Friday, 24 October 2014

Today in History October 24 The birth of United Nations (UN)

October 24 is the 297th day of the year. There are 68 days remaining until the end of the year.



Flag
Today's Highlight in History 1945 – Founding of the United Nations.


Emblem


The Chilean delegation signing
 the 
UN Charter in San Francisco, 1945



      





The United Nations (UN) is an intergovernmental organization established on 24 October 1945 to promote international co-operation. A replacement for the ineffective League of Nations, the organization was created following the Second World War to prevent another such conflict. At its founding, the UN had 51 member states; there are now 193. The UN Headquarters is situated in Manhattan, New York City, and enjoys extraterritoriality. Further main offices are situated in Geneva, Nairobi and Vienna. The organization is financed by assessed and voluntary contributions from its member states. Its objectives include maintaining international peace and security, promoting human rights, fostering social and economic development, protecting the environment, and providing humanitarian aid in cases of famine, natural disaster, and armed conflict.

During the Second World War, US President Franklin D. Roosevelt initiated talks on a successor agency to the League of Nations, and the United Nations Charter was drafted at a conference in April–June 1945; this charter took effect on 24 October 1945, and the UN began operation. The UN's mission to preserve world peace was complicated in its early decades by the Cold War between the US and Soviet Union and their respective allies. The organization participated in major actions in Korea and the Congo, as well as approving the creation of the state of Israel in 1947. The organization's membership grew significantly following widespread decolonization in the 1960s, and by the 1970s its budget for economic and social development programmes far outstripped its spending on peacekeeping. After the end of the Cold War, the UN took on major military and peacekeeping missions across the world with varying degrees of success.

Secretaries-General of the United NationsNo.NameCountry of originTook officeLeft officeNote


1 Trygve Lie                          Norway 2 February 1946 10 November 1952 Resigned
2 Dag Hammarskjöld             Sweden 10 April 1953 18 September 1961 Died in office
3 U Thant                              Myanmar 30 November 1961 31 December 1971
4 Kurt Waldheim                    Austria 1 January 1972 31 December 1981
5 Javier Pérez de Cuéllar         Peru 1 January 1982 31 December 1991
6 Boutros Boutros-Ghali         Egypt 1 January 1992 31 December 1996
7 Kofi Annan                         Ghana 1 January 1997 31 December 2006
8 Ban Ki-moon                     South Korea 1 January 2007 Incumbent


The UN has six principal organs: the General Assembly (the main deliberative assembly); the Security Council (for deciding certain resolutions for peace and security); the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) (for promoting international economic and social co-operation and development); the Secretariat (for providing studies, information, and facilities needed by the UN); the International Court of Justice (the primary judicial organ); and the United Nations Trusteeship Council (inactive since 1994). UN System agencies include the World Bank Group, the World Health Organization, the World Food Programme, UNESCO, and UNICEF. The UN's most prominent officer is the Secretary-General, an office held by South Korean Ban Ki-moon since 2007. Non-governmental organizations may be granted consultative status with ECOSOC and other agencies to participate in the UN's work.
The current Secretary-GeneralBan Ki-moon


The organization won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2001, and a number of its officers and agencies have also been awarded the prize. Other evaluations of the UN's effectiveness have been mixed. Some commentators believe the organization to be an important force for peace and human development, while others have called the organization ineffective, corrupt, or biased.

The United Nations' system is based on five principal organs: the General Assembly, the Security Council, the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC), the Secretariat, and the International Court of Justice. A sixth principal organ, the Trusteeship Council, suspended operations in 1994, upon the independence of Palau, the last remaining UN trustee territory.

Four of the five principal organs are located at the main UN Headquarters in New York City. The International Court of Justice is located in The Hague, while other major agencies are based in the UN offices at Geneva, Vienna, and Nairobi.Other UN institutions are located throughout the world. The six official languages of the United Nations, used in intergovernmental meetings and documents, are Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Russian, and Spanish. On the basis of the Convention on the Privileges and Immunities of the United Nations, the UN and its agencies are immune from the laws of the countries where they operate, safeguarding the UN's impartiality with regard to the host and member countries.

Wikipedia


World Events

1851 – William Lassell, discovers the moons Umbriel, and Ariel, orbiting Uranus.
1857 – Sheffield F.C., the world's oldest association football club still in operation, is founded in Sheffield, England.
1861 – The First Transcontinental Telegraph line across the United States is completed, spelling the end for the 18-month-old Pony Express.
1901 – Annie Edson Taylor becomes the first person to go over Niagara Falls, in a barrel.
1911 – Orville Wright, remains in the air 9 minutes and 45 seconds in a Wright Glider, at Kill Devil Hills, North Carolina.
1926 – Harry Houdini's last performance, which is at the Garrick Theater in Detroit
1929 – "Black Thursday" stock market crash on the New York Stock Exchange.
1930 – A bloodless coup d'état in Brazil ousts Washington Luís Pereira de Sousa, the last President of the First Republic. Getúlio Vargas is then installed as "provisional president."
1931 – The George Washington Bridge opens to public traffic.
1943 – The Provisional Government of Free India formally declared war on Britain and the United States of America.
1945 – Founding of the United Nations.
1946 – A camera on board the V-2 No. 13 rocket takes the first photograph of earth from outer space.
1947 – Walt Disney testifies before the House Un-American Activities Committee, naming Disney employees he believes to be communists.
1949 – The cornerstone of the United Nations Headquarters is laid.
1954 – Dwight D. Eisenhower pledges United States support to South Vietnam.
1957 – The USAF starts the X-20 Dyna-Soar program.
1964 – Northern Rhodesia gains independence from the United Kingdom and becomes the Republic of Zambia (Southern Rhodesia remained a colony until the next year, with the Unilateral Declaration of Independence)
1973 – Yom Kippur War ends.
1977 – Veterans Day is observed on the fourth Monday in October for the seventh and last time. (The holiday is once again observed on November 11 beginning the following year.)
1980 – The government of Poland legalizes the Solidarity trade union.
1986 – Nezar Hindawi is sentenced to 45 years in prison, the longest sentence handed down by a British court, for the attempted bombing on an El Al flight at Heathrow. After the verdict, the United Kingdom breaks diplomatic relations with Syria, claiming that Hindawi is helped by Syrian officials.
1990 – Italian prime minister Giulio Andreotti reveals to the Italian parliament the existence of Gladio, the Italian "stay-behind" clandestine paramilitary NATO army, which was implicated in false flag terrorist attacks implicating communists and anarchists as part of the strategy of tension from the late 1960s to early 1980s.
1992 – The Toronto Blue Jays become the first Major League Baseball team based outside the United States to win the World Series.
1998 – Launch of Deep Space 1 comet/asteroid mission
2002 – Police arrest spree killers John Allen Muhammad and Lee Boyd Malvo, ending the Beltway sniper attacks in the area around Washington, D.C.
2003 – Concorde makes its last commercial flight.
2004 – Arsenal Football Club loses to Manchester United, ending a row of unbeaten matches at 49 matches, which is the record in the Premier League.
2005 – Hurricane Wilma makes landfall in Florida resulting in 35 direct 26 indirect fatalities and causing $20.6B USD in damage.
2007 – Chang'e 1, the first satellite in the Chinese Lunar Exploration Program, is launched from Xichang Satellite Launch Center.
2008 – "Bloody Friday" saw many of the world's stock exchanges experience the worst declines in their history, with drops of around 10% in most indices.

Jean-Paul Sartre the man who declines the Nobel Prize in Literature

Jean-Paul Sartre in Venice in 1967
Jean-Paul Charles Aymard Sartre, was a French philosopher, playwright, novelist, screenwriter, political activist, biographer, and literary critic. He was one of the key figures in the philosophy of existentialism and phenomenology, and one of the leading figures in 20th-century French philosophy and Marxism.

His work also influenced sociology, critical theory, post-colonial theory, and literary studies, and continues to influence these disciplines. Sartre has also been noted for his open relationship with the prominent feminist theorist Simone de Beauvoir.

He was awarded the 1964 Nobel Prize in Literature but refused it, saying that he always declined official honors and that "a writer should not allow himself to be turned into an institution".

In 1964 Sartre renounced literature in a witty and sardonic account of the first ten years of his life, Les mots (Words). The book is an ironic counterblast to Marcel Proust, whose reputation had unexpectedly eclipsed that of André Gide (who had provided the model of littérature engagée for Sartre's generation). Literature, Sartre concluded, functioned ultimately as a bourgeois substitute for real commitment in the world. In October 1964, Sartre was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature but he declined it. He was the first Nobel laureate to voluntarily decline the prize, and remains one of only two laureates to do so. In 1945, he had refused the Légion d'honneur. The Nobel prize was announced on 22 October 1964; on 14 October, Sartre had written a letter to the Nobel Institute, asking to be removed from the list of nominees, and warning that he would not accept the prize if awarded, but the letter went unread; on 23 October, Le Figaro published a statement by Sartre explaining his refusal. He said he did not wish to be "transformed" by such an award, and did not want to take sides in an East vs. West cultural struggle by accepting an award from a prominent Western cultural institution. After being awarded the prize he tried to escape the media by hiding in the house of Simone's sister Hélène de Beauvoir in Goxwiller, Alsace.

Hélène de Beauvoir's house in Goxwiller,where Sartre tried to hide from the media
after being awarded the Nobel Prize.
Sartre's and de Beauvoir's grave in
the Cimetière de Montparnasse


Though his name was then a household word (as was "existentialism" during the tumultuous 1960s), Sartre remained a simple man with few possessions, actively committed to causes until the end of his life, such as the May 1968 strikes in Paris during the summer of 1968 during which he was arrested for civil disobedience. President Charles de Gaulle intervened and pardoned him, commenting that "you don't arrest Voltaire."

In 1975, when asked how he would like to be remembered, Sartre replied:

       I would like [people] to remember Nausea, [my plays] No Exit and The Devil and the Good Lord, and then my two philosophical works, more particularly the second one, Critique of Dialectical Reason. Then my essay on Genet, Saint Genet.... If these are remembered, that would be quite an achievement, and I don't ask for more. As a man, if a certain Jean-Paul Sartre is remembered, I would like people to remember the milieu or historical situation in which I lived,... how I lived in it, in terms of all the aspirations which I tried to gather up within myself.

.wikipedia

Wednesday, 22 October 2014

Today in History October 22; The Supremes; America's most successful vocal group





October 22 is the 295th day of the year. There are 70 days remaining until the end of the year.
The Supremes 1966.JPG
The Supremes: Diana Ross (right), Mary Wilson (center),
Florence Ballard (left) performing
"My World Is Empty Without You"
onThe Ed Sullivan Show in 1966.



Today's Highlight in History: 1966 – The Supremes become the first all-female music group to attain a No. 1 selling album (The Supremes A' Go-Go)


The Supremes were an American female singing group and the premier act of Motown Records during the 1960s. Founded as the Primettes in Detroit, Michigan, in 1959, the Supremes were the most commercially successful of Motown's acts and are, to date, America's most successful vocal group with 12 number one singles on the Billboard Hot 100. Most of these hits were written and produced by Motown's main songwriting and production team, Holland–Dozier–Holland. At their peak in the mid-1960s, the Supremes rivaled the Beatles in worldwide popularity and their success made it possible for future African American R&B and soul musicians to find mainstream success.

Founding members Florence Ballard, Mary Wilson, Diana Ross, and Betty McGlown, all from the Brewster-Douglass public housing project in Detroit. They formed the Primettes as the sister act to the Primes (with Paul Williams and Eddie Kendricks, who went on to form the Temptations). Barbara Martin replaced McGlown in 1960, and the group signed with Motown the following year as the Supremes. Martin left the act in early 1962, and Ross, Ballard, and Wilson carried on as a trio.

The Supremes in 1965.


During the mid-1960s, the Supremes achieved mainstream success with Ross as lead singer. In 1967, Motown president Berry Gordy renamed the group Diana Ross & the Supremes, and replaced Ballard with Cindy Birdsong. Ross left to pursue a solo career in 1970 and was replaced by Jean Terrell. Diana Ross & the Supremes gave their final performance on January 14, 1970 at the Frontier Hotel in Las Vegas. At the final performance, the replacement for Diana Ross, Jean Terrell, was introduced.

When she left, the group's name reverted to the Supremes. After 1972, the lineup changed more frequently; Lynda Laurence, Scherrie Payne, and Susaye Greene all became members of the group during the mid-1970s. The Supremes disbanded in 1977 after an 18-year run.



The Supremes A' Go-Go album of 1966 was the first album by an all-female group to reach number-one on the Billboard 200 album charts in the United States. Remaining on the Billboard album chart for 60 weeks, it sold over 1 million copies in the United States and about 3.5 million copies world-wide, making it their 2nd best selling album behind their chart busting Greatest Hits which sold over 3 million copies in the states and over 6 million copies world-wide and held onto the #1 spot for 5 weeks on Billboard Magazine.




World Events


362 – The temple of Apollo at Daphne, outside Antioch, is destroyed in a mysterious fire.
451 – The Council of Chalcedon adopts the Chalcedonian Creed regarding the divine and human nature of Jesus Christ.
794 – Emperor Kanmu relocates the Japanese capital to Heiankyo (now Kyoto).
1383 – The 1383–85 Crisis in Portugal: King Fernando dies without a male heir to the Portuguese throne, sparking a period of civil war and disorder.
1746 – The College of New Jersey (later renamed Princeton University) receives its charter.
1784 – Russia founds a colony on Kodiak Island, Alaska.
1836 – Sam Houston is inaugurated as the first President of the Republic of Texas.
1844 – The Great Anticipation: Millerites, followers of William Miller, anticipate the end of the world in conjunction with the Second Advent of Christ. The following day became known as the Great Disappointment.
1859 – Spain declares war on Morocco.
1875 – First telegraphic connection in Argentina.
1877 – The Blantyre mining disaster in Scotland kills 207 miners
1927 – Nikola Tesla introduces six new inventions including a motor with onephase electricity
1928 – Phi Sigma Alpha fraternity is founded at the University of Puerto Rico, Río Piedras Campus
1934 – In East Liverpool, Ohio, Federal Bureau of Investigation agents shoot and kill notorious bank robber Pretty Boy Floyd
1964 – Jean-Paul Sartre is awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, but turns down the honor.
1966 – The Supremes become the first all-female music group to attain a No. 1 selling album (The Supremes A' Go-Go).
1968 – Apollo program: Apollo 7 safely splashes down in the Atlantic Ocean after orbiting the Earth 163 times.
1975 – The Soviet unmanned space mission Venera 9 lands on Venus.
1978 – Papal inauguration of Pope John Paul II.
2005 – Tropical Storm Alpha forms in the Atlantic Basin, making the 2005 Atlantic hurricane season the most active Atlantic hurricane season on record with 22 named storms
2007 – Raid on Anuradhapura Air Force Base is carried out by 21 Tamil Tiger commandos. All except one died in this attack. Eight Sri Lanka Air Force planes are destroyed and 10 damaged.
2008 – India launches its first unmanned lunar mission Chandrayaan-1.
2013 – The Australian Capital Territory becomes the first Australian jurisdiction to legalize same-sex marriage with the Marriage Equality (Same Sex) Act 2013

Ernest Miller Hemingway; 20th-century fiction writer



ErnestHemmingway ForWhomTheBellTolls.jpg
First edition cover
For Whom the Bell Tolls is a novel by Ernest Hemingway published in 1940. It tells the story of Robert Jordan, a young American in the International Brigades attached to a republican guerrilla unit during the Spanish Civil War. As a dynamiter, he is assigned to blow up a bridge during an attack on the city of Segovia. The novel is regarded as one of Hemingway's best works, along with The Sun Also Rises, The Old Man and the Sea, and A Farewell to Arms.

The title of the book is taken from the metaphysical poet John Donne's series of meditations and prayers on health, pain, and sickness (written while Donne was convalescing from a nearly fatal illness) that were published in 1624 as Devotions upon Emergent Occasions, specifically Meditation XVII. Hemingway quotes part of the meditation (using Donne's original spelling) in the book's epigraph:No man is an Iland, intire of it selfe; every man is a peece of the Continent, a part of the maine; if a Clod bee washed away by the Sea, Europe is the lesse, as well as if a Promontorie were, as well as if a Mannor of thy friends or of thine owne were; any mans death diminishes me, because I am involved in Mankinde; And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; It tolls for thee.

ErnestHemingway.jpg
Ernest Hemingway
Ernest Miller Hemingway (July 21, 1899 – July 2, 1961) was an American author and journalist. His economical and understated style had a strong influence on 20th-century fiction, while his life of adventure and his public image influenced later generations. Hemingway produced most of his work between the mid-1920s and the mid-1950s, and won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1954. He published seven novels, six short story collections, and two non-fiction works. Additional works, including three novels, four short story collections, and three non-fiction works, were published posthumously. Many of his works are considered classics of American literature.

Hemingway was raised in Oak Park, Illinois. After high school he reported for a few months for The Kansas City Star, before leaving for the Italian front to enlist with the World War I ambulance drivers. In 1918, he was seriously wounded and returned home. His wartime experiences formed the basis for his novel A Farewell to Arms (1929).
In 1921, he married Hadley Richardson, the first of his four wives. The couple moved to Paris, where he worked as a foreign correspondent and fell under the influence of the modernist writers and artists of the 1920s "Lost Generation" expatriate community. He published his first novel, The Sun Also Rises, in 1926. After his 1927 divorce from Hadley Richardson, Hemingway married Pauline Pfeiffer; they divorced after he returned from the Spanish Civil War where he had been a journalist, and after which he wrote For Whom the Bell Tolls (1940). Martha Gellhorn became his third wife in 1940; they separated when he met Mary Welsh in London during World War II. He was present at the Normandy landings and the liberation of Paris.
photograph of a house
Hemingway House in Key West, Florida, where he wrote To Have and Have Not


Shortly after the publication of The Old Man and the Sea (1952), Hemingway went on safari to Africa, where he was almost killed in two successive plane crashes that left him in pain or ill health for much of his remaining lifetime. Hemingway maintained permanent residences in Key West, Florida, (1930s) and Cuba (1940s and 1950s), and in 1959, he bought a house in Ketchum, Idaho, where he committed suicide in the summer of 1961.

-Wikipedia

Tuesday, 21 October 2014

Today in History October 21 focus on Portland cement

October 21 is the 294th day of the year. There are 71 days remaining until the end of the year
                          A pallet with Portland cement


Today's Highlight in History: 1824 – Joseph Aspdin patents Portland cement.

Portland cement is the most common type of cement in general use around the world, used as a basic ingredient of concrete, mortar, stucco, and most non-specialty grout. It developed from other types of hydraulic lime in England in the mid 19th century and usually originates from limestone. It is a fine powder produced by heating materials in a kiln to form what is called clinker, grinding the clinker, and adding small amounts of other materials.

Joseph Aspdin (December? 1778 – 20 March 1855) was an English cement manufacturer who obtained the patent for Portland cement on 21 October 1824.
A 10 MW cement mill, producing cement at 270 tonnes per hour
Joseph Aspdin (or Aspden) was the eldest of the six children of Thomas Aspdin, a bricklayer living in the Hunslet district of Leeds, Yorkshire. He entered his father's trade, and by 1817 he had set up in business on his own in central Leeds. He must have experimented with cement manufacture during the next few years, because on 21 October 1824 he was granted the British Patent BP 5022 entitled An Improvement in the Mode of Producing an Artificial Stone, in which he coined the term "Portland cement" by analogy with the Portland stone, an oolitic limestone that is quarried on the channel coast of England, on the Isle of Portland in Dorset.

Aspdin called the product Portland cement because set mortar made from it resembled “the best Portland stone". Portland stone was the most prestigious building stone in use in England at the time. The patent clearly does not describe the product recognised as Portland cement today. The product was aimed at the market for stuccos and architectural pre-cast mouldings, for which a fast-setting, low-strength cement was required. It was fired at low temperature (below 1250 °C) and therefore contained no alite.

However, Aspdins' cement was nothing like modern Portland cement but was a first step in the development of modern Portland cement, called a proto-Portland cement. Aspdins son William Aspdin left his fathers company and in his own cement manufacturing apparently accidentally produced calcium silicates in the 1840s, a middle step in the development of Portland cement. In 1848, William Aspdin further improved his cement; in 1853, he moved to Germany where he was involved in cement making. William Aspdin made what could be called meso-Portland cement (a mix of Portland cement and hydraulic lime).

Isaac Charles Johnson further refined the production of meso-Portland cement (middle stage of development) and claimed to be the real father of Portland cement. John Grant of the Metropolitan Board of Works in 1859 set out requirements for cement to be used in the London sewer project. This became a specification for Portland cement. The next development with the manufacture of Portland cement was the introduction of the rotary kiln patented by German Friedrich Hoffmann called a Hoffmann kiln for brick making in 1858 and then Frederick Ransome in 1885 (U.K.) and 1886 (U.S.) which allowed a stronger, more homogeneous mixture and a continuous manufacturing process.

The Hoffman "endless" kiln which gave "perfect control over combustion" was tested in 1860 and showed the process produced a better grade of cement. This cement was made at the Portland Cement fabrik Stern at Stettin, which was the first to utilize a Hoffman kiln. It is thought that the first modern Portland cement was made there. The Association of German Cement Manufacturers issued a standard on Portland cement in 1878.

Portland cement is caustic so it can cause chemical burns, the powder can cause irritation or with severe exposure lung cancer, and contains some toxic ingredients such as silica and chromium. Environmental concerns are the high energy consumption required to mine, manufacture, and transport the cement and the related air pollution including the release of greenhouse gasses (e.g., carbon dioxide), dioxin, NOx, SO2, and particulates.

.Wikipedia

World Events

1774 – First display of the word "Liberty" on a flag, raised by colonists in Taunton, Massachusetts in defiance of British rule in Colonial America.
1797 – In Boston Harbor, the 44-gun United States Navy frigate USS Constitution is launched.
1816 – The Penang Free School is founded in George Town, Penang, Malaysia, by the Rev Hutchings, the oldest English-language school in Southeast Asia.
1824 – Joseph Aspdin patents Portland cement.
1854 – Florence Nightingale and a staff of 38 nurses are sent to the Crimean War.
1879 – Thomas Edison invents a workable electric light bulb at his laboratory in Menlo Park, N.J. which was tested the next day and lasted 13.5 hours. This would be the invention of the first commercially practical incandescent light. Popular belief is that he invented the first light bulb, which he did not.
1895 – The Republic of Formosa collapses as Japanese forces invade.
1902 – In the United States, a five-month strike by United Mine Workers ends.
1910 – HMS Niobe arrives in Halifax Harbour to become the first ship of the Royal Canadian Navy.
1921 – President Warren G. Harding delivers the first speech by a sitting U.S. President against lynching in the deep South.
1921 – George Melford's silent film, The Sheik, starring Rudolph Valentino, premiers.
1931 – The Sakurakai, a secret society in the Imperial Japanese Army, launches an abortive coup d'état attempt.
1940 – The first edition of the Ernest Hemingway novel For Whom the Bell Tolls is published.
1941 – World War II: In Kragujevac, Serbia, German Wehrmacht soldiers butcher about 7,000 citizens, including schoolchildren and professors.
1945 – Women's suffrage: Women are allowed to vote in France for the first time.
1956 – Mau Mau Uprising: Kenyan rebel leader Dedan Kimathi is captured by the British Army, signalling the ultimate defeat of the rebellion, and essentially ending the British military campaign.
1959 – In New York City, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, opens to the public.
1959 – U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower signs an executive order transferring Wernher von Braun and other German scientists from the United States Army to NASA.
1965 – Comet Ikeya-Seki approaches perihelion, passing 450,000 kilometers (279,617 miles) from the sun.
1966 – Aberfan disaster: A slag heap collapses on the village of Aberfan in Wales, killing 144 people, mostly schoolchildren.
1967 – Vietnam War: More than 100,000 war protesters gather in Washington, D.C.. A peaceful rally at the Lincoln Memorial is followed by a march to The Pentagon and clashes with soldiers and United States Marshals protecting the facility. Similar demonstrations occurred simultaneously in Japan and Western Europe.
1969 – A coup d'état in Somalia brings Siad Barre to power and establishes a socialist republic in Somalia.
1977 – The European Patent Institute is founded.
1978 – Australian civilian pilot Frederick Valentich vanishes in a Cessna 182 over the Bass Strait south of Melbourne, after reporting contact with an unidentified aircraft.
1979 – Moshe Dayan resigns from the Israeli government because of strong disagreements with Prime Minister Menachem Begin over policy towards the Arabs.
1981 – Andreas Papandreou becomes Prime Minister of Greece, ending an almost 50-year long system of power dominated by conservative forces.
1987 – Jaffna hospital massacre is carried out by Indian Peace Keeping Force in Sri Lanka killing 70 ethnic Tamil patients, doctors and nurses.
1994 – North Korea nuclear weapons program: North Korea and the United States sign an agreement that requires North Korea to stop its nuclear weapons program and agree to inspections.
1994 – In Seoul, 32 people are killed when the Seongsu Bridge collapses.
2005 – Images of the dwarf planet Eris are taken and subsequently used in documenting its discovery by the team of Michael E. Brown, Chad Trujillo, and David L. Rabinowitz.
2012 – A shooting at a spa in Brookfield, Wisconsin, leaves four people dead, including the shooter.
2013 – Record smog closes schools, roadways, and the airport in Harbin, China.

Monday, 20 October 2014

Today in History. Jacqueline Kennedy marries Aristotle Onassis.

October 20 is the 293rd day of the year. There are 72 days remaining until the end of the year.

Jacqueline Kennedy in India, 1962.jpg
Jacqueline Lee Kennedy Onassis

Today's Highlight in History: 1968 – Former First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy marries Greek shipping tycoon Aristotle Onassis.


Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis (July 28, 1929 – May 19, 1994) was the wife of the 35th President of the United States, John F. Kennedy, and First Lady of the United States during his presidency from 1961 until his assassination in 1963. Five years later she married Greek shipping magnate Aristotle Onassis; they remained married until his death in 1975.

Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis worked as a book editor the final two decades of her life . She is remembered for her contributions to the arts and preservation of historic architecture. She was a fashion icon; her famous ensemble of pink Chanel suit and matching pillbox hat has become symbolic of her husband's assassination and one of the lasting images of the 1960s


Aristotle Onassis

Onassis married Jacqueline Kennedy, widow of U.S. President John F. Kennedy, on October 20, 1968. They married on Onassis' privately owned island, Skorpios.According to Peter Evans, Onassis offered Mrs. Kennedy US$3 million to replace her Kennedy trust fund, which she would lose when she remarried. After Onassis' death, she would receive a settlement of US$26 million; US$150,000 each year for the rest of her life. The whole marital contract was discussed with Ted Kennedy and later reviewed by André Meyer, her financial consultant.
.Wikipedia



World Events

1818 – The Convention of 1818 signed between the United States and the United Kingdom which, among other things, settles the Canada–United States border on the 49th parallel for most of its length.
1873 – Yale, Princeton, Columbia, and Rutgers universities draft the first code of American football rules.
1883 – Peru and Chile sign the Treaty of Ancón, by which the Tarapacá province is ceded to the latter, bringing an end to Peru's involvement in the War of the Pacific.
1904 – Chile and Bolivia sign the Treaty of Peace and Friendship, delimiting the border between the two countries.
1910 – The hull of the RMS Olympic, sister-ship to the ill-fated RMS Titanic, is launched from the Harland and Wolff shipyard in Belfast, Northern Ireland.
1935 – The Long March, a mammoth retreat undertaken by the armed forces of the Chinese Communist Party a year prior, ends.
1939 – Pope Pius XII publishes his first major encyclical entitled Summi Pontificatus.
1944 – Liquid natural gas leaks from storage tanks in Cleveland, then explodes; the explosion and resulting fire level 30 blocks and kill 130.
1944 – American general Douglas MacArthur fulfills his promise to return to the Philippines when he commands an Allied assault on the islands, reclaiming them from the Japanese during the Second World War.
1946 – Government of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam decides that the 20th October is Vietnam Women's Day.
1947 – The House Un-American Activities Committee begins its investigation into Communist infiltration of Hollywood, resulting in a blacklist that prevents some from working in the industry for years.
1947 – United States of America and Islamic Republic of Pakistan establish diplomatic relations for the first time.
1952 – Governor Evelyn Baring declares a state of emergency in Kenya and begins arresting hundreds of suspected leaders of the Mau Mau Uprising, including Jomo Kenyatta, the future first President of Kenya.
1961 – The Soviet Union performs the first armed test of a submarine-launched ballistic missile, launching an R-13 from a Golf-class submarine.
1968 – Former First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy marries Greek shipping tycoon Aristotle Onassis.
1970 – Siad Barre declares Somalia a socialist state.
1971 – The Nepal Stock Exchange collapses.
1973 – "Saturday Night Massacre": United States President Richard Nixon fires U.S. Attorney General Elliot Richardson and Deputy Attorney General William Ruckelshaus after they refuse to fire Watergate special prosecutor Archibald Cox, who is finally fired by Robert Bork.
1973 – The Sydney Opera House opens.
1977 – Rock band Lynyrd Skynyrd's plane crashes.
1981 – Two police officers and an armored car guard are killed during an armed robbery in Rockland County, New York, carried out by members of the Black Liberation Army and Weather Underground.
1982 – During the UEFA Cup match between FC Spartak Moscow and HFC Haarlem, 66 people are crushed to death in the Luzhniki disaster.
1991 – A 6.8 Mw earthquake strikes the Uttarkashi region of India, killing more than 1,000 people.
2011 – Libyan Civil War: National Transitional Council rebel forces capture ousted Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi in his hometown of Sirte and kill him shortly thereafter.

Friday, 17 October 2014

Today in History October 17- Mother Teresa awarded the Nobel Peace Prize



October 17 is the 290th day of the year. There are 75 days remaining until the end of the year
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Blessed Teresa of Calcutta, M.C.


Today's Highlight in History; 1979 – Mother Teresa awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

Blessed Teresa of Calcutta, M.C., commonly known as Mother Teresa (26 August 1910 – 5 September 1997), was a Roman Catholic Religious Sister and missionary of Albanian origin who lived for most of her life in India.

Mother Teresa founded the Missionaries of Charity, a Roman Catholic religious congregation, which in 2012 consisted of over 4,500 sisters and is active in 133 countries. They run hospices and homes for people with HIV/AIDS, leprosy and tuberculosis; soup kitchens; dispensaries and mobile clinics; children's and family counselling programmes; orphanages; and schools. Members of the institute must adhere to the vows of chastity, poverty and obedience, and the fourth vow, to give "wholehearted free service to the poorest of the poor".

Mother Teresa was the recipient of numerous honours including the 1979 Nobel Peace Prize. In 2003, she was beatified as "Blessed Teresa of Calcutta". A second miracle credited to her intercession is required before she can be recognised as a saint by the Catholic Church.

President Ronald Reagan presents Mother Teresa with the
 
Presidential Medal of Freedom at a White House ceremony, 1985
A controversial figure both during her life and after her death, Mother Teresa was widely admired by many for her charitable works, but also widely criticised, particularly for her efforts opposing contraception and for substandard conditions in the hospices for which she was responsible.
Missionaries of Charity's Mother House
(Headquarters) in Kolkata


Mother Teresa suffered a heart attack in Rome in 1983, while visiting Pope John Paul II. After a second attack in 1989, she received an artificial pacemaker. In 1991, after a battle with pneumonia while in Mexico, she suffered further heart problems. She offered to resign her position as head of the Missionaries of Charity, but the sisters of the congregation, in a secret ballot, voted for her to stay. Mother Teresa agreed to continue her work as head of the congregation.




In April 1996, Mother Teresa fell and broke her collar bone. In August she suffered from malaria and failure of the left heart ventricle. She had heart surgery but it was clear that her health was declining. The Archbishop of Calcutta, Henry Sebastian D'Souza, said he ordered a priest to perform an exorcism on Mother Teresa with her permission when she was first hospitalised with cardiac problems because he thought she may be under attack by the devil.

On 13 March 1997, she stepped down from the head of Missionaries of Charity. She died on 5 September 1997.
-Wikipedia



World Events



1806 – Former leader of the Haitian Revolution, Emperor Jacques I of Haiti is assassinated after an oppressive rule.
1888 – Thomas Edison files a patent for the Optical Phonograph (the first movie).
1917 – First British bombing of Germany in World War I.
1919 – RCA is incorporated as the Radio Corporation of America.
1931 – Al Capone convicted of income tax evasion.
1933 – Albert Einstein flees Nazi Germany and moves to the United States.
1941 – For the first time in World War II, a German submarine attacks an American ship.
1941 – German troops execute the male population of the villages Kerdyllia in Serres, Greece.
1943 – Burma Railway (Burma–Thailand Railway) is completed.
1943 – The Holocaust: Sobibór extermination camp is closed.
1945 – Archbishop Damaskinos of Athens becomes Prime Minister of Greece between the pull-out of the German occupation force in 1944 and the return of King Georgios II to Greece.
1956 – The first commercial nuclear power station is officially opened by Queen Elizabeth II in Sellafield,in Cumbria, England.
1961 – Scores of Algerian protesters (some claim up to 400) are massacred by the Paris police at the instigation of former Nazi collaborator Maurice Papon, then chief of the Prefecture of Police.
1965 – The 1964–65 New York World's Fair closes after a two-year run. More than 51 million people had attended the event.
1966 – A fire at a building in New York City kills 12 firefighters, the fire department's deadliest day until the September 11, 2001 attacks.
1966 – Botswana and Lesotho join the United Nations.
1973 – OPEC starts an oil embargo against a number of western countries, considered to have helped Israel in its war against Syria.
1977 – German Autumn: Four days after it is hijacked, Lufthansa Flight 181 lands in Mogadishu, Somalia, where a team of German GSG 9 commandos later rescues all remaining hostages on board.
1979 – Mother Teresa awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
1979 – The Department of Education Organization Act is signed into law creating the US Department of Education and US Department of Health and Human Services.
1980 – As part of the Holy See–United Kingdom relations a British monarch makes the first state visit to the Vatican
1989 – 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake (7.1 on the Richter scale) hits the San Francisco Bay Area and causes 57 deaths directly (and 6 indirectly).
1992 – Having gone to the wrong house for a Halloween party, Japanese exchange student Yoshihiro Hattori is shot and killed by the homeowner in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.
1994 – Russian journalist Dmitry Kholodov is assassinated while investigating corruption in the armed forces.
2000 – Train crash at Hatfield, north of London, leading to collapse of Railtrack.
2001 – Israeli tourism minister Rehavam Ze'evi became the first Israeli minister to be assassinated in a terrorist attack.
2003 – The pinnacle is fitted on the roof of Taipei 101, a 101-floor skyscraper in Taipei, allowing it to surpass the Petronas Twin Towers in Kuala Lumpur by 56 metres (184 ft) and become the world's tallest highrise.

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