Welcome to a Hump Day (“Ngày bướu” in Vietnamese): Wednesday, January 17, 2024. This will be a curtailed post, as PCC(E) is travelling.
Readers are welcome to mark notable events, births, or deaths on this by consulting the January 17 Wikipedia page.
Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili is a wise cat:
Hili: I have a feeling that the world has gone crazy.
A: Is it visible from your place as well?
In Polish:
Hili: Mam wrażenie, że świat zwariował.
Ja: Z twojego miejsca też to widać?
*******************
From Stacy:
On this day:
1362 – Saint Marcellus’ flood kills at least 25,000 people on the shores of the North Sea.
1524 – Giovanni da Verrazzano sets sail westward from Madeira to find a sea route to the Pacific Ocean.
1562 – France grants religious toleration to the Huguenots in the Edict of Saint-Germain.
1608 – Emperor Susenyos I of Ethiopia surprises an Oromo army at Ebenat; his army reportedly kills 12,000 Oromo at the cost of 400 of his men.
1648 – England’s Long Parliament passes the “Vote of No Addresses”, breaking off negotiations with King Charles I and thereby setting the scene for the second phase of the English Civil War.
1773 – Captain James Cook leads the first expedition to sail south of the Antarctic Circle.
1904 – Anton Chekhov’s The Cherry Orchard receives its premiere performance at the Moscow Art Theatre.
1912 – British polar explorer Captain Robert Falcon Scott reaches the South Pole, one month after Roald Amundsen.
1917 – The United States pays Denmark $25 million for the Virgin Islands.
1920 – Alcohol Prohibition begins in the United States as the Volstead Act goes into effect.
1944 – World War II: Allied forces launch the first of four assaults on Monte Cassino with the intention of breaking through the Winter Line and seizing Rome, an effort that would ultimately take four months and cost 105,000 Allied casualties.
1945 – World War II: The Vistula–Oder Offensive forces German troops out of Warsaw.
1945 – The SS-Totenkopfverbände begin the evacuation of the Auschwitz concentration camp as the Red Army closes in.
1945 – Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg is taken into Soviet custody while in Hungary; he is never publicly seen again.
1946 – The UN Security Council holds its first session.
1950 – United Nations Security Council Resolution 79 relating to arms control is adopted.
1961 – U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower delivers a televised farewell address to the nation three days before leaving office, in which he warns against the accumulation of power by the “military–industrial complex” as well as the dangers of massive spending, especially deficit spending.
1961 – Former Congolese Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba is murdered in circumstances suggesting the support and complicity of the governments of Belgium and the United States.
1966 – Palomares incident: A B-52 bomber collides with a KC-135 Stratotanker over Spain, killing seven airmen, and dropping three 70-kiloton nuclear bombs near the town of Palomares and another one into the sea.
1969 – Black Panther Party members Bunchy Carter and John Huggins are killed during a meeting in Campbell Hall on the campus of UCLA.
1977 – Capital punishment in the United States resumes after a ten-year hiatus, as convicted murderer Gary Gilmore is executed by firing squad in Utah.
1991 – Gulf War: Operation Desert Storm begins early in the morning as aircraft strike positions across Iraq, it is also the first major combat sortie for the F-117. LCDR Scott Speicher’s F/A-18C Hornet from VFA-81 is shot down by a Mig-25 and is the first American casualty of the War. Iraq fires eight Scud missiles into Israel in an unsuccessful bid to provoke Israeli retaliation.
1992 – During a visit to South Korea, Japanese Prime Minister Kiichi Miyazawa apologizes for forcing Korean women into sexual slavery during World War II.
1998 – Clinton–Lewinsky scandal: Matt Drudge breaks the story of the Bill Clinton–Monica Lewinsky affair on his Drudge Report website.
2007 – The Doomsday Clock is set to five minutes to midnight in response to North Korea’s nuclear testing.
2010 – Rioting begins between Muslim and Christian groups in Jos, Nigeria, results in at least 200 deaths.
2013 – Former cyclist Lance Armstrong confesses to his doping in an airing of Oprah’s Next Chapter.
2016 – President Barack Obama announces the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action.
2017 – The search for Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 is announced to be suspended.
Births:
1574 – Robert Fludd, English physician, astrologer, and mathematician (d. 1637).
1706 – Benjamin Franklin, American publisher, inventor, and politician, 6th President of Pennsylvania (d. 1790).
1814 – Ellen Wood, English author (d. 1887). [Best remembered for her 1861 novel East Lynne. Many of her books sold well internationally and were widely read in the United States. In her time, she surpassed Charles Dickens in fame in Australia.]
1820 – Anne Brontë, English author and poet (d. 1849).
1834 – August Weismann, German biologist, zoologist, and geneticist (d. 1914).
1853 – Alva Belmont, American suffragist (d. 1933). [Today’s Woman of the Day, see next post below.]
1863 – David Lloyd George, Welsh lawyer and politician, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (d. 1945).
1867 – Carl Laemmle, German-born American film producer, co-founded Universal Studios (d. 1939).
1877 – Marie Zdeňka Baborová-Čiháková, Czech botanist and zoologist (d. 1937).
1877 – May Gibbs, English-Australian author and illustrator (d. 1969).
1880 – Mack Sennett, Canadian-American actor, director, and producer (d. 1960).
1882 – Noah Beery, Sr., American actor (d. 1946).
1883 – Compton Mackenzie, English-Scottish author, poet, and playwright (d. 1972).
1899 – Al Capone, American mob boss (d. 1947).
1899 – Nevil Shute, English engineer and author (d. 1960).
1905 – Peggy Gilbert, American saxophonist and bandleader (d. 2007).
1907 – Alfred Wainwright, British fellwalker, guidebook author and illustrator (d. 1991).
1922 – Betty White, American actress, game show panelist, television personality, and animal rights activist (d. 2021).
1927 – Eartha Kitt, American actress and singer (d. 2008).
1928 – Vidal Sassoon, English-American hairdresser and businessman (d. 2012).
1931 – James Earl Jones, American actor.
1933 – Shari Lewis, American actress, puppeteer/ventriloquist, and television host (d. 1998). [As a kid I used to love Lamb Chop.]
1942 – Muhammad Ali, American boxer and activist (d. 2016).
1944 – Ann Oakley, English sociologist, author, and academic.
1945 – Anne Cutler, Australian psychologist and academic (d. 2022).
1949 – Anita Borg, American computer scientist and academic (d. 2003).
1949 – Andy Kaufman, American actor and comedian (d. 1984).
1949 – Mick Taylor, English singer-songwriter and guitarist.
1954 – Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., American environmental lawyer, writer, and conspiracy theorist.
1955 – Steve Earle, American singer-songwriter, musician, record producer, author and actor.
1956 – Paul Young, English singer-songwriter and guitarist.
1959 – Susanna Hoffs, American singer-songwriter, guitarist, and actress.
1962 – Jim Carrey, Canadian-American actor, comedian, and producer.
1964 – Michelle Obama, American lawyer and activist, 44th First Lady of the United States.
1967 – Richard Hawley, English singer-songwriter, guitarist, and producer.
1971 – Kid Rock, American singer-songwriter, producer, and actor.
1980 – Zooey Deschanel, American singer-songwriter and actress.
Death’s an old joke, but each individual encounters it anew. (Ivan Turgenev):
1456 – Elisabeth of Lorraine-Vaudémont, French translator (b. 1395).
1705 – John Ray, English botanist and historian (b. 1627).
1850 – Elizabeth Simcoe, English-Canadian painter and author (b. 1762).
1861 – Lola Montez, Irish actress and dancer (b. 1821).
1884 – Hermann Schlegel, German ornithologist and herpetologist (b. 1804).
1888 – Big Bear, Canadian tribal chief (b. 1825).
1896 – Augusta Hall, Baroness Llanover, Welsh writer and patron of the arts (b. 1802).
1911 – Francis Galton, English polymath, anthropologist, and geographer (b. 1822).
1927 – Juliette Gordon Low, American founder of the Girl Scouts of the USA (b. 1860).
1930 – Gauhar Jaan, One of the first performers to record music on 78 rpm records in India. (b. 1873).
1970 – Billy Stewart, American rhythm and blues singer and pianist (b. 1937).
1972 – Betty Smith, American author and playwright (b. 1896).
1996 – Sylvia Lawler, English geneticist (b. 1922). [The anniversary of her birth was noted here on Monday.]
2007 – Art Buchwald, American journalist and author (b. 1925).
2008 – Bobby Fischer, American chess player and author (b. 1943).
2017 – Colo, American western lowland gorilla, first gorilla born in captivity and oldest recorded (b. 1956).
2020 – Derek Fowlds, British actor (b.1937).
2023 – Lucile Randon, French supercentenarian (b. 1904).
Woman of the Day:
[From Wikipedia]
Alva Erskine Belmont (née Smith; born on this day in January 17, 1853, died January 26, 1933), known as Alva Vanderbilt from 1875 to 1896, was an American multi-millionaire socialite and women’s suffrage activist. She was noted for her energy, intelligence, strong opinions, and willingness to challenge convention.
In 1909, she founded the Political Equality League to get votes for suffrage-supporting New York State politicians, wrote articles for newspapers, and joined the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA). She later formed her own Political Equality League to seek broad support for suffrage in neighborhoods throughout New York City, and, as its president, led its division of New York City’s 1912 Women’s Votes Parade. In 1916, she was one of the founders of the National Woman’s Party (NWP) and organized the first picketing ever to take place before the White House, in January 1917. She was elected president of the NWP, an office she held until her death.
She was married twice, to socially prominent New York City millionaires William Kissam Vanderbilt, with whom she had three children, and Oliver Hazard Perry Belmont. Alva was known for her many building projects, including: the Petit Chateau in New York; the Marble House in Newport, Rhode Island; the Belmont House in New York; Brookholt in Long Island; and Beacon Towers in Sands Point, New York.
On “Equal Pay Day,” April 12, 2016, Belmont was honored when President Barack Obama established the Belmont-Paul Women’s Equality National Monument in Washington, D.C.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alva_Belmont
Oh, for Eisenhower Republicans again!
Here’s another quote from the General:
“I hate war as only a soldier who has lived it can, only as one who has seen its brutality, its futility, its stupidity.”
Address before the Canadian Club, Ottawa, Canada, 1/10/46
A month or so ago I heard on some podcast that initially Eisenhower intended to give a “military-industrial-CONGRESSIONAL” farewell address, but cut off “congressional” as it occured to him there were still a couple of bills he wanted Congress to pass and he didn’t want to alienate any of those non-self-interested souls.
JezGrove.
Thank you for the “on this day” and the “ Woman of this day” as ever very interesting and informative.
Thanks, Robert – I’m learning a lot through preparing the posts.
+1
If anyone needs more proof that 45 is a mob boss (I don’t use his name for the same reason I’ve never spoken the name of John Lennon’s assassin), the judge in the E. Jean Carroll case is telling jurors not to use their own names and not tell family and friends that they’re jurors. It’s ironic that this is the anniversary of Al Capone’s birth.
This morning I saw online video of pure-as-the-driven-snow 45 referring to that “nasty judge.”
There are surely not a few 45-ers who support 45 mainly because they secretly wish that they could similarly misbehave and get away with it like their idol.
Clever 9-year-old