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!
Saturday, August 31, 2013
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:
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
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 Gdańsk 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:
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
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:
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
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 Nándorfehérvár, now known
as Belgrade.
1526 - Hungary conquered by Turks in Battle of Mohács
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 Chōsen 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 für 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
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
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:
“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:
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:
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
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.)
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
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