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2002 John J. Geoghan, 66, Catholic priest who was secularized in 1998 is found guilty of indecent assault and battery for sliding his hand up the back of a 9- or 10-year-old boy's legs and into his swimsuit, squeezing his buttocks at a Boston suburban pool in late 1991. On 21 February 2002 Geoghan is sentenced to the maximum 9-to-10 years in prison. The judge cites Geoghan's admissions of molesting other children and psychological evaluations of his lack of concern for his victims and his tendency to blame them for his acts as evidence that he is not a candidate for rehabilitation. The judge orders strict monitoring after any release on parole (possible after 6 years). This is Geoghan first criminal trial and there are two more pending, and 84 civil suits against him and the archdiocese The Archdiocese of Boston has already settled about 50 lawsuits against Geoghan for a total of more than $10 million. Geoghan pedophilia goes back to soon after his ordination in 1962 and was known to church authorities by 1980 or earlier.
^ 2001 Clinton's farewell address.
      My fellow citizens, tonight is my last opportunity to speak to you from the Oval Office as your president.
      I am profoundly grateful to you for twice giving me the honor to serve, to work for you and with you to prepare our nation for the 21st century. And I'm grateful to Vice President Gore, to my Cabinet secretaries, and to all those who have served with me for the last eight years.
      This has been a time of dramatic transformation, and you have risen to every new challenge. You have made our social fabric stronger, our families healthier and safer, our people more prosperous.
      You, the American people, have made our passage into the global information age an era of great American renewal.
      In all the work I have done as president, every decision I have made, every executive action I have taken, every bill I have proposed and signed, I've tried to give all Americans the tools and conditions to build the future of our dreams, in a good society, with a strong economy, a cleaner environment, and a freer, safer, more prosperous world.
      I have steered my course by our enduring values. Opportunity for all. Responsibility from all. A community of all Americans. I have sought to give America a new kind of government, smaller, more modern, more effective, full of ideas and policies appropriate to this new time, always putting people first, always focusing on the future.
      Working together, America has done well. Our economy is breaking records, with more than 22 million new jobs, the lowest unemployment in 30 years, the highest home ownership ever, the longest expansion in history.
      Our families and communities are stronger. Thirty-five million Americans have used the family leave law. Eight million have moved off welfare. Crime is at a 25-year low. Over 10 million Americans receive more college aid, and more people than ever are going to college. Our schools are better — higher standards, greater accountability and larger investments have brought higher test scores, and higher graduation rates.
      More than three million children have health insurance now, and more than 7 million Americans have been lifted out of poverty. Incomes are rising across the board. Our air and water are cleaner. Our food and drinking water are safer. And more of our precious land has been preserved, in the continental United States, than at any time in 100 years.
      America has been a force for peace and prosperity in every corner of the globe.
      I'm very grateful to be able to turn over the reins of leadership to a new president, with America in such a strong position to meet the challenges of the future.
      Tonight, I want to leave you with three thoughts about our future. First, America must maintain our record of fiscal responsibility. Through our last four budgets, we've turned record deficits to record surpluses, and we've been able to pay down $600 billion of our national debt, on track to be debt free by the end of the decade for the first time since 1835.
      Staying on that course will bring lower interest rates, greater prosperity and the opportunity to meet our big challenges. If we choose wisely, we can pay down the debt, deal with the retirement of the baby boomers, invest more in our future and provide tax relief.
      Second, because the world is more connected every day in every way, America's security and prosperity require us to continue to lead in the world. At this remarkable moment in history, more people live in freedom that ever before. Our alliances are stronger than ever. People all around the world look to America to be a force for peace and prosperity, freedom and security. The global economy is giving more of our own people, and billions around the world, the chance to work and live and raise their families with dignity.
      But the forces of integration that have created these good opportunities also make us more subject to global forces of destruction, to terrorism, organized crime and narco-trafficking, the spread of deadly weapons and disease, the degradation of the global environment.
      The expansion of trade hasn't fully closed the gap between those of us who live on the cutting edge of the global economy and the billions around the world who live on the knife's edge of survival. This global gap requires more than compassion. It requires action. Global poverty is a powder keg that could be ignited by our indifference.
      In his first inaugural address, Thomas Jefferson warned of entangling alliances. But in our times, America cannot and must not disentangle itself from the world. If we want the world to embody our shared values, then we must assume a shared responsibility.
      If the wars of the 20th century, especially the recent ones in Kosovo and Bosnia, have taught us anything, it is that we achieve our aims by defending our values and leading the forces of freedom and peace. We must embrace boldly and resolutely that duty to lead, to stand with our allies in word and deed, and to put a human face on the global economy so that expanded trade benefits all people in all nations, lifting lives and hopes all across the world.
      Third, we must remember that America cannot lead in the world unless here at home we weave the threads of our coat of many colors into the fabric of one America. As webecome ever more diverse, we must work harder to unite around our common values and our common humanity.
      We must work harder to overcome our differences. In our hearts and in our laws, we must treat all our people with fairness and dignity, regardless of their race, religion, gender or sexual orientation and regardless of when they arrived in our country, always moving toward the more perfect union of our founders' dreams.
      Hillary, Chelsea and I join all Americans in wishing our very best to the next president, George W. Bush, to his family and his administration in meeting these challenges and in leading freedom's march in this new century.
      As for me, I'll leave the presidency more idealistic, more full of hope than the day I arrived and more confident than ever that America's best days lie ahead.
      My days in this office are nearly through, but my days of service, I hope, are not. In the years ahead, I will never hold a position higher or a covenant more sacred than that of president of the United States. But there is no title I will wear more proudly than that of citizen.
      Thank you. God bless you, and God bless America.
^ 1999 Clinton impeachment trial resumes tomorrow.

Mon. 990118 (1) With President Bill Clinton's Senate impeachment trial set to resume Jan. 19, the White House plans an addition to its defense team: three House Democrats who would attack the impeachment process as unfair to the president. Administration sources say Judiciary Committee Democrats John Conyers of Michigan, Thomas Barrett of Wisconsin and Rick Boucher of Virginia are being asked to prepare presentations for the impeachment trial. The administration's goal in adding the three Democrats is to solidify Democratic support and build a case there will never be the two-thirds vote in the Senate to convict and remove Clinton from office.

(2) White House lawyers continue to refine their presentations. White House Counsel Charles Ruff will lead off on Jan. 19. Clinton's team will get 24 hours over Jan. 19, 20 and 21 to make the case why senators should acquit the president of charges he lied under oath and obstructed justice in trying to conceal his sexual relationship with ex-White House intern Monica Lewinsky. After Clinton's team completes its opening statement, senators will have two days on Jan. 22 and 23 to question the House prosecutors and Clinton's lawyers. The process will be unusual: written questions only, via Chief Justice William Rehnquist, who is presiding over the trial. The proceedings will reach a critical juncture on Monday, January 25, when there could be a decision on a motion to dismiss the charges and, if that fails, a decision on whether to call witnesses. That remains a key point of contention, with House prosecutors pushing for witnesses and Clinton's defenders saying that calling witnesses could cause the trial to extend into May or June.

(3) Two House Republicans will deliver the GOP response to President Clinton's State of the Union address. Rep. Jennifer Dunn of Washington will focus on tax relief and Social Security reform. Rep. Steve Largent of Oklahoma will discuss education and national defense."We both are family people," Dunn says between rehearsals today, adding that she will refer to her children in the address. Dunn: The loyal opposition "Steve's been a famous football player, I'm a single mother. We're an example of the diversity that we want to see in our party." While she may refer indirectly to the Senate impeachment trial, Dunn says, she mostly wants to send messages of optimism and reassurance about the GOP agenda. "We need to get the work done," she says. "The reason we're sent back here is to work across the aisle to solve problems." Dunn and Largent will speak outdoors, from a balcony of the Cannon House Office Building. The brightly lit Capitol will be visible in the darkness behind them. "The hardest part of the whole thing is winnowing it down," Dunn says. "It's very tough to write a speech for seven minutes."

1996 Russian President Boris Yeltsin announces that 82 hostages were freed when his forces wiped out Chechen fighters in Pervomayskaya, ending a weeklong standoff; however, he says that 18 other hostages were missing.
1995 A network of caves is discovered near the town of Vallon-Pont-d'Arc in southern France. The caves contain paintings and engravings that were 17'000 to 20'000 years old.
1993 Martin Luther King Jr holiday observed in all 50 states of the US for first time.
1991 US acknowledges CIA and US Army paid Noriega $320,000 over his career.
1991 Round-the-clock bombing of Iraqi targets continues in Operation Desert Storm.
1991 Financially strapped Eastern Airlines shut down after 62 years in business.
1991 Iraq launches SCUD missiles against Israel
1990 A jury in Los Angeles acquits former preschool operators Raymond Buckey and his mother, Peggy McMartin Buckey, of 52 child molestation charges.
^ 1990 DC mayor arrested on drug charges.
      At the end of a joint sting operation by FBI agents and District of Columbia police, Mayor Marion Barry is arrested and charged with drug possession and the use of crack, a crystalline form of cocaine. At the Vista International Hotel in downtown Washington, Barry was caught smoking the substance on camera with Rahsheeda Moore, a woman who had agreed to set up Barry in exchange for a reduced sentence in an earlier drug conviction. On September 28, 1991, he is sentenced to six months in prison for possession of crack cocaine.
      After serving his sentence, Barry, claiming to have overcome his "personal adversities," reenters D.C. politics and is elected to the city council before once again winning the mayoral election in 1994 for an unprecedented fourth term. In 1997, Barry, often accused of corruption, is stripped of much of his power by Congress, which passes legislation to end "home rule" in the District, returning the city to the pre-1974 system of administration by federal-appointed commissioners. In January of 1999, Barry retires and is succeeded by Anthony A. Williams as mayor of the nation's capital.
2001 El juez de la Audiencia Nacional española Baltasar Garzón ordena la detención del director de la revista Ardi Beltza ('Oveja Negra'), Pepe Rei, por entender que el periodista utilizaba su publicación para marcar objetivos a ETA (Euskadi Ta Askatasuna).
2000 Helmut Kohl dimite de la presidencia honoraria del CDU, acosado por los escándalos de donaciones ilegales al partido.
2000 El Ministerio de Educación y Cultura de España compra por 4000 millones de pesetas el cuadro La condesa de Chinchón, de Francisco de Goya y Lucientes. — GOYA LINKS
1999 Los presidentes Alberto Fujimori (Perú) y Jamil Mahuad (Ecuador), inician el proceso de demarcación de su frontera común en la sierra amazónica.
1999 El Gobierno Yugoslavo de Slobodan Milosevic desafía a la comunidad internacional al dar un plazo de 48 horas para que el jefe de la misión de la Organización para la Seguridad y la Cooperación Europea, William Walker, abandone la región.
1995 A network of caves is discovered near the Vallon-Pont-d'Arc in southern France. The caves contain paintings and engravings that are 17'000 to 20'000 years old.
1992 El presidente de Guinea, Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo, disuelve por decreto el Gobierno para instaurar el multipartidismo y permitir el regreso de los políticos exiliados.
1989 IBM announces earnings up 10.4% in 1988.
1986 Jeep-Maker Returns to Auto Business The Willys-Overland Company, the primary contractor that built the Jeep for the US military during World War II, re-entered the commercial automobile market on this day. It offered the Willys Aero, a sporty two-seater.
^ 1985 US walks out of World Court case.
      For the first time since joining the World Court in 1946, the United States walks out of a case. The case that caused the dramatic walkout concerned US paramilitary activities against the Nicaraguan government. For the Reagan administration, efforts to undermine the Sandinista government in Nicaragua had been a keystone of its anticommunist foreign policy since it took office in 1981. Policies designed to economically and diplomatically isolate the Nicaraguan government were combined with monetary and material aid to the "Contras," a paramilitary anti-Sandinista force that carried out armed attacks against the Sandinistas. Although some of these US efforts were public knowledge, others were covert and remained hidden from public view. Charging that the Nicaraguan government was receiving weapons from the communist bloc and was using those arms to aid revolutions elsewhere in Central America, the Reagan administration even resorted to mining Nicaragua's harbors. Infuriated by these acts, the Nicaraguan government appeared before the World Court and asked that orders be issued to the United States to cease the hostile activity and pay reparations for the damage.
      On January 18, 1985, the United States walks out of the World Court, charging that the case was a "misuse of the court for political and propaganda purposes." A State Department spokesperson stated that, "We profoundly hope that court does not go the way of other international organizations that have become politicized against the interests of the Western democracies." Opponents of the Reagan policies roundly condemned the decision to walk out. Congressman Michael Barnes stated that he was "shocked and saddened that the Reagan Administration has so little confidence in its own policies that it chooses not even to defend them." The Reagan administration's decision in regards to the World Court had little impact on the continuing conflict in Central America. The Court heard Nicaragua's case and decided against the United States; it charged that the US violated international law with its actions against the Sandinistas, and ordered it to pay reparations to Nicaragua in June 1986. The US government ignored the decision. Meanwhile, the Contra actions in Nicaragua achieved little more than death and destruction, and Congress banned further US military aid to the Contras in 1988.
1981 Iran accepts US offer of $7.9 billion in frozen assets
1980 Gold reaches $1,000 an ounce
1974 Israel and Egypt sign weapons accord.
^ 1971 Anti-Vietnam-War presidential campaign begins.
      In a televised speech, Senator George S. McGovern (D-South Dakota) begins his antiwar campaign for the 1972 Democratic presidential nomination by vowing to bring home all US soldiers from Vietnam if he is elected. McGovern won his party's nomination, but was defeated in the general election by incumbent Richard Nixon. With only 55 percent of the electorate voting — the lowest turnout since 1948 — Nixon carried all states but Massachusetts, taking 97 percent of the electoral votes. During the campaign, Nixon pledged to secure "peace with honor" in Vietnam. Aided by the potential for a peace agreement in the ongoing Paris negotiations and the upswing in the American economy, Nixon easily defeated McGovern, an outspoken dove whose party was divided over several issues, including McGovern's extreme views on the war. McGovern said during the campaign, "If I were president, it would take me 24 hours and the stroke of a pen to terminate all military operations in Southeast Asia." He further stated that he would withdraw all American troops within 90 days of taking office, whether or not US POWs were released. To many Americans, including a large number of Democrats, McGovern's position was tantamount to total capitulation in Southeast Asia. Given this alternative, most voters chose Nixon. 1950 China and Soviet Union recognize Democratic Republic of Vietnam People's Republic of China formally recognizes the communist Democratic Republic of Vietnam and agrees to furnish it military assistance; the Soviet Union extended diplomatic recognition to Hanoi on January 30. China and the Soviet Union provided massive military and economic aid to North Vietnam, which enabled North Vietnam to fight first the French and then the Americans. Chinese aid to North Vietnam between 1950 and 1970 is estimated at $20 billion. It is thought that China provided approximately three-quarters of the total military aid given to Hanoi since 1949, with the Soviets providing most of the rest. It would have been impossible for the North Vietnamese to continue the war without the aid from both the Chinese and Soviets.
1969 Expanded 4 party Vietnam peace talks began in Paris
1967 Yellowknife replaces Ottawa as capital of NW Territories, Canada.
1967 In Cambridge MA, Albert DeSalvo, who claims to be the "Boston Strangler," is convicted of armed robbery, assault and sex offenses. He would sentenced to life in prison and killed in 1973 by a fellow inmate.
^ 1966 First African-American US cabinet member assumes office.
      Robert Clifton Weaver is sworn in as head of the newly created Department of Housing and Urban Development, becoming the first African-American to hold a post in the presidential cabinet. Born in Washington, D.C., Weaver served as an advisor to the secretary of the interior during the 1930s, and during World War II, held several offices concerned with mobilizing the African American labor force. During the 1950s, he served as rent commissioner for the State of New York, and in 1961, was appointed as an administrator of the Housing and Home Finance Agency. In 1965, as part of President Lyndon B. Johnson's "Great Society," the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) was created to oversee the diversion of federal funds toward the development of America's poorest urban areas, commonly known as the "inner city." On January 13, 1966, Weaver was nominated the first HUD secretary and, following his confirmation by the US Congress, assumed office on 18 January. In 1968, he left his cabinet post upon Johnson's retirement from the presidency, and became the president of Baruch College in 1969, and a professor of Urban Affairs at Hunter College in 1970, both senior colleges of the City University of New York.
1964 Tras el alzamiento revolucionario, se proclama la República de Zanzíbar.
1962 US begins spraying foliage in Vietnam to reveal Viet Cong guerrillas.
1961 Zanzibar's Afro-Shirazi party wins the general elections to Parliament by a single seat, after winning the seat of Chake-Chake on Pemba Island by a single vote.
1960 US and Japan sign joint defense treaty.
1957 3 B-52's set record for around-the-world flight, 45 hours 19 minutes
1956 German Democratic Republic forms own army (National People's Army)
1954 Amintore Fanfani forms Italian government.
1951 Hermann Flake sentenced to death due to "hate campaign against German Democratic Republic".
1949 Se crea el Consejo de Asistencia Económica Mutua (COMECON).
1946 Se constituye en México el Partido Revolucionario Institucional (PRI), antes llamado Partido de la Revolución Mexicana (PRM).
1944 first Chinese naturalized US citizen since repeal of exclusion acts
1943 Soviets announce they broke the long Nazi siege of Leningrad.
^ 1943 Nazis enter the Warsaw ghetto to ship Jews to Treblinka.
      There is surprising armed resistance by the underground Jewish Combat Organization (Zydowska Organizacja Bojowa; ZOB) commanded by Mordecai Anielewicz and armed mainly with pistols and grenades. Street fighting went on for four days, leaving about 50 Germans — and all of the ZOB defenders except Anielewicz himself — dead, but affording ZOB an opportunity to seize some German arms. The Germans withdrew and for two months tried various deceptions to persuade the ghetto's remaining Jews to go peacefully to the boxcars. Anielewicz had effectively become the commander of the ghetto as well as the ZOB, and he pushed defensive preparations until SS chief Heinrich Himmler launched a special Aktion to clear the ghetto with 2,000 troops and tanks on April 19, in honor of Hitler's birthday, April 20.
      The deportation of Jews from the Warsaw ghetto to the concentration camp at Treblinka is resumed—but not without much bloodshed and resistance along the way. On July 18, 1942, Heinrich Himmler promoted Auschwitz camp commandant Rudolf Hess to SS major. He also ordered that the Warsaw ghetto, the Jewish quarter constructed by the Nazis upon the occupation of Poland and enclosed first by barbed wire and then by brick walls, be depopulated-a "total cleansing," as he described it. The inhabitants were to be transported to what became a second extermination camp constructed at the railway village of Treblinka, 62 miles northeast of Warsaw. Within the first seven weeks of Himmler's order, more than 250,000 Jews were taken to Treblinka by rail and gassed to death, marking the largest single act of destruction of any population group, Jewish or non-Jewish, civilian or military, in the war. Upon arrival at "T. II," as this second camp at Treblinka was called, prisoners were separated by sex, stripped, and marched into what were described as "bathhouses," but were in fact gas chambers. T. II's first commandant was Dr. Irmfried Eberl, age 32, the man who had headed up the euthanasia program of 1940 and had much experience with the gassing of victims, especially children. He was assisted in his duties by several hundred Ukrainian and about 1,500 Jewish prisoners, who removed gold teeth from victims before hauling the bodies to mass graves. In January 1943, after a four-month hiatus, the deportations started up again. A German SS unit entered the ghetto and began rounding up its denizens-but they did not go without a fight. Six hundred Jews were killed in the streets as they struggled with the Germans. Rebels with smuggled firearms opened fire on the SS troops. The Germans returned fire-machine-gun fire against the Jews' pistol shots. Nine Jewish rebels fell-as did several Germans. The fighting continued for days, with the Jews refusing to surrender and even taking arms from their Germans persecutors in surprise attacks. Amazingly, the Germans withdrew from the ghetto in the face of the unexpected resistance. They likely did not realize how few armed resisters there were, but the fact that resistance was given at all intimidated them. But there was no happy ending. Before this new incursion into the ghetto was over, 6000 more Jews were transported to their likely deaths at Treblinka.
1943 The US has to make do with “the greatest thing since sliced bread” as commercial bakers stop selling sliced bread until the 1945 end of World War II.
1942 Nazi's arrest Frans Goedhart and Wiardi Beckman.
1938 Comienzan a circular los nuevos billetes de una peseta en España.
1936 In Washington, DC, Catholic biblical scholars met to discuss two proposals: the preparation of a new Bible translation and the formation of a society of Catholic biblical scholars. In result, the Catholic Biblical Association (CBA) was formed in 1937, and the New American Bible (NAB) was published in 1970.
1933 White Sands National Monument, NM established.
1929 Stalin proposes to ban Trotsky from the Politburo.
1924 Se indulta de la pena de muerte a los asesinos de Eduardo Dato Iradier, presidente del Gobierno español.
1922 Se abre al público la exposición de originales de tauromaquia de Francisco de Goya y Lucientes en el Círculo de Bellas Artes de Madrid. — GOYA LINKSBullfightVillage Bullfight (1793) — The Matador Pedro Romero60 Tauromaquia prints at FAMSF.
^ 1919 World War I peace conference begins
      The international peace conference seeking a formal end to World War I opens at Versailles, France, two months after the termination of the massive conflict. The chief negotiators at the conference are the leaders of the four major Allied powers: Prime Minister Lloyd George of Great Britain, Premier Georges Clemenceau of France, Premier Vittorio Emanuele Orlando of Italy, and President Woodrow Wilson of the United States. In 1918, it was the fair terms of President Wilson's peace proposal that helped encourage the leaders of the Central Powers to agree to an armistice ending the war. His "Fourteen Points" called for unselfish peace terms from the victorious Allies, the restoration of territories conquered during the war, the right to national self-determination, and the establishment of a postwar world body to resolve future conflict. At Versailles, Wilson tries to orchestrate a just and lasting peace but the other victorious Allies oppose the majority of Wilson's peace terms. The final treaty, signed in July of 1919, calls for stiff reparations payment from the former Central Powers and other demanding terms that contribute to the outbreak of World War II two decades later. However, the creation of states based on Wilson's principle of national self-determination and the formation of the League of Nations are embodied in the treaty, although opposition to the League of Nations in the US Senate prevents America from ever entering the international organization.
1915 Pancho Villa se proclama presidente de México y asume poderes militares y civiles.
1913 Turkish-Greek sea battle near Troy.
^ 1912 Scott reaches the South Pole, but is not first.
      After a two-month ordeal, the expedition of British explorer Robert Falcon Scott and his expedition arrive at the South Pole only to find that Roald Amundsen, the Norwegian explorer, had preceded them on 14 December 1911. Scott, a British naval officer, began his first Antarctic expedition in 1901 aboard the Discovery. During three years of exploration, Scott discovered the Edward VII Peninsula, surveyed the coast of Victoria Land, and led limited expeditions into the continent itself. In 1910, he traveled to Antarctica again in search of the South Pole, and in November of 1911, started southward on foot from a British base on the Ross Sea toward the Pole. Scott and his four companions pulled their heavy sleds by hand across the high polar plateau, proceeding in sub-zero weather the entire way. Midway into their journey, unbeknownst to the British explorers, Amundsen had reached the South Pole region using dog sleds that averaged 24 km a day.
       Scott and his companions reach the Pole on this day, and disappointed to find that they had been beaten by Amundsen, prepare for the long, difficult journey home. On their retreat back to base, the expedition would be beset by lack of food, illness, frostbite, blizzards, and cold so much severe than expectations that the snow and ice lost it slipperiness under the sledges. All five members would die; the last three overwhelmed by a blizzard only a few kilometers from their base. Their bodies would later be recovered, together with a diary written by Scott documenting the disastrous expedition. Scott wrote his last diary entry on 29 March 1912, knowing that he was only 18 km from his destination and that he would never reach it.
1911 The first landing of an aircraft on a ship took place as pilot Eugene B. Ely flew onto the deck of the USS Pennsylvania in San Francisco harbor (from Tanforan Park).
1905 French government of Combes falls
1901 Pope Leo XIII publishes encyclical Graves De Communi Re on Christian democracy.
1896 British troops occupy Kumasi, West Africa.
1896 First X-Ray Demonstration in the United States: The X-ray was demonstrated to the American public for the first time in New York City's Casino Chambers on this day in 1896. Viewers paid twenty-five cents apiece to see the exhibit.
1896 H.J. Kallenberg, an instructor of physical education at the University of Iowa, welcomed Amos Alonzo Stagg, athletic director at the recently founded University of Chicago, to Iowa City for an experimental game in a new sport. The contest, refereed by Kallenberg, was the first college basketball game played with five players on each side. The University of Chicago won by a score of 15 to 12.
1884 General Charles Gordon departs London for Khartoum.
1884 Se constituye el cuarto gabinete de Antonio Cánovas del Castillo desde la Restauración. Antonio Cánovas del Castillo nació el 08 febrero 1828 en Málaga. El 08 Aug 1897, cuando estaba descansando en el balneario de Santa Águeda (Guipúzcoa), fue asesinado por el joven anarquista italiano Miguel Angiolillo, que pretendía con ello vengar a las víctimas de Montjuich (Junio de 1896: Una bomba fue arrojada al paso de la procesión del Corpus, en la calle de Cambios Nuevos, en Barcelona. Hubo víctimas e inmediatamente se atribuyó el hecho a los anarquistas. Sin embargo, más tarde se ha sabido que el autor del atentado, un agente provocador al servicio de la policía, logró salir de España y fue a para a la Argentina. Pero ello sirvió para encarcelar, torturar, fusilar y deportar a los anarquistas, para poner fuera de la ley a la organización obrera por ellos orientada, la Federación de Trabajadores, y para desarticular todo cuanto, en materia de centros culturales, de escuelas laicas y de Ateneos tenían organizado los anarquistas. — les tortures i l´afusallament de cinc persones condemnades a mort per la bomba del carrer dels Canvis. La repressió que varen exercir les autoritats fou molt àmplia i dura quer va desorganitzar força el moviment anarquista. — Había Cánovas mandado reprimir con mano dura los disturbios y los atentados dinamiteros de Barcelona, por lo que fueron torturados y muertos varios anarquistas en la prisión de Montjuich [Montjuïc], sin hablar de muchos inocentes, incluyendo mujeres, encarcelados en condiciones inhumanas) — Cánovas brought about the restoration of Spain's Bourbon dynasty. He was the author of the constitution on 1876. He sent to Cuba the repressive general Valeriano Weyler y Nicolau, which, after Cánovas's death, led to war with the US and the loss of Cuba.
Proclamation du 2ème Reich.2nd German Empire proclaimed by Kaiser Wilhelm I and Bismarck.
^ 1871 Le 2ème Reich est proclamé
      A la Galerie des glaces, à Versailles, l’Allemagne réalise son unité et crée le deuxième Reich. C’est la Prusse qui a unifié le pays après les guerres contre le Danemark, l’Autriche et la France. L’unité n’a été proclamée ni à Berlin ni même sur le territoire allemand, mais dans la galerie des Glaces du château de Versailles, le 18 janvier 1871, pendant que les troupes prussiennes poursuivaient le siège de Paris, après les défaites françaises de la guerre franco-prussienne de 1870.
      Le peintre Anton von Werner a immortalisé la scène dans un de ses tableaux [illustration >]. On y voit le roi de Prusse Guillaume Ier, le nouvel empereur, et Otto von Bismarck qui, à sa charge de ministre-président de Prusse, va ajouter celle de chancelier de l’Empire. Ils sont entourés de princes, de militaires, de diplomates, raides, bottés et sanglés dans leur uniforme de parade ; les sabres tirés au clair soulignent le caractère martial de la scène. Pas une femme n’est présente, et le peuple est totalement absent. C’est une monarchie absolue (et peu éclairée) qui domine l’Allemagne ; c’est le militarisme autoritaire à la Prussienne qui mènera l’Allemagne aux deux prochaines guerres mondiales
     L'Empire allemand est proclamé le 18 janvier 1871 dans la galerie des Glaces du château de Versailles. Suite à leur victoire commune sur la France, les représentants des Etats allemands, y compris le roi Louis II de Bavière et les rois de Saxe et de Wurtemberg, font le sacrifice de leur indépendance. Sur une idée du chancelier prussien Otto von Bismarck, ils confèrent au roi de Prusse le titre d'empereur, sous le nom de Guillaume 1er. Ils choisissent avec à propos la date anniversaire du couronnement royal de son ancêtre, Frédéric 1er de Hohenzollern, le 18 janvier 1701, à Königsberg. Ce deuxième Reich (Empire en allemand) succède au Saint Empire romain germanique fondé par Otton le Grand et aboli par Napoléon 1er. Le nouvel empire est doté de deux assemblées, un Reichstag des citoyens, sans pouvoir réel, et un Bundesrat des Etats, où le royaume de Prusse prend le pas sur les autres parties de l'Allemagne. Ayant réalisé l'unité politique de l'Allemagne, Bismarck va s'atteler à son unification monétaire et économique.
Nuages à venir
      Pendant que les Allemands triomphent à Versailles, Paris résiste au siège de leurs armées. Déclenchée par la légèreté de Napoléon III et des responsables français, la guerre franco-prussienne aura permis au chancelier Otto von Bismarck de souder les Etats allemands autour de la Prusse. L'armistice sera signée dix jours après la cérémonie de Versailles, quand les efforts de Gambetta pour poursuivre la guerre à outrance auront définitivement échoué. Les Français devront s'incliner devant la perte de l'Alsace et d'une partie de la Lorraine, le «chancelier de fer» ayant désiré que les prince allemands offrent ces terres à l'empereur en cadeau d'heureux avènement. Cette annexion va interdire l’espoir d’une réconciliation entre la France et l'Allemagne.
1865 Battle of Fort Moultrie SC.
1864 Skirmish at Grand Gulf, Mississippi.
1862 Confederate Territory of Arizona is formed.
^ 1862 L’Église reconnaît les apparitions de la Vierge à Lourdes.
      Lourdes est une petite ville (moins de 17000 habitants) du sud-ouest de la France, dans le département des Hautes Pyrénées, en région Midi-Pyrénées, sur le gave de Pau, au pied des Pyrénées. Mais chaque année des millions de pèlerins la transforment en une ville bruyante, animée, un peu sale et d’une laideur vulgaire.
      Importante ville fortifiée à l'époque médiévale, Lourdes est de nos jours l'un des lieux de pèlerinage chrétien les plus renommés dans le monde. Chaque année, des millions de personnes visitent la grotte où, en 1858, une jeune fille de quatorze ans, Bernadette Soubirous (devenue plus tard sainte Bernadette), déclara avoir vu la Vierge Marie. Les eaux de la source souterraine qui jaillissent dans la grotte sont réputées avoir des pouvoirs de guérison miraculeux. Une basilique, achevée en 1876, et une vaste église souterraine ont été construites sur le site de la grotte.
      Bernadette Soubirous, 14 ans, analphabète et sans instruction religieuse, asthmatique et encore impubère, est la fille d’un meunier ruiné, tombé à l’état de "brassier" (manœuvre louant ses bras à la journée pour 1,50 F). Elle habite le plus minable logis de la ville : le cachot, ancienne prison désaffectée à cause de son insalubrité.
      Le jeudi 11 Feb, vers midi, elle va ramasser du bois et des os à la grotte située au bord du Gave, à 1 km à l’ouest de la ville. En se déchaussant pour passer l’eau, elle entend "comme un coup de vent" ; elle s’étonne car l’air est calme et les arbres ne remuent pas. Elle voit la niche de la grotte s’éclairer d’un halo de lumière où apparaît une très jeune fille, silencieuse. Devant elle, Bernadette, d’instinct, récite son chapelet. Lorsqu’elle est sur le chemin du retour, sa sœur lui arrache la confidence, sous le sceau du secret, mais le révèle aussitôt à sa mère. Toutes deux sont battues "avec le bâton à battre les couvertures".
      Bernadette obtient pourtant de retourner à la grotte le 14, puis le 18 février. Aqueró (en patois : Cela , ainsi qu’elle appelle la jeune fille du rocher) lui parle pour la première fois : "Voulez-vous avoir la grâce (en patois : aouè la gracia ) de venir ici pendant quinze jours ?"      Bernadette se rend chaque matin à la grotte, du vendredi 19 Feb au jeudi 04 mars. Elle voit l’apparition "tous les jours, sauf un lundi (22 Feb) et un vendredi (26 Feb)". La foule grossit : de 100 personnes le 21 Feb à 8000 le 04 mars, dernier jour de la quinzaine, où l’on attend un grand miracle. Rien ne se produit. L’affaire semble finie. Mais, au matin du 25 mars, Bernadette se sent de nouveau attirée à la grotte. Et sur sa demande quatre fois répétée, Aqueró , dont elle ignorait l’identité, répond : "Je suis l’Immaculée Conception." Bernadette ne comprend pas ces paroles, qui font difficulté à son curé. Le pape Pie IX, en effet, avait défini le dogme de l’Immaculée Conception de la Vierge en 1854, mais l’identification grammaticale de la Vierge à ce privilège était déroutante.
      Bernadette eut encore deux apparitions impromptues et silencieuses : le 07 Apr et le 16 Jul. La dernière fut tellement discrète qu’elle faillit échapper à l’histoire.
      Après une épidémie de visionnaires (13 Apr - 09 Jul) à laquelle Bernadette resta tout à fait étrangère, l’évêque de Tarbes, Mgr Laurence, entame une enquête qui aboutit, le 18 janvier 1862, à la reconnaissance de l’apparition. Le jugement se fondait sur le témoignage de Bernadette, sur le mouvement de prière et de conversions et sur les miracles. Dans la masse confuse des guérisons dont on parlait, la commission épiscopale en sélectionna sept avec un sens clinique et critique très averti pour l’époque (dossier critique de R. Laurentin, Lourdes, " Documents authentiques " , t. V).
      Durant les années suivantes, les guérisons ne sont pas objet de constat. À partir de 1866, on publie les plus frappantes dans les Annales de Lourdes . En 1882, le docteur de Saint-Maclou fonde le Bureau des constatations médicales. Le Bureau retient deux mille cas jusqu’en 1905. À cette date, Pie X demande que les constats soient établis en forme canonique, selon les exigences en vigueur pour les procès de canonisation, avec un double jugement : médical puis religieux. Trente-trois guérisons sont ainsi reconnues de 1907 à 1913. Puis les constats s’interrompent. Mgr Théas les réorganise en 1946 : le Bureau médical établit les dossiers sur place. Un Comité international de médecins éminents en juge. Le Bureau médical est saisi chaque année d’une trentaine de cas ; il n’en retient que deux ou trois pour examen ; vingt-deux seulement ont été canoniquement reconnus depuis 1946.
      Ce petit nombre tient aux raisons suivantes : il est difficile d’établir des dossiers complets. L’exigence des preuves scientifiques est de plus en plus complexe. Les médecins traitants laissent de moins en moins voyager les grands malades. Et presque tous voyagent en étant soumis à un traitement qui doit être normalement présumé cause de la guérison. On ne saurait trop souligner la difficulté de principe en cette matière : un Comité médical répugne normalement à déclarer une guérison "inexplicable", car le postulat de la méthode scientifique, c’est de ne jamais démissionner devant l’inexplicable. L’allergie aux miracles s’étend aujourd’hui aux évêques et commissions épiscopales, qui ont plus d’une fois refusé d’entériner les dossiers reconnus, au point de vue médical, par le Comité international.
      Depuis 1890, Lourdes est de moins en moins axé sur le miracle, mais de plus en plus sur le message reçu par Bernadette : prière et conversion. La pastorale du pèlerinage s’est renouvelée en ce sens, durant ces dernières années.
      La facilité des transports aidant, le nombre des pèlerins de Lourdes n’a cessé d’augmenter. Le cap du million fut franchi en 1908. Les 3 millions sont dépassés régulièrement depuis 1964 ; les 3'500'000, depuis 1972. Plus de 50'000 malades sont accueillis chaque année : 64'354 en 1972, dont 41'608 hospitalisés.
      C’est depuis 1874 qu’on organise des trains de malades. C’était une sorte de défi de l’espérance, que ne cessent de renouveler des initiatives fort variées : pèlerinages d’aveugles, de malades mentaux, de polios (10'000 en 1973), y compris des "respiratoires" avec relais de poumons d’acier de l’hôpital au train et à la grotte. Lourdes rassemble aussi des catégories marginales que la rencontre libère de leur isolement : parents d’enfants handicapés, gitans, etc.
      Récupéré par le commerce et sa laideur proverbiale, discuté, y compris par des catholiques (qui restent libres de ne pas y croire), Lourdes reste le défi qui impressionna Zola, comme l’atteste son journal de voyage (août 1892), publié en 1958. Ce défi de la prière et de la souffrance ambulante est de toute manière une folie: pour Zola, celle de l’espérance humaine préscientifique; pour les pèlerins, celle de Dieu qui défie la sagesse des sages, et donne aux malades, même non guéris, son don inexprimable qui ne déçoit pas.
^ 1854 Lower California and Sonora proclaimed an independent republic by Filibuster William Walker, 29.
      Lack of supplies and Mexican resistance would force him back to the United States in May 1854. That was not the end of his adventures, which are well worth reading about. He was president of Nicaragua from 18560712 to 18570501. His undoing was that he tried to seize a company owned by Cornelius Vanderbilt. Later he tried to invade through Honduras, was captured by the British (who were occupying the coast of Honduras, but that is another colonialist story...) and on 18600912 executed by the Hondurans.
1850 British blockade Piræus, Greece to enforce mercantile claims
1817 San Martin leads a revolutionary army over Andes
^ 1803 Jefferson requests funds for Lewis and Clark
      Determined to begin theUS exploration of the vast mysterious regions of the Far West, President Thomas Jefferson sends a special confidential message to Congress asking for money to fund the journey of Lewis and Clark. Jefferson had been trying to mount a western expedition of exploration since the 1790s, and his determination to do so had only grown since he became president in 1801. In summer 1802, Jefferson began actively preparing for the mission, recruiting his young personal secretary, Meriwether Lewis, to be its leader. Throughout 1802, Jefferson and Lewis discussed the proposed mission, telling no one — not even Congress, which would have to approve the funds — of what they were contemplating. Jefferson directed Lewis to draw up an estimate of expenses. Basing his calculations on a party of one officer and 10 enlisted men — the number was deliberately kept small to avoid inspiring both congressional criticisms and Indian fears of invasion — Lewis carefully added up the costs for provisions, weapons, gunpowder, scientific instruments, and a large boat. The final tally came to $2500. The largest item was $696, earmarked for gifts to Indians. Following the advice of his secretary of the treasury, Albert Gallatin,
      Jefferson decided not to include the request in his general proposed annual budget, since it involved exploration outside of the nation's own territory. Instead, on 18 January 1803, he sent a special secret message to Congress asking for the money, taking pains to stress that the proposed exploration would be an aid to US commerce. Jefferson noted that the Indians along the proposed route of exploration up the Missouri River "furnish a great supply of furs & pelts to the trade of another nation carried on in a high latitude." If a route into this territory existed, "possibly with a single portage, from the Western ocean," Jefferson suggested that the US might have a superior means of exploiting the fur trade. Though carefully couched in diplomatic language, Jefferson's message to Congress was clear: a US expedition might be able to steal the fur trade from the British and find the long hoped-for Northwest passage to the Pacific.
      Despite some mild resistance from Federalists who never saw any point in spending money on the West, Jefferson's carefully worded request prevailed, and Congress approved the $2500 appropriation by a sizeable margin. It no doubt seemed trivial in comparison to the $9'375'000 they had approved a week earlier for the Louisiana Purchase, which brought much of the territory Jefferson was proposing to explore under US control. With financing now assured, Lewis immediately began preparing for the expedition. Recruiting his old military friend, William Clark, to be his co-captain, the Corps of Discovery departed on their epic exploration of the uncharted regions in spring 1804.
History of the Expedition Under the Command of Captains Lewis and Clark, to the Sources of the Missouri, Thence Across the Rocky Mountains and Down the River Columbia to the Pacific Ocean, Volume 1 _ Volume 2 _ [page images] _ by Meriwether Lewis, William Clark, and Nicholas Biddle
1802 Bonaparte, Premier consul, épure le Tribunat. Il fait éliminer par le Sénat vingt tribuns hostiles au régime.
1795 French admitted to Amsterdam without resistance
^ 1788 First sadistic Australian penal colony established
      The first 736 convicts banished from England to Australia landed in Botany Bay. Over the next 60 years, approximately 50'000 criminals were transported from Great Britain to the "land down under," in one of the strangest episodes in criminal-justice history. The accepted wisdom of the upper and ruling classes in 18th century England was that criminals were inherently defective. Thus, they could not be rehabilitated and simply required separation from the genetically pure and law-abiding citizens. Accordingly, lawbreakers had to be either killed or exiled, since prisons were too expensive. With the American victory in the Revolutionary War, transgressors could no longer be shipped off across the Atlantic, and the English looked for a colony in the other direction.
      Captain Arthur Phillip, a tough but exceedingly fair career naval officer, was charged with setting up the first penal colony in Australia. The convicts were chained beneath the deck during the entire hellish six-month voyage. The first voyage claimed the lives of nearly 10 percent of the prisoners, which remarkably proved to be a rather good rate. On later trips, up to a third of the unwilling passengers died on the way. These were not hardened criminals by any measure; only a small minority were transported for violent offenses. Among the first group was a 70-year-old woman who had stolen cheese to eat.
      Although not confined behind bars, most convicts in Australia had an extremely tough life. The guards who volunteered for duty in Australia seemed to be driven by exceptional sadism. Even small violations of the rules could result in a punishment of 100 lashes by the cat o'nine tails. It was said that blood was usually drawn after five lashes and convicts ended up walking home in boots filled with their own blood — that is, if they were able to walk. Convicts who attempted to escape were sent to tiny Norfolk Island, 1000 km east of Australia, where the conditions were even more inhumane. The only hope of escape from the horror of Norfolk Island was a "game" in which groups of three prisoners drew straws. The short straw was killed as painlessly as possible and the other two were shipped back to Sydney (where the only Australian court was located) for the trial, one playing the role of killer, the other as witness.
1778 Captain James Cook stumbles over islands which he named Sandwich Islands because that was the favorite food of the natives....no, just kidding,....it was in honor of the Earl of Sandwich (whose favorite food was... guess what). Those islands are now known as the Hawaiian Islands.
1762 El rey Carlos III de España promulga una pragmática para establecer el regium exequátur, que supone el control de los documentos pontificios.
1733 first polar bear exhibited in America (Boston)
Frederik I / Sophie Charlotte van Hanover crowned king / queen of Prussia
^ 1701 Couronnement d'un roi en Prusse
      Frédéric III de Hohenzollern, électeur de Brandebourg, se fait couronner roi en Prusse à Königsberg (aujourd'hui Kaliningrad, en Russie). Il change son nom pour celui de Frédéric 1er. Le couronnement porte atteinte à une vieille règle qui interdisait aux vassaux de l'empereur d'Allemagne de porter un titre royal. Frédéric 1er prend prétexte de ce que sa province orientale de Prusse ne figure pas dans les limites historiques du Saint Empire romain germanique. La particule en souligne que sa royauté ne déborde pas les limites de la Prusse. L'empereur en titre, Léopold 1er de Habsbourg, encaisse l'affront. Mais à partir du congrès d'Utrecht, en 1712, le roi lève le masque et se fait appeler roi de Prusse. Il s'élève désormais au-dessus des autres princes allemands et se présente en rival de l'empereur de Vienne. C'est le début d'une ascension qui culminera le 18 janvier 1871, avec la proclamation du IIe Reich dans la Galerie des Glaces du chateau de Versailles.
1671 Pirate Henry Morgan defeats Spanish defenders, captures Panamá
1650 La Fronde des princes vient de commencer. Le prince de Condé, son frère Conti et son beau-frère Longueville son arrêtés. Leurs partisans soulèvent les provinces. La guerre civile se rallume. — French Prince Louis II of Condé captured
1644 Perplexed Pilgrims in Boston reported America's first UFO sighting
1562 The Council of Trent, called by the popes to deal with the monumental problems caused by the Reformation, reconvened, following a suspension of ten years. It was the 17th session.
1525 Even before their first baptism takes place, the Anabaptists are threatened with exile. Instead of exile, they are soon given death.
1520 Christian II of Denmark and Norway defeats the Swedes at Lake Asunde
1478 Grand Duke Ivan II of Moscow occupies Novgorod
1307 German king Albrecht I makes his son Rudolf king of Bohemia.
0532 Fin de la fallida revolución Nika, en la que se pretendía la independencia del Imperio Romano de Oriente.
0350 General Maxentius drives out Western Roman emperor Constans
0336 Saint Mark consecrated Pope (died 03361007) (not THE Saint Mark, gospel-writer, of course)
TO THE TOP
Deaths which occurred on a January 18:
2004 The pilot and all 9 passengers aboard a Georgian Express plane, a Cessna 208 Caravan, bound for Windsor, Ontario, which crashes at 05:10 into lake Erie, 2km from it takeoff in icebound Pelee Island, Ontario.
2004 At least 21 persons, including suicide pickup truck bomber with 500 kg of explosives who had pulled to the head of the line of cars waiting to enter at the main gate check point of the headquarters compound of the US-led occupation administration of Iraq (the “Coalition Provisional Authority”) in Baghdad, at 08:00. The dead include Iraqi civilians and two US civilians. The wounded include 2 US soldiers, 4 civilian employees of the US, and 22 Iraqi civilians.
2002 Arley Arias García, Catholic pastor of Nuestra Señora de la Asunción de Florencia, corregimiento de Samaná (Caldas) Colombia, murdered by gunshot.
2002 Faraj Hani Odeh Nazzal, 21, shot in the head and neck, in the West Bank. He was a member of the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades.
^ 2001: 23 assassinés dans la forêt de Beyoub, commune de Dahra, Algérie.
     Les massacres de civils continuent à proximité du maquis de Oued Romane, au nord-ouest de la wilaya de Chlef. En effet, un mois après les carnages de Ténès, qui avaient fait 42 victimes, une nouvelle tuerie est commise en plein jour, faisant vingt-trois morts et un blessé parmi des villageois désarmés. Ce forfait est commis dans une forêt de Beyoub, commune de Dahra, à 15 km au nord du Chef-lieu communal. L’endroit, fortement accidenté et couvert par de hauts arbres, marque la limite géographique entre la wilaya de Chlef et celle de Mostaganem. Il est fréquenté dans la journée par les bergers et les charbonniers habitant Dahra-village et les douars avoisinants, en majorité des jeunes, les distances et le terrain difficiles exigeant un minimum de vigueur. Ils viennent là pour faire paître leurs chèvres et ramasser le bois mort qui servira à fabriquer le charbon, la seule ressource après le petit bétail qui entretient leur vie miséreuse.
      Jusqu’à l’heure de l’effroyable drame, la forêt de Beyoub gardait la réputation d’être sûre et tranquille: après la trêve, les troupes de l’AIS l’avaient évacuée pour une destination inconnue et, de l’avis de tous, elle était vide de tout autre élément armé. Les jours de beau temps, elle rassemble jusqu’à 200 adolescents et enfants qui s’éparpillent dans les futaies à la recherche d’herbe et de bois mort. En ce jour, un jeudi, le hasard et la pluie ont voulu qu’ils soient 24, tous massacrés à l’arme blanche, isolément ou par groupes de deux à trois, par les hordes sanguinaires. Non satisfaits par le sang, les assassins ont mutilé leurs victimes et ont sectionné leurs organes génitaux pour les enfoncer dans leurs bouches. Parmi les victimes, toutes de sexe masculin, figurent de nombreux enfants âgés de 11 à 13 ans et deux vieillards. Au total, une dizaine de familles démunies ont été touchées par cet acte abominable.
      Le seul rescapé de cette boucherie est un jeune de 18 ans. A l’hôpital de Sobha (Chlef) où il est soigné, M. K. raconte : «Jeudi, à 14 h 30, nous étions sur le retour moi et cinq de mes compagnons. A un détour du chemin, trois terroristes en tenue militaire, rasés, nous ont arrêtés. L’un d’eux était noir de peau. Ils nous ont demandé d’attendre leur chef qui devait, selon eux, nous rassembler tous pour nous faire un discours. Un Patriote qui survenait à ce moment-là avec un fusil de chasse sur le dos a été interpellé par les terroristes qui l’ont sommé d’approcher, il a pris la fuite. De l’intérieur de la forêt me sont parvenus des cris de terreur. Les terroristes donnaient la chasse à nos compagnons restés en arrière. J’ai couru, poursuivi par les rafales de klachnikovs.» Le jeune blessé a été touché à la tête et à la hanche. Mais les balles l’ont seulement effleuré. Ses jours ne sont pas en danger. C’est lui qui a donné l’alerte. Dix-sept corps de ses compagnons sont découverts en fin d’après-midi, tandis que les six autres ne seront retrouvés que le lendemain, vendredi, dans l’après-midi. . — // http://www.elwatan.com/journal/html/2001/01/20/actualite.htm
LES POPULATIONS DE CHLEF ET DE AIN DEFLA CIBLEES PAR LE TERRORISME / Une centaine de victimes depuis octobre 2000. Un triangle de 60 km de côté dont l’un est ouvert sur la côte. Il a pour extrémités au nord Ténès, à l’ouest El Marsa et au sud le Dahra. Au cœur de ce triangle, le maquis de Oued Romane est en passe de devenir le lieu de toutes les horreurs. Il sert de base aux groupes armés qui lancent parfois très loin leurs incursions meurtrières. En octobre 2000, huit bergers sont assassinés dans la montagne de Talassa. Quelques jours plus tard, trois familles sont attaquées au douar Kalloul situé non loin au pied de la même montagne: douze personnes sont massacrées.
      En novembre 2000, deux personnes sont brûlées vives dans leur véhicule par des groupes armés qui ont dressé un faux barrage à la sortie ouest de Ténès. Au cours du même mois de novembre au douar Dehamnia, huit jeunes habitants, surpris dans les ruines de leur ancien village abandonné, sont sauvagement exécutés. Le même jour, quatre paysans de retour de leurs labours sont froidement assassinés sur le chemin conduisant à Taougrit.
      En décembre 2000, deux massacres endeuillent encore une fois la banlieue proche de Ténès: le premier a lieu à quelques encablures de la ville à sa sortie ouest où un autocar est arrêté à un faux barrage et ses occupants mitraillés puis achevés au pistolet. Bilan : dix-huit morts. Le second frappe, deux nuits plus tard, presque à égale distance mais à l’est de la ville, trois familles de paisibles citoyens. Avec les deux jeunes filles enlevées et retrouvées plus tard violées et égorgées, le bilan de cette lâcheté s’élève à vingt-quatre morts.
      Aujourd'hui, c’est Dahra qui subit la violence meurtrière à travers l’assassinat de vingt-trois de ses enfants surpris dans la forêt par des éléments armés, habillés comme toujours de l’uniforme militaire et ne portant ni kamis ni barbe. Tous ces massacres auraient un auteur unique : la Katibet En nasr du GIA qui tient refuge dans l’oued Romane. Sa capacité de nuisance n’a pas été affaiblie par la mort de ses deux «émirs» abattus par les forces de sécurité au cours du mois de Ramadhan précédent.
      Les deux tueries qui ont eu lieu aux portes de Ténès (faux-barrage et attaque de trois familles à Ouled Mahieddine) ont été suivies par une réunion qui avait groupé autour du ministre algérien de l’Intérieur la commission de sécurité de wilaya et le directeur général de la Sûreté nationale. On dit même qu’un général s’était rendu sur les lieux quelques jours auparavant. On croit savoir que des mesures spéciales avaient été prises à l’issue de cette rencontre. Elles visaient, disait-on, à éradiquer le terrorisme dans cette région. Le moins qu’on puisse dire de ces mesures c’est que leurs effets sont nuls. Oued Romane continue d’abriter les terroristes et de faire figure de base inexpugnable à leurs troupes. Quant aux civils innocents, ils continuent de subir la sauvagerie de leurs bourreaux, sans personne pour les protéger et les encourager à tenir tête pour ne pas subir la loi de leurs assassins.
2001 [Alfredo Mañas, dramaturgo y guionista español.
1997 Paul Efthemios Tsongas, 55, of pneumonia (Senator-D-MA) rebounded from cancer to briefly become the Democratic front-runner for president in 1992.
1997 Tres cooperantes españoles de la organización Médicos del Mundo, asesinados por extremistas hutus en la región ruandesa de Ruhengeri, al noroeste de Kigali.
1991 Eastern Airlines goes out of business after 62 years
1991 Hamilton Fish Sr., 102, former New York Congressman, in Cold Spring, N.Y.
1988 All 98 passengers and 10 crew members aboard a China Southwest Airlines Ilyushin 18D, coming from Beijing, which crashes during its initial approach te Chongqing when it loses control after the No.4 engine right starter generator became so hot that the feathering oil tube was burnt and burst upon feathering of the prop, the engine caught fire and fell off when it burned its pylon, and severe vibrations caused the no.1 prop to feather.
1987 Renato Guttuso, pintor italiano.
1985 Mahmoud Taha, 76, Sudanese Moslem leader, hanged.
1983 Arturo Umberto Illía, presidente argentino.
1980 Cecil Beaton, 76, British photographer.
1969:: 38 persons as a United Airlines B727-22QC crashes into the ocen near Los Angeles.
1963 Edward Titchmarsh, 63, mathematician.
1960:: 50 persons as a Capital Airlines Viscount 745D crashes near Charles City, due to engine failure.
1952 Enrique Jardiel Poncela, escritor español.
1951 Amy Carmichael who rescued children from slavery at heathen temples. After an accident left her bedridden, she spent many years writing inpirational books.
Finns attack1940 Day 50 of Winter War: USSR aggression against Finland.
More deaths due to Stalin's desire to grab Finnish territory.

Enemy bombers hit icebreaker Tarmo
      Ladoga Karelia: Finnish troops take the barracks area in Pitkäranta, forming a 'motti' with one flank open onto the frozen Lake Ladoga.
      Fresh concentrations of enemy divisions are observed at Pitkäranta and at Käsnäselkä in the Uomaa sector.
      Northern Finland: four Finnish battalions mount an assault on Märkäjärvi, but the enemy's 122nd Division holds firm.
      Gulf of Finland: Finnish troops begin to attack a Soviet naval detachment trapped in the ice near the island of Someri.
      Enemy bombers hit the icebreaker Tarmo while it is undergoing repairs in Kotka harbour. Thirty-nine crew members are killed and 11 wounded.
      Sweden: the Swedish Parliament debates the question of aid for Finland. Public opinion in Sweden sees the country's future as closely bound up with the outcome of Finland's struggle. "Finlands sak är vår" (Finland's cause is our own) is adopted as the slogan of the popular movement campaigning on behalf of aid for Finland.
      Home news: Doctor of Law Urho Kekkonen is appointed to head the supply centre for evacuees.
      Abroad: Hungarian professor Albert Szent-Györgyi, winner of the 1937 Nobel Prize for Medicine, gifts his Nobel Medal to Finland.

^ Vihollinen pommittaa jäänsärkijä Tarmoa Talvisodan 50. päivä, 18.tammikuuta.1940
     Suomalaiset valtaavat Pitkärannan kasarmien maaston. Alueelle syntyy motti, jonka yksi sivusta on avoinna Laatokan jäälle.
      Uusia vihollisdivisioonien keskityksiä havaitaan Pitkärannan sekä Uomaan suunnalla Käsnäselässä.
      Suomalaisjoukot hyökkäävät Märkäjärvelle neljän pataljoonan voimin, mutta vihollisen 122. Divisioonan puolustus pitää.
      Hyökkäys Somerin luona jäihin juuttunutta neuvostoliittolaista laivasto-osastoa vastaan aloitetaan.
      Vihollinen pommittaa Kotkan satamassa korjattavana olevaa jäänsärkijä Tarmoa. 39 miehistön jäsentä kuolee ja 11 haavoittuu.
      Ruotsin valtiopäivillä väitellään Suomen avustamisesta. Epävirallinen Ruotsi lähtee siitä, että Ruotsin asema tulevaisuudessa riippuu läheisesti Suomen taistelun tuloksesta. "Finlands sak är vår" , Suomen asia on meidän, kehittyy iskulauseeksiSuomen auttamisesta syntyvälle kansanliikkeelle.
      Siirtoväen huollon keskuksen johtajaksi nimitetään lakitieteen tohtori Urho Kekkonen.
      Ulkomailta: Vuonna 1937 lääketieteen Nobelin palkinnon saanut unkarilainen professori Albert Szent-Györgyi lahjoittaa Nobel-mitalinsa Suomelle.

^ Fienden bombar isbrytaren Tarmo Vinterkrigets 50 dag, den 18 januari 1940
      Finnarna erövrar terrängen kring kasernerna vid Pitkäranta. På området bildas en motti med en sida öppen mot Ladogaisen.
      Nya grupperingar av fiendens divisioner upptäcks vid Pitkäranta och i Käsnäselkä i riktning Uomaa.
      De finska trupperna anfaller vid Märkäjärvi med fyra bataljoner, men fiendens 122. Divisions försvar håller.
      Finland går till attack mot den ryska flottavdelningen som kört fast i isen vid Someri.
      Fienden bombar isbrytaren Tarmo som ligger i Kotka hamn för reparation. 39 man av besättningen omkommer och 11 såras.
      I Sveriges riksdag förs en debatt om biståndet till Finland. Det inofficiella Sverige utgår ifrån att landets position i framtiden hänger nära samman med resultatet av Finlands kamp. "Finlands sak är vår" blir slagord för folkrörelsen som uppstår för att hjälpa Finland.
      Juris doktor Urho Kekkonen utnämns till direktör för Centralen för omvårdnad av den evakuerade befolkningen.
      Utrikes: Den ungerska professorn Albert Szent-Györgyi, som år 1937 fick Nobelpriset i medicin, donerar sin Nobel-medalj till Finland.
1936 Joseph Rudyard Kipling, English short-story writer, poet, and novelist chiefly remembered for his celebration of British imperialism, his tales and poems of British soldiers in India, and his tales for children. He received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1907.
      Kipling was born on 30 December 1865. His father, John Lockwood Kipling, was curator of the Lahore museum, and is described as such in the first chapter of Kim, Rudyard's most famous novel. Much of his childhood was unhappy. Kipling was taken to England by his parents at the age of six and was left for five years at a foster home at Southsea, the horrors of which he described in the story Baa Baa, Black Sheep (1888). He then went on to an inferior boarding school. It haunted Kipling for the rest of his life—but always as the glorious place celebrated in Stalky & Co. (1899) and related stories: an unruly paradise in which the highest goals of English education are met amid a tumult of teasing, bullying, and beating. The Stalky saga is one of Kipling's great imaginative achievements.
      Rudyard Kipling returned to India in 1882 and worked for seven years as a journalist.. He was quickly filling the journals he worked for with prose sketches and light verse. He published the verse collection Departmental Ditties in 1886, the short-story collection Plain Tales from the Hills in 1888, and between 1887 and 1889 he brought out six paper-covered volumes of short stories. Among the latter were Soldiers Three, The Phantom 'Rickshaw and Other Ghost Stories (containing the story The Man Who Would Be King), and Wee Willie Winkie (containing Baa, Baa, Black Sheep).
      When Kipling returned to England in 1889, his reputation had preceded him. His fame was redoubled upon the publication in 1892 of the verse collection Barrack-Room Ballads, which contained such popular poems as Mandalay, Gunga Din, and Danny Deever. In 1892 Kipling married Caroline Balestier, the sister of Wolcott Balestier, an American publisher and writer with whom he had collaborated in The Naulahka (1892), a facile and unsuccessful romance. That year the young couple moved to the United States. The Kiplings returned to England in 1896.
      Besides numerous short-story collections and poetry collections such as The Seven Seas (1896), Kipling published his best-known novels in the 1890s and immediately thereafter. His novel The Light That Failed (1890) is the story of a painter going blind and spurned by the woman he loves. Captains Courageous (1897), in spite of its sense of adventure, is often considered a poor novel because of the excessive descriptive writing. Kim (1901), although essentially a children's book, must be considered a classic. The The Jungle Book (1894) and The Second Jungle Book (1895) is a stylistically superb collection of stories linked by poems for children.
      In 1902 Kipling bought a house at Burwash, Sussex, which remained his home until his death. Sussex was the background of much of his later writing—especially in Puck of Pook's Hill (1906) and Rewards and Fairies (1910), two volumes that, although devoted to simple dramatic presentations of English history, embodied some of his deepest intuitions.
      In 1907 Kipling received the Nobel Prize for Literature, the first Englishman to be so honored. In South Africa, where he spent much time, he was given a house by Cecil Rhodes, the diamond magnate and South African statesman. This association fostered Kipling's imperialist persuasions, which were to grow stronger with the years.
     In the whole sweep of his adult storytelling, Kipling displays a steadily developing art, from the early volumes of short stories set in India through the collections Life's Handicap (1891), Many Inventions (1893), The Day's Work (1898), Traffics and Discoveries (1904), Actions and Reactions (1909), Debits and Credits (1926), and Limits and Renewals (1932). While his later stories cannot exactly be called better than the earlier ones, they are as good—and they bring a subtler if less dazzling technical proficiency to the exploration of deeper though sometimes more perplexing themes. It is a far cry from the broadly effective eruption of the supernatural in The Phantom Rickshaw (1888) to its subtle exploitation in The Wish House or A Madonna of the Trenches (1924), or from the innocent chauvinism of the bravura The Man Who Was (1890) to the depth of implication beneath the seemingly insensate xenophobia of Mary Postgate (1915).
      Kipling wrote much and successfully for children; for the very young in Just So Stories (1902), and for others in The Jungle Book and in Puck of Pook's Hill and Rewards and Fairies. Of his miscellaneous works, the more notable are a number of early travel sketches collected in two volumes in From Sea to Sea (1899) and the unfinished Something of Myself, posthumously published in 1941, a reticent essay in autobiography.
KIPLING WORKS NOT MENTIONED ABOVE NOR BELOW:
1881 Schoolboy Lyrics. 1887 Soldier Tales, Indian Tales, and Tales of the Opposite Sex. 1888 The Story of the Gadsbys, In Black and White. 1890 The Courting of Dinah Shadd and Other Stories, and The City of Dreadful Night. 1891 Letters of Marque 1892 Rhymed Chapter Headings 1896 Soldier Tales. 1898 An Almanac of Twelve Sports, and A Fleet in Being. 1900 The Kipling Reader. 1901 War's Brighter Side. 1903 The Five Nations. 1907 Collected Verse. 1911 A History of England. 1912 Songs from Books. 1915 The New Army in Training and France in War. 1916 Sea Warfare. 1917 A Diversity of Creatures. 1919 The Graves of the Fallen and The Years Between. 1920 Horace Odes, Book V and Letters of Travel. 1923 The Irish Guards in the Great War and Land and Sea. 1924 Songs for Youth. 1926 Sea and Sussex. 1927 Songs of the Sea. 1928 A Book of Words. 1929 Poems 1886-1929. 1930 Thy Servant A Dog. 1934 Collected Dog Stories.
KIPLING ONLINE:
  • Kim
  • Kim
  • Just So Stories
  • Just So Stories
  • Stalky & Co.
  • Stalky & Co.
  • American Notes
  • American Notes
  • Captains Courageous
  • The Day's Work
  • The Jungle Book
  • The Jungle Book
  • The Jungle Book
  • The Second Jungle Book
  • The Light That Failed
  • The Light That Failed
  • A Pilgrim's Way
  • Plain Tales From the Hills
  • Puck of Pook's Hill
  • Puck of Pook's Hill
  • Actions and Reactions
  • Rewards and Fairies
  • Under the Deodars
  • Verses, 1889-1896
  • The Ballad of East and West
  • How the Leopard Got His Spots
  • The Man Who Would Be King
  • The Phantom 'Rickshaw and Other Ghost Stories
  • With the Night Mail: A Story of 2000 A.D.
  • The Works of Rudyard Kipling
  • 1919 John C F, 13, son of English king George V.
    1919 Joseph Wenglein, German artist born on 05 October 1845.
    1917 Andrew Murray, 88, pastor, founder of a seminary in South Africa. Inspirational author. MURRAY ONLINE: Absolute Surrender, Absolute Surrender, The Deeper Christian Life, The Lord's Table, The New Life: Words of God for Young Disciples of Christ, The New Life: Words of God for Young Disciples of Christ, The School of Obedience, The True Vine: Meditations for a Month on John XV:1-16, The True Vine: Meditations for a Month on John XV:1-16, The True Vine: Meditations for a Month on John XV:1-16, The Two Covenants and the Second Blessing , With Christ in the School of Prayer: Thoughts on Our Training for the Ministry of Intercession, Working for God! , Helps to Intercession, The Lord's Table,
    1890 Amadeus I FM, 44, second son of Victor Emanuel, king of Italy, king of Spain (18701116-18730211) who had abdicated when he found it impossible to govern. Then the Cortes proclaimed the First Republic of Spain.
    1879 Friedrich Eduard Meyerheim, German artist born on 07 January 1808.
    1873 Pierre Dupin, mathematician.
    1862 John Tyler, 71, 10th US President (1841-45), in Richmond VA
    1826 Balthasar Paul Ommeganck, Flemish artist born on 26 December 1755. — more with links to two images.
    1818 (05 Jan?) Marcello Bacciarelli, Italian Polish painter born on 16 February 1731. MORE ON BACCIARELLI AT ART “4” JANUARY with links to images.
    1721 Wigerus Vitringa, Dutch artist born in 1657.
    1678 James Mitchell, a Scottish Covenanter, is executed, having tried to kill Archbishop James Sharp who was executing many Covenanters.
    1677 John A van Riebeeck, 57, Dutch founder Cape Colony.
    1650 Matteo Roselli, Italian artist born on 10 August 1578. — links to two images.
    1613 Anthuenis Claeissins, Flemish artist born in 1536.
    1546 Blasco Núñez Vela, primer virrey de Perú, y muchos de sus soldados, al ser vencidos en batalla por Gonzalo Pizarro al norte de Quito.
    1479 Louis IX the Rich, 61, duke of Bayern (U of Ingolstadt)
    1367 Pedro I , 46, king of Portugal (1357-67)
    1271 Saint Margaret of Hungary, 28, daughter of king Bela I, dedicated to the convent from birth by her parents in thanksgiving for the liberation of Hungary from the Tatars.
    0532 Some 35'000 die as Nika uprising at Constantinople is crushed — L'empereur Justinien écrase la sédition de Nika à Constantinople
    Births which occurred on a January 18:
    1996 First Software on DVD. Digital Directory Assistance announces it will deliver its PhoneDisc PowerFinder USA ONE, an electronic phone book for the entire United States, on Digital Video Disc (DVD). The data, which previously required six CD-ROMs for delivery, took up only a single DVD.
    1944 Cassius Clay (changed his name to Muhammad Ali), boxer who held the heavy-weight title three times; activist.
    1937 John Hume, político británico.
    1934 José Manuel Romay Beccaria, político español.
    1933 Ray Dolby. In 1956, inventor Ray Dolby, working with Charles Ginsbury, created the first practical videotape recorder, which transformed the television industry. Videotaped shows quickly replaced almost all live programming, except for sporting events.
    1931 Chun Du Huan, presidente de Corea del Sur.
    1929 Joaquín Aguirre Bellver, escritor y periodista español.
    1919 Bentley Motors Founded Bentley Motors was established in London, England. A manufacturer of sports cars and luxury automobiles, Bentley was acquired by Rolls-Royce in November, 1931. From that point forward, the Bentley line acquired more and more features of the Rolls-Royce, until the two makes became nearly indistinguishable.
    1918 Adriano Mandarino Hypólito O.F.M, Aracaju, Brasil ; (died 960810, obispo emérito de Nova Iguaçu, but what is his claim to fame???)
    1915 Santiago Carrillo, político español y secretario general del PCE.
    1908 Bronowski, mathematician.
    1901 Petrovsky, mathematician.
    1893 Jorge Guillén, poeta español.
    1888 Sir Thomas Sopwith, English WW1 aircraft designer who died on 27 January 1989. His Sopwith Aviation Company produced the Sopwith Pup and it famous successor the Sopwith F1 Camel, which, from July 1917, when it reached the Front, until the 11 November 1918 Armistice, downed 1294 enemy planes.
    1884 Antoine Pevsner, French artist who died on 12 April 1962.
    Original Pooh and friends1882 Alan Alexander Milne, English author (Winnie-the-Pooh)
          The youngest of three sons born to schoolteacher parents, Milne taught himself to read at age two. He began writing humorous pieces as a schoolboy and continued to do so at Cambridge, where he edited the undergraduate paper. In 1903, he left Cambridge and went to London to write. Although he was broke by the end of his first year, he persevered and supported himself until 1906 with his writing. That year, he joined humor magazine Punch as an editor and wrote humorous verse and essays for the magazine for eight years, until World War I broke out. While at Punch, he wrote his first book—for adults, not children, The Red House Mystery.
          In 1913, he married his wife, Daphne, and two years later went to France to serve in World War I. While in the military, he wrote three plays, one of which, Mr. Pim Passes By, became a hit in 1919 and provided financial security for the family. In 1920, the couple's only son, Christopher Robin, was born. In 1925, the family bought Cotchford Farm in Sussex. A nearby forest inspired the 100-Acre Wood where Winnie-the-Pooh's adventures would be set.
          Milne published two volumes of the verse he wrote for his son. When We Were Very Young was published in 1924, followed by Now We Are Six in 1927. When Christopher Robin was about a year old, he received a stuffed bear as a present. The child soon accumulated a collection of similar animals [photo: Pooh, Kanga, Piglet, Eeyor, Tigger], which inspired Milne to begin writing a series of whimsical stories about the toys. Winnie-the-Pooh was published in 1926 and The House at Pooh Corner in 1928. Ernest Shepard illustrated the books, using Christopher Robin and his animals as models. A.A. Milne wrote numerous other books and plays but is remembered almost solely for his beloved children's work. He died on 31 January 1956.
    1881 Gaston Gallimard French publisher (Librairie Gallimard)
    1880 Ehrenfest, mathematician.
    1879 Henri-Honoré Giraud French General /member of parliament.
    1874 Myron Taylor, US financier and diplomat who died on 06 May 1959.
    1874 Guglielmo Zocchi, Italian artist.
    1867 Rubén Darío national poet (Nicaragua)
    1856 Bianchi, mathematician.
    ^ 1854 Thomas A. Watson, telephone pioneer
          When Alexander Graham Bell uttered his famous words, "Watson, come here. I want you," he was talking to his assistant, Thomas Watson. Watson met Bell while working in an electrical shop in Boston and worked with Bell on his telephone experiments. In 1877, when the Bell Telephone Company was formed, Watson became head of research and technical development. Watson also answered the first long-distance call in 1915, when Alexander Graham Bell in New York called Watson in San Francisco. Watson left Bell in 1881 to found a shipbuilding company, which constructed battleships, destroyers, and other ships for the government.
    1850 Seth Low, US philanthropist and educator who died on 17 September 1916.
    1841 Alexis-Emmanuel Chabrier France, composer (Le Roi Malgré Lui)
    1835 César A Cui Vilna Lithuania, fort architect/composer
    1815 L.F.K. Tischendorf, German biblical and textual scholar. In 1844 he discovered one of the oldest and most valuable manuscripts of the Greek Bible, the Codex Sinaiticus, which dates back to the 4th century.
    1813 Joseph Farwell Glidden, US inventor (first commercial usable barbed wire) who died on 09 October 1906.
    ^ 1800 (28 nivôse an VIII) La Banque de France est fondée par Napoléon Bonaparte.
          Il s’agissait de favoriser la reprise de l’activité à l’issue de la période révolutionnaire et d’accoutumer le public, rendu méfiant par l’échec de Law, à se servir de billets. Le nouvel établissement était chargé d’émettre des billets en contrepartie de l’escompte d’effets de commerce. Limité à l’origine à Paris, son privilège d’émission ne fut généralisé à l’ensemble du territoire qu’en 1848, à la suite de l’absorption des comptoirs d’escompte et des banques départementales qui existaient en province. La Banque de France comptait, en 1990, en dehors de son siège, 212 comptoirs.
         Cette initiative du Premier Consul, à peine installé au pouvoir, fait suite à une proposition du financier suisse Jean-Frédéric Perrégaux. Celui-ci a fait fortune en spéculant sur les assignats de la Révolution. Ces billets sans valeur ont dégoûté les Français du papier-monnaie. Ils ont rapidement disparu et laissé la place aux pièces en or ou en argent.
          Sous le Directoire, tandis que les affaires reprennent, le manque de monnaie se fait sentir. Jean-Frédéric Perrégaux fonde alors à Paris une banque de dépôts, la "Caisse des Comptes courants". Avec un groupe d'amis banquiers, il propose au Premier Consul d'octroyer à son établissement l’autorisation d’imprimer à nouveau des billets de banque. Ce droit d’émission vise à collecter l'épargne et à augmenter la quantité de monnaie en circulation. C'est ainsi qu'est créée par décret la Banque de France. Le nouvel établissement absorbe la Caisse des Comptes courants et s'installe à son siège, l'hôtel de Toulouse, rue de la Vrillière.
          La Banque de France obtient un droit d'émission prudent, limité dans un premier temps à Paris. Elle peut imprimer autant de billets qu’elle veut mais à une condition: il faut que toute personne qui présente un billet à la banque puisse l’échanger, si elle le désire, contre une quantité d’or de la même valeur. Cela va donner aux Français confiance dans les billets de banque et, petit à petit, la nouvelle monnaie remplacera les pièces en métaux précieux.
    Heurts et malheurs de la Banque de France
          Pour faire face aux demandes de remboursement, la Banque de France reçoit à sa création 30 millions de francs (une très grosse somme pour l’époque). Ce capital lui est apporté par de riches bourgeois tels que Perrégaux. Le Premier Consul lui-même place des fonds à la Banque de France en témoignage de confiance. En échange de leur argent, les actionnaires obtiennent le droit de nommer les directeurs de la Banque.
          La Banque de France n’est pas une banque ordinaire. En raison du droit d’émission qu’elle est la seule à posséder dans le pays, on l’appelle "banque centrale". Ses clients sont les banques commerciales ordinaires dont le métier est de prêter de l’argent aux particuliers et aux entreprises. Les gens qui empruntent de l’argent à ces banques signent un papier qui contient la promesse de les rembourser. C’est ce qu’on appelle un effet de commerce. En attendant d’être remboursées par leurs clients, les banques commerciales peuvent avoir besoin d’argent pour faire de nouveaux prêts. Elles se tournent alors vers la Banque de France et lui achètent des billets. Elles lui donnent en échange les effets de commerce dont elles disposent. Comme cela s’accroît la quantité d’argent dans le pays.
          Après les moments difficiles de la Révolution, la Banque de France va aider les Français à se remettre au travail. Elle va encourager le commerce et l’industrie en facilitant les emprunts et en augmentant la quantité de monnaie en circulation. Beaucoup de Français s’enrichiront et comme ils deviendront plus riches, ils devront payer davantage d’impôts au gouvernement. Ce sera tout bénéfice pour le Premier Consul qui pourra ainsi financer son armée en vue de nouvelles guerres contre les voisins européens.
          Les premières années de la Banque de France seront difficiles. Sous le Premier Empire, il arrivera que de nombreux clients doutent de la valeur de leurs billets et exigent de les échanger contre de l’or. Pour surmonter la crise, Napoléon 1er renforcera son autorité sur la Banque de France. Il en confiera la direction à un gouverneur et deux sous-gouverneurs nommés par lui-même. Dès lors, l’assemblée des actionnaires n’aura plus de pouvoir sur la banque centrale.
          En 1848, sous la Seconde République, les Français ne pourront plus obtenir le remboursement de leurs billets de banque contre de l’or. Mais la confiance dans le papier-monnaie sera assez bien établie pour que personne ne s’inquiète de cette mesure.
          Par une loi du 12 mai 1998, la Banque de France a dû céder son droit d'émission à la Banque Centrale européenne, à Francfort. Celle-ci se présente comme la filiale des onze banques centrales de la zone euro, y compris la Banque de France. Avec la création de la nouvelle monnaie européenne, la Banque de France et ses 14'000 salariés bien lotis n'ont plus désormais de rôle actif.
    1782 Daniel Webster Salisbury NH, orator/politician/lawyer 1782 - Daniel Webster (statesman: "Liberty and Union, now and forever, one and inseparable."; subject of Stephen Vincent Benet's The Devil and Daniel Webster, where he defends a farmer who has sold his soul to the devil) Webster died on 13 December 1934. WEBSTER ONLINE: Mr. Webster's Address at the Laying of the Corner Stone of the Addition to the CapitolSpeech of Hon. Daniel Webster, on Mr. Clay's Resolutions
    1779 Peter Roget thesaurus fame/inventor (slide rule, pocket chessboard) 1779 - (lexicographer: the man behind the Thesaurus; inventor: log-log slide rule) ROGET ONLINE: Roget's International Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases
    1689 Charles-Louis Secondat, baron de Montesquieu France, philosopher/writer (Lettres Persanes) — Il est né au chateau de La Brède, près de Bordeaux.
    MONTESQUIEU ONLINE: Lettres persanes 
    Œuvres de M. de Montesquieu. [Tome 1], Eloge de Monsieur le président de Montesquieu, mis à la tête du 5e vol. de l'Encyclopédie
    Œuvres de M. de Montesquieu. [Tome 2], De l'Esprit des loix
    Œuvres de M. de Montesquieu. [Tome 3], Défense de l'Esprit des loix
    1535 Ciudad de Los Reyes, es fundada en el Perú por Francisco Pizarro. Más tarde se llamará Lima.
    Holidays  Tunisia : Revolution Day (1956)
    Santas Prisca, Beatriz y Margarita; santos Antonio y Atenógenes. / Sainte Prisca est une martyre romaine des premiers siècles. Elle est ensevelie près de Rome dans la catacombe dite «de Priscille».
    AUNT O'NIMM'S DICTIONARY: “civilian stupidity”: the opposite of “military intelligence.”
    Thought for the day: “The man is not wholly evil — he has a Thesaurus in his cabin” — (of Captain Hook in J. M. Barrie's Peter Pan) — {Yes, but does he have Aunt O'Nimm's Dictionary?}

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