3 Feb History.

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Events, deaths, births, of FEB 03
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On a February 03:
2003 The Tel Aviv District Court rules that the Palestinian Authority headed by Yasser Arafat will have to pay the Egged bus cooperative NIS 52 million ($10.7 million) in damages caused by 15-20% of passengers having stopped using Egged buses due to 53 attacks on them, including 20 attacks by suicide bombers, resulting in the death of 200 persons (in addition to the attackers) since the start of the al-Aqsa intifada. The court places a lien on PA funds held in Israel.
2000 The US Senate votes 89-4 to confirm Alan Greenspan for a fourth term as chairman of the Federal Reserve Board.

^ 1999 Clinton's impeachment trial in the US Senate: the 3rd and last witness. ^top^
(1) Shadowy presidential aide Sidney "Sid Vicious" Blumenthal, the third and last witness, spends about four hours with House prosecutors and the White House legal team today. In earlier grand jury testimony, Blumenthal testified that Clinton told him that he had not had a sexual relationship with Lewinsky and that the former intern had pursued him rather than the other way around. Blumenthal said the president also told him that Lewinsky had been described by others as a stalker. House managers allege Clinton told Blumenthal that false story so he would relate it to the grand jury, thus obstructing justice.

Sources say that he is quizzed by Rep. James Rogan (R-California) and Rep. Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina) for about one hour and 15 minutes.
- Sources tell CNN that under questioning from Rogan, Blumenthal admits that Clinton lied to him during that conversation. He also acknowledges that once word of Clinton's sexual relationship with Lewinsky became known, the president never contacted him to say that his earlier intimation that Lewinsky was a stalker was false.
- But sources say Blumenthal insists he never talked to anybody outside the White House about Clinton's descriptions of Lewinsky.
The rest of the time is consumed by numerous objections from Blumenthal's lawyers, sources say. Some of those objections are to questions concerning Kathleen Willey, a woman who accused Clinton of making an unwanted sexual advance in the White House.
White House lawyers do not cross-examine Blumenthal. Sources say they believe he said nothing more than he had said previously.
"It was a very productive session," Rogan says. "We look forward to the opportunity of being able to make the presentation on the Senate floor as to why Mr. Blumenthal and the other witnesses should be called live and give every senator the opportunity to see what I've seen."
(BLUMENTHAL SENATE DEPOSITION TRANSCRIPT)

(2) A group of 28 Republican senators sends a letter to Clinton, urging him to give a deposition — something the White House has said he will not do. "Personal answers from you should prove beneficial in our efforts to reconcile conflicting testimony," the letter says. "You should give every consideration to our request."
(3) Senate Republicans meet behind closed doors to discuss a possible strategy to bring the trial to a close with a vote on so-called "findings of fact." They reportedly draft two versions of a formal "finding of fact" against the president, a measure Democrats complain is unconstitutional.

It currently exists in two versions. One is a bare-bones recitation of the findings; the other employs identical language but refers to specific acts to buttress the claims. Neither makes a finding that Clinton committed perjury or obstructed justice, as alleged in the articles of impeachment.
The document is subject to change, according to several officials, who say Republicans hope to attract the support of at least a few Democrats.

(4) The Washington Times reports:
Mr. Lockhart [is] asked by Bill Sammon of The Washington Times ... at his regular White House briefing whether such pressure was heavy-handed spin control or appropriate behavior for the White House press secretary.
"If this is your way, your side way, to get into writing the story, go ahead and write the story," Mr. Lockhart said. "I'm not going to help you. You've already written it."
Helen Thomas of UPI then asked: "Did you pressure a network?"
Mr. Lockhart replied: "If any of you think I'm in a position to pressure anyone, you give me more power than you think I have."
Bill Plante of CBS joined in the questioning: "Did you make the call, as has been reported?"
Mr. Lockhart replied: "I'm just not going to discuss the private conversations I have, even if others can't keep them private."
While persons close to Fox confirmed that the White House tried to spike their story, others close to NBC insisted yesterday no such pressure had been brought to bear by the White House. That has been the subject of intense speculation in Washington for nearly a week. Some NBC correspondents said the story, based on correspondent Lisa Myers' lengthy interview last month with the woman in question, Juanita Broaddrick, is still being corroborated and might well be broadcast.
They contradicted Mr. Drudge's assertion that the story had been spiked.

^ 1998 State attorneys general subpoena Microsoft
The antitrust suit against Microsoft expanded as attorneys general from several states issued new subpoenas regarding Microsoft's business practices in the pending launch of Windows 98. Microsoft's battle with the government during the next year would reveal secret deals with online providers, hardball tactics for promoting Internet Explorer, and other questionable practices. The government claimed such practices were ruthless and anticompetitive, but Microsoft called them just plain good business. However, Microsoft won on one point this day: An appeals judge agreed to suspend the investigation of a "special master"-an expert on Internet law-to whom Microsoft objected.

1998 Search engine Lycos purchased Tripod, a site that provided free homepages to users, for $58 million. The deal was part of a growing consolidation of sites into "portals"—content rich entry points to the Web.

^ 1994 US ends Vietnam trade embargo ^top^
Nearly two decades after the fall of Saigon, US President Bill Clinton announces the lifting of the 19-year-old trade embargo against Vietnam, citing the cooperation of Vietnam's communist government in helping the United States locate the 2,238 Americans still listed as missing in the Vietnam War. Despite the lifting of the embargo, high tariffs remained on Vietnamese exports pending the country's qualification as a "most favored nation," a US trade-status designation that Vietnam might earn after broadening its program of free-market reforms.
In July 1995, the Clinton administration established full diplomatic relations with Vietnam. In making the decision, Clinton was advised by Republican Senator John McCain of Arizona, an ex-Navy pilot who spent five years as a prisoner of war in Hanoi. Brushing aside criticism of Clinton's decision by some Republicans, McCain asserted that it was time for America to normalize relations with its old enemy. Five years later, in November 2000, President Clinton became the first president to visit Vietnam since Richard Nixon's 1969 trip to South Vietnam during the Vietnam War.

1993 Federal trial of 4 police officers charged with civil rights violations in videotaped beating of Rodney King begins in Los Angeles CA
1992 Defense opens calling Noriega "our ally in the war on drugs"
1991 The rate for a US first-class postage stamp rises to 29 cents.
1989 Military coup overthrows Alfredo Stroessner, dictator of Paraguay for more than three decades.
1988 The US House of Representatives rejects President Reagan's request for at least $36.25 million in aid to the Nicaraguan Contras.
1985 In apartheid South Africa, Desmond Tutu, 53, becomes Johannesburg's first black Anglican bishop, and a force for racial justice.
1982 Greatest helicopter lift, 56'888 kg, Podmoscovnoe, USSR
1973 US President Nixon signs Endangered Species Act into law
1969 The Palestine National Congress appointed Yasser Arafat head of PLO.

^ 1966 Lunik 9 soft-lands on lunar surface ^top^
The Soviet Union accomplishes the first controlled landing on the moon, when the unmanned spacecraft Lunik 9 touches down on the Ocean of Storms. After its soft landing, the circular capsule opened like a flower, deploying its antennas, and began transmitting photographs and television images back to Earth. The 220-pound landing capsule was launched from Earth on January 31.
Lunik 9 was the third major lunar first for the Soviet space program: On September 14, 1959, Lunik 2 became the first manmade object to reach the moon when it impacted with the lunar surface, and on October 7 of the same year Lunik 3 flew around the moon and transmitted back to Earth the first images of the dark side of the moon. In the late 1950s and early 1960s, the US space program consistently trailed the Soviet program in space firsts — a pattern that shifted dramatically with the triumph of America's Apollo lunar program in the late 1960s.

1962 President Kennedy bans all trade with Cuba except for food and drugs
1962 Le paquebot France quitte Le Havre pour New York. Ce voyage inaugural du plus beau paquebot du monde réjouit les Français avides de reconnaissance internationale. Nul n'y voit le reliquat d'une époque révolue.

^ 1955 Limited agrarian reforms in South Vietnam. ^top^
After months of prodding by US advisors, South Vietnamese President Ngo Dinh Diem introduces the first in a series of agrarian reform measures. This first measure was a decree governing levels of rent for farmland. US officials had strongly urged that Diem institute such reforms to win the support of the common people, but later critics maintained his land reform program began too late, progressed too slowly, and never went far enough. What the South Vietnamese farmers wanted was a redistribution of land from the absentee landlords to those that actually worked the fields, but Diem's program to return the land to the tiller was implemented halfheartedly and did little to meet the rising appetite for land among South Vietnam's rural population. Provisions for payment by peasants granted land created unnecessary hardships. Although 1 million tenants received some relief, more than 1 million received no land at all, and the lack of impartial enforcement agencies crippled many potential benefits. Instead of redistributing land to the poor, Diem's land reform program ended up taking back what the peasants had been given by the Viet Minh and returning it to the landlords, forcing peasants to pay for the land they considered theirs on impossible terms. In 1960, 75 percent of the land was owned by 15 percent of the people. The communists capitalized on unresolved peasant unrest throughout Diem's regime. Discontent towards Diem reached its height when dissident South Vietnamese officers murdered him during a coup in November 1963

^ 1954 Le siège de Diên Biên Phu commence ^top^
Le siège du camp retranché de Diên Biên Phu commence. Un siècle de présence française en Indochine va se terminer dans cette cuvette où le général Navarre a concentré 15'000 hommes; uniquement des militaires de carrière (dont beaucoup de volontaires allemands, orphelins de la Wehrmacht). Après la seconde guerre mondiale, l'occupation de l'Indochine par le Japon et la proclamation de l'indépendance du Vietnam par Hô Chi Minh, la France a perdu l'espoir de conserver sa colonie. Elle cherche une issue "honorable" et voudrait confier les trois Etats d'Indochine (Cambodge, Laos et Viet-nam) à des gouvernants modérés. Mais les atermoiements des militaires français et les provocations de quelques ultras vont entraîner les communistes du Viêt-minh dans une guerre à outrance. Les partisans de Hô Chi Minh occupent méthodiquement le terrain. Autour de Diên Biên Phu, le général Giap rassemble 35.000 combattants. Après de rudes combats, l'assaut final aura lieu le 7 mai. Il conduira aux accords de Genève et au partage du Viet-nam entre deux gouvernements antagonistes. Les Américains prendront plus tard la place des Français dans le bourbier indochinois.

1951 US President Harry S. Truman dedicates the Chapel of the Four Chaplains, on the 8th anniversary of their giving their lifejackets and drowning with the sinking Dorchester. Truman says, "This interfaith shrine...will stand through long generations to teach Americans that as men can die heroically as brothers so should they live together in mutual faith and good will."

^ 1950 Klaus Fuchs arrested for passing atomic bomb information to Soviets ^top^
      Klaus Fuchs, a German-born British scientist who helped developed the atomic bomb, is arrested in Great Britain for passing top-secret information about the bomb to the Soviet Union. The arrest of Fuchs led authorities to several other individuals involved in a spy ring, culminating with the arrest of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg and their subsequent execution.
      Fuchs and his family fled Germany in 1933 to avoid Nazi persecution and came to Great Britain, where Fuchs earned his doctorate in physics. During World War II, British authorities were aware of the leftist leanings of both Fuchs and his father. However, Fuchs was eventually invited to participate in the British program to develop an atomic bomb (the project named "Tube Alloys") because of his expertise. At some point after the project began, Soviet agents contacted Fuchs and he began to pass information about British progress to them. Late in 1943, Fuchs was among a group of British scientists brought to the US to work on the Manhattan Project, the US program to develop an atomic bomb. Fuchs continued his clandestine meetings with Soviet agents. When the war ended, Fuchs returned to Great Britain and continued his work on the British atomic bomb project.
      Fuchs' arrest in 1950 came after a routine security check of Fuchs' father, who had moved to communist East Germany in 1949. While the check was underway, British authorities received information from the American Federal Bureau of Investigation that decoded Soviet messages in their possession indicated Fuchs was a Russian spy. On February 3, officers from Scotland Yard arrested Fuchs and charged him with violating the Official Secrets Act. Fuchs eventually admitted his role and was sentenced to 14 years in prison. His sentence was later reduced, and he was released in 1959 and spent his remaining years living with his father in East Germany.
      Fuchs' capture set off a chain of arrests. Harry Gold, whom Fuchs implicated as the middleman between himself and Soviet agents, was arrested in the United States. Gold thereupon informed on David Greenglass, one of Fuchs' co-workers on the Manhattan Project. After his apprehension, Greenglass implicated his sister-in-law and her husband, Ethel and Julius Rosenberg. They were arrested in New York in July 1950, found guilty of conspiracy to commit espionage, and executed at Sing Sing Prison in June 1953.

1949 The trial of Cardinal Mindszenty of Hungary by the Communist regime begins. He had resisted their efforts to enslave the Catholic church.
1947 -81ºF (-63ºC), Snag Yukon (North American record)
1945 Almost 1000 Flying Fortresses drop 3000 ton bombs on Berlin

^ 1944 US troops capture the Marshall Islands ^top^
      US forces invade and take control of the Marshall Islands, long occupied by the Japanese and used by them as a base for military operations. The Marshalls, east of the Caroline Islands in the western Pacific Ocean, had been in Japanese hands since World War I. Occupied by the Japanese in 1914, they were made part of the "Japanese Mandated Islands" as determined by the League of Nations. The Treaty of Versailles, which concluded the First World War, stipulated certain islands formerly controlled by Germany — including the Marshalls, the Carolines, and the Marianas (except Guam) — had to be ceded to the Japanese, though "overseen" by the League. But the Japanese withdrew from the League in 1933 and began transforming the Mandated Islands into military bases. Non-Japanese, including Christian missionaries, were kept from the islands as naval and air bases — meant to threaten shipping lanes between Australia and Hawaii — were constructed.
      During the Second World War, these islands, as well as others in the vicinity, became targets of Allied attacks. The US Central Pacific Campaign began with the Gilbert Islands, south of the Mandated Islands; US forces conquered the Gilberts in November 1943. Next on the agenda was Operation Flintlock, a plan to capture the Marshall Islands.
      Adm. Raymond Spruance led the 5th Fleet from Pearl Harbor on 22 January 1944, to the Marshalls, with the goal of getting 53'000 assault troops ashore two islets: Roi and Namur. Meanwhile, using the Gilberts as an air base, US planes bombed the Japanese administrative and communications center for the Marshalls, which was located on Kwajalein, an atoll that was part of the Marshall cluster of atolls, islets, and reefs. By 31 January, Kwajalein was devastated. Repeated carrier- and land-based air raids destroyed every Japanese airplane on the Marshalls. By 03 February, US infantry overran Roi and Namur atolls. The Marshalls were then effectively in US hands — with the loss of only 400 US lives.

1942 first Japanese air raid on Java
1941 In Vichy, France, the Nazis used force to restore Pierre Laval to office.
1941 Supreme Court upheld Federal Wage and Hour law, sets minimum wages and maximum hours
1930 Vietnamese Communist Party forms
1930 William Howard Taft, resigns as chief justice of the US Supreme Court for health reasons.
1927 Uprising against regime of General Carmona in Portugal.
1924 Alexei Ryko elected as President of People's commission (succeeds Lenin)
1919 League of Nations first meeting (Paris)
1917 US liner Housatonic sunk by German sub. The US breaks off diplomatic relations with Germany, which had announced a policy of unrestricted submarine warfare.
1915 Turkish and German army reach Suez Canal.

^ 1913 Income Tax Amendment to US Constitution takes effect ^top^
The US government had levied an income tax during the Civil War, and although it was allowed to lapse after the war, it was deemed constitutional by the Supreme Court in 1881. In 1894, legislators passed a graduated income tax as part of the Wilson-Gorman Tariff Act. This time, however, the high court reversed course and deemed the tax unconstitutional on the grounds that the legislation, rather than providing for the redistribution of funds to the states, focused narrowly on one portion of the country. Undeterred, pro-tax forces drafted and gained passage of the Sixteenth Amendment to the US Constitution in 1909.
The Amendment, which authorized the federal income tax, is ratified on 03 February 1913, just a month before Woodrow Wilson,s inauguration as president. The government was not shy about deploying the Sixteenth Amendment and implemented the first graduated income tax later in the same year as part of the Underwood-Simmons Tariff Act. Underwood-Simmons, one of Wilson's key early initiatives, slashed import duties as a means of promoting free trade and boosting the nation's industrial efforts. In turn, the tax was viewed as a necessary means of recouping some of the funds that the government would lose as a result of the tariff reform.

1908 Supreme Court rules a union boycott violates Sherman Antitrust Act.

1887 To avoid disputed national elections, Congress creates Electoral Count Act
1882 Circus owner PT Barnum buys his world famous elephant Jumbo
1876 Albert Spalding with $800 starts sporting goods company, manufacturing first official baseball, tennis ball, basketball, golf ball, and football
1870 15th Amendment (Black suffrage) passed
1867 Prince Mutsuhito, 14, becomes Emperor Meiji of Japan (1867-1912)

^ 1865 Attempt to negotiate end of US Civil War.
     Hampton Roads Peace Conference: US President Lincoln and Confederate Vice President Alexander H. Stephens hold a peace conference aboard a ship off the Virginia coast. The talks deadlock over the issue of Southern autonomy.
      President Lincoln meets with a delegation of Confederate officials to discuss a possible peace agreement. Lincoln refuses to grant the delegation any concessions, and the president departs for the north.
      New York Tribune editor and abolitionist Horace Greeley provided the impetus for the conference when he contacted Francis Blair, a Maryland aristocrat and presidential adviser. Greeley suggested that Blair was the "right man" to open discussions with the Confederates to end the war. Blair sought permission from Lincoln to meet with Confederate President Jefferson Davis, and he did so twice in January 1865. Blair suggested to Davis that an armistice be forged and the two sides turn their attention to removing the French-supported regime of Maximilian in Mexico. This plan would help cool tensions between North and South by providing a common enemy, he believed.
      Meanwhile, the situation was becoming progressively worse for the Confederates in the winter of 1864 and 1865. In January, Union troops captured Fort Fisher and effectively closed Wilmington, North Carolina, the last major port open to blockade runners. Davis conferred with his vice president, Alexander Stephens, and Stephens recommended that a peace commission be appointed to explore a possible armistice. Davis sent Stephens and two others to meet with Lincoln at Hampton Roads, Virginia.
      The meeting convenes on 03 February. Stephens asks if there was any way to stop the war and Lincoln replies that the only way was "for those who were resisting the laws of the Union to cease that resistance." The delegation underestimated Lincoln's resolve to make the end of slavery a necessary condition for any peace. The president also insisted on immediate reunification and the laying down of Confederate arms before anything else was discussed. In short, the Union was in such an advantageous position that Lincoln did not need to concede any issues to the Confederates. Robert M.T. Hunter, one of the delegation, commented that Lincoln was offering little except the unconditional surrender of the South. After less than five hours, the conference ended and the delegation left with no concessions. The war continued for more than two months.

1864 Sherman's march through Georgia
1863 Union General William T. Sherman begins Meridian Campaign in Mississippi
1862 President Lincoln refuses an offer from the King of Siam to send him war elephants
1855 Wisconsin Supreme Court declares US Fugitive Slave Law unconstitutional

^ 1851 Les bateaux-lavoirs. ^top^
En France, un important crédit est débloqué pour la création d’un nouvel équipement destiné aux classes populaires: les fameux bateaux-lavoirs. Comme les " lavandières " étaient réputées " faciles " et de mœurs légères (on les appelait même " les poules d’eau " !), de nombreux hommes à la recherche d’aventures venaient troubler leur travail le long des cours d’eau. La prostitution et donc les mauvais garçons se mêlaient souvent aux " lavages " effectifs des réelles lavandières. Pour éviter que les jeunes filles et les femmes honnêtes ne fréquentent ce milieu louche, l’on décida de créer des endroits où elles pourraient laver en toute tranquillité. Mais il n’en fut construit qu’un seul à Montmartre. Il fut détourné de son objectif car les lavandières ne le fréquentaient guère. Il devint le rendez-vous des peintres et des artistes de la Belle Epoque.

1831 Le duc de Nemours — fils de Louis Philippe — est élu roi des Belges, mais son père lui fait refuser le titre pour éviter d'indisposer les Britanniques.

^ 1830 Une petite Grèce gagne son indépendance ^top^
Le sultan Mahmoud II reconnaît officiellement une Grèce indépendante par le protocole de Londres. Le nouvel Etat est limité au Péloponnèse, à la région d'Athènes et aux îles Cyclades. Pour les habitants de cette petite Grèce, c'en est fini de quatre siècles d'occupation ottomane. Après la chute de l'empire byzantin et la prise de Constantinople en 1453, les sultans turcs ont ménagé aux Grecs une large autonomie. Mais, en Grèce comme ailleurs, leur administration s'est montrée incapable d'assurer la sécurité indispensable au développement économique et social. Les Grecs ont profité du déclin de l'empire ottoman et de l'immixion des Occidentaux dans les affaires turques pour réclamer une complète indépendance. Le 25 mars 1821, l'archevêque de Patras donne le signal de la rébellion. Il s'ensuit une très dure guerre. Elle est d'abord favorable aux Grecs. Mais les Turcs ne tardent pas à reprendre le dessus avec le concours de leurs vassaux égyptiens. La guerre est marquée par les célèbres massacres de Chio, la prise de Missolonghi au cours de laquelle meurt le poète anglais Lord Byron et l'explosion accidentelle du Parthénon, à Athènes. Elle fait pas moins de 200'000 morts parmi les Grecs avant que les Occidentaux se décident à intervenir. Après la destruction de la flotte turco-égyptienne à Navarin et un début d'invasion des troupes russes, le sultan se résigne à signer un traité à Andrinople, le 14 septembre 1829. Il confirme enfin à Londres l'indépendance d'une partie de la Grèce. Selon l'usage qui a déjà prévalu en Belgique, les Occidentaux imposeront au nouvel Etat de renoncer à la République et lui donneront un monarque pur sang, le prince Othon de Bavière. Celui-ci sera élu à Nauplie le 8 août 1832. Au fil de plusieurs guerres contre les Turcs et ses autres voisins, le royaume finira par rassembler à l'intérieur de ses frontières la plupart des Grecs. Un siècle plus tard, par le traité de Sèvres, les Grecs tenteront mais en vain de prendre leur revanche sur l'ancienne puissance coloniale en prenant pied en Anatolie, au coeur même de la Turquie.

^ 1820 Keats falls deathly ill ^top^
      Poet John Keats, 24, coughs up blood and realizes he, like his brother Tom, is doomed to die of tuberculosis. Despite the tender care of his fiancée, Fanny Brawne, and a journey to Italy, for which he left on 17 September 1820, in the hopes of improving his condition, he dies in February 1821, only 25 years old. But in that short time, he achieved a remarkable reputation as a leading poet.
      Unlike many writers of his day, Keats came from a lower-middle-class background. His father worked at a stable in London and eventually married the owners' daughter. John was the first of the couple's five children. At private school, John was high-spirited and boisterous, given to fist fights and roughhousing despite his small stature-even as an adult, he was barely over five feet tall. Keats' schoolmasters encouraged his interest in reading and later introduced him to poetry and theater.
      When John was eight, his father died after falling off a horse, launching a long economic struggle that would keep Keats in poverty throughout his life, despite the large inheritance due him. His mother quickly remarried, and the five Keats children were sent to live with their maternal grandparents. The marriage failed, and their mother soon joined them. However, she died in 1810, and John's grandparents died by 1814. An unscrupulous guardian kept the Keats children away from their money and apprenticed John to a surgeon in 1811. Keats worked with the surgeon until 1814, then went to work for a hospital in London as a junior apothecary and surgeon in charge of dressing wounds.
      In London, Keats pursued his interest in literature while working at the hospital. He became friends with the editor of the Examiner, Leigh Hunt, a successful poet and author who introduced him to other literary figures, including Percy Bysshe Shelley. Although Keats did not write his first poem until age 18, he quickly showed tremendous promise, encouraged by Hunt and his circle. Keats' work first appeared in the Examiner on this day in 1816, followed by Keats' first book, Poems (1817). After 1817, Keats devoted himself entirely to poetry, becoming a master of the Romantic sonnet and trying his hand at epic poems like Hyperion.
      In 1818, Keats' brother Tom fell ill with tuberculosis. Another brother's poor investment left him stranded and penniless in Kentucky. Keats' economic struggles worsened, and a strenuous walking tour of England's Lake District damaged his health. The one bright spot in his life was Fanny Brawne, a young woman with whom he fell madly in love. They became engaged, but Keats' poverty did not allow them to marry. From January to September 1819, Keats produced an outpouring of brilliant work, including poems like Ode on a Grecian Urn, Ode to a Nightingale, and La Belle Dame Sans Merci.
KEATS ONLINE:
The Eve of St. Agnes, Lamia, The Poetical Works of John Keats, Selected Poetry

^top^

ODE ON A GRECIAN URN.

Thou still unravish'd bride of quietness,
Thou foster-child of silence and slow time,
Sylvan historian, who canst thus express
A flowery tale more sweetly than our rhyme:
What leaf-fring'd legend haunts about thy shape
Of deities or mortals, or of both,
In Tempe or the dales of Arcady?
What men or gods are these? What maidens loth?
What mad pursuit? What struggle to escape?
What pipes and timbrels? What wild ecstasy?

Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard
Are sweeter; therefore, ye soft pipes, play on;
Not to the sensual ear, but, more endear'd,
Pipe to the spirit ditties of no tone:
Fair youth, beneath the trees, thou canst not leave
Thy song, nor ever can those trees be bare;
Bold Lover, never, never canst thou kiss,
Though winning near the goal yet, do not grieve;
She cannot fade, though thou hast not thy bliss,
For ever wilt thou love, and she be fair!

Ah, happy, happy boughs! that cannot shed
Your leaves, nor ever bid the Spring adieu;
And, happy melodist, unwearied,
For ever piping songs for ever new;
More happy love! more happy, happy love!
For ever warm and still to be enjoy'd,
For ever panting, and for ever young;
All breathing human passion far above,
That leaves a heart high-sorrowful and cloy'd,
A burning forehead, and a parching tongue.

Who are these coming to the sacrifice?
To what green altar, O mysterious priest,
Lead'st thou that heifer lowing at the skies,
And all her silken flanks with garlands drest?
What little town by river or sea shore,
Or mountain-built with peaceful citadel,
Is emptied of this folk, this pious morn?
And, little town, thy streets for evermore
Will silent be; and not a soul to tell
Why thou art desolate, can e'er return.

O Attic shape! Fair attitude! with brede
Of marble men and maidens overwrought,
With forest branches and the trodden weed;
Thou, silent form, dost tease us out of thought
As doth eternity: Cold Pastoral!
When old age shall this generation waste,
Thou shalt remain, in midst of other woe
Than ours, a friend to man, to whom thou say'st,
"Beauty is truth, truth beauty,—that is all
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know."

1815 World's first commercial cheese factory established, in Switzerland
1809 Territory of Illinois organizes (including present-day Wisconsin)
1783 Spain recognizes US independence.
1740 Charles de Bourbon, King of Naples, invites Jews to return to Sicily

^ 1690 Massachusetts issues paper currency. ^top^
Until 1690, the North American colonies had dealt primarily in coinage. Silver and gold were rather rare, so colonists generally used unofficial coins, or “decrepit coppers.” Boston-based silversmiths John Hull and Robert Sanderson did operate their own mint between 1652 and 1682, issuing silver shillings and three and sixpence pieces, but save for a few ill-fated experiments, paper money was hardly tried or used. However, on 03 February 1690, Massachusetts takes what would later prove to be a crucial step in the establishment of a stable US economy and authorized the first official paper currency to be ever used in the Western Hemisphere. The currency would be used to pay soldiers fighting a war against Quebec.

1660 General Moncks army reaches London
1653 Cardinal Mazarin returns to Paris from exile
1591 German monarchy forms Protestant Union of Torgau
1576 Henri of Navarre (future Henri IV) escapes from Paris
1518 Pope Leo X imposes silence on the Augustinian monks.
1377 Cardinal Robert of Geneva (later anti-pope Clement VII), as papal legate in Upper Italy, in order to put down a rebellion in the Pontifical States, authorizes the massacre of 4000 persons at Cesena, and earns the title of "the executioner of Cesena".

^ 0590 Gregory is named Pope. ^top^
      Bishop Pelagius II was dead. Who should replace him? All eyes turned to one man: Gregory. Now if there was anything Gregory did not want, it was to be bishop of Rome. He had experience in governing men, and the job looked impossible to him. The government of Rome was a one-legged sort of thing and its responsibilities were falling on the church. Famine, plague, and war raged in the countryside. Lombards, Franks, and Imperial troops pillaged the starving land. Gregory believed that the four horsemen of the apocalypse were riding over the land. The end of the world was near. Who in his right mind would want to deal with that? Legend says he tried to escape from Rome by hiding in a basket.
      If Gregory had had his way, he would not even have been in Rome when Pelagius died. Born into a noble family in about 540, he served as a prefect of Rome. As prefect, he presided over the senate and provided for the city's defense, food supply, and finances. Later, he became one of the seven cardinal deacons of the church. Pelagius made him nuncio to the imperial court of Constantinople, where Gregory met Maurice, the future emperor. On his return to Rome, Gregory saw fair-haired Saxon lads being sold as slaves in the market. Told they were "Angles" he replied, "not Angles — angels!" He obtained papal permission to carry the gospel to Britain and slipped out of town. Riots resulted. He was recalled, Pelagius died soon afterward, and Gregory was thrust into his place. Gregory still had one hope of squirming off the hook. The emperor had to approve his election and might veto it. The emperor approved.
      On 03 September 590, Gregory was consecrated pope. All winter long, his letters grumbled at the heavy load that had been piled upon his unwilling back. The job was every bit as hard as he expected. He had to feed starving Rome. It was he, not the Italian civil leaders, who negotiated with the Lombard invaders. Because the church was the biggest landlord in Italy, Gregory had to spend much precious time reforming the practices that prevailed on these lands both to make them more profitable and to relieve the peasants who were often badly treated. His strong sense of justice caused him to protect their rights although he must have been sorely tempted to wring every possible coin from them because the papal estates provided the revenues from which he funded his widespread assistance to the needy and paid off attacking armies. Perhaps it was with all this work in mind that Gregory nicknamed himself "Servant of the servants of God."
      Time reconciled him to his task. He became one of the most notable medieval men and his books helped form the mind set of the Middle ages. By means of scripture studies and popular works, he urged men to contemplate eternity. His Pastoral Care became a textbook for kings and bishops. Alfred the Great of England not only followed its teachings, but translated it into the Saxon tongue. Alfred felt he owed a great debt to Gregory. In the midst of all his cares, Gregory did not forget the Saxons. He sent the monk Augustine as a missionary to them and Alfred reaped the inheritance of Christianity. Gregory's name is often associated with the arts, especially plain song, which is called Gregorian chant because he standardized it. He encouraged art in the church in order to portray the story of Christ for people who could not read. When the Patriarch of Constantinople adopted the title "ecumenical patriarch" Gregory objected. To elevate one bishop over all others was to degrade the others, he said. This was ironical, because his success as an administrator helped make the bishops of Rome — the popes — far more powerful than the patriarchs and led them to make far greater claims.

TO THE TOP

^ Deaths which occurred on a February 03:
2003 Lana Clarkson, 41 [photo >], shot at 05:00 while alone with rock music producer Phil Spector, 62, in his Los Angeles mansion.
2003 Luis Eduardo Guzmán Alvarez, licenciado en Educación, de 49 años, baleado en la noche, cuando salía de un estacionamiento en Bello (Antioquia) Colombia, donde era Secretario municipal de Educación. Fue presidente de la Asociación de Institutores de Antioquia, concejal de Bello, presidente del concejo municipal, y rector de un colegio de la ciudad.
2003 Rosario Camejo Puerta, de 60 años, secretaria del Gobernador de Arauca, Colombia. En el garaje de su casa encendía su camioneta para dirigirse a la oficina, cuando fue balaceada en la cabeza por un armada de fuego corta llevada por uno de dos hombres que se movilizaban en una motocicleta. La líder liberal se vinculó a la administración departamental el 14 octubre 2002. Fue juez municipal de Arauca, gerente de la Caja Nacional de Previsión Social (Cajanal), secretaria de Educación Intendencial, Intendente de Arauca y presidenta de la Cámara de Comercio de Arauca. Fundó la Liga de Lucha contra el Cáncer, las empresas Araugas y la Agencia de Viajes La Alborada. En el departamento de Arauca, Saravena, Arauca y Arauquita fueron declarados desde septiembre 2002 como zonas de rehabilitación y consolidación, para combatir a guerrilleros y paramilitares.
2003 Salah Kadih, 62, and Sami Abu-Shahab, 35, Palestinian farmers killed by Israeli tank fire in the Gaza Strip south of the Kissufim crossing, while they were digging in their fields, several hundred meters from each other, with shovels. The Israelis claimed that they were some 60 meters from the border fence, where there are no farming fields [because the Israelis destroyed them with bulldozers?]
2003 Israeli Sergeant Major Lior Naftali, 30, of Tel Aviv, when the bullet-proofed Sufa model jeep which he is driving swerves and overturns twice on a wide unpaved road near the Baruchin settler enclave outpost west of Ariel, West Bank. The three other reservists in the vehicle are injured. The high-center-of-gravity armored Sufa is involved in hundreds of accidents every year, and Israeli soldiers are not adequately trained to drive it.
2003 William Kelley, 73, of cancer, US screenwriter, TV scriptwriter, author of six novels including The God Hunters, The Tyree Legend, Gemini, A Servant of Slaves (Feb 2003, based on the life of a Henriette Delille, who in the 1800s founded an order of Black nuns). Kelley and Earl W. Wallace won an Oscar for best original screenplay the 1985 movie Witness, about a big-city policeman who hides out in Amish country to protect a young murder witness. Kelley served in the Air Force in the late 1940s. He spent three years studying for the priesthood in the 1950s and several of his books, as well as the Witness screenplay, include religious themes.

2002 Dozens of victims of earthquake (Richter 6.0) at 09:11 in Afyon province, Turkey. The worst hit town is Sultandagi, 30 km south of Bolvadin, the quake's epicenter. [Photo above: some of the devastation in Sultandagi]
The main quake (magnitude 6.2) occurs at 07:11:29 UT with its epicenter at 38.56N 31.11E ah a depth of 10 km. Aftershocks' epicenters are all at 10 km depth:
1) at 09:26:43 UT (5.9) at 38.68N 30.81E
2) at 11:39:54 UT (5.3) at 38.53N 30.96E
3) at 11:54:34 UT (5.0) at 38.56N 31.03E

2002 Annetjie Mienie, of Johannesburg, from being bitten in the stomach by a mother hippopotamus whose calf she was photographing in South Africa's Kruger National Park. Hippos are territorial and aggressive, particularly when protecting their young, and kill more people in Africa than any other wild mammal. [They suspect anyone approaching them to be a meanie.]
2001 Bruce Emerson Morrison, stabbed in the abdomen by Gong Zhili, a Chinese Protestant. Morrison was about to enter a meeting of young Protestants in Wuhan, Hubei province, China. He was an English teacher, from the US, at the Hubei Industrial Institute.
2000 Richard Kleindienst, 76, in Prescott, Arizona. He had served as US attorney general during the Nixon administration and resigned during the Watergate scandal.
1998 Twenty on cable car as US Marine jet plane clips its cable, and it falls 110 meters, in northern Italy. The jet's pilot (who was flying recklessly low) would be acquitted by a US military tribunal of 20 counts of involuntary manslaughter [in accordance with the US military's usual unconcern for human life, especially that of non-US nationals].
1998 Karla Faye Tucker, executed by the state of Texas for the pickax killings of two persons in 1983; first woman executed in the US since 1984.
1996 Sgt. 1st Class Donald A. Dugan, 38, becomes the first US soldier killed while on duty in Bosnia as a piece of ammunition explodes in his hands.
1959 Buddy Holly, 22, Ritchie “Valens” Valenzuela, 17, and J.P. "The Big Bopper" Richardson, 28, popular rock musicians, as their chartered Beechcraft Bonanza plane crashes in Iowa a few minutes after takeoff on a flight from Mason City to Moorehead, Minnesota.
1956 Émile Borel, mathematician.

^ 1943: 672 in the sinking of the USAT Dorchester, including the 4 chaplains who gave up their life jackets: George L. Fox, 42, Alexander D. Goode, 31, Clark V. Poling, 32, John P. Washington, 34. ^top^
The 4 heroic chaplains

George L. Fox, the oldest of the four, enlisted in the Army as a medical corps assistant in 1917, lying about his age. He won a Silver Star, Croix de Guerre and Purple Heart. It was as a resident of Vermont and a family man that he felt the call to the ministry. Ordained Methodist, when war came again, he told his wife, "I've got to go. I know from experience what our boys are about to face." He began active duty in August of 1942. Alexander D. Goode, an outstanding scholar and athlete, became a rabbi just as his dad had been. He joined the National Guard while studying for the Rabbinate. Married to his childhood sweetheart, he served a synagogue in York, Pa., at the time World War II broke out and began active service August, 1942. Clark V. Poling, the seventh generation of his family to be ordained, was the youngest of the four chaplains. He told his dad he wanted to not "hide behind the church in some safe office." His father told him that chaplains cannot carry weapons and have the highest incidence of mortality. Poling left the Dutch Reformed Church pastorate in Schenectady, N.Y., and requested his father to pray that he would "do his duty, never be a coward and have the strength, courage and understanding of men." June, 1942, he began active duty. John P. Washington and eight siblings grew up in Newark, N.J., in a poor, Irish immigrant family. When called to the priesthood, he was the head of The South Twelfth Street Gang. Active duty began May, 1942. What makes this story unique is that four chaplains were aboard the S.S. Dorchester at the same time. On the evening of 02 February 1943, the S.S. Dorchester was plying its way through icy waters to the American base in Greenland. Formerly a luxury coastal liner, it now was a troop transport, part of a convoy. It was known that enemy U-boats prowled these sea lanes and everyone was edgy. The chaplains walked about, talking with the men, in an attempt to ease their fears. In the wee hours of the morning, a torpedo found its mark, striking the engine room with tremendous force, knocking out the lights. Many were killed instantly, others were trapped below decks. Some lifeboats capsized from overloading. Rafts tossed over the side drifted off. Many men did not have life-jackets. The chaplains did what they could to direct them in the darkness. One young man was rushing back to get gloves when Rabbi Goode took off his and gave them to him. A supply locker was located and the chaplains began to distribute the life-vests. When the locker was totally depleted of these vests, the chaplains took off their own insisting that the next in line don them. These four magnificent human beings were seen with arms linked and heads bowed, praying, as the slanting ship sank into the ocean deep. Only 230 survived out of more than 900.

     It was the evening of 02 February 1943, and the USAT Dorchester was crowded to capacity, carrying 902 servicemen, merchant seamen and civilian workers. Once a luxury coastal liner, the 5649-ton vessel had been converted into an Army transport ship. The Dorchester, one of three ships in the SG-19 convoy, was moving steadily across the icy waters from Newfoundland toward a US base in Greenland. SG-19 was escorted by Coast Guard Cutters, Tampa, Escanaba and Comanche.
      Hans J. Danielsen, the ship's captain, was concerned and cautious. Earlier the Tampa had detected a submarine with its sonar. Danielsen knew he was in dangerous waters even before he got the alarming information. German U-boats were constantly prowling these vital sea lanes, and several ships had already been blasted and sunk. The Dorchester was now only 240 km from its destination, but the captain ordered the men to sleep in their clothing and keep life jackets on. Many soldiers sleeping deep in the ship's hold disregarded the order because of the engine's heat. Others ignored it because the life jackets were uncomfortable.
      On 03 February, at 00:55, through the periscope, an officer aboard the German submarine U-223 spotted the Dorchester. After identifying and targeting the ship, he gave orders to fire the torpedoes. The hit was decisive — and deadly — striking the starboard side, amid ship, far below the water line.
      Danielsen, alerted that the Dorchester was taking water rapidly and sinking, gave the order to abandon ship. In less than 27 minutes, the Dorchester would slip beneath the Atlantic's icy waters. The hit had knocked out power and radio contact with the three escort ships. the CGC Comanche, however, saw the flash of the explosion. It responded and then rescued 97 survivors. The CGC Escanaba circled the Dorchester rescuing an additional 132 survivors. The third cutter, CGC Tampa, continued on, escorting the remaining two ships.
      Aboard the Dorchester, the blast had killed scores of men and many more were seriously wounded. Others, stunned by the explosion were groping in the darkness. Those sleeping without clothing rushed topside where they were confronted first by the icy Arctic air. Men jumped from the ship into lifeboats, over-crowding them to the point of capsizing, according to eyewitnesses. Other rafts, tossed into the Atlantic, drifted away before soldiers could get in them.
      Four Army chaplains were abord: Lt. George L. Fox, Methodist; Lt. Alexander D. Goode, Jewish; Lt. John P. Washington, Roman Catholic; and Lt. Clark V. Poling, Dutch Reformed. They tried to calm the frightened, tend the wounded and guide the disoriented toward safety.
      Petty Officer John J. Mahoney, tried to reenter his cabin but was stopped by Rabbi Goode. Mahoney, concerned about the cold Arctic air, explained he had forgotten his gloves. "Never mind," Goode responded. "I have two pairs." The rabbi then gave the petty officer his own gloves. In retrospect, Mahoney realized that Rabbi Goode was not conveniently carrying two pairs of gloves, and that the rabbi had decided not to leave the Dorchester.
      By this time, most of the men were topside, and the chaplains opened a storage locker and began distributing life jackets. When there were no more lifejackets , the chaplains removed theirs and gave them to next four men in line. As the ship went down, survivors in nearby rafts could see the four chaplains — arms linked and braced against the slanting deck. Their voices could also be heard offering prayers.
      Of the 902 men aboard the USA.T. Dorchester, 672 died, leaving 230 survivors. When the news reached American shores, the nation was stunned by the magnitude of the tragedy and heroic conduct of the four chaplains.
      The Distinguished Service Cross and Purple Heart were awarded posthumously on 19 December 1944, to the next of kin by Lt. Gen. Brehon B. Somervell, Commanding General of the Army Service Forces, in a ceremony at the post chapel at Fort Myer, VA. A posthumous Special Medal for Heroism, never before given and never to be given again, was authorized by Congress and awarded by the President on 18 January 1961, in place of the Medal of Honor which requires heroism under fire.

GEORGE L. FOX      George L. Fox was born on 15 March 1900 in Lewistown, Pennsylvania. In addition to George, he had a sister Gertrude and brothers Bert, Leo and John. As a young boy he was raised in Altoona, Pennsylvania where his father worked for the railroad. When George was just 17, he left school, and with strong determination, convinced the military authorities he was 18 and joined the ambulance corps in 1917, shortly after the United States entered World War I. George was placed in the ambulance corps and shipped to Camp Newton D. Baker in Texas. On 03 December 1917 George embarked from Camp Merritt, New Jersey, and boarded the US Huron enroute to France. As a medical corps assistant, he was highly decorated for bravery and was awarded the Silver Star, Purple Heart and the French Croix de Guerre.
      Upon his discharge, he returned home to Altoona, completed his last year in high school, and went to work for the Guarantee Trust Company. In 1923 he entered Moody Institute in Illinois, where he married at Winona Lake, Indiana. After he withdrew from Moody Institute, he decided to become a minister and became an itinerant preacher in the Methodist faith. A son, Wyatt Ray, was born on 11 November 1924. After several successful years, George held a student pastorate in Downs, Illinois. George entered Illinois Wesleyan University in Bloomington in 1929 and graduated with an A.B. degree in 1931. Again as a student pastorate in Rye, New Hampshire, he entered the Boston University School of Theology. George was ordained a Methodist minister on 10 June 1934 and graduated with a S.T.B. degree. He was appointed pastor in Waits River, Vermont. Their second child, Mary Elizabeth, was born shortly thereafter. In 1936, he accepted a pastorate in Union Village, Vermont. His next calling was in Gilman, Vermont where he joined the Walter G. Moore American Legion Post. He was later appointed state chaplain and historian for the Legion.
      In mid 1942, George decided to join the Army Chaplain Service and was appointed on 24 July 1942. He went on active duty on 08 August 1942, the same day his son Wyatt enlisted in the Marine Corps. Chaplain Fox was assigned to the Chaplains school at Harvard and then reported to the 411th Coast Artillery Battalion at Camp Davis. He was then reunited with Chaplains Goode, Poling and Washington at Camp Myles Standish in Taunton, Massachusetts and their fateful trip on the USAT Dorchester. Chaplain Fox was posthumously awarded the Purple Heart and Distinguished Service Cross.

ALEXANDER D. GOODE      Alexander D. Goode was born in Brooklyn, New York on May 10, 1911. His father was a Rabbi and his mother, Fay had two other sons, Joseph and Moses, and a daughter, Agatha. Alex was receiving medals at Eastern High School, Washington, DC for tennis, swimming and track. He led his class in scholarship too! He planned to follow in his father's footsteps and become a Rabbi, but that did not keep him from having a laughing, shouting, hail-fellow-well-met boyhood with all the Protestant and Catholic boys in his neighborhood. He graduated from Eastern in 1929.
      He entered the University of Cincinnati and graduated in 1934 with an A.B. degree...and then on to Hebrew Union College with a B.H. degree in 1937. He later received his Ph.D. from John Hopkins University in 1940.
      Alex married his childhood sweetheart, Theresa Flax, daughter of Nathan and Rose Flax. Theresa was a niece of singer and motion picture star, Al Jolson. They were married on October 7, 1935. As an ordained Rabbi, his first assignment was a synagogue in Marion, Indiana in 1936. On July 16, 1937 he was transferred to the Beth Israel synagogue in York, Pennsylvania until mid 1942. Alex and Theresa had a daughter, Rosalie, who was born in 1939.
      In January 1941, Alex applied for a chaplain post in the Navy, but was not accepted at that time. Right after Pearl Harbor, he applied for a chaplain post with the United States Army and received his appointment July 21, 1942. Chaplain Goode went on active duty on August 9, 1942 and was selected for the Chaplains School at Harvard. He had courses in map reading, first aid, law, and chemical warfare. Chaplain Goode was then assigned to the 333rd Airbase Squadron in Goldsboro, North Carolina. In October 1942, he was transferred to Camp Myles Standish in Taunton, Massachusetts and Alex was reunited with Chaplains Fox, Poling and Washington, who were classmates at Harvard.
      It was January 1943 when he boarded the USAT Dorchester in Boston and embarkation to Greenland. Chaplain Goode was killed in action on February 3, 1943 in the icy waters of the North Atlantic when the Dorchester was sunk by a German U-boat. Chaplain Goode was posthumously awarded the Purple Heart and Distinguished Service Cross.

CLARK V. POLING      Clark V. Poling was born on 07 August 1910 in Columbus, Ohio. He was the son of Susie Jane Vandersall of East Liberty, Ohio, just south of Akron and Daniel A. Poling of Portland, Oregon. In addition to Clark, the other children were Daniel, Mary and Elizabeth. Clark attended Whitney Public School in Auburndale, Massachusetts and his teachers remembered his maturity and delicate side of his nature. The Auburndale days came to an end when his mother died in 1918. She is buried at Greenlawn Cemetery, Uniontown, Ohio. Clark's father was an Evangelical Minister and in 1936 was rebaptized as a Baptist minister. Reverend Daniel Poling was remarried on 11 August 1919 to Lillian Diebold Heingartner of Canton, Ohio.
      Clark attended Oakwood, a Quaker high school in Poughkeepsie, New York, and was a good student and an excellent football halfback. Clark was a council member and president of the student body. In 1929 he enrolled at Hope College in Holland, Michigan and spent his last two years at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, New Jersey, graduating in 1933 with an A.B. degree. Clark entered Yale University's Divinity School in New Haven, Connecticut and graduated with his B.D. degree in 1936. He was ordained in the Reformed Church in America and his first assignment was the First Church of Christ, New London, Connecticut. Shortly thereafter, he accepted the assignment of Pastor of the First Reformed Church in Schenectady, New York.
      Clark was married to Betty Jung of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and the next year, Clark, Jr. (Corky) was born. With our country now at war with Japan, Germany and Italy, he decided to be a chaplain. Talking with his father, Dr. Daniel A. Poling, who was a chaplain in World War I, he was told that chaplains in that conflict sustained the highest mortality rate of all military personnel. Without hesitation, he was appointed on June 10, 1942 a chaplain with the 131st Quartermaster Truck Regiment and reported to Camp Shelby, Hattiesburg, Mississippi, effective 25 June 1942. Later he attended Chaplains School at Harvard with Chaplains Fox, Goode and Washington after his transfer to Camp Myles Standish in Taunton, Massachusetts. Shortly after the USAT Dorchester was sunk on 03 February 1943, his wife, Betty, gave birth to a daughter, Susan Elizabeth, on April 20. Chaplain Poling was posthumously awarded the Purple Heart and Distinguished Service Cross.

JOHN P. WASHINGTON      John P. Washington was born in Newark, New Jersey on 18 July 1908. His parents were Frank and Mary; in addition they had daughters Mary and Anna, and sons Thomas, Francis, Leo and Edmund. In 1914, John was enrolled at St. Rose of Lima Catholic Elementary School. In those days, times were rough for a poor immigrant family, but John had his father's Irish grin and his mother's Irish stick-to-itiveness. He liked to play ball but he had a newspaper route to help his mother with extra money, since there were nine mouths in the Washington household to feed. John started to take piano lessons, loved music and sang in the church choir. When he entered seventh grade, he felt strongly about becoming a priest...during the previous year, he became an altar boy and his priestly destiny was in process.
      John entered Seton Hall in South Orange, New Jersey to complete his high school and college courses in preparation for the priesthood. He graduated from Seton Hall in 1931 with an A.B. degree. He entered Immaculate Conception Seminary in Darlington, New Jersey and received his minor orders on May 26, 1933. John excelled in the seminary, was a sub deacon at all the solemn masses, and later become a deacon on 25 December 1934. John was elected prefect of his class and was ordained a priest on 15 June 1935.
      Father Washington's first parish was at St. Genevieve's in Elizabeth, New Jersey, and then at St. Venantius for a year. In 1938 he was assigned to St. Stephen's in Arlington, New Jersey. Shortly after the Pearl Harbor attack of December 7, 1941, he received his appointment as a chaplain in the United States Army. He went on active duty on 09 May 1942 and was named Chief of the Chaplains Reserve Pool, Ft. Benjamin Harrison, Indiana. In June 1942, he was assigned to the 76th Infantry Division in Ft. George Meade, Maryland. In November 1942, he reported to Camp Myles Standish in Taunton, Massachusetts and met Chaplains Fox, Goode and Poling at Chaplains School at Harvard.
      Father Washington boarded the USAT Dorchester at the Embarkation Camp at Boston Harbor in January 1943 enroute to Greenland. Chaplain Washington was killed in action on 03 February 1943, when the Dorchester was sunk by a German U-boat. Chaplain Washington was posthumously awarded the Purple Heart and Distinguished Service Cross.

1943 Hedrick, mathematician

^ 1940 Day 66 of Winter War: USSR aggression against Finland. ^top^
More deaths due to Stalin's desire to grab Finnish territory.
Mannerheim Line survives enemy offensive
      Central Isthmus: Finnish defenders successfully repulse enemy attacks on the Mannerheim Line in Summa, Suokanta and Oinaala.
      The Russian 7th Army and 13th Army are ordered to begin the work of breaking down the Finnish defences on the Isthmus.
      Ladoga Karelia: detachments of enemy troops which had advanced from the south on skis are surrounded in a 'motti' at Lavajärvi.
      Battalion Mankonen completes destruction of the enemy ski battalion at Löytöjärvi. In three days the enemy death toll reaches around 400.
      Soviet aircraft bomb a number of localities across the country: in Kuopio the air raid leaves 34 dead and 38 injured.
      Viipuri: enemy bombers hit hard in and around Torkkelinkatu, Punaisenlähteentori square, the market square, the old town and the district of Havi. The Lutheran cathedral is partly destroyed in the raid.
      Kotka: the woodyard at the Enso Gutzeit sawmill is set ablaze and almost totally destroyed.
      Eastern Isthmus: a Russian fire control aircraft is in the air all day over Taipale directing the enemy artillery fire.
      A captured enemy map contains accurate details of the position of the Finnish command post in the Taipale sector.
      Abroad: the International Labour Office announces that the Soviet Union has been expelled from the International Labour Organization (ILO).
      Marshall Mannerheim's sister, Countess Eva Sparre arrives in New York to begin a series of lectures in the USA on Finland.
      The great Finnish runners Paavo Nurmi and Taisto Mäki receive a hero's welcome on arrival in New York. Thousands of people and dozens of reporters come to the harbor to welcome them.

^ Vihollisen hyökkäykset torjutaan Mannerheim-linjalla Talvisodan 66. päivä, 03.helmikuuta.1940 ^top^
      Vihollisen hyökkäykset torjutaan Mannerheim-linjalla Summassa, Suokannassa ja Oinaalassa.
      Venäläiset 7. ja 13. Armeija saavat ensimmäiset tehtävät Suomen puolustuksen murtamiseksi Karjalan kannaksella.
      Lavajärven mottiin saarretaan etelästä edenneitä vihollisen hiihto-osastoja.
      Pataljoona Mankonen tuhoaa lopullisesti Löytöjärvellä vihollisen hiihtopataljoonan. Vihollinen on menettänyt kolmessa päivässä noin 400 miestä kaatuneina.
      Neuvostokoneet ilmapommittavat useita paikkakuntia: Kuopiossa saa surmansa 34 henkilöä, lisäksi haavoittuu 38 henkilöä.
      Viipurissa vihollinen pommittaa ankarasti Torkkelinkadun, Punalähteen-torin, Kauppatorin, Vanhankaupungin ja Havin kaupunginosan seutuja.Viipurin Tuomiokirkko tuhoutuu osittain.
      Kotkassa syttyy Enso Gutzeitin sahan lautatarha palamaan ja tuhoutuu miltei kokonaan.
      Taipaleella venäläisten tulenjohtolentokone on ilmassa koko päivän, johtaen vihollisen tykistötulta.
      Eräältä viholliselta kaapattu kartta osoittaa, että Taipaleen lohkon komentopaikka on siihen sijoitettu oikein.
      Ulkomailta: Kansainvälinen työtoimisto ilmoittaa, että Neuvostoliitto on erotettu kansainvälisestä työjärjestöstä ILO:sta.
      Kreivitär Eva Sparre, marsalkka Mannerheimin sisar, saapuu New Yorkiin pitääkseen Yhdysvalloissa Suomea koskevan esitelmäsarjan.
      Suomalaiset suurjuoksijat Paavo Nurmi ja Taisto Mäki saavat sankarin vastaanoton saapuessaan New Yorkiin. Heitä on jo satamassa vastassa tuhansia ihmisiä ja kymmeniä lehtimiehiä.

^ Inkräktarnas anfall slås tillbaka vid Mannerheim-linjen Vinterkrigets 66 dag, den 03 februari 1940 ^top^
     Inkräktarnas anfall slås tillbaka vid Mannerheimlinjen vid Summa, Suokanta och Oinaala.
      Den ryska 7. och 13. Armén får de första orderna om att krossa det finska försvaret på Karelska näset.
      Fiendens skidlöparbrigader som ryckt fram söderifrån fördrivs till mottin i Lavajärvi.
      Bataljon Mankonen förintar slutgiltigt fiendens skidlöparbataljon vid Löytöjärvi. Fiendens förluster är ungefär 400 stupade på tre dagar.
      Ryska plan bombar flera orter: i Kuopio dödas 34 personer, dessutom skadas 38 personer.
      I Viborg bombar fienden häftigt områdena kring Torkelsgatan, Rödabrunnstorget, Salutorget, Gamla stan och stadsdelen Havis. Delar av Viborgs domkyrka förstörs.
      I Kotka fattar brädgården vid Enso Gutzeits såg eld och brinner nästan till grunden.
      Ett ryskt eldledningsplan cirkulerar hela dagen över Taipale och styr fiendens artillerield.
      En karta som beslagtagits av fienden visar att kommandoplatsen för Taipaleavsnittet är utmärkt på rätt ställe.
      Utrikes: Den internationella arbetsorganisationen ILO meddelar att Sovjetunionen har uteslutits från organisationen.
      Grevinnan Eva Sparre, syster till marskalk Mannerheim, anländer till New York för att hålla en föreläsningsserie om Finland.
      De finska löparstjärnorna Paavo Nurmi och Taisto Mäki tas emot som hjältar vid ankomsten till New York. Tusentals människor och tiotals journalister möter dem i hamnen

1929 Erlang, mathematician
1925 Oliver Heaviside, 74, mathematician

^ 1924 Woodrow Wilson, 67, 28th president of the United States, in Washington, D.C. ^top^
     Born in Staunton, Virginia, on 28 December 1856, Wilson became Governor of New Jersey and in 1912 was elected President of the US in a landslide Democratic victory over Republican incumbent William Howard Taft and Progressive Party candidate Theodore Roosevelt. The focal point of President Wilson's first term in office was the outbreak of World War I and his efforts to find a peaceful end to the conflict while maintaining US neutrality. In 1916, he was narrowly reelected President at the end of a close race against Charles Evans Hughes, his Republican challenger.
      In 1917, the renewal of German submarine warfare against neutral US ships, and the "Zimmerman Note," which revealed a secret alliance proposal by Germany to Mexico, led Wilson to ask Congress to declare war on Germany [02 April 1917]. At the war's end, President Wilson traveled to France, where he headed the US delegation to the Versailles peace conference seeking an official end to the conflict. At Versailles, Wilson was the only Allied leader who foresaw the future difficulty that might arise from forcing punitive peace terms on an economically ruined Germany. He also successfully advocated the creation of the League of Nations as a means of maintaining peace in the postwar world. In November 1920, President Wilson was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts at Versailles. During his second term the Nineteenth Amendment to the US Constitution, giving women the right to vote, was passed and ratified.
      In October 1919, while campaigning in the United States to win approval for the Treaty of Versailles and League of Nations, Wilson suffered a severe stroke that paralyzed his left side and caused significant brain damage. This illness likely contributed to Wilson's uncharacteristic failure to reach a compromise with the American opponents to the European agreements, and in November the US Senate refused to ratify the Treaty of Versailles or the League of Nations.
      During his last year in office, there is evidence that Wilson's second wife, Edith Bolling Galt Wilson, may have served as acting president for the debilitated and bed-ridden president who often communicated through her. In March 1921, Wilson's term expired, and he retired with his wife to Washington DC, where he lived until his death. Two days later, he was buried in Washington's National Cathedral, the first president to be laid to rest in the nation's capital.

1923 Adam Guenther, mathematician.
1922 John Butler Yeats I, Irish artist born in 1839. — Relative? of Jack B. Yeats [1871-1957] ?
1900 William Stanley Haseltine, US painter born on 11 January 1835. — MORE ON HASELTINE AT ART “4” FEBRUARY with links to images.
1889 Myra Belle Shirley Starr, notorious "Bandit Queen", by two shotgun blasts from behind. by an unknown assailant, in Oklahoma.
1862 Biot, mathematician.
1852 Those killed in the battle of Caseros, Argentina, in which the governor (since 1841) of the province of Entre Ríos, Justo José de Urquiza [18 Oct 1801 – 11 Apr 1870], with Brazilian and Uruguayan participation, defeats Juan Manuel de Rosas [30 Mar 1793 – 14 Mar 1877], dictator-governor of Buenos Aires since March 1835. Rosas resigns and flees to exile in England. Rosas had hurt the economy of Entre Rios by imposing Buenos Aires as the only authorized seaport. Urquiza succeeds Rosas in power and, in August 1852 convoques a constitutional convention which adapts the US constitution and in 1853 produces a constitution, under which Urquiza becomes President until 1860.
1850 Guillaume-François Colson, French artist born on 01 May 1785.
1759 Hendrik van Limborch (or Limborgh), Dutch artist born on 19 March 1681.
1753 Philip van Dyk “the little van Dyck”, Dutch artist born on 10 January 1680.
1737 Tommaso Ceva, mathematician.
1687 Berhardt Keil (or Keyl, Keilhau), Danish painter born in 1624. — The Lacemaker (72x97cm)
1679 Jan Havickszoon Steen, Dutch painter born in 1626. — MORE ON STEEN AT ART “4” FEBRUARY with links to images.

^ 1468 Johannes Gutenberg ^top^
Johannes Gutenberg, inventor of movable type, launched a new era in information distribution. His method of casting metal type made it cheaper and easier to publish books, making them widely available for the first time. The creation of the World Wide Web, with its explosive expansion of information access, has frequently been compared to the invention of the printing press.

0865 Anskar, an early English or Irish missionary.
0856 Rabanus Maurus, one of the great Christian encyclopedists.

Births which occurred on a February 03:
1984 First human conceived by embryo transplant, born in Long Beach CA

^ 1958 Le Bénélux est créé ^top^
C'est une mini-Europe avant l’Europe. Bénélux, appellation formée par les premières lettres du nom de chacun des États: Belgique, Nederland (pour Pays-Bas) et Luxembourg, est une entente régionale entre ces 3 états, constituée en 1958 par un traité dont l'objectif était d'organiser l'union économique progressive des trois États. Dirigé par un Conseil de ministres, assisté d'un conseil économique et social, le Bénélux s'insère dans l'ensemble plus large de la création de l'Union économique européenne. On peut même dire qu’elle en est la première manifestation concrète. L’origine du Bénélux remonte déjà avant la guerre 40-45. Des contacts concrets avaient déjà eu lieu à plusieurs reprises. Mais c’est en 43, alors que les 3 pays sont encore sous la botte nazie que leurs responsables réfugiés à Londres, signent des accords monétaires et douaniers. Au lendemain de la guerre, les nouveaux gouvernements confirment formellement ces accords (en 1948) Ce qui permet le développement des échanges commerciaux tant à l’intérieur qu’à l’extérieur de l’espace commun, un accroissement de la production et du niveau de vie et enfin un rapprochement du taux des salaires. Ce sous-ensemble européen comprend un marché de près de 26 millions d’utilisateurs. Et l’Union Européenne Economique respecte encore aujourd’hui les accords entre ces 3 partenaires. Le Conseil des 3 ministres, le Conseil de justice, le Conseil arbitral siègent à Bruxelles.

^ 1953 The Silent World by Cousteau is published ^top^
      French oceanographer Jacques-Yves Cousteau, 52, publishes his most famous and lasting work, The Silent World. Born in Saint-André-de-Cubzac, France, in 1910, Cousteau was trained at the Brest Naval School. While serving in the French navy, he began his underwater explorations, filming shipwrecks and the underwater world of the Mediterranean Sea through a glass bowl. At the time, the only available system for underwater breathing involved a diver being tethered to the surface, and Cousteau sought to develop a self-contained device. In 1943, with the aid of engineer Émile Gagnan, he designed the Aqua-Lung, the world's first self-contained underwater breathing apparatus (scuba). With the Aqua-Lung, the largely unexplored world lying beneath the ocean surface was open to Cousteau as never before. He developed underwater cameras and photography and was employed by the French navy to explore navy shipwrecks. In his free time, he explored ancient wrecks and studied underwater sea life. In 1948, he published his first work, Through 18 Meters of Water, and in 1950 Lord Guinness, a British patron, bought him an old British minesweeper to use for his explorations. Cousteau converted the ship into an oceanographic vessel and christened it the Calypso.
      In 1953, he published The Silent World, written with Frédéric Dumas, and began work on a film version of the book with film director Louis Malle. Three years later, The Silent World, the movie, was released to world acclaim. The film, which revealed to the public the hidden universe of tropical fish, whales, and walruses, won Best Documentary at the Academy Awards and the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival.
      With the success of the film, Cousteau retired from the navy to devote himself to oceanography. He welcomed geologists, archaeologists, zoologists, environmentalists, and other scientists aboard the Calypso and led numerous excursions to the world's great bodies of water, from the Red Sea to the Amazon River. He headed the Conshelf Saturation Dive Program, in which men lived and worked for extended time periods at considerable depths along the continental shelves. His many books include The Living Sea (1963) — Three Adventures: Galápagos, Titicaca, The Blue Holes (1973) — Jacques Cousteau: The Ocean World (1985). He also produced several more award-winning films and scores of television documentaries about the ocean, making him a household name. He saw firsthand the damage done to the marine ecosystems by humans and was an outspoken and persuasive environmentalist. Cousteau died in 1997.

1951 The Rose Tattoo, Tennessee Williams play, opens on Broadway in New York.
1920 Dr Henry Heimlich doctor/inventor (Heimlich maneuver)
1912 Jacques Soustelle French minister of information
1909 Simone Weil Paris, mystic/social philosopher/Resistance fighter (WWII), younger sister of mathematician André Weil (whom I knew at the University of Chicago, 1948-50). She died on 24 August 1943.
1907 James A Michener New York NY, writer (Tales of the South Pacific, Centennial, Chesapeake, Hawaii, Space, The Bridges at Toko-Ri, Journey, Hawaii, Iberia, Centennial, Mexico) He died on 16 October 1997.
1906 Ludvig Nielsen composer
1905 Beurling, mathematician
1898 Urysohn, mathematician
1894 Norman Perceval Rockwell, US illustrator, famous for his Saturday Evening Post covers, who died on 08 November 1978. — MORE ON ROCKWELL AT ART “4” FEBRUARY with an image and links to other images.
1894 Juan Negrín, Spanish Republican prime minister during Spanish Civil War. He died on 14 November 1956.
1893 Gaston Julia, mathematician.
1887 Naruhiko Higashikuni, Japanese imperial prince, prime minister who died on 20 January 1990.

^ 1887 Georg Trakl. ^top^
Ce poète autrichien est l'un des grands de la poésie du début du XXème siècle. Il incarne le poète maudit, hanté par un amour incestueux pour sa sœur Maragarete, drogué à l’absinthe et à l’opium, il eut une existence brève et tragique. Envoyé sur le front russe, il tenta de mettre fin à ses jours face à l'horreur des massacres auxquels il assista, et fut interné. Le 3 novembre, il tente de nouveau de se suicider. Il meurt à l’hôpital de Cracovie d'une overdose. On lui doit des pièces de théâtre, Fata Morgana et le Jour des morts, qui furent jouées en 1906. Son inspiration poétique, sans doute influencée au début par le symbolisme de Maeterlinck, s'en détacha rapidement pour s'affirmer comme une écriture comparable à celle de Hölderlin et de Novalis. Son œuvre tourmentée, ordinairement considérée comme faisant partie de la poésie expressionniste, mais dépassant l'expressionnisme, en fait l'un des plus grands noms de la poésie autrichienne. On l'a comparé à Rimbaud, dont il se voyait comme l'un des héritiers. Mais il est également de la filiation de Baudelaire et de Verlaine, celle des poètes maudits. Ses poèmes ont été recueillis et publiés après sa mort. En 1912 avaient paru deux recueils, Crépuscule et déclin et Sébastien en rêve.

1885 Moses Lévy, French artist who died in 1968.
1883 Camille Bombois, French artist who died on 11 June 1970.

^ 1881 Joseph A. Galamb, in Mako, Hungary ^top^
He would become a Ford Motor Company engineer and a member of the team of engineers that developed the Model T. The Model T design would change automotive history with its reliability, affordability, and capacity for mass production. “If you freeze the design and concentrate on production,” Ford explained, “as the volume goes up, the cars are certain to become cheaper.” Thanks to men like Joseph Galamb, the design for the “Tin Lizzy” met her maker’s expectation to bring automobiles to the masses and guaranteed that the New World would become even newer for the next wave of immigrants. On February 3, 1981, the citizens of Mako, Hungary, paid tribute to Galamb, honoring the hundredth anniversary of his birth.

1874 Gertrude Stein, US writer and literary stylist who died on 27 July 1946.
1851 Wilhelm Heinrich Trübner, German artist who died on 21 December 1917.
1830 Robert Cecil Marquess of Salisbury (C), British PM (1885-1902)
1811 Horace Greeley (journalist: founded and edited The New York Tribune, "Go west, young man!"; politician: helped found the Republican Party, ran unsuccessfully for US President [1872]) He died on 29 November 1872.
1810 Johann Peter Gmelin (?), German artist who died on 24 May 1854.
1809 Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy Hamburg Germany, composer (Great Scherzos, Wedding March, Elijah, Fingal's Cave) He died on 04 November 1847.
1807 Genaro (or Jenaro) Pérez Villaamil, Spanish artist who died on 05 June 1854.
1796 Jean-Baptiste Madou, Belgian artist who died on 03 April 1877.
1793 Lucretia Coffin Mott, in Nantucket, Massachusetts, political and social reformer.
1688 Dirk Dalens III, Dutch artist who died in 1753.
1368 Charles VI King of France (1380-1422)

Holidays Japan : Bean throwing Festival/Setsubun (last day of lunar calendar winter) / Paraguay : Patron's Day/San Blas, patrón / Puerto Rico : Fiesta de San Blas, protector of harvest (316) / US : 4 Chaplains Memorial Day

Religious Observances: Roman Catholic : Saint Blase, bishop of Sebaste, Armenia, martyr (opt) / Saint Blaise est un évêque arménien du IVe siècle, patron des animaux sauvages qui venaient à lui pour être guéris. On l'invoque contre les morsures de serpent. A Milly-la-Forêt, près de Fontainebleau, une chapelle est dédiée à Saint-Blaise-des-Simples (les simples sont des herbes médicinales). Jean Cocteau, qui l'a restaurée et décorée, y est enseveli.

DICTIONNAIRE TICRANIEN: médecin: ce que peut dire une femme qui se réfère à ses glandes lactifères.

Thoughts for the day: “The future will be a better tomorrow.” — Vice President Dan Quayle
“The future will be better tomorrow.”
“The good old days will be a better tomorrow.”
“The good old days will be better tomorrow.”
“The future will be shorter tomorrow.”
“The good old days will be older tomorrow.”
“The good old days will be one more tomorrow.”
“Forget the good old days, tomorrow will be better.”
“Forget the good old days, forget tomorrow, enjoy the good today.”
“Never forget tomorrow what you could forget today.”
“Never forget tomorrow what you didn't remember today.”
“Don't forget to forget tomorrow what you didn't forget today.”
“Forgive the good old days, it's not their fault that tomorrow will be no better.”
“The good old days are those left after you forget the bad old days.”
“Those who forget the future are doomed to study history.”
“Those who forget the future are doomed to repeat its mistakes.”

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