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Events, deaths, births, of APR 16
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• Guillotinés par la Révolution... • Crack code breaker is born... • Ship explodes in Texas City... • LSD found to be hallucinogen... • Saint Bernadette dies... • Launch of Apollo 16... • Chevrolet suicide... • Lenin returns from exile… • “Cold War” is named... • Kingsley Amis is born... • France Telecom's Web service... • Pentagon's computers vulnerable to hackers... • Apple outpaces profit expectations... • US resumes bombing North Vietnam...
Armless AliOn a 16 April:

2003 Shortly after he arrives at a Kuwait hospital, Ali Ismail Abbas, 12 [12 April photo, in a Baghdad hospital >], is operated upon to graft temporary skin on the burns covering some 35% of his body, which he suffered as he sheets caught fire on or about 30 March 2003, just after midnight, when a US missile hit his Zafaraniya (50 km from Baghdad) home, also causing him to lose both arms (they were shattered by the explosion and later amputated in the local hospital), his father Ismail, his 5-months-pregnant mother Azhar, his younger brother Abbas, and 7 other relatives. His six sisters, aged 6 to 20, and a stepbrother, 10, survive, several of them wounded. While Ali receives all this publicity, there are hundreds of other injured Kuwaiti children left behind where looted hospitals, deprived of electricity, cannot take adequate care of them.

2001 First Union Corp., the 6th largest US bank, announces that it is buying competitor Wachovia Corp. for $13.4 billion in stock, to make under the Wachovia name the 4th biggest US banking company, with $324 billion in assets, trailing only Citigroup Inc., J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. and Bank of America. Analysts doubt that the two disparate corporate cultures of Wachovia and First Union can merge efficiently.
2000 The International Monetary Fund concluded a protest-marred opening session in Washington with a statement repeating past pledges to seek greater debt relief for the poorest countries and reform the IMF so it could better prevent financial crises.
1998 Pentagon computers found vulnerable to hackers.      ^top^
      The Pentagon announces that a team of ethical hackers discovered security flaws in Defense Department computers. After two weeks of hacking, the security team accessed a US electric power grid that would let the hackers shut down power across the country. The previous February, the Pentagon's unclassified computers had been hit with an organized hack attack targeting personnel records. The Pentagon said it planned to spend about $1 billion a year for several years to improve its computer security.
1998 Apple outpaces profit expectations       ^top^
      Apple bounced back from two years of losses: Quarterly reports, released on 16 April 1998, showed that Apple exceeded analysts' profit expectations for the second straight quarter. For the first time in two years, Macintosh shipments began to increase. Apple's recovery would continue with the introduction of the popular iMac the following May.
1996 France Telecom starts Web service.       ^top^
      France Telecom unveils a new consumer Internet service, Wanadoo, designed to bring the Internet to a mass audience. Some fourteen million French customers already used the Minitel, a national online system introduced in 1984, which allowed customers to view train schedules, book tickets, and perform other transactions. The company said it would work with Microsoft to develop the network but would distribute both Netscape and Microsoft Internet browsers. France Telecom hoped to avoid cannibalizing its Minitel online service by building Minitel access into Wanadoo.
1993  Presta juramento el nuevo presidente de Níger, Mahaman Usman, el primero elegido democráticamente en más de tres décadas.
1992  Entra en vigor en Vietnam la nueva Constitución, que permite la propiedad privada.
1992 The US House of Representatives ethics committee lists 303 current and former lawmakers who had overdrawn their House bank accounts.
1991 US President George Bush announces that US forces will be sent into northern Iraq to assist Kurdish refugees.
1984  Vaselin Djuradevic es elegido nuevo presidente de Yugoslavia.
1982  Asturias, paralizada por una huelga general.
1975 The Khmer Rouge Rebels win control of Cambodia after a five-year civil war. They rename the country Kampuchea and begin a reign of terror.
1972 US resumes bombing of Hanoi and Haiphong after 4 years.       ^top^
      In an effort to help blunt the ongoing North Vietnamese Nguyen Hue Offensive, the United States resumes bombing of Hanoi and Haiphong after a four-year lull. In the first use of B-52s against both Hanoi and Haiphong, and the first attacks against both cities since November 1968, 18 B-52s and about 100 US Navy and Air Force fighter-bombers struck supply dumps near Haiphong's harbor. Sixty fighter-bombers hit petroleum storage facilities near Hanoi, with another wave of planes striking later in the afternoon. White House spokesmen announced that the United States would bomb military targets anywhere in Vietnam in order to help the South Vietnamese defend against the communist onslaught. These actions were part of the US response to the North Vietnamese offensive, which had begun on 30 March. The North Vietnamese had launched a massive invasion designed to strike the knockout blow that would win the war for the communists. The attack was called the Nguyen Hue Offensive by the North Vietnamese, but was also more commonly known to Americans as the "Easter Offensive." The attacking force of North Vietnamese included 14 infantry divisions and 26 separate regiments, with more than 120'000 soldiers and approximately 1200 tanks and other armored vehicles. The main North Vietnamese objectives, in addition to Quang Tri in the north, were Kontum in the Central Highlands, and An Loc farther to the south. The fighting, which continued into the fall, was some of the most desperate of the war as the South Vietnamese fought for their very survival. They prevailed against the invaders with the help of US advisors and massive American airpower.
1972 Apollo 16 departs for Moon       ^top^
      From Cape Canaveral, Florida, Apollo 16, the fifth of six US lunar landing missions, was successfully launched on its 283'000 km [surely more than that: the least-energy path is far from the shortest straight line] journey to the moon. On 20 April, astronauts John W. Young and Charles M. Duke descended to the lunar surface from Apollo 16, which remained in orbit around the moon with a third astronaut, Thomas K. Mattingly, in command. Young and Duke remained on the moon for over nearly three days, and spent over twenty hours exploring the surface of earth's only satellite. The two astronauts used the Lunar Rover vehicle to collect over 100 kg of rock before returning to Apollo 16 on 23 April. Four days later the three astronauts returned to earth, safely splashing down in the Pacific Ocean.
1972 Two giants pandas arrive in the US, from China.
1970  Comienza en Viena una conferencia entre soviéticos y estadounidense sobre limitación de armas estratégicas, SALT.
1966 Rhodesian PM Ian Smith breaks diplomatic relations with Britain.
1966  La Iglesia católica polaca critica severamente al Gobierno. El cardenal Wyszynski declara "tener intención de desempeñar un papel político".
1947 Bernard Baruch coins the term "Cold War"       ^top^
      Multimillionaire and financier Bernard Baruch, in a speech given during the unveiling of his portrait in the South Carolina House of Representatives, describing relations between the United States and the Soviet Union, says: "Let us not be deceived — we are today in the midst of a cold war.".
      The phrase stuck, and for over 40 years it was a mainstay in the language of American diplomacy. Baruch had served as an advisor to presidents on economic and foreign policy issues since the days of Woodrow Wilson. In 1919, he was one of the US advisers at the Paris Peace Conference that ended World War I. During the 1930s, he frequently advised Franklin D. Roosevelt and members of Congress on international finance and issues of neutrality. After World War II, he remained a trusted adviser to the new administration of Harry S. Truman.
      His speech in April 1947, however, was given in a completely different context. A portrait of the native South Carolinian was to be hung in the state's House of Representatives, and Baruch was invited for its unveiling. Most guests expected that he would give a brief talk, but Baruch instead launched into a scorching attack on the industrial labor problems in the country. It was only through "unity" between labor and management, he declared, that the United States could hope to play its role as the major force by which "the world can renew itself physically or spiritually." He called for longer workweeks, no-strike pledges from unions, and no-layoff pledges from management. It was imperative that US business and industry pull itself together, Baruch warned. "Let us not be deceived-we are today in the midst of a cold war. Our enemies are to be found abroad and at home. Let us never forget this: Our unrest is the heart of their success. The peace of the world is the hope and the goal of our political system; it is the despair and defeat of those who stand against us. We can depend only on ourselves."
      The term "Cold War" was instantly embraced by US newspapers and magazines as an apt description of the situation between the United States and the Soviet Union: a war without fighting or bloodshed, but a battle nonetheless.
1947 Lens to provide zoom effects demonstrated (NYC)
1947 Financier and presidential confidant Bernard M. Baruch said in a speech at the South Carolina statehouse: "Let us not be deceived — we are today in the midst of a cold war."
1945 Lend-Lease extended for one year.       ^top^
      Four days after President Franklin Roosevelt passed away--the US federal government extends for one year one of Roosevelt's key pieces of wartime legislation, the Lend-Lease Act. The Lend-Lease bill was originally enacted in 1941, when the US was wavering between entering World War II and remaining neutral. Roosevelt, however, was increasingly committed to the fight against fascism; he was also under growing pressure from British Prime Minister Winston Churchill to cease the practice of selling, rather than lending or outright giving, war materials to England. The Lend-Lease legislation remedied this situation, as America now served as "the arsenal of democracy," providing Great Britain with money and military machinery; in return, England could make repayments either "in kind or property, or any other direct or indirect benefit which the President deems satisfactory." As the war progressed, the US expanded the Lend Lease system to include China and Russia. All told, the US funneled $50.6 billion worth of Lend-Lease aid to the Allies during the war, the majority of which went to Britain and the USSR.
1945 In his first speech to Congress, US President Truman pledges to carry out the war and peace policies of his late predecessor, President Franklin Roosevelt.
1945 US troops enter Nuremberg, Germany, during WW II.
1944 The destroyer USS Laffey survives large-scale damage from attacks by 22 Japanese aircraft off Okinawa.
1943 Hallucinogenic effects of LSD discovered       ^top^
      In Basel, Switzerland, Albert Hoffman, a Swiss chemist working at the Sandoz pharmaceutical research laboratory, accidentally consumed LSD-25, a synthetic drug he had created in 1938 as part of his research into the medicinal value of lysergic acid compounds. After taking the drug, formally known as lysergic acid diethylamide, Dr. Hoffman was disturbed by unusual sensations and hallucinations.
      In his notes he related the experience:
"Last Friday, April 16, 1943, I was forced to interrupt my work in the laboratory in the middle of the afternoon and proceed home, being affected by a remarkable restlessness, combined with a slight dizziness. At home I lay down and sank into a not unpleasant, intoxicated-like condition characterized by an extremely stimulated imagination. In a dreamlike state, with eyes closed (I found the daylight to be unpleasantly glaring), I perceived an uninterrupted stream of fantastic pictures, extraordinary shapes with intense, kaleidoscopic play of colors. After some two hours this condition faded away."
      After intentionally taking the drug to confirm that it had caused this strange physical and mental state, Dr. Hoffman published a report announcing his discovery, and so LSD made its entry into the world as a hallucinogenic drug.
      Widespread use of the so-called "mind-expanding" drug did not begin until the 1960s, when counter-culture figures such as Albert M. Hubbard, Timothy Leary, and Ken Kesey publicly expounded on the benefits of using LSD as a recreational drug. The manufacture, sale, possession, and use of LSD, known to cause negative reactions in many of those who take it, was eventually made illegal across the United States.
1937  La Legión Cóndor alemana bombardea la población de Guernica (España) durante la Guerra Civil española.
1930  Comienza una guerra civil en China.
1926 The first Book-of-the-Month Club selection is distributed: Lolly Willows, or, The Loving Huntsman by Sylvia Townsend Warner. It goes to the nearly 5000 joined the Club, established in New York City in April.
1917 (03 April Julian) Lenin returns to Russia to lead Bolshevik Revolution.       ^top^
     Vladimir Lenin, leader of the revolutionary Bolshevik Party, returns to Petrograd from Switzerland, after a decade of exile, to take the reins of the Russian Revolution. One month before, Czar Nicholas II had been forced from power when Russian army troops joined a workers' revolt in Petrograd, the Russian capital. Born Vladimir Ilich Ulyanov in 1870, Lenin was drawn to the revolutionary cause after his brother was executed in 1887 for plotting to assassinate Czar Alexander III. He studied law and took up practice in Petrograd (now St. Petersburg), where he associated with revolutionary Marxist circles. In 1895, he helped organize Marxist groups in the capital into the "Union for the Struggle for the Liberation of the Working Class," which attempted to enlist workers to the Marxist cause.
      In December 1895, Lenin and the other leaders of the Union were arrested. Lenin was jailed for a year and then exiled to Siberia for a term of three years. After the end of his exile, in 1900, Lenin went to Western Europe, where he continued his revolutionary activity. It was during this time that he adopted the pseudonym Lenin. In 1902, he published a pamphlet titled What Is to Be Done? which argued that only a disciplined party of professional revolutionaries could bring socialism to Russia. In 1903, he met with other Russian Marxists in London and established the Russian Social-Democratic Workers' Party (RSDWP). However, from the start there was a split between Lenin's Bolsheviks (Majoritarians), who advocated militarism, and the Mensheviks (Minoritarians), who advocated a democratic movement toward socialism. These two groups increasingly opposed each other within the framework of the RSDWP, and Lenin made the split official at a 1912 conference of the Bolshevik Party.
      After the outbreak of the Russian Revolution of 1905, Lenin returned to Russia. The revolution, which consisted mainly of strikes throughout the Russian empire, came to an end when Nicholas II promised reforms, including the adoption of a Russian constitution and the establishment of an elected legislature. However, once order was restored, the czar nullified most of these reforms, and in 1907 Lenin was again forced into exile. Lenin opposed World War I, which began in 1914, as an imperialistic conflict and called on proletariat soldiers to turn their guns on the capitalist leaders who sent them down into the murderous trenches. For Russia, World War I was an unprecedented disaster: Russian casualties were greater than those sustained by any nation in any previous war. Meanwhile, the economy was hopelessly disrupted by the costly war effort, and in March 1917 riots and strikes broke out in Petrograd over the scarcity of food. Demoralized army troops joined the strikers, and on 15 March Nicholas II was forced to abdicate, ending centuries of czarist rule.
      In the aftermath of the February Revolution (known as such because of Russia's use of the Julian calendar), power was shared between the ineffectual Provincial Government and the soviets, or "councils," of soldiers' and workers' committees. After the outbreak of the February Revolution, German authorities allowed Lenin and his lieutenants to cross Germany en route from Switzerland to Sweden in a sealed railway car. Berlin hoped (correctly) that the return of the anti-war Socialists to Russia would undermine the Russian war effort, which was continuing under the Provincial Government. Lenin called for the overthrow of the Provincial Government by the soviets, and he was condemned as a "German agent" by the government's leaders. In July, he was forced to flee to Finland, but his call for "peace, land, and bread" met with increasing popular support, and the Bolsheviks won a majority in the Petrograd soviet.
      In October, Lenin secretly returned to Petrograd, and on 07 November the Bolshevik-led Red Guards deposed the Provisional Government and proclaimed soviet rule. Lenin became the virtual dictator of the world's first Marxist state. His government made peace with Germany, nationalized industry, and distributed land but, beginning in 1918, had to fight a devastating civil war against czarist forces. In 1920, the czarists were defeated, and in 1922 the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) was established. Upon Lenin's death in early 1924, his body was embalmed and placed in a mausoleum near the Moscow Kremlin. Petrograd was renamed Leningrad in his honor. After a struggle of succession, fellow revolutionary Joseph Stalin succeeded Lenin as leader of the Soviet Union.
1917  Gran Guerra: Comienza la ofensiva francesa del "Chemin des Dames".
1908 Sale of the first Oakland car.       ^top^
      The first Oakland car is sold to a private owner. The Oakland Car Company was the creation of Edward Murphy, the founder of the Pontiac Buggy Company. Murphy was one of the most respected designers in the carriage industry. He decided to enter the car business, and invited Alanson Brush, the designer of the Brush Runabout, to join him. Brush had been a chief engineer at Cadillac; his contract with Cadillac included a no-competition clause that had just ended when he met Murphy. Anxious to get back into the design race, Brush built a car for Murphy that was ready in 1908. Oakland ran independently for less than a year before it was purchased by William C. Durant and absorbed into Durant's holding company, General Motors. Durant's purchase of Oakland is often regarded as mysterious, considering the company had enjoyed little success and had produced less than a thousand cars at the time Durant purchased it. Often accused on "intuitive" business practices, Durant claimed that his purchase of Oakland, while exhausting his cash flow, provided GM with a more impressive portfolio on which to base their stock interest. Nevertheless his decision to purchase Oakland, later called Pontiac, forced Durant out of control of GM.
1871  Constitución del Imperio alemán, que permaneció vigente hasta la revolución de noviembre de 1918.
1865 Capture of Columbus and West Point, Georgia
1863 Siege of Suffolk, Virginia by Confederates continues
1862 Siege of Yorktown, Virginia continues
1862 President Lincoln signs an act abolishing slavery in the District of Columbia, an important step in the long road toward full emancipation and enfranchisement for African Americans.
1862 Confederate President Jefferson Davis approved conscription act for white males between 18 and 35.
1854 San Salvador destroyed by earthquake.
1818 The US Senate ratified the Rush-Bagot amendment to form an unarmed US-Canada border.
1794 (27 germinal an II) PAPAREL 1er frère, ex curé de Vabres, BRAJON Gilbert (dit Pied-de-Pastière), tonnelier, domiciliés à Mende, et GASE, ecclésiastique, et RABIER aîné, domiciliés à Chanac, département de la Lozère, sont condamnés à mort comme séditieux, par contumace, par le tribunal criminel dudit département.
1794 (27 germinal an II) DORCHES Jacques Joseph, cultivateur, domicilié à Sameon, département du Nord, est condamné à être déporté comme contre-révolutionnaire par le tribunal militaire de l'armée du Nord.
1794 En France révolutionnaire, loi du 27 germinal, qui prévoit la peine de mort.
1789 US President-elect George Washington leaves Mount Vernon, Virginia, for his inauguration in New York
1787 The first production of a US play to be successfully mounted by a professional company debuts in New York: The Contrast, by Royall Tyler, at the John Street Theater. It glorifies US simplicity and idealism.
1777 At the Battle of Bennington, New England's minutemen routed British regulars.
1746  Las tropas que defendía el derecho al trono de Jacobo III, el Pretendiente, hijo de Jacobo II, son derrotadas por el ejército de Guillermo II, Rey de Inglaterra.
1622  Armand Jean Duplessis cardinal de Richelieu es nombrado primer ministro de Francia, cargo que ejerció bajo los reinados de Luis XIII y Luis XIV.
1581  Felipe II es proclamado rey de Portugal en el monasterio de Tomar. [¿monasterio? ¿y después fue a celebrar en la cantina de Rezar?]
1521 German reformer Martin Luther, 34, arrived at the Diet of Worms, where he afterward defended his "Ninety-Five Theses," first advanced in
1517 At the Diet, Luther refused to recant his ideas 'unless overcome by Scripture.'
0642  Tulga, rey visigodo hispánico, es derrocado por Chindasvinto, hijo de Chintila, nombrado rey por una revuelta nobiliaria. Sin embargo Chindasvinto se convertirá en uno de los monarcas más enérgicos contra la nobleza, ejecutando a unos 700 miembros de esa clase social mientras que un elevado número era enviado al destierro, posiblemente a raiz de una conspiración sufrida en los inicios de su reinado. Puso en marcha una sólida política de fortalecimiento de la corona, exigiendo un juramento de fidelidad a los altos dignatarios. También se preocupó por regular la vida social y económica a través de un Código legal que promulgará su hijo y sucesor Recesvinto. Las medidas de saneamiento fiscal completan un glorioso reinado (642-653).
0556 Pelagius I begins his reign as Pope
TO THE TOP
Deaths which occurred on an April 16:       ^top^
2003 Graham Stuart Thomas, 94, English gardener, author of 19 books on gardening, from Old Shrub Roses (1955) to The Garden Through the Year (2002)
2003 Three innocent Iraqis, shot from rooftops by US troops in Mosul. There were people inside the central bank, which is next door to the governor's office. They had been looting money for several days. Police were standing outside the bank and fired shots in the air to disperse the looters. The US soldiers, apparently thinking that they were being fired at, shoot at the people in front of the governor's office, rather than at the looters, and also hit some people in a passing bus. 17 innocent civilians are wounded.
2003 All 70 crew members of Chinese submarine No.361, suffocated during a descent by its diesel engines running and using up all the oxygen. They ought to have shut off and power been provided by batteries. The accident occurs during a silent, no-contact drill, so that it is not discovered until 26 April, and then the Chinese authorities do not reveal it until 02 May, without mention of date, place, or cause. It was a Ming-class submarine, built by the Chinese based on an obsolete Soviet model
2001 Three Syrian soldiers, by Israeli planes attacking a Syrian radar station in Lebanon's central mountain, 10 km west of Chtaura, in retaliation for Syria not controling Hezbollah guerrillas, who on 14 April killed an Israeli soldier near the Chebaa Farms area, where the borders of Lebanon, Syria and Israel meet. It is the first Israeli attack on Syrians since 1982.
2001 Mullah Mohammed Rabbani, 44, of cancer. He was head of Afghanistan's Taliban governing ministers' council.
2000  Policarpo Paz García, político y militar hondureño.
1998 Alberto P. Calderón, Argentinian engineer and mathematician born on 14 September 1920.
1997 Doris Angleton, by 13 bullets from two guns, in her home in the River Oaks area of Houston, Texas. Her husband, Robert Angleton, became a suspect. He implicated his brother Roger, who in February 1998 committed suicide in his prison cell, leaving notes that he had killed Doris and tried to frame his brother in an extortion attempt. These notes were not allowed in the murder trial of Robert, who nevertheless was acquitted on 12 August 1998.
1988 Abu Jihad, lugarteniente de Yasser Arafat y "número 2" de la OLP, asesinado en Túnez por un comando de 30 personas supuestamente pertenecientes a los servicios secretos de Israel.
1984  Helcías Martán Góngora, poeta colombiano.
1978 Richard Lindner, US painter born in 1901. — MORE ON LINDNER AT ART “4” APRIL with links to images.
1972  Yusunari Kawabata, novelista japonés, Premio Nobel de Literatura 1968.
1965 Floris Jespers, Belgian artist born in 1889.
1947: 576 persons in Texas City       ^top^
as a freighter full of explosive chemicals explodes.
      At 09:12, in Texas City's port on Galveston Bay, a fire aboard the French freighter Grandcamp had ignited ammonium nitrate fertilizer and other explosive materials in the ship's hold.
      The port of Texas City, a small industrial city with a population of about eighteen thousand, was teaming with chemical plants and oil refineries that provided steady, good-paying jobs for much of the town. In such an industrial environment, minor accidents and chemical fires were rather commonplace, and many stood around the port casually watching the reddish orange blaze that broke out on the Grandcamp early on a Wednesday morning. Twenty-seven members of the Texas City Volunteer Fire Department were called to the port to douse the flames, but the ship was so hot that the water from their fire hoses was instantly vaporized.
      At 09:20, the fire caught the freighter's stores of ammonium nitrate, a compound used to make dynamite, and Texas City exploded. Wood-frame houses in the city were flattened, additional blasts were triggered at nearby chemical plants, and fires broke out across the city. The mushroom cloud from the blast rose two thousand feet and fragments of the Grandcamp were hurled thousands of meters into the air, landing on buildings and people. The ship's anchor, weighing 1.5 tons, was flung three kilometers and embedded three meters into the ground at the Pan American refinery. The explosion was heard as far as 250 km away.
      Devastating fires burned for days, and on 17 April, the freighter High Flyer, also loaded with nitrates, exploded, further devastating the port and causing a new string of explosions at nearby plants. Fortunately, most of Texas City's population had been evacuated by then, and the city's losses were primarily material. By late in the day on 18 April, emergency crews had the situation under control. Some eyewitnesses said the scene was worse than anything they had seen in Europe during World War II. The Grandcamp explosion was the most devastating industrial accident in US history, killing nearly six hundred people and wounding over three thousand.
1946 Arthur Chevrolet, 60, suicide.       ^top^
     He was the brother of Chevrolet namesake Louis Chevrolet. Louis and Arthur made their names as car racers in the first decade of the century. Known for their fearless driving styles, both brothers raced against American racing legend Barney Oldfield. The brothers came into contact with General Motors founder William Durant when Durant-impressed by their racing talents-invited the pair to audition for the job of chauffeur. He reportedly took them to a track and raced them. Louis won the race, but Durant gave Arthur the chauffeur job. He offered Louis a position on GM's elite Buick Racing Team. Chevrolet raced and designed for Buick during the years of Durant's GM Presidency.
      When Durant stepped down, new GM President Charles Nash took the money away from the Buick Racing Team. Durant asked Louis and Arthur to start a new venture. As Louis put it, Durant asked him to build a car, "So I built one." Born racers, Louis and Arthur designed a performance car that became the first Chevrolet. Durant wanted something to compete with GM's lower-priced models. Disappointed with Durant's demands for an economy car, Louis and Arthur eventually left Chevrolet to pursue their own racing and design endeavors.
      The brothers worked closely together for their entire careers. They designed aircraft engines, car engines, and continued to race. In spite of designing many successful engines, the Brothers Chevrolet had little gift for finance, and they often were pushed out of their endeavors before they could reap the rewards due to them. By 1933, both men were broke and their racing careers were over. Louis returned to Detroit to work as a mechanic in GM's Chevrolet division. In the late 1930s he suffered a series of strokes which incapacitated him and finally killed him. With his brother dead and no fortune to speak of, Arthur, a broken man, took his own life.
1943  Carlos Arniches, dramaturgo español.
1942  José Moreno Carbonero, pintor español.
1941 Émile Bernard, French painter and writer born on 28 April 1868. — MORE ON BERNARD AT ART “4” APRIL with links to images.
1932 Walter Launt Palmer, US painter born on 01 August 1854. — MORE ON PALMER AT ART “4” APRIL with links to images.
1919 Paul Mansion, Belgian mathematician born on 03 June 1844.
1914 George William Hill, US mathematician born on 03 March 1838.
1879 Marie Bernarde Soubirous, 35,       ^top^
canonized in 1933 as Saint Bernadette, at the convent of Notre-Dame de Nevers.
      On 11 February 1858, St. Bernadette, then a fourteen-year-old French peasant girl living in southern France, first claimed to have had a vision of the Virgin Mary. The apparitions, which totaled eighteen before the end of the year, occurred in a grotto of a massive rock promontory near Lourdes, France. Marie explained that the Virgin Mary revealed herself as the Immaculate Conception, asked that a chapel be built on the site of the vision, and told her to drink from a fountain in the grotto, which Marie apparently discovered by digging into the earth.
      Although her claims garnered widespread attention, the church authorities, skeptical of her visions, subjected her to severe examinations and abuse. After years of mistreatment at the hands of the authorities and the curious public, she was finally allowed to enter the convent of Notre-Dame de Nevers, where she died of ill heath in 1879.
      The sight of the manifestations subsequently became the most famous modern shrine of the Virgin Mary. Today, millions travel to Lourdes every year to visit St. Bernadette's grotto.
1879 Jacob Jan van der Maaten, Dutch artist born in 1820.
1849 Alexis Charles Henri Maurice Clérel de Tocqueville, French political scientist, historian, and politician, born on 29 July 1805. He is best known for his 4-volume De la Démocratie (1840), treating in great part of the US. But he did not favor democracy for Algerians. In 1841 he wrote: “J'ai souvent entendu en France des hommes que je respecte, mais que je n'approuve pas, trouver mauvais qu'on brûlât les moissons, qu'on vidât les silos et enfin qu'on s'emparât des hommes sans armes, des femmes et des enfants. Ce sont là, suivant moi, des nécessités fâcheuses, mais auxquelles tout peuple qui voudra faire la guerre aux Arabes sera obligé de se soumettre.” and: “Quoi qu'il en soit, on peut dire d'une manière générale que toutes les libertés politiques doivent être suspendues en Algérie.”
1828 Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes, Spanish painter born on 30 March 1746. — MORE ON GOYA AT ART “4” APRIL with links to images.
1825 Johann Heinrich Füssli, Swiss British Romantic painter born in 1741. — MORE ON FÜSSLI AT ART “4” APRIL with links to images.
1817 Martin Drölling, French academic painter baptized as an infant on 19 September 1752. -— MORE ON DRÖLLING AT ART “4” APRIL with links to images.
1812 Martin von Molitor, Austrian artist born on 20 February 1759.

1794 (27 germinal an II) Condamnés à mort par la Révolution:       ^top^
Par le tribunal révolutionnaire de Paris:
CASSEGRAIN François Clément, ex curé, âgé de 76 ans, né et domicilié à Pithiviers, comme convaincu de manœuvres contre-révolutionnaires.
PELLETIER Hugues Louis Jean, (dit Chambure), sous directeur des subsistances militaire, âgé de 30 ans, natif de Jouin département de l'Yonne, domicilié à Armes, département du Pas-de-Calais, comme conspirateur, ayant manifesté hautement son affection pour Condé dont il était l’agent.
SULLEROT Nicolas, charpentier, âgé de 33 ans, né et domicilié à Sens, département de l'Yonne, comme ayant voyagé avec un faux passeport, et comme ayant tenu dans la prison où il était détenu à Châteaudun, des propos contre-révolutionnaire.
Domiciliés dans le département des Bouches du Rhône, par le tribunal criminel ou révolutionnaire dudit département:
MOLLIES Joseph, ferblanctier, domicilié à Marseille, comme contre-révolutionnaire.
     ... comme fédéralistes:
ROSTAN Job Marie Honoré, négociant, ex noble, domicilié à Marseille.
BERANGER Jean Baptiste, perruquier, domicilié à Allauch, canton de Marseille.
DECOUR Joseph, cultivateur, et MARTIN Denys, cultivateur propriétaire, domiciliés à Eyragues.
Domiciliés dans le département de la Lozère, par le tribunal criminel dudit département, comme séditieux:
BERGOUGNE, (dit Delroc), gendarme, et VAMMALLE Antoine, domiciliés à Chanac, canton de Mende.
BOISSONODE (dit Lafage), et GROUSSET, domiciliés à Salmon, canton de Marvejols.
MONESTIER Placide, domicilié à Laval.
PAPAREL, 2ème frère, ex vicaire, domicilié à Javois.
CHEVALIER (dit Picard), domicilié à Merdes [sic].
     ... domiciliés à Mende:
BOREL, ex abbé. — DESFONDS, fils, ex abbé. — DUPARC René, valet-de-chambre de l'ex évêque. — PARADAN (dit Bidet). — LAURANS Victor.
Ailleurs:
DESOLMES J. M. Joseph, ex vicaire de St Montanes, domicilié à Arlebose, département de l'Ardèche, comme réfractaire à la loi par le tribunal criminel dudit département.
MANZON Alexis, 24 ans, né à Besançon, fils d'Esprit et de Devaux N. fourrier au 21° régiment de chasseur à cheval, guillotiné à Arras
MUSSON Pierre Nicolas,59 ans, né à Arras, notaire, époux de Grossemy Louise Alexandre, à Arras
MEYNARD Jean, meunier, 48 ans, et GOMBEAU Marie, femme de Guillaume Meynard, âgée de 48 ans, meunière, nés et domiciliés à Tauriac, département de la Gironde, par la commission militaire de Bordeaux, comme corrupteurs de comestibles, en mettant dans la farine de la cendre de lessive et autre corps étrangers nuisibles à la santé.
PAVET Louise, ex religieuse, domiciliée à Alençon département de l’Orne, comme receleuse de prêtres réfractaires, par le tribunal criminel du département de la Sarthe.

DELVAQUE Jacques Théodore, âgé de 75 ans, ex capitaine, décédé en la maison de réclusion de Vivier (Arras).
1793 Condamnés à mort par la Révolution:       ^top^
Comme brigands de la Vendée, domiciliés dans le département de la Vendée, par la commission militaire séante aux Sables:
LACHAISE François, maçon, et TOUTBLANC Jacques, farinier, domiciliés à St Hilaire-de-Rié.
MAROILLEAU Jacques, agriculteur, domicilié à St Hilaire-de-Talmont.
Domiciliés dans le département de l'Ardèche, par le tribunal criminel dudit département, comme conspirateurs:
AUJOULAS Jacques, journalier, domicilié à Brahic, canton de Tanargues.
BOISSIN J. B. Placide, (dit la Bastide), ex abbé, capitaine de la légion de St André-de-Cruzières, y demeurant, canton de Tanargues.
LAVIE Jean, aubergiste, domicilié à Gravière.
THOMAS Etienne, perruquier, domicilié à Lesvaux.
1788 Georges Louis Leclerc comte de Buffon, French mathematician and naturalist born on 07 September 1707. At the age of 20 he discovered the binomial theorem. He corresponded with Cramer on mechanics, geometry, probability, number theory and the differential and integral calculus. Buffon's first work Sur le jeu de franc-carreau introduced differential and integral calculus into probability theory. He next wrote Théorie de la terre and became the most important natural historian of his day having great influence across a wide scientific field. He is remembered most in mathematics for a probability experiment which he carried out calculating p (pi) by throwing sticks over his shoulder onto a tiled floor and counting the number of times the sticks fell across the lines between the tiles. This experiment caused much discussion among mathematicians which helped towards an understanding of probability.
1782 Giuseppe Vasi, Italian engraver and painter born on 28 August 1710. — more with links to images.
1687 Gaspar Pieter (Petter) Verbruggen, Flemish artist born on 08 September 1635.
1446 Filippo Brunelleschi, Florentine architect, sculptor, and painter.
0304  Santa Engracia.
Births which occurred on an April 16:       ^top^
1955  Henri de Nassau, gran duque heredero de Luxemburgo.
1948  La Organización Europea de Cooperación Económica se funda en París. Constituye uno de los primeros pasos para la unidad europea y el futuro Mercado Común.
1940 Margrethe II, queen of Denmark, Amalienborg Palace, Copenhagen.
1927  Joseph Ratzinger, teólogo y cardenal alemán.
1922  Leo Tindemans, economista y político belga.
1922 Kingsley Amis, British author       ^top^
      Kingsley Amis is born to a lower-middle-class clerk and his wife. Amis' mother encouraged him to write at an early age, and he later attended Oxford, where he was known as an outspoken radical. In World War II, he served with the Royal Corps of Signals and later joined the faculty of Swansea University in South Wales. He married in 1949, the same year his son, Martin Amis, was born. Martin would grow up to become a famous novelist in his own right.
      Amis' experiences as a professor helped inspire his first and most popular novel, Lucky Jim (1954). The book marked him as part of England's Angry Young Man movement, consisting of upwardly mobile, lower-class writers condemning England's class system. The book, a comic masterpiece satirizing academic life, made Amis a household name during the 1950s. The book was made into a movie in 1957.
      Although his first novel remains his best-known work, Amis wrote more than 40 books during his career, including about 20 novels and six volumes of poetry. He spent a year teaching at Princeton University in New Jersey and later became a fellow at Cambridge. His 1986 book, The Old Devils, won the Booker Prize. Known for his curmudgeonly manner, Amis was knighted in 1990 and published his caustic autobiography, Memoirs, in 1991. Amis died on 22 October 1995.
1908  Ginés Albareda Herrera, escritor y poeta español.
1898 Hellmuth Kneser, German mathematician who died on 23 August 1973.
1897 Frederick William Winterbotham,       ^top^
     He would grow up to become one of Britain's top code breakers, a British secret service official who would play a decisive role in the World War II Ultra code-breaking project.
      A graduate of Oxford and trained in law, Winterbotham had been a pilot with the Royal Flying Corps in World War II before joining the British secret service (MI-6) in 1929 as chief of air intelligence. In 1938, Winterbotham and MI-6 colleagues learned of a German encrypting device called Enigma.
      By 1940, British experts broke Enigma's code, enabling MI-6 to intercept top secret and highly sensitive messages (even from Hitler himself) transmitted to and between German armed forces. Winterbotham was given the responsibility of distributing the German data, code-named Ultra, to British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, among others.
      This data proved invaluable to the Allies as a strategic tool in anticipating and undermining Axis military operations, from the Battle of Britain to Normandy. Winterbotham was made a Commander of the British Empire in 1943 and was awarded the Legion of Merit in 1945. He died in Blandford, Dorset, in 1990.
1894 Jerzy Splaya-Neyman, Polish US mathematician who changed his name to Jerzy Neyman at the age of 30. He died on 05 August 1981.
1871 John M. Synge, Irish poetic dramatist who died on 24 March 1909..
1867 Wilbur Wright of aeronautical fame.
1844 Anatole France, French [how did you guess?] writer (Thaïs, The Wickerwork Woman) (Nobel 1921). He died on 12 October 1924. ANATOLE FRANCE ONLINE: Crainquebille, Putois, Riquet et plusieurs autres récits profitables — L'Etui de nacre (1923) — Les sept femmes de la Barbe-Bleue et autres contes merveilleux
1823 Ferdinand Gotthold Max Eisenstein, German mathematician who died on 11 October 1852. He worked on a variety of topics including quadratic and cubic forms, the reciprocity theorem for cubic residues, quadratic partition of prime numbers and reciprocity laws.
1821 Ford Madox Brown, English Pre-Raphaelite painter who died on 06 October 1893. — MORE ON BROWN AT ART “4” APRIL with links to images.
1820 Victor Alexandre Puiseux, French mathematician who died on 09 September 1883. He worked on elliptic functions and studied computational methods in astronomy.
1786 Sir John Franklin, English rear admiral and explorer who died on 11 June 1847.
1766 John Leslie, Scottish mathematician who died on 03 November 1832.
1755 Marie Louise Élisabeth Vigée-Lebrun, French Neoclassical painter specialized in Portraits, who died on 30 March 1842. — MORE ON VIGÉE~LEBRUN AT ART “4” APRIL with links to images.
1682 John Hadley, English astronomer who who built the first Gregorian reflector telescope. He died on 14 February 1744.
1660 Sir Hans Sloane, English physician and naturalist who died on 11 January 1753.
1647 Matthys Naivei, Dutch artist who died in 1721.
1635 Frans van Mieris the Elder, Dutch painter who died on 12 March 1681. — MORE ON VAN MIERIS AT ART “4” APRIL with links to images.
Santos Engracia, Toribio de Liébana y Calixto.
Easter Sunday in 1702, 1713, 1724, 1775, 1786, 1797, 1843, 1854, 1865, 1876, 1911, 1922, 1933, 1995, 2006, 2017, 2028, 2090, 2147, 2158, 2169, 2180, 2226, 2215, 2237, 2248, 2299. (more)
Good Friday in 1897, 1954, 1965, 1976, 2049, 2055, 2060, 2106, 2117.
Holy Thursday in 1908, 1981, 1987, 1992, 2071, 2076, 2082.
Holidays   Denmark : Queen Margrethe's Birthday / Cuba : Militiamen Day / Puerto Rico : José De Diego's Birthday (1867)
Thoughts for the day :“God never imposes a duty without giving time to do it.”
“Talent is like money; you don't have to have some to talk about it.” — Jules Renard, French educator and author [22 Feb 1864 – 22 May 1910]. {but you have to have the talent to talk about what you don't have}
“Kindness is like cancer; you don't have to have it to talk about it.” [etc. etc. etc.]
“Talent is like cancer; you don't have to have it to think you have it.”
“Better than to light a candle is to curse the darkness when you're pumping gasoline.”
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