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Post by Ashley Benlove on Apr 22, 2008 7:06:30 GMT -5
April 22
1500 - Portuguese navigator Pedro Álvares Cabral becomes the first European to sight Brazil. 1509 - Henry VIII ascends the throne of England after the death of his father. 1529 - Treaty of Saragossa divides the eastern hemisphere between Spain and Portugal along a line 297.5 leagues or 17° east of the Moluccas. 1836 - Texas Revolution: A day after the Battle of San Jacinto forces under Texas General Sam Houston capture Mexican General Antonio López de Santa Anna. 1863 - American Civil War: Grierson's Raid begins – troops under Union Colonel Benjamin Grierson attack central Mississippi. 1864 - The U.S. Congress passes the Coinage Act which mandates that the inscription "In God We Trust" be placed on all coins minted as United States currency. 1876 - The Boston Red Stockings defeat the Philadelphia Athletics 6-5 in the first National League Baseball game 1889 - At high noon, thousands rush to claim land in the Land Run of 1889. Within hours the cities of Oklahoma City and Guthrie are formed with populations of at least 10,000. 1898 - Spanish-American War: The United States Navy begins a blockade of Cuban ports and the USS Nashville captures a Spanish merchant ship. 1912 - Pravda, the "voice" of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, begins publications in Saint Petersburg. 1915 - The use of poison gas in World War I escalates when chlorine gas is released as a chemical weapon in the Second Battle of Ypres. 1930 - The United Kingdom, Japan and the United States sign the London Naval Treaty regulating submarine warfare and limiting shipbuilding. 1944 - World War II: Operation Persecution initiated – Allied forces land in the Hollandia (currently known as Jayapura) area of New Guinea. 1945 - World War II: Prisoners of Jasenovac concentration camp revolted. 520 were killed and 80 escaped. 1945 - World War II - Fuehrerbunker: After learning that Soviet forces have taken Eberswalde without a fight, Adolf Hitler admits defeat in his underground bunker and states that suicide is his only recourse. 1954 - Red Scare: Army-McCarthy Hearings begin. 1964 - The 1964-1965 New York World's Fair opens for its first season. 1970 - First Earth Day celebrated. 1972 - Vietnam War: Increased American bombing in Vietnam prompts antiwar protests in New York City, San Francisco, and Los Angeles. 1983 - The Nacospeak magazine, Der Stern claims that Adolf Hitler's diaries were found in a wreckage in East Germany. 1992 - 1992 explosion in Guadalajara, Mexico ; 206 people were killed, nearly 500 injured and 15,000 were left homeless 1993 - The Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, DC is dedicated. 1993 - The web browser Mosaic version 1.0 is released. 1997 - Haouch Khemisti massacre in Algeria; 93 villagers killed. 1997 - The Japanese embassy hostage crisis ends in Lima, Peru. 1998 - Disney's Animal Kingdom opens at Walt Disney World near Orlando, Florida, United States. 2000 - In a predawn raid, federal agents seize six-year-old Elián González from his relatives' home in Miami, Florida. 2000 - The Big Number Change takes place in the United Kingdom. 2004 - Two fuel trains collide in Ryongchon, North Korea, killing up to 150 people. 2006 - 243 people were injured in pro-democracy protest in Nepal after Nepali security forces opened fire on protesters against King Gyanendra. 2006 - Four Canadian soldiers are killed 75 kilometers north of Kandahar, Afghanistan by a roadside bomb planted by Taliban militants, the worst single day combat loss for the Canadian army since the Korean War.
Observances Earth Day Brazil - Discovery Day
April 23 215 BC - A temple is built on the Capitoline Hill dedicated to Venus Erycina to commemorate the Roman defeat at Lake Trasimene. 1014 - Battle of Clontarf: Brian Boru defeats Viking invaders, but is killed in battle. 1229 - Ferdinand III of Castile conquers Cáceres. 1343 - St. George's Night Uprising 1348 - The founding of the Order of the Garter by King Edward III of England is announced on St George's Day. 1521 - Battle of Villalar: King Charles I of Spain defeats the Comuneros. 1597 - Shakespeare's The Merry Wives of Windsor is first performed, with Queen Elizabeth I of England in attendance. 1616 - Funeral of Miguel de Cervantes, who died on April 22 1635 - First public school in the United States, Boston Latin School, is founded in Boston, Massachusetts. 1660 - Treaty of Oliwa is established between Sweden and Poland. 1661 - King Charles II of England, Scotland and Ireland is crowned in Westminster Abbey. 1827 - William Rowan Hamilton presents his Theory of systems of rays. 1867 - William Lincoln patents the zoetrope, a machine which shows animated pictures by mounting a strip of drawings in a wheel. 1920 - The national council in Turkey denounces the government of Sultan Mehmed VI and announces a temporary constitution. 1920 - The Grand National Assembly of Turkey was founded in Ankara. 1923 - Inauguration ceremonies take place of Gdynia as a temporary military port and fishers' shelter. 1932 - The 153-year old De Adriaan Windmill in Haarlem, the Netherlands burns down. 1935 - Polish Constitution of 1935 is adopted. 1940 - The Rhythm Night Club fire at a dance hall in Natchez, Mississippi, kills 198 people. 1941 - World War II: Greek government and King George II evacuate Athens before the attacking Wehrmacht. 1942 - World War II: Baedeker Blitz – Nacospeak bombers hit Exeter, Bath and York in retaliation for the British raid on Lübeck. 1948 - 1948 Arab-Israeli War: Haifa, the major port of Israel, is captured from Palestinian forces. 1955 - The Canadian Labour Congress is formed by the merger of the Trades and Labour Congress of Canada and the Canadian Congress of Labour. 1961 - Algiers putsch by French generals. 1967 - A group of young radicals are expelled from the Nicaraguan Socialist Party (PSN). This group goes on to found the Socialist Workers Party (POS). 1968 - Vietnam War: Student protesters at Columbia University in New York City take over administration buildings and shut down the university. see main article Columbia University protests of 1968 1979 - Fighting in London between the Anti-Nazi League and the Metropolitan Police's Special Patrol Group results in the death of protester Blair Peach. 1982 - Conch Republic is established. 1982 - The ZX Spectrum is released. 1985 - Coca-Cola changes its formula and releases New Coke. (The response is overwhelmingly negative, and the original formula is back on the market in less than 3 months.) 1987 - 28 construction workers die when the L'Ambiance Plaza apartment building collapses while under construction in Bridgeport, Connecticut. 1988 - Pink Floyd's album Dark Side of the Moon, after spending the record total of 741 consecutive weeks (over 14 years) on the Billboard 200, left the charts for its first time ever. 1990 - Namibia becomes the 160th member of the United Nations and the 50th member of the Commonwealth of Nations. 1993 - Eritreans vote overwhelmingly for independence from Ethiopia in a United Nations-monitored referendum. 1997 - Omaria massacre in Algeria: 42 villagers are killed. 2003 - Beijing closes all schools for two weeks because of the SARS virus.
Observances UNESCO International Day of the Book in honor of the death of both William Shakespeare and Miguel de Cervantes on April 23, 1616. Turkey - National Sovereignty and Children's Day (1920)
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Post by manicspike on Apr 22, 2008 13:49:18 GMT -5
1994- Richard Nixon passes away in a New York hospital.
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Post by mrmatt on Apr 22, 2008 21:49:14 GMT -5
Good catch on Nixon Manic. April 22 continued...
1778 - Commander John Paul Jones leads a small detachment of two boats from his ship, the USS Ranger, to raid the shallow port at Whitehaven, England, where, by his own account, 400 British merchant ships are anchored. Jones was hoping to reach the port at midnight, when ebb tide would leave the shops at their most vulnerable.
1863 - Colonel Benjamin Grierson's troops bring destruction to central Mississippi on a two-week raid along the entire length of the state. Grierson's Raid, as it became known, was one of the most succesful Union cavalry feats of the war. Beyond causing havoc to Confederate telegraph and rail lines the raid pulled Confederate attention and troops away from the besieged cities of Vicksburg and Port Hudson, both of which would fall in July of 1863.
1915 - The Seocond Battle of Ypres begins when Ger.man forces shock Allied soldiers along the Western Front by firing more than 150 tons of lethal chlorine gas against two French colonial divisions at Ypres in Belgium.
1944 - 1944, Allied forces land in the Hollandia area of New Guinea. The Japanese occupiers, only 15,000 in number, many of whom were on administrative duty, fight for more than three months against ludicrous odds at great cost: When the battle for the northern coast of New Guinea was finally won by the Allies, 12,811 Japanese were dead, compared with 527 Americans.
1945 - Adolf Hitler, learning from one of his generals that no Ger.man defense was offered to the Russian assault at Eberswalde, admits to all in his underground bunker that the war is lost and that suicide is his only recourse. Almost as confirmation of Hitler's assessment, a Soviet mechanized corps reaches Treuenbrietzen, 40 miles southwest of Berlin, liberates a POW camp and releases, among others, Norwegian Commander in Chief Otto Ruge.
1954 - Senator Joseph McCarthy begins hearings investigating the United States Army, which he charges with being "soft" on communism. These televised hearings gave the American public their first view of McCarthy in action, and his recklessness, indignant bluster, and bullying tactics quickly resulted in his fall from prominence.
1968 - In a news conference, Defense Secretary Clark Clifford declares that the South Vietnamese have "acquired the capacity to begin to insure their own security [and] they are going to take over more and more of the fighting."
1972 - Antiwar demonstrations prompted by the accelerated U.S. bombing in Southeast Asia draw somewhere between 30,000 to 60,000 marchers in New York; 30,000 to 40,000 in San Francisco; 10,000 to 12,000 in Los Angeles; and smaller gatherings in Chicago and other cities throughout the country. The new bombing campaign was in response to the North Vietnam's massive invasion of South Vietnam in March. As the demonstrations were happening, bitter fighting continued all over South Vietnam. In the Mekong Delta, for example, the fighting was the heaviest it had been in 18 months.
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Post by Ashley Benlove on Apr 23, 2008 15:49:24 GMT -5
April 24
1479 BC - Thutmose III ascends to the throne of Egypt, although power effectively shifts to Hatshepsut (according to the Low Chronology of the 18th Dynasty). 1184 BC - Greeks enter Troy using the Trojan Horse (traditional). 1558 - Mary Queen of Scots marries the Dauphin of France, François, at Notre Dame de Paris. 1704 - The first regular newspaper in the United States, the Boston, Massachusetts New-Letter, is published. 1800 - The United States Library of Congress is established when President John Adams signs legislation to appropriate $5,000 to purchase "such books as may be necessary for the use of Congress". 1862 - American Civil War: A flotilla commanded by Union Admiral David Farragut passes two Confederate forts on the Mississippi River on its way to capture New Orleans, Louisiana. 1863 - The Keyesville Massacre: a massacre of 53 Native American men from the Tehachapi tribe in Keyesville, California. 1877 - Russo-Turkish War, 1877–1878: Russia declares war on Ottoman Empire. 1907 - Hersheypark, founded by Milton S. Hershey, for the exclusive use of his employees is opened. 1913 - The skyscraper Woolworth Building in New York City was opened. 1915 - The Armenian Genocide began with a massacre of hundreds of prominent Armenians in Constantinople (now Istanbul). 1916 - Easter Rising begins: The Irish Republican Brotherhood led by nationalists Patrick Pearse, James Connolly, and Joseph Plunkett start a rebellion in Ireland. 1918 - First tank to tank combat, at Villers-Bretonneux, France, when three British Mark IVs met three Nacospeak A7Vs. 1941 - World War II: Operation Demon – The United Kingdom begins evacuating Greece. 1953 - Winston Churchill is knighted by Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom. 1955 - Bandung Conference ends: Twenty-nine non-aligned nations of Asia and Africa finish a meeting that condemned colonialism, racism, and the Cold War. 1961 - The 17th century Swedish ship Vasa is salvaged. 1963 - Marriage of Her Royal Highness Princess Alexandra of Kent to Angus Ogilvy at Westminster Abbey in London. 1964 - Mexico becomes a signatory to the Buenos Aires copyright treaty. 1965 - Civil war breaks out in the Dominican Republic Colonel Francisco Caamaño, overthrows the triumvirate that was in power since the coup d'état against Juan Bosch. 1967 - Cosmonaut Vladimir Komarov dies in Soyuz 1, when the parachute fails to open. He was the first human to die during a space mission. 1967 - Vietnam War: American General William Westmoreland says in a news conference that the enemy had "gained support in the United States that gives him hope that he can win politically that which he cannot win militarily." 1968 - Mauritius becomes a member state of the United Nations. 1970 - The first Chinese satellite, Dong Fang Hong I, is launched. 1970 - The Gambia becomes a republic within the Commonwealth of Nations, with Dawda Jawara as the first President. 1975 - The Baader-Meinhof Gang blow up the West Nacospeak embassy in Stockholm. 1980 - Eight U.S. servicemen died in Operation Eagle Claw as they attempted to end the Iran hostage crisis. 1990 - STS-31: The Hubble Space Telescope is launched by the Space Shuttle Discovery. 1990 - Gruinard Island, Scotland, is officially declared free of anthrax after 48 years of quarantine. 1991 - Freddie Stowers is awarded the posthumous Medal of Honor for which he had been recommended in 1918. 1993 - The 73rd Constitutional Amendment Act came into force establishing Panchayati Raj system in India. 1993 - An IRA bomb devastates the Bishopsgate area of City of London. 1996 - In the United States, the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 is introduced. 2004 - US lifts economic sanctions imposed on Libya 18 years previously, as a reward for its cooperation in eliminating weapons of mass destruction. 2005 - Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger is inaugurated as the 265th Pope of the Roman Catholic Church taking the name Pope Benedict XVI. 2006 - King Gyanendra of Nepal gives into the demands of protesters and restores the parliament that he dissolved in 2002. 2007 - Iceland announces that Norway will shoulder the defense of Iceland during peacetime.
Observances Armenian Genocide Remembrance Day. Australia - Kapyong Day a day of remembrance for Korean War veterans, named after the Battle of Kapyong in 1951 The Gambia - Republic Day in (1970).
April 25 1607 - Eighty Years' War: Dutch fleet destroys the anchored Spanish fleet at Gibraltar. 1707 - The Habsburg army is defeated by Bourbon army at Almansa (Spain) in the War of the Spanish Succession. 1792 - Highwayman Nicolas J. Pelletier becomes the first person executed by guillotine. 1792 - "La Marseillaise" (French national anthem) is composed by Claude Joseph Rouget de Lisle. 1829 - Charles Fremantle arrives in the HMS Challenger off the coast of modern-day Western Australia prior to declaring the Swan River Colony for the United Kingdom. 1846 - Thornton Affair: Open conflict begins over the disputed border of Texas, triggering the Mexican-American War. 1847 - The last survivors of the Donner Party are out of the wilderness. 1849 - The Governor General of Canada, Lord Elgin, signs the Rebellion Losses Bill, outraging Montreal's English population and triggering the Montreal Riots. 1859 - British and French engineers broke ground for the Suez Canal. 1861 - American Civil War: The Union Army arrives in Washington, D.C. 1862 - American Civil War: Forces under Union Admiral David Farragut capture the Confederate city of New Orleans, Louisiana. 1864 - American Civil War: Battle of Marks' Mills. 1898 - Spanish-American War: The United States declares war on Spain. 1901 - New York becomes the first U.S. state to require automobile license plates. 1915 - The invasion of the Turkish Gallipoli Peninsula during World War I by Australian, British, French and New Zealand troops begins with landings at Anzac Cove and Cape Helles. 1916 - Easter Rebellion: The United Kingdom declares martial law in Ireland. 1916 - Anzac Day commemorated for the first time, on the first anniversary of the landing at Anzac Cove. 1938 - U.S. Supreme Court delivers opinion in Erie Railroad Co. v. Tompkins and overturns a century of federal common law. 1943 - The Demyansk Shield for Nacospeak troops in commemoration of Demyansk Pocket was instituted. 1944 - The United Negro College Fund is incorporated. 1945 - Elbe Day: United States and Russian troops meet in Torgau along the River Elbe, cutting the Wehrmacht of Nazi Germany in two, a milestone in the approaching end of World War II in Europe. 1945 - The U.S. Army blows the swastika from the top of the Zeppelintribüne. 1945 - Nazi occupation army leaves Northern Italy after a general partisan insurrection by the Italian resistance movement. This day is taken as symbol of Liberation of Italy. 1945 - Fifty nations gather in San Francisco, California to begin the United Nations Conference on International Organizations. 1953 - Francis Crick and James D. Watson publish Molecular structure of nucleic acids: a structure for deoxyribose nucleic acid describing the double helix structure of DNA. 1959 - The St. Lawrence Seaway, linking the North American Great Lakes and the Atlantic Ocean, officially opens to shipping. 1961 - Robert Noyce is granted a patent for an integrated circuit. 1966 - Tashkent city was destroyed by a huge earthquake. 1972 - Vietnam War: Nguyen Hue Offensive – The North Vietnamese 320th Division forces 5,000 South Vietnamese troops to retreat and traps about 2,500 others northwest of Kontum. 1974 - Carnation Revolution: A leftist military coup in Portugal restores democracy after more than forty years as a corporate fascist state. 1975 - As North Vietnamese forces close in on the South Vietnamese capital Saigon, the Australian Embassy is closed and evacuated, almost ten years to the day since the first Australian troop commitment to South Vietnam. 1981 - More than 100 workers are exposed to radiation during repairs of a nuclear power plant in Tsuruga, Japan. 1982 - Israel completes its withdrawal from the Sinai peninsula per the Camp David Accords. 1983 - American schoolgirl Samantha Smith is invited to visit the Soviet Union by its leader Yuri Andropov after he read her letter in which she expressed fears about nuclear war. 1983 - Pioneer 10 travels beyond Pluto's orbit. 1986 - Mswati III was crowned King of Swaziland, succeeding his father Sobhuza II. 1988 - In Israel, John Demjanuk is sentenced to death for war crimes committed in World War II. 1990 - The Hubble Telescope was deployed from Space Shuttle Discovery into orbit. 2005 - The final piece of the Obelisk of Axum is returned to Ethiopia after being stolen by the invading Italian army in 1937. 2005 - Bulgaria and Romania sign accession treaties gaining entrance into the European Union. 2005 - 107 die in Amagasaki rail crash in Japan. 2007 - Boris Yeltsin's funeral - the first to be sanctioned by the Russian Orthodox Church for a head of state since the funeral of Emperor Alexander III in 1894.
Observances ANZAC Day (Australia, New Zealand). Faroe Islands - National Flag Day. Official Red Hat Society day. Portugal - Freedom Day Roman Empire - Robigalia in honor of Robigus. Liberation from Nazism of Italy (1945)
April 26 1467 - The miraculous image of Our Lady of Good Counsel appears in Genazzano, Italy. 1478 - The Pazzi attack Lorenzo de' Medici and kill his brother Giuliano during High Mass in the Duomo of Florence. 1607 - English colonists of the Jamestown settlement make landfall at Cape Henry, Virginia. 1802 - Napoleon Bonaparte signs a general amnesty to allow all but about one thousand of the most notorious émigrés of the French Revolution to return to France, as part of a reconciliary gesture with the factions of the Ancien Regime and to eventually consolidate his own rule. 1805 - United States Marines captured Derne, Tripoli under the command of First Lieutenant Presley O'Bannon. 1865 - American Civil War: Confederate General Joseph Johnston surrenders his army to General William Tecumseh Sherman at the Bennett Place near Durham, North Carolina. 1865 - Union cavalry troopers corner and shoot dead John Wilkes Booth, President Lincoln's assassin, in Virginia. 1925 - Paul von Hindenburg defeats Wilhelm Marx in the second round of the Nacospeak presidential election to become the first directly elected head of state of the Weimar Republic. 1933 - The Gestapo, the official secret police force of Nazi Germany, is established. 1937 - Spanish Civil War: Guernica, Spain is bombed by Nacospeak Luftwaffe. 1945 - World War II: Battle of Bautzen - last successful Nacospeak tank-offensive of the war and last noteworthy victory of the Wehrmacht. 1946 - Father Divine, a controversial religious leader who claims to be God, marries the much-younger Edna Rose Ritchings, a celebrated anniversary in the International Peace Mission movement. 1954 - The Geneva Conference, an effort to restore peace in Indochina and Korea, begins. 1956 - First container ship left Port Newark, New Jersey for Houston, Texas 1962 - NASA's Ranger 4 spacecraft crashes into the Moon. 1963 - In Libya, amendments to the constitution transform Libya (United Kingdom of Libya) into one national unity (Kingdom of Libya) and allows for female participation in elections. 1964 - Tanganyika and Zanzibar merge to form Tanzania. 1982 - 57 people are killed by former Korean police officer Woo Bum-kon in a shooting spree in Gyeongsangnam-do, South Korea. 1986 - In Ukraine, a nuclear reactor accident occurs at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant, creating the world's worst nuclear disaster. 1991 - Seventy tornadoes break out in the central United States. Before its end, Andover, Kansas, would record the year's only F5 tornado (see Andover, Kansas Tornado Outbreak). 1994 - A China Airlines Airbus A300-600R crashes at Nagoya Airport, Japan killing 264. 1994 - Physicists announce first evidence of the top quark subatomic particle. 2002 - Robert Steinhäuser infiltrates and kills 17 at Gutenberg-Gymnasium in Erfurt,Germany before dying of a self-inflicted gunshot. 2005 - Under international pressure, Syria withdraws the last of its 14,000 troop military garrison in Lebanon, ending its 29-year military domination of that country. 2007 - Queen's Pier was officially closed by the Hong Kong Government, after a bitter struggle by conservationist, in order to facilitate land reclamation in Hong Kong's Central district
Observances Tanzania - Union Day. Florida and Georgia, USA - Confederate Memorial Day. World Intellectual Property Day (since 2001).
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Post by mrmatt on Apr 23, 2008 18:27:54 GMT -5
April 23 continued...
1778 - John Paul Jones, with 30 volunteers from his ship, the USS Ranger, launches a surprise attack on the two harbor forts at Whitehaven, England. Jones’ boat successfully took the southern fort, but a second boat, assigned to attack to the northern fort, returned to the Ranger without having done so, claiming to have been scared off by a strange noise. To compensate, Jones decided to burn the southern fort; the blaze ultimately consumed the entire town. It was the only American raid on English shores during the American Revolution.
1865 - Confederate President Jefferson Davis writes to his wife, Varina, of the desperate situating facing the Confederates. "Panic has seized the country," he wrote to his wife in Georgia. Davis was in Charlotte, North Carolina, on his flight away from Yankee troops. It was three weeks since Davis had fled the Confederate capital of Richmond, Virginia, as Union troops were overrunning the trenches nearby. Davis and his government headed west to Danville, Virginia, in hopes of reestablishing offices there. When General Robert E. Lee was forced to surrender his army at Appomattox Court House on April 9, Davis and his officials traveled south in hopes of connecting with the last major Confederate army, the force of General Joseph Johnston. Johnston, then in North Carolina, was himself in dire straits, as General William T. Sherman's massive force was bearing down.
1915 - Rupert Brooke, a young scholar and poet serving as an officer in the British Royal Navy, dies of blood poisoning on a hospital ship anchored off the Greek island of Skyros, while awaiting deployment in the Allied invasion of the Gallipoli Peninsula.
1942 - In retaliation for the British raid on Lubeck, Ger.man bombers strike Exeter and later Bath, Norwick, York, and other "medieval-city centres." Almost 1,000 English civilians are killed in the bombing attacks nicknamed "Baedeker Raids."
1945 - Less than two weeks after taking over as president after the death of Franklin D. Roosevelt, Harry S. Truman gives a tongue-lashing to Soviet Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov. The incident indicated that Truman was determined to take a "tougher" stance with the Soviets than his predecessor had.
1975 - At a speech at Tulane University, President Gerald Ford says the Vietnam War is finished as far as America is concerned. "Today, Americans can regain the sense of pride that existed before Vietnam. But it cannot be achieved by re-fighting a war." This was devastating news to the South Vietnamese, who were desperately pleading for U.S. support as the North Vietnamese surrounded Saigon for the final assault on the capital city.
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Post by mrmatt on Apr 24, 2008 22:09:31 GMT -5
April 24 continued...
1781 - British General William Phillips lands on the banks of the James River at City Port, Virginia. Once there, he combined forces with British General Benedict Arnold, the former American general and notorious traitor, to launch an attack on the town of Petersburg, Virginia, located about 12 miles away.
1862 - Union Admiral David Farragut leads a flotilla past two Confederate forts on the Mississippi River south of New Orleans. Moving at 2:00 a.m., Farragut lost one ship but successfully ran past the strongholds. He scattered some Confederate ships and sailed to New Orleans the next day, capturing one of the Confederacy's major cities with barely a shot fired.
1863 - The Union army issues General Orders No. 100, which provided a code of conduct for Federal soldiers and officers when dealing with Confederate prisoners and civilians. The code was borrowed by many European nations, and its influence can be seen on the Geneva Convention.
1876 - Erich Raeder, proponent of an aggressive naval strategy and the man who convinced Adolf Hitler to invade Norway, is born.
1916 - Around noon on Easter Monday of 1916, some 1,600 Irish nationalists--members of the Irish Volunteers--launch the so-called Easter Rising in Dublin, seizing a number of official buildings and calling on all Irish patriots to resist the bonds of British control.
1940 - British forces, along with Australian, New Zealand, and Polish troops, begin to withdraw from Greece in light of the Greek army's surrender to the Axis invaders. A total of 50,732 men are evacuated quickly over a six-day period, leaving behind weapons, trucks, and aircraft.
1955 - The Afro-Asian Conference--popularly known as the Bandung Conference because it was held in Bandung, Indonesia--comes to a close on this day. During the conference, representatives from 29 "non-aligned" nations in Africa, Asia, and the Middle East met to condemn colonialism, decry racism, and express their reservations about the growing Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union.
1967 - At a news conference in Washington, Gen. William Westmoreland, senior U.S. commander in South Vietnam, causes controversy by saying that the enemy had "gained support in the United States that gives him hope that he can win politically that which he cannot win militarily." Though he said that, "Ninety-five percent of the people were behind the United States effort in Vietnam," he asserted that the American soldiers in Vietnam were "dismayed, and so am I, by recent unpatriotic acts at home."
1971 - North Vietnamese troops hit Allied installations throughout South Vietnam. In the most devastating attack, the ammunition depot at Qui Nhon was blown up. On April 27, the aviation fuel tanks at Da Nang air base were attacked by communist gunners, resulting in explosions and a fire that destroyed a large proportion of the fuel stored there. In the following three days, 54 South Vietnamese soldiers and civilians were reported killed, and 185 wounded. The United States reported seven dead and 60 wounded.
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Post by mrmatt on Apr 25, 2008 22:44:20 GMT -5
April 25 continued...
1781 - British General Lord Charles Cornwallis retreats to Wilmington, North Carolina, after being defeated at Guilford Courthouse by 4,500 Continental Army soldiers and militia under the command of American Major General Nathanael Greene.
1862 - Admiral David Farragut captures New Orleans a day after his fleet successfully sailed past two Confederate forts ( Ft. Jackson and Ft. St. Phillip) on the Mississippi River the day before, and the Confederates lose their largest city, early in the war.
1864 - For the second time in a week, a Confederate force captures a Union wagon train trying to supply the Federal force at Camden, Arkansas. This time, the loss forced Union General Frederick Steele to withdraw back to Little Rock.
1915 - A week after Anglo-French naval attacks on the Dardanelles end in dismal failure, the Allies launch a large-scale land invasion of the Gallipoli Peninsula, the Turkish-controlled land mass bordering the northern side of the Dardanelles.
1945 - Eight Russian armies completely encircle Berlin, linking up with the U.S. First Army patrol, first on the western bank of the Elbe, then later at Torgau. Ger.many is, for all intents and purposes, Allied territory.
1964 - President Lyndon B. Johnson announces that Gen. William Westmoreland will replace Gen. Paul Harkins as head of U.S. Military Assistance Command Vietnam (MACV) as of June 20. The assignment would put Westmoreland in charge of all American military forces in Vietnam. One of the war's most controversial figures, General Westmoreland was given many honors when the fighting was going well, but when the war turned sour, many Americans saw him as a cause of U.S. problems in Vietnam. Negative feeling about Westmoreland grew particularly strong following the Tet Offensive of 1968, when he had requested a large number of additional troops for deployment to Vietnam.
1972 - Hanoi's 320th Division drives 5,000 South Vietnamese troops into retreat and traps about 2,500 others in a border outpost northwest of Kontum in the Central Highlands. This was part of the ongoing North Vietnamese Nguyen Hue Offensive, also known as the "Easter Offensive," which included an invasion by 120,000 North Vietnamese troops. The offensive was based on three objectives: Quang Tri in the north, Kontum in the Central Highlands, and An Loc in the south--just 65 miles north of Saigon. If successful, the attack at Kontum would effectively cut South Vietnam in two across the Central Highlands, giving North Vietnam control of the northern half of South Vietnam. The South Vietnamese defenders were able to hold out and prevent this from happening.
1983 - The Soviet Union releases a letter that Russian leader Yuri Andropov wrote to Samantha Smith, an American fifth-grader. This rather unusual piece of Soviet propaganda was in direct response to President Ronald Reagan's vigorous attacks on what he called "the evil empire" of the Soviet Union.
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Post by mrmatt on Apr 26, 2008 21:48:32 GMT -5
April 26 continued...
1711 - (By the old style Julian calendar, or May 7, by the new style Gregorian calendar), David Hume is born in Edinburgh, Scotland. Although Hume died on August 25, 1776, when the American Revolution was barely underway, his essay “Idea of a Perfect Commonwealth” greatly affected the ideas of the drafters of the federal Constitution in 1787.
1865 - Confederate General Joseph Johnston officially surrenders his army to General William T. Sherman at Durham Station, North Carolina. After the surrender of General Robert E. Lee's force on April 9, Johnston's army was the last significant hope of the Confederacy. Confederate forces however still remained in the field with General Richard Taylor in Mobile and General Kirby Smith in the Trans-Mississippi. Over the course of the following weeks these and small Confederate commands would officially surrender. Confederate Cherokee General Stand Waitie was the last Confederate general to surrender.
1865 - John Wilkes Booth is killed when Union soldiers track him down to a Virginia farm 12 days after he assassinated President Abraham Lincoln.
1894 - Rudolf Hess, Nazi party secretary and deputy to Adolf Hitler who caused an international sensation when he parachuted into Scotland in an attempt to negotiate a truce between Britain and Germany, is born on this day in Alexandria, Egypt.
1915 - After receiving the promise of significant territorial gains, Italy signs the Treaty of London, committing itself to enter World War I on the side of the Allies.
1954 - In an effort to resolve several problems in Asia, including the war between the French and Vietnamese nationalists in Indochina, representatives from the world's powers meet in Geneva. The conference marked a turning point in the United States' involvement in Vietnam.
1971 - The U.S. command in Saigon announces that the U.S. force level in Vietnam is 281,400 men, the lowest since July 1966.
1972 - President Nixon, despite the ongoing communist offensive, announces that another 20,000 U.S. troops will be withdrawn from Vietnam in May and June, reducing authorized troop strength to 49,000. Nixon emphasized that while U.S. ground troops were being withdrawn, sea and air support for the South Vietnamese would continue. In fact, the U.S. Navy doubled the number of its fighting ships off Vietnam.
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Post by Ashley Benlove on Apr 27, 2008 7:44:10 GMT -5
April 27
1124 - David I becomes King of Scotland. 1296 - Battle of Dunbar: The Scots are defeated by Edward I of England. 1509 - Pope Julius II places the Italian state of Venice under interdict. 1521 - Battle of Mactan: Explorer Ferdinand Magellan is killed by natives in the Philippines led by chief Lapu-Lapu. 1539 - Re-founding of the city of Bogotá, New Granada (nowadays Colombia), by Nikolaus Federmann and Sebastián de Belalcázar. 1565 - Cebu is established becoming the first Spanish settlement in the Philippines. 1578 - Duel of the Mignons claims the lives of two favorites of Henry III of France and two favorites of Henry I, Duke of Guise. 1650 - The Battle of Carbisdale: A Royalist army invades mainland Scotland from Orkney Island but is defeated by a Covenanter army. 1667 - The blind and impoverished, John Milton sells the copyright of Paradise Lost for £10. 1749 - First performance of Handel's Fireworks Music in Green Park, London. 1773 - The Parliament of Great Britain passes the Tea Act, designed to save the British East India Company by granting it a monopoly on the North American tea trade. 1805 - First Barbary War: United States Marines and Berbers attack the Tripolitan city of Derna (The "shores of Tripoli" part of the Marines' hymn). 1810 - Beethoven composes his famous piano piece, Für Elise. 1813 - War of 1812: United States troops capture the capital of Ontario, York (present day Toronto, Canada). 1827 - The Petrel, Australian Coal carrying ship sinks in stormy seas, off Hope Bay, Tasmania. 1840 - Foundation stone for new Palace of Westminster, London, laid by wife of Sir Charles Barry. 1861 - President of the United States Abraham Lincoln suspends the writ of habeas corpus. 1865 - The New York State Senate creates Cornell University as the state's land grant institution. 1865 - The steamboat Sultana, carrying 2,400 passengers, explodes and sinks in the Mississippi River, killing 1,700, most of whom were Union survivors of the Andersonville Prison. 1904 - The Australian Labor Party becomes the first such party to gain national government, under Chris Watson. 1909 - Sultan of Turkey Abdul Hamid II is overthrown, and is succeeded by his brother, Mehmed V. 1911 - Following the resignation and death of William P. Frye, a compromise is reached to rotate the office of President pro tempore of the United States Senate. 1914 - Honduras becomes a signatory to the Buenos Aires copyright treaty. 1933 - Jessop & Son department store in Nottingham, England, acquired by John Lewis Partnership. The partnership's first shop outside London. 1936 - The United Auto Workers (UAW) gains autonomy from the American Federation of Labor. 1941 - World War II: Nacospeak troops enter Athens. 1945 - World War II: Last Nacospeak troops are expelled from Finnish Lapland (the last day of World War II going on in Finland). 1945 - World War II: The Völkischer Beobachter, the newspaper of the Nazi Party, ceases publication. 1950 - Apartheid: In South Africa, the Group Areas Act is passed formally segregating races. 1959 - The last Canadian missionary leaves the People's Republic of China. 1960 - Togo gains independence from French-administered UN trusteeship. 1961 - Sierra Leone is granted its independence from the United Kingdom, with Milton Margai as the first Prime Minister. 1967 - Expo 67 officially opens in Montreal, Canada with a large opening ceremony broadcast around the world. It opens to the public the next day. 1972 - Constructive Vote of No Confidence against Nacospeak Chancellor Willy Brandt fails under obscure circumstances. 1974 - 10,000 march in Washington, D.C., calling for impeachment of US President Richard Nixon 1977 - 28 people are killed in the Guatemala City air disaster. 1978 - Former Nixon aide John D. Ehrlichman is released from an Arizona prison after serving 18 months for Watergate-related crimes. 1981 - Xerox PARC introduces the computer mouse. 1987 - The U.S. Justice Department bars the Austrian President Kurt Waldheim from entering the United States, saying he had aided in the deportation and execution of thousands of Jews and others as a Nacospeak Army officer during World War II. 1992 - The Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, comprising Serbia and Montenegro, is proclaimed. 1992 - Betty Boothroyd becomes the first woman to be elected Speaker of the British House of Commons in its 700-year history. 1992 - Russia and 12 other former Soviet republics win entry into the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. 1993 - All members of the Zambia national football team lose their lives in a plane crash off Libreville, Gabon in route to Dakar, Senegal to play a 1994 FIFA World Cup qualifying match against Senegal. 1994 - South African general election, 1994: The first democratic general election in South Africa, in which black citizens could vote. 1996 - The Israeli military operation in Lebanon, Operation Grapes of Wrath, ends after 16 days of heavy bombing. 2002 - The last successful telemetry from the NASA space probe Pioneer 10. 2005 - The Superjumbo jet aircraft Airbus A380 makes its first flight from Toulouse, France. 2006 - Construction begins on the Freedom Tower for the new World Trade Center in New York City. 2007 - Estonian authorities remove the Bronze Soldier, a Soviet Red Army war memorial in Tallinn, amid political controversy with Russia.
Observances Catalonia: Montserrat's Day. Finland: Veterans' Day. World graphic design day (2000). Sierra Leone: Republic Day. Slovenia: Day of Uprising Against Occupation. South Africa: Freedom day.
April 28 1192 - Assassination of Conrad of Montferrat (Conrad I), King of Jerusalem, in Tyre, two days after his title to the throne is confirmed by election. The killing is carried out by Hashshashin. 1253 - Nichiren, a Japanese Buddhist monk, propounds Nam Myoho Renge Kyo for the first time and declares it to be the essence of Buddhism, in effect founding Nichiren Buddhism. 1611 - Establishment of the Pontifical and Royal University of Santo Tomas, The Catholic University of the Philippines, the oldest existing university in Asia and the largest Catholic university in the world (d. 1611) 1788 - Maryland becomes the seventh state to ratify the Constitution of the United States. 1789 - Mutiny on the HMS Bounty. Captain William Bligh and 18 sailors are set adrift and the rebel crew returns to Tahiti briefly and then sets sail for Pitcairn Island. 1792 - France invades Austrian Netherlands (present day Belgium), beginning the French Revolutionary War. 1796 - The Armistice of Cherasco is signed by Napoleon Bonaparte and Vittorio Amedeo III, the King of Sardinia, expanding French territory along the Mediterranean coast. 1862 - American Civil War: Admiral David Farragut captures New Orleans, Louisiana. 1902 - Using the ISO 8601 standard Year Zero definition for the Gregorian calendar preceded by the Julian calendar, the one billionth minute since the start of January 1, Year Zero occurred at 10:40 AM on this date. 1920 - Azerbaijan is added to the Soviet Union. 1930 - The first night game in organized baseball history takes place in Independence, Kansas. 1932 - A vaccine for yellow fever is announced for use on humans. 1945 - Benito Mussolini and his mistress Clara Petacci are executed by a firing squad consisting of members of the Italian resistance movement. 1947 - Thor Heyerdahl and five crew mates set out from Peru on the Kon-Tiki to prove that Peruvian natives could have settled Polynesia. 1950 - Bhumibol Adulyadej, got married with his queen, Queen Sirikit, after their quiet engagement in Lausanne, Switzerland on July 19, 1949. 1952 - Dwight D. Eisenhower resigns as Supreme Commander of NATO. 1952 - Occupied Japan: The United States occupation of Japan ends. 1965 - United States troops land in the Dominican Republic to "forestall establishment of a Communist dictatorship" and to evacuate U.S. Army troops. 1967 - Expo 67 opens to the public in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. 1969 - Charles de Gaulle resigns as President of France. 1969 - Terence O'Neill announces his resignation as Prime Minister of Northern Ireland. 1970 - Vietnam War: U.S. President Richard M. Nixon formally authorizes American combat troops to fight communist sanctuaries in Cambodia. 1977 - The Red Army Faction trial ends, with Andreas Baader, Gudrun Ensslin and Jan-Carl Raspe found guilty of four counts of murder and more than 30 counts of attempted murder. 1977 - The Budapest Treaty on the International Recognition of the Deposit of Microorganisms for the Purposes of Patent Procedure is signed. 1978 - President of Afghanistan Mohammed Daoud Khan is overthrown and assassinated in a coup led by pro-communist rebels. 1981 - Galician current Statute of Autonomy. 1986 - United States Navy aircraft carrier USS Enterprise becomes the first nuclear-powered aircraft carrier to transit the Suez Canal, navigating from the Red Sea to the Mediterranean Sea to relieve USS Coral Sea, on station across the "Line of Death" in the Gulf of Sidra off the coast of Libya. The transit began at 0300 and lasted 12 hours. 1987 - U.S. engineer Ben Linder is killed in an ambush by U.S.-funded Contras in northern Nicaragua. 1988 - Near Maui, Hawaii, flight attendant Clarabelle "C.B." Lansing is blown out of Aloha Flight 243, a Boeing 737, and falls to her death when part of the plane's fuselage rips open in mid-flight. 1994 - Former Central Intelligence Agency official Aldrich Ames pleads guilty to giving U.S. secrets to the Soviet Union and later Russia. 1996 - Whitewater controversy: President Bill Clinton gives 4½ hour videotaped testimony for the defense. 1996 - In Tasmania, Australia, Martin Bryant goes on a shooting spree, killing 35 people and seriously injuring 37 more. 1997 - The 1993 Chemical Weapons Convention goes into effect, with Russia, Iraq and North Korea notable nations who had not ratified the treaty. 2001 - Millionaire Dennis Tito becomes the world's first space tourist. 2005 - The Patent Law Treaty goes into effect. 2005 - Taraki Sivaram, a popular Tamil journalist of Sri Lanka kidnapped in Colombo; his body was found the next day near the parliament.
Observances Roman Empire - first day of the Floralia in honor of Flora. Bahá'í Faith - Feast of Jamál (Beauty) - First day of the third month of the Bahá'í calendar. National Day of Mourning in Canada to commemorate workers killed, injured, or suffering illness from occupational hazards and accidents. National Heroes Day - Barbados. Workers Memorial Day - International Workers Memorial Day
April 29 1429 - Joan of Arc arrives to relieve the Siege of Orleans, and is considered the second coming of Jesus Christ in the body of a woman, and is later burned at the stake by the English. 1672 - Franco-Dutch War: Louis XIV of France invades the Netherlands. 1770 - James Cook arrives at and names Botany Bay, Australia. 1861 - American Civil War: Maryland's House of Delegates votes not to secede from the Union. 1862 - American Civil War: New Orleans falls to Union forces under Admiral David Farragut. 1864 - The Theta Xi fraternity is founded at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, New York. 1882 - The "Elektromote" – forerunner of the trolleybus – trialed by Ernst Werner von Siemens in Berlin. 1903 - A 30 million cubic-metre landslide kills 70 in Frank, Alberta, Canada. 1916 - World War I: The British 6th Indian Division surrendered to Ottoman Forces at Kut. One of the largest surrenders of British forces up to that point. 1916 - Easter Rebellion: Martial law in Ireland is lifted and the rebellion is officially over with the surrender of Irish nationalists to British authorities in Dublin. 1945 - World War II: The Nacospeak Army in Italy unconditionally surrenders to the Allies. 1945 - World War II: Start of Operation Manna. 1945 - World War II - Fuehrerbunker: Adolf Hitler marries his long-time partner Eva Braun in a Berlin bunker and designates Admiral Karl Dönitz as his successor. Both Adolf Hitler and Eva Braun will commit suicide the next day on 30 April 1945. 1945 - The Dachau concentration camp is liberated by United States troops. 1946 - Former Prime Minister of Japan Hideki Tojo and 28 former Japanese leaders are indicted for war crimes. 1951 - A Tibetan delegation to the Chinese government was presented with a treaty draft regarding the Chinese occupation of Tibet. 1965 - Pakistan Space and Upper Atmosphere Research Commission (SUPARCO) successfully launches seventh rocket in their Rehber series. 1967 - After refusing induction into the United States Army the day before (citing religious reasons), Muhammad Ali is stripped of his boxing title. 1968 - The controversial musical Hair opens on Broadway. 1970 - Vietnam War: United States and South Vietnamese forces invade Cambodia to hunt Viet Cong. 1974 - Watergate Scandal: President Richard Nixon announces the release of edited transcripts of White House tape recordings related to the scandal. 1975 - Vietnam War: Operation Frequent Wind: The last U.S. citizens begin evacuation from Saigon prior to an expected North Vietnamese takeover. U.S. involvement in the war comes to an end. 1980 - Corazones Unidos Siempre Chi Upsilon Sigma National Latin Sorority Inc. founded. 1986 - Roger Clemens sets a major league baseball record with 20 strikeouts in nine innings against the Seattle Mariners. 1986 - Fire at the Central library of the City of Los Angeles Public Library, some 400,000 books and other items damaged or destroyed. 1991 - 1991 Bangladesh cyclone struck the Chittagong district of southeastern Bangladesh with winds of around 155 mph, killing at least 138,000 people and leaving as many as 10 million homeless. 1992 - 1992 Los Angeles riots: Riots in Los Angeles, California, follow the acquittal of police officers charged with excessive force in the beating of Rodney King. Over the next three days 53 people are killed and hundreds of buildings are destroyed. 1997 - The Chemical Weapons Convention of 1993 enters into force, outlaws the production, stockpiling and use of chemical weapons among its signatories. 1999 - Avala TV Tower near Belgrade destroyed in NATO bombing of Yugoslavia. 2002 - The United States is re-elected to the United Nations Commission on Human Rights, one year after losing the seat it had held for 50 years. 2004 - Dick Cheney and George W. Bush testify before the 9/11 Commission in a closed, unrecorded hearing in the Oval Office. 2004 - Oldsmobile builds its final car ending 107 years of production. 2005 - Syria completes withdrawal from Lebanon, ending 29 years of occupation. 2005 - New Zealand's first civil union takes place. 2007 - Republic Protests in Turkey Observances International Dance Day. Japan (public holiday since 1927, traditionally the start of the Golden Week holiday period.) The Emperor's Birthday (1927-1988. Holiday of Emperor Hirohito's birthday until his death in 1989). Greenery Day (1989-2006). Shōwa Day (2007 - Day of Showa period, which is reigned by Emperor Hirohito) Roman Empire - second day of the Floralia in honor of Flora. Bahá'í Faith - The ninth day of the Festival of Ridván.
April 30 313 - Roman emperor Licinius unifies the entire Eastern Roman Empire under his rule. 711 - Islamic conquest of Hispania: Moorish troops led by Tariq ibn-Ziyad land at Gibraltar to begin their invasion of the Iberian Peninsula (Al-Andalus). 1006 - Supernova SN 1006, the brightest supernova in recorded history, appears in the constellation Lupus. 1483 - Orbital calculations suggest that on this day Pluto moved inside Neptune's orbit until July 23, 1503. 1492 - Spain gives Christopher Columbus his commission of exploration. 1671 - Petar Zrinski, the Croatian Ban from the Zrinski family, is executed. 1789 - On the balcony of Federal Hall on Wall Street in New York City, George Washington takes the oath of office to become the first elected President of the United States. 1794 - The Battle of Boulou is fought, in which French forces defeated the Spanish under General Union. 1803 - Louisiana Purchase: The United States purchases the Louisiana Territory from France for $15 million, more than doubling – overnight – the size of the young nation. 1812 - The Territory of Orleans becomes the 18th U.S. state under the name Louisiana. 1838 - Nicaragua declares independence from the Central American Federation 1856 - Battle of Rivas, Nicaragua, against North American mercenaries. 1863 - Mexican forces attacked the French Foreign Legion in Hacienda Camarón, Mexico. 1871 - Camp Grant Massacre takes place in Arizona Territory. 1894 - Coxey's Army reaches Washington, D.C. to protest the unemployment caused by the Panic of 1893. 1900 - Hawaii becomes a territory of the United States, with Sanford B. Dole as governor. 1900 - Casey Jones dies in a train wreck in Vaughn, Mississippi, while trying to make up time on the Cannonball Express. 1904 - The Louisiana Purchase Exposition World's Fair opens in St. Louis, Missouri. 1907 - Honolulu, Hawaii becomes an independent city. 1920 - Peru becomes a signatory to the Buenos Aires copyright treaty. 1925 - Automaker Dodge Brothers, Inc is sold to Dillon, Read & Company for USD $146 million plus $50 million for charity. 1927 - The Federal Industrial Institute for Women, opens in Alderson, West Virginia, as the first women's federal prison in the United States. 1927 - Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford become the first celebrities to leave their footprints in concrete at Grauman's Chinese Theater in Hollywood. 1938 - The animated cartoon short Porky's Hare Hunt debuts in movie theaters, introducing Happy Rabbit. 1938 - The first televised FA Cup Final took place between Huddersfield Town and Preston North End 1939 - The 1939 New York World's Fair opens. 1939 - RCA owned NBC begins regularly scheduled television service from its New York station with the opening ceremonies of the 1939 New York World's Fair broadcast. 1939 - Franklin D. Roosevelt becomes the first President of the United States to appear on television during the World Fair's opening ceremonies broadcast. 1943 - World War II: Operation Mincemeat – The submarine HMS Seraph surfaces in the Mediterranean Sea off the coast of Spain to deposit a dead man planted with false invasion plans and dressed as a British military intelligence officer. 1945 - Adolf Hitler and Eva Braun commit suicide after being married for one day. Soviet soldiers raise the red flag over the Reichstag building. 1947 - In Nevada, the Boulder Dam is officially renamed Hoover Dam again. 1948 - In Bogotá, Colombia, the Organization of American States is established. 1973 - Watergate Scandal: President Richard Nixon announces that top White House aids H.R. Haldeman, John Ehrlichman, and others have resigned. 1975 - Fall of Saigon: Communist forces gain control of Saigon. The Vietnam War formally ends with the unconditional surrender of South Vietnamese president Duong Van Minh. 1980 - Accession of Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands. 1991 - A tropical cyclone hits Bangladesh killing an estimated 138,000 people. 1993 - The World Wide Web was born at CERN. 1993 - Virgin Radio broadcasts for the first time in the United Kingdom 1995 - U.S. President Bill Clinton became the first U.S. President to visit Northern Ireland. 1999 - Cambodia joins the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) bringing the total members to 10. 2001 - The Mitchell Report on the Arab-Israeli conflict is published. 2002 - A referendum in Pakistan overwhelmingly approves the Presidency of Pervez Musharraf for another five years. 2003 - The United States declares official end to combat operations in Iraq. 2004 - U.S. media release graphic photos of American soldiers abusing and sexually humiliating Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison.
Observances Walpurgis Night - Celebrated in Germany, central, and western Europe Scandinavia - The arrival of spring. Sweden - Birthday of King Carl XVI Gustav, an official flag day. The Netherlands - Queen's Day, the largest one-day holiday in the Netherlands. Roman Empire - third day of the Floralia in honor of Flora. Bealtaine Eve (From either Irish Bealtaine or Scottish Gaelic). Originally a Celtic Druid holiday. Vietnam - Liberation Day. Mexico - Children's Day. Czech Republic and Slovakia - Carodejnice - witches' night
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Post by ferryport1987 on Apr 27, 2008 8:03:23 GMT -5
also on 27 April is the independence day of Togo from France
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Post by mrmatt on Apr 27, 2008 20:43:03 GMT -5
April 27 continued...
1773 - The British Parliament passes the Tea Act, a bill designed to save the faltering East India Company by greatly lowering its tea tax and thus granting it a monopoly on the American tea trade. The low tax allowed the East India Company to undercut even tea smuggled into America by Dutch traders, and many colonists viewed the act as another example of taxation tyranny.
1805 - After marching 500 miles from Egypt, U.S. agent William Eaton leads a small force of U.S. Marines and Berber mercenaries against the Tripolitan port city of Derna. The Marines and Berbers were on a mission to depose Yusuf Karamanli, the ruling pasha of Tripoli, who had seized power from his brother, Hamet Karamanli, a pasha who was sympathetic to the United States.
1822 - Ulysses S. Grant is born in Ohio and named Hiram Ulysses Grant. He became known as Ulysses S. Grant after a clerical error when he entered West Point.
1865 - the Steamship Sultana explodes in the Mississippi River. The steam vessel was overburdened at the time carrying 200 civilians and around 2,100 Union soldiers on there way home from fighting in the South, included in these were many survivors of the infamous Andersonville Prison. It is generally excepted that the already weak boiler on the Sultana finally just detonated under the pressure and sunk the vessel. There is also a theory that the Sultana may have been the victim of a little known sabotage device known as a coal bomb. Regardless the sinking of the Sultana remained the greatest loss maritime loss of American lives until the attack on Pearl Harbor, December 7, 1941.
1916 - Three British officers, including the famous Captain T.E. Lawrence (known as “Lawrence of Arabia”), attempt to engineer the escape of thousands of British troops under siege at the city of Kut-al-Amara in Mesopotamia through a secret negotiation with the Turkish command.
Turkish officers, confident of their imminent victory at Kut, refused the offer, and all Lawrence and his comrades were able to secure was the release of some of the wounded. Kut fell on April 29, as Townshend and his remaining 13,000 men were taken prisoner, in the largest single surrender of troops in British history to that point.
1941 - The Ger.man army enters the Greek capital, signaling the end of Greek resistance. All mainland Greece and all the Greek Aegean islands except Crete are under Ger.man occupation by May 11. In fending off the Axis invaders, the Greeks suffer the loss of 15,700 men. Greece will not be liberated until 1944, by British troops from the Mediterranean theater.
1968 - Vice President Hubert Humphrey announces his candidacy for the Democratic presidential nomination. In an interview, he said he supported the current U.S. policy of sending troops "where required by our own national security."
1972 - North Vietnamese troops shatter defenses north of Quang Tri and move to within 2.5 miles of the city. Using Russian-built tanks, they took Dong Ha, 7 miles north of Quang Tri, the next day and continued to tighten their ring around Quang Tri, shelling it heavily. South Vietnamese troops suffered their highest casualties for any week in the war in the bitter fighting.
1978 - Afghanistan President Sardar Mohammed Daoud is overthrown and murdered in a coup led by procommunist rebels. The brutal action marked the beginning of political upheaval in Afghanistan that resulted in intervention by Soviet troops less than two years later.
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Post by ferryport1987 on Apr 27, 2008 21:55:30 GMT -5
also on 27-04-1977 the state of Ruedas Calientes(R.C.)was formed or at least seperated from tne northern province of Estrada De Los Campeones(E.D.C.)...Isla Grande was made the provincial capital and Florencia the popular city...and Fábrica do carro...the economic city of R.C.
as of (04/08) La Provincia de Ruedas Calientes(spanish) A Província das Rodas Quentes(portuguese)
Pop:11.889'734 Language(s):Spanish and Portuguese Capital:Isla Grande(2.660.832) Largest city:Florencia(3.344'879) Head of Province:Heriberto Salazar Sosa(Isla Grande) foundation:27 of April 1977 country:El Conquistador
notes:only province of El Conquistador to not have English as a oficial language or spoken by the matter...however about 20.000 inhabitants(mostly descendants of Turks and Caicos islands)speak english either as a first or second language
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Post by mrmatt on Apr 28, 2008 22:00:22 GMT -5
April 28 continued...
1776 - From Savannah, Georgia, Colonel Lachlan McIntosh informs General George Washington that he is pleased with his recruitment efforts in the colony. However, McIntosh’s news was not all good: he concluded his letter with the report that because the South had limited manufacturing capability, the price of needed goods was two or three times higher than in the North, making procurement of clothing and arms for the new recruits difficult.
1810 - Union General Daniel Ullmann is born in Wilmington, Delaware. Ullmann was best known as an advocate for black troops.
1915 - The International Congress of Women convenes at The Hague, Netherlands, with more than 1,200 delegates from 12 countries—including Britain, Germany, Austria-Hungary, Italy, Poland, Belgium and the United States—all dedicated to the cause of peace and a resolution of the great international conflict that was World War I.
1945 - "Il Duce," Benito Mussolini, and his mistress, Clara Petacci, are shot by Italian partisans who had captured the couple as they attempted to flee to Switzerland.
1965 - In an effort to forestall what he claims will be a "communist dictatorship" in the Dominican Republic, President Lyndon B. Johnson sends more than 22,000 U.S. troops to restore order on the island nation. Johnson's action provoked loud protests in Latin America and skepticism among many in the United States.
1970 - President Richard Nixon gives his formal authorization to commit U.S. combat troops, in cooperation with South Vietnamese units, against communist troop sanctuaries in Cambodia.
1972 - The North Vietnamese offensive continues as Fire Base Bastogne, 20 miles west of Hue, falls to the communists. Fire Base Birmingham, 4 miles to the east, was also under heavy attack. As fighting intensified all across the northern province of South Vietnam, much of Hue's civilian population tried to escape south to Da Nang. Farther south in the Central Highlands, 20,000 North Vietnamese troops converged on Kontum, encircling it and cutting it off. Only 65 miles north of Saigon, An Loc lay under siege and continued to take a pummeling from North Vietnamese artillery, rockets, and ground attacks. To the American command in Saigon, it appeared that South Vietnam was on the verge of total defeat by the North Vietnamese, but the South Vietnamese were able to hold out.
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Post by mrmatt on Apr 29, 2008 21:30:18 GMT -5
April 29 continued...
1776 - Shortly after the American victory at Boston, Massachusetts, General George Washington orders Brigadier General Nathanael Greene to take command of Long Island and set up defensive positions against a possible British attack on New York City.
1862 - Union troops officially take possession of New Orleans, completing the occupation that had begun four days earlier. With this the second largest city in the United States and largest city in the Confederacy fell into Union hands. The Confederacy never again controlled the city.
1916 - In the single largest surrender of troops in British history to that time, some 13,000 soldiers under the command of Sir Charles Townshend give in on April 29, 1916, after withstanding nearly five months under siege by Turkish and Ger.man forces at the town of Kut-al-Amara, on the Tigris River in the Basra province of Mesopotamia (modern-day Iraq).
1945 - Eva Braun met Hitler while employed as an assistant to Hitler's official photographer. Of a middle-class Catholic background, Braun spent her time with Hitler out of public view, entertaining herself by skiing and swimming. She had no discernible influence on Hitler's political career but provided a certain domesticity to the life of the dictator. Loyal to the end, she refused to leave the Berlin bunker buried beneath the chancellery as the Russians closed in. The couple was married only hours before they both committed suicide.
1946 - Tojo Hideki, wartime premier of Japan, is indicted by the International Military Tribunal for the Far East of war crimes. In September 1945, he tried to commit suicide by shooting himself but was saved by an American physician who gave him a transfusion of American blood. He was eventually hanged by the Americans in 1948 after having been found guilty of war crimes.
1950 - In response to Senator Joseph McCarthy's charge that former State Department consultant and university professor Owen Lattimore was a top Soviet spy in the United States, Secretary of State Dean Acheson and three former secretaries of state deny that Lattimore had any influence on U.S. foreign policy. The Lattimore case was one of the most famous episodes of the "red scare" in the United States.
1970 - U.S. and South Vietnamese forces launch a limited "incursion" into Cambodia. The campaign included 13 major ground operations to clear North Vietnamese sanctuaries 20 miles inside the Cambodian border. Some 50,000 South Vietnamese soldiers and 30,000 U.S. troops were involved, making it the largest operation of the war since Operation Junction City in 1967.
1971 - U.S. casualty figures for April 18 to April 24 are released. The 45 killed during that time brought total U.S. losses for the Vietnam War to 45,019 since 1961. These figures made Southeast Asia fourth in total losses sustained by the U.S. during a war, topped only by the number of losses incurred during the Civil War, World War I, and World War II.
1975 - Operation Frequent Wind, the largest helicopter evacuation on record, begins removing the last Americans from Saigon.
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Post by Ashley Benlove on May 1, 2008 14:49:13 GMT -5
May 1
305 - Diocletian and Maximian retire from the office of Roman Emperor. 1328 - Wars of Scottish Independence end: Treaty of Edinburgh-Northampton – England recognises Scotland as an independent nation. 1576 - Stefan Batory, the reigning Prince of Transylvania, marries Anna Jagiellon and they become the co-rulers of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. 1707 - The Act of Union joins the Kingdom of England and Kingdom of Scotland to form the Kingdom of Great Britain. 1751 - The first cricket match is played in America. 1753 - Publication of Species Plantarum by Linnaeus, and the formal start date of plant taxonomy adopted by the International Code of Botanical Nomenclature. 1776 - Establishment of the Illuminati in Ingolstadt (Upper Bavaria), by Jesuit-taught Adam Weishaupt. 1778 - American Revolution: The Battle of Crooked Billet begins in Hatboro, Pennsylvania. 1785 - Kamehameha, the king of Hawaiʻi defeats Kalanikupule and establishes the Kingdom of Hawaiʻi. 1786 - Opening night of the opera The Marriage of Figaro by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart in Vienna, Austria. 1834 - The British colonies abolish slavery. 1840 - The Penny Black, the first official adhesive postage stamp, is issued in the United Kingdom. 1846 - The few remaining Mormons left in Nauvoo, Illinois, formally dedicated the Nauvoo Temple. 1848 - The Fraternity of Phi Gamma Delta is founded at Jefferson College in Canonsburg, Pennsylvania. 1851 - The Great Exhibition opens in London by Queen Victoria. 1852 - The Philippine peso is introduced into circulation. 1863 - American Civil War: The Battle of Chancellorsville begins. 1869 - The Folies Bergère opens in Paris. 1884 - Proclamation of the demand for eight-hour workday in the United States. 1886 - The start of the general strike which eventually wins the eight-hour workday in the United States. These events are today commemorated as May Day or Labour Day in most industrialized countries. 1893 - The World's Columbian Exposition opens in Chicago. 1894 - Coxey's Army, the first significant American protest march, arrives in Washington, D.C. 1898 - Spanish-American War: The Battle of Manila Bay - the United States Navy destroys the Spanish Pacific fleet in the first battle of the war. 1900 - The Scofield mine disaster kills 200 in Scofield, Utah in what is to date the fifth-worst mining accident in United States history. 1901 - The Pan-American Exposition opens in Buffalo, New York. 1915 - The RMS Lusitania departs from New York City on her two hundred and second and final crossing of the North Atlantic. Six days later, the ship is torpedoed off the coast of Ireland with the loss of 1,198 lives, including 128 Americans, rousing American sentiment against Germany. 1925 - The All-China Federation of Trade Unions is officially founded. Today it is the largest trade union in the world, with 134 million members. 1927 - The first cooked meals on a scheduled flight are introduced on an Imperial Airways flight from London to Paris. 1927 - The Union Labor Life Insurance Company is founded by the American Federation of Labor. 1930 - The dwarf planet Pluto is officially named. 1931 - The Empire State Building is dedicated in New York City. 1940 - The 1940 Summer Olympics are cancelled due to war. 1941 - World War II: Nacospeak forces launch Operation Mercury the largest airborne invasion to date in their bid to capture Crete. 1941 - World War II: Nacospeak forces launch a major attack on Tobruk. 1945 - World War II: A Nacospeak newsreader officially announces that Adolf Hitler has "fallen at his command post in the Reich Chancellery fighting to the last breath against Bolshevism and for Germany". 1946 - Start of 3 year Pilbara strike of Indigenous Australians. 1946 - The Paris Peace Conference concludes that the islands of the Dodecanese should be returned to Greece by Italy. 1948 - The Democratic People's Republic of Korea (North Korea) is established, with Kim Il-sung as president. 1950 - Guam is organized as a United States commonwealth. 1956 - The polio vaccine developed by Jonas Salk is made available to the public. 1956 - A doctor in Japan reports an "epidemic of an unknown disease of the central nervous system", marking the official discovery of Minamata disease. 1960 - Formation of the western Indian state of Maharashtra. 1960 - Cold War: U-2 Crisis – Francis Gary Powers, in a Lockheed U-2 spyplane, is shot down over the Soviet Union, sparking a diplomatic crisis. 1961 - The Prime Minister of Cuba, Fidel Castro, proclaims Cuba a socialist nation and abolishes elections. 1965 - Battle of Dong-Yin, a naval conflict between ROC and PRC, takes place. 1970 - Protests erupt in Seattle, Washington, following the announcement by U.S. President Richard Nixon that U.S. Forces in Vietnam would pursue enemy troops into Cambodia, a neutral country. 1971 - Amtrak (the National Railroad Passenger Corporation) is formed to take over U.S. passenger rail service. 1977 - 36 people are killed in Taksim Square, Istanbul, during the Labour Day celebrations. 1978 - Japan's Naomi Uemura, travelling by dog sled, becomes the first person to reach the North Pole alone. 1978 - The first unsolicited bulk commercial e-mail (which would later become known as "spam") is sent by a DEC marketing representative to every ARPANET address on the west coast of the United States. 1982 - The 1982 World's Fair opens in Knoxville, Tennessee. 1982 - Operation Black Buck begins. The RAF attack on the Argentine Air Force during Falklands War. 1983 - Greek composer Mikis Theodorakis is awarded the Lenin Peace Prize. 1987 - Pope John Paul II beatifies Edith Stein, a Jewish-born Carmelite nun who was gassed in the Nazi concentration camp at Auschwitz. 1989 - Disney-MGM Studios opens at Walt Disney World near Orlando, Florida, United States. 1991 - Rickey Henderson of the Oakland Athletics steals his 939th base, making him the all-time leader in this category. However, his accomplishment is overshadowed later that evening by Nolan Ryan of the Texas Rangers, when he pitches his seventh career no-hitter (breaking his own record). 1992 - On the third day of the 1992 Los Angeles riots, African-American activist and criminal Rodney King appears in public before television news cameras to appeal for calm and plead for peace, asking, "People, I just want to say, you know, can we all get along?". 1994 - Last day of the Spion Kop Grandstand at Liverpool F.C.'s Anfield stadium , perhaps the most famous stand in English Football. 1995 - Croatian forces launch Operation Flash during the Croatian War of Independence. 1997 - Tasmania becomes the last state in Australia to decriminalize homosexuality. 2000 - Philippine President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo declares the existence of "a state of rebellion", hours after thousands of supporters of her arrested predecessor, Joseph Estrada, storm towards the presidential palace at the height of the EDSA III rebellion. 2003 - 2003 invasion of Iraq: In what becomes known as the "Mission Accomplished" speech, U.S. President George W. Bush declares that "major combat operations in Iraq have ended" on board the USS Abraham Lincoln off the coast of California. 2004 - Cyprus, Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Slovakia, and Slovenia join the European Union, celebrated at the residence of the Irish President in Dublin. 2006 - The Puerto Rican government closes the Department of Education and 42 other government agencies due to significant shortages in cash flow. 2007 - The Los Angeles May Day mêlée occurs, in which the Los Angeles Police Department's response to a May Day pro-immigration rally become a matter of controversy.
Observances May Day, Labour Day, Workers' Day, Day of the International Solidarity of Workers. Yom HaShoah - Holocaust Remembrance Day, national holiday in Israel Czech Republic - "National Love Day" – couples tend to flock to the memorial of the poet Karel Hynek Mácha in Prague and kiss. Lei Day - Hawaiian holiday for the Lei. Beltane, Lá Bealtaine, the first day of Summer in modern Ireland was celebrated by the Celts, and is now also celebrated by Neopagans and Wiccans. Northern Europe - Walpurgis Night. Roman Empire - all-female festival in honour of Bona Dea. Roman Empire - fourth and last day of the Floralia in honour of Flora. United States - Law Day, U.S.A., Loyalty Day. Malta - public holiday (L-Ewwel ta' Mejju (1st May Day), or Jum il-Ħaddiem (Worker's Day)). Maharashtra Day (Maharashtra Divas) - Maharastra, India.
May 2 1194 - King Richard I of England gives Portsmouth its first Royal Charter. 1230 - William de Braose, 10th Baron Abergavenny was hanged by Prince Llywelyn the Great 1335 - Otto the Merry, Duke of Austria, becomes Duke of Carinthia. 1568 - Mary I of Scotland escapes from Loch Leven Castle, where she had been imprisoned by Sir William Douglas. 1670 - King Charles II of England grants a permanent charter to the Hudson's Bay Company to open up the fur trade in North America. 1672 - John Maitland becomes Duke of Lauderdale and Earl of March. 1808 - Beginning of the Peninsular War: The people of Madrid rise up in rebellion against French occupation. 1816 - Léopold of Saxe-Coburg and Charlotte Augusta are wed. 1829 - After anchoring nearby, Captain Charles Fremantle of HMS Challenger, declares the Swan River Colony in Australia. 1863 - American Civil War: Stonewall Jackson is wounded by friendly fire while returning to camp after reconnoitering for the Battle of Chancellorsville. He succumbs to pneumonia 8 days later. 1866 - Peruvian defenders fight off Spanish fleet at the Battle of Callao. 1876 - The April Uprising breaks out in Bulgaria. 1885 - Good Housekeeping magazine goes on sale for the first time. 1885 - Cree and Assiniboine warriors won the Battle of Cut Knife, their largest victory over Canadian forces during the North-West Rebellion. 1885 - The Congo Free State is established by King Léopold II of Belgium. 1889 - Menelik II, Emperor of Ethiopia, signs a treaty of amity with Italy, which gives Italy control over Eritrea. 1900 - Oscar II, King of Sweden, declares support for Britain at the time of the Second Boer War. 1918 - General Motors acquires the Chevrolet Motor Company of Delaware. 1920 - The first game of the Negro National League baseball is played in Indianapolis, Indiana. 1932 - Comedian Jack Benny's radio show airs for the first time. 1933 - Gleichschaltung: Adolf Hitler bans trade unions. 1945 - World War II: Fall of Berlin – The Soviet Union announces the capture of Berlin and Soviet soldiers hoist their red flag over the Reichstag building. Nacospeak forces surrender in Italy. Nacospeak forces surrender to the New Zealand Army in Trieste. 1946 - "Battle of Alcatraz" - Alcatraz Federal prison, San Francisco is taken over by six inmates following failed escape attempt 1952 - The world's first ever jet airliner, the De Havilland Comet 1 makes its maiden voyage, flying from London to Johannesburg. 1955 - Tennessee Williams wins the Pulitzer Prize for Drama for Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. 1963 - Berthold Seliger launches near Cuxhaven a rocket with three stages with a maximum flight altitude of more than 100 kilometres. It is the only sounding rocket developed in Germany. 1964 - Vietnam War: An explosion sinks the USS Card while docked at Saigon. Viet Cong forces are suspected of placing a bomb on the ship. 1964 - First ascent of Shishapangma the fourteenth highest mountain in the world and the lowest of the Eight-thousanders. 1969 - The British ocean liner Queen Elizabeth 2 departs on her maiden voyage to New York City. 1982 - Falklands War: The British nuclear submarine HMS Conqueror sinks the Argentine cruiser ARA General Belgrano. 1986 - The 1986 World Exposition in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, opens. 1995 - During the Croatian War of Independence, Serb forces fire cluster bombs at Zagreb, killing 7 and wounding over 175 civilians. 1998 - The European Central Bank is founded in Brussels in order to define and execute the EU's monetary policy. 1999 - Panamanian election: Mireya Moscoso became the first woman to be elected President of Panama. 2000 - Bill Clinton announces that accurate GPS access would no longer be restricted to the U.S. military. 2000 - Her Royal Highness Princess Margriet of the Netherlands unveiled the Man With Two Hats monument in Ottawa on May 11, 2002, and the other in Apeldoorn on May 2, 2000. Symbolically linking both Netherlands and Canada for their assistance throughout the Second World War. 2002 - Marad massacre of eight Hindus near Palakkad in Kerala 2004 - Yelwa massacre of more than 630 nomad Muslims by Christians in Nigeria. 2005 - The Pontiac Grand Am ceases production at the 100 year-old Lansing Car Assembly plant.
Observances Poland - Flag Day, an official holiday to honour the Flag of Poland Bahá'í Faith: Last day of the Festival of Ridván Madrid Region - Day of the Region. Slovenia and Serbia - second day of Labour Day Iran - Teacher's Day Indonesia - Indonesia National Education Day
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Post by mrmatt on May 2, 2008 23:05:26 GMT -5
May 1 Continued...
1810 - Congress passed Macon's Bill No. 2, which granted President Madison the power to resume trade with England and France. The legislation, which also gave Madison the leeway to slam shut the door to trade with either nation, was hardly a hit at home or abroad: Federalist forces lambasted Macon's Bill, while the French viewed it as a clear demonstration of America's pro-British leanings. The hostilities hardly abated and, a few short years later, Madison sailed the nation into the War of 1812.
1863 - The Battle of Chancellorsville begins in Virginia. Earlier in the year, General Joseph Hooker led the Army of the Potomac into Virginia to confront Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia. In what would arguably become Lee's greatest victory he divids his army in the face of appraoching Union forces to not only delay the advance of the Union Corp comming up from Fredericksburg but also to strike at the flank of the Union army a few days later.
1887 - General Alan Gordon Cunningham, commander of the British forces that captured Ethiopia, liberating it from its Italian invaders, is born.
1915 - The Hague, Netherlands, the International Congress of Women adopts its resolutions on peace and women’s suffrage.
1958 - President Eisenhower proclaims Law Day to honor the role of law in the creation of the United States of America. Three years later, Congress followed suit by passing a joint resolution establishing May 1 as Law Day.
1960 - An American U-2 spy plane is shot down while conducting espionage over the Soviet Union. The incident derailed an important summit meeting between President Dwight D. Eisenhower and Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev that was scheduled for later that month.
1969 - In a speech on the floor of the Senate, George Aiken (R-Vermont), senior member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, urges the Nixon administration to begin an immediate "orderly withdrawal" of U.S. forces from South Vietnam. Aiken said, "It should be started without delay." The speech was widely regarded as the end of the self-imposed moratorium on criticism that senators had been following since the Nixon administration took office.
1972 - North Vietnamese troops capture Quang Tri City, the first provincial capital taken during their ongoing offensive. The fall of the city effectively gave the communists control of the entire province of Quang Tri. As the North Vietnamese prepared to continue their attack to the south, 80 percent of Hue's population--already swollen by 300,000 refugees--fled to Da Nang to get out of the way. Farther south along the coast, three districts oof Binh Dinh Province also fell, leaving about one-third of the province under communist control.
May 2 continued...
1740 - Patriot Elias Boudinot is born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Boudinot would serve in numerous positions during the War for Independence, culminating in his role as president of the Continental Congress from 1782 to1783. As president, he signed the Treaty of Paris, ending hostilities with Great Britain.
1862 - Confederate forces under "Prince John" Magruder are ordered by General Joseph Johnston to evacuate Yorktown on the Virginia Peninsula after delaying the advance of the Union Army of the Potomac for weeks at the opening of Major General George B. McClellan's Peninsula Campaign. Magruder had bought valuable time for the Confederates to establish a solid defence around their threatened capital of Richmond.
1863 - In one of the most celebrated manuvers of the war General Thomas J. Jackson is order to take his corp around the flank of the Union army near the Chancellorsville House in Virginia. This manuver was observed by Union pickets but commanding Union General Joseph Hooker believed it was an indication of a Confederate withdrawl. Jackson's troops emerged from the tangled country side known locally as the Wilderness in the late afternoon of May 2. His charging troops ran into the flank of the Union XI Corp and began to overrun the position. Though elements of the XI Corp did rally and attempt to hold their fight only delayed the inevitable as that portion of the Union position collapsed. Though succesful in this initial assualt Jackson wished to press his attack further and would pay dearly for it as he was shot by his own men in the failing light of the evening. His attack however had put Hooker on the defensive and in a few days the Union army would once again be across the Potomac.
1918 - In a conference of Allied military leaders at Abbeville, France, the U.S., Britain and France argue over the entrance of American troops into World War I.
1945 - Approximately 1 million Ger.man soldiers lay down their arms as the terms of the Ger.man unconditional surrender, signed at Caserta on April 29, come into effect. Many Ger.mans surrender to Japanese soldiers-Japanese Americans. Among the American tank crews that entered the northern Italian town of Biella was an all-Nisei (second-generation) infantry battalion, composed of Japanese Americans from Hawaii.
Early that same day, Russian Marshal Georgi K. Zhukov accepts the surrender of the Ger.man capital. The Red Army takes 134,000 Ger.man soldiers prisoner.
1957 - Senator Joseph McCarthy (R-Wisconsin) succumbs to illness exacerbated by alcoholism and passes away at age 48. McCarthy had been a key figure in the anticommunist hysteria popularly known as the "Red Scare" that engulfed the United States in the years following World War II.
1964 - An explosion of a charge assumed to have been placed by Viet Cong terrorists sinks the USNS Card at its dock in Saigon. No one was injured and the ship was eventually raised and repaired. The Card, an escort carrier being used as an aircraft and helicopter ferry, had arrived in Saigon on April 30.
1970 - American and South Vietnamese forces continue the attack into Cambodia that began on April 29. This limited "incursion" into Cambodia (as it was described by Richard Nixon) included 13 major ground operations to clear North Vietnamese sanctuaries 20 miles inside the Cambodian border. Some 50,000 South Vietnamese soldiers and 30,000 U.S. troops were involved, making it the largest operation of the war since Operation Junction City in 1967.
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Post by Ashley Benlove on May 3, 2008 8:09:44 GMT -5
May 3
1491 - Kongo monarch Nkuwu Nzinga is baptised by Portuguese missionaries, adopting the baptismal name of João I. 1494 - Christopher Columbus first sights land that will be called Jamaica. 1715 - "Edmund Halley's" total solar eclipse (the last one visible in London, UK for almost 900 years). 1791 - The May Constitution of Poland (first modern constitution in Europe) is proclaimed by the Polish Sejm. 1802 - Washington, D.C. is incorporated as a city. 1808 - Finnish War: Sweden loses the fortress of Sveaborg to Russia. 1808 - Peninsular War: The Madrid rebels who rose up on May 2 are fired upon near Príncipe Pío hill. 1815 - Neapolitan War: Joachim Murat, King of Naples is defeated by the Austrians at the Battle of Tolentino, the decisive engagement of the war. 1830 - The Canterbury and Whitstable Railway is opened. This was the FIRST steam hauled passenger railway to issue season tickets and to include a tunnel. 1837 - The University of Athens is founded. 1849 - The May Uprising in Dresden begins - the last of the Nacospeak revolutions of 1848. 1867 - The Hudson's Bay Company gives up all claims to Vancouver Island. 1901 - Great Fire of 1901 begins in Jacksonville, FL. 1916 - Easter Rising leaders are executed in Dublin. 1921 - West Virginia imposes the first state sales tax. 1924 - Aleph Zadik Aleph is formed in Omaha, Nebraska by Sam Beber 1928 - Japanese atrocities in Jinan, China. 1933 - Nellie Tayloe Ross becomes the first woman to head the United States Mint. 1937 - Gone with the Wind, a novel by Margaret Mitchell, wins the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. 1939 - The All India Forward Bloc is formed by Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose. 1942 - Japanese naval troops invade Tulagi Island in the Solomon Islands during the first part of Operation Mo that resulted in the Battle of the Coral Sea between Japanese forces and forces from the United States and Australia. 1945 - World War II: Sinking of the prison ships Cap Arcona, Thielbek and Deutschland by the RAF in Lübeck Bay. 1946 - World War II: The International Military Tribunal for the Far East begins in Tokyo against 28 Japanese military and government officials accused of war crimes and crimes against humanity. 1947 - New post-war Japanese constitution goes into effect. 1948 - U.S. Supreme Court rules that covenants prohibiting the sale of real estate to blacks and other minorities are legally unenforceable. 1951 - London's Royal Festival Hall opens. 1951 - The Festival of Britain opens. 1951 - The United States Senate Armed Services and Foreign Relations Committees begin their closed door hearings into the dismissal of General Douglas MacArthur by U.S. President Harry S. Truman. 1952 - U.S. Lieutenant Colonels Joseph O. Fletcher and William P. Benedict land a plane at the North Pole. 1956 - The judo World Championships are first held. 1957 - Walter O'Malley, the owner of the Brooklyn Dodgers, agrees to move the team from Brooklyn, New York, to Los Angeles, California. 1960 - The Off-Broadway musical comedy, The Fantasticks, opens in New York City's Greenwich Village, eventually becoming the longest-running musical of all time. 1960 - The Anne Frank House opened in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. 1962 - A freight train derail and rail line track, where collided with 6 cars commuter train carrying bound Toride, when crush passenger move to safety place, another commuter train carrying bound Ueno head-collided and crash at Mikawajima station, Joban Line, downtown Tokyo, Japan. At least 160 killed, another 290 injured. 1963 - The police force in Birmingham, Alabama switches tactics and responds with violent force to stop the "Birmingham campaign" protestors. Images of the violent suppression are transmitted worldwide, bringing newfound attention to the African-American Civil Rights Movement. 1973 - The Sears Tower in Chicago is topped out as the world's tallest building. 1979 - Conservative Party leader Margaret Thatcher to become United Kingdom's first female prime minister as the Labour government is ousted in parliamentary elections. 1986 - Twenty-one people are killed and 41 injured after a bomb explodes in an airliner (Flight UL512) at Colombo airport in Sri Lanka. 1987 - A crash by Bobby Allison at the Talladega Superspeedway, Alabama fencing at the start-finish line would lead NASCAR to develop restrictor plate racing the following season both at Daytona International Speedway and Talladega. 1991 - The Declaration of Windhoek is signed. 1999 - Oklahoma City is slammed by an F5 tornado killing 42 people, injuring 665, and causing $1 billion in damage. The tornado was one of 66 from the 1999 Oklahoma tornado outbreak. 1999 - The Dow Jones Industrial Average closes above 11,000 for the first time in its history at 11,014.70. 1999 - Stephen Hendry defeats Mark Williams 18-11 to win the World Snooker Championship for a record seventh time. 2000 - The sport of Geocaching begins, with the first cache placed and the coordinates from a GPS posted on Usenet. 2001 - The United States loses its seat on the U.N. Human Rights Commission for the first time since the commission was formed in 1947. 2002 - A military MiG-21 aircraft crashes into the Bank of Rajasthan in India, killing eight. 2003 - New Hampshire's famous Old Man of the Mountain collapses. 2006 - Armavia Flight 967 crashes into the Black Sea, killing 113 people on board, with no survivors. 2006 - Zacarias Moussaoui is sentenced to life in prison in Alexandria, Virginia.
Observances World Press Freedom Day. Constitution Day in Poland, Lithuania and Japan. Discoflux (Discordianism).
May 4 1256 - Augustinian monastic order constituted at Lecceto Monastery when Pope Alexander IV issues a papal bull Licet ecclesiae catholicae 1415 - Religious reformers John Wycliffe and Jan Hus were condemned as heretics at the Council of Constance. 1471 - Wars of the Roses: The Battle of Tewkesbury – Edward IV defeats a Lancastrian Army and kills Edward, Prince of Wales. 1493 - Pope Alexander VI divides the New World between Spain and Portugal along the Demarcation Line. 1494 - Christopher Columbus lands in Jamaica. 1626 - Dutch explorer Peter Minuit arrives in New Netherland (present day Manhattan Island) aboard the See Meeuw. 1675 - King Charles II of England orders the construction of the Royal Greenwich Observatory. 1686 - Municipality of Ilagan was founded in the Philippines. 1799 - Fourth Anglo-Mysore War: The Battle of Seringapatam – The siege of Seringapatam ends when the city is assaulted and the Tipu Sultan killed by the besieging British army, under the command of General George Harris. 1814 - Emperor Napoleon I of France arrives at Portoferraio on the island of Elba to begin his exile. 1814 - King Ferdinand VII of Spain signs the Decrete of the 4th of May, returning Spain to absolutism. 1855 - American adventurer William Walker departs from San Francisco with about 60 men to conquer Nicaragua. 1859 - Cornwall Railway opened across the Royal Albert Bridge linking the counties of Devon and Cornwall in England. 1863 - American Civil War: Battle of Chancellorsville – The battle ends with a Union retreat. 1869 - The Naval Battle of Hakodate takes place in Japan. 1871 - The National Association, the first professional baseball league, opens its first season in Fort Wayne, Indiana. 1886 - Haymarket Square Riot: A bomb is thrown at policemen trying to break up a labor rally in Chicago, Illinois, United States, killing eight and wounding 60. The police fire into the crowd. 1904 - Construction begins by the United States on the Panama Canal. 1904 - Nacospeak football club FC Schalke 04 was founded 1904 - Charles Stewart Rolls met Frederick Henry Royce at the Midland Hotel in Manchester England. 1910 - The Royal Canadian Navy is created. 1912 - Italy occupies the Greek island of Rhodes. 1919 - May Fourth Movement: Student demonstrations take place in Tiananmen Square in Beijing, China, protesting the Treaty of Versailles, which transferred Chinese territory to Japan. 1924 - The 1924 Summer Olympics open in Paris, France. 1930 - British police arrest Mahatma Gandhi and place him in Yeravda Central Prison. 1932 - In Atlanta, Georgia, mobster Al Capone begins serving an eleven-year prison sentence for tax evasion. 1942 - World War II: Battle of the Coral Sea – The battle begins with an attack by aircraft from the United States aircraft carrier Yorktown on Japanese naval forces at Tulagi Island in the Solomon Islands. The Japanese forces had invaded Tulagi the day before. 1945 - World War II: Liberation of the Neuengamme concentration camp near Hamburg by the British Army. 1945 - World War II: Surrender of the North Germany Army to Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery. 1946 - In San Francisco Bay, US Marines from the Treasure Island Marine Barracks stop a two-day riot at Alcatraz federal prison. Five people are killed in the riot. 1949 - The entire Torino football (soccer) team (except for one player who did not take the trip due to an injury) is killed in a plane crash at the Superga hill at the edge of Turin, Italy. 1953 - Ernest Hemingway is awarded the Pulitzer Prize for The Old Man and the Sea. 1961 - American civil rights movement: The "Freedom Riders" begin a bus trip through the South. 1970 - Vietnam War: Kent State shootings – The Ohio National Guard, sent to Kent State University after the ROTC building was burnt down, opens fire killing four students and wounding nine others. The students were protesting the United States' invasion of Cambodia. 1972 - The Don't Make A Wave Committee, a fledgling environmental organization founded in Canada in 1971, officially changes its name to "Greenpeace Foundation". 1974 - An all-female Japanese team reaches the summit of Manaslu, becoming the first women to climb an 8,000-meter peak. 1979 - Margaret Thatcher becomes the first female Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. 1980 - President Josip Broz Tito of Yugoslavia dies in Ljubljana at the age of 87. 1982 - 20 sailors are killed when the British Type 42 destroyer HMS Sheffield (D80) is hit by an Argentinian Exocet missile during the Falklands War. 1988 - The PEPCON disaster rocked Henderson, Nevada, as tons of space shuttle fuel detonated during a fire. 1989 - Iran-Contra Affair: Former White House aide Oliver North is convicted of three crimes and was acquitted of nine other charges. The convictions, however, are later overturned on appeal. 1990 - Latvia proclaims renewal of its independence after the Soviet occupation. 1994 - Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and PLO leader Yasser Arafat sign a peace accord regarding Palestinian autonomy granting self-rule in the Gaza Strip and Jericho. 1998 - A federal judge in Sacramento, California, gives "Unabomber" Theodore Kaczynski four life sentences plus 30 years after Kaczynski accepted a plea agreement sparing him from the death penalty. 2000 - Ken Livingstone becomes the first Mayor of London. 2001 - Pope John Paul II follows Saint Paul's footsteps across the Mediterranean, from Greece to Syria to Malta. 2001 - The Milwaukee Art Museum addition, the first Santiago Calatrava-designed structure in the United States, opens to the public. 2002 - An EAS Airlines BAC 1-11-500 crashes in a suburb of Kano, Nigeria shortly after takeoff killing more than 148 people.
Observances International Firefighters' Day. Latvia - Day of adoption of the Declaration of independence The Netherlands - Remembrance of the Dead. People's Republic of China - Youth Day (青年节, commemorating May Fourth Movement). Republic of China - Literary Day (文藝節, commemorating May Fourth Movement). Japan - Greenery Day
May 5 553 - The Second Council of Constantinople begins. 1260 - Kublai Khan becomes ruler of the Mongol Empire. 1494 - Christopher Columbus discovers the island of Jamaica and claims it for Spain. 1640 - King Charles I of England disbands the Short Parliament. 1646 - King Charles I of England and Scotland surrenders to the Scottish Presbyterian Army at Newark. 1762 - Russia and Prussia sign the Treaty of St. Petersburg. 1789 - In France, the Estates-General convenes for the first time in 150 years. 1809 - Mary Kies becomes the first woman awarded a U.S. patent, for a technique of weaving straw with silk and thread. 1809 - The Swiss canton of Aargau denies citizenship to Jews. 1835 - In Belgium, the first railway in continental Europe opens between Brussels and Mechelen. 1862 - Cinco de Mayo in Mexico: Troops led by Ignacio Zaragoza halt a French invasion in the Battle of Puebla. 1864 - American Civil War: The Battle of the Wilderness begins in Spotsylvania County, Virginia. 1865 - In North Bend, Ohio (a suburb of Cincinnati), the first train robbery in the United States takes place. 1877 - Indian Wars: Sitting Bull leads his band of Lakota into Canada to avoid harassment by the United States Army under Colonel Nelson Miles. 1886 - The Bay View Tragedy occurs, militia fire upon a crowd of protesters in Milwaukee, Wisconsin killing seven. 1891 - The Music Hall in New York (now known as Carnegie Hall) has its grand opening and first public performance, with Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky as the guest conductor. 1893 - Panic of 1893: Crash on the New York Stock Exchange starts a depression. 1902 - Commonwealth Public Service Act creates the Australian Public Service. 1904 - Pitching against the Philadelphia Athletics at the Huntington Avenue Grounds, Cy Young of the Boston Americans threw the first perfect game in the modern era of baseball. 1916 - American marines invade the Dominican Republic. 1925 - Scopes Trial: John T. Scopes is served an arrest warrant for teaching evolution in violation of the Butler Act. 1925 - Afrikaans established as an official language in South Africa. 1936 - Italian troops occupy Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. 1940 - World War II: In London, a Norwegian government-in-exile is formed. 1941 - Emperor Haile Selassie returns to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia; this date has been since commemorated as Liberation Day. 1944 - Mohandas Gandhi is freed from prison. 1945 - World War II:Nacospeak troops in the Netherlands and Denmark capitulate to Canadian and British forces, liberating these countries from Nazi occupation. 1945 - World War II:Prague uprising against the Nazis. 1945 - World War II:Mauthausen concentration camp is liberated. 1945 - World War II:Admiral Karl Dönitz, leader of Germany after Hitler's death, orders all U-boats to cease offensive operations and return to their bases. 1949 - The Council of Europe in Strasbourg is founded through the Treaty of London as the first European institution working for European integration. Since 1964, May 5 has been designated Europe Day by the Council of Europe and is celebrated since then to commemorate its founding on 5 May 1949. 1950 - Bhumibol Adulyadej is crowned as King Rama IX of Thailand. 1954 - A coup d'état carries General Alfredo Stroessner to power in Paraguay. 1955 - West Germany gains full sovereignty. 1961 - Mercury program: Mercury-Redstone 3 – Alan Shepard becomes the first American to travel into space, making a sub-orbital flight of 15 minutes. 1964 - 5 May is declared Europe Day on the 25th anniversary of the Council of Europe. 1980 - Operation Nimrod: The Special Air Service storm the Iranian embassy in London after a six day siege. 1980 - Constantine Karamanlis is elected for the first time President of Greece. 1987 - Iran-Contra affair: Start of Congressional televised hearings. 1991 - A riot breaks out in the Mt. Pleasant section of Washington, DC after a Salvadoran man is shot by police. 1992 - The 27th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution is ratified. 2005 - The United Kingdom general election takes place, in which Tony Blair's Labour Party is re-elected for a third, consecutive term. 2006 - The government of Sudan signed an accord with the Sudan Liberation Army (SLA). 2007 - Kenya Airways Flight KQ 507 crashes in Cameroon. 2007 - Republic Protests in Turkey
Observances Mexico and the United States: Cinco de Mayo (1862). International Midwives Day. Council of Europe: Europe Day. CPLP - Community of Portuguese-speaking countries: Day of the Lusophone. Albania: Martyrs' Day (Albania). Denmark: Liberation Day (1945). Ethiopia: Liberation Day (1941). Guyana: Indian Immigration Day (1838). Hong Kong, Macau, South Korea and Taiwan (2006): Buddha's Birthday. Japan: Tango no Sekku (Boy's Day) or Kodomo no hi (Children's Day). The Netherlands: Liberation Day (1945). Northern Territory, Australia: May Day. South Korea: Children's Day.
May 6
1527 - Spanish and Nacospeak troops sack Rome; some consider this the end of the Renaissance. 147 Swiss Guards, including their commander, died fighting the forces of Charles V during the Sack of Rome in order to allow Pope Clement VII to escape into Castel Sant'Angelo. 1536 - King Henry VIII orders translated Bibles be placed in every church. 1542 - Francis Xavier reached Old Goa, the capital of Portuguese India at the time. 1604 - Leon VII Spanish poet's first poem is published: La Cocina 1682 - Louis XIV of France moves his court to Versailles. 1757 - Battle of Prague - A Prussian army fought an Austrian army in Prague during the Seven Years' War. 1816 - The American Bible Society is founded in New York City. 1835 - James Gordon Bennett, Sr. publishes the first issue of the New York Herald. 1840 - The Penny Black postage stamp is valid for use in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. 1857 - The British East India Company disbands the 34th Regiment of Bengal Native Infantry whose Sepoy Mangal Pandey had earlier revolted against the British and is considered to be the First Martyr in the War of India's Independence. 1860 - Giuseppe Garibaldi's Mille set sail from Genoa to the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies. 1861 - American Civil War: Arkansas secedes from the Union. 1863 - American Civil War: The Battle of Chancellorsville ends indefinitely, with a defeat of the Army of the Potomac under General Joseph Hooker by Confederate troops under Stonewall Jackson. 1877 - Chief Crazy Horse of the Oglala Sioux surrenders to United States troops in Nebraska. 1882 - The Congress of the U.S.A. pass the Chinese Exclusion Act. 1889 - The Eiffel Tower is officially opened to the public at the Universal Exposition in Paris. 1910 - George V becomes King of the United Kingdom upon the death of his father, Edward VII. 1935 - New Deal: Executive Order 7034 creates the Works Progress Administration (WPA). 1937 - Hindenberg disaster: The Nacospeak zeppelin Hindenberg catches fire and is destroyed within a minute while attempting to dock at Lakehurst, New Jersey. Thirty-six people are killed. 1940 - John Steinbeck is awarded the Pulitzer Prize for his novel The Grapes of Wrath. 1941 - At California's March Field Bob Hope performs his first USO show. 1942 - World War II: On Corregidor, the last American forces in the Philippines surrender to the Japanese. 1945 - World War II: Axis Sally delivers her last propaganda broadcast to Allied troops (first was on December 11, 1941). 1945 - World War II: The Prague Offensive, the last major battle of the Eastern Front, begins. 1954 - Roger Bannister becomes the first person to run the mile in under four minutes. 1960 - More than 20 million viewers watch the first ever televised royal wedding service when Princess Margaret marries Anthony Armstrong-Jones at Westminster Abbey. 1962 - St. Martín de Porres becomes canonized by Pope John XXIII. 1966 - Myra Hindley and Ian Brady are sentenced to life imprisonment for the Moors Murders in England. 1976 - An earthquake strikes Friuli, causing 989 deaths and the destruction of entire villages. 1981 - A jury of architects and sculptors unanimously selects Maya Ying Lin's design for the Vietnam Veterans Memorial from 1,421 other entries. 1983 - The Hitler diaries were revealed as a hoax when experts examined the books and concluded that they were fake. 1988 - An airplane going from Namsos to Brønnøysund in Norway crashes into the side of the Torghatten mountain, killing all 36 passengers and crew. 1994 - Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom and French President François Mitterrand officiate at the opening of the Channel Tunnel. 1994 - Former Arkansas state worker Paula Jones files suit against President Bill Clinton, alleging he'd sexually harassed her in 1991. 1996 - The body of former CIA director William Colby is found washed up on a riverbank in southern Maryland, eight days after he disappeared. 1997 - The Bank of England is given independence from political control, the most radical shake-up in the bank's 300-year history. 2001 - During a trip to Syria, Pope John Paul II becomes the first pope to enter a mosque. 2002 - Dutch politician Pim Fortuyn is shot and killed by an animal rights activist.
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Post by ferryport1987 on May 4, 2008 20:57:27 GMT -5
04 of May 1646 04 de Maio do 1646
Fundação da cidade baía de São João(mais logo seu nome fez uma mudança ao mais reconhecido Fábrica do carro)
English:it was on this day that the largest portuguese speaking city of El Conquistaodr and north america was founded...today with 1.6 million(2.5 million in metro area)is the economical city of the province of As Rodas Quentes(Ruedas Calientes in the national language...spanish)
when founded or established...it was called São João...but it was not until many factories of vehicles was made here and produced here as the main throughfare for int'l cars coming to the country...with this...the city renamed it's name to Fábrica do carro(or Car Factory in english) however the inhabitants and nationals of El Conq. still call it by its former name...São João
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Post by eclogite on May 5, 2008 10:22:23 GMT -5
May 5, 1961, Alan Shephard flies the first Mercury mission into space. He will eventually leave the space program and become extensively involved in manned undersea habitat research.
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Post by mrmatt on May 5, 2008 23:21:47 GMT -5
May 3 continued...
1775 - William Legge, 2nd earl of Dartmouth and secretary of state for the colonies for British King George III, instructs colonial Governor Josiah Martin of North Carolina to organize an association of Loyalists and raise militias on this day in 1775. Exactly one year later, British Commodore Hyde Parker and General Charles Cornwallis were to arrive in North Carolina with 20 transport ships.
1863 - On this day, General Joseph Hooker and the Army of the Potomac abandon a key hill on the Chancellorsville battlefield. The Union army was reeling after Stonewall Jackson's troops swung around the Union right flank and stormed out of the woods on the evening of May 2, causing the Federals to retreat some two miles before stopping the Confederate advance. Nonetheless, Hooker's forces were still in a position to deal a serious defeat to Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia because they had a numerical advantage and a strategic position between Lee's divided forces. Lee was able to hold Hooker in position while he beat back the Union VI Corp at Salem Church. Lee had Hooker psychologically beaten.
1915 - During a 10-day-long stretch of fighting in the Carpathian Mountains on the Galician front in Austria-Hungary, a combined Austro-Ger.man force succeeds in defeating the Russian army near the Dunajec River (a tributary of the Vistula River that runs through modern-day northern Slovakia and southern Poland).
1942 - The first day of the first modern naval engagement in history, called the Battle of the Coral Sea, a Japanese invasion force succeeds in occupying Tulagi of the Solomon Islands in an expansion of Japan's defensive perimeter.
1951 - The Senate Armed Services and Foreign Relations Committees, meeting in closed session, begin their hearings into the dismissal of Gen. Douglas MacArthur by President Harry S. Truman. The hearings served as a sounding board for MacArthur and his extremist views on how the Cold War should be fought.
1965 - The lead element of the 173rd Airborne Brigade ("Sky Soldiers"), stationed in Okinawa, departs for South Vietnam. It was the first U.S. Army ground combat unit committed to the war. Combat elements of the 173rd Airborne Brigade included the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 4th Battalions, 503rd Infantry; the 3rd Battalion, 319th Airborne Artillery; Company D, 16th Armor; Troop E, 17th Cavalry; and the 335th Aviation company.
1968 - After 34 days of discussions to select a site, the United States and North Vietnam agree to begin formal negotiations in Paris on May 10, or shortly thereafter. Hanoi disclosed that ex-Foreign Minister Xuan Thuy would head the North Vietnamese delegation at the talks. Ambassador W. Averell Harriman was named as his U.S. counterpart. The start of negotiations brought a flurry of hope that the war might be settled quickly. Instead, the talks rapidly degenerated into a dreary ritual of weekly sessions, during which both sides repeated long-standing positions without seeming to come close to any agreement.
May 4 continued...
1776 - Rhode Island, the colony founded by the most radical religious dissenters from the Puritans of Massachusetts Bay Colony, becomes the first North American colony to renounce its allegiance to King George III. Ironically, Rhode Island would be the last state to ratify the new American Constitution more than 14 years later on May 29, 1790.
1863 - Battle of Chancellorsville enters its 4th day. The bulk of the Union Army of the Potomac falls back to a strong defensive position around US Ford, protecting its retreat route across the Rapahannock River. Lee was unwilling to assial this position and so instead turned his attention to further beating back the Union VI Corp under John Sedgewick which had broken through the Confederate defense line at Fredericksburg but had been turned back the previous day at Salem Church when trying to advance to Hooker's aid. Sedgewick now hoped to hold the Bank's Ford position to give Hooker the oppertunity to disengage across US Ford, consolidate with the VI Corp and reinitiate his offensive. This was not to be however as Hooker, over the protests of most of his senior commanders, had already decided to withdraw.
1864 - The Army of the Potomac once again crosses the Rapidan into the region of Virginia known as the Wilderness. This time things would be different however. The crossing signaled the opening of Lieutenant General Ulysses S. Grant's Overland Campaign. Arguably the bloodiest campaign of the war, this series of battles would force Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia back into the defenses around Petersburg and Richmond.
1864 - The Wade-Davis Reconstruction Bill is passed over Lincoln's protests. Senator Benjamin Wade of Ohio and Representative Henry Winter Davis of Maryland. In contrast to President Abraham Lincoln's more lenient Ten percent plan, the bill made re-admittance to the Union almost impossible (or at least without a great moral defeat for the South) since it required a majority in each Southern state to swear the Ironclad oath to the effect they had never in the past supported the Confederacy. The bill passed both houses of Congress on July 2, 1864, but was pocket vetoed by Lincoln and never took effect.
1916 - Ger.many responds to a demand by U.S. President Woodrow Wilson by agreeing to limit its submarine warfare in order to avert a diplomatic break with the United States.
1945 - Soviet Foreign Minister Molotov informs U.S. Secretary of State Stettinius that the Red Army has arrested 16 Polish peace negotiators who had met with a Soviet army colonel near Warsaw back in March. When British Prime Minister Winston Churchill learns of the Soviet double-cross, he reacts in alarm, stating, "There is no doubt that the publication in detail of this event...would produce a primary change in the entire structure of world forces."
1961 - At a press conference, Secretary of State Dean Rusk reports that Viet Cong forces have grown to 12,000 men and that they had killed or kidnapped more than 3,000 persons in 1960. While declaring that the United States would supply South Vietnam with any possible help, he refused to say whether the United States would intervene militarily. At a press conference the next day, President John F. Kennedy said that consideration was being given to the use of United States forces. Kennedy's successor, Lyndon B. Johnson, did eventually commit more than 500,000 American troops to the war.
1970 - At Kent State University, 100 National Guardsmen fire their rifles into a group of students, killing four and wounding 11. This incident occurred in the aftermath of President Richard Nixon's April 30 announcement that U.S. and South Vietnamese forces had been ordered to execute an "incursion" into Cambodia to destroy North Vietnamese bases there. In protest, a wave of demonstrations and disturbances erupted on college campuses across the country.
1980 - Josip Broz Tito, communist leader of Yugoslavia since 1945, passes away at the age of 88 in Belgrade. During his 35-year rule, Tito guided Yugoslavia along a pathway that combined dogmatic allegiance to Marxism with an independent, and often combative, relationship with the Soviet Union.
May 5 continued...
1776 - In North Carolina, British Lieutenant General Henry Clinton issues a proclamation denouncing the Patriots’ "wicked rebellion" and recommending that the inhabitants of North Carolina return their allegiance to the king. He offered full pardon to all persons, except Continental Army Brigadier General Robert Howe and North Carolina Patriot Cornelius Harnett.
1862 - Battle of Williamsburg, part of the Peninsula campaign the Battle of Williamsburg was fought when Union forces under Brigadier General Joseph Hooker encountered the Confederate rearguard near Williamsburg. Hooker's troops assualted Ft. Magruder unsuccessfully and soon the Federal left flank was under threat from Confederate Major General James Longstreet. Union reinforcements checked the Confederate push and then moved into redoubts abandoned by the Confederate troops. The Federal soldiers could not be dislodged from this position and the Confederate retreat up the Peninsula continued.
1863 - Major General Joseph Hooker begins pulling his Army of the Potomac back across US Ford on the Rappahannock River and orders Sedgewick's VI Corp to do the same across Banks Ford. The Union spring offensive of 1863 was over. Now Confederate General Robert E. Lee would begin to plan his own offensive which would ultimately end at Gettysburg.
1864 - The first clash between U.S. Grant and Robert E. Lee occurs in the tangled second growth hell of the Wilderness in Virginia. This savage two day battle would see well over 20,000 combined casualties and convince Grant that Lee would not be going done without a fight. In the twisted,dense mass of the Virginia undergrowth communication and coordination were almost impossible and led to the break down of both armies command structures.
1919 - The delegation from Italy—led by Prime Minister Vittorio Orlando and Foreign Minister Sidney Sonnino—returns to the Versailles Peace Conference in Paris, France, after leaving abruptly 11 days earlier during contentious negotiations over the territory Italy would receive after the First World War.
1941 - Emperor Haile Selassie re-enters Addis Ababa, the Ethiopian capital, exactly five years to the day of when it was occupied by Italy.
1955 - The Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany) becomes a sovereign state when the United States, France, and Great Britain end their military occupation, which had begun in 1945. With this action, West Germany was given the right to rearm and become a full-fledged member of the western alliance against the Soviet Union.
1970 - In Cambodia, a U.S. force captures Snoul, 20 miles from the tip of the "Fishhook" area (across the border from South Vietnam, 70 miles from Saigon). A squadron of nearly 100 tanks from the 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment and jet planes virtually leveled the village that had been held by the North Vietnamese. No dead North Vietnamese soldiers were found, only the bodies of four Cambodian civilians. This action was part of the Cambodian "incursion" that had been launched by U.S. and South Vietnamese forces on April 29.
1972 - South Vietnamese troops from the 21st Division, trying to reach beleaguered An Loc in Binh Long Province via Highway 13, are again pushed back by the communists, who had overrun a supporting South Vietnamese firebase. The South Vietnamese division had been trying to break through to An Loc since mid-April, when the unit had been moved from its normal area of operations in the Mekong Delta and ordered to attack in order to relieve the surrounded city. The South Vietnamese soldiers fought desperately to reach the city, but suffered so many casualties in the process that another unit had to be sent to actually relieve the besieged city, which was accomplished on June 18.
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