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On a 23 July:

2002 The stock of oil and gas company Dynegy (DYN) is downgraded by Salomon Smith Barney from Neutral to Underperform. On the New York Stock Exchange the stock drops from its previous close of $3.38 to an intraday low of $0.84 and closes at $1.23. It had traded as high as $57.95 on 30 April 2001. — DYN falls further in the next two days, to as low as $0.51 on 25 July, but then recovers to a close of $0.68 on Friday 26 July, on 29 July to an intraday high of $1.30 and a close of $1.20, on 30 July to an intraday high of $1.83 and a close of $1.70, on 31 July to an intraday high of $2.90 and a close of $2.40. — [5~year price chart >]

2002 Kidnapped 7-year-old's gnawing escape.
Erica “E” Pratt, 7 [< photo], finds herself bound with duct tape, locked in the pitch dark basement of an abandoned home in north Philadelphia (at 1211 Loudon Street), where she was dumped by members of a drug gang feuding with the Pratt gang: James Burns, 29 (multiple arrests on gun charges), and Edward Johnson, 23 (multiple arrests on drug charges, on probation), one of whom called her by her name and grabbed her at 21:22 the previous evening, as she was coming back from a neighborhood block party with her sister Nalilah, 5, on the sidewalk outside the home of her grandmother (in the 6000 block of Kingsessing Avenue, Erica's mom, Sarina Gillis, 24, without a home of her own, lives a block away, in the 6000 block of Reinhard Street) with whom she has been living for the last three years, and dragged her screaming to a car where the other was waiting.

      20 minutes later her grandmother receives a phone call: “We want $150'000, or else we're going to kill your granddaughter.” The ransom is demanded in seven more calls, during one of which, just before midnight, Erica is allowed to speak briefly with her grandmother. There had been false rumors that Barbara Pratt, 45, Erica's grandmother had received $150'000, insurance money for the 23 March 2002 murder of Erica's uncle, Joseph Pratt Jr., 25, leader of a drug gang (now led by Erica's father and another uncle) killed in the barrage of bullets as he sat in a car parked on South 56th Street near Woodland Avenue. Before the killing, he had been involved in drug dealing and a series of serious assaults. At the time of his death, he was facing charges of attempted murder for a September 2001 shooting near 39th Street and Fairmount Avenue.
     In 1993, another uncle, Derrick Pratt, then 21, was acquitted by a jury of being one of the gunmen who killed two teenagers and wounded two others in a 1990 revenge attack near a West Philadelphia movie theater. Erica's father, Eric Pratt, is on probation after an April 1998 arrest for drug possession and intent to distribute, to which he pleaded guilty. In January 2002 Erica's mother, Sarina Gillis, was sentenced to a year's probation for spraying two women in the face with dog repellent in 2001. She also was arrested in December 2001 for drug-possession.
      Erica spends the day gnawing through the tape around her hands and feet, then kicks out a panel of the locked basement door, and smashes open a first-floor front window of the building and shouts for help. Three youngsters hear her, help her out the window, and call the police, who rescue Erica at 20:53. The little girl suffers a cornea abrasion from the tape over her eyes and her hair is tangled up in duct tape. She is hungry and exhausted.
      The kidnappers would be arrested on 25 July 2002, before 08:00, suffering cuts and bruises in the process.

— [Shouldn't a 7-year-old and a 5-year-old be safely asleep in bed at 21:22, rather than out on the sidewalk?]

2002 The British government announces that it has named Rowan Williams, 52 [photo >], to become the 104th archbishop of Canterbury in October 2002, succeeding George Carey, 67, who is retiring after 11 years. Williams, a Welsh, will be the first non-English in the post. He is married, has two children (aged 14 and 6), and is an outspoken leftist who has written 14 books, including two of poetry.

2001 Indonesian president removed from office.
     Indonesia's People's Consultative Assembly 591-0 impeaches President Abdurahman Wahid and swears in Vice President Megawati Sukarnoputri as President.
[photo: Blind more than just physically, Wahid, guided by daughter and an aide, waves to mostly inexistent supporters >]
      Army generals, and senior police officers had rejected an emergency decree issued earlier in the day by Wahid ordering the assembly's immediate suspension.
      For weeks Wahid had warned that his ouster would trigger civil unrest. However, there was none.
      Wahid, a blind muslim cleric, became Indonesia's first democratic head of state in 44 years when the same assembly elected him in October 1999, choosing him over Megawati, daughter of Indonesia's founder Sukarno.
      But relations with lawmakers, many of them holdovers from the 32-year dictatorship of former president Suharto, quickly soured over Wahid's attempts to end corruption and reform the state bureaucracy and armed forces. His opponents accused him of erratic policymaking and failing to fix the crisis-ridden economy or resolving several bloody sectarian and separatist conflicts.
      The push to remove Wahid from office began in 2000 when he was linked to two corruption scandals. He has denied any wrongdoing and has been cleared by police and prosecutors.
      On 22 July 2001, Wahid declared a state of emergency and ordered Indonesia's military to dissolve the assembly. The military refused and instead deployed troops and tanks to protect legislators. The Supreme Court has ruled that Wahid has no power to block impeachment. Following Wahid's decree to shut down the legislature, at least six ministers quit his Cabinet in protest. Among those who announced their intent to resign were security minister Agum Gumelar, state secretary Marzuki Darusman and attorney general Marsilam Simanjuntak — who was one of Wahid's closest advisers.
[< photo: Megawati waves to journalists after the swearing in]
[more photos]

2000 US President Clinton rejoined the troubled Middle East talks at Camp David after hurrying back from a four-day trip to Asia.
2000 Leaders of the major industrial countries conclude their summit in Japan by announcing a campaign to slash the number of deaths worldwide from AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria.
1997 Digital Equipment Company files antitrust charges against chipmaker Intel, alleging that the company used monopoly power to harm Digital by demanding the return of certain technical documents. Intel had filed charges against Digital in May seeking the return of the documents.
1997 FBI agents raid Internet bank Newspapers report that Netware International Bank has been shut down by FBI agents7. The bank had been accused of improperly making loans and collecting deposits over the Internet.
1996 The US Senate passes a welfare overhaul bill.
1996 A CBS station in Raleigh, North Carolina, begins broadcasting high-definition digital television data, although not full pictures. A week later, an NBC affiliate in Washington, D.C., broadcast the first full high-definition television pictures. The same station broadcast a high-definition version of Meet the Press, starting in February 1997
1995 Los astrónomos norteamericanos Alan Hale y Thomas Bopp descubren, casi simultáneamente, el cometa Hale-Bopp.
1994 Golpe militar en Gambia que derroca al presidente Dauda Jawara, sustituido al día siguiente por el teniente Yaya Dieme.
1992 Los dirigentes eslovaco y checo, Vladimir Meciar y Vaclav Klaus, acuerdan en Bratislava el proyecto de ley sobre la escisión de ambas repúblicas de la Federación Checoslovaca.
1991 The US Senate votes to impose a long list of strict new conditions on renewal of China's normal trade status in 1992; however, the 55-44 vote falls short of the two-thirds majority later needed to override the veto of President Bush (Sr.).
1991 The Soviet government applies for full membership to the IMF and World Bank after the Group of Seven recommended a limited "special association" for the USSR.
1987 EE.UU. suspende toda la ayuda económica y militar a Panamá para forzar la salida del general Noriega.
1983 El rey Juan Carlos I de España firma en Venezuela la Declaración de Caracas con motivo del bicentenario del nacimiento de Simón Bolívar.
1980 "First Brother" Billy Carter admits to being paid by Libya
1974 Greek military dictatorship collapses
1973 Nixon refuses to hand over tapes subpoenaed by Watergate Committee — El presidente estadounidense, Richard Nixon, se niega a entregar las grabaciones que le implican en el caso Watergate, por lo que tiene que enfrentarse a la acción de la justicia.
1972 first Earth Resources Technology Satellite (ERTS) is launched

1968 PLO's first hijacking of an El Al plane

1964 LBJ's War on Poverty      ^top^
      Shortly after being shoved into the top spot in the White House, US President Lyndon B. Johnson began pushing an ambitious slate of social initiatives through the legislative process. Along with watching over the passage of a landmark civil rights bill, Johnson marshaled the government's forces in a so-called "War on Poverty." In his 1964 State of the Union address, Lyndon Johnson had announced, "This administration today, here and now, declares unconditional war on poverty in America." Though it had been US President John F. Kennedy's brainchild, Johnson transformed the War on Poverty into one of his pet projects. Indeed, LBJ aimed to do nothing less than eradicate poverty. Towards that end, he intended to utilize federal funds to train indigent Americans and, to a far lesser degree, offer them financial aid.
      In the spring of 1964, Johnson called on Congress to earmark $962'000 for the opening salvo in his War. Legislators accede to the President's request on this day and appropriate $947'000 for a melange of literacy, drug rehabilitation and employment programs. The War on Poverty created the Job Corps, VISTA, Head Start, and OEO.
      While the War on Poverty was borne of high ideals and good intentions, it met with only modest results. Johnson's programs did help precipitate a steady decline in America's poverty rolls between 1962 and 1973; however, the War hardly came close to fulfilling LBJ's grander goals.

1962 US and USSR agree on a free Laos.      ^top^
      Avoiding a Cold War showdown, the United States and the Soviet Union sign an agreement guaranteeing a free and neutral Laos. While the agreement ended the "official" roles of both nations in the Laotian civil war, covert assistance from both Russia and the United States continued to exacerbate the conflict in Laos for the next decade. Laos had been a French colony since 1893. During the 1930s and World War II, an independence movement began to grow in the small nation, as did a communist movement known as the Pathet Lao. After France granted Laos conditional independence in 1949, the Pathet Lao began a civil war against the pro-French Laotian government. In 1954, after the devastating defeat of French troops at the hands of Vietnamese independence forces at the battle of Dien Bien Phu, an international conference attempted to deal with the situations in Southeast Asia. The 1954 Laos decision stated that the Pathet Lao would be confined to two remote provinces of Laos, and that national elections would be held in two years to settle all political questions. In fact, the conference did nothing to stop the civil war in Laos. The Pathet Lao, largely funded and armed with Russian money and weapons funneled through communist North Vietnam, continued its attacks. In response, the US became heavily involved in providing covert assistance to the Laotian government. Despite the US assistance, the communist Pathet Lao appeared on its way to victory by 1961. President John F. Kennedy issued a thinly veiled threat of direct US intervention in Laos if the Soviet Union did not cease its assistance to the communist revolutionaries. Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev, perhaps realizing that the stakes were becoming much too high in a nation of only peripheral interest to Russia, agreed to a cease-fire in April 1961.
      At a conference in Geneva in July 1962, the United States and Russia agreed to mutually guarantee a free and neutral Laos. The 1962 agreement also accomplished very little. American intelligence sources indicated that North Vietnam continued to funnel large amounts of Soviet aid into Laos. In response, the United States began a "secret war," using the CIA to arm and train an anticommunist force in Laos. In a matter of months, more than 30,000 Laotians, mostly from remote hill tribes, were being used to carry out guerrilla operations against the Pathet Lao. The US operation was unsuccessful, however. In 1975, shortly after victory of communist North Vietnam over South Vietnam, the Pathet Lao took control in Laos, where a communist government continues to be in power to this day.

1959 US Vice President Nixon goes to Moscow      ^top^
      Vice President Richard M. Nixon flies from New York to Moscow to open the US Trade and Cultural Fair in Sokolniki Park, organized as a goodwill gesture by the USS.R. Arriving in record time the same day, he meets with Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev the next morning at the Kremlin.
      Later that day, in front of replica of a suburban American kitchen, Nixon and Khrushchev would engage in an impromptu debate about the merits and disadvantages of capitalism and communism. Watched by applauding reporters and Soviet officials, the informal exchange was known as the "Kitchen Debate." With American television cameras rolling, Khrushchev made Nixon promise that his words would not be censored or miscommunicated when the film was shown in the United States. Nixon assured him that they would not, and then asked the Soviet leader to return the favor.
      On August 1, Khrushchev obliged, allowing Nixon to speak on Soviet national television. In an event unprecedented in the USS.R., Nixon was heard criticizing Communist policy while warning the Soviet people they would live in tension and fear if Khrushchev attempted to propagate communism in countries outside the Soviet Union.
      Nixon's trip to Moscow helped solidify his reputation as a tough and capable US leader, and the Kitchen Debate was a definitive moment in the Cold War. In September, Khrushchev traveled to the United States and met with President Dwight D. Eisenhower. In May of 1972, Nixon returned to the Soviet Union as president.

1952 Military seizes power in Egypt      ^top^
      In Egypt, the Society of Free Officers led by General Muhammad Naguib seize control of the government in a military coup d'état. King Farouk, whose rule had been criticized because of Egypt's military failure in the first Arab-Israeli War, is forced to abdicate in favor of his infant son, Ahmad Fuad II. However, on June 18, 1953, the monarchy would be abolished and the Arab Republic of Egypt declared.
      Naguib assumed the presidency, but his attempt to establish a parliamentary republic met with opposition from the Revolutionary Command Committee, which was led by Colonel Gamal Abdal Nasser. Naguib declared martial law, but, after his agents botched an assassination attempt against Nasser, he was arrested. In November of 1954, Nasser took full power as Egyptian premier. In 1956, under a new constitution, he was elected, unopposed, to the Egyptian presidency.

1951 El general Craveiro Lopes es elegido presidente de Portugal.
1948 Progressive party convention nominates Henry Wallace for President
1944 Soviet troops take Lublin, Poland as the German army retreats.
1944 US forces invade Japanese-held Tinian in WW II
1943 El Gran Consejo destituye a Mussolini y el nuevo jefe de gobierno italiano, general Badoglio, recibe el encargo de entablar negociaciones de paz con los aliados.
1940 "Blitz" begins, all-night raid on London
1936 Guerra Civil española: Se constituye en Burgos una Junta de Defensa Nacional, primer órgano de gobierno creado en la zona nacional.
1931 Ashmore and Cartier Is in Indian Ocean transferred to Australia

1926 Raymond Poincaré es nombrado primer ministro de Francia.

1926 Fox buys Movietone ^top^
Fox Film Corp. purchases the patents for a sound system that will record sound onto film. Studio founder William Fox pays $60,000 for the system, which he renames Movietone. Fox began making feature films with the Movietone system in 1928. Movietone soon became associated with newsreels, which captured newsworthy events on film and created a valuable historical record in the process.

1920 Kenya becomes a British crown colony

1914 Thursday : in the aftermath of the June 28 assassination of Archduke Francis Ferdinand:
AUSTRIAN ULTIMATUM TO SERBIA ^top^

Austrian Ambassador to Serbia, Baron Vladimir von Giesl, delivers the ultimatum at 18:00 sharp. The reply must come within 48 hours. [view text of the ultimatum]

Giesl has been instructed to regard any reply as unacceptable.

Pasic and many of his cabinet are in the southern provinces of Serbia on a political tour. The Minister of Public Information, Ljuba Jovanovic is the first Serb to see the "note."

Pasic and the cabinet are called back to Belgrade.

1903 First Ford Model A delivered      ^top^
      The first two-cylinder Ford Model A was delivered to its owner, Dr. Ernst Pfenning of Chicago, on this day in 1903. The Model A was the result of a partnership between Henry Ford and Detroit coal merchant Alexander Malcomson. Ford had met Malcomson while working at Edison Illuminating Company: Malcomson sold him coal. The Model A, designed primarily by Ford’s assistant C. Harold Wills, was the affordable runabout that Ford needed to begin marketing his company’s stock.
      In the next year Ford raised enough stock to release a line of cars and to incorporate as the Ford Motor Company. The company was capitalized at $100,000 at that time, but by 1927, the Ford Motor Company was valued at $700 million. Ford’s company grew quickly, but it wasn’t until the release of the Model T that Ford took the position of our nation’s largest carmaker.
     Henry Ford was the father of mass production. His idea of reducing the cost of automobiles by manufacturing them on an assembly line revolutionized industry
      The Model T kept Ford number one in the industry until production was stopped in 1927, and Ford relinquished its place to Chevrolet. The second Model A, released in November of 1927, was a great success. Between 1927 and 1931, 4.3 million Model A Fords were made. The stylish, dependable, and affordable Model A reaffirmed Ford’s position as a premier automaker at the time. Sales for the Model A would never approach those of its forerunner the Model T, due to the onset of the Depression. As sales slumped, Henry Ford decided to release a new car model in 1932. He introduced the speedy Ford V-8, known as the fastest car in the land at the time. Ford would never again regain hegemony atop the car industry.

1894 Japanese troops take over the Korean imperial palace.
1886 New York saloonkeeper Steve Brodie makes a daredevil plunge from the Brooklyn Bridge into the East River (he claims).
1868 The 14th Amendment is ratified, granting citizenship to African Americans.
1865 William Booth founds the Salvation Army.
1863 Bill Andeson and his Confederate Bushwackers gut the railway station at Renick, Missouri.
1863 Skirmish at Manassas Gap, Virginia
1863 Siege of Fort Wagner, Charleston Harbor, South Carolina continues

1862 Halleck takes command of the Union army ^top^
General Henry W. Halleck assumes the role of general-in-chief of all Union forces in an effort to better coordinate the overall Union war effort, which is floundering. A native of New York, Halleck graduated from West Point in 1839. He showed such promise that he was allowed the rare privilege of teaching while still a student at the academy. He served during the Mexican-American War, became involved in California politics, and was a railroad president before the outbreak of the Civil War. In 1861, Halleck was appointed major general. Placed in charge of the Department of the Missouri, his work brought quick results. He quickly organized the forces in Missouri into effective units and kept Missouri in the Union. Halleck's duties were soon expanded, and the department was renamed the Department of the Mississippi. He showed great strategic vision in planning campaigns from his St. Louis headquarters, but was less successful when he took to the field—as he did during the Corinth campaign, in which the Confederates escaped his much larger Yankee force. Lincoln recognized Halleck's abilities and brought him to Washington as general-in-chief. Under his direction, Union successes continued in the west, but Halleck was unable to orchestrate any progress in Virginia or to enact an overall strategic vision to defeat the Confederates. He bickered with various commanders of the Army of the Potomac, such as George B. McClellan, Ambrose Burnside, Joseph Hooker, and George Meade. His abrasive personality did not endear him to the press or his subordinates. In 1864, President Lincoln moved Halleck to a higher position as chief of staff for the army while appointing General Ulysses S. Grant general-in-chief, but this was really in recognition of the fact that Halleck failed to effectively direct the armies. Freed from the burden of strategic planning, Halleck's new role allowed him to utilize his bureaucratic talents. Nicknamed "Old Brains" for his organizational efficiency, Halleck effectively supplied Grant's campaign against Robert E. Lee in 1864. Halleck remained in the army until his death in 1872. Despite his shortcomings as a strategic planner, his organizational skills contributed significantly to the Union victory.

1849 German rebels in Baden capitulate to the Prussians.
1803 Irish patriots throughout the country rebel against Union with Great Britain. Robert Emmett's insurrected in Dublin
1798 Napoleon captures Alexandria, Egypt
1793 The French garrison at Mainz, Germany, falls to the Prussians.
1753 Publication of the Papal Bull Sollicita ac provida
1664 Wealthy non-church members in Massachusetts are given the right to vote.
1637 King Charles of England hands over the American colony of Massachusetts to Sir Fernando Gorges, one of the founders of the Council of New England.
1627 Sir George Calvert arrives in Newfoundland to develop his land grant.
1599 Caravaggio's first public commission for paintings — Reproductions of paintings by Michelangelo Merisi da CARAVAGGIO ONLINE: LINKS — Beheading of Saint John the Baptist — David Beheading Goliath — David With the Head of Goliath — Calling of Saint Matthew — Denial of Christ by Saint Peter — Crucifixion of Saint Peter — Conversion of Saint Paul
1431 Se inicia el Concilio de Basilea, noveno concilio ecuménico universal.
1298 Jews are massacred at Wurzburg Germany
1253 Jews are expelled from Vienne France by order of Pope Innocent III
0685 John V begins his reign as Pope
0636 Arabs gain control of most of Palestine from the Byzantine Empire
0306 Constantine is proclaimed Caesar of the west by the army, while Severus, the former Caesar, is proclaimed Augustus of the west by Galerius.

TO THE TOP

Deaths which occurred on a 23 July: ^top^

2002 Sheikh Salah Shehada, 40, his wife Leilah, their daughter Iman, 13, his bodyguard Zahar Salah Abuhsein, and, in neighboring houses, 11 other Palestinians, including 10 other children, shortly after midnight, as an Israeli 1-ton guided bomb from a F-16 warplane destroys five houses in Gaza City [< photo]. The target was Shehada [photo >], head of Hamas's Izz el-Deen al-Qassam brigades in the Gaza Strip and the No. 1 man on the Israel Defense Force's wanted list since 2000. He had been imprisoned from 1988 to 1999, first by Israel, then by the Palestinian Authority. The other dead children are two babies, ages 18 and 2 months, six children aged 3-5, and an 11-year-old. Some 50 Palestinians are wounded. The al-Aqsa intifada body count now is 1789 Palestinians and 578 Israelis, not to mention many more maimed for life, and the devastation of property.

Potok

2002 Herman Harold “Chaim” Potok, after 2 years of brain cancer, Conservative rabbi, writer, born in New York City on 17 February 1929, to Orthodox Jews who had immigrated from Poland in 1921. His best known novel is The Chosen (28 Apr 1967) [Summary and analysis] about the friendship between two Jewish Brooklyn boys from different religious backgrounds, one of which, Danny, breaks out of the Hasidic world through his interest in psychology, and the other, Reuven, the narrator, is a Zionist. Its sequel is The Promise (1969). My Name Is Asher Lev (1972) explores the conflicts faced by an Orthodox Jew who becomes a painter. Potok also wrote plays, children's literature, nonfiction, and short stories (such as Moon). After five novels, Potok researched and wrote his first nonfiction book, Wanderings: Chaim Potok's History of the Jews,' which traced Jewish history to the patriarch Abraham 4000 years ago. — Other books by Potok: The Gift of Asher Lev (1990) — Davita's Harp (1985) — In the Beginning (1975) — As a Driven Leaf — I Am the Clay (1992) — The Book of Lights (16 Oct 1981) — Wanderings: Chaim Potok's History of the Jews (1978) — The Sky of Now (1994) — The Tree of Here (1993) — The Gates of November: Chronicles of the Slepak Family (1996) — Zebra: and Other Stories (1998) — Old Men at Midnight (3 novellas, 2001) — Theo Tobiasse: Artist in Exile (1986) —

2001 Refat Nahal, 15, from Rafah, Gaza Strip, shot in the back by Israelis.

2001 Mustafa Yassin, 28, shot by Israeli police, who say he was the head of an Islamic Jihad cell, and drove a would-be suicide bomber toward Haifa.

2001 Eudora Welty, 92, of pneumonia, in Jackson, Mississippi.

   Eudora Welty was born on 13 April 1909 in Jackson, Mississippi,. where she led a sheltered but daring life (in her own words), and died.
     During the Great Depression Eudora Welty was a photographer on the Works Progress Administration's Guide to Mississippi, and photography remained a lifelong interest. Photographs (1989) is a collection of many of the photographs she took for the WPA. She also worked as a writer for a radio station and newspaper in her native Jackson, Mississippi, before her fiction won popular and critical acclaim.
      She was a White writer of novels and short stories set almost exclusively in the rural American South. Also a photographer. She is noted for her subtle recreations of regional speech and thought patterns. Welty's novella The Optimist's Daughter (1972) won the 1973 Pulitzer Prize for fiction. In it a woman's conflicted relationship with her father's second wife leads her to reminisce about her parents' marriage.
     Welty's first short story was Death of a Traveling Salesman (1936). She first gained critical acclaim with A Curtain of Green (1941) a collection of stories about Southern life with droll descriptions of eccentric behavior. Her novella The Robber Bridegroom (1942) was about a wealthy Southern planter's daughter who is courted by a bandit.
      After publishing a second collection of short stories, The Wide Net (1943), Welty completed her first full-length novel, Delta Wedding (1946), portrait of a Southern family, told from the perspective of a nine-year-old girl, Welty uses a family event to draw a large number of characters together. She then counterpoints the group dynamic and the girl's interior monologue. The novel Ponder Heart (1957), an often comic story of small-town life, includes one scene that epitomizes Welty's penchant for grotesque, almost surreal violence. A dim-witted character mistakenly suffocates his wife to death while tickling her as a thunderstorm rages outside.
      Welty's other short story collections include Music from Spain (1948); The Bride of Innisfallen (1955); a group of children's stories, The Shoe Bird (1964); Losing Battles (1970); and The Collected Stories of Eudora Welty (1980). The Eye of the Story (1978) compiles essays and criticism on the subject of writing. One Writer's Beginnings (1984) is an autobiographical work about her decision to become a writer

Eudora the E-mail program
   After a year of work and some 50'000 lines of code, Steve Dorner in 1990 created an E-mail program. Later he wrote (in an E-mail message, of course): "When I was in college, I read Eudora Welty's story Why I Live at the P.O.. The story stuck with me. When it came time years later to name the program, I remembered the title, rearranged it a bit to 'Bringing the P.O. to where you live,' and used it for the program's motto. Then I named it Eudora."

WELTY ONLINE: Why I live at the P.O. —

2000 Atlas, 2-1/2, Miami police dog , a golden-haired Belgian Malinois, from gunshot in the stomach received late the previous day, from the suspected carjacker it was pursuing through a schoolyard. Killing a Florida police dog carries a maximum five-year prison term. The killer, 22, also faces charges of attempted murder of a police officer (Atlas's handler Wayne Cooper), armed carjacking, possession of a firearm by a convicted felon, and violently resisting arrest. This could add up a sentence of life in prison.

1984 Ángel María de Lera, novelista español.

1973 Eddie Rickenbacker, 82, , in Zurich, Switzerland, namesake of Rickenbacker Motors. ^top^
Known as a racecar driver before World War I, he became America’s premier flying ace during the war and returned home to a hero’s welcome. Declining offers from the aviation industry and even Hollywood, Rickenbacker decided to lend his name to a car company, although he played a negligible role in the company’s management and eventually resigned his position there. Without his high-flying name behind the product, Rickenbacker Motors crashed and burned.

1967 Five dead on 1st day of Detroit race riots set off by police raid.      ^top^
      The worst race riot in a summer fraught with racial violence broke out in the overcrowded and predominantly African-American 12th Street neighborhood of Detroit, Michigan. A month earlier, a prostitute in the low-income area had been killed by a vice squad police officer; although investigators had alleged that a local pimp was guilty of the crime. Around the same time, a young black Army veteran had been murdered by a gang of white youths. Detroit's newspapers downplayed both incidents in the name of reducing racial tension, but the African-American community perceived this as racial bias in the city's media.
      Then, early on the morning of 23 July 1967, police raid, on the corner of 12th Street and Clairmount, a bar that was illegally selling alcohol after hours. That same after-hours club had been raided twice before in the recent past without incident. However, on the night of July 22, the establishment was hosting a party for several veterans, including two servicemen recently back from Vietnam, and the bar's patrons were reluctant to leave. In clearing out the bar, the police used what many of the patrons and others watching on the street regarded as excessive force.
      Two hours after the raid began, someone threw a bottle through the window of a patrol car, and the riot erupted. Within an hour, thousands of people had spilled out onto the street, and the violence rapidly spread. Detroit Mayor Jerome P. Cavanaugh asked Michigan Governor George Romney to send in the state police and then, when the disorder was not quelled, he authorized the governor to call in the National Guard. It took nearly 20'000 police and National Guardsmen to suppress the rioters
.      By the end of the week, forty-three people were dead, 2000 injured, 7000 had been arrested, 1700 stores were looted, 1383 buildings were burned in 442 fires, and property valued at about $50 million had been destroyed. The Detroit race riot of 1967 was one of the worst in US history, occurring during a period of numerous riots. A report by the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders, appointed by President Lyndon B. Johnson, identified more than 150 riots or major disorders between 1965 and 1968. In 1967 alone, eighty-three people were killed and 1800 were injured — the majority of them African Americans — and property valued at more than $100 million was damaged or destroyed.
     In the early morning hours of 23 July 1967, one of the worst riots in US history breaks out on 12th Street in the heart of Detroit's predominantly African American inner city. By the time it was quelled four days later by 7000 National Guard and US Army troops, 43 people were dead, 342 injured, and nearly 1400 buildings had been burned.
      By the summer of 1967, the predominantly African American neighborhood of Virginia Park was ready to explode. Some 60,000 poor people were crammed into the neighborhood's 460 acres, living in squalor in divided and sub-divided apartments. The Detroit Police Department, which had only about 50 African Americans at the time, was viewed as a white occupying army. The only other whites seen in the neighborhood commuted from the suburbs to run their stores on 12th Street.
      At night, 12th Street was a center of Detroit inner-city nightlife, both legal and illegal. At the corner of 12th and Clairmount, William Scott operated an illegal after-hours club on weekends out of the office of the United Community League for Civic Action, a civil rights group. The police vice squad often raided establishments like this on 12th Street, and, at 03:35 on Sunday morning 23 23 July they moved against Scott's club.
      That night, the establishment was hosting a party for several veterans, including two servicemen recently returned from Vietnam, and the bar's patrons were reluctant to leave. Out in the street, a crowd began to gather as police waited for paddy wagons to take the 85 patrons away. Tensions between area blacks and police were high at the time, partly because of a rumor (later proved to be untrue) that police had shot and killed a black prostitute two days before. Then a rumor began to circulate that the vice squad had beaten one of the women being arrested.
      An hour passed before the last prisoner was taken away, and by then about 200 onlookers lined the street. A bottle crashed into the street. The remaining police ignored it, but then more bottles were thrown, including one through the window of a patrol car. The police fled as a riot erupted. Within an hour, thousands of people had spilled out onto the street. Looting began on 12th Street, and some whites arrived to join in. At about 06:30, the first fire broke out, and soon much of the street was set ablaze. By midmorning, every policeman and fireman in Detroit was called to duty. On 12th Street, 600 officers fought to control a mob of 3000. Firemen were attacked as they tried to battle the flames.
      Detroit Mayor Jerome P. Cavanaugh asked Michigan Governor George Romney to send in the state police, but these 300 more officers could not keep the riot from spreading to a 100-block area around Virginia Park. The National Guard was called in shortly after but didn't arrive until evening. By the end of the day, more than 1000 were arrested, but still the riot kept growing. Five people were dead.
      On Monday, 16 persons were killed, most by police or guardsmen. Snipers fired at firemen, and fire hoses were cut. Governor Romney asked President Lyndon Johnson to send in US troops. Nearly 2000 army paratroopers arrived on Tuesday 25 July and began patrolling the street in tanks and armored carriers. Ten more people died that day, and 12 more on Wednesday 26 July. On Thursday 27 July order was finally restored. More than 7000 persons were arrested during the four days of rioting. A total of 43 were killed. Some 1700 stores were looted and nearly 1400 buildings burned, causing $50 million in property damage. Some 5,000 people were left homeless. The so-called 12th Street Riot was the worst US riot in 100 years, occurring during a period of numerous riots in America. A report by the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders, appointed by President Johnson, identified more than 150 riots or major disorders between 1965 and 1968. In 1967 alone, 83 people were killed and 1,800 were injured — the majority of them African Americans — and property valued at more than $100 million was damaged, looted, or destroyed.

1951 Général Henri-Philippe Pétain, 95, in the Île d'Yeu prison fortress, French national hero of World War I, who was convicted of collaboration with the Nazi occupiers of his country during World War II and sentenced to life in prison,
      Born on 24 April 1856, a graduate of Saint-Cyr Military Academy, Pétain served as a second lieutenant in the Alpine regiment, where he developed a reputation for camaraderie with the average foot soldier. He then went on to a controversial teaching career at the War College, where he propounded theories that were in direct conflict with commonly held ideas, especially his contention that a strong defense was the key to victory, not the “always be on the attack” strategy common to the French military at the time.
      During World War I, General Pétain distinguished himself at the Battle of Verdun, during which he successfully repulsed German attacks on the fortress city. He was an inspiration to his troops and successfully squelched near mutinies within the army after disastrous offensives led by General Robert-Georges Nivelle. Pétain regained the confidence-and loyalty — of those soldiers when he was named Nivelle's successor, improving their living conditions and initiating open communication between command and troops.
      After the outbreak of World War II, Pétain was appointed vice premier by Premier Paul Reynaud. in May of 1940 to boost morale in a country crumbling under the force of the Nazi invasion. As the French Cabinet became desperate. Reynaud continued to hold out hope, refusing to ask for an armistice, especially now that France had received assurance from Britain that the two would fight as one, and that Britain would continue to fight the Germans even if France were completely overtaken.
      But others in the government were despondent and wanted to sue for peace. Reynaud resigned in protest. General de Gaulle, by radio from London, on 18 June 1940, proclaimed that "France has lost a battle, France has not lost the war" and urged continued resistance, But Pétain had already announced the previous day that his new government would surrender. It signed with the Nazis a humiliating armistice, which went into effect on 25 June 1940. The man who had become a legendary war hero for successfully fighting off a German attack on French soil was now surrendering to Hitler. More than half of France was occupied by the Germans.
     On 10 July 1940, in the city of Vichy, the French Senate and Chamber of Deputies conferred on the 84-year-old general the title of “Chief of State,” making him a dictator — although one controlled by Berlin. Pétain wrongly believed that he could negotiate a better deal for his country — for example, obtaining the release of prisoners of war — by collaborating with the Nazis.
     Under the Vichy government, nominally headed by Pétain, French citizens suffered on both sides of the divided nation. Resistance fighters and sympathizers were labeled “terrorists”. They, if captured, and Jews, even babies and young children, were shipped off to death camps. Instead of military service, young men were sent to Germany as slave laborers. Expressing disssatisfaction, or merely listening to the London radio, could lead to a death sentence. Things only got worse when, on 420418, Pierre Laval, an opportunistic French Fascist and dutiful Nazi collaborator, who had won the trust of Adolf Hitler, formed a new Vichy government and the elderly Pétain became merely a figurehead in the regime. The Nazis then occupied the whole of France.
      When Paris was finally liberated by Général Charles de Gaulle in 1944, Pétain fled to Germany. On 26 April 1945, with Germany days away from surrender, Pétain crossed into France from Switzerland and turned himself in. He was subsequently found guilty of treason by the High Court of Justice and sentenced to death, but French President Charles de Gaulle commuted the sentence to life in solitary confinement. De Gaulle and Pétain had fought in the same unit in World War I.

1948 D.W. Griffith, pioneer movie director. ^top^
Griffith pioneered the field of film directing, introducing many groundbreaking film techniques from 1908 to 1931. He was one of the earliest directors to use close-ups, multiple camera angles, and many other techniques. However, Griffith's greatest film achievements took place during the silent film era: after the development of sound pictures in 1927, Griffith seemed to lose his self-confidence. Many of his pictures lost money, and he struggled with personal debt and creative conflict with the increasingly rigid studio system. Although he made no films after 1931, Griffith won an honorary Oscar in 1935 for his "lasting contributions to the progress of the motion picture arts." Today, the highest honor bestowed by the Directors' Guild of America is called the D.W. Griffith Award.

1938 Brown , mathematician, astronomer who worked on lunar and planetary motion.
1936 Fusilado el hijo del general José Moscardó, por negarse éste a rendir el Alcázar de Toledo, sitiado por milicias republicanas, a cambio de la vida de su hijo.
1934 John Dillinger, el enemigo público número 1 en EE.UU., muere en Chicago abatido por las balas de agentes del FBI.
1930 Miles de muertos por terremotos en Nápoles así como miles de heridos, y graves daños materiales.
1927 Joseph Wopfner, Austrian artist born on 19 March 1843.

1920 Conrad Kohrs, Montana cattle baron and politician.      ^top^
      Conrad Kohrs, one of Montana's first cattle barons, dies in Helena. A native of Denmark, Kohrs immigrated to the United States in 1850 at the age of 15. Seeking his fortune, he headed west in hopes of finding a gold or silver mine. He had some small success in California and British Columbia, but the "big strike" eluded him. In 1862, he joined the latest western gold rush and headed for western Montana, where rich gold deposits had been found at Grasshopper Creek. There, Kohrs realized that he could make more money mining the miners than mining for gold. He established a butcher shop in the mining town of Bannack and began to prosper. Working as a butcher led Kohrs into the cattle business. Cattle were in relatively short supply in frontier Montana, and Kohrs traveled around the territory to purchase prime animals. He had several brushes with the highwaymen who plagued the isolated roads of Montana.
      Determined to stop these murderous bandits, Kohrs joined a group of Virginia City vigilantes, and helped track down and hang the outlaws. By 1864, robberies in the territory had plummeted. Increasingly, Kohrs began shifting the focus of his meat processing business to the supply side. In 1864, he established a large ranch near the town of Deer Lodge, where he fattened his cattle for market. Kohrs was virtually the only major rancher in the western region of the territory, and his business boomed as Montana grew. Eventually, competition from cattle driven overland into the territory from Texas began to challenge Kohrs' monopoly. He continued to prosper, however, and remained the largest cattle rancher in Montana for several decades. In 1885, Kohrs translated his economic strength into political power, winning election to the Montana Territorial Legislature. Kohrs and his fellow ranchers exercised considerable influence over Montana in the years to come, and Kohrs became a state senator in 1902. The big ranchers never had a free hand in Montana, however — mining interests and farmers always kept the ranchers in check. Widely celebrated as one of the greatest pioneers in Montana history, Kohrs died in 1920 at the age of 85.

1905 Jean-Jacques Henher, French artist born on 05 March 1829.
1885 Ulysses S Grant, 63, commander of the Union forces at the end of the Civil War, 18th US president, in Mount McGregor NY.
1865 Petrus Jan Schotel, Dutch artist born on 19 August 1808.
1840 Karl Blechen, German Romantic painter born on 29 July 1799. — LINKS — The Ruins of the Septizonium on the Palatine in Rome — Woodland with Brook — The Building of the Devil's Bridge — Monastery in the Wood — Sunset at Sea
1759 Russian and almost 6000 Prussian soldiers, as Russian general Saltikov wins the battle of Kay, eastern Germany, in the Seven Years' War. .
1540 Thomas Cromwell, having been discredited by his enemies, is beheaded on Tower Hill in England.

Births which occurred on a 23 July:
1936 Anthony M Kennedy, in California, US Supreme Court justice (1988- )
1913 Eduardo Carranza Fernández, poeta colombiano
1913 Michael Foot, político laborista británico.
1906 Vladimir Prelog, investigador suizo de origen yugoslavo, premio Nobel de Química.
1906 Marston Bates, American zoologist and author of The Nature of Natural History.
1897 Bernardo Canal Feijóo, escritor, dramaturgo, poeta, pensador y ensayista argentino.
1893 Karl Menninger psychiatrist (Menninger Clinic)
1892 Tafari Makonnen, who on 301102 would become Haile Selassie ("Might of the Trinity"), emperor of Ethiopia (1930-74). Forced into exile by the Italian invasion, he appealed is vain for help from the League of Nations in a memorable 360630 speech. The Derg, a committe of mutinous Marxist military, deposed him on 740912, arrested him, and he died (probably strangled by them) on 750826.

1888 Raymond Chandler, in Chicago, creator of detective Philip Marlowe.      ^top^
      Chandler was raised in England, where he went to college and worked as a freelance journalist for several newspapers. During World War I, Chandler served in the Royal Flying Corps. After the war, he moved to California, where he eventually became the director of several independent oil companies. He lost his job during the Depression, and he turned to writing to support himself at the age of 45.
      He published his first stories in the early 1930s in the pulp magazine Black Mask and published his first novel, The Big Sleep, in 1939. He published only seven novels, among them Farewell My Lovely (1946) and The Long Goodbye (1953), all featuring tough, cynical detective Philip Marlowe. William Faulkner wrote the screen version of The Big Sleep, which starred Humphrey Bogart as Marlowe. Chandler also wrote Hollywood screenplays in the 1940s and early 1950s, including Double Indemnity (1949) and Strangers on a Train (1951). He died in 1959.

1888 Dr Milan Stoyadinovich Serbia, fascist Yugoslavia PM (1935-9)
1876 Ricardo Verde Rubio, pintor, grabador, e ilustrador español. Fue director del Museo de Bellas Artes de Valencia de 1936 a 1939. Murió en 1954
1860 José María Vargas Vila, escritor colombiano.
1854 Sleszynski, mathematician.
1844 Hermann David Salomon Corrodi, Italian artist who died on 30 January 1905.
1834 James Cardinal Gibbons archbishop of Baltimore, founder of Catholic University in Washington DC..

1829 First US patent of typewriter ^top^
William Austin Burt of Mount Vernon, Michigan, patents what he calls the "typographer", the first typewriter. For decades, typing would be primarily performed by secretaries and clerks, not executives. The lack of executive skill or interest in typing is sometimes cited as an impediment to the quick adoption of early keyboard-based computers in the upper echelons of business.

1775 Malus, mathematician.
1614 Bonaventura Peeters I, Flemish marine painter and satirical poet, who died on 25 July 1652. — MORE ON PEETERS AT ART “4” JULY — LINKS — An Oriental Harbor — Storm on the Sea — Shipwreck 1477 (1469?) Francesco Granacci, Florentine painter who died on 30 November 1543. — MORE ON GRANACCI AT ART “4” JULY — LINKS — Madonna and Child — Entry of Charles VIII into Florence

Holidays Egypt, Libya, Ethiopia, Oman : National Day (1952) )

Religious Observances Buddhist-Laos : Beginning of Buddhist fast / RC : St Apollinaris, first bp of Ravenna, martyr / RC, Luth : Bridget, mystic, patron of Sweden (opt) / Santas Brígida y Ana. Santos Apolinar, Eugenio, Liborio y Teófilo.

Thoughts for the day: “If you're on the right track and just sit there, you'll get run over.”
“I'm a self-made man, but I think if I had it to do over again, I'd call in someone else.” — Roland Young, English actor (1887-1953).
“Out of love you can speak with straight fury.” — Eudora Welty, US author.
“Six faults ought to be avoided by a man seeking prosperity in this world: sleep, sloth, fear, anger, laziness, prolixity.” — The Hitopadesa (500 AD) — [Stories from Hitopadesa]
“Six faults ought to be avoided by a man or woman seeking prolixity in this world: slips, sloth, fire, hunger, conciseness, prosperity.” — who? me? (2002 AD)

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