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Events, deaths, births, of 14 DEC
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On a December 14:
2001 Annular eclipse of the sun of 3m53s, visible in the Pacific, and Costa Rica.
2001 Saudi Princess beats up maid: illegal in US.
      Princess Buniah al-Saud, 41, slaps her maid, Ismiyati Memet Soryono, 36, and pushes her down the stairs. Buniah is a niece of King Fahd and granddaughter of the founder of the Saudi kingdom, staying in a $525-a-night suite at the Hyatt Grand Cypress Hotel in Orlando, Florida, and studying English at the University of Central Florida since the spring of 2001. When the police arrive, Buniah claims diplomatic immunity. After finding this to be false, the sheriff has her arrested os 17 December 2001 on a felony charge of aggravated battery. Later Buniah is also charged with grand theft and dealing in stolen property; after she sells her chauffeur's large-screen television and other goods worth $6000 to raise cash to flee Orlando without leaving a paper trail. A judge here confiscates Princess Buniah's passport, but allows her to leave the Orlando area.
      The Soryono was born in Indonesia and moved to Saudi Arabia in the 1990's to do domestic work, she has been employed by Princess Buniah for three years. She says that she was frequently beaten by the princess, was on duty 24 hours a day, but could not leave, because the princess was keeping her in involuntary servitude, having withheld the maid's $200-a-month salary for two months. In 2000, the US Congress established penalties of up 20 years in prison for people who bring immigrants into the US and force them into involuntary servitude.
     Russell Troutman, the Orlando personal injury lawyer for Soryono, also represented a maid in a 1995 case in which Princess Maha al-Sudairi beat that maid and another servant after $200'000 in cash and jewelry disappeared from a luggage room in the Swan Hotel, at Walt Disney World.
2000 The US Federal Trade Commission unanimously approved the $111 billion merger of America Online and Time Warner.
2000 Oops... wrong number!.
      Former West German Social Democrat leader Bjoern Engholm is cleared of having been Stasi agent "Beethoven. “ The mistake was due to misreading, on a fuzzy CIA copy, one of the code numbers identifying agents of the former East German secret police. Stasi documents fell into American hands when US agents dashed behind the crumbling Berlin Wall ahead of their allies. So Berlin often needs Washington's aid in bringing prosecutions.
2000 PUTIN FREES POPE: Russian president Putin pardons Edmond Pope, 54, US businessman sentenced to 20 years in prison as a spy, for buying torpedo plans, which Pope says were not secret.
2000 Elephants coming! Clear out!
     Rampaging elephants have ravaged vast stretches of farmlands and sacked 44 villages in north Nigeria, government officials and witnesses declare. Witnesses said that the elephants strayed from a nearby games reserve over the weekend and attacked villages in Gwoza, Chibok, Damboa, Biu, Kwaya-Kusar and Bayo Local Government Areas. This is the worst elephant invasion of the area within the last 35 years. The elephants destroyed farmlands, cash crops and valuable trees. Agriculture Commissioner Ibrahim Bulama says that the government plan to build a fence around the Yankari games reserves to demarcate the villages from the grazing routes and yearly migrations of the elephants. The northeastern Borno State government has warned other villagers in the six local government areas affected by the invasion to relocate pending government action.
2000 BILL'S BILL PAID TO BELL BY MIRROR: In London for an official visit, US president Bill Clinton goes with his entourage to the Portobello Gold pub for lunch, and leaves without paying the £24.70 ($36.22) bill. Britain's mass circulation Mirror tabloid assuages pub owner Mike Bell by paying the bill.
1999 Macau is returned to China.
1999 Panama holds ceremonies celebrating the return by the US of the Panama Canal Zone to full Panamanian sovereignty, which will take effect on 000101. — Estados Unidos entrega al gobierno panameño el Canal y la plena soberanía sobre su territorio después de 85 años.
1999 Jorge Edwards es galardonado con el Premio Cervantes.
1998 Microsoft Windows shown to be separable from Windows 98
       In a direct contradiction of testimony by Microsoft, a Princeton professor said he had removed Internet software from Windows 98 while leaving the operating system intact. Microsoft had claimed the two products, which had been programmed together, could not be separated. Justice Department prosecutors attempted to demonstrate that Internet Explorer and Windows 98 were actually two different products, which Microsoft had illegally tied together in an attempt to gain an unfair advantage over its rivals.
1997 Tras no verse satisfechas las aspiraciones de Turquía de integrarse en la Unión Europea, el gobierno de Ankara decide negarse a dialogar con ésta.
1996 A freighter lost power on the Mississippi River and crashed into the Riverwalk complex in New Orleans (no one was killed).
1996 Teamsters President Ron Carey won election to a second term (however, the results were later overturned and Carey barred from a rerun vote by a court-appointed monitor who ruled that Carey had used union money for his campaign)
1995 Bosnian peace treaty signed
      In Paris, France, leaders from the former Yugoslavia sign the Bosnia peace treaty, formally ending four years of bloody conflict. The US-backed peace plan was proposed during talks in Dayton, Ohio, earlier in the year, and was reluctantly accepted by the last of the belligerent parties on November 11, leading to the formal peace talks in Paris. The Dayton Peace Accords recognized the Serbian government within Bosnia in exchange for the abandonment of Bosnian Serb claims to sections of northwest Bosnia and the city of Sarajevo. After the formal signing of the peace plan by Bosnian President Alija Izetbegovic, Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic, Croatian President Franjo Tudjman, and Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic, the U.N. lifts economic sanctions against the former Yugoslavia, and orders a NATO-led peacekeeping mission to Bosnia to enforce the agreement.
— Los presidentes de Serbia,Slobodan Milosevic; Croacia, Franjo Tudjman, y de Bosnia, Alija Izetbegovic, firman en el Palacio del Elíseo de París el acuerdo de paz para Bosnia.
1995 Boeing strike ends
      After sixty-nine grueling days on the picket-line, machinists for the Boeing Company gave the go-ahead to a new contract on this day in 1995. The deal was studded with labor-friendly items, including a bonus, an hourly-wage increase, and an improved health plan, prompting union leaders to declare victory in the strike. It was a rare ray of hope for the beleaguered labor movement, which only a week earlier had seen an eighteenth-month walk-off against Caterpillar end in defeat. Along with the pay hike and health plan, the 33'000 striking machinists also gained some ground on safeguarding workers whose jobs are sent overseas. Indeed, Boeing agreed to retain and retrain anyone affected by "subcontracting" to cheaper international plants. However, some analysts tempered labor's celebration, noting that Boeing still intended to send 52 percent of its work overseas or to non-union US plants. As Charles Hill, professor of management at the University of Washington explained, the workers came out on top, though "they didn't win as much as they all think they did. “
1992 Viktor Chernomirdin es nombrado nuevo primer ministro de Rusia.
1991 Juan Pablo II clausura la Asamblea especial del Sínodo de Obispos sobre la nueva evangelización de Europa.
1990 Right to Die case permits Nancy Cruzan to have her feeding tube removed, she dies 12 days later
1989 Patricio Aylwin Azocar gana claramente las elecciones presidenciales chilenas.
1988 Spanish general strike to protest austerity measures. — Los sindicatos UGT (Unión General de Trabajadores) y CC.OO. (Confederación Sindical de Comisiones Obreras) convocan una huelga general en España, secundada masivamente.
1988 US agrees to talk to Palestine Liberation Org (1st time in 13 yrs)
1986 The experimental aircraft Voyager, piloted by Dick Rutan and Jeana Yeager, took off from Edwards AFB, CA on 1st non-stop, non-refueled flight around world
1983 Es liberado Segundo Marey, secuestrado el 05 Dec pasado por los GAL (Grupos Antiterroristas de Liberación)
1982 Gerardo Iglesias es elegido secretario general del PCE (Partido Comunista de España) en sustitución de Santiago Carrillo.
1981 Israel annexes the Golan Heights, which it had conquered from Syria during the 1967 War.
1980 Se celebra el primer congreso del sindicato polaco Solidaridad.
1980 NATO warns the Soviets to stay out of the internal affairs of Poland, saying that intervention would effectively destroy the détente between the East and West.
1980 CIA reports Soviet arms sales to Third World
     A CIA report claims that the Soviet Union delivered nearly $7 billion worth of military assistance to Third World nations in 1979, and made over $8 billion in arms sales during that same year. The study also noted that there were nearly 51,000 communist military advisors in Third World countries. The report indicated that the arms sales increased instability and chances for military conflict.
      The CIA study portrayed an alarming growth in Soviet military assistance to the Third World, particularly to nations in the Middle East and Africa. According to the report, Syria, Iraq, and South Yemen were the primary recipients of aid to the Middle East while Angola and Ethiopia received most of the arms sold to Africa. Much of this assistance was in the form of sophisticated weapons such as MiG fighter-bombers and surface-to-air missiles. Almost two-thirds of the military advisors were Cubans whom Fidel Castro assigned to Angola. Despite this massive effort, the study concluded that, "Moscow has recruited few adherents to its ideology. “ Nevertheless, the economic advantages were significant. Together with an expanded program of economic assistance, Soviet arms sales to the Third World helped open markets and provide hard currency for the Russian economy. Soviet trade with the Third World increased from just over $250 million in 1955 to over $13 billion in 1978. In addition, the Soviets were able to obtain sources for natural gas (Afghanistan), oil (Iraq and Syria), and aluminum (Turkey).
      The report ended on an ominous note, suggesting that Soviet arms sales to the Third World--particularly to the Middle East--were dangerously increasing instability and the chances for war. The report failed to investigate the impact of the $6 million in arms sales the US made to the Third World
1977 Egypt and Israel reps gather in Cairo for 1st formal peace conference.
1976 Karl Carstens es elegido presidente de la República Federal Alemana.
1975 Six South Moluccan extremists surrendered after holding 23 hostages for 12 days on a train near the Dutch town of Beilen.
1973 Cumbre de jefes de gobierno de la CEE (Comunidad Económica Europea) , celebrada en Copenhague.
1973 Aprobada en referéndum la Ley de Reforma Política, que abrió el camino a la democracia en España.
1972 Willy Brandt es reelegido canciller en la República Federal Alemana.
1967 El rey Constantino de Grecia inicia su exilio.
1964 Bombing of Laos begins
      In Laos, Operation Barrel Roll, the name given to the first phase of the bombing plan approved by President Lyndon B. Johnson on December 1, begins with US planes attacking "targets of opportunity" in northern Laos.
      This operation was initiated in response to a Pathet Lao offensive in the Plaine des Jarres in north central Laos. The Pathet Lao were communist guerrillas who were fighting to overthrow the Royal Lao government. Operation Barrel Roll was designed to provide air support for the Royal Laotian Army and CIA-trained Hmong (mountain people) irregular forces led by Gen. Vang Pao. In addition to these operations, there was also another part of the war in Laos which was conducted in the eastern part of the country along the Ho Chi Minh Trail, which ran out of North Vietnam through Laos and south along the South Vietnamese-Cambodian border. The North Vietnamese used this trail network as the main avenue by which they supplied and reinforced their troops in South Vietnam.
      Operations Steel Tiger and Tiger Hound were initiated in April and December 1965 respectively to bomb the trail in an intensive and protracted attempt to interdict the massive amounts of men and supplies moving along the corridor. By 1973, when Operations Barrel Roll, Steel Tiger, and Tiger Hound were terminated, Laos had become the most heavily bombed country in the world. During these operations, allied aircraft dropped more than 3 million tons of bombs, three times the amount dropped on North Vietnam. US spending for these bombing campaigns was 10 times that of the Laotian national budget.
1963 Referéndum favorable a la ley de autonomía administrativa en la Guinea Ecuatorial española.
1962 First data transmitted from Venus US space probe Mariner 2 comes within 35'000 km of Venus and measures the temperature and other characteristics of the planet, which it radioes back to Earth. — La sonda estadounidense Mariner II se acerca a 33'000 Km de Venus, tras recorrer 300 millones de km.
1961 US to increase aid to South Vietnam
      In a public exchange of letters with South Vietnamese President Ngo Dinh Diem, President John F. Kennedy formally announces that the United States will increase aid to South Vietnam, which would include the expansion of the US troop commitment. Kennedy, concerned with the recent advances made by the communist insurgency movement in South Vietnam wrote, "We shall promptly increase our assistance to your defense effort. “
      Kennedy's chief military adviser, Gen. Maxwell D. Taylor, and Special Assistant for National Security Affairs Walt W. Rostow had just returned from a fact-finding trip to Saigon and urged the president to increase US economic and military advisory support to Diem. The military support was to include intensive training of local self-defense troops by American military advisers. Additionally, Taylor and Rostow advocated a significant increase in airplanes, helicopters, and support personnel. In a secret appendix to their report, Taylor and Rostow recommended the deployment of 8000 US combat soldiers, which could be used to support the South Vietnamese forces in combat operations against the insurgents. To overcome Diem's resistance to foreign troops — which he saw as a potential Viet Cong propaganda windfall — Taylor and Rostow suggested that the forces were to be called a "flood control team. “ Kennedy, who wanted to stop the communists but also wanted to be cautious about the degree of involvement, accepted most of the recommendations, but did not commit US combat troops.
      In return for the support, Kennedy requested that Diem liberalize his regime and institute land reform and other measures to win the support of his people. Diem initially refused, but consented when he was threatened with a reduction in the promised aid. In the long run, however, his reforms did not go far enough and the increased American aid proved insufficient in stemming the tide of the insurgency. Diem was murdered during a coup by his own generals in November 1963. Shortly thereafter, Kennedy was assassinated. At the time of his death, there were more than 16'000 US advisers in South Vietnam. Kennedy's successor, Lyndon B. Johnson, rapidly escalated the war, which resulted in the commitment of US ground forces and eventually more than 500'000 American troops in Vietnam.
1960 A US Boeing B-52 bomber sets a 10'000-mile non-stop record without refueling.
1959 El arzobispo Makarios III, primer presidente de Chipre.
1955 Ingresan en la ONU 15 nuevos países, entre ellos España.
1950 El coronel Osorio asume la presidencia de El Salvador.
1950 UN General Assembly establishes High Commission for Refugees (Nobel 1954)
1949 Bulgarian ex-Premier Traicho Kostov is sentenced to die for treason, in Sofia.
1946 Togo made a trusteeship territory of the UN
1946 UN General Assembly voted to establish United Nations headquarters in New York City.
1946 The United Nations adopt a disarmament resolution prohibiting the A-Bomb.
1946 La ONU rechaza la propuesta de Sudáfrica sobre la incorporación del África suroccidental a su territorio.
1946 U.N. accepts $8 million from Rockefeller
      The United Nations General Assembly votes to accept a gift of more than eight million dollars from American philanthropist John D. Rockefeller, Jr., to be used toward the establishment of permanent U.N. headquarters along New York City's East River. In 1945, in the aftermath of World War II, the international organization was established to maintain peace and security in the postwar world. The first meeting of the United Nations General Assembly, with fifty-one nations represented, occurred on January 10, 1946, in London, England. On October 24, 1949, exactly four years after the United Nations Charter went into effect, the cornerstone of the permanent U.N. headquarters is laid in New York City. Designed by an international team of architects led by American Wallace K. Harrison, the U.N. headquarters consists of four main buildings: the General Assembly building, the Conference building, the thirty-nine-floor Secretariat building, and the Dag Hammarskjold Library, which was added in 1961. The eighteen-acre site is an international zone belonging to all U.N. member states, and includes its own security force, fire department, and postal administration.
1944 US Congress establishes rank of General of the Army (5-star general)
1944 Ataques aéreos aliados sobre Rangún y Bangkok
1942 El general alemán Erwin Rommel es obligado a retirarse de El Aghelia, en el norte de África, en el transcurso de la Segunda Guerra Mundial.
1941 German Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel orders the construction of defensive positions along the European coastline.
1939 USSR expelled from the League of Nations
      The League of Nations, the international peacekeeping organization formed at the end of World War I, expels the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics in response to the Soviets' brazen invasion of little Finland on 30 October.
      Although the League of Nations was more or less the brainchild of President Woodrow Wilson, the United States, which was to have sat on the Executive Council, never joined. Isolationists in the Senate--put off by America's intervention in World War I, which they felt was more of a European civil war than a true world war--prevented American participation. While the League was born with the exalted mission of preventing another "Great War," it proved ineffectual, being unable to protect China from a Japanese invasion or Ethiopia from an Italian one. The League was also useless in reacting to German remilitarization, which was a violation of the Treaty of Versailles, the document that formally set the peace terms for the end of World War I.
      Germany and Japan voluntarily withdrew from the League in 1933, and Italy left in 1937. The true imperial designs of the Soviet Union soon became apparent with its occupation of eastern Poland in September of 1939, ostensibly with the intention of protecting Russian "blood brothers," Ukrainians and Byelorussians, who were supposedly menaced by the Poles. Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia were then terrorized into signing "mutual assistance" pacts, primarily one-sided agreements that gave the USSR air and naval bases in those countries. But the invasion of Finland, where no provocation or pact could credibly be adduced to justify the aggression, resulted in worldwide reaction. President Roosevelt, although an "ally" of the USSR, condemned the invasion, causing the Soviets to withdraw from the New York World's Fair. And finally, the League of Nations, drawing almost its last breath, expelled it.
1934 1st streamlined steam locomotive introduced, Albany NY
1934 Se produce la primera huelga general de veinticuatro horas en España, organizada por la UGT (Unión General de Trabajadores).
1932 Francesc Maciá i Llusa es elegido presidente de Cataluña.
1931 Rolls-Royce acquires Bentley
      Bentley Motors is taken over by Rolls-Royce. Bentley Motors, a maker of luxury automobiles founded in 1920, was, like Rolls-Royce, one of the finest names in the business. As a Rolls-Royce subsidiary, Bentley was guided by the Rolls-Royce esthetic. Gradually, Bentley automobiles acquired elements of classic Rolls-Royce design until automobiles of the two marques became virtually indistinguishable.
1927 Iraq gains independence from Britain, but British troops remain
1925 Manuel Teixeira Gomes presenta la dimisión del gobierno portugués.
1923 La Comédie des Champs Elysées donne la première représentation de Knock, avec Louis Jouvet dans le rôle du célèbre docteur. La pièce de Jules Romains obtient un immense succès et Jouvet la jouera au total plus de 2000 fois dans le cours de sa vie.
1920 The League of Nations creates a credit system to aid Europe.
1920 Argentina se retira de la Sociedad de Naciones.
1920 La Cámara de los Lores británica aprueba la división de Irlanda en dos territorios autónomos, el norte protestante y el sur católico.
1918 Por primera vez en la historia de la democracia europea las mujeres ejercen su derecho al voto, con ocasión de las elecciones a la Cámara de los Comunes en Inglaterra.
1911 Amundsen reaches the South Pole.
       Norwegian Roald Amundsen and four companions become the first explorers to reach the South Pole, beating the expedition of their British rival, Robert Falcon Scott.
      Amundsen, born in Borge, near Oslo, in 1872, was one of the great figures in polar exploration. In 1897, he was first mate on a Belgian expedition that was the first ever to winter in the Antarctic. In 1903, he guided the 47-ton sloop Gjplish the treacherous journey. Amundsen planned to be the first man to the North Pole, and he was about to embark in 1909 when he learned that the American Robert Peary had achieved the feat.
      Amundsen completed his preparations and in June 1910 sailed instead for Antarctica, where the English explorer Robert F. Scott was also headed with the aim of reaching the South Pole. In early 1911, Amundsen sailed his ship into Antarctica's Bay of Whales and set up base camp 60 miles closer to the pole than Scott. In October, both explorers set off--Amundsen using sleigh dogs, and Scott employing Siberian motor sledges, Siberian ponies, and dogs. On 14 December 1911, Amundsen's expedition wins the race to the Pole. It would return safely to base camp in late January.
      Scott's expedition was less fortunate. The motor sleds broke down, the ponies had to be shot, and the dog teams were sent back as Scott and four companions continued on foot. On 18 January 1912, they reached the pole only to find that Amundsen had preceded them by over a month. Weather on the return journey was exceptionally bad--two members perished--and a storm later trapped Scott and the other two survivors in their tent only 18 km from their base camp. Scott's frozen body was found later that year.
      After his historic Antarctic journey, Amundsen established a successful shipping business. He later made attempts to become the first explorer to fly over the North Pole. In 1925, in an airplane, he flew within 250 km of the goal. In 1926, he passed over the North Pole in a dirigible just three days after American explorer Richard E. Byrd had allegedly done so in an aircraft.
      In 1996, a diary that Byrd had kept on the flight was found that seemed to suggest that the he had turned back 250 km short of its goal because of an oil leak, making Amundsen's dirigible expedition the first flight over the North Pole. In 1928, Amundsen lost his life while trying to rescue a fellow explorer whose dirigible had crashed at sea near Spitsbergen, Norway.
     Le vendredi 14 décembre 1911, le Norvégien Roald Amundsen devient le premier homme à atteindre le pôle Sud. Cet explorateur déterminé a déjà forcé en bateau le passage du Nord-Ouest, entre l'Atlantique et l'Alaska en 1903-1905. Il envisage de se rendre au Pôle Nord mais il est devancé par le commodore américain Peary et son compagnon noir. Qu'à cela ne tienne. Le Norvégien retourne son ambition vers le Pôle Sud qu'un Britannique, Robert Scott, rêve aussi de vaincre. Le 19 octobre 1911, Amundsen quitte sa base de la Baie des Baleines avec quatre hommes et 52 chiens. Une organisation minutieuse et un itinéraire optimum lui permettent d'arriver au pôle le premier. Il plante le drapeau norvégien et laisse une lettre à l'attention de son concurrent malheureux. Robert Scott atteint le Pôle Sud un mois plus tard. Dépité, il ne trouve pas la force d'achever le chemin du retour. La découverte de son corps et de celui de ses compagnons, un an plus tard, accompagnés de leurs derniers écrits, ternira la gloire d'Amundsen. Ces compétitions excessives, dans un monde fini que l'Europe domine de façon écrasante, laissent entrevoir la folie qui se déchaînera de tous côtés quelques mois plus tard, avec l'entrée dans la Grande Guerre.
1909 The Labor Conference in Pittsburgh ends with a "declaration of war" on US Steel.
1906 The first U1 submarine is brought into service in Germany.
1908 The first truly representative Turkish Parliament opens.
1863 Battle of Bean's Station--Confederacy repulses Union in Tennessee
1863 Confederate General James Longstreet attacks Union troops at Bean's Station, Tenn.
1863 President Abraham Lincoln grants amnesty to the widow of Confederate General B.H. Helm after she swears allegiance to the Union. Mrs. Helm is the half-sister of Mary Todd Lincoln.
1863 Lincoln pardons his half-sister-in-law
     US President Lincoln announces a grant of amnesty for Mrs. Emilie Todd Helm, Mary Lincoln's half sister and the widow of a Confederate general. The pardon was one of the first under Lincoln's Proclamation of Amnesty and Reconstruction, which he had announced less than a week before. The plan was the president's blueprint for the reintegration of the South into the Union. Part of the plan allowed for former Confederates to be granted amnesty if they took an oath to the United States. The option was open to all but the highest officials of the Confederacy.
      Emilie Todd Helm was the wife of Benjamin Helm, who, like the Lincolns, was a Kentucky native. Lincoln was said to be a great admirer of Helm, a West Point and Harvard graduate. Lincoln had offered Helm a position in the US Army, but Helm opted to join the Confederates instead. Helm led a group of Kentuckians known as the "Orphan Brigade," since they could not return to their Union-held native state during the war. Helm was killed at the Battle of Chickamauga in September 1863.
      After her husband's death, Emilie Helm made her way through Union lines to Washington. She stayed in the White House and the Lincolns tried to keep her visit a secret. General Daniel Sickles, who had been wounded at Gettysburg five months prior, told Lincoln that he should not have a rebel in his house. Lincoln replied, "General Sickles, my wife and I are in the habit of choosing our own guests. We do not need from our friends either advice or assistance in the matter." After Lincoln granted her pardon, Emilie Helm returned to Kentucky.
1829 Joseph Nicéphore Niepce y Louis-Jacques-Mande Daguerre firman una sociedad en la que se establece claramente que Niepce es el inventor de lo que más tarde se llamaría fotografía.
1825 Decembrist uprising in Russia, against Tsar Nicholas I, begins
     Un groupe de jeunes officiers et aristocrates russes tente de soulever la garnison de Saint Petersbourg en profitant de la confusion créée par la mort du précédent souverain, Alexandre 1er. Qualifiés de Décembristes (ou Décabristes), ils échouent dans leur tentative (une de plus) d'introduire en Russie un gouvernement moderniste. Le nouveau tsar, Nicolas 1er, ordonne la pendaison de cinq meneurs et coupe court à toute velléité de réforme. Son successeur Alexandre II se hasardera avec courage (et un succès mitigé) à faire bouger enfin le pays.
1819 Alabama admitted to the Union as 22nd state, making 11 slave states and 11 free states.
1798 David Wilkinson of Rhode Island patents a nut & bolt machine
1790 Hamilton’s plan for Bank of the US
      While giving his take on the young nation's hefty war debt, Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton makes a proposal for the Bank of the United States. The bank would assume responsibility for easing the nation's debt, as well as establishing a healthy line of credit. The bank's distinctly Federalist bent angered planters and states' rights proponents, who not only charged Hamilton with catering to "monied interests," but also derided his plan as unconstitutional. However, after a few months of wrangling and debate over the constitutionality of the proposal, President Washington finally signed the bill for the bank on 25 February 1791.
1789 En France, l'Assemblée constituante crée les premiers assignats.
1788 Carlos IV, Rey de España sube al trono a la muerte de su padre, Carlos III.
1782 Charleston, SC evacuated by British
1656 Artificial pearls 1st manufactured by M. Jacquin in Paris made of gypsum pellets covered with fish scales
1215 Quatrième concile de Latran
      Le pape Innocent III ouvre le quatrième concile du Latran le 14 décembre 1215. Ce concile marque l'apogée de la chrétienté médiévale et de la papauté après l'effort de renouveau inauguré par Grégoire VII 150 ans plus tôt.
Révolution des moeurs
      Le concile Latran IV réglemente la confession. Il établit l'obligation de se confesser et de communier au moins une fois l'an, à Pâques. La religion catholique confirme ainsi son emprise sur les populations d'Europe occidentale. Le concile introduit la publication des bans à l'occasion des mariages. Il n'est désormais plus possible de convoler dans la clandestinité. Cette mesure est destinée à lutter contre les unions consanguines, entre cousins et parents proches, que l'Eglise et le corps social tiennent en horreur, ces unions débouchant sur une dégénérescence génétique et, dans le meilleur des cas, sur un repli communautaire. Les évêques conciliaires accomplissent un acte révolutionnaire en n'autorisant que les mariages pour lesquels les deux conjoints, l'homme et la femme, auront publiquement exprimé leur consentement. Ainsi, pour la première fois dans l'Histoire de l'humanité, la société accorde aux femmes le droit de disposer d'elles-mêmes. Les femmes ne sont plus des mineures, comme sous l'Antiquité, ou des marchandises que le père cède contre une dot, ainsi qu'il en va encore dans maintes sociétés. Bien entendu, il faudra beaucoup de temps avant que les femmes ne puissent pleinement choisir et accepter leur conjoint. Elles seront longtemps encore soumises à la pression de leur entourage mais, avec l'appui de l'Eglise, leur liberté progressera régulièrement. L'Eglise médiévale, assidue à limiter la brutalité des guerriers, a aussi à coeur de freiner la brutalité des maris. C'est ainsi qu'elle réglemente à tour de bras les pratiques sexuelles et condamne tout ce qui pourrait ressembler à un viol conjugal. L'époque du concile coïncide aussi avec la construction des plus belles cathédrales gothiques. Les sculpteurs et les peintres commencent à exalter la beauté du corps féminin, qui revêt au choix l'apparence de la vierge Marie ou d'Eve, la première femme. Dans les églises se répand le culte de Marie tandis que dans les cours seigneuriales ou royales, les troubadours et les poètes chantent l'amour érotique. Les femmes de haut lignage prennent part à l'art poétique et participent à l'exercice du pouvoir, à l'égal de leur mari ou en remplacement de celui-ci. Les exemples les plus connus sont ceux d'Aliénor d'Aquitaine et de son arrière-petite-fille Blanche de Castille, mère de Saint Louis et régente du royaume de France.
      La Renaissance et le retour en vogue du droit romain entraîneront une certaine régression du statut social de la femme. Cette régression prendra tout son effet avec les "Lumières" du XVIIIe siècle et la Révolution française, qui renverront les femmes bourgeoises à leurs fourneaux et à leurs devoirs d'éducatrices. Le Code civil napoléonien entérinera cette régression, mais sans pouvoir revenir sur le consentement des femmes au choix de leur mari. Le concile Latran IV ne s'en tient pas au droit du mariage et au statut de la femme. Il impose aussi aux Juifs et aux musulmans le port d'un insigne distinctif. Il condamne enfin les doctrines vaudoise et cathare qui sanctifient la pauvreté et le renoncement aux valeurs matérielles. Mais ces valeurs évangéliques retrouveront toutefois leur place dans l'Eglise officielle grâce aux Ordres mendiants de saint François d'Assise et de saint Dominique de Guzman qui s'épanouissent à l'époque même du concile.
L'Eglise triomphante
      Dès son élection à la papauté, le 8 janvier 1198, à l'âge de 37 ans, Innocent III a entrepris de soumettre les rois à sa volonté en revendiquant la primauté de l'Eglise sur la société séculière. Il excommunie l'empereur d'Allemagne Othon IV de Brunswick et fait élire à sa place Frédéric II de Hahenstaufen. Il excommunie également Jean sans Terre, roi d'Angleterre, en conflit avec l'archevêque de Canterbury. Il encourage enfin le roi de France, Philippe II Auguste, qui doit affronter l'empereur d'Allemagne Othon IV de Brunswick, les comtes de Flandre et de Boulogne et l'ineffable Jean sans Terre.
      La victoire de Philippe Auguste à Bouvines consolide la monarchie capétienne et conduit Jean sans Terre à concéder la Grande Charte aux barons anglais. Déjà, les nationalités s'affirment plus fortes que la chrétienté oecuménique.
      Les Croisades du pape Innocent III laissent un goût amer. La IVe Croisade destinée à délivrer le tombeau de Palestine est détournée sur Byzance par les marchands vénitiens et se solde par la prise de la métropole orthodoxe, le 12 avril 1204. La Croisade contre les Albigeois donne lieu à de nombreux excès. Contre les musulmans almohades d'Espagne, la belle victoire de Las Navas de Tolosa, le 16 juillet 1212, ouvre la voie à l'intolérance. Innocent III mourra peu après le concile Latran IV sans se douter que ses entreprises politiques ne lui survivront guère. Avec lui s'achève la phase la plus glorieuse de la chrétienté médiévale.
0872 John VIII begins his reign as Pope
0867 Adrian II begins his reign as Pope
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Deaths which occurred on a December 14:
2002 William Rodriguez, 11; Christopher Casado, 7; Mackendy Constant, 8; and Victor Baez, 9; drowned after falling through the 3- to 5cm-thick ice on the Merrimack River in Lawrence, Massachusetts. A group of bows was walking home from the nearby Boys and Girls Club of Greater Lawrence. William walk onto the ice and falls. Six boy try to save him, three die and three others are rescued. The victims' families, had immigrated from Haiti and the Dominican Republic. The Eagle-Tribune newspaper would, on 07 April 2003, be awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Breaking News for its coverage of the story.
2002 Erbil Esmer, 36, as a spark causes explosion of gas used to artificially ripen fruit, as he is shopping for bananas at a fruit wholesaler in Balikesir, Turkey. Nine persons are injured. Several buildings and vehicles are damaged.
Cherica Adams2001 Muhammad Abed Al-Aziz Ashour, Diyaa Mahmoud Qadah, Riziq Shaaban Hirz-Allah, Sami Jawad Abed Allatif Aldanif, Khaled Abu Yaqoub and Asaad Abu Ataya,.Palestinian policemen, by Israeli tanks and troops making an incursion into Salfit, near Nablus, West Bank, early in the day.
2000 Un concejal del [Partido Popular,.asesinado en Tarrasa por ETA (Euskadi Ta Askatasuna).
1999 Cherica Adams [photo >], 24, of wounds from a 16 November drive-by shooting (when she was 6-1/2-months pregnant) contracted by her lover football player Rae Carruth, 25, so as to avoid having to pay child support. The baby, Chancellor Lee Adams, survives, though with severe cerebral palsy, delivered premature by Caesarean section shortly after the shooting. On 22 January 2001 Carruth would be sentenced to a minimum of 227 months in prison without parole.
1990 Friedrich Durrenmatt, escritor suizo. — [Etait-il dur en math?]
1989 Andrei D Sakharov, 68, Soviet Physicist, Dissident and 1975 Nobel peace prize winner, in Moscow.
1986 (o ¿1984?) Pedro Sainz Rodríguez, profesor, escritor, académico, y político español.
1985 Antonio Tovar Llorente, lingüista español.
1984 Vicente Aleixandre y Merlo, poeta español, Premio Nobel en 1977
1978 Salvador de Madariaga y Rojo, ensayista y diplomático español.
1959 Stanley Spencer, British artist born on 30 June 1891. — MORE ON SPENCER AT ART “4” DECEMBER with links to images.
1953 Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, of a cerebral hemorrhage. Born on 08 August 1896, she wrote the novels South Moon Under (1933), Golden Apples (1935), The Yearling (1939; sentimental story of a 12-year-old boy growing up to the harsh facts of life by accepting the necessity for his pet deer to be killed), The Sojourner (1952). in 1942 she wrote a non-fiction book about her farm, Cross Creek, and a Florida cookbook.
1950 George Bernard Shaw, dramaturgo irlandés.
1945 Josef Kramer known as "beast of Belsen," and 10 others hung for crimes committed at the Belsen and Oswiecim Nazi concentration camps
1943 Dr. John Harvey Kellogg, surgeon, health authority, developer of the Battle Creek Sanitarium and founder of the food business which later became the W. K. Kellogg Company. He was born on 26 February 1852.
1939 Day 15 of Winter War: USSR aggression against Finland. [Talvisodan 15. päivä]
More deaths due to Stalin's desire to grab Finnish territory.
Soviet destroyer sunk by Utö fortress.
  • Central Isthmus: at Summa, the Soviet artillery continues its bombardment of the main Finnish positions with increasing ferocity. Enemy tank and infantry attacks are successfully repulsed.
  • Ladoga Karelia: Soviet troops launch an offensive on the northern flank of the River Kollaanjoki line.
  • In the Tolvajärvi sector, Detachment Pajari reaches Ristisalmi.
  • Turku Archipelago: Utö Fortress sinks a Soviet destroyer.
  • Northern Finland: the Soviet 273rd Infantry Regiment crosses the River Kemijoki at Savukoski. The Finns fall back past Savukoski to the crossroads at Lunkkaus without engaging the enemy.
  • The League of Nations expels the Soviet Union and urges its members to give Finland all possible humanitarian and material assistance.
  • Swedish border: the first foreign volunteers cross the border at Haaparanta and arrive at the reception centre in Tornio.
  • Stockholm: Frans Emil Sillanpää receives the Nobel Prize for Literature.
  • New York: the film star Greta Garbo gives $5000 to the Finnish aid fund.
    • 1930 Los capitanes Galán y García Hernández, fusilados por la sublevación republicana de Jaca.
    1927 Sokhotsky, mathematician.
    1926 Albert Müller, Swiss artist born in 1897.
    1923 Théophile Alexandre Steinlen, Swiss French artist born on 10 November 1859. — more
    1918 Bernardino Sidònio Paes, asesinado, presidente de la República Portuguesa.
    1909 Agustín Querol, escultor español.
    1904 Philip Lodewijk Jacob Frederik Sadee, Dutch artist born on 07 February 1837.
    1903 William Ennis first cop to die in the electric chair
    1897 Francesco Brioschi, mathematician.
    1888 Richard Redgrave, British artist born on 30 April 1804. — MORE ON REDGRAVE AT ART “4” DECEMBER with links to images.
    1861 Prince Albert of England, one of the Union's strongest advocates in the US Civil War.
    1852 Johann-Jakob Dorner II, German artist born on 07 July 1775. — Not to be confused with the painter of The Hard Landlady (1787)
    1799 George Washington, 67, American revolutionary leader and first president of the United States, acute laryngitis, at his estate in Mount Vernon, Virginia.
          Washington was born in 1732 to a farm family in Westmoreland County, Virginia, and through his extensive reading was essentially self-educated.
         From an early age, the future first president of the United States had a passionate interest in the vast unsettled territories of the West. Like many other aristocratic Virginians, Washington coveted land, and most ambitious young men of the eighteenth century had one way to acquire land: they went west. As a 16-year-old in 1748, Washington made the first of several long journeys into the West, working as a skilled surveyor in the Shenandoah Valley. Unusually tall and strong, Washington loved the wild western lands of Virginia and was an excellent frontiersman. From the start, Washington's ambitions were unabashedly mercenary, and he could not gaze on any tract of pristine land without considering its potential for development and profit. To that end, Washington had little tolerance for the remaining bands of Indians he encountered during his travels, writing in his journal that he found their war dances "comical. “ Washington also had a strong distaste for the illegal pioneers who squatted on western lands they did not own, calling one group of Pennsylvania Germans as "Ignorant a Set of People as the Indians. “ Washington believed both the Indians and the illegal squatters would need to be removed if the land was to be properly settled and exploited.
         Washington's first direct military experience came as a major in the Virginia colonial militia in 1754, when he led a small expedition against the French in the Ohio River valley on behalf of the governor of Virginia. As a colonel during the Seven Years' War between Britain and France, Washington took command of the defenses of the western Virginian frontier in 1756.
         After joining the colonial military to defend British interests in the West, Washington moved quickly to increase his own land holdings and develop them for profit. As a reward for his military service, Washington claimed 12'000 hectares of prime agricultural land along the Kanawha and Ohio rivers west of the Appalachian Mountains (an area that lies in modern-day West Virginia and Ohio). To solidify his claim and begin generating a profit, Washington advertised for settlers and purchased slaves to colonize his holdings.
          After the Seven Years' War, Washington resigned from his military post and over the next two decades he openly opposed the escalating British taxation and repression of the American colonies. In 1774, Washington represented Virginia at the Continental Congress and, after the American War for Independence erupted in 1775, was appointed commander in chief of the newly established Continental army.
         The outbreak of the Revolutionary War in 1775 and Washington's growing political responsibilities often interfered with his personal plans for western expansion during the following years, and he rarely had time to visit his distant landholdings. Not surprisingly, when he became the first president of the United States, Washington strongly endorsed the idea that the young nation must expand westward and settle the Trans-Appalachian regions of the Ohio and Mississippi valleys. It remained for Washington's successors to fully realize his vision, but the first president led his countrymen in speculating on and profiting from the sale and rent of western lands.
          With this inexperienced and poorly equipped army of civilian soldiers, Washington led an effective war of harassment against British forces in America, while employing his extraordinary diplomatic skills to encourage the intervention of the French into the conflict on behalf of the colonists. On 19 October 1781, British General Charles Lord Cornwallis surrendered his massive British army at Yorktown, Virginia, and General George Washington had defeated one of the most powerful nations on earth.
          After the war, the victorious revolutionary general retired to his estate at Mount Vernon, but in 1787 he heeded his nation's call and returned to politics to preside over the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. On 30 April 1789, George Washington was inaugurated as the first president of the United States, and in 1792 was unanimously elected to a second term. While in office, he sought to unite the nation and protect the interests of the new republic at home and abroad. In 1797, Washington retired to Mount Vernon, where he died of natural causes two years later.
    1789 Étienne Jeaurat, French painter born on 09 February 1699. — more with link to an image.
    1788 Carlos III, Rey de España.
    1734 Noël-Nicolas Coypel, French painter born on 17 November 1690. — MORE ON COYPEL AT ART “4” DECEMBER with links to images.
    1287 Some 50'000 drown as Zuider Zee seawall collapses
    Births which occurred on a December 14:
    1998 High-speed Internet 2
          IXC Communications announces that it has turned on a new coast-to-coast data network that it hoped would serve as the backbone for the next generation Internet. The National Science Foundation had launched a project to develop a new, higher-speed version of the Internet called Internet 2, for use by universities and research institutions. The new Internet would utilize specially created networks rather than existing phone lines.
    1969 San Camilo 1936, novela de Camilo José Cela Trulock, se publica.
    1953 Joe Toplyn Boston, comedic writer (Late Night with David Letterman)
    1938 Leonardo Boff Italy, Brazilian Catholic theologian
    1936 Wall, mathematician.
    1928 Lady Chatterley's Lover, de David Herbert Lawrence, se publica.
    1922 Nikolay Gennadiyevich Basov, who shared the 1964 Nobel Physics Prize.
    1919 Shirley Jackson, US, novelist and short story writer (Road Through the Wall, Life Among Savages, The Lottery).
    1914 Karl Carstens, político y abogado alemán.
    1909 Edward Lawrie Tatum US, molecular geneticist, who shared the 1958 Nobel Medicine Prize.
    1900 Quantum Theory
          At the Physics Society in Berlin German physicist Max Planck presents his groundbreaking study of the effect of radiation on a "blackbody" substance, and the quantum theory of modern physics is born. Through physical experiments, Planck demonstrates that energy, in certain situations, can exhibit characteristics of physical matter. According to theories of classical physics, energy is solely a continuous wave-like phenomenon, independent of the characteristics of physical matter. The new theory holds that radiant energy is made up of particle-like components, known as "quantum. “
          Planck's quantum theory helps to resolve previously unexplainable natural phenomenon such as the behavior of heat in solids and the nature of the light absorption on an atomic level. In 1918, Planck is rewarded the Nobel Prize in Physics for his work on blackbody radiation. Other scientists, such as Albert Einstein, Niels Bohr, Louis de Broglie, Erwin Schrodinger, and Paul M. Dirac, advance Planck's theory, and make possible the development of quantum mechanics, a mathematical application of the quantum theory that maintains that energy is both matter and a wave, depending on the situation. Today, the combination of quantum mechanics with Einstein's theory of relativity is the basis of modern physics.
    1897 Margaret Chase Smith (Rep/Sen-R-Maine)
    1895 George VI, king of the UK.
    1896 James H Doolittle (aviator: US Army Air Force Lt. General awarded Congressional Medal of Honor for leading 1st US aerial raid against Japan in WWII)
    1895 George VI king of England (1936-52)
    1895 Paul Eluard, poète ("J'écris ton nom... “), à Saint Denis
    1846 Joaquín Costa y Martínez, político, sociólogo y polígrafo español.
    1831 Arsenio Martínez Campos, militar y político español.
    1824 Pierre Cécile Puvis de Chavannes, French Symbolist painter who died on 24 October 1898. — MORE ON PUVIS DE CHAVANNES AT ART “4” DECEMBER with links to images.
    1787 Joaquín Mariano Mosquera y Arboleda, estadista colombiano.
    1784 Antoinette-Cécile (Lescot) Handebourt, French artist who died on 02 January 1845.
    1735 Dupont de Nemours, à Paris. Économiste, chassé par la Révolution, il fondera aux Etats-Unis ce qui deviendra la première société de chimie du monde.
    1727 François-Hubert Drouais, French artist who died on 21 October 1775. — MORE ON DROUAIS AT ART “4” DECEMBER with links to images.
    1640 Aphra Johnson (Behn) (baptized), at Harbledown, near Canterbury, England, playwright and novelist, the first Englishwoman to make her living as a writer.
          Behn's origins are unclear, but historians believe she was probably the daughter of Bartholomew Johnson and Elizabeth Denham of Harbledown. She appears to have lived in Surinam, then an English colony known as Dutch Guiana, for several years as a young woman. In the mid-1660s, she married a merchant by the last name of Behn in England who died several years later.
          After her husband's death, Behn allegedly served as a secret agent in the Netherlands for Charles II of England but was not paid for her services, and was put in prison for debt when she returned to England. She began writing to support herself, and her first play, The Forced Marriage, was produced in 1671 at Lincoln's Inn Fields by the Duke's Company. The play was a hit, and Behn wrote many more successful comedies, of which 17 survive. Her most popular work, The Rover, was produced in two parts, in 1677 and 1681. She also wrote poetry prolifically. Her novel Oroonoko (1688) told the story of an enslaved African prince.
          Behn, a lively and charming woman, became very popular among her many friends. Although one of her plays irritated the Duke of Monmouth, the king's illegitimate son, enough to land Behn in jail briefly, she continued to write lively, satiric plays and poetry until her death in 1689. She was the first woman to be buried in Westminster Abbey in recognition of her own achievements.
    BEHN ONLINE: The City Heiress -- The Lady's Looking-Glass, to Dress Herself By: or, The Whole Art of Charming -- Oroonoko: Or, The Royal Slave -- The Rover: Or, The Banish'd Cavaliers -- The Unfortunate Happy Lady: A True History
    1637 Niccolo Berrettoni, Italian artist who died in 1682.
    1553 Henri de Navarre, who would become king Henri IV of France, is one day old. See Jean-Pierre Babelon, Henri IV (1982): “c'est entre minuit et une heure dans la nuit du 12 au 13 décembre 1553 (et non le 14, comme on l'a dit souvent) que les douleurs saisirent la mère” [du futur Henri IV].
    1546 Tycho Brahe, Knudstrup Denmark, mathematician, astronomer (Golden nose)
    1503 Michel de Nostredame (Nostradamus) France, astrologer / physician. He died on 02 July 1566. — NOSTRADAMUS ONLINE: Les Centuries — Les Centuries — Lettre à César — Sixtains — Présages — (English translations:) Complete Prophecies — Sixains — Centuries.—
    1363 Jean Charlier de Gerson, French theologian. During the papal schism of 1378-1414, Gerson attended the councils of Pisa (1409) and Constance (1414-18). He spent his last years in a monastery at Lyons teaching children, composing hymns and writing books on Christian mysticism.
    Holidays Alabama : Admission Day (1819) / El Salvador : Revolution Day / Iran : Death of Iman Ja'far Sadeq Day / Turkey : Festival of Mevlana-Jelaeddin Rumi (Whirling Dervishes) / World : Halcyon Days
    Religious Observances Luth : Teresa of Avila / RC, Luth : St Spyridon / RC, Luth : St. John of the Cross, priest/doctor / Santos Arsenio, Isidoro, Juan de la Cruz, Justo, Nicasio y Venancio. / Sainte Odile, aveugle de naissance, fut abandonnée par le duc d'Alsace, son père. Baptisée à 12 ans, elle recouvre la vue et rentre en grâce auprès de sa famille. Le château familial de Hohenbourg devient un monastère dont Odile est l'abbesse. C'est là qu'elle meurt, en 720, sur les pentes du mont qui porte depuis lors son nom. Odile est la patronne de l'Alsace.
    DICTIONNAIRE TICRANIEN: pervers: jeune homme dont le premier enfant vient de naitre.
    Thoughts for the day : “If your work speaks for itself, don't interrupt.”
    “If I interrupt your work, don't speak to yourself.”
    “If your interruptions speak for themselves, don't work.”
    “If your speaking works by itself, don't interfere.”
    “If your work interrupts my speech, stop it.”
    “If your interruptions work, don't speak.”
    “An atheist is a person who has no invisible means of support”     -- Bishop Fulton J. Sheen (14 Dec 1955)
    “When you lift yourself up by your own bootstraps, you have no visible means of support.”
    “When you're living on a shoestring budget, you can't afford to lift yourself up by your own bootstraps.”
    “When you're living on a shoestring budget, you can't afford shoes.”
    “When you're living on a shoestring budget, you're dying to get off that steady diet of shoestring potatoes.”     [not to mention that they have too much fat and salt] [Recipe for shoestring potatoes: Heat polyunsaturated oil in a deep fat fryer or deep skillet to 180ºC (360ºF). Peel the potatoes, cut each one lengthwise to a 3mm (1/8-inch) thickness, using a food processor or knife to obtain matchstick-size strips the length of the potato. Reserve in cold water until ready to fry. Drain the matchstick potatoes and pat dry in a towel. Carefully plunge them into the fryer one handful at a time without plunging your hand. Stir until a light golden-brown, about 3 minutes, remove with a mesh skimmer, drain on paper towels, and do not sprinkle with a pinch of salt, we have too much sodium in our diet as it is (if you absolutely feel the need to sprinkle salt, sprinkle it on the weeds in the yard). Do not eat at 180ºC, let them cool to below 60ºC and feed them to the dog.].
    “Experience is a good teacher, but she sends in terrific bills.” — Minna Antrim, US writer [1856-1950].
    “Bills are good teachers, but they make for a terrifying experience.”
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