28 May History: This Date

<< May 27| HISTORY “4” “2”DAY May 29 >>
Events, deaths, births, of 28 MAY
[For May 28 Julian go to Gregorian date: 1583~1699: Jun 07 — 1700s: Jun 08 — 1800s: Jun 09 — 1900~2099: Jun 10]

ALTERNATE SITES ALL FOR 030528 ANY DAY OF THE YEAR IN HISTORY ART “4” MAY 28

• Belgium surrenders... • Addis Ababa falls to rebels... • Tortilla Flat is published... • Plane lands on Red Square... • Securities fraud... • Condamnés à mort par la Révolution... • US abandons Hamburger Hill... • Appeal for Amnesty... • Blacks go to Civil War... • 2 bank mergers... • Shroud of Turin photographed... • Golden Gate Bridge opens to cars... • French and Indian War... • Dionne quintuplets are born... • The Virginian is published... • Poet Moore is born...

On a 28 May:

2003 Biotech company Vaxgen (VXGN) announced the previous evening that the US Food and Drug Administration has authorized the testing of its new anthrax vaccine. On the NASDAQ 9.3 million of the 15.85 million VXGN shares are traded, surging from their previous close of $3.34 to an intraday high of $6.31 and closing at $5.62. They had traded as low as $2.11 as recently as 01 April 2003 and as high as $23.25 on 18 November 2002. They had started trading at $16.38 on 28 Jun 1999. [5~year price chart >]

^ 2003 Human rights in 2002.
      Amnesty International publishes its 2003 Annual Report (covering the year 2002). US usurper-president “Dubya” Bush (aka Hegemony-Seeking Unilateralist) is responsible for a war of aggression on Iraq which has not verified his pretexts, but has resulted in chaos in Iraq and increased hardships for innocent Iraqis. This and the al-Aqsa intifada have dominated the news, diverting attention from other vital human rights issues. “Forgotten” conflicts have taken a heavy toll on human rights and human lives – in Côte d'Ivoire, Colombia, Burundi, Chechnya, Nepal, etc. In Ituri in the DReCongo (Democratic Republic of Congo, former Zaïre) there is an imminent threat of genocide. Governments have spent billions allegedly to strengthen national security and to wage "war on terror[ism]". Yet for millions of people, the real sources of insecurity are corruption, repression, discrimination, extreme poverty, and preventable diseases. There have been some human rights successes during 2002, such as the establishment of the International Criminal Court, which the Bush usurper-regime was almost alone in rejecting, as it has many other international agreements which have almost unanimous support. The report documents human rights abuses in 2002 in 151 countries and territories:
North America
  Canada — USA — Mexico
Caribbean
  Bahamas — Cuba — Dominican Republic — Haiti — Jamaica — Puerto Rico — St Lucia — Trinidad & Tobago
Central America
  Belize — El Salvador — Guatemala — Honduras — Nicaragua
South America
  Argentina — Bolivia — Brazil — Chile — Colombia — Ecuador — Guyana — Paraguay — Peru — Suriname — Uruguay — Venezuela
Eastern Europe
  Czech Republic — Hungary — Romania — Slovak Republic — Estonia — Latvia
Western Europe
  Austria — Belgium — Denmark — Finland — France — Germany — Ireland — Italy — Portugal — Spain — Sweden — Switzerland — UK
Commonwealth Of Independent States
  Armenia — Azerbaijan — Belarus — Georgia — Kazakstan — Kyrgyzstan — Moldova — Russian Federation — Tajikistan — Turkmenistan — Ukraine — Uzbekistan
South-East Europe
  Albania — Bosnia~Herzegovina — Bulgaria — Croatia — Greece — Macedonia — Serbia and Montenegro
Pacific
  Australia — Fiji — New Zealand — Papua New Guinea — Solomon Islands
East Asia
  China — Japan — North Korea — South Korea — Taiwan
South-East Asia
  Cambodia — Indonesia — Laos — Malaysia — Myanmar — Philippines — Singapore — Thailand — Timor~Leste — Viet Nam
South Asia
  Afghanistan — Bangladesh — Bhutan — India — Maldives — Nepal — Pakistan — Sri Lanka
Middle East
  Bahrain — Iran — Iraq — Israel/Occupied Territories — Jordan — Kuwait — Lebanon — Palestinian Authority — Qatar — Saudi Arabia — Syria — Turkey — UAE — Yemen
North Africa
  Algeria — Egypt — Libya — Morocco/Western Sahara — Tunisia
Central Africa
  Burundi — Cameroon — Central African Republic — Chad — Congo — Democratic Republic Of Congo — Equatorial Guinea — Rwanda
Southern Africa
  Angola — Comoros — Madagascar — Malawi — Mauritius — Mozambique — Namibia — South Africa — Swaziland — Zambia — Zimbabwe
East Africa
  Eritrea — Ethiopia — Kenya — Somalia — Sudan — Tanzania — Uganda
West Africa
  Burkina Faso — Côte d'Ivoire — Gambia — Guinea — Guinea-Bissau — Liberia — Mauritania — Niger — Nigeria — Senegal — Sierra Leone — Togo
REGIONAL SUMMARIES: Africa — Americas — Asia and the Pacific — Europe and Central Asia — Middle East and North Africa.

2002 NATO and Russia sign a cooperation agreement, in a military base near Rome. Then US president Bush (Jr.), who, like Russian president Putin and other leaders was in attendance, visits the Pope. — MORE
2001 In an interview with ABC's correspondent John Miller, Osama Bin Laden makes the following comment on the fatwa which he issued calling Muslims to kill Americans regardless of whether they are civilians or military: "Allah ordered us in this religion to purify Muslim land of all non-believers… After World War II, the Americans became more aggressive and oppressive, especially in the Muslim world. American history does not distinguish between civilians and military, and not even women and children. They are the ones who used the bombs against Nagasaki. Can these bombs distinguish between infants and military? America does not have a religion that will prevent it from destroying all people." (The interview would be broadcast on 10 June 2001).
2000 President Alberto Fujimori "wins" overwhelmingly an election in Peru which is considered invalid by international observers and by his challenger Alejandro Toledo who boycotted the election. Fujimori does not know it yet, but this is the beginning of his downfall.

1998 Two bank mergers ^top^
Merger mania sweeps through the financial services industry. The wheeling and dealing kicks off just minutes after noon, as Republic Security Financial Corp. signs an agreement to acquire First Palm Beach Bancorp Inc. The merger, which was consummated with a $279.3 million stock swap, positioned the West Palm Beach-based Republic Corp. as the prime independent banking player in Florida.
Things quieted down for a few hours after the Republic-First Palm deal, but, later in the afternoon, the action picked up again, as another pair of banks signed off on an even more lucrative merger. First Hawaiian Inc. and BancWest Corp. joined forces to create a $14 billion banking behemoth based in the western United States. The merger, which cost around $1 billion, gave First Hawaiian's stockholders a small majority stake in the new institution.

1996 US President Clinton's former business partners in the Whitewater land deal, James and Susan McDougal, and Arkansas Gov. Jim Guy Tucker, were convicted of fraud.
1993 Claudio Rodríguez, Premio Príncipe de Asturias de las Letras.

1991 Addis Ababa falls to rebels ^top^
      Addis Ababa, the capital of Ethiopia, falls to forces of the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF), ending seventeen years of Marxist rule,. a week after the country's longtime Marxist ruler, Mengistu Haile Mariam, resigned his post and fled.
      In 1974, Haile Selassie, the emperor of Ethiopia since 1930, was deposed in a military coup. Ethiopia’s new rulers set up a Marxist regime, executed thousands of their political opponents, and aligned themselves with the Soviet Union. War with Somalia and severe droughts during the 1980s brought famine to the Ethiopian people, leading to considerable internal strife and independence movements in the regions of Eritrea and Tigre.
      In early 1991, the EPRDF, a Tigrean-led coalition of rebel organizations under the leadership of Meles Zenawi, began to achieve real successes and defeated the Ethiopian army, forcing military dictator Haile Mariam Mengistu to flee the country.
      On 28 May 1991, in the midst of cease-fire talks, EPRDF tanks entered Addis Ababa virtually unopposed. Soon after, a transition government was formed with Meles Zenawi as its president. In July, a new democratic constitution was drafted and Eritrean independence was acknowledged without incident.

1991 US Defense Secretary Dick Cheney and other NATO defense chiefs agree to create a rapid reaction corps as part of a broad plan to reshape the Western alliance in the post-Cold War era — Los 15 ministros de Defensa de los países de la OTAN acuerdan en Bruselas constituir las "fuerzas de reacción rápida" con cuatro divisiones de carácter multinacional, bajo mando británico, cambio histórico del esquema defensivo occidental.
1990 El poeta asturiano Carlos Bousoño obtiene el Premio Nacional de Poesía de España por su obra "Metáfora del desacuerdo".

1987 West German pilot lands in Red Square ^top^
      At the end of a daring flight into the heart of the USS.R., Mathias Rust, 19, lands his small plane in Moscow’s Red Square, the site of Lenin’s Tomb and frequent Soviet patriotic demonstrations. The plane had not been detected once during its 1100-km flight from Helsinki, Finland. Soviet authorities hastily arrested the pilot at his conspicuous landing spot, and in September, he was convicted on charges stemming from the flight.
      His seemingly effortless penetration of Soviet air space raised serious questions about the Soviet Union’s ability to defend itself from air attack, and shook the Soviet military hierarchy to its core. Following his conviction, Rust was sentenced to four years in a labor camp, but was released as a goodwill gesture to the West after serving only a year of his sentence.
      Matthias Rust, a 19-year-old amateur pilot from West Germany, takes off from Helsinki, Finland, travels through more than 400 miles of Soviet airspace, and lands his small Cessna aircraft in Red Square by the Kremlin. The event proved to be an immense embarrassment to the Soviet government and military. Rust, described by his mother as a "quiet young man...with a passion for flying," apparently had no political or social agenda when he took off from the international airport in Helsinki and headed for Moscow. He entered Soviet airspace, but was either undetected or ignored as he pushed farther and farther into the Soviet Union. Early on the morning of May 28, 1987, he arrived over Moscow, circled Red Square a few times, and then landed just a few hundred yards from the Kremlin. Curious onlookers and tourists, many believing that Rust was part of an air show, immediately surrounded him. Very quickly, however, Rust was arrested and whisked away. He was tried for violating Soviet airspace and sentenced to prison. He served 18 months before being released. The repercussions in the Soviet Union were immediate. Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev sacked his minister of defense, and the entire Russian military was humiliated by Rust's flight into Moscow. US officials had a field day with the event — one American diplomat in the Soviet Union joked, "Maybe we should build a bunch of Cessnas." Soviet officials were less amused. Four years earlier, the Soviets had been harshly criticized for shooting down a Korean Airlines passenger jet that veered into Russian airspace. Now, the Soviets were laughingstocks for not being able to stop one teenager's "invasion" of the country. One Russian spokesperson bluntly declared, "You criticize us for shooting down a plane, and now you criticize us for not shooting down a plane."

1986 "Heard on the Street" securities fraud conviction upheld ^top^
      The US Court of Appeals upholds the conviction of writer R. Foster Winans for securities fraud. Winans, author of the "Heard on the Street" column for the Wall Street Journal, entered into a scheme with two brokers at Kidder Peabody to give them advance information about his column. The brokers, Kenneth Felis and Peter Brant, made $700'000 by trading stocks that Winans touted in the newspaper; Winans and his lover, David Carpenter, received only $31'000 in kickbacks.
      Winans began writing "Heard on the Street" in 1982 and, though successful, was having difficulty leading the lavish New York City lifestyle that he desired. In October 1983, Felis and Brant persuaded him to leak the contents of upcoming columns so that they could take advantage of the price changes that typically occurred after a stock had been written about in the nation's leading financial publication.
      It wasn't long before executives at Kidder Peabody noticed a strange coincidence between the Felis account and the stocks discussed in "Heard on the Street." With the SEC already investigating, Winans admitted the scheme in March 1984 and was immediately fired by the Wall Street Journal. Winans, Carpenter, and Felis were indicted and convicted of securities fraud. Winans received an 18-month prison sentence.
      Although the amounts of money involved were relatively small, the Winans case became a public symbol of the widespread greed, corruption, and win-at-all-costs mentality of Wall Street that prevailed in the 1980s. Winans revealed all in his 1986 book Trading Secrets, which sold well. However, he was unable to collect any of the royalties because the New York Crime Victims Board claimed the profits under a law that prevents criminals from profiting from their crimes. Later, Winans told people, "I like what [the conviction] has done to my life, if you can believe it."

1978 Legalizado el aborto en Italia.
1972 White House "plumbers" break into Democratic Nat'l HQ at Watergate
1971 USSR Mars 3 launched, first spacecraft to soft land on Mars.

1969 US abandons Hamburger Hill ^top^
     Eight days after the costly taking of Hamburger Hill during the Vietnam war, US forces abandon the position, now considered of no military value. On May 20, after ten days and ten bloody assaults, Hill 937, known as "Hamburger Hill" by the Americans who fought there, was finally captured by US and South Vietnamese troops.
      Located 1.5 km east of the Laotian border, Hill 937 was to be taken as part of Operation Apache Snow, a mission intended to limit enemy infiltration from Laos that threatened Hue to the northeast and Danang to the southeast. On May 10, following air and artillery strikes, a US-led infantry force launched its first assault on the North Vietnamese stronghold, but suffered a high proportion of casualties and fell back.
      Ten more infantry assaults came over the next ten days, and Hill 937’s North Vietnamese defenders did not give up their fortified position until 20 May. Almost one hundred Americans had been killed and more than 400 had been wounded, amounting to a shocking 70-percent casualty rate during the ten-day battle.
      The same day that Hamburger Hill was finally captured, Senator Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts called the operation "senseless and irresponsible" and attacked the military tactics of President Richard Nixon’s administration. His speech before the Senate was seen as part of a growing public outcry over the US military policy in Vietnam.
      In the next week, US military command reversed their stance on the strategic importance of Hamburger Hill, and, on May 28 it was abandoned, just one week after it was taken. North Vietnamese forces eventually returned and re-fortified their original position.
     US troops abandon "Hamburger Hill" (Ap Bia Mountain). A spokesman for the 101st Airborne Division said that the US troops "have completed their search of the mountain and are now continuing their reconnaissance-in-force mission throughout the A Shau Valley." This announcement came amid the public outcry about what had become known as the "Battle of Hamburger Hill." The battle was part of Operation Apache Snow in the A Shau Valley. The operation began on 10 May when paratroopers from the 101st Airborne engaged a North Vietnamese regiment on the slopes of Hill 937, known to the Vietnamese as Ap Bia Mountain. Entrenched in prepared fighting positions, the North Vietnamese 29th Regiment repulsed the initial American assault and beat back another attempt by the 3rd Battalion, 187th Infantry on 14 May. An intense battle raged for the next 10 days as the mountain came under heavy Allied air strikes, artillery barrages, and 10 infantry assaults. On 20 May, Maj. Gen. Melvin Zais, commanding general of the 101st, sent in two additional US airborne battalions and a South Vietnamese battalion as reinforcements. The communist stronghold was finally captured in the 11th attack, when the American and South Vietnamese soldiers fought their way to the summit of the mountain. In the face of the four-battalion attack, the North Vietnamese retreated to sanctuary areas in Laos. During the intense fighting, 597 North Vietnamese were reported killed and US casualties were 56 killed and 420 wounded. Due to the bitter fighting and the high loss of life, the battle for Ap Bia Mountain received widespread unfavorable publicity in the United States and was dubbed "Hamburger Hill" in the US media, a name evidently derived from the fact that the battle turned into a "meat grinder." The purpose of the operation was not to hold territory but rather to keep the North Vietnamese off balance so the decision was made to abandon the mountain shortly after it was captured. The North Vietnamese occupied it a month after it was abandoned. Outrage over what appeared to be a senseless loss of American lives was exacerbated by pictures published in Life magazine of 241 US soldiers killed during the week of the battle. Gen. Creighton Abrams, commander of US Military Assistance Command Vietnam, was ordered to avoid such battles. Because of Hamburger Hill, and other battles like it, US emphasis was placed on "Vietnamization" — turning the war over to the South Vietnamese forces rather than engage in direct combat operations.

1967 Francis Chichester llega en su nave a Plymouth (Inglaterra) tras dar la vuelta al mundo en solitario.
1963 Jomo Kenyatta becomes first PM of Kenya
1962 Suit alleging de facto school segregation filed in Rochester NY
1962 US stock market drops $20.8 Billion in 1 day
1961 Last trip on the Orient Express (after 78 years)

1961 Appeal for Amnesty ^top^
      The London Observer, a British newspaper, launched "Appeal for Amnesty, 1961," a campaign that called for the release of all people imprisoned because of peaceful expression of their beliefs, politics, race, religion, color, or national origin. Appeal for Amnesty, 1961, was the brainchild of Peter Benenson, a Catholic lawyer who had advocated publicizing the plight of prisoners of conscience around the world after learning of a group of students in Portugal who were arrested and jailed for raising a toast to "freedom" in a public restaurant.
      Begun as a one-year campaign in the pages of the Observer, Appeal for Amnesty grew into an international movement that led to the formation of Amnesty International later in the year. Amnesty International, a permanent human rights organization, based its mandate on the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights, a document created through the work of American Eleanor Roosevelt and adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in December of 1954.
      Like the Declaration of Human Rights, Amnesty International was created on the principle that people have fundamental rights that transcend national, cultural, religious, and ideological boundaries. It worked to obtain prompt and fair trials for all prisoners, to end torture and executions, and to secure the release of prisoners of conscience. Since its founding, Amnesty has been very successful in promoting human rights around the world, largely to due its impartiality and focus on individuals rather than political systems. In 1977, the organization was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for its efforts.

1959 Monkeys Able and Baker zoom 300 mi (500 km) into space on Jupiter missile, became first animals retrieved from a space mission
1958 The Presbyterian Church in the US merged with the Presbyterian Church of North America to form the United Presbyterian Church in the United States of America (UPCUSA).
1954 US President Dwight D. Eisenhower signs a bill which adds the words "under God" to the Pledge of Allegiance.
1953 Première of first animated 3-D cartoon in Technicolor-"Melody"
1952 En Grecia, las mujeres obtienen el derecho al voto.
1940 Capitulation de la Belgique par son roi, Léopold III — Début de l'évacuation de Dunkerque, terminée le 3 juin (The Brandenburg commandos, warrior spies of Nazi Germany).

1940 Belgium surrenders unconditionally ^top^
      After 18 days of ceaseless German bombardment, the king of Belgium, having asked for an armistice, is given only unconditional surrender as an option. He takes it. German forces had moved into Belgium on May 10, part of Hitler's initial western offensive. Despite some support by British forces, the Belgians were simply outnumbered and outgunned from the beginning. The first surrender of Belgium territory took place only one day after the invasion, when the defenders of Fort Eben-Emael surrendered.
      Disregarding the odds, King Leopold III of Belgium had tried to rally his forces, evoking the Belgian victory during World War I. The Belgian forces fought on, courageously, but were continually overcome by the invaders. By May 27, the king of Belgium, realizing that his army was depleted and that even retreat was no longer an option, sent an emissary through the German lines to request an armistice, a cease-fire. It was rejected. The Germans demanded unconditional surrender.
      Belgium's government in exile, stationed in Paris, repudiated the surrender, but to no avail. Belgium had no army left to fight. In the House of Commons, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill defended King Leopold's decision, despite the fact that it made the British troops' position, attempting to evacuate Dunkirk, in northern France, more precarious.
      King Leopold refused to flee the country and was taken prisoner by the Nazis during their occupation, and confined to his palace. A Belgian underground army grew up during the occupation; its work including protecting the port of Antwerp, the most important provisioning point for Allied troops on the Continent, from destruction by the Germans.

1940 II Guerra Mundial: Los ingleses conquistan Narvik (Noruega) a los alemanes.
1937 Neville Chamberlain became prime minister of Britain. — Dimite el primer ministro inglés, Stanley Baldwin, y le sucede Neville Chamberlain.

1937 The Golden Gate Bridge opens to cars ^top^
     At noon, President Franklin Roosevelt presses a telegraph key in the White House, and the bridge is opened to vehicular traffic. The previous day, the bridge was inaugurated and opened to pedestrian traffic.
      Until the Verrazano Narrows Bridge was completed in 1964, the Golden Gate's structural steel suspension span was the longest in the world. (Today, the Akashi-Kaikyo Bridge in Japan boasts the longest span at over 2000 meters.). The Golden Gate bridge was designed by Clifford Paine, who submitted the final blueprints for approval in 1930. It then took three years for the builders to attain the approval of the military, the city financiers, and the voting public. Construction of the bridge began on January 5, 1933.
      The bridge's aesthetics were influenced greatly by an assisting architect named Irving Morrow. Morrow had no experience building bridges, but he convinced Paine to adopt many of the Golden Gate's most striking features. It was his idea for the portal bracings above the roadway to diminish in size as they climbed, thereby creating the effect of heightening the bridge. The height of the towers over the water is a breathtaking 227 meters, and the length of the suspended structure is 1966 meters. Some 130'000 km of wire went into the construction of the Golden Gate Bridge. Morrow was also the driving force behind the bridge's striking color, international orange; he believed a warm color should be used to contrast with the cold tones of the surrounding land.
      The Golden Gate Bridge cost the community nearly $35 million during its five-year construction. Its name is derived from the body of water over which it spans, Golden Strait. The "gold" comes from the strait's location at the mouth of the North Bay, beyond which lies the gold of California. Other have mentioned that the Golden Gate Bridge is the Gateway to the Land of the Setting Sun, but they didn't mention this until nearly thirty years after the bridge was originally erected.

1929 first all color talking picture "On With The Show" exhibited, NYC
1926 Military coup in Portugal — Golpe militar del general Francisco Gomes da Costa en Portugal.
1924 José Martínez Ruiz, "Azorín", es elegido por unanimidad miembro de la Real Academia Española de la Lengua.
1918 Tatars declares Azerbaijan, in Russian Caucasus, independent — El partido nacionalista "Mussavet" se adueña del poder y proclama la independencia de Azerbaiyán.
1917 El Parlamento británico aprueba el proyecto de ley de sufragio femenino, que concede el voto a las mujeres en el Reino Unido, aunque limitado a las mayores de 30 años que sean cabeza de familia.
1900 Britain annexes Orange Free State (as Orange River Colony)
1900 Eclipse solar total, visible desde la mayor parte de la Península Ibérica.

1898 The Shroud of Turin is first photographed ^top^
by Secundo Pia in Turin's Cathedral, where it had rested for 320 years. It is noticed that the sepia-tone images on the shroud seem to have the character of photographic negatives rather than positives.
Beginning in the 1970s, tests were made to determine whether the images were the result of paints (or other pigments), scorches, or other agents; none of the tests proved conclusive. In 1988 the age of the cloth itself was finally determined. Three laboratories in different countries were provided with postage-stamp-sized pieces of the shroud's linen cloth. Having subjected these samples to carbon-14 dating, all three laboratories concluded that the cloth of the shroud had been made sometime between AD 1260 and 1390. The Roman Catholic church accepted the results and announced that the Shroud of Turin was not authentic, but the church encouraged Christians to continue venerating the shroud as an inspiring pictorial image of Christ. [image: face from the shroud, which has a full-body imprint]

1871 The Paris commune is suppressed by troops from Versailles.— Fin de la Comuna de París, gobierno insurreccional francés formado después de la revolución del 18 de marzo anterior, con la ocupación del cementerio del Pére-Lachaise y el fusilamiento de numerosos federados, entre ellos Eugene Varlin.
1870 El ministro de Ultramar español, Segismundo Moret y Prendergast, presenta una ley de abolición gradual de la esclavitud.
1864 Llega a Veracruz el nuevo emperador de México, el archiduque de Habsburgo Maximiliano de Austria, impuesto por la monarquía constitucional que establecen los franceses, con el que empieza el II Imperio mexicano.
1863 The 54th Massachusetts, a regiment of African-American recruits, leaves Boston, headed for Hilton Head, South Carolina.

1863 The 54th Massachusetts leaves Boston ^top^
The 54th Massachusetts Infantry, the most famous African-American regiment of the Civil War, leaves Boston for combat in the South. For the first two years of the war, President Abraham Lincoln resisted the use of black troops despite the pleas of men such as Frederick Douglass, who argued that no one had more to fight for than African Americans. Lincoln finally endorsed, albeit timidly, the introduction of blacks for service in the military in the Emancipation Proclamation. On May 22, 1863, the War Department established the Bureau of Colored Troops to recruit and assemble black regiments. Many blacks, often freed or escaped slaves, joined the military and found themselves usually under white leadership. Ninety percent of all officers in the United States Colored Troops (USCT) were white. Colonel Robert Gould Shaw, the idealistic scion of an abolitionist family, headed the 54th. Shaw was a veteran of the 2nd Massachusetts infantry and saw action in the 1862 Shenandoah Valley and Antietam campaigns. After being selected by Massachusetts Governor John Andrew to organize and lead the 54th, Shaw carefully selected the most physically fit soldiers and white officers with established antislavery views. The regiment included two of Frederick Douglass's sons and the grandson of Sojourner Truth. On May 28, 1863, the new regiment marched onto a steamer and set sail for Port Royal, South Carolina. The unit saw action right away, taking part in a raid into Georgia and withstanding a Confederate attack near Charleston. On July 16, 1863, Shaw led a bold but doomed attack against Fort Wagner in which he and 20 of his men were killed. The story of Robert Gould Shaw and the 54th Massachusetts was immortalized in the critically acclaimed 1990 movie Glory, starring Mathew Broderick, Denzell Washington, and Morgan Freeman.

1859 The French army launches a flanking attack on the Austrian army in Northern France. (The Italian Campaign of 1859).
1851, the Ohio Woman's Rights Convention opens in Akron.
1830 In a crime against humanity, the US Congress authorizes Indian removal from all states to western prairie [ethnic cleansing?]. (The good, the bad and the ugly of conquering the US West).
1818 Former president Thomas Jefferson set forth in a letter to a Jewish journalist his opinion of religious intolerance: 'Your sect by its sufferings has furnished a remarkable proof of the universal point of religious insolence, inherent in every sect, disclaimed by all while feeble and practised by all when in power. Our laws have applied the only antidote to this vice, protecting our religions, as they do our civil rights, by putting all on equal footing. But more remains to be done.'
1813 Guerra de la Independencia española: las tropas francesas salen de Madrid llevándose cuantas riquezas y obras de arte pueden.
1812 Rusia y Turquía firman el primer tratado de Bucarest, por el que el zar ruso adquiría Besarabia a cambio de la devolución de los territorios conquistados en Asia al sultán turco.
1805 Napoléon is crowned in Milan, Italy.
1794 (9 prairial an II) GERBAUD Joseph, propriétaire, domicilié à Bedouin, canton de Carpentras, département de Vaucluse, est condamné à mort par contumace, par le tribunal criminel dudit département, comme contre-révolutionnaire.
1785 Real decreto de Carlos III por el que se declara la bandera roja y amarilla como enseña de la Armada española.
1774 first Continental Congress convenes in Virginia.
1742 first indoor swimming pool opens (Goodman's Fields, London)
1741 Pacto de Nymphenburg entre Felipe V de España y el príncipe electo de Baviera, Carlos, a fin de asegurar para la corona imperial de Alemania una parte de Austria y a España sus posesiones en Italia.
1664 first Baptist Church organized (Boston)
1539 Hernando de Soto lands in Florida
1533 England's archbishop declared the marriage of King Henry VIII to Anne Boleyn valid.
1486 Conquista de Loja (Granada) a los árabes por Fernando el Católico, acción en la que se distinguió Gonzalo Fernández de Córdoba y Aguilar, el "Gran Capitán".
0640 Severinus begins his reign as Pope
— 585 -BC- Thales of Miletus predicts solar eclipse; it interrupts a battle outside of Sardis in western Turkey between Medes and Lydians. The battle ends in a draw.

TO THE TOP

Deaths which occurred on a 28 May:
2002 Napoleon Beazley, by lethal injection, in Texas, for having, on 19 April 1994, when he was 17, shot twice in the head John Luttig, 63, in order to steal his Mercedes car, with the complicity of brothers Cedric and Donald Coleman. steals Luttig's Mercedes car. The execution comes despite international appeals on Beazley's behalf, because he is Black and was below age 18 at the time of the crime, and the victim's son J. Michael Luttig, a federal appeals judge in Virginia, came to the Tyler, Texas, trial and unduly influenced it, and the jury had no Black on it.
2002 Three yeshiva students, and a gunman from the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, who shoots them in the West Bank enclave settlement of Itamar, near Nablus, in the evening, and is in turn shot by the settlement's security officer.
2002 Albert Malul, 50, of Jerusalem, by shots fired at the car in which he was traveling, south of the West Bank settlement of Ofra, coming from Jerusalem on Road 60 (the Ramallah bypass road), prior to reaching the Burka junction.
2002 Mildred Wirt Benson, author, under the pseudonym Carolyn Keene, of 23 of the 30 original Nancy Drew mysteries, about a beautiful, rich, smart 16-year-old girl who solved crimes. All Benson got was $125 per book, no royalties from the books (200 million books in 17 languages, including those by those who followed her, under the same pseudonym), movies, and board games. Benson wrote more than 100 other books, including the Penny Parker mystery series. Benson was born on 10 July 1905.
2001 At least 12 persons in coup attempt by Central African Republic poorly paid soldiers against President Ange-Félix Patasse. The dead include 7 members of the presidential guard. Patasse first won election in 1993, ending more than a decade of army rule. He won re-election in 1999 amid opposition claims of vote fraud.
2001 Kelly Coblentz, 16, of neisseria meninigitidis, sophomore at West Branch High School, in Alliance, Ohio. Coming after the death from the same cause of another student from the same school on 23 May, this causes a scare and motivates a preventive mass vaccination.
1998 Phil(ip Edward) Hartman(n), 49, and Brynn Hartman, 40, his third wife, who, under the influence of alcohol and cocaine, shoots her husband in the early hours, goes and tells a friend, who does not believe her, returns home with the friend, locks herself in a room and shoots herself; in Encino, California. (Phil Hartman's father died on 30 April 1998). — MORE
1995: 1989 personas en un seísmo en Neftegorsk (isla rusa de Sajalín). Hubo 1208 supervivientes.
1981 Stefan Wyszynski, cardenal primado de Polonia.
1980 Rolf Herman Nevanlinna, Finnish mathematician. His most important work was on harmonic measure, which he invented in 1936. He also developed the theory of value distribution named after him.
1977: 164 persons in fire at the Beverly Hills Supper Club in Southgate, Kentucky.
1972 Duke of Windsor, 77, in Paris. As Edward VIII, he had abdicated the British throne in 1938 to marry divorcée Wallis Warfield Simpson.
1968 Cornelis Theodorus Maria Kees van Dongen, Dutch-born French painter born on 26 January 1877. — MORE ON VAN DONGEN AT ART “4” MAY — LINKS — Portrait of a Young Woman — Aux Folies Bergères — Head of a Woman — Woman with a fan — Woman watching a steeplechase — Le Coquelicot — Daniel Khanweiler — Feranate Olivier — Gypsy — Indian Dancer — Prostitute — Parisienne — Red Dancer — Rotterdam — La Réussite — The Green Dress — Torso
1963 Estimated 22'000 in cyclone in Bay of Bengal (India)
1921 Konrad Kiesel, German artist born on 29 November 1846.
1912 Paul Émile Lecoq de Boisbaudran, químico francés.
1885 Francis John Williamson, British artist born in 1826.
1843 Noah Webster, 84, lexicographer (Webster's Dictionary) — WEBSTER ONLINE: Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (based on the 1913 Merriam-Webster edition): searchable HTML — A-B: — C: — D-E: — F-H: — I-L: — M-O: — P-Q: — R: — S: — T-W: — X-Z: (zipped only) — . Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary (current edition) — The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (2000)
1805 Luigi Boccherini, compositor italiano.
1794 Elisabeth-Georgine van Hogenhuyzen, Dutch artist born in 1776.

Condamnés à mort par la Révolution: ^top^
1794 (9 prairial an II):
DEVAUX Pierre François, vivant de ses biens, par le tribunal révolutionnaire.
LORCET Isaac Julien, notaire, domicilié à St Marceau (Sarthe), comme Munitionnaire des brigands de la Vendée, par le tribunal criminel dudit département.
VERDELIN Pierre Jacques César, ex-noble, domicilié à Cambray (Nord), par le tribunal révolutionnaire de Cambray, comme ne s’étant pas retiré de ladite ville, place forte d'où il devait sortir comme ex-noble.
BERTRAND Pierre Louis, 41 ans, confiseur, ex officier de gobelet du dernier tyran roi, né et domicilié à Paris, comme contre-révolutionnaire, par le tribunal criminel du département de la Seine..
DELOCRE Charles Joseph Albert Ferdinand, 40 ans, né à Agnières, demeurant à Arras, marchand, époux de Jugand Gabrielle Joseph, à Arras
JUGAND Gabrielle Joseph, 40 ans, née à Aire, demeurant à Arras, épouse de Delocre Charles Joseph Albert Ferdinand, à Arras
Domiciliés dans le département de la Dordogne, par le tribunal criminel dudit département, comme réfractaires à la loi:
CAPELLE Pierre, ex charteux, domicilié à Mont-Pont. — CHERCHOULY Jean, ex curé, domicilié à la Chapelle-Fauché. — DEREIS Jean, ex curé, domicilié à St Pardoux-de-Mareuil.
Domiciliés dans le département du Vaucluse:
BERTRAND Gabriel Edouard, membre du comité de surveillance de Bédouin, canton de Carpentras, comme contre-révolutionnaire, par le tribunal criminel du Gard..
BEYSSER Joseph, (dit Padelle), domicilié à Avignon, comme contre-révolutionnaire, par le tribunal criminel dudit département.
DECOR Jacques, cordonnier, domicilié à Crillon, par le tribunal criminel dudit département comme contre-révolutionnaire.
     ... domiciliés à Bedouin, canton de Carpentras:
           ... comme conspirateurs, par le tribunal criminel du département de Vaucluse:
ASTAUD Jean Joseph, propriétaire — FRUCTUS Michel (dit Coucourdon), meunier, lieutenant de la garde nationale — FRUTUS François, potier de terre, commandant de la garde nationale — THOMAS Jean Baptiste (dit Chicanand), propriétaire — THOMAS Joseph, père (dit Chicanaud), propriétaire — THOMAS Mélanie, (dit Belezy), ex-noble — THOMAS Joseph, fils de Joseph, propriétaire
           ... comme contre-révolutionnaires:
                 ... par la commission populaire séante à Orange:
ALLEMAND Jean Baptiste, prêtre insermenté — ALLEMAND François Nicolas, homme de loi — ALLEMAND Françoise, ex religieuse insermentée.
                 ... par le tribunal criminel du département de Vaucluse:
BALBANY Joseph (dit Devaubonne), ex-noble, seigneur de Bédouin.— BELLECOMBE Joseph Vincent Thomas, propriétaire, membre du comité de la commune de Bedouin. — BERNARD Joseph, notaire — BERNUSSET Victor, juge de paix — BONNETY Charles, tuilier, sergent de la garde nationale de Bédouin — BOUTEILLE Mariette Marguerite, veuve Thomas (dit Belezy), ex noble — BRANCHE Jean Joseph, cultivateur — BREMOND Jean Joseph, propriétaire — BREMOND Jean Louis, fils, propriétaire — BRUN Mathieu (dit Palliasson) — BRUN Jean Louis, maréchal ferrant — CARPENTRAS Henri, propriétaire — CHARBONEL Jean, cordonnier — CONSTANTIN Antoine, boulanger — CONSTANTIN Joseph Marc, prêtre, boulanger — COTTON Antoine, propriétaire — COTTON Jean François, fournier — COUTANT Jean Esprit, agent national — DAUBERTE Pierre François, officier municipal — DECOR Sébastien, tisserand — FAULCON Joseph Vincent, notaire — FAVAREL Siméon Alexis, salpêtrier — FLORANT Etienne, cultivateur — FRUCTUS Sylvestre, fabricant de tuiles, maire — GERBAUD Grégoire, propriétaire — GERBAUD Jérôme, propriétaire — GERBAUD Thomas, propriétaire — GUIBERT Ignace Xavier, prêtre réfractaire — GUIGUE Xavier, prêtre — GUITRAND Etienne, serrurier, officier municipal — JOUVE François, tisserand membres du comité — MARTIN Marie Thérèse, religieuse assermentée — MENTILLON Jean, propriétaire — MOLIÈRE André L. Flor., ex noble, chevalier du tyran roi, lieutenant colonel d'Auvergne — CLAPTI Cécile, femme Molière, ex noble— MONIER Thomas, notaire — MOUTON Suzanne, femme Bernard — NOUVENE Dominique, salpêtrier, officier municipal — NOUVENE Denis, membre du comité, et propriétaire — PASCHAL Antoine, agent de ci-devant noble — PAYEN Joseph Thomas — PELLET François, cultivateur — PEYRE Joseph Marcellin — PORTAIL César, tisserand — RAYMOND Eléonore Françoise, veuve Balbany — ROUSSEAU Thomas, potier de terre et membre du comité — ROUSSEAU Pierre, meunier, commandant en second de la garde nationale, président de la société populaire — ROUSSEAU Jean, potier de terre, capitaine de la garde nationale — ROUSSEAU Joseph, potier de terre — TALLENE Basile, chirurgien — THOMAS Marie, fils d'Antoine — TRIBOULET Jean Joseph, propriétaire et membre du comité — VENDRAN Jean Baptiste, propriétaire et membre du comité — VIAU Michel, prêtre réfractaire — VIAU Roman, potier de terre — VIAU Etienne, propriétaire.
Par le tribunal révolutionnaire de Paris:
CHEVALIER Françoise, ouvrière en linge, 28 ans, née et domiciliée à Besançon (Doubs), comme convaincue d'avoir conspiré contre le Peuple français, en tenant des propos contre-révolutionnaires.
FERON Guillaume, 45 ans, journalier, né à Arnouville (Seine et Oise), domicilié à à St Martin-des-Champs (Seine et Oise), comme convaincu d’avoir insulté, outragé les autorités légitimes, en refusant d’obéir aux réquisitions.
FERON Marie Adélaïde, femme Rageot, 40 ans, née à Armouville (Seine et Oise), couturière, domiciliée à St Martin-des-Champs (Seine et Oise), comme convaincue d’avoir outragé les administration du département de Seine et Oise, et du District de Montfort-le-Brutus.
LETELLIER Nicolas, vigneron et tuilier, 36 ans, né à Septeuil (Seine et Oise), membre du comité de surveillance, domicilié et agent national de la commune de St Martin-des-Champs (Seine et Oise), comme contre-révolutionnaire, ayant insulté et menacé les administrateurs de son département.
PETIT Jean, tonnelier et maire d'Orsmoy, 49 ans, né et domicilié à Osmoy (Seine et Oise), comme complice d'une conspiration tendante à empêcher la circulation des transports des subsistances en réquisition pour le département de la Seine et Oise.
RAGEOT André, 38 ans, natif de Bresse, tailleur, et membre de la commune de St Martin, domicilié à St Martin-des-Champs (Seine et Oise), comme complice d’une conspiration tendante à empêcher la circulation des transports des subsistances en réquisition, par le département de la Seine et Oise.
SAINTANAX André, élève en chirurgie, employé à l’hôpital militaire de Choisy-sur-Seine, 22 ans, natif de Bordeaux (Gironde), domicilié à Choisy-sur-Seine, comme complice de la fraction de l’étranger, et de l’assassinat du représentant du peuple Collot d’Herbois ; il a été conduit à l’échafaud avec une chemise rouge.
SIMON Felix, domestique, cloutier, 61 ans, né et domicilié à Rossureux (Doubs), comme conspirateur, ayant dit que l'on avait mal fait de détruire les seigneurs, mais que dans quelques temps ils seraient rétablis; que les prêtre qui avaient accepté la constitution française, n'étaient pas plus que lui, que les patriotes étaient des gueux, et que les choses changeraient.
VILLEMIN Claude Joseph, journalier, 26 ans, né et domicilié à Guyans-en-Venne (Doubs), comme conspirateur ayant attenté à la sûreté des personnes et des propriétaires.
BAILLOT Firmin, 36 ans, né à Lironville (Meurthe), rapeur de tabac, domicilié à Paris, comme conspirateur
DUMAZET Sylvain, 25 ans, né à Argenton (Orne), ci-devant ouvrier verrier, colporteur, comme convaincu d'avoir conspiré contre le peuple français, en tenant des propos contre-révolutionnaires.
     ... comme contre-révolutionnaires:
FENAUX Pierre François, charretier, 40 ans, né à Salincourt (Eure), domicilié à Rosay (Seine et Marne).
LEGER Claude, meunier et cultivateur, 49 ans, né à Villemur (Seine et Oise), domicilié à Rosay (Seine et Marne)
DUHAMEL Eloi, 54 ans, né à Ris (Seine et Marne), tuilier et agent national, domicilié à à St Martin-des-Champs (Seine et Oise).
OLIVIER Martin, vigneron, et maire de sa commune, 58 ans, né et domicilié à St Martin-des-Champs (Seine et Oise)..

1756 Lt. Coulon de Jumonville, 9 other French and 1 American soldier, in the first engagement of the French and Indian War ^top^
      In the first engagement of the French and Indian War, a Virginia militia under Lieutenant Colonel George Washington defeated a French reconnaissance party in southwestern Pennsylvania. The French and Indian War was the last and most important of a series of colonial conflicts between the British and the American colonists on one side, and the French and their broad network of Native-American allies on the other. Actually part of a larger global conflict known as the Seven Years’ War, the French and Indian War officially began on 15 May 1756, when Britain declared war on France. Thirteen days later, the twenty-two-year-old George Washington struck the first blow of the war in North America, defeating a French force en route from Fort Duqesne. The French commander, Lieutenant Joseph Coulon de Jumonville, was slain, along with nine of his men. The rest of his force was captured. Over the next seven years of the war, Washington continued to lead the Virginia militia in the defense of their colony’s western frontier colonies.
      On 10 February 1763, the French and Indian War ended with the signing of the Treaty of Paris by France, Great Britain, and Spain. In the treaty, France lost all claims to Canada and gave Louisiana to Spain, while Britain received Spanish Florida, Upper Canada, and various French holdings overseas. The treaty ensured the colonial and maritime supremacy of Britain, and strengthened the thirteen American colonies by removing their European rivals to the north and the south. Fifteen years later, French bitterness over the loss of most of their colonial empire to Britain contributed to their intervention in the American Revolution on the side of the Patriots, even though the Americans were led by France’s old enemy George Washington.
      In the first engagement of the French and Indian War, a Virginia militia under 22-year-old Lieutenant Colonel George Washington defeats a French reconnaissance party in southwestern Pennsylvania. In a surprise attack, the Virginians killed 10 French soldiers from Fort Duquesne, including the French commander, Coulon de Jumonville, and took 21 prisoners. Only one of Washington's men was killed. The French and Indian War was the last and most important of a series of colonial conflicts between the British and the American colonists on one side, and the French and their broad network of Native American allies on the other. Fighting began in the spring of 1754, but Britain and France did not officially declare war against each other until May 1756 and the outbreak of the Seven Years War in Europe. In November 1752, at the age of 20, George Washington was appointed adjutant in the Virginia colonial militia, which involved the inspection, mustering, and regulation of various militia companies. In November 1753, he first gained public notice when he volunteered to carry a message from Virginia Governor Robert Dinwiddie to the French moving into the Ohio Valley, warning them to leave the territory, which was claimed by the British crown. Washington succeeded in the perilous wilderness journey and brought back an alarming message: The French intended to stay.
      In 1754, Dinwiddie appointed Washington a lieutenant colonel and sent him out with 160 men to reinforce a colonial post at what is now Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Before Washington could reach it, however, it was given up without bloodshed to the French, who renamed it Fort Duquesne. Washington moved within about 60 km of the French position and set about building a new post at Great Meadows, which he named Fort Necessity. From this base, he ambushed an advance detachment of about 30 French, striking the first blow of the French and Indian War. For the victory, Washington was appointed a full colonel and reinforced with several hundred Virginia and North Carolina troops. On 03 July, the French descended on Fort Necessity with their full force, and after an all-day fight Washington surrendered to their superior numbers. The disarmed colonials were allowed to march back to Virginia, and Washington was hailed as a hero despite his surrender of the fort. The story of the campaign was written up in a London gazette, and Washington was quoted as saying, "I have heard the bullets whistle; and believe me, there is something charming in the sound." Reading this, King George II remarked, "He would not say so if he had been used to hear many."
      In October 1754, Washington resigned his commission in protest of the British underpayment of colonial offices and policy of making them subordinate to all British officers, regardless of rank. In early 1755, however, British General Edward Braddock and his army arrived to Virginia, and Washington agreed to serve as Braddock's personal aide-de-camp, with the courtesy title of colonel. The subsequent expedition against Fort Duquesne was a disaster, but Washington fought bravely and succeeded in bringing the survivors back after Braddock and 1000 others were killed. With the western frontier of Virginia now dangerously exposed, Governor Dinwiddie appointed Washington commander in chief of all Virginia forces in August 1755. During the next three years, Washington struggled with the problems of frontier defense but participated in no major engagements until he was put in command of a Virginia regiment participating in a large British campaign against Fort Duquesne in 1758. The French burned and abandoned the fort before the British and Americans arrived, and Fort Pitt was raised on its site. With Virginia's strategic objective attained, Washington resigned his commission with the honorary rank of brigadier general. He returned to a planter's life and took a seat in Virginia's House of Burgesses. The French and Indian War raged on elsewhere in North America for several years. With the signing of the Treaty of Paris in February 1763, France lost all claims to the mainland of North America east of the Mississippi and gave up Louisiana, including New Orleans, to Spain. Fifteen years later, French bitterness over the loss of their North American empire contributed to their intervention in the US War of Independence on the side of the Patriots, despite the fact that the Patriots were led by one of France's old enemies, George Washington.

1755 Frans Xaver Hendrik Verbeeck, Flemish artist born on 21 February 1686.
1749 Pierre Hubert Subleyras, French painter born in 1699, specialized in Historical Subjects. — MORE ON SUBLEYRAS AT ART “4” MAY — LINKS — Mass of St Basil — Le Miracle de Saint Benoit [il ressucite un bébé] — Mass of St Basil . — Portrait of a Man — The Studio of the Painter — Le Sacre de Louis XV — Pope Benedict XIV
1748 Ignaz Stern Stella, German artist born in 1680.
1723 Willem Grasdorp, Dutch artist born on 15 October 1678.

Births which occurred on a 28 May:
2002 Adam D. Pearl, to Mariane Pearl, free-lance journalist who lives in Paris, where she had met and married Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl, who was abducted on 23 January 2003 (at age 38) in Karachi by Islamic militants who later videotaped their slitting of his throat. [click on image for full photo of baby and mother >]
1944 Rudolph Giuliani (politician: Mayor of New York City, 2000 Republican Senatorial candidate withdrawing, his replacement lost to Democrat Hillary Clinton)
1942 Stanley B. Prusiner, bioquímico y neurólogo estadounidense.

1935 Tortilla Flat is published, John Steinbeck's first successful novel ^top^
      Steinbeck, a native Californian, had studied writing intermittently at Stanford between 1920 and 1925, but never graduated. He moved to New York and worked as a manual laborer and journalist while writing his first two novels, which were not successful. He married in 1930 and moved back to California with his wife. His father, a government official in Salinas County, gave the couple a house to live in while Steinbeck continued writing.
      Tortilla Flat describes the antics of several drifters who share a house in California. The novel's endearing comic tone captured the public's imagination, and the novel became a financial success. Steinbeck's next works, In Dubious Battle and Of Mice and Men, were both successful, and in 1938 his masterpiece The Grapes of Wrath was published. The novel, about the struggles of an Oklahoma family who lose their farm and become fruit pickers in California, won a Pulitzer Prize in 1939.
      Steinbeck's work after World War II, including Cannery Row and The Pearl, became more sentimental. He also wrote several successful films, including Forgotten Village (1941) and Viva Zapata! (1952). He became interested in marine biology and published a nonfiction book, The Sea of Cortez, in 1941. His travel memoir, Travels with Charlie, describes his trek across the US in a camper. Steinbeck won the Nobel Prize in 1962 and died in New York in 1968.

1934 Émilie Marie Jeanne, Yvonne Edouilda Marie, Cécile Marie Emilda, Marie Reine Alma, and Annette Lillianna Marie Dionne. ^top^
The quintuplets are born (two months premature) in Corbeil, Ontario, to Oliva and Elzire Dionne, a poor Ontario farming couple who already had had nine children, of which five (3 boys, 2 girls) are living. Oliva Dionne had married Elzire Legros on 15 Sep 1925.
The quintuplets, each weighing less than 1 kg, are the first to survive more than a few days, and the only identical quintuplets in history. A sixth baby was spontaneously aborted during the third month of pregnancy. The quints became media sensations. Dr. Allan Roy Dafoe (died in 1941), the doctor who delivered the babies also became a celebrity.

Left to right: Yvonne, Annette, Cécile, Émilie, Marie.

     The Canadian government takes custody of the quints after deeming their natural parents unfit to raise them. The babies are put under Dr. Dafoe's supervision in a popular attraction named "Quintland.", across from the parents' home. As many as 6000 tourists a day pay to see the quints, who are exhibited three times a day behind one-way glass. The rest of the Dionne family had to make appointments to visit the quints, who lived under a strict regime.
     The quintuplets became international celebrities during their early years — making three feature films for Twentieth-Century Fox, providing profitable endorsements for products from cod-liver oil to typewriters and automobiles, and attracting hordes of tourists to northern Ontario. In 1935 Ontario made them wards of the government, but their father regained control in 1941.
      The "Quints" were remarkable in being the first medically and genetically documented set that survived; not one member of any other quintuplet set had previously lived more than a few days. Much credit for the survival of the five premature infants was owing to the Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, which quickly made available to Dafoe quantities of mother's milk and modern incubators and other equipment. The University of Toronto conducted biological, psychological, and dental studies of the quintuplets. The biological study established that the set originated from one fertilized egg. The Dionne quintuplets arose through repeated twinning of the early single embryo; therefore, six embryos were produced, and the five infants surviving birth inherited the same genetic material.
   Yvonne, Émilie

Three of the sisters married: Annette had three sons; Marie had two daughters; and Cécile had four sons and one daughter. Only Cécile had a multiple birth: twin sons, one of whom died at the age of 15 months. Émilie died of an epileptic seizure on 06 August 1954, at Sainte-Agathe-des-Monts, Que.; Marie died in Montreal on 27 February 1970.

under Dafoe's supervision, the sisters became a huge commercial enterprise, endorsing hundreds of products ranging from corn syrup to Quaker Oats

their father, Oliva, fought a nine-year battle to regain custody of his daughters

they were returned to their parents in 1943

two of the sisters died as adults. Emilie died in 1954 at age 20 of an epileptic seizure. Marie died at home at age 36

At the end of the century, the three survivors would be livisg in the suburbs of Montreal

in 1965 they co-authored an often bitter book about their childhood, called We Were Five

in an interview, Annette Dionne blamed both Ontario officials and the Roman Catholic Church for allowing them to be treated like ``a commercial product''

the sisters filed a $10 million suit against the Ontario government, saying they were wrongly deprived of a share of the earnings from tourists

a made-for-television movie about the quintuplets, shown by CBS in 1994, gave a negative depiction of Dr. Dafoe who limited their contact with their parents, and took control of their lives

Annette Dionne, when interviewed, showed little rancor toward Dr. Dafoe, saying life in the nursery where they were kept was relatively pleasant

in 1995 the surviving sisters alleged that they and their siblings were sexually abused by their father * for years. At a press conference launching the publication of their new biography, Family Secrets, by Jean-Yves Soucy, the sisters said they broke their long silence and published details of their physical and sexual abuse to help other victims. Annette said that after being returned to parents, their father, who died in 1979, would take the girls out one at a time in the family car and sexually assault them. Annette said she tried to discuss the abuse with a Roman Catholic priest at their private school; the advice she received was ``to continue to love our parents and to wear a thick coat when we went for car rides''

in 1998 Yvonne, Cécile and Annette were awarded $4 million in compensation from the Ontario government
* Three survivors of famed quints say father sexually abused them (25 Sep 1995 ) — Now the three surviving sisters, world-famous as toddlers in the 1930s, say they were sexually abused by their father. The usually reclusive sisters — Annette, Cécile and Yvonne, now 61 — made the allegation publicly for the first time during a rare interview over the weekend on Radio-Canada's French-language television channel. "We've come to a point where we had to liberate ourselves from the past and turn the page," Annette Dionne said Saturday when asked why she waited so long to break the silence.
      The identical quintuplets were taken away from their parents and made wards of the Ontario government, which put them on display for as many as 6000 persons a day who came to watch them play behind a one-way screen. Their father, Oliva, fought a nine-year battle to regain custody of his daughters. They were returned to their parents in 1943, and the abuse began soon after, the sisters said. Annette said their father, who died in 1979, would take the girls out one at a time in the family car and sexually assault them. As a teen-ager, Annette said she tried to discuss the abuse with a Roman Catholic priest at their private school. The advice she received was "to continue to love our parents and to wear a thick coat when we went for car rides," she said. The sisters said the abuse continued for several years. They never told their mother about the assaults "so as not to aggravate the situation," said Cécile Dionne.
      Oliva Dionne and his wife, Elzire, already had five children — three boys and two girls — when the quints were born. One of those siblings, Therese Callahan, on Monday challenged her sisters' claims about sexual abuse. "We assert that we had good parents, and that to our knowledge our father was certainly not a sexual abuser," Mrs. Callahan told the North Bay Nugget, an Ontario daily. She said she was speaking on behalf of the other older children in the family. However, Pierre Berton, who wrote a book about the quintuplets, said he had been told years ago by the husband of one of the quints about the sexual abuse. Berton said the sisters wouldn't talk about it. Two of the quintuplets — Emilie and Marie — died as adults. The three survivors live in suburbs of Montreal, rarely attracting attention since they co-authored an often bitter book in 1965 about their childhood, called "We Were Five." The sisters spoke mostly about their ordeal as Canada's No. 1 tourist attraction during the late 1930s. Authorities placed them in a virtual theme park called Quintland, across from the parents' home in Corbeil. Annette Dionne blamed both Ontario officials and the Roman Catholic Church for allowing them to be treated like "a commercial product." The sisters have filed a $10 million suit against the Ontario government, saying they were wrongly deprived of a share of the earnings from tourists. A made-for-television movie about the quintuplets, shown by CBS last year, gave a negative depiction of Allan Roy Dafoe, the doctor who delivered the babies, limited their contact with their parents, and took control of their lives. However, Annette Dionne, in the interview, showed little rancor toward Dafoe, saying life in the nursery where they were kept was relatively pleasant. Under Dafoe's supervision, the sisters became a huge commercial enterprise, endorsing hundreds of products ranging from corn syrup to Quaker Oats.
     The Dionne quintuplets were abused — both by the world and, they claim, by their father. As babies, the quints were taken from their parents by the Ontario government and made wards of the state. Although their health was fine, they lived at a hospital that became a tourist mecca called "Quintland." Between 1934 and 1943, about 3 million people visited Quintland, a low, modern building with a garden and a high fence near the village of Corbeil, in Northern Ontario. The government and nearby businesses made an estimated half-billion dollars off the tourists. The sisters were the nation's biggest tourist attraction — bigger than Niagara Falls.
      Born to poor, French-speaking, Catholic parents, the Dionne quints were at least two months premature, and together they weighed less than 14 pounds. Each of the babies could be held in an adult palm. They were put by an open stove to keep warm, and mothers from surrounding villages brought breast milk for them. Against all expectations, they survived their first weeks.
      To protect the infants from germs, kidnappers, and a father known to have considered exhibiting them for money, they were taken from their family and placed under the government's guardianship, protected from germs and kidnappers, but shamelessly exploited by exhibiting them for money and selling rights to have them appear in ads. A hospital was built across the road from their family's farmhouse for their exclusive use. The hospital became "Quintland" and the sisters' home for years after. Their parents, made unwelcome, became irregular visitors. Film footage of the young quintuplets shows five pretty girls with dark hair and dark eyes — and a crush of tourists waiting in line to see them. "It wasn't human," Cécile Dionne told The (London) Independent in a 1995 interview. "It was a circus." In the early days, nurses would take the quints to a nursery balcony and show them, one at a time, to the crowds below. Later, they were viewed three times a day from a gauze-covered corridor. "We saw moving. We heard sounds," said Cécile.
      The quints were studied by scientists, who X-rayed them, catalogued episodes of "anger and fear," and recorded things such as food intake and incidents of dissent. Cécile said she learned the word "doctor" before she learned "mother." After nine years and a bitter custody fight, the girls moved back with their parents and their other siblings. They lived at home until they were 18, after which they broke off almost all contact with their parents. In a later book the sisters claimed their father sexually abused them, though they later disputed the allegations of abuse. In 1997 — in poor health and with limited financial resources — the surviving sisters were negotiating with the Ontario government for their share of some of the profits made at Quintland more than half a century ago.
      Three quints survived past the end of the century — Yvonne, Annette and Cécile. Émilie died of suffocation as the result of an epileptic seizure on 06 August 1954, and Marie died from a stroke on 27 February 1970. Cécile married and had 5 boys (one set of twins), Annette married and had 3 boys and Marie also married and had 2 daughters, Emilie and Monique. They all eventually divorced. Yvonne remained single. The three surviving sisters live outside of Montreal and recently received a sum of money from the Ontario government for the way they were treated as children.
Multiple births

1930 Edward Philip George Seaga, político jamaicano nacido en EE.UU.
1912 Hans Zassenhaus, German mathematician who died on 21 November 1991. He did important work on Group Theory and Lie algebras. Author of Lehrbuch der Gruppentheorie (1937).
1908 Ian Fleming gave "Bond ... James Bond" a job (Goldfinger, Dr No)

1902 The Virginian is published ^top^
      Owen Wister's The Virginian, a Horseman of the Plains is published by Macmillan Press. It was the first "serious" Western and one of the most influential in the genre. Almost single-handedly, The Virginian turned the American cowboy into a legendary hero. At first glance, author Owen Wister seems an unlikely candidate for having authored a book celebrating the hyper-masculine and independent knight of the open range. Born into a prominent Philadelphia family, the young Wister was expected to grow up to become a refined gentleman, not the chronicler of rough-and-ready cow handlers. He went to school in Switzerland and England, contributed to a poetry magazine, sang in choir, and eventually decided to become a classical composer. After graduating summa cum laude from Harvard in 1882, it seemed that he would certainly join the elite musical society of the northeast.
      Wister's musical career stalled, however, when he began to suffer from a vague disease that robbed him of his energy and spirit. On the advice of his close friend Theodore Roosevelt, who had found the West to be a tonic for all manner of ills, Wister decided to spend the summer of 1885 on a Wyoming ranch. There he discovered a rugged and romantic world that imbued him with new hope and spirit. He pronounced the air "delicious. As if it had never been in anyone's lungs before." He passed the summer fishing, riding, bathing in creeks, and sleeping in tents.
      After returning to the east and taking up law, Wister never forgot his magical experiences in the Wild West, and he continued to revisit Wyoming regularly for vacations. In 1891, just returned to Philadelphia from the glories of the West, Wister was determined to begin writing about the land he so admired. He later wrote that he wished to save "the sage-brush for American literature, before the sage-brush and all that it signified went the way of the California forty-niner."
      After honing his craft with a number of short stories and lesser books, Wister began work on his masterpiece, The Virginian, which was published on this day in 1902. The story of a cowhand who is simply called "the Virginian," the book established many of the basic elements of the cowboy myth. The Virginian is a tall, lean young man. He enjoys a good practical joke and an occasional fight, but he is innately intelligent and honorable, a natural nobleman of the prairie.
      The book became a sensation almost overnight, selling more than 1.5 million copies by 1938 and inspiring four movies and a Broadway play. After The Virginian, Wister wrote no more Western novels, though he did publish a collection of some of his early western stories. The great novelist of the American West spent the remainder of his life in the East. He died of a cerebral hemorrhage at his summer home in Rhode Island in 1938.
WISTER ONLINE:
The Jimmyjohn Boss, and Other Stories — Lady Baltimore — Lin McLean — Mother — Padre Ignacio — Philosophy 4 — A Straight Deal: or, The Ancient Grudge — The Virginian, a Horseman of the Plains — The Virginian, a Horseman of the Plains

1892 The Sierra Club is organized in San Francisco
1884 Edvard Benes, estadista checoslovaco.
1881 Luis Orgaz Yoldi, militar español.
1853 Carl Olof Larsson, Swedish painter, illustrator, and printmaker, who died on 22 January 1919. — photo of Larsson — MORE ON LARSSON AT ART “4” MAY — LINKS — Självporträtt — Framför spegeln — Självporträtt MED TACK IGEN TILL MINA VANNER I SUNDBORN — Midvinterblot _ detail — De Mina — A Fairy, or Kersti, and a View of a Meadow — Roses De Noël — Solrosorna — A Young Girl with a Doll — On the Grass — Brita och jag — Spegelbild med Brita i knäet — MIN FADER OLOF LARSSON — Konvalescens — Erik Axel Karlfeldt — October — November — Breakfast in the Open — Lisbeth At The Birch — 47 portraits at Project Runeberg — 31 images at Webshots
1818 P.G.T. Beauregard, Louisiana, Confederate general in charge of capture of Sumter
1810 Alexandre Calame, Swiss painter who died on 17 March 1864, specialized in Landscapes. — MORE ON CALAME AT ART “4” MAY — LINKS — The Fallen Tree _ detail 1 _ detail 2 _ detail 3 — Torrent De Montagne — Landschaftsstudie — Geneva from Petit Saconnex — Oak Tree — 60 prints at FAMSF
1807 Louis Agassiz Switzerland, naturalist/geologist/teacher
1802 Theodor Leopold Weller, German artist who died on 10 December 1880

1779 Thomas Moore poet, lyricist. ^top^ (Believe Me If All Those Endearing Young Charms, The Last Rose of Summer, Oft in the Stilly Night). Thomas Moore was an Irish barrister and a prolific poet. Born in Dublin and educated at Trinity College, he was a fairly successful lawyer and served for a time as Registrar of Admiralty in Bermuda. He died in 1852. MOORE ONLINE: Selected poems: A Ballad: The Lake of the Dismal Swamp —.Lalla Rookh — Oft, in the Stilly Night — The Time I've Lost in
'T is the last rose of summer Left blooming alone; All her lovely companions Are faded and gone; No flower of her kindred, No rosebud is nigh, To reflect back her blushes, To give sigh for sigh.	I'll not leave thee, thou lone one! To pine on the stem; Since the lovely are sleeping, Go sleep thou with them. Thus kindly I scatter Thy leaves o'er the bed, Where thy mates of the garden Lie scentless and dead.	So soon may I follow When friendships decay, And from Love's shining circle The gems drop away. When true hearts lie wither'd And fond ones are flown, Oh! who would inhabit This bleak world alone?
How oft has the Banshee cried! How oft has death untied Bright links that Glory wove. Sweet bonds entwined by Love! Peace to each manly soul that sleepeth; Rest to each faithful eye that weepeth; Long may the fair and brave Sigh o'er the hero's grave!	We're fallen on evil days! Star after star decays, Every bright name that shed Light o'er the land is fled. Dark falls the tear of him that mourneth Lost joy, or hope that ne'er retrench; But brightly flows the tear Wept o'er a hero's bier.	Quenched are our beacon lights — Thou, of the Hundred Fights! Thou, on whose burning tongue Truth, peace and freedom hung! Both mute — but long as valor shineth, Or mercy's soul at war repineth, So long shall Erin's pride Tell how they lived and died.

1759 William Pitt the Younger (C), English PM (1783-1801, 1804-06) He was considered England's greatest prime minister. [yet he and his father were the Pitts!]
1738 Dr. Joseph Ignace Guillotin, French inventor of a humanitarian improvement on the executioner's axe.
1710 Johann(II) Bernoulli, Basel, Switzerland, lawyer and mathematician who died on 17 July 1790. He was the most successful of the three.sons of Johann Bernoulli [27 Jul 1667 – 01 Jan 1748] and a nephew of Jacob Bernoulli [27 Dec 1654 – 16 Aug 1705]..
1676 Jacopo Francesco Riccati, Venetian who died on 15 April 1754. He wrote on philosophy, physics and differential equations. He is chiefly known for the Riccati differential equation.
1660 George I, king of England (1714-27)
1371 John the Fearless, Burgundy, warrior.

Holidays Puerto Rico : Memorial Day

Religious Observances old RC : St Augustine, first achbp of Canterbury, confessor / Christ : St Bernard of Montjoux, patron of mountain climbers / Santos Justo, Germán, Podio, Félix, Príamo, Emilio, Eladio y Luciano.

Thought for the day: “Every human being comes equipped with a brain at no extra cost.”

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