Today in history- November 11: Republic of Angola Independence day.

November 11 is the 315th day of the year. There are 50 days remaining until the end of the year.

Flag

Today's Highlight in History:
1975 – Independence of Angola.


Republic of Angola, is a country in Southern Africa. It is the seventh largest country in Africa, and is bordered by Namibia on the south, the Democratic Republic of the Congo on the north, and Zambia on the east; its west coast is on the Atlantic Ocean and Luanda is its capital city. The exclave province of Cabinda has borders with the Republic of the Congo and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Emblem

The Portuguese were present in some – mostly coastal – points of the territory of what is now Angola, from the 16th to the 19th century, interacting in diverse ways with the peoples who lived there. In the 19th century, they slowly and hesitantly began to establish themselves in the interior. Angola as a Portuguese colony encompassing the present territory was not established before the end of the 19th century, and "effective occupation", as required by the Berlin Conference (1884) was achieved only by the 1920s after the Mbunda resistance and abduction of their King, Mwene Mbandu I Lyondthzi Kapova. Independence was achieved in 1975, after a protracted liberation war. After independence, Angola was the scene of an intense civil war from 1975 to 2002. Despite the civil war, areas such as Baixa de Cassanje continue a lineage of kings which have included the former King Kambamba Kulaxingo and current King Dianhenga Aspirante Mjinji Kulaxingo.

Quatro de Fevereiro Luanda Airport arrivals

The country has vast mineral and petroleum reserves, and its economy has on average grown at a double-digit pace since the 1990s, especially since the end of the civil war. In spite of this, standards of living remain low for the majority of the population, and life expectancy and infant mortality rates in Angola are among the worst in the world. Angola is considered to be economically disparate, with the majority of the nation's wealth concentrated in a disproportionately small sector of the population.


Angola is a member state of the African Union, the Community of Portuguese Language Countries, the Latin Union and the Southern African Development Community.
The name Angola comes from the Portuguese colonial name Reino de Angola (Kingdom of Angola), appearing as early as Dias de Novais's 1571 charter.The toponym was derived by the Portuguese from the title ngola held by the kings of Ndongo. Ndongo was a kingdom in the highlands, between the Kwanza and Lukala Rivers, nominally tributary to the king of Kongo but which was seeking greater independence during the 16th century.

Angola's motto is Virtus Unita Fortior, a Latin phrase meaning "Virtue is stronger when united". The executive branch of the government is composed of the President, the Vice-Presidents and the Council of Ministers. For decades, political power has been concentrated in the Presidency.

Governors of the 18 provinces are appointed by the president. The Constitutional Law of 1992 establishes the broad outlines of government structure and delineates the rights and duties of citizens. The legal system is based on Portuguese and customary law but is weak and fragmented, and courts operate in only 12 of more than 140 municipalities. A Supreme Court serves as the appellate tribunal; a Constitutional Court with powers of judicial review has not been constituted until 2010, despite statutory authorization.

After the end of the Civil War the regime came under pressure from within as well as from the international environment, to become more democratic and less authoritarian. Its reaction was to operate a number of changes without substantially changing its character.

Downtown Luanda

Angola is classified as 'not free' by Freedom House in the Freedom in the World 2013 report. The report noted that the August 2012 parliamentary elections, in which the ruling Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola won more than 70% of the vote, suffered from serious flaws, including outdated and inaccurate voter rolls. Voter turnout dropped from 80% in 2008 to 60%.
Angola scored poorly on the 2013 Ibrahim Index of African Governance. It was ranked 39 out of 52 sub-Saharan African countries, scoring particularly badly in the areas of Participation and Human Rights, Sustainable Economic Opportunity and Human Development. The Ibrahim Index uses a number of different variables to compile its list which reflects the state of governance in Africa.
Angolan Armed Forces


The Angolan Armed Forces

 (AAF) is headed by a Chief of Staff who reports to the Minister of Defense. There are three divisions—the Army (Exército), Navy (Marinha de Guerra, MGA), and National Air Force (Força Aérea Nacional, FAN). Total manpower is about 110,000. Its equipment includes Russian-manufactured fighters, bombers, and transport planes. There are also Brazilian-made EMB-312 Tucano for training role, Czech-made L-39 for training and bombing role, Czech Zlin for training role and a variety of western made aircraft such as C-212\Aviocar, Sud Aviation Alouette III, etc. A small number of AAF personnel are stationed in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (Kinshasa) and the Republic of the Congo (Brazzaville).

Police

The National Police departments are Public Order, Criminal Investigation, Traffic and Transport, Investigation and Inspection of Economic Activities, Taxation and Frontier Supervision, Riot Police and the Rapid Intervention Police. The National Police are in the process of standing up an air wing, which will provide helicopter support for operations. The National Police are developing their criminal investigation and forensic capabilities. The force has an estimated 6,000 patrol officers, 2,500 taxation and frontier supervision officers, 182 criminal investigators and 100 financial crimes detectives and around 90 economic activity inspectors.

The National Police have implemented a modernization and development plan to increase the capabilities and efficiency of the total force. In addition to administrative reorganization, modernization projects include procurement of new vehicles, aircraft and equipment, construction of new police stations and forensic laboratories, restructured training programs and the replacement of AKM rifles with 9 mm Uzis for officers in urban areas.

The languages in Angola are those originally spoken by the different ethnic groups and Portuguese, introduced during the Portuguese colonial era. The indigenous languages with the largest usage are Umbundu, Kimbundu, and Kikongo, in that order. Portuguese is the official language of the country

There are about 1000 mostly Christian religious communities in Angola. While reliable statistics are nonexistent, estimates have it that more than half of the population are Catholics, while about a quarter adhere to the Protestant churches introduced during the colonial period: the Congregationalists mainly among the Ovimbundu of the Central Highlands and the coastal region to its West, the Methodists concentrating on the Kimbundu speaking strip from Luanda to Malanje, the Baptists almost exclusively among the Bakongo of the Northwest (now massively present in Luanda as well) and dispersed Adventists, Reformed and Lutherans. In Luanda and region there subsists a nucleus of the "syncretic" Tocoists and in the northwest a sprinkling of Kimbanguism can be found, spreading from the Congo/Zaire. Since independence, hundreds of Pentecostal and similar communities have sprung up in the cities, where by now about 50% of the population is living; several of these communities/churches are of Brazilian origin.

Although by law education in Angola is compulsory and free for eight years, the government reports that a percentage of students are not attending due to a lack of school buildings and teachers. Students are often responsible for paying additional school-related expenses, including fees for books and supplies.

Kuito class, Angola

In 1999, the gross primary enrollment rate was 74 percent and in 1998, the most recent year for which data are available, the net primary enrollment rate was 61 percent. Gross and net enrollment ratios are based on the number of students formally registered in primary school and therefore do not necessarily reflect actual school attendance. There continue to be significant disparities in enrollment between rural and urban areas. In 1995, 71.2 percent of children ages 7 to 14 years were attending school. It is reported that higher percentages of boys attend school than girls. During the Angolan Civil War (1975–2002), nearly half of all schools were reportedly looted and destroyed, leading to current problems with overcrowding.

On October 16th 2014, Angola was elected for the second time as non-permanent member of the UN Security Counsil, with 190 favourable votes out of 193. The mandate begins on January 1st 2015 and lasts for two years. Angola in the international framework

Also in that month, the country took on the leadership of the Group of African Ministers and Governors at the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, following the debates at the annual meetings of both entities.
Wikipedia

World Events

1889 – The State of Washington is admitted as the 42nd state of the United States.
1918 – Józef Piłsudski assumes supreme military power in Poland - symbolic first day of Polish independence.
1930 – Patent number US1781541 is awarded to Albert Einstein and Leó Szilárd for their invention, the Einstein refrigerator.
1934 – The Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne, Australia is opened.
1960 – A military coup against President Ngo Dinh Diem of South Vietnam is crushed.
1965 – In Rhodesia (modern-day Zimbabwe), the white-minority government of Ian Smith unilaterally declares independence.
1975 – Independence of Angola.
1981 – Antigua and Barbuda joins the United Nations.
1992 – The General Synod of the Church of England votes to allow women to become priests.
1993 – A sculpture honoring women who served in the Vietnam War is dedicated at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C.
1999 – The House of Lords Act is given Royal Assent, restricting membership of the British House of Lords by virtue of a hereditary peerage.
2000 – Kaprun disaster: 155 skiers and snowboarders die when a cable car catches fire in an alpine tunnel in Kaprun, Austria.
2001 – Journalists Pierre Billaud, Johanne Sutton and Volker Handloik are killed in Afghanistan during an attack on the convoy they are traveling in.
2004 – New Zealand Tomb of the Unknown Warrior is dedicated at the National War Memorial, Wellington.
2004 – The Palestine Liberation Organization confirms the death of Yasser Arafat from unidentified causes. Mahmoud Abbas is elected chairman of the PLO minutes later.
2006 – Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II unveils the New Zealand War Memorial in London, United Kingdom, commemorating the loss of soldiers from the New Zealand Armyand the British Army.
2008 – RMS Queen Elizabeth 2 (QE2) sets sail on her final voyage to Dubai.
2012 – A strong earthquake with the magnitude 6.8 hits northern Burma, killing at least 26 people.

Today in History: November 10 - Remembering Saro-Wiwa and the eight others hanged

Ken Saro-Wiwa

November 10 is the 314th day of the year. There are 51 days remaining until the end of the year.


Today's Highlight in History.
1995 – In Nigeria, playwright and environmental activist Ken Saro-Wiwa, along with eight others from the Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People (Mosop), are hanged by government forces.


Kenule "Ken" Beeson Saro Wiwa (10 October 1941 – 10 November 1995) was a Nigerian writer, television producer, environmental activist, and winner of the Right Livelihood Award and the Goldman Environmental Prize. Saro-Wiwa was a member of the Ogoni people, an ethnic minority in Nigeria whose homeland, Ogoniland, in the Niger Delta has been targeted for crude oil extraction since the 1950s and which has suffered extreme environmental damage from decades of indiscriminate petroleum waste dumping. Initially as spokesperson, and then as president, of the Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People (MOSOP), Saro-Wiwa led a nonviolent campaign against environmental degradation of the land and waters of Ogoniland by the operations of the multinational petroleum industry, especially the Royal Dutch Shell company. He was also an outspoken critic of the Nigerian government, which he viewed as reluctant to enforce environmental regulations on the foreign petroleum companies operating in the area.


At the peak of his non-violent campaign, he was tried by a special military tribunal for allegedly masterminding the gruesome murder of Ogoni chiefs at a pro-government meeting, and hanged in 1995 by the military dictatorship of General Sani Abacha. His execution provoked international outrage and resulted in Nigeria's suspension from the Commonwealth of Nations for over three year

The Ogoni nine

   Early life                                          

Ken Saro-Wiwa was born in October 1941, the eldest son of Ogoni chieftain, Jim Wiwa, Ken was born in Bori, Niger Delta in Rivers State, Nigeria. He spent his childhood in an Anglican home and eventually proved himself to be an excellent student; he attended secondary school at Government College Umuahia and on completion obtained a scholarship to study English at the University of Ibadan and briefly became a teaching assistant at the University of Lagos.


However, he soon took up a government post as the Civilian Administrator for the port city of Bonny in the Niger Delta, and during the Nigerian Civil War was a strong supporter of the federal cause against the Biafrans. His best known novel, Sozaboy: A Novel in Rotten English, tells the story of a naive village boy recruited to the army during the Nigerian Civil War of 1967 to 1970, and intimates the political corruption and patronage in Nigeria's military regime of the time. Saro-Wiwa's war diaries, On a Darkling Plain, document his experience during the war. He was also a successful businessman and television producer. His satirical television series, Basi & Company, was wildly popular, with an estimated audience of 30 million.

In the early 1970s Saro-Wiwa served as the Regional Commissioner for Education in the Rivers State Cabinet, but was dismissed in 1973 because of his support for Ogoni autonomy. In the late 1970s, he established a number of successful business ventures in retail and real estate, and during the 1980s concentrated primarily on his writing, journalism and television production. His intellectual work was interrupted in 1987 when he re-entered the political scene, appointed by the newly installed dictator Ibrahim Babangida to aid the country's transition to democracy. But Saro-Wiwa soon resigned because he felt Babangida's supposed plans for a return to democracy were disingenuous. Saro-Wiwa's sentiments were proven correct in the coming years, as Babangida failed to relinquish power. In 1993, Babangida annulled Nigeria's general elections that would have transferred power to a civilian government, sparking mass civil unrest and eventually forcing him to step down, at least officially, that same year

Ken Saro-Wiwa

Activism

In 1990, Saro-Wiwa began devoting most of his time to human rights and environmental causes, particularly in Ogoniland. He was one of the earliest members of the Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People (MOSOP), which advocated for the rights of the Ogoni people. The Ogoni Bill of Rights, written by MOSOP, set out the movement's demands, including increased autonomy for the Ogoni people, a fair share of the proceeds of oil extraction, and remediation of environmental damage to Ogoni lands. In particular, MOSOP struggled against the degradation of Ogoni lands by Shell oil company.

In 1992, Saro-Wiwa was imprisoned for several month, without trial, by the Nigerian military government.


Saro-Wiwa was Vice Chair of Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization (UNPO) General Assembly from 1993 to 1995. UNPO is an international, nonviolent, and democratic organisation (of which MOSOP is a member). Its members are indigenous peoples, minorities, and unrecognised or occupied territories who have joined together to protect and promote their human and cultural rights, to preserve their environments and to find nonviolent solutions to conflicts which affect them.

In January 1993, MOSOP organised peaceful marches of around 300,000 Ogoni people – more than half of the Ogoni population – through four Ogoni centres, drawing international attention to his people's plight. The same year the Nigerian government occupied the region militarily.

Arrest and execution

Saro-Wiwa was arrested again and detained by Nigerian authorities in June 1993 but was released after a month. On 21 May 1994 four Ogoni chiefs (all on the conservative side of a schism within MOSOP over strategy) were brutally murdered. Saro-Wiwa had been denied entry to Ogoniland on the day of the murders, but he was arrested and accused of incitement to them. He denied the charges but was imprisoned for over a year before being found guilty and sentenced to death by a specially convened tribunal. The same happened to other MOSOP leaders (Saturday Dobee, Nordu Eawo, Daniel Gbooko, Paul Levera, Felix Nuate, Baribor Bera, Barinem Kiobel, and John Kpuine).

Some of the defendants' lawyers resigned in protest against the alleged rigging of the trial by the Abacha regime. The resignations left the defendants to their own means against the tribunal, which continued to bring witnesses to testify against Saro-Wiwa and his peers. Many of these supposed witnesses later admitted that they had been bribed by the Nigerian government to support the criminal allegations. At least two witnesses who testified that Saro-Wiwa was involved in the murders of the Ogoni elders later recanted, stating that they had been bribed with money and offers of jobs with Shell to give false testimony – in the presence of Shell's lawyer.

The trial was widely criticised by human rights organisations and, half a year later, Ken Saro-Wiwa received the Right Livelihood Award for his courage as well as the Goldman Environmental Prize.


On 10 November 1995, Saro-Wiwa and eight other MOSOP leaders (the "Ogoni Nine") were killed by hanging at the hands of military personnel. They were buried in Port Harcourt Cemetery.

poster of Ken Saro-Wiwa during
a rally on the Port Harcourt highway
10 November

In his satirical piece Africa Kills Her Sun first published in 1989, Saro-Wiwa in a resigned, melancholic mood foreshadowed his own execution.


His death provoked international outrage and the immediate suspension of Nigeria from the Commonwealth of Nations, as well as the calling back of many foreign diplomats for consultation. The United States and other countries considered imposing economic sanctions.

A memorial to Saro-Wiwa was unveiled in London on 10 November 2006 by London organisation Platform. It consists of a sculpture in the form of a bus and was created by Nigerian-born artist Sokari Douglas Camp. It toured the UK the following year.


The Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People has struggled against the degradation of their lands by Shell in Nigeria. MOSOP was an offshoot of another Ogoni organization and only metamorphosed into MOSOP based upon a study of the republican struggle in Northern Ireland. Reference is made to this in a speech by Goodluck Diigbo, Ken Saro-Wiwa's confidant. Goodluck Diigbo, a journalist, was the National President of the National Youth Council of Ogoni People, NYCOP. Saro-Wiwa had charged him with the responsibility of establishing seven of the ten affiliates that made up MOSOP. Before the affiliates came into being, Ken Saro-Wiwa who initiated the idea of MOSOP had attracted a mix of educated Ogoni elites and chiefs, including its first president Dr. Garrick Barile Leton, Chief E. N. Kobani became vice president of MOSOP.

MOSOP initiated its efforts with the 1990 Ogoni Bill of Rights, addressed to the federal government. The Bill reads like a model statement before a mediator. It lists their concerns: oil-related suffering of their people, governmental neglect, lack of social services, and political marginalization. These concerns were placed in the context of a self-definition: the Ogonis as "a separate and distinct ethnic nationality." On this basis they sought autonomy, environmental protection, control of a fair share of the revenues from their resources, and cultural rights, such as the use of their local languages.

Wikipedia

World Events

1871 – Henry Morton Stanley locates missing explorer and missionary, Dr. David Livingstone in Ujiji, near Lake Tanganyika, famously greeting him with the words, "Dr. Livingstone, I presume?".
1919 – The first national convention of the American Legion is held in Minneapolis, ending on November 12.
1969 – National Educational Television (the predecessor to the Public Broadcasting Service) in the United States debuts the children's television program Sesame Street.
1972 – Southern Airways Flight 49 from Birmingham, Alabama is hijacked and, at one point, is threatened with crashing into the nuclear installation at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory. After two days, the plane lands in Havana, Cuba, where the hijackers are jailed by Fidel Castro.
1975 – The 729-foot-long freighter SS Edmund Fitzgerald sinks during a storm on Lake Superior, killing all 29 crew on board.
1975 – United Nations Resolution 3379: United Nations General Assembly approves a resolution equating Zionism with racism (the resolution is repealed in December 1991 by Resolution 4686).
1979 – A 106-car Canadian Pacific freight train carrying explosive and poisonous chemicals from Windsor, Ontario, Canada derails in Mississauga, Ontario, just west of Toronto, causing a massive explosion and the largest peacetime evacuation in Canadian history and one of the largest in North American history.
1983 – Bill Gates introduces Windows 1.0
1984 – The first Breeders' Cup takes place at Hollywood Park Racetrack.
1989 – The longtime leader of the People's Republic of Bulgaria Todor Zhivkov is removed from office and replaced by Petar Mladenov.
1989 – German citizens begin to bring the Berlin Wall down
1995 – In Nigeria, playwright and environmental activist Ken Saro-Wiwa, along with eight others from the Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People (Mosop), are hanged by government forces.
1997 – WorldCom and MCI Communications announce a $37 billion merger (the largest merger in US history at the time).
2002 – Veteran's Day weekend tornado outbreak; a tornado outbreak stretching from Northern Ohio to the Gulf Coast, one of the largest outbreaks recorded in November. The strongest tornado, an F4, hits Van Wert, Ohio during the early to mid afternoon and destroys a movie theater but the theater is evacuated prior to the hit.
2006 – Sri Lankan Tamil Parliamentarian Nadarajah Raviraj is assassinated in Colombo.
2006 – The National Museum of the Marine Corps in Quantico, Virginia is opened and dedicated by U.S. President George W. Bush, who announces that Marine Corporal Jason Dunham will receive the Medal of Honor.
2007 – 10,000–40,000 people march toward the royal palace of Malaysia in Kuala Lumpur to hand over a memorandum to the King demanding electoral reform.
2008 – Over five months after landing on Mars, NASA declares the Phoenix mission concluded after communications with the lander were lost.
2009 – Ships of the South and North Korean navies skirmish off Daecheong Island in the Yellow Sea.

Today in History November 9 Roger Allen LaPorte, a 22-year-old former seminarian immolates himself in protest of the Vietnam War.

November 9 is the 313th day of the year. There are 52 days remaining until the end of the year.

Roger Allen LaPorte

Today's Highlight:
1965 – The Catholic Worker Movement member Roger Allen LaPorte, protesting against the Vietnam War, sets himself on fire in front of the United Nations building.


Roger Allen LaPorte (July 16, 1943 – November 10, 1965) is best known as a protester of the Vietnam War who set himself on fire in front of the United Nations building in New York City on November 9, 1965, to protest the United States involvement in the war. A former seminarian, he was a 22 year-old member of the Catholic Worker Movement at the time of his death.

Born in Geneva, New York, he was active in public speaking and debate clubs winning awards. His parents divorced after Roger graduated from high school. Before joining the Catholic Workers, he had attended a seminary in Vermont and hoped to become a monk. He, however, withdrew from the seminary early and attended (and graduated) from Holy Ghost Academy, Tupper Lake, New York in 1961.

On November 9, 1965, in front of the Dag Hammarskjold Library at the United Nations in New York, La Porte composed himself in the position of the Buddhist monks who had immolated themselves in Vietnam earlier, doused himself with gasoline, and set himself aflame.

La Porte died the next day at Bellevue Hospital from second- and third-degree burns covering 95 percent of his body. Despite his burns, he remained conscious and able to speak. When asked why he had burned himself, La Porte calmly replied, "I'm a Catholic Worker. I'm against war, all wars. I did this as a religious action.

The Catholic Worker Movement is a collection of autonomous communities of Catholics and their associates founded by Dorothy Day and Peter Maurinin 1933. Its aim is to "live in accordance with the justice and charity of Jesus Christ." One of its guiding principles is hospitality towards those on the margin of society, based on the principles of communitarianism and personalism.

To this end, the movement claims over 213 local Catholic Worker communities providing social services. Each house has a different mission, going about the work of social justice in its own way, suited to its local region. The movement campaigns for nonviolence and is active in opposing both war and the unequal global distribution of wealth.

World Events 

1857 – The Atlantic is founded in Boston, Massachusetts.
1861 – The first documented football match in Canada is played at University College, University of Toronto.
1906 – Theodore Roosevelt is the first sitting President of the United States to make an official trip outside the country. He did so to inspect progress on the Panama Canal.
1940 – Warsaw is awarded the Virtuti Militari.
1953 – Cambodia gains independence from France.
1960 – Robert McNamara is named president of Ford Motor Co., the first non-Ford to serve in that post. A month later, he resigned to join the administration of newly elected John F. Kennedy.
1963 – At Miike coal mine, Miike, Japan, an explosion kills 458, and hospitalises 839 with carbon monoxide poisoning.
1965 – Several U.S. states and parts of Canada are hit by a series of blackouts lasting up to 13 hours in the Northeast Blackout of 1965.
1965 – The Catholic Worker Movement member Roger Allen LaPorte, protesting against the Vietnam War, sets himself on fire in front of the United Nations building.
1967 – Apollo program: NASA launches the unmanned Apollo 4 test spacecraft atop the first Saturn V rocket from Cape Kennedy, Florida.
1967 – The first issue of Rolling Stone Magazine is published.
1970 – Vietnam War: The Supreme Court of the United States votes 6 to 3 against hearing a case to allow Massachusetts to enforce its law granting residents the right to refuse military service in an undeclared war.
1983 –  Alfred Heineken, beer brewer from Amsterdam, is kidnapped and held for a ransom of more than $10 million.
1993 – Stari most, the "old bridge" in Bosnian Mostar built in 1566, collapses after several days of bombing.
1994 – The chemical element Darmstadtium is discovered.
1998 – A US federal judge orders 37 US brokerage houses to pay 1.03 billion USD to cheated NASDAQ investors to compensate for price-fixing. This is the largest civil settlement in United States history.
1998 – Capital punishment in the United Kingdom, already abolished for murder, is completely abolished for all remaining capital offences.
2005 – The Venus Express mission of the European Space Agency is launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.
2005 – Suicide bombers attacked three hotels in Amman, Jordan, killing at least 60 people.
2007 – The German Bundestag passes the controversial data retention bill mandating storage of citizens' telecommunications traffic data for six months without probable cause.
2012 – A train carrying liquid fuel crashes and bursts into flames in northern Burma, killing 27 people and injuring 80 others.

Today in History November 8 :Wilhelm Röntgen discovers the X-ray and wins the very first Nobel Prize in Physics.

Wilhelm Röntgen

November 8 is the 312th day of the year. There are 53 days remaining until the end of the year.

Today's Highlight in History:
1895 – While experimenting with electricity, Wilhelm Röntgen discovers the X-ray.

Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen ( 27 March 1845 – 10 February 1923) was a German credited as the discoverer of X-rays on 8 November 1895, because he was the first to systematically study them, though he is not the first to have observed their effects. He is also the one who gave them the name "X-rays" (signifying an unknown quantity though many others referred to these as "Röntgen rays" (and the associated X-ray radiograms as, "Röntgenograms") for several decades after their discovery and even to this day in some languages, including Röntgen's native German.

Birthplace of Roentgen in Remscheid-Lennep

His Early Life and Education


Born on March 27, 1845 in the small town of Lennep (Rhine Province) in Germany; Wilhelm Conrad Roentgen was the only child of a cloth merchant. He was raised in the Netherlands because his family moved to Apeldoorn when he was still three. For his early education he went to a boarding school in Apeldoorn named, Institute of Martinus Herman van Doorn. He was not a sparkling student rather he was keenly interested in nature during his young years. In

1862, he joined Ambachts school; a technical school in Utrecht. There he got involved in a contrivance against one of his teachers and was expelled subsequently.

In 1865, he studied mechanical engineering at the Federal Polytechnic Institute in Zurich having failed to get admission in University of Utrecht lacking required credentials. There he flourished greatly under the influence of the teachers like Kundt and Clausius. He graduated from the University of Zurich and received his Ph.D. in 1869. In the same year, he assisted Kundt and followed him to Wurzburg and then to the University of Strasburg in 1873.

His Professional Career

In 1874 Röntgen became a lecturer at the University of Strassburg. In 1875 he became a professor at the Academy of Agriculture at Hohenheim, Württemberg. He returned to Strassburg as a professor of physics in 1876, and in 1879, he was appointed to the chair of physics at the University of Giessen. In 1888, he obtained the physics chair at the University of Würzburg, and in 1900 at theUniversity of Munich, by special request of the Bavarian government. Röntgen had family in Iowa in the United States and at one time planned to emigrate. Although he accepted an appointment at Columbia University in New York City and had actually purchased transatlantic tickets, the outbreak of World War I changed his plans and he remained in Munich for the rest of his career.

Discovery of X-ray Beams

On November 8, 1895, Wilhelm Röntgen stumbled on X-rays while experimenting with Lenard and Crookes tubes and began studying them. He found that if vacuum tube, used for experiments with cathode rays, was covered tightly with thin, black cardboard and placed in a darkened room, bright glow was observed during each discharge on a screen covered with fluorescent barium platinum cyanide (placed near the device). He realised that the fluorescence was caused by an agent which could infiltrate from within the vacuum tube through dark cardboard (impermeable to visible or ultraviolet radiation) to the outside of the set. He termed this agent as x-rays.

Wilhelm Roentgen working in his laboratory

Nearly two weeks after his discovery, he took the very first picture using X-rays of his wife Anna Bertha's hand. When she saw her skeleton she exclaimed "I have seen my death!".

Hand mit Ringen (Hand with Rings):
 print of Wilhelm Röntgen's first 
medical" X-ray, of his wife's hand,
 taken on 22 December 1895

By developing the image of his wife's hand and analyzing the variable transparency as showed by her bones, flesh and her wedding ring. and also based on his subsequent research and experiments, he declared that X-ray beams are produced by the impact of cathode rays on material objects

He wrote an initial report "On a new kind of ray: A preliminary communication" and on December 28, 1895 submitted it to the Würzburg's Physical-Medical Society journal. It was the first written paper on X-rays. Röntgen referred to the radiation as "X", to indicate that it was an unknown type of radiation. The name stuck, although (over Röntgen's great objections) many of his colleagues suggested calling them Röntgen rays. They are still referred to as such in many languages, including German, Danish, Polish, Swedish, Finnish, Estonian, Russian, Japanese, Dutch,

In 1901 Röntgen was awarded the very first Nobel Prize in Physics. The award was officially "in recognition of the extraordinary services he has rendered by the discovery of the remarkable rays subsequently named after him".

Nobel Prize

Röntgen donated the monetary reward from his Nobel Prize to his university. Like Pierre Curie, Röntgen refused to take out patents related to his discovery, as he wanted mankind as a whole to benefit from practical applications of the same

Röntgen was married to Anna Bertha Ludwig (m. 1872, d. 1919) and had one child, Josephine Bertha Ludwig. With the inflation following World War I, Röntgen fell into bankruptcy later in life, spending his final years at his country home at Weilheim, near Munich.

 In keeping with his will, all his personal and scientific correspondence was destroyed upon his death Röntgen died on 10 February 1923 from carcinoma of the intestine.It is not believed his carcinoma was a result of his work with ionizing radiation because of the brief time he spent on those investigations, and because he was one of the few pioneers in the field who used protective lead shields routinely.



World Events

1889 – Montana is admitted as the 41st U.S. state.
1892 – The New Orleans general strike begins, uniting black and white American trade unionists in a successful four-day general strike action for the first time.
1895 – While experimenting with electricity, Wilhelm Röntgen discovers the X-ray.
1898 – The Wilmington Insurrection of 1898, the only instance of an attempted coup d'état in American history.
1901 – Bloody clashes take place in Athens following the translation of the Gospels into demotic Greek.
1917 – The People's Commissars give authority to Vladimir Lenin, Leon Trotsky, and Joseph Stalin.
1933 – Great Depression: New Deal – US President Franklin D. Roosevelt unveils the Civil Works Administration, an organization designed to create jobs for more than 4 million unemployed.
1936 – Spanish Civil War: Francoist troops fail in their effort to capture Madrid, but begin the 3-year Siege of Madrid afterwards.
1957 – Operation Grapple X, Round C1: the United Kingdom conducts its first successful hydrogen bomb test over Kiritimati in the Pacific.
1960 – John F. Kennedy defeats Richard Nixon in one of the closest presidential elections of the twentieth century to become the 35th president of the United States.
1965 – The British Indian Ocean Territory is created, consisting of Chagos Archipelago, Aldabra, Farquhar and Des Roches islands.
1965 – The Murder (Abolition of Death Penalty) Act 1965 is given Royal Assent, formally abolishing the death penalty in the United Kingdom.
1966 – Former Massachusetts Attorney General Edward Brooke becomes the first African American elected to the United States Senate since Reconstruction.
1966 – U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson signs into law an antitrust exemption allowing the National Football League to merge with the upstart American Football League.
1968 – The Vienna Convention on Road Traffic is signed to facilitate international road traffic and to increase road safety by standardising the uniform traffic rules among the signatories.
1972 – HBO launches its programming, with the broadcast of the 1971 movie Sometimes a Great Notion, starring Paul Newman and Henry Fonda.
1973 – The right ear of John Paul Getty III is delivered to a newspaper together with a ransom note, convincing his father to pay US$2.9 million.
2002 – Iraq disarmament crisis: UN Security Council Resolution 1441 – The United Nations Security Council unanimously approves a resolution on Iraq, forcing Saddam Hussein to disarm or face "serious consequences".
2004 – War in Iraq: More than 10,000 U.S. troops and a small number of Iraqi army units participate in a siege on the insurgent stronghold of Fallujah.
2011 – The potentially hazardous asteroid 2005 YU55 passes 0.85 lunar distances from Earth (about 324,600 kilometres or 201,700 miles), the closest known approach by an asteroid of its brightness since 2010 XC15 in 1976.
2013 – Typhoon Haiyan, one of the strongest storms in history hits the Visayas region in the Philippines. The typhoon killed 6,201 people as of 29 January 2014 and was considered the deadliest typhoon to hit the country. It caused around $1 billion in damages unofficially.

Imelda Marcos: she is often remembered for her collection of more than a thousand pairs of shoes.

Imelda Marcos is the widow of former Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos. she spent more than 20 years as the first lady of the Philippines. She became infamous for her spending habits and enormous shoe collection.

Imelda Marcos
First Lady of the Philippines
In office
December 30, 1965 – February 25, 1986

Born Imelda Remedios Visitación Trinidad Romuáldez on July 2, 1929 in Manila to Remedios Trinidad and Vicente Romuáldez, brother of Philippine Supreme Court Associate Justice Norberto Romuáldez. Her paternal ancestors were from a land-owning family inTolosa, Leyte, descended from Granada, Andalusia, Spain.




She has five other siblings: Alfredo, Alita, Armando, Benjamin (1930-2012), and Concepcion, they spent their childhood in San Miguel. However, after their mother death in 1938, the family moved to Tacloban, where she was known as the "Rose of Tacloban", and was raised by her servant Estrella Cumpas.


Imelda returned to Manila in 1950, and took up employment in a music store on Escolta street as a singer to attract customers. She took voice lessons at the music conservatory of the University of Santo Tomas. She late a beauty pageant known as "Miss Manila" where she placed second but was named the "Muse of Manila" after she contested the results.This led her to become a local model with her pictures appearing in local magazines and newspapers.

Muse of Manila

Before she met her husband, she briefly dated Benigno Aquino, Jr., who later became a political rival.On May 1, 1954, Imelda married Ferdinand Marcos, a Nacionalista Party congressman from Ilocos Norte, to whom she was introduced by her uncle. The marriage resulted in three children: Imee, Ferdinand, Jr., and Irene. She also adopted a girl named Aimee.

Imelda and  Ferdinand

On December 1965, her husband, Ferdinand, was elected as the 10th President of the Philippines and she became the First Lady. She secured the Miss Universe 1974 pageant for Manila, which necessitated the construction and completion of the 10,000-seat Folk Arts Theater in less than three months. She also organized the Kasaysayan ng Lahi, an extravagant festival parade showcasing the history of the Philippines. Imelda initiated social programs such as the Green Revolution that intended to address hunger and a lack of farming by encouraging the planting of vegetables and fruits in people's gardens. Other programs included a national family-planning program and an African safari on Calauit Island. During the early 1970s, she took control of the distribution of the bread called the "nutribun", which came from the USAID.


In 1978, Imelda was appointed as a member of the Interim Batasang Pambansa representing Region IV-A. later appointed Ambassador Plenipotentiary and Extraordinary and toured numerous countries, most notably the United States, China, the Soviet Union, Libya, Yugoslavia, Iraq, and Cuba. Throughout her travels, she became friends with a variety of political figures including Richard Nixon, Muammar Gaddafi, Saddam Hussein, Fidel Castro, and Joseph Tito.


To justify the multi-million U.S. dollar expenditure of traveling with a large diplomatic entourage using private jets, she claimed that her tours include securing a cheap supply of oil from China, Iraq, and Libya, which she also said was instrumental in the signing of the Tripoli Agreement of the Moro National Liberation Front. She continued her extravagant lifestyle with US$5-million shopping tours in New York, Rome, and Copenhagen in 1983.




One of her excesses included sending a plane to pick up Australian white sand for a beach resort. During her trip to the dedication of the Sydney Opera House, she tried to upstage Queen Elizabeth. Besides being an ambassador, Imelda also held the position of Minister of Human Settlements, allowing her to build institutions including Cultural Center of the Philippines, Philippine Heart Center, Lung Center of the Philippines, Philippine International Convention Center,Coconut Palace, and the Manila Film Center, most of which are still used in the 21st century.

Imelda and her husband and her
son visit The Pentagon

Imelda purchased a number of properties in Manhattan in the 1980s, including the US$51-million Crown Building, the Woolworth Building in 40 Wall Street, and the US$60-million Herald Centre. It was stated that she declined to purchase the Empire State Building for $750m as she considered it "too ostentatious." Her property also included jewels and a 175-piece art collection, which included works

by Michelangelo, Botticelli, Canaletto, Raphael, as well as Monet’s “L’Église et La Seine à Vétheuil” (1881), Alfred Sisley’s among others”When criticized, Imelda responded that it was her "duty" to be "some kind of light, a star to give the poor guidelines."


Ferdinand Marcos declared martial law in 1972, basically making himself the country's dictator. This move allowed him to crush growing resentment among the people and prevent his adversaries from unseating him from power. The Marcos government could be brutal to those who opposed it. Some were tortured and others were executed without trial. Martial Law was later lifted in 1981 and her husband, Ferdinand, was again elected president in what was considered a sham election. As her husband began to suffer from lupus erythematosus, Imelda started to effectively rule in his place. Aquino returned in 1983 but was assassinated at the Manila International Airport. With accusations against her beginning to rise, her husband ordered the Agrava Commission, a fact-finding committee, to investigate her, ultimately finding her not guilty.


In 1986, snap elections were held between Ferdinand Marcos and Corazon Aquino, the widow of former Senator and opposition leader Benigno Aquino Jr. In spite of Ferdinand winning the elections, allegations of vote rigging led to mass protests that would be later known as the People Power Revolution. On February 25, Imelda and her family fled to Hawaii via Guam. After they left Malacañan Palace, Imelda was found to have left behind 15 mink coats, 508 gowns, 1,000 handbags, and 1,060 pairs of shoes. The exact number of shoes varies with estimates of up to 7500 pairs of shoes. However, Time reported that the final tally was only 1,060 The location where her shoes and jewelry were being kept was later destroyed and the contents stolen. Even a painting of Imelda was destroyed outside the Palace.

MailOnline                                     Her impressive shoe collections                 

some of the 3,000 plus shoes in the former First Lady's collection               MailOnline 

In October 1988, Imelda, her husband Ferdinand, and Adnan Khashoggi, a Saudi Arabian former billionaire and arms dealer, were tried by a Federal grand jury in Manhattan in a racketeering case. Charges included embezzlement of more than US$100 million from the Philippines used to buy three buildings in New York City and fraudulently borrowing US$165 million from American banks to refinance the buildings and buy additional property. The couple pleaded not guilty and were represented by trial lawyer Gerry Spence. Imelda's US$5-million-dollar bail was posted by tobacco heiress, Doris Duke, who befriended her while she lived in Hawaii. Actor George Hamilton was a witness for her defense. The case ended in acquittal in 1990. Ferdinand died in exile in Hawaii on September 28, 1989. Aquino refused to permit the repatriation of his remains because of national security reasons. The Supreme Court upheld the decision of the government in Marcos vs. Manglapus

Her love of shoes extended to other objects as well,
 as this 1999 picture, of her shoe-shaped telephone show

After her fall from grace, Imelda was allowed to return to the Philippines by Corazon Aquino on November 4, 1991 and was arrested the next day for tax fraud and corruption. She was then released on $6,400 bail. The following year, she ran for president in the hotly-contested 1992 presidential elections, finishing 5th out of 7 candidates with 2,338,294 votes. In trials held that year, Imelda claimed that her fortune came from Yamashita's Gold.

In September 1993, Imelda was found guilty of corruption by a Manila court and sentenced to 18 to 24 years in prison. She was set free on bail and filed an appeal. This was just one of approximately 100 cases involving US$350-million allegedly held by the Marcos family in Swiss banks. The Swiss federal tribunal ruled in December 1990 that the money would only be returned to the national government in Manila if a Philippine court convicted Imelda in a fair trial.


In 1995, she was elected as a congresswoman of Leyte, representing the first district. Imelda defeated Cirilo Montejo with a victory of 70,471 votes to Montejo's 36,833. Initially, a disqualification case was filed against her, but the Supreme Court ruled in her favor. In 1998, Imelda again seek the presidency. She ran but later withdrew to support the eventual winner Joseph Estrada, whose administration was instrumental in the dismissal of the cases filed by the Aquino government.

Imelda and her husband with Ronald Reagan

In contrast to Imelda's very public life in the 1990s, her life in the first decade of the 21st century was a bit more private as she had retreated from politics and focused on her trials. In December 2000, she suffered a blood clot in her brain but recovered. In 2004, the Global Transparency Report published a study that showed she and her husband amassed $5–10 billion. By September 21, 2007, Imelda still had 10 pending graft cases. She was acquitted on March 10, 2008 by the Manila Regional Trial Court Branch of 26 of 32 counts of dollar salting involving Swiss bank accounts due to reasonable doubt. Imelda, in reaction to her acquittal, said: "First of all, I am so happy and I thank the Lord that the 32 cases have been dismissed by the regional court here in Manila. This will subtract from the 901 cases that were filed against the Marcoses." Imelda still had 10 pending criminal cases remaining before the Sandiganbayan Courts.


Imelda ran for the second district of Ilocos Norte in the 2010 elections to replace her son, Ferdinand Marcos, Jr., who was running for Senate under the Nacionalista Party. She defeated her nearest rival Mariano Nalupta, Jr. with 80% of the vote. She held the position of Millennium Development Goals chairperson in the Lower House.


In 2011, the Sandiganbayan's Fifth Division ordered Imelda to return US$280,000 in government funds taken by her and her late husband from the National Food Authority. In 2012, Imelda declared her net worth to be US$22-million. She was listed as the second-richest Filipino behind boxer Manny Pacquiao. On September 27, 2012, Imelda attended the book launch of Juan Ponce Enrile's autobiography, Juan Ponce Enrile: A Memoir, in the Rigodon Ballroom of The Peninsula Manila near her home in Makati. There, Imelda met with Benigno S. Aquino III.Imelda filed her certificate of candidacy on October 3, 2012 in a bid to renew her term as Ilocos Norte's second district representative, saying she wants to continue serving the province despite her age. In 2013, she won the election with 94,484 votes against her opponent Ignacio with 11,221 and Madamba with 1,647.


. Imelda caused a stir in January 2014 when she called the hospital arrest of Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo by Benigno Aquino III as "cruel, unjust."

Marikina Shoe Museum, where her shoes rest.

Imelda's lavish collection of 3,000 pairs of shoes including white Pierre Cardin heels now lie partly in the National Museum of the Philippines and partly in a shoe museum in Marikina. Typhoon Haiyan damaged her ancestral home in Tacloban, which also serves as a museum, although she still retains homes in Ilocos Norte and Makati, where she resides. Her net worth is assumed to be US$5 billion making her the third richest Filipino after Henry Sy and Lucio Tan and the richest woman in the country. Towns in Biliran, Bohol, and Zamboanga Sibugay are named after her. She is known by her nicknames "Iron Butterfly" or "Steel Butterfly", which she has earned through surviving challenges in her life such as the deaths of her parents and her husband. Her beauty has led her to be known in the Philippines as a fashion icon.

Topic Quotes by Imelda Source Popularity and Politics "When you reach a certain level of leadership, people cannot be neutral with you. They either love, love, love you, or hate, hate, hate you." BBC News(2000) Human Rights “We never had such a violation of human rights. In fact, we have had no human rights case here in the Philippines, even to this day. “ Imelda(2003) Beauty “It is not expensive to be beautiful. It takes only a little effort to be presentable and beautiful. But it takes some effort. And unfortunately people think of beauty as luxury, beauty as frivolity, ... or extravagance. Beauty is a discipline, beauty is art, is harmony, in the ideological sense and in the theological sense,beauty is God and love made real. And the ultimate reach in this world is beauty.” Imelda Ugliness “I seem to be able to only see the positive things in life and the beautiful things in life and when I see, for instance, garbage or ugliness, then I turn my back or I seem to be able to skip it.” Imelda Setting an example "I am my little people's star and slave. When I go out into the barrios, I get dressed because I know my little people want to see a star. Other presidents' wives have gone to the barrios wearing house dresses and slippers. That's not what people want to see. People want someone they can love, someone to set an example." Los Angeles Times(1980) Her Legacy "I was born ostentatious. They will list my name in the dictionary someday. They will use Imeldific to mean ostentatious extravagance." Associated Press(1998) Making it “’Who is Imelda?’ I come from a third world country, third class province. And I was orphaned—and look, Imelda made it. If Imelda made it everyone can make it. At this age and stage I feel so good I’m still ready to fly.”