On a July 02:
2001
Artificial heart is implanted in patient.
Surgeons from the University
of Louisville implant the first self-contained artificial heart,
a titanium and plastic pump, into Robert Tools at Jewish Hospital.
Doctors said they expect the new implant to extend the patient's
life only a month or so. But the device is considered a technological
leap from mechanical hearts used in the 1980s, which were attached
by wires and tubes to machinery outside the body.
The new grapefruit-sized pump,
known as AbioCor, is designed to allow recipients to maintain
a productive lifestyle while wearing it. No wires, no tubes.
Power is sent from a battery pack worn outside the body through
the skin to an implanted coil, control package and backup battery.
The internal battery, about the size of a typical pager, can
work on its own for about 30 minutes between charges
long enough for a patient to take a shower, for example.
Drs. Laman Gray and Robert Dowling,
who trained by implanting the pump in baby cows, performed the
surgery. Surgical teams at four other hospitals around the country
had been trained to do the surgery, but Louisville was first.
Experts hope that the experimental heart, made by Abiomed Inc.
of Danvers, Massachusetts, will lead to new hope for patients
with failing hearts.
David
M. Lederman, Abiomed's
president and chief executive officer, said earlier in 2001
that the company had received Food and Drug Administration approval
to perform at least five human trials with the artificial heart.
If the experiments are successful, more patients could be added
to the trial later. Patients selected for the trial must be
suffering from a chronic, progressive heart disease expected
to result in death within 30 days. They had to be ineligible
for receiving a human heart transplant. The goal of the experimental
trials with the artificial heart is to double the life span
of these patients to 60 days, but every patient is expected
to die on the AbioCor.
A second goal is to evaluate how
the mobile mechanical heart affects the quality of life of those
patients, most of whom are so ill that they cannot walk or perform
the daily routine of life, such as getting dressed.
The first recipient of an artificial
heart, Barney Clark, a Seattle-area dentist, lived 112 days
after receiving a Jarvik-7 device on 02 December 1982. The survival
record for a total artificial heart is held by William Schroeder
of Jasper, Indiana, who lived 620 days on one before he died
in August 1986. But artificial heart patients of the 1980s all
had a variety of complications, and use of the devices as permanent
replacements for diseased hearts was largely suspended.
Still, the scientists building
the next generation of devices -including those that assist
rather than replace a diseased heart - learned too much to consider
those early tests mistakes. The second man to receive a Jarvik-7,
Thomas Gaidosh, of Sutersville, Pennsylvania, was on the device
only a few days before he received a human heart transplant.
He lived 11 more years, long enough to be best man at the wedding
of inventor Dr. Robert Jarvik.
Five hospitals were approved
as sites for implanting the AbioCor. The others were Brigham
& Women's and Massachusetts General in Boston; Hahnemann University
Hospital in Philadelphia; the Texas Heart Institute in Houston;
and the UCLA Medical Center in Los Angeles.
THE
PATIENT SURVIVES LONGER THAN EXPECTED.
[< Robert Tools, center, the recipient of the first
totally self-contained artificial heart, addressed the media
on 21 August 2001 alongside his surgeons Drs. Laman Gray Jr.,
left, and Robert Dowling.]
More than six weeks after he received
the experimental device, Robert Tools, 59, a former telephone
company employee and teacher, is introduced to the news media
via closed circuit television at Jewish Hospital in Louisville.
"I had a choice to stay home and die or come here and take a
chance," said Robert Tools of Franklin, Kentucky. "I decided
to come here and take a chance." advertisement "I asked for
it because I knew I had no more chances to survive," said Tools,
who appeared frail and spoke with an airy voice while holding
his throat because of a tracheotomy. Tools smiled as he said
the whirring sound of the device took some getting used to,
but he liked it because he knew he was alive.
Tools, a diabetic with a history
of heart problems, was deemed too ill to receive a heart transplant.
Before the surgery, he was so weak he could take only a few
steps at a time and couldn't raise his head to talk to his doctors.
Tools was given only a slight chance of surviving 30 days. Tools
moved to Kentucky from Colorado in 1996 hoping to receive a
transplant, but he grew so weak he could barely cross the street.
BUT HE SUFFERS A STROKE ON 11 NOVEMBER 2001
Robert Tools suffers a stroke
in the afternoon of 11 November and is put back on a ventilator
at Jewish Hospital.
AND DIES ON 30 NOVEMBER 2001.
He dies on 30 November 2001, having
lived with the artificial heart for 151 days, much longer than
his estimated life expectancy of 30 days before the implantation
operation and of 60 days after it. Tools began bleeding on 10
November and his organs began failing later that night. His
abdominal bleeding was caused by continuous anti-coagulation
problems Tools had experienced since the surgery. His death
was unrelated to his 11 November stroke. The deterioration of
his condition was not caused by complications or any malfunction
of the experimental AbioCor heart device. Blood-thinning drugs
are often given to patients to prevent the clots that can cause
strokes, but Tools could not be given high doses, because such
drugs can also cause internal bleeding. Doctors had said early
on that strokes were among the risks for the artificial heart
patients. The AbioCor was designed with a smooth plastic lining
to decrease the chance of blood clots forming. |
2000: Mexican elections, not yet completely fair,
but the "fairest" ever, evidence of which is that an opposition
candidate is given a chance to become the first non-PRI (Partido Revolucionario
Institucional) president in 71 years. The results announced the next
day would prove that the election is fair enough: Vicente Fox, the canditate
of PAN (Partido Acción Nacional) is elected, to assume the presidency
on December 1.
2000 et tous les ans: Tous les 2 juillet, la terre se trouve
à son aphélie. Dans son mouvement de rotation autour du Soleil,
la Terre décrit une ellipse dont le demi-grand axe est de 149'598'600
km. En janvier, la Terre est plus proche du Soleil, soit 147'100'000
km (périhélie) et en Juillet, elle est la plus éloignée, soit 152'100'000
km (aphélie). Cela fait une variation de 3,3% dans l'intensité
de la radiation solaire, négligeable par rapport à la variation
due à l'inclinaison de l'axe de la Terre.
1998 Un grupo de extremistas protestantes incendia diez capillas
católicas en Irlanda del Norte.
1996 Electricity and phone service was knocked out for millions
of customers from Canada to the Southwest after power lines throughout
the West failed on a record-hot day.
1996 Seven years after they had shot their parents to death in
the family's Beverly Hills mansion, Lyle and Erik Menendez were sentenced
to life in prison without parole.
1995 La cadena comercial española Galerías Preciados
cierra sus puertas tras más de 60 años de actividad, absorbida por su
eterno competidor El Corte Inglés.
1992 Estados Unidos comunica a la OTAN la retirada de sus armas
nucleares tácticas en Europa.
1992
One millionth Corvette ^top^
Original Corvette engineer Zora
Arkus Duntov drives the one-millionth Chevrolet Corvette
off the assembly line in Bowling Green, Kentucky. The event
is monumental to both America's first sports car and the man
that made the car possible.
Duntov was born in Belgium, the
son of Russian immigrants. He pursued an interest in motorcycle
racing and engineering until the outbreak of World War II, at
which point he joined the French Air Force. After the French
surrender, Duntov managed to secure exit visas to Spain for
his entire family. He later resettled in Manhattan, and started
a performance engineering firm, called Ardun, with his brother.
The firm enjoyed a reputation for quality, but eventually went
out of business as the result of questionable financial practices
on the part of a third partner that Duntov and his brother had
taken on.
Duntov moved to England to work
on the Allard sports car, which he co-drove at Le Mans in 1952
and 1953. Duntov earned a reputation as an exacting driver and
engineer in the European tradition of performance car racing.
After witnessing the prototype Corvette on display at the 1953
Motorama in New York City, he decided to join Chevrolet. While
Duntov was visually taken by the car, he expressed dismay at
what lay under the hood. He wrote Chevrolet chief engineer Ed
Cole and offered his services to improve the Corvette, including
with his note a technical paper outlining his plan to increase
the Corvette's performance capabilities. Chevrolet was so impressed
that engineer Maurice Olley, then in charge of the Corvette,
offered Duntov a position as a staff engineer.
Soon after arriving at Chevrolet,
Duntov set the tone for his career at the company by distributing
a paper to his superiors entitled "Thoughts Pertaining to Youth,
Hot Rodders, and Chevrolet." The paper laid the foundation for
a strategy to create both racing and performance parts programs
for Chevy. It was his desire that the Corvette measure itself
against the best sports cars in the world: Porsche, Ferrari,
and Mercedes.
He helped develop the small-block
V-8 engine to increase the little Corvette's power; he introduced
the Duntov high-lift cam-shaft; and he introduced fuel injection,
seeing the Corvette through from its inauspicious beginnings
to its triumphant end. He created the Corvette Grand Sport Program
in 1963, making the Corvette competitive on all levels of international
performance competition. Duntov also helped to build the Corvette
culture, appearing at Corvette shows, clubs, and rallies all
over the US He retired from Chevrolet in 1975, but Duntov's
legacy will stay alive as long as Corvettes roam the open road.
|
1992
Stephen Hawkings breaks British bestseller records
^top^
Theoretical physicist Stephen
Hawkings breaks British publishing records on this day in 1992.
His book, A Brief History of Time, has been on the nonfiction
bestseller list for three and a half years, selling more than
3 million copies in 22 languages. A Brief History of Time
explains the latest theories on the origins of the universe
in language accessible to educated lay people.
The book was made into an acclaimed
documentary in 1992, which focused largely on Hawkings' own
story. Diagnosed with Lou Gehrig's disease in his 20s, Hawkings
was told he had only two years to live. Despite the sobering
prognosis, Hawkings pursued his studies in theoretical physics,
married, and had a son. Eventually, his disease left him paralyzed
except for his left hand. He was able to speak, although his
speech was difficult to understand, until he underwent a tracheotomy
in 1985 during a bout with pneumonia. Afterward, he relied on
a mouse-controlled voice synthesizer, which improved the clarity
of his speech. |
1991 A European Community-brokered truce between Yugoslavia and
the breakaway republic of Slovenia was shattered as the federal army
battled Slovene militias.
1991 Electronic
forgery thwarted
The US Commerce Department
announces a standard to protect electronic documents from tampering.
The method, developed jointly with the National Security Agency,
would make it impossible to alter some documents by creating
an "electronic signature." The Commerce Department hopes that
the measure will encourage the use of electronic documents in
government transactions. |
1990 Imelda Marcos (on her 61st birthday) & Adnan Khashoggi found
not guilty of racketeering
1986 Se inicia en Chile la primera jornada de huelga general contra
Pinochet.
1985 Andrei Gromiko es nombrado presidente del Soviet Supremo
de la URSS y sustituido en la cartera de Exteriores por Eduard Shevardnadze.
1976 US Supreme Court rules death penalty not inherently cruel
or unusual
1976 Formal reunification of North & South Vietnam
1976 Proclamation
de la République Socialiste du Vietnam.
^top^
Actuellement, elle approche les
75 millions d’habitants. La démographie est importante, même
si elle a subi une diminution importante lors des guerres d’indépendance,
contre les Japonais (40 - 45) contre les Français (45 - 56)
et contre les Américains (56 - 76). De même les nouvelles conditions
de vie, exode vers les villes et urbanisation galopante, industrialisation
forcée, ouverture au monde capitaliste, retour de la propriété
privée, ont contribué à fléchir le taux de croissance.
Le régime politique reste "Communiste",
un anachronisme peut-être, mais qui semblait convenir à ce peuple
qui a essayé de penser ses plaies sans l’aide des Occidentaux,
et sans aide importante de la part du bloc Communiste. Depuis
5 ans, une réforme constitutionnelle amorce un virage prudent
vers l’économie de marché, mais la gérontocratie gouvernementale,
malgré l’apport de quelques conseillers et techniciens plus
jeunes, reste puissante et désireuse de ne pas "brûler" les
étapes.
Ce pays vaut 10 fois la Belgique,
il mesure plus de 331"000 km². Il s’étend tout en longueur
dans la partie orientale de la Péninsule Indochinoise, avec
une plaine à chaque extrémité. Il offre un peu l’image d’un
"fléau" d’épaule, une espèce de bambou qui soutiendrait un sac
de riz à chaque extrémité, car ces deux plaines sont deux deltas
très fertiles ; le delta du Sông Hông (fleuve rouge) au nord
et du Mékong (fleuve jaune) au sud.
Les 3 régions importantes sont
le Tonkin au nord (capitale Hanoï), l’Ammam au centre et la
Cochinchine au sud (capitale Saïgon). Si les plaines fertiles
des deux deltas et du littoral au centre sont très peuplées,
les montagnes couvrent près des deux tiers du territoire et
la densité d’habitants y est faible.
Sur les plans philosophique et
religieux, les Vietnamiens ont jadis reçu de la Chine le bouddhisme
Mahayana, le confucianisme et le taoïsme, qui ont profondément
marqué leur mentalité. Mais ils ont aussi pratiqué des cultes
autochtones, comme celui des ancêtres, célébré devant les tablettes
funéraires de l’autel familial, du génie gardien du village,
honoré dans le temple communal (d–ình), ceux de certains arbres,
animaux ou pierres.
Aujourd’hui, le confucianisme
et le taoïsme sont en voie de disparition, les cultes locaux
perdent de plus en plus d’adeptes, mais le bouddhisme (amidisme
et école du Dhyana) fait preuve d’une grande vitalité et 80
% des Vietnamiens déclarent y adhérer. Trois autres mouvements
religieux comptent un nombre notable de croyants ; ce sont le
catholicisme (près de 2 millions de baptisés) et, dans le Sud,
les sectes Cao-–Dài (1,5 million de fidèles) et Hoà-Ha’o. |
1975 El Frente Polisario es expulsado de Mauritania.
1966 Francia realiza su primer experimento atómico en el atolón
de Mururoa.
1964
US President Johnson signs Civil Rights Act
^top^
In a nationally televised White
House ceremony, US President Lyndon B. Johnson signs the Civil
Rights Act of 1964 into law, after lobbying hard for its passage.
The act, which is the most sweeping civil rights legislation
passed by Congress since Reconstruction, prohibits racial discrimination
in employment and education, and outlaws racial segregation
in public facilities.
This landmark legislation comes
ten years after the US Supreme Court ruled in Brown v. Board
of Education that racial segregation in public educational
facilities is unconstitutional. In the decade that followed
the historic decision, the Black civil rights movement made
great strides in winning federal support for integration, and
in 1960, John F. Kennedy made passage of a new civil rights
bill one of the platforms of his successful presidential campaign.
Vice President Lyndon Johnson
served as chairman of the President's Committee on Equal Employment
Opportunities, and, after the president was assassinated on
22 November 1963, Johnson vowed to carry out Kennedy's proposals
for civil rights reform. |
1964 Republicans
attack LBJ's Vietnam policy.
^top^
At a joint news conference, Senate
Republican leader Everett Dirksen (Illinois) and House Republican
leader Charles Halleck (Indiana) say that the Vietnam War will
be a campaign issue because "Johnson's indecision has made it
one." President Lyndon B. Johnson had assumed office after the
assassination of John F. Kennedy on 22 November 1963. Kennedy
had supported Ngo Dinh Diem, the president of South Vietnam,
who was assassinated during a coup just before Kennedy was killed.
The deaths of both Diem and Kennedy provided an opportunity
for the new administration to undertake a reassessment of US
policy toward Vietnam, but this was not done. Johnson, who desperately
wanted to push a set of social reforms called the Great Society,
was instead forced to focus on the deteriorating situation in
South Vietnam.
Caught in a dilemma, he later
wrote: "If I...let the Communists take over South Vietnam, then
I would be seen as a coward and my nation would be seen as an
appeaser and we would both find it impossible to accomplish
anything for anybody anywhere in the entire globe." Faced with
having to do something about Vietnam, Johnson vacillated as
he and his advisers attempted to devise a viable course of action.
The situation changed in August 1964 when North Vietnamese torpedo
boats attacked US destroyers off the coast of North Vietnam.
What became known as the Tonkin Gulf incident led to the passage
of the Tonkin Gulf Resolution, which passed 416 to 0 in the
House, and 88 to 2 in the Senate. This resolution, which gave
the president approval to "take all necessary measures to repel
an armed attack against the forces of the United States and
to prevent further aggression," provided the legal basis for
President Johnson to initiate a major commitment of US troops
to South Vietnam, which ultimately totaled more than 540'000
by 1968. |
1959 Juan XXIII publica su primera encíclica Ad Petri Cathedram.
1957 El senador demócrata J. F. Kennedy solicita que su gobierno
intervenga a favor de la independencia de Argelia.
1947 Dimite el Gobierno chileno y González Videla forma un nuevo
Ejecutivo con personalidades sin filiación política.
1947 Soviet
Union rejects Marshall Plan assistance
^top^
Soviet Foreign Minister V. M.
Molotov walks out of a meeting with representatives of the British
and French governments, signaling the Soviet Union's rejection
of the Marshall Plan. Molotov's action indicated that Cold War
frictions between the United States and Russia were intensifying.
On 04 June 1947, Secretary of State George C. Marshall gave
a speech in which he announced that the United States was willing
to offer economic assistance to the war-torn nations of Europe
to help in their recovery. The Marshall Plan, as this program
came to be known, eventually provided billions of dollars to
European nations and helped stave off economic disaster in many
of them. The Soviet reaction to Marshall's speech was a stony
silence. However, Foreign Minister Molotov agreed to a meeting
on 27 June with his British and French counterparts to discuss
the European reaction to the US offer.
Molotov immediately made clear
the Soviet objections to the Marshall Plan. First, it would
include economic assistance to Germany, and the Russians could
not tolerate such aid to the enemy that had so recently devastated
the Soviet Union. Second, Molotov was adamant in demanding that
the Soviet Union have complete control and freedom of action
over any Marshall Plan funds Germany might receive. Finally,
the Foreign Minister wanted to know precisely how much money
the United States would give to each nation.
When it became clear that the
French and British representatives did not share his objections,
Molotov stormed out of the meeting on 02 July. In the following
weeks, the Soviet Union pressured its Eastern European allies
to reject all Marshall Plan assistance. That pressure was successful
and none of the Soviet satellites participated in the Marshall
Plan. The Soviet press claimed that the US program was "a plan
for interference in the domestic affairs of other countries."
The United States ignored the Soviet action and, in 1948, officially
established the Marshall Plan and began providing funds to other
European nations. Publicly, US officials argued that the Soviet
stance was another indication that Russia intended to isolate
Eastern Europe from the West and enforce its Communist and totalitarian
doctrines in that region. From the Soviet perspective, however,
its refusal to participate in the Marshall Plan indicated its
desire to remain free from US "economic imperialism" and domination.
La Unión Soviética rechaza el
plan Marshall mientras los representantes francés y británico
deciden proseguir su aplicación. |
1944 Los alemanes bombardean Inglaterra con munición V-1, los
primeros misiles autopropulsados empleados en la historia bélica.
1944
Mines, bombs, and leaflets on Budapest
^top^
As part of Operation Gardening,
the British and US strategy to lay mines in the Danube River
by dropping them from the air, US aircraft also drop bombs
and leaflets on German-occupied Budapest. Hungarian oil refineries
and storage tanks, important to the German war machine, were
destroyed by the US air raid. Along with this fire from
the sky, leaflets threatening "punishment" for those responsible
for the deportation of Hungarian Jews to the gas chambers at
Auschwitz were also dropped on Budapest. The US government wanted
the SS and Hitler to know it was watching.
Admiral Miklas Horthy, regent
and virtual dictator of Hungary, vehemently antiCommunist and
afraid of Russian domination, had aligned his country with Hitler,
despite the fact that he little admired him. But he, too, demanded
that the deportations cease, especially since special pleas
had begun pouring in from around the world upon the testimonies
of four escaped Auschwitz prisoners about the atrocities there.
Hitler, fearing a Hungarian rebellion, stopped the deportations
on 08 July. Horthy would eventually try to extricate himself
from the war altogether only to be kidnapped by Hitler's
agents and consequently forced to abdicate.
One day after the deportations
stopped, a Swedish businessman, Raoul Wallenberg, having convinced
the Swedish Foreign Ministry to send him to the Hungarian capital
on a diplomatic passport, arrived in Budapest with 630 visas
for Hungarian Jews, prepared to take them to Sweden to save
them from further deportations. |
1940 Gonvernement ira à Vichy. C'est parce que Bordeaux
où le gouvernement s'est réfugié pendant la débâcle fait, depuis l'armistice,
partie de la France occupée, qu'il lui faut trouver dans la zone libre
une ville qui puisse l'accueillir ainsi que la Chambre. Le casino et
les nombreux hôtels de la station balnéaire qu'est Vichy offrent des
conditions de vie acceptables. Pétain y convoque le Parlement pour le
10 juillet prochain.
1937 Amelia
Earhart lost: ^top^
The Lockheed aircraft carrying
legendary aviator Amelia Earhart and her copilot Frederick J.
Noonan is reported missing. In 1928, Earhart was the first woman
to fly across the Atlantic Ocean, and in 1932 she became the
first female pilot to cross it solo. She disappeared on the
last leg of her global journey somewhere between New Guinea
and Howland Island in the South Pacific. Two radio amateurs
picked up a signal that she was low on fuel the last
trace the world would ever know of Amelia Earhart. New
York Times story (370703)
The Lockheed aircraft carrying
US aviator Amelia Earhart and navigator Frederick Noonan
is reported missing near Howland Island in the Pacific. The
pair were attempting to fly around the world when they lost
their bearings during the most challenging leg of the global
journey: Lae, New Guinea, to Howland Island, a tiny island 2227
nautical miles away, in the center of the Pacific Ocean. The
US Coast Guard cutter Itasca was in sporadic radio contact
with Earhart as she approached Howland Island and received messages
that she was lost and running low on fuel. Soon after, she probably
tried to ditch the Lockheed in the ocean. No trace of Earhart
or Noonan was ever found.
Amelia Earhart was born in Atchison,
Kansas, in 1897. She took up aviation at the age of 24 and later
gained publicity as one of the earliest female aviators. In
1928, the publisher George P. Putnam invited her to become the
first woman to fly across the Atlantic Ocean. The previous year,
Charles A. Lindbergh had flown solo nonstop across the Atlantic,
and Putnam had made a fortune off Lindbergh's autobiographical
book We. In June 1928, Earhart and two men flew from Newfoundland,
Canada, to Wales, Great Britain. Although Earhart's only function
during the crossing was to keep the plane's log, the flight
won her great fame, and people in the US were enamored of the
daring young pilot. The three were honored with a ticker-tape
parade in New York, and "Lady Lindy," as Earhart was dubbed,
was given a White House reception by President Calvin Coolidge.
Earhart wrote a book about the
flight for Putnam, whom she married in 1931, and gave lectures
and continued her flying career under her maiden name. On 20
May 1932 she took off alone from Newfoundland in a Lockheed
Vega on the first solo nonstop transatlantic flight by a woman.
She was bound for Paris but was blown off course and landed
in Ireland on May 21 after flying more than 3000 km in just
under 15 hours. It was the fifth anniversary of Lindbergh's
historic flight, and before Earhart no one had attempted to
repeat his solo transatlantic flight. For her achievement, she
was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross by Congress. Three
months later, Earhart became the first woman to fly solo nonstop
across the continental United States.
In 1935, in the first flight
of its kind, she flew solo from Wheeler Field in Honolulu to
Oakland, California, winning a $10'000 award posted by Hawaiian
commercial interests. Later that year, she was appointed a consultant
in careers for women at Purdue University, and the school bought
her a modern Lockheed Electra aircraft to be used as a "flying
laboratory."
On March 17, 1937, she took off
from Oakland and flew west on an around-the-world attempt. It
would not be the first global flight, but it would be the longest
47'000 km, following an equatorial route. Aboard her
Lockheed were Frederick Noonan, her navigator and a former Pan
American pilot, and co-pilot Harry Manning. After resting and
refueling in Honolulu, the trio prepared to resume the flight.
However, while taking off for Howland Island, Earhart ground-looped
the plane on the runway, perhaps because of a blown tire, and
the Lockheed was seriously damaged. The flight was called off,
and the aircraft was shipped back to California for repairs.
In May, Earhart flew the newly
rebuilt plane to Miami, from where Noonan and she would make
a new around-the-world attempt, this time from west to east.
They left Miami on 01 June, and after stops in South America,
Africa, India, and Southeast Asia, they arrived at Lae, New
Guinea, on 29 June. About 35'000 km of the journey had been
completed, and the last 11'000 km would all be over the Pacific
Ocean. The next destination was Howland Island, a tiny US-owned
island that was just a few miles long. The US Department of
Commerce had a weather observation station and a landing strip
on the island, and the staff was ready with fuel and supplies.
Several US ships, including the Coast Guard cutter Itasca, were
deployed to aid Earhart and Noonan in this difficult leg of
their journey.
As the Lockheed approached Howland
Island, Earhart radioed the Itasca and explained that she was
low on fuel. However, after several hours of frustrating attempts,
two-way communication was only briefly established, and the
Itasca was unable to pinpoint the Lockheed's location or offer
navigational information. Earhart circled the Itasca's position
but was unable to sight the ship, which was sending out miles
of black smoke. She radioed "one-half hour fuel and no landfall"
and later tried to give information on her position. Soon after,
contact was lost, and Earhart presumably tried to land the Lockheed
on the water.
If her landing on the water was
perfect, Earhart and Noonan might have had time to escape the
aircraft with a life raft and survival equipment before it sank.
An intensive search of the vicinity by the Coast Guard and US
Navy found no physical evidence of the fliers or their plane.
Additional searches through the years have likewise failed to
find any trace of the Lockheed or of Earhart and Noonan, who
almost certainly perished at sea. |
1926 US Army Air Corps created; Distinguish Flying Cross authorized
1917 First plane-to-ground phone
call
The first phone call from an
airplane is received at Langley Field, Virginia. The call, placed
from an airplane three kilometers away, come through loud and
clear: Unfortunately, the plane can only transmit, not receive,
the call. The first two-way, ground-to-air conversation would
occur the following month. |
1917 Jozef Pilsudski dimite del Consejo de Estado Polaco en protesta
por la tutela a que se ve sometido este órgano por las administraciones
militares alemana y austro-húngara. Los alemanes, en represalia, le hacen
prisionero.
1914 Thursday : in the aftermath
of the June 28 assassination in Sarajevo of Archduke Francis
Ferdinand of Austria-Hungary and of his wife, Sophia:
Emperor
Franz Josef sends a letter to Kaiser
Wilhelm II thanking him for his condolences regarding
the Archduke's death. The letter contains undertones of the
actions to follow. [view
text of the letter]
|
1912 Bulgaria, Serbia y Grecia firman un convenio militar contra
Turquía.
1905 Entra en vigor en Francia una ley que limita el horario laboral
de los menores a nueve horas.
1900
Zeppelin demonstrates airship
^top^
In the sky over Germany's Lake
Constance, Count Ferdinand Graf von Zeppelin, a retired Prussian
army officer, successfully demonstrated the world's first rigid
airship. The 128-meter, cigar-shaped LZ-1 is lifted by hydrogen
gas and powered by a sixteen-horsepower engine.
Zeppelin had first become interested
in lighter-than-air travel in 1863, when as a military observer
in the US Civil War he had made several ascents in Union
observation balloons. In 1891, he retired from the Prussian
army to devote himself to the building of motor-driven dirigibles,
and in 1900 he successfully tested his first airship. Although
a French inventor had built a power-driven airship several decades
before, the Zeppelin's rigid dirigible, with its steel framework,
was by far the largest airship ever constructed. Size, however,
was exchanged for safety as the heavy steel-framed airships
were vulnerable to explosion because they had to be lifted by
highly flammable hydrogen gas, instead of non-flammable helium
gas.
During World War I, several "Zeppelins,"
as all rigid airships became popularly known, were used by the
Germans in bombing missions over Britain. After the war, commercial
passenger service increased, and one of the most famous rigid
airships, the Graf Zeppelin, traveled around the world in 1929.
In the 1930s, the Graf Zeppelin also pioneered the first transatlantic
air service, leading to the construction of the largest dirigible
ever built: the Hindenburg.
On 06 May 1937, at the end of
its maiden voyage across the Atlantic, the Hindenburg burst
into flames upon touching its mooring mast in Lakehurst, New
Jersey, killing thirty-six passengers and crew [however a
recent theory is that the hydrogen was not responsible but the
envelope of the airship, with a flammable coating including
aluminum powder, caught fire from static electricity, while
the hydrogen vented harmlessly upward]. Lighter-than-air
passenger travel rapidly fell out of favor after the Hindenberg
disaster, and no existing rigid airship survived World War II.
|
1894 Government obtains injunction against striking Pullman Workers
1892
Lock-out at Carnegie's plant
^top^
By the late nineteenth century,
the workers at Andrew Carnegie's Homestead, PA plant had eked
out a modicum of power. They won a key strike in 1889, and in
the process became a potent unit of the Amalgamated Association
of Iron and Steel Workers. Still, these victories hardly erased
the harsh working conditions at the Homestead mills. Nor did
they mean that the Carnegie Company was pleased with or readily
recognized the union. Ever mindful of Amalgamated's potentially
deleterious impact on his profit margins, Andrew Carnegie looked
to erode the power of the union.
In 1892, the company made its
move against Amalgamated, though not with Carnegie at the helm:
the steel baron had departed for a vacation in Scotland, leaving
the task of smashing the union in the hands of his partner,
Henry Clay Frick. Frick took his mission all too seriously:
after refusing to renew the company's contract with Amalgamated,
he dug in for war, erecting a three-mile long steel wire fence
around the plant. Frick also enlisted the aid of the Pinkerton
Detective agency, which sent three hundred men to Homestead
to ensure the plant's transition to non-union workers. Amalgamated's
leaders responded in kind, lining up scores of workers, as well
as a good chunk of the town, to wage battle against the plant.
The showdown begins in earnest
on 02 July as Frick halted work at Homestead until the plant
was staffed entirely by non-union workers. Three days later,
the Homestead affair turned bloody, as the Pinkerton agents
made their first appearance on the scene. Attempting to reach
the plant via the Monongahela River, the agents were met by
Amalgamated's forces; the two sides engaged in a long and vicious
battle that left nine strikers and seven agents dead. Despite
the losses, Amalgamated's motley army was able to turn back
the detectives.
Sensing that they were on the
verge of disaster, officials for Carnegie enlisted the aid of
the Pennsylvania Government. And, on 09 July, 1892, the state
sends 7000 troops to Homestead to "restore law and order." The
militia effectively squelched Amalgamated's strike: the troops
helped the Carnegie restaff its plant with non-union workers
and by September, the Carnegie company would have resumed production.
Later that November, the union conceded defeat and called off
its strike; Carnegie responded by summarily firing and even
blacklisting the strikers. |
1890
Sherman Anti-Trust Act ^top^
The federal government tackled
the rising specter of outsized business conglomerations by passing
the Sherman Anti-Trust Act. Sponsored by Ohio Senator John Sherman,
the bill is designed as a direct strike against "every contract,
combination in the form of trust or otherwise, or conspiracy,
in restraint of trade of commerce among the several States,
or with foreign nations."
Along with attempting to block
the future creation of monopolies, the Sherman Anti-Trust Act
also calls for existing monopolies to be disbanded. But, such
seemingly strong tactics betray the bill's weak language. Written
by Senator George Hoar (Mississippi) and Senator George F. Edmunds
(Vermont), the Sherman Act is fraught with ambiguous terms like
"trust," leaving it ripe for exploitation by both litigious
business officials and savvy attorneys. Sure enough, the ensuing
years would see anti-labor forces manipulate the bill in their
crusade against organized labor unions. In 1894, these anti-labor
efforts were legally sanctioned by the Supreme Court which ruled
in United States v. Debs that the Sherman Act did indeed
cover unions, as well as hulking business entities. |
1885 Canada's North-west Insurrection ends with surrender of
Big Bear
1881
US President shot and incapacited. Is the VP promoted?
^top^
After only four months in office,
while on his way to visit his ill wife in Elberon, New Jersey,
President James A. Garfield, 49, is shot in the back and the
arm at the Baltimore & Potomac railroad station in Washington,
D.C., by Charles J. Guiteau, , a mentally disturbed man, who
had been tracking President Garfield for a while. When Garfield
was running for office, Guiteau sent him a deranged speech to
read to his audience. Not surprisingly, Garfield never read
the speech, but Guiteau insisted that it was instrumental in
getting him elected and demanded the position of ambassador
to France in return.
Since the White House did not
have standard security in place at this time, Guiteau became
a frequent visitor and even met the president on one occasion.
He began to harass the secretary of state every day about the
ambassador position. When he was summarily rejected, Guiteau
decided to seek revenge by shooting the president. He later
told authorities that he followed Garfield for weeks, once sitting
directly behind him at church. After checking out the prisons
in Washington DC, to make sure the accommodations would suit
him, Guiteau makes his attack on the president on 02 July. Guiteau
peaceably surrendered to police, calmly announcing, "I am a
Stalwart. Arthur is now president of the United States."
With the bullet lodged near his
pancreas, Garfield, mortally ill, was treated in Washington
and then taken to the seashore at Elberon, New Jersey, where
he attempted to recuperate with his family. For 80 days he performed
only one official act the signing of an extradition paper.
It was generally agreed that, in such cases, the vice president
was empowered by the Constitution to assume the powers and duties
of the office of president. But should he serve merely as acting
president until Garfield recovered, or would he receive the
office itself and thus displace his predecessor?
Because of an ambiguity in the
Constitution, opinion was divided, and, because Congress was
not in session, the problem could not be debated there. On 02
September 1881, the matter came before a cabinet meeting, where
it was finally agreed that no action would be taken without
first consulting Garfield. But in the opinion of the doctors
this was impossible, and no further action was taken before
the death of the president, the result of slow blood poisoning,
on 19 September.
The following day, Arthur was
inaugurated as the twenty-first president of the United States.
Garfield had three funerals: one in Elberon, another in Washington,
where his body rested in state in the Capitol for three days,
and a third in Cleveland, Ohio, where he was buried.
Charles Guiteau's murder trial
began in November. Despite strong indications of insanity, prosecutors
would tried him for murder. Acting as his own attorney during
the 10-week trial, Guiteau screamed incessantly and sometimes
danced around the courtroom. But the court did not put a stop
to his antics, even after he called the prosecutors "dirty liars."
During his closing argument, he claimed that God had told him
to kill the president. When the jury pronounced him guilty of
murder, Guiteau shouted at them, "You are all low, consummate
jackasses!" Guiteau was hanged on 30 June 1882. Two hundred
spectators at the jail watched as hundreds more gathered outside.
From the gallows, Guiteau recited a poem in a high, childlike
voice, "I am going to the Lordy, I am so glad." |
1876 Se promulga en España la Constitución de 1876. (Véase Constitucionalismo
español y Historia
de España: 1875-1931).
1871 Víctor
Manuel II, primer [entonces ¿porqué el II]
rey de Italia, entra en el palacio del Quirinal, antigua residencia papal.
1864 The US Congress passes the Wade-Davis
Bill, requiring a majority of a seceded state's white citizens to take
an oath of loyalty to the Constitution and guarantee black equality,
but President Abraham Lincoln pocket vetoes the harsh plan for dealing
with the defeated Confederate states.
1864 General Early & Confederate forces reach Winchester
1863 Morgan's raiders cross the Cumberland River near Burkesville,
Kentucky
1863 Battle of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania continues
1863 Siege of Port Hudson, Louisiana continues
1863 Siege of Vicksburg, Mississippi continues
1862 Morrill Land Grant Act approved by President Lincoln
1858 Partial emancipation of Russian serfs
1855 Comienza en Cataluña la primera huelga
general realizada en España, que duró ocho días.
1852 Portugal decreta la abolición de la pena
de muerte por motivos políticos.
1847 Envelope bearing the 1st US 10 cent stamps, still exists
today
1843 An alligator falls from the sky during a Charleston SC
thunderstorm
1809
Tecumseh urges Amerindians to fight for their land.
^top^
Alarmed by the growing encroachment
of whites squatting on Amerindian lands, the Shawnee Chief Tecumseh
calls on all Indians to unite and resist. Born around 1768 near
Springfield, Ohio, Tecumseh early won notice as a brave warrior.
He fought in battles between the Shawnee and the white Kentuckians,
who were invading the Ohio River Valley territory. After the
US Army won several important battles in the mid-1790s, Tecumseh
reluctantly relocated westward but remained an implacable foe
of the white men and their ways. By the early 19th century,
many Shawnee and other Ohio Valley Indians were becoming increasingly
dependent on trading with the US invaders for guns, cloth, and
metal goods. Tecumseh spoke out against such dependence and
called for a return to traditional Indian ways. He was even
more alarmed by the continuing encroachment of white settlers
illegally settling on the already diminished government-recognized
land holdings of the Shawnee and other tribes. The US government,
however, was reluctant to take action against its own citizens
to protect the rights of the Ohio Valley Indians. On this day
in 1809, Tecumseh began a concerted campaign to persuade the
Indians of the Old Northwest and Deep South to unite and resist.
Together, Tecumseh argued, the various tribes had enough strength
to stop the whites from taking further land. Heartened by this
message of hope, Indians from as far away as Florida and Minnesota
heeded Tecumseh's call. By 1810, he had organized the Ohio Valley
Confederacy, which united Indians from the Shawnee, Potawatomi,
Kickapoo, Winnebago, Menominee, Ottawa, and Wyandot nations.
For several years, Tecumseh's Indian Confederacy successfully
delayed further white settlement in the region. In 1811, however,
the future president William Henry Harrison led an attack on
the confederacy's base on the Tippecanoe River. At the time,
Tecumseh was in the South attempting to convince more tribes
to join his movement. Although the battle of Tippecanoe was
close, Harrison finally won out and destroyed much of Tecumseh's
army. When the War of 1812 began the following year, Tecumseh
immediately marshaled what remained of his army to aid the British.
Commissioned a brigadier general, he proved an effective ally
and played a key role in the British capture of Detroit and
other battles. When the tide of war turned in the favor of the
US, Tecumseh's fortunes went down with those of the British.
On October 5, 1813, he was killed during Battle of the Thames.
His Ohio Valley Confederacy and vision of Indian unity died
with him. |
1798 Napoleón Bonaparte dirige una expedición militar francesa
en Egipto y toma Alejandría al asalto. (Batalla de las Pirámides.)
1787 de Sade shouts from Bastille that
prisoners are being slaughtered
1777 Vermont becomes 1st American colony to abolish slavery
1776 Continental Congress resolves "these United Colonies are
& of right ought to be Free & Independent States"
1652 Bataille de la porte Saint-Antoine (Paris) entre Turenne
et Condé. Les troupes de Condé sont sauvées par la duchesse de Montpensier
(cousine de Louis XIV) qui leur fait ouvrir les portes de Paris.
El Congreso Continental norteamericano ratifica su decisión de separarse
de Inglaterra.
1648 Le roi fait des réformes. Devant le Parlement réuni, Saint
Louis fait donner la lecture d'un texte. Les membres du Parlement sont
étonnés par les vingt-sept articles dont le contenu peut passer pour
être révolutionnaire. Les impôts sont diminués. Les intendants sont rappelés.
L'habeas corpus est établi à l'exemple de l'Angleterre.
1644 Battle of Marston Moor; Parliamentary forces defeat royalists
1560
Michel de L'Hospital, chancelier conciliateur
^top^
La place de chancelier du royaume
est vacante depuis la mort d'Olivier , mort de chagrin (?).
Celui-ci avait dû juger les conjurés d'Amboise qui avaient voulu
soustraire le roi à l'influence du très catholique Guise, il
ne s'en serait pas remis moralement. Les partisans de Condé
qui ont participé à cette conjuration ont été pendus, décapités,
noyés dans la Loire. Catherine de Médicis trouve qu'il est temps
d'apaiser les esprits. Elle impose à son fils, François II,
Michel de L'Hospital pour cette charge. Il est catholique. Il
est modéré. Il est humaniste. Il ne tarde pas à en faire la
preuve. Lors des Etats généraux qui se tiennent à Orléans en
décembre 1561 il déclare : " Otons ces mots diaboliques, noms
de partis, de factions, de séditions, luthériens, huguenots,
papistes : ne gardons que le nom de chrétiens. " |
0310 or 311 Saint
Miltiades is elected 32nd pope. During his pontificate, Christianity
was finally tolerated by Rome, following the Emperor Constantine's conversion
to the Christian faith.
|