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Events, deaths, births, of AUG 09

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On an August 09:
2003 The temperatures surpass all previously recorded in the UK (at Heatrow airport in London: 37.9ºC) and in Germany (in Roth, Bavaria: 40.5ºC).
2001 US President George Bush (Jr.) tries not to break one more electoral campaign promise: that of opposing embryonic stem cell research. He says he will allow funding of research on the 60 existing stem cell lines derived from embryos already killed, but not new killing of embryos for their stem cells, at least not until further consideration.
2001 According to a survey of 1640 dial-up modem users by Consumer Reports magazine (available online only for $3.95 a month), among 8 major Internet service providers, the world's two largest, AOL Time Warner Inc. and Microsoft Corp.'s MSN, come out last in customer satisfaction. AT&T WorldNet, BellSouth Corp. and EarthLink Inc. get high marks for overall satisfaction. [free ISPs are becoming few and far between and more and more restrictive. About the only one available in most of the US is address.com, but it has commercial breaks and its software is trouble-full].
2000 Bridgestone/Firestone Inc. announced it was recalling 6.5 million tires that had been implicated in hundreds of accidents and at least 46 deaths.
1999 Chechnya war: Shamil Basayev and commander Khattab inspect Chechen troops in Dagestan
      Russian aircraft accidentally drop air-delivered mines on Georgia, near the border with Dagestan — http://www.cdi.org/issues/Europe/aug.html
1997 $750'000 in tobacco damages      ^top^
      A Florida court awarded $750'000 to a man who claimed that he had been fatally addicted to cigarettes for over fifty years. This affected various tobacco stocks, including B.A.T. Industries, the parent of Brown & Williams, the company found guilty in the case. The Dow Jones Industrial Average drops 32.18 points to close the day at a still generous 5681.31 points.
1996 Republican Presidential nominee Bob Dole, in a hopeless electoral contest against incumbent Bill Clinton, announces his plan for a $548 tax cut. It did not help him much.
1996 A weary-looking Boris Yeltsin was sworn into his second term as president of Russia.
1995 Netscape's initial public offering      ^top^
      Netscape begins trading its stock in an eagerly anticipated IPO. The 15-month-old company's stock price is offered at $28, valuing the company at $1.07 billion — more than twice what Microsoft was worth when it went public in 1986. Netscape was founded by James Clark, founder and former chairman of Silicon Graphics, and Marc Andreesen, a 22-year-old college senior who helped write Mosaic, one of the first Web browsers, which evolved into Netscape Navigator.
1995 MCI/News Corp. merge online operations      ^top^
      Newspapers report that MCI Communications will merge its online business with News Corp.'s Delphi online service. News Corp. had acquired Delphi in October 1993 but had failed to attract many subscribers. The former head of Prodigy Services, Scott Kurnit, was named head of the new venture. The new venture would be Web-based, instead of remaining a proprietary online service.
1993 Alberto de Sajonia-Coburgo, príncipe de Lieja, se convierte en sexto rey de los belgas con el nombre de Alberto II.
1991 In South Africa, hundreds of police battled neo-Nazis as pro-apartheid extremists tried to stop a speech by President F.W. de Klerk.
1990 12 Arab leaders agree to send pan-Arab forces to protect Saudi Arabia
1990 El Consejo de Seguridad de la ONU aprueba por unanimidad la resolución que declara "ilegal, nula y sin efecto" la anexión de Kuwait por Irak. .
1989 Lanzado al espacio el cohete europeo "Ariane 4", desde la base de Kourou, en la Guayana francesa.
1988 President Reagan nominated Lauro Cavazos to be secretary of education; Cavazos became the first Hispanic to serve in the Cabinet.
1987 Comienza la mayor huelga legal en la historia de Sudáfrica, en la que toman parte más de 200.000 mineros negros y que se prolongó hasta el 1 de Septiembre.
1987 Bomb attack on the USIS Library in Calcutta.
1985 Arthur Walker found guilty of spying for USSR.      ^top^
      Arthur Walker, a retired US Navy officer, is found guilty of espionage for passing top-secret documents to his brother, who then passed them to Soviet agents. Walker was part of one of the most significant Cold War spy rings in the United States. The arrest of Arthur Walker on 29 May 1985, came just one day after the arrest of his brother, John, and John's son, Michael. All three were charged with conducting espionage for the Soviet Union.
      John Walker, also a Navy veteran, was the ringleader, and government officials charged that he had been involved in spying for the Soviets since 1968. He recruited his son, who was serving in the US Navy, a short time later. Arthur Walker was drawn into the scheme in 1980 when, at his brother's suggestion, he took a job with VSE, a Virginia defense contractor. Over the next two years, the government charged, Arthur Walker provided John with a number of highly classified documents dealing with the construction of naval vessels. For his services, Arthur Walker received about $12'000. A nasty divorce between John Walker and his wife eventually brought the spy ring to light when his wife, angry after their separation, went to the FBI to inform on her husband. It was revealed at their trials that the motivation of all the Walker men was the repayment of large debts they had accrued. Arthur Walker was found guilty of seven counts of espionage on 09 August 1985. He was sentenced to life in prison and fined $250'000.
      John and Michael Walker later pled guilty to espionage charges, with John receiving two life sentences and Michael receiving 25 years in prison. A fourth conspirator, Jerry Whitworth, a friend of John Walker's, was convicted in 1986 on 12 counts of espionage and sentenced to 365 years in prison. With the arrests and convictions, the US government claimed that it had broken one of the most destructive spy rings in the United States in the history of the Cold War.
1983 El Tribunal Constitucional español anula 14 artículos de la LOAPA (Ley Orgánica de Armonización del Proceso Autonómico).
1978 Marruecos rechaza la creación de un estado saharaui.
1974 Nixon leaves White House; Ford sworn-in      ^top^
     By noon,in accordance with his statement of resignation the previous evening, Richard M. Nixon officially ends his being the thirty-seventh president of the United States. Before departing from the White House lawn with his family in a helicopter, Nixon smiles farewell and enigmatically raises his arms and spread his first two fingers in a victory or peace salute. A moment later, the helicopter door is closed and the Nixon family began their journey home to San Clemente, California.
      The departure of Nixon would prove to be a fatal blow to the South Vietnamese, who always believed that the American president would be there to make good his promises to support them in their continuing post-ceasefire war against the North Vietnamese.
      In the White House's Oval Office, Vice President Gerald R. Ford is sworn-in as the thirty-eighth president of the United States. Ford, the first president to come to the office through appointment rather than election, had replaced Spiro Agnew as vice president only eight months before. In a political scandal independent of the Nixon administration's wrongdoings in the Watergate affair, Agnew had been forced to resign in disgrace after he was charged with income tax evasion and political corruption.      Richard Nixon was the first president in US history to resign from office. On September 16, President Ford would pardon him pre-emptively for any crimes he might have committed or participated in while chief executive. Ford later would defended this action before the House Judiciary Committee, explaining that he wanted to end the national divisions created by the Watergate affair.


Gerald Ford, president upon the 11:35 resignation of Nixon, speaks on radio and TV at 12:05, right after taking the oath of office:
Mr. Chief Justice, my dear friends, my fellow Americans:
      The oath that I have taken is the same oath that was taken by George Washington and by every President under the Constitution. But I assume the Presidency under extraordinary circumstances never before experienced by Americans. This is an hour of history that troubles our minds and hurts our hearts.
      Therefore, I feel it is my first duty to make an unprecedented compact with my countrymen. Not an inaugural address, not a fireside chat, not a campaign speech — just a little straight talk among friends. And I intend it to be the first of many.
      I am acutely aware that you have not elected me as your President by your ballots, and so I ask you to confirm me as your President with your prayers. And I hope that such prayers will also be the first of many.
      If you have not chosen me by secret ballot, neither have I gained office by any secret promises. I have not campaigned either for the Presidency or the Vice Presidency. I have not subscribed to any partisan platform. I am indebted to no man, and only to one woman — my dear wife — as I begin this very difficult job.
      I have not sought this enormous responsibility, but I will not shirk it. Those who nominated and confirmed me as Vice President were my friends and are my friends. They were of both parties, elected by all the people and acting under the Constitution in their name. It is only fitting then that I should pledge to them and to you that I will be the President of all the people.
      Thomas Jefferson said the people are the only sure reliance for the preservation of our liberty. And down the years, Abraham Lincoln renewed this American article of faith asking, "Is there any better way or equal hope in the world?"
      I intend, on Monday next, to request of the Speaker of the House of Representatives and the President pro tempore of the Senate the privilege of appearing before the Congress to share with my former colleagues and with you, the American people, my views on the priority business of the Nation and to solicit your views and their views. And may I say to the Speaker and the others, if I could meet with you right after these remarks, I would appreciate it.
      Even though this is late in an election year, there is no way we can go forward except together and no way anybody can win except by serving the people's urgent needs. We cannot stand still or slip backwards. We must go forward now together.
      To the peoples and the governments of all friendly nations, and I hope that could encompass the whole world, I pledge an uninterrupted and sincere search for peace. America will remain strong and united, but its strength will remain dedicated to the safety and sanity of the entire family of man, as well as to our own precious freedom.
      I believe that truth is the glue that holds government together, not only our Government but civilization itself. That bond, though strained, is unbroken at home and abroad.
      In all my public and private acts as your President, I expect to follow my instincts of openness and candor with full confidence that honesty is always the best policy in the end.
      My fellow Americans, our long national nightmare is over.
      Our Constitution works; our great Republic is a government of laws and not of men. Here the people rule. But there is a higher Power, by whatever name we honor Him, who ordains not only righteousness but love, not only justice but mercy.
      As we bind up the internal wounds of Watergate, more painful and more poisonous than those of foreign wars, let us restore the golden rule to our political process, and let brotherly love purge our hearts of suspicion and of hate.
      In the beginning, I asked you to pray for me. Before closing, I ask again your prayers, for Richard Nixon and for his family. May our former President, who brought peace to millions, find it for himself. May God bless and comfort his wonderful wife and daughters, whose love and loyalty will forever be a shining legacy to all who bear the lonely burdens of the White House.
      I can only guess at those burdens, although I have witnessed at close hand the tragedies that befell three Presidents and the lesser trials of others.
      With all the strength and all the good sense I have gained from life, with all the confidence my family, my friends, and my dedicated staff impart to me, and with the good will of countless Americans I have encountered in recent visits to 40 States, I now solemnly reaffirm my promise I made to you last December 6: to uphold the Constitution, to do what is right as God gives me to see the right, and to do the very best I can f or America.
      God helping me, I will not let you down. Thank you.
1969 Estalla en España el escándalo financiero de Matesa.
1968 Vietnam: 96 US servicemen are reported killed the previous week, lowest number since 12 August 1967:
1967 Vietnam: First Marine Division launches Operation Cochise in the Que Son valley. Meanwhile, the First Cavalry Division continues with Operation Pershing, a major clearing operation in the Binh Dinh province designed to improve the security situation in support of the ongoing pacification effort.
1965 Singapore proclaimed its independence from the Malaysian Federation. . (National Day)
1962 The Chrysler Corporation sets an industry milestone by announcing for 1963 a five-year, 50'000-mile warranty covering all of its cars and trucks.
1960 Race riot in Jacksonville Florida
1958 El contralmirante Américo Deus Rodrigues Thomaz es investido presidente de Portugal.
1956 South African women demonstrate against pass laws
1945 EEUU lanza su segunda bomba atómica, que destruyó la ciudad de Nagasaki causando millares de víctimas, provocó la rendición de Japón y puso fin a la Segunda Guerra Mundial.
1942 British arrests Indian nationalist Mohandas K Gandhi Mahatma Gandhi es arrestado junto con otros dirigentes del Congreso Nacional Indio.
1941 President Franklin Roosevelt and Prime Minister Winston Churchill meet at Placentia Bay, Newfoundland. The meeting produces the Atlantic Charter, an agreement between the two countries on war aims, even though the United States is still a neutral country.
1934 Heinrich Himmler, jefe de las SS (Schutz Staffeln) y de la Gestapo bávara, asume el mando de los campos de concentración.
1929 Discount rate raised, Wall Street speculation endangered      ^top^
      It was hardly a tell-tale sign of trouble, but on 09 August 1929 Wall Street got an inkling of the upcoming crash as the New York Bank raised the rediscount rate on loans to brokers a full point to 6%. The hike was precipitated by the unsettling news that brokers had racked up a record $6 million debt, the fourth time during August 1929 that their loans had swelled to record levels. Still, bankers assured the business community that the move, which was the biggest raise to the rate since the close of World War I, wasn't cause for alarm. Soothing words aside, reports from the day note that the new rate did indeed catch Wall Street by surprise. The following day the DOW dropped 14.11 points to close at a month-long low of 337.99. Until that point, investors had been reveling in "Big Bull Market," a record-setting run which was well over a year old. As the DOW hit new highs, the stock market became a national past time; the craze for playing the stocks spread from being the sole province of the big-city elite to a part of the daily life of small-town America. However, as the Reserve Bank's move to advance the interest rate oh-so-subtly suggested, the good times were based on speculation rather than solid financial practices. By November 1929, this quiet hint at a downturn in the market would look more like a prophetic warning call.
1924 Miguel de Unamuno Jugo escapa de la isla de Fuerteventura, donde estaba desterrado por el Gobierno del general Primo de Rivera.
1921 Guerra de Marruecos: Capitulación del general Navarro tras diez días de heroica resistencia en el monte Arruit. La mayoría de los soldados fueron asesinados.
1918 The US government orders automobile factories to convert to military production by 01 January 1919, and manufacture shells, warplane engines, staff cars, and ambulances.
1910 The first complete, self-contained electric washing machine is patented.
1904 El Congreso Internacional de Mineros, reunido en París, exige jornada de ocho horas y el establecimiento de un salario mínimo.
1902 Edward VII of England crowned after death of his mother Victoria
1864 Confederates detonate bomb aboard ship at City Point, Virginia
1863 Siege of Fort Wagner, Charleston Harbor, South Carolina continues
1859 The escalator is patented. However, the first working escalator appeared in 1900. Manufactured by the Otis Elevator Company for the Paris Exposition, it was installed in a Philadelphia office building the following year.
1855 Battle of Acapulco during Mexican Liberal uprising
1849 Hungarian Republic crushed by Austria and Russia
1849 Vencida por el hambre y el cólera, Venecia se rinde, con lo que termina la primera guerra que Italia sostuvo por su independencia.
1848 Barnburners (anti-slavery) party merges with the Free Soil Party nominating Martin Van Buren for president
1842 The Webster-Ashburn treaty fixes the border between Maine and Canada's New Brunswick.
1831 1st US steam engine train run (Albany to Schenectady, NY)
1830 Luis Felipe de Orleans es aclamado rey de los franceses.
1829 "Stourbridge Lion" locomotive goes into service
1814 Andrew Jackson and the Creek Indians sign the Treaty of Fort Jackson, giving the whites 23 million acres of Creek territory.
1805 Austria joins Britain, Russia, Sweden and the Kingdom of Piedmont-Sardinia in the third coalition against France.
1803 El ingeniero estadounidense Robert Fulton consigue hacer navegar un barco por el Sena con un motor movido por vapor.
1803 1st horses arrive in Hawaii
1790 The Columbia returns to Boston Harbor after a three-year voyage, becoming the first US-flagged ship to voyage around the world
1786 1st ascent of Mt Blanc
1778 Capt Cook passes through Bering Strait
1673 Dutch recapture NY from English; regained by English in 1674
1645 Settlers in New Amsterdam gain peace with the Indians after conducting talks with the Mohawks
1638 Jonas Bronck of Holland becomes 1st European settler in what will be the "Bronx."
1549 England declares war on France.
1483 Pope Sixtus IV celebrates the first mass in the Sistine Chapel, which is named in his honor.
- 48 BC Battle of Pharsalus. Julius Caesar defeats Gnaius Pompey. — Julio César derrota a Pompeyo en la batalla de Farsalia, lo que puso fin a la Guerra Civil del Imperio Romano.
- 480 -BC- Battle of Thermopylae, The Persian army defeats Leonidas and his Spartan army.
TO THE TOP
Deaths which occurred on an August 09:
2003 Michèle Caffin, 58 ans, percutée par une moto. Peu avant 09:00, l’heure de conduire un troupeau de vaches vers les pâtures, elle sortait de sa ferme au hameau de la Liégette à Marquise (Boulonnais), France, pour rattraper une vache qui avait pris de l’avance sur le troupeau et se trouvait déjà sur la route qui relie Marquise à Wierre-Effroy. Au même moment, deux motos sont arrivées, venant de Wierre-Effroy. Le premier motard a évité la vache en passant par la droite. Le second l’a évitée en passant par la gauche et a violemment heurté l’agricultrice, qui a été tuée sur le coup. Le conducteur de la moto a été grièvement blessé.
2002 Four Pakistani nurses: Alishah, Nazeeran, Bashiran, Uoil; and attacker Kamran Mir, one of three who, at 07:45 (01:45 UT) throw hand grenades at women leaving church on the Presbyterian hospital grounds in Taxila, Pakistan. Some 25 persons are wounded.
2002:: 26 persons in 12:30 explosion at a maintenance facility of company Afghan Construction and Logistics Unit on the west side of Jalalabad, Afghanistan. 80 persons are injured.
2001 Frida Mendelsohn, 62, Yocheved Shoshan, 10, Tehila Maoz, 20, Malka Roth, 15, Michal Raziel, 16; Mordechai Schijveschuurder, 43, his wife Tzira, 41, and three of their children, Ra'aya, 14, Yitzhak, 4, and Hemda, 2; Zvi Golombak, 26, Judith Lillian Greenbaum, 31; Lily Shamilashvili, 33, and her daughter Tamar, 8; Giora Balash, 60, and a suicide bomber,
at the Sbarro pizza restaurant in central Jerusalem, crowded at 14:00. Some 90 persons are injured. The al~Aqsa intifada body count now has risen to more than 550 Palestinians and more than 130 Israelis. The suicide bomber is Hussein Omar Abu Amsheh, 23, according to Islamic Jihad, but Izzedine al-Masri, 23, according to Hamas' military wing.

     Giora Balash was a Brazilian man tourist who had been living in Israel for some time.
     Judith Lillian Greenbaum was an American tourist from New Jersey.
     The other victims of the Palestinian suicide bomber were Israelis.
     Lily Shamilashvili and her daughter Tamar immigrated to Israel eight months earlier from Moscow, following the rest of the family, which is originally from Georgia. Lily's husband Yaakov runs a successful computer business in Moscow, where he was when the bomb went off. Their second child, Yaakov, 3, was visiting his grandparents and so was saved.
     Tehila Maoz was a waitress at the Sbarro pizzeria.
2001 An Israeli soldier, shot in an attack by Palestinians near the West Bank town of Tulkarem.
2001 A 19-year-old Israeli woman was killed and three other Israelis were wounded when their car was hit in ambush shooting near the dividing line between Israel proper and the West Bank,
2000 Fatemeh Ahangaran, 24, and their daughter Melika, 19 months, Hasan Feelom, murdered by their husband and father, Hasan Feelom, 39, so as to elope with his lover. For this, he would be hanged in public in Tehran, Iran, on 7 January 2001
1999 Mario Paz, 65, shot twice in the back in front of his wife in their bedroom after SWAT officers raided the house in the Los Angeles suburb of El Monte. Police have said Paz, a father of six and grandfather of 14, was shot because he appeared to be trying to reach for a gun.. Up to 20 officers shot the locks off the doors and entered the home as the family was sleeping at about 23:00. No drugs were found, but officers seized three pistols, a .22-caliber rifle and $10'000 in cash. The guns were for protection and the money was Paz' life savings, which he had taken from his bank account because of concerns over potential Y2K computer problems. Nobody at the home was arrested, although seven family members were questioned, including Paz' widow, Maria Luisa, who was taken from the home in panties and handcuffs. Police went to the home to seek evidence for use in a case against a Chino drug suspect who had been released on bail the morning of the raid. A “high-risk entry” was used because high-powered rifles had been found along with 400 pounds of marijuana at other homes linked to the man. The Compton home was targeted in a search warrant because phone bills and other mail with the address was found in those other raids. The Paz family said that the suspected drug dealer targeted in the raid had lived near them in the 1980s and occasionally used their address to receive mail. The search warrant didn't name any Paz family members. Officers didn't have information of the Paz family being involved in narcotics trafficking.
1994 Helena Rasiowa, mathematician born on 20 June 1917. She worked in algebraic logic and the mathematical foundations of computer science.
1975 Dmitry Dmitriyevich Shostakovich, 68, Russian composer, renowned particularly for his 15 symphonies, numerous chamber works, and concerti, many of them written under the pressures of government-imposed standards of Soviet art. He was born on 25 September 1906.
1969 Sharon Tate, 26, her child to be born in 2 weeks, Abigail Foldger, 25, Wojtek Frykowski, 32, Jay Sebring, 35, Steven Parent, 18, gruesomely murdered      ^top^
     The sx are killed in film director Roman Polanski's home in Hollywood, California, by members of a cult. Less than two days later, they would kill Leno and Rosemary LaBianca in their home. At both scenes, the killers scrawled messages in blood on the walls. The city of Los Angeles was in a state of panic until the leader of the cult, Charles Manson, was identified and arrested.
     Manson, who had been neglected as a child and spent virtually his entire life behind bars for murder, was eventually released from prison in 1967 at the age of 33. His strange brand of charisma attracted a group of hippies, who followed him and settled down at the Spahn Ranch on the outskirts of Los Angeles, where heavy drug use and orgies were common. Manson began telling his "family," as they called themselves, that a war between blacks and whites was coming and that their cult would be the leaders of the new world order that would follow. In support for this theory, Manson claimed that the Beatles' White Album, and, in particular, the song "Helter Skelter," backed him up. Manson decided that they should try to instigate the war by killing white people in a way that would implicate the black radicals.
      Manson directed his followers, including Tex Watson and Susan Atkins, to kill certain prominent, wealthy whites. They chose Polanski's home because Manson had unsuccessfully attempted to get a recording deal from a producer who used to live there. Polanski happened to be overseas at the time, but his actress wife, Sharon Tate, and her friends, including coffee heiress Abigail Folger, were brutally slaughtered by the Manson cult. Some were shot, while others were stabbed to death. Manson did not go into the Polanski home and refrained from participating in the LaBianca murders two days later.
      Manson and his gang were uncovered when one of his followers, who was jailed on a different charge, began bragging about the murders. Manson was charged with murder on the basis that he had influenced the "family" and directed the murders. His subsequent trial became a national spectacle. Manson came into court one day with an "X" carved in his forehead, explaining, "I have X-ed myself out of your world." His followers copied him and did the same. Another day, Manson lunged at the trial judge and tried to assault him.
      On an estate in Hollywood Hills, California, Sharon Tate, pregnant actress wife of film director Roman Polanski, is brutally murdered shortly after midnight, along with her unborn child, and four others, by cult leader Charles Manson, 33, and his followers Susan Atkins, 21, Leslie Van Houten, 22, Patricia Krenwinkle, 20.
      The cultists also murdered Rosemary, 38, and Leno, 44, LaBianca, a Los Angeles couple, in a separate attack less than two days later.
      In 1967, Manson, a lifetime criminal, was released from a federal penitentiary in Washington State and traveled to San Francisco, California, where he attracted a following among rebellious young women with troubled emotional lives. Manson established a cult based on his concept of "Helter Skelter" — an apocalyptic philosophy predicting that out of an imminent racial war in America would emerge five ruling angels: himself, who would have taken on the role of Jesus Christ, and the four members of the Beatles, the popular British rock group. Manson convinced his followers that it would be necessary to murder celebrities in order to attract attention to the cult, and in 1969, they targeted Sharon Tate, a marginally successful actress and wife of Roman Polanski.
      On August 7, 1969, Manson's followers murdered a Los Angeles married couple, and late the next night, under Manson's detailed instructions, four of his followers drove up to Cielo Drive above Beverly Hills and burst into Polanski and Tate's home. Over the next few hours, they engaged in a murderous rampage that left five dead, including 8-1/2-month pregnant Tate, three of her friends, and an eighteen-year-old man who was visiting the caretaker of the estate. Polanski was away from Los Angeles at the time.
      The case went unsolved for over a year before the Los Angeles Police Department discovered the Manson connection, and, following confessions by various members of his cult, Manson and five others were indicted on charges of murder and conspiracy to commit murder. On 25 January 1972, Manson and and three followers, Susan Atkins, Leslie Van Houten, and Patricia Krenwinkle, were found guilty and, on 29 March, all four were sentenced to death. The trial of another defendant, Charles "Tex" Watson, was delayed by extradition proceedings, but he was likewise found guilty and sentenced to death. In 1972, the California Supreme Court abolished the death penalty in California, and Manson and his followers' death sentences were commuted to life imprisonment. Manson remains a criminal icon to this day. He periodically comes up for parole, but there is no indication that California will ever release him
1963 Patrick Bouvier Kennedy, 39 hours old (was born premature), second son of president John F. Kennedy, 46, and Jacqueline (Bouvier) Kennedy, 34.
1962 Hermann Hesse, escritor alemán, Premio Nobel de Literatura.
1950 Karl Rudolf Fueter, Swiss mathematician who born on 30 June 1880. Author of Synthetische Zahlentheorie (1917), Vorlesungen über die singulären Moduln und die komplexe Multiplikation der elliptischen Funktionen (2 volumes: 1924, 1927), Das mathematische Werkzeug des Chemikers, biologen und Statistikers (1926).
1945 Tens of thousands of innocent men, women, and children atomized in Nagasaki      ^top^
      Above Japan, a US B-29 bomber, drops a plutonium-based atomic bomb on the coastal city of Nagasaki at 11:02. A third of the city is destroyed, tens of thousands of people are instantly incinerated, and by the end of the 1945 the death toll would stand at an estimated 74'000.
      The Nagasaki bombing comes three days after Little Boy, a uranium-based atomic bomb, destroyed Hiroshima. The Hiroshima attack marked the first time an atomic weapon was ever used in warfare, and it was even more deadly than the succeeding Nagasaki attack: 100'000 instantly killed and 35'000 more dead by the end of the year. A few very unlucky Hiroshima survivors had taken refuge in Nagasaki and are atom-bombed a second time.
      The devastation wrought at Hiroshima was not sufficient to convince the Japanese War Council to accept the Potsdam Conference's demand for unconditional surrender. The United States had already planned to drop their second atom bomb, nicknamed "Fat Man," on 11 August in the event of such recalcitrance, but bad weather expected for that day pushed the date up to 09 August. So at 01:56., a specially adapted B-29 bomber, called "Bock's Car," after its usual commander, Frederick Bock, took off from Tinian Island under the command of Major Charles W. Sweeney.
      Nagasaki was a shipbuilding center, the very industry intended for destruction. The bomb is dropped at 11:02, 500 m above the city. The explosion unleashed the same energy as 22'000 tons of TNT. The hills that surrounded the city did a better job of containing the destructive force, but the number killed is estimated at anywhere between 60'000 and 80'000 (exact figures are impossible, the blast having obliterated bodies and disintegrated records).
      Several hours after the destruction of Hiroshima, US President Harry S. Truman, returning from the Potsdam conference aboard the US cruiser Augusta, had announced the use of the top secret weapon against Japan. Truman explained that the atomic bomb had been used to save the lives of Americans that would be lost in an invasion of Japan, and would continue to be used until Japan accepted the Allies' terms of surrender. He did not mention that the US did not yet have a third atomic bomb).  General Leslie R. Groves, the man responsible for organizing the Manhattan Project, which solved the problem of producing and delivering the nuclear explosion, estimated that another atom bomb would be ready to use against Japan by August 17 or 18 — but it was not necessary.
      On 08 August 1945, the Soviet Union had declared war against Japan, and on 09 August — the day of the Nagasaki bombing — the Red Army crossed into Manchuria, rapidly overwhelming the Japanese defenders there. Faced with the choice of destruction or certain surrender, Japan chose the latter.
      Even though the Japanese War Council still remained divided ("It is far too early to say that the war is lost," opined the Minister of War), Emperor Hirohito, by request of two War Council members eager to end the war, met with the Council and declared that "continuing the war can only result in the annihilation of the Japanese people…." The Emperor of Japan gave his permission for unconditional surrender. On 15 August, one week after the Soviet declaration of war, Emperor Hirohito would announced the Japanese surrender on national radio, urging the Japanese people to "endure the unendurable."
1943 Chaim Soutine, French painter born in Belarus in 1894. MORE ON SOUTINE AT ART “4” AUGUSTLINKS Self-PortraitCarcass of Beef (ZOOM IT) Flayed RabbitWoman in RedLe PatissierLe Petit PatissierWinding RoadTwo Children on a RoadBoy in BlackCéret Landscape Street of Cagnes-sur-MerLarge Poplars at Civery or After the Storm
1932 John Charles Fields, Ontario mathematician born on 14 May 1863. He provided funds for an international medal for mathematical distinction: the mathematical equivalent of a Nobel prize. Fields Medals are awarded to no fewer than two and no more than four mathematicians under 40 years of age every four years (from 1950) at the International Congress of Mathematicians.
1919 Robert Thegerström, Swedish artist born on 06 January 1857.
1919 Ernst Haeckel, zoólogo y filósofo alemán.
1915 Frank Bramley, English painter born on 06 May 1857. MORE ON BRAMLEY AT ART “4” AUGUST A Hopeless Dawn (ZOOM IT)Primrose DayA TruceSir Frederick Augustus Abel, Bt
1914 Roque Sáenz Peña, presidente de la República Argentina.
1896 Otto Lilienthal, 48 ans. Un des pionniers allemands de la conquête de l'air. Il se tue à bord d'un planeur qu'il avait lui-même conçu. Il en était déjà à son deux millième vol. Passionné par les choses de l'air, Otto Lilienthal avait lentement perfectionné ses machines et découvert des principes aujourd'hui encore appliqués à l'aviation et au vol à voile. — Otto Lilienthal killed during a glider test — His book Der Vogelflug als Grundlage der Fliegekunst (1889) and his essays on flying machines (1894) were recognized as basic works in aeronautics
1892 Emil Jakob Schindler, Austrian Impressionist painter specialized in Landscapes, born on 27 April 1842. — MORE ON SCHINDLER AT ART “4” AUGUST — I looked for Schindler's list, but all I found is this one reproduction of Steamer Landing Stage near Kaisermühlen
1877 Nez Percé, children and women mostly, massacred by US.      ^top^
     The US calls it the “Battle” of Big Hole Having refused government demands that they move to a reservation, a small band of Nez Percé Indians are treacherously attacked in their sleep by the US Army near the Big Hole River in Montana.
      The conflict between the US government and the Nez Percé was one of the most tragic of the many Indian wars of the 19th century. Beginning with the tribe's first contact with the explorers Meriwether Lewis and William Clark, the peaceful Nez Percé had befriended and cooperated with the US persons.
      Even when hordes of white settlers began to flood into their homelands along the Snake River (around the present-day intersection of the Oregon, Washington, and Idaho state borders), most of the Nez Percé peacefully moved to a reservation.
      However, about a quarter of the Nez Percé, most of them stockmen and buffalo hunters, refused to accept the unjust internment on a reservation. Government pressure to force these last resisters to comply finally led to the outbreak of the Nez Percé War of 1877. A small band of warriors — never more than 145 men, though burdened with about 500 noncombatants — fought US soldiers at four major battles.
      The third “battle” of the Nez Percé War occurs on this day. Fleeing eastward with hopes of escaping to Canada, the Nez Percé made camp in the Big Hole Basin in present-day western Montana. At 03:30, Colonel John Gibbon attacked the sleeping Indians with a force of 183 men. Raking the Indian lodges with withering rifle fire, the soldiers initially seemed to be victorious. The Nez Percé, however, soon counterattacked from concealed positions in the surrounding hills. After four days of sporadic fighting, the Nez Percé withdrew. Both sides suffered serious casualties. The soldiers lost 29 men with 40 wounded. The army body count found 89 Nez Percé dead, mostly women and children.
      The battle dealt the Nez Percé a grave, though not fatal, blow. The remaining Indians were able to escape, and they headed northeast towards Canada. Two months later, on October 5, Colonel Nelson Miles decisively defeated the Nez Percé at the Battle of the Bear Paw Mountains. Those who were not killed surrendered and reluctantly agreed to return to the reservation. The Nez Percé were only 60 km short of the Canadian border.
1871 José Mármol, literato argentino.
1862 General Charles S. Winder, thousands of Rebs and, especially, Yanks, at Cedar Mountain.      ^top^
      Confederate General Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson narrowly defeats an attacking Union force led by General John Pope in the Battle of Cedar Mountain (“Slaughter Mountain”), Virginia, . prelude to 2nd Manassas.
      Jackson had moved north in July 1862 after it became clear that the primary Union force in the east, General George McClellan's Army of the Potomac, was not going to attack Richmond. McClellan was camped on the James Peninsula southeast of Richmond, where General Robert E. Lee stopped him at the Seven Days' Battles in late June. Frustrated with McClellan's lack of action, President Lincoln began shifting troops from the peninsula to Pope's newly formed Army of Virginia, which was operating near Washington. Jackson, who was sent north by Lee to counter the growing Yankee presence in northern Virginia, fell on part of Pope's force at Cedar Mountain on 09 August. Despite being severely outnumbered, Pope's army dealt Jackson a near-humiliating defeat. Jackson attacked in the afternoon, but a fierce Union counterattack, led by General Nathaniel Banks, almost broke Jackson's line. The arrival of Confederate General Ambrose P. Hill provided Jackson with enough troops to launch another assault that evening. That attack drove the Federals from the field, and only nightfall prevented a complete rout of the Yankees. Union losses totaled 2300 out of 8'000. The Confederates suffered 1300 casualties out of 18'000. But the battle was nearly a disaster; Jackson miscalculated, and the Confederates almost lost to an army half their size.
1652 Jan Dirkszoon Both, Dutch Baroque era painter born in 1618 or 1610. — MORE ON BOTH AT ART “4” AUGUST LINKSItalian Landscape with DraughtsmanRuins at the Sea
1546 (or 06 Feb 1549) Martin Schaffner, German painter and medallist born in 1478.
1458 Pietro di Francesco degli Orioli, Italian artist born in 1458.
0378 Emperor Valens, 20'000 of his soldiers, and some of the Visigoths who rout them at Adrianople      ^top^
      In one of the most decisive battles in history, a large Roman army under Valens, the Roman emperor of the East, is defeated by the Visigoths at the Battle of Adrianople in present-day Turkey. Two-thirds of the Roman army, including Emperor Valens himself, were overrun and slaughtered by the mounted barbarians.
      Crowned in 264, Emperor Valens initiated warfare against the semi-civilized Visigoths in 364, and by 369 he had defeated them. Visigoths under Fritigern were given permission to settle south of the Danube in the Roman Empire. But, subjected to oppressive measures by Roman officials, the Visigothic settlers soon rose in revolt.
      In 378, Valens marched a Roman army against Fritigern, and 16 km from Adrianople the Romans come upon the massed barbarians. As the Visigoth cavalry is off on a foraging mission, Valens orders a hasty attack on 09 August. The Romans initially drive the barbarians back, but then the Visigoth cavalry suddenly returns, routs the Romans and forces them to retreat.
      The horsemen then ride down the fleeing Roman infantry, and slaughtered them one by one. Some 20'000 of 30'000 men were killed, including Emperor Valens. The decisive Visigoth victory at the Battle of Adrianople would leave the Eastern Roman Empire nearly defenseless, and establish the supremacy of cavalry over infantry that would last for the next millennium. Emperor Valens was succeeded by Theodosius the Great, and for the next few years he, too, struggled to repel the hordes of Visigoth barbarians plundering the Balkan Peninsula.
Births which occurred on an August 09:
1949 Jonathan Kellerman, on the Lower East Side of New York City      ^top^
     He would grow up to become the author of a series of mysteries featuring child psychologist Alex Delaware. His family moved to Los Angeles when Jonathan was nine, the same year he began writing stories. He wrote fiction obsessively throughout college and graduate school, penning at least eight unpublished novels while working to become a child psychologist. Kellerman completed his post-graduate work at Children's Hospital in Los Angeles, where he worked until the early 1980s, when he opened his own practice. He and his wife, best-selling author Faye Kellerman, had four children, and he wrote every night from 23:00 to 01:00.
      In 1985, his first novel, When the Bough Breaks, was published. The book, about murder and child abuse, won several prestigious mystery awards and was made into a television movie. Since then, Kellerman has written more than a dozen novels; by 2000 he had more than 20 million books in print. The couple had four children and lived in the Los Angeles area.
1927 Marvin Minsky Artifical intelligence computer scientist (MIT)
1922 Philip Larkin Coventry England, writer (North Ship, Jill)
1921 J James Exon (Sen-D-Neb)
1919 Emilio Vedova, Italian painter who died in 1995. — much moreLINKSImmagine del tempo (Sbarramento)Nel Tempo
1913 Herman Talmadge (Sen-D-Ga, Watergate Committee)
1911 William A Fowler US, astrophysicist (Nobel 1983)
1899 P.L. Travers, author of the Mary Poppins books.
1896 Jean Piaget Swiss pioneer developmental psychologist/zoologist
1892 The two-way telegraph, which allows messages to be simultaneously sent and received over one wire, is patented in the US by Thomas Edison, who had already patented it in Britain, France, Italy, Austria-Hungary, and Russia.
1884 Kenneth Scott Latourette, Baptist church historian. Teaching at Yale from 1921-53, his greatest writings were his 7-volume History of the Expansion of Christianity (1937-45) and 5-volume Christianity in a Revolutionary Age (1958-62). Latourette died a bachelor.
1881 Ramón Pérez de Ayala, escritor español.
1854 Walden is published by Henry David Thoreau, 37.      ^top^
     Is is the masterwork of the American essayist, poet, and practical philosopher, renowned for having lived the doctrines of Transcendentalism as recorded in Walden, and for having been a vigorous advocate of civil liberties, as in his essay Civil Disobedience. In Walden, Thoreau described his experiences of returning to nature by living near Walden Pond in Massachusetts. Thoreau was born (12 July 1817) and died (6 May 1862) in Concord, Massachusetts.
THOREAU ONLINE:
  • Cape Cod
  • Civil Disobedience (1849)
  • Civil Disobedience (another site)
  • Life Without Principle
  • The Maine Woods
  • A Plea for Captain John Brown
  • A Plea for Captain John Brown (another site)
  • Selected Works and Commentary
  • The Succession of Forest Trees
  • Walden (1854)
  • Walking
  • Walking (another site)
  • A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers
  • Wild Apples: The History of the Apple Tree
  • 1851 Jules Scalbert, French painter. — Hommage à Louis PasteurLes Baigneuses
    1819 William Thomas Green Morton dentist, used ether (HOF 1920)
    1806 Eugène Pierre François Giraud, French artist who died in 1881.
    1776 Amedeo Avogadro Turin Italy, 6.0221367 x 10 ^ 23 molecules per gram-mole (molecular weight in grams) of any substance (Avogadro's Law)
    1606 Theodoor van Thulden, Flemish painter, engraver and designer of tapestries, who died in 1669. — LINKS Harmony and MarriageLe Christ ressuscité apparaissant à la Vierge, sa mère59 etchings at FAMSF
    1593 Izaak Walton England, ironmonger, recreational fisherman, friend of John Donne, author.     ^top^
          The Life and Death of Dr. Donne
    (1640), The Life of Sir Henry Wotton (1651), The Life of Mr. Richard Hooker (1665), The Life of Mr. George Herbert (1670).
        His masterpiece is The Compleat Angler (1653), a pastoral discourse on the joys and stratagems of fishing that is of interest to more than fishermen. Walton would have been astonished that is has become one of the most frequently reprinted books in English literature.
         The book opens on the first day of May, as three sportsmen — Auceps the fowler, Venator the hunter, and Piscator the fisherman — compare their favorite pastimes while traveling through the English countryside along the River Lea. The discourse is enlivened by songs and poems, country folklore, recipes, anecdotes, moral meditations, quotes from the Bible and from classic literature, and lore about fishing and waterways. The central character, Piscator, is not simply a champion and expositor of the art of angling but a man of tranquil, contented temper, pious and sententious, with a relish for the pleasures of friendship, verse and song, good food, and drink.
          Angling must have been a healthy pastime for Walton. He lived past the age of 90, extraordinary in his time, dying on 15 December 1683.
    WALTON ONLINE: The Life of Sir Henry Wotton (1651) — The Life of Mr. Richard Hooker (1665) — The Life of Mr. George Herbert (1670) — The Compleat Angler (1653) —  The Compleat Angler
    1537 Francesco Barozzi, Cretan [NOT cretin] mathematician who lived mostly in Venice, where he died on 23 November 1604.
    1387 Henry V, British king famous for his victory at Agincourt, France.
    Holidays Japan: Nagasaki Memorial Day (1945) / Libya: Sanusi Army Day / Rhode Island: Victory Day / Singapore: National Day (1965)
    Religious Observances: Christian: St Denys / Santos Amor, Clemente, Firmo, Marceliano, Martín, Nicolás, Román, Rústico y Secundino.

    Thoughts for the day: “If you can't say anything good about me, don't say anything.” (what most people would say)
    "If you can't say anything good about me, do at least say something." (what a politician would say)
    "If you can't say anything good about somebody, come sit next to me."
    "If you can't say anything good about somebody, that says a lot about you."
    "If you can't say anything good about somebody, then talk about yourself instead."
    "If you can't say anything good about yourself, you're one in a million."
    "If my opponent will stop saying lies about me, I'll stop saying the truth about him.”
    "The man who makes no mistakes does not usually make anything."
    — Edward John Phelps, US lawyer and diplomat (1822-1900).
    “A diplomat doesn't comment on the woman who makes no mistakes.”
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