CURRENT UPDATES: TODAY–2 TO TODAY+2
<< Jul 30|     HISTORY “4” “2”DAY     |Aug 01 >>
Events
, deaths, births, of JUL 31

[For Jul 31 Julian go to  Gregorian date: 1583~1699: Aug 101700s: Aug 111800s: Aug 121900~2099: Aug 13]
ARCHIVE    ALL FOR 020731     CURRENT DAY in HISTORY, ART, etc.      Search this site or the web
IF SOMETHING'S WRONG HERE, TRY MIRROR 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, or 19
On a July 31:


2002
During Pope John Paul II's visit to Mexico City, he canonizes the first Amerindian Catholic saint: Juan Diego Cuahtlatoatzin, the Aztec Indian neophyte who, aged 55, on Saturday 09 December 1531 was hurrying down Tepeyac hill to hear Mass in Mexico City, when the Virgin Mary appeared and sent him to Bishop Zumárraga to have a temple built where she stood. She was at the same place that evening and Sunday evening to get the bishop's answer.
      The bishop had not immediately believed the messenger; having cross-questioned him and had him watched, he finally told him to ask a sign of the lady who said she was the mother of the true God. Juan Diego was occupied all Monday with Bernardino, an uncle, who seemed dying of fever. Indian remedies failed; so at daybreak on Tuesday 12 December, the nephew was running to the Santiago convent for a priest. He detoured to avoid the place of the apparition, but the Virgin Mary crossed down to meet him and said: "What road is this that you are taking, son?" Reassuring Juan about his uncle whom at that instant she cured, appearing to him also and calling herself Holy Mary of Guadalupe she told Juan Diego to go again to the bishop.
      Juan Diego asked for the sign. She told him to go up to the rocks and gather roses. He knew it was neither the time nor the place for roses, but he went and found them. Gathering many into his tilma (long cloak used by Mexican Indians) he came back. The Virgin Mary, rearranging the roses, told him to keep them untouched and unseen till he reached the bishop. Having got to the presence of Zumárraga, Juan offered the sign. As he unfolded his cloak the roses fell out, and the life size figure of the Virgin Mother, just as he had described her, was seen on the tilma [image >].
       A basilica was eventually built on the spot of the apparitions, and the image on Juan Diego's cloak is venerated in it. That is where the Pope celebrates the Mass of canonization.

PGO price chart2002 Petroleum Geo Services (PGO) is downgraded by Merrill Lynch from Long Term Strong Buy to Long Term Neutral. On the New York Stock exchange its stock drops from the previous close of $2.14 to an intraday low of $0.47 and a close of $0.56. PGO had traded as high as $10.84 on 22 August 2001 and $38.41 on 03 November 1997. [< 5~year price chart]

2000
North and South Korea agree to reopen border liaison offices and reconnect a railway linking their capitals.
1998 Gore wants web privacy laws      ^top^
      Vice President Al Gore, 50, urges Congress to protect online privacy through laws banning the collection of personal data from children and imposing strict penalties for Internet fraud. He calls for legislation forcing businesses to protect medical, financial, and other personal data, and for harsh punishment for criminals stealing Social Security numbers or other private information. The White House says it will appoint a "privacy czar" to oversee the creation of the privacy policy.
1997 For restricting encryption exports. A National Security Agency official tells: a congressional panel that relaxing US export restrictions on powerful encryption technology could seriously hamper efforts to catch terrorists, spies, and drug traffickers.
1996 After US President Clinton's announced that he would sign a pending welfare overhaul bill, 98 Democrats join the House of Representative's Republican majority to pass it.
1995 The Walt Disney Company agrees to buy Capital Cities-ABC Inc.for $19 billion.
1994 Comienza el despliegue estadounidense en Ruanda con fines humanitarios.
1993 El Sistema Monetario Europeo atraviesa la mayor crisis desde su creación en 1979, tras la caída en días anteriores de cinco de sus divisas.
1991 US President Bush and Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev sign the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty in Moscow. — La URSS y EEUU acuerdan reducir sus arsenales nucleares estratégicos en un 30%, en la firma del Tratado START.
1990 Entra en vigor en la URSS la nueva ley de prensa, que pone fin a la censura.
1988 El rey Hussein de Jordania renuncia al territorio de Cisjordania, ocupado por Israel desde 1967, para favorecer la creación de un Estado palestino independiente.
1982 Adolfo Suárez, en conferencia de prensa, presenta con un manifiesto político el partido fundado por él, el Centro Democrático y Social (CDS).
1975 Jimmy Hoffa missing      ^top^
      Notorious US labor leader James Riddle Hoffa, 62, a former Teamsters president who had served four years in prison, is reported missing in Detroit, Michigan. He was last seen alive in a parking lot outside the Red Fox restaurant the previous afternoon and is suspected to have been murdered.
      In 1932, as a young warehouseman, he organized a union that within two years entered into the Teamsters, a national union made up primarily of truckers. In 1957, the year he became Teamsters president, a Senate Judiciary Committee uncovered widespread corruption in the union, which led to its expulsion from the AFL-CIO, the nation's dominant labor organization.
      Hoffa remained a popular Teamsters president, even though, in the late 1950s and early 1960s, he became the main focus of government investigations into corruption. In 1962, Hoffa faced misdemeanor charges in Tennessee. He managed to get a mistrial but was convicted two years later for obstruction of justice by tampering with the jury, receiving an eight-year sentence. In Chicago, Hoffa was tried for fraud in handling Teamster pension funds and convicted. After losing numerous appeals, he began serving his thirteen-year prison sentence in 1967, but in 1971 was pardoned by President Richard Nixon.
      However, Hoffa left prison with the parole provision that he not engage in union activity until 1980. After his release, he was active in promoting prison reform, and supported Nixon in his 1972 reelection bid. Hoffa disappeared in 1975, and is widely assumed to have been murdered by enemies in organized crime. However, rumors of his whereabouts persisted for several years, the strangest of which had him buried under Section 217 of Giants Stadium at the Meadowlands in New Jersey. In the mid-1980s one man even claimed having murdered Hoffa and dumped his body in the Ausable River. Authorities have never been able to confirm what really happened to Hoffa.
      Hoffa was officially declared "presumed dead" on December 8, 1982. His son James Phillip Hoffa, born in 1942, eventually succeeded him in 1998 at the head of the Teamsters, after quite a struggle.
1972 Hanoi claims that US bombers have struck dikes      ^top^
      Hanoi challenges the Nixon administration on the dike controversy, claiming that since April there had been 173 raids against the dikes in North Vietnam with direct hits in 149 locations. On July 28, in response to claims by the Soviet Union that the United States had conducted an intentional two-month bombing campaign designed to destroy the dikes and dams of the Tonkin Delta in North Vietnam, a CIA report was made public by the Nixon administration.
      It stated that US bombing at 12 locations had caused accidental minor damage to North Vietnam's dikes, but the damage was unintentional and the dikes were not the intended targets of the bombings. The 3000 km of dikes on the Tonkin plain, and more than 3000 km of dikes along the sea, made civilized life possible in the Red River Delta. Had the dikes been intentionally targeted, their destruction would have destroyed centuries of patient work and caused the drowning or starvation of hundreds of thousands of peasants. Bombing the dikes had been advocated by some US strategists since the beginning of US involvement in the war, but had been rejected outright by US presidents in office during the war as an act of terrorism.
1972 Eagleton dropped as VP candidate      ^top^
      by presidential candidate George McGovern, after word leaks that Thomas Eagleton had once undergone treatment for mental illness. McGovern initially said that nevertheless he stood ''1000 percent'' behind Eagleton.
      Born on 04 September 1929, Thomas Eagleton was only 27 when elected St. Louis Circuit Attorney. He served as Missouri's Attorney General and Lieutenant Governor, won a US Senate seat in 1968, and served 18 years. He was instrumental to the Senate's passage of the Clean Air and Water Acts, and sponsored the Eagleton Amendment, which halted the bombing in Cambodia and effectively ended US involvement in the Vietnam War. After three Senate terms, Eagleton returned to St. Louis as an attorney, political commentator, and Washington University professor of Public Affairs. He underwent surgery for lung cancer on 08 September 1999.
1971 Apollo 15 astronauts take a drive on the moon in their land rover.
Franklin1968 Franklin's first time in Peanuts      ^top^
      Franklin meets Charlie Brown at the beach. They'd never met before because they go to different schools, but they have fun playing ball so Charlie Brown invites Franklin to visit him at this house across town for another play session. Later, Franklin turned up as center-fielder on Peppermint Patty's baseball team and sits in front of her at school. Franklin is thoughtful and can quote the Old Testament as effectively as Linus. In contrast with the other characters, Franklin has the fewest anxieties and obsessions. He and Charlie Brown spend quite a bit of time talking about their respective grandfathers. When Franklin first appeared in the late 60s, his noticeably darker skin set some readers in search of a political meaning. However, the remarkable becomes unremarkable when readers learn that Schulz simply introduced Franklin as another character, not a political statement.
Franklin's firs strip
1964 Some US~South Vietnam agreement on conduct of war      ^top^
      In a news conference, Secretary of State Dean Rusk admits there are differences between the United States and South Vietnam on the issue of extending the war into North Vietnam, but agreement on the general conduct of the war. He stated that US warnings to communist China and North Vietnam indicated total US commitment. Ambassador Maxwell Taylor had met with South Vietnamese head of state Gen. Nguyen Khanh on 23 July to register US disapproval of the recent calls by Khanh and Prime Minister Nguyen Cao Ky to extend the war into North Vietnam. The meeting was reportedly "heated." It was also said that Khanh stood firmly against Taylor's reprimands, arguing that the war had changed because of the presence of North Vietnamese forces in South Vietnam. In a second meeting, Khanh offered to resign, but Taylor, who became convinced that Khanh was at least partly right about taking the war to the North Vietnamese, not only dissuaded him but also ended up cabling Washington that the United States should undertake covert planning with the South Vietnamese for bombing the North. Despite ongoing disagreements about how best to conduct the war, President Lyndon B. Johnson insisted that relations between the US and South Vietnam were good. Rusk's comments were seen by many to be part of a campaign to reassure to the South Vietnamese that the United States would continue to stand by them in the struggle.
1964 Ranger 7 photographs Moon      ^top^
      Ranger 7, an unmanned US lunar probe, takes the first close-up images of the moon — 4308 in total — before it crastes on the lunar surface northwest of the Sea of the Clouds. The United States had attempted a similar mission earlier in the year — Ranger 6 — but its cameras had failed as it descended to the lunar surface. 2.4-meter-high Ranger 7, launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida, on July 28, successfully activates its six RCA-TV cameras seventeen minutes or 2100 km before impact, and begins beaming images back to NASA's receiving station in the Mojave Desert, California. The photographs of the moon's surface are of excellent quality, and the final image taken before impact has a resolution of less than 30 cm.
1964 Al Parker glides 1036 km without any motor
1962 Federation of Malaysia formed
1960 Elijah Muhammad, leader of Nation of Islam, calls for a Black state
1947 La Asamblea Constituyente Italiana aprueba el tratado de paz, por 262 votos contra 68.
1945 French puppet of Nazis surrenders      ^top^
     In Austria, Pierre Laval, 62, the puppet leader of Nazi-occupied Vichy France, surrenders to American authorities, who then extradite him to France to stand trial.
      Laval, originally a deputy and senator of pacifist tendencies, shifted to the right in the 1930s while serving as the French premier and minister of foreign affairs. A staunch anti-Communist, Laval delayed the Franco-Soviet pact of 1935 and sought to align France with Fascist Italy. Hostile to the declaration of war against Germany in 1939, Laval encouraged the antiwar faction in the French government, and with the German invasion in 1940 used his political influence to force an armistice with Germany.
      Laval offered the new Vichy state to Philippe Pétain, and as Pétain's deputy encouraged the Vichy government in full collaboration with the Nazi programs of oppression and genocide. By 1942, Laval had won the trust of Nazi leader Adolf Hitler, and the elderly Pétain became merely a figurehead in the Vichy regime. After the Allied liberation of France, Laval was forced to flee to German protection to the east. With the defeat of Germany in May of 1945, he escaped to Spain, but was expelled and went into hiding in Austria, where he finally surrendered to American authorities in late July. Extradited to France, Laval was convicted of treason by the High Court of Justice in a sensational trial. Condemned to death, he attempted suicide by poison, but was nursed back to health in time for his execution on 15 October 1945.
1944 The Soviet army takes Kovno (now Kaunas), the 1920-1940 capital of Lithuania.
1942 II Guerra Mundial: Ataque aéreo británico contra Düsseldorf.
1941 Heydrich to plan Final Solution, i.e. elimination of Jews      ^top^
      Herman Goering, writing under instructions from Hitler, ordered Reinhard Heydrich, SS general and Heinrich Himmler's number-two man, "to submit to me as soon as possible a general plan of the administrative material and financial measures necessary for carrying out the desired final solution of the Jewish question." Goering repeats briefly the outline for that "final solution" drawn up on 24 January 1939: "emigration and evacuation in the best possible way."
       This program of what would become mass, systematic extermination was to encompass "all the territories of Europe under German occupation." Heydrich already had some experience with organizing such a plan, having reintroduced, in a more cruel version, the medieval concept of the ghetto, in Warsaw after the German occupation of Poland. Jews were crammed into cramped walled areas of major cities and held as prisoners, as their property was confiscated and given to either local Germans or non-Jewish Polish peasants.
1941 Stalin: “Hitler's immoral ways”.      ^top^
     Hitler's "greatest weakness is found in the vast numbers of oppressed peoples who hate him and the immoral ways of his government." This assessment is given by Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin (to whom the same applies), at a Kremlin meeting with American adviser to the president Harry Hopkins.
1932 Adolf Hitler's Nationalist Socialist German Workers' Party (Nazis) doubles its strength in legislative elections.
1926 Un anarquista ataca en Barcelona, con una navaja, al general Primo de Rivera, que salió ileso.
1925 Unemployment Insurance Act passed in England
1919 Germany's Weimar Constitution was adopted.
1917 The third Battle of Ypres begins as the British attack the German lines.      ^top^
      General Douglas Haig disregarded the well-founded forecast that, from the beginning of August, rain would be turning the Flanders countryside into an almost impassable swamp. The Germans, meanwhile, were well aware that an offensive was coming from the Ypres salient: the flatness of the plain prevented any concealment of Haig's preparations, and a fortnight's intensive bombardment (4'500'000 shells from 3000 guns) served to underline the obvious — without, however, destroying the German machine gunners' concrete pillboxes. Thus, when the Third Battle of Ypres was begun, on 31 July, only the left wing's objectives were achieved: on the crucial right wing the attack was a failure. Four days later, the ground was already swampy.
      When the attack was resumed on 16 August, very little more was won, but Haig was still determined to persist in his offensive. Between 20 September and 04 October, thanks to an improvement in the weather, the infantry was able to advance into positions cleared by bombardment, but no farther. Haig launched another futile attack on 12 October, followed by three more attacks, scarcely more successful, in the last 10 days of October. At last, on 06 November, when his troops advanced a very short distance and occupied the ruins of Passchendaele (Passendale), barely 8 km beyond the starting point of his offensive, Haig felt that enough had been done. Having prophesied a decisive success without "heavy losses," he had lost 325'000 men and inflicted no comparable damage on the Germans.
1914 German Emperor Wilhelm II threatens war, demands of his cousing tsar Nicolas II that Russia demobilize
1909 Finaliza la Semana Trágica de Barcelona, revuelta de tipo social que se produce en Barcelona y en algunas localidades catalanas como protesta por el envío de nuevas tropas a Marruecos.
1907 Premier camp scout. Dans l'île Brownsea (dans le Dorset, Angleterre), Baden-Powell le fondateur du scoutisme organise son premier camp. Depuis, le scoutisme est devenu un mouvement international. Des Jamborees réunissent tous les quatre ans les scouts du monde entier.
1895 Se constituye el Bizkai Buru Batzar, base del Partido Nacionalista Vasco (PNV).
1891 Great Britain declares territories in Southern Africa up to the Congo to be within its sphere of influence.
1882 Belle and Sam Starr are charged with horse theft in the Indian territory.
1874 Patrick Francis Healy, S.J., is inaugurated as president of Georgetown University.
1863 Siege of Fort Wagner, Charleston Harbor, South Carolina continues
1861 Ulysses S. Grant promoted to brigadier general
1849 Hungría pierde la independencia tras la derrota de sus tropas frente a las austro-rusas en Segesvar (Transilvania).
1834 Guerras carlistas: El general Espartero gana a los carlistas la batalla de Artazu (Navarra).
1814 Pío VII restituye en el mismo estado antiguo y en todo el orbe católico a la Compañía de Jesús.
1813 British invade Plattsburgh, NY
1809 1st practical US railroad track (wooden, for horse-drawn cars), Phila
1808 Tras la derrota francesa en la batalla de Bailén, librada durante la Guerra de Independencia española, José I Bonaparte debe abandonar la corte y refugiarse en Vitoria.
1790 The US Patent Office opens with the first patent granted to Samuel Hopkins of Vermont, developer of a new method of making potash.
1777 The Marquis de Lafayette, 19, a French nobleman, is made a major-general in the American Continental Army.
1760 Ferdinand, Duke of Brunswick, foils last French threat at Warburg and drives the French army back to Rhine River.
1703 Daniel Defoe, 43, is put in the pillory      ^top^
as punishment for seditious libel, brought about by the publication of a politically satirical pamphlet. Defoe's middle-class father had hoped Defoe would enter the ministry, but Defoe decided to become a merchant instead. After he went bankrupt in 1692, he turned to political pamphleteering to support himself. A deft writer, Defoe's pamphlets were highly effective in moving readers. His pamphlet The Shortest Way with Dissenters was an attack on High Churchmen, satirically written as if from the High Church point of view but extending their arguments to the point of foolishness.
      Both sides of the dispute, Dissenters and High Church alike, took the pamphlet seriously, and both sides were outraged to learn it was a hoax. Defoe was arrested for seditious libel in May 1703. While awaiting his punishment, he wrote the spirited Hymn to the Pillory. The public sympathized with Defoe and threw flowers, instead of the customary rocks, at him while he stood in the pillory. He was sent back to Newgate Prison, from which Robert Harley, the future Earl of Oxford, eventually obtained his release.
      Harley hired Defoe as a political writer and spy. To this end, Defoe set up the Review, which he edited and wrote from 1704 to 1713. It wasn't until he was nearly 60 that he began writing fiction. On 25 April 1719 was published The Life and Strange Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, Defoe's fictional account of a shipwrecked sailor who spent 28 years on a desert island (inspired in part by the real-life adventures of Alexander Selkirk as retold in Woodes Rogers' Cruising Voyage Round the World). His other works include Moll Flanders (1722) and Roxana (1724). He died in London on 24 April 1731.
Other works by DEFOE ONLINE:
  • Dickory Cronke: The Dumb Philosopher: or, Great Britain's Wonder
  • Everybody's Business is Nobody's Business
  • Moll Flanders (another site)
  • From London to Land's End
  • Giving Alms No Charity
  • A Journal of the Plague Year
  • Robinson Crusoe ("The Life and Adventures..." and "The Further Adventures...")
  • Tour Through the Eastern Counties of England
  • 1537 Carlos I de España y François I de Francia firman en Niza de una tregua de diez años, que el rey galo rompió transcurridos sólo cinco.
    1498 During his third voyage to the Western Hemisphere, Christopher Columbus arrives at the island of Trinidad.
    0904 Arabs capture Thessalonica from the Byzantine Empire.
    0768 Philip begins & ends his reign as [anti]Pope      ^top^
    (on this date??? — >) —   Catholic Encyclopedia says:
          Pope Paul I was not dead when trouble began about the election of his successor. Toto, duke of Nepi with a body of Tuscans burst into Rome, and, despite the opposition of the primicerius Christopher, forcibly intruded his brother Constantine II, a layman, into the chair of Peter (June, 767). In the spring of 768, however, Christopher and his son Sergius contrived to escape from the city, and got Lombard king Desiderius to sent troops to Rome, killing Toto, and blinding and deposing the usurper Constantine II.
          They were also able to overthrow the Philip, a monk of St. Vito's monastery, whom some of their Lombard allies, backed by some Romans, had clandestinely elected pope. Philip retired to his monastery.
          By their efforts Stephen III (IV), a Sicilian, the son of Olivus, was canonically on 1 August 768 and consecrated on 7 August 768. Stephen had been a Benedictine monk, and had been ordained priest by Pope Zachary. After his consecration the antipopes were treated with the greatest cruelty which, it seems to be generally allowed, Stephen was unable to hinder. To prevent the recurrence of such an election as that of Constantine, the Lateran council forbade laymen to be elected popes or to take part in their election for the future. Only cardinals were to be chosen popes (April, 769).
    0432 Saint Sixtus III begins his reign as Pope.
    TO THE TOP
    Deaths which occurred on a July 31:
    2002 Two Israelis and five foreigners by a bomb exploding at lunchtime in the cafeteria in the Frank Sinatra building of Hebrew University's Mount Scopus campus in Jerusalem. The ceiling collapses. 86 persons are injured. Hamas announces that it has placed the bomb (not a suicide bombing). The dead Israelis are Lavina Shapira, 53, Head of the Student Authority at Hebrew University, and David Ladovsky, 29.
    2001 Ashraf Khader, 5, Bilal Khader, 8, Jamal Mansour, 42, Jamal Salim, 41, Fahim Dawabshe, 32, and four other Palestinians, killed by Israel.
         Israeli helicopters fire missiles into offices of Hamas in Nablus, West Bank. Brothers Ashraf and Bilal Khader, in town for a visit, are killed by shrapnel, as they stand on the street with their mother, Nadia Khader, who is unhurt. The main target is Mansour, a senior Hamas leader in the West Bank who has been arrested repeatedly by the Israelis and the Palestinian Authority. Israel said Mansour was part of the Hamas leadership responsible for attacks that included the 1 June suicide bombing of a Tel Aviv disco that killed 21 Israelis. Salim and Dawabshe were regional Hamas leaders. Three more Palestinians inside the Hamas offices are killed in this attack.
          Two Palestinians are also killed this same day, in the Gaza Strip — one shot by Israeli troops, the other appeared to fall victim to an internal Palestinian feud.
         In Beit Sahour, West Bank, a 57-year-old man believed to be a collaborator with Israel is shot and killed by Palestinians.
         A Palestinian security court in Nablus sentences three Palestinians to death for helping Israel kill Fatah activist Thabet Thabet in December 2000. Another man is sentenced to 15 years in prison and a fifth is released. Arafat has to approve the death sentences before they can be carried out.
         The previous day, six Palestinian activists were killed when a roadside car parts store exploded outside Nablus, not far from Tuesday's attack. All six belonged to the Fatah movement headed by Arafat.
         The al-Aqsa intifada (started 28 September 2000) body count thus stands at 548 Palestinians and 133 Israelis.
    1995 El INI (Instituto Nacional de Industria) de España, casi 54 años después de su creación.
    1995 Mrs. Irene Aitken, 65, in Hyde, England, by lethal dose of opiates administered by Dr. Harold Shipman (murderer of 215+) during a home visit.
    1993 Balduino I, rey de Bélgica.
    1987 Más de 400 personas, en choques entre iraníes y fuerzas de la policía saudí, en los alrededores de la Gran Mezquita de la La Meca, adonde habían acudido en peregrinación.
    1982 44 niños y nueve adultos, abrasados en un accidente de autobús en el sur de Francia.
    1981 General Omar Torrijos, 52, in plane crash. He was dictator of Panama by virtue of the Guardia Nacional whose October 1968 coup put him in power, and of which he was still commander at his death.
    1977 Last victims of Son of Sam      ^top^
          On 29 July 1976 the so-called "Son of Sam" pulled a gun from a paper bag and fires five shots at Donna Lauria and Jody Valenti of the Bronx while they are were sitting in a car, talking. Lauria died and Valenti was seriously wounded in the first in a series of shootings by the serial killer, who terrorized New York City over the course of the next year. Once dubbed the ".44 Caliber Killer," the Son of Sam eventually got his name from letters he sent to both the police and famed newspaper writer Jimmy Breslin that said, "I am a monster. I am the Son of Sam. I love to hunt, prowling the streets looking for fair game. The weman are prettyist of all [sic]."
          The second attack came on October 23, 1976, when a couple was shot as they sat in a car in Queens. A month later, two girls were talking on a stoop outside a home when the serial killer approached, asked for directions, and then suddenly pulled a gun out and fired several shots. Joanne Lomino was paralyzed from a bullet that struck her spine, but her friend was not seriously injured. The Son of Sam attacked again in January and March of 1977. In the latter attack, witnesses provided a description of the killer: an unattractive White man with black hair.
          After yet another shooting in the Bronx in April, the publicity hit a fever pitch. Women, particularly those with dark hair, were discouraged from traveling at night in the city. When the Son of Sam missed his intended victims in another murder attempt in June, vigilante groups formed across New York City looking for the killer.
          His last victims were murdered on July 31, 1977, in Brooklyn.
          Following up on a parking ticket that had been given out that night, police discovered a machine gun in a car belonging to David Berkowitz of Yonkers, New York. When questioned, Berkowitz explained that "Sam" was his neighbor Sam Carr—an agent of the devil. Sam transmitted his orders through his pet black Labrador. Years earlier, Berkowitz had shot the dog, complaining that its barking was keeping him from sleeping. After the dog recovered, Berkowitz claimed that it began speaking to him and demanding that he kill people. In an unusual sequence of events, Berkowitz was allowed to plead guilty before claiming insanity and was sentenced to over 300 years in prison. In prison, he later claimed to be a born-again Christian.
    1976 At least 139 persons in the Big Thompson Canyon flood following extraordinarily heavy rains (up to 40 cm between 18:30 and 23:00), Drake, Colorado.
    1966 Six persons killed at University of Texas by Charles Whitman, who also wounds 46 others
    1953 Robert Taft, 63, (Sen-R-Oh) (Mr Republican), in NY
    1953 Robert A. Taft, US Senate majority leader      ^top^
          Robert A. Taft (R-Ohio) dies of cancer at the age of 63. Branded by critics as an "isolationist," Taft was a consistent critic of the US's Cold War policies. Taft, known as "Mr. Republican" because of his ferocious partisanship, was a true conservative in every sense of the word. First elected to the Senate in 1938, Taft lashed out at Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal programs as being too expensive and wasteful of taxpayers' dollars. During World War II, he warned against the tremendous growth of presidential power, which he claimed threatened the people's liberties and freedom. This same kind of criticism also brought Taft into conflict with the American government's Cold War policies after World War II. He attacked President Harry S. Truman's policy of containment of the Soviet Union, arguing that the United States was provoking Russia into a war. He vigorously opposed the Marshall Plan, designed to give billions of dollars in aid to Western Europe, as far too costly. He also voted against US participation in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) because he believed it impinged on the nation's freedom of action. Overall, Taft feared that Truman and the US government were using the Cold War to take on powers they were never intended to have. For this reason, he also opposed Truman's call for a peacetime draft in 1948. Taft's harsh criticisms sometimes brought him into conflict even with members of his own party. After winning the presidential election in 1952, Republican Dwight D. Eisenhower publicly attacked what he called Taft's "isolationism" and "fortress America" mentality. In the years following his death, however, Taft's views gained new credibility. The immense costs of the Cold War and the brutal and inconclusive Vietnam War seemed to bear out many of Taft's criticisms of America's Cold War policies. During the 1960s, a number of scholars noted the similarities between Taft's opposition to the draft and American military intervention overseas and the objections raised by the anti-Vietnam War movement.
    1944 Antoine de Saint-Exupery, aviador y escritor francés.
    1942 Some 1000 Jews gassed by German SS, in Minsk, Belorussia
    1937 Charles Martine, Apache scout, on the Mescalero Reservation in New Mexico      ^top^
         He had played an important role in the surrender of Geronimo. Born in 1858 among the Chiricahua Apache of northern Mexico, Martine was captured as a young boy and sold to a Mexican family as a servant. His knowledge of both Spanish and Apache and his familiarity with the southern desert lands eventually made him a valuable interpreter and scout. In 1886, the American General Nelson Miles recruited Martine and another Apache, Kayitah, to help track down the renegade Apache chief Geronimo. The wily Geronimo had long stymied the US Army's best efforts to find and arrest him. Now Miles decided to try negotiating. He wanted Martine and Kayitah to find the chief and persuade him to come in and talk about peace. If they succeeded, Miles reportedly promised they would be well rewarded by the US government.
          Accompanied by a small party of soldiers, Martine and Kayitah eventually located Geronimo's camp in northern Mexico. Bearing a white flag, the two scouts cautiously approached the hostile camp. Geronimo initially wanted to shoot the two scouts, but his braves convinced him to let them come forward. Still in considerable danger, the two scouts entered the camp. They managed to convince Geronimo to talk to the army officers. Eventually, Geronimo agreed to a meeting with General Miles during which Geronimo gave his unconditional surrender. Despite their brave and effective service in obtaining the surrender of one of the last hostile Indians in the nation, Martine and Kayitah never received the awards promised them by General Miles. Instead, they were exiled to the east with Geronimo and the other hostile Apache. Miles insisted that all the Chiricahua Apache be exiled-even the scouts who had worked for the US Army. In 1913, they both opted to move to the Apache reservation at Mescalero, New Mexico. On this day in 1937, Martine died there. He was about 80 years old. His longtime friend and ally, Kayitah, had died three years earlier.
    Andrew Johnson1929 Ángel Lizcano y Monedero, pintor español.
    1914 Jean Jaurès, asesinado en París, sociólogo, filósofo, y político socialista francés.
    1906 Ferdinand von Wright, Swedish French artist, dies on his 84th birthday.
    1896 Christian Wiener, mathematician.
    1888 Frank Montague Holl, British Social Realist painter born on 04 July 1845. — LINKSDesertedA Family at Prayer
    1886 Franz Liszt, compositor y pianista húngaro.
    1875 Andrew Johnson, 66, in Tennessee. 17th US President; he succeeded Abraham Lincoln and was the only president before Clinton to face impeachment proceedings. Johnson [portrait, after 1866, by Washington Bogart Cooper (1802-1889) >] was born on 29 December 1808. When he was 3 his father died. Andrew Johnson never attended school, he was apprenticed to a tailor at the age of 10. He taught himself to read and, after he married, his wife taught him the basics of an education. He organized a Working Man's party in 1828. In 1830 he was elected mayor of Greenville, Tennessee, went on to the state legislature, then to the state senate. In 1843 he was elected to the US Congress. In 1853 he was elected governor. In 1857 the legislature elected him to the US Senate, where, a slave owner himself, he was pro-slavery. But he opposed secession and on 04 March 1862 Lincoln named Johnsor Military Governor of Tennessee (which had seceded and only by summer 1863 was completely under Union control), which office he assumed on 12 March. Johnson was nominated for Vice President by the Republican convention on 07 June 1864 and was inaugurated with Lincoln (whose 2nd term it was) on 04 March 1865. Lincoln's 14 April 1865 assassination made Johnson President. On 29 May Johnson granted a general amnesty to most Confederates. His lenient attitude towards the rebels brought him into open conflict with Congress, which he accused of “rebellion” and which overrode his vetoes. After Johnson, on 12 August 1867 removed Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton without the consent of the Senate (required by the Tenure-of-office bill bassed in March 1867), the House of Representatives impeached him, 126 to 17, on 03 March 1868. The Senate trial ended with votes on 16 May and 26 May 1867, 35 guilty to 19 not guilty, which, falling just short of a 2/3 majority, failed to convict Johnson. His term as president ended in March 1869. At the beginning of 1875, the Tennessee legislature narrowly elected him to the US Senate.
    1863 William Henry Knight, British artist born on 26 September 1823.
    1826 El maestro Cayetano Ripoll, ejecutado por hereje, en Valencia, en el último auto de fe de los realizados en España.
    1820 Carl Friedrich Zimmerman, German artist born on 31 March 1796.
    1819 Jurriaan Andriessen, Dutch artist born on 12 June 1742.
    1811 Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla, 58, Catholic priest "father of Mexican independence", executed by Spanish firing squad.
    1776 Francis Salvador, a plantation owner from South Carolina, first Jew to die for American independence, killed in a skirmish with the British.
    1760 Adrien Manglard, French artist born on 12 March 1695.
    1726 Nicolaus(II) Bernoulli, mathematician.
    1693 Willem Kalf, Dutch painter born in the period of 1619 to 1622, specialized in Still Life. — MORE ON KALF AT ART “4” JULYLINKSStill Life with Silver JugStill-Life with a Late Ming Ginger JarStill-Life with a Nautilus Cup _ detailStill-Life with Drinking-HornStill-Life with Lemon, Oranges and Glass of WineStill-life (with ornate whachamucallit) _ detail (wine glass and peach)
    1556 Saint Ignatius of Loyola, founder of Society of Jesus, in Rome
          The Society of Jesus, as the Jesuit order is formally known, played an important role in the Counter-Reformation and eventually succeeded in converting millions around the world to Catholicism. Ignatius, the son of a noble and wealthy Spanish family called the Loyolas, was born in his family's ancestral castle in 1491. Little interested in church matters, he trained as a knight and in 1517 went in the service of a relative, Antonio Manrique de Lara, the duke of Nájera and viceroy of Navarre. In May 1521, during the siege of Pamplona by the French, his legs were shattered by a cannonball. Seriously wounded, he was transported to his family's castle, where he was forced to lie in convalescence for many weeks. During this time, he was given the Bible and a book on the saints to read. He came to see the service of God as a kind of holy chivalry and resolved to live an austere life in imitation of the saints.
          In February 1522 he made a pilgrimage to Montserrat, where a wooden statue of the Virgin Mary and Child, supposedly carved by Saint Luke, resides. Ignatius hung his sword and dagger near the statue as symbols of his conversion to a holy life. For the next year, he lived as a beggar and prayed for seven hours a day, often in a cave near Manresa in northeastern Spain. During this time, he composed an early draft of The Spiritual Exercises, his manual for spiritual meditation and conversion. In 1523, he made a pilgrimage to Jerusalem.
          After his return to Spain in 1524, Ignatius resolved to gain an extensive education to prepare himself for his spiritual mission. He studied in Barcelona and at the University of Alcalá, where he began to acquire followers. Suspected of heresy, he was tried in Alcalá, and later in Salamanca but both times was acquitted. He was forbidden to teach until he reached the priesthood, and he went to the University of Paris to continue his studies.
          In August 1534, the Jesuit movement was born when Ignatius led six of his followers to Montmartre near Paris, where the group took vows of poverty and chastity and made plans to work for the conversion of Muslims. If travel to the Holy Land was not possible, they vowed to offer themselves to the pope for apostolic work. In 1537, Ignatius and most of his companions were ordained. Unable to travel to Jerusalem because of the Turkish wars, they went to Rome instead to meet with the pope and request permission to form a new religious order. In September 1540, Pope Paul III approved Ignatius' outline of the Society of Jesus, as the Jesuit order is formally known.
          Under Ignatius' charismatic leadership, the Society of Jesus grew quickly. Jesuit missionaries played a leading role in the Counter-Reformation and won back many of the European faithful who had been lost to Protestantism. In Ignatius' lifetime, Jesuits were also dispatched to India, Brazil, the Congo region, and Ethiopia. Education was of utmost importance to the Jesuits, and in Rome Ignatius founded the Roman College (later called the Gregorian University) and the Germanicum, a school for German priests. The Jesuits also ran several charitable organizations, such as one for former prostitutes and one for converted Jews. When Ignatius de Loyola died on 31 July 1556, there were more than 1000 Jesuit priests.
          During the next century, the Jesuits set up ministries around the globe. The "Black-Robes," as they were known in Native America, often preceded European countries in their infiltration of foreign lands and societies. The life of a Jesuit was one of immense risk, and thousands of priests were persecuted or killed by foreign authorities hostile to their mission of conversion. However, in some nations, such as India and China, the Jesuits were revered as men of wisdom and science.
          With the rise of nationalism in the 18th century, most European countries suppressed the Jesuits, and in 1773 Pope Clement XIV dissolved the order under pressure from the Bourbon monarchs. However, in 1814, Pope Pius VII gave in to popular demand and reestablished the Jesuits as an order, and they continue their missionary work to this day. Ignatius de Loyola was canonized as a Catholic saint in 1622. His feast day is 31 July.
    Births which occurred on a July 31:
    1970 The complete New American Standard Version of the Bible (NASB) is first published. (The completed NASB New Testament had been released earlier, in 1963.)
    1953 US Department of Health, Education & Welfare created
    1945 John O'Connor, mathematician
    1943 William Bennett US Secretary of Education (1985-88)/drug czar
    1923 Juan Vernet Ginés, profesor e historiador español.
    1921 Whitney M. Young Jr., US civil rights leader, head of the National Urban League. He died on 11 March 1971.
    1919 Primo Levi, Italian Jewish chemist and writer influenced by his captivity at Auschwitz (Survival in Aushchwitz). He died on 11 April 1987.
    1919 Rafael Morales, poeta español.
    1912 Milton Friedman, conservative economist, in Brooklyn      ^top^
         Friedman picked up a string of degrees from schools including Rutgers University and Columbia University, before taking up a post in the University of Chicago's mighty economics department. An ardent proponent of laissez-faire economics, Friedman readily articulated his faith in a fiscal system that depended less on policy than "natural" forces. Along the way, Friedman became the leading light of the "monetarist" school, which, in the laissez-faire tradition, dismissed the government's role as the supposed engine of business. Rather, Friedman and his fellow monetarists believed in stable interest rates and robust money supplies. Friedman used a number of his publications, including Capitalism and Freedom, (written with his wife, Rose) to further stump against "big Government."
          While Friedman's beliefs aroused considerable criticism from liberals, leftists and even a few government-centric voices on the right, he was honored with the Nobel Prize for Economics in 1976. The lofty award hardly slowed Friedman, who continued his battle against the perceived inanity of the Federal government's fiscal policy.
    1904 The Trans-Siberian railroad connecting the Ural mountains with Russia's Pacific coast, is completed.
    1901 Jean Philippe Arthur Dubuffet France, pop painter (Landscape with 2 Personages). He died in 1985.— Reproductions of paintings by DUBUFFET ONLINE: LINKSPersonnage au chapeau (1962) — Sourire (1961) — Ustensiles Demeures Escaliers La Vache au Nez SubtileDhotel Nuance d'AbricotSupervielle
    1900 Elmo Roper, US developer of political forecasting by polls. He died on 30 April 1971.
    1886 Constant Permeke, Belgian artist who died in 1952.
    1883 Paul Kleinschmidt, German artist who died in 1949.
    1883 Erich Heckel, German Expressionist painter printmaker and sculptor who died on 27 January 1970; one of the founders of Die Brücke group of Expressionist artists. — Reproductions of artwork (prints and woodcuts) by HECKEL ONLINE: LINKSSelf~Portrait (Bildnis E.H.) (1917) — Zwei VerwundetMadchenkopf (Junges Madchen) 1913 — Sitzende (1913) — Hockende (1913) — Am Strand (On the Beach)— Elf Holzschnitte (1915) — Maedchen am Meer (1918) — Kniende am Stein (1914) — Stralsund (1912)
    1881 Léon Spilliaert, Flemish Symbolist painter who died in 1946. — LINKSSelf-PortraitThe Crossing
    (or 12 Aug) 1879 Léopold Survage, French artist who died on 01 November 1968. — Homme dans la villeDeux Hommes et un Cheval [they want $2000 for this scribble. Has to be seen to be disbelieved]
    1875 Jacques Villon = Gaston Duchamp, French Cubist painter who died on 09 June 1963. — LINKSGirl in a hat and veilL'EnvoléeCoursierLes Yeux FutilesLes LampesDuo GalantAbstractionTwo Women on a Terrace by the Sea Autre temps: 1830JacquesLe port de la RochelleGirl in a hat and veilThe CrucifixionDaguerrotype #2Daguerrotype #1La FauteMariéeDevant un GuignolAfter Jacques VillonLe Petit ManègeL'entonnoir en ChampagneLes CartesL'Ombrelle RougeLa Mariée mise à nu par ses célibataires, même
    1867 S.S. Kresge, would grow up to be a US businessman owning a chain of 1000 five-and-ten-cents stores. He died on 18 August 1966.
    1863 Miller, mathematician.
    1863 Ernest Bieler, Swiss artist who died in 1948.
    1858 Richard Dixon Oldham, English geologist who discovered evidence of the Earth's Core. He died on 15 July 1936.
    1854 José Canalejas, político liberal español.
    1848 Jean Baptiste Joseph Olive, French artist who died in 1936.
    1844 Léon Augustin L'hermitte, French Realist painter who died on 27 July 1925. — LINKSLe Lavoir près de la Ferme d'Erlan (Pas-de-Calais)Harvesters' CountrySupper at EmmausA la FontaineHarvesters' CountryLa FamilleLa FenaisonLa Leçon de LectureLa Leçon de Claude BernardLa Moisson près de la MarneLe Marché de Chateau-ThierryMaternité ou L'Heureuse Famille Arm & Hammer
    hammer and sickle1837 William Clarke Quantraill, Confederate raider known as one of the most vicious butchers of the American Civil war.
    1835 Henri Brisson, French politician who was twice premier of France. He died on 11 April 1912.
    1830 Ignacio Suárez Llanos, pintor español.
    1826 Ernst Meissel, mathematician.
    1823 Germain Fabius Brest, French Austrian artist who died in November 1900.
    1822 Abram Stevens Hewitt, US industrialist and philanthropist who became mayor of N. Y. C. He died on 18 January 1903.
    1821 William Hammer, Danish artist who died on 09 May 1889. — [Not related to Armand Hammer (21 May 1898 – 1990), Arm & Hammer, or Hammer & Sickle]
    1819 Edouard Henri Girardet, French artist who died on 05 March 1880.
    1816 George Henry Thomas, “The Rock of Chickamauga”, in Virginia      ^top^
         He would earn the nickname by his bravery as a Union general at the Civil War battle of Chickamauga (19-20 September 1863)
          Union General George H. Thomas, who deserves a share of the credit for the Union success in the west, is born in Southhampton County, Virginia. Thomas exemplified the difficulties that individuals who chose to break with their native states over the issue of secession faced. After graduating from West Point, Thomas served in the Seminole and Mexican-American Wars. During the 1850s, he served in Texas with the 2nd Cavalry alongside many prominent future Confederates such as Robert E. Lee, J.E.B. Stuart, Albert S. Johnston, and John Bell Hood.
          When Virginia seceded from the Union, Thomas chose to remain loyal to his country. For this decision, Thomas paid dearly. His family disowned him, and he found advancement in the Union army difficult. He often served under Northern-born men of lesser ability. Thomas was given command of Union forces in eastern Kentucky, and he distinguished himself with a key victory over the Confederates at Logan's Cross Roads in January 1862. After the Battle of Shiloh two months later, Thomas was given command of the Army of the Tennessee when Ulysses S. Grant became the second-in-command in the west to Henry Halleck. This command was given back to Grant during reorganization in 1862.
          Thomas commanded a corps at Stones River and became a Northern hero for his actions at Chickamauga in September 1863. When a gap appeared in the Union line at a crucial moment and Confederate troops began to pour through it, Thomas led a rally that saved the Federals from a serious defeat. He held the Union line together while the rest of the army, commanded by William Rosecrans, slipped back into Chattanooga. In 1864, Thomas commanded the Army of the Cumberland during William T. Sherman's Atlanta campaign.
          After the capture of Atlanta, Thomas's army was sent to pursue the remnants of Confederate General John Bell Hood's army back into Tennessee while Sherman marched across Georgia. Thomas scored two huge victories at Franklin and Nashville as Hood desperately flung his army at the Yankees, resulting in the near disintegration of the once great Rebel force. After the war, Thomas remained in the army. He was transferred to the Military Division of the Pacific, and he died of a stroke in 1870 at the age of 54.
    1811 Jane Currie Hoge, US welfare worker & fundraiser for the Union, who died on 26 August 1890.
    1809 Jan Rutten, Dutch artist who died on 10 October 1884.
    1804 George Baxter, English engraver and printer who died on 11 January 1867. — LINKS
    1803 John Ericsson, inventor of the screw propeller
    1712 Samuel König, mathematician
    1704 Gabriel Cramer, mathematician.
    1526 Augustus, Elector of Saxony & leader of Protestant Germany. He died on 12 February 1586.
    Holidays Mexico : Day of National Mourning (1811-Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla)

    Religious Observances Ang, RC : Joseph of Arimathaea / Buddhist-Thailand : Buddhist Lent / Witch : Lughnasadh, sabbat / Ang, RC : St Ignatius of Loyola, founder of the Jesuits / Santos Ignacio de Loyola, Segundo, Beato, Germán y Dionisio.

    Thought for the day:“He who wakes up and finds himself a success hasn`t been asleep.”
    “Living is a constant process of deciding what we are going to do.” —
    José Ortega y Gasset, Spanish philosopher (1883~1955).
    “I am constantly so busy deciding what I am going to do that I never have time to do it.”
    “Too many people decide what we are going to do, and too few help us do it.”
    TO THE TOP
    PLEASE CLICK HERE TO WRITE TO “TODAY IN HISTORY”
    updated 020731 22:30
    safe site
    site safe for children safe site
    http:// +
    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
    + 31.html