On a 10 September:
2002 Switzerland becomes the 190th member of the United Nations,
following approval by its voters in a March 2002 referendum.
2002 Read at ALL “4”
“2”DAY how all India takes the day off to celebrate an
elephant-headed deity.
2001 Parliamentary elections in Norway. Though it still has more
seats than any other party, the ruling Labor Party suffered its worst
election showing since 1924.
2000 The Antarctic ozone hole has grown to 30 million square kilometers
and, this day and the preceding one, extends over Punta Arenas, Chile,
exposing its 120'000 inhabitants to harmful ultraviolet radiation.
2000 Fictional date in Looking
backward from 2000 to 1887 ^top^
It is the day on which the narrator
wakes up from the long sleep into which he fell on 30 May 1887.
The novel is by Edward Bellamy, published in 1888.
Bellamy was born 26 March 1850,
in Chicopee Falls, USA, and died there on 22 May, 1898. Other
books of his are Six to One (1878), The Duke of Stockbridge
(1879), Dr. Heidenhoff's Process (1880), Miss Ludington's
Sister: a romance of immortality (1884), Equality
(1897), Other Stories (1898)
— Looking
Backward From 2000 to 1887 (at another site) |
1998 Microsoft subpoenas competitors
^top^
Microsoft serves subpoenas on
its competitors, including Netscape, Sun Microsystems, Novell,
Oracle, and IBM. Microsoft claimed the companies had colluded
against Microsoft. The company argued it was being held to a
double standard by the government, because most software companies
cooperate with each other to gain an advantage over competitors.
|
1996 Time Warner starts its cable-modem service, Road Runner,
in Akron, Ohio. A host of new companies entered the race to provide high-speed
Internet access through television cable.
1996 The US Senate dealt a double defeat to gay-rights activists,
voting to reject same-sex marriage in federal law and killing a separate
bill that would have barred job discrimination against gays.
1996 Ross Perot picked economist Pat Choate to share the Reform
Party presidential ticket.
1992 President George Bush, campaigning for re-election, proposes
a 1% tax cut. It would not stop Democratic challenger Bill Clinton from
winning the election.
1992 Lanzado al espacio, desde la Guayana francesa, el Hispasat,
primer satélite español de comunicaciones.
1992 Free DOS Quattro Pro to
buyers of Windows Quattro Pro spreadsheet ^top^
Newspapers report that Borland
International, maker of spreadsheets and databases, would hand
out a free copy of its older spreadsheet to consumers who bought
the new version of Quattro Pro. The new version was the first
to run on the Windows operating system, but it required more
computing power to run than the earlier version. The company
offered both versions so that buyers who had both a desktop
machine and a less powerful laptop would be able to use the
program on either one. |
1990 Iran agrees to resume diplomatic ties with Iraq —
Irak e Irán acuerdan restablecer relaciones diplomáticas en medio de
la crisis por Kuwait y tras haber librado una guerra de ocho años.
1989 Hungary allows East Germans
refugees to leave ^top^
East Germans begin their large~scale
flight to the west (via Hungary and Czechoslovakia).
In a dramatic break with the
eastern European communist bloc, Hungary gives permission for
thousands of East German refugees to leave Hungary for West
Germany. It was the first time one of the Warsaw Pact nations-who
were joined in the defensive alliance between Russia and its
eastern Europe satellites — broke from the practice of blocking
citizens of the communist nations from going to the West.
By 1989, the Soviet Union was
entering a period of accelerating collapse. Economic problems
were foremost in the factors causing this collapse, but political
turmoil in the Soviet Union, the various Soviet Socialist Republics,
and the satellite nations in eastern Europe were also responsible
for the decay of what President Ronald Reagan once termed the
"evil empire." In Hungary, a movement for greater democracy
and economic freedom was gaining strength. Such forces were
also alive in East Germany, but the communist government of
that nation proved inflexible in dealing with the demands for
change. In response, thousands of East Germans — traveling as
"tourists" — began pouring into Hungary. As soon as they arrived,
they declared that they would not return home.
The East German refugees hoped
to cross from Hungary into Austria and then into West Germany
where, by law, they would be granted nearly instant citizenship.
In the past, Hungary had refused to allow East Germans to proceed
to Austria. Hungarian leaders now saw a danger, however. As
Hungary moved toward a more democratic political system and
free market economics, more and more refugees from other communist
nations — not just East Germany — might pour into the country
seeking refuge. Foreign Minister Gyula Horn declared, "We cannot
become a country of refugee camps." He announced that Hungary
would allow the nearly 8000 East Germans in Hungary to leave
for West Germany.
The East German government responded
angrily, but there was little it could do to stop the flow of
its people into neighboring communist nations and hence into
Hungary en route to West Germany. Tens of thousands of East
Germans raced across their nation's borders into Poland and
Czechoslovakia, seeking asylum and permission to travel to West
Germany. Pro-democracy forces in East Germany took heart from
these actions, and the communist government began to crumble.
In November 1989, the East German government announced that
the Berlin Wall separating East and West Berlin would be torn
down and the country would soon be united under a democratic
government. |
1984 Mondale's debt reduction
plan. ^top^
After a decade of inflation and
fiscal mismanagement, including 3 years of Reagan presidency,
the American economy was wallowing in debt. So Walter Mondale,
the Democratic nominee for President, unveils a plan to reduce
the deficit by $175 million. But that would require an increase
in taxes. Although the increases would only impact the wealthy
and corporations, a strong backlash against Mondale's brand
of "tax and spend" liberalism would develop. Come November,
President Reagan is elected to a second term, winning every
state in the nation except for Mondale's home state, Minnesota.
And Reagan presides over a further increase in the US national
debt. |
1981 Picasso's Guernica goes to Basque town of Guernica,
martyred on 26 April 1937 when, with the authorization of Francisco Franco,
the German Luftwaffe bombed its non-belligerent 5000 inhabitants. Pablo
Picasso reacted by creating the famous
painting, which, now that democracy is restored in Spain, goes there,
as Picasso, who died eight years earlier, willed it. READ
ALL ABOUT IT AND SEE HIGH-RESOLUTION IMAGES AT ART “4” SEPtember
1979 Four Puerto Rican nationalists imprisoned for a 1954 attack
on the US House of Representatives and a 1950 attempt on the life of
President Truman were granted clemency by President Carter.
1976 El Gobierno español aprueba el proyecto de ley de reforma
política, que abrió el camino de la democracia.
1974 Guinea-Bissau gains independence from Portugal
1967 Gibraltar votes 12'138 to 44 to remain British
1964 Vietnam:
LBJ orders aid to South Viet morale
^top^
Following the Tonkin Gulf incidents,
in which North Vietnamese torpedo boats attacked US destroyers,
and the subsequent passage of the Tonkin Gulf Resolution empowering
him to react to armed attacks, President Lyndon Johnson authorizes
a series of measures “to assist morale in South Vietnam and
show the Communists [in North Vietnam] we still mean business.”
These measures included covert action such as the resumption
of the DeSoto intelligence patrols and South Vietnamese coastal
raids to harass the North Vietnamese. Premier Souvanna Phouma
of Laos was also asked to allow the South Vietnamese to make
air and ground raids into southeastern Laos, along with air
strikes by Laotian planes and US armed aerial reconnaissance
to cut off the North Vietnamese infiltration along the route
that became known as the Ho Chi Minh Trail. Eventually, US
warplanes would drop over 2 million tons of bombs on Laos as
part of Operations Steel Tiger and Tiger Hound between 1965
and 1973. |
1963 Desegregation despite Wallace
^top^
At the end of a standoff between
Alabama governor George C. Wallace and federal authorities,
twenty Black students enter public schools in Tuskegee, Mobile,
and Birmingham, Alabama. A week earlier, Wallace had surrounded
Tuskegee High School with state troopers in an attempt to block
integration of the public school. US President John F. Kennedy
sends federalized Alabama National Guardsmen to the area, Wallace
is forced to yield.
George Wallace, one of the most
controversial politicians in US history, was elected governor
of Alabama in 1962 under an ultra-segregationist platform. In
his 1963 inaugural address, Wallace promised his white followers:
"Segregation now! Segregation tomorrow! Segregation forever!"
However, the promise lasted only six months. In June of the
same year, under federal pressure, he was forced to end his
blockade of the University of Alabama and allow the enrollment
of Black students.
Despite his failures in slowing
the accelerating civil-rights movement in the South, Wallace
became a national spokesman for resistance to racial change,
and in 1964 entered the race for the US presidency. Although
defeated in most Democratic presidential primaries he entered,
his modest successes demonstrated the extent of popular backlash
against segregation. In 1968, he made another strong run as
the candidate of the American Independent party, and managed
to get on the ballot in all fifty states. On election day, he
drew ten million votes from all across the country.
In 1972, Governor Wallace returned
to the Democratic party for his third presidential campaign,
and under a slightly more moderate platform was showing promising
returns when he was shot by Arthur Bremer on 15 May 1972. Three
others were wounded, and Wallace was permanently paralyzed from
the waist down. The next day, while fighting for his life in
a hospital, he won major primary victories in Michigan and Maryland.
However, Wallace remained in the hospital for several months,
bringing his third presidential campaign to an irrevocable end.
After his recovery, he faded
from national prominence and made a poor showing in his fourth
and final presidential campaign in 1979. During the 1980s, Wallace's
politics shifted dramatically, especially in regard to race.
In 1983, he was elected Alabama governor for the last time with
the overwhelming support of Black voters. Over the next four
years, the man who had promised segregation forever made more
political appointments of Blacks than any other figure in Alabama
history. He died in 1998. |
1963 Vietnam:
Kennedy gets confusing report ^top^
Maj. Gen. Victor Krulak, USMC,
Special Assistant for Counterinsurgency and Special Activities
to the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Joseph Mendenhall of the State
Department report to President John F. Kennedy on their fact-finding
mission to Vietnam. The president had sent them to make a firsthand
assessment of the situation in Vietnam with regard to the viability
of the government there and the progress of the war. Having
just returned from a whirlwind four-day visit, their perceptions
differed greatly. Krulak concluded that progress was being made
in the war against the Viet Cong, but Mendenhall perceived from
talks with bureaucrats and politicians that the Diem regime
in Saigon was near collapse and lacking popular support among
the South Vietnamese people. A frustrated Kennedy responded,
“You two did visit the same country, didn’t you?” This was emblematic
of the problem that faced the American president as he tried
to determine what to do about the situation in Vietnam.
Two months later, the Kennedy
administration would decided that the Diem government was too
far gone to save and told opposition South Vietnamese generals
that they would not oppose a coup. The coup began on November
1, 1963, and Diem and his brother were murdered in the early
morning hours of the following day. President Kennedy was assassinated
shortly thereafter on November 22. His successor, President
Lyndon B. Johnson oversaw a steady escalation of the war that
ultimately involved the commitment of more than half a million
US troops. |
1961 Jomo Kenyatta returns to Kenya from exile, during which he
had been elected president of the Kenya National African Union.
1958 Kornelius Isaak a Mennonite missionary is wounded in Paraguay
by a Morro Indian arrow, and dies the next day.
1952 Primera sesión plenaria de los 77 diputados de la Asamblea
de la Comunidad Europea del Carbón y del Acero, antecesora del actual
Parlamento Europeo.
1948 Axis Sally indicted
^top^
Mildred Gillars, a Nazi radio
propagandist during World War II, is indicted for treason in
Washington, D.C. Born in Portland, Maine, Gillars moved to Europe
in the 1920s, changed her name, and by 1934 began working as
an English-language radio broadcaster in Berlin. During the
war she broadcast Nazi propaganda with the intent of demoralizing
US troops, who nicknamed her "Axis Sally." Gillars was convicted
of treason, and spent twelve years in prison. |
1945 Vidkun Quisling sentenced to death in Norway for collaborating
with the Nazis.
1942 Wartime gasoline rationing
in US ^top^
Following the example of several
European nations, President Franklin D. Roosevelt mandates gasoline
rationing in the US as part of the country’s wartime efforts.
Gasoline rationing was just one of the many measures taken during
these years, as the entire nation was transformed into a unified
war machine: women took to the factories, households tried to
conserve energy, and American automobile manufacturers began
producing tanks and planes. The gasoline ration was lifted in
1945, at the end of World War II. |
1940 Orders: bomb target or,
if not, anywhere in Germany ^top^
In light of the destruction and
terror inflicted on Londoners by a succession of German bombing
raids, called "the Blitz," the British War Cabinet instructs
British bombers over Germany to drop their bombs "anywhere"
if unable to reach their targets.
The prior two nights of bombing
had wrought extraordinary damage, especially in the London slum
area, the East End. King George VI even visited the devastated
area to reassure the inhabitants that their fellow countrymen
were with them in heart and mind. Each night since the seventh,
sirens had sounded to announce the approach of incoming German
planes, which had begun dropping bombs indiscriminately in the
London vicinity, even though the docks had been their primary
target on Day One of the Blitz.
As British bombers set out for
Germany to retaliate, they are instructed not to return home
with their bombs, even if they fail to locate their original
targets. Instead, they are to release their loads where and
when they could. On the night of the 10th, a night when British
Home Intelligence had been alerted of how panicked Londoners
were becoming at the sound of those air-raid sirens, Berlin
is paid in kind, with a cascade of British bombs—one of which
lands in the garden of Joseph Goebbels, the Nazi Party's minister
of propaganda. |
1939 Canada declares war on Nazi Germany.
1929 La BBC (British Broadcasting Corporation) pone en marcha
la primera emisión televisiva, que en principio sólo tenía media hora
de duración diaria.
1923 In response to a dispute with Yugoslavia, Mussolini mobilizes
Italian troops on Serb front.
1921 The first superhighway
^top^
The Ayus Autobahn, the world’s
first controlled-access highway and part of Germany’s Bundesautobahn
system, opens near Berlin. Once regarded as a symbol of modernity
and a model of German engineering, the autobahn system was nearly
destroyed during World War II. At the start of the postwar era,
the newly formed nations of East and West Germany set about
repairing the superhighway network. The system was greatly extended
and improved in West Germany, which had a higher growth rate
of motor traffic than its eastern neighbor, although repairs
and extensions were also made to the system in East Germany.
Over the years, the autobahn has regained its status as a model
expressway, famed for its nonexistent speed limit. |
1919 Tras la I Guerra Mundial, se firma el Tratado de Saint-Germain,
por el que quedan definidas las fronteras de Austria, Checoslovaquia
y Yugoslavia.
1914 The six-day Battle of the Marne
ends, halting the German advance into France.
1913 Lincoln Highway opens as 1st paved coast-to-coast US highway
1912 J. Vedrines becomes the first pilot to fly faster than 100
m.p.h.
1910 Great Idaho Fire destroys 1.2 million hectares of timber
1897 First DWI ^top^
Long before breathalyzers, George
Smith’s swerving is enough to alert British police and make
him the first person arrested for drunken driving. Unfortunately
many other drunk drivers have taken to the road since. Although
drunk driving is illegal in most countries, punished by heavy
fines and mandatory jail sentences, it continues to be one of
the leading causes of automobile accidents throughout the world.
Alcohol-related automobile accidents are responsible for approximately
one-third of the traffic fatalities in the United States – 16'000
deaths each year, and also account for over half a million injuries
and $1 billion of property damage annually.
M.A.D.D. (Mothers Against Drunk
Driving) is an organisation that fights this scourge by educational
campaigns and by lobbying for legislation. |
1882 1st international conference to promote anti-semitism meets
in Dresden Germany (Congress for Safeguarding of Non-Jewish Interests)
1863 Little Rock, Arkansas captured
1861 Confederates at Carnifex Ferry, Virginia, fall back after
being attacked by Union troops. The action is instrumental in helping
preserve western Virginia for the Union.
1855 Sevastopol, under siege for nearly a year, capitulates to
the Allies during the Crimean War.
1846 Elias Howe patents the first practical sewing machine in the
United States.
1833 President announces withdrawal
from Bank of US ^top^
Fearful that the nation's fiscal
policies were encroaching on states' rights, President Andrew
Jackson declares his intention to remove government deposits
from the Bank of the United States. The decision, which took
effect a few weeks later, proved to be one of the more controversial
decisions of "Old Hickory's" political career. Jackson's rival
Henry Clay guided two resolutions through the Senate that censured
the President for overstepping his Constitutional bounds, as
well as failing to provide adequate explanation for the move.
On top of these political consequences, the removal also stirred
up financial troubles. Jackson inadvertently triggered a "currency
crisis" and the bank-fueled Panic of 1837. |
1832 Lamennais submits to the
Pope's doctrinal decision ^top^
"He who has stopped to calculate
what liberty will cost has renounced liberty in his heart."
"If there be upon earth anything truly great, it is the resolute
firmness of a people who march on, under the eye of God, to
the conquest of those rights which they hold from Him, without
flagging for a moment. . . ."
These words came from the pen
of Hughes
Félicité Robert de Lamennais, a man of strong opinions which
he completely changed several times in his life. As a young
man Lamennais joined the left in the French Revolution. In 1804
he renounced revolution and became a priest, urging unity of
religion and state. A few years more brought him to demand separation
of church and state. In later life, after the church had humiliated
him, he became an embittered Deist.
During his years as a priest,
Lamennais was an Ultramontanist, a strong adherent of the pope's
prerogatives and infallibility. Since religion in one form or
another is the driving principle of society, society cannot
ignore what people believe, taught Lamennais during this phase
of his thinking. Therefore atheists, deists and heretics must
be crushed. Within a dozen years he had moved to advocating
complete separation of church and state. Priests should not
accept state pay. The church should instead identify itself
with the movement of political liberalism and allow everyone
the right to do anything he or she liked as long as it was not
opposed to right itself. Such ideas fostered the Catholic Liberal
and Christian Socialist movements.
The bishops of France turned
on Lamennais and his magazine, L'Avenir. Lamennais appealed
to the pope and left him a statement of his belief. Gregory
XVI felt Lamennais had gone too far. He rebuked his work on
four grounds: that it dealt publicly with delicate issues which
should be handled higher in the church hierarchy; that his theories
would foment revolt; that many of his views were contrary to
church doctrine; and that there could not be collaboration between
the church and all who worked for liberty.
Lamennais, 50, accepts Gregory's
decision with good grace, drafting his own submission on this
date, 10 September 1832. However, overzealous bishops forced
him to repeat his submission four times more. This was too much
for the sensitive priest. He broke with the church and abandoned
his priestly vocation. From now on he fought his battles independently.
By his death he had mixed pantheistic and naturalistic ideas
with what remained of his faith. Christ, the essence of Christianity,
fell aside. Lamennais' importance lies in the fact he forced
Catholics to move toward Democracy, created a new apologetic,
and turned French Catholicism away from Gallicanism. He had
great influence on the Church in France and, one might suspect,
on modern Liberation Theology. Through him sociological ideas
entered religious thinking. He was a founder of the Second French
Republic. He died, estranged from the Church, on 27 February
1854.
LAMENNAIS ONLINE:
Articles
du Journal L'Avenir
De
la Religion considérée dans ses Rapports avec l'Ordre politique
et civil
De
la Religion considérée dans ses Rapports avec l'Ordre politique
et civil
|
1823 Simon Bolivar named president of Peru
1813 The Battle of Lake Erie
^top^
In the first unqualified defeat
of a British naval squadron in history, US Captain Oliver
Hazard Perry leads a fleet of nine American ships to victory
over a squadron of six British warships at the Battle of Lake
Erie during the War of 1812. All six English vessels are destroyed
or captured. After the British struck their colors, Perry sent
a famous message to US General William Henry Harrison, "We
have met the enemy, and they are ours." |
1798 British Honduras beats Spain in battle of St George
1776 George Washington asks for a spy volunteer, Nathan Hale
volunteers
1721 Treaty of Nystad signed in Finland between Sweden and Russia,
ends the Great Northern War (1700-21). Sweden is forced to cede Livonia,
Estonia and Ingria, part of Karelia.
1623 Lumber and furs are the first cargo to leave New Plymouth
in North America for England.
1608 Smith elected to lead Jamestown
^top^
Captain John Smith, an English
adventurer, explorer, writer, and cartographer, is elected
council president of Jamestown, Virginia — the first permanent
English settlement in North America. Smith, a colorful figure,
had won popularity in the colony because of his effectiveness
in dealing with local Native American groups.
On 13 May 1607, some one
hundred English colonists had settled along the west bank of
the James River in Virginia to found Jamestown, the first permanent
English settlement in North America. Dispatched from England
by the London Company, the colonists had sailed across the Atlantic
aboard the Sarah Constant, Goodspeed, and Discovery.
Upon landing at Jamestown, the first colonial council was held
by seven settlers whose names had been chosen and placed in
a sealed box by King James I. The council, which included John
Smith, chose Edward Wingfield as its first president.
After only two weeks, Jamestown
came under attack from warriors from the local Algonquian Native-American
confederacy, but the Indians were repulsed by the armed settlers.
In December of the same year 1607, John Smith and two other
colonists were captured by Algonquians while searching for provisions
in the Virginia wilderness. They were brought before Algonquin
Chief Powhatan, and his companions were killed. But, according
to his Historie of Virginia, New-England, and the Summer
Isles (1624), Pocahontas, the chief's young daughter, saved
his life by throwing herself between him and the warriors ordered
to execute him.
Over the next two years, disease,
starvation, and more Native American attacks wiped out most
of the colony, but the London Company continually sent more
settlers and supplies. The severe winter of 1609 to 1610, which
the colonists referred to as the "starving time," killed most
of the Jamestown colonists, leading the survivors to plan a
return to England in the spring. However, on 10 June 1610,
Thomas West De La Warr, the newly appointed governor of Virginia,
arrived with supplies and convinced the settlers to remain at
Jamestown.
In 1612, John Rolfe cultivated
the first tobacco at Jamestown, introducing a successful source
of livelihood, and, on 05 April 1614, he married Pocahontas,
thus assuring a temporary peace with Chief Powhatan. However,
the death of Powhatan in 1618 brought about a resumption of
conflict with the Algonquians, including an attack led by Chief
Opechancanough in 1622 that nearly wiped out the settlements
surrounding Jamestown, although the heavily fortified town was
saved. The English engaged in violent reprisals against the
Algonquians, but there was no further large-scale fighting until
1644, when Opechancanough led his last uprising, and was captured
and executed at Jamestown. In 1646, the Algonquian Confederacy
agreed to give up much of its territory to the rapidly expanding
colony, and, beginning in 1665, its chiefs were appointed by
the governor of Virginia. |
1588 Thomas Cavendish returns to England, becoming the third man
to circumnavigate the globe.
1547 The Duke of Somerset leads the English to a resounding victory
over the Scots at Pinkie Cleugh.
1224 The Franciscans (founded in 1209 by St. Francis of Assisi)
first arrived in England. They were originally called "Grey Friars" because
of their gray habits. (The habit worn by the main branch of modern Franciscans
is brown.). The Franciscans first arrive in England where their austerity
and love have a great influence, including on Bishop Robert Grosseteste,
who becomes their leader and who undertakes reform in light of their
thinking.
0422 St Celestine I is elected pope. He would convoke the Council
of Ephesus to combat the Nestorian "heresy" (the belief that Christ had
two natures and two persons) and may have sent Patrick to Ireland as
a missionary.
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