17 Jun History: This Date

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Events, deaths, births, of JUN 17
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• Pétain to surrender France to Hitler... • Ship fleeing France sunk by Germans... • Sioux victory over US... • Hersey is born... • Battle of “Bunker Hill”... • Drake claims California... • Découverte de la baie du Mississippi... • Watergate burglars arrested... • O.J. arrested...

On a June 17:
2000 JP Morgan downgrades the stock of air courier company Atlas Air Worldwide Holdings (CGO) from “Market Perform” to “Market Underperform”. This holding company is a cargo carrier that provides airport-to-airport air transportation services throughout the world to major international airlines. On this day on which the stock indices are in a strong uptrend (DJI up 2.25%), the CGO stock, which closed at $6.05 in the previous session, makes an intraday low of $3.30 and closes at $3.55. It had traded as high as $45.89 on 14 Aug 2000. [5~year price chart >].
2000 In Cuba, more than 300'000 persons turn out to protest the continued stay of Elian González in the United States; it is the largest such demonstration since the previous December, when Cuba launched a national campaign of mass gatherings demanding the boy's return.
1998. Le président russe Eltsine demande à Anatoly Tchoubaïs de négocier un plan d'urgence avec les institutions financières internationales.

1998 Digital wins keyboard injury case ^top^
A jury exonerates Digital Equipment Company from charges of negligence in a keyboard injury case. The plaintiffs, one of whom had already won a large jury verdict against Digital, contended that the company should have placed warnings of possible injury on its equipment. The case was watched closely by the computer industry. A jury exonerated Digital Equipment Company from charges of negligence in a keyboard injury case. The plaintiffs, one of whom had already won a large jury verdict against Digital, contended that the company should have placed warnings of possible injury on its equipment. The case was closely watched by the computer industry, which had come under fire as excessive keyboard usage was linked in some cases to repetitive motion syndrome in office workers.

1994 O. J. Simpson arrested after flight from justice    ^top^
      After a dramatic flight from justice witnessed by millions on live television, former football star and actor Orenthal James Simpson (born 09 July 1947, San Francisco) surrenders outside his Rockingham estate to Los Angeles police, who charged him with the June 12 double-murder of his ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend, Ronald L. Goldman.
      Earlier in the day, after learning he was to be arraigned on the charges, Simpson attempted to escape Los Angeles, but the police located him in a vehicle being driven by his friend, former professional football player Al Cowlings. Cowlings, speaking on a cellular phone to the police, explained that Simpson had a gun and was suicidal, and the police agreed to not forcibly stop his vehicle. Los Angeles news helicopters soon learned of the event unfolding on their freeways, and live television coverage of Simpson’s attempted flight began. As millions watched, Cowling’s white Ford Bronco, escorted by a phalanx of police cars, drove across Los Angeles while Simpson cowered in the back seat, allegedly with a gun to his head. Finally, after nearly nine hours on the road, the Bronco returned to Simpson’s Rockingham estate, and a tense ninety-minute standoff in the driveway ensued before Simpson finally surrendered.
      In the vehicle and on his person were discovered the gun, a mustache and goatee disguise, and his passport. His lengthy criminal trial became a sensational media event that brought to light racial divisions present in America, while, some believed, calling the US justice system into question. In polls, a majority of African Americans consistently believed Simpson, who was black, to be innocent of the murder of the white victims, while the vast majority of white Americans, supported by the media and law enforcement, maintained Simpson’s guilt.
      Although the evidence appeared to be pointing almost indisputably towards Simpson’s guilt, on 03 October 1995, the jury of nine African Americans, two whites, and one Hispanic took just four hours of deliberation to reach their verdict of not guilty on all charges. However, in 1997, Simpson was found liable for several charges related to the slayings in a civil trial, and was forced to award millions in compensatory and punitive damages to the victims’ families.

1993 Apple financial downturn leads to wrongful (?) dismissal    ^top^
      Apple Computer's board of directors called a special meeting to address a "sudden financial downturn," caused by a price war in the computer industry. At the meeting, the board asked president John Sculley to step down from his position, according to a wrongful-dismissal lawsuit later filed by Sculley. Sculley was blamed for Apple's dismal performance in recent years.
       Although the groundbreaking Macintosh was released on his watch, some blamed him for missing the chance to make the Macintosh operating system the industry standard. He also spent eighteen months promoting the Newton, a handheld computer that Apple would invest ten years and an estimated $500 million in developing before finally pulling the plug in 1998. For the next several years, Apple went through two more presidents before drafting Apple cofounder Steve Jobs as acting president in 1998.

1991 The South African Parliament abolished the Population Registration Act, the last major apartheid law still in effect.
1991 The remains of President Zachary Taylor were briefly exhumed in Louisville, Ky., to test a theory that Taylor had died of arsenic poisoning. (Results showed death was from natural causes.)
1988 Women sentenced to 90 years in first product tampering murder case
1986 Chief Justice Warren Earl Burger resigns Antonin Scalia nominated.
1982 Pres Reagan first UN Gen Assembly address ("evil empire" speech)
1982 President Galtieri resigns after leading Argentina to defeat.
1975 Voters in Northern Mariana Is approve commonwealth status with US.
1972 US President Nixon's eventual downfall began with the arrest of five burglars inside Democratic national headquarters in Washington, D.C.'s Watergate complex.

1972 CREEPy Watergate burglars arrested    ^top^
      Five burglars are arrested in the Democratic National Committee headquarters at the Watergate office and apartment complex in Washington, D.C. James McCord, Frank Sturgis, Bernard Barker, Virgilio Gonzales, and Eugenio Martinez are apprehended in the early morning after a security guard at the Watergate noticed that several doors leading from the stairwell to various hallways have been taped to prevent them from locking. The intruders are wearing surgical gloves and carrying walkie-talkies, cameras, and almost $2300 in sequential $100 bills. A subsequent search of their rooms at the Watergate turns up an additional $4200, burglary tools, and electronic bugging equipment.
     The story of the Watergate break-in, which seemed like a minor event, is handed to two young reporters, Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, by their Washington Post editor-in-chief, Ben Bradlee. The reporters pursue the story tirelessly and would breake the scoop of White House involvement in a pattern of unethical practices against political enemies. The pair later wrote the bestselling book All the President's Men (1974), about the journalistic process of exposing the Watergate scandal.
      Although there was no immediate explanation as to the objective of the break-in, an extensive investigation ensued, eventually unveiling a comprehensive scheme of political sabotage and espionage designed to discredit Democratic candidates. McCord, who was one of the burglars, was also Richard Nixon's security chief for the Committee to Re-Elect the President (CREEP); Nixon campaign funds were ultimately traced back to the Watergate break-in; In addition, equipment used during the burglary had been borrowed from the CIA.
      In the fall of 1972, Nixon was re-elected into office, but the probe continued. FBI agents soon established that hundreds of thousands of dollars in Nixon campaign contributions had been set aside to pay for a massive undercover anti-Democratic operation. According to federal investigators, CREEP had forged letters and distributed them under Democratic candidates' letterhead, leaked false and manufactured information to the press, seized confidential Democratic campaign files, and followed Democratic candidates' families in order to gather damaging information.
      During a hearing of the Senate select Watergate committee on 13 July 1973, former White House aide Alexander Butterfield revealed that Nixon had been taping all of his conversations and telephone calls in the White House since 1971. After losing a battle in the Supreme Court to keep these tapes private, Nixon was heard approving the cover-up of the Watergate burglary less than a week after it happened. During the 20 June 1972, discussion of the Watergate scandal between the president and former White House chief of staff H.R. Haldeman, an 18 ¼-minute gap had been inexplicably erased, causing frustration and speculation from investigators. On August 9, 1974, President Nixon resigned-the first US president to do so. However, newly elected President Gerald Ford pardoned Nixon a month later, saving him from facing criminal charges.

Five men are arrested for breaking into the Democratic National Committee offices at the Watergate Hotel in Washington, D.C. Senate investigations eventually revealed that President Richard Nixon had been personally involved in the subsequent cover-up of the break-in; additional investigation uncovered a related group of illegal activities that included political espionage and falsification of official documents, all sanctioned by the White House. Nixon became increasingly embroiled in the political scandal. On 29 July and 30 July 1974, the House Judiciary Committee approved three articles of impeachment, charging that Nixon had misused his powers to violate the constitutional rights of US citizens, obstructed justice, and defied Judiciary Committee subpoenas. To avoid almost certain impeachment, Nixon resigned from office on 09 August. The Watergate affair had a far-ranging impact, both at home and abroad. In the United States, the scandal shook the faith of the American people in the presidency. In the final analysis though, the nation survived the constitutional crisis, thus reinforcing the system of checks and balances and proving that not even the president is above the law. Nixon's resignation had dire consequences for the Vietnam War. Nixon had always promised that he would come to the aid of South Vietnam if North Vietnam violated the terms of the Paris Peace Accords. With Nixon gone, there was no one left to make good on those promises. When the North Vietnamese began their final offensive in 1975, the promised US support was not provided and the South Vietnamese were defeated in less than 55 days.

     In the early morning of 17 June 1972, five men are arrested for breaking into the Democratic National Committee headquarters at the Watergate, an office-hotel-apartment complex in Washington, D.C. In their possession were burglary tools, cameras and film, and three pen-size tear gas guns. At the scene of the crime, and in rooms the men rented at the Watergate, sophisticated electronic bugging equipment was found. Three of the men were Cuban exiles, one was a Cuban American, and the fifth was James W. McCord, Jr., a former CIA agent. That day, the suspects, who said they were "anti-communists," were charged with felonious burglary and possession of implements of crime. On June 18, however, it was revealed that James McCord was the salaried security coordinator for President Richard Nixon's reelection committee. The next day, E. Howard Hunt, Jr., a former White House aide, was linked to the five suspects.
      In July, G. Gordon Liddy, finance counsel for the Committee for the Re-election of the President, was also implicated as an accomplice. In August, President Nixon announced that a White House investigation of the Watergate break-in had concluded that administration officials were not involved. In September, Liddy, Hunt, McCord, and the four Cubans were indicted by a federal grand jury on eight counts of breaking into and illegally bugging the Democratic National Committee headquarters. In September and October, reporters Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward of The Washington Post uncovered evidence of illegal political espionage carried out by the White House and the Committee for the Re-election of the President, including the existence of a secret fund kept for the purpose and the existence of political spies hired by the committee. Despite these reports, and a growing call for a Watergate investigation on Capitol Hill, Richard Nixon was reelected president in November 1972 in a landslide victory. In January 1973, five of the Watergate burglars pleaded guilty, and two others, Liddy and McCord, were convicted. At their sentencing on 23 March US District Court Judge John J. Sirica read a letter from McCord charging that the White House had conducted an extensive "cover-up" to conceal its connection with the break-in. In April, Attorney General Richard Kleindienst and two top White House advisers, H.R. Haldeman and John Ehrlichman, resigned, and White House counsel John Dean was fired.
      On 17 May 1973, the Senate Select Committee on Presidential Campaign Activities, headed by Senator Sam Ervin of North Carolina, began televised proceedings on the rapidly escalating Watergate affair. One week later, Harvard Law professor Archibald Cox was sworn in as special Watergate prosecutor. During the Senate hearings, former White House legal counsel John Dean testified that the Watergate break-in had been approved by former Attorney General John Mitchell with the knowledge of White House advisers Ehrlichman and Haldeman, and that President Nixon had been aware of the cover-up. Meanwhile, Watergate prosecutor Cox and his staff began to uncover widespread evidence of political espionage by the Nixon re-election committee, illegal wiretapping of thousands of citizens by the administration, and contributions to the Republican Party in return for political favors.
      In July, the existence of what were to be called the Watergate tapes — official recordings of White House conversations between Nixon and his staff — was revealed during the Senate hearings. Cox subpoenaed these tapes, and after three months of delay President Nixon agreed to send summaries of the recordings. Cox rejected the summaries, and Nixon fired him. His successor as special prosecutor, Leon Jaworski, leveled indictments against several high-ranking administration officials, including Mitchell and Dean, who were duly convicted. Public confidence in the president rapidly waned, and by the end of July 1974 the House Judiciary Committee had adopted three articles of impeachment against President Nixon: obstruction of justice, abuse of presidential powers, and hindrance of the impeachment process. On 30 July, under coercion from the Supreme Court, Nixon finally released the Watergate tapes. On 05 August transcripts of the recordings were released, including a segment in which the president was heard instructing Haldeman to order the FBI to halt the Watergate investigation. Four days later, Nixon became the first president in US history to resign. On 08 September, his successor, President Gerald Ford, pardoned him from any criminal charges.

1971 The United States and Japan signed a treaty under which the United States would return control of the island of Okinawa.

1969 North Vietnamese reoccupy Ap Bia Mountain ^top^
US intelligence reports that an estimated 1,000 North Vietnamese troops have reoccupied Ap Bia Mountain (Hill 937), one mile east of the Laotian border. US and South Vietnamese forces had fought a fierce battle with North Vietnamese troops there in May. The battle was part of a 2800-man Allied sweep of the A Shau Valley called Operation Apache Snow. The purpose of the operation was to cut off the North Vietnamese and stop any infiltration from Laos that was menacing Hue to the northeast and Da Nang to the southeast. Paratroopers from the 101st Airborne had engaged a North Vietnamese regiment on the slopes of Hill 937, known to the Vietnamese as Ap Bia Mountain. Entrenched in prepared fighting positions, the North Vietnamese 29th Regiment repulsed the initial American assault and beat back another attempt by the 3rd Battalion, 187th Infantry on May 14. An intense battle raged for 10 days as the mountain came under heavy Allied air strikes, artillery barrages, and 10 infantry assaults. On May 20, Maj. Gen. Melvin Zais, commanding general of the 101st, sent in two additional US airborne battalions and a South Vietnamese battalion as reinforcements. The communist stronghold was finally captured in the 11th attack when the American and South Vietnamese soldiers fought their way to the summit of the mountain. In the face of the four-battalion attack, the North Vietnamese retreated to sanctuary areas in Laos. During the intense fighting, 597 North Vietnamese were reported killed and US casualties were 56 killed and 420 wounded. Due to the bitter fighting and the high loss of life, the battle for Ap Bia Mountain received widespread unfavorable publicity in the United States and was dubbed "Hamburger Hill" in the US media (a name evidently derived from the fact that the battle turned into a "meat grinder"). Since the operation was not intended to hold territory but rather to keep the North Vietnamese Army off balance, the mountain was abandoned soon after the battle. The news of the battle and subsequent US withdrawal from the area resulted in public outrage over what appeared to be a senseless loss of American lives. This furor only increased when it was revealed that the North Vietnamese had reoccupied their original positions after the American soldiers left. Gen. Creighton Abrams, who had succeeded Gen. William Westmoreland as commander of US Military Assistance Command Vietnam, was ordered to avoid such battles in the future.

1967 China becomes world's 4th thermonuclear (H-bomb) power
1963 The US Supreme Court struck down rules requiring the recitation of the Lord's Prayer or reading of biblical verses in public schools.
1957 Tuskegee boycott begins (Blacks boycotted city stores)
1954 Televised Senate Army McCarthy hearings end.

1953 Soviets crush antigovernment riots in East Berlin    ^top^
      The Soviet Union orders an entire armored division of its troops into East Berlin to crush a rebellion by East German workers and antigovernment protesters. The Soviet assault set a precedent for later interventions into Hungary in 1956 and Czechoslovakia in 1968. The riots in East Berlin began among construction workers, who took to the streets on 16 June 1953, to protest an increase in work schedules by the communist government of East Germany. By the next day, the crowd of disgruntled workers and other antigovernment dissidents had grown to between 30'000 and 50'000. Leaders of the protest issued a call for a general strike, the resignation of the communist East German government, and free elections. Soviet forces struck quickly and without warning. Troops, supported by tanks and other armored vehicles, crashed through the crowd of protesters. Some protesters tried to fight back, but most fled before the onslaught. Red Cross officials in West Berlin (where many of the wounded protesters fled) estimated the death toll at between 15 and 20, and the number of wounded at more than 100.
      The Soviet military commanders declared martial law, and by the evening of 17 June, the protests had been shattered and relative calm was restored. In Washington, President Dwight D. Eisenhower declared that the brutal Soviet action contradicted Russian propaganda that the people of East Germany were happy with their communist government. He noted that the smashing of the protests was "a good lesson on the meaning of communism." America's propaganda outlet in Europe, the Voice of America radio station, claimed, "The workers of East Berlin have already written a glorious page in postwar history. They have once and for all times exposed the fraudulent nature of communist regimes." These criticisms had little effect on the Soviet control of East Germany, which remained a communist stronghold until the government fell in 1989.

1953 Riots in East Germany for reunification — Soulèvement populaire en Allemagne de l’Est dominée par le parti communiste à la solde de Moscou. Les ouvriers entrent en grève suivi par les petits employés. La répression sévit aussitôt. L’armée Rouge entre en action, les chars écrasent la révolte. Les autorités communistes ferment les lignes de bus et de tramway entre les deux secteurs de la ville (Est-Ouest). Ces mesures marquent un point critique dans la Guerre Froide entre les deux grands blocs. Mais ces mesures n’arrêteront pas l’hémorragie populaire. Des millions d’Allemands de l’Est ont fui le secteur communiste pour gagner Berlin-Ouest, ce qui poussera les autorités est-allemandes à construire en 1961 le fameux mur de Berlin qui subsistera 30 ans pour empêcher le peuple de fuir le "paradis" communiste.

1953 US Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas stays executions of spies Julius and Ethel Rosenberg scheduled for the next day their 14th anniversary.

1950 first kidney transplant (Chicago)
1945 Day of Unity in West Germany (National Day)
1942 first WW II American expeditionary force lands in Africa (Gold Coast)

1940 Pétain to sign armistice with Nazis    ^top^
      With Paris fallen and the German conquest of France reaching its conclusion, Marshal Philippe Pétain replaces Paul Reynaud as prime minister and announces his intention to sign an armistice with the Nazis. The next day, French General Charles de Gaulle, not very well known even to the French, broadcast from England, urging his countrymen to continue the fight against Germany.
      A military hero during World War I, Pétain was appointed vice premier of France in May of 1940 to boost morale in a country crumbling under the force of the Nazi invasion. Instead, Pétain, who took over the reins of the French government after Reynaud chose resignation over surrender, decided to arrange an armistice with the Nazis. The armistice, signed by the French on 22 June, went into effect on 25 June, and more than half of France was occupied by the Germans.
      In July, Pétain took office as "chief of state" at Vichy, a city in unoccupied France. The Vichy government under Pétain collaborated with the Nazis, and French citizens suffered on both sides of the divided nation. In 1942, Pierre Laval, an opportunistic French Fascist and dutiful Nazi collaborator, won the trust of Nazi leader Adolf Hitler, and the elderly Pétain became merely a figurehead in the Vichy regime.
      On 06 June 1944, the Allies successfully landed at Normandy, and in late August, Pétain and Laval were forced to flee to German protection to the east. On 26 April 1945, with Germany days away from surrender, Pétain crossed into France from Switzerland and turned himself in. He was subsequently found guilty of treason by the High Court of Justice and sentenced to death, but French President Charles de Gaulle commuted the sentence to life imprisonment. Pétain died on the Isle of Yeu in 1953.

1940 formation du cabinet Pétain — L'évacuation de Saint-Nazaire, commencée la veille, continue — Le maréchal Pétain annonce qu'il a demandé l'armistice — Guderian arrive à Pontarlier et achève l'encerclement des armées de l'Est

1940 Discours de Pétain, radiodiffusé    ^top^
"Français !
      A l'appel de Monsieur le Président de la République, j'assume à partir d'aujourd'hui la direction du gouvernement de la France. Sûr de l'affection de notre admirable armée qui lutte, avec un héroïsme digne de ses longues traditions militaires, contre un ennemi supérieur en nombre et en armes. Sûr que par sa magnifique résistance, elle a rempli nos devoirs vis-à-vis de nos alliés. Sûr de l'appui des Anciens Combattants que j'ai eu la fierté de commander, sûr de la confiance du peuple tout entier, je fais à la France le don de ma personne pour atténuer son malheur.
      En ces heures douloureuses, je pense aux malheureux réfugiés qui, dans un dénuement extrême, sillonnent nos routes. Je leur exprime ma compassion et ma sollicitude. Cest le coeur serré que je vous dis aujourd'hui qu'il faut tenter de cesser le combat. Je me suis adressé cette nuit à l'adversaire pour lui demander s'il est prêt a rechercher avec nous, entre soldats, après la lutte et dans l'Honneur, les moyens de mettre un terme aux hostilités. Que tous les Français se groupent autour du Gouvernement que je préside pendant ces dures épreuves et fassent taire leur angoisse pour n'écouter que leur foi dans le destin de la Patrie."

1930 Raised tariffs wrong medicine for Depression    ^top^
      By the spring of 1930, it was all too clear that America would not be able to shake off the fiscal impact of the Great Crash of 1929. And so, President Herbert Hoover signs the controversial Smoot-Hawley Tariff. Smoot-Hawley raises duties on imports to astronomical heights in hopes of preserving the domestic market for American-made goods. Along with forwarding the protectionist cause, the legislation also embodies Hoover's belief that a revived American economy would aid global fiscal health. Needless to say, Smoot-Hawley was a fast hit with protectionist forces, still licking their wounds from the crash.
      However, economists and international business leaders blasted Smoot-Hawley as an overly aggressive bill that would hurt and perhaps ultimately alienate foreign markets; a month before Hoover signed the bill, over one thousand economists signed a petition that protested the tariff. Fears that foreign governments would view Smoot-Hawley as a bellicose bill would prove to be all too well-founded: many foreign nations retaliated by enacting their own hefty tariffs, as well as quotas on imports and other measures that not only made international trade all that more difficult, but that also exacerbated America's fiscal woes.

1928 Amelia Earhart leaves Newfoundland to become first woman to fly the Atlantic (as a passenger in a plane piloted by Wilmer Stultz)
1925 Geneva Protocol for the Prohibition of Poisonous Gases and Bacteriological Methods of Warfare
1897 William Frank Powell, NJ educator, named US minister to Haiti
1894 first US poliomyelitis epidemic breaks out, Rutland, Vermont
1885 Statue of Liberty arrived in NYC aboard French ship Isère.
1884 Création du Protectorat français sur le Cambodge. Protectorat ou colonie. La différence juridique est mince. Mais les conditions d’obtention de ce Protectorat sont claires. Le roi Norodom est déporté dans les colonies pénitentiaires françaises, où il signe l’accord Franco-Cambodgien et perd sa souveraineté. Obligé d’accepter, Norodom garde le pouvoir mais ne peut refuser aucune réforme française ! ! !
1864 First attack on Petersburg, Virginia continues
1863 Engagement in Warsaw Sound, Georgia
1863 Siege of Port Hudson, Louisiana continues
1863 Siege of Vicksburg, Mississippi continues
1863 Battle of Aldie, Confederates fail to drive back the Union in Virginia
1861 Engagement at Boonville, Missouri
1861 Action at Vienna, Virginia
1856 Republican Party opens its first national convention in Philadelphia
1837 Charles Goodyear obtains his first rubber patent
1791 La Révolution Française se voulait d’offrir à tous les Français — ainsi qu’au reste du monde — la Liberté, l’Egalité et la Fraternité. Au milieu de la Terreur et des exécutions, une loi va quand même dans ce sens et abolit une des grandes institutions de l’Ancien Régime, les Corporations (d'artisans). La Loi Le Chapelier, votée le 17 Juin, 1791 condamne tout ce qui peut s’opposer à la Liberté individuelle. C’est le fondement même de nos constitutions démocratiques, notre Loi la plus fondamentale. Avec une restriction cependant, le Droit de Grève est formellement dénié ! Il ne sera admis que plus d'un siècle plus tard. Des centaines d’Etat depuis lors tentent de suivre cet exemple.
1745 American colonials capture Louisburg, Cape Breton I from French

1673 Découverte de la baie du Mississippi.    ^top^
      Son existence, connue, n’avait pas encore été prouvée.
      C’est Jacques Marquette (1637 – 1675), qui dirige l’exploration.Missionnaire et explorateur français, membre de la Compagnie de Jésus, Jacques Marquette est envoyé au Canada en 1666. Pendant deux ans, il s’initie aux langues et aux mœurs des Indiens avant d’être affecté à l’évangélisation des Algonkins des Grands Lacs, d’abord à la pointe du Saint-Esprit, sur la rive sud du lac Supérieur, puis à Michilimackinac, entre le lac Huron et le lac Michigan. C’est le moment où l’intendant Talon et le gouverneur Frontenac rêvent de découvrir de nouveaux pays et de nouvelles richesses, tandis que les ordres religieux cherchent à évangéliser de nouveaux peuples.
      Le problème géographique essentiel qui se pose alors concerne le cours du Mississippi, dont les Indiens avaient appris l’existence aux Européens : s’écoule-t-il vers le sud, en direction du golfe du Mexique, ou vers l’ouest, auquel cas il serait la grande voie d’accès au Pacifique qu’on cherche en vain depuis des années. Le 17 May 1673, Marquette, Louis Jolliet et leurs cinq compagnons s’embarquent sur deux canots avec pour objectif la découverte du grand fleuve. Par la baie Verte et le Wisconsin, ils l’atteignent le 17 juin et le descendent jusqu’à son confluent avec l’Arkansas. Craignant d’être capturés par les Espagnols, ils rebroussent chemin, remontent par la rivière des Illinois et débarquent à l’emplacement de Chicago, ayant fait la preuve que le Mississippi se dirige vers le golfe du Mexique. Marquette meurt prématurément, épuisé par son inlassable activité missionnaire qui le fait se dévouer, en dernier lieu, aux Illinois.
     Quant à son compagnon, Louis Jolliet (ou Joliet ?), c'est aussi un explorateur français. Né en 1645, à Québec, dans une famille modeste, protégé par les Jésuites chez qui il fait ses études, Louis Jolliet pense un moment entrer dans les ordres, puis il se rend à Paris pour apprendre la cosmographie.De retour au Canada en 1668, il pratique la traite des fourrures ; il se livre parallèlement à l’exploration de la région des Grands Lacs et à la prospection minière pour le compte du gouvernement de la colonie. Son principal titre de gloire — qu’il partage avec Marquette — est d’avoir découvert le Mississippi dont l’existence avait été signalée par les Indiens et que certains, ignorant la direction de son cours, croyaient être la grande voie d’accès vers le Pacifique.
      Le 17 juin 1673, Jolliet, Marquette et leurs cinq compagnons, qui s’étaient embarqués un mois plus tôt, jour pour jour et avaient longé la rive occidentale du lac Michigan puis remonté la baie Verte et la rivière des Renards, et ensuite traversé le Wisconsin, atteignent le Mississippi qu’ils descendent jusqu’à son confluent avec l’Arkansas. Craignant de rencontrer les Espagnols, ils rebroussent chemin et rejoignent le Michigan en empruntant la rivière des Illinois. La preuve venait d’être faite que le Mississippi coulait vers le sud, en direction du golfe du Mexique, et non, comme d’aucuns l’espéraient, vers la Californie. Postérieurement, Jolliet partagea son activité entre la gestion de la seigneurie de l’île d’Anticosti, située dans le golfe du Saint-Laurent, qu’il avait obtenue en 1680, le commerce des pelleteries et, dans les dernières années de sa vie (mort en 1700), l’enseignement de l’hydrographie.

1579 Drake claims California for England    ^top^
      During his circumnavigation of the world, English seaman Francis Drake anchors in a harbor just north of present-day San Francisco, California, and claims the territory for Queen Elizabeth I. Calling the land "Nova Albion," Drake remains on the Californian coast for a month to make repairs to his ship, the Golden Hind, and prepare for his westward crossing of the Pacific Ocean.
      On 13 December 1577, Drake had set out from England with five ships, on a mission to raid Spanish holdings on the Pacific coast of the New World. After crossing the Atlantic, Drake abandoned two of his ships in South America, and then sailed into the Straits of Magellan with the remaining three. A series of devastating storms besieged his expedition in the treacherous straits, wrecking one ship and forcing another to return to England. Only the Golden Hind reached the Pacific Ocean, but Drake continued unperturbed up the western coast of South America, raiding Spanish settlements and capturing a rich Spanish treasure ship.
      Drake then continued up the western coast of North American, searching for a possible northeast passage back to the Atlantic. Reaching as far north as present-day Washington before turning back, Drake paused near San Francisco Bay in June of 1579 to repair his ship and prepare for a journey across the Pacific. In July, the expedition set off across the Pacific, visiting several islands before rounding Africa’s Cape of Good Hope and returning to the Atlantic Ocean. On 26 September 1580, the Golden Hind returned to Plymouth, England, bearing its rich captured treasure and valuable information about the world’s great oceans. In 1581, Queen Elizabeth I knighted Drake during a visit to his ship.

1397 Union of Kalmar established between Denmark, Sweden and Norway.

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Deaths which occurred on a June 17:
2002 Walid Sbeich, 30, Palestinian militant, killed by Israeli forces, in Al Khader, south Jerusalem.
2002 Oswaldo Martínez, 28, Panamanian, eaten by a crocodile while swimming across the River Terraba in southern Costa Rica, intending to return to Panama after escaping from a prison in Costa Rica, to where he had fled, but was captured, after murdering judge Harmodio Mariscal on 05 June during a failed robbery in Panama City.
2001 Ten jailbreakers in Escuintla, Guatemala. Twin sisters Heidi and Jeni Porras, 22, "attractive middle-class women with short dyed-blonde hair," smuggle assault weapons and pistols into the fortress-like prison in the Escuintla departamento to free their kidnapper boyfriends who were serving life sentences there. The Porras twins then speed off with the two kidnappers and two more men in a sport utility vehicle after they shot their way out of the jail, followed by another 74 convicts. The kidnappers would later be killed in a Guatemala City shootout, presumably with a rival gang. The jailbreak leads President Alfonso Portillo to decree a two-month "state-of-alarm" giving security forces extra powers to stop, frisk and detain suspects while they hunt down the escapees in a massive nationwide search. Of the 78 convicts who fled the jail, 10 are killed during the escape or shortly afterward.
1994 Yates, mathematician.
1984 Donna Williams, abducted in Gary, Indiana, and murdered (probably the same day), it is believed that by Alton Coleman. Her body would be found in an empty Detroit building on 11 July 1984.
1966 James Oliver, bartender, and a customer, shot at about 02:30 by two men who enter the the Lafayette Bar & Grill, in Patterson, NJ. They also severely wound two other patrons — Hazel Tanis (who would die a month later) and William Marins. Boxer Rubin "Hurricane" Carter's would be convicted for this crime and imprisoned until his conviction is overturned on 08 November 1985.

1940 Some 3000 aboard the Lancastria, sunk by German bombers as it flees from France.   ^top^
      British troops evacuate France in Operation Ariel, an exodus almost on the order of Dunkirk. Meanwhile, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill offers words of encouragement in a broadcast to the nation: "Whatever has happened in France … [w]e shall defend our island home, and with the British Empire we shall fight on unconquerable until the curse of Hitler is lifted." With two-thirds of France now occupied by German troops, those British and Allied troops that had not participated in Operation Dynamo, the evacuation of Dunkirk, were shipped home. From Cherbourg and St. Malo, from Brest and Nantes, Brits, Poles, and Canadian troops were rescued from occupied territory by boats sent from Britain.
      While these men were not under the immediate threat of assault, as at Dunkirk, they were by no means safe, as 5000 soldiers and French civilians learned once on board the ocean liner Lancastria, which had picked them up at St. Nazaire. Germans bombers sunk the liner; 3000 passengers and crew members drowned. Churchill ordered that news of the Lancastria not be broadcast in Britain, fearing the effect it would have on public morale, since everyone was already on heightened alert, fearing an imminent invasion from the Germans now that only a channel separated them. The British public would eventually find out-but not for another six weeks — when the news finally broke in the United States. They would also enjoy a breather of another kind: Hitler had no immediate plans for an invasion of the British isle, "being well aware of the difficulties involved in such an operation," reported the German High Command.

1939 Eugène Weldman, last guillotined in France.
1900 Theodore van Schuz, German artist born on 26 March 1830.
1898 Sir Edward Coley baronet Burne~Jones, British painter and designer born on 28 August 1833. — MORE ON BURNE~JONES AT ART “4” JUNE — LINKS — Hope in Prison — The Tree of Forgiveness — Group of Four Women — Clara von Bork — Sidonia von Bork — Hope — The Golden Stairs — Laus Veneris — The Beguiling of Merlin — Pygmalion and the Image Series: The Soul Attains — Annunciation — King Cophetua and the Beggar Maid
1887 Hugo Petterson Birger, Swedish artist born on 12 January 1854.

1876: 13 Sioux and 28 enemies in Crazy Horse victory at the Rosebud.    ^top^
       Sioux and Cheyenne Indians score a tactical victory over General Crook's forces at the Battle of the Rosebud, foreshadowing the disaster of the Battle of Little Big Horn eight days later. General George Crook was in command of one of three columns of soldiers converging on the Big Horn country of southern Montana that June. A large band of Sioux and Cheyenne Indians under the direction of Sitting Bull, Crazy Horse, and several other chiefs had congregated in the area in defiance of US demands that the Indians confine themselves to reservations. The army viewed the Indians' refusal as an opportunity to dispatch a massive three-pronged attack and win a decisive victory over the "hostile" Indians.
      Crook's column, marching north from Fort Fetterman in Wyoming Territory, was to join with two others: General Gibbon's column coming east from Fort Ellis in Montana Territory, and General Terry's force coming west from Fort Abraham Lincoln in Dakota Territory. Terry's force included the soon-to-be-famous 7th Cavalry under the command of George Custer. The vast distances and lack of reliable communications made it difficult to coordinate, but the three armies planned to converge on the valley of the Big Horn River and stage an assault on an enemy whose location and size was only vaguely known.
      The plan quickly ran into trouble. As Crook approached the Big Horn, his Indian scouts informed him they had found signs of a major Sioux force that must still be nearby. Crook was convinced that the Sioux were encamped in a large village somewhere along the Rosebud Creek just east of the Big Horn. Like most of his fellow officers, Crook believed that Indians were more likely to flee than stand and fight, and he was determined to find the village and attack before the Sioux could escape into the wilderness. Crook's Indian allies — 262 Crow and Shoshone warriors — were less certain. They suspected the Sioux force was under the command of Crazy Horse, the brilliant war chief. Crazy Horse, they warned, was too shrewd to give Crook an opportunity to attack a stationary village. Crook soon learned that his allies were right.
      At about 08:00 on this day, Crook halts his force of about 1300 men in the bowl of a small valley along the Rosebud Creek in order to allow the rear of the column to catch up. Crook's soldiers unsaddled and let their horses graze while they relaxed in the grass and enjoyed the cool morning air. The American soldiers were out in the open, divided, and unprepared. Suddenly, several Indian scouts rode into the camp at a full gallop. "Sioux! Sioux!" they shouted. "Many Sioux!" Within minutes, a mass of Sioux warriors began to converge on the army.
      A force of at least 1500 mounted Sioux warriors caught Crook's soldiers by surprise. Crazy Horse had kept an additional 2500 warriors in reserve to finish the attack. Fortunately for Crook, one segment of his army was not caught unprepared. His 262 Crow and Shoshone allies had taken up advanced positions about 500 yards from the main body of soldiers. With astonishing courage, the Indian warriors boldly countercharged the much larger invading force. They managed to blunt the initial attack long enough for Crook to regroup his men and send soldiers forward to support his Indian allies. The fighting continued until noon, when the Sioux-perhaps hoping to draw Crook's army into an ambush-retreated from the field.
      The combined force of 4000 Sioux warriors had outnumbered Crook's divided and unprepared army by more than three to one. Had it not been for the wisdom and courage of Crook's Indian allies, Americans today might well remember the Battle of the Rosebud as they do the subsequent Battle of the Little Big Horn. As it was, Crook's team was badly bloodied — 28 men were killed and 56 were seriously wounded.
      Crook had no choice but to withdraw and regroup. Crazy Horse had lost only 13 men and his warriors were emboldened by their successful attack on the American soldiers. Eight days later, they would join with their tribesmen in the Battle of the Little Big Horn, which would wipe out George Custer and his 7th Cavalry.

1775 The British and American soldiers who killed each other at the misnamed Battle of Bunker Hill (actually it was Breed's Hill)    ^top^
      During the US War of Independence, British General William Howe landed his forces on the Charlestown peninsula overlooking Boston, Massachusetts, and led his troops against Breed’s Hill, a fortified American position just below Bunker Hill. As British advanced in columns against the Americans, Patriot General William Prescott allegedly told his men, "Don’t one of you fire until you see the whites of their eyes!" When the Redcoats were within forty meters, the Americans let loose with a lethal barrage of musket fire, cutting down nearly one hundred enemy troops, and throwing the British into retreat. After reforming his lines, Howe attacked again, with much the same result.
      However, Prescott’s men were now low on ammunition, and when Howe led his men up the hill for a third time, they reached the redoubts and engaged the Americans in hand-to-hand combat. The outnumbered Americans were forced to retreat. The British had won the so-called Battle of Bunker Hill, and Breed’s Hill and the Charlestown peninsula fell firmly under their control. Despite losing their strategic positions, the battle was a morale-builder for the Americans, who had suffered far fewer casualties than their enemy while demonstrating that they could conduct war effectively against the British.
The Death of General Warren at the Battle of Bunker Hill on 17 June 1775, painting by John Trumbull.

1631 San José galleon loaded with about 700 tons of treasure including silver and gold ingots bound for Spain, sinks after crashing into rocks off one of the Pearl Islands in the Pacific some 100 km south of Panama City. The aging ship had been sailing for 20 years in tropical waters, as part of the Spanish South Seas Armada. The San José had left Callao, Peru, making a stopover in Ecuador, before heading toward Panama City. During the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries, Panama served as the central point for gold and silver shipments between the mines of Peru and imperial Spain. Galleons laden with treasure were offloaded in Panama City and transported across the isthmus by mule train to be set onto ships on the Caribbean coast headed for Spain. On 07 May 2002 Panama's National Culture Institute woulld announce that the exact position of the San José has been located.
0676 Deusdedit III, Pope.
0653 St Martin I, Pope

Births which occurred on a June 17:
1988 Microsoft releases MS DOS 4.0

1946 Mobile telephone commercial service
The first mobile telephone service was inaugurated on June 17, 1946, in St. Louis, Missouri. The Southwestern Bell Telephone Company installed mobile phones in the automobiles of two customers.

1944 Republic of Iceland proclaimed at Thingvallir, Iceland — Naissance de l'islande Naissance officielle de la République d’Islande, jadis " annexe " du Danemark. Suite à l’occupation du Danemark par l’Allemagne, les Anglais s’en emparent dès Mai 1940, pour laisser les Américains s’y installer en 194. La situation de l’île dans l’Atlantique Nord est en effet éminemment stratégique. Après la guerre, par référendum, les Islandais rejettent la royauté Danoise et imposent leur République.
1929 Tigran Petrosyan USSR, world chess champion (1963-69)
1920 François Jacob France, biologist/bacteriologist (Nobel 1965)

1914 John Richard Hersey, in Tientsin, China,    ^top^
     He is a US citizen who grew up to be a novelist and journalist noted for his documentary fiction about catastrophic events in World War II. Hersey lived in China, where his father was a secretary for the Young Men's Christian Association and his mother was a missionary, until he was 10, at which time his family returned to the United States. He graduated from Yale University in 1936, and he served as a foreign correspondent in East Asia, Italy, and the Soviet Union for Time and Life magazines from 1937 to 1946.
      His early novel A Bell for Adano (1944), depicting the Allied occupation of a Sicilian town during World War II, won the 1945 Pulitzer Prize. Hersey's next books demonstrated his gift for combining a reporter's skill for relaying facts with imaginative fictionalization. Both The Wall (1950), about the Warsaw ghetto uprisings, and Hiroshima (1946), an objective account of the atomic bomb explosion in that city as experienced by survivors of the blast, are based on fact, but they are also personal stories of survival in Poland and Japan in World War II.
      Hersey's later novels encompassed a wide variety of subjects and ranged from treatments of contemporary political and social issues to moral parables set in the world of the future. These works interweave social criticism and their author's moralistic aims with imaginative plots and premises.

1906 Wilks, mathematician
1903 Hodge, mathematician.
1899 Fausto Pirandello, Italian artist who died in 1975.
1898 Maurits C. Escher, mathematical artist specialized in Optical Art.. — MORE ON ESCHER AT ART “4” JUNE — LINKS —— Self-Portrait Through a Porthole — An Other World — Three Worlds — Eight Heads — Belvedere — Bond of Union — Heaven and Hell — Cycle — Day and Night — Eye — Fish — Hand Holding a Reflecting Globe — Hands Drawing Each Other — Liberation — Moebius Ants —Print Gallery — Puddle — Relativity — Reptiles — Sky and Water — Snakes — Sun and Moon (actually: birds) — Sun and Moon in color — Up and Down — Waterfall
— Self-Portrait — Serenade in Siena — Belvedere — Whirlpools — Print Gallery — Other World — Earth — Air — Fire — Water — Padlock — Retreat — Well — Cactus — Dice — Beehive — Steamroller — Sundial — Weather Vane — Anvil — Castrovalva (Abruzzi) — Still Life with Mirror — Hell — Day and Night — Sky and Water II — Fish — Reptiles — Diploma Tijdelijke Academie — Eye — Up and Down — Drawing Hands — Sun and Moon — Puddle — Relativity — Three Worlds — Bond of Union — Print Gallery — Belvedere — Ascending and Descending — Waterfall — Moebius Strip II (Red Ants) — Puddle — St Peter's — Eight Heads — Lions' Court — Alhambra pond — 1936 sketch — Fish design — Horsemen — Horsemen II — Circle limit I — Circle limit III — Circle limit IV — Reptiles — Waterfall — Up and down — Metamorphosis I — Snakes — Glass ball — Rind —// Make Escherish images with the “Escher Web Sketcher”
1890 Giorgio Morandi, Italian painter who died on 18 June 1964, specialized in Still Life. — MORE ON MORANDI AT ART “4” JUNE — LINKS — Still Life (The Blue Vase) — Still Life (Cups and Boxes) — Still-Life with a Ball — Still-Life with a Dummy — Still-Life with a Brioche — Still-Life
1882 Igor Stravinsky Oranienbaum, Russia, (composer: The Firebird, Petrouchka, The Rite of Spring, The Wedding, The Soldier's Tale)
1870 George Cormack created "Wheaties" cereal
1867 John Robert Gregg Ireland, inventor (shorthand)
1863 Travelers Insurance Co. of Hartford chartered (first accident insurer)
1859 Walter Frederick Osborne, British painter born on 24 April 1903. — LINKS

1837 Strong Vincent, hero of Gettysburg.    ^top^
       Strong Vincent is born in Waterford, Pennsylvania. After working as a lawyer, he went on to become a Union colonel and a hero at the Battle of Gettysburg, where he was mortally wounded defending Little Round Top. When hostilities erupted in April 1861, Vincent left the law to become an officer in the Erie Regiment, Pennsylvania Volunteers. By early 1862, he rose to commander of the 83rd Pennsylvania. Vincent served in several campaigns with the Army of the Potomac, fighting at Yorktown, Fredericksburg, and Chancellorsville. He was promoted to colonel after Yorktown, and prior to Gettysburg, Vincent was given command of the Third Brigade, First Division, of the Fifth Corps.
      On the night of 01 July 1863, Vincent and his men were hurrying toward the battlefield under a bright moon. When the soldiers passed through a small town near Gettysburg, the regiment bands began to play and residents came to their doors to cheer the Yankee troops. Vincent remarked to an aide that there could be a worse fate than to die fighting in his home state with the flag overhead. The next day, as Vincent and his brigade were arriving behind the Union lines, General Gouverneur K. Warren frantically summoned Vincent's force to the top of Little Round Top, a rocky hill at the end of the Federal line. Warren observed that the Confederates could turn the Union left flank by taking the summit, which was occupied by only a Yankee signal corps at the time. So Vincent and his men hurried up the hill, arriving just ahead of the Rebels. The brigade held the top, but just barely. Vincent was mortally wounded in the engagement and died on 07 July. He was promoted posthumously to brigadier general.

1818 Charles Gounod Paris, France, opera composer (Faust)
1789 Assemblée Nationale est née. Ce jour, le tiers travaille! La noblesse et le clergé ont refusé de participer (comme par hasard). Sur une motion de Sieyès, par 401 voix contre 119, il se proclame Assemblée Nationale.
1703 John Wesley, English founder of Methodism. The systematic disciplines of the 'Holy Club,' which John and his brother Charles founded, elicited the nickname 'Methodies' from their critics.1703 — Le mouvement prend de l'ampleur et rompt avec l'Église anglicane. Leur inépuisable charité, leur prise de position contre l'esclavage apportent aux Méthodistes des millions d'adeptes.
1660 Jan van Mieris, Dutch painter who died on 17 March 1690. — MORE ON VAN MIERIS AT ART “4” JUNE — Lady and Cavalier
1239 Edward I king of England (1272-1307)

Holidays Germany : Day of German Unity / Rememberance Day (1953)- Date changed 1990 to 03 Oct / Iceland : Republic Day (1944) / Japan: Lily Festival / Mass : Bunker Hill Day (1775)

Religious Observances Ang : St Alban's Day [0622]

Thought for the day: “Equality of the sexes leaves women standing on buses.”

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