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Post by pegasus on Jan 1, 2013 15:07:57 GMT -7
New Year's DAY
January 1st in History45 BC--the Julian calendar took effect for the first time. 404--the last known gladiator competition in Rome took place. 630--the Prophet Muhammad set out toward Mecca. 1502--Portuguese explorers landed at a harbor on the coast of South America and named the site Rio de Janeiro (River of January). 1515--Francis, Duke of Angouleme, became Francis I of France on the death of Louis XII. 1660--Samuel Pepys began his famous diary. 1764--in France, 8-year-old Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart played for the Royal Family at Versailles. 1776--George Washington unveiled the Grand Union Flag, the first national flag in America. 1785-- The Times newspaper was first published in Britain as the Daily Universal Register. 1797--Albany became the capital of New York state, replacing New York City 1801--the Act of Union between Great Britain and Ireland became effective, creating the United Kingdom. 1803--two months after his defeat of Napoleon Bonaparte's colonial forces, Jean-Jacques Dessalines proclaimed the independence of Saint-Domingue, renaming it Haiti after its original Arawak name. 1808- -a law prohibiting the importation of slaves into the United States went into effect. 1833--the United Kingdom claimed sovereignty over the Falkland Islands. 1863--the Emancipation Proclamation, introduced the previous September by Abraham Lincoln, took effect. 1877--Queen Victoria was proclaimed Empress of India. 1892- -the Ellis Island Immigrant Station in New York opened. 1895--J. Edgar Hoover, 1st director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), was born; died 1972 at age 77. 1898- -New York City was consolidated into five buroughs. 1901- -the Commonwealth of Australia was proclaimed. 1902--the University of Michigan beat Stanford, 49-0, in the inaugural Rose Bowl game in Pasadena, Calif. 1914--Great Britain established a West African colony it called Nigeria. 1919- -J.D. Salinger, author of "The Catcher in the Rye," was born in New York City; died 2010 at age 90. 1925--the capital city of Norway, known as Christiana or Kristiana since 1674, resumed its name of Oslo. 1925--the Four Horsemen of Notre Dame's Fighting Irish (Jim Crowley, Elmer Layden, Don Miller and Harry Stuhldreher) played together for the fianl time as the Irish beat Stanford, 27-10. 1942--26 nations signed the "Declaration of the United Nations," affirming opposition to Axis powers. 1953- -Country singer Hank Williams Sr., age 29, died of a heart attack in the back of a limousine on the way to a show in Canton, Ohio. 1956--RCA released Elvis Presley's hit single "Heartbreak Hotel." 1956--Sudan became an independent republic. 1958- -treaties establishing the European Economic Community (EEC) went into effect. 1959- -Fidel Castro led Cuban revolutionaries to victory over Fulgencio Batista. 1960--Cameroon achieved independence from France. 1968--Evel Knievel, stunt daredevil, lost control of his motorcycle during a 141 foot jump over the ornamental fountains in front of Caesar’s Palace in Las Vegas, Nevada. 1971--Tobacco ads, which represented $20 million dollars in advertising, were banned from radio and television. 1973--Great Britain, Ireland and Denmark became members of the EEC. 1975--a jury convicted former U.S. Attorney General John Mitchell and former White House aides John Ehrlichman and H.R. Haldeman on all counts in the Watergate cover-up case. 1978--an Air India jumbo jet exploded in mid-air near Bombay, killing 213. 1979- -the US and China established diplomatic relations. 1981--Greece was admitted as the 10th member of the European Economic Community. 1984- -AT&T was divested of its 22 Bell System companies under terms of an antitrust agreement. 1986--Soviet television aired a five-minute greeting from Pres. Reagan and Americans received one from Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev. 1990- -David Dinkins was sworn in as New York City's first African-American mayor. 1992--a peace accord to end the El Salvador civil war was reached at the UN and Boutros Boutros-Ghali of Egypt succeeded Javier Perez de Cuellar of Peru as secretary-general. 1993-[imghttp://www.timegenie.com/flags/sk.png][/img]-Czechoslovakia peacefully split into two new countries, the Czech Republic and Slovakia. 1994- -the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) went into effect. 1995--suspected serial killer Frederick West, accused of murdering 12 women and girls in Britain's notorious "House of Horrors" case, was found hanged in his jail cell 1995--a four-month truce between the Muslim-led Bosnian government and Bosnian Serbs went into effect. 1996--Saudi Arabia's King Fahd handed over the running of the country to his younger brother Crown Prince Abdullah after suffering a stroke. 1999- -the euro became the official currency of 11 European countries. 2000--in his first day as Russia's acting president, Vladimir Putin traveled to the rebellious republic of Chechnya to visit Russian troops. 2002--12 European countries began the new year by turning in their own currency and adopting a common one, the euro, in the biggest currency change in history. 2002--Argentina, staggered by severe economic problems, chose its fifth president in two weeks. 2004--British Airways canceled two flights from London to Washington because officials feared the flights had been targeted by terrorists. 2004--22 people were killed and hundreds of others injured during New Year's celebrations in the Philippines. 2005--Colombian officials suspected left-wing rebels were responsible for the slaughter of 17 people during a New Year's Eve celebration. 2006--Russia's state-owned energy company began shutting off natural gas supplies to Ukraine in a pricing dispute. 2007--a Jakarta airliner crashed in bad weather in Indonesian mountains killing most of its 102 passengers. 2007--South Korea's Ban Ki-moon succeeded Kofi Annan as secretary-general of the United Nations. 2008--In a vicious chapter of the Kenyan presidential dispute, some 15 members of the Kikuyu tribe, whose ranks include President Mwai Kibaki, were reported burned to death by a rival tribe after taking refuge in a church in the Rift Valley. Thought for Today: "There is no nonsense so arrant that it cannot be made the creed of the vast majority by adequate governmental action. " --[/i]Bertrand Russell (1872-1970), British philospher
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Post by pegasus on Jan 6, 2013 15:37:38 GMT -7
National Folic Acid Awareness Week
January 6th in History871--the Danes were defeated by the West Saxons under Ethelred and Alfred the Great at the battle of Ashdown. 1066- -Following the death of Edward the Confessor, Harold Godwineson, head of the most powerful noble family in England, is crowned King Harold II, disputed by Wlliam, Duke of Normandy and King Harald III Hardraade of Norway. 1169--England and France agreed to a peace when Louis VII and Henry II met at Montmirail. 1412- -according to tradition, Joan of Arc was born in Domremy, France. 1449- -Constantine XI, the last Eastern Roman Emperor, was crowned at Mistra. 1537- -Allessandro de' Medici, Duke of Florence, was assassinated at age 27 by a distant cousin Lorenzino de' Medici. 1540- -England's King Henry VIII married his fourth wife, Anne of Cleves. (and divorced seven months later) at the Palace of Placentia in Greenwich, London. 1759- -George Washington and Martha Dandridge Custis were married. 1777--after two significant victories over the British in Trenton and Princeton, NJ, Gen. Washington set up winter quarters in Morristown, NJ. 1838- -Samuel Morse first publicly demonstrated his telegraph, at the Speedwell Iron Works in Morristown, N.J. 1840- -Frances Burney (aka Fanny Burney), an ear;u English female novelist, diarist and playwright, died in Bath, England at age 81. 1896--following accusations that he engineered the Jameson Raid on Johannesburg, Cecil Rhodes resigned as prime minister of Cape Colony. 1912- -New Mexico became the 47th state. 1919- -Theodore Roosevelt, the 26th president of the United States, died in Oyster Bay, N.Y., at age 60. 1925--long-distance runner Paavo Nurmi of Finland broke two world records for the indoor mile and 5,000 meters in NY's Madison Square Garden. 1929--King Alexander of Yugoslavia abolished the constitution, dissolved the government and established a royal dictatorship. 1941--Pres. Roosevelt addressed Congress in an effort to move the nation away from a foreign policy of neutrality, speaking of Four Freedoms - the freedom of speech and expression, the freedom to worship God in his own way, freedom from want and freedom from fear. 1941--on CBS radio, a young actor, Richard Widmark, debuted in The Home of the Brave. 1942--Pres. Roosevelt announced to Congress that he was authorizing the largest armaments production in the history of the US. 1942--a Pan American Airways plane arrived in New York, completing the first around-the-world flight by a commercial airliner. 1950--Great Britain formally recognized the communist government of China. 1952--"Peanuts," Charles Schulz's comic strip, made its debut. 1958--the Soviet Union announced plans to cut the size of its standing army by 300,000 troops in the coming year. 1969--Pres. Charles de Gaulle imposed a total ban on French arms supplies to Israel. 1971--the US Army dropped charges of a My Lai, Vietnam massacre cover-up against four officers. 1974- -Daylight Savings Time was implemented 4 months early in the US due to the 1973 OAPEC oil embargo and subsequent energy crisis. 1975-- The Wiz, a black version of The Wizard of Oz, was hugely popular, running for 1,672 shows at the Majestic Theatre on Broadway. 1975--two thousand Led Zeppelin fans trashed the Boston Garden after lining up to buy tickets to the concert. 1978- -the Crown of Saint Stephen (coronation crown of Hungary) was returned to the people of Hungary by order of Pres. Carter. 1979--"Soul Man," recorded by comedians John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd as the fictitious singing team, The Blues Brothers, debuted on Billboard's pop charts. 1984--the first test-tube quadruplets, all boys, were born in Melbourne, Australia. 1987--after 29-years, the Ford Thunderbird was presented with the Motor Trend Car of the Year Award once again, making it the first repeat winner of the award. 1990--Poland's Communist Party leaders gave the green light to its dissolution and replacement by a non-Marxist party. 1992--Pres. Zviad Gamsakhurdia fled Georgia after a bloody two-week power struggle, leaving his parliament burning and in the hands of jubilant rebel gunmen. 1993--dancer and choreographer Rudolf Nureyev died at age 54 of cardiac complications due to AIDS. 1993- -Jazz trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie died at age 75. 1994- -Figure skater Nancy Kerrigan was clubbed on the right leg in an assault planned by the ex-husband of her rival, Tonya Harding. 1996--snow began falling on the Eastern seaboard, beginning a blizzard that killed 154 people and caused over $1 billion in damages before it ended. 1998--some 300 people were reported to have been massacred in the past several days in Algeria's bloody civil war. 1999--an agreement ended the six-month player lockout by owners of NBA teams. The labor dispute had threatened to wipe out the 1998-99 season. 2001- -with the vanquished Vice President Al Gore presiding, Congress certified Republican George W. Bush the winner of the close and bitterly contested 2000 presidential election. 2004--Secretary of State Colin Powell admitted mistakes were made in the war on terror but he said actions were taken for the right reasons -- to ensure the spread of freedom and democracy. 2005--a Texas appeals court overturned the murder conviction of Andrea Yates, the Houston-area woman who drowned her five children in their bathtub, and ordered a new trial. 2005- -former Ku Klux Klan leader Edgar Ray Killen was arrested 41 years after three civil rights workers were slain in Mississippi. 2006--rescuers worked to reach Muslim pilgrims trapped in the rubble of a collapsed building in Mecca in Saudi Arabia. At least 53 people were reported dead and 64 injured. 2007--Iraqi military officials said at least 30 people died in a fight between soldiers and Sunni insurgents at a fake military checkpoint in Baghdad. 2007--Somalis raged through the streets of Mogadishu throwing rocks at the Ethiopian troops who drove Islamist forces out of the capital. 2008--in a provocative act, Iran sent boats to confront American warships in the Persian Gulf. 2008 Georgia President Mikheil Saakashvili won re-election with 52 percent of the vote in early balloting to calm massive protests. Demonstrators had accused him of abusing power and stifling dissent. 2010- -William and Harry Windsor, sons of Prince Charles, heir to the throne of England, had their first double portrait unveiled at the National Portrait Gallery in London. Thought for Today: [/i][/size][/color]
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Post by pegasus on Jan 22, 2013 17:37:24 GMT -7
National Hobby Month
January 22nd in History 1506--the first contingent of 150 Swiss Guards arrived at the Vatican. 1771--Spain reluctantly agreed that the Falkland Islands were British territory, settling a dispute since they were discovered in 1592. 1788--Lord George Gordon Byron, English Romantic poet, was born; died 1824 at age 36. 1840--the first British colonists arrived at Port Nicholson, New Zealand. 1875--D. W. Griffith, American silent film director (Birth of a Natoin), was born; died 1948 at age 73. 1879--after previously serving in Illinois and Minnesota, James Shields began a term as a US Senator from Missouri, making him the first Senator to serve three states. 1889--in Washington, D.C., the Columbia Phonograph Company was formed. 1901- www.kathrynrblake.com/images/115_Victoria_dies-1901_01-22.jpg[/img]-Queen Victoria died at age 81 after 63 years on the British throne. 1904--George Balanchine. Russian-born American choreographer, was born; died 1983 at age 79. 1905- -Russian troops opened fired on marching workers in St. Petersburg, killing more than 100 in what became known as "Bloody Sunday." 1906- -the SS [/i]Valencia , a coastal passenger liner en route from San Francisco to Seattle, ran aground with only 37 of the 173 aboard surviving the accident. 1938--Thornton Wilder's play Our Town premiered in Princeton, NJ. 1943 - U.S. and Australian troops took New Guinea in the first land victory over the Japanese. 1944--allied forces began landing at Anzio, Italy, during World War II. 1953--the Arthur Miller drama The Crucible opened on Broadway. 1947--KTLA in Hollywood, Calif. goes on air as the first commercial television station west of the Mississippi with Bob Hope serving as the emcee. 1968--Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In premiered on NBC. 1970--the Boeing 747 went on its first regularly scheduled commercial flight, from New York to London. 1973--the landmark Supreme Court case Roe vs Wade was decided legalizing abortion. 1973-www.kathrynrblake.com/images/115_LBJ_dies-1973_01-22.jpg [/img]-Lyndon Baines Johnson, the 36th president of the United States, died at his ranch in Johnson City, Tex., at age 64. 1980--Soviet dissident physicist Dr. Andrei Sakharov was arrested, stripped of his honors and exiled to Gorky from Moscow. 1987--Glen Tremml, 27, pedaled the ultralight aircraft Eagle over Edwards Air Force Base, Calif., for a human-powered flight record of 37.2 miles. 1991--Iraq launched a Scud missile attack against Israel, injuring 98 people. 1995--Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy, the mother of Pres. John F. Kennedy, died in Hyannis Port, Mass., at age 104. 1995--two Palestinians killed 18 Israeli soldiers, a civilian and themselves in a bombing outside a military camp in central Israel. 1997- -the US Senate confirmed Madeleine Albright as the nation's first female secretary of state. 1998--Theodore Kaczynski pleaded guilty in Sacramento, Calif., to being the Unabomber in return for a sentence of life in prison without parole. 2002- -K-Mart files for Chapter 11 making it the largest retailer in US history to file for bankruptcy protection. 2003--the US Senate approved the nomination of former Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Ridge to be the first secretary of Homeland Security by a 94-0 vote. 2005--the Indian Navy in New Delhi reported finding a tsunami victim 25 days after he had been sucked into the sea and tossed onto a small island where he survived on coconuts until rescued. 2007--hampered by crowds of scavengers, emergency workers in southwest England secured a grounded freighter that spilled cargo and 200 tons of oil. 2008- -the US Federal Reserve bank cut interest rates by 0.75%, the largest single-day reduction in the bank's history. 2008- -Heath Ledger, Australian film and and television actor, died at age 28 from an accidental toxic combination of prescription drugs. 2008--Jose Padilla, once accused of plotting with al-Qaida to blow up a radioactive "dirty bomb," was sentenced by a federal judge in Miami to more than 17 years in prison on terrorism conspiracy charges. 2009--Pres. Obama ordered the terrorist detention center at Guantanamo Bay closed within a year and banned harsh interrogation of terror suspects. (The prison remains open.) Thought for Today: "Let a good man do good deeds with the same zeal that the evil man does bad ones." --[/i]The Belzer Rabbi .
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Post by pegasus on Feb 25, 2013 15:58:55 GMT -7
Peace Corps Week
February 25th in History1570--Pope Pius V excommunicated England's Queen Elizabeth I. 1779--Fort Sackville at Vincennes (Indiana) was surrendered, marking the beginning of the end of British domination in America's western frontier. 1836--inventor Samuel Colt patented his revolver. 1862--the US Congress passed the Legal Tender Act, authorizing the use of paper notes to pay the government's bills. 1862--Nashville, Tenn., became the first Confederate state capital to be occupied by the North during the Civil War. 1870--Hiram Revels, a Mississippi Republican, was sworn in as the first black member of the US Senate. 1901--US States Steel Corp. was incorporated by J.P. Morgan. 1913--the 16th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, giving Congress the power to levy and collect income taxes, was declared in effect. 1916--German troops seized Fort Douaumont, the most formidable of the forts guarding the walled city of Verdun, France. 1922--French serial killer Henri Landru, convicted of murdering 10 women and the son of one of them, was executed in Versailles 1938--Miami, Fla. got its first drive-in movie. 1943--Allied troops reoccupied the Kasserine Pass after clashing with German troops. 1943--Beatles guitarist George Harrison was born in Liverpool, England. 1948--under pressure from the Czechoslovakian Communist Party, Pres. Eduard Benes allowed a communist-dominated government to take power. 1950--The comedy variety show Your Show of Shows, starring Sid Caesar, Imogen Coca, Carl Reiner and Howard Morris, debuted on NBC. 1956--Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev harshly criticized the late Josef Stalin in a speech before a Communist Party congress in Moscow. 1963--the US Supreme Court, in [/i]Edwards v. South Carolina , upheld 8-1 the right of civil rights demonstrators to peacefully protest outside the South Carolina State House. 1964--Cassius Clay (who later changed his name to Muhammad Ali) became the world heavyweight boxing champion by defeating Sonny Liston in Miami Beach. 1971--the US Congress initiated legislation to forbid military support of any South Vietnamese invasion of North Vietnam without congressional approval. 1973--the Stephen Sondheim musical A Little Night Music opened at Broadway's Shubert Theater. 1983--playwright Tennessee Williams, 71, was found dead in his New York hotel suite. 1984--a huge explosion destroyed a shantytown in Brazil, killing at least 500 people, mostly young children. 1986--Pres. Ferdinand E. Marcos fled the Philippines after 20 years of rule in the wake of a tainted election. 1990--Nicaraguans voted in an election that led to victory for opponents of the ruling Sandinistas. 1991--an Iraqi Scud missile hit a US barracks in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, killing 28 Americans during the Persian Gulf War. 1999--a jury in Jasper, Tex., sentenced white supremacist John William King to death for the dragging death of James Byrd Jr., an African-American man. 2003--Chief UN weapons inspector Hans Blix said Iraq was showing new signs of real cooperation, but Pres. Bush was dismissive, predicting Saddam Hussein would try to "fool the world one more time." 2003--Roh Moo-hyun became South Korea's new president. 2004--The Passion of the Christ, Mel Gibson’s film about the last 44 hours of Jesus of Nazareth’s life, opened on Ash Wednesday in theaters across the US. 2008--an AP photograph of Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama wearing traditional local garb during a 2006 visit to Kenya began circulating on the Internet. 2008--the NY Philharmonic arrived in North Korea to perform a concert. 2008--Lee Myung-bak was sworn in as South Korea's first conservative president in a decade. 2012--a gunman killed two American military advisers with shots to the back of the head inside Afghanistan's heavily guarded Interior Ministry as protests raged for a fifth day over the burning of Qurans at a U.S. army base. 2012-- Lynn D. "Buck" Compton, 90, a veteran whose World War II exploits were depicted in the television miniseries "Band of Brothers," died in Burlington, Wash.
Thought for Today: "If people behaved in the way nations do they would all be put in straitjackets." --Tennessee Williams (1911-1983).American playwright
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Post by pegasus on Feb 27, 2013 12:59:23 GMT -7
National Black History Month
February 27thth in History1776--Commander Richard Caswell led 1,000 Patriot troops over 1,600 British Loyalists in the successful Battle of Moores Creek, as the first American victory in the first organized campaign of the Revolutionary War. 1801--the District of Columbia was placed under the jurisdiction of Congress. 1807--poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was born in Portland, Maine; died 1882 at age 75. 1827--a group of masked and costumed students danced through the streets of New Orleans, La., marking the beginning of the city's famous Mardi Gras celebrations. 1864--federal prisoners began arriving at Andersonville Prison. 1886--Hugo Black, who served 34 years as a U.S. Supreme Court judge and was known as a champion of civil liberties, was born; died 1971 at age 85. 1897--Great Britain agreed to US arbitration in a border dispute between Venezuela and British Guiana, defusing a dangerous US-British diplomatic crisis. 1902--John Steinbeck, Nobel Prize-winning author ( The Grapes of Wrath) was born in Salinas, Calif.; died 1968 at age 68. 1911--inventor Charles F. Kettering demonstrated his electric automobile starter in Detroit, that replaced hand-cranking. 1922--the US Supreme Court, in [/i]Leser v. Garnett , unanimously upheld the 19th Amendment that guaranteed the right of women to vote. 1930--Joanne Woodward, Academy Awarad-winning actress and widow of actor Paul Newman, turns 83. 1933--Germany's parliament building, the Reichstag was gutted by fire and Adolf Hitler, blaming the Communists, used the fire as justification for suspending civil liberties. 1934--Ralph Nader, consumer advocate and independent presidential candidate, turns 79. 1942--the US Navy's first aircraft carrier, the Langley, was sunk by Japanese warplanes. 1943--the US government began circulating one-cent coins made of steel plated with zinc that proved very unpopular, since they were easily mistaken for dimes. 1943--an explosion at the Montana Coal and Iron Company mine killed 74 workers in the worst mining disaster in Montana's history. 1951--the 22nd Amendment to the Constitution, limiting a president to two terms of office, was ratified. 1960--the US Olympic hockey team defeated the Soviets, 3-2, at the Winter Games in Squaw Valley, Calif. and went on to win the gold medal. 1964--the Italian government announced that it was accepting suggestions on how to save the renowned Leaning Tower of Pisa from collapse. 1973--members of the American Indian Movement (AIM) occupied Wounded Knee, SD, the site of the 1890 massacre of Sioux men, women and children until May. 1982--Wayne Williams was found guilty of murdering two of the 28 young blacks whose bodies were found in the Atlanta area over a 22-month period. 1991--Pres. Bush announced the end of the Persian Gulf War, saying the allies would suspend combat operations at midnight. 1997--legislation banning most handguns in Great Britain went into effect. 1997--divorce became legal in Ireland. 2002--Alicia Keys won five Grammy Awards for her debut album, Songs in A Minor. 2002--a Muslim mob set fire to a train carrying hundreds of Hindu nationalists in Godhra, India; some 60 people died. 2003--children's television host Fred Rogers died in Pittsburgh at age 74. 2003--Iraq agreed in principle to destroy its Al Samoud II missiles, two days before a U.N. deadline. 2003--former Bosnian Serb leader Biljana Plavsic was sentenced by the UN tribunal in The Hague, Netherlands, to eleven years in prison for war crimes. (She was released in 2009.) 2008--William F. Buckley Jr., conservative magazine publisher (National Review), author and commentator, died at age 82 at his home in Stamford, Conn.. 2008--a judge in Canton, Ohio, sentenced former police officer Bobby Cutts Jr. to life in prison with a chance of parole after 57 years for killing his pregnant lover, Jessie Davis, and their unborn child. 2010--an 8.8 magnitude earthquake and tsunami killed 524 people in Chile, causinh $30 billion in damage and over 200,000 homeless. 2012--Pres. Obama urged the nation's governors to invest more state resources in education, saying a highly skilled workforce was crucial for the US to remain competitive with other countries. 2011--three students were shot to death in a Chardon, Ohio, high school cafeteria, allegedly by a 17-year-old who was charged with aggravated murder.
Thought for Today: "There's a whiff of the lynch mob or the lemming migration about any overlarge concentration of like-thinking individuals, no matter how virtuous their cause." --P. J. O'Rourke (b. 1947) in Parliament of Whores [1991]
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Post by pegasus on Mar 3, 2013 15:02:21 GMT -7
LIBRARY LOVERS MONTH
March 3rd in History 1776--Silas Deane, Connecticut delegate to the Continental Congress, left for France on a secret mission to ask for military aid vs. the British. 1791--the first Internal Revenue Act was passed by the US Congress, establishing one revenue district per state and placed a tax on drink. 1815--following piracy in the Mediterranean, the US declared war on the Bey of Algiers. 1820--the US Congress passed the Missouri Compromise, a bill that temporarily resolves the first serious political clash between slavery and antislavery interests. 1845--the US congress overrode a persidential veto (Pres. Tyler) for the first time. 1845--Florida became the 27th state. 1847--Alexander Graham Bell, the inventor of the telephone, was born in Edinburgh, Scotland; died 1922 at age 75. 1849--the US Congress created the Minnesota Territory. 1849--the U.S. Department of the Interior was established. 1861--serfdom was abolished in Russia. 1863--the US Congress passed the Civil War conscription act, the first wartime draft of US citizens in American history. 1863--Pres. Lincoln signed a measure creating the National Academy of Sciences. 1865--Pres. Lincoln signed a bill creating the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands. Known as the Freedmen's Bureau. 1873--the US Congress enacted the so-called Comstock Law, making it illegal to send any "obscene, lewd, or lascivious" book through the mails. 1875--George Bizet's opera Carmen premieres at the Opera Comique in Paris. 1878--the peace treaty at San Stefano was signed, ending the Russo-Turkish War and gaining independence for Serbia. 1879--Belva Ann Bennett Lockwood became the first woman lawyer to be admitted to appear before the US Supreme Court . 1887--Anne Sullivan arrived at the Alabama home of Capt. and Mrs. Arthur H. Keller to become the teacher of their blind and deaf 6-year-old daughter, Helen. 1894--British Prime Minister William Gladstone submitted his resignation to Queen Victoria, ending his fourth and final premiership. 1913--more than 5,000 suffragists marched down Pennsylvania Ave. in Washington, D.C., a day before the presidential inauguration of Woodrow Wilson. 1913--silent movie director D.W. Griffith's controversial Civil War epic The Birth of a Nation opened in New York City, a few weeks after its premiere in Los Angeles. 1918--Bolshevik Russia made a separate peace treaty with the Central Powers, abandoning the Allied war effort. 1923--Time magazine, founded by Briton Hadden and Henry R. Luce, debuted. 1931--Pres. Hoover signed into law a bill making "The Star-Spangled Banner" the national anthem. 1943--in London's East End, 173 people died in a crush of bodies at the Bethnal Green tube station, which was being used as a wartime air raid shelter. 1845--Finland, under increasing pressure from both the US and the Soviet Union, finally declared war on its former partner, Germany. 1945--the Allies fully secured the Philippine capital of Manila from Japanese forces. 1952--in a 6-3 decision, the US Supreme Court upheld a New York state law that prohibited communists from teaching in public schools. 1965--more than 30 US Air Force jets struck targets along the Ho Chi Minh Trail in Laos. 1969--Apollo 9 was launched on a mission to test the lunar module that was used in the moon landings. 1974--a Turkish Airlines DC-10 crashed shortly after takeoff from Orly Airport in Paris, killing all 346 people on board. 1991--motorist Rodney King was severely beaten by Los Angeles police in a scene captured on amateur video. 1993--Albert Sabin, health pioneer as developer of the oral polio vaccine, died in Washington, D.C. at age 86. 2002--voters in Switzerland approved joining the UN, abandoning almost 200 years of formal neutrality. 2003--Israeli troops arrested Hamas co-founder Mohammed Taha in a deadly raid. 2003--Pres. Bush offered a rough blueprint for adding drug benefits to Medicare. 2008--a gunman opened fire inside a Wendy's restaurant in West Palm Beach, Fla., killing a paramedic who'd gone back to fetch a missing meal toy for his child and wounding five others before turning the gun on himself. 2012--Mitt Romney rolled to a double-digit victory in Washington state's Republican presidential caucuses, his fourth campaign triumph in a row. 2012--conservative talk show host Rush Limbaugh apologized on his website to Georgetown University law student Sandra Fluke, whom he had branded a "slut" and "prostitute" after she testified to congressional Democrats that she wanted her college health plan to cover her birth control. 2012--eleven passengers and five workers were killed when two trains crashed head-on in southern Poland.
Thought for Today: "Happiness always looks small while you hold it in your hands, but let it go, and you learn at once how big and precious it is." --Maxim Gorky (1868-1936) Russian writer
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Post by pegasus on Apr 8, 2013 15:32:12 GMT -7
NATIONAL PUBLIC HEALTH WEEK
April 8th in History, the 98th day of the year with 267 days left
563 BC--Buddhists celebrate Gautama Buddha's birth on this day. 217--Caracalla (Marcus Aurelius Antonius), Roman emperor noted for his brutality, was assassinated as he launched a second campaign against the Parthians. 1513--explorer Juan Ponce de Leon claimed Florida for Spain. 1776--John Adams arrived in Paris to replace Silas Deane on fthe committee negotiating with the French for aid. 1820--the Venus de Milo statue was discovered by a farmer on the Greek island of Milos. 1864--the Red River campaign of Union Gen. Nathaniel Banks ground to a halt when Confederate Gen. Richard Taylor routed Banks' army at Mansfield, La. 1873--Alfred Paraf of New York City patented oleomargarine. 1898--Lord Kitchener captured the Mahdi at Atbara River after defeating his Sudanese army. 1892--Mary Pickford, Canadian-born motion-picture and part owner of United Artists, was born; died 1979 at age 87. 1904--Britain and France sign an agreement, later known as the Entente Cordiale, resolving long-standing colonial disputes in North Africa and establishing a diplomatic understanding between the two. 1908--H.H. (Herbert Henry) Asquith became British Liberal prime minister. 1913--the 17th amendment to the US Constitution, providing for the popular election of US senators, was ratified. 1913--Pres. Wilson became the first chief executive since John Adams to address Congress in person as he asked lawmakers to enact tariff reform. 1916--at the Boulevard Race in Corona, Calif., an early racing car careened into a crowd of spectators, killing the driver and two others. 1935--the Works Progress Administration was approved by Congress. 1939--one day after invading Albania, Italian troops took the capital, Tirana, and King Zog fled to Greece. 1943--Pres. Roosevelt ordered a freeze on wages and prices to combat inflation. 1944--the Russians attacked the Germans in a drive to expel them from the Crimea. 1945--Lutheran pastor and theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer was hanged at Flossenburg, only days before the American liberation of the POW camp. 1946--the League of Nations assembled in Geneva for its final session. 1950--Sen. Joseph McCarthy labels Professor Owen Lattimore "extremely dangerous so far as the American people are concerned" in a carefully worded public speech, but stops short of calling him a Soviet spy. 1952--Pres. Truman seized the steel industry to avert a nationwide strike. 1963--Jomo Kenyatta, leader of the Kenyan independence movement, was convicted by Kenya's British rulers of leading the extremist Mau Mau uprising. 1970--the US Senate rejected Pres. Nixon's nomination of G. Harrold Carswell to the US Supreme Court. 1971--Chicago became the first rock group to play New York's Carnegie Hall. 1973--Spanish artist Pablo Picasso died at age 91 at his home near Mougins, France. 1974--Hank Aaron of the Atlanta Braves hit his 715th career home run in a game against the Los Angeles Dodgers, breaking Babe Ruth's record. 1985--Australian media magnate Rupert Murdoch bought 50 percent of the Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corporation. 1986--Jennifer Guinness of the well-known brewing family was kidnapped in Ireland for a 2 million pound ransom. 1988--TV evangelist Jimmy Swaggart resigned from the Assemblies of God after he was defrocked for reports he'd consorted with a prostitute. 1990--Ryan White, an AIDS patient whose battle for acceptance gained national attention, died at age 18. 1990--David Lynch’s surreal television drama Twin Peaks premiered on ABC 1992--professional tennis player Arthur Ashe announced that he had AIDS tfrom a tainted blood transfusion.. 1993--singer Marian Anderson died in Portland, Ore., at age 96. 1994--rock singer-musician Kurt Cobain of Nirvana was found dead in Seattle at age 27 of a self-inflicted gunshot wound. 2002--Suzan-Lori Parks became the first African-American woman to win a Pulitzer Prize for drama for her play Topdog/Underdog. 2003--US-led military strikes in Baghdad hit a hotel housing hundreds of journalists and an Arab television network, killing three journalists. 2003--Connecticut won its second straight NCAA women's basketball championship, defeating Tennessee 73-68. 2005--Eric Rudolph agreed to plead guilty to a series of bombings, including the fatal bombing at the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta, in order to avoid the death penalty. 2005--world leaders joined pilgrims and prelates in St. Peter's Square for the funeral of Pope John Paul II. 2006--kidnapper-rapist John Jamelske, who had imprisoned five women and girls, one after another, as sex slaves inside a makeshift dungeon in his DeWitt, N.Y., home, was arrested. 2008--American Airlines grounded all 300 of its MD-80 jetliners amid safety concerns about wiring bundles. 2008--Tennessee captured its eighth women's NCAA championship with a 64-48 victory over Stanford. 2009--Somali pirates hijacked the US-flagged Maersk Alabama. (The crew retook the cargo ship, and Navy sharpshooters killed two pirates holding the ship's American captain.) 2012--a UN-brokered plan to stop the bloodshed in Syria effectively collapsed after Pres. Bashar Assad's government raised new, last-minute demands that the country's largest rebel group swiftly rejected. 2012--the US and Afghanistan signed a deal giving Afghans authority over raids of Afghan homes,. 2013--Congressional and White House negotiators struck a last-minute budget deal ahead of a midnight deadline, averting a federal shutdown and cutting billions in spending. 2013--the UK's "Iron Lady" Margaret Thatcher, the first woman prime minister, died at age 87.
Thought for Today: "Nobody knows the age of the human race, but everybody agrees that it is old enough to know better." --Anonymous.
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Post by pegasus on Apr 9, 2013 15:19:51 GMT -7
American Indian Awareness Week
April 9th in History 1241--at the Battle of Liegnitz, Mongol armies defeated the Poles and the Germans. 1413--the coronation of England's King Henry V took place in Westminster Abbey. 1682--French explorer Robert de La Salle claimed the Mississippi River Basin for France. 1770--Capt. James Cook discovered Botany Bay (Australia). 1833--the first municipally supported public library opened in Peterborough, NH. 1838--the National Galley opened in London. 1859--a 23-year-old Missouri youth named Samuel Langhorne Clemens received his steamboat pilot's license. 1865--Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee surrendered his army to Union Gen. Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Court House in Virginia. 1869--the Hudson Bay Co. ceded its territory to Canada. 1881--after a one-day trial, Billy the Kid was found guilty of murdering the Lincoln County, New Mexico, sheriff and was sentenced to hang. 1903--Gregory Pincus, the American scientist whose discoveries led to the development of the first birth-control pills, was born; died 1967 at age 64. 1926--Hugh Hefner, Playboy magazine founder, turns 87 today. 1928--actress Mae West made her New York debut in a titillating play called Diamond Lil, which critics detested and the public loved/ 1939--contralto Marian Anderson performed at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C., after she was denied the use of Constitution Hall by the Daughters of the American Revolution because of her race. 1940--Nazi Germany invaded Denmark and Norway. 1942--American and Philippine defenders on Bataan capitulated to Japanese forces. leading to the infamous Bataan Death March. 1945-- at Bari, Italy, the Liberty ship carrying aerial bombs exploded, killing 360 people. 1947--the town of Woodward, Oklahoma, was nearly wiped off the map by a powerful tornado 1959--NASA announced the selection of America's first seven astronauts: Scott Carpenter, Gordon Cooper, John Glenn, Gus Grissom, Wally Schirra, Alan Shepard and Donald Slayton. 1959--the Boston Celtics won their eighth consecutive NBA championship. 1963--British statesman Sir Winston Churchill was proclaimed an honorary U.S. citizen by President John F. Kennedy. 1965-- Pres. Johnson attended the opening of the Astrodome in Houston, Tex/, dubbed the ‘Eighth Wonder of the World’. 1967--the first Boeing 737 rolled out. 1968--Martin Luther King Jr. was buried. 1969--the supersonic aircraft Concorde made its maiden flight, from Bristol to Fairford in England. 1970--Paul McCartney announced the official split of the Beatles. 1985--Tom Seaver broke a major-league baseball record, previously held by Walter Johnson, when he started his 15th opening-day game. 1992--former Panamanian ruler Manuel Noriega was convicted in Miami of eight drug and racketeering charges. 2001--American Airlines' parent company acquired bankrupt Trans World Airlines (TWA). 2003--in Afghanistan, a US warplane called in to support allied Afghans under fire mistakenly bombed a house, killing 11 civilians. 2003--jubilant Iraqis celebrated the collapse of Saddam Hussein's regime, beheading a toppled statue of their longtime ruler in downtown Baghdad. 2005--Britain's Prince Charles married Camilla Parker Bowles, who took the title Duchess of Cornwall. 2008--US Army Gen. David Petraeus told lawmakers he was unlikely to endorse any fresh buildup of troops even if security in the country were to deteriorate. 2008--the Olympic torch was rerouted away from thousands of demonstrators and spectators who had crowded San Francisco's waterfront to witness the flame's symbolic journey to the Beijing Games during its only North American stop. 2012--a Florida special prosecutor said a grand jury would not look into the Trayvon Martin case, leaving the decision of whether to charge the teen's shooter to prosecutor Angela Corey.
color=Brown]Thought for Today: "The use of 'religion' as an excuse to repress the freedom of expression and to deny human rights is not confined to any country or time." -- Margaret Atwood (b. 1939) Canadian poet and author [/size][/size][/color]
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Post by pegasus on Apr 11, 2013 17:20:36 GMT -7
National Submarine Day
April 11th in History
1689--William III and Mary II were crowned as joint sovereigns of Britain. 1713--the Treaty of Utrecht was signed, ending the War of the Spanish Succession. 1721--David Zeisberger, a Moravian missionary whose Native American converts were slaughtered by Pennsylvania militiamen in the Gnaddenhuetten Massacre of 1781, was born in Zauchental, Moravia, in what is now the Czech Republic; died 1808 at age 87. 1803--French Foreign Minister Charles Maurice de Talleyrand made an offer to sell all of Louisiana Territory to the United States. 1814--Napoleon Bonaparte abdicated as Emperor of France and was banished to the island of Elba. 1862--the Confederates surrendered Fort Pulaski, guarding the mouth of the Savannah River in Georgia, after a two-day Union bombardment. 1862--Charles Evans Hughes, 11th chief justice of the United States (1930-41), was born; died 1948 at age 86. 1870--while visiting Marathon, Greece, Lord Muncaster and a group of English tourists were kidnapped by brigands, almost resulting in war. 1898--Pres. McKinley asked Congress for a declaration of war against Spain. 1899--the treaty ending the Spanish-American War was declared in effect. 1905--cconstruction of the Victoria Falls Bridge and the railway line connecting Zambia and Zimbabwe close to Africa's greatest waterfall, Victoria Falls, were completed. 1913--Postmaster General Albert S. Burleson of Pres. Wilson's cabinet, proposed gradually segregating whites and blacks who worked for the Railway Mail Service, a policy which spread to other agencies. 1921--Iowa became the first state to impose a cigarette tax at 2 cents a package. 1928--Ethel Kennedy, widow of Robert F. Kennedy, turns 85 today. 1941--German bombers blitzed Conventry, England. 1942--the Distinguished Service Medal for the US arines was authorized. 1945--US soldiers liberated the notoriouis Buchenwald concentration camp in Germany. 1951--Pres. Truman relieved Gen. Douglas MacArthur of his command in the Far East. 1953--Oveta Culp Hobby became the first Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare. 1968--rescue workers pick up the last survivors of the Wahine ferry accident that had capsized after hitting sharp rocks off the coast of Wellington, New Zealand, jilling 51 of the more than 800 passengers and crew. 1970--Apollo 13, with astronauts James A. Lovell, Fred W. Haise and Jack Swigert, blasted off on its ill-fated mission to the moon 1979--Idi Amin was deposed as president of Uganda as rebels and exiles backed by Tanzanian forces seized control of the capital, Kampala. 2002--US Rep. James A. Traficant Jr. (D-Ohio), was convicted of taking bribes and kickbacks from businessmen and his own staff. 2003--ten of the main suspects in the 2000 bombing of the USS Cole escaped from prison in Yemen. 2003--in Cuba, three men convicted of hijacking a passenger ferry were executed by firing squad, a swift response by Fidel Castro's government to a recent string of hijackings to the United States. 2003--American troops took the northern Iraqi city of Mosul without a fight. 2004--Phil Mickelson won the Masters Golf Tournament at Augusta National Golf Club, his first major championship in nearly 12 years as a professional golfer. 2006--Iran announced that it had enriched uranium on a small scale for the first time. 2006--Israel's Cabinet declared Prime Minister Ariel Sharon permanently incapacitated. 2007--charges were dropped against three former Duke University lacrosse players who were falsely accused of rape. 2008--Group of Seven financial officials meeting in Washington pledged to strengthen their regulation of banks and other financial institutions. 2008--French troops captured six pirates who had released 30 hostages who were aboard the French luxury yacht Le Ponant when it was seized off Somalia's coast. 2012--George Zimmerman, the Florida neighborhood watch volunteer who fatally shot 17-year-old Trayvon Martin, was arrested and charged with second-degree murder. 2012--a California prison panel denied parole to mass murderer Charles Manson in his 12th and probably final bid for freedom. 2012--a University of California task force said that UC Davis police should not have used pepper-spray on student demonstrators.
Thought for Today: "We think in generalities, but we live in detail." --Alfred North Whitehead (1861-1947).British philosopher
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Post by pegasus on May 7, 2013 11:34:09 GMT -7
Older Americans Month
May 7th in History 1189--Holy Roman Emperor Fredrick I Barbarossa granted customs and commercial rights to the German town of Hamburg, one of the first members of the Hanseatic League. 1429--Joan of Arc led French forces in lifting of siege of Orleans. 1663--in London, the first Theatre Royal in Drury Lane was opened under a charter granted by King Charles II. 1763--Pontiac, chief of the Ottawa Indians, attempted to lead a sneak attack on British-held Fort Detroit that led to an all-out war with the British that came to be known as Pontiac's War. 1765--HMS Victory, the British battleship and flagship of Lord Nelson, was launched at Chatham, Kent. 1789--the first inaugural ball was held in New York City in honor of Pres. George Washington and his wife, Martha. 1812--English poet Robert Browning was born in London; died 1889 at age 77. 1824--Beethoven's Symphony No. 9 in D minor, Op. 125, had its premiere in Vienna. 1832--Otto of Bavaria was chosen king of Greece by the great powers at the conference of London. 1833--composer and pianist Johannes Brahms was born in Hamburg, Germany; died 1897 at age 63. 1840--Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, Russian composer whose works included symphonies, concertos, operas, ballets, chamber music, and a choral setting of the Russian Orthodox Divine Liturgy, was born in Votkinsk, Russia; died 1893 at age 53 in St Petersburg. 1864--after two days of intense fighting in Virginia’s Wilderness forest, the Army of the Potomac, under the command of Gen. Grant, moved south to Spotsylvania. 1896--Dr. H. H. Holmes, one of America's first well-known serial killers and in the same time period as Jack the Ripper, was hanged in Philadelphia, Pa. 1902--Martinique's Mount Pele begins the deadliest volcanic eruption of the 20th century, virtually wiping the city of Saint Pierre off the map. 1912--Columbia University approved final plans for awarding the Pulitzer Prize in several categories. 1915--a German torpedo sank the British liner RMS Lusitania off the Irish coast, killing nearly 1,200 people. 1928--the age at which women could vote in Britain was lowered from 30 to 21. 1939--Germany and Italy announced a military and political alliance, the Rome-Berlin Axis. 1942--US Army Gen. Jonathan Wainwright announced the Allied surrender of the Philippines to Japanese forces during World War II. 1945--Germany signed an unconditional surrender at Allied headquarters in Rheims, France, ending its role in World War II. 1951--Soviet Russia was admitted to participate in the 1952 Olympic Games - by the International Olympic Committee. 1954--the Battle of Dien Bien Phu in Vietnam ended after 55 days with Vietnamese insurgents overrunning French forces. 1960--Leonid Brezhnev became Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet, equivalent to the presidency. 1963--the US launched the Telstar 2 communications satellite. 1966--The Mamas and The Papas made the climb to the top of the "Billboard" pop music chart with "Monday, Monday". 1975--Pres. Ford formally declared an end to the "Vietnam era" as the Viet Cong celebrated its takeover.of Saigon, now known as Ho Chi Minh City. 1977--Seattle Slew won the Kentucky Derby on his way to horse racing's Triple Crown. 1984--a $180 million out-of-court settlement was announced in the Agent Orange class-action suit brought by Vietnam veterans. 1992--a 203-year-old proposed constitutional amendment barring Congress from giving itself a midterm pay raise was ratified when Michigan became the 38th state to approve it. 1992--the latest addition to America's space shuttle fleet, Endeavour, went on its first flight. 1994--Norway's most famous painting, "The Scream" by Edvard Munch, was recovered almost three months after it was stolen from a museum in Oslo. 1994--Japan's Justice Minister Shigeto Nagano resigned after his attempts to whitewash past Japanese military aggression provoked a diplomatic dispute in Asia. 1995--Jacques Chirac won the French presidential election, ending a 14-year Socialist grip on the presidency. 1996--Dusan Tadic, a Bosnian Serb, became the first person to face an international war crimes tribunal since the Nuremberg and Tokyo trials after World War II. 1998--Daimler-Benz announcess its purchase of Chrysler Corp. 2000--Pres. Vladimir Putin took the oath of office in Russia's first democratic transfer of power. 2003--Pres. Bush ordered the lifting of sanctions against Iraq, and called on members of the UN Security Council to do the same. 2008--Dmitry Medvedev was sworn in as Russia's president. 2012--Education Secretary Arne Duncan broke ranks with the White House, stating his unequivocal support for same-sex marriage one day after Vice President Joe Biden suggested on NBC that he supported gay marriage as well. 2012--Vladimir Putin took the oath of office as Russia's president in a brief but regal Kremlin ceremony.
Thought for Today: "Carpe diem! Rejoice while you are alive; enjoy the day; live life to the ullest; make the most of what you have. It is later than you think." --Horace (65 BC-8 BC) ancient Roman poet.
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Post by pegasus on May 19, 2013 17:37:04 GMT -7
NEIGHBOR DAY
May 19th, the 139th day of the year
1536--Anne Boleyn, the second wife of England's King Henry VIII, was beheaded after being convicted of adultery. 1588--the Spanish Armada of King Philip II set sail to conquer England. 1635--in the Thirty Years War, France declared war on Spain. 1643--the French under the Duke of Enghien heavily defeated the Spanish at the battle of Rocroi, destroying the Spanish infantry. 1643--the towns of Connecticut, Plymouth and New Haven formed a Confederation of the United Colonies of New England as protection in the wars with American Indians. 1715--the colony of New York passed a law making it illegal to "gather, rake, take up, or bring to the market, any oysters whatsoever" between the months of May and September. 1749--George II of England granted the Ohio Company a charter of several hundred thousand acres of land around the forks of the Ohio River, 1780--a mysterious darkness enveloped much of New England and part of Canada in the early afternoon. 1795-Johns Hopkins, American merchant who endowed Johns Hopkins University and hospital, was born; died 1873 at age 78. 1796--the first U.S. game law was enacted, calling for penalties for those hunting or destroying game within Indian territory. 1802--Napoleon Bonaparte created the Legion d'Honneur, an order of distinction for civil or military service. 1847--the first English-style railroad coach was placed in service on the Fall River Line in Massachusetts. 1849--Irishman William Hamilton was arrested after firing blank shots at Queen Victoria in London. 1857--William F. Channing and Moses G. Farmer patented the electric fire alarm, 1864--the Civil War battle of Spotsylvania, Va. ended after 12 days of fighting. 1864--Pres. Lincoln proposed equal treatment of soldiers' dependents regardless of race. 1879--Nancy Witcher Astor, American-born English politician; first woman elected to the British House of Commons, was born; died 1964 at age 84 1890--Ho Chi Minh, the founder of the Indochina Communist Party and president of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (1954-1969), was born[ died 1969 at age 79. 1906--the Simplon Tunnel through the Alps between Italy and Switzerland was officially opened by the King of Italy and the president of the Swiss Republic. 1909--the Ballets Russes (Russian Ballets), under the direction of Sergei Diaghilev, debuted in Paris. 1913--California Gov. Hiram Johnson signed into law a bill prohibiting "aliens ineligible to citizenship" from owning farm land, a measure targeting Asian immigrants, particularly Japanese. 1916--Great Britain and France secretly reached an accord, known as the Sykes-Picot agreement, by which most of the Arab lands under the rule of the Ottoman Empire would be divided into British and French spheres of influence. 1921--Pres. Harding signed, the Emergency Quota Act, which established national quotas for immigrants. 1925--Malcolm X, African American militant civil rights leader, was born; died 1965 at age 39. 1935--T.E. Lawrence, also known as "Lawrence of Arabia," died in England from injuries sustained in a motorcycle crash. 1943--in his second wartime address to the US Congress, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill pledged his country's full support in the fight against Japan. 1958--the US and Canada formally established the North American Air Defense Command. 1960--radio disc jockey and TV personality, Alan Freed, who coined the term "rock and roll", was arrested on charges of commercial bribery during the industry's payola scandal. 1962--Actress Marilyn Monroe performed a sultry rendition of "Happy Birthday" for Pres. Kennedy during a fundraiser at New York's Madison Square Garden. 1964--the US State Department disclosed that 40 hidden microphones had been found in the U.S. embassy in Moscow. 1967--the Soviet Union ratified a treaty with the US and Britain banning nuclear weapons from outer space. 1973--Secretariat won the Preakness Stakes, the second of his Triple Crown victories. 1981--five British soldiers were killed by an Irish Republican Army landmine in County Armagh, Northern Ireland. 1984--Wayne Gretzky and Mark Messier led the Edmonton Oilers in winning the NHL's Stanley Cup, defeating the defending New York Islanders, for their first of four championships. 1992--Mary Jo Buttafuoco was shot and seriously wounded in Massapequa, N.Y., by her husband Joey's teenage lover, Amy Fisher. 1992--the 27th Amendment to the Constitution, which prohibits Congress from giving itself midterm pay raises, went into effect. 1993--the Clinton White House set off a political storm by abruptly firing the entire staff of its travel office; five of the seven staffers were later reinstated and assigned to other duties. 1994--former first lady Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis died in New York at age 64. 2001--Apple, Inc. opened its first retail stores, in Tysons Corner, Va., and Glendale, Calif. 2003--WorldCom Inc. agreed to pay investors $500 million to settle civil fraud charges. 2003--the US Supreme Court dealt a defeat to the drug industry, ruling 6-3 that a state may try to force companies to lower prices on prescription medications for the poor and uninsured. 2003--a Palestinian woman blew herself up during a security check outside a mall, killing three Israelis in the fifth suicide bombing in 48 hours. 2004--Spc. Jeremy C. Sivits received a year in prison and a bad conduct discharge in the first court-martial stemming from abuse of Iraqis at the Abu Ghraib prison. 2005--Revenge of the Sith, the final chapter of the "Star Wars" saga, opened in movie theaters. 2006--amid a firestorm of publicity and controversy, director Ron Howard’s big-screen adaptation of Dan Brown’s mega-bestselling thriller The Da Vinci Code debuted in theaters 2007--Smart Inc. launched a US road show to introduce its "ForTwo" microcar, which it had scheduled for release in the US in 2008. 2008--Chinese stood still and sirens wailed to mourn the country's nearly 70,000 earthquake victims. 2011--Katie Couric, the first regular solo anchorwoman of a network evening newscast, signed off the CBS Evening News for the last time after five years. 2012--Pres. Obama and other G-8 leaders held economic talks at Camp David, where they declared that their governments needed to both spark growth and cut debt. 2012--Chen Guangcheng, a blind Chinese legal activist, was put on a plane for the UD, closing a nearly month-long diplomatic tussle. 2012--I'll Have Another won the Preakness, two weeks after claiming the Kentucky Derby. (However, a tendon injury forced I'll Have Another into retirement on the eve of the Belmont Stakes.)
Thought for Today: "We are torn between nostalgia for the familiar and an urge for the foreign and strange. As often as not, we are homesick most for the places we have never known." _ --Carson McCullers (1917-1967) American author
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Post by pegasus on May 29, 2013 11:58:01 GMT -7
National Smile Month
May 29th in History and the 146th day in the year with 216 days left 1167--Holy Roman Emperor Frederick Barbarossa was decisively defeated by the combined cities of the Lombard League at the Battle of Legnano. 1453--Constantinople, the capital of the once-powerful Christian Roman Empire, fell to the Ottoman Empire, marking the end of the Byzantine Empire. 1500--Portuguese explorer Bartolomeu Diaz, who discovered the Cape of Good Hope, drowned during a sea voyage. 1660--England's King Charles II was restored to the monarchy after an interregnum of 11 years. 1765--Patrick Henry denounced the Stamp Act before Virginia's House of Burgesses, saying, "If this be treason, make the most of it!" 1790--Rhode Island became the last of the original 13 colonies to ratify the United States Constitution. 1841--in St. Louis, Mo., John C. Fremont began his second western expeditioin 1848--Wisconsin became the 30th state of the union. 1864--Union troops reach Totopotomoy Creek in Virginia after the Confederates under Gen. Lee. 1912--the Claude Debussy ballet "L'Apres-midi d'un Faune"premiered in Paris with Vaslav Nijinsky dancing the title role. 1913--Igor Stravinsky's ballet "Le Sacre du printemps" had its chaotic world premiere in Paris. 1913--D.H. Lawrence's novel Sons and Lovers, albeit in an expurgated version, was first published by Duckworth & Co. of London. 1914--heavy fog caused a collision of two ships, the British liner, Empress of Ireland and the Norwegian freighter Storstad, on the St. Lawrence River in Canada that killed 1,073 people in one of the worst maritime disasters in history. 1916--the US President’s flag was adopted by executive order. 1917--John F. Kennedy, the 35th president of the United States, was born in Brookline, Mass; assassinated 1974 in Dallas, Tex. 1923--the US Supreme Court rules that organized baseball did not violate antitrust laws, ruling that baseball was a sport not a business. 1932--World War I veterans began arriving in Washington, DC to demand cash bonuses they weren't scheduled to receive until 1945. 1940--German forces captured Ostend and Ypres in Belgium and Lille in France. 1942--on the advice of Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels, Adolf Hitler orders all Jews in occupied Paris to wear an identifying yellow star on the left side of their coats. 1942--Bing Crosby recorded Irving Berlin's "White Christmas" in Los Angeles for Decca Records. 1943--Norman Rockwell's portrait of "Rosie the Riveter" appeared on the cover of The Saturday Evening Post. 1944--a German submarine sank the USS Block Island, an aircraft carrier, near Madeira, the only US carrier lost in the Atlantic in World War II. 1953--Mount Everest was conquered as Edmund Hillary of New Zealand and Tensing Norgay of Nepal became the first climbers to reach the summit. 1961--a couple in Paynesville, W.Va., became the first recipients of food stamps under a pilot program created by Pre. Kennedy. 1962--Buck O'Neill became the first black coach in Major League Baseball when he accepted a job with the Chicago Cubs. 1973--Tom Bradley was elected the first black mayor of Los Angeles, defeating incumbent Sam Yorty. 1977--car racer Janet Guthrie became the first woman to qualify for and participate in the prestigious Indy 500 race. 1982--Pope John Paul II, in the first papal visit to Britain since 1531, prayed alongside the archbishop of Canterbury in Canterbury Cathedral. 1985--39 people were killed at the European Cup Final in Brussels, Belgium, when rioting broke out and a wall separating British and Italian soccer fans collapsed. 1988--Pres. Reagan began his first visit to the Soviet Union as he arrived in Moscow for a superpower summit with Soviet leader Gorbachev. 1990--Boris Yeltsin was elected president of the Russian republic by the Russian parliament. 1999--space shuttle Discovery completed the first docking with the International Space Station. 2001--four followers of Osama bin Laden were convicted in New York of a global conspiracy to murder Americans, including the 1998 bombings of two US embassies in Africa that killed 224 people. 2003--AOL Time Warner and Microsoft announced a settlement in their battle over Internet browsers, with the software giant agreeing to pay AOL $750 million. 2004--a memorial to America's World War II veterans was dedicated on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. 2005--Danica Patrick became the first woman to lead the Indy 500. 2005--French voters soundly rejected the European Union's proposed constitution. 2008--In a blow to Texas' massive seizure of children from a polygamist sect's ranch, the state Supreme Court ruled that child welfare officials had overstepped their authority and that the children should go back to their parents. 2009--Jay Leno ended his first stint as host of The Tonight Show but he was back on NBC's late night mainstay in February 2010. 2010--Philadelphia Phillies pitcher Roy Halladay threw the 20th perfect game in major league history, beating the Florida Marlins 1-0. 2012--Mitt Romney clinched the Republican presidential nomination with a win in the Texas primary.
Thought for Today: "There is no avant-garde; only some people a bit behind." _ --Edgard Varese (1883-1965) French composer
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Post by pegasus on Jul 8, 2013 12:07:24 GMT -7
National Blueberries Month
July 8th in History, the 189th day of 2013 with 176 days left in the year. 1497--navigator Vasco da Gama departed Portugal at the head of a fleet in search of a sea route to India. 1663--King Charles II of England granted a charter to Rhode Island. 1693--police uniforms in New York City were authorized. 1776--Col. John Nixon gave the first public reading of the Declaration of Independence to a crowd gathered at Independence Square in Philadelphia. 1777--Vermont became the first state in the US to abolish slavery. 1792--Pres. Washington signed an act that authorized the mint of the first US copper coins. 1839--John D. Rockefeller, founder of Standard Oil Co. who gave more than $500 million to charitable causes, was born; died 1937 at age 97. 1853--an expedition led by Commodore Matthew Perry arrived in Yedo Bay, Japan, on a mission to seek diplomatic and trade relations with the Japanese. 1863--Confederate troops surrender Port Hudson, La. 1889--The Wall Street Journal was first published. 1907--Florenz Ziegfeld staged his first "Follies," on the roof of the New York Theater in New York City. 1918--Ernest Hemingway, Nobel Prize-winning American author, was wounded on the Italian Front in World War I. 1919--Pres. Wilson received a tumultuous welcome in New York City after his return from the Versailles Peace Conference in France. 1947--demolition work began in New York City to make way for the new permanent headquarters of the United Nations. 1950--Gen. Douglas MacArthur was named commander-in-chief of United Nations forces in Korea. 1951--Paris, France celebrated turning 2,000 years old. In fact, a few more candles would've technically been required on the birthday cake, as the City of Lights was most likely founded around 250 B.C. 1958--Pres. Eisenhower began a visit to Canada, where he conferred with Prime Minister John Diefenbaker and addressed the Canadian Parliament. 1958--the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) presented the first gold record album ever to the soundtrack LP, Oklahoma. 1959--the first Americans were killed in South Vietnam. 1962--just after midnight local time, Alitalia Flight 771, a DC-8, crashed as it was approaching Bombay, India, killing all 94 people on board. 1969--downed U-2 pilot Francis Gary Powers was charged with espionage in the USSR. 1972--the Nixon administration announced a deal to sell $750 million in grain to the Soviet Union. 1975--Pres. Ford announced he would seek a second term of office. 1986--Kurt Waldheim was inaugurated as president of Austria despite controversy over his alleged ties to Nazi war crimes. 1994--Kim Il Sung, North Korea's communist leader since 1948, died at age 82. 1997--torrential rains in the Carpathian Mountains caused serious flooding in the Czech Republic, Poland and Germany with 104 people died. 2003--a factory worker opened fire at a Lockheed Martin plant in Meridian, Miss., leaving five dead before committing suicide. 2003--a triple-deck ferry capsized in Bangladesh; more than 500 people drowned. 2003--a Sudanese Boeing 737 crashed on the northeastern Red Sea coast, killing 117 people. 2004--Enron founder and former chairman Kenneth Lay pleaded innocent to charges related to the energy company's collapse. (He was convicted, but died while the case was on appeal.) 2008--a well-organized assault by gunmen on horseback on a United Nations-African Union patrol in Darfur left seven peacekeepers dead and 22 wounded. 2011--former first lady Betty Ford died in Rancho Mirage, Calif., at age 93. 2012--a bomb in eastern Afghanistan killed six NATO service members on a day where a total of 29 people died from roadside bombs and insurgent attacks. 2012--Syria began large-scale military exercises to simulate defending the country against outside "aggression." 2012--Roger Federer equaled Pete Sampras' record of seven men's singles titles at Wimbledon and won his 17th Grand Slam title overall, beating Andy Murray 4-6, 7-5, 6-3, 6-4.
Thought for Today: "Fools are more to be feared than the wicked." --Christina, Queen of Sweden (1626-1689).
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Post by pegasus on Jul 11, 2013 12:19:02 GMT -7
National Black Family Month
July 11th in History, the 192nd day of the year with 173 days left
1274--Robert I, the Bruce, Scottish king (1306-29), was born; died 1329 at age 54 1533--Pope Clement VII issued a bull of excommunication against England's King Henry VIII for the annulment of the king's marriage to Catherine of Aragon and subsequent marriage to second wife Anne Boleyn. 1767--John Quincy Adams, the sixth president of the United States, was born in Braintree, Mass. 1782--British Royal Governor Sir James Wright, along with several civil officials and military officers, fled the city of Savannah, Ga., to head for Charleston, SC. 1798--the US Marine Corps was created by an act of Congress that also created the US Marine Band. 1804--Vice President Aaron Burr mortally wounded former Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton in a pistol duel near Weehawken, N.J. 1859--Big Ben, the great bell inside the famous London clock tower, chimed for the first time. 1861--Union troops under Gen. George B. McClellan scored major victory in the struggle for western Virginia at the Battle of Rich Mountain in West Virginia. 1914--Hall of Famer Babe Ruth made his major league debut as a pitcher for the Red Sox at Fenway Park in Boston. 1937--composer and pianist George Gershwin died at a Los Angeles hospital of a brain tumor; he was 38. 1946--the Soviet Union agreed to fulfill promises made in various agreements to hand power over to British and US forces in West Berlin. 1952--the Republican National Convention, meeting in Chicago, nominated Dwight D. Eisenhower for president and Richard M. Nixon for vice president. 1955--the Air Force Academy was dedicated at Lowry Air Base in Colorado. 1960--[u[To Kill a Mockingbird[/u], Harper Lee's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, was published. 1973--a Varig 707 from Brazil made an emergency crash-landing outside Paris after fire broke out on board, sending smoke into the cabin; 123 of the 134 people on board perished. 1977--the Medal of Freedom was awarded posthumously to the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. in a White House ceremony. 1979--the abandoned U.S. space station Skylab returned to Earth, burning up in the atmosphere and showering debris over the Indian Ocean and Australia. 1988--nine people were killed when suspected Palestinian gunmen attacked hundreds of tourists aboard a Greek cruise ship, the City of Poros, which was steaming toward a marina in suburban Athens. 1995--the United States normalized relations with Vietnam. 1995--the UN-designated "safe haven" of Srebrenica in Bosnia-Herzegovina fell to Bosnian Serb forces, who then carried out the killings of 8,000 Muslim men and boys. 2003--the World Trade Organization ruled that heavy duties on steel imports imposed by the US violated global trade rules. 2007--former first lady Lady Bird Johnson died in Austin, Texas, at age 94. 2008--oil prices reached a record high of $147.27 a barrel. 2008--a North Korean soldier fatally shot a South Korean tourist at a northern mountain resort, further straining relations between the two Koreas. 2012--Hillary Rodham Clinton became the first US secretary of state to visit Laos in more than five decades. 2012--the Syrian ambassador to Iraq defected, denouncing President Bashar Assad in a TV statement. Thought for Today: "The man who has no inner-life is the slave of his surroundings." _ -- Henri Frederic Amiel (1821-1881) Swiss critic [/size][/color]
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Post by pegasus on Jul 20, 2013 12:04:09 GMT -7
National Lollipop Day
July 20th in History 514--St Hormisdas began his reign as Catholic Pope. 1402--Tamerlane's Mongols defeated the Ottoman Turks at Angora. 1588--the Spanish Armada set sail from Corunna, Spain. 1715--he Riot Act went into effect in England. 1773--Scottish settlers arrive at Pictou, Nova Scotia (Canada) 1780--Gen. "Mad Anthony" Wayne led two brigades of Pennsylvania militia in an attempt to destroy a fortified Loyalist blockhouse located approximately four miles north of Hoboken, NJ. 1789--during the French Revolution, citizens of Paris stormed the Bastille prison and released the seven prisoners inside. 1810--Colombia declared independence from Spain. 1861--the Congress of the Confederate States began holding sessions in Richmond, Va. 1871--British Columbia joined the confederation as a Canadian province. 1881--Sioux Indian leader Sitting Bull surrendered to federal troops. 1864--Gen. John Bell Hood's Confederate forces attacked Gen. William T. Sherman's troops outside of Atlanta, Ga. at the Battle of Peachtree Creek, but are repulsed with heavy losses. 1868--the legislation ordering US tax stamps on all cigarette packs was passed. 1917--the World War I draft lottery began in the US. 1923--Mexican revolutionary leader Pancho Villa was assassinated in his ranch in Parral, Chihuahua, Mexico. 1942--the first WAACS, the Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps, began their training at Fort Des Moines, Iowa 1944--Adolf Hitler was only slightly wounded when a bomb planted by would-be assassins exploded at the German leader's Rastenburg headquarters. 1944--Pres. Roosevelt was nominated for an unprecedented fourth term at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago. 1948--Pres. Truman instituted a peacetime military draft during a time of increasing Cold Waar tensions with the USSR. 1951--Jordan's King Abdullah I was assassinated in Jerusalem by a Palestinian gunman who was shot dead on the spot by security. 1961--Stop the World, I Want to Get Off opened in London. (The show went to Broadway in 1962.) 1968--the first International Special Olympics Summer Games, organized by Eunice Kennedy Shriver, were held at Soldier Field in Chicago. 1969--US astronauts Neil Armstrong and Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin became the first men to walk on the moon after reaching the surface in their Apollo 11 lunar module. 1976--America's Viking 1 spacecraft made a successful, first-ever landing on Mars. 1977--a second great flash flood hit Johnstown, Pa., killing 80 people and causing $350 million in damage. 1982--Irish Republican Army bombs exploded in two London parks, killing eight British soldiers, along with seven horses belonging to the Queen's Household Cavalry. 1984--Alton Coleman and Debra Brown were apprehended in Evanston, Ill., after a particularly vicious two-month crime spree that left eight people dead and many more injured. 1985--treasure hunters began hauling off $400 million in coins and silver ingots (ro tons) from the Spanish galleon Nuestra Senora de Atocha on the sea floor in the biggest underwater jackpot in history. 1988--Massachusetts Gov. Michael S. Dukakis received the Democratic presidential nomination at the party's convention in Atlanta. 1990--a federal appeals court set aside Oliver North's Iran-Contra convictions. 1993--White House deputy counsel Vince Foster was found shot to death in a park near Washington, D.C., in an apparent suicide. 1999--after 38 years at the bottom of the Atlantic, astronaut Gus Grissom's Liberty Bell 7 Mercury capsule was recovered. 2003--Ben Curtis, an unknown PGA Tour rookie in his first major championship, won the British Open. 2007--the US Senate Judiciary Committee voted almost totally along party lines, 13-6, to approve Elena Kagan to be the US Supreme Court's fourth female justice. 2012--a gunman opened fire inside a crowded movie theater in Aurora, Colo., during a midnight showing of The Dark Knight Rises, killing 12 people. (Suspect James Eagen Holmes has pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity.)
Thought for Today: "If the government is big enough to give you everything you want, it is big enough to take away everything you have." --Gerald R. Ford (1913-2006) 38th President of the United States.
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