Saturday, August 31, 2013

Back From Short Trip

If you follow my blog page, you may have noticed the strange timing of the "On This Day in History" for August 30th, which was released on the 29th. This was because I went on a short trip with my son, and wanted to make sure to get that particular day done.

Also, you might have noticed that I did not post anything yesterday. That also is due to the trip. I had no internet access while there.

My son and I went on a short trip to the Buffalo/Niagara Falls/Toronto region, from this past Thursday, until Saturday.

It was a lot of fun, and I intend to write quite a bit more about it later.

For now, my fatigue has won out, and I will leave it at that for this particular blog entry, with further details about the trip to come a bit later.

Thanking everyone in advance (too presumptuous?) for your patience!

On this Day in History - August 31 Anniversary of Polish Government Signing Accord with Shipyard Workers & Jack the Ripper (incomplete)

Once again, it should be reiterated, that this does not pretend to be a very extensive history of what happened on this day (nor is it the most original - the links can be found down below). If you know something that I am missing, by all means, shoot me an email or leave a comment, and let me know!

http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history

Aug 31, 1980: Polish government signs accord with Gdansk shipyard workers 

On this day in 1980, representatives of the communist government of Poland agree to the demands of striking shipyard workers in the city of Gdansk. Former electrician Lech Walesa led the striking workers, who went on to form Solidarity, the first independent labor union to develop in a Soviet bloc nation.  

In July 1980, facing economic crisis, Poland's government raised the price of food and other goods, while curbing the growth of wages. The price hikes made it difficult for many Poles to afford basic necessities, and a wave of strikes swept the country. Amid mounting tensions, a popular forklift operator named Anna Walentynowicz was fired from the Lenin Shipyard in the northern Polish city of Gdansk. In mid-August, some 17,000 of the shipyard's workers began a sit-down strike to campaign for her reinstatement, as well as for a modest increase in wages. They were led by the former shipyard electrician Lech Walesa, who had himself been fired for union activism four years earlier.  

Despite governmental censorship and attempts to keep news of the strike from getting out, similar protests broke out in industrial cities throughout Poland. On August 17, an Interfactory Strike Committee presented the Polish government with 21 ambitious demands, including the right to organize independent trade unions, the right to strike, the release of political prisoners and increased freedom of expression. Fearing the general strike would lead to a national revolt, the government sent a commission to Gdansk to negotiate with the rebellious workers. On August 31, Walesa and Deputy Premier Mieczyslaw Jagielski signed an agreement giving in to many of the workers' demands. Walesa signed the document with a giant ballpoint pen decorated with a picture of the newly elected Pope John Paul II (Karol Wojtyla, the former archbishop of Krakow).  

In the wake of the Gdansk strike, leaders of the Interfactory Strike Committee voted to create a single national trade union known as Solidarnosc (Solidarity), which soon evolved into a mass social movement, with a membership of more than 10 million people. Solidarity attracted sympathy from Western leaders and hostility from Moscow, where the Kremlin considered a military invasion of Poland. In late 1981, under Soviet pressure, the government of General Wojciech Jaruzelski annulled the recognition of Solidarity and declared martial law in Poland. Some 6,000 Solidarity activists were arrested, including Walesa, who was detained for almost a year. The Solidarity movement moved underground, where it continued to enjoy support from international leaders such as U.S. President Ronald Reagan, who imposed sanctions on Poland. Walesa was awarded the 1983 Nobel Peace Prize, and after the fall of communism in 1989 he became the first president of Poland ever to be elected by popular vote.





Aug 31, 1888: Jack the Ripper claims first victim

Prostitute Mary Ann Nichols, the first victim of London serial killer "Jack the Ripper," is found murdered and mutilated in Whitechapel's Buck's Row. The East End of London saw four more victims of the murderer during the next few months, but no suspect was ever found.  

In Victorian England, London's East End was a teeming slum occupied by nearly a million of the city's poorest citizens. Many women were forced to resort to prostitution, and in 1888 there were estimated to be more than 1,000 prostitutes in Whitechapel. That summer, a serial killer began targeting these downtrodden women. On September 8, the killer claimed his second victim, Annie Chapman, and on September 30 two more prostitutes--Liz Stride and Kate Eddowes--were murdered and carved up on the same night. By then, London's police had determined the pattern of the killings. The murderer, offering to pay for sex, would lure his victims onto a secluded street or square and then slice their throats. As the women rapidly bled to death, he would then brutally mutilate them with the same six-inch knife.  

The police, who lacked modern forensic techniques such as fingerprinting and blood typing, were at a complete loss for suspects. Dozens of letters allegedly written by the murderer were sent to the police, and the vast majority of these were immediately deemed fraudulent. However, two letters--written by the same individual--alluded to crime facts known only to the police and the killer. These letters, signed "Jack the Ripper," gave rise to the serial killer's popular nickname.  

On November 7, after a month of silence, Jack took his fifth and last victim, Irish-born Mary Kelly, an occasional prostitute. Of all his victims' corpses, Kelly's was the most hideously mutilated. In 1892, with no leads found and no more murders recorded, the Jack the Ripper file was closed.

Today

Here's a more detailed look at events that transpired on this date throughout history:


1056 - Byzantine Empress Theodora becomes ill, dying suddenly a few days later, without children to succeed the throne, ending the Macedonian dynasty.
1142 - With the aid of Hiawatha and Deganawidah, The Great Peacemaker, the Iroquois tribes establish the Confederation of the Haudenosaunee.
1230 - Utrecht bishop Willebrand grants Swells state justice
1310 - German king Heinrich VII makes his son Johan king of Bohemia
1422 - Henry VI, becomes King of England at the age of 9 months.
1535 - Pope Paul II deposed & excommunicated King Henry VIII
1745 - Bonnie Prince Charlie reaches Blair Castle Scotland
1751 - English troops under sir Robert Clive occupy Arcot India
1772 - Hurricane destroy ships off Dominica
1778 - British kill 17 Stockbridge indians in Bronx during Revolution
1829 - Opera "Guillaume Tell" is produced (Paris)
1836 - HMS Beagle anchors in Postage Praia, Cape Verde Islands
1842 - Micah Rugg patents a nuts & bolts machine
1842 - US Naval Observatory authorized by an act of Congress
1843 - Liberty Party nominates James Birneyas presidential candidate
1850 - California pioneers organized at Montgomery & Clay Streets
1864 - Atlanta Campaign: Battle of Jonesboro Georgia, 1900 casualties
1876 - Ottoman sultan Murat V is deposed and succeeded by his brother Abd-ul-Hamid II.
1881 - 1st US men's single tennis championships (Newport, RI)
1886 - 1st major earthquake recorded in eastern US, at Charleston SC, 110 die
1886 - Crocker-Woolworth National Bank organized
1887 - Thomas A Edison patents Kinetoscope, (produces moving pictures)
1889 - Start of Sherlock Holmes adventure "Cardboard Box" (BG)
1894 - Phillies Billy Hamilton steals 7 bases
1895 - 1st pro football game (QB John Brallier paid $10 & won 12-0)
1896 - Louis Napoleon Parker's "Rosemary," premieres in NYC
1897 - General Kitchener occupies Berber, North of Khartoum
Inventor Thomas EdisonInventor Thomas Edison 1897 - Thomas Edison patented his movie camera (Kinetograph)
1900 - British troops over run Johannesburg
1900 - Dodgers' Brickyard Kennedy walks 6 straight Phillies
1902 - Split skirt 1st worn by Mrs Adolph Landeburg (horse rider)
1903 - Joe McGinnity wins his 3rd doubleheader of month
1905 - 25th US Mens Tennis: Beals C Wright beats Holcombe Ward (62 61 119)
1905 - Mbunga-rebellion takes German Fort Mahenge East-Africa
1907 - Britain & Russia sign treaty with Afghanistan, Persia & Tibet
1907 - England, Russia & France form Triple Entente
1909 - A J Reach Co patents cork-centered baseball
1909 - Thure Johnstown wins Stockholm marathon (2:40:34.2)
1911 - Anthony Fokker's demonstrates aircraft "Snip"
1913 - Soccer club PSV forms in Eindhoven Netherlands
1914 - 24.8 cm rainfall at Bloomingdale, Michigan (state record)
1914 - General von Kluck decides not to attack Paris
1914 - German troops reconquer Soldau/Neidenburg East-Prussia
1914 - Germany defeats Russia (battle at Tannenberg/30,000 Russians die)
1914 - Ecuador becomes a signatory to the Buenos Aires copyright treaty.
1915 - Chicago White Sox Jimmy Lavender no-hits NY Giants, 2-0
1915 - Brazil becomes a signatory to the Buenos Aires copyright treaty.
1916 - Oscar Asche's musical "Chu Chin Chow," premieres in London
1918 - Boston Red Sox, win earliest AL pennent ever (season ended Sept 2)
1919 - John Reed forms American Communist Labor Party in Chicago
1919 - Petlyura's Ukrainian Army kills 35 members of a Jewish defense group
1919 - Ukranian (Petlyura) Army recaptures Kiev
1920 - Belgium starts paying old age pensions
1920 - Detroit radio station is 1st to broadcast a news program on the air
1923 - League of Nations gives Belgium mandate of Ruanda-Urundi (was German)
Italian Dictator Benito MussoliniItalian Dictator Benito Mussolini 1923 - Mussolini's troops occupy Korfu
1924 - Paavo Nurmi runs world record 10,000m (30:06.2)
1928 - Brecht & Weils "Dreigroschenoper" premieres
1934 - 1st NFL Chicago All-Star Game: Chi Bears 0, All-Stars 0 (79,432)
1935 - 1st national skeet championship (Indianapolis)
1935 - Chicago White Sox Vern Kennedy no-hits Cleve Indians, 5-0
1935 - FDR signs an act prohibiting export of US arms to belligerents
1935 - Russian Aleksei Stachanov digs 6 hours, 105 tons of cabbages
1935 - White Sox Vern Kennedy no-hits Indians 5-0
1937 - Det's rookie Rudy York sets record for HRs of 18 HRs in August
1938 - 5th NFL Chicago All-Star Game: All-Stars 28, Washington 16 (74,250)
1939 - Japanese invasion army driven out of Mongolia
1939 - Staged "Polish" assault on radio station in Gleiwitz
1940 - 1st edition pf illegal opposition newspaper Free Netherlands
1940 - 56 U-boats sunk this month (268,000 ton)
32nd US President Franklin D. Roosevelt32nd US President Franklin D. Roosevelt 1940 - Fighter Command loses 39/Luftwaffe 41 airplanes
1940 - German occupiers in Netherlands begin soap ration
1940 - US National Guard assembles
1941 - 23 U-boats sunk this month (80,000 ton)
1941 - Great Gildersleeve, a spin-off of Fibber McGee & Molly debuts on NBC
1942 - Battle at Alam Halfa: German & Italians assault
1942 - U boats sunk this month 108 ships (544,000 ton)
1943 - 1st battle of Essex/new Yorktown: US assault on Marcus Island
1943 - Japanse occupiers intern Jewish Congregation of Sorabajo
1944 - Allied offensive at "Gothen-linie," Italy
1944 - French provisional government moves from Algiers to Paris
1944 - French troops liberate Bordeaux
1944 - Russian-Romanian troops march into Bucharest
1945 - The Liberal Party of Australia is founded by Robert Menzies.
1947 - Hungarian communist party wins election
1947 - NY Giants set season record for HRs by a club 183 (en route to 221)
1948 - Queen Wilhelmina celebrates 50th jubilee
1950 - Dodger Gil Hodges hits 4 HRs & a single in a game vs Braves
1951 - 1st 33 1/3 album introduced in Dusseldorf
1953 - KRBC TV channel 9 in Abilene, TX (NBC) begins broadcasting
1953 - WKBG (now WLVI) TV channel 56 in Cambridge-Boston, MA (IND) begins
1954 - Census Bureau forms
1954 - Hurricane Carol (1st major named storm) hits New England, 70 die
1954 - Indians beat Yanks 6-1 for record tying 26 wins in August (1931 A's)
1954 - WMTW TV channel 8 in Portland-Poland Spring, ME (ABC) begins
1955 - 1st microwave TV station operated (Lufkin, Tx)
1955 - 1st sun-powered automobile demonstrated, Chicago, Ill
1955 - KTRE TV channel 9 in Lufkin, TX (ABC/NBC) begins broadcasting
1957 - Malaysia (formerly Malaya) gains independence from Britain

1959 - 48th Davis Cup: Australia beats USA in New York (3-2)
1959 - Betsy Rawls wins LPGA Waterloo Golf Open
1959 - Sandy Koufax breaks Dizzy Dean's NL mark of 18 strikeouts in a game
1960 - Agricultural Hall of Fame forms
1961 - Amsterdam National Ballet forms
1962 - Trinidad & Tobago gain independence from Britain (National Day)
1964 - Ground is broken for Anaheim Stadium, future home of Angels
1965 - House of Reps joins Senate establish Dept of Housing & Urban Develop
1965 - The Aero Spacelines Super Guppy Aircraft makes its first flight.
1966 - Referee Leo Horn whistles his last soccer match (Ajax-Bulgaria)
1968 - 12,000 die in 7.8 quake destroys 60,000 buildings in NE Iran
1968 - 68th US Golf Amateur Championship won by Bruce Fleisher
1968 - Private Eye magazine reports a John Lennon & Yoko Ono album will have a picture of them nude on cover
1968 - Roy Face ties W Johnson's record of 802 pitching appearances with club
1968 - Verne Gagne beats Dick Beyers (Dr X) in Minn, to become NWA champ
1968 - Garfield Sobers becomes the first cricketer to hit 6 sixes in one over.
1969 - 25,000 attend New Orleans Pop Festival
1970 - 59th Davis Cup: USA beats Germany in Cleveland (5-0)
1970 - Lonnie McLucas, a Black Panther activist, convicted
1970 - Molukkers occupy Indonesian ambassador's home in Wassenaar
Artist & Musician Yoko OnoArtist & Musician Yoko Ono 1970 - Peter Yarrow arrested for taking "immoral liberties" with girl, 14
1970 - WKMJ TV channel 68 in Louisville, KY (PBS) begins broadcasting
1971 - Adrienne Beames runs female world record marathon (2:46:30)
1972 - Lasse Viren runs Olympic/world record 10,000m (27:38.4)
1972 - Olga Korbut, USSR, wins olympic gold medal in gymnastics
1973 - 1st heavyweight championship fight in Japan (Foreman beats Roman)
1973 - PBA National Championship Won by Earl Anthony
1974 - Pirate Radio Veronica moves into Scheveningen harbor
1975 - Former Teamsters' president James Hoffa reported missing
1976 - George Harrison found guilty of plagurizing "My Sweet Lord"
1976 - Mexican peso devalued
1976 - Trinidad & Tobago adopts constitution
1976 - Waldemar Cierpinski wins 18th Olympics Marathon (2:09:55.0)
1977 - Aleksandr Fedotov sets aircraft alt rec of 38.26 km (125,524')
1977 - Spyros Kyprianou appointed president of Cyprus
1977 - Ian Smith, espousing racial segregation, wins Rhodesian general election with 80% of overwhelmingly white electorate's vote
1978 - Constitution adopted by Sri Lanka
1978 - Emily & William Harris plead guilty to 1974 kidnapping of Patty Hearst
1978 - US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site
1979 - 16 yr old Tracy Austin defeats 14 yr old Andrea Jaeger at US Open
1979 - Comet Howard-Koomur-Michels collides with Sun
1979 - Donald McHenry named to succeed Andrew Young as UN ambassador
1979 - Phillies replaces manager Danny Ozark with Dallas Green
1980 - "Oklahoma!" closes at Palace Theater NYC after 301 performances
1980 - 80th US Golf Amateur Championship won by Hal Sutton
1980 - Poland's Solidarity labor union forms
1980 - The GdaƄsk Agreement is signed.
1981 - Dirk Wellham scores 103 on Test Cricket debut, v England at Lord's
1981 - Royals manager Jim Frey is fired & replaced by Dick Howser
1982 - USSR performs underground nuclear test
1983 - Edwin Moses of USA sets 400m hurdle record (47.02) in Koblenz
1984 - Pinklon Thomas beats Tim Witherspoon in 12 for heavyweight boxing title
1985 - "Prakas" sets trotting mile record of 1:53.4 at Du Quoin, Ill
1985 - Angel Cordero becomes 3rd jockey to ride horses earning over $100 M
1985 - Night Stalker suspect that terrorized S California captured in East LA
1986 - Aeromexico DC-9 & small plane collide in LA, killing 82
1986 - Russian cargo ship crashes into cruise ship Admiral Nakhimov; 398 die
1987 - Curtis Strange sets golf's earning for year record ($697,385)
1987 - Michael Jacskon's "Bad" video premieres on CBS TV
1987 - South Africa longest mine strike in history ends
1988 - 5-day power blackout of downtown Seattle begins
1988 - Arbitrator George Nicolau rules owners conspired against free agents
1988 - Bomb attack on office of South Africa Council of Churches
1989 - Aeromexico DC-9 collides over LA, 82 die (15 on the ground)
1989 - Arbitrator T Roberts orders owners to pay $105 million for collusion
1990 - Dennis Eckersley saves his 40th game of the season
1990 - East & West Germany sign a treaty to join legal & political systems
1990 - Ken Griffey Sr & Jr are 1st father & son to play on same team each goes 1 for 4 for Seattle Mariners
1991 - Houston QB David Klingler sets NCAA record with 6 touchdown passes in the 2nd quarter as the Cougars clobbered Louisiana Tech 73-3
1991 - Richard J Kerr, ends term as deputy director of CIA
1991 - Rockies bat out of order against Expos in 1st inning
1991 - William H Webster, ends term as 14th director of CIA
1992 - 44th Emmy Awards: Northern Exposure, Christopher Lloyd & Dana Delane
1992 - Dynamite explosion in Philipines mine; 500 die
1992 - Howard Stern Radio Show premieres in Cleveland OH on WNCX 98.5 FM
1993 - Minnesota Twins beat Cleve Indians 5-4 in 22 innings
1993 - Venezuela president Carlos Perez flees
1993 - HMS Mercury closes after 52 years in commission.
1994 - Last Russian soldiers leave Estonia & Latvia
1994 - Northern Ireland Sinn Fein proclaims ceases-fire
1994 - Pentium computer beats world chess champ Gari Kasparov
1994 - The Provisional Irish Republican Army declares a ceasefire.
1997 - "Gin Game," closes at Lyceum Theater NYC after 144 performances
1997 - Don Mattingly's #23 is retired by NY Yankees
1997 - Last episode of Rolanda airs
1997 - Pittsburgh Senior Golf Classic
1997 - Scott Hoch wins Greater Milwaukee Golf Open with a 268
1998 - North Korea reportedly launches Kwangmyongsong, its first satellite.
1999 - The first of a series of Russian Apartment Bombings in Moscow, killing one person and wounding 40 others.
1999 - A LAPA Boeing 737-200 crashes during takeoff from Jorge Newbury Airport in Buenos Aires, killing 65, including 2 on the ground.
2005 - A stampede on Al-Aaimmah bridge in Baghdad kills 1,199 people.
2006 - Stolen on August 22, 2004, Edvard Munch's famous painting The Scream was recovered from a raid by Norwegian police. The paintings were said to be in a better-than-expected condition.
2012 - Apple loses its patent dispute with Samsung in Tokyo, Japan



1823 - Ferdinand VII was restored to the throne of Spain when invited French forces entered Cadiz. The event is known as the Battle of Trocadero.   1852 - The first pre-stamped envelopes were created with legislation of the U.S. Congress.   1881 - The first tennis championships in the U.S. were played.   1887 - The kinetoscope was patented by Thomas Edison. The device was used to produce moving pictures.   1920 - The first news program to be broadcast on radio was aired. The station was 8MK in Detroit, MI.   1935 - The act of exporting U.S. arms to belligerents was prohibited by an act signed by U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt.   1940 - Lawrence Olivier and Vivian Leigh were married.   1941 - The radio program "The Great Gildersleeve" made its debut on NBC.   1946 - Superman returned to radio on the Mutual Broadcasting System after being dropped earlier in the year.   1950 - Gil Hodges of the Brooklyn Dodgers hit four home runs in a single game off of four different pitchers.   1959 - Sandy Koufax set a National League record by striking out 18 batters.   1962 - The Caribbean nations Tobago and Trinidad became independent within the British Commonwealth.   1964 - California officially became the most populated state in America.   1965 - The Department of Housing and Urban Development was created by the U.S. House of Representatives and the Senate.   1980 - Poland's Solidarity labor movement was born with an agreement signed in Gdansk that ended a 17-day strike.   1981 - The 30-year contract between Milton Berle and NBC-TV expired.   1989 - Great Britain's Princess Anne and Mark Phillips announced that they were separating. The marriage was 16 years old.   1990 - U.N. Secretary-General Javier Perez de Cuellar met with the Iraqi Foreign Minister Tariq Aziz to try and negotiate a solution to the crisis in the Persian Gulf.   1990 - East and West Germany signed a treaty that meant the harmonizing of political and legal systems.   1991 - Uzbekistan and Kirghiziz declared their independence from the Soviet Union. They were the 9th and 10th republics to announce their plans to secede.   1991 - In a "Solidarity Day" protest hundreds of thousands of union members marched in Washington, DC.   1993 - Russia withdrew its last soldiers from Lithuania.   1994 - A cease-fire was declared by the Irish Republican Army after 25 years of bloodshed in Northern Ireland.   1994 - Russia officially ended its military presence in the former East Germany and the Baltics after a half-century.   1998 - A ballistic missile was fired over Japan by North Korea. The missile landed in stages in the waters around Japan. There was no known target.   1998 - "Titanic" became the first movie in North America to earn more than $600 million.

1887 Thomas Edison received a patent for his "Kinetoscope," and moving pictures were born. 1888 Mary Ann Nicholls, considered to be Jack the Ripper's first victim, was found murdered in London. 1962 Trinidad and Tobago gained independence from Great Britain. 1980 Poland's Solidarity labor movement had its beginnings when an agreement ending a 17-day strike was signed in Gdansk. 1994 Russia officially ended its military presence in the former East Germany and the Baltic states. 1997 Princess Diana and her companion Dodi al-Fayed were killed in a car accident in Paris. 2012 Armenia severed diplomatic relations with Hungary, after the pardoning of Ramil Safarov. In 2004, Safarov was convicted of killing an Armenian soldier. 



The following links are to web sites that were used to complete this blog entry:

http://www.historyorb.com/today/events.php

http://on-this-day.com/onthisday/thedays/alldays/aug31.htm

http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history

http://www.infoplease.com/dayinhistory

Thursday, August 29, 2013

On This Day in History - August 30 Thurgood Marshall

Once again, it should be reiterated, that this does not pretend to be a very extensive history of what happened on this day (nor is it the most original - the links can be found down below). If you know something that I am missing, by all means, shoot me an email or leave a comment, and let me know!

http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history

Aug 30, 1967: Thurgood Marshall confirmed as Supreme Court justice    

On this day in 1967, Thurgood Marshall becomes the first African American to be confirmed as a Supreme Court justice. He would remain on the Supreme Court for 24 years before retiring for health reasons, leaving a legacy of upholding the rights of the individual as guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution.  

From a young age, Marshall seemed destined for a place in the American justice system. His parents instilled in him an appreciation for the Constitution, a feeling that was reinforced by his schoolteachers, who forced him to read the document as punishment for his misbehavior. After graduating from Lincoln University in 1930, Marshall sought admission to the University of Maryland School of Law, but was turned away because of the school's segregation policy, which effectively forbade blacks from studying with whites. Instead, Marshall attended Howard University Law School, from which he graduated magna cum lau

Setting up a private practice in his home state of Maryland, Marshall quickly established a reputation as a lawyer for the "little man." In a year's time, he began working with the Baltimore NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People), and went on to become the organization’s chief counsel by the time he was 32, in 1940. Over the next two decades, Marshall distinguished himself as one of the country's leading advocates for individual rights, winning 29 of the 32 cases he argued in front of the Supreme Court, all of which challenged in some way the 'separate but equal' doctrine that had been established by the landmark case Plessy v. Ferguson (1896). The high-water mark of Marshall's career as a litigator came in 1954 with his victory in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka. In that case, Marshall argued that the 'separate but equal' principle was unconstitutional, and designed to keep blacks "as near [slavery] as possible."  

In 1961, Marshall was appointed by then-President John F. Kennedy to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, a position he held until 1965, when Kennedy's successor, Lyndon B. Johnson, named him solicitor general. Following the retirement of Justice Tom Clark in 1967, President Johnson appointed Marshall to the Supreme Court, a decision confirmed by the Senate with a 69-11 vote. Over the next 24 years, Justice Marshall came out in favor of abortion rights and against the death penalty, as he continued his tireless commitment to ensuring equitable treatment of individuals--particularly minorities--by state and federal governments.    


Today

Here's a more detailed look at events that transpired on this date throughout history:

257 - St Sixtus II begins his reign as Catholic Pope
1125 - Duke Lotharius of Supplinburg elected king of Germany
1146 - European leaders outlaw crossbow intending to end war for all time
1363 - Beginning date of the Battle of Lake Poyang; the forces of two Chinese rebel leaders— Chen Youliang and Zhu Yuanzhang—are pitted against each other in what was one of the largest naval battles in history, during the last decade of the ailing, Mongol-led Yuan Dynasty.
1464 - Pietro Barbo elected to succeed Pope Pius II (Paul II)
1481 - 2 Latvian monarchs executed for conspiracy to Polish king Kazimierz IV
1563 - Jewish community of Neutitschlin Moravia expelled
1574 - Guru Ram Das became the Fourth Sikh Guru/Master.
1590 - Tokugawa Ieyasu enters Edo Castle. (Traditional Japanese date: August 1, 1590)
1645 - Dutch & Indians sign peace treaty (New Amsterdam (NY))
1673 - Leopold I, Spain, Netherlands & Lutherans form anti-French covenant
1682 - William Penn left England to sail to New World
1721 - Russian/Swedish Peace of Nystad, ends North Sea War
1751 - Georg Friedrich Handel completes oratorio "Jephtha"
1757 - Battle at Gross Jagerndorf: Russian army beats Prussia [OS=Aug 19]
1776 - US army evacuates Long Island/falls back to Manhattan, NYC
1781 - French fleet of 24 ships under Comte de Grasse defeat British under Admiral Graves at battle of Chesapeake Capes in Revolutionary War
1791 - The HMS Pandora sank after running aground on a reef the previous day.
1799 - Bataafse fleet surrender to English
Composer George Friedrich HandelComposer George Friedrich Handel 1800 - Gabriel Prosser leads a slave rebellion in Richmond, Virginia
1813 - Battle of Kulm: French forces defeated by Austrian-Prussian-Russian alliance.
1831 - Charles Darwin refuses to travel with HMS Beagle
1835 - Melbourne, Australia is founded.
1836 - The city of Houston is founded by Augustus Chapman Allen and John Kirby Allen
1843 - 1st blacks participation in natl political convention (Liberty Party)
1850 - Honolulu, Hawaii becomes a city
1854 - John Fremont issues proclamation freeing slaves of Missouri rebels
1860 - 1st British tram opens (Birkenhead)
1862 - last day of 2nd Battle of Bull Run Va - Confederates beat Union forces
1862 - Battle of 2nd Manassas-Pope defeated by Lee-Battle of Richmond, KY
1862 - Battle of Altamont-Confederates beat Union forces in Tennessee
1873 - Austrian explorers Julius von Payer and Karl Weyprecht discover the archipelago of Franz Joseph Land in the Arctic Sea.
1884 - Jack "Nonpareil" Dempsey wins middleweight title in 1st fight with boxing gloves
1885 - 13,000 meteors seen in 1 hour near Andromeda
Naturalist Charles DarwinNaturalist Charles Darwin 1888 - Lord Walsingham kills 1070 grouse in a single day
1893 - 13rd US Mens Tennis: Robert D Wrenn beats Fred H Hovey (64 36 64 64)
1894 - Frederick Lugards expedition to Niger
1895 - Belgium begins compulsory Roman Catholic education
1896 - Eight provinces in the Philippines were declared under martial law by the Spanish Governor General Ramon Blanco. This included the provinces of Batangas, Rizal, Cavite, Nueva Ecija as well as the nearby areas.
1897 - The town of Ambiky is captured by France from Menabe in Madagascar.
1900 - Last 2000 British prisoners in Nooitgedagt South Africa freed
1901 - Hubert Cecil Booth patents vacuum cleaner
1904 - Thomas Hicks wins 3rd Olympics marathon (3:28:53.0) (40 km)
1905 - Pogoro/Ngindo attack Fort Mahenge German East-Africa
1905 - Tiger Ty Cobb makes his debut, doubling off Yank Jack Chesbro
1906 - Hal Chase became 1st Yank to hit 3 triples in a game
1906 - NY Highlander Joe Doyle debuts pitching back-to-back shut-outs
1909 - Burgess Shale fossils discovered by Charles Doolittle Walcott.
1910 - Yank Tom Hughes pitches 9 no-hit innings but loses to Cleve 5-0 in 11
1912 - St Louis Brown Earl Hamilton no-hits Detroit Tigers, 5-1
1913 - Phillies lead Giants 8-6 in top of 9th, fans in bleachers try to distract Giants, Umpire forefeits game to Giants, later overruled
1914 - 1st German plane bombs above Paris, 2 killed
1914 - Battle at Tannenberg ends in destruction of Russian 2nd Narev army
1916 - Boston's Dutch Leonard no-hits St Louis Browns, 4-0
1916 - Paul Von Hindenburg becomes chief-of-General-Staff in Germany
1918 - Czechoslovakia forms independence republic
Marxist Revolutionary Vladimir LeninMarxist Revolutionary Vladimir Lenin 1918 - Fanya Kaplan shoots at Lenin
1918 - Lenin, new leader of Soviet Russia, shot & wounded after speech
1919 - Ernst Toller's "Die Wandlung," premieres in Berlin
1922 - Babe Ruth is thrown out of a game for 5th time in 1922
1925 - 6th Iron pilgrim at Diksmuide Belgium
1926 - Jack Hobbs scores 316* at Lord's (Surrey v Middlesex)
1927 - 41st US Womens Tennis: Helen Wills Moody beats Betty Nuthall (61 64)
1928 - Jawaharlal Nehru requests independence of India
1932 - Hermann Goering elected chairman (Reichstag)
1933 - Air France forms
1933 - Portuguese dictator Salazar forms secret police (PIDE)
1937 - Joe Louis beats Tommy Farr in 15 for heavyweight boxing title
1939 - 6th NFL Chicago All-Star Game: NY Giants 9, All-Stars 0 (81,456)
1939 - General Reijnders appointed supreme commander of Dutch army
1939 - Isoroku Yamamoto appointed supreme commander of Japanese fleet
Nazi Politician Hermann GoeringNazi Politician Hermann Goering 1939 - NY Yankee Atley Donald pitches a baseball a record 94.7 mph (152 kph)
1939 - Poland mobilizes
1941 - Siege of Leningrad by Nazi troops began during WW II
1941 - St Louis Card Lon Warneke no-hits Cin Reds, 2-0
1942 - Nazi-Germany annexes Luxembourg
1944 - 11th NFL Chicago All-Star Game: Chi Bears 24, All-Stars 21 (48,769)
1944 - Philip Yordan's "Anna Lucasta," premieres in NYC
1944 - Soviet troops enter Bucharest Romania
1945 - 12th NFL Chicago All-Star Game: Green Bay 19, All-Stars 7 (92,753)
1945 - Dmitri Shostakovitch completes his 9th Symphony
1945 - Gen MacArthur lands in Japan
1945 - Hong Kong liberated from Japan
1949 - Roly Jenkins (Worcs v Surrey) takes his 2nd hat-trick of the game
1949 - WTVN (now WSYX) TV channel 6 in Columbus, OH (ABC) begins broadcasting
1951 - US & Philippines sign mutual defense pact
1954 - Hurricane Carol, kills 68
1956 - USSR performs nuclear test (atmospheric tests)
1956 - White mob prevents enrollment of blacks at Mansfield HS, Texas
1956 - Lake Pontchartrain Causeway opens.
1957 - US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site
1957 - US senator Strom Thurmond speaks 24hrs 27m against civil rights
1958 - US performs nuclear test at S Atlantic Ocean
1960 - Boston 2nd baseman Pete Runnels goes 6-for-7
1960 - East Germany imposes a partial blockade on West Berlin
1961 - 1st Negro judge of a US District Court confirmed-JB Parsons
1961 - J B Parsons is 1st African American judge of a US District Court
1961 - Last Spanish troops leave Morocco
1961 - Oriole Jack Fisher walks 12 LA Angels in a 9 inning game
1961 - USSR says it will resume nuclear testing
1962 - Japan conducts a test of the NAMC YS-11, its first aircraft since the war and its only successful commercial aircraft from before or after the war.
1963 - Hot Line communications link between Moscow and Washington, DC installed
1963 - Hotline between U.S. and Soviet leaders goes into operation.
1964 - Clifford Ann Creed wins LPGA Riverside Ladies Golf Open
1965 - Casey Stengel announces his retirement after 55 years in baseball
1965 - Section of Allalin glacier wipes out construction site at Mattmark Dam near Saas-Fee, Switzerland
First Black Supreme Court Justice Thurgood MarshallFirst Black Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall 1967 - US Senate confirm Thurgood Marshall as 1st black justice
1968 - 1st record under Apple label (Beatle's Hey Jude)
1968 - John & Yoko's "One on One" benefit for children at Madison Square Garden
1969 - 120,000 attend Texas Intl Pop Festival
1969 - 25,000 attend 2nd Annual Sky River Rock Festival, Tenino Wash
1969 - 69th US Golf Amateur Championship won by Steve Melnyk
1969 - Racial disturbances in Fort Lauderdale Florida
1971 - WNPI TV channel 18 in Norwood, NY (PBS) begins broadcasting
1972 - John Lennon & Yoko Ono perform at Madison Square Garden
1973 - Danny Seiwell quits Wings
1974 - Express train runs full speed into Zagreb, Yugo rail yard killing 153
1974 - Launching of 1st Dutch satellite, ANS, from Vandenberg
1974 - US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site
1975 - KTW-AM in Seattle Wash changes call letters to KYAC (now KKFX)
1976 - Tom Brokaw becomes news anchor of Today Show
Artist & Musician Yoko OnoArtist & Musician Yoko Ono 1976 - Turks & Caicos Islands adopts constitution
1979 - -Sept 13] Hurricane David, kills 1200 in Florida, Domincana & Dom Rep
1979 - 1st recorded occurrance-comet hits sun (energy=1 mil hydrogen bombs)
1979 - Ian Botham makes 1000 runs/100 wkts in Tests in his 21st match
1979 - Kathy Horvath (14y5d) is youngest to play in US Tennis Open, she loses
1979 - Pres Carter attacked by a rabbit on a canoe trip in Plains Ga
1979 - Wildest US Tennis Open match, McEnroe defeats Ilie Nastase 6-4, 4-6, 6-3, 6-2. Nastase was defaulted by the umpire then reinstated
1980 - Polish government recognizes Solidarity
1981 - Joanne Carner wins Columbia Savings LPGA Golf Classic
1982 - PLO leader Yasser Arafat leaves Beirut
1983 - 8th Space Shuttle Mission-Challenger 3-launched (6 days)
1983 - Elizabeth R Zakarian (Devon Pierce), 17, NY, crowned 1st Miss Teen USA
1983 - WKBC-TV (channel 48) ends broadcasting in Phila
1983 - Guion Bluford becomes 1st African-American astronaut in space
1984 - 12th Space Shuttle Mission (41-D)-Discovery 1-launched (6 days)
Palestinian Leader Yasser ArafatPalestinian Leader Yasser Arafat 1984 - Emmy News & Documentaries Award presentation
1984 - Red Sox Jim Rice grounds into record 33rd double play en route to 36
1984 - Sotherby's in London begins 2 day auction of rock memorabilla
1986 - Gelindo Bordin wins Stuttgart marathon (2:10:54)
1986 - Soviet authorities arrested Nicholas Daniloff (US News World Report)
1987 - 87th US Golf Amateur Championship won by Billy Mayfair
1987 - Ayako Okamoto wins LPGA Nestle World Golf Championship
1987 - Ben Johnson of Canada runs 100 m in world record 9.83 sec
1987 - Kirby Puckett goes 6-for-6 with 2 HRs in Minn 10-6 win over Milwaukee
1987 - Stefka Kostadinova of Bulgaria sets high jump woman's record (6'10½")
1987 - Yves Pol of France runs complete marathon backwards (3:57:57)
1987 - Knuckleballer Charlie Hough on the mound, Rangers catcher Geno Petralli ties the major league record by allowing 6 passed balls
1988 - France performs nuclear test
1988 - Julianne Philips files for divorce from Bruce Springsteen
1988 - Kent Tekulve is 2nd pitcher in majors to appear in 1,000 games
1990 - Ken Griffey & Ken Griffey Jr become 1st father & son to play on same team (Seattle Mariners), both single in 1st inning
1990 - Tatarstan declares independence from the RSFSR.
1991 - Dan O'Brien sets US decathalon record with 8,812 points
1991 - Mike Powell of US, sets then long jump record at 29' 4½" (8.95m)
1991 - Tamil Tigers capture Sri Lanka poet Selvi
1992 - "2 Trains Running" closes at Walter Kerr Theater NYC after 160 perfs
1992 - "Most Happy Fella" closes at Booth Theater NYC after 229 performances
1992 - 92nd US Golf Amateur Championship won by Justin Leonard
1992 - David Lewett & Jane Luu discovers comet: "1992 QB1" 64 mil km from Sun
1992 - Dottie Mochrie wins LPGA Sun-Times Golf Challenge
1993 - 150,000,000 millionth visitor to Eiffel Tower
1993 - Hassan II mosque opens in Casablanca, 2nd largest mosque in the world
1994 - Gund Arena in Cleve opens
1994 - Largest US Tennis Open single session (total) 23,618
1995 - Cable News Network joins internet
1995 - Tigers teammates Lou Whitaker & Alan Trammell play in 1,914 game together tying AL record
1997 - 1st WNBA Championshion: Houston Comets beat NY Liberty
1997 - Greg Rudaski is 1st to serve (2) 141 MPH serves in a match (US Open)
1998 - State Farm Rail Golf Classic
1999 - East Timorese vote for independence in a referendum.
2012 - Cholera outbreak kills 229 people in Sierra Leone

2012 - A blast in the in the Xiaojiawan coal mine, China, kills 26 miners with 21 missing



1146 - European leaders outlawed the crossbow.   1645 - American Indians and the Dutch made a peace treaty at New Amsterdam. New Amsterdam later became known as New York.   1682 - William Penn sailed from England and later established the colony of Pennsylvania in America.   1780 - General Benedict Arnold secretly promised to surrender the West Point fort to the British army.   1806 - New York City's second daily newspaper, the "Daily Advertiser," was published for the last time.   1809 - Charles Doolittle Walcott first discovered fossils near Burgess Pass. He named the site Burgess Shale after nearby Mt. Burgess.   1862 - The Confederates defeated Union forces at the second Battle of Bull Run in Manassas, VA.   1905 - Ty Cobb made his major league batting debut with the Detroit Tigers.   1928 - The Independence of India League was established in India.   1941 - During World War II, the Nazis severed the last railroad link between Leningrad and the rest of the Soviet Union.   1945 - General Douglas MacArthur set up Allied occupation headquarters in Japan.   1951 - The Philippines and the United States signed a defense pact.   1956 - In Louisianna, the Lake Pontchartrain Causeway opened.   1960 - A partial blockade was imposed on West Berlin by East Germany.   1963 - The "Hotline" between Moscow and Washington, DC, went into operation.   1965 - Thurgood Marshall was confirmed by the U.S. Senate as a Supreme Court justice. Marshall was the first black justice to sit on the Supreme Court.   1982 - P.L.O. leader Yasir Arafat left Beirut for Greece.   1983 - The space shuttle Challenger blasted off with Guion S. Bluford Jr. aboard. He was the first black American to travel in space.   1984 - The space shuttle Discovery lifted off for the first time. On the voyage three communications satellites were deployed.   1984 - U.S. President Ronald Reagan, and several others, were inducted into the Sportscasters Hall of Fame.   1991 - The Soviet republic of Azerbaijan declared its independence.   1993 - On CBS-TV "The Late Show with David Letterman" premiered.   1994 - Rosa Parks was robbed and beaten by Joseph Skipper. Parks was known for her refusal to give up her seat on a bus in 1955, which sparked the civil rights movement.   1994 - The largest U.S. defense contractor was created when the Lockheed and Martin Marietta corporations agreed to a merger.   1996 - An expedition to raise part of the Titanic failed when the nylon lines being used to raise part of the hull snapped.   1999 - The residents of East Timor overwhelmingly voted for independence from Indonesia. The U.N. announced the result on September 4.




30 B.C. Cleopatra VII, Queen of Egypt, committed suicide. 1862 The Second Battle of Bull Run took place during the Civil War. 1905 Ty Cobb made his major league batting debut, playing for the Detroit Tigers. 1941 The two-year siege of Leningrad during World War II began. 1963 A hot line between the Kremlin and the White House went into operation to reduce the chances of an accidental war. 1967 Thurgood Marshall was confirmed by the U.S. Senate to become the first African American Supreme Court justice. 1999 East Timor residents voted to secede from Indonesia.   




The following links are to web sites that were used to complete this blog entry:

http://www.historyorb.com/today/events.php

http://on-this-day.com/onthisday/thedays/alldays/aug30.htm

http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history

http://www.infoplease.com/dayinhistory

On This Day in History - August 29 Hurricane Katrina (incomplete)

Once again, it should be reiterated, that this does not pretend to be a very extensive history of what happened on this day (nor is it the most original - the links can be found down below). If you know something that I am missing, by all means, shoot me an email or leave a comment, and let me know!

http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history

Aug 29, 2005: Hurricane Katrina slams into Gulf Coast

Hurricane Katrina makes landfall near New Orleans, Louisiana, as a Category 4 hurricane on this day in 2005. Despite being only the third most powerful storm of the 2005 hurricane season, Katrina was the worst natural disaster in the history of the United States. After briefly coming ashore in southern Florida on August 25 as a Category 1 hurricane, Katrina gained strength before slamming into the Gulf Coast on August 29. In addition to bringing devastation to the New Orleans area, the hurricane caused damage along the coasts of Mississippi and Alabama, as well as other parts of Louisiana.  New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin ordered a mandatory evacuation of the city on August 28, when Katrina briefly achieved Category 5 status and the National Weather Service predicted "devastating" damage to the area. But an estimated 150,000 people, who either did not want to or did not have the resources to leave, ignored the order and stayed behind. The storm brought sustained winds of 145 miles per hour, which cut power lines and destroyed homes, even turning cars into projectile missiles. Katrina caused record storm surges all along the Mississippi Gulf Coast. The surges overwhelmed the levees that protected New Orleans, located at six feet below sea level, from Lake Pontchartrain and the Mississippi River. Soon, 80 percent of the city was flooded up to the rooftops of many homes and small buildings.  Tens of thousands of people sought shelter in the New Orleans Convention Center and the Louisiana Superdome. The situation in both places quickly deteriorated, as food and water ran low and conditions became unsanitary. Frustration mounted as it took up to two days for a full-scale relief effort to begin. In the meantime, the stranded residents suffered from heat, hunger, and a lack of medical care. Reports of looting, rape, and even murder began to surface. As news networks broadcast scenes from the devastated city to the world, it became obvious that a vast majority of the victims were African-American and poor, leading to difficult questions among the public about the state of racial equality in the United States. The federal government and President George W. Bush were roundly criticized for what was perceived as their slow response to the disaster. The head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), Michael Brown, resigned amid the ensuing controversy.  Finally, on September 1, the tens of thousands of people staying in the damaged Superdome and Convention Center begin to be moved to the Astrodome in Houston, Texas, and another mandatory evacuation order was issued for the city. The next day, military convoys arrived with supplies and the National Guard was brought in to bring a halt to lawlessness. Efforts began to collect and identify corpses. On September 6, eight days after the hurricane, the Army Corps of Engineers finally completed temporary repairs to the three major holes in New Orleans' levee system and were able to begin pumping water out of the city.  In all, it is believed that the hurricane caused more than 1,300 deaths and up to $150 billion in damages to both private property and public infrastructure. It is estimated that only about $40 billion of that number will be covered by insurance. One million people were displaced by the disaster, a phenomenon unseen in the United States since the Great Depression. Four hundred thousand people lost their jobs as a result of the disaster. Offers of international aid poured in from around the world, even from poor countries like Bangladesh and Sri Lanka. Private donations from U.S. citizens alone approached $600 million.  The storm also set off 36 tornadoes in Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, Pennsylvania, and Virginia, resulting in one death.  President Bush declared September 16 a national day of remembrance for the victims of Hurricane Katrina.


Today

Here's a more detailed look at events that transpired on this date throughout history:

708 - Copper coins are minted in Japan for the first time (Traditional Japanese date: August 10, 708).
1178 - Anti-Pope Callistus III gives pope title to Alexander III
1261 - Jacques Pantaleon elected as Pope Urban IV
1350 - Battle of Winchelsea (or Les Espagnols sur Mer): The English naval fleet under King Edward III defeats a Castilian fleet of 40 ships.
1475 - Treaty of Picquigny] king Louis XI buys English contacts
1484 - Giovanni B Cibo elected as Pope Innocent VIII
1521 - The Ottoman Turks capture Nåndorfehérvår, now known as Belgrade.
1526 - Hungary conquered by Turks in Battle of MohĂĄcs
1533 - Francisco Pizarro orders death of last Incan King of Peru, Atahualpa
1540 - Emperor Karel deprives city Gent definitive rights/privileges
1541 - The Ottoman Turks capture Buda, the capital of the Hungarian Kingdom.
1612 - Battle at Surat India: English fleet beats Portuguese
1640 - English King Charles I signed a peace treaty with Scotland
1655 - Warsaw falls without resistance to a small force under the command of Charles X Gustav of Sweden during The Deluge.
1664 - Adriaen Pieck/Gerrit de Ferry patent wooden firespout in Amsterdam
1708 - English troops occupy Menorca & Sardinia
1708 - Haverhill, Mass destroyed by French & Indians
1742 - Edmond Hoyle published his "Short Treatise" on the card game whist
1756 - England & France meet in war
King of England King Charles IKing of England King Charles I 1756 - Prussian Libya occupies Saxson: beginning 7 years War
1758 - New Jersey Legislature forms 1st Indian reservation
1776 - Americans withdraw from Manhattan to Westchester
1786 - Shay's Rebellion in Springfield, Mass
1792 - English warship Royal George capsizes in Spithead; kills 900
1793 - Slaves in French colony of St Domingue (Haiti) freed
1825 - Portugal recognizes the Independence of Brazil.
1831 - Michael Faraday demonstrates 1st electric transformer
1833 - Britain's Slavery Abolition Act becomes law
1842 - Gr Britain & China sign Treaty of Nanking, ends Opium war
1844 - 1st white-indian lacrosse game in Montreal, Indians win
1854 - Self-governing windmill patented (Daniel Halladay)
1861 - American Civil War: US Navy squadron captures forts at Hatteras Inlet, North Carolina.
1862 - 2nd Battle of Bull Run Va (Manassas) during US Civil War
1862 - Battle of Aspromonte-Italian royal forces defeat rebels
1862 - US Bureau of Engraving & Printing begins operation
1864 - William Huggins discovers chemical composition of nebulae
1871 - Emperor Meiji orders the Abolition of the han system and the establishment of prefectures as local centers of administration. (Traditional Japanese date: July 14, 1871).
1882 - Australia beat England by 7 runs "Death of English cricket"
1882 - Fred Spofforth completes 14-90 for match v England (7-46 & 7-44)
1883 - Seismic sea waves created by Krakatoa eruption create a rise in English Channel 32 hrs after explosion
1885 - Gottlieb Daimler receives German patent for a motorcycle
1885 - Phillies Charlie Ferguson no-hits Providence 1-0
1885 - Boxing's 1st heavyweight title fight with 3-oz gloves & 3-minute rounds fought between John L Sullivan & Dominick McCaffrey
1889 - 1st American Intl pro lawn tennis contest (Newport RI)
1895 - The formation of the Northern Rugby Union at the George Hotel, Huddersfield, England.
1896 - Chop suey invented in NYC by chef of visiting Chinese Ambassador
1898 - The Goodyear tire company is founded.
1904 - 1st Olympics in US are held (St Louis)
1904 - 3rd modern Olympic Games opens in St Louis
1905 - Pierre de Brazza leaves Brazzaville
1906 - Bridge in St Lawrence Canada caves in; 70 die
1906 - William J Clothier wins the US Tennis Open
1907 - The Quebec Bridge collapses during construction, killing 75 workers.
1908 - NY gives a ticker tape parade to returning US Olympians from London
1909 - AH Latham of France sets world airplane altitude record of 155 m
1909 - World's 1st air race held in Rheims France. Glenn Curtiss (USA) wins
1910 - Japan changes Korea's name to Chƍsen and appoints a governor-general to rule its new colony.
1911 - Ishi, considered the last Native American to make contact with European Americans, emerges from the wilderness of northeastern California.
1913 - Pieter Cort Van de Linden forms Dutch government
1914 - 4th day of Tannenberg: Russian Narev-army panics, Gen Martos caught
1914 - Arizonian is 1st vessel to arrive in SF via Panama Canal
1914 - Battle at St Quentin: French counter attack under General Lanrezac
1916 - Congress creates US Naval reserve
1916 - Gen Von Hindenburg becomes German Chief of Staff
1916 - Transportship Hsin-Yu & cruiser Hai-Yung collide; 1000 die
1916 - US Congress accept Jones Act: Philippines independence
1916 - Von Hindenburg replaces Von Falkenhayn as German chief of staff
1918 - Bapaume taken by Australian Corps and Canadian Corps in the Hundred Days Offensive
1924 - German Republic day accepts Dawes plan
Baseball Great Babe RuthBaseball Great Babe Ruth 1925 - After a night on the town, Babe Ruth shows up late for batting practice Miller Huggins suspends Ruth & slaps a $5,000 fine on him
1929 - German airship Graf Zeppelin ends a round-the-world flight
1930 - The last 36 remaining inhabitants of St Kilda are voluntarily evacuated to other parts of Scotland.
1932 - International Anti-War Committee forms in Amsterdam
1932 - United Cigar Stores shuts 800 shops
1935 - 2nd NFL Chicago All-Star Game: Chi Bears 5, All-Stars 0 (77,450)
1937 - Phila A's Bob Johnson is 2nd to get 6 RBIs in an inning (1st)
1939 - Chaim Weizmann informs England that Palestine Jews will fight in WW II
1940 - 7th NFL Chicago All-Star Game: Green Bay 45, All-Stars 28 (84,567)
1941 - German Einsatzkommando in Russia kills 1,469 Jewish children
1943 - Denmark scuttles their warships so as not to be taken by Germany
1944 - 15,000 American troops liberating Paris march down Champs Elysees
1944 - Anti German rebellion in Slovakia
1945 - British liberate Hong Kong from Japan
1945 - Gen MacArthur named Supreme Commander of Allied Powers in Japan
1947 - Constantine Tsaldaris follows Maximos as Greece premier
1949 - USSR performs first nuclear test
1949 - USSR explodes its 1st atomic bomb
1950 - Intl Olympic Committee votes admission to West Germany & Japan in '52
1953 - KHSL TV channel 12 in Chico, CA (CBS) begins broadcasting
1953 - USSR explodes its 1st hydrogen bomb
1954 - SF International Airport (SFO) opens
1956 - French government routes troops to Cyprus near Suez crisis
1957 - Congress passes Civil Rights Act of 1957
1957 - Strom Thurmond (Sen-D-SC) ends 24 hr filibuster against civil rights
1958 - Air Force Academy opens in Colorado Springs, Colo
1958 - George Harrison joins Quarrymen (Lennon-McCartney-Best-Sutcliffe)
1960 - Jordan premier Hazza-el-Madjali deadly injured at bomb attack
1962 - Some provisions of Kuwaiti constitution are suspended
1962 - US U-2 flight sees SAM launch pads in Cuba
1963 - Harmon Killebrew (Twins) HRs off Pete Burnside (Senators) in DH
1964 - "Funny Thing Happened" closes at Alvin Theater NYC after 965 perfs
Animator Walt DisneyAnimator Walt Disney 1964 - Walt Disney's "Mary Poppins" released
1964 - On Elston Howard Night, Mickey Mantle ties Babe Ruth's career strikeout record (1,330)
1965 - Astronauts Cooper & Conrad complete 120 Earth orbits in Gemini 5
1965 - Willie Mays sets NL record for HRs in a month with his 17th of August
1966 - Beatles last public concert (Candlestick Park, SF)
1966 - Dutch Internal minister Smallenbroek resigns after driving drunk
1967 - Final TV episode of "Fugitive"
1967 - Yanks longest day, Red Sox take 1st game 2-1 in 9, Yanks win 2nd game in 20, 4-3 a total of 8 hours & 19 minutes
1968 - 1st US Open tennis match (Billie Jean King beats Dr Vija Vuskains)
1968 - Democratics nominate Hubert H Humphrey for president (Chicago)
1969 - Joe Pepitone quits Yanks after being fined $500 for leaving the bench
1969 - KYUS TV channel 3 in Miles City, MT (ABC/NBC) begins broadcasting
1970 - Black Panthers confront cops in Phila (1 cop killed)
1972 - SF Giant Jim Barr retires 1st 20 batters he faces added to last 21 he retired 6 days earlier for record 41 in a row
1974 - USSR performs underground nuclear test at Novaya Zemlya USSR
1975 - Star in Cygnus goes nova becoming 4th brightest in sky
1976 - Sandra Palmer wins LPGA National Jewish Hospital Golf Open
1977 - St Louis Cardinal Lou Brock eclipses Ty Cobb's 49-year-old career stolen bases record at 893 as Padres win 4-3
1978 - USSR performs nuclear test at Eastern Kazakh/Semipalitinsk USSR
1978 - USTA National Tennis Center opens in Flushing NY
1979 - Great Britain performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site
1979 - Sheridan Broadcasting Corp purchases Mutual Black Network
1981 - 28th Walker Cup: US wins 15-9
1981 - Phillies minor leaguer Jeff Stone steals pro baseball record 121st base en route to 122 (Spartanburg (South Atlantic League))
1982 - 38°F lowest temperature ever recorded in Cleveland in August
1982 - George Brett gets his 1,500th hit
1982 - Joanne Carner wins LPGA Henredon Golf Classic
1982 - Steve Miller's "Abracadabra" hits #1
1982 - The synthetic chemical element Meitnerium, atomic number 109, is first synthesized at the Gesellschaft fĂŒr Schwerionenforschung in Darmstadt, Germany.
1985 - Atlantis moves to launch pad for 51-J mission
1985 - Emmy News & Documentaries Award presentation
1985 - NY Yank Don Baylor is hit by a pitch for a record 190th time
1986 - Heike Drechsler of E Germany ties world women's 200 m mark (21.71s)
1986 - Morocco king Hassan II signs unity treaty with Libya
1987 - Nolan Ryan passes the 200-strikeout barrier for record 11th time
1987 - Rosa Mota becomes wins female Rome marathon (2:25:17)
1988 - Macy's Tap-o-Mania sets Guiness record
1988 - USSR launches 3 cosmonauts (Valery Polyakav, 1 Afghan) to station Mir
1990 - C-5 transport plane crashes at Ramstein AFB, Germany, killing 13
Iraqi President Saddam HusseinIraqi President Saddam Hussein 1990 - Saddam Hussein declares America can't beat Iraq
1991 - JFK Jr wins his 1st battle as an attorney
1991 - USSR suspends Communist Party activities
1992 - Largest wrestling crowd out side of US (75,000) at Wembley Stadium
1992 - Randy Myers blows his 6th save of the season & it marks the 5th time he's blown a potential win for Greg Harris
1992 - Brave's Charlie Leibrandt 1,000th strikeout & decides to keep the ball He rolls it to the dugout, allows Ricky Jordan to take 2nd on error
1993 - 21st du Maurier Golf Classic: Brandie Burton
1993 - 93rd US Golf Amateur Championship won by John Harris
1995 - NATO launches Operation Deliberate Force against Bosnian Serb forces.
1996 - Vnukovo Airlines Flight 2801, a Vnukovo Airlines Tupolev Tu-154, crashes into a mountain on the Arctic island of Spitsbergen, killing all 141 aboard.
1997 - At least 98 villagers are killed by the GIA in the Rais massacre, Algeria.
2003 - Ayatollah Sayed Mohammed Baqir al-Hakim, the Shia Muslim leader in Iraq, is assassinated in a terrorist bombing, along with nearly 100 worshippers as they leave a mosque in Najaf.
2005 - Hurricane Katrina devastates much of the U.S. Gulf Coast from Louisiana to the Florida Panhandle, killing more than 1,836 and causing over $115 billion in damage.
2007 - A United States Air Force nuclear weapons incident takes place at Minot Air Force Base and Barksdale Air Force Base.
2012 - Georgian hostage crisis results in 3 police officers and 10 militants being killed
2012 - Operation Eagle, undertaken by the Egyptian Army, results in the deaths of 11 suspected terrorists and the arrest of another 23
2012 - Banana Spider venom is found to be effective in relieving erectile dysfunction

Professional Road Cyclist and Testicular Cancer Survivor Lance ArmstrongProfessional Road Cyclist and Testicular Cancer Survivor Lance Armstrong 2012 - The USADA claims to have stripped Lance Armstrong of his seven Tour de France titles



1828 - A patent was issued to Robert Turner for the self-regulating wagon brake.   1833 - The "Factory Act" was passed in England to settle child labor laws.   1842 - The Treaty of Nanking was signed by the British and the Chinese. The treaty ended the first Opium War and gave the island of Hong Kong to Britain.   1885 - The first prizefight under the Marquis of Queensberry Rules was held in Cincinnati, OH. John L. Sullivan defeated Dominick McCaffery in six rounds.   1886 - In New York City, Chinese Ambassador Li Hung-chang's chef invented chop suey.   1892 - Pop (Billy) Shriver (Chicago Cubs) caught a ball that was dropped from the top of the Washington Monument in Washington, DC.   1944 - During the continuing celebration of the liberation of France from the Nazis, 15,000 American troops marched down the Champs Elysees in Paris.   1945 - U.S. General Douglas MacArthur left for Japan to officially accept the surrender of the Japanese.   1949 - At the University of Illinois, a nuclear device was used for the first time to treat cancer patients.   1957 - Senator Strom Thurmond of South Carolina set a filibuster record in the U.S. when he spoke for 24 hours and 18 minutes.   1962 - The lower level of the George Washington Bridge opened.   1965 - Gemini 5, carrying astronauts Gordon Cooper and Charles ("Pete") Conrad, splashed down in the Atlantic Ocean after eight days in space.   1966 - Mia Farrow withdrew from the cast of the ABC-TV's "Peyton Place."   1967 - The final episode of "The Fugitive" aired.   1971 - Hank Aaron became the first baseball player in the National League to hit 100 or more runs in each of 11 seasons.   1977 - Lou Brock brought his total of stolen bases to 893. The record he beat was held by Ty Cobb for 49 years.   1983 - Two U.S. marines were killed in Lebanon by the militia group Amal when they fired mortar shells at the Beirut airport.   1983 - The anchor of the USS Monitor, from the U.S. Civil War, was retrieved by divers.   1990 - Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, in a television interview, declared that America could not defeat Iraq.   1991 - The Communist Party in the Soviet Union had its bank accounts frozen and activities were suspended because of the Party's role in the failed coup attempt against Mikhail Gorbachev.   1991 - The republics of Russia and Ukraine signed an agreement to stay in the Soviet Union.   1992 - The U.N. Security Council agreed to send troops to Somalia to guard the shipments of food.   1994 - Mario Lemieux announced that he would be taking a medical leave of absence due to fatigue, an aftereffect of his 1993 radiation treatments. He would sit out the National Hockey Leagues (NHL) 1994-95 season.   1998 - Northwest Airlines pilots went on strike after their union rejected a last-minute company offer.   2004 - India test-launched a nuclear-capable missle able to carry a one-ton warhead. The weapon had a range of 1,560 miles.



1533 Atahualpa, the last ruler of the Incas, was murdered as Francisco Pizarro completed his conquest of Peru. 1786 Shays's rebellion, an insurrection of Massachusetts farmers against the state government, began. 1842 The Treaty of Nanking was signed, ending the Opium Wars and ceding the island of Hong Kong to Britain. 1877 Brigham Young died in Salt Lake City, Utah. 1949 The U.S.S.R. tested their first atomic bomb. 1957 Strom Thurmond ended the longest filibuster in U.S. Senate history. He spoke for more than 24 hours against a civil rights bill; the bill passed. 1966 The Beatles played their last major live concert at Candlestick Park, California. 1991 The Supreme Soviet, the parliament of the U.S.S.R., suspended all activities of the Communist Party, bringing an end to the institution. 2005 Hurricane Katrina slammed into the U.S. Gulf Coast, destroying beachfront towns in Mississippi and Louisiana, displacing a million people, and killing more than 1,000.  

The following links are to web sites that were used to complete this blog entry:

http://www.historyorb.com/today/events.php

http://on-this-day.com/onthisday/thedays/alldays/aug29.htm

http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history

http://www.infoplease.com/dayinhistory

American Cities That Are Seriously Threatened By Rising Waters

I will admit that I was offended by a lot of what Mitt Romney said during his ill-fated 2012 Presidential campaign. Truth be told, I try not to get offended, and certainly, much less, to express it. But Romney was so blatant about some of these elitist tendencies that America is increasingly turning to, that I could not help it. There is a lot going wrong with the country right now, and so many people believe the Faux News Nation's interpretation of things. There man was Romney last year (reluctant though their support was). But they did support him,  especially when he began to seem more forthright about advocating certain conservative ideologies and policies, many of which, yes, I found offensive.

There was the 47%. There was dressage. There was the insistence that corporations are people (my friend).

In fact, thinking about how blatantly and transparently that man catered to the interests of the elite and powerful corporations, it was not merely disgusting, but downright frightening.

But that said, there was one thing that he mentioned, calmly and almost in passing, that really irked me. Perhaps it irked me especially since it was supposed to be such a minor and dismissive thing.

It occurred during his acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention in Tampa, and it was a barbed commented predictably directed at President Obama and others, of course.

He reminded Americans of the huge sweep of promise that Obama had ridden all the way to the White House in 2008, in what perhaps can seem at times in retrospect like a craze.

So, what did he say that really bothered me?

Well, in part, this:

"Obama promised to slow the rise of the oceans and to heal the planet:"

Such a cynical thing to say. Of course, since Obama had seemed to promise so much

(too much)

to too many people during the 2008 election, it was assured that he would not be able to deliver on all of those promises. Indeed, he probably did not even come close. And Republicans (and conservatives in general, it seems) pounce on such political opportunities. They express their cynicism, and this comment was met with pleased laughter by those clearly sympathetic to any comments mocking the President.

Mockery is the specialty of far too many who dismiss any and all suggestions that what we have been doing might actually be detrimental to the environment. Romney effectively made it the de facto official response during his speech. he deserved to lose the election for a whole bunch of other reasons, not least of which is being an elitist, out of touch prick. But he also deserved to lose just that one comment alone. Such cynicism! Such irresponsibility, just a few years after devastating tsunamis and Hurricane Katrina, and just about two months or so before Hurricane Sandy.

There is mounting evidence everywhere you look that the "Global Warming Theory" seems to be panning out, and that time is running out for us to do anything to curtail it (if, indeed, it is still within our power to do so, even).

Other countries, particularly in Europe and in Japan, seem to take it seriously. They have better public transportation, they use considerably less energy and invest much more on alternative energy. They drive smaller cars, and the leaders enact more environmentally friendly legislation.

Here in the United States? It's the complete opposite. Mockery effectively kills any serious suggestions that we might want to clean up our act. When they try to mount a more serious defense, it always comes to proposals to make cars more environmentally friendly, or to rein in reckless and out of controlling drilling and fracking and such, effectively amounts to an attack on freedom. The same arguments that far too many Americans (particularly those proud, card-carrying members of the Faux News Nation)  tend to employ in other fields, such as gun control and affordable healthcare. It is these attitudes, uniquely American, that has greatly widened the political gulf between Americans and the rest of the world.

President Obama allegedly wanted to pass legislation geared towards a cleaner and healthier environment the biggest priority of his second term.

So far? Not much.

Are you surprised?

I suspect that there will be some kind of action on this front from the Obama administration. But like the affordable healthcare battle, what is proposed will likely be watered down, and nowhere near the more progressive approaches of other industrialized nations. Also, it will likely be the fuel for another huge political battle. This for an issue, like healthcare, and like gun control (and voting rights, I should add), that should be larger than narrow political considerations. These are issues that should, theoretically, transcend politics, and often times do, in other countries.

Not here in the United States, however.

The environment, in particular, should truly be a priority nowadays. Instead, the leading Republican candidate for the presidency mocks it in his biggest speech. His acceptance speech. And the man who defeated him to earn another term talked big in one of his biggest speeches - the second inaugural. But after four years of not quite inaction (but no sweeping changes like he had promised), we are now well into his second term, and still waiting. And waiting. And waiting.

We always seem to be waiting for these progressive changes in the United States, aren't we?

In any case, here is an article suggesting the top fourteen cities that are most at risk by rising waters:


"14 U.S. Cities That Could Disappear Over The Next Century, Thanks To Global Warming"

 Posted: 08/26/2013 8:09 am EDT  |  Updated: 08/26/2013 4:57 pm EDT


http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/08/26/global-warming-flooding_n_3799019.html

Speeches at the 50th anniversary of MLK's "I Have a Dream"

It has been half a century since Martin Luther King, Jr., delivered his famous speech upon the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. The speech came when the nation was on the verge of some great and sweeping changes. The United States was still in what many consider it's "golden age", but it was also an age of conformity and general unfairness. There was racial segregation, which mean de facto white supremacy, and this was legally enforced in the Jim Crow South. Women had the right to vote, but were far behind men on so many levels, particularly in terms of the opportunities available to them, and their salaries were even more glaringly low in comparison to men's then they are today. Other minorities lagged far behind, as well. In short, it was a different country than it is today.

Things had begun to change, though. Arguably, things had begun to change during the Second World War, when Truman had worked towards desegregating the US Army. Change was certainly beginning to become obvious with the Civil Rights Activism of the mid-1950's, with bus boycotts and marches and the landmark Brown v. Board of Education Supreme Court decision, that recognized, once and for all, that there could be no such thing as "separate but equal".

Still, change did not come quickly or easily. The Civil Rights Movement may have been heating up, but there was a lot left to go. Protestors would continue to march with increased intensity. Demonstrators would sit in at segregated lunch counters, effectively protesting unfair laws. They would endure not just mere ridicule, but physical abuse, such as punches and having food smeared on them. In the face of such hatred and bigotry, they remained nonviolent.

There were arrests, including of prominent and respected leaders of the movement. Peaceful protesters were hosed down, attacked by dogs, and faced police brutality. At times, some were killed, including prominent leaders like Medgar Evars, Malcolm X, and Martin Luther King, Jr..

Yet, the movement continued ever onwards. The bravery of those who endured such abuses in the name of greater quality and fairness in their nation is almost unimaginable, and we really do not seem to have anything remotely like that in the United States presently to compare it with. It's hard to imagine, since the nation is radically different nowadays.

That said, there were reminders that, while the face of the struggle has changed, there certainly still is a struggle, and it is far from over. There is a long, long way to go yet, and unlike some prediction by a couple of whites (of a rather older generation, admittedly) that racism was over because of the election of Barack Obama, the election (and re-election) of a black president has, in fact, often times opened up some of the racial tensions that still exist, and some have shown outright racism in their criticisms of Obama.

I do not have the time (or the space) to add every speech that was available yesterday, nor even to comment on them. This I wanted to do, and perhaps will do, when I get back from a small trip with my son over the weekend. I get back on Sunday, and perhaps will try to gather my thoughts and add them to a blog entry on the subject.

For now, let me at least add the texts of the speeches from President Carter, President Clinton, and President Obama yesterday, as well as some links to view these speeches and other highlights from the memorable day for yourself.


Below are the full texts of the speeches delivered by the three presidents in attendance yesterday, taken from the Wall Street Journal site, with the link: http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2013/08/28/carter-clinton-praise-mlk-at-50th-anniversary-event/?mod=WSJBlog

President Jimmy Carter's Speech:

Well, I’m greatly honored to be here. And I realize that most people know that it’s highly unlikely that any of us three over on my right would have served in the White House or be on this platform had it not been for Martin Luther King Jr. and his movement and his crusade for civil rights. So we are grateful to him for us being here. (Applause.)

I’m also proud that I came from the same part of the South as he did. He never lost contact with the folks back home. He was helping Tennessee garbage workers, as you know, when he gave his life to a racist bullet.

I remember how it was, back in those days. I left Georgia in 1943 for college and the Navy. And when I came home from submarine duty, I was put on the Board of Education. I suggested to the other members that we visit all the schools in the county. They had never done this before, and they were reluctant to go with me.

But we finally did it, and we found that white children had three nice brick buildings, but the African-American children had 26 different elementary schools in the county. They were in churches, in front living rooms and a few in barns. They had so many because there were no school buses for African-American children, and they had to be within walking distance of where they went to class. Their schoolbooks were outdated and worn out, and every one of them had a white child’s name in the front of the book.

We finally obtained some buses. And then the state legislature ordained that the front fenders be painted black. Not even the school buses could be equal to each other.

One of the finest moments of my life was 10 months after Dr. King’s famous speech right here, when President Lyndon Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act. I was really grateful when the King family adopted me as their presidential candidate in 1976. (Cheers.) Every handshake from Dr. King, from Daddy King, every hug from Coretta got me a million Yankee votes. (Laughter.)

Daddy King prayed at the Democratic Convention — for quite a while, I might say — (laughter) — and Coretta was in the hotel room with me and Rosalyn when I was elected president.

My Presidential Medal of Freedom citation to Coretta for Dr. King said, and I quote, “He gazed at the great wall of segregation and saw that the power of love could bring it down. He made our nation stronger because he made it better.”

We were able to create a national historic site where Dr. King lived, worked and worshipped. It’s next door to the Carter Center, linked together just by a walking path. And at the Carter Center, we try to make the (principles ?) that we follow the same as his, emphasizing peace and human rights.

I remember that Daddy King said, too many people think Martin freed only black people; in truth, he helped to free all people. (Applause.) And Daddy King added, it’s not enough to have a right to sit at a lunch counter if you can’t afford to buy a meal. And he also said, the ghetto still looks the same even from the front seat of a bus.

Perhaps the most challenging statement of Martin Luther King Jr. was, and I quote: “The crucial question of our time is how to overcome oppression and violence without resorting to oppression and violence.” In the Nobel Prize ceremony of 2002, I said that my fellow Georgian was, and I quote again, “the greatest leader that my native state, and perhaps my native country, has ever produced.” And I was not excluding presidents and even the Founding Fathers when I said this.

(Cheers, applause.)

I believe we all know how Dr. King would have reacted to the new ID requirements to exclude certain voters, especially African- Americans. I think we all know how Dr. King would have reacted to the Supreme Court striking down a crucial part of the Voters’ Rights Act just recently passed overwhelmingly by Congress. I think we all know how Dr. King would have reacted to unemployment among African- Americans being almost twice the rate of white people and for teenagers at 42 percent. I think we would all know how Dr. King would have reacted to our country being awash in guns and for more and more states passing “stand your ground” laws. I think we know how Dr. King would have reacted for people of District of Columbia still not having full citizenship rights. (Cheers, applause.)

And I think we all know how Dr. King would have reacted to have more than 835,000 African-American men in prison, five times as many as when I left office, and with one-third of all African-American males being destined to be in prison in their lifetimes.


Well, there’s a tremendous agenda ahead of us, and I’m thankful to Martin Luther King Jr. that his dream is still alive. Thank you. (Cheers, applause.)

“I would respectfully suggest that Martin Luther King did not live and die to hear his heirs whine about political gridlock. It’s time to stop complaining and put our shoulders against the stubborn gates holding the American people back,” he said.




Full Text of President Bill Clinton's Speech: 

Thank you.

Mr. President, Mrs. Obama, President Carter, Vice President Biden, Dr. Biden, I want to thank my great friend Reverend Bernice King and the King family for inviting me to be a part of this 50th observation of one of the most important days in American history.

Dr. King and A. Philip Randolph, John Lewis and Bayard Rustin, Dorothy Height, Myrlie Evers, Daisy Bates and all the others who led this massive march knew what they were doing on this hallowed ground.

In the shadow of Lincoln’s statute, the burning memory of the fact that he gave his life to preserve the Union and end slavery, Martin Luther King urged his crowd not to drink from the cup of bitterness but to reach across the racial divide because, he said, we cannot walk alone. Their destiny is tied up with our destiny. Their freedom is inextricably bound to our freedom.

He urged the victims of racial violence to meet white Americans with an outstretched hand, not a clenched fist, and, in so doing, to prove the redeeming power of unearned suffering. And then he dreamed of an America where all citizens would sit together at the table of brotherhood, where little white boys and girls and little black boys and girls would hold hands across the color line, where his own children would be judged not by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

This march and that speech changed America. They opened minds, they melted hearts and they moved millions, including a 17-year-old boy watching alone in his home in Arkansas. (Applause.) It was an empowering moment, but also an empowered moment. As the great chronicler of those years, Taylor Branch, wrote: The movement here gained the force to open, quote, “the stubborn gates of freedom,” and out flowed the Civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights Act, immigration reform, Medicare, Medicaid, open housing.

It is well to remember that the leaders and the foot soldiers here were both idealists and tough realists; they had to be. It was a violent time. Just three months later, we lost President Kennedy and we thank God that President Johnson came in and fought for all those issues I just mentioned. (Applause.) Just five years later, we lost Senator Kennedy. And in between there was the carnage of the fight for jobs, freedom and equality. Just 18 days after this march, four little children were killed in the Birmingham church bombinng. Then there were the Ku Klux Klan murders, the Mississippi lynching and a dozen others until in 1968 Dr. King himself was martyred, still marching for jobs and freedom.

What a debt we owe to those people who came here 50 years ago. (Cheers, applause.) The martyrs played it all for a dream, a dream, as John Lewis said, that millions have now actually lived.

So how are we going to repay the debt? Dr. King’s dream of interdependence, his prescription of wholehearted cooperation across racial lines — they ring as true today as they did 50 years ago. Oh, yes, we face terrible political gridlock now. Read a little history; it’s nothing new. Yes, there remain racial inequalities in employment, income, health, wealth, incarceration, and in the victims and perpetrators of violent crime. But we don’t face beatings, lynchings and shootings for our political beliefs anymore. And I would respectfully suggest that Martin Luther King did not live and die to hear his heirs whine about political gridlock. It is time to stop complaining and put our shoulders against the stubborn gates holding the American people back. (Cheers, applause.)

We cannot be disheartened by the forces of resistance to building a modern economy of good jobs and rising incomes or to rebuilding our education system to give our children a common core of knowledge necessary to ensure success or to give Americans of all ages access to affordable college and training programs. And we thank the president for his efforts in those regards. (Applause.)

We cannot relax in our efforts to implement health care reform in a way that ends discrimination against those with pre-existing conditions — one of which is inadequate income to pay for rising health care — (applause) — a health care reform that will lower costs and lengthen lives; nor can we stop investing in science and technology to train our young people of all races for the jobs of tomorrow; and to act on what we learn about our bodies, our businesses and our climate. We must push open those stubborn gates.

We cannot be discouraged by a Supreme Court decision that said we don’t need this critical provision of the Voting Rights Act because, look at the states, it made it harder for African Americans and Hispanics and students and the elderly and the infirm and poor working folks to vote. What do you know; they showed up, stood in line for hours and voted anyway. So, obviously we don’t need any kind of law. (Applause.)

But a great democracy does not make it harder to vote than to buy an assault weapon. (Cheers, applause.) We must open those stubborn gates.

And let us not forget that while racial divides persist and must not be denied, the whole American landscape is littered with the lost dreams and dashed hopes of people of all races. And the great irony of the current moment is that the future has never brimmed with more possibilities. It has never burned brighter in what we could become if we push open those stubborn gates and if we do it together.

The choice remains as it was on that distant summer day 50 years ago: cooperate and thrive or fight with each other and fall behind. We should all thank God for Dr. King and John Lewis and all those who gave us a dream to guide us, a dream they paid for, like our founders, with their lives, their fortunes, their sacred honor. (Cheers, applause.) And we thank them for reminding us that America is always becoming, always on a journey. And we all, every single citizen among us, have to run our length.


God bless them, and God bless America. (Cheers, applause.)


http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/barackobama/10272514/Obama-on-Martin-Luther-King-anniversary-the-full-speech.html

Full Text of President Barack Obama's Speech:

To the King family, who have sacrificed and inspired so much, to President Clinton, President Carter, Vice President Biden, Jill, fellow Americans, five decades ago today, Americans came to this honored place to lay claim to a promise made at our founding.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
In 1963, almost 200 years after those words were set to paper, a full century after a great war was fought and emancipation proclaimed, that promise, those truths remained unmet. And so they came by the thousands, from every corner of our country -- men and women, young and old, blacks who longed for freedom and whites who could no longer accept freedom for themselves while witnessing the subjugation of others. Across the land, congregations sent them off with food and with prayer. In the middle of the night, entire blocks of Harlem came out to wish them well.
With the few dollars they scrimped from their labor, some bought tickets and boarded buses, even if they couldn't always sit where they wanted to sit. Those with less money hitchhiked, or walked. They were seamstresses, and steelworkers, and students, and teachers, maids and pullman porters. They shared simple meals and bunked together on floors.
And then, on a hot summer day, they assembled here, in our nation's capital, under the shadow of the great emancipator, to offer testimony of injustice, to petition their government for redress and to awaken America's long-slumbering conscience.
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We rightly and best remember Dr. King's soaring oratory that day, how he gave mighty voice to the quiet hopes of millions, how he offered a salvation path for oppressed and oppressors alike. His words belong to the ages, possessing a power and prophecy unmatched in our time.
But we would do well to recall that day itself also belonged to those ordinary people whose names never appeared in the history books, never got on TV.
Many had gone to segregated schools and sat at segregated lunch counters, had lived in towns where they couldn't vote, in cities where their votes didn't matter. There were couples in love who couldn't marry, soldiers who fought for freedom abroad that they found denied to them at home. They had seen loved ones beaten and children fire- hosed. And they had every reason to lash out in anger or resign themselves to a bitter fate.
And yet they chose a different path. In the face of hatred, they prayed for their tormentors. In the face of violence, they stood up and sat in with the moral force of nonviolence. Willingly, they went to jail to protest unjust laws, their cells swelling with the sound of freedom songs. A lifetime of indignities had taught them that no man can take away the dignity and grace that God grants us. They had learned through hard experience what Frederick Douglas once taught: that freedom is not given; it must be won through struggle and discipline, persistence and faith.
That was the spirit they brought here that day.
That was the spirit young people like John Lewis brought that day. That was the spirit that they carried with them like a torch back to their cities and their neighborhoods, that steady flame of conscience and courage that would sustain them through the campaigns to come, through boycotts and voter registration drives and smaller marches, far from the spotlight, through the loss of four little girls in Birmingham, the carnage of Edmund Pettus Bridge and the agony of Dallas, California, Memphis. Through setbacks and heartbreaks and gnawing doubt, that flame of justice flickered and never died.
And because they kept marching, America changed. Because they marched, the civil rights law was passed. Because they marched, the voting rights law was signed. Because they marched, doors of opportunity and education swung open so their daughters and sons could finally imagine a life for themselves beyond washing somebody else's laundry or shining somebody else's shoes. Because they marched, city councils changed and state legislatures changed and Congress changed and, yes, eventually the White House changed.
Because they marched, America became more free and more fair, not just for African-Americans but for women and Latinos, Asians and Native Americans, for Catholics, Jews and Muslims, for gays, for Americans with disabilities.
America changed for you and for me.
And the entire world drew strength from that example, whether it be young people who watched from the other side of an Iron Curtain and would eventually tear down that wall, or the young people inside South Africa who would eventually end the scourge of apartheid. Those are the victories they won, with iron wills and hope in their hearts. That is the transformation that they wrought with each step of their well-worn shoes. That's the depth that I and millions of Americans owe those maids, those laborers, those porters, those secretaries -- folks who could have run a company, maybe, if they had ever had a chance; those white students who put themselves in harm's way even though they didn't have to, those Japanese- Americans who recalled their own interment, those Jewish Americans who had survived the Holocaust, people who could have given up and given in but kept on keeping on, knowing that weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning on the battlefield of justice, men and women without rank or wealth or title or fame would liberate us all, in ways that our children now take for granted as people of all colors and creeds live together and learn together and walk together, and fight alongside one another and love one another, and judge one another by the content of our character in this greatest nation on Earth.
To dismiss the magnitude of this progress, to suggest, as some sometimes do, that little has changed -- that dishonors the courage and the sacrifice of those who paid the price to march in those years. Medgar Evers, James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, Michael Schwerner, Martin Luther King Jr., they did not die in vain. Their victory was great.
But we would dishonor those heroes as well to suggest that the work of this nation is somehow complete. The arc of the moral universe may bend towards justice, but it doesn't bend on its own. To secure the gains this country has made requires constant vigilance, not complacency. Whether it's by challenging those who erect new barriers to the vote or ensuring that the scales of justice work equally for all in the criminal justice system and not simply a pipeline from underfunded schools to overcrowded jails. it requires vigilance.
And we'll suffer the occasional setback. But we will win these fights. This country has changed too much. People of good will, regardless of party, are too plentiful for those with ill will to change history's currents.
In some ways, though, the securing of civil rights, voting rights, the eradication of legalized discrimination -- the very significance of these victories may have obscured a second goal of the march, for the men and women who gathered 50 years ago were not there in search of some abstract idea. They were there seeking jobs as well as justice, not just the absence of oppression but the presence of economic opportunity. For what does it profit a man, Dr. King would ask, to sit at an integrated lunch counter if he can't afford the meal?
This idea that -- that one's liberty is linked to one's livelihood, that the pursuit of happiness requires the dignity of work, the skills to find work, decent pay, some measure of material security -- this idea was not new.
Lincoln himself understood the Declaration of Independence in such terms, as a promise that in due time, the weights should be lifted from the shoulders of all men and that all should have an equal chance.
Dr. King explained that the goals of African-Americans were identical to working people of all races: decent wages, fair working conditions, livable housing, old age security, health and welfare measures -- conditions in which families can grow, have education for their children and respect in the community.
What King was describing has been the dream of every American. It's what's lured for centuries new arrivals to our shores. And it's along this second dimension of economic opportunity, the chance through honest toil to advance one's station in life, that the goals of 50 years ago have fallen most short.
Yes, there have been examples of success within black America that would have been unimaginable a half-century ago. But as has already been noted, black unemployment has remained almost twice as high as white employment, Latino unemployment close behind. The gap in wealth between races has not lessened, it's grown.
As President Clinton indicated, the position of all working Americans, regardless of color, has eroded, making the dream Dr. King described even more elusive.
For over a decade, working Americans of all races have seen their wages and incomes stagnate. Even as corporate profits soar, even as the pay of a fortunate few explodes, inequality has steadily risen over the decades. Upward mobility has become harder. In too many communities across this country in cities and suburbs and rural hamlets, the shadow of poverty casts a pall over our youth, their lives a fortress of substandard schools and diminished prospects, inadequate health care and perennial violence.
And so as we mark this anniversary, we must remind ourselves that the measure of progress for those who marched 50 years ago was not merely how many blacks had joined the ranks of millionaires; it was whether this country would admit all people who were willing to work hard, regardless of race, into the ranks of a middle-class life. The test was not and never has been whether the doors of opportunity are cracked a bit wider for a few. It was whether our economic system provides a fair shot for the many, for the black custodian and the white steelworker, the immigrant dishwasher and the Native American veteran. To win that battle, to answer that call -- this remains our great unfinished business.
We shouldn't fool ourselves. The task will not be easy. Since 1963 the economy's changed.
The twin forces of technology and global competition have subtracted those jobs that once provided a foothold into the middle class, reduced the bargaining power of American workers.
And our politics has suffered. Entrenched interests -- those who benefit from an unjust status quo resisted any government efforts to give working families a fair deal, marshaling an army of lobbyists and opinion makers to argue that minimum wage increases or stronger labor laws or taxes on the wealthy who could afford it just to fund crumbling schools -- that all these things violated sound economic principles.
We'd be told that growing inequality was the price for a growing economy, a measure of the free market -- that greed was good and compassion ineffective, and those without jobs or health care had only themselves to blame.
And then there were those elected officials who found it useful to practice the old politics of division, doing their best to convince middle-class Americans of a great untruth, that government was somehow itself to blame for their growing economic insecurity -- that distant bureaucrats were taking their hard-earned dollars to benefit the welfare cheat or the illegal immigrant.
And then, if we're honest with ourselves, we'll admit that during the course of 50 years, there were times when some of us, claiming to push for change, lost our way. The anguish of assassinations set off self-defeating riots.
Legitimate grievances against police brutality tipped into excuse - making for criminal behavior. Racial politics could cut both ways as the transformative message of unity and brotherhood was drowned out by the language of recrimination. And what had once been a call for equality of opportunity, the chance for all Americans to work hard and get ahead was too often framed as a mere desire for government support, as if we had no agency in our own liberation, as if poverty was an excuse for not raising your child and the bigotry of others was reason to give up on yourself. All of that history is how progress stalled. That's how hope was diverted. It's how our country remained divided.
But the good news is, just as was true in 1963, we now have a choice. We can continue down our current path in which the gears of this great democracy grind to a halt and our children accept a life of lower expectations, where politics is a zero-sum game, where a few do very well while struggling families of every race fight over a shrinking economic pie. That's one path. Or we can have the courage to change.
The March on Washington teaches us that we are not trapped by the mistakes of history, that we are masters of our fate.
But it also teaches us that the promise of this nation will only be kept when we work together. We'll have to reignite the embers of empathy and fellow feeling, the coalition of conscience that found expression in this place 50 years ago.
And I believe that spirit is there, that true force inside each of us. I see it when a white mother recognizes her own daughter in the face of a poor black child. I see it when the black youth thinks of his own grandfather in the dignified steps of an elderly white man. It's there when the native born recognizing that striving spirit of a new immigrant, when the interracial couple connects the pain of a gay couple who were discriminated against and understands it as their own. That's where courage comes from, when we turn not from each other or on each other but towards one another, and we find that we do not walk alone. That's where courage comes from.
And with that courage, we can stand together for good jobs and just wages. With that courage, we can stand together for the right to health care in the richest nation on earth for every person. With that courage, we can stand together for the right of every child, from the corners of Anacostia to the hills of Appalachia, to get an education that stirs the mind and captures the spirit and prepares them for the world that awaits them. With that courage, we can feed the hungry and house the homeless and transform bleak wastelands of poverty into fields of commerce and promise.
America, I know the road will be long, but I know we can get there. Yes, we will stumble, but I know we'll get back up. That's how a movement happens. That's how history bends. That's how, when somebody is faint of heart, somebody else brings them along and says, come on, we're marching.
There's a reason why so many who marched that day and in the days to come were young, for the young are unconstrained by habits of fear, unconstrained by the conventions of what is. They dared to dream different and to imagine something better. And I am convinced that same imagination, the same hunger of purpose serves in this generation.
We might not face the same dangers as 1963, but the fierce urgency of now remains. We may never duplicate the swelling crowds and dazzling processions of that day so long ago, no one can match King's brilliance, but the same flames that lit the heart of all who are willing to take a first step for justice, I know that flame remains.
That tireless teacher who gets to class early and stays late and dips into her own pocket to buy supplies because she believes that every child is her charge -- she's marching. That successful businessman who doesn't have to, but pays his workers a fair wage and then offers a shot to a man, maybe an ex-con, who's down on his luck -- he's marching.
The mother who pours her love into her daughter so that she grows up with the confidence to walk through the same doors as anybody's son -- she's marching. The father who realizes the most important job he'll ever have is raising his boy right, even if he didn't have a father, especially if he didn't have a father at home -- he's marching. The battle-scarred veterans who devote themselves not only to helping their fellow warriors stand again and walk again and run again, but to keep serving their country when they come home -- they are marching. Everyone who realizes what those glorious patriots knew on that day, that change does not come from Washington but to Washington, that change has always been built on our willingness, we, the people, to take on the mantle of citizenship -- you are marching.

And that's the lesson of our past, that's the promise of tomorrow, that in the face of impossible odds, people who love their country can change it. And when millions of Americans of every race and every region, every faith and every station can join together in a spirit of brotherhood, then those mountains will be made low, and those rough places will be made plain, and those crooked places, they straighten out towards grace, and we will vindicate the faith of those who sacrificed so much and live up to the true meaning of our creed as one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/08/28/jimmy-carter-march-on-washington-speech_n_3831402.html

http://www.sfgate.com/news/politics/article/Carter-remembers-King-on-50th-Dream-anniversary-4768544.php

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zfPOKMAfq3Y


http://live.reuters.com/Event/50th_Anniversary_of_I_Have_A_Dream_Speech?Page=1