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Events, deaths, births, of JAN 06
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On a January 06:
2001 Thai parliamentary elections won by opposition
     The Democrat Party in power takes 2nd place to the Thai Rak Thai (“Thai Love Thai”) which however falls short of a majority in parliament. The Thai Rak Thai leader, billionaire Thaksin Shinawatra, expects to form a coalition government with other parties, though legal proceedings against him may result in his being barred from public office for 5 years, for concealing some of his wealth by transferring stock shares to domestic servants when he served in a previous government in 1997
2001 Pope John Paul II issues his Apostolic Letter Novo Millenio Ineunte (Latin — also available in English, French, German, Italian, Polish, Portuguese, Spanish)
1994 Dow-Jones Industrial Average reaches a record 3803.88
1994 Star skater injured on behalf of rival.
      Olympic hopeful Nancy Kerrigan is attacked at a Detroit ice rink following a practice session two days before the National Figure Skating Championships. A man hit Kerrigan with a club on the back of her knee, causing the figure skater to cry out in pain and bewilderment.
      One of Kerrigan's chief rivals for a place on the US Figure Skating Team was Tonya Harding. In mid-December 1993, Harding's ex-husband, Jeff Gillooly, approached Shawn Eckhardt about somehow eliminating Kerrigan from the competition. Eckhardt set up a meeting with Derrick Smith and Shane Stant, who agreed to injure Kerrigan for $6500.
      On 28 December, Stant went to Massachusetts, where Kerrigan was practicing. However, he couldn't carry out the attack so he followed her to Detroit, where Smith met him. After hitting Kerrigan, Stant fled the ice rink in Smith's getaway car. With Kerrigan unable to skate, Harding won the championship and a place at the 1994 Olympics.
      On 11 January, Derrick Smith confessed to FBI agents. Three days later, Stant surrendered and also confessed. Harding was questioned on 18 January, but denied her involvement. She claimed that she would cut off any connection with Gillooly if he was responsible. The next day, Gillooly was charged with conspiracy to assault Kerrigan. Shortly after, he agreed to a deal in which he implicated Harding.
      Harding then came forward, changing her story and admitting that she had learned of Gillooly's role in the attack after the championships but did not inform authorities. Meanwhile, US Olympic officials named Kerrigan and Harding to the team that would compete in Lillehammer, Norway. When the United States Olympic Committee began considering removing Harding from the team, she filed a lawsuit that successfully stopped this action.
      At the Olympics, the competition between Harding and Kerrigan set ratings records. Harding's performance was a drama in itself. She broke down crying after a lace on her skates broke. Even after being allowed a restart, Harding wasn't able to pull herself together and finished eighth. Kerrigan took home the silver medal, and many thought she deserved the gold.
      Back in the US, Harding pleaded guilty to conspiracy to hinder the prosecution of Kerrigan's attackers. She was fined $100'000 and sentenced to probation and 500 hours of community service. Other than Gillooly's testimony, there was never any further evidence of Harding's knowledge of the plans before the attack. But Gillooly got revenge on Tonya by sinking to new tabloid depths, selling graphic photos of the couple having sex on their honeymoon.
      Meanwhile, Harding wasn't above trying to exploit the crime and her notoriety herself. However, an attempted movie career was dead in the water from the beginning. Kerrigan even succumbed to the temptation years later, appearing on a talk show with Harding to promote herself.
1991 Jorge Serrano Elías is elected President of Guatemala
1987 Astronomers at University of California see 1st sight of birth of a galaxy
1987 100th US Congress convenes
1987 Father Julio Edgar Cabrera Ovalle is ordained a bishop, for the diocese of Santa Cruz del Quiché (name shortened to Quiché on 11 July 2000), Guatemala, to which he was appointed on 31 October 1986. He was born on 22 August 1939 in San Juan Comalapa, Guatemala. He was sent to the Colegio Pio Latino Americano in Rome to study theology at the Gregorian University from 1960 to 1964, and it is in Rome that he was ordained a priest on 01 December 1963. On 01 December 2001 he would be appointed bishop of Jalapa, Guatemala, succeeding bishop Jorge Mario Avila del Aguila, CM, who retired.
1983 US President signs gasoline tax increase
      President Ronald Reagan signs into law one of his pet proposals, a gas tax hike designed to raise funds for the nation's roads and bridges. That the bill made it to the Oval Office was something of a minor miracle, as the nation’s legislators spent a good part of the fall embroiled in a nasty partisan debate over the relative merits of the tax hike. However, the Senate finally passed the bill on 23 December 1982, paving the way for the Federal gas tax to be increased by a nickel. The heftier tax rate in turn promised to raise $5.5 billion a year for highway repairs and general transportation maintenance. And, though the president was not one for using public funds to stimulate employment, some legislators estimated that the tax increase would help create roughly 320'000 jobs.
1980 Indira Gandhi's Congress Party wins elections in India
1980 The Chrysler bailout
     US President Jimmy Carter signs a bill authorizing $1.2 billion in federal loans to save the failing Chrysler Corporation. It was the largest federal bailout in history. The "Big Three" American car makers (Ford, GM, and Chrysler) had suffered through the 1970s, as Japanese competitors led by Honda and Toyota outperformed them in quality and price. Chrysler, which lacked the vast cash reserves of GM and Ford, was brought to the brink of bankruptcy by 1980. The federal bailout, which required Chrysler to find billions in private financing in order to receive the federal money, brought Chrysler back from the brink. Lee Iacocca, the charismatic executive largely responsible for Ford’s successful Mustang, joined Chrysler in late 1979, and engineered the company’s return to profitability during the 1980s.
1977 John Gardner wins National Book Critics Award
     John Gardner wins the National Book Critics Circle Award for October Light, a novel about two elderly siblings in New England. Gardner was born in 1933 in Batavia, New York, and attended Washington University in St. Louis, later taking a doctorate in classical and medieval literature at the University of Iowa. He taught at Oberlin, Bennington, and the University of Rochester while writing novels. His first two books received little attention, but his third, Grendel, established his reputation. The book drew on Gardner's strong grounding in the classics, retelling the story of Beowulf from the monster's point of view. His next novel, The Sunlight Dialogues, about an aging police chief and an escaped prisoner, became a bestseller. He published October Light in 1976, followed by Mickelsson's Ghost (1982), about a disillusioned college professor. Gardner was married and divorced twice and had two children. Four days before his third wedding was scheduled, he was killed in a motorcycle accident in Pennsylvania at the age of 49.
1975 The Communists North Vietnamese overrun the last South Vietnamese positions in Phuoc Long Province, which they had started attacking on 13 December 1974. Abandoned by the US, the South Vietnamese would not be able to stop a renewed offensive, starting on 07 March 1975, which would end with the North Vietnamese entering Saigon and forcing South Vietnam's unconditional surrender on 30 April 1975.
1974 England begins 3 day work week during mine strike.
1972 Vladimir Bukovski is exiled from USSR.
1971 More US Vietnam war criminals go unpunished.
      The US Army drops charges of an alleged cover-up in the My Lai massacre against four officers. After the charges were dropped, a total of 11 people had been cleared of responsibility during the My Lai trials.
      The trials were a result of atrocities committed in March 1968. 1st Lt. William Calley, a platoon leader in the 23rd (Americal) Division, led his men to massacre innocent Vietnamese civilians, including women, children, and babies, in a cluster of hamlets in Son Tinh District in the coastal south of Chu Lai.
      By 1971, charges were pending only against Lt. Calley, Capt. Ernest Medina, and Capt. Eugene Kotouc. On 29 March 1971, a Fort Benning court-martial jury found Calley guilty of the premeditated murder of at least 22 South Vietnamese civilians and sentenced him to life in prison. Kotouc was cleared by a court-martial on April 29, and Medina was acquitted on 22 September.
      On 19 May the Army disciplined two generals for failing to conduct an adequate investigation of My Lai, demoting Maj. Gen. Samuel W. Koster from two-star to one-star rank. At the same time, both Koster and Brig. Gen. George W. Young Jr., his assistant divisional commander at the time of the massacre, were stripped of their Distinguished Service Medals, and letters of censure were placed in their personnel files. The trials ended on December 17, when Col. Oren K. Henderson was acquitted of cover-up charges. He was the highest-ranking officer to be tried.
      Of those originally charged, only Calley was convicted. Many believed that Calley was a scapegoat, and the widespread public outcry against his life sentence moved President Nixon to intervene on 03 April 1971. He had Calley removed from the Fort Benning stockade and ordered him confined to quarters pending review of his case. On 20 August Calley's life term was reduced to 20 years. In November 1974, a Federal Court judge ruled that Calley was convicted unjustly, citing "prejudicial publicity." Although the Army disputed this ruling, Calley was paroled for good behavior after serving 40 months, 35 of which were spent in his own home.
1970 US military desertions reach record numbers
      The Department of Defense announces that 1,403 US military service personnel had deserted to foreign countries since July 1, 1966, a period that coincided with the height of the increasingly unpopular Vietnam War. In 1961, US President John F. Kennedy sent the first large force of US military personnel to Vietnam to bolster the ineffectual autocratic regime of the South against the Communist North. Three years later, with the South Vietnamese government crumbling, President Lyndon B. Johnson ordered limited bombing raids on North Vietnam and Congress authorized the use of US troops. By 1965, North Vietnamese offensives left President Johnson with two choices: escalate US involvement or withdraw. Johnson ordered the former, and troop levels soon jumped to over 300'000 as US air forces commenced the largest bombing campaign in history. Over the next few years, the extended length of the war, the high number of US casualties, and the exposure of US involvement in war crimes such as the massacre at My Lai helped to turn many in the United States against the Vietnam War. Some Vietnam veterans cooperated with antiwar protestors in their condemnation of the war, while thousands of military draftees burned their draft notices and hundreds of military personnel deserted their ranks. In 1970, President Richard M. Nixon began withdrawing US troops but increased bombing across Indochina. In 1973, a peace agreement was reached and the last US troops left Vietnam. Two years later, the last Americans were evacuated from Saigon as Communist forces launched their final triumphant offensive into South Vietnam. It was the longest and most unpopular foreign war in US history, and cost fifty-eight-thousand American lives.
1963 "Oliver!" opens at Imperial Theater New York City NY for 774 performances.
1958 Soviet Union announces further troop reduction
      The Soviet Union announces plans to cut the size of its standing army by 300,000 troops in the coming year. The reduction was part of a 1956 policy announced by Krushchev in anticipation of "peaceful coexistence" with the West, and an indication that Cold War relations between the United States and the Soviet Union were undergoing a slight thaw in the mid- to late-1950s.
      The Soviet troop reduction was the latest in a series of reductions started in 1955. The new rollback of 300'000 troops brought the total troop reduction since 1955 to nearly 2 million. A Soviet official called the most recent action a "new, serious contribution to the cause of easing tensions and creating an atmosphere of confidence in the relations between states." Nearly 60'000 of the 300'000 troops to be cut came from Soviet forces in Hungary and East Germany.
      Total Soviet forces still numbered close to 3 million, but the reduction was still seen as evidence of Khrushchev's interest in "peaceful coexistence" with the West. There was also an economic motivation to the troop cuts, though, since the funds used to keep 300'000 men in uniform could be redirected to the Soviet industrial infrastructure. In addition, the Soviet Union was facing a labor shortage, and 300'000 extra workers would help alleviate that problem.
      The Soviet action had little effect on US policy. Despite Khrushchev's talk of peaceful coexistence, the preceding two years of the Cold War gave US officials little confidence in his sincerity. The brutal Soviet repression of the Hungarian revolt in 1956, the Suez Crisis of that same year, and the launch of the Sputniksatellite in 1957 convinced many US statesmen that a tough, competitive stance toward the Russians was the best policy.
1950 Britain recognizes Communist government of China
1948 Janani Luwum is converted to Christianity in Uganda. He immediately asks his family to pray that he won’t backslide, because he is determined to live the godly life. Eventually he becomes an archbishop and is butchered by the brutal dictator Idi Amin.
1946 Pope Pius XII publishes encyclical Quemadmodum
1942 1st around world flight (Pan Am "Pacific Clipper")
1942 US intends to win arms race.
     US President Franklin D. Roosevelt announces to Congress that he is authorizing the largest armaments production in the history of the United States. Committed to war in the aftermath of Pearl Harbor, the US had to reassess its military preparedness, especially in light of the fact that its Pacific fleet was decimated by the Japanese air raid. Among those pressing President Roosevelt to double US armaments and industrial production were Lord William Beaverbrook, the British minister of aircraft production, and members of the British Ministry of Supplies, who were meeting with their American counterparts at the Mayflower Hotel in Washington. Beaverbrook, a newspaper publisher in civilian life, employed production techniques he learned in publishing to cut through red tape, improve efficiency, and boost British aircraft production to manufacturing 500 fighters a month, and he felt the US could similarly beef up armament production.
      Spurred on by Lord Beaverbrook and Prime Minister Churchill, Roosevelt agreed to the arms buildup. He announced to Congress that the first year of the supercharged production schedule would result in 45'000 aircraft, 45'000 tanks, 20'000 antiaircraft guns, and 8 million tons in new ships. Congressmen were stunned at the proposal, but Roosevelt was undeterred: "These figures and similar figures for a multitude of other implements of war will give the Japanese and Nazis a little idea of just what they accomplished."
1941 FDR's "4 Freedoms" speech (speech, worship, from want & from fear)
1929 Alexander I establishes a royal dictatorship in Yugoslavia
1928 Pope Pius XI publishes encyclical Mortalium animos (against oecumene)
1927 US marines sent to Nicaragua
1922 Conference of Cannes concerning German retribution payments.
1912 New Mexico joins the Union
      New Mexico, a territory in the Southwestern United States, is admitted into the US as the forty-seventh state.
      In the early sixteenth century, Spanish explorers passed through the area that would become New Mexico, encountering the well-preserved remains of the thirteenth-century Pueblo civilization. Exaggerated rumors about the hidden riches of these Pueblo cities encouraged the first full-scale Spanish expedition into New Mexico, led by Vasquez de Coronado in 1540. Instead of encountering the long-departed Pueblo people, the Spanish explorers met other indigenous groups, like the Apaches, who proved fiercely resistant to the early Spanish missions and ranches in the area.
      In 1609, Pedro de Peralta was made governor of the "Kingdom and Provinces of New Mexico," and a year later he founded its capital at Santa Fe. In the late seventeenth century, Apache opposition to Spain's colonial efforts briefly drove the Spanish out of New Mexico, but within a few decades they had returned. During the eighteenth century, the colonists expanded their ranching efforts, and made efforts at farming and mining in the region.
      When Mexico achieved its independence from Spain in 1821, New Mexico became a province of Mexico, and trade was opened with the United States. In the next year, American settlers began arriving via the Santa Fe Trail. In 1846, the Mexican-American War erupted, and US General Stephen W. Kearny captured and occupied Santa Fe without significant Mexican opposition. Two years later, the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo ceded New Mexico to the US, and in 1853, the territory was expanded to its present size through the Gadsden Purchase.
      The Apache and the Navaho resisted the colonial efforts of the US as they had those of Spain and Mexico, and after three decades of bloodshed, Indian resistance finally ended with the surrender of Geronimo, chief of the Chiricahua Apaches, in 1886. After the suppression of New Mexico's Amerindians, the population of New Mexico expanded considerably, many coming to participate in the ranching boom brought on by the opening of the Santa Fe Railroad in 1879.
1896 Cecil Rhodes resigns as premier of Cape colony
1896 US President calls on public for funds.
      With the nation's gold reserves standing at perilously low levels — the reserves had dwindled to a scant $41 million the previous February — President Grover Cleveland issued a public subscription on this day in 1896. However, the success of the subscription hinged on the public's willingness to place its faith in the government, no small matter since a number of Americans had lost their patience with Cleveland during the gold crisis. Indeed, early in 1895, Cleveland had brokered a deal to sell $62 million of gold at a relatively small premium to J.P Morgan's syndicate. The maneuver outraged the country, as a number of people accused the president of being a bedfellow of the banking community. However, the nation looked past its anger and snapped up the entire run of the subscription, which helped resuscitate the country's ailing finances.
1893 Great Northern Railway connects Seattle with east coast
1880 Record snow cover in Seattle — 120cm
1873 US Congress begins investigating Crédit Mobilier scandal
1873 Pope Pius IX encyclical "On the Church in Armenia"
1872 "Stone Walls Do Not a Prison Make." -Old Song. "No Prison is big enough to hold the Boss." In on one side, and out at the other. Cartoon by Thomas Nast in Harper's Weekly, predicting that Boss Tweed would not remain long imprisoned. In fact Tweed was released in 1875, but rearrested, escaped on 04 December 1875, but was recaptured in Cuba in September 1876, and died in Ludlow Street jail of heart failure caused by pneumonia in April 1878.
1861 Florida troops seize Federal arsenal at Apalachicola
1842 4500 British & Indian troops leave Kabul, massacred before India
1839 2 day storm off Irish & English coast immortalized as "The Big Wind"
1834 En France, la souveraineté du peuple proclamée par un député.
      Le chemin qui mène de la revendication démocratique individualiste à la revendication sociale et du mythe de la révolution libérale et bourgeoise (1789) à celui de la révolution sociale prolétarienne se dessine dans les discours qui scandent tout le XIXème siècle européen et où se mêlent les échos de la révolution passée à ceux du christianisme et à l’annonce de futurs orages libérateurs (L. Lefèvre, S.J.) Ainsi, en 1834, l’Allemand T. Schuster (auteur des Pensées d’un républicain ) écrit : " Si l’on veut que la lumière se fasse pour le peuple, il faut que, dans la révolution prochaine, on ne renverse pas seulement le trône mais la monarchie. Or, la monarchie, ce ne sont ni des écussons blasonnés ni des couronnes royales, la monarchie, c’est le privilège. Et le privilège de tous les privilèges, c’est la richesse."
      C’est à partir de 1830 que se fait en France un rapprochement entre les ouvriers, préoccupés jusqu’alors de questions professionnelles et qui décident tout à coup d’assumer leur citoyenneté et de prôner une République sociale, et des républicains, jusqu’alors cantonnés dans le champ étroit de la politique et qui se mettent à tenir un discours socialiste. C’est aux obsèques du général Lamarque et à l’insurrection qui les accompagne – en 1832 – que l’on arbore le drapeau rouge ; c’est en 1834, à la séance de la Chambre du 6 janvier, que le marquis Voyer d’Argenson, député démocrate, déclare : "But prochain, l’égalité des droits politiques; but final et permanent, l’égalité des conditions sociales", ajoutant plus loin vous devez tous abaisser vos fronts dans la poussière devant la souveraineté du peuple" (une souveraineté qui devient ambiguë à cumuler ainsi la dimension politique et la dimension sociale).
      La métaphore religieuse ne doit pas surprendre. En effet, tout un mysticisme d’origine chrétienne s’investit dans cette prise en charge politique de la condition des pauvres. Avec, Louis Blanc, Fourrier, Lamartine, le peuple devient "agent de Dieu" et son triomphe prochain celui du "règne de Dieu". C’est Pierre Leroux qui, voyant étrangement en Jésus-Christ " le plus grand économiste", écrit : "Ou le christianisme est une chimère ou il est le gage que l’égalité qu’il porte dans ses flancs sous le nom de fraternité s’établira sur la terre et par conséquent qu’il n’y aura pas toujours des pauvres." Rappelant la phrase de saint Matthieu, "Heureux les humbles car ils hériteront de la terre", il la commente ainsi : "Si vous croyez aux livres sacrés, ce passage seul doit vous éclairer; l’Évangile ne dirait pas que les humbles auront la terre s’il devait toujours y avoir des pauvres et des riches sur la terre."
1810 Traité entre la France et la Suède, reconnaissant une partie de la Poméranie à celle-ci, en échange de son adhésion au blocus continental.
1784 Turkey & Russia sign treaty in Constantinople
1781 Battle of Jersey (Island in the UK)
1773 Massachusetts slaves petition legislature for freedom
1769 Les coiffures gratte-ciel au tribunal.
      Un coiffeur, un certain Barbulée est arrêté en pleine "construction" capillaire ! Ce coiffeur attirait les grandes dames de la noblesse et de la grande bourgeoisie en leur promettant des coiffures monumentales. Il utilisait une échelle de deux mètres pour arriver à ses fins. Comme les corporations étaient strictes sur les instruments de travail et que l’échelle n’y figurait pas, les perruquiers de l’époque portèrent plainte, pour concurrence déloyale et utilisation d’instrument non adéquat ! Barbulée fut arrêté au sommet de son échelle, et sans avoir pu terminer son travail, laissant la belle en mal de perruque. Il manquait encore un étage à la construction qui devait éblouir tout Paris. Mais le juge se rangea aux arguments de Barbulée qui fut libéré et put regagner son domicile, sans doute, pour terminer son travail au deuxième étage de la coiffure ! Il faut dire que sa cliente était la cousine de la maîtresse du banquier et homme d’état Necker.
1745 Bonnie Prince Charlies army draws to Glasgow
1690 Emperor Leopold's son Jozef chosen Roman Catholic king
1663 Great earthquake in New England
1639 Virginia is 1st colony to order surplus crops (tobacco) destroyed
1622 Pope Gregory XV forms Congregatio the Propagande Fide
1579 L'Union d'Arras des provinces francophones du sud de la Belgique.
      Au cours de la révolte (appelée aussi Guerre des Gueux) qui, au XVIème siècle, les dressa contre la domination espagnole, les Pays-Bas s’étaient unis, en 1576, par la pacification de Gand qui établissait principalement une trêve religieuse entre les provinces du Nord, calvinistes, et les provinces méridionales, catholiques. La violation répétée, par les calvinistes, des clauses de la pacification eut pour conséquence la conclusion, le 6 janvier 1579, de l’Union d’Arras, pacte de confédération des provinces francophones du sud de la Wallonie. Celles-ci, c’est — dire l’Artois et le Hainaut, ainsi que la ville de Douai, en Flandre wallonne, selon la pacification de Gand, exigeaient le retrait des troupes espagnoles et le maintien du catholicisme dans toutes les provinces. Les provinces du Nord, d’obédience calviniste, ripostèrent à l’Union d’Arras, par l’Union d’Utrecht (23 janv.), fondée sur une interprétation calviniste de la pacification. Le 19 mai 1579, les signataires de l’Union d’Arras, auxquels s’étaient jointes les villes de Lille et d’Orchies (Flandre wallonne), signèrent le traité d’Arras avec le gouverneur espagnol Alexandre Farnèse. Ce traité, bientôt confirmé par le traité de Mons (12 sept.), stipulait le retrait des troupes espagnoles de ces provinces qui, en contrepartie, rompaient avec les états généraux et acceptaient la domination espagnole. Farnèse ne tarda pas à réoccuper militairement les provinces méridionales des Pays-Bas (Belgique et Luxembourg), mais l’Espagne ne put jamais reconquérir les Pays-Bas septentrionaux.
1540 King Henry VIII of England married his 4th wife, Anne of Cleves. He would have two more after her.
1535 City of Lima Peru founded by Francisco Pizarro
1497 Jews are expelled from Graz (Syria)
1496 Moorish fortress Alhambra, near Grenada, surrenders to the Christians
1453 Emperor Frederik III becomes archduke of Austria
1494 The first mass in America is celebrated in the Roman Catholic church on Isabella Island in Haiti. This was the first church established in the New World, founded by Christopher Columbus.
1352 Cérémonie inaugurale de l’Ordre de l’Etoile
      Le plus ancien ordre de chevalerie français historiquement attesté a été créé par le roi Jean le Bon le 16 novembre 1351, au début de la Guerre de Cent Ans, son nom lui vient de ses insignes : un anneau dont le chaton figurait une étoile émaillée, timbrée d’un soleil d’or, et un "fermail" de même forme à fixer sur le manteau ou le chaperon. Toutefois, les statuts l’intitulent ordre de Notre-Dame-de-la-Noble-Maison, en raison du patronage de la Vierge et du siège de l’institution, le château de Saint-Ouen, résidence préférée des premiers Valois. L’ordre devait répondre à la récente création de l’ordre anglais de The Most Noble Order of the Garter (fondé par le roi Edward III en 1348 avec la devise “Honi soit qui mal y pense”), et regrouper autour du roi les cinq cents meilleurs chevaliers de la noblesse française. En fait, ils ne dépassèrent pas la centaine.
      La cérémonie inaugurale eut lieu dès le 06 janvier 1352, avec le luxe extravagant cher à Jean. Mais la vie de l’ordre semble s’être résumée dans cette journée. Les désastres qui aboutirent à la captivité du roi à Poitiers (1356) virent disparaître presque tous les chevaliers, fidèles à leur serment de ne jamais fuir devant l’ennemi. Aucun des successeurs de Jean ne paraît jamais avoir fait revivre l’ordre de l’Étoile, et nul document ne le mentionne plus. La fête de Saint-Ouen avait cependant revêtu un tel éclat qu’on admit mal une extinction si rapide. Brantôme, au XVIème siècle, répandit même l’opinion très fantaisiste selon laquelle l’ordre, discrédité par trop de largesses, serait devenu l’insigne du Chevalier du Guet.
1286 Philippe IV le Bel de France est sacré à Reims avec la reine Jeanne. Bien qu'il n'ait que dix-sept ans à la mort de son père Philippe III le Hardi, il sait aussitôt s'imposer.
1227 Ferrand of Portugal freed from the Louvre
1099 Henry V crowned German king
1088 Praise of Emperor earns Theophylact an archbishopric... in the horrid boondocks.
      Theophylactus, 38, give an enthusiastic speech before Alexius, Emperor of Byzantium, in which he warmly praised the emperor and his mother Anna Dalassena. He crowed over the emperor's conquest of parts of the Balkans. The emperor was a diplomat and servant of the church, said Theophylact. His speech had unintended effects. Evidently the emperor was pleased.
      In Byzantium (the eastern half of the old Roman Empire), church posts were under government control. They were often given as rewards. The emperor promoted Theophylact to be (Orthodox) archbishop of Ohrid in Bulgaria.
      For Theophylact, who was a cultured man, the promotion was like a sentence of exile. In Constantinople, he had libraries, palaces, and shimmering architecture. He taught the sons of important men. Theophylact even taught prince Constantine Doukas, who was expected to become emperor; and he was a friend to the boy’s beautiful mother, Maria of Alania. By transferring to Bulgaria, he would have to leave all that behind and many friends, too. Like other snobby Byzantines, he considered Ohrid a barbarian backwater. But churchmen were civil servants, who had to go wherever the emperor ordered, so he went.
      As Theophylact soon found out, he was leaving behind even more than he had thought. When he drew near to Ohrid, a deathly stench stunned his nose. Evidently sanitation standards were not as high as in Constantinople.
      Byzantium's conquest of Bulgaria still rankled Ohrid. Theophylact’s coming rubbed salt in the wounds of its defeat. Formerly, the Bulgarians had had their own patriarch. Resentful of their loss of independence, they greeted their new archbishop with jeers and insults. To spite him, they sang a victory song, extolling their nation’s past triumphs. They were not consoled by the fact that the emperor had given local bishops the privilege of consecrating Theophylact or that the emperor had confirmed that Bulgaria's church would be independent of the Patriarch of Constantinople. Theophylact was an outsider all the same, and they knew that he was expected do his part to keep Bulgaria glued to the empire.
      For his part, Theophylact did not like Bulgaria, which he called "of all provinces of the empire, the most pitiable." He was homesick and begged friends to help get him released from the place. After a visit home, he wrote, "So I return to the Bulgarians, I who am a true Constantinopolitan and, strange though it is, a Bulgarian."
      Yet he had compassion on Bulgaria’s poor. In several letters he pleaded for tax relief and pointed out that one child in five was seized to be sold into slavery as payment for taxes. He urged a show of mercy "lest the patience of the poor be finally exhausted."
      One way that Theophylact tried to forget his homesickness was to write. 130 of his letters were published. These are hard to understand today because he wrote in a "puzzle" style used by educated men of that era. Even so, they are full of useful bits of Byzantine and Bulgarian history and satirical comments. He came to love Slavic literature and Slavic church heroes and wrote a life of St. Clement of Ohrid and another of the fifteen martyrs buried at Strumitsa, not far from Ohrid. In "exile," he also wrote commentaries on the gospels and on Paul's epistles. Theophylactus died in 1109 (or thereabouts).
      Amazingly, four hundred years later, Theophylact's January 6th speech was still generating fallout. A German scholar named Erasmus discovered the archbishop's writings. He borrowed some of Theophylact's ideas for a satire called The Praise of Folly. That book, by poking fun at wrongs in the church and society, helped bring about the Protestant reformation in Europe.
ERASMUS ONLINE:
  • All the Familiar Colloquies of Desiderius Erasmus of Rotterdam, Concerning Men, Manners, and Things
  • Complete On-Line Works.
  • The Praise of Folie = Moriae Encomium(page images)
  • The Praise of Folly
  • The Praise of Folly
    • Harold II silver penny1066 Harold Godwinson crowned King of England [silver penny]
          Following the death of Edward the Confessor, Harold Godwineson, 46, son of Godwine, Earl of Wessex and Kent of the most powerful noble family in England, is crowned King Harold II. Although the late king had apparently approved Harold's succession, Harold's brother, Tostig, also declares his right to the throne, and along with King Harold III of Norway launches an invasion of England from Scotland. On 25 September, Harold defeats the combined forces of Tostig and the Norwegian king at Stamford Bridge, and both leaders are killed.
          Three days later, William, the duke of Normandy, invades England across the English Channel, and makes another bid for Harold's throne. William, a cousin of Edward the Confessor, is supported by the papacy and had also been once designated King Edward's heir. On 14 October 1066, the two rivals meet at the Battle of Hastings, fought on Senlac Hill, eleven kilometers from Hastings, England. Harold's forces are destroyed and he himself is killed, shot through the eye with an arrow. He is the last Anglo-Saxon king of England. On 25 December 1066, William the Conqueror is crowned the first Norman King of England, and English language and culture are changed forever.
    0548 This was the last year the Church in Jerusalem observed the birth of Jesus on this date. (Celebrating Christmas on 25 December began in the late 300s in the Western Church.)
    TO THE TOP
    Deaths which occurred on a January 06:
    2004 Four adults and eight children aged 7 to 15, in Kandahar, Afghanistan, by the explosion of a terrorist bomb attached to a bicycle. One of the adults killed is the driver of a truck that was passing by. 58 persons are injured, most of them children who had just come out of school; some of them were playing in a vacant lot. The explosion occurs as people come to the aid of the one child injured by a smaller explosion a few minutes earlier.
    2003 Albert Schussler, 85, in a coma after a stroke the previous day. He was to go on trial on 27 January 2003. He worked for 30 years as a New York City assessor before retiring in 1967 and becoming a tax consultant. According to prosecutors, he immediately organized a bribery operation, starting with a friend still working in the assessor's office. It eventually involved 15 of the 38 city assessors in Manhattan, who took $10 million in bribes to lower assessments for hundreds of properties.
    2003 Zhang Minmin, 53, Chinese woman, from injuries sustained from a suicide bombing in Tel Aviv the previous day.
    2002 Dr. Burton I. Edelson, 75, by heart attack, a US leader in satellite communications who helped start and oversee some of NASA's most popular science programs.
    2002 Catterina Ghigliazza, Italian born on 28 November 1891.
    2000 Malcolm Rent Johnson, executed for a crime he may not have committed
         Johnson, who had served time for two previous rapes, was convicted in 1982 of rape and murder, but insisted that he was innocent. At Johnson's trial, police chemist Joyce Gilchrist testified that six samples taken from the murder victim's bedroom showed semen consistent with his blood type.
          Ura Alma Thompson, 76, was found suffocated in her apartment on 27 October 1981. There were no witnesses to the crime, and no fingerprints matching Johnson's were found. He was arrested after officers went to his home to question him about an unrelated parole violation and noticed items belonging to the victim. A search led to the discovery of her apartment key in his nightstand. He contended all the items were given to him by a third party.
          Gilchrist told jurors that semen stains on the woman's bedspread and pillow case matched Johnson's blood type, which constituted the bulk of evidence used to tie Johnson to rape. The only other evidence stained by semen consistent with his blood type was a knee-high stocking, Gilchrist testified. That stocking has not been retested. A vaginal swab contained sperm, but not enough to test, Gilchrist told jurors. Gilchrist also testified that hair fragments matched Johnson's hair and that fibers matched a blue cotton shirt he owned. Johnson's trial was the first at which she had testified about fiber analysis. DNA analysis was not available at that time, and the court denied the defense's request for funds to hire its own forensics expert. Johnson's attorney argued during trial that blue cotton shirts were so ubiquitious that the fiber could not definitively be linked to Johnson.
         But a 30 July 2001 re-examination of the slides which Gilchrist had claimed were incriminating, showed that "spermatozoa are not present," says a 31 July 2001 memo signed by chemist Laura Schile. Schile resigned on 02 August 2001 from the Oklahoma City Police Department forensics lab, citing a hostile work environment. She names the lab's three other scientists as agreeing that sperm is not present.
          While the memo does not exonerate Johnson, it is the first time legal that questions have been raised about Gilchrist's testimony in an execution case. The memo also noted that Gilchrist's testimony had been criticized previously. Two appellate courts have ruled that Gilchrist gave false testimony about semen evidence in the 1992 rape and murder trial of Alfred Brian Mitchell, whose death sentence was overturned earlier in August 2001 because of what one court called her "untrue" testimony. The FBI, upon reviewing eight of Gilchrist's cases, concluded that she had misidentified evidence or made other serious mistakes in six of them.
         Prosecutors said that there was sufficient evidence separate from Gilchrist's testimony to convict Johnson. But Oklahoma County Chief Public Defender Robert Ravitz, who represented Johnson at trial, disagrees.
         Problems with Gilchrist's testimony in other cases have led to the release of three inmates who served long sentences, including one on death row. Based on a preliminary review, authorities previously said that there was no taint in the 11 cases where prisoners were put to death. According to a survey by Amnesty International, Oklahoma has more executions per capita than any state in the US.
    1995 Joe Slovo, 58, Latvian / South African attorney/Secretary-General (SACR)
    1994 Tip O'Neill speaker of the US House of Representatives, of cancer
    1994 Morty the Moose, 6, (Northern Exposure)
    1993 Rudolph Nureyev, 54, Russian ballet dancer (Kirov), of AIDS
    1992 Vincent Placoly, 45, Martinique writer (Une journée torride)
    1992 Naint Ahmer, a Christian teacher, is martyred in Pakistan. His killers claim he insulted Muhammed.
    1985 Robert H W Welch Jr, 85, US founder/leader John Birch Society
    1981 A[rchibald] J[oseph] Cronin, 84, physician/author (Citadel), dies at 84
    1978 John D MacArthur, 80, US insurance billionaire
    1976 Oscar Esplá, 89, Spanish philosopher/composer (Sonata del Sur)
    1974 David Alfaro Siqueiros, Mexican Social Realist muralist, painter, born on 29 December 1896. — MORE ON SIQUEIROS AT ART “4” JANUARY with links to images.
    1969:: 9 of the 25 passengers and 2 of the 3 crew members aboard Allegheny Airlines Flight 737, a Convair CV-580, which, coming in too low, clips treetops 9 km short of the Bradford, Pennsylvania, airport and cuts a swath through trees bordering a fairway of the Pine Acres Golf Course. The plane comes to rest inverted, at 20:35.
    1969:: 55 persons as a Continental Air Services Douglas DC-3 crashes in northeast Thailand.
    1964 Edgar Maass, 67, German/US author (Verdun)
    1961 Alfrewd Aaron Wolmark, Polish British artist born on 28 December 1877.
    1961 Regina Ullmann, 76, writer.
    1960:: 34 persons in crash of a National Airlines DC-6B airplane, due to a bomb.
    1956. Nate Saint, Ed McCulley, Jim Elliot, Roger Youderan, Pete Fleming. Missionaries, they were trying to make contact with the Auca Indians in the remote jungle of Ecuador. These ambush and kill them.
    1953 Vacca, mathematician.
    1952 Charles Isaac Ginner, French British artist born on 04 March 1878.
    1941 Franz Hessel, 60, writer
    1935 George P Baker, 68, US playwright (Dramatic Technique)
    1930 Study, mathematician.
    1922 Rosanes, mathematician.
    1921 Alexander Whyte, who was influential in the Free Church of Scotland and wrote admired books.
    1920 Zeuthen, mathematician
    1919 Theodore Roosevelt, 60, 26th US President (1901-09), at Sagamore Hill, his estate overlooking the New York's Long Island Sound.
          Born on 27 October 1858, Theodore Roosevelt became a dynamic and energetic politician and is credited with creating the modern presidency. As a young Republican, Roosevelt held a number of political posts in New York in the 1880s and 1890s, and was a leader of reform Republicans in the state. In 1898, as assistant secretary to the US Navy, Roosevelt vehemently advocated war with Spain. When the Spanish-American War began, he formed the "Rough Riders," a volunteer cavalry that became famous for its contribution to the US victory at the Battle of San Juan Heights in Cuba. The publicity-minded Roosevelt rode his military fame to the New York governor's seat in 1898, and to the vice-presidency in 1900. In 1901, President William McKinley was assassinated and Roosevelt, forty-three years old, became the youngest president ever to assume the office to that day. He stamped the presidency with a vitality that delighted most Americans, and was elected to a second term in 1904. As an American expansionist, Roosevelt asserted his executive powers to defend US interests throughout the Americas as he sought to balance the interests of farmers, workers, and the business class at home. He insisted on a strong navy, encouraged the independence of Panama and the construction of the Panama Canal, promoted the regulation of trusts and monopolies, set aside America's first national parks and monuments, and introduced the "Square Deal" policy for social reform. In 1906, he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his mediation in the negotiations to end the Russo-Japanese War. In 1912, three-and-a-half years after finishing his second term, Roosevelt ran for president again as the Progressive Party candidate, but was defeated by Democrat Woodrow Wilson. In the last few years of his life, Roosevelt became a vocal advocate of the US entrance into World War I, but after the war was an opponent of the postwar League of Nations, originally conceived of by President Wilson. In 1919, Roosevelt died at his home in New York.
    — NY Times obituary
    — He was also an author. THEODORE ROOSEVELT ONLINE:
  • A Book-Lover's Holidays in the Open
  • History as Literature, and Other Essays
  • Hunting Trips of a Ranchman
  • New York: A Sketch of the City's Social, Political, and Commercial Progress from the First Dutch Settlement to Recent Times (1906)
  • Ranch Life and the Hunting-Trail (illustrated by Frederic Remington)
  • Ranch Life and the Hunting-Trail
  • The Rough Riders
  • The Strenuous Life: Essays and Addresses
  • Theodore Roosevelt: An Autobiography
  • Through the Brazilian Wilderness (1914)
  • co-author of Hero Tales From American History
    • 1918 Georg F. L. P. Cantor, 72, mathematician. In his doctoral examination, he maintained that “In mathematics the art of proposing a question must be held of higher value than solving it.” [perhaps true not only in mathematics]
    1900 Boers attack at Ladysmith, about 1000 killed or injured
    1886 Saint-Venant, mathematician.
    1885 Peter C Asbjørnsen, 72, Norwegian fairy tale writer.
    1885 Emily (Coppin) Stannard, British artist born in 1803.
    1866 Paul Emil Jacobs, Danish artist born on 18 August 1802.
    1840 Charles Town, British artist born in 1763.
    1826 John Farey, mathematician.
    1821 Charles François Nivard, French artist born on 22 April 1739. — {Je ne trouve Nivard ni Vard dans l'internet.}
    1750 Georg Liszewski, Polish artist born in 1674.
    1616 (or 04 March 1615?) Hans von Aachen, German Mannerist painter and draftsman, active also in Italy and Bohemia, born in 1552. — MORE ON VON AACHEN AT ART “4” JANUARY with links to images.
    1607 Monte, mathematician.
    1541 Bernaert van Orley, Brussels Flemish painter and tapestry designer born in 1488 — MORE ON VAN ORLEY AT ART “4” JANUARY with links to images.
    1504 Pedro Berruguete, Spanish painter born in 1450— MORE ON BERRUGUETE AT ART “4” JANUARY with links to images.
    Births which occurred on a January 06:
    1998 the Windows CE operating system is announced by Microsoft, for Palm PCs, such as the PalmPilot, power dashboard computers, and other mobile devices.
    1989 Lion-tailed macaques at Woodland Park Zoo (Seattle)
    1979 La Maison Verte (13, rue Meilhac, 75015 Paris, tél. : 01-43-06-02-82) est fondée par Françoise Dolto [1908-1988], pédopsychanalyste, Bernard This, et d'autres, pour les enfants de moins de 4 ans et leurs parents, dans une fin de prévention des troubles psychologiques. Vingt ans plus tard il existait une centaine de lieux similaires en France, tels que le Jardin couvert de Lyon; et dans d'autres pays: Jardin arc-en-ciel d'Erevan (Arménie), Maison ouverte de Québec, Casa oberta de Barcelone, Portillon vert de Moscou, Casa verde de Buenos Aires.
    1945 Pepe Le Pew cartoon skunk (Au Dorable Kitty)
    1945 Barry Holstein Lopez US author (Of Wolves & Men)
    1945 Pepe Le Pew cartoon skunk (Au Dorable Kitty)
    1944 Henry Kravis author (The Money Machine)
    1931 E[dgar] L[aurence] Doctorow New York City NY, novelist (World's Fair)
    1925 John Z DeLorean former automaker (DeLorean)
    1921 Lou Harris pollster (Lou Harris Poll)
    1920 Reverand Sun Myung Moon evangelist (Unification Church-Moonies)
    1917 Guillermo Rosario Dutch Antilles, writer (E rais ku no ke muri)
    1914 Stock brokerage firm of Merrill Lynch founded
    1913 Edward Gierek party leader (Polish CP)
    1912 Jacques Cesar Ellul writer
    1911 Eduardo Frei Montalva President of Chile (1964-70)
    1910 Morris Wright Morris, US writer who died on 25 April 1998.
    1909 Johannes H Moesman Dutch surrealist painter (Rumor)
    1907 Maria Montessori opens her 1st (Montessori) school (Rome)
    1906 Benedict Vilakazi South Africa, Zulu poet/novelist/educator (Zulu-English Dictionary)
    1905 Eric Frank Russell UK, sci-fi author (Hugo, Deep Space, Dark Tides)
    1901 Tómas Gudmundsson Iceland, poet
    1898 Jan Filip Boon Flemish author/editor (De Standaard 1929-1939)
    1889 Louis Ritman, US Impressionist painter who died in 1963. — MORE ON RITMAN AT ART “4” JANUARY with links to images.
    1883 Khalil Gibran, Lebanese-born US novelist and mystic poet (The Prophet, Broken Wings). He died on 10 April 1931.
    1882 Samuel Rayburn Tennessee, (Representative-D-TX), speaker of the House (1940-57)
    1878 Carl Sandburg US, poet, novelist, biographer of Lincoln (The People, Yes). He died on 22 July 1967.
    1872 Alexander N Scriabin Moscow, hallucinogenic composer (Prometheus)
    1859 Samuel Alexander English philosopher (Moral order & progress).
    1857 Robert Thegerström, Swedish artist who died on 09 August 1919.
    1854 Sherlock Holmes (brother of Mycroft), fictional detective (via Arthur Conan Doyle)
    1841 Rudolf Sturm, mathematician
    1838 Telegraph's first demonstration.
          Samuel Morse demonstrated his telegraph system for the first time at the Speedwell Iron Works in Morristown, New Jersey. Morse, a portrait artist and art teacher at New York University, also had a keen interest in electricity. Returning from an art study trip to Europe, Morse overheard a conversation that inspired him to create an electric telegraph. He spent several years developing his prototype, which he demonstrated for the first time in 1838. Morse tried to persuade Congress to back a national telegraph line, but he had a long battle ahead of him: Congress did not grant him financial support until 1844 for the construction of the nation's first telegraph line, from Baltimore to Washington.
    1832 Louis Christophe Paul Gustave Doré, French Romantic painter, printmaker, etcher, lithographer, and book illustrator, who died on 23 January 1883. — MORE ON DORÉ AT ART “4” JANUARY with links to images.
    1832 New England Anti-Slavery Society organizes (Boston)
    1829 Kanagaki Robun [Bunzo Nozaki] Japanese humorist/gesaku-author
    1827 John Calvin Brown, attorney, Reb General.
          Confederate General John Calvin Brown is born in Giles City, Tennessee. Brown served in the Army of Tennessee during the US Civil War, was wounded three times, and captured once. Brown was a prominent attorney in Pulaski, Tennessee, prior to the war. He opposed secession and was an elector for the Constitutional Union Party during the election of 1860; the Constitutional Union Party nominated John Bell for president and tried to steer a middle road between North and South. When Tennessee seceded in April 1861, Brown enlisted as a private in the Confederate Army. His time as an enlisted man was brief, however, as he was made a colonel in the 3rd Tennessee within a month.
          Brown's unit was stationed at Fort Donelson on the Cumberland River when it was captured by General Ulysses S. Grant in February 1862. Brown was a prisoner for six months. After he was exchanged, he was promoted to brigadier general and was wounded at the Battle of Perryville in October 1862. He recovered in time to fight at Stones River two months later, but he was wounded again at Chickamauga in September 1863. He was back at his post for the siege of Chattanooga in October and November 1863. Brown served the next year with the army through the Atlanta campaign, and he was part of the General John Bell Hood force that invaded Tennessee that fall. Brown was wounded for a third time at the Battle of Franklin on November 30. This battle was a disaster for the Confederates, as five other Rebel generals were wounded and six more killed during the engagement. Brown recovered in time to join General Joseph Johnston's surviving force as it surrendered to General William T. Sherman in North Carolina at the end of the war. After the war, Brown served two terms as governor of Tennessee and was a railroad president. He died in 1889 at Boiling Springs, Tennessee.
    1826 Herman Grimm Germany, writer/novelist (Ralph Waldo Emerson)
    1822 Heinrich Schliemann German polyglot/archeologist (Troy)
    1811 Charles Sumner, US Civil War statesman and leading Reconstruction senator, who died on 11 March 1874
    1807 Petzval, mathematician.
    1802 Ion Heliade-Radulescu Romania, author/novelist/writer (Gramatica)
    1798 Jedediah Strong Smith, trapper, explorer, in Bainbridge, New York.
           Smith would explore a stunningly large area of the Far West during his short life. He began his western voyages in 1822, when he joined the pioneering fur trader William Ashley on a trip up the Missouri River. Unlike earlier fur traders, who depended on Native Americans to actually trap or hunt the furs, Ashley eliminated the Indians as middlemen and instead sent out independent Anglo trappers like Smith to do the job.
          To escape dependence on Indians, though, Ashley needed to find his own sources of beaver and otter in the West, and Smith became one of his best explorers. A year after his first trip up the Missouri, Smith set out with a small band of mountain men to explore the Black Hills region of the Dakotas at Ashley's behest. Despite being mauled by a grizzly bear in the Black Hills, Smith continued westward to the site of modern-day Dubois, Wyoming, where he and his men camped for the winter.
          During his long forced halt at Dubois, Smith learned from friendly Crow Indians of an easy pass through the Rocky Mountains. The following spring, Smith and his men followed the route outlined by the Crow and discovered that they could cross the mighty Rockies almost effortlessly. Later named the "South Pass," Smith's new route was a high plain that gradually rose like a shallow ramp to provide an easy crossing of the Continental Divide. Smith's discovery of South Pass was actually a "rediscovery," since employees of John Jacob Astor's Pacific Fur Company crossed the pass in 1812 when returning to St. Louis from the Pacific. The Astorian discovery, though, remained unknown, so Smith is credited for alerting the nation to the existence of this easy route across the Rockies.
          Smith's discovery of South Pass was monumentally important. Not only did his fellow fur trappers prefer South Pass to the far more difficult and dangerous Missouri River route blazed by Lewis and Clark in 1804, but the South Pass became an early 19th century "super-highway" for settlers bound for Oregon and California. Ideally suited for heavy wagon traffic, South Pass greatly facilitated the mass emigration of Americans to the Far West.
          The blazing of the South Pass route alone would have secured Smith's claim as one of the great explorers of the American West, but during the following decade, Smith also explored the Great Salt Lake, the Colorado Plateau, and led the first expedition to cross the Southwest to California-all before he was 30 years old. Having lived through dozens of narrow escapes on his intrepid journeys, Smith decided to retire from his dangerous trade in 1830 and enter the mercantile business. Ironically, being a trader proved more deadly than exploring: while leading a trading caravan along the Santa Fe Trail in 1831, Smith was killed by Commanche Indians near the Cimarron River. He was 32 years old.
    Montgolfier balloon1745 Jacques-Étienne Montgolfier.
          With his brother Joseph-Michel (17400826-18100626) he would be a pioneer developer of the hot-air balloon and conducted the first untethered flights. Modifications and improvements of the basic Montgolfier design were incorporated in the construction of larger balloons that, in later years, opened the way to exploration of the upper atmosphere.
          They were 2 of the 16 children of Pierre Montgolfier, whose prosperous paper factories in the small town of Vidalon, near Annonay, in southern France, ensured the financial support of their balloon experiments. While carrying on their father's paper business, they maintained their interest in scientific experimentation.
          In 1782 they discovered that heated air, when collected inside a large lightweight paper or fabric bag, caused the bag to rise into the air. The Montgolfiers made the first public demonstration of this discovery on 04 June 1783, at the marketplace in Annonay. They filled their balloon with heated air by burning straw and wool under the opening at the bottom of the bag. The balloon rose into the air about 1000 meters, remained there some 10 minutes, and then settled to the ground two and a half kilometers from where it rose. The Montgolfiers traveled to Paris and then to Versailles, where they repeated the experiment with a larger balloon on 19 September 1783, sending a sheep, a rooster, and a duck aloft as passengers. The balloon floated for about 8 minutes and landed safely about 3 kilometers from the launch site.
          On 21 November 1783 [picture], the first manned untethered flight took place in a Montgolfier balloon with Pilâtre de Rozier and François Laurent, marquis d'Arlandes, as passengers . The balloon sailed over Paris for 9 kilometer in about 25 minutes. The two brothers were honored by the French Académie des Sciences. They published books on aeronautics and continued their scientific careers. Étienne developed a process for manufacturing vellum. He died on 02 August 1799.
    1732 Matija A Reljkovic Croatia, writer (Satir iliti divji covic)
    1728 Domingos dos Reis Quita Portuguese playwright/poet
    1695 Giuseppe Sammartini composer.
    1681 Balthasar van den Bossche, Flemish artist who died on 08 September 1715.
    1655 (27 Dec Julian) Jakob Bernoulli, Swiss mathematician who died on 16 August 1705. He introduced the first principles of the calculus of variations and developed the Bernouilli numbers. Brother of Johann Bernoulli [06 Aug 1667 – 01 Jan 1748] whose sons were Nicolaus II Bernoulli [16 Feb 1695 – 31 Jul 1726], Daniel Bernoulli [08 Feb 1700 – 17 Mar 1782], and Johann II Bernoulli [28 May 1710 – 17 Jul 1790].
    1587 Gaspar de Guzmán Count of Olivares, Premier of Spain (1621-43)
    1585 Claude Favre baron de Perouges seigneur de Vaugelas French grammarian
    1561 Fincke, mathematician.
    1536 Tlateloco school for Aztec children opens in the suburbs of Mexico city. The priests who found it hope that it will produce native missionaries, but the hope goes unfulfilled, possibly owing to barbarities in the management of the nation.
    1535 Lima, future capitale du Pérou, est fondée par Francisco Pizarro près de la ville Inca de Patchacamac. Puisque c'est la fête de l'Epiphanie, il l'appelle Ciudad de los Reyes.
          Lima, située dans le centre-est du Pérou, entre l'océan Pacifique et la cordillère des Andes, dans la région côtière aride du Pérou, est la plus grande ville du Pérou ; elle fait partie d'une région métropolitaine à croissance rapide. c'est le plus grand centre administratif, commercial, industriel et culturel du pays.
          Malgré sa situation dans une région tropicale, le climat est tempéré, les températures étant modérées par le courant froid du Pérou (Humboldt), qui passe au large de la côte, et par les brouillards qui recouvrent la région côtière de mai à octobre, les mois les plus froids. La plus grande partie de l'industrie des textiles et des vêtements du Pérou est concentrée à Lima ; la production industrielle comprend également les véhicules à moteur, les produits chimiques, les produits alimentaires. Près de la moitié des emplois du secteur secondaire et tertiaire y sont concentrés.
          Lima a conservé de nombreux monuments de l'époque coloniale : la grande place des Armes (Plaza de Armas), la cathédrale qui se situe à côté (commencée en 1746), dans laquelle un cercueil en verre renfermerait les restes du fondateur de la ville, le conquistador espagnol Francisco Pizarro, et plusieurs églises et couvents des XVIe et XVIIe siècles, ayant échappé au tremblement de terre destructeur de 1746.
          Les arènes d'Acho (1764, restaurées en 1945) se situent au nord de la ville, dans l'un des 47 districts de la métropole. L'université nationale de San Marcos (1551), la plus ancienne université d'Amérique du Sud, l'université nationale des Ingénieurs (1896) et d'Agronomie (1902) se trouvent dans la région métropolitaine. Les musées d'art, d'histoire, d'archéologie et de philatélie présentent des collections intéressantes.
          Callao, le principal port du Pérou, est à 13 km environ vers l'ouest. Les autres banlieues importantes sont les sections résidentielles de San Isidro, Monterrico, Jesús María, Surquillo et les célèbres stations balnéaires de Miraflores et de Barranca. De nombreux bidonvilles (barriades) se sont développés à la périphérie de la région, où échouent des paysans, toujours plus nombreux, à la recherche d'un emploi dans la capitale.
          Lima fut fondée le 18 juillet 1535 par les conquistadores, dont Francesco Pizarro, et fut, à l'origine, appelée Ciudad de los Reyes (" ville des Rois "). Pillée systématiquement par les Conquérants, les autochtones réduits en esclavage, elle parvint néanmoins à se développer avec une population au sang mêlé. Elle obtint le statut de capitale de la vice-royauté du Pérou, colonie espagnole, en remplacement de Cuzco et devint rapidement la ville la plus grande et la plus prospère du Nouveau Monde.
          Capitale du Pérou à l'indépendance du pays, en 1826, Lima fut pillée et occupée de 1881 à 1883 par l'armée chilienne, pendant la guerre du Pacifique. L'industrialisation rapide après 1940 s'accompagna d'une forte croissance de la population urbaine.
          La population de l’agglomération de Lima est estimée à 7 millions d’habitants. L’accroissement de la population est lié à l’immigration mais surtout à un fort croît naturel (2,5% en 1990) et à l’attraction qu’exerce la capitale où se trouvent centralisées toutes les administrations, les banques, la majeure partie de l’industrie du Pérou, ainsi que presque tous les établissements supérieurs (12 universités rassemblent 55% des étudiants péruviens).
         La centralisation est, au Pérou, un double héritage de l’époque coloniale et du XIXe siècle républicain. L’accroissement des responsabilités prises par les administrations d’État augmente encore le poids de Lima dans la vie du Pérou, malgré les efforts de déconcentration et de décentralisation administrative. Trujillo est le centre commercial des grandes oasis de la Leche et du Chancay, où les haciendas sucrières ont été transformées en complexes agro-industriels à la suite de la réforme
    1488 Helius Eobanus Hessus German poet (Silvae)
    1412 Joan of Arc, Domrémy, martyr — Elle poussa les Rois de France à reconquérir leurs territoires et à " Bouter les Anglais dehors " La France d’alors était réduite à un petit royaume au Centre de la France, moins d’un quart de sa surface actuelle dont le Roi, par dérision, était surnommé le "Roi de Bourges" ! Jeanne d'Arc est morte au bûcher le 30 May 1431.
    1367 Richard II Bordeaux, France, king of England (1377-99)
    Holidays Iraq : Army Day / New Mexico : Admission Day (1912) / Uruguay : Children's Day
    Religious Observances Christian : Epiphany (12th Night of Christmas) (England) 3 Kings/Adoration of Magi / Greek Orthodox : Greek Cross Day (Tarpon Springs FL) /
    Roman Catholic : St Guarinus (St Guerin) / St John de Ribera, archbishop of Valencia / St Charles of Sezze, Italian monk / St Rafaela Maria Porras y Ayllon / Bl Andre Bessette, religious (opt)
    ÉPIPHANIE
          C'est en ce jour qu'on nomme aussi "Jour des Rois" que sont arrivée d'après la bible les trois Rois Mages, qui auraient apporté à Jésus des présents et cadeaux. Selon la tradition, ces trois rois venus d'Arabie s'appelaient Balthazar, Gaspar et Melchior.
    Dans toute la Chrétienté, la fête des Rois.
          Cette solennité, fêtée par toutes les Églises chrétiennes est traditionnellement fixée au 6 janvier. Mais, à la suite des dernières réformes de la liturgie romaine, rapportée, dans les pays où ce jour n’est pas férié, au dimanche qui se situe entre le 2 et le 8 janvier. À l’origine, l’Épiphanie apparut comme étant la réplique orientale de Noël; l’Égypte (Chrétiens Coptes) fixait au 6 janvier la fête païenne du solstice d’hiver, dont l’Église a fait une célébration de la naissance du Christ. Très tôt, les deux fêtes se sont imposées partout, l’Épiphanie étant surtout considérée comme la "manifestation" (c’est le sens du mot grec qui la désigne) de Dieu dans l’humanité de Jésus, manifestation illustrée par l’épisode de l’adoration des Mages, mais aussi par le baptême du Christ et le miracle de Cana (où l’eau fut changée en vin), le premier miracle de Jésus et donc le début de sa vie publique. (Il ne faut pas oublier que l’ensemble des événements de la vie de Jésus (33 ans) sont rassemblés sur une année liturgique et qu’il y a donc chevauchement de plusieurs épisodes).
          Des croyances mythologiques, en effet, faisaient coïncider la "naissance du soleil" avec une recrudescence des sources, qui avaient, ce jour-là, des vertus merveilleuses. Ainsi se comprend la bénédiction solennelle des eaux qui a lieu dans les liturgies orientales et leur coutume, adoptée par les anciens rites de Gaule et d’Espagne, de célébrer les baptêmes lors de l’Épiphanie. À l'origine donc, elle célébrait l'anniversaire du baptême du Christ. Dans les Églises occidentales, l'Épiphanie commémore la révélation faite aux Gentils de la messianité de Jésus-Christ comme l'annonçait la venue des trois Mages (cfr St Matthieu, II, 1-12) apportant de l'or, le présent des rois, de l'encens, utilisé pour le culte et de la myrrhe, pour préparer le corps à l'embaumement..
          L'Épiphanie, observée depuis 194 apr. J.-C., est plus ancienne que Noël et a toujours été une fête de la plus haute importance. Les Rois Mages arrivent en fait ce jour là auprès de Jésus, de retour d’Egypte où il avait fui pour échapper au massacre. Ils lui apportent les présents sacrés, l’or, l’encens et la myrrhe. La tradition familiale veut que l’on fasse cuire une galette qui contient une fève. Celui qui trouve la fève dans son morceau est "roi" ou "reine" pour le reste de la journée.
    AUNT O'NIMM'S DICTIONARY: incellence: a condition of inferiority, worse than mediocrity, the opposite of excellence.
    Thoughts for the day :1. “The average woman would rather be beautiful than smart because the average man can see better than he can think.”
    2. “That woman is below average who lets herself be governed by how the average man reacts to her.”
    3. “Beauty in not in the eye of the beholder, but in the brain.”
    4. “The wish to be more beautiful than you are smart is self-fulfilling, however ugly you may be.”
    5. “In the land of the blind, the average man can think better than he can see.”
    6. “In the land of the blind, the average man can touch better than he can think.”
    7. “In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is a freak, the two-eyed man is a monster.”
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