Today in History ^04/03/17

April 3, 2017 by GµårÐïåñ

Portrait of assassin Robert 'Bob' Ford (1861 - 1892) showing off the revolver he used to kill outlaw Jesse James in 1882, mid 1880s (© Authenticated News/Getty Images)

(1882) Robert Ford shoots and kills Jesse James

Outlaw Jesse James is brought down by a member of his own gang, 20-year-old Robert Ford. Although James had been a notorious criminal, public sentiment will turn against Ford for shooting an unarmed man in the back of the head.

Robert Newton “Bob” Ford was an American outlaw best known for killing his gang leader Jesse James in April 1882, to collect a reward. For about a year, Ford and his older brother Charles performed paid re-enactments of the killing at publicity events. Later he drifted around the West, operating saloons and dance halls.

Born: Jan 31, 1862 · Ray County, MO
Died: Jun 08, 1892 · Creede, CO
Siblings: Charles Ford (Brother)
Related movies: The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford
Children: Maude Mae Powell (Daughter) · Odie Watson (Daughter)
Parents: James Thomas · Mary Bruin Ford
Highlights
1881: Ford’s brother Charles is believed to have taken part in the James gang’s Blue Cut train robbery in Jackson County, west of Glendale, Missouri (renamed Selsa and now part of Independence), on September 7, 1881.

1881: In November 1881, after the train robbery, James moved his family to St. Joseph, Missouri and intended to give up crime.

1889: On December 26, 1889, Ford survived an assassination attempt in Kansas City, Kansas when an assailant tried to slit his throat.

1892: Ford purchased a lot and on May 29, 1892 opened Ford’s Exchange, said to have been a dance hall.

1892: Three days after the fire, on June 8, 1892, Edward O’Kelley entered Ford’s tent saloon with a shotgun.

1892: Robert Ford died on June 08, 1892 in Creede, United States.

wiki/Robert_Ford_(outlaw)

Oscar WiIde circa 1890 (© Print Collector/Getty Images)

(1895) Trial of Oscar Wilde begins

Brilliantly witty and notoriously unconventional, writer Oscar Wilde has brought libel charges against the father of a friend, who had publicly accused Wilde of committing the crime of sodomy. The trial will be Wilde’s undoing, exposing his scandalous private life, and ending in a prison term.

Oscar Fingal O’Flahertie Wills Wilde was an Irish playwright, novelist, essayist, and poet. After writing in different forms throughout the 1880s, he became one of London’s most popular playwrights in the early 1890s. He is remembered for his epigrams, his novel The Picture of Dorian Gray, his plays, as well as the circumstances of his imprisonment and early death.

Lived: Oct 16, 1854 – Nov 30, 1900 (age 46)
Height: 6′ 3″ (1.91 m)
Partner: Lord Alfred Douglas (1897 – 1898)
Spouse: Constance Lloyd (m. 1884 – 1898)
Children: Vyvyan Holland (Son) · Cyril Holland (Son)
Awards: Retro Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation (1946)
Highlights
1884: He proposed to her, and they married on 29 May 1884 at the Anglican St James’s Church, Paddington in London.

1889: In January 1889, The Decay of Lying: A Dialogue appeared in The Nineteenth Century, and Pen, Pencil and Poison, a satirical biography of Thomas Griffiths Wainewright, in The Fortnightly Review, edited by Wilde’s friend Frank Harris.

1891: In mid-1891 Lionel Johnson introduced Wilde to Lord Alfred Douglas, an undergraduate at Oxford at the time.

1895: Wilde’s friends had advised him against the prosecution at a Saturday Review meeting at the Café Royal on 24 March 1895; Frank Harris warned him that “they are going to prove sodomy against you” and advised him to flee to France.

1895: On 25 May 1895 Wilde and Alfred Taylor were convicted of gross indecency and sentenced to two years’ hard labour.

1900: Wilde died of cerebral meningitis on 30 November 1900.

wiki/Oscar_Wilde

President Harry Truman signs the history-making foreign aid bill known as the Marshall Plan into law at a White House ceremony in Washington on April 3, 1948 (©AP)

(1948) Marshall Plan is approved for a post-WWII Europe

President Harry Truman pledges billions of dollars in US aid to a Europe reeling from the massive destruction of World War II. The Marshall Plan is both a humanitarian effort and a shrewd political move against Soviet expansion.

The Marshall Plan (officially the European Recovery Program, ERP) was an American initiative to aid Western Europe, in which the United States gave over $12 billion (approximately $120 billion in current dollar value as of June 2016) in economic support to help rebuild Western European economies after the end of World War II. The plan was in operation for four years beginning April 8, 1948. The goals of the United States were to rebuild war-devastated regions, remove trade barriers, modernize industry, make Europe prosperous once more, and prevent the spread of communism. The Marshall Plan required a lessening of interstate barriers, a dropping of many regulations, and encouraged an increase in productivity, labour union membership, as well as the adoption of modern business procedures.

The Marshall Plan aid was divided amongst the participant states roughly on a per capita basis. A larger amount was given to the major industrial powers, as the prevailing opinion was that their resuscitation was essential for general European revival. Somewhat more aid per capita was also directed towards the Allied nations, with less for those that had been part of the Axis or remained neutral. The largest recipient of Marshall Plan money was the United Kingdom (receiving about 26% of the total), followed by France (18%) and West Germany (11%). Some 18 European countries received Plan benefits. Although offered participation, the Soviet Union refused Plan benefits, and also blocked benefits to Eastern Bloc countries, such as East Germany and Poland. The United States provided similar aid programs in Asia, but they were not called “Marshall Plan”.

The initiative is named after Secretary of State George Marshall, who also served as the United States Army Chief of staff during WWII. The plan had bipartisan support in Washington, where the Republicans controlled Congress and the Democrats controlled the White House with Harry S. Truman as president. The Plan was largely the creation of State Department officials, especially William L. Clayton and George F. Kennan, with help from the Brookings Institution, as requested by Senator Arthur H. Vandenberg, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Marshall spoke of an urgent need to help the European recovery in his address at Harvard University in June 1947. The purpose of the Marshall Plan was to aid in the economic recovery of nations after WWII as well as to antagonize the Soviet Union. In order to combat the effects of the Marshall Plan, the USSR developed its own economic plan, known as the Molotov Plan. It was not as effective as the Marshall Plan, and in some ways contradictory to eastern block countries that served alongside the axis powers in WWII.

The phrase “equivalent of the Marshall Plan” is often used to describe a proposed large-scale economic rescue program.

wiki/Marshall_Plan

John F. Mitchell (left) and Martin Cooper with prototype Motorola DynaTAC cellular phone, 1973 (© Motorola Mobility LLC, Legacy Archives Collection, Schaumburg, Ill.)

(1973) First public mobile phone call is made

Motorola engineer Martin Cooper stands on a sidewalk in midtown Manhattan and uses a prototype handheld mobile phone to call his team’s main competitor in the field, Bell Labs’ Joel Engel. The first handheld cell phone is nicknamed ‘the brick.’

Martin “Marty” Cooper is an American engineer. He is a pioneer and visionary in the wireless communications industry. With eleven patents in the field, he is recognized as an innovator in radio spectrum management.

Website: www.dynallc.com
Born: Dec 26, 1928 (age 88) · Chicago, IL
Net worth: $100 million USD (2016)
Spouse: Arlene Harris (m. 1991)
Inventions: Mobile phone
Founded: ArrayComm
Education: Illinois Institute of Technology
Highlights
1967: He developed many products including the first cellular-like portable handheld police radio system, produced for the Chicago police department in 1967.

1973: Here he conceived of the first portable cellular phone in 1973 and led the 10-year process of bringing it to market.

1986: In 1986, Cooper sold CBSI to Cincinnati Bell (now Convergys) for $23 million.

1986: Cooper and his wife Arlene Harris founded Dyna LLC in 1986 as a home base for their various developmental and support activities surrounding the incubation of new ideas and new companies.

1986: In 1986 Cooper co-founded Cellular Payphone Inc. (CPPI), the parent company of GreatCall, Inc. – Innovator of the Jitterbug cell phone (in partnership with Samsung).

1991: Martin Cooper married Arlene Harris in 1991.

wiki/Martin_Cooper_(inventor)

4.0.a17

Today in History ^03/22/17

March 22, 2017 by GµårÐïåñ

Miniature painting from an 18th century manuscript depicting Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan on the Peacock Throne (© British Library/Robana/REX)

(1739) India’s ‘Peacock Throne’ stolen from Delhi

Said to cost more than the Taj Mahal, the Mughal emperor’s Peacock Throne is stolen by invading Persian forces. Incalculably valuable and made of solid gold, precious gemstones, and rare pearls, it will be lost ever since.

The Peacock Throne was a famous jeweled throne that was the seat of the Mughal emperors of India. It was commissioned in the early 17th century by emperor Shah Jahan and was located in the Diwan-i-Khas (Hall of Private Audiences) in the Red Fort of Delhi. The original throne was subsequently captured and taken as a war trophy in 1739 by the Persian king Nadir Shah, and has been lost ever since. A replacement throne based on the original was commissioned afterwards and existed until the Indian war of Independence in 1857.
wiki/Peacock_Throne

Still from the movie 'Workers Leaving the Lumiere Factory,' made by the brothers Auguste and Louis Lumiere in 1895 (© Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

(1895) First screening of a projected movie

Cinema is born in Paris, as 200 invited guests watch ‘Workers Leaving the Lumière Factory,’ a one-minute film made by Auguste and Louis Lumière with their new creation, the cinematograph film camera. The film, probably the first real motion picture ever made, is shown together with several short clips, one of which startles the audience with the image of an oncoming train.

A man opens the big gates to the Lumière factory. Through the gateway and a smaller doorway beside it, workers are streaming out, turning either left or right. Most of them are women in long dresses and big hats, but some are men. Suddenly a man with a long apron rushes out through the crowd, followed by a big dog. At last some men on bikes leave the gateway. When all workers have left the factory, the doorkeeper starts closing the gates again.

Release date: Mar 22, 1895 (France)
Director: Louis Lumière

wiki/Workers_Leaving_the_Lumière_Factory

Charles Townes with his invention the maser, forerunner of the laser, during a news conference in 1955 (© AP)

(1960) The laser is patented

Physicists Arthur Schawlow and Charles Townes of Bell Labs are awarded a patent for the laser, or “light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation.” Some experts will contend that physicist grad student Gordon Gould should’ve received the patent.

A laser is a device that emits light through a process of optical amplification based on the stimulated emission of electromagnetic radiation. The term “laser” originated as an acronym for “light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation”. The first laser was built in 1960 by Theodore H. Maiman at Hughes Research Laboratories, based on theoretical work by Charles Hard Townes and Arthur Leonard Schawlow. A laser differs from other sources of light in that it emits light coherently. Spatial coherence allows a laser to be focused to a tight spot, enabling applications such as laser cutting and lithography. Spatial coherence also allows a laser beam to stay narrow over great distances, enabling applications such as laser pointers. Lasers can also have high temporal coherence, which allows them to emit light with a very narrow spectrum, i.e., they can emit a single color of light. Temporal coherence can be used to produce pulses of light as short as a femtosecond.

Inventors: Charles H. Townes · Theodore Maiman · Gordon Gould · Alexander Prokhorov · Nikolay Basov
May treat: Acne · Sebaceous cyst

wiki/Laser

Men and women march together holding signs in support of the Equal Rights Amendment in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in 1976 (© Barbara Freeman/Getty Images)

(1972) US Congress passes the Equal Rights Amendment

Introduced to Congress in 1923, the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA), a proposed constitutional guarantee of women’s rights, passes and is sent to the states for ratification. Final ratification will fall short of the threshold needed by three states and the amendment will eventually die.

The Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) was a proposed amendment to the United States Constitution designed to guarantee equal rights for women. The ERA was originally written by Alice Paul and Crystal Eastman. In 1923, it was introduced in the Congress for the first time. The ERA has always been highly controversial regarding the meaning of equality for women. It was “feminist against feminist”, said historian Judith Sealander; the result was the eventual defeat of the ERA. Middle-class women generally were supportive. Those speaking for the working class were strongly opposed, arguing that employed women needed special protections regarding working conditions and hours. In 1972, it passed both houses of Congress and was submitted to the state legislatures for ratification. It seemed headed for quick approval until Phyllis Schlafly mobilized conservative women in opposition, arguing that the ERA would disadvantage housewives.

Congress had set a ratification deadline of March 22, 1979. Through 1977, the amendment received 35 of the necessary 38 state ratifications. Five states rescinded their ratifications before the 1979 deadline. In 1978, a joint resolution of Congress extended the ratification deadline to June 30, 1982, but no further states ratified the amendment and so it did not become part of the Constitution. Several organizations continue to work for the adoption of the ERA.

wiki/Equal_Rights_Amendment

3.3.f17

Today in History ^12/28/16

December 28, 2016 by GµårÐïåñ

(1065) Westminster Abbey is consecrated in London

King Edward the Confessor is near death and unable to attend the consecration ceremony of the church he commissioned as a burial place and to atone to the pope for a broken vow. Edward will die eight days later. The abbey will be completed in 1090 but rebuilt in the Gothic style by Henry III.
Westminster Abbey, formally titled the Collegiate Church of St Peter at Westminster, is a large, mainly Gothic abbey church in the City of Westminster, London, just to the west of the Palace of Westminster. It is one of the United Kingdom’s most notable religious buildings and the traditional place of coronation and burial site for English and, later, British monarchs. Between 1540 and 1556, the abbey had the status of a cathedral. Since 1560, however, the building is no longer an abbey nor a cathedral, having instead the status of a Church of England “Royal Peculiar”—a church responsible directly to the sovereign. The building itself is the original abbey church. Address: 20 Dean’s Yard, London SW1P 3PA Phone: 020 7222 5152 Opened: 1090 Height: 225 feet (68.70 m) (Architectural) Architects: Christopher Wren · Henry Yevele · Nicholas Hawksmoor · John of Gloucester · Robert of Beverley · Henry of Reyns Burials: Elizabeth I of England · Edward the Confessor · The Unknown Warrior · Mary I of England · Isaac Newton · Henry III of England · Edward I of England · Edward III of England · Edward VI of England . Anne, Queen of Great Britain — Source: wiki/Westminster_Abbey
(1846) Iowa becomes the 29th US state

President James K. Polk signs a law making an area that was part of the Louisiana Purchase the 29th state. Iowa, named for a Native American tribe, joins the nation as a slave-free state and will support the Union in the Civil War.
Iowa is a U.S. state in the Midwestern United States, bordered by the Mississippi River on the east and the Missouri River and the Big Sioux River on the west. Surrounding states include Wisconsin and Illinois to the east, Missouri to the south, Nebraska and South Dakota to the west, and Minnesota to the north. Population: 3.12 million (2015) Area: 56,272 sq miles (145,743 km²) Colleges and universities: Iowa State University · University of Iowa · University of Northern Iowa · Grinnell College · Upper Iowa University · Drake University · Morningside College · Simpson College Capital: Des Moines Website: www.iowa.gov Senators: Joni Ernst · Chuck Grassley · Tom Harkin · Roger Jepsen · Smith W. Brookhart · Clyde L. Herring · Richard L. Murphy · George A. Wilson · Thomas E. Martin · Dick Clark · Albert B. Cummins Governor: Terry Branstad — Source: wiki/Iowa
(1895) Audience pays admission to see a movie

At the Grand Cafe in Paris, brothers Louis and Auguste Lumière charge admission to see short films they made about ordinary French life. It marks the first time an audience has paid money to see a movie. The films are shown on a hand-cranked camera-projector the brothers invented: the Cinematographe.
The Lumière brothers, Auguste Marie Louis Nicolas and Louis Jean, were among the first filmmakers in history. They patented the cinematograph, which in contrast to Edison’s “peepshow” kinetoscope allowed simultaneous viewing by multiple parties. — Source: wiki/Auguste_and_Louis_Lumière
(1958) Baltimore Colts win ‘Greatest Game Ever Played’

The 1958 National Football Championship Game between the Colts and the New York Giants is the first playoff game in NFL history to go into sudden-death overtime. The Colts win 23-17 in Yankee Stadium and the matchup will become known as the ‘Greatest Game Ever Played.’
The 1958 National Football League Championship Game was the 26th NFL championship game, played on December 28 at Yankee Stadium in New York City. It was the first NFL playoff game to go into sudden death overtime. The final score was Baltimore Colts 23, New York Giants 17, and the game has since become widely known as “The Greatest Game Ever Played.” — Source: wiki/1958_NFL_Championship_Game
DIH v2.11.d16

Today in History

October 3, 2016 by GµårÐïåñ

(52 BCE) Caesar conquers the Gauls

	The Gallic Wars have raged for eight years, with Julius Caesar leading much of the Roman Republic’s charge against the tribes of Gaul in Western Europe. An inability to band together against their common enemy dooms the Gallic tribes, and the struggle ends at the Battle of Alesia..
The Battle of Alesia or Siege of Alesia was a military engagement in the Gallic Wars that took place in September, 52 BC, around the Gallic oppidum of Alesia, a major centre of the Mandubii tribe. It was fought by the army of Julius Caesar against a confederation of Gallic tribes united under the leadership of Vercingetorix of the Arverni. It was the last major engagement between Gauls and Romans, and is considered one of Caesar’s greatest military achievements and a classic example of siege warfare and investment. The battle of Alesia marked the end of Gallic independence in France and Belgium. Date: 52 BC — Source: wiki/Battle_of_Alesia
(1895) Crane sees the Civil War through a young soldier’s eyes

Stephen Crane’s novel ‘The Red Badge of Courage’ is released in book form for the first time. Not yet born when the Civil War ended, the young author weaves a narrative of America’s great cataclysm, now 30 years gone, with such verisimilitude that critics will call him a master of Realism. .
The Red Badge of Courage is a war novel by American author Stephen Crane. Taking place during the American Civil War, the story is about a young private of the Union Army, Henry Fleming, who flees from the field of battle. Overcome with shame, he longs for a wound, a “red badge of courage,” to counteract his cowardice. When his regiment once again faces the enemy, Henry acts as standard-bearer. Author: Stephen Crane First published: 1895 Adaptations: The Red Badge of Courage (1951) Characters: Jim Conklin · Henry Fleming · The tattered soldier · The lieutenant · Wilson Genre: Fiction — Source: wiki/The_Red_Badge_of_Courage
(1942) Missle crosses a cosmic threshold

	A new Nazi ‘Wunderwaffen,’ or ‘weapon of wonder,’ is fired in a test flight, and the missile’s top 52.5-mile altitude is so high it becomes the first manmade object to enter outer space. Less than two years Germany will begin launching thousands of V-2 rockets, mainly against Belgium and the UK..
The V-2, technical name Aggregat 4, was the world’s first long-range guided ballistic missile. The missile with a liquid-propellant rocket engine was developed during the Second World War in Germany as a “vengeance weapon,” designed to attack Allied cities as retaliation for the Allied bombings against German cities. The V-2 rocket also became the first artificial object to cross the boundary of space with the vertical launch of MW 18014 on 20 June 1944. — Source: wiki/V-2_rocket
(1990) A nation carved up by the Cold War is made whole

In what will later be celebrated as ‘Unity Day,’ a country torn in two after the Second World War is reunited as the once Soviet-controlled East Germany is dissolved and its territory and citizens merged with the Federal Republic of Germany, formerly known as West Germany..
The Day of German Unity is the national day of Germany, celebrated on 3 October as a public holiday. It commemorates the anniversary of German reunification in 1990, when the goal of a united Germany that originated in the middle of the 19th century, was fulfilled again. Therefore, the name addresses neither the re-union nor the union, but the unity of Germany. The Day of German Unity on 3 October has been the German national holiday since 1990, when the reunification was formally completed. It is a legal holiday for the Federal Republic of Germany. OCTOBER 03, 1990 : EAST AND WEST GERMANY REUNITE AFTER 45 YEARS Less than one year after the destruction of the Berlin Wall, East and West Germany come together on what is known as “Unity Day.” Since 1945, when Soviet forces occupied eastern Germany, and the United States and other Allied forces occupied the western half of the nation at the close of World War II, divided Germany had come to serve as one of the most enduring symbols of the Cold War. Some of the most dramatic episodes of the Cold War took place there. The Berlin Blockade (June 1948–May 1949), during which the Soviet Union blocked all ground travel into West Berlin, and the construction of the Berlin Wall in 1961 were perhaps the most famous. With the gradual waning of Soviet power in the late 1980s, the Communist Party in East Germany began to lose its grip on power. Tens of thousands of East Germans began to flee the nation, and by late 1989 the Berlin Wall started to come down. Shortly thereafter, talks between East and West German officials, joined by officials from the United States, Great Britain, France, and the USSR, began to explore the possibility of reunification. Two months following reunification, all-German elections took place and Helmut Kohl became the first chancellor of the reunified Germany. Although this action came more than a year before the dissolution of the Soviet Union, for many observers the reunification of Germany effectively marked the end of the Cold War. — Source: wiki/German_Unity_Day — Additional Source: history.com/this-day-in-history/east-and-west-germany-reunite-after-45-years
DIH v2.6.s16

Today in History

July 24, 2016 by GµårÐïåñ

(1534) Cartier begins colonizing a continent for France
	Explorer extraordinaire Jacques Cartier establishes the first province of New France on the Gaspé Peninsula in present-day Quebec, Canada. Cartier’s planting of a cross will lead to a French territorial reach in North America stretching for more than 3 million square miles by 1712..
(1895) An Austrian neurologist’s dream leads to revelation
An Austrian neurologist puzzles over his previous night’s dream. After an exhaustive analysis, Sigmund Freud concludes it was his mind’s way of purging unexpressed guilt over a medical mistake, and this revelation will lead to his groundbreaking work, ‘The Interpretation of Dreams.’.
(1911) Peruvian mountaintop’s ancient city is rediscovered
	Explorer Hiram Bingham III has organized the Yale Peruvian Expedition to search for lost Incan cities, and with the help of Melchor Arteaga, Bingham finds a biggie: a citadel abandoned for more than three centuries perched 7,970 feet above the South American jungle floor, Machu Picchu. .
(1983) ‘Black July’ riots cause bloodshed and spur civil war
A conflict that will last more than 25 years and claim upwards of 100,000 lives escalates, as riots break out in Sri Lanka between Tamil Tiger separatists and the Sri Lankan military. The island nation, formerly known as Ceylon, will be rocked with strife for decades to come. .