 2001
Artificial heart is implanted in patient.Surgeons from the University of Louisville implant the first self-contained artificial heart, a titanium and plastic pump, into Robert Tools at Jewish Hospital. Doctors said they expect the new implant to extend the patient's life only a month or so. But the device is considered a technological leap from mechanical hearts used in the 1980s, which were attached by wires and tubes to machinery outside the body. The new grapefruit-sized pump, known as AbioCor, is designed to allow recipients to maintain a productive lifestyle while wearing it. No wires, no tubes. Power is sent from a battery pack worn outside the body through the skin to an implanted coil, control package and backup battery. The internal battery, about the size of a typical pager, can work on its own for about 30 minutes between charges — long enough for a patient to take a shower, for example. Drs. Laman Gray and Robert Dowling, who trained by implanting the pump in baby cows, performed the surgery. Surgical teams at four other hospitals around the country had been trained to do the surgery, but Louisville was first. Experts hope that the experimental heart, made by Abiomed Inc. of Danvers, Massachusetts, will lead to new hope for patients with failing hearts.  David
M. Lederman, Abiomed's
president and chief executive officer, said earlier in 2001
that the company had received Food and Drug Administration approval
to perform at least five human trials with the artificial heart.
If the experiments are successful, more patients could be added
to the trial later. Patients selected for the trial must be
suffering from a chronic, progressive heart disease expected
to result in death within 30 days. They had to be ineligible
for receiving a human heart transplant. The goal of the experimental
trials with the artificial heart is to double the life span
of these patients to 60 days, but every patient is expected
to die on the AbioCor.A second goal is to evaluate how the mobile mechanical heart affects the quality of life of those patients, most of whom are so ill that they cannot walk or perform the daily routine of life, such as getting dressed. The first recipient of an artificial heart, Barney Clark, a Seattle-area dentist, lived 112 days after receiving a Jarvik-7 device on 02 December 1982. The survival record for a total artificial heart is held by William Schroeder of Jasper, Indiana, who lived 620 days on one before he died in August 1986. But artificial heart patients of the 1980s all had a variety of complications, and use of the devices as permanent replacements for diseased hearts was largely suspended. Still, the scientists building the next generation of devices -including those that assist rather than replace a diseased heart - learned too much to consider those early tests mistakes. The second man to receive a Jarvik-7, Thomas Gaidosh, of Sutersville, Pennsylvania, was on the device only a few days before he received a human heart transplant. He lived 11 more years, long enough to be best man at the wedding of inventor Dr. Robert Jarvik. Five hospitals were approved as sites for implanting the AbioCor. The others were Brigham & Women's and Massachusetts General in Boston; Hahnemann University Hospital in Philadelphia; the Texas Heart Institute in Houston; and the UCLA Medical Center in Los Angeles.  THE
PATIENT SURVIVES LONGER THAN EXPECTED.[< Robert Tools, center, the recipient of the first totally self-contained artificial heart, addressed the media on 21 August 2001 alongside his surgeons Drs. Laman Gray Jr., left, and Robert Dowling.] More than six weeks after he received the experimental device, Robert Tools, 59, a former telephone company employee and teacher, is introduced to the news media via closed circuit television at Jewish Hospital in Louisville. "I had a choice to stay home and die or come here and take a chance," said Robert Tools of Franklin, Kentucky. "I decided to come here and take a chance." advertisement "I asked for it because I knew I had no more chances to survive," said Tools, who appeared frail and spoke with an airy voice while holding his throat because of a tracheotomy. Tools smiled as he said the whirring sound of the device took some getting used to, but he liked it because he knew he was alive. Tools, a diabetic with a history of heart problems, was deemed too ill to receive a heart transplant. Before the surgery, he was so weak he could take only a few steps at a time and couldn't raise his head to talk to his doctors. Tools was given only a slight chance of surviving 30 days. Tools moved to Kentucky from Colorado in 1996 hoping to receive a transplant, but he grew so weak he could barely cross the street. BUT HE SUFFERS A STROKE ON 11 NOVEMBER 2001 Robert Tools suffers a stroke in the afternoon of 11 November and is put back on a ventilator at Jewish Hospital. AND DIES ON 30 NOVEMBER 2001. He dies on 30 November 2001, having lived with the artificial heart for 151 days, much longer than his estimated life expectancy of 30 days before the implantation operation and of 60 days after it. Tools began bleeding on 10 November and his organs began failing later that night. His abdominal bleeding was caused by continuous anti-coagulation problems Tools had experienced since the surgery. His death was unrelated to his 11 November stroke. The deterioration of his condition was not caused by complications or any malfunction of the experimental AbioCor heart device. Blood-thinning drugs are often given to patients to prevent the clots that can cause strokes, but Tools could not be given high doses, because such drugs can also cause internal bleeding. Doctors had said early on that strokes were among the risks for the artificial heart patients. The AbioCor was designed with a smooth plastic lining to decrease the chance of blood clots forming. |
2000 et tous les ans: Tous les 2 juillet, la terre se trouve à son aphélie. Dans son mouvement de rotation autour du Soleil, la Terre décrit une ellipse dont le demi-grand axe est de 149'598'600 km. En janvier, la Terre est plus proche du Soleil, soit 147'100'000 km (périhélie) et en Juillet, elle est la plus éloignée, soit 152'100'000 km (aphélie). Cela fait une variation de 3,3% dans l'intensité de la radiation solaire, négligeable par rapport à la variation due à l'inclinaison de l'axe de la Terre.
1998 Un grupo de extremistas protestantes incendia diez capillas católicas en Irlanda del Norte.
1996 Electricity and phone service was knocked out for millions of customers from Canada to the Southwest after power lines throughout the West failed on a record-hot day.
1996 Seven years after they had shot their parents to death in the family's Beverly Hills mansion, Lyle and Erik Menendez were sentenced to life in prison without parole.
1995 La cadena comercial española Galerías Preciados cierra sus puertas tras más de 60 años de actividad, absorbida por su eterno competidor El Corte Inglés.
1992 Estados Unidos comunica a la OTAN la retirada de sus armas nucleares tácticas en Europa.
| 1992
One millionth Corvette ^top^ Original Corvette engineer Zora Arkus Duntov drives the one-millionth Chevrolet Corvette off the assembly line in Bowling Green, Kentucky. The event is monumental to both America's first sports car and the man that made the car possible. Duntov was born in Belgium, the son of Russian immigrants. He pursued an interest in motorcycle racing and engineering until the outbreak of World War II, at which point he joined the French Air Force. After the French surrender, Duntov managed to secure exit visas to Spain for his entire family. He later resettled in Manhattan, and started a performance engineering firm, called Ardun, with his brother. The firm enjoyed a reputation for quality, but eventually went out of business as the result of questionable financial practices on the part of a third partner that Duntov and his brother had taken on. Duntov moved to England to work on the Allard sports car, which he co-drove at Le Mans in 1952 and 1953. Duntov earned a reputation as an exacting driver and engineer in the European tradition of performance car racing. After witnessing the prototype Corvette on display at the 1953 Motorama in New York City, he decided to join Chevrolet. While Duntov was visually taken by the car, he expressed dismay at what lay under the hood. He wrote Chevrolet chief engineer Ed Cole and offered his services to improve the Corvette, including with his note a technical paper outlining his plan to increase the Corvette's performance capabilities. Chevrolet was so impressed that engineer Maurice Olley, then in charge of the Corvette, offered Duntov a position as a staff engineer. Soon after arriving at Chevrolet, Duntov set the tone for his career at the company by distributing a paper to his superiors entitled "Thoughts Pertaining to Youth, Hot Rodders, and Chevrolet." The paper laid the foundation for a strategy to create both racing and performance parts programs for Chevy. It was his desire that the Corvette measure itself against the best sports cars in the world: Porsche, Ferrari, and Mercedes. He helped develop the small-block V-8 engine to increase the little Corvette's power; he introduced the Duntov high-lift cam-shaft; and he introduced fuel injection, seeing the Corvette through from its inauspicious beginnings to its triumphant end. He created the Corvette Grand Sport Program in 1963, making the Corvette competitive on all levels of international performance competition. Duntov also helped to build the Corvette culture, appearing at Corvette shows, clubs, and rallies all over the US He retired from Chevrolet in 1975, but Duntov's legacy will stay alive as long as Corvettes roam the open road. |
| 1992
Stephen Hawkings breaks British bestseller records
^top^ Theoretical physicist Stephen Hawkings breaks British publishing records on this day in 1992. His book, A Brief History of Time, has been on the nonfiction bestseller list for three and a half years, selling more than 3 million copies in 22 languages. A Brief History of Time explains the latest theories on the origins of the universe in language accessible to educated lay people. The book was made into an acclaimed documentary in 1992, which focused largely on Hawkings' own story. Diagnosed with Lou Gehrig's disease in his 20s, Hawkings was told he had only two years to live. Despite the sobering prognosis, Hawkings pursued his studies in theoretical physics, married, and had a son. Eventually, his disease left him paralyzed except for his left hand. He was able to speak, although his speech was difficult to understand, until he underwent a tracheotomy in 1985 during a bout with pneumonia. Afterward, he relied on a mouse-controlled voice synthesizer, which improved the clarity of his speech. |
| 1991 Electronic
forgery thwarted The US Commerce Department announces a standard to protect electronic documents from tampering. The method, developed jointly with the National Security Agency, would make it impossible to alter some documents by creating an "electronic signature." The Commerce Department hopes that the measure will encourage the use of electronic documents in government transactions. |
1986 Se inicia en Chile la primera jornada de huelga general contra Pinochet.
1985 Andrei Gromiko es nombrado presidente del Soviet Supremo de la URSS y sustituido en la cartera de Exteriores por Eduard Shevardnadze.
1976 US Supreme Court rules death penalty not inherently cruel or unusual
1976 Formal reunification of North & South Vietnam
| 1976 Proclamation
de la République Socialiste du Vietnam.
^top^ Actuellement, elle approche les 75 millions d’habitants. La démographie est importante, même si elle a subi une diminution importante lors des guerres d’indépendance, contre les Japonais (40 - 45) contre les Français (45 - 56) et contre les Américains (56 - 76). De même les nouvelles conditions de vie, exode vers les villes et urbanisation galopante, industrialisation forcée, ouverture au monde capitaliste, retour de la propriété privée, ont contribué à fléchir le taux de croissance. Le régime politique reste "Communiste", un anachronisme peut-être, mais qui semblait convenir à ce peuple qui a essayé de penser ses plaies sans l’aide des Occidentaux, et sans aide importante de la part du bloc Communiste. Depuis 5 ans, une réforme constitutionnelle amorce un virage prudent vers l’économie de marché, mais la gérontocratie gouvernementale, malgré l’apport de quelques conseillers et techniciens plus jeunes, reste puissante et désireuse de ne pas "brûler" les étapes. Ce pays vaut 10 fois la Belgique, il mesure plus de 331"000 km². Il s’étend tout en longueur dans la partie orientale de la Péninsule Indochinoise, avec une plaine à chaque extrémité. Il offre un peu l’image d’un "fléau" d’épaule, une espèce de bambou qui soutiendrait un sac de riz à chaque extrémité, car ces deux plaines sont deux deltas très fertiles ; le delta du Sông Hông (fleuve rouge) au nord et du Mékong (fleuve jaune) au sud. Les 3 régions importantes sont le Tonkin au nord (capitale Hanoï), l’Ammam au centre et la Cochinchine au sud (capitale Saïgon). Si les plaines fertiles des deux deltas et du littoral au centre sont très peuplées, les montagnes couvrent près des deux tiers du territoire et la densité d’habitants y est faible. Sur les plans philosophique et religieux, les Vietnamiens ont jadis reçu de la Chine le bouddhisme Mahayana, le confucianisme et le taoïsme, qui ont profondément marqué leur mentalité. Mais ils ont aussi pratiqué des cultes autochtones, comme celui des ancêtres, célébré devant les tablettes funéraires de l’autel familial, du génie gardien du village, honoré dans le temple communal (d–ình), ceux de certains arbres, animaux ou pierres. Aujourd’hui, le confucianisme et le taoïsme sont en voie de disparition, les cultes locaux perdent de plus en plus d’adeptes, mais le bouddhisme (amidisme et école du Dhyana) fait preuve d’une grande vitalité et 80 % des Vietnamiens déclarent y adhérer. Trois autres mouvements religieux comptent un nombre notable de croyants ; ce sont le catholicisme (près de 2 millions de baptisés) et, dans le Sud, les sectes Cao-–Dài (1,5 million de fidèles) et Hoà-Ha’o. |
1966 Francia realiza su primer experimento atómico en el atolón de Mururoa.
| 1964
US President Johnson signs Civil Rights Act
^top^ In a nationally televised White House ceremony, US President Lyndon B. Johnson signs the Civil Rights Act of 1964 into law, after lobbying hard for its passage. The act, which is the most sweeping civil rights legislation passed by Congress since Reconstruction, prohibits racial discrimination in employment and education, and outlaws racial segregation in public facilities. This landmark legislation comes ten years after the US Supreme Court ruled in Brown v. Board of Education that racial segregation in public educational facilities is unconstitutional. In the decade that followed the historic decision, the Black civil rights movement made great strides in winning federal support for integration, and in 1960, John F. Kennedy made passage of a new civil rights bill one of the platforms of his successful presidential campaign. Vice President Lyndon Johnson served as chairman of the President's Committee on Equal Employment Opportunities, and, after the president was assassinated on 22 November 1963, Johnson vowed to carry out Kennedy's proposals for civil rights reform. |
| 1964 Republicans
attack LBJ's Vietnam policy.
^top^ At a joint news conference, Senate Republican leader Everett Dirksen (Illinois) and House Republican leader Charles Halleck (Indiana) say that the Vietnam War will be a campaign issue because "Johnson's indecision has made it one." President Lyndon B. Johnson had assumed office after the assassination of John F. Kennedy on 22 November 1963. Kennedy had supported Ngo Dinh Diem, the president of South Vietnam, who was assassinated during a coup just before Kennedy was killed. The deaths of both Diem and Kennedy provided an opportunity for the new administration to undertake a reassessment of US policy toward Vietnam, but this was not done. Johnson, who desperately wanted to push a set of social reforms called the Great Society, was instead forced to focus on the deteriorating situation in South Vietnam. Caught in a dilemma, he later wrote: "If I...let the Communists take over South Vietnam, then I would be seen as a coward and my nation would be seen as an appeaser and we would both find it impossible to accomplish anything for anybody anywhere in the entire globe." Faced with having to do something about Vietnam, Johnson vacillated as he and his advisers attempted to devise a viable course of action. The situation changed in August 1964 when North Vietnamese torpedo boats attacked US destroyers off the coast of North Vietnam. What became known as the Tonkin Gulf incident led to the passage of the Tonkin Gulf Resolution, which passed 416 to 0 in the House, and 88 to 2 in the Senate. This resolution, which gave the president approval to "take all necessary measures to repel an armed attack against the forces of the United States and to prevent further aggression," provided the legal basis for President Johnson to initiate a major commitment of US troops to South Vietnam, which ultimately totaled more than 540'000 by 1968. |
1957 El senador demócrata J. F. Kennedy solicita que su gobierno intervenga a favor de la independencia de Argelia.
1947 Dimite el Gobierno chileno y González Videla forma un nuevo Ejecutivo con personalidades sin filiación política.
| 1947 Soviet
Union rejects Marshall Plan assistance
^top^ Soviet Foreign Minister V. M. Molotov walks out of a meeting with representatives of the British and French governments, signaling the Soviet Union's rejection of the Marshall Plan. Molotov's action indicated that Cold War frictions between the United States and Russia were intensifying. On 04 June 1947, Secretary of State George C. Marshall gave a speech in which he announced that the United States was willing to offer economic assistance to the war-torn nations of Europe to help in their recovery. The Marshall Plan, as this program came to be known, eventually provided billions of dollars to European nations and helped stave off economic disaster in many of them. The Soviet reaction to Marshall's speech was a stony silence. However, Foreign Minister Molotov agreed to a meeting on 27 June with his British and French counterparts to discuss the European reaction to the US offer. Molotov immediately made clear the Soviet objections to the Marshall Plan. First, it would include economic assistance to Germany, and the Russians could not tolerate such aid to the enemy that had so recently devastated the Soviet Union. Second, Molotov was adamant in demanding that the Soviet Union have complete control and freedom of action over any Marshall Plan funds Germany might receive. Finally, the Foreign Minister wanted to know precisely how much money the United States would give to each nation. When it became clear that the French and British representatives did not share his objections, Molotov stormed out of the meeting on 02 July. In the following weeks, the Soviet Union pressured its Eastern European allies to reject all Marshall Plan assistance. That pressure was successful and none of the Soviet satellites participated in the Marshall Plan. The Soviet press claimed that the US program was "a plan for interference in the domestic affairs of other countries." The United States ignored the Soviet action and, in 1948, officially established the Marshall Plan and began providing funds to other European nations. Publicly, US officials argued that the Soviet stance was another indication that Russia intended to isolate Eastern Europe from the West and enforce its Communist and totalitarian doctrines in that region. From the Soviet perspective, however, its refusal to participate in the Marshall Plan indicated its desire to remain free from US "economic imperialism" and domination. La Unión Soviética rechaza el plan Marshall mientras los representantes francés y británico deciden proseguir su aplicación. |
| 1944
Mines, bombs, and leaflets on Budapest
^top^ As part of Operation Gardening, the British and US strategy to lay mines in the Danube River by dropping them from the air, US aircraft also drop bombs and leaflets on German-occupied Budapest. Hungarian oil refineries and storage tanks, important to the German war machine, were destroyed by the US air raid. Along with this fire from the sky, leaflets threatening "punishment" for those responsible for the deportation of Hungarian Jews to the gas chambers at Auschwitz were also dropped on Budapest. The US government wanted the SS and Hitler to know it was watching. Admiral Miklas Horthy, regent and virtual dictator of Hungary, vehemently antiCommunist and afraid of Russian domination, had aligned his country with Hitler, despite the fact that he little admired him. But he, too, demanded that the deportations cease, especially since special pleas had begun pouring in from around the world upon the testimonies of four escaped Auschwitz prisoners about the atrocities there. Hitler, fearing a Hungarian rebellion, stopped the deportations on 08 July. Horthy would eventually try to extricate himself from the war altogether — only to be kidnapped by Hitler's agents and consequently forced to abdicate. One day after the deportations stopped, a Swedish businessman, Raoul Wallenberg, having convinced the Swedish Foreign Ministry to send him to the Hungarian capital on a diplomatic passport, arrived in Budapest with 630 visas for Hungarian Jews, prepared to take them to Sweden to save them from further deportations. |
| 1937 Amelia
Earhart lost: ^top^ The Lockheed aircraft carrying legendary aviator Amelia Earhart and her copilot Frederick J. Noonan is reported missing. In 1928, Earhart was the first woman to fly across the Atlantic Ocean, and in 1932 she became the first female pilot to cross it solo. She disappeared on the last leg of her global journey somewhere between New Guinea and Howland Island in the South Pacific. Two radio amateurs picked up a signal that she was low on fuel — the last trace the world would ever know of Amelia Earhart. New York Times story (370703) The Lockheed aircraft carrying US aviator Amelia Earhart and navigator Frederick Noonan is reported missing near Howland Island in the Pacific. The pair were attempting to fly around the world when they lost their bearings during the most challenging leg of the global journey: Lae, New Guinea, to Howland Island, a tiny island 2227 nautical miles away, in the center of the Pacific Ocean. The US Coast Guard cutter Itasca was in sporadic radio contact with Earhart as she approached Howland Island and received messages that she was lost and running low on fuel. Soon after, she probably tried to ditch the Lockheed in the ocean. No trace of Earhart or Noonan was ever found. Amelia Earhart was born in Atchison, Kansas, in 1897. She took up aviation at the age of 24 and later gained publicity as one of the earliest female aviators. In 1928, the publisher George P. Putnam invited her to become the first woman to fly across the Atlantic Ocean. The previous year, Charles A. Lindbergh had flown solo nonstop across the Atlantic, and Putnam had made a fortune off Lindbergh's autobiographical book We. In June 1928, Earhart and two men flew from Newfoundland, Canada, to Wales, Great Britain. Although Earhart's only function during the crossing was to keep the plane's log, the flight won her great fame, and people in the US were enamored of the daring young pilot. The three were honored with a ticker-tape parade in New York, and "Lady Lindy," as Earhart was dubbed, was given a White House reception by President Calvin Coolidge. Earhart wrote a book about the flight for Putnam, whom she married in 1931, and gave lectures and continued her flying career under her maiden name. On 20 May 1932 she took off alone from Newfoundland in a Lockheed Vega on the first solo nonstop transatlantic flight by a woman. She was bound for Paris but was blown off course and landed in Ireland on May 21 after flying more than 3000 km in just under 15 hours. It was the fifth anniversary of Lindbergh's historic flight, and before Earhart no one had attempted to repeat his solo transatlantic flight. For her achievement, she was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross by Congress. Three months later, Earhart became the first woman to fly solo nonstop across the continental United States. In 1935, in the first flight of its kind, she flew solo from Wheeler Field in Honolulu to Oakland, California, winning a $10'000 award posted by Hawaiian commercial interests. Later that year, she was appointed a consultant in careers for women at Purdue University, and the school bought her a modern Lockheed Electra aircraft to be used as a "flying laboratory." On March 17, 1937, she took off from Oakland and flew west on an around-the-world attempt. It would not be the first global flight, but it would be the longest — 47'000 km, following an equatorial route. Aboard her Lockheed were Frederick Noonan, her navigator and a former Pan American pilot, and co-pilot Harry Manning. After resting and refueling in Honolulu, the trio prepared to resume the flight. However, while taking off for Howland Island, Earhart ground-looped the plane on the runway, perhaps because of a blown tire, and the Lockheed was seriously damaged. The flight was called off, and the aircraft was shipped back to California for repairs. In May, Earhart flew the newly rebuilt plane to Miami, from where Noonan and she would make a new around-the-world attempt, this time from west to east. They left Miami on 01 June, and after stops in South America, Africa, India, and Southeast Asia, they arrived at Lae, New Guinea, on 29 June. About 35'000 km of the journey had been completed, and the last 11'000 km would all be over the Pacific Ocean. The next destination was Howland Island, a tiny US-owned island that was just a few miles long. The US Department of Commerce had a weather observation station and a landing strip on the island, and the staff was ready with fuel and supplies. Several US ships, including the Coast Guard cutter Itasca, were deployed to aid Earhart and Noonan in this difficult leg of their journey. As the Lockheed approached Howland Island, Earhart radioed the Itasca and explained that she was low on fuel. However, after several hours of frustrating attempts, two-way communication was only briefly established, and the Itasca was unable to pinpoint the Lockheed's location or offer navigational information. Earhart circled the Itasca's position but was unable to sight the ship, which was sending out miles of black smoke. She radioed "one-half hour fuel and no landfall" and later tried to give information on her position. Soon after, contact was lost, and Earhart presumably tried to land the Lockheed on the water. If her landing on the water was perfect, Earhart and Noonan might have had time to escape the aircraft with a life raft and survival equipment before it sank. An intensive search of the vicinity by the Coast Guard and US Navy found no physical evidence of the fliers or their plane. Additional searches through the years have likewise failed to find any trace of the Lockheed or of Earhart and Noonan, who almost certainly perished at sea. |
| 1917 First plane-to-ground phone
call The first phone call from an airplane is received at Langley Field, Virginia. The call, placed from an airplane three kilometers away, come through loud and clear: Unfortunately, the plane can only transmit, not receive, the call. The first two-way, ground-to-air conversation would occur the following month. |
| 1914 Thursday : in the aftermath
of the June 28 assassination in Sarajevo of Archduke Francis
Ferdinand of Austria-Hungary and of his wife, Sophia:
|
1905 Entra en vigor en Francia una ley que limita el horario laboral de los menores a nueve horas.
| 1900
Zeppelin demonstrates airship
^top^ In the sky over Germany's Lake Constance, Count Ferdinand Graf von Zeppelin, a retired Prussian army officer, successfully demonstrated the world's first rigid airship. The 128-meter, cigar-shaped LZ-1 is lifted by hydrogen gas and powered by a sixteen-horsepower engine. Zeppelin had first become interested in lighter-than-air travel in 1863, when as a military observer in the US Civil War he had made several ascents in Union observation balloons. In 1891, he retired from the Prussian army to devote himself to the building of motor-driven dirigibles, and in 1900 he successfully tested his first airship. Although a French inventor had built a power-driven airship several decades before, the Zeppelin's rigid dirigible, with its steel framework, was by far the largest airship ever constructed. Size, however, was exchanged for safety as the heavy steel-framed airships were vulnerable to explosion because they had to be lifted by highly flammable hydrogen gas, instead of non-flammable helium gas. During World War I, several "Zeppelins," as all rigid airships became popularly known, were used by the Germans in bombing missions over Britain. After the war, commercial passenger service increased, and one of the most famous rigid airships, the Graf Zeppelin, traveled around the world in 1929. In the 1930s, the Graf Zeppelin also pioneered the first transatlantic air service, leading to the construction of the largest dirigible ever built: the Hindenburg. On 06 May 1937, at the end of its maiden voyage across the Atlantic, the Hindenburg burst into flames upon touching its mooring mast in Lakehurst, New Jersey, killing thirty-six passengers and crew [however a recent theory is that the hydrogen was not responsible but the envelope of the airship, with a flammable coating including aluminum powder, caught fire from static electricity, while the hydrogen vented harmlessly upward]. Lighter-than-air passenger travel rapidly fell out of favor after the Hindenberg disaster, and no existing rigid airship survived World War II. |
| 1892
Lock-out at Carnegie's plant
^top^ By the late nineteenth century, the workers at Andrew Carnegie's Homestead, PA plant had eked out a modicum of power. They won a key strike in 1889, and in the process became a potent unit of the Amalgamated Association of Iron and Steel Workers. Still, these victories hardly erased the harsh working conditions at the Homestead mills. Nor did they mean that the Carnegie Company was pleased with or readily recognized the union. Ever mindful of Amalgamated's potentially deleterious impact on his profit margins, Andrew Carnegie looked to erode the power of the union. In 1892, the company made its move against Amalgamated, though not with Carnegie at the helm: the steel baron had departed for a vacation in Scotland, leaving the task of smashing the union in the hands of his partner, Henry Clay Frick. Frick took his mission all too seriously: after refusing to renew the company's contract with Amalgamated, he dug in for war, erecting a three-mile long steel wire fence around the plant. Frick also enlisted the aid of the Pinkerton Detective agency, which sent three hundred men to Homestead to ensure the plant's transition to non-union workers. Amalgamated's leaders responded in kind, lining up scores of workers, as well as a good chunk of the town, to wage battle against the plant. The showdown begins in earnest on 02 July as Frick halted work at Homestead until the plant was staffed entirely by non-union workers. Three days later, the Homestead affair turned bloody, as the Pinkerton agents made their first appearance on the scene. Attempting to reach the plant via the Monongahela River, the agents were met by Amalgamated's forces; the two sides engaged in a long and vicious battle that left nine strikers and seven agents dead. Despite the losses, Amalgamated's motley army was able to turn back the detectives. Sensing that they were on the verge of disaster, officials for Carnegie enlisted the aid of the Pennsylvania Government. And, on 09 July, 1892, the state sends 7000 troops to Homestead to "restore law and order." The militia effectively squelched Amalgamated's strike: the troops helped the Carnegie restaff its plant with non-union workers and by September, the Carnegie company would have resumed production. Later that November, the union conceded defeat and called off its strike; Carnegie responded by summarily firing and even blacklisting the strikers. |
| 1890
Sherman Anti-Trust Act ^top^ The federal government tackled the rising specter of outsized business conglomerations by passing the Sherman Anti-Trust Act. Sponsored by Ohio Senator John Sherman, the bill is designed as a direct strike against "every contract, combination in the form of trust or otherwise, or conspiracy, in restraint of trade of commerce among the several States, or with foreign nations." Along with attempting to block the future creation of monopolies, the Sherman Anti-Trust Act also calls for existing monopolies to be disbanded. But, such seemingly strong tactics betray the bill's weak language. Written by Senator George Hoar (Mississippi) and Senator George F. Edmunds (Vermont), the Sherman Act is fraught with ambiguous terms like "trust," leaving it ripe for exploitation by both litigious business officials and savvy attorneys. Sure enough, the ensuing years would see anti-labor forces manipulate the bill in their crusade against organized labor unions. In 1894, these anti-labor efforts were legally sanctioned by the Supreme Court which ruled in United States v. Debs that the Sherman Act did indeed cover unions, as well as hulking business entities. |
| 1881
US President shot and incapacited. Is the VP promoted?
^top^ After only four months in office, while on his way to visit his ill wife in Elberon, New Jersey, President James A. Garfield, 49, is shot in the back and the arm at the Baltimore & Potomac railroad station in Washington, D.C., by Charles J. Guiteau, , a mentally disturbed man, who had been tracking President Garfield for a while. When Garfield was running for office, Guiteau sent him a deranged speech to read to his audience. Not surprisingly, Garfield never read the speech, but Guiteau insisted that it was instrumental in getting him elected and demanded the position of ambassador to France in return. Since the White House did not have standard security in place at this time, Guiteau became a frequent visitor and even met the president on one occasion. He began to harass the secretary of state every day about the ambassador position. When he was summarily rejected, Guiteau decided to seek revenge by shooting the president. He later told authorities that he followed Garfield for weeks, once sitting directly behind him at church. After checking out the prisons in Washington DC, to make sure the accommodations would suit him, Guiteau makes his attack on the president on 02 July. Guiteau peaceably surrendered to police, calmly announcing, "I am a Stalwart. Arthur is now president of the United States." With the bullet lodged near his pancreas, Garfield, mortally ill, was treated in Washington and then taken to the seashore at Elberon, New Jersey, where he attempted to recuperate with his family. For 80 days he performed only one official act — the signing of an extradition paper. It was generally agreed that, in such cases, the vice president was empowered by the Constitution to assume the powers and duties of the office of president. But should he serve merely as acting president until Garfield recovered, or would he receive the office itself and thus displace his predecessor? Because of an ambiguity in the Constitution, opinion was divided, and, because Congress was not in session, the problem could not be debated there. On 02 September 1881, the matter came before a cabinet meeting, where it was finally agreed that no action would be taken without first consulting Garfield. But in the opinion of the doctors this was impossible, and no further action was taken before the death of the president, the result of slow blood poisoning, on 19 September. The following day, Arthur was inaugurated as the twenty-first president of the United States. Garfield had three funerals: one in Elberon, another in Washington, where his body rested in state in the Capitol for three days, and a third in Cleveland, Ohio, where he was buried. Charles Guiteau's murder trial began in November. Despite strong indications of insanity, prosecutors would tried him for murder. Acting as his own attorney during the 10-week trial, Guiteau screamed incessantly and sometimes danced around the courtroom. But the court did not put a stop to his antics, even after he called the prosecutors "dirty liars." During his closing argument, he claimed that God had told him to kill the president. When the jury pronounced him guilty of murder, Guiteau shouted at them, "You are all low, consummate jackasses!" Guiteau was hanged on 30 June 1882. Two hundred spectators at the jail watched as hundreds more gathered outside. From the gallows, Guiteau recited a poem in a high, childlike voice, "I am going to the Lordy, I am so glad." |
1871 Víctor Manuel II, primer [entonces ¿porqué el “II”] rey de Italia, entra en el palacio del Quirinal, antigua residencia papal.
1864 The US Congress passes the Wade-Davis Bill, requiring a majority of a seceded state's white citizens to take an oath of loyalty to the Constitution and guarantee black equality, but President Abraham Lincoln pocket vetoes the harsh plan for dealing with the defeated Confederate states.
1864 General Early & Confederate forces reach Winchester
1863 Morgan's raiders cross the Cumberland River near Burkesville, Kentucky
1863 Battle of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania continues
1863 Siege of Port Hudson, Louisiana continues
1863 Siege of Vicksburg, Mississippi continues
1862 Morrill Land Grant Act approved by President Lincoln
1858 Partial emancipation of Russian serfs
1855 Comienza en Cataluña la primera huelga general realizada en España, que duró ocho días.
1852 Portugal decreta la abolición de la pena de muerte por motivos políticos.
1847 Envelope bearing the 1st US 10 cent stamps, still exists today
1843 An alligator falls from the sky during a Charleston SC thunderstorm
| 1809
Tecumseh urges Amerindians to fight for their land.
^top^
Alarmed by the growing encroachment of whites squatting on Amerindian lands, the Shawnee Chief Tecumseh calls on all Indians to unite and resist. Born around 1768 near Springfield, Ohio, Tecumseh early won notice as a brave warrior. He fought in battles between the Shawnee and the white Kentuckians, who were invading the Ohio River Valley territory. After the US Army won several important battles in the mid-1790s, Tecumseh reluctantly relocated westward but remained an implacable foe of the white men and their ways. By the early 19th century, many Shawnee and other Ohio Valley Indians were becoming increasingly dependent on trading with the US invaders for guns, cloth, and metal goods. Tecumseh spoke out against such dependence and called for a return to traditional Indian ways. He was even more alarmed by the continuing encroachment of white settlers illegally settling on the already diminished government-recognized land holdings of the Shawnee and other tribes. The US government, however, was reluctant to take action against its own citizens to protect the rights of the Ohio Valley Indians. On this day in 1809, Tecumseh began a concerted campaign to persuade the Indians of the Old Northwest and Deep South to unite and resist. Together, Tecumseh argued, the various tribes had enough strength to stop the whites from taking further land. Heartened by this message of hope, Indians from as far away as Florida and Minnesota heeded Tecumseh's call. By 1810, he had organized the Ohio Valley Confederacy, which united Indians from the Shawnee, Potawatomi, Kickapoo, Winnebago, Menominee, Ottawa, and Wyandot nations. For several years, Tecumseh's Indian Confederacy successfully delayed further white settlement in the region. In 1811, however, the future president William Henry Harrison led an attack on the confederacy's base on the Tippecanoe River. At the time, Tecumseh was in the South attempting to convince more tribes to join his movement. Although the battle of Tippecanoe was close, Harrison finally won out and destroyed much of Tecumseh's army. When the War of 1812 began the following year, Tecumseh immediately marshaled what remained of his army to aid the British. Commissioned a brigadier general, he proved an effective ally and played a key role in the British capture of Detroit and other battles. When the tide of war turned in the favor of the US, Tecumseh's fortunes went down with those of the British. On October 5, 1813, he was killed during Battle of the Thames. His Ohio Valley Confederacy and vision of Indian unity died with him. |
1787 de Sade shouts from Bastille that prisoners are being slaughtered
1777 Vermont becomes 1st American colony to abolish slavery
1776 Continental Congress resolves "these United Colonies are & of right ought to be Free & Independent States"
1652 Bataille de la porte Saint-Antoine (Paris) entre Turenne et Condé. Les troupes de Condé sont sauvées par la duchesse de Montpensier (cousine de Louis XIV) qui leur fait ouvrir les portes de Paris. — El Congreso Continental norteamericano ratifica su decisión de separarse de Inglaterra.
1648 Le roi fait des réformes. Devant le Parlement réuni, Saint Louis fait donner la lecture d'un texte. Les membres du Parlement sont étonnés par les vingt-sept articles dont le contenu peut passer pour être révolutionnaire. Les impôts sont diminués. Les intendants sont rappelés. L'habeas corpus est établi à l'exemple de l'Angleterre.
1644 Battle of Marston Moor; Parliamentary forces defeat royalists
| 1560
Michel de L'Hospital, chancelier conciliateur
^top^ La place de chancelier du royaume est vacante depuis la mort d'Olivier , mort de chagrin (?). Celui-ci avait dû juger les conjurés d'Amboise qui avaient voulu soustraire le roi à l'influence du très catholique Guise, il ne s'en serait pas remis moralement. Les partisans de Condé qui ont participé à cette conjuration ont été pendus, décapités, noyés dans la Loire. Catherine de Médicis trouve qu'il est temps d'apaiser les esprits. Elle impose à son fils, François II, Michel de L'Hospital pour cette charge. Il est catholique. Il est modéré. Il est humaniste. Il ne tarde pas à en faire la preuve. Lors des Etats généraux qui se tiennent à Orléans en décembre 1561 il déclare : " Otons ces mots diaboliques, noms de partis, de factions, de séditions, luthériens, huguenots, papistes : ne gardons que le nom de chrétiens. " |
On 28 June 1839, fifty-three slaves recently captured in Africa
left Havana, Cuba, aboard the 
On
07 June 2001 Carlos Menem is put under house arrest as part
of an investigation into illegal arms sales. Menem is ordered
held by federal judge Jorge Urso probing accusations that the
former president headed an "illicit organization" that funneled
arms to Croatia and Ecuador in 1991 and 1995, despite international
arms embargoes on both nations. 6500 tons of weapons that were
officially destined for Panama and Venezuela were shipped to
Croatia and Ecuador instead.
