1975
South Vietnamese evacuation begins at Qui Nhon.
^top^
As North Vietnamese tanks and infantry continue to push the remnants
of South Vietnam's 22nd Division and waves of civilian refugees from
the Quang Ngai Province, the South Vietnamese Navy begins to evacuate
soldiers and civilians by sea from Qui Nhon. Shortly thereafter, the
South Vietnamese abandoned Tuy Hoa and Nha Trang, leaving the North
Vietnamese in control of more than half of South Vietnam's territory.
During the first week in April, communist forces attacking from the
south pushed into Long An Province, just south of Saigon, threatening
to cut Highway 4, Saigon's main link with the Mekong Delta, which
would have precluded reinforcements from being moved north to assist
in the coming battle for Saigon. This action was part of the North
Vietnamese general offensive launched in late January 1975, just two
years after the cease-fire had been established by the Paris Peace
Accords. The initial objective of this campaign was the capture of
Ban Me Thuot in the Central Highlands. The battle began on March 4
with the North Vietnamese quickly encircling the city. As it became
clear that the communists would take the city and probably the entire
Darlac province, South Vietnamese president Thieu decided to protect
the more critical populous areas. He ordered his forces in the Central
Highlands to pull back from their positions. Abandoning Pleiku and
Kontum, the South Vietnamese forces began to move toward the sea,
but what started out as an orderly withdrawal soon turned into panic.
The South Vietnamese forces rapidly fell apart. The North Vietnamese
pressed the attack and were quickly successful in both the Central
Highlands and farther north at Quang Tri, Hue and Da Nang. The South
Vietnamese soon collapsed as a cogent fighting force and the North
Vietnamese continued the attack all the way to Saigon. The South Vietnamese
surrendered unconditionally on April 30. |
1973 ITT pleads guilty to asking CIA to affect Chilean presidential election
1972
North Vietnamese troops capture part of Quang Tri.
^top^
Soldiers of Hanoi's 304th Division, supported by Soviet-made tanks
and heavy artillery, take the northern half of the Quang Tri province.
This left only Quang Tri City (the combat base on the outskirts of
the city) and Dong Ha in South Vietnamese hands. South Vietnam's 3rd
Division commander Brig. Gen. Vu Van Giai moved his staff out of the
Quang Tri combat base to the citadel at Quang Tri City, the apparent
North Vietnamese objective. This attack was the opening move of the
North Vietnamese Nguyen Hue Offensive (later called the "Easter Offensive"),
a massive invasion by North Vietnamese forces designed to strike the
blow that would win them the war. The attacking force included 14
infantry divisions and 26 separate regiments, with more than 120,000
troops and approximately 1,200 tanks and other armored vehicles. The
main North Vietnamese objectives, in addition to Quang Tri in the
north, were Kontum in the Central Highlands, and An Loc farther to
the south. Initially, the South Vietnamese defenders were almost overwhelmed,
particularly in the northernmost provinces, where they abandoned their
positions in Quang Tri and fled south in the face of the enemy onslaught.
At Kontum and An Loc, the South Vietnamese were more successful in
defending against the attacks, but only after weeks of bitter fighting.
Although the South Vietnamese suffered heavy casualties, they managed
to hold their own with the aid of US advisors and American airpower.
Fighting continued all over South Vietnam into the summer months,
but eventually the South Vietnamese forces prevailed against the invaders
and retook Quang Tri in September. With the communist invasion blunted,
President Nixon declared that the South Vietnamese victory proved
the viability of his Vietnamization program, instituted in 1969 to
increase the combat capability of the South Vietnamese armed forces.
|
1970 Meghalaya becomes autonomous state within India's
Assam state
1970 Qatar gains independence from Britain
1968 Chad creates Union of Central African States
1966 Soviet Union's Luna 10 becomes first spacecraft to
orbit Moon
1964 Military coup in Brazil by Gen Castello
Branco, Pres Goulart ousted. — Tras ser derrocado por la oligarquía
y el Ejército, el expresidente de Brasil, João Goulart, encuentra
asilo político en Uruguay.
1964 Josef Klaus succeeds
Alfons Gorbach as chancellor of Austria.
1959
Juan XXIII ratifica la condena de las alianzas entre comunistas y católicos.
1959 En Bolivia se declaran en huelga 10'000 mineros.
1958 Wind speed reaches 450 kph in tornado, Wichita Falls,
TX (record)
1956
Chairman change at General Motors.
^top^
Alfred P.
Sloan stepped down after nineteen years as chairman of General Motors,
with Albert Bradley elected as his successor. Sloan is recognized
as the creator of the GM Corporation as it exists today. Brought on
by William Durant by way of the purchase of the Hyatt Roller Bearing
Corporation, Sloan worked his way into the position of vice president
of GM. At that time the company was a poorly planned and loosely configured
extension of William Durant's vision. Sloan, with Durant's approval
if not his undivided attention, set about centralizing GM. His first
major step was to build a new corporate headquarters on the outskirts
of Detroit. Methodical and calculating, Sloan was the model for the
late-twentieth century corporate leader in that he did not allow his
ego, or his genius, to interfere with his shareholders' interests.
When the DuPont family bought Durant out of GM in 1920, Pierre DuPont,
at the urging of Sloan, took his place at the company's head. The
recession of the early 1920s had damaged GM stock and Sloan believed
that DuPont's name at the head of the company would help to restore
its investors' confidence. DuPont was not interested in running the
company, and so the Sloan Era of General Motors began. Alfred Sloan
reorganized the company and trimmed its financial sails, and before
long GM was making headway. Gone were the days of Durant's mercurial
and reckless expansionist policies. Sloan focused on consolidation
and profit margin. He would effectively rule GM with an invisible
hand for over three decades. |
1954 Llega al puerto de Barcelona el buque Semíramis,
en el que regresan 286 voluntarios de la División Azul.
1953
Raab forms his first government in Austria. — En Austria se constituye
un nuevo Gobierno presidido por el canciller federal Julius Raab.
1953
James D. Watson and Francis H. C. Crick write to Nature magazine
a
letter which for the first time gives the correct double-helix structure
of DNA, which, they write, “suggests a possible copying mechanism
for the genetic material”. It would be published Nature 171,
737-738 (25 July 1953)
1949 Es aprobado el
texto de la Organización del Tratado del Atlántico Norte (OTAN), que será
firmado tres días después.
1948 Entra en vigor
el [Plan Marshall para Europa.
1947 El Consejo
de Seguridad de la Organización de las Naciones Unidas confía a EE.UU. la
administración en mandato de las islas Carolinas, Palaos, Marshall y Marianas,
anteriormente bajo mandato japonés.
1945 First US
units reach east coast of Okinawa
1944 Soviet Army
marches into pro-German Romania
1943
First electronic computer proposal.
^top^
John Mauchly, a physicist at the University of Pennsylvania's Moore
School, wrote a report proposing an electronic computer for calculating
ballistic missile firing tables. Although he had written a similar
proposal the previous summer, the original memo had been lost by all
of its recipients. In World War II, artillery operators had to consult
pocket-sized reference books to aim their weapons. These books were
filled with complex firing tables that accounted for factors like
weather and terrain conditions. The tables were extremely time-consuming
to produce: one hundred female human "calculators" would work full-time
for a month to compile a new table. Mauchly proposed a machine that
would dramatically reduce the time required to produce a table and
thus use a new weapon. Eventually, the ballistics lab hired the Moore
School to create the computer, known as ENIAC (Electronic Numerical
Integrator and Computer). Spearheaded by Mauchly and graduate student
J. Presper Eckert, the effort took three years. ENIAC went into operation
in 1946-six weeks after the war had ended. Despite its late delivery,
ENIAC marked the beginning of the modern computer era. |
1941
"The Desert Fox" starts to reconquer Libya
^top^
German Lieutenant General Erwin Rommel, "the Desert Fox," resumes
his advance into Cyrenaica, modern-day Libya, signaling the beginning
of what nine days later will become the recapture of Libya by the
Axis forces.
Early Italian successes
in East Africa, which included occupying parts of Sudan, Kenya, and
British Somaliland, were soon reversed after British offensives, led
by British Field Marshall Archibald Wavell, resulted in heavy Italian
casualties and forced the Italians to retreat into Libya.
But Axis control of the area was salvaged by the appearance of Rommel
and the Afrika Korps, sent to East Africa by the German High Command
to bail their Italian ally out. On the verge of capturing Tripoli,
the Libyan capital, Britain's forces were suddenly depleted when British
Prime Minister Winston Churchill transferred British troops to Greece.
Seizing the opportunity of a
weakened British force, Rommel struck quickly, despite orders to remain
still for two months. With 50 tanks and two fresh Italian divisions,
Rommel forced the British to begin a retreat into Egypt. Operation
Battleaxe, the counteroffensive by British Field Marshall Archibald
Wavell, resulted in little more than the loss of large numbers of
British tanks to German 88mm anti-tank guns, as well as Wavell's ultimately
being transferred from North Africa to India.
Rommel, known for his trademark goggles, which he pilfered from a
British general's command vehicle, may have had some help in defeating
his British counterpart. He was known to carry with him a book called
Generals and Generalship, written by Archibald Wavell. Rommel
was portrayed by James Mason in the 1953 film The Desert Rats
and by Christopher Plummer in 1967's Night of the Generals.
Wavell was portrayed by Patrick Magee in the 1981 TV movie Churchill
and the Generals. |
1941 Un piloto de pruebas llamado Schäfer despega
en Rostock a bordo del primer avión equipado con dos motores a reacción.
1940 En Italia son movilizados todos los hombres y mujeres
mayores de catorce años.
1939 EE.UU. reconoce
al nuevo Gobierno español de Francisco Franco Bahamonde, después de que
ya lo hicieran Francia y Gran Bretaña.
1934
Manuel Azaña Díaz funda el Partido Izquierda Republicana de España.
1932 Charles Lindbergh turns over $50'000 as ransom for
kidnapped son (who had already been murdered, it would be discovered later).
1926 Riots between Moslems and Hindus in Calcutta.
1919 En España es detenido el director de
Solidaridad Obrera, Ángel Pestaña Núñez.
1917
Jeannette Rankin becomes first US congresswoman.
^top^
Jeannette
Pickering Rankin, the first woman ever elected to Congress, took her
seat in the US Capitol as a representative from Montana.
Born on a ranch near Missoula, Montana Territory, in 1880, Rankin
worked as a social worker in the states of Montana and Washington
before joining the women's suffrage movement in 1910. Working with
various suffrage groups, she campaigned for the women's vote on a
national level, and in 1914, was instrumental in the passage of suffrage
legislation in Montana.
Two
years later, she successfully ran for Congress in Montana on a progressive
Republican platform calling for total women's suffrage, legislation
protecting children, and US neutrality in the European war. Following
her election as a representative, Rankin's entrance into Congress
was delayed for a month as congressmen discussed whether a woman should
be admitted into the House of Representatives.
Finally, on 02 April 1917, she was introduced in Congress as
its first female member. On 06 April, citing public opinion in
Montana and her own pacifist beliefs, Jeannette Rankin was one of
only fifty representatives who voted against the American declaration
of war against Germany..
For
the remainder of her first term in Congress, she sponsored legislation
to aid woman and children, and advocated the passage of a federal
suffrage amendment. In 1918, Rankin unsuccessfully ran for a Senate
seat, and in 1919 she left Congress to become an important figure
in a number of suffrage and pacifist organizations.
In 1940, with the US entrance into another world war imminent, she
was again elected as a pacifist representative from Montana, and after
assuming office argued vehemently against President Franklin D. Roosevelt's
war preparations. On December 7, 1941, the Japanese attacked Pearl
Harbor, and the next day, at Roosevelt's urging, Congress passed a
formal declaration of war against Japan. Representative Rankin cast
the sole dissenting vote.
In
1967, the former congresswoman organized the Jeannette Rankin Brigade,
an organization that staged a number of highly publicized protests
against the Vietnam War. She died in 1973 at the age of ninety-two.
|
1917
Wilson asks US Congress to declare war against Germany
^top^
President
Woodrow Wilson, who initially sought a peaceful resolution to the
war in Europe, appears before a joint session of Congress and urges
a declaration of war, citing Germany's unrestricted submarine warfare
against US vessels traveling in the Atlantic.
Two
days later the US Senate votes 82 to 6 to declare war against Germany,
and two days after that, the US House of Representatives endorsed
the declaration by a vote of 373 to 50 (one of the 50 was Jeannette
Rankin), and America formally entered World War I.
Four days earlier, On 28 January 1915, six months after the outbreak
of the war, Germany sunk the first neutral US vessel traveling between
America and England. The US government was outraged, but the German
government apologized and called the attack an unfortunate mistake.
However, on 07 April of the same year, a German submarine torpedoed
the British steamship Lusitania, the queen of the Cunard Line, off
the coast of Ireland. The unarmed vessel was destroyed and 1198 persons
died, including 114 Americans and sixty-three infants. The German
government maintained that the Lusitania was sunk in self-defense,
but the US demanded reparations and an end to German attacks on unarmed
passenger and merchant ships.
On 31 January, the German ambassador delivered a note to the US State
Department formally announcing the renewal of Germany's submarine
warfare against both neutral and belligerent ships. On 03 February
1917, the US severed diplomatic relations with Germany hours before
the US liner Housatonic was sunk by a German U-boat. Two months later,
the US Congress declared war against Germany, and America entered
World War I.
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 1918,
more than two million American soldiers had served on the battlefields
of Western Europe, and some fifty thousand of these men had lost their
lives |
1916 German troops overtake Bois de Caillette
1912
Sun Yet Sen forms Guomindang-Party in China.
1904
Los hereros son vencidos cerca de Okaharaui por los colonos europeos.
1902
First US movie theater opens.
^top^
The
first US theater devoted solely to movies opens in Los Angeles on
this day in 1902. Housed in a circus tent, the venue was dubbed "The
Electric Theater." Its earliest pictures included "New York in a Blizzard."
Admission cost about 10 cents for a one-hour show. Inventors in Europe
and the United States, including Thomas Edison, had been developing
film cameras since the late 1880s. Early films were shown in individual
viewing devices called Kinetoscopes. By the late 1890s, audiences
could attend public demonstrations of movies, and several movie "factories"
(as the earliest production studios were called) had been formed.
In 1896, the Edison Company inaugurated the era of commercial movies,
showing a collection of moving images as a minor act in a vaudeville
show that also included live acts, among which were a Russian clown,
an "eccentric dancer," and a "gymnastic comedian." The film, shown
at Koster and Bial's Music Hall in New York City, featured images
of dancers, ocean waves, and gondolas. Short films, usually less than
a minute long, became a regular part of vaudeville shows at the turn
of the century but were often shown at the very end of the performance,
as "chasers," while the audience left the theater. A vaudeville performers'
strike in 1901, however, left theaters scrambling for acts, and movies
became the main event. In the earliest years, vaudeville theater owners
had to purchase films from factories via mail order, rather than renting
them, which made it expensive to change shows frequently. Starting
in 1902, Henry Miles of San Francisco began renting films to theaters,
forming the basis of today's distribution system. After the opening
of the first movie theater, in Los Angeles in 1902, amusement arcades
began opening small storefront theaters called Nickelodeans (so called
because admission cost 5 cents), which showed short silent films,
usually less than 15 minutes, accompanied by a live pianist. By 1907,
some 2 million Americans had visited a Nickelodean. |
1883 Battle at Bamako: French assault on Fabous arm forces
attack
1879 District Telephone Company of New Haven,
Connecticut starts the first commercial telephone service using toll lines,
between Springfield and Holyoke, Massachusetts, about 13 km apart.
1866 US President Johnson declares Civil War ended in Ala,
Ark, Fla, Ga, Miss, La, NC, SC, Tn and Va
1865 Confederate
government with President Jefferson Davis evacuates its capital of Richmond,
VA
1865 Battle of Ft Blakely AL and Selma AL
1865 (a Sunday) At approximately 07:00, Ulysses S. Grant's
army attacks Confederate lines at Petersburg,
Virginia, and storms Fort Gregg. By mid-afternoon, Confederate troops had
begun to evacuate the town. The Union
victory ensured the fall of Richmond, the capital of the Confederacy,
located just 25 miles north of Petersburg.
1865
Siege of Spanish Fort, Alabama continues
1864 Skirmish
at Crump's Hill (Piney Woods), Louisiana
1864 Skirmish
at Spoonville/Antoine, Arkansas
1863 Bread riots
in Richmond, Virginia
1860 First Italian Parliament
met at Turin
1827 Joseph Dixon begins manufacturing
lead pencils
1795 (13 germinal an III) DUROY
Jean Michel, né à Bernay, député à la convention nationale du département
de l'Eure, condamné à mort 28 prairial an 3, par le conseil militaire établi
à Paris, comme convaincu d'avoir été un des provocateurs des décrets rendus
le 1er prairial, d'avoir demandé le réarmement des terroristes, la liberté
des conspirateurs ses collègues, dans la nuit du 12 au 13 germinal, et de
ceux qui se sont soustraits à l'arrestation etc.., et par ces faits d'être
un des principaux conspirateur contre la République, et contre la Convention
nationale, dans la révolte des 1, 2 3 et 4 prairial an 3, il s'est poignardé
après la lecture de son jugement, n'étant pas mort de ses blessures, il
a été exécuté le même jour.
1792 US Congress establishes
Philadelphia mint
1792 US authorizes $10 Eagle, $5
half-Eagle and 2.50 quarter-Eagle gold coins, and silver dollar, « dollar,
quarter, dime and half-dime
1745 Austria and Bavaria
sign peace.
1734 El rey de España Felipe
V cede a su hijo Carlos (futuro Carlos III de España), mediante decreto,
todos los derechos al trono de Nápoles y Sicilia.
1559
England/France signs first Treaty of Le Chateau-Cambrésis
1559
(or 1550?) Genoa, Italy, expels Jews.
1513
Ponce de León discovers Florida ^top^
Near present-day St. Augustine,
Spanish explorer Juan Ponce de León came ashore on the Florida
coast, and claimed the territory for the Castilian crown.
Although other European navigators may have sighted the Florida peninsula
before, Ponce de León is credited with the first recorded landing
and the first detailed exploration of the Florida coast. According
to legend, the Spanish explorer was searching for the “Fountain
of Youth,” a fabled water source that could bring eternal youth.
Ponce de León subsequently named what he believed to be an
island “La Florida,” likely because his discovery came
during the time of the Easter feast, or Pascua Florida.
In 1521, he returned to Florida in an effort to establish a Spanish
colony on the “island”. However, his expedition was attacked
by hostile Amerindians soon after landing, and the party retreated
to Cuba, where Ponce de León died from a mortal wound suffered
during the battle. Successful Spanish colonization of the peninsula
finally began at St. Augustine in 1565, and in 1819, the territory
passed into US control under the terms of the Florida Purchase Treaty
between Spain and the United States. |
1453 Mehmet II emprende el sitio de Constantinopla,
con 300'000 hombres y 1400 galeras.
1416 Alfonso
V succeeds his father as king of Aragon.
1332
Se firma en Vitoria la escritura de incorporación de Álava a Castilla, reconociendo
ésta el fuero de aquélla.
|
[< click
on image for full portrait of Zola]
