1967

Today in History 12/22 (Dostoevsky Gets Reprieve)

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Fyodor Dostoevsky in 1863 (© Elizaveta Becker/ullstein bild/Getty Images)(1849) Dostoevsky spared at last minute from firing squad
Russian writer Fyodor Dostoevsky stands before a firing line but as the guns are about to fire gets a reprieve and is sent into exile. A member of an underground intellectual group, he’d been condemned to die for antigovernment activities. He’ll go on to write ‘Crime and Punishment’ and ‘The Brothers Karamazov.’
Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky, sometimes transliterated Dostoyevsky, was a Russian novelist, short story writer, essayist, journalist and philosopher. Dostoevsky’s literary works explore human psychology in the troubled political, social, and spiritual atmospheres of 19th-century Russia, and engage with a variety of philosophical and religious themes. His most acclaimed works include Crime and Punishment, The Idiot, Demons and The Brothers Karamazov. Dostoevsky’s oeuvre consists of 11 novels, three novellas, 17 short stories and numerous other works. Many literary critics rate him as one of the greatest psychologists in world literature. His 1864 novella Notes from Underground is considered to be one of the first works of existentialist literature.
Lived: Nov 11, 1821 – Feb 09, 1881 (age 59)
Spouse: Anna Dostoyevskaya (m. 1867 – 1881) · Marya Dimiitryevna Isayeva (m. 1857 – 1864)
Siblings: Andrey Dostoyevsky (Brother) · Mikhail Dostoyevsky (Brother) · Varvara Dostoyevskaya (Sister) · Aleksandra Dostoyevskaya (Sister) · Vera Dostoyevskaya (Sister) · Nikolai Dostoyevsky (Brother) · Lyubov Dostoyevskaya (Sister)
Children: Lyubov Dostoevskaya (Daughter) · Fyodor Dostoyevsky (Son) · Sonya Dostoyevskaya (Daughter) · Alexey Dostoyevsky (Son)
Parents: Maria Nechayeva (Mother) · Mikhail Dostoyevsky (Father)
Education: Military Engineering-Technical University

Dostoevsky in 1876
Dostoevsky in 1876
wiki/Fyodor_Dostoyevsky
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(1849) Dostoevsky spared at last minute from firing squad.
Also on this day,

1956 | Ohio zoo welcomes the first gorilla born in captivity
Colo is born at the Columbus Zoo on this day in 1956. Her parents had been surreptitiously put together at night by a zookeeper going against his boss’s orders to keep them separated. The success of Colo’s birth will spur a captive-breeding program for western lowland gorillas in zoos.
1967 | ‘The Graduate’ seduces movie audiences
Dustin Hoffman and Anne Bancroft star in a new film by Mike Nichols. The story of an aimless recent college graduate resonates with audiences and critics alike. The movie also helps a folk duo from Queens, NY, graduate to superstardom.
2000 | Madonna marries British movie director
The pop star marries Guy Ritchie at a heavily guarded castle in the Scottish Highlands. The wedding is shrouded in so much secrecy that it’s 12 hours before the world’s media can confirm the ceremony has taken place. The couple will divorce in 2008.

Today in History 12/22/17

General William T. Sherman circa 1854-65 (Public domain)(1864) Sherman gives Lincoln the city of Savannah as a Christmas present
Union Gen. William T. Sherman wires President Abraham Lincoln a message: "I beg to present you, as a Christmas gift, the city of Savannah." The telegraph relieves Lincoln who had not heard from Sherman for weeks on his infamous March to the Sea across the South, but the capture of Savannah demonstrates the campaign's success.
Sherman's March to the Sea, more formally known as the Savannah Campaign, was a military campaign of the American Civil War conducted through Georgia from November 15 to December 21, 1864 by Maj. Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman of the Union Army. The campaign began with Sherman's troops leaving the captured city of Atlanta on November 15 and ended with the capture of the port of Savannah on December 21. His forces destroyed military targets as well as industry, infrastructure, and civilian property and disrupted the Confederacy's economy and its transportation networks. The operation broke the back of the Confederacy and helped lead to its eventual surrender. Sherman's bold move of operating deep within enemy territory and without supply lines is considered to be one of the major achievements of the war.
Start date: Nov 15, 1864
End date: Dec 21, 1864

Savannah Campaign
Savannah Campaign (Sherman's March to the Sea).

wiki/Sherman's_March_to_the_Sea
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Today in History 12/17 (Wright Brothers)

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Orville Wright at the controls, making the first powered, controlled, sustained flight, with Wilbur Wright running alongside (Orville Wright and John T. Daniels via LOC)(1903) Wright brothers fly plane for first time
After years of working in secrecy, Orville and Wilbur Wright successfully test a self-propelled, heavier-than-air aircraft, which stays aloft for 12 seconds and covers 120 feet, near Kitty Hawk, NC. They’ll send their father a telegram of their achievement, telling him to alert the press, but newspapers will pass and few people will learn of the feat until they invite reporters to later test flights.
The Wright brothers, Orville and Wilbur, were two American aviators, engineers, inventors, and aviation pioneers who are generally credited with inventing, building, and flying the world’s first successful airplane. They made the first controlled, sustained flight of a powered, heavier-than-air aircraft on December 17, 1903, four miles south of Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. In 1904–05 the brothers developed their flying machine into the first practical fixed-wing aircraft. Although not the first to build experimental aircraft, the Wright brothers were the first to invent aircraft controls that made fixed-wing powered flight possible.
Buried: Woodland Cemetery and Arboretum
Founder: Wilbur Wright

First successful flight of the Wright Flyer, by the Wright brothers. The machine traveled 120 ft (36.6 m) in 12 seconds at 10:35 a.m. at Kill Devil Hills, North Carolina. Orville Wright was at the controls of the machine, lying prone on the lower wing with his hips in the cradle which operated the wing-warping mechanism. Wilbur Wright ran alongside to balance the machine, and just released his hold on the forward upright of the right wing in the photo. The starting rail, the wing-rest, a coil box, and other items needed for flight preparation are visible behind the machine. This is described as
First flight of the Wright Flyer I, December 17, 1903, Orville piloting, Wilbur running at wingtip.
wiki/Wright_brothers
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(1903) Wright brothers fly plane for first time.
Also on this day,

1967 | Australia prime minister disappears out on a swim
Prime Minister Harold Holt vanishes near Portsea, Victoria, while swimming in the ocean with several friends. A search fails to find any trace of Holt and two days later he will be presumed drowned and declared dead. Speculation, never proved, will rise that Holt killed himself.
1989 | Middle America skewered as ‘The Simpsons’ premieres
The new Fox animated series, created by cartoonist Matt Groening, satirizes the American middle class via the Simpson family — Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa, and little Maggie. The show will become the longest running scripted prime-time TV show of all time.
1991 | End date for USSR as Yeltsin administration says Soviet Union will cease to exist
A spokesman for Russian Federation President Boris Yeltsin announces that the Soviet Union will dissolve on or before New Year’s Eve. Yeltsin himself puts it more bluntly: “There will be no more red flag.” The public greets this with a shrug, as most former Soviet republics had already declared independence from the USSR.

Today in History 12/17/17

Boris Yeltsin gestures on December 30, 1991 in Minsk, Belarus (© Wojtek Laski/Laski Diffusion/Getty Image)(1991) Yeltsin administration says Soviet Union will cease to exist
A spokesman for Russian Federation President Boris Yeltsin announces that the Soviet Union will dissolve on or before New Year's Eve. Yeltsin himself puts it more bluntly: "There will be no more red flag." The public greets this with a shrug, as most former Soviet republics had already declared independence from the USSR.
Boris Nikolayevich Yeltsin was a Soviet and Russian politician and the first President of the Russian Federation, serving from 1991 to 1999. Originally a supporter of Mikhail Gorbachev, Yeltsin emerged under the perestroika reforms as one of Gorbachev's most powerful political opponents. During the late 1980s, Yeltsin had been a member of the Politburo, and in late 1987 tendered a letter of resignation in protest. No one had resigned from the Politburo before. This act branded Yeltsin as a rebel and led to his rise in popularity as an anti-establishment figure.
Lived: Feb 01, 1931 - Apr 23, 2007 (age 76)
Height: 6' 2" (1.87 m)
Spouse: Naina Yeltsina (m. 1956 - 2007)
Party: Communist Party of the Soviet Union
Buried: Novodevichy Cemetery
Previous offices: President of Russia (1991 - 1999) · Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (1990 - 1991)
Highlights
  • 1956: Boris Yeltsin married Naina Yeltsina on September 28, 1956.

  • 1990: On 4 March 1990, Yeltsin was elected to the Congress of People's Deputies of Russia representing Sverdlovsk with 72% of the vote.

  • 1991: On 12 June 1991 he was elected by popular vote to the newly created post of President of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (RSFSR), at that time one of the 15 constituent republics of the Soviet Union.

  • 1993: Ongoing confrontations with the Supreme Soviet climaxed in the 1993 Russian constitutional crisis in which Yeltsin illegally ordered the dissolution of the Supreme Soviet parliament, which as a result attempted to remove him from office.

  • 1996: In mid-1996, Chubais and Yeltsin recruited a team of a handful of financial and media oligarchs to bankroll the Yeltsin campaign and guaranteed favorable media coverage the president on national television and in leading newspapers.

  • 2007: Boris Yeltsin died of congestive heart failure on 23 April 2007, aged 76.


RIAN archive 859348 US President George H. W. Bush and Russian President Boris Yeltsin
President Yeltsin with US President George H. W. Bush, 1 June 1992. Russian-US summit. Russian President Boris Yeltsin paying a state visit to the United States. From left: US President George H. W. Bush and Russian President Boris Yeltsin attending lunch at the Russian Embassy in the United States.

wiki/Boris_Yeltsin
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