1963 Patrick Bouvier Kennedy, 39 hours old (was born premature),
second son of president John F. Kennedy, 46, and Jacqueline (Bouvier)
Kennedy, 34.
1962 Hermann Hesse, escritor alemán, Premio Nobel de Literatura.
1950 Fueter,
mathematician
1945 Tens of thousands of innocent
men, women, and children atomized in Nagasaki ^top^
Above Japan, a US B-29 bomber,
drops a plutonium-based atomic bomb on the coastal city of Nagasaki
at 11:02. A third of the city is destroyed, tens of thousands
of people are instantly incinerated, and by the end of the 1945
the death toll would stand at an estimated 74'000.
The Nagasaki bombing comes three
days after Little Boy, a uranium-based atomic bomb, destroyed
Hiroshima. The Hiroshima attack marked the first time an atomic
weapon was ever used in warfare, and it was even more deadly
than the succeeding Nagasaki attack: 100'000 instantly killed
and 35'000 more dead by the end of the year. A few very unlucky
Hiroshima survivors had taken refuge in Nagasaki and are atom-bombed
a second time.
The devastation wrought at Hiroshima
was not sufficient to convince the Japanese War Council to accept
the Potsdam Conference's demand for unconditional surrender.
The United States had already planned to drop their second atom
bomb, nicknamed "Fat Man," on August 11 in the event of such
recalcitrance, but bad weather expected for that day pushed
the date up to 09 August. So at 01:56., a specially adapted B-29
bomber, called "Bock's Car," after its usual commander, Frederick
Bock, took off from Tinian Island under the command of Major
Charles W. Sweeney.
Nagasaki was a shipbuilding center,
the very industry intended for destruction. The bomb is dropped
at 11:02, 500 m above the city. The explosion unleashed the
same energy as 22'000 tons of TNT. The hills that surrounded
the city did a better job of containing the destructive force,
but the number killed is estimated at anywhere between 60'000
and 80'000 (exact figures are impossible, the blast having obliterated
bodies and disintegrated records).
Several hours after the destruction
of Hiroshima, US President Harry S. Truman, returning from
the Potsdam conference aboard the US cruiser Augusta, had
announced the use of the top secret weapon against Japan. Truman
explained that the atomic bomb had been used to save the lives
of Americans that would be lost in an invasion of Japan, and
would continue to be used until Japan accepted the Allies' terms
of surrender. He did not mention that the US did not yet have
a third atomic bomb). General Leslie R. Groves, the man
responsible for organizing the Manhattan Project, which solved
the problem of producing and delivering the nuclear explosion,
estimated that another atom bomb would be ready to use against
Japan by August 17 or 18 — but it was not necessary.
On 08 August 1945, the Soviet
Union had declared war against Japan, and on 09 August —
the day of the Nagasaki bombing — the Red Army crossed
into Manchuria, rapidly overwhelming the Japanese defenders
there. Faced with the choice of destruction or certain surrender,
Japan chose the latter.
Even though the Japanese War
Council still remained divided ("It is far too early to say
that the war is lost," opined the Minister of War), Emperor
Hirohito, by request of two War Council members eager to end
the war, met with the Council and declared that "continuing
the war can only result in the annihilation of the Japanese
people…." The Emperor of Japan gave his permission for unconditional
surrender. On 15 August, one week after the Soviet declaration
of war, Emperor Hirohito would announced the Japanese surrender
on national radio, urging the Japanese people to "endure the
unendurable." |
1943 Chaim Soutine, French painter born in Belarus in 1894. —
MORE
ON SOUTINE AT ART “4” AUGUST
— LINKS
— Flayed
Ox — Woman
in Pink — Le
Petit Patissier — Winding
Road —
Street of Cagnes-sur-Mer — Large
Poplars at Civery or After the Storm
1932 John
Charles Fields, Canadian mathematician.
1919 Robert Thegerström, Swedish artist born on 06 January
1857.
1919 Ernst Haeckel, zoólogo y filósofo alemán.
1915 Frank Bramley, British artist born on 06 May 1857. —
LINKS
1914 Roque Sáenz Peña, presidente de la República Argentina.
| 1896 Otto Lilienthal,
48 ans. Un des pionniers allemands de la conquête de l'air.
Il se tue à bord d'un planeur qu'il avait lui-même conçu. Il
en était déjà à son deux millième vol. Passionné par les choses
de l'air, Otto Lilienthal avait lentement perfectionné ses machines
et découvert des principes aujourd'hui encore appliqués à l'aviation
et au vol à voile. — Otto Lilienthal killed during
a glider test — His book Der Vogelflug als Grundlage der
Fliegekunst (1889) and his essays on flying machines (1894)
were recognized as basic works in aeronautics |
1892 Emil Jakob Schindler, Austrian Impressionist
painter specialized in Landscapes,
born on 27 April 1842. — MORE
ON SCHINDLER AT ART “4” AUGUST
— I looked for Schindler's list, but all I found is this one tiny
reproduction of Steamer
Landing Stage near Kaisermühlen
1877 Nez Percé, children
and women mostly, massacred by US. ^top^
The US calls it the “Battle”
of Big Hole Having refused government demands that they move
to a reservation, a small band of Nez Percé Indians are treacherously
attacked in their sleep by the US Army near the Big Hole River
in Montana.
The conflict between the US
government and the Nez Percé was one of the most tragic of the
many Indian wars of the 19th century. Beginning with the tribe's
first contact with the explorers Meriwether Lewis and William
Clark, the peaceful Nez Percé had befriended and cooperated
with the US persons.
Even when hordes of white settlers
began to flood into their homelands along the Snake River (around
the present-day intersection of the Oregon, Washington, and
Idaho state borders), most of the Nez Percé peacefully moved
to a reservation.
However, about a quarter of the
Nez Percé, most of them stockmen and buffalo hunters, refused
to accept the unjust internment on a reservation. Government
pressure to force these last resisters to comply finally led
to the outbreak of the Nez Percé War of 1877. A small band of
warriors — never more than 145 men, though burdened with
about 500 noncombatants — fought US soldiers at four
major battles.
The third “battle”
of the Nez Percé War occurs on this day. Fleeing eastward with
hopes of escaping to Canada, the Nez Percé made camp in the
Big Hole Basin in present-day western Montana. At 03:30, Colonel
John Gibbon attacked the sleeping Indians with a force of 183
men. Raking the Indian lodges with withering rifle fire, the
soldiers initially seemed to be victorious. The Nez Percé, however,
soon counterattacked from concealed positions in the surrounding
hills. After four days of sporadic fighting, the Nez Percé withdrew.
Both sides suffered serious casualties. The soldiers lost 29
men with 40 wounded. The army body count found 89 Nez Percé
dead, mostly women and children.
The battle dealt the Nez Percé
a grave, though not fatal, blow. The remaining Indians were
able to escape, and they headed northeast towards Canada. Two
months later, on October 5, Colonel Nelson Miles decisively
defeated the Nez Percé at the Battle of the Bear Paw Mountains.
Those who were not killed surrendered and reluctantly agreed
to return to the reservation. The Nez Percé were only 60 km
short of the Canadian border. |
1871 José Mármol, literato argentino.
1862
General Charles S. Winder, thousands of Rebs and, especially,
Yanks, at Cedar Mountain. ^top^
Confederate General Thomas J.
"Stonewall" Jackson narrowly defeats an attacking Union force
led by General John Pope in the Battle of Cedar Mountain (“Slaughter
Mountain”), Virginia, . prelude to 2nd Manassas.
Jackson had moved north in July
1862 after it became clear that the primary Union force in the
east, General George McClellan's Army of the Potomac, was not
going to attack Richmond. McClellan was camped on the James
Peninsula southeast of Richmond, where General Robert E. Lee
stopped him at the Seven Days' Battles in late June. Frustrated
with McClellan's lack of action, President Lincoln began shifting
troops from the peninsula to Pope's newly formed Army of Virginia,
which was operating near Washington. Jackson, who was sent north
by Lee to counter the growing Yankee presence in northern Virginia,
fell on part of Pope's force at Cedar Mountain on 09 August.
Despite being severely outnumbered, Pope's army dealt Jackson
a near-humiliating defeat. Jackson attacked in the afternoon,
but a fierce Union counterattack, led by General Nathaniel Banks,
almost broke Jackson's line. The arrival of Confederate General
Ambrose P. Hill provided Jackson with enough troops to launch
another assault that evening. That attack drove the Federals
from the field, and only nightfall prevented a complete rout
of the Yankees. Union losses totaled 2300 out of 8'000. The
Confederates suffered 1300 casualties out of 18'000. But the
battle was nearly a disaster; Jackson miscalculated, and the
Confederates almost lost to an army half their size. |
1652 Jan Dirkszoon Both, Dutch Baroque
era painter born in 1618 or 1610. — MORE
ON BOTH AT ART “4” AUGUST —
LINKS
— Italian
Landscape with Draughtsman — Ruins
at the Sea
1546 (or 06 Feb 1549) Martin Schaffner, German artist born in
1478 or 1479.
1458 Pietro di Francesco degli Orioli, Italian artist born in
1458.
0378 Emperor Valens, 20'000
of his soldiers, and some of the Visigoths who rout them at
Adrianople ^top^
In one of the most decisive battles
in history, a large Roman army under Valens, the Roman emperor
of the East, is defeated by the Visigoths at the Battle of Adrianople
in present-day Turkey. Two-thirds of the Roman army, including
Emperor Valens himself, were overrun and slaughtered by the
mounted barbarians.
Crowned in 264, Emperor Valens
initiated warfare against the semi-civilized Visigoths in 364,
and by 369 he had defeated them. Visigoths under Fritigern were
given permission to settle south of the Danube in the Roman
Empire. But, subjected to oppressive measures by Roman officials,
the Visigothic settlers soon rose in revolt.
In 378, Valens marched a Roman
army against Fritigern, and 16 km from Adrianople the Romans
come upon the massed barbarians. As the Visigoth cavalry is
off on a foraging mission, Valens orders a hasty attack on 09 August. The Romans initially drive the barbarians back, but then
the Visigoth cavalry suddenly returns, routs the Romans and
forces them to retreat.
The horsemen then ride down the
fleeing Roman infantry, and slaughtered them one by one. Some
20'000 of 30'000 men were killed, including Emperor Valens.
The decisive Visigoth victory at the Battle of Adrianople would
leave the Eastern Roman Empire nearly defenseless, and establish
the supremacy of cavalry over infantry that would last for the
next millennium. Emperor Valens was succeeded by Theodosius
the Great, and for the next few years he, too, struggled to
repel the hordes of Visigoth barbarians plundering the Balkan
Peninsula. |
|
2001
Frida Mendelsohn, 62, Yocheved Shoshan, 10, Tehila Maoz, 20,
Malka Roth, 15, Michal Raziel, 16; Mordechai Schijveschuurder,
43, his wife Tzira, 41, and three of their children, Ra'aya,
14, Yitzhak, 4, and Hemda, 2; Zvi Golombak, 26, Judith Lillian
Greenbaum, 31; Lily Shamilashvili, 33, and her daughter Tamar,
8; Giora Balash, 60, and a suicide bomber, 
