<< Mar 03|      HISTORY “4” “2”DAY      |Mar 05 >>
Events, deaths, births, of MAR 04
[For Mar 04 Julian go to Gregorian date: 1583~1699: Mar 14 — 1700s: Mar 15 — 1800s: Mar 16 — 1900~2099: Mar 17]
ALTERNATE SITES    ALL FOR 030304      ANY DAY  OF THE YEAR IN HISTORY     ART “4” MAR 04
• US warns Latin America against communism... • Nothing to fear but fear itself... • The Old Man and the Sea by Hemingway...• Saladin dies... • Chisholm, of the Trail, dies... • New Newton palmtop... • Computers to replace AT&T operators... • Advice to US president about more troops for Vietnam... • Real estate billionaire is born… • Death of 1st Bank of the US… • Britain fails to capture Enigma... • First WW II US bombing of Berlin... • US Constitution becomes effective... •  Convictions for Trade Center bombing... • Head of Murder, Inc., goes to electric chair... • In Finland, Kollaa still holding out against Soviet aggression... • Father Southwell is martyred... • Lissajous is born... • Charles Dibdin is born... • Bible Society is founded... • First Daimler car... • The AAA is founded... • Hacker attack...
On a 04 March:
2001 Swiss referendum overwhelmingly rejects a proposal for immediate membership talks with the European Union.
2001 El candidato del Partido Liberal y jefe del gobierno andorrano, Marc Forné Moline, logra la mayoría absoluta en las elecciones legislativas.
1999 Outraging Italian authorities, a military jury in North Carolina cleared a Marine pilot of charges he was flying recklessly when his jet sliced through a ski gondola cable in the Alps, sending 20 people plunging to their deaths. [As usual, the military and police in the US are treated as if they had a license to kill innocent civilians, especially foreigners].
1999 El proceso de paz en Irlanda queda bloqueado ante la negativa del IRA a entregar las armas.
1998 Microsoft, la compañía liderada por Bill Gates, decide modificar los contratos que obligan a muchos proveedores de Internet a ofrecer en exclusividad el software de navegación fabricado por su empresas.
1998 Hacker attack    ^top^
      Computers in government and university offices across the country crash as a result. The crash affects computers running Windows NT at MIT, Northwestern University, the University of Minnesota, and the University of California campuses at Berkeley, Irvine, Los Angeles, and San Diego. Naval computers are also affected.
1997 Comet Hale-Bopp directly above the Sun (1.04 AU)
1997 President Clinton bans federally funded human cloning research, saying that the creation of life is "a miracle that reaches beyond laboratory science."
1995 Blind teenage boy receives a 'Bionic Eye' at a Washington Hospital.
1994 New Newton introduced    ^top^
      Apple tries to save face after the embarrassing flop of the Newton MessagePad, which debuted in the summer of 1993. Critics had panned the product for its inconsistent handwriting recognition. The new version improves handwritten message formats and sells for a lower price of $599 (versus $699 for the earlier version).      Despite the changes, Apple continued to struggle with the product. Ultimately, handheld computers did catch on with the success of the PalmPilot and similar products, but it was too late for the Newton-the product was discontinued in 1998.
1994 Four convicted in Trade Center bombing trial    ^top^
      Just over a year after a terrorist bomb exploded in New York City's World Trade Center, killing six people, injuring hundreds, and causing hundreds of millions of dollars in damage, Mohammed A. Salmeh, Ahmad M. Ajaj, Nidal A. Ayyad, and Mahmud Abouhalima are convicted by a federal jury for planning and executing the attack. Twenty days later, the four residents of New York, members of a radical Islamic fundamentalist organization, are sentenced to life in prison with no possibility of parole.
      On February 26, 1993, a truck bomb exploded in a parking garage of the World Trade Center in New York City, leaving a crater two-hundred-feet-wide and causing several interior walls and floors of the twin towers to collapse. Although the terrorist bomb failed to seriously damage the main structures of the skyscrapers, six people were killed and several hundred were injured.
      City authorities and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) undertook a massive manhunt for suspects, and by the end of June, nine radical Islamic fundamentalists had been arrested. In the subsequent criminal trial, the Trade Center attack was alleged to be part of a larger terrorist conspiracy to bomb various New York landmarks in protest of America's continuing support of Israel and Egypt's secular governments.
      On 04 March 1994, four of the defendants are convicted. On 06 October 1995, in a separate federal trial, Sheik Omar Abdel-Rahman, a radical Islamic cleric, was convicted along with nine others for their role in the alleged terrorist conspiracy, although none of the defendants were found guilty of carrying out the actual World Trade Center bombing. Finally, on 12 July 1997, Ramzi Ahmed Yousef and Eyad Ismoil, arrested in Pakistan and Jordan respectively in 1995, were convicted of masterminding the bombing and were subsequently sentenced to life without parole.
      During the trial, US agents testified that, after his capture, Yousef revealed to them that he had considered a poison gas attack on the World Trade Center, but instead decided to bomb the building in an attempt to topple one of the twin 110-story towers into the other, a disaster which would have killed as many as 250'000 people.
1992 AT&T says it will replace 18'000 operators with computers    ^top^
      AT&T announced it would close thirty-one offices around the country and replace nearly one-third of its operators with computerized information systems. Some 18'000 operators would be replaced with voice-recognition software, which could provide phone numbers and other information.
1991 Los independentistas de Letonia y de Estonia vencen en los plebiscitos correspondientes para separarse de la URSS.
1989 Eastern Airlines machinists strike.
1989 Time Inc. and Warner Communications Inc. announced plans to merge into the world's largest media and entertainment conglomerate.
1987 President Reagan addressed the nation on the Iran-Contra affair, acknowledging that his overtures to Iran had "deteriorated" into an arms-for-hostages deal. [No one suggest impeaching him, as he ought to have been]
1985 Virtual ban on leaded gas ordered by EPA
1981 A jury in Salt Lake City convicts Joseph Paul Franklin, an avowed racist, of violating the civil rights of two Black men who were shot to death.
1980 Robert Mugabe's ZANU-PF wins parliamentary election in Zimbabwe.
1979 US Voyager I photo reveals Jupiter's rings
1974 Harold Wilson replaces resigning Ed Heath as British premier.
1972 Libya & USSR signs cooperation treaty
1972 Erhard Keller (Germany) skates world record 1000 meter (1:18.5)
1968 US president advised to send only 22'000 more soldiers to Vietnam.    ^top^
      In a draft memorandum to the president, the Ad Hoc Task Force on Vietnam advises that the administration send 22,000 more soldiers to Vietnam, but make deployment of the additional 185,000 men previously requested by Gen. William Westmoreland (senior US commander in Vietnam) contingent on future developments.
      The Task Force was a group of senior policy advisors including Secretary of Defense Clark Clifford; Central Intelligence Agency Director Richard Helms; General Maxwell Taylor; Assistant Secretary of State for Far Eastern Affairs William Bundy; and Paul Warnke, head of the Pentagon's politico-military policy office. President Johnson requested that the Task Force study a request by the Joint Chiefs of Staff and General Westmoreland for more than 200'000 additional troops to augment US forces in Vietnam and to strengthen US security in other parts of the world. President Johnson asked that the memorandum be sent to General Westmoreland, who, in a reply four days later, welcomed the additional 22'000 troops, but insisted that he still needed the full requested reinforcements by year's end. Ultimately, President Johnson and his advisers, seeking a way to disengage from the war, refused Westmoreland's request for more troops.
1968 Martin Luther King Jr announces plans for Poor People's Campaign.
1968 Pablo Picasso dona al museo que lleva su nombre, en Barcelona, su extraordinaria serie de 45 lienzos inspirada en Las Meninas. de Velázquez. — In 1957, at age 76, Picasso spent four intense months producing 45 variations [one of them] of Velázquez's masterpiece Las Meninas — PICASSO LINKS
1966 North Sea Gas is first pumped ashore by BP
1966 London's "Evening Standard" newspaper published an interview with Beatle John Lennon in which he remarked: 'Christianity will... vanish and shrink... We're more popular than Jesus Christ right now.' The quote touched off a storm of international protest, resulting in burnings and boycotts of the Beatles' records.
1964 Jimmy Hoffa convicted of jury tampering
1962 AEC announces 1st atomic power plant in Antarctica in operation.
1961 Paul-Henri Spaak resigns as Secretary-General of NATO.
1959 El primer ministro soviético Nikita Sergeievich Kruschov anuncia un tratado de paz por separado con la RDA.
1954 US warns Latin America against international communism.    ^top^
      Speaking before the 10th Inter-American Conference, Secretary of State John Foster Dulles warns that "international communism" is making inroads in the Western Hemisphere and asks the nations of Latin America to condemn this danger. Dulles's speech was part of a series of actions designed to put pressure on the leftist government of Guatemala, a nation in which US policymakers feared communism had established a beachhead. Dulles was stern and direct as he declared that there was not "a single country in this hemisphere which has not been penetrated by the apparatus of international communism acting under orders from Moscow." Communism, he continued, was an "alien despotism," and he asked the nations of Latin America to "deny it the right to prey upon our hemisphere." "There is no place here," he concluded, "for political institutions which serve alien masters." Though he did not mention it by name, it was clear to most observers that Dulles was targeting Guatemala.
      The United States had been concerned about political developments in Guatemala since 1944, when a leftist revolution overthrew long-time dictator Jorge Ubico. In the years since, US policymakers were increasingly fearful that Communist elements were growing in power in Guatemala and deeply troubled by government policies that seemed to threaten US business interests that nation. By 1954, Dulles and President Dwight D. Eisenhower were convinced that international communism had established a power base in the Western Hemisphere that needed to be eliminated. As evidence, they pointed to Guatemala's expropriation of foreign-owned lands and industries, its "socialistic" labor legislation, and vague allegations about Guatemala's assistance to revolutionary movements in other Latin American nations. Dulles's speech did get some results. The Latin American representatives at the meeting passed a resolution condemning "international communism." As Dulles was to discover, however, the Latin American governments would go no further. In May, Dulles requested that the Organization of American States (OAS) consider taking direct action against Guatemala. The OAS was established in 1948 by the nations of Latin America and the United States to help in settling hemispheric disputes. Dulles's request fell on deaf ears, however. Despite their condemnation of "international communism," the other nations of Latin America were reluctant to sanction direct intervention in another country's internal affairs. At that point, Eisenhower unleashed the Central Intelligence Agency. Through a combination of propaganda, covert bombings, and the establishment of a mercenary force of "counter-revolutionaries" in neighboring Nicaragua and Honduras, the CIA was able to destabilize the Guatemalan government, which fell from power in June 1954. An anti-Communist dictatorship led by Carlos Castillo Armas replaced it.
1949 Andrei Vishinsky succeeds Molotov as Soviet Foreign minister.
1948 Firma del acuerdo chileno-argentino sobre la soberanía de la Antártida, por el que ambos países se comprometen a actuar de común acuerdo en defensa del territorio.
1945 Finland declares war on Nazi-Germany
1944 Anti-Germany strikes in North Italy.
1944 Dimite en Cuba el gobierno de Ramón Zaidyn. El presidente Fulgencio Batista y Zaldívar forma un nuevo gobierno.
1944 First US bombing of Berlin in World War II.   ^top^
      The US Eighth Air Force launches the first American bombing raid against the German capital. The British Royal Air Force (RAF) had been conducting night raids against Berlin and other German cities since November 1943, suffering losses at increasingly heavy rates. While the British inflicted significant damage against their targets, the German defenses proved quite effective: The RAF flew 35 major raids between November 1943 and March 1944 and lost 1047 aircraft, with an even greater number damaged.
      Having already suffered heavy losses during day raids of various German industrial centers, the Americans had been cautious in pursuing night raids. But in March, with the RAF exhausted, the US Eighth Air Force finally pursued night bombing and made Berlin its primary target. Fourteen US bomber wings took off for Germany from England on the evening of March 4; only one plane reached Berlin (the rest dropped their loads elsewhere; few planes were lost to German defenses). In retrospect, the initial American attack was considered "none too successful" (as recorded in the official history of US Army Air Force). Subsequent attacks in March were more effective.
1943 Transport nr 50 departs with French Jews to Maidanek/Sobibor
1933 Inaugural Address of US President Franklin D. Roosevelt (First Term), in which he says: "We have nothing to fear but fear itself"    ^top^
     In the depths of the Great Depression, Franklin Delano Roosevelt is inaugurated as the 32nd president of the United States. In his famous inaugural address, delivered outside the east wing of the US Capitol, Roosevelt outlined his "New Deal"--an expansion of the federal government as an instrument of employment opportunity and welfare--and told Americans that "the only thing we have to fear is fear itself." Although it was a rainy day in Washington, and gusts of rain blew over Roosevelt as he spoke, he delivered a speech that radiated optimism and competence, and a broad majority of Americans united behind their new president and his radical economic proposals to lead the nation out of the Great Depression.
      Born into an upper-class family in Hyde Park, New York, in 1882, Roosevelt was the fifth cousin of Theodore Roosevelt, who served as the 26th US president from 1901 to 1909. In 1905, Franklin Roosevelt, who was at the time a student at Columbia University Law School, married Anna Eleanor Roosevelt, the niece of Theodore Roosevelt. After three years as a lawyer, he decided to follow his cousin Theodore's lead and sought public office, winning election to the New York State Senate in 1910 as a Democrat. He soon won a reputation as a charismatic politician dedicated to social and economic reform. Roosevelt supported the progressive New Jersey governor Woodrow Wilson in his bid for the Democratic presidential nomination, and after Wilson's election in 1912 Roosevelt was appointed assistant secretary of the US Navy, a post that Theodore Roosevelt once held. In 1920, Roosevelt, who had proved himself a gifted administrator, won the Democratic nomination for vice president on a ticket with James Cox. The Democrats lost in a landslide to Republicans Warren Harding and Calvin Coolidge, and Roosevelt returned to his law practice and undertook several business ventures.
      In 1921, he was stricken with poliomyelitis, the virus that causes the crippling disease of polio. He spent several years recovering from what was at first nearly total paralysis, and his wife, Eleanor, kept his name alive in Democratic circles. He never fully covered and was forced to use braces or a wheelchair to move around for the rest of his life.
      In 1924, Roosevelt returned to politics when he nominated New York Governor Alfred E. Smith for the presidency with a rousing speech at the Democratic National Convention. In 1928, he again nominated Smith, and the outgoing New York governor urged Roosevelt to run for his gubernatorial seat. Roosevelt campaigned across the state by automobile and was elected even as the state voted for Republican Herbert Hoover in the presidential election.
      As governor, Roosevelt worked for tax relief for farmers and in 1930 won a resounding electoral victory just as the economic recession brought on by the October 1929 stock market crash was turning into a major depression. During his second term, Governor Roosevelt mobilized the state government to play an active role in providing relief and spurring economic recovery. His aggressive approach to the economic crisis, coupled with his obvious political abilities, gave him the Democratic presidential nomination in 1932.
      Roosevelt had no trouble defeating President Herbert Hoover, who many blamed for the Depression, and the governor carried all but six states. During the next four months, the economy continued to decline, and when Roosevelt takes office on 04 March 1933, most banks were closed, farms were suffering, 13 million workers were unemployed, and industrial production stood at just over half its 1929 level.
      Aided by a Democratic Congress, Roosevelt took prompt, decisive action, and most of his New Deal proposals, such as the Agricultural Adjustment Act, National Industrial Recovery Act, and creation of the Public Works Administration and Tennessee Valley Authority, were approved within his first 100 days in office. Although criticized by many in the business community, Roosevelt's progressive legislation improved America's economic climate, and in 1936 he easily won reelection.
      During his second term, he became increasingly concerned with German and Japanese aggression and so began a long campaign to awaken America from its isolationist slumber. In 1940, with World War II raging in Europe and the Pacific, Roosevelt agreed to run for an unprecedented third term. Reelected by Americans who valued his strong leadership, he proved a highly effective commander in chief after the December 1941 US entrance into the war. Under Roosevelt's guidance, America became, in his own words, the "great arsenal of democracy" and succeeded in shifting the balance of power in World War II firmly in the Allies' favor. In 1944, with the war not yet won, he was reelected to a fourth term.
      Three months after his inauguration, while resting at his retreat at Warm Springs, Georgia, Roosevelt died of a massive cerebral hemorrhage at the age of 63. Millions of Americans mourned the death of the man who led the United States through two of the greatest crises of the 20th century: the Great Depression and World War II. Roosevelt's unparalleled 13 years as president led to the passing of the 22nd Amendment to the US Constitution, which limited future presidents to a maximum of two consecutive elected terms in office.
1933 Chancellor Dollfuss disdolves Austrian parliament.
1929 Herbert Hoover inaugurated as 31st President (his Inaugural Address)
1929 Charles Curtis (R-Kans) becomes first native American VP.
1926 De Geer government in Netherlands takes office.
1925 US President Coolidge's inauguration broadcast live on 21 radio stations. (His Inaugural Address)
1925 Swain's Island (near American Samoa) annexed by US.
1924 La Asamblea Nacional Turca, apoyada por el jefe del Estado, Mustafá Kemal “Atatürk”, aprueba la abolición del Califato.
1923 Lenin's last article in Pravda (about Red bureaucracy).
1921 Inaugural Address of US President Warren G. Harding.
1920 Last day of Julian civil calendar in Greece.
1919 Se inaugura en Moscú la Tercera Internacional Comunista, propiciada por la URSS, en la que están representados todos los partidos comunistas en proporción al número de sus afiliados.
1918 Terek Autonomous Republic established in RSFSR (until 1921)
1917 Inaugural Address of US President Woodrow Wilson, Second Term.
1917 Jeannette Rankin (Rep-R-Mont) becomes first female member of Congress
1913 Woodrow Wilson inaugurated for his first term as 28th US President (his Inaugural Address) — Es inaugurado presidente de Estados Unidos Thomas Woodrow Wilson, quien será el autor de los famosos "catorce puntos", base de la paz después de la Primera Guerra Mundial.
1913 US Department of Commerce & Labor split into separate departments
1913 First US law regulating the shooting of migratory birds passed
1911 Victor Berger (Wisconsin) becomes first socialist congressman in US
1909 President Taft sworn-in during 10" snowstorm.
1909 Inaugural Address of US President William Howard Taft
1905 Inaugural Address of US President Theodore Roosevelt [2nd term]
1901 Inaugural Address of US President William McKinley Second Term. 1st advance copy of inaugural speech (Jefferson-National Intelligencer)
1897 William McKinley inaugurated for his first term as 25th President of US (his Inaugural Address)
1893 Grover Cleveland (D) becomes 22nd US president for the 2nd time
1893 Francis Dhanis' army attacksthe Lualaba, occupies Nyangwe
1893 Inaugural Address of US President Grover Cleveland Second Term.
1889 Benjamin Harrison inaugurated as 23rd President (his Inaugural Address)
1885Grover Cleveland inaugrated (first term) as 1st Democratic President since Civil War (his Inaugural Address)
1881 James A Garfield inaugurated as 20th President (his Inaugural Address)
1881 California becomes first state to pass plant quarantine legislation.
1881 South African President Kruger accepts ceasefire
1881 Conand Doyle's characters Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson begin A Study in Scarlet, first case together
1876 US Congress decides to impeach Minister of War Belknap
1873 Ulysses S. Grant inaugurated for his 2nd term as 18th President (his Inaugural Address)
1869 Inaugural Address of US President Ulysses S. Grant, First Term.
1865 Inaugural Address of US President Abraham Lincoln Second Term.
1865 Confederate congress approves final design of "official flag"
1863 US President Lincoln signs an act creating Idaho Territory.
1863 Battle of Thompson's Station, Tennessee
1862 Siege of New Madrid, Missouri continues
1861 Abraham Lincoln inaugurated for his first term as 16th US President; 1st time US has 5 former Presidents living. (His Inaugural Address)
1861 Confederate States adopt "Stars and Bars" flag.
1857 Inaugural Address of US President James Buchanan (Democrat)
1853 Inaugural Address of US President Franklin Pierce
1853 William Rufus de Vane King (D) sworn in as 13th US VP
1849 US had no president, Polks term ends on a Sunday, Taylor couldn't be sworn-in until the next day, Sen David Atchison (pres pro tem) term ended 3 March.
1848 Sardinia-Piemonte gets new Constitution.
1845 James Knox Polk inaugrated as 11th President (his Inaugural Address)
1841 William Henry Harrison William Henry Harrison makes the longest US Presidential Inaugural Address: 8578 words, 1 hour and 45 minutes, almost twice as many as any other president. Despite the cold weather, Harrison refuses to wear a coat or hat.. He would die of pneumonia on 04 April 1841.
1837 Martin Van Buren inaugrated as 8th US President (his Inaugural Address)
1835 HMS Beagle moves into Bay of Concepción, with Charles Darwin aboard.
1833 Inaugural Address of US President Andrew Jackson Second Term.
1829 Andrew Jackson inaugurated for his first term as 7th US President (his Inaugural Address). An unruly crowd mobs the White House during the inaugural reception.
1825 John Quincy Adams inaugrated as 6th US President (his Inaugural Address)
1817 Inaugural Address of US President James Monroe, First Term.
1813 Inaugural Address of US President James Madison, Second Term.
1813 El general español Félix María Calleja del Rey, conde de Calderón, toma posesión del cargo de virrey de México.
1809 Madison becomes first president inaugurated in American-made clothes
1809 Inaugural Address of US President James Madison, First Term. — llega a ser el cuarto presidente de Estados Unidos, cargo en el que permanecerá hasta 1817.
1805 Inaugural Address of US President Thomas Jefferson, Second Term.
1801 Inaugural Address of US President Thomas Jefferson, First Term. He is the first president inaugurated in Washington DC
1798 Catholic women forced to do penance for kindling sabbath fire for Jews.
1797 Inaugural Address of US President John Adams.
1793 French troops conquer Geertruidenberg Netherlands.
1793 US President Geoge Washington's 2nd inauguration, shortest Inaugural Address (135 words):    ^top^
Fellow Citizens:
      I am again called upon by the voice of my country to execute the functions of its Chief Magistrate. When the occasion proper for it shall arrive, I shall endeavor to express the high sense I entertain of this distinguished honor, and of the confidence which has been reposed in me by the people of united America.
      Previous to the execution of any official act of the President the Constitution requires an oath of office. This oath I am now about to take, and in your presence: That if it shall be found during my administration of the Government I have in any instance violated willingly or knowingly the injunctions thereof, I may (besides incurring constitutional punishment) be subject to the upbraidings of all who are now witnesses of the present solemn ceremony.
1791 President Washington calls the US Senate into its first special session.
1791 Vermont admitted as 14th state (first addition to the 13 former colonies)
1789 George Washington asume el cargo de presidente de los Estados Unidos.
1789 Government under the US Constitution begins    ^top^
      The first session of the US Congress is held in New York City as the US Constitution takes effect. However, of the total of twenty-two senators and fifty-nine representatives called to represent the eleven states who have ratified the document, only nine senators and thirteen representatives show up to begin negotiations for its amendment.
      In 1786, defects in the Articles of Confederation became apparent, such as the lack of central authority over foreign and domestic commerce and the inability of Congress to levy taxes, leading Congress to endorse a plan to draft a new constitution. On 17 September 1787, at the conclusion of the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the new US constitution, creating a strong federal government with an intricate system of checks and balances, was signed by thirty-eight of forty-one delegates to the convention.
      As dictated by Article VII, the document would not become binding until it was ratified by nine out of the thirteen states. The Constitution was thus sent to the state legislatures and beginning on 07 December, five states — Delaware, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Georgia, and Connecticut — ratified it in quick succession. However, other states, especially Massachusetts, opposed the document for its failure to reserve powers not delegated by the Constitution to the states and its lack of constitutional protection for basic political rights such as freedom of speech, religion, and the press, and the right to bear arms.
      In February of 1788, a compromise was reached under which Massachusetts and other states would agree to ratify the document with the assurance that amendments would be immediately adopted. The Constitution was thus narrowly ratified in Massachusetts, followed by Maryland and South Carolina. On 21 June 1788, New Hampshire became the ninth state to ratify the document, making it binding, and government under the US Constitution was scheduled to begin on 04 March 1789.
      On 25 September 1789, after several months of debate, the first Congress of the United States adopted twelve amendments to the US Constitution — the Bill of Rights — and sent them to the states for ratification. This action led to the ratification of the Constitution by the last of the thirteen original colonies: North Carolina and Rhode Island.
1774 First sighting of Orion nebula (William Herschel)
1741 English fleet under Admiral Ogle reaches Cartagena
1699 Jews are expelled from Lubeck Germany
1681 England's King Charles II grants a charter to William Penn for an area of land that later will be Pennsylvania.
1665 English King Charles II declares war on Netherlands
1621 Jakarta, Java renamed Batavia
1611 George Abbot appointed archbishop of Canterbury.
1493 Cristóbal Colón, en La Niña, de vuelta de su primer viaje a América, llega a Lisboa, donde es recibido por el rey de Portugal.
1461 Battle at Towton: Duke Edward of York beats English queen Margaret Edward IV recognized as king of England
1152 Frederik I Barbarossa elected Roman-German king
TO THE TOP
Deaths which occurred on a March 04:
2002 Taqueisha Greene, 24, her girl Destiny Greene, 3, and boy Lamar Greene, 1; and her mother's stepdaughter, Davina Cotten, 5, in 02:00 fire in their firetrap small 3rd-floor apartment above a barbershop in a run-down strip mall at 1803 Fulton Street, in the Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn. Taqueisha's other boy, Shamar Greene, 6, is critically burned but manages to give the alarm to a neighbor. The children's father is in prison. Taqueisha and her children had moved in from a Harlem shelter, in late December 2001.
2002 Mrs. Bushra Kweik, her son Mohammed, 10, her daughters Aziza, 14, and Barra, 13, and Arafat al-Masri, 16, and Haima al-Masri, 4, in Ramallah, West Bank, by two Israeli tank shells fired at the pickup truck belonging to Islamic militant leader, Bushra's husband Hussein Abu Kweik who was not there), in which Mrs. Kweik was driveng her children home frem school. The al-Masri children, in another car, are hit by shrapnell from the shells. Abu Kweik vows revenge. The Israeli military says that it is “investigating.” A spokesman adds: “If it turns out that the Israeli Defense Forces killed civilians, we will not hesitate to apologize.” Hamas officials said Abu Kweik belonged to Hamas' political wing, and was not involved in attacks on Israelis. According to the Palestinian Red Crescent, in 17 months of the al-Aqsa intifada, Israelis have killed 1065 Palestinians, including 283 children, and injured 18'060.
2002 Dr. Khalil Sulaiman, Head of Palestinian Red Crescent in the Jenin refugee camp, by Israeli gunfire hitting his ambulance which was coming to the aid of dozens of Palestinians shot (an least four others are dead).
2002 Ayman Ghanem, 19, Palestinian student on his way to school, shot from 60 m at an Israeli military checkpoint west of Nablus, West Bank.
2002 Four Palestinian civilians and Amjad al Pahori, senior Fatah member, in Israeli attack on Jenin refugee camp, West Bank, supported by helicopter gunships.
2002 Ahmad Hashash, 15, Palestinian, from wounds sustained during the Isreali attack against the Balatta refugee camp on 02 March 2002.
2002 More dead in Gujarat, India, as Hindu mobs continue to kill Moslems in areas where the army presence is inadequate, and some rioters being shot by the army or police. The total of confirmed dead in 6 days now exceeds 550.
2001 Some 70 persons as a bus with about 60 and two cars fall 50 meters into the rain-swollen Douro river, near Penafiel, Portugal, as a pillar of a 116-year-old bridge collapses with a 80-m section of the 200-m bridge, at about 21:00.
2001 Three Indian soldiers and 2 of the Islamic guerillas attacking an army camp outside of Baramulla, 100 km northeast of Srinagar.
2001 Osama Naghnaghia, 21, Palestinian shot dead late in the day when a group of gunmen battled an Israeli army patrol near the West Bank town of Jenin..
2001 A suicide bomber and the 3 he kills blowing himself up in a crowd waiting at a crosswalk in Netanya, Israel, at 08:55. The Israeli dead are a man, 85, and two women. At least 45 persons are injured.
2001 Harold Stassen, 92, liberal Republican govenor of Minnesota, then 9 times candidate to the Republican nomination to the US presidency.
2001 Clair Juhl, 48, shot by policeman who stopped him for traffic violation.
     Deputy Chad Hunt, 26, owes his life to the policy requiring deputies to wear protective vests. Hunt was shot once in the chest, in the afternoon, after stopping Clair Juhl of Amherst one mile west and one mile south of Odessa (Buffalo County, New York) at 24th Road and Amherst Road on a routine traffic stop. Juhl was pronounced dead at Kearney's Good Samaritan Hospital from a gunshot wound to the chest following a scuffle with Hunt. Hunt remains in fair condition today after having surgery that same evening.
      Juhl was considered to be in police custody at the time of the shooting. State law requires a grand jury investigation whenever someone dies in police custody or pursuit. Grand juries are closed to the public. The shooting happened at 17:11 p.m. after Hunt notified the 911 communications center that he was making a traffic stop with a blue Pontiac Grand Am at the gravel intersection of 24th Road and Amherst Road. Juhl got out of his vehicle and approached the deputy, who met Juhl near the cruiser.
      Hunt didn't give dispatchers any indication that anything was wrong when he made the traffic stop or if he knew Juhl. It's unknown if the men exchanged words. However, a scuffle broke out, and both men were shot at close range. Hunt did not lose consciousness after the shooting and was able to use a portable radio attached to the shoulder of his uniform to notify the communications center that he had been shot.
1999 Nicholas Lemak, 7, Emily Lemak, 6, and Thomas Lemak, 3, murdered by their mother Marilyn Lemak (née Morrissey), 44 [photos below], in the Chicago area. First she fed her children peanut butter laced with her anti-anxiety medication, then laid them down to sleep and put her hand over their mouths and pinched their noses to suffocate them. Then she goes downstairs to look for something to kill herself. According to what she said, she takes some of her medication and slashes her wrists with a knife, never expecting to wake up. She wakes up the next morning, looks for the knife to kill herself, can't find it and eventually calls 911. On 05 September 1985, Marilyn Morrissey married David Lemak, now an emergency medicine physician. Marilyn Lemak was a part-time nurse. They are in the process of divorce at the time of the murders. On 19 December 2001, a jury would find Marilyn Lemak guilty of murder, rejecting her insanity defense..
1999 Harry A. Blackmun, 90, Retired Supreme Court Justice who wrote the infamous 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that legalized abortion, in Arlington, Va.
1996 A suicide bomber and the 13 he kills blowing himself up outside a Tel Aviv shopping center. It is the fourth such attack in nine days.
1992 Christian K Nelson, 92, inventor (Eskimo Pie)
1986 Henri Knap, 75, Dutch journalist/writer
1983 Hergé [Georges Rémi], 75, Belgian cartoonist (Rin-Tin-Tin)
1978 Chicago Daily News, founded in 1875, publishes last issue
1977: 1541 in earthquake in Romania.
1977 Andrés Caicedo Estela, escritor y cineasta colombiano.
1970 Eurydice, French submarine, explodes.
1966: 64 as Canadian Pacific airliner explodes on landing in Tokyo.
1963 William Carlos Williams, 79, US physician/poet
1960: 100 as French freighter La Coubre explodes in Havana, Cuba.
1958 Albert Kuyle [Lou Kuitenbrouwer], writer (Jesus' Carpet),
1953 Sergei S. Prokofiev, 61, Russian composer (Peter & the wolf)
1948 Antonin Artaud, 51, French poet/actor (Napoleon)
1944 Louis “Lepke” Buchalter, head of Murder, Inc., in the electric chair    ^top^
      Buchalter, a leader of US organized crime during the 1930s, is executed for murder at Sing Sing Prison in Ossining, New York. In the early 1930s, Louis Lepke joined with fellow crime boss Charles "Lucky" Luciano in forming the "Syndicate," a tight interstate criminal organization that recognized the value of strong political connections and the shortcomings of excessive gang warfare. The Syndicate brought crime leaders from across the county into an invisible government, divided the nation into crime territories boundaries, and established "Murder, Inc.," a troop of hired guns that punished those who violated the Syndicate's decrees. While Luciano led the powerful Mafia factions of the Syndicate, Lepke headed Murder, Inc., a Brooklyn, New York, gang of thugs that he developed into a formidable assassin squad. Under the command of Lepke and Albert Anastasia, the gunmen committed well over a hundred murders. In the late 1930s, District Attorney Thomas E. Dewey of New York, in opposition to several corrupt local politicians, began to uncover the illegal activities of the Syndicate and Murder, Inc. Luciano was tried and convicted, and in 1939, Lepke surrendered to FBI chief J. Edgar Hoover to face a charge of union racketeering. Under a secret agreement, he pleaded guilt to a lesser charge and was sentenced to fourteen years in a federal penitentiary. However, a mob informer later agreed to testify on Lepke's career of murder, and he was retried, convicted, and sentenced to death. On March 4, 1944, Louis "Lepke" Buchalter is executed in the Sing Sing Prison's electric chair.
      Louis "Lepke" Buchalter, the head of Murder, Inc., is executed at Sing Sing Prison in New York. Lepke was the leader of the country’s largest crime syndicate throughout the 1930s and was making nearly $50 million a year from his various enterprises. His downfall came when several members of his notorious killing squad turned into witnesses for the government. Lepke began his criminal career robbing pushcarts as a teenager. After meeting Jacob Shapiro while trying to rob the same pushcart, the two quickly became a formidable team. With Shapiro’s brute strength, the two established an extortion business, forcing pushcart owners to pay for protection. Lepke and Shapiro then joined Jacob Orgen’s Lower East Side gang and turned their attention to bigger game. One by one, Lepke and the gang terrorized the local garment workers unions. They took over control of the unions and forced kickback payments from both the members and the employers. Soon, they had taken over the entire New York garment industry. In the 1920s, they added liquor bootlegging and gambling to their repertoire, and later began importing heroin and other narcotics. Lepke assembled a large team of hired killers to enforce his control. At one time, this team may have included as many as 250 hit men. Lepke also began to coordinate operations with the other big crime kingpins around the nation. Along with Lucky Luciano, Meyer Lansky, and Dutch Schultz, Lepke virtually controlled organized crime throughout the United States. In 1935, Schultz wanted to kill New York District Attorney Thomas Dewey, but Lepke, fearing that such an attack would bring even more intense scrutiny and pressure from law enforcement, had Schultz killed instead. In order to generate additional income and keep his hit men occupied, Lepke started Murder, Inc. in 1933. Upon approval from the syndicate, Murder, Inc. employees would kill anyone for the right price. With his hit squad protecting him from rivals and paid-off judges and officers keeping him out of jail, Lepke was America’s premier criminal until he was betrayed by his own men. Reportedly, he was able to order final hits on his betrayers from jail before his execution in 1944.
1943 Pieter C Boutens, 73, Dutch poet (Beatrijs)
Enigma code machine 1941: 14 German sailors as British attack fails to capture Enigma.    ^top^
      The British navy raids a German position off the coast of Norway and inside the Arctic Circle-the Lofoten Islands. The raid, code name Operation Claymore, destroys the armed German trawler Krebs --but fails to achieve its objective, the capture of an Enigma coding machine.
      The Brits severely damaged the trawler, killed 14 German sailors, took another 25 prisoner, and destroyed the Germans' local stockpile of oil. While the attack boosted British public morale temporarily, the Enigma machine still eluded the British military. The commander of the Krebs, Lieutenant Hans Kupfinger, threw it overboard before he was killed in the raid, but the Brits were able to recover documents that gave clues to the Enigma's workings. British intelligence was able to piece together enough of the German coding system to track German naval activity for about five weeks.
     During the Second World War, German military and diplomatic communications were encoded using an electro-mechanical tool codenamed "Enigma". This device consisted of three wheels (chosen from a standard set) which were individually wired to change one letter code to another. To further encrypt the message, after each character, the wheels would be incremented (like a car's odometer) so that a different letter code would be produced for repeated characters. Enigma could only encrypt the twenty-six letters of the alphabet (which means all messages had to be in characters with no numbers, blanks or punctuation). A message was encoded using an agreed to (between the transmitter and receiver) set of wheels with specific starting positions. To encrypt the message, the text was simply keyed into the Enigma's keyboard and a light representing the encoded character was lit. Decoding messages was simply done by reversing the order of the wheels and running through the process again.
      England's ability to decode messages encrypted on "Enigma" machines was characterized as the greatest secret of the Second World War. It was so secret that this capability was unknown outside government circles until the war had been over for thirty years! The reason why "Ultra" (which was the British code name for the decoding effort) was kept secret for so long seems to be motivated by protecting the governments of the time and avoid the embarrassment of having to explain why they allowed the Germans to bomb cities without taking measures to protect civilians. The bombing of Coventry in 1940 was known to Prime Minister Churchill beforehand, who deliberately did not order the evacuation of civilians or the bolstering of anti-aircraft defenses before the raid in fear of tipping off the Germans that they were able to decode their most secret communications.
      The decoding of the "Enigma" messages by the English was accomplished by knowing parts of messages (such as the transmitting station's call letters) and trying every possible wheel and initial position to find those parts of the message that matched. This was done on a variety of elctro-mechanical computing "engines" which were design to run through different combinations as quickly as possible to find the known clear-text parts of the messages. On average, it took six months of effort (with early computers) to "break" one wheel selection and settings. Over the course of the war, the Germans specified several thousand different wheel selections and settings. In this time period (from 1938 to 1945), the British decoded approximately 50'000 messages, of the average 2000 intercepted each day.
      Codebreakers in Poland had started working on the Enigma before the German invasion as well as during the occupation.
      The Americans used their "Magic" program to decode Japanese diplomatic codes (which were used for military communications). The Americans took a different tack from the British and developed decrypting engines based on standard phone switching equipment (the English engines used custom hardware). The American's "engines" were much cheaper, faster and more reliable than their UK counterparts.
1940 Day 97 of Winter War: USSR aggression against Finland.    ^top^
More deaths due to Stalin's desire to grab Finnish territory.
Kollaa still holding out! Heavy fighting also in Vuosalmi and Gulf of Viborg
       Ladoga Karelia: Kollaa is still holding out! The 69th Infantry Regiment is holding its ground in the face of the massive Red Army offensive in Kollaa. Artillery shelling and patrol activities nevertheless continue.
      On the Isthmus, a Soviet assault launched at 6 o'clock in the morning leads by nightfall to the capture of a bridgehead near Äyräpää church.
      Around noon Russian troops supported by tanks once again come ashore at Vilajoki and Häränpäänniemi on Viipurinlahti bay. What little air power Finland has is concentrated to resist the enemy offensive across Viipurinlahti bay.
      Detachment Alfthan unsuccessfully attempts to take Lavajärvi village.
      The enemy threatens Kotka and Virolahti.
      A new combat detachment, Detachment Aarnio, is being formed to fight along the section of the front between Mustalampi and Lavajärvi with the task of cutting the enemy's supply lines.
      President Kyösti Kallio congratulates Commander-in-Chief Mannerheim on the destruction of a Russian tank brigade.
      Soviet military command in Leningrad denies bombing Finnish towns and villages and accuses the Finns of provocation.
      A crash between a goods train carrying children and an express train at Iittala, near Hämeenlinna, claims 31 lives; 11 of the dead are children.
      Abroad: today is Finnish day at the Holmenkollen games in Oslo. In a speech at Holmenkollen, the Finnish speedskater Clas Thunberg says: "My people hope that here in Norway you will realise that Finland's cause is also your cause. The Finns dying at the front are giving their lives to protect all of us in the Nordic countries." Thunberg's speech is followed by a rendering of the Finnish national anthem.
Kollaa kestää! Talvisodan 96. päivä, 04.maaliskuuta.1940    ^top^
       Kollaa kestää! Kollaalla JR 69 torjuu puna-armeijan suurhyökkäyksen. Tykkituli ja partiointi jatkuvat.
      Klo 06.00 alkaa neuvostohyökkäys, jonka vuoksi iltaan mennessä viholliselle menetetään sillanpää Äyräpään kirkon maastossa.
      Noin klo 12 panssareiden tukemat venäläisjoukot nousevat uudelleen maihin Viipurinlahden Vilajoella ja Häränpäänniemessä.
      Suomen vähäiset ilmavoimat keskitetään torjumaan vihollisen hyökkäystä Viipurinlahden yli.
      Osasto Alfthanin yritys vallata Lavajärven kylä epäonnistuu.
      Vihollinen uhkaa Kotkaa ja Virolahtea.
      Mustalammen ja Lavajärven välisen rintamanosan taisteluja käymään muodostetaan taisteluosasto Aarnio, jonka tehtäväksi määrätään vihollisen huoltotien katkaisu.
      Tasavallan Presidentti Kyösti Kallio osoittaa ylipäällikkö Mannerheimillekiitoksen hyökkäysvaunuprikaatin tuhoamisen johdosta.
      Leningradin sotilasjohto kiistää suomalaisten kaupunkien ja kylien pommittamisen syyttäen suomalaisia provokaatiosta.
      Iittalassa tapahtuu tuhoisa junaonnettomuus lapsia kuljettavan tavarajunan ja pikajunan törmätessä toisiinsa. Yhteentörmäyksessä kuolee 31 henkeä, joista 11 on lapsia.
      Ulkomailta: Holmenkollenin kisoissa vietetään tänään Suomen päivää.
      Pikaluistelija Clas Thunberg sanoi puheessaan Holmenkollenilla:"Kansani pyytää, että te täällä Norjassa oivallatte Suomen asian omaksi asiaksenne. Rintamalla kaatuvat suomalaiset kaatuvat Pohjolan puolesta." Thunbergin puheen jälkeen tilaisuudessa kuultiin Maamme-laulu.
Kollaa håller! Vinterkrigets 96 dag, den 04 mars 1940    ^top^
      Kollaa håller! JR 69 slår tillbaka Röda Arméns anstormning i Kollaa. Artillerield och patrullering fortsätter.
      Kl. 06.00 börjar en rysk offensiv som leder till att brohuvudet i terrängen kring Äyräpää kyrka går förlorad på kvällen.
      Ungefär kl. 12 stiger ryska trupper igen i land i Vilajoki och Häränpäänniemi i Viborgska viken.
      Finlands fåtaliga luftvapen koncentreras för att avvärja fiendens anfall över Viborgska viken.
      Avdelning Alfthan försöker erövra byn Lavajärvi men misslyckas.
      Fienden hotar Kotka och Vederlax.
      Stridsavdelning Aarnio bildas för att kämpa på frontavsnittet mellan Mustalampi och Lavajärvi. Avdelningens uppgift är att skära av fiendens försörjningsled.
      Republikens president Kyösti Kallio riktar ett tack till överbefälhavare Mannerheim för förintelsen av en stridsvagnsbrigad.
      Den militära ledningen i Leningrad förnekar bombningen av finska städer och byar, och beskyller finnarna för provokation.
      I Iittala sker en förödande tågolycka när ett godståg som transporterar barn och ett snälltåg kolliderar. Vid kollisionen omkommer 31 personer varav 11 är barn.
      Utrikes: Vid tävlingarna i Holmenkollen firar man idag Finlands dag.
      Skridskoåkaren Clas Thunberg sade i sitt tal i Holmenkollen:"Mitt folk ber att ni här i Norge tar er an Finlands sak. De soldater som stupar på fronten stupar för hela Norden."
      Efter Thunbergs tal följde hymnen Vårt land.
1927 Solomon Cicurel, 46, stabbed 8 times, shortly after midnight, in his Cairo mansion. The murder of the wealthy Jewish merchant is the crime of the year in Egypt.
1926 Pedro Morales Pino, músico y pintor colombiano.
1921 William Anderson, innocent Black, lynched in Baker County, Georgia, after been mistaken for a Black suspected of a crime.
1919 Georges Jules Auguste Caïn, French artist born on 14 April 1856.
1916 Franz Marc, born on 08 February 1880, German Expressionist painter, specialized in Animals, is killed fighting in WW I, near Verdun. — MORE ON MARC AT ART “4” MARCH — LINKS — Dog Lying in the Snow
1913 Edouard Frédéric Wilhelm Richter, French artist born on 13 June 1844.
1903 Joseph H. Shorthouse, 68, English writer (John Inglesant)
1908: 180 in fire of Collingwood OH primary school.
1906 Cuatro mil muertos en México por el tifus.
1894 Great fire in Shanghai; over 1000 buildings destroyed.
1888 Amos Bronson Alcott, 88, US theory / poet (Table Talk), author of Ralph Waldo Emerson: An Estimate of his Character and Genius: in Prose and Verse — Ralph Waldo Emerson: An Estimate of his Character and Genius: in Prose and Verse — Sonnets and Canzonets
1883 Alexander H Stephens, 71, Vice President Confederate States
1875 Gottfried Johan Pulian, German artist born on 27 July 1809.
1872 Cornelius David Krieghoff, Dutch Canadian painter born on 19 June 1815. — LINKS
1868 Jesse Chisholm, who pioneered the Chisholm Trail.    ^top^
      Jesse Chisholm, who blazed one of the West's most famous trails, dies in Oklahoma of food poisoning. Although the trail named for him later came to be one of the major cattle-drive routes between Texas and Kansas, Jesse Chisholm was a frontier trader, not a cattleman. Born in Tennessee of a Scottish father and a Cherokee mother, Chisholm was among the early pioneers who moved west into what is now the state of Arkansas. In his 20s, he joined a community of Cherokee Indians in northwestern Arkansas and became a frontier trader. His familiarity with both Anglo and Native American culture and language (he could reportedly speak 14 different Indian dialects) helped him build a thriving trade with the Osage, Wichita, Kiowa, and Commanche. Chisholm's knowledge of the Native Americans also made him useful to government officials. The US was eager to negotiate treaties with the tribes in the region, and Chisholm served as a liaison between tribal leaders and federal officials at several important councils. Many Indian leaders trusted and respected Chisholm, and he successfully negotiated for the release of numerous Anglo captives taken by the Kiowa and Commanche. Chisholm's vast knowledge of southwestern geography were invaluable in trailblazing. He led several important expeditions into the Southwest during the 1830s and 1840s, and during the Civil War opened a trading post near present-day Wichita, Kansas. Following the war, he blazed one of the first trading routes south down from Wichita to the Red River in central Texas. Eventually extended all the way south to the Gulf of Mexico, the trading route became known as the Chisholm Trail. A straight wagon road with easy river crossings and few steep grades, Chisholm designed his trail for the lumbering heavy freight wagons used for commerce. In 1867, a year before Chisholm died, his trail also began to be used for a different purpose: cattle drives. The rapidly growing Texas cattle industry needed to move its herds north to the railheads in Kansas, and Chisholm's gentle trail provided an ideal route. During the next five years, more than a million head traveled up the road, trampling down a path that was in some places 200 to 400 yards wide. Hooves and the erosion of wind and water eventually cut the trail down below the level of the plains it crossed, permanently carving Chisholm's Trail into the face of the earth and guaranteeing its lasting fame. Traces of the trail may still be seen to this day.
1852 (21 Feb Julian) Nikolay Vasil'evich Gogol', 42, Born in the Ukraine on 31 March (19 March Julian) 1809, he was a Russian humorist, dramatist, and novelist, whose novel Myortvye Dushi (Dead Souls) and short story Shinel (The Overcoat) are considered the foundations of the great 19th-century tradition of Russian Realism. — . GOGOL ONLINE (in English translations): Dead Souls — Taras Bulba and Other Tales — Taras Bulba and Other Tales — (in Russian original) Mertvye Dushi — Vechera na Khutore bliz Dikan'ki, Chast' 1, Chast' 2 — Revisor
1832 Jean-François Champollion, egiptólogo francés.
1811 Mariano Moreno, político argentino miembro de la primera Junta de Buenos Aires, fallece en viaje hacia Inglaterra por el Atlántico.
1811 First Bank of the US fails.    ^top^
      Because of the struggle between Federalists and states' rights advocates, First Bank of the United States was forced to liquidate its assets and shutter its doors after suffering the slings of local bankers and state-centric politicians. In 1791, the creation of the bank had been one of the first acts of the newly formed US Congress. But, the bank was an almost instant source of controversy: though backed by Federal funds, the bank was essentially a private company, complete with investors, which engendered a loud and powerful chorus of critics. Some feared that the bank would become an all too potent central institution, a la the Bank of England, while merchants hoping to open their own state-based financial institutions carped over the competition from the bank's network of branch offices. The call for dissolution grew louder when it was revealed that the bank's coffers leaned heavily on foreign investments, most notably from British interests. So, even though the bank was profitable and paid out relatively handsome dividends to investors, the critics won out and forced its demise.
1805 Jean-Baptiste Greuze, 79, French painter
1794 Henri D. comte de Larochejacquelin, 21, French Royalist Army leader.
1793 Isaak Ouwater, Dutch artist born on 16 March 1750.
1793 Frans Anton Zeiller, Austrian artist born on 03 May 1716.
1776 Johann Gerg Ziesenis, Danish artist born in 1716.
1766 Jacques-André-Joseph Camelot Aved (or Avet) “le Batave”, French painter specialized in portraits born on 12 January 1702. — LINKS — Madame Crozat
1761 Jacques-François Delyen (or Delien, Deslyens), French painter born in 1684. — LINKS — Portrait of a Man
1700 Lorenzo Pasinelli, Italian artist born on 04 September 1629. — MORE ON PASINELLI AT ART “4” MARCH — Amore disarmato dalle ninfe di Diana — Fanciulla con gabbietta vuota
1615 Hans von Aachen, German painter
1595 (22 February Julian) Robert Southwell, 33, English poet, hanged for becoming a Catholic priest    ^top^
      His grandfather, Sir Richard Southwell, had been a wealthy man and a prominent courtier in the reign of Henry VIII. It was Richard Southwell who in 1547 had brought the poet Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey, to the block, and Surrey had vainly begged to be allowed to "fight him in his shirt". Curiously enough their respective grandsons, Father Southwell and Philip, Earl of Arundel, were to be the most devoted of friends and fellow-prisoners for the Faith. On his mother's side the Jesuit was descended from the Copley and Shelley families, whence a remote connexion may be established between him an the poet Percy Bysshe Shelley. Robert Southwell was brought up a Catholic, and at a very early age was sent to be educated at Douai, where he was the pupil in philosophy of a Jesuit of extraordinary austerity of life, the famous Leonard LessiUS After spending a short time in Paris he begged for admission into the Society of Jesus--a boon at first denied. This disappointment elicited from the boy of seventeen some passionate laments, the first of his verses of which we have record. On 17 Oct., 1578, however, he was admitted at Rome, and made his simple vows in 1580. Shortly after his noviceship, during which he was sent to Tournai, he returned to Rome to finish his studies, was ordained priest in 1584, and became prefect of studies in the English College. In 1586 he was sent on the English mission with Father Henry Garnett, found his first refuge with Lord Vaux of Harrowden, and was known under the name of Cotton.
      Two years afterwards he became chaplain to the Countess of Arundel and thus established relations with her imprisoned husband, Philip, Earl of Arundel, the ancestor of the present ducal house of Norfolk, as well as with Lady Margaret Sackville, the earl's half-sister. Father Southwell's prose elegy, Triumphs over Death, was addressed to the earl to console him for this sister's premature death, and his Hundred Meditations on the love of God, originally written for her use, were ultimately transcribed by another hand, to present to her daughter Lady Beauchamp. Some six years were spent in zealous and successful missionary work, during which Father Southwell lay hidden in London, or passed under various disguises from one Catholic house to another. For his better protection he affected an interest in the pursuits of the country gentlemen of his day (metaphors taken from hawking are common in his writings), but his attire was always sober and his tastes simple. His character was singularly gentle, and he has never been accused of taking any part either in political intrigues or in religious disputes of a more domestic kind. In 1592 Father Southwell was arrested at Uxendon Hall, Harrow, through the treachery of an unfortunate Catholic girl, Anne Bellamy, the daughter of the owner of the house. The notorious Topcliffe, who effected the capture, wrote exultingly to the queen: "I never did take so weighty a man, if he be rightly used". But the atrocious cruelties to which Southwell was subjected did not shake his fortitude. He was examined thirteen times under torture by members of the Council, and was long confined in a dungeon swarming with vermin. After nearly three years in prison he was brought to trial and the usual punishment of hanging and quartering was inflicted.
      Father Southwell's writings, both in prose and verse, were extremely popular with his contemporaries, and his religious pieces were sold openly by the booksellers though their authorship was known. Imitations abounded, and Ben Jonson declared of one of Southwell's pieces, The Burning Babe, that to have written it he would readily forfeit many of his own poems. Mary Magdalene's Tears, the Jesuit's earliest work, licensed in 1591, probably represents a deliberate attempt to employ in the cause of piety the euphuistic prose style, then so popular. Triumphs over Death, also in prose, exhibits the same characteristics; but this artificiality of structure is not so marked in the Short Rule of Good Life, the Letter to His Father, the Humble Supplication to Her Majesty, the Epistle of Comfort and the Hundred Meditations. Southwell's longest poem, St. Peter's Complaint (132 six-line stanzas), is imitated, though not closely, from the Italian Lagrime di S. Pietro of Luigi Tansillo. This with some other smaller pieces was printed, with license, in 1595, the year of his death. Another volume of short poems appeared later in the same year under the title of Mæoniæ. A poem called A Foure-fold Meditation, which was printed as Southwell's in 1606, is not his, but was written by his friend the Earl of Arundel. Perhaps no higher testimony can be found of the esteem in which Southwell's verse was held by his contemporaries than the fact that, while it is probable that Southwell had read Shakespeare, it is practically certain that Shakespeare had read Southwell and imitated him.
SOUTHWELL ONLINE: Upon the Image of Death — Scorn Not The Least — Man's Civil War — Look Home — A Child My Choice — Times Go by Terms — The Nativity of Christ
The Burning Babe
As I in hoary winter's night stood shivering in the snow,
Surprised I was with sudden heat which made my heart to glow;
And lifting up a fearful eye to view what fire was near,
A pretty babe all burning bright did in the air appear;
Who, though scorched with excessive heat, such floods of tears did shed,
As though his floods should quench his flames, which with his tears were fed.
"Alas," quoth he, "but newly born, in fiery heats I fry,
Yet none approach to warm their hearts, or feel my fire but I!
My faultless breast the furnace is, the fuel wounding thorns,
Love is the fire, and sighs the smoke, the ashes shame and scorns;
The fuel justice layeth on, and mercy blows the coals,
The metal in this furnace wrought are men's defiled souls,
For which, as now on fire I am to work them to their good,
So will I melt into a bath to wash them in my blood."
With this he vanished out of sight and swiftly shrunk away,
And straight I called unto mind that it was Christmas Day.
New Prince, New Pomp
Behold a silly tender Babe, in freezing winter night;
In homely manger trembling lies, alas a piteous sight:
The inns are full, no man will yield this little Pilgrim bed,
But forced He is with silly beasts, in crib to shroud His head.
Despise Him not for lying there, first what He is enquire:
An orient pearl is often found, in depth of dirty mire;
Weigh not His crib, His wooden dish, nor beasts that by Him feed:
Weigh not His mother's poor attire, nor Joseph's simple weed.
This stable is a Prince's court, the crib His chair of state:
The beasts are parcel of His pomp, the wooden dish His plate.
The persons in that poor attire, His royal liveries wear,
The Prince Himself is come from heaven, this pomp is prized there.
With joy approach, O Christian wight, do homage to thy King,
And highly prize this humble pomp, which He from heaven doth bring.
1571 (give or take 10 years) Lancelot Blondeel, Flemish artist born in 1498.
1484 Kazimierz the Saint, 25, Polish ruler/saint.
1193 Sultan Saladin.    ^top^
      Al-Malik an-Nasir Salah ad-Din Yusuf ibn-Ayyub (Righteousness of the Faith, Joseph, son of Job), born in 1137 or 1138, was Muslim sultan of Egypt, Syria, Yemen, and Palestine, and the most famous of Muslim heroes. In war against the Crusaders, he achieved final success with the disciplined capture of Jerusalem on 02 October 1187, ending its 88-year occupation by the Franks. The counterattack of the Third Crusade was then stopped by Saladin's military genius. [No truth to the rumor that, at his table, salad was the “in” food.]
      Le sultan Saladin meurt à Damas à l'âge de 55 ans. Ce guerrier kurde né à Takrit, au nord de l'Irak, reste l'une des plus nobles figures de l'islam. Il a 30 ans quand Nour ed-Din, prince de Syrie et champion de la lutte contre les croisés, lui demande de mettre au pas l'Égypte rebelle. Saladin, outrepassant sa mission, se fait proclamer sultan de ce pays.
      A la mort de son protecteur, en 1174, il réunit sous son autorité les deux principales parties du monde arabo-musulman, l'Égypte et la Syrie, et reprend la lutte contre les Francs installés en Palestine depuis près d'un siècle. Profitant de la division de ceux-ci, il écrase leur armée à Hattîn, près du lac de Tibériade, et reconquiert Jérusalem en 1187, soit près d'un siècle après son annexion par les croisés (1099).
      Les Francs ne conservent plus que la côte de Palestine. Ils appellent à leur secours le roi Richard d'Angleterre, futur Richard Cœur de Lion, ainsi que le roi de France, Philippe Auguste, et l'empereur d'Allemagne, Frédéric Barberousse, qui se noiera en chemin. Malgré ces renforts, les croisés n'arriveront plus jamais à reconquérir la Ville sainte.
      Dans ses combats, Saladin témoigne d'un esprit chevaleresque et d'une piété empreinte de tolérance qui lui gagnent l'estime des croisés comme de ses sujets arabes. Il évite les massacres inutiles, traite les prisonniers avec bonté et respecte les dames franques. A Jérusalem, il empêche ses hommes de raser le Saint-Sépulcre. Richard Cœur de Lion envisage d'ailleurs un moment de donner sa sœur Jeanne en mariage au frère du sultan pour qu'ensemble, ils gouvernent la Terre sainte!
1172 Stephan III, King of Hungary (1162-72),
Births which occurred on a March 04:
1977 First CRAY 1 supercomputer shipped, to Los Alamos Laboratories, New Mexico
1954 Irina Ratushinskaya, USSR, poet (Grey is the color of hope)
1952 The Old Man and the Sea by Hemingway.   ^top^
      Ernest Hemingway completes his short novel The Old Man and the Sea. He wrote his publisher the same day, saying he had finished the book and that it was the best writing he had ever done. The critics agreed: The book won the Pulitzer Prize in 1953 and became one of his bestselling works. The novella, which was first published in Life magazine, was an allegory referring to the writer's own struggles to preserve his art in the face of fame and attention. Hemingway had become a cult figure whose four marriages and adventurous exploits in big-game hunting and fishing were widely covered in the press. But despite his fame, he had not produced a major literary work in a decade before he wrote The Old Man and the Sea. The book would be his last significant work of fiction before his suicide in 1961.
      Hemingway, born in 1899 in Oak Park, Illinois, started working as a reporter for the Kansas City Star in 1917. When World War I broke out, he volunteered as an ambulance driver for the Red Cross and was severely wounded in 1918 on the Austro-Italian front while carrying a companion to safety. He was decorated and sent home to recuperate. Hemingway married the wealthy Hadley Richardson in 1920, and the couple moved to Paris, where they met other American expatriate writers, including F. Scott Fitzgerald, Gertrude Stein, and Ezra Pound. With their help and encouragement, Hemingway published his first book of short stories, in the US in 1925, followed by the well-received The Sun Also Rises in 1926.
      During the 1930s and 40s, the hard-drinking Hemingway lived in Key West and then in Cuba while continuing to travel widely. He was wounded in a plane crash in 1953, after which he became increasingly anxious and depressed. Like his father, he committed suicide, shooting himself in 1961 in his home in Idaho
1945 Dieter Meier, Swiss singer/children book writer (Yello) [no relation to yellow journalism]
1942 El extranjero, de Albert Camus, se publica.
1936 Hindenburg dirigible, first flight, Germany.
1934 Jane van Lawick-Goodall, ethnologist/chimp expert (1974 Walker Prize)
1930 Coolidge Dam in Arizona dedicated
1928 Alan Sillitoe, Nottingham Nottinghamshire England, writer (Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner)
1923 Patrick Moore, England, astronomer/writer (A-Z of Astronomy)
1916 Giorgio Bassani, Italian writer (Botteghe Oscure)
1915 Petrus de Jong, Dutch premier (KVP, 1967-71)
1909 Harry B. Helmsley, real estate billionaire, in New York NY.    ^top^
     "The best advice I ever got was from my mother," Harry Helmsley once noted. "It was simply, 'Buy real estate.' And like a dutiful son, I bought and bought and continue to buy throughout the country." Helmsley, who was born on this day in 1909, did indeed buy his fair share of real estate: at one point he owned twenty-seven hotels, 50,000 apartments, and the Empire State Building to boot. Owning real estate proved to be quite lucrative for Helmsley, whose net worth was estimated at $1.7 billion by Forbes magazine in 1996. These far-flung achievements belied Helmsley’s rather humble origins: the son of a dry goods salesman, Helmsley opted to skip college to enter the real estate business. However, whatever Helmsley’s achievements in the business world, it’s likely that he will always be remembered as the husband of the notorious Leona Helmsley. Dubbed the "Queen of Mean," for her domineering rule over the duo’s hotel chain, Leona bore the brunt of the scorn and punishment for her and Harry’s well-publicized trial for tax evasion in the late 1980s. Leona was slapped with a stiff fine and served eighteen months in prison for her tax crimes, while Harry, who had since decayed into senility, was deemed mentally unfit to stand trial. Harry Helmsley died on January 4, 1997
1908 Boris N Poveloi [Kampov], Russian journalist/writer
1904 George Gamow, Russian-born US nuclear physicist/cosmologist/writer (1, 2, 3...ìnfinity). He died on 19 August 1968.
1902 The American Automobile Association (AAA) is founded in Chicago.    ^top^
     The American Motor League (AML) had been the first organization to address the problems that commonly plague motorists, but it fell apart due to a diverse membership that featured powerful car makers who wanted to limit the AML only to issues that affected car manufacturing and engineering. However, soon trade groups such as the Association of Automotive Engineers took its place, paving the way for more specialized automobile organizations. AAA was formed to deal with the concerns of the motorists themselves and has been America’s largest organization of motorists since.
1901 Jean-Joseph Rabéarivelo, Monegasque poet (Enfants d'Orphée)
1898 Georges Dumézil, à Paris, mythologue.
1889 Jean-Gabriel Domergue, French artist who died in 1962.
1889 Francisco Asorey, escultor español.
1887 Test run of first Daimler car.    ^top^
      The Daimler “benzin motor carriage” [photo >] makes its first test run in Esslingen and Cannstatt, Germany. It is Gottlieb Daimler’s first four-wheel motor vehicle. The “benzin” has nothing to do with Carl Benz; at that time Gottlieb Daimler was Carl Benz’s major competitor. Daimler, an engineer whose passion was the engine itself, had created and patented the first gasoline-powered, water-cooled, internal combustion engine in 1885. In Daimler’s engine, water circulated around the engine block, preventing the engine from overheating. The same system is used in most of today’s automobiles. Daimler’s first four-wheel motor vehicle had a one-cylinder engine and a top speed of 16 km/h.
      By 1899, Daimler’s German competitor, Benz and Company, had become the world’s largest car manufacturer. In the same year, a wealthy Austrian businessman named Emile Jellinek saw a Daimler Phoenix win a race in Nice, France. So impressed was he with Daimler’s car that he offered to buy thirty-six vehicles from Daimler should he create a more powerful model, but requested that the car be named after his daughter, Mercedes. Gottlieb Daimler would never see the result of his business deal with Jellinek, but his corporation would climb to great heights without him.
      The Mercedes began a revolution in the car manufacturing industry. The new car was lower to the ground than other vehicles of its time, and it possessed a wider wheelbase for improved cornering. It had four speeds, including reverse, and it reached a top speed of 75 km/h. The first Mercedes had a four-cylinder engine and is generally considered the first modern car.
 Lissajous curve     In the year of its birth, the Mercedes set a world speed record of 79.5 km/h in Nice, France--the very course that was responsible for its marquee’s conception. By 1905, Mercedes cars had reached speeds of 175 km/h. Forever reluctant to enter car racing, Carl Benz realized he must compete with Daimler’s Mercedes to preserve his company’s standing in the automotive industry. For twenty years, Mercedes and Benz competed on racetracks around the world. In 1926, the Daimler and Benz corporations merged. The two founders never met.
1879 Bernhard Kellermann, writer.
1875 Enrique Rodríguez Larreta, Argentine novelist and politician who died on 07 July 1961.
1871 Galerkin, mathematician.
1869 Eugénio de Castro, poeta y escritor portugués.
1866 Eugène Cosserat, mathematician.
1864 Alejandro Lerroux García, político español.
1859 Aleksandr Popov, Russian physicist and electrical engineer who died on 31 December 1905.
1844 Josip Jurcic, Slovenian writer (10th Brother)
1841 Kristian Mandrup Elster, Norwegian author (And fremmed Fugl)
1841 Peter Moran, US artist who died on 10 November 1914.
1837 Chicago is granted a city charter by the Illinois state legislature.
1835 Giovanni Schiaparelli Italy, astronomer (“discovered” canals of Mars)
1826 Granite Railway, 1st US RR chartered, in Quincy MA
1822 Jules Lissajous, mathematician.    ^top^
      Lissajous was interested in waves and developed an optical method for studying vibrations. At first he studied waves produced by a tuning fork in contact with water. In 1855 he described a way of studying acoustic vibrations by reflecting a light beam from a mirror attached to a vibrating object onto a screen. Duhamel had tried to demonstrate these vibrations with a mechanical linkage but Lissajous wanted to avoid the problems caused by the linkage. He obtained Lissajous figures [Parametric Cartesian equation: x = a sin(nt + c), y = b sin(t) >] by successively reflecting light from mirrors on two tuning forks vibrating at right angles. The curves are only seen because of persistence of vision in the human eye. Lissajous studied beats seen when his tuning forks had slightly different frequencies, in this case a rotating ellipse is seen.
1813 Jan Bedys Tom, Dutch artist who died on 18 July 1894.
1813 Wijnand Jan Josephus Nuyen, Dutch painter specialized in Landscapes who died on 02 June 1839. — LINKS — Ships in a French harbor at low tide (1836) — Shipwreck on a Rocky Coast
1804 The British and Foreign Bible Society (BFBS)    ^top^
     It is founded at a large interdenominational meeting in London. Its purpose was "to promote the circulation of the Holy Scriptures, without note or comment, both at home and in foreign lands." It is the first Bible society in the fullest sense, founded at the urging of Thomas Charles and members of the Clapham sect, who proposed the idea to the Religious Tract Society in London. An interdenominational Protestant lay society with international representatives in London, the British and Foreign Bible Society was mainly concerned with making vernacular translations of the Scriptures available to peoples of all races at a price they could afford to pay. It also offered financial assistance to Bible societies in other countries. The BFBS has on occasion divided territory with the American Bible Society.
1789 Pavel P. Gagarin, Russian monarch.
1786 Agustina de Zaragoza y Doménech, más conocida como Agustina de Aragón.
1782 Johann Rudolf Wyss, in Bern, folklorist, editor, and writer, remembered for his collections of Swiss folklore and for his completion and editing of his father's novel Der Schweizerische Robinson (Swiss Family Robinson — Swiss Family Robinson in English translation). He died on 21 March 1830.
1775 Giovanni-Battista Lampi II, Alto Adige (South Tyrol) painter who died in 1837.
1765 Charles Dibdin, England, composer/author (Sea Songs)/actor (baptized)    ^top^
Charles Dibdin - (baptized March 4, 1745, Southampton, Hampshire, Eng.--d. July 25, 1814, London), composer, author, actor, and theatrical manager whose sea songs and operas made him one of the most popular English composers of the late 18th century. A chorister at Winchester Cathedral, Dibdin went to London at the age of 15, worked for a music publisher, and began his stage career at Richmond in 1762. He later acted in London, notably as Ralph in Samuel Arnold's The Maid of the Mill. His first operetta, The Shepherd's Artifice, was produced at Covent Garden in 1764. By 1778, when he became composer to Covent Garden, he had produced eight operas, among them The Padlock (1768), The Waterman (1774), and The Quaker (1775). He managed the Royal Circus, later the Surrey Theatre, during 1782-84 and in 1785 produced his ballad opera Liberty Hall. After the failure of a projected trip to India, he began about 1789 to produce his celebrated one-man "table entertainments," in which he acted as author, singer, and accompanist. Most of his sea songs were written for these entertainments, among them "Tom Bowling" (written in memory of his brother), "To Bachelors' Hall," "Poor Jack," and " 'Twas in the Good Ship Rover." A self-taught musician, Dibdin wrote about 100 stage works, about 1400 songs, often to his own words, and some instrumental works. He also wrote several novels. Restless and often irascible, he was a born melodist who excelled in writing for the voice.
A few works by Dibdin: The Ephesian Matron; or, The Widow's Tears A Comic Serenata (1769) — The Brickdust Man A Musical Dialogue (1772) — The Grenadier A Musical Dialogue (1772)
1756 Sir Henry Raeburn, Scottish painter .specialized in Portraits who died on 08 July 1823. — MORE ON RAEBURN AT ART “4” MARCH — LINKS — Sir Duncan Campbell, Scot Guards — John Tait of Harvieston — Sir William Napier, Baronet — Alexander Carre of Cavers — Mrs. Alexander Henderson — the Binning Children. — The Reverend Robert Walker Skating on Duddlingston Loch — Lieutenant Colonel William Shirriff H.E.I.C.S. — Sir John Sinclair
1749 Caroline-Friederike Friedrich, German artist who died on 20 January 1815.
1747 Casimir Pulaski Count/American Revolutionary War general.
1710 Aert Schouman, Dutch artist who died on 07 May 1792.
1678 Antonio Vivaldi Venice, Baroque violin virtuoso/composer (4 Seasons). He died on 28 July 1741.
1623 Jacob van der Does I “Tambour”, Dutch artist who died on 07 November 1673.
1394 Prince Henry the Navigator, grew up to sponsor Portuguese voyages of discovery. He died on 13 November 1460.
Holidays Bayonna Spain : Pinzon Day / Engadine, Switzerland : Chalanda Marz/Coming of spring / Lanark, Lanarkshire Scotland : Whuppity Scoorie Day / Ohio 1803, Nebraska 1867 : Admission Day / Panam  : Constitution Day (1946) / Paraguay : Heroes' Day/National Defense Day/Memorial Day / South Korea : Independence Movement Day/Sam Il Chul (1919) / Pennsylvania : Charter Day (1681) / Thailand : Magka Puja / US : Constitution Day (1789) / Vermont : Admission Day (1791)
Religious Observances RC : St Lucius I, pope, martyr / RC : St Casimir, king of Poland, confessor (opt) / Santos Basilio, Eugenio, Cirilo, Casimiro, Elpidio y Néstor. / Saint Casimir, patron de la Pologne, est le fils du roi Casimir IV. Né en 1458, à l'époque où Cracovie rayonne de tous ses feux sur l'Europe, il refuse la couronne et se retire dans la prière et la chasteté.
Thought for the day: “We have nothing to fear, but the fear of fear itself.”
“We have nothing to fear, but the fear of believing it.”
“We have nothing to fear, because we have nothing.” — disadvantaged Mexican-American 8-year-olds.
“Better three hours too soon than a minute too late.” [not applicable to fear or other unpleasantness, such as dying]
“We have nothing to fear, but the fear of being one minute late.”
“Never do today what you could put off until tomorrow, if it's suicide or any crime.”
“The only sure way to avoid dying from cancer has serious side effects. It's called suicide.”
“You're never too old to die.”
TO THE TOP
PLEASE CLICK HERE TO WRITE TO “HISTORY 4 2DAY”
http://h42day.0catch.com/history/h4mar/h4mar04.html
http://members.xoom.virgilio.it/all42day/history/h4mar/h4mar04.html
updated Friday 28-Feb-2003 15:26 UT
safe site site safe for children safe site