10 Jan History.

<< Jan 09| HISTORY “4” “2”DAY |Jan 11 >>
Events, deaths, births, of JAN 10
[For Jan 10 Julian go to Gregorian date: 1583~1699: Jan 20 — 1700s: Jan 21 — 1800s: Jan 22 — 1900~2099: Jan 23]

ALTERNATE SITES ALL FOR 030110 ANY DAY OF THE YEAR IN HISTORY ART “4” JAN 10

• Brits shot unarmed Irish... • Neutron star dated... • Clinton impeachment... • Cubans leave Angola...• Yanks leave Germany... • Griffith President of Ireland... • Seward Secretary of State... • Soviets trapped in Finland... • Buffalo Bill dies...• “Victoir Noir” tué... • Tintin... • League of Nations... • Common Sense by Paine...

On a January 10:

2003 Illinois Governor George Ryan pardons four Black men sentenced to death for murder after having been tortured by police into making false confessions: Aaron R. Patterson (born on 10 July 1964, convicted in 1986), Madison Hobley (born on 21 July 1960, sentenced on 04 Aug 1990), and Leroy Orange (born on 20 July 1950, convicted in 1984) are freed this same day. Stanley Howard (born on 06 November 1962, convicted in 1987) remains in prison for another crime.|
[photo: Aaron Patterson listens to Governor Ryan on 11 January 2003 >]

2003 North Korea gives one day's notice (instead of the 3 months required) that it is withdrawing from the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty that bars it from making nuclear weapons. It says that it is willing to talk with the US to end the crisis, but warns that a “new Korean War will finally lead to the Third World War”.

^ 2001 American Airlines agrees to buy TWA.
     An agreement is announced by which American Airlines would acquire most of Trans World Airlines Inc.'s assets for about $500 million. That would bring an end to the financially troubled TWA, whose roots can be traced to the 1925 founding of Western Air Express.
      The agreement with TWA, along with a separate pact under which American would buy some of US Airways' assets from United Airlines, would leave American and United in control of about half of the nation's air travel market.
      Under the multipart deal, TWA has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in Wilmington, Del. and plans to sell most of its assets to American, a subsidiary of AMR Corp. The sale is subject to approval by the bankruptcy court.
      American will assume responsibility for most of TWA's plane leases and provide $200 million in immediate financing for the St. Louis-based airline. American will also acquire TWA's gates and takeoff and landing slots at several airports.
      In a concurrent move, American would buy certain US Airways assets for $1.2 billion in cash and the assumption of $300 million in aircraft leases. It will also pay $82 million and provide 11 planes for 49 percent of startup DC Air, a regional airline that will fly out of Reagan National Airport in Washington.
      The latter portions of the deal are contingent on federal regulators approving United parent UAL Corp.'s $4.3 billion proposal to purchase US Airways. Antitrust regulators have pressed United, the largest carrier in the world, to sell some of its operations before they approve its purchase of US Airways, the nation's No. 6 carrier.

2001 Indicted war criminal Biljana Plavsic, 70, voluntary surrenders to the UN tribunal in the Hague. She is accused of genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity, and grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions, while an aide to Radovan Karadzic, the main Bosnian Serb war criminal, whom she followed as president of the Bosnian Serb republic (1996-98), turning toward the West.

^ 2001 A 2nd neutron star is reported to have been dated.
     Scientists using NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory have found new evidence that a pulsar in the constellation of Sagittarius was created when a massive star exploded, witnessed by Chinese astronomers in the year 386 AD.
     The scientists used Chandra to locate the pulsar exactly at the geometric center of the supernova remnant known as G11.2-0.3. This location provides very strong evidence that the pulsar, a neutron star that is rotating 14 times a second, was formed in the supernova of 386 AD, and therefore has an age of 1615 years.
     Determining the true ages of astronomical objects is notoriously difficult, and for this reason, historical records of supernovae are of great importance. In roughly the past 2000 years, fewer than 10 reports of probable supernovae have been archived mostly by Asian astronomers. Of those handful, the remnant of 1054 AD, the Crab Nebula, was until now the only pulsar whose birth could be associated with a historic event – and, hence, the only neutron star that has a firm age.

2001 It is announced that Dorca has been hired as a member of the staff of Maria Lucia Frota, Rio de Janeiro's Secretary of Animal Rights. Dorca will work 6 hours a day, for a salary of about $700 a week, paid to the German shepherd's trainer and veterinarian.
2001 Mexico closes a military base in Cuxulja, the 3rd in Chiapas since President Vicente Fox took office on 1 December 2000. In his electoral campaign pledge, he had promised to renew talks with the National Zapatista Liberation Army, four years after negotiations broke down. The rebels have demanded that four additional bases be dismantled.

^ 2001 Secret report opened: British shot unarmed Irish during Easter uprising.
     British soldiers shot dead unarmed prisoners after they had surrendered, along with innocent bystanders, during the 1916 Easter Rising, the spark that was to lead to Ireland's war of independence, hitherto secret documents reveal.
      The papers, released today at the British public record office, also show how army officers and civil servants covered up evidence that rebel prisoners and uninvolved civilians were summarily shot, to avoid what they called "hostile propaganda".
      The top Home Office official, Sir Edward Troup, told the prime minister, Herbert Asquith: "The root of the mischief was the military order to take no prisoners." He added: "This in itself may have been justifiable, but it should have been made clear that it did not mean that an unarmed rebel might be shot after he had been taken prisoner: still less could it mean that a person taken on mere suspicion could be shot without trial."
      Although Sir Edward said that some of the people shot were "probably fighting or sniping" he admitted there was "little doubt that others were not taking any active part". Though the police described the area where the shootings took place as a "nest of Sinn Feiners", some were probably not even sympathisers.
      Sir Edward wrote the memo, marked "very confidential", at a time the Liberal prime minister was under pressure from MPs in summer 1916 to conduct a public inquiry into the shootings in Dublin's North King Street by soldiers of the South Staffordshire Regiment.
      The memo is based on a secret inquiry carried out by the army. Sir Edward strongly advised against publishing the evidence, on the grounds it could be used for "hostile propaganda". He added: "Nothing but harm could come of any public inquiry that would draw further attention to the matter." Sir Edward, who won the day, advised Asquith to take the line that the deaths had been "thoroughly investigated", though he admitted that if the events had occurred in England, "the right course would be to refer the cases to the D of PP [Director of Public Prosecutions] ".
      The North King Street area was the scene of some of the heaviest fighting in late April 1916. It is known one officer, Captain Bowen Colthurst, later described as mentally unstable, shot six people in cold blood, including the pacifist Francis Sheehy-Skeffington. What has not been documented until now is the circumstances surrounding other shootings.
      James Moore was killed by soldiers at his front door in Dublin's Little Britain Street. "He was probably a perfectly innocent person," the memo notes.
      Under the heading "The Case of Patrick Lawless and three others killed and buried at 27 North King Street", the memo says: "It is not unlikely that the soldiers did not accurately distinguish between refusing to make [sic] prisoners and shooting immediately prisoners whom they had made [sic]."
      Thomas Hickey, described by his widow, as a "great Britisher" and their 16-year-old son, Christopher, were also shot. "There is nothing to show [they] were Sinn Feiners or had taken any active part in the fighting," the document says. The files released yesterday were originally closed until 2017. They were listed as opened on January 2. Their release coincides with the BBC television series Rebel Heart, whose first episode last Sunday featured the Easter Rising.
      One document shows that by October 1916, 187 "Irish rebels" had been court-martialled, and 14 death sentences had been carried out. The records of the proceedings had to remain secret, army officers insisted, because of "the position of any general who in the future may be required to cope with another rising". An unidentified army officer in London admits: "I think the evidence in some of the cases was far from conclusive".
      The government's law officers argued there was no legal justification for the trials to have been in secret. The army responded by saying that if the evidence was published "a certain section of the Irish community will urge that the sole reason for trial in camera was that the authorities intended to execute certain of the Sinn Feiners, whether there was evidence against them or not". Part of the proceedings was later released to the families. General John Maxwell, the British officer sent to Ireland to oversee martial law, referred to "possible unfortunate incidents we should now regret". He added in a letter to the Daily Mail: "A revolt of this kind could not be suppressed with velvet glove methods."

2001 The Ehime Maru school boat leaves Japan to fish tuna, swordfish and shark. It would be sunk on 9 February by a US submarine surfacing near Hawaii and 9 of the 35 on the school boat would drown.
2000 A Florida state family court judge grants temporary guardianship, until a 06 March 2000 court hearing, over Cuban refugee cause célèbre Elian Gonzalez to his great-uncle Lázaro González, at whose Miami home the boy is staying.
2000 America Online, the largest Internet company in the US, announces that it is buying Time Warner, the largest media conglomerate in the world, for for roughly $182 billion in stock and debt. The largest merger in history is expected to result in the combined company, AOL Time Warner, dominating positions in the music, publishing, news, entertainment, cable and Internet industries. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) would approve the deal on 14 December 2000. Few if any realize that the irrationally exuberant stock market will soon see its technology bubble burst, and that the man who now takes most of the credit for the merger, Steve Case (born on 21 August 1958) [photo >], would endure the blame of stockholders until resigning in disgrace, on 12 January 2003 (effective May 2003), from his position as chairman of AOL Time Warner (while remaining on the board of directors and as co-chairman of the strategy committee). Case's resignation would come after those of former Time Warner Chairman and Chief Executive Gerald Levin and AOL President Bob Pittman.

^ 1999 Clinton impeachment developments.

(1) Republican and Democratic members of Congress remain at odds over whether to call witnesses in the impeachment trial of President Bill Clinton. Leading Republican and Democratic senators reiterate that they will take a bipartisan approach to the case. "Obviously we are trying to avoid even the perception of partisanship," says Sen. Tom Daschle, the Senate minority leader from South Dakota, on CBS' "Face the Nation." Sen. Phil Gramm, R-Texas, agrees, saying, "When this is over, the important thing will be whether we can say that we rendered impartial justice."

(2) Meanwhile, Clinton lawyers are preparing for what they call a "vigorous, successful and complete" defense of the president over charges of perjury and obstruction of justice stemming from his relationship with former intern Monica Lewinsky. Clinton's defense team works through the day drafting its formal response to a summons issued by the Senate and a point-by-point rebuttal of the House case and arguments for acquittal or dismissal of the charges.

(3) White House spokesman Jim Kennedy says Clinton will deliver his State of the Union speech as scheduled January 19, even though the trial will be under way. "We have no intention of being diverted from addressing the issues that are important to the country," Kennedy says. But even some Democrats are uncomfortable with the decision to go ahead with the annual address. "I think when we're in the middle of this kind of fact-finding ... it's almost schizophrenic then to turn around and go that evening into a State of the Union," says Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D- California).

(4) The New York Post refutes an earlier Drudge Report with: DNA SHOWS BILL'S NOT BOY'S DAD: SOURCES By MAGGIE HABERMAN A paternity test taken by a 13-year-old Arkansas boy to determine whether he's President Clinton's illegitimate son came up negative, sources told The Post. The results from the DNA samples taken from Danny Williams and his mom, Bobbie Ann Williams - who has claimed for years that Clinton fathered the child during a sex-for-money tryst - turned up no match with the president, the sources said. "There was no match. Not at all," said a source familiar with the DNA tests who asked not to be identified. White House spokesperson Nanda Chitre refused to comment. The Williamses turned over DNA samples a few weeks ago, after they signed on with Star magazine to try to prove who Danny's daddy really is. The supermarket tabloid used the FBI analysis of Clinton's DNA that was in Sexgate prober Kenneth Starr's report - and came up empty.
The Starr report had enough data for a Nashville lab to conduct a solid analysis of the DNA from the three people. Star magazine learned the test results just a few days ago, the source said. Editor-in-chief Phil Bunton would not comment on whether the magazine had obtained the results, saying only: "This is one of a hundred stories we work every year. If they don't check out, we don't publish them." Several years ago, Bobbie Ann Williams made megabucks by selling her story of steamy sex sessions she claims she had with Clinton when he was Arkansas governor and she was a 24-year-old prostitute. Williams has reportedly said Clinton once paid her to have sex behind a park hedge in Little Rock. The ex-hooker has also told stories about repeated steamy sex meetings, including once with a female friend. Williams reportedly passed at least one lie-detector test about her allegations. The president has denied ever meeting her.

1998 The battle for HDTV heats up
Sun Microsystems and TCI Cable struck a deal requiring TCI to use Sun's operating system in at least half of its digital set-top boxes. The deal anticipated the fast-approaching birth of digital television. The first digital TV sets and set-top boxes were slated to hit the market in the fall of 1998, and more than forty stations would begin broadcasting digital signals that November. The following day, Microsoft announced a deal with Tele-Communications, a cable company manufacturing digital set-top boxes. The deal required Tele-Communications to use Windows in at least half its boxes and represented one of several arenas in which Sun and Microsoft had started to battle.

1998 El diseñador Garivani Valentino vende su firma comercial al holding HdP.
1997 Right-winger Arnoldo Aleman sworn in as President of Nicaragua.
1996 Chechen nationalist fighters free 2000 hostages they had seized in Kizlyar, Ingushetia. Russian troops allow a convoy of Chechen fighters and 160 hostages to head for Chechnya, only to surround them in the village of Pervomayskaya. After a five-day standoff, Russian troops would make a massive military assault that resulting in the deaths of most of the Chechens and some of the hostages.
1996 Israel frees hundreds of Palestinian prisoners
1994 Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan agrees to abolish trade tariffs
1994 Ukraine says it will give up world's 3rd largest nuclear arsenal
1994 WordPerfect Announces to Charge for Telephone Support Service On this day in 1994, WordPerfect announced it would begin charging for telephone support. Previously, the company had not only provided free support but also picked up the tab for the phone call through a toll-free line. The move reflected the growing battle for revenue in the software business, as lower prices hurt profit margins.
1992 Apple Computer announces that it will introduce pocket-sized electronic information devices. It would be Newton, the much-publicized electronic organizer that never caught on with the public. The Newton project marked an important shift in Apple's strategy — from providing free or inexpensive software with high-priced hardware, to selling cheap hardware in order to drive software sales.
1991 Japan ends routine fingerprinting of all adult ethnic Koreans
1991 US Congress begins debate on Persian Gulf crisis
1990 Chinese Premier Li Peng lifted Beijing's 7-month-old martial law (imposed after Tiananmen Square massacre)

^ 1989 Cuban troops begin withdrawal from Angola
      As part of an arrangement to decrease Cold War tensions and end a brutal war in Angola, Cuban troops begin their withdrawal from the African nation. The process was part of a multilateral diplomatic effort to end years of bloodshed in Angola-a conflict that, at one time or another, involved the Soviet Union, the United States, Portugal, and South Africa.
      Angola officially became an independent nation in 1975, but even before the date of independence, various groups within the former Portuguese colony battled for control. One group, the National Front for the Liberation of Angola (FNLA), received support from the United States; another, the Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA), got much of its support from the Soviet Union and Cuba; and a third group, National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA), pragmatically took aid from whatever source was available, including South Africa and China. The United States, the Soviet Union, and China each believed Angola was a critical battlefield for political dominance in mineral-rich and strategically important southern Africa.
      By September 1975, South African troops were assisting UNITA forces in Angola. In November, Cuba — which became involved in Angola as part of Fidel Castro's aggressive foreign policy to assert Cuba's role in anticolonial struggles — responded by flying in thousands of troops to aid the MPLA. Their powerful assistance caused South African forces to withdraw.
      In 1981, the South Africans, who saw an MPLA regime in Angola as threatening to its political control of neighboring Namibia, again invaded Angola and increased their aid to UNITA. UNITA's leader, Jonas Savimbi courted US assistance and visited with President Ronald Reagan in 1986. The United States responded with military aid for UNITA's forces and demanded that the Cuban troops depart Angola. As fighting escalated, Castro dispatched 15,000 additional troops to Africa.
      Throughout 1987 and 1988, UNITA and MPLA forces and their respective allies fought increasingly bloody battles. Sensing that the situation was spiraling out of control, the United States helped broker an agreement in December 1988 between Angola, Cuba, and South Africa, whereby the three nations vowed to remove all foreign forces from Angola. All three nations had expended vast amounts of manpower and money in the seemingly endless conflict and Cuba, in particular, was eager to negotiate a graceful exit. The Cuban troops began their withdrawal a few weeks later, and by 1991 they were gone.
      The situation in Angola was another indication that, particularly in the 1970s and 1980s, Africa was coming to play a more significant role in the Cold War geopolitics. Additionally, the Cuban intervention in the conflict was yet another event that served to chill relations between the United States and Cuba.

1988 Apple's new software company, Claris Corporation announces that it will begin shipping its first batch of software, including an updated version of Apple's MacWrite word processor and MacPaint graphics programs.
1987 Se promulga la Constitución de Nicaragua.
1986 Los GEO (Grupos Especiales de Operaciones) rescatan en Basauri (Vizcaya) al empresario Juan Pedro Guzmán, secuestrado por ETA (Euskadi Ta Askatasuna = País vasco Y Libertad) doce días antes.
1985 Daniel Ortega Saavedra inaugurated as President of Nicaragua.
1984 US establishes full diplomatic relations with Vatican after 117 years.
1983 Astrónomos británicos descubren un nuevo pulsar con una capacidad energética mayor que la del Sol.
1982 -17ºF (27.2ºC) in Braemar Grampian (equals UK record)
1981 El Salvador guerrilla group FMLN opens "general offensive" — La guerrilla salvadoreña anuncia el comienzo de una ofensiva final contra el Gobierno.
1976 El general portugués Antonio de Spínola es expulsado de España.
1972 El jeque Mujibur Rahman es designado jefe de gobierno de Bangladesh.

^ 1972 Former US VP calls for ending Vietnam War at once.
Former Vice President Hubert Humphrey criticizes President Richard Nixon, saying that it was taking longer for President Nixon to withdraw US troops from Vietnam than it did to defeat Hitler. Humphrey called for an immediate end to the war, declaring: "Had I been elected, we would now be out of that war." Humphrey ran against Nixon in the 1968 election, winning the Democratic nomination for president over Senator Eugene McCarthy (D-Minnesota) after President Lyndon Johnson declined to run for re-election. In the race, Humphrey had tried to distance himself from Johnson and his war policy, but Republican nominee Nixon, promising to "to end the war and win the peace," won the election by less than 1 percent of the popular vote.

1969 Sweden (first Western country) recognizes North Vietnam
1967 US President Johnson, in his 4th annual State of the Union address to Congress, asks for enactment of a 6% surcharge on personal and corporate income taxes to help support the Vietnam War for two years, or "for as long as the unusual expenditures associated with our efforts continue." Congress would pass the surcharge almost a year later. The US expenditure in Vietnam for fiscal year 1967 would be $21 billion.

^ 1967 Maddox sworn in as governor of Georgia
Lester Garfield Maddox, a restaurant owner who made national headlines for his opposition to desegregation, is sworn in as governor of Georgia. Maddox, a high school dropout, achieved notoriety in 1964 when he employed violence to drive African Americans from his Pickrick Restaurant in Atlanta, Georgia. In defiance of federal civil rights legislation calling for desegregation of restaurants and other public places, he passed out ax handles to white customers at his eatery to prevent its integration. Later in the year, he closed the establishment rather than be forced to serve African Americans. In 1966, he was elected a Democratic governor of Georgia with the support of the Ku Klux Klan. While in office he instituted early prison release for civil rights violators and fought against school desegregation, although he was unable to stem the tide of integration. In 1971, because the state constitution stipulated that he could not serve successive terms as governor, he was forced to give up the seat to Jimmy Carter, who called for an end to racial discrimination. However, Maddox had won the lieutenant governor's seat in the same election and over the next four years thwarted many of Carter's reform measures. After retiring from politics in 1975, Maddox reopened the Pickrick Restaurant, where he continued to come under fire for the repeated violation of his customers' civil rights.

1966 India and Pakistan sign peace accord
1966 Julian Bond denied seat in Georgia legislature for opposing Vietnam War
1964 Panama severs diplomatic relations with US.
1964 Battles between moslems and hindus in Calcutta
1961 Dionisio Ridruejo, José María Gil Robles, Enrique Tierno Galván y otros intelectuales escriben una carta al presidente de Estados Unidos, Kennedy, exponiendo el problema de la necesaria democratización de España.
1957 Anthony Eden resigns and Harold Macmillan becomes Prime Minister of the UK.
1951 United Nations headquarters opens in Manhattan NY
1951 Donald Howard Rogers pilots the first passenger jet flight (from Chicago to New York City).
1950 Para protestar contra la presencia de Formosa en el Consejo de Seguridad, la URSS practica la "política de la silla vacía".
1947 La ONU asume la vigilancia de la ciudad libre de Trieste.
1947 British stop ships Independence and In-Gathering from landing in Israel

^ 1946 First meeting of the U.N. General Assembly
The first General Assembly of the United Nations, comprising fifty-one nations, convenes at Westminster Central Hall in London, England. One week later, the U.N. Security Council meets for the first time, adopting its rules of procedure, and on 24 January the General Assembly adopts its first resolution, a measure calling for the peaceful uses of atomic energy and the elimination of atomic and other weapons of mass destruction. In 1944, at the Dumbarton Oaks conference in Washington DC, the groundwork was laid by delegates from the United States, the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union, and China for an international postwar organization to maintain peace and security in the postwar world. The organization was to possess considerably more authority over its members than the defunct League of Nations, which had failed to prevent the outbreak of World War II. In April of 1945, with celebrations of victory in Europe about to commence, delegates from fifty-one nations convened in San Francisco to draft the United Nations Charter. On 26 June, the document was signed by the delegates, and on 24 October formally ratified by the five permanent members of the Security Council and a majority of other signatories. The first general assembly convened on 10 January 1946, in London, England.
— Paul Henri Spaak es elegido presidente de la Organizacion de las Naciones Unidas.

1946 Lieutenant John H. De Witt supervises an experiment conducted by the Army Signal Corps from the Evans Signal Laboratories in Belmar, New Jersey. The engineers send a radar signal to the moon and receive an echo back less than three seconds later.
1944 British troops conquer Maungdaw, Burma
1943 Russian offensive against German 6th/4th Armies near Stalingrad
1942 Japan invades North-Celebes, Dutch East Indies.
1942 En Paraguay, el general Higinio Moríñigo disuelve el Partido Liberal y queda sin oposición.

^ 1942 Ford to make Jeeps
The Ford Motor Company contracts to make Jeeps, the new general-purpose military vehicles desperately needed by American forces in World War II. The original Jeep design was submitted by the American Bantam Car Company. The Willys-Overland company won the Jeep contract, however, using a design similar to Bantam’s, but with certain improvements. The Jeep was in high demand during wartime, and Ford soon stepped in to lend its huge production capacity to the effort. By the end of the war, the Jeep had won a place in Americans’ hearts, and soon became a popular civilian vehicle. And that catchy name? Some say it comes from the initials G.P., for "General Purpose." Others say it was named for Jeep the moondog, the spunky and durable creature who accompanied Popeye through the comics pages.

1941 Seyss-Inquart begins registration of Jews

^ 1941 Lend-Lease submitted to US Congress
President Franklin D. Roosevelt's Lend-Lease program is brought before the US Congress for consideration. Roosevelt devised the Lend-Lease program as a means of aiding Great Britain in its war effort against the Germans. The program gave the chief executive the power to "sell, transfer title to, exchange, lease, lend, or otherwise dispose of" any military resources he deemed in the ultimate interest of the defense of the United States. The idea was that if Britain were better able to defend itself, the security of the US would be enhanced. The program also served to bolster British morale, as they would no longer feel alone in their struggle against Hitler.
Congress authorized the program on March 11. By November, after much heated debate, Congress extended the terms of Lend-Lease to the Soviet Union, even though Stalin's USSR had already been the recipient of American military weapons and had been promised $1 billion in financial aid. By the end of the war, more than $50 billion in funds, weapons, aircraft, and ships were distributed to 44 countries through the program. After the war, the Lend-Lease program morphed into the Marshall Plan, which allocated funds for the revitalization of "friendly" democratic nations.

1930 Mordovian Autonomous Region in RSFSR constituted
1928 Soviet Union orders exile of Leon Trotsky. — León Trotski y 30 miembros de la oposición de izquierda son expulsados de Moscú.
1927 Se extiende por toda Europa una gran epidemia de gripe.
1925 France-Saarland forms
1923 Lithuania seizes and annexes country of Memel
1923 Last US troops leave Rhineland (Germany)

^ 1923 US troops depart from Germany
Four years after the end of World War I, US President Warren G. Harding orders US occupation troops stationed in Germany to return home. In 1917, after several years of bloody stalemate along the Western Front, the entrance of America's well-supplied forces into World War I was a major tuning point in the conflict. When the war ended in November of 1918, more than two million American soldiers had served on the battlefields of Western Europe, and over fifty thousand of these men had lost their lives. As part of the Treaty of Versailles signed in the next year, US troops, along with other Allied forces, were to occupy the defeated Central Powers nations to enforce the terms of the peace agreement. In Germany, Allied occupation and stiff war reparations levied against the country were regarded with increasing bitterness, and in 1923, after four years of contention with a resentful German populace, American troops were ordered home. In the same year, Adolf Hitler's nationalistic Nazi Party launched the Beer Hall Putsch, their first attempt at seizing control of the German government by force. The coup was unsuccessful, but after his release from prison in the next year Hitler reorganized the Nazi Party as a fanatical mass movement calling for cessation of reparation payment, rearmament, and the nullification of most other terms of the Treaty of Versailles. By 1934, Hitler was the sole master of a Germany intent on war and genocide.

^ 1922 Griffith elected President of the Irish Free State.
Arthur Griffith, the founder of Sinn Fein and one of the architects of the historic 1921 peace treaty with Britain, is elected president of the newly established Irish Free State. In 1905, Griffith founded Sinn Fein, a political party dedicated to independence for all of Ireland. From its inception the party became the unofficial political wing of militant Irish groups in their struggle to throw off British rule. In 1911, the British Liberal government approved negotiations for Irish Home Rule, but the Conservative Party opposition in Parliament, combined with Ireland's anti-Home Rule factions, defeated the plans. With the outbreak of World War I, the British government delayed further discussion of Irish self-determination, and Irish nationalists responded by staging Dublin's Easter Uprising of 1916. In 1918, with the threat of conscription being imposed on the island, the Irish people gave Sinn Fein a majority in national elections and the party established an independent Irish parliament — Dail Eireann — which declared Ireland a sovereign republic. In 1919, the Irish Volunteers, a prototype of the Irish Republican Army (IRA), launched a widespread and effective guerrilla campaign against British forces. In 1921, a cease-fire was declared, and in 1922, Arthur Griffith and a faction of former Sinn Fein leaders signed a historic treaty with Britain, calling for the partition of Ireland, with the south becoming autonomous and the six northern counties of the island remaining in Great Britain. Griffith was subsequently elected the first president of the new country, but died in the same year just as civil war broke out in Ireland over the partition. He was succeeded as Dail Eireann leader by William Cosgrave, and in 1923, Eamon De Valera's Irish Republican forces were defeated by the Irish Free State, which later grew into the modern Republic of Ireland. Several years later, the IRA was reorganized as an underground movement that continued its struggle for Northern independence.

1922 El libro de John M. Keynes Las consecuencias económicas de la paz causa gran conmoción en Berlín.
1920 League of Nations' first meeting. — Se crea la Sociedad de Naciones.
1920 Treaty of Versailles in effect. — Entra en vigor el Tratado de Versalles, para tratar de solucionar los problemas surgidos de la guerra 1914-1918.
1916 Russian offensive in Caucasus
1912 Caillaux government in France resigns.
1911 Major Jimmie Erickson took the first photograph from an airplane while flying over San Diego, CA.
1904 Se celebran varios mítines protestando por el nombramiento del padre Nozaleda.

^ 1901 Spindletop oil gushes
Near Beaumont, Texas, a 100-foot drilling derrick named Spindletop produced a roaring gusher of black crude oil. The oil strike takes place at 10:30, coating the landscape for a hundreds meters around in sticky petroleum. The first major oil discovery in the United States, the Spindletop gusher marked the beginning of the American oil industry. Soon the prices of petroleum-based fuels fell, and gasoline became an increasingly practical power source. Without Spindletop, internal combustion might never have replaced steam and battery power as the automobile power plant of choice, and the American automobile industry might not have changed the face of America with such staggering speed.

1890 Pope Leo XIII publishes encyclical Sapientiae Christianae
1889 Ivory Coast declared a protectorate of France

^ 1884 Décret du Préfet Poubelle sur les contenants des ordures, entre en vigueur
La veille au matin, un grand nombre de chiffonniers se sont réunis dans la rue Saint Georges, et, dans un meeting improvisé, ont protesté contre l'arrêté de M. Poubelle, Préfet de la Seine, relatif aux ordures ménagères. C'est à partir d'aujourd'hui que cet arrêté qui exige de placer les ordures dans des boîtes spéciales est exécutoire. En plus, dans cet arrêté, il y est donné ordre aux habitants de Paris de trier leurs débarras ménagers et d'éviter ainsi cette peine sur entrepreneurs de déblaiement; en effet, l'ordonnance du Préfet force à faire deux tas d'ordures: les trognons de choux d'un côté, les tessons de bouteilles et les chiffons de l'autre.

1878 California Senator A.A. Sargent introduces the Susan B. Anthony (women's suffrage) Amendment to the US Congress. The amendment won't be signed into law for another 42 years.
1874 En España el Gobierno provisional del general Francisco Serrano y Dominguez ordena la disolución de la Internacional Obrera y su prensa.
1863 January uprising begins in Poland
1863 The Metropolitan (commonly called the “Underground”), world's first underground passenger railway, opens in London. — En Londres entra en servicio el primer ferrocarril metropolitano.
1863 Engagement of Post of Arkansas (Fort Hindman), Arkansas
1862 Battle of Big Sandy River KY (Middle Creek)
1862 Battle of Romney WV
1861 US forts and property seized by Mississippi
1861 Florida becomes 3rd state to secede from US (South Carolina was first, Mississippi second) when a state convention votes 62 to 7 in favor of the measure.

^ 1861 William Seward is named US Secretary of State.
      William Seward accepts President-elect Abraham Lincoln's invitation to become Secretary of State. Seward became one of the most important members of the cabinet and engineered the purchase of Alaska after the Civil War (“Seward's Folly”).
      A native of New York, Seward taught school in the South before returning to New York and entering politics. He became governor in 1838 and began to articulate strong anti-slavery views. Seward entered the US Senate in 1849 and burst onto the national scene during the debates surrounding the Compromise of 1850. He boldly proclaimed that slavery was doomed by a "higher law than the Constitution, the law of God." This became a catch phrase for abolitionists and Seward became known as a radical, belying his pragmatic tendencies.
      Seward joined the Republican Party in the 1850s and he appeared to be the leading candidate for president in 1860. The party went with Lincoln, feeling that he would draw more votes in the Midwest and border regions. Seward was initially reluctant to accept the position of Secretary of State — he still saw himself as the natural leader of the party and was reluctant to take a back seat to Lincoln. In fact, Seward underestimated Lincoln's political acumen. His relationship with Lincoln was not particularly close, but they worked well together during the war.
      Seward became one of the moderate voices in the Lincoln cabinet. His careful politicking helped to counter the public perception that the administration was dominated by radicals. Although he supported the end of slavery, Seward downplayed the effects of emancipation to gain support from Democrats and conservative Republicans during the presidential campaign of 1864.
      The assassination plot that killed Lincoln nearly resulted in Seward's death as well. Lewis Powell, an accomplice to John Wilkes Booth, stabbed Seward as he lay in bed recovering from a carriage accident. Seward survived, and after a summer convalescing, returned to the State Department. His final achievement came with the purchase of Alaska from the Russians in 1867. Although he considered it one of his greatest accomplishments, critics dubbed the territory "Mr. Seward's Ice Box." History would show that Seward's belief in the value of Alaska was astute.

1840 The penny post, whereby mail was delivered at a standard charge rather than paid for by the recipient, begins in Great Britain.
1839 Tea from India first arrives in UK.
1822 Se firma la Declaración de Independencia de Grecia.
1811 Louisiana slaves rebel in 2 parishes.
1810 Acting beyond their authority, coerced by Napoléon I, the ecclesiastical council and the diocesan authorities of Paris consent to declare null the emperor's marriage with Joséphine.
1806 Dutch in Cape Town, South African surrender to the British
1663 King Charles II confirms charter of Royal African Company
1642 King Charles I and family flee London for Oxford
0236 Saint Fabian begins his reign as Pope
0069 Roman emperor Galba adopts Marcus Piso Licinianus as his successor instead of the former governor of Lusitania, Otho. Otho won the support of the Praetorians, who on 69BC January 15 killed both Galba and Piso in the Forum. Galba had refused to pay the Praetorians the reward that they claimed for having deserted Nero (who then commited suicide) in favor of Galba.
— 0049 BC- Julius Caesar crosses the Rubicon, invades Italy

TO THE TOP

^ Deaths which occurred on a January 10:
2003 Burton Feldman, 76, of cancer, US historian. Author of The Nobel Prize: A History of Genius, Controversy, and Prestige (October 2000), in which he writes that Sully Prudhomme, a French poet, critic and philosophical writer who won the Nobel prize for literature in 1901, was “as forgettable a poet as can be found in the Nobel's long list of mediocrities.” He observes that Nobel prizes are awarded for more reasons than excellence alone, and sometimes go to mediocrities or worse, such as the 1949 prize in medicine (shared with Walter Rudolf Hess [17 Mar 1881-12 Aug 1973]) to Antonio Caetano de Abreu Freire Egas Moniz [29 Nov 1874-1955], who introduced in 1936 the lobotomy, while Émile-Édouard-Charles-Antoine Zola [02 Apr 1840 – 28 Sep 1902], Edwin Powell Hubble [20 Nov 1889 – 28 Sep 1953], Mohandas Karamchand “Mahatma” Gandhi [02 Oct 1869 – 30 Jan 1948], etc never got a Nobel prize.

2001 Laura Wilcox, Pearlie Mae Feldman, and Mike Markle, murdered by a madman.
Scott Harlan Thorpe, 40, walks into the county social services building in Nevada City, California, with a handgun and shoots dead Wilcox, 19, who worked there, and Pearlie Mae Feldman, 68, a visiting caregiver, and gravely wounds Judith Edzard, 49. He then goes to a restaurant less than 3 km away, kills Markle, 24, the manager, and wounds the cook, Richard Senuty, 34.
Thorpe's brother, policeman Kent Thorpe, turned the gunman over to the authorities and said that Scott was unhappy with the mental-health care he received at the county clinic and believed that the restaurant was poisoning him.

2001 Zhou Changqing, executed in Xian (Shaanxi province, China) after being found guilty on 25 May 2000 of embezzling 48.43 million yuan ($5.85 million) while working as the general manager of Xian Mechanical and Electric Equipment Co., Ltd., a state enterprise, in 1997.
2001 Noah, Asian gaur, 2 days old, of dysentery. He had been produced from a cell from a dead gaur implanted into a cow's egg (cleared of cow DNA) and gestated by a cow, the first trans-species gestation.
2001 Lightbulb, over 60 years old (judging from its shape), in Martin and Newby electrical shop's toilet, Ipswich, England. (date of report by Daily Mail).
1986 Jaroslav Seifert, escritor checoslovaco.
1984 Suvanna Phuma, 82, premier of Laos
1984 Bosanquet, mathematician.

^ 1980 George Meany, 85, AFL-CIO chief
Born in 1894 in New York City, Meany took after his father and entered the plumbing business. A union man from the start of his career, Meany steadily climbed to the top of New York’s local and state labor chapters. In 1939 he was selected to become the American Federation of Labor’s secretary-treasurer; by 1952, he was the president of the AFL. A few years later, Meany brokered a landmark merger between the AFL and its once-hated foe, the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO). Never one for the radical side of unionism, Meany used his spot atop the AFL-CIO to steer its member unions into more mainstream political waters. He made cleansing labor—and the world—of communism a central goal of his reign; in the eyes of some of his critics, Meany spent more time crusading against communism than organizing workers. A fiery and sometimes domineering leader, Meany had his share of high-profile squabbles: in 1957, he expelled Jimmy Hoffa and the Teamsters from the AFL-CIO; a long-simmering dispute with Walter Reuther drove the United Automobile Workers of America from the organization in 1967.

1978 John D Rockefeller III, 71, US billionaire/philanthropist.
1978 Pedro Joaquín Chamorro, director de La Prensa en Nicaragua.
1971 Gabrielle "Coco" Chanel, 87, French fashion designer.
1969 The Saturday Evening Post, 147, (final issue).
1962 Some 3500 as eruption of Mount Huascaran in Peru destroys Ranrahirca and 7 other villages.
1961 Dashiell Hammett, escritor estadounidense.
1957 Gabriela Mistral, 67, Chilean poet (Nobel Prize 1945)
1954:: 35 persons as a BOAC flight BA781 from Rome to London, a De Havilland Comet 1 jet, crashes in flames from an altitude of 8200 meters, into the Tyrrhenian Sea near the Italian island of Elba. This very same plane (registration G-ALYP) made the world's first scheduled jet passenger flight on 02 May 1952, from London to South Africa.
1951 Harry Sinclair Lewis, 67, US writer (Nobel 1930)
1949 Émile Othon Achille Friesz, French Fauvist painter born on 06 February 1879. — LINKS — Travaux d'Automne — Cathédrale et Toits à Rouen
1947 392 of 637 aboard Greek steamer Himara which strikes a wartime mine in Saronic Gulf south of Athens.
1944 Fiske, mathematician.
1943 Agustin P. Justo y Rolon, 66, President of Argentina (1931-38)
1941 Schur, mathematician.
1941 John Lavery, Irish Painter born in 1856. — LINKS

^ 1940 Day 42 of Winter War: USSR aggression against Finland.
More deaths due to Stalin's desire to grab Finnish territory.
Soviet troops trapped at Kitelä — Day 42 of the Winter War, January 10, 1939
      Northern Finland: the Russian 122nd division at Salla begins to retreat towards Märkäjärvi.
      Ladoga Karelia: the vanguard of the Finnish IV Army Corps cuts the road connections of the Russian 56th Army in the area of Pitkäranta.
      The bulk of the Soviet's 56th Army are trapped inside the Kitelä-Syskyjärvi-Koirinoja triangle, giving rise to the great Kitelä 'motti'.
      The author Hella Wuolijoki travels to Stockholm for unofficial negotiations with Alexandra Kollontai, the Soviet Ambassador in Stockholm.
      The German war correspondent Otto von Zwehl enlists as a volunteer in the Finnish Army. Hitler hears of this and strips him of his German citizenship and military rank.
      Mabel Bonney, correspondent and photographer for Life magazine, arrives in Finland.

Neuvostojoukot jäävät mottiin Kitelässä Talvisodan 42. päivä, 10.tammikuuta.1940
      Sallassa venäläinen 122. Divisioona aloittaa vetäytymisensä Märkäjärvelle.
      IV Armeijakunnan hyökkäyskärki katkaisee venäläisen 56. Armeijakunnan tieyhteydet Pitkärannan alueelle.
      Neuvostojoukot jäävät mottiin Kitelässä: vihollisen armeijakunnan pääosat saarretaan Kitelän-Syskyjärven-Koirinojan kolmioon. Kitelän suurmotti syntyy.
      Kirjailija Hella Wuolijoki matkustaa Tukholmaan neuvotellakseen epävirallisesti Neuvostoliiton Tukholman suurlähettilään Aleksandra Kollontain kanssa.
      Saksalainen sotakirjeenvaihtaja Otto von Zwehl siirtyy vapaaehtoisena Suomen armeijan palvelukseen. Hitler kuulee kirjeenvaihtajan tempauksesta ja riistää mieheltä Saksan kansalaisuuden ja sotilasarvon.
      Amerikkalaisen Life-lehden kirjeenvaihtaja ja kuvaaja Mabel Bonney saapuu Suomeen.

1920 Paul Wilhelm Keller-Reutlingen, German artist born on 02 February 1854.

^ 1917 Buffalo Bill Cody army scout and Indian fighter
"Buffalo Bill" Cody, a former frontier army scout and world-famous showman, dies in Denver, Colorado, at the age of seventy. Born near Davenport, Iowa, William Cody began his working career at age eleven following his father's death, employed as a mounted messenger for a railroad company. In 1860, after a stint trapping beaver, Cody joined the gold rush to Pike's Peak, Colorado. In the same year, he briefly rode for the Pony Express, during which time, according to his own accounts, he set several riding endurance records. During the American Civil War, he served in a guerilla group loyal to the Union and then in the Seventh Kansas Volunteer Cavalry. It was around this time that he earned the nickname Buffalo Bill for his skill in supplying railroad workers with buffalo meat. In 1868, he was appointed chief of scouts for the Fifth US Cavalry, and in the next year, his Western frontier exploits became nationally famous when author Ned Buntline wrote his first dime novel with Buffalo Bill as the hero. In 1872, Cody won the Medal of Honor, led the hunting party of Grand Duke Alexis of Russia along with George Armstrong Custer, and was persuaded by Ned Buntline to act in his play, The Scouts of the Plains, which started Cody on his entertainment career.
Over the next decade, he alternately took to the frontier or the stage, and in 1883 formed the "Wild West Show," an open-air extravaganza featuring horses and riders in a variety of displays that included reenactments of legendary frontier events such as stagecoach robberies and the Battle of Little Bighorn. The Wild West Show also featured colorful figures such as Annie Oakley, a sharp-shooting frontier woman, and Native Americans who had actually fought in the US-Indian wars, such as Sioux leader Sitting Bull. For the next three decades, the show toured across the United States and Europe and was seen by tens of thousands of people, including foreign dignitaries such as Queen Victoria of England. Over time, the show became increasingly elaborate, took on international riders and themes, and Buffalo Bill's retelling of his life became ever more legendary. However, finance was not among Cody's great talents, and in 1913, the Wild West Show went bankrupt. Four years later, Buffalo Bill dies and is buried on Lookout Mountain in Colorado.

1904 Jean-Léon Gérôme, French painter and sculptor born on 11 May 1824. — MORE ON GÉRÔME AT ART “4” JANUARY — LINKS — Cock Fight _ Gérôme began his meteoric rise to fame when Théophile Gautier singled out this early work for praise— Automne — Printemps — Été — Hiver — Garde du Palais — Gladiateurs — Le Marché aux Tapis — Le Marché aux Tapis — Slave Auction — Harem Pool — Duel Après un Bal Masqué _ détail (1857) — L'Éminence Grise (1874) — Unfolding the Holy Flag (The Standard Bearer) — Almehs playing Chess in a Café — Louis XIV and Molière — Pho Xai fils d'ambassadeur Siamois (1861) — The Grief of the Pasha — The Serpent Charmer — The Virgin, the Infant Jesus, and St John — The Reception of the Siamese Ambassadors at Fontainebleau — The Pyrrhic Dance — The Dance of the Almeh — La Mort de César — Socrates seeking Alcibiades in the House of Aspasia — Petit Garçon — Police Verso (no cops! it means “thumb down” in Latin) — Napoléon et son État-Major en Égypte
1894 Don Federico de Madrazo y Küntz, Spanish painter born on 19 February 1815. — LINKS — Amalia de Llano y Dotres- The Countess of Vilches (1853) — The General Duke of San Miguel (1854)
1894 Karl Friedrich Heinrich Werner, German artist born on 04 October 1808.
1893 Karl Morgenstern, German artist born on 25 October 1811.
1892 Charles Louis Lucien Müller, French artist born on 22 December 1815.
1890 Johann Baptist Reiter, Austrian artist born on 04 July 1813.
1883 Fire at uninsured Newhall Hotel in Milwaukee WI kills 71; General Tom Thumb of P T Barnum fame, escapes unhurt.

^ 1870 Yvan Salmon “Victor Noir”, tué par Pierre Bonaparte
Yvan Salmon, dit Victor Noir, journaliste à La Marseillaise, à peine âgé de 22 ans, se rend au domicile du prince Pierre Bonaparte avec un ami pour lui demander raison d'une offense à un confrère et le provoquer en duel. Le prince, fils de Lucien Bonaparte, neveu de Napoléon 1er et cousin de Napoléon III, prend très mal la chose. Il s'empare d'un revolver et tue net le malheureux jeune homme. Pierre Bonaparte (55 ans) avait combattu dans le monde entier aux côtés des libéraux. Il avait été élu député d'extrême gauche sous la Seconde République et depuis le début du Second Empire, il se tenait en retrait de la Cour. Il était connu pour son tempérament très violent (il avait tué un homme en Italie). Il sera néanmoins acquitté par la Haute Cour de justice le 21 mars 1870.
Deux jours plus tard les funérailles de Victor Noir, sont suivies par 100'000 personnes. Les autorités ont pris la précaution d'organiser l'enterrement dans le cimetière de Neuilly, au coeur des quartiers bourgeois de la capitale. En dépit de cela, l'émotion de la foule débouche sur de violentes manifestations hostiles à l'Empire et à Napoléon III. C'est le début d'une agitation politique qui ne cessera pas jusqu'à la chute de Napoléon III, quelques mois plus tard, malgré la démocratisation du régime et l'arrivée au gouvernement du libéral Émile Ollivier. Peu après l'instauration de la IIIe République, la dépouille de Victor Noir sera transférée au cimetière du Père Lachaise, à l'est de la capitale.

1862 Samuel Colt, 47, inventor (6 shot revolver)
1851 Esteban Echeverría, escritor y político argentino.
1843 Puissant, mathematician.
1833 Adrien-Marie Legendre, 80, mathematician.
1778 Carolus Linæus "Carl von Linné", 70, Swedish botanist/explorer
1775 Jemeljan Pugatshov Russian kosak leader / "czar Peter III"
1760 Félix Anton Scheffler, German artist born on 29 August 1701.
1276 Gregorius X, 65, [Teobaldo Visconti]. When elected pope 12710901, he was not yet a priest, and he was away on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land. It was only by 12720319 that he was able to get back to Rome and be ordained a priest, then consecrated pope 8 days later.
0976 John I Tzimisces, 51, co-emperor of Byzantium (969-76)
0681 Pope Saint Agatho dies before the decrees of the council of Constantinople arrive in Rome for his approval. The Sixth Ecumenical Council, held in 680, was presided by the papal legates and it practically ended the Monothelite heresy.

^ Births which occurred on a January 10:
1956 Antonio Muñoz Molina, escritor y periodista español.
1954 Margarita Mariscal de Gante y Mirón, ministra de Justicia española.
1932 El Partido Conservador de la República es fundado en España por Miguel Maura.

^ 1929 Tintin au pays des Soviets est créé par Hergé

     La parution d’un livre qui marque le début de la carrière internationale d’un jeune reporter qui fera parler de lui auprès des jeunes de 7 à 77 ans. :.
      Bruxelles, le 10 janvier 1929... Tintin, le reporter du Petit Vingtième se rend à Moscou. Dénoncant les excès du régime communiste — tel que perçu en Belgique au début de ce siècle — et les tentatives d'assassinat de la Guépéou, il rentrera victorieux à Bruxelles où une foule, réelle cette fois, viendra l'accueillir sur le quai de le gare.
      Certes, Hergé (Georges Remi) avait déjà occupé les pages de quelques revues pour jeunes avant de publier la première planche du Pays des Soviets dans le "Petit XX", mais c’est la première "professionnelle"! Le dessinateur belge Georges Rémi, dit Hergé (nom composé à partir des initiales), a une enfance marquée par le scoutisme. Son grade de chef de patrouille et un talent déjà affirmé pour le dessin lui valent de collaborer à Boy-Scout, organe des scouts catholiques belges. Sa première bande dessinée, publiée dans ce journal en 1926, s’appelle Totor, chef de la patrouille des Hannetons.
      À son retour du service militaire, Hergé entre au XXe Siècle, "journal catholique et national" (journal de droite, proche de Maurras, en France) dont le directeur lui confie la page destinée aux enfants. Après quelques histoires dont la plus connue demeure "Les Exploits de Quick et Flupke", il réalise, en 1930, la première aventure de Tintin: Tintin au pays des Soviets. Il est alors influencé par Benjamin Rabier ("Gédéon, le canard"), Alain Saint-Ogan ("Zig et Puce") et Geo Mc Manus ("La Famille Illico") mais aussi par Pinchon ("Bécassine").
      Le personnage de Tintin va très vite connaître un vif succès et deviendra l’un des héros imaginaires de l’époque contemporaine. Un retour fictif de Tintin, après ses exploits en Russie, organisé à la gare de Bruxelles, attire un nombre important d’enfants. C’est le départ d’une série de trente-deux albums qui s’achèvera, en 1976, avec Tintin et les Picaros.
      Hergé cherchera, par intermittence, à créer d’autres personnages: Popol et Virginie, Les Aventures de Jo, Zette et Jocko, Le Stratonef H 22, La Vallée des cobras. Aucune de ces fictions n’a approché, même de très loin, le succès dont Tintin est encore l’objet. En avançant dans les aventures du reporter-détective et de son chien Milou, Hergé ajoute à son récit des personnages savoureux qui personnifient de manière cocasse des lieux communs: le professeur Tournesol

, image du savant sourd et distrait manifestement inspiré du professeur Picard qui bénéficiait alors d’une certaine notoriété, le capitaine Haddock Haddock

, très porté sur l’alcool, qui invente des jurons, le couple policier que forment les Dupond-Dupont, dont l’un des membres reprend, en écho, les déclarations de son collègue. Tintin, lui, est directement issu des expériences scoutes de son auteur. Il est courageux et épris de justice, mais se pose, tout au moins à ses débuts, comme un défenseur des idées et de la morale établies. D’ailleurs, le deuxième album, Tintin au Congo, reflète les préjugés des Blancs colonisateurs à l’égard des Africains colonisés.
Par la suite, le contenu va notablement évoluer: Hergé s’appuyera sur des données psychologiques et ethnologiques plus sûres. Le Lotus bleu (1936), à cet égard, représente le tournant. Il a d’ailleurs été influencé par un jeune chinois, Tchang (que l’on retrouve dans Tintin au Tibet), un étudiant aux Beaux-Arts de Bruxelles que son aumônier scout lui a présenté et auquel il va se lier d’une amitié indéfectible. Mais aussi le faire entrer dans une humanité plus réelle (les massacres et les exactions des Japonais en Chine, le manque de conscience et de courage des grandes nations, le cirque de la Société des Nations, la drogue comme instrument de pouvoir etc.)
Dupond et Dupont

Si bien que son héros devient un véritable mythe dans cette deuxième moitié du XX° siècle. Près de 300 millions d’albums vendus. Près de 100 millions depuis 22 ans, depuis 1976, depuis le dernier album (Tintin chez les Picaros). Tintin entre d’ailleurs à l’université. Il y a plusieurs chaires de Tintinophilie, dont une à La Sorbonne. Les ethnologues, les sociologues et autres spécialistes de la "psy" s’en sont emparés.
Et parallèlement, l’exploitation de son image à des fins commerciales. Plus de 75 sociétés (publicité, jouets, livres etc) exploitaient encore il y a 5 ans une licence (vendue chèrement) Tintin. Mais depuis 1996, une société ("Moulinsart") gère drastiquement les droits dérivés et protège les héritiers et ayants droit. La veuve d’Hergé (sa deuxième femme) Fanny Rodwell et son deuxième mari, Nick Rodwell gèrent "Moulinsart" de façon autoritaire et ont cassé les contrats de la plupart de des firmes pour "non-respect" de l’œuvre du créateur. La société occupe plus de 50 personnes et pourchasse toute contrefaçon, tout écart par rapport à l’œuvre initiale. Elle est plus que milliardaire et de ce fait crée un esprit qui n’est plus dans le sens du héros de Hergé ni du rêve des enfants de 7 à 77 ans.

A la "naissance" de Tintin, Georges Remi avait à peine vingt un ans. Il signait déjà Hergé depuis des années. En effet, au cours de ses études au Collège, il s’était distingué comme illustrateur et avait publié ses premiers dessins dans une revue scoute. Employé au Service des abonnements d’un quotidien belge catholique, Le Vingtième Siècle, et caressant le secret espoir d’y devenir un jour grand reporter, il s’y était fait remarquer par ses qualités de dessinateur. Le directeur du journal lui avait confié la responsabilité d’un supplément hebdomadaire pour les jeunes: Le Petit Vingtième. Hergé, qui y faisait tout ou presque tout, avait entrepris d’illustrer une histoire dont le scénario sans queue ni tête lui avait été imposé. C’est de la lassitude pour cette tâche sans intérêt qu’est né Tintin. Non content d’avoir créé un héros bien à lui, le jeune Hergé, qui avait lu les "comics" américains, voulait aussi innover en matière graphique, en faisant s ’exprimer les personnages au moyen de phylactères plutôt que dans un texte au bas des cases.

Nous sommes le 10 janvier 1929, à Bruxelles. Accompagné de son chien Milou, un tout jeune reporter monte dans le train à destination de Mouscou. Pour Tintin, c’est le début d’une grande aventure. Pour Hergé, c’est le vrai début de sa carrière. Les Aventures de Tintin, reporter du Petit Vingtième au pays des Soviets paraîtront sous forme d'album en 1930. Cette année marque la naissance d’un mythe qui n’est pas près de s’éteindre, et les premiers signes d’une troublante confrontation entre la fiction et la réalité. Ainsi, quand sa première aventure se termine, lorsque Tintin est censé rentrer chez lui, à Bruxelles, une foule nombreuse et bien réelle vient accueillir à la gare du Nord le héros de papier, à son retour d’URSS ! C’est l’amorce d’un succès de masse qui ne cessera de s’amplifier au fil du temps.

Sûr de sa popularité, Tintin repart aussitôt, et pour l’Afrique cette fois. Les Aventures de Tintin, reporter du Petit Vingtième au Congo (1931) est le reflet d’une époque coloniale et paternaliste. Pour ces nouvelles aventures, Hergé improvise encore le récit, mais plus pour longtemps.

Dans Tintin en Amérique (1932), le héros confirme sa vocation de redresseur de torts, en s’opposant à mafioso Al Capone, aux gangsters de Chicago et aux fripouilles de tout acabit. Déjà, Hergé témoigne d’une vision généreuse du monde, stigmatisant par exemple des Blancs envers les Indiens Peaux-Rouges.

Dans Les Cigares du Pharaon (1934), Tintin se trouve impliqué, par hasard et malgré lui, dans un trafic de stupéfiants qui va l’entraîner jusqu’en Inde. Entre-temps, il aura rencontré Dupond et Dupont, deux policiers balourds dont les rôles vont s’affirmer progressivement.

Poursuivant les trafiquants jusqu’en Chine, Tintin fera, dans Le Lotus Bleu (1936), la connaissance de Tchang, un jeune Chinois qui lui fera perdre ses derniers préjugés. En Rastatopoulos il se découvrira par contre un redoutable ennemi qu’il retrouvera d’ailleurs plus tard... Hergé, dont la technique narrative et graphique ne cesse de s’affirmer, accorde désormais une importance essentielle au scénario et à la documentation. Son souci de véracité se confirme à tous les niveaux, et c’est sans complaisance qu’il juge la politique expansionniste du Japon dans le conflit qui l’oppose alors à la Chine.

L’Oreille Cassée (1937) est une course poursuite palpitante. Tintin s’embarque pour l’Amérique du Sud afin de récupérer un fétiche volé. Là-bas s’opposent toutes sortes d’intérêts : militaires, économiques, la guerre du Gran Chaco venait d’opposer, trois ans durant, la Bolivie et le Paraguay.

Hergé trouve dans l’actualité du temps d’autres thèmes intéressants. La presse fait alors état d’un trafic de fausse monnaie, et c’est l’Ile Noire (1938). Tintin file en Ecosse, où un gorille hante un manoir isolé sur une île rocheuse.

Pays imaginaire, la Syldavie sert de décor à l’épisode suivant : Le Sceptre d’Ottokar (1939). C’est dans ce petit royaume d’Europe orientale que Tintin fera la connaissance de la pittoresque Bianca Castafiore, avant de voler au secours de la monarchie syldave, déjouant un complot qui n’est pas sans allusion à l’Anschluss et à la Seconde Guerre mondiale qui s’annonce.

Les contraintes de l’occupation allemande en Belgique (1940) et la menace de la censure de la presse conduisent Hergé à prendre ses distances vis — vis de l’actualité et à approfondir son univers propre loin des angoisses et des vicissitudes de la guerre. Le Crabe aux pinces d’Or (1941) renoue avec l’aventure exotique. Celle-ci mène Tintin en Afrique du Nord. Il y déjoue les plans d’une bande de malfaiteurs qui dissimulaient de l’opium dans des boîtes de crabe. C’est à la faveur de ce récit que Tintin fait la rencontre inopinée de celui qui deviendra son principal compagnon d’aventures : le capitaine Haddock.

Premier épisode à paraître en couleurs, L’Etoile mystérieuse (1942) se fonde sur la chute, dans les régions arctiques, d’un aérolithe qui contiendrait un métal inconnu. Tintin et Haddock font partie de l’expédition scientifique qui, aux prix d’une hallucinante course contre la montre avec des financiers sans scrupules, tente de la récupérer.

Dans Le Secret de la Licorne (1943) et Le Trésor de Racham le Rouge (1944) qui en est la suite, Tintin accompagne le capitaine Haddock sur les traces de son glorieux ancêtre, le chevalier François de Hadoque. Inventeur d’un sous-marin de poche en forme de requin, un certain Tryphon Tournesol contribue à la découverte du trésor, avant d’offrir au Capitaine le château de ses aïeux : Moulinsart.

Dans Les Sept Boules de cristal (1948), sept savants sont mystérieusement frappés de léthargie à leur retour d’expédition dans les Andes. Le professeur Tournesol ayant disparu, Tintin et le Capitaine partent à sa recherche.

C’est au Pérou, dans l’épisode intitulé Le Temple du Soleil (1949) qui conclut cette aventure, qu’ils le retrouveront, prisonnier des derniers Incas. Ensemble, ils parviendront à délivrer les victimes de la malédiction qui les paralysait.

Partout dans le monde, des moteurs d’autos explosent : l’essence doit être trafiquée! Une crise pétrolière menace. Au Moyen Orient, le cheik Bab El Ehr tente de renverser Ben Kalish Ezab, et ce conflit local peut dégénérer en une guerre générale. C’est bien assez pour inciter Tintin à se rendre, toutes affaires cessantes, Au Pays de l’Or noir (1950).

Objectif Lune (1953) détaille les prémices et les préparations de l’expédition lunaire que compte entreprendre le professeur Tournesol au départ du sol syldave.

On a marché sur la Lune (1954) décrit le premier voyage spatial et l’exploration de notre satellite par Tintin et ses compagnons, quinze ans avant l’Américain Armstrong! Une anticipation remarquablement documentée et époustouflante par l’acuité visionnaire du récit.

L’Affaire Tournesol (1956) , ou "comment la science peut oeuvrer sans être convoitée par les militaires": dans le climat tendu de la guerre froide, cette nouvelle aventure entraîne à nouveau Tintin en Syldavie et en Bordurie. Inventeur d’un dispositif à ultra-sons, le professeur a été enlevé. Un courtier en assurances, qui s’avérera être un casse-pieds invétéré, en a profité pour faire son apparition dans l’aventure : Séraphin Lampion. Course poursuite, rebondissements, retrouvailles, fuite éperdue... dont l’enjeu semble être un banal parapluie : c’est sans doute aussi l’épisode le plus policier de la série.

Dans l’album Coke en stock (1958), le lecteur apprend que le trafic d’esclaves existe encore. Au terme d’un périple au large des Emirats arabes et à l’issue d’un impressionnant combat naval, Tintin parviendra à démanteler l’odieux commerce clandestin organisé par le sinistre Rastatopoulos.

Un avion de ligne à bord duquel le jeune Chinois Tchang se rendait en Europe s’est écrasé dans l’Himalaya. Tintin au Tibet (1960), pure histoire d’amitié, sans le moindre méchant, décrit la recherche désespérée à laquelle Tintin se livre pour retrouver son ami. Ce récit pathétique, qui rompt avec le ton extraverti des épisodes précédents, démontre que la fidélité et l’espoir sont capables de vaincre tous les obstacles, et que les préjugés — en l’occurrence, à l’égard de l’"abominable homme des neiges" — sont bien souvent le fruit de l’ignorance.

Dans Les Bijoux de la Castafiore (1963), les principaux protagonistes de la série se retrouvent à Moulinsart pour y vivre une véritable comédie classique à huis clos. Tournant résolument le dos à l’aventure pour s’attache à la difficulté de la communication entre les êtres, un "anti-récit" truffé de malentendus et de quiproquos plus cocasses les uns que les autres.

Vol 714 pour Sydney (1968) , c’est le voyage interrompu, le détournement qui bouleverse tout, l’incursion de Tintin et de ses compagnons dans l’inconnu, dans un monde irréel animé par des phénomènes télépathiques, c’est le contact incroyable avec des extra-terrestres et la sortie d’un rêve... Mais en est-ce bien un ?

Nombre histoire de vengeance avec prise d’otages sur fond de guérilla, Tintin et les Picaros (1976) marque le retour de Tintin au San Theodoros, le pays de l’Oreille Cassée . Hergé y risque un constat doux amer, tendant à faire croire que tout en ce monde n’est que mascarade.

Resté inachevé à la mort d’Hergé, en 1983, Tintin et l’Alph-Art (1986) devait décrire les milieux des sectes, et amener Tintin à s’immiscer dans un monde qu’affectionnait Georges Remi, dit Hergé : celui de l’art contemporain, celui de l’avant-garde... Si cet album posthume ne peut qu’évoquer la trame de ce récit suspendu, il est en revanche le témoignage de l’état pur de l’extraordinaire talent narratif et graphique du père de Tintin. Comme cette aventure, comme Tintin, nous aussi, lecteurs, nous restons magiquement suspendus à la plume d’Hergé.

1928 Manuel Alcántara, escritor español.
1928 Gonzalo Sobejano, profesor y poeta español.
1924 Eduardo Chillida y Juantegui, Spanish Abstract sculptor. — LINKS

^ 1920 The League of Nations is born.
     The League of Nations comes into being when the Covenant of the League of Nations, ratified by 42 nations in 1919, takes effect. On 28 June 1914, the political assassination of Archduke Ferdinand in Sarajevo set off a chain of events that led to the outbreak of the most costly war ever fought to that date. As more and more young men were sent down into the trenches, influential voices in the United States and Britain began calling for the establishment of a permanent international body to maintain peace in the postwar world. President Woodrow Wilson became a vocal advocate of this concept, and in his 08 January 1918 address before a joint meeting of Congress he included a sketch of the international body in his 14-point proposal to end the war.
      In 1918, the Central Powers agreed to the 11 November armistice to halt the killing in World War I. Two months later, the Allies met with conquered Germany and Austria-Hungary at Versailles to hammer out formal peace terms. President Wilson urged a just and lasting peace, but England and France disagreed, forcing harsh war reparations on their former enemies. The League of Nations was approved, however, and in the summer of 1919 Wilson presented the Treaty of Versailles and the Covenant of the League of Nations to the US Senate for ratification.
      Wilson suffered a severe stroke soon in the fall of that year, which prevented him from reaching a compromise with those in Congress who thought the treaties reduced US authority. In November, the Senate declined to ratify both. The League of Nations proceeded without the United States, holding its first meeting in Geneva on 15 November 1920.
      During the 1920s, the League, with its headquarters at Geneva, incorporated new members and successfully mediated minor international disputes but was often disregarded by the major powers. The League's authority, however, was not seriously challenged until the early 1930s, when a series of events exposed it as ineffectual. Japan simply quit the organization after its invasion of China was condemned, and the League was likewise powerless to prevent the rearmament of Germany and the Italian invasion of Ethiopia. The declaration of World War II was not even referred to by the then-virtually defunct League.
      In 1946, the League of Nations was dissolved with the establishment of the United Nations. The United Nations was modeled after the former but with increased international support and extensive machinery to help the new body avoid repeating the League's failures.

1914 Claude Gallimard, France, publisher
1913 Gustav Husak, President of Czechoslovakia (1975-89).
1905 Moufang, mathematician.
1903 Barbara Hepworth, British Abstract sculptor who died in 1975. — LINKS
1898 Sergei M Eisenstein Russian director (Alexandr Nevski).
1894 Uri Zvi Greenberg, Hebrew and Yiddish poet who died on 08 May 1981.
1893 Vicente Huidobro, poeta chileno.
1892 Dumas Malone, US historian who died on 27 December 1986. He wrote an authoritative biography of Thomas Jefferson
1884 Roberto Cortázar Toledo, historiador colombiano.
1880 Manuel Azaña y Díaz PM/President of 2nd Spanish republic (1936-39)
1875 Schur, mathematician.
1870 Standard Oil is incorporated by John D. Rockefeller
1864 George Washington Carver, agricultural scientist.
1834 John Emerich, Lord Acton, English historian who died on 19 June 1902.
1819 Pierre-Édouard Frère, French artist who died on 20 May 1886.

*^ 1776 Common Sense* by Thomas Paine*, published Thomas Paine, 38, publishes his pamphlet Common Sense, setting forth the arguments for American independence. Pamphlets were an important medium for the spread of ideas in the 16th through 19th centuries. Paine was born in England on 29 January 1737 and worked as a corsetmaker in his teens. He also worked as a sailor and schoolteacher before becoming a prominent pamphleteer. In 1774, Paine arrived in Philadelphia and came to support American independence. His 47-page pamphlet sold some 500'000 copies and had a powerful influence on American opinion. Paine served in the US Army and worked for the Committee of Foreign Affairs before returning to Europe in 1787. Back in England, he continued writing pamphlets in support of revolution. He published The Rights of Man, supporting the French revolution in 1791-2, in answer to Edmund Burke's famous Reflections on the Revolution in France* (1790). His sentiments were highly unpopular with the British government, so he fled to France. When he first arrived in Paris, Paine was heartily welcomed and granted honorary citizenship by leaders of the revolution. However, before long, he ran afoul of his new hosts. Paine was strictly opposed to the death penalty under all circumstances and he vocally opposed the French revolutionaries who were sending hundreds to the guillotine. He also began writing a provocative new book, The Age of Reason, which promoted the controversial notion that God did not influence the actions of people and that science and rationality would prevail over religion and superstition. Although Paine realized that sentiment was turning against him in the autumn of 1793, he remained in France because he believed he was helping the people. Though the charges against Paine were never detailed, the French revolutionaries tried him in absentia on 26 December 1793 and convicted him. He was arrested on 28 December 1793 and taken to Luxembourg Prison. The jail was formerly a palace and was unlike any other detainment center in the world. He was treated to a large room with two windows and was locked inside only at night. His meals were catered from outside, and servants were permitted, though Paine did not take advantage of that particular luxury. However, he did carry a small sword that was permitted by jail authorities. While in prison, he continued to work on The Age of Reason and began an affair with actress Muriel Alette, who had been sentenced to death for being the mistress of a nobleman. Paine's imprisonment in France caused a general uproar in America and future President James Monroe used all of his diplomatic connections to get Paine released on 4 November 1794 after the fall of Robespierre and the end of the Terror. Paine remained in France until 1 September 1802, when he sailed for the United States, where he had come to be despised too. After The Age of Reason was published, he was called an anti-Christ, and his reputation was ruined. Thomas Paine died a poor man on 8 June 1809 in New York. PAINE ONLINE:
Collected works Selected Writings An Essay on Dream Answer to Bishop Llandaff Common Sense Common Sense Common Sense Common Sense Common Sense Essay on Religion Agrarian Justice	Letter to Andrew Dean Origin of Free-Masonry Predestination Prospect Papers Rights of Man Rights of Man Rights of Man Rights of Man The Rights of Man The American Crisis The American Crisis The American Crisis	The Age of Reason The Age of Reason The Age of Reason The Age of Reason Letters concerning "The Age of Reason" The Existence of God Worship and Church Bells Of the Religion of Deism Compared with the Christian Religion Examination of the Prophecies Dissertation on First Principles of Government

1775 Andre-Marie Ampère France, discovered electromagnetism
1769 Michel Ney French marshal (Waterloo)
1745 Étienne Aubry, French artist who died on 24 July 1781.
1708 Donatien Nonnotte, French artist who died on 04 February 1785.
1680 Philip van Dyk “the little van Dyck”, Dutch artist who died on 03 February 1753.
1646 Johannes Offermans, Dutch artist who died after 1696.

AUNT O'NYMM'S DICTIONARY: extelligence: deficiency in mental ability, stupidity, the opposite of intelligence.

Santos Juan Bueno, Gonzalo de Amarante y Agatón.

Thought for the day: “Someone is speaking well of you.” [in an argument with whom?]

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