On This Day

[bothwell_buyer]

Raist... fallen asleep ? Wake up - its tomorrow!!!!!

[Raistlin]

Births

1728 Robert Adam, Scottish architect and designer

1854 Leos Janácek, Czech composer

1883 Franz Kafka, Czech writer

1927 Ken Russell, British film director

1937 Tom Stoppard, British dramatist

1951 Richard Hadlee, New Zealand cricketer

Deaths

1642 Marie de' Medici, Queen of France

1904 Theodor Herzl, Austrian Zionist leader

1908 Joel Chandler Harris, US author

1961 Brian Jones, English rock guitarist

1971 Jim Morrison, US singer

1986 Rudy Vallee, US singer

1993 Joe De Rita, US comedian

Events

1608 French explorer Samuel Champlain founded Québec.

1863 The Union forces, under General Meade, defeated the Confederates at the Battle of Gettysburg.

1905 In Odessa, over 6,000 people were killed by Russian troops to restore order during a general strike.

1954 Nearly nine years after the end of the World War II, food rationing in Britain finally ended.

1962 Following a referendum, France proclaimed Algeria independent.

1976 An Israeli commando force rescued 103 hostages from a hijacked aircraft, who were being held at Entebbe airport, Uganda.

1988 The USS Vincennes, patrolling the Gulf during the Iran - Iraq conflict, mistook an Iranian civil airliner for a bomber and shot it down, killing all 290 people on board.

1996 The international court ruled that slave labourers from the Nazi era could at last press their claims for compensation against German companies who used them as slaves.

1996 It was announced that the Stone of Scone, the symbol of Scottish nationhood stolen by Edward I of England in 1296, was to be returned to Scotland from Westminster Abbey where it has been used in the coronation of 30 British monarchs.

[Raistlin]

Births

1804 Nathaniel Hawthorne, US author

1807 Giuseppe Garibaldi, Italian soldier and patriot

1898 Gertrude Lawrence, English actress

1900 Louis Armstrong, US jazz trumpeter and singer

1927 Neil Simon, US dramatist

1927 Gina Lollobrigida, Italian film actress

Deaths

1761 Samuel Richardson, English novelist

1826 John Adams, 2nd US president

1826 Thomas Jefferson, 3rd US president

1831 James Monroe, 5th US president

1934 Marie Curie, Polish scientist

1939 Suzanne Lenglen, French tennis player

Events

1776 The American Declaration of Independence was adopted.

1829 Britain's first regular scheduled bus service began running, between Marylebone Road and the Bank of England, in London.

1848 The Communist Manifesto was published by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels.

1946 The Philippine Islands were given independence by the USA.

1968 Alec Rose landed at Portsmouth in Lively Lady, having sailed single-handed around the world.

1985 Ruth Lawrence achieved the best first-class mathematics degree at the University of Oxford, England, at the age of 13.

1991 Colombia's President Cesar Gaviria Trujillo lifted the state of siege that had been in effect since 1984.

1995 John Major emerged as the winner in an unprecedented parliamentary election for leadership of the ruling Conservative Party.

1996 Boris Yeltsin returned to power in the Russian elections despite uncertainty about his health.

1996 A Tamil rebel with explosives strapped to her body blew herself up in front of a government motorcade in Jaffna, killing at least 21 and injuring 50 people.

[Raistlin]

Events

1791 George Hammond was appointed the first British ambassador to the USA.

1809 Napoleon’s Grande Armee fought the Austrians at the Battle of Wagram.

1946 A swimsuit designed by Louis Reard, called 'bikini', was first modelled at a Paris fashion show.

1948 Britain's National Health Service came into operation.

1965 Maria Callas, at the age of 41, gave her last stage performance singing Tosca at Covent Garden, London.

1967 Israel annexed Gaza.

1969 The Rolling Stones gave a free concert in Hyde Park, London, two days after the death of guitarist Brian Jones; it was attended by 250,000 people.

1980 Björn Borg won the Wimbledon singles championship for a record fifth consecutive time.

1989 Convicted for his involvement in the Iran-Contra affair, US Army Colonel Oliver North was fined $150,000 and given a suspended sentence.

1997 Martina Hingis of Switzerland, aged 16 years 279 days, became the youngest winner of the women's singles at the Wimbledon tennis championships in London, England, since 1887.

1997 Second Prime Minister Hun Sen of the Cambodian People's Party overthrew First Prime Minister Norodom Ranariddh of the royalist United Front for an Independent, Neutral, Peaceful, and Cooperative Cambodia (FUNCINPEC) in a coup in Cambodia

Births

1755 Sarah Siddons, English actress

1853 Cecil Rhodes, South African statesman

1879 Dwight Davis, US statesman

1889 Jean Cocteau, French poet, novelist, artist, and film director

1911 Georges Pompidou, French statesman

1953 Elizabeth Emanuel, English dress designer

Deaths

1826 Thomas Stamford Raffles, British colonial administrator

1894 Austen Henry Layard, British archaeologist

1948 Georges Bernanos, French author

1969 Thomas Joseph Mboya, Kenyan statesman

1969 Walter Adolph Gropius, US architect

1974 Georgette Heyer, English novelist

[Raistlin]

Events

1535 Sir Thomas More was beheaded on London's Tower Hill for treason.

1553 Mary I acceded to the throne, becoming the first queen to rule England in her own right.

1685 James II defeated the Duke of Monmouth, claimant to the throne, at the Battle of Sedgemoor, the last battle to be fought on English soil.

1809 Pope Pius VII, having excommunicated Napoleon, was taken prisoner by the French.

1892 Britain's first non-white MP was elected when Dadabhai Naoraji won the Central Finsbury seat.

1923 The USSR (and its new constitution) formally came into existence.

1928 The first all-talking feature film, Lights of New York, was presented at the Strand Theatre in New York City.

1965 The Beatles' film A Hard Day's Night was premiered in London, with royal attendance.

1988 An explosion aboard the North Sea oil rig Piper Alpha resulted in the loss of 166 lives.

Births

1796 Nicholas I, Tsar of Russia

1925 Bill Haley, US rock musician

1927 Janet Leigh, US film actress

1935 Dalai Lama, Tibetan spiritual leader

1937 Vladimir Ashkenazy, Russian pianist

1946 Sylvester Stallone, US film actor

Deaths

1893 Guy de Maupassant, French writer

1932 Kenneth Grahame, Scottish children's author

1960 Aneurin Bevan, British statesman

1962 William Faulkner, US novelist

1971 Louis Armstrong, US jazz musician

1973 Otto Klemperer, German conductor

1993 John Bolton, English astronomer

[Raistlin]

Events

1853 US naval officer Commodore Matthew Perry arrived in Japan, and persuaded her to open trade contacts with the West.

1927 Christopher Stone became the first 'disc jockey' on British radio when he presented his 'Record Round-up' from Savoy Hill.

1929 The Vatican City State, with the pope as its sovereign, came into being through the Lateran Treaty.

1985 The unseeded 17-year-old Boris Becker became the youngest ever men's singles champion at Wimbledon.

1990 Martina Navratilova of the USA won her ninth Women's Singles title in the Wimbledon tennis tournament, London, beating the record of Helen Wills Moody, set between 1927 and 1938.

1996 Holland's Richard Krajicek won the first men's tennis final at Wimbledon to feature two unseeded players. Germany's Steffi Graf wins the women's final. A streaker runs across centre court.

Births

1887 Marc Chagall, Russian painter and designer

1899 George Cukor, US film director

1901 Vittorio de Sica, Italian film director

1922 Pierre Cardin, French fashion designer

1940 Ringo Starr, English drummer with the Beatles

1944 Tony Jacklin, English golfer

Deaths

1307 Edward I, King of England

1573 Giacomo da Vignola, Italian architect

1816 Richard Brinsley Sheridan, Irish dramatist and politician

1854 Georg Ohm, German physicist

1930 Arthur Conan Doyle, British author

1984 Flora Robson, British actress

[Raistlin]

Births

1621 Jean de la Fontaine, French writer

1836 Joseph Chamberlain, British statesman

1839 John D Rockefeller, US millionaire

1851 Arthur Evans, English archaeologist

1882 Percy Grainger, Australian composer

1915 Billy Eckstine, US singer

Deaths

1822 Percy Bysshe Shelley, English poet

1933 Anthony Hope, British novelist

1939 Henry Havelock Ellis, English physician and author

1967 Vivien Leigh, English film actress

1979 Michael Wilding, English film actor

1988 Judith Chrisholm, British aviator

1993 Fred Weick, US aeronautical engineer

1994 Kim Il Sung, head of the North Korean government since 1948

Events

1497 Portuguese navigator Vasco da Gama left Lisbon for a voyage on which he discovered the Cape route to India.

1709 Charles XII of Sweden was defeated by Peter the Great's army at the Battle of Poltava, crushing Sweden's territorial ambitions.

1884 The National Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC) was founded in London.

1907 Ziegfeld's Follies opened for the first time, on Broadway in New York.

1943 Jean Moulin, the French Resistance leader known as 'Max', was executed by the Gestapo.

1972 President Nixon announced that the USSR would purchase $750 million worth of US grain over three years.

1990 In the soccer World Cup, held in Italy, West Germany beat Argentina 1-0 in the Final.

1991 Iraq admitted to the UN that it had been conducting clandestine programs to produce enriched uranium, a key element in nuclear weapons.

1996 A patent was filed by two British scientists to use genetically engineered mosquitoes to immunize their victims against malaria by transferring a protein in their saliva.

[Bizarra]

"1996 A patent was filed by two British scientists to use genetically engineered mosquitoes to immunize their victims against malaria by transferring a protein in their saliva."

Did it work ? I don't think so, as Malaria seems to be as rampant as ever :(

[Raistlin]

"1996 A patent was filed by two British scientists to use genetically engineered mosquitoes to immunise their victims against malaria by transferring a protein in their saliva."

Did it work ? I don't think so, as Malaria seems to be as rampant as ever

Chery Cole has Malaria and you use a word like "Rampant" :D and it's only prevalent in hot far away countries

[Bizarra]

True, in the main

But we have our own plague which erupts every year, just down the road in Malahide.

They don't inflict Malaria, but as you will read, give a very nasty bite :censor:

Rare Mosquitoes Thrive In Malahide

E-mail Print

Tuesday, 04 May 2010 12:21

The seaside village of Malahide is once again being plagued by the infestation of rare mosquitoes as the summer months approach. Residents in the area are again raising concern about the implications of this species, of which very little is known. A number of people in the area are said to have adverse medical reactions to the bites, and several members of a local tennis club were recently hospitalised due to having been bitten. Local councillor, Peter Coyle, stated that, “Last summer, traps were placed around Malahide Castle to capture the mosquitoes and they were then sent to U.C.C. for species identification. The results were limited in success and, while further experiments will take place, there are no plans to treat the problem at present,” he said. The most recent discussion concerning the eradication of the species was made at a Council meeting in May 2008. The council outlined that the necessary products for treatment could not be used at that time. The mosquitoes are reported to have been brought to Ireland by Milo, Lord Talbot de Malahide, who travelled around the world collecting exotic plants for the castle gardens. Secretary of Malahide Historical Society, Roger Greene explained that “Seven key locations have been identified as active areas for the insect around Malahide. “In the castle demesne there are remains of a limekiln. It is a shallow marshy area and is thought to be the main breeding spot for the insects,” concluded Greene.

[Raistlin]

True, in the main

But we have our own plague which erupts every year, just down the road in Malahide.

They don't inflict Malaria, but as you will read, give a very nasty bite

Rare Mosquitoes Thrive In Malahide

E-mail Print

Tuesday, 04 May 2010 12:21

The seaside village of Malahide is once again being plagued by the infestation of rare mosquitoes as the summer months approach. Residents in the area are again raising concern about the implications of this species, of which very little is known. A number of people in the area are said to have adverse medical reactions to the bites, and several members of a local tennis club were recently hospitalised due to having been bitten. Local councillor, Peter Coyle, stated that, "Last summer, traps were placed around Malahide Castle to capture the mosquitoes and they were then sent to U.C.C. for species identification. The results were limited in success and, while further experiments will take place, there are no plans to treat the problem at present," he said. The most recent discussion concerning the eradication of the species was made at a Council meeting in May 2008. The council outlined that the necessary products for treatment could not be used at that time. The mosquitoes are reported to have been brought to Ireland by Milo, Lord Talbot de Malahide, who travelled around the world collecting exotic plants for the castle gardens. Secretary of Malahide Historical Society, Roger Greene explained that "Seven key locations have been identified as active areas for the insect around Malahide. "In the castle demesne there are remains of a limekiln. It is a shallow marshy area and is thought to be the main breeding spot for the insects," concluded Greene.

Gods way to displease the lower races...

[Bizarra]

True, in the main

But we have our own plague which erupts every year, just down the road in Malahide.

They don't inflict Malaria, but as you will read, give a very nasty bite

Rare Mosquitoes Thrive In Malahide

E-mail Print

Tuesday, 04 May 2010 12:21

The seaside village of Malahide is once again being plagued by the infestation of rare mosquitoes as the summer months approach. Residents in the area are again raising concern about the implications of this species, of which very little is known. A number of people in the area are said to have adverse medical reactions to the bites, and several members of a local tennis club were recently hospitalised due to having been bitten. Local councillor, Peter Coyle, stated that, "Last summer, traps were placed around Malahide Castle to capture the mosquitoes and they were then sent to U.C.C. for species identification. The results were limited in success and, while further experiments will take place, there are no plans to treat the problem at present," he said. The most recent discussion concerning the eradication of the species was made at a Council meeting in May 2008. The council outlined that the necessary products for treatment could not be used at that time. The mosquitoes are reported to have been brought to Ireland by Milo, Lord Talbot de Malahide, who travelled around the world collecting exotic plants for the castle gardens. Secretary of Malahide Historical Society, Roger Greene explained that "Seven key locations have been identified as active areas for the insect around Malahide. "In the castle demesne there are remains of a limekiln. It is a shallow marshy area and is thought to be the main breeding spot for the insects," concluded Greene.

Gods way to displease the lower races...

You redundant racist, you The Pink which covered 1/4 of the Globe is gone & forgotten

When God gave the world an enema... he stuck the tube in Surrey :lol2:

[Raistlin]

But we all know where the sh*t blew ....

That's why it's so green :D

[Bizarra]

But we all know where the sh*t blew ....

That's why it's so green :D

Yeah ! and it is still erupting...............from an unnamed Top Poster :lol2:

[Raistlin]

Events

1810 Napoleon annexed Holland, making his brother, Louis, its king.

1816 Argentina declared independence from Spain at the Congress of Tucuman.

1877 The first Wimbledon Lawn Tennis championship was held at its original site at Worple Road.

1922 Johnny Weismuller, aged 18, swam the 100m in under a minute (58.6 sec).

1938 In anticipation of World War II, 35 million gas masks were issued to Britain's civilian population.

1979 In Nicaragua, General Somoza was overthrown by the Sandinista rebels.

1982 England's Queen Elizabeth II was woken by a strange man sitting on her bed in Buckingham Palace; the presence of the intruder, who merely asked her for a cigarette, raised concerns about Palace security.

1984 Lightning struck York Minster and set the roof on fire, destroying the south transept.

1991 The International Olympic Committee lifted a 21-year-old boycott on South Africa.

1994 The government of the People's Republic of China announced that Hong Kong's legislative council would be terminated on China's resumption of sovereignty in 1997.

Births

1819 Elias Howe, US inventor

1888 Bruce Bairnsfather, British cartoonist

1901 Barbara Cartland, English novelist

1907 J(ohn) Z(achary) Young, English zoologist

1916 Edward Heath, British politician

1935 Michael Williams, British actor

1937 David Hockney, English painter

Deaths

1440 Jan van Eyck, Flemish painter

1797 Edmund Burke, British statesman

1850 Zachary Taylor, 12th US president

1932 King Camp Gilette, US safety-razor inventor

1984 Randall Thompson, US composer

[Raistlin]

Events

1460 In England's Wars of the Roses, the Yorkists defeated the Lancastrians and captured Henry VI at the Battle of Northampton.

1553 Following the death of Edward VI, Lady Jane Grey was proclaimed queen of England.

1900 The Paris underground railway, the Metro, was opened.

1958 Britain's first parking meters were installed, in Mayfair, London.

1962 The US communications satellite Telstar was launched, bringing Europe the first live television from the USA.

1976 Seveso, in northern Italy, was covered by a cloud of toxic weedkiller leaked from a chemicals factory; crops and 40,000 animals died.

1985 The Greenpeace campaign ship Rainbow Warrior sank in Auckland, New Zealand, after two explosions tore its hull.

1996 Florida ordered the evacuation of 500,000 homes as Hurricane Bertha hit the US coast.

1997 Japanese astronomer Makoto Hattori and colleagues reported the discovery of a knot of mass, which they called a 'dark cluster', with the chemical and gravitational properties of a cluster of galaxies, but optically invisible.

Births

1509 John Calvin, French religious reformer

1830 Camille Pissarro, French painter

1871 Marcel Proust, French author

1895 Carl Orff, German composer

1943 Arthur Ashe, US tennis player

1947 Arlo Guthrie, US singer

Deaths

138 Hadrian, Roman emperor

1099 El Cid

1851 Louis Jacques Mandé Daguerre, French photographic pioneer

1884 Karl Richard Lepsius, German Egyptologist

1941 Jelly Roll Morton, US ragtime pianist and composer

1978 Giorgio de Chirico, Italian painter

1993 Masuji Ibuse, Japanese writer

[Raistlin]

Events

1533 Henry VIII is excommunicated by Pope Clement VII over his divorce from Catherine of Aragon.

1708 The Duke of Marlborough's forces defeated the French at the Battle of Oudenarde, in the War of the Spanish Succession.

1776 Captain Cook sailed from Plymouth in the Resolution, accompanied by the Discovery, on his last expedition.

1848 London's Waterloo Station was officially opened.

1950 Andy Pandy, the BBC's popular children's television programme, was first transmitted.

1975 Excavations at the tomb of Emperor Qin Shi Huangdi, near the ancient Chinese capital of Xi'an, uncovered an army of 8,000 life-size terracotta warriors dating to about 206 BC

1977 In Britain, Gay News was fined £1,000 for publishing a poem which portrayed Jesus as homosexual.

1979 America's Skylab I returned to earth after 34,981 orbits and six years in space.

1985 Explosions sank the Greenpeace ship Rainbow Warrior in Auckland harbour, New Zealand, killing one man.

1986 Inflation in Britain fell to 2.5%, the lowest since Dec 1967.

1987 It was formally announced that the world population had reached 5,000,000,000, double the level of 1950.

1995 US President Clinton formally reestablished full diplomatic ties with Vietnam.

1996 The Bosnian war-crimes tribunal in the Hague issued an international arrest warrant for Radovan Karadzic and Ratko Mladic.

1997 The Japanese baseball pitcher Hideki Irabu made his major league debut for the New York Yankees, striking out nine batters and conceding only five hits in the Yankees' 10-3 victory.

Births

1274 Robert the Bruce, King of Scotland

1657 Frederick I, King of Prussia

1767 John Quincy Adams, 6th US president

1915 Yul Brynner, US film actor

1944 Peter de Savary, British entrepreneur and yachtsman

1953 Leon Spinks, US boxer

Deaths

1935 Alfred Dreyfus, French soldier

1937 George Gershwin, US composer

1941 Arthur John Evans, English archaeologist

1946 Paul Nash, English painter

1950 Buddy DeSylva, US lyricist and film director

1989 Laurence Olivier, English actor and director

[Raistlin]

Events

1543 England's Henry VIII married Catherine Parr, his sixth and last wife, at Hampton Court Palace.

1794 British admiral Horatio Nelson lost his right eye at the siege of Calvi, in Corsica.

1878 Cyprus was ceded to British administration by Turkey.

1920 US President Wilson opened the Panama Canal.

1930 Australian batsman Don Bradman scored a record 334 runs of which a record 309 were scored in one day against England at Leeds.

1970 Thor Heyerdahl and his crew crossed the Atlantic in 57 days, in a papyrus boat.

1990 Boris Yeltsin and other reformers resigned from the Communist Party in USSR.

1991 Hitoshi Igarashi, the Japanese translator of Salman Rushdie's Satanic Verses, was found stabbed to death in Tokyo.

1996 Dozens of Iraqi military officers were executed after Saddam Hussein foiled an attempted coup.

1997 A computer employee at Network Solutions Inc in Hemdon, Virginia, ignored malfunction warnings and caused seven of the world's nine root servers to corrupt all the data sent to them, causing the Internet to break down.

1997 The recently discovered remains of the Latin American revolutionary activist Che Guevara were returned to Cuba from Bolivia, where he was killed in 1967.

Births

100BC Gaius Julius Caesar, Roman emperor

1817 Henry Thoreau, US author

1854 George Eastman, US photographic pioneer

1884 Amadeo Modigliani, Italian painter and sculptor

1937 Bill Cosby, US comedian and actor

1958 Jennifer Saunders, English comedienne and actress

Deaths

1536 Desiderius Erasmus, Dutch scholar

1705 Titus Oates, British conspirator

1910 Charles Stewart Rolls, British engineer and aviator

1961 Mazo de la Roche, Canadian novelist

1982 Kenneth More, British actor

[Raistlin]

Events

1793 Jean-Paul Marat, French revolutionary leader, was stabbed to death in his bath by Charlotte Corday.

1837 Queen Victoria became the first sovereign to move into Buckingham Palace, London.

1871 The first cat show was held, organized by Harrison Weir, at Crystal Palace, London.

1878 The Treaty of Berlin was signed, granting Bosnia-Herzegovina to Austria-Hungary, and gaining the independence of Romania, Serbia, and Montenegro from Turkey.

1930 The World Football Cup was first held in Uruguay; the hosts beat the 13 other competing countries.

1984 In Britain, Robert Maxwell bought the Mirror group of newspapers.

1985 Two simultaneous 'Live Aid' concerts, one in London and one in Philadelphia, raised over £50 million for famine victims in Africa.

1997 The English golfer Alison Nicholas became only the second Briton after Laura Davies in 1987 to win the US Women's Open, at North Plains, Oregon.

Births

1527 John Dee, English alchemist, astrologer, and mathematician

1811 George Gilbert Scott, English architect

1859 Sidney Webb, English social reformer

1933 David Storey, English novelist and dramatist

1942 Harrison Ford, US film actor

Deaths

1712 Richard Cromwell, Lord Protector of England

1762 James Bradley, English astronomer

1793 Jean-Paul Marat, French revolutionary leader

1807 Henry Stuart, last of the Stuarts, Grandson of King James II

1890 John Charles Frémont, US explorer

1951 Arnold Schoenberg, Austrian composer

1980 Seretse Khama, Botswanan politician

[Raistlin]

Events

1789 The Bastille was stormed by the citizens of Paris and razed to the ground as the French Revolution began.

1823 During a visit to Britain, King Kamehameha II of Hawaii and his queen died of measles.

1867 Alfred Nobel demonstrated dynamite for the first time at a quarry in Redhill, Surrey.

1881 Billy the Kid was shot dead at the age of 21 by Sheriff Pat Garrett. He had killed 27 men.

1933 The Nazi euthanasia programme starts when the Law for the Protection of Hereditary Health is passed in Germany.

1958 In a military coup led by General Kassem, King Faisal of Iraq was assassinated and a republic proclaimed.

1959 The USS Long Beach, the first nuclear warship, was launched.

1967 Abortion was legalized in Britain.

1972 Gary Glitter and the Glittermen (later called the Glitter Band) gave their first concert in Wiltshire.

1989 Over 300,000 Siberian coalminers went on strike, demanding better pay and conditions.

1989 The LEP (Large Electron Positron Collider) at the CERN research centre in Switzerland was inaugurated; the new accelerator had a circumference of 27 km/16.8 mi.

1996 About 50 people were killed during rioting at a football match in Libya when security forces opened fire on spectators shouting slogans against the Libyan leader Moamer al Khaddhafi.

Births

1858 Emmeline Pankhurst, English suffragette

1904 Isaac Bashevis Singer, Polish author

1912 Woody Guthrie, US folk singer

1913 Gerald Ford, 38th US president

1918 Ingmar Bergman, Swedish film director

1950 Bruce Oldfield, British fashion designer

Deaths

1881 Billy the Kid, American outlaw

1887 Alfred Krupp, German industrialist

1904 Paul Kruger, Boer leader

1907 William Henry Perkin, English chemist and inventor of aniline dyes

1959 Grock, Swiss clown

1965 Adlai Stevenson, US statesman

[Raistlin]

Births

1573 Inigo Jones, English architect

1606 Rembrandt, Dutch painter

1913 Hammond Innes, English novelist

1919 Iris Murdoch, Irish novelist

1933 Julian Bream, English guitarist

1934 Harrison Birtwistle, English composer

1946 Linda Ronstadt, US singer

Deaths

1883 General Tom Thumb, US circus dwarf

1904 Anton Chekhov, Russian dramatist and author

1929 Hugo von Hofmannsthal, Austrian dramatist and poet

1948 John Pershing, US soldier

1976 Paul William Gallico, US writer

1990 Margaret Mary Lockwood, English film actress

Events

1099 Jerusalem was captured by the Crusaders with troops led by Godfrey and Robert of Flanders and Tancred of Normandy.

1795 The 'Marseillaise', written by Rouget de Lisle in 1792, was officially adopted as the French national anthem.

1857 During the Indian Mutiny, the second Massacre of Cawnpore (now Kanpur) took place, in which 197 English women and children were killed.

1869 Margarine was patented by Hippolyte Mège-Mouriès in Paris.

1948 Alcoholics Anonymous, in existence in the USA since 1935, was founded in London.

1965 US Mariner transmitted the first close-up pictures of Mars.

1990 In an ongoing campaign of violence, separatist Tamil Tigers massacred 168 Muslims in Colombo, the Sri Lankan capital.

1996 Prince Charles and Princess Diana were granted a decree nisi. Princess Diana could no longer be addressed as Her Royal Highness but was to be known as Diana, Princess of Wales.

1997 The body of the serial killer Andrew Cunanan, wanted for murdering world-famous fashion designer Gianni Versace in Florida was found in Miami Beach, after an apparent suicide.

[Raistlin]

Births

1486 Andrea del Sarto, Italian painter

1723 Joshua Reynolds, English painter

1872 Roald Amundsen, Norwegian polar explorer

1907 Barbara Stanwyck, US film actress

1911 Ginger Rogers, US film actress and dancer

1942 Margaret Court, Australian tennis player

Deaths

1216 Pope Innocent III

1557 Anne of Cleves, 4th wife of Henry VIII, King of England

1827 Josiah Spode, English potter

1953 Hilaire Belloc, British author

1960 John Phillips Marquand, US writer

1989 Herbert von Karajan, Austrian conductor

1994 Julian Schwinger, US quantum physicist

1995 Stephen Spender, English poet and critic

Events

622 Traditionally, the beginning of the Islamic Era, when Mohammed began his flight (the Hejira) from Mecca to Medina.

1661 Europe's first banknotes were issued, by the Bank of Stockholm.

1782 Mozart's opera Die Entführung aus dem Serail was first performed, in Vienna.

1945 The first atomic bomb developed by Robert Oppenheimer and his team at Los Alamos was exploded in New Mexico.

1965 The Mont Blanc road tunnel, linking France with Italy, was opened.

1990 An earthquake struck the main Philippine island of Luzon, killing over 1,500 people.

1994 Great rock and ice particles from the comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 begin to collide with the planet Juptier.

1995 French President Jacques Chirac admitted that France was responsible for the deportation of thousands of Jews to Nazi concentration camps in Germany and Poland during World War II.

[Raistlin]

Events

1453 With the defeat of the English at the Battle of Castillon, the Hundred Years' War between France and England came to an end.

1841 The first issue of the humorous magazine Punch was published in London.

1917 The British royal family changed their name from 'House of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha' to 'House of Windsor'.

1918 The last tsar of Russia, Nicholas II, along with his entire family, family doctor, servants, and even the pet dog, was murdered by Bolsheviks at Ekaterinburg.

1945 The Potsdam Conference of Allied leaders Truman, Stalin, and Churchill (later replaced by Attlee) began.

1975 The US Apollo spacecraft and the Russian Soyuz craft successfully docked while in orbit.

1981 The Humber Estuary Bridge, the world's longest single-span structure, was officially opened by the Queen.

1987 Vice-Admiral John Poindexter stated that he authorized diversion of funds to Contra rebels.

1990 Iraqi president Saddam Hussein threatened to use force against Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates, to stop them driving oil prices down by overproduction.

1996 A TWA jumbo jet exploded shortly after takeoff from New York, killing 228 people.

Births

1876 Maxim Litvinov, Soviet leader

1889 Erle Stanley Gardner, US novelist

1899 James Cagney, US film actor

1917 Phyllis Diller, US comedienne

1935 Donald Sutherland, Canadian film actor

1948 Wayne Sleep, British dancer and choreographer

Deaths

1790 Adam Smith, Scottish economist

1793 Charlotte Corday, murderess of Marat, executed

1903 James McNeill Whistler, US painter

1946 Dragolub Mihajlovic, Serbian nationalist, executed

1959 Billie Holiday, US jazz singer

1995 Juan Fangio, Argentine racing-car driver

[Bizarra]

There is still an element of doubt as to whether the entire family of the Tzar were wiped out

"1918 The last tsar of Russia, Nicholas II, along with his entire family, family doctor, servants, and even the pet dog, was murdered by Bolsheviks at Ekaterinburg."................

The youngest daughter of Nicholas II, Anastasia, born on June 18, 1901, became extremely famous for numerous claimants, who had been popping up in the West after the murder of the Russian Tsar family.

Since the age of seven Anastasia had been looking after her sick brother Alexei, her usual pastime was tatting, learning languages, ballroom dances, and taking part in home-staged performances. She had the reputation of a tomboy and got the name of ‘Shvibzik’.

“I can recall over 30 stories about impostors using the name “Anastasia”, once said Alexii II, Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia. Only three women succeeded in the role of “miraculously saved” princess, two of which were mentally sick.

Princess Anastasia and Chekist Tschaikovsky: A tragic love story

The first impostor was fished out of Landwehrkanal in Berlin in 1920 when she attempted a suicide. Franziska Schanzkowska, alias Anna Anderson, alias Anastasia Manahan (after marriage) was the most successful impostor in the 20th century. After the WWI, the life in Germany was not easy and many Germans tired of misery made attempts to settle accounts with life. A policeman patrolling along a Berlin canal was not surprised at all when he saw a young lady jump off into the water. However, he darted to rescue her. The poor woman received first aid and was sent to a mental hospital where those who attempted a suicide were compulsorily institutionalised.

“Well, Freulein, can you tell us your name and home address? We found no papers on you,” the doctor asked her gently when she came to herself.

“I have to make an important statement”, said she in a feeble voice. “My name is Anastasia Nikolayevna Romanova. I’m a Russian Princess, Grand Duchess Anastasia, the daughter of the last Russian Emperor, Nicholas. By miracle, I managed to survive the slaughter in Yekaterinburg.”

Though I did read somewhere that subsequent DNA tests disproved her claim

[Raistlin]

Events

AD 64 The great fire began in Rome and lasted for nine days.

1870 The Vatican Council proclaimed the Dogma of Papal Infallibility in matters of faith and morals.

1923 Under the Matrimonial Causes Bill, British women were given equal divorce rights with men.

1925 Mein Kampf, Hitler's political testament, was published.

1936 The Spanish Civil War began with an army revolt led by Francisco Franco against the Republican government.

1955 Disneyland, the 160-acre amusement park, opened to the public near Anaheim, California. The press and invited guests visited the previous day.

1972 President Sadat of Egypt expelled 20,000 Soviet advisers after accusing USSR of failing to supply promised armaments.

1984 In San Ysidro, California, a security guard walked into a McDonalds and began shooting randomly, killing 20 people and wounding 16.

1993 After governing Japan since 1955, the Liberal Democrats lost their overall majority in the general election.

1997 UK, Canadian, and US scientists discovered the presence of water molecules in the sunspots on the Sun, where the top layers are just cool enough for water molecules to form.

Births

1720 Gilbert White, English naturalist

1811 William Makepeace Thackeray, English novelist and poet

1918 Nelson Mandela, South African politician

1921 John Glenn, US astronaut and politician

1950 Richard Branson, British entrepreneur

1957 Nick Faldo, English golfer

Deaths

1610 Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, Italian painter

1721 Antoine Watteau, French painter

1762 Peter III, Tsar of Russia, murdered

1817 Jane Austen, English novelist

1892 Thomas Cook, British pioneer travel agent

1973 jack Hawkins, British film actor

1993 Jean Negulesco, Romanian-born US film director