<<
Jan 15| HISTORY
4 2DAY
|Jan 17
>> Events, deaths, births, of JAN 16 [For Jan 16 Julian go to Gregorian date: 1583~1699: Jan 26 1700s: Jan 27 1800s: Jan 28 1900~2099: Jan 29] |
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2001 Twin boy guerilla leaders surrender Johnny and Luther Htoo, 13, [center and right on the photo, taken the next day] the twin boy leaders of a mystical rebel movement from Myanmar surrender late in the day with some of their followers. Hunted and hungry, 14 members of the God's Army group nine of them children, including the charismatic twins turn themselves over to Thai authorities after a year on the run along the Thai-Myanmar border. For more than three years, the boys fought to overthrow Myanmar's military government, and their followers believe Johnny and Luther have magical powers that make them invincible in battle. The boys once claimed to have several hundred followers. Last year, the Htoo twins became icons for youthful rebellion around the world after the widespread circulation of an Associated Press photograph showed the angelic-looking, long-haired Johnny posing next to his tougher-looking, cigarette-puffing brother, Luther. The boys claimed to be 12 when the picture was taken in December 1999. The reason for their surrender is a lack of supplies and food, and also because they are under pressure from both Myanmar and Thai forces. Komes Daengthongdee, the governor of Ratchaburi province, where the group surrendered said: If they ran away from fighting, they will be considered for temporary asylum in Thailand. But if they entered illegally, they will be charged with illegal entry and pushed back. Two other members of the group are being held separately, suspected of taking part in a raid last month in which a Thai border village was looted and six villagers were killed. About 100'000 other refugees from Myanmar, mostly members of Myanmar's ethnic minorities, live in refugee camps along the border with Thailand after fleeing fighting between rebel groups and the Myanmar army. Most, if not all, of the God's Army followers are members of Myanmar's sizable ethnic Karen minority, which has long sought autonomy from the central government. Many Karens, like the twins, are fundamentalist Christians, and most of the rebel groups support the pro-democracy efforts of Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi. But God's Army's unsophisticated political beliefs are mostly driven by hatred for Myanmar's army. Thailand's military often has ignored rebel activities along the border, but the involvement of God's Army in terrorist attacks inside Thailand has drawn the ire of Bangkok. Both boys looked unhealthy. Luther appeared to be very thin and Johnny seemed to have a bloated belly. Thai doctors had examine the twins and find they are not sick, but that some of their companions are. The other children include two girls, two men who appear to be in their 20s, and a middle-aged woman. The 14 God's Army members turn themselves in at the border with Myanmar in Ratchaburi province, 100 km west of Bangkok. God's Army first gained notoriety after it gave refuge to another group of Myanmar dissidents who had taken hostages at the Myanmar Embassy in Bangkok in October 1999. The Thais had allowed them to go free in exchange for releasing the captives. Several months later, members of the same group, the Vigorous Burmese Student Warriors, took control of a Ratchaburi hospital, demanding that the Thai government send medicine and doctors to treat ethnic Karen people injured in fighting with Myanmar troops. Thai commandos killed all hostage-takers. Although it was never certain that God's Army members participated in the hospital raid, the incident made them most-wanted persons on both sides of the border. After the raid, the Myanmar army, aided by Thai forces, ousted God's Army from its stronghold, and they have been on the run ever since, reported to be hiding out in villages on either side of the Thai-Myanmar border. |
2001 El petrolero Jessica encalla frente a
las costas de las islas Galápagos y provoca una marea negra de irremediables
consecuencias. 2000 Ricardo Lagos is elected Chile's first Socialist president since Salvador Allende. |
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1999 Clinton impeachment trial, 3rd day: prosecution concludes.
(1) After two days of detailing facts the House managers say support the charges of perjury and obstruction of justice, today's speakers set out to convince the Senate that those crimes are indeed "high crimes" and therefore merit Clinton's removal from office. Rep. Steve Buyer (R-Indiana) leads off the rare Saturday morning session, arguing "The president's premeditated assault on the administration of justice must be interpreted as a threat to our system of government." Buyer rejects an argument of Clinton's defenders that says even if the charges were true, they are trivial — what the prosecution has dubbed the "So what?" defense. Buyer said the White House relies on this argument because it's their only defense since they can't dispute the facts. "This 'rise to the level' has somehow become the legal cliche of this case. You've all so often heard it, and some of you have even spoken it," Buyer says. Buyer warns against the "profound" consequences of an acquittal: "Should the Senate choose to acquit it must be prepared to accept a lower standard, a bad precedent, and a double standard." Not buyin' what the White House is sellin' Prior standards used by the Senate to impeach a federal judge on the grounds of perjury should apply equally to the president, Rep. Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina) argues. "You couldn't live with yourself knowing that you were going to leave a perjuring judge on the bench. Ladies and gentlemen, as hard as it may be for the same reasons, cleanse this office.," Graham says. Another articulate Clinton detractor Rep. Charles Canady (R-Florida)
urges the senators to not to look at the definition of "high crimes
and misdemeanors" narrowly. "Perjury and obstruction of justice
are akin to bribery both in their purpose and in their effect," he argues
in his speech that wrapped up the constitutional law portion of the prosecution's
three-day opening presentation. And the polls — which show the president
with sustained high approval ratings and a majority of the public opposed
to his removal from office — should not drive their decisions. "A
popular president guilty of high crimes and misdemeanors should no more
remain in office than an unpopular president innocent of wrongdoing should
be removed ... popularity is not a sufficient guide," Canady says. (2) As House impeachment managers wrap up the opening salvo in their case against President Bill Clinton, one question is being asked in Washington and around the country — how is all of this playing with the 100 senators who will decide his fate? In their public statements today, many senators take great pains to note that they are reserving final judgment until Clinton's side of the case is heard next week. A number of senators, including some Democrats, give positive reviews to the House managers' three-day presentation. On the other hand, one moderate Republican, Sen. James Jeffords of Vermont, indicates that he was less than convinced by the House managers' argument that lying under oath in a court proceeding, even to cover up a consensual sexual affair, is impeachable. "If you say lying about a non-crime can be converted into a high crime by the way you handle it, that sets a pretty low standard for me," Jeffords says. (3) House Speaker Dennis Hastert urges Republican and Democratic lawmakers to respectfully receive President Bill Clinton when he presents the State of the Union address Jan. 19. Hastert (R-Illinois) sends a letter to his colleagues in the House of Representatives telling them that Clinton's remarks should be received "soberly and with the dignity that befits the United States Congress." In his letter, Hastert says the State of the Union address would go ahead "out of respect for the office of the presidency and for a desire to hear about the state of our nation." He reminds the representatives that there are other issues in the nation besides impeachment. "The United States of America is prosperous and free. But storm clouds gather on our horizon. Our national security is challenged by the continued malfeasance of Saddam Hussein. Our economic security is challenged by a growing worldwide recession. Our future is bedeviled by too many schools that perform poorly and by a Social Security system in need of reform," Hastert says. "The President has the responsibility to tell us his thoughts on how to confront these growing problems." Clinton's speech will take place the same day his defense team opens its case. Some lawmakers had urged the president to delay the annual address or submit it in written form because of the trial. (4) The president rehearses his State of the Union speech for about four hours and will spend at least that long practicing again tomorrow. |
1999 Los observadores internacionales descubren 45 cadáveres
de civiles kosovares de etnia albanesa en distintos lugares al sur de Kosovo. 1998 El Tribunal Constitucional turco decide disolver el Partido del Bienestar y condenar a su líder y primer ministro Necmettin Erbakan, a cinco años de inhabilitación política. 1998 El presidente estadounidense Bill Clinton, suspende el artículo III de la ley Helms-Burton contra Cuba. 1997 El gobierno argentino rechaza la petición del juez español Baltasar Garzón para abrir una investigación sobre la desaparición de 266 ciudadanos de origen español durante el régimen militar argentino. 1997 El etarra José Luis Urrusolo Sistiaga, relacionado con 18 asesinatos y dos secuestros, es detenido por gendarmes franceses cerca de Burdeos. 1996 Gunmen in Trabzon, Turkey, hijack a Black Sea ferry with more than 200 people on board, and demand that Russian troops stop fighting Chechen patriots in Pervomayskaya. (The hostages would be released three days later) 1994 El presidente italiano, Oscar Luigi Scalfaro, disuelve el Parlamento y convoca elecciones generales anticipadas. 1992 Officials of the government of El Salvador and rebel leaders sign a pact in Mexico City ending 12 years of civil war. Se firma la paz entre la FMLN y el gobierno de El Salvador en el castillo de Chapultepec. 1991 Announcing the start of Operation Desert Storm by US and 27 allies, to drive Iraqi forces out of Kuwait, President Bush said in a nationally broadcast address, "the battle has been joined," as fighter bombers pounded Iraqi targets. (Because of the time difference, it is early 17 January in the Persian Gulf when the attack begins.)
1989 El Consejo de Seguridad de la ONU aprueba por unanimidad el plan para la independencia de Namibia y pide al Gobierno de Sudáfrica que reduzca su presencia militar en ese territorio. 1987 Dimite Hu Yaobang, secretario del Partido Comunista chino, y le sustituye Zao Ziyang. 1985 El Gobierno israelí decide retirar sus tropas del Líbano en tres fases. 1982 Great Britain and the Vatican resume full diplomatic relations after a break of over 400 years. 1981 In Northern Ireland, Protestant gunmen shoot and wound Irish nationalist leader Bernadette Devlin McAliskey and her husband.
1970 Colonel Muammar al-Qaddafi becomes premier of Libya. 1967 First black government installed in Bahamas, as after the general elections of 1967, the Progressive Liberal Party under the leadership of Lynden Pindling was able to form a government with a slight majority. 1969 Soviet Soyuz 4 and Soyuz 5 perform first transfer of crew in space.
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1956 El Islam se convierte en la religión de Egipto por mandato constitucional. 1956 Egyptian President Nasser pledges to reconquer Palestine 1953 Egyptian Premier General Naguib disbands all political parties 1951 Viet Minh offensive against Hanoi 1951 World's largest gas pipeline opens (Brownsville TX, to 134th St, New York City NY) 1950 Belgium, Luxembourg and Netherlands recognize Israel 1947 Vincent Auriol elected President of France. 1946 El niño "prodigio" español Arturo Pomar Salamanca gana el torneo de ajedrez de Londres. 1945 US first and 3rd army meet at Houffalise 1945 Scottish 52nd land division/first Commando brigade-assault at Heinsberg
1943 Red Army recaptures Pitomnik airport at Stalingrad 1943 German 2nd SS-Pantzer division evacuates Charkow 1943 first US air raid on Ambon 1943 -60ºF (-51ºC), Island Park Dam ID (state record) 1942 William Knudsen becomes first civilian appointed a General in US army. 1941 II Guerra Mundial: Se inician los ataques aéreos alemanes a Malta, con lo que comenzó la guerra en el Mediterráneo. 1941 US vice admiral Bellinger warns of an assault on Pearl Harbor. 1936 Spanish socialists/communists/anarchists form Unidad Popular. |
1925 General M. Froense replaces Leon Trotsky as head
of the War Commissariat of the USSR. 1920 First assembly of League of Nations (Paris) 1920 18th Amendment to the US Constitution (prohibition of the sale or transportation of alcoholic beverages), goes into effect; (repealed by the 21st Amendment in 1933). After one year from the ratification of this article the manufacture, sale, or transportation of intoxicating liquors within, the importation thereof into, or the exportation thereof from the United States and all territory subject to the jurisdiction thereof for beverage purposes is hereby prohibited. Entra en vigor en EE.UU. la "Ley Seca", por la que se prohibía la venta y consumo de bebidas alcohólicas. 1919 Prohibition ratified by 3/4 of the US states; Nebraska is 36th (Wyoming and Missouri, the 37th and 38th). 1914 El poeta ruso Maksim Gorki, autorizado a regresar a su país tras ocho años de exilio. 1913 British House of Commons accepts Home-Rule for Ireland 1909 British explorer Ernest Shackleton finds magnetic south pole. 1908 Grandes disturbios obreros en Chicago (Estados Unidos). 1906 Conference of Algeciras (about Morocco) Comienza la Conferencia de Algeciras entre España, Francia, Alemania, e Inglaterra, sobre el destino de Marruecos. 1889 128ºF (53ºC), Cloncurry, Queensland (Australian record) 1879 January record 13" of snow falls in New York City NY (broken Jan 7, 1996) 1868 Refrigerator car patented by William Davis, a fish dealer in Detroit.
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1786 The Virginia Legislature adopted the Ordinance of Religious Freedom, which guaranteed that no man would be forced to attend or support any church. This mandate later became the model for the First Amendment to the US Constitution. 1777 Vermont declares independence from NY 1776 Continental Congress approves enlistment of free blacks 1756 England and Prussia sign Treaty of Westminster. 1716 Se promulga en Madrid el Decreto de Nueva Planta para Cataluña. 1581 English parliament passes laws against Catholicism 1556 Emperor Charles V abdicates throne of Spain in favor of his son Philip II
1493 Columbus returns to Spain from his first trip |
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Deaths which occurred on a January
16:
2003 Five persons by a car bomb of the FARC exploding in a parking lot adjacent to a state prosecution office in Medellín, Colombia. 2003 Alfred Kantor, of Parkinson's disease, Jewish artist, born in Prague on 07 November 1923. Author of The Book of Alfred Kantor (1971) with his reminiscences and 127 watercolors and sketches of life in the Nazi concentration camps of Auschwitz, Theresienstadt, and Schwarzheide. — an image 2002 Richard Boeken, 57, of lung cancer. In June 2001 he had won against Philip Morris a $3 billion damage award, which was later reduced to $100 million. But he did not collect as Philip Morris is appealing the reduced award, which it called "grossly excessive." Boeken, a former oil and securities dealer, took up smoking at 13 and smoked at least two packs of Marlboro cigarettes a day for more than 40 years.Any damage award after the appeal would go to Boeken's estate. ^ 2001 Laurent-Désiré Kabila [photo >], 63, president of Congo, from wounds received in Kinshasa, as a young bodyguard, Rashidi Mizele, leaning in as if to whisper something into the presidential ear, shoots Kabila in the head, back, and right leg. The Congolese government would deny the fact until 18 January when it would announce that Kabila's death as having occured on the 18th at 10:00. On 17 January the Cabinet would intall his son, Joseph Kabila,29, head of the armed forces, as interim president. On 20 January Laurent Kabila's body would be flown back from Zimbabwe, where he had been taken for treatment. Kabila was born on 1 January 1938. He had been fighting a civil war since August 1998, when rebel forces backed by Kabila's former allies, Rwanda and Uganda, turned against him. In the war's early stages, the rebels reached the outskirts of Kinshasa before being turned back by Kabila's army, which got the suppor of Angola, Namibia and Zimbabwe. Kabila came to power in May 1997 following a Uganda- and Rwanda-sponsored rebellion against former dictator Mobutu Sese Seko, who ruled the nation then called Zaire. The world community initially welcomed Kabila, who, many hoped, would be a vast improvement over Mobutu's decades-long rule, which left his nation desperately broke and with an infrastructure that barely functioned. But Kabila quickly alienated himself, inviting close friends and relatives into the government, angering investors and obstructing a United Nations investigation of reports that his army, in its rebel days, had slaughtered thousands of Hutu refugees. In 2000 Kabila's government signed a peace agreement with the new rebel movements, but fighting continued and each side has consistently accused the other of violations. 2001 Zhang Zhanguo, executed, a farmer from central Henan province, China, guilty of stabbing a neighbor to death with a kitchen knife during an argument in November 1999 2001 Pan Huanjie, executed, Beijing driver, guilty in the 1999 stabbing death of a man he and an accomplice had quarreled with over repairs to electrical equipment. 2001 Zhang, executed in China, which leads the world in judicial executions. [but my guess is that, in proportion to population, Texas has more]. 2001 Mourshed Rafiq Suleiman, is found murdered. He was a Palestinian, from the Ajah village in the West Bank, suspected of collaborating with Israel. He had been seized from his home by masked men late the previous day. 2001 Sergio Moreno, 22, musician, of injuries he suffered when trapped for 31 hours under cinderblocks and dirt of his buried house, after the 13 January 17:33 UT Salvador earthquake He was the last survivor pulled from the rubble after he used his cellular phone to call for help. |
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2001 Stormy, 4, bottlenose dolphin, after acting strangely
for a few days and stopping eating since the previous day, at the Mystic,
Connecticut, Aquarium, where he had lived with other dolphins in their
1600 cubic meter pool, since he was nursed back to health after being rescued
on 16 September 1998 when he came ashore on a beach in Port Aransas, Texas,
shark bitten, bleeding and in critical condition. Stormy was probably separated from his mother during Tropical Storm Frances. Because dolphins usually stay with their mother for two years it appears Stormy, then 18 months old, was unable to feed himself. Stormy was not released back into the wild because he was not fully weaned at the time he was separated from his mother and would not know how to find food for himself. Stormy's saga was considered remarkable because only 5 percent of all whales and dolphins that wash ashore survive. In December 1999, Stormy had been diagnosed with osteomyelitis in his tail vertebrae. It took several months of treatment to improve his condition. In March 2000, Deb Adamson, public relations director of the Mystic Aquarium, had published a children's book about Stormy: Stormy The Baby Dolphin / A Gulf Coast Rescue, and Dorothy Hernandez published Stormy the Dolphin. |
2000 Dionisio Gamallo Fierros, escritor español. 1989 Two Blacks on a motorcycle, in crash when a policeman shoots the driver. Three days of rioting ensue in Miami. 1982 Ramón J. Sender, escritor español. 1980 Benjamín Palencia, pintor español. 1970 Francisco Gutiérrez Cossío “Pancho Cossío”, Spanish painter born in Cuba on 20 October 1894 (1884?), who painted mostly marine scenes, still lifes, and portraits. MORE ON COSSÍO AT ART 4 JANUARY with links to images. 1969 Jan Palach, estudiante, se quema vivo en la plaza Wenzel, de Praga, en protesta por la ocupación soviética de Checoslovaquia y la supresión de las libertades individuales. 1967 Robert Jemison van der Graaff, 65, US physicist, inventor of the Van de Graaff generator, a type of high-voltage electrostatic generator that serves as a type of particle accelerator. This device has found widespread use not only in atomic research but also in medicine and industry. 1950 Gustav Krupp, industrial y financiero alemán.
1922 Pierre René Jean Baptiste Henri Brocard, born on 12 May 1845, French army officer who studied meteorology but is best remembered as a mathematician for his work on the triangle. The Brocard points of a triangle ABC are O, O' where OAB, OBC and OCA and the angles O'BA, O'CB and O'AC are equal. [Draw a circle tangent to AC at A passing through B; another tangent to BC at C passing through A; a third tangent to BA at B passing through C. They are concurrent at O.] Angle OAB is called the Brocard angle and satisfies cot OAB = cot A + cot B + cot C. Brocard arrived at his discovery from the study of the problem of the three dogs chasing one another, all three at the same speed. Brocard generalized, the dogs running at different speeds, yet still meeting at one (Brocard) point.. 1916 Ulpiano Checa y Sanz, Spanish artist born on 03 April 1860. 1906 Arnold Böcklin, Swiss Symbolist painter born on 16 October 1827. MORE ON BÖCKLIN AT ART 4 JANUARY with links to images. 1886 Piotr Petrovitch Veretshchagin (or Weretschagin), US (!) artist born in 1836. 1834 Hachette, mathematician. 1794 Edward Gibbon, English rationalist historian and scholar born on 08 May (27 April Julian) 1737. GIBBON ONLINE: The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire — Volume I (17 Feb 1776), Volume II (1781), Volume III (1781), Volume IV , Volume V , Volume VI (with IV and V on 08 May 1788). This is the work for which he is known, a continuous narrative from the 2nd century to the fall of Constantinople in 1453. He finished writing it on 27 June 1787. He attributes the decline of the Roman Empire to the rise of Christianity (in which he did not believe) 1668 Charles-Alphonse Defresnoy, French artist born in 1611. 1606Baltasar de Alcázar, poeta satírico español. 1219 Thousands die in floods in Northern Netherlands after storm
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Births
which occurred on a January 16: 1974 Jaws, Peter Benchley's novel from which Stephen Spielberg made a movie in 1975 [picture >], is published. 1942Nicole Fontaine, presidenta del Parlamento Europeo. 1938 José Manuel Vilabella Guardiola, escritor español. ^ 1933 Susan Sontag, novelist and essay writer, in New York City in 1933. Sontag's parents lived in China, where her father was a fur trader, but Sontag's mother returned to the United States for her daughter's birth and left the newborn with relatives. After her father's death, when Sontag was a toddler, her mother returned to the States and remarried. The family moved to Arizona, then Southern California, where Sontag attended North Hollywood High. A fiercely intellectual student, Sontag went on to the University of California at Berkeley, then attended the University of Chicago and Harvard, getting a doctorate in English literature and philosophy. Along the way, she married (at age 17), had a son (at age 19), and divorced (at age 26). She also began publishing essays and writing fiction At age 30, she sent off the manuscript of her first book, The Benefactor, addressed simply to "The Fiction Editor" at Farrar Straus Giroux. The publishing house immediately bought the novel for a $500 advance, and she remained with the same publisher for decades. Her 1964 essay, "Notes on Camp," published in the Partisan Review, made her a celebrity at age 31, when she defined the appeal of camp culture. She published another novel, Death Kit, in 1967 but turned her attention toward essays, nonfiction, and politics in the late 60s and 70s. She lived in Europe from 1968 to 1974. Diagnosed with breast cancer in 1972, she turned her illness into her best-known work, Illness as Metaphor (1977). In 1992, she surprised her readers with a historical romance, The Volcano Lover, set in 18th-century Naples. She lived in New York. 1931 Johannes Rau, presidente de Alemania. 1930 Norman Podhoretz, author-editor. 1928 William Kennedy, author. 1922 Luis Echeverría Álvarez, político mejicano. 1920 Bill Boone, mathematician. 1911 Eduardo Frei (Christian Democrat), President of Chile (1964-70) 1901 Fulgencio Batista President / Dictator of Cuba (1933-44, 1952-59). He died on 06 August 1973. 1887 George Kelly, US playwright and actor who died on 18 June 1974. 1885 Wladyslaw Raczkiewicz president of Poland (1939-40) 1883 The US Civil Service Commission is established. 1881 Sir Arthur Fleming, English engineer who died on 14 September 1960. 1874 Robert Service, Canadian verse writer [not poet ???] who died on 11 September 1958. 1853 André Michelin France, industrialist/tire manufacturer (Michelin) 1850 "Pierre Loti" (Louis M. J. Viaud), escritor francés. 1824 Seymour Joseph Guy, English US painter and printmaker who died on 10 December 1910. — links to images. 1801 Clausen, mathematician. 1759 British Museum opens in London. 1754 Paul-Théodor van Brussel, Dutch artist who died in 1795. 1752 George Cabot, US Federalist leader who died on 18 April 1823.. 1749 Vittorio Alfieri, Italian poet who died on 08 October 1803. 1675 Le duc de Saint-Simon, à Paris, mémorialiste de la cour de Louis XIV. |