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Events, deaths, births, of FEB 01
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On a February 01:
2001 Paris is nearly paralyzed by a 24-hour strike of transport workers, who are demanding the creation of more jobs, better working conditions, and higher salaries.
2001 Three Scottish judges find Abdel Basset al-Mergrahi guilty of the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103, which killed 270 persons. The court said that Megrahi was a member of the Libyan intelligence service. Al-Amin Khalifa, who had been co-accused, is acquitted and freed.
2001 Yeltsin's 70th birthday, spent in the hospital, which he entered two days earlier with “an acute viral infection.”.
2000 Yeltsin's sad 69th birthday
^ 1999 Clinton impeachment trial: conflicting testimony.

(1) Under heavy security, former White House intern Monica Lewinsky answers questions from House prosecutors, as they work to elicit new information that might bolster their impeachment case against President Bill Clinton. Some of the points on which the testimony of presidential confidant Vernon Jordan conflicts with Monica Lewinsky's:
She says she thought Jordan instructed her to destroy drafts of notes she'd written to the president. He denies ever telling her to destroy documents.
While she doesn't directly contradict Jordan's account, she says she told him she had had sexually explicit phone conversations with Clinton. Jordan says he had no reason to doubt her denial of having had a sexual relationship with Clinton. Through his lawyer, Jordan says he does not recall any reference to sexually explicit phone calls.
Lewinsky says she told Jordan she was concerned about certain language in her affidavit because it could lead to Mrs. Jones' lawyers asking her if she'd ever been alone with the president. The language was deleted from the affidavit she filed. Jordan says he remembered skimming Ms. Lewinsky's affidavit in the Paula Jones sexual harassment case against the president but not discussing it with the former White House intern.
Lewinsky says she showed Jordan some gifts she'd received from the president. Jordan denies ever having seen any.
  • Rep. Ed Bryant (R-Tennessee) questions Lewinsky on behalf of the House team, though another House manager, Rep. James Rogan (R-California), also attends. Sens. DeWine and Patrick Leahy (D-Vermont) are the senators present at the deposition.
    • One report states that at several points during the questioning Lewinsky responds to hand signals from her attorneys by clamming up. It is also reported that winks and nods are exchanged during the Republicans' questioning between attorneys for Lewinsky and Clinton.
    • It is later reported that Lewinsky tells prosecutors and White House lawyers during her videotaped deposition that she still has "mixed feelings" about President Clinton
  • When House prosecutors finish, Nicole Seligman, one of the president's private lawyers, reads a statement apologizing for what Lewinsky had gone through, but asks no questions, according to sources. Cheryl Mills, a deputy White House counsel, and David Kendall, the lead private attorney for the president, are also present.
    • Sen. Larry Craig will later describe Clinton's apology as "a pretty weak apology ... almost an afterthought," noting that it was verbal, not written and not personal. After it is delivered, Lewinsky "frowned, looked down, surprised and tired," he says.
  • Under the Senate's road map for the next phase of Clinton's trial, House prosecutors and Clinton's lawyers could have questioned Lewinsky for up to eight hours — four hours for each side. But the meeting between Lewinsky and the lawyers ends after only about six hours, with participants saying almost nothing as they emerge from the Mayflower Hotel.
  • Staffers videotape Lewinsky's answers for viewing by other senators, beginning at 8 a.m. EST Feb. 2.
  • Lewinsky remains sequestered at the hotel.
    (LEWINSKY SENATE DEPOSITION TRANSCRIPT)
(2) Renewing its charge that Independent Counsel Ken Starr's office has illegally leaked information about President Bill Clinton, the White House announces that it will file legal papers seeking to have Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr and members of his staff held in contempt for violating grand jury secrecy rules.
  • The action comes one day after a New York Times story reported Starr was considering seeking a grand jury indictment of Clinton. The Times story, quoting Starr associates, said that Starr had concluded that he had the constitutional authority to indict the president while he is still in office.
  • In a brief statement read to reporters in front of the White House, presidential attorney David Kendall accuses Starr's office of "illegal and partisan leaking." "We're filing today in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia, a motion to show cause why ... Starr and members of his staff should not be held in contempt for improper violations of grand jury secrecy," says Kendall, who declines to answer reporters' questions. Kendall says the motion would be filed with US District Judge Norma Holloway Johnson. She currently is in the midst of an investigation, trying to determine whether Starr's office fed grand jury information to reporters. The White House asks Holloway to add the New York Times story to her probe.
  • For his part, Starr promises an investigation into the allegations that someone associated with his office leaked secret grand jury information to the Times. In a statement, Starr says, "We are deeply troubled by yesterday's New York Times report. This office has no desire to inject itself into the constitutional process underway in the Senate. We are launching an internal investigation to determine whether anyone in this office improperly disclosed information to the Times. The announcement of this investigation should not be taken as confirmation of anything in the article."
  • Starr spokesman Charles Bakaly denies that Starr's office is the source of the story. "We have no interest in interposing ourselves in the Senate's business," Bakaly says on ABC's "Good Morning America."
from http://members.tripod.com/~jkahn/1999february.html
1999 International regulations no longer require ships at sea to be equipped to call for help in an emergency using Morse code and the SOS signal. The Global Maritime Distress and Safety System (GMDSS), using satellite and other high-tech communication techniques, replaces the system which since the early part of the century has saved countless ships and thousands of lives. http://mirror-us.unesco.org/courier/1999_08/uk/connex/txt1.htm
^ 1996 Communications Decency Act passed by US Congress
     Both houses of the US Congress vote overwhelmingly to rewrite the 61-year-old Telecommunications Act, freeing the television, telephone and home computer industries to enter each other's fields.
      Included is the Communications Decency Act, which places restrictions on the transmission of indecent material over the Internet. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) would challenge the act, along with several state laws that also attempt to regulate Internet communications. In the summer of 1997, the Supreme Court would rule that the act placed unconstitutional limits on the freedom of speech and defined the Internet as a medium enjoying protections similar to print publications.
1996 Apple Computer names Gilbert F. Amelio, former head of National Semiconductor Incorporated and member of Apple's board of directors, chief executive officer. Amelio lasted less than two years later Amelio would be replaced by interim CEO Steve Jobs, cofounder of the company, who himself had been ousted in 1985.
1996 Visa and MasterCard announce an agreement on technical specifications for the transmission of credit-card information over the Internet. Previously, Visa had worked with Microsoft, and MasterCard had worked with Netscape, with each partnership developing its own payment standards.
1994 It is discovered that 2^859'433 – 1 is a Mersenne prime (the 33rd) (Mersenne prime numbers are primes of the form 2^n – 1, which requires n to be prime; and it is equivalent to [2^(n–1)]×(2^n – 1) being equal to the sum of its factors other than itself, i.e. a “perfect number”). . They can all be found (with their date of discovery) at http://www.isthe.com/chongo/tech/math/prime/mersenne.html.
1994 Large meteorite falls near Kusaie, Pacific Ocean.
1994.,. Jeff Gillooly, Tonya Harding's ex-husband, pleaded guilty in Portland, Oregon, to taking part in the attack on figure skater Nancy Kerrigan. Gillooly struck a plea bargain under which he confessed to racketeering charges in exchange for testimony implicating Harding.
1991 South African President F.W. de Klerk says that he will repeal all apartheid laws
1985 -69ºF (-56ºC), Peter's Sink UT (state record)
1985 -61ºF (-52ºC), Maybell CO (state record)
1984 Ravindara Mhatrem, Indian diplomat, is kidnapped in England. He would be killed on 03 February 1984.
1984 China and Netherlands re-establish diplomatic relations.
1982 Senegal and Gambia form loose confederation (Senegambia).
1982 Las provincias de Asturias y Santander se convierten en Comunidades Autónomas uniprovinciales de Asturias y Cantabria.
1981 French government sends 60 Mirage fighter jets to Iraq.
^ 1979 Ayatollah Khomeini returns to Iran in triumph after 15 years of exile.
      The shah and his family had fled the country two weeks before, and jubilant Iranian revolutionaries were eager to establish a fundamentalist Islamic government under Khomeini's leadership.
      Born around the turn of the century, Ruhollah Khomeini was the son of an Islamic religious scholar and in his youth memorized the Qur'an. He was a Shiite — the branch of Islam practiced by a majority of Iranians — and soon devoted himself to the formal study of Shia Islam in the city of Qom. A devout cleric, he rose steadily in the informal Shiite hierarchy and attracted many disciples.
      In 1941, British and Soviet troops occupied Iran and installed Mohammad Reza Pahlavi as the second modern shah of Iran. The new shah had close ties with the West, and in 1953 British and US intelligence agents helped him overthrow a popular political rival. Mohammad Reza embraced many Western ideas and in 1963 launched his "White Revolution," a broad government program that called for the reduction of religious estates in the name of land redistribution, equal rights for women, and other modern reforms.
      Khomeini, now known by the high Shiite title "ayatollah," was the first religious leader to openly condemn the shah's program of westernization. In fiery dispatches from his Faziye Seminary in Qom, Khomeini called for the overthrow of the shah and the establishment of an Islamic state. In 1963, Mohammad Reza imprisoned him, which led to riots, and on 04 November 1964, expelled him from Iran.
      Khomeini settled in An Najaf, a Shiite holy city across the border in Iraq, and sent home recordings of his sermons that continued to incite his student followers. Breaking precedence with the Shiite tradition that discouraged clerical participation in government, he called for Shiite leaders to govern Iran.
      In the 1970s, Mohammad Reza further enraged Islamic fundamentalists in Iran by holding an extravagant celebration of the 2500th anniversary of the pre-Islamic Persian monarchy and replaced the Islamic calendar with a Persian calendar. As discontent grew, the shah became more repressive, and support for Khomeini grew. In 1978, massive anti-shah demonstrations broke out in Iran's major cities. Dissatisfied members of the lower and middle classes joined the radical students, and Khomeini called for the shah's immediate overthrow. In December, the army mutinied, and on 16 January 1979, the shah fled.
      Khomeini arrives in Tehran in triumph on 01 February 1979, and is acclaimed as the leader of the Iranian Revolution. With religious fervor running high, he consolidated his authority and set out to transform Iran into a religious state. On 04 November 1979, the 15th anniversary of his exile, students would storm the US embassy in Tehran and take the staff hostage. With Khomeini's approval, the radicals demanded the return of the shah to Iran and held 52 Americans hostage for 444 days. The shah died in Egypt of cancer in July 1980.
      In December 1979, a new Iranian constitution was approved, naming Khomeini as Iran's political and religious leader for life. Under his rule, Iranian women were denied equal rights and required to wear a veil, Western culture was banned, and traditional Islamic law and its often-brutal punishments were reinstated. In suppressing opposition, Khomeini proved as ruthless as the shah, and thousands of political dissidents were executed during his decade of rule.
      In 1980, Iraq invaded Iran's oil-producing province of Khuzestan. After initial advances, the Iraqi offense was repulsed. In 1982, Iraq voluntarily withdrew and sought a peace agreement, but Khomeini renewed fighting. Stalemates and the deaths of thousands of young Iranian conscripts in Iraq followed. In 1988, Khomeini finally agreed to a U.N.-brokered cease-fire.
      After the Ayatollah Khomeini died on 03 June 1989, more than two million anguished mourners attended his funeral. Gradual democratization began in Iran in early the 1990s, culminating in a free election in 1997 in which the moderate reformist Mohammed Khatami was elected president.
1979.,. Newspaper heiress Patty Hearst, whose prison sentence for bank robbery had been commuted by President Carter, left a federal prison near San Francisco, after serving 22 months of a seven-year sentence for bank robbery.
^ 1969 DeLorean heads Chevrolet.
      John DeLorean is named the top executive at Chevrolet. DeLorean had risen precipitously through the ranks at Pontiac, where he pioneered the successful GTO and Grand Prix models. As the general manager of Chevrolet, DeLorean sold a record three million cars and trucks in 1973.
      Though a top candidate for the presidency of General Motors (GM), DeLorean would leave Chevrolet in late 1973 to start his own company. He brashly predicted he would "show GM how to make cars." DeLorean raised nearly $200 million to finance his new venture, the DeLorean Motor Company. He built a factory in Northern Ireland and began production on the sleek, futuristic DMC-12 car. Interest in the car was high, but the company ran into serious financial trouble. Refusing to abandon his project, DeLorean involved himself in racketeering and drug trafficking in a desperate attempt to make the money that would save his company. In 1982, after being caught on film trying to broker a $24 million cocaine deal, DeLorean was arrested on charges of drug trafficking and money laundering. A federal jury later ruled that DeLorean had been the victim of entrapment, and he was acquitted of all charges. Nevertheless, DeLorean's career and reputation were ruined.
1968 Former Vice-President Richard Nixon announces candidacy for President
1965 While protesting against voter discrimination, Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. and some 700 others are arrested in Selma, Alabama.
^ 1964 North Vietnamese coast under commando attack.
      US and South Vietnamese naval forces initiate Operation Plan (Oplan) 34A, which calls for raids by South Vietnamese commandos, operating under US orders, against North Vietnamese coastal and island installations. Although US forces were not directly involved in the actual raids, US Navy ships were on station to conduct electronic surveillance and monitor North Vietnamese defense responses under another program called Operation De Soto. The Oplan 34A attacks played a major role in events that led to what became known as the Gulf of Tonkin Incident. On 02 August 1964, North Vietnamese patrol boats, responding to an Oplan 34A attack by South Vietnamese gunboats against the North Vietnamese island of Hon Me, attacked the destroyer USS Maddox which was conducting a De Soto mission in the area. Two days after the first attack, there was another incident that still remains unclear. The Maddox, joined by destroyer USS C. Turner Joy, engaged what were thought at the time to be more attacking North Vietnamese patrol boats. Although it was questionable whether the second attack actually happened, the incident provided the rationale for retaliatory air attacks against the North Vietnamese and the subsequent Tonkin Gulf Resolution, which became the basis for the initial escalation of the war in Vietnam, and ultimately the insertion of US combat troops into the area.
1963 Nyasaland (now Malawi) becomes self-governing under Hastings Banda.
1961 Los EE.UU. lanzan el " Minuteman", primer misil intercontinental con carburante sólido.
1960 Extreme right-wing colonialist rebels in Algiers, opposed to independence, surrender to French authorities.
1960 Four Black college students began a sit-in protest at a lunch counter in Greensboro, N.C., where they had been refused service.
1959 Swiss males vote against voting rights for women.
1958 Egypt and Syria announce plans to merge into United Arab Republic. — Se funda en El Cairo la República Arabe Unida, posteriormente disuelta.
1955 H. C. Hansen is appointed premier of Denmark.
1954 Appel de l'Abbé Pierre sur RTL en faveur des sans-logis. Pour faire face à l'hiver exceptionnellement froid de 1954, l'abbé Pierre lance un appel aux bonnes volontés afin de secourir des sans-logis toujours plus nombreux. Son appel est un succès. De toute la France, affluent argent, couvertures, hébergement… D'autres invitations pathétiques à la générosité seront lancées durant cette "insurrection de la bonté". Connaissant le milieu politique, pour avoir été député MRP jusqu'en 1951, l'abbé Pierre interpelle et harcèle le gouvernement. Il le fera sans relâche… Dès 1949, l'abbé Pierre créé l'association Emmaüs pour lutter contre la pauvreté. Au fil des années, plus de 200 groupes sont créés en France. L'association des chiffonniers bâtisseurs d'Emmaüs a pour vocation la récupération, la remise en état et la transformation d'objets voués aux ordures. Ouverte aux plus démunis, la communauté lance cette invitation : "Toi qui souffres, qui que tu sois, entre, dors, mange, reprend espoir, ici on t'aime… viens m'aider à aider les autres". En 2 ans, les chiffonniers bâtisseurs construisent 110 maisons pour 110 familles. Dans son film "Hiver 54 - L'abbé Pierre", le réalisateur Denis Amar fait revivre l'histoire de cette émouvante aventure humaine. En 1991, l'abbé Pierre est lauréat du prix Humanité, paix et fraternité entre les peuples. Concernant son action, l'abbé Pierre apporte ce commentaire: "Ce n'est pas une question de charité, c'est une question de justice".
1952 General strike against French colonial management in Tunisia
^ 1951 U.N. condemns Communist China's aggression in Korea
      By a vote of 44 to 7, the United Nations General Assembly passes a resolution condemning the communist government of the People's Republic of China for acts of aggression in Korea. It was the first time since the United Nations formed in 1945 that it had condemned a nation as an aggressor. In June 1950, communist forces from North Korea invaded South Korea in an attempt to unify the nation, which had been divided in 1945 when Soviet troops occupied the northern portion of the country and US troops the southern in order to accept the surrender of Japanese forces in Korea. In late 1950, hundreds of thousands of Chinese troops crossed into North Korea to do battle with US forces, which had earlier driven the invading North Korean forces out of South Korea. By 1951, the United States was deeply involved in Korea, having committed thousands of troops and millions of dollars in aid to South Korea.
      The General Assembly vote followed unsuccessful attempts by the US delegation to the United Nations to have the Security Council take action against the Chinese. Exercising his nation's veto power, the Soviet representative on the Security Council consistently blocked the US effort. (The United States, France, Great Britain, the Soviet Union, and Nationalist China had absolute veto power of any Security Council proposal.) Turning to the General Assembly, the US delegation called for the United Nations to condemn communist China as an aggressor in Korea. The final vote fell largely along ideological lines, with the communist bloc nations of the Soviet Union, Byelorussia, Ukraine, Poland, and Czechoslovakia, joined by neutralists Burma and India, voting against the resolution.
      Despite the votes against it, the resolution passed, declaring that China was "engaged in aggression in Korea," and asked that it "cause its forces and nationals in Korea to cease hostilities against the United Nations forces and to withdraw from Korea." The action was largely symbolic, because many nations-including some that voted for the resolution-were reluctant to take more forceful action against the People's Republic of China for fear that the conflict in Korea would escalate. While economic and political sanctions could have been brought against China, the United Nations decided to take no further action. The Korean War dragged on for two more bloody years, finally ending in a stalemate and cease-fire in 1953. By that time, over 50,000 US troops had died in the conflict.
1951 Alfred Krupp and 28 other German war criminals freed
1951 -50ºF (-46ºC), Gavilan NM (state record)
1950 USSR demands condemnation of Emperor Hirohito for war crimes
1950 Urko Kekkonen is elected president of Finland.
1949 RCA releases first single record ever (45 rpm)
1949 The modern state of Israel formally annexed West Jerusalem.
1948 Federation Malaysia forms from 9 sultanates
1947 Alcide de Gasperi forms Italian government of Christian-Democrats, Communists, and Socialists.
1946 Republic of Hungary proclaimed, Zoltan Tildy as Communist president.
1946 Trygve Lie, a Norwegian socialist, becomes first Secretary-General of UN.
1945 US Army arrives at Siegfried Line.
1945 the Soviet-imposed communist Provisional Polish Government moves to Warsaw.
1944 Supreme Soviet enlarges soviet republics' autonomy.
1943 Mussert forms pro Nazi shadow cabinet (Netherlands)
1943 German occupiers make Vidkun Quisling Norwegian puppet premier
1943 The 442d Regimental Combat Team is authorized. Made up almost entirely of Japanese-Americans, it would become one of the US's most highly decorated military units of World War II.
^ 1943 Japanese begin evacuation of Guadalcanal
      Japanese forces on Guadalcanal Island, defeated by Marines, start to withdraw after the Japanese emperor finally gives them permission. On 06 July 1942, the Japanese landed on Guadalcanal Island, part of the Solomon Islands chain, and began constructing an airfield. In response, the US launched Operation Watchtower, in which US troops landed on five islands within the Solomon chain, including Guadalcanal. The landings on Florida, Tulagi, Gavutu, and Tananbogo met with much initial opposition from the Japanese defenders, despite the fact that the landings took the Japanese by surprise because bad weather had grounded their scouting aircraft. "I have never heard or read of this kind of fighting," wrote one US major general on the scene. "These people refuse to surrender."
      The US troops who landed on Guadalcanal had an easier time of it, at least initially. More than 11'000 Marines landed, but 24 hours passed before the Japanese manning the garrison knew what had happened. The US forces quickly met their main objective of taking the airfield, and the outnumbered Japanese troops temporarily retreated. Japanese reinforcements were landed, though, and fierce hand-to-hand jungle fighting ensued. The US troops were at a particular disadvantage because they were assaulted from both sea and air, but when the US Navy supplied reinforcement troops, the US gained the advantage. By February 1943, the Japanese retreated on secret orders of their emperor. In fact, the Japanese retreat was so stealthy that the US forces did not even know it had taken place until they stumbled upon abandoned positions, empty boats, and discarded supplies. In total, the Japanese lost more than 25'000 men compared with a loss of 1600 by the US. Each side lost 24 warships.
1942 2nd Norwegian government of Nazi puppet Quisling forms
1934 Austrian Chancellor Dollfuss dissolves all political parties but his own
1933 German Parliament dissolves, General Ludendorf predicts catastrophe.
1932 Aisin Gioro Pu Yi [07 febrero 1906 – 17 octubre 1967], ex-emperador de China, ahora títere de los imperialistas japoneses, proclama el estado “independiente” de Manchukuo.
1926 Kirghiz Autonomous Region in RSFSR becomes Kirghiz ASSR
1924 New British MacDonald government recognizes USSR
1923 Fascists Voluntary Militia forms in Italy under Mussolini
1923 Allied ultimatum on Lithuanian occupation of Memel.
1923 Regresan a España, tras 18 meses de negociaciones, los presos españoles en poder de Abd-el-Krim.
1921 Carmen Fasanella, 17, of Princeton, New Jersey, obtains his takicab driver's license. Mr. Fasanella would go on to drive his taxi for the next 68 years and 243 days, setting an unofficial record for the longest continuous career for a cabbie. The term "cab" comes from "cabriolet," a single-horse carriage.
1917 Admiral Tirpitz announces unlimited submarine war
1910 Dragoumis government forms in Greece
1906 first federal penitentiary building completed, Leavenworth KS
1905 Hungarian premier Tisza resigns.
1905 El zar Nicolás II recibe a los representantes de los obreros de San Petersburgo.
1904 The first international distress code, the "CQD" call (which preceded the "SOS" distress signal, adopted in 1908), goes into effect. It does not mean “Come Quick... Danger!” but is a code. CQ designates a call to all stations, in telegraph usage. D signals an urgent message.
1902 China's empress Tzu-hsi forbids binding woman's feet. — Se adoptan medidas liberalizadoras y europeizantes en China.
1898 First auto insurance policy in US issued, by The Travelers Insurance Company, to Dr. Truman J. Martin of Buffalo, NY, who paid $11.25 for $5000 to $10'000 of liability coverage. In 1925, Massachusetts would become the first US state to mandate automobile insurance, "requiring owners of certain motor vehicles and trailers to furnish security for their civil liabilities."
1893.,. Inventor Thomas A. Edison completed work on the world's first motion picture studio, his "Black Maria," in West Orange, N.J.
1887 Harvey Wilcox of Kansas subdivides 120 acres he owned in Southern California and starts selling it off as a real estate development (Hollywood)
^ 1885 President of Mormon Church goes underground
      John Taylor, the president of the Mormon Church, goes "underground" to avoid arrest and continue resisting federal demands for reforms within the community of Latter-day Saints. A former Methodist minister, Taylor converted to Mormonism in 1836, not long after Joseph Smith founded the religion in New York. Taylor quickly became one of Smith's closest confidants and supporters, and he remained loyal to the controversial prophet and his church through years of persecution. When Smith was assassinated in Illinois in 1844 by an angry mob, Taylor was by his side and suffered several wounds during the attack. He escaped serious injury because a heavy pocket watch stopped a potentially fatal bullet. After Smith's death, Taylor became an equally loyal follower of the new church president, Brigham Young. Taylor led one group of Mormon emigrants westward to Salt Lake City where Young was building a thriving theocratic empire. In Utah, he continued to ascend in the church hierarchy, and when Young died in 1877, Taylor took over leadership of the church. Taylor's tenure as the leader of the Latter-day Saints was marked by growing tensions between the church and the federal government. The Mormon practice of polygamy became a lightning rod for federal criticism, yet this issue reflected a larger struggle regarding the church's power over its members and the future state of Utah.
      Although the Mormons treasured the freedom to develop their new society free from outside interference, they also sought the benefits of being a part of the United States. Inevitably, these two goals conflicted. In 1851, the Mormons won territorial status for Utah, but the government remained suspicious of Taylor's theocratic society. To the federal government, the Mormon political and economic domination of the region violated the separation of church and state. By attacking polygamy, federal authorities hoped they could also undermine the secular power of the church. Taylor strongly opposed the federal attempts to undermine the Mormon theocracy. He believed the practice of polygamy was divinely ordained and state or federal anti-polygamy laws should not be allowed to prevail. Determined to assert the primacy of national secular law over the Mormon theocracy, US marshals began arresting Mormons for practicing polygamy. Vulnerable to arrest themselves, Taylor and his leading administrators went underground on 01 February 1885. For the next two-and-a-half years, Taylor conducted church business from a series of secret hideouts in Salt Lake City. Taylor's underground administration managed to avoid arrest, but the federal actions were steadily undermining church power and influence. Grudgingly, in 1887, Taylor assented to one concession: making polygamy illegal in a proposed Utah state constitution. Congress found Taylor's proposed compromise inadequate and rejected the petition for statehood. Taylor died that same year, still an exile in his own home. For several more years, the Mormon leadership continued the fight, but federal pressure eventually became so great that in 1890 Taylor's successor publicly rejected polygamy. The theocratic government of the Latter-day Saints had been tamed, and Utah achieved statehood in 1896.
1883 French Lieutenant-Colonel Gustave Borgnis-Desbordes reaches Bamako on the Niger.
1867 Bricklayers start working 8-hour days in the US.
1865 General Sherman's march through South Carolina begins
1865 13th amendment to the US Constitution is approved (National Freedom Day)
1864 Battle of Yazoo River, Mississippi
1864 2nd German-Danish war begins
1864 Austrian/Prussian troops occupy Schleswig-Holstein.
^ 1861 Texas secedes
      Texas becomes the seventh state to secede from the Union when a state convention, called by the legislature, which had met in unconstitutional assembly, passes an Ordinance of Secession 166 to 8 (7?). This would be submitted to a popular vote and be ratified by a large majority.
      The Texans who voted to leave the Union did so over the objections of their governor, Sam Houston. The hero of the Texas War for Independence was in his third term as the state's chief executive; a staunch Unionist, his election seemed to indicate that Texas did not share the rising secessionist sentiments of the other southern states.
      But events in the year following Houston's election swayed many Texans to the secessionist cause. John Brown's raid on Harper's Ferry, Virginia, in October 1859 raised the specter of a massive slave insurrection, and the ascendant Republican Party made many Texans uneasy about continuing in the Union. After Abraham Lincoln's election to the presidency, pressure mounted on Houston to call a convention so that Texas could consider secession. He did so reluctantly in January, and he sits in silence on 01 February as the convention votes overwhelmingly in favor of secession. Houston grumbled that Texans were "stilling the voice of reason," and he predicted an "ignoble defeat" for the South.
[A Declaration of the Causes which Impel the State of Texas to Secede from the Federal Union, 02 Feb 1861]
      Texas' move completed the first round of secession. Seven states — South Carolina (24 Dec 1860), Mississippi (09 Jan 1861), Florida (10 Jan 1861), Alabama (11 Jan 1861), Georgia (19 Jan 1861), Louisiana (26 Jan 1861), and Texas — left the Union before Lincoln took office. Four states — Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Arkansas — waited until the formal start of the war with the firing on Ft. Sumter at Charleston, South Carolina, before deciding to leave the Union. The remaining slave states — Delaware, Maryland, Kentucky, and Missouri — never mustered the necessary majority for secession.
     Arkansas, North Carolina, Virginia, and Missouri held conventions in which the Union men were in a majority, and the secession of these States was thus postponed. The later secession of Missouri was the work of persons unauthorized by the Confederacy, and, though recognized by the Confederacy, was not legally valid even according to the theory of secession.
      The Tennessee and Kentucky legislatures, being strongly Unionist, refused to call conventions.
      Gov. Thomas H. Hicks, of Maryland, refused to convene the legislature of his State on the subject.
      The legislature of Delaware, when urged by a comissioner from Mississippi to pass an Ordinance of Secession, gave the proposition an "unqualified disapproval."
     Texas will be the last state to be readmitted, 30 March 1870.
1810 Seville, Spain, surrenders to the French.
1810 US Population: 7'239'881; Black population: 1'377'808 (19%)
^ 1809 New England demands end of Embargo Act.
      In the winter of 1807, the US was thrust into the middle of the Napoleonic wars, as the British and French hassled American merchant ships in hopes of gaining a strategic edge in their ongoing battles. However, in an attempt to keep the nation out of another bloody and costly conflict, President Thomas Jefferson quickly pushed the Embargo Act through the legislative chain. But, the legislation, which effectively sealed US ports, backfired: intended as a nonviolent, fiscal response to the British and French attacks, the act instead served to aid foreign merchants at the expense of American interests.
      Mercantilists in New England and New York suffered mightily and, in some instances, resorted to smuggling and other tactics to elude the Embargo Act. In January of 1809, the Federal government passed the Enforcement Act, which called for severe penalties against illegal trading. Infuriated by the latest round of legislation, anti-embargo forces mounted a strong drive to nullify the acts. On February 1, Massachusetts Senator Thomas Pickering convenes an assembly in New England that demanded the demise of the Embargo Act. An ardent Federalist, as well as a strong British ally and staunch opponent of Jefferson's policies, Pickering helped force the president's hand. With but a few days remaining in his second term, Jefferson signed the Non-Intercourse Act on March 1, 1809; the legislation reopened US ports, save for trading with the British and French.
1809 Dutch King Louis Napoleon accepts metric system.
1793 France declares war on England and Netherlands
^ 1790 First session of the US Supreme Court
      In the Royal Exchange Building on New York City's Broad Street, the Supreme Court of the United States meets for the first time, with Chief Justice John Jay of New York presiding. The US Supreme Court was established by Article Three of the US Constitution, which took effect in March 1789. The Constitution granted the Supreme Court ultimate jurisdiction over all laws, especially those in which constitutionality was at issue. The court was also designated to rule on cases concerning treaties of the United States, foreign diplomats, admiralty practice, and maritime jurisdiction. In September 1789, the Judiciary Act was passed, implementing Article Three by providing for six justices who would serve on the court for life. The same day, President George Washington appointed John Jay to preside as chief justice, and John Rutledge of South Carolina, William Cushing of Massachusetts, John Blair of Virginia, Robert Harrison of Maryland, and James Wilson of Pennsylvania to serve as associate justices. Two days later, all six appointments were confirmed by the US Senate. The Supreme Court later grew into arguably the most powerful judicial body in the world in terms of its central place in the US political order. In times of constitutional crisis, for better or worse, it always played a definitive role in resolving the great issues of the time.
1789 Chinese troops driven out of Vietnam capital Thang Long.
1788 first US steamboat patent issued, by Georgia to Briggs and Longstreet
1742 Sardinia and Austria sign alliance.
1732 Parliament of Ratisborn accept Pragmatic Sanction, the 17130419 decree promulgated by the Holy Roman emperor Charles VI with the intent that all his Habsburg kingdoms and lands descend as an integral whole without partition. It stipulated that his undivided heritage go to his eldest son, should he have one, or, failing a son, to his eldest daughter and then, if she should die without issue, to his deceased brother Joseph I's daughters and their descendants.  
1720 Sweden and Prussia sign peace treaty. — Se firma la Paz de Estocolmo entre Suecia y Noruega, con la que se pone fin a la Segunda o Gran Guerra del Norte.
1709 Alexander Selkirk [fictionalized as Robinson Crusoe] rescued from Juan Fernandez island.
1669 French King Louis XIV limits freedom of religion
Dutch garrison on Formosa surrenders to Chinese pirates
^ 1662 Les Hollandais vaincus à Formose par un pirate.
      Le pirate chinois Koxinga s'empare de la citadelle hollandaise Zeelandia, au sud de Taiwan, après neuf mois de siège. L'île s'appelle alors Formose (du portugais "formosa", la belle). Les Hollandais s'y sont établis 40 ans plus tôt en profitant des difficultés de la Chine, gouvernée par une dynastie déclinante, les Ming. A l'époque de la Renaissance européenne et de la découverte du Nouveau Monde, les Chinois navigaient dans l'Océan indien et jusqu'aux rives de l'Arabie, en utilisant la boussole et de magnifiques jonques équipées de gréements de haute mer. Dans la mer de Chine, l'activité commerciale attisait le piratage en provenance du Japon. Au début du XVIIe siècle, les empereurs Ming renoncent aux expéditions maritimes, se replient sur le continent et suppriment même leur police des côtes. C'est l'heure de gloire pour un pirate chinois connu sous le nom de Nicholas Iquan. Il pille allègrement les villes du littoral à partir de 1625. L'empereur Chongzhen le ramène à la raison en le nommant... amiral de la flotte impériale.
      Mais en 1644, l'empereur se suicide et sa dynastie est éliminée au profit des Mandchous. Ceux-ci règneront jusqu'à la fondation de la République chinoise. Le pirate Iquan entre en guerre contre les nouveaux-venus. Il meurt assassiné en laissant un fils qu'il a eu d'une Japonaise. Ce n'est autre que Koxinga ("Tcheng Tch'eng-kong" de son nom chinois). Comme son père et beaucoup de riches Chinois du Sud, Koxinga combat les empereurs mandchous et la bureaucratie de Pékin. Il fait partie d'une association secrète, la Triade, fidèle à l'ancienne dynastie. Il tente d'enlever aux Mandchous la capitale de la Chine du Sud, Nankin. Il échoue et c'est alors qu'il se replie sur Formose avec 900 navires et 30'000 hommes. Il se proclame roi de l'île après en avoir chassé les Hollandais. Mais il meurt la même année, à 39 ans, et les Mandchous en reprendront le contrôle vingt ans plus tard. Koxinga est devenu un héros national à Taiwan car il symbolise la volonté d'indépendance de l'île. Dans son sillage, des millions de Chinois en quête de subsistance quitteront comme lui la Chine continentale. Disséminées dans le monde entier, leurs communautés actives et prospères forment aujourd'hui une véritable Chine de l'extérieur.
1587 English queen Elizabeth I signs Mary Stuart's death sentence.
1539 Holy Roman Emperor Charles V and King François I sign anti-English treaty.
0772 Adrian I begins his reign as Pope.
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^ Deaths which occurred on a February 01:
Carlie is abductedCarlie Brucia
2004 Carlie Brucia, 11 [photo >], murdered after being abducted at 18:21 (23:21 UT), which the surveillance camera behind Evie's Car Wash in Sarasota, Florida, records [< image]. She was walking the couple of kilometers to her home from the home of a school friend. Police would be tipped off that the abductor is unemployed mechanic Joseph P. Smith, 37, after he is arrested on 03 February 2004 for an unrelated parole violation. Carrie's corpse is found on 06 February 2004 not far from where she was abducted. Smith had been arrested at least 13 times in Florida since 1993, and convicted of drug possession and other charges. He was arrested in 1997 in Manatee County on kidnapping and false imprisonment charges, but was acquitted a year later.

2004 Rodolfo Baudelo Salazar, 19, as his car is hit by that of Laura Embry, 36, into whose path he swerves as they were racing north on Saul Kleinfeld Street in El Paso, Texas, in the evening. Embry suffers serious leg injuries.
2004 Shadi Jaradat (or Milkham), 25, of Al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades, in Jericho, West Bank, early in the day, by Israeli troops who fire into the house where he is and finally bulldoze it, crushing him. The Israeli's main target was Muhammad Jilayta, who, together with an other militant, is wounded and arrested.
2004:: 244 hadjis, in stampede in Muzdalifah, just outside Mecca, Saudi Arabia, during the ritual, considered un-Islamic by mullahs, of shouting insults and throwing shoes and pebbles at pillars representing the devil. After a sleepless night of prayer, each hadji throws seven pebbles, chanting "bismillah" ("In the name of God") and "Allahu Akbar" ("God is Great"). Of the hundreds injured, 7 would die the next day.
2004 One US soldier, in Humvee which overturns near Haditha, Iraq. Two other US soldiers in the vehicle are injured.
2004 One US soldier, in rocket attack on a support base near Balad, Iraq. 12 US soldiers are wounded.
2004 Shakhawan Abbas, and some 60 others, including a suicide bomber; during a reception for the first day of Eid Al-Adha, at the headquarters of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (of whose leading council Abbas was a member) in Irbil, Iraqi Kurdistan, a few minutes after the suicide bombing at the KDP, 13 km away [next]. Some 100 persons are injured. On 04 February 2004, Jaish Ansar al-Sunna (“Army of the Protectors of the teachings of Muhammad”) would state on an Arabic web site: “Two of our martyrdom-seeking brothers ... broke into two dens of the devils in the city of Irbil" because the two Kurdish parties "paved the way for the American crusader army.”
2004 Irbil Gov. Akram Mintik, Deputy Prime Minister Sami Abdul Rahman, Minister of Council of Ministers Affairs Shawkat Sheik Yazdin, Agriculture Minister Saad Abdullah, all 4 of the Iraqi Kurdistan government; and some 75 other persons, including a suicide bomber; at 11:00 during a reception for the first day of Eid Al-Adha, in a hall on the first floor of the three-story headquarters of the Kurdistan Democratic Party in Irbil. Some 140 persons are injured.
2004 Some 20 Iraqis by explosion, soon after midnight, at a munitions depot in the desert 180 kms southwest of Karbala, Iraq, which they had broken into, in an area assigned to the token Polish contingent of the US-led occupation forces. The extensive storage area, formerly used by Saddam Hussein's army, consists of about 100 bunkers containing munitions such as artillery shells and rockets,
2003 Jeff Trickett, Daniel Arato, Michael Shaw, Scott Broshko, Marissa Staddon, Alex Pattillo, Ben Albert, 10th graders, by a size 3.3 (4 is the maximum) 500-m wide avalanche at 11:50 on the north face of the Mount Cheops in Connaught Creek Valley section of Balu Valley, about 5 km west of the Rogers Pass summit, in Glacier National Park, near Revelstoke, British Colombia, Canada. The dead were part of a group of 3 adult men (2 teacher and a volunteer) and 14 students from the private Strathcona-Tweedsmuir School (located 20 km southwest of Calgary) in an outdoor education class, on their annual cross-country ski trip. One of the surviving students has a broken ankle.
2003 Vissit Erzhnukayev, puppet (of the Russians) police chief of the Oktyabrsky district of Grozny, Chechnia, by a land mine exploding under his car.
2003 David M. Brown, Rick Douglas Husband, Laurel Blair Salton Clark, Kalpana Chawla, Michael P. Anderson, William C. McCool, Ilan Ramon [left to right in photo below], astronauts aboard flight STS~107 of space shuttle Colombia, which suddenly disintegrates in flames at 14:00 UT, at 63'000 m altitude over north-central Texas, traveling at 20'000 km/h as it was on its way to land in Florida at 14:16 UT after 16 days in orbit. The shuttle had started its reentry into the Earth's atmosphere with the firing of its braking rockets at 07:16 (13:16 UT).
[MORE at NASA]
      Colonel Ramon was the first Israeli to fly in space. The other 6 astronauts were from the US. Three had been on previous space flights: Husband (as pilot on flight STS-96, 27 May 99 – 06 June 99), Anderson (on flight STS-89, 22 Jan 98 – 31 Jan 98), and Chawla (on flight STS-87, 19 Nov 97 – 05 Dec 97).
contrails[contrails of pieces of the shuttle as it breaks up >]
     Commander Husband, born on 12 July 1957, was an Air Force colonel. The former test pilot was selected as an astronaut in December 1994 on his fourth try.
      Pilot McCool, born on 23 September 1961, was a Navy commander, and father of three sons. He graduated second in his 1983 class at the Naval Academy, went on to test pilot school and became an astronaut in 1996.
      Payload commander Anderson, born on 25 December 1959, was the son of an Air Force man who grew up on military bases. He was flying for the Air Force when NASA chose him in December 1994 as one of only a handful of Black astronauts. He traveled to Russia's Mir space station in 1998. The lieutenant colonel was in charge of Columbia's dozens of science experiments.
      Chawla, 41, emigrated to the US from India in 1980s. She received a Ph.D. in aerospace engineering in 1988 and was selected as an astronaut in December 1994. On only other spaceflight, in 1996, she made mistakes that sent science satellite tumbling out of control. Other astronauts had to go on spacewalk to capture it.
      Brown, born on 16 April 1956, was a Navy captain, pilot and doctor. He got his M.D. in 1982 and joined the Navy after a medical internship, went on to fly the A-6E Intruder and F-18. He became an astronaut in 1996.
      Clark, 41, was a Navy Commander, a diving medical officer aboard submarines, then flight surgeon. She had received her M.D. in 1987. She was selected as an astronaut in April 1996. She was on board Columbia to help with science experiments. She has an 8-year-old son.
      Ramon, born on 20 June 1954, was a colonel in Israel's air force. His mother and grandmother survived the Auschwitz death camp. His father fought for Israel's statehood alongside grandfather. Ramon fought in the Yom Kippur War in 1973 and the Lebanon War in 1982. He served as a fighter pilot in the 1970s, 1980s and early 1990s, flying F-16s and F-4s. On 17 June 1981 Captain Ramon was the youngest pilot of the eight that bombed the Osirak nuclear reactor in Iraq. He was chosen as Israel's first astronaut in 1997, and moved to Houston in July 1998 to train for shuttle flight. His wife and four children live in Tel Aviv.
     There are survivors: C. elegans worms, a couple of millimeters long, on the shuttle for an experiment, with a life-span of 7 to ten days, not only survive, but reproduce, and their descendants are discovered on 29 April 2003, when their six canisters, recovered from the debris, are opened.
      Reproduction of Moon Landscape, by 14-year-old Holocaust victim Petr Ginz, carried by Ramon, perishes in the Colombia disaster. — MORE
     This was the 28th space flight of the Columbia, which was the first shuttle orbiter, its first launch was on 12 April 1981. The Challenger exploded on its 10th launch on 28 January 1986. The surviving shuttles are Discovery (30 missions so far, first launch on 30 August 1984), Atlantis (26 missions, first launch on 03 October 1985), and Endeavour (19 missions, first launch on 1992).
^
2003:: Some 40 persons as a passenger train collides with a freight train carrying flammable liquid and both burst into flames, at 03:00 near Hwange, Zimbabwe. Hundreds are injured.
2003 John Gregg, 45, and Robert Carson, 33, when gunmen fired on them as their taxi was waiting at a traffic light in the downtown docklands area of Belfast, Northern Ireland. Carson was a subordinate of Gregg, one of five “brigadiers” of the outlawed Ulster Defense Association, the largest and most active “loyalist” paramilitary group, to which he was a hero because he had served a prison sentence for the wounding, in an attempted murder, of Gerry Adams, president of Sinn Fein, the political party of the Irish Republican Army, in 1984. Asked later in the Maze prison if he had any regrets, he answered, “Only that I didn't finish the job.” The killings brought to four the number of dead in the current outbreak, which began in October 2002 when the best known brigadier of the Ulster Defense Association, “Mad Dog” Johnny Adair, 39, was banished from the organization by Gregg and the three other brigadiers. This led to the fatal 26 December 2002 shooting of Adair opponent Jonathan Stewart, 22, and the retaliatory 02 January 2003 murder of Adair supporter Roy Green. In January 2003 Britain's Northern Ireland secretary, Paul Murphy, revoked Adair's parole and ordered him back to prison, citing “a litany of terrorist crimes.” It was the second time Adair had been returned to prison since his original early release from a 16-year sentence on terrorism charges in 1999, under the terms of the Northern Ireland peace agreement. He went back in August 2000, accused of inciting violence, and gained release in May 2002. He is now due to remain imprisoned until 2005, but he has the ability to direct operations of his faction from behind bars. The UDA's feuding has to do with who controls the drug dealing, money laundering, gun-running, extortion schemes, and racketeering that the loyalist groups have turned to since the 1998 Northern Ireland peace agreement put an end to organized sectarian violence. These are people who set themselves up to be protectors of the Protestant people, but in fact, over the last couple of years, they have murdered more Protestants than Catholics. The neighborhoods in the grip of the dispute are Protestant working-class housing projects where the walls are painted with the colors of the British flag, militant slogans and murals featuring gloved fists and masked men firing assault weapons.
2003 Mohammed Alamgir, 38, born in Banglahesh, shot at 20:45 at his Dhaka Market grocery store at 153~52 Hillside Avenue in Jamaica NY, by one of three attackers, who had demanded cash but got none.
2002 Osama Qmeil, murdered it Jenin, West Bank. He was a Palestinian security officer who had killed some collaborators with Israel during the late 1980s and early 1990s intifada. On 05 February 2002 three Palestinians would be convicted of the murder by a Palestinian military court and immediately afterwards be murdered by Palestinian gunmen.
2002 Three Palestinian murderers, murdered by some 15 Palestinian gunmen, shortly after two of the three were sentenced to death and the third to 15 years hard labor by a Palestinian military court for killing on 01 February 2002 Osama Qmeil, a Palestinian security officer who had killed some collaborators with Israel during the late 1980s and early 1990s intifada. The gunmen enter the Jenin, West Bank, Chamber of Commerce, one dressed in a policeman's uniform and the others pretending to be plainclothes officers. The Chamber of Commerce was serving as courthouse, since all the Palestinian security installations in Jenin had been bombed in Israeli air strikes. The gunmen took custody of the prisoners on the pretext they were taking them back to their prison cells. Instead they took the three to a bathroom where they shot them dead before fleeing, At the time, real policemen were fending off hundreds of friends and relatives of Qmeil, who mistakenly believed that no death sentences had been imposed and were trying to storm the courthouse.
1991: 35 people, as a USAir jetliner crashes atop a commuter plane on a runway at Los Angeles International Airport.
1991 Más de 300 muertos, por un terremoto de 6,8 grados en la escala de Ritcher en el norte de Pakistán. También causa unos 500 heridos y destruye numerosas poblaciones.
Vietcong murdered1986 Alva Myrdal, Swedish diplomat, Nobel peace prize winner (1982), born on 31 January 1902.
1976 Werner C. Heisenberg, 74, mathematician, physicist (Nobel 1932, field theory).
1974 Lynda Ann Healy, University of Washington student, disappears from her apartment and is killed by Ted Bundy, a serial killer.
1970 Alfréd Rényi, 48, mathematician (“If I feel unhappy, I do mathematics to become happy. If I am happy, I do mathematics to keep happy.”)
1968 Viet Cong officer, of a pistol shot to the head from Saigon police chief Nguyen Ngoc Loan. [recorded in a famous news photo >].
1966 Elda Furry “Hedda” Hopper, 75, Hollywood gossip columnist, author of The Whole Truth and Nothing But! (1962).
1962 Moisés de la Huerta, escultor español.
1957 Friedrich von Paulus, 66, German field marshal who, on 31 January 1943, surrendered at Stalingrad against Hitler's orders to fight to the death.
1953: 1835 personas tras un diluvio de varios días y fuertes vientos: sube enormemente la marea, que rompe varios diques y provoca las inundaciones más trágicas de la historia de los Países Bajos, causando tambiés1 300'000 damnificados.
1946 René François Xavier Prinet, French artist born on 31 December 1861..
1944 Piet[er Cornelis] Mondrian (or Mondriaan), Dutch Neo-Plasticist painter born on 07 March 1872. — MORE ON MONDRIAN AT ART “4” FEBRUARY with links to images.
^ 1940 Day 64 of Winter War: USSR aggression against Finland.
More deaths due to Stalin's desire to grab Finnish territory.
Preparations for the pending enemy offensive involve an unprecedented number of bombers
      Karelian Isthmus: fighting intensifies on the Isthmus. At 10.50 in the morning the Russian artillery begins shelling the main defensive position of the Finnish 3rd Division in Summa, and later on also shells positions further back.
      Preparations for the pending enemy offensive involve an unprecedented number of bombers.
      Shortly after noon the enemy begins a massive offensive supported by tanks and aircraft. The enemy infantry follow the tanks, either by running or by creeping along behind armored shields drawn by the tanks.
      12 Squadron locates about 100 enemy artillery batteries in the Kuolemanjärvi-Kaukjärvi-Muolaanjärvi-Summa area of the Isthmus.
      Enemy aircraft strafe the area around Pyhäjärvi railway station.
      The Taipale sector is bombed by at first 50, and then 80 aircraft. At the same time another 30 aircraft bomb Haparainen village.
      The enemy also bombs the southern coastal towns of Hamina, Loviisa, Porvoo, Hanko, Karjaa and Tammisaari.
      Southern Ostrobothnia: the 1940 session of Parliament opens in Kauhajoki.
      Abroad: the Board of the Swedish Red Cross urges the International Committee of the Red Cross to investigate attacks on Finnish civilians by the Soviet Air Force and to consider possible countermeasures.
      The Soviet news agency Tass claims Sweden has emptied its prisons to allow convicts to go off to Finland as volunteers.
      In London, prayers are said on behalf of Finland in St Paul's Cathedral. Those present include the Archbishop of Canterbury and all the Nordic ambassadors.
^ Vihollisen hyökkäyksen valmisteluissa on mukana ennen näkemätön määrä pommikoneita Talvisodan 64. päivä, 01.helmikuuta.1940.
       Taistelut kiihtyvät Karjalan kannaksella. Aamulla klo 10.50 venäläinen tykistö alkaa tulittaa Summassa 3.Divisioonan alueella ensin pääpuolustustusasemaa ja myöhemmin myös taempia asemia.
      Vihollisen hyökkäyksen valmisteluissa on mukana ennen näkemätön määrä pommikoneita.
      Puolenpäivän jälkeen alkaa vihollisen massiivinen hyökkäys panssareiden ja lentokoneiden tukemana. Vihollisen jalkaväki seuraa panssareita juosten tai panssarikilpien takana ryömien.
      Lentolaivue 12 paikantaa Kannaksella Kuolemanjärven-Kaukjärven-Muolaanjärven-Summan alueella noin 100 vihollisen tykkipatteria.
      Viholliskoneet tulittavat Pyhäjärven asemanseutua konekiväärein.
      Taipaleen lohkoa pommittaa ensin 50 ja sitten 80 pommikonetta. Samanaikaisesti 30 viholliskonetta pommittaa Haparaisten kylää.
      Vihollinen pommittaa Haminaa, Loviisaa, Porvoota, Hankoa, Karjaata ja Tammisaarta.
      Vuoden 1940 varsinaiset valtiopäivät avataan Kauhajoella.
     Ulkomailta: Ruotsin Punaisen Ristin ylihallitus kehottaa Kansainvälisen Punaisen Ristin komiteaa tutkimaan Neuvostoliiton ilmavoimien väärinkäytökset siviiliväestöä vastaan Suomessa ja harkitsemaan mahdollisia vastatoimenpiteitä.
      Neuvostoliiton tietotoimisto Tass väittää Ruotsin vapauttaneen kaikki rikosvangit, jotta he voisivat lähteä vapaaehtoisiksi Suomeen.
      Lontoossa St.Paulin katedraalissa järjestetään rukoustilaisuus Suomen puolesta. Tilaisuudessa ovat mukana mm. Canterburyn arkkipiispa sekä kaikkien Pohjoismaiden lähettiläät.
^ Flera bombplan än någonsin tidigare deltar i fiendens anfallsförberedelser Vinterkrigets 64 dag, den 01 februari 1940
        Striderna rasar allt häftigare på Karelska näset. På morgonen kl. 10.50 börjar det ryska artilleriet beskjuta huvudförsvarsställningarna och senare också de bakre ställningarna på den 3. Divisionens område i Summa.
      Fler bombplan än någonsin tidigare deltar i fiendens anfallsförberedelser.
      På eftermiddagen inleder fienden en massiv anstormning med stöd av pansrar och flygplan. Infanteriet följer pansrarna springande eller krypande bakom pansarsköldar.
      Flygdivision 12 lokaliserar ungefär 100 ryska artilleribatterier på Näset kring området Kuolemanjärvi-Kaukjärvi-Muolaanjärvi-Summa.
      Fiendens bombplan beskjuter stationsområdet i Pyhäjärvi med maskingevär.
      Taipaleavsnittet bombas först av 50 och senare av 80 ryska plan. Samtidigt bombar 30 plan byn Haparainen.
      Fienden bombar Fredrikshamn, Lovisa, Borgå, Hangö, Karis och Ekenäs.
      Den egentliga riksdagen för år 1940 öppnas i Kauhajoki.
      Utrikes: Överstyrelsen för Sveriges Röda Kors uppmanar Internationella Röda Korsets kommitté att undersöka det sovjetiska luftvärnets missbruk gentemot civilbefolkningen i Finland och att överväga eventuella motåtgärder.
      Sovjetunionens nyhetsbyrå Tass hävdar att Sverige har frigett alla brottsfångar för att dessa ska kunna åka som frivilliga till Finland.
      I St. Paul's Cathedral i London arrangeras en bönestund för Finland där bl.a. ärkebiskopen av Canterbury och alla de nordiska ambassadörerna deltar.
1938 Armando Palacio Valdés, escritor español.
1924 Maurice Brazil Prendergast, Canadian US Impressionist painter born in 1859. — MORE ON PRENDERGAST AT ART “4” FEBRUARY with links to images.
1920 Andrew Carrick Gow, British artist born is 1848. — links to images.
1917 Gustav Schönleber, German artist born on 03 December 1851.
^ 1908 King Carlos I of Portugal and Luís Filipe, his eldest son, assassinated by revolutionaries while riding in an open carriage through the streets of Lisbon
      Carlos ascended to the Portuguese throne in 1889 after the death of his father, King Louis I. Although he possessed considerable administrative talents, the kingdom Carlos inherited was beset with political stagnation and financial troubles, especially in regard to Portugal's rapidly declining colonial empire in Africa. Severe economic recession led to a revolt in 1906, and Carlos responded by empowering João Franco, head of the conservative Regenerative Party, to establish a dictatorial government. Carlos insisted that Franco's dictatorship was necessary to end the corruption and inefficiency that plagued the country's Parliament, but most citizens saw it as a betrayal and the king's court as the nation's main source of corruption. Widespread criticism of Franco's regime led to a revolt in early 1908, in the course of which the king and his eldest son were shot dead in the streets of Lisbon. Carlos' second son, Manoel, succeeded him to the throne, but in October 1910 a republican revolution forced King Manoel II to abdicate and flee to England with the rest of the royal family. In the same year, Teófilo Braga, a well-known writer, was chosen the first president of the newly democratic republic of Portugal.
1905 Oswald Achenbach, German painter born on 02 February 1827. — MORE ON ACHENBACH AT ART “4” FEBRUARY with links to images.
1903 George Stokes, mathematician.
1873 Gertrudis Gómez de Avellaneda, poetisa española.
1851 Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, English author born on 30 August 1797, daughter of the radical feminist Mary Wollstonecraft (who died 10 days after her birth) and the philosopher William Godwin (author of Caleb Williams). In July 1814 she eloped with poet Percy Bysshe Shelley [04 Aug 1792 – 08 Jul 1822]. In Italy she wrote Frankenstein or The Modern Prometheus, finishing it on 17 April 1817. Her father read the book in November of that year and he was highly impressed. Frankenstein was published anonymously on 11 March 1818 and soon became a success. After Shelley's death, Mary stayed for a while in Italy close to Lord Byron, before returning to England in 1823. There she raised their only surviving son Percy Florence and wrote poems (like The Choice: a Poem on Shelley's Death), books and essays. The Last Man (1826) is a frightening account of a new plague eating away mankind. She also wrote Valperga: or the Life and Adventures of Castruccio, Prince of Lucca (1823), The Fortunes Of Perkin Warbeck (1830), Lodore (1835), Falkner (1837), The Mortal Immortal, Proserpine and Midas: Two Unpublished Mythological Dramas, Rambles in Germany and Italy in 1840, 1842 and 1843 (1844).
1733 August II the Strong, 62, King of Poland (355 children)
after 1708 Jacob Koninck (or Koningh) I, Dutch artist born in 1616. — brother of Philips Koninck [1619-1688] and cousin of Salomon Koninck [1609-1656].
1691 Alexander VIII [Pietro Ottoboni], 80, Italian Pope (1689-91)
1650 René Descartes philosopher "I think therefore I am", stops thinking.
DESCARTES ONLINE (in English translations):
Discourse on the Method — Discourse on the Method of Rightly Conducting the Reason — Meditations on First Philosophy — Meditations on the First Philosophy.
1638 Adriaen Brouwer, Flemish genre painter born in 1605. — MORE ON BROUWER AT ART “4” FEBRUARY with links to images.
1598 Scipione “il Gaetano” Polzone (or Pulzone, Pultoni), Italian artist born in 1545 give or take 5 years.
1328 Charles IV le Bel, King of France (1322-28)
1204 Alexius IV Angelus regent of Byzantium (1203-04), murdered
0656 Sigebert III, 25, king of Austrasia
0525 Saint Brigid of Kildar, Irish nun
Births which occurred on a February 01:
1972 Hewlett-Packard HP-35, first scientific hand-held calculator, is introduced ($395)
1949 First 45-RPM record is released by RCA.
1948 El transistor, aplicable a la radio, comunicaciones y fabricación de ordenadores, es inventado por tres físicos estadounidenses.
^ 1931 Boris Nikolaevich Yeltsin, the oldest of three children, in the village of Butka Talitskogo in the Sverdlovsk region. His parents, Klavdiya Vasilyevna and Nikolai Ignatevich, were Russian peasants and were part of a long line of farmers who worked the fields in this area. Yeltsin received his education as a structural engineer at the Ural politecnical institute in Sverdlovsk, today Yekaterinburg. Shortly thereafter in 1955, he began a long and prosperous career in Sverdlovsk at a company which built apartment buildings. As Yeltsin writes in his official biography, "I did not do badly; the collective always fulfilled the plan and the pay was not bad." But in 1968, Yeltsin stepped sideways from his factory to enter into politics. By 1976, he had risen to the level of first secretary of the Obkom (the regional branch) of the Soviet Union's Communist Party (KPSS), and was also running the factory where he began working 20 years before.
      Several changes in Yeltsin's life came in 1985. With Mikhail Gorbachev on the scene, the winds of change had come to the KPSS and Yeltsin was asked to move to Moscow. At first he declined, believing he would be more useful in Sverdlovsk, but he answered the call of duty and went to the capital. On 24 December 1985, he was elected first secretary of the Moscow branch of the KPSS where he served until 1987. His tour of duty there lasted only two years. Yeltsin claims to have become disillusioned with perestroika, asking to be relieved of his position and have his name taken off the list for candidates to the Politburo of the KPSS. He was thereupon returned to his educational origins, becoming a deputy director of the Soviet Union's construction committee.
      But Yeltsin could not stay away from politics for long. He began a steep climb to the top after having been elected a "people's deputy" in 1989, and later he became chairman of the Supreme Soviet of the Russian Federation from 1990 to 1991. Famous footage can still be seen of a young, slim, only half-gray Yeltsin throwing his KPSS membership card on the floor before Gorbachev in July 1990 to emphasize his disgust with the slow pace of reforms in the Soviet Union. This won him so much popularity among the Russians that he was elected their president less than a year later. At that time, in June 1991, Yeltsin got 57.3 percent of the vote. Barely two months later, the three-day coup that shook the world served to further enhance Yeltsin's popularity. More famous footage shows Yeltsin being boosted onto a tank to deliver a speech denouncing the coup plotters, an event which led to the Soviet Union's dissolution four months later.
      Boris Yeltsin ran for re-election after five turbulent years as president. He got less than 40 percent of the votes during the elections' first round, and had a runoff with candidate Gennady Zyuganov. After calling out the army in 1993 to arrest the parliament, Yeltsin's approval rating was at an all-time low. But to the surprise of many, Yeltsin was still in the lead over Communist Party leader Gennady Zyuganov in opinion polls, and he won the runoff.
      Yeltsin is married to Naina, also an engineer by profession from the Sverdlovsk region, and they have two daughters, Yelena and Tatyana. They also have four grandchildren: Katya, Masha, Boris and Gleb. http://www.russiatoday.com/bio/yeltsin.php3

BORIS NIKOLAYEVICH YELTSIN
Russian politician who became president of Russia in 1990. In 1991 he became the first popularly elected leader in the country's history, guiding Russia through a stormy decade of political and economic retrenching until his resignation on the eve of the year 2000.

Yeltsin attended the Urals Polytechnic Institute and worked at various construction projects in the Sverdlovsk oblast from 1955 to 1968, joining the Communist Party in 1961. In 1968 he began full-time work in the party and in 1976 became first secretary of the Sverdlovsk oblast party committee. Thereafter he came to know Mikhail Gorbachev, then his counterpart in the city of Stavropol. After Gorbachev came to power, he chose Yeltsin in 1985 to clean out the corruption in the Moscow party organization and elevated him to the Politburo (as a nonvoting member) in 1986. As the mayor of Moscow (i.e., first secretary of Moscow's Communist Party committee), Yeltsin proved an able and determined reformer, but he estranged Gorbachev when he began criticizing the slow pace of reform at party meetings, challenging party conservatives, and even criticizing Gorbachev himself. Yeltsin was forced to resign in disgrace from the Moscow party leadership in 1987 and from the Politburo in 1988.

Yeltsin was demoted to a deputy minister for construction but then staged the most remarkable comeback in Soviet history. His popularity with Soviet voters as an advocate of democracy and economic reform had survived his fall, and he took advantage of Gorbachev's introduction of competitive elections to the USS.R. Congress of People's Deputies (i.e., the new Soviet parliament) to win a seat in that body in March 1989 with a landslide vote from a Moscow constituency. A year later, on May 29, 1990, the parliament of the Russian S.F.S.R. elected him president of the Russian republic against Gorbachev's wishes. In his new role, Yeltsin publicly supported the right of Soviet republics to greater autonomy within the Soviet Union, took steps to give the Russian republic more autonomy, and declared himself in favor of a market-oriented economy and a multiparty political system.

In July 1990 Yeltsin quit the Communist Party. His victory in the first direct, popular elections for the presidency of the Russian republic (June 1991) was seen as a mandate for economic reform. During the brief coup against Gorbachev by hard-line communists in August 1991, Yeltsin defied the coup leaders and rallied resistance in Moscow while calling for the return of Gorbachev. When the coup crumbled a few days after it had begun, Yeltsin emerged as the country's most powerful political figure. In December 1991 he and the presidents of Ukraine and Belarus (Belorussia) established a new Commonwealth of Independent States that would replace the foundering USS.R. When the Soviet Union collapsed after Gorbachev's resignation as Soviet president on 25 December, the Russian government under Yeltsin's leadership then assumed many of the former superpower's responsibilities for defense, foreign affairs, and finance.

As president of an independent Russia, Yeltsin set about the formidable task of transforming his country's decaying command economy into one based on free markets and private enterprise. Early in 1992 he ended government price subsidies and controls over food and other consumer goods, while also allowing the unhindered growth of free markets in the cities. At the same time, Russia's parliament, the Congress of People's Deputies, had grown increasingly hostile toward his free-market reforms. Yeltsin and the Congress were also deeply divided over the question of the balance of powers in Russia's proposed new constitution, which was needed to replace the obsolete 1978 Soviet-era Russian Constitution. On 21 September 1993, Yeltsin unconstitutionally dissolved the Congress and called for new parliamentary elections. In response, hard-line legislators attempted a coup in early October but were suppressed by army troops loyal to Yeltsin. Parliamentary elections and a referendum on a draft constitution were held in December. Yeltsin's draft constitution, which increased the powers of the presidency, was narrowly approved, but the antireform character of Russia's newly elected parliament, the Federal Assembly, compelled Yeltsin to govern primarily by executive decree in the coming years.

In December 1994 Yeltsin sent Russian army troops into Chechnya, which had unilaterally seceded from Russia in 1991. The army proved unable to completely suppress the rebels, however, and the war further eroded Yeltsin's declining popularity. The war in Chechnya and the failure of his free-market reforms to spur economic growth dimmed Yeltsin's prospects for reelection to the Russian presidency. In another spectacular comeback, however, he won reelection over a communist challenger in the second round of elections held in July 1996. He spent the months after his electoral victory recovering from a heart attack he had suffered that June during the rigours of the campaign. The state of Yeltsin's health was a recurring issue.

Early in his second term, Yeltsin signed a cease-fire agreement with Chechnya and in 1997 negotiated a peace treaty; tensions, however, continued. In August 1999 Islamic rebels from Chechnya invaded Dagestan, and the following month a series of bombings in Russia were blamed on Chechens. Soon after, Yeltsin ordered the return of troops to the republic. In the late 1990s political maneuvering dominated much of the country's government as Yeltsin dismissed four premiers and in 1998 fired his entire cabinet, though many were later reappointed. The following year the State Duma initiated an impeachment drive against Yeltsin, charging that he had encouraged the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991, among other allegations. The Duma, however, was unable to secure the necessary votes to proceed. Ever unpredictable, Yeltsin announced his resignation on 31 December 1999, in favor of what he characterized as a new, energetic leadership. He named Prime Minister Vladimir V. Putin acting president, and in turn Putin granted Yeltsin immunity from future prosecution.
1920 The Royal Canadian Mounted Police is created.
1917 José Luis Sampedro, economista y escritor español.
1913 Grand Central Station opens in New York City, NY. It is at the time the largest train station in the world.
1905 Emilio Segrè, Italian-born US physicist who died on 22 April 1989.
1904 S.J. (Sidney) Perelman (humorist/writer: Monkey Business, Horse Feathers, One Touch of Venus, Strictly from Hunger, Westward Ha!, Around the World in 80 Clichés) He died on 17 October 1979.
1902 James Mercer Langston Hughes, Black US poet and writer, prominent in the Harlem Renaissance, who became one of the foremost interpreters of racial relationships in the United States. Influenced by the Bible, W. E. B. Du Bois, and Walt Whitman, Hughes depicted realistically the ordinary lives of black people. He died on 22 May 1967.
1900 Stephen Potter, humorist/writer (School for Scoundrels, Shipbuilders)
1900 Burkill, mathematician
1887 Charles Bernard Nordhoff, US novelist and writer of adventure and travel books. Charles Nordhoff wrote with his friend James Norman Hall a three-volume novel about the famous eighteenth-century mutiny, in which the crew of the H.M.S. Bounty, a British war vessel, arose against their cruel commander, Captain William Bligh. The work had a huge success. Author of California: For Health, Pleasure, and Residence — California: For Health, Pleasure, and Residence — Northern California, Oregon, and the Sandwich Islands
1885 Camille Chautemps, premier, France.
1884 Oxford English Dictionary, first edition, first volume (A-Ant), is published.
1881 La Vanguardia: publicación del primer número de este diario barcelonés, uno de los de mayor circulación en España.
1874 Hugo von Hofmannsthal “Loris”, Austrian poet, dramatist, and essayist, who became internationally famous for his collaboration with the German composer Richard Strauss. After World War I Hofmannsthal founded with Max Reinhardt the Salzburg Festival, which have given regularly performances of Hofmannsthal's plays. He died in 1929.
1861 (01 Jan?) Jacques-Émile Blanche, French painter who died on 20 September 1942. — more with links to images.
1849 Albert-Marie-Charles Lebourg, French painter who died on 07 January 1928. — MORE ON LEBOURG AT ART “4” FEBRUARY with links to images.
1845 José Echena, Spanish artist who died in 1909.
1838 Joseph Keppler, Austrian born US caricaturist and magazine founder who died on 19 February 1894.
1827 Alphonse de Rothschild French banker
^ 1814 The Corsair by Lord Byron is published
      Lord Byron's The Corsair is published and sells some 10'000 copies on its first day in print. The poem was one of several gloomy works he produced at a time when he was engaged in several ill-fated love affairs.
      George Gordon Noel Byron was born in Aberdeen, Scotland, on 22 January 1788 and was raised in poverty. Burdened with a clubfoot, Byron later forbid anyone to mention his condition. At age 10, he inherited his great uncle's title and became Lord Byron. He attended Harrow, then Trinity College, Cambridge, where he ran up enormous debts. His first published volume of poetry, Hours of Idleness (1807), was savaged by critics, especially in Scotland, and his second published work, English Bards and Scotch Reviewers (1809), attacked the British literary establishment.
      After receiving his master's degree in 1809, he traveled in Portugal, Spain, and the Near East for two years and returned to England on 14 July 1811. His wanderings inspired his poetic work Childe Harold's Pilgrimage (1812), which won him almost instant acclaim in England. As he said at the time, "I awoke one morning and found myself famous." His poetry, manners, fashion, and tastes were widely imitated.
      On 02 January 1815, Byron married Anne Isabella Milbanke [17 May 1792 – 16 May 1860], and the couple had a daughter, Augusta Ada Byron [10 Dec 1815 – 27 Nov 1852]. Ada, who would become countess of Lovelace, proved to be a mathematical prodigy and is considered by some to be the first computer programmer, thanks to her work on the computing machine of Charles Babbage [26 Dec 1791 – 18 Oct 1871]. The marriage quickly foundered, and the couple legally separated on 16 January 1816. By this time, scandal had broken out over Byron's suspected incest with his half-sister, Augusta Leigh. He was ostracized from society and forced to flee England on 25 April 1816. He settled in Geneva, near Percy Bysshe Shelley [04 Aug 1792 – 08 Jul 1822] and his wife, Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley [30 Aug 1797 – 01 Feb 1851]. There, he became intimately involved with Mary's half-sister, Claire Clairmont [27 Apr 1798 – 19 Mar 1879], who bore his daughter Clara Allegra Byron [12 Jan 1817 – 19 Apr 1822].
      Byron moved to Venice that same year and began a period of debauchery. In 1819, he entered an affair with the Countess Teresa Guiccioli, the young wife of an elderly count, and the two remained attached for many years. Byron, always an avid proponent of liberal causes and national independence, supported the Greek war for independence. He joined the cause in Greece, training troops in the town of Missolonghi, where he died of malaria on 19 April 1824.
     OTHER WORKS BY BYRON ONLINE:
Don Juan, Hebrew Melodies, Manfred, Selected Poetry, Selection of short poems,
1805 Auguste Blanqui France, revolutionary (workers' leader)
1791 Charles J Sax Belgian music instrument builder
1801 Thomas Cole, English US Hudson River School painter, specialized in Landscapes, who died on 11 February 1848. — MORE ON COLE AT ART “4” FEBRUARY with links to images.
Holidays:   Malaysia : Federal Territory Holiday (1974) / Nicaragua : Air Force Day   /    US : National Freedom Day
Sainte Ella fut l'épouse de Guillaume Longue-Epée, frère du roi Richard Cœur de Lion. Elle entraîna son mari sur la voie de la vertu. Devenue veuve, elle fonda une abbaye (morte en 1261). / Santos Pionio, Brígida, Severo, Pablo e Ignacio.
DICTIONNAIRE TICRANIEN: méprise: ce où je branche mes appareils électriques.
Thoughts for the day: “Never tell a lie if the truth will do more damage.”
“Never tell a lie unless it is true.”
“Never tell a secret to more than one person at a time.”
“If you can't keep secret the fact that you have a secret, you can't keep a secret.”
“Never tell a secret unless it is someone else's secret.”
“Never tell a lie if you want to keep secret the fact that you always tell lies.”
“Never sell your country's secrets to an enemy nation when a friendly nation would pay you more.”
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