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Toumaï, face of the deepOn a 11 July:

2002 Nature reports the discovery in the western part of the Djurab desert, Northern Chad, of a skull [photo >] almost seven million years old, that belonged to an individual about the size of a chimpanzee with a cranial capacity similar to that of living chimps but, amazingly, the teeth (small canines) and relatively flat face with prominent brow ridges are more like those of a human. The discovery was made in 2001 by Chadian student, Ahunnta Djimdoumalbaye, in a team headed by Dr. Michel Brunet of the University of Poitiers, France, who gives the find a new genus and species name: Sahelanthropus tchadensis, and the nickname “Toumaï” (“hope of life” in the Goran language, a name for a child born close to the start of the dry season).


ICN price chart2002 On the New York Stock Exchange the stock of ICN Pharmaceuticals drops from the previous day's close of $19.95 to an intraday low of of $8.90 and closes at $9.30. It had traded as high as $51.12 on 04 May 1998. [< 5~year price chart]

2001 In the evening, policeman Ray Peterson is on foot patrol in Vancouver, when a duck persistently grabs him by the pant leg, then leads him to a sewer grate down which her eight ducklings had fallen. The policeman calls a tow truck which removes the heavy grate, and he lifts the ducklings with a vegetable strainer. The nine ducks then leave toward a nearby pond.

2000
A Middle East summit hosted by President Clinton opened at Camp David between Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat.

2000
The African Methodist Episcopal Church, the US's oldest Black church, elected the Rev. Vashti McKenzie of Baltimore its first female bishop.

1995
El enclave musulmán de Srebrenica cae en manos de los serbios, pese a los ataques disuasorios de la OTAN. Veinte mil personas huyen de la ciudad.
1995 US establishes diplomatic relations with Vietnam
      Two decades after the fall of Saigon, US President Bill Clinton established full diplomatic relations with Vietnam, citing Vietnamese cooperation in accounting for the approximately two thousand US servicemen still listed as missing in action (POW/MIAs). Normalization with America's old enemy began in early 1994, when President Clinton announced the lifting of the nineteen-year-old trade embargo against Vietnam. Although the embargo was lifted, high tariffs remained on Vietnamese exports pending the country's qualification as a "most-favored-nation," a US trade status designation that Vietnam might earn after broadening its program of free market reforms. On 07 July 1995, Clinton established diplomatic relations, and in May of 1996, he terminated the combat zone designation for Vietnam. Later in the year, he nominated Florida Representative Douglas "Pete" Peterson to become the first ambassador to Vietnam since Graham Martin was airlifted out of the country by helicopter in late April of 1975. Peterson himself served as a US air force captain during the Vietnam War, and was held as a prisoner of war for six-and-a-half-years after his bomber was shot down near Hanoi in 1966. Confirmed by Congress in 1997, Ambassador presented his credentials to Communist authorities in Hanoi, the Vietnamese capital, on 09 May 1997.
1995 Wall Street Journal web site launched
      The Wall Street Journal launches a Web site called Money and Investing Update. The site, which provided frequently updated business news and statistics, was the Journal's first step toward launching its popular interactive edition, which became one of the few Web publications to successfully charge a subscription fee.
1995 Magazine publishers prepare Internet measurement standards
      The Magazine Publishers of America proposed measurement standards for the Internet on 11 July 1995. Some magazine advertisers, long accustomed to sophisticated research and demographics available about magazine readers, balked at the unsophisticated information available about Web users who saw their ads. The Internet Advertising Measurement Task Force was one of several initiatives to establish rating standards. Several third party agencies began competing for the role of "the Nielsen of the Web," including established media measurement companies A.C. Nielsen and Arbitron, as well as Internet start-ups like Media Metrix.
1994 Dell quits retail
      Michael Dell, chairman of Dell Computers, announces that the company will pull out of retail and concentrate entirely on its mail-order business. Although the company had predicted just four months earlier that it would expand its retail efforts, the company decided its build-to-order strategy would be more profitable as a strictly mail-order operation. By 1998, the company had become the country's No. 3 seller of computers, after Compaq and IBM.
1991 Un eclipse total del Sol, el cuarto y último del siglo, abarca una importante franja de la superficie terrestre y oscurece el día en gran parte del continente americano. — A solar eclipse cast a blanket of darkness stretching 14'000 km from Hawaii to South America, lasting nearly seven minutes in some places.
1991 Disney to distribute Pixar film
      Newspapers report that Disney has agreed to distribute computer-animated films produced by Pixar, a computer animation company funded by Apple founder Steve Jobs. Pixar's first film, Toy Story, was a smashing success.
1990 Software gurus leave Apple
      Bill Atkinson, a software whiz who designed Apple's popular HyperCard software, said he would leave the company to form a spin-off with other former Apple employees, including Andy Hertzfeld, a key developer on the Apple Macintosh project. The new company, General Magic, remained closely tied to Apple, however, with Apple becoming the largest corporate shareholder in the company.
1989 Se realizan las primeras pruebas de la "autopista inteligente" entre París y Milán, dentro del programa "Drive".
1987 El laborista Robert Hawke logra su tercer mandato consecutivo como primer ministro de Australia.
1985 Coca-Cola returns as Classic Coke
      Nineteen-eighty-five was a trying year for America's soda. With hopes of eking out a lead in the hotly contested "Cola Wars," soft drink giant Coca-Cola decided to muck about with the recipe for its namesake drink. As ill-conceived as the notion may sound to our ears now, Coke thought it had a winner at the time. Indeed, an expensive battery of market testing seemed to bode well for the new formula. As one of the officials for Coke's advertising agency noted, "research clearly said we had a winner." However, despite lavishing hefty sums on an advertising blitz, the new product--aptly dubbed "New Coke"--was a resounding flop. America's legion of soft drink aficionados simply despised the new formula. Worse yet, the public pined mightily--and quite loudly--for the "old" version of Coke to be returned to the shelves.
      Officials for the cola giant got the message and swiftly restored order to the soft drink universe: on 11 July 1985 the company unveiled plans to return the beloved version of Coca Cola--now christened "Classic Coke"--to the market. In the wake of this groundbreaking, company officials quietly conceded that they had erred in halting distribution of the "classic" version of the drink. However, they refused to admit that releasing New Coke was a mistake. Indeed, even though American consumers reviled it, the company kept New Coke in circulation, albeit in cans and bottles that identified the drink simply as "Coke.
1979 Skylab crashes into Australia
      Parts of Skylab, America's first space station, comes crashing down on Australia and into the Indian Ocean five years after the last manned Skylab mission ended. No one is injured. On May 14, 1973, the space station was successfully launched into an orbit around the earth. Eleven days later, US astronauts Charles Conrad, Joseph Kerwin, and Paul Weitz rendezvoused with Skylab, repairing a jammed solar panel and conducting scientific experiments during their twenty-eight-day stay on the space station.
      The first manned Skylab mission came two years after the Soviet Union launched Salynut 1, the world's first space station, into orbit around the earth. However, unlike the ill-fated Salynut, which was plagued with problems, the American space station was a great success, safely housing three separate three-man crews for extended periods of time and exceeding pre-mission plans for scientific study.
      Originally the spent third stage of a Saturn 5 Moon rocket, the cylinder space station was 36 meters tall, weighed seventy-seven tons, and carried the most varied assortment of experimental equipment ever assembled in a single spacecraft to that date. The crews of Skylab spent more than seven-hundred hours observing the sun and brought home more than 175'000 solar pictures. They also provided important information about the biological effects of living in space for prolonged periods of time. Five years after the last Skylab mission, the space station's orbit began to deteriorate earlier than was anticipated due to unexpectedly high sunspot activity, and on 11 July 1979, the parts of the space station that did not burn up in the atmosphere came crashing down on Australia and into the Indian Ocean.
1974 House Judiciary Committee releases evidence on Watergate inquiry
1969 Thieu challenges NLF to participate in free elections         ^top^
      South Vietnamese President Nguyen Van Thieu, in a televised speech, makes a "comprehensive offer" for a political settlement. He challenged the National Liberation Front to participate in free elections organized by a joint electoral commission and supervised by an international body. Following the speech, South Vietnamese Foreign Minister Tran Chanh Thanh, seeking to clarify the Thieu proposal, said communists could never participate in elections in South Vietnam "as communists" nor have any role in organizing elections--only by the South Vietnamese government could organize the elections.
1967 Senators debate US policy in Vietnam
      In Senate debates about US policy in Southeast Asia, Senator Mike Mansfield (D-Montana) warns against further escalation of the war. Convinced that a military solution to the situation in South Vietnam was impossible, he urged an alternative to expansion of the US effort in Vietnam. His alternative included putting the issue of the confrontation between North and South Vietnam before the United Nations and containing the conflict by building a defensive barrier south of the Demilitarized Zone to separate North Vietnam from South Vietnam. Senator George Aiken (R-Vermont) suggested that the Johnson administration pay more attention to people like Mansfield who were questioning the wisdom of further escalation of the war, rather than relying on "certain military leaders who have far more knowledge of weapons than they have of people." Nevertheless, Senate Republican leader Everett Dirksen (Illinois), asked if he favored an increase in US troops in Vietnam, replied "If General Westmoreland says we need them, yes, sir."
1967 The Vatican reports that Albania has closed its last Roman Catholic church
1966 US Public opinion approves bombing of North Vietnam
      A Harris survey taken shortly after the bombing raids on the Hanoi-Haiphong area shows that 62% of those interviewed favored the raids, 11% were opposed, and 27% were undecided. Of those polled, 86% felt the raids would hasten the end of the war. The raids under discussion were part of the expansion of Operation Rolling Thunder, which had begun in March 1965.
1962 First worldwide TV transmission:
      The Telstar communications satellite picked up broadcast signals from France and bounced them down to an antenna in Maine on 11 July 1962, thus delivering the first live television picture from Europe to America. Telstar was launched from Cape Canaveral as an experiment in TV transmission, and was also used to send radio and telephone signals. Americans watched a seven-minute program, featuring a song by Yves Montand.
TV intercontinentale La première liaison intercontinentale de télévision a lieu, grâce au lancement du satellite Telstar A partir de la station d’Andover aux E.U. et de celle de Pleumer-Bodou (département des Côtes d’Armor, en Bretagne, France), la première liaison a rassemblé les 80 % des récepteurs de l’époque.
      Se emite la primera señal de televisión en Mundovisión, a través del satélite Telstar, lanzado el día anterior.
1960 Ivory Coast, Dahomey, Upper Volta, and Niger declare independence
1960 Indépendance du Katanga
      Le 1 Juillet, le Congo (ex-belge) avait proclamé son indépendance. Aussitôt des troubles naissent un peu partout où se mêlent les revendications sociales, les revendications économiques, mais aussi les revendications nationalistes. Le pouvoir de Kinshasha apparaît trop faible et trop centralisateur pour rassurer les grands groupes financiers (Générale de Banque notamment) qui contrôlent toute l’économie du Katanga, province aussi grande que la France, la plus riche du Congo (Union Minière du Haut-Katanga). Moïse Tshombé, leader incontesté, appuyé par les belges et les groupes financiers revendique aussitôt l’autonomie et proclame son indépendance.
      La non-reconnaissance de l’ONU empêchera la Belgique de l’appuyer autant que l’auraient voulu les groupes financiers. Il faut savoir que le Katanga produisait de la pechblende dont on tire l’uranium et le radium. Les Américains, gros consommateurs et principaux acheteurs ne voulaient pas de l’Indépendance du Katanga sous l’égide de la Belgique. D’autre part la France lorgnait vers ce pays qui, 26 fois plus grand qu’elle, regorge de richesses minières incalculables. L’ONU refusa donc de reconnaître le Katanga et envoya même des troupes pour rétablir le régime de Léopoldville. En 1963, Moïse Tshombé devra reconnaître la fin du nouvel état.
      Tshombe fled to Spain. Recalled from exile in 1964 by President Kasavubu to assume the post of premier to quell a rebellion in the eastern Congo, Tshombe was dismissed in 1965, ostensibly for using white mercenaries against the rebels, though it is also contended that he was attempting to oust Kasavubu. Tshombe returned to Spain. In 1967, when there were rumours that he planned to return to the Congo, Tshombe was kidnapped and taken to Algeria. Algerian officials refused the demands of Congolese President Joseph Mobutu (later Mobutu Sese Seko) for Tshombe's extradition to stand trial for treason. Tshombe remained under house arrest near Algiers, where he died of a heart attack (some suspect assassination) on June 29, 1969..
1960 Joseph Kasavubu es nombrado presidente del Congo.
1955 The US Air Force Academy was dedicated at Lowry Air Base in Colorado.
1955 Congress authorizes all US currency to say "In God We Trust"
1952 Gen Eisenhower nominated as Republican presidential candidate
1950 René Pleven forma un en Francia un Gobierno con participación socialista.
1945 Soviets agree to hand over power in West Berlin
      Fulfilling agreements reached at various wartime conferences, the Soviet Union promises to hand power over to British and US forces in West Berlin. Although the division of Berlin (and of Germany as a whole) into zones of occupation was seen as a temporary postwar expedient, the dividing lines quickly became permanent. The divided city of Berlin became a symbol for Cold War tensions. During a number of wartime conferences, the United States, Great Britain, and the Soviet Union agreed that following the defeat of Germany, that nation would be divided into three zones of occupation. Berlin, the capital city of Germany, would likewise be divided. When the war in Europe ended in May 1945, however, Soviet troops were in complete control of eastern Germany and all of Berlin. Some US officials, who had come to see the Soviet Union as an emerging threat to the postwar peace in Europe, believed that the Soviets would never relinquish control over any part of Berlin.
      However, on 11 July 1945, the Russian government announced that it would hand over all civilian and military control of West Berlin to British and American forces. This was accomplished, without incident, the following day. (The United States and Great Britain would later give up part of their zones of occupation in Germany and Berlin to make room for a French zone of occupation.) In the years to come, West Berlin became the site of some notable Cold War confrontations. During 1948 and 1949, the Soviets blocked all land travel into West Berlin, forcing the United States to establish the Berlin Airlift to feed and care for the population of the city. In 1961, the government of East Germany constructed the famous Berlin Wall, creating an actual physical barrier to separate East and West Berlin. The divided city came to symbolize the animosities and tensions of the Cold War. In 1989, with communist control of East Germany crumbling, the Berlin Wall was finally torn down. The following year, East and West Germany formally reunited.
1944 Bomb brought to assassinate Hitler
      Count Klaus von Stauffenberg, a German army officer, transports a bomb to Adolf Hitler's headquarters in Berchtesgaden, in Bavaria, with the intention of assassinating the Führer. As the war started to turn against the Germans, and the atrocities being committed at Hitler's behest grew, a growing numbers of Germans-within the military and without-began conspiring to assassinate their leader. As the masses were unlikely to turn on the man in whose hands they had hitherto placed their lives and future, it was up to men close to Hitler, German officers, to dispatch him. Leadership of the plot fell to Claus von Stauffenberg, newly promoted to colonel and chief of staff to the commander of the army reserve, which gave him access to Hitler's headquarters at Berchtesgaden and Rastenburg.
      Stauffenberg had served in the German army since 1926. While serving as a staff officer in the campaign against the Soviet Union, he became disgusted at his fellow countrymen's vicious treatment of Jews and Soviet prisoners. He requested to be transferred to North Africa, where he lost his left eye, right hand, and two fingers of his left hand.
      After recovering from his injuries, and determined to see Hitler removed from power by any means necessary, Stauffenberg traveled to Berchtesgaden on 03 July and received at the hands of a fellow army officer, Major-General Helmuth Stieff, a bomb with a silent fuse that was small enough to be hidden in a briefcase.
      On 11 July Stauffenberg is summoned to Berchtesgaden to report to Hitler on the current military situation. The plan was to use the bomb on 15 July, but at the last minute, Hitler was called away to his headquarters at Rastenburg, in East Prussia. Stauffenberg was asked to follow him there.
      On 16 July, a meeting took place between Stauffenberg and Colonel Caesar von Hofacker, another conspirator, in the Berlin suburb of Wannsee. Hofacker informed Stauffenberg that German defenses had collapsed at Normandy, and the tide had turned against them in the West. The assassination attempt was postponed until 20 July, at Rastenburg.
PPPP1940 Pleins Pouvoirs Pour Pétain.
Comment un symbole de la résistance, un général vaillant peut-il devenir un collaborateur de l’ennemi? Le cas du maréchal Pétain taraude toujours les historiens. Le héros de la guerre 14-18, le héros de Verdun, le sauveur de la France en devient le fossoyeur en 1940. Pétain accepte l’occupation de la France par Hitler. Il conclut avec l’Allemagne une armistice le 22 Jun 1940, une semaine après l’entrée des troupes hitlériennes à Paris. Il est « élu » chef de l’Etat français par l’Assemblée nationale qui lui vote les pleins pouvoirs le 11 Jul 1940 [photo >] et crée le gouvernement de Vichy, totalement inféodé à l’Allemagne hitlérienne. Le 24 octobre, il rencontre Hitler à Montoire. Il en devient le serviteur attitré et engage la France dans la voie de la collaboration. Il accepte le statut des juifs. Il ferme les yeux sur la persécution de la résistance française et l’occupation de son sol.Le héros de Verdun termine sa vie pitoyablement: à la suite du débarquement des Alliés en Normandie, il opère une dérive totalitaire, se fait arrêter par les Allemands le 20 Aug 1944, conduit en Allemagne puis jugé par la justice française pour trahison. Condamné à mort, il voit sa peine commuée en détention perpétuelle.Il mourra à L’île-d’Yeu, en 1951.
1937 Germán Busch es elegido nuevo presidente de Bolivia.
1937 Poet Dylan Thomas marries Caitlin Macnamara
      Welsh poet Dylan Thomas, 22, marries Caitlin Macnamara, 23, in Penzance, Cornwall. Thomas was born (27 October 1914) and raised in Swansea, Wales, where he was a poor student. He dropped out of school at age 16 and became a newspaper reporter. Before he turned 20, he won a newspaper poetry contest.
      His first book, Eighteen Poems, was published in 1934, followed by Twenty-Five Poems in 1936. At age 21, Thomas moved to London, where he met Caitlin Macnamara in a pub. Although the lively Irish girl did not initially find him attractive, his charm won her over, and the pair married the following year. Their happiness was short-lived. He immediately suspected her of infidelity and wrote several poems to that effect. Meanwhile, both drank heavily, caused scenes in public places, and fell into debt. Despite their tumultuous relationship, they had three sons.
      Thomas published several highly acclaimed books, including Deaths and Entrances in 1946 and Collected Poems in 1953. His powerful style, combining compassion and violence, made his readings in the US a success. However, during his several tours of the US from 1950 to 1953, he drank recklessly. On 9 November 1953, he collapsed at the White Horse Inn on Hudson Street in New York City and died.
      Other poetry of his: in 1939 The Map of Love, in 1943 New Poems, in 1946 Deaths and Entrances, in 1952 In Country Sleep. Semi-autobiographical novels, in 1940 Portrait of the Artist as a Young Dog, in 1955 Adventures in the Skin Trade (unfinished). His best-known work, the radio "play for voices", Under Milk Wood, was published in 1954. He also wrote in 1955 A Prospect of the Sea (Short Stories).
      Caitlin drank more than ever after his death. Eventually, she met and fell in love with a Sicilian film-production worker, Giuseppe Fazio, who helped her stop drinking. She had a son with Fazio when she was 49. She wrote several books herself, including Leftover Life to Kill (1957) and Life with Dylan Thomas (1986). She remained intensely bitter toward Thomas until her death at age 80.
1936 Austria y Alemania suscriben un Pacto de Paz por el que el Reich reconoce la completa independencia de Austria.
1936 Triborough Bridge linking Manhattan, Bronx & Queens opens
1924 El Gobierno noruego decide cambiar el nombre de la capital del país, Cristianía, por la de Oslo, resolución que entró en vigor el 1 de enero de 1925.
1921 Mongolia gains independence from China (National Day)
1921 Perú y Ecuador declaran rotas sus relaciones bilaterales.
1919 El ministro de Asuntos Exteriores británico, lord Curzon, propone a Rusia y a Polonia una línea de demarcación de fronteras.
1916 US Federal aid for roads         ^top^
     US President Woodrow Wilson signs the Federal Aid Road Act, the first grant-in-aid enacted by Congress to help states build roads. In 1916, roads throughout America were generally poor and most were susceptible to weather. The advent of the Ford Model T brought on new interests in higher standards for roads, and by the early 1900s, motorist clubs like the American Automobile Association (AAA) had rallied around the call for federally funded long-distance highways. Farmers balked at the idea, arguing that paying taxes so city people could go on car tours was unfair. As the car became more important to farmers, however, the ground became fertile for legislation to raise the quality or roads across the country.
      In 1907, the legal issue of the federal government's role in road-building was settled in the Supreme Court case Wilson v. Shaw. Justice David Brewer wrote that the federal government could "construct interstate highways" because of their constitutional right to regulate interstate commerce. By 1912, bills concerning federal funding of the highways were considered on the House floor, although a split in constituencies had divided the advocates. Farmers wanted sturdy, all-weather postal roads, and urban motorists wanted paved long-distance highways. Many state officials claimed that any federal-funding package would only be used as a "pork barrel" to interfere with the operations of the state.
      In the end, a bill was passed that included the stipulation that all states have a highway agency staffed by professional engineers who would administer the federal funds as they saw fit. The bill on offer leaned in the favor of the rural populations by focusing on rural postal roads rather than interstate highways. The cause of interstate highways would not be addressed until many years later during US President Dwight D. Eisenhower's administration, but the Federal Aid Road Act was the cornerstone for today's highway system and the precedent for all highway legislation to come. The rural road improvement that happened as a result of the Act helped rural residents of the US to participate more efficiently in the national economy.
1913 La Cámara de los Lores británica veta la Home Rule que los Comunes habían aprobado para Irlanda.
1864 Engagement at Fort Stevens, D.C. as Confederate forces led by General Jubal Early begin an abortive invasion of Washington DC, turning back the next day.
1863 First assault on Fort Wagner, South Carolina.
1863 The start of the drawing of names for the Civil War draft in New York results in the Draft Riots for four days, as mobs (mostly of foreign-born, especially Irish, workers earning often less than $500 a year) assault residents, defy police, attack draft headquarters, and burn buildings. They are outraged that the rich can afford to buy exemption from the draft for $300, and they fear that emancipation of the slaves will threaten their jobs, having had the experience of the bosses using Blacks as strikebreakers. The riots are put down by police and army by 15 July and the draft drawing of names resumes on 19 August without incident.
1861 Engagement at Rich Mountain, Virginia (now West Virginia)
1818 Keats writes "In the Cottage Where Burns Was Born," "Lines Written in the Highlands," & "The Gadfly"
1812 US invades Canada (Detroit frontier)
1804 In duel, Burr fatally shoots Hamilton         ^top^
     In a duel held near Weehawken, New Jersey, Vice President Aaron Burr fatally shoots his long-time political antagonist Alexander Hamilton. Hamilton, a leading Federalist and former secretary of the treasury under President George Washington, died the following day.
      In 1801, in an election conducted before presidential and vice presidential candidates shared a single ticket, Thomas Jefferson and his running mate Aaron Burr had defeated Federalist incumbent John Adams with seventy-three electoral votes each. The tie vote then went to the House to be decided, and Alexander Hamilton was instrumental in breaking the deadlock in Jefferson's favor. Burr, because he finished second, became vice president, but Jefferson grew apart from Burr, and did not support his nomination to a second term in 1804.
      A faction of the Federalists, who had found their fortunes drastically diminished after the ascendance of Jefferson, sought to enlist the disgruntled Burr into their party. However, Hamilton opposed such a move, and was quoted by a New York newspaper saying that he "looked upon Mr. Burr to be a dangerous man, and one who ought not to be trusted with the reins of government." The article also referred to occasions when Hamilton had expressed an even "more despicable opinion of Burr." Burr demanded an apology, Hamilton refused, so Burr challenged his old political enemy to a duel.
      On 11 July 1804, the pair met at a remote spot in Weehawken Heights, New Jersey. Hamilton, whose son was killed in a duel three years earlier, deliberately fired into the air, but Burr fired with intent to kill. Hamilton, fatally wounded, died in New York City the next day. The questionable circumstances of Hamilton's death effectively brought Burr's political career to an end.
      Fleeing to Virginia, he traveled to New Orleans after finishing his term as vice president, and met with US General James Wilkinson, who was an agent for the Spanish. The exact nature of what the two plotted is unknown, but speculation ranges from the establishment of an independent republic in the American Southwest to the seizure of territory in Spanish America for the same purpose.
      In the fall of 1806, Burr led a group of well-armed colonists toward New Orleans, prompting an immediate investigation by US authorities. General Wilkinson, in an effort to save himself, turned against Burr and sent dispatches to Washington accusing Burr of treason. On February 19, 1807, Burr was arrested in Alabama for treason and sent to Richmond, Virginia, to be tried in a US circuit court. On September 1, 1807, he was acquitted on the grounds that, although he had conspired against the United States, he was not guilty of treason because he had not engaged in an "overt act," a requirement of treason as specified by the US Constitution. Nevertheless, public opinion condemned him as a traitor and he was forced to retire to a private life.
      Burr and Hamilton were both New Yorkers. The reason they crossed the Hudson is that New Jersey did not have a law against dueling at the time. New York had banned the practice earlier, partly due to Hamilton's own campaign efforts after his son was killed in a duel. Dueling was outlawed in the North much earlier than it was in the South. The state of Massachusetts declared it "detestable and infamous." Duelists in that state could be punished even if they both survived the duel. A typical penalty would be to stand an hour with a rope around their neck at the gallows and then to spend a year in prison. Transgressors might also receive lashes from a whip. For duelists who died, there was still a civic penalty to be paid. The loser was buried without a coffin near the spot of the duel with a stake driven through his body. The winner could be prosecuted for murder, executed, and buried in the same manner.
      Even the mere threat of a duel had serious consequences: In 1818, George Norton challenged someone to a duel in New York for insulting his honor and was sentenced to a month in prison for his dare. In the South, dueling was much more popular and accepted, especially among upper-class society. The practice was so common that legislators were asked to take an oath to declare that they had never been in a duel. Even after dueling became illegal, the law was rarely enforced.
      The Burr-Hamilton duel was not the last high-profile case. In 1809, future senator Henry Clay and Humphrey Marshall were arguing over legislation in Kentucky's state house when Clay called Marshall a demagogue and Marshall responded by calling Clay a liar. Their subsequent duel was fought with pistols at a length of ten paces. Luckily for both, neither was a good shot (nor were the weapons particularly accurate), and they both recovered from their injuries.
     In a duel held in Weehawken, New Jersey, Vice President Aaron Burr fatally shoots his long-time political antagonist Alexander Hamilton. Hamilton, a leading Federalist and the chief architect of the US's political economy, died the following day. Alexander Hamilton, born on the Caribbean island of Nevis in 1757, came to the American colonies in 1773 as a poor immigrant. In 1776, he joined the Continental Army in the American Revolution, and his relentless energy and remarkable intelligence brought him to the attention of General George Washington, who took him on as an aid. Ten years later, Hamilton served as a delegate to the Constitutional Convention, and he led the fight to win ratification of the final document, which created the kind of strong, centralized government that he favored. In 1789, he was appointed the first secretary of the treasury by President Washington, and during the next six years he crafted a sophisticated monetary policy that saved the young US government from collapse. With the emergence of political parties, Hamilton was regarded as a leader of the Federalists. Aaron Burr, born into a prestigious New Jersey family in 1756, was also intellectually gifted, and he graduated from the College of New Jersey (later Princeton) at the age of 17. He joined the Continental Army in 1775 and distinguished himself during the Patriot attack on Quebec.
      A masterful politician, he was elected to the New State Assembly in 1783 and later served as state attorney. In 1790, he defeated Alexander Hamilton's father-in-law in a race for the US Senate. Hamilton came to detest Burr, whom he regarded as a dangerous opportunist, and he often spoke ill of him. When Burr ran for the vice presidency in 1796 on Thomas Jefferson's Democratic-Republican ticket (the forerunner of the Democratic Party), Hamilton launched a series of public attacks against Burr, stating, "I feel it is a religious duty to oppose his career." John Adams won the presidency, and in 1797 Burr left the Senate and returned to the New York Assembly. In 1800, Jefferson chose Burr again as his running mate. Burr aided the Democratic-Republican ticket by publishing a confidential document that Hamilton had written criticizing his fellow Federalist President John Adams. This caused a rift in the Federalists and helped Jefferson and Burr win the election with 73 electoral votes each. Under the electoral procedure then prevailing, president and vice president were not voted for separately; the candidate who received the most votes was elected president, and the second in line, vice president. The vote then went to the House of Representatives. What at first seemed but an electoral technicality--handing Jefferson victory over his running mate--developed into a major constitutional crisis when Federalists in the lame-duck Congress threw their support behind Burr. After a remarkable 35 tie votes, a small group of Federalists changed sides and voted in Jefferson's favor. Alexander Hamilton, who had supported Jefferson as the lesser of two evils, was instrumental in breaking the deadlock.
      Burr became vice president, but Jefferson grew apart from him, and he did not support Burr's renomination to a second term in 1804. That year, a faction of New York Federalists, who had found their fortunes drastically diminished after the ascendance of Jefferson, sought to enlist the disgruntled Burr into their party and elect him governor. Hamilton campaigned against Burr with great fervor, and Burr lost the Federalist nomination and then, running as an independent for governor, the election. In the campaign, Burr's character was savagely attacked by Hamilton and others, and after the election he resolved to restore his reputation by challenging Hamilton to a duel, or an "affair of honor," as they were known. Affairs of honor were commonplace in America at the time, and the complex rules governing them usually led to an honorable resolution before any actual firing of weapons. In fact, the outspoken Hamilton had been involved in several affairs of honor in his life, and he had resolved most of them peaceably. No such recourse was found with Burr, however, and on 11 July 1804, the enemies met at 7 a.m. at the dueling grounds near Weehawken, New Jersey. It was the same spot where Hamilton's son had died defending his father's honor two years before. There are conflicting accounts of what happened next. According to Hamilton's "second"--his assistant and witness in the duel--Hamilton decided the duel was morally wrong and deliberately fired into the air. Burr's second claimed that Hamilton fired at Burr and missed. What happened next is agreed upon: Burr shot Hamilton in the stomach, and the bullet lodged next to his spine. Hamilton was taken back to New York, and he died the next afternoon. Few affairs of honor actually resulted in deaths, and the nation was outraged by the killing of a man as eminent as Alexander Hamilton.
      Charged with murder in New York and New Jersey, Burr, still vice president, returned to Washington DC, where he finished his term immune from prosecution. In 1805, Burr, thoroughly discredited, concocted a plot with James Wilkinson, commander-in-chief of the US Army, to seize the Louisiana Territory and establish an independent empire, which Burr, presumably, would lead. He contacted the British government and unsuccessfully pleaded for assistance in the scheme. Later, when border trouble with Spanish Mexico heated up, Burr and Wilkinson conspired to seize territory in Spanish America for the same purpose. In the fall of 1806, Burr led a group of well-armed colonists toward New Orleans, prompting an immediate US investigation. General Wilkinson, in an effort to save himself, turned against Burr and sent dispatches to Washington accusing Burr of treason. In February 1807, Burr was arrested in Louisiana for treason and sent to Virginia to be tried in a US court. In September, he was acquitted on a technicality. Nevertheless, public opinion condemned him as a traitor, and he fled to Europe. He later returned to private life in New York, the murder charges against him forgotten. He died in 1836.
1798 The US Marine Corps is re-established by a congressional act that also creates the US Marine Band.
1792 "La Patrie en danger" proclame l'Assemblée législative.         ^top^
      Depuis le début de la guerre contre l'Autriche, en avril, les défaites et les retraites se suivent. Les 80'000 hommes de l'armée conduits par des officiers que l'on surnomme des "vaincre ou courir" ne parviennent pas à contenir les troupes de Brunswick et les émigrés que conduit Condé. Dès le lendemain, une nouvelle loi lève 50'000 hommes et 46 bataillons de volontaires qui rassemblent 33'600 hommes encore.
     Lamourette discourt à l’Assemblée pour mettre en garde devant toute modification de la Constitution. L’ensemble des députés, ainsi que le Roi, approuvent et tombent dans les bras les uns des autres; cette entente, à l’origine du " baiser Lamourette ", ne durera que peu de temps.
1792 Prussian army moves into French territory
1789 Louis XVI renvoie de nouveau le populaire Necker         ^top^
      "Rendez-vous aux cris de la France : rappelez Necker à votre cour!"
, a chanté Paris en août 1788. Le roi Louis XVI l'a oublié sans doute, lorsqu'il signifie à Jacques Necker son second renvoi. Le ministre est l'un des hommes les plus populaires du royaume. Il écrit au roi avant de partir : "Votre Majesté perd l'homme du monde qui lui était le plus tendrement dévoué." Ces mots écrits, il est contraint de partir en secret pour la Belgique, parce que la cour redoute des émeutes. La cour n'a pas eu tort d'avoir peur des réactions du peuple de Paris. Selon Camille Desmoulins, ce renvoi de Necker sonne le "tocsin d'une Saint-Barthélemy des patriotes ".       Le renvoi du ministre des finances et chef du gouvernement, Necker, provoque de nombreuses agitations. A tel point qu’un régiment royal (le Royal-Allemand) tire sur la foule et exaspère au plus haut point l’ensemble de la population.
1740 Jews are expelled from Little Russia by order of Czarina Anne
1690 (Julian July 1) Battle of the Boyne.         ^top^
     It is a victory for the forces of King William III of England over the former king James II, fought on the banks of the River Boyne in Ireland. James, a Roman Catholic, had been forced to abdicate in 1688 and, with the help of the French and the Irish, was attempting to win back his throne. James, failing to take Londonderry and Enniskillen, had left Ulster as a bridgehead to William and had wasted his best Irish regiments in England and France.
      In the Oldbridge area, south of the Boyne, he assembled about 7000 French infantry, some regular Irish cavalry, and untrained Irish infantry and dragoons--altogether about 21'000 men. William led the Dutch Blue Guards, two regiments of French Huguenots, some English, and contingents of Danish, Prussian, Finnish, and Swiss mercenaries--totaling about 35'000 men. Fearing encirclement by William's cavalry, which crossed the Boyne at Rosnaree on the left and at Oldbridge on the right, James fled hastily from the battle and from the country. The battle was William's, but the Jacobite army successfully withdrew to carry on the war for another year in Ireland.
      The Battle of the Boyne is celebrated in Northern Ireland as a victory for the Protestant cause on July 12, which is actually the Old Style date of the more decisive Battle of Aughrim in the following year.
1656 First Quaker colonists land at Boston         ^top^
      Ann Austin and Mary Fisher, two Englishwomen, become the first Quakers to enter the American colonies when the ship carrying them lands at Boston in the Massachusetts Bay Colony. The pair had come from Barbados, where Quakers had established a center for missionary work.
      The Religious Society of Friends, whose members are commonly known as Quakers, was a Christian movement founded by George Fox in England during the early 1650s. Quakers opposed central church authority, preferring to seek spiritual insight and consensus through egalitarian Quaker meetings. They also advocated sexual equality, and became some of the most outspoken opponents of slavery in early America.
      Shortly after arriving to Massachusetts, Austin and Fisher, whose liberal teachings enraged the Puritan colonial government, were arrested and jailed. After five years in prison, they were deported back to Barbados. In October of 1656, the Massachusetts colonial government enacted their first ban on Quakers, and on 20 October 1658, ordered Quakers banished from the colony "under penalty of death." On 27 October 1659, William Robinson and Marmaduke Stevenson became the first Quakers to be executed in America when they were hanged from an elm tree on Boston Common. Mary Dyer was sentenced with them but reprieved and warned not to return to Boston. She did, and was hanged on 01 June 1860.
      In the mid-eighteenth century, John Woolman, an anti-slavery Quaker, traveled the American colonies, preaching and advancing the abolitionist cause. He also organized boycotts of products made by slave labor, and was responsible for convincing many Quaker communities to publicly denounce slavery. Another of many important abolitionist Quakers was Lucretia Mott, who worked on the Underground Railroad in the nineteenth century, helping lead fugitive slaves to freedom in the Northern states and Canada. In addition to her anti-slavery crusade, Mott later became a leader in the movement for women's rights
1533 Pope Clement VII excommunicates England's King Henry VIII for divorcing Catherine of Aragon, and afterward marrying Anne Boleyn. Two years later, Henry broke with Rome and established under his autocratic rule the Anglican communion as the national religion of England. Then he went on to divorce or behead Anne Boleyn and three more wives, while his sixth wife survived him.
1315 Fin du servage en France ... Comme son père Philippe IV le Bel, Louis X le Hutin ne cesse pas d'être à court d'argent. Pour remplir ses caisses, il affranchit ses serfs... moyennant finances.
1302 Bataille des Eperons d'Or (Courtrai). fête nationale flamande         ^top^
      Le symbole est évident, autant que la Prise de la Bastille pour la France ou l’Independance Day pour les E.U. ou encore le 27 Septembre pour la Wallonie. C’est l’anniversaire de la bataille des éperons d’or. A Courtrai, les milices communales flamandes (essentiellement les villes du Comté de Flandre) écrasent la fine fleur de la chevalerie française. C’est une revanche de Bouvine, 1214, où la Flandre était tombée aux mains du roi de France Philippe-Auguste qui tentait ainsi de briser le pouvoir du Comte de Flandre (dont on estimait la richesse en disant que les simples "bourgeoises" étaient plus richement habillées que la Reine de France !).
      Philippe le Bel, en guerre avec la Flandre, assiste impuissant au massacre de ses chevaliers -- parmi lesquels il y a Pierre Flotte, Raoul de Nesle et Robert d'Artois -- qui se sont enlisés dans les marais des environs de la ville de Courtrai. Ils sont taillés en pièces par les milices flamandes. Une chronique artésienne rapporte : "Là, on put voir toute la noblesse de France gésir en de profonds fossés, la gueule bée et les grands destriers, les pieds amont et les chevaliers dessous."
      Philippe IV le Bel n'oubliera pas cette humiliation. Tellement d’éperons d’or (goudenspoor) vont être enlevés aux chevaliers morts que le nom restera à cette célèbre bataille nationale. La Bataille des Eperons d’Or reste le plus haut fait historique dont se revendique le mouvement indépendantiste flamand . Deux ans plus tard, Philippe Auguste prendra sa revanche en particulier lors de la bataille de Mons-en-Pévèle.
      Henrik Conscience, écrivain flamand, épris de son pays, résolut d’écrire en une langue que la bourgeoisie francophone de l’époque considérait comme un patois destiné au vulgaire. Le romantisme nationaliste lui inspira "Le Lion de Flandre" (De Leeuw van Vlaanderen, 1838), récit épique de la révolte des municipalités flamandes contre la France et de leur victoire à la bataille des Éperons d’or (1302). Ce roman, qui inaugurait le renouveau des lettres flamandes en Belgique, situait en même temps son auteur parmi les maîtres du roman historique en vogue dans le courant romantique européen.
0069 Flavio Tito Vespasiano dirige el pronunciamiento del ejército de Egipto y de Judea, que provocará la guerra civil en el Imperio y su nombramiento como emperador de Roma.
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Deaths which occurred on a 11 July:
2001 Rasmia Jabarin, 38, shot by Israeli soldiers.         ^top^
      A Palestinian factory worker and mother of two, Jabarin was in a taxi carrying Palestinian workers which evaded an Israeli checkpoint. After the van took a dirt road, an Israeli army jeep appeared behind it and signaled for the taxi to stop. The driver did not stop, and after a few minutes, the army jeep drove alongside and a soldier fired a single shot into the van, hitting Jabarin in the head. "We have been going this way every day. Many people do this," said a surviving passenger. Israel's military said the army jeep overtook the van and attempted to block its path, but the driver veered onto the shoulder and drove past. "From an initial investigation, the soldiers acted in accordance with procedures" that call for them to fire in the air and shoot out the tires, the military said. The statement acknowledged Jabarin's death, but did not say how she was shot.
2000 Robert Runcie, 78, former archbishop of Canterbury, in Hertfordshire, England.
2000 Pedro Mir, escritor dominicano.
1991 All 261 aboard a Nigerian Airlines jet carrying Muslim pilgrims which crashes at the Jiddah, Saudi Arabia, international airport.
1991 A 4-year-old boy as an Air Force F-16 jet trying to make an emergency landing crashes into a house in Pensacola, Florida., setting the home on fire. The boy's mother is badly burned. (The pilot ejected safely.)
1984 Tonnie Storey, 15, tortured and murdered in Cincinnati by Alton Coleman, 28, who would be executed by lethal injection on 26 April 2002, having been responsible for this and seven other deaths, plus numerous robberies, rapes and kidnappings during a 54-day five-state crime spree with his girlfriend, Debra Denise Brown.
1983:: 119 personas a bordo de un avión ecuatoriano que estalla en el aire.
1976 León de Greiff, poeta colombiano.
1974 Par Lagerkvist, escritor sueco, Nobel de Literatura 1951.
1954 Albert André, French artist born on 24 May 1869.
1946 Paul Nash, English Surrealist painter born on 11 May 1889. — LINKSWinter Sea
1937 George Gershwin, 38, US composer (American in Paris)
1931 Jean-Louis Forain, French painter born on 23 October 1852. — LINKSThe Patron and the ArtistDanseuse Rattachant son ChaussonMontmartreThe Tightrope WalkerThe FishermanMusic Hall
1928 El diputado mexicano Sandoval, a su hermano y al alcalde de Tacambaro, ahorcados en postes telegráficos, por un .....
1916 Rik Wouters, Belgian painter and sculptor born on 02 August 1882. — LINKS
1911 Carlos Arturo Torres, poeta, ensayista, crítico y político colombiano.
1909 Simon Newcomb, 74, celestial mechanics authority, mathematician who remarked: "Ten decimal places of pi are sufficient to give the circumference of the earth to a fraction of an inch, and thirty decimal places would give the circumference of the visible universe to a quantity imperceptible to the most powerful microscope"
1892 François Claudius Koenigstein, dit Ravachol, 33 ans, guillotiné         ^top^
     Il est né en 1859, dans une famille ouvrière de Saint-Chamond. La misère et les désaccords familiaux entraînent le père, hollandais d’origine, à abandonner le foyer, et à l’âge de huit ans Ravachol est "placé" à la campagne pendant la belle saison ; l’hiver, il retourne à l’école. Après quelques années d’apprentissage, il devient ouvrier teinturier; à dix-huit ans, il lit Le Juif errant d’Eugène Sue, qui lui révèle la "conduite odieuse des prêtres". Il "perd complètement les idées religieuses" après avoir assisté à des conférences faites dans la région par des militants socialistes et il s’inscrit à un cercle d’études. Mais très vite l’anarchie lui paraît un moyen plus radical de satisfaire son désir de changement social ; il fréquente aussi les cours du soir, particulièrement les cours de chimie.
      Chassé de divers emplois, ayant ses frères et sœurs à charge, il est accordéoniste dans les bals, tout en se livrant à la contrebande des alcools, au faux-monnayage et au cambriolage. Le mouvement anarchiste d’alors prône la "propagande par le fait" et loue la "reprise individuelle", c’est-à-dire le vol. Ravachol tente de cambrioler un vieil ermite, enrichi par des années d’aumônes. Surpris par sa victime, il tue le vieillard. Arrêté peu après, il s’échappe, mais son évasion est si facile que certains compagnons anarchistes voient en lui un provocateur.
      Sous le pseudonyme de Léon Léger, Ravachol se cache dans la banlieue parisienne ; les milieux anarchistes sont alors agités par la condamnation sévère de deux des leurs : Ravachol organise un vol de dynamite dans une carrière puis, le 11 mars 1892, va déposer sa bombe chez le conseiller Benoît, responsable de la sévérité des peines. L’immeuble est détruit, mais le conseiller en sort indemne. Le 27 mars, Ravachol récidive, chez le substitut Bulot cette fois : "J’ai voulu faire comprendre à tous ceux qui ont à appliquer des peines qu’il fallait à l’avenir qu’ils soient plus doux", expliquera-t-il lors de son procès. Reconnu trois jours après cet attentat par un garçon du restaurant Véry, il est arrêté.
      Il comparaît le 26 Apr 1892 devant la cour d’assises de la Seine dans une atmosphère d’état de siège: la veille, le restaurant Véry a sauté. Ravachol est condamné aux travaux forcés à perpétuité et aussitôt transféré devant la cour d’assises de la Loire: il y répond du meurtre du vieil ermite et de deux autres meurtres qu’il nie farouchement. Condamné à mort, il accueille la sentence au cri de "Vive l’anarchie" ; sa conduite digne et calme lui a enfin gagné la sympathie de tout le mouvement anarchiste, certains voient même en lui le Christ de l’anarchie.
      Le 11 Jul 1892, a lieu l’exécution. Ravachol meurt en criant "Vive la Révolution", après être monté sur l’échafaud en chantant une chanson du père Duchesne. Une chanson, La Ravachole, écrite sur l’air de La Carmagnole et du Ça ira, et l’usage du verbe "ravacholiser" témoignent de son renom dans les groupes anarchistes parmi lesquels il fera des émules.
1869 Tall Bull, in Battle of Summit Springs.         ^top^
      Tall Bull, a prominent leader of the Cheyenne Dog Soldier warrior society, is killed during the Battle of Summit Springs in Colorado. Tall Bull was the most distinguished of several Cheyenne warriors who bore this hereditary name. He was a leader of the Dog Soldiers, a fierce Cheyenne society of warriors that had initially fought against other Indian tribes. In the 1860s, though, the Dog Soldiers increasingly became one of the most implacable foes of the US government in the bloody Plains Indian Wars. In October 1868, Tall Bull and his Dog Soldiers badly mauled an American cavalry force in Colorado. He confronted General Philip Sheridan's forces the following winter in Oklahoma. Near the Washita River, Sheridan's Lieutenant Colonel George Custer attacked a peaceful Cheyenne village under Chief Black Kettle.
      The Cheyenne suffered more than 100 casualties, and Custer's soldiers brutally butchered more than 800 of their horses. However, Custer was forced to flee when Tall Bull and other chiefs camped in nearby villages began to mass for attack. Custer's attack had badly damaged the Cheyenne, but Tall Bull refused to surrender to the Americans. In the spring of 1869, Tall Bull and his Dog Soldiers took their revenge, staging a series of successful attacks against soldiers who were searching for him. Determined to destroy the chief, the US Army formed a special expeditionary force under the command of General Eugene Carr. On this day in 1869, Carr surprised Tall Bull and his warriors in their camp at Summit Springs, Colorado. In the ensuing battle, Tall Bull was killed and the Dog Soldiers were overwhelmed. Without the dynamic leadership of their chief, the surviving Dog Soldiers' resistance was broken. Although other Cheyenne continued to fight the American military for another decade, they did so without the aid of their greatest warrior society and its leader.
1861 Rebs and Yanks at the Battle of Rich Mountain, western Virginia         ^top^
      Union troops under General George B. McClellan score another major victory in the struggle for western Virginia at the Battle of Rich Mountain. The Yankee success secured the region and ensured the eventual creation of West Virginia. Western Virginia was a crucial battleground in the early months of the war. The population of the region was deeply divided over the issue of secession, and western Virginia was also a vital east-west link for the Union because the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad ran through its mountains. After McClellan scored a series of small victories in western Virginia in June and early July, Confederate General Robert Garnett and Colonel John Pegram positioned their forces at Rich Mountain and Laurel Hill to block two key roads and keep McClellan from penetrating any further east.
      McClellan crafted a plan to feign an attack against Garnett at Laurel Hill while he sent the bulk of his force against Pegram at Rich Mountain. Part of McClellan's force, led by General William Rosecrans, followed a rugged mountain path to swing around behind the Rebels' left flank. McClellan had promised to attack the Confederate front when he heard gunfire from Rosecrans's direction. After a difficult march through a drenching rain, Rosecrans struck the Confederate wing. It took several attempts, but he was finally able to drive the Confederates from their position. McClellan shelled the Rebel position, but did not make the expected assault. Each side suffered around 70 casualties. Pegram was forced to abandon his position, but Rosecrans was blocking his escape route. Two days later, he surrendered his force of 555. Although McClellan became a Union hero as a result of this victory, most historians agree that Rosecrans deserved the credit. Nonetheless, McClellan was on his way to becoming the commander of the Army of the Potomac.
1860 Les maronites victimes du 3ème des 4 jours du massacre de Damas         ^top^
      La folie meurtrière de la communauté druze de la ville de Damas s'est déchaînée l'avant-veille. Pendant quatre jours, quelques 5000 chrétiens maronites sont massacrés par des bandes fanatiques qui forcent les portes, violent, tuent et pillent. Le pacha n'a pas respecté ses engagements à la fin de la guerre de Crimée, il reste totalement indifférent. En revanche, l'émir Abd el-Kader sauve plus de 1500 chrétiens qu'il accueille et protège dans son palais. A la nouvelle de ces émeutes, l'émotion est si forte en France et en Angleterre qu'on décide d'envoyer un corps expéditionnaire "pour aider le sultan à rétablir la paix". La France est mandatée par l'Europe et agira fermement.
1807 Atwood, mathematician
1766 Isabel de Farnesio, reina de España.
1733 Hermann, mathematician.
1697 Abraham Janszoon Begeyn (or Begeijn, Bega), Dutch painter born in 1637. — LINKS
1593 Giuseppe Arcimboldo, Italian, first surrealist (officially “Mannerist”) painter (human faces made up of vegetables, or fish, or birds, etc.) (born approximately in 1527).
MORE ON ARCIMBOLDO AT ART “4” JULY LINKSSelf-Portrait (blue and black ink and wash) Vertumnus _ [portrait of the Emperor Rudolf II, not as a couch potato (he never watched TV), but as a bunch of vegetables] FloraSpring Summer _an earlier version of Summer Autumn (1573) Winter Air Water Earth FireEve and the Apple with CounterpartThe LibrarianThe LawyerVegetables in a Bowl or The Gardener *— The Cook [*an added trick of these last two pictures is that they can be viewed upside down]
1551 Girolamo Genga, Italian painter born in 1476. — LINKS
1536 Erasmo de Rotterdam, humanista flamenco.
1382 Nicole Oresme, mathematician who invented coordinate geometry long before Descartes, he was the first to use a fractional exponent, and also worked on infinite series.
Births which occurred on a 11 July:
1927 Gregorio Salvador Caja, lexicólogo y académico español.
1922 Cassels, mathematician
1899 E.B. White, US author of essays and children's books (Charlotte's Web, Elements of Style). He died on 01 October 1985.
1890 Albanese, mathematician.
1885 Roger de la Fresnaye, French Cubist-Fauvist painter who died on 27 November 1925. — LINKS
1864 William Ritschel, US painter who died in 1949. — Morning Litany
1857 Larmor, mathematician
1851 Millie and Christine NC, siamese twins.
1846 Leon Bloy, French writer who died on 02 November 1917.
1838 John Wanamaker, US merchant, founder of Wanamaker department stores. He died on 12 December 1922.
1780 Gregorio de las Heras, militar y político argentino.
1767 John Quincy Adams Braintree, Mass, 6th Pres (D) (1825-1829) (son of the 2nd US President). He died on 23 February 1848.
1754 Thomas Bowdler.         ^top^
      Born in Ashley, near Bath, Somerset, England.. He died on 24 February 1825, in Rhydding, near Swansea, Glamorganshire, Wales English doctor of medicine, philanthropist, and man of letters, known for his Family Shakspeare (1818), in which, by expurgation and paraphrase, he aimed to provide an edition of Shakespeare's plays that he felt was suitable for a father to read aloud to his family without fear of offending their susceptibilities or corrupting their minds. Bowdler sought to preserve all Shakespeare's "beauties" without the "blemishes" introduced (he supposed) to please a licentious age. The first edition, the title of which was spelled The Family Shakespeare (1807), contained a selection of 20 plays that probably were expurgated by Bowdler's sister, Harriet. Although criticized for tampering with Shakespeare's text, Bowdler deserves a certain amount of credit for making the plays well known to a wide audience. The word bowdlerize, current by 1838 as a synonym for expurgate and now used in a pejorative sense, remains his most lasting memorial.
1694 Charles-Antoine Coypel, French painter who died on 14 March 1752. — LINKSPhilippe Coypel (brother of the artist)
1561 Luis de Góngora y Argote, poeta y dramaturgo español.
1558 Robert Greene Elizabethan dramatist (Friar Bacon). ROBERT GREENE ONLINE: Greene's Groats-Worth of Wit
1274 Robert I, the Bruce         ^top^
      Il devait être, après l'assassinat d'un rival, proclamé roi d'Écosse le 25 mars 1306. Robert Bruce, souvent manipulé, changea fréquemment de camp en fonction de ses intérêt. Néanmoins, après la mort de Bruce Wallace, il combattit âprement les armées du roi d'Angleterre Édouard II. On raconte qu'il puisa son entêtement à combattre Édouard dans l'observation d'une araignée qui remontait inlassablement son fil. Il fut finalement vainqueur à Bannockburn les 23-24 juin 1314. Mais ce n'est qu'en 1328 que les anglais le reconnurent comme roi d'Ecosse, par le traité de Northampton. Il est mort, peut-être de la lèpre, le 07 Jun 1329.
Holidays Appleton Cheshire, England : Bawming the Thorn Day / Dahomey, Ivory Coast, Niger, Upper Volta : Independence Day (1960) / Mongolia : National Day (1921) / North Belgium : Flemish (Golden Spurs) Day

Religious Observances Orthodox : St Olga, 1st Russian saint of Orthodox Church / RC : St Pius I, 10th pope (141-55), martyr / Ang, Luth, RC : St Benedict of Nursia, abbot of Monte Cassino / Santos Juan, Sabino, Abundio, Marciano y Benito abad.

PUNISHMENT TO FIT THE CRIME: For corporate crime, would it be appropriate to apply corporal punishment? Or is it reserved for the lowest ranks of army non-commissioned officers?
Thoughts for the day : “He was a bold man that first ate an oyster.” [or very, very hungry?? or a show-off?? Could it have been a woman?]
“There never was an oyster that ate a man... but there is a first time for everything... or is there?”
“Defend the homeland! Eat up all the oysters before they start eating us!”
“Sheep of the world: ewe night! Go forth and be prolific.” —
[and don't be sheepish about it, nor let them pull the wool over your eyes]
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canu.host.sk/history/h4jul/h4jul
elpn.com/canu/history/h4jul/h4jul
www.jcanu.hpg.com.br/history/h4jul/h4jul
h42day.0catch.com/history/h4jul/h4jul
www.hostultra.com/~canu/history/h4jul/h4jul
+ 11.html