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Events, deaths, births, of APR 25

[For Apr 25 Julian go to Gregorian date:
1583~1699: May 051700s: May 061800s: May 071900~2099: May 08]
ALTERNATE SITES    ANY DAY  OF THE YEAR IN HISTORY     ART “4” APR 25
• Soviet leader answers US 5th~grader's letter... • Gone with the Wind sequel rights sold... • Crocodiles eat little girl... • Play about Davy Crockett... • Westmoreland top US general in Vietnam... • North Vietnamese nearly split South Vietnam... • Condamnés à mort par la Révolution... • 22 priority technologies... • Marconi is born... • Robinson Crusoe published... • Freed 21 years after death sentence... • Hunger strike deaths in Turkey... • US budget agreement... • US~Spain war engaged... • Suez canal started... • South Pole rescue... • Nazi Berlin encircled... • Space telescope... • Around the world underwater... • Klein is born... • Salgari's harakiri... • Tasso dies...
GNVC price chartOn a 25 April:

2003 Late the previous day GenVec (GNVC) announced that it has signed an expansion to its existing agreement with the Vaccine Research Center of the National Institutes of Health to co-develope a vaccine for SARS. On the NASDAQ, at the opening, shares of GNVC jump to $3.00 from their previous close of $1.53, then decline to an intraday low of $2.22 and close at $2.68, with 7.2 million of its 22.7 million shares traded this day. GNVC had traded as low as $0.90 as recently as 04 April 2003, and as high as $4.42 on 12 December 2002 and $11.75 on 12 December 2000. [2~year price chart >]

2001  La policía filipina detiene al ex presidente filipino, Joseph Estrada, en su casa de Manila bajo la acusación de un delito de saqueo de las arcas públicas.
2001 US sides with brutal countries on death penalty.       ^top^
      The UN Human Rights Commission votes 27-18 in favor of a moratorium on the death penalty. Seven countries abstain, and one — Liberia — is absent. The US and China voted against the moratorium. [Countries listed according to attitude towards death penalty] [Community of Sant'Egidio] No Western European country has the death penalty. Among those that do, besides the US and China, are such countries as Russia, Lybia, Afghanistan, Congo (DR), Cuba, Iran, Iraq, Laos, Lebanon, Mongolia, Myanmar, North Korea, Palestinian Authority, Rwanda, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, Viet Nam, Yugoslavia, Zimbabwe.
From Catholic Catechism (1977):
     2267. Assuming that the guilty party's identity and responsibility have been fully determined, the traditional teaching of the church does not exclude recourse to the death penalty, if this is the only possible way of effectively defending human lives against the unjust aggressor. If, however, nonlethal means are sufficient to defend and protect people's safety from the aggressor, authority will limit itself to such means, as these are more in keeping with the concrete conditions of the common good and more in conformity with the dignity of the human person. Today, in fact, as a consequence of the possibilities which the state has for effectively preventing crime by rendering one who has committed an offense incapable of doing harm—without definitively taking away from him the possibility of redeeming himself—the cases in which the execution of the offender is an absolute necessity are very rare, if not practically nonexistent.
2001 Sick doctor rescued from South Pole.       ^top^
      A small medevac propeller plane of Raytheon Polar Services, fitted with skis for an icy landing started out the previous day to the South Pole to rescue a sick US doctor, setting out after two days of howling winds and blinding snow eased enough to attempt the harrowing journey to the bottom of the world. Flying into the pitch black of the polar winter, the eight-seat Twin Otter began its 10-hour flight from the UK's Rothera base, on an island half-way up the west coast of the Antarctic peninsula across from Chile, to the pole, at 14:34 UT on 24 April. Even with the improved weather, the temperatures at the South Pole was at –61ºC. The visibility had improved to 8 km miles with gusting winds and blowing snow. [Current Rothera weather forecast]
      It was the second dramatic rescue attempt in 24 hours: Earlier on 24 April, a New Zealand air force plane successfully evacuated 11 US staffers from a research station on the other side of the frozen continent.
      Flights to the South Pole are normally halted from late February until November because of the extreme cold and darkness. But health emergencies at the isolated, frigid Antarctic outposts forced rescuers in both operations to make the dangerous flights.      Dr. Ronald S. Shemenski, 59, at the Amundsen Scott-South Pole station, the only physician among 50 researchers working at the station, had recently suffered a gall bladder attack and had the potentially life-threatening condition known as pancreatitis. A registered nurse at the South Pole helped take ultrasound images that were sent back to doctors in the US for diagnosis. Pancreatitis is the inflammation of the pancreas and can happen when a gallstone passes down the bile duct, irritating the gland. Shemenski needed surgery and had to be evacuated before harsher winter weather set it, making a future rescue impossible. In such a case, most people would have considered treatment within three weeks after the condition was diagnosed.
      The rescue team included two pilots, a flight engineer, and a replacement physician (Dr. Betty Carlisle) for the polar station. The plane arrives at 00:02 UT on 25 April with the dark, bone-chilling cold with a sheet of ice as a runway and no tower to guide the landing. Barrels of flaming debris are set up to light the runway. The cold-resistant plane refuels, its crew rests, and at 16:47 UT heads back to Rothera, 2500 km away, where it would arrive at 00:52 UT on 26 April. From there another plane would fly Dr. Shemenski in about 6 hours the 1480 km to Punta Arenas, where he would board a commercial flight to the US.
     This is the second time in two years that a doctor has been plucked from the pole in a medical emergency. On 16 October 1999, Dr. Jerri Nielsen, 47, — then the only physician at the Amundsen Scott-South Pole Station — was evacuated nearly five months after she discovered on herself a cancerous breast tumor, which she had been treating with herself with medical supplies dropped during a daring mission in July 1999 — the middle of winter in Antarctica, when it was impossible for a plane to land there. The supplies allowed her to perform her own biopsy and begin administering chemotherapy. She e-mailed photographs of slide samples of the tumor to doctors in the United States. Nielsen's rescue was possible only after the winter relented slightly and it became “warm” enough (–50ºC) to risk the flight, possibly the earliest post-winter flight to the South Pole.
      On the opposite coast from the Rothera base, rescuers were also forced to move quickly to evacuate four ill Americans at McMurdo Antarctic Base. In a 15-hour round-trip journey from Christchurch, New Zealand, a C130 Hercules landed on McMurdo's ice runway, spending just one hour on the ground to pick up the evacuees and refuel. Engines were kept running to prevent them freezing in the –30ºC air. The sick Americans were joined on the flight by seven other US staffers, returning because of family emergencies. Two of the evacuees were suffering from critical conditions, and were taken to a hospital in Christchurch
      Antarctica is the third-largest continent, half again the size of the United States. Nations including the United States, Britain, New Zealand, and Argentina carry out experiments at bases dotted across the continent. They are regularly serviced by flights during the summer months but batten down the hatches and reduce staffing for the polar winter. Scientific research at the South Pole Station ranges from the study of the origins of the universe to the behavior of the "ozone hole."
[photo below: the plane is refueled at the South Pole]
click for more photos
      World Clock
1999 El Gobierno colombiano y las Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (FARC) reanudan las negociaciones de paz.
1999  Los venezolanos aceptan en referéndum la formación de una Asamblea Constituyente para enmendar la Constitución y ejecutar el programa revolucionario del presidente Hugo Rafael Chávez Frías.
1996 US budget agreement.       ^top^
      The US Senate approves the spending for the upcoming fiscal year. Never ones to move swiftly on budget or spending agreements, White House officials and Republican leaders had spent seven months wrangling over a bill. But the disastrous budget negotiations from the previous year, which had resulted in a temporary shutdown of the government that stained the reputations of key Republican legislators, no doubt helped speed the compromise. The budget deal, along with the Senate's "overwhelming" approval of the bill (the final vote tallied eighty-eight to eleven in favor of the legislation), triggered a wave of optimism on Capital Hill. Newt Gingrich, the occasionally cantankerous House Speaker, called the spending deal a "yardstick," while White House spokesman Mike McCurry said that President Clinton and his staff saw "some glimmer of hope" in the Republicans and Democrats' ability to lay down their swords and work out a compromise.
1996 A day after the PLO annulled clauses calling for Israel's destruction, Israel's governing Labor Party abandoned its long-standing opposition to a Palestinian state.
1996 Ford Motor Co. announced a recall of about 8 million cars, minivans and pickups because of an ignition switch fire hazard.
1996 The FCC proposes setting aside a free portion of the radio spectrum for various types of communications. The plan would facilitate wireless transmission of electronic mail and other data.
1993  Se aprueba la nueva Constitución de Rusia mediante referéndum y Boris Nikolaievich Yeltsin pierde los comicios legislativos celebrados el mismo día.
1992  Dimite el presidente italiano, Francesco Cossiga.
1992 Islamic forces in Afghanistan take control of most of Kabul following the collapse of the Communist government.
1991 Twenty-two priority technologies.       ^top^
      The White House released a list of twenty-two key technologies that it considered priorities for economic prosperity and national security. In the past, the White House had blocked federal efforts to advance commercial technology, considering it an interference with the free market. For instance, the Bush administration had blocked funding for high-definition television. However, the White House technology list indicated a potential increase in federal funding for these areas, which included computers, software, microelectronics, high-definition displays, biotechnology, aeronautics, and more.
1990 Violeta Barrios de Chamorro is inaugurated for a 6 year term as Nicaragua's president, ending 11 years of leftist Sandinista rule under Daniel Ortega Saavedra.
1990 Hubble space telescope placed in orbit.       ^top^
      The crew of the US space shuttle Discovery placed the Hubble Space Telescope, a long-term space-based observatory, into a low orbit around the earth. The space telescope, conceived in the 1940s, designed in the 1970s, and built in the 1980s, would give astronomers an unparalleled view of the solar system, the galaxy, and the universe. Free of atmospheric distortions, Hubble has a resolution ten times that of ground-based observatories. About the size of a bus, the telescope is solar-powered and orbits the earth once every ninety-seven minutes. Initially, NASA suffered a major setback in the operation of Hubble when a spherical aberration in one of its major lenses was discovered. However, in December of 1993, a repair mission by space-walking shuttle astronauts was an enormous success, and Hubble began sending back its first breathtaking images of the universe. Among its many astronomical achievements, Hubble has been used to monitor weather conditions on Mars, record a comet's collision with Jupiter, provide the first direct look at the surface of Pluto, view distant galaxies and gas clouds, witness planetary systems under construction, uncover the first convincing evidence of the existence of super-massive black holes in space, and see billions of years into the universe's past. 
1989  La URSS inicia la retirada parcial de sus fuerzas en Hungría, al tiempo que Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachov cesa a un tercio del Comité Central del PCUS para integrar reformistas en el partido.
1989 Freed 21 years after being wrongfully sentenced to death.       ^top^
      James Richardson walks out of a Florida prison 21 years after being wrongfully convicted of killing his seven children. Special prosecutor Janet Reno agreed to the release after evidence showed that the conviction resulted from misconduct by the prosecutor. In addition, neighbor Betsy Reese had confessed to the crime to a nursing home employee.
      On 25 October 1967, James and his wife, Annie, were working in a field picking fruit when Reese came over to heat up a meal for the Richardsons' seven kids. After they finished eating, the children began foaming at the mouth. They were dead moments later from poisoning. Police found that the rice and beans had been laced with the pesticide parathion. Reese then reported that she saw a bag of the poison in a shed behind the Richardsons' home. Police discovered that an insurance salesman had visited the Richardsons' home shortly before the poisoning and that James had discussed life insurance for the entire family. The prosecution made a big deal of this fact at trial but neglected to inform the jury that the salesman had made an unsolicited visit and that Richardson never bought the insurance because he couldn't afford the premiums.
      The prosecutors also introduced three convicts who claimed that Richardson had admitted to the mass murder while he was being held in jail. It was later revealed that this testimony was manufactured in return for leniency on their sentences. The jurors were not told about Reese's criminal history. She was on parole at the time for killing her second husband and was suspected of killing her first husband with poison. After less than an hour and a half of deliberation, the jury convicted Richardson and sentenced him to the electric chair.
      After his release in 1989, Richardson was honored as Father of the Year by a Catholic church in Chicago, and he moved into a diet clinic run by comedian Dick Gregory. The governor of Florida ordered an investigation into the prosecutor's office to discover what prompted the miscarriage of justice.
1988 In Israel, US immigrant factory worker John Demjanuk is sentenced to death (wrongly?) as being Nazi war criminal concentration camp guard “Ivan the Terrible”.
1988 Gone with the Wind sequel rights sold for $5 million.       ^top^
      Publishing rights to a Gone with the Wind sequel are sold to Warner Books for $4'940'000. The book, by Alexandra Ripley, was published in 1991. Gone with the Wind, by Margaret Mitchell, was published in 1936 and sold 25 million copies, making it one of the bestsellinging books of all time. The movie, released in 1939, became one of the world's best-loved films, winning several Oscars, including Best Picture. Ripley's novel, Scarlett: The Sequel to Margaret Mitchell's Gone With the Wind, topped the bestseller list despite a cold response from critics and was made into a TV miniseries.
The Wind Done Gone without rights in 2001.
A federal judge on 20 April 2001 blocked the publication of black African-American Randall's novel The Wind Done Gone which he said borrows too liberally from Gone With the Wind and infringes on the copyright of Margaret Mitchell's classic novel. Randall, whose book was scheduled for publication in June 2001, argued that her story, told from the point of view of Scarlett O'Hara's mulatto half-sister on the plantation Tata (Tara in Gone With the Wind) , was a political parody. Attorneys for Mitchell's estate had argued in a hearing on 18 April 2001 that the issue was not one of free speech as Randall and the publisher claimed, but about providing protection to authors and other creative artists.
I was born May 25, 1845, at half-past seven in the morning into slavery on a cotton farm a day's ride from Atlanta. My father, Planter, was the master of the place; my mother was the Mammy. My half-sister, Other, was the belle of five counties. She was not beautiful, but men seldom recognized this, caught up in the cloud of commotion and scent in which she moved. — From Page 1 of The Wind Done Gone.
1986   Hafez el Assad y Yaser Arafat ratifican en Damasco la reconciliación entre Siria y la OLP (Organización para la Liberación de Palestina). 
1986 Se produce un accidente en la central nuclear soviética de Chernóbil (Ucrania).
1985  El grupo peruano Sendero Luminoso atenta contra el presidente del Jurado Nacional de Elecciones, Domingo García Rada.
1984  José María Ruiz Mateos Jiménez de Tejeda, fundador de RUMASA, es detenido en Frankfurt a su llegada de los Estados Unidos.
1984 Nicaragua presenta una queja en La Haya contra los Estados Unidos por participar en el minado de sus puertos. La actuación de la CIA ya había sido condenada por el Senado estadounidense.
1983  El Partido Socialista portugués, liderado por Mario Alberto Soares, gana las elecciones parlamentarias anticipadas.
1983 Andropov writes to a US fifth-grader.       ^top^
      The Soviet Union releases a letter that Russian leader Yuri Andropov wrote to Samantha Smith, a US fifth-grader, born on 29 June 1972. This rather unusual piece of Soviet propaganda was in direct response to President Ronald Reagan's vigorous attacks on what he called "the evil empire" of the Soviet Union. In 1983, President Reagan was in the midst of a harsh rhetorical campaign against the Soviet Union. A passionate anticommunist, President Reagan called for massive increases in US defense spending to meet the perceived Soviet threat. In Russia, however, events were leading to a different Soviet approach to the West. In 1982, long-time leader Leonid Brezhnev died; Yuri Andropov was his successor. While Andropov was not radical in his approach to politics and economics, he did seem to sincerely desire a better relationship with the United States. In an attempt to blunt the Reagan attacks, the Soviet government on released a letter that Andropov had written in response to one sent by Samantha Smith, a fifth-grade student from Manchester, Maine. Smith had written the Soviet leader as part of a class assignment, one that was common enough for students in the Cold War years. Most of these missives received a form letter response, if any at all, but Andropov answered Smith's letter personally. He explained that the Soviet Union had suffered horrible losses in World War II, an experience that convinced the Russian people that they wanted to "live in peace, to trade and cooperate with all our neighbors on the globe, no matter how close or far away they are, and, certainly, with such a great country as the United States of America." In response to Smith's question about whether the Soviet Union wished to prevent nuclear war, Andropov declared, "Yes, Samantha, we in the Soviet Union are endeavoring and doing everything so that there will be no war between our two countries, so that there will be no war at all on earth. This is the wish of everyone in the Soviet Union. That's what we were taught to do by Vladimir Lenin, the great founder of our state." He vowed that Russia would "never, but never, be the first to use nuclear weapons against any country." Andropov complimented Smith, comparing her to the spunky character of Becky from the Mark Twain novel, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. "All kids in our country, boys and girls alike, know and love this book," he added. Andropov ended by inviting Samantha and her parents to visit the Soviet Union. In July 1983, Samantha accepted the invitation and flew to Russia for a three-week tour. Soviet propaganda had never been known for its human qualities. Generally speaking, it was given to heavy-handed diatribes and communist cliches. In his public relations duel with Reagan — the US president known as the "Great Communicator" — Andropov tried something different by assuming a folksy, almost grandfatherly approach. Whether this would have borne fruit is unknown; just a year later, Andropov died. Tragically, Samantha Smith, aged 13, died just one year after Andropov.
     On 07 July 1983, Samantha, now 11, would go on her visit to the USSR. Some months before, when she was still 10, she had written a letter to Soviet leader Yuri Andropov asking for peace. At first Samantha heard nothing back. Then she found out that portions of her letter had been published in the Communist newspaper Pravda. A few weeks later she received a letter from Andropov inviting her to visit the Soviet Union.
      For two weeks she would tour the country: Moscow, Leningrad, Red Square, meet with the first woman in space, Valentina Tereshkova, , and spent several days at a Soviet youth camp on the Black Sea. Through it all the US and Soviet media followed her every step.
      Samantha didn’t stop after her tour of Russia. She wrote a book called Journey to the Soviet Union in which she wrote, “I dedicate this book to the children of the world. They know that peace is always possible.” She then went to Japan and met with the prime minister and spoke at an international children’s symposium. She also hosted a special for the Disney channel during the 1984 presidential campaigns to educate kids about the candidates, politics and the government. Samantha heard the North American promise they would never start a nuclear war; she also heard how the voices from the Kremlin swore that neither would they. And then, with the clear and simple logic of her eleven years she asked, “they why do you both go on making missiles and aiming them at each other?”
      Samantha Smith died with her father in a plane crash on 25 August 1985, during a break in the filming of the TV series Lime Street. After her death, the Soviet Union issued a stamp in her honor. An echinopsis flower was named after her.

Samantha Smith's letter:
Dear Mr. Andropov,
My name is Samantha Smith. I am ten years old. Congratulations on your new job. I have been worrying about Russia and the United States getting into a nuclear war. Are you going to vote to have a war or not? If you aren’t please tell me how you are going to help to not have a war. This question you do not have to answer, but I would like to know why you want to conquer the world or at least our country. God made the world for us to live together in peace and not to fight.
      Sincerely,
      Samantha Smith


Andropov's answer :

Dear Samantha, I received your letter, which is like many others that have reached me recently from your country and from other countries around the world.
      It seems to me — I can tell by your letter — that you are a courageous and honest girl, resembling Becky, the friend of Tom Sawyer in the famous book of your compatriot Mark Twain. This book is well known and loved in our country by all boys and girls.
      You write that you are anxious about whether there will be a nuclear war between our two countries. And you ask are we doing anything so that war will not break out.
      Your question is the most important of those that every thinking man can pose. I will reply to you seriously and honestly.
      Yes, Samantha, we in the Soviet Union are trying to do everything so that there will not be war on earth. This is what every Soviet man wants. This is what the great founder of our state, Vladimir Lenin, taught us.
      Soviet people well know what a terrible thing war is. Forty-two years ago, Nazi Germany, which strived for supremacy over the whole world, attacked our country, burned and destroyed many thousands of our towns and villages, killed millions of Soviet men, women and children.
      In that war, which ended with our victory, we were in alliance with the United States: together we fought for the liberation of many people from the Nazi invaders. I hope that you known about this from your history lessons in school. And today we want very much to live in peace, to trade and cooperate with all our neighbors on this earth - with those far away and those near by. And certainly with such a great country as the United States of America.
      In America and in our country there are nuclear weapons - terrible weapons that can kill millions of people in an instant. But we do not want them to be ever used. That’s precisely why the Soviet Union solemnly declared throughout the entire world that never - never - will it use nuclear weapons first against any country. In general we propose to discontinue further production of them and to proceed to the abolition of all the stockpiles on earth.
      It seems to me that this is a sufficient answer to your second question:
“Why do you want to wage war against the whole world or at least the United States?” We want nothing of the kind. No one in our country — neither workers, peasants, writers nor doctors, neither grown-ups nor children, nor members of the government — want either a big or “little” war.
      We want peace — there is something that we are occupied with: growing wheat, building and inventing, writing books and flying into space. We want peace for ourselves and for all peoples of the planet. For our children and for you, Samantha.
      I invite you, if your parents will let you, to come to our country, the best time being this summer. You will find out about our country, meet with your contemporaries, visit an international children’s camp — “Artek” — on the sea. And see for yourself: in the Soviet Union — everyone is for peace and friendship among peoples.
      Thank you for your letter. I wish you all the best in your young life.

Y. Andropov
1982 Captured in 1967, the Sinai Peninsula is returned by Israel to Egypt, as part of the 1979 Camp David Accord. —  Israel devuelve a Egipto el control de la península del Sinaí tras 15 años de ocupación, en cumplimiento de los tratados de paz de 1979 entre ambos países.
1981  El observatorio astronómico Einstein (HEAO-2) finaliza su misión.
1980 Announcement of Jimmy Carter hostage rescue bungle in Irani.
1976  El Partido Socialista triunfa en las elecciones parlamentarias portuguesas con el 34,87% de los votos.
1975  El Gobierno español implanta el estado de excepción por tres meses en Vizcaya y Guipúzcoa
1974 Dictator Antonio Salazar overthrown in Portugal. .—  Los oficiales más jóvenes del ejército portugués, comandados por el general António Sebastião Ribeiro de Spínola, logran acabar con el régimen dictatorial de António de Oliveira Salazar en la llamada Revolución de los Claveles.
1972 Hans-Werner Grosse glides1461 km in an AS-W-12
1972 North Vietnamese Army close to cutting South Vietnam in two.       ^top^
      Hanoi's 320th Division drives 5000 South Vietnamese troops into retreat and traps about 2500 others in a border outpost northwest of Kontum in the Central Highlands. This was part of the ongoing North Vietnamese Nguyen Hue Offensive, also known as the "Easter Offensive," which included an invasion by 120'000 North Vietnamese troops. The offensive was based on three objectives: Quang Tri in the north, Kontum in the Central Highlands, and An Loc in the south — just 105 km north of Saigon. If successful, the attack at Kontum would effectively cut South Vietnam in two across the Central Highlands, giving North Vietnam control of the northern half of South Vietnam. The South Vietnamese defenders were able to hold out and prevent this from happening.
1971 US canal rights in Nicaragua and rights to Corn Islands expire.
1971  Se proclama la República de Bangladesh.
1971   Franz Jonas es reelegido presidente federal de Austria.
1967 Britain grants internal self-government to Swaziland.
1967 Colorado Governor John Love signs the first law legalizing abortion in the US. The law is limited to “therapeutic” abortions when agreed to, unanimously, by a panel of three physicians. [no love there for the unborn child]
1964 Westmoreland to head US military in Vietnam.       ^top^
     US President Lyndon B. Johnson announces that General. William Westmoreland will replace Gen. Paul Harkins as head of US Military Assistance Command Vietnam (MACV) as of 20 June. The assignment would put Westmoreland in charge of all American military forces in Vietnam. One of the war's most controversial figures, General Westmoreland was given many honors when the fighting was going well, but when the war turned sour, many Americans saw him as a cause of US problems in Vietnam. Negative feeling about Westmoreland grew particularly strong following the Tet Offensive of 1968, when he had requested a large number of additional troops for deployment to Vietnam. On 22 March 1968, President Johnson announced that Westmoreland would leave South Vietnam to take on the post of Army Chief of Staff; Gen. Creighton Abrams replaced him as the senior US commander in South Vietnam.
1964  Tanganica, Pemba y Zanzíbar constituyen una Federación que pasa a denominarse República Unida de Tanzania.
1963  Reaparece en Madrid la Revista de Occidente, fundada en 1923 por José Ortega y Gasset y que había dejado de publicarse en julio de 1936.
1960 US sub completes global underwater journey.       ^top^
      The USS. Triton, a nuclear-powered submarine, completed the first global circumnavigation by a submerged submarine. The Triton, commanded by Captain Edward L. Beach and featuring a crew of thirteen officers and 135 men, departed New London, Connecticut, on 16 February 1960. The submarine was 136 meters long and weighed 7750 tons when submerged. On 24 February, the Triton crossed the equator, and on 25 April, completed its around-the-world journey, having traveled 67'000 km in eighty-four days. The hull of the submarine was submerged during the entire trip, although the upper mast broached the surface twice for defense reasons. From 1957 to 1958, another American submarine had circumnavigated the earth's oceans, but the vessel was forced to surface numerous times for refueling. With the completion of the world's first nuclear-powered submarine in 1954, submarines now had the potential to remain submerged for nearly unlimited periods of time.
original DNA diagram1953 US Senator Wayne Morse ends the longest speech in US Senate history. The speech on the Offshore Oil Bill lasted 22 hours and 26 minutes. [they should have nicknamed him Phil E. Buster]
1953 Nature magazine (171, 737-738) publishes a letter written on 02 April 1953 by James Dewey Watson [06 Apr 1928~] and Francis Harry Compton Crick [08 Jun 1916~], in which for the first time is proposed the correct double-helix structure of DNA, which, they write, “suggests a possible copying mechanism for the genetic material”. The letter includes this diagram > [How they made the discovery, not theirs alone]
1947   Ho Chi Minh propone negociaciones a Francia.  Los socialistas japoneses triunfan en las elecciones parlamentarias.
1945 Last Boeing B-17 attack against Nazi Germany.

1945 US and USSR troops meet; Berlin encircled.       ^top^
      During World War II, American and Soviet troops met for the first time at Leckwitz on the Elbe River, less than a 160 km south of Berlin. The Allied troops, made up of patrols from the US 273rd Infantry Regiment and advance Soviet troops from the eastern front, joyously shook hands in celebration of the successes of their respective offensives against Nazi Germany.
      With Germany just a few weeks away from collapse, the Americans were driving into the southern part of Germany, hoping to prevent a last stand by the German army in the heavily fortified "National Redoubt" in the Alps. The Soviets, meanwhile, were besieging the German capital of Berlin while pushing toward the Elbe River, the boundary of the postwar occupation zone agreed to at the Allied conference at Yalta in February.
      On the day that the first advance US and Red Army troops met on the Elbe, the two main Soviet armies, totaling some two million soldiers, converged around Berlin, and the city was completely encircled. Just six days later, with Soviet troops in Berlin a few blocks from his bunker under the German Chancellery, Nazi leader Adolf Hitler committed suicide. The next day, more Nazi leaders followed him [to Hell?], and on 02 May, resistance against the Soviets ended in Berlin. Meanwhile, the Americans liberated Austria and parts of Czechoslovakia, and on 07 May, Germany signed its unconditional surrender, ending six years of murder and devastation in Europe. The next day, millions of people across Europe and the world celebrated "V-E Day," or "Victory in Europe."
    Eight Russian armies completely encircle Berlin, linking up with the US First Army patrol, first on the western bank of the Elbe, then later at Torgau. Germany is, for all intents and purposes, Allied territory. The Allies sounded the death knell of their common enemy by celebrating. In Moscow, news of the link-up between the two armies resulted in a 324-gun salute; in New York, crowds burst into song and dance in the middle of Times Square. Among the Soviet commanders who participated in this historic meeting of the two armies was the renowned Russian Marshal Georgi K. Zhukov, who warned a skeptical Stalin as early as June 1941 that Germany posed a serious threat to the Soviet Union. Zhukov would become invaluable in battling German forces within Russia (Stalingrad and Moscow) and without. It was also Zhukov who would demand and receive unconditional surrender of Berlin from German General Krebs less than a week after encircling the German capital. At the end of the war, Zhukov was awarded a military medal of honor from Great Britain
La défaite allemande à Moscou et le débarquement américain en Normandie (06 Jun 1944) ont sonné la fin du führer. Désormais, la défaite allemande n'était plus qu'une question de temps. Au mois d'avril 1945, tout va se précipiter. Le 25, Américains et Soviétiques qui sont entrés en Allemagne font leur jonction dans une petite ville des bords de l'Elbe, Torgau, à quelques kilomètres de Leipzig. Une partie de l'Allemagne nazie est donc occupée. Américains et Britanniques ne sont plus qu'à une centaine de kilomètres de la capitale Berlin, mais les Soviétiques sont déjà aux portes de la ville. Ils entreront à Berlin le 30 Apr 1945 et, suprême affront pour Hitler, le drapeau rouge flottera le soir même sur le Reichstag, le Parlement de la capitale nazie. Ce même jour, Adolf Hitler se suicide dans son bunker. Sa compagne, Eva Braun, en fera de même ainsi que certains généraux qui seront avec lui. Les autres seront jugés la même année par le tribunal de Nuremberg lors du procès des criminels de guerre, et exécutés. Certains seront rattrapés par l'Histoire plusieurs années après comme Klaus Barbie, l'ancien chef de la Gestapo, qui ne sera jugé que le 04 Jul 1987 en France et condamné à la réclusion à perpétuité. L'Allemagne vaincue sera occupée par ses vainqueurs et partagée en deux Etats. La Seconde Guerre mondiale aura fait près de 40 millions de morts, dont 20 millions en URSS qui aura payé le prix le plus lourd pour abattre le nazisme.
1945  Estalla la insurrección partisana en Italia del Norte, que condena a los dirigentes fascistas y proclama la democracia en el país.
1943  La URSS y el Gobierno polaco en el exilio londinense rompen sus relaciones diplomáticas, tras el masacre de Katyn.
1940  Las tropas alemanas llegan a las puertas de Atenas durante la Segunda Guerra Mundial.
1939  En un campo de concentración de Pau (Francia) se descubren 25 mujeres disfrazadas de milicianos rojos. 
1939 Las mujeres gallegas piden para el caudillo el principado de Santiago.
1938  Gran Bretaña e Irlanda firman un acuerdo comercial, militar y económico. 
1938 El general Alberto Enríquez Gallo dicta una ley electoral para Ecuador.
1938 first use of seeing eye dog
1935 First round-the-world telephone conversation Sherman Gifford, president of the American Telephone Company in New York, and T.G. Miller, a vice president sitting about fifty feet away, spoke to each other via a call that was routed via 37'000 km of telephone wire and radio connections through San Francisco, Java, Amsterdam, London, and back to New York.
1934  Se produce una crisis total de Gobierno en España.
1931  Se dicta en España un auto de procesamiento contra el general Emilio Mola Vidal .
1926 In Iran, Reza Kahn is crowned Shah and chooses the name "Pehlevi."
1925 General Paul von Hindenburg takes office as president of Germany.
1924  Miguel Primo de Rivera crea en España el Partido Unión Patriótica. 
1924 El Directorio prohíbe en España la manifestación del 01 mayo.
1918  El IV ejército alemán, bajo el mando del general Von Arnim, toma el monte Kemmel (Flandes).
1917  El llamado "decreto Adamson" prevé la instauración de la jornada laboral de 8 horas para los trabajadores de ferrocarriles estadounidenses.
1915 During World War I, Australian and New Zealand troops landed at the Gallipoli peninsula in Turkey in hopes of defeating Turkey and attacking the other enemy nations (Central Powers) from the south. The attack was unsuccessful.
1914  Argentina, Brasil y Chile ofrecen su mediación en el conflicto entre México y los Estados Unidos.
1908  Se producen graves disturbios en Argentina como resultado del movimiento sedicioso de Santiago del Estero.
1907  Se produce un nuevo triunfo del Partido Conservador en las elecciones españolas a Cortes.
1905  La nueva Constitución en Transvaal (Sudáfrica) sólo concede el derecho al voto a los ciudadanos blancos.
1904  El almirantazgo inglés declara tener operativos 26 diques que pueden recibir buques de la envergadura del Dreadnought
1904 El Partido Conservador triunfa en las elecciones de diputados a Cortes en España.
1901  Se funda en Barcelona la Lliga regionalista.  Miles de manifestantes catalanes reclaman la separación de la iglesia y el estado.
1901 New York becomes the first US state to require license plates by law . Owners of automobiles were required to register their names and addresses, and a description of their vehicle, with the office of the secretary of state. The state sent each owner a small license plate, at least three inches high, which bore the owner's initials. The fee to register an automobile one dollar. In 1901, the state received $954 in registration fees.
1898 US responds to Spain's declaration of war       ^top^
      The Spanish-American War officially began the day before, when the Spanish refused US demands to withdrawal from Cuba and declared war against the United States. That same day, US President William McKinley authorized US Admiral George Dewey, in command of the US Pacific fleet, to leave Hong Kong and attack Spanish-held Manila in the Philippines.
      Spain's brutal response to the Cuban rebellion against Spanish rule, the mysterious explosion of the US battleship Maine in Havana harbor, and the heavy losses to American investment caused by the Cuban conflict, were all factors that intensified US feeling against Spain. In late April, the US Congress prepared for war; adopting joint congressional resolutions demanding a Spanish withdrawal from Cuba and authorizing President McKinley to use force.
      On 23 April, President McKinley asked for 125'000 volunteers to fight against Spain, and the next day Spain issued a declaration of war. One week later, the US Navy under Admiral George Dewey won a decisive victory over the Spanish fleet at Manila Bay in the Philippines, and on 11 June, six hundred US marines landed at Guantanamo, Cuba. In Cuba, US forces, featuring the Theodore Roosevelt-led cavalry regiment known as the "Rough Riders," triumphed at the battles of El Caney and San Juan Heights, and on 03 July, the remaining Spanish fleet was destroyed near Santiago de Cuba. On 17 July, nearly 25'000 Spanish soldiers surrendered at Santiago de Cuba, and the war effectively came to an end. An armistice was signed on 12 August, and representatives were sent to Paris, France, to arrange peace. On 10 December, the Treaty of Paris was signed, officially ending the Spanish-American war, virtually dissolving the once-proud Spanish Empire, and granting the United States its first overseas empire. Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Philippines were ceded to the United States, and Cuba became a US protectorate. Hawaii, an independent republic run by American expatriates since 1894, was also formally annexed during the Spanish-American War.
1867 Tokyo is opened for foreign trade.
1864 Battle of Marks' Mill, Arkansas on Steele's Camden Expedition.
1863 Siege of Suffolk, Virginia by Confederates continues.
1862 Bombardment and surrender of Fort Macon, North Carolina.
1862 Siege of Yorktown, Virginia continues.
1862 Admiral Farragut occupies New Orleans, Louisiana.
1859 Construction of the Suez Canal begins.       ^top^
      In Egypt, ground is broken for the Suez Canal, an artificial waterway intended to stretch 163 km across the Isthmus of Suez and connect the Mediterranean and the Red seas. The massive construction project, organized by French diplomat and entrepreneur Ferdinand de Lesseps, took over a decade to complete. Opened for navigation on 17 November 1859, the canal ran from Port Said in the north to Suez in the south, and rapidly became one of the world's most heavily traveled shipping lanes.
      France and England took increasing interest in Egypt after the completion of the canal, and in 1882 British troops invaded Egypt, beginning a forty-year occupation of the country. In 1922, Britain recognized the sovereignty of Egypt, but retained control of the Suez Canal.
      During the early 1950s, Egyptian nationalists rioted in the Suez Canal Zone and organized attacks on British troops, and in 1956 Egyptian Prime Minister Gamal Abdel Nasser nationalized the canal, subsequently barring British, French, and Israeli shipping. In response, Israeli forces under General Moshe Dayan seized the Gaza Strip and drove through the Sinai to the east bank of the Suez Canal. Two days later, Britain and France entered the conflict in a coalition with Israel, and demanded the immediate evacuation of Egypt from the Suez Canal. American and U.N. pressure forced the coalition to halt the hostilities and a U.N. emergency force was sent to occupy the Canal Zone, eventually leaving the canal in Egypt's hands in the next year.
     At Port Said, Egypt, ground is broken for the Suez Canal, an artificial waterway intended to stretch 162 km across the isthmus of Suez and connect the Mediterranean and the Red seas. Ferdinand de Lesseps, the French diplomat who organized the colossal undertaking, delivered the pickax blow that inaugurated construction. Artificial canals have been built on the Suez region, which connects the continents of Asia and Africa, since ancient times. Under the Ptolemaic rulers of Egypt, a channel connected the Bitter Lakes to the Red Sea, and a canal reached northward from Lake Timsah as far as the Nile River. These canals fell into disrepair or were intentionally destroyed for military reasons. As early as the 15th century, Europeans speculated about building a canal across the Suez, which would allow traders to sail from the Mediterranean to the Indian Ocean via the Red Sea, rather than having to sail the great distance around Africa's Cape of Good Hope. The first serious survey of the isthmus occurred during the French occupation of Egypt at the end of the 18th century, and General Napoleon Bonaparte personally inspected the remains of an ancient canal. France made further studies for a canal, and in 1854 Ferdinand de Lesseps, the former French consul to Cairo, secured an agreement with the Ottoman governor of Egypt to build a canal. An international team of engineers drew up a construction plan, and in 1856 the Suez Canal Company was formed and granted the right to operate the canal for 99 years after completion of the work.
      Construction began in April 1859, and at first digging was done by hand with picks and shovels wielded by forced laborers. Later, European workers with dredgers and steam shovels arrived. Labor disputes and a cholera epidemic slowed construction, and the Suez Canal was not completed until 1869 — four years behind schedule. On 17 November 1869, the Suez Canal was officially inaugurated in an elaborate ceremony attended by French Empress Eugénie, wife of Napoleon III. Ferdinand de Lesseps would later attempt, unsuccessfully, to build a canal across the Isthmus of Panama. He died in 1894. When it opened, the Suez Canal was only 8 meters deep, 22 meters wide at the bottom, and 60 to 90 meters wide at the surface. Consequently, fewer than 500 ships navigated it in its first full year of operation. Major improvements began in 1876, however, and the canal soon grew into the one of the world's most heavily traveled shipping lanes. In 1875, Great Britain became the largest shareholder in the Suez Canal Company when it bought up the stock of the new Ottoman governor of Egypt.
      Seven years later, in 1882, Britain invaded Egypt, beginning a long occupation of the country. The Anglo-Egyptian treaty of 1936 made Egypt virtually independent, but Britain reserved rights for the protection of the canal. After World War II, Egypt pressed for evacuation of British troops from the Suez Canal Zone, and in July 1956 Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser nationalized the canal, hoping to charge tolls that would pay for construction of a massive dam on the Nile River. In response, Israel invaded in late October, and British and French troops landed in early November, occupying the canal zone. Under pressure from the United Nations, Britain and France withdrew in December, and Israeli forces departed in March 1957. That month, Egypt took control of the canal and reopened it to commercial shipping. Ten years later, Egypt shut down the canal again following the Six Day War and Israel's occupation of the Sinai peninsula. For the next eight years, the Suez Canal, which separates the Sinai from the rest of Egypt, existed as the front line between the Egyptian and Israeli armies. In 1975, Egyptian President Anwar el-Sadat reopened the Suez Canal as a gesture of peace after talks with Israel. Today, an average of 50 ships navigate the canal daily, carrying more than 300 million tons of goods a year.
1854 Gadsden Purchase (parts of Az, NM) from Mexico for $10 million, revised treaty is ratified.
1794 DAUDE J.M, âgé de 27 ans, natif de Cheroy, garçon charron, ensuite marchand, domicilié à Paris, est condamné à six ans de fers, par le tribunal révolutionnaire de Paris, pour avoir fait des ventes et achats de numéraire, tant en or qu'an argent, lesquels établissaient des différences très disproportionnées entre les assignats et le numéraire.
1792 GUERIN Jean Baptiste, marchand, domicilié à Reims, département de la Marne, sera condammné à mort, comme ayant mis en circulation de faux assignats le 25 avril 1792, par le tribunal criminel du département de Paris, comme réfractaire à la loi [sic].
1789  Francisco de Goya y Lucientes es nombrado pintor de Cámara del rey de España Carlos IV.
1707 Battle of Almansa:: Franco-Spanish forces defeat Anglo-Portugese. —   Las tropas hispanofrancesas de Felipe V derrotan a las del archiduque Carlos de Austria en la batalla de Almansa.
1624  El cirujano alemán Wilhelm Fabricius Hildanus extrae por primera vez una esquirla de hierro del ojo de un paciente con un imán.
1576  Holanda y Zelanda, provincias rebeldes norteñas, se federan y eligen como estatúder al beligerante [Guillermo I de Nassau, príncipe de Orange.
1530 The Augsburg Confession was read publicly at the Diet of Worms. Written principally by Philip Melanchthon, the document comprised the first official summary of the Lutheran faith.
1196  Tras la muerte de Alfonso II el Casto, sus hijos Pedro y Alfonso heredan, respectivamente, la corona de Aragón y el condado de Provenza.
TO THE TOP
Kids celebrate burning HumveeDeaths which occurred on an April 25:

2004 Four Iraqi children, aged about 12, when US troops fire at a rejoicing group of children from a nearby school and of passersby [photo >] surrounding a Humvee (HMMWV = High Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicle, diesel-powered US military vehicle that replaced the smaller jeep since at most 1982) which was burning after the explosion of a roadside bomb.

2004 A bystander, by a hand grenade thrown at Mehbooba Mufti, president of pro-India People's Democratic Party, the ruling puppet party in Indian-occupied Kashmir, after her speech at an election rally in the village Khul. She is the daughter of Mufti Mohammed Sayeed, the state's chief minister, and escapes unhurt, but 7 other bystanders are injured. Kashmir's independentists, some of which are terrorists, are boycotting India's parliamentary elections, which are being held in four phases in different constituencies, “Jammu & Kashmir” being the only state in which the elections are spread out between all four dates: 20 April, 26 April, 05 May, and 10 May 2004. [see Election Commission of India]

2004 The mother and wife of Ghulam Hassan, stabbed by unknowns who break into their home in village Ajas, Indian-occupied Kashmir. Hassan is a turncoat independentist now a collaborator with the Indian army.

2004 At least 10 persons in street fights between Muslim and Christian youth gangs, at which police fire, in Ambon, capital of the province of Maluku islands, Indonesia, after about 12 members of the region's small Christian separatist movement parade through Ambon on the 54th anniversary of a failed independence attempt. More than 50 persons are wounded. More than 9000 persons were killed in the Malukus between 1991 and 2001 in fighting between Muslims and Christians that attracted Islamic militants from all over Southeast Asia. A government sponsored peace pact was signed in 2002, but sporadic violence has continued and but South Maluku's two million people, evenly divided between Muslims and Christians, now live in separate communities.

2003 Lynn Chadwick, born on 24 November 1914, British sculptor of expressionistic, figurative works in welded iron and bronze. — LINKS

Eliyakov2003 Israeli Sgt. Lior Eliyakov, 21 [< photo], of the Duchifat infantry unit, by the accidental firing of the gun of the soldier with him, as the two get out of their jeep upon returning from patrol, north of Ramallah.

2003 Abdul Gani Malik, 70, shot by Islamic terrorists in Waripora, Baramulla district, Indian-occupied Kahsmir. Malik was a block president of the ruling collaborationist People's Democratic Party.

2002: 12 women worshippers, by a bomb exploding late in the evening in the women's section of a Shiite mosque in Bukker, Punjab, Pakistan.

2001 Ramadan Azzam, 31, Samir Zurub, 32, Saadi Dabas, 35, Yasser Dabas, 16, by Israeli remote control bomb, near the Rafiah border crossing with Egypt in the Gaza Strip, in the night. Six others are injured.. Azzam was head of the "Popular Resistance Committees," an organization of the Fatah believed to be responsible for some of the mortar firing against Israeli targets. Zurub and Dabas were members of the Palestinian security forces. Dabas was a civilian.

2001 Sedat Karakurt, and Erdogan Guler, from hunger strike protesting Turkish prison conditions.       ^top^
     Sedat Karakurt, 25, dies in a hospital in the northwest city of Edirne early in the day after an intermittent hunger strike lasting 177 days. He was a member of the outlawed Revolutionary People's Liberation Party-Front.
      Erdogan Guler, 29, dies at his home in the Aegean port city of Izmir. He was not a prisoner but had been on a sympathy hunger strike for 159 days,
      Some 250 Turkish prison inmates and many of their relatives have been fasting for months to protest their transfer from large wards to new prisons where cells house one or three inmates. The prisoners say the new system leaves them vulnerable to beatings from guards. The Turkish government says that it is to prevent prison riots.
2001 Iris Lynch, 65, by killer bees, as she was cleaning her yard in Golden Grove village, east of Georgetown, Guyana.
2001 Siv Hong, 4, eaten by crocodiles.       ^top^
      She fell into her grandfather's crocodile pond while trying to retrieve an item of clothing which she had dropped from a bridge.The grandfather, Kart Lim, 52, jumped in to try to save her and was also attacked by the crocodiles. A neighbor jumped in with a stick to rescue him. This in Cambodia's Kompong Thom province north of Phnom Penh. Lim raises some 40 crocodiles, for their skins which are used to make items such as boots and bags.

2000 Zika Petrovic, murdered, ally of war-criminal Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic.
1992  Ernesto Balducci, teólogo italiano, abanderado del catolicismo progresista.
1986  Cinco agentes por la explosión de un coche-bomba colocado por ETA (Euskadi Ta Askatasuna) al paso de un vehículo de la Guardia Civil en una calle de Madrid.  Otros siete agentes resultan heridos.
1984 David Anthony Kennedy, 28, of a drug overdose. He was born on 15 June 1955, the fourth child of Robert F. Kennedy.
1981 Dixie a mouse who had lived for more than 6 years.
1980  Alejo Carpentier, escritor y musicólogo cubano.
1980  146 personas en un accidente aéreo en Tenerife.
1978 Cadambathur Tiruvenkatacharlu Rajagopal, Madras mathematician born on 08 September 1903.
1948 Luc-Albert Moreau, French painter and printmaker, born on 09 December 1882.
1945 Georg Feigl, German mathematician born on 13 October 1890.
1940  Juan Franco, político portugués.
1932 Albert Gabriel Rigolot, French artist born on 28 November 1862.
1931 Abraham Mintchine, Jewish Ukrainian painter born on 14 April 1898. — MORE ON MINTCHINE AT ART “4” APRIL with links to images.
1911 Emilio Salgari, Italian novelist, harakiri suicide.       ^top^
      Nacque a Verona, il 21 agosto 1862, da una famiglia di modesti commercianti. Seguì inutilmente un corso per diventare capitano di marina, occasione che gli fruttò il primo ed unico imbarco, che fra l'altro lo portò solamente lungo le sponde dell'Adriatico. L'uomo che tanto scrisse di paesi esotici e lontani, dunque, in realtà non li vide mai.
      Nel 1883 iniziò a pubblicare sul La Nuova Arena il romanzo La Tigre della Malesia, che gli fruttò molto successo, ma scarsissimi introiti. L'incapacità di gestirsi finanziariamente e una sua buona dose di ingenuità sarà una costante della sua vita.
      Nel 1884 pubblicherà, sempre a puntate, La favorita del Mahdi, che diventerà poi il suo primo libro. Nel 1892 sposò l'attrice di teatro Ida Peruzzi, da cui ebbe quattro figli. Si trasferirà poi a Torino, lavorando con contratto fisso per l'editore Speirani, pubblicando circa 30 titoli tra il 1892 ed il 1898. Nel 1897 re Umberto lo nominò “Cavaliere della Corona”. Nel 1898 si trasferirà ancora a Genova per lavorare con l'editore Antonio Donath.
      Malgrado i successi, a lui, incapace di gestirsi, restavano solo le briciole, mentre aumentavano i debiti, anche per via dell'assistenza che dovette dare alla moglie che nel frattempo era impazzita. Tentò un suicidio nel 1910, ma fu salvato. Si suicidò a Torino, il 25 aprile 1911, oppresso dai debiti e dalle disgrazie familiari, squarciandosi il ventre e la gola con un rasoio, imitando il suicidio rituale dei samurai giapponesi. Lascerà una lettera per i figli, e una, sprezzante, agli editori, ai quali chiese, almeno, di pagare il suo funerale.
      Fu autore di oltre duecento romanzi e racconti di avventure esotiche, autentici classici della letteratura per ragazzi. In particolare possiamo ricordare i romanzi come I misteri della jungla nera, Le tigri di Mompracem, Sandokan alla riscossa, Il Re del Mare, I Pirati della Malesia, Il Figlio del Corsaro Rosso, Jolanda la figlia del Corsaro Nero.
— SALGARI ONLINE:I Pirati della Malesia [the following all zipped]: I Pirati della MalesiaAlla conquista di un imperoLa città del re lebbrosoLe due tigriLe figlie dei faraoniIl figlio del Corsaro RossoJolanda, la figlia del corsaro neroLe meraviglie del DuemilaI misteri della jungla neraLe novelle marinaresche di mastro CatrameIl re del mareLa regina dei CaraibiLa rivincita di YanezLe stragi delle FilippineGli ultimi filibustieri
1898 Marc Louis Benjamin Vautier I, Swiss artist born on 27 April 1829.
1892 William Bradford, US painter and photographer born on 30 April 1823. — MORE ON BRADFORD AT ART “4” APRIL with links to images.
1874 Octave Nicolas François Tassaert, French artist born on 26 July 1800.
1870 Daniel Maclise, Irish painter born on 25 January 1806. — a bit more with links to images.
1840 Siméon-Denis Poisson, French mathematician born on 21 June 1781. His most important contributions were a series of papers on definite integrals and his advances in Fourier series. This work was the foundation of later work in this area by Dirichlet [13 Feb 1805 – 05 May 1859] and Riemann [17 Sep 1826 – 20 Jul 1866]. In Recherchés sur la probabilité des jugements en matière criminelle et matière civile (1837) the Poisson distribution first appears. The Poisson distribution describes the probability that a random event will occur in a time or space interval under the conditions that the probability of the event occurring is very small, but the number of trials is very large so that the event actually occurs a few times. Poisson also introduced the expression “law of large numbers”. Poisson held that “Life is good for only two things, discovering mathematics and teaching mathematics.”
1803 Adélaïde Vincent Labille-Guiard, French Neoclassical painter born on 11 April 1749, specialized in Portraits.LINKS

1794 (6 floréal an II) Condamnés à mort par la Révolution:       ^top^
Par le tribunal révolutionnaire de Paris:
LALLEMAND J. Nicolas, ex curé d'Hondelmont (Meurthe), âgé de 41 ans, natif de Dieuze, ex minime de Vezelise, domicilié à Hudelmont, comme contre-révolutionnaire, en tenant des propos et lançant des discours incendiaires, après avoir requis les fonctions qu'il avait abdiquées.
LAMOIGNON-MALESHERBES Antoinette Marguerite Thérèse, femme Lepelletier-Rosambo, âgée de 38 ans, native de Paris, domiciliée à Malesherbes (Loiret), comme complice d'une conspiration qui a existé depuis 1789 contre la souveraineté du Peuple.
LESCOFFIER Louis Charles Nicolas Emmanuel, cultivateur, âgé de 68 ans, né à Balon (Ardennes), domicilié à Corbeil, (Seine et Oise), comme convaincu d'être complice d'une conspiration qui a existé dans la commune de Brutus, ci-devant Ris.
HENRY Suzanne, âgée de 26 ans, fille de Henry, président du bailliage de Verdun, née et domiciliée à Verdun (Meuse), comme complice de la conspiration qui a existé à Verdun.
PETIT Jacques, vigneron, âgé de 60 ans, né et domicilié à Verdun (Meuse), comme convaincu d'avoir tenu des assemblées contre-révolutionnaires et témoigné son vœu pour le rétablissement de la Royauté.
     ... domiciliés à Paris (Seine):
GOURON François, âgé de 35 ans, né à Tours (Indre et Loire), fabricant de papiers-peints, à la fabrique républicaine, rue Nicaise, à Paris, comme contre-révolutionnaire.
JACQUET Jean Claude, homme de loi, âgé de 59 ans, né à Lons-le-Saulnier, ci-devant Lieutenant particulier au Bailliage de cette ville, comme contre-révolutionnaire.
LEBAULT Jean Baptiste, receveur des propriétés d'Anisson-Duperron, ci-devant, secrétaire du district de Corbeil, âgé de 30 ans, né à Paris, comme contre-révolutionnaire et complice de la conspiration qui a existé dans la commune de Brutus, ci-devant Ris.
Comme brigands de la Vendée:
CHABERT François, ex noble, écolier, domicilié à Rennes (Ille-et-Vilaine), comme chef des brigands de la Vendée, par la commission militaire séante à Grandville.
     ... domiciliés dan le département de la Mayenne, par la commission militaire ou révolutionnaire séante à Laval:
ARGAUD René, tisserand, domicilié à St Jean, canton de Laval. — GUEDON François, domicilié à St Germain-le-Fouilloux. — HUET Jean, tisserand, domicilié à St Jean. — VERON Anne, lingère, domicilié à Montjean.
Domiciliés à Verdun, département de la Meuse, comme contre-révolutionnaires, par le tribunal criminel dudit département.:
DELAYANT Jacques, ex bénéficier. — DEMANGEOT Anne Marie, veuve Délayant. — MARCHAL Jean Baptiste. — MOUTON Louis, ex vicaire épiscopal.
Ailleurs:
LAGACHE Philippe Martin, âgé de 51 ans, né à Servins, district de Béthune, guillotiné à Arras
LALANDE Jean Baptiste Nicolas Constantin, ex noble, ancien officier au ci-devant régiment Royal Vaisseaux. domicilié à Riberac (Dordogne), par le tribunal criminel près l'armée de Moselle, comme émigré.
LANTROUME Antoine, domicilié à Riom (Puy de Dôme), par le tribunal criminel dudit département, comme contre-révolutionnaire.
LESSUS Jean Ignace, ex chartreux, domicilié à Montmerie, (Ain), comme , par le tribunal criminel du département du Doubs, comme réfractaire à la loi.
ROQUEFEUILLE Hyacinthe, prêtre, ci-devant, trésorier du chapitre de Lille, domicilié à Valence (Tarn), comme réfractaire à la loi, par le tribunal criminel du département le la Haute Garonne.

1792 Nicholas Jacques Pelletier, highwayman, first to be guillotined — PELLETIER Jacques, bandit de grand chemin, premier guillotiné, place de Grève à Paris — Le condamné a passé la tête entre les montants du châssis dans lequel la lame oblique et lestée a coulissé, commandée par une corde. La décollation de Jacques Pelletier, un bandit de grand chemin, s'est aussi bien déroulée que les essais réalisés le 15 sur des cadavres à l'hôpital Bicêtre. On ne savait pas comment réagirait la foule accourue nombreuse place de Grève. Aussi avait-on recommandé à La Fayette de prendre des mesures afin “qu'il ne se commît aucune dégradation à la machine”, fort chère.
1744  Anders Celsius, astrónomo y físico sueco, nació (27 nov 1701) y murió en Uppsala. Inventó la escala de temperaturas Celsius. Autor de Dissertatio de Novo Methodo Distantiam Solis a Terra Determinandi, y de De Observationibus pro Figura Telluris Determinanda in Gallia Habitis. Disquisitio.
1691 Jean de Troy, French artist born in 1638.
1690 David Teniers II, born on 15 December 1610, Flemish painter of the Baroque period known for his genre scenes of peasant life. — MORE ON TENIERS AT ART “4” APRIL with links to images.
1675 Claude Lefebvre, French artist born on 12 September 1632. — more
1655 Giovanni-Andrea Donducci “il Mastelletta”, Italian artist born on 14 February 1575.
Tasso1595 Torcuato Tasso, Italian poet.       ^top^
      Nato a Sorrento l'undici marzo 1544 da un cortigiano e letterato e da una nobildonna napoletana, Torquato Tasso passò i primi anni della sua vita in varie città italiane, ma fu soprattutto Urbino il teatro della sua formazione letteraria, scientifica e cavalleresca.
      Dopo la morte della madre, avvenuta nel 1556, nel '59 si trasferì a Venezia per studiare legge, secondo la volontà paterna. Ben presto, però, concentrò i suoi interessi sulla filosofia e sull'eloquenza e compose il primo libro della Gerusalemme.
      Nel '61 compose dei versi d'amore per la ferrarese Lucrezia Bendidio con i quali mise in risalto la sua maestria nel rinnovare dall'interno il grande modello tematico e formale del Petrarca.
      Nello stesso 1561 iniziò a scrivere il poema cavalleresco "Rinaldo", che diede alle stampe l'anno dopo. In quest'ultima opera veniva messa in atto la teoria "romanzesca" secondo la quale (in polemica col Furioso) l'unità di questo genere letterario sarebbe stata garantita solo dalla presenza di un unico protagonista.
      Nel 1562 fu a Bologna, vi continuò gli studi e vi affinò la sua tecnica lirica; nel '65 entrò al servizio del cardinale Luigi D'Este e prese a frequentare la corte di Ferrara; nel '72 divenne uno stipendiato di Ippolito II D'Este e come suo cortigiano compose la favola "Aminta", che venne rappresentata l'anno dopo; nel '75 partì per Roma dove chiese ad alcuni letterati di rivedere la sua "Gerusalemme liberata", un'opera che per molto tempo aveva abbandonata: fu proprio a causa di questa revisione, snervante, moralistica e minuziosa, che l'ipersensibilità del Tasso sfociò in uno stato di squilibrio psichico.
      La sua condizione mentale non migliorò neanche quando venne assolto dal tribunale dell'Inquisizione, e quindi, dopo poco, venne rinchiuso dal duca di Ferrara. Riuscito a fuggire, fu in seguito segregato di nuovo fino al 1586, quando il principe Vincenzo Gonzaga lo liberò, ma non riuscì a difenderlo dalle continue polemiche che imperversavano intorno alla sua opera.
      Morì a Roma il 25 aprile 1595, prima di poter essere incoronato poeta in Campidoglio.
— TASSO ONLINE: Aminta (zipped) _ In appendice l'epilogo Amor fuggitivo, che venne incluso nell'edizione ferrarese dell'Aminta del 1581. — Discorso della virtù feminile e donnesca (zipped) — Gerusalemme liberata _ [also available zipped] _ Ambientato durante l'epoca delle crociate, il poema eroico-cavalleresco "Gerusalemme liberata" consta di 20 canti di ottave e l'autore se ne occupò per quasi tutta la sua vita, apportandovi nel tempo diverse modifiche. La prima edizione fedele dell'opera si ebbe nel 1584 a cura di Scipione Gonzaga. L'azione del poema si apre nel periodo conclusivo della lotta tra cristiani e musulmani, con Goffredo di Buglione che riceve l'ordine divino di conquistare al più presto il Santo Sepolcro agli infedeli. La composizione del poema, l'opera più rappresentativa del Tasso, procurò molte sofferenze al suo autore, continuamente preoccupato per l'ortodossia del suo contenuto.

Births which occurred on an April 25:       ^top^
1989 Gedhun Choeki Nyima, whose father is Konchok Phuntsog, and mother Dechen Chodon, of Lhari district in Nagchu, Tibet. On 14 May 1995 he would be recognized by the Dalai Lama as the reincarnation of Panchen Rinpoche (the Panchen Lama) and given by the Dalai Lama the name of "Tenzin Gedhun Yeshe Thrinley Phuntsog Pal Sangpo". The Chinese authorities take him away and in November 1995 appoint their own choice in his place (Gyaltsen Norbu, born in 1989 in Nagchu, north of Lhasa, son of two Communists). Chinese officials have insisted that Gedhun is studying in school and living with his family, but many Tibetans believe he is at best under house arrest and, at worst, dead.
1961 Integrated circuit is patented by Robert Noyce.
1959 Saint Lawrence Seaway, linking Atlantic with the Great Lakes, opens to shipping.
1954 First solar battery announced by Bell Labs (NYC)
1947  La dama negra, comedia de Salvador Ferrer, se estrena en el teatro Infanta Beatriz de Madrid.
1946  Vladimir Zhirinovski, político ruso.
1945 United Nations, founded in San Francisco, by delegates from 47 countries.
1929  José Ángel Valente, escritor español.
1927  Corín Tellado, escritora española.
1927 Albert Uderzo, dibujante francés, autor de Astérix. — Astérix [image >] est le héros des aventures de la bande dessinée inventée par Albert Uderzo et René Goscinny. C’est le plus petit guerrier du village, mais toutes les missions périlleuses lui sont confiées sans hésitation. Il triomphe des adversaires les plus redoutables.
1921 Karel Christian Appel, Dutch Abstract Expressionist painter. — MORE ON APPEL AT ART “4” APRIL with links to images.
1919  La Escuela de Arquitectura y Artes Aplicadas Bauhaus, origen de la corriente artística que dominará el periodo de entreguerras, es fundada en Weimar por el arquitecto alemán Walter Gropius.
1918 Ella Fitzgerald, in Newport News, Virginia. She grew up to be one of the leading jazz singers of all time.
1914 Claude Mauriac, French novelist, journalist, and critic, who died on 22 March 1996; eldest son of 1952 Literature Nobel laureate François Mauriac (11 Oct 1885 – 01 Sep 1970).
1912  Federico Coullaut-Valera y Mendigutia, escultor español.
1906 William J. Brennan Jr., Supreme Court justice (1956-90). He died on 24 July 1997.
1904  María Zambrano Rodríguez, escritora española.
1903 (12 April Julian) Andrey Nikolaevich Kolmogorov, Russian mathematician who died on 20 October 1987. He was one of the developers of probability theory. He later used this work to study the motion of the planets and the turbulent flow of air from a jet engine.
1900 Wolfgang Pauli, Austrian physicist (Nobel 1945), mathematician. He died on 15 December 1958.
1887 Adrian Gösta Fabian Sandels, Swedish artist who died on 14 August 1919. — more
1879 Edwin Bidwell Wilson, US mathematician who died on 28 December 1964.
1874 Guglielmo Marconi, radio pioneer.       ^top^
      Marconi played a major role in the development of early radio. Born in Bologna, Italy, he studied engineering. At age twenty, he began experimenting with crude radio devices based on the work of Heinrich Herz, who had first generated and transmitted radio waves. Marconi traveled to England, where he won the attention of engineer William Preece of the British Post Office, and Preece was able to get government support for Marconi's work. Marconi filed a telegraphy patent in 1896, and two years later, he transmitted wireless telegraph signals across the Atlantic. He founded Marconi's Wireless Telegraphy Service, and in 1900, he patented "improvements for the apparatus of wireless telegraphy." The patent was later overturned based on previous work by Nicola Tesla and others. In 1899, a US newspaper asked Marconi to rig two ships with wireless telegraphs so they could transmit the results of a yacht race. Marconi's system would later enable ships to send distress calls and otherwise communicate with the shore. Marconi made important discoveries about short-wave radio that formed the basis for modern long-distance radio. In 1909, he won the Nobel Prize for Physics. He died on 20 July 1937.
1873 Howard Garis, US author of the Uncle Wiggily series of children's stories. He died on 06 November 1962.
1867 August Eiebakke, Norwegian painter who died on 21 July 1938 — more
1849 Christian Felix Klein, Prussian mathematician       ^top^
     Klein's synthesis of geometry as the study of the properties of a space that are invariant under a given group of transformations, known as the Erlanger Programm, profoundly influenced mathematical development. His works on elementary mathematics, including Elementar mathematik von höheren standpunkte aus (1908), reached a wide public. Of his more technical writings, Vorlesungen über das Ikosaeder (1884) and Vorlesungen über die Theorie der automorphen Functionen (2 vol.: 1897, 1902) are considered outstanding. Klein died on 22 June 1925
1867 August Eiebakke, Norwegian artist who died in 1938.
1857  Alejandro José Battenberg, príncipe de Bulgaria.
1853 John Frank Stevens, US chief civil engineer of the Panama Canal (1905-7). He died on 02 June 1943. [!AMANAPLANACANALPANAMA!]
1840 (Julian date: go to 07 May Gregorian) Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky.
1852  Leopoldo Alas y Ureña, Clarín, crítico y novelista español.
1831 The Lion of the West play opens in New York City.       ^top^
      It was the first of many plays, books, and movies celebrating Davy Crockett. Born in 1786 in Tennessee, Crockett grew up in a poor family that hired him out as a cattle drover at age 12. He eventually settled in middle Tennessee, where he became famous for his skill as a professional hunter. The forests of Tennessee were still dense with game at that time, and Crockett once killed 105 bears in a single season. After a stint fighting Indians with Andrew Jackson, Crockett began a career in politics, eventually becoming a Tennessee state representative in 1821. As a state legislator, Crockett was a strong advocate for the rights of squatters who were claiming land on the frontier without legal permission. At the same time, the political fortunes of his old commander, Andrew Jackson, were on the rise. When Jackson became president in 1828, he pointed to Crockett as a symbol of the frontier egalitarianism he believed should be adopted throughout the nation. Politics alone, however, would not have ensured Crockett's enduring status as an American hero. For that, only the 19th-century version of Hollywood would be adequate. In 1831, the play The Lion of the West opened at New York City's Park Theater. Starring the popular actor James Hackett as a legendary frontiersman named Colonel Nimrod Wildfire, the play was a thinly disguised and highly exaggerated account of Crockett's life. Two years later, the play was followed by an equally larger-than-life biography, Sketches and Eccentricities of Colonel David Crockett of West Tennessee. After Crockett died at the Alamo in 1836, his posthumous transformation from mortal man to mythic martyr was almost inevitable. A bogus 1836 autobiography portrayed him as a US Hercules and established many of the tall tales that would remain forever associated with his name. In the 20th century, Crockett's fame waned for a time, but Walt Disney revived the legend. In 1954, Disney began producing a series of movies and television programs featuring the actor Fess Parker as Crockett. The series was a ratings blockbuster, and it led to the largest media-generated commercial craze up until that time. Children across the US clamored for coonskin caps, powder horns, books, and records so that they could be just like their idol, Davy Crockett.
1826 Jean Baptiste Huysmans, Belgian artist who died in 1906. — more with links to images.
1824 Gustave Clarence Rodolphe Boulanger, French painter who died in October 1888. — MORE ON BOULANGER AT ART “4” APRIL with links to images.
1807 Louis Apollinaire Sicard, French artist who died in 1881.
1734  José Andrés Cornide de Folgueira y Saavedra, historiador español.
1719 Robinson Crusoe is published.       ^top^
      Daniel Defoe's fictional work The Life and Strange Adventures of Robinson Crusoe is published. The book, about a shipwrecked sailor who spends 28 years on a deserted island, is based on the experiences of shipwreck victims and in part by the real-life adventures of Alexander Selkirk, a Scottish sailor who spent five years on a small island (Juan Fernandez) off the coast of South America in the early 1700s, as retold in privateer Woodes Rogers' A Cruising Voyage Round the World: First to the South Seas, Thence to the East Indies, and Homeward by the Cape of Good Hope...Containing A Journal of All the Remarkable Transactions...An Account of Alexander Selkirk's Living Alone Four Years and Four Months on an Island (1712).[brief Galapagos passages]
      Like his hero Crusoe, Daniel Defoe was an ordinary, middle-class Englishman, not an educated member of the nobility like most writers at the time. Defoe established himself as a small merchant but went bankrupt in 1692 and turned to political pamphleteering to support himself. A pamphlet he published in 1702 satirizing members of the High Church led to his arrest and trial for seditious libel in 1703.  
    On 31 Jul 1703 Daniel Defoe, 43, was put in the pillory as punishment for seditious libel, brought about by the publication of a politically satirical pamphlet. Defoe's middle-class father had hoped Defoe would enter the ministry, but Defoe decided to become a merchant instead. After he went bankrupt in 1692, he turned to political pamphleteering to support himself. A deft writer, Defoe's pamphlets were highly effective in moving readers. His pamphlet The Shortest Way with Dissenters was an attack on High Churchmen, satirically written as if from the High Church point of view but extending their arguments to the point of foolishness.
      Both sides of the dispute, Dissenters and High Church alike, took the pamphlet seriously, and both sides were outraged to learn it was a hoax. Defoe was arrested for seditious libel in May 1703. While awaiting his punishment, he wrote the spirited Hymn to the Pillory. The public sympathized with Defoe and threw flowers, instead of the customary rocks, at him while he stood in the pillory. He was sent back to Newgate Prison, from which Robert Harley, the future Earl of Oxford, eventually obtained his release.
      Harley hired Defoe as a political writer and spy to support his own views. To this end, Defoe set up the Review, which he edited and wrote from 1704 to 1713. It wasn't until he was nearly 60 that he began writing fiction. His other works include Moll Flanders (1722) and Roxana (1724). He died in London on 24 April 1731.
Other works by DEFOE ONLINE:
  • Dickory Cronke: The Dumb Philosopher: or, Great Britain's Wonder
  • Everybody's Business is Nobody's Business
  • Moll Flanders (another site)
  • From London to Land's End
  • Giving Alms No Charity
  • A Journal of the Plague Year
  • Robinson Crusoe ("The Life and Adventures..." and "The Further Adventures...")
  • Tour Through the Eastern Counties of England
  • click for portrait of Cromwell
    1684 The thimble
    is patented.

    1599 Oliver Cromwell, English Puritan soldier and statesman; Lord Protector (= dictator) of England, Scotland and Ireland. (1653-1658) He died on 03 September 1658. [click on image for portrait >]

    1284 Edward II king of England (1307-1327)
    1214 Saint Louis IX king of France (1226-1270)
    Holidays Portugal : Revolution Day (1974) / Azores : Portugal's Day (1974) / Italy : Liberation Day / Australia, Nauru, NZ, Solomon Is, Tonga, W Samoa : ANZAC Day (1915) / Swaziland : Flag Day
    Religious Observances Ancient Rome : Robigalia; god of mildew asked not to harm / Ang, RC, Luth : St Mark the Evangelist / Christian : Latest possible date for Easter (eg 1943, 2038) / Buddhist-Laos : Buddhist Holiday / Santos Marcos, Hermógenes, Calixta, Evodio y Herminio.

    Thoughts for the day : "Stop whining. Stop wining. Start winnning."
    "Toto, I've a feeling we're not in Kansas any more."
    “There are two great rules of life, the one general and the other particular. The first is that everyone can, in the end, get what he wants if he only tries. This is the general rule. The particular rule is that every individual is more or less an exception to the general rule.”
    — Samuel Butler, English author [1835-1902].
    “There are two great rules of life. The first is never to forget the second. The second rule is ... it is... it is... Does anyone remember the second rule?”
    “There are two great rules of life: to count correctly.”
    “There are two great rules of life: 1. the second rule is invalid. — 2. the first rule is valid.”
    “There are two great rules of life: one for unruly people and the other for ruly people.”
    “There are two great rules of life: one for truly unruly people and the other for untruly ruly people.”
    “There are two great rules of life: one for those who believe that there are two great rules of life, and a second rule for all others.”
    “There are two great rules of life: eat or be eaten.”
    “There are two great rules of life: be good and something will eat you.”
    “There are two great rules of life: let sleeping dogs lie, and let lying dogs sleep.”
    “There are two great rules of life: birth and death.”
    “There are two great rules of life: death and taxes.”
    “There are two great rules of life: the rich get richer, and the poor get poorer.”
    “There are two great rules of life: DNA and entropy.”
    “There are two great rules of life: live and let live.”
    “There are two great rules of life: lead or be led.”
    “There are two great rules of life: love and be loved.”
    “There are two great rules of life, but who is counting?”
    “There are two great rules of life: ‘Do what I say’, and ‘Don't do what I do’.”
    “There are two great rules of life: ‘Don't ask what your country can do for you’ and ‘Ask what your country can do to you’.”
    “There are two great rules of life: ‘Have just one great rule of life’, and ‘Have no great rule of life’.”
    “There are two great rules of life: the ten commandments.”
    “There are two great rules of life: love God, love everyone of God's creatures starting with yourself but not ending there or anywhere else.”
    [but you may give a low priority to cockroaches and lawyers]
    “There are two great rules of life: all of the above.”
    “The death penalty is no more the answer to crime than abortion is the answer for unplanned pregnancies. Death is never the answer.” —
     
    Catholic Bishops of New York State, 1994. [... or than suicide is the answer for mental or physical suffering]
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