23 Jan History.

<< Jan 22| HISTORY “4” “2”DAY |Jan 24 >>
Events, deaths, births, of JAN 23
[For Jan 23 Julian go to Gregorian date: 1583~1699: Feb 02 — 1700s: Feb 03 — 1800s: Feb 04 — 1900~2099: Feb 05]

ALTERNATE SITES ALL FOR 040123 ANY DAY OF THE YEAR IN HISTORY ART “4” JAN 23

On a January 23:
3268 Beginning of 2nd Julian Period.
2002 The US House of Representatives passes 349-23, and sends to the President for signature, H.R.700, already approved by the Senate, reauthorizing a 1997 law that created the Asian Elephant Conservation Fund and allocating to it up to $25 million over the next five years. It also reauthorizes the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, which since its creation in 1984 has funded more than 5000 projects to conserve fish, wildlife, plants and their habitats. There are only 35'000 to 50'000 Asian elephants in the wild, most of them in India, Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia. The elephants, which require a shady forest environment, are threatened by poachers and a growing human population that endangers their habitat.
2001 El ex-dictador chileno Augusto José Ramón Pinochet Ugarte se somete a un interrogatorio ante el juez Juan Guzmán Tapia para responder de las violaciones de los derechos humanos cometidas bajo el régimen dictatorial que él presidió.

^ 2001 Now 18, 11-year-old murderer of 5-year-old is set free.
      A youth who spent 5 years in prison for dropping 5-year-old Eric Morse to his death from a 14th-floor window in on 13 October 1994 is set free by Juvenile Court judge Ms. Kelly who says that the teen is being given "a chance at a good and productive life." Several experts testify that “Tony”, now 18, is doing well since his conditional release from prison in October 2000. In addition to receiving intensive family and individual counseling,“Tony” is in a mentoring program and is scheduled to graduate from a Chicago public high school in June 2001.
      While “Tony” made his final court appearance in the case, the second youth convicted in the Morse killing, 17-year-old Jessie Rankins, remains locked up in a special unit at the maximum security Illinois Youth Center at Joliet. He is estranged from his family and prone to self-destructive episodes, including slashing at his arms with shards of broken light bulbs. He often thinks of suicide.
      The divergent paths taken by the two youths, who became the youngest offenders in Illinois to be sentenced to prison, illustrate the complexities of dealing with the country's most violent juvenile offenders and how family support, intelligence levels and a host of other factors are critical to efforts at rehabilitating them. But it offers no clear indication about whether the prison system can provide effective treatment for society's most troubled youths.
      Rankins and “Tony” were aged 10 and 11 when they dropped Eric Morse to his death from an Ida B. Wells public housing high-rise because he refused to steal candy for them. The case, which became a national symbol of the rising tide in violent juvenile crime, outraged state lawmakers who lowered the age at which juvenile offenders could be incarcerated to 10. At a lengthy court hearing following the youths' conviction in 1995, Kelly listened to experts describe how the youths suffered from "severe childhood conduct disorder" — a mental illness that left them impulsive, violent and devoid of empathy. And in what has amounted to a bold experiment, Kelly decided to send the youths to prison but ordered state officials to provide them with intensive treatment. Because the youths were convicted in Juvenile Court, they were given the maximum 5-year probationary sentence but could be held until their 21st birthday.
      In an interview, Rankins said that he suffers from severe mood swings and depression triggered by the violent prison environment and by recurring thoughts about the Morse killing. He said that he vividly recalls holding Morse by his waist near the open window and then watching the boy fall to his death. Rankins said that he ran down 14 flights of stairs and cradled the Morse boy's limp body. "He only breathed one time. Then he stopped," he recalled. While prosecutors said at trial that the youths were equally responsible for purposely dropping Eric Morse from the window, Rankins said he had no intention of murdering the boy. "I know I was part of it," he said. "I was there. I can't change that. But I know that I wouldn't kill no boy. I know that I didn't kill him."
      In releasing “Tony”, whose real name has never been made public because he was a minor at the time of the killing, Kelly ordered the media to continue to refrain from publishing his name, his home address or the name of the organization providing him with treatment. Rankins was publicly identified in 1999 after he was convicted in an adult court of sexually assaulting a fellow inmate and sentenced to 9 years in prison.
      During their initial years of incarceration, “Tony” and Rankins were repeatedly disciplined for assaulting inmates and threatening staff. But in recent years, “Tony” has gained some insight and control over his violent and obstinate behavior, while Rankins has continued to act out. In the past year, Rankins spent about six weeks in confinement for violating prison rules. While “Tony”, with a below-average IQ, has had the active support of his mother throughout his incarceration, Rankins is learning-disabled and has seen his mother only twice and never seen his father in the past 4 years. Rankins still cannot read. "He probably wasn't going to benefit from anything the Department of Corrections gave him no matter how hard they tried," said David Hirschboeck, a Cook County assistant public defender who represented Rankins in the murder case. Still, Hirschboeck argues Rankins would have had a better chance at rehabilitation if Kelly had sent him to a treatment facility rather than to prison. "He's been in jail for almost 7 years. What a way to grow up," Hirschboeck said. "I don't know if residential treatment would have helped him, but we will never know."

^ 1999 (Saturday) Clinton impeachment developments: Lewinsky MUST talk.

(1) In a ruling that rocks Clinton's Senate impeachment trial, US. District Court Judge Norma Holloway Johnson decides that Independent Counsel Ken Starr can force Monica Lewinsky to answer questions from his staff and allow the 13 House prosecutors to attend the session. In her ruling, Johnson orders that Lewinsky "allow herself to be debriefed by the House Managers, to be conducted by the Office of the Independent Counsel if she so requests, or forfeit her protections under the Immunity Agreement between Ms. Lewinsky and the OIC." Judge Johnson's ruling comes after the House prosecutors obtain Starr's help in their attempt to force Lewinsky to talk to them, contending her immunity agreement requires it. Judge Johnson's decision — announced just minutes before Clinton's Senate trial resumes — means Lewinsky will have to meet with House prosecutors. The debriefing has not yet been scheduled, but could occur with House Judiciary Counsel David Schippers conducting the interview. WHAM! BAM! Thank you, ma'am

(2) Monica Lewinsky arrives in Washington, D.C., from Los Angeles in mid-afternoon. A crush of photographers greet her when she checks into the fashionable Mayflower Hotel on Connecticut Avenue.

(3) As they did throughout the Senate's questioning, House prosecutors continue to push senators to allow witnesses, defending their (now legally-vindicated) decision to ask Independent Counsel Ken Starr for assistance in compelling Lewinsky to submit to a interview with the managers. The prosecution is also interested in hearing from other witnesses, such as Betty Currie and Vernon Jordan. Sources close to presidential friend Vernon Jordan say that Jordan has made clear through his attorney he has no intention of voluntarily granting the House Republican prosecutors an interview. Unlike Lewinsky, Jordan does not have an immunity agreement with Starr and cannot be compelled to grant the House prosecutors an interview unless he is subpoenaed. (FULL LIST OF SENATE QUESTIONS, DAY TWO)

(4) The question-and-answer part of the trial, which include more than 150 questions over 22 January and today, give senators the opportunity to submit written queries to the prosecution and defense through Chief Justice William Rehnquist. "We would be happy to take questions and get responses to you, consult with the president and Mr. Ruff, if you'd like to submit them," White House counsel Gregory Craig says. Craig later clarifies that Clinton's lawyers, not the president himself, would respond. La Monica causes another media conniption

(5) Former President George Bush worries about Bill Clinton's apparent "lack of respect" for the presidency, but is optimistic any embarrassment to the country will be short-lived. "I have tried to stay out of all the Washington mess," Bush says at the end of a keynote address to the Safari Club International's 27th annual hunters' convention. "But I must confess I have been deeply concerned by what appears to be a lack of respect for the office I was so very proud to hold," he says. "The presidency — just let me tell you this, because you probably worry about all this just as I do. Just as my sons and my daughter do. And as Barbara does," Bush tells the crowd of big-game hunters and conservationists at the Reno Hilton Hotel-Casino. "Our country is strong and it is resilient. And the presidency, the office of the presidency, is strong and it is resilient," he says. "The trials of the present will soon pass away and once again our country will be respected and strong around the world." Bush makes no direct reference to impeachment.

1998 Paolo Fresco sustituye al frente de la empresa italiana Fiat a Cesare Romiti, por designación de la familia Agnelli, propietaria de la compañía.
1998 El Senado chileno aprueba por unanimidad un proyecto de ley por el que se devuelven las pertenencias o se paga una indemnización a los propietarios de bienes conficados durante la dictadura militar del general Augusto José Ramón Pinochet Ugarte.
1998 El psiquiatra Carlos Castilla del Pino consigue el Premio Jovellanos de ensayo por su obra El delirio, un error necesario.
1998 El presidente argentino, Carlos Saul Menem, anuncia la expulsión de la Armada del capitán de navío Alfredo Astiz, conocido como el Ángel de la muerte, por sus numerosos crímenes cometidos durante la dictadura militar.
1998 Alina Fernández, hija del dictador cubano Fidel Castro Ruz, se presenta en la Oficina de Asilo y Refugio (OAR) de Madrid para solicitar asilo político.
1997 El proyecto Tercer Milenio, puesto en marcha por la Unesco, inicia su andadura en Valencia con el Congreso "Los Desafíos del Tercer Milenio", al que asisten Pierre Elliott Trudeau, Karl Otto Apel, Umberto Eco, Santiago Grisolía García, Luis Racionero, Antonio Gala, José Luis Abellán y Mario Vargas Llosa, entre otros muchos.
1997 A judge in Fairfax, Va., sentences Mir Aimal Kasi to death for an assault rifle attack outside CIA headquarters in 1993 that killed two men and wounded three other persons.
1996 It is announced that Sun Microsystems will purchase Apple Computer within a few days. Takeover discussions started in September 1995 but broke off in early January, allegedly over price disagreements. Apple had sustained major losses during the previous quarter, and its stock had plummeted in January; the takeover talks fell apart, and the acquisition was called off. Apple went through management changes that culminated in the return of Steve Jobs, long banished from the company he founded, as interim CEO.
1996 General Electric announces that it will sell its Genie online service to Yovelle Renaissance Corporation, which would turn Genie into a Web site
1995 The Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT), a nationally funded watchdog organization, warn Internet users about sophisticated new hacker techniques. The group describes a system where hackers penetrated secure firewalls by masquerading as a trusted computer on the network. Recently companies including General Electric, Sprint, and IBM had suffered break-ins.
1991 World's largest oil spill, caused by embattled Iraqi forces in Kuwait
1991 After some 12'000 sorties in the Gulf War, Gen. Colin Powell, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said allied forces had achieved air superiority, and would focus air fire on Iraqi ground forces around Kuwait.
1991 High-denomination banknotes withdrawn in USSR

^ 1990 Computer virus creator is convicted
Robert Morris, 24, is convicted for spreading a computer virus via e-mail in November 1988. Morris, a former Cornell University graduate student, released a virus on the Internet which disrupted dozens of computers at universities and government agencies. Morris claimed he designed the program to spread via security holes in the Internet, but a programming error caused it to spread much faster than he intended. The is the first time a computer virus perpetrator is convicted under US federal law. Following the virus problem in November, several states enacted laws designed to make computer viruses illegal. .

1989 Challenge to "who is a Jew" law filed in Israeli Supreme Court
1988 Experimental airplane Voyager, piloted by Dick Rutan and Jeana Yeager, complete first nonstop, round-the-world flight without refueling lands
1987 Japan first exceeds military spending cap of 1% of GNP ($23 billion)
1987 Dow Jones rises 64 points then drops 110 points (44.15 point loss)
1987 Más de 50'000 jóvenes estudiantes se manifiestan, en Madrid, para pedir la supresión de las tasas académicas y varias reformas educativas.
1982 Urbe Blanca (cow) produces record 110 kg of milk, Cuba (approximate date)
1980 CiU (Convergencia i Uniò) gana las elecciones al Parlamento de Cataluña.
1979 Ofensiva del Frente Polisario en el Sáhara: 800 bajas del Ejército marroquí en 10 días.
1975 Se mide por primera vez el tamaño de un asteroide, el No. 433, Eros, when it passes within 0,15 AU of Earth. It has a shape like that of a kidney bean, and is 36x15x13 km..

^ 1973 Nixon announces Vietnam peace settlement
President Nixon announces that Henry Kissinger and Le Duc Tho, the chief North Vietnamese negotiator, have initialled a peace agreement in Paris "to end the war and bring peace with honor in Vietnam and Southeast Asia." Kissinger and Tho had been conducting secret negotiations since 1969. After the South Vietnamese had blunted the massive North Vietnamese invasion launched in the spring of 1972, Kissinger and the North Vietnamese had finally made some progress on reaching a negotiated end to the war. However, a recalcitrant South Vietnamese President Nguyen Van Thieu had inserted several demands into to the negotiations that caused the North Vietnamese negotiators to walk out of the talks with Kissinger on 13 December. President Nixon issued an ultimatum to Hanoi to send its representatives back to the conference table within 72 hours "or else."
The North Vietnamese rejected Nixon's demand and the president ordered the “Christmas Bombing”, Operation Linebacker II, a full-scale air campaign against the Hanoi area. This operation was the most concentrated air offensive of the war. During the 11 days of the attack, 700 B-52 sorties and more than 1000 fighter-bomber sorties dropped roughly 20'000 tons of bombs, mostly over the densely populated area between Hanoi and Haiphong. On 28 December, after 11 days of intensive bombing, the North Vietnamese agreed to return to the talks. When the negotiators met again in early January, they quickly worked out a settlement. Under the terms of the agreement, which became known as the Paris Peace Accords, a cease-fire would begin at 08:00, 28 January, Saigon time (19:00, 27 January, US Eastern Standard Time). In addition, all prisoners of war were to be released within 60 days and in turn, all US. and other foreign troops would be withdrawn from Vietnam within 60 days. With respect to the political situation in South Vietnam, the Accords called for a National Council of Reconciliation and Concord, with representatives from both South Vietnamese sides (Saigon and the National Liberation Front) to oversee negotiations and organize elections for a new government. The actual document was entitled "An Agreement Ending the War and Restoring Peace in Vietnam" and it was formally signed on 27 January.

1973 Helgafell, island of Heimaey Iceland erupts for first time in 7000 years
1972 Entire population of Istanbul under 24 hour house arrest
1971 –62º, Prospect Creek Camp AK (US record cold air temperature)

^ 1968 North Korea seizes US spy ship Pueblo
The US. intelligence-gathering ship Pueblo is seized by North Korean naval vessels and charged with spying and violating North Korean territorial waters. Negotiations to free the 83-man crew of the US. ship dragged on for nearly a year, damaging the credibility of and confidence in the foreign policy of President Lyndon B. Johnson's administration. The capture of the ship and internment of its crew by North Korea was loudly protested by the Johnson administration. The US. government vehemently denied that North Korea's territorial waters had been violated and argued the ship was merely performing routine intelligence gathering duties in the Sea of Japan. Some US. officials, including Johnson himself, were convinced that the seizure was part of a larger communist-bloc offensive, since exactly one week later, communist forces in South Vietnam launched the Tet Offensive, the largest attack of the Vietnam War. Despite this, however, the Johnson administration took a restrained stance toward the incident. Fully occupied with the Tet Offensive, Johnson resorted to quieter diplomatic efforts to resolve the crisis in North Korea.
In December 1968, the commander of the Pueblo, Capt. Lloyd Bucher, grudgingly signed a confession indicating that his ship was spying on North Korea prior to its capture. With this propaganda victory in hand, the North Koreans turned the crew and captain (including one crewman who had died) over to the United States on 23 December 1968. The Pueblo incident was a blow to the Johnson administration's credibility, as the president seemed powerless to free the captured crew and ship. Combined with the public's perception — in the wake of the Tet Offensive — that the Vietnam War was being lost, the Pueblo incident resulted in a serious faltering of Johnson's popularity with the American people. The crewmen's reports about their horrific treatment at the hands of the North Koreans during their 11 months in captivity further incensed American citizens, many of whom believed that Johnson should have taken more aggressive action to free the captive Americans.

On 23 January 1968, the USS Pueblo a Navy intelligence vessel, is engaged in a routine surveillance of the North Korean coast when it is intercepted by North Korean patrol boats. According to US reports, the Pueblo was in international waters some 25 km from shore, but the North Koreans turned their guns on the lightly armed vessel and demanded its surrender. The US sailors attempted to escape, and the North Koreans opened fire, wounding the commander, Lloyd Bucher, and two others. With capture inevitable, the US sailors stalled for time, destroying the classified information aboard while taking further fire. Several more crew members were wounded, including Duane Hodges, who later died from his injuries. Finally, the Pueblo was boarded and taken to Wonson. There, the 83-man crew was bound and blindfolded and transported to Pyongyang, where they were charged with spying within North Korea's 12-mile territorial limit and imprisoned. It was the biggest crisis in two years of increased tension and minor skirmishes between the United States and North Korea. The United States maintained that the Pueblo had been in international waters and demanded the release of the captive sailors.
With the Tet Offensive raging 3000 km to the south in Vietnam, President Lyndon Johnson ordered no direct retaliation, but the United States began a military buildup in the area. North Korean authorities, meanwhile, coerced a confession and apology out of Pueblo commander Bucher, in which he stated, "I will never again be a party to any disgraceful act of aggression of this type." The rest of the crew also signed a confession under threat of torture. The prisoners were then taken to a second compound in the countryside near Pyongyang, where they were forced to study propaganda materials and beaten for straying from the compound's strict rules. In August, the North Koreans staged a phony news conference in which the prisoners were to praise their humane treatment, but the Americans thwarted the Koreans by inserting innuendoes and sarcastic language into their statements. Some prisoners also rebelled in photo shoots by casually sticking out their middle finger; a gesture that their captors didn't understand. Later, the North Koreans caught on and beat the US sailors for a week. On 23 December 1968, exactly 11 months after the Pueblo's capture, US. and North Korean negotiators reached a settlement to resolve the crisis. Under the settlement's terms, the United States admitted the ship's intrusion into North Korean territory, apologized for the action, and pledged to cease any future such action. That day, the surviving 82 crewmen walked one by one across the "Bridge of No Return" at Panmunjon to freedom in South Korea. They were hailed as heroes and returned home to the United States in time for Christmas. Incidents between North Korea and the United States continued in 1969, and in April 1969 a North Korean MiG fighter shot down a US. Navy intelligence aircraft, killing all 31 men aboard. In 1970, quiet returned to the demilitarized zone.

^ 1964 Poll Tax made unconstitutional in US
The South Dakota legislature becomes the 38th to ratify the 24th Amendment to the US Constitution, which outlaws the poll tax, giving it the necessary three-fourth majority of the states. The amendment had been passed by Congress on 27 August 1962.
The tax stemmed back to the 1880s, when members of the burgeoning Populist party began to build a potentially potent coalition of African American and lower class white voters in the South. Across the region, planters, merchants, and industrialists moved to preserve their power and pushed for the passage of a deliberately prohibitive poll tax. The legislation, adopted by a host of Southern states, proved all too effective, as scores of African-Americans, as well as the "poorer sort" of whites, simply could not afford to pay the tax and thus lost the right to vote. However, thanks in large part to the efforts of Senator Spessard L. Holland of Florida, the once recalcitrant Congress slowly came around to the cause of outlawing the tax and passed the Twenty-fourth Amendment. On January 23, 1964, the amended was ratified by the South Dakota legislature,

Article XXIV.

Section 1. The right of citizens of the United States to vote in any primary or other election for President or Vice President, for electors for President or Vice President, or for Senator or Representative in Congress, shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or any State by reason of failure to pay any poll tax or other tax.
Section 2. The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

1962 Kim Philby flees to the USSR from Beirut where he was working as a journalist. He was a British intelligence officer in MI-6, acting as a Soviet spy, until 1951 when suspicion fell on him and he was relieved of his intelligence duties. He was dismissed from MI-6 in 1955. In Moscow, Philby eventually reached the rank of colonel in the KGB. Philby published a book, My Silent War (1968), detailing his exploits.
1962 Libya, Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia plan to form United Arab Maghreb.
1961 Venezuela adopts constitution. — es la vigésima sexta desde que se consiguió la independencia.
1961 Supreme Court rules cities and states have right to censor films.
1960 Piccard and Walsh in bathyscaph "Trieste" reach 10,900 meters in Mariana Trench.
1958 Dictator Marcos Pérez Jiménez flees Venezuela, Larrazábal takes power.
1950 Israeli Knesset resolves that Jerusalem is the capital of Israel.
1946 Rear Admiral Sidney W Souers, USNR, becomes first director of CIA.
1943 Japanese Mount Austen on Guadalcanal captured.
1943 British 8th army marches into Tripoli.
1943 II Guerra mundial: Los aliados adoptan en la Conferencia de Casablanca el principio de "rendición incondicional" y una serie de acciones militares.
1942 Tank battle at Adzjedabia, African corps vs British army.
1942 Japanese troops occupy Rabaul New Britain.

^ 1941 Lindbergh to US Congress: Negotiate with Hitler
      Charles A. Lindbergh, a national hero since his nonstop solo flight across the Atlantic, testifies before the House Foreign Affairs Committee on the Lend-Lease policy-and suggests that the United States negotiate a neutrality pact with Hitler. Lindbergh was born in 1902 in Detroit. His father was a member of the House of Representatives. Lindbergh's interest in aviation led him to flying school in Lincoln, Nebraska, and later brought him work running stunt-flying tours and as an airmail pilot. While regularly flying a route from St. Louis to Chicago, he decided to try to become the first pilot to fly alone nonstop from New York to Paris. He obtained the necessary financial backing from a group of businessmen, and on 21 May 1927, after a flight that lasted slightly over 33 hours, Lindbergh landed his plane, the Spirit of St. Louis, in Paris. He won worldwide fame along with his $25'000 prize.
      In March 1932, Lindbergh made headlines again, but this time because of the kidnapping of his two-year-old son. The baby was later found dead, and the man convicted of the crime, Bruno Hauptmann, was executed. To flee unwanted publicity, Lindbergh and his wife, Anne Morrow, daughter of US. ambassador Dwight Morrow, moved to Europe. During the mid-1930s, Lindbergh became familiar with German advances in aviation and warned his US. counterparts of Germany's growing air superiority. But Lindbergh also became enamored of much of the German national "revitalization" he encountered, and allowed himself to be decorated by Hitler's government, which drew tremendous criticism back home.
      Upon Lindbergh's return to the States, he agitated for neutrality with Germany, and testified before Congress in opposition to the Lend-Lease policy, which offered cash and military aid to countries friendly to the United States in their war effort against the Axis powers. His public denunciation of "the British, the Jewish, and the Roosevelt Administration" as instigators of American intervention in the war, as well as comments that smacked of anti-Semitism, lost him the support of other isolationists. When, in 1941, President Roosevelt denounced Lindbergh publicly, the aviator resigned from the Air Corps Reserve. He eventually contributed to the war effort, though, flying 50 combat missions over the Pacific. His participation in the war, along with his promotion to brigadier general of the Air Force Reserve in 1954 by President Dwight D. Eisenhower, a popular Pulitzer Prize-winning book, The Spirit of St. Louis,, and a movie based on his exploits all worked to redeem him in the public's eyes.

1940 Pianist Ignaz Paderewski becomes premier of Polish government in exile
1937 Karl Radek and 16 others go on trial in Moscow in Stalin's great purge
1933 20th amendment changes date of Presidential Inaugurations to 20 January.
1932 Disolución en España de la Compañía de Jesús y expropiación de sus bienes.
1931 Por acuerdo entre España y Portugal quedan abolidos los pasaportes entre ambos países.
1924 Ramsey MacDonald forms first Labour government in Britain
1920 Dutch government refuses to turn over ex-Kaiser Wilhelm I of Germany to the victorious Allies. — El Gobierno holandés se niega a conceder la extradición del ex emperador alemán Guillermo II, alegando que no figuraba entre los firmantes del Pacto de Versalles.
1916 Temp falls from 44ºF (7ºC) to -56ºF (–49ºC) night of 23-24, Browning MT
1908 US and Great-Britain demand end of abuses in Congo
1894 G W Bunbury of Dublin sets shorthand record of 250 wpm for 10 minutes
1865 -Jan 25th) Battle of City Point, VA (James River, Trent's Reach)

^ 1863 Reb General Hood removed from command
Confederate General John Bell Hood is officially removed as commander of the Army of Tennessee. He had requested the removal a few weeks before; the action closed a sad chapter in the history of the Army of Tennessee. A Kentucky native, Hood attended West Point and graduated in 1853. He served in the frontier army until the outbreak of the Civil War. Hood resigned his commission and became a colonel commanding the 4th Texas Infantry. Hood's unit was sent to the Army of Northern Virginia, where it fought during the Peninsular Campaign of 1862. Hood, now a brigadier general, built a reputation as an aggressive field commander. He distinguished himself during the Seven Days' battle in June, and was given command of a division. His counterattack at Antietam in September may have saved Robert E. Lee's army from total destruction.
After being severely wounded at Gettysburg in July 1863, Hood was transferred to the Army of Tennessee. He was soon wounded again, losing a leg at Chickamauga in September. Hood was promoted to corps commander for the Atlanta campaign of 1864, and was elevated to commander of the army upon the removal of Joseph Johnston in July. Over the next five months, Hood presided over the near destruction of that great Confederate army. He unsuccessfully attacked General William T. Sherman's army three times near Atlanta, relinquished the city after a month-long siege, then took his army back to Tennessee in the fall to draw Sherman away from the deep South. Sherman dispatched part of his army to Tennessee, and Hood lost two disastrous battles at Franklin and Nashville in November and December 1864. There were about 65'000 soldiers in the Army of Tennessee when Hood assumed command in July. On 01 January, a generous assessment would count 18'000 men in the army. The Confederate Army of Tennessee was no longer a viable fighting force.

1861 Agoston Haraszthy, first vintner in Sonoma Valley, imports 100'000 cuttings of 350 varieties from Europe.
1855 El Gobierno español anuncia a las Cortes la ruptura de relaciones con la Santa Sede.
1845 The US Congress decides that all national elections will be held on the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November.
1812 At 15:00 UT (09:00 local) the strongest earthquake yet in US history (magnitude 8.4) occurs at the New Madrid fault in then sparsely populated Missouri, with epicenter at 36º40"N 89º40'W. In would be surapassed by magnitude 8.7 earthquake at the exact same spot on 07 February 1812 at 09:45 UT (03:45 local)
1799 Los republicanos franceses denominan República Partenopea al antiguo reino de Nápoles.
1793 2nd partition of Poland, between Prussia and Russia.
1731 Se suscribe un nuevo Tratado de Viena, por el que Austria , Inglaterra y España se aliaron para lograr que Carlos (Carlos III, rey de España) obtuviera la sucesión de Nápoles y Sicilia.
1719 Principality of Liechtenstein created within Holy Roman Empire by joining the two lordships of Vaduz and of Schellenberg. Liechtenstein was included from 1806 to 1815 in the Rhine Confederation, and from 1815 to 1866 in the German Confederation. In 1866 Liechtenstein became independent. Its area is 160 sq.km.
1677 Carlos II, Rey de España y la reina madre nombran primer ministro a Juan José de Austria.
1668 England, Netherlands and Sweden signs Triple Alliance against French
1647 Scottish Presbyterians sell captured Charles I to English parliament.
1631 France and Sweden sign anti-German Treaty of Bärwald.

^ 1579 Union d'Utrecht
Sept provinces des Pays-Bas à majorité protestante se constituent en confédération. Ce sont les Pays-Bas actuels. Le sud du pays, catholique, reste sous souveraineté espagnole et deviendra beaucoup plus tard la Belgique. De Groningue, au nord, à Cambrai, au sud, les Pays-Bas appartenaient un siècle plus tôt au duc de Bourgogne, Charles le Téméraire. Par le hasard des successions, ils échoient à Philippe II, roi d'Espagne. Comme on est en pleine guerre de religion, les catholiques et les protestants s'affrontent aux Pays-Bas comme ailleurs. Guillaume de Nassau, qui a hérité de la principauté d'Orange, au sud de la France, reçoit le gouvernement de la province de Hollande. Avec d'autres nobles néerlandais, il dénonce les persécutions contre les protestants calvinistes. Les protestataires, quoique nobles, s'énorgueillissent de l'appellation de «gueux» qui leur est lancée par un conseiller du roi d'Espagne. Ils adoptent pour insignes l'écuelle et la besace.
Les tensions s'exaspèrent lorsque le représentant du roi, le duc d'Albe fait juger et décapiter deux chefs des «gueux» en réplique à des agressions contre des lieux catholiques. Guillaume d'Orange, dit «le Taciturne», s'enfuit en Allemagne. Il revient un peuplus tard aux Pays-Bas avec une armée et devient le chef («stathouder» en néerlandais) de l'insurrection. Le nouveau représentant du roi n'est autre que le jeune don Juan d'Autriche, demi-frère de Philippe II et héros de la victoire de Lépante sur les Turcs. Il s'empare de Namur mais comme les armées de Philippe II sont retenues en France dans d'autres guerres de religion, il lui est impossible de restaurer l'autorité royale sur l'ensemble des Pays-Bas. Son successeur, Alexandre Farnèse, monte habilement les catholiques contre les protestants. Craignant l'hégémonie protestante, les représentants des dix provinces du sud concluent l'Union d'Arras le 06 janvier 1579. La division du pays devient irrémédiable. Il ne reste plus aux Provinces Unies du nord qu'à confirmer à Utrecht leur propre union autour de la Hollande. Fortifiées par leur révolte, les Provinces Unies deviendront le premier des Etats modernes, avec une économie capitaliste et des colonies très riches.

1571 Queen Elizabeth I opens Royal Exchange in London

^ 0638 Start of Muslim calendar
In is used in the Islamic world (except Turkey, which uses the Gregorian calendar) and based on a year of 12 months, each month beginning approximately at the time of the New Moon. (The Iranian Muslim calendar, however, is based on a solar year.) The months are alternately 30 and 29 days long except for the 12th, Dhu al-Hijjah, the length of which is varied in a 30-year cycle intended to keep the calendar in step with the true phases of the Moon. In 11 years of this cycle, Dhu al-Hijjah has 30 days, and in the other 19 years it has 29. Thus the year has either 354 or 355 days. No months are intercalated, so that the named months do not remain in the same seasons but retrogress through the entire solar year every 32.5 solar years.
The date of the Hegira is the starting point of the Muslim era. The Hegira ("flight," or "emigration") is the Prophet Muhammad's migration (AD 622) from Mecca to Medina in order to escape persecution. It was 'Umar I, the second caliph, who in the year AD 639 (ah 17) introduced the Hegira era (Ah, for Anno Hegirae). 'Umar started the first year Ah with the first day of the lunar month of Muharram, which corresponded to 16 July 622 (0001 Muharram 01)

TO THE TOP

Deaths which occurred on a January 23:

2004 At least 51 persons, in Srirangam near Tiruchi, Tamil Nadu state, India, after a short circuit sets fire to a makeshift palm-frond hall at a wedding ceremony attended by about 500 persons. Some die in the stampede to escape through the hall's narrow entrance.

2004 At least nine persons, when a bus carrying devotees from Tirupati, Tamil Nadu state, India, rolls down 30 meters into a ravine on the Ghat Road, 94 km from its destination in Salem, in the afternoon At least 17 are injured.

2003 Israeli Corporal Ronald Berrer, 20, from Rehovoth; and Staff Sergeant Ya'akov Naim, 20, from Kfar Monash; and Corporal Asaf Bitan, 19, from Afula; [left to right photos >] shot from ambush at 20:30 in the West Bank. All three are of the Lavie battalion, which was securing the Kvasim Junction, between the village of Yatta and Hebron's industrial zone, 5 km south of Hebron's industrial zone on the road between the enclave settlements Kiryat Arba and Beit Haggai.

2003 Raymond Poore Jr., 43, is found by his wife at 18:00 in their Winchester VA home, shot dead, and with dog bites and scratches. He had phoned his wife at work, telling her that their dog had bitten him and that he was going to kill it. It is thought that Poore must have beaten the 14-kg shar-pei with the gun that went off. The stock of the weapon, a combination rifle and shotgun, was broken and there appeared to be blood and dog hair on it. The dog survives.

2003 Labour Minister Ahmad Mohamed Khalif; and pilots Abdikadir Mahat Kuno and Sammy Mungai, as 24-seat Gulfstream G1 plane 5YEMJ , with 13 aboard, chartered for VIPs, crashes at 17:20 immediately after hitting a pothole in the poorly maintained runway which made it take off with insufficient airspeed from Busia, Kenya. Khalif and three other passengers were newly appointed ministers (Raphael Tuju of Information and Tourism, Martha Karua of Water Resources, and Linah Kilimo of State in the Office of the Vice Fresident) of the government of President Mwai Kibaki, 71 (Democratic Party of Kenya), whose National Rainbow Coalition (NaRC, a discordant coalition of KANU defectors and 14 former opposition parties) election victory on 27 December 2002 ended nearly 24 years of rule by Daniel Arap Moi and the continuous rule by his Kenya African National Union (KANU) party since independence in 1963. They were returning from a celebration of their appointment. Khalif, a softly spoken former journalist and long-term head of the Supreme Council of Kenya Muslims, was viewed as a moderate politician and was a major shareholder of Iqra FM, a Muslim radio station based in Nairobi. Pilot Kuno was the son of millionaire Mahat Kuno Roble. Kibaki spent the closing weeks of the election campaign in a London hospital, after breaking an arm, dislocating an ankle and breaking his neck in a road accident on 03 December 2002. He was readmitted to hospital on 20 January 2003, suffering from a blood clot and high blood pressure.

^ 2002: 21 friendly Afghans, in brutal “mistake” by US “elite special forces”
    The US troops think that they are attacking al-Qaida and Taliban fighters in a weapons cache in the remote village Hazer Qadam, in the Kandahar region. 27 surviving Afghans are taken prisoner, brutally beaten, and would only be released on 05 February 2002, when the US finally admits the mistake, after two weeks of obsfuscation.
— On 10 February 2002, Afghans taken prisoner by US forces in two 23 January 2002 night raids in Oruzgan, Afghanistan, say that they were brutalized by US soldiers, despite their protests that they supported the leader of the interim government, Hamid Karzai.
      The men were among 27 Afghans who were released on 07 February 2002 after 16 days' detention in the US base in Kandahar, about 250 km southwest of Oruzgan. The Pentagon has reluctantly acknowledged that the raids were conducted in error, apparently because of flawed intelligence, and that the prisoners were neither members of Al Qaeda nor Taliban fighters. Local officials put the death toll at 21; the Pentagon admits that “at least” 15 Afghans were killed.
      The accounts of harsh treatment from four of the prisoners, the district police chief among them, give the lie to the attempted cover-up by the US military, which now at last is “investigating.”.
      Abdul Rauf, 60, the police chief in this small mountain town, said he was beaten, kicked until his ribs cracked and punched by American soldiers when they stormed the district headquarters in the night of Jan. 23-24 and took him and his men prisoner.
      An American officer apologized to him when he was released, he said, asking forgiveness and saying their capture had been a mistake.
      "I can never forgive them," Mr. Rauf said in an interview today as he lay on cushions at his home, still clearly suffering from his ordeal. "Why did they bomb us? Why did they do this?"
         United States Special Forces stormed two compounds in Oruzgan within minutes: the local school, where men from the government disarmament commission had made their base, and the district civilian and police headquarters, where 30 police guards were based and 6 men were in the jail. Both compounds had storerooms still full of weapons left behind or captured from the Taliban. The school was crowded with four-wheel-drive vehicles and a truck mounted with an antiaircraft gun.
      Among the men killed in the school were two of Mr. Karzai's top commanders, while in the district headquarters, two guards were killed. Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld admitted last week that US forces “may have” killed local allies in the raid.
      "There is no need for more US raids," says Azizullah Agha, the new head of the Afghan government disarmament commission here, who lost nine members of his own family in a US bombing in November. "If for example we have information that the Taliban leader Mullah Omar is somewhere, I can go there myself to negotiate or send guards."
      "I do not know why they are making so many mistakes," said Mr. Agha, who is 58. He had accepted previous mistakes because they had been close to Taliban positions, he said. "But this latest one was a very big mistake," he continued. "There were no Al Qaeda or Taliban. There was just a commission that is working for the government, collecting weapons."
      The governor of Oruzgan Province, Jan Muhammad, also expressed anger in an interview in the provincial capital, Tirin Kot. He said he had 30 soldiers from Special Forces working with him and living in his headquarters while 250 km away other Americans were killing his commanders.
      Chief Rauf said he was asleep with his guards in the district office when shouts and gunfire woke him at 03:00. He recognized American voices outside and went out, calling out in Pashto to the troops.
      "I was shouting `Dost! Dost!' — `We are friends!' — but they were not listening," he said. "And I was telling my men that they are friends, and US soldiers came and started to beat me. I was down on my knees, bent over, and they kicked me in the chest. I heard my ribs crack. Then I was lying on my side and they kicked me in the back, in the kidneys, and I fainted." He came round to find his hands tied and one of his men dead on the ground. His men surrendered without a fight, Mr. Rauf said.
      Two of his men interviewed today, Allah Noor, 40, and Ziauddin, 50, looked like the village farmers they were until they joined the police as guards after the Taliban were ousted. A third guard, Aktar Muhammad, was still in his teens.
      All four said that US soldiers beat and punched them in the district headquarters before their hands and feet were bound and they were loaded on helicopters and flown to the base in Kandahar. There they were made to lie face down on a hangar floor and for the rest of the night were subjected to violent blows and kicking, they said.
      "They were walking on our backs, kicking us," Mr. Rauf said. As he muttered a prayer, a soldier hit him on the back of the head, smashing his nose against the ground. His nose still bears the marks of a cut. Mr. Ziauddin, who uses only one name, was also kicked in the head, he said, and he showed a tooth loosened as his head hit the floor.
      Mr. Muhammad said he was picked up and thrown on the ground three times by soldiers, until on the third time he fainted from a blow to the head. "I was so afraid I did not expect to remain alive and see my family again," he said. In the morning he was put with the other prisoners in a large cage, with wooden bars and a canvas roof.
      Two days later he was pulled out and put in solitary confinement in a metal shipping container for eight days and underwent an aggressive interrogation. Two US soldiers guarded the open door and ordered him to sit on the floor and keep his eyes down.
      After the first day the beating stopped, possibly because they all told their interrogators they were supporters of Mr. Karzai.
      At the end of the 16 days they were told they would be released and given new clothes, wool hats and boots. A US officer put his hands together in a gesture of apology as a translator told them it had been mistake.
      Relatives of the dead men are angry and are demanding to know who fed the Americans the wrong information. "We are having a lot of trouble convincing them it was a mistake," they say.
      No one will name any suspects, but officials here insist that despite local rivalries, no person from Oruzgan would have had the ear of the US forces to request such a raid. "A simple apology will not solve this," Mr. Irfani said. "The Americans know who informed them, and that man is an enemy of this government and of this country. He should be handed over to this administration and executed."

2001 Motti Dayan, 29, and Etgar Zeituni, 34, Israelis murdered in Tul Karm, West Bank.
     They owned "Yuppies" restaurant on Sheinkin Street in Tel Aviv. Police investigating the murder said the two went to Tul Karm with an Arab Israeli friend from Baka al-Garbiyeh, Fuad Mohammed who owns the produce store from which Yuppies gets its fruit and vegetables. The three planned to do some shopping in Tul Karm, taking advantage of the low prices in the territories due to the economic damage caused by the Israeli repression of the al-Aqsa Intifada.
      After finishing shopping for earthenware jars and flowers at about 16:00 P.M., they stopped to eat at Abu Nidal restaurant in Tul Karm. While they were there, a group of masked Palestinians suddenly entered and removed the three Israelis at gunpoint. They put the Israelis into a car and drove northeast, stopping on the border of Area A (Palestinian-controlled territory), between the village of Ikhtaba and the Nur a-Shams refugee camp. There, they shot the two Jews in the head at close range, apparently with rifles. Mohammed was unharmed. The killers then threw both Mohammed and the bodies out of the car and fled. Mohammed and the bodies were later found by the Palestinian Preventive Security Service and handed them over to the Israel Defense Forces.
     Mohammed was handed over to the Shin Bet security service for questioning. Investigators are trying to determine whether he was involved in the murder or an innocent victim. As far as is known, he made no effort to avoid being returned to Israel, and Israeli security sources think it likely the attack was spontaneous rather than planned. By the time the Israelis entered the restaurant, it was probably public knowledge that they were in town.
      Hamas claimed responsibility for the killing, and said it had filmed the two Israelis being kidnapped and executed. "We in the Iz a Din al Kassam [Hamas's military wing] are responsible for the kidnapping of the two Israeli soldiers, members of Israel's public security service Shin Bet, near Tul Karm," said a caller to Reuters news agency, claiming to belong to the group. "After kidnapping them, they were filmed and killed."
     Israeli security officials were furious at what they termed the two murdered Israelis' "irresponsibility." There has been a blanket ban on Israelis entering Area A since the outbreak of the Intifada in October. Nevertheless, many mainly Arab Israelis have continued to do so since IDF road blocks are far from being hermetic. In some cases where Jews ignored the ban Palestinian police have returned them safely, but in other cases, the Jews have been killed. Tul Karm in particular has been tense since 01 January, when Israel assassinated the secretary general of the local Fatah chapter, Dr. Thabet Thabet.

1999 Shivani Bhatnagar, correspondent of Indian Express, found murdered in her East Delhi apartment.
1998 Hilla Limann President of Ghana in (1979-81)
1998 Joseph Conigliario, mafioso of the DeCavalcante “family” in New Jersey, involved in loan-sharking, extortion, and narcotics distribution. shot. On 19 December 2002, Martin Lewis and Joseph Brideson, would be convicted of the murder; Ruben Malave (who helped hide Lewis after the murder) and Brideson's cousin New York detective Michael Silvestri, 46 (who removed evidence and falsified police reports), would be conviceted as accessories after the fact. All four were also members of the DeCavalcante crime “family”.
1995 Gregorio Ordóñez, candidato por el PP a la alcaldía de San Sebastián, asesinado por ETA (Euskadi Ta Askatasuna) en San Sebastián de un tiro en la cabeza.

^ 1991 Darrell Lunsford, a county constable in Garrison, Texas, is killed after pulling over a traffic violator.
His murder was remarkable because it was captured on a camera set up in Lunsford's patrol vehicle. The videotape evidence led to the conviction of the three men who beat, kicked, and stabbed the officer to death along the East Texas highway. Lunsford pulled over a vehicle with Maine license plates and turned on the video camera installed on his front dashboard. He appeared to have asked the three men in the car to open the trunk. However, when the men got out of the car they tackled Lunsford and stabbed him in the neck. The men took his gun, badge, and wallet and drove off in their car. Later that night, Reynaldo Villarreal was picked up by officers as he was walking a few miles from the murder site. His brother, Baldemar, and another man, Jesse Zambrano, were also arrested a short time later. At the trial of the three men, the jury watched the videotape and all were convicted. The videotaped murder of Lunsford has ushered in a new era. Video cameras have become ubiquitous in police cars, and can be a potent law-enforcement tool.

1989 Salvador Felipe Jacinto Dalí y Domenech, Spanish Surrealist painter and printmaker born on 11 May 1904.— MORE ON DALI AT ART “4” JANUARY with links to images.
1986: 38 personas en el incendio de un hotel de lujo en Nueva Delhi (India).
1986 Joseph Beuys, German Conceptual artist born on 12 May 1921.— MORE ON BEUYS AT ART “4” JANUARY with links to images.
1950 George Orwell, 46, British novelist, in London
1947 Pierre Bonnard, French Nabi painter born on 03 October 1867. — MORE ON BONNARD AT ART “4” JANUARY with links to images.
1944 Edvard Munch, Norwegian painter born on 12 December 1863. — MORE ON MUNCH AT ART “4” JANUARY with links to images.

1940 Day 55 of Winter War: USSR aggression against Finland.
More deaths due to Stalin's desire to grab Finnish territory.
Finnish troops repulse enemy offensive in Taipale
       Ladoga Karelia: three battalions of Group Talvela launch a counteroffensive on the River Aittojoki.
      Central Isthmus: heavier than normal enemy shelling in the Summa and Lähde sectors.
      An enemy detachment of company strength attacks the islands of Suursaari and Rumakoira in Lake Muolaanjärvi. The Finnish defenders repulse the assault.
      Northern Finland: Colonel Siilasvuo arrives in Kuhmo with the staff of the 9th Division and settles into the Jämäs barracks.
      Group Ilomäki is placed under command of the 9th Division.
      North Karelia: 11 enemy aircraft bomb Nurmes, killing 21 people and injuring 39.
      Southeast Isthmus and Ladoga Karelia: Finnish troops repulse the enemy offensives in Taipale and on the northeast side of Lake Ladoga.
      The enemy has already dropped 6,700 bombs behind the Finnish lines.
      Northern Finland: a Finnish Gladiator fighter is hit by an explosive shell, bursts into flames and crashes behind enemy lines 3 kilometres west of Märkäjärvi. The pilot, Swedish volunteer Second Lieutenant Johan Sjökvist, is killed.
      Finland's employers recognize the trade union movement. The Central Organization of Finnish Trade Unions (SAK) now has 80,000 members.
      The author Frans Emil Sillanpää donates his Nobel Gold Medal to the defense of Finland.

^ Vihollisen hyökkäykset torjutaan Taipaleessa Talvisodan 55. päivä, 23.tammikuuta.1940
      Aamulla Ryhmä Talvelan kolmen pataljoonan vastahyökkäys käynnistyy Aittojoella.
      Kannaksella vihollisen tykistötuli on tavallista voimakkaampaa Summan ja Lähteen lohkoilla.
      Komppanian vahvuinen vihollisosasto hyökkää Muolaanjärven Suursaareenja Rumakoiraan. Suomalaiset torjuvat hyökkäyksen.
      Eversti Siilasvuo saapuu 9. Divisioonan esikunnan kanssa Kuhmoon ja asettuu Jämäksen kasarmialueelle.
      Ryhmä Ilomäki alistetaan divisioonalle.
      Vihollinen pommittaa Nurmesta 11 lentokoneen voimin. Surmansa saa 21 henkilöä ja 39 loukkaantuu.
      Vihollisen hyökkäykset torjutaan Taipaleessa ja Laatokan koillispuolella.
      Vihollinen on pudottanut tähän päivään mennessä jo 6700 pommia rintaman taa.
      Suomalaisten Gladiator-koneeseen osuu vihollisen räjähtävä ammus. Kone syttyy tuleen ja syöksyy palavana maahan 3 kilometriä Märkäjärvestä länteen vihollisen puolelle. Ruotsalainen vapaaehtoislentäjä, vänrikki Johan Sjökvist saa surmansa.
      Työnantajat tunnustavat ammattiyhdistysliikkeen. Suomen Ammattijärjestöjen Keskusliikkeen, SAK:n jäsenmäärä on 80 000.
      Kirjailija Frans Emil Sillanpää luovuttaa Nobel-palkintonsa kultamitalin Suomen maanpuolustuksen hyväksi.

^ Fiendens attacker avvärjs i Taipale Vinterkrigets 55 dag, den 23 januari 1940
      På morgonen går Grupp Talvela till motattack vid Aittojoki med en styrka på tre bataljoner.
      På Näset är fiendens artillerield häftigare än vanligt vid avsnitten i Summa och Lähde.
      En avdelning bestående av ett ryskt kompani anfaller öarna Suursaari och Rumakoira i Muolaanjärvi. Finnarna avvärjer anfallet.
      Överste Siilasvuo anländer till Kuhmo i sällskap av staben för den 9. Divisionen och slår sig ner vid kasernområdet i Jämäs.
      Grupp Ilomäki underställs divisionen.
      Fienden bombar Nurmes med 11 plan. 21 personer dödas och 39 skadas.
      Fiendens anfall avvärjs i Taipale och nordost om Ladoga. Hittills har fienden fällt inte mindre än 6700 bomber på vår sida om fronten.
      En rysk kreverande projektil träffar det finska planet Gladiator. Planet fattar eld och störtar brinnande ner tre kilometer väst om Märkäjärvi på fiendens sida. Den svenska frivilliga piloten, fänrik Johan Sjökvist omkommer.
      Arbetsgivarna erkänner fackföreningsrörelsen. Finlands Fackföreningars Centralförbund FFC har 80 000 medlemmar.
      Författaren Frans Emil Sillanpää överlåter guldmedaljen som han har fått i Nobel-pris åt Finlands försvar.

1938 Ismael Enrique Arciniegas, escritor y político colombiano.
1932 4000 protesting farmers killed by El Salvador's army.
1926 Désiré J. Mercier, 74, Belgian philosopher/cardinal.
1924 James Wilson Morrice, Canadian painter born on 10 August 1865. — more with links to images.
1915 German cruiser Bluecher, sunk by the British Navy.
1913 Nazim Pasha Turkey's PM assassinated.
1893 José Zorrilla y del Moral, dramaturgo español.
1889 Alexandre Cabanel, French Academic painter born on 28 September 1823. — MORE ON CABANEL AT ART “4” JANUARY with links to images.
1883 Louis Christophe Paul Gustave Doré, French Romantic painter, printmaker, etcher, lithographer, and book illustrator, born on 06 January 1832. — MORE ON DORÉ AT ART “4” JANUARY with links to images.

^ 1870: Some 50 children, 90 women, 37 men, sleeping peaceful Blackfeet, massacred by US soldiers.
     Declaring he did not care whether or not it was the rebellious band of Indians he had been searching for, Colonel Eugene Baker orders his men to attack a sleeping camp of peaceful Blackfeet along the Marias River in northern Montana. The previous fall, Malcolm Clarke, an influential Montana rancher, had accused a Blackfeet warrior named Owl Child of stealing some of his horses; he punished the proud brave with a brutal whipping. In retribution, Owl Child and several allies murdered Clarke and his son at their home near Helena, and then fled north to join a band of rebellious Blackfeet under the leadership of Mountain Chief. Outraged and frightened, Montanans demanded that Owl Child and his followers be punished, and the government responded by ordering the forces garrisoned under Major Eugene Baker at Fort Ellis (near modern-day Bozeman, Montana) to strike back. Strengthening his cavalry units with two infantry groups from Fort Shaw near Great Falls, Baker led his troops out into sub-zero winter weather and headed north in search of Mountain Chief's band. Soldiers later reported that Baker drank a great deal throughout the march. On January 22, Baker discovered an Indian village along the Marias River, and, postponing his attack until the following morning, spent the evening drinking heavily.
      At daybreak on the morning of 23 January 1870, Baker ordered his men to surround the camp in preparation for attack. As the darkness faded, Baker's scout, Joe Kipp, recognized that the painted designs on the buffalo-skin lodges were those of a peaceful band of Blackfeet led by Heavy Runner. Mountain Chief and Owl Child, Kipp quickly realized, must have gotten wind of the approaching soldiers and moved their winter camp elsewhere. Kipp rushed to tell Baker that they had the wrong Indians, but Baker reportedly replied, "That makes no difference, one band or another of them; they are all Piegans [Blackfeet] and we will attack them." Baker then ordered a sergeant to shoot Kipp if he tried to warn the sleeping camp of Blackfeet and gave the command to attack. Baker's soldiers began blindly firing into the village, catching the peaceful Indians utterly unaware and defenseless. By the time the brutal attack was over, Baker and his men had, by the best estimate, murdered 37 men, 90 women, and 50 children. Knocking down lodges with frightened survivors inside, the soldiers set them on fire, burnt some of the Blackfeet alive, and then burned the band's meager supplies of food for the winter. Baker initially captured about 140 women and children as prisoners to take back to Fort Ellis, but when he discovered many were ill with smallpox, he abandoned them to face the deadly winter without food or shelter.
      When word of the Baker Massacre (now known as the Marias Massacre) reached the east, many Americans were outraged. One angry congressman denounced Baker, saying "civilization shudders at horrors like this." Baker's superiors, however, supported his actions, as did the people of Montana, with one journalist calling Baker's critics "namby-pamby, sniffling old maid sentimentalists." Neither Baker nor his men faced a court martial or any other disciplinary actions. However, the public outrage over the massacre did derail the growing movement to transfer control of Indian affairs from the Department of Interior to the War Department. — President Ulysses S. Grant decreed that henceforth all Indian agents would be civilians rather than soldiers.

1864 Michele Puccini, 50, composer.
1810 John Hoppner, English painter born on 04 April 1758. — MORE ON HOPPNER AT ART “4” JANUARY with links to images.
1806 William Pitt the Younger, 46, PM Great Britain (1783-1806)
1785 Stewart, mathematician.
1760 Gian Antonio Guardi, Italian painter born in 1698. — MORE ON GUARDI AT ART “4” JANUARY with links to images.
1744 Giambattista Vico, filósofo italiano.
1648 Francisco de Rojas Zorrilla, dramaturgo español.
1556 Some 830'000 in deadliest earthquake recorded in history, estimated at magnitude 8, in Shansi, China. The second deadliest was the 7.5 magnitude earthquake of 27 July 1976 in Tangshan, China, which may have killed 400'000 more than the Communist dictature's figure of 255'000.
1516 Ferdinand II, 63, king of Aragon/Sicily

^ 1002 Otto III, 21, German king/emperor 983/996-1002
L'empereur d'Allemagne Otton III (19 ans) meurt et avec lui le rêve d'un empire chrétien. De père saxon et de mère byzantine, Otton est né en Italie. Il accède au trône à l'âge de trois ans et règne sous la régence de sa mère, Theophano, puis de sa grand-mère, Adélaïde. Ces deux femmes d'une exceptionnelle personnalité vont en faire un adolescent d'une parfaite éducation et d'une immense culture gréco-latine. Couronné roi des Romains à 16 ans selon la tradition familiale, Otton III se détourne de son héritage allemand pour ne s'intéresser qu'à l'Italie, encore porteuse du prestige de la Rome antique. Il veut restaurer l'empire de Charlemagne, voire l'empire romain de Constantin. Il espère y arriver en plaçant sur le trône de Saint-Pierre son maître et ami, l'archevêque de Reims Gerbert d'Aurillac (50 ans). Gerbert s'était déjà illustré en soutenant la candidature de Hugues Capet au trône de Francie occidentale (la France actuelle). Il devient pape sous le nom de Sylvestre II. Mais la mort prématurée du jeune Otton III va mettre un terme au projet d'un condominium de l'empereur et du pape sur l'Occident chrétien. L'ère des empires s'achève tandis qu'émergent les futures nations européennes.

Births which occurred on a January 23:

^ 1964 The 24th Amendment to the US Constitution is ratified by the South Dakota legislature, becoming the law of the land.
It prohibits the collection of poll taxes in national elections . Passage of the amendment affected voting in Alabama, Mississippi, Arkansas, Texas, and Virginia. As President Lyndon Johnson said: “Nothing is so valuable as liberty and nothing is so necessary to liberty as the freedom to vote without bans or barriers....There can be no one too poor to vote.”
Payment of the tax stood as a potent prerequisite, and sometimes outright barrier, to voting in national elections. And, for the Southern Democrats who designed and helped pass the tax in a number of Southern states during the 1880s and 1890s, this was precisely the point: the poll tax was a blunt tool for barring poverty-stricken African-Americans and whites from participating in the electoral process. As such, the tax was also a means for stemming the rise of the Populist Party, which had used a racially mixed coalition of poor and lower class voters to gain a place on the national stage. Attempts to roll back the poll tax were generally blocked in the Senate. However, in 1949, Senator Spessard L. Holland of Florida took up the cause of killing the tax forever via a constitutional amendment. When the Senate finally passed the Twenty-Fourth Amendment in 1962, the poll tax remained in effect in five Southern states: Virginia, Texas, Mississippi, Arkansas and Alabama. After 1964, it was constitutionally legal in none.

1946 José Arnoldo Alemán Lacayo, político y presidente de Nicaragua.
1938 Hans-Georg Kern “Georg Baselitz”, in Deutschbaselitz, in what would be East Germany. — MORE ON “BASELITZ” AT ART “4” JANUARY with links to images.

^ 1930 Derek Walcott, poet and playwright, in St. Lucia, in the Carribbean.
      Walcott will win the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1992. Walcott's family descended from slaves in the West Indies, and the legacy of slavery is a common theme in his work. Both his parents were schoolteachers and encouraged a love of reading in their three children. When Walcott's father died, his mother raised the family on her own.
      Walcott knew early on he wanted to be a writer: His first book of poems was published when he was only 18. He continued writing and began teaching as well. Deeply interested in theater as well as poetry, he received a grant from the Rockefeller Foundation in 1957, which allowed him to study with a prominent director in New York for two years. In New York, Walcott founded the Trinidad Theater Workshop.
      A prolific poet, Walcott published In a Green Night: Poems 1948-1960 in 1962, Selected Poems in 1964, The Castaway in 1965, and The Gulf in 1969. His lush style explores multicultural tensions and questions of identity. Meanwhile, he continued his work in the theater, with plays like Ti-Jean and His Brothers (produced in 1958), Dream on Monkey Mountain (produced 1967), and Pantomime (produced 1978). He wrote more than 30 plays while continuing to publish poetry collections regularly. His book-length poem Omeros, published in 1990, evokes Homer's Odyssey in the environment of the Caribbean. Walcott was the first Caribbean writer to win the Nobel Prize.

1924 James Lighthill, mathematician.
1917 Noël Salomon, historiador francés.
1899 Joseph Nathan Kane, historian, alive to celebrate his birthday in 2001. Author of Famous First Facts: A Record of First Happenings, Discoveries, and Inventions in American History. — Facts About the Presidents
1898 Sergei Mikhailovich Eisenstein, Russian film director (Battleship Potemkin) who died on 11 February 1948.
1887 Miklós Kállay premier Hungary (1942-44)
1867 Sergius, Russian Orthodox Patriarch of Moscow who died on 15 May 1944.
1862 David Hilbert, Konigsberg, East Prussia, mathematician who died on 14 February 1943.
1846 Lucio Rossi, Italian artist who died on 29 October 1913.
1840 Abbe, mathematician.
1832 Édouard Manet, French Realist Impressionist painter and printmaker who died on 30 April 1883. — MORE ON MANET AT ART “4” JANUARY with links to images.
1829 Anton Seitz, German artist who died on 27 November 1900.
1810 John Rogers Herbert, English painter who died on 17 March 1890. — MORE ON HERBERT AT ART “4” JANUARY with links to images.
1806 Minding, mathematician.
1789 Georgetown University is founded by Father John Carroll, 54, in Washington DC, the first Roman Catholic college established in the US. It has always been open to people of all faiths (William J. Clinton is an alumnus: he graduated in 1968 with a degree in international affairs).
1783 Marie-Henri Beyle “Stendhal”, à Grenoble. Il est mort le 23 mars 1842, — STENDHAL ONLINE: Armance ou Quelques scènes d’un salon de Paris en 1827 — Le Rouge et le Noir: chronique de XIXe siècle — Racine et Shakespeare
1767 Jeanne-Elisabeth Gabiou Chaudet Husson, French painter who died on 18 April 1832. — more
1737 John Hancock, US Independence statesman who died on 08 October 1793.
1719 Landen, mathematician.

^ 1656 Lettres Provinciales, by Blaise Pascal, 33, the first of his 18 is published, the majority of which attacked the Jesuit theories of grace and moral theology. ^
     Pascal was a French mathematician, writer, religious philosopher, and physicist. The son of a judge in the French tax court, at age 19 Pascal invented a calculating device to help his father's tax computations. The counting device relied on a series of wheels divided into 10 parts each, representing the integers 0-9. The wheels, which were connected by gears and turned by a stylus, kept track of sums as numbers were added and subtracted. He made important contributions to geometry, calculus, and developed the theory of probability. In physics, Pascal's law is the basis for all modern hydraulic operations.
      On 23 November 1654, Pascal experienced a Christian conversion that would cause his outstanding scientific work to take second place in his pursuits. For the rest of his life Pascal carried around a piece of parchment sewn into his coat describing how he had experienced God's forgiveness of his sins. From that day forward, Blaise Pascal decided he must live only for God. He started out by giving much more to the poor.
      Pascal closely associated himself with the Jansenists, a group of Catholics that emphasized morality in all aspects of life. In 1657 Pascal published his Provincial Letters which criticized the moral teaching of the Jesuits, the rationalism of Descartes, and Montaigne's skepticism, and urged a return to the Augustine's doctrine of grace. Voltaire described the collection as "the first work of genius to appear in France", and it continues to be recognized as remarkably beautiful French literature.
      Pascal also wrote that we come to know God's truth not only by reason, but even more through the heart by faith. It is through our heart that we come to know God and to love Him. It is by faith that we we can come to know Christ — and God alone gives us faith.
     Dans la nuit du 23 novembre 1654, Blaise Pascal, 31 ans, éprouve une violente expérience mystique. Le savant va dès lors se rapprocher des jansénistes de Port-Royal et se consacrer à la réflexion théologique. Participant à la querelle des jansénistes et des jésuites, il publie deux ans plus tard un célèbre pamphlet, Les Provinciales ou Les lettres écrites par Louis de Montalte à un Provincial de ses Amis et aux RR. PP. Jésuites sur le Sujet de la Morale, et de la Politique de ces Pères
     He died on 19 August 1662.
PASCAL ONLINE (in English translations): Thoughts, Thoughts, Thoughts, The Provincial Letters

PASCAL EN-LIGNE:
Correspondance diverse

La Machine arithmétique

La Machine d'Arithmétique

Le "Mémorial"

Petits écrits philosophiques et religieux

Les Provinciales

Pensées — Pensées — Pensées (éd. 1671)

Pensées de M. Pascal sur la Religion et sur quelques autres Sujets, qui ont esté trouvées après sa Mort parmy ses Papiers

Pensées de M. Pascal sur la religion et sur quelques autres sujets, qui ont esté trouvées après sa mort parmy ses papiers : édition nouvelle augmentée de beaucoup de pensées, de la vie du même autheur, & de quelques dissertations, marquées dans la page suivante. La vie de Pascal, écrite par Madame Périer sa soeur. Discours sur les pensées. Discours sur les preuves des livres de Moyse

1622 Abraham Arend Diepraam, Dutch painter who died in July 1670. — links to images.
1600 Alexandre Keerinck (or Kierings, Carings), Flemish artist who died in 1652.
1578 Bartolomeo Schedoni, Italian artist who died on 23 December 1615. — MORE ON SCHEDONI AT ART “4” JANUARY with links to images.

Saint Barnard, né à Lyon, il vit à la cour de Charlemagne. Après sept ans de mariage, il se retire au monastère d'Ambronay, dans la Bresse. Il finira ses jours comme archevêque de Vienne (France). / Santos Ildefonso, Clemente, Aguila y Severiano.

QUESTION OF THE DAY: The checked luggage of overweight travelers on certain flights is labeled FAT (I am not making this up). Why?

Thought for the day: “There's no fun in medicine, but there's a lot of medicine in fun.”

TO THE TOP

PLEASE CLICK HERE TO WRITE TO “HISTORY 4 2DAY”
http://www.safran-arts.com/42day/history/h4jan/h4jan23.html
http://members.xoom.virgilio.it/all42day/history/h4jan/h4jan23.html
http://h42day.0catch.com/history/h4jan/h4jan23.html
http://greatquotes.gq.nu/history/h4jan/h4jan23.html
updated Friday 23-Jan-2004 17:43 UT

site safe for children