14 Jul History: This Date

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• USSR vs. China... • (Innocent?) immigrants convicted... • B&O strike... • Byron back in England... • Nurses murdered... • Billy the Kid killed... • Battle of Tupelo... • NY draft riots... • Taking of the Bastille... • Philippe Auguste meurt... • Crusaders massacre Jerusalemites... • The Karmann~Ghia coupe...

On a 14 July:
2001 Fidel Castro inaugurates the new Oscar Maria Rojas Museum in Cardenas, Cuba, hometown of Elian González, about whom the museum is, but more about Castro's so-called “Battle of Ideas” (the propaganda campaign he won and milked during and after the dispute about whether young Elian should stay in the US to where he had fled with his mother who drowned in the attempt)
.2000 A Florida jury ordered five major tobacco companies to pay smokers a record $145 billion in punitive damages.
2000 The 13th International AIDS Conference comes to a close in Durban, South Africa.
1996 Fire crews were battling blazes covering more than 60 square kilometers in California, Colorado, Idaho, Oregon and Utah.
1996 In Northern Ireland, a car bomb ravaged a country hotel soon after the building was evacuated. (A shadow group calling itself Continuity claimed responsibility for the blast.)

1994 NBC launches online news services ^top^
NBC says it will launch two subscription-based online news services starting in September. The services, which will provide video-on-demand and breaking stories to computer screens, are called "NBC Professional" and "NBC Desktop Video on Demand." The services target some 650'000 computers in the financial services industry. The services will cost $1750 a month for five terminals and $250 a month for each additional terminal.

1993 Le Parlement Belge adopte les accords définitifs qui transforment la Belgique en Etat fédéral.

1992 WordStar buys graphics firm ^top^
WordStar announces that it will add graphics software to its word processing systems by purchasing ZSoft, a graphics software developer. The move comes several months after WordStar's attempt to acquire Delrina Corporation, maker of WinFax software, collapsed. WordStar was struggling to regain its past success, when its bestselling word processor dominated the market after its 1979 release. Unfortunately, WordStar was slow to convert to the PC-DOS operating system, introduced by IBM in 1981. As a result, the product lost ground to new word processors and never truly recovered. In 1994, WordStar and Softkey merged with Spinnaker Software.

1991 Leaders of the Group of Seven nations began gathering in London for their annual economic summit.
1991 US and Soviet negotiators in Washington continued work on trying to complete a treaty slashing long-range nuclear arsenals.
1988 200'000 demonstrate in Soviet Armenia for incorporation of Nagorno-Karabak
1987 Taiwan ends 37 years of martial law
1987 Greyhound Bus buys Trailways Bus for $80 million
1987 Lt Col Oliver North concludes 6 days of Congressional testimony concerning his central role in the Iran-Contra affair while he was on the National Security Council..

1978 In the USSR Anatoly Shcharansky is convicted of treason and espionage. He is sentenced to 13 years at hard-labor. He would be released in a prisoner exchange, on 11 February 1986, and settle in Israel. Shcharansky's memoir of his arrest and imprisonment would be first published in 1988 in English as Fear No Evil.
1976 Jimmy Carter won the Democratic presidential nomination at the party's convention in New York.
1969 "Futbol War" between El Salvador & Honduras begins

1968 Clifford visits South Vietnam ^top^
Defense Secretary Clark Clifford visits South Vietnam to confer with US and South Vietnamese leaders. Upon his arrival in Saigon, Clifford stated that the United States was doing all that it could to improve the fighting capacity of the South Vietnamese armed forces and intended to provide all South Vietnamese army units with M-16 automatic rifles. This effort would increase in 1969 after Richard Nixon became president. In June 1969, Nixon met with South Vietnamese President Nguyen Van Thieu on Midway Island. At the meeting, Nixon announced what became known as his "Vietnamization" policy. Under this policy, Nixon intended US troops to help increase the combat capability of the Republic of Vietnam Armed Forces so that the South Vietnamese could eventually assume full responsibility of the war. Though Nixon described this as a new policy, its roots could be traced back to Clark Clifford's visit to South Vietnam and groundwork that was laid during the Johnson administration.

1966 Richard Speck rapes & kills 8 nurses in a Chicago dormitory

1965 Mariner reaches Mars         ^top^
      The unmanned spacecraft Mariner 4 passes over Mars at an altitude of 2000 m, and prepares to send back to Earth the first close-up images of the planet. Launched on 28 November 1964, Mariner 4 carried a television camera and six other science instruments to study Mars and interplanetary space within the solar system.
      Reaching Mars on 14 July 1965, the spacecraft begins sending back television images of the planet just after midnight on July 15. The pictures — twenty-two in all — reveal a vast, barren wasteland of craters and rust-colored sand, dismissing nineteenth-century suspicions that an advanced civilization might exist on the planet. The canals that US astronomer Percival Lowell spied with his telescope in 1890 proved to be an optical illusion, but ancient natural waterways of some kind seemed to be evident in some regions of the planet. Once past Mars, Mariner 4 journeyed on to the far side of the sun before returning to the vicinity of earth in 1967. Communication with the spacecraft — nearly out of power by then — was terminated on 21 December 1967.

1964 The United States sends 600 more soldiers to Vietnam.

1964 North Vietnamese regulars are fighting in South Vietnam ^top^
US military intelligence publicly charges that North Vietnamese regular army officers command and fight in so-called Viet Cong forces in the northern provinces, where Viet Cong strength had doubled in the past six months. Only the day before, South Vietnamese Gen. Nguyen Khanh had referred to the "invasion" by North Vietnamese Army (NVA) forces. There would soon be other evidence that North Vietnamese troops were operating in South Vietnam. In August, South Vietnamese officials would claim that two companies from the North Vietnamese army had crossed the Demilitarized Zone in Quang Tri province. A battle ensued, but the North Vietnamese forces were defeated with heavy casualties. It became known later that Hanoi had ordered its forces to begin infiltrating to the South. This marked a major change in the tempo and scope of the war in South Vietnam and resulted in President Lyndon B. Johnson committing US combat troops. North Vietnamese forces and US troops clashed for the first time in November 1965, when units from the newly arrived 1st Cavalry Division engaged several North Vietnamese regiments in the Battle of the Ia Drang Valley in the Central Highlands.

^ 1963 Rupture between USSR and China grows worse
      Relations between the Soviet Union and China reach the breaking point as the two governments engage in an angry ideological debate about the future of communism. The United States, for its part, was delighted to see a wedge being driven between the two communist superpowers. In mid-1963, officials from the Soviet Union and the People's Republic of China met in Moscow to try to mend their ideological rift. The Chinese government had become openly critical of what it referred to as the growing "counterrevolutionary trends" in the Soviet Union. In particular, China was unhappy with the Soviet Union's policy of cooperation with the West. According to a public statement made by the Chinese government on 14 June 1963, a much more militant and aggressive policy was needed in order to spread the communist revolution worldwide. There could be no "peaceful coexistence" with the forces of capitalism, and the statement chided the Russians for trying to reach a diplomatic understanding with the West, and in particular, the United States. Exactly one month later, as the meetings in Moscow continued to deteriorate in an atmosphere of mutual suspicion and recrimination, the Soviet government issued a stinging rebuttal to the earlier Chinese statement.
      The Russians agreed that world Communism was still the ultimate goal, but that new policies were needed. "Peaceful coexistence" between Communist and capitalist nations was essential in the atomic age, and the Soviet statement went on to declare that, "We sincerely want disarmament." The Soviet statement also addressed the Chinese criticism of the October 1962 missile crisis, in which Russia aided in the establishment of nuclear missile bases in Cuba. Under pressure from the United States, the bases had been withdrawn — according to the Chinese, Russia had "capitulated" to the US. Not so, according to the Soviets. The missile bases had been established to deter a possible US invasion of Cuba. Once the US vowed to refrain from such action, the bases were withdrawn in order to avoid an unnecessary nuclear war. This was the type of "sober calculation," the Soviet Union indicated, that was needed in the modern world.
      The 14 July 1963, Soviet statement was the first clear public indication that Russia and China were deeply divided over the future of communism. US officials greeted the development with undisguised glee, for they believed that the Sino-Soviet split would work to America's advantage in terms of making the Russians more amenable to fruitful diplomatic negotiations on a variety of issues, including arms control and the deepening crisis in Vietnam. That belief was not entirely well founded, as US-Soviet relations continued to be chilly throughout most of the 1960s. Nevertheless, the United States continued to attempt to use this "divide and conquer" tactic well into the 1970s, when it began a rapprochement with communist China in order to gain leverage in its dealings with the Soviet Union.

1959 1st atomic powered cruiser, the Long Beach, Quincy Mass
1958 Iraqi army overthrows monarchy; republic replaces Hashemite dynasty
1952 Les derniers maréchaux: Les généraux Alphonse Juin, de Lattre de Tassigny et Philippe de Hauteclocque (Leclerc), héros de la guerre et de la Libération de l'occupant allemand sont nommés Maréchaux de France, à titre posthume pour Leclerc.
1946 La République libre des Philippines est proclamée.
1945 US battleships and cruisers bombard the Japanese home islands for the first time.
1941 Vichy French Foreign Legionaries sign an armistice in Damascus, allowing them to join the Free French Foreign Legion. A Tale of Two Legions.
1940 A force of German Ju-88 bombers attack Suez, Egypt, from bases in Crete.
1940 Lithuania becomes the Lithuanian SSR

1935 Unification du Front Populaire         ^top^
      Cette union de toute les forces de gauche (socialistes et communistes) avait été refusée depuis 1919 par les communistes russes et l’Internationale Communiste. Les socialistes trop modérés étant considérés comme des bourgeois en bleu de travail! Même les travailleurs catholiques sont associés à cette action. Ce nouveau parti connaîtra également un frère en Espagne, le Fronte Popular. Ils connaîtront tous deux une importante victoire électorale lors des élections en février 1936 en Espagne et en mai 1936 en France. En France cette victoire mène à la constitution d’un gouvernement de gauche (le seul avant celui de Mitterand) qui accordera de nombreuses mesures sociales comme la semaine de 36 heures et les Congés Payés.
      Mais en Espagne, un coup d’état militaire mené par un officier peu connu, le commandant Franco, mènera le pays à la Guerre Civile et à une lutte horriblement fratricide. Le Fronte Popular vaincu laissera la place à 40 ans de dictature fasciste.

1933 Nazi Germany promulgates the Law for the Protection of Hereditary Health. The begining of the Euthanasia program.
1933 All German political parties, except the Nazi Party, were outlawed.

1921 Sacco and Vanzetti found guilty         ^top^
of the murders in South Braintree, Massachusetts, on 15 April 1920, of F.A. Parmenter, paymaster of a shoe factory, and Alessandro Berardelli, the guard accompanying him, in order to secure the payroll that they were carrying.
      On 05 May Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti, two Italian anarchists who had immigrated to the United States in 1908, one a shoemaker and the other a fish peddler, were arrested for the crime. On 31 May 1921 they were brought to trial before Judge Webster Thayer of the Massachusetts Superior Court, and, on 14 July, both were found guilty by verdict of the jury. Socialists and radicals protested the men's innocence.
      Many people felt that there had been less than a fair trial and that the defendants had been convicted for their radical, anarchist beliefs rather than for the crime for which they had been tried. All attempts for retrial on the ground of false identification failed. On 18 November 1925, one Celestino Madeiros, then under a sentence for murder, confessed that he had participated in the crime with the Joe Morelli gang. The state Supreme Court refused to upset the verdict, because at that time the trial judge had the final power to reopen on the ground of additional evidence. The two men were sentenced to death on 09 April 1927.
      A storm of protest arose with mass meetings throughout the nation. Governor Alvan T. Fuller appointed an independent advisory committee consisting of President A. Lawrence Lowell of Harvard University, President Samuel W. Stratton of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Robert Grant, a former judge. On 03 August 1927, the governor refused to exercise his power of clemency; his advisory committee agreed with this stand.
      Demonstrations proceeded in many cities throughout the world, and bombs were set off in New York City and Philadelphia. Sacco and Vanzetti, still maintaining their innocence, were executed on 23 August 1927.
      Opinion has remained divided on whether Sacco and Vanzetti were guilty as charged or whether they were innocent victims of a prejudiced legal system and a mishandled trial. Some writers have claimed that Sacco was guilty but that Vanzetti was innocent. There is widespread agreement, however, that the two men should have been granted a second trial in view of their trial's significant defects.
      In 1977 the governor of Massachusetts, Michael S. Dukakis, issued a proclamation stating that Sacco and Vanzetti had not been treated justly and that no stigma should be associated with their names.

1914 Tuesday : in the aftermath of the June 28 assassination of Archduke Francis Ferdinand: ^top^

Berchtold wins over Tisza by promising that no territorial demands will be placed upon Serbia. Berchtold was lying — Serbia had already been partitioned on paper. Tisza had written several letters to Emperor Franz Josef pleading for leniency in dealing with Serbia. Berchtold had these intercepted before they made it to the Emperor. He and Conrad would have the war against Serbia for which they had waited so long.

Conrad leaves for vacation in Innichen as planned.

1914 Robert Hutchins Goddard patents a liquid-fuel rocket motor
1900 European Allies retake Tientsin, China, from the rebelling Boxers.

1880 Instauration de la fête nationale
Pour la première fois, le 14 Juillet est célébré en tant que fête nationale. Le drapeau tricolore est définitivement celui de la France qui choisit La Marseillaise pour hymne national.

1877 B&O workers strike, starting "the summer of strikes"         ^top^
      By the summer of 1877, the long-simmering tensions between labor and management were set to come to a boil. The "Panic of 1873" lingered well into the decade, depressing the workers' standard of living and take-home pay. Some of America's corporate leaders exacerbated the situation, slashing their employee's salaries in the name of maintaining profit margins. These problems were particularly pronounced on the nation's rail lines, most notably the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, where laborers had suffered through two pay cuts since the start of the Panic.
      On this day, the Baltimore rail workers' anger at their bosses finally leads members of various rail unions to walk off the job and to agitate for higher pay and fairer work conditions. Over the ensuing week, workers would manage to seize the local railroad station. Panicky officials for the company responded by calling in the Maryland militia to break the strike. The presence of the militia hardly eased the situation, however, and, on 20 July, they opened fire on a crowd of strikers, killing nine of the workers.
      Along with sparking four days of riots in Baltimore, the deaths of the rail strikers unleashed a torrent of labor activity: workers at other rail lines, as well as in other industries, called massive sympathy strikes, some of which were also marred by violence between strikers and State troopers. In the end, this summer of strikes had mixed results: while the wave of walkouts helped refuel the once-flagging labor movement, some workers — most notably the strikers at the Baltimore and Ohio company — were cowed into signing agreements that did little, if anything, to help their plight.

1864 At Tupelo (Harrisburg), Mississippi, Federal troops under General Andrew Jackson Smith repulse an attack by General Nathan Bedford Forrest, one of Forrest's only two defeats.
1863 Confederate General Lee re-crosses the Potomac into West Virginia.
1863 Siege of Fort Wagner, Charleston Harbor, South Carolina continues.
1862 Secession of the western counties of Virginia recognized by US Senate as State of West Virginia.
1861 Union troops try to force a crossing at Seneca Falls on the Potomac, northwest of Washington but are repulsed by the Confederates. A company of the Louisiana Tiger Rifles helped defend the line.
1853 Commodore Matthew Perry gives to Japanese officials a letter from former US President Fillmore, requesting trade relations.
1850 1st public demonstration of ice made by refrigeration.
1833 Anglican clergyman John Keble preached his famous sermon on national religious apostasy. It marked the beginning of the Oxford Movement, which sought to purify and revitalize the Church of England.
1832 Opium exempted from US federal tariff duty.

1811 Byron returns to England after a two-year tour         ^top^
of Europe and the Near East. His travels inspire his first highly successful work, Childe Harold's Pilgrimage (1812). The poem brings him almost instant acclaim in England, and Byron's taste, manners, and fashion all become widely imitated. "I awoke one morning and found myself famous," he says.
      George Gordon Byron was born in Aberdeen, Scotland, on 22 January 1788, and raised in near poverty. Afflicted with a clubfoot, Byron endured a painful childhood. At age 10, he inherited his great uncle's title. He attended Harrow, then Trinity College, Cambridge, where he ran up enormous debts and wrote poetry. His first published volume of poetry, Hours of Idleness (1807), was savaged by critics, especially in Scotland, and his second published work, English Bards and Scotch Reviewers (1809), attacked the English literary establishment.
      In 1815, he married Anne Isabella Milbanke, and the couple had a daughter, August Ada, who proved to be a mathematical prodigy and contributed to the first digital-computer design, conceived by Charles Babbage. Byron and his wife separated as scandal broke out over Byron's suspected incestuous relationship with his half-sister, Augusta Leigh. He was ostracized by polite society and forced to flee England in 1816. He settled in Geneva, near Percy Bysshe Shelley and his wife, Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, and became intimately involved with Mary's half-sister, Claire Clairmont. She bore Byron's daughter Allegra in January 1817.
      Byron moved to Venice that year and entered a period of wild debauchery. In 1819, he began an affair with the Countess Teresa Guiccioli, the young wife of an elderly count, and the two remained attached for many years. Byron, always an avid supporter of liberal causes and national independence, supported the Greek war for independence. He joined the cause in Greece, training troops in the town of Missolonghi, where he died of malaria on 19 April 1824.
     OTHER WORKS BY BYRON ONLINE:
Don Juan, Hebrew Melodies, Manfred, Selected Poetry

1801 Concordat: le Pape cède à Napoléon ^top^
Signature du Concordat entre le premier consul Napoléon, futur empereur des Français et le pape Pie VII. La confiscation des biens du Clergé lors de la Révolution Française et l’obligation aux prêtres de prêter serment à l’état français constituent les deux pierres d’achoppement entre la Papauté et la France. La personnalité de Napoléon l’emporte sur celle de la Papauté qui doit abandonner à la France la nomination des Evêques, les biens de l’Eglise confisqués, mais attribue au clergé un statut officiel ainsi qu’une rémunération déterminée par la Loi.

1798 1st direct US federal tax on the states—on dwellings, land & slaves
1798 The Sedition Act — the last of four pieces of legislation known as the Alien and Sedition Acts — is passed by Congress, making it unlawful to write, publish, or utter "false, scandalous & malicious" statements about the US government or president, among other things

1790 Fête de la Fédération ^top^
Un an plus tôt, le peuple de Paris a pris la Bastille. Pour marquer ce premier anniversaire, toutes les provinces ont envoyé à Paris des délégations de la garde nationale. Au cours de la fête qu'organise le marquis de La Fayette sur le Champ-de-Mars, l'évêque d'Autun, Talleyrand, célèbre une messe. Sous la pluie battante qui tombe depuis le matin sur les 14'000 provinciaux et les quelque 200'000 Parisiens réunis, le roi proclame après la messe : "Moi, roi des Français, je jure d'employer le pouvoir qui m'a été délégué par la loi constitutionnelle de l'Etat à maintenir et à faire exécuter les lois”. La reine prend le dauphin dans ses bras et le montre à la foule qui crie “Vive le roi ! Vive la reine ! Vive le dauphin !” Vingt-deux mille convives dont la plupart sont des délégués des fédérations départementales sont invités par le roi à un dîner dans les jardins de la Muette. Dans la nuit, on danse encore sur la place de la Bastille, la forteresse que l'on a commencé à détruire.

1790 Premier Bal populaire à l’occasion du premier anniversaire de la Prise de La Bastille, à Paris.         ^top^
      Le terme "bal" désigne aujourd’hui soit l’assemblée des danseurs qui se réunissent pour exécuter des danses, soit le lieu même où s’effectue cette réunion. Bal a aussi servi à désigner des airs de danses folkloriques du midi de la France, de tempo vif et de rythme binaire. Aux XIIe et XIIIe siècles, on désignait sous le terme de Bal une danse provençale, vraisemblablement de rythme ternaire, accompagnée d’instruments. Un siècle plus tard, le bal désigne des scènes dansées (bal des Ardents, etc.) exécutées devant un public. En schématisant quelque peu, on dira que le bal est alors au peuple ce que fut le ballet à l’aristocratie : on va voir un ballet en spectateur, on y prend part dans un dessein de coquetterie mondaine (ballet de cour) ; en revanche, on va danser à un bal en tant qu’acteur et le point de vue esthétique n’entre que peu ou pas du tout en ligne de compte. Ici le défoulement l’emporte sur l’expression chorégraphique.
      Dans l’Europe du XIIIe siècle, les bals populaires fleurissent ; ils ont lieu le dimanche et les jours de fête ; on danse sur la place du village, qui est souvent celle de l’église ; il arrive parfois que l’on danse même à l’intérieur de l’édifice. Encore aujourd’hui, dans certains villages (en Auvergne par exemple), lors de la fête du saint patron local, un orchestre rudimentaire exécute sans arrêt une même bourrée pendant des heures. Pensons aussi à ces danses ininterrompues du carnaval de Rio. Bien souvent, pour ne pas dire toujours, les danses d’origine populaire ont été ennoblies pour entrer dans le ballet de cour et la suite instrumentale (XVIIe-XVIIIe s.) ; ce faisant, elles ont perdu leur caractère mélodique semi-improvisé, et leur rythme ou leur tempo ont même été modifiés. Des danses réputées lascives dans les bals populaires n’évoquent plus rien de tel après avoir été intégrées dans le ballet.
      Mais l’innovation majeure en matière de bals publics date du 31 décembre 1715, lorsque le Régent ouvrit la salle de l’Opéra de Paris, trois fois par semaine, pour y danser. De nombreux théâtres imitèrent cet exemple au XVIIIe siècle (Comédie-Française, Opéra-Comique, Comédie-Italienne). La Révolution française, en raison de la liesse qui put se donner libre cours, multiplia les bals publics. En 1790, il y avait environ quatre cents bals à Paris. Le Directoire vit le succès du Tivoli, des Folies de Chartres au parc Monceau, du jardin Biron, du jardin Bourbon (Élysée), du pavillon de Hanovre, d’Idalie (rue Marbeuf), salles dont on pourrait suivre la destinée plus ou moins brillante au long du XIXe siècle.
      C’est au bal Mabille (avenue Montaigne), entre 1840 et 1875, que Chicard introduisit le cancan et que Rigolboche et Céleste Mogador se produisirent. Sous le second Empire, la vogue du bal de l’Opéra battit son plein ; à la même époque apparurent notamment le Pré-Catelan, l’Élysée-Montmartre et le Château-d’Eau. À la fin du siècle, le succès du Moulin-Rouge, du bal Tabarin, du Moulin de la Galette, des bals de la rue de Lappe était éclatant.
      Avec la fête nationale du 14 juillet, les bals publics de plein air renouèrent avec la coutume du Moyen Âge. Un instrument récemment inventé, l’accordéon (1829), qu’il soit diatonique ou chromatique, y acquit sa renommée, en raison de son caractère expressif propre : il chante une mélodie avec facilité, son système de soufflerie permet tous les accents et toutes les modifications d’intensité, certains mécanismes de combinaisons (accords préfabriqués à la basse) rendent son jeu facile pour qui n’est pas trop regardant. L’accordéon devint l’instrument roi du bal musette (expression née vers 1910 dans les bastringues de Paris et de sa banlieue) ; il remplaça en effet la musette ou la vielle. Ce faisant, il emprunta à leur répertoire notamment la valse qui, des cercles viennois distingués, étendit sa vogue à tous les bals privés ou publics.
      Au XXe siècle apparurent les dancings et, bientôt, avec l’introduction en Europe de la musique de jazz, ainsi que des rythmes sud-américains (tango, samba, etc.), deux nouvelles sources musicales s’ajoutèrent à la musique populaire de danse. Du bal en famille, à l’occasion d’un mariage par exemple (où la valse chaloupée connaît encore des adeptes chez les vieilles générations), à la danse dans une boîte de nuit où les célibataires en mal de sensations érotiques acceptent ou recherchent les bras d’une entraîneuse, en passant par les bals masqués et les bals travestis, publics ou privés, la fonction de la danse dans le bal répond à de multiples besoins, qui vont du simple divertissement au prélude de l’aventure sexuelle. La forme de défoulement y est plus ou moins précise, la qualité des transgressions plus ou moins accentuée.

1714 Battle of Aland, Russian fleet overpowers larger Swedish fleet
1538 Entrevue d'Aigues-Mortes. Un an plus tôt, Charles Quint et François Ier ont conclu une trêve de dix ans. En ce jour, à Aigues-Mortes, ils se réconcilient et signent un traité qui garde la Savoie au roi de France et donne le Milanais à l'empereur.
1536 France and Portugal sign the naval treaty of Lyons, aligning themselves against Spain.
1456 Hungarians defeat the Ottomans at the Battle of Belgrade, in present-day Yugoslavia. The 1456 Siege of Belgrade decided the fate of Christendom.
1430 Joan of Arc, taken prisoner by the Burgundians in May, is handed over to Pierre Cauchon, the bishop of Beauvais.

TO THE TOP

Deaths which occurred on a 14 July:

2002 Joaquín Vidella Balaguer y Ricardo, at 04:30, of a bleeding ulcer, president of the Dominican Republic (1960-1962, 1966-1978, 1986-1996). Born on 01 September 1907, he was a lawyer, writer, diplomat, then puppet Vice-President (1957-1960) under puppet President General Hector Bienvenido Trujillo Molina, brother of dictator-since-1930 General Rafael Leónidas Trujillo Molina [24 Oct 1891 – 30 May 1961]. Upon the resignation of Hector Trujillo due to illness, Balaguer became puppet President. After Rafael Trujillo's assassination, Balaguer's efforts at reform were thwarted by violent disturbances and he was ousted by a coup in 1962. On 20 December 1962, Juan Emilio Bosch Gaviño [30 Jun 1909 – 01 Nov 1996], founder of the leftist Partido Revolucionario Dominicano (PRD), was elected president in the first democratic elections for nearly 40 years, but he too was deposed in a military coup, on 25 September 1963. After the 1964-1965 US military intervention, Balaguer was elected President (center-right Partido Reformista Social Cristiano). He lost the 1978 (to Silvestre Antonio Guzmán, PRD) and 1982 (to Jorge Blanco, PRD) elections but was elected again in 1986, re-elected in 1990 (over Bosch), and in 1994 when, accused of fraud, he agreed to limit his term to 2 years. Balaguer campaigned in the 2000 election [Feb 2000 photo >] but lost to Leonel Fernández Reyna of the leftist Partido de Liberación Dominicana]. Among Balaguer's many books: La Realidad Dominicana (1947) — Historia de la Literatura Dominicana (1955)

2002 David Rosenzweig, 49, Hasidic Jew (beard, kippa skull cap), stabbed by skinhead Christopher Steven McBride, 20, outside a Jewish-owned pizzeria in Toronto's Jewish neighborhood, just after 01:00.

2002 Qi Qi, 25, of diabetes, stomach problems, and old age, at the Institute of Hydrobiology in Wuhan, China, where he was since 1980 (after being injured by fishermen), the only Baiji (Yangtze River dolphin) in the world to survive long in captivity. Less than 100 Baiji dolphins (normal life span 25 to 30 years) are believed to survive in their only natural habitat, the lower half of the Yangtze River, where industrial waste, boat propellers and entanglement in fishing nets is expected to cause their extinction by 2025. [photo: a Yangtze River dolphin >]
The Baiji has a stocky body about the same size as a human. It has tiny eyes and a long, narrow beak, like other river dolphins. Close up the Baiji's coloring appears dark blue-gray on its back fading to grayish white on its stomach. The triangular dorsal fin is set low, and the flippers are broad and somewhat rounded. The Baiji is most active between early evening and early morning. This species is quiet, reserved, and difficult to approach. When seen they are usually alone or in groups of up to six where tributaries join the river, especially around shallow sand banks. In calm conditions the Baiji's blow may be heard as a high-pitched sneeze. Many times Finless dolphins are spotted and mistaken for Baiji, since Finless dolphins are much more numerous on the Yangtze River. China declared the Baiji a National Treasure and began protection for it in 1975. Parts of the river were also declared a natural reserve but this effort has had little success in protecting the Baiji because of continual boat traffic, fishing, and industrial development (including the construction of the world's largest dam, the Three Gorges dam) along what is one of the world's busiest waterways. The genus name for the Baiji is Lipotes (Greek "left behind", referring to its limited range)

2001 Mikel Uribe, 44, shot twice in the head while inside his car on his way to have dinner with friends in the town of Leaburu, Spain, in the evening. The gunmen fled in a car which they abandoned and destroyed in a bomb explosion near the town. Uribe was the head of Basque police's investigation unit in San Sebastian.

2001 José Javier Mugica, 50, by a bomb attached to the underside of his van, which exploded as he started the engine at about 09:50, in Leiza, a farming town of 3000 in Navarra.

2001 At least 15 sea lions, 4 females and 11 males, off San Cristobal Galapagos island, killed by poachers for their teeth and male genitals to be sold as aphrodisiacs in Asia. [< photo: 7 of the dead sea lions]

1974 Carl Spaatz, 83, in Washington, D.C. US Army General         ^top^
      Carl Spaatz was a fighter pilot and the first chief of staff of an independent US Air Force.
      Spaatz was born in 1891 in Boyertown, Pennsylvania, and graduated from the Military Academy at West Point in 1914. He was a combat pilot during World War I, and at the outbreak of World War II went to England to help evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of the German military. (During the Blitz, the air raids on England by the German Luftwaffe, Spaatz would sit on rooftops to better observe German air tactics.)
      In July 1942, he became commander of the US Eighth Air Force and inaugurated daylight bombing runs against German-occupied territory in Europe. Two years later, Spaatz was made commander of US Strategic Air Forces in Europe and continued the practice of daylight bombing, the target now being Germany itself, especially its fuel-oil plants. Since Germany had already lost access to oil in Romania after that country's occupation by the Soviet Union, the destruction of its native oil production proved particularly devastating to Germany's ability to keep up aircraft production.
      In 1945, with the war in the West over (Spaatz was present at the formal German surrender at Reims on 08 May), his focus shifted to the Pacific and the Japanese. Although he initially opposed the use of atomic weapons against Japan, he eventually acquiesced and directed the bomb drops on order from President Truman. In fact, his telegraph to Washington stating that there were no Allied prisoner of war camps in Hiroshima resulted in that city becoming the first target of the atom bomb. In September 1947, General Spaatz, an illustrious combat career behind him, was named the first chief of staff of the now independent US Air Force, which previously had been a unit of the Army. But a desk job was not for him. He retired in 1948.

1966 Gloria Davy, Patricia Matusek, Nina Schmale, Pamela Wilkening, Suzanne Farris, Mary Ann Jordan, Merlita Gargullo, and Valentina Paison — all nursing students at the South Chicago Community Hospital — are strangled or stabbed to death by Richard Speck, a drifter wanted by Illinois authorities for questioning in two other murders.         ^top^
      Richard Speck was an alcoholic and a petty criminal with over 20 arrests on his record by the age of 25. He had "Born to Raise Hell" tattooed on his forearm and periodically worked on cargo boats traveling the Great Lakes. On the night of July 13, after drinking heavily at several Chicago bars, Speck stopped at the townhouse for student nurses of the South Chicago Community Hospital. After knocking on the door, Speck threatened three nurses with both a gun and a knife to force into a bedroom, where he found three more women. Using nautical knots, he then tied the women's hands and feet with strips torn from bedsheets. By midnight, three more nurses had come home only to be tied up as well.
      Speck assured the women that he was only going to rob them. After stealing from the women, Speck's intentions changed. He took the women into separate rooms, killing them one by one. The remaining women heard only muffled screams from their roommates. Speck raped his final victim before strangling her to death.
      One of the nurses, Corazon Amurao, managed to escape with her life by hiding under a bed although her hands and feet were tied; Speck had lost count of his victims. Amurao waited until 18:00 on the 14th before leaving her hiding place. She then went to a window where she screamed, "Help me! Help me! My friends are all dead, all dead, all dead!"
      Police responding to the cries obtained a detailed description of Speck from Amurao; the sketch was placed on the front page of every local newspaper the next morning. Speck, who was hiding out at a dollar-a-night hotel, slashed his wrists in a suicide attempt on 16 July. Speck was arrested on 19 July at the Cook County Hospital.
      With Amurao's identification and his fingerprints, blood, and semen, which matched those found on the scene, Speck was convicted and, on 15 April 1967, sentenced to death. However, in 1973,, the US Supreme Court banned capital punishment pending trial reform, and Speck's death sentence was commuted to fifty to one hundred years in prison. He died of heart failure in 1991.

1958 King Faisal II PM of Iraq, assassinated at Baghdad
1957: 270 die as Soviet ship Eshghabad runs aground in the Caspian.
1956 Wishart, mathematician.
1953 Mises, mathematician.
1939 Alfons Maria Mucha, Czech Art Nouveau painter, illustrator, and designer, born on 24 August 1860. — MUCHO ON MUCHA AT ART “4” JULY — LINKS — Job — Design for a Ten Pound Banknote — Biscuits Lefèvre-Utile — L'Estampe Moderne, Numéro I — Design for Moët~Chandon Champagne label — Design for a fan

1881 Henry McCarty, aka William H. Bonney, "Billy the Kid", 21, shot by sheriff         ^top^
      On a ranch near old Fort Sumner, New Mexico, the infamous Western outlaw known as "Billy the Kid" is shot to death by Pat Garrett, the sheriff of Lincoln County.
      Billy the Kid, whose real name was probably Henry McCarty, though he called himself William H. Bonney, came to New Mexico in the 1870s and found work in Lincoln as a ranch hand. When members of a rival cattle gang killed his employer, John Tunstall, Billy became involved in the so-called Lincoln County War. He led the posse sent to arrest the murderers, and in a shoot-out the wanted men were killed.
      Lincoln Sheriff Bill Brady, who was sympathetic to Tunstall's enemies, then issued a reward for the Billy's arrest. However, a rival Lincoln "lawman" deputized him, and in late July 1878, a five-day battle ensued between the various factions in Lincoln. Billy shot the sheriff and several of his henchman dead, but Brady's successor discovered where Billy was staying and surrounded the house. The siege stretched into days, and even after the arrival of a US Army squadron from nearby Fort Stanton Billy still refused to surrender. Finally, the sheriff ordered the house burned, but in the confusion caused by the fire Billy and several of his allies managed to shoot their way out of town.
      After more than two years on the run, Billy was arrested by Lincoln Sheriff Pat Garrett, and in April of 1881 found guilty of the murders of Sheriff Brady and another man. After the trial, the judge turned him over to Pat Garrett, and ordered that Billy be hanged in Lincoln on May 13. On April 28, back in Lincoln, Billy wrested a gun from one of his jailers, and shot him and another deputy dead in a daring escape that received national attention.
      On the night of 14 July 1881, Garrett finally tracks him down at a ranch near old Fort Sumner. He gains access to the house where Billy was visiting a friend, and then surprises him in the dark. Before the outlaw could offer resistance, Garret discharges two bullets, one of which pierces Billy's heart.

1865 Benjamin Gompertz, 86, in London (where he was born on 05 March 1779)         ^top^

     Gompertz was a self-educated mathematician, reading Newton and Maclaurin, since he was denied admission to universities as he was Jewish.
      He applied the calculus to actuarial questions and he is best remembered for Gompertz's Law of Mortality. Gompertz, in 1825, showed that the mortality rate increases in a geometric progression. Hence, when death rates are plotted on a logarithmic scale, a straight line known as the Gompertz function is obtained.
      Gompertz also wrote about scientific instruments, writing Theory of astronomical instruments (1822), A new instrument called the differential sextant (1825) and On the converted pendulum (1829). He became a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1819.

1864 Yanks and more Rebs at Battle of Tupelo.         ^top^
      Confederate General Nathan Bedford Forrest suffers his biggest defeat when Union General Andrew J. Smith routs his force in Tupelo, Mississippi. The battle came just a month after the Battle of Brice's Crossroads, in which Forrest engineered a brilliant victory over a larger Union force from Memphis that was designed to keep him from threatening General William T. Sherman's supply lines in Tennessee. Hoping to neutralize Forrest, Sherman sent Smith's expedition to destroy Forrest and his cavalry. Smith left LaGrange, Tennessee, on 22 June with 14'000 soldiers. Forrest and his cavalry were part of a 10'000-man force commanded by General Stephen Lee, but Forrest and Lee shared command responsibilities. Forrest's strategy at Tupelo was similar to his tactics at the Battle of West Point, Mississippi, five months earlier. In both battles, Forrest used part of his force to entice the Yankees into a trap.
      The plan worked well at West Point, but in Tupelo Smith did not take the bait. Instead of driving right at Forrest, Smith dug his troops in around Tupelo. Lee and Forrest were uneasy about attacking the Yankees, but they agreed to try to drive Smith out of Mississippi. The assault began on the morning of 14 July. Smith's Union troops were in an ideal position for fending off an attack. The Confederates had to fight uphill across nearly a mile of open terrain. Lee struck one flank and Forrest struck the other. Poor communication ruined the Rebels' coordination, and after three hours they had not breached the Union line. Although Lee was the ranking Confederate, he had offered Forrest command of the battle. Forrest declined, but assigning blame for the defeat is difficult. Union losses stood at 674, while Forrest and Lee lost over 1300 soldiers. Despite the Union victory, the overly cautious Smith had lost an opportunity to completely destroy Forrest and Lee's army. He had not counterattacked, and the Confederates maintained a dangerous force in Mississippi.

1863 The victims of the second day of the New York City Draft Riots         ^top^
      During the Civil War, major riots break out in New York City against the implementation of the first wartime draft of US civilian in US history. The majority of the rioters are Democratic Irish laborers outraged that exemptions from the draft can be legally bought for $300, a small fortune out of reach of the average worker. Many of the rioters are also opposed to the Union war effort because of fears of losing their jobs to emancipated Black slaves.
      The conscription act, passed by Congress on 03 March, called for registration of all males between the ages of twenty and forty-five years by 01 April. On 11 July, the first names of draftees were drawn in New York City. Two days later, a mob swarmed into the draft office at 3rd Avenue and 45th Street in Manhattan, set it on fire, and nearly beat the superintendent to death. Within an hour, the entire block was burning, the riot was spreading, and looting had begun. The Federal troops usually stationed in the city had not yet returned from Gettysburg, so New York City police faced the enraged mobs alone. Well-dressed men on the street were beaten, a police captain was killed, and several Protestant churches were burned. The mob then turned it anger against Blacks, and eleven persons were lynched, burned alive, or beaten to death.
      By 15 July, several dozen protesters had been killed along with another policeman, and the first troops hastily marching back from Gettysburg arrived. Before the riot was suppressed the next day, eight soldiers and scores of rioters had been killed. In total, over one hundred people perished during the four days of violence. Protests and riots against the draft also erupted elsewhere, but none as costly as those that occurred in New York. New York’s city council later announced that city funds would pay the $300 commutation fee for any man too poor to pay it himself, and in August, the draft act was suspended all across the Union.

1836 Willem-Bartel van der Kooi, Dutch artist born on 13 May 1768.
1827 Augustin Fresnel, did important work on optics where he was one of the founders of the wave theory of light.
1800 Lorenzo Mascheroni, geometer who proved in 1797 that all Euclidean constructions can be made with compasses alone, so a straight edge in not needed.

1789 Marquis Bernard-Jordan de Launay, gouverneur de la Bastille, des gardes suisses, une centaine d'émeutiers.         ^top^
      En France, cet événement déclencha d'immenses répercussions. La prise de la Bastille (une forteresse quasiment vide) par le peuple de Paris est surtout la chute d'un symbole de l'absolutisme. Elle donna le signal à la révolution. Soutenue et guidée par de nombreux bourgeois que la royauté avaient exaspérés, la foule en colère avait déclenché ce mouvement historique. La veille, 28'000 fusils et 20 canons ont été pris par le peuple de Paris aux Invalides. Il manque de la poudre et des munitions. Certains pensent que l'on peut en trouver à la Bastille qui est, qui plus est, le symbole de l'arbitraire royal: Richelieu avait fait de cette forteresse, construite en 1370 par Charles V le Sage, une prison d'Etat.
      De Launay, gouverneur de la prison, refuse au peuple l'accès aux magasins. Les défenseurs, quelques Suisses et quelques invalides tirent malencontreusement sur la foule. En début d'après-midi, la foule en colère force les portes et s’empare de la forteresse. Les prisonniers, un aristocrate fou, un complice du régicide Damien qui est là depuis trente ans, quatre faussaires et un dernier criminel sont libérés et portés en triomphe. On pille, on détruit les archives. De Launay est assassiné. Sa tête fixée au bout d’une pique est promenée devant le Palais- Royal.
      Le soir, le duc de La Rochefoucauld-Liancourt fait réveiller le roi et lui annonce la prise de la forteresse. "C'est une révolte?" "Non, Sire, c'est une révolution." Quelques heures plus tôt, le roi a noté dans son journal à la date du 14 juillet : "Rien."
      La prise de la Bastille constitue un symbole pour toute la France et probablement aussi pour beaucoup de nations. Il faut dire que les Historiens lui ont attribué une grande importance. C’est le symbole de la chute de l’ancien régime. Le Roi, de droit divin, pouvait emprisonner, d’une seule signature (les fameuses lettres de cachet) n’importe quel citoyen, du plus humble au plus puissant . Homme ou femme, au secret, ou traité comme un prince, les deux conditions alimentant paradoxalement la colère populaire.
      Mais dans la Grande Histoire, cette prise de la Bastille n’est qu’une péripétie peu importante dans la Chronologie de la Révolution Française.
      Le 11 Jul 1789, Louis XVI renvoie le ministre des finances et chef du gouvernement, Necker, le banquier, financier, fort bien vu par la bourgeoisie et le peuple. Ce qui crée une onde de choc et de nombreuses agitations. A tel point qu’un régiment royal (le Royal-Allemand) tire sur la foule et exaspère au plus haut point l’ensemble de la population.
      Le lendemain, les électeurs réunis aux Etats Généraux élisent une commission permanente chargée essentiellement d’assurer l’approvisionnement de la ville (pour échapper aux spéculateurs très actifs) ainsi que le maintien de l’ordre, mais dans un sens non militaire. Les états généraux créent une milice civique (qui deviendra plus tard "Garde Nationale").
     Après la prise de la Bastille, le Roi devra rappeler Necker et reconnaître le principe de la Garde Nationale à la tête de laquelle il nomme le Marquis de La Fayette. La prise de la représente surtout le fait que "le peuple" est apparu ce jour plus fort que le roi ! Ce fut la cinquième et la dernière prise de la Bastille de l'Histoire.

     The Bastille was a royal fortress in Paris, but revolutionaries gave it an inflated notoriety by declaring it a state prison. On 14 July 1789, militant Parisian workers stormed the fortress and dismantled it. Although they claimed they were releasing prisoners, their real purpose was to acquire weapons. This event triggered a three-year reign of terror and political turmoil in which King Louis XVI was overthrown and 1000 people, including the king and his wife Marie Antoinette, were guillotined.
      Parisian revolutionaries and mutinous troops storm and dismantle the Bastille, a royal fortress that had come to symbolize the tyranny of the Bourbon monarchs. This dramatic action signaled the beginning of the French Revolution, a decade of political turmoil and terror in which King Louis XVI was overthrown and tens of thousands of people, including the king and his wife Marie Antoinette, were executed. The Bastille was originally constructed in 1370 as a bastide, or "fortification," to protect the walled city of Paris from English attack. It was later made into an independent stronghold, and its name — bastide — was corrupted to Bastille.
      The Bastille was first used as a state prison in the 17th century, and its cells were reserved for upper-class felons, political troublemakers, and spies. Most prisoners there were imprisoned without a trial under direct orders of the king. 30 meters high and surrounded by a moat 25 meters wide, the Bastille was an imposing structure in the Parisian landscape.
      By the summer of 1789, France was moving quickly toward revolution. There were severe food shortages in France that year, and popular resentment against the rule of King Louis XVI was turning to fury. In June, the Third Estate, which represented commoners and the lower clergy, declared itself the National Assembly and called for the drafting of a constitution. Initially seeming to yield, Louis legalized the National Assembly but then surrounded Paris with troops and on 11 July dismissed (for the 2nd time) Jacques Necker, a popular minister of state who had supported reforms. In response, mobs began rioting in Paris at the instigation of revolutionary leaders.
      Bernard-Jordan de Launay, the military governor of the Bastille, feared that his fortress would be a target for the revolutionaries and so requested reinforcements. A company of Swiss mercenary soldiers arrived on 07 July to bolster his garrison of 82 soldiers. The Marquis de Sade, one of the few prisoners in the Bastille at the time, was transferred to an insane asylum after he attempted to incite a crowd outside his window by yelling: "They are massacring the prisoners; you must come and free them." On 12 July, royal authorities transferred 250 barrels of gunpowder to the Bastille from the Paris Arsenal, which was more vulnerable to attack. Launay brought his men into the Bastille and raised its two drawbridges.
      On 13 July, revolutionaries with muskets began firing at soldiers standing guard on the Bastille's towers and then took cover in the Bastille's courtyard when Launay's men fired back. That evening, mobs stormed the Paris Arsenal and another armory and acquired thousands of muskets. At dawn on 14 July a great crowd armed with muskets, swords, and various makeshift weapons began to gather around the Bastille.
      Launay received a delegation of revolutionary leaders but refused to surrender the fortress and its munitions as they requested. He later received a second delegation and promised he would not open fire on the crowd. To convince the revolutionaries, he showed them that his cannons were not loaded. Instead of calming the agitated crowd, news of the unloaded cannons emboldened a group of men to climb over the outer wall of the courtyard and lower a drawbridge. Three hundred revolutionaries rushed in, and Launay's men took up a defensive position. When the mob outside began trying to lower the second drawbridge, Launay ordered his men to open fire. One hundred rioters were killed or wounded.
      Launay's men were able to hold the mob back, but more and more Parisians were converging on the Bastille. At about 15:00, a company of deserters from the French army arrived. The soldiers, hidden by smoke from fires set by the mob, dragged five cannons into the courtyard and aimed them at the Bastille. Launay raised a white flag of surrender over the fortress. Launay and his men were taken into custody, the gunpowder and cannons were seized, and the seven prisoners of the Bastille were freed. Upon arriving at the Hôtel de Ville, where Launay was to be arrested by a revolutionary council, the governor was pulled away from his escort by a mob and murdered.
      The capture of the Bastille symbolized the end of the ancien régime and provided the French revolutionary cause with an irresistible momentum. Joined by four-fifths of the French army, the revolutionaries seized control of Paris and then the French countryside, forcing King Louis XVI to accept a constitutional government. In 1792, the monarchy was abolished and Louis and his wife Marie-Antoinette were sent to the guillotine for treason in 1793. By order of the new revolutionary government, the Bastille was torn down. On 06 February 1790, the last stone of the hated prison-fortress was presented to the National Assembly. Today, 14 July — Bastille Day — is celebrated as the most important national holiday in France.

1720 Alexander van Bredael, Flemish artist born on 01 April 663.
1716 Jan-Baptist Huysmans, Flemish artist born on 07 October 1654. — LINKS — Mountainous Landscape.
1643 (or 21 March 1644) Hans Jordaens III “le long Jean”, Flemish artist born in 1595. — The Holy Family — Thetis and Achilles Before the Oracle
(or 08 Oct) 1455 Antonio Pisan(ell)o di Puccio, Italian painter, draftsman, and medallist, born in 1395 before 27 November. — MORE ON PISANELLO AT ART “4” JULY — LINKS — Ginevra d'Este — Madonna col Bambino e i santi Antonio abate e Giorgio — Visione di sant'Eustachio — Cicogna — Madonna della quaglia — San Giorgio, la principessa e il drago _ detail — Emperor Sigismund — La lussuria — Studio per la Decollazione del Battista — Madonna col Bambino e i santi Antonio abate e Giorgio — Ginevra d’Este — Visione di sant’Eustachio — Torneo cavalleresco — Ritratto di Leonello d’Este — Medaglia di Leonello d’Este — Medaglia di Alfonso V d’Aragona

1223 Philippe II Auguste, 57 ans, roi de France depuis l'âge de 15 ans.         ^top^
      Le roi est accablé de fièvres tenaces depuis près d'un an. La veille, il prend un copieux repas, parce qu'il a l'impression de se sentir mieux. Ce jour, il est au plus mal. On lui administre les derniers sacrements. Le roi veux mourir à Paris, mais il meurt sur la route, à Mantes. Pour la première fois dans l'histoire de la royauté, de grandes funérailles sont faites au roi qui vient de mourir.
     Né à Paris le 21 Aug 1165, fils de Louis VII et d'Adéle de Champagne. Sacré du vivant de son père mortellement malade, le 1er novembre 1179, il règne de fait dès avant la mort de celui-ci (18 septembre 1180) et il épouse Isabelle de Hainaut (28 Apr 1180) qui lui apporte l'Artois. Il doit d'abord faire face à une révolte féodale dont il sort victorieux, annexant les Comtés d'Amiens et de Montdidier (Paix de Boves, juillet 1185, confirmée par le traité de Gisors, mai 1186).
      Puis il entame la lutte contre l'empire des Plantagenets, dont la puissance constitue une menace permananente pour la monarchie capétienne. Soutenant la révolte des fils d'Henry II contre leur père, il y gagne une partie du Vermandois et impose à Henry II l'humiliante capitulation d'Azay-le-Rideau en 1189. Henry II meurt peu après, le 06 Jul 1189.
      Philippe Auguste participe ensuite à la troisième croisade (avec Frédéric Ier Barberousse qui mourra en route le 10 juin 1190) qui permettra la reprise d'Acre mais pas celle de Jérusalem. Revenu en 1191, il fait arrêter Richard Coeur de Lion par le Duc Léopold d'Autriche en décembre 1192. Libéré moyennant rançon en février 1194, le Roi d'Angleterre engage les hostilités contre Philippe II et l'écrase à deux reprises: Frétéval en 1194 et Courcelles en 1198. La mort de Richard (06 Apr 1199) sauve le Roi de France…
      Quelques années plus tard, la coalition suscitée par Jean contre la France se conclut par la double victoire française de la Roche-Aux-Moines et de Bouvines.
      En détruisant l' "Empire Angevin" des Plantagenets, Philippe Auguste a ouvert la voie à l'expansion de l'autorité Capétienne dans le royaume, il a aussi largement contribué, en créant baillis et sénéchaux, et en organisant la curia regis comme organe de gouvernement, à l'éclosion des institutions qui seront les instruments de la centralisation monarchique. On peut dire que la France date de son reigne.
     Son fils Louis VIII lui succède.

1099 Tens of thousands massacred as First Crusade captures Jerusalem         ^top^
      During the First Crusade, Christian knights under Raymond of Toulouse, Godfrey of Bouillon, and Tancred of Taranto captured Jerusalem after seven weeks of siege, and began massacring the city's Muslim and Jewish population.
      Beginning in the eleventh century, Christians in Jerusalem were increasingly persecuted by the city's Islamic rulers, especially when control of the holy city passed from the comparatively tolerant Egyptians to the Seljuk Turks in 1071. Late in the century, Byzantine Emperor Alexius I, also threatened by the Seljuk Turks, appealed to the West for aid. European Christians, who had been calling for a crusade to recover the holy lands for several decades, answered his plea enthusiastically.
      The first crusaders were actually undisciplined hordes of French and German peasants who met with little success, but in 1097, under the authority of the pope, an army of Christian knights crossed into Asia Minor. In June, the crusaders captured the Turkish-held city of Nicaea and then defeated a massive army of Seljuk Turks at Dorylaeum. From there, they marched on to Antioch, located on the Orontes River below Mount Silpius, and began a difficult six-month siege during which they endured several attacks by Turkish relief armies. Finally, early in the morning of 03 June 1098, Bohemond persuaded a Turkish traitor to open Antioch's Bridge Gate and the knights poured into the city. In an orgy of killing, the Christians massacred thousands of enemy soldiers and citizens, and all but the city's fortified citadel was taken. Later in the month, a large Turkish army arrived to attempt to regain the city, but they too were defeated, and the Antioch citadel surrendered to the Europeans.
      After resting and reorganizing for six months, the crusaders set off for their ultimate goal, Jerusalem. On 07 June 1099, the Christian army of 1200 knights and 11'000 foot soldiers reached the holy city, and finding it heavily fortified, began building three enormous siege towers. By the night of July 13, the towers were complete and the Christians began fighting their way across Jerusalem's walls. On 14 July Godfrey's men were the first to penetrate the defenses, and the Gate of Saint Stephen was opened. The rest of the knights and soldiers then poured in, the city was captured, and tens of thousands of its occupants were slaughtered.
      Although the crusaders had achieved their aims, and Jerusalem was in Christian hands, an Egyptian army marched on the holy city a few weeks later to challenge their claim. The Egyptians' defeat by the outnumbered Christians in August ended Muslim resistance to the Europeans for the time being, and five small Christian states were set up in the region under the rule of the leaders of the crusade.

Births which occurred on a 14 July:

1955 Karmann-Ghia coupe         ^top^
      Volkswagen introduced the Karmann-Ghia coupe at the Kasino Hotel in Westfalia, Germany. As the European car market finally recovered from the war, Volkswagen felt that it needed to release an “image car” to accompany its plain but reliable “Bugs and Buses.”
      Volkswagen was not the only automotive company looking for a flagship car at the time. Chevrolet had released the Corvette, and Ford the Thunderbird. The Chrysler Corporation had contracted with the Italian design firm Ghia to create designs for a Chrysler dream car; however, none of the designs came to fruition.
      Meanwhile, Volkswagen had contracted with German coach-builder Karmann for their own image car, and Karmann, in turn, had sub-contracted to Ghia for design offerings. Eventually Ghia supplied Karmann with a version of their Chrysler design, modified for the floor plane of the Volkswagen Beetle. The Karmann-Ghia was released as a 1956 model by Volkswagen. The car’s sleek lines and hand craftsmanship attracted the attention Volkswagen had hoped for.
      Nevertheless, as sporty as the Karmann-Ghia looked, it suffered from its thirty-six-horsepower flat four engine in the area of power. Still, the Karmann-Ghia sold 10'000 units in its first full production year, and with the release of the convertible in 1958, production reached 18'000 units for one year. Sales climbed steadily through the 1960s, peaking at 33'000 cars per year.
      While General Motors and Ford focused on their Corvette and Thunderbird, respectively, Volkswagen found that the Bug had increased in popularity, especially in the US market. Executives decided to focus their marketing attention on the Bug, abandoning the Karmann-Ghia, which was last produced in 1974.

1918 Jay Forrester, inventor of computer memory, ^top^
Forrester studied at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he later became a professor and researcher. In 1945, he founded MIT's Digital Computer Laboratory and helped build an early digital computer called the "Whirlwind I." His work at the lab made him realize that existing information storage techniques were slow and, even worse, unreliable. In 1949, he developed a way to use a magnetic cell to store information. The random-access magnetic core memory became a central feature of most digital computers. Forrester later applied computer science to management problems, creating computer simulations of real world problems in manufacturing and other processes.

1913 Leslie Lynch King Jr. , in Omaha, Nebraska. ^top^
While Leslie was still an infant, his parents were divorced, and his mother moved to Grand Rapids, Michigan, where she married Gerald Rudolph Ford, Sr., who adopted the boy and gave him the name Gerald Rudolph Ford, Jr.. under which he became a star football player at U. of Michigan, a Navy Lieutenant Commander in WWII, a Republican congressman, the minority leader, the 41st VP (1973-74) named by Nixon in replacement of disgraced Spiro Agnew, the 38th pres (R-1974-77) in replacement of disgraced Nixon who resigned. He was thus the first non-elected vice-president and president. He was also one of four left-handed Presidents: others were James A. Garfield, Harry S Truman and Bill Clinton)

1904 Isaac Bashevis Singer Yiddish novelist (Enemies — Nobel 1978)
1890 Ossip Zadkine, French artist who died on 25 November 1967.
1874 'Abbas II, last khedive (Ottoman viceroy) of Egypt (1892-1914)
1866 Juliette Trulemans Wytsman, Belgian artist who died on 08 March 1925.
1862 Gustav Klimt, Austrian Art Nouveau painter who died on 06 February 1918. — MORE ON KLIMT AT ART “4” JULY — LINKS — A Field of Poppies — Two Girls with Oleander — Sketch for the Allegory 'Junius' — The Three Ages of Women — Die Tänzerin — Hope I — Hope II — Tree of Life — Die Jungfrau — Schubert at the Piano — Garden Path with Chickens — Hygieia, detail from Medicine — Judith I — Danae
1857 Maytag invented washing machine
1834 James Abbott McNeill Whistler, US-born artist who lived mostly as an expatriate and died on 17 July 1903. Author of Ten O'Clock Lecture (1885) and The Gentle Art of Making Enemies (1890). — A caricature of Whistler — MORE ON WHISTLER AT ART “4” JULY — LINKS — Arrangement in Yellow and Grey: Effie Deans — Symphony in White N.1: The White Girl — Symphony in White N.2: The Little White Girl — Symphony in White N.3: The Two White Girls — Rose et Argent: La Princesse du Pays de la Porcelaine — Symphony in Grey and Green: The Ocean — Wapping (Wapping is an area of London) — Valparaiso — The Thames in Ice — The Sweet Shop — At the Piano — Nocturne in Black and Gold: Falling Rocket — Harmony in Grey and Green: Miss Cicely Alexander — Arrangement in Grey and Black Nº 2: Thomas Carlyle — Pierrot — The Pier: A Grey Note — Arrangement in Gray and Black No. 1: Portrait of the Artist's Mother — Caprice in Purple and Gold No 2 - The Golden Screen. — Purple and Rose: The Lange Lijzen of the Six Marks — Rotherhithe — At the Piano — Nocturne: Blue and Gold – Old Battersea Bridge — Gray and Silver: Mist - Lifeboat — Harmony in Red: Lamplight. Portrait of Mrs. Beatrice Godwin — The Siesta — The Gold Scab: Eruption in Frilthy Lucre (The Creditor) — 100 prints at FAMSF
1816 Edward Matthey Ward, British painter who died on 15 January 1816. — LINKS — Sir Thomas More's Farewell to his Daughter.
1775 Louis Ducis, French artist who died on 02 March 1847.
1750 Pieter Faes, Flemish artist who died on 22 December 1814.
1602 Jules Mazarin France, cardinal, French 1st Minister (1642-1661)

Holidays France, Guiana, Polynesia, Guadeloupe, Martinique, Liège: Bastille Day (1789) [Ah! Longs enfants de l'apathie, le jour de croire l'état rivé...]

Fête à Liège         ^top^
     Depuis la Révolution Française, depuis les destructions (comme la célèbre Cathédrale Saint-Lambert) et les manifestations de soutien de la France à la Belgique et à Liège en particulier, la ville de Liège a toujours célébré le 14 Juillet comme une fête "nationale". Le mouvement de résistance à la Flandre n’a pas atténué ce souvenir, au contraire.
      La recrudescence au XXème siècle de cet engouement séculaire s'explique en partie par l’attribution à la Ville de Liège de La Légion d’Honneur (c’est la seule ville qui l'ait reçu) pour son attitude courageuse et sa défense héroïque lors de l’agression allemande d’Août 1914, ce qui permit de retarder l’attaque à la France et donc à celle-ci de préparer son armée et d'éviter la défaite.. De nombreux liégeois y célèbrent leur désir de "rattachisme" à la France.

Iran : Appointment of the Prophet / Iraq : Republic Day (1958) / Senegal : African Community Day

Religious Observances Muslim-Indonesia, Kuwait, Oman, UAE, Yemen PDR : Mohammed Ascension / Old Catholic : St Bonaventure, bishop/confessor/doctor / RC : St Camillus of Lellis, patron of nurses/sick (opt) / RC : Bl Kateri Tekakwitha, Lily of the Mohawks, virgin

Thought for the day: “Think you've got influence? Try commanding someone else's dog.” [or your own cat]
“There are two kinds of statistics, the kind you look up and the kind you make up.” — Rex Stout, US author (1886-1975).
“There are three types of lies. Lies, Damn Lies, and Statistics” — Mark Twain.

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