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Events, deaths, births, of 19 AUG

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On a 19 August:
2002 In the early morning in Midvale, suburb of Salt Lake City, police dogs capture Javier Sickler, 28, stopping him from killing an 11-year-old girl which he is beating viciously about the head with a hammer after raping her. He had abducted her from her bedroom at about 01:30, in sight of her 10-year-old brother. The girl, in critical condition, is rushed to Primary Children's Medical Center in Salt Lake City, where she undergoes nine hours of surgery for multiple bone fractures to her face.
1999 Chechnya war:      ^top^
Russian Defense Minister Igor Sergeyev and Interior Minister Vladimir Rushailo visit Dagestan. Sergeyev promises that militants will be eliminated "within a very short period."
Russian troops rebuffed in an attempt to storm Tando, a village occupied by fighters from Chechnya. Eight servicemen are reported killed, the figure is later revised downward to four.
Shamil Basayev puts his troops on alert for second stage of operations believed to target Khasavyurt in the north of Dagestan — http://www.cdi.org/issues/Europe/aug.html
1996 Former Arkansas governor Jim Guy Tucker is sentenced to four years' probation for his Whitewater crimes.
1992 IBM and Sears team up for ISP      ^top^
      The media reported that IBM and Sears, Roebuck and Co. would work together to create a voice-and-data network service called "Advantis." The two companies had already been working together since the mid-1980s to create the online service Prodigy. With their entry into Internet provider services, the companies expected to generate at least $1 billion a year in revenue.
1991 An “emergency committee” of Communist hardliners, set up the previous day, orders tanks into the streets of Moscow and deposes Mikhail Gorbachev, vacationing in the Crimea. The coup is defeated the next day by popular demonstrations and a general strike called by Russian federation President Boris N. Yeltsin.
1989 Tadeusz Mazowiecki, elected first non-communmist president of Poland.
1988 Iran-Iraq begin a cease-fire in their 8-year-old war (11 PM EDT)
1981 2 US Navy F-14 jet fighters shot down 2 Soviet-built Libyan SU-22
1978 Balloon crosses Atlantic      ^top^
      The Double Eagle, a helium-filled balloon piloted by Ben Abruzzo, Maxie Anderson, and Larry Newman of Albuquerque, New Mexico, touched down in Paris, France, on 19 19 August78. The three Americans, who had set off from Presque Island, Maine, six days earlier, thus accomplished the first transatlantic balloon crossing in history. The men also set a new endurance record for their 138 hours and six minutes in the air.
1972 Vietnam: Democratic candidate McGovern attacks Nixon policy in Vietnam      ^top^
      Democratic presidential candidate George McGovern attacks US pacification techniques of applying "massive firepower and free-fire zones and [clearing] 6 million people out of their homes." McGovern, a senator from South Dakota, had long been an outspoken opponent of the war in Southeast Asia and had begun calling for withdrawal of US troops in early 1965. In 1972, he campaigned on a liberal reform platform, callling for an immediate end to US involvement in the Vietnam War. He also advocated making the Democratic party more responsive to youth, women, and minorities. Despite McGovern's attempt to appear more "mainstream," his opponent, incumbent President Richard Nixon, effectively portrayed McGovern as a radical and was able to draw moderate Democrats to the Republican camp. In addition, many of McGovern's domestic reform ideas alienated many old-line Democrats who also switched their support to Nixon. McGovern's campaign was further damaged when his first choice for running mate, Thomas Eagleton, admitted that he had been treated for mental illness. His second choice, Sargent Shriver, added very little to the ticket. Badly split, the Democrats suffered one of the worst defeats in US political history when Nixon and Spiro T. Agnew won in a landslide. Also on this day: In South Vietnam, the Nguyen Hue Offensive continues with major fighting near the northern district capital Que Son and neighboring Fire Base Ross. After a heavy bombardment, the North Vietnamese captured both the town and the base, giving the Communist control of most of Quang Nam province.
1970 Vietnam: Cambodia and US sign military aid pact Cambodia and the US sign a military aid agreement worth $40 million for the fiscal year ending on 30 June 1971. The equipment included small arms, ammunition, communications equipment, spare parts and training funds.
1968 Vietnam: Many Americans against a bombing halt      ^top^
      A Harris survey indicates that 61% of those polled are against calling a halt to the bombing in Vietnam. President Johnson, in a major speech at the Veterans of Foreign Wars convention in Detroit, challenged Hanoi to respond to the limitations of the bombing campaign that he had announced in March. But he refused to curtail other military activities in Southeast Asia, saying that, "there are some among us who appear to be searching for a formula which would get us out of Vietnam and Asia on any terms, leaving the people of South Vietnam and Laos and Thailand...to an uncertain fate."
1965 US forces destroy a Viet Cong stronghold near Van Tuongin South Vietnam.
1960 Captured US spy pilot is sentenced to ten years in prison.      ^top^
      In the USS.R., American U-2 pilot Francis Gary Powers is sentenced to ten years in a Soviet prison for his confessed espionage.
      On 01 May 1960, Powers's U-2 high altitude reconnaissance aircraft was shot down over central Russia, forcing him to bail out at 5000 meters. The CIA-employed pilot survived the parachute jump from his crippled aircraft, but was picked up by the Soviet authorities, who immediately arrested him. On May 5, Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev announced the capture of the American spy, and vowed that he would put him on trial. After initial denials, US President Dwight D. Eisenhower admitted on May 7 that the unarmed reconnaissance aircraft was indeed on a spy mission. In response, Khrushchev cancelled a long-awaited summit meeting in Paris, and in August, Powers was sentenced to ten years in a Soviet prison for his confessed espionage. However, a year-and-a-half later, the Soviets agreed to release him in exchange for Rudolph Abel, a Soviet spy caught and convicted in the United States five years earlier. Upon returning to the US, the CIA and the Senate cleared Powers of any personal blame for the incident.
     On 01 May 1960, Powers took off from Pakistan at the controls of an ultra-sophisticated Lockheed U-2 high-altitude reconnaissance aircraft. A CIA-employed pilot, he was to fly over more than 3'000 km of Soviet territory to Bodö military airfield in Norway, collecting intelligence information en route. Roughly halfway through his journey, he was shot down by the Soviets over Sverdlovsk in the Ural Mountains. Forced to bail out at 5000 meters altitude, he survived the parachute jump but was promptly arrested by Soviet authorities.
      On 05 May, Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev announced that the American spy aircraft had been shot down and two days later revealed that Powers was alive and well and had confessed to being on an intelligence mission for the CIA. On 07 May, the United States acknowledged that the U-2 had probably flown over Soviet territory but denied that it had authorized the mission. On 16 May, leaders of the United States, the USSR, Britain, and France met in Paris for a long-awaited summit meeting. The four powers were to discuss tensions in the two Germanys and negotiate new disarmament treaties. However, at the first session, the summit collapsed after President Dwight D. Eisenhower refused to apologize to Khrushchev for the U-2 incident. Khrushchev also canceled an invitation for Eisenhower to visit the USSR.
      In August, Powers pleaded guilty to espionage charges in Moscow and was sentenced to 10 years imprisonment — three in prison and seven in a prison colony. However, only 18 months later, the Soviets agreed to release him in exchange for Rudolf Abel, a senior KGB spy who was caught and convicted in the United States five years earlier. On February 10, 1962, Powers and Abel were brought to separate sides of the Glienicker Bridge, which connected East and West Berlin across Lake Wannsee. As the spies waited, negotiators talked in the center of the bridge where a white line divided East from West. Finally, Powers and Abel were waved forward and walked past each other to freedom.
      Upon returning to the United States, Powers was cleared by the CIA and the Senate of any personal blame for the U-2 incident. In 1970, he published a book, Operation Overflight, about the incident and in 1977 was killed in the crash of a helicopter he flew as a reporter for a Los Angeles television station.
1960 Sputnik 5 carries 2 dogs, 3 mice into orbit (later recovered alive) [cats were ruled out]
1958 NAACP Youth Council begin sit-ins at Oklahoma City Lunch counters
1957 The first balloon flight to exceed 100'000 feet (30'480 m) altitude takes off from Crosby, Minnesota.
1954 Ralph J Bunche named undersecretary of UN
1944 In an effort to prevent a Communist uprising in Paris, Charles DeGaulle begins attacking German forces all around the city.
1942 First US offensive in Pacific in WW2, Guadalcanal, Solomon Island.
1934 German voters make Hitler a dictator.      ^top^
      A plebiscite in Germany approved the vesting of sole executive power in Adolf Hitler.
      Adolf Hitler, already chancellor, is also elected president of Germany in an unprecedented consolidation of power in the short history of the republic. In 1932, German President Paul von Hindenburg, old, tired, and a bit senile, had won re-election as president, but had lost a considerable portion of his right/conservative support to the Nazi Party. Those close to the president wanted the cooperation of Hitler and the Nazis. Hindenburg had contempt for the Nazis' lawlessness, but ultimately agreed to oust his chancellor, Heinrich Bruning, for Franz von Papen, who was willing to appease the Nazis by lifting the ban on Hitler's Brown Shirts and unilaterally canceling Germany's reparation payments, imposed by the Treaty of Versailles at the close of World War I.
      But Hitler was not appeased. He wanted the chancellorship for himself. Von Papen's authoritarian rule alienated his supporters, and he too was forced to resign. Von Papen then made common cause with Hitler, persuading President Hindenburg to appoint Hitler chancellor and himself vice-chancellor. He promised the president that he would restrain Hitler's worst tendencies and that a majority of the Cabinet would go to non-Nazis. As Hindenburg's current chancellor could no longer gain a majority in the Reichstag, and Hitler could bring together a larger part of the masses and a unified right/conservative/nationalist coalition, the president gave in.
      In January 1933, Hitler was named chancellor of Germany. But that was not enough for Hitler either. In February 1933, Hitler blamed a devastating Reichstag fire on the communists (its true cause remains a mystery) and convinced President Hindenburg to sign a decree suspending individual and civil liberties, a decree Hitler used to silence his political enemies with false arrests.
      Upon the death of Hindenburg in 1934, Hitler proceeded to purge the Brown Shirts (his storm troopers), the head of which, Ernst Roem, had began voicing opposition to the Nazi Party's terror tactics. Hitler had Roem executed without trial, which encouraged the army and other reactionary forces within the country to urge Hitler to further consolidate his power by merging the presidency and the chancellorship. This would make Hitler commander of the army as well. 38 million Germans vote in a plebiscite on 19 August. Intimidation, and fear of the communists, give Hitler a 90 percent majority. He is now an unrestrained dictator
1927 Last Model T Ford      ^top^
      Henry and Edsel Ford drove the fifteen millionth Model T off the assembly line at the Highland Park plant in Michigan, officially ending Model T production. Production in England ends on 19 August; in Ireland on December 31. After revolutionizing the automobile market, sales of the Model T had started to falter due to its failure to keep up with the competition. Total world Model T production: 15'458'781.
1914 The British Expeditionary Force (BEF) lands in France.
1886 Joseph Conrad becomes a British citizen      ^top^
     Joseph Conrad, born Jozef Teodor Konrad Nalecz Korzeniowski in Poland, becomes a British citizen. Conrad's father had been a Polish poet and patriot. He was arrested in 1861 for his political activism and exiled to northern Russia. His wife and toddler son Jozef joined him. He and his wife died of tuberculosis when Jozef was about 12. An uncle raised Jozef, until the boy set out at age 17 for Marseilles, France, where he joined the merchant marines and sailed to the West Indies.
      Conrad's many harrowing adventures at sea set the scenes for much of his work. In 1878, when Conrad was 21, he traveled to England as a deck hand on a British freighter. He learned English during six voyages on a small British trade boat and spent 16 years with the British merchant navy. He had numerous adventures around the world and got his first command in 1888. The following year, he commanded a Congo River steamboat for four months, which set the stage for his well-known story The Heart of Darkness (1902).
      Conrad began writing in the late 1890s. His first novel, Almayer's Folly, was published in 1895. The following year, he married an English girl and gave up the sea to write full time. His work progressively grew from hearty sea-adventure tales to sophisticated and pessimistic explorations of morals, personal choices, and character. His best-known works, including Lord JimNostromo, and The Secret Agent, were published between 1900 and 1911, but he did not become financially secure from his fiction until about 1910. He died on 3 Aug 1924.
CONRAD ONLINE: : Lord JimNostromoThe Secret AgentThe Heart of Darkness.
1848 Gold in California: news reach the US East      ^top^
      Though gold was discovered in California in January of 1848, the news didn't make it to the East Coast until 19 August when the New York Herald let the East Coast know the rush was on. Until this date, there had been rumors, but people remained skeptical without an official report. However, the Herald's story, coupled with an official confirmation by President James Polk, erases any doubts.
      And with that, people went to find their fortune in America's Wild West. Those who made it to California a long, arduous, and sometimes deadly journey found boomtowns filled with everyone from entrepreneurs to unscrupulous shysters, all practicing their own brand of unfettered capitalism. People earned money by providing various services to miners. Demand for domestic skills, such as washing clothes, meant that for the first time women could charge healthy rates for their work. A shortage of women in the West created even easier ways of making money: One man charged $5.00 for the privilege of gawking at his fiancée during their wedding. If only gold had been so easy to come by. While some miners found their fortunes, the gold rush ruined many other people who had picked up their lives and made a mad dash for money that they never found.
1841 Bankruptcy laws in force in the US. Before their repeal a few years later, 33'737 persons will have availed themselves of the opportunity to voluntarily declare bankruptcy.
1812 Old Ironsides earns its nickname.      ^top^
      During the War of 1812, the US Navy frigate Constitution, commanded by Commodore Isaac Hull, defeated the British ship Guerrière in a furious engagement off the coast of Nova Scotia. Witnesses claimed that the British cannonballs merely bounced off the Constitution's sides, as if the ship was made of iron rather than wood. The success of "Old Ironsides" against the formidable British navy was a tremendous morale booster for the young American republic.
[Paintings of the engagement between the Constitution and the Guerrière at ART “4” 2~DAY, by Birch, by Chambers.]
      The Constitution was one of six frigates that in 1794 Congress requested be built to help protect American merchant fleets from attacks by Barbary pirates off the coast of Tripoli and harassment by British and French forces. It was constructed in Boston, and the bolts fastening its timbers and copper sheathing were provided by the industrialist and patriot Paul Revere. Launched on 21 October 1797, the Constitution was 62 meters long, displaced 2200 tons, and was rated as a 44-gun frigate (although it often carried as many as 50 guns)..
      In July 1798 it was put to sea with a crew of 450 and cruised the West Indies, protecting US shipping from French privateers. In 1803, President Thomas Jefferson ordered the US warship to the Mediterranean to fight Barbary pirates off the coast of Tripoli. The vessel performed commendably during the conflict, participating in four bombardments of enemy forts and destroying or capturing five enemy ships. In 1805 a peace treaty with Tripoli was signed on the Constitution's deck.
     When war broke out with Britain in June 1812, the Constitution was commanded by Isaac Hull, who served as lieutenant on the ship during the Tripolitan War. Scarcely a month later, on 16 July, the Constitution encountered a squadron of five British ships off Egg Harbor, New Jersey. Finding itself surrounded, the Constitution was preparing to escape when suddenly the wind died. With both sides dead in the water and just out of gunnery range, a legendary slow-speed chase ensued. For 36 hours, the Constitution's crew kept their ship just ahead of the British by towing the frigate with rowboats and by tossing the ship's anchor ahead of the ship and then reeling it in. At dawn on 18 July, a breeze sprang, and the Constitution was far enough ahead of its pursuers to escape by sail.
      One month later, on 19 August, the Constitution catches the British warship Guerrière alone about 1000 km east of Boston. After considerable maneuvering, the Constitution delivers its first broadside, and for 20 minutes the US and British vessels bombard each other in close and violent action. The British man-of-war is de-masted and rendered a wreck while the Constitution escapes with only minimal damage. The unexpected victory of Old Ironsides against a British frigate helped unite the US behind the war effort and made Commander Hull a national hero. The Constitution went on to defeat or capture seven more British ships in the War of 1812 and ran the British blockade of Boston twice.
      After the war, Old Ironsides served as the flagship of the navy's Mediterranean squadron and in 1828 was laid up in Boston. Two years later, the navy considered scrapping the Constitution, which had become unseaworthy, leading to an outcry of public support for preserving the famous warship. The navy refurbished the Constitution, and it went on to serve as the flagship of the Mediterranean, Pacific, and Home squadrons.
      In 1844, the frigate left New York City on a global journey that included visits to numerous international ports as a goodwill agent of the United States. In the early 1850s, it served as flagship of the African Squadron and patrolled the West African coast looking for slave traders. In 1855, the Constitution retired from active military service, but the famous vessel continued to sail, first as a training ship and later as a national treasure.
      Since 1934, the Constitution has been based at the Charlestown Navy Yard in Boston. Over the years, Old Ironsides has enjoyed a number of restorations, the most recent of which was completed in 1997, allowing it to sail for the first time in 116 years. Today, the Constitution is the world's oldest commissioned warship afloat.
1787 W. Herschel discovers Enceladus, a moon of Saturn.
1785 Congress empowers the US Treasury Board to standardize the nation's weights and measures.
1779 Americans under Major Henry Lee take the British garrison at Paulus Hook, New Jersey.
1772 Gustavus III of Sweden eliminates the rule of parties and establishes an absolute monarchy.
1587 Sigismund III is chosen to be the king of Poland.
1561 Mary Proclaimed Queen of Scots      ^top^
      After thirteen years in France, Mary, the wife of the late King Francis II of France, returns to Scotland and is proclaimed queen. In 1542, while just six days old, Mary ascended to the Scottish throne upon the death of her father, King James V. Her mother sent her to be raised in the French court, and in 1558 she married the French dauphin, who became King Francis II of France in 1559, and died in the following year. After Francis's death, Mary returned to Scotland to assume her designated role as the country's monarch, and in 1565 married her English cousin Lord Darnley in order to reinforce her claim of succession to the English throne after Queen Elizabeth's death.
      In 1567, Darnby was mysteriously killed in an explosion at Kirk o' Field, and Mary's lover, the Earl of Bothwell, was the key suspect. Although Bothwell was acquitted of the charge, his marriage to Mary in the same year enraged the nobility, and she was forced to abdicate in favor of her son by Darnby, James. In 1568, she escaped from captivity and raised a substantial army, but was defeated and fled to England. Queen Elizabeth I initially welcomed Mary, but was soon forced to put her friend under house arrest after Mary became the focus of various English Catholic and Spanish plots to overthrow Elizabeth. Nineteen years later, in 1586, a major plot to murder Elizabeth was uncovered, and Mary was brought to trial, convicted for complicity, and sentenced to death. On 08 February 1587, Mary Queen of Scots was beheaded for treason at Fotheringhay Castle in England. Her son, King James VI of Scotland, calmly accepted his mother's execution, and upon Queen Elizabeth's death in 1603, he became James I, king of England, Scotland, and Ireland.
1493 Maximilian succeeds his father Frederick III as Holy Roman Emperor.
1263 King James I of Aragon censors Hebrew writings
1099 The armies of the First Crusade defeat the Saracens at the Battle of Ascalon (an historic Palestinian city on the Mediterranean), one month after they had captured Jerusalem.
TO THE TOP
Deaths which occurred on an 19 August:
2002 Ester Schwimmer, 5 months, and a young black bear, (probably in the first season it was on its own) who kidnaps her, then, pursued, drops her, fatally injured in the head and neck, from its mouth, and is later shot by police, without trial or any legal formalities. When Ester's mother had seen the bear approaching the porch of the vacation bungalow where the family, from Brooklyn, was staying, she took her 4- and 2-year-olds inside, foolishly leaving the infant. When she returned outside, the bear had fled with Ester in its mouth.
2002:: 115 of the 147 aboard an overloaded Russian military helicopter, coming from Mosdok, Ingushetia, overloaded with soldiers and some relatives (all 5 crew members survive),
Which, with the engine on fire, apparently shot down by a Strela shoulder-fired missile of Chechen patriots, makes an emergency landing just before 17:00 in a minefield protecting the the Russian base at Khankala, Chechnya. Detonating mines engulf the helicopter in flames, others kill some of the survivors who manage to get out. Among the dead are several officers' wives and the child of a nurse. The Mi-26 is the heaviest and most powerful transport helicopter in the world, designed to carry 82 persons.
2001 Samir Abu Zeid, Palestinian activist, his daughter Inez, 7, and son Suleiman, 5, when their their home in the town of Rafah, Gaza Strip, is hit, during an exchange of fire, by an Israeli rocket (according to the Palestinians) or a Palestinian mortar shell falling short of its target (according to the first Israeli version) or a bomb which Samir was preparing in his yard (the final Israeli version, the most likely one). This brings the al-Aqsa intifada body count to 575 Palestinians and 152 Israelis.
2001 Muhammad Arrar, 13, Palestinian shot in the chest by Israeli soldiers patrolling the Israel-Egypt border in the southern Gaza Strip, who were firing back at Palestinian militants throwing grenades and fired rifles at them.
2001 Moeen Abu Lawi, 38, Palestinian, shot in the neck by Israeli soldiers enforcing the blockade of Nablus, West Bank, from where Lawi was returning after having sneaked in to buy books for his shop in a neighboring community.
1991 Gavin Cato, 7, Black, and Yankel Rosenbaum, 29, Jewish. Rioting erupts in the Brooklyn NY neighborhood of Crown Heights after Gavin Cato is struck and killed by the car driven by Yosef Lifsh, a Jew from the ultra-Orthodox Lubavitch community. Three hours later, a gang of Blacks fatally stabs Rosenbaum, a rabinnical student. The violence rages over the next two days — including 188 injured and angry crowds breaking windows, shouting “Heil Hitler!” and burning the Israeli flag. A grand jury would decline to charge Lifsh, who would move to Israel. Lemrick Nelson Jr., 16, Black, would be charged with killing Rosenbaum but acquitted in state court. In federal court, he would be convicted of violating Rosenbaum's civil rights and be sentenced to 20 years in prison, along with Charles Price, another Black, who was videotaped provoking the rioters. But, on 07 January 2002, the 2nd US Circuit Court of Appeals would overturn their convictions, saying that the trial judge's efforts to secure an unbiased jury were unconstitutional and the defendants actually wound up with a juror who had shown bias during jury selection) and order a new trial before a properly chosen jury.
1980: 301 persons in plane crash of Saudi Arabian Lockheed Tristar, on landing at Riyadh
1978:: 422 moviegoers, in an arson fire at a cinema in Iran
1977 Julius (Groucho) Marx, 86, comedian (Marx Brothers)
1958 The Packard car.        ^top^
     The production of the elegant Packard line ends, soon after Packard’s acquisition of Studebaker. Studebaker-Packard attributes the decision to lagging luxury car sales. Many wondered why Packard, with its reputation for high-quality cars and knowledgeable management, would buy the debt-ridden Studebaker Company. Studebaker's management, not Packard's, took over after the merger.
1957 David Bomberg, British painter born on 05 December 1890. — MORE ON BOMBERG AT ART “4” AUGUST LINKS —// From the booklet Russian Ballet: Image 3Image 6Image 2Image 4Image 1Image 5
1955 Some 200 by floods in the US Northeast.
1942: 3600 Allied Dieppe raiders and some Germans.      ^top^
     During World War II, General John H. Roberts leads an Allied force of some 7000 men carry out a large daytime raid against German positions at the French seaport of Dieppe. Aided by tanks and aircraft, the commando force — made up of approximately 5000 Canadians, 2000 British soldiers, and a handful of American and Free French troops — gain a foothold on the beach in the face of a furious German defense. During nine hours of fighting, the Allies fail to destroy most of their targets, and lose 3600 men, 106 aircraft, a destroyer, thirty-three landing craft, and thirty tanks. The Dieppe raid would provide information valuable for planning the successful Allied landings in Northern Africa, Sicily, and Normandy.
1936 Federico García Lorca, 38, Spanish poet and dramatist, summarily executed.      ^top^
     He is shot without trial, in the night of 19~20 August, shortly after the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War, by Franco's troops after being forced to dig his own grave, in the city where he had grown up, Granada, to which he had fled from Madrid is July. [The Falange has no need of poets?]
     Born on 05 June 1898, García Lorca was noted for his poems of death and for his trilogy of folk dramas Bodas de Sangre (1933), Yerma (1934), and La Casa de Bernarda Alba ( June 1936).
     His father made him study law, but Frederico abandoned it to study music, for which he was quite gifted, literature, and painting. In 1918 he published a prose book about a trip in Castile: Impresiones y Paisajes. As a student at the University of Madrid, he became known as a poet who said that verse is made to be recited, not laid dead in a book. García Lorca became friends with such contemporaries as painter Salvador Dali, filmmaker Luis Buñuel, and poet Rafael Alberti, and met older ones, such as poet Juan Ramón Jiménez.
    Eventually García Lorca did publish Libro de Poemas (1921), Primera Canciones (1936), Canciones (1927). His first play, El Maleficio de la Mariposa, closed after one night in 1920. He wrote Poema del Cante Jondo in 1922, Romancero Gitano in 1927.
     García Lorca had his first success in the theater in 1927 in Barcelona with the poetic and romantic drama Mariana Pineda, with scenery by Salvador Dali. The first public exhibition of García Lorca's drawings was held in 1927 in Barcelona.
     In 1929-1930 García Lorca made a trip to Cuba and to the US and wrote Poeta en Nueva York.
     Then he wrote the poems of Diván del Tamarit, the retabillos (puppet plays) Los Títeres de Cachiporra and Retabillo de Don Cristóbal.
     The inspiration for Bodas de Sangre came from a news item: a bride had fled on her wedding day with her secret lover, and groom and lover killed each other. Lorca makes pawns of fate out of the characters, trapped in a conflict between passion and civilization's code. Yerma, is about a childless woman who kills her sterile husband. La Casa de Bernarda Alba, almost entirely in prose, is about four hateful and lustful sisters who emprison their mother in a house of mourning.
GARCIA LORCA ONLINE: Obras Completas
Los caballos negros son.
Las herraduras son negras.
Sobre las capas relucen
manchas de tinta y de cera.
Tienen, por eso no lloran,
de plomo las calaveras.
Con el alma de charol
vienen por la carretera.
[from Romance de la Guardia Civil: they are riding toward a gypsy village.]
A las cinco de la tarde.
Eran las cinco en punto de la tarde.
Un niño trajo la blanca sábana
a las cinco de la tarde.
Una espuerta de cal ya prevenida
a las cinco de la tarde.
Lo demás era muerte y sólo muerte
a las cinco de la tarde.
[from Lamento por Ignacio Sánchez Mejía, a bullfighter friend who died in 1934 from a goring}
1929 Sergei P. Diaghilev, 57, Russia, Russian ballet impresario and director, died. He founded his Ballets Russes and produced such masterpieces as Stravinsky's Rite of Spring and Firebird.
1918 Roger Joseph Jourdain, French artist born on 11 December 1845.
1905 William Adolphe Bouguereau, French painter born on 30 November 1825. — MORE ON BOUGUEREAU AT ART “4” AUGUST LINKSSelf PortraitThe Broken PitcherLove's ResistanceDanceFraternal LoveMother NymphsBirth of VenusRestSeated NudeStanding AngelBathersBohémienneDestitute Family (Charity)Nymphs and SatyrThe Education of BacchusAdmiration
1895 John Wesley Hardin, one of the bloodiest killers of the Old West, is murdered in a saloon in El Paso, Texas, by off-duty policeman John Selman, who was under threat by Hardin for having arrested his girl friend. An El Paso jury would acquit Selman of the murder.
1862 Settlers, killed by Dakotas bypassing Fort Ridgely      ^top^
      On the third day of the Dakota (Sioux) uprising in Minnesota, warriors debate whether they should attack a garrison inside of Fort Ridgely. Concluding that the fort was too strong, the Dakota moved on to the settlement of New Ulm, killing settlers along the way. The uprising began when the Dakota bands were pushed to the limit during a summer in which their crops were destroyed by insects and many families faced starvation. Attempts to get local merchants to extend them credit failed, and promised provisions from the Federal government were not forthcoming. This came after years of white settlement had whittled the Dakota territory down to a few small, temporary reservations.
      The uprising exploded on 17 August when some young Dakota men killed members of a nearby white family. Knowing that the tribe would be blamed for the atrocity, the Dakota, led by Taoyateduta (also known as Little Crow), began attacking local farms and killing settlers. A force of 46 soldiers was dispatched to head off the Dakota, but they were ambushed along the way, and more than half were killed. The Dakota next headed to the fort, where they found less than 50 soldiers and nearly 200 frightened settlers taking refuge in a cluster of buildings, as the fort had no stockade. On the morning of 19 August the warriors conferred in full view of the garrison and refugees. After deciding that the fort was too strong, the warriors attacked the nearby German community of New Ulm, killing 17 townspeople. The uprising would last for two more months before Union troops subdued the rebellion. More than 500 whites were killed and 2'000 Indians captured. On 26 December 1862, 38 Dakota warriors were hanged for their participation in the uprising.
1822 Jean-Baptiste Delambre, mathematician
1782 Francesco de Mura, Italian painter born on 21 April 1696: — LINKSEcce HomoSelf PortraitThe Madonna and Child with the Infant St. John
1692 Five Salem "witches," hanged in Salem, Massachusetts after being convicted of the crime of witchcraft. Fourteen more people are executed that year and 150 others are imprisoned.
1665 Pierre Antoine Lemoyne, French artist born in 1605.
1662 Blaise Pascal, 39, French mathematician, writer, religious philosopher, and physicist.      ^top^
      The son of a judge in the French tax court, the teenage Pascal invented a calculating device to help his father's tax computations. The counting device relied on a series of wheels divided into 10 parts each, representing the integers 0-9. The wheels, which were connected by gears and turned by a stylus, kept track of sums as numbers were added and subtracted.
PASCAL ONLINE:
  • Correspondance diverse
  • La Machine arithmétique
  • La Machine d'Arithmétique
  • La Machine d'Arithmétique
  • Le "Mémorial"
  • Petits écrits philosophiques et religieux
  • Les Provinciales ou Les lettres écrites par Louis de Montalte à un Provincial de ses Amis et aux RR. PP. Jésuites sur le Sujet de la Morale, et de la Politique de ces Pères
  • Pensées
  • Pensées (éd. 1671)
  • Pensées de M. Pascal sur la Religion et sur quelques autres Sujets, qui ont esté trouvées après sa Mort parmy ses Papiers
  • 1657 Frans Snyders, Flemish painter born on 11 November 1579. — MORE ON SNYDERS AT ART “4” AUGUST LINKSThe Monkey and the Gander [also two humans, a dead deer, most of a dead boar, dead birds, a boiled lobster, fruit] — Still Life with Cats and MonkeysMarket Scene on a QuayA Cook and FoodThe Fruit BasketFish ShopFruit and Vegetable Stall _ detailStill-life with a Basket of FruitStill-lifeVegetable Still-LifeWild Boar HuntStill Life with a SwanFlowers, Fruits and Vegetables. — The Monkey and the Gander
    1646 Francesco Furini, Florentine painter born in 1604. — MORE ON FURINI AT ART “4” AUGUST LINKSSt John the EvangelistLot and his DaughtersJudith and Holofernes
    1493 Frederick III Innsbruck Austria, German Emperor (1440-1493)
    0440 Saint Sixtus III Pope
    -14 -BC- Octavian [Augustus], 48, Roman general
    Births which occurred on a 19 August:
    1946 Bill Clinton, 42nd US President (Democrat), 2nd one to be impeached and not convicted. (Former Little Rock attorney, Arkansas governor)
    1939 Alan Baker, mathematician
    1919 Malcolm Forbes, Sr. (publishing magnate: Forbes magazine), candidate for Republican presidential nomination (1996)
    1915 Ring Lardner (writer: You Know Me, Haircut and Other Stories)
    1906 Philo Farnsworth, in Beaver, Utah, television pioneer      ^top^
          Philo T. Farnsworth would grow up to imagine the principles of television during high school and later begin researching image transmission at Brigham Young University. In 1927 he would transmit the first television image-ironically, a dollar sign-made up of 60 horizontal lines. He went on to patent 165 devices pertaining to the television, including cathode ray tubes, amplifiers, vacuum tubes, and electrical scanners. He cofounded Crocker Research Labs in 1926, which became Farnsworth Television Inc. in 1929, and later Farnsworth Radio and TV Corporation.
    1903 James Gould Cozzens US, 1949-(Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist: Guard of Honor [1948]; S.S. San Pedro, The Last Adam, By Love Possessed)
    1902 Ogden Nash Rye NY, humorous poet (I'm a Stranger Here Myself)
    1899 Bradley Walker Tomlin, US artist who died in 1953.
    1886 The Christian Union is founded by Baptist clergyman Richard G. Spurling (1858-1935) in Monroe County, Tennessee. In 1923, this pentecostal denomination changed its name to the Church of God. Headquartered today in Cleveland, Tennessee, its current membership is nearly 500'000.
    1883 Coco (Gabrielle) Chanel (fashion designer; perfume creator: Chanel #5)
    1881 Georges Enesco (or Enescu) Romania, composer (Romanian Dances)
    1878 Manuel Quezon first president of Philippine Commonwealth (1935-42)
    1871 Orville Wright (one of the Wright Brothers: pioneers in aviation)
    1870 Bernard Baruch financier/presidential adviser (financier; chairman of War Industries Board [WWI]; US representative to UN Atomic Energy Commission; presidential adviser)
    1860 John Kane Scottish-born US primitivist painter (Self-Portrait)
    1858 Edith Nesbit England, author of children's books      ^top^
    ONLINE:
  • Ballads and Lyrics of Socialism, 1883-1908
  • Beautiful Stories from Shakespeare (Gutenberg text)
  • Five Children and It
  • Five Children and It (another site)
  • In Homespun
  • The Incomplete Amorist
  • Many Voices
  • The Phoenix and the Carpet
  • The Railway Children
  • The Railway Children (another site)
  • The Rainbow and the Rose
  • The Red House
  • Songs of Love and Empire
  • The Story of the Amulet
  • The Story of the Amulet (another site)
  • The Story of the Treasure Seekers
  • The Story of the Treasure Seekers (another site)
  • The Wouldbegoods
  • The Wouldbegoods (another site)
  • 1848 Gustave Caillebote, French artist who died on 21 February 1894.
    1844 Minna Canth Finland, novelist/dramatist (social evils)
    1829 Edward Moran, US painter who died on 09 June 1901 — LINKS
    1808 Petrus Jan Schotel, Dutch artist who died on 23 July 1865.
    1805 Josef Dankhauser, Austrian artist who died on 04 May 1845.
    1785 Seth Thomas pioneer in mass production of clocks
    1739 Klügel, mathematician
    1736 Bring, mathematician
    1689 Samuel Richardson English novelist (Pamela) (baptized)
    1646 Flamsteed, mathematician
    1631 (9 August Julian) John Dryden, English poet, dramatist, and literary critic      ^top^
         Dryden so dominated the literary scene of his day that it came to be known as the Age of Dryden,. first official Poet Laureate of Great Britain (1668 to1700). He died on 12 May (1 May Julian) 1700.
    DRYDEN ONLINE:
  • Absalom and Achitophel
  • All for Love
  • All for Love (another site)
  • All for Love (a 3rd site)
  • Discourses on Satire and on Epic Poetry
  • Mac Flecknoe
  • The Medal: A Satire Against Sedition
  • Of Dramatic Poesie
  • Translations by Dryden:
    1621 Gerbrand van den Eeckhout, Dutch biblical, genre, and portrait painter, who died on 29 September 1674. — MORE ON VAN DEN EECKHOUT AT ART “4” AUGUST LINKSThe Continence of ScipioThe Last SupperParty on a Terrace
    1584 Vernier, mathematician
    1398 Iñigo López Spain, marques de Santillana, poet (Comedieta de Ponza)
    Ethiopia : Buhe / US : National Aviation Day (1939)

    Religious Observances Orth : Transfiguration of Our Lord (8/6 OS) / RC : St John Eudes, confessor/priest (opt)
    Thoughts for the day: “There is as much greatness in acknowledging a good turn, as there is in doing it.”
    “When someone dies, why do people go into mourning, and not into eavening?”
    “When the gray sky does not hear prayers for sunshine, why do people say it's a Grade~A, and not a Grade~F?”
    “Why do motorists park on a driveway and drive on a parkway?”

    “Outside of a dog, the best friend of man is a book. Inside of a dog, it's too dark to read.” — Groucho Marx
    "Don't compromise yourself. You are all you've got." -
    Janis Joplin, US rock singer (1943-1970).
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