<< Sep 15|        HISTORY “4” “2”DAY         |Sep 17 >>
Events, deaths, births, of SEP 16
[For Sep 16 Julian go to Gregorian date: 1583~1699: Sep 26 — 1700s: Sep 27 — 1800s: Sep 28 — 1900~2099: Sep 29]
ALL FOR 020916     ANY DAY  OF THE YEAR IN HISTORY       ART “4” SEPTEMBER
IF SOMETHING'S WRONG HERE, TRY MIRROR 1, 3, 5, 7, 8, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, or 19
On a 16 September:
2002 In “Jammu and Kashmir” (including the Indian-occupied part of Kashmir), first stage of election for the 87-member. The fourth and last stage is scheduled for 08 October. Islamic extremist have opposed the election since it was announced in early August 2002 and more than 300 persons, including more than a dozen candidates and party workers, have been killed in the resulting violence. But the main moderate separatist alliance, the All Parties Hurriyat (Freedom) Conference which groups almost two dozen parties and organizations, has also boycotted the election, declaring that it does not accept anything but self-determination.
2000 Peru's authoritarian President Alberto Fujimori, 62, announces that he will call new elections (he does not say when) and that he would not be a candidate. The hypothesis is that the armed forces have withdrawn their support for him, in the face of strong opposition at home and abroad. Fujimori won a recent re-election, that was rigged. But the last straw was a videotape showing head of the National Intelligence Service Vladimiro Montesinos bribing an opposition congressman. Fujimori also says he will "deactivate" the National Intelligence Service.
1997 Jobs gets old job back  Apple Computer recruits founder and former CEO Steve Jobs to temporarily run the company during a search for a permanent leader. A decade earlier, Jobs had left Apple under bitter circumstances.
1997 Limit on ozone pollution
      The new regulation sets the maximum at 0.08 parts per million. As automobiles are the primary source of emissions that help form ozone, surpassing even industrial sources, consumers are directly affected by the new standard. Cities that do not meet national standards face strict penalties, including mandatory vehicle inspection and costly retrofitting of pumps at gasoline stations, all of which translate to higher gasoline prices.
1996 Singapore's Web censorship
      Singapore's three Internet service providers blocked users from Web access. Instead, users were directed through servers that could deny them from accessing sites blacklisted by the government. Networks in China had started blocking sites, including The Wall Street Journal and other online Western newspapers, during the previous week. The Singapore government said it would restrict access to sites that might "undermine the public morals, political stability and religious harmony.”
1991 US trial of kidnapped Panamanian dictator, drug trafficker, and ex-CIA agent Manuel Noriega begins
1990 101 year old Sam Ackerman weds 95 year old Eva in New Rochelle NY
1990 Iraq televises an 8 minute uncensored speech from George Bush
1976 Congress puts the finishing touches on what is to become the Tax Reform Act of '76, aiming to place a fair share of the nation's tax burden on the wealthy, with an increase in the minimum mandatory payments, as well as a reduction in the rolls of citizens who claimed special tax shelters. The Tax Reform Act would pass into law by the end of the year
1976 In Minneapolis, the 65th Triennial General Convention of the Episcopal Church officially approves the ordination of women as priests and bishops.
1975 Papua New Guinea gains independence from Australia (National Day)
1974 US President Ford announces an amnesty program for Vietnam War deserters and draft-evaders, conditioned on them swearing allegiance to the United States and performing two years of public service.
1974 BART begins regular transbay service
1974 Pres Ford announces conditional amnesty for US Vietnam War deserters
1974 Charges against Indian Movement leaders dismissed
      Charges against Russell Means and Dennis Banks, leaders of the American Indian Movement (AIM), are dismissed by a federal judge due to the US government's unlawful handling of witnesses and evidence.
      AIM was founded by Means, Banks, and other Native leaders in 1968 as a militant political and civil rights organization. In November of 1972, AIM members briefly occupied the Bureau of Indian Affairs in Washington, D.C., to protest programs controlling reservation development, and in early 1973, prepared for a more dramatic occupation at Wounded Knee, South Dakota — the sight of the infamous 1890 massacre of three hundred Sioux by the US Seventh Cavalry. In additional to its historical significance, Wounded Knee was one of the poorest communities in the United States and shared with the other Pine Ridge settlements some of the country's lowest rates of life expectancy.
      On February 27, 1973, some two hundred Sioux Native Americans led by Means and Banks marched into Wounded Knee and took eleven residents of the historic Oglala Sioux settlement hostage. Within hours, local authorities and federal agents had descended on the Pine Ridge Reservation, and the next day, AIM members traded gunfire with the federal marshals surrounding the settlement and fired on any automobiles and low-flying planes that dared come within rifle range.
      Means began negotiations for the release of the hostages, demanding that the Senate launch an investigation of the Bureau of Indian Affairs and all Sioux reservations in South Dakota, and that the Senate Foreign Relations Committee hold hearings on the scores of Indian treaties broken by the US government. The Wounded Knee occupation lasted for a total of seventy-one days, during which two Sioux men were shot to death by federal agents and several more were wounded.
      On May 8, the AIM leaders and their supporters surrendered after Senate officials promise to investigate their complaints. Means and Banks were arrested, but on 16 September 1973, the charges against them were dismissed by federal judge. Violence continued on the Pine Ridge Reservation throughout the rest of the 1970s, with some two dozen more AIM members and supporters losing their lives in confrontations with the US government. Russell Means continued to advocate Native rights at Pine Ridge and elsewhere, and in 1988 he was a presidential candidate for the Libertarian Party.
BIA sealOn 08 September 2000, the Bureau of Indian Affairs apologized for all its past wrongs
     Kevin Gover, a Pawnee Indian, head of the federal Bureau of Indian Affairs apologized for the Bureau's "legacy of racism and inhumanity" that included massacres, forced relocations of tribes and attempts to wipe out Indian languages and cultures. “We accept also the moral responsibility of putting things right," he said.
     Since its creation as the Indian Office of the War Department in March 1824, the agency is believed responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Indians through "the deliberate spread of disease, the decimation of the mighty bison herds, the use of the poison alcohol to destroy mind and body, and the cowardly killing of women and children, [which] made for tragedy on a scale so ghastly that it cannot be dismissed as merely the inevitable consequence of the clash of competing ways of life.”
     The atrocities continued after the BIA became part of the Interior Department in 1849. Children were brutalized in BIA-run boarding schools, Indian languages and religious practices were banned and traditional tribal governments were eliminated. The high rates of alcoholism, suicide and violence in Indian communities today are the result. “Poverty, ignorance and disease have been the product of this agency's work.”
      Now, 90% of the BIA's 10'000 employees are Indian and the agency has changed into an advocate for tribal governments.
     The apology was made on behalf of the BIA only, not the whole US government, which, however, did not object. Canada's government has formally apologized for abuses in government-run boarding schools for Indians but has rejected calls for a broader apology. Australian Prime Minister John Howard also has rebuffed repeated calls for an apology to that country's Aboriginal population for similar abuses there.
1972 South Vietnamese troops recapture Quang Tri province in South Vietnam from the North Vietnamese Army.
1971 6 Klansmen arrested in connection with bombing of 10 school buses
1969 Vietnam: Another 35'000 US soldiers to withdraw.         ^top^
      President Richard Nixon announces the second round of US troop withdrawals from Vietnam. This was part of the dual program that he had announced at the Midway conference on June 8 that called for “Vietnamization” of the war and US troop withdrawals, as the South Vietnamese forces assumed more responsibility for the fighting. The first round of withdrawals was completed in August and totaled 25'000 soldiers (including two brigades of the 9th Infantry Division). There would be 15 announced withdrawals in total, leaving only 27'000 US soldiers in Vietnam by November 1972.
1963 Malaysia formed from Malaya, Singapore, Br. N. Borneo & Sarawak
1960 Vietnam: US ambassador: 2 dangers to Diem regime         ^top^
      In a cable to Secretary of State Christian A. Herter, US Ambassador in Saigon Elbridge Durbrow analyzes two separate but related threats to the Ngo Dinh Diem regime, danger from demonstration or coup, predominantly “non-Communist” in origin; and the danger of a gradual Viet Cong extension of control over the countryside.
      Durbrow explained that any coup would be partly motivated by a “sincere desire to prevent Communist take-over in Vietnam.” He suggested methods Diem might use to mitigate both threats, including sending his brother Nhu (head of the hated secret police) abroad and improving relations with the peasantry, and ended by declaring, “If Diem’s position in country continues to deteriorate as result of a failure to adopt political, psychological, economic and security measures, it may become necessary for US government to begin considerable alternative courses of action and leaders in order achieve our objective.”
      President Kennedy and his administration were faced with a difficult quandary; President Diem was staunchly anticommunist, but he resisted any reforms that might have won him more support among the South Vietnamese people. Ultimately, the Kennedy administration decided the Diem would never make the necessary changes and subsequently let a group of dissident South Vietnamese generals know that the United States would not oppose a coup to remove Diem from office. In the process of the coup that occurred on November 1, Diem and his brother were murdered. A period of political instability ensued during which there was a series of “revolving door” governments. ..
1950 The US 8th Army breaks out of the Pusan Perimeter in South Korea and begins heading north to meet MacArthur's troops heading south from Inchon
1950 Essays on veto at UN angers Soviets.         ^top^
      Soviet representatives condemn an essay writing contest sponsored by the United Nations. The incident, though small, indicated that the Cold War was as much a battle of words as a war of bombs and guns.
     In 1950, the Public Information Department of the United Nations hit upon an idea to stir interest among young people in the work of the United Nations: an essay contest. The theme for the contest was "The Veto." The question posed to the contestants was: "Has the rule of unanimity (the veto) prevented the United Nations from functioning in the political and security field?" The question referred to the fact that resolutions in the UN's Security Council (which handled the most important "political and security" issues) had to be approved by each of the so-called "Big Five" nations — the United States, the Soviet Union, Great Britain, France, and Nationalist China. One negative vote by any of these nations would veto any action on the resolution. It was a particularly timely topic. In June 1950, the Korean War began when communist North Korea invaded South Korea. The United States immediately asked the Security Council to approve the use of UN forces to repel the North Korean attack. The resolution passed only because the Soviet Union was absent that day, in protest of the exclusion of communist China from the United Nations.
     The essay contest rankled the Soviet's UN representatives. The Soviets were famous for using their veto power in the Security Council; they cast 45 vetoes in the first five years of the UN's existence. The chief Soviet delegate to the United Nations, Jacob Malik, launched into a tirade about the essay contest on 16 September 1950. He claimed that UN Secretary General Trygve Lie had promised to end the contest. He was infuriated to learn that it was still on, and that winners were about to be announced. Malik declared that the contest organizers "aimed at undermining one of the basic principles of the United Nations Charter." Exactly what that "basic principle" entailed was not stated. Lie merely replied that he was "surprised that the Soviet delegation should take such interest in a relatively minor administrative question."
     Later that day, the 10 contest winners — including one from Czechoslovakia — were announced. For their efforts, they received free transportation to the United States (no US citizens had been allowed to participate, to avoid any claims of favoritism), were awarded a 30-day stay at the UN headquarters in New York, and given $10 a day to cover expenses. Most of the essays concluded that the veto interfered with, but did not destroy, the United Nation's effectiveness.
1947 John Rhodes Cobb (18991202-19520929) sets world auto speed record at 634 km/h. Le coureur automobile britannique John Cobb, grand rival de Sir Malcolm Campell (18850311-19481231), s'approprie une nouvelle fois le record du monde de vitesse pure sur terre avec 634,162 km/h. Ce record fut battu au volant d'une Railton qui datait d'avant guerre. While trying to establish a world speed record for motorboats, Cobb was killed on 29 September 1952 when his jet-propelled craft, traveling at more than 300 km/h, disintegrated.
1945 Japan surrenders Hong Kong to Britain.
1945 Barometric pressure at 856 mb (25.55") off Okinawa (record low)
1942 The Japanese base at Kiska in the Aleutian Islands is raided by American bombers.
1941 German armor troops surround Kiev, Ukraine.
1940 Samuel T Rayburn of Texas elected speaker of the US House of Representatives.
1940 First peacetime draft in US history         ^top^
      The Burke-Wadsworth Act (Selective Training and Service Act) is passed by Congress, by wide margins in both houses, and the first peacetime draft in the history of the United States is imposed. The registration of men between the ages of 21 and 36 began exactly one month later, as Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson, who had been a key player in moving the Roosevelt administration away from a foreign policy of strict neutrality, began drawing draft numbers out of a glass bowl. The numbers were handed to the president, who read them aloud for public announcement. There were some 20 million eligible young men—50 percent were rejected the very first year, either for health reasons or illiteracy (20 purcent of those who rejistered wear ilitrit).
      In November 1942, with the United States now a participant in the war, and not merely a neutral bystander, the draft ages expanded; men 18 to 37 were now eligible. Blacks were passed over for the draft because of racist assumptions about their abilities and the viability of a mixed-race military. But this changed in 1943, when a "quota" was imposed, meant to limit the numbers of blacks drafted to reflect their numbers in the overall population, roughly 10.6 percent of the whole. Initially, blacks were restricted to "labor units," but this too ended as the war progressed, when they were finally used in combat.
      "Conscientious objector" status was granted to those who could demonstrate "sincerity of belief in religious teachings combined with a profound moral aversion to war.” Quakers made up most of the COs, but 75 percent of those Quakers who were drafted fought. COs had to perform alternate service in Civilian Public Service Camps, which entailed long hours of hazardous work for no compensation. About 5000 to 6000 men were imprisoned for failing to register or serve the nation in any form; these numbers were comprised mostly of Jehovah's Witnesses. By war's end, approximately 34 million men had registered, and 10 million served with the military.
1938 George E.T. Eyston sets world auto speed record at 575 km/h
1934 Anti-Nazi Lutherans stage protest in Munich.
1919 American Legion incorporated by an act of Congress
1915 Haiti becomes US protectorate         ^top^
      One hundred and ten years after former slave Toussaint L'Ouverture led a successful revolution against Napoleon Bonaparte's colonial forces, Haiti became a US protectorate under the terms of a ten-year treaty. After Toussaint's death, a succession of nineteenth-century dictatorships and a continual state of bankruptcy encouraged US intervention and the loss of Haitian autonomy. US takes control of customs & finances of Haiti.
Cherokee Strip land run1893 Settlers race to grab some more of forcibly resettled Indians' land.         ^top^
      Adding insult to the injury of the 22 April 1889 land grab (and to the taking of land by Sooners, sooner than that), the largest land run in history begins with more than 100'000 people pouring into the Cherokee Strip of Oklahoma to claim land that had once been promised forever to Native Americans cruelly forced from their homes in the Eastern US..
     They came to the land that would be Oklahoma by train, horseback, wagon and on foot, from every state and territory in the nation and abroad. Texas and Kansas had the most settlers represented. Most had few material possessions but all came with a dream: to stake a claim and make a home on the vast, virgin prairie known as the Cherokee Strip.
      President Cleveland and Secretary of Interior H. R. Smith hoped they learned something from earlier "stampedes" for land. They hoped that with better planning they could avoid the troubles and confusion that accompanied the 1889 land rush. Prior to opening the land they established county seats and opened four land offices at Enid, Perry, Alva and Woodward. Homesteaders were to go to these offices and pay a filing fee ranging from $1.00 to $2.50. Filing fees were based upon the quality of land. However, the Strip was to be settled by the horse-race method. To eliminate "sooners," they set up makeshift offices just inside the Cherokee Strip border. Homesteaders were to register and produce filing fee affidavits to be eligible for the run.
      On the day of the run, it is hot and dry. Dust, whipped by wind, and thousands of feet, make it unbearable. To add to the misery, soldiers are doing their best to keep order, and see that no one "jumps the gun.” The run is to begin only when troopers shot their pistols at high noon. There were several reports of persons shooting a gun in the crowd. Many homesteaders excitedly took off on hearing any gun shot. Such excitement could only lead to trouble for some. One fellow heard the wild shot at four minutes before noon, and took off. Troopers reportedly chased him for a quarter mile before shooting him dead.
      Finally, at noon, a shot is fired and more than 100'000 land-hungry pioneers on horseback and in carriages race for 42'000 claims. By sunset, there would be tent cities, endless lines at federal land offices and more losers than winners. The Cherokee Strip Land Run was a tumultuous finale to what many have called the last American frontier.
      Ironically, not many years before that same land had once been considered worthless desert. Early explorers of Oklahoma believed that the territory was too arid and treeless for white settlement, but several suggested it might be the perfect place to resettle Indians, whose rich and fertile lands in the southeast were increasingly coveted by Americans. The US government later took this advice and began removing eastern Indian tribes like the Cherokee and Choctaw to Oklahoma Territory in 1817.
      No more eager than the whites to leave their green and well-watered lands for the arid plains, some Indians resisted and had to be removed by force—most tragically, the 4000 Cherokee who died during the brutal overland march known appropriately as the "Trail of Tears.” (fall and winter 1838-1839).
      By 1885, a diverse mixture of Native American tribes had been pushed onto reservations in eastern Oklahoma and promised that the land would be theirs "as long as the grass grows and the water runs.” Yet even this seemingly marginal land did not long escape the attention of land-hungry Americans. By the late nineteenth century, farmers had developed new methods that suddenly made the formerly reviled Plains hugely valuable.
      Pressure steadily increased to open the Indian lands to settlement, and in 1889, President Benjamin Harrison succumbed and threw open large areas of unoccupied Indian lands to white settlement. The giant Cherokee Strip rush was only the largest of a series of massive "land runs" that began in the 1890s, with thousands of immigrants stampeding into Oklahoma Territory and establishing towns like Norman and Oklahoma City almost overnight.
1888 El Paso del Norte, in Mexico on the southern bank of the Rio Grande, is renamed Ciudad Juárez. El Paso remains the name of the bustling little railroad town across the river in Texas.
1873 Les troupes de l'Empire allemand évacuent le territoire national. L'Alsace-Lorraine a été annexée à l'Empire lors du traité de Francfort du 10 mai 1871. Cette annexion provoquera bien des rancoeurs et des haines. Il fallut payer une rançon de cinq milliards de francs pour que ces troupes se retirent.
1864 Confederate General Nathan Bedford Forrest leads 4500 men out of Verona, Miss. to harass Union outposts in northern Alabama and Tennessee.
1864 Confederate General Wade Hampton's raid at Coggin's Point (Great Cattle Road), Virginia
1862 Gen Bragg's army surrounds 4000 federals at Munfordville, KY
1861 Siege of Lexington, Missouri continues
1858 1st overland mail for California
1812 Fire of Moscow
1810 Priest cries out for Mexican independence         ^top^
      Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla, a Catholic priest, launches the Mexican War of Independence with the issuing of his Grito de Dolores, or "Cry of Dolores," The revolutionary tract, so-named because it was publicly read by Hidalgo in the town of Dolores, called for the end of 300 years of Spanish rule in Mexico, redistribution of land, and racial equality. Thousands of Indians and mestizos flocked to Hidalgo's banner of the Virgin of Guadalupe, and soon the peasant army was on the march to Mexico City.
     In the early 19th century, Napoleon's occupation of Spain led to the outbreak of revolts all across Spanish America. Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla — "the father of Mexican independence" — launched the Mexican rebellion with his "Cry of Delores," and his populist army came close to capturing the Mexican capital. Defeated at Calderón in January 1811, he fled north but was captured and executed. He was followed by other peasant leaders, however, such as José María Morelos y Pavón, Mariano Matamoros, and Vicente Guerrero, who all led armies of native and racially mixed revolutionaries against the Spanish and the Royalists.
     Ironically, it was the Royalists — made up of Mexicans of Spanish descent and other conservatives — who ultimately brought about independence. In 1820, liberals took power in Spain, and the new government promised reforms to appease the Mexican revolutionaries. In response, Mexican conservatives called for independence as a means of maintaining their privileged position in Mexican society.
     In early 1821, Agustín de Iturbide, the leader of the Royalist forces, negotiated the Plan of Iguala with Vicente Guerrero. Under the plan, Mexico would be established as an independent constitutional monarchy, the privileged position of the Catholic Church would be maintained, and Mexicans of Spanish descent would be regarded as equal to pure Spaniards. Mexicans of mixed or pure Indian blood would have lesser rights.
     Iturbide defeated the Royalist forces still opposed to independence, and the new Spanish viceroy, lacking money, provisions, and troops, was forced to accept Mexican independence. On 24 August 1821, Spanish Viceroy Juan de O'Donojú signed the Treaty of Córdoba, which approves a plan to make Mexico an independent constitutional monarchy. In 1822, as no Bourbon monarch to rule Mexico had been found, Iturbide was proclaimed the emperor of Mexico. However, his empire was short-lived, and in 1823 republican leaders Santa Anna and Guadalupe Victoria deposed Iturbide and set up a republic, with Guadalupe Victoria as its first president.
1795 British capture Capetown
1789 Jean-Paul Marat sets up a new newspaper in France, L'Ami du Peuple.
1747 The French capture Bergen-op-Zoom, consolidating their occupation of Austrian Flanders in the Netherlands.
1668 King John Casimer V of Poland abdicates the throne.
1662 Flamsteed sees solar eclipse, 1st known astronomical observation
1654 Russian troops occupy Smolensk in Poland
1630 Massachussetts village of Shawmut changes name to Boston
1620 Julian date: Mayflower sets sail: go to Gregorian date 26 September
1224 During an extended period of prayer and fasting, St. Francis of Assisi, 42, receives the stigmata (crucifixion scars of Christ) on Mount Alvernia, in Italy. Francis, the founder of the Franciscans in 1209, has been called by some the greatest of all the Christian saints.
TO THE TOP
Deaths which occurred on a 16 September:
2002 Miguel Ajú, de 23 años, en el caserío Pasis, aldea Sampoj, Santa Catarina Ixtahuacán, Sololá, Guatemala, fue sacado a rastras y a golpes de su vivienda por unos 800 aldeanos que lo sindicaban de la muerte de Juan Ixtot. Lo ataron de pies y manos a un árbol de cacao, donde fue degollado a las 22:50.
2002 Juan Ixtot, de 82 años, en el caserío Pasis, aldea Sampoj, Santa Catarina Ixtahuacán, departamento de Sololá, Guatemala, a machetazos por Miguel Ajú, a mediodía (el victimado ya moribundo dijo que el culpable fue Ajú).
2002 Isabel Muñoz, 36, Vincent LaBianca, 34, and John H. Harrison, 53, who shoots the first two and then himself in his 11th floor office of Empire Blue Cross and Blue Shield at 1440 Broadway, New York City. More
2002:: 11 persons by a terrorist bomb made of an artillery shell and detonated by remote control near a bus stop in Grozny, Chechnya. It was probably intended against police vehicles of the Russian occupiers or their puppets and detonated at the wrong moment.
2002 Cardinal François-Xavier Nguyên Van Thuân of Vietnam, 74, in Rome, of cancer. Cardinal Van Thuân, one of the few Asians to occupy top Vatican posts, spent 13 years in prison and under house arrest in Vietnam after the Communists came to power in 1975, after the Vietnam War, and began repressing the Roman Catholic Church. About 10% of Vietnam's population of more than 79 million are Christians, most of them Catholics. Many Catholics were driven underground after the Communist takeover, and Cardinal Van Thuân's status was not helped by the fact that he was related to a former president of South Vietnam, the Communists' wartime enemy. During his prison years, eight of which were spent in solitary confinement, Cardinal Van Thuân wrote about spirituality, survival and hope. He was released in 1991 but while he was visiting Rome, the Vietnam government declared him persona non grata and said he could never return home. He became a cardinal in February 2001. The pope in 1998 appointed him president of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, in charge of formulating church teaching on justice and international law. In 2000, he was chosen to preach to the Vatican bureaucracy at the Lenten spiritual retreat, another sign of esteem. [20 Sep 2002: l'omelia del Papa per le esequie: “Eroico araldo del Vangelo di Cristo, esempio luminoso di coerenza cristiana sino al martirio” — Same in French, English, Portuguese]
2001 Annie O'Donnell, 107, at the home of relatives in County Derry. She was born in County Donegal on 08 December 1893 and was a former schoolteacher. The title of oldest woman in Ireland passes to twice-widowed Annie O'Malley, in County Mayo, who was born on 17 September 1894..
2001 Shi Wanxia, 29, murdered by ethnic Korean Piao Yongzhi
Updated: 2001 Wed, Nov 07 11:00 AM EST BEIJING (Reuters) - An ex-convict has been indicted in China for the gruesome murder of a woman who was beheaded, scalped and the skin from her face cooked in a pot, a police official said Wednesday. Ethnic Korean Piao Yongzhi is accused of murdering 29-year-old Shi Wanxia out of lust for her long hair, police officer Du Changqing told Reuters by telephone from Kaishantun, in the northeastern province of Jilin. The 40-year-old Piao took the victim's head back home after beheading her with an axe and seriously wounding her sister on 16 September 2001, Du said. He then peeled off the scalp and hair and cooked the facial skin with some pepper. The victim's hair and skull were discovered in his storage room. "We found out later that he had just been stir-frying the dish when we knocked on the door," Du said. Authorities found the victim's face boiling in a pot when they searched the house. The suspect had been sentenced to life in prison for a 1977 murder and was released in 1997, Du said. Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty for Piao, the officer said. He did not say when the trial would begin. Details of especially grisly or otherwise high profile cases are routinely published in advance of trials at which the verdicts are almost certain.
Gongadze        ^top^


2000 Heorhy Gongadze, 31,
abducted and, this day or soon thereafter, decapitated.


     Opposition journalist Heorhy Gongadze [photo >], head of the online newspaper Ukrainska Pravda disappears on his way home from work.

On 3 November 2000, his decapitated body would be found in a forest in the Bila Tserkva region of Ukraine.

The opposition will demand President Leonid Kuchma's resignation, citing incriminating audio tapes released by Kuchma's former bodyguard, Major Mykola Melnichenko.

In April 2001, the US would grant political asylum to Melnychenko, to Gongadze's wife, Myroslava, and to the twin Gongadze daughters.
1989 Allen Shields, mathematician
1982 Hundreds of Palestinian men, women, and children massacred.
      Hours after the Israeli forces enter West Beirut, Phalangist militiamen begin a massacre of Palestinians at the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps. Within two days, 1000 men, women, and children would be dead.
      The Phalangists, a Christian faction in Lebanon, were closely allied with Israel. After entering West Beirut, Israeli commanders ordered the Phalangists into the refugee camps in search of terrorists, even though the militiamen were known to be enraged at the Palestinians for the recent murder of their leader. Israel later condemned the massacre and denied any responsibility. On September 29, returned to Lebanon to prevent more bloodshed a United Nations peacekeeping force that included US Marines, and British, French, and Italian troops.
1978 Some 25'000 in 7.7 earthquake in Iran
1946 James Jeans, 69, mathematician who thought that God was a colleague: "From the intrinsic evidence of his creation, the Great Architect of the Universe now begins to appear as a pure mathematician.”
1931 Nielsen, mathematician
1925 Friedmann, mathematician
1920 Thirty people, in (terrorist?) bombing in New York's Wall Street financial district.         ^top^
           Before the clock strikes noon, routine gives way to panic, as a horse-drawn wagon filled with explosives suddenly detonated near the subtreasury. Flames flood Wall Street, shooting up nearly six-stories-high. The blast shattered windows around the area and sent a pipe crashing against the neck of a man strolling some six blocks away from the subtreasury. All told, 30 people are killed and a hundred more were wounded. The only famous financial figure to be injured is Junius Spencer, J.P. Morgan's grandson, who suffered a slight gash on one hand.
      Since radical bashing was in vogue at the time, Communists, Anarchists, and anyone else leaning too far to the left were accused of having staged a violent protest against capitalism. More pragmatic souls argued that the wagon belonged to an explosives operation and had simply strayed from its prescribed route. Whatever merits these theories have, the ensuing investigation failed to uncover the culprit or cause of the blast, and the case remains a mystery.
1897 Aloïs Frederick Schönn, Austrian artist born on 11 March 1826.
1853 Johann Peter Hasenclever, German artist born on 18 May 1810.
1845 Phineas Wilcox, stabbed to death by fellow Mormons in Nauvoo, Illinois, because he is believed to be a Christian spy.
      Wilcox was one of the first victims of “blood atonement,” a Mormon doctrine conceived of by Brigham Young, according to which murder is sometimes necessary in order to save a sinful soul.
      The murder of Wilcox reflected the serious and often violent conflict between the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and the surrounding communities. Joseph Smith, who founded the Mormon Church in 1830, had been living with his followers in Missouri, where they had various conflicts with locals, including an armed skirmish with the state militia. In 1838, Governor Lilburn Boggs, who was wounded four years later by an unidentified sniper at his home, signed a military order directing that the Mormons be expelled or exterminated: “The Mormons must be treated as enemies and must be exterminated or driven from the state, if necessary, for the public good.”
      Smith and the Mormons fled across the Mississippi to Nauvoo, Illinois, which quickly became the second most populous town in the state. But there were conflicts and tensions in Nauvoo as well. When a local newspaper printed editorials claiming that the religious leader was a fraud, Smith sent a group of followers to destroy the newspaper office. He was then arrested and sent to jail, where a lynch mob tracked him down and killed him.
      Brigham Young, who quickly took command of the church and its followers, tried to stifle any dissent and banish his rivals. The killing of Phineas Wilcox was part of his consolidation of power. Tensions with other communities continued to escalate, and, a year later, over 2000 armed anti-Mormons marched on Nauvoo. Young decided that it no longer was wise to stay in the area. He led his flock west and settled in the Salt Lake Valley, where he and his followers would become instrumental in founding the state of Utah.
1824 Louis XVIII. Peu de temps avant de mourir, le roi désigne le duc de Bordeaux: "Que Charles X ménage la couronne de cet enfant!". On crie pour la dernière fois cette phrase aux Tuileries, lorsqu'il rend le dernier soupir : "Le roi est mort! Vive le roi!". Moins officiel, le docteur Brechet, devant le cadavre du roi qu'il autopsie, il constate : "Voilà le roi devenu sujet...".
1821 James Ross, British artist born in 1745.
1775 Louis-Fabricius Dubourg (or du Bourg), Dutch artist born on 2 July 1693.
1672 Anne Bradstreet American poet, (birth date unknown)
1643 Lucas Franchoys Sr., Flemish artist born on 25 January 1574.
1530 (or 13 Jul 1530?) Quentin Metsys de Smit Herrero, Flemish artist born in 1466. — MORE ON METSYS AT ART “4” SEPTEMBER — LINKS — Virgin and Child — The Holy Kinship — The Entombment of the Lord — The Moneylender and His Wife _ (detail). — Virgin and Child. — Erasmus of Rotterdam — The Adoration of the Magi — The Ugly Duchess [who was reincarnated in Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (chapter 6)] —/ — Saint Anne Altarpiec (open) — Central Panel _ detail — Left Wing — Right Wing detail — Closed —/— Saint John Altarpiece whole — Central panel — Left wing — Right wing detail —/— Christ on the Cross with Donors —round Virgin with the Child — a different Virgin and Child — yet another different Virgin and Child — Virgin and Child in a Landscape — Virgin and Child Surrounded by Angels — Lamentation — The Moneylender and his Wife _ detail — John the Baptist and St Agnes (2 pictures) — Portrait of an Old Man — Portrait of a Canon — The Rest on the Flight into Egypt
1498 Tomas de Torquemada, inquisitor who burned 10'000 persons.
1380 Charles le Sage, 44 ans. On l'a souvent appelé Charles le Maladif. Une maladie singulière lui a fait perdre ses cheveux et ses ongles. Après avoir aboli un impôt qui pesait sur son peuple, au moment de mourir, il se fait apporter la couronne royale. C'est à elle qu'il s'adresse : "Ah ! précieuse couronne, à cette heure si impuissante et si humble, précieuse par le mystère de justice renfermé en toi, mais vile à cause du fardeau du travail, des angoisses, des tourments, des périls de conscience que tu donnes à ceux qui te portent, s'ils pouvaient le savoir d'avance, ils te laisseraient plutôt tomber en boue que de te placer sur leur tête.” Le successeur, Charles VI, n'a que de douze ans.
Births which occurred on a 16 September:
1997 Megahertz modem. Microsoft's WebTV announces that it has developed a video modem capable of receiving one million bits of data per second.
1943 James Alan McPherson, the only black man to date to win a Pulitzer Prize for fiction, in Savannah, Georgia. McPherson overcame the crushing poverty of his childhood and ultimately attended Harvard Law School. At age 25, he entered a short story contest sponsored by The Atlantic and won. The following year, he became a contributing editor to the magazine.
      In 1969, his first collection of short fiction, Hue and Cry, appeared. McPherson became a writing teacher, working at Morgan State University in Washington, D.C., and later at University of Virginia. His second story collection, Elbow Room, was published in 1977 and won the Pulitzer Prize the following year. McPherson was the first black man to win the Pulitzer Prize for fiction. He also won a $192'000 MacArthur “genius” grant and a Guggenheim Fellowship.
      Despite his success, McPherson’s life began to unravel. His interracial marriage collapsed, and a bitter custody battle over his daughter followed. A favorite student killed himself. McPherson spent a year teaching at the Iowa Writers' Workshop but stopped publishing his work. More than 20 years passed before he published his next book, Crabcakes, a memoir about his journey to Japan to escape the burden of racism. [Good thing he isn't Korean]
1926 John Knowles, writer (A Separate Peace, Backcasts: Memories & Recollections of Seventy Years as a Sportsman).
1926 Robert Schuller televangelist (Glass Cathedral), author.
1919 American Legion is incorporated by an act of US Congress.
1911 Wilfred Burchett Australia, communist/writer (Catapult to Freedom)
1908 General Motors Corporation papers of incorporation are filed by William C. Durant, consolidating several automobile companies, including Buick, Oldsmobile, and Cadillac, to form this Goliath of the automotive industry. GM's success was assured in 1912 when Cadillac introduced the electric self-starter, quickly making the hand crank obsolete and propelling sales.
      Throughout the next few years, the company would continue to grow, buying out Chevrolet, Delco, the Fisher Body Company, and Frigidaire. In 1929, GM surpassed Ford to become the leading American passenger-car manufacturer, and by 1941, the company was the largest automotive manufacturer in the world. But the 1970s and 1980s brought darker times, and the company suffered under severe competition from imports. GM responded with attempts at modernization, but its efforts have yielded mixed results thus far; the company was forced to close a large number of plants in the US during the early 1990s after several years of heavy losses.
1906 J.B. Phillips, Anglican clergyman. Ordained in 1930, he wrote Your God is Too Small (1951), but is better remembered for The New Testament in Modern English (1958)
1903 Royce's engine         ^top^
      Frederick Henry Royce, of Rolls-Royce Ltd., successfully tested his first gasoline engine on this day. The two-cylinder, 10 hp engine was one of three experimental cars designed by Royce during the automobile's early years, when gasoline-powered engines competed on equal footing with electric and steam engines. In fact, Royce's first company, Royce Ltd., built electric motors.
1893 Albert von Nagyrapoit Szent-Györgyi, Budapest-born biochemist and molecular biologist, who moved to the US in 1947. He received the 1937 Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine for demonstrating how cells obtain energy and for his discoveries concerning vitamin C.
      During the 1920s he investigated cellular respiration, the process by which cells convert organic molecules into carbon dioxide and water, releasing energy for cellular functions. At the time, biochemists were divided as to whether it was the addition of oxygen or the removal of hydrogen that was the more essential reaction in the process of oxidation. Through his studies of plant cells, Szent-Györgyi demonstrated that oxygen and hydrogen must both be activated during cellular respiration. His findings provided the basis for German biochemist Sir Hans Krebs to elucidate the citric acid cycle. Szent-Györgyi also discovered ascorbic acid, which he found was identical to vitamin C. The breakthrough allowed researchers to obtain the complete chemical structure of vitamin C and made it possible to manufacture the vitamin on a mass scale. . He died on 22 October 1986.
      Some quotes from him:
  • Here we stand in the middle of this new world with our primitive brain, attuned to the simple cave life, with terrific forces at our disposal, which we are clever enough to release, but whose consequences we cannot comprehend.
  • Whatever a man does he must do first in his mind.
  • Discovery consists of looking at the same thing as everyone else and thinking something different.
  • The real scientist . . . is ready to bear privation and, if need be, starvation rather than let anyone dictate to him which direction his work must take.
  • Research is four things: brains with which to think, eyes with which to see, machines with which to measure and, fourth, money.
    • 1891 Karl Dönitz, German Admiral, creator of Germany's WW II U-boat fleet in violation of the Versailles treaty, who, for one week starting on 02 May 1945, succeeded Hitler in governing collapsed Nazi Germany, surrendered, and was tried for war crimes by the International Military Tribunal at Nüremberg in 1946 and sentenced to 10 years in prison. He published his memoirs in 1958 and died on 22 December 1980.
    1888 Frans Eemil Sillanpää, first Finnish writer to win the Nobel Prize for Literature (1939).
          Sillanpää's first novel, Elämä ja aurinko (1916; Life and the Sun) is the story of a young man who returns home in midsummer and falls in love.
           Shocked by the Finnish civil war of 1918, Sillanpää wrote his most substantial novel, Hurskas kurjuus (1919; Meek Heritage), describing how a humble cottager becomes involved with the Red Guards without clearly realizing the ideological implications.
          The novelette Hiltu ja Ragnar (1923) is the tragic love story of a city boy and a country servant-girl.
          Sillanpää's best-known, though not his most perfect, work is Nuorena nukkunut (1931; Fallen Asleep While Young, or The Maid Silja), a story of an old peasant family.      Miehen tie (1932; Way of a Man) describes a young farmer's growth to maturity.
          Ihmiset suviyössä     (1934; People in the Summer Night) is stylistically his most finished and poetic novel.
          Poika eli elämäänsa (1953; Telling and Describing) and Päivä korkeimmillaan (1956; The High Moment of the Day)are his reminiscences. He died on 3 June 1964.
    1887 Jean Arp, French Dadaist-Surrealist sculptor who died on 07 June 1966. — LINKS
    1887 Kamato Hongo, Japanese. She was the world's oldest living person on her 115th birthday, with the possible exception of Vietnamese woman Vu Thi Dao, whose date of birth in 1887 is not known.
    1880 Alfred Noyes England, poet (The Highwayman)
    1877 James J Jeans cosmologist/astrophysicist (Mysterious Universe)
    1875 James Cash Penney department store founder (J.C. Penney)
    1861 Franz von Matsch, Austrian artist who died in 1942.
    1858 A Bonar Law (C) British PM (1922-23)
    1857 Typesetting machine patented.
    1850 Robert Barr. He wrote some Sherlock Holmes parodies (some under the pseudonym Luke Sharp), such as The Adventure of the Second Swag, The Adventures of Sherlaw Kombs, The Great Pegram Mystery (in The Face and the Mask), The Misadventures of Sherlock Holmes. He died in 1912.
    BARR ONLINE:
  • The Face and the Mask
  • From Whose Bourne, Etc.
  • A Rock in the Baltic
  • Jennie Baxter, Journalist
  • One Day's Courtship; and The Heralds of Fame
  • In a Steamer Chair, and Other Shipboard Stories
  • Revenge!
  • The Strong Arm
  • A Woman Intervenes
  • In the Midst of Alarms
    • 1841 Edward W.Barber, author. BARBER ONLINE: The Vermontville Colony, Its Genesis and History, With Personal Sketches of the Colonists
    1832 George Washington Custis Lee, in Fort Monroe, Virginia, son of Robert E. Lee. Custis Lee would become aide-de-camp of Confederate President Jefferson Davis and be promoted to general. He would die on 18 February 1913.
    1823 Francis Parkman Jr. American historian / author. PARKMAN ONLINE: : The Oregon Trail
    1816 Theodore Martin, translator of Schiller's William Tell.
    1736 Tetens, mathematician
    1685 John Gay poet. GAY ONLINE: The Beggar's Opera — The Beggar's Opera — The Beggar's Opera
    1638 Louis XIV [Sun King] king of France (1643-1715)
    1585 Ottavio Vannini, Italian artist who died in 1643.
    1494 Maurolico, mathematician
    1387 Henry V king of England (1413-22)
    Holidays / Malaysia, Singapore : Independence Day (1963) / Oklahoma : Cherokee Strip Day (1893) / Papua-New Guinea: National Day (1975) / US : American Legion Charter Day (1919)
    Religious Observances RC : SS Cornelius, pope (251-53), & Cyprian, bishop, martyrs / Ang : St Ninian, Bishop in Galloway
    Humor for today: Newspaper correction:
    Due to a typographical error, yesterday's edition stated that 'Mr. Harry Jones is a defective in the police force.' We meant of course that Mr. Jones is a detective in the police farce.
    Thoughts for the day :
    “Might as well be frank, monsieur. It would take a miracle to get you out of Casablanca.”
    “Might as well be frank, uncle Sam. It would take a miracle to get you out of debt.”
    “Might as well be frank, Ralph. It would take a miracle to get you into the Casa Blanca.”
    “Might as well be frank. It would take a miracle to get ads out of the web.”
    “Might as well be frank. It would take a miracle to get spam out of E-mail.”
    “Might as well be frank. It would take a miracle to get a miracle out of a change of government.”
    “Might as well be frank, reader. It would take a miracle to get me out of quotes.”
    “Everything will change. The only question is growing up or decaying.” —     Nikki Giovanni, US author and poet.
    “The validity of Nikki Giovanni's statements has changed.”
    Advice to motorists in winter: “When chains change, change chains.”
    “Change changes. That does not change.”
    “Wait a minute... change the above to ‘That change changes does not change’.”
    “The value of change changes: a nickel isn't worth a dime anymore.”
    "That change changes does not change."
    “That changes change does not change.”
    “Change not. Does change change that?”
    “Walkers of the whorl, your knight has nothing too loose but your change.”
    TO THE TOP
    PLEASE CLICK HERE TO WRITE TO “TODAY IN HISTORY”
    http://www.jcanu.hpg.com.br/history/h4sep/h4sep16.html
    http://www.hostultra.com/~canu/history/h4sep/h4sep16.html
    changed 020929 15:50 UT
    safe site     site safe for children safe site