Deaths
which occurred on an October 23:
2003 Soong
Mei-ling (Madame Chiang Kai-shek), born on 05 March 1897, dies
in New York to which she retired after the death of her husband, the 1928-1949
dictatorial head of the Nationalist government in China (and after 1949,
in Taiwan), General Chiang Kai-shek [31 Oct
1887 – 05 Apr 1975], of which she was an able and influential
political partner (and the second wife, married on 01 December 1927). Author
of This is Our China (1944), Sure Victory (1955).
2002 Richard
McGarrah Helms, of multiple myeloma, US spy, director of CIA
in some of its most abusive times (June 1966 — 1973), convicted perjurer,
ambassador to Iran (1973 – 1977), Middle East trade consultant, born
on 30 March 1913. Author of his memoir A Look Over My Shoulder: a Life
in the C.I.A. (2003)
2002 Elizabeth
(née Harman) Pakenham Lady Longford, 96, British biographer,
political activist, mother of writers Antonia Fraser, Rachel Billington,
and Thomas Pakenham, and of poet Judith Kazantzis. Catholic convert (1946).
Among her books: Points for Parents (1956), Jameson's Raid
(1960), Victoria R. I. (1964), The Years of the Sword
and Pillar of State (1969 + 1972; on the Duke of Wellington), Elizabeth
R (1983), Queen Victoria (1999).
2001 Talaat
Jaber, 19, and Badr Shaer, 50, Palestinians, by heavy machine-gun
fire from Israeli troops in Tulkarem.
2001: Ustad Farooq and
21 other fighters of Harakat ul-Mujahedeen ("Movement of the Holy
Warriors") by a US bomb striking the house where they were meeting in Kabul
to "devise a plan for fighting against America." Banned Pakintani HUM is
one of the largest militant organizations fighting Indian soldiers in Kashmir
region and was declared a terrorist organization by the US years ago. It
was among 27 groups and individuals whose assets were frozen by the US,
Pakistan and other countries after the 11 September 2001 terrorist attacks
in the US.
1998 Dr. Barnett Slepian,
abortionist, shot through a window in his home in Amherst, New York,
by an anti-abortion terrorist, marking the fifth straight year that
a doctor who was willing to perform abortions in upstate New York
and Canada had been the victim of a sniper attack.
Slepian and his family had just returned from religious services at
their synagogue when a bullet from a high-powered rifle shattered
the kitchen window and struck him in the back. Each of the five attacks,
the first of which did not result in fatal wounds, occurred in late
October or early November. It is believed that the dates were intentionally
picked to center around Canada's Remembrance Day (11 November).
Investigators in both Canada and the
United States would discover that James Charles Kopp, 43, known among
abortion opponents as "Atomic Dog," was responsible for Slepian's
murder. Kopp, of St. Albans, Vermont, was a member of the terrorist
group Army of God. He had been arrested in several states since 1990
for protesting abortion. His car was spotted in Slepian's neighborhood
in the weeks before the shooting, and was found abandoned at the Newark,
N.J., airport in December 1998. Kopp was charged in May 1999 in state
and federal complaints with second-degree murder and with violating
the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act by using deadly force
against an abortion doctor. Both charges carry a penalty of up to
life in prison. The federal charge also carries a fine of up to $250'000.
Investigators said at the time
that the discovery of a scope-equipped rifle buried near the Slepian
home a few months after the shooting represented a major breakthrough.
Slepian was shot with a rifle. Kopp also had been linked, through
DNA testing, to a strand of hair found near where the sniper fired.
In the aftermath of Slepian's murder,
at least four abortion doctors in upstate New York quit practicing,
and countless other clinic staff members left their jobs. Because
groups such as the American Coalition of Life Activists have openly
promoted violence against abortion providers, there is some reason
to believe that the atmosphere of fear has limited women's ability
to choose abortion in certain areas of the nation.
Following Slepian's murder, a serious crackdown on anti-abortion terror
helped to cut down the number of violent incidents. In 1999, for the
first time in six years, there were no sniper attacks against any
doctors during the course of the year. Kopp remained at large for
nearly two and a half years, despite a $500'000 reward for information
leading to his capture from the Justice Department and his place on
the FBI's Ten Most Wanted List. He was arrested in France on 29 March
2001, and, on 05 June 2002, extradited to the US, after it promised
not to seek the death penalty. Kopp maintains that he only intended
to wound Slepian so as to dissuade him from performing any more abortion.
In the non-jury trial Kopp would request, he would, on 18 March 2003,
be convicted of second-degree murder, and, on 09 May 2003, be sentenced
to 25-years-to-life in prison, the maximum.
In Canada, Kopp is charged with the 10 November 1995 attempted murder
of Hugh Short, an abortionist hit in the elbow by a bullet fired through
a window in his home in Ancaster, Ontario, near Hamilton.
He
is also wanted for questioning in the shootings of Jack Fainman, an
abortionist hit near the heart by a bullet fired through a window
in his Winnipeg, Manitoba home on 11 November 1997; of Garson Romalis,
an abortionist shot in the leg while eating breakfast at home in in
Vancouver on 08 November 1994; and has been implicated in shooting,
in Rochester NY (or its Brighton suburb?), at an abortionist who was
cut by debris from a bullet shot into his home through a sliding glass
door, on 28 October 1997 |
1994 El principal candidato opositor a la Presidencia de Sri Lanka
y otras 50 personas, por la explosión de una bomba durante un mitin
electoral en Colombo.
1992 Humberto Díaz Casanueva,
poeta chileno.
1991 Two women using Dr Jack Kevorkian's
suicide machine.
1989 Carol Stuart, “shot
by a Black” (any Black will do), says her husband.
On 03 Jan 1990 Matthew Stuart meets
with Boston prosecutors and tells them that his brother, Charles,
was actually the person responsible for murdering Charles's wife,
Carol. The killing of Carol Stuart, who was pregnant at the time,
on October 23, 1989, had touched off a national outrage when Charles
Stuart told authorities that the couple had been robbed and shot by
a Black man while driving through a poor Boston neighborhood. In the
summer and fall of 1989, both Boston daily newspapers had been trumpeting
a so-called crime explosion. Actually, the screaming headlines had
more to do with a desire to sell papers than any actual crime wave,
but the public was on edge. Charles Stuart, a fur salesman, used the
public mood to his advantage when he planned the murder of his wife.
"My wife's been shot! I've been shot!"
screamed Stuart into his cell phone as he drove through the Mission
Hill area of Boston. Paramedics responding to the call for help found
that both Charles and his wife had been shot. Carol was barely hanging
on to her life and Charles had a fairly serious wound to the stomach.
Immediately, Charles identified a Black male in a black running suit
as the perpetrator.
The crime
was the biggest story in Boston that day and even led some national
newscasts. Across the country, the story was portrayed as an example
of what could happen to affluent people traveling through bad neighborhoods.
In many papers, liberal policies were attacked and held responsible
for the tragedy. Carol Stuart died, and although doctors were able
to save her baby temporarily, the child also died days later. Charles
Stuart underwent intestinal surgery for 10 hours, but his life was
not endangered.
The Boston police
began to comb the housing projects in Mission Hill. Black men were
strip-searched on the streets on any pretense. Alan Swanson, a small-time
drug dealer, was arrested on suspicion of being involved. However,
there was absolutely no evidence against him, even after a warrant
was falsified so that it would match what Charles Stuart had told
investigators. He was later released with no apology from the police.
Meanwhile, Stuart was showing unusual
interest in a young female co-worker, asking that she phone him at
the hospital where he was recovering. Detectives, fixated on finding
the black perpetrator Stuart had described, didn't bother to find
the ample evidence that Stuart was unhappy in his marriage and particularly
upset with his wife for not having an abortion. Stuart had discussed
both his obsession with the co-worker, and his desire to see his wife
dead, with several friends and family members in the months before
the murder.
In December, Willie
Bennett, a Black ex-convict, was arrested after his nephew jokingly
bragged that he was responsible. Stuart picked Bennett out of a lineup
in which the others were all clean-cut Boston police officers. This
was the last straw for Matthew Stuart, who had assisted his brother
in carrying out the scheme. Matthew thought he was helping Charles
with an insurance scam when he carried a bag away from the murder
scene. In it was the gun and the couple's wallets and jewelry. In
return for immunity, Matthew testified against his brother.
Charles Stuart found out that Matthew
was going to turn him in and immediately fled. The next morning, Charles
Stuart drove to the Tobin Bridge over the Mystic River, and jumped
to his death. His suicide note said, "I am sorry for all the trouble.”
Willie Bennett was released after witnesses told a grand jury that
the police had pressured them into identifying him. |
1985 John
Greenlees Semple, mathematician
1983: 241 US and 58 French
military, by a truck bombs, in Beirut.
In the early morning, the First Battalion, 8th Marines Headquarters
building is destroyed by a non-Lebanese, terrorist-driven truck, laden
with compressed gas-enhanced explosives. This truck, like many others,
had become a familiar sight at the airport and so did not raise any
alarm on this morning. The resulting explosion and the collapse of
the building kills 241 Marines, Sailors, and Soldiers.. and injures
80. Almost simultaneously, a similar incident occurs at French military
headquarters, where 58 die and 15 are injured.
A suicide bomber drives a truck packed with explosives into the US
Marine barracks in Beirut, killing 241 US military personnel. That
same morning, 58 French soldiers were killed in their barracks two
miles away in a separate suicide terrorist attack.
The US Marines were part of a multinational force sent to Lebanon
in August 1982 to oversee the Palestinian withdrawal from Lebanon.
From its inception, the mission was plagued with problems--and a mounting
body count. In 1975, a bloody civil war erupted in Lebanon, with Palestinian
and leftist Muslim guerrillas battling militias of the Christian Phalange
Party, the Maronite Christian community, and other groups. During
the next few years, Syrian, Israeli, and United Nations interventions
failed to resolve the factional fighting, and on 20 August 1982, a
multinational force including 800 US Marines was ordered to Beirut
to help coordinate the Palestinian withdrawal.
The Marines left Lebanese territory on 10 September but returned in
strengthened numbers on 29 September, following the massacre of Palestinian
refugees by a Christian militia. The next day, the first US Marine
to die during the mission was killed while defusing a bomb. Other
Marines fell prey to snipers. On 18 April 1983, a suicide bomber driving
a van devastated the US embassy in Beirut, killing 63 people, including
17 Americans.
Then, on 23 October
23, a Lebanese terrorist plowed his bomb-laden truck through three
guard posts, a barbed-wire fence, and into the lobby of the Marines
Corps headquarters in Beirut, where he detonated a massive bomb, killing
241 marine, navy, and army personnel. The bomb, which was made of
a sophisticated explosive enhanced by gas, had an explosive power
equivalent to 8 tons of dynamite. The identities of the embassy and
barracks bombers were not determined, but they were suspected to be
Shiite terrorists associated with Iran.
After the barracks bombing, many questioned whether President Ronald
Reagan had a solid policy aim in Lebanon. Serious questions also arose
over the quality of security in the US sector of war-torn Beirut.
The US peacekeeping force occupied an exposed area near the airport,
but for political reasons the marine commander had not been allowed
to maintain a completely secure perimeter before the attack. In a
national address on 23 October President Reagan vowed to keep the
marines in Lebanon, but just four months later he announced the end
of the American role in the peacekeeping force. On 26 February 1984,
the main force of marines left Lebanon, leaving just a small contingent
to guard the US embassy in Beirut.
241 américains et 58 français,
par des attentats à Beyrouth.
A
6h20 du matin, un attentat terroriste frappe le Quartier Général des
forces américaines à Beyrouth, où sévit la guerre civile entre factions
libanaises. L'attentat fait 241 morts. Quatre minutes plus tard, à
quelques dizaines de mètres, l'immeuble "Drakkar" explose! On compte
58 victimes parmi les parachutistes français de la 3ème Compagnie
du 1er RCP. Les paras français et les fusillers marins américains,
fraîchement débarqués au Liban, devaient faire respecter la paix civile
dans le cadre d'une mission des Nations Unies. Mais ils n'étaient
préparés ni à la guerre urbaine, ni au terrorisme des "Fous de Dieu"
islamistes, soutenus par la Syrie et l'Iran. Leur mission ayant tourné
au cauchemar, les Occidentaux se retirent du Liban. |
1972 More than 10'000 people in Nicaragua earthquake
1963 Aldous Leonard Huxley, novelista británico.
1917 Eugène-Samuel Grasset, Swiss artist born on
25 May 1841.
1903 Francis Ellingwood Abbot, 66,
theologian (Scientific Theism)
1890 Charles Michel MariaVerlat,
Belgian artist born on 24 November 1824.
1879 Pierre Justin
Ouvrié, French artist born on 19 January or May 1806.
1873 George-Henry Laporte, German painter born in 1799.
— link to an
image.
1872 Théophile Gautier, periodista, crítico
dramático, poeta y novelista francés.
1864 Rebs raiders and Yanks
at Battle of Westport, Missouri.
Confederate General Sterling Price's raid on Missouri nearly turns
into disaster when his army is pinned between two Union forces at
Westport, near Kansas City. Although outnumbered two to one, Price
managed to slip safely away after the Battle of Westport, which was
the biggest battle west of the Mississippi River. Price's six-week
raid on Missouri was intended to capture a state that had been firmly
in Union hands during much of the war. Price hoped to divert attention
from the East, where Confederate armies had not done well in the late
summer of 1864. A blow against Northern territory could also hurt
the Republicans in the fall elections, and it could raise much-needed
supplies.
Price entered Missouri
from Arkansas in mid-September. His force moved through the state
with little opposition, but Price failed to capture either St. Louis
or Jefferson City. In mid-October, Price turned west up the Missouri
River and captured several small Federal outposts. At Byram's Ford
on 22 October, Price's men pushed aside a small Union force attached
to General Samuel R. Curtis's army. The rest of Curtis's men waited
at Westport to the northwest. Price also faced a threat to his rear
because Yankee cavalry under Alfred Pleasonton were moving in from
the southeast. In short, Union troops were converging on Price from
two directions.
On October 23,
Price tried to fight his way out of his predicament by first attacking
Curtis's troops along Brush Creek. The Confederates enjoyed some initial
success as they drove the Federals across Brush Creek, but Price did
not have sufficient reserves to continue the drive. Meanwhile, Pleasonton's
men were attacking on the other side of the battlefield, placing Price
in a dangerous position. As Pleasonton's men pushed the Confederates
back, Curtis's men also turned the tide on the northwestern side of
the battlefield. Price's troops broke, and a mad retreat to the southwest
ensued. Price's army might have been completely destroyed if the two
Union forces could have coordinated pursuit. Instead, the exhausted
Yankees halted, hesitant to continue the fight.
Price's force was soundly defeated, though each side lost about 1500
men. That was only about 10% of the Union troops, but it was 20% of
the Rebel force. Price's men retreated into Kansas before the remnants
of the force dispersed back into Texas and Oklahoma. In the end, Price's
raid did little to disrupt the fall elections. |
1851 Manuel Eduardo de Gorostiza y Cepeda, dramaturgo mexicano.
1805: 340 drowned in sinking of sailing ship "Aeneus"
sinks off Newfoundland
1698 David Klocker “Ehrenstrahl”,
German Baroque painter, active in Sweden, born on 23 September 1629. —
MORE
ON ERENSTRAHL AT ART “4” OCTOBER
with links to images.
1690 Anthonie Waterlo (or Waaterloo),
Flemish artist born in 1609 or 1610.
1657 Rafel Govertsz.
Camphuysen, Dutch artist born in 1598.
1641 Some
40'000 or more Protestants in Ireland, massacred by Catholics under
Phelim O'Neil, who rise against the Protestants and massacre men, women
and children to the number of 40'000 (some say 100'000).
--42 B.C. Marcus Junius Brutus,
suicide. ^top^
Brutus, a leading conspirator in the
assassination of Julius Caesar, commits suicide after his defeat at
the second battle of Philippi, seing the Republican cause lost.
Two years before, Brutus had joined
Gaius Cassius Longinus in the plot against the Roman dictator Julius
Caesar, believing he was striking a blow for the restoration of the
Roman Republic. However, the result of Caesar's 15 March 44-BC assassination
was to plunge the Roman world into a new round of civil wars, with
the Republican forces of Brutus and Cassius vying for supremacy against
Octavian and Marcus Antonius.
In early October 42 BC Brutus and Cassius were defeated at the first
Battle of Phillipi by the triumvirate of Lepidus, Marcus Antonius,
and Octavian. Cassius commited suicide by ordering his freedman to
kill him.
Three weeks later,
on 23 October, Brutus' army is crushed by Octavian and Antony at a
second encounter at Philippi, and Brutus takes his own life. Antony
and Octavian would soon turn against each other, and in 27 BC the
Roman Republic would be lost forever with the ascendance of Octavian
as Augustus Caesar, the first emperor of Rome. |
|
1844
Robert Seymour Bridges [photo >] poet laureate
of England . In 1882 he abandoned medical practice to devote himself to
writing. An excellent metrist, he wrote many beautiful lyrics and longer
poems, noted for their refined simplicity and perfection of form. Although
not a well-known poet, in 1913 he was made poet laureate. In 1929, on Bridges'
85th birthday, he published The Testament of Beauty, a philosophical
poem on the evolution of the human soul. It achieved immediate popularity
and is considered his greatest work. Long interested in prosody, Bridges
published two important works on the subject, Milton's Prosody
(1893) and John Keats (1895). He also published Poems
of Gerard Manley Hopkins, his friend. Bridges died on 21 April
1930. — Individual poems by BRIDGES ONLINE: Spirits
— Nightingales —
A Passer-by — Absence
— On a Dead Child — Pater
Filio — Winter Nightfall
— When Death to Either shall
come 
