1999

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Today in History 04/20/17

Marie and Pierre Curie in their laboratory, circa 1900 (© ullstein bild/Getty Images)(1902) Madame and Monsieur Curie isolate radioactive radium
The married scientific research team of Marie and Pierre Curie chemically isolate one-tenth gram of pure radium chloride, an element not naturally occurring in isolation. Their work with radium and radioactivity will lead to the first Nobel Prize awarded to a woman.
Maria Sklodowska-CurieMarie Skłodowska Curie, born Maria Salomea Skłodowska, was a Polish and naturalized-French physicist and chemist who conducted pioneering research on radioactivity. She was the first woman to win a Nobel Prize, the first person and only woman to win twice, the only person to win a Nobel Prize in two different sciences, and was part of the Curie family legacy of five Nobel Prizes. She was also the first woman to become a professor at the University of Paris, and in 1995 became the first woman to be entombed on her own merits in the Panthéon in Paris.
Lived: Nov 07, 1867 – Jul 04, 1934 (age 66)
Spouse: Pierre Curie (m. 1895 – 1906)
Awards: Nobel Prize in Chemistry (1911) · Nobel Prize in Physics (1903) · Elliott Cresson Medal (1909) · Davy Medal (1903) · Matteucci Medal (1904) · Benjamin Franklin Medal (1921) · John Scott Medal
Discovered: Radium · Polonium
Children: Irène Joliot-Curie (Daughter) · Ève Curie (Daughter)
Highlights
  • 1867: Maria Skłodowska was born in Warsaw, in the Russian partition of Poland, on 7 November 1867, the fifth and youngest child of well-known teachers Bronisława, née Boguska, and Władysław Skłodowski.

  • 1891: In 1891, aged 24, she followed her older sister Bronisława to study in Paris, where she earned her higher degrees and conducted her subsequent scientific work.

  • 1895: Maria Sklodowska-Curie married Pierre Curie on July 26, 1895; their marriage lasted 11 years till April 19, 1906.

  • 1898: She named the first chemical element that she discovered‍—‌polonium, which she isolated in 1898‍—‌after her native country.

  • 1925: In 1925, she visited Poland, to participate in the ceremony that laid foundations for the Radium Institute in Warsaw.

  • 1934: A few months later, on 4 July 1934, she died at the Sancellemoz sanatorium in Passy, Haute-Savoie, from aplastic anemia believed to have been contracted from her long-term exposure to radiation.

wiki/Marie_Curie
Pierre CuriePierre Curie was a French physicist, a pioneer in crystallography, magnetism, piezoelectricity and radioactivity. In 1903 he received the Nobel Prize in Physics with his wife, Marie Skłodowska-Curie, and Henri Becquerel, “in recognition of the extraordinary services they have rendered by their joint researches on the radiation phenomena discovered by Professor Henri Becquerel”.
Lived: May 15, 1859 – Apr 19, 1906 (age 46)
Spouse: Maria Sklodowska-Curie (m. 1895 – 1906)
Discovered: Radium · Polonium
Awards: Nobel Prize in Physics (1903) · Davy Medal (1903) · Matteucci Medal (1904)
Children: Ève Curie (Daughter) · Irène Joliot-Curie (Daughter)
Highlights
  • 1880: In 1880, Pierre and his older brother Jacques (1856–1941) demonstrated that an electric potential was generated when crystals were compressed, i.e. piezoelectricity.

  • 1895: Pierre Curie married Maria Sklodowska-Curie on July 26, 1895.

  • 1903: In 1903 he received the Nobel Prize in Physics with his wife, Marie Skłodowska-Curie, and Henri Becquerel, “in recognition of the extraordinary services they have rendered by their joint researches on the radiation phenomena discovered by Professor Henri Becquerel”.

  • 1903: Pierre Curie was awarded Davy Medal in 1903.

  • 1904: Radium written by Pierre Curie was first published in 1904.

  • 1906: Pierre Curie died in a street accident in Paris on 19 April 1906.

wiki/Pierre_Curie
Jazz singer Billie Holiday poses for a portrait, circa 1939 (© Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images)(1939) Billie Holiday records landmark civil rights song
One of the first songs to explicitly call out the murderous brutality suffered by African Americans in the Jim Crow South, the painful and poetic ‘Strange Fruit’ is recorded by Billie Holiday. A relatively small jazz label, Commodore, records it after Holiday’s label, Columbia Records, refuses to.
“Strange Fruit” is a song performed most famously by Billie Holiday, who first sang and recorded it in 1939. Written by teacher Abel Meeropol as a poem and published in 1937, it protested American racism, particularly the lynching of African Americans. Such lynchings had reached a peak in the South at the turn of the century, but continued there and in other regions of the United States. According to the Tuskegee Institute, 1,953 Americans were murdered by lynching, about three fourths of them black. The lyrics are an extended metaphor linking a tree’s fruit with lynching victims. Meeropol set it to music and, with his wife and the singer Laura Duncan, performed it as a protest song in New York City venues in the late 1930s, including Madison Square Garden.
Album: The Great American Songbook
Artist: Billie Holiday
Release year: 1939
Duration: 3:17
Genre: Pop music, Easy Listening

wiki/Strange_Fruit
Michael Jordan drives to the basket against Larry Bird at Boston Garden (© Dick Raphael/NBAE via Getty Images)(1986) Michael Jordan scores 63 points in playoff game
Though the Boston Celtics win the game, 135-131 in double overtime, Jordan scores nearly half the points for the Chicago Bulls. It’s a performance for the ages from the second-year Bulls star and a sign of things to come for Air Jordan and the Bulls.
Michael Jeffrey Jordan, also known by his initials, MJ, is an American retired professional basketball player, businessman, and principal owner and chairman of the Charlotte Hornets. Jordan played 15 seasons in the National Basketball Association for the Chicago Bulls and Washington Wizards. His biography on the NBA website states: “By acclamation, Michael Jordan is the greatest basketball player of all time.” Jordan was one of the most effectively marketed athletes of his generation and was considered instrumental in popularizing the NBA around the world in the 1980s and 1990s.
Born: Feb 17, 1963 (age 54) · Brooklyn, NY
Height: 6′ 6″ (1.98 m)
Net worth: $1.20 billion USD (2017)
Spouse: Yvette Prieto (m. 2013) · Juanita Jordan (m. 1989 – 2006)
Children: Jeffrey Jordan (Son) · Marcus Jordan (Son) · Jasmine Mickael Jordan (Daughter) · Victoria Jordan (Daughter) · Ysabel Jordan (Daughter)
Education: Emsley A Laney High · University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (1981 – 1984)
Highlights
  • 1982: He made the game-winning jump shot in the 1982 NCAA Championship game against Georgetown, which was led by future NBA rival Patrick Ewing.

  • 1988: In the 1988–89 season, Jordan again led the league in scoring, averaging 32.5 ppg on 53.8% shooting from the field, along with 8 rpg and 8 assists per game (apg).

  • 1989: Jordan married Juanita Vanoy in September 1989, and they had two sons, Jeffrey Michael and Marcus James, and a daughter, Jasmine.

  • 1992: In the 1992 Summer Olympics, he was a member of the star-studded squad that included Magic Johnson, Larry Bird, and David Robinson and was dubbed the “Dream Team”.

  • 1999: With Phil Jackson’s contract expiring, the pending departures of Scottie Pippen and Dennis Rodman looming, and being in the latter stages of an owner-induced lockout of NBA players, Jordan retired for the second time on January 13, 1999.

  • 2003: Playing in his 14th and final NBA All-Star Game in 2003, Jordan passed Kareem Abdul-Jabbar as the all-time leading scorer in All-Star Game history (a record since broken by Kobe Bryant).

wiki/Michael_Jordan
In an April 20, 1999 file photo, unidentified young women head to a library near Columbine High School where students and faculty members were evacuated after two gunmen went on a shooting rampage in the school in Littleton, Colo. (© Kevin Higley/AP)(1999) Columbine High School shooting shocks a nation
Two students enter a Colorado high school armed with semi-automatic handguns, carbine rifles, and explosives, and begin a massacre that leaves 13 people dead and 21 wounded. The incident will be one of the deadliest modern-day mass shootings.
The Columbine High School massacre was a school shooting that occurred on April 20, 1999, at Columbine High School in Columbine, an unincorporated area of Jefferson County in the American state of Colorado. In addition to the shootings, the complex and highly planned attack involved a fire bomb to divert firefighters, propane tanks converted to bombs placed in the cafeteria, 99 explosive devices, and carbombs. The perpetrators, senior students Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, murdered 12 students and one teacher. They injured 21 additional people, and three more were injured while attempting to escape the school. The pair subsequently committed suicide.
Date: Apr 20, 1999
Fatalities: 15

wiki/Columbine_High_School_massacre
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Today in History 11/30/16

Today in History
(1782) US and Britain agree to preliminary peace terms
1782 Representatives from the United States and Great Britain sign an initial peace agreement to end the Revolutionary War. These peace articles establish US independence and borders, and will later be formalized as the 1783 Treaty of Paris..

The Preliminary Articles of Peace document was a very important primary draft of the Treaty of Paris, which formally ended the American Revolutionary War. The Articles of Peace provided American independence from the British and established geographical boundaries for the new nation. The Articles of Peace document was ratified by the Continental Congress on April 15, 1783, and the war was declared formally over, with the ratification of the Treaty of Paris.

British-American Diplomacy Preliminary Articles of Peace; November 30, 1782

— Source: totallyhistory.com/preliminary-articles-of-peace-1782/
— Full Document: avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/prel1782.asp
(1982) Michael Jackson’s album ‘Thriller’ is released worldwide
The former Jackson 5 singer releases what will be the best-selling album of all time, ‘Thriller.’ Of the album’s nine tracks, seven will reach the top 10 on the Billboard Hot 100 list. ‘Thriller’ will be among the first albums to use music videos as a marketing tool.. 1982

Thriller is the sixth studio album by American singer Michael Jackson, released on November 30, 1982, by Epic Records. In just over a year, it became—and currently remains—the world’s best-selling album, with estimated sales surpassing 65 million copies. It is the best-selling album in the United States and the first album to be certified 32x multi-platinum, having shipped 32 million album-equivalent units. The album won a record-breaking eight Grammy Awards in 1984, including Album of the Year. Seven singles were released from the album, all of which reached the top 10 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart.

Artist: Michael Jackson

— Source: wiki/Thriller_(Michael_Jackson_album)
(1993) US President Bill Clinton signs Brady Bill into law
1993 The Brady Bill imposes a five-day waiting period for handgun purchases and federal background checks on buyers. The act is named for James Brady, who was shot and critically injured in a 1981 assassination attempt on President Ronald Reagan by an assailant who was later ruled insane..

The Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act, often referred to as the Brady Act or the Brady Bill, is an Act of the United States Congress that mandated federal background checks on firearm purchasers in the United States, and imposed a five-day waiting period on purchases, until the NICS system was implemented in 1998.

The original legislation was introduced into the House of Representatives by Representative Charles E. Schumer in March 1991, but was never brought to a vote. The bill was reintroduced by Rep. Schumer on February 22, 1993 and the final version was passed on November 11, 1993. It was signed into law by President Bill Clinton on November 30, 1993 and the law went into effect on February 28, 1994. The Act was named after James Brady, who was shot by John Hinckley Jr. during an attempted assassination of President Ronald Reagan on March 30, 1981.

Long title: An Act to provide for a waiting period before the purchase of a handgun, and for the establishment of a national instant criminal background check system to be contacted by firearms dealers before the transfer of any firearm
Enacted by: the 103rd United States Congress
Effective: February 28, 1994

— Source: wiki/Brady_Handgun_Violence_Prevention_Act
(1999) Brits free once again to eat T-bone steaks
The English government says that its countrywide ban on the sale of beef-on-the-bone will be lifted in time for Christmas. T-bones, ribs, oxtail, and more were outlawed in 1997 after a report linked these cuts to so-called “mad cow disease.” The French ban on British beef will fall soon after.. 1999
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Today in History

Today in History
(1054) East and West in Constantinople Church clash
1054 The conflict between the Latin West and Greek East divisions of the Christian church heats up when a Papal writ of excommunication is placed by Western Roman legates on the altar of the Hagia Sofia, the holy site of the Christian East. It’s the first major crack that will end in a total break some 100 years later..
(1945) Nuclear age begins in New Mexico
Architects of the Manhattan Project, including project director J. Robert Oppenheimer, gather in shelters 10,000 yards from ‘The Gadget’s’ detonation site in New Mexico and at 5:29 AM the world’s first nuclear bomb explosion, code-named Trinity, pierces the darkness with 20 kilotons of atomic power. . 1945
(1951) Holden Caulfield is done with phonies in Salinger’s new novel
1951 A teenager is expelled from school and travels to New York City to spend a few days wandering around. Out of this deceptively simple plotline, J.D. Salinger weaves an archetypal tale of teenage angst in ‘The Catcher in the Rye,’ a novel published today that will be hailed and censored in equal measure. .
(1999) The son of a slain president loses his life in a plane crash
Flying to Massachusetts to attend his cousin’s wedding, John F. Kennedy, Jr. loses control of his Piper Saratoga aircraft and it plunges into the Atlantic, killing him, his wife Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy, and his sister-in-law Lauren Bessette. Their ashes will be scattered off the coast of Martha’s Vineyard.. 1999

A Historical Day

(1841) Poe publishes world’s first detective story
1841 A story concerning two grisly murders committed in a windowless room, and featuring a large ape-like creature wielding a razor, Edgar Allan Poe’s ‘The Murders in the Rue Morgue’ will inspire the creation of future fictional detectives such as Sherlock Holmes and Hercule Poirot. .
(1902) Madame and Monsieur Curie isolate radioactive radium
The married scientific research team of Marie and Pierre Curie chemically isolate one-tenth gram of pure radium chloride, an element not naturally occurring in isolation. Their work with radium and radioactivity will lead to the first Nobel Prize awarded to a woman.. 1902
(1939) Billie Holiday records landmark civil rights song
1939 One of the first songs to explicitly call out the murderous brutality suffered by African Americans in the Jim Crow South, the painful and poetic ‘Strange Fruit’ is recorded by Billie Holiday. A relatively small jazz label, Commodore, records it after Holiday’s label, Columbia Records, refuses to..
(1999) Columbine High School shooting shocks a nation
Two students enter a Colorado high school armed with semi-automatic handguns, carbine rifles, and explosives, and begin a massacre that leaves 13 people dead and 21 wounded. The incident will be one of the deadliest modern-day mass shootings. . 1999