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Events, deaths, births, of 06 MAY
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• US surrender in the Philippines... • Battle of Coral Sea ends... • Battle of the Wilderness continues... • DeSoto car... • Chunnel opens... • Duchess of Devonshire sold... • Pulitzer for Grapes of Wrath... • WPA... • Manhattan for $24... • Mathematician Weil is born... • Zeppelin fire disaster... • Condamnés à mort par la Révolution... • First stored~program computer...
LOOK price chartOn a May 06:

2012
Transit of Venus.

2003 Late the previous day, Looksmart Ltd (which runs an inferior search engine at http://www.looksmart.com/ useful only if you want to be targeted by advertising) makes an earnings announcement that does not succeed in concealing that they are lower than analysts' expectations. Consequently, its stock (LOOK) is downgraded by First Albany from Buy to Neutral. On the NASDAQ 23.5 million of the 102 million LOOK shares are traded, dropping from their previous close of $3.48 to an intraday low of $2.00 and closing at $2.17. They had traded as low as $0.77 as recently as 07 October 2003 and as high as $69.63 ot 06 March 2000. [4~year price chart >]

2002 The regime of US usurper-president “Dubya” Bush writes to the UN Secretary-General to inform him that the USA does not intend to become a party to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, and therefore “has no legal obligations arising from its signature on 31 December 2000”. During 2002, the Bush regime approaches several governments requesting that they enter into agreements that they would not surrender US nationals accused of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes to the new International Criminal Court. In some cases, the US usurper-government threatens to withdraw military assistance from countries that would not agree.
2000 LoveLetter E-mail worm keeps virus sites busy       ^top^
      The Symantec AntiVirus Research center began receiving reports regarding this worm in the early morning of May 4, 2000 GMT. This worm appears to originate from Manila, Phillipines. It has wide-spread distribution, infecting millions of computers.
      This worm sends itself to email addresses in the Microsoft Outlook address book and also spreads itself into Internet chatrooms via mIRC. This worm overwrites files on local and remote drives, including files with the extensions .vbs, .vbe, .js, .jse, .css, .wsh, .sct, .hta, .jpg, .jpeg, .mp3, and .mp2. The contents of these files will be replaced with the source code of the worm, thus destroying the original contents. The worm will also append the extension '.vbs' to each of these files. For example, the file image.jpg will become image.jpg.vbs. However, files with .mp2 and .mp3 extensions will merely be hidden from the user's view and not actually destroyed. It also tries to download a password-stealing Trojan horse program from a Web site (however that web site was soon removed by the provider). Symantec has identified eight variants of VBS.LoveLetter.A. This information is current as of May 6, 2000 at 7:30am (PST)
  1. VBS.LoveLetter.A
    Norton AntiVirus detects as: VBS.LoveLetter.A(1)
    ATTACHMENT: LOVE-LETTER-FOR-YOU.TXT.vbs
    SUBJECT LINE: ILOVEYOU
    MESSAGE BODY: kindly check the attached LOVELETTER coming from me.

  2. VBS.LoveLetter.B (also known as Lithuania)
    Norton AntiVirus detects as: VBS.LoveLetter.B(1)
    ATTACHMENT: same as A
    SUBJECT LINE: Susitikim shi vakara kavos puodukui...
    MESSAGE BODY: same as A

  3. VBS.LoveLetter.C (also known as Very Funny)
    Norton AntiVirus detects as: VBS.LoveLetter.C(1)
    ATTACHMENT: Very Funny.vbs
    SUBJECT LINE: fwd: Joke
    MESSAGE BODY: empty

  4. VBS.LoveLetter.D (also known as BugFix)
    Norton AntiVirus detects as: VBS.LoveLetter.A(1)
    ATTACHMENT: same as A
    SUBJECT LINE: same as A
    MESSAGE BODY: same as A
    MISC. NOTES: registry entry: WIN — BUGSFIX.exe instead of WIN-BUGSFIX.exe

  5. VBS.LoveLetter.E (also known as Mother's Day)
    Norton AntiVirus detects as: VBS.LoveLetter.Variant.E
    ATTACHMENT: mothersday.vbs
    SUBJECT LINE: Mothers Day Order Confirmation
    MESSAGE BODY: We have proceeded to charge your credit card for the amount of $326.92 for the mothers day diamond special. We have attached a detailed invoice to this email. Please print out the attachment and keep it in a safe place.Thanks Again and Have a Happy Mothers Day! mothersday@subdimension.com
    MISC. NOTES: mothersday.HTM sent in IRC, and comment: rem hackers.com, and start up page to hackes.com, l0pht.com, or 2600.com

  6. VBS.LoveLetter.F (also known as Virus Warning)
    Norton AntiVirus detects as: VBS.LoveLetter.Variant.F
    ATTACHMENT: virus_warning.jpg.vbs
    SUBJECT LINE: Dangerous Virus Warning
    MESSAGE BODY: There is a dangerous virus circulating. Please click attached picture to view it and learn to avoid it.
    MISC. NOTES: Urgent_virus_warning.htm

  7. VBS.LoveLetter.G (also known as Virus ALERT!!!)
    Norton AntiVirus detects as: VBS.LoveLetter.Variant or VBS.LoveLetter.G
    ATTACHMENT: protect.vbs
    SUBJECT LINE: Virus ALERT!!!
    MESSAGE BODY: a long message regarding VBS.LoveLetter.A
    MISC. NOTES: FROM support@symantec.com. This variant also overwrites files with .bat and .com extensions.

  8. VBS.LoveLetter.H (also known as No Comments)
    Norton AntiVirus detects as: VBS.LoveLetter.A
    ATTACHMENT: same as A
    SUBJECT LINE: same as A
    MESSAGE BODY: same a A
    MISC. NOTES: the comment lines at the beginning of the worm code have been removed.

  9. VBS.LoveLetter.I (also known as Important! Read carefully!!)
    Norton AntiVirus detects as: VBS.LoveLetter.Variant
    ATTACHMENT: Important.TXT.vbs
    SUBJECT LINE: Important! Read carefully!!
    MESSAGE BODY: Check the attached IMPORTANT coming from me!
    MISC. NOTES: new comment line at the beginning: by: BrainStorm / @ElectronicSouls. It also copies the files ESKernel32.vbs and ES32DLL.vbs, and MIRC script comments referring to BrainStorm and ElectronicSouls and sends IMPORTANT.HTM to the chat room.
    Also known as: Lovebug, I-Worm.LoveLetter, VBS/LoveLetter.A, VBS/LoveLet-A
    Category: Worm    Infection length: 10,307 bytes    Virus definitions: May 4, 2000    Threat assessment:

Swede claims to have found worm's originator       ^top^
     Swedish computer expert Fredrik Bjoerck, who helped the FBI track down the Melissa e-mail virus in 1999, said Friday 000505 evening: "I can say on good grounds that I have probably found the creator of the virus Loveletter."
      Bjoerck, a postgraduate student at Stockholm University's computer and information technology institute, said he started searching for the creator on Thursday 000504 [when it first was detected] "The creator's name is Michael and he is a German exchange student studying in Australia. He has exposed himself by leaving tracks in Usenet newsgroups. The virus was activated from the Philippines but it's not certain that Michael was there in person."
2000 Jack Mazzan, after 20 years on death row for the murder of a judge's son, is released on bail, three months after the Nevada Supreme Court reversed his conviction.
1999 La Real Academia de la Lengua Española aprueba la nueva edición revisada de la Ortografía, consensuada por las Academias de los países hispanohablantes.
1997 Se crea en La Haya la Organización para la Prohibición de las Armas Químicas.
1997 GTE to buy Internet pioneer BBN       ^top^
      GTE announces it will buy Internet pioneer BBN. The company, also known as Bolt, Beranek and Newman, had been a major force in building and operating the original ARPA network, which eventually became the Internet. Founded in 1948 as an acoustics consulting firm, BBN hired Joseph Carl Robnett Licklider in 1957 for his expertise in both acoustics and the emerging field of human-machine interaction. The company encouraged Licklider's interest in computers and soon diversified into computer science. Licklider left the company in 1962 to join the Defense Department's Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA), where he made computers and technology a high priority. In 1968, when an ARPA proposal to build a computer network was approved, BBN won the contract and subsequently designed and built the hardware for the early network.
1994 Chunnel opens       ^top^
      During a ceremony presided over by England's Queen Elizabeth II and French President Francois Mitterand, a rail tunnel under the English Channel, connecting Britain and the European mainland for the first time since the Ice Age, is officially opened. The channel tunnel, or "Chunnel," connects Folkestone, England, with Calais, France, nearly forty kilometers away.
      Napoleon's engineer, Albert Mathieu, planned the first tunnel under the English Channel in 1802, envisioning an underground passage with ventilation chimneys that would stretch above the waves. In 1880, the first real attempt was made by Colonel Beaumont, who bore 2000 meters into the earth before abandoning the project. Other efforts followed in the twentieth century, but none on the scale of the current tunnels begun in 1987.
      At a cost of over thirteen million dollars, more than seventeen million tons of earth were moved to build the two rail tunnels — one for northbound and one for southbound traffic — and one service tunnel. On 01 December 1990, engineers and workers digging from France and Britain met and shook hands under the Channel, and on 06 May 1994, the Chunnel was officially opened.
1992 Gorbachev looks back on Cold War       ^top^
      In an event steeped in symbolism, former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev reviews the Cold War in a speech at Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri-the site of Winston Churchill's "Iron Curtain" speech 46 years before. Gorbachev mixed praise for the end of the Cold War with some pointed criticisms of US. policy. In 1946, Winston Churchill, former prime minister of Britain, spoke at Westminster College and issued what many historians have come to consider the opening volley of the Cold War. Declaring that an "iron curtain" had fallen across Eastern Europe, Churchill challenged both Great Britain and the United States to contain Soviet aggression. Forty-six years later, the Soviet Union had collapsed and Mikhail Gorbachev, who had resigned as president of the Soviet Union in December 1991, stood on the very same campus and reflected on the Cold War. Gorbachev declared that the end of the Cold War was the "shattering of the vicious circle into which we had driven ourselves" and a "victory for common sense, reason, democracy, and common human values." In addressing the issue of who began the Cold War, Gorbachev admitted that the Soviet Union had made some serious mistakes, but also suggested that the United States and Great Britain shouldered part of the blame. He decried the resulting nuclear arms race, though he made clear that he believed the United States had been the "initiator" of this folly. With the Cold War over, he cautioned the United States to realize the "intellectual, and consequently political error, of interpreting victory in the cold war narrowly as a victory for oneself." Gorbachev's speech, and particularly the location at which he delivered it, offered a fitting closure to the Cold War, and demonstrated that scholarly debate about those years would continue though the animosity had come to an end.
1988 Declarada constitucional la Ley de Amnistía Militar por la Suprema Corte de Justicia de Uruguay.
1986 The Rev. Donald E. Pelotte, 41, is ordained in Gallup, New Mexico — the first American Indian to be made a Roman Catholic bishop in the US.
1984 León Febres Cordero gana las elecciones presidenciales en Ecuador.
1981 Grave tensión en la frontera entre Honduras y Nicaragua a causa de choques armados registrados entre sandinistas y guerrilleros nicaragüenses.
1972 South Vietnamese defenders hold on to An Loc       ^top^
      The remnants of South Vietnam's 5th Division at An Loc continue to receive daily artillery battering from the communist forces surrounding the city as reinforcements fight their way from the south up Highway 13. The South Vietnamese had been under heavy attack since the North Vietnamese had launched their Nguyen Hue Offensive on March 30. The communists had mounted a massive invasion of South Vietnam with 14 infantry divisions and 26 separate regiments, more than 120'000 troops and approximately 1200 tanks and other armored vehicles.
      The main North Vietnamese objectives, in addition to An Loc in the south, were Quang Tri in the north, and Kontum in the Central Highlands. In Binh Long Province, the North Vietnamese forces had crossed into South Vietnam from Cambodia on April 5 to strike first at Loc Ninh. After taking Loc Ninh, the North Vietnamese forces then quickly encircled An Loc, the capital of Binh Long Province, which was only 65 miles from Saigon.
      The North Vietnamese held An Loc under siege for almost three months while they made repeated attempts to take the city, bombarding it around the clock. The defenders suffered heavy casualties, including 2300 dead or missing, but with the aid of US. advisers and American airpower, they managed to hold out against vastly superior odds until the siege was lifted on June 18. Fighting continued all over South Vietnam into the summer months, but eventually the South Vietnamese forces prevailed against the invaders and they retook Quang Tri in September.
      With the Communist invasion blunted, President Nixon declared that the South Vietnamese victory proved the viability of his Vietnamization program, which he had instituted in 1969 to increase the combat capability of the South Vietnamese armed forces.
1970 Protests against killings of anti-Vietnam-War students.       ^top^
      Hundreds of colleges and universities across the nation shut down as thousands of students join a nationwide campus protest. Governor Ronald Reagan closed down the entire California university and college system until 11 May, which affected more than 280'000 students on 28 campuses. Elsewhere, faculty and administrators joined students in active dissent and 536 campuses were shut down completely, 51 for the rest of the academic year. A National Student Association spokesman reported students from more than 300 campuses were boycotting classes. The protests were a reaction to the shooting of four students at Kent State University by National Guardsmen during a campus demonstration about President Nixon's decision to send US. and South Vietnamese troops into Cambodia. Four days later, a student rally at Jackson State College in Mississippi resulted in the death of two students and 12 wounded when police opened fire on a women's dormitory.
1968 En l'absence de Pompidou, en voyage officiel en Iran, les confrontations entre étudiants et police à Paris ne font que s'aggraver. La veille 05 May quatre manifestants ont été condamnés à 2 mois de prison ferme. Le 06 May il y a des manifestations contre les condamnations (20'000 étudiants), des bagarres (600 blessés).
1965 La OEA aprueba el envío de una fuerza interamericana a la República Dominicana.
1965 Se lanza al espacio el "Early Bird", primer satélite de comunicaciones con fines comerciales.
1962 Guillermo León Valencia es elegido presidente de Colombia.
1960 Pres Eisenhower signs Civil Rights Act of 1960.
1960 Cumplida su condena, es expulsado de México el español Ramón Mercader, asesino de Trotski.
1959 Pablo Picasso [25 Oct 188108 Apr 1973] se convierte en el artista que más dinero cobra en vida por una obra, al venderse un cuadro en Londres por $154'000. — LINKS
1942 The Battle of the Coral Sea ends       ^top^
      This is the fourth and last day of the first modern naval engagement in history, called the Battle of the Coral Sea. On May 3 a Japanese invasion force had succeeded in occupying Tulagi of the Solomon Islands in an expansion of Japan's defensive perimeter. The United States, having broken Japan's secret war code and forewarned of an impending invasion of Tulagi and Port Moresby, attempted to intercept the Japanese armada.
      Four days of battles between Japanese and American aircraft carriers resulted in 70 Japanese and 66 Americans warplanes destroyed. This confrontation, called the Battle of the Coral Sea, marked the first air-naval battle in history, as none of the carriers fired at each other, allowing the planes taking off from their decks to do the battling. Among the casualties was the American carrier Lexington; "the Blue Ghost" (so-called because it was not camouflaged like other carriers) suffered such extensive aerial damage that it had to be sunk by its own crew. Two hundred sixteen Lexington crewmen died as a result of the Japanese aerial bombardment.
      Although Japan would go on to occupy all of the Solomon Islands, its victory was a Pyrrhic one: The cost in experienced pilots and aircraft carriers was so great that Japan had to cancel its expedition to Port Moresby, Papua, as well as other South Pacific targets.
1942 US surrenders to Japan in the Philippines.       ^top^
     Lieut. Gen. Jonathan Wainwright surrenders Corregidor Island, the last Allied stronghold in the Philippines, to Japanese Lieut. Gen. Homma Masaharu.
      The small (5-sq-km) island in Manila Bay, part of the province of Cavite, has long been considered a natural fortress. The Spanish fortified it in the 18th century, when it was used as a registration (corregidor) site for ships entering the bay. After the Spanish-American War, the island became a US. military station, and an elaborate system of tunnels and emplacements was constructed.
      When Japan invaded the Philippines in 1941 December, Gen. Douglas MacArthur chose Bataan province and, just south of it, Corregidor Island as his major defense positions.      In early April 1942, General Wainwright, in command of the Phillippines' surviving defenders, began evacuating as many troops as possible to Corregidor. On 09 April, 12'000 American and 63'000 Filipino troops were trapped on Luzon as Bataan fell, and Corregidor became the last outpost of organized resistance in the islands. Lacking air or naval support, Corregidor's 15'000 American and Filipino defenders kept up a desperate resistance against massive assaults by Japan's combined armed forces.
      Constant artillery shelling and aerial bombardment attacks had eaten away at the American and Filipino defenders. Although still managing to sink many Japanese barges as they approached the northern shores of the island, the Allied troops could hold the invader off no longer. General Wainwright, only recently promoted to the rank of lieutenant general and commander of the US. armed forces in the Philippines, offered to surrender Corregidor to Japanese General Homma, but Homma wanted the complete, unconditional capitulation of all American forces throughout the Philippines. Wainwright had little choice given the odds against him and the poor physical condition of his troops (he had already lost 800 men). He surrendered at midnight. All 11'500 surviving Allied troops were evacuated to a prison stockade in Manila. General Wainwright remained a POW until 1945.
     However, just three months after the surrender, US. forces under General Douglas MacArthur launched their great Pacific counteroffensive. On 20 October 1944, after advancing island by island, US. forces waded ashore onto the island of Leyte, and the liberation of the Philippines began. On 16 February 1945, US. paratroopers descended on Corregidor, and ten days later, liberation of the fortified island was complete. As a sort of consolation for the massive defeat Wainwright suffered, he was present on the USS Missouri for the formal Japanese surrender ceremony on 02 September 1945. He would also be awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor by President Harry Truman. Wainwright died in 1953 — exactly eight years to the day of the Japanese surrender ceremony.
1941 Soviet dictator Josef Stalin , dismisses Vyacheslav M. Molotov as premier, and assumes the title himself.
1939 John Steinbeck wins a Pulitzer for The Grapes of Wrath       ^top^
      The novel traces the fictional Joad family of Oklahoma as they lose their family farm and move to California in search of a better life. They encounter only more difficulties and a downward slide into poverty. The book combines simple, plain-spoken language and compelling plot with rich description. One of Steinbeck's most effective works of social commentary, the novel also won the National Book Award.
      Like The Grapes of Wrath, much of Steinbeck's work dealt with his native state of California. He was born and raised in the Salinas Valley, where his father was a county official and his mother a former schoolteacher. Steinbeck was a good student and president of his senior class in high school. He attended Stanford intermittently between 1920 and 1925, then moved to New York City, where he worked as a manual laborer and a journalist while writing stories and novels.
      His first two novels were not successful. He married and moved to Pacific Grove in 1930, where his father gave him a house and a small income while he continued to write. His third novel, Tortilla Flat (1935), was a critical and financial success, as were his subsequent novels In Dubious Battle (1935) and Of Mice and Men (1937), both of which offered social commentaries on injustices of various types. His work after World War II, including Cannery Row and The Pearl, continued to offer social criticism but became more sentimental. Steinbeck tried his hand at movie scripts in the 1940s, writing such successful films as Forgotten Village (1941) and Viva Zapata (1952). He also took up the serious study of marine biology and published a nonfiction book, The Sea of Cortez, in 1941. His book Travels with Charlie describes his trek across the US. in a camper truck with his poodle, Charlie, and his encounters with a fragmented America. Steinbeck won the Nobel Prize in 1962 and died in New York in 1968.
1935 WPA puts unemployed back to work       ^top^
      The Works Progress Administration (WPA), throws open its doors and begins the monumental task of sending scores of unemployed Americans back to work.
      Perhaps the key program developed during the New Deal, President Franklin Roosevelt's "alphabet soup" of government agencies aimed at alleviating the damage wrought by the Great Depression, the WPA handed Americans decent-paying jobs on a myriad of public works projects. But, WPA jobs were hardly sinecures; workers employed via the agency constructed a head-spinning array of public structures, including parks, playgrounds, schools and post-offices. And, through its creatively inclined arms (the Federal Art Project and Federal Theater Project), the WPA set painters, actors, musicians and writers to work on public arts projects that depicted the lives of the US's workers.
      All told, the WPA (which was renamed the Works Projects Administration in 1939) was responsible for employing 8.5 million Americans during its eight-year tenure. Despite these considerable fruits, the WPA was an expensive program — the agency spent roughly $11 billion during its lifetime — which prompted attacks from more penurious voices in the nation. By the summer of 1943, World War II had almost entirely usurped the efforts of America's work force, and the WPA was permanently closed.
1928 Chrysler introduces the DeSoto       ^top^
as the corporation's new brand. The DeSoto Six is Chrysler's answer to the market demand for a car that fit between its large cars and its popular four-cylinder models. Marketed in the moderate price class, the DeSoto offers features that no car within comparable price range had ever offered, such as improved insulation, a reinforced frame, and chrome alloy steel transmission gears.
      Introduced not long after Chrysler purchased Dodge, the DeSoto label sold eighty thousand cars its first year, forcing Chrysler to increase its production facilities. In the fall of 1936, after having moved between various Chrysler plants, DeSoto moved to a production facility of its own on the west side of Detroit. The new state-of-the-art facility became one of Detroit's showcases for automobile production and one of the city's most heavily visited tourist sites.
      The interest in the DeSoto plant was partially a response to the company's innovative 1934 release, the DeSoto Airflow. The Airflow created a new standard for weight distribution in the automotive industry, reducing vibration to a frequency that, for the first time, was comfortable for passengers. Engineers moved the DeSoto's engine forward over the front axle and increased the gauge of the front springs. Moving the engine forward allowed the designers to move the back seat in front of the rear axle, thereby reducing the shock inflicted on passengers sitting there. The Airflow was also equipped with smaller wheels that used larger tires, and a unibody design that made the car safer and stronger.
1927   The first US coast-to-coast radio news broadcast of tape-recorded news is made by Herbert Morrison, describing the explosion of the Hindenburg in New Jersey. The recording is flown to New York and broadcast on NBC.
1919 El presidente costarricense, Federico Tinoco, es depuesto y tropas estadounidenses desembarcan en defensa de los intereses de EEUU.
1916 The captain of the battleship New Hampshire, off the coast of Virginia, calls naval commanders in Washington, D.C.. The call is made as part of a test to determine whether the radiotelephone presents a feasible communications option during wartime.
1895 José Martí es nombrado jefe supremo de la revolución en la lucha por la independencia de Cuba.
1890 Mormon Church renounces polygamy.
click for full portrait1876 The Duchess of Devonshire is sold for 10'000 guineas       ^top^
     Thomas Gainsborough's 1783 painting, Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire, is auctioned in London, England, nearly 100 years after it disappeared into obscurity. The portrait of Georgiana Spencer, an ancestor of Princess Diana, sold for 10'000 guineas, the highest price ever paid for a work of art up until this time. [< click on image for full portrait]
      Public interest in Gainsborough's masterpiece peaked a few weeks later when it was stolen from the Thomas Agnew and Sons art gallery. Adam Worth, whom Scotland Yard later called the "Napoleon of Crime," and upon whom Sir Arthur Conan Doyle eventually based Sherlock Holmes' arch nemesis Dr. Moriarty, stole the artwork in order to come up with the bail to release his brother from jail. However, his brother was freed without his help, so Worth decided to keep the painting, even in the face of serious consequences.
      Adam Worth was perhaps the 19th century's most masterful criminal. Born in Germany but raised in the United States, Worth joined the Union Army in the Civil War. He then successfully faked his own death in order to escape his duty. He spent the rest of the war hopping from one regiment to another, collecting money to join and then immediately deserting.
      After the war, he made his way to New York, where he joined a gang of pickpockets. A conviction for robbery resulted in a three-year sentence at Sing Sing Prison. However, Worth escaped after only a few weeks and vowed to be more careful in the future. Using the alias Henry Raymond, Worth took up a lucrative career robbing banks before moving his criminal exploits to Europe. With perfectly planned heists and a consistent forgery operation, Worth avoided all violent encounters and established himself in respectable society.
      Yet the theft of the Duchess of Devonshire led to his eventual downfall. His co-conspirators, Joe Elliot and Junka Phillips, were angered by the fact that they weren't financially rewarded for stealing the valuable painting. When Worth refused to divulge its whereabouts, Elliot and Phillips went to the police and Worth was sent to prison, albeit on other charges.
      Following his release four years later in 1897, Worth returned to America. After a change of heart, he began negotiations with the Pinkerton Detective Agency for the ransom of the painting. The Duchess of Devonshire was finally returned to England in 1901 where J. P. Morgan, Wall Street's biggest financier, promptly made the journey to obtain the painting for himself. He is said to have paid as much as $150'000 for it. Worth, who had received relatively little for his ransom, died a year later, penniless.
1862 Battle of Williamsburg, Virginia concludes
1861 Arkansas becomes 9th state to secede from US
1861 Tennessee secedes from the Union.
1860 Giuseppe Garibaldi (04 Jul 1807 – 02 Jun 1882) and his Thousand sail from near Genoa, Piedmont, on the way to conquer Sicily and Naples, in the cause of Italian unification.
1830 Se deshace la Gran Colombia, al proclamar el general José Antonio Páez un gobierno aparte para Venezuela, ratificado por el Congreso Constituyente, que nombra presidente a Páez.
1816 En una asamblea celebrada en la Villa del Norte, hoy población de Santa Ana, Isla de Margarita, Simón Bolívar es proclamado Jefe Supremo de la República y sus Ejércitos.
1794 Haiti, under Toussaint L'Ouverture, revolts against France
1753 French King Louis XV observes transit of Mercury at Mendon Castle
1703 Guerra de Sucesión: El rey de Portugal se declara opuesto a la causa de Felipe V de España.
1626 Manhattan Island bought for $24       ^top^
      According to legend, Manhattan, a twenty-eight-square mile island along the Hudson River, was purchased by Dutch settler Peter Minuit from the local Native people for merchandise valued at twenty-four dollars.
      In 1624, the Dutch colony of New Netherland was founded, with the town of New Amsterdam on the lower tip of Manhattan established as its key settlement. Peter Minuit was subsequently sent by the Dutch West India Company to take charge of its holdings in America, and in 1626, he formally purchased Manhattan from the local tribe from which it derives it name.
      The Manhattans, Indians of the Algonquian-Wakashan linguistic stock, did not understand European customs of property and contract and it was not long before they came into armed conflict with the rapidly expanding Dutch settlement at New Amsterdam. Beginning in 1640, a protracted war was fought between the colonists and the Manhattans, ending five years later with the tribe practically exterminated.
      In 1664, without resistance, Dutch governor Peter Stuyvesant surrendered New Amsterdam to a British naval force under Colonel Richard Nicolls, ending the Netherlands' colonial role in the New World. With the departure of the Dutch, the name of the promising settlement was changed to New York, in honor of the duke of York.
1571 El Adelantado de Filipinas, Don Miguel López de Legazpi, conquista Manila tras someter al rajalí Lacandola y a los principales jefes isleños.
1527 Forty thousand mercenaries, hired by Cardinal Pompeo Colonna, sack the city of Rome, destroying two-thirds of the houses. They butcher clergy and laity alike, and force Clement VII to flee, disguised as a gardener. It is the end of the golden age of the Renaissance.
1497 Se emite la real cédula por la que se declara libre de impuestos el comercio de las Indias Americanas.
1432 Flemish artist Jan van Eyck, 61, finishes the Adoration of the Lamb altarpiece for St. John's Church in Ghent, Belgium. Van Eyck's work is noted for its descriptive realism and intensive color. — The Ghent Altarpiece — wings closedMORE AT ART “4” MAYLINKS
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Deaths which occurred on a May 06:       ^top^
2001 Muhammad Abayat, 48, by an Israeli tank shell. Abayat was a member of the Tanzim militia, linked to the Fatah movement of Arafat. A few kilometers south of Jerusalem, Palestinian gunmen had opened fire on Israeli border policemen guarding a highway that links Jerusalem to Jewish settlements in the West Bank.. The Israeli army responded by sending tanks several hundred meters into Palestinian-controlled land, where they fired dozens of rounds at Palestinian gunmen taking cover in homes in Beit Jalla. At least 20 other Palestinians were hurt, including a 5-year-old boy seriously injured by shrapnel, and an 11-year-old girl hit in the eye. One Israeli soldier was lightly injured.
1996 Austin Bastable, a Canadian who has multiple sclerosis, commits suicide, with the assistance of Dr. Kevorkian. (Mr. Bastable is the 28th person that Kevorkian assisted to commit suicide.)
1987 William J. Casey, 73, director of CIA (1981-1987)
1983 Yudell Leo Luke, US mathematician born on 26 June 1918.
1963 Theodore von Kármán, Hungarian US aeronautical mathematician born on 11 May 1881.
1951 Elie Joseph Cartan, French, born on 09 April 1869, he was one of the most important mathematicians of the first half of the 20th century. He worked on continuous groups, Lie algebras, differential equations, and geometry, achieving a synthesis between these areas.

1937: 36 persons in the Hindenburg Disaster       ^top^
      The airship Hindenburg, the largest dirigible ever built and the pride of Nazi Germany, burst into flames upon touching its mooring mast in Lakehurst, New Jersey, killing 35 of the 97 people on board and a Navy crewman on the ground.
      Rigid airships, often known by the last name of their inventor, Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin, were first developed by the Germans in the early twentieth century. The heavy steel-framed Zeppelins were far larger than the airships developed by the French decades before, but size was exchanged for safety as Zeppelins were vulnerable to explosion because they had to be lifted by highly flammable hydrogen gas, instead of non-flammable helium gas. Large enough to carry substantial numbers of passengers, one of the most famous rigid airships was the Graf Zeppelin, a dirigible that traveled around the world in 1929. In the 1930s, the Graf Zeppelin also pioneered the first transatlantic air service, leading to the construction of the Hindenburg, a larger passenger airship.
      On 03 May 1937, the Hindenburg left Frankfurt, Germany, for its first of ten scheduled journey's across the Atlantic to Lakehurst's Navy Air Base. On its maiden voyage, the Hindenburg, 245 meters long, carried thirty-six passengers and crew of sixty-one. While attempting to moor at Lakehurst, the airship suddenly burst into flames, probably after a static spark from the stormy atmosphere ignited not its hydrogen core (as commonly believed) but its flammable surface coating. Rapidly falling sixty meters to the ground, the hull of the airship incinerated within seconds. Fourteen passengers, twenty-one crewmen, and one member of the ground crew lost their lives, and most of the survivors suffered substantial injuries. Radio announcer Herb Morrison, who came to Lakehurst to record a routine voice-over for an NBC newsreel, immortalized the Hindenberg disaster in a famous on-the-scene description in which he emotionally declared "Oh, the humanity!" The recording of Morrison's commentary was immediately flown to New York, where it was aired as part of America's first coast-to-coast radio news broadcast. Lighter-than-air passenger travel rapidly fell out of favor after the Hindenberg disaster and no existing rigid airship survived World War II.
1910 Edward VII king of England.
1904 Franz Seraph von Lenbach, German artist born on 13 December 1836. — MORE ON VON LENBACH AT ART “4” MAYLINKSMarion Lenbach, the Artist's Daughter (age about 12, I guess) — A Lady Wearing a Black Coat With Fur Collar (— An Elegant Lady in Rubenesque CostumeA Bearded Gentleman Wearing a Pince~NezA Lady in ProfileFurst Otto von BismarckJohn Acton, 1st Baron Acton
1903 José Jiménez y Aranda, Spanish painter born on 07 February 1837. — more
1882 Lord Cavendish assassinated at Dublin, Ireland
1864 Rebs and Yanks continue massacring each other at the Wilderness       ^top^
      Union and Confederate troops continue their desperate struggle in the Wilderness, which was the opening battle in the biggest campaign of the war. General Ulysses S. Grant, commander of the Union forces, had joined George Meade's Army of the Potomac to encounter Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia in the tangled Wilderness forest near Chancellorsville, the site of Lee's brilliant victory the year before. The fighting was intense, and raging fires that consumed the dead and wounded magnified the horror of battle. But little was gained in the confused attacks by either side. On May 6, the second day of battle in the Wilderness, Grant sought to break the stalemate by sending Winfield Hancock's corps against the Confederate right flank at the southern end of the battle line. The Federals were on the verge of breaking through the troops of James Longstreet when they stumbled in the dense undergrowth. Lee entered the fray to rally the Confederate troops, but his devoted solders urged him away from the action.
      Later in the morning, Longstreet's men attacked Hancock's forces and seemed poised to turn the Union flank. But, like the Union troops earlier, they became disoriented as they drove Hancock's troops back. In the confusion, Longstreet was wounded by his own men, just six kilometers from the spot where Stonewall Jackson was mortally wounded by his own men the year before. The Confederate attack halted when Hancock's men found refuge behind hastily constructed breastworks.
      In the evening, Lee attacked the Union flank at the northern end of the battlefield and nearly turned the Federal line. Grant's men, however, held their ground, leaving the exhausted armies in nearly the same positions as when the battle began.
      In two days, the Union lost 17'000 men to the Confederates' 11'000. This was nearly one-fifth of each army. Unfortunately, the worst was yet to come. Grant pulled his men out of the Wilderness on May 7, but, unlike the commanders before him in the eastern theater, he did not go back. He moved further south towards Spotsylvania Court House and closer to Richmond. At Spotsylvania, the armies staged some of the fiercest fighting of the war.
1856 William Hamilton, Scottish methaphysician and mathematical logician born on 08 March 1788.
1849 Jacques Nicolas Paillot de Montabert , French artist born in December or on 06 October 1771.
1840 James Sillett (or Selleth), Belgian artist born in 1764.
1795 (17 floréal an III) Condamnés à mort par la Révolution:       ^top^
JACOB Joseph, juif, marchand de Bijouteries et soieries, domicilié à Pirmassens (Moselle), par le tribunal criminel de la Seine, comme distributeur de faux assignats.
Par le tribunal révolutionnaire de Paris:
FOUQUIER-TINVILLE Antoine Quentin, 48 ans né à Héronelle, département de l’Aisne, domicilié à Paris (Seine, ex procureur au Châtelet, accusateur public près le tribunal révolutionnaire de Paris, comme conspirateur, et notamment pour avoir fait périr une foule innombrable de français de tout âge et tout sexe, sous le prétexte de conspiration, pour avoir fait juger 60 à 80 individus en 4 heures, avoir fait encombrer des charrettes préparées dés le matin, de victimes dont les qualités n’étaient point désignées, et contre lesquelles les jugements signés en blanc ne contenaient aucunes dispositions; d’en avoir fait mettre hors des débats, d’avoir composé le jury de jurés à lui affidés &c.
     ... comme complices de Fouquier-Tinville:
LEROY Pierre Nicolas, (dit Dix-Août), ex juré au tribunal révolutionnaire de Paris, 52 ans, né et domicilié à Coulommiers (Seine et Marne)
          ... domiciliés à Paris:
BENOIT Pierre Guillaume, 44 ans, né à Mouzon-sur-Meuse (Vosges), ci-devant commissaire du conseil exécutif, juré du tribunal révolutionnaire.
BOYENVAL Pierre Joseph, 26 ans, né à St Amand, ci-devant tailleur, et depuis lieutenant, d'infanterie légère.
CHATELET Claude Louis, 45 ans, né à Paris, y demeurant rue des Piques, ex juré au tribunal révolutionnaire de Paris.
DUPOMMIER François, 35 ans, né à St Pol ( Pas-de-Calais), ex président du tribunal révolutionnaire de Paris, ex commissaire des administrations civiles de police et des tribunaux
FOUCAULT Etienne, 55 ans, ex juge du tribunal révolutionnaire, né à Burges-les-Bains
GARNIER-LAUNAY François Pierre, 61 ans, né à Paris, ex juge au tribunal révolutionnaire.
GIRARD Pierre François, 36 ans, né à Azan département du Jura, ex juré du tribunal révolutionnaire.
HERMAN Armand Martial Joseph, 36 ans, né à St Pol ( Pas-de-Calais), ex président du tribunal révolutionnaire, ex commissaire des administrations civile, polices et tribunaux, domicilié place des Piques.
LANNE Marie Emmanuel Joseph, 32 ans, né à St Paul ( Pas-de-Calais), ex adjoint à la commission des administrations civile, de police et tribunaux.
PRIEUX Jean Louis, 32 ans, né à Paris., ex juré au tribunal révolutionnaire.
RENAUDIN Léopold, 46 ans, né à St Remy (Vosges).
VERNEY Joseph, 28 ans, né à Crest-Vatant ( Mont-Blanc), porte clef de la maison d'arrêt du Luxembourg, puis ex concierge de celle de St Lazare à Paris.
VILLATTE Joachim, 26 ans, ex juré au tribunal révolutionnaire, né à Allun (Creuse).
1794 (17 floréal an II) Condamnés à mort par la Révolution:       ^top^
VEYANT Mathieu, boucher, domicilié à Cattenon (Moselle), par le tribunal criminel dudit département comme distributeur de faux assignats.
COURTI Joseph, fils, domicilié à St Genies (Pyrénées Orientales), comme émigré, par le tribunal militaire du premier arrondissement de l'armée des Pyrénées Orientales.
GILEDE Jean, domicilié à St Anatoli (Haute Garonne), par le tribunal militaire du 1er arrodissement de l'armée des Pyrénées-Orientales, comme émigré.
DUGAZ Marie Louis, officier, domicilié à Nancy (Meurthe), comme conspirateur par le tribunal criminel du département de la Meuse.
Domiciliés dans le département des Alpes-Maritimes, comme conspirateurs, par le tribunal criminel dudit département:
GRECH Jean Paul, maçon, domicilié à Nice — RICORD Joseph, cultivateur, domicilié à Eza.
A Arras:
BEUVRY Pierre Joseph, 49 ans, né à Blangy au Bois, commissionnaire.
GOTTRAND Jean Baptiste, 36 ans, né à Brévillers, célibataire, commissionnaire.
GRIMBERT Marie Eugénie, 64 ans, née à Arras, célibataire, rentière.
GRIMBERT Marie Anne Joseph, 63 ans, née à Arras, célibataire.
DALLOT ou DOLLE Béatrice Joseph, 42 ans, née à Carlincourt les Pas, célibataire, commissonnaire, guillotinée.
DAMBRINE Adrien Philippe Augustin, 73 ans, né à Arras, célibataire, rentier, ex noble, guillotiné .
DONJON Marie Charlotte Cornille, 51 ans, née à Arras, célibataire, ex noble, guillotinée.
DONJON Marie Eulalie Philippine, 45 ans, née à Arras, célibataire, ex noble, guillotinée.
DUPUICH Théodore Augustin, 74 ans, né à Arras, négociant, guillotiné.
HAVART Pierre Ferdinand, 37 ans, né à Louche, district de Calais, commissaire, guillotiné.
LEDIEU Jean Baptiste, 49 ans, né à Biache, célibataire, cultivateur, guillotiné.
LEFEBVRE Théodore, 36 ans, né à Béthonsart, célibataire, marchand, guillotiné.
MOURIEZ ou HOURIEZ Honoré, 54 ans, célibataire, guillotiné.
Domiciliés dans le département du Morbihan, par le tribunal criminel dudit département:
BRIEN Noël, ex vicaire, domicilié à St Serent, canton de Plœrnel ( Morbihan, comme réfractaire à la loi, le 17 floréal, an 2, par le tribunal criminel dudit département.
     ... domiciliés à St.Vincent, canton de Reche-des-Trois, comme receleurs de prêtres réfractaires:
BRIEN Jeanne — DENOUAL Marc, tisserand — GIQUEL Pierre, laboureur et maire.
Comme brigands de la Vendée:
BOULET Dominique, cercleur, domicilié à Vales, canton de Parthenay (Deux-Sèvres), par le tribunal criminel dudit département.
MONNIRE Pierre, meunier, domicilié à Bourgneuf (Mayenne), par la commission révolutionnaire de Mayenne.
Domiciliés à Pont-St-Martin, canton de Nantes (Loire Inférieure), par la commission militaire séante à Nantes:
          ... laboureurs, comme brigands de la Vendée:
BOUCHEAU Jean — LANDREAU Sébastien — NAUX François — ORRIEUX Martin
          ... comme contre-révolutionnaires:
CORBINEAU Pierre — DONAUT Pierre — HOUSSAY Simon — LEBEAUPIN André — MOREAU Pierre
Par le tribunal révolutionnaire de Paris:
MAUBERT Jean Germain (dit Neuilly), ex fermier général, secrétaire de Capet, 64 ans, né à Paris (Seine, domicilié à Noisy (Seine et Marne, par le tribunal révolutionnaire de Paris, comme complice d'une conspiration contre le peuple, en mettant dans le tabac de l'eau et des ingrédients nuisibles à la santé des citoyens.
     ... domiciliés dans le département de la Côte-d'Or, comme complices d'une conspiration dans les maisons d'arrêt de Dijon où ils étaient détenus:
GUENOT Jean Baptiste, 46 ans, né à Autun, commis au bureau des cuirs, pour d'approvisionnement des armées, à Dôle, domicilié à St Jean-de-Losne.
JAUCOURT Alexandre, ex marquis, ci-devant guidon de la gendarmerie de France, ayant la commission de colonel, 51 ans, né à Cernoy ( Loiret), domicilié à Arcoucey.
SALLEZ Jean Baptiste, limonadier, 42 ans, natif de Mâcon, domicilié à Saulieu.
          ... domiciliés à Dijon:
DAMOIZEAU, femme de Charles Aimée, 67 ans, native de Bizeray (Côte-d'Or), ex noble.
TESTARD Jacques, procureur, 50 ans, natif de Saulieu (Côte-d'Or).
               ... et nés à Dijon:
BILLE François, 26 ans, perruquier, comme convaincu de manœuvres pratiquées dans la maison d'arrêt de Dijon, tendantes à la rétablissement de la convention nationale, et au rétablissement de la royauté.
CHAUSSIER Claude, 51 ans, marchand de bois.
GALLETON Joseph, perruquier, 36 ans.
GUELAUD Etienne, avoué au tribunal de la commune de Dijon, 60 ans.
JOLIVET Charles Joseph, ingénieur vétéran des ponts et chaussées, 67 ans, comme conspirateur, ayant distribué des gravures contre-révolutionnaires, dans la prison de Dijon où il était détenu.
LAMUGUIERE Denis, greffier de la ci-devant maîtrise des eaux et forêts de Dijon, 67 ans.
     ... domiciliés dans le département de la Moselle, comme conspirateurs convaincus d’avoir suspendu arbitrairement la vente des biens provenants des religieux ordonnée par les lois des 14 et 15 avril 1790:
BOLER Martin, 38 ans, natif de Rodemack, aubergiste, administrateur du département, juge du tribunal du district de Briey, y demeurant, ... en désobéissant au décret du 14 août, et en favorisant l'émigration.
BRIAND Jacques Louis, 34 ans, né à Paris, agent national près le district de Morhange, domicilié à Buchy, ... en favorisant l'émigration.
COURTOIS Alexandre Nicolas, 33 ans, administrateur du département de la Moselle, né et domicilié à Longuyon.
FLOSSE Jean Baptiste Nicolas, jeune, 36 ans, maître de postes, membre du directoire au département de la Moselle, né et domicilié à Boulay.
COLLIN François, administrateur du département de la Moselle, domicilié à Ars, même département, comme conspirateur le 17 floréal, le 3 nivôse an 2, par le tribunal révolutionnaire de Paris.
GEANT Jean Claude, administrateur du département de la Moselle, 41 ans, né et domicilié à Araville.
PIERRON Jacques J. Louis, juge du tribunal du district de Bruy, 32 ans, natif de Villers-la-Montagne (Moselle), domicilié à Bruy.
POULET Jacques, ex noble et procureur syndic du département de la Moselle, 56 ans, né et domicilié à Metz.
SEQUER Mathieu, homme de loi, membre du département de la Moselle, 65 ans, natif d'Ainanges (Moselle), domicilié à Brie.
WAGNER Michel, ex administrateur du département de la Moselle, 43 ans, né et domicilié à Sarre-Libre.
1793 METÉ Gilles, journalier, domicilié à Camonel (Morbihan), est comme contre-révolutionnaire, par le tribunal criminel dudit département.
1684 Heyman Dullaert, Duch aertist born on 06 February 1636. — [Hey man! He may not have been Brightaert, Sharpaert, or even Finaert, but these names bring up no more samples of aertwork on the Internet than does Dullaert, or Dumbaert for that matter]
1679 Nicolas Pierre Loir (or Loyr), French painter and engraver born in 1624. — more
1642 Frans Francken II, dies on his 61st birthday, Flemish painter. — MORE ON FRANCKEN AT ART “4” MAY LINKSAllegory on the Abdication of the Emperor Charles V on 25 October 1555, in BrusselsPassage of the Children of Israel through the Red SeaWorship of the Golden CalfFeast of EstherJesus among the DoctorsArt RoomAn Antique Dealer's GallerySebastiaan Leerse in his GalleryMadonna and Child in a Landscape (painted with Abraham Govaerts) — An Assembly of WitchesSupper at the House of Burgomaster Rockox
1629 Otto van Veen, Flemish painter born in 1556. — MORE ON VAN VEEN AT ART “4” MAYLINKSDistribution of herring and White Bread at the Relief of Leiden, 3 October 1574Batavians Defeating the Romans on the RhineSinite ParvulosThe Last SupperNicolaas RockoxZeuxis Painting Helen of Troy
1475 Dieric Bouts the Elder, Dutch painter born in 1412. — MORE ON BOUTS AT ART “4” MAY LINKSVirgin and Child, — Virgin and Child — a different The Virgin and Child — a 3rd version: Mary and ChildChrist in the House of SimonThe Entombment _ detailResurrection _ detailParadiseHellPortrait of a ManTriptych of the Virgin Martyrdom of St ErasmusAltarpiece of the Holy SacramentThe Justice of Emperor Otto III
1452 Bicci di Lorenzo, Italian artist born in 1373.
Births which occurred on a May 06:
1953 Tony Blair, British Prime Minister.
1949 EDSAC, the first stored-program computer       ^top^
      EDSAC, the world's first practical stored-program computer, comes to life in Cambridge, England. EDSAC's predecessor, ENIAC, had to be wired especially for each type of problem it was given. Reprogramming ENIAC could take hours or days of pulling and replugging patch cords.
      Scientist John Von Neumann of the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton had suggested ways to implement memory and stored programs on ENIAC, and his principles were implemented in England by Maurice Wilkes of Cambridge University. The invention of the stored-program computer was a major step toward the modern computer age.
1915 Orson Welles Kenosha Wisc, actor (War of the Worlds, Citizen Kane, The Mercury Radio Theatre of the Air, The Long Hot Summer, A Man for All Seasons, MacBeth, Moby Dick, Casino Royale, Catch-22)
1906 André Weil, mathematician       ^top^
     Weil is born in Paris, of Jewish parents. He would study at universities in Paris, Rome and Göttingen, receiving his D.Sc. from the University of Paris in 1928. He then taught at different universities for example the Aligarh Muslim University in India from 1930 to 1932, and the University of Strasbourg, France from 1933 until the outbreak of World War II.
André Weil     The war was a disaster for Weil who was a conscientious objector and so wished to avoid military service. He fled to Finland as soon as war was declared in an attempt to avoid becoming forced into the army, but it was not a simple matter to escape from the war in Europe at this time. He was sent from Finland back to France where he was put in prison. Weil was certainly in great danger at this time, partly because he was Jewish, partly because he had a sister, Simone Weil who was a mystic philosopher and a leading figure in the French Résistance. The dangers of his predicament made Weil decide that being in the army was a better bet and he was able to argue successfully for his release on the condition that he join the army.
      Having used the army as a reason to get out of prison, Weil had no intention of serving any longer than he possibly could. As soon as the chance to escape to the US came, he took it at once. In the US he went to Pennsylvania where he taught from 1941 at Haverford College and at Swarthmore College. In 1945 he accepted a position in Sao Paulo University, Brazil where he remained until 1947. In 1947 Weil returned to the United States and he was appointed to the faculty of the University of Chicago, a position he continued to hold until 1958. In 1948-49, John Canu and his father, a visiting professor at Chicago that year, were often guests of Weil. From 1958 Weil worked at the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton University. He retired in 1976, becoming Professor Emeritus at that time.
      Weil's research was in number theory, algebraic geometry and group theory. His work can be summarized thus: Beginning in the 1940s, Weil started the rapid advance of algebraic geometry and number theory by laying the foundations for abstract algebraic geometry and the modern theory of abelian varieties. His work on algebraic curves has influenced a wide variety of areas, including some outside mathematics, such as elementary particle physics and string theory. In fact Weil's work in this area was basic to work by mathematicians such as Yau who was awarded a Fields Medal in 1982 for work in three-dimensional algebraic geometry which has major applications to quantum field theory.
      Yau is not the only mathematician who received a Fields Medal for work which continued that begun by Weil. In 1978 Deligne was awarded a Fields Medal for solving the Weil Conjectures. Here is a description of Weil's fundamental contribution: One of Weil's major achievements was his proof of the Riemann hypothesis for the congruence zeta functions of algebraic function fields. In 1949 he raised certain conjectures about the congruence zeta function of algebraic varieties over finite fields. These Weil conjectures, as they came to be called, grew out of his deep insight into the topology of algebraic varieties and provided guiding principles for subsequent developments in the field. Weil's work on bringing together number theory and algebraic geometry was highly fruitful. The foundations of many topics studied in depth today were laid by Weil in this work, such as the foundations of the theory of modular forms, automorphic functions and automorphic representations.
      However, Weil's work was of major importance in a number of other new mathematical topics. He contributed substantially to topology, differential geometry and complex analytic geometry. It was not just to these areas that he contributed but, even more importantly, his work brought out fundamental relationships between the areas when he studied harmonic analysis on topological groups and characteristic classes. Also bringing these areas together was his work on the geometric theory of the theta function and Kähler geometry.
      Together with Dieudonné and others, Weil wrote under the name Nicolas Bourbaki, a project they began in the 1930s, in which they attempted to give a unified description of mathematics. The purpose was to reverse a trend which they disliked, namely that of a lack of rigour in mathematics. The influence of Bourbaki has been great over many years but it is now less important since it has basically succeeded in its aim of promoting rigour and abstraction.
      Weil's most famous books include Foundations of Algebraic Geometry (1946) and Elliptic Functions According to Eisenstein and Kronecker (1976).
      Weil received many honors for his outstanding mathematics. Among these has been honorary membership of the London Mathematical Society in 1959 and election to a Fellowship of the Royal Society of London in 1966. In addition he has been elected to the Academy of Sciences in Paris and to the National Academy of Sciences in the United States.
      Weil was an invited speaker at the International Congress of Mathematicians in 1950 at Harvard and again at the following International Congress in 1954. In 1979 Weil was awarded the Wolf Prize and, in the following year, the American Mathematical Society awarded him their Steele Prize. In 1994 he received the Kyoto Prize from the Inamori Foundation of Japan ... for outstanding achievement and creativity. The citation for the Kyoto Prize reads: The results achieved and problems raised by André Weil through his deep understanding of and sharp insight into mathematical sciences in general will continue to have immeasurable influence on the development of mathematical sciences, and to contribute greatly to the development of science, as well as the deepening and uplifting of the human spirit. Weil died on 06 August 1998.
Quotations by André Weil
Every mathematician worthy of the name has experienced ... the state of lucid exaltation in which one thought succeeds another as if miraculously... this feeling may last for hours at a time, even for days. Once you have experienced it, you are eager to repeat it but unable to do it at will, unless perhaps by dogged work... The Apprenticeship of a Mathematician.
God exists since mathematics is consistent, and the Devil exists since we cannot prove it.
Rigor is to the mathematician what morality is to men.
First rate mathematicians choose first rate people, but second rate mathematicians choose third rate people.
André Weil: A Prologue   /   André Weil (1906 — 1998)    /   André Weil and Algebraic Topology    /    André Weil as I Knew Him   /    The Apprenticeship of a Mathematician — -Autobiography of André Weil    //   Fermat's Last Theorem
1898 Francisco Bores López, Spanish painter who died in May 1972] — LINKSEarthLe MarinNature morte à l'antiqueStill LifeNature morte à l'antiqueStill Life with CurtainNature morte sur le murComposición
1896 Zygmunt Menkes, Polish artist who died in 1986.
1893 Wilhelm Kohlhoff, German artist who died in 1971
1889 Eiffel Tower, completed for the Universal Exposition which opens in Paris.
1880 Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, German Expressionist painter and sculptor who commited suicide on 15 June 1938 after destroying much of his artwork, despondent over what the Nazis were doing. — MORE ON KIRCHNER AT ART “4” MAY LINKSSelbstbildnis als SoldatSelf-Portrait with ModelGirl Under a Japanese ParasolA Group of Artists: Otto Mueller, Kirchner, Heckel, Schmidt-RottluffTwo Women in the Street59 prints at FAMSF
1875 William Daniel Leahy Iowa, 5 star adimiral/chief of staff (1949)
1872 Willem de Sitter, Dutch astronomer and mathematician who cooperated with Einstein and made advances in the theory of relativity. De Sitter died on 20 November 1934. [De Sitter was not the sitter in any painted portrait that I could discover.]
1870 Amedos Peter Giannini San Jose Calif, founded Bank of America
1861 Rabindranath Tagore (Nobel prize-winner: literature [1913]; Hindu poet, mystic, musical composer).
1857 Frank Bramley, British artist who died on 09 August 1915. — MORE ON BRAMLEY AT ART “4” MAYA Hopeless DawnPrimrose DayA TruceSir Frederick Augustus Abel, Bt
1856 Sigmund Freud, cigar smoker, father of psychiatry
1856 Robert Edward Peary arctic explorer (North Pole-1909) discoverer of the North Pole, Greenland, and the Melville meteorite
1851 Refrigeration machine is patented by Dr. John Gorrie.— El Dr. John Farrie obtiene la patente de su "maquina de refrigerar".
1849 John Melhuish Strudwick, British Pre-Raphaelite painter who died in 1935 (1937?). MORE ON STRUDWICK AT ART “4” MAYLINKSThe Madonna and Child with attendant Angels — Saint CeciliaApollo and MarsyosA Golden ThreadThe Music Of A Bygone AgeCirce and Scylla _ Compare Waterhouse's Circë InvidiosaIsabella and the Pot of Basil _ inspired by the poem Isabella, or the Pot of Basil by John Keats, as also are _ Isabella and the Pot of Basil by William Holman Hunt _ Isabella and the Pot of Basil by John White Alexander [07 October 1856 – 01 June 1915] _ Isabella and the Pot of Basil by John William Waterhouse
1840 first postage stamps issued (Great Britain)
1833 Steel plow: the first one is made by John Deere.
1823 Johann Batholomäus Duntze, German artist who died in 1895.
1807 Moritz Karl Friedrich Müller, German artist who died on 08 November 1865.
1769 Jean Nicolas Pierre Hachette, French mathematician who died on 16 January 1834. He was son of bookseller Jean-Pierre Hachette,
1758 Maximilien-François-Marie-Isidore Robespierre, Arras, French revolutionary / avocat (1781). He was responsible for many heads chopped off by the guillotine, including, on 10 Thermidor An II (28 July 1794), his own, in the Thermidorian Reaction against his reign of Terror through the Comité de Salut Public.
1688 Charles Parrocel, French painter and engraver who died on 24 (25?) May 1752 — more
1581 Frans Francken II, Flemish painter who would die on his 61st birthday (see above)
0973 Henry II Holy Roman emperor (1014-24)
Holidays Bulgaria : Shepherd's and Herdsman's Day / Denmark : Prayer Day / Lebanon : Martyrs' Day

Religious Observances Denmark : Prayer Day l RC : St John Before the Latin Gate / Christian : May Fellowship Day (Church Woman United)

Thought for the day: “Hearts will never be practical til they're unbreakable.”
“Give me the luxuries of life and I will willingly do without the necessities.”
— Frank Lloyd Wright, US architect (1869-1959)
“Homes designed by Frank Lloyd Wright provide some luxuries, but lack such necessities as a leakproof roof.”
"An expert is a person who has made all the mistakes that can be made in a very narrow field.” —
Niels Bohr, soccer player, Nobel-prize-winning physicist.
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