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Aug 03| HISTORY
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Events, deaths, births, of AUG 04 [For Aug 04 Julian go to Gregorian date: 1583~1699: Aug 14 1700s: Aug 15 1800s: Aug 16 1900~2099: Aug 17] |
On an August 04:
1998 US Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist cleared the way for prosecutors to question White House lawyers about their advice to President Clinton in the Monica Lewinsky case.
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1996 Microsoft and Netscape agreed to support VRML (Virtual Reality
Modeling Language) for viewing 3-D images on the Web. The cooperation
was rare, as the two companies were promoting competing standards in
several other arenas. 1996 Oracle says it will buy Treasury Services, a software company that produces financial services software. The estimated price is $120 million 1994, Serb-dominated Yugoslavia withdrew its support for Bosnian Serbs, sealing the 480-km border between Yugoslavia and Serb-held Bosnia. 1994 Truck carrying millions of bees overturns on NY parkway. Bees escape. 1993 Angolese air force bombs Huambo 1993 Rwandian Hutu's and Tutsi's sign peace treaty in Arusha 1991 The Greek luxury liner Oceanos sinks in heavy seas off South Africa's southeast coast; all 402 passengers and 179 crew members survive. 1990 European community proposes a boycott of Iraq 1988 US Congress votes $20'000 to each Japanese-American interned in WW II 1987 The US Federal Communications Commission votes to rescind the Fairness Doctrine, which required radio and television stations to present balanced coverage of controversial issues. 1986 OPEC lowers oil production 20% 1984 Republic of Upper Volta becomes Burkina Faso (National Day) 1983 Bettino Craxi sworn in as premier of Italy 1983 Revolution in Burkina Faso. 1981 Oliver North is assigned to White House duty 1979 Italian govt of Cossiga begins 1977 US President Carter establishes Department of Energy 1974 Crawford-Butler Act allows Puerto Ricans to elect own governor. |
1965 Cook Islands enters into free association with New Zealand. |
1964 Vietnam:
Dubious Viet PT boat attack leads to war quagmire
^top^ At 20:00, the destroyers USS Maddox and USS C. Turner Joy, operating in the Gulf of Tonkin, intercept radio messages from the North Vietnamese that give Captain John Herrick of the Maddox the "impression" that Communist patrol boats are planning an attack against the US ships, prompting him to call for air support from the carrier USS Ticonderoga. Eight Crusader jets soon appeared overhead, but in the darkness, neither the pilots nor the ship crews saw any enemy craft. However, at about 22:00 sonar operators reported torpedoes approaching. The US destroyers maneuvered to avoid the torpedoes and began to fire at the North Vietnamese patrol boats. When the action ended about two hours later, US officers reported sinking two, or possibly three of the North Vietnamese boats, but no US sailor was sure of ever having seen any enemy boats nor any enemy gunfire. Captain Herrick immediately communicated his doubts to his superiors and urged a "thorough reconnaissance in daylight." Shortly thereafter, he informed Admiral U. S. Grant Sharp, commander of the Pacific Fleet, that the blips on the radar scope were apparently "freak weather effects" while the report of torpedoes in the water were probably due to "overeager" radar operators. Because of the time difference, it was only 09:20 in Washington when the Pentagon received the initial report of a potential attack on the US destroyers. When a more detailed report was received at 11:00 there was still a lot of uncertainty as to just what had transpired. President Johnson, convinced that the second attack had taken place, ordered the Joint Chiefs of Staff to select targets for possible retaliatory air strikes. At a National Security Council meeting, Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara, Secretary of State Dean Rusk, and McGeorge Bundy, Special Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs, recommended to the president that the reprisal strikes be ordered. Johnson was cautious at first, but in a follow-up meeting in the afternoon, he gave the order to execute the reprisal, code-named Pierce Arrow. The President then met with 16 Congressional leaders to inform them of the second unprovoked attack and that he had ordered reprisal attacks. He also told them he planned to ask for a Congressional resolution to support his actions. At 23:20, McNamara was informed by Admiral Sharp that the aircraft were on their way to the targets and at 23:26, President Johnson appeared on national television and announced that the reprisal raids were underway in response to unprovoked attacks on US warships. He assured the viewing audience that, We still seek no wider war. However, these incidents proved to be only the opening moves in an escalation that would eventually see more than 500'000 US troops in Vietnam. With fresh evidence now available, claims that the Tonkin Gulf incident was deliberately provoked gain new plausibility. |
1964 Slain civil-rights workers
found ^top^ The remains of three civil-rights workers whose disappearance on June 21 garnered national attention are found buried in an earthen dam in Philadelphia, Mississippi. Michael Schwerner and Andrew Goodman, both white New Yorkers, had traveled to Mississippi in the summer of 1964 to aid in the registration of African-American voters. There, they were joined by James Chaney, an African-American civil-rights worker from Meridan, Mississippi. On 21 June, the three young men were jailed in Philadelphia on charges of speeding. After five hours they were released, and that evening they drove to investigate a fire at an African-American church in Sandstone, a nearby community. They were never seen alive again. The next day, Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, a zealous advocate of civil rights, urged President Lyndon B. Johnson to get personally involved, and the latter coordinated his efforts with J. Edgar Hoover, head of the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI). On 23 June, FBI agents found the workers' burned station wagon, but no trace of the three men. However, all signs pointed to foul play, and the incident provided the final impetus needed for the 1964 Civil Rights Act to pass Congress in early July. In the five weeks before their remains were found, the FBI was forced to overcome considerable opposition from local authorities, whom the investigators increasingly suspected of having played a leading role in the disappearance. On 04 August the bodies are found, buried in a dam a few kilometers from the burned-out church. The culprits were identified, but the state of Mississippi made no arrests. Finally, on 04 December, nineteen men, including Neshoba County Sheriff Lawrence Rainey and Chief Deputy Cecil Price , were indicted by the US Justice Department for conspiracy to violate the civil rights of Schwerner, Goodman, and Chaney (charging the suspects with civil rights violations was the only way to give the federal government jurisdiction in the case). After nearly three years of legal wrangling, in which the US Supreme Court ultimately defended the indictments, the men went on trial in Jackson, Mississippi. The trial was presided over by an ardent segregationist, US District Judge William Cox, but under pressure from federal authorities and fearing impeachment, he took the case seriously. On 27 October 1967, an all-white jury found seven of the men guilty, including Price and KKK Imperial Wizard Bowers. Nine were acquitted, and the jury deadlocked on three others. The mixed verdict was hailed as a major civil rights victory, as no one in Mississippi had ever before been convicted for actions taken against a civil rights worker. In December, Judge Cox sentenced the men to prison terms ranging from three to 10 years. After sentencing, he said, They killed one nigger, one Jew, and a White man. I gave them what I thought they deserved. None of the convicted men served more than six years behind bars. |
1962 Nelson Mandela captured by South African police. 1956 Indonesia says it will not pay debts to the Netherlands. 1956 first motorcycle rode over 200 mph (Wilhelm Herz-210 mph/338 kph)
1948: 5 day southern filibuster in US Senate succeeds in maintaining poll tax. |
1944
Frank family captured by Nazis
^top^ In Nazi-occupied Holland, thirteen-year-old Jewish diarist Anne Frank and her family were forced to take refuge in a secret sealed-off area of an Amsterdam warehouse on 06 July 1942. The day before, Anne's older sister, Margot, had received a call-up notice to be deported to a Nazi "work camp." Born in Germany on 12 June 1929, Anne Frank fled to Amsterdam with her family in 1933 to escape Nazi persecution. In the summer of 1942, with the German occupation of Holland underway, twelve-year-old Anne began a diary relating her everyday experiences, her relationship with her family and friends, and observations about the increasingly dangerous world around her. Just a few months later, under threat of deportation to Nazi concentration camps, the Frank family was forced into hiding in a secret sealed-off area of an Amsterdam warehouse. Over the next two years, under the threat of murder by the Nazi officers patrolling just outside the warehouse, Anne kept a diary that is marked by poignancy, humor, and insight. On 04 August 1944, just two months after the successful Allied landing at Normandy, the Nazi Gestapo discovers the Frank’s "Secret Annex." Along with another Jewish family with whom they had shared the hiding place, and two of the Christians who had helped shelter them, the Franks were sent to the Nazi death camps. Anne and most of the others had ended up at the Auschwitz concentration camp in Poland, although her diary was left behind, undiscovered by the Nazis. In early 1945, with the Soviet liberation of Poland underway, Anne was moved with her sister, Margot, to the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in Germany. Suffering under the deplorable conditions of the camp, the two sisters caught typhus and died in early March, probably on 12 March in the case of Anne.. After the war, Anne’s diary was discovered undisturbed in the Amsterdam hiding place, and in 1947, was translated into English and published. An instant bestseller which was eventually translated into over thirty languages, The Diary of Anne Frank has served as a literary testament to the six million Jews, including Anne herself, who were silenced in the Holocaust. Acting on tip from a Dutch informer, the Nazi Gestapo captures 15-year-old Jewish diarist Anne Frank and her family in a sealed-off area of an Amsterdam warehouse. The Franks had taken shelter there in 1942 out of fear of deportation to a Nazi concentration camp. They occupied the small space with another Jewish family and a single Jewish man, and were aided by Christian friends, who brought them food and supplies. Anne spent much of her time in the "secret annex" working on her diary. The diary survived the war, overlooked by the Gestapo that discovered the hiding place, but Anne and nearly all of the others perished in the Nazi death camps. Annelies Marie Frank was born in Frankfurt am Main, Germany, on 12 June 1929. She was the second daughter of Otto Frank and Edith Frank-Holländer, both of Jewish families that had lived in Germany for centuries. With the rise of Nazi leader Adolf Hitler in 1933, Otto moved his family to Amsterdam to escape the escalating Nazi persecution of Jews. In Holland, he ran a successful spice and jam business. Anne attended a Montessori school with other middle-class Dutch children, but with the German invasion of the Netherlands in 1940 she was forced to transfer to a Jewish school. In 1942, Otto began arranging a hiding place in an annex of his warehouse on the Prinsengracht Canal in Amsterdam. On her 13th birthday in 1942, Anne began a diary relating her everyday experiences, her relationship with her family and friends, and observations about the increasingly dangerous world around her. Less than a month later, Anne's older sister, Margot, received a call-up notice to report to a Nazi "work camp." Fearing deportation to a Nazi concentration camp, the Frank family took shelter in the secret annex the next day. One week later, they were joined by Otto Frank's business partner and his family. In November, a Jewish dentist the eighth occupant of the hiding place joined the group. For two years, Anne kept a diary about her life in hiding that is marked with poignancy, humor, and insight. The entrance to the secret annex was hidden by a hinged bookcase, and former employees of Otto and other Dutch friends delivered them food and supplies procured at high risk. Anne and the others lived in rooms with blacked-out windows, and never flushed the toilet during the day out of fear that their presence would be detected. In June 1944, Anne's spirits were raised by the Allied landing at Normandy, and she was hopeful that the long-awaited liberation of Holland would soon begin. On 01 August 1944, Anne made her last entry in her diary. Three days later, 25 months of seclusion ended with the arrival of the Nazi Gestapo. Anne and the others had been given away by an unknown informer, and they were arrested along with two of the Christians who had helped shelter them. They were sent to a concentration camp in Holland, and in September Anne and most of the others were shipped to the Auschwitz death camp in Poland. In the fall of 1944, with the Soviet liberation of Poland underway, Anne was moved with her sister Margot to the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in Germany. Suffering under the deplorable conditions of the camp, the two sisters caught typhus and died in early March 1945. The camp was liberated by the British less than two months later. Otto Frank was the only one of the 10 to survive the Nazi death camps. After the war, he returned to Amsterdam via Russia, and was reunited with Miep Gies, one of his former employees who had helped shelter him. She handed him Anne's diary, which she had found undisturbed after the Nazi raid. In 1947, Anne's diary was published by Otto in its original Dutch as Diary of a Young Girl. An instant best-seller and eventually translated into more than 50 languages, The Diary of Anne Frank has served as a literary testament to the nearly six million Jews, including Anne herself, who were murdered in the Holocaust. The Frank family's hideaway at Prinsengracht 263 in Amsterdam opened as a museum in 1960. A new English translation of Anne's diary in 1995 restored material that had been edited out of the original version, making the work nearly a third longer. |
1944 British 8th army reaches suburbs of Florence Italy 1944 RAF pilot T. D. Dean becomes the first pilot to destroy a V-1 buzz bomb when he tips the pilotless craft's wing, sending it off course. 1943 British premier Churchill travels on the Queen Mary to Canada 1943 Russian units reach suburbs of Orel 1943 USAF bombs Germans in Troina 1942 first train with Jews departs Mechelen Belgium to Auschwitz 1942 British premier Winston Churchill arrives in Cairo 1942 Col-Gen Jeremenko arrives in Stalingrad/welcomed by Nikita Khrushchev 1942 German occupier orders all Dutch homing pigeons killed 1942 The British government charges that Mohandas Gandhi and his All-Indian Congress Party favor "appeasement" of Japan. 1941 Winston Churchill departs on Prince of Wales to US 1936 Ioannis Metaxas names himself dictator of Greece 1933 The New York Stock Exchange closes at 12:30 after gas bombs explode near the Exchange building. 1930 Child labor laws estralished in Belgium 1929 60'000 SA'ers / SS'ers march by Munich 1925 first Dutch Colijn govt forms 1925 US marines leave Nicaragua after 13-year occupation 1917 The New York Stock Exchange closes for the day because of the heat. 1917 Pravda calls for killing all capitalists, priests and officers 1916 Denmark cedes Danish West Indies, including the Virgin Islands, to the US for $25 million 1914 German fleet under admiral Souchon fire on Algerian coast 1914 Germany declares war on Belgium; Britain declares war on Germany 1914 King Albert I becomes supreme commander of Belgian army 1914 Lord Kitchener becomes British minister of War
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1903 Cardinal Giuseppe Sarto of Venice is elected Pope: Pius X.
1886 Colombia adopts constitution 1881 50ºC, Seville, Spain (European record) 1879 Pope Leo XIII issued the encyclical "Aeterni patris," which urged the study of "true" philosophy, especially that of Thomas Aquinas. He said that there was no conflict between science and truth. This led to a great revival of both Thomist studies and scholastic philosophy. 1879 A law is passed in Germany making Alsace Lorraine a territory of the empire. 1870 British Red Cross Society forms 1864 Land and naval action new Brazos Santiago, Texas 1864 Federal troops fail to capture Fort Gaines on Dauphin Island, one of the Confederate forts defending Mobile Bay.
1862 US government collects its first income tax. 1855 John Bartlett publishes Familiar Quotations. ONLINE: Familiar Quotations (9th edition, 1901), Familiar Quotations (10th edition, 1919), Familiar Quotations (10th edition, 1919) [another site] 1830 Plans for the city of Chicago are laid out. 1821 First edition of Saturday Evening Post (publishes until 1969) |
1790 The Revenue Cutter service, the parent service of the US Navy and Coast Guard, is organized. 1789 Abolition des privilèges des nobles en France. The Constituent Assembly in France abolishes the privileges of nobility. 1760 Battle at Leignitz: Prussia beats Austria and Russia
1730 Crown prince Frederik of Prussia escapes to England 1717 A friendship treaty is signed between France and Russia. 1704 War of Spanish Succession, English and Dutch troops occupy Gibraltar 1695 French garrison of ? surrenders to Willem III 1693 Dom Perignon invents champagne 1666 Sea battle between Netherlands and England 1351 Sea battle at Zwartewaal: Willem V beats Hoeksen and English 1347 English troops conquer Ft Calais 1181 Supernova seen in Cassiopia. |
2002 Six civilians (Mason Amin
Hassan, 23, from Sajour; Marlene Menachem, 22, from Moshav Safsufa; Mordechai
Friedman, 27, from Ramat Beit Shemesha; Sari Goldstein, 22, from Karmiel;
and two Filipinas domestic workers in Moshav Safsufa: Adlina Kononen,
37, and Rebecca Roga, 40), three Israeli soldiers (Sergeant Major Roni
Kamal Ghanem, 28, from the Druze village Marer; and two sergeants from
Mitzpe Aviv: Omri Goldin, 20, and sergeant Yifat Gavrieli, 19); and a
Hamas suicide bomber who, at about 08:55,
explodes into a fireball Egged bus #361 with many soldiers among its
passengers, at the Meron Junction near Tsfat, Israel. 52 persons are
unjured, mostly by the fire (one of them, in a coma, is Aviv Ronen, girl
friend of Goldin). The bus had left Haifa at 07:15 and was close to its
destination, Safed.
[photo below: 8 victims
and the destroyed bus]
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Amin Hassan |
Marlene Menachem |
Sari Goldstein |
Sgt. Maj. Roni Ghanem |
2001 Maria Herrera, 24, her
unborn baby due in one month, her son, Andy, 4, and her sister,
Dilcia Peña, 16. Police officer Joseph Gray, 41. would be ordered held on $250'000 bail on 10 August 2001 after pleading innocent to charges that he killed three family members while driving to work drunk. An earlier decision to free him with no bail had sparked criticism. Bail was imposed after prosecutors described his alleged day-long drinking binge before the accident last weekend and argued that Officer Joseph Gray posed a risk to the community. Gray, who was off duty at the time of the accident, was originally released in his own custody, angering Mayor Rudolph Giuliani and residents of the Brooklyn neighborhood where the accident happened. Prosecutors initially had sought $500'000 bail. Gray, 40, struck and killed Maria Herrera, 24, who was eight months pregnant, along with her 4-year-old son, Andy, and her 16-year-old sister, Dilcia Pena. Herrera's baby son was delivered by Caesarean section after the accident but was stillborn. The 15-year veteran would be indicted by a grand jury on 09 August 2001 on multiple counts of manslaughter, as well as vehicular manslaughter, drunken driving, speeding and running a red light. He is suspended from the force. Gray had been drinking with colleagues at a strip club and in a police station parking lot before hitting the three pedestrians with his van on the night of 04 August. Seventeen officers, including the 72nd Precinct's commander, have been disciplined. Twelve of them had been either drinking in the parking lot or visited the strip club, which was off-limits to officers. The officers were celebrating a sergeant's upcoming wedding. Gray would resign from the police department on 28 August 2001, before he was to be interviewed by police investigators, the first step in the department's disciplinary process. Gray had been drinking for up to 12 hours before the accident. He and other officers drank beer in an police parking lot, then moved on to a strip club that had been declared off-limits to officers. In the wake of the accident, three officers on probation were fired and 14 others were transferred, suspended or had their job descriptions changed. |
1997
Jeanne Calment, 122, in France, world's oldest person (born on 21
February 1875) [< photo taken on her 118th birthday] 1992 Frantisek Tomasek, 93, archbishop of Prague/cardinal 1991 Nikiforos Vrettakos, 80, Greek poet (Hodyne) 1980, 272 people, killed by Hurricane Aline, in Texas and Caribbean 1977 Emil Bloch, 92, German philosopher (Principle Hope, Traces) 1945 Gerhard Gentzen, mathematician 1930 Siegfried Wagner, 61, German opera composer. 1925 Josef Kinzel, Austrian artist born on 04 May 1852. [Vrai ou non qu'il se soit marié à seize ans, ce qui est certain c'est que, s'il s'est marié, sa femme en avait Kinzel.] 1920 Rohn, mathematician 1914 German army shoots Belgian priests and burns down village of Battice 1907 Doyle, John E. P., author. JOHN DOYLE ONLINE: Plymouth Church and Its Pastor 1906 Tilly, mathematician
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1891 George Washington Williams, 41, historian (History of Negro) 1890 Emile Lévy, French academic painter born on 29 August 1826. LINKS Mort d'Orphée. 1875 Hans Christian Andersen, 70, author. ANDERSEN ONLINE: Fairy Tales, Fairy Tales and Stories 1874 Otto Hesse, mathematician
1812 Klügel, mathematician. 1795 Francisco Bayeu y Subías, Spanish painter born on 09 May 1734, brother-in-law of Goya. LINKS Olympus: The Fall of the Giants Saint James being visited by the Virgin with a Statue of the Madonna of the Pillar 1666 Thousand of people as hurricane hits Guadeloupe, Martinique and St Christopher
1598 William Cecil first baron Burghley, 77, English premier 1578 King Sebastian of Portugal (1557-78), 24, and 8000 of his soldiers, as well as some of the Moors of Morocco who defeat his crusade at the battle of Alcazar-el-Kebir 1476 Jacques d'Armagnac-Pardiac, duc de Nemours, after months in a torture cage, beheaded for repeated conspiracies against king Louis XI 1306 Wenceslas III, 16, last king of Bohemia (1305-06) of the Premysliden dynasty (which had ruled for nearly 400 years), murdered by an unknown assassin 1265 Simon de Montfort, English earl of Leicester, 57, and most of his followers, in the battle of Evesham, as prince Edward puts down the baronial revolt against King Henry III. 1204 Boniface of Montferrat, margrave of Montferrat, murdered 1060 Henry I, 52, King of France (1027..60) |
Births
which occurred on a 04 August: ^top^ 2002 Baby girl, born at 19:30 at home (2625 56th Lane N., St. Petersburg, Florida) to Stephanie Smith, 23, who immediately abandons the newborn at 19:00 in a garbage can across the street at 2624 56th Lane N., where she is discovered in a plastic bag, tied shut, covered with trash, healthy, with her umbilical cord still attached, shortly after noon the next day after neighbors heard her crying. The mother, after undergoing surgery on 05 August, is arrested late on 06 August on an attempted first-degree murder charge. [photo: leaving the hospital on the way to jail, 06 August >] 1934 Jonas Savimbi, Angolan leader of UNITA. 1930 Enrico Castellani, Italian worthless so-called artist. Superfice Grigia Superfice IB1 1929 Yasser Arafat, leader (Palestine Liberation Organization) 1920 Helen Thomas, UPI journalist (starts White House press conferences) 1912 Aleksandr Aleksandrov, mathematician 1912 Raoul Wallenberg (humanitarian: saved 20'000 Hungarian Jews from Nazis [WWII]; 2nd person to receive honorary US citizenship [1981]). He and his driver were arrested by the invading Soviet troops on 17 January 1945. In 2000 Russia acknowledged for the first time that Wallenberg and his driver were imprisoned for political reasons until they died allegedly in 1947 (Wallenberg on 17 July 1947, of a heart attack) 1909 MacLane, mathematician 1904 Witold Gombrowicz, Polish author (Ferdydurke, Pornography) 1900 Arturo Umberto Illia pres of Argentina (1963-66) 1900 Elizabeth Britain's Queen Mother, King George VI's wife. At the time of her 101st birthday (the 4th anniversary of the death of Jeanne Calment, 122), she said she was aiming at beating the UK longevity record, then held by Amy Hulmes, 113. 1884 Sigmund O.P. Mowinckel, Norwegian Old Testament scholar. Associated from 1917-54 with Oslo University, his most influential work was done in the Psalms. In 1951 he published The Psalms in Israel's Worship (1963) 1881 Guy de Pourtalès, Swiss/French writer (Nietzsche in Italy) 1877 Dame Laura Orovida Johnson Knight, British painter who died in 1970. MORE ON KNIGHT AT ART 4 AUGUST LINKS The Cruel Sea Men Working in a China Clay Pit 1859 Knut Hamsun Norway, writer / Nazi (HungerNobel 1920) 1853 John Henry Twachtman, US painter who died on 18 August 1902 LINKS The White Bridge Beneath the Snow. Gloucester Harbor Canal, Venice The Grand Canal Springtime Wild Flowers In the Sunlight Arques~la~Bataille Mother and Child Gloucester Harbor On the Terrace 1839 Walter Horatio Pater, author. PATER ONLINE: Imaginary Portraits , Plato and Platonism , The Renaissance: Studies in Art and Poetry 1834 Venn, mathematician 1832 Gaspar Núñez de Arce Spain, poet "Spanish Tennyson" 1825 Adolphe Jourdan, French artist who died in 1889. 1805 William Rowan Hamilton, Irish mathematician and scientist. HAMILTON ONLINE: Lectures on Quaternions
1776 Pierre-Simon Ballanche, French philosopher/poet (Prolégomènes) 1755 Nicolas-Jacque Conte inventor (modern pencil) 1664 Louis Lully, composer. 1611 Jan van den Hoecke, Flemish (Dutch?) painter who died in 1651. The Triumph of David Hercules between Vice and Virtue Triumphal Entrance of Cardinal Prince Ferdinand of Spain into Antwerp |