2003 This year's Pullet Surprises are awarded: biography: Robert Caro's Master of the Senate (1100 pages, 3rd volume of LBJ bio) — fiction: Jeffrey Eugenides's Middlesex (500+ pages, narrated by a girl who turns into a boy) — history: Rick Atkinson's An Army at Dawn (700 pages, 1st volume of a WWII history) — nonfiction: Samantha Power's A Problem From Hell: America and the Age of Genocide — poetry: Paul Muldoon's Moy Sand and Gravel. [correction: those are Pulitzer Prizes]
2001 Ganga and Jamuna Shrestha, 10-month-old conjoined twin girls from a poor Nepalese family from the outskirts of Katmandu, undergo an operation to separate their brains, at Singapore's General Hospital. The operation started at 16:00 the previous day and will continue until completed on 08 April. by two team of surgeons headed by Dr. Keith Goh. Each multidisciplinary team consists of a neurosurgeon, a plastic surgeon and. others, they work in relays. The girls were born joined at the head (vertical craniopagus), their brains sharing some blood vessels. Sandhya and Bushan Shrestha are, respectively, the father and mother of the babies.
2000 Attorney General Janet Reno meets in Washington with the father of Elián González; Reno later tells reporters that officials will arrange for Juan Miguel González to reclaim his son, but she would give Elian's Miami relatives one more chance to drop their resistance and join in a peaceful transfer.
1991 US military planes began airdropping supplies to Kurdish refugees who were facing starvation and exposure in the snow-covered mountains of northern Iraq. The United States warned Iraq not to interfere with the relief effort.
1990 John Poindexter (National Security Advisor to US president Bush Sr.) found guilty in Iran-Contra scandal.
1990 Michael Milken pleads innocent to security law violations
1990 A display of Robert Mapplethorpe photographs opened at Cincinnati's Contemporary Arts Center, the same day the center and its director were indicted on obscenity charges (both were acquitted).
| 1980
US breaks relations with Iran
^top^ During the Iran Hostage Crisis, US President Jimmy Carter orders all Iranian diplomats expelled from the United States and prohibits any further exports to that nation. On 04 November 1979, the Iran Hostage Crisis had begun when militant Iranian students, outraged that the US government had allowed the ousted Shah of Iran to travel to New York City for medical treatment, seized the US embassy in Teheran. The Ayatollah Khomeini, Iran's political and religious leader, took over the hostage situation, refusing all appeals to release the hostages, even after the U.N. Security Council demanded an end to the crisis in a unanimous vote. However, two weeks after the embassy's storming, the Ayatollah began to release all non-US captives, and all female and minority Americans, citing these groups as among the people oppressed by the government of the United States. However, the remaining fifty-two captives remained at the mercy of the Ayatollah for the next fourteen months. Even after the Shah died, US President Jimmy Carter was unable to diplomatically resolve the crisis. Finally, on 24 April 1980, seventeen days after breaking off diplomatic relations with the country, he ordered a disastrous rescue mission in which eight US military personnel were killed and no hostages rescued. In November of 1980, due in part to his failure to resolve the hostage crisis, Carter lost the presidential election to Republican Ronald Reagan. Shortly after, with the assistance of Algerian intermediaries, successful negotiations began between the US and Iran. On 20 January, 1981, the day of Reagan's inauguration, the United States freed almost $8 billion in frozen Iranian assets, and the hostages were released after 444 days. The next day, Jimmy Carter flew to Wiesbaden, West Germany, to greet the Americans on their way home. |
| 1975
North Vietnamese prepare for final offensive.
^top^ North Vietnamese forces prepare to launch the "Ho Chi Minh Campaign," designed to set the conditions for a final communist victory in South Vietnam. By this time, well over two-thirds of South Vietnam was under communist control as South Vietnamese forces had fallen back in panic when the North Vietnamese pressed the attack. The Ho Chi Minh Campaign offensive was the final phase of the North Vietnamese plan to defeat South Vietnam. Despite the imposition of a cease-fire by the terms of the 1973 Paris Peace Accords, fighting had continued between South Vietnamese forces and the North Vietnamese troops left in South Vietnam at the end of the 1972 Easter Offensive. In December 1974, the North Vietnamese launched a major attack against the lightly defended province of Phuoc Long, located north of Saigon along the Cambodian border. They overran the provincial capital at Phuoc Binh on 06 January 1975. President Richard Nixon had repeatedly promised South Vietnamese President Nguyen Van Thieu that the United States would come to the aid of South Vietnam if the North Vietnamese violated the Peace Accords in a major way. However, by the time the Communists captured Phuoc Long, Nixon had resigned from office and his successor, Gerald Ford, was unable to convince a hostile Congress to make good on Nixon's promises to Saigon. This situation emboldened the North Vietnamese, who launched Campaign 275 in March 1975, to capture the provincial capital of Ban Me Thuot (Darlac province) in the Central Highlands. The South Vietnamese defenders fought very poorly and were quickly overwhelmed by the North Vietnamese attackers. The United States did nothing. Stunned by the lack of response from Washington, South Vietnamese President Nguyen Van Thieu ordered his forces in the Highlands to withdraw to more defensible positions to the south. What started out as a reasonably orderly withdrawal soon degenerated into a panic that spread throughout the South Vietnamese armed forces. They abandoned Pleiku and Kontum with very little fighting and the North Vietnamese pressed the attack from the west and north. In quick succession, Quang Tri, Hue, and Da Nang in the north fell to the communist onslaught. The North Vietnamese continued to attack south along the coast, defeating the South Vietnamese forces at each encounter. As the North Vietnamese forces closed on the approaches to Saigon, the politburo in Hanoi issued an order to Gen. Van Tien Dung to launch the Ho Chi Minh Campaign, the final assault on Saigon itself. Dung ordered his forces into position for the final battle. The South Vietnamese 18th Division made a valiant final stand at Xuan Loc, 60 km northeast of Saigon, in which the South Vietnamese soldiers destroyed three of Dung's divisions. After a week, however, the South Vietnamese succumbed to the North Vietnamese. By 27 April, the North Vietnamese had completely encircled Saigon and began to maneuver for their final assault. By the morning of 30 April, it was all over. When the North Vietnamese tanks broke through the gates of the Presidential Palace in Saigon, the South Vietnamese surrendered. The Vietnam War was over. |
1969 The US Supreme Court unanimously strikes down laws prohibiting private possession of obscene material.
| 1969
First Request for Comments on computer protocols
^top^ Steve Crocker, a graduate student at the University of California at Los Angeles, sent the first Request for Comments (RFC) to a group of graduate students working on protocols for computer networking. The federally-funded ARPA project, the computer networking initiative that spawned the Internet, had contracted for specially designed hardware to create a computer network linking UCLA, U.C. Santa Barbara, Stanford Research Institute, and the University of Utah. While the hardware was almost ready, no one had yet developed software standards that would tell the machines how to communicate. By default, an informal group of graduate students at the four universities began discussing basic protocols for computer-to-computer communications. Crocker, a member of the group, realized the group's discussions needed to be put down on paper to help organize their thoughts. On 07 April 1969, he sent out the first RFC, entitled "Host Software," which described the basic "handshake" between two computers. RFC Number 1 set the tone for the future development of the Internet. Its title and tone suggested an open dialogue among a friendly working group of people. A series of RFC's over the next several years established the basic technical protocols — as well as the basic social etiquette of the Internet. |
| 1964
IBM System 360 computer is presented
^top^ IBM chairman Tom Watson, Jr., charters a train to bring two hundred reporters from New York to IBM's Poughkeepsie plant, where he unveils a new line of IBM computers called System/360. The product line, which consists of a series of compatible computers, replaces all of IBM's previous computers. Before System/360, every IBM machine required custom software and programming. System/360 allowed one machine to run on another's programs. The company spent a reported $5 billion to develop the line: In the end, the gamble paid off. The System/360 line would make IBM the world's leading mainframe provider and would fuel the company's growth for the next three decades. |
| 1963
Tito becomes President-for-Life.
^top^ A new Yugoslav constitution proclaims Yugoslavia a Socialist Federal Republic and Tito its president for life. Formerly known as Josip Broz, Tito was born to a large peasant family in Croatia in 1892. At that time, Croatia was part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and in 1913 Broz was drafted into the Austro-Hungarian army. After the outbreak of World War I, he fought against Serbia and in 1915 was sent to the Russian front, where he was captured. In the prisoner-of-war camp, he converted to Bolshevism and in 1917 participated in the Russian Revolution. He fought in the Red Guard during the Russian Civil War and in 1920 returned to Croatia, which had been incorporated into the multinational but Serb-dominated kingdom of Yugoslavia. He joined the Communist Party of Yugoslavia (CPY) and was an effective organizer before his arrest as a political agitator in 1928. Released from prison in 1934, he rapidly rose in the ranks of the CPY and took the name Tito, which was a pseudonym he used in underground Party work. He went to the USSR to work with Comintern--the Soviet-led international Communist organization--and in 1937-38 survived Soviet leader Joseph Stalin's purge of the CPY leadership. In 1939, Tito became secretary-general of the CPY. In 1941, Axis forces invaded and occupied Yugoslavia, and Tito and his communist partisans emerged as the leaders of the anti-Nazi resistance. In 1944, Soviet forces liberated Yugoslavia, and in March 1945 Marshal Tito was installed as head of a new federal Yugoslav government. Non-communists were purged from the government, and in November 1945 Tito was elected Yugoslav premier in an election limited to candidates from the communist-dominated National Liberation Front. The same month, the Federal People's Republic of Yugoslavia, comprising the Balkan republics of Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Montenegro, Slovenia, and Macedonia, was proclaimed under a new constitution. Although the Yugoslav republics were granted autonomy over some of their affairs, Tito held the ultimate power and ruled dictatorially, suppressing opposition to his rule. He soon came into conflict with Moscow, which disapproved of his independent style, especially in foreign affairs, and in early 1948 Joseph Stalin attempted to purge the Yugoslav leadership. Tito maintained control, and later in 1948 the CPY was expelled from Cominform, the confederation of Eastern European communist parties. Isolated from the USSR and its satellites, Yugoslavia was courted by the West, which offered aid and military assistance, including an informal association with NATO. After Stalin's death in 1953, Yugoslav-Soviet relations gradually improved, but Tito was critical of the Soviet invasions of Hungary and Czechoslovakia, and attempted to develop common policies with countries unaligned with the United States or the USSR, such as Egypt and India. In 1953, Tito was elected Yugoslav president and was repeatedly re-elected until 1963, when his term was made unlimited. Although he used his secret police to purge political opponents, the average Yugoslavian enjoyed more freedoms than the inhabitants of any other communist country in Eastern Europe. Tito died in May 1980, just a few days before his 88th birthday. After the collapse of communism in 1989, ethnic tensions resurfaced, and in 1991 the Yugoslav federation broke apart, leaving only Serbia and Montenegro remaining in the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. In 1992, civil war erupted over Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic's attempts to keep ethnically Serbian areas in other republics under Yugoslav rule. |
| 1954
Eisenhower gives "domino theory" speech.
^top^ US President Dwight D. Eisenhower coins one of the most famous Cold War phrases when he suggests the fall of French Indochina to the communists could create a "domino" effect in Southeast Asia. The so-called "domino theory" dominated US thinking about Vietnam for the next decade. By early 1954, it was clear to many US policymakers that the French were failing in their attempt to re-establish colonial control in Indochina (Vietnam), which they lost during World War II when the Japanese took control of the area. The Vietnamese nationalists, led by the communist Ho Chi Minh, were on the verge of winning a stunning victory against French forces at the battle of Dien Bien Phu. In just a few weeks, representatives from the world's powers were scheduled to meet in Geneva to discuss a political settlement of the Vietnamese conflict. US officials were concerned that a victory by Ho's forces and/or an agreement in Geneva might leave a communist regime in control of all or part of Vietnam. In an attempt to rally congressional and public support for increased US aid to the French, President Eisenhower gives a historic press conference on 07 April 1954. He spent much of the speech explaining the significance of Vietnam to the United States. First was its economic importance, "the specific value of a locality in its production of materials that the world needs" (materials such as rubber, jute, and sulphur). There was also the "possibility that many human beings pass under a dictatorship that is inimical to the free world." Finally, the president noted, "You have broader considerations that might follow what you would call the 'falling domino' principle." Eisenhower expanded on this thought, explaining, "You have a row of dominoes set up, you knock over the first one, and what will happen to the last one is a certainty that it will go over very quickly." This would lead to disintegration in Southeast Asia, with the "loss of Indochina, of Burma, of Thailand, of the Peninsula, and Indonesia following." Eisenhower suggested that even Japan, which needed Southeast Asia for trade, would be in danger. Eisenhower's words had little direct immediate impact--a month later, Dien Bien Phu fell to the communists, and an agreement was reached at the Geneva Conference that left Ho's forces in control of northern Vietnam. In the long run, however, Eisenhower's announcement of the "domino theory" laid the foundation for US involvement in Vietnam. John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson both used the theory to justify their calls for increased US economic and military assistance to non-communist South Vietnam and, eventually, the commitment of US armed forces in 1965. |
| 1953
Hammarskjold elected UN Secretary General
^top^ By a vote of fifty-seven to one, Dag Hammarskjold, 47, of Sweden is elected secretary general of the United Nations. The son of Hjalmar Hammarskjold, a former prime minister of Sweden, he entered politics in 1930 as a secretary on a governmental committee on unemployment. Over the next decade, he served as a chairman for the National Bank of Sweden while undertaking a number of diplomatic missions to France and elsewhere. After World War II, he was appointed an adviser to the prime minister's cabinet on financial and economic problems, and proved instrumental in shaping Sweden's postwar economy. In 1947, he was appointed to the foreign ministry and in 1951, formally entered the cabinet as deputy foreign minister. In the same year, he traveled to the United Nations as vice chairman of the Swedish delegation and in 1952 was appointed acting chairman. Elected U.N. secretary general on the recommendation of the Security Council on 07 April 1953, he led missions to China, the Middle East, and elsewhere to become better acquainted with the U.N.'s member states and to arrange peace settlements. In 1957, he was unanimously re-elected secretary general. During his second term, he initiated and directed the United Nation's vigorous role in the Belgian Congo. He was on his fourth mission to the central African country when he was killed in a plane crash in Northern Rhodesia on 18 September 1961. He was succeeded as secretary general by U Thant of Myanamar. In the same year, Dag Hammarskjold was posthumously awarded the 1961 Nobel Prize for Peace. Hammarskjold endeared himself to Christians, after his death in 1961, through the 1964 publication of his spiritual journal, Markings. |
| 1948
World Health Day ^top^
The constitution of the World Health Organization, a specialized agency of the United Nations dedicated to improving health conditions in all nations, comes into force. The anniversary of the constitution's ratification has since been designated World Health Day. The constitution was drafted in 1946 by representatives to the International Health Conference meeting in New York City. The World Health Organization admits all sovereign states, including those not belonging to the United Nations, to full membership, and admits territories that are not self-governing to associate membership. In 1999, there were 191 members of the organization. The World Health Organization has made notable strides in checking leprosy, polio, malaria, cholera, and tuberculosis, and sponsors medical research on tropical and other diseases |
| 1939
Italy invades Albania ^top^
In an effort to mimic Hitler's conquest of Prague, Benito Mussolini's troops, though badly organized, invade and occupy Albania. Less than a week later, Italy would annex Albania. Although the invasion of Albania was intended as but a prelude to greater conquests in the Balkans, it proved a costly enterprise for Il Duce. Albania was already dependent on Italy's economy, so had little to offer the invaders. And future exploits in neighboring nations, in Greece in particular, proved to be disastrous for the Italians. |
| 1934
Farm-Relief Act ^top^
Congress seemingly came to the aid of the nation's farmers by passing the Jones-Connally Farm-Relief Act. The bill effectively placed an expanded roster of farm products under the control of the Agricultural Adjustment Administration (AAA). Established in 1933, the AAA was charged with delivering farmers from the woes of the Depression by slashing production and increasing prices. Thanks to legislation like the Jones-Connally bill, as well as the controversial decision to destroy ten million acres of cotton and six million baby pigs, the AAA was soon able to boost prices and incomes for larger-scale farmers (an extended drought also played a part in hiking crop prices). However, sharecroppers, and small and tenant farmers did not readily reap benefits from the agency's programs. In 1936, the Supreme Court deemed the legislation that had fostered the AAA unconstitutional and forced Congress to draft new plans for rescuing farmers. |
| 1927
Telecast of sound and moving image.
^top^ Employees at Bell Telephone Laboratories in New York City gather to watch a 2-by-3 inch image of Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover reading a speech in Washington DC. Hoover reads the speech into a telephone so viewers can both see and hear him. The image is transmitted at eighteen images per second. |
1915 The first coast-to-coast commercial telephone service is established between New York and California. A call costs $20.70 for the first three minutes and $6.75 for each additional minute.
1914 The British House of Commons passes the Irish Home Rule Bill.
1891 Nebraska introduces the 8 hour work day
1888 Start of Sherlock Holmes's adventure Yellow Face.
1865 Engagement at High Bridge, Virginia
1865 Engagement at Cumberland Church, Virginia
1865 Siege at Spanish Fort, Alabama continues
1863 Naval attack on Charleston, South Carolina
1862 Union forces led by General Ulysses S. Grant defeat the Confederates at the Battle of Shiloh (Pittsburg Landing), Tennessee. Island #10 surrenders after long siege.
1862 Siege of Yorktown, Virginia continues
1831 Dom Pedro abdicates to son, Dom Pedro II crowned emperor of Brazil
| 1805
Lewis and Clark leave winter quarters.
^top^ After a long winter, the Lewis and Clark expedition departs its camp among the Mandan Indians and resumes its journey West along the Missouri River. The Corps of Discovery had begun its voyage the previous spring, and it arrived at the large Mandan and Minnetaree villages along the upper Missouri River (north of present-day Bismarck, North Dakota) in late October. Once at the villages, Meriwether Lewis and William Clark directed the men to build a sturdy log fort. The following winter was a harsh one, but the expedition had plenty of provisions. The two captains made the best of their enforced halt, making copious notes in their journals and preparing maps of their route. Most importantly, they met frequently with the local Indians, who provided them with valuable information about the mysterious country that lay ahead. As spring came to the upper Missouri, Lewis and Clark prepared to resume their journey. Lewis wrote a long report for President Thomas Jefferson that would be sent back down to St. Louis with 16 men traveling on the expedition's large keelboat. Although Lewis had yet to explore any truly unknown country, his report provided a good deal of valuable information on the upper Missouri River region and its inhabitants. He optimistically predicted the expedition would be able to reach the Pacific and make a good start on the return journey before the coming winter. "You may therefore expect me to meet you at Monachello [Monticello] in September 1806," he told the president. In fact, the journey was more difficult and slow than Lewis anticipated. The expedition actually spent the winter of 1805-06 along the Pacific Coast, and Lewis did not finally meet with Thomas Jefferson in Washington, D.C., until 01 January 1807. However, as Lewis and Clark prepared to leave Fort Mandan on this day in 1805, they did not know the trials ahead and were likely filled with optimism and excitement. As the keelboat shoved off and started down the Missouri with Lewis' report to Jefferson, the Corps of Discovery (and their female guide, Sacagawea) resumed the far more difficult task of rowing their small boats upstream. That night Lewis wrote in his journal that, "Our vessels consisted of six small canoes, and two large pirogues. This little fleet altho' not quite so rispectable as those of Columbus or Capt. Cook, were still viewed by us with as much pleasure as those deservedly famed adventurers ever beheld theirs." As Lewis began his journey into a land "on which the foot of civilized man had never trodden," he proclaimed this day of departure as "among the most happy of my life." |
1794
(18 germinal an II) DURAND Nicolas, secrétaire de la municipalité
de Coupray, y demeurant, département de la Haute Marne, condamné à la déportation,
par le tribunal criminel dudit département, pour avoir tenu des propos inciviques.1788 first settlement in Ohio, at Marietta
1712 Slave revolt in New Yolk City.
1541 Spanish founder of the Jesuits Francis Xavier, on his 35th birthday, and three friends set sail from Lisbon, Portugal for Goa. They would become the first Catholic missionaries to travel to India.
[< click on image for portrait of Saint Francis Xavier baptizing a queen]
