Today in History ^09/20 (Battle of the Sexes)

September 20, 2018 by GµårÐïåñ Leave a Comment

Billie Jean King shakes hands with retired tennis champion Bobby Riggs after defeating him in a 'Battle of the Sexes' match (© Bettmann/Corbis)

(1973) No love lost in tennis battle of the sexes

Having bested Margaret Court months earlier, former Wimbledon champ Bobby Riggs, 55, meets women’s tennis superstar Billie Jean King, 29, in what the media dub “the battle of the sexes.” Riggs’ dream of proving male athletic superiority is smashed when King handily wins the match in front of spectators and millions of TV viewers.

In tennis, “Battle of the Sexes” is a term that has been used to describe various exhibition matches played between a man and a woman. Most famously, the term is used for a nationally televised match in 1973, held at the Houston Astrodome, between 55-year-old Bobby Riggs and 29-year-old Billie Jean King, which King won in three sets. The match attracted massive attention and was viewed by an estimated 90 million people around the world; King’s win is considered a milestone in public acceptance of women’s tennis.

First occurred: May 13, 1973

Paraphernalia from the Billie Jean King vs Bobby Riggs match
wiki/Battle_of_the_Sexes_(tennis)

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(1973) No love lost in tennis battle of the sexes.
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1746 | Bonnie Prince Charlie escapes Scotland after failed uprising

As the second Jacobite claimant to Britain’s throne, Charles Edward Stuart has spent a year in Scotland struggling to do what his father, ‘The Old Pretender,’ could not. This ‘Young Pretender’ has no better luck, and breaks for France as the dream of a Catholic British king dies out.

1873 | Panic on Wall Street as bonds and banks fail as a depression looms

Wall Street is in free fall in the wake of US railroad bonds defaulting and the biggest banks in the US failing, and the crisis will close the New York Stock Exchange for 10 days. A major worldwide economic collapse follows and will not let up in some countries for two decades.

1946 | 1st Cannes opens to glamour, commerce, and art converging

Scheduled to hold an inaugural gala in 1939, Cannes had to delay its film festival’s rollout for seven years while WWII raged. Now that the all-clear has sounded, the Cannes Film Festival begins its annual tradition as the film world descends on the French Riviera resort.

Today in History ^09/20/17

Illustration of officials closing the doors of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) during the panic of 1873 (© Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

(1873) Bonds and banks fail as a depression looms

Wall Street is in free fall in the wake of US railroad bonds defaulting and the biggest banks in the US failing, and the crisis will close the New York Stock Exchange for 10 days. A major worldwide economic collapse follows and will not let up in some countries for two decades.

The Panic of 1873 was a financial crisis that triggered a depression in Europe and North America that lasted from 1873 until 1879, and even longer in some countries. In Britain, for example, it started two decades of stagnation known as the "Long Depression" that weakened the country's economic leadership. The Panic was known as the "Great Depression" until the events in the early 1930s set a new standard.

Start date: 1873
End date: 1879

A bank run on the Fourth National Bank No. 20 Nassau Street, New York City, from Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper, 4 October 1873

wiki/Panic_of_1873

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Today in History ^09/19 (Radio Free America)

September 19, 2018 by GµårÐïåñ Leave a Comment

The Rev. Carl McIntire leads a protest (© John G. White/The Denver Post/Getty Images)

(1973) Pirate radio station protests the FCC

Controversial minister Rev. Carl McIntire starts a pirate radio station, broadcasting 12 miles off Cape May, NJ, after the FCC had shut down his Pennsylvania station over violations of the fairness doctrine. Twenty-two years later, the day will be dubbed ‘International Talk Like a Pirate Day’ for reasons completely unrelated to McIntire’s broadcast.

Carl Curtis McIntire, Jr., known as Carl McIntire, was a founder and minister in the Bible Presbyterian Church, founder and long-time president of the International Council of Christian Churches and the American Council of Christian Churches, and a popular religious radio broadcaster, who proudly identified himself as a fundamentalist.

Born: May 17, 1906 · Ypsilanti, MI
Died: Apr 19, 2002 · Collingswood, NJ
Nationality: American
Written works: Author of liberty · Servants of apostasy · Twentieth century reformation · Communist China · For Such A Time As This · A Cloud of Witnesses: Or Heroes of the Faith
Education: Park University · Princeton University · Princeton Theological Seminary · Westminster Theological Seminary
Buried: Harleigh Cemetery, Camden
Highlights
1936: In February 1936, during the series of ecclesiastical trials, McIntire launched a weekly newspaper, The Christian Beacon to give greater voice to his message.

1937: McIntire and others left in 1937 to form the Bible Presbyterian Church, which emphasized Fundamentalist distinctives in contrast to continental Reformed positions, supporting political involvement, the Scofield Reference Bible, a premillennialist view of eschatology, and abstinence from the use of tobacco and alcohol.

1941: In 1941, he helped create the American Council of Christian Churches (ACCC) as a conservative alternative to the liberal Federal (later, National) Council of Churches (NCC).

1948: In 1948, he likewise helped to found the International Council of Christian Churches (ICCC) to challenge the World Council of Churches (WCC).

1956: McIntire and west coast supporters of the Bible Presbyterian Church founded Highland College in Pasadena, California, a small Christian liberal arts college, and remained associated with the college until 1956.

1965: In 1965, McIntire effectively purchased radio station, WXUR, Media, Pennsylvania, although it was formally owned by Faith Theological Seminary.

Carl McIntire (1906-2002), fundamentalist Presbyterian radio preacher
wiki/Carl_McIntire

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(1973) Pirate radio station protests the FCC.
Also on this day,

1893 | New Zealand is first to give women the vote

Following some 20 years of activism and a 32,000-signature petition, Governor Lord Glasgow gives Royal Assent to a bill granting adult women the right to vote, and New Zealand becomes the first country to achieve the milestone. US women will gain voting rights 27 years later.

1970 | Rock music fans converge for the first time at Glastonbury

The bucolic fields of Somerset, England, begin to rock as the Pilton Festival opens at Worthy Farm. Some 1,500 revelers dig glam-rock band T. Rex at Michael Eavis’ open-air music concert that will later be renowned, and attended by hundreds of thousands, as the Glastonbury Festival.

1988 | Diving mishap doesn’t stop Louganis

US Olympic veteran Greg Louganis is competing in the Seoul Olympics springboard diving preliminaries when he slams his head against the board on a reverse pike, resulting in a concussion and a cut requiring five stitches. The next day’s thrilling final will net Louganis the gold medal.

Today in History ^09/19/17

New Zealand women participate in an election for the first time at Wellington North (© Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

(1893) New Zealand is first to give women the vote

Following some 20 years of activism and a 32,000-signature petition, Governor Lord Glasgow gives Royal Assent to a bill granting adult women the right to vote, and New Zealand becomes the first country to achieve the milestone. US women will gain voting rights 27 years later.

On 19 September 1893 the governor, Lord Glasgow, signed a new Electoral Act into law. As a result of this landmark legislation, New Zealand became the first self-governing country in the world in which all women had the right to vote in parliamentary elections.

In most other democracies – including Britain and the United States – women did not win the right to the vote until after the First World War. New Zealand’s world leadership in women’s suffrage became a central part of our image as a trail-blazing ‘social laboratory’.

That achievement was the result of years of effort by suffrage campaigners, led by Kate Sheppard. In 1891, 1892 and 1893 they compiled a series of massive petitions calling on Parliament to grant the vote to women. In recent years Sheppard’s contribution to New Zealand’s history has been acknowledged on the $10 note.

Today, the idea that women could not or should not vote is completely foreign to New Zealanders. Following the 2014 election, 31% of our Members of Parliament were female, compared with 9% in 1981. In the early 21st century women have held each of the country’s key constitutional positions: prime minister, governor-general, speaker of the House of Representatives, attorney-general and chief justice.

Suffrage petition, 1893

wiki/Women's_suffrage_in_New_Zealand
wiki/Women's_suffrage

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Today in History ^09/11 (Chilean coup d’état)

September 11, 2018 by GµårÐïåñ Leave a Comment

Chilean President Salvador Allende speaks during a news conference in Santiago, Chile on July 5, 1973 (© AP)

(1973) Allende overthrown in Chile as a dictator waits in the wings

His presidential palace bombarded by his own air force, the world’s first democratically elected Marxist head of state, Salvador Allende, dies as a military coup ousts him from power in Chile. The South American country will then fall under the dictatorial rule of General Augusto Pinochet.

The 1973 Chilean coup d’état was a watershed moment in both the history of Chile and the Cold War. Following an extended period of social unrest and political tension between the opposition-controlled Congress of Chile and the socialist President Salvador Allende, as well as economic warfare ordered by US President Richard Nixon, Allende was overthrown by the armed forces and national police.

Date: Sep 11, 1973

Coup of September 11, 1973. Bombing of La Moneda (presidential palace)
wiki/1973_Chilean_coup_d’état

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(1973) Allende overthrown in Chile as a dictator waits in the wings.
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1792 | King Louis XIV’s 68-carat ‘French Blue’ diamond is stolen

Looters take advantage of the French Revolution’s chaos by breaking into the Royal Storehouse and nabbing the Crown Jewels, among them a steel-blue diamond of enormous size. The ‘French Blue’ will vanish for 20 years before one recut piece surfaces in London as the Hope Diamond.

1850 | ‘Swedish Nightingale’ makes her US debut to rapturous acclaim

American showman extraordinaire P.T. Barnum has secured the Swedish singing sensation, soprano Jenny Lind, for a US concert tour and tonight’s premiere in New York is met with a thunderous ovation. The press will dub the hubbub surrounding the singer’s American debut, ‘Lind mania.’

2001 | Al-Qaeda attacks US cities in coordinated attack

Four passenger jets are hijacked in a terrorist suicide plot, with two planes slamming into New York’s World Trade Center twin towers, one hitting the Pentagon outside Washington, DC, and another crashing in Pennsylvania. The death toll from the worst terrorist attack on American soil will reach nearly 3,000.

Today in History ^09/11/17

A jet airliner nears one of the World Trade Center towers in New York, just before impact, on Sept 11, 2001 (© Carmen Taylor/AP)

(2001) Terrorists hit major US cities in coordinated attack

Four passenger jets are hijacked in a terrorist suicide plot, with two planes slamming into New York's World Trade Center twin towers, one hitting the Pentagon outside Washington, DC, and another crashing in Pennsylvania. The death toll from the worst terrorist attack on American soil will reach nearly 3,000.

The September 11 attacks were a series of four coordinated terrorist attacks by the Islamic terrorist group al-Qaeda on the United States on the morning of Tuesday, September 11, 2001. The attacks killed 2,996 people, injured over 6,000 others, and caused at least $10 billion in infrastructure and property damage.

Date: Sep 11, 2001
Fatalities: 2,996

Diagram showing the attacks on the World Trade Center

wiki/September_11_attacks

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A Look Back: Remembering September 11, 2001 Attacks [15 Year Anniversary]

Today in History ^08/23 (World Wide Web)

August 23, 2018 by GµårÐïåñ Leave a Comment

Tim Berners-Lee, director of the World Wide Web Consortium at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1998 (© Elise Amendola/AP)

(1991) Tim Berners-Lee weaves a worldwide wonder

British computer scientist Tim Berners-Lee’s proposal for a ‘hypertext project’ comes to fruition at the CERN laboratories in Switzerland with the help of Belgian computer scientist Robert Cailliau, and now the ‘World Wide Web’ is opened to outside users.

The World Wide Web is a global information medium which users can read and write via computers connected to the Internet. The term is often mistakenly used as a synonym for the Internet itself, but the Web is a service that operates over the Internet, just as e-mail also does. The history of the Internet dates back significantly further than that of the World Wide Web. Web is the global information system.

This NeXT workstation (a NeXTcube) was used by Tim Berners-Lee as the first Web server on the World Wide Web. It is shown here as displayed in 2005 at Microcosm, the public science museum at CERN (where Berners-Lee was working in 1991 when he invented the Web).
wiki/History_of_the_World_Wide_Web

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(1991) Tim Berners-Lee weaves a worldwide wonder.
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1305 | Scotland’s brave-hearted leader William Wallace is put to death in London execution

After many victories over the English during his time fighting the Wars of Scottish Independence, Commander William Wallace has been defeated at the Battle of Falkirk, turned over to the English by Scottish knights, convicted of treason, and is now hanged, drawn, and quartered in London.

1942 | Battle of Stalingrad that will turn the tide of WWII begins

Hitler’s Sixth Army is poised to enter Stalingrad as the Nazi Luftwaffe begins bombing the Soviet city. This opening salvo to what some call the bloodiest battle in history will lead to the destruction of the Sixth Army, and the loss of some 2 million lives before the five-month onslaught is over.

1973 | ‘Stockholm Syndrome’ a bond forms between captives and captor

After police arrive, a bank robbery at Kreditbanken, in central Stockholm, turns into a hostage-taking and siege. Hostages will later tell of being more terrified of police activity than anything else, and the term ‘Stockholm Syndrome’ will be coined to explain the bond the captives felt with their captors.

Today in History ^08/23/17

A Soviet soldier waves a flag during the Battle of Stalingrad, circa 1942 (© Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

(1942) Battle that will turn the tide of WWII begins

Hitler's Sixth Army is poised to enter Stalingrad as the Nazi Luftwaffe begins bombing the Soviet city. This opening salvo to what some call the bloodiest battle in history will lead to the destruction of the Sixth Army, and the loss of some 2 million lives before the five-month onslaught is over.

The Battle of Stalingrad was a major battle of World War II in which Nazi Germany and its allies fought the Soviet Union for control of the city of Stalingrad in Southern Russia.

Start date: Aug 23, 1942
End date: Feb 02, 1943

The German advance to Stalingrad between 24 July and 18 November

wiki/Battle_of_Stalingrad

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Today in History ^08/11 (Watts Riots)

August 11, 2018 by GµårÐïåñ Leave a Comment

Fires burn in Los Angeles' Watts neighborhood during the fourth day of rioting and looting that began on Aug 11, 1965 (© Bettmann/Corbis)

(1965) South Central Los Angeles engulfed in flames and rioting

Spurred by poverty, racism, and tension between residents and the city’s police, riots break out in L.A.’s Watts neighborhood. Lasting six days, the worst rioting yet seen in the city’s history will count more than 3,000 people arrested, over 1,000 injured, and 34 dead.

The Watts riots, sometimes referred to as the Watts Rebellion, took place in the Watts neighborhood of Los Angeles from August 11 to 16, 1965. On August 11, 1965, Marquette Frye, an African-American motorist on parole for robbery, was pulled over for reckless driving. A minor roadside argument broke out, and then escalated into a fight with police. False rumors spread that the police had hurt a pregnant woman, and six days of looting and arson followed. Los Angeles police needed the support of nearly 4,000 members of the California Army National Guard to quell the riots, which resulted in 34 deaths and over $40 million in property damage. The riots were blamed principally on police racism. It was the city’s worst unrest until the Rodney King riots of 1992.

Start date: Aug 11, 1965
End date: Aug 16, 1965

Burning buildings during the riots
wiki/Watts_riots

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(1965) South Central Los Angeles engulfed in flames and rioting.
Also on this day,

1973 | DJ Kool Herc’s Bronx party kick-starts hip-hop music

Clive ‘Kool Herc’ Campbell is throwing a party in the rec room of his South Bronx, New York, apartment building and he plays dance music on the ‘Merry Go Round,’ two manually-controlled turntables. It’s a great success, and DJ Kool Herc will be hailed by many as the father of hip-hop.

1973 | ‘American Graffiti’ cruises into theaters

Writer/director George Lucas takes moviegoers back to the early 1960s with stories of drive-ins, high-school sock hops, and cruising the strip. The cast includes Richard Dreyfuss, Ron Howard, Mackenzie Phillips, and Cindy Williams, as well as a cameo from another future TV star.

2016 | Japan first celebrates Mountain Day

A law passed two years earlier takes effect, and Mountain Day is an official holiday in Japan. The idea came from hiking groups who wanted a holiday to celebrate the country’s terrain and geography. This date (8/11) was chosen since the Kanji character for 8 looks like a mountain, and 11 looks like two trees.

Today in History ^08/11/17

German flags in front of the of Reichstag building in Berlin (© Westend61/Getty Images)

(1919) From the ashes of war Germany's first democracy emerges

A constitutional assembly in Weimar, Germany, adopts a parliamentary democracy, the first in the country's history, replacing centuries of imperial rule. The massive chaos and loss caused by German defeat in World War I has led to the Weimar Republic, but Nazi rule is less than 15 years away.

Weimar Republic was an unofficial, historical designation for the German state between 1919 and 1933. The name derives from the city of Weimar, where its constitutional assembly first took place. The official name of the state was Deutsches Reich; it had remained unchanged since 1871. In English the country was usually known simply as Germany. A national assembly was convened in Weimar, where a new constitution for the Deutsches Reich was written, and adopted on 11 August 1919. In its fourteen years, the Weimar Republic faced numerous problems, including hyperinflation, political extremism, as well as contentious relationships with the victors of the First World War. The people of Germany blamed the Weimar Republic rather than their wartime leaders for the country's defeat and for the humiliating terms of the Treaty of Versailles. However, the Weimar Republic government successfully reformed the currency, unified tax policies, and organized the railway system. Weimar Germany fulfilled most of the requirements of the Treaty of Versailles although it never completely met its disarmament requirements, and eventually paid only a small portion of the war reparations. Under the Locarno Treaties, Germany accepted the western borders of the republic, but continued to dispute the Eastern border.

Founded: Nov 09, 1918
Dissolved: 1933
Population: 62.41 million (1925)
Area: 181,000 sq miles (468,787 km²)
Capital: Berlin
Official language: German

Map of the German Reich, (Republic of Weimar/Third Reich) 1919–1937

wiki/Weimar_Republic

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