03 Aug History: This Date

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On an August 03:
2001 Dana Curry and Heather Mercer, US nationals aid workers with Shelter Now International in Afghanistan are arrested by the Taliban's Ministry for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice for the capital crime of preaching Christianity.
1994 El Parlamento israelí aprueba el acuerdo alcanzado en Washington el pasado 26 de julio por el que Israel y Jordania pusieron fin a 46 años de estado de guerra.
1994 The media report that two House subcommittees requested that the General Accounting Office investigate recent hang-ups in NASDAQ's computer-based trading system. The system had malfunctioned on July 14 and 15, and again on August 1.
1994 Stephen G. Breyer was sworn in as US Supreme Court justice
1993 the US Senate voted 96-3 to confirm Supreme Court nominee Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
1993 El Gobierno español compra a los barones Thyssen los 775 cuadros de su colección de obras maestras, que abarca desde el siglo XIII al arte contemporáneo.
1990 Radio Kuwait goes off the air, due to the Iraqi invasion
1990 US announces commitment of Naval forces to Gulf regions
1989 Lawrence Delisle drives his 4 kids into river
1988 The Iran-Contra congressional hearings end, with none of the 29 witnesses tying President Reagan directly to the diversion of arms-sales profits to Nicaraguan rebels.

1988 Soviets release Mathias Rust      ^top^
      Soviet authorities free Mathias Rust, the daring young West German pilot who landed a rented Cessna on Moscow's Red Square in 1987. Rust was serving a four-year sentence at a labor camp when the Soviets approved his extradition as a goodwill gesture to the West.
      On 28 May 1987, Rust, 19, with less than 40 hours of flying time, flew the light plane from Helsinki, Finland, to Red Square, the site of the Kremlin, Lenin's Tomb, and frequent Soviet patriotic demonstrations. He had not been detected once during the 800-km flight. Rust said his flight was in the interest of world peace, and he signed autographs in Red Square until he was arrested. His seemingly effortless penetration of Soviet air space raised serious questions about the USSR's ability to defend itself from air attack.

1987 Fuerzas navales iraníes inician las maniobras "Martirio", ataques suicidas contra buques civiles o militares en el golfo Pérsico.
1984 Primera huelga general en Argentina contra el Gobierno del presidente Raúl Alfonsín.
1984 365.7 million shares traded in NY Stock Exchange

1984 VisiCorp unloads its multitasking software ^top^
Newspapers report that VisiCorp had sold its VisiOn multitasking system to Control Data Group. The highly touted program was one of several software systems, including Microsoft Windows, vying to offer a multitasking environment using a point-and-click interface. VisiCorp flourished in the late 1970s and early 1980s because of the popularity of its program VisiCalc, the first spreadsheet. However, the company was slow to adjust to IBM's personal computer in 1981 and lost ground to newcomers, including Lotus-1-2-3, which purchased the company in 1985.

1981 PATCO's suicidal strike.      ^top^
      Tired of working clock-busting shifts on "obsolete" equipment, 13'000 members of the US Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization (PATCO) chose this day to walk off the job. President Reagan fired back, threatening to fire any workers who were still on the picket line as of August 5th. A large number of controllers stood their ground, though their determination wasn’t matched by the media and public relations savvy that now seem necessary for mustering-up popular support.
      Having seemingly won the battle of public perception, Reagan made good on his promise: citing a law that forbade strikes by federal employees, the President canned 11'500 strikers and decertified the union. Replacement controllers was recruted, trained and as soon as possible installed into the vacant positions. Air traffic control suffered. The PATCO strike ultimately triggered a protracted retreat by labor, as Reagan's tactics emboldened employers to take a more aggressive stance against union activity.

1979 Un golpe de Estado, dirigido por Teodoro Obiang Nguema, derroca al dictador de Guinea Ecuatorial Macias Nguema.

1976 Martian landscape close-ups: ^top^
Viking 1 was designed by NASA as a space laboratory fitted with long-range cameras to answer the age-old question of whether life existed on Mars. During August of 1976, the craft, which had touched down on the Chryse Planitia region in late July, beamed close-up photographs of the Martian surface back to California. They revealed a bright pink sky, a rusty brown landscape, and traces of nitrogen — a vital sign of life. Twenty years later, a meteorite with Martian origins found in Antarctica was thought to contain a fossil of a simple organism from Mars, but the claim quickly fell into dispute. The question of life on Mars, now or ever, remains open.

1970 Hurricane "Celia" becomes most expensive Gulf storm in history

1967 US President Lyndon B. Johnson announces plans to send 45'000 more troops to Vietnam.
1966 Nikolai Podgorny es reelegido presidente del Soviet Supremo y, con ello, jefe de Estado de la URSS.

1966 Vietnam: Marines attack south of DMZ ^top^
US Marines start Operation Prairie, a sequel to an earlier operation in the area (Operation Hastings), which involves a sweep just south of the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) against three battalions of the North Vietnamese 324B Division. An additional 1500 Marines from Seventh Fleet ships off Quang Tri Province conducted amphibious landings on September 15 to assist in the operation, which lasted until 19 September and resulted in a reported 1397 Communist casualties.

1966 Nikolai Podgorny es reelegido presidente del Soviet Supremo y, con ello, jefe de Estado de la URSS.

1965 Vietnam: TV shows Marines burning innocent village ^top^
CBS-TV news shows men from the First Battalion, Ninth Marines setting fire to huts in the village of Cam Na, six miles west of Da Nang, despite reports that the Viet Cong had already fled the area. The film report sparked indignation and condemnation of the US policy in Vietnam both at home and overseas. At the same time, the Department of Defense announced that it was increasing the monthly draft call from 17'000 in August to 27'400 in September and 36'000 in October. It also announced that the Navy would require 4600 draftees, the first such action since 1956.

1963 Great Train Robbery-$2.5 M ($3.25 M) robbed
1960 Niger gains independence from France

1958 Nuclear submarine under the North Pole.      ^top^
      The US nuclear submarine Nautilus accomplishes the first undersea voyage to the geographic North Pole. The world's first nuclear submarine, the Nautilus dived at Point Barrow, Alaska, and traveled some 1500 km under the Arctic ice cap to reach the top of the world. It then steamed on to Iceland, pioneering a new and shorter route from the Pacific to the Atlantic and Europe. The USS Nautilus was constructed under the direction of US Navy Captain Hyman G. Rickover, a brilliant Russian-born engineer who joined the US atomic program in 1946. In 1947, he was put in charge of the navy's nuclear-propulsion program and began work on an atomic submarine.
      Regarded as a fanatic by his detractors, Rickover succeeded in developing and delivering the world's first nuclear submarine years ahead of schedule. In 1952, the Nautilus' keel was laid by President Harry S. Truman, and on 21 January 1954, first lady Mamie Eisenhower broke a bottle of champagne across its bow as it was launched into the Thames River at Groton, Connecticut. Commissioned on 30 September 1954, it first ran under nuclear power on the morning of 17 January 1955.
      Much larger than the diesel-electric submarines that preceded it, the Nautilus was 97 meters long and displaced 3180 tons. It could remain submerged for almost unlimited periods because its atomic engine needed no air and only a very small quantity of nuclear fuel. The uranium-powered nuclear reactor produced steam that drove propulsion turbines, allowing the Nautilus to travel underwater at speeds in excess of 20 knots.
      In its early years of service, the USS Nautilus broke numerous submarine travel records and on 23 July 1958, departed Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, on "Operation Northwest Passage" — the first crossing of the North Pole by submarine. There were 116 men aboard for this historic voyage, including Commander William R. Anderson, 111 officers and crew, and four civilian scientists. The Nautilus steamed north through the Bering Strait and did not surface until it reached Point Barrow, Alaska, in the Beaufort Sea, though it did send its periscope up once off the Diomedes Islands, between Alaska and Siberia, to check for radar bearings. On 01 August the submarine left the north coast of Alaska and dove under the Arctic ice cap. The submarine traveled at a depth of about 150 m, and the ice cap above varied in thickness from 3 to 15 meters, with the midnight sun of the Arctic shining in varying degrees through the blue ice.
      At 23:15. EDT on 03 August 1958, Commander Anderson announced to his crew: "For the world, our country, and the Navy — the North Pole." The Nautilus passed under the geographic North Pole without pausing. The submarine next surfaced in the Greenland Sea between Spitzbergen and Greenland on 05 August. Two days later, it ended its historic journey at Iceland. For the command during the historic journey, President Dwight D. Eisenhower decorated Anderson with the Legion of Merit.
      After a career spanning 25 years and almost 800'000 km traveled, the Nautilus was decommissioned on 03 March 1980. Designated a National Historic Landmark in 1982, the world's first nuclear submarine went on exhibit in 1986 as the Historic Ship Nautilus at the Submarine Force Museum in Groton, Connecticut.

1957 Proclamación de la independencia de Malasia.
1954 first VTOL (Vertical Take-off and Land) flown
1951 EEUU suprime el conjunto de facilidades aduaneras otorgadas después de la guerra mundial a los países comunistas.

1948 Chambers accuses Hiss of being a Communist spy      ^top^
      In hearings before the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), Whittaker Chambers [01 April 1901 – 09 July 1961] accuses former State Department official Alger Hiss [11 Nov 1904 – 15 Nov 1996] of being a Communist and a spy for the Soviet Union. The accusation set into motion a series of events that eventually resulted in the trial and conviction of Hiss for perjury. Chambers was a little known figure prior to his 1948 appearance before HUAC. He was a self-professed former member of the Communist Party. Chambers also admitted to having served as a spy for the Soviet Union. He left the Communist Party in 1938 and offered his services to the FBI as an informant on Communist activities in the United States.
      By 1948, he is an editor for Time magazine. At that time, HUAC is involved in a series of hearings investigating Communist machinations in the United States. Called as a witness, Chambers appears before the committee on 03 August 1948. He drops a bombshell during his testimony. Chambers accuses former State Department official Alger Hiss of having been a Communist and a spy during the 1930s.
      Hiss was one of the most respected men in Washington. He had been heavily involved in the US's wartime diplomacy and attended the Yalta and Potsdam conferences. In 1948, he was president of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Hiss angrily denied the charges and declared that he did not even know Whittaker Chambers. He later admitted that he knew Chambers, but at the time he had been using a different name — George Crosley.
      In the weeks that followed Chambers' appearance before HUAC, the two men exchanged charges and countercharges and their respective stories became more and more muddled. Finally, after Chambers publicly declared that Hiss had been a Communist "and may be one now," Hiss filed a slander suit. During the course of that trial, Chambers produced microfilmed copies of classified State Department documents from the 1930s, which he had hidden in hollowed-out pumpkins on his farm. The "Pumpkin Papers" were used as evidence to support his claim that Hiss had passed the papers to him for delivery to the Soviets. Based on this evidence, Hiss was indicted for perjury for lying to HUAC and a federal grand jury about his membership in the Communist Party. The statute of limitations had run out for other charges related to his alleged activities in the 1930s. After the first trial ended with a hung jury, Hiss was convicted in January 1950 and served 44 months of a 5 year prison sentence. Chambers remained adamant in his accusations about Hiss and he wrote the autobiography Witness.
     After Hiss was released from prison, his marriage fell apart and he got divorced from his wife. He was disbarred and took trivial jobs to support himself. Hiss wrote two books, In the Court of Public Opinion (1957) and Recollections of a Life (1988). Hiss insisted that he was innocent until the day he died and spent much of his later life trying to prove his innocence. In 1992 a Russian general in charge of Soviet intelligence archives declared that Hiss had never been a spy.

1947 A petición de la ONU, holandeses e indonesios aceptan el alto al fuego en Indonesia.
1945 Chinese troops under American General Joseph Stilwell take the town of Myitkyina from the Japanese.
1944 II Guerra Mundial: Tropas aliadas liberan Bruselas.

1943 Patton strikes hospitalized soldier      ^top^
      During World War II, US General George S. Patton, 57, slaps an Army private hospitalized for battle fatigue, accusing the young man of cowardice. After the general struck another enlisted man suffering from a similar psychological disorder, US General Dwight D. Eisenhower ordered him to apologize and temporarily removed him from command.
      Born in San Gabriel, California, on 11 November 1885, Patton was from a family with a long history of military service. After studying at West Point, he served as a tank officer during World War I, and these experiences, along with his extensive military study, led him to become an advocate of the crucial importance of the tank in future warfare.
      After the US entrance into World War II, Patton, who been placed in command of an important US tank division, played a key role in the ALLied invasion of French North Africa in 1942. In 1943, Patton led the US Seventh Army in its assault on Sicily, and won fame for out-commanding British General Bernard L. Montgomery in the so-called "Race to Messina."
      Although Patton was one of the ablest American commanders from World War II, he was also one of the most controversial. He presented himself as a modern-day cavalryman, designed his own uniform, and was known to make eccentric claims of his direct descent from great military leaders of the past through reincarnation. During the Sicilian campaign.
      Patton generated considerable controversy when he accused two US soldiers suffering from battle fatigue of cowardice, and then personally struck them across the face. The famously profane general was forced to issue a public apology and was reprimanded by General Eisenhower.
      However, when time for the invasion of Western Europe came, Eisenhower could find no general as formidable as Patton, and the general was again granted an important military post. In 1944, Patton commanded the US Third Army in the invasion of France, and in December of that year, his supreme expertise in military movement and tank warfare helped crush the German counteroffensive in the Ardennes during the Battle of the Bulge.
      During one of his many successful campaigns, General Patton was once said to have declared, "Compared to war, all other forms of human endeavor shrink to insignificance."
      His public criticisms of the Allied postwar denazification policy in Germany led to his removal from the command of the 3rd Army in October 1945. On 21 December 1945, Patton died in a hospital in Germany from injuries sustained in an automobile accident near Mannheim. He was not mourned by many. His memoirs, War As I Knew It, appeared posthumously in 1947.

1941 Gasoline rationing in US ^top^
Although the US has not yet entered World War II, gasoline rationing begins in parts of the eastern United States. The rationing would spread to the rest of the country as soon as the US joined the Allied forces, and the production of cars for private use be halted completely in 1942. Similar measures had already taken place in most European countries.

1940 La URSS se anexiona los estados Bálticos.

1940 WW2: Italy attacks British Somaliland      ^top^
      Italy begins its offensive against the British colony of Somaliland, in East Africa, territory contiguous with Italian Somaliland. Italy had occupied parts of East Africa since 1936 and by 1940, when it officially entered the war, had troops far outnumbering British forces in the region. Despite their numerical superiority, the Italians had been slow to make offensive moves for fear that the British blockade in North Africa would make it impossible to get much-needed supplies, such as fuel and weapons, to sustain long engagements.
      But if Italy was to make greater territorial gains, it had to act, while British numbers were still relatively small. After several forays a few miles into Sudan and Kenya, the Italians were ready for a bigger push: British Somaliland. The rationale was that it was actually a defensive move. Afraid that the British could enter Italian-occupied Ethiopia through French Somaliland, the Duke of Aosta (who was also Viceroy of Ethiopia and supreme Italian military commander of the region) ordered an invasion of British Somaliland.
      The British defenders at the garrison put up a fierce struggle; although they had to eventually withdraw, they inflicted 2000 casualties on the Italian forces, while suffering only 250 of their own. Italy would not enter the Somaliland capital, Berbera, until 19 August, while Britain built up its African forces in Kenya. The war for East Africa was not over.

1940 Lithuanian SSR is accepted into the USSR
1936 The US State Department urged US nationals in Spain to leave because of that country's civil war.
1932 The Dow Industrial Average makes a 9.52 gain, one of the biggest single day jumps in market history. This is in the midst of the Depression, and it turns out not to signal a return to prosperity

1927 Wrongly convicted Sacco and Vanzetti denied clemency      ^top^
after their condemnation for the murders in South Braintree, Mass., on 15 April 1920, of F.A. Parmenter, paymaster of a shoe factory, and Alessandro Berardelli, the guard accompanying him, in order to secure the payroll that they were carrying.
      On 05 May Nicolà Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti, two Italian anarchists who had immigrated to the United States in 1908, one a shoemaker and the other a fish peddler, were arrested for the crime. On 31 May 1921, they were brought to trial before Judge Webster Thayer of the Massachusetts Superior Court, and on 14 July both were found guilty by verdict of the jury. Socialists and radicals protested the men's innocence.
      Many people felt that there had been less than a fair trial and that the defendants had been convicted for their radical, anarchist beliefs rather than for the crime for which they had been tried. All attempts for retrial on the ground of false identification failed. On 18 November 1925, one Celestino Madeiros, then under a sentence for murder, confessed that he had participated in the crime with the Joe Morelli gang. The state Supreme Court refused to upset the verdict, because at that time the trial judge had the final power to reopen on the ground of additional evidence. The two men were sentenced to death on 09 April 1927.
      A storm of protest arose with mass meetings throughout the nation. Governor Alvan T. Fuller appointed an independent advisory committee consisting of President A. Lawrence Lowell of Harvard University, President Samuel W. Stratton of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Robert Grant, a former judge. On 03 August 1927, the governor refused to exercise his power of clemency; his advisory committee agreed with this stand.
      Demonstrations proceeded in many cities throughout the world, and bombs were set off in New York City and Philadelphia. Sacco and Vanzetti, still maintaining their innocence, were executed 23 August 1927.
      Opinion has remained divided on whether Sacco and Vanzetti were guilty as charged or whether they were innocent victims of a prejudiced legal system and a mishandled trial. Some writers have claimed that Sacco was guilty but that Vanzetti was innocent. There is widespread agreement, however, that the two men should have been granted a second trial in view of their trial's significant defects.
      In 1977 the governor of Massachusetts, Michael S. Dukakis, issued a proclamation stating that Sacco and Vanzetti had not been treated justly and that no stigma should be associated with their names.

1923 United States President Calvin Coolidge is inaugurated as the 30th president of the United States, following the death of Warren G. Harding.
1921 first aerial cropdusting (Troy, Ohio, to kill caterpillars)
1921 Baseball commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis refused to reinstate the former Chicago White Sox players implicated in the "Black Sox" scandal, despite their acquittals in a jury trial.
1914 Germany invades Belgium and declares war on France in WW I — I Guerra Mundial: Francia, Bélgica e Inglaterra declaran la guerra a Alemania.
1912 Turquía concede una autonomía limitada a Albania.
1911 First military use of aiplanes: Italian planes reconnoiter Turkish lines near Tripoli.
1906 Firma en Pekín de un tratado entre Inglaterra y China por el que ambos países se comprometieron a respetar la independencia del Tibet.

1894 Pullman strike is broken ^top^
After a long and violent summer, the strike at the Pullman Palace Car Company is broken. This is a seeming victory for management, which has refused to cave in to any of the workers' demands. But, the strike, which cost lives and $80'000 in damages and lost wages, aroused public sympathy for the workers, while drawing widespread attention to the Pullman Company's "autocratic" ways.

1882 Immigration Act passed by US Congress. It bars Chinese immigration for ten years.
1868 La provincia de Buenos Aires sustituye la pena capital por la de presidio que, como máximo, será de 20 años.
1864 Federal gunboats attack but do not capture Fort Gains, at the mouth of Mobile Bay, Alabama..
1863 Siege of Fort Wagner, Charleston Harbor, South Carolina continues
1863 Governor Seymour asks Lincoln to suspend draft in NY
1861 Balloon ascension by John LaMountain at Hampton Roads, Virginia

1846 Donner party encounters first delay      ^top^
      An ominous sign of the troubles to come, the Donner party finds a note warning the emigrants that their expected route through the mountains ahead is nearly impassable. The Donner party had left Springfield, Illinois, three months earlier. Led by two wealthy brothers, Jacob and George Donner, the emigrants initially followed the regular California Trail westward to Fort Bridger, Wyoming. From there, however, the emigrants decided to leave the established trail and take a new and supposedly shorter route to California laid out by a unscrupulous trail guide named Lansford Hastings. Hastings was not at Fort Bridger at the time-he was leading an earlier wagon train along his new route. He left word for the Donner party to follow, promising that he would mark the trail for them. Reassured, the group of 89 emigrants left Fort Bridger with their 20 wagons and headed for Weber Canyon, where Hastings claimed there was an easy passage through the rugged Wasatch Mountains.
      On this day, they reach the head of the canyon, where they find the note from Hastings attached to a forked stick. Hastings warned the Donner party that the route ahead was more difficult than he had thought. He asked the emigrants to make camp there and wait until he could return to show them a better way. Hastings' note troubled the emigrants. To return to Fort Bridger to pick up the established route would have meant wasting several days. They decided to wait for Hastings. After eight days, when Hastings had still not arrived, the emigrants sent a messenger up the canyon to find the guide. The messenger returned several days later with instructions from Hastings to follow another trail, and the emigrants complied. The alternate route, however, turned out to be even worse than the Weber Canyon road, and the emigrants had to carve a fresh road through thick trees and boulder-strewn ground. The Donner party finally made it through the Wasatch Mountains and arrived at the Great Salt Lake. Hastings' route had cost them 18 valuable days. Unfortunately, their difficulties were only beginning. The "short cut" to California had cost them many wasted days, and the Donner party crossed the Sierra Nevada Mountains late in the season. On October 28, a heavy snowfall blocked the high mountain passes, trapping the emigrants in a frozen wilderness. Eventually reduced to cannibalism to survive, only 45 of the original 89 emigrants reached California the following year.

1826 Coronación del Zar Nicolás I en Moscú.
1808 Guerra de la Independencia española. Primer sitio de Zaragoza.
1807 The trial of Aaron Burr begins. He is accused of plotting the secession of New England.
1805 Mohammed Ali becomes the new ruler of Egypt.

1804 Battle of the gunboats      ^top^
      During the First Barbary War, US warships and gunboats launch an assault against Tripoli harbor in present-day Libya, and get into hand-to-hand combat with the Tripolitan gunboats there. The Americans fail to seize control of the harbor, but board and capture several enemy gunboats in dramatic fighting while suffering only moderate losses.
      Also known as the War with Tripoli, the First Barbary War began in 1801, when US President Thomas Jefferson ordered US Navy vessels to the Mediterranean Sea in protest of continuing raids against US ships by pirates from the Barbary states — Morocco, Algeria, Tunis, and Tripolitania. US sailors were often abducted along with the captured booty and ransomed back to the US at an exorbitant price.
      After two years of minor confrontations, sustained action began in June 1803 when a small US expeditionary force attacked Tripoli harbor in present-day Libya. In February 1804, a force of US Marines under Lieutenant Stephen Decatur, 25,
led an expedition into the Tripoli harbor to burn the captured US frigate Philadelphia. He made his escape under fire with only one man wounded. Famed British Admiral Horatio Nelson called this the "most daring act of the age." It earned him his captain's commission and a sword of honor from Congress.
      Six months later, Decatur returns to Tripoli Harbor as part of a larger American offensive, and emerges as a hero again during the so-called "Battle of the Gunboats."
      In April of 1805, another US victory came during the Derna campaign, which was the first campaign undertaken by US land forces in North Africa. After marching eight hundred kilometers from Egypt, US agent William Eaton led a small force of US Marines and Berber mercenaries against the Tripolitan port city of Derna. The Marines and Berbers were on a mission to depose Yusuf Karamanli, the ruling pasha of Tripoli, who had seized power from his brother, Hamet Karamanli, a pasha who was sympathetic to the United States.
      Supported by the heavy guns of the USS Argus and the USS Hornet, Marines and Arab mercenaries under William Eaton captured Derna and deposed Yusuf. However, much to Eaton's dismay, the peace terms agreed to in June failed to approve Hamet's restoration to the throne. The US government, which was anxious to reach a peace agreement, decided to set aside Hamet's claim in exchange for a promise by Tripoli to grant most-favored trading status to the United States, not to molest US merchant vessels, and to forgo demands for tribute payments. The treaty, approved by Congress in 1806 after a long and heated debate, was the most favorable any nation had negotiated with a pirate state. However, conflict with other Barbary states continued for over a decade.

1692 French forces under Marshal Luxembourg defeat the English at the Battle of Steenkerke in the Netherlands.
1610 Henry Hudson of England discovers a great bay on the east coast of Canada and names it for himself.
1596 David Fabricius discovers light variation of Mira (first variable star discovered). By the late 20th century, more than 30'000 variable stars had been catalogued.
1553 "Bloody" Mary I Tudor, 37, the new Queen of England, enters London. Protestant heads will roll. Her predecessor 9-day teen queen Lady Jane Grey is in prison.
1540 Coronado writes to Viceroy Mendoza: Coronado's Report to Viceroy Mendoza Sent from Cibola, 03 August 1540 (English translation)
1529 Se firma la Paz de Cambrai, tratado de paz entre Carlos I de España y V de Alemania y el monarca francés Francisco I, quien renuncia a los territorios italianos, a Flandes y a las plazas del Artois.

1492 Columbus sets sail      ^top^
     From the Spanish port of Palos, Italian explorer Cristoforo Colombo, 40, sets sail in command of three ships — the Pinta, the Niña, and the Santa María — on a journey to find a Western ocean route to the "Indies" (the Far East). On October 12, after following the paths of migratory birds, the expedition would sight Watling Island in the Bahamas, initially believing that it had found Asia.
      The Europeans went ashore the same day and claimed the island for Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand of Spain, the sponsors of Columbus's exploration. After leaving Watling, Columbus and the 120 men under his command visited Cuba and Hispaniola, where they traded with natives whom Columbus incorrectly termed "Indians." During these travels, his flagship, the Santa María, was wrecked, and Columbus left thirty-eight men on Hispaniola with munitions and supplies before sailing back to Spain aboard the two smaller ships. The expedition returned to Spain in March of 1493, and Columbus was received with the highest honors by the Spanish court.
      He would lead three more expeditions to the New World, discovering various Caribbean islands, the Gulf of Mexico, and the South American mainland, but never accomplishing his original goal — a Western ocean route to India. He would die bitter and unrewarded on 21 May 1506 in Valladolid.
     — Parten del puerto de Palos las tres naves que descubrirán el continente americano a los europeos: la nao Santa María al mando de Colón, la carabela Pinta capitaneada por Martín Alonso Pinzón y la carabela Niña, dirigida por Vicente Yánez Pinzón.

1347 Six burghers of the surrounded French city of Calais surrender to Edward III of England in hopes of relieving the siege

TO THE TOP

Deaths which occurred on an August 03: ^top^
2001 Abdullah Abu Alhawa, 56, Palestinian gunned down by Palestinians in a Bethlehem public square, being suspected of collaborating with Israel.
1979 Víctor Raúl Haya de la Torre, político peruano.
1977 Makarios III, arzobispo ortodoxo y político chipriota.
1966 René Schick, presidente de Nicaragua.
1964 Eduardo Cote Lamus, poeta y político colombiano.
1959 Jakob Nielsen, mathematician
1954 Colette, 81, France, novelist (Claudine)
1950 Hundreds of South Korean refugees crossing a bridge on the Naktong River as it was blown up by demolition charges set the previous day by members of the US Army's 14th Combat Engineer Battalion.
1936 Heinrich Hörle, German artist born on 01 September 1895.
1934 Cecilio Pla y Gallardo, pintor español.
1929 Pascal Adolphe Jean Dagnan-Bouveret, French painter born on 07 January 1852. — LINKS — Whitney Warren Sr. (1916, 26x19cm) — Hamlet and the Gravediggers (1883)

1929 Emil Berliner, 78, pioneer of telephone and records, ^top^
German-born Emil Berliner immigrated to the United States in 1870, and later worked for Alexander Graham Bell's telephone company. In 1877, the year after Graham invented the telephone, Berliner developed an improved telephone receiver. Ten years later, Berliner dramatically improved the phonograph when he developed the flat gramophone record, which quickly replaced Thomas Edison's recording cylinder. He also developed a method for mass-producing records.

1924 Jozef Teodor Konrad Nalecz Korzeniowski, novelist who wrote under the name Joseph Conrad — CONRAD ONLINE: Lord Jim, Nostromo, The Secret Agent, The Heart of Darkness.
1922 Lerch, mathematician
1917 Ferdinand Georg Frobenius, German mathematician.

1916 Sir Roger Casement, Irish patriot, hanged by British.     ^top^
      Sir Roger David Casement, the Irish-born diplomat who in 1911 was knighted by King George V, was executed for his role in Ireland's Easter Rebellion. Casement, an Irish Protestant who served as a British diplomat during the early part of the twentieth century, won international acclaim after exposing the illegal practice of slavery in the Congo and parts of South America.
      Despite his Ulster Protestant roots, he became an ardent supporter of the Irish independence movement, and after the outbreak of World War I, traveled to the United States and then to Germany to secure aid for an Irish uprising against the British. Germany, which was at war with Great Britain, promised limited aid, and Casement was transported back to Ireland in a German submarine.
      On 21 April 1916, just a few days before the outbreak of the Easter Rebellion in Dublin, he landed in Kerry, and was picked up by British authorities almost immediately. By the end of the month, the Easter Rebellion had been suppressed, and the majority of its leaders were executed. Casement was tried separately because of his illustrious past, but nevertheless was found guilty of treason on June 29. On 03 August he was hanged in London.

1914 Couturat, mathematician.
1895 Théodore Gérard, Belgian artist born on 09 December 1829.
1860 Simon Saint-Jean, French painter, specialized in still life and flowers, born on 14 October 1808. — MORE ON SAINT~JEAN AT ART “4” AUGUST — LINKS — Still Life With Flowers and Wild Raspberries — Flowers and Fruit — other Flowers and Fruit — Flowers and Grapes — Flowers and Grapes by a Window
1592 Francesco Giambattista da Ponte Bassano, Italian Mannerist painter, commits suicide by throwing himself out of a window. He was born on 11 January 1549. — MORE ON BASSANO AT ART “4” AUGUST — LINKS — Summer — Return of the Prodigal Son — Jesus Carrying the Cross up to Calvary — Jacopo Bassano and his son Francesco Bassano jointly painted Christ in the House of Mary, Martha, and Lazarus
1546 Etienne Dolet, French printer, accused of heresy, blasphemy and sedition, hanged and burned at the stake for printing reformist literature.
1460 Jacobo II, rey de Escocia.

Births which occurred on an August 03: ^top^
1977 The TRS-80 computer in introduced by a Radio Shack press release. 25 existed, within weeks thousands were ordered
1950 Ernesto Samper Pizano, político colombiano.
1948 Carmen Álvarez-Arenas Cisneros, política española.
1924 Leon Uris (novelist: Battle Cry, Exodus, QB VII, Mitla Pass; screenplay: Gunfight at the O.K. Corral)
1920 Phyllis Dorothy James, British mystery writer.
1918 James MacGregor Burns political writer (The Lion and the Fox)
1914 Mark Kac, mathematician who said: "There are surely worse things than being wrong, and being dull and pedantic are surely among them."
1910 John Gunther (writer: Inside series: Inside Europe, Asia, Latin America, USA., Africa, Russia Today, Europe Today; Behind the Curtain; foreign correspondent: Chicago Daily News)
1909 Walter Van Tilberg, Western novelist who wrote The Ox-Bow Incident.
1909 José María Areilza y Martínez Rodas, conde de Motrico, político español.
1905 Maggie Kuhn, social activist and founder of "The Gray Panthers."
1903 Habib Ben Ali Burguiba, político tunecino.
1902 Habib Bourguiba, first president of Tunisia
1900 Ernie Pyle (journalist: Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter [1944]: reports of 1940 London bombings and war reports from Africa, Italy and France; managing editor: Washington Daily News) wrote about the common soldier. His books Here Is Your War and Brave Men were made up from his columns. He died on 18 April 1945 from Japanese machine gun fire on Ie Jima.
1900 John T Scopes (high school teacher: subject of famous 1925 Scopes Monkey Trial: convicted of teaching evolution in Tennessee school)

1900 Firestone founded ^top^
The Firestone Tire and Rubber Company was established in Akron, Ohio, on this day in 1900. Thirty-one-year-old inventor and entrepreneur Harvey S. Firestone seized on a new way of making carriage tires and began production with only twelve employees. Eight years later, Firestone tires were chosen by Henry Ford for the Model T, and Firestone eventually became a household name.

1887 Rupert Brooke, English poet who mainly wrote about World War I. BROOKE ONLINE: The Collected Poems of Rupert Brooke
1872 Haakon VII Charlottenlund Denmark, King of Norway
1867 Stanley Earl Baldwin, (C) British PM (1923-24, 1924-29, 1935-37) in office during the general strike of 1926. — Stanley Baldwin, humanista y político británico.

*1861 Great Expectations'* final installment** is published. ^top^ The last installment of the serialized novel Great Expectations is published on this day in 1861. The book had been serialized in Dickens' literary circular, All the Year Round. The novel tells the story of young Pip, a poor orphan who comes to believe he will inherit a fortune. Charles Dickens had become one of the most popular writers in England nearly three decades earlier with the publication of his first novel, The Pickwick Papers. The short sketches, which Dickens published under the pseudonym "Boz," were originally commissioned as captions for humorous drawings. Dickens was born in 1812 and attended school in Portsmouth. His father, a clerk in the navy pay office, was thrown in debtors' prison in 1824, and 12-year-old Charles was sent to work in a factory. The miserable treatment of children and the institution of the debtors' jail became topics of several of Dickens' novels. In his late teens, Dickens became a reporter and started publishing humorous short stories when he was 21. In 1836, a collection of his stories, Sketches by Boz, was published. The same year, he married Catherine Hogarth, with whom he would have nine children. In 1838, Dickens published Oliver Twist, followed by Nicholas Nickleby (1839). In 1841, Dickens published two more novels, then spent five months in the US, where he was hailed as a literary hero. Dickens churned out major novels every year or two, usually serialized in his own circular. Among his most important works are David Copperfield (1850), Great Expectations (1861), and A Tale of Two Cities (1859). In the late 1850s, he began a series of public readings, which became immensely popular. He died in 1870 at the age of 58, with his last novel, The Mystery of Edwin Drood, still unfinished. DICKENS ONLINE:
American Notes for General Circulation: 1 (1842) American Notes for General Circulation: 2 (1842) American Notes for General Circulation (1874) Barnaby Rudge (PDF) Barnaby Rudge Barnaby Rudge (zipped PDF) A Child's History of England A Christmas Carol A Christmas Carol (PDF) A Christmas Carol (zipped PDF) A Christmas Carol: The Reading Version David Copperfield David Copperfield (zipped PDF) Dombey and Son (PDF) Great Expectations Great Expectations (PDF) Great Expectations (zipped PDF) The Haunted Man and the Ghost's Bargain The Lazy Tour of Two Idle Apprentices Letters of Charles Dickens to Wilkie Collins The Life and Adventures of Martin Chuzzlewit (PDF) The Life and Adventures of Martin Chuzzlewit (zipped PDF) The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby (zipped PDF) The Old Curiosity Shop The Old Curiosity Shop The Old Curiosity Shop (zipped PDF) The Perils of Certain English Prisoners	Bleak House Bleak House Bleak House (zipped PDF) Little Dorrit Little Dorrit (PDF) Little Dorrit (zipped PDF) Hard Times Hard Times Hard Times (zipped PDF) The Chimes The Chimes The Battle of Life The Holly Tree Hunted Down The Lamplighter The Cricket on the Hearth Doctor Marigold The Life of Our Lord Mugby Junction A Message from the Sea Mrs. Lirriper's Legacy Mrs. Lirriper's Lodgings To Be Read at Dusk Tom Tiddler's Ground Pictures from Italy Reprinted Pieces Sketches by Boz Somebody's Luggage	Mudfog and Other Sketches Master Humphrey's Clock The Mystery of Edwin Drood The Mystery of Edwin Drood Oliver Twist Oliver Twist (PDF) Oliver Twist (zipped PDF) Our Mutual Friend Our Mutual Friend (PDF) The Pickwick Papers The Pickwick Papers The Pickwick Papers (zipped PDF) The Seven Poor Travellers Sketches of Young Couples Sketches of Young Gentlemen Speeches, Literary and Social Sunday Under Three Heads A Tale of Two Cities A Tale of Two Cities A Tale of Two Cities A Tale of Two Cities (zipped PDF) The Uncommercial Traveller The Wreck of the Golden Mary co-author of: No Thoroughfare No Thoroughfare editor of: A House to Let

1851 FitzGerald, mathematician.
1843 Edmund Berninger, German artist who died after 1909.
1825 Erskine Nikol, British artist who died on 09 March 1904.

1823 Thomas Francis Meagher, in Waterford, Ireland     ^top^
      He would be the designer of the Irish tricolor, the Irish Republic's current flag, and a Union general in the US Civil War. A Catholic, Meagher was educated by Jesuits, and studied law in Dublin. As a young man, he became deeply involved in Young Ireland, a nationalistic organization that opposed British rule in Ireland. Meagher was a fiery orator, and directed his invective against Ireland's British overseers. After participating in the aborted Irish rebellion of 1848, Meagher was convicted of high treason. Authorities commuted his death sentence to hard labor and exiled him, like many Irish nationalists of his day, to Tasmania.
      After four years, he escaped and made his way to New York City. He married into a prosperous merchant's family and became a leader within the Irish-American community. When the war broke out, Meagher became a captain in the 68th New York militia, an Irish unit that became the nucleus of the famous Irish Brigade in the Army of the Potomac. In February 1862, he was appointed brigadier general of the unit. Meagher served in all of the army's major campaigns in Virginia, and the Irish brigade distinguished itself at the Battle of Fredericksburg in December 1862.
      However, he was criticized for his unit's high casualty rates, which were rumored to be a result of his heavy drinking. Meagher resigned his commission in 1863 when General Joseph Hooker, commander of the Army of the Potomac, refused his request to return to New York and recruit Irish replacements for the brigade. He continued his work in the New York Irish-American community, but he returned to duty and served in the Army of the Tennessee in early 1865.
      After the war, President Andrew Johnson appointed Meagher secretary of Montana Territory. He died mysteriously at Fort Benton, Montana, on 01 July 1867, after falling from the deck of a riverboat on the Missouri River. His body was never recovered. Meagher is honored today with a statue in front of the Montana capitol in Helena.

1811 Elisha Graves Otis inventor (safe elevator).
1805 Auguste Etienne François Mayer, French artist who died on 22 September 1890.
1789 Johann Friedrich Overbeck, German painter who died on 12 November 1869. — Joseph Being Sold by his Brothers (1816).
1778 La Scala, teatro de Milán, se inaugura con la ópera "Europa Riconosciuta", de Antonio Salieri.
1755 Lazare Bruandet, French artist who died on 26 March 1804.

1753 Charles Stanhope, inventor of calculator, ^top^
Charles Stanhope, a British earl, invented two early mechanical calculators as well as a printing press, a microscope lens, and various other scientific devices. In addition, he was a radical politician who urged the democratization of Parliament, supported French revolutionaries, and attacked the slave trade in the British colonies.

Holidays New Zealand : Arbor Day (1872) / Niger : Independence Day (1960) / Tunisia : Bourguiba's Birthday (1902)

Religious Observance RC : Finding of the Body of St Stephen, martyr / La “invención” de San Esteban — Santos Eufronio, Dalmacio, Gustavo y Lidia.

DIFFICULT SITUATION.
They are between Iraq and a hard place. [If you don't know who they are, look in this space in tomorrow's H42DAY.]

Thoughts for the day: “The best prophet of the future is the past.”
“The best prophet of the future is when that future is past.”
“The best prophet of the future is inferior to the worst prophet of the past.”
“Can the best prophet profit from the future?”
“On a balance sheet, the best profit of the future is inferior to the worst profit of the past.”
“Life is a car that you have to drive looking only into the rear-view mirror” [on a one-way street, at a fixed speed, with no stopping, until it runs out of fuel]
“Our country! In her intercourse with foreign nations may she always be in the right; but our country, right or wrong.” — Stephen Decatur (1815) [Our fatherland is a “she”? A promiscuous “she”?]
“The way they are making things today, antiques will be a thing of the past in the future.” — Willard R. Espy
“The man who has no inner life is the slave of his surroundings.” — Henri Frédéric Amiel, Swiss critic (1821-1881).
“The woman who has no inner life enslaves her surroundings.”
“The man who has no surroundings is the slave of his inner life.”
“The surroundings that have neither man nor woman are unspoiled.”
“When between a rock and a hard place, be thankful if you're not also between the devil and the deep blue sea.”

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