Sunday 23 November 2014

Today in History - November 23. Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, first elected female head of state in Africa

November 23 is the 327th day of the year . There are 38 days remaining until the end of the year


Liberian President (8145418996).jpg
Ellen Johnson Sirlea

Today's Highlight in History:

2005 – Ellen Johnson Sirleaf is elected president of Liberia and becomes the first woman to lead an African country.


She was declared the winner of the Liberian election and confirmed as the country's next president.on 23 November 2005, Her inauguration, attended by many foreign
dignitaries, took place on 16 January 2006 after which Ellen Johnson Sirleaf took charge as the 24th and President of Liberia and the first elected female head of state in Africa

Sirleaf was born in Monrovia, and attended the College of West Africa. She married James Sirleaf at the age of 17 years,and then traveled with him to the United States in 1961 to continue her studies and earned an associate degree in accounting at Madison Business College, in Madison, Wisconsin. In 1970 she enrolled at the Economics Institute in Boulder, Colorado, for her graduate studies. She studied economics and public policy at Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government, gaining a Master of Public Administration.


On her return to Liberia, Sirleaf served as assistant minister from 1972 to 1973 under Tolbert's administration. She resigned after getting into a disagreement about spending. Subsequently she was Minister of Finance from 1979 to April 1980. When Sergeant Samuel Doe, seized power in an 12 April 1980 military coup, Tolbert was assassinated and all but four members of his cabinet were executed by firing squad. The People's Redemption Council took control of the country and led a purge against the former government. Sirleaf initially accepted a post in the new government as President of the Liberian Bank for Development and Investment, however, she fled the country in November 1980 after publicly criticizing Doe and the People's Redemption Council for their management of the country.

She moved to Washington, D.C., to work for the World Bank and later moved to Nairobi in 1981 to serve as Vice President of the African Regional Office of Citibank and resigned in 1985 following her involvement in the 1985 election in Liberia and went to work for Equator Bank, a subsidiary of HSBC. In 1992, Sirleaf was appointed as the Director of the United Nations Development Programme's Regional Bureau for Africa at the rank of Assistant Administrator and Assistant Secretary General (ASG), from which she resigned in 1997 to run for president in Liberia.

Sirleaf at her inauguration in Monrovia.

During her time at the UN, she was one of the seven internationally eminent persons designated in 1999 by the Organization of African Unity to investigate the Rwandan genocide, one of the five Commission Chairs for the Inter-Congolese Dialogue and one of two international experts selected by UNIFEM to investigate and report on the effect of conflict on women and women's roles in peace building. She was the initial Chairperson of the Open Society Initiative for West Africa (OSIWA) and a visiting Professor of Governance at the Ghana Institute of Management and Public Administration (GIMPA).

Sirleaf stood for president as the candidate of the Unity Party in the 2005 general election. She placed second in the first round of voting behind footballer George Weah. In the subsequent run-off election, Sirleaf earned 59% of the vote versus 40% for Weah, though Weah disputed the results. The announcement of the new leader was postponed until further investigations were carried out. On 23 November 2005, Sirleaf was declared the winner of the Liberian election and confirmed as the country's next president. Her inauguration, attended by many foreign dignitaries, including United States Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and First Lady Laura Bush, took place on 16 January 2006.

Sirleaf campaigning in Monrovia in 2005,
shortly before she was elected.
In January 2010, Sirleaf announced that she would run for a second term in office in the 2011 presidential election while speaking to a joint session of the Legislature. Opposition leaders noted that in doing so, she had broken a promise made during her 2005 campaign to only serve one term if elected. Sirleaf was renominated as the Unity Party's presidential candidate at the party's national convention on 31 October 2010. That same day, Vice President Joseph Boakai was nominated by Sirleaf and confirmed by the delegates as Sirleaf's running mate.

The awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize to Sirleaf four days prior to the election sparked criticism from opposition parties, with Congress for Democratic Change candidate Winston Tubman calling the award "undeserved" and "a political interference in our country's politics." Sirleaf called the timing of the award a coincidence and avoided mentioning the award during the final days of campaigning.

Sirleaf won She took presidential oath for her second presidency on 16 January 2012.

Forbes magazine named Sirleaf as the 51st most powerful woman in the world in 2006. In 2010,Newsweek listed her as one of the ten best leaders in the world, while Time counted her among the top ten female leaders. That same year, The Economist called her "arguably the best president the country has ever had." Sirleaf in 2012 attracted international attention for an interview regarding LGBT rights.. In 2010, Sirleaf released her first book, This Child Will Be Great: Memoir of a Remarkable Life by Africa's First Woman President.

Sirleaf is the mother of four sons, and she has eight grandchildren. She is a member of the Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority and an honorary member of the Links, Incorporated.
From left to right: Tawakkul Karman,
 Leymah Gbowee, and Ellen Johnson Sirleaf
 display their awards during the presentation of the
 Nobel Peace Prize, 10 December 2011 (Photo:Harry Wad).

Sirleaf was awarded the 2011 Nobel Peace Prize, jointly with Leymah Gbowee of Liberia and Tawakel Karman of Yemen. The women were recognized "for their non-violent struggle for the safety of women and for women's rights to full participation in peace-building work." She was also conferred the Indira Gandhi Prize by President of India Pranab Mukherjee on 12 September 2013. As of 2014, she is listed as the 70th most powerful woman in the world by Forbes.





World Events





1889 – The first jukebox goes into operation at the Palais Royale Saloon in San Francisco.
1890 – King William III of the Netherlands dies without a male heir and a special law is passed to allow his daughter Princess Wilhelmina to succeed him.
1910 – Johan Alfred Ander becomes the last person to be executed in Sweden.
1924 – Edwin Hubble's scientific discovery that Andromeda, previously believed to be a nebula within our galaxy, is actually another galaxy, and that the Milky Way is only one of many such galaxies in the universe, was first published in a newspaper.
1936 – Life magazine is reborn as a photo magazine and enjoys instant success.
1963 – The BBC broadcasts the first episode of Doctor Who (starring William Hartnell), which is now the world's longest running science fiction drama.
1971 – Representatives of the People's Republic of China attend the United Nations, including the United Nations Security Council, for the first time.
1974 – 60 Ethiopian politicians, aristocrats, military officers, and other persons are executed by the provisional military government.
1976 – Apneist Jacques Mayol is the first man to reach a depth of 100 m undersea without breathing equipment.
1985 – Gunmen hijack Egypt Air Flight 648 while en route from Athens to Cairo. When the plane lands in Malta, Egyptian commandos storm the aircraft, but 60 people die in the raid.
1992 – The first smartphone, the IBM Simon, is introduced at COMDEX in Las Vegas, Nevada.
1993 – Rachel Whiteread wins both the £20,000 Turner Prize award for best British modern artist and the £40,000 K Foundation art award for the worst artist of the year.
1996 – Ethiopian Airlines Flight 961 is hijacked, then crashes into the Indian Ocean off the coast of Comoros after running out of fuel, killing 125.
2001 – The Convention on Cybercrime is signed in Budapest, Hungary.
2004 – The Holy Trinity Cathedral of Tbilisi, the largest religious building in Georgia, is consecrated.
2005 – Ellen Johnson Sirleaf is elected president of Liberia and becomes the first woman to lead an African country.
2007 – MS Explorer, a cruise liner carrying 154 people, sinks in the Antarctic Ocean south of Argentina after hitting an iceberg near the South Shetland Islands. There are no fatalities.
2009 – The Maguindanao massacre occurs in Ampatuan, Maguindanao, Philippines
2010 – Bombardment of Yeonpyeong: North Korean artillery attack kills 2 civilians and 2 marines on Yeonpyeong Island, South Korea.
2011 – Arab Spring: After 11 months of protests in Yemen, Yemeni president Ali Abdullah Saleh signs a deal to transfer power to the vice president, in exchange for legal immunity.

Saturday 22 November 2014

Remembering John F. Kennedy

John F. Kennedy, White House color photo portrait.jpgJohn Fitzgerald Kennedy, widely known as Jack Kennedy, or by his initials JFK, was sworn in as the 35th president of America at noon on January 20, 1961. In his inaugural address he spoke of the need for all Americans to be active citizens, famously saying, "Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country." He asked the nations of the world to join together to fight what he called the "common enemies of man: tyranny, poverty, disease, and war itself".

He added: "All this will not be finished in the first one hundred days. Nor will it be finished in the first one thousand days, nor in the life of this Administration, nor even perhaps in our lifetime on this planet. But let us begin." In closing, he expanded on his desire for greater internationalism: "Finally, whether you are citizens of America or citizens of the world, ask of us here the same high standards of strength and sacrifice which we ask of you."

Kennedy defeated Vice President and Republican candidate Richard Nixon in the 1960 U.S. Presidential Election. At age 43, he was the youngest to have been elected to the office, the second-youngest president after Theodore Roosevelt, and the first person born in the 20th century to serve as president.To date, Kennedy has been the only Roman Catholic president and the only president to have won a Pulitzer Prize.
Jackie with Jack campaigning in Appleton,Wisconsin, March 1960.
Notable events during his presidency included the Bay of Pigs Invasion, the Cuban Missile Crisis, the Space Race—by initiating Project Apollo (which later culminated in the moon landings), the building of the Berlin Wall, the African-American Civil Rights Movement, and increased US involvement in the Vietnam War.

Kennedy brought to the White House a stark contrast in organization compared to the decision-making structure of former-general Eisenhower; and he wasted no time in dismantling Eisenhower's methods. Kennedy preferred the organizational structure of a wheel, with all the spokes leading to the president. He was ready and willing to make the increased number of quick decisions required in such an environment. He selected a mixture of experienced and inexperienced people to serve in his cabinet. "We can learn our jobs together", he stated.
President Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, Texas, at 12:30 pm Central Standard Time on Friday November 22, 1963, while on a political trip to Texas to smooth over frictions in the Democratic Party between liberals Ralph Yarborough and Don Yarborough (no relation) and conservative John Connally. He was shot once in the throat, once in the upper back, with the fatal shot hitting him in the head.

Kennedy was taken to Parkland Hospital for emergency medical treatment, but pronounced dead at 1:00 pm. Only 46, President Kennedy died younger than any other U.S. president to date. Lee Harvey Oswald, an employee of the Texas School Book Depository from which the shots were suspected to have been fired, was arrested for the murder of a local police officer, and was subsequently charged with the assassination of Kennedy. He denied shooting anyone, claiming he was a patsy, but was killed by Jack Ruby on November 24, before he could be tried. Ruby was then arrested and convicted for the murder of Oswald. Ruby successfully appealed his conviction and death sentence but became ill and died of cancer on January 3, 1967, while the date for his new trial was being set.
President Kennedy's family leaving his
funeral at the U.S. Capitol Buildin
President Johnson created the Warren Commission—chaired by Chief Justice Earl Warren—to investigate the assassination, which concluded that Oswald was the lone assassin. The results of this investigation are disputed by many.The assassination proved to be an important moment in U.S. history because of its impact on the nation and the ensuing political repercussions. A 2004 Fox News poll found that 66% of Americans thought there had been a conspiracy to kill President Kennedy, while 74% thought there had been a cover-up. A Gallup Poll in mid-November 2013, showed 61% believed in a conspiracy, and only 30% thought Oswald did it alone.


A Requiem Mass was held for Kennedy at the Cathedral of St. Matthew the Apostle on November 25, 1963. Afterwards, Kennedy's body was buried in a small plot, (20 by 30 ft.), in Arlington National Cemetery. Over a period of three years (1964–66), an estimated 16 million people had visited his grave. On March 14, 1967, Kennedy's body was moved to a permanent burial plot and memorial at the cemetery. The funeral was officiated by Father John J. Cavanaugh. It was from this memorial that the graves of both Bobby and Ted were modeled.


The honor guard at Kennedy's graveside was the 37th Cadet Class of the Irish Army. Kennedy was greatly impressed by the Irish Cadets on his last official visit to Ireland, so much so that Jackie Kennedy requested the Irish Army to be the honor guard at the funeral.


Kennedy's wife, Jacqueline and their two deceased minor children were buried with him later. His brother, Senator Robert Kennedy, was buried nearby in June 1968. In August 2009, his brother, Senator Edward M. Kennedy, was also buried near his two brothers. John F. Kennedy's grave is lit with an "Eternal Flame". Kennedy and William Howard Taft are the only two U.S. presidents buried at Arlington. According to the JFK Library, "I Have a Rendezvous with Death", by Alan Seeger "was one of John F. Kennedy's favorite poems and he often asked his wife to recite it".

Today in History- November 22: Mike Tyson, former undisputed heavyweight champion

November 22 is the 326th day of the yeara. There are 39 days remaining until the end of the year

Mike Tyson Portrait.jpg





Today's Highlight in History
1986 – Mike Tyson defeats Trevor Berbick to become youngest Heavyweight champion in boxing history.


Michael Gerard "Mike" Tyson ; born June 30, 1966 is a former undisputed heavyweight champion of the world and holds the record as the youngest boxer to win the WBC, WBA and IBF heavyweight titles at 20 years, 4 months, and 22 days old. Tyson won his first 19 professional bouts by knockout, 12 of them in the first round. He won the WBC title in 1986 after defeating Trevor Berbick by a TKO in the second round. In 1987, Tyson added the WBA and IBF titles after defeating James Smith and Tony Tucker. He was the first heavyweight boxer to simultaneously hold the WBA, WBC and IBF titles, and the only heavyweight to successively unify them.


In 1988, Tyson became the lineal champion when he knocked out Michael Spinks after 91 seconds. Tyson successfully defended the world heavyweight championship nine times, including victories over Larry Holmes and Frank Bruno. In 1990, he lost his titles to underdog James "Buster" Douglas, by a knockout in round 10. Attempting to regain the titles, he defeated Donovan Ruddock twice in 1991, but he pulled out of a fight with undisputed heavyweight champion Evander Holyfield due to injury.
In 1992, Tyson was convicted of raping Desiree Washington and sentenced to six years in prison but was released after serving three years. After his release, he engaged in a series of comeback fights. In 1996, he won the WBC and WBA titles after defeating Frank Bruno and Bruce Seldon by knockout. With his defeat of Bruno, Tyson joined Floyd Patterson, Muhammad Ali, Tim Witherspoon, Evander Holyfield, and George Foreman as the only men in boxing history to that point to have regained a heavyweight championship after having lost it. After being stripped of the WBC title, Tyson lost his WBA crown to Evander Holyfield in November 1996 by an 11th round TKO. Their 1997 rematch ended when Tyson was disqualified for biting Holyfield's ear.

Tyson was born in Brooklyn, New York City. He has a brother, Rodney, who is five years older than he is.His sister, Denise, died of a heart attack at age 24 in 1990.
when Tyson was 16-year-old, his mother died, leaving him in the care of boxing manager and trainer Cus D'Amato, who later became his legal guardian. Tyson later said, "I never saw my mother happy with me and proud of me for doing something: she only knew me as being a wild kid running the streets, coming home with new clothes that she knew I didn't pay for. I never got a chance to talk to her or know about her. Professionally, it has no effect, but it's crushing emotionally and personally."

Tyson grew up in a high-crime neighborhoods. According to an interview in Details, his first fight was with a bigger youth who had pulled the head off one of Tyson's pigeons.Tyson was repeatedly caught committing petty crimes and fighting those who ridiculed his high-pitched voice and lisp. By the age of 13, he had been arrested 38 times. He ended up at the Tryon School for Boys in Johnstown, New York. Tyson's emerging boxing ability was discovered there by Bobby Stewart, a juvenile detention center counselor and former boxer. Stewart considered Tyson to be an outstanding fighter and trained him for a few months before introducing him to Cus D'Amato.Tyson dropped out of high school as a junior. He would later be awarded honorary Doctorate in Humane Letters from Central State University in 1989.
Kevin Rooney also trained Tyson, and he was occasionally assisted by Teddy Atlas, although he was dismissed by D'Amato when Tyson was 15. Rooney eventually took over all training duties for the young fighte

Tyson won gold medals at the 1981 and 1982 Junior Olympic Games, defeating Joe Cortez in 1981 and beating Kelton Brown in 1982. Brown's corner threw in the towel in the first round. He holds the Junior Olympic record for quickest knockout (8 seconds). He won every bout at the Junior Olympic Games by knockout.


He fought Henry Tillman twice as an amateur, losing both bouts by close decision. Tillman went on to win heavyweight gold at the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles.
Rise to stardom


Tyson made his professional debut as an 18-year-old on March 6, 1985, in Albany, New York. He defeated Hector Mercedes via a first round knockout. He had 15 bouts in his first year as a professional. Fighting frequently, Tyson won 26 of his first 28 fights by KO or TKO; 16 of those came in the first round.The quality of his opponents gradually increased to journeyman fighters and borderline contenders, like James Tillis, David Jaco, Jesse Ferguson, Mitch Green and Marvis Frazier. His win streak attracted media attention and Tyson was billed as the next great heavyweight champion. D'Amato died in November 1985, relatively early into Tyson's professional career; some speculate that his death was the genesis of many of the troubles Tyson was to experience as his life and career progressed.
Tyson's first nationally televised bout took place on February 16, 1986, at Houston Field House in Troy, New York against journeyman heavyweight Jesse Ferguson. Tyson knocked down Ferguson with an uppercut in the fifth round that broke Ferguson's nose to win when the referee stopped the fight near the middle of the sixth round.

On November 22, 1986, Tyson was given his first title fight against Trevor Berbick for the World Boxing Council (WBC) heavyweight championship. Tyson won the title by second round TKO, and at the age of 20 years and 4 months became the youngest heavyweight champion in history.


Because of Tyson's strength, many fighters were intimidated by him.This was backed up by his outstanding hand speed, accuracy, coordination, power, and timing. Tyson was also noted for his defensive abilities. Holding his hands high in the Peek-a-Boo style taught by his mentor Cus D'Amato, he slipped and weaved out of the way of the opponent's punches while closing the distance to deliver his own punches. One of Tyson's trademark combinations was a right hook to his opponent's body followed by a right uppercut to his opponent's chin; very few boxers would remain standing if caught by this combination. Lorenzo Boyd, Jesse Ferguson and Jose Ribalta were among the boxers knocked down by the combination.

In 2002, he fought for the world heavyweight title at the age of 35, losing by knockout to Lennox Lewis. In another Memphis fight on February 22, 2003, Tyson beat fringe contender Clifford Etienne 49 seconds into round one. The pre-fight was marred by rumors of Tyson's lack of fitness. Some said that he took time out from training to party in Las Vegas and get a new facial tattoo. This would be Tyson's final professional victory in the ring.

In August 2003, after years of financial struggles, Tyson finally filed for bankruptcy .Tyson declared bankruptcy in 2003, despite having received over $30 million for several of his fights and $300 million during his career. In 2003, amid all his economic troubles, he was named by Ring Magazine at number 16, right behind Sonny Liston, among the 100 greatest punchers of all time.

On July 30, 2004, Tyson faced British boxer Danny Williams in another comeback fight, this time staged in Louisville, Kentucky. Tyson dominated the opening two rounds. The third round was even, with Williams getting in some clean blows and also a few illegal ones, for which he was penalized. In the fourth round, Tyson was unexpectedly knocked out. After the fight, it was revealed that Tyson was trying to fight on one leg, having torn a ligament in his other knee in the first round. This was Tyson's fifth career defeat. He underwent surgery for the ligament four days after the fight. His manager, Shelly Finkel, claimed that Tyson was unable to throw meaningful right-hand punches since he had an elbow injury.
On June 11, 2005, Tyson stunned the boxing world by quitting before the start of the seventh round in a close bout against journeyman Kevin McBride. In the 2008 documentary Tyson, he stated that he fought McBride for a payday, that he did not anticipate on winning, that he was in poor physical condition and fed up with taking boxing seriously. After losing the third of his last four fights, Tyson said he would quit boxing because he felt he had lost his passion
He retired from professional boxing in 2006, after being knocked out in consecutive matches against Danny Williams and Kevin McBride. Tyson was well known for his ferocious and intimidating boxing style as well as his controversial behavior inside and outside the ring. Nicknamed "The Baddest Man on the Planet", "Kid Dynamite" and "Iron Mike", Tyson is considered one of the best heavyweights of all time.He was ranked No. 16 on The Ring's list of 100 greatest punchers of all time, and No. 1 in the ESPN.com list of "The hardest hitters in heavyweight history"
On June 12, 2011, Tyson was inducted to the International Boxing Hall of Fame alongside legendary Mexican champion Julio César Chávez, light welterweight champion Kostya Tszyu, and actor/screenwriter Sylvester Stallone.

In 2009, he returned to the spotlight in a different role, starring in a cameo role as himself in the hit comedy The Hangover with Bradley Cooper. That success led to more guest appearances on TV, as well as a repeat cameo performance in "Hangover 2." In 2012, Mike made the jump from the big and small screen to the Broadway stage, where he starred in his hit one-man show, Mike Tyson: The Undisputed Truth, which was directed by Spike Lee. More recently, he was featured in the 6-part Fox Sports "Being" documentary series, which gives viewers a much deeper insight into the soul of this amazingly talented fighter and the life experiences that shaped the man.

In 2013, Mike returned to the ring once more - not as a fighter this time, but as a world-class boxing promoter. Iron Mike Productions has a roster of promising young hopefuls that benefit from Mike's wealth of knowledge and experience on what it takes to be a world champion.
.Wikipedia


World Events



1954 – The Humane Society of the United States is founded.
1963 – In Dallas, Texas, US President John F Kennedy is assassinated and Texas Governor John Connally is seriously wounded. Suspect Lee Harvey Oswald is later captured and charged with the murder of both the President and police officer J. D. Tippit. Oswald is shot two days later by Jack Ruby while in police custody.
1967 – UN Security Council Resolution 242 is adopted, establishing a set of the principles aimed at guiding negotiations for an Arab–Israeli peace settlement.
1974 – The United Nations General Assembly grants the Palestine Liberation Organization observer status.
1975 – Juan Carlos is declared King of Spain following the death of Francisco Franco.
1977 – British Airways inaugurates a regular London to New York City supersonic Concorde service.
1986 – Mike Tyson defeats Trevor Berbick to become youngest Heavyweight champion in boxing history.
1987 – Two Chicago television stations are hijacked by an unknown pirate dressed as Max Headroom.
1989 – In West Beirut, a bomb explodes near the motorcade of Lebanese President René Moawad, killing him.
1990 – British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher withdraws from the Conservative Party leadership election, confirming the end of her premiership.
1995 – Toy Story is released as the first feature-length film created completely using computer-generated imagery.
2002 – In Nigeria, more than 100 people are killed at an attack aimed at the contestants of the Miss World contest.
2003 – Baghdad DHL attempted shootdown incident: Shortly after takeoff, a DHL Express cargo plane is struck on the left wing by a surface-to-air missile and forced to land.
2004 – The Orange Revolution begins in Ukraine, resulting from the presidential elections.
2005W – Angela Merkel becomes the first female Chancellor of Germany.
2012 – Ceasefire begins between Hamas in the Gaza Strip and Israel after eight days of violence and 150 deaths.

Friday 21 November 2014

Today in History - November 21 : Rebecca Latimer Felton of Georgia, the first female United States Senator.

November 21 is the 325th day of the year. There are 40 days remaining until the end of the year.
Reb Felton-Geo Senate.jpg
Rebecca Latimer Felton


Today's Highlight in History
1922 – Rebecca Latimer Felton of Georgia takes the oath of office, becoming the first female United States Senator.

Rebecca Ann Latimer Felton (June 10, 1835 – January 24, 1930) was an American writer, lecturer, reformer, and politician who became the first woman to serve in the United States Senate.She was the most prominent woman in Georgia in the Progressive Era, and was honored by appointment to the Senate. She was sworn in November 21, 1922, and served just 24 hours. At 87 years, nine months, and 22 days old, she was the oldest freshman senator to enter the Senate. To date, she is also the only woman to have served as a Senator from Georgia. Her husband William Harrell Felton was a member of the United States House of Representatives and Georgia House of Representatives and she ran his campaigns. She was a prominent society woman; an advocate of prison reform, women's suffrage and educational modernization; and one of the few prominent women who spoke in favor of lynching. Bartley reports that by 1915 she "was championing a lengthy feminist program that ranged from prohibition to equal pay for equal work."

A respected leader in the women's suffrage movement in Georgia Felton criticized what she saw as the hypocrisy of Southern men who boasted of superior Southern "chivalry" but opposed women's rights, and she expressed her dislike of the fact that Southern states resisted women's suffrage longer than other regions of the US. She wrote, in 1915, that women were denied fair political participation "except in the States which have been franchised by the good sense and common honesty of the men of those States—after due consideration, and with the chivalric instinct that differentiates the coarse brutal male from the gentlemen of our nation. Shall the men of the South be less generous, less chivalrous? They have given the Southern women more praise than the man of the West—but judged by their actions Southern men have been less sincere. Honeyed phrases are pleasant to listen to, but the sensible women of our country would prefer more substantial gifts....

Felton was a white supremacist. She claimed, for instance, that the more money that Georgia spent on black education, the more crimes blacks committed  Felton considered "young blacks" who sought equal treatment "half-civilized gorillas," and ascribed to them a "brutal lust" for white women.While seeking suffrage for women, she decried voting rights for blacks, arguing that it led directly to the rape of white women.


In 1899, a massive crowd of white Georgians tortured, mutilated, and burned a black man, Sam Hose, who purportedly had killed a white man in self-defense but had not committed the rape of the white woman whites accused him of. The crowd divided and sold his physical remains as souvenirs, Felton said that any "true-hearted husband or father" would have killed "the beast" and that Hose was due less sympathy than a rabid dog.
Rebecca Felton - desk.jpg
She advocated more lynchings of black men, saying that such was "elysian" compared to the rape of white women.
On at least one occasion, she stated that white Southerners should "lynch a thousand [black men] a week if it becomes necessary" to "protect woman's dearest possession

In 1922, Governor Thomas W. Hardwick was a candidate for the next general election to the Senate, when Senator Thomas E. Watson died prematurely. Seeking an appointee who would not be a competitor in the coming special election to fill the vacant seat and a way to secure the vote of the new women voters alienated by his opposition to the 19th Amendment, Hardwick chose Felton to serve as senator on October 3, 1922.

Congress was not expected to reconvene until after the election, so the chances were slim that Felton would be sworn in. However, Walter F. George won the special election despite Hardwick's ploy. Rather than take his seat immediately when the Senate reconvened on November 21, 1922, George allowed Felton to be sworn in. This was due in part to persuasion by Felton and a supportive campaign launched by the women of Georgia Felton thus became the first woman seated in the Senate and served until George took office on November 22, 1922, one day later.

She was the last former slaveowner to serve in the U.S. Senate.
Wikipedia



World Events

1783 – In Paris, Jean-François Pilâtre de Rozier and François Laurent d'Arlandes, make the first untethered hot air balloon flight.
1789 – North Carolina ratifies the United States Constitution and is admitted as the 12th U.S. state.
1861 – American Civil War: Confederate President Jefferson Davis appoints Judah Benjamin secretary of war.
1877 – Thomas Edison announces his invention of the phonograph, a machine that can record and play sound.
1902 – The Philadelphia Football Athletics defeated the Kanaweola Athletic Club of Elmira, New York, 39-0, in the first ever professional American football night game.
1905 – Albert Einstein's paper, "Does the Inertia of a Body Depend Upon Its Energy Content?", is published in the journal Annalen der Physik. This paper reveals the relationship between energy and mass. This leads to the mass–energy equivalence formula E = mc².
1922 – Rebecca Latimer Felton of Georgia takes the oath of office, becoming the first female United States Senator.
1959 – American disc jockey Alan Freed, who had popularized the term "rock and roll" and music of that style, is fired from WABC-AM radio for refusing to deny allegations that he had participated in the payola scandal.
1980 – A deadly fire breaks out at the MGM Grand Hotel in Paradise, Nevada (now Bally's Las Vegas). 87 people are killed and more than 650 are injured in the worst disaster in Nevada history.
1985 – United States Navy intelligence analyst Jonathan Pollard is arrested for spying after being caught giving Israel classified information on Arab nations. He is subsequently sentenced to life in prison.
1986 – Iran–Contra affair: National Security Council member Oliver North and his secretary start to shred documents allegedly implicating them in the sale of weapons to Iran and channeling the proceeds to help fund the Contra rebels in Nicaragua.
1992 – A major tornado strikes the Houston, Texas area during the afternoon. Over the next two days the largest tornado outbreak ever to occur in the US during November spawns over 100 tornadoes before ending on the 23rd.
1995 – The Dayton Peace Agreement is initialed at the Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, near Dayton, Ohio, ending three and a half years of war in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The agreement is formally ratified in Paris, on December 14 that same year.
2004 – The second round of the Ukrainian presidential election is held, giving rise to massive protests and controversy over the election's integrity.
2004 – The island of Dominica is hit by the most destructive earthquake in its history. The northern half of the island receives the most damage, especially the town of Portsmouth. It is also felt in neighboring Guadeloupe, where one person is killed.
2004 – The Paris Club agrees to write off 80% (up to $100 billion) of Iraq's external debt.
2009 – A mine explosion in Heilongjiang province, northeastern China, kills 108.
2012 – At least 28 are wounded after a bomb is thrown onto a bus in Tel Aviv.
2013 – A supermarket roof collapse in Riga, Zolitude, Latvia killing 54 people.

Thursday 20 November 2014

Today in History - November 20 first version of the Microsoft Windows line, Windows 1.0 is released.

November 20 is the 324th day of the year. There are 41 days remaining until the end of the year.



Windows1.0.png
Screenshot of Microsoft Windows 1.01

Today's Highlight in History:
1985 – Microsoft Windows 1.0 is released.



Windows 1.0 is a graphical personal computer operating environment developed by Microsoft. Its development was spearheaded by the company founder, The development of Windows was spearheaded by the Microsoft founder, Bill Gates, after seeing a demonstration at COMDEX 1982 of Visi On, a graphical user interface software suite for IBM PC compatibles. 

First released on 20 November 1985 as the first version of the Microsoft Windows line, Windows 1.0 runs as a graphical, 16-bit multi-tasking shell on top of an existing MS-DOS installation, providing an environment which can run graphical programs designed for Windows, as well as existing MS-DOS software.

Version 1.02, released in May 1986, was an international release. Version 1.03, released in August 1986 included enhancements that made it consistent with the international release. It included drivers for European keyboards and additional screen and printer drivers. Version 1.04, released in April 1987, added support for the new IBM PS/2 computers, although no support for PS/2 mice or new VGA graphics modes was provided. At the same time, Microsoft and IBM announced the introduction of OS/2 and its graphical OS/2 Presentation Manager, which were supposed to ultimately replace both MS-DOS and Windows.


Despite positive responses to its early presentations and support from a number of hardware and software makers, Windows 1.0 was received poorly by critics, who felt it did not meet their expectations. In particular, they felt that Windows 1.0 put too much emphasis on mouse input at a time when mouse use was not yet widespread; not providing enough resources for new users; and for suffering from performance issues, especially on systems with lower hardware specifications. Despite this criticism, Windows 1.0 proved to be an important milestone for Microsoft, and in computer history in general. Windows 1.0 was officially declared obsolete and unsupported by Microsoft on 31 December 2001.

In November 1987, Windows 1.0 was succeeded by Windows 2.0. Microsoft supported Windows 1.0 for 16 years, until 31 December 2001 – the longest out of all versions of Windows.

Windows 1.0 offers limited multitasking of existing MS-DOS programs and concentrates on creating an interaction paradigm (cf. message loop), an execution model and a stable API for native programs for the future. Due to Microsoft's extensive support for backward compatibility, it is not only possible to execute Windows 1.0 binary programs on current versions of Windows to a large extent, but also to recompile their source code into an equally functional "modern" application with just limited modifications.
Microsoft Windows 1.0 brochure,
printed in January 198
Windows 1.0 is often regarded as a "front-end to the MS-DOS operating system", a description which has also been applied to subsequent versions of Windows. Windows 1.0 is an MS-DOS program. Windows 1.0 programs can call MS-DOS functions, and GUI programs are run from .exe files just like MS-DOS programs. However, Windows .exe files had their own "new executable" (NE) file format, which only Windows could process and which, for example, allowed demand-loading of code and data. Applications were supposed to handle memory only through Windows' own memory management system, which implemented a software-based virtual memory scheme allowing for applications larger than available RAM.

Because graphics support in MS-DOS is extremely limited, MS-DOS applications have to go to the bare hardware (or sometimes just to the BIOS) to get work done. Therefore, Windows 1.0 included original device drivers for video cards, a mouse, keyboards, printers and serial communications, and applications were supposed to only invoke APIs built upon these drivers. However, this extended to other APIs such as file system management functions. In this sense, Windows 1.0 was designed to be extended into a full-fledged operating system, rather than being just a graphics environment used by applications. Indeed, Windows 1.0 is a "DOS front-end" and cannot operate without a DOS environment (it uses, for example, the file-handling functions provided by DOS.) The level of replacement increases in subsequent versions.

Windows 1.0 was regarded as a flop by contemporary technology publications, who, however, still acknowledged its overall importance to the history of the Windows line. 
Wikipedia


World Events


1789 – New Jersey becomes the first U.S. state to ratify the Bill of Rights.
1805 – Ludwig van Beethoven's only opera, Fidelio premieres in Vienna.
1917 – Ukraine is declared a republic.
1936 – José Antonio Primo de Rivera, founder of the Falange, is killed by a republican execution squad.
1940 – World War II: Hungary becomes a signatory of the Tripartite Pact, officially joining the Axis powers.
1947 – The Princess Elizabeth marries Lieutenant Philip Mountbatten, who becomes the Duke of Edinburgh, at Westminster Abbey in London.
1962 – Cuban missile crisis ends: In response to the Soviet Union agreeing to remove its missiles from Cuba, U.S. President John F. Kennedy ends the quarantine of the Caribbean nation.
1968 - A total of 78 miners are killed in an explosion at the Consolidated Coal Company’s No. 9 mine in Farmington, West Virginia in the Farmington Mine disaster
1969 – Vietnam War: The Plain Dealer publishes explicit photographs of dead villagers from the My Lai Massacre in Vietnam.
1974 – The United States Department of Justice files its final anti-trust suit against AT&T Corporation. This suit later leads to the breakup of AT&T and its Bell System.
1977 – Egyptian President Anwar Sadat becomes the first Arab leader to officially visit Israel, when he meets Israeli prime minister Menachem Begin and speaks before the Knesset in Jerusalem, seeking a permanent peace settlement.
1979 – Grand Mosque Seizure: About 200 Sunni Muslims revolt in Saudi Arabia at the site of the Kaaba in Mecca during the pilgrimage and take about 6000 hostages. The Saudi government receives help from Pakistani special forces to put down the uprising.
1980 – Lake Peigneur drains into an underlying salt deposit. A misplaced Texaco oil probe had been drilled into the Diamond Crystal Salt Mine, causing water to flow down into the mine, eroding the edges of the hole.
1982 – The General Union of Ecuadorian Workers (UGTE) is founded.
1985 – Microsoft Windows 1.0 is released.
1992 – In England, a fire breaks out in Windsor Castle, badly damaging the castle and causing over £50 million worth of damage.
1993 – Savings and loan crisis: The United States Senate Ethics Committee issues a stern censure of California senator Alan Cranston for his "dealings" with savings-and-loan executive Charles Keating.
1994 – The Angolan government and UNITA rebels sign the Lusaka Protocol in Zambia, ending 19 years of civil war. (Localized fighting resumes the next year.)
1998 – A court in Taliban-controlled Afghanistan declares accused terrorist Osama bin Laden "a man without a sin" in regard to the 1998 U.S. embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania.
1998 – The first module of the International Space Station, Zarya, is launched.
2001 – In Washington, D.C., U.S. President George W. Bush dedicates the United States Department of Justice headquarters building as the Robert F. Kennedy Justice Building, honoring the late Robert F. Kennedy on what would have been his 76th birthday.
2003 – After the November 15 bombings, a second day of the 2003 Istanbul bombings occurs in Istanbul, Turkey, destroying the Turkish head office of HSBC Bank AS and the British consulate.
2008 – After critical failures in the US financial system began to build up after mid-September, the Dow Jones Industrial Average reaches its lowest level since 1997.

Wednesday 19 November 2014

Today in History - November 19 Pelé, the greatest football player of all time.

November 19 is the 323rd day of the year. There are 42 days remaining until the end of the year.
Pele200802FabioRodriguesPozzebomAgenciaBrasil.jpg
Pelé the legend



Today's Highlight in History:
1969 – Association football player Pelé scores his 1,000th goal.

1969 Brazil stamp
commemorating Pelé's
landmark 1000 goals


Edson Arantes do Nascimento who is better known as Pelé is a world-beating superstar, a record-breaking football icon. and is widely regarded as the greatest football player of all time.

Born in Três Corações, Minas Gerais, Brazil, the son
of Fluminense footballer Dondinho and Celeste Arantes. He was the elder of two siblings. His parents named him after the American inventor Thomas Edison but decided to remove the "i" and call him "Edson", but there was a mistake on the birth certificate, leading many documents to show his name as "Edison", not "Edson", He was originally nicknamed Dico by his family.
However, he was nicknamed "Pelé" during his school days when wrongly he pronounced the name of his favorite player, local Vasco da Gama goalkeeper Bilé, In his autobiography, Pelé stated he had no idea what the name means, nor did his old friends. Apart from the assertion that the name is derived from that of Bilé, and that it is Hebrew for "miracle," the word has no known meaning in Portuguese

Pelé grew up in poverty in Bauru, São Paulo. He earned extra money by working in tea shops as a servant. Taught to play by his father, he could not afford a proper football and usually played with either a sock stuffed with newspaper and tied with a string or a grapefruit. Pelé played for several amateur teams in his youth, including Sete de Setembro, Canto do Rio, São Paulinho, and Amériquinha. he played in Bauru and led Bauru Athletic Club juniors to three consecutive São Paulo state youth championships between 1954 and 1956.

Pelé began playing for Santos at 15 he impressed Santos coach Lula during his trial at the Estádio Vila Belmiro, and he signed a professional contract with the club in June 1956.When the 1957 season started, Pelé was given a starting place in the first team and, at the age of 16, became the top scorer in the league.

Pelé’s electrifying play and penchant for spectacular goals made him a star around the world, and his club team Santos toured internationally in order to take full advantage of his popularity

He was called up to Brazil national football team at 16. He won three FIFA World Cups; 1958, 1962 and 1970, the only player ever to do so, and is the all-time leading goalscorer for Brazil with 77 goals in 92 games.

Pelé's first international match was a 2–1 defeat against Argentina on 7 July 1957 at the Maracanã. In that match, he scored his first goal for Brazil aged 16 years and 9 months to become the youngest player to score in International football.
On 19 June 1958 Pelé became the youngest player to play in a World Cup final match at 17 years and 249 days. He scored two goals in the final as Brazil beat Sweden 5–2. He finished the tournament with six goals in four matches played, tied for second place, behind record-breaker Just Fontaine, and was named best young player of the tournament.

Pelé's last international match was on 18 July 1971 against Yugoslavia in Rio de Janeiro. With Pelé on the field, the Brazilian team's record was 67 wins, 14 draws and 11 losses. Brazil never lost a match while fielding both Pelé and Garrincha.
Pele celebrating after a game
                                                                                                                      Getty Images
After the 1974 season Pelé retired from Brazilian club football although he continued to occasionally play for Santos in official competitive matches. Two years later, he came out of semi-retirement to sign with the New York Cosmos of the North American Soccer League (NASL) for the 1975 season. Though well past his prime at this point, Pelé is credited with significantly increasing public awareness and interest in soccer in the United States. He led the Cosmos to the 1977 NASL championship, in his third and final season with the club.
Pelé, front row second from right,
before the match against
Peru in the1970 World Cup

On 1 October 1977, Pelé closed out his career in an exhibition match between the Cosmos and Santos. Santos arrived in New York and New Jersey after previously defeating the Seattle Sounders, 2–0. The match was played in front of a sold out crowd at Giants Stadium and was televised in the United States on ABC's Wide World of Sports as well as throughout the world Pelé's father and wife both attended the match, as well as Muhammad Ali and Bobby Moore. Pelé played the first half for the Cosmos and the second half for Santos. Pelé scored his final goal from a direct free kick, and Cosmos won 2–1
Pelé is one of the most lauded players in history and is frequently ranked the best player ever. In 1999, he was voted World Player of the Century by the International Federation of

Football History & Statistics (IFFHS).The same year, France Football consulted their former Ballon D'Or winners to elect the Football Player of the Century, selecting Pelé. In 1999, Pelé was elected Athlete of the Century by the IOC, and Time named him in their list of 100 most influential people of the 20th century. In 2013 he received the FIFA Ballon d'Or Prix d'Honneur in recognition of his career and achievements as a global icon of football.

According to the IFFHS, Pelé is the most successful league goal scorer in the world, with 541 league goals. In total Pelé scored 1281 goals in 1363 games, including unofficial friendlies and tour games, for which he was listed in the Guinness World Records for most career goals scored in football. During his playing days, Pelé was for a period the best-paid athlete in the world. In his native Brazil, he is hailed as a national hero, for his accomplishments in football, and for his vocal support of policies to improve the social conditions of the poor. In 1961, Brazil President Jânio Quadros had Pelé declared a national treasure. During his career, he became known as "The Black Pearl" (Pérola Negra), "The King of Football" (O Rei do Futebol), "The King Pelé" (O Rei Pelé) or simply "The King" (O Rei).

Since retiring in 1977, Pelé has been a worldwide ambassador for football and has undertaken various acting roles and commercial ventures. In 2010, he was named the Honorary President of the New York Cosmos.

Wikipedia


World Events



1493 – Christopher Columbus goes ashore on an island he first saw the day before. He names it San Juan Bautista (later renamed Puerto Rico).
1794 – The United States and the Kingdom of Great Britain sign Jay's Treaty, which attempts to resolve some of the lingering problems left over from the American Revolutionary War.
1816 – Warsaw University is established.
1847 – The second Canadian railway line, the Montreal and Lachine Railway, is opened.
1863 – American Civil War: U.S. President Abraham Lincoln delivers the Gettysburg Address at the dedication ceremony for the military cemetery at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania
1946 – Afghanistan, Iceland and Sweden join the United Nations.
1950 – US General Dwight D. Eisenhower becomes Supreme Commander of NATO-Europe.
1955 – National Review publishes its first issue.
1959 – The Ford Motor Company announces the discontinuation of the unpopular Edsel.
1967 – The establishment of TVB, the first wireless commercial television station in Hong Kong.
1969 – Association football player Pelé scores his 1,000th goal.
1977 – TAP Portugal Flight 425 crashes in the Madeira Islands, killing 131.
1979 – Iran hostage crisis: Iranian leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini orders the release of 13 female and black American hostages being held at the US Embassy in Tehran
1984 – San Juanico disaster: A series of explosions at the Pemex petroleum storage facility at San Juan Ixhuatepec in Mexico City starts a major fire and kills about 500 people.
1985 – Cold War: In Geneva, U.S. President Ronald Reagan and Soviet Union leader Mikhail Gorbachev meet for the first time.
1985 – Pennzoil wins a US$10.53 billion judgment against Texaco, in the largest civil verdict in the history of the United States, stemming from Texaco executing a contract to buy Getty Oil after Pennzoil had entered into an unsigned, yet still binding, buyout contract with Getty.
1985 – Police in Baling, Malaysia, lay siege to houses occupied by an Islamic sect of about 400 people led by Ibrahim Mahmud.
1990 – Pop group Milli Vanilli are stripped of their Grammy Award because the duo did not sing at all on the Girl You Know It's True album. Session musicians had provided all the vocals.
1994 – In the United Kingdom, the first National Lottery draw is held. A £1 ticket gave a one-in-14-million chance of correctly guessing the winning six out of 49 numbers.
1996 – Lt. Gen. Maurice Baril of Canada arrives in Africa to lead a multi-national policing force in Zaire.
1998 – Lewinsky scandal: The United States House of Representatives Judiciary Committee begins impeachment hearings against U.S. President Bill Clinton.
1998 – Vincent van Gogh's Portrait of the Artist Without Beard sells at auction for US$71.5 million.
2002 – The Greek oil tanker Prestige splits in half and sinks off the coast of Galicia, releasing over 20 million US gallons (76,000 m³) of oil in the largest environmental disaster in Spanish and Portuguese history.
2010 – The first of four explosions takes place at the Pike River Mine in New Zealand; 29 people are killed in the nation's worst mining disaster since 1914.
2013 – A double suicide bombing at the Iranian embassy in Beirut kills 23 people and injures 160 others

Sunday 16 November 2014

Today in History - November 16 : Sir John Ambrose Fleming, the father of Modern Electronics.

November 16 is the 320th day of the year. There are 45 days remaining until the end of the year.
John Ambrose Fleming 1890.png
Sir John Ambrose Fleming 


Today's Highlight in History-
1904 – English engineer John Ambrose Fleming receives a patent for the thermionic valve (vacuum tube).

Sir John Ambrose Fleming (29 November 1849 – 18 April 1945) was an English electrical engineer and physicist. He is known for inventing the first thermionic valve or vacuum tube. He is also famous for the left hand rule (for electric motors). he was known as the father of modern electronics.
In electronics, vacuum tube, electron tube (in North America), tube, or valve (in British English) is a device that controls electric current through a vacuum in a sealed container. Vacuum tubes mostly rely on thermionic emission of electrons from a hot filament or a cathode heated by the filament. This type is called athermionic tube or thermionic valve. A phototube, however, achieves electron emission through the photoelectric effect. Not all electron tubes contain vacuum: gas-filled tubes are devices that rely on the properties of a discharge through an ionized gas.

Sir John Ambrose Fleming


He was born the eldest of seven children of James Fleming DD, a Congregational minister, and his wife, Mary Ann, at Lancaster, Lancashire and baptised on 11 February 1850. He was a devout Christian and helped establish the Evolution Protest Movement. Having no children, he bequeathed much of his estate to Christian charities, especially those that helped the poor. He was an accomplished photographer and, in addition, he painted watercolours and enjoyed climbing in the Alps.




On 11 June 1887 he married Clara Ripley (1856/7–1917), daughter of Walter Freake Pratt, a solicitor from Bath. On 27 July 1928 he married the popular young singer Olive May Franks (b. 1898/9), of Bristol, daughter of George Franks, a Cardiff businessman.


Fleming started school at about the age of ten, attending a private school where he particularly enjoyed geometry. Prior to that his mother tutored him and he had learned, virtually by heart, a book called the Child's Guide to Knowledge, a popular book of the day – even as an adult he would quote from it. His schooling continued at the University College School where, although accomplished at maths, he habitually came bottom of the class at Latin.

Even as a boy he wanted to become an engineer. At 11 he had his own workshop where he built model boats and engines. He even built his own camera, the start of a lifelong interest in photography. Training to become an engineer was beyond the family's financial resources, but he reached his goal via a path that alternated education with paid employment.

He enrolled for a BSc degree at University College, London, graduated in 1870, and studied under the mathematician Augustus de Morgan and the physicist George Carey Foster. He became a student of chemistry at the Royal College of Science in South Kensington in London (now Imperial College). There he first studied Alessandro Volta's battery, which became the subject of his first scientific paper. This was the first paper to be read to the new Physical Society of London (now the Institute of Physics) and appears on page one of volume one of their Proceedings. Financial problems again forced him to work for a living and in the summer of 1874 he became science master at Cheltenham College, a public school, earning £400 per year.

(He later also taught at Rossall School.) His own scientific research continued and he corresponded with James Clerk Maxwell at Cambridge University. After saving £400, and securing a grant of £50 a year, in October 1877 at the age of 27, he once again enrolled as a student, this time at Cambridge. Maxwell's lectures, he admitted, were difficult to follow. Maxwell, he said, often appeared obscure and had "a paradoxical and allusive way of speaking". On occasions Fleming was the only student at those lectures. Fleming again graduated, this time with a First Class Honours degree in chemistry and physics.

He then obtained a DSc from London and served one year at Cambridge University as a demonstrator of mechanical engineering before being appointed as the first Professor of Physics and Mathematics at the University of Nottingham, but he left after less than a year. After leaving the University of Nottingham in 1882, Fleming took up the post of "Electrician" to the Edison Electrical Light Company, advising on lighting systems and the new Ferranti alternating current systems.

In 1884 Fleming joined University College London taking up the Chair of Electrical Technology, the first of its kind in England. Although this offered great opportunities, he recalls in his autobiography that the only equipment provided to him was a blackboard and piece of chalk. In 1897 the Pender Laboratory was foundied at University College, London and Fleming took up the Pender Chair after the £5000 was endowed as a memorial to John Pender, the founder of Cable and Wireless. 1899 Fleming became Scientific Advisor to the Marconi Company and soon after began work on the designing the power plant to enable the Marconi Company to transmit across the Atlantic.
Sir John Ambrose Fleming and his invention
In 1904, as a result of experiments conducted on Edison effect bulbs imported from the USA, he developed a device he called an "oscillation valve" (because it passes current in only one direction). The heated filament, or cathode, was capable of thermionic emission of electrons that would flow to the plate (or anode) when it was at a higher voltage. Electrons, however, could not pass in the reverse direction because the plate was not heated and thus not capable of thermionic emission of electrons.

Later known as the Fleming valve, it could be used as a rectifier of alternating current and as a radio wave detector. This greatly improved the crystal set which rectified the radio signal using an early solid-state diode based on a crystal and a so-called cat's whisker. Unlike modern semiconductors, such a diode required painstaking adjustment of the contact to the crystal in order for it to rectify. The tube was relatively immune to vibration, and thus vastly superior on shipboard duty, particularly for navy ships with the shock of weapon fire commonly knocking the sensitive but delicate galena off its sensitive point (the tube was in general no more sensitive a radio detector, but was adjustment free). The diode tube was a reliable alternative for detecting radio signals. Higher power diode tubes or power rectifiers found their way into power supply applications until they were eventually replaced by silicon rectifiers in the 1960s.
Fleming's first diodes


He received a patent on 16 November. however, the Supreme Court of the United States later invalidated the patent because of an improper disclaimer and, additionally, maintained the technology in the patent was known art when filed. This invention is often considered to have been the beginning of electronics, for this was the first vacuum tube. Fleming's diode was used in radio receivers and radars for many decades afterwards, until it was superseded by solid state electronic technology more than 50 years later.

Fleming retired from University College, London in 1927 at the age of 77. He remained active, becoming a committed advocate of the new technology of Television which included serving as the first president of the Television Society.

Fleming also contributed in the fields of photometry, electronics, wireless telegraphy (radio), and electrical measurements. He coined the term Power Factor to describe the true power flowing in an AC power system. He was knighted in 1929, and died at his home in Sidmouth, Devon in 1945. His contributions to electronic communications and radar were of vital importance in winning World War II. Fleming was awarded the IRE Medal of Honor in 1933 for "the conspicuous part he played in introducing physical and engineering principles into the radio art"


Fleming was the author of more than a hundred scientific papers and books, including the influential The Principles of Electric Wave Telegraphy (1906) andThe Propagation of Electric Currents in Telephone and Telegraph Conductors(1911).

Today, descendants of the original valve (or vacuum tube) still play an important role in a range of applications. They can be found in the power stages of radio and television transmitters, in musical instrument amplifiers (particularly electric guitar and bass amplifiers), in some high-end audio amplifiers, as detectors of optical and short wavelength radiation, and in sensitive equipment that must be "radiation-hard".

In 1941 the London Power Company commemorated Fleming by naming a new 1,555 GRT coastal collier SS Ambrose Fleming.

On 27 November 2004 a Blue Plaque presented by the Institute of Physics was unveiled at the Norman Lockyer Observatory, Sidmouth, to mark 100 years since the invention of the Thermionic Radio Valve.

Wikipedia


World Events


1849 – A Russian court sentences writer Fyodor Dostoyevsky to death for anti-government activities linked to a radical intellectual group; his sentence is later commuted to hard labor.
1904 – English engineer John Ambrose Fleming receives a patent for the thermionic valve (vacuum tube).
1907 – Indian Territory and Oklahoma Territory join to form Oklahoma, which is admitted as the 46th U.S. state.
1914 – The Federal Reserve Bank of the United States officially opens.
1920 – Qantas, Australia's national airline, is founded as Queensland and Northern Territory Aerial Services Limited.
1940 – World War II: In response to the leveling of Coventry by the German Luftwaffe two days before, the Royal Air Force bombs Hamburg.
1940 – Holocaust: In occupied Poland, the Nazis close off the Warsaw Ghetto from the outside world.
1940 – New York City's "Mad Bomber" George Metesky places his first bomb at a Manhattan office building used by Consolidated Edison.
1943 – World War II: American bombers strike a hydro-electric power facility and heavy water factory in German-controlled Vemork, Norway.
1944 – World War II: Operation Queen, the costly Allied thrust to the Rur, is launched.
1944 – World War II: Dueren, Germany, is destroyed by Allied bombers.
1945 – UNESCO is founded.
1959 – The Sound of Music, a musical by Rodgers and Hammerstein based on The Story of the Trapp Family Singers, opened on Broadwayat the Lunt-Fontanne Theatre.
1965 – Venera program: The Soviet Union launches the Venera 3 space probe toward Venus, which will be the first spacecraft to reach the surface of another planet.
1973 – Skylab program: NASA launches Skylab 4 with a crew of three astronauts from Cape Canaveral, Florida for an 84-day mission.
1973 – U.S. President Richard Nixon signs the Trans-Alaska Pipeline Authorization Act into law, authorizing the construction of the Alaska Pipeline.
1979 – The first line of Bucharest Metro (Line M1) is opened from Timpuri Noi to Semănăto area in Bucharest, Romania.
1988 – The Supreme Soviet of the Estonian Soviet Socialist Republic declares that Estonia is "sovereign" but stops short of declaring independence.
1988 – In the first open election in more than a decade, voters in Pakistan elect populist candidate Benazir Bhutto to be Prime Minister of Pakistan.
1989 – A death squad composed of El Salvadoran army troops kills six Jesuit priests and two others at Jose Simeon Canas University.
1992 – The Hoxne Hoard is discovered by metal detectorist Eric Lawes in Hoxne, Suffolk.
1997 – After nearly 18 years of incarceration, the People's Republic of China releases Wei Jingsheng, a pro-democracy dissident, from jail for medical reasons.

Mr Omoruyi Uwuigiaren, Cartoonist & Writer

Author's Hangout with Zizi Mr Omoruyi Uwuigiaren, popularly known as Ruyi, is a former freelance cartoonist at Vanguard Newspapers.  He ...