1997

Today in History 08/31 (Jack the Ripper)

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Illustration showing police discovering the body of one of Jack the Ripper's victims in London in 1888 (© Hulton Archive/Getty Images)(1888) Murderer strikes in London’s Whitechapel district
Mary Ann Nichols, a servant and prostitute, is discovered dead on the street in Whitechapel, in London’s East End. The slum area is notoriously violent, but authorities will begin to suspect a serial killer is at large when another woman is similarly killed just a over a week later.
Jack the Ripper is the best-known name for an unidentified serial killer generally believed to have been active in the largely impoverished areas in and around the Whitechapel district of London in 1888. In both the criminal case files and contemporary journalistic accounts, the killer was called the Whitechapel Murderer and Leather Apron.
Nationality: British

Streetmap showing the locations of the first seven Whitechapel murders
The sites of the first seven Whitechapel murders – Osborn Street (centre right), George Yard (centre left), Hanbury Street (top), Buck’s Row (far right), Berner Street (bottom right), Mitre Square (bottom left), and Dorset Street (middle left)
wiki/Jack_the_Ripper
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(1888) Murderer strikes in London’s Whitechapel district.
Also on this day,

1928 | Mack the Knife and Pirate Jenny meet in a Berlin premiere of ‘Threepenny Opera’
Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill’s adaptation of ‘The Beggar’s Opera’ opens in Berlin as a musical slyly critiquing capitalism and socialism. ‘The Threepenny Opera’ introduces the world to ‘Mack the Knife,’ and will become one of the most performed works of musical theater in history.
1972 | Soviet gymnast Korbut wows the world with Olympic gold
All 4′ 11″ and 84-pounds, the USSR’s Olga Korbut has the Olympic crowds cheering in Munich as she performs nearly flawless, and boldly athletic, gymnastics. Cold War tensions melt as the sweet-faced 17-year-old ‘Sparrow from Minsk’ wins three gold medals for her individual routines.
1997 | The world mourns for the ‘People’s Princess’ as Diana dies
Speeding through a Paris tunnel, the car carrying Diana, Princess of Wales, 36, crashes, killing her companion Dodi Fayed and the driver, injuring another passenger, and causing fatal injuries that claim the life of one of the most famous and beloved women in the world.

Today in History 08/31/17

Princess Diana (© Hulton Royals Collection/Getty Images)(1997) The world mourns for the 'People's Princess'
Speeding through a Paris tunnel, the car carrying Diana, Princess of Wales, 36, crashes, killing her companion Dodi Fayed and the driver, injuring another passenger, and causing fatal injuries that claim the life of one of the most famous and beloved women in the world.
On 31 August 1997 Diana, Princess of Wales, died as a result of injuries sustained in a car crash in the Pont de l'Alma road tunnel in Paris, France. Dodi Fayed and Henri Paul, the driver of the Mercedes-Benz S280, were pronounced dead at the scene; the bodyguard of Diana and Fayed, Trevor Rees-Jones, was the only survivor.
Date: Aug 31, 1997
Flowers for Princess Diana's Funeral
Flowers left outside Kensington Palace in tribute to Diana

wiki/Death_of_Diana,_Princess_of_Wales
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Today in History 08/31/17

Princess Diana (© Hulton Royals Collection/Getty Images)(1997) The world mourns for the ‘People’s Princess’
Speeding through a Paris tunnel, the car carrying Diana, Princess of Wales, 36, crashes, killing her companion Dodi Fayed and the driver, injuring another passenger, and causing fatal injuries that claim the life of one of the most famous and beloved women in the world.
On 31 August 1997 Diana, Princess of Wales, died as a result of injuries sustained in a car crash in the Pont de l’Alma road tunnel in Paris, France. Dodi Fayed and Henri Paul, the driver of the Mercedes-Benz S280, were pronounced dead at the scene; the bodyguard of Diana and Fayed, Trevor Rees-Jones, was the only survivor.
Date: Aug 31, 1997
Flowers for Princess Diana's Funeral
Flowers left outside Kensington Palace in tribute to Diana

wiki/Death_of_Diana,_Princess_of_Wales
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Today in History 06/26/17

Portrait of King Richard III circa 15th century (© Art Images/Getty Images)(1483) King Richard III begins his rule of England
The House of York sends their last king to the throne of England, as Richard III begins his rule. His reign will be brief, ending two years later at the Battle of Bosworth Field, but his infamy will live on, as a future scribe named Shakespeare will find inspiration in Richard’s reputed villainy.
Richard III was King of England from 1483 until his death in 1485, at the age of 32, in the Battle of Bosworth Field. He was the last king of the House of York and the last of the Plantagenet dynasty. His defeat at Bosworth Field, the last decisive battle of the Wars of the Roses, marked the end of the Middle Ages in England. He is the subject of the historical play Richard III by William Shakespeare.
Lived: Oct 02, 1452 – Aug 22, 1485 (age 32)
Height: 5′ 8″ (1.73 m)
Spouse: Anne Neville (m. 1472 – 1485)
Buried: Greyfriars, Leicester
Children: Edward of Middleham, Prince of Wales (Son) · John of Gloucester (Son) · Katherine Plantagenet (Daughter)
Siblings: Edward IV of England (Brother) · Edmund, Earl of Rutland (Brother) · Margaret of York (Sister) · George Plantagenet, 1st Duke of Clarence (Brother)
Highlights
  • 1472: Edward IV set up the Council of the North as an administrative body in 1472 to improve government control and economic prosperity and benefit the whole of Northern England.

  • 1472: Following a decisive Yorkist victory over the Lancastrians at the Battle of Tewkesbury, Richard married Anne Neville, the younger daughter of the Earl of Warwick, on 12 July 1472.

  • 1483: Arrangements were made for Edward’s coronation on 22 June 1483; but, before the young king could be crowned, his father’s marriage to his mother Elizabeth Woodville was declared invalid, making their children illegitimate and ineligible for the throne.

  • 1483: The first, in October 1483, was led by staunch allies of Edward IV and Richard’s former ally, Henry Stafford, 2nd Duke of Buckingham; but the revolt collapsed.

  • 1485: In August 1485, Henry Tudor and his uncle, Jasper Tudor, led a second rebellion.

  • 1485: In 1485, following his death in battle against Henry Tudor at Bosworth Field, Richard III’s body was buried in Greyfriars Church in Leicester.

wiki/Richard_III_of_England
Charlie Chaplin in a scene from 'The Gold Rush' in 1925 (© Hulton Archive/Getty Images )(1925) Chaplin’s Little Tramp stakes his Klondike claim
Silent-film star Charlie Chaplin hits a rich vein of comedy with a tale pitting his ‘Little Tramp’ against severe snowstorms, vicious villains, and dance hall dames. Two months after its Hollywood premiere, ‘The Gold Rush’ will go into wide release, striking box office gold.
During the Gold Rush, prospectors brave Alaska’s dangerous Chilkoot Pass, hoping to strike it rich in the snowy mountains. Just as Big Jim McKay discovers gold on his claim, a storm arises, prompting a Lone Prospector to take refuge in a cabin. Unknown to him, the cabin’s occupant is desperado Black Larsen, who attempts to throw the vagabond Prospector out. Strong winds, however, repeatedly blow the little man back inside, and soon after, Jim is also swept into the cabin. Jim fights with Larsen over his shotgun, and after Jim prevails, the Prospector claims him as a close friend in order to remain safe. Over the next few days, the three men live together uneasily, their hunger growing as the storm rages on.
Release date: Aug 17, 1925 (United States)
Director: Charlie Chaplin
Gross revenue: $2.50 million USD
Music by: Charlie Chaplin · James L. Fields · Max Terr
Screenwriter: Charlie Chaplin
Awards: Kinema Junpo Award for Best Foreign Language Film

wiki/The_Gold_Rush
President John F. Kennedy delivers a speech concerning the Berlin Wall in West Berlin on June 26, 1963 (© AP )(1963) Kennedy is a Berliner in key Cold War speech
Almost two years after communist East Germany built a wall separating East and West Berlin, US President John F. Kennedy speaks in front of a crowd of 450,000 in West Berlin and assures the city, surrounded by Soviet-backed East Germany, ‘Ich bin ein Berliner,’ or, ‘I am a Berliner.’
“Ich bin ein Berliner” is a quotation from a June 26, 1963, speech by U.S. President John F. Kennedy in West Berlin. Kennedy aimed to underline the support of the United States for West Germany 22 months after Soviet-supported East Germany erected the Berlin Wall to prevent mass emigration to the West. The message was aimed as much at the Soviets as it was at Berliners and was a clear statement of U.S. policy in the wake of the construction of the Berlin Wall. Another phrase in the speech was also spoken in German, “Lasst sie nach Berlin kommen”, addressed at those who claimed “we can work with the Communists”, a remark at which Nikita Khrushchev scoffed only days later.
wiki/Ich_bin_ein_Berliner
Cover of 'Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone' (© Akira Suemori/AP)(1997) Harry meets Hogwarts in a spellbinding story
A boy learns he is not merely a muggle, and is summoned to study at a school of sorcery, in the debut children’s novel published on this day by an unknown British writer. ‘Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone’ will spawn six sequels and make a household name of author J.K. Rowling.
Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone is the first novel in the Harry Potter series and J. K. Rowling’s debut novel, first published in 1997 by Bloomsbury. It was published in the United States as Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone by Scholastic Corporation in 1998. The plot follows Harry Potter, a young wizard who discovers his magical heritage as he makes close friends and a few enemies in his first year at the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. With the help of his friends, Harry faces an attempted comeback by the dark wizard Lord Voldemort, who killed Harry’s parents, but failed to kill Harry when he was just 15 months old.
Author: J. K. Rowling
Number of pages: 223
Word count: 77,325
Series: Harry Potter
Characters: Harry Potter · Lord Voldemort · Hermione Granger · Ron Weasley · Professor Albus Dumbledore · Rubeus Hagrid · Severus Snape · Draco Malfoy · Professor Quirinus Quirrell · Dudley Dursley · The Sorting Hat · Newt Scamander · Sirius Black · Gellert Grindelwald · Vernon Dursley
Adaptations: Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone (2001)

wiki/Harry_Potter_and_the_Philosopher’s_Stone
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Today in History 02/22/17

Memorial stone at Fishguard, Wales, commemorating the last invasion of Wales by the French in 1797 (© ChalkyWhite/Getty Images)(1797) ‘Last invasion of Britain’ begins
Revolutionary French forces land at Carregwastad Head, near Fishguard, on the Welsh coast. This failed two-day campaign will be the last time to date that a foreign military force has set foot on British soil.
The Battle of Fishguard was a military invasion of Great Britain by Revolutionary France during the War of the First Coalition. The brief campaign, on 22 – 24 February 1797, is the most recent landing on British soil by a hostile foreign force, and thus is often referred to as the “last invasion of Britain”. The French General Lazare Hoche had devised a three-pronged attack on Britain in support of the Society of United Irishmen. Two forces would land in Britain as a diversionary effort, while the main body would land in Ireland. Adverse weather and ill-discipline halted two of the forces but the third, aimed at landing in Wales and marching on Bristol, went ahead.
Start date: Feb 22, 1797
End date: Feb 24, 1797

wiki/Battle_of_Fishguard
Members of the 'People's Militia,' formed by members of the Communist Party, march in Czechoslovakia in Feb 1948 (© STR/AFP/Getty Images)(1948) Coup brings Communist rule to Czechoslovakia
With the might of the Soviets behind them, Czechoslovak socialists take power by coup d’état, ushering in what will be 40 years of dictatorship, and spurring the West to enact the Marshall Plan.
The 1948 Czechoslovak coup d’état – in Communist historiography known as “Victorious February” – was an event late that February in which the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia, with Soviet backing, assumed undisputed control over the government of Czechoslovakia, marking the onset of four decades of Communist dictatorship in the country.
Start date: Feb 21, 1948
End date: Feb 25, 1948

wiki/1948_Czechoslovak_coup_d’état
The US hockey team celebrates after beating the Soviet Union in the semifinals at the Winter Olympics in Lake Placid, NY, on Feb. 22, 1980 (© Focus on Sport/Getty Images)(1980) US hockey team pulls off ‘Miracle on Ice’
At the 1980 Winter Olympics in Lake Placid, New York, a US Olympic hockey team made up of amateur and college players takes on the mighty juggernaut of the Soviet crew and, in a shockingly unexpected turn, wins their medal-round match 4-3.
The “Miracle on Ice” refers to a medal-round game during the men’s ice hockey tournament at the 1980 Winter Olympics in Lake Placid, New York, played between the hosting United States, and the defending gold medalists, the Soviet Union.
Date: Feb 22, 1980

wiki/Miracle_on_Ice
The world's first clone of an adult animal, Dolly the sheep, in 2002 (© Jeff J Mitchell/Reuters)(1997) First cloned animal is announced
Scientists in Scotland reveal the existence of Dolly the sheep, the first animal successfully cloned from an adult somatic cell. Created from a mammary cell, she’s named after Dolly Parton.
Dolly was a female domestic sheep, and the first mammal cloned from an adult somatic cell, using the process of nuclear transfer. She was cloned by Ian Wilmut, Keith Campbell and colleagues at the Roslin Institute, part of the University of Edinburgh, Scotland, and the biotechnology company PPL Therapeutics, based near Edinburgh. The funding for Dolly’s cloning was provided by PPL Therapeutics and the UK’s Ministry of Agriculture. She was born on 5 July 1996 and died from a progressive lung disease five months before her seventh birthday. She has been called “the world’s most famous sheep” by sources including BBC News and Scientific American.
Born: Jul 05, 1996
Died: Feb 14, 2003
Birth place: Scotland

wiki/Dolly_(sheep)
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Today in History 12/11/16

Today in History
(1936) Britain’s King Edward VIII abdicates for love
1936 King Edward VIII gives up the throne to marry American divorcee Wallis Simpson. The Church of England, officials, and the public have largely condemned the match (though Winston Churchill gave his OK.) But, as Edward says, he can’t carry out his duties “without the help and support of the woman I love.”.

In 1936, a constitutional crisis in the British Empire arose when King-Emperor Edward VIII proposed to marry Wallis Simpson, an American socialite who was divorced from her first husband and was pursuing a divorce of her second. The marriage was opposed by the governments of the United Kingdom and the Dominions of the British Commonwealth. Religious, legal, political and moral objections were raised. As British monarch, Edward was the nominal head of the Church of England, which did not then allow divorced people to remarry in church if their ex-spouses were still alive. For this reason, it was widely believed that Edward could not marry Simpson and remain on the throne. Simpson was perceived to be politically and socially unsuitable as a prospective queen consort because of her two failed marriages. It was widely assumed by the Establishment that she was driven by love of money or position rather than love for the King. Despite the opposition, Edward declared that he loved Simpson and intended to marry her whether his governments approved or not.

Edward VIII abdication letter

— Source: wiki/Edward_VIII_abdication_crisis
— Related Source: wiki/Edward_VIII
(1941) Germany and Italy declare war on the United States
Four days after Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor, the two other Axis powers, Germany and Italy, declare war on the United States. The US responds in kind. Meanwhile, Adolf Hitler declares that the three Axis powers “will continue in closest cooperation with a view to establishing a new and just order.”. 1941

On this day, Adolf Hitler declares war on the United States, bringing America, which had been neutral, into the European conflict.

The bombing of Pearl Harbor surprised even Germany. Although Hitler had made an oral agreement with his Axis partner Japan that Germany would join a war against the United States, he was uncertain as to how the war would be engaged. Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor answered that question. On December 8, Japanese Ambassador Oshima went to German Foreign Minister von Ribbentrop to nail the Germans down on a formal declaration of war against America. Von Ribbentrop stalled for time; he knew that Germany was under no obligation to do this under the terms of the Tripartite Pact, which promised help if Japan was attacked, but not if Japan was the aggressor. Von Ribbentrop feared that the addition of another antagonist, the United States, would overwhelm the German war effort.

But Hitler thought otherwise. He was convinced that the United States would soon beat him to the punch and declare war on Germany. The U.S. Navy was already attacking German U-boats, and Hitler despised Roosevelt for his repeated verbal attacks against his Nazi ideology. He also believed that Japan was much stronger than it was, that once it had defeated the United States, it would turn and help Germany defeat Russia. So at 3:30 p.m. (Berlin time) on December 11, the German charge d’affaires in Washington handed American Secretary of State Cordell Hull a copy of the declaration of war.

That very same day, Hitler addressed the Reichstag to defend the declaration. The failure of the New Deal, argued Hitler, was the real cause of the war, as President Roosevelt, supported by plutocrats and Jews, attempted to cover up for the collapse of his economic agenda. “First he incites war, then falsifies the causes, then odiously wraps himself in a cloak of Christian hypocrisy and slowly but surely leads mankind to war,” declared Hitler-and the Reichstag leaped to their feet in thunderous applause.

GERMANY DECLARES WAR ON THE UNITED STATES

— Source: www.history.com/this-day-in-history/germany-declares-war-on-the-united-states
(1997) Over 150 countries agree to reduce greenhouse gas emissions
1997 At a global conference in Kyoto, Japan, both developing and developed countries adopt the Kyoto Protocol, an international treaty that sets targets to reduce manmade emissions linked to climate change. The US signs the agreement, but will not send it for ratification to make it legally binding. .

The Kyoto Protocol is an international treaty, which extends the 1992 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) that commits State Parties to reduce greenhouse gases emissions, based on the premise that (a) global warming exists and (b) man-made CO2 emissions have caused it.

[UNFCCC] Kyoto Protocol (details)

— Source: wiki/Kyoto_Protocol
(2008) Billionaire Bernie Madoff is arrested at his NYC penthouse
Feds arrest Madoff after his sons told authorities about his $65 billion Ponzi scheme. Until his arrest, Madoff was a well-respected financier who managed money for A-list clients. His ruse is the biggest financial fraud in US history and will get Madoff 150 years in prison.. 2008

Bernard Lawrence “Bernie” Madoff is an American fraudster and a former stockbroker, investment advisor, and financier. He is the former non-executive chairman of the NASDAQ stock market, and the admitted operator of a Ponzi scheme that is considered the largest financial fraud in U.S. history.

Born: Apr 29, 1938 (age 78) · Queens, NY
Spouse: Ruth Madoff (m. 1959)
Children: Andrew Madoff (Son) · Mark Madoff (Son)
Education: Hofstra University · Far Rockaway High School · University of Alabama · Brooklyn Law School
Siblings: Peter Madoff (Brother) · Sondra Madoff (Sister)

— Source: wiki/Bernard_Madoff
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