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Events, deaths, births, of 23 NOV
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On a November 23:
Shevardnadze announcing resignation
2003 Eduard Shevardnadze, 75, resigns as President of Georgia [photo >], forced by the refusal of the security forces to repress overwhelming mass demonstrations following the 02 November parliamentary election fraudulently claimed as a victory by the parties supporting him. Opposition leader Nino Burdzhanadze will serve as acting president, with limited powers, and new parliament elections will be held within 45 days.

2003:: 14'603 Tai Chi practitioners [11'063 of them are seen in the photo below] set a new world record in Taipei for the largest demonstration of the ancient Chinese martial arts exercise. Dressed in white polo shirts and flowing black kung fu trousers, the enthusiasts gather in front of the Chiang Kai Shek Memorial Hall for a 30-minute demonstration of Tai Chi's slow, smooth, and precise movements. "I've been practicing Tai Chi for 71 years because it helps longevity and good health," 85-year-old Shui Ti-chiu, the oldest man in the group, said. "Tai Chi is good for you, whether you're old or young. I practise every morning and every evening, for one-and-a-half to two hours at a time," says the rosy-cheeked octogenarian, dressed in white silk kung fu robes. As traditional Chinese music blares from loudspeakers, the practitioners demonstrate 13 Tai Chi postures, synchronized with breathing exercises. A representative of the Guinness Book of World Records declares the gathering a new world record, breaking the previous record set by a 10'425-person Tai Chi demonstration in Hong Kong on 02 December 2001. Tai Chi usually draws older enthusiasts who take it up for reasons of health, but has become increasingly popular with younger people. The youngest participant today is six-year-old Chien Chia-teh, who says that he has been learning Tai Chi with his parents for 14 months, and skilfully keeps up with the synchronized sequences. "It's fun but it's also tiring," Chien says. {There is no information on how the participants were counted, nor on how long it took, nor on whether some left or arrived during the counting}

2003 Total eclipse of the sun of 1m57s, visible in Antarctica.
2001 At the conclusion of a 2-week session, the UN Committee against Torture, citing numerous allegations that Israeli law enforcement officials torture or mistreat Palestinian detainees, urges Israel the country to prevent abuses. It also urges Israel to review its laws and policies to ensure that all detainees were brought promptly before a judge and ensured prompt access to lawyers to ensure against mistreatment while they were held incommunicado, or in administrative detention which can last years. The committee also examined the records of Indonesia, Ukraine, Benin and Zambia.
2000 In a setback for Al Gore, the Florida Supreme Court refused to order Miami-Dade county officials to resume hand-counting election-day ballots. Meanwhile, Gore's lawyers argued in a brief filed with the US Supreme Court that the high court should stay out of the Florida election controversy.
2000 El Gobierno de Grecia recibe del Tribunal Europeo de Derechos Humanos de Estrasburgo un fallo condenatorio por la confiscación de las propiedades de la familia real, exiliada del país desde 1967.
2000 Más de 900.000 manifestantes recorren las calles de Barcelona para protestar por el asesinato del ex ministro Ernest Lluch y reclamar a los gobiernos, central y vasco, la apertura de un nuevo frente de diálogo para buscar la paz.
1998 At its antitrust trial on this day in 1998, Microsoft argued that a proposed merger between America Online and Netscape should be taken as proof that no single company could control technological development. The following day, Microsoft would ask a federal judge to dismiss the case on the basis of the merger, which was formally announced on November 24. Microsoft's request was refused.
1998 Hewlett-Packard reviews operations
      Newspapers reported that Hewlett-Packard had brought in outside consultants to rethink the company's future and was considering a sweeping change in its business strategies. The company, an early pioneer in the electronics industry, launched a long tradition of Silicon Valley garage entrepreneurship when David Packard and William Hewlett set up the company in Packard's garage in 1939. Hewlett-Packard became the world's largest producer of electrical-testing and measurement equipment and later became an important manufacturer of computers and printers. However, the company's growth had stalled in 1996, prompting its CEO to reassess all of the company's business lines.
1997 Se celebran elecciones legislativas en la República Serbia de Bosnia con una muy baja participación. El líder del Partido Democrático Serbio (PDS), Radovan Karadzic, pierde la mayoría absoluta en el Parlamento.
1997 Se celebran las segundas elecciones presidenciales en Eslovenia desde su independencia. El presidente Milan Kucan, un ex comunista que se presenta como independiente, consigue el 62% de los votos.
1997 Yamaichi Securities, la cuarta agencia de valores y bolsa de Japón, suspende sus operaciones, en lo que se considera la mayor quiebra sufrida por una agencia de valores nipona desde la Segunda Guerra Mundial .
1997 Winnie Mandela, la que fuera esposa del líder del CNA en Sudáfrica, declara ante la Comisión de la Verdad y la Reconciliación acusada de ocho asesinatos.
1996 It is discovered that 2^1'398'269 – 1 is a Mersenne prime (the 35th) (Mersenne prime numbers are primes of the form 2^n – 1, which requires n to be prime; and it is equivalent to [2^(n–1)]×(2^n – 1) being equal to the sum of its factors other than itself, i.e. a “perfect number”). They can all be found (with their date of discovery) at http://www.isthe.com/chongo/tech/math/prime/mersenne.html.
1996 A hijacker forced an Ethiopian 767 jetliner to fly until it ran out of fuel. The aircraft crashed into the sea.
1995 Bosnian Serbs accept Daytona Peace Plan
      Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic reluctantly accepts the US-backed peace plan proposed during talks in Dayton, Ohio, to end four years of bloody conflict in the former Yugoslavia. Karadzic's acceptance of the Dayton peace plan follows the backing of the proposal by Serbian president Slobodan Milosevic and Bosnian president Alija Izetbegovic, and was the last major obstacle in establishing peace in Bosnia and ending UN sanctions. The peace plan recognizes the Serbian government within Bosnia in exchange for the abandonment of Bosnian Serb claims to sections of northwest Bosnia and the city of Sarajevo. The Dayton Peace Accords are officially signed in the next month and the UN responds by lifting economic sanctions and granting approval for a NATO-led peacekeeping mission to Bosnia to enforce the agreement.
1995 El pleno del Congreso español concede el suplicatorio para que el ex ministro del Interior José Barrionuevo Peña comparezca ante la Justicia por su presunta relación con los GAL (Grupos Antiterroristas de Liberación)
1995 El académico de la Historia Gonzalo Anes y Alvarez de Castrillón obtiene el Premio Nacional español de Historia por su obra El siglo de las luces.
1993 US President Clinton signed legislation repealing US sanctions against South Africa.
1992 The US lowers its flag over the last American base in the Philippines, ending nearly a century of military presence in its former colony.
1991 Serbian, Croatian and Yugoslav leaders signed a UN-mediated ceasefire accord, the 14th of the Balkan civil war. It didn't last.
1988 Miklós Németh sucede a Károly Grósz al frente del Gobierno húngaro.
1988 South Africa: Botha reprieves Sharpeville Six
1987 Daily price limits at Chicago Board of Trade
      With Wall Street still feeling the effects of the record crash of October 1987, futures exchanges scrambled to prevent any more precipitous declines. On this day in 1987, the Chicago Board of Trade took its own precautionary steps, implementing a daily price change limits on the Major Market Index future, as well as the Institutional Index future. Under these limits, the 20 stocks on the Major and Institutional indices were restricted to moves of no more than 40 and 25 points, respectively. Following the October debacle, Wall Street officials came under fire for failing to reign in and regulate index-futures trading; the move by the Chicago Board was a step toward quieting these claims, as well as holding off potential legislative action by Congress or Federal officials.
1985 Retired CIA analyst Larry Wu-tai Chin, arrested for spying for China
1984 El poeta catalán Josep Vicenç Foix obtiene el Primer Premio Nacional de las Letras Españolas.
1983 La URSS interrumpe oficialmente las negociaciones con EE.UU. sobre reducción de armamento estratégico de alcance medio.
1981 Reagan orders CIA covert action against Nicaragua.
     US President Ronald Reagan signs a top secret document, National Security Decision Directive 17 (NSDD-17), which gives the Central Intelligence Agency the power to recruit and support a 500-man force of Nicaraguan rebels to conduct covert actions against the leftist Sandinista regime in Nicaragua. A budget of $19 million was established for that purpose. NSDD-17 marked the beginning of official US support for the so-called Contras in their struggle against the Sandinistas.
      The decision came several months after President Reagan directed the CIA to develop a plan to stop what his administration believed to be a serious flow of arms from Nicaragua to rebels in neighboring El Salvador. The administration also believed that the Sandinista regime was merely a cat's paw for the Soviet Union. CIA officials subsequently set about securing pledges from Honduras to provide training bases and Argentina to give training to about 1,000 rebels (these would be in addition to the 500-man force trained and supplied by the CIA). Beyond the original goal of halting the flow of arms from Nicaragua, the tasks of the rebels were expanded to include spy missions and even paramilitary actions inside Nicaragua.
      News of the directive leaked out to the press in March 1982, but Reagan administration officials quickly downplayed the significance of the action. They argued that the CIA plan was designed to support Nicaraguan "moderates" who opposed the Sandinista regime, not the disreputable former soldiers and allies of Anastasio Somoza, whom the Sandinista overthrew in 1979. Deputy Director of the CIA Admiral Bobby R. Inman argued that the $19 million allocation provided little buying power for arms and other materials, saying that "Nineteen million or $29 million isn't going to buy you much of any kind these days, and certainly not against that kind of military force." In the years to come, US support of the Contras became a highly charged issue among the American public. Congressional and public criticisms of the program eventually drove the Reagan administration to subvert congressional bans on aid to the Contras. These actions resulted in what came to be known as the Iran-Contra scandal of 1986.
1981 El escritor mexicano Octavio Paz Lozano obtiene el premio Cervantes de Literatura.
1981 Francia, Reino Unido, Italia y los Países Bajos anuncian que están dispuestos a enviar "cascos azules" al Sinaí.
1979 IRA assassin sentenced to life imprisonment
      In Dublin, Thomas McMahon, a member of the Irish Republican Army (IRA), is sentenced to life in prison for his responsibility in the bombing deaths of Lord Louis Mountbatten and three others several months before. Mountbatten, a great-grandson of Queen Victoria, was an Allied commander in World War II, and as the last viceroy in India, assisted in the transition to Indian independence. In 1959, he became the chief of Britain's military staff. On 27 August 1979, Mountbatten's fishing yacht was exploded by an IRA bomb off of Mullaghmore, Ireland, killing him, his grandson, and two other royal relatives. After his sentencing, McMahon is sent to Mountjoy prison in Ireland, where he begins serving his life sentence. However, in 1998 he is freed as part of a Northern Ireland peace accord that approves the release of more than 400 convicted members of Irish paramilitary groups.
      Thomas McMahon, a member of the Irish Republican Army (IRA), is sentenced to life imprisonment for preparing and planting the bomb that killed Lord Louis Mountbatten and three others three months before. On 27 August 1979, Lord Mountbatten was killed when McMahon and other IRA terrorists detonated a 50-pound bomb hidden on his fishing vessel Shadow V. Mountbatten, a World War II hero, elder statesman, and second cousin of Queen Elizabeth II, was spending the day with his family in Donegal Bay off Ireland's northwest coast when the bomb exploded. Three others were killed in the attack, including Mountbatten's 14-year-old grandson, Nicholas. Later that day, an IRA bombing attack on land killed 18 British paratroopers in County Down, Northern Ireland.
      The assassination of Mountbatten was the first blow struck against the British royal family by the IRA during its long terrorist campaign to drive the British out of Northern Ireland and unite it with the Republic of Ireland to the south. The attack hardened the hearts of many Britons against the IRA and convinced Margaret Thatcher's government to take a hard-line stance against the terrorist organization.
      The IRA immediately claimed responsibility for the Mountbatten attack, saying it detonated the bomb by remote control from the coast. It also took responsibility for the same-day bombing attack against British troops in County Down, which claimed 18 lives.
      IRA member Thomas McMahon was later arrested and convicted for his role in the Mountbatten bombing. A near-legend in the IRA, he was a leader of the IRA's notorious South Armagh Brigade, which killed more than 100 British soldiers. He was one of the first IRA members to be sent to Libya to study detonators and timing devices and was an expert in explosives. Authorities believe the Mountbatten assassination was the work of many people, but McMahon was the only individual convicted.
      Sentenced to life in prison, he was released in 1998, along with other IRA and Unionist terrorists, under a controversial provision of the Good Friday Agreement, Northern Ireland's peace deal. McMahon claimed he had turned his back on the IRA and was becoming a carpenter.
1973 El gobierno militar de Chile devuelve a la iniciativa privada 48 empresas nacionalizadas durante el régimen de Salvador Allende Gossens.
1972 El presidente boliviano Hugo Banzer Suárez declara el estado de emergencia en el país, ante la huelga general obrera.
1972 Dimite el Gobierno belga, presidido por Gaston Eyskens, por divergencia de criterios en las discusiones sobre los idiomas del país.
1972 Vietnam peace talks deadlocked
      Secret peace talks resume in Paris between Henry Kissinger and Le Duc Tho, the North Vietnamese representative, but almost immediately reach an impasse. The sticking points were the implementation of the international supervisory force and Saigon's insistence on the withdrawal of all North Vietnamese troops from South Vietnam. When the talks became hopelessly deadlocked, President Nixon ordered what became known as the "Christmas bombing" to force the North Vietnamese back to the negotiating table. Nixon halted the bombing when the communists agreed to return to Paris; a peace agreement was signed in January 1973. Because the United States was in such a hurry to end American participation in the war, the insistence on the withdrawal of North Vietnamese troops from South Vietnam ceased to be an issue. More than 100'000 communist troops were left in the south when the cease-fire went into effect. This played a major role in the fall of South Vietnam to the communists in April 1975.
1971 The People's Republic of China is seated in UN Security Council
1970 Failed US raid to rescue POWs in Vietnam revealed
      Secretary of Defense Melvin Laird discloses the November 21 US raid on the North Vietnamese prison camp at Son Tay. On November 21, a combined Air Force and Army team of 40 Americans — led by Army Colonel "Bull" Simons — conducted a raid on the Son Tay prison camp, 23 miles west of Hanoi, in an attempt to free between 70 and 100 American suspected of being held there. The raid was conducted almost flawlessly, but no prisoners of war were found in the camp. They had been moved earlier to other locations. Laird revealed that approximately one hour after the raid took place, US aircraft (200 fighter bombers and 100 support aircraft) inflicted the most severe bombing raids in two years on North Vietnam as retaliation for the shooting down of US reconnaissance aircraft. Hanoi Radio reported that "wave after wave" of US bombers attacked North Vietnam and said that the planes struck at targets ranging from Haiphong to Hoa Binh province, southeast of Hanoi.
1970 Pope Paul VI issued a decree barring cardinals over the age of 80 from voting for a new pope.
1969 The first space-to-ground news conference is telecast. Reporters in Houston submit written questions to a lieutenant at the Houston NASA base, who read them to astronauts aboard Apollo 12. The space capsule returns to Earth the next day.
1966 Liu Shaoqi, presidente de la República Popular China, es acusado por los guardias rojos.
1959 Birdman of Alcatraz out of solitary after 43 years
      Robert Stroud, the famous "Birdman of Alcatraz," is released from solitary confinement for the first time since 1916. Stroud gained widespread fame and attention when author Thomas Gaddis wrote a biography that trumpeted Stroud's ornithological expertise. Stroud was first sent to prison in 1909 after he killed a bartender in a brawl. He had nearly completed his sentence at Leavenworth Federal Prison in Kansas when he stabbed a guard to death in 1915. Though he claimed to have acted in self-defense, he was convicted and sentenced to hang. A handwritten plea by Stroud's mother to President Woodrow Wilson earned Stroud a commuted sentence of life in permanent solitary confinement. For the next 15 years, Stroud lived amongst the canaries that were brought to him by visitors, and became an expert in birds and ornithological diseases. But after being ordered to give up his birds in 1931, he redirected his energies to writing about them and published his first book on ornithology two years later. When the publisher failed to pay Stroud royalties because he was barred from filing suit, Stroud took out advertisements complaining about the situation. Prison officials retaliated by sending him to Alcatraz, the federal prison with the worst conditions. In 1943, Stroud's Digest of the Diseases of Birds, a 500-page text that included his own illustrations, was published to general acclaim. In spite of his success, Stroud was depressed over the isolation he felt at Alcatraz, and he attempted suicide several times. The legendary "Birdman of Alcatraz" died in a Missouri prison in 1963 at the age of 73.
1955 British transfer Cocos (Keeling) Is in Indian Ocean to Australia
1954 China announced it had convicted 11 American airmen and two civilians of espionage.
1954 El primer ministro británico Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill declara que hacia el final de la Segunda Guerra Mundial había intentado armar soldados alemanes para que luchasen contra la Unión Soviética. (???)
1953 North Korea signs 10-year aid pact with Peking.
1947 E. L. Sukenik of Jerusalem's Hebrew University first received word of the existence of the Dead Sea Scrolls. The documents, dating between 200 BC and AD 70, had been accidentally discovered the previous winter (1946_47) by two Bedouin shepherds in the vicinity of Qumran.
1947 Robert Schuman forma en París un Gobierno social-republicano-popular.
1945 World War II rationing of meat and butter ends in the US, leaving sugar the only rationed food..
1943 US Marines seize control of Tarawa and Makin (Gilbert Islands) from Japanese, following a fierce 76-hour battle. Terror and Survival at Tarawa
1941 US troops move into Dutch Guiana to guard the bauxite mines. — Tropas estadounidenses ocupan la Guayana holandesa para proteger las minas de bauxita.
1940 Bélgica (??? ocupada por Alemania !!! gobierno en exilio???) declara la guerra a Italia en el transcurso de la Segunda Guerra Mundial. (???)
1940 Se aprueba en España la Ley de Organización Sindical, en la que se explica que el país está concebido como "un gigantesco sindicato de productores, donde la sindicación viene a ser la forma política de la economía entera". Ese aspecto totalitario en lo económico está bajo el mando de la Delegación Nacional de Sindicatos de FET (Falange Española de Trabajadores) y de la JONS (Juntas de Ofensiva Nacional Sindicalistas).
1936 The United States abandons its embassy in Madrid, as Spain's civil war rages.
1934 The United States and Great Britain agree on a 5-5-3 naval ratio, with both countries allowed to build five million tons of naval ships while Japan can only build three. Japan will denounce the treaty.
1934 Des inspecteurs italiens sont agressés aux confins de leur colonie de Somalia et de l'empire d'Ethiopie. C'est le prétexte d'une plainte de l'Italie auprès de la Société des Nations. Un an et demi plus tard, Mussolini lance son armée à la conquête de l'Ethiopie.
1933 US President Franklin D. Roosevelt recalls the American ambassador from Havana, Cuba, and urges stability in the island nation.
1924 Depuis la veille, les cendres de Jean Jaurès ont été ramenées d'Albi. Paris se presse sur le parcours pour voir passer le catafalque. Au début de l'après-midi se forme un long cortège, beaucoup sont présent, on compte plusieurs délégations françaises et étrangères de la Ligue des droits de l'homme et du Grand Orient de France. Le cercueil est porté par vingt-quatre mineurs venus de Carmaux. La procession remonte la rue Soufflot vers le Panthéon, où attendent le président de la République, le président du Conseil et le gouvernement au grand complet. Si le Cartel des gauches peut prouver par cette manifestation son unité, la droite qualifie quant à elle ce transfert de " saturnales révolutionnaires ".
1921 President Warren G. Harding signs the Willis Campell Act, better known as the anti-beer bill. It forbids physicians to prescribe beer or liquor for medicinal purposes.
1920 La CNT (Confederación Nacional del Trabajo) es declarada ilegal en España.
1916 Alexander Trepov reemplaza al protegido de Rasputín, Boris Sturmer, como presidente del Consejo de Ministros ruso.
1909 The Wright brothers form a million-dollar corporation for the commercial manufacture of their airplanes.
1904 Russo-German talks break down because Russia insists on consulting France.
1903 Colorado governor sends militia to cripple miners' union
      Determined to crush the union of the Western Federation of Miners (WFM), Colorado Governor James Peabody sends the state militia into the mining town of Cripple Creek. The strike in the gold mines of Cripple Creek began that summer. William "Big Bill" Haywood's Western Federation of Miners called for a sympathy strike among the underground miners to support a smelter workers' strike for an eight-hour day. The WFM, which was founded in 1893 in Montana, had already been involved in several violent strikes in Colorado and Idaho. By the end of October, the call for action at Cripple Creek had worked, and a majority of mine and smelter workers were idle; Cripple Creek operations ground to a halt.
      Eager to resume mining and break the union, the mine owners turned to Governor Peabody, who agreed to provide state militia protection for replacement workers. Outraged, the miners barricaded roads and railways, but by the end of September more than a thousand armed men were in Cripple Creek to undermine the strike. Soldiers began to round up union members and their sympathizers — including the entire staff of a pro-union newspaper — and imprison them without any charges or evidence of wrongdoing. When miners complained that the imprisonment was a violation of their constitutional rights, one anti-union judge replied, "To hell with the Constitution; we're not following the Constitution!"
      Such tyrannical tactics swung control of the strike to the more radical elements in the WFM, and in June 1904, Harry Orchard, a professional terrorist employed by the union, blew up a railroad station, which killed 13 strikebreakers. This recourse to terrorism proved a serious tactical mistake. The bombing turned public opinion against the union, and the mine owners were able to freely arrest and deport the majority of the WFM leaders. By midsummer, the strike was over and the WFM never again regained the power it had previously enjoyed in the Colorado mining districts.
1900 Exposición de Claude Monet en París.
1897 Ransom Olds issued patent for "motor carriage"
      Ransom Eli Olds of Lansing, Michigan, is issued a US patent for his "motor carriage," a gasoline-powered vehicle that he constructed the year before. In 1887, when he was only eighteen, Olds built his first automobile, a steam-propelled three-wheeled vehicle. However, Olds soon recognized the advantages of an engine powered by gasoline, an abundant fuel source that was safer and more reliable than steam. Two months before receiving his patent, Olds had formed the Olds Motor Vehicle Company, a company that grew into the Olds Motors Works in 1899 with the assistance of private investor Samuel L. Smith.
      After designing a number of prototypes, Olds and his company finally settled on the Olds Runabout in 1901. The Runabout was a small, motorized buggy with a curved dashboard and lightweight wheels, and was powered by a one-cylinder engine capable of reaching 30 km/h. Perhaps out of financial necessity, Olds contracted with other companies to construct various parts for the Runabout, a production technique that differed from the current industry practice of individually hand-crafting each vehicle. Olds's new production method, a prototype of assembly line production, proved a great success, and Olds Motor Works sold 425 Oldsmobile Runabouts in the first year of business, 2500 in the next, and peaked in 1904 with sales in excess of 5000 vehicles
1890 La reine Wilhemine des Pays Bas monte sur le trône: La jeune reine (elle n'a que dix ans) gouverne d'abord sous la tutelle de sa mère. Son règne personnel, qui commence en 1898, verra se succèder deux guerres mondiales. Reine énergique, elle refusera de capituler devant l'invasion allemande de 1940. Réfugiée à Londres, elle incitera son peuple à la résistance. Elle abdiquera en 1948 en faveur de sa fille Juliana.
1890 The independent Grand Duchy of Luxembourg was separated from the Netherlands.
1876 "Boss" Tweed delivered to authorities
      William Marcy "Boss" Tweed, leader of New York City's corrupt Tammany Hall political organization during the 1860s and early 1870s, is delivered to authorities in New York City after his capture in Spain. Tweed, one of the most notorious of all late nineteenth-century corrupt politicians, first became a powerful figure in Tammany Hall — New York City's Democratic political machine — in the late 1850s. By the mid 1860s, he had risen to the top position in the organization and formed the Tweed Ring, which openly bought votes, encouraged judicial corruption, extracted millions from city contracts, and dominated New York City politics. The Tweed Ring reached its peak of fraudulence in 1871 with the remodeling of the City Court House, a blatant embezzlement of city funds that was exposed by The New York Times. Tweed and his flunkies hoped the criticism would blow over, but thanks to the efforts of opponents such as Harper's Weekly political cartoonist Thomas Nast, who led an effective crusade against Tweed, virtually every Tammany Hall member was swept from power in elections in the November of 1871. All of the Tweed Ring were subsequently tried and sentenced to prison, but "Boss" Tweed himself escaped to Spain, where, five years later, Spanish police reportedly recognized him from a famous Nash cartoon depiction. After Tweed's extradition to the US, he is sent to serve out his sentence in a New York prison, where he dies two years later.
1863 Battle of Chattanooga begins — Durante la Guerra de Secesión norteamericana, el general Grant derrota a los sudistas del general Braxton en Chattanooga, en las fronteras del Tennessee.
1863 Major General George Thomas's Union forces drive the Confederates out of Orchard Knob, Tennessee
1863 Siege of Knoxville, Tennessee continues
1863 The Battle of Chattanooga, one of the most decisive battles of the American Civil War, begins (in Tennessee).
1860 As the "Banking Panic" of 1857 continues, the New York Clearing House makes its first loan, issuing $7.375 million worth of certificates to the nation's ailing banks
1852 Le Moniteur anuncia la elección de Napoleón III como emperador de Francia, "por la gracia de Dios y la voluntad nacional".
1852 Just past midnight, a sharp jolt causes Lake Merced to drop 30' (9m)
1832 French take Antwerp in liberation of Belgium
1785 John Hancock is elected president of the Continental Congress for the second time.
1765 People of Frederick County MD refuse to pay England's Stamp tax
1654 Blaise Pascal's conversion
     French mathematician Blaise Pascal, 31, undergoes a profound religious conversion. He thereupon abandons his study of science, having realized that "the Christian religion obliges us to live only for God, and to have no other aim than him."
      Whenever we see a genius who has many talents — a Leonardo da Vinci, Thomas Jefferson, or Benjamin Franklin — we call him a Renaissance man. If you knew Blaise Pascal of France, you probably would describe him as a Renaissance man. He was a prominent mathematician, physicist, inventor, and Christian writer. He made important contributions to geometry, calculus, and developed the theory of probability. In physics, Pascal's law is the basis for all modern hydraulic operations. At l9, he invented the first calculator. The computer language known as PASCAL was named after him.
      On this day, November 23, 1654, Pascal experienced a Christian conversion that would cause his outstanding scientific work to take second place in his pursuits. For the rest of his life Pascal carried around a piece of parchment sewn into his coat describing how he had experienced God's forgiveness of his sins. From that day forward, Blaise Pascal decided he must live only for God. He started out by giving much more to the poor.
      Pascal closely associated himself with the Jansenists, a group of Catholics that emphasized morality in all aspects of life. In 1657 Pascal published his Provincial Letters which criticized the moral teaching of the Jesuits, the rationalism of Descartes, and Montaigne's skepticism, and urged a return to the Augustine's doctrine of grace. Voltaire described the collection as "the first work of genius to appear in France", and it continues to be recognized as remarkably beautiful French literature.
      Pascal also wrote that we come to know God's truth not only by reason, but even more through the heart by faith. It is through our heart that we come to know God and to love Him. It is by faith that we we can come to know Christ — and God alone gives us faith.
     Dans la nuit, Blaise Pascal, 31 ans, éprouve une violente expérience mystique. Le savant va dès lors se rapprocher des jansénistes de Port-Royal et se consacrer à la réflexion théologique. Participant à la querelle des jansénistes et des jésuites, il publie deux ans plus tard un célèbre pamphlet, Les Provinciales.
Les Provinciales ou Les lettres écrites par Louis de Montalte à un provincial de ses amis & aux RR. PP. Jésuites sur le sujet de la morale, & de la politique de ces Pères
Pensées
PASCAL ONLINE (in English translations):
Thoughts, Thoughts, Thoughts, The Provincial Letters
1535 Enrique III de Inglaterra consigue que el Parlamento confirme la supremacía eclesiástica que este rey se atribuye a sí mismo.
1248 The city of Seville surrenders to Ferdinand III of Castile after a two-year siege.— Conquista de Sevilla por el rey Fernando III el Santo, Rey de Castilla y de León.
1165 The Normans conduct Pope Alexander III back to Rome. http://gallica.bnf.fr/Fonds_Textes/T0101478.htm
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Deaths which occurred on a November 23:
2002 Roberto Sebastián Antonio Matta Echaurren, Surrealist painter, born in Chile on 11 November 1911, active mostly in France. — MORE ON MATTA AT ART “4” NOVEMBER with links to images.
2002 Ramón Gil Ostoaga is found dead in a wood in Spain, next to a shotgun belonging to his brother. A member of ETA (Euskadi Ta Askatasuna), he had been freed by Judge Ruth Alonso in October 2002 after serving 12 years of a 298-year prison sentence for six murders.
2002 R. Anbarasan, 23, Malaysian snake charmer (since the age of 19), three hours after being bitten by the cobra he had pulled out by the tail when it refused to be “charmed” out of its box, during a show on Batam island, Indonesia.
2001 The 2 brothers Ahmad and Mahmoun Rashid Hashaika, and Mahmoud Abu Hanoud, 34, by 6 Israeli missiles and machine-gin fire from helicopters at two cars next to the village of Kfar Farah, close to the West Bank city of Nablus. The first two are Hamas activists from the village of Tallouza near Nablus. The third man is on Israel's most-wanted list as head of Izzedine al Qassam, Hamas' military wing .Ahmad is his deputy. Israel has tried to capture Abu Hanoud in the past. In August 2000, three Israeli undercover troops were killed by friendly fire in a botched attempt to arrest Abu Hanoud in his home village of Assira al-Shamaliya near Nablus. Abu Hanoud fled and was taken into custody by the Palestinian Authority. In May 2001, he was injured when Israeli warplanes retaliating for a suicide attack at a shopping mall in Israel bombed the Nablus prison where he was being held. Israel said he was released after the air strike.
2001 Mohammed Salam Samani, 21, and Mohammed Ibrahim Samani, 21, Fatah activists, close to the village of Beit Iba, in an area under Israeli security control in the West Bank, as the explosive device they are building explodes.
2001 Wael Radwan, 15, Palestinian shot by Israeli soldiers near Khan Younis refugee camp, Gaza Strip, when, during a protest against the death of five children the previous day, he was throwing stones toward the soldiers guarding an enclave settlement.
2000 T. Puroshottam, throat slit presumably by police in plain clothes.
     The Joint Secretary of the Andhra Pradesh Civil Liberties Committee (APCLC) is attacked by a group of unidentified men wielding knives when he went to a local shop to buy soap in the morning. His throat was slit and he died instantly. The human rights defender who was involved in numerous investigations into alleged human rights violations by police including torture and extrajudicial executions, has been attacked in the past and has received persistent threatening phone calls. In May 1997 he was attacked in front of a police station in Mahaboobnagar district. He claimed that his attackers were police in plain clothes. At a meeting in December 1999 in Bangalore, he spoke of the continuing dangers faced by human rights defenders in Andhra Pradesh, several of whom were killed in the 1980s and early 1990s. The APCLC has claimed that police have been actively involved in attacks on human rights defenders and have employed ex-members of armed groups in their operations.
2000 Edward Matchnik, 21, Israeli army lieutenant, in a Palestinian bomb attack on the district Israeli-Palestinian coordinating office in Neveh Dekalim's industrial area. He had immigrated from Ukraine in 1990, together with his physician parents and younger sister.
2000 Samer Hussein, 19, from the Druze village of Hurfeish, Israeli army sergeant, killed by Palestinian snipers while on patrol near the Erez checkpoint. Mourners urged Barak to end the violence. Unfortunately both sides only think of revenge, so that the violence keeps escalating.
1999 Elizabet Broton Rodriguez, 28, her mate Lazaro Munero, Zenaida Santos, Rafael Munero, Lilka Guillermo, Nelson Rodriguez, Juan Carlos Rodriguez, Marielena Garcia, Merida Barrios, Jikary Munero, and an unidentified man, as their 5-meter fiberglass boat capsizes. They had left Cuba at 04:30 two days before, fleeing to Florida. Broton's son, Elian Gonzalez, 5, survives on one inner tube, Arianne Horta Alfonso, 21, and her mate Nivaldo Fernandez Ferran, 33, on another inner tube. The three survivors will be rescued two days later on Thanksgiving Day. Arianne Horta had taken her daughter, Estefani Herrera, 5, at the start of the boat trip on Sunday 21 November, but left her with relatives in Cuba when the boat had to return for repairs soon after its departure.
1996: 125 of the 175 on board a hijacked Ethiopian Airlines Boeing 767 which runs out of fuel and ditches into the ocean 150 m from a beach near Moroni, Comoros Islands.
1990 Roald Dahl, 74, British short story writer
1985: 58 die as Egyptian commandos storm hijacked Egyptair jet in Malta
1980: 4800 die in series of earthquakes that devastate southern Italy
1976 André Malraux, 75, France, novelist/art historian/puplic office. ("The Voices of Silence")
1976 All 50 aboard an Olympic Airways YS-11A two engine plane on a domestic flight from Athens to Kozani, which crashes and burns some 400 km north of Athens.
1943: 1315 Berliners, by British bombing, but Goebbels' laments damage to his home.
      For the second straight day, British bombers attacked Berlin, recording 1315 civilian deaths. The two-day bombing resulted in a total of over 4000 Berliner deaths. British aircrew deaths from the attacks neared 300. "The second air raid equaled the first in intensity," Joseph Goebbels, Chief of Nazi Party Propaganda, noted in his diary, "Though at first we thought it might be weaker, this hope was not realized." Goebbels own residence was hit, his upper rooms destroyed. There was neither heat, light, nor water in his house the next day. "One can neither shave nor wash," Goebbels noted. "One must get up in the shelter by the light of the burning candle."
1943 Michael Trotobas, Denise Gilman, and arresting Gestapo officer
      200 German soldiers surrounded the house where British agent to the French Résistance Michael Trotobas is hiding. Trotobas shoots and kills the Gestapo officer who had come to arrest him, then keeps firing until he is gunned down himself. A fellow agent of the "Farmers" (as Trotobas' secret-agent group referred to itself), Denise Gilman, is shot in the stomach and eventually dies.
      After the war, a Résistance medal was named after Trotobas, "La Croix du Capitaine Michel." It was the only French Résistance medal dedicated to the memory of a British officer. Trotobas' Farmer group remained active after his death, perpetually harassing German installations throughout France.
1942 Saks, mathematician.
1938 Erik Theodor Werenskiold, Norwegian artist born on 11 February 1855. — more
1924 Henry Ryland, British artist born in 1856.
1914 Elbrige Gerry, 70, VP (of Gerrymander fame)
1898 Giovanni Battista Quadrone, Italian artist born on 05 January 1844.
1896 Fritz Zuber Buhler, Swiss artist born in 1822.
1863 Jerrard, mathematician.
1859 James Ward, British Romantic painter, born on 23 October 1769, specialized in animals. — more with links to images.
1818 Jean Baptiste Claude Robin, French artist born on 24 July 1734.
1817 Glenie, mathematician.
1693 Job Berckheyde, Dutch painter born on 27 January 1630. — MORE ON BERCKHEYDE AT ART “4” NOVEMBER with links to images.
1682 Claude Gellée “Le Lorrain”, French painter born in 1600, one of the great masters of ideal-landscape painting (often containing classical ruins and figures) — MORE ON LE LORRAIN AT ART “4” NOVEMBER with links to images.
1604 Barocius, mathematician
1499 "Perkin Warbeck" (or Richard, Duke of York?), claimant to the English throne, hanged.
      The so-called Perkin Warbeck, who allegedly impersonated the younger of the two sons of King Edward IV, is executed by King Henry VII after reportedly attempting to escape from imprisonment in the Tower of London. According to Tudor accounts, Warbeck, born in Tournai, Belgium, was persuaded by enemies of King Henry VII to impersonate Richard, Duke of York, who was apparently killed along with his older brother Edward by King Richard III. Richard III ascended to the throne after the death of his brother, King Edward IV, and imprisoned Edward's sons in the Tower of London.
      In an attempt to secure the throne, Richard III allegedly murdered his two nephews, popularly known as the "Princes in the Tower." After only two years as king, Richard III himself was killed on Bosworth Field during a battle with his rival, Henry Tudor, the future King Henry VII. Beginning in 1495, the so-called Warbeck, claiming to be Richard, Duke of York, launched the first of three unsuccessful invasions of England, aided by supporters in England, Scotland, and Ireland. During the third attempt, he was captured at Beaulieu and imprisoned in the Tower of London, where he was eventually executed after reportedly trying to escape. Whether Warbeck was yet another in a long line of pretenders to the British throne as the Tudor historians claimed, or if he was in fact young Richard, spared by a less ruthless Richard III, as many revisionists now believe, has yet to be determined.
1407 le duc Louis d'Orléans est assassiné par une bande de malfrats masqués.
En ce début du XVe siècle, la France vit une "embellie". Elle se remet avec lenteur de son conflit avec l'Angleterre après les victoires de Du Guesclin et du roi Charles V le Sage.
Crime de brigands
     Le 23 novembre 1407, le duc Louis d'Orléans est assassiné par une bande de malfrats masqués.
     C'est en sortant de l'hôtel Barbette, où réside sa belle-soeur la reine Isabeau de Bavière, à laquelle il vient de rendre visite, que Louis, duc d'Orléans, est poignardé mortellement par des sbires de Jean sans Peur, duc de Bourgogne. La haine que celui-ci porte à Louis dure depuis des années. Trois jours plus tôt, le duc de Bourgogne avait feint de se réconcilier avec son cousin.
     Le crime a lieu à Paris, rue Vieille du Temple, dans le quartier du Marais où se tiennent les hôtels et les palais des Grands du royaume et du roi lui-même.
Louis d'Orléans est le frère cadet du roi Charles VI le Fou et l'amant de la reine Isabeau de Bavière, sa belle-soeur. Il a trouvé la mort en sortant de l'hôtel Barbette où réside cette dernière.
Le duc fait partie du Conseil de Régence qui gouverne le pays depuis que le roi a été frappé de folie, quinze ans plus tôt.
Les ducs d'Anjou, de Berry et de Bourbon, qui sont les oncles du roi et de Louis d'Orléans, participent à ce Conseil, ainsi que leur cousin, le duc de Bourgogne Jean sans Peur. La présidence est assurée par la reine Isabeau de Bavière.
     Ces princes du sang profitent de la maladie du roi pour mettre le pays en coupe réglée.
Mais la liaison de Louis d'Orléans avec la reine fait craindre à ses rivaux qu'il ne prenne le dessus.
On va donc découvrir sans surprise que les meurtriers du prince ont agi sur ordre du duc de Bourgogne Jean sans Peur. Il a 35 ans, comme sa victime.
Armagnacs et Bourguignons
L'assassinat de la rue Vieille du Temple a des conséquences dramatiques pour le royaume. Il va tranformer en guerre ouverte les rivalités entre les factions du duc de Bourgogne et du duc d'Orléans.
Le fils de la victime, le poète Charles d'Orléans, demande appui au comte Bernard VII d'Armagnac, dont il a épousé la fille Bonne.
Bernard VII est un seigneur brutal et redouté. Il commande à une soldatesque nombreuse, originaire des pays de l'Adour et de la Garonne. Sans trop hésiter, il se met au service de son gendre.
Pour cette raison, les partisans de Charles d'Orléans dans les luttes à venir resteront connus sous le nom d'Armagnacs.
La première manche est gagnée par Jean sans Peur. Malgré son crime, celui-ci bénéficie d'une grande popularité auprès du petit peuple de Paris.
Il impose sa domination sur la capitale en s'alliant à une faction populaire commandée par l'écorcheur Simon Caboche, d'où leur appellation de cabochiens ou écorcheurs. Les insurgés n'hésitent pas à attaquer la Bastille et à tuer le prévôt de Paris.
Les universitaires en profitent pour préparer une réforme administrative connue sous le nom d'ordonnance cabochienne et qui tend à brider le pouvoir du monarchique.
Le roi est obligé de convoquer les Etats généraux en janvier 1413 et de signer l'ordonnance. En signe d'acceptation, il coiffe même le capuchon des cabochiens.
Mais les exactions des Bourguignons et des cabochiens entraînent bientôt les habitants à se soulever.
Les cabochiens sont exterminés et le duc de Bourgogne doit céder la place aux Armagnacs.
Le comte Bernard VII se rend maître de Paris et se fait nommer connétable par la reine Isabeau de Bavière.
Triomphe des Anglais
Ces troubles n'ont pas échappé au roi anglais Henri V de Lancastre. Celui-ci en profite pour reprendre la guerre contre la dynastie rivale des Valois après une interruption de plus de 35 ans. Il débarque en Normandie avec ses troupes.
Les Armagnacs se font battre avec toute la chevalerie française à Azincourt, le 25 octobre 1415. Leur chef, Charles d'Orléans, est fait prisonnier.
A Paris, cependant, le mécontentement gronde contre les gens de Bernard VII qui font régner la terreur (comme, avant eux, les Bourguignons).
Le 29 mai 1418, une violente émeute chasse les Armagnacs de Paris. Des milliers d'Armagnacs sont massacrés et le comte lui-même est découpé en rondelles.
Le dauphin Charles trouve moyen de s'enfuir grâce au prévôt de la capitale.
Prenant le titre de régent, il va poursuivre la lutte contre les Anglais à la tête de ce qui reste du parti armagnac.
Paris n'en a cure et se soumet une nouvelle fois aux Bourguignons. C'est le triomphe de Jean sans Peur et de ses amis anglais.
Le duc manoeuvre à sa guise le pitoyable roi de France, Charles VI le Fou, et sa femme, la reine Isabeau de Bavière.
En même temps, inquiet de la pression des Anglais, il tente une réconciliation avec le dauphin Charles.
Mais leur rencontre tourne au drame: Jean Sans Peur est assassiné à Montereau sous les yeux de Charles, le 10 septembre 1419.
Le nouveau duc de Bourgogne, Philippe le Bon, animé par le désir de vengeance, n'hésite plus à s'allier avec les Anglais. Par le traité de Troyes du 21 mai 1420, il leur livre le trône de France.
La guerre entre les Anglais et le roi Charles VII de Valois va désormais prendre le pas sur le reste. Elle se terminera avec la bataille de Castillon, près de Bordeaux, le 17 juillet 1453.
La querelle des Armagnacs et des Bourguignons trouvera son épilogue dans la lutte entre le roi Louis XI, fils de Charles VII, et le duc Charles le Téméraire, fils de Philippe le Bon.
La mort du duc en 1477 et l'annexion de son duché au royaume y mettront un terme définitif.
0615 Columbanus, Irish-born monk who founded the order of Columban monks and founded or inspired 200 monasteries as he preached across Europe. Luxeuil, Arnegray, Fontenay, and Bobbio are among his most famous foundations. He was expelled from France for preaching fearlessly against the vices of the Burgundian court.
Births which occurred on a November 23:
1980 Tracy Latimer, in Saskatchewan. The hospital's fetal heart monitor is broken. The monitor tells doctors if the baby is in distress. Tracy's oxygen supply is cut off at birth. Cerebral palsy is caused by a lack of oxygen to the brain at birth. Brain cells die, interrupting motor commands to muscles and causing limbs to spasm. On 23 October 1993, her father, Robert Latimer, not bearing to see her suffer from her severe cerebral palsy, kills her by piping the exhaust fumes into the pickup truck where he has placed her.
1973 Autumn Roxanne Burke, in Los Angeles, born to the first member of Congress to give birth while in office, Representative Yvonne Watson Braithwaite Burke, Democrat from California Representative Yvonne Watson Braithwaite Burke, a Democrat from California, who was born in Los Angeles and studied law, entered state politics during the early 1960s, and in 1966 became the first African American woman to be elected to the state assembly. Burke served on the assembly for six years, and in 1972 was elected as a representative to the 93rd Congress. Burke, who took a brief sabbatical during her first term as representative to care for her newborn, would be reelected twice to Congress.
1948 Zoom lens patented — FG Back
1946 El señor presidente de Miguel Ángel Asturias se publica.
1943 Andrew Goodman civil rights worker, murdered in 1964
1942 Poesías de Fernando António Nogueira Pessoa [13 June 1888 – 30 November 1935] se publica.
1937 Of Mice and Men de John Steinbeck se publica en Nueva York.
1936 Life magazine, 1st issue, picture magazine created by Henry R Luce.
1927 Angelo Sodano, Italian who would become a Catholic priest, bishop, Vatican Secretary of State (on 01 December .upon the resignation of Cardinal Agostino Serrano), cardinal.
1925 José Napoleón Duarte, San Salvador, President of El Salvador (1984-89), He died on 23 February 1990.
1922 Manuel Fraga Iribarne, profesor y político español.
1920 Paul Celan Romanian poet (Collected Prose)
1913 Maurice Zolotow (author: Billy Wilder in Hollywood)
1890 El Lissitzky, artista ruso. — MORE ON LISSITZKY AT ART “4” NOVEMBER with links to images.
1889 (1899?) The first jukebox made its debut in San Francisco, at the Palais Royale Saloon. [1899 1st jukebox (Palais Royal Hotel, San Francisco)?]
1883 José Clemente Orozco, Mexican Social Realist muralist who died in 1949. — MORE ON OROZCO AT ART “4” NOVEMBER with links to images.
1878 Ernest King, commander-in-chief of the US fleet, he designed the United States' winning strategy in World War II.
1876 Manuel de Falla, Cadiz, Spain, composer (El Amor Brujo)
1874 Far From the Madding Crowd, by Thomas Hardy, is published
      Thomas Hardy's novel Far from the Madding Crowd is published. In the novel, farm owner Bathsheba Everdene is courted by three suitors, each showing a different face of love and human nature. Although the book ends happily, it contains many of the tragic elements, grim view of human nature, and pessimistic outlook that characterize Hardy's later masterworks, including Tess of the d'Urbervilles (1891) and Jude the Obscure (1895).
      Hardy was born on 2 June 1840 in Dorchester and was apprenticed to an architect when he was 15. After six years, he went to London to continue his training and began restoring churches. He also started writing poetry and fiction. In 1868, two publishers rejected his first novel. In 1870, he left London and went to restore a church in Cornwall, where he met his wife. The following year, his novel Desperate Remedies was published, followed by Under the Greenwood Tree in 1872, which was a success. Hardy devoted himself to novels for the next 20 years or so, publishing The Return of the Native in 1878 and The Mayor of Casterbridge in 1886. However, Jude the Obscure was received with so much hostility that Hardy gave up the novel form altogether and turned to poetry. He wrote some 900 poems in a wide variety of styles, including a dramatic epic poem, The Dynasts (1910). He published Wessex Poems and Other Verses in 1898, taking the title from the fictional region of England where he set his novels, and Poems of the Past and Present in 1901. Hardy died in Dorchester in 1928.
HARDY ONLINE:
  • Far from the Madding Crowd
  • Far from the Madding Crowd
  • Jude the Obscure
  • Jude the Obscure
  • The Mayor of Casterbridge
  • The Mayor of Casterbridge
  • The Woodlanders
  • A Pair of Blue Eyes
  • The Return of the Native
  • Satires of Circumstance
  • Satires of Circumstance
  • Selected Works
  • Tess of the d'Urbervilles
  • Tess of the d'Urbervilles
  • The Trumpet-Major
  • Under the Greenwood Tree, or, The Mellstock Quire: A Rural Painting of the Dutch School
  • Wessex Poems and Other Verses
    • 1868 Trichrome color photo process patented by Arthur-Louis Ducos du Hauron, 31, patents trichrome color photo process. He photographed each scene through green, orange, and violet filters, then printed his three negatives on thin sheets of bichromated gelatin containing carbon pigments of red, blue, and yellow, the complementary colors of the negatives. When the three positives, usually in the form of transparencies, were superimposed, a full-color photograph resulted. Ducos du Hauron described his results in Les Couleurs en photographie: Solution du problème (1869) and Les Couleurs en photographie et en particulier l'héliochromie au charbon (1870).
    1862 Salvador Viniegra y Lasso, Spanish artist who died on 28 April 1915.
    1861 (05 Dec Julian) Constantin Alexeievitch Korovin, Russian painter who died on 11 September 1939. — MORE ON KOROVIN AT ART “4” NOVEMBER with links to images.
    1860 Karl Branting Sweden, statesman/diplomat (Nobel Peace Prize 1921)
    1859 Henry McCarty. Bonney, probable original name of the infamous Western outlaw who would call himself William H. Bonney and be known as "Billy the Kid". He would reputedly kill 27 persons in the US West before being shot dead on the night of 14 July 1881 by Sheriff Pat Garrett.
    1853 Halsted, mathematician.
    1837 Javan der Waals Holland, physicist (Cont of Liquid & Gaseous States)
    1834 James Thomson, Scottish poet.
    1820 Isaac Todhunter, mathematician
    1819 Benjamin Mayberry Prentiss, future Union General.
          Benjamin Prentiss is born in Belleville, Virginia. Prentiss served in a variety of capacities during the war but is best known for defending Arkansas during the Vicksburg campaign. Prentiss was raised in Missouri but moved to Quincy, Illinois, at age 22. He joined the Illinois militia, and he was active when tensions arose between the Mormon and Illinois residents of the area after the Mormon prophet, Joseph Smith, was lynched by a mob.
          When the Mexican War began, Prentiss raised a company of volunteers and served under General Zachary Taylor at Buena Vista. Upon his return to Illinois, he practiced law until the outbreak of the Civil War. He remained active in the militia and rose to the rank of colonel.
          At the beginning of the Civil War, Prentiss was placed in charge of Cairo, Illinois, at the confluence of the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers. In August 1861, he was promoted to brigadier general and charged with protecting the Hannibal and Saint Joseph Railroad across northern Missouri. His brigade was sent to join General Ulysses S. Grant's Army of the Tennessee, and he was elevated to divisional commander. Prentiss fought at Shiloh and was caught in the infamous Hornet's Nest. He and part of his force were captured, and Prentiss spent six months in a Confederate prison. He was exchanged in October 1862 and served on the court-martial of General Fitz-John Porter, who was tried on charges of insubordination during the Battle of Second Bull Run, when he refused to conduct an attack ordered by his commander, John Pope. Porter was found guilty and cashiered from the army, but he said that Prentiss was "supposed unprejudiced, and acted so."
          After the Porter case closed, Prentiss commanded the District of Eastern Arkansas at Helena. He sent raids into the interior of the state and recruited escaped slaves into military service. On 04 July 1863, Prentiss's command held off an attack by General Sterling Price, who was trying, belatedly, to rescue the Confederate force inside of nearby Vicksburg, Mississippi. That garrison had already surrendered, but Prentiss emerged as the victor in the Battle of Helena. Despite this success, Prentiss found himself without a command when the Union reorganized the theater after the fall of Vicksburg. Prentiss requested a leave from the army, citing ill health and family concerns, as his wife had died in 1860 and he had young children. Prentiss spent the rest of his life as a land agent and postmaster in Missouri until he died in 1901.
    1804 Franklin Pierce, in Hillsboro, N.H., hero of the American war with Mexico and 14th president of the United States (1853-1857).
    1798 Franz Théobald Horny, German artist who died in June 1824. — more
    1760 François Noël Babeuf, à Saint-Quentin. Il changea son prénom en Gracchus et s'attira la célébrité en s'opposant à Robespierre. Sa Conspiration des Egaux lui valut d'être guillotiné en 1797 par le gouvernement du Directoire. Karl Marx en a fait l'ancêtre du communisme.
    1745 Jean François Sablet “le Romain”, Swiss artist who died on 24 February 1819. — more
    1654 Jan van Kessel II, Flemish painter and draftsman who died in 1708.
    1616 John Wallis, mathematician.
    1608 Francisco Manuel de Melo, escritor hispanoportugués.
    1553 Prospero Alpini Italy, botanist/physician (De Medocoma Aegyptorum)
    1221 Alfonso X (the Wise) king of Castile and León (1252) — Alfonso X el Sabio, rey de Castilla y León, nace en Toledo como el infante Alfonso, primogénito del monarca castellano Fernando III y de la reina Beatriz.
    0912 Otto I (the Great) German king, Holy Roman emperor (962-73)
    Holidays Japan : Labor Day/Thanksgiving / Maryland : Repudiation Day (1765) /
    Religious Observances RC, Ang, Luth : St Clement I, 4th pope (c 88-97) (opt)/ Santos Clemente, Guido, Sisinio y Heleno; santas Lucrecia, Felicitas y sus siete hijos. / Saint Clément est le 3e successeur de saint Pierre à Rome. Ce pape mort en 97 est connu par une lettre aux Corinthiens où s'exprime pour la première fois la primauté de Rome sur toute la chrétienté. / RC : St Columban, Irish monk, abbot (opt)
    Thoughts for the day: “If you bow at all, bow low.” [but in Japan, bow correctly for the occasion.]
    “If you bow at all, remember what happens when the bow breaks.”
    “ If you wear a bow at all, wear it high.”
    “If you go to the bow at all, be careful not to fall off the ship.”
    “If you bow at all, bow-wow, and bow-wow loudly.”
    “If you buy at all, buy low, then sell high.”
    “Don't pray for God to do what you want, pray for you to do what God wants.”
    “The best laid plans of mice and men don't impress cats.”
    “A true friend is someone who, when his friend is blue, will try the Heimlich maneuver.”     [and not call it the Heinlein maneuver!]
    “Je serai ce que je voudrai, mais je dois vouloir ce que je serai.” — Fernando Pessoa
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