02 Dec History: This Date

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Events, deaths, births, of 02 DEC
[For Dec 02 Julian go to Gregorian date: 1582~1699: Dec 12 — 1700s: Dec 13 — 1800s: Dec 14 — 1900~2099: Dec 15]

ALTERNATE SITES ALL FOR 031202 ANY DAY OF THE YEAR IN HISTORY ART “4” DEC 02

On a 02 December:
1999 Relative calm returns to Seattle, where a meeting of the World Trade Organization was greeted earlier with sometimes violent demonstrations.
1999 In Northern Ireland, a power-sharing Cabinet of Protestants and Catholics sat down together for the first time.
1997 Alan Greenspan, head of the US Federal Reserve, says that Asia's financial crisis will gradually abate and that the affected nations will end up all the stronger.
1997 Representatives of 41 countries met in London to discuss the whereabouts of gold and other valuable assets seized by the Nazi government from Jews in Germany and occupied countries before and during World War II.
1990 Chancellor Helmut Kohl's center-right coalition easily wins the first free all-German (West and East) elections since 1932.

1983 The competition for windowing software starts, at the Comdex electronics show in Las Vegas. Software companies had been racing to develop a program that could divide a computer screen into separate windows and allow users to run several programs simultaneously. On this day, more than a dozen software companies demonstrated some sort of windows technology. Most of the programs supported a point-and-click interface with a mouse. Among the leading contenders were VisiCorp, a leading software company that had introduced the first spreadsheet, and Microsoft. Initially, Microsoft Windows was something of an embarrassment for the company, which delivered the product nearly two years after it was announced. Nevertheless, Microsoft ultimately won the Windows War.

1982 First permanent artificial heart successfully implanted (University of Utah) in retired dentist Barney Clark; lived 112 days with the Jarvic-7 heart
1978 Chanting “Allah is great,”anti-Shah protesters poured through Tehran.

1963 South Vietnam suspends strategic hamlet program
The military junta, which took control of the South Vietnamese government following the November coup that resulted in the death of President Ngo Dinh Diem, orders a temporary halt to the strategic hamlet program. This program had been initiated in March 1962 by Diem to gather the peasants residing in areas threatened by guerrilla attack into centralized locations. These locations were to be turned into defensive fortified hamlets. The strategic hamlet program was extremely unpopular because the farmers were forcibly removed from their land and the physical security of the new hamlets was inadequate. In addition, the program was a drain on the assets of the Saigon government. The junta leaders hoped to win the support of the people by relaxing the rules governing the strategic hamlets. Under the new edict, peasants were not to be coerced into moving into or contributing to the financial upkeep of the hamlets. This tactic did not have any real impact, because the program had already fallen into such disrepair--the senior US representative in Long An Province reported that three-quarters of the strategic hamlets in that area had already been destroyed by the Viet Cong, the peasants, or a combination of both. Ultimately, the South Vietnamese government completely abandoned the program in 1964.

1962 Senator Mansfield: US aid is wasted in Vietnam
Following a trip to Vietnam at President John F. Kennedy's request, Senate Majority Leader Mike Mansfield (D-Montana) becomes the first US official to refuse to make an optimistic public comment on the progress of the war. Originally a supporter of South Vietnamese President Ngo Dinh Diem, Mansfield changed his opinion of the situation after his visit. He claimed that the $2 billion the United States had poured into Vietnam during the previous seven years had accomplished nothing. He placed blame squarely on the Diem regime for its failure to share power and win support from the South Vietnamese people. He suggested that Americans, despite being motivated by a sincere desire to stop the spread of communism, had simply taken the place formerly occupied by the French colonial power in the minds of many Vietnamese. Mansfield's change of opinion surprised and irritated President Kennedy.

1961 Castro declares himself a Marxist-Leninist
      Following a year of severely strained relations between the United States and Cuba, Cuban leader Fidel Castro openly declares that he is a Marxist-Leninist. The announcement sealed the bitter Cold War animosity between the two nations.
      In a televised address Castro declares, “I am a Marxist-Leninist and shall be one until the end of my life.” and, “Marxism or scientific socialism has become the revolutionary movement of the working class.” He indicates that no other political orientation will be tolerated: “There cannot be three or four movements.” It does not seem that Castro's motivation was just to get more Soviet aid. He would never deviate from his declared principles. He would become the longest lasting dictator of the 20th century.
      Castro came to power in 1959 after leading a successful revolution against the dictatorial regime of Fulgencio Batista. Almost from the start, the United States worried that Castro was too leftist in his politics. He implemented agrarian reform, expropriated foreign oil company holdings, and eventually seized all foreign-owned property in Cuba. He also established close diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union, and the Russians were soon providing economic and military aid. By January 1961, the United States had severed diplomatic relations with Cuba. In April, the ill-fated Bay of Pigs invasion took place, wherein hundreds of rebels, armed and trained by the United States, attempted a landing in Cuba with the intent of overthrowing the Castro government. The attack ended in a dismal military defeat for the rebels and an embarrassing diplomatic setback for the United States.

1958 Benelux treaty signed by Belgium, Netherlands & Luxembourg
1957 First full-scale atomic electric power plant--power generated, Pennsylvania

1954 Phony anti-Communist McCarthy condemned by US Senate
      The US Senate votes sixty-five to twenty-two to censure Joseph McCarthy (Sen-R-WI) for “conduct that tends to bring the Senate into dishonor and disrepute”. The condemnation, which is equivalent to a censure, relates to McCarthy's investigation of thousands of suspected Communists in US government, military, and society. What would become known as “McCarthyism” began on February 9, 1950, when Joseph McCarthy, a relatively obscure Republican senator from Wisconsin, announced during a speech in Wheeling, West Virginia, that he had in his hand a list of 205 Communists in the State Department. The unsubstantiated declaration, which was little more than a desperate publicity stunt, suddenly thrust Senator McCarthy into the national spotlight. Asked to reveal the names on the list, the reckless and opportunistic senator named officials he determined guilty by association, such as Owen Lattimore, an expert on Chinese culture and affairs who had advised the State Department and President Franklin D. Roosevelt. McCarthy described him as the “top Russian spy” in America.
      These and other equally shocking accusations prompted the Senate to form a special committee headed by Senator Millard Tydings of Maryland to investigate the matter. The committee found little to substantiate McCarthy's charges, but McCarthy nevertheless touched a nerve in the American public and over the next two years made increasingly sensational charges, even attacking President Harry S. Truman's respected former secretary of state, George C. Marshall. In 1953, a newly Republican Congress appointed McCarthy chairman of the Subcommittee on Investigations of the Senate Committee on Governmental Operations, and McCarthyism reached a feverish pitch. In widely publicized hearings, McCarthy bullied defendants under cross-examination with unlawful and damaging accusations, destroying the reputations of hundreds of innocent citizens and officials. In the early months of 1954, McCarthy, who had already lost the support of much of his party, finally overreached himself when he took on the US Army. Republican President Dwight D. Eisenhower pushed for the investigation of McCarthy's conduct, and the subsequent televised hearings exposed McCarthy as a reckless and excessive tyrant who never produced proper documentation for a single one of his charges. In December, the Senate finally voted to silence him. By his death from alcoholism in 1957, the influence of Senator Joseph McCarthy in Congress and the Republican Party was negligible.
     Le Sénat américain met un terme aux entreprises calomniatrices du sénateur Joseph Mc Carthy. Celui-ci voyait un espion communiste derrière chaque personnalité du pays et conduisait une délirante “chasse aux sorcières”.

1948 Government decree transfers all of Romania's Uniate church property to the Communist Romanian State without compensation. Greek Rite Catholics are ordered to join the Romanian Orthodox Church.

1942 First nuclear chain reaction
      Enrico Fermi, the Italian-born Nobel Prize-winning physicist, directs and controls the first nuclear chain reaction in his laboratory beneath the bleachers of Stagg Field at the University of Chicago, by placing natural uranium metal rods between alternate blocks of graphite. Upon succesful completion of the experiment, a coded message is transmitted to President Roosevelt: “The Italian navigator has just landed in the new world.”
      Following on England's Sir James Chadwick's discovery of the neutron and the Curies' production of artificial radioactivity, Fermi, a full-time professor of physics at the University of Florence, focused his work on producing radioactivity by manipulating the speed of neutrons derived from radioactive beryllium. Further similar experimentation with other elements, including uranium 92, produced new radioactive substances; Fermi's colleagues believed he had created a new “transuranic” element with an atomic number of 93, the result of uranium 92 capturing a neuron while under bombardment, thus increasing its atomic weight. Fermi remained skeptical about his discovery, despite the enthusiasm of his fellow physicists. He became a believer in 1938, when he was awarded the Nobel Prize in physics for “his identification of new radioactive elements.” Although travel was restricted for men whose work was deemed vital to national security, Fermi was given permission to leave Italy and go to Sweden to receive his prize. He and his wife, Laura, who was Jewish, never returned; both feared and despised Mussolini's fascist regime.
      Fermi immigrated to New York City--Columbia University, specifically, where he recreated many of his experiments with Niels Bohr, the Danish-born physicist, who suggested the possibility of a nuclear chain reaction. Fermi and others saw the possible military applications of such an explosive power, and quickly composed a letter warning President Roosevelt of the perils of a German atomic bomb. The letter was signed and delivered to the president by Albert Einstein on October 11, 1939. The Manhattan Project, the American program to create its own atomic bomb, was the result.
      It fell to Fermi to produce the first nuclear chain reaction, without which such a bomb was impossible. He created a jury-rigged laboratory with the necessary equipment, which he called an “atomic pile,” in a squash court in the basement of Stagg Field at the University of Chicago. With colleagues and other physicists looking on, Fermi produced the first self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction and the “new world” of nuclear power was born.

1934 5.08-m (200") Mt Palomar Observatory mirror is cast.
1930 President Herbert Hoover went before Congress to make a plea for a $150 million public works program, to combat the great Depressian. A few weeks later, Congress would appropriated $116 million in hopes of putting Americans back to work on various construction projects.
1901 Gillette patents 1st disposable razor
1899 US and Germany agree to divide Samoa between them
1895 54th Congress (1895-97) convenes
1891 52nd Congress (1891-93) convenes
1863 Siege of Knoxville, Tennessee continues
1862 Skirmish at Leed's Ferry on Virginia's Rappahannock River.

1859 Garrison calls for the North to secede!
In Boston, on the day of John Brown's hanging, America's best known Abolitionist, William Lloyd Garrison [photo], advocated that the North should secede from the South to end slavery, in this speech:

God forbid that we should any longer continue the accomplices of thieves and robbers, of men-stealers and women-whippers! We must join together in the name of freedom.

As for the Union--where is it and what is it?

In one-half of it no man can exercise freedom of speech or the press--no man can utter the words of Washington, of Jefferson, of Patrick Henry--except at the peril of his life; and Northern men are everywhere hunted and driven from the South if they are supposed to cherish the sentiment of freedom in their bosoms.

We are living under an awful despotism--that of a brutal slave oligarchy. And they threaten to leave us if we do not continue to do their evil work, as we have hitherto done it, and go down in the dust before them!

Would to heaven they would go! It would only be the paupers clearing out from the town, would it not? But, no, they do not mean to go; they mean to cling to you, and they mean to subdue you. But will you be subdued?

I tell you our work is the dissolution of this slavery-cursed Union, if we would have a fragment of our liberties left to us! Surely between freemen, who believe in exact justice and impartial liberty, and slaveholders, who are for cleaning down all human rights at a blow, it is not possible there should be any Union whatever. “How can two walk together except they be agreed?”

The slaveholder with his hands dripping in blood--will I make a compact with him? The man who plunders cradles--will I say to him, “Brother, let us walk together in unity?” The man who, to gratify his lust or his anger, scourges woman with the lash till the soil is red with her blood--will I say to him: “Give me your hand; let us form a glorious Union?” No, never--never! There can be no union between us: “What concord hath Christ with Belial?” What union has freedom with slavery? Let us tell the inexorable and remorseless tyrants of the South that their conditions hitherto imposed upon us, whereby we are morally responsible for the existence of slavery, are horribly inhuman and wicked, and we cannot carry them out for the sake of their evil company.

By the dissolution of the Union we shall give the finishing blow to the slave system; and then God will make it possible for us to form a true, vital, enduring, all-embracing Union, from the Atlantic to the Pacific--one God to be worshipped, one Saviour to be revered, one policy to be carried out--freedom everywhere to all the people, without regard to complexion or race--and the blessing of God resting upon us all! I want to see that glorious day!

Now the South is full of tribulation and terror and despair, going down to irretrievable bankruptcy, and fearing each bush an officer! Would to God it might all pass away like a hideous dream! And how easily it might be!

What is it that God requires of the South to remove every root of bitterness, to allay every fear, to fill her borders with prosperity? But one simple act of justice, without violence and convulsion, without danger and hazard. It is this: “Undo the heavy burdens, break every yoke, and let the oppressed go free!” Then shall thy light break forth as the morning, and thy darkness shall be as the noonday. Then shalt thou call and the Lord shall answer; thou shalt cry, and he shall say: “Here I am.”

“And they that shall be of thee shall build the old waste places; thou shalt raise up the foundations of many generations; and thou shalt be called the repairer of the breach, the restorer of paths to dwell in.”

How simple and how glorious! It is the complete solution of all the difficulties in the case. Oh, that the South may be wise before it is too late, and give heed to the word of the Lord! But, whether she will hear or forbear, let us renew our pledges to the cause of bleeding humanity, and spare no effort to make this truly the land of the free and the refuge of the oppressed!

“Onward, then, ye fearless band,
Heart to heart, and hand to hand;
Yours shall be the Christian's stand,
Or the martyr's grave.”

2nd French empire established; Louis-Napoléon becomes emperor
1852 Le Second Empire.
Avec l'approbation du suffrage universel, Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte est couronné empereur des Français sous le nom de Napoléon III (le deuxième du nom est supposé être le fils unique de Napoléon 1er, mort en pleine jeunesse à Vienne).
Le plébiscite des 21 et 22 novembre a, par 7'824'000 voix contre 253'000, répondu oui et démocratiquement l'empire est rétabli en France. La veille, Louis Napoléon Bonaparte a déclaré devant le Sénat : “ Aidez-moi, messieurs, à asseoir sur cette terre, bouleversée par tant de révolutions, un gouvernement stable qui ait pour base la religion, la propriété, la justice, l'amour des classes souffrantes.” Après avoir passé en ce 2 décembre les troupes en revue, descendu les Champs-Elysées sous les acclamations de la foule, pour la première fois, le soir, aux Tuileries, dans la salle du trône, devant toutes les personnalités politiques réunies, Napoléon III signe : “ Napoléon, par la grâce de Dieu et la volonté nationale, empereur des Français.”

1851 Coup d'état de Louis-Napoléon.
Jour choisi par le neveu de Napoléon le Grand pour conduire le coup d'Etat qui lui permettra de passer du statut de prince-président à celui d'Empereur des Français. C'est l'anniversaire du sacre de son oncle et de la bataille d'Austerlitz, au lendemain d'un bal à l'Élysée, Louis Napoléon n'a rien laissé paraître. Les Parisiens découvrent sur les murs de la capitale la proclamation de la dissolution de l'Assemblée nationale et le rétablissement du suffrage universel. Est placardé aussi un “ Avis au peuple français ” qui est un appel au plébiscite, par lequel le peuple est invité à reconnaître l'autorité de Louis Napoléon Bonaparte. la nuit, le Palais-Bourbon a été investi par la troupe. Les deux cents députés qui ne peuvent avoir accès à la Chambre se retrouvent dans la mairie de ce qui est alors le Xème arrondissement, rue de Grenelle. Leurs discusions stérilent, laisse le temps à la police de cerner le pâté de maisons. C'est sous le regard narquois des badauds que les députés sont emmenés à la caserne du quai d'Orsay. Les députés Victor Hugo, Victor Schoelcher, Jules Favre, Alphonse Baudin et Michel de Bourges tentent malgré tout de soulever le peuple de Paris. Hugo rédige un appel au peuple et à l'armée. Le soir, la situation semble maîtrisée. Le duc de Morny, ministre de l'Intérieur et demi-frère de Louis Napoléon, déclare à propos du coup d'Etat qu'il n'a guère été qu'“ une opération de police un peu rude ”.

1848 Franz Josef I becomes emperor of Austria and King of Hungary

1845 Monroe Doctrine amplified
      Making his first annual address to Congress, US President James K. Polk belligerently reasserts the 1823 Monroe Doctrine and calls for aggressive American expansion into the West. Polk's aggressive expansionist program created the outline of the modern American nation.
      The Monroe Doctrine was the creation of Polk's predecessor, James Monroe, who argued that all European influence should be removed from the neighborhood of the United States for reasons of national security. As a result, throughout the first half of the 19th century, Americans had worked to undermine European claims on the continent, often by peacefully annexing European territories.
     Polk's extension of the Monroe Doctrine, however, carried a far more aggressive agenda, which reflected his willingness to use force to create a nation stretching across the continent. Polk felt that such expansion was part of America's “manifest destiny.” Polk's vision of America's future included the rapid annexation of Texas, the acquisition of California, and an end to sharing control of Oregon territory with the British. Always slightly paranoid about the Europeans, Polk worried that France would insist on maintaining a balance of power in North America and that Great Britain would try to keep the US from acquiring Texas and California. In fact, neither nation was very aggressive about resisting American expansionism, and Great Britain peacefully surrendered its claim to the Oregon territory south of the 49th parallel in 1846.
      Polk's ambition to take Texas, California, and the rest of the Southwest away from Mexico proved more difficult to realize. Six months after his speech to Congress, Polk's decision to annex the Republic of Texas led to war with Mexico. Despite Polk's fears, neither France nor Great Britain leapt to the aid of the Mexicans in the war, leaving the US free to act as it wished. When the Americans emerged victorious in 1848, the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo gave Polk precisely what he wanted: the vast northern provinces of the Mexican empire that would one day become the states of Texas, California, Arizona, New Mexico, Nevada, and Utah. This land was the final piece of the puzzle needed to create the territory of today's United States

1823 Monroe Doctrine proclaimed
      During his annual address to Congress, President James Monroe proclaims a new US foreign policy initiative that becomes known as the “Monroe Doctrine.” Primarily the work of Secretary of State John Quincy Adams, the Monroe Doctrine forbids European interference in the American hemisphere, but also asserts US neutrality in regard to future European conflicts. The origins of the Monroe Doctrine stem from the attempts of several European powers to reassert their influence in the Americans in the early 1820s. In North America, Russia had attempted to expand its influence in the Alaska territory, and in Central and South America, the US government feared a Spanish colonial resurgence from a country still opposing independence movements across its former empire. Britain too was actively seeking a major role in the political and economic future of the Americas, and Adams feared a subservient role for the US in an Anglo-American alliance. Beginning in the mid nineteenth century, the United States invokes the Monroe Doctrine to defend its increasingly imperialistic role in the Americas, but it is not until the Spanish-American War at the end of the century that the US declares war against a European power over interference in the hemisphere. The isolationist position of the Monroe Doctrine also becomes a cornerstone of US foreign policy over the nineteenth century, and it takes the major world conflicts of the twentieth century to draw a hesitant America into its new role as a major global power.
—    Le président James Monroe énonce devant le Congrès la doctrine qui portera son nom et fixera pour un siècle et demi les fondements de la diplomatie américaine. Les Etats-Unis se sont donnés une diplomatie vigoureuse après la seconde guerre d’indépendance, qui les a opposés au Royaume-Uni de 1812 à 1814. Ils s'inquiètent de la colonisation de l'Alaska par la Russie. Ils appréhendent aussi les tentatives de la Sainte-Alliance européenne de contrer les mouvements indépendantistes latino-américains.
      C'est alors qu'est énoncée la doctrine Monroe. Le président condamne toute nouvelle colonisation sur le continent américain. Il assure que les États-Unis n'interviendront jamais dans les affaires européennes mais il demande la réciproque aux Européens. En bref: “l'Amérique aux Américains”. En 1961, le rapprochement entre Fidel Castro et les Soviétiques aura pour la première fois raison de la doctrine Monroe.

1822 In San Salvador, a congress proposes incorporation into US

1804 Napoléon crowns himself Emperor
      In Notre Dame Cathedral, Napoléon Bonaparte is crowns himself Napoléon I, placing crown on his own head. He is the first emperor of France. The Corsica-born Napoléon, one of the greatest military strategists in history, rapidly rose in the ranks of the French Revolutionary Army during the late 1790s. By 1799, France was at war with most of Europe, and Napoléon returned home from his Egyptian campaign to take over the reigns of French government and to save his nation from collapse. After becoming first consul in February of 1800, he reorganized his armies and defeated Austria. In 1802, he established the Napoléonic Code, a new system of French law, and in 1804, was crowned emperor of France in Notre Dame Cathedral. By 1807, he controlled an empire that stretched from the River Elbe in the north down through Italy in the south, and from the Pyrenees to the Dalmation coast. Beginning in 1812, Napoléon began to encounter the first significant defeats of his military career, suffering through a disastrous invasion of Russia, losing Spain to the Duke of Wellington in the Peninsula War, and enduring total defeat against an allied force by 1814. Exiled to the island of Elba, he escaped to France in early 1815, and raised a new Grand Army that enjoyed temporary success before its crushing defeat at Waterloo against an allied force under Wellington on June 18, 1815. Napoléon was subsequently exiled to the island of Saint Helena off the coast of Africa. Six years later he died, most likely of stomach cancer, and in 1840, his body was returned to Paris, where it was interred in the Hotel des Invalides.
     Napoléon Bonaparte est sacré empereur des Français. Le Corse prétend reconstituer l'Empire de Charlemagne mille après sa fondation. Ce surprenant archaïsme s'explique par le souhait d'empêcher à tout jamais le retour de l'ancienne dynastie. C'est le souhait des anciens Conventionnels qui ont condamné à mort le roi Louis XVI. C'est aussi le souhait de tous ceux qui ont tiré profit de la Révolution en acquérant une parcelle de pouvoir ou en achetant des biens nationaux partagent ce souhait.
     Le carrosse impérial conduit par huit chevaux isabelle, a quitté les Tuileries. Il passe par la rue Saint-Honoré, s'arrête devant Notre-Dame de Paris. La foule sur tout le parcours n'a cessé d'acclamer le couple impérial (marié religieusement la veille) qui descend maintenant du carrosse. L'empereur est vêtu d'un manteau de velours cramoisi. Sa tête est ceinte d'une couronne de feuilles de laurier d'or. La robe de l'impératrice est constellée de pierreries. Pénétrant dans la cathédrale, l'empereur se penche vers son frère : “ Joseph, si notre père nous voyait ! ” Après les onctions saintes reçues du souverain pontife même, l'empereur prend dans les mains du pape la couronne qu'il se pose lui-même sur la tête, ensuite il couronne l'impératrice. Pie VII proclame alors face à la foule des dignitaires de l'empire : “ Vivat imperator in aeternum ! ” L'acclamation est reprise par toute l'assistance. Puis le pape se retire dans la sacristie et laisse l'empereur prêter serment. Au soir de ce sacre, dont la décoration a été l'oeuvre de David et qui a été ponctué par le Te Deum de Paisiello, des motets de Lesueur et le Vivat de l'abbé Roze, l'empereur assure : “ Je n'ai pas succédé à Louis XVI, mais à Charlemagne.”

1793 Future poet and critic Coleridge joins the cavalry
      Fleeing his debtors, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, 21, enlists in the Light Dragoons, an English cavalry unit. The future author of Christabel, Confessions of an Inquiring Spirit, and Miscellaneous Essays From “The Friend”, Kubla Khan, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, Selected works; co-author of Lyrical Ballads, Lyrical Ballads, was born on 21 October 1772 in the small town of Ottery St. Mary in Devonshire.
      Coleridge's father died when he was a boy, and young Coleridge was sent off to boarding school in London. He was a lonely student who fell into dissolution and debt after he went to Cambridge in 1791. He fled his debtors and enlisted in the cavalry, which he later abandoned with help from his brothers. When he returned to Cambridge, he met poet Robert Southey. The two launched an ambitious plan to establish a democratic utopia in Pennsylvania. Southey talked Coleridge into marrying the sister of Southey's fiancée, so they would both have wives to help start the utopia. Though Coleridge did not love the woman, he married her and remained married after Southey abandoned the utopian plan.
      In 1795, Coleridge met the poet William Wordsworth. The two became close friends and collaborators, assisted by Dorothy Wordsworth, the poet's sister. The siblings moved near Coleridge in 1797, and the following year Wordsworth and Coleridge published Lyrical Ballads, which established the Romantic school of poetry. It included Coleridge's famous poem The Rime of the Ancient Mariner.
      Coleridge's life began unraveling at the turn of the century. He became estranged from his wife and fell in love with Sara Hutchinson, whose sister married Wordsworth three years later. Meanwhile, his health began to suffer, and he began taking large doses of opium to control his rheumatism and other problems. He became addicted to opium, and his creative output waned. In 1810, he broke with Wordsworth, and the two would not reconcile for nearly 20 years.
      Starting in 1808, Coleridge supported himself for a decade with successful lecture series on literature. Meanwhile, he single-handedly wrote, edited, and distributed his review, The Friend, for about a year. His 1813 tragedy, Remorse, was well received. Thanks to the help of Dr. James Gillman and his wife, Coleridge began to cut back on his opium use. In 1816, he published the fragmentary poem Kubla Khan, written under the influence of opium, circa 1797. In 1817, he published a significant work of criticism, Biographa Literaria, and in 1828 was reconciled with Wordsworth. Coleridge died on 25 July 1834.

1777 British General Howe plans attack on Washington's army for 04 December.
1577 John of the Cross, Spanish mystic and Carmelite, is seized by those angry at his reforms.

TO THE TOP

Deaths which occurred on a 02 December:
2002 Ivan Illich, philosopher and social critic born in Vienna, Austria, on 04 September 1926, Catholic priest who left the ministry in 1969 when he was castigated as “politically immoral” by the Vatican. One of his best known books De-Schooling Society (1971) which opposed mandatory public education, just as he opposed social institutionilization in other areas.
2001 At least 14 persons plus the suicide bomber from Hamas who boards and then destroys the Egged No. 16 bus on Hagiborim Street in the Halisa neighborhood of downtown Haifa just after midday. At least 12 persons are killed in the bus and two pedestrians are run over by the out-of-control bus. About 40 persons are injured.
2001 Baruch Zinger, 51, Jihad Musri, 17, and Muslama al-Jazeera, as the last two, from Beit Lahia in the Gaza Strip, members of the Al-Qassem Brigade, shoot at passing cars near the enclave settlement Alei Sinai at the northern end of the Gaza Strip, injuring another 4 persons. The two attackers, clothed in Israeli uniforms, are then found by an Israeli tank which kills them. Zinger was a professor of electrochemistry from the central Israeli city of Gadera.
2000 Some 100 persons crushed by shopping mall collapsing at 14:00 (06:00 UT) in Dongguan, Guangdong province, China. Workers had just completed illegally adding two floors to the one-story building. A large crack and sinking had been observed for several days.
1993 Pablo Escobar, 44, in shoot-out with police and soldiers, in Medellin, Colombia. He had been the principal boss of the Medellin Drug Cartel.
1990 Aaron Copeland, 90, composer (Fanfare for the Common Man), in North Tarrytown, N.Y.
1989 Christopher Conan Milke, by three .22-caliber bullets to the back of the head, in Arizona. He was born on 02 October 1985. His mother, Debra Jean “Debbie” Milke (born Sadeik, on 10 March 1964) would be sentenced to death on 11 January 1991 for having arranged for his murder. The web site http://www.debbiemilke.com would claim that she is innocent..

1985 Paul Castellano and Thomas Bilotti, mafia bosses, murdered
     Organized crime bosses Castellano and Bilotti are gunned down as they exit Sparks Steak House in New York City, making John Gotti, the organizer of the hit, head of the notorious Gambino crime family-the most powerful Mafia operation in New York.
      Growing up on the streets of the South Bronx and Italian Harlem, Gotti ran errands for the local Mafia from an early age. Soon, he was a bit player and small-time enforcer for the mob. In 1968, Gotti was convicted of hijacking a truck and was sentenced to three years in prison. But his real Mafia ascension began when he killed one of the Gambino family's enemies in May 1973. Despite concerted efforts by New York law enforcement to crush the Gambino family operation, Gotti continued to climb up the ladder.
      Wearing flashy, expensive suits, Gotti became something of a local hero in his Howard Beach neighborhood for his connection to organized crime. His unparalleled success at escaping conviction at trial earned him the nickname “Teflon Don.” He was even acquitted of racketeering charges in 1986, despite the fact that the prosecution presented thousands of taped conversations in which Gotti was acknowledged as the head of the crime family.
      Gotti's streak of luck with the law ended in 1992, when he was convicted of murder and racketeering and sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. In 1999, his son, John Gotti Jr. pleaded guilty to organized crime-related offenses in New York.

1980 Maryknoll nuns Ita Ford, Maura Clarke and Dorothy Kazel, and lay worker Jean Donovan, killed by death squads in El Salvador, after being raped. Their corpses are unearthed two days later. Five national guardsmen would be convicted of the murders, and sentenced to 30 years in prison. The higher-ups who must have ordered the crime would not be pursued. 70'000 Salvadorans died at the hands of terrorists in the 1980s civil war. Many who died were Catholic clergy.
1967 Cardinal Francis Spellman, 78, in New York
1966 L. E. J. Brouwer, mathematician.
1964 Roger Bissière, French artist born on 22 September 1886 (1888?). — more with links to images.
1959 Victims of the Malpasset dam collapse, which destroys French Riviera town of Fréjus

1939 Day 3 of Winter War: USSR aggression against Finland. [Talvisodan 3. päivä]
More deaths due to Stalin's desire to grab Finnish territory.

The Soviet Union signs a mutual assistance pact with the Kuusinen puppet 'Government'.

The Social Democratic Party and the Central Organization of Finnish Trade Unions (SAK) release a joint communiqué declaring that Finnish workers will take up arms to defend their country against attack.

Petsamo: a Soviet regiment attacks the mine area. A counterattack by the Finnish Pennanen Detachment pushes the Russians back. Finnish losses: 13 dead, 38 wounded.

Karelian Isthmus: confusion caused by rumors that the enemy has got behind the Finnish troops. The enemy reaches the Vammelsuu-Kivennapa-Rautu-Taipale line on the Isthmus.

Ladoga Karelia: IV Army Corps, fighting under Major-General Heiskanen, issues the order for an offensive to retake the area around Suvilahti. The offensive runs out of steam by nightfall. In the evening some of the covering force are ordered to withdraw to the main defensive position.

The Ministry of Education urges all schools throughout the country to stop work, as the classrooms are needed to house refugees.

The Swedish Government decides that Sweden will not help defend Åland. Sweden will also not give any other direct support to Finland.

1929 Robert Reid, US Impressionist painter born on 29 July 1862. — MORE ON REID AT ART “4” DECEMBER with links to images.

1892 Jay Gould, robber baron
Jay Gould was born in Roxbury, N.Y. He became a tanner and leather dealer before hitting on railroad stock speculation as a vehicle to pile up cash. By the 1860s, Gould owned a handful of rail companies. Not content with a small-scaled empire, Gould set his sights on the Erie Railroad, using bribes, coercion and “fraudulent” stocks to wrest the company from its owner, Cornelius Vanderbilt. Gould closed out the decade with a notorious attempt to conquer the gold market, which directly precipitated “Black Friday,” an all-out market panic that ravaged the price of gold and ruined many investors. Gould not only escaped the panic unscathed, but managed to add to his already considerable fortune. During the last two decades of his life, Gould continued his voracious ways, snapping up rail lines, as well as several media enterprises. By the time he died of consumption at age 56, Gould had amassed a fortune worth nearly $77 million.

1888 Kemal Bey, 47, Turkish poet
1873 Gräffe, mathematician.

1859 John Brown, violent abolitionist, hanged
John Brown of Kansas was a militant abolitionist who attempted to use force to free the slaves in the South. On the night of October 16, 1859, Brown and a small band of followers seized the Federal arsenal at Harpers Ferry. The weapons were to be used by his “army of emancipation.” They took 60 hostages and held out against the local militia, but were then attacked by US Marines under the command of Col. Robert E. Lee (who would later command the Confederate Armies). Two of Brown's sons and ten others were killed in the fighting. Brown was wounded and taken prisoner. He was tried by the Commonwealth of Virginia and convicted of treason, murder and inciting slaves to rebellion. He was sentenced to death and hanged on 02 December 1859.
In Charles Town, Virginia (now West Virginia), militant abolitionist John Brown is executed on charges of treason, murder, and insurrection. On October 16, Brown led a group of twenty-one followers on a military raid of the Federal arsenal of Harpers Ferry, located in present-day West Virginia. Brown, born in Connecticut in 1800, first became militant during the mid-1850s, when as a leader of the Free State forces in the territory of Kansas he fought pro-slavery settlers, contributing to the sharply divided territory's popular designation as “Bleeding Kansas.” Achieving only moderate success against slavery on the Kansas frontier, Brown settled on a more ambitious plan in 1859. With a group of racially mixed followers, Brown set out to Harpers Ferry, intending to seize the arsenal of weapons and retreat to the Appalachian Mountains of Maryland and Virginia, where they would establish an abolitionist republic of liberated slaves and abolitionist whites. Their republic would form a guerilla army to fight slaveholders and ignite slave insurrections, and its population would grow exponentially with the influx of liberated and fugitive slaves. At Harpers Ferry, Brown's well-trained unit was initially successful, capturing key points in the town, but Brown's plans began to deteriorate after his raiders stopped a Baltimore-bound train, and then allowed it to pass through. News of the raid spread quickly and militia companies from Maryland and Virginia arrived the next day, killing or capturing several raiders. On October 18, US Marines commanded by Colonel Robert E. Lee and Lieutenant J. E. B. Stuart, both of whom were destined to become famous Confederate generals, recaptured the Federal arsenal, taking John Brown and several other raiders alive. On November 2, Brown was sentenced to death by hanging, and on the day of his execution, ten months before the outbreak of the Civil War, he prophetically wrote, “The crimes of this guilty land will never be purged away but with blood.”

1814 Donatien Alphonse François de Sade, “le divin marquis”.
      Aristocrate de grande noblesse, est né en Provence, le 2 Juin 1740. Radicalement subversif, il poussa, notamment dans “Justine ou les Malheurs de la vertu”, les fantasmes de perversion sexuelle à leurs limites les plus extrêmes.
      Il débuta par une brillante carrière militaire. En 1763, il épousa Mlle Cordier de Launay de Montreuil dont il eut deux fils et une fille et qui, dans l'adversité, se montra une épouse fidèle et dévouée. Peu de temps après son mariage commença la longue série de ses incarcérations, dues principalement à des actes de débauches retentissants : sur les soixante-quatorze années que dura son existence, Sade en passa ainsi près de la moitié en prison.
      Entre deux incarcérations — ou à la faveur d'évasions —, il vécu dans son château de la Coste en Provence et fit un grand voyage en Italie (1772). En 1789, il fut libéré de la Bastille où il était incarcéré par lettre de cachet et participa brièvement aux actions de la Révolution française (1790). Considéré arbitrairement comme fou à partir de 1804, il finit ses jours interné à Charenton, le 2 décembre 1814.
      Condamné à un isolement prolongé, Sade composa un nombre impressionnant de romans, de contes, de pièces de théâtre et de traités philosophiques. Beaucoup de manuscrits (pièces de théâtre entre autres) furent détruits par la police et une grande partie de ce qui est resté ne fut publié que bien après sa mort.
      Les romans de Sade se présentent souvent comme une succession de tableaux d'une cruauté presque insoutenable, alternant avec les longues dissertations morales ou métaphysiques que l'auteur place dans la bouche de ses héros. L'art romanesque reste dans la continuité de l'époque : c'est en effet davantage par la nature de son propos que Sade a rompu avec toute tradition.
      C'est le cas en particulier de la Nouvelle Justine ou les Malheurs de la Vertu, suivie de l'Histoire de Juliette, sa sœur (4 et 6 volumes, 1797), dont le premier volet fait suite à une première Justine écrite avant 1790, et dont le second est plus connu sous le titre Juliette ou les Prospérités du Vice. Les deux récits, parfaitement complémentaires, mettent en scène deux sœurs dont la première, Justine, ne connaît que des expériences terribles par son obstination à rester vertueuse. En revanche, sa sœur Juliette s'adonne au vice sans remords ni souci de morale, cherchant à satisfaire tous les désirs que lui dicte sa nature, et sort victorieuse de toutes les situations.
      Autre ouvrage également célèbre: Les Cent Vingt journées de Sodome (écrit avant 1789 et publié pour la première fois en 1931-1935), que Jean Paulhan désigna comme “l'Évangile du mal”. Dans ce récit presque insoutenable qui emprunte quelques-uns de ses traits au roman noir, quatre bourreaux, tous de haute naissance, font subir en toute impunité d'infinis supplices à un groupe de jeunes femmes prisonnières dans leur château isolé. Les descriptions minutieuses des sévices physiques infligés aux victimes se suivent avec une régularité accablante dans ce qui fait figure d'inventaire quasi exhaustif des perversions sexuelles.
      Si la violence des scènes est subversive, les questions philosophiques posées le sont plus encore.” Aline et Valcour ou le Roman philosophique ” (1795), le plus classique de ses ouvrages sur le plan romanesque, et la “ Philosophie dans le boudoir ” (1795) en témoignent. Attaquant les tabous fondateurs de la civilisation occidentale, Sade, radicalement athée, entraîne le lecteur dans un vertigineux renversement des valeurs et pose comme principe absolu l'obéissance aux seules lois de la nature, qui impliquent pour lui la recherche du plaisir des sens et la liberté totale de l'individu.
      Tout au long du XIXème siècle, son œuvre, pourtant connue et admirée de Sainte-Beuve, Baudelaire et Flaubert, demeura interdite. Guillaume Apollinaire et les surréalistes contribuèrent par la suite à sa progressive réhabilitation.

Thousands die as Napoléon defeats Russians and Austrians at Austerlitz
1805 Des milliers de soldats à Austerlitz
      Un an jour pour jour après son sacre, l'empereur Napoléon 1er remporte à Austerlitz sa victoire la plus éclatante. En quelques heures, sous un soleil hors saison, il vainc deux autres empereurs, François II d'Allemagne et Alexandre 1er de Russie (Austerlitz est appelée pour cela bataille des Trois empereurs).
Prémices de la bataille
      Au milieu de l'année 1805, ayant réuni la Grande Armée à Boulogne, Napoléon s'aperçoit qu'il ne peut pas compter sur l'appui de sa flotte pour envahir l'Angleterre. . C'est le moment où une troisième coalition se forme contre la France. “Ne pouvant frapper la tête de la coalition, l'Angleterre, Napoléon en frappera le bras, l'Autriche” (Jean Tulard, Les révolutions).
      Le 3 septembre, renonçant à traverser la Manche, l'empereur entraîne son armée à grandes enjambées à la rencontre des armées austro-russes. . Tandis que la flotte franco-espagnole est anéantie à Trafalgar, Napoléon vainc les Autrichiens à Ulm et entre à Vienne. Avec 73'000 hommes, il arrive en vue du village d'Austerlitz, près de Brünn, en Moravie (aujourd'hui Brno, en République tchèque). . 86'000 Austro-Russes font face aux Français, sous le commandement du vieux général russe Koutouzov. Une partie des forces ennemies s'établit solidement sur le plateau de Pratzen, qui surplombe des étangs gelés.
Le piège
      En état d'infériorité numérique, Napoléon 1er doit contraindre l'ennemi à la faute pour espérer le vaincre. La veille de la bataille, il reconnaît le terrain et prépare son plan. La nuit se passe à attendre, dans un bivouac qu'illuminent les flambeaux des soldats. Au petit matin, à la droite de l'armée française, le corps de troupes du général Davout fait mine de se retirer. Sous le commandement du général Buxhövden, les soldats établis sur le plateau descendent pour attaquer la partie la plus faible du dispositif français. Négligeant les avertissements de Koutouzov, les deux empereurs alliés tombent ainsi dans le piège prémédité par Napoléon. A la gauche de l'armée française, les corps d'armée de Lannes et Murat contiennent au nord les forces austro-russes et les empêchent d'intervenir.
      C'est alors qu'à la faveur du brouillard matinal, un corps d'armée puissant commandé par Soult prend le plateau à revers et s'en rend maître. Au centre, Bernadotte affronte la garde du tsar Alexandre 1er. Soult, redescendant du plateau de Pratzen, achève d'anéantir les troupes russes. Koutouzov se retire vers le nord, tandis que Murat poursuit ses arrière-gardes. Des soldats bousculés par les Français tentent de fuir vers le sud, par les étangs gelés, et se noient tristement. Il ne reste plus à la Garde impériale commandée par Bessières qu'à compléter la victoire, tandis que se lève un splendide soleil, en milieu de journée. Les Français ont seulement perdu 7000 hommes dont 1300 tués. Les Alliés, quant à eux, en ont perdu 30'000.
      La légende retiendra la harangue de Napoléon à ses troupes: “Soldats, je suis content de vous. Je vous ramènerai en France. Là, vous serez l'objet de mes plus tendres sollicitudes. Mon peuple vous reverra avec joie et il vous suffira de dire: j'étais à la bataille d'Austerlitz pour que l'on vous réponde: voilà un brave!”
      50 drapeaux enlevés à l'ennemi vont orner la voûte de l'église Saint-Louis des Invalides. Le bronze des 180 canons ennemis est employé pour fondre la colonne Vendôme, à Paris (il s'agit d'une copie de l'antique colonne Trajane qui célèbre à Rome la victoire de l'empereur romain sur les Daces).
      L'Autriche demande l'armistice et s'apprête à signer la paix de Presbourg. C'est la fin de la troisième coalition. Les conquêtes continentales de la France prennent une dimension insoupçonnée, débordant largement le cadre des frontières naturelles.

1805 Tens of thousands of soldiers in the Battle of the Three Emperors
In the countryside between Brno and Austerlitz, Emperor Napoléon accomplishes one of the greatest victories of his military career when his outnumbered French army defeats a combined Russian and Austrian force at the Battle of Austerlitz. The battle, fought in the present-day Czech Republic, is also known as the “Battle of Three Emperors” because Austrian Emperor Francis I and Russian Tzar Alexander I had visited the Russo-Austrian army several days before to help plan its imminent confrontation with the French usurper, Emperor Napoléon. The two emperors and Russo-Austrian military command decide that their allied force of some 95'000 men would march from Olomouc toward Brno, where Napoléon's lesser force would be crushed. However, in the week before the battle, Napoléon received reinforcements and by the morning of the battle his army numbered 75'000 men. As the Russo-Austrian army prepared for the battle, Napoléon ordered an advanced reconnaissance of their positions, which allowed him to anticipate their plans of attack. Napoléon's superior organizational abilities coupled with the proficiency of his talented officers, led to a French victory after only nine hours of furious fighting, at the cost of over 40'000 casualties in the Russo-Austrian army, and just over 10'000 in the French. Napoléon's triumph at the Battle of Austerlitz broke the English, Russian, and Austria coalition against him, signaled the end of the Holy Roman Empire, and confirmed France's position as the preeminent power on the European continent.
L'empereur donne à ses soldats avant la bataille, cet ordre du jour : “ Il vous suffira de dire “j'étais à la bataille d'Austerlitz” pour qu'on vous réponde “voilà un brave ! ” Avec 70000 hommes fatigués par une longue poursuite, Napoléon tend un piège aux armées Austro-Russes de Koutouzov. Les 90000 austro-russes attaquent dans un épais brouillard. Lorsque celui-ci se lèvera , Koutouzov comprendra un peu tard que le piège s'est refermé. C'est une déroute totale.

1733 Gerard Hoet, Dutch artist born on 22 August 1648. — more
1660 Govaert (or Govert) Flinck, Dutch Baroque painter of portraits, genre, and narrative subjects, one of Rembrandt's most accomplished followers, born on 16 December 1615 or 1616. — MORE ON FLINCK AT ART “4” DECEMBER with links to images.
1654 Giacomo Apollonio di Giovanni, Italian artist born in 1582
1594 Gerardus Mercator, mathematician.
1381 Jan Van Ruysbroek, “the Ecstatic Doctor,” so called because of his mysticism which melded personal experience with metaphysical commentary on scripture. His life and writings will influence the rise of German mysticism.

Births which occurred on a 02 December:
1971 United Arab Emirates formed from Abu Dhabi, Ajman, Dubai, Fujeira, Sharjah and Umm ak Qiwain
1970 US Environmental Protection Agency begins operating under director William Ruckelshaus.
1969 Boeing 747 jumbo jet gets its first public preview as 191 people, most of them reporters and photographers, fly from Seattle to New York City.
1952 First baby whose birth is televised to public (Denver, CO)
1939 BOAC is born of the merger of British Imperial Airways and British Airways.
1939 New York's La Guardia Airport begins operations as an airliner from Chicago lands, 1 minute after midnight
1937 Brian Lumley England, author (Beneath the Moors)
1931 Edwin Meese III prude, US attorney general (1985-88)
1927 The Model A Ford is introduced as the successor to the Model T. The price of a Model A roadster is $395
1924 Alexander Haig Jr (R) US Sec of State (1981-82)/general
1915 Randolph Hearst newspaper publisher

1906 Peter Goldmark, inventor of color television and LP albums.
Television pioneer Peter Goldmark is born in Budapest. He immigrated to the United States. As an engineer at Columbia Broadcasting Systems Laboratory, he devised a color television system and later the LP (long playing) record album, which transformed the recording industry. Goldmark's color television, first demonstrated in 1940 and approved for commercial use after World War II, used a rotating, three-color disk to project color images. Although all-electronic color television quickly replaced Goldmark's mechanical system, closed-circuit television manufacturers continued to use Goldmark's design. In 1948, Goldmark developed the LP, which could carry as much music as six 78-rpm records. Later, as vice president of CBS, Goldmark developed a system that allowed the US Lunar Orbiter to transmit photographs from the Moon to the Earth.

1902 The first working V-8 engine is patented in France by French engine designer Leon-Marie-Joseph-Clement Levavasseur. The engine block was the first to arrange eight pistons in the V-formation that allowed a crankshaft with only four throws to be turned by eight pistons.
1901 Temple, mathematician.
1897 Rewi Alley NZ, writer (Americans in China)
1891 Wilhelm Heinrich Otto Dix, German artist who died on 25 July 1969. — MORE ON DIX AT ART “4” DECEMBER with links to images.
1885 Nikos Kazantzakis Greece, writer (Zorba, Last Temptation of Christ)
1885 George Minot US, physician, worked on anemia (Nobel 1934)
1873 Henri Achille Zo, French artist who died in September 1933

1868 Francis Jammes, poète (“J'ai deux grands boeufs dans mon étable/...”), à Tournay (Hautes Pyrénées). Il est mort le 01 Novembre 1938. Poèmes écrits à la manière de Jammes par des CM1 de Bucy-Le-Long sous la direction de leur professeur Annie Byrka. TROIS POÈMES DE JAMMES:
J'aime l'âne si doux marchant le long des houx. Il a peur des abeilles et bouge ses oreilles. Il va près des fossés d'un petit pas cassé. Il réfléchit toujours ses yeux sont de velours. Il reste à l'étable fatigué, misérable. Il a tant travaillé que ça vous fait pitié. L'âne n'a pas eu d'orge car le maître est trop pauvre. Il a sucé la corde puis a dormi dans l'ombre. Il est l'âne si doux marchant le long des houx. J'ai le coeur ulcéré: ce mot-là te plairait. Dis-moi donc, ma chérie, si je pleure ou je ris? Va trouver le vieil âne, et dis-lui que mon âme est sur les grands chemins, comme lui le matin. Demande-lui, chérie, si je pleure ou je ris? Je doute qu'il réponde: il marchera dans l'ombre, crevé par la douleur, sur le chemin en fleurs.	Prière pour aller au paradis avec les ânes Lorsqu'il faudra aller vers vous, Ô mon Dieu faites que ce soit par un jour où la campagne en fête poudroiera. Je désire ainsi que je fis ici-bas, choisir un chemin pour aller, comme il me plaira, au Paradis, où sont en plein jour les étoiles. Je prendrai mon bâton et sur la grand route j'irai, et je dirai aux ânes, mes amis : Je suis Francis Jammes et je vais au Paradis, car il n'y a pas d'enfer au pays du Bon Dieu. Je leur dirai : Venez, doux amis du ciel bleu, pauvres bêtes chéries qui, d'un brusque mouvement d'oreilles chassez les mouches plates, les coups et les abeilles... Que je vous apparaisse au milieu de ces bêtes que j'aime tant parce qu'elles baissent la tête doucement, et s'arrêtent en joignant leurs petits pieds d'une façon bien douce et qui vous fait pitié. J'arriverai suivi de leurs milliers d'oreilles, suivi de ceux qui portaient au flanc des corbeilles, de ceux traînant des voitures de saltimbanques ou des voitures de plumeaux et de fer blanc, de ceux qui ont au dos des bidons bosselés, des ânesses pleines comme des outres, aux pas cassés, de ceux à qui l'on met de petits pantalons, à cause des plaies bleues et suintantes que font les mouches entêtées qui s'y groupent en ronds. Mon Dieu, qu'avec ces ânes je vous vienne. Faites que dans la paix, des anges nous conduisent vers des ruisseaux touffus où tremblent des cerises lisses comme la chair qui rit des jeunes filles, et faites que, penché dans ce séjour des âmes, sur vos divines eaux, je sois pareil aux ânes qui mireront leur humble et douce pauvreté à la limpidité de l'amour éternel	La prière Par le petit garçon qui meurt près de sa mère Tandis que des enfants s'amusent au parterre Et par l'oiseau blessé qui ne sait pas comment Son aile tout à coup s'ensanglante et descend Par la soif et la faim et le délire ardent Je vous salue, Marie. Par les gosses battus, par l'ivrogne qui rentre Par l'âne qui reçoit des coups de pied au ventre Et par l'humiliation de l'innocent châtié Par la vierge vendue qu'on a déshabillée Par le fils dont la mère a été insultée Je vous salue, Marie. Par la vieille qui, trébuchant sous trop de poids S'écrie: « Mon Dieu ! » Par le malheureux dont les bras Ne purent s'appuyer sur une amour humaine Comme la Croix du Fils sur Simon de Cyrène Par le cheval tombé sous le chariot qu'il traîne Je vous salue, Marie. Par les quatre horizons qui crucifient le monde Par tous ceux dont la chair se déchire ou succombe Par ceux qui sont sans pieds, par ceux qui sont sans mains Par le malade que l'on opère et qui geint Et par le juste mis au rang des assassins Je vous salue, Marie. Par la mère apprenant que son fils est guéri Par l'oiseau rappelant l'oiseau tombé du nid Par l'herbe qui a soif et recueille l'ondée Par le baiser perdu par l'amour redonné Et par le mendiant retrouvant sa monnaie Je vous salue, Marie.

1865 Nielsen, mathematician.
1859 Georges Pierre Seurat, French Pointillist painter who died on 29 March 1891. — MORE ON SEURAT AT ART “4” DECEMBER with links to images.
1831 Paul David Gustav du Bois-Reymond, German mathematician who died on 07 April 1889, brother of physiologist Emil Heinrich du Bois-Reymond [07 Nov 1818 – 26 Dec 1896].
1831 Francis N. Peloubet, American Congregational clergyman. A promoter of the Sunday School, he wrote 44 annual volumes of Select Notes on the International Sunday School Lessons between 1875 and his death in 1920. They were known afterward as Peloubet's Notes.
1819 Diodore Charles Rahoult, French artist who died on 23 March 1874.
1786 Albertus Brondgeest, Dutch artist who died on 30 June 1849.
1649 Jean-Baptiste Corneille, French artist who died on 12 April 1695. — The Angel Appearing to St Roch

Holidays America : Pan American Health Day / Cuba : Landing of Granma Expeditionaries / UAE : Independence Day (1971)

Religious Observances RC : St Bibiana, virgin & martyr / Sainte Viviane, jeune chrétienne de Rome, aurait été fouettée à mort pendant les persécutions de l'empereur Julien l'Apostat, vers 360 / Ang : Channing Moore Williams, missionary bp in China & Japan

Thoughts for the day: “Every Titanic has its iceberg.”
“Every iceberg seeks its Titanic.”
“Not every iceberg is titanic.”
“Every Titanic ought to travel only in tropical waters.”
“Every Titanic has its steerage passengers trapped.”
“Every Titanic has its movie.”
“Every Titanic has its front page stories.”
“Happy ships are all alike, unhappy ships are each unhappy in its own way.”
“Every Titanic has a shortage of lifeboats.”
“Every Titanic is unlike every other Titanic.”
“Every Titanic has its inadequacies.”
“The bigger they are, the deeper they sink.”
“A rising tide does not lift sunken ships.”
“Every Titanic has its Cassandras.”
“Every Titanic has its unsung heroes.”
“Every Titanic has its unspeakable cowards.”
“Every Titanic has its incompetent builder.”
“Every Titanic is a watery Hindenburg.”
“Every Hindenburg is a fiery Titanic.”
“Every Titanic has its watery grave.”
“Not every Titanic has need of an iceberg.”
“Every Titanic has its stowaways.”
“Every Titanic has its survivors.”
“Every Titanic has its rats leaving the ship.”
“Never become a stowaway on a ship from which the rats have left.”
“Every Titanic has its phony excuses.”
“Every Titanic is a Ship of Fools.”
“Every Titanic is not a Lusitania.”
“Every Titanic ought to have its four chaplains, but it doesn't.”
“There comes a time in every man's life and I've had many of them.” — Casey Stengel
“There comes a time in every man's life when he's had it with the Titanic.”

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