08 Jul History: This Date

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• North Korea's dictator dies... • Romney is born... • MacArthur given command in Korea... • Paix de Tilsit... • CIA puppet takes power in Guatemala... • Rebs surrender Port Hudson... • Hitler Jugend... • Hemingway wounded... • Boss Tweed exposed... • Soapy Smith dies... • Découverte du polonium...

On a July 08:
2002 N. Rub~Ear creates “AS HELL FREEZES OVER, THE REVEREND ROBERT WALKER COMES HOME TO ROOST SKATING ON THIN ICE”
2001 Elections in Baja California. Eugenio Elorduy, 61, former mayor of Mexicali,.of Partido Acción Nacional, is elected governor for a six-year term. The previous two governors were also from the PAN.
2000 The Pentagon's missile defense project suffered one more setback when a rocket fired from Kwajalein Atoll fails to intercept a target missile launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California.
1997 The Mayo Clinic and the US government warn that the diet-drug combination ''fen-phen'' can cause serious heart and lung damage.
1995 Chinese-American human rights activist Harry Wu is arrested in China and charged with obtaining state secrets. (He would be convicted of espionage and deported.)

1994 MIT and CERN to set Web standards
Newspapers report that the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) will work with the Center for European Nuclear Research (CERN) to develop international standards for the Internet and the developing World Wide Web. The Web, developed by Tim Berners-Lee at CERN in 1989, had started catching on with the public with the introduction of the Mosaic Web browser program in the early 1990s. The joint venture between MIT and CERN promoted a global consensus on standards that would make the Internet work smoothly even in different languages and across different international networks.

1991 Reversing earlier denials, Iraq discloses for the first time that it is carrying out a nuclear weapons program, including the production of enriched uranium.
1990 12:34:56 on 7/8/90 (1234567890)
1986 Kurt Waldheim is inaugurated as president of Austria despite controversy over his ties to Nazi war crimes.
1986 Farthest thrown object-an "Aerobie" flying ring, 383 m
1981 US Senate confirms Sandra Day O'Connor to Supreme Court (99-0)
1975 Quake damages over 2000 temples in Pagan, Burma. 6-meter-high seated Buddha of Thandawgya decapitated
1969 Thor Heyerdahl and reed raft Ra II land in Barbados 57 days from Morocco
1969 US troop withdrawal begins in Vietnam

1965 US ambassador resigns Saigon post ^top^
Ambassador Maxwell Taylor resigns from his post in Vietnam. Former Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge replaced Taylor. As ambassador, Taylor had pressed for the return of civilian rule after a military coup had overthrown President Ngo Dinh Diem in November 1963. Although Taylor had initially opposed the employment of US combat troops, he had come to accept this strategy. However, Taylor had an argument with Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara and General William Westmoreland, US commander in South Vietnam, at a conference in Honolulu in April. He took exception with the shift in strategy from counterinsurgency to large-scale ground operations by US units. According to journalist David Halberstam, this argument marked "the last time that Max Taylor was a major player, his farewell in fact." Upon his return to the United States, Taylor served as a special consultant to President Lyndon B. Johnson and was a member of the Senior Advisory Group — who became known as the "Wise Men" — that convened in March 1968 to advise the president on the course of the war. Also on this day: President Johnson decrees that a Vietnam Service Medal be awarded to Americans serving in the conflict, even though there had been no official declaration of war. There were 16,300 US troops in South Vietnam at the end of 1964. With Johnson's decision to send US combat units, total US strength in South Vietnam would reach 184,300 by the end of 1965.

1954 Conférence de Genève sur l'Indochine commence. ^top^
L'Indochine, à laquelle on a donné ce nom en 1888, rassemble des colonies et des protectorats français : la Cochinchine, conquête de 1862, le Cambodge (1863), la Cochinchine orientale (1867), l'Annam et le Tonkin (1884 et 1885). Lorsque la conférence s'ouvre, Pierre Mendès France, investi par la chambre le 17 juin, s'est engagé à mettre fin à la guerre au Vietnam avant la fin du mois. Le bilan est terrible écrit un journaliste : "Six ans et demi de guerre, 3000 milliards de francs, 92'000 morts et 114'000 blessés." Dans la nuit du 20 au 21 juillet, l'engagement du président du Conseil sera tenu. Le Vietnam est coupé en deux. Le Nord est livré à l'influence chinoise et communiste, le Sud reste sous l'influence occidentale.

1954 Colonel Castillo Armas takes power in Guatemala         ^top^
      Colonel Carlos Castillo Armas is elected president of the junta that overthrew the administration of Guatemalan President Jacobo Arbenz Guzman in late June 1954. The election of Castillo Armas was the culmination of US efforts to remove Arbenz and save Guatemala from what American officials believed to be an attempt by international communism to gain a foothold in the Western Hemisphere. In 1944, Guatemala went through a revolution that saw the removal of a long-time dictator and the establishment of the first democratically elected government in the nation's history. In 1950, Guatemala witnessed another first with the peaceful transfer of power to the newly elected president, Arbenz. Officials in the United States had watched the developments in Guatemala with growing concern and fear. The Guatemalan government, particularly after Arbenz came to power in 1950, had launched a serious effort at land reform and redistribution to Guatemala's landless masses. When this effort resulted in the powerful American-owned United Fruit Company losing many acres of land, US officials began to believe that communism was at work in Guatemala.
      By 1953 and into 1954, the US government was intent on removing Arbenz from power and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) was given this task by President Dwight D. Eisenhower. The CIA established a multifaceted covert operation (code named PBSUCCESS). Beginning in June 1954, the CIA saturated Guatemala with propaganda over the radio and through leaflets dropped over the country, and also began small bombing raids using unmarked airplanes. It also organized and armed a small force of "freedom fighters" — mostly Guatemalan refugees and mercenaries — headed by Castillo Armas. This force, which never numbered more than a few hundred men, had little impact on subsequent events. By late June, the Arbenz government, diplomatically and economically isolated by the United States, came to the conclusion that resistance against the "giant of the north" was futile, and Arbenz resigned on June 27. A short time later, Castillo Armas and his "army" marched into Guatemala City and established a ruling junta. On 08 July 1954, Castillo Armas was elected president of the junta. For the United States, the election of Castillo Armas was the culmination of a successful covert operation against international communism. Secretary of State John Foster Dulles declared that Guatemala had been saved from "communist imperialism." The overthrow of Arbenz had added "a new and glorious chapter to the already great tradition of the American states." Many Guatemalans came to have a different perspective. The new regime rounded up thousands of suspected communists, and executed hundreds of prisoners. Labor unions, which had flourished since 1944, were crushed, and United Fruit's lands were restored. Castillo Armas, however, did not long enjoy his success. He was assassinated in 1957. Guatemalan politics then degenerated into a series of coups and countercoups, coupled with brutal repression of the country's people.

1950 MacArthur named Supreme Commander of UN forces in Korea         ^top^
      The day after the U.N. Security Council recommended that all U.N. forces in Korea be placed under the command of the United States military, General Douglas MacArthur, 70, the hero of the Pacific War, is appointed head of the United Nations Command by President Harry S. Truman.
      MacArthur, the son of a top-ranking Army general, was commissioned as a lieutenant in 1903, and during World War I, served as a commander of the famed Eighty-fourth Infantry Brigade. During the 1920s, he was stationed primarily in the Philippines, a US commonwealth, and in the first half of the 1930s, served as US Army chief of staff. In 1935, with Japanese expansion underway in the Pacific, President Franklin D. Roosevelt appointed MacArthur military adviser to the government of the Philippines. In 1941, five months before Japan bombed Pearl Harbor, he was named commander of all US armed forces in the Pacific.
      After the American entrance into the war, he conducted the defense of the Philippines against great odds. On March of 1942, with Japanese victory imminent, Roosevelt ordered MacArthur to Australia, but the American general promised the Philippines — his adopted home — that "I shall return." Five months later, the great US counter-offensive against Japan began, and on 20 October 1944, after advancing island by island across the Pacific, MacArthur waded ashore onto the Philippines. Eleven months later, he officiated the Japanese surrender and after the war served as effective ruler of Japan during a productive five-year occupation.
      After North Korea invaded South Korea on 25 June 1950, MacArthur is appointed supreme commander of the US-led U.N. force sent to aid the South. In September, the U.N. force successfully landed at Inchon, and by October, North Korean forces had been driven back across the 38th parallel. With President Truman's approval, U.N. forces crossed into North Korea and advanced all the way to the Yalu River — the border between North Korea and Communist China — despite warnings that this would provoke Chinese intervention.
      When China did intervene, forcing U.N. forces into a desperate retreat, MacArthur pressed for permission to bomb Chinese bridges and bases across the border. President Truman, fearing the Cold War implications of an expanded war in the Far East, refused. MacArthur made the dispute public, leading Truman to fire him on 11 April 1951. However, MacArthur was given a hero's welcome upon returning to America, and on 19 April, he addressed a joint meeting of Congress, declaring "old soldiers never die, they just fade away." After unsuccessfully running for the Republican nomination in 1952, MacArthur faded from the public view. He died on 05 April 1964.

1949 La France préside le Conseil de l'Europe ^top^
La France prend officiellement ses fonctions au Conseil de l'Europe (créé le 5 mai précédent). Il a pour objectif de réaliser une union de plus en plus étroite entre les pays européens que sont la Belgique, le Danemark, la France, la Grande-Bretagne, l'Irlande, l'Italie, le Luxembourg, la Norvège, les Pays-Bas et la Suède. Ce Conseil décide qu'une couronne d'étoiles d'or sur fond bleu est désormais le drapeau de l'Europe. L'Hymne à la joie de La IXe Symphonie de Ludwig van Beethoven devient l'hymne.

1948 The Moscow Conference convenes to celebrate the 500th anniversary of the independence of the Russian Orthodox Church from control of the Eastern Orthodox Patriarchate of Constantinople.

1946 Start of computing lectures ^top^
The success of ENIAC, the first widely publicized electronic computer, drew the attention of the public and the scientific community worldwide. Newspapers, newsreels, and scientific publications covered the computer after its inauguration in February 1946. The Moore School responded to the growing demand of the scientific community to learn more about electronic computers by the inviting 40 participants from major research organizations to a summer course beginning on 08 July 1946. The lectures, which continued for eight weeks, were instrumental in spreading the understanding of electronic computing to major universities in America and England.

1941 General's diary: Hitler plans to exterminate Moscow and Leningrad         ^top^
     Upon the German army's invasion of Pskov, 180 miles from Leningrad, Russia, the chief of the German army general staff, General Franz Halder, records in his diary Hitler's plans for Moscow and Leningrad: "To dispose fully of their population, which otherwise we shall have to feed during the winter."
      On June 22, the Germans had launched a massive invasion of the Soviet Union, with over 3 million men. Enormous successes were enjoyed, thanks in large part to a disorganized and unsuspecting Russian army. By 08 July more than 280'000 Soviet prisoners had been taken and almost 2600 tanks destroyed. The Axis power was already some 300 km inside Soviet territory. Stalin was in a panic, even executing generals who had failed to stave off the invaders.
      Franz Halder, as chief of staff, had been keeping a diary of the day-to-day decision-making process. As Hitler became emboldened by his successes in Russia, Halder recorded that the "Fuhrer is firmly determined to level Moscow and Leningrad to the ground." Halder also records Hitler's underestimation of the Russian army's numbers and the bitter infighting between factions within the military about strategy. Halder, among others, wanted to make straight for the capital, Moscow; Hitler wanted to meet up with Field Marshal Wilhelm Leeb's army group, which was making its way toward Leningrad. The advantage Hitler had against the Soviets would not last. Winter was approaching and so was the advantage such conditions would give the Russians.

1933 Hitler Jugend         ^top^
      Une première unique dans l’histoire: la réunion aux mains d’un seul ministère et d’un seul homme, Baldur von Schirach (qui ne dépend que de Hitler), de toutes les organisations de jeunesse : il s’agit de la Hitlerjugend : " les Jeunesses Hitlériennes " qui comptera à certains moments près de 2 millions de jeunes. La mainmise est totale, la famille perd nombre de ses droits traditionnels, les enfants sont " forcé " moralement et mentalement à se consacrer tout entiers au Führer. Les jeunes sont pris en charge de 8 à 18 ans, soit par l’école, soit par des centres d’activités de loisirs et de vacances aux mains des responsables de la " HitlerJugend ".
      Les jeunes y subissent une formation solide à l’Hygiène (refus du tabac et de l’alcool, pour préserver la race), au Culte de la Nature mais aussi à l’histoire de l’Allemagne à la grandeur du Reich, à la pratique des armes, à la délation (même de leurs propres parents !). La liberté sexuelle y est grande, mais exclusivement entre purs aryens. C’est un véritable outil au service exclusif du Parti et du Fürher. La subordination y est totale.
      A 18 ans, le jeune quitte le monde de la jeunesse pour entrer dans celui des adultes, il commence par prêter serment "personnellement" à Hitler, puis effectue son service militaire. Les plus doués sont formés dans des écoles spécialisées "Adolphe Hitler" où ils sont conditionnés politiquement, intellectuellement et socialement à devenir cadres du Parti, de l’Administration et de l’Armée. Les meilleurs sont envoyés dans des "Ordensburgen", sortes d’universités, de monastères et d’écoles militaires où se forment tous les Cadres Supérieurs. La discipline de fer et le conditionnement total à la morale hitlérienne y sont le critère " sine qua non " de la réussite. Même le communisme n’a pas porté à un niveau si élevé l’emprise du Parti et de l’Idéologie sur la Jeunesse (quoiqu'ils ait bien eu ses " pionniers" et le culte de Staline).

1932 Depression low point of Dow Jones Industrial Average, 41.22

1918 Hemingway is wounded         ^top^
      Ernest Hemingway is severely wounded while carrying a companion to safety on the Austro-Italian front during World War I. Hemingway, working as a Red Cross ambulance driver, was decorated for his heroism and sent home.
      Hemingway was born on 29 July 1899 in Oak Park, Illinois. Before joining the Red Cross, he worked as a reporter for the Kansas City Star. After the war, he married the wealthy Hadley Richardson. The couple moved to Paris, where they met other American expatriate writers, including F. Scott Fitzgerald, Gertrude Stein, and Ezra Pound. With their help and encouragement, Hemingway published his first book of short stories, in the US in 1925, followed by the well-received The Sun Also Rises in 1926.
      Hemingway would marry three more times, and his romantic and sporting epics would be followed almost as closely as his writing. During the 1930s and '40s, the hard-drinking Hemingway lived in Key West and then in Cuba while continuing to travel widely. He wrote The Old Man and the Sea in 1952, his first major literary work in nearly a decade. The book won the Pulitzer Prize in 1953. The same year, Hemingway was wounded in a plane crash, after which he became increasingly anxious and depressed. Like his father, he eventually committed suicide, shooting himself on 2 July 1961 in his home in Idaho.

1914 Wednesday : in the aftermath of the June 28 assassination in Sarajevo of Archduke Francis Ferdinand of Austria-Hungary and of his wife, Sophia:

Szogyeny, still in Berlin, sends a wire prepared by Hoyos to Tisza and Berchtold. The wire intimates that "The Kaiser would deplore our not taking advantage of the present moment which is favorable to us." Hoyos had fabricated this statement, and by doing so, brought the shadow of the Kaiser to Conrad's cause.

Berchtold, detecting a change in the political wind also comes around to Conrad's side. Serbia must be invaded. Hungarian Prime Minister Tisza must be converted to the war camp.

Berchtold recommends that Conrad and Minister of War, Baron Alexander von Krobatin, proceed with their vacation plans lest something be suspected.
"It would be a good thing if you and the War Minister would go on leave for awhile so as to keep up an appearance that nothing is going on.""
Austrian Foreign Minister Count Leopold von Berchtold to Austrian army Chief of Staff General Conrad von Hotzendorff

1898 Découverte du polonium
Pierre et Marie Curie découvrent un nouvel élément, le Polonium, symbole "Po" et numéro atomique = 84. C'est dans la " pechblende " qu'ils découvrent ce nouvel élément, très radioactif et en quantité minime. C’est la première fois que des éléments étaient découverts par une méthode radiochimique, et comme de plus Marie Curie était d'origine Polonaise et que c'était sa première grande découverte, elle lui attribue le nom de Polonium. En continuant leurs expériences et leurs recherches sur le " pechblende " de Joachimsthal (aujourd’hui Jàchimov) en République Tchèque, ils découvrent, quelques mois plus tard le Radium (ce qu'ils annoncent le 26 decembre 1898). La pechblende est un oxyde naturel d' uranium et le plus important des minerais d'uranium (40 à 90 % selon les gisements). On en extrait aussi le Polonium, donc, mais aussi le Radium. On l'exploite en quantité importante au Zaïre, c’est d’ailleurs l'une des causes de l'intérêt que lui ont toujours porté Français et Américains.

1897 Emile Zola condamné!
Pour les raisons qu'il publiera le 13 janvier 1898 dans sa lettre "J'accuse", Zosa vient d’obtenir la cassation (et donc la révision) du procès du capitaine Alfred Dreyfus, injustement condamné aux travaux forcés à perpétuité pour trahison. Malgré cela, Zola est condamné (pour injure et manque de respect envers la Cour) et doit s’exiler à Londres. Cela assombrit la fin de sa vie, mais ne l’empêche pas de continuer à lutter sans relâche pour la réhabilitation de Dreyfus, contre les intérêts de l’Armée et de la Hiérarchie militaire. Zola est né le 2 avril 1840 et mort le 28 septembre 1902.
PORTRAIT DE ZOLA PAR MANET, BIOGRAPHIE, ET LIENS A TEXTES DE ZOLA ONLINE.

1896 William Jennings Bryan "cross of gold" speech at Dem convention
1891 16ºC, the highest temp for July 1891, in Baltimore and Philadelphia

1871 The New York Times exposes Boss Tweed         ^top^
in a series of articles on this and a few following days. William "Boss" Tweed, was the New York City official who pioneered urban America's lucrative version of government corruption.
      A mechanic turned politician, Tweed pushed legislation through the state government that helped transform his seemingly minor role as the head of the Department of Public Works into the roost from which he ruled over New York City. Along with his band of political cronies and network of business allies, including the notorious financier Jay Gould, Tweed used his power — and an array of kickbacks, dummy vouchers and phony contacts — to rake in what was figured at $200 million; in the process, he also almost bankrupted New York City.
      However, the Times' exposé, which was fueled by the confessions of a disgruntled associate, triggered the fall of Tweed's reign: he was brought to trial and eventually received a twelve-year prison sentence. But, the ever-slippery Tweed managed to escape from jail; he fled to Cuba and then Spain before being shipped back to the United States by foreign leaders.
      Upon returning home, Tweed attempted to trade a confession for immunity. The gambit proved to be a major blunder: though Tweed revealed the machinations of his corrupt regime, local officials were of no mind to wipe his crimes off the books. And so Tweed, the once imperious political boss, was sent back to prison, where he died at age 55 on 12 April 1878.

1870 Governor Holden of NC declares Casswell County in a state of insurrection
1864 President Lincoln issues statement on his policy for Reconstruction

1863 Confederates surrender Port Hudson, Louisiana. ^top^
Port Hudson, the Confederate stronghold on the Mississippi River in Louisiana, falls to Nathaniel Banks' Union force. Less than a week after the surrender of Vicksburg, Mississippi, the Confederate garrison's surrender at Port Hudson cleared another obstacle for the Federals on the Mississippi River. In late 1862, Banks was given orders to clear the river as far north as possible. He seemed hesitant, however, even with David Farragut's naval forces at his disposal. After much prodding, Banks finally began to move in February 1863. But by March, Farragut had failed to move past Port Hudson; he lost one ship and the others retreated back down the river. So Banks delayed action against Port Hudson until May. At first unsure whether to join Ulysses S. Grant's force up at Vicksburg or attack Port Hudson, Banks opted to attack the fort. On May 27, Federal cannons and riverboats opened fire on Port Hudson, but Banks directed a poorly coordinated attack against the stronghold, which was defended by General Franklin Gardner and a force of 3500 men. Although the tiny Confederate force was able to hold off the Union assault in May, Banks had Port Hudson surrounded. The garrison held out through June, but word of Vicksburg's surrender convinced Gardner that further resistance was futile.

1863 General John Hunt Morgan and his Confederates cross the Ohio River into Indiana at Brandenburg, Kentucky

1853 Commodore Perry enters Tokyo Bay         ^top^
      US Commodore Matthew Calbraith Perry, representing the US government, sails into Yedo Bay, Japan, with a squadron of four vessels. For a time, Japanese officials refused to speak with Perry, but, on 14 July, they accepted letters from US President Millard Fillmore, making the United States the first western nation to establish relations with Japan since it was declared closed to foreigners in 1683.
      After giving Japan time to consider the establishment of external relations, Perry returned to Tokyo in March 1854, and, on 31 March, signed the Treaty of Kanagawa with the Japanese government, opening the ports of Shimoda and Hakodate to American trade and permitting the establishment of a US consulate in Japan. On 25 April 1860, the first Japanese diplomats to visit a foreign power reached Washington DC, and remained for several weeks discussing expansion of trade with the United States

1835 A marriage that will support the Difference Engine ^top^
Augusta Ada Byron, daughter of the poet Lord Byron, marries William King, who shortly thereafter would become the Earl of Lovelace. Both Ada and her husband would devote much time and energy to help promote Charles Babbage's mechanical computer, the Difference Engine. Ada, a mathematical prodigy, had become fascinated by the machine in a salon at Babbage's house two years earlier. Encouraged by her husband, she and Babbage kept up a lively correspondence about the machine for many years. Ada helped spread the ideas behind the Difference Engine by publishing anonymous scientific papers describing the machine. She died at age 36 in 1852.

1835 Liberty Bell cracks (again, but not for the last time)

1815 Le Roi revient et foule les symboles napoléoniens         ^top^
      C'est à Gand que prudent, Louis XVIII s'est réfugié pendant les Cent-Jours (20 mars — 08 Jul 1815). Depuis la défaite de Waterloo (18 juin 1815), certains à Paris chantent : "Rendez-nous notre père de Gand ! Rendez-nous notre père !" D'autres raillent : "Rendez-nous notre paire de gants !". Le 07 Jul, le roi est à Saint-Denis. Talleyrand et Fouché viennent se présenter au roi auquel ils se rallient. Chateaubriand note : "Tout à coup, une porte s'ouvre : entre silencieusement le vice appuyé sur le bras du crime, monsieur de Talleyrand soutenu par monsieur Fouché."
      Lorsque jour, le roi rentre aux Tuileries, les chambellans n'ont pas eu le temps de faire retirer les tapis semés d'abeilles et d'aigles. Ils s'en excusent. Réponse du roi : "Mais au contraire, j'ai plaisir à marcher dessus." C’est la fin de l’épisode dit des "Cent Jours" et la Restauration de la Royauté. Mais les Français, s’ils ne veulent plus du despotisme impérial ni des guerres fauchaient leurs enfants, ne veulent pas plus d’un retour à la Royauté absolue de l’Ancien Régime. Les Français veulent défendre les conquêtes de la Révolution, tant au niveau juridique que social, ainsi qu’un certain libéralisme politique. Louis XVIII, qui a médité le retour triomphal de l’Empereur lors des Cent Jours, fait preuve de la finesse de son jugement et accepte les nouvelles Constitutions issues de la Révolution.

1807 Paix de Tilsit         ^top^
      Napoléon a remporté successivement les victoires d’Iéna le 14 octobre 1806 sur les Prussiens, celle d’Eylau (le 8 février 1807) sur les Russes et enfin celle de Friedland, le 14 juin sur les coalisés. Il impose sa volonté mais, pour ne pas exacerber les tension, il ménage quelque peu certains vaincus. Tilsit se situe dans l’ancienne Prusse Orientale (capitale. Königsberg). Pendant 15 jours, les textes du Traité seront discutés entre le Tsar Alexandre 1er et l’Empereur Napoléon 1er, sur un grand radeau sur le Niémen. La Prusse y perd de nombreuses possessions et son influence en Allemagne est très diminuée. La Russie tire son épingle du jeu.
     Par contre, pour forcer l’Angleterre, la France lui impose un blocus maritime européen, qui oblige Napoléon, pour fermer le verrou maritime, à envahir d’autres pays (Espagne et Portugal) et à ouvrir d’autres fronts, ce qui immanquablement devra l’affaiblir. L’Autriche relève alors la tête et s’allie à l’Angleterre; elle est écrasée à Wagram. Petit à petit, le jeu des coalitions et des soulèvements nationalistes usent la Grande Armée et vident la France des jeunes éléments qui ont fait sa force et son hégémonie en Europe.

1797 First US senator (William Blount of Tennessee) expelled by impeachment.
1796 US State Department issues first US passport.
1777 Vermont becomes first state abolishing slavery, adopts male sufferage

1776 The Liberty Bell rings         ^top^
      In Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the Liberty Bell rings out from the tower of the Pennsylvania's old State House, summoning citizens to the first public reading of the Declaration of Independence by Colonel John Nixon. Four days earlier, the historic document had been adopted by the Continental Congress, but the Liberty Bell, which bore the apt biblical quotation: "Proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof," is not rung until the Declaration of Independence returns from the printer on 08 July.
      In 1751, to commemorate the fifty-year anniversary of Pennsylvania's original constitution, the Pennsylvania Assembly ordered the bell constructed. After being cracked during a test, and then recast twice, the "Liberty Bell," which already bore its famous inscription, was hung from the State House in 1753. Rung to call the Pennsylvania Assembly together and to summon people for special announcements and events, it was also rung on historic occasions, such as when King George III ascended to the throne in 1761.
      With the outbreak of the American Revolution in April of 1775, the bell was rung to announce the battles of Lexington and Concord (19 April 1775), but its most resonant tolling was on 08 July 1776, when it summoned the citizenry for the first reading of the Declaration of Independence. As the British advanced toward Philadelphia in the fall of 1777, the bell was removed from the city to save it from being melted down by the British and used for cannons.
      After the British defeat in 1781, the Liberty Bell returned to Philadelphia, the nation's capital again after 1790, and it was rung annually to celebrate George Washington's birthday on 22 February and Independence Day on 04 July. Suffering minor cracks over the next few decades, the bell suffered it most famous break — the zig-zag fracture — on Washington's birthday in 1846. After that date, it was regarded as unringable, but it was still ceremoniously tapped on occasion to commemorate important events. In 1976, the Liberty Bell Pavilion was opened in preparation for the United States' bicentennial celebrations.

1741 Influencing the start of New England's 'Great Awakening,' colonial American theologian Jonathan Edwards preaches his classic sermon, 'Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God,' at Enfield, CT.
1663 Following restoration of the English monarchy, King Charles II grants a charter to Rhode Island. It guarantees religious freedom regardless of 'differences in opinion in matters of religion.'

1497 Vasco da Gama commence son grand voyage, qui ne se terminera qu'en septembre 1499. Il quitte le Tage et découvrira les côtes de l’Afrique Occidentale, de l’Afrique Australe (fondation de Le Cap, puis de Natal (le jour de Noël 1497), l’Afrique Orientale, puis Malabar, l’Océan Indien.

TO THE TOP

Deaths which occurred on a July 08:
2002:: 13 persons after liquid ammonia spills from a burst pipe at the Shenxian County Fertilizer Company, Shandong province, China, at about 02:00. 11 are injured.
2002 Lorna J. Marshall, a college English instructor turned homemaker who in her 50's began a new life as an anthropologist studying the Bushmen (or !Kung) of Africa. She was born on 14 September 1898. Author of !Kung of Nyae Nyae (1975) and Nyae Nyae !Kung Belief and Rites.

1994 Kim Il Sung, 82, North Korea's Communist dictator since 1948. ^top^
The "Great Leader" dies of a heart attack. In the 1930s, Kim fought against the Japanese occupation of Korea and was singled out by Soviet authorities, who sent him to the USSR for military and political training. He became a Communist and fought in the Soviet Red Army in World War II. In 1945, Korea was divided into Soviet and American spheres, and in 1948 Kim became the first leader of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (North Korea). Hoping to reunify Korea by force, Kim launched an invasion of South Korea in June 1950, thereby igniting the Korean War, which ended in a stalemate in 1953. During the next four decades, Kim led his country into a deep isolation from even its former communist allies, and relations with South Korea remained tense. Repressive rule and a personality cult that celebrated him as the "Great Leader" kept him in power until his death in 1994. He was succeeded as president by his son, Kim Jong Il.

1961: 259 die as Portugese ship Save runs aground off Mozambique.
1971 Kurt Reidemeister, mathematician who was a pioneer of knot theory and whose work had a great influence on Group Theory.

1959 Maj. Dale R. Ruis and Master Sgt. Chester M. Ovnand become the first US servicemen killed in the US phase of the Vietnam War when guerrillas strike a Military Assistance Advisory Group (MAAG) compound in Bien Hoa, 30 km northeast of Saigon. The group had arrived in South Vietnam on 01 November 1955, to provide military assistance. The organization consisted of US Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marine Corps personnel who provided advice and assistance to the Ministry of Defense, Joint General Staff, corps and division commanders, training centers, and province and district headquarters.

1957 William Cadbury , 89, chocolate maker
1943 Jean Moulin Le chef du Conseil national de la Résistance, Jean Moulin, trahi, est arrêté à Caluire dans la banlieue de Lyon, le 21 Jun, lendemain de son 44ème anniversaire. Le nazi Klaus Barbie commence à l'interroger. Quelques jours plus tard, le 08 juillet, à Metz, dans le train qui part pour un camp de la mort dans lequel on a déposé son corps torturé, Jean Moulin meurt.
1925 Robert Bevan, English painter born on 05 August 1865. — LINKS

1898 Jefferson Randolph “Soapy” Smith killed in Skagway, Alaska         ^top^
      A disgruntled city engineer in Skagway, Alaska, murders "Soapy" Smith, one of the most notorious con men in the history of the West. Born in Georgia in 1860, Jefferson Randolph Smith went west while still a young man, finding work as a cowboy in Texas. Smith eventually tired of the hard work and low wages offered by the cowboy life, though, and discovered that he could make more money with less effort by convincing gullible westerners to part with their cash in clever confidence games. One of Smith's earliest swindles was the "prehistoric man" of Creede, Colorado. Smith somehow obtained a 3-meter statue of a primitive looking human that he secretly buried near the town of Creede. A short time later, he uncovered the statue with much fanfare and publicity and began charging exorbitant fees to see it. Wisely, he left town before the curious turned suspicious.
      Smith earned his nickname "Soapy" with a more conventional confidence game. Traveling around the Southwest, Smith would briefly set up shop in the street selling bars of soap wrapped in blue tissue paper. He promised the credulous crowds that a few lucky purchasers would find a $100 bill wrapped inside a few of the $5 bars of soap. Inevitably, one of the first to buy a bar would shout with pleasure and happily display a genuine $100 bill. Sales were generally brisk afterwards. The lucky purchaser, of course, was a plant. In 1897, Smith joined the Alaskan gold rush and eventually landed in the rough frontier town of Skagway. Short on law and long on gold dust, Skagway was the perfect place for Smith to perfect his con games. He soon became the head of an ambitious criminal underworld, and he and his partners fleeced thousands of gullible miners. Smith's success eventually angered the honest citizens of Skagway, who were trying to build an upstanding community. They formed a vigilante "Committee of 101" in an attempt to bring law and order to the town. Undaunted, Smith formed his own gang into a "Committee of 303" to oppose them.
      On this day Smith tries to crash a vigilante meeting on the Skagway wharf, apparently hoping to use his con-man skills to persuade them that he posed no threat to the community. Smith, however, had failed to realize just how angry the vigilantes were. When he tried to break through the crowd, a Skagway city engineer named Frank Reid confronted him. The men exchanged harsh words and then bullets. Reid shot Smith dead on the spot, but not before Smith had badly wounded him. The engineer died 12 days later. The funeral services for Soapy Smith were held in a Skagway church he had donated funds to help build. The minister chose as the text for his sermon a line from Proverbs XIII: "The way of transgressors is hard."

1876 White terrorists attack Black Republicans in Hamburg SC, killing 5.
1840 Carel-Lodewyk Hansen, Dutch artist born in 1765.
1823 Sir Henry Raeburn, Scottish painter specialized in Portraits born on 04 March 1756. — MORE ON RAEBURN AT ART “4” JULY — LINKS — Sir Duncan Campbell, Scot Guards — John Tait of Harvieston — Sir William Napier, Baronet — Alexander Carre of Cavers — Mrs. Alexander Henderson — The Binning Children — The Reverend Robert Walker Skating on Duddlingston Loch — Lieutenant Colonel William Shirriff H.E.I.C.S. — Sir John Sinclair

1822 Percy Bysshe Shelley, English Romantic poet. ^top^ His passionate search for personal love and social justice was gradually channeled from overt actions into poems that rank with the greatest in the English language. Shelley, born on 04 August 1792, the heir to his wealthy grandfather's estate, was expelled from Oxford in March 1811 when he refused to acknowledge authorship of The Necessity of Atheism. He eloped with his first wife, Harriet Westbrook, the daughter of a tavern owner, in late August 1811. However, just a few years later, Shelley fell in love with the Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin, 17, daughter of a prominent reformer and early feminist writer. Shelley and Godwin fled to Europe, arriving in France on 28 July 1814, and would marry on 30 December 1816, after Shelley's wife drowned herself. Shelley's inheritance did not pay all the bills, and the couple spent much of their married life abroad, fleeing Shelley's creditors. While living in Geneva, the Shelleys and their dear friend Lord Byron challenged each other to write a compelling ghost story. Only Mary Shelley finished hers, later publishing the story as Frankenstein (1818). The Shelleys had five children but only one lived to adulthood. After Shelley drowned in a sailing accident on 18 July 1822, when Mary Shelley was only 24, she edited his Posthumous Poems (1824), Poetical Works (1839), and his prose works. She lived on a small stipend from her father-in-law, Lord Shelley, until her surviving son inherited his fortune and title in 1844. She died on 01 February 1851 at the age of 53. Although she was a respected writer for many years, only Frankenstein and her journals are still widely read.
PERCY SHELLEY ONLINE: Adonais: An Elegy on the Death of John Keats : while we "decay Like corpses in a charnel," the creative spirit of Adonais, despite his physical death, "has outsoared the shadow of our night." Alastor: or, The Spirit of Solitude (1816), blank-verse poem, warns idealists not to abandon "sweet human love" and social improvement for the vain pursuit of dreams. The Cenci (1819), tragedy of incestuous rape and patricide in 16th-century Rome The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley (1901) A Defence of Poetry (1840) essay: the poet creates humane values and imagines the forms that shape the social order. The Necessity of Atheism (1811) Prometheus Unbound + short poems such as Ode to Liberty, Ode to the West Wind, The Cloud, To a Sky-Lark.	MARY SHELLEY ONLINE: Frankenstein (1818): scientist creates artificial human monster. Frankenstein (another site) The Last Man (1826), her best novel: future destruction of the human race by a plague. The Mortal Immortal Valperga (1823)
*Prometheus Unbound: a lyrical drama* (1819) was the keystone of Shelley's poetic achievement, a masterpiece that combines supple blank verse with a variety of complex lyric measures. In Act I, Prometheus, tortured on Jupiter's orders for having given mankind the gift of moral freedom, recalls his earlier curse of Jupiter and forgives him ("I wish no living thing to suffer pain"). By eschewing revenge, Prometheus, who embodies the moral will, can be reunited with his beloved Asia, a spiritual ideal transcending humanity; her love prevents him from becoming another tyrant when Jupiter is overthrown by the mysterious power known as Demogorgon. Act II traces Asia's awakening and journey toward Prometheus, beginning with her descent into the depths of nature to confront and question Demogorgon. Act III depicts the overthrow of Jupiter and the union of Asia and Prometheus, who — leaving Jupiter's throne vacant — retreat to a cave from which they influence the world through ideals embodied in the creative arts. The end of the act describes the renovation of both human society and the natural world. Act IV opens with joyful lyrics by spirits who describe the benevolent transformation of the human consciousness that has occurred. Next, other spirits hymn the beatitude of humanity and nature in this new millennial age; and finally, Demogorgon returns to tell all creatures that, should the fragile state of grace be lost, they can restore their moral freedom through these "spells": To suffer woes which Hope thinks infinite; To forgive wrongs darker than Death or Night; To defy Power which seems Omnipotent; To love, and bear; to hope, till Hope creates From its own wreck the thing it contemplates. . .

1797 Hendrik Willem Schweichardt, German artist born in 1746.
1709 Thousands of Swedish and Russian soldiers, as Peter the Great with 50'000 Russians defeats Charles XII of with 20'000 Swedes at the Battle of Poltava. Only 1500 Swedes escaped. Sweden's great power status was ended. (27 June, Julian)
1695 Christiaan Huygens, mathematician, who in 1656 patented the first pendulum clock, which greatly increased the accuracy of time measurement. He laid the foundations of mechanics.
1496 Benedetto Bonfiglio da Perugia, Italian artist born in 1420.
1476 Johann Regiomontanus, 40, mathematician
1390 Albert of Saxony , 74, mathematician who wrote about the ideas of Bradwardine, Ockham, Oresme and others. He examined 254 logical paradoxes in his books on logic.
0810 Pepin son of Charlemagne, king of Italy, (birth date unknown)

Births which occurred on a July 08:
1918 Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela Transkei South Africa, who would grow up to be South African black nationalist and ANC leader whose long imprisonment (1962-90) and subsequent election to be the first president of desegragated South Africa (1994-1999) symbolized the aspirations of South Africa's black majority.

1909 George W. Romney, in a Mormon colony in Colonia Dublan, Chihuahua, Mexico.         ^top^
      He would grow up to be the AMC President largely responsible for the introduction of the compact car.
     Romney’s grandfather, Miles Romney, had been one of the founding members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Nauvoo, Illinois. The elder Romney sired thirty children, one of whom was Gaskell Romney, George’s father. In 1885 when US law forbade polygamy, a number of Mormons obtained permission from the Mexican government to buy land and start colonies. While George’s parents followed the group, they remained monogamists. The family returned to the US in 1912, afraid of being harmed at the hands of Pancho Villa’s marauding band.
      George Romney grew up in poverty in California and never went to college. He remained Mormon and credited his success to his spiritual training, saying “I do not think there is any college training that is a substitute for my religious training.” He entered the car industry as a salesman and eventually became one of the most powerful men in the business, leading AMC in becoming the largest independent car company in the country.
      He became the governor of Michigan in 1962, a position he held for eight years. Romney was a visible figure in the civil rights movement and he caused a great sensation when he spoke out against the war in Vietnam in 1967, as he had strongly supported the war effort in only two years earlier after returning from a visit to Saigon with a group of governors. Following his trip, he deemed the war “morally right and necessary.” Romney’s change of opinion came as he saw the war worsening and through his increased knowledge of Vietnam. He felt that he had been “brainwashed” during his visit to Vietnam and that the leaders of the country were not being honest about the war.
      The voting public deemed his reversal of opinion unforgivable, hurting his chances badly when Romney ran for the Republican presidential nomination in 1968. Sticking to his guns, Romney accused Secretary of Defense and former Ford executive Robert McNamara of giving the public inaccurate information. Romney may have been enigmatic and prone to changes of opinion, but history shows him as a man who was willing to admit to being wrong while others were afraid to do the same. George Romney died on 26 July 1995.

1908 Nelson Aldrich Rockefeller (41st US Vice President, under Gerald Ford [1974-77], Governor of New York [1958-73]). He died on 26 January 1979.
1904 Henri Cartan, mathematician.
1899 David Lilienthal, US businessman and government official, who died on 15 January 1981.
1898 Alec Waugh London, novelist (Island in the Sun), who died on 03 September 1981; older brother of Evelyn . ALEC WAUGH ONLINE: Waugh, Alec: The Loom of Youth (zipped at download site for 120 books, requires reader program available from that site)
1893 Fritz Perls father of Gestalt therapy.
1889 Wall Street Journal begins publishing.
1885 Ernst Bloch, German Marxist philosopher who died on 04 August 1977.
1869 Gustave Jacques Stoskopf, French artist who died in 1944.
1867 Käthe Kollwitz, German Expressionist printmaker and sculptor who died on 22 April 1945, specialized in Self-Portraits. — LINKS — Selbstbildnis mit der Hand an der Kopf — Selbstbildnis von vorn — Selbstbildnis im Profil nach Rechts — Kleines Selbstbildnis nach links — Selbstibildnis am Tisch — Kleines Selbstbildnis — Selbstbildnis — Hamburger Kneipe (not a hamburger joint... just a tavern in Hamburg) — 61 prints at FAMSF
1857 Alfred Binet, French psychologist who developed what he (and many after him) thought were measures of intelligence. He died on 18 October 1911.
1839 John Davison Rockefeller US capitalist; founded Standard Oil, philanthropist who gave more than $500 million to charitable causes. He died on 23 May 1937.
1816 Charles Édouard Boutibonne, French painter who died on 07 February 1897. — LINKS
1838 Ferdinand Graf von Zeppelin invented rigid dirigibles.
1805 Samuel Gross, US surgeon, teacher, and author, who died on 06 May 1884.
1777 Daniel Friedrich Hecht, mathematician.
1760 Kramp, mathematician.

Holidays US: Liberty Bell Day [1835]

Religious Observances Old Catholic : St Elizabeth (St Isabella) of Portugal, widow

Thoughts for the day:
“Better the shoulder to the wheel than the back to the wall.”
“Better the shoulder to the wall than the back to the wheel.”
“Better the shoulder of an eel than the heel of a whale.”
“Better the shoulder of the veal than the back of the walrus.”
“"Fools are more to be feared than the wicked." - Queen Christina of Sweden (1626-1689).
“Wicked queens are more to be feared than the heel of a whale.”
“The Queen is more to be feared than the Knights, the Bishops, or the Rooks.”

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