http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history
Sep 2, 1945: Allies celebrate V-J Day
On this day in 1945, the USS Missouri hosts the formal surrender of the Japanese government to the Allies. Victory over Japan was celebrated back in the States.
As Japanese troops finally surrendered to Americans on the Caroline, Mariana, and Palau islands, representatives of their emperor and prime minister were preparing to formalize their capitulation. In Tokyo Bay, aboard the Navy battleship USS Missouri, the Japanese foreign minister, Mamoru Shigemitsu, and the chief of staff of the Japanese army, Yoshijiro Umezu, signed the "instrument of surrender." Representing the Allied victors was Gen. Douglas MacArthur, commander of the U.S. Army forces in the Pacific, and Adm. Chester Nimitz, commander of the U.S. Pacific Fleet, now promoted to the newest and highest Navy rank, fleet admiral. Among others in attendance was Lt. Gen. Jonathan Wainwright, who had taken command of the forces in the Philippines upon MacArthur's departure and had been recently freed from a Japanese POW camp in Manchuria.
Shigemitsu would be found guilty of war crimes and sentenced to seven years in prison subsequent to the surrender. The grand irony is that he had fought for concessions on the Japanese side in order to secure an early peace. He was paroled in 1950 and went on to become chairman of Japan's Progressive Party. MacArthur would fight him again when he was named commander in chief of the United Nations forces in Korea in 1950.
Sep 2, 1969: Ho Chi Minh dies
President Ho Chi Minh of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam dies of a heart attack in Hanoi. North Vietnamese officials announced his death the next day.
Ho Chi Minh had been the heart and soul of Vietnamese communism since the earliest days of the movement. Born in 1890, he was the son of a Vietnamese government official who resigned in protest against French domination of his country. He was educated in Hue and as a young man worked as a cook on a French steamship, travelling to the United States, Africa, and then Europe, where he took work in London and Paris. In 1920, having accepted Marxist Leninism because of its anticolonial stance, he changed his name to Nguyen Ai Quoc ("Nguyen the Patriot") and helped found the French Communist Party. He traveled to Moscow in 1923 for study and training. In 1924, he went to Canton, China, to meet with Phan Boi Chau, one of the leading Vietnamese nationalists of the era. While in China, Ho played the leading role in the founding of the Indochinese Communist Party in 1929. Ho spent most of the next 10 years writing and organizing, all while outside Vietnam. When the Japanese invaded Vietnam at the beginning of World War II, he changed his name to Ho Chi Minh ("Ho, the Bringer of Light") and moved his revolutionary group to the caves of Pac Bo in northern Vietnam. There, in May 1941, he organized the Viet Minh, a nationalist and communist organization created to mobilize the people.
During the war, Ho and the Viet Minh entered into a loose alliance with the American Office of Strategic Services (OSS), helping to rescue downed American pilots. In 1945, when the Japanese surrendered, the Viet Minh seized power and proclaimed the Democratic Republic of Vietnam with Ho as president. However, the French, wanting to reimpose colonial rule, refused to grant independence to the Vietnamese. In late 1946, war broke out between the Viet Minh and the French. It lasted for eight bloody years, ending finally with the Viet Minh defeating the French at the Battle of Dien Bien Phu in 1954. The subsequent Geneva Accords divided Vietnam into North and South Vietnam. Ho devoted his efforts to constructing a communist society in North Vietnam. In the early 1960s, a new war broke out in the South, where communist-led guerrillas mounted an insurgency against the U.S.-supported regime in Saigon. When the United States intervened militarily, Ho directed his forces in a protracted war against the Americans. During this period, Ho continued to provide inspirational leadership to his people, but as his health deteriorated, he increasingly assumed a more ceremonial role as policy was shaped by others. Still, he was the embodiment of the revolution and remained a communist icon after his death in 1969.
Sep 2, 1998: A UN court hands down the first international conviction for genocide
A United Nations court finds Jean-Paul Akayesu, the former mayor of a small town in Rwanda, guilty of nine counts of genocide, marking the first time that the 1948 law banning genocide is enforced. Because mass killings had occurred in several countries since the law went into effect, the UN received heavy criticism for waiting 50 years before finally enforcing it.
The crimes for which Akayesu was held responsible took place during the 1994 mass slaughter of the Tutsi minority population by the Hutu tribespeople. It is estimated that 800,000 Tutsis were killed by roving bands of Hutus armed with machetes. The killers brutally murdered Tutsi men, women, and children, and even moderate Hutus who attempted to protect them. One Red Cross worker told of how he was forced to stand aside while all the patients in his hospital were hacked to death in their beds.
Conflict between the Hutus and the Tutsis had been a part of Rwandan life for years. Since the 15th century, the Tutsis dominated the Hutu people as ancient feudal lords. When the Belgians gained power of Rwanda in 1919, they ruled through Tutsi chiefs. However, during a Hutu uprising in 1959, 100,000 Tutsis were massacred, while twice as many were forced to flee the country. In 1962, Rwanda gained independence from Belgium under a Hutu-led government. The killings continued for another decade, until Rwanda was taken over in a military coup led by General Juvenal Habyarimana.
Rwanda enjoyed a period of relative stability under Habyarimana until 1990, when the Rwanda Patriotic Front, a group of Tutsi rebels aided by Uganda, started a civil war against the Rwandan government. The war was temporarily halted when a cease-fire was signed in August 1992. However, after Habyarimana died in an unexplained plane crash in April 1994, the fighting resumed. Hutu government militiamen, blaming the Tutsis for the crash, began a 90-day murdering spree as Tutsi rebels fought back. The killing finally came to an end when the Tutsis gained power in July 1994.
Jean-Paul Akayesu was sentenced to life imprisonment for his role in the deaths of 2,000 Tutsis who had sought his protection, as well as 80 years in prison for other violations, including rape. Although Akayesu claimed that he was powerless to stop the killings, Judge Laity Kama ruled that the mayor was "individually and criminally responsible for the deaths." The ruling not only marked the first time a guilty verdict was handed down on the basis of the 1948 Genocide Convention, but also the first time in international law that mass rape was considered an "act of genocide."
Today
Here's a more detailed look at events that transpired on this date throughout history:
44 BC - Pharaoh Cleopatra VII of Egypt declares her son
co-ruler as Ptolemy XV Caesarion.
44 BC - The first of Cicero's Philippics (oratorical
attacks) on Mark Antony. He will make 14 of them over the next several months.
31 BC - Final war of the Roman Republic: Battle of Actium -
off the western coast of Greece, forces of Octavian defeat troops under Mark
Antony and Cleopatra.
911 - Viking-monarch Oleg of Kiev-Russia signs treaty with
Byzantines
1192 - Sultan Saladin & King Richard the lion hearted
sign cease fire
1519 - 1st Battle of Tehuacingo, San Salvador vs Mexico
1537 - King Christian III publishes "Ordinance on the
Danish Church"
1644 - Battle at Lostwithiel: Robert Devereux' infantry
surrenders
1649 - The Italian city of Castro is completely destroyed by
the forces of Pope Innocent X, ending the Wars of Castro.
1666 - Great Fire of London begins at 2am in Pudding Lane,
80% of London is destroyed
1686 - Habsburgse armies occupy Buda on Turks
1732 - Pope Clement XII renews anti-Jewish laws of Rome
1743 - England/Austria/Savoye-Sardinia sign Treaty of Worms
1752 - Last Julian calendar day in US & Britian/British
colonies (no Sept 3-Sept 13th)
1789 - US Treasury Department established by Congress
1792 - September Massacres of the French Revolution: In
Paris rampaging mobs slaughter 3 Roman Catholic bishops, more than two hundred
priests, and prisoners believed to be royalist sympathizers.
1796 - Jews of the Netherlands are emancipated
1806 - A side of Rossberg Peak collapses into Goldau Valley
Switz, kills 500
1807 - The Royal Navy bombards Copenhagen with fire bombs
and phosphorus rockets to prevent Denmark from surrendering its fleet to
Napoleon.
Roman Emperor Augustus CaesarRoman Emperor Augustus Caesar
1839 - Salon of Varietes opens in Amsterdam
1856 - Tianjing's struggle Incident in Nanjing, China.
1859 - Gas lighting introduced to Hawaii
1859 - A solar super storm affects electrical telegraph
service.
1864 - Union General William T Sherman captures and burns
Atlanta
1867 - 1st Girl School opens in Haarlem Neth
1870 - Napoleon III surrenders to Prussian armies
1885 - In Rock Springs, Wyoming, 150 white miners, who were
struggling to unionize so they could strike for better wages and work
conditions, attack their Chinese fellow workers, killing 28, wounding 15, and
forcing several hundred more out of town.
1894 - -3] Amsterdam Municipal theater opens
1894 - Forest fires destroy Hinckley Minnesota: about 600
die
1897 - "McCall-magazine 1st published
1898 - Battle of Omdurman: Lord Kitchener retakes Sudan for
Britain
1898 - Machine gun 1st used in battle
1900 - Telegraph use between Germany & US begins
1901 - VP Theodore Roosevelt advises, "Speak softly
& carry a big stick"
26th US President Theodore Roosevelt26th US President
Theodore Roosevelt 1902 - "A Trip To The Moon," the 1st science
fiction film released
1908 - Tommy Burns KOs Bill Lang in 6 for heavyweight boxing
title
1909 - English King Edward VII signs South Africa Bill
1911 - Joao Chagas forms Portuguese government
1913 - Amsterdam reroutes sewage of canals to South Seas
1914 - -3] Gen von Hausen & countess of France regime
flees to Bordeaux
1917 - Deutsche Vaterlands Party forms (by admiral Tirpitz)
1919 - Communist Party of America organizes in Chicago
1919 - Italy agress to general voting right/proportional
representation
1919 - National Commission recommends a best-of-9 World
Series
1920 - W Somerset Maugham's "East of Suez,"
premieres in London
1922 - Pres Ebert declares "Deutschland uber alas"
as German national anthem
1924 - 44th US Mens Tennis: William Tilden beats William
Johnston (61 97 62)
1924 - Rudolf Friml's "Rose Marie" opens to rave
reviews in NYC
1925 - The U.S. Zeppelin the USS Shenandoah crashes, killing
14.
1926 - Italy signs treaty with Yemen
1927 - Rumour starts that Yankee Lou Gehrig will be traded
to Tigers
1929 - Unilever forms by merger of Margarine Union &
Lever Bros
1929 - WOR (NYC) ends affiliation with CBS radio network
1930 - 1st non-stop airplane flight from Europe to US (37
hrs)
1935 - A hurricane slams Florida Keys killing 423
1936 - 1st transatlantic round-trip air flight
1937 - US Housing Authority created by National Housing Act
1940 - 23rd PGA Championship: Byron Nelson at Hershey CC
Hershey Pa
1940 - Great Smoky Mountains National Park dedicated
1941 - Academy copyrights Oscar statuette
1942 - German troops enter Stalingrad
1944 - Belgium's Emissie bank closes
US President George H. W. BushUS President George H. W. Bush
1944 - During WW II, George Bush ejects from a burning plane
1944 - Holocaust diarist Anne Frank was sent to Auschwitz
1944 - US leaders meet in Belgium
1945 - 59th US Womens Tennis: Sarah P Cooke beats Pauline
Betz (36 86 64)
1945 - Ho Chi Minh declares Vietnam independence from France
(National Day)
1945 - V-J Day; formal surrender of Japan aboard USS
Missouri (WW II ends)
1946 - Johnny Neun replaces Bill Dickey as Yankee manager
1946 - Nehru forms government in India
1949 - Fire in riverfront area kills 1,700 (Chungking China)
1951 - Australia, NZ & US sign ANZUS-pact
1952 - Dr Floyd J Lewis 1st uses deep freeze technique in
heart surgery
1954 - Hurricane Edna batters NE US, killing 20
1954 - WTVD TV channel 11 in Raleigh-Durham, NC (ABC) begins
broadcasting
1955 - KCRA TV channel 3 in Sacramento, CA (NBC) begins
broadcasting
1956 - Collapse of a RR bridge under a train kills 120
(India)
Jewish Victim & Diarist of the Holocaust Anne
FrankJewish Victim & Diarist of the Holocaust Anne Frank 1956 - Orioles
trailing Red Sox 8-0 come back to win 11-10 in 9 innings
1956 - Washington-Jackson cable line replaced by bus service
1957 - 1st edition newspaper the Ware Time (in Suriname),
1,700 die
1957 - Milwaukee Braves' Frank Torre scores 6 runs in 1 game
1957 - US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site
1958 - Great Britain performs atmospheric nuclear test at
Christmas Island
1958 - Henry Verwoerd appointed PM of South Africa
1958 - KAYS TV channel 7 in Hays, KS (CBS) begins
broadcasting
1958 - Minn announces $9 million bond issue to improve
Metropolitan Stadium
1958 - National Defense Education Act was signed
1958 - U.S. Air Force C-130A-II is shot down by fighters
over Yerevan, Armenia when it strays into Soviet airspace while conducting a
sigint mission. All crew lost.
1959 - US President Eisenhower arrives in Paris
1960 - Tamara & Irina Press (USSR) become 1st sisters to
win olympic gold
1960 - William Walton's 2nd Symphony, premieres
1960 - The first election of the Parliament of the Central
Tibetan Administration, in history of Tibet. The Tibetan community observes
this date as the Democracy Day.
1962 - Stan Musial's 3,516th hit moves over Tris Speaker
into 2nd place
1962 - USSR performs nuclear test at Novaya Zemlya USSR
1963 - Alabama Gov George C Wallace prevents integration of
Tuskegee HS
1963 - CBS & NBC expand network news from 15 to 30
minutes
1963 - Mickey Wright wins LPGA Idaho Centennia Golf
Tournament
1964 - Indonesian paratroopers lands in Malaysia
1964 - Norman Manley scores 2-consecutive holes-in-one at
Del Valley, Cal
1965 - Cubs slugger Ernie Banks hits his 400th HR (off
Curt Simmons)
1965 - Treblinka trial in Dusseldorf ends
1966 - Mickey Wright wins LPGA Ladies' World Series of Golf
1967 - KUHI (now KSNF) TV channel 16 in Joplin, MO (CBS)
begins broadcasting
1967 - The Principality of Sealand is established, ruled by
Prince Paddy Roy Bates.
1968 - Jerry Lewis' 3rd Muscular Dystrophy telethon
1969 - NY Yankee Joe Pepitone is reinstated
1969 - Ralph Houk signs 3-year contract to manage Yankees at
$65,000 a season
1969 - The first automatic teller machine in the United
States is installed in Rockville Center, New York.
1970 - 1st tennis tie break at a Grand Slam (US Open) (9 pt
sudden death)
1971 - Cesar Cedeno hits an inside-the-park grand slammer
1971 - Chris Evert & Jimmy Connors win their 1st US Open
tennis matches
1971 - NY's Electric Circus Club goes out of business
1972 - Chicago White Sox Milt Pappas no-hits SD Padres, 1-0
1972 - Renate Stecher runs 100m European female record
(11.07 sec)
1972 - Rod Stewart's 1st #1 hit (You Wear it Well)
1972 - USSR performs nuclear test at Eastern
Kazakh/Semipalitinsk USSR
1973 - Billy Martin fired as manager of Tigers
1973 - Netherlands wins hockey world's championship
1973 - Sandra Haynie wins LPGA Charity Golf Classic
Singer Rod StewartSinger Rod Stewart 1974 - Jerry Lewis' 9th
Muscular Dystrophy telethon
1974 - Prest Gerald Ford signs Employee Retirement Income
Security Act
1978 - Graham Salmon set worlds record for 100 meters by a
blind man
1978 - John McClain performs 180 outside loops in an
airplane over Houston
1978 - Reggie Jackson is 19th player to hit 20 HR in 11
straight years
1979 - "I Remember Mama" closes at Majestic
Theater NYC after 108 perfs
1979 - 79th US Golf Amateur Championship won by Mark O'Meara
1980 - John Arlott calls his last game, England v Australia
at Lord's
1981 - USSR performs underground nuclear test
1982 - Rolling Stone Keith Richard's house burns down
1983 - Yitzhak Shamir (Herut) endorsed by Menachem Begin for
Israeli PM
1984 - "Zorba" closes at Broadway Theater NYC
after 362 performances
1985 - Betsy King wins LPGA Rail Charity Golf Classic
1985 - Jerry Lewis' 20th Muscular Dystrophy telethon raises
$33,100,000
1986 - Cathy Evelyn Smith sentenced to 3 years for death of
John Belushi
Businessman & T.V. Personality Donald TrumpBusinessman
& T.V. Personality Donald Trump 1987 - Donald Trump takes out a full page
NY Times ad lambasting Japan
1987 - Kevin Bass is 1st NLer to switch hit HRs in a game
twice in 1 season
1987 - Philips introduces CD-video
1987 - West German pilot Mathias Rust, who flew a private
plane from Helsinki Finland, to Moscow's Red Square, forms trial in Russia
1988 - Amnesty International's Human Rights Now! tour begins
in Wembley
1989 - Rev Al Sharpton leads a civil rights march through
Bensonhurst
1990 - "Grapes of Wrath" closes at Cort Theater
NYC after 188 performances
1990 - Steve Allen, installed as a new abbot of Hartford St
Zen Center, SF
1991 - Jerry Lewis' 26th Muscular Dystrophy telethon raises
$45,071,657
1991 - Pat Bradley wins LPGA Rail Charity Golf Classic
1991 - US officially recognizes independence of Estonia,
Latvia & Lithuania
1992 - Nicaragua struck by earthquake/floodings; 118 die
1992 - US dollar valued at 156.50 guilder (record)
1993 - 10th MTV Awards: Pearl Jam, En Vogue wins
1993 - Central African Republic ex-emperor Bokassa freed
Minister and Civil Rights Activist Al SharptonMinister and
Civil Rights Activist Al Sharpton 1993 - Day of Peace in South Africa
1994 - Miguel Indurain bicycles world record time (53,040
km)
1995 - Frank Bruno beats Oliver McCall in 12 for heavyweight
boxing title
1995 - Southern California begins using new area code 562
1996 - Jerry Lewis' 31st Muscular Dystrophy telethon raises
$49,200,000
1996 - Michelle McGann wins LPGA State Farm Rail Golf
Classic
1996 - Soyuz TM-24, lands
1996 - A peace agreement is signed between the Government of
the Republic of the Philippines and the Moro National Liberation Front in
Malacañang Palace.
1997 - Howard Stern Radio Show premieres in Montreal Canada
on CHOM 97.7 FM
1997 - Howard Stern Radio Show premieres in Toronto Canada
on CILQ 107.1 FM
1998 - Swissair Flight 111 crashes near Peggys Cove, Nova
Scotia. All 229 people on board are killed.
1998 - The UN's International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda
finds Jean-Paul Akayesu, the former mayor of a small town in Rwanda, guilty of
nine counts of genocide.
2012 - A decades-long ban on veiled female news presenters
is lifted from State television in Egypt
2012 - 15 people are killed by a car bomb attack at a
refugee camp in Sbeineh, Palestine
31 B.C. - The Roman leader Octavian defeated the alliance of Mark Antony and Cleopatra. Octavian, as Augustus Caesar, became the first Roman emperor. 1666 - The Great Fire of London broke out. The fire burned for three days destroying 10,000 buildings including St. Paul's Cathedral. Only 6 people were killed. 1775 - Hannah, the first American war vessel was commissioned by General George Washington. 1789 - The U.S. Treasury Department was established. 1864 - During the U.S. Civil War Union forces led by Gen. William T. Sherman occupied Atlanta following the retreat of the Confederates. 1897 - The first issue of "McCall’s" magazine was published. The magazine had been known previously as "Queens Magazine" and "Queen of Fashion." 1901 - Theodore Roosevelt, then Vice President, said "Speak softly and carry a big stick" in a speech at the Minnesota State Fair. 1930 - The "Question Mark" made the first non-stop flight from Europe to the U.S. The plane was flown by Captain Dieudonne Coste and Maurice Bellonte. 1935 - A hurricane hit the Florida Keys killing 423 people. 1938 - The first railroad car to be equipped with fluorescent lighting was put into operation on the New York Central railroad. 1945 - Japan surrendered to the U.S. aboard the USS Missouri, ending World War II. The war ended six years and one day after it began. 1945 - Ho Chi Minh declared the independence the Democratic Republic of Vietnam. 1961 - The U.S.S.R. resumed nuclear weapons testing. Test ban treaty negotiations had failed with the U.S. and Britain when the three nations could not agree upon the nature and frequency of on-site inspections. 1962 - Ken Hubbs, of the Chicago Cubs, set a major-league baseball fielding record when he played errorless for his 74th consecutive game. 1963 - The integration of Tuskegee High School was prevented by state troopers assigned by Alabama Gov. George Wallace. Wallace had the building surrounded by state troopers. 1963 - "The CBS Evening News" was lengthened from 15 to 30 minutes. 1969 - Ho Chi Minh died. He was the president of North Vietnam. 1969 - NBC-TV canceled "Star Trek." The show had debuted on September 8, 1966. 1973 - Billy Martin was fired as manager of the Detroit Tigers. Martin was relieved of his duties three days after ordering his pitchers to throw spitballs against Cleveland Indians batters. 1985 - It was announced that the Titanic had been found on September 1 by a U.S. and French expedition 560 miles off Newfoundland. The luxury liner had been missing for 73 years. 1986 - Cathy Evelyn Smith was sentenced to three years in prison for involuntary manslaughter in connection with the overdose death of John Belushi. 1991 - The U.S. formally recognized the independence of Lithuania, Lativa and Estonia. 1992 - The U.S. and Russia agreed to a joint venture to build a space station. 1996 - Muslim rebels and the Philippine government signed a pact formally ending 26-years of insurgency that had killed more than 120,000 people. 1998 - In Canada, pilots for Canada's largest airline launch their first strike in Air Canada's history. 1998 - 229 people were killed when a Swissair jetliner crashed into the Atlantic near Peggy's Cove, Nova Scotia. The pilot had reported smoke in the cockpit a few minutes before the crash.
1666 The great fire of London broke out, destroying much of the city, including St. Paul's Cathedral. 1789 The U.S. Treasury Department was established. 1901 Vice President Theodore Roosevelt gave his "speak softly and carry a big stick" speech, regarding foreign policy, at the Minnesota State Fair. 1945 Japan's formal surrender in World War II was celebrated as Victory over Japan (V-J) Day. 1945 Ho Chi Minh declared Vietnam an independent republic. 1963 Alabama governor George Wallace prevented the racial integration of Tuskegee High School by encircling the building with state troopers. 1969 North Vietnamese president Chi Minh died.
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/sep02.htm
http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history
http://www.infoplease.com/dayinhistory
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