13 Aug History: This Date

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On an 13 August:
2002 The stock of Six Flags (PKS) is downgraded by Bear Strearns from Buy to Neutral, by Goldman Sachs from Trading Buy to Market Perform, by Lehman Brothers from Overweight to Equal Weight, by Prudential from Buy to Hold, by Salomon Smith Barney from Outperform to Neutral. On the New York Stock Exchange PKS drops from its previous close of $11.86 to an intraday low of $4.75 and closes at $5.06. It had traded as high as $18.48 as recently as 02 May 2002, and at $40.00 on 19 July 1999. It had started trading at $18.56 on 29 September 1997. [5~year price chart >]
2002 Nancy Crystal Chavez, 1 month, and her siblings, ages 2 and 6, are placed by their mother, Margarita Chavez, in her minivan at 16:30 , as she has just finished shopping at the Wal~Mart Supercenter, 4350 Southwest Drive, Abilene, Texas. While the mother, leaving the sliding door open, returns a shopping cart 3 meters away, a fat woman, Paula Roach, 24, snatches the infant with her car seat (not yet buckled to the car seat) and drives away, dragging the screaming mother about 10 meters. Her husband is Salvador Chavez, a janitor at Dyess Elementary School. The Texas Amber Alert system, announced the previous day by the governor, is not yet operational, but an effort is made to have TV, radio, and electronic road signs publicize the kidnapping. The next day Paula Roach is caught as her car is pulled over near Quanah, Texas, 200 km north of Abilene, and the infant is with her, unhurt. Roach had suffered a miscarriage in December 2001.
[< photo: Nancy Chavez]

2002 Devastating floods in Europe
      But they are nothing compared to what south Asia is suffering. The relative coverage of the two regions is a measure of the eurocentrism of the news media.
      Tens of thousands of Czechs flee the low-lying areas of Prague for higher ground Tuesday as torrential rains swell the Vltava River and unleashed more flooding that has now killed at least 88 people across Europe. Churning toward Prague's Old Town, the heart of the capital and a popular tourist stop, the brown, swollen Vltava inflicted the worst flooding in more than a century on the Czech Republic. At least nine persons died after more than a week of heavy rainfall. Water engulfed Prague's historic Kampa island, flooding architectural gems dating to the Hapsburg Empire. Volunteers gathered around landmarks and scrambled to fill hundreds of sandbags in a desperate bid to save the city's treasures from rising waters. Into the night, cranes work under floodlights and in pouring rain to pull up crushed boats, barrels and even a refrigerator and help the swirling river slip past barriers. Volunteers spray plastic foam into the cracks between the sandbags to prevent water from seeping through.
      At least 40'000 residents of low-lying areas of Prague — a city of just over 1 million inhabitants — are ordered to leave their homes, and a total of 200'000 are evacuated nationwide.
      In neighboring Austria, where at least seven people have died, firefighters and Red Cross volunteers are stacking sandbags to hold back parts of the swollen Danube River, which flooded Vienna's port and some low-lying streets. The Danube punches through dams in the town of Ybbs in Lower Austria province. 8000 soldiers are battling floods in Upper Austria and along the Danube. The flooding affects an estimated 60'000 Austrians, who either are evacuated from their homes or suffer flood damage. In Salzburg province, more than 1000 buildings are under water, and in the badly flooded Danube town of Krems, residents are urged to abandon lower floors. Upper Austria offers the image of misery, a land submerged in water.
      Most of Europe's flooding casualties are in Russia, where at least 58 persons were killed a few days earlier — mostly Russian tourists vacationing on the Black Sea who were ambushed by flood waters that swept cars and tents out to sea.
      In Germany, where firefighters and soldiers stacked sandbags to reinforce strained river banks, a 71-year-old man drowned in the previous night in flooding in Dresden, and a cascade of mud and water sweep away two adults and a child on this day. Numerous dams are in danger of breaking in towns along the Danube near Passau, a city on the Austrian border whose old town is completely submerged.
      In Romania, flooding and strong winds killed at least seven people in recent days. In the eastern part of the country on 12 August, a small tornado struck a house, killing a 24-year-old woman and her 17-month-old baby.
      Czech Prime Minister Vladimir Spidla declared a state of emergency the previous night, and deployed 4000 soldiers throughout the country, and President Vaclav Havel cut short a Portugal vacation because of flooding that destroyed or rendered impassable more than a dozen bridges. The flooding is Prague's worst since 1890. The Vltava rises 5.8 meters above normal levels, flooding four districts near the city's historical center and prompting Czech television to broadcast a plea for sandbags and volunteers. Stores and offices lose power by mid-afternoon, forcing many to shut down, and the Prague Stock Exchange suspends trading. At the Zoo on the outskirts of Prague, about 400 animals are moved to higher ground. They included two rhinos who are moved with a crane and four gorillas who are sedated. A fifth gorilla is missing but presumed to be hiding within the zoo. Zoo employees kill a 35-year-old Indian elephant called Kadir after he ended up stranded up to his ears in a flooded part of the zoo and is in danger of drowning. A hippopotamus that escaped from its corral and became aggressive is also killed. The three female seals of the Prague zoo swim away to freedom, but two are soon recaptured; the one male seal stays.
     In Prague, among other concerns, is that for the safety of the priceless artwork at the Mucha Museum, and at the Czech Republic National Gallery, which (3 days later) posts this on its web site:

Národní galerie v Praze
Od soboty 17. srpna se otevrou nekteré stálé expozice Národní galerie v Praze chce i v soucasné obtízhné situaci vyjít vstríc obyvatelum i návštevníkum Prahy a prispet k postupnému návratu našeho hlavního mesta k bezhnému zhivotu otevrením expozic ve trech svých objektech. Výstavní sály Veletrzhního paláce, Šternberského paláce a Jirského kláštera budou znovu otevreny v sobotu 17. srpna 2002. Také v dalších dnech budou tyto expozice Národní galerie v Praze otevreny v obvyklých otevíracích hodinách, denne od 10 do 18 hodin krome pondelí.
Vedení Národní galerie v Praze oznamuje, zhe z duvodu prerušení dodávky elektrické energie bude priblizhne po dobu jednoho týdne reditelství NG premísteno do Veletrzhního paláce.
Krátkodobé uzavrení Kláštera sv. Jirí.
Ve dnech 28.8. - 30.8.2002 bude z technických duvodu pro verejnost uzavrena expozice v Kláštere sv. Jirí.

The Vltava river floods the historical town of Cesky Krumlov, in the south of the Czech Republic. [photo below]

2001 Portrait of a Lady Aged 62, by Rembrandt van Rijn has been put up for sale at $35.6 million, Dutch art dealer Robert Noortman announces. — MORE ON THIS AT ART “4” AUGUST — Rembrandt LINKS — An Old Lady with a Book (1647) — Lady with a Pink — A Lady with an Ostrich Feather Fan — A Bearded Man in a Beret (1657) — A Bearded Man in a Cap — A Bearded Man in a Wide-Brimmed Hat — Portrait of a Bearded Man in Black Beret
2000 The Russian Navy, whose idea of public relations dates to Soviet times and the Cold War, announces that the nuclear submarine Kursk has sunk this day to the bottom of the Barents Sea. In fact the sub sank the day before. This is only the beginning of a week of lies and bungling. Western offers of aid are haughtily rejected, and President Putin continues to enjoy his vacation at a Black Sea resort.
2000 Somalia swore in legislators for its first central government after almost a decade of internecine warfare.

1999 Chechnya war: ^top^
Five planes from Russia land in Dagestan, bring fresh troops, weapons and supplies.
Russia admits losing three helicopters, destroyed on the ground by gunfire which also wounded three Interior Ministry generals, including the chief of the intelligence corps
Russia conducts fourteen airstrikes on rebel positions in Botlikh district
Russian Federation Council chairman Yegor Stroyev discloses that border guards were withdrawn from the border between Chechnya and Dagestan right before the rebel attack on August 7 — http://www.cdi.org/issues/Europe/aug.html

1997 In Tajikistan, mutinous Colonel Makhmud Khudoyberdyev agrees to step down as commander of his elite brigade after talks with President Rakhmonov and after four days of fighting around the Dushanbe.
1996 Proposal for 140-storey NY Stock Exchange building by Donald Trump, who wants New York to have again the world’s tallest building. The idea initially appealed Exchange officials and Trump enlisted the architects who designed Malaysia’s skyscrapers, but the “Exchange Tower,” like so many of Trump’s projects, never came to be.
1994 North Korea agreed to allow U.N. monitors to inspect a secret nuclear laboratory.
1993 Israel agreed for the first time to negotiate with a Palestinian delegation whose members belonged officially to the PLO.
1993 Dow Jones says that it will start in September a desktop news service that will provide customers with video interviews with business and government leaders, along with breaking business news.
1989 The wreckage of a plane that carried US congressman Mickey Leland and others on a humanitarian mission is found on a mountain side in Ethiopia; there are no survivors.
1988 Ronald J Dossenbach sets world record for pedaling across Canada from Vancouver, BC to Halifax, NS in 13 days, 15 hr, 4 min
1987 On the 5th anniversary of the bull market, he Dow Jones Industrial Average goes briefly above 2700 and closes the day at 2691.49.
1981 In a ceremony at his California ranch, President Reagan signs a historic package of tax and budget reductions.

1972 Vietnam: Communist sappers attack the ammunition dump at Long Binh, destroying thousands of tons of ammunition. Some observers say that the Communists' return to guerrilla tactics may be due to the overall failure of the Nguyen Hue Offensive that had been launched in March.
Ex-US Army Captain J. E. Engstrom says that a military report which he helped prepare in 1971, estimating that 25 percent of the lower-ranking enlisted men in Vietnam were addicted to heroin, was suppressed and replaced by a "watered-down" version considered more acceptable to the US command.

1969 As relations worsen between China and the Soviet Union, they accuse each other of sending troops across the Sinkiang border at Sinkiang and inflicting heavy casualties.

1966 Vietnam: complaint of border violation by US.      ^top^
      Prince Norodom Sihanouk, ruler of neutral Cambodia, criticizes the United States about the attack on Thlock Track, a Cambodian village close to the South Vietnamese border. Sihanouk routinely challenged the United States and its South Vietnamese allies for border violations, but tacitly permitted Communist forces to use his territory for transit, supply dumps and base areas.
      In the United States, General William C. Westmoreland, Commander of Military Assistance Command Vietnam (MACV) meets with President Johnson at his ranch in Texas to provide a personal assessment of allied progress in the war, reporting that advances are being made against the communist insurgents.

1962 Keynesian tax cut      ^top^
      While laying out his economic plans for the coming year, US President John F. Kennedy promises an “across-the-board, top-to-bottom” cut in corporate and personal taxes, due to take effect on January 1, 1963. The pledge encourages the Dow Jonel Industrial Average to go up 6.61 points the next day.
      The President and his advisors drew their fiscal plans from the theories of John Maynard Keynes, which they interpreted as advising the use of tax policy to induce demand and trigger growth without the attendant evil of inflation. Of course, the downside to the policy was the ripe potential for piling up a budget deficit, but Keynes and his followers viewed debt as an acceptable by-product of an otherwise healthy economy.
      Despite the risk of debt, and detractors who considered the cut as a handout to the wealthy and corporations, the legislation would pass through the House with relatively little fuss. When the cut is applied in 1963, it cuts individual taxes by about 1/5 and corporate taxes by 1/10. All told, the measure would pump $12 billion into the economy.
     Keynes' most important work is The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money (1935-36). Keynes is perhaps the only economist to have added something really new to economics since Walras and perhaps since Ricardo.

1962 Skyjacking becomes a trend      ^top^
      Two Americans, David Healy and Leonard Oeth, skyjack a charter plane heading to Miami, Florida, and force its pilot to fly to Cuba. Apparently unwelcome, they would later be returned to the United States and jailed.
      Over the next few years, skyjacking would become relatively common in America, especially in 1968. There were at least 10 plane hijackings to Cuba in a six-month period between February and August 1968.
      The first attempted skyjacking to Cuba took place on August 3, 1961, when Leon Bearden and his 17-year-old son Cody boarded a Continental jet in Phoenix, Arizona, carrying 65 passengers. Leon had a long criminal record and was looking for a fresh start in Cuba. The pilot of the airliner, Bryon Richards, had-remarkably enough-been the victim of the first recorded hijacking of a plane back in 1931. As someone with experience in the matter, Richards calmly convinced Bearden that they would need to land in El Paso, Texas, to have enough fuel to fly to Cuba. With the FBI waiting at the airport when they touched down, Bearden was persuaded to allow 61 passengers to leave the plane during the refueling. As the plane was moving down the runway to take off for Cuba, several agents disabled its tires and engine with machine gunfire. When an FBI agent boarded the plane, Bearden became enraged and threatened to shoot the remaining hostages. However, one of the hostages managed to knock Bearden out with a well-placed punch, and young Cody was glad to surrender. Leon Bearden received a life sentence, but his son only remained in a juvenile facility until he was 21.
      The strangest skyjacking occurred in 1969, when Anthony Raymond forced an Eastern jet to Cuba by drunkenly waving a pocketknife in front of the stewardess. When he sobered up in Cuba, he almost immediately sought to come back to the United States. He blamed a credit card company for giving him a card that would enable him to get drunk and buy the airline ticket in the first place. The judge rejected his novel defense and sentenced him to 15 years in prison, but wondered why the flight crew had agreed to take orders from Raymond, who was too inebriated to even stand up while he was hijacking the flight.

1961 Barbed wire precursor to Berlin Wall     ^top^
      Early in the morning, East German troops close the Brandenburg Gate, seal off all roads between East and West Berlin, and begin laying down barbed wire along the border. The East Germans, who are acting under the recommendation of Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev, hope to halt the mass flight of its people to West Germany, an exodus that since the division of Germany in 1945 had numbered over three million.
      The division of post-war Germany into four occupied occupation zones left Berlin within the Soviet zone, and internally divided into East and West Berlin. For East Germans dissatisfied with life under the Communist system, West Berlin became a gateway to the democratic West. By August of 1961, an average of 2000 East German refugees are crossing into the West every day. In the week after Communist authorities sealed off East and West Berlin, troops hastily fortify the border, and eventually would completed a 47-km long, 3-meter high wall of concrete and barbed wire between the two sectors. East German border guards were ordered to shoot on sight anyone seen attempting to escape though the fortifications. For the next twenty-eight years, the Berlin Wall stood as the most tangible symbol of the Cold War — a literal "iron curtain" dividing Europe. The Soviets and East Germans also erected an extensive barrier along most of the 850-mile border between East and West Germany, including high fences, minefields, guard dogs, floodlights, and armed guards. Some two hundred East Germans were killed attempting to cross the border between 1961 and November 9, 1989, when the Berlin Wall and East Germany's borders were opened by the beleaguered East German government. The next day, East German troops began dismantling the wall, and less than a year later, East and West Germany were formally reunited.

1960 Central African Republic & Chad proclaim independence from France.

1948 Record day for the Berlin Airlift      ^top^
     During the Berlin Airlift, the weather over Berlin becomes so stormy that American planes have their most difficult day landing supplies. They call it ‘Black Friday.’
      Responding to increasing Soviet pressure on western Berlin, US and British planes airlift a record amount of supplies into sections of the city under American and British control. The massive resupply effort, carried out in weather so bad that some pilots referred to it as "Black Friday," signaled that the British and Americans would not give in to the Soviet blockade of western Berlin. Berlin, like all of Germany, was divided into zones of occupation following World War II. The Russians, Americans, and British all received a zone, with the thought being that the occupation would be only temporary and that Germany would eventually be reunited. By 1948, however, Cold War animosities between the Soviets and the Americans and British had increased to such a degree that it became obvious that German reunification was unlikely. In an effort to push the British and Americans out of their zones of occupation in western Berlin, the Soviets began to interfere with road and rail traffic into those parts of the city in April 1948. (Though divided into zones of occupation, the city of Berlin was geographically located entirely within the Russian occupation area in Germany.) In June 1948, the Russians halted all ground and water travel into western Berlin. The Americans and British responded with a massive airlift to supply the people in their Berlin zones of occupation with food, medicine, and other necessities. It was a daunting logistical effort, and meant nearly round-the-clock flights in and out of western Berlin.
      13 August 1948, was a particularly nasty day, with terrible weather compounding the crowded airspace and exhaustion of the pilots and crews. Nevertheless, over 700 British and American planes landed in western Berlin, bringing in nearly 5'000 tons of supplies. The joint British-American effort on what came to known as "Black Friday" was an important victory for two reasons. First and foremost, it reassured the people of western Berlin that the two nations were not backing down from their promise to defend the city from the Soviets. Second, it was another signal that the Soviet blockade was not only unsuccessful but was also backfiring into a propaganda nightmare. While the Soviets looked like bullies and heartless despots for their efforts to starve western Berlin into submission, the British and Americans — flaunting their technological superiority — were portrayed as heroes by the worldwide audience.

1946 Britain transfers to Cyprus illegal immigrants bound for Palestine.

1940 The Battle of Britain begins      ^top^
      German aircraft begin the bombing of southern England, and the Battle of Britain, which will last until October 31, begins. The Germans called it "the Day of the Eagle," the first day of the Luftwaffe's campaign to destroy the RAF, the British Royal Air Force, and knock out British radar stations, in preparation for Operation Sea Lion, the amphibious invasion of Britain. Almost 1500 German aircraft take off the first day of the air raid, and 45 are shot down. Britain loses 13 fighters in the air and another 47 on the ground.
      But most important for the future, the Luftwaffe managed to take out only one radar station, on the Isle of Wight, and damage five others. This was considered more trouble than it was worth by Herman Goering, commander of the Luftwaffe, who decided to forgo further targeting of British radar stations because "not one of those attacked so far has been put out of operation." Historians agree that this was a monumental mistake on the part of the Germans. Had Goering and the Luftwaffe persisted in attacking British radar, the RAF would not have been able to get the information necessary to successfully intercept incoming German bombers.
      "Here, early in the battle, we get a glimpse of fuddled thinking at the highest level in the German camp," comments historian Peter Fleming. Even the Blitz, the intensive and successive bombing of London that would begin in the last days of the Battle of Britain, could not compensate for such thinking. There would be no Operation Sea Lion. There would be no invasion of Britain. The RAF would not be defeated.

1932 Adolf Hitler refuses to serve as Franz Von Papen's vice chancellor
1930 Capt. Frank Hawkes sets an air speed record by flying from Los Angeles to New York in 12 hours, 25 minutes.
1928 WRNY in Coytesville, New Jersey, becomes the first station to broadcast a television image, a 1.5 inch square image of a woman's face, to New York City, where it is viewed by 500 people.

1925 Monkey trial reporting hurts Baltimore trade      ^top^
      The Baltimore Chamber of Commerce accuses journalist H.L. Mencken, 44, and more specifically his dispatches from the Scopes Monkey Trial, with disturbing the city’s trade with the South. Mencken, famed for his way with a well-crafted put-down, painted a less than flattering portrait of Dayton, Tennessee, the fundamentalist Christian site of the trial. Mencken noted that in Dayton “there is no gambling. There is no place to dance. The relatively wicked, when they would indulge themselves, go to Robinson’s drug store and debate theology.”
     In 1919 Mencken published The American Language: An Inquiry into the Development of English in the United States (2nd edition 1921), an attempt to bring together examples of American, rather than English, expressions and idioms. The book grew with each reissue through the years, and in 1945 and 1948 Mencken published substantial supplements. Mencken's autobiographical trilogy, Happy Days (1940), Newspaper Days (1941), and Heathen Days (1943), is devoted to his experiences in journalism. His reviews and miscellaneous essays filled six volumes aptly titled Prejudices (1919-27) (Prejudices, first series). He also wrote In Defense of Women (In Defense of Women at another site), and translated The Antichrist by Friedrich Nietzsche

1923 Mustapha Kemal elected president of Turkey
1907 The first taxicab in New York City. Motorized taxicabs had actually begun appearing on the streets of Europe in the late 1890s. The taxi is named after the taximeter, a device that automatically records the distance traveled or time consumed and is used to calculate the fare. The term cab originated from the cabriolet, a one-horse carriage let out for hire
1906 Black soldiers raid Brownsville Texas
1898 Manila, the capital of the Philippines, falls to the US Army.

1898 Packard will build his own car ^top^
After a visit to the Winton plant with his brother William, James W. Packard purchased a Winton automobile #12. However, the car turned out to be a poor purchase, and dissatisfaction with it would prompt Packard to build his own car and found the Packard Motor Car Company. Packard Motor Car Co. would later be acquired by Studebaker, and lagging sales eventually led to the discontinuation of the Packard in 1958.

1889 The first coin-operated telephone is patented by William Gray.
1876 Reciprocity Treaty between US & Hawaii ratified
1868 Quakes kill 25'000 & causes $300 million damages (Peru & Ecuador)

1864 Misinformed Grant attacks entrenched Rebs.      ^top^
      Deep Bottom Run campaign begins Sensing a weakness in the Confederate defenses around Richmond and Petersburg, Virginia, Union General Ulysses S. Grant seeks to break the siege of Petersburg by concentrating his force against one section of the Rebel trenches. However, Grant miscalculated, and the week-long operation that began on 13 August failed to penetrate the Confederate defenses.
      Grant was operating on the information that General Robert E. Lee, commander of the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia, was sending part of his force to the Shenandoah Valley to support General Jubal Early, who had spent the summer fending off Union forces and threatening Washington, D.C. Without realizing that this information was false, Grant believed that a section of the Confederate trenches around Deep Bottom Run, between Richmond and Petersburg, was now lightly defended.
      Grant shipped parts of three corps north across the James River on 13 August. Led by General Winfield Scott Hancock, the plan called for a series of attacks along the Confederate fortifications. Beginning on August 14, the Yankees tried for six days to find a weakness. Although a Union force broke through at Fussell's Mill, a lack of reinforcements left the Federals vulnerable to a Confederate attack, and the Rebels quickly restored the broken line. The campaign cost 3000 Union casualties and about 1500 for the Confederates. The Southern defensive network, stretching over 30 km, remained intact, but the failed operation prevented Lee from shipping troops to Early in the Shenandoah; Early would soon face defeat at the hands of a larger Union force commanded by General Philip Sheridan.

1863 Siege of Fort Wagner, Charleston Harbor, South Carolina continues
1862 Confederate General Nathan Bedford Forrest defeats a Union army under Thomas Crittenden at Murfreesboro, Tennessee.
1862 Skirmish on Yellow Creek, Missouri
1831 Nat Turner leads uprising of slaves in Virginia

1814 Britain takes over Dutch Cape Colony      ^top^
      After several years of sporadic military occupation, Britain is granted formal control of southern Africa's Cape of Good Hope by the Congress of Vienna. Thousands of British settlers would soon arrive, and the British colonial system forced on the Boers. The Boers, also known as Afrikaaners, were the descendants of the original Dutch settlers of southern Africa. The Boers resented the Anglicization of South Africa, especially British measures to grant equal rights to the Coloured and Black Africans who worked for the Boers as servants or slaves.
      In 1833 — the year that slavery was abolished in the British Empire — the Boers began an exodus into African tribal territory, where they founded the republics of the Transvaal and the Orange Free State. The two new republics lived peaceably with their British neighbors until 1867, when the discovery of diamonds and gold in the region made conflict between the Boer states and Britain inevitable. Following declarations of independence from the Boer states during the 1880s, minor fighting with Britain ensued before the outbreak of full-scale war in 1899. By mid June of 1900, British forces had captured most major Boers cities and formally annexed their territories, but the Boers launched a guerrilla war that frustrated the British occupiers. Beginning in 1901, the British began a strategy of systematically searching out and destroying these guerilla units, while herding the families of the Boer soldiers into concentration camps. By 1902, the British had crushed the Boer resistance and on May 31, the Treaty of Vereeniging was signed, ending hostilities.

1787 The Ottoman Empire declares war on Russia.
1704 Battle of Blenheim: the Duke of Marlborough of England and Prince Eugene of Austria defeat the French Army, during the War of the Spanish Succession..
1680 War starts when the Spanish are expelled from Santa Fe, New Mexico, by Indians under Chief Pope.
1642 Christiaan Huygens discovers Martian south polar cap
1630 Emperor Ferdinand II dismisses Albert Eusebius van Wallenstein, his most capable general.
1624 French King Louis XIII named Cardinal Richelieu his first minister.
0523 St John I begins his reign as Pope.

TO THE TOP

Deaths which occurred on an 13 August:
2002:: Already at least 874 dead from monsoon in south Asia.
     Heavy rains washing down from the foothills of the Himalayas swelled rivers in eastern India, worsening monsoon flooding that has killed at least 874 people in India, Nepal and Bangladesh. New flooding is reported in northern regions of India's Bihar state and the Kosi River is flowing higher than normal. The death toll in the state, located between Nepal and Bangladesh, has climbed to 265 persons in flooding that began across the region in June. Thirty persons have died in neighboring Assam state. Floods have displaced or trapped more than 15 million persons in the two states, home to some 100 million persons.
      While the incessant rains are the worst in four years, large parts of India are facing the worst drought in 14 years. Hundreds of districts in northern and western India, where farmers have lost most of their summer crop, sown in June and July, have been declared drought-hit.
      In Nepal, which has seen the most deaths in the monsoon flooding, aid agencies appealed for help for thousands of people in Nepal left homeless by flooding and landslides. As many as 422 persons have been killed and 250'000 more injured in the flooding. Most of the landslides occurred in remote mountainous areas that have been cut off because of washed-out roads. The villages are now accessible only by helicopter, but the government doesn't have the funds or the helicopters to ferry help in quickly. Rising water levels have also increased the threat of typhoid, dysentery, malaria, encephalitis, and other diseases spread by water or mosquito.
      In Bangladesh, at least 157 persons have been killed and 6 million have been stranded or displaced in the past two months. At least 1000 homes were washed away on 11 August when 2.5-meter-high swells engulfed Hatia island in Noakhali district, 120 km east of Dhaka. Some 55'000 persons are stranded in their submerged houses. Rising sea levels also inundated Patuakhali, a neighboring coastal of town of 80'000, leaving a third of the town under 1.2 m of water. The high tides are caused by a sudden rise in the sea level due to low pressure over the Bay of Bengal.
      In the southern Bhola district, the Meghna River fed by floodwaters gushing downstream breached a mud flood barrier, inundating several villages and marooning at least 25'000. Bangladesh, a low-lying delta nation of 130 million people, is crisscrossed by hundreds of rivers, many of which begin in Nepal, flow through India, before draining into the Bay of Bengal. Annual floods are common during the monsoon season of South Asia. This year's inundation is the worst in four years. More than 3000 persons died in 1988 in Bangladesh and another 1000 in 1998 floods.

2001 Khalil Nazaanah, from gunfire wounds suffered earlier in the day from Israeli police which were chasing him, a Palestinian from the West Bank village of Kufr Akab. He was suspected of killing Yuri Gushtzin, 18, whose body was found with stabbing and gunshot wounds near Ramallah on 24 July 2001.
1991 Jack Ryan, 65, inventor and entrepreneur who helped give birth to Barbie and Hot Wheels toys.
1963 A 17 year-old Buddhist monk burns himself to death in Saigon, South Vietnam.
1956 Levytsky, mathematician
1945 35 Jews sacrifice their lives to blow up Nazi rubber plant in Silesia.
1910 Florence Nightingale, 90, British nurse famous for her care of British soldiers during the Crimean War.(1854-56) and for reforming English nursing and military hospitals. She wrote Notes on Matters Affecting the Health, Efficiency and Hospital Administration of the British Army (1858).
1902 Ludwik Kurella, Polish artist, dies on his 68th birthday.
1896 Seidel, mathematician.
1894 Remigius Adrianus Remy van Haanen, Dutch artist born on 05 January 1812.
1882 William Jevons, 47, mathematician.

1866 H(erbert) G(eorge) Wells, 79, English novelist, journalist, sociologist, and historian. ^top^ He is best known for such science fiction as The Time Machine and The War of the Worlds and such comic novels as Tono-Bungay and The History of Mr. Polly. Ce célèbre écrivain anglais est connu pour ses romans d'anticipation tels La Guerre des Mondes. H. G. Wells avait commencé par être vendeur dans un magasin de nouveautés avant de se faire instituteur et, enfin, de se lancer dans la carrière littéraire Born on 21 September 1866, Wells received a scholarship to the Normal School of Science in London. After school, he worked as a draper's apprentice and bookkeeper before becoming a freelance writer. His lively treatment of scientific topics quickly brought him success as a writer. In 1895, he published his classic novel The Time Machine, about a man who journeys to the future. The book was a success, as were his subsequent books The Invisible Man (1897) and The War of the Worlds (1898). Passionately concerned about the fate of humanity, Wells joined the socialist Fabian Society but quit after a quarrel with George Bernard Shaw, another prominent member. He was involved romantically for several years with Dorothy Richardson, pioneer of stream-of-consciousness writing. In 1912, the 19-year-old writer Rebecca West reviewed his book Marriage, calling him "The Old Maid among novelists." He asked to meet her, and the two soon embarked on an affair that lasted 10 years and produced one son, Anthony. Wells died in 1946. WELLS ONLINE:
Ann Veronica: A Modern Love Story Ann Veronica The Door in the Wall and Other Stories The First Men in the Moon The First Men In The Moon God, the Invisible King God The Invisible King The Invisible Man The Invisible Man The Island of Dr. Moreau The Island of Dr. Moreau The Island of Doctor Moreau Twelve Stories and a Dream Twelve Stories and a Dream	In the Days of the Comet A Modern Utopia The New Machiavelli The New Machiavelli The Research Magnificent The Research Magnificent The Secret Places of the Heart The Secret Places of the Heart The Soul of a Bishop Soul of a Bishop The Time Machine The Time Machine Tono-Bungay Tono Bungay	War and the Future: Italy, France and Britain at War War and the Future The War in the Air The War of the Worlds The War of the Worlds The Wheels of Chance: A Bicycling Idyll The Wheels of Chance When the Sleeper Wakes When the Sleeper Wakes When the Sleeper Wakes The World Set Free The World Set Free The Door in the Wall And Other Stories A Short History of the World (1922)

1863 Eugène-Ferdinand-Victor Delacroix, the most vivid painter representative of French Romanticism. He was born on 26 April 1798. — MORE ON DELACROIX AT ART “4” AUGUST — LINKS — Arabes causant étendus sur des coussins — Macbeth consultant les sorcières — Arabs and Horses near Tangiers — The Templar Reginald Fronte de Boeuf — Faust Tragédie de Goethe — Sheet of Studies — Cheval Sauvage — Le Christ au roseau — La Barque de Dante — The Massacre of Chios — The Death of Sardanapalus — Liberty Leading the People (28 July 1830) which includes Delacroix's self-portrait in the first rank of the people in arms following Lady Liberty.
The Fanatics of Tangier — The Sultan of Morocco and His Entourage — The Lion Hunt in Morocco — Arab Saddling His Horse — Palais Bourbon Frescoes — Women of Algiers in Their Apartment — The Shipwreck of Don Juan — Medea about to Kill Her Children — The Entry of the Crusaders into Constantinople —Apollo Slays Python
1829 John Everett Millais, British painter who died on 13 August 1896. — MORE ON MILLAIS AT ART “4” AUGUST — LINKS — Self-Portrait — Christ in the House of His Parents or The Carpenter's Shop — Cymon and Iphigenia — Lorenzo and Isabella _ detail Apple Blossoms (Spring) _ detail 1 (the 3 women at extreme right) _ detail 2 (the 3 women at center left) _ detail 3 (the 2 women at extreme left) — Autumn Leaves —The Blind Girl [big size] _ The Blind Girl [regular size] — The Bridesmaid — Ferdinand Lured by Ariel The subject comes from Shakespeare’s The Tempest (Act I, Scene 2), with the sprite Ariel leading Ferdinand to his master Prospero. — The Order of Release 1746 — Mariana in the Moated Grange [read Millais's "Mariana": Literary Painting, the Pre-Raphaelite Gothic, and the Iconology of the Marian Artist] — The Martyr of the Solway — Louise Jopling — The Royalist — The Black Brunswicker — Chill October — The Woodman's Daughter — Mercy - Saint Bartholomew's Day, 1572(giant size) _ Mercy - Saint Bartholomew's Day, 1572 (regular size) — A Huguenot, on St. Bartholomew's Day Refusing to Shield Himself from Danger by Wearing the Roman Catholic Badge — Pizarro Seizing the Inca of Peru — North-West Passage — James Wyatt and His Granddaughter Mary — Mrs James Wyatt and child. — Lord Alfred Tennyson — John Ruskin — The Eve of St. Agnes — The Knight Errant — Ruling Passion [grandpa the stuffed-bird man] — Trust Me — Waiting — Leisure Hours — The Piper — The Boyhood of Raleigh — — Twins (Grace and Kate Hoare) — — Miss Eveleen Tennant — Sweetest eyes were ever seen — Yes or No — Yes — No! — Annie Miller — — The Return of the Dove to the Ark — My First Sermon [child attentive to it] — My Second Sermon [child put to sleep by it] — Bubbles — — The Honourable John Nevile Manners _ detail — A Dream of the Past - Sir Isumbras at the Ford — The Romans Leaving Britain — The Crown of Love
1822 Argand, mathematician
1816 Per Hillestrom, Swedish painter born on 18 November 1732.
1638 Joachim Antoviszoon Uytewael, Dutch mannerist figure painter born in 1566. — MORE ON UYTEWAEL AT ART “4” AUGUST — LINKS — Perseus and Andromeda — The Judgement of Paris — Adoration of the Shepherds, detail — Supper at Emmaus — The Battle Between the Gods and the Titans — Danae - Pen — The Judgment of Paris — Kitchen Scene — Mars and Venus Discovered by the Gods
1523 David Gheeraert Janszoon Oudewater, Flemish artist born in 1460.

1521 Aztec Civilization      ^top^
      After a three-month siege, Spanish forces under Hernán Cortés, 36, storm Tenochtitlán, the capital of the Aztec Empire. Cortés's men level the city and capture Cuauhtémoc, 26, the Aztec emperor. Later tortured to reveal his treasure, Cuauhtémoc would reply that it lied at the bottom of Lake Texcoco, where hundreds of Spaniards had perished during their flight from Tenochtitlán in June of the previous year. Cortés then took the Aztec emperor with him on his march to Honduras and, accusing Cuauhtémoc of treason, had him hanged on 26 February 1522.
      In 1519, Cortés, learning of political strife in the Aztec Empire, landed on the eastern coast of Mexico with six hundred men and marched to Tenochtitlán. Joined by rival Indian groups who resented the Aztec's power, and aided by Aztec Emperor Montezuma II's belief that Cortés was the reincarnation of the god Quetzalcoatl, the Spanish entered Tenochtitlán unopposed on 08 November 1519. Cortés subsequently took the Aztec emperor hostage and began to govern his empire through him.
      In the spring of 1520, Cortés marched back to the coast to defeat Panfilo de Narvaez, a Spanish rival. When he returned to Tenochtitlán in June, he found that the subordinate he had left in command in charge of the city had massacred many of its occupants, and the Aztec population was on the brink of revolt. On June 30, with the outbreak of the uprising, Cortés and his men fought their way out of Tenochtitlán at heavy cost. Known to the Spanish as La Noche Triste, hundreds of soldiers drowned in Lake Texcoco when the vessel carrying them and Aztec treasure hoarded by Cortés sank. Montezuma II was also killed during the struggle — by an Aztec or a Spaniard it is not known.
      Montezuma's brother Cuitláhuac succeeded him, but the latter died several months later and was succeeded by Cuauhtémoc. During the Spaniards' retreat, they defeated a large Aztec army at Otumba and then occupied Tlaxcala. On 26 May 1521, Cortés returned to Tenochtitlán, and after a three-month siege the city fell on 13 August.
     After a three-month siege, Spanish forces under Hernán Cortés capture Tenochtitlán, the capital of the Aztec empire. Cortés' men leveled the city and captured Cuauhtemoc, the Aztec emperor. Tenochtitlán was founded in 1325 A.D. by a wandering tribe of hunters and gatherers on islands in Lake Texcoco, near the present site of Mexico City. In only one century, this civilization grew into the Aztec empire, largely because of its advanced system of agriculture. The empire came to dominate central Mexico and by the ascendance of Montezuma II in 1502 had reached its greatest extent, extending as far south as perhaps modern-day Nicaragua.
      At the time, the empire was held together primarily by Aztec military strength, and Montezuma II set about establishing a bureaucracy, creating provinces that would pay tribute to the imperial capital of Tenochtitlán. The conquered peoples resented the Aztec demands for tribute and victims for the religious sacrifices, but the Aztec military kept rebellion at bay. Meanwhile, Hernán Cortés, a young Spanish-born noble, came to Hispaniola in the West Indies in 1504. In 1511, he sailed with Diego Velázquez to conquer Cuba and twice was elected mayor of Santiago, the capital of Hispaniola. In 1518, he was appointed captain general of a new Spanish expedition to the American mainland. Velázquez, the governor of Cuba, later rescinded the order, and Cortés sailed without permission.
      He visited the coast of Yucatán and in March 1519 landed at Tabasco in Mexico's Bay of Campeche with 500 soldiers, 100 sailors, and 16 horses. There, he won over the local Indians and was given a female slave, Malinche — baptized Marina — who became his mistress and later bore him a son. She knew both Maya and Aztec and served as an interpreter. The expedition then proceeded up the Mexican coast, where Cortés founded Veracruz, mainly for the purpose of having himself elected captain general by the colony, thus shaking off the authority of Velázquez and making him responsible only to King Charles V of Spain. At Veracruz, Cortés trained his army and then burned his ships to ensure loyalty to his plans for conquest. Having learned of political strife in the Aztec empire, Cortés led his force into the Mexican interior. On the way to Tenochtitlán, he clashed with local Indians, but many of these people, including the nation of Tlaxcala, became his allies after learning of his plan to conquer their hated Aztec rulers. Hearing of the approach of Cortés, with his frightful horses and sophisticated weapons, Montezuma II tried to buy him off, but Cortés would not be dissuaded. On 08 November 1519, the Spaniards and their 1000 Tlaxcaltec warriors were allowed to enter Tenochtitlán unopposed. Montezuma suspected them to be divine envoys of the god Quetzalcóatl, who was prophesied to return from the east in a "One Reed" year, which was 1519 on the Aztec calendar.
      The Spaniards were greeted with great honor, and Cortés seized the opportunity, taking Montezuma hostage so that he might govern the empire through him. His mistress, Marina, was a great help in this endeavor and succeeded in convincing Montezuma to cooperate fully. In the spring of 1520, Cortés learned of the arrival of a Spanish force from Cuba, led by Pánfilo Narváez and sent by Velázquez to deprive Cortés of his command. Cortés led his army out of Tenochtitlán to meet them, leaving behind a garrison of 80 Spaniards and a few hundred Tlaxcaltecs to govern the city. Cortés defeated Narváez and enlisted Narváez' army into his own.
      When he returned to Tenochtitlán in June, he found the garrison under siege from the Aztecs, who had rebelled after the subordinate whom Cortés left in command of the city massacred several Aztec chiefs, and the population on the brink of revolt. On 30 June, under pressure and lacking food, Cortés and his men fought their way out of the capital at heavy cost. Known to the Spanish as La Noche Triste, or "the Night of Sadness," many soldiers drowned in Lake Texcoco when the vessel carrying them and Aztec treasures hoarded by Cortés sank. Montezuma was killed in the fighting — in Aztec reports by the Spaniards, and in Spanish reports by an Aztec mob bitter at Montezuma's subservience to Spanish rule. He was succeeded as emperor by his brother, Cuitláhuac.
      During the Spaniards' retreat, they defeated a large Aztec army at Otumba and then rejoined their Tlaxcaltec allies. In May 1521, Cortés returned to Tenochtitlán, and after a three-month siege the city fell. This victory marked the fall of the Aztec empire. Cuauhtémoc, Cuitláhuac's successor as emperor, was taken prisoner and later executed, and Cortés became the ruler of a vast Mexican empire. The Spanish conquistador led an expedition to Honduras in 1524 and in 1528 returned to Spain to see the king. Charles made him Marqués del Valle but refused to name him governor because of his quarrels with Velázquez and others. In 1530, he returned to Mexico, now known as New Spain, and found the country in disarray. After restoring some order, he retired to his estate south of Mexico City and sent out maritime expeditions from the Pacific coast. In 1540, he returned to Spain and was neglected by the court. He died in 1547.

Births which occurred on an 13 August:
1934 Li'l Abner, satirical comic strip by Al Capp, makes its debut.

1931 William Goldman, novelist, screenwriter and playwright, in Chicago.      ^top^
     He is the younger brother of writer James Goldman. Both brothers will prove to be highly versatile writers, penning successful novels, short stories, plays, and movies. Goldman attended Oberlin College and Columbia University. Originally, he concentrated his efforts on fiction, though he also collaborated with his brother, James, on the play Blood, Sweat and Stanley Poole in 1961. James went on to write the play The Lion in Winter (1967), which was made into a film in 1968 and won an Academy Award.
      In the 1960s, he focused on novels, including Solider in the Rain, Boys and Girls Together, No Way to Treat a Lady, Marathon Man, and The Princess Bride. After his novel Soldier in the Rain was made into a movie in 1963, he began writing screenplays himself. He wrote film versions of several of his own books, including Marathon Man (1976) and The Princess Bride (1987). Goldman won Academy Awards for Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and All the President's Men. His 1983 book, Adventures in the Screen Trade, is considered a classic behind-the-scenes look at Hollywood and the screenwriting process. His book Hype and Glory (1990) explores the Cannes Film Festival.

1926 Fidel Alejandro Castro Ruz, Cuban revolutionary leader and durable Communist president-dictator (1959-...)      ^top^
      Fidel Castro is born (some say on 13 August 1927) in Mayari, near Birán in the Oriente province of Cuba. The son of a Spanish immigrant who had made a fortune building rail systems to transport sugar cane, Fidel attended Roman Catholic boarding schools in Santiago de Cuba. He became involved in revolutionary politics while he was a student and in 1947 took part in an abortive attempt by Dominican exiles and Cubans to overthrow Dominican dictator Rafael Trujillo. In the next year, he took part in urban riots in Bogotá, Colombia. The most outstanding feature of his politics during the period was his anti-American beliefs; he was not yet an overt Marxist. In 1951, he ran for a seat in the Cuban House of Representatives as a member of the reformist Ortodoxo Party, but General Fulgencio Batista seized power in a bloodless coup d'état before the election could be held.
      Various groups formed to oppose Batista's dictatorship, and on 26 July 1953, Castro led some 160 rebels in an attack on the Moncada Barracks in Santiago de Cuba — Cuba's second largest military base. Castro hoped to seize weapons and announce his revolution from the base radio station, but the barracks were heavily defended, and more than half his men were captured or killed in the attempt. Castro was himself arrested and put on trial for conspiring to overthrow the Cuban government. During his trial, he argued that he and his rebels were fighting to restore democracy to Cuba, but he was nonetheless found guilty and sentenced to 15 years in prison. Two years later, Batista felt confident enough in his power that he granted a general amnesty to all political prisoners, including Castro. Castro then went with his brother Raúl to Mexico, and they organized the revolutionary 26th of July Movement, enlisting recruits and joining up with Ernesto "Che" Guevara, an idealist Marxist from Argentina.
      On 02 December 1956, Castro and 81 armed men landed on the Cuban coast. All of them were killed or captured except for Castro, Raúl, Che, and nine others, who retreated into the Sierra Maestra mountain range to wage a guerrilla war against the Batista government. They were joined by revolutionary volunteers from all over Cuba and won a series of victories over Batista's demoralized army. Castro was supported by the peasantry, to whom he promised land reform, while Batista received aid from the United States, which bombed suspected revolutionary positions. By mid-1958, a number of other Cuban groups were also opposing Batista, and the United States ended military aid to his regime. In December, the 26th of July forces under Che Guevara attacked the city of Santa Clara, and Batista's forces crumbled. Batista fled for the Dominican Republic on January 1, 1959. Castro, who had fewer than 1'000 men left at the time, took control of the Cuban government's 30'000-man army. The other rebel leaders lacked the popular support the young and charismatic Castro enjoyed, and on February 16 he was sworn in as prime minister of the country's new provisional government.
      The United States initially recognized the new Cuban dictator but withdrew its support after Castro launched a program of agrarian reform, nationalized US assets on the island, and declared a Marxist government. Many of Cuba's wealthiest citizens fled to the United States, where they joined the CIA in its efforts to overthrow Castro's regime. In April 1961, with some training and support by the CIA, the Cuban exiles launched a disastrously unsuccessful invasion of Cuba known as the "Bay of Pigs."
      The Soviet Union reacted to the attack by escalating its support to Castro's communist government and in 1962 placed offensive nuclear missiles in Cuba. The discovery of the missiles by US intelligence led to the tense "Cuban Missile Crisis," which ended after the Soviets agreed to remove the weapons in exchange for a US pledge not to invade Cuba. Castro's Cuba was the first communist state in the Western Hemisphere, and he would retain control of it into the 21st century, outlasting nine US presidents who opposed him with economic embargoes and political rhetoric. After the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, Castro lost a valuable source of aid, but he made up for it by courting European and Canadian investment and tourism. Cubans, though poor and politically repressed, enjoy excellent education and other social services under the Castro regime.

Fidel Castro Ruz: nació el 13 de agosto de 1926 (algunas fuentes dan 1927), en una granja en el municipio de Mayari en la provincia de Oriente. Era hijo natural de un inmigrante español, plantador de azúcar. Asistió a buenas escuelas Católicas en Santiago de Cuba y Habana, donde tomó el régimen espartano en una escuela Jesuítica, colegio de Belén . En 1945 entró en la universidad de la Habana graduándose con un título en leyes en 1950. Se afilió al Partido del pueblo cubano en 1947, y se casó con Mirta Díaz Balart en 1948 aunque se divorciaron en 1954. Su hijo Fidel Castro Díaz Balart , nacido en 1949, a servido como cabeza de la comisión de energía atómica de Cuba. Después de que Fulgencio Batista 1 se hiciera con el control del gobierno cubano en 1952 y estableciera una dictadura en el país , Castro se convirtió en el líder del grupo Movimiento, facción antigubernamental clandestina cuyas acciones culminaron con el asalto al cuartel de Moncada (en Santiago), al mando de unos 200 hombres, en el día 26 de julio de 1953 , hecho por el cual fue encarcelado. Sus ideas políticas eran consideradas nacionalistas, antiimperialistas, y reformistas.
      Se le realizó un juicio en el que él se hizo cargo de su propia defensa cuyo alegato se convirtió en un discurso ( La historia me absolverá) que más tarde se convertiría en una importante consigna política para los revolucionarios. Castro fue enjuiciado y sentenciado a 15 años de prisión pero fue sobreseido en 1955, y se exilió sucesivamente en Estados Unidos y México , donde fundó el Movimiento 26 de julio.
     En noviembre de 1956, Castro desembarcó del yate Granma en Turquino con una fuerza de 82 hombres, de los cuales 70 murieron en combate nada más desembarcar. Castro, su hermano Raúl y Ernesto Che Guevara 2 se encontraban entre los 12 sobrevivientes. Con ellos, Castro se adentró en la Sierra Maestra. Allí recibió el apoyo de buena parte del campesinado y comenzó una guerra contra el gobierno que duró dos años. La isla estaba, en este periodo, completamente entregada al capitalismo estadounidense, que controlaba el 90% de las minas y de las haciendas, el 40% de la industria azucarera, el 80% de los servicios públicos y el 50% de los ferrocarriles y de la industria petrolera.
     A fines de 1958, la guerrilla de Sierra Maestra y el Segundo Frente Oriental habían acabado prácticamente con la resistencia del Ejército de Batista. El 1 de enero de 1959, Castro entró en La Habana. Batista huyó a Santo Domingo y se designó como presidente a Manuel Urrutia Lleó, aunque el poder efectivo estaba en manos de Castro, que se convirtió en primer ministro. En julio de 1959 Urrutia, descontento por la negativa de Castro a celebrar elecciones, fue sustituido por Osvaldo Dorticós. El nuevo gobierno adoptó medidas radicales: Ley de Reforma Agraria, que entregaba la tierra a los campesinos, creación de un Ejército nacional y alfabetización de la población.
      El Movimiento 26 de julio fue ganando apoyo popular principalmente en los ámbitos estudiantiles y en diciembre de 1958 con el respaldo del Partido Popular Socialista, avanzó hacia la Habana, acto que pondría inicio a la revolución cubana (ver pagina ) . Castro se probó a sí mismo, también demostró un amplio poder político, convencido que tenía un deber histórico para cambiar el carácter de la sociedad cubana. Viendo el colapso de su ejército, e incapaz de contar con el apoyo de los Estados Unidos , Batista huyó el primero de enero de 1959 triunfando así la revolución popular y el glorioso pueblo cubano.
      Castro se declaró a sí mismo Primer Ministro en 1959, cargo que ocupó hasta 1976 , en que asumió la presidencia de Consejo de Estado, que según la Reforma Constitucional de ese año englobaba la jefatura del Estado y del Gobierno. El régimen de Castro inició una profunda Reforma Agraria y procedió a la anexión de importantes intereses de los Estados Unidos, lo que , unida a la política filo-comunista del nuevo régimen cubano provocó la ruptura de las relaciones diplomáticas con Estados Unidos . Fracasado su intento de establecer relaciones diplomáticas o comerciales con Estados Unidos, negoció acuerdos sobre armamentos , créditos y alimentos con la Unión de Repúblicas Socialistas Soviéticas (URSS), y llevó a cabo la depuración de sus rivales políticos. Nacionalizó los recursos Humanos, afrontó una profunda Reforma Agraria basada en la colectivización de propiedades y estableció un Estado Socialista de Partido Único (el Partido Único de la Revolución Socialista, que en 1965 pasaría a denominarse Partido Comunista Cubano y cuya secretaría general asumiría Castro), que llevó a un gran número de ricos cubanos al exilio.
      Estados Unidos vio con disgusto como el nuevo Régimen embargaba las empresas de titularidad estadounidense, y en 1960 anuló los acuerdos comerciales que mantenía , a lo que Castro respondió con la primera declaración de la Habana, en la que reafirmaba la soberanía cubana frente al imperialismo estadounidense.
      En 1961 Estados Unidos respaldó a un grupo de exiliados cubanos en un infructuoso intento por derrocarlo. Desde ese momento Castro se alineó abiertamente con la URSS , dependiendo cada vez más de su ayuda económica y militar . En la conferencia de Punta Del Este (enero de 1962) los Estados Unidos consiguió que Cuba fuera excluida de la Organización de los Estados Americanos y del Organismo Militar para la defensa del continente. Ese mismo año estuvo a punto de producirse una guerra nuclear, cuando la URSS situó en Cuba cabeza nucleares de alcance medio, ante la oposición estadounidense. La llamada crisis de los misiles de Cuba concluyó tras la celebración de las negociaciones entre es Presidente estadounidense John Kennedy y el máximo dirigente soviético Nikita Jruschov. Durante las siguientes décadas , Castro alcanzó un gran reconocimiento en el tercer mundo, gracias a su liderazgo del movimiento de países no aliados.
      A finales de la década de los 80 cuando la URSS inició sus procesos de glasnost 3 y perestroika 4 , Castro mantuvo su régimen ,sin embargo, con el inicio del proceso de desintegración de la URSS y la COMECON (Consejo de Ayuda Mutua Económica) en 1990, los problemas económicos de Cuba empeoraron y miles de cubanos abandonaron el país . En 1993, en un intento por alcanzar una economía mixta, Castro aprobó reformas económicas limitadas que legalizaron algunas empresas privadas.

Discursos e intervenciones del Comandante en Jefe Fidel Castro Ruz, Presidente del Consejo de Estado de la República de Cuba.

1918 Frederick Sanger, England, chemist (Nobel 1958, 1980)
1907 Alfred Alwin Felix Krupp, Essen, Germany, arms manufacturer
1902 Felix Wankel, Germany, inventor of the Wankel rotary engine (1954) [diagram >], which was used in Mazda cars. Wankel died on 9 October 1988. (Everything you were afraid to ask about the Wankel engine, and rightly so)

1899 Alfred Hitchcock, the macabre master of movie making, in London
A winner of five Best Director Academy Awards, he made a second career of cameo appearances in many of the eighty films he directed. In his first film, The Lodger, he appeared as an extra to help fill the screen, but continued his cameos in subsequent films, first out of superstition and then as a running gag to keep his audience's strict attention. Some of his films are Rebecca, Rear Window, Psycho, North by Northwest, The Birds, Vertigo, To Catch a Thief, Frenzy, Notorious, Suspicion, The Thirty-Nine Steps. He also hosted the TV show Alfred Hitchcock Presents.
1889 Christopher Richard Wynne Nevinson, British artist who died on 07 October 1946. — LINKS

1888 John Logie Baird, Scotland.
He would be the first person to demonstrate television. Baird invented a 30-line, mechanically scanned television system that was used by the BBC starting in 1929, until it was replaced with Marconi Electrical and Musical Industries' 405-line system with electronic scanning in 1936. Baird demonstrated color television in 1928, and he continued his research into stereoscopic television until his death in 1946. He also helped develop radar and infrared television.

1879 Felice Carena, Italian artist who died in 1966.
1867 George Benjamin Luks, US Ashcan School painter who died on 29 October 1933. — MORE ON LUKS AT ART “4” AUGUST — LINKS — Innocence — Jack and Russell Burke — The Miner — Hester Street — Allen Street — The Wrestlers
1861 Burali-Forti, mathematician

1860 Phoebe Ann Oakley Moses “Annie Oakley”      ^top^
      Annie Oakley, one of the greatest female sharpshooters in American history, is born in Patterson Township, Ohio. Born , Oakley demonstrated an uncanny gift for marksmanship at an early age. "I was eight years old when I made my first shot," she later recalled, "and I still consider it one of the best shots I ever made." After spotting a squirrel on the fence in her front yard, the young Oakley took a loaded rifle from the house. She steadied the gun on a porch rail, and shot the squirrel through the head, skillfully preserving the meat for the stew pot. After that, Oakley's honed her sharpshooting talents. She was never a stereotypical Wild West woman who adopted the dress and ways of men. To the contrary, Oakley prided herself on her feminine appearance and skills. She embroidered nearly as well as she shot, liked to read the Bible in the evenings, and favored gingham dresses and demure sunbonnets. In 1876, a Cincinnati hotelkeeper that heard of Oakley's marksmanship set up a Thanksgiving Day shooting match between Oakley and a traveling exhibition sharpshooter named Frank Butler. Annie managed to outshoot the professional by one clay pigeon. Oakley's skills and attractive appearance impressed Butler, and he continued to correspond with the young woman while he traveled. By June, the couple had married, and Oakley joined her husband's act as "Annie Oakley" the "peerless wing and rifle shot."
      In 1885, the couple joined Buffalo Bill's Wild West show, and Oakley soon became one of the most popular acts. A typical show consisted of Oakley shooting a cigarette out of her husband's mouth or a dime from his fingers. She also did backward trick shots where she sighted her target only with a mirror. Her ability to shoot holes through playing cards led Americans of the day to refer to any free ticket to an event as an "Annie Oakley," a reference to the holes that were often punched in the ticket for validation. When the great Sioux war chief Sitting Bull briefly traveled with the show, he grew fond of Oakley and gave her the nickname Watanya Cicilia-Little Sure Shot.
      Oakley stayed with the traveling show for more than 15 years, giving performances around the world. In 1901, a head-on collision with a freight train injured Oakley's back. She returned to performing after a year of rest and toured with several shows for the next decade. In 1913, Oakley and Butler retired, though they continued to give occasional demonstrations for good causes. In 1921, a devastating auto accident permanently crippled Oakley. She and Butler moved to Greenville, Ohio, her home county, and she lived the remaining years of her life in the quiet countryside. She died there on 03 November 1926 at the age of 66.

1852 Christian Krogh, Norwegian painter who died on 16 October 1925. — The Sick Girl (1881)
1834 Ludwik Kurella, Polish artist who would die on his 68th birthday.
1819 Sir George Gabriel Stokes physicist, mathematician (Spectroscope)
1818 Lucy Stone, social reformer.
1814 Anders Jonas Ångström Sweden, physicist, founded spectroscopy. The unit angstrom = 10^(-10) m is named after him. He died on 21 June 1874.
1802 Nikolaus Lenau, in Csatád, Hungary (the name Csatád would be changed in his honor to Lenauheim), Austrian poet (Der Unbeständige — Polenlieder — Savonarola — In der Neujahrsnacht — Die Albigenser — Waldlieder — Eitel nichts — ...) He died on 22 August 1850 — Nach Jugendjahren in Ungarn (Pest, Tokaj, Preßburg) studierte Lenau 1822-1832 Jurisprudenz, Philosophie, Landwirtschaft und Medizin in Wien, Ungarisch-Altenburg, später in Heidelberg, brachte seine Doktorarbeit aber nicht zum Abschluß und lebte als freier Schriftsteller von einer bescheidenen Erbschaft. Von 1832 bis zu seinem geistigen Zusammenbruch 1844 führte er ein unruhiges Pendelleben zwischen Wien und der Wahlheimat Schwaben; mehrere Verlobungen brach er ab. Fast sechs Jahre dämmerte er bis zu seinem Tode in einer Irrenanstalt dahin. — LENAU ONLINE: Blick in den Strom (1844) — Faust (1836)
1704 Fontaine des Bertins, mathematician
1655 Johann Christoph Denner He invented the clarinet, probably while trying to improve the chalumeau. He died on 20 April 1707.
1625 Bartholin, mathematician
1576 David Vinckboons, Flemish painter who died in 1629. — MORE ON VINCKBOONS AT ART “4” AUGUST — LINKS — Distribution of Loaves to the Poor — Forest Scene with Robbery
1422 William Caxton (printer: 1st to print a book in English language: Recuyell of the Histories of Troy)

Thoughts for the day: "It is always too late, or too little, or both. And that is the road to disaster." — The late David Lloyd George, English statesman (1863-1945)
“Lloyd George's comments were usually too little and too late.”
“A disaster is never too little or too late.”.

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