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Events
, deaths, births, of 20 APR

[For Apr 20 Julian go to Gregorian date:
1583~1699: Apr 301700s: May 011800s: May 021900~2099: May 03]
ALTERNATE SITES    ANY DAY  OF THE YEAR IN HISTORY     ART “4” APR 20     wikipedia
• Columbine High School massacre... • Missionary and baby killed by anti~drug plane... • Wisconsin territory established... • Siege of Londonderry... • Ludlow massacre... • Pierre and Marie Curie isolate radium... • Condamnés à mort par la Révolution... • Anti~KKK law... • Hong Kong to revert to China... • German retreat blocked... • USSR forces down stray Korean jet... • Sound with film... • First detective story... • FORTRAN computer language... • Hackers arrested... • Digital TV and Internet over wires... • GIs killing officers... • More US troops to withdraw from Vietnam... • New Century Network...
On a 20 April:
2004 Start of the first of four phases of India's elections to the 14th Lok Sabha (parliament) which (after the other phases on 26 April, 05 May, and 10 May) will end without much change in the number of seats of the National Democratic Party of Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee and the opposition Congress Party. Each constituency has a single poll day. This first poll day is for 141 of India's 543 constituencies. The 141 are in 14 states and 2 territories (India has 28 states and 7 territories) the whole of Gujarat, Mizoram, Tripura, Dadra & Nagar Haveli (territory), Daman & Diu (territory), Chhatisgarh, Meghalaya; and parts of seven states the other parts of which will vote on 26 April: Maharashtra, Jharkhand, Andhra Pradesh, Assam, Chhatisgarh, Karnataka, Manipur, Meghalaya. Jammu & Kashmir (i.e. Indian-occupied Kashmir) is divided in four parts each of which votes on one of the four poll dates. Goa will vote on 26 April only. Different sections of Uttar Pradesh will vote on 26 April, 05 May, and 10 May. Arunachal Pradesh, Nagaland, and Rajasthan will vote on 05 May only. Some constituencies of Madya Pradesh will vote on 05 May and the others on 10 May. The whole states Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Kerala, Punjab, Sikkim, Tamil Nadu, West Bengal, Uttaranchal, and the territories Andaman & Nicobar Islands, Chandigarh, Nct Of Delhi, Lakshadweep, and Pondicherry, will vote on 10 May. 137 constituencies will vote on 26 April, 83 on 05 May, and the remaining 182 on 10 May. [see Election Commission of India]
map of India

2001 The start of the meeting of 34 leaders at the Summit of the Americas in Quebec City is somewhat disrupted by demonstrators against globalization, who are repressed by tear gas, rubber bullets, and water cannons outside the 3700 m security fence surrounding the site of the meeting.
2000  El presidente boliviano Hugo Bánzer Suárez [10 May 1926 – 05 May 2002] suspende el estado de sitio en el país.
1998 Digital TV and Internet over copper wires.       ^top^
      US West announced it would deliver digital TV programming and high-speed Internet access using traditional copper telephone wires. The company said it would first offer the service, called VDSL (Variable Digital Subscriber Lines), in Phoenix, providing some 120 television channels, forty digital music channels, Internet access, and telephone services through television sets.
1996 Russia and the leaders of the world's seven richest democracies agreed in Moscow to end nuclear tests by the fall and pledged new steps to keep nuclear materials out of the wrong hands.
1992 Hackers arrested.       ^top^
      Police cracks a ring of some one thousand teenage hackers who stole credit-card information from credit agencies. Police said the hackers, ages fourteen to twenty-five, had used the stolen credit-card numbers to make millions of dollars worth of purchases. Two teens in Ohio were arrested, while computers and other items were seized in New York, Seattle, and the Philadelphia area.
1991 US Marines landed in northern Iraq to begin building the first center for Kurdish refugees on Iraqi territory.
1990 El Parlamento checo decide, en Praga, que el nombre del país sea en adelante República Federativa Checa y Eslovaca (RFCE).
1989  El Gobierno colombiano aprueba tres decretos para hacer frente a los grupos paramilitares financiados por los narcotraficantes que han sembrado el terror en el país.
1988  Jean-Luc Dehaene cede el puesto a Wilfried Martens al frente del Gobierno belga, tras 128 días sin Gobierno efectivo en la nación..
1987  La Administración estadounidense autoriza el registro de patentes sobre nuevas formas de vida obtenidas por manipulación genética.
1984  Se produce una amplia ofensiva de las fuerzas soviético-afganas en el noroeste de Kabul (Afganistán)
1984 Hong Kong to revert to Chinese rule.       ^top^
      The British government announced that, in accordance with the treaty signed with China in 1898, its administration of Hong Kong would cease in 1997. In September of the same year, a formal agreement was signed with the Chinese Communist authorities, approving the 01 July 1997, turnover of the island in exchange for a Chinese pledge to preserve Hong Kong's capitalist system.
      In 1839, at the outbreak of the First Opium War, Britain invaded and occupied Hong Kong, a sparsely inhabited island off the coast of southeast China. Two years later, China, defeated in its efforts to resist European interference in its economic and political affairs, formally ceded Hong Kong to the British with the signing of the Chuenpi Convention. Britain's new colony flourished as an East-West trading center and as the commercial gateway and distribution center for southern China. In 1898, Britain was granted an additional ninety-nine years of rule over Hong Kong under the Second Convention of Peking. Eighty-eight years later, after months of intense negotiations, Britain and China approved the 1997 turnover.
      On 01 July 1997, Hong Kong reverted back to Chinese rule during ceremonies attended by Chinese and British officials, including Prince Charles of Wales, heir to the British throne. The chief executive under the new Hong Kong government, Tung Chee Hwa, formulated a policy based upon the concept of "one country, two systems," thus preserving Hong Kong's role as a principal capitalist center in Asia.
1983  Comienza en Panamá la Conferencia de Paz para Centroamérica, con asistencia de los seis cancilleres de los países del istmo y sus colegas de México, Colombia y Venezuela.
1980 The first Cubans sailing to the United States as part of the massive Mariel boatlift reached Florida.
1979  El nuevo salario mínimo en España queda fijado en 640 pesetas/día.
1971 US Supreme Court upholds use of busing to achieve racial desegregation.
1971 GIs killing more officers.       ^top^
      The Pentagon releases figures confirming that fragging incidents are on the rise. In 1970, 209 such incidents caused the deaths of 34 men; in 1969, 96 such incidents cost 34 men their lives. Fragging was a slang term used to describe US military personnel tossing of fragmentation hand grenades (hence the term "fragging") usually into sleeping areas to murder fellow soldiers. It was usually directed primarily against unit leaders, officers, and noncommissioned officers. Fragging was rare in the early days of US involvement in ground combat, but it became increasingly common as the rapid turnover caused by the one-year rotation policy weakened unit cohesion. With leadership and morale already declining in the face of repetitive Vietnam tours, the withdrawal of public support led to soldiers questioning their purpose on the battlefield. The situation worsened with the gradual US troop withdrawal that began in 1969. As some troops were withdrawn, discipline and motivation declined as many remaining soldiers began to question why they had to continue fighting. Fragging incidents in combat were usually attempts to remove leaders perceived to be incompetent and a threat to survival. Most fragging incidents, however, occurred in rear-echelon units and were committed by soldiers on drugs or because unit leaders were enforcing anti-drug policies. Unit leaders who were perceived to be too stringent in the enforcement of discipline or regulations sometimes received warnings via a fragmentation grenade, with the safety pin left on, but with their name painted on it left on their bunk, or a smoke grenade discharged under their bunk. Most understood the message, and intimidation through threat of fragging far exceeded actual incidents.
1970 Bruno Kreisky [22 Jan 1911 – 29 Jul 1990], leader of the Social Democratic Party of Austria, which came out the strongest in the elections, is named chancellor of Austria, a post he will hold until resigning in 1983.
1970 Nixon announces more troop withdrawals from Vietnam.       ^top^
      In a televised speech, US President Nixon [09 Jan 1913 – 22 Apr 1994] pledges to withdraw 150'000 more US troops over the next year "based entirely on the progress" of the Vietnamization program. His program, which had first been announced in June 1969, included three parts. First, the United States would step up its effort to improve the combat capability of the South Vietnamese armed forces so that they could assume responsibility for the war against the North Vietnamese. As the South Vietnamese became more capable, US forces would be withdrawn from South Vietnam. At the same time, US negotiators would continue to try to reach a negotiated settlement to the war with the communists at the Paris peace talks. Nixon's new strategy and the continuing US troop withdrawals represented a significant change in the nature of the US commitment to the war, as the primary responsibility for the fighting was transferred to the South Vietnamese armed forces. The first US soldiers were withdrawn in the fall of 1969 and the withdrawals continued periodically through 1972. The remaining US troops were withdrawn from South Vietnam in March 1973 as part of the provisions of the Paris Peace Accords.
1968 Pierre Elliott Trudeau [18 Oct 1919 – 28 Sep 2000] sworn in as prime minister of Canada.
1967 US planes bomb Haiphong for first time during the Vietnam War.
1965  China Popular ofrece su apoyo a Vietnam del Norte contra la "agresión estadounidense".
1962  Después de una oferta de paz por parte del IRA (Irish Republican Army), el Gobierno británico decide liberar a los prisioneros irlandeses condenados por terrorismo.
1962 NASA civilian pilot Neil A. Armstrong [05 Aug 1930~] takes X-15 to 63'250 m altitude.
1961  El intento de invasión de Cuba iniciado el 17 Apr 1961 con el desembarco de fuerzas contrarrevolucionarias, apoyadas por la CIA pero no por las fuerzas militares de EE.UU, en bahía Cochinos, resulta un completo fracaso.
1961 La Asamblea General de la ONU invita a Portugal a que emprenda reformas en Angola, donde sus tropas se enfrentan a los nacionalistas.
1957 Westinghouse first to use FORTRAN computer language.      ^top^
      The Westinghouse-Bettis nuclear power plant became the first commercial users of FORTRAN, soon to be the dominant computer language for scientific applications. FORTRAN, or Formula Translator, was the first widely used high-level computer language. Developed by IBM researcher John Backus, FORTRAN greatly simplified programming by translating simple English instructions into machine language, saving the programmer hundreds of steps. The Westinghouse-Bettis nuclear plant first used FORTRAN on 20 April 1957, when an unlabeled cardboard box of punch cards arrived at the computer center. The company had been expecting a new programming language from IBM, so, although the cards came with no instructions, the company's programmers fed them into their mainframe computer. To their surprise, the program worked immediately, giving detailed diagnostic statements in plain English (it pointed out that a comma was missing in a command line).
1952::  600 de los 6500 presos del mayor penal del mundo, situado en Jackson (Michigan, EE.UU.), se rebelan contra la brutalidad de los guardias y la insuficiencia de los equipos médicos.
1948 Walter P. Reuther [01 Sep 1907 – 09 May 1970], UAW president, is shot and wounded at his home in Detroit.
1947  Federico IX sube al trono de Dinamarca.
1946  Los comunistas chinos ocupan Chang-Sha.
1945 US 7th army conquers German city of Nuremberg. Stuttgart too is taken..
1945 Soviet troops enter Berlin.
1945 Allied bombers cut off German retreat in Italy as Hitler celebrates his birthday.       ^top^
      Allied bombers in Italy begin Operation Corncob, a three-day attack on the bridges over the rivers Adige and Brenta to cut off German lines of retreat on the peninsula.
      Meanwhile, Adolf Hitler, who has only 10 more days to live, celebrates his 56th birthday as a Gestapo reign of terror results in the hanging of 20 Russian prisoners of war and 20 Jewish children: Of these, at least nine are under the age of 12. All of the victims had been taken from Auschwitz to Neuengamme, the place of execution, for the purpose of medical experimentation.
1943  El jefe de los guerrilleros chetnik yugoslavos (Ejéricito Real Yugoslavo de la Patría), General Dragoljub “Draza” Mihailovic [foto >], rechaza las acusaciones de mantener relaciones con las potencias del Eje. — After the surrender of the Yugoslav royal army in April 1941, Serb soldiers throughout Yugoslavia set up chete, or "bands," named after armed irregulars who had harrassed the Turks in the 19th century. The most important were those organized in the Ravna Gora district of western Serbia under Colonel Dragoljub “Draza” Mihailovic [27 March 1893 – 17 July 1946]. Mihailovic (appointed general and minister of war in 1941 by King Peter's government-in-exile) directed his units to avoid large-scale fighting with the Germans (who exacted horrible reprisals for every act of resistance) and to wait for an Allied invasion that would liberate Yugoslavia and restore the monarchy. This cautious strategy soon led the Chetniks into open conflict with the Communist Partisans. Even after the Germans drove both forces out of Serbia, many Chetniks on occasion reportedly joined German, Croatian and, especially, Italian units in operations against their Communist rivals. The Allies, who at first considered Mihailovic the pillar of the Yugoslav resistance, eventually shifted their support to the Partisans. By the end of the war, the Chetniks were greatly reduced in number. Some retreated north to surrender to Anglo-American forces; Mihailovic and his few remaining followers tried to fight their way back to the Ravna Gora to continue the anticommunist struggle, but they were beaten and dispersed by the victorious Partisans. On 13 March 1946 Mihailovic was captured and brought to Belgrade, where he was tried under Tito and executed, though a US commission had cleared him and noted that he helped in rescuing hundreds of downed Allied airmen.
1940 RCA publicly demonstrated its new and powerful electron microscope.
1939  El 50º cumpleaños de Adolf Hitler es declarado fiesta nacional en Alemania.
1935  Se producen enfrentamientos entre campesinos en Lorca (Murcia) a causa de la escasez de agua.
1934  Las Cortes españolas aprueban la Ley de Amnistía.
1929  El Gobierno español decreta el cierre de la Universidad de Barcelona por la creciente agitación estudiantil, como ya había hecho en Madrid.
1923  Se suprime en Italia la fiesta del primero de mayo.
1919 Polish Army captures Vilno, Lithuania, from Soviet Army.
1917 El Rey de España  Alfonso XIII [17 May 1886 – 28 Feb 1941] llama al liberal Manuel García Prieto para que forme Gobierno.
1916  Se produce un combate naval en el Mar del Norte entre barcos ingleses y alemanes frente a las costas flamencas en el transcurso de la Primera Guerra Mundial.
1915  El ministro inglés del Tesoro, David Lloyd George [17 Jan 1863 – 26 Mar 1945], exige que se pase a la economía de guerra.
1914  El presidente Thomas Woodrow Wilson [28 Dec 1856 – 03 Feb 1924] ordena a las tropas estadounidenses que ocupen Veracruz.
1910 Halley's Comet passes 29th recorded perihelion at 87.9 million km.
1902 Marie and Pierre Curie successfully isolate radioactive radium.       ^top^
      Marie and Pierre Curie successfully isolate radioactive radium salts from the mineral pitchblende in their laboratory in Paris. In 1898, the Curies discovered the existence of the elements radium and polonium in their research of pitchblende. One year after isolating radium, they would share the 1903 Nobel Prize in physics with French scientist A. Henri Becquerel [15 Dec 1852 – 25 Aug 1908] for their groundbreaking investigations of radioactivity. Marie Curie [07 Nov 1867 – 04 Jul 1936] was born Marie Sklodowska in Warsaw, Poland. The daughter of a physics teacher, she was a gifted student and in 1891 went to study at the Sorbonne in Paris. With highest honors, she received a degree in physical sciences in 1893 and in mathematics in 1894. That year she met Pierre Curie [15 May 1859 – 19 Apr 1906], a noted French physicist and chemist who had done important work in magnetism. Marie and Pierre married in 1895, marking the beginning of a scientific partnership that would achieve world renown.
      Looking for a subject for her doctoral thesis, Marie Curie began studying uranium, which was at the heart of Becquerel's discovery of radioactivity in 1896. The term radioactivity, which describes the phenomenon of radiation caused by atomic decay, was in fact coined by Marie Curie. In her husband's laboratory, she studied the mineral pitchblende, of which uranium is the primary element, and reported the probable existence of one or more other radioactive elements in the mineral. Pierre Curie joined her in her research, and in 1898 they discovered polonium, named after Marie's native Poland, and radium. While Pierre investigated the physical properties of the new elements, Marie worked to chemically isolate radium from pitchblende. Unlike uranium and polonium, radium does not occur freely in nature, and Marie and her assistant André Debierne laboriously refined several tons of pitchblende in order to isolate one-tenth gram of pure radium chloride in 1902. On the results of this research, she was awarded her doctorate of science in June 1903 and later in the year shared the Nobel Prize in physics with her husband and Becquerel. She was the first woman to win a Nobel Prize.
      Pierre Curie was appointed to the chair of physics at the Sorbonne in 1904, and Marie continued her efforts to isolate pure, non-chloride radium. In April 1906, Pierre Curie was killed in an accident on a Paris street. Although devastated, Marie Curie vowed to continue her work and in May 1906 was appointed to her husband's seat at the Sorbonne, thus becoming the university's first female professor. In 1910, with Debierne, she finally succeeded in isolating pure, metallic radium. For this achievement, she was the sole recipient of the 1911 Nobel Prize in chemistry, making her the first person to win a second Nobel Prize. She became interested in the medical applications of radioactive substances, working on radiology during World War I and the potential of radium as a cancer therapy. Beginning in 1918, the Radium Institute at the University of Paris began to operate under Curie's direction and from its inception was a major center for chemistry and nuclear physics. In 1921, she visited the United States, and President Warren G. Harding [02 Nov 1865 – 02 Aug 1923] presented her with a gram of radium. Curie's daughter, Irène Curie [12 Sep 1897 – 17 Mar 1956], was also a physical chemist and, with her husband, Frédéric Joliot [19 Mar 1900 – 14 Aug 1958], was awarded the 1935 Nobel Prize in chemistry for the discovery of artificial radioactivity. Marie Curie died in 1934 from leukemia caused by four decades of exposure to radioactive substances.
1899  Una sentencia del Consejo parlamentario alemán autoriza a las mujeres a acceder al examen oficial de medicina en el territorio del Imperio.
1896 First Vitascope show For the first time, a projected movie is shown as a commercial attraction on this day in 1896. Koster and Bial's Music Hall, a vaudeville theater in New York, showed short moving images, using a projector called the Vitascope, invented by Thomas Armat and Francis Jenkins of the Edison Company. The Vitascope projector inspired the name of one of the first motion picture companies, Edison Vitagraph Film Company, later called Vitagraph.
1884 Pope Leo XIII [02 Mar 1810 – 20 Jul 1903] promulgates his encyclical Humanum Genus on Freemasonry. [English translation]
1871 Ku Klux Klan Act passed by US Congress.       ^top^
      With passage of the Third Force Act, popularly known as the Ku Klux Klan Act, Congress authorized President Ulysses S. Grants to use military force against the Ku Klux Klan.
      Founded in 1865 by a group of Confederate veterans, the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) rapidly grew from a secret social fraternity to a paramilitary force bent on reversing the federal government's progressive Reconstruction Era-activities in the South, especially in regard to the region's African-American population. The name of the Ku Klux Klan was derived from the Greek word kuklos, meaning circle, and clann, a Scottish Gaelic word for the traditional tribal units of Scotland that reflected the Scottish ancestry of many of the KKK's founding members.
     Under a platform of philosophized white racial superiority, the group employed violence as a means of pushing back the radical reforms underway in the post-Civil War South. Thriving in counties where the two political parties or races were relatively balanced, the KKK engaged in terrorist raids against African Americans and white Southern Republicans at night, employing intimidation, destruction of property, assault, and murder to achieve its aims and influence upcoming elections.
      In a few southern states, Republicans organized militia units to break up the Klan, while passage of the Ku Klux Klan Act of 1871 by Congress authorized President Grant to use federal troops against the KKK, and the organization was thoroughly suppressed.
      However, the twentieth century would see two unfortunate revivals of the KKK; one in response to immigration in the 1910s and 1920s, and one in answer to the African-American civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s.
1864 Plymouth, North Carolina captured
1863 Siege of Suffolk, Virginia by Confederates continues
1862 Siege of Yorktown, Virginia continues
1861 Federals evacuate Norfolk, Virginia and Gosport Navy Yard
1861 Robert E. Lee [19 Jan 1807 – 12 Oct 1870] resigns from the US Union army to join the rebellion of the Southern states..
1859  Una expedición armada franco-española zarpa con rumbo a Cochinchina.
1836 Wisconsin Territory established.       ^top^
      Wisconsin, formerly governed as part of the territories of Indiana, Illinois, and Michigan, was established as a separate US territory, with Madison, located midway between Milwaukee and the western centers of population, to be founded as the territorial capital.
      In 1634, French explorer Jean Nicolet landed at Green Bay, becoming the first European to visit the lake-heavy northern region that would later become Wisconsin. In 1763, at the conclusion of the French and Indian Wars, Wisconsin, a major center of the American fur trade, passed into British control. Two decades later, at the end of the American Revolution, the region came under US rule, and was governed as part of the Northwest Territory.
      However, British fur traders continued to dominate Wisconsin from across the Canadian border, and it was not until the end of the War of 1812 that the region fell firmly under American control. In the first decades of the nineteenth century, settlers began arriving via the Erie Canal and the Great Lakes to exploit Wisconsin's agricultural potential, and in 1832, the Black Hawk War ended Native-American resistance to white settlement.
      In 1836, after several decades of governance as part of other territories, Wisconsin was made a separate entity. By 1840, population in Wisconsin had risen above 130'000, but the people voted against statehood four times, fearing the higher taxes that would come with a stronger central government.
      Finally, in 1848, Wisconsin citizens, envious of the prosperity that federal programs brought to neighboring Midwestern states, voted to approve statehood. On 29 April 1848, Wisconsin entered the Union as the thirtieth state.
1818 US Congress passes protectionist tariff legislation.
1809 Napoléon I [15 Aug 1769 – 05 May 1821] defeats Austria at Battle of Abensberg, Bavaria.
1808  Fernando VII [14 Oct 1784 – 29 Sep 1833] sale de España para entrevistarse con Napoleón en Bayona, encuentro del que no regresará hasta la caída de éste.
1792 France declares war on Austria, Prussia, and Sardinia, starting the French Revolutiony wars.
1777 New York adopts new constitution as an independent state
1775 British begin siege of Boston.
1770 Capt. Cook [27 Oct 1728 – 14 Feb 1779] arrives in New South Wales
1689 Siege of Londonderry begins.       ^top^
     James II, the former British king, begins a siege of Londonderry, a Protestant stronghold in Northern Ireland.
      In the previous year, James, a Catholic, had been deposed by his Protestant daughter, Mary, and her husband, William of Orange, in a bloodless coup known as the Glorious Revolution. James fled to France and in 1689 landed in Ireland, hoping to incite his Catholic supporters there and regain the British throne. Aided by French forces, James captured Dublin in late March and in April marched on Londonderry, the northern town where Irish supporters of Britain had fled.
      On 20 April 1689, James, having encircled Londonderry, began a bombardment of the fortified city, causing devastating fires and significant loss of life. However, despite this and other assaults, the city refused to surrender, and its poorly supplied defenders managed to repulse wave after wave of attacks from James's soldiers. In the face of famine conditions, George Walker, the joint governor of the town and an Anglican clergyman, gave inspired public sermons that roused the people to a fierce resistance.
     Finally on August 1, after 105 days of siege, British forces arrived to relieve the defiant Protestant city and James retreated. Eleven months later, at the Battle of Boyne in eastern Ireland, James suffered a final defeat against the forces of William and Mary. George Walker, the defender of Londonderry, was killed during the battle.
1657 English Admiral Robert Blake [Aug 1599 – 07 Aug 1657] fights his last battle destroying the Spanish fleet in Santa Cruz Bay.
1441 During the Council of Florence (1438-1445), Eugene IV [1388 – 23 Feb 1447] issues the bull Etsi non dubitemus, which asserts the superiority of the pope over the Councils.
1283  Roger de Lauria es nombrado almirante de la Armada aragonesa de Sicilia por Pedro III de Aragón.
1194  El rey de León, Alfonso IX, y el de Castilla, Alfonso VIII [1155 – 06 Oct 1214], firman el tratado de Tordehumos.
0295 8th recorded perihelion passage of Halley's Comet.
TO THE TOP
Lior ZivDeaths which occurred on an April 20:

2004:: 21 prisoners, by 18 mortar rounds which hit the jail run by the US occupiers of Iraq, which they call the Baghdad Confinement Facility.

2003 Israeli Corporal Lior Ziv, 19 [photo >], a photographer in the Army Spokesman unit, shot by a Palestinian sniper, shortly after midnight. Ziv was accompanying an attack on the Rafah refugee camp in the Gaza Strip, with the support of tanks and helicopters, which started shortly before midnight, kills five Palestinians, and injures 45.

2003 Bernard Katz, born on 26 March 1911, Jewish German British physiologist, who, for his work on the transmission of messages between nerves and muscles, shared the 1970 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine with physiologists Ulf von Euler [07 Feb 1905 – 09 March 1983] and Julius Axelrod [30 May 1912~].

2003 Mary Dorothy Christian, born on 12 June 1889. She was the oldest living person in the US since the November 2002 death of Mary Parr, 113.

2001 Veronica "Roni" Bowers, 35, and her 7-month-old adopted daughter, Charity, missionary plane shot down by Peruvian fighter plane on a mission to shoot down drug smugglers' planes, in the Amazon jungle near Pebas some 1100 km northeast of Lima. Kevin Donaldson, the pilot, is wounded in both legs. Also on board and unhurt were Roni's husband, Jim Bowers, 35, and their 6-year-old son Cory. The missionaries belong to the Pennsylvania-based Association of Baptists for World Evangelism, which runs in Peru a theological seminary, schools, a camp and a center for pregnant women. [photos and details]
2001 Argun Yelesayev, 18, Chechen, stabbed 100 m from Kremlin by two Neo-Nazi skinheads whom he was pursuing because they had shouted insults at him and a group of his Chechen friends, thus celebrating Hitler's Birthday.
1999 One teacher and 14 students of Columbine High School, in Littleton, Colorado:       ^top^
William "Dave" Sanders
(d03) (business teacher and coach who put himself in the line of fire while he shepherded kids to safety. At 11:24, realizing a danger, Sanders enters the cafeteria and direct students to get down.  Several students recalled Sanders directing them to safety by telling them to go down the hallway to the east side exits of the school. At 11:26 Sanders turns into the library hallway toward the west entrance and the sounds of gunfire.  As Sanders passes the entrance to the library, he apparently sees a gunman coming toward him from the north hallway.  Sanders turns around and heads back the way he had just come.  Just before turning the corner to go east, he is shot. Sanders is able to crawl to the corner of the Science hallway where teacher Richard Long helps him down the hallway into classroom SCI-3.  A group of students, including two Eagle Scouts, Aaron Hancey and Kevin Starkey, gather around him, trying to attend to his injuries and to administer first aid.
      At 12:44 dispatch reports that an EMT dispatcher is on the phone with a party inside the school, who is with a critically injured victim.
      At 14:12 SWAT positioned on the roof of a residence to the south of the school reports a sign in a window on the upper level.  The sign reads, “1 bleeding to death.” 
      At 14:42 Williams’ SWAT team requests medical assistance to the science area on the second floor, west side, for a teacher with multiple gunshot wounds. The teacher is Dave Sanders. Two SWAT members stay with Sanders waiting for paramedics.
      At 16:45 Dr. Christopher Colwell, attending emergency room physician at Denver Health Medical Center, is escorted to the science area where he pronounces teacher Dave Sanders dead. He bled to death, while waiting 4 hours for rescue by the SWAT team.
John Robert Tomlin
(16, a shy, quiet sophomore who enjoyed weightlifting. He had worked hard to buy a 4x4 Chevrolet truck. He spent a great deal of time working on it. After graduation, he planned on joining the army),
Kyle Velasquez
(16, who at 6 feet tall was described as a quiet, unassuming "gentle giant"; he had been a Columbine student for fewer than three months when he was killed. He was the first student shot in the library. He always had a smile and tried to cheer up others who were "down in the dumps". He was a great Denver Broncos fan and wore the team's ball cap)
Cassie Bernall, an avid writer. She had been one of the school's alienated students until she began going to religious meetings, which turned her into a person with a sunny dispositon all remembered. (would have graduated 000520) http://denver.rockymountainnews.com/shooting/0427bern5.shtml
Steven Curnow (14, wanted to join the Navy and fly fighter aircraft. He was a devoted "Star Wars" fan and could recite dialogue from memory. ),
Corey De Pooter
, 17, a junior who had hoped to become a US Marine and who enjoyed golfing, hunting, and above all, fishing. He had taken a job to be able to buy his own boat. He worked hard to get good grades. (would have graduated 000520)
Kelly Flemming
(16, a poet, songwriter and lover of music, particularly the guitar. Her family had moved to Littleton from Phoenix 18 months earlier),
Matthew Kechter
, 16 (born on 19 February 1983), worked hard to make straight A's and be on the football team. He would go out of his way to help others. (Days after the anniversary of the attack in 2000, Columbine basketball star Greg Barnes hanged himself. Barnes had seen the fatal shooting of teacher Dave Sanders and lost a friend in Matthew Kechter). .
Daniel Conner Mauser
(15, a smart, shy sophomore who excelled in math and science but pushed himself to be an outgoing athlete. received all A's on his last report card. He ran cross-country, was on the debate team and had recently returned from a two-week trip to Paris with his French club) http://denver.rockymountainnews.com/shooting/0426doub5.shtml
Daniel Rohrbough (d02)(15, a freshman, He worked with his father in their electronics business). At 11:19 Daniel, with Sean Graves and Lance Kirklin, had just come outside through a side door of the school cafeteria on the way to the “Smoker’s Pit” at Clement Park, when all three were wounded in the first volley of gunfire and fell to the ground. A couple of minutes later, Klebold approached and shot at close range, killing Daniel and further injuring Lance. At 12:04 Littleton Fire Department paramedics find that he is dead..
Rachel Joy Scott
, (d01) 17, a budding playwright, had ambitions to be a missionary in Africa. She was also a talented actress, having just been a part of a school play. After school, she worked in a Subway sandwich shop. (would have graduated 000520) Rachel was the first one shot dead, at 11:19. She and Richard Castaldo, who was severely wounded, had been sitting on the grass eating their lunch outside the school's west upper entrance near the north side of the library. At 12:36 The Denver SWAT goes to retrieve her and bring her to the fire truck they are using for cover, only to find that she has already died.. http://denver.rockymountainnews.com/shooting/0425rach2.shtml
Lauren Townsend Isaiah Shoels (an aspiring musician. He had successfully recovered from heart trouble only months earlier, and despite being small, worked extremely hard at playing on the school football team),
Lauren Dawn Townsend
(born 17 January 1981, captain of the girls' volleyball team. Lauren also excelled academically and was a member of the National Honor Society)
[picture >],
Eric David Harris
(18),
Dylan Bennent Klebold
(17),
all shot by the last two, starting at 11:19, their idea of how to celebrate Hitler's birthday by venting their hatred for everything and everybody (evidenced in an occasional journal written by Harris) by killing everyone in the school mainly with two propane tank bombs they had set in the cafeteria (which did not go off). During their killing spree, one of them was heard to exclaim: “This is what we always wanted to do.  This is awesome!” and later, in the library at 11:33: "Yahoo!".

The 24 wounded were:
Sean Graves (w02) 15
-- 1 wound to back, 3 to abdomen, needed rehab.[photo: in wheelchair with his mother on way to graduation 000520] At 11:19 Sean, with Daniel Rohrbough and Lance Kirklin, had just come outside through a side door of the school cafeteria on the way to the “Smoker’s Pit” at Clement Park, when all three were wounded in the first volley of gunfire and fell to the ground. At 12:04 Littleton Fire Department paramedics rescued him. At 12:12 he is transported to Swedish Medical Hospital.
Nick Foss (w22) -- Multiple wounds to chest, legs and face. At 13:03 he is transported to Littleton Hospital, treated and released on 20 April.
Hall, Makai -- (w18) Gunshot wounds, At 12:44 he is transported to Littleton Hospital.  From there, at 13:40, he transported to St. Anthony’s Hospital by Air Life; hospitalized, released on 21 April
Brian Anderson -- (w11). Brian had been told by a teacher to get out of the school because of the explosions and commotion. Not realizing where the danger is, he exits through the first set of west doors at 11:24, and is caught between the interior and exterior doors when Harris fires at the doors in front of him, shattering the glass.  Brian suffers superficial wounds to his chest from the flying glass fragments. He flees into the library. At 13:11 he is transported to Lutheran Medical Center. He is treated and released on 20 April.
Patrick Ireland, 17 --(w24) Serious wounds, needed rehab (graduated 000520}  At 14:38 Patrick Ireland, shot in the library and slipping in and out of consciousness, has slowly made his way to the west window.  Sgt. Domenico, in a news helicopter, and deputies on the south and west sides of the school see a figure at the window and realize the young man is attempting to climb out the second story broken window.  The only thing below him is a concrete sidewalk. The image of Patrick’s rescue has come to epitomize the Columbine tragedy.  Using the roof of an armored vehicle so they can reach him, several Lakewood SWAT members catch the young man as he falls out the window . At 14:39 he is transported to St. Anthony’s Hospital.
Richard Castaldo , (w01) 17-- Eight gunshot wounds to spine, paralyzed. Richard was the first one to be wounded, at 11:19. He and Rachel Scott, who was killed, had been sitting on the grass eating their lunch outside the school's west upper entrance near the north side of the library. At 12:35 two Denver SWAT members rescue Richard Castaldo and lay him on the bumper of the fire truck they are using for cover. Jefferson County Deputy Scott Taborsky puts Richard in his patrol car and rushes him to medical assistance. At 13:03 he Richard Castaldo is transported to Swedish Medical Center
Michael Johnson, (w04) 15 -- Serious wounds. He was sitting on the grass to the west of the stairs from the top of which the gunmen were shooting their first volley, and was shot at 11:20 as he began to run away. Despite his wounds he managed to reach the outdoor athletic storage shed where he took cover with others. At 12:26 he is transported to St. Anthony’s Hospital, hospitalized, released on 28 April.
Dan Steepleton -- (w17) Gunshot wounds. At 12:40 he is transported to Littleton Hospital, hospitalized, released on 21 April.
Nicole Nowlen (w19) -- Nine wounds to abdomen. At 12:50 she is transported to Lutheran Medical Center, hospitalized, released on 21 April.
Joyce Jankowski -- treated, released on 20 April.
Mark Kintgen --(w23) Multiple wounds to his neck. At 13:09 Air Life transports him from the Yukon/Caley triage to Denver Health Medical, hospitalized, released on 21 April.
Mrs. Patricia Nielson, teacher -- (w10) is working as a hall monitor when an 11:24 she hears a commotion outside the west entrance of the school.  She looks outside, seeing two male students with what she thinks are toy guns, and assumes that a school video production is being taped.  She is on her way outside to tell the boys to “knock it off” when one of the gunmen fires into the west entrance, causing glass and metal fragments to spray into the hallway.  Nielson suffers abrasions to her shoulder, forearm and knee from the fragments. She flees into the library, where she hides under the front counter and at 11:25 calls 911 to report shots being fired outside the library. Then at 11:26 she reports smoke coming in through the doorway.  She yells at students to get on the floor and under the tables.
     At 11:27, continuing her phone contact with the Jefferson County dispatcher,  Nielson reacts to the sounds of gunshots and explosions coming from the hallway outside the library.  Interspersed with short conversations with the dispatcher, she screams at the students in the library to get under the tables and to stay hidden.  She then reports that a gunman is just outside the library entrance.
     At 11:36 Mrs. Nielson drops the phone.  She ultimately crawls into the library’s break room to hide in a cupboard.  She remains in the library until she is evacuated by SWAT around 15:30. At 15:40 she is transported to Littleton Hospital. She is treated and released on 20 April.
Park, Jeanna, 18 (w14) -- At 11:31, in the library, she is shot in the legs and shoulder. Later, she and the others escaped the library by running out of the emergency exit next to the west entrance to the school.  They ran to Deputy Taborsky’s patrol vehicle and hid behind it until Deputy Searle and several Denver officers were able to load the students in their vehicles. At 12:27 she is transported to Denver Health Medical. Kacey Ruegsegger is transported to St. Anthony’s Hospital.  hospitalized, released on 26 April.
Kacey Ruegsegger (w15) -- At 11:31, in the library, she is shot. Later, she and the others escaped the library by running out of the emergency exit next to the west entrance to the school.  They ran to Deputy Taborsky’s patrol vehicle and hid behind it until Deputy Searle and several Denver officers were able to load the students in their vehicles. At 12:27 she is transported to St. Anthony’s Hospital. 
Jennifer Doyle (w20) -- Multiple wounds. At 12:57 she is transported to Littleton Hospital, hospitalized, released on 21 April.
Anne Marie Hochhalter , (w09) 17 -- Multiple wounds, paralyzed, sharp pains. (On 22 October 1999, her mother walked into a pawn shop, asked for gun, loaded it and shot herself to death. Relatives said that she suffered from depression and that the massacre and her daughter’s grave injuries were more than she could handle). At 11:21 Anne Marie was shot by Harris multiple times as she stood to run for cover into the cafeteria. At 12:04 Littleton Fire Department paramedics rescued her. At 12:06 she is transported to Swedish Medical Hospital. She would be confined to a wheelchair.
Mark Taylor (w05) was sitting on the grass to the west of the stairs from the top of which the gunmen were shooting their first volley, and was shot at 11:20 as he began to run away. Disabled by his wound, he fell to the ground and was unable to flee. At 12:25 he is transported to University Hospital.
Lance Kirklin (w03) -- At 11:19 Lance, with Sean Graves and Daniel Rohrbough, had just come outside through a side door of the school cafeteria on the way to the “Smoker’s Pit” at Clement Park, when all three were wounded in the first volley of gunfire and fell to the ground. A couple of minutes later, Klebold approached and shot at close range, killing Daniel and further injuring Lance. At 12:04 Littleton Fire Department paramedics rescued him. At 12:21 he is transported to Denver Health Medical.
Stephanie Munson -- (w12) at 11:26 she and another student walk out of a classroom into the school’s north main hallway.  As they enter the hallway, they see a teacher and several students running behind them.  The teacher yells for the students: “Run!  Get out of the building!”  They both run through the main hallway leading to the school’s main entrance on the east side. Stephanie is shot in the ankle but both are able to escape the building and continue across the street to safety at Leawood Park
Valeen Schnurr (w16) -- In the library, at 11:31 the killers ask if she believes in God. When she said yes, they shoot her (Schnurr's story was misattributed to Cassie Bernall). She is able to escape through the library’s emergency exit when Klebold and Harris left the library. At 12:31 she is transported to Swedish Medical.
Austin Eubanks (w08) -- At 12:57 he is transported to Littleton Hospital
Adam Kyler --(w13) At 14:24 he is transported to Littleton Hospital
Lisa Kreuz --(w21) At 15:25, the first team to enter the library is Williams’ team of four Jefferson County SWAT members.  The four Jefferson County members spread out and work their way through sections of the library.  They step over numerous bombs trying to get to each one of the children. Among three victims laying on the floor under desks is Lisa Kreutz.  She has been shot several times but she is alive. SWAT, seeing her wounds, calls for a paramedic. Although several bombs are laying inside the door, the SWAT team realizes the urgent need to get a team of paramedics into the library to attend to Lisa Kreutz. Two paramedics come in with a backboard, put the wounded student on it and quickly get her out of the library.  Lisa is transported to Denver Health Medical at 15:37.


Another account:
     Two teenage gunmen kill 13 people in a shooting spree at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado. At 11:20, Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris, dressed in long trench coats, began shooting students outside the school before moving inside to continue their rampage. By the time SWAT team officers finally entered the school at 15:30, Klebold and Harris had killed 12 fellow students and a teacher, and had wounded another 23 people. Turning their guns on themselves, Klebold and Harris then committed suicide. The awful crime captured the nation's attention, prompting an unprecedented search-much of it based on false information-for a scapegoat on whom to pin the blame. In the days immediately following the shootings, many claimed that Klebold and Harris purposely chose jocks, blacks, and Christians as their victims. In one particular instance, student Cassie Bernall was allegedly asked by one of the gunmen if she believed in God. When Bernall said, "Yes," she was shot to death. Her parents later wrote a book entitled "She Said Yes," and toured the country, honoring their martyred daughter. Apparently, however, the question was never actually posed to Bernall. In fact, it was asked of another student who had already been wounded by a gunshot. When that victim replied, "Yes," the shooter walked away. Subsequent investigations also determined that Klebold and Harris chose their victims completely at random. Their original plan was for two bombs to explode in the school's cafeteria, forcing the survivors outside and into their line of fire. When the homemade bombs didn't work, Klebold and Harris decided to go into the school to carry out their murderous rampage. Commentators also railed against the so-called "Trench Coat Mafia" and "goths," and questioned why these groups and cliques were not monitored more closely. However, further investigation revealed that Klebold and Harris were not part of either group. Columbine High School reopened in the fall of 1999, but the massacre left behind an unmistakable scar on the Littleton community. Mark Manes, the young man who sold a gun to Harris and bought him 100 rounds of ammunition the day before the murders, was sentenced to six years in prison. Carla Hochhalter, the mother of a student who was paralyzed in the attack, killed herself at a gun shop. Several other parents filed suit against the school and the police. Even Dylan Klebold's parents filed suit, claiming that police should have stopped Harris earlier. A senior at Columbine was arrested after he threatened to "finish the job." And when a local church erected 15 crosses on behalf of everyone who died on 20 April, parents of the victims tore down the two in memory of Klebold and Harris. In an effort to show the world "that life goes on," Columbine school board officials voted to replace the library where students were murdered with an atrium.

Later tragedy:

      On 13 February 2000, Columbine sweethearts Nicholas Kunselman, 15, and Stephanie Hart Grizzell, 16, were shot to death in a sandwich shop near the school.
1998  Jean François Lyotard, filósofo francés.
1996 Christopher Robin Milne, born on 21 August 1920, for whom his father A. A. Milne (18 Jan 1886 – 31 Jan 1956) had written the Winnie-the-Pooh stories. As Christopher grew up he resented the celebrity status they gave him, became a bookseller, and was estranged from his parents. Christopher wrote three autobiographical books. The Enchanted Places (1974), an account of his childhood and of the problems that he encountered because of the Pooh books, The Path Through the Trees (1979), and The Hollow on the Hill (1982).
1994  José Antonio León Rey, poeta y escritor colombiano.
1986  Unas 100 personas al reventar una presa en Kantalai (Sri Lanka).Más de 18'000 personas quedan sin hogar.
1978 Two persons aboard stray Korean Air Lines forced down in USSR.      ^top^
      Soviet aircraft force a Korean Air Lines passenger jet to land in the Soviet Union after the jet veers into Russian airspace. Two people were killed and several others injured when the jet made a rough landing on a frozen lake about 300 miles south of Murmansk. The jet was on a flight from Paris to Seoul when the incident occurred. Soviet officials claimed that the plane, which usually flew over the northern polar regions to reach Seoul, suddenly veered sharply to the east and penetrated Russian airspace. Soviet jets intercepted the passenger plane and ordered it to land. Instead of going to the airfield indicated by the Soviet jets, however, the KAL flight made a very rough landing on a frozen lake south of Murmansk. Two passengers were killed and several others were injured during the landing. A short time later, the Soviet Union allowed a civilian American aircraft to retrieve the survivors.
      US officials were confused about what had gone wrong with the KAL flight, and Soviet officials were not extraordinarily helpful in clearing up matters. South Korea claimed that "navigational errors" were to blame for the plane flying so far off course. Aviation experts, however, doubted that "errors" of that magnitude would occur in such a sophisticated aircraft or that navigation problems could account for the plane's wildly inaccurate flight pattern. All that could be said for certain was that the episode once again demonstrated the Soviet Union's strict adherence to the protection of its airspace. Since the end of World War II a number of civilian and military aircraft had been driven away, forced to land, or shot down by the Soviet airforce. The Russian policy would have even more tragic consequences on September 1, 1983, when Soviet jets shot down KAL Flight 007 after it veered 300 miles off course and flew over the Soviet Union--nearly 270 people died in that crash.
1967::  128 pasajeros en un accidente aéreo en las cercanías de Nicosia (Chipre).
1963  Julián Grimau, comunista, ejecutado en Madrid.
1957 Konrad Hermann Theodor Knopp, German mathematician born on 22 July 1882. He worked on generalized limits and wrote excellent books on complex functions.
1947  Christian X, born on 26 September 1870, king of Denmark (1912–1947) who symbolized the nation's resistance to the German occupation during World War II. He is succeeded by his elder son, who becomes Frederick IX.
1943 German Nazi troops massacre the Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto.
1942 Lugwig Berwald, Jewish Czech mathematician, dies deported (since 22 Oct 1941) to the Lodz ghetto in Poland (where his wife Hedwig Adler Berwald had died on 27 March 1942). He was born on 08 December 1883. He worked mainly on differential geometry, in part setting up some of the basic theory of what would be called Finsler geometry and Spray geometry (differential geometry of path spaces).
1932 Giuseppe Peano, of a heart attack, Italian mathematician born on 27 August 1858. He was the founder of symbolic logic and his interests centered on the foundations of mathematics and on the development of a formal logical language. In 1889 he published the pamphlet Arithmetices principia, nova methodo exposita, containing Peano axioms, which define the natural numbers thus:
— 1 is a natural number
— For every natural number x there exists another natural number x’ called the successor of x.
— 1 # x’ for every natural number x
— If x’ = y’ then x = y
— If Q is a property such that:
     -- 1 has the property Q; and
     -- if x has property Q then x’ has property Q

   then the property Q holds for all natural numbers.

Peano invented space-filling curves in 1890. From 1892 no 1908, Peano worked on his Formulario Mathematico, a collection of all known theorems, in the notation of mathematical logic which he had invented. Recorda etiam peculiare attentione de Peano per linguistica: illo crea Latino Sine Flexione, lingua artificiale que omne persona pote scribe et dice facilemente. Suo vocabulario non es formato ad arbitrio, sed contine vocabulos hodie in usu in vario linguas. Pro iste ratione illo habe maximo praecisione de expressione et es vivente organismo. Illo es analytico et libero ab mortuo pondere de grammatica. Illo es facto pro facilitate de communicatione internationale in scientia, technologia, commercio et administratione. [Some Theorems Derivable from Peano's Axioms]
1920 Briton Rivière, British artist specialized in animal paintings, born on 14 August 1840. — MORE ON RIVIÈRE AT ART “4” APRIL with links to images.
1914 Over forty miners and family members, in the Ludlow Massacre.       ^top^
      Ludlow coal miners were on strike against the Colorado Fuel and Iron Co. Nine thousand miners had walked out of the company-owned camps on 23 September 1913. They struck against $1.68-a-day wages. They revolted against the CF&I company stores, CF&I-controlled schools, CF&I-censored libraries and CF&I-bought-and-paid-for ministers. They had to make do with living in a tent city.
      The Colorado state militia rakes the Ludlow miners' encampment with Gatling gun fire. Two women and eleven children take refuge in a cave dug under their tent. The militia sets fire to the miners' tents. The women and children die asphyxiated. The other victims are killed by the gun fire.
    The country was horrified. Enraged strikers in Colorado attacked mines being operated by strikebreakers.
     Nineteen years after the Ludlow massacre--and after years of a phony company union--the Rockefeller-controlled Colorado Fuel and Iron Company was forced to sign a contract with the United Mine Workers in 1933.
       1914 Militia slaughters strikers at Ludlow, Colorado Ending a bitter coal-miners' strike, Colorado militiamen attack a tent colony of strikers, killing dozens of men, women, and children. The conflict had begun the previous September. About 11,000 miners in southern Colorado went on strike against the powerful Colorado Fuel & Iron Corporation (CF&I) to protest low pay, dangerous working conditions, and the company's autocratic dominance over the workers' lives. The CF&I, which was owned by the Rockefeller family and Standard Oil, responded to the strike by immediately evicting the miners and their families from company-owned shacks. With help from the United Mine Workers, the miners moved with their families to canvas tent colonies scattered around the nearby hills and continued to strike. When the evictions failed to end the strike, the Rockefeller interests hired private detectives that attacked the tent colonies with rifles and Gatling guns. The miners fought back, and several were killed. When the tenacity of the strikers became apparent, the Rockefellers approached the governor of Colorado, who authorized the use of the National Guard. The Rockefellers agreed to pay their wages. At first, the strikers believed that the government had sent the National Guard to protect them. They soon discovered, though, that the militia was under orders to break the strike. On this day in 1914, two companies of guardsmen attacked the largest tent colony of strikers near the town of Ludlow, home to about 1,000 men, women, and children. The attack began in the morning with a barrage of bullets fired into the tents. The miners shot back with pistols and rifles. After a strike leader was killed while attempting to negotiate a truce, the strikers feared the attack would intensify. To stay safe from gunfire, women and children took cover in pits dug beneath the tents. At dusk, guardsmen moved down from the hills and set the tent colony on fire with torches, shooting at the families as they fled into the hills. The true carnage, however, was not discovered until the next day, when a telephone linesman discovered a pit under one of the tents filled with the burned remains of 11 children and 2 women. Although the "Ludlow Massacre" outraged many Americans, the tragedy did little to help the beleaguered Colorado miners and their families. Additional federal troops crushed the coal-miners' strike, and the miners failed to achieve recognition of their union or any significant improvement in their wages and working conditions. Sixty-six men, women, and children died during the strike, but not a single militiaman or private detective was charged with any crime.
1913  Marcos Zapata, poeta aragonés.
1906 Australian wombat, 26, dies in London Zoo; oldest known marsupial.
1888: 246 persons killed by hail in Moradabad, India.
1885 Richard Ansdell, British painter born on 11 May 1815. — MORE ON ANSDELL AT ART “4” APRIL with links to images.
1845 Thomas Phillips, British artist born on 18 October 1770.
1831 Filippo Giuntotardi, Italian artist born in 1768.
1812 George Clinton, born on 26 July 1739, popular and able governor of New York (1777-1795, 1801-1804), fourth vice president of the US (1805–1812) in the administrations of Thomas Jefferson [13 Apr – 04 Jul 1826] and James Madison [16 Mar 1751 – 28 Jun 1836]. Clinton was the first US vice president to die in office.

1794 (1 floréal an II) Condamnés à mort par la Révolution:       ^top^
Par le tribunal révolutionnaire de Paris:
GOURGURS (de) Armand Guillaume François, ex noble, ex président à mortier du ci-devant parlement de Paris, âgé de 57 ans, né et domicilié à Poissy (Seine et Oise), comme contre-révolutionnaire.
     ... nés à Dijon (Côte-d'Or), comme complices d'une conspiration dans les maisons d'arrêt de Dijon, où étaient les détenus comme suspects:
ESPIARD-DALLERAI Auguste Louis Joachim, ex conseiller au parlement de Dijon, âgé de 63 ans, domicilié à Dijon.
GUENICHOT Pierre Jacques Barthélemi, ex noble, âgé de 27 ans, fils d'un ex conseiller au ci-devant parlement de Dijon, domicilié à Nogent, même département.
GUILLEMIN Pierre, commis aux ponts et chaussées, ex clerc de notaire, âgé de 29 ans, domicilié à Dijon.
JULIEN Charles Joseph, âgé de 49 ans, ci-devant cordelier et curé d'Autricourt, né à Joinville, comme contre-révolutionnaire, ayant tenu des propos contre-révolutionnaires, conspiré dans la maison d'arrêt de Dijon, et provoqué la dissolution de la Convention.
     ... comme contre-révolutionnaires complices d’un complot contre la liberté du peuple français, en prenant part aux arrêtés et protestations liberticides pris par le parlement de Toulouse (Haute-Garonne), les 25 et 27 septembre 1790:
BALZAC Jean Jacques (dit Firmy), âgé de 60 ans, ex-noble natif de Sergue (Aveyron), ex conseiller au parlement de Toulouse, domicilié à Toulouse, département de la Haute-Garonne.
ROUCHETTE Jean François Marie, ex conseiller au parlement de Paris.
LEPELLETIER-ROZAMBO Louis, ex président à Mortier au ci-devant parlement de Paris, âgé de 46 ans, né à Paris, domicilié à Malesherbes (Loiret).
OURSIN Jean Baptiste Louis (dit Debure), âgé de 74 ans, ex conseiller au parlement de Paris, né et domicilié à Paris.
PASQUIER Etienne, ex conseiller au parlement de Paris, âgé de 58 ans, né et domicilié à Paris.
RIGAULT Joseph Julien Honoré, âgé de 45 ans, natif de Castres (Tarn), ex conseiller au parlement de Toulouse.
ROLLAND Barthelemi Gabriel, ex président au ci-devant parlement de Paris, âgé de 64 ans, né et domicilié à Paris, âgé de 64 ans, né et domicilié à Paris.
     ... [comme sympathisants du complet de Toulouse]:
BOURREE Pierre Daniel (dit Corberon) âgé de 77 ans, né à Paris, ex président, au ci-devant parlement de Paris, domicilié à Toulouse, pour avoir protesté secrètement contre la loi du 3 novembre.
LA FOND Anne Joseph, âgé de 60 ans, ex conseiller au ci-devant parlement de Toulouse, né et domicilié à Toulouse (Haute Garonne), condamné à mort le 1 floréal an 2, par le tribunal révolutionnaire de Paris, comme contre-révolutionnaire, pour avoir protesté secrètement sous signature privée, les lois transcrites le 3 novembre 1789 par l'Assemblée Constituante.
     ... domiciliés à Paris (Seine):
FAGUIER DE MARDEUIL Léon Louis, ex conseiller au parlement de Paris, à la seconde chambre des requêtes, âgé de 59 ans, né à Châlon (Marne), comme contre-révolutionnaire.
NORT Nicolas Agnès François, ex comte, ci-devant colonel d’infanterie, âgé de 60 ans, né à Rennes (Ille-et-Vilaine), comme contre-révolutionnaire, ayant entretenu des correspondances avec les émigrés.
DELALANDE Elisabeth d’Or (dite St. Étienne), mercière, comme distributrice de faux assignats.
KETIN André, négociant à Liége, comme fabricant de faux assignats.
     ... nés et domiciliés à Paris (Seine):
SAINT-BLIN Nicolas, ex comte, âgé de 40 ans, comme contre-révolutionnaire, ayant dit qu’il fallait un roi, et que les affaires ne pourraient pas aller sans cela.
BOCHARD Jean Baptiste Gaspard (dit Saron), âgé de 64 ans, premier président au ci-devant parlement de Paris, comme contre-révolutionnaire.
DUPORT François Mathurin, âgé de 76 ans, ex conseiller au ci-devant parlement de Paris, comme complice d'un complot qui a existé depuis 1789 jusqu'à ce jour, contre la liberté du Peuple, en protestant par des arrêtés contraires à la liberté.
FREDY Henri Louis, ex conseiller au ci-devant parlement de Paris, âgé de 74 ans, comme contre-révolutionnaire.
HOCQUART Antoine Louis Hyacinthe, ex premier président à la ci-devant cour des aides de Paris, âgé de 55 ans, comme contre-révolutionnaire.
LEFEVRE-DORMESSON Anne Louis François-de-Paul, ex noble, ex président au ci-devant parlement de Paris, âgé de 42 ans, député à l'assemblée constituante, ex bibliothécaire de la bibliothèque nationale, comme complice d'une conspiration contre la souveraineté du peuple, et pour avoir protesté contre l'autorité légitime.
LENOIR Michel Etienne, ex conseiller au ci-devant parlement de Paris, âgé de 38 ans, né et domicilié à Paris, département de la Seine, comme convaincu d'être complice d'une conspiration contre la souveraineté du peuple, depuis 1789, jusqu'à ce jour, en provoquant des protestations et des arrêtés contraires a la liberté.
MOLÉ Édouard François Mathurin, ex noble, ex président au ci-devant parlement de Paris, âgé de 34 ans, comme convaincu d'être complice d'une conspiration contre la souveraineté du peuple, en protestant contre l'autorité légitime.
Ailleurs:
GRIMAULT Charles, marchand mercier, domicilié à Pertre (Ille-et-Vilaine), par la commission militaire séante à Nantes, comme brigand de la Vendée.

1793 Condamnés à mort par la Révolution:       ^top^
CLINCHAMP Antoine Jean (dit St André), âgé de 64 ans, natif de Montbrisson, prieur de Clisson, prêtre, domicilié à Beaumont-le-Vicomte (Sarthe), comme contre-révolutionnaire, par le tribunal révolutionnaire de Paris.
VAUJOURS Anne Hyacinthe, colonel du 3éme régiment de Nancy (Meurthe), domicilié à Paris, par le tribunal révolutionnaire de Paris, comme convaincu d’avoir tenu des propos tendants à opérer, par le meurtre et l’incendie, la dissolution de la représentation nationale, et des sociétés patriotiques, et le rétablissement de la royauté.
DUGUINY Gabriel (dit Dubelair), âgé de 30 ans, natif de Nantes (Loire Inférieure), ex marquis et lieutenant de vaisseau, domicilié à Paris, comme émigré, par le tribunal révolutionnaire de Paris.
JOSTEN Mathias, domicilié à Kerlen (Moselle), par le tribunal criminel du département de la Meurthe, comme distributeur de faux assignats.
BOURREAU Louis, charpentier, domicilié à Talmont, canton des Sables (Vendée), comme brigand de la Vendée, par la commission militaire séante aux Sables.
MEUNIER Pierre, tourneur, domicilié à Tallemont (Vendée), comme brigand de la Vendée, par la commission militaire séante aux Sables.

1768 Giovanni Antonio Canal “Canaletto”, Italian painter specialized in landscapes, notably of canals. He was born on 18 October 1697.
MORE ON CANALETTO AT ART “4” APRIL with links to images.
1743 Alexandre-François Desportes, French painter born in 1661, specialized in portraying animals, hunts, and emblems of the chase. — MORE ON DESPORTES AT ART “4” APRIL with links to images.
1693 Claudio Coello, Spanish painter born in 1642. — pintor de cámara de Carlos II.
MORE ON COELLO AT ART “4” APRIL with links to images.
1677 Mathieu Le Nain “le Chevalier”, French painter born in 1607.— MORE ON LE NAIN AT ART “4” APRIL with links to images.
1554 Pier-Francesco Bissolo, Italian artist born in 1470 — MORE ON BISSOLO AT ART “4” APRIL with links to images.
1317 Santa Inés de Montepulciano, religiosa italiana.
1314 Clement V, pope (1305-1314) who moved papacy to Avignon.
Births which occurred on an April 20:       ^top^
1998  El sistema operativo Windows 98 es presentado por Bill Gates, presidente de la multinacional informática Microsoft.
1995 New Century Network formed.       ^top^
      Newspapers announced that eight of the country's largest newspaper publishers had banded together to protect their franchise on local classified advertising. The group, called New Century Network, included Gannett Company, Hearst Corporation, Knight-Ridder, Times Mirror, Tribune Company, Washington Post Company, and others. The group hoped to develop a strategy to put their newspapers online in a linked network. By 1998, however, the newspapers had all developed their own online business strategy, and the group disbanded.
1990 Sextillizos en la maternidad del Valle de Hebrón, en Barcelona.
1987 The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) is organized In Columbus, OH, the largest Lutheran denomination in the US It represented the merger of three smaller Lutheran bodies, and was officially born on Jan 1, 1988.
1955  Juan Carlos Aparicio Pérez, político español, ministro de Trabajo y Asuntos Sociales.
1940 first electron microscope demonstrated (RCA), Philadelphia.
1939  Gro Harlem Brundtland, política, primera ministra, física y médica noruega.
1926 Sound with film process announced.       ^top^
      Western Electric and Warner Bros. announce Vitaphone, a process to add sound to film. The system logged sound on a record linked electronically to the projector, keeping sound synchronized with image. Until the 1920s, any sound associated with motion pictures came either from live actors and musicians or from a phonograph, but by the early 1920s, several competing sound systems had developed. In 1923, inventor Lee de Forest demonstrated Phonofilm, the first film capable of taping sound. Music was recorded on a narrow strip at the edge of the film. De Forest's demonstration showed a man and woman dancing, four musicians playing instruments, and an Egyptian dancer, all accompanied by music but without dialogue. De Forest's system evolved into the Movietone sound process, introduced in 1927. Meanwhile, competing systems like Vitaphone threatened to create a standards war in the industry. Fitting a movie theater for a sound system was extremely costly — to wire a movie house for Warner Bros.' Vitaphone sound system, for example, cost about $20'000.
      Several studios, including MGM, Paramount, and Universal, agreed to wait to make talkies until they also agreed on a single audio standard, but Warner Bros., not part of the agreement, released the earliest sound films. For Warner Bros., then in difficult financial straights, sound was a matter of survival--the struggling company had staked everything it had on acquiring the Vitaphone system and publicizing its early sound movies. The first, Don Juan (1926), starring John Barrymore [15 Feb 1882 – 29 May 1942], featured sound but no dialogue. The following year, the studio released The Jazz Singer, which included music as well as about 350 words of dialogue. Only about 200 theaters nationwide were equipped for Warner Bros.' Vitaphone, so a silent version of the movie was also distributed. Sound caught on and revived Warner Bros.' fortunes.
      The Vitaphone system, however, didn't last long. Synchronizing a recording with a film was less reliable than integrating the sound onto the film itself, so systems like Movietone quickly replaced Vitaphone. Additional developments improved sound quality over the decades, including the introduction of magnetic tape recording by 1950 and the stereophonic sound system later in the decade. Dolby Laboratories introduced a noise-reduction system that became popular in the late '70s, and digital sound systems added additional clarity and crispness to soundtracks in the early 1990s.
1900  Le rire - Essai sur la Signification du Comique, de Henri~Louis Bergson, [18 Oct 1859 – 04 Jan 1941] se publica. — Le Rire explore le phénomène du comique dans sa dimension à la fois psychologique, sociale et métaphysique. Annonçant un thème central de l'Évolution créatrice, Bergson oppose la vie dans ce qu'elle a de spontané, d'inventif, de libre, et le mécanique dans ce qu'il a de saccadé, de répétitif, d'incontrôlé. Si on ne rit à proprement parler que de l'humain, on rit de l'humain qui semble cesser momentanément d'être humain pour devenir pure mécanique, automate enfermé dans la répétition ou la caricature. D'où la célèbre formule : «Le comique, c'est du mécanique plaqué sur du vivant.» Comparant dans une dernière partie la tragédie à la comédie, Bergson est amené à formuler pour la première fois sa théorie de l'art : l'art tente de rejoindre la singularité qui échappe au langage comme à la vie quotidienne, même si la comédie, contrairement à la tragédie, forge des types (l'avare, le misanthrope, etc.) plutôt que des personnages singuliers.— (in English translation): Laughter: An Essay on the Meaning of the Comic.
1894 Enrico Prampolini, Italian artist who died in 1956. — MORE ON PRAMPOLINI AT ART “4” APRIL with links to images.
1893 Joan Mirò, Catalan Surrealist painter and sculptor who died on 25 December 1983. — MORE ON MIRÒ AT ART “4” APRIL with links to images.
1889 Adolph Hitler, Braunau, Austria, dictator of Nazi Germany, arch-criminal-against-humanity of all times. He would commit suicide on April 1945. See Walter C. Langer's A Psychological Analysis of Adolph Hitler: His Life and Legend
1868  Charles Maurras, escritor y político francés. — Né le 20 Apr 1868 à Martigues (Bouches-du-Rhône), à Paris à 17 ans, il collabore à divers périodiques, dont La Cocarde, revue boulangiste républicaine dirigée par Maurice Barrès. S'engageant dans les luttes politiques avec l'affaire Dreyfus, il crée en 1899 L'Action française où le rejoint Léon Daudet. Il y diffuse des thèses nationalistes et antiparlementaires. Ayant progressivement converti les dirigeants de la Ligue d'Action Française au monarchisme, en tant que “nationalisme intégral”, il rompt avec le nationalisme républicain de la Ligue de la Patrie française et de Maurice Barrès. Il est mis à l'index par le Saint Siège en 1926. Mais l'arrivée de Pie XII et la soumission relative de Maurras aboutissent à la levée de l'interdit en 1939. Antigermanique, il admire Mussolini et Franco, puis salue comme “divine surprise” l'arrivée de Pétain au pouvoir. Pendant l'Occupation, il s'oppose aux collaborateurs de Paris et aux “dissidents” de Londres. Arrêté en septembre 1944, condamné à la réclusion perpétuelle et à la dégradation civique le 27 janvier 1945, il est exclu de l'Académie française (élu en 1938). Détenu à Riom puis à Clairvaux, gracié en 1952 et placé en résidence surveillée dans une clinique, il meurt le 16 novembre 1952.
1850 Daniel Chester French, Exeter, New Hampshire; sculptor whose colossal seated figure of Abraham Lincoln forms the nucleus of the Lincoln Memorial.
1850 Jean-François Raffaëlli, French artist who died on 29 February 1924.
1845 Pietro Barucci, Italian artist who died in 1917.
1841 The Murders in the Rue Morgue, first detective story, is published
      Edgar Allen Poe's story, The Murders in the Rue Morgue, first appears in Graham's Lady's and Gentleman's Magazine. The tale is generally considered to be the first detective story. The story describes the extraordinary "analytical power" used by Monsieur C. Auguste Dupin to solve a series of murders in Paris. Like the later Sherlock Holmes stories, the tale is narrated by the detective's roommate.
      Following the publication of Poe's story, detective stories began to grow into novels and English novelist Wilkie Collins published a detective novel, The Moonstone, in 1868. In Collins' story, the methodical Sergeant Cuff searches for the criminal who stole a sacred Indian moonstone. The novel includes several features of the typical modern mystery, including red herrings, false alibis, and climactic scenes.
      The greatest fictional detective, Sherlock Holmes, first appeared in 1887, in Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's novel A Study in Scarlet. The cozy English mystery novel became popularized with Agatha Christie's Hercule Poirot (e.g. in The Mysterious Affair at Styles) and her Miss Marple series in the 1920s, when other detectives like Lord Peter Wimsey (by Dorothy L. Sayers, e.g. in Whose Body? • Clouds of Witnesses • Unnatural Death • Strong Poison • Have His Carcase • The Nine Tailors Reviews: 1 January 1999 • Gaudy Night • Busman's Honeymoon) and Ellery Queen (by the two cousins, Frederic Dannay and Manfred B. Lee, e.g. The Roman Hat Mystery, 1929: When Monte Field was found murdered in the Roman Theater shortly before the second act of the play, there were a number of strange facts about the case. First, there were seven empty seats surrounding the murdered man, although the play was sold out. Field's top hat was missing, but a thorough search of the theater and audience revealed nothing. And last, Field had man enemies and some of them, coincidentally enought, were in the audience. But the most importnt clue of all, the missing silk top hat, could't be found. Inspector Queen was baffled) were also becoming popular. In the 1930s, sometimes called the golden age of detective stories, the noir detective novel became the mainstay of writers like Dashiell Hammet, Raymond Chandler, and Mickey Spillane. Tough female detectives such as Kinsey Millhone and V.I. Warshawski became popular in the 1980s.
      Born in Boston on 19 January 1809, Poe was orphaned at age three and went to live with the family of a Richmond, Virginia, businessman. Poe enrolled in a military academy but was expelled for gambling. He later studied briefly at the University of Virginia.
      In 1827, Poe self-published a collection of poems. Six years later, his short story MS Found in a Bottle won $50 in a story contest. He edited a series of literary journals, including the Southern Literary Messenger in Richmond starting in 1835, and Burton's Gentleman's Magazine in Philadelphia, starting in 1839. Poe's excessive drinking got him fired from several positions. His macabre work, often portraying motiveless crimes and intolerable guilt that induces growing mania in his characters, was a significant influence on such European writers as Charles Baudelaire, Stéphane Mallarmé, and even Dostoyevsky.
      On 29 January 1845 Poe's famous poem The Raven, beginning "Once upon a midnight dreary," was published in the New York Evening Mirror. Poe's dark and macabre work reflected his own tumultuous and difficult life.
      On 07 October 1849 Poe would die a tragic death in Baltimore. Never able to overcome his drinking habits, he would be found in a delirious condition outside a saloon that was used as a voting place.
POE ONLINE:
  • The Works of Edgar Allan Poe
  • Tales of the Folio Club
  • The Black Cat
  • The Cask of Amontillado
  • The Complete Poems of Edgar Allan Poe
  • The Fall of the House of Usher
  • The Gold-Bug
  • The Masque of the Red Death
  • The Murders in the Rue Morgue
  • The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket
  • The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket
  • The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket
  • Works of Edgar Allan Poe
  • The Pit and the Pendulum
  • The Purloined Letter
  • Selected writings
  • Tales
  • Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque volume 1    volume 2
  • The Tell-Tale Heart
  • The Works of Edgar Allan Poe in 5 Volumes volume 1
  • volume 2
  • volume 3
  • volume 4
  • volume 5
  • 1839 Siacci, mathematician.
    1829 Jan Frederik Pieter Portielje, Dutch artist who died in 1895 or 1908.
    1808 Charles-Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte, nephew of Napoleon I, who would be president of the Second Republic of France (1850–1852), and then, under the name Napoléon III, emperor of the French (1852–1871). He gave his country two decades of prosperity under a stable, authoritarian government but finally led it to defeat in the Franco-German War (1870–1871). He was responsible for sending French troops to Mexico and getting Austrian archduke Maximilian [06 Jul 1832 – 19 Jun 1867] crowned on 10 June 1864 Emperor of Mexico, and then, under US presssure, abandoning him to be shot by order of Benito Juárez [21 Mar 1806 – 18 Jul 1872]. Napoléon III died on 09 January 1873.
    1806 Franz Xavier Winterhalter, German painter who died on 09 July 1873.
    MORE ON WINTERHALTER AT ART “4” APRIL with links to images.
    1782 Johann Georg Sautter III, German artist who died on 21 October 1856.
    1762 Philippe-Auguste Hennequin, French artist who died on 12 May 1833.
    1745 Philippe Pinel, French physician, founder of psychiatry, who died on 25 October 1826. Arriving in Paris in 1778, he supported himself for a number of years by translating scientific and medical works and by teaching mathematics. During that period he also began visiting privately confined mental patients and writing articles on his observations. In 1792 he became the chief physician atthe Paris asylum for men, Bicêtre, and made his first bold reform by unchaining patients, many of whom had been restrained for 30 to 40 years. He did the same for the female inmates of Salpêtrière when he became the director there in 1794. Discarding the long-popular equation of mental illness with demoniacal possession, Pinel regarded mental illness as the result of excessive exposure to social and psychological stresses and, in some measure, of heredity and physiological damage. In Nosographie philosophique (1798) he distinguished various psychoses and described, among other phenomena, hallucination, withdrawal, and a variety of other symptoms. Pinel did away with such treatments as bleeding, purging, and blistering and favored a therapy that included close and friendly contact with the patient, discussion of personal difficulties, and a program of purposeful activities. His Traité médico-philosophique sur l'aliénation mentale ou la manie (1801) discusses his psychologically oriented approach.
    1586  Santa Rosa de Lima, religiosa peruana.
    0571  Mahoma, profeta del Islam.
    0121 Marcus Aurelius, 16th Roman emperor (161-180), philosopher
    Santos Severiano, Víctor, Crisófono, Antonino, Cesáreo y Zotico.
    The date of EasterEaster date computer
    Easter Sunday in 1919, 1924, 1930, 2003, 2014, 2025, 2087, 2098.
    Good Friday in 1962, 1973, 1984, 2057, 2068, 2114.
    Thought for the day:
    “Freedom has a thousand charms to show, that slaves, however content, will never know.”
    — {Freedom also has responsibilities}
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