionnaire. Le sursis apporté à l’exécution de son jugement, attendu sa déclaration de grossesse, sera levé le 15 brumaire; elle sera exécutée le même jour.
1715 Edmund Halley observes total eclipse phenomenon "Baily's Beads"
1675 A Massachusetts law was enacted requiring church doors to be locked during the worship service. (Too many people were leaving before the long sermons were completed.)
1512 The Fifth Lateran Council opens (18th ecumenical council) opens in Rome under Pope Julius II. Its twelve sessions lasting through 1517, the council continued under Leo X, following Julius' death in 1513.
1494 Christopher Columbus sights Jamaica ; he names it "St. Iago"
1342 Count Hartmann II becomes ruler of Vaduz (Liechtenstein)

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^ Deaths which occurred on a 03 May:

2008 Some 134'000 persons killed by cyclone Nargis in Myanmar, mostly in Yangon (the new name of Rangoon since 1989) and the low-lying Irrawaddy delta region. (Nargis is the Persian name of the flower narcissus or daffodil; it is often given to Muslim girls). Tidal waves cause most of the deaths. The homes of more than two million persons (including 95% of those in Bogalay) are destroyed. The totalitarian government of Myanmar hampers foreign aid. The dead include:
2008:: 36 prisoners at the cruel Insein Prison (where many of the prisoners are political) in Yangon, shot by soldiers firing into 1500 prisoners demanding transfer to safety after the cyclone hit. —(080530)

2007 Walter Marty Schirra, Jr., born on 12 March 1923, US Navy officer, astronaut chosen for the Project Mercury, the only one to fly in the US's first three space programs: Mercury (03 Oct 1962), Gemini (15-16 Dec 1965), and Apollo (11-22 Oct 1968). During later Apollo missions he was a news consultant. Schirra retired from the Navy as a captain and resigned from NASA on July 1, 1969, to become president of Regency Investors Incorporated, a major financial complex and worldwide leasing company based in Denver, Colorado. From 1970 to 1973, he was chairman and chief executive officer of Environmental Control Company (ECCO), based in Englewood, Colorado. From 1973 to 1974, he was chairman of the board of SERNCO Incorporated, and for the next three years he was a director at Johns-Manville Corporation in Denver, Colorado. From 1978 to 1979, he was vice president for development at Goodwin Companies Incorporated in Littleton, Colorado. In January 1979 he formed his own firm, Schirra Enterprises, and he worked as an independent consultant in 1979 and 1980. In 1980, he was elected to the board of directors of Electromedics Incorporated. He has also served as president of Prometheus, an energy development company in Colorado, and on the board of directors of Kimberly Clark, Finalco and Net Air International. In 1984, he and the other surviving Mercury astronauts and Gus Grissom's widow, Betty Grissom, founded the Mercury Seven Foundation to raise money for scholarships for science and engineering students in college. In 1995, the organization was renamed the Astronaut Scholarship Foundation. At the time of his death Schirra was a private consultant, a public speaker, and a television commercial spokesman for Actifed, the cold remedy he took on Apollo 7. —(070503)

2006 All 113 aboard an Armenian Airbus-320 Armavia plane, which crashes into the Black Sea (300m deep at that spot), in bad weather, 5km short of the Adler airport (30 km southeast of Sochi, Russia) where it was making its 2nd attempt to land, at 02:15 (22:45 UT on 02 May). The flight originated in Yerevan, Armenia, at 01:47 (20:47 UT on 02 May). — (060503)

2005 Greg Rowe, 36, who delivers a Papa John's pizza to the mobile home of mates Crystal Grimes and Christopher Wages, 25, in London, Laurel County, Kentucky, and is beaten to death with a baseball bat and a pipe by Wages, so that the drug addicted couple can steal his money in order to buy OxyContin. They also steal his car, but are arrested the next morning after they abandon it. Wages confesses, and, on 25 August 2006, is sentenced to life in prison. — {They ought to have consulted Maxim O'Ronn's Contradirectory.} —(060827)
Alex and Evelyn Hernández

2003 Awad al-Saify, 52, Palestinian civilian, of multiple gunshot wounds suffered in Israeli attack on Jabalya refugee camp on 11 April 2003.

2003 Crystal Judson Brame, 35, from being shot in the head on 26 April 2003 by her husband, David Brame, 44, Chief of Police of Tacoma WA, just before he shot himself dead.

2002 (presumed date) Evelyn Hernández, 24, her son Alex Hernández, 5 [Alex and Evelyn >], and her baby Noname Hernández, due to be born about 15 May 2002, murdered. On 24 July 2002, Evelyn's torso would be found washed up on the shore of the bay, near downtown San Francisco. The father of Noname is Herman Aguilera, 36, who has a wife and another extramarital mate besides Evelyn, with whom he has been having a dispute. Evelyn is a Salvadoran immigrant who lived in the Crocker-Amazon area of south San Francisco. She was last heard from in a 01 May 2002 telephone call to Aguilera, who would report her as missing. But the case would attract little attention from the news media and the police would do too little and too late to investigate.
2002 Some 300 persons of the 500 on the overloaded triple-decked ferry MV Salahuddin-2 which capsizes in the Meghna River near Shatnal during an evening storm some two hours after leaving Dhaka, Bangladesh, for Patuakhali, 150 km south. Passing boats picked some survivors, others swam to shore. Ferry sinkings are common on the Meghna: in May 2001 in a storm with at least 100 drowned, 80 drowned in December 2001 on a ferry which collided with another in dense fog in the Chandpur district, 224 drowned in a 1986 sinking.
2002 Six persons on the ground as an Indian air force Soviet-made MiG-21 crashes into a two-story bank building in the Basti Adda neighborhood of Jullundur, 100 km from the Pakistani border, where hundreds of thousands of Indian and Pakistani soldiers are facing each other. The pilot, S.P. Naik, and the co-pilot parachute to safety.. They and 20 persons on the ground are injured.
2002 Some 300 Maoist rebels claimed killed by Nepalese security forces in the Lisne area of Rolpa district. No information is given on government losses.
2002 Alexis Patterson, 7 [< photo], in Milwaukee, presumably murdered after being last seen leaving for school this morning by her step-father LaRon Bourgeois (who has a criminal record, married to her mother Ayanna Bourgeois).

1992 Fifty-three persons in the five days of rioting and looting ending this day in Los Angeles CA, which began after the acquittal of police officers who beat up Rodney King.

^ 1992 Exxon executive Sidney Reso.
dies in a storage vault in New Jersey. Four days earlier, he was abducted from the driveway of his Morris Township, New Jersey, home. Reso was shot in the arm, bound and gagged, and then placed in a wooden box that was hidden in a virtually airless storage space. Despite his death, the kidnappers continued with their ransom plans. Their notably complex ransom notes demanding $18.5 million in used $100 bills were sometimes signed, "Rainbow Warriors."
      Detectives were able to get DNA samples from both the ransom notes and the pay phones at Exxon stations where the kidnappers made their calls, leading them to Arthur and Irene Seale. The couple was arrested on 19 June 1992, after a protracted chase involving more than 100 FBI agents. Arthur Seale was a former police officer and Exxon security consultant who was fired in 1987. Apparently, choosing Reso as his victim was partially fueled by his hatred of Exxon. Seale tried to throw the FBI offtrack by pretending that the kidnapping was the work of environmental radicals.
      However, the Seales were mainly motivated by their desire to fund a lavish lifestyle. After running up a mountain of debt living in a couple of resort towns, they were forced to move in with Arthur's parents. Irene Seale was eventually persuaded to testify against her husband, and she led officers to Reso's body, which had been dumped in a remote area of the southern New Jersey Pinelands. Since New Jersey law prevented a person from testifying against his or her spouse in court, a federal court, which permits spousal testimony, tried Arthur Seale instead. He was convicted and sentenced to 95 years in prison and fined $1.75 million. Irene Seale received a 20-year sentence.
      In an interesting parallel that occurred later that year, Sol Wachtler, the chief judge of New York's highest court, copied some of Seale's tactics to terrorize his former lover, Joy Silverman. Investigators examining the letters that Wachtler sent anonymously to Silverman were so similar to those written by Seale that at first they thought Seale was somehow connected. In fact, it turned out that Wachtler was so fascinated by the Reso kidnapping that he purposefully mimicked the style of Seale's ransom notes. In this bizarre case, Justice Wachtler was convicted of stalking Silverman and her teenage daughter and was sent to prison after resigning from his position.

1991 Jerzy Kosinski, 57, author, is found dead in his New York City apartment.
1988 Lev Semenovich Pontryagin, Russian mathematician born on 03 September 1908.
1962 One hundred sixty persons in triple collision of trains at Mikawajima Station on Joban line of Japanese National Railroads. 296 persons are injured.
1934 William Hartman Woodin, born on 27 May 1868. After studying engineering at Columbia, he entered (1892) the railroad-equipment firm founded by his grandfather and became its president in 1899. President of the American Car and Foundry Company after 1916, he steadily expanded his industrial holdings. Although a Republican, Woodin supported Franklin Delano Roosevelt [30 Jan 1882 – 12 Apr 1945] for President in 1932 and became Roosevelt's Secretary of the Treasury on 05 May 1933. He helped restore the nation's financial activities during the banking crisis of 1933. He resigned the post on 31 December 1933, because of ill health.
1918 William Frederick Yeames, British painter born on 18 December 1835. — more

^ 1916 Patrick Henry (Pádraic) Pearse, 36, his brother Willie Pearse, Thomas J. Clarke, 58, and Thomas MacDonagh, 38.
The two brothers and the two other leaders are executed at 03:30 by British firing squad after a pretense of a court-martial. Pádraic was a leader of Irish nationalism and Irish poet and educator. He was the first president of the provisional government of the Irish Republic proclaimed in Dublin on Easter Monday 24 April 1916, and was commander in chief of the Irish forces in the anti-British Easter Rising that began on the same day and was crushed on 29 April when they made the mistake of surrendering to the treacherous British. He had in him the spirit of that earlier Patrick Henry who also stood up to the British oppressors: “Give me liberty, or give me death!”.
— PEARSE ONLINE: Poems, Plays, Short Stories — Essays and Lectures

A POEM BY PADRAIC PEARSE: The Rebel

I am come of the seed of the people, the people that sorrow,
That have no treasure but hope,
No riches laid up but a memory
Of an Ancient glory.
My mother bore me in bondage, in bondage my mother was born,
I am of the blood of serfs;
The children with whom I have played, the men and women with whom I have eaten,
Have had masters over them, have been under the lash of masters,
And, though gentle, have served churls;
The hands that have touched mine, the dear hands whose touch is familiar to me,
Have worn shameful manacles, have been bitten at the wrist by manacles,
Have grown hard with the manacles and the task-work of strangers,
I am flesh of the flesh of these lowly, I am bone of their bone,
I that have never submitted;
I that have a soul greater than the souls of my people's masters,
I that have vision and prophecy and the gift of fiery speech,
I that have spoken with God on the top of His holy hill.

And because I am of the people, I understand the people,
I am sorrowful with their sorrow, I am hungry with their desire:
My heart has been heavy with the grief of mothers,
My eyes have been wet with the tears of children,
I have yearned with old wistful men,
And laughed or cursed with young men;
Their shame is my shame, and I have reddened for it,
Reddened for that they have served, they who should be free,
Reddened for that they have gone in want, while others have been full,
Reddened for that they have walked in fear of lawyers and of their jailors
With their writs of summons and their handcuffs,
Men mean and cruel!
I could have borne stripes on my body rather than this shame of my people.

And now I speak, being full of vision;
I speak to my people, and I speak in my people's name to the masters of my people.
I say to my people that they are holy, that they are august, despite their chains,
That they are greater than those that hold them, and stronger and purer,
That they have but need of courage, and to call on the name of their God,
God the unforgetting, the dear God that loves the peoples
For whom He died naked, suffering shame.
And I say to my people's masters: Beware,
Beware of the thing that is coming, beware of the risen people,
Who shall take what ye would not give.
Did ye think to conquer the people,
Or that Law is stronger than life and than men's desire to be free?
We will try it out with you, ye that have harried and held,
Ye that have bullied and bribed, tyrants, hypocrites, liars!

^ 1886 Two unarmed workers, killed by police for demonstrating in favor of 8-hour workday
      May of 1886 was an explosive, and ultimately tragic, month for the nation's labor movement. The action, which was concentrated in industry-heavy Chicago, kicked off on the very first day of the month, as forty thousand workers, under the charge of anarchists and a band of German socialists, took to the streets to call for an eight-hour workday. Unlike the events that were about to unfold, the march came and went without violence.
      However, on 03 May, things turned bloody at the McCormick Reaper Works: with simmering tensions between the plant's strikers and scabs threatening to come to a boil, police were called in to quell the situation. The day quickly turned violent, as the officers began attacking the workers; two unarmed strikers were killed, while others were beaten and wounded.
      August Spies, an anarchist and staunch supporter of workers' rights, witnessed the incident and immediately called for action against the "latest atrocious act of the police." At Spies's behest, workers gathered the next day in Chicago's Haymarket Square for what proved to be a fateful protest: a bomb was thrown during one speech, prompting the police to open fire on the crowd. The Haymarket Riot left eight officers dead and many more wounded, including scores of workers. Though police and prosecutors were unable to find evidence that the radicals were connected to the bomb, a band of seven anarchists were charged with, and in a four cases hung for, murder.

1885 Ernst Ferdinand Adolf Minding, Russian mathematician of German origin, born in Poland on 23 January 1806.
1845 Some 1600, by fire in popular theater in Canton, China.

^ 1794 (14 floréal an II) Condamnés à mort par la Révolution:
JACQUOT François Joseph, (dit Pourselot), laboureur, domicilié à Pierre-Fontaine (Doubs), par le tribunal criminel du département de la Seine, comme émigré et distributeur de faux assignats.
Par le tribunal révolutionnaire de Paris:
REPOUX Denys, (dit Chevagny), ci-devant auditeur des comptes de Dole, 72 ans, né et domicilié à Lusy (Nièvre), comme convaincu d’avoir tenu des propos tendants à rétablir la royauté.
MAULGET Joseph Louis, 46 ans, architecte, né et domicilié à Villers-Coterets (Aisne), comme contre-révolutionnaire.
PERET Pierre Jacques, ci-devant agent de change, commandant du bataillon des Petits pères, 36 ans, natif de Manteville (Calvados), domicilié à Evreux (Eure), comme convaincu de complicité avec Tassin, et agent de la conspiration du tyran roi, dans la journée du 10 août 1792.
ROUGEMONT Etienne Jacques Armand, directeur de la comptabilité des loteries, 42 ans, natif de Coursenson (Sarthe), comme convaincu d’avoir trempé dans la conspiration et secondé les complots de Capet et de sa famille dans la journée du 10 août 1792.
... domiciliés à Paris:
BERARD Thomas Simon, 53 ans, né à Lyon, ancien négociant armateur, commandant du bataillon des filles-Thomas, comme complice d'une conspiration qui a existé en faveur de Capet et de sa femme, du massacre des citoyens au champ de Mars, le 17 juillet 1791, et de celui du 10 août 1792.
PARISOT François, ci-devant commissaire de la comptabilité, grenadier des filles St Thomas et aide de camp de Lafayette, 50 ans, natif de Lyon, département du Rhône, .comme contre-révolutionnaire, complice des nommés Tassin, et agent de la conspiration de Capet, au 10 août 1792.
PIQUET Simon, brocanteur et aide de camp de Crillon, 39 ans, natif de Strasbourg, .comme contre-révolutionnaire, complice de Tassin, et agent de la conspiration du tyran Capet au 10 août 1792.
WEINMARING Jean Philippe, commis banquier, 40 ans, né à Malchem département du Bas-Rhin, comme complice de Tassin et agent de la conspiration de Capet, au 10 août 1792.
DESCHAMPS Jean Baptiste (dit Trefontaine), 51 ans, natif de Rouen, grenadier du bataillon des filles St Thomas, employé au bureau d'enregistrement, comme complice d'un complot qui a existé en faveur de Capet et sa femme.
D'HEUGET Louis Gabriel, ex mousquetaire, et par suite papetier, comme contre-révolutionnaire.
... et nés à Paris:
ANGIBEAU Pierre Etienne, 57 ans, traiteur, grenadier du bataillon des fille St Thomas, comme convaincu d'être auteur ou complice d'un complot qui a existé entre Capet et sa femme, tendant à troubler la sûreté de l'état, en portant atteinte à la liberté du peuple, et dont les suites ont coûté la vie à grand nombre de citoyens au champ de Mars, le 17 Juillet 1791, et dans la journée du 10 août 1792.
TASSIN Louis Daniel, 52 ans, ci-devant banquier, et député suppléant à l'assemblée constituantes, comme contre-révolutionnaire, ayant trempé dans la conspiration et secondé les complots liberticides du tyran Capet, à la journée du 10 août 1792.
A Arras:
DE GOUY Thérèse, 50 ans, née à Ligny les Bapaume, repasseuse de linge.
LETIERCE Guy, 43 ans, marchand.
LIOTHAUD Marie Anne Victoire Valentine, 44 ans, née à Arras, dentellière, épouse de Farge N.
VINCENT Anne Joseph, âgée de 28 ans, née à Humières, fille de boutique.
LEFEBVRE Jean Marie, 21 ans, né à Annay, district de Boulogne, brigadier eu 28° régiment de chasseur à cheval, guillotiné.
Domicilié à Ste-Lumine-du-Coutay, canton de Machecoul, département de la Loire inférieure, comme brigands de la Vendée, par la commission militaire de Nantes:
BAUDET Honoré — BERGAT Pierre — GIBOTEAU Pierre — MESNAGER Julien — MONNIER Sébastien — MOREAU Pierre — PRAUD Pierre — SENARD Louis — TEMPLIER Pierre.
Ailleurs:
BOCCARON Louis, domicilié à St Martin du Var, canton de Nice (Alpes Maritimes), comme émigré, par le tribunal criminel du département des Alpes maritimes.
BRANDOUIN Victor, prêtre, ex noble, domicilié à Toulouse (Haute Garonne), comme réfractaire à la loi, par le tribunal criminel dudit département.
LAGEAT François, prêtre, domicilié à Contreven (Côtes-du-Nord), par le tribunal criminel du département de la Côte-d'Or [?], comme réfractaire à la loi.
LEGARL André, prêtre, domicilié à Pleudaniel (Côtes-du-Nord), par le tribunal criminel dudit département comme réfractaire à la loi.
TIERRIER Ursule, femme Taupin, domicilié à Tréguier (Côtes-du-Nord), comme receleuse de prêtre réfractaire, par le tribunal criminel dudit département.
LECLERC Antoine Nicolas (dit Peymaud), domicilié à Montbas (Dordogne), par le tribunal criminel dudit département, comme contre-révolutionnaire.
QUERRY Jean, cultivateur, ci-devant cavalier au 8ème régiment, domicilié à Ainzi (Nièvre), par le tribunal criminel du département de la Loire, comme contre-révolutionnaire.
TRE Jean, domicilié à Segonzac (Corrèze), condamné à mort comme contre-révolutionnaire, par le tribunal criminel dudit département.
VOLAND Blaise, commis fabricant de draps, 34 ans, natif d'Indre-Libre, (Indre et Loire), domicilié à Lyon (Rhône), comme contre-révolutionnaire, par la commission révolutionnaire séante à Lyon.

^ 1793 Condamnés à mort par la Révolution:
Domiciliés à Paris, par le tribunal révolutionnaire de Paris:
BEAUVOIR F. Auguste Renard, (dit Mazu), 45 ans, né à Constantinople, ex comte et lieutenant dans la légion de Luxembourg, comme conspirateur.
KOLLY Paul Pierre, ancien fermier général, 42 ans, né et domicilié à Paris, .comme complice de Beauvoir.
BREARD Jean Nicolas, ancien commissaire de la mairie, 36 ans, comme conspirateur.
Ailleurs:
LAROSE Jean, laboureur, domicilié à Apremont (Vendée), par la commission militaire séante aux Sables, comme brigand de la Vendée.
MARTIN Léonard, (dit Bonny) domicilié à Périgueux (Dordogne), comme contre-révolutionnaire, par le tribunal criminel dudit département.

1758 Pope Benedict XIV [31 Mar 1675–], Prospero Lorenzo Lambertini. —(080107)
1703 Eglon Hendrick van der Neer, Dutch painter born in 1634. — MORE ON VAN DER NEER AT ART “4” MAY with links to images.
1587 Lelio Orsi da Novellara, Italian painter born in 1511. — MORE ON ORSI AT ART “4” MAY with links to images.

< 02 May

04 May >

^ Births which occurred on a 03 May:

2001 Cosette ou le temps des illusions, de François Ceresa [1953~] parait chez Plon. Le roman, séquelle de Les Misérables [PDF], imagine que l'inspecteur Javert n'était pas mort et devient un modèle de vertu. Il sera continué par Marius ou le fugitif (Plon, Nov 2001). En 2001 des descendants de Victor Hugo, notamment Pierre Hugo, son arrière-arrière-petit-fils, demandent au tribunaux l'interdiction des deux ouvrages et 4,5 millions de ff (675'000 euros) de dommages et intérêts. Mais le 30 Janvier 2007 la Cour de cassation annule la décision de la cour d'appel de Paris, qui était favorable à la famille Hugo. —(070502)

^ 2001 Services spéciaux, Algérie 1955-1957 est publié.
Dans ce livre, le général Paul Aussaresses, coordinateur des services de renseignement à Alger en 1957 auprès du général Massu, reconnaît avoir assassiné l'avocat Ali Boumendjel et le chef du FLN algérois Larbi Ben M'Hidi. Selon la version officielle, les deux hommes s'étaient "suicidés". Aussaresses avait déjà révélé, dans Le Monde du 23 novembre 2000, qu'il avait ordonné des tortures et procédé lui-même à des exécutions sommaires en Algérie.
Le général Paul Aussaresses, né en novembre 1918, a été l'un des personnages-clés de la "bataille d'Alger" contre le FLN, en 1957. Entré en novembre 1942 dans les services spéciaux, il fut membre du service de documentation extérieure et de contre-espionnage (SDCE). Chef de bataillon parachutiste, il participe à la guerre d'Indochine. En 1955, il est envoyé à Philippeville. En janvier 1957, il est appelé aux côtés du général Massu, chargé par le gouvernement de rétablir l'ordre à Alger. Il est commandeur de la Légion d'honneur et décoré de la médaille de la Résistance.
[LA FRANCE TORTIONNAIRE ET ASSASSINE EN ALGÉRIE]
[ALGÉRIE 1954-1962: L'Algérie européenne occupait les villes, l'Algérie musulmane les bidonvilles. L'Algérie européenne couvrait les meilleures terres, l'Algérie musulmane prenait les petits champs secs. L'Algérie européenne avait des routes, des écoles, des services publics, l'Algérie musulmane comprenait des populations non recensées, non administrées, non soignées, non instruites.]

2001 Alyssa and Bethany Nolan, conjoined at the head, at the Royal Children's Hospital in Brisbane, Australia. Bethany would die on 26 May 2001, as an emergency operation failed to correct her heart and other problems, and Alyssa (with only one kidney) would be separated at that time.
1933 Domenico Gnoli, Italian painter and stage designer who died on 17 April 1970. — MORE ON GNOLI AT ART “4” APRIL with links to images.
1913 William Inge, US playwright whose Picnic won a Pulitzer Prize in 1953. He died on 10 June 1973.
1912 May Sarton, US poet, novelist and essayist, who died on 16 July 1995.

^ 1900 Hans Frank, German Nazi politician and lawyer who served as governor-general of Poland during World War II. He was hanged on 16 October 1946.
Frank fought in World War I, studied economics and jurisprudence, and in1921 joined the German Workers' Party (which became the Nazi Party). He eventually became the party's chief legal counsel and the personal lawyer of Hitler [20 Apr 1889 – 30 Apr 1945]. After the Nazis came to power in Germany in 1933, Frank was appointed to a variety of important posts, including presidentof the Reichstag and minister of justice in the Nazi government.
After the German invasion of Poland in 1939, Frank was appointed governor-general, becoming the supreme chief of occupied Poland's civil administration. An enthusiastic proponent of Nazi racist ideology, Frank ordered the executionof hundreds of thousands of Poles, the wholesale confiscation of Polish property, the enslavement of hundreds of thousands of Polish workers who were shipped to Germany, and the herding of most of Poland's Jews into ghettos as a prelude to their extermination. Frank remained as governor-general until the war's end, although Hitler stripped him of his other posts in 1942. He was captured by US Army troops on 04 May 1945, and was indicted for trial before the International Military Tribunal at Nürnberg. He was found guilty of war crimes and crimes against humanity and on 01 October 1946, was sentenced to hang.

1898 Golda Meir, Kiev, Ukraine, 4th Israeli PM (1969-74). She died on 08 December 1978.
1898 Septima P. Clark, US educator and civil rights activist, who died on 15 December 1987.
1897 V.K. Krishna Menon, India, nationalist/statesman
1892 Sir George Paget Thomson, who demonstrated electron diffraction and won a Nobel Prize in 1937. He died on 10 September 1975.

^ 1887 Alan G. Cunningham, British WW II liberator of Ethiopia.
The younger brother of Admiral Andrew Cunningham, the man who effectively eliminated the Italian naval threat in the Mediterranean as early as 1940, General Alan Cunningham did virtually the same to the Italian threat in Ethiopia. Overcoming topographical and administrative obstacles, Cunningham's forces entered Italian Somaliland, occupied the ports of Chisimaio and Mogadiscio, and then pursued the Axis enemy into the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa. On 20 May 1941, along with General Sir William Platt, whose army was advancing on the Italian invaders from the north, Cunningham received the surrender of Amadeo di Savoia, commander of the Italian armies. The way was paved for the return of Ethiopia's emperor, Haile Selassie.
Cunningham was less successful in campaigns in Libya and was finally relieved of his command. He returned to England and in 1941 was knighted for the successes he had enjoyed. He went on to become British high commissioner in Palestine from 1945 until Israel's independence in 1948. His autobiography, A Sailor's Odyssey, was published in 1951.

1874 François Coty Corsica, Corsican senator/perfume maker
1860 Vito Volterra, Italian mathematician who died on 11 October 1940. He published papers on partial differential equations, particularly the equation of cylindrical waves. His most famous work was done on integral equations. He published many papers on what is now called 'an integral equation of Volterra type'.

^ 1859 Andy Adams, cowboy author.
      Andy Adams, one of the most accurate chroniclers of the authentic "Old West," is born in Columbia City, Indiana. While still in his teens, Adams ran away from home. He eventually made his way to Texas, where he found work as a cowboy. From 1882 to 1893, Adams witnessed firsthand the golden era of the Texas cattle industry, a time when the cowboys ran cattle on vast open ranges still relatively unrestricted by barbed wire fences. In 1883, he made the first of many cattle drives along the famous cattle trails running north from Texas to the cow towns of Kansas. As farmers began to challenge the ranchers for control of the land, Adams witnessed the gradual fencing-in of the cattle country that would eventually end the short age of the open range. He made his last cattle drive in 1889.
      In 1893, Adams left Texas for Colorado, attracted by rumors of gold at Cripple Creek. Like most would-be miners, he failed to make a fortune in the business. He eventually settled in Colorado Springs, where he remained for most of his life. While doing on a variety of jobs, Adams began to write stories based on his experiences as a Texas cowboy. In 1903, he found a publisher for his novel The Log of a Cowboy, a thinly disguised autobiography of his life on the plains. A fascinated public welcomed tales from the former cowboy, and Adams wrote and published four similar volumes in less than four years.
      Adams distinguished himself from the majority of other western authors of the day with his meticulous accuracy and fidelity to the truth. As its name implied, The Log of a Cowboy was a day-by-day account of a cattle drive Adams had made from Texas to Montana. The book had little plot beyond the progress of the cattle herd toward Montana, and had none of the romantic excitement offered by less literal chroniclers of the West. Adams' self-avowed goal was to make his fiction indistinguishable from fact, and as one commentator has noted, "in this he succeeds only too well." While a reader searching for a good story might find Adams' books somewhat dull today, historians and writers looking for an accurate depiction of the cowboy life have found them invaluable. Beyond his five best-known books, Adams also wrote two popular novels for juveniles later in his career. When he died in Colorado Springs in 1935, he left a number of unpublished manuscripts of novels, stories, and plays that historians of the Old West have also found useful.

1859 José Gallegos y Arnosa, Spanish artist who died in 1917.
1853 E. W. Howe, US editor, essayist and novelist, who died on 03 October 1937.
1844 Richard D'Oyly Carte England, opera impresario (Ivanhoe)
1842 Otto Stolz, Austrian mathematician who died on 25 October 1905.
1836 Aleksander Kotsis, Polish artist who died on 07 August 1877.
1827 Robert Zünd, Swiss painter who died on 15 January 1909.
1802 Washington DC is incorporated as a city.

^ 1748 Emmanuel-Joseph Sieyès, French Catholic priest and statesman who died on 20 June 1836. constitutional theorist whose concept of popular sovereignty guided the French bourgeoisie in their struggle against themonarchy and nobility during the opening months of the French Revolution. He later played a major role in organizing the coup d'état that brought Napoléon Bonaparte [15 Aug 1769 – 05 May 1821] to power (1799).
      The son of a notary of Fréjus, Sieyès was educated for an ecclesiastical career at the Sorbonne and rose in the church to become vicar-general (1780) and chancellor (1788) of the diocese of Chartres. Nevertheless, because he was not of noble birth, his opportunities for further advancement in the church were limited. Hence, he was already embittered against the aristocracy by the time the States General weresummoned in 1788. During the ensuing public controversy over the organization of the States General, Sieyès issued his pamphlet Qu'est-ce que le tiers état? (January 1789), in which he identified the unprivileged Third Estate with the French nation and asserted that it alone had the right to draft a new constitution.
      The pamphlet won Sieyès immense popularity and ensured his election as a representative of the Third Estate to the States General, which convened on 05 May 1789. On Sieyès' motion, the delegates from the Third Estate proclaimed themselves (17 June 1789) a National Assembly empowered to legislate for the French people. King Louis XVI refused to recognize the legitimacy of the Assembly on 23 June 1789, but Sieyès helped persuade his colleagues to stand firm in the face of the royal challenge. The Revolution had begun. In the months that followed,the Assembly passed decrees abolishing feudalism and restricting the royal prerogative. Sieyès' distinction between “active” (those eligible to vote) and “passive” citizens was adopted in decrees establishing property qualifications for voting, thereby guaranteeing that power would be kept in the hands of the bourgeoisie.
      Although Sieyès enjoyed fame as a theorist, his vanity and lack of oratorical skill reduced his political effectiveness. He did vote with the majority of deputies for the king's execution (January 1793), but, when the radical democrats of the Jacobin Club seized control of the Revolution in June 1793 and launched the Reign of Terror, Sieyès withdrew from politics. Later he is said to have summarized his conduct during this period in the ironical remark “J'ai vécu”.
      In 1795 Sieyès served for six months on the Committee of Public Safety, where he advocated an expansionist foreign policy. He was elected (October 1795) to the Council of Five Hundred set up under the republican constitution of 1795, and in May 1799 he won a seat on the five-member Directory, France's ruling executive board. Nevertheless, he had already concluded that the executive must be strengthened at the expense of the legislative bodies. Conspiring with General Napoleon Bonaparte, Joseph Fouché, and C.M. de Talleyrand, he helped organize the military coup d'état that overthrew the Directory on 18 Brumaire (09 Nov 1799). The next day Sieyès, Bonaparte, and Pierre-Roger Ducos [1747-1816] were made provisional consuls. A new constitution drafted by Sieyès provided for an elaborate balance of powers within the executive, but Bonaparte quickly altered the constitution to make himself first consul and supreme ruler of France. Thereafter, Sieyès' influence declined. He remained a senator and was nominated grand officer of the Légion d'Honneur (1804) and count of the empire (1808).
      After the restoration of King Louis XVIII in 1815, Sieyès was banished as a regicide. He settled in Brussels but returned to Paris upon the overthrow of King Charles X in July 1830.

1716 Frans Anton Zeiller, Austrian artist who died on 04 March 1793.

^ 1689 William Broome, British scholar and poet who died on 16 November 1745.
Broom is best known as a collaborator with Alexander Pope [21 May 1688 – 30 May 1744] and Elijah Fenton [20 May 1683 – 16 Jul 1730] in a project to translate The Odyssey of Homer, of which Broome translated books 2, 6, 8, 11, 12, 16, 18, and 23. He seems to have undertaken the work mainly to add luster to his reputation, but when he found that little fame came his way because of it, he began to complain of underpayment. In fact Pope was more generous than originally had been supposed. Broome also made translations from the Greek of Anacreon, and his own Poems on Several Occasions was published in 1727.

1535 Alessandro “Bronzino” Allori, Italian painter who died on 22 September 1607. — MORE ON ALLORI AT ART “4” MAY with links to images.
1469 Niccolò Machiavelli, Italian writer and statesman, Florentine patriot, and original political theorist whose principal work, The Prince, brought him a reputation of amoral cynicism. He died on 21 June 1527. — MORE — MACHIAVELLI ONLINE: Favola di Belfagor arcidiavolo — Principe <<< Zipped:: — Dell'arte della guerra — Discorsi sopra la prima Deca di Tito Livio — Mandragola — L'Asino — I Capitoli — Clizia — I Decennali — Discorso o dialogo intorno alla nostra lingua — Istorie Fiorentine — La vita di Castruccio Castracani da Lucca >>> (In English translations): The Art of War — Discourses on Livy — History of Florence, and of the Affairs of Italy, From the Earliest Times to the Death of Lorenzo the Magnificent — The Prince — The Prince — The Prince (with two shorter works)

Holidays Japan-1947, Poland-1794 : Constitution Day / Lesotho : King's Birthday / Northern Ireland : Bank Holiday

Religious Observances Christian-Poland : Our Lady of Czestochowa / RC : SS Alexander, Eventius and Theodulus, martyrs / RC : Finding of the Cross / RC : SS Philip and James, apostles / RC : St Juvenal, bishop/confessor

From Maxim O'Ronns Contradirectory:

As seen on Google