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MDR price chartOn an August 08:
2002 After the close of regular trading the previous day, McDermott International, Inc. (MDR) reported a net loss of $234.2 million, or $3.80 loss per diluted share, for the second quarter of 2002, compared to net income of $8.0 million, or $0.13 income per diluted share, for the second quarter of 2001. $3.58 of the per share loss is due to the write-off of the Company's investment in The Babcock & Wilcox Company, and $0.05 to a charge in the Power Generation Systems segment relating to the impairment of a joint venture located in India. Without these, there would have been a $0.17 loss per diluted share. So what is the reaction on the New York Stock Exchange? MDR stock surges from its 07 August close of $3.00 to an intraday high of $5.75 and closes at $5.35. The stock had started trading on 29 September 1997 at $36.00, went as high as $43.50 on 11 May 1998, and, as recently as 23 April 2002 traded at $16.84. [5~year price chart >]
2002 WorldCom Inc., the telecommunications company which filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on 21 July 2002, announces that it has uncovered an additional $3.3 billion in improperly accounted earnings, on top of the $3.85 billion fraud it revealed on 25 June. The company said that it would have to restate its accounts for 2000, adding to the previously announced restatement for figures for 2001 and the first quarter of 2002.
      WorldCom Chief Executive Officer John Sidgmore, who took control in May after the ouster of founder Bernie Ebbers, has repeatedly warned that the company might find more problems on its financial books.
      The Clinton, Mississipi,-based company WorldCom, No. 2 US long-distance telephone carrier, also says that it may write off $50.6 billion of goodwill and other intangible assets and it would reevaluate the value of its property, plant and equipment. Such a charge would be rivaled only by the $54 billion charge taken by media conglomerate AOL Time Warner Inc. in the first quarter of 2002.
      The previous week, former Chief Financial Officer Scott Sullivan and former Controller David Myers were arrested and charged with hiding $3.85 billion in expenses and lying to investors and regulators in a desperate effort to keep the telecommunications company afloat.
1996 Chile's Supreme Court stripped Gen. Augusto Pinochet's immunity, clearing the way for the former dictator to be tried on human rights charges. (However, an appeals court later ruled Pinochet unfit to stand trial because of his deteriorating health and mental condition.)
1991 Firebombing of the US Consulate in Kingston, Jamaica.
1990 Iraq annexes Kuwait.
1989 La OLP crea su moneda nacional, la libra palestina.
1988 Bombing attack on the US Embassy Commissary in La Paz, Bolivia.
1988 Discovery of most distant galaxy (15 * 10 ^ 12 light yrs) announced.
1988 Russian troops begin pull out of Afghanistan after 9 year war
1988 US Secretary of State Shultz narrowly escapes an assassination attempt in Bolivia.
1988 South Africa declares cease-fire in Angola
1988 Temperature hits high of 88ºF on 8/8/88 in NYC [but not at 08:08]
1987 Lynne Cox became first to swim from US to Russia across Bering Strait
1983 Brig Gen Efrain Rios Montt deposed as president of Guatemala. — El general Óscar Humberto Mejía Victores, al frente del ejército, da un golpe de Estado en Guatemala, por el que derroca al presidente Ríos Montt, asume la jefatura del Estado, restaura las libertades y pone fin a los tribunales especiales.
1978 The United States launched Pioneer Venus 2, which carried scientific probes to study the atmosphere of Venus.
1974 Richard Nixon announces that he will resign.      ^top^
     He announces that he will resign the office of the President at noon the next day, 09 August. He had been engulfed by a major political scandal that began with the bungled burglary and wiretapping of the Democratic Party's campaign headquarters in the Watergate apartment complex in Washington, D.C., on 17 June 1972. Senate investigations eventually revealed that the President had been personally involved in the subsequent cover-up of the break-in; additional investigation uncovered a related group of illegal activities that included political espionage and falsification of official documents, all sanctioned by the White House. On 29 July and 30 July 1974, the House Judiciary Committee approved three articles of impeachment, charging that Nixon had misused his powers to violate the constitutional rights of US citizens, obstructed justice, and defied Judiciary Committee subpoenas. To avoid almost certain impeachment, Nixon announced that he would resign from office.
      In an evening televised address, President Richard M. Nixon announces his intention to become the first president in American history to resign. With impeachment proceedings underway against him for his involvement in the Watergate affair, Nixon was finally bowing to pressure from the public and Congress to leave the White House. "By taking this action," he said in a solemn address from the Oval Office, "I hope that I will have hastened the start of the process of healing which is so desperately needed in America." Just before noon the next day, Nixon officially ended his term as the 37th president of the United States. Before departing with his family in a helicopter from the White House lawn, he smiled farewell and enigmatically raised his arms in a victory or peace salute. The helicopter door was then closed, and the Nixon family began their journey home to San Clemente, California. Minutes later, Vice President Gerald R. Ford was sworn in as the 38th president of the United States in the East Room of the White House. After taking the oath of office, President Ford spoke to the nation in a television address, declaring, "My fellow Americans, our long national nightmare is over." He later pardoned Nixon for any crimes he may have committed while in office, explaining that he wanted to end the national divisions created by the Watergate scandal.
      On 17 June 1972, five men, including a salaried security coordinator for President Nixon's reelection committee, were arrested for breaking into and illegally wiretapping the Democratic National Committee headquarters in the Washington DC, Watergate complex. Soon after, two other former White House aides were implicated in the break-in, but the Nixon administration denied any involvement. Later that year, reporters Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward of The Washington Post discovered a higher-echelon conspiracy surrounding the incident, and a political scandal of unprecedented magnitude erupted. In May 1973, the Senate Select Committee on Presidential Campaign Activities, headed by Senator Sam Ervin of North Carolina, began televised proceedings on the rapidly escalating Watergate affair. One week later, Harvard law professor Archibald Cox was sworn in as special Watergate prosecutor.
      During the Senate hearings, former White House legal counsel John Dean testified that the Watergate break-in had been approved by former Attorney General John Mitchell with the knowledge of White House advisers John Ehrlichman and H.R. Haldeman, and that President Nixon had been aware of the cover-up. Meanwhile, Watergate prosecutor Cox and his staff began to uncover widespread evidence of political espionage by the Nixon reelection committee, illegal wiretapping of thousands of citizens by the administration, and contributions to the Republican Party in return for political favors. In July, the existence of what were to be called the Watergate tapes — official recordings of White House conversations between Nixon and his staff — was revealed during the Senate hearings.
      Cox subpoenaed these tapes, and after three months of delay President Nixon agreed to send summaries of the recordings. Cox rejected the summaries, and Nixon fired him. His successor as special prosecutor, Leon Jaworski, leveled indictments against several high-ranking administration officials, including Mitchell and Dean, who were duly convicted. Public confidence in the president rapidly waned, and by the end of July 1974 the House Judiciary Committee had adopted three articles of impeachment against President Nixon: obstruction of justice, abuse of presidential powers, and hindrance of the impeachment process. On 30 July, under coercion from the Supreme Court, Nixon finally released the Watergate tapes. On 05 August, transcripts of the recordings were released, including a segment in which the president was heard instructing Haldeman to order the FBI to halt the Watergate investigation. Three days later, Nixon announced his resignation.
      The Watergate affair had far-ranging impact, both at home and abroad. In the United States, the scandal shook the faith of the American people in the presidency, but, in the final analysis, the nation survived the constitutional crisis, thus reinforcing the system of checks and balances and proving that no one is above the law, not even the president. In Vietnam, Nixon's resignation removed one of Saigon's staunchest supporters. Nixon had always promised that he would come to the aid of South Vietnam if Hanoi violated the terms of the Paris Peace Accords. With Nixon gone, there was no one left to make good on those promises. When the North Vietnamese began their final offensive in 1975, the promised US support was not provided and the South Vietnamese were defeated in less than 55 days..


President Nixon's resignation speech:
Good evening.
     This is the 37th time I have spoken to you from this office, where so many decisions have been made that shaped the history of this Nation. Each time I have done so to discuss with you some matter than I believe affected the national interest.
     In all the decisions I have made in my public life, I have always tried to do what was best for the Nation. Throughout the long and difficult period of Watergate, I have felt it was my duty to persevere, to make every possible effort to complete the term of office to which you elected me.  
         In the past few days, however, it has become evident to me that I no longer have a strong enough political base in the Congress to justify continuing that effort. As long as there was such a base, I felt strongly that it was necessary to see the constitutional process through to its conclusion, that to do otherwise would be unfaithful to the spirit of that deliberately difficult process and a dangerously destabilizing precedent for the future.  
         But with the disappearance of that base, I now believe that the constitutional purpose has been served, and there is no longer a need for the process to be prolonged.
     I would have preferred to carry through to the finish whatever the personal agony it would have involved, and my family unanimously urged me to do so. But the interest of the Nation must always come before any personal considerations.
     From the discussions I have had with Congressional and other leaders, I have concluded that because of the Watergate matter I might not have the support of the Congress that I would consider necessary to back the very difficult decisions and carry out the duties of this office in the way the interests of the Nation would require.
     I have never been a quitter. To leave office before my term is completed is abhorrent to every instinct in my body. But as President, I must put the interest of America first. America needs a full-time President and a full-time Congress, particularly at this time with problems we face at home and abroad.
     To continue to fight through the months ahead for my personal vindication would almost totally absorb the time and attention of both the President and the Congress in a period when our entire focus should be on the great issues of peace abroad and prosperity without inflation at home.
     Therefore, I shall resign the Presidency effective at noon tomorrow. Vice President Ford will be sworn in as President at that hour in this office.
     As I recall the high hopes for America with which we began this second term, I feel a great sadness that I will not be here in this office working on your behalf to achieve those hopes in the next 2 1/2 years. But in turning over direction of the Government to Vice President Ford, I know, as I told the Nation when I nominated him for that office 10 months ago, that the leadership of America will be in good hands.
     In passing this office to the Vice President, I also do so with the profound sense of the weight of responsibility that will fall on his shoulders tomorrow and, therefore, of the understanding, the patience, the cooperation he will need from all Americans.
     As he assumes that responsibility, he will deserve the help and the support of all of us. As we look to the future, the first essential is to begin healing the wounds of this Nation, to put the bitterness and divisions of the recent past behind us, and to rediscover those shared ideals that lie at the heart of our strength and unity as a great and as a free people.
     By taking this action, I hope that I will have hastened the start of that process of healing which is so desperately needed in America.
     I regret deeply any injuries that may have been done in the course of the events that led to this decision. I would say only that if some of my judgments were wrong, and some were wrong, they were made in what I believed at the time to be the best interest of the Nation.
     To those who have stood with me during these past difficult months, to my family, my friends, to many others who joined in supporting my cause because they believed it was right, I will be eternally grateful for your support.
     And to those who have not felt able to give me your support, let me say I leave with no bitterness toward those who have opposed me, because all of us, in the final analysis, have been concerned with the good of the country, however our judgments might differ.
     So, let us all now join together in affirming that common commitment and in helping our new President succeed for the benefit of all Americans.
     I shall leave this office with regret at not completing my term, but with gratitude for the privilege of serving as your President for the past five and a half years. These years have been a momentous time in the history of our Nation and the world. They have been a time of achievement in which we can all be proud, achievements that represent the shared efforts of the Administration, the Congress, and the people.
     But the challenges ahead are equally great, and they, too, will require the support and the efforts of the Congress and the people working in cooperation with the new Administration.
     We have ended America's longest war, but in the work of securing a lasting peace in the world, the goals ahead are even more far-reaching and more difficult. We must complete a structure of peace so that it will be said of this generation, our generation of Americans, by the people of all nations, not only that we ended one war but that we prevented future wars.
     We have unlocked the doors that for a quarter of a century stood between the United States and the People's Republic of China.
     We must now ensure that the one quarter of the world's people who live in the People's Republic of China will be and remain not our enemies but our friends.
     In the Middle East, 100 million people in the Arab countries, many of whom have considered us their enemy for nearly 20 years, now look on us as their friends. We must continue to build on that friendship so that peace can settle at last over the Middle East and so that the cradle of civilization will not become its grave.
     Together with the Soviet Union we have made the crucial breakthroughs that have begun the process of limiting nuclear arms. But we must set as our goal not just limiting but reducing and finally destroying these terrible weapons so that they cannot destroy civilization and so that the threat of nuclear war will no longer hang over the world and the people.
     We have opened the new relation with the Soviet Union. We must continue to develop and expand that new relationship so that the two strongest nations of the world will live together in cooperation rather than confrontation.
     Around the world, in Asia, in Africa, in Latin America, in the Middle East, there are millions of people who live in terrible poverty, even starvation. We must keep as our goal turning away from production for war and expanding production for peace so that people everywhere on this earth can at last look forward in their children's time, if not in our own time, to having the necessities for a decent life.
     Here in America, we are fortunate that most of our people have not only the blessings of liberty but also the means to live full and good and, by the world's standards, even abundant lives. We must press on, however, toward a goal of not only more and better jobs but of full opportunity for every American and of what we are striving so hard right now to achieve, prosperity without inflation.
     For more than a quarter of a century in public life I have shared in the turbulent history of this era. I have fought for what I believed in. I have tried to the best of my ability to discharge those duties and meet those responsibilities that were entrusted to me.
     Sometimes I have succeeded and sometimes I have failed, but always I have taken heart from what Theodore Roosevelt once said about the man in the arena, "whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes short again and again because there is not effort without error and shortcoming, but who does actually strive to do the deed, who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself in a worthy cause, who at the best knows in the end the triumphs of high achievements and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly."
     I pledge to you tonight that as long as I have a breath of life in my body, I shall continue in that spirit. I shall continue to work for the great causes to which I have been dedicated throughout my years as a Congressman, a Senator, a Vice President, and President, the cause of peace not just for America but among all nations, prosperity, justice, and opportunity for all of our people.
     There is one cause above all to which I have been devoted and to which I shall always be devoted for as long as I live.
     When I first took the oath of office as President 5 1/2 years ago, I made this sacred commitment, to "consecrate my office, my energies, and all the wisdom I can summon to the cause of peace among nations."
     I have done my very best in all the days since to be true to that pledge. As a result of these efforts, I am confident that the world is a safer place today, not only for the people of America but for the people of all nations, and that all of our children have a better chance than before of living in peace rather than dying in war.
     This, more than anything, is what I hoped to achieve when I sought the Presidency. This, more than anything, is what I hope will be my legacy to you, to our country, as I leave the Presidency.
     To have served in this office is to have felt a very personal sense of kinship with each and every American. In leaving it, I do so with this prayer: May God's grace be with you in all the days ahead.
1974 Stock market down on news of Nixon resignation.      ^top^
      The Dow Jones Industrial loses 12.67 points on the day. However there had preceded a brief "Nixon rally" in the three days preceding days, when the Dow rose forty-five points. But Gerald Ford was inheriting a nation sinking under the weight of various economic woes, including rising inflation and unemployment rates. One broker predicted that if Ford couldn't stem the tide of inflation, "a change in Presidents" wouldn't "have much effect on the stock markets."
1973 Vice President Agnew under attack      ^top^
      Vice President Agnew brands reports that he took kickbacks from government contracts in Maryland as "damned lies." Agnew had taken a lot of heat in the media when he assumed a lead position as Nixon's point man on Vietnam. He frequently attacked the student protest movement, blaming campus unrest on the intellectual community, which he referred to as "impudent snobs" and "nattering nabobs of negativism". Despite the charges of bribery and income tax evasion, Agnew vows that he would never resign and blamed his troubles on the press, who, he said, were out to get him for his controversial stand on the war. Ultimately, however, he would resign from office on October 10, 1973.
1968 Nixon and Agnew receive the Republican Party nomination      ^top^
      At the Republican National Convention in Miami, Richard M. Nixon and Spiro T. Agnew are chosen as the presidential and vice-presidential nominees for the upcoming election. In his speech accepting the nomination, Nixon promised to "bring an honorable end to the war in Vietnam" and to inaugurate "an era of negotiations" with leading Communist powers, while restoring "the strength of America so that we shall always negotiate from strength and never from weakness." The party subsequently adopted a platform on the war that called for "progressive de-Americanization" of the war. Nixon was successful in his campaign bid and once in office, he instituted a program of "Vietnamization" (the turning over of the war to the South Vietnamese) and US troop withdrawals.
1968 Race riot in Miami Florida
1968 The news that US President Lyndon Johnson has contracted a minor colon ailment affects Wall Street, despite the doctors’ assurances that the condition — diverticulosis — is not serious. LBJ apparently felt no discomfort and had in fact developed the minor illness in 1960. Still, investors engaged in "precautionary selling" and the Dow Jones Industrial Average went down 6.55 points to close the day at 870.37.
1963 The Great Train Robbery      ^top^
      In the early morning hours on a stretch of railway track in Buckinghamshire, England, sixteen masked men ambushed the Glasgow-to-London mail train as it halted at a red signal. The bandits got away with money and property valued at 2.6 million pounds sterling ($7.3 million), making it the largest train robbery in history. However, within a week, British authorities had captured a handful of the robbers, and by the end of the year a dozen were in custody and duly convicted. Most of the stolen money was never found. In 1965, one of the jailed perpetrators — Ronald Biggs — made a daring escape from Wandsorth Prison after serving only fifteen months of his thirty-year sentence. Eluding British justice, Biggs successfully went into hiding, and in 1970 settled in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. As Great Britain had no extradition treaty with Brazil, he effectively became a free man, and occasionally spoke in public to the chagrin of British authorities.
     A gang of 15 men robs a Royal Mail train carrying almost $7.5 million from Glasgow to London. The super-secret train had already picked up mail and cash from banks in Scotland and northern England by the time the thieves sprang into action near Cheddington. However, their getaway plan was not as meticulous as they thought, and most of the gang members were eventually caught.
      By faking a red light on the railways, the thieves ensured that the engineer would stop the train. At this point, the masked and armed men ambushed the engineer and detached the back cars from the train. They then unloaded millions of dollars from the front cars into their getaway truck. The 75 postal workers who were riding in the rear cars did not even realize that there was a robbery in progress until the gang drove away. By this time, their attempts to call the police were thwarted because the thieves had already cut the phone lines in the area.
      With a significant head start, the robbers made it to their planned hideout, Leatherslade Farm. However, after it was announced on the radio that law enforcement officials planned on searching an area including the farm, the gang panicked and fled. But the person in charge of cleaning up the hideout left without doing his job, so the leaders decided that they would have to return to get rid of evidence left behind.
      Unfortunately for the robbers, the police beat them to the farm and found fingerprints everywhere. Scotland Yard officials tracked down 12 of the gang members-all of whom were found guilty, receiving 20 to 30 year sentences. Charles Wilson, one of the thieves, escaped and eluded authorities for nearly four years until his capture in Montreal, Canada. In 1965, Ronald Biggs, another culprit, escaped from prison and fled to Brazil. Although he was eventually found, he successfully fought extradition. He then used his infamy to sell T-shirts to tourists in Brazil. Most of the money from the robbery was never recovered.
Biggs promoting lingerie< Wrapped in the Union Jack, famous train robber Ronald Biggs takes part in an advertisment campaign for female lingerie in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil in this 25 January 2001 photo. After several days of rumors, Biggs' lawyer Wellington Mousinho announced on Friday 04 May 2001 that his client wanted to return to Britain. A plane chartered by a British tabloid to fly convicted train robber Biggs back home after decades in self-imposed exile landed Saturday 05 May 2001 in Rio de Janeiro. Biggs was sentenced to 30 years in prison for a 1963 train robbery of 2.6 million pounds, worth $7.3 million at the time, but escaped in 1965 after 15 months behind bars.
[< Wrapped in the Union Jack, Famous Train Robber Ronald Biggs]
A plane chartered by a British tabloid to fly convicted train robber Ronnie Biggs back home after decades in self-imposed exile landed Saturday 05 May 2001 in Brazil. Crowds gathered at Rio's international airport waiting for the "Great Train Robber" to show up. But his lawyer, Wellington Mousinho, said it was unlikely the 71-year-old fugitive would leave Saturday, and did not say when Biggs would depart. After several days of rumors and conflicting reports — sparked by an e-mail Biggs allegedly sent Scotland Yard - Mousinho announced Friday that his client wanted to return advertisement to Britain with or without a pardon. The Sun tabloid, Britain's best-selling newspaper, chartered a 14-seat Dassault jet and said it had sent one of Biggs' fellow train robbers, Bruce Reynolds, along to accompany Biggs back home. Biggs, who is reportedly out of the city, would not speak to journalists because he has an exclusive contract with the tabloid and a cable and satellite TV network that will "pay him very well" for the story of his return, Mousinho said. Still, Mousinho said that because of his client's age and fragile health, Biggs must present a signed statement that he is leaving of his own free will. "If he doesn't, I will denounce it as a kidnapping," Mousinho said. The possibility that Biggs might give himself up has been big news in Britain, which is still fascinated by the 1963 robbery. Biggs was part of a gang that stole 2.6 million pounds — worth $7.3 million at the time, or nearly $47 million today — from a Glasgow-to-London mail train in the early hours of 08 August 1963. Most of the gang was captured, and Biggs was sentenced to 30 years in prison. He escaped after 15 months by scaling an 8-meter wall on a rope ladder and jumping into a waiting furniture van. Later he fled the country, making his way to Brazil in 1970. In Rio, Biggs fathered a child by a Brazilian woman, which under local law gave him the right to stay in the country. In 1997, the Brazilian Supreme Court rejected a request for extradition on grounds that the statute of limitations had expired. A stroke has left Biggs debilitated and barely able to speak. He rarely leaves his home in Rio's traditional Santa Teresa district except for physical therapy sessions.
1960 Ivory Coast declares independence
1960 La empresa farmacéutica estadounidense G.D. Searle Drug lanza al mercado el producto Enovoid, la píldora anticonceptiva.
1955 Geneva conference held to discuss peaceful uses of atomic energy
1953 US and South Korea initial a mutual security pact
1953 Prime Minister Georgy Maksimilianovich Malenkov, 51, boasts that the USSR now has the hydrogen bomb. They would test it on 12 August 1953.
1951 The United States Customs Agency is empowered to protect consumers from fraud by the Fur Labeling Act, which requires manufacturers to include labels that identify the species of animal and whether paws or tails were used.
1950 US troops repel the first North Korean attempt to overrun them at the battle of Naktong Bulge, which would continue for 10 days.
1949 Bhutan, land of the Dragon, became an independent monarchy
1949 El Consejo de Europa admite como nuevos miembros a Turquía, Grecia e Islandia.
1946 India agrees to give Bhutan 32 miles
1945 Soviets declare war on Japan; invade Manchuria      ^top^
      The Soviet Union officially declares war on Japan, pouring more than 1 million Soviet soldiers into Japanese-occupied Manchuria, northeastern China, to take on the 700'000-strong Japanese army. The dropping of the bomb on Hiroshima by the Americans did not immediately have the effect intended: unconditional surrender by Japan. Half of the Japanese inner Cabinet, called the Supreme War Direction Council, refused to surrender unless guarantees about Japan's future were given by the Allies, especially regarding the position of the emperor, Hirohito. The Japanese public was not informed about what happened at Hiroshima.
      Japan had not been too worried about the Soviet Union, until recently busy fighting the Germans on the Eastern front. The Japanese army went so far as to believe that they would not face a Soviet attack until spring 1946. But the Soviets surprise them with their invasion of Manchuria, an assault so strong (of the 850 Japanese soldiers engaged at Pingyanchen, 650 are killed or wounded within the first two days of fighting) that Emperor Hirohito begins to plead with his War Council to reconsider surrender. The recalcitrant members begin to waver.
1945 Truman signs United Nations Charter      ^top^
     US President Harry S. Truman signs the United Nations Charter and the United States becomes the first nation to complete the ratification process and join the new international organization. Although hopes were high at the time that the United Nations would serve as an arbiter of international disputes, the organization also served as the scene for some memorable Cold War clashes. August 8, 1945, was a busy day in the history of World War II. The United States dropped a second atomic bomb on Japan, devastating the city of Nagasaki. The Soviet Union, following through with an agreement made earlier in the war, declared war on Japan. All observers agreed that the combination of these two actions would bring a speedy end to Japanese resistance. At the same time, in Washington DC, President Truman took a step that many Americans hoped would mean continued peace in the post-World War II world. The president signed the United Nations Charter, thus completing American ratification of the document. Secretary of State James F. Byrnes also signed. In so doing, the United States became the first nation to complete the ratification process. The charter would come into full force when China, Russia, Great Britain, France, and a majority of the other nations that had constructed the document also completed ratification.
      Having gone through the horrors of two world wars in three decades, most Americans — and people around the world — were hopeful that the new international organization would serve as a forum for settling international disagreements and a means for maintaining global peace. Over the next decades, the United Nations did serve as the scene for some of the more notable events in the Cold War: the decision by the Security Council to send troops to Korea in 1950; Khrushchev pounding the table with his shoe during a UN debate; and continuous and divisive discussion over admission of communist China to membership in the UN. As for its role as a peacekeeping institution, the record of the UN was not one of great success during the Cold War. The Soviet veto in the Security Council stymied some efforts, while the US desire to steer an independent course in terms of military involvement after the unpopular Korean War meant less and less recourse to the UN to solve world conflicts. In the years since the end of the Cold War, however, the United States and Russia have sometimes cooperated to send United Nations forces on peacekeeping missions, such as the effort in Bosnia.
1945 USSR declares war against Japan, already on the point of surrendering to US, in WW II — II Guerra Mundial: La URSS declara la guerra a Japón.
1945 USSR establishes a communist government in North Korea
1944 US forces complete the capture of the Marianas Islands.
1942 US Marines capture the Japanese airstrip on Guadalcanal.
1941 A memorandum of the Serbian Orthodox Church is presented to General Dankelman, Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces of Serbia, protesting atrocities committed on Serbs.
1940 The German Luftwaffe attacks Great Britain for the first time, begining the Battle of Britain.
1940 El Gobierno británico firma un tratado de cooperación con el movimiento de la Francia Libre del general De Gaulle.
1939 Francisco Franco Bahamonde, con la Jefatura del Estado y del Gobierno en su poder, nombra a los ministros del primer gobierno español de la posguerra.
1938 First prisoners sent to Mauthausen death camp.

      As early as 08 August 1938, a few months after the "Anschluss", the first prisoners were transferred into the new concentration camp in Mauthausen. The National Socialist regime established the Mauthausen Concentration Camp to obtain more prison space for political-ideological opponents. It was intended that they should in the Mauthausen Quarry extract the materials for the magnificent building projects in Linz. The Mauthausen/Gusen Double Camp became the only concentration camp classified as a "Level III Camp". This meant that for the prisoners, there should be no return. In total, more than 190'000 persons of different nationality became imprisoned in the Mauthausen Concentration Camp, the Gusen Branch Camp and the subcamps, which numbered over 40. Systematic terror, deliberate killings, exploitation of labor, deficient feeding, inadequate clothing and lack of medical care led to the deaths of about 100'000 prisoners.
1937 The Japanese Army occupies Beijing.
1929 German airship Graf Zeppelin begins first eastward round-the-world flight by an airship.
1929 Estalla en Colombia un movimiento revolucionario. En Cartagena y Tolima se producen grandes desórdenes.
1925 The first national congress of the (second) Ku Klux Klan opens.
1919 Treaty of Rawalpindi, British recognize Afghanistan's independence — Tratado de Rawalpindi, que pone fin a la tercera guerra de Afganistán.
1910 The Sacred Congregation of the Sacraments in the Vatican issues the decree Quam singulari, which recommends that children be permitted to receive Holy Communion as soon as they reached the "age of discretion" (i.e., about age 7).
1908 First public flight of the Wright flying machine.
      Wilbur had sailed to France, and he captures the European imagination with his first public flight; which takes place over the Hunaudières Race Course near Le Mans.
1907 The Rolls Royce Silver Ghost passes its 15'000-mile official trial with flying colors, showing off its seven-liter engine and four-speed overdrive gearbox. It made “the Ghost’s” reputation and gave the Rolls Royce the name “The Best Car in the World.” A total of 6173 Silver Ghosts were produced.
1903 Cripple Creek strike
      Led by the Western Federation of Miners and famed union man “Big” Bill Haywood, the miners in Cripple Creek, Colorado, walk off the job. The strike was called after the Mine Owner’s Association refused the worker’s demand for eight-hour days. However the owners would succeed in crippling the strike. Allegations that the strikers had set off an explosion that killed several non-union miners gave the owner’s the leverage to bust the strike and drive Haywood from Cripple Creek.
1900 David Hilbert delivers his famous lecture about open mathematical problems at the second International Congress of Mathematicians in Paris.
1899 The first household refrigerating machine is patented.
1894 US recognizes Republic of Hawaii
      The Hawaiian Republic, a creation of US settlers to take over the islands from the natives, which had proclaimed its "independence" and adopted a "democratic" constitution on July 4, is officially recognized by the US government. Hawaii, first settled by Polynesian voyagers sometime in the eighth century, saw a massive influx of American settlers during the nineteenth century, most coming to exploit Hawaii's burgeoning sugar industry.
      In 1887, under pressure from US investors and American sugar planters, King Kalakaua of Hawaii agreed to a new constitution that stripped him of much of his power. However, in 1891, after Kalakaua's death, his sister, Liliuokalani, ascended to the throne and refused to recognize the constitution of 1887, replacing it instead with a constitution that restored the Hawaiian monarchy's traditional authority.
      On January 17, 1893, a revolutionary "Committee of Safety," organized by Hawaiian-born Sanford B. Dole staged a coup against Queen Liliuokalani with the support of US Minister John Stevens and a division of US Marines. Two weeks later, Stevens recognized Dole's new government on his own authority and proclaimed Hawaii a US protectorate. Dole submitted a treaty of annexation to the US Senate but most Democrats opposed it, especially after it was revealed that most Hawaiians did want annexation.
      President Grover Cleveland sent a new US minister to Hawaii to restore Queen Liliuokalani to the throne under the 1887 constitution, but Dole refused to step aside. He proclaimed the independent Republic of Hawaii in 1894, which the US recognized. In 1898, the Spanish-American War broke out, and the strategic use of the naval base at Pearl Harbor during the conflict convinced Congress to approve formal annexation. Two years later, Hawaii was organized into a formal US territory and in 1959 entered the United States as the fiftieth state.
1890 Daughters of the American Revolution organizes
1882 Snow falls on Lake Michigan
1876 Dan O'Leacy completes 500-mile walk in 139h32m
1876 Thomas Edison patents mimeograph
1863 After Gettysburg, Lee offers to resign.      ^top^
      In the aftermath of his defeat at Gettysburg, Confederate General Robert E. Lee sends a letter of resignation as commander of the Army of Northern Virginia to Confederate President Jefferson Davis. The letter came more than a month after Lee's retreat from Pennsylvania. At first, many people in the South wondered if in fact Lee had lost the battle. Lee's intent had been to drive the Union army from Virginia, which he did. The Army of the Potomac suffered over 28'000 casualties, and the Union army's offensive capabilities were temporarily disabled. But the Army of Northern Virginia had 23'000 casualties, nearly one-third of its total.
      As the weeks passed and the Union army reentered Virginia, it became clear that the Confederacy had suffered a serious defeat at Gettysburg. As the press began to openly speculate about Lee's leadership, the great general reflected on the campaign at his headquarters in Orange Courthouse, Virginia. The modest Lee took the failure at Gettysburg very personally. In his letter to Davis, he wrote, "I have been prompted by these reflections more than once since my return from Pennsylvania to propose to Your Excellency the propriety of selecting another commander for this army.... No one is more aware than myself of my inability for the duties of my position. I cannot even accomplish what I myself desire.... I, therefore, in all sincerity, request your Excellency to take measure to supply my place." Lee not only seriously questioned his ability to lead his army, he was also experiencing significant physical fatigue. He might also have sensed that Gettysburg was his last chance to win the war.
      Regardless, President Davis refused the request. He wrote, "To ask me to substitute you by someone ... more fit to command, or who would possess more of the confidence of the army ... is to demand an impossibility."
1863 Siege of Fort Wagner, Charleston Harbor, South Carolina conti
1860 Queen of Sandwich Islands (Hawaii) arrives in NYC.
1844 Brigham Young chosen Mormon Church head following Joseph Smith death
1843 Natal (in South Africa) is made a British colony
1818 Keats returns from walking tour      ^top^
      John Keats, 22, returns from a strenuous walking tour of the Lake Districts and Scotland with friends. On the tour, he begins to show symptoms of the tuberculosis that will kill him within three years.
      Keats, the eldest of five children born to a lower-middle-class family in London, was a highly spirited boy known for fistfights and roughhousing at his private school. Keats' schoolmasters encouraged the boy's interest in reading and later introduced him to poetry and theater.
      When John was eight, his father fell off a horse and died, launching a long economic struggle that would keep Keats in poverty throughout his life, despite a large inheritance owed to him. His mother quickly remarried, and the five Keats children were sent to live with their maternal grandparents. The marriage failed, and their mother soon joined them. However, she died in 1810, and John's grandparents died by 1814. The Keats children were kept from their money by an unscrupulous guardian, and John was apprenticed to a surgeon in 1811. Keats worked with the surgeon until 1814, then went to work for a hospital in London as a junior apothecary and surgeon in charge of dressing wounds.
      In London, Keats pursued his interest in literature while working at the hospital. He became friends with the editor of the Examiner, Leigh Hunt, a successful poet and author who introduced him to other literary figures, including Percy Bysshe Shelley. Although Keats did not write his first poem until age 18, he quickly showed tremendous promise, encouraged by Hunt and his circle. Keats' first book, Poems, appeared in 1817. After that, Keats devoted himself entirely to poetry, becoming a master of the Romantic sonnet and trying his hand at epic poems like Hyperion.
      In 1818, the same year Keats' health began to fail, his financial difficulties deepened as his brother Tom also battled tuberculosis and another brother's poor investment left him penniless in Kentucky. The one bright spot in his life was his fiancee, Fanny Brawne. From January to September 1819, Keats produced an outpouring of brilliant work, including poems like Ode on a Grecian Urn, Ode to a Nightingale, and La Belle Dame Sans Merci. But in early 1820, Keats' tuberculosis worsened. Hoping a warm climate would ease his condition, he traveled to Italy, where he died in February 1821, only 25 years old.
KEATS ONLINE:
The Eve of St. Agnes, Lamia, The Poetical Works of John Keats. — La Belle Dame Sans Merci with paintings it inspired. —
1815 Napoleon Bonaparte set sail for exile on St Helena where he would spend the remainder of his days.
1814 Peace negotiations begin in Ghent, Belgium
1788 Capitulación de Luis XVI de Francia y convocatoria de los Estados Generales para el 1 de mayo de 1789.
1786 Mont Blanc conquered. Jacques Balmat and Dr. Michael-Gabriel Paccard become the first men to climb Mont Blanc in France. — La première ascension du Mont Blanc, par le docteur Michel-Gabriel Paccard et le guide savoyard Jacques Balmat. La plus haute montagne d'Europe (4807 m) est vaincue. Saussure renouvelle cet exploit en 1787. De nos jours le Mont Blanc est gravi chaque été par des centaines de touristes empruntant le versant nord, les autres versants forts escarpés exigeant de solides qualités d'alpiniste. — Gabriel Paccard y el guía Jacques Balmat, financiados por el filósofo-geólogo Horace-Bénédict de Saussure, logran coronar el Mont Blanc.
1709 first known ascent in hot-air balloon, Bartolomeu de Gusmao (indoors)
1700 Durante la Segunda o Gran Guerra del Norte, Carlos XII de Suecia, tras poner sitio a Copenhague, fuerza a Dinamarca a firmar la paz de Traventhal.
1636 The invading armies of Spain, Austria and Bavaria are stopped at the village of St.-Jean-de-Losne, only 80 km from France.
1635 Roger Williams is sentenced to banishment by Massachussets for his differing religious views. In exile, he will found Rhode Island on principles of freedom of conscience.
1609 Venetian senate examines Galileo Galilei's telescope.
1588 Culmina el desastre de la "Armada Invencible", enviada por Felipe II de España contra Inglaterra y derrotada por el enemigo y el huracán.
1579 Cornerstone is laid for Tycho Brahe's Uraniborg observatory.
1567 The Spanish Duke of Alva after a heroic four month march over the alps, arrives in the Netherlands to put down Protestant revolt.
1570 Charles IX of France signs the Treaty of St. Germain, ending the third war of religion and giving religious freedom to the Huguenots. — Se firma el Edicto de pacificación en St. Germain, por el que se pone fin a la Tercera Guerra de Religión en Francia.
1002 Batalla de Calatañazor (Soria), en la que los cristianos acaudillados por Bermudo II, rey de Asturias y León, y el conde de Castilla, García Sánchez, vencieron a los moros de Almanzor.
0449 The “Robber” Council of Ephesus meets. This is presided over by Dioscoros who allows only documents favorable to his positions to be admitted.
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Deaths which occurred on an August 08:      ^top^
2002:: 32 persons by landslides in five villages in mountainous Taplejyug district in eastern Nepal. Two months of incessant rains have caused severe floods in Nepal, Bangladesh and eastern India, causing more than 700 deaths and damaging millions of dollars worth of crops and property. The dead so far nomber 332 in Nepal, at least 250 in India and 157 in Bangladesh. Nearly half of Bangladesh has suffered flooding. More than 6 million of its 130 million have been displaced or stranded.
2002 More than 55'000 34-day-old chickens, found suffocated in the morning, after some vandal(s), during the night, switched off the ventilation in three Tyson Foods chicken houses in Marion, Kentucky. At this stage the chickens are worth about $1 each. The chickens would have been killed about 50 days later. Neighbors have complained about the smell of the chicken houses.
2000 Seven people as a bomb explodes in a Moscow pedestrian underpass. 90 are injured, of which 4 would later die from their injuries. Chechens deny involvement.
1996 Nevill Francis Mott, Premio Nobel de física británico.
1996 At least 13 persons, by a bomb in an underground walkway in central Moscow.
1991 The slain bodies of former Iranian Prime Minister Shahpour Bakhtiar and his chief of staff are found in Bakhtiar's residence outside Paris.
1991 James B. Irwin, 61, pilot of the Lunar Roving Vehicle. Irwin visited the surface of the Moon during the Apollo 15 mission in 1971, during which he spent almost three days on the moon’s surface investigating the Hadley-Apennine site, 744 km north of the lunar equator. The Lunar Rover was a specially designed vehicle used to transport Irwin and David Scott around the moon’s surface while collecting rocks and core samples.
1977 Cooper, mathematician.
1949 Joaquín Torres-García, Uruguayan painter and sculptor born on 25 July 1874. — LINKS
1976 John Roselli hired by CIA to kill Castro, found murdered
1942 Six German saboteurs, executed in Washington      ^top^
      During World War II, six German saboteurs who had landed in the United States on a secret mission to destroy the country's civil infrastructure, are executed by electric chair for spying. Two other saboteurs, who had disclosed the plot to the FBI and aided US authorities in their manhunt for their collaborators, are imprisoned.
      In 1942, under Nazi leader Adolf Hitler's orders, the defense branch of the German Military Intelligence Corps initiated a program to infiltrate the United States and destroy industrial plants, bridges, railroads, waterworks, and Jewish-owned department stores. The Nazis hoped that sabotage teams would be able to slip into America at the rate of one or two every six weeks.
      The first two teams, made up of eight Germans who had all lived in the United States before the war, departed the German submarine base at Lorient, France, in late May. Just before midnight on 12 June, in a heavy fog, a German submarine reached the American coast off of Amagansett, Long Island, and the first team rowed ashore in an inflatable boat. Just a few minutes after the saboteurs succeeded in burying their abundant explosives in the sand, John C. Cullen, a young US Coast Guardsman, came upon them during his regular patrol of the beach. The leader of the team, George Dasch, bribed the suspicious Cullen, and he accepted the money, promising to keep quiet. However, as soon as he passed safely back into the fog, he sprinted the 3 km back to the Coast Guard station and informed his superiors of his discovery.
      After retrieving the German supplies from the beach, the Coast Guard called the FBI, which conducted a massive manhunt for the saboteurs, who had escaped to New York City. Although unaware that the FBI was looking for them, Dasch and another saboteur, Ernest Burger, decided to turn themselves in and betray their colleagues, perhaps because they feared capture was inevitable after the botched landing.
      On 15 July, Dasch called the FBI in New York, but they failed to take his claims seriously, so he decided to travel to FBI headquarters in Washington. On July 18, the same day that the second four-man team successfully landed at Ponte Verdra Beach, Florida, Dasch turned himself in and agreed to help the FBI capture the rest of the saboteurs. Burger and the rest of the Long Island team were picked up by 22 June, and by 27 June the whole of the Florida team were arrested. The latter were found thanks to a handkerchief that listed German contacts in America in invisible ink.
      To preserve wartime secrecy, President Franklin D. Roosevelt ordered a special military tribunal consisting of seven generals to try the saboteurs. At the end of July, Dasch was sentenced to thirty years in prison, Burger was sentenced to hard labor for life, and the other six Germans were sentenced to die. The six condemned saboteurs are executed in Washington DC, on 08 August.
      In 1948, Dasch and Burger were freed by order of President Harry Truman, and they both returned to Germany.
      In 1944, two other German spies were caught after a landing in Maine. No other instances of German sabotage within wartime America have come to light.
1938 Manuel Linares Rivas, escritor español.
1933 Unos 30 cuando, en La Habana, la multitud que pretendía manifestarse contra la dictadura del general Gerardo Machado Morales es disuelta a tiros por la policía y el ejército. Hay más de 200 heridos.
1926 Frank Myers Boggs (“Frank-Boggs”), US French painter born on 06 December 1855. — The Seine, Outside Paris (1885, 38x56cm).
1918 20 German soldiers, shot in combat by US sergeant Alvin York, who, surrounded together with 5 other US soldiers by Germans in France, is given command .He also takes 132 Germans prisoner.
1915 Miguel Ramos Carrión, escritor cómico español.
1912 Unas 320 personas por una explosión de grisú en una mina de carbón de Bochum (Alemania). Hay numerosos heridos.
1910 Rudolf Epp, German artist born in June 1834.
1902 James Jacques Joseph Tissot, French artist born on 15 October 1836.
1898 Eugène Louis Boudin, French Impressionist painter born on 12 July 1824, specialized in Maritime Scenes. — MORE ON BOUDIN AT ART “4” AUGUST LINKSHarbor at BordeauxThe Beach at TrouvilleFigures on the BeachDunkirk (1889, 46x66cm) — Storm over AntwerpRivage de Portrieux, Côtes-du-NordThe Harvest Near Trouvelle467 images at Webshots
1897 Antonio Canovas del Castillo, político e historiador, primer ministro español, asesinado por un anarquista, en el balneario de Santa Agueda (Guipúzcoa).
1853 Hoëné Wronski, mathematician
1779 Ottajano, Italia, ciudad destruida por una erupción del Vesubio.
1695 Karel van Vogelaer “Distelploom”, Dutch artist born in 1653
1694 Antoine Arnauld, the Jansenist leader who fought to keep Jansen's ideas from condemnation by the Catholic church after Jansen's death.
1685 Giovanni-Battista Salvi “il Sassoferrato”, Italian artist born on 29 August 1609. — MORE ON SALVI AT ART “4” AUGUST LINKSThe Mystic Marriage of Saint CatherineThe Virgin in Prayer
1659 Francisco de Rioja, poeta español.
1648 Ibrahim, the sultan of Istanbul, is thrown into prison, then assassinated.
1616 Cornelis Ketel, Flemish painter born on 18 March 1548. — LINKSCompany of Captain Dirck Jacobsz. Rosecrans and Lieutenant PauwAdam Wachendorff
1588 Alonso Sánchez Cuello, 57, one of the pioneers of the great tradition of Spanish portrait painting. — MORE ON SANCHEZ AT ART “4” AUGUST LINKSLas Infantas Isabel Clara Eugenia y Catalina MicaelaPrince Don Carlos of AustriaPhilip IIInfanta Isabel Clara Eugenia
1555 Fine, mathematician
1471 Thomas A Kempis, 91, Dutch mystic and devotional author. Though most of his years were outwardly uneventful, his book The Imitation of Christ remains in print today, a guide to cultivating the inner human spirit. — KEMPIS ONLINE: (English translations): The Imitation of ChristThe Imitation of Christ)
1306 King Wenceslas of Poland, murdered.
0701 Pope Saint Sergius. When he opposed some rulings of the eastern church, Emperor Justinian II sent to arrest him, but the Exarch of Ravenna protected Sergius.
Births which occurred on an August 08:      ^top^
2000 Gracie and Rosie Attard, conjoined twins, joined at the lower abdomen and sharing a heart and lungs, at St Mary's Hospital in Manchester, England.     ^top^
     Their parents, Michaelangelo, 44, and Rina, 29, Attard, are Catholics, from Gozo island, Malta. They came to have the birth in England hoping to get suitable medical help. The doctors soon decided that the twins would die within months if they are not separated, but that separating them would result in Rosie's death. The parents refused to authorize the separation, as opposed to their religious beliefs. The doctors took the matter to court and got a High Court ruling, confirmed by London's Court of Appeal on 000922, authorizing the operation. The parents then still had the recourse to appeal to Britain's House of Lords and to the European Court of Human Rights.
     [I do not understand why the principle of double effect would not apply here. The intent of the operation is to save Jodie, not to kill Mary, though it is certain that Mary will die as a result. The intended effect is moral, so the operation is moral, unless it requires the direct killing of Mary, which does not seem to me to be the case. It is more like the disconnecting of a life support system.]
     British courts overuling the parents, the operation to separate the twins would be performed in London over 20 hours ending at 05:00 on 7 November 2000. As expected, Rosie died. Gracie recovered well, and will need extensive reconstructive surgery, over a long time, in order to have a somewhat normal life.
1956 El mayor petrolero del mundo, de 84'730 toneladas y 340 metros de eslora, botado en Japón..
1921 Spanier, mathematician
1908 Arthur J. Goldburg, labor lawyer instrumental in the merger of the Amercian Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations.
1902 Paul A. M. Dirac, mathematician who once said: "This result is too beautiful to be false; it is more important to have beauty in one's equations than to have them fit the experiment."
1910 Francisco Brochado Da Rocha PM of Brazil (1962)
1908 Arthur J. Goldberg Illinois, UN ambassador / Supreme Court justice (1962-65)
1902 Paul A.M. Dirac England, theoretical physicist (Nobel 1933)
1901 Dr Ernest Orlando Lawrence Canton SC, , inventor of the cyclotron and winner of the 1939 Nobel Prize for physics.
1896 Marjorie Kinnan, (married name: Rawlings), author of The Yearling (1938), which won a Pulitzer Prize.     ^top^
      The Yearling
is the bittersweet story of Jody Baxter, a backwater boy who adopts a fawn, and comes of age in the big scrub country which is now the Ocala National Forest in Florida.. It was made into a motion picture and over subsequent years gradually assumed the status of a classic.
      She also wrote: South Moon Under (1933), Golden Apples (1935) , When the Whippoorwill (1940 — short stories). Cross Creek (1942; film 1983), describes her life in the Florida country and displayed her striking ability to convey in poetic prose her deep feelings of kinship to nature as well as her sharp ear for dialect and the characteristic regional humor. Cross Creek Cookery, (1942 — regional recipes). The Sojourner (1953), her last book, was set in Michigan. Secret River, a children's book, was published posthumously in 1955. Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings died on 14 December 1953.
1884 Sara Teasdale US, poet (first Pulitzer Prize-1918-"Love Songs") TEASDALE ONLINE: Flame and Shadow, Flame and Shadow (another site), Helen of Troy, and Other Poems, Love Songs, Rivers to the Sea, Sonnets to Duse, and Other Poems
1879 Emiliano Zapata, in Anenecuilco, Mexico.     ^top^
     He would become a revolutionary, peasant leader, champion of agrarianism, who fought in guerrilla actions during and after the Mexican Revolution (1911–17). .
     Born a peasant, Zapata was forced into the Mexican army in 1908 following his attempt to recover village lands taken over by a rancher. After the revolution began in 1910, he raised an army of peasants in the southern state of Morelos under the slogan "Land and Liberty." Demanding simple agrarian reforms, Zapata and his guerrilla farmers opposed the central Mexican government under Francisco Madero, later under Victoriano Huerta, and finally under Venustiano Carranza. Zapata and his followers never gained control of the central Mexican government, but they redistributed land and aided poor farmers within the territory under their control. On April 10, 1919, Zapata was ambushed and shot to death in Morelos by government forces. He died on 19 April 1919
      Zapata's influence has endured long after his death, and his agrarian reform movement, known as zapatismo, remains important to many Mexicans today. In 1994, a guerrilla group calling itself the Zapata Army of National Liberation launched a peasant uprising in the southern state of Chiapas.
1876 The mimeograph is patented by Thomas A. Edison. Four years later, Edison received a second patent for an improved model. The mimeograph machine preceded the electronic copier and was used through the early 1970s.
1869 Louis Valtat, French Fauvist painter who died on 02 January 1952. — LINKS
1865 Matthew A. Henson, explorer with Robert Peary who first reached the North Pole (Though some recent scholarship disputes this claim).
1863 Jules Charles Clément Taupin, French artist who died on 02 September 1932.
1863 Jean Léon Jérome Ferris, US artist who died in 1930.
1861 William Bateson, author. BATESON ONLINE: Mendel's Principles of Heredity: A Defence (1902)(PDF)
1857 Henry Osborn Conn, paleontologist/author (52 Years of Research)
1843 Laurence Hutton. HUTTON ONLINE: editor of : Letters of Charles Dickens to Wilkie Collins
1839 Nelson Miles, future general.      ^top^
      Nelson Miles, one of the most successful but controversial officers in the Plains Indian Wars, is born on a farm in Massachusetts. Unlike many of his future colleagues in the army officer corps, Miles was not born into a life of privilege. As a teen, Miles worked as a clerk, spending his few moments of leisure pursuing a disciplined program of self-improvement through lectures, night school, and reading. When a war between the states seemed imminent in 1860, he concentrated his efforts on studying military tactics. He joined the Union Army as soon as the conflict erupted, and his gift for making effective tactical use of terrain won him rapid advances in rank.
      In 1869, Miles assumed command of the 5th Infantry at Fort Hays, Kansas, and began his career as an Indian fighter. Miles was a courageous and bold officer, with an outstanding ability to organize and supply a large army. He was also arrogant and pompous, and he shamelessly maneuvered to advance his own career at the expense of his fellow officers. He considered many of his colleagues incompetent fools-especially those who had graduated from West Point-and was equally disliked in return.
      Following the disastrous defeat of Custer's 7th Cavalry at the Little Big Horn in late June 1876, Miles was given the task of running down the offending Sioux and Cheyenne Indians. Miles proved a highly effective opponent, craftily mixing threats of force with offers of good treatment if the hostile Indians agreed to surrender. Eventually, Miles succeeded in winning the surrender of thousands of Plains Indians.
      Miles most celebrated victory came in 1886, when he secured the peaceful surrender of Geronimo and a small band of renegade Apache warriors. Although many other officers had played a role in encouraging Geronimo's surrender, Miles characteristically accepted full credit for winning the surrender of the last hostile Indian in the US He was less eager to accept blame for the massacre of at least 200 Indians at Wounded Knee four years later. Although Miles was not at Wounded Knee and regarded the massacre as an unforgivable blunder, the soldiers who participated had been under his command.
      After 1895, Miles left the West and was appointed to a variety of prestigious posts in Washington, DC. He eventually achieved the rank of lieutenant general before retiring. When the United States entered World War I, he volunteered to resume active duty. The war department tactfully declined to give the 77-year-old retired warrior a position. He died on 15 May 1925.
1819 Charles Anderson Dana. DANA ONLINE: The United States Illustrated: in Views of City and Country
1795 José María Obando del Campo, militar y político colombiano.
1736 Lorenzo Baldissera Tiepolo, Venitian artist specialized in genre scenes in pastel, who died in 1776 before 08 August.
1646 Gottfried Kniller, who would become Sir Godfrey Kneller, German English Baroque era painter, specialized in Portraits, who died in 1723 some time between 19 October and 27 October. — Portrait of Godfrey Kneller by John Faber the YoungerMORE ON KNELLER AT ART “4” AUGUST LINKSThe Chinese ConvertEdward and Lady Mary HowardGrinling GibbonsJohn LockeIsaac NewtonDorothy Mason, Lady Brownlowe
1492 Saint Jerome's Letters is published. Its title page is a woodcut by a rising artist, Albrecht Dürer, born on 21 May 1471, whom few artists would equal as an engraver. Dürer is akin to Leonardo in his restless intellectual curiosity. He wrote and published theoretical works: Manual of Measurement (1525); Various Instructions for the Fortification of Towns, Castles and other Localities (1527). His Four Books on Human Proportion were published in October 1528, after his 06 April 1528 death. — MORE ON DÜRER AT ART “4” AUGUST LINKS Self-Portrait at 13Self-Portrait at 22Self-Portrait at 26Self-Portrait at 28Saint Jerome in His StudySaint Jerome in the WildernessSaint Jerome Penitent in the LandscapeSaint Jerome Seated Near a Pollard WillowSaint Jerome [with a headache?]Saint John's ChurchHouse by a PondThe Four Horsemen of the ApocalypseThe Martyrdom of the Ten ThousandThe Adoration by the MagiLamentation for ChristThe Adoration of the Holy TrinityThe Virgin and Child Before an ArchwayKnight, Death and the Devil  — Portrait of Dürer's Father at 70Portrait of Oswolt KrelPortrait of Bernard von ReesenPortrait of Hieronymus HolzschuherFrederick the WiseThe Seven Sorrows of the VirginThe Jabach AltarpieceLot Fleeing with His Daughters from SodomThe Paumgartner AltarpieceWillow MillA Young HareThe Large TurfMelencolia IEmperor MaximilianThe Four Holy Men
Holidays Afghanistan : Independence Day (1919) / Ivory Coast : Independence Day (1960) / Nepal : Tij Day- Woman's holiday

Religious Observances RC : SS Cyriacus, Largus, Smaragdus, martyrs / Ang, RC : St Dominic, priest/friar / Santo Domingo, presbítero.

Thoughts for the day: “Someone whom you reject today, will reject you tomorrow.” [then I'll reject that someone again the day after tomorrow...]
“If you don't go to your friends' funerals, they won't go to yours.” [but if you do go to your friends' funerals, it's much more certain that they won't go to yours]
“I prefer to go to my enemies' funerals and the one funeral I absolutely refuse to go to is my own.”
"Men make counterfeit money; in many more cases, money makes counterfeit men." -
Sydney J. Harris, US journalist (1917-1986).
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