<<
Dec 18| HISTORY
4 2DAY
|Dec 20
>> Events, deaths, births, of 19 DEC [For Dec 19 Julian go to Gregorian date: 1582~1699: Dec 29 1700s: Dec 30 1800s: Dec 31 1900~2099: Jan 01] |
On
a December 19: 2002 Presidential election in South Korea. Roh Moo Hyun, 56 [< photo], of the governing Millenium Democratic party, who wants better relations with North Korea, wins with 49% of the vote over Lee Hoi Chang, 67, of the conservative Grand National Party, who distrusts North Korea, and gets 47%. 2002 Thomas Bennigson sues in Los Angeles Superior Court for the return of Picasso's Femme en Blanc (aka Femme assise) of 1922, which belonged to his late grandmother (of which he is the only heir) and was looted by the Nazis in 1940. MORE AT ART 4 DECEMBER 2001 President Fernando de La Rua declares a state of siege in Argentina as riots and looting worsens in response to government austerity measures and worsening poverty. 2000 Popocatepetl erupts [photo >]. It may be the most dangerous volcano in the world. Most people in the vicinity have heeded government advice to flee. There are no casualties so far, but volcanologists warn it might get worse. 1999 China recupera el enclave de Macao tras 442 años en manos de Portugal, que de esta forma pierde su última colonia. 1999 La elecciones legislativas celebradas en Rusia confirman el ascenso del primer ministro Vladimir Putin y de su partido, Unidad, además de la fortaleza de los comunistas, que pese a ser el partido más votado perdió el control de la Duma. 1998 US President Clinton is impeached. After nearly 14 hours of debate, the House of Representatives approves two articles of impeachment against President Bill Clinton, charging him with lying under oath to a federal grand jury and obstructing justice. Clinton, the second president in American history to be impeached, vowed to finish his term. In November 1995, Clinton began an affair with Monica Lewinsky, a 21-year-old unpaid intern. Over the course of a year and a half, the president and Lewinsky had nearly a dozen sexual encounters in the White House. In April 1996, Lewinsky was transferred to the Pentagon. That summer, she first confided in Pentagon co-worker Linda Tripp about her sexual relationship with the president. In 1997, with the relationship over, Tripp began secretly to record conversations with Lewinsky, in which Lewinsky gave Tripp details about the affair. In December, lawyers for Paula Jones, who was suing the president on sexual harassment charges, subpoenaed Lewinsky. In January 1998, allegedly under the recommendation of the president, Lewinsky filed an affidavit in which she denied ever having had a sexual relationship with him. Five days later, Tripp contacted the office of Kenneth Starr, the Whitewater independent counsel, to talk about Lewinsky and the tapes she made of their conversations. Tripp, wired by FBI agents working with Starr, met with Lewinsky again, and on 16 January, Lewinsky was taken by FBI agents and US attorneys to a hotel room where she was questioned and offered immunity if she cooperated with the prosecution. A few days later, the story broke, and Clinton publicly denied the allegations, saying, "I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Ms. Lewinsky." In late July, lawyers for Lewinsky and Starr worked out a full-immunity agreement covering both Lewinsky and her parents, all of whom Starr had threatened with prosecution. On 06 August, Lewinsky appeared before the grand jury to begin her testimony, and on 17 August President Clinton testified. Contrary to his testimony in the Paula Jones sexual-harassment case, President Clinton acknowledged to prosecutors from the office of the independent counsel that he had had an extramarital affair with Ms. Lewinsky. In four hours of closed-door testimony, conducted in the Map Room of the White House, Clinton spoke live via closed-circuit television to a grand jury in a nearby federal courthouse. He was the first sitting president ever to testify before a grand jury investigating his conduct. That evening, President Clinton also gave a four-minute televised address to the nation in which he admitted he had engaged in an inappropriate relationship with Lewinsky. In the brief speech, which was wrought with legalisms, the word "sex" was never spoken, and the word "regret" was used only in reference to his admission that he misled the public and his family. Less than a month later, on 09 September, Kenneth Starr submitted his report and 18 boxes of supporting documents to the House of Representatives. Released to the public two days later, the Starr Report outlined a case for impeaching Clinton on 11 grounds, including perjury, obstruction of justice, witness-tampering, and abuse of power, and also provided explicit details of the sexual relationship between the president and Ms. Lewinsky. On October 8, the House authorized a wide-ranging impeachment inquiry, and on December 11, the House Judiciary Committee approved three articles of impeachment. On 19 December the House impeaches Clinton. On 07 January 1999, in a congressional procedure not seen since the 1868 impeachment trial of President Andrew Johnson, the trial of President Clinton got underway in the Senate. As instructed in Article 1 of the US Constitution, the chief justice of the US Supreme Court (William Rehnquist at this time) was sworn in to preside, and the senators were sworn in as jurors. Five weeks later, on 12 February, the Senate voted on whether to remove Clinton from office. The president was acquitted on both articles of impeachment. The prosecution needed a two-thirds majority to convict but failed to achieve even a bare majority. Rejecting the first charge of perjury, 45 Democrats and 10 Republicans voted "not guilty," and on the charge of obstruction of justice the Senate was split 50-50. After the trial concluded, President Clinton said he was "profoundly sorry" for the burden his behavior imposed on Congress and the people of the US. |
1997 El Gobierno irlandés libera a nueve presos del IRA,
en un gesto de gracia del Gobierno de Dublín. Este indulto colectivo se
interpreta como una muestra de apoyo al proceso de paz. 1994 La escultora austriaca Eva Lootz, Premio Nacional español de Artes Plásticas 1994. 1991 Boris Yeltsin takes control of Kremlin 1991 El primer ministro de Australia, el laborista Bob Hawke, dimite tras perder una moción de confianza a causa de la crisis económica. 1989 American Airlines purchases Eastern Airline's Latin American route 1988 NASA unveils plans for lunar colony and manned missions to Mars 1987 El soviético Gari Kimovich Kasparov, campeón mundial de ajedrez, al empatar a doce puntos con el aspirante, Anatoli Evgenievich Karpov, en Sevilla.
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1980 Anguilla becomes a British dependency separate from St Kitts 1980 Iran requests $24 billion in US guarantees to free hostages 1975 John Paul Stevens becomes a Supreme Court Justice 1974 Nelson A Rockefeller is sworn in as 41st vice president of the United states after a House of Representatives vote.
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1965 Charles André de Gaulle es reelegido presidente de Francia.
1945 Austrian Republic re-established 1945 Congress confirms Eleanor Roosevelt as US delegate to the United Nations. 1944 During the Battle of the Bulge, American troops begin pulling back from the twin Belgian cities of Krinkelt and Rocherath in front of the advancing German Army. |
1942 The British advance 60 km into Burma in a drive to oust the Japanese from the colony. 1932 British Broadcasting Corp begins transmitting overseas 1928 1st autogiro (predecessor of helicopter) flight in US
1910 Rayon 1st commercially produced, Marcus Hook PA 1900 The French Parliament votes amnesty for everyone involved in the Dreyfus Affair. 1891 First Negro Catholic priest ordained in US, Charles Uncles, Baltimore 1890 Start of Sherlock Holmes The Adventure of The Beryl Coronet 1864 Skirmish at Rutherford Creek, Tennessee 1862 Confederate General Nathan B. Forrest begins tearing up the railroads in the rear of Union generals Grant and Rosecrans, causing considerable delays in the movement of Union supplies. 1861 Battle of Black Water. 1848 Napoléon Bonaparte (futuro Napoléon III, emperador de Francia) es elegido presidente de la República. 1842 US recognizes independence of Hawaii 1828 South Carolina declares the right of states to nullify federal laws 1793 French troops recapture Toulon from the British.
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1732
Poor Richard's Almanack is published In Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Benjamin Franklin, 26, begins publication of Poor Richard's Almanack under the pseudonym of Richard Saunders. In an advertisement for the humorous publication in The Pennsylvania Gazette, a successful newspaper that Franklin himself established during the 1720s, Franklin promises "many pleasant and witty verses, jests and sayings. The Almanack is an instant success, and a new issue follows each year for the next twenty-five years, selling an average of 10'000 copies yearly. It becomes one of the most popular writings from the colonial period, and greatly influences American popular culture with such light-hearted aphorisms as "Early to bed, early to rise, makes a man, healthy, wealthy, and wise. Franklin was born in Boston in 1706 and was apprenticed to his brother, a printer, at age 12. In 1729, Franklin became the official printer of currency for the colony of Pennsylvania. He began publishing Poor Richard's, as well as the Pennsylvania Gazette, one of the colonies' first and best newspapers. By 1748, Franklin had become more interested in inventions and science than publishing. He spent time in London representing Pennsylvania in its dispute with England and later spent time in France. He returned to America in March 1775, with war on the horizon. He served on the Second Continental Congress and helped Thomas Jefferson draft the Declaration of Independence. As a diplomat in France he was also instrumental in persuading the French to lend military assistance to the colonies. Benjamin Franklin died in Philadelphia in 1790. [Poor Richard's Almanack selections] Other works by Franklin online: The Autobiography and Other Writings -- The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin -- Experiments and Observations on Electricity, Made at Philadelphia in America A few aphorisms from Poor Richard's Almanack: ENIGMATICAL PROPHECIES [from the 1736 Almanack, with the original spelling]. Which they that do not understand, cannot well explain. 1. Before the middle of this year, a wind at N. East will arise, during which the water of the sea and rivers will be in such manner raised, that great part of the towns of Boston, Newport, New-York, Philadelphia, the low lands of Maryland and Virginia, and the town of Charlstown in South Carolina, will be under water. Happy will it be for the sugar and salt, standing in the cellars of those places, if there be tight roofs and cielings overhead; otherwise, without being a conjurer, a man may easily foretel that such commodities will receive damage. 2. About the middle of the year, great numbers of vessels fully laden will be taken out of the ports aforesaid, by a Power with which we are not now at war, and whose forces shall not be descried or seen either coming or going. But in the end this may not be disadvantageous to those places. 3. However, not long after, a visible army of 30000 musketers will land, some in Virginia and Maryland, and some in the lower counties on both sides of Delaware, who will over-run the country, and sorely annoy the inhabitants; but the air in this climate will agree with them so ill towards winter, that they will die in the beginning of cold weather like rotten sheep, and by Christmas the inhabitans will get the better of them. [These 3 prophecies did indeed come to pass, but Franklin's readers had to wait one year for the 1737 Almanack to understand them. I will not make you wait that long, so make sure you read This Day in History for the next few days.] THE BENEFIT OF GOING TO LAW. Two beggars travelling along, / One blind, the other lame. Pick'd up an oyster on the way / To which they both laid claim: The matter rose so high, that they / Resolv'd to go to law, As often richer fools have done, / Who quarrel for a straw. A lawyer took it strait in hand, / Who knew his business was, To mind nor one nor t'other side, / But make the best o'th'cause; As always in the law's the case; / So he his judgment gave, And lawyerlike he thus resolv'd, / What each of them should have; Blind plaintif, lame defendant, share / The friendly law's impartial care, A shell for him, a shell for thee, / The middle is the lawyer's fee. |
1776 Thomas Paine publishes his first The
American Crisis essay. 1686 Robinson Crusoe leaves his island after 28 years (as per Defoe) 1562 The French Wars of Religion between the Huguenots and the Catholics begin with the Battle of Dreux. 1406 El cardenal Angelo Carrer es coronado Papa con el nombre de Gregorio XII.
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Deaths
which occurred on a December 19: 2002 Nadda Maddi, 11, Palestinian girl, by Israeli troops at the Termit outpost on the Egyptian border in Rafah, Gaza Strip, machine-gunning a residential area in a gunfight with Palestinians. 2002 Asif Ramzi and 3 others, by accidental explosion while they were making terrorrist bombs in Karachi. Ramzi was the leader of a faction of the outlawed Sunni Muslim group Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, and was believed to be involved in attacks on members of Pakistan's Shi'ite Muslim minority, and in the murder (probably on 01 Feb 2002) of US reporter Daniel Pearl, 38, South Asia bureau chief of The Wall Street Journal, who had been kidnapped on 23 January 2002 while researching a story on Islamic militants in Pakistan, and who was videotaped having his throat slit. On 15 July 2002 British-born Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh, 27, was sentenced to death by a Pakistani court for masterminding Pearl's kidnapping and murder, and Salman Saquib, Fahad Nasim, and Sheikh Adil were sentenced to life imprisonment. 2001 Wang Ruowang, 83, prominent Chinese dissident writer who was jailed by China's Communist government and later became an exile. 2000 Son Sann, 89, of heart attack, in Paris, Cambodian economist, intellectual, guerrilla leader, peace broker and politician. 2000 John V. Lindsay, 79, Republican Congressman, mayor of New York, candidate for 1972 Democratic presidential nomination, author of novel The Edge.
1990 Xavier Benguerel, alias Daniel Rovira, escritor español. 1986 José Antonio Maravall Cases Noves, historiador español. 1980 Alexei Nikolaievich Kosygin, ex presidente de Gobierno soviético. 1968 Norman Thomas, 84, a founder of the ACLU 1961: 23 personas al estrellarse una avioneta que llevaba a Sevilla socorro para los damnificados de unas graves inundaciones. 1959 Walter Williams, 117, in Houston, claimed to be last survivor of US Civil War 1952 Szász, mathematician. 1939 Graf von Spee, acorazado alemán, hundido por sus propios tripulantes para no caer en poder de los ingleses tras la batalla del Río de la Plata.
1931 Raffaelo Sorbi, Italian artist born on 24 February 1844. 1915 Alois Alzheimer German psychiatrist. 1907: 239 miners, in a coal mine explosion in Jacobs Creek, Pennsylvania.
1873 Henri Pierre Pharamond Blanchard, French artist born on 27 February 1805. 1851 Joseph Mallord William Turner, British artist born on 23 April 1775, specialized in landscapes and seascapes, considered by the French Impressionists as a precursor. MORE ON TURNER AT ART 4 DECEMBER with links to images. 1851 Marie-Philippe Coupin de la Couperie, French artist born in 1773. 1665 Gerard Pieterszoon Zyl, Dutch artist born in 1607. 1741 Vitus Bering Dutch navigator & explorer 0401 St Anastasius I, Pope 0079 Flavio Tito Vespasiano, emperador de Roma. |
Births which
occurred on a December 19:
1944 Richard E. Leakey, palaeontologist. [photo >] 1924 Michel Tournier, escritor francés. 1919 William Nunn Lipscomb, químico estadounidense, premio Nobel de Química en 1976. 1918 Leon Mirsky, mathematician. 1918 Believe It or Not of Robert Ripley begins in The New York Globe. 1915 Edith Piaf, in Paris, internationally famous French cabaret singer, best remembered for her songs "La Vie en rose" and "Non, je ne regrette rein. 1910 Jean Genet France, novelist/playwright (The Blacks) -- Jean Genet, poète maudit. Il sera confié à l'Assistance publique et connaîtra la prison. Il séjournera ainsi à Fontevraud, non loin des gisants des Plantagenêt. 1910 Helmut Wielandt, mathematicia 1906 H Allen Smith US, humorist/author (Low Man on the Totem Pole) 1906 Leonid Brezhnev Ukraine, Soviet General Secretary of the Communist party and President of the Supreme Soviet from 1964 until 1982. He died on 10 November 1982 1903 George Davis Snell, científico estadounidense, premio Nobel de Medicina y Fisiología en 1980. 1901 Oliver Lafarge novelist (Laughing Boy) 1886 Ángel Herrera Oria, periodista y cardenal español. 1869 Edward Willis Redfield, Pennsylvania Impressionist painter who died in 1965. MORE ON REDFIELD AT ART 4 DECEMBER with links to images.
1852 Albert A Michelson established c (speed of light in a vacuum) as universal constant (Nobel 1907) 1843 A Christmas Carol, by Charles Dickens, is first published.. 1835 Antonio Gisbert, pintor español. 1831 Princess Ke Kamali'iwahine Bernice Pauahi (Bishop) Hawaii. (d. 1884), the last direct descendant of Kamehameha the Great. She would die in 1884 and her memory would be perpetuated by her will which left the bulk of her estate "to erect and maintain in the Hawaiian Islands two schools, each for boarding and day scholars, one for boys and one for girls, to be known as, and called the Kamehameha Schools.
1808 Horatius Bonar, Scottish clergyman and poet. He wrote several missionary biographies and over 600 hymns. Author of The Everlasting Righteousness, Follow the Lamb, God's Way of Holiness, God's Way of Peace: A Book for the Anxious, The Rent Veil 1790 Sir William Edward Parry, British arctic explorer and rear admiral. In 1818 he accompanied Sir John Ross on an expedition to find the Nortwest Passage, and later he led other attempts (1819-1820, 1821-1823, 1824-1825). The Parry Islands bear his name. Parry died in 1855. 1793 Lorenzo Quaglio, German artist who died on 15 March 1869. 1783 Brianchon, mathematician. 1777 Pierre-Antoine-Auguste Vafflard, Parisian painter who died in 1837. — more 1683 Felipe V, first Bourbon king of Spain (1700-46) 1036 Su Tung-p'o, China, poet/essayist/painter/official |