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Events, deaths, births, of AUG 13 [For Aug 13 Julian go to Gregorian date: 1583~1699: Aug 23 1700s: Aug 24 1800s: Aug 25 1900~2099: Aug 26] |
On
an 13 August: 2002 The stock of Six Flags (PKS) is downgraded by Bear Strearns from Buy to Neutral, by Goldman Sachs from Trading Buy to Market Perform, by Lehman Brothers from Overweight to Equal Weight, by Prudential from Buy to Hold, by Salomon Smith Barney from Outperform to Neutral. On the New York Stock Exchange PKS drops from its previous close of $11.86 to an intraday low of $4.75 and closes at $5.06. It had traded as high as $18.48 as recently as 02 May 2002, and at $40.00 on 19 July 1999. It had started trading at $18.56 on 29 September 1997. [5~year price chart >] 2002 Nancy Crystal Chavez, 1 month, and her siblings, ages 2 and 6, are placed by their mother, Margarita Chavez, in her minivan at 16:30 , as she has just finished shopping at the Wal~Mart Supercenter, 4350 Southwest Drive, Abilene, Texas. While the mother, leaving the sliding door open, returns a shopping cart 3 meters away, a fat woman, Paula Roach, 24, snatches the infant with her car seat (not yet buckled to the car seat) and drives away, dragging the screaming mother about 10 meters. Her husband is Salvador Chavez, a janitor at Dyess Elementary School. The Texas Amber Alert system, announced the previous day by the governor, is not yet operational, but an effort is made to have TV, radio, and electronic road signs publicize the kidnapping. The next day Paula Roach is caught as her car is pulled over near Quanah, Texas, 200 km north of Abilene, and the infant is with her, unhurt. Roach had suffered a miscarriage in December 2001. [< photo: Nancy Chavez] 2002 Devastating floods in Europe But they are nothing compared to what south Asia is suffering. The relative coverage of the two regions is a measure of the eurocentrism of the news media. Tens of thousands of Czechs flee the low-lying areas of Prague for higher ground Tuesday as torrential rains swell the Vltava River and unleashed more flooding that has now killed at least 88 people across Europe. Churning toward Prague's Old Town, the heart of the capital and a popular tourist stop, the brown, swollen Vltava inflicted the worst flooding in more than a century on the Czech Republic. At least nine persons died after more than a week of heavy rainfall. Water engulfed Prague's historic Kampa island, flooding architectural gems dating to the Hapsburg Empire. Volunteers gathered around landmarks and scrambled to fill hundreds of sandbags in a desperate bid to save the city's treasures from rising waters. Into the night, cranes work under floodlights and in pouring rain to pull up crushed boats, barrels and even a refrigerator and help the swirling river slip past barriers. Volunteers spray plastic foam into the cracks between the sandbags to prevent water from seeping through. At least 40'000 residents of low-lying areas of Prague a city of just over 1 million inhabitants are ordered to leave their homes, and a total of 200'000 are evacuated nationwide. In neighboring Austria, where at least seven people have died, firefighters and Red Cross volunteers are stacking sandbags to hold back parts of the swollen Danube River, which flooded Vienna's port and some low-lying streets. The Danube punches through dams in the town of Ybbs in Lower Austria province. 8000 soldiers are battling floods in Upper Austria and along the Danube. The flooding affects an estimated 60'000 Austrians, who either are evacuated from their homes or suffer flood damage. In Salzburg province, more than 1000 buildings are under water, and in the badly flooded Danube town of Krems, residents are urged to abandon lower floors. Upper Austria offers the image of misery, a land submerged in water. Most of Europe's flooding casualties are in Russia, where at least 58 persons were killed a few days earlier mostly Russian tourists vacationing on the Black Sea who were ambushed by flood waters that swept cars and tents out to sea. In Germany, where firefighters and soldiers stacked sandbags to reinforce strained river banks, a 71-year-old man drowned in the previous night in flooding in Dresden, and a cascade of mud and water sweep away two adults and a child on this day. Numerous dams are in danger of breaking in towns along the Danube near Passau, a city on the Austrian border whose old town is completely submerged. In Romania, flooding and strong winds killed at least seven people in recent days. In the eastern part of the country on 12 August, a small tornado struck a house, killing a 24-year-old woman and her 17-month-old baby. Czech Prime Minister Vladimir Spidla declared a state of emergency the previous night, and deployed 4000 soldiers throughout the country, and President Vaclav Havel cut short a Portugal vacation because of flooding that destroyed or rendered impassable more than a dozen bridges. The flooding is Prague's worst since 1890. The Vltava rises 5.8 meters above normal levels, flooding four districts near the city's historical center and prompting Czech television to broadcast a plea for sandbags and volunteers. Stores and offices lose power by mid-afternoon, forcing many to shut down, and the Prague Stock Exchange suspends trading. At the Zoo on the outskirts of Prague, about 400 animals are moved to higher ground. They included two rhinos who are moved with a crane and four gorillas who are sedated. A fifth gorilla is missing but presumed to be hiding within the zoo. Zoo employees kill a 35-year-old Indian elephant called Kadir after he ended up stranded up to his ears in a flooded part of the zoo and is in danger of drowning. A hippopotamus that escaped from its corral and became aggressive is also killed. The three female seals of the Prague zoo swim away to freedom, but two are soon recaptured; the one male seal stays. In Prague, among other concerns, is that for the safety of the priceless artwork at the Mucha Museum, and at the Czech Republic National Gallery, which (3 days later) posts this on its web site:
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2001 Portrait of a Lady Aged 62, by Rembrandt van
Rijn has been put up for sale at $35.6 million, Dutch art dealer Robert
Noortman announces. MORE
ON THIS AT ART 4 AUGUST
Rembrandt LINKS
An
Old Lady with a Book (1647) Lady
with a Pink A
Lady with an Ostrich Feather Fan A
Bearded Man in a Beret (1657) A
Bearded Man in a Cap A
Bearded Man in a Wide-Brimmed Hat Portrait
of a Bearded Man in Black Beret 2000 The Russian Navy, whose idea of public relations dates to Soviet times and the Cold War, announces that the nuclear submarine Kursk has sunk this day to the bottom of the Barents Sea. In fact the sub sank the day before. This is only the beginning of a week of lies and bungling. Western offers of aid are haughtily rejected, and President Putin continues to enjoy his vacation at a Black Sea resort. 2000 Somalia swore in legislators for its first central government after almost a decade of internecine warfare.
1996 Proposal for 140-storey NY Stock Exchange building by Donald Trump, who wants New York to have again the world’s tallest building. The idea initially appealed Exchange officials and Trump enlisted the architects who designed Malaysia’s skyscrapers, but the “Exchange Tower,” like so many of Trump’s projects, never came to be. 1994 North Korea agreed to allow U.N. monitors to inspect a secret nuclear laboratory. 1993 Israel agreed for the first time to negotiate with a Palestinian delegation whose members belonged officially to the PLO. 1993 Dow Jones says that it will start in September a desktop news service that will provide customers with video interviews with business and government leaders, along with breaking business news. 1989 The wreckage of a plane that carried US congressman Mickey Leland and others on a humanitarian mission is found on a mountain side in Ethiopia; there are no survivors. 1988 Ronald J Dossenbach sets world record for pedaling across Canada from Vancouver, BC to Halifax, NS in 13 days, 15 hr, 4 min 1987 On the 5th anniversary of the bull market, he Dow Jones Industrial Average goes briefly above 2700 and closes the day at 2691.49. 1981 In a ceremony at his California ranch, President Reagan signs a historic package of tax and budget reductions.
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1969 As relations worsen between China and the Soviet Union, they
accuse each other of sending troops across the Sinkiang border at Sinkiang
and inflicting heavy casualties.
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1930 Capt. Frank Hawkes sets an air speed record by flying from Los Angeles to New York in 12 hours, 25 minutes. 1928 WRNY in Coytesville, New Jersey, becomes the first station to broadcast a television image, a 1.5 inch square image of a woman's face, to New York City, where it is viewed by 500 people. |
1907 The first taxicab in New York City. Motorized taxicabs had actually begun appearing on the streets of Europe in the late 1890s. The taxi is named after the taximeter, a device that automatically records the distance traveled or time consumed and is used to calculate the fare. The term cab originated from the cabriolet, a one-horse carriage let out for hire 1906 Black soldiers raid Brownsville Texas 1898 Manila, the capital of the Philippines, falls to the US Army.
1876 Reciprocity Treaty between US & Hawaii ratified 1868 Quakes kill 25'000 & causes $300 million damages (Peru & Ecuador)
1862 Confederate General Nathan Bedford Forrest defeats a Union army under Thomas Crittenden at Murfreesboro, Tennessee. 1862 Skirmish on Yellow Creek, Missouri 1831 Nat Turner leads uprising of slaves in Virginia
1704 Battle of Blenheim: the Duke of Marlborough of England and Prince Eugene of Austria defeat the French Army, during the War of the Spanish Succession.. 1680 War starts when the Spanish are expelled from Santa Fe, New Mexico, by Indians under Chief Pope. 1642 Christiaan Huygens discovers Martian south polar cap 1630 Emperor Ferdinand II dismisses Albert Eusebius van Wallenstein, his most capable general. 1624 French King Louis XIII named Cardinal Richelieu his first minister. 0523 St John I begins his reign as Pope. |
Deaths which
occurred on an 13 August: 2002:: Already at least 874 dead from monsoon in south Asia. Heavy rains washing down from the foothills of the Himalayas swelled rivers in eastern India, worsening monsoon flooding that has killed at least 874 people in India, Nepal and Bangladesh. New flooding is reported in northern regions of India's Bihar state and the Kosi River is flowing higher than normal. The death toll in the state, located between Nepal and Bangladesh, has climbed to 265 persons in flooding that began across the region in June. Thirty persons have died in neighboring Assam state. Floods have displaced or trapped more than 15 million persons in the two states, home to some 100 million persons. While the incessant rains are the worst in four years, large parts of India are facing the worst drought in 14 years. Hundreds of districts in northern and western India, where farmers have lost most of their summer crop, sown in June and July, have been declared drought-hit. In Nepal, which has seen the most deaths in the monsoon flooding, aid agencies appealed for help for thousands of people in Nepal left homeless by flooding and landslides. As many as 422 persons have been killed and 250'000 more injured in the flooding. Most of the landslides occurred in remote mountainous areas that have been cut off because of washed-out roads. The villages are now accessible only by helicopter, but the government doesn't have the funds or the helicopters to ferry help in quickly. Rising water levels have also increased the threat of typhoid, dysentery, malaria, encephalitis, and other diseases spread by water or mosquito. In Bangladesh, at least 157 persons have been killed and 6 million have been stranded or displaced in the past two months. At least 1000 homes were washed away on 11 August when 2.5-meter-high swells engulfed Hatia island in Noakhali district, 120 km east of Dhaka. Some 55'000 persons are stranded in their submerged houses. Rising sea levels also inundated Patuakhali, a neighboring coastal of town of 80'000, leaving a third of the town under 1.2 m of water. The high tides are caused by a sudden rise in the sea level due to low pressure over the Bay of Bengal. In the southern Bhola district, the Meghna River fed by floodwaters gushing downstream breached a mud flood barrier, inundating several villages and marooning at least 25'000. Bangladesh, a low-lying delta nation of 130 million people, is crisscrossed by hundreds of rivers, many of which begin in Nepal, flow through India, before draining into the Bay of Bengal. Annual floods are common during the monsoon season of South Asia. This year's inundation is the worst in four years. More than 3000 persons died in 1988 in Bangladesh and another 1000 in 1998 floods. 2001 Khalil Nazaanah, from gunfire wounds suffered earlier in the day from Israeli police which were chasing him, a Palestinian from the West Bank village of Kufr Akab. He was suspected of killing Yuri Gushtzin, 18, whose body was found with stabbing and gunshot wounds near Ramallah on 24 July 2001. 1991 Jack Ryan, 65, inventor and entrepreneur who helped give birth to Barbie and Hot Wheels toys. 1963 A 17 year-old Buddhist monk burns himself to death in Saigon, South Vietnam. 1956 Levytsky, mathematician 1945 35 Jews sacrifice their lives to blow up Nazi rubber plant in Silesia. 1910 Florence Nightingale, 90, British nurse famous for her care of British soldiers during the Crimean War.(1854-56) and for reforming English nursing and military hospitals. She wrote Notes on Matters Affecting the Health, Efficiency and Hospital Administration of the British Army (1858). 1902 Ludwik Kurella, Polish artist, dies on his 68th birthday. 1896 Seidel, mathematician. 1894 Remigius Adrianus Remy van Haanen, Dutch artist born on 05 January 1812. 1882 William Jevons, 47, mathematician.
The Fanatics of Tangier The Sultan of Morocco and His Entourage The Lion Hunt in Morocco Arab Saddling His Horse Palais Bourbon Frescoes Women of Algiers in Their Apartment The Shipwreck of Don Juan Medea about to Kill Her Children The Entry of the Crusaders into Constantinople Apollo Slays Python 1829 John Everett Millais, British painter who died on 13 August 1896. MORE ON MILLAIS AT ART 4 AUGUST LINKS Self-Portrait Christ in the House of His Parents or The Carpenter's Shop Cymon and Iphigenia Lorenzo and Isabella _ detail Apple Blossoms (Spring) _ detail 1 (the 3 women at extreme right) _ detail 2 (the 3 women at center left) _ detail 3 (the 2 women at extreme left) Autumn Leaves The Blind Girl [big size] _ The Blind Girl [regular size] The Bridesmaid Ferdinand Lured by Ariel The subject comes from Shakespeare’s The Tempest (Act I, Scene 2), with the sprite Ariel leading Ferdinand to his master Prospero. The Order of Release 1746 Mariana in the Moated Grange [read Millais's "Mariana": Literary Painting, the Pre-Raphaelite Gothic, and the Iconology of the Marian Artist] The Martyr of the Solway Louise Jopling The Royalist The Black Brunswicker Chill October The Woodman's Daughter Mercy - Saint Bartholomew's Day, 1572(giant size) _ Mercy - Saint Bartholomew's Day, 1572 (regular size) A Huguenot, on St. Bartholomew's Day Refusing to Shield Himself from Danger by Wearing the Roman Catholic Badge Pizarro Seizing the Inca of Peru North-West Passage James Wyatt and His Granddaughter Mary Mrs James Wyatt and child. Lord Alfred Tennyson John Ruskin The Eve of St. Agnes The Knight Errant Ruling Passion [grandpa the stuffed-bird man] Trust Me Waiting Leisure Hours The Piper The Boyhood of Raleigh Twins (Grace and Kate Hoare) Miss Eveleen Tennant Sweetest eyes were ever seen Yes or No Yes No! Annie Miller The Return of the Dove to the Ark My First Sermon [child attentive to it] My Second Sermon [child put to sleep by it] Bubbles The Honourable John Nevile Manners _ detail A Dream of the Past - Sir Isumbras at the Ford The Romans Leaving Britain The Crown of Love 1822 Argand, mathematician 1816 Per Hillestrom, Swedish painter born on 18 November 1732. 1638 Joachim Antoviszoon Uytewael, Dutch mannerist figure painter born in 1566. MORE ON UYTEWAEL AT ART 4 AUGUST LINKS Perseus and Andromeda The Judgement of Paris Adoration of the Shepherds, detail Supper at Emmaus The Battle Between the Gods and the Titans Danae - Pen The Judgment of Paris Kitchen Scene Mars and Venus Discovered by the Gods 1523 David Gheeraert Janszoon Oudewater, Flemish artist born in 1460.
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Births which occurred on
an 13 August: 1934 Li'l Abner, satirical comic strip by Al Capp, makes its debut.
1907 Alfred Alwin Felix Krupp, Essen, Germany, arms manufacturer 1902 Felix Wankel, Germany, inventor of the Wankel rotary engine (1954) [diagram >], which was used in Mazda cars. Wankel died on 9 October 1988. (Everything you were afraid to ask about the Wankel engine, and rightly so) 1899 Alfred Hitchcock, the macabre master of movie making, in London A winner of five Best Director Academy Awards, he made a second career of cameo appearances in many of the eighty films he directed. In his first film, The Lodger, he appeared as an extra to help fill the screen, but continued his cameos in subsequent films, first out of superstition and then as a running gag to keep his audience's strict attention. Some of his films are Rebecca, Rear Window, Psycho, North by Northwest, The Birds, Vertigo, To Catch a Thief, Frenzy, Notorious, Suspicion, The Thirty-Nine Steps. He also hosted the TV show Alfred Hitchcock Presents. 1889 Christopher Richard Wynne Nevinson, British artist who died on 07 October 1946. LINKS
1867 George Benjamin Luks, US Ashcan School painter who died on 29 October 1933. MORE ON LUKS AT ART 4 AUGUST LINKS Innocence Jack and Russell Burke The Miner Hester Street Allen Street The Wrestlers 1861 Burali-Forti, mathematician
1834 Ludwik Kurella, Polish artist who would die on his 68th birthday. 1819 Sir George Gabriel Stokes physicist, mathematician (Spectroscope) 1818 Lucy Stone, social reformer. 1814 Anders Jonas Ångström Sweden, physicist, founded spectroscopy. The unit angstrom = 10^(-10) m is named after him. He died on 21 June 1874. 1802 Nikolaus Lenau, in Csatád, Hungary (the name Csatád would be changed in his honor to Lenauheim), Austrian poet (Der Unbeständige Polenlieder Savonarola In der Neujahrsnacht Die Albigenser Waldlieder Eitel nichts ...) He died on 22 August 1850 Nach Jugendjahren in Ungarn (Pest, Tokaj, Preßburg) studierte Lenau 1822-1832 Jurisprudenz, Philosophie, Landwirtschaft und Medizin in Wien, Ungarisch-Altenburg, später in Heidelberg, brachte seine Doktorarbeit aber nicht zum Abschluß und lebte als freier Schriftsteller von einer bescheidenen Erbschaft. Von 1832 bis zu seinem geistigen Zusammenbruch 1844 führte er ein unruhiges Pendelleben zwischen Wien und der Wahlheimat Schwaben; mehrere Verlobungen brach er ab. Fast sechs Jahre dämmerte er bis zu seinem Tode in einer Irrenanstalt dahin. LENAU ONLINE: Blick in den Strom (1844) Faust (1836) 1704 Fontaine des Bertins, mathematician 1655 Johann Christoph Denner He invented the clarinet, probably while trying to improve the chalumeau. He died on 20 April 1707. 1625 Bartholin, mathematician 1576 David Vinckboons, Flemish painter who died in 1629. MORE ON VINCKBOONS AT ART 4 AUGUST LINKS Distribution of Loaves to the Poor Forest Scene with Robbery 1422 William Caxton (printer: 1st to print a book in English language: Recuyell of the Histories of Troy) |