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Events, deaths, births, of FEB 08
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On a February 08:
left Marulanda, right Pastrana2002 General José Francisco Gallardo Rodríguez is released from prison by order of Mexican President Vicente Fox, bowing belatedly to pressure from Amnesty International and other human rights groups. Gallardo had been arrested on 09 November 1993 and sentenced in 1994 to 28 years in prison under phony charges of diffamation of the armed forces and embezzlement. This followed the publication in October 1993 of an article by Gallardo entitled "Las necesidades de un ombudsman militar en México" , in issue 22 of the magazine Forum, in which he criticized human rights violations against civilians and soldiers by members of the Mexican armed forces. However Fox does not overturn the outrageously unjust conviction, but only reduces the sentence to the 8 years already served.
2001 Colombian President Andrés Pastrana Arango [July 1998 photo, right >] meets for peace talks with Manuel Marulanda [photo, left >], head of Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia, the rebel group which the government has allowed, for the last two years, to control the south of Colombia. One of the FARC's main demands is that the government suppress the right-wing paramilitaries Autofensa Unida de Colombia, who have killed 1560 persons in 2000. The day before, Carlos Castaño, head of AUC, wrote to Pastrana, opposing the talks and demanding that he suppress the FARC.
2000 Internet vandals continue an unprecedented campaign of electronic assaults against the biggest names in cyberspace, disrupting access for consumers to popular Web sites including eBay, Amazon.com and CNN.com.
2000 El máximo cabecilla de la banda terrorista ETA (Euskadi Ta Askatasuna), Múgica Garmendia Pakito, es entregado por Francia a la Policía española, para ser juzgado en España.
^ 1999 Clinton impeachment trial in US Senate: final arguments.

(1) The 13 Republican impeachment trial managers close their case for removing President Bill Clinton from office, while White House Counsel Charles Ruff says nothing Clinton did justifies throwing him out of office.
  • FIRST HALF OF REPUBLICAN PRESENTATION:
    (TRANSCRIPT)
  • Rep. James Sensenbrenner starts off the managers' three hours of closing arguments.
  • The Wisconsin Republican tells the Senate that after everything they have heard, "the truth is still the truth and a lie is still a lie."
  • "Senators, don't be fooled by the president's excuses and spin control," Sensenbrenner pleads. "The facts and the evidence clearly show that he knew what he was doing was to deceive everyone, including the grand jury. He and his defenders are still in denial. They will not accept the consequence of his repeated and criminal attempts to defeat the judicial process."
  • Sensenbrenner thanks the senators and Chief Justice William Rehnquist for their attention during the impeachment trial, but attacks the critics of the House prosecutors, saying they were not "13 angry men" on a "political vendetta."
  • "To justify the president's criminal behavior by demonizing those who seek to hold him accountable ignores the fact that President Clinton's actions and those actions alone precipitated the investigations which have brought us here today," Sensenbrenner says.

  • Chris Cannon (R-Utah) comes next, and excoriates the Senate for various procedural decisions along the way: the decision to have no live witnesses; the decision to limit the time allowed for presentations; the decision not to permit a rebuttal by the House after the defense made its case. "The process gave rise to the perception that the fix was in, leaving some to gloat at having scammed the situation, and others angry at being unheard," he says. "And that is the context with which the Senate must — now finds itself, and must pursue a legitimate outcome."
  • Rep. George W. Gekas of Pennsylvania is another who had been on the bench for weeks, but time has little changed his distinctive extemporaneous approach. Fervent, if not entirely clear, he literally clutches at the air as he improvises in Latin and calls the American people to his side. He draws a laugh when, while chewing the scenery, he casts a glance at the managers' table, stops mid-munch and says, "Somebody's waving: 'Cut this short.' "

  • Ohio's Rep. Steve Chabot (R-Ohio) recalls his days at the College of William and Mary and his disillusionment with the pardon of Richard M. Nixon. "We all know the president's behavior has been reprehensible," Chabot tells the senators. "President Clinton, however, refuses to admit what all of us know is true. To this day, he continues to deny and distort. He continues to dispute the undeniable facts that are before the Senate and before the American people."
    "I predicted in my presentation that they would use legal smoke screens to mask the law and the facts,"     Chabot says. "To their credit, they produced smoke so thick that it continues to cloud this debate. But if you look through the smoke and the mirrors employed by these very able lawyers, you will see the truth."

  • Rep. Robert L. Barr Jr. of Georgia — the earliest and perhaps fiercest of the impeachment hawks — dares the senators to do their duty, saying that their vote "will tell whether these seats will continue to be occupied by true statesmen."
  • Rep. Steve Buyer of Indiana speaks after Barr.
    		•

    WHITE HOUSE DEFENSE:
  • White House Counsel Ruff, however, says the prosecutors' opening statements are "focused on retribution" and "designed to achieve partisan ends." "Now you have heard the managers' vision ... But I believe their vision to be too dark... I believe it to be a vision more focused on retribution, more designed to achieve partisan ends," Ruff says. "Our vision, I think, is quite different, but it is not naive. We know the pain the president has caused our society and his family and his friends, but we know, too, how much the president has done for this country."
  • Ruff, although calm and soft spoken, matches the intensity of House prosecutors' rhetoric with biting criticism of the case against the president. "Moving targets, ever-shifting theories, each one advanced to replace the last as it has fallen, fallen victim to the facts," Ruff says, in attacking what he calls the prosecutors' weak case. "Empty pots. Attractive containers, but when you take the lid off, you'll find nothing to sustain you."
  • Ruff picks through the case in exhaustive detail and criticizes Gekas' closing statement. "Now, just — just a few minutes ago, you heard Manager Gekas talk to you about perjury," Ruff says. "And probably 90 percent of what he talked to you about was perjury in the (Paula) Jones case. It appears to make no difference, though, that the House rejected this charge, for the managers do continue to dwell on it, as though somehow they could show the House from which they came that they'd made a mistake."
  • Ruff attempts to pierce House prosecutors' contention that Clinton tried to influence Lewinsky's affidavit in the Jones case by convincing her to use a cover story and trying to get her a job in exchange for her silence. "In the face of the seemingly insurmountable hurdle of Ms. Lewinsky's repeated denials that anyone ever asked or encouraged her to lie, the managers have persisted in arguing and continue to do so that the president did somehow encourage her to lie, even if she didn't know it," Ruff says. "But neither the fact on which they rely nor their hypothesis was of much help to the managers before Ms. Lewinsky's deposition, and neither, surely, has any force after her deposition."
  • In answer to the House managers' arguments, Ruff attempts to refute the managers' interpretation of facts and used excerpts from Lewinsky's videotape deposition to argue that Clinton did not commit perjury and obstruction of justice. "Our last words to you, which are the words I began with: William Jefferson Clinton is not guilty of the charges that have been brought against him, he did not commit perjury, he did not commit obstruction of justice, he must not be removed from office," Ruff concludes after nearly two hours of defending the president.

  • SECOND HALF OF REPUBLICAN PRESENTATION:
  • Rep. Bill McCollum (R-Florida) answers the White House counsel's factual criticism. "No amount of arguing by White House counsel can erase one simple fact: If you believe Monica Lewinsky, you cannot believe the president," McCollum says.
  • Charles T. Canady (R-Florida) speaks next.
  • Tennessee's Rep. Edward G. Bryant insists that "we're not trying to win at all costs."
  • Rep. Asa Hutchinson (R-Arkansas), is cogent as always, but in his final appearance he adds a dripping sarcasm.
  • Rep. James Rogan of California says before the session, "I tried to write my final speech for today, but I'm all speeched out. I couldn't come up with anything." He tells of his boyhood dream to be a congressman, then acknowledges that his district has more Democrats than Republicans in it, and his work as a manager could cost him his seat. "Dreams come and dreams go," he says, "but conscience is forever."
  • Lindsey Graham speaks next.

  • With a call to "let right be done," Rep. Henry Hyde, the chief House prosecutor, concludes the Republican managers' case for removing President Bill Clinton from office.
  • "If you agree that perjury and obstruction of justice have been committed and yet you vote down the conviction ... you raise the most serious questions of whether the president is, in fact, subject to the law or whether we are beginning a restoration of the divine right of kings," Hyde, an Illinois Republican, warns the Senate.
  • Hyde also rebutts the defense claim that the House prosecutors had wanted "too badly to win." None of the House managers, Hyde claims, "has committed perjury nor obstructed justice nor claimed false privileges. None of us has hidden evidence under anyone's bed nor encouraged false testimony before the grand jury. That's what you want to do if you want to win too badly," Hyde says.

    (2) Washington journalist and national security expert Scott Armstrong signs a third affidavit, stating that husband and wife journalists Christopher Hitchens and Carol Blue, in a conversation with him last March, recounted their lunch with Blumenthal, including the alleged "stalker" remarks. "I wish I still lived in Illinois so I could vote for someone different than Henry Hyde for Congress," Armstrong says, a few hours after a top Hyde staffer secures his affidavit. Armstrong says he agreed to cooperate, notwithstanding his distaste, because he saw no reason to hide the information. But he adds that he expressed his "resentment" to Republican staffers after an ABC producer phoned him about his statement before he'd even had a chance to read and sign it. "This is ludicrous. I don't want to become part of any political witch hunt."
  • Justice Department officials are conducting a review to determine whether to investigate allegations that White House senior aide Sidney Blumenthal may have committed perjury in his Senate deposition about the Bill Clinton-Monica Lewinsky affair. But Justice officials say they have received no official referral from Congress and are simply reviewing press accounts to determine if further investigation is warranted.

    (3) Linda Tripp, whose taped conversations with Monica Lewinsky sparked President Clinton's impeachment crisis, has agreed to interviews with NBC's "Today" show and CNN's "Larry King Live." Gangel repeatedly requested the interview over an eight-month period, "Today" executive producer Jeff Zucker says. It is Mrs. Tripp's choice to do the interview on tape instead of live, and Gangel will speak to her on Feb. 11, he says. "I think we're interested in what her thoughts are now that the trial is almost over and how this has affected her life," Zucker says. Mrs. Tripp's "Today" interview, a pre-taped talk with correspondent Jamie Gangel, will air Feb. 12 shortly after 7:30 a.m. EST.
  • It's the second big interview on this story landed by "Today." The top-rated morning program featured a Matt Lauer interview with first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton shortly after the scandal broke.
  • She'll talk live with King in prime time the following Feb. 15, CNN says.
  • Ms. Lewinsky has agreed to speak to ABC's Barbara Walters first, but that interview can't be done until Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr grants permission. ABC had been hoping to run the interview during the February "sweeps" period.
    		•

    (4) Any movement toward a censure of President Bill Clinton would likely come after the Senate returns from the President's Day recess, according to Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-California), who is drafting such a resolution. Feinstein says her plan would be to attach the motion she is proposing to a bill while the Senate is in legislative session after Clinton's trial ends.
  • Speaking to reporters after a Democratic caucus, Feinstein says it is not be possible to bring the censure motion to the floor of the Senate while it is sitting as a jury in the trial of the president. The Senate must be in legislative session for a member to propose legislation.
  • A draft of the censure resolution, proposed by Sens. Feinstein and Daniel Patrick Moynihan (D-New York), cites Clinton for "shameless, reckless and indefensible behavior" that demeaned the office of the president and "creates disrespect for the laws of the land."
  • One Senator, Sen. Phil Gramm (R-Texas), says he will object to the motion being presented at that time. Gramm has proved the most vocal opponent of censure and has promised to fight the motion. "Impeachment is about the Constitution. Censure is about getting political cover," Gramm says on NBC's "Meet the Press". "People want to be on both sides of the issue. They want to say the president's not guilty, they want to say the president's guilty. The problem is, this 'covering-your-fanny' approach has constitutional cost," he says.

    (5) Sources say officials there are leaning toward investigating independent counsel Kenneth Starr's handling of the initial interview with former White House intern Monica Lewinsky at the Ritz Carlton Hotel.
  • The sources say the investigation would be a very narrow look at the circumstances surrounding the January night when investigators from the Independent Counsel's office first detained and questioned Lewinsky. Specifically, the Justice investigators are reviewing whether the deputies discouraged Lewinsky from contacting her lawyers, and her mother.
  • The investigators also are examining whether Starr's lawyer discussed an immunity deal with Lewinsky without her attorney present.
  • The decision to proceed with such an investigation is a controversial one in the Justice Department because of the likely criticism that would come from Republicans.
  • Attorney General Janet Reno also has been reluctant to take action in part because she has not wanted to influence impeachment proceedings, sources say.
  • Another concern, according to investigators, is that to resolve this issue they might need to talk to Lewinsky directly to get her side of the story, which would raise additional complicated issues.

    (6) Steve Kangas of Las Vegas buys a 9mm pistol, a bottle of Jack Daniel's whiskey and a bus ticket to Pittsburgh.
  • Almost immediately after arriving, Kangas goes to One Oxford Centre. He walks around inside the towering office complex for a time, then hides out in a public restroom on the 39th floor.
  • Nine hours later, drunk to the point of incoherence, Kangas turns the gun on himself moments after a maintenance worker found him semi-conscious in the men's room, according to a police report. He was carrying a box of ammunition when he died. The pistol is brand new; he had obtained a permit for it shortly before leaving Nevada.
  • Kangas' death occurs on the same floor as the offices of Richard M. Scaife, the publisher of the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review and a nationally known backer of conservative causes. The location is no accident. Kangas, 37, was obsessed with Scaife's politics; apparently he traveled to Pittsburgh to confront, and possibly to kill, the man he believed to be evil incarnate. And he comes close to completing whatever bizarre mission he was on. Scaife is in his office for much of the afternoon, but he never runs into Kangas.

    Scaife has been a frequent target of the left during Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr's investigation of Clinton. The White House, other Democrats and some liberal media have accused Scaife of being the financial force behind what Hillary Clinton called the "vast right-wing conspiracy" to remove Clinton from office. Unfortunately, Kangas bought into it all.
  • Six days before he died, Kangas posted a message with an Internet discussion group blaming Scaife for all of President Clinton's legal troubles. "Clinton is, in my mind, a moderate Republican, and it is only the insanity of Richard Mellon Scaife that is causing them to go after this man," Kangas wrote. On his World Wide Web site, which he titled "Liberalism Resurgent," Kangas wrote that Scaife and other wealthy conservatives are the "overclass," and he accused Scaife of having connections to the Central Intelligence Agency.
  • In his writings, Kangas admitted he had lost his faith. "I left religion at age 12 and conservatism at age 26 to become the godless, pinko, commie lying social weasel that conservatives find at right (sic)," he wrote.
  • The Allegheny County Coroner's Office rules the death a suicide. Scaife's lawyer, Yale Gutnick, later issues a statement on the incident: "On behalf of Mr. Scaife, who is out of town, and the Scaife foundations, we are profoundly saddened and sorry for Mr. Kangas and his family, and we offer our sincere condolences. We are pleased that no one else was injured, but this was a tragedy."
    • ^ 1996 Clinton signs Telecommunications Act
          President Clinton signed the Telecommunications Act of 1996, which instituted sweeping changes over the country's telecommunications law. Although the act was, in many ways, intended to remove barriers to trade, the American Civil Liberties Union and other groups felt the act placed unacceptable restrictions on freedom of speech. Part of the bill, the Communications Decency Act, made it a crime to post indecent material on computer systems accessible to children. Ultimately, the Supreme Court ruled that limiting offensive material to children would also place unacceptable restrictions on adults, limiting constitutionally protected free speech rights, and the act was overturned in the summer of 1997.
    1990 En las elecciones sindicales celebradas en España, UGT (Unión General de Trabajadores) se atribuye la victoria con 93'160 delegados frente a los 78'913 de CC.OO. (Comisiones Obreras)
    1989 Argelia y Marruecos firman un acuerdo de cooperación económica.
    1985 Opposition leader Kim Dae Jung returns to South-Korea (In 1997 he became the first opposition leader to win election to his country's presidency)
    1983 Eric Peters sets transatlantic sailboat record (E-W)-46 days
    1978 Crown Prince Sad Abdallah al-Salim Al Sabah becomes PM of Kuwait
    1978 The deliberations of the US Senate were broadcast on radio for the first time as debate starts on the Panama Canal treaties.
    1976 Hua Guofeng becomes premier of China PR
    1973 US Senate leaders named seven members of a select committee to investigate the Watergate scandal, including the chairman, Sam J. Ervin Jr., D-N.C.
    ^ 1971 South Vietnam invades Laos.
          South Vietnamese army forces invade southern Laos. Dubbed Operation Lam Son 719, the mission goal was to disrupt the communist supply and infiltration network along Route 9 in Laos, adjacent to the two northern provinces of South Vietnam. The operation was supported by US airpower (aviation and airlift) and artillery (firing across the border from firebases inside South Vietnam). Observers described the drive on North Vietnam's supply routes and depots as some of the bloodiest fighting of the war. Enemy resistance was initially light, as a 12,000-man spearhead of the South Vietnamese army thrust its way across the border into the communists' deepest jungle stronghold — the town of Tchepone, a major enemy supply center on Route 9, was their major objective. However, resistance stiffened in the second week when the North Vietnamese rushed reinforcements to the area. During the last week of February, the big push bogged down about 16 miles from the border, after bloody fighting in which the communist troops overran two South Vietnamese army battalions. Also on this day: In Cambodia, Premier Lon Nol suffers a paralyzing stroke and turns his duties over to Deputy Premier Sirik Matak. Debilitated by the stroke, Lon Nol resigned on April 20. A week later, he withdrew his resignation, staying on in a figurehead role as Sirik Matak continued to run the government pending his recovery.
    1969 Meteorite weighing over 1 ton falls in Chihuahua, México
    1964 Representative Martha Griffiths address gets civil rights protection for women being added to the 1964 Civil Rights Act.
    1963 The Kennedy administration prohibited travel to Cuba and made financial and commercial transactions with Cuba illegal for US citizens.
    1963 Cae uno de los meteoritos más importantes recuperados, en las cercanías de Pueblito de Allende (México).
    ^ 1962 US military assistance to South Vietnam is reorganized.
          The Military Assistance Command Vietnam (MACV), headed by Gen. Paul D. Harkins, former US Army Deputy Commander-in-Chief in the Pacific, is installed in Saigon as the United States reorganizes its military command in South Vietnam. Before MACV, the senior US military command in South Vietnam was the US Military Assistance and Advisory Group (MAAG-Vietnam), which was formed on November 1, 1955 to provide military assistance to South Vietnam. MAAG-Vietnam had US Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marine Corps elements that provided advice and assistance to the South Vietnamese Ministry of Defense, Joint General Staff and corps and division commanders, as well as to training centers and province and district headquarters. MAAG-Vietnam was disbanded in 1964 and its personnel and responsibilities absorbed by MACV. The establishment of MACV, which greatly enlarged and reorganized the advisory effort, represented a substantial increase in the US commitment to the war in Vietnam, and American assistance to the South Vietnamese doubled between 1961 and 1962. Thereafter, the conduct of the war was directed by MACV and a major build-up of American advisers, support personnel, and eventually an escalation that included the commitment of US combat troops began.
    1955 Malenkov resigns as USSR premier, Bulganin replaces him
    ^ 1949 Hungarian Cardinal sentenced by Communists.
          Cardinal József Mindszenty, the highest ranking Catholic cleric in Hungary, is convicted of treason and sentenced to life imprisonment by the Communist People's Court. Outraged observers in Western Europe and the United States condemned both the trial and Mindszenty's conviction as "perversions" and "lynchings." Mindszenty was no stranger to political persecution. During World War II, Hungary's fascist government arrested him for his speeches denouncing the oppression of Jews in the nation. After the war, as a communist regime took power in Hungary, he continued his political work, decrying the political oppression and lack of religious freedom in his nation. In 1948, the Hungarian government arrested the cardinal. Mindszenty, several other Catholic Church officials, a journalist, a professor, and a member of the Hungarian royal family were all found guilty of various crimes during a brief trial before the Communist People's Court in Budapest. Most had been charged with treason, trying to overthrow the Hungarian government, and speculation in foreign currency (illegally sending money out of the country). All but Mindszenty received prison sentences ranging from a few years to life. Mindszenty was the focus of the trial. During the proceedings, the prosecutors produced several documents implicating Mindszenty in antigovernment activities. The Cardinal admitted that he was "guilty in principle and in detail of most of the accusations made," but he vigorously denied that his activities were designed to overthrow the Hungarian government. Nevertheless, he was convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment. The reaction to Mindszenty's conviction was swift and indignant. British Foreign Secretary Ernest Bevin declared that the trial was an affront to Britain's understanding of liberty and justice. The Vatican issued a statement proclaiming that the Cardinal was "morally and civilly innocent." In the United States, Speaker of the House Sam Rayburn (Democrat-Texas) stated that the "Christian world cannot help but be shocked over the verdict." Protests were held in a number of US cities, but the protests did not change the verdict. The case was significant in demonstrating the depth of the anticommunist movement in Hungary. In 1956, Mindszenty was released when a reformist government took power in Hungary. Shortly thereafter, Soviet troops entered Hungary to put down anticommunist protests. Mindszenty took refuge in the US embassy in Budapest and stayed inside the embassy grounds until 1971. That year he was recalled by the Vatican and settled in Vienna, where he died in 1975.
    1946 Premier Salazar of Portugal forbids opposition parties.
    1945 Allied air attack on Goch/Kleef/Kalkar/Reichswald.
    1943 Red Army recaptures Kursk
    ^ 1943 Britain's Indian Brigade begins guerrilla raids in Burma
          Under the command of Major General Orde Wingate, the 77th Indian Brigade, also called the Chindits, launch guerrilla raids behind Japanese lines in Burma. Wingate was an eccentric British officer famous both for quoting the Bible and advocating irregular warfare tactics. His career as a guerrilla fighter began when he organized Jewish underground patrols to beat back Arab raids in British-controlled Palestine in the 1930s. In 1941, Wingate led a mixed Ethiopian and Sudanese force in retaking Addis Ababa, the capital of Ethiopia, from the Italians, who had invaded in 1935. Upon the beginning of Japan's China-Burma campaign, Wingate was sent to India to use his experience as a guerrilla fighter to train and organize the Chindits — a brigade of specially trained Gurkha (Nepalese), Burmese, and British troops. The Chindits were composed of two units of Long Range Penetration Groups, each made up of men and mules. Wingate and his brigade entered Japanese-controlled Burma from the west, crossed the Chindwin River, and launched their campaigns: penetrating Japanese-held territory, attacking supply lines, and cutting communications. Once in the field, the Chindits were cut off from other units and could be supplied only by airdrops. One of the Chindits most effective attacks was against the Mandalay-Myitkina railway, when they blew up three bridges while also beating back Japanese troops determined to stop the demolitions. The Chindits continued to wreak havoc — at one point killing 100 Japanese soldiers while suffering only one loss themselves — until a lack of supplies and troublesome terrain forced them back to India. They were disbanded in the latter half of 1944.
    1942 Congress advises FDR that, Americans of Japanese descent should be locked up en masse so they wouldn't oppose the US war effort
    1941 Japanese armored barges cross Strait of Johore to attack Singapore.
    1941 Rescatada en Francia para España la escultura "Dama de Elche".
    1940 Lodtz, first large ghetto established by Nazis in Poland.
    1939 Llega a París, huído de España, Lluis Companys i Jover, presidente de la Generalitat Catalana.
    1937 Guerra Civil española: Las tropas "nacionales" ocupan Málaga con la decisiva participación de fuerzas mecanizadas italianas y de aviones alemanes.
    1936 Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru follows Gandhi as chairman of India Congress Party.
    ^ 1936 Durant, GM founder, goes bankrupt.
          General Motors founder, William Durant, filed for personal bankruptcy. Economic historian Dana Thomas described Durant as a man “drunk with the gamble of America. He was obsessed with its highest article of faith — that the man who played for the steepest stakes deserved the biggest winnings.” GM reflected Durant’s ambitious attitude toward risk-taking in its breathtaking expansionist policies, becoming in its founder’s words “an empire of cars for every purse and purpose.” However, Durant’s gambling attitude had its down sides. Over a span of three years Durant purchased Oldsmobile, Oakland (later Cadillac and Pontiac), and attempted to purchase Ford. By 1910, General Motors was out of cash, and Durant was forced out of control of the company. Durant got back into the big game by starting Chevrolet, and eventually regained control of GM only to lose it a second time. Later in life, Durant attempted to start a bowling center and a supermarket, but met with little success. Durant’s trials and tribulations are proof that, even in America’s most successful industry, there were those who gambled and lost.
    ^ 1934 The Export-Import Bank.
          The "Ex-Im Bank" was charged with propping up the nation's sagging export business. The Great Depression had ruined the financial institutions that once served as the backbone of America's overseas trade. In order to fill this fiscal void, the Ex-Im Bank was equipped with various lending powers, as well as the license to issue insurance and guarantees. The Ex-Im Bank survived well beyond the Depression and New Deal: the bank's ability to offer a raft of credits, including loans to cash-strapped countries who conduct trade with the US partners, quickly transformed it into a key instrument of the American government's international development efforts.
    1934 Gaston Doumergue forms new French government.
    1933 First flight of all-metal Boeing 247.
    1928 First transatlantic TV image received, Hartsdale NY. — Primera transmisión televisada entre Londres y Nueva York por el británico John Logie Baird. — Scottish inventor J Blaird demonstrates color-TV.
    1927 Belgian-Swiss treaty signed.
    1926 German Reichstag decides to apply for League of Nations membership.
    1925 Marcus Garvey enters federal prison in Atlanta GA.
    1924 Coast-to-coast radio The first coast-to-coast radio broadcast takes place on this day in 1924. Bell Telephone's vice president and chief of research spoke at a meeting of the Bond Men's Club in a Chicago hotel. The speech was broadcast in Providence, New York, Washington, Oakland, and San Francisco and was heard by some 50 million people.
    ^ 1924 First US coast-to-coast radio broadcast
         About 50 million listeners coast-to-coast hear general John Joseph Carty address a men's club at a Chicago hotel. A vice president at Bell Telephone, Carty directed the company's research efforts. Stations in six cities across the country broadcast the speech. 1928 Transoceanic image transmission On this day in 1928, a short-wave station in Hartsdale, New York, received a radio signal conveying a television image. John Logie Baird, a key developer of early television, sent the picture, a still image of a woman.
    1922 US President Harding has a radio installed in the White House.
    1920 Swiss men vote against women's suffrage.
    1919 Première liaison commerciale aérienne. L'avion relie en 3 heures et demi Toussus-le-Noble, près de Paris, à Kenley, près de Londres. Il s'agit d'un bimoteur Farman F60 Goliath qui vole à 150 km/h au maximum. — Primer viaje aéreo turístico. Un bombardero adaptado al efecto hace la travesía París-Londres con 12 pasajeros.
    1916 Disturbios en Berlín por problemas de abastecimiento.
    1914 General Zamon becomes President of Haiti.
    1911 US helps overthrow President Miguel Dávila of Honduras.
    1909 France and Germany sign treaty about Morocco
    Les Japonais coulent la flotte russe de Port-Arthur. Ils remportent la première manche d'une guerre qui blessera à mort la Russie tsariste.
    1904 The Russo-Japanese war begins
          Following the Russian rejection of a Japanese plan to divide Manchuria and Korea into spheres of influence, Japan launches a surprise naval attack against Port Arthur, a Russian naval base in China. The Russian fleet was decimated. During the subsequent Russo-Japanese War, Japan won a series of decisive victories over the Russians, who underestimated the military potential of its non-Western opponent. In January 1905, the strategic naval base of Port Arthur fell to Japanese naval forces under Admiral Heihachiro Togo; in March, Russian troops were defeated at Shenyang, China, by Japanese Field Marshal Iwao Oyama; and in May, the Russian Baltic fleet under Admiral Zinovi Rozhdestvenski was destroyed by Togo near the Tsushima Islands. These three major defeats convinced Russia that further resistance against Japan's imperial designs for East Asia was hopeless, and in August 1905 US President Theodore Roosevelt mediated a peace treaty at Portsmouth, New Hampshire. (He was later awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for this achievement.) Japan emerged from the conflict as the first modern non-Western world power and set its sights on greater imperial expansion. However, for Russia, its military's disastrous performance in the war was one of the immediate causes of the Russian Revolution of 1905.
    — Ataque nocturno de torpederos japoneses contra la flota rusa en Port Arthur. Hundieron tres buques.
    ^ 1895 Bankers help US government replenish gold reserves.
          The US's gold reserves haf shrunk because of the Sherman Silver Act as European investors, fearful that America was chucking gold for silver, increasingly sold their gold supplies overseas. Coupled with declining revenues triggered by various protective tariffs, the reserves plummeted, taking a severe toll on the economy. In 1893, the falling gold supply helped spark a debilitating financial crisis. Although President Grover Cleveland had long been urging Congress to abolish the Sherman Act, legislators only moved to kill the law after the crash. In the short term, the repeal did little to solve the nation's fiscal wounds, or to replenish the gold supply. By February 8, 1895, the gold supplies had thinned out to a paltry $41 million. With the US Treasury teetering on the brink of bankruptcy, Cleveland intervened, and using a syndicate led by J.P. Morgan as an intermediary and US bonds as bait, attempted to buy back gold from foreign investors. Cleveland sold roughly sixty-two million dollars worth of bonds, valued at 3.75 percent, to Morgan's syndicate. Morgan and company in turn shopped the issues to foreign parties for a handsome profit.
    1894 Enforcement Act repealed, making it easier to disenfranchise blacks
    ^ 1887 Dawes Severalty Act allows further theft of Amerindian lands.
          In a well-meaning but ultimately flawed attempt to assimilate Native Americans, President Grover Cleveland signs an act to end tribal control of reservations and divide their land into individual holdings. Named for its chief author, Senator Henry Laurens Dawes from Massachusetts, the Dawes Severalty Act reversed the long-standing American policy of allowing Amerindian tribes to maintain their traditional practice of communal use and control of their lands. Instead, the Dawes Act gave the president the power to divide Amerindian reservations into individual, privately owned plots. The act dictated that men with families would receive 160 acres, single adult men were given 80 acres, and boys received 40 acres. Women received no land.
          The most important motivation for the Dawes Act was Anglo-American hunger for Amerindian lands. The act provided that after the government had doled out land allotments to the Amerindians, the sizeable remainder of the reservation properties would be opened for sale to whites. Consequently, Amerindians eventually lost 86 million acres of land, or 62% of their total pre-1887 holdings. Still, the Dawes Act was not solely a product of greed. Many religious and humanitarian "friends of the Indian" supported the act as a necessary step toward fully assimilating the Amerindians into American culture. Reformers believed that Amerindians would never bridge the chasm between "barbarism and civilization" if they maintained their tribal cohesion and traditional ways. J.D.C. Atkins, commissioner of Indian affairs, argued that the Dawes Act was the first step toward transforming, "Idleness, improvidence, ignorance, and superstition.... into industry, thrift, intelligence, and Christianity."
          In reality, the Dawes Severalty Act proved a very effective tool for taking lands from Amerindians and giving it to Anglos, but the promised benefits to the Amerindians never materialized. Racism, bureaucratic bungling, and inherent weaknesses in the law deprived the Amerindians of the strengths of tribal ownership, while severely limiting the economic viability of individual ownership. Many tribes also deeply resented and resisted the government's heavy-handed attempt to destroy their traditional cultures. Despite these flaws, the Dawes Severalty Act remained in force for more than four decades. In 1934, the Wheeler-Howard Act repudiated the policy and attempted to revive the centrality of tribal control and cultural autonomy on the reservations. The Wheeler-Howard Act ended further transfer of Amerindian lands to Anglos and provided for a return to voluntary communal Amerindian ownership, but considerable damage had already been done.
    1886 Los desocupados de Londres promueven graves disturbios en las principales calles de la ciudad.
    1883 Louis Waterman begins experiments to invent the fountain pen.
    1867 Los imperialistas al mando del general Tovera, asestan fuerte golpe a los republicanos en el Monte de las Cruces, en el Estado de México.
    1863 Convenio entre Rusia y Prusia por el que se facilitaba a los rusos la persecución de las partidas polacas en territorio prusiano.
    1862 Battle of Roanoke Island North Carolina, Federals gain control of Pamlico Sound
    1861 The convention of seceded states adopts a Provisional Constitution — les Etats sécessionnistes du Sud des Etats-Unis forment les Etats confédérés d’Amérique.
    1847 Las fuerzas invasoras norteamericanas al mando del general Scott llegan al puerto de Veracruz.
    1837 The US Senate selects Richard Mentor Johnson as US vice president (Van Buren administration) after no candidate received a majority of electoral votes This is a first.
    1836 Former Congressman David Crockett, 49, arrives in San Antonio de Béxar with 12 volunteers. They would participate in the defense of the Alamo during the siege by Santa Anna which would start on 23 February. As all 188 defenders died fighting on 6 March when the Alamo fell, Crockett was one of the last.
    1815 Se celebra el Congreso de Viena, en él gran número de países acuerdan abolir el comercio de esclavos.
    1814 Simón Bolívar ordena que sean pasados por las armas 836 prisioneros españoles, la mayoría de ellos neutrales.
    1809 Franz I of Austria declares war on France
    1807 Napoléon 1er bat les Russes à Eylau. Une victoire aussi sanglante qu'inutile… L'empereur prend conscience du coût humain de la guerre . «Ce pays est couvert de morts et de blessés. Ce n'est pas la belle partie de la guerre ; l'on souffre et l'âme est oppressée de voir tant de victimes», écrit-il à Joséphine. — Napoleon defeats Russians in battle of Eylau.
    1744 French/Spanish fleet leaves Toulon
    1697 L'explorateur français Cavelier de la Salle découvre les chutes du Niagara.
    ^ 1692 Two Salem teenagers are found to be bewitched.
           Abigail Williams and Betty Parris are declared by a doctor to be "under an evil hand," precipitating a series of sensational accusations in the town of Salem, Massachusetts. Williams and Parris were the teenage niece and daughter of local pastor Samuel Parris, who was immediately suspicious of the influence of his slaves, Tituba and John Indian. Soon after the ailing girls were diagnosed as being under the spell of witches, neighbors suggested that a cake be made with the girls' urine and then fed to a dog. Apparently they believed that if the dog also began acting strangely it would prove the presence of a witch. Fortunately for the dog, the cake idea was abandoned, but Abigail and Betty soon reported seeing Tituba in their hallucinations. Tituba and John Indian were Caribbean natives taken as slaves by Samuel Parris. They often practiced their own religion, including fortune telling, in the Parris home with the girls present. Thus, Tituba was a convenient scapegoat for the girls' ailments. Parris beat her to confess, but she refused. Then, other girls who visited Abigail and Betty also began having fits and convulsions. The accusations against other witches also started in earnest. On February 29, warrants were issued for the arrests of three other women. Witchcraft had been a common law crime in England since 1542, but was codified in statute form in 1604. Soon enough, the entire town of Salem was caught up in the witch hysteria. Any pre-existing fears and grudges were now played out through accusations.
          By the end of the spring, the Salem jails were full of alleged witches. More than half were recent immigrants from England who were not well liked by the town's natives. The witch trials began in the summer of 1692.
          On 10 June 1692, Bridget Bishop, the first colonist to be tried in the Salem witch trials, would be hanged after being found guilty of the practice of witchcraft.
          Trouble in the small Puritan community began in February of 1692, when nine-year-old Elizabeth Parris and eleven-year-old Abigail Williams, the daughter and niece, respectively, of Reverend Samuel Parris began experiencing fits and other signs of a hysterical disorder. A doctor concluded that the children were suffering from the effects of witchcraft, and the young girls corroborated the doctor’s diagnosis. Under compulsion from the doctor and their parents, the girls named those allegedly responsible for their suffering.
          On March 1, Sarah Goode, Sarah Osborne, and Tituba, an Indian slave from Barbados, became the first Salem residents to be charged with the capital crime of witchcraft. The same day, Tituba, possibly under coercion, confessed to the crime, encouraging the authorities to seek out more Salem witches. With encouragement from adults in the community, the girls, who were soon joined by other "afflicted" Salem residents, accused a widening circle of local residents of witchcraft, mostly middle-aged women but also several men and even one four-year-old child. Over the next few months, the afflicted incriminated more than 150 women and men from Salem Village and the surrounding areas of Satanic practices. The warrant for Bridget Bishop's arrest was issued 16920418 and she was interrogated in court on 16920419
          In June of 1692, the special Court of Oyer, "to hear," and Terminer, "to conclude," convened in Salem, under Chief Justice William Stoughton, to judge the accused. The first to be tried was Bridget Bishop of Salem who was charged, tried, found guilty, and executed by hanging within eight days..
          Thirteen more women and four men from all stations of life followed her to the gallows, and one man, Giles Corey, was executed by crushing. Most of those tried were condemned on the basis of the witnesses’ hysterical behavior during the actual proceedings, characterized by fits and hallucinations that were argued to be caused by the defendants on trial.
          In October of 1692, Governor William Phipps of Massachusetts ordered the Court of Oyer and Terminer dissolved and replaced with the Superior Court of Judicature, which forbid the type of sensational testimony allowed in the earlier trials. Executions ceased, and the Superior Court eventually released all those awaiting trial and pardoned those sentenced to death. The Salem witch trials, which resulted in the executions of nineteen innocent women and men, had effectively ended.
         Next were Sarah Good, Rebecca Nurse, Susannah Martin, Elizabeth Howe, and Sarah Wildes. All were convicted and sent to Gallows Hill to be hanged on July 19. As they stood on the scaffold, most prayed to God to forgive the people who had accused them. However, one magnanimous woman told her accuser, "You are a liar. I am no more a witch than you are a wizard, and if you take away my life, God will give you blood to drink." Reportedly, the man to whom this was directed, Nicholas Noyes, died years later, bleeding from the mouth. John and Elizabeth Proctor were the two most prominent people in town to be accused. In the end, John was also hanged to death but Elizabeth escaped due to her pregnancy. Nineteen people were executed and more than 100 imprisoned in 1692 for allegedly practicing witchcraft before the teenage accusers finally lost their credibility. Nearly all the remaining defendants were acquitted, although one older woman wasn't released because she couldn't afford to pay her jail fee. She died in prison. In 1710, the convictions were reversed for all those who had petitioned the court. A year later, 578 pounds was paid to the unfairly convicted, 150 of which went to the Proctor family. Excommunications of the alleged witches were also reversed.
    1690 French and Amerindian troops set Schenectady settlement New York on fire
    1690 Lord Halifax resigns as Lord Privy Seal.
    1672 Isaac Newton reads first optics paper before Royal Society in London
    1622 King James I disbands the English parliament
    1600 Vatican convicts scholar Giordano Bruno to death.
    1538 España, el Papa y Venecia firman en Roma la "Liga Santa" para luchar contra los turcos.
    1517. Parten desde la isla Fernandina (Cuba) hacia tierra firme, cuatro naves al mando de Francisco Hernández de Córdoba. (Llegará a Isla Mujeres y poco después recorrerá la costa de Yucatán hasta el río Champotón).
    1499 Mariage de Louis XII et d'Anne de Bretagne. Le roi, après l'annulation de son mariage avec Jeanne, fille bossue de Louis IX, épouse Anne de Bretagne dont il a toujours été amoureux. Malgré ce mariage, le duché de Bretagne reste indépendant.
    1354 Charles d'Espagne, favori du roi Jean II le Bon, s'était vu offrir le comté d'Anjou que le roi avait promis à Charles de Navarre. Grosse colère de celui-ci, par vengeance, fait assassiner le favori, revendique son crime devant les plus hautes autorités, y compris le pape, et ses droits sont reconnus.
    0421 Flavius Constantine becomes emperor Constantine III of West Roman empire.
    TO THE TOP
    ^ Deaths which occurred on a February 08:
    2004 A US soldier, by a roadside bomb near Mahmudiyah, Iraq.
    2003 John Freddy, 43, at 06:45, as he tries to buy a cup of coffee at the Central Mini Market at 76~20 Liberty Avenue in Ozone Park, Queens NY, (Freddy, from Guyana, was the dairy department manager of the Associated Supermarket across the street), shot in the head with a .40 caliber revolver (here designated as “0302080310NY”) by one of two robbers who unsuccessfully try to open the cash register; and, two hours later, Sukhjit “Sammy” Khajala, 50, born in India, owner and cashier of the Around the Clock Mini Mart deli at 325 Lafayette Avenue in the Mill Basin section of Brooklyn NY, shot with the same revolver 0302080310NY, by one of two men who rob $169. On 10 March 2003, the same gun 0302080310NY would be used by a lone gunman to kill Russian immigrant Albert Kotlyar, the attendant at the Laundry King Superstore at 1384 Atlantic Avenue in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn NY, where nothing would be robbed. After Larme Price, 30, admits on the phone to the police that he committed these 3 murders, and a 4th (of Muhammad Ali Nassir, on 20 March 2003) out of anger about the 11 September 2001 attack on the World Trade Center, he is arrested on 29 March 2003.
    2003 Shawkat Haji Mushir, who was a minister of the Kurdish parliament; two senior security officials, a son of Salih Hassan, Mrs. Fazil, and on000e other person, assassinated at 21:20 by Ali Tezhia (who shot Mushir) and other Ansar el Islam militants holding a pretence of defection talks in the house of Salih Hassan in Garnish Tappah, Iraqi Kurdistan (effectively autonomous since 1991). 12 others are injured, including the Mrs. Fazil's daughter Daroon Fazil, 8, shot in the forehead, who dies the next day. Ansar el Islam is an extremist Islamic faction with perhaps 600 fighters which hold a small area around Beyara near the Iranian border and has been warring against the Kurdish government since 2001.
    2003 James Hoffman, 70, of cancer, Catholic bishop of Toledo, Ohio.
    2002 Moran Amit, 25, Israeli of Kibbutz Kfar Hanasi, after being repeatedly stabbed by four masked Palestinians aged 14 to 16 while she was strolling with her boyfriend on the Sherover Promenade in Jerusalem's Armon Hanatziv neighborhood at about 13:15. Moran Amit was a law student at Haifa University, and worked for Yedioth Ahronoth's Internet news site, Ynet, managing its singles forum.
    2002 Samar Abu Miala, 14, Israeli Arab after being arrested by Israeli police, together with three other Israeli Arab youths (all four from the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Abu Tor), for the stabbing of Moran Amit (see above). Police say that it appears that he suffered a heart attack and denied that they hit him. However, an Arab eyewitness, Adham Jawan of Abu Dis, said he saw police beat the youth and shoot his hand and foot. The three remaining youths (one of which, Ahmad Shwaiki) fell wounded by a bullet in the arm) confessed to stabbing Amit and reenacted the crime for the police. Police said the four had been involved in a number of attacks in that part of Jerusalem in recent months, including two attempted stabbings, throwing Molotov cocktails at houses, and trying to set a building on fire by lighting cylinders of cooking gas. The youths' lawyer, Mohammed Dik, said that they confessed to stabbing Amit but denied all the other incidents in which police say that they were involved, and Abu Miala's family denies that he was involved in the murder. A 10 Feb 2002 autopsy establishes that Abu Miala was shot from about 4 meters away, seemingly while he was kneeling and bent over for the bullet entered his anus and then hit his heart and liver causing massive internal hemorrhaging.
    Laxness2000 César Montaña, escultor español.
    1999 Luis Sánchez Polack “Tip”, humorista español. [Polack a Spaniard?! That's humor all right.]
    1999 Jean Iris Murdoch, Alzheimer patient, British writer born on 15 July 1919. She wrote plays, books on philosophy, on literature (such as Sartre: Romantic Rationalist, 1953), but mostly novels such as Under the Net (1954) — Flight From the Enchanter (1956). — The Sea, the Sea (1978) — The Sacred and Profane Love Machine (1974) — The Black Prince — The Bell (1958) — A Fairly Honorable Defeat' (1970) — A Severed Head (1961) — The Red and the Green — The Nice and the Good — Italian Girl.
    1998 Halldor Kiljan Laxness, novelista islandés, premio Nobel de Literatura 1955, nacido Halldór Guðjónsson el 23 Apr 1902. [foto >]. — [Laxness rewarded?! What is this world coming to?] — Halldór Kiljan Laxness lézt 8. febrúar 1998 sl. 95 ára að aldri. Halldór Laxness fæddist 23. apríl 1902 í Reykjavík, sonur hjónanna Sigríðar Halldórsdóttur húsmóður og Guðjóns Helga Helgasonar vegaverkstjóra og bónda í Laxnesi í Mosfellssveit. Halldór lauk gagnfræðanámi 1918, en hætti námi í menntaskóla 1919, sama ár og hann gaf út fyrstu skáldsögu sína, Barn náttúrunnar. Hann nam erlendis, fyrst hjá Benediktsmunkum í Lúxemborg 1922-23 og síðan í Kristmunkaskóla í London 1923-24. Hann dvaldist langdvölum erlendis, en átti fast heimili að Gljúfrasteini í Mosfellssveit frá 1945. Halldór Laxness fékk Bókmenntaverðlaun Nóbels 1955, en hlaut margar aðrar viðurkenningar og verðlaun. Eftir hann liggur mikill fjöldi skáldverka og rita af ýmsu tagi auk þýðinga.
    1995 William Fulbright US politician.
    1985 Sir William Lyons, 83, founder of Jaguar Motors, in Wappenbury Hall, England.
          As a young entrepreneur, Lyons got his start making motorcycle sidecars in Blackpool, England. In 1926 he co-founded the Swallow Sidecar and Coachbuilding Company with William Walmsley. Recognizing the demand for automobiles, Lyons eventually built wooden frames for the Austin Seven car, calling his creation the Austin Swallow. Spurred on by the warm reception of his Austin Swallows, Lyons began building his own cars, which he called Standard Swallows. In 1934, his company, now SS Cars Ltd., released a line of cars called Jaguars. After World War II, Lyons dropped the “SS” initials that reminded people of the SS title of Nazi officers. Jaguar Cars Ltd. went on to produce a number of exquisite sports cars and roadsters, among them the XK 120, the D Type, and the XK-E or E Type. Lyons’s most monumental achievement was perhaps the E Type, which was the fastest sports car in the world when it was released in 1961. With a top speed of 150 mph (240 km/h) and a zero to sixty of 6.5 second, the Jaguar made a remarkable seventeen miles to the gallon and suffered nothing in its looks. In spite of Jaguar’s distinguished record on the race track, the company is most associated with the beautiful lines of its car bodies, an impressive feat considering Lyons’s first offering to the automobile industry was a wooden frame bolted to another man’s car.
    1969 Saturday Evening Post disappears as its last issue is published.
    1968 Henry Smith, 20, and Samuel Hammond, 19, both students at South Carolina State University, and Delano Middleton, 17, high school student, shot by a platoon of White highway patrolmen, in Orangeburg. 27 seven other students are injured. They were among unarmed protesters gathered near a bonfire as they returned from demonstrating against a Whites-only bowling alley. In 2001 Governor Jim Hodges expressed deep regret, and on 08 February 2003 Governor Mark Sanford said: “we don't just regret what happened in Orangeburg 35 years ago — we apologize for it.”
    1962 Eight peaceful Communist demonstrators against the illegal fascist OAS (Organisation de l'Armée Secrète, terrorists opposed to Algerian independence), by violent police repression, in Paris, Maurice Papon [03 September 1910–] being prefect of police. One of the dead is a 15-year-old. Seven of the dead died smothered as they fled in panic into the metro station Charonne, one from being beaten on the head.
    1957 John von Neumann. In addition to his revolutionary work in quantum physics and the development of the hydrogen bomb, German-born mathematician John Von Neumann laid important theoretical foundations for computer science. As a professor at Princeton's Institute for Advanced Study, he made groundbreaking contributions to theories of computer memory, randomness, and logical design.
    1940 Antonio Escobar Huerta, general de la Guardia Civil del Ejército republicano, fusilado en Barcelona.
    ^ 1940 Day 71 of Winter War: USSR aggression against Finland.
    More deaths due to Stalin's desire to grab Finnish territory.
    URSS wants a Finnish island
           The Soviet Union asks Finland which island it would be willing to surrender to house a Soviet base.
          Central Isthmus: Soviet infantry supported by tanks and protected by ski-borne armoured sheets manage to reach the front of the Finnish positions in Summa. By midnight the enemy has been forced to withdraw, leaving almost 150 armoured sheets in Finnish hands.
          Eastern Isthmus: two Soviet divisions launch a massive assault in Taipale at 10:15.
          The enemy directs heavy shelling onto the eastern part of Kirvesmäki and the western strongholds in Terenttilä. The Finnish positions being shelled are also bombed by nine enemy aircraft at the same time as fighter aircraft strafe the front lines.
          Two of the Terenttilä strongholds are lost to the enemy. Finnish losses total 219 men, of whom 32 are killed.
          The enemy assault on Kirvesmäki fails with the loss of two assault tanks. In the north, 1500 Russians are killed in Kuhmo.
          Ladoga Karelia: the enemy wipes out a Finnish ski battalion to the northeast of Lake Ladoga.
          An enemy detachment of around 250 men is surrounded to the east of Lake Nietjärvi.
          Government ministers Ryti, Walden and Tanner discuss the offer of help from the Allies and decide it should be used to exert pressure on both the Soviet Union and Sweden.
          Second Lieutenant Wilhelm Bekassy, a Hungarian volunteer, disappears while flying his Fiat G50 fighter, bought from Italy and assembled in Sweden, from the Swedish city of Västerås to Säkylä in southwest Finland.
          The Swedish national collection in aid of Finland has so far generated around 15 million krona.
          The British Labour Party delegation visiting Finland leaves for home today.
          Abroad: the Paris Opera is putting on a special gala evening to raise funds for Finland.
    ^ Vihollinen pommittaa yllättäen Kajaania Talvisodan 71. päivä, 08.helmikuuta.1940
           Neuvostoliitto tiedustelee Suomelta, minkä saaren se olisi valmisluovuttamaan Neuvostoliitolle tukikohdaksi.
          Neuvostojalkaväki pääsee hyökkäysvaunujen tukemana ja suksien päälle asennettujen panssarilevyjen suojassa suomalaisten asemien eteen Summassa. Vihollinen on pakotettu vetäytymään keskiyöhön mennessä. Suomalaiset saavat sotasaaliiksi lähes 150 panssarilevyä.
          Klo 10.15 alkaa Taipaleessa kahden neuvostodivisioonan suurhyökkäys.
          Vihollinen suuntaa kiivaan tykistötulen Kirvesmäen itäiseen osaan ja Terenttilän läntisiin tukikohtiin.
          Yhdeksän viholliskonetta pommittaa tykistötulen alaisia tukikohtia.Samaan aikaan hävittäjät tulittavat konekiväärein etulinjoja.
          Terenttilässä menetetään kaksi tukikohtaa. Omat tappiot ovat 219 miestä, joista kaatuneita 32.
          Kirvesmäessä vihollisen hyökkäys torjutaan. Suomalaiset tuhoavat kaksi vihollisen hyökkäysvaunua. 1500 venäläistä kaatuu Kuhmon taisteluissa.
          Vihollinen tuhoaa suomalaisen hiihtopataljoonan Laatokan koillispuolella.
          Noin 250 miehen vahvuinen vihollisosasto saarretaan Nietjärven itäpuolella.
          Ryti, Walden ja Tanner neuvottelevat liittoutuneiden avuntarjouksesta ja katsovat, että sitä pitää käyttää sekä Neuvostoliiton että Ruotsin painostamiseen.
          Unkarilainen vapaaehtoinen, vänrikki Wilhelm Bekassy katoaa ollessaan lentämässä Italiasta saatua ja Ruotsissa koottua Fiat G. 50-hävittäjää Västeråsista Säkylään.
          Ruotsin kansalliskeräyksen tuotto on tähän mennessä noin 15 miljoonaa kruunua.
         Suomessa vierailulla ollut englantilainen työväenvaltuuskunta palaa kotimaahansa.
          Ulkomailta: Pariisin Oopperassa järjestetään Suomen auttamiseksi korkea-tasoinen Suomi-ilta.
    ^ Operan i Paris arrangerar en Finlandskväll Vinterkrigets 71 dag, den 08 februari 1940
          Sovjetunionen hör sig för hos Finland om vilken ö vi skulle vara beredda att överlåta som bas åt Sovjetunionen.
          Med stöd av stridsvagnar och i skydd av pansarplåtar som monterats på skidor lyckas det ryska infanteriet avancera till de finska ställningarna i Summa. Inkräktarna tvingas retirera vid midnatt. Finland får nästan 150 pansarplåtar i krigsbyte.
          Kl. 10.15 startar två ryska divisioners storoffensiv i Taipale.
          Fienden riktar häftig artillerield mot den östra delen av Kirvesmäki och de västliga baserna i Terenttilä.
          Nio ryska plan bombar baserna som är utsatta för artilleriled. Jaktplanen beskjuter samtidigt de främre ställningarna med maskingevär.
          I Terenttilä förlorar Finland två baser. De egna förlusterna är 219 man varav 32 är stupade.
          Vid Kirvesmäki avvärjs fiendens anfall. De finska trupperna förintar två av fiendens stridsvagnar. 1500 ryska soldater stupar vid kampen i Kuhmo.
          Fienden likviderar en finsk skidlöparbataljon nordost om Ladoga.
          En rysk avdelning på ungefär 250 man omringas öster om Nietjärvi.
          Ryti, Walden och Tanner förhandlar om de allierades biståndserbjudande och anser att det bör användas för att utöva påtryckningar både mot Sovjetunionen och Sverige.
          Den ungerska frivillige fänriken Wilhelm Bekassy försvinner mellan Västerås och Säkylä då han flyger ett Fiat G. 50-jaktplan. Planet hade kommit från Italien och monterats i Sverige.
          Nationalinsamlingen i Sverige har hittills bringat in ungefär 15 miljoner kronor.
          En delegation för den engelska arbetarklassen har besökt Finland och återvänder till hemlandet.
          Utrikes: Operan i Paris arrangerar en högklassig Finlandskväll för att hjälpa Finland.
    ^ 1924 Tong Lee, in the first US execution by lethal gas, in Carson City, Nevada. Tong Lee was a member of a Chinese gang convicted of murdering a rival gang member. Lethal gas was adopted by Nevada in 1921 as a more humane method of carrying out its death sentences, as opposed to the traditional techniques of execution by hanging, firing squad, or electrocution. During a lethal gas execution, the prisoner is sealed in an airtight chamber and either potassium cyanide or sodium cyanide is dropped into a pan of hydrochloric acid. This produces hydrocyanic gas, which destroys a human body's ability to process blood hemoglobin. The prisoner falls unconscious within seconds and chokes to death, unless he or she holds his or her breath, in which case the prisoner often suffers violent convulsions for up to a minute before dying. Lethal gas as a method of carrying out capital punishment was largely replaced by lethal injection in the late 20th century.
    — D. A. Turner [¿apellido?] es ejecutado en la cámara de gas, en Estados Unidos. Primera vez que el gas es utilizado para ajusticiar a un condenado a muerte.
    1936 Charles Curtis, US 31st vice president, born on 25 January 1860.
    ^ Kropotkin1921 Peter Alekseyevich Kropotkin, 78, Russian Prince / geologist / revolutionary anarchist
         Born on 21 December [09 December Julian] 1842, he was a Russian revolutionary and geographer, the foremost theorist of the anarchist movement. Although he achieved renown in a number of different fields, ranging from geography and zoology to sociology and history, he shunned material success for the life of a revolutionist.
          Kropotkin suffered a 40-year exile, during which he wrote a series of influential books—the most important were Paroles d'un révolté (1885), In Russian and French Prisons (1887), The Conquest of Bread (1892), Fields Factories and Workshops (1899), Memoirs of a Revolutionist (1899), Mutual Aid: A Factor of Evolution (1902), Ideals and Realities in Russian Literature (1905), and The Great French Revolution 1789–1793 (1909)—in which he set forth his libertarian philosophy.
          His aim, as he often remarked, was to put anarchism on a scientific basis. In Mutual Aid: A Factor of Evolution, which is widely regarded as his masterpiece, he argued that, despite the Darwinist concept of the survival of the fittest, cooperation rather than conflict is the chief factor in the evolution of species.
         In his theory of "anarchist communism," according to which private property and unequal incomes would give place to the free distribution of goods and services, Kropotkin took a major step in the evolution of anarchist economic thought. For the principle of wages he substituted the principle of needs. Each person would be the judge of his own requirements, taking from the common storehouse whatever he deemed necessary, whether or not he contributed a share of the labor. Kropotkin envisioned a society in which people would do both manual and mental work, both in industry and in agriculture. Members of each cooperative community would work from their 20s to their 40s, four or five hours a day sufficing for a comfortable life, and the division of labor would yield to a variety of pleasant jobs, resulting in the sort of integrated, organic existence that had prevailed in the medieval city.
          To prepare people for this happier life, Kropotkin pinned his hopes on the education of the young. To achieve an integrated society he called for an education that would cultivate both mental and manual skills. Due emphasis was to be placed on the humanities and on mathematics and science, but, instead of being taught from books alone, children were to receive an active outdoor education and learn by doing and observing at first hand, a recommendation that has been widely endorsed by modern educational theorists. Drawing on his own experience of prison life, Kropotkin also advocated a thorough modification of the penal system. Prisons, he said, were "schools of crime" that, far from reforming the offender, subjected him to brutalizing punishments and hardened him in his criminal ways. In the future anarchist world, antisocial behavior would be dealt with not by laws and prisons but by human understanding and the moral pressure of the community.
         Kropotkin returned to Russia in June 1917, after the revolution of February, but was bitterly disappointed by the authoritarian methods of the Bolsheviks after their November revolution.
    KROPOTKIN ONLINE (mostly in English translations):
  • Anarchism and Revolution
  • Revolutionary Government
  • On Process under Socialism
  • The Conquest of Bread
  • Ethics: Origin and Development
  • Fields Factories and Workshops
  • The Great French Revolution
  • Ideals and Realities in Russian Literature
  • In Russian and French Prisons
  • Revolutionary Pamphlets
  • The Place of Anarchism in Socialistic Evolution
  • Process Under Socialism
  • Proposed Communist Settlement: A New Colony for Tyneside or Wearside
  • The State—Its Historic Role
  • Advice to Those About to Emigrate
  • Anarchism: its philosophy and ideal
  • Anarchism
  • Appeal to the Young
  • Brain Work and Manual Work
  • The Commune of Paris
  • Communism and Anarchy
  • Mutual Aid: A Factor of Evolution
  • Mutual Aid: A Factor of Evolution
  • Mutual Aid
  • Modern Science and Anarchism
  • Memoirs of a Revolutionist
  • The State: Its Historic Role
  • Anarchist Morality
  • Anarchist Morality
  • An Appeal to the Young
  • The Conquest of Bread
  • On Order
  • On Order
  • The Spirit of Revolt
  • The Wage System
  • War!
    En français:
  • La Morale Anarchiste
  • La conquête du pain
    En español:
  • La conquista del pan
    • 1916: 376 die as French cruiser Admiral Charner is torpedoed off Syrian coast.
    ^ 1916 Rembrandt Bugatti, frère du constructeur automobile, peintre animalier, se suicide. Ettore Bugatti, créa en 1907 à Molsheim (en Alsace), les usines, désormais célèbres, de construction automobile. Il entrait ainsi dans la légende de l’automobile. Son frère, Rembrandt, obtint une grande place dans le tout petit groupe des sculpteurs animaliers européens du début du XXème siècle. Autodidacte mais initié à la sculpture par le prince Troubetzkoï, ancien élève de Rodin, le jeune Rembrandt découvrit tout de suite sa voie. En 1901, sa première œuvre fondue est une vache. À Paris, il va être pris en main par Adrien Hébrard qui possède à la fois le journal " Le Temps ", une fonderie et une galerie rue Royale. Rembrandt accepte de signer un contrat d’exclusivité : il touche un salaire régulier et un droit sur la vente de chaque sculpture. Littéralement envoûté par le monde animal, le jeune maître trouve insuffisant le parc zoologique du Jardin des Plantes de Paris. Il part pour Anvers où la direction du zoo se montre très accueillante à l’égard des artistes. Ce sera, de 1907 à 1914, la partie la plus créatrice de sa courte vie : une faune complète sortira de ses mains. De retour à Paris, au début de la guerre, Rembrandt se suicide dans son atelier de Montparnasse, le 08 janvier 1916. Ignoré des dictionnaires spécialisés, Rembrandt Bugatti a laissé un bestiaire qui égale celui de Barye ou de Pompon. Entre le réalisme et la stylisation, il y avait place pour une sorte d’impressionnisme sculptural et elle n’a appartenu qu’à lui. Ils étaient tous deux les fils d’un génie créateur des plus singuliers, Carlo Bugatti.
    1911 Joaquín Costa y Martínez, jurisconsulto, escritor y político español.
    1908. Ángel de Campo ("Micrós"), en la ciudad de México, donde naciera en el año de 1868. Era un notable literato, periodista, cuentista, poeta, cronista y novelista de abundante producción en todos los géneros.
    1905 Some 10'000 persons as cyclone hits Tahiti and adjacent islands.
    1877 Charles Wilkes, almirante estadounidense que descubrió la Tierra de Wilkes.
    ^ 1862 23 Rebs and 37 Yanks at Battle of Roanoke Island
          Union General Ambrose Burnside scores a major victory when he captures Roanoke Island in North Carolina. The victory was one of the first major Union victories of the war and it gave the Yankees control of the mouth of Albemarle Sound, a key Confederate bay that allowed the Union to threaten the Rebel capital of Richmond from the south.
          During the war's first winter, Union strategists focused their efforts on capturing coastal defenses to deny the Confederates sea outlets. In August 1861, the Yankees took two key forts on North Carolina's Outer Banks, paving the way for the campaign against Roanoke Island. On 11 January 1862, Burnside took a force of 15'000 and a flotilla of 80 ships down to the Outer Banks. The expeditionary force arrived at Hatteras Inlet on 13 January, but poor weather delayed an attack for three weeks. On 07 February, Burnside landed 10'000 on the island. They were met by about 2500 Confederates. Burnside attacked, and his force overwhelmed the outer defenses of the island. Confederate commander Colonel Henry Shaw retreated to the north end of the island but had no chance to escape. Shaw surrendered the entire force.
          The Yankees suffered 37 men killed and 214 wounded, while the Confederates lost 23 men killed and 62 wounded before the surrender. The Union now controlled a vital section of the coast. The victory came two days after Union General Ulysses S. Grant captured Fort Henry in northern Tennessee, and, for the first time in the war, the North had reason for optimism. of the European-influenced title of emperor. Four years later, he died.
    1800 Thomas Keyse, British artist born in 1722.
    1740 Clement XII [Lorenzo Corsini], 87, blind Pope (1730-40).
    ^ 1725 Peter the Great, 52, emperor of Russia (1682-1725).
         He is succeeded by his wife, Catherine. The reign of Peter, who became sole czar in 1696, was characterized by a series of sweeping military, political, economic, and cultural reforms based on Western European models. Russian victories in major conflicts with Persia and the Ottoman Empire greatly expanded Peter's empire, and the defeat of Sweden in the Great Northern War won Russia direct access to the Baltic Sea. Here, Peter founded the new Russian capital of St. Petersburg, and Russia became a major European power — politically, culturally, and geographically. In 1721, Peter abandoned the traditional Russian title of czar in favor of the European-influenced title of emperor. Four years later, he died.
    1676 Aleksei M Romanov, 46, first Romanov tsar of Russia.
    1668 Alessandro Tiarini, Italian painter born on 20 March 1577. — more with links to images.
    1656 Gerrit Claeszoon Bleker (or Blicker, Bleycker), Dutch artist.
    ^ 1587 Mary Queen of Scots, beheaded
          After 19 years of imprisonment, Mary Queen of Scots, 44, is beheaded at Fotheringhay Castle in England for her complicity in a plot to murder Queen Elizabeth I. In 1542, while just six days old, Mary ascended to the Scottish throne upon the death of her father, King James V. Her mother sent her to be raised in the French court, and in 1558 she married the French dauphin, who became King Francis II of France in 1559 but died the following year. After Francis' death, Mary returned to Scotland to assume her designated role as the country's monarch. In 1565, she married her English cousin Lord Darnley in order to reinforce her claim of succession to the English throne after Elizabeth's death. In 1567, Darnley was mysteriously killed in an explosion at Kirk o' Field, and Mary's lover, the Earl of Bothwell, was the key suspect. Although Bothwell was acquitted of the charge, his marriage to Mary in the same year enraged the nobility, and she was forced to abdicate in favor of her son by Darnley, James. In 1568, she escaped from captivity and raised a substantial army but was defeated and fled to England. Queen Elizabeth initially welcomed Mary but was soon forced to put her friend under house arrest after Mary became the focus of various English Catholic and Spanish plots to overthrow Elizabeth. Nineteen years later, in 1586, a major plot to murder Elizabeth was reported, and Mary was brought to trial. She was convicted for complicity and sentenced to death. On 08 February 1587, Mary Queen of Scots was beheaded for treason. Her son, King James VI of Scotland, calmly accepted his mother's execution, and upon Queen Elizabeth's death in 1603 he became king of England, Scotland, and Ireland.
    1537 Saint Jerome Emiliani, 55, Italian founder of the order of Somascha.
    ^ Births which occurred on a February 08:
    1964 The Iraqi National Oil Company is incorporated in Baghdad
          Oil wealth would make Iraq an important player in the politics of the Middle East for the next three decades. The fear of losing access to Arab oil — a fear that marked all US policy to the Middle East following the 1973 OPEC embargo — drove the US government to heavily support Iraq’s war effort against Iran during the 1980s. However, America’s friendly relationship with Iraq ended in 1990 with the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, another oil wealthy Persian Gulf state friendly to the United States
    1926 Guillermo Moron, escritor venezolano. [A Moron as author? He'd better get a pen name if his works are to be translated into English! Of course he would be a natural for titles in the “... for Dummies” series.]
    1924 Reiner, mathematician.
    1918 Peter Lanyon, British painter who died in 1964. — more with link to images.
    1918 Enrique Tierno Galván, profesor y político español.
    1916 Eila Pennanen, one of the most significant female novelists in Finland after World War II. She died on 23 January 1994.
    ^ 1915 Birth of A Nation movie debuts
          Director D.W. Griffith's film Birth of a Nation premieres at Clune's Auditorium in Los Angeles. The Civil War epic, which cost $100'000 and ran nearly three hours, used revolutionary filmmaking techniques, including multiple camera angles. The film provoked an outcry from liberals and black leaders, who objected to the film's sympathetic portrayal of members of the Ku Klux Klan and demonization of Southern blacks. Despite attempts by several groups to ban the film, the picture became a financial success, drawing long lines to pay the unprecedented price of $2 a ticket. One of the songs in the movie's score, "The Perfect Song," became the first musical hit generated by a movie.
          Griffith's pioneering techniques made him one of the most important figures in early film. The son of a Mexican War soldier, Griffith was born in Kentucky in 1875 and grew up in poverty. He became interested in theater, joining Louisville's Meffert Stock Company as a teen and later touring on his own, without much financial success. Griffith turned to writing in the early 1900s, penning short stories, poems, and plays. After writing several stories for movie studio Biograph, Griffith became involved in different aspects of the studio, from production to directing. Realizing that film acting required a different set of skills than stage acting, Griffith assembled a company of young, talented actors and rigorously trained them in a new, subtler performing style that lured huge audiences to showings of his films.
          His players included future stars Mary Pickford and Lillian Gish. In 1910, he brought them to Los Angeles to take advantage of the sunny climate and varied scenery. In 1911, Griffith directed a two-reel film, Enoch Arden. Previously, directors had assumed a two-reel film would exhaust the attention span of the American audience. When he left Biograph after making more than 450 short films, he began working secretly on The Birth of a Nation, released in 1915. His next picture, Intolerance (1916), took two years to make and featured a complex, interwoven plot portraying racism, prejudice, and injustice throughout history. He used much of his own money to finance the $2.5 million film, and its failure ruined him financially: his career foundered for several years after that. In 1919, he co-founded United Artists with Douglas Fairbanks, Mary Pickford, and Charles Chaplin. In 1935, Griffith won an honorary Oscar for his "lasting contributions to the progress of the motion picture arts." Griffith died in 1948 at the Knickerbocker Hotel in Hollywood. Today, the highest honor bestowed by the Directors Guild of America is the D.W. Griffith Award.
         Tandis que l'Europe se meurt dans la Grande Guerre, les Américains découvrent le film "Naissance d'une Nation". La superproduction de Griffith — la première du genre —, se solde par un gigantesque gouffre financier. Elle n'en marque pas moins l'accès des studios d'Hollywood au sommet de la production cinématographique. Né en France vingt plus tôt, le cinéma devient l'une des industries les plus représentatives du dynamisme étatsunien.
    ^ 1911 Elizabeth Bishop, poet, in Worcester, Massachusetts.
          Bishop's father died before his daughter reached her first birthday, and by the time she was four, her mother had been hospitalized following a nervous breakdown. After 1916, Bishop never saw her mother again. She lived with her grandmother in Nova Scotia and later with an aunt in Massachusetts before attending Vassar College, where she graduated in 1934. She traveled widely in Canada, Europe, and North and South America, writing poetry and befriending prominent poets, including Octavio Paz, Robert Lowell, and Marianne Moore. Her first book of poems, North and South, was published in 1946 and reprinted with additions in 1955. She received the Pulitzer Prize for the collection in 1956.
          Bishop produced disciplined poetry that explored geography, external and internal, among other topics. Despite her own personal struggles with alcoholism, addiction, and loneliness, she shunned the extreme confessional impulse of Sylvia Plath, Anne Sexton, and other contemporary poets. While traveling in South America, Bishop had an allergic reaction that kept her laid up in Brazil for a time. She grew so fond of the country that she lived there for some 20 years, until returning to the United States to teach at Harvard. Meanwhile, she continued to write, publishing a travel book about Brazil in 1962, and more collections in 1969 and 1976. She won many major poetry awards, despite her frequent writer's block. She died on 06 October 1979.
         [So much for those who think that a woman cannot be a Bishop: the only requirement is that she be the legitimate daughter of a Bishop.]
    1908 Rafael Lapesa Melgar, profesor, escritor y académico español.
    1906 Henry Roth, US author, whose best-known work is Call it Sleep (1934), a classic in US Jewish literature. He died in October 1995.
    1906 Chester Carlson, US physicist and inventor of xerography who died on 19 September 1968.
    1903 Abdulrahman, minister of Internal affairs / premier of Malaysia
    1883 Joseph A Schumpeter, Austria / US economist / minister of finance.
    1880 Franz Marc, German Expressionist painter, specialized in Animals. He was killed in WW I, in 1916. — MORE ON MARC AT ART “4” FEBRUARY with links to images.
    1878 Martin Buber, German/Israeli philosopher/theologist (Ich und Du) He died on 13 June 1965.
    1876 Paula Modersohn-Becker, German painter who died on 22 November 1907. — more with links to images.
    1875 Bromwich, mathematician.
    1868 Luis Gonzaga Urbina, escritor y poeta mexicano.
    1867 Michael Zeno Diemer, German artist who died in 1939.
    1828 Antonio Cánovas del Castillo, político e historiador español.
    ^ 1867 Naissance de l'Autriche-Hongrie
          L'empire autrichien cède la place à une double-monarchie austro-hongroise. Le nouvel Etat, appelé Autriche-Hongrie, se présente comme l'union de deux pays indépendants simplement unis par l'allégeance à un même souverain, François-Joseph 1er.
          Ce dernier est moins connu aujourd'hui que sa femme, la princesse bavaroise Elizabeth, surnommée «Sissi», dont l'opulente chevelure avait séduit l'héritier des Habsbourg. Le destin sentimental et tragique de «Sissi» a suscité une abondante littérature et fait la gloire de Romy Schneider au cinéma.
    La montée des Habsbourg
          La création de l'Autriche-Hongrie est l'aboutissement d'un très long processus historique qui a débuté au XIIIe siècle. Il a permis à une famille issue du modeste château des Habsbourg, situé en Suisse, de dominer toute l'Europe centrale par le biais de fructueuses alliances matrimoniales.
          Les Habsbourg ont même régné sur les Pays-Bas ainsi que sur l'Espagne et ses colonies d'outre-mer pendant quelques décennies, au temps de Charles Quint, archiduc d'Autriche, roi d'Espagne et empereur d'Allemagne! Cette situation exceptionnelle se soldait par un encerclement de la France et elle entraîna le roi de France François 1er dans une lutte impitoyable contre son rival.
          Après le règne tourmenté de Charles Quint, les Habsbourg se recentrent sur leur combat traditionnel contre les Turcs qui menacent les peuples chrétiens du bassin du Danube.
          En 1806, sous la pression de Napoléon 1er, les Habsbourg de Vienne échangent le titre symbolique d'empereur d'Allemagne contre celui d'empereur d'Autriche. Le nouvel empire recouvre les possessions héréditaires d'Europe centrale sur lesquelles les Habsbourg exercent une autorité réelle.
    Espoir d'une fédération danubienne
          En 1866, suite à la défaite de Sadowa face à la Prusse, l'empereur François-Joseph 1er renonce à ses dernières prétentions sur l'Allemagne et l'Italie. Il choisit de s'intéresser désormais à ses différents peuples. Sous l'influence de sa femme Elizabeth, il transforme ses Etats en une confédération bicéphale où les Autrichiens de langue allemande et les Hongrois se partagent le pouvoir... sur le dos des Tchèques et des Slaves du sud. Quelques mois après la signature du compromis, François-Joseph et Elizabeth ceignent à Budapest la couronne de saint Etienne, patron de la Hongrie. La Hongrie devient un royaume indépendant dénommé officiellement Transleithanie d'après une rivière, la Leitha, qui marque la limite entre les deux nouvelles entités. Autour de sa capitale, Pest (aujourd'hui Budapest), elle comprend le coeur de la Hongrie historique mais aussi la Croatie, la Transylvanie, la Slovaquie, la région polonaise de Cracovie... Les habitants de langue magyar (les Hongrois) représentent à peine la moitié de la population de cet ensemble très divers composé aussi de Slaves, d'Allemands de Roumains, de gitans, de juifs etc. Ils sont redevables à la monarchie des Habsbourg de leur donner la préséance sur les autres minorités. Le reste de l'empire autrichien devient la Cisleithanie. Il comprend une majorité d'Allemands autour de Vienne et dans les monts Sudètes du nord de la Bohême, ainsi que de fortes minorités slaves et italiennes.
          Les Tchèques, qui se réclament du prestigieux royaume de Bohême, sont les grands perdants du compromis austro-hongrois. Mais conscients de l'avantage d'appartenir à un grand ensemble danubien, ils placent leurs espoirs dans l'avènement d'une triple monarchie. Les nobles hongrois, aussi appelés magnats, sont les grands gagnants du compromis austro-hongrois. Ils bénéficient de privilèges et d'exemptions fiscales qui les dissuadent de toute ouverture démocratique en Transleithanie. Oublieux de la défaite de Sadowa, ils poussent l'empereur et roi François-Joseph 1er à se rapprocher de l'Allemagne. Ils voient en effet dans une alliance pangermaniste la meilleure garantie contre les revendications autonomistes des minorités slaves.
    Gloire et mort de l'Autriche-Hongrie
          Tandis qu'il satisfait les Hongrois, le compromis austro-hongrois offre aux autres minorités l'espoir d'une évolution favorable de leur statut dans le cadre d'une fédération élargie. Il va durablement apaiser les tensions à l'intérieur de l'empire. Par sa structure politique très souple, l'Autriche-Hongrie est un précurseur de l'Europe actuelle. Elle va bénéficier pendant près de cinquante ans d'un immense rayonnement culturel et d'une expansion économique rapide. De Trieste à Cracovie, toute l'Europe centrale en conserve la nostalgie dans son architecture comme dans son art de vivre.
          Mais la double monarchie va se trouver fragilisée par l'entêtement des nobles hongrois à refuser tout nouveau compromis qui donnerait quelques droits aux Tchèques et aux autres Slaves. L'Autriche-Hongrie s'effondrera à l'issue de la Grande Guerre, suite à l'agitation des tchèques Tomas Masaryk et Edouard Benès, aux revendications territoriales de l'Italie et de la Roumanie, et à l'animosité des dirigeants français à l'égard de la monarchie des Habsbourg.
          Invoquant le droit des peuples à disposer d'eux-mêmes, le président américain Woodrow Wilson et le Président du Conseil français Georges Clémenceau autoriseront l'éclatement de la «Mitteleuropa». L'Autriche-Hongrie, forte de 50 millions d'habitants, avec une capitale rivale de Paris, Londres ou Berlin, va céder la place à plusieurs Etats rivaux, arc-boutés sur le mythe de leur identité nationale, linguistique ou ethnique: Autriche, Hongrie, Roumanie, Tchécoslovaquie, Yougoslavie. A l'exception de l'Autriche rétrécie, tous ces Etats se caractériseront par une aussi grande hétérogénéité de langues, de cultures et de religions que feu la double monarchie.
    1861 Edouard Antoon Portielje, Belgian artist who died in 1949.
    1845 Edgeworth, mathematician.
    ^ 1828 Jules Verne, in Nantes, France.
         He would become an enormously popular author, the founding father of science fiction with H.G. Wells. Verne's stories caught the enterprising spirit of the 19th century, its uncritical fascination about scientific progress and inventions. His works were often written in the form of a travel book, which took the readers on a voyage to the moon in From the Earth to the Moon (1865) or to another direction as in A Journey to the Center of the Earth (1864). Many of Verne's ideas have been hailed as prophetic, for example of , including space travel and television. Among his best-known books are Around the World in Eighty Days (1873) and Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea. Verne died on 24 March 1905.
    —   Cet écrivain français, auteur de quelque quatre-vingts romans, fut, au XIXe siècle, un précurseur de la science-fiction. Né à Nantes, il fut destiné par les siens à reprendre l'étude d'avoué de son père. À l'âge de onze ans, ayant acheté l'engagement d'un mousse, il s'embarqua secrètement sur un long courrier en partance pour les Indes. Son père le rattrapa de justesse à Paimbœuf. Remis dans le droit chemin, il fut envoyé à Paris pour faire ses études de droit (1848). Il entreprit dès lors d'écrire clandestinement ses premières œuvres des sonnets et une tragédie en vers. Un de ses principaux mérites est d'être parvenu, grâce à son sens de la documentation, à adapter au roman les conquêtes et les découvertes des savants de son époque, tout en les mettant au service d'une imagination foisonnante, qui, bien souvent, fit de lui un visionnaire. Ainsi, le célèbre Nautilus de Vingt Mille Lieues Sous les Mers préfigure de dix ans les sous-marins de l'ingénieur Laubeuf. Jules Verne devint véritablement célèbre avec la publication, dans les années 1863-1865, de ses trois premiers grands romans : Cinq semaines en ballon, Voyage au centre de la Terre, De la terre à la lune. Durant quarante années, à travers la série des Voyages Extraordinaires, Jules Verne explora le temps et l'espace. Ses romans les plus connus sont : Les enfants du Capitaine Grant (1867), Vingt Mille Lieues Sous les Mers (1869), Le tour du monde en 80 jours (1873),L'île mystérieuse (1874), Michel Strogoff (1876), Un capitaine de quinze ans (1878), Les Tribulations d'un Chinois en Chine (1879), Le Rayon vert (1882), L'Archipel en feu (1884), Robur le conquérant (1886), Deux Ans de vacances (1888), Le Château des Caparthes (1892), Le Superbe Orénoque (1898)
    VERNE ONLINE:
  • L'île mystérieuse
  • Le tour du monde en 80 jours
  • Le tour du monde en 80 jours
  • Le tour du monde en 80 jours
  • Cinq semaines en ballon
  • Les forceurs de blocus
  • Robur le Conquérant
  • De la terre à la lune
  • Les enfants du Capitaine Grant
  • Vingt Mille Lieues Sous les Mers
  • Les Révoltés de la "Bounty"
  • Les cinq cents millions de la Begum
    • VERNE ONLINE: (in English translations)
  • Selected Works. (in English and French)
  • The Survivors of the Chancellor: Diary of J. R. Kazallon, Passenger
  • Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea
  • Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea
  • Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea
  • Michael Strogoff: or, The Courier of the Czar
  • A Journey to the Center of the Earth
  • Die Reise zum Mittelpunkt der Erde (in German)
  • Around the World in Eighty Days
  • Around the World in Eighty Days
  • Around the World in Eighty Days
  • From the Earth to the Moon
  • In Search of the Castaways
  • In Search of the Castaways
  • The Master of the World
  • The Underground City
  • The Underground City
  • The Blockade Runners
  • The Mysterious Island
  • The Mysterious Island
  • The Mysterious Island
  • The Mysterious Island
  • Off on a Comet
  • Off on a Comet
  • Round the Moon
    • 1820 William Tecumseh Sherman, Major General (Union Army), who died on 14 February 1891 (“War is hell”)
    1819 John Ruskin , English Romantic writer, critic, and painter who died on 20 January 1900. — WRITINGS OF RUSKIN ONLINE: The King of the Golden River — The King of the Golden River — The King of the Golden River — Sesame and Lilies — Unto This Last — Unto This Last (zipped) — "Work" (Lecture I, The Crown of Wild Olive) .— MORE ON RUSKIN AT ART “4” FEBRUARY with links to images.
    1781 Georges Dawe, British artist who died on 15 October 1829..— MORE ON DAWE AT ART “4” FEBRUARY with links to images.
    1777 Jan Evert Morel, Dutch artist who died on 06 April 1808.
    1723 Jacob van Lint, Flemish artist who died on 01 August 1790.
    1700 Daniel Bernoulli, Swiss mathematician who died on 17 March 1782.
    1677 Jacques Cassini, French astronomer who died on 18 April 1756.
    1627 Jonas Moore, mathematician.
    ^ 1612 Samuel Butler (baptized), Strensham, Worcestershire, England, poet and satirist, famous as the author of Hudibras, the most memorable burlesque poem in the English language and the first English satire to make a notable and successful attack on ideas rather than on personalities. It is directed against the fanaticism, pretentiousness, pedantry, and hypocrisy that Butler saw in militant Puritanism, extremes which he attacked wherever he saw them.
         The hero of Hudibras is a Presbyterian knight who goes "a-coloneling" with his squire, Ralpho, an Independent. They constantly squabble over religious questions and, in a series of grotesque adventures, are shown to be ignorant, wrongheaded, cowardly, and dishonest. Butler had derived his outline from Miguel de Cervantes, and his burlesque method (making everything "low" and undignified) from Paul Scarron. However, his brilliant handling of the octosyllabic metre, his witty, clattering rhymes, his delight in strange words and esoteric learning, and his enormous zest and vigour create effects that are entirely original. Its pictures of low life are perhaps the most notable things of their kind in English poetry between John Skelton and George Crabbe, with both of whom Butler has a certain affinity.
         Butler's other works include The Elephant in the Moon (1676), mocking the solemnities of the newly founded Royal Society; and Repartees between Puss and Cat at a Caterwalling, laughing at the absurdities of contemporary rhymed heroic tragedy. Genuine Remains in Verse and Prose of Mr. Samuel Butler, in two volumes (1759), was edited by Robert Thyer from Butler's papers and includes more than 100 brilliant prose Characters in the manner of Theophrastus, as well as a satiric analysis of the duke of Buckingham, "Duke of Bucks," that bears comparison with the "Zimri" characterization in Dryden's Absalom and Achitophel. Butler died on 25 September 1680.
    Engraving by William Hogarth: Hudibras' First Adventure (1726).
    BUTLER ONLINE: Hudibras
    NOT to be confused with:
    Samuel Butler (04 Dec 1835 – 18 Jun 1902), English novelist, essayist, and critic whose satire Erewhon (1872) foreshadowed the collapse of the Victorian illusion of eternal progress. The Way of All Flesh (1903), his autobiographical novel, is generally considered his masterpiece.
    1577 Robert Burton writer, Anglican clergyman (Anatomy of Melancholy)
    1552 Théodore Agrippa d'Aubigné, en Saintonge, poète. Il combattra au service de la cause huguenote et sa petite-fille, Madame de Maintenon, épousera Louis XIV en secondes noces. Auteur de Les tragiques: donnez au public par le larcin de Prométhée Au Dezert — Les aventures du baron de Faeneste
    1591 Giovanni Francesco Barbieri “Guercino”, Italian fresco painter who died on 22 December 1666. .— MORE ON GUERCINO AT ART “4” FEBRUARY with links to images.
    1291 Alfonso IV, King of Portugal (1325-1357)
    411 Proclus Diadochus , in Constantinople, Neoplatonic philosopher opposed to Christianity, and mathematician. He died on 17 April 485 in Athens. (Not to be confused with Saint Proclus, patriarch of Constantinople from 434, who died in 446 or 447.)
    Santos Esteban, Juan de Mata, Honorato y Cointa. / Sainte Jacqueline, veuve d'un riche seigneur italien, se met au service de Saint François d'Assise. Elle dote l'ordre naissant des Franciscains d'un premier couvent. Jacqueline assistera le Poverello au moment de sa mort. Elle meurt elle-même le 08 Feb 1239.
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