<< Feb 11|         HISTORY “4” “2”DAY          |Feb 13 >>
Events, deaths, births, of FEB 12

[For Feb 12 Julian go to Gregorian date: 1583~1699: Feb 221700s: Feb 231800s: Feb 241900~2099: Feb 25]
ALTERNATE SITES    ALL FOR 030212      ANY DAY  OF THE YEAR IN HISTORY     ART “4” FEB 12
On a 12 February:
2003 The Belgian Cour de Cassation (Supreme Court) rules that current Israeli Defense Ministry director-general Amos Yaron can be prosecuted for his involvement in the 16 September 1982 Sabra and Chatila massacres of some 800 Palestinians in Beirut, by Phalangist troops who were Israeli allies in Beirut, when Yaron was commander of the Israeli forces in Beirut, and that current Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon can be put on trial for his involvement in that war crime (when he was Defense Minister), but only after he ceases to be prime minister, when he no longer has diplomatic immunity. Belgium has a law that enables its legal system to prosecute suspected international war criminals, even those with no connection to Belgium. The law and the ruling apply equally to any other war crime suspect, such as Irak's Saddam Hussein, Cuba's Fidel Castro, Palestine's Yasser Arafat, or Chad's ex-dictator (07 June 1982 – 01 December 1990) Hissène Habré-Abeche.
2003 Tamao Nishi, 2, is granted documents of residency in the Nishi ward of Yokohama, Japan. He immigrated undocumented in September 2002, and has become a local celebrity, staying in the Katabira River, far from the Bering Strait from where others of his species of seal do not stray.
2001 Sentenced to death 17 years earlier, innocent Black man is freed at last, but not completely.
     Earl Washington Jr, 40, IQ 69, Black, is released from a Virginia prison, but still confined to a half-way house, years after he ought to have been completely free. He had been falsely sentenced to death for the murder of Rebecca Lynn Williams on 04 June 1982, exculpated by a 1993 DNA test, then kept in prison on technicalities related to a lesser crime he did commit, but which carries a penalty of many years less in prison than he had already served.
NEAR spacecraftt 2001 First ever descent of a spacecraft onto an asteroid.
      NASA's 487 kg (exclusive of propellant) Near Earth Asteroid Rendezvous spacecraft [image >], launched at 20:43 UT on 17 February 1996, approaches at 1.9 m/s and comes to rest on the surface of asteroid Eros (a first) just outside the saddle-shaped depression Himeros, at about 20:00 UT, though it was not designed for landing.
6 m of the surface of Eros     The Near Earth Asteroid Rendezvous (NEAR) mission is the first of NASA's Discovery missions and the first mission ever to go into orbit around an asteroid. The spacecraft is powered by 1800 W solar panels. It is equipped with an X-ray/gamma ray spectrometer, a near-infrared imaging spectrograph, a multispectral camera fitted with a CCD imaging detector, a laser altimeter, and a magnetometer. A radio science experiment will also be performed using the NEAR tracking system to estimate the gravity field of the asteroid.
[< final image taken from 120 m away, showing about 6 m width of the surface of Eros]
      The ultimate goal of the mission was to rendezvous with and achieve orbit around the near Earth asteroid 433 Eros in January, 1999, and study the asteroid for approximately one year.
     A problem caused an abort of the first encounter burn and the mission had to be rescoped for a 23 December 1998 flyby of Eros and a later encounter and orbit on 14 February 2000.
      Eros is an S-class asteroid about 13 x 13 x 33 km in size. Studies will be made of the asteroid's size, shape, mass, magnetic field, composition, and surface and internal structure. Periapsis of the orbit will be as low as 24 km above the surface of the asteroid. Prior to its encounter with Eros NEAR flew within 1200 km of the C-class asteroid 253 Mathilde on 27 June 1997. It then flew by the Earth on 23 January 1998. The spacecraft has the shape of an octagonal prism, approximately 1.7 m on a side, with four solar panels and a fixed 1.5 m X-band high-gain radio antenna.
2000 Spacecraft NEAR takes these pictures of asteroid Eros tumbling through space, at a distance of 1800 km. [>]
^ 1999 IMPEACHMENT TRIAL: CLINTON ACQUITTED BY SENATE
     The five-week impeachment trial of Bill Clinton comes to an end, with the Senate voting to acquit the president on both articles of impeachment: perjury and obstruction of justice.
      In November 1995, Clinton began an affair with Monica Lewinsky, a 21-year-old unpaid intern. Over the course of a year and a half, the president and Lewinsky had nearly a dozen sexual encounters in the White House. In April 1996, Lewinsky was transferred to the Pentagon. That summer, she first confided in Pentagon co-worker Linda Tripp about her sexual relationship with the president. In 1997, with the relationship over, Tripp began secretly to record conversations with Lewinsky, in which Lewinsky gave Tripp details about the affair.
      In December, lawyers for Paula Jones, who was suing the president on sexual harassment charges, subpoenaed Lewinsky. In January 1998, allegedly under the recommendation of the president, Lewinsky filed an affidavit in which she denied ever having had a sexual relationship with him. Five days later, Tripp contacted the office of Kenneth Starr, the Whitewater independent counsel, to talk about Lewinsky and the tapes she made of their conversations. Tripp, wired by FBI agents working with Starr, met with Lewinsky again, and on January 16 Lewinsky was taken by FBI agents and US attorneys to a hotel room where she was questioned and offered immunity if she cooperated with the prosecution. A few days later, the story broke, and Clinton publicly denied the allegations, saying, "I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Ms. Lewinsky."
      In late July, lawyers for Lewinsky and Starr worked out a full-immunity agreement covering both Lewinsky and her parents, all of whom Starr had threatened with prosecution. On 06 August, Lewinsky appeared before the grand jury to begin her testimony, and on August 17 President Clinton testified. Contrary to his testimony in the Paula Jones sexual-harassment case, President Clinton acknowledged to prosecutors from the office of the independent counsel that he had had an extramarital affair with Ms. Lewinsky.
      In four hours of closed-door testimony, conducted in the Map Room of the White House, Clinton spoke live via closed-circuit television to a grand jury in a nearby federal courthouse. He was the first sitting president ever to testify before a grand jury investigating his conduct. That evening, President Clinton also gave a four-minute televised address to the nation in which he admitted he had engaged in an inappropriate relationship with Lewinsky. In the brief speech, which was wrought with legalisms, the word "sex" was never spoken, and the word "regret" was used only in reference to his admission that he misled the public and his family.
       Less than a month later, on September 9, Kenneth Starr submitted his report and 18 boxes of supporting documents to the House of Representatives. Released to the public two days later, the Starr Report outlined a case for impeaching Clinton on 11 grounds, including perjury, obstruction of justice, witness-tampering, and abuse of power, and also provided explicit details of the sexual relationship between the president and Ms. Lewinsky.
      On October 8, the House authorized a wide-ranging impeachment inquiry, and on December 11 the House Judiciary Committee approved three articles of impeachment. On December 19, after nearly 14 hours of debate, the House approved two articles of impeachment, charging President Clinton with lying under oath to a federal grand jury and obstructing justice. Clinton, the second president in US history to be impeached, vowed to finish his term.
      On 07 January 1999, in a congressional procedure not seen since the 1868 impeachment trial of President Andrew Johnson, the trial of President Clinton got underway in the Senate. As instructed in Article 1 of the US Constitution, the chief justice of the US Supreme Court (William Rehnquist at this time) was sworn in to preside and the senators were sworn in as jurors.
      Five weeks later, on 12 February, the Senate votes on whether to remove Clinton from office. The president is acquitted on both articles of impeachment. The prosecution needs a two-thirds majority to convict but fails to achieve even a bare majority. Rejecting the first charge of perjury, 45 Democrats and 10 Republicans vote “not guilty” and on the charge of obstruction of justice the Senate is split 50-50. After the trial concludes, President Clinton says that he is "profoundly sorry" for the burden his behavior imposed on Congress and the US people.
(1) The Senate returns to open session shortly after 12 noon EST, and Majority Leader Trent tells told Chief Justice William Rehnquist the Senate is ready to vote.
  • After the chief justice warns all those in the Senate chamber that expressions of celebration or disapproval of the votes would not be tolerated, the clerk reads the first article of impeachment and the voting begins.
  • One by one the senators rise from their seats to answer Rehnquist's initial inquiry of "How say you?" With the only acceptable answers "guilty" or "not guilty," the two historic votes takes less than 30 minutes.
  • COUNT ONE: PERJURY — The Senate rejects 55-45 the first article of impeachment charging Clinton lied under oath in his August 17 grand jury testimony.
    • Ten Republicans vote with all 45 Democrats to reject the perjury charge. Republican Sens. Richard Shelby of Alabama, Ted Stevens of Alaska, Susan Collins of Maine, Olympia Snowe of Maine, Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, John Chafee of Rhode Island, Fred Thompson of Tennessee, Jim Jeffords of Vermont, John Warner of Virginia and Slade Gorton of Washington all vote against the perjury article.
  • COUNT TWO: OBSTRUCTION OF JUSTICE — The second article, which alleges the president obstructed justice in his attempt to cover up his affair with former White House intern Monica Lewinsky, fails on a 50-50 vote.
    • Five GOP senators (Collins, Snowe, Specter, Chafee and Jeffords) vote against the obstruction of justice claim
  • After a year full of investigations, hearings and a 21-day impeachment trial, President Bill Clinton is acquitted by the Senate of charges he committed perjury and obstructed justice. "The Senate having tried William Jefferson Clinton, president of the United States, upon two articles of impeachment exhibited against him by the House of Representatives and two-thirds of the senators present not having found him guilty of the charges contained therein, it is therefore ordered and adjudged that the said William Jefferson Clinton be, and he hereby is, acquitted of the charges in the said articles," Rehnquist announces.
    • After Clinton is acquitted, Rehnquist praises senators for how they conducted the trial. "I leave you now a wiser but not a sadder man," Rehnquist says. "I've been impressed by the manner in which the majority leader and the minority leader have agreed on procedural rules in spite of the differences that separate their two parties on matters of substance."
    • Lott presents Rehnquist with a "golden gavel" for his service, and the full Senate stands for an ovation.
  • (2) After the impeachment votes, Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-California) attempts to enter her motion to censure. But Sen. Phil Gramm of Texas objects and since unanimous consent is required to consider the censure motion, Feinstein asks that the Senate rules be suspended.
    • But in a parliamentary move, Gramm asks for a vote to indefinitely table the motion to suspend the rules. That motion passes 56-4 and any consideration of censuring Clinton is postponed. Although 56 senators vote against the motion, censure supporters need 67 votes to prevent the rule change motion from being tabled.
    • Despite the procedural defeat and the waning support for censure, Feinstein tells reporters she may still attempt to bring up the resolution later. "I feel it's the right thing to do," she says.
    • The censure resolution is entered into the Congressional Record along with statements in support from some of its 38 cosponsors. But many Republican senators say they believe the censure resolution is dead.
    (3) White House Press Secretary Joe Lockhart tells reporters Clinton was in the White House residence during the vote but does not watch it on television. According to her associates, Monica Lewinsky does watch the vote on television.
    (4) Secretary of State Madeleine Albright receives the certified document of the Senate judgment in the president's impeachment trial this afternoon from Gary Sisco, Secretary of the Senate.
    • The State Department receives the judgment because it holds the official seal of the United States which makes documents official. The Congressional Act of 1789 placed the official seal of the United States in the custody of the Secretary of State. The seal is affixed to several types of documents, including proclamations of treaties, conventions, and agreements, and on envelopes carrying communications from the president to heads of other governments. After receiving the judgment, Albright signs a receipt for the document, a State Department official says.
    • The State Department legal office sends a copy of the signed document to White House Counsel Charles Ruff.
    • The official says the State Department has yet to determine where the signed original should be placed for historical purposes, but for now, it will be kept locked in a secure vault in the State Department building in Washington.
    (5) Clinton then comments on the end of the Senate impeachment trial:
    • Text of an e-mail that White House Chief of Staff John Podesta sends to staff on behalf of President Clinton:
      "I want to thank you personally for all you are doing for this administration and our nation. Working at the White House is a great privilege, but I know it is also often a burden on you, and on the family and friends to whom you turn for support. That has meant long days, late nights, and many weekends here and I want you to know how grateful I am.
      "The past year has been especially difficult for you. I know that my actions and the events they triggered have made your work even harder. For that, I am profoundly sorry. In all this, under the most extraordinary of circumstances, you never lost sight of your first obligation to serve the people of our nation. For that, I am profoundly grateful.
      "The remaining years of this administration can and must be a time of great achievement for our nation. I know you share my pride in what we have accomplished already to strengthen America at home and abroad, including over the past year, when we created the first surplus in three decades and continued dramatic advances in education and other vital areas.
      "Now, together, we have much more to do to meet our obligations to future generations. We have set our goals before the American people from saving Social Security and Medicare, to strengthening education and health care, to advancing peace and security around the world and I know you share my determination to act on those priorities. Today, the nation we love is strong and confident. In the months to come, we can move beyond the divisions of the past year to build a nation that is stronger and more united as it enters the 21st century.
      "Your dedication and loyalty have meant more to me than you can ever know. The best way I can repay you is to redouble my own efforts on behalf of the ideals we share, and to make the most of every day we are here. I thank you again for everything you are doing and I ask you to keep working hard in the months ahead. Together, we can achieve great things for the American people.
      Bill Clinton.
    • In a nationally-televised address:
      Now that the Senate has fulfilled its constitutional responsibility, bringing this process to a conclusion, I want to say again to the American people how profoundly sorry I am for what I said and did to trigger these events and the great burden they have imposed on the Congress and on the American people.
      I also am humbled and very grateful for the support and the prayers I have received from millions of Americans over this past year.
      Now I ask all Americans, and I hope all Americans, here in Washington and throughout our land, will rededicate ourselves to the work of serving our nation and building our future together.
      This can be and this must be a time of reconciliation and renewal for America.
      Thank you very much.
      QUESTION: In your heart, sir, can you forgive and forget?
      CLINTON: I believe any person who asks for forgiveness has to be prepared to give it.
      QUESTION: Do you feel vindicated, sir?
    (6) 20-year-old Penn State sophomore Alysia DeAntonio and her professor claim The New Yorker magazine appears to have ripped off her concept of Monica Lewinsky as the Mona Lisa.
    • It has professor Richard Alden fuming. "I just feel like somebody mugged me," Alden says this week. "I can't prove it, but I believe the concept behind the merging of the two is what was stolen." DeAntonio's painting for his architecture class so impressed him that Alden copyrighted the image, slapped the portrait onto T-shirts and boxer shorts and started selling the merchandise online and at a gallery. About 200 shirts have sold at $15 each. He even shopped the image around to national weeklies: Time, Newsweek, The New Yorker, The Nation. Alden got no takers in October. Now he has hired a lawyer to investigate whether he and DeAntonio have grounds for a copyright infringement lawsuit.
    • The New Yorker and Dean Rohrer, the Marlton, New Jersey, free-lance artist who produced "Woman of the Year" for the magazine's Feb. 8 cover, insist the whole thing is a coincidence. The cover features a doctored photo of Lewinsky superimposed on an image of the famed painting and wearing a mysterious Mona Lisa smile. "Putting a person in the news on a body of art is not a unique idea," says New Yorker spokeswoman Perri Dorset. Rohrer says he got the idea a few months ago after he kept seeing a newspaper photo of Lewinsky "that was reminding me of something." "I was sitting there one day and I said, 'It's the Mona Lisa.' Just the little curve of the mouth," he says. A few weeks later, Rohrer pitched it to The New Yorker. "I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of people had the idea. It's not that brilliant," said Rohrer.
    • Still, DeAntonio is disappointed, saying it ruined her chances to get it published or to have it featured on a cover. "It would look like a takeoff on The New Yorker," she says.
    (7) As previously reported by Matt Drudge, NBC's Today show airs a Jamie Gangel interview with Linda Tripp.
    (8) Impeachment is over, but Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr is not finished. There are presidential friends to be tried, a leaks case to resolve and a momentous decision: whether to indict President Clinton.
  • And when all that is done, Starr will have to tie together in a single report an investigation that has covered everything from Vincent Foster's suicide and the Whitewater land deal to the FBI files matter and the Monica Lewinsky saga.
    • The biggest decision for Starr is whether to indict Clinton for perjury in the Paula Jones case and before Starr's grand jury and for obstruction of justice in the Lewinsky case. Legal sources say the prosecutor concluded some time ago he could indict a sitting president. With impeachment at an end, the question now is whether Starr will seek a grand jury indictment before Clinton leaves office, wait until his term ends or drop the case.
    • Next is the obstruction case against the Clintons' former Whitewater business partner, Susan McDougal, who goes on trial March 8 in Little Rock, Arkansas, for refusing to cooperate with Starr's investigation. The prosecutor has wanted to know from McDougal whether the president had a connection to a fraudulent $300,000 loan that she never repaid. Clinton has testified he knew nothing about the transaction.
  • Starr also has two prosecutions pending against long-time presidential buddy Webster Hubbell, who has pleaded innocent.
  • In one case, Hubbell is accused of concealing his and Hillary Rodham Clinton's roles in a fraudulent 1980s Arkansas land development owned by McDougal's late ex-husband, James McDougal. Mrs. Clinton, who worked at an Arkansas law firm with Hubbell, says she doesn't recall what work she did on the development. Hubbell's father-in-law, retired Little Rock businessman Seth Ward, got $300,000 from the deal.
  • Hubbell also faces tax evasion charges on hundreds of thousands of dollars in income, some of it arranged by friends of the president in 1994 when Hubbell was under investigation by Starr's office.
    • A judge originally dismissed those charges on grounds that Starr exceeded his authority, but a federal appeals court reinstated the case recently.
    • Lacking the records to make a case against the Clintons concerning their Arkansas business dealings, Starr has tried for years to gain information from Hubbell and McDougal, but they seem more unlikely than ever to cooperate.
    • McDougal served 18 months in prison rather than answer Starr's questions last time around. And Hubbell insists he has already supplied Starr with all the information on the Clintons that he possesses — and does not believe the Clintons did anything wrong.
    • On the Lewinsky front, the independent counsel is still delving into whether Clinton committed perjury when he denied making an unwanted sexual advance toward former White House volunteer Kathleen Willey. Starr's office will put a former Willey friend, Julie Hiatt Steele, on trial 30 March (later continued to 03 May 1999) in Alexandria, Virginia, on charges of obstruction and lying.
    • Starr is still conducting a probe of whether presidential aides lied about Mrs. Clinton's role in the 1993 firings of the White House travel office. The first lady has denied under oath that she ordered the purge, but a memo that surfaced in the White House in 1996 says she was behind the dismissals.
      • Starr is also still investigating whether anyone lied in the White House's gathering of hundreds of FBI background files on appointees from prior administrations. The prosecutor says he has no evidence the files were used for an improper purpose, but that there are unspecified "outstanding issues" regarding one person he refuses to identify.
    • There are complications for Starr. He not only is investigating, but also being investigated. A federal judge is trying to determine if his office violated grand jury secrecy laws, and the Justice Department informed him last month it intends to investigate his handling of the Lewinsky case. "This could turn into a Dunkirk situation with no ships on the horizon to rescue the troops in Starr's office," says former Iran-Contra prosecutor Craig Gillen, who helped close out Lawrence Walsh's six-year Iran-Contra criminal probe. Some of Starr's deputies have begun to think about work elsewhere. Still, his office has vowed to press ahead.
    • Starr gets some unsolicited advice today from the man who led the prosecution of Clinton's case before the Senate and lost. "I think for the good of the country, probably forget it," says House Judiciary Committee chairman Henry Hyde.
    ^ 1999 Granny get your gun... NOT!
         When workers for the town of North Greenbush NY come to cut overgrown trees at the home of Hildegard von Waldenburg, 81, she tries to deter them by threatening them with a shotgun. Prosecutors would pursue her for the misdemeanor of second-degree menacing, during 22 months, in three different courts before five different judges, until, on 12 December 2000, North Greenbush Town Justice Raymond Elliott dismisses the case as an act of mercy, saying a delay in justice is no justice.
    1998 US district judge T. Hogan declares line-item veto law unconstitutional
    ^ 1997 Texas starts antitrust investigation against Microsoft
          The State of Texas starts an investigation into Microsoft's business practices on the Internet on this day in 1997. The first state to conduct its own probe, Texas would soon be joined by several others with their own investigations. The Texas attorney general, however, reconsidered his stand against Microsoft in May. His cold feet followed a lobbying effort by Texas computer sellers who warned him that a lawsuit could harm their businesses. Nevertheless, the Justice Department and some twenty states (not including Texas) filed suits against Microsoft, alleging anticompetitive practices.
    1997 The Democrats' fund-raising scandal continued to grow. The Washington Post reported the Chinese government might have channeled money to the Democratic National Committee in order to influence the Clinton administration.
    1997 South Korea announced that a secretary with North Korea's ruling Workers (Communist) Party had sought asylum at the South Korean consulate in Beijing, China. Hwang Jang Yop was the highest-level official ever to defect from North Korea.
    1995 PRI loses / PAN wins Mexican regional elections
    1994 As the 17th Olympic Winter Games open in Norway, the US Olympic Committee allows Tonya Harding to compete in the women's figure skating competition, despite claims that she was involved in the assault on rival skater Nancy Kerrigan the month before.
    1993 About 5000 demonstrators march on Atlanta's State Capitol to protest the Confederate symbol on the Georgia state flag.
    1991 Iceland recognizes Lithuania's independence
    ^ 1988 Russian ships bump US destroyer and cruiser
          Two Soviet warships bump two US navy vessels in waters claimed by the Soviet Union. The incident was an indication that even though the Cold War was slowly coming to a close, old tensions and animosities remained unabated. The incident between the ships took place in the Black Sea, off the Crimean peninsula. The US destroyer Caron and cruiser Yorktown were operating within the 12-mile territorial limit claimed by the Soviet Union. They were challenged by a Soviet frigate and destroyer and told to leave the waters. Then, according to a Navy spokesman, the Soviet ships "shouldered" the US ships out of the way, bumping them slightly. There was no exchange of gunfire, and the US ships eventually departed from the area. There was no serious damage to either US vessel or any injuries.
          In many ways, the incident was an unnecessarily provocative action by the United States. For many years, the United States had challenged the Russian claim of a 12-mile territorial limit in the waters off the Crimean peninsula. However, the timing and the use of the Caron in this particular operation made this a rather foolish act. The United States and the Soviet Union were engaged in negotiations to limit long-range nuclear weapons, and in December 1987, the important INF Treaty, by which both the United States and the Soviet Union agreed to eliminate their medium-range nuclear missiles in Europe, had been signed.
          The Caron was well known as an intelligence gathering vessel and its appearance in waters claimed by the Soviets would be seen as suspicious at best. For their part, the Soviets probably overreacted. US ships regularly moved through the area and were usually unchallenged. Perhaps the Soviet military felt a message should be sent that Russia, which was experiencing severe economic and political problems, was still a nation to be taken seriously as a major military power.
    ^ 1987 $10.5 billion Texaco fine upheld on appeal.
          During the mid-1980s, two of the nation's oil giants, Texaco and Penzoil, engaged in a nasty, protracted battle to acquire a plum prize — Getty Oil. When Getty first went on the block, Penzoil made a handsome $5.3 billion offer; Getty accepted the bid and Penzoil's purchase was duly celebrated by both sides. However, the deal was never sealed with a written contract, opening the door for Texaco to make a bid that doubled Penzoil's offer. Smelling pay dirt, Getty shunned its original suitor and brokered a deal with Texaco, who wisely confirmed the acquisition with a written contract. But, Penzoil battled back, suing Texaco for proffering an illegal takeover bid. In 1985, a Texas court ruled that, despite never signing a formal contract, Penzoil and Getty had nonetheless consented to a binding deal, and Texaco was slapped with a whopping $10.5 billion fine. Texaco responded with a counter-suit, but the company’s efforts ultimately proved futile: on this day in 1987, a Texas court upheld the initial decision in the case, preserving the hefty fine against Texaco.
    1987 Survivors of a black man murdered by KKK members awarded $7 million damages.
    1981 Cape Verde amends its constitution.
    1981 Admiral Bobby R Inman, USN, becomes deputy director of CIA
    1973 first US POWs in N. Vietnam released; 116 of 456 flown to Philippines
    ^ 1972 Cambodians attack to retake Angkor Wat from North Vietnamese.
          About 6000 Cambodian troops start a major operation to wrestle the religious center of Angkor Wat from 4000 North Vietnamese troops entrenched around the famous Buddhist temple complex, which had been seized in June 1970. Fighting continued throughout the month. Even with the addition of 4,000 more troops, the Cambodians were unsuccessful, and eventually abandoned their efforts to expel the North Vietnamese. 1973 Release of US POWs begins The release of US POWs begins in Hanoi as part of the Paris peace settlement. The return of US POWs began when North Vietnam released 142 of 591 US prisoners at Hanoi's Gia Lam Airport. Part of what was called Operation Homecoming, the first 20 POWs arrived to a hero's welcome at Travis Air Force Base in California on February 14. Operation Homecoming was completed on March 29, 1973, when the last of 591 US prisoners were released and returned to the United States.
    1963 Argentina asks extradition of Ex-President Peron
    1962 Bus boycott starts in Macon GA
    1958 General Miguel Ydegoras Fuentes elected President of Guatemala
    1957 Researchers announce Borazan (harder than diamonds) been developed
    1955 Soviets decides space center built in Baikonur, Kazakhstan
    1955 President Eisenhower sends first US advisors to South Vietnam
    1953 USSR breaks diplomatic relations with Israel after terrorists bombed the Soviet legation in Tel Aviv.
    ^ 1953 Willys-Overland’s 50th anniversary
          The Willys-Overland Company, which brought America the Jeep, celebrated its golden anniversary. The original design for an all-terrain troop transport vehicle — featuring four-wheel drive, masked fender-mount headlights, and a rifle rack under the dash — was submitted to the US Armed Forces by the American Bantam Car Company in 1939. The Army loved Bantam’s design, but the production contract was ultimately given to Willys-Overland on the basis of its similar design and superior production capabilities. Mass production of the Willys Jeep began after the US declaration of war in 1941. By 1945, 600,000 Jeeps had rolled off the assembly lines and onto battlefields in Asia, Africa, and Europe. The name "Jeep" is supposedly derived from the Army’s request to car manufacturers to develop a "General Purpose" vehicle. "Gee Pee" turned to "Jeep" somewhere along the battle lines. The Willys Jeep became a cultural icon in the US during World War II, as images of G.I.s in Gee Pees liberating Europe saturated the newsreels in movie theaters across the country. Unlike the Hummer of recent years, the Jeep was not a symbol of technological superiority but rather of the courage of the American spirit, a symbol cartoonist Bill Mauldin captured when he drew a weeping soldier firing a bullet into his broken down Willys Jeep. In 1945, Willys-Overland introduced the first civilian Jeep vehicle, the CJ-2A.
    1950 Senator Joe McCarthy claims to have list of 205 communist government employees
    1950 Albert Einstein warns against hydrogen bomb.
    1947 Daytime fireball and meteorite fall seen in eastern Siberia.
    1944 Wendell Wilkie (R) enters presidential race.
    1942 3 German battle cruisers escape via Channel to Brest N Germany.
    ^ 1941 Rommel takes command of Afrika Korps.
          German General Erwin Rommel arrives in Tripoli, Libya, with the newly formed Afrika Korps, to reinforce the beleaguered Italians' position. In January 1941, Adolf Hitler established the Afrika Korps for the explicit purpose of helping his Italian Axis partner maintain territorial gains in North Africa. "For strategic, political, and psychological reasons, Germany must assist Italy in Africa," the Fuhrer declared. The British had been delivering devastating blows to the Italians; in three months they pushed the Italians out of Egypt while wounding or killing 20'000 Italian soldiers and taking another 130'000 prisoner.
          Having commanded a panzer division in Germany's successful French and Low Countries' campaigns, General Rommel was dispatched to Libya along with the new Afrika Korps to take control of the deteriorating situation. Until that time, Italian General Ettore Bastico was the overall commander of the Axis forces in North Africa — which included a German panzer division and the Italian armored division. Rommel was meant to command only his Afrika Korps and an Italian corps in Libya, but he wound up running the entire North African campaign.
          The German soldiers of the Afrika Korps found adapting to the desert climate initially difficult; Rommel found commanding his Italian troops, who had been used to an Italian commander, difficult as well. When Hitler, preoccupied with his plans for his Soviet invasion, finally gave the go-ahead for an offensive against British positions in Egypt, Rommel's forces were stopped dead in their tracks and then forced to retreat. In the famous battle of El Alamein, the outmanned British Eighth Army — beginning in October 23, 1942 — surprised the German commander with its brute resolve, and pushed him and his Afrika Korps back across and out of North Africa. (Ironically, the Arabs celebrated Rommel, called "the Desert Fox," as a liberator from British imperialism.) Retreat followed retreat, and Rommel finally withdrew from North Africa entirely and returned to Europe in March of 1943, leaving the Afrika Korps in other hands.
    ^ 1938 Austrian chancellor Schuschnigg visits Hitler in Berchtesgaden
          From 1933 onwards the responsible politicians in Austria left their safe democratic ground. There was a short time in 1934 when the government could have had the option of building up a broad front against National Socialism, but after the Civil War in February 1934 the Social Democratic Party was excluded by the government from any political participation (before that the Social Democrats were the guarantors against National Socialist activity) As a consequence, concessions were made to Hitler’s Germany. After the National Socialist July Putsch in 1934, Franz Langoth, a Linz citizen, established a “Hilfswerk” meaning social assistance for imprisoned National Socialists, tolerated by both the Austrian Government and the Upper Austrian Security Authorities. Langoth, together with other “moderate” German-national politicians negotiated with representatives of the government to enable the National Socialists in Austria to continue their largely free activities. On 12th February 1938, Adolf Hitler dictated to the Austrian Chancellor Kurt Schuschnigg further conditions. Arthur Seyss-Inquart was appointed to become the new Minister of the Interior. There was no way of stopping the members of the Austrian National Socialist Party. There were mass demonstrations throughout the whole country. The destiny of an independent Austria was sealed.
    1935 Great airship, USS Macon, crashes into Pacific Ocean
    1934 France hit by a general strike against fascists and royalists
    1933 German vice-chancellor von Papen demands Catholic aid for Nazis
    1927 British expeditionary army lands in Shanghai
    1925 Estonia forbids Communist Party
    1924 The first advertising-sponsored radio program is broadcast. "The Eveready Hour," was sponsored by the National Carbon Company and broadcast in New York, Washington, and Providence. Sponsored programs, which would later give way to spot advertising, provided much of the economic impetus behind the growth of radio and television.
    1921 Soviet troops invade Georgia (theirs, not ours)
    1921 Winston Churchill becomes British minister of Colonies
    1913 El embajador de EUA en México, señor Henry Lane Wilson, en compañía de los ministros de Alemania e Inglaterra, se entrevista en Palacio Nacional con el presidente Madero, para pedirle garantías para las propiedades de extranjeros en estos momentos de convulsión interna.
    1912 China adopts the Gregorian calendar
    1912 Last Ch'ing (Manchu) emperor of China, Henry P'u-i, abdicates
    1886 2nd British government of Salisbury forms
    1879 News about slaughtering of Isandlwana reaches London
    1877 The first telephone news dispatch is called into the Boston Globe in Boston from Salem, Massachusetts, using equipment provided by Alexander Graham Bell.
    1874 King David Kalakaua of Sandwich Island HI, is first king to visit US.
    1873 Congress abolishes bimetallism and authorizes $1 and $3 gold coins
    ^ 1865 First Black to address US House of Representatives.
          Reverend Dr. Henry Highland Garnet, the first African-American ever permitted in the US House of Representatives, delivers a sermon to a crowded House chamber. His sermon commemorates the victories of the Union army and the deliverance of the country from slavery. Garnet, a former slave himself, was a pastor of the Fifteenth Street Presbyterian Church in Washington, D.C. President Abraham Lincoln, with the unanimous consent of his cabinet and the two congressional chaplains, had arranged for the special Sunday service, to be held on February 12, the president’s fifty-sixth birthday. Garnet escaped to the North in 1824, where he became a prominent abolitionist, famous for his radical appeal to slaves to rise up and slay their masters. In 1881, he was appointed US minister to Liberia, but he died only two months after his arrival in the African nation.
    1861 Provisional Confederate Congress establishes Peace Commission to prevent war with the United States.
    1861 State troops seize US munitions in Napoleon AK.
    1839 Boundary dispute between Maine and New Brunswick leads to Aroostook
    ^ 1837 Demonstration against high prices.
          An irate group of unemployed New Yorkers gathered to protest skyrocketing food and fuel prices, as well as the city's rapidly escalating rents. The demonstration quickly degenerated into violence, as the workers turned their anger on a flour warehouse. For the city, as well as the rest of the nation, the outburst was a strong indicator of the fiscal troubles that would bubble over later that year. Come that May, a host of events, including a wave of bank failures and a brewing recession, both of which stemmed from President Andrew Jackson's decision to yank all Federal deposits from the second Bank of the United States, signaled the onset of the Panic of 1837. The panic hung over America for the next seven years, debilitating the nation's economy and triggering rampant unemployment.
    1832 Ecuador annexes Galápagos Islands
    1825 Unequal Creek Indian treaty signed; tribal chiefs are forced to “agree” to turn over all their land in Georgia to the government and migrate west by 1 September 1826
    1818 Chile gains independence from Spain
    ^ 1793 First US fugitive slave law
          The US Congress passes the first fugitive slave law, requiring all states, including those that forbid slavery, to forcibly return slaves who have escaped from other states to their original owners. The laws states that "no person held to service of labor in one state, under the laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in consequence of any law or regulation therein, be discharged from such labor or service or labor, but shall be delivered up on claim of the party to whom such service or labor may be due." As Northern states abolish slavery, most relax enforcement of the 1793 law, and many pass laws ensuring fugitive slaves a jury trial. Several Northern states even enact measures prohibiting state officials from aiding in the capture of runaway slaves or from jailing the fugitives. This disregard of the first fugitive slave law enrages Southern states, and as part of the Compromise of 1850 between the North and South, the second fugitive slave law is passed, calling for the return of slaves "on pain of heavy penalty." In addition, these fugitives would be allowed a jury trial but they would be prohibited from testifying in their own defense. Notable fugitive slave trials, such as the Dred Scott case of 1857, stirred up public opinion in both the North and South. In addition to official resistance by some Northern state government, fugitive slaves circumvented the law through the "Underground Railroad," which was a network of persons, primarily free African-Americans, who helped fugitives escape to freedom in the Northern states or Canada.
    1779 Por órdenes de Antonio María Bucareli y Ursúa, de 62 años, virrey número 46 de la Nueva España (1771-1779), parten del puerto de San Blas (en el hoy Estado de Nayarit), las fragatas Princesa y Favorita, para explorar las costas del Pacífico norte, hasta el puerto de San Francisco en la Alta California. Bucareli muere el 9 de abril del mismo año. Es autor de the Colección de todas las providencias de su gobierno y reglamento para el cuerno de militares invalidos en la Nueva España.
    1772 Yves de Kerguelen of France discovers Kerguelen Archipelago, India.
    1762 English fleet occupies Martinique
    ^ 1733 Georgia colonists settle at Savannah
          Along the Savannah River, British colonists led by James Edward Oglethorpe found the town of Savannah — the first permanent European settlement in Georgia. One month before, Oglethorpe, a British philanthropist and member of the House of Commons, arrived at Charleston, South Carolina, with a group of a hundred debtors to settle the territory. First elected to the British Parliament in 1722, Oglethorpe became concerned with the plight of the debtor classes as chairman of a parliamentary committee investigating the deplorable penal conditions in Britain at the time. In 1732, he proposed the establishment of an asylum for debtors in the region south of the American colony of South Carolina. The British recognized the advantages of a buffer colony between South Carolina and Spanish Florida and Oglethorpe was made a twenty-year trustee of the colony of Georgia, named after King George II. He carefully selected about one hundred debtors, and on January 11, 1733, the expedition sailed into South Carolina’s Charleston Bay. After purchasing supplies, Oglethorpe led the settlers down the coast to Georgia, where they traveled inland along the Savannah River, establishing the settlement of Savannah on February 12. After forging friendly relations with the Yamacraw, a branch of the Creek Confederacy who agreed to cede land to the colonists for settlement, he set about establishing a defense against the Spanish, building forts, and instituting a system of military training. In 1739, England declared war on Spain, and in 1742, Oglethorpe defeated the Spanish on St. Simons Island off the coast of Georgia, effectively ending Spanish claims to the territory of Georgia. Georgia, rich in export potential, later grew into one of the most prosperous British colonies in America.
    1709 Alexander Selkirk, Scottish seaman is rescued after 4+ years from Fernandez Island (inspiration for Daniel Defoe's "Robinson Crusoe")
    1624 English parliament comes together.
    1577 Spanish land guardian Don Juan of Habsburg signs "Eternal Edict"
    1528 Treaty of Dordrecht between emperor and ecclesiastical power
    1502 Granada Moslems forced to convert to Catholicism
    1130 Pope Innocent II elected
    1111 German King Henry V arrives at St Peter, Rome
    1049 Bruno count of Egesheim and Dagsburg crowned Pope Leo IX
    TO THE TOP
    Deaths which occurred on a February 12:
    2003:: 3 Islamic Jihad Palestinians including Jadi Suleiman, 18, and Abdel Rahman Hamadiyeh, 20, both of the Jabalya refugee camp; two killed by Israeli tank fire and one by small arms fire are he was coming to the assistance of the other two; near the enclave settlement Dugit in the north of the Gaza Strip, before the three had a chance to use the hand grenades and knives which the Israeli say they were carrying; in the early morning.
    2003 Fourteen hajjis trampled in Mina, Saudi Arabia, during the devil-stoning ritual of the three pillars.
    2003
    2003 Twenty demonstrators in plaza Murillo of La Paz, Bolivia, between 13:16 and 18:00 as government troops [photo below] (including snipers on rooftops) fire at some 7000 striking policemen demanding a 40% raise and protesters against a project of income tax announced by president Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada on 09 February (designed to reduce the government's budget deficit to the 5.5% called for by an agreement with the International Monetary Fund). Striking firemen let burn the fires set by the rioters. Sánchez de Lozada withdraws the tax proposal, but looters and vandals rampage through the night.
    Bolivian troops ready to shoot policemen
    2001 Six soldiers in one of two US Army Black Hawk helicopters which crashed in heavy rain during a nighttime exercise over Kahuku on the island of Oahu. The two helicopters may have collided. 11 others were injured while four of the 17 soldiers on the two aircraft escaped unharmed.
    2001 Ziyad Abu Swai, 20, Palestinian shot in the chest by Ziyad Abu Swai, 20 by Israeli soldiers firing on a bus taking Palestinian workers to jobs in Israel via a back road to elude the army blockade of West Bank communities. Near the village of al-Khader, the bus encounters an Israeli army bulldozer, and soldiers order the driver to turn back. The back window of the bus is shattered by bullets. Another passenger, Mohammed Barmeel, is seriously injured in the neck This brings to 389 the number of people killed (close to 90% of them Arabs) during the 4-month-old al-Aqsa intifada provoked by Ariel Sharon.
    ^ James Bulger1993 James Bulger, 35 months old, tortured to death by two 10-year-olds.
         A small boy [photo >] who was to turn three in March was taken from the Strand shopping center in Bootle, Liverpool, by two 10 year old boys. Jamie Bulger walked away from his mother for only a second and Jon Venables took his hand and led him out of the mall with his friend Robert Thompson. They took Jamie on a walk for over 2 and a half miles, along the way stopping every now and again to torture the poor little boy who was crying constantly for his mommy. Finally they stopped at the railway line at Walton Lane, Liverpool. where they brutally kicked him and threw stones at him and rubbed paint in his eyes and pushed batteries up his anus. They then left his beaten small body on the tracks so a train could run him over to hide the mess they had created.
         Denise Bulger's statement, made before James' body had been found, contained the words of a mother who believed her child was still alive. She used the present tense. James's hair 'is ready for cutting,' she said. 'His eyes are blue but in the right eye is a brown streak. He has a full set of baby teeth.' Mrs. Bulger, 25, remembered, as only a mother who had dressed her child that morning could, that he was wearing a Noddy T-shirt, and that his white underpants had 'a yellow stripe and a black stripe which is very thin, almost a pencil line'. She told - a truly horrendous irony - how James 'loved anything to do with trains'. Then she described the moment she realized he had gone. She was in the butcher's shop, A. R. Timms. 'James had been at my side while I was being served. But as I looked down he had gone. I panicked and ran to the security office.'
    the adbuction[< the abduction, from security video tape] 
    At the trial
    ( 1 Nov — 24 Nov 1993):
         7 Nov 1993: Mrs. Bulger, of Kirkby, Merseyside, was not in court for the first week of the trial, expected to last four weeks. She was at home, avoiding newspapers, television, anything that would add to her pain. Her husband Ralph, 26, was in court.
         5 Nov 1993: Mrs. Z cried as she told how two boys had tried to abduct her son shortly before James disappeared. Lorna Brown, 43, cried as she told how she had seen James with a fresh bump on his forehead, being led by two boys.
         Kathleen Richardson, 45, told how she was traveling on the 67a bus and had seen two boys swing James high into the air. She shouted: 'What the hell are those kids doing to that poor child. What kind of parents have they got to allow them out with a child like that?' Kathleen Richardson said she cried out in anger when she saw how roughly a baby was being treated by two older boys. She was on the 67a bus traveling home. At about 15.50, as the bus reached a roundabout about a mile from the New Strand, she saw out of the bus window two boys with a young child between them. The boys were holding the child's hands. One let go as the other swung the child high above his shoulder. She saw the child's white shoes as he came up. 'I shouted out in the bus: 'What the hell are those kids doing to that poor child! What kind of friggin' parents have they got to let them out with a child like that?' Under cross-examination, Mrs. Richardson added: 'They were being rough with him. That's what made me shout out. It will never leave me because it upset me so much.'
          5 Nov 1993: Others came closer to stopping the hike to the railway line. Irene Hitman, 63, told how she had spoken to two boys and expressed concern about the little boy with them. The toddler 'had a lump on his forehead and a terrible lump on the top of his head'. He was struggling. 'His little legs seemed to be giving out under him,' she said. But again the boys moved on relentlessly towards Walton Lane.
    Jamie Bulger     Earlier, the court heard that by the time James had reached the Leeds and Liverpool canal, a quarter of a mile from the New Strand, he was in a distressed condition. Malcolm Walton said he saw a child, whom he later identified as James, clearly upset. 'He was crying his eyes out.'
          4 Nov 93:
         The jury in a packed courtroom in Preston crown court watched in silence as the drama of the last seconds leading up to James Bulger's alleged abduction by two 11-year-old boys flickered in front of them on video screens. In what the prosecution described as a 'compilation video', the court was shown a sequence of frames which captured the vital moments before James went missing. They were taken on February 12 by 16 video cameras set up around the New Strand shopping precinct in Bootle. The frames, staggered by intervals of two or three seconds, made the images jump like an early silent movie. The video, the prosecution alleged, gave a detailed account of how the two-year-old was lured to his death. The boys, who can be named only as child A and child B, deny the charges.
          The prosecution used a single white arrow superimposed on the footage to direct the gaze of jurors. The film, blurred and of poor definition, started at 12.23 when two boys could be seen walking towards the camera. Richard Henriques QC, prosecuting, said the boy in a dark coat was child A, while child B wore a lighter jacket. The footage cuts between shots of the boys in the shopping center Some show them close together, jostling or playfully kicking each other. In other frames they have wandered apart. At 15.14 the video captured them hanging around a book stall in the center of the precinct square. After a couple of minutes, they moved on again. At 15.37 James Bulger and his mother, Denise, came into view walking towards the camera positioned outside AR Timms butchers. The following seconds caught the instant when James disappeared. At 15.38, while his mother was paying for some sausages, he was captured on the bottom right-hand corner of the screen standing on his own. He appeared to glance around him, then walked out of the field of vision. A minute and a half later, Denise rushed out of the shop. She was seen hurrying in several directions searching for her son. By 15.41 the first shots were taken of James walking across the precinct square in close proximity to the two boys. In one frame he was holding the hand of the one said to be child B. The three boys were filmed moving away out of the main exit of the precinct's upper level. The final frame, taken at 15.43, showed them fading into the distance.
          The Crown's witnesses added flesh to this skeleton account of events. Angela Higgins described how she and her two sons, who were convalescing from chickenpox, had visited the New Strand on the day James went missing. She saw two boys 'messing around' with a fire hydrant and thought they should have been at school. Without her noticing, her younger son, aged four, went up to the boys to ask them what they were doing. When she called him back the taller of the two boys appeared to be talking to him. Hearing her voice, the taller boy looked at her. 'He held my stare. Then he turned to his friend, muttered something and wandered off.' The testimony jumped forward in time to about 15.15 when Pamela Armstrong, a nurse, was running a health information stall in the central square of the precinct. She saw a young boy approach the stall and pick up a book. He leafed through some pages, then 'put the book back roughly'. She said the boy, who was wearing a beige anorak and dark trousers, was then joined by a second boy, and they both began 'tormenting an old lady'.
          Ms Armstrong's mother, Hilda, who was also at the stall, said she saw the boys shoving each other. 'I was speaking to a lady about a medical problem and they were grabbing at our books as if to take them. They gave cheek until we could take it no longer and this lady swung her bag at them and said: 'Clear off you cheeky brats.' They moved off.' Anthony Flaherty, a sales manager, said he was with his wife outside Toymaster. He saw a boy come out of the toy shop holding what he assumed to be a stolen tin of modeling paint. He described the boy with the paint as carrying a light, beige-colored jacket over his arm. He was joined by a boy wearing a dark jacket. Brian Walsh QC, defending child B, referred Mr. Flaherty to the police statement he had made 10 days after the incident. It said the boy holding the paint carried a dark jacket while the other's was beige. 'You got it completely the wrong way round,' Mr. Walsh said. 'Yes sir, I am very, very nervous,' Mr. Flaherty replied. Another shopper, Janet Naylor, said she saw two boys, who she identified as the defendants from photographs, in front of the side entrance of Timms butchers. One dropped a small tin of paint, spilling some of it. Ms Naylor then entered the butcher's and a few minutes later a woman came in shouting: 'I cannot see him outside.' She was referring to her son. The trial continues today. (4 Nov 93)

    3 Nov 1993: Mrs. Bulger goes to hospital for a routine test on her pregnancy. Everything is fine. The baby is due in December.

    “All little boys are nice until they get older.” — Robert Thompson, age 11

    On 22 June 2001, the British authorities announced that Robert Thompson and Jon Venables, both then 18, would be released, because a parole board ruled they were no longer a danger to the public. They would be given new homes and identities, which a court order bars the British media from revealing. Foreign media vowed to publish the information, and many expect “the evil pair” to be murdered.
    1980 Hille, mathematician.
    1977 Cunningham, mathematician
    ^ 1971 Arthur Edward McLeod and Clyde David Wilkinson, as their helicopter explodes in Vietnam.
         Warrant Officer McLeod (born 17 August 1947), of Bay Shore NY, is the pilot, and Captain Clyde D. Wilkinson (born 18 March 1945), of Mineral Wells TX, the aircraft commander of an AH1G helicopter flying an armed reconnaissance mission west of Quang Tri, South Vietnam. During an attack on a target, the helicopter is hit by enemy ground fire. McLeod radioes that the engine oil bypass caution light is on, and that he will attempt to return to Khe Sanh. On the return attempt, the helicopter begins to smoke and burn, and as it attempts to land at 16º43'02"N, 106º34'20"E, just prior to touchdown it explodes and crashes, followed by intense fire and ammunition detonation, which almost completely consume the helicopter.
    American Gothic1962 Pérès, mathematician.
    1958 Marcel Cachin, 88, first communist French senator
    1958 Hartree, mathematician.
    1948. Héctor Pérez Martínez
    muere en el puerto de Veracruz, polifacético campechano, odontólogo, periodista, literato y político. Fue gobernador de su Estado y secretario de Gobernación con el presidente Alemán. Aparte de diversos poemas y estudios literarios, dejó las obras: Juárez el impasible y Cuauhtémoc, vida y obra.
    1942 Avraham Stern, 34, killed by British as they discover the Tel Aviv hiding place of the extremist Zionist terrorist founder of LEHI (Lohamei Herut Yisrael), better known as the Stern Gang..
    ^ 1942 Grant Wood, 49, US painter [American Gothic >]
          Grant Wood adopted the precise realism of 15th-century northern European artists, but his native Iowa provided the artist with his subject matter. American Gothicdepicts a farmer and his spinster daughter posing before their house, whose gabled window and tracery, in the American Gothic style, inspired the painting's title. In fact, the models were the painter's sister and their dentist. Wood was accused of creating in this work a satire on the intolerance and rigidity that the insular nature of rural life can produce; he denied the accusation. American Gothic is an image that epitomizes the Puritan ethic and virtues that he believed dignified the Midwestern character.
    ^ 1940 Day 75 of Winter War: USSR aggression against Finland.
    More deaths due to Stalin's desire to grab Finnish territory.

    Fierce fighting continues in Summa

          Northern Finland: Colonel Dolin, commander of the enemy ski brigade bearing his name, is killed in a skirmish with a Finnish patrol in Kuhmo.
          Karelian Isthmus: the Red Army enlarges its breakthrough in the Lähde sector.
          The enemy fails to break through in other sectors of the front.
          The enemy continues to attack on the Muolaanjärvi-Punnusjärvi isthmuses.
          The Kirvesmäki stronghold in Taipale is lost and attempts to retake it prove unsuccessful.
          Heavy fighting continues in Summa.
          Referring to the aid Finland is expecting from the international community, Foreign Minister Väinö Tanner issues a statement in his own name via the Finnish News Agency in which he denies claims of attempts to broker a peace.
          Prime Minister Ryti and Minister without Portfolio J.K. Paasikivi describe Tanner's statement as ill-considered.
          While in Turku en route for a secret trip to Stockholm, Tanner receives details from Chargé d'Affaires Erkko of the Soviet Union's terms for peace. The Soviet terms are passed on to the Finnish Government.
          The Ministry of Supply announces new maximum prices for coffee: the maximum permitted retail price for roasted ersatz containing at least 25% coffee is 20 markkaa per kilo, with Rio blend at 34 markkaa, the Central American Santos blend 32 markkaa and Quality blend at 50 markkaa per kilo.
          Abroad: Karl J. Ewerts, the director of volunteer recruitment in Sweden, returns from a trip to the Karelian Isthmus and issues a statement to the press calling for weapons, men and vehicles to be sent to Finland.
          The first 10 Finnish flying cadets arrive in Stockholm for training provided by the Royal Swedish Aero Club.
          In the United States, the "one dollar collection" organized by the Finnish committee has already raised over a million dollars

    ^ Taistelut Summassa jatkuvat ankarina Talvisodan 75. päivä, 12.helmikuuta.1940
           Kuhmossa vihollisen hiihtoprikaatin komentaja eversti Dolin kaatuu suomalaispartion kanssa käydyssä kahakassa.
          Puna-armeija laajentaa läpimurtoaan Lähteen lohkolla Länsi-Kannaksella.
          Muualla vihollisen hyökkäykset torjutaan.
         Vihollisen hyökkäykset jatkuvat Muolaanjärven-Punnusjärven kannaksilla.
          Kirvesmäen tukikohta menetetään Taipaleessa ja yritys sen takaisin valtaamiseksi epäonnistuu.
          Taistelut Summassa jatkuvat ankarina.
          Ulkoministeri Tanner viittaa Suomelle ulkomailta tulevaan apuun ja antaa omissa nimissään Suomen Tietotoimiston kautta tiedonannon julkisuuteen, jossa torjutaan tiedot rauhanvälityshankkeista. Pääministeri Ryti ja ministeri Paasikivi pitävät Tannerin lausuntoa harkitsemattomana.
          Tanner matkustaa salaiselle matkalle Tukholmaan ja saa jo Turussa tietää ministeri Erkolta Neuvostoliiton rauhanehdoista.
          Neuvostoliiton rauhanehdot välitetään Suomen hallituksen tietoon.
          Kansanhuoltoministeriö määrää kahville uudet enimmäishinnat: paahdettu kahvinkorvike, jossa on vähintäin 25% kahvia, saa maksaa vähittäiskaupassa enintäin 20 mk kilo, Rio-sekoitus 34 mk, keski-amerikkalainen Santos-sekoitus 32 ja Laatusekoitus 50 mk kilo.
          Ruotsin vapaaehtoisen värväys-toiminnan johtaja Karl J. Ewerts palaa Kannaksen vierailultaan ja antaa lehdistölle lausunnon, jossa hän vaatii ennen kaikkea aseiden, miehien ja koneiden toimittamista Suomelle.
          Tukholmaan saapuu ensimmäiset 10 suomalaista lento-oppilasta Ruotsin Kuninkaallisen Aeroklubin kustantamaan lentokoulutukseen.
          Yhdysvalloissa Suomen komitean järjestämä niin sanottu yhden dollarin keräys on tuottanut yli miljoona dollaria.

    ^ De häftiga striderna i Summa fortsätter Vinterkrigets 75 dag, den 12 februari 1940
         I Kuhmo stupar den fientliga skidlöparbrigadens kommendör överste Dolin i sammandrabbningar med en finsk patrull.
          Röda Armén utvidgar sin inbrytning på Lähdeavsnittet på västra delarna av Näset.
          På övriga håll avvärjs fiendens attacker.
          Fienden fortsätter att anfalla på näsen mellan Muolaanjärvi och Punnusjärvi.
          I Taipale går basen vid Kirvesmäki förlorad och försöket att återerövra den misslyckas.
          De häftiga striderna i Summa fortsätter.
          Utrikesminister Tanner hänvisar till hjälpen som Finland får från utlandet och publicerar ett meddelande i sitt eget namn via Finlands Nyhetsbyrå där han bestrider uppgifterna om försöken till fredsförmedling.
          Statsminister Ryti och minister Paasikivi anser att Tanner handlat oöverlagt.
          Tanner reser i hemlighet till Stockholm och får redan i Åbo veta Sovjetunionens fredsvillkor av minister Erkko.
          Sovjetunionens fredsvillkor förmedlas till Finlands regering.
          Folkförsörjningsministeriet fastställer nya maximipriser för kaffe: rostat kaffesurrogat som innehåller minst 25 % kaffe får kosta högst 20 mk/kg i detaljhandeln, Rio-blandning 34 mk/kg, mellanamerikansk Santos-blandning 32 mk/kg och Kvalitetsblandning 50 mk/kg.
          Karl J. Ewerts, direktör för värvningen av svenska frivilliga, återvänder från sitt besök på Näset och ger ut ett pressmeddelande där han kräver att framför allt vapen, män och flygplan sänds till Finland.
          De 10 första flygeleverna anländer till Stockholm för att delta i flygutbildning på bekostnad av Kungliga Svenska Aeroklubben.
          I USA har den såkallade endollarsinsamlingen som arrangerats av den finska kommittén bringat in över en miljon dollar.

    1916 J. W. Richard Dedekind, 84, German mathematician (Dedekind cuts)
    1901 Ramón Valle muere en la ciudad de México, distinguido guanajuatense , poeta, dramaturgo, novelista, periodista y militar, quien luchó contra la intervención francesa; fue diputado local y secretario del Ayuntamiento de la capital de su Estado. Después de estas actividades se retira a la vida privada, termina la carrera eclesiástica y se dedica a la teología y las letras.
    ^ 1804 Immanuel Kant, 79, German philosopher (Zum ewigen Frieden), in Königsberg, Prussia. He was born on 22 April 1724.
    KANT ONLINE (in English translations): The Critique of JudgementThe Critique of Practical ReasonThe Critique of Pure ReasonFundamental Principles of the Metaphysic of MoralsThe Metaphysical Elements of Ethics The Philosophy of Law: An Exposition of the Fundamental Principles of Jurisprudence as the Science of RightProlegomena to Any Future MetaphysicsUniversal Natural History and Theory of Heaven (in English and German),
    ^ Click for full painting by Delaroche1554 Lady Jane Grey, 16, and husband Guilford Dudley, beheaded in the Tower of London.       ^top^

    [click on image for painting
    Execution of Lady Jane Grey, by Delaroche >]

          Lady Jane Grey, who was queen of England for nine days in July of 1553, is executed for high treason.

          On 10 July 1553, four days after the death of the King Edward VI, Lady Jane Grey, a fifteen-year-old cousin of the late king, was proclaimed queen of England. Jane’s father-in-law, John Dudley, the duke of Northumberland, had persuaded the dying Edward that his cousin Jane, a Protestant, should be chosen the royal successor over his half-sister Mary, a Catholic. On July 6, King Edward VI died from tuberculosis at the age of fifteen and Dudley set about convincing the Royal Council to approve his daughter-in-law’s ascension. Although King Henry VIII, who died in 1947, stated in his will that Mary was to succeed Edward, Dudley was successful, and on 10 July Lady Jane Grey was proclaimed queen of England.

          Two days into her reign, Dudley departed London with an army to suppress Mary’s forces, and in his absence, the Council declared him a traitor and Mary the rightful queen, ending Jane’s nine-day reign. By 20 July, most of Dudley’s army had deserted him and he was arrested. The same day, Jane was imprisoned in the Tower of London. Her father-in-law was condemned for high treason and on 23 August, executed.

          On 13 November 1553, Jane and her husband, Guildford Dudley, were likewise found guilty of treason and sentenced to death, but because of their youth and relative innocence, Mary did not carry out the death sentences.

          However, in early 1554, Jane’s father, Henry Grey, joined Sir Thomas Wyatt in his insurrection against Mary that erupted after her announcement of her intention to marry Philip II of Spain. While suppressing the revolt, Mary decided that it was also was necessary to eliminate all her political opponents, and on 7 February 1554, she signed the death warrants of Jane and her husband.

          On the morning of 12 February , Jane watched her husband being carried away to execution from the window of her cell in the Tower of London, and approximately two hours later, was executed herself. After the sixteen-year-old was beheaded, her executioner, according to British tradition, held Jane’s head aloft with the words, “So perish all the queen’s enemies. Behold, the head of a traitor.”

         [Painting of The Execution of Lady Jane Grey]
    1242 Hendrik VII Roman Catholic German king (1220-35), suicide
    1128 Toghtekin slave/atabek of Damascus
    Births which occurred on a February 12:
    1942 Ehud Barak, Israeli Prime Minister.
    1930 Arlen Specter (Senator-R-PA, 1981- )
    1918 Schwinger, mathematician.
    1914 Hanna Neumann, mathematician.
    1911 Sylvstre A Guzman Fernandez President (Dominican Republic)
    1909 National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) is founded.
    1908 Herbrand, mathematician.
    1893 Omar Bradley General of Army WWII "The GI General"
    ^ 1880 John Llewellyn Lewis, labor leader
          Along with ruling over one of the nation's landmark unions, the United Mine Workers Association (UMWA), for forty years, John L. Lewis was a frequent lightning rod for controversy, as well as a target of periodic blasts of public and political scorn. Born in Iowa on this day in 1880, Lewis had hardly hit puberty when he went to work in the coal mines of Illinois. The job set Lewis on a steady track to power and prominence: by 1911, he was an organizer for the mine union’s parent organization, the American Federation of Labor (A.F. of L.). Eight years later, Lewis was the president of the UMWA, America's biggest and most powerful trade union. In one of his earliest moves in office, Lewis led the organization's members in a triumphant, nationwide strike. However, this moment of glory quickly faded: the economy slumped in the wake of World War I, which hurt coal prices and threatened mine workers’ wages and jobs. Lewis responded with a drive to nationalize the coal industry, but his proposal was roundly dismissed. Non-unionized coal mines rose in prominence throughout the 1920s, siphoning off the UMWA's membership and gradually wresting control of a majority of the nation's coal production. Though some within the union challenged Lewis’s authority, he survived the crisis of the '20s and managed to expand his power during the next few decades. He organized the Congress of Industrial Organizations, a potent group of eight unions, including the UMWA, which, though initially affiliated with the A.F. of L., later in the decade became a powerful and independent entity in its own right. And, though a staunch Republican, Lewis found a powerful new ally in President Franklin Roosevelt. Indeed, Lewis viewed Roosevelt's New Deal legislation as a tremendous boon for labor and unabashedly pushed the movement to walk in lockstep with the White House. However, Lewis was something of an autocrat and fiercely protected his place atop the labor movement. When Roosevelt won a third term in office, Lewis, fearing that the increasingly powerful president would wrest control of the unions, pulled the UMWA out of the pro-White House CIO. Throughout the rest of the 1940s, Lewis led the coal workers in a number of high- profile walkouts. However, the seeming profusion of strikes emboldened anti-union forces, who soured public support for labor and successfully pushed for the passage of the Taft-Hartley Act (1947), which restricted labor's ability to call for the closed shop. These moves prompted Lewis to adopt more conciliatory tactics during the 1950s. In 1960, Lewis finally unleashed his grip on the UMWA's top spot. He remained involved in the organization until he died in 1969.
    1870 Carslaw, mathematician.
    1856 Maurycy Gottlieb, Polish artist who died on 17 July 1879.
    1837 Thomas Moran, US Hudson River School painter, specialized in Landscapes and the US West. His Western landscapes inspired US citizens to conserve their most spectacular wilderness areas as part of their national heritage. See below his ^ The Great Blue Spring of the Lower Geyser Basin, Yellowstone. LINKS Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone, WyomingGrand Canyon of the Yellowstone Grand Canyon with RainbowVeniceNew York from the BayMountain of the Holy CrossChasm of the ColoradoChildren of the Mountain Sierra Nevada, CaliforniaPonce De Leon in FloridaSalvador Rosa Sketching the BanditiRain in the CanyonOld Faithful GeyserHotsprings of the YellowstoneHot Springs and Gardiner's RiverCastle Geyser
    1828 George Meredith England, poet / novelist (Shaving of Shagpat). MEREDITH ONLINE: The Amazing MarriageThe Egoist: A Comedy in NarrativeAn Essay on Comedy and the Uses of the Comic SpiritLord Ormont and his Aminta (zipped) Modern LoveOne of Our Conquerors (zipped) The Ordeal of Richard FeverelPoems volume 1, volume 2, volume 3A Reading of Life, and Other Poems.
    1809 Abraham Lincoln Hodgenville KY, (R) 16th President (1861-65)
    ^ 1809 Charles Robert Darwin.
          On 27 December 1831, British naturalist Charles Darwin had set out from Plymouth, England, aboard the HMS Beagle, on a five-year surveying expedition of the southern Atlantic and Pacific oceans. Visiting such diverse places as Brazil, the Galapagos Islands, and New Zealand, Darwin acquired an intimate knowledge of the flora, fauna, wildlife, and geology of many lands. This information proves invaluable in the development of his theory of evolution, first put forth in his groundbreaking scientific work of 1859, The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection. Darwin's theory of natural selection argues that species are the result of a gradual biological evolution of living organisms in which nature encourages, through natural selection, those species best suited to their environments to propagate future descendants. The Origin of Species is the first significant work on the theory of evolution, and is greeted with great interest in the scientific world, although it is also violently attacked because it contradicts the account of creation given in the Bible. Nevertheless, the work, unquestionably one of the most important in the history of science, eventually succeeds in gaining acceptance from almost all biologists.
         The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or The Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life would be published in England on 24 November 1859. Darwin's theory of natural selection argues that species are the result of a gradual biological evolution of living organisms in which nature encourages, through natural selection, those species best suited to their environments to propagate future descendants.
         The first printing of 1250 copies sells out in a single day. By 1872, it would have run through six editions, and become one of the most influential books of modern times. Darwin, the privileged and well-connected son of a successful English doctor, had been interested in botany and natural sciences since his boyhood, despite the discouragement of his early teachers. At Cambridge, he found professors and scientists with similar interests and with their help began participating in scientific voyages. He traveled around South America for five years as an unpaid botanist on the HMS Beagle. By the time Darwin returned, he had developed an outstanding reputation as a field researcher and scientific writer, based on his many papers and letters dispatched from South America and the Galapagos Islands, which were read at meetings of prominent scientific societies in London. Darwin began publishing studies of zoology and geology as soon as he returned from his voyage. Fearing the fate of other scientists, like Copernicus and Galileo, who had published radical scientific theories, Darwin held off publishing his theory of natural selection for years. He secretly developed his theory during two decades of surreptitious research following his trip on the Beagle. Meanwhile, he married and had seven children. He finally published Origin of Species after another scientist began publishing papers with similar ideas. His book laid the groundwork for modern botany, cellular biology, and genetics. He died in 1882.
          Darwin, who was influenced by the work of French naturalist Jean Baptiste de Lamarck, and later by English scientist Alfred Russel Wallace, acquired most of the evidence for his theory during a five-year surveying expedition aboard the HMS Beagle during the 1830s. Visiting such diverse places as Brazil, the Galapagos Islands, and New Zealand, Darwin acquired an intimate knowledge of the flora, fauna, wildlife, and geology of many lands. This information, along with his experiments with variation and interbreeding after returning to England, proved invaluable in the development of his theory of natural selection. His On the Origin of Species is the first significant work on the theory of evolution, and is greeted with great interest in the scientific world, although it is also violently attacked because it contradicts the account of creation given in the Bible. Nevertheless, the work, unquestionably one of the most important in the history of science, eventually succeeds in gaining acceptance from almost all biologists.
          Darwin, the privileged and well-connected son of a successful English doctor, had been interested in botany and natural sciences since his boyhood, despite the discouragement of his early teachers. At Cambridge, he found professors and scientists with similar interests and with their help began participating in scientific voyages, including the HMS Beagle's trip.
          By the time Darwin returned, he had developed an outstanding reputation as a field researcher and scientific writer, based on his many papers and letters dispatched from South America and the Galapagos Islands, which were read at meetings of prominent scientific societies in London. Darwin began publishing studies of zoology and geology as soon as he returned from his voyage, while also secretly working on his radical theory of evolution.
          Knowing that scientists who had published radical theories before had been ostracized or worse, Darwin held off on publishing his theory of natural selection for nearly two decades. Meanwhile, he married and had seven children. He finally published On the Origin of Species after another scientist began publishing papers with similar ideas. His book laid the groundwork for modern botany, cellular biology, and genetics. He died on 19 April 1882.
    DARWIN ONLINE:
  • The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals
  • The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals
  • The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals
  • The Formation of Vegetable Mould Through the Action of Worms, With Observations on Their Habits
  • The Movements and Habits of Climbing Plants
  • On the Origin of Species
  • On the Origin of Species
  • On the Origin of Species (zipped PDF)
  • On the Origin of Species (6th edition)
  • The Voyage of the Beagle
  • The Voyage of the Beagle
  • The Descent of Man
  • The Descent of Man
  • The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication) volume 1 , volume 2
  • The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication (PDF)
  • The Structure and Distribution of Coral Reefs
  • The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin volume I , volume II
  • The Autobiography of Charles Darwin (in The Life and Letters...)
  • More Letters of Charles Darwin volume I: , volume II
  • 1768 Francis II Florence Italy, last Holy Roman emperor (1792-1806)
    1737 John Hancock    
    ^ 1663 Cotton Mather
          Like his father Increase Mather, Cotton Mather would become a minister. They believed in witches — as did most of the world at the time — and that the guilty should be punished, but they suspected that evidence could be faulty and justice might miscarry. Witches, like other criminals, were tried and sentenced to jail or the gallows by civil magistrates. The case against a suspect rested on "spectre evidence" (testimony of a victim of witchcraft that he had been attacked by a spectre bearing the appearance of someone he knew), which the Mathers distrusted because a witch could assume the form of an innocent person. When this type of evidence was finally thrown out of court at the insistence of the Mathers and other ministers, the Salem witch hunt came to an end on 3 October 1692..
         It all began in Salem, Massachusetts, one day in May 1692 when several young girls were discovered looking for their futures in a crystal ball. When they were discovered they claimed that witches made them do it. Their parents believed them, others became hysterical, and the witch hunt was on. According to other accounts a circle of girls and women involved with palmistry and spiritualism were active between 1691 and 1692. They began to display strange behavior, and Dr. Griggs, the village doctor, diagnosed their condition as witchcraft.
          Pastor Samuel Parris, who came from England in 1689, was called in to observe their strange behavior and was joined by other ministers. The "victims" pointed fingers at three women. One "confessed" and the other two were put on trial. It should be noted that persons of some stature who opposed this and subsequent trials were the targets of the "victims" malevolence. Pastor Parris did nothing to calm the panic. He went so far as to say that witches might be found "in this very church," adding "God knows how many devils there are."
          Those who were condemned were not Satanists. For the most part they were middle-aged women and persons best described as social misfits. Some were even members of important families. Interestingly, these important families were all in opposition to Parris's ministry in Salem Village. Strangely, hardly any young or middle-aged men were accused.
          Over 150 suspected witches were put in prison and nineteen were hanged. The hangings took place on the western side of town at a site called Witches Hill.
          Among the last persons to be accused were Dorcas Good, a child of four or five years, the Rev. Samuel Willard of the Old South Church Boston, and lastly, Mrs. Hale, the wife of the minister of the first church of Beverly. Mrs. Hale's virtues and services were so well known that the accusation against her is believed to have brought people to their senses.
    COTTON MATHER ONLINE: The Greatest Concern in the World, Memorable Providences Relating to Witchcrafts and Possessions
    1588 John Winthrop English attorney/puritan/first Governor of Massachusetts
    ^ 1567 Thomas Campion, England, composer/poet/physician.
         Educated at Cambridge, Campion studied law, became a physician, and became known as one of Renaissance England's most accomplished lyric poets and songwriters. Much poetry in Elizabethan England, including some of Shakespeare's, was originally set to music. Campion combined his musical talents and poetry, creating some of the most effective and fluid lyrics and songs of the period. He broke away from conventional visual imagery in favor of sound, movement, and musical metaphors.
          Campion was skilled in Latin: One of his earliest published works was a book of Latin epigrams called Poemata (1595). He published his first book of lyric, A Booke of Ayres, in 1601, followed by several more in later years. He also wrote several court masques—elaborate pageants featuring song, poetry, and spectacular sets and costumes—as well as a work of literary criticism entitled Observations in the Art of English Poesie, which attacked the importance of rhyme and meter.
          In 1615 Campion was questioned about the murder of Sir Thomas Overbury, but was found innocent and released. Campion died, probably of the plague, on 01 March 1620.
          In 1972, the poet W.H. Auden edited a new volume of Campion's work, called The Selected Songs.
    CAMPION ONLINE: Selected Works (some with music file) — Art of English PoesieArt of English Poesie6 selected poemsfirst and second book of Ayres14 songs (lyrics and music files) — 9 songs (text) — 8 poems
    (Latin): Latin poetryEpigrams book I, book IIElegiesAd ThamesinUmbraDe Pulverea Coniuratione book I, book IIMiscellaneous poetry. //
    (English translations) Epigrams book I, book IIElegiesAd ThamesinUmbraDe Pulverea Coniuratione book I, book IIMiscellaneous poetry.
    ^ 1541 Santiago de Chile est fondée.
          Pedro de Valdivia découvre dans les Andes du sud une magnifique vallée, verdoyante à souhait. L'Espagnol dresse aussitôt l'acte de fondation d'une nouvelle ville, qu'il baptise Santiago del Nuevo Estremo, en l'honneur de Saint Jacques et de la province d'Estrémadure où il est né. Il appelle la région Chili, d'un mot indien qui désigne la neige. La nouvelle ville en deviendra la capitale. Son fondateur est un rude "conquistador" (conquérant) qui fait partie de l'armée de Pizarre. Après avoir renversé l'Inca qui règne sur le Pérou, Pizarre a envoyé une première mission d'exploration au-delà du terrible désert qui sépare le Pérou du Chili. Son chef, Almagro, se heurte à la farouche résistance des Indiens Araucans. Il bat en retraite pour finalement se faire tuer par Pizarre. Valdivia a plus de chance et, après avoir fondé Santiago, il entreprend la soumission de la région.
          Les Espagnols commencent à s'installer en nombre. Les soldats reçoivent autorité sur de vastes territoires avec les Indiens qui y vivent, à charge pour eux de les protéger, ce dont ils s'acquittent fort mal. 250 ans plus tard, l'indépendance des Etats-Unis et la Révolution française suggèrent aux colons, les créoles, l'envie de se libérer à leur tour de la tutelle monarchique. Profitant des malheurs de l'Espagne, livrée aux armées de Napoléon, un groupe de créoles proclame l'indépendance du Chili le 18 septembre 1810. Le gouverneur Bernardo O'Higgins, fils naturel d'un Irlandais, est porté à la tête du pays.
          Mais les Espagnols, sitôt débarrassés de Napoléon, reviennent en force. Réfugié à Buenos Aires, O'Higgins obtient l'aide du général José de San Martin, qui vient de son côté de libérer l'Argentine. Il repasse les Andes avec lui. Les Espagnols sont défaits à la bataille de Chacabuco le... 12 Feb 1817. O'Higgins devient dictateur. L'année suivante, encore un 12 Feb, il renouvelle solennellement la déclaration d'indépendance. Après plusieurs années de troubles, le Chili accèdera en 1833 à la stabilité avec une Constitution et un gouvernement respectés. Il y gagnera le surnom, à l'époque élogieux, de "Prusse de l'Amérique du Sud". [Pinochet devait en être nostalgique...]
    1211 Henry VII Roman Catholic German king (1220-35)
    The Ten Craziest Homework Excuses:
    10. Last night I got temporary amnesia and I totally forgot!
    9. My older sister couldn't find her same homework from last year.
    8. The dog told me the answers, but I figured “Woof! woof! arf! arf!” wasn't right.
    7. When I realized we had run out of toilet paper, it was all I had at hand.
    6. It was so hard I cried and my tears smudged all the ink.
    5. It is here, it's just in invisible ink!
    4. I heard voices telling me not to do it!
    3. What I am doing here? Who am I?
    2. My dad watched TV all evening instead of doing it.
    1. My Mom ate my homework! *
    (* important note: do NOT use excuses 7 and 1 together)
    Holidays Booneville Indiana : Nancy Hanks Lincoln Memorial Day / Burma : Union Day (1947) / Georgia : Georgia Day/Oglethorpe Day (1733) / US : Abraham Lincoln's Birthday (Traditional)

    Religious Observances Christian : St Eulalia / Orthodox : the 3 Saints—Basil the Great, Gregory the Theologian, St Anthony of Cauleas, patriarch of Constantinople / old Roman Catholic : the 7 Founders of the Servite Order
    / Saint Félix, le 54e pape. Il vécut au VIe siècle.
    Thoughts for the day: “There is a time and a place for everything, and it's called college.” — The South Park chef
    “There is a time and a place for everything, and it's always the last one you try.”
    “There is a time and a place for everything, including the one needle you need, and millions of haystacks.”
    ”There is a time and a place for everything, and it's billions of light-years away.”
    “There is a time and a place for everything, and it's tomorrow, but not here.”
    “There is a time and a place for everything, but not for everybody.”
    “There is a time and a place for everything, but nobody knows when or where.”
    “There is a time and a place for everything, but everything is always somewhere else.”

    TO THE TOP
    PLEASE CLICK HERE TO WRITE TO “HISTORY 4 2DAY”
    http://h42day.0catch.com/history/h4feb/h4feb12.html
    http://members.xoom.virgilio.it/all42day/history/h4feb/h4feb12.html
    updated Sunday 16-Feb-2003 15:37 UT

    safe site
    site safe for children safe site

    Thomas Moran's The Great Blue Spring of the Lower Geyser Basin, Yellowstone.
    TO THE TOP