2001 Libyan intelligence officer Abdelbasset Ali al-Megrahi, 48, is convicted of the murder of the 270 victims of the 21 December 1988 Pan Am crash in Lockerbie, Scotland. His Libyan co-defendant, Ali Amin Khalifa Fhimah, 44, is acquitted by the Scottish court sitting in the Netherlands. al-Megrahi's mandatory sentence is life in prison, the court recommends consideration of parole after 20 years. An appeal is expected. The families of the victims are expected to proceed with a $10 billion civil suit against Libya.
2001 During a 55-minute period a computer error posts extravagantly low United Airlines fares at www.ual.com. For example $24.98 for San Francisco to Paris round trip (at the special “E-fare” rate listed on 20 February 2001 at http://www.itn.net/cgi/get?itn/air/uamultipromo/index it would be $298). 143 such tickets are sold and United refuses to honor them until, faced with outraged customers, it relents on 19 February.
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1999 (Sunday) Clinton impeachment trial: wrangle
over exit. (1) On the eve of Monica Lewinsky's deposition testimony in President Bill Clinton's impeachment trial, Democratic and Republican senators wrangle over GOP exit strategies that would leave the president in office but formally declare that he committed wrongdoing. One plan floating on Capitol Hill, brought forward by Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), would have the Senate vote on "findings of fact" about Clinton's misconduct, prior to a final vote on the two articles of impeachment lodged against him. The motion would require only a simple majority to pass, rather than the two-thirds vote needed to approve the impeachment articles. "I am not attempting to convict the president but not remove him. I am not attempting to find him guilty in the legal sense of criminal wrongdoing," Collins says on NBC's "Meet The Press." "What the approach that a number of us are working on would do is to set forth findings of fact from the evidence based on the trial, on which we could build a bipartisan consensus." A related but slightly different proposal is been offered by Sen. Orrin Hatch, (R-Utah), under which the Senate would adjourn after condemning Clinton's conduct, without votes on the impeachment articles. While many Democrats question the constitutionality of these approaches, one influential member of the president's party, Sen. Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut, says that he has been having discussions with Republican senators about both proposals. He indicates he would be open to considering them, depending on the wording of the condemnation of Clinton. "I've advised my Democratic colleagues (that) ... we shouldn't rush to judgment on the question of findings (of fact) until we see what the findings are," he says on ABC's "This Week." (2) Meanwhile, White House spokesman Jim Kennedy says that the two women on Clinton's team, Nicole Seligman and Cheryl Mills, will lead the questioning of Lewinsky. Rep. Ed Bryant (R-Tennessee) will query her on behalf of the managers. The questioning will take place at the Mayflower Hotel, where Lewinsky has been staying since arriving back in Washington from Los Angeles this afternoon. It will be the first chance House managers have had to question her extensively, though three of them held a short interview with her last weekend. It will be the first time the president's lawyers have had a chance to cross-examine her. And it will be the first time that her story is caught on videotape. Collins: Opening wide for the President (3) The New York Times reports Starr is considering seeking a grand
jury criminal indictment of Clinton. The Times story, quoting Starr
associates, says that Starr had concluded that he had the constitutional
authority to criminally indict the president while he is still in
office. |
1996 The last Cubans held in refugee camps at Guantanamo Bay Naval Base board a plane for Florida.
1994 Dow Jones Industrial Average reaches a record 3978
1991 Allied forces claim victory against Iraqi attackers at battle for Khafji, Saudi Arabia, which ends after 3 days.
1991 During the Gulf War, Army Specialists Melissa Rathbun-Nealy and David Lockett are captured by Iraqi forces near the Kuwaiti-Saudi border; both would be eventually released.
1990 State of the Union Address by US President George H. W. Bush (Sr.).
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1990 McMartin preschool retrial Los Angeles prosecutors announce that they will retry Raymond Buckey, who was accused of molesting children at the McMartin Preschool in Manhattan Beach, California. The McMartin trials had already taken over six years and cost more than $16 million without a single guilty verdict resulting from 200 charges. However, a jury had deadlocked on 13 charges (voting 11-2 for acquittal) against Buckey, and prosecutors were not willing to let the matter drop. The McMartin prosecutions represented the height of the hysteria over sexual abuse of children in America. Despite a complete lack of reputable evidence against the teachers and workers at the McMartin preschool, and with every indication that the children had been coerced and manipulated into their testimony, the prosecutors nonetheless proceeded against Ray Buckey for more than six years. "Believe the children" became the mantra of advocates who insisted that children never lied or were mistaken about abuse. The courts made unprecedented changes to criminal procedure to accommodate this mistaken notion. The California Supreme Court ruled that child witnesses were not required to provide details about the time and place of the alleged molestation to support a conviction. The US Supreme Court held that child witnesses could testify outside the courtroom despite the Sixth Amendment's clear command that a defendant had the right to confront his or her accusers. Throughout the nation, parents and day-care workers were jailed after false, and often absurd, allegations about child sexual abuse. As this hysteria swept the country, abuse counseling quickly became a cottage industry, attracting often-unqualified people who seemed to find sexual abuse everywhere. Recent research has found that young children are exceptionally easy to manipulate. Even when only subtly suggested, a child will respond with the answers he or she believes a questioner wants to hear. This was abundantly clear in Ray Buckey's case. In one instance, a girl initially failed to identify Buckey as someone who had harmed her. After an interview with Children's Institute International, the counseling agency who worked with every child in the case, the girl did pick Buckey as her attacker. It later turned out that Buckey wasn't even at the school during the time period that the child attended McMartin. Buckey's retrial went much faster. By July, the jury had acquitted on seven charges and were deadlocked (once again, the majority voting for acquittal) on the other six accusations. The district attorney finally decided to drop the case at that point. However, Buckey and the other accused workers at the school were not allowed to bring a civil suit. The courts ruled that anyone reporting child abuse has total immunity, even if there was knowledge that the report was false. |
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1990 First McDonald's in Soviet Union opens.The Soviet Union's first McDonald's fast food restaurant, the biggest in the world, opens in Moscow. Throngs of people line up to pay the equivalent of several days' wages for Big Macs, shakes, and french fries. The appearance of this notorious symbol of capitalism and the enthusiastic reception it received from the Russian people were signs that times were changing in the Soviet Union. An American journalist on the scene reported the customers seemed most amazed at the "simple sight of polite shop workers...in this nation of commercial boorishness." A Soviet journalist had a more practical opinion, stating that the restaurant was "the expression of America's rationalism and pragmatism toward food." He also noted that the "contrast with our own unrealized pretensions is both sad and challenging." For the average Russian customer, however, visiting the restaurant was less a political statement than an opportunity to enjoy a small pleasure in a country still reeling from disastrous economic problems and internal political turmoil. The arrival of McDonald's in Moscow was a small but certain sign that change was on the horizon. In fact, less than two years later, the Soviet Union ceased to exist as a nation, Mikhail Gorbachev resigned as leader of the country, and various Soviet republics proclaimed their independence. As the American newsman reported, the first Russian McDonald's customers "had seen the future, and it works, at least as far as their digestive tract."
1985 South African President PW Botha offers to free Mandela if he denounces violence
1982 10 Arabian oryx (extinct except in zoos) released in Oman [photo >]
1977 Frenchman François Claustre freed, after 33 months as hostage in Chad
1973 Washington Post story: “Last Two Guilty in Watergate Plot — Ex-Aides of Nixon to Appeal — Jury Convicts Liddy, McCord in 90 Minutes ” by Lawrence Meyer (reporting on For the previous day)
1972 Birendra becomes king of Nepal (crowned in 1975), upon the death of his father king Mahendra.
1972 Military coup replaces the civilian government of Ghana by a National Redemption Council of military men chaired by Colonel Ignatius Kutu Acheampong. The national assembly was dissolved, public meetings prohibited, political parties proscribed, and leading politicians imprisoned.
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1972 North Vietnam presents peace proposal
In a communiqué charging President Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger with "unilaterally" divulging the substance of the secret talks, creating the impasse at the secret meeting, and distorting the facts, North Vietnam publishes the nine-point plan they submitted during the secret talks. Since August 1969, talks between Kissinger and North Vietnamese representatives had been going on secretly in Paris. On January 25, Nixon, in response to criticism that his administration had not made its best efforts to end the war, revealed that Kissinger had been involved in the secret talks. Nixon also disclosed the text of an eight-point peace proposal presented privately to the North Vietnamese on October 11, 1971. In their communiqué, the North Vietnamese answered with their own peace plan. While Washington requested the withdrawal of all foreign forces from South Vietnam with the condition of an agreement in principle on a final solution, Hanoi insisted on the withdrawal of US and Allied troops from all of Indochina without condition. Hanoi also demanded the immediate resignation of the South Vietnamese Thieu regime. With the secret talks made public and at an impasse, the North Vietnamese leadership decided to launch a massive invasion of South Vietnam in March 1972. |
1968 Nauru (formerly Pleasant Island) declares independence from Australia (celebrates Independence Day)
1968 Record high barometric pressure (1083.8 mb, 32"), at Agata, USSR
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1968 Viet Cong's Tet offensive begins
During the Vietnam War, Vietnamese Communists launch the Tet offensive, a massive series of offensives against strategic and civilian locations throughout South Vietnam. Timed to coincide with the first day of the lunar New Year — Vietnam’s most important holiday — the size and scope of the Tet offensive takes US command by surprise. The Vietcong strike at Saigon, including a penetration of the US embassy compound, siege a US Marine base at Khe Sanh, and capture the provincial capital of Hue, among other initial gains. By the end of February, US and South Vietnamese forces have repulsed the offensive and inflicted heavy losses on the Vietcong, but the episode exposes the reality that, contrary to what US military command previously espoused, an end to the war is not in sight. Following the Tet offensive, American leaders begin a slow and agonizing reduction of US involvement, and US President Lyndon Johnson limits bombing, begins peace talks with Hanoi and the Vietcong, and withdraws his candidate for reelection. The Tet offensive is widely regarded as a turning point in the Vietnam conflict. Viet Cong attack US Embassy in Saigon. As part of the Tet Offensive, Viet Cong soldiers attack the US Embassy in Saigon. A 19-man suicide squad seized the US Embassy and held it for six hours until an assault force of US paratroopers landed by helicopter on the building's roof and routed them. The offensive was launched on January 30, when communist forces attacked Saigon, Hue, five of six autonomous cities, 36 of 44 provincial capitals, and 64 of 245 district capitals. The timing and magnitude of the attacks caught the South Vietnamese and American forces off guard, but eventually the Allied forces turned the tide. Militarily, the Tet Offensive was a disaster for the communists. By the end of March 1968, they had not achieved any of their objectives and had lost 32,000 soldiers and had 5,800 captured. US forces suffered 3,895 dead; South Vietnamese losses were 4,954; non-US allies lost 214. More than 14,300 South Vietnamese civilians died. While the offensive was a crushing military defeat for the Viet Cong and the North Vietnamese, the early reporting of a smashing communist victory went largely uncorrected in the media and this led to a great psychological victory for the communists. The heavy US casualties incurred during the offensive coupled with the disillusionment over the earlier overly optimistic reports of progress in the war accelerated the growing disenchantment with President Johnson's conduct of the war. Johnson, frustrated with his inability to reach a solution in Vietnam announced on March 31, 1968, that he would neither seek nor accept the nomination of his party for re-election. |
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1968 Apollo 14 departs for the Moon Apollo 14, piloted by astronauts Alan B. Shepard, Jr., Edgar D. Mitchell, and Stuart A. Roosa, is successfully launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida, on a manned mission to the moon. On February 5, after suffering some initial problems in docking the lunar and command modules, Shepard and Mitchell descend to the lunar surface on the third US moon landing. Upon stepping out of the lunar module, Shepard, who was the first American in space in 1961 aboard Freedom 7, becomes the fifth astronaut to walk on the moon. Shepard and Mitchell remain on the lunar surface for nearly thirty-four hours, conduct simple scientific experiments such as hitting golf balls into space with Shepard’s golf club, and collect ninety-six pounds of lunar samples. On February 9, Apollo 14 safely returns to earth. |
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1962 The OAS expels Cuba The Organization of American States (OAS) adopts a resolution to expel Cuba from its ranks for its attempted subversion of other OAS countries. The OAS, a regional agency initially comprising twenty-one North, South, and Central American nations, was established in 1948 to promote peace and economic development in the Americas. On January 1, 1959, after a bloody three-year civil war, Cuban rebel leader Fidel Castro seized power in Cuba and proclaimed himself premier of the island nation. The Organization of American States initially recognized the new leftist leader of Cuba, an important member state in the OAS, but grew critical of the Cuban dictator after he launched a program of agrarian reform, nationalized international assets on the island, and declared a Marxist government. In January of 1961, the US broke diplomatic relations with Cuba and three months later, with training and support by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), Cuban exiles launched an ill-fated invasion of Cuba, known as the "Bay of Pigs." In January of the next year, under pressure from the US, the OAS voted to expel Cuba from its ranks in an attempt to isolate Castor’s Communist regime. |
1961 NATO secretary-General Paul-Henri Spaak says he'll resign
1961 Ham is first primate in space (158 miles) aboard Mercury/Redstone 2
1958 James van Allen discovers radiation belt
1958 The US launches Explorer 1, the country's first satellite. Satellite communication would prove instrumental to the growth of wireless communications, including cell phones, pagers, cellular modems, and a variety of other mobile computing devices.
1957 Trans-Iranian oil pipe line finished
1956 French government of Mollet forms
1956 Juscelino Kubitschek becomes President of Brazil
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1950 Truman announces start of development of
the nuclear fusion bomb US President Harry S. Truman publicly announces that he ordered the Atomic Energy Commission to develop the nuclear fusion (“hydrogen”) bomb, a weapon theorized to be dozens of times more powerful than the atomic bombs dropped on Japan during World War II. Five months earlier, the United States had lost its nuclear supremacy when the Soviet Union successfully detonated an atomic bomb at their test site in Kazakhstan. Several weeks after that, British and US intelligence came to the staggering conclusion the German-born Klaus Fuchs, a top-ranking scientist in the US nuclear program, was a spy for the Soviet Union. These two events, and the fact that the Soviets now knew everything that the Americans did about how to build a hydrogen bomb, led Truman to approve massive funding for the superpower race to complete the world’s first "superbomb," as he described it in his public announcement on January 31, 1950. On November 1, 1952, the United States successfully detonated "Mike," the world’s first hydrogen bomb, on the Elugelab Atoll in the Pacific Marshall Islands. The 10.4-megaton thermonuclear device, built upon the Teller-Ulam principles of staged radiation implosion, instantly vaporized an entire island and left behind a crater a couple of kilometers wide. The incredible explosive force of Mike was also apparent from the sheer magnitude of its mushroom cloud — within ninety seconds the mushroom cloud climbed to 17'000 m and entered the stratosphere. One minute later it reached 33'000 m, eventually stabilizing at a ceiling of 36'500 feet. Half an hour after the test, the mushroom stretched 100 km across, with the base of the head joining the stem at 14'000 m. Two years later, on November 22, 1954, the Soviet Union would detonate its first hydrogen bomb on the same principle of radiation implosion. Both superpowers were now in possession of the "hell bomb," as it was known by many Americans, and the world lived under the threat of thermonuclear war for the first time in history. |
1945 US 4th Infantry division occupies Elcherrath
1944 During World War II, US forces begin invading Kwajalein Atoll and other parts of the Japanese-held Marshall Islands.
1944 Operation-Overlord (D-Day) postponed until June
1943 Chile breaks diplomatic relations with Germany and Japan
| General Friedrich von Paulus surrenders to Russian
troops at Stalingrad ^ 1943 Capitulation allemande à Stalingrad. Le maréchal Friedrich von Paulus signe la capitulation de la VIe armée allemande à Stalingrad. Ayant soumis l'Europe continentale au terme de plusieurs guerres-éclair, Hitler ne trouva que l'Angleterre de Winston Churchill pour lui résister pendant un an. Mais le 22 juin 1941, le dictateur allemand attaque son allié Staline. Ses troupes envahissent l'URSS et arrivent aux portes de Moscou et de Léningrad. Une partie de la Wehrmacht se dirige vers le sud et les gisements de pétrole du Caucase tandis que la VIe Armée de von Paulus oblique vers la ville de Stalingrad. Cette métropole industrielle située sur la Volga a changé son nom de Tsaritsyn pour celui du dictateur soviétique (la ville s'appelle aujourd'hui Volgograd, la "ville de la Volga"). Le Führer veut à tout prix s'en emparer. Stalingrad, qui s'étend sur 40 km, est conquise rue par rue pendant l'automne 1942, au prix d'immenses souffrances des deux côtés. Mais le chef d'état-major soviétique, le général Joukov, devine que les Allemands se sont avancés trop loin de leurs bases. Il regroupe ses forces et déclenche une puissante contre-offensive. Le 19 novembre, deux armées soviétiques se dirigent sur Stalingrad en empruntant la Volga gelée, l'une par le nord, l'autre par le sud. La VIe Armée allemande est bientôt emprisonnée dans sa conquête, une ville en ruine plongée dans le terrible hiver russe! Hitler interdit à von Paulus de faire retraite. En janvier, il le nomme maréchal pour le détourner du déshonneur de la capitulation. Mais von Paulus n'a bientôt plus d'autre solution que de se rendre avec les 90.000 soldats survivants du siège. Son armée aura perdu 400'000 hommes dont 120'000 prisonniers. La victoire des Soviétiques, trois mois après celle des Britanniques à El Alamein, soulève un immense espoir dans les pays soumis à l'occupation allemande. En démontrant la vulnérabilité des armées allemandes, la bataille de Stalingrad marque un tournant dans la Seconde Guerre mondiale. La défaite de Hitler devient inéluctable. Anniversaire: Franz Schubert est né à Vienne le 31 janvier 1797. Die in Stalingrad eingeschlossene 6. Armee unter dem noch schnell zum Generalfeldmarschall beförderten Paulus kapituliert mit über 300.000 Mann, die unterernährt und schlecht ausgerüstet in Gefangenschaft gehen. |
1942 62 U boats sunk this month (327'000 tons)
1942 Chrysler, Plymouth, and Studebaker Retool For War The last pre-war automobiles produced by Chrysler, Plymouth, and Studebaker rolled off the assembly lines today. Wartime restrictions had shut down the commercial automobile industry almost completely, and auto manufacturers were racing to retool their factories for military gear.
1941 21 U boats sunk this month (127'000 tons)
1940 40 U boats sunk this month (111'000 tons)
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1940 First monthly Social Security check. Ida May Fuller of Ludlow, Vermont, receives a $22.54 check from the Federal government.It is the first monthly retirement payment made under the Social Security Act. When the act initially passed in 1935, benefits were paid out in lump sums. But, with Fuller’s check, the government starts its program of doling out regular benefits to retired workers. For Fuller, it is simply the first in a series of payments that would lasted for the next thirty-five years: Before dying at age 100 in 1975, Fuller would received regular payments totaling $22'000. |
1933 French government of Daladier takes power
1933 Hitler promises parliamentary democracy
1929 Leon Trotsky expelled from Russia to Turkey
1927 International allies military command in Germany disbands
1925 Premier Ahmed Zogu becomes President of Angola
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1917 Germany announces that its U-boats will
attack neutral ships. Germany's admiral Tirpitz announces the renewal of unlimited submarine warfare in the Atlantic, and German torpedo-armed submarines prepare to attack any and all ships, including civilian passenger carriers, said to be sited in war-zone waters. Three days later, the United States broke diplomatic relations with Germany, and just hours after that the American liner Housatonic was sunk by a German U-boat. None of the 25 Americans on board were killed, and all were later picked up by a British steamer. When World War I erupted in 1914, President Woodrow Wilson pledged neutrality for the United States, a position that the vast majority of Americans favored. Britain, however, was one of America's closest trading partners, and tension soon arose between the United States and Germany over the latter's attempted quarantine of the British isles. Several US ships traveling to Britain were damaged or sunk by German mines, and in February 1915 Germany announced unrestricted warfare against all ships, neutral or otherwise, that entered the war zone around Britain. One month later, Germany announced that a German cruiser had sunk the William P. Frye, a private American vessel that was transporting grain to England when it disappeared. President Wilson was outraged, but the German government apologized and called the attack an unfortunate mistake. The Germans' most formidable naval weapon was the U-boat, a submarine far more sophisticated than those built by other nations at the time. The typical U-boat was 214 feet long, carried 35 men and 12 torpedoes, and could travel underwater for two hours at a time. In the first few years of World War I, the U-boats took a terrible toll on Allied shipping. In early May 1915, several New York newspapers published a warning by the German embassy in Washington that Americans traveling on British or Allied ships in war zones did so at their own risk. The announcement was placed on the same page as an advertisement of the imminent sailing of the British-owned Lusitania ocean liner from New York to Liverpool. On May 7, the Lusitania was torpedoed without warning just off the coast of Ireland. Of the 1959 passengers, 1198 were killed, including 128 Americans. The German government maintained that the Lusitania was carrying munitions, but the US demanded reparations and an end to German attacks on unarmed passenger and merchant ships. In August, Germany pledged to see to the safety of passengers before sinking unarmed vessels but in November sunk an Italian liner without warning, killing 272 people, including 27 Americans. Public opinion in the United States began to turn irrevocably against Germany. In 1917, Germany, determined to win its war of attrition against the Allies, announces the resumption of unrestricted warfare. The United States would break off diplomatic relations with Germany on 3 February, and on 22 February Congress would pass a $250 million arms appropriations bill intended to make the United States ready for war. Two days later, British authorities gave the US ambassador to Britain a copy of the "Zimmermann Note," a coded message from German foreign secretary Arthur Zimmermann to Count Johann von Bernstorff, the German ambassador to Mexico. In the telegram, intercepted and deciphered by British intelligence, Zimmermann stated that, in the event of war with the United States, Mexico should be asked to enter the conflict as a German ally. In return, Germany promised to restore to Mexico the lost territories of Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona. On March 1, the US State Department published the note, and American public opinion was galvanized against Germany. In late March, Germany sunk four more US merchant ships, and on April 2 President Wilson appeared before Congress and called for a declaration of war against Germany. On April 4, the Senate voted 82 to six to declare war against Germany. Two days later, the House of Representatives endorsed the declaration by a vote of 373 to 50, and America formally entered World War I. On June 26, the first 14,000 US infantry troops landed in France to begin training for combat. After four years of bloody stalemate along the western front, the entrance of America's well-supplied forces into the conflict was a major turning point in the war. When the war finally ended, on 11 November 11, more than two million American soldiers had served on the battlefields of Western Europe, and some 50'000 of these men had lost their lives. |
1906 Strongest instrumentally recorded earthquake, Colombia, 8.6 Richter
1905 first auto to exceed 100 mph (161 kph), A G MacDonald, Daytona Beach
1901 Boer Generals Jan Smuts and De la Rey conquer Mud river Transvaal, during the South African war.
1895 José Martí and others leave New York City NY for invasion of Spanish Cuba
1871 Millions of birds fly over western San Francisco, darken the sky
1865 US House of Representatives passes 13th Amendment, abolishing slavery (121-24)
1865 General Robert E Lee named Commander-in-Chief of Confederate Armies
1865 Robert Edward Lee named General-in-Chief of all Confederate armies
1863 Confederate ironclads temporarily break the blockade at Charleston Harbor, South Carolina
1863 first black Civil War regiment, SC Volunteers, mustered into US army
1846 Corn Laws abolished in Britain
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1795 Hamilton resigns as US Treasury Secretary.
Wounded by the sharp criticism of his colleagues, Alexander Hamilton resigned his post as the Secretary of the Treasury on this day in 1795. During his run as the first US Treasury Secretary, Hamilton put his conservative stamp on the young nation’s finances, establishing a national bank and a tax-based system to fuel the repayment of national and foreign debts. Hamilton also pushed for the Federal government to assume full responsibility for debts incurred by the states during the Revolutionary War. However, Hamilton’s Federalist ardor was a frequent target for controversy, as was his role in meting out the country’s neutrality stance during the early stages of the Napoleonic Wars. Hamilton’s involvement in the latter bit of policy drew particularly heavy fire and helped seal his departure from office. And so, Hamilton putatively retired to lick his wounds and count his vast personal fortune. But, the siren call of politics proved irresistible and Hamilton served a long stint as an unofficial presidential advisor. |
1627 Spanish government goes bankrupt
1596 Catholic League disjoins
1531 Kings Ferdinand of Austria/János Zápolyai of Hungary accept each other
1504 By treaty of Lyons, French cede Naples to Ferdinand of Aragon
0993 St. Ulrich, who lived 890-973, and was Bishop of Augsburg from 923, was canonized at a Lateran Synod. With this action by Pope John XV, St. Ulrich became the first individual in Roman Catholic history formally elevated to sainthood.
0876 Charles becomes king of Italy
0314 St Sylvester I begins his reign as Pope
2003
Philip Johannes Hendrik 
1996:
88 persons, in one of the worst attacks in Sri Lanka's civil war,
as a truck packed with explosives rams into the central bank and explodes.
1400 others are wounded.
