1986 Japan auto making goes to Europe
^top^
Continuing its enormous expansion of the 1970s and early 80s, the
Nissan Motor Company Ltd. opened its Sunderland, England, plant, the
first Japanese automobile factory in Europe. Established in 1933 as
the Jidosha Seizo Company, Nissan remained a mid-size automobile manufacturer
until it entered the world market in the 1960s, when its sales grew
by leaps and bounds. Nissan, as well as several other Japanese manufacturers,
continued to grow through the next decade, propelled by the increasing
popularity of their fuel-efficient cars. Nissan eventually opened
plants in Australia, Peru, Mexico, the United States, and Germany.
|
1975 Boston begins court ordered busing of public schools
1974 Ford pardons Nixon.
^top^
US President Gerald R. Ford preemptively pardons Richard M. Nixon
for any crimes he may have committed or participated in while in office.
Ford would later defend this action before the House Judiciary Committee,
explaining that he wanted to end the national divisions created by
the Watergate affair.
On 17 June
1972, seven men, including two members of the Nixon reelection campaign,
were arrested for breaking into and illegally wiretapping the Democratic
National Committee headquarters in Washington DC's Watergate Hotel.
Journalists and the Senate Select Committee on Presidential Campaign
Activities discovered a higher-echelon conspiracy surrounding the
incident, and a political scandal of unprecedented magnitude erupted.
On 17 May 1973, the special Senate
committee began televised proceedings on the rapidly escalating Watergate
affair, and one week later, Harvard law professor Archibald Cox was
sworn in as special Watergate prosecutor. During the Senate hearings,
former White House legal counsel John Dean testified that the Watergate
break-in had been approved by former Attorney General John Mitchell
with the knowledge of chief White House advisers John Ehrlichman and
H. R. Haldeman, and that the president had been aware of the cover-up.
Meanwhile, Cox and his staff began
to uncover widespread evidence of political espionage by CREEP, the
Nixon reelection committee, illegal wiretapping of thousands of citizens
by the administration, and corporate contributions to the Republican
Party in return for political favors. In July, the existence of what
were to be called the Watergate tapes, recordings of White House conversations
between Nixon and his staff, was revealed during the Senate hearings.
Cox subpoenaed these tapes, and after three months of delay, President
Nixon agreed to send summaries of the recordings. Cox rejected the
summaries, and Nixon fired him.
His successor as special prosecutor, Leon Jaworski, leveled indictments
against several high-ranking administration officials, including Mitchell
and Dean, who were duly convicted. Public confidence in the president
rapidly waned, and by July 30, 1974, the day that Nixon finally released
the Watergate tapes under coercion from the US Supreme Court, the
House Judiciary Committee had adopted three articles of impeachment
against President Nixon: obstruction of justice, abuse of presidential
powers, and hindrance of the impeachment process. On 09 August 1974,
Richard M. Nixon became the first president in US history to resign
from office. |
1967 Uganda abolishes traditional tribal kingdoms, becomes
a republic
1960 Penguin Books in Britain is charged
with obscenity for trying to publish the D.H. Lawrence novel Lady Chatterly's
Lover.
1958 Oman turns over Gwadur (on Balufchistan
coast) to Pakistan
1957 Pope Pius XII encyclical
On motion pictures, radio, TV
1955 The
United States, Australia, France, Great Britain, New Zealand, the Philippines,
Pakistan, and Thailand sign the mutual defense treaty that establishes the
Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO).
1954 Vietnam:
1954 SEATO established ^top^
Having been directed by President Dwight
D. Eisenhower to put together an alliance to contain any communist
aggression in the free territories of Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia,
or Southeast Asia in general, Secretary of State John Foster Dulles
forges an agreement establishing a military alliance that becomes
the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO). Signatories, including
France, Great Britain, Australia, New Zealand, the Philippines, Pakistan,
Thailand, and the United States, pledge themselves to “act to meet
the common danger” in the event of aggression against any signatory
state. A separate protocol to SEATO designated Laos, Cambodia, and
“the free territory under the jurisdiction of the State of Vietnam
[South Vietnam]” as also being areas subject to the provisions of
the treaty.
The language of the treaty did not
go as far as the absolute mutual defense commitments and force structure
of the NATO alliance, instead providing only for consultations in
case of aggression against a signatory or protocol state before any
combined actions were initiated. This lack of an agreement that would
have compelled a combined military response to aggression significantly
weakened SEATO as a military alliance. It was, however, used as legal
basis for US involvement in South Vietnam. SEATO expired on 30 June
1977 |
1953 Continental Trailways offers the first transcontinental
express bus service in the US The 5076 km ride from New York City to San
Francisco lasts eighty-eight hours and fifty minutes, of which only seventy-seven
minutes are non-riding time. The cost is $56.70. Nowadays, Greyhound charges
$131.
1951 Japan signs treaty of peace with 48 countries,
in San Francisco.
1950 The US Congress passes the
Defense Production Act to adjust the economy to the Korean "police
action". It includes wage and price controls.
1945 American troops occupy southern Korea.
^top^
US troops land in Korea to begin their postwar occupation of the southern
part of that nation, almost exactly one month after Soviet troops
had entered northern Korea to begin their own occupation. Although
the US and Soviet occupations were supposed to be temporary, the division
of Korea quickly became permanent. Korea had been a Japanese possession
since the early 20th century. During World War II, the allies —
the United States, Soviet Union, China, and Great Britain — made
a somewhat hazy agreement that
Korea should become an independent country following the war. As the
war progressed, US officials began to press the Soviets to enter the
war against Japan. At the Yalta Conference in February 1945, Soviet
leader Joseph Stalin pledged that his nation would declare war on
Japan exactly three months after Nazi Germany was defeated. A few
months later, at the Potsdam Conference in July and August 1945, it
was agreed that Soviet troops would occupy the northern portion of
Korea, while American forces would take a similar action in southern
Korea in order to secure the area and liberate it from Japanese control.
The occupations would be temporary, and Korea would eventually decide
its own political future, though no date was set for the end of the
US and Soviet occupations. On August 8, the Soviets declared war on
Japan. On August 9, Soviet forces invaded northern Korea. A few days
later, Japan surrendered. Keeping to their part of the bargain, US
forces entered southern Korea on 08 September 1945.
Over the next few years, the situation in Korea steadily worsened.
A civil war between communist and nationalist forces in southern Korea
resulted in thousands of people killed and wounded. The Soviets steadfastly
refused to consider any plans for the reunification of Korea. The
United States reacted by setting up a government in South Korea, headed
by Syngman Rhee. The Soviets established a communist regime in North
Korea, under the leadership of Kim Il-Sung. In 1948, the United States
again offered to hold national elections, but the Soviets refused
the offer. Elections were held in South Korea, and Rhee's government
received a popular mandate. The Soviets refused to recognize Rhee's
government, though, and insisted that Kim Il-Sung was the true leader
of all Korea.
Having secured
the establishment of a communist government in North Korea, Soviet
troops withdrew in 1948; and US troops in South Korea followed suit
in 1949. In 1950, the North Koreans attempted to reunite the nation
by force and launched a massive military assault on South Korea. The
United States quickly came to the aid of South Korea, beginning a
three-year involvement in the bloody and frustrating Korean War. Korea
remains a divided nation today, and the North Korean regime is one
of the few remaining communist governments left in the world. |
1944 Germany's V-2 offensive against England begins
^
1943 Italy's surrender made public
Gen. Dwight Eisenhower publicly
announces the surrender of Italy to the Allies, secretly agreed to
on 03 September, hours before the British Eighth Army began the Allied
invasion of the Italian peninsula, when the Italian military had signed
the surrender document in Sicily.
With Mussolini deposed from power and the earlier collapse of the
fascist government in July, General Pietro Badoglio, the man who had
assumed power in Mussolini's stead by request of King Victor Emanuel,
began negotiating with General Eisenhower for weeks. Weeks later,
Badoglio finally approved a conditional surrender, allowing the Allies
to land in southern Italy and begin beating the Germans back up the
peninsula.
Operation Avalanche,
the Allied invasion of Italy, was given the go-ahead, and the next
day would see Allied troops land in Salerno.
Ever since Mussolini had begun to falter, Hitler had been making plans
to invade Italy to keep the Allies from gaining a foothold that would
situate them within easy reach of the German-occupied Balkans. On
08 September Hitler launches Operation Axis, the occupation of Italy.
As German troops enter Rome, General Badoglio and the royal family
flee Rome for southeastern Italy to set up a new antifascist government.
Italian troops began surrendering
to their former German allies. Where they resisted, as had happened
earlier in Greece, they were slaughtered (1646 Italian soldiers were
murdered by Germans on the Greek island of Cephalonia, and the 5000
that finally surrendered were ultimately shot).
One of the goals of Operation Axis was to keep Italian navy vessels
out of the hands of the Allies. When the Italian battleship Roma
headed for an Allied-controlled port in North Africa, it was sunk
by German bombers. The Roma was the first ship ever sunk
by a radio-controlled guided missile. More than 1500 crewmen drowned.
The Germans also scrambled to move Allied POWs to labor camps in Germany
in order to prevent their escape. In fact, many POWS did manage to
escape before the German invasion, and several hundred volunteered
to stay in Italy to fight alongside the Italian guerillas in the north.
On 13 September, Nazi commandos rescue
Fascist leader Benito Mussolini [29 Jul 1883 – 28 April 1945]
from his prison in the Abruzzi Mountains. Ten days later, Mussolini
proclaims the Italian Social Republic, with its headquarters in northern
Italy.
On 13 October, the Italian
government, refusing to recognize Mussolini's puppet state, would
declare war against Nazi Germany. Since the beginning of the war,
the Italian Resistance visibly opposed Italy's Fascist regime and
its cooperation with the Nazis, organizing mountain guerilla units,
workers' strikes, and industrial sabotages. The Resistance gained
momentum after a government coup toppled Mussolini, and during the
Allied liberation, soldiers of the Resistance provided invaluable
aid to Allied troops. |
^
1943 US forces seize more of New Guinea
Gen. Douglas MacArthur's 503rd Parachute
Regiment land and occupy Nazdab, just east of Lae, a port city in
northeastern Papua New Guinea, situating them perfectly for future
operations on the islands. New Guinea had been occupied by the Japanese
since March 1942. Raids by Allied forces early on were met with tremendous
ferocity, and they were often beaten back by the Japanese occupiers.
Much of the Allied response was led
by forces from Australia, as they were most threatened by the presence
of the Japanese in that sphere. The tide began to turn in December
1942, as the Australians recaptured Buna—but despite numerical superiority,
the Japanese continued to hang on, fighting to keep every square mile
they had captured. Many Japanese committed suicide, swimming out to
sea, rather than be taken prisoner.
In January 1943, the Americans joined the Aussies in assaults on Sanananda,
which resulted in huge losses for the Japanese—7000 killed—and the
first land defeat of the war. As Japanese reinforcements raced for
the next Allied targets, Lae and Salamauam, in March, 137 American
bombers destroyed the Japanese transport vessels, drowning 3500 Japanese,
as well as their much-needed fuel and spare parts. On 08 September
almost 2000 American and Australian Airborne Division parachutists
landed and seized Nazdab, which held a valuable airfield. The Allies
quickly established a functioning airstrip and prepared to take the
port city of Lae, one more step in MacArthur's strategy to recapture
New Guinea and the Solomons—and eventually go back for the Philippines.
|
^
1941 Siege of Leningrad begins.
Nazi Germany's siege of Leningrad would
last 900 days. Some citizens were forced to subsist on bread made
from sawdust while others worked through the winter in makeshift military
factories without heat. Although many perished from starvation, bombings,
and the cold, the city's determined resistance held the German troops
at bay and helped turn the tide of World War II. When the siege finally
ended in January of 1944, Leningrad's population had been reduced
from 2'500'000 to 600'000.
During
World War II, German forces begin their siege of Leningrad, a major
industrial center and the USSR's second-largest city. The German armies
were later joined by Finnish forces that advanced against Leningrad
down the Karelian Isthmus. The siege of Leningrad, also known as the
900-Day Siege though it lasted a grueling 872 days, and resulted in
the deaths of some one million of the city's civilians and Red Army
defenders.
Leningrad, formerly
St. Petersburg, capital of the Russian Empire, was one of the initial
targets of the German invasion of June 1941. As German armies raced
across the western Soviet Union, three-quarters of Leningrad's industrial
plants and hundreds of thousands of its inhabitants were evacuated
to the east. More than two million residents remained, however, and
the evacuated were replaced by refugees who fled to Leningrad ahead
of the German advance. All able-bodied persons in the city —
men, women, and children — were enlisted to build antitank fortifications
along Leningrad's edge. By the end of July, German forces had cut
the Moscow-Leningrad railway and were penetrating the outer belt of
the fortifications around Leningrad. On 08 September German forces
besieged the city, but they were held at bay by Leningrad's fortifications
and its 200'000 Red Army defenders. That day, a German air bombardment
set fire to warehouses containing a large part of Leningrad's scant
food supply.
Aiming to tighten
the noose around Leningrad, the Germans launched an offensive to the
east in October and cut off the last highways and rail lines south
of the city. Meanwhile, Finnish forces advanced down the Karelian
Isthmus (which had been seized from Finland by the Soviets during
the Russo-Finnish War of 1939 to 1940) and besieged Leningrad from
the north. By early November, the city was almost completely encircled,
and only across Lake Ladoga was a supply lifeline possible.
German artillery and air bombardments
came several times a day during the first months of the siege. The
daily ration for civilians was reduced to 125 grams of bread, no more
than a thick slice. Starvation set in by December, followed by the
coldest winter in decades, with temperatures falling to -40 degrees
Fahrenheit. People worked through the winter in makeshift armament
factories without roofs, building the weapons that kept the Germans
just short of victory.
Residents
burned books and furniture to stay warm and searched for food to supplement
their scarce rations. Animals from the city zoo were consumed early
in the siege, followed before long by household pets. Wallpaper paste
made from potatoes was scraped off the wall, and leather was boiled
to produce an edible jelly. Grass and weeds were cooked, and scientists
worked to extract vitamins from pine needles and tobacco dust. Hundreds,
perhaps thousands, resorted to cannibalizing the dead, and in a few
cases people were murdered for their flesh. The Leningrad police struggled
to keep order and formed a special division to combat cannibalism.
Across frozen Lake Ladoga, trucks made
it to Leningrad with supplies, but not enough. Thousands of residents,
mostly children and the elderly, were evacuated across the lake, but
many more remained in the city and succumbed to starvation, the bitter
cold, and the relentless German air attacks. In 1942 alone, the siege
claimed some 600'000 lives. In the summer, barges and other ships
braved German air attack to cross Lake Ladoga to Leningrad with supplies.
In January 1943, Red Army soldiers
broke through the German line, rupturing the blockade and creating
a more efficient supply route along the shores of Lake Ladoga. For
the rest of the winter and then during the next, the "road of life"
across the frozen Lake Ladoga kept Leningrad alive. Eventually, an
oil pipeline and electric cables were laid on the lake bed. In the
summer of 1943, vegetables planted on any open ground in the city
supplemented rations.
In early
1944, Soviet forces approached Leningrad, forcing German forces to
retreat southward from the city on January 27. The siege was over.
A giant Soviet offensive to sweep the USSR clean of its invaders began
in May. The 872-day siege of Leningrad cost an estimated one million
Soviet lives, perhaps hundreds of thousands more. The Soviet government
awarded the Order of Lenin to the people of Leningrad in 1945, paying
tribute to their endurance during the grueling siege. The city did
not regain its prewar population of three million until the 1960s.
|
1939 FDR declares "limited national emergency" due to
war in Europe
^
1935 Huey Long is shot.
He
is shot at point-blank range, in the corridor outside the main hall
of the state capitol in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, by Dr. Carl Austin
Weiss, Jr, who is then killed on the spot by Long's bodyguards. Mortally
wounded, Long would die two days later. Apparently Dr. Weiss was avenging
his father-in-law, who had had lost his job as a Louisiana judge,
because he was not part of the Long political machine and Long publicly
slandered him.
Huey Long, nicknamed
the "Kingfish" after a character on the popular Amos 'n' Andy radio
show, and called a demagogue by critics, was a larger-than-life populist
leader who boasted that he bought legislators "like sacks of potatoes,
shuffled them like a deck of cards."
Born on 30 August 1893, Huey Pierce Long had become in 1928 the youngest
governor of Louisiana at age 34. His brash style alienated many people,
including the heads of the biggest corporation in the state, Standard
Oil. Long preached the redistribution of wealth, which he believed
could be done by heavily taxing the rich. One of his early propositions,
which met with much opposition, was an "occupational" tax on oil refineries.
Later, Long would develop these theories into the Share Our Wealth
society, which promised a $2500 minimum income per family.
Long also abolished the state's poll tax on voting and gained free
textbooks for every student. His motto was "Every Man a King." His
populism led to an impeachment attempt, but he successfully defeated
the charges. In 1930, he won the election for US senator but declined
to serve until the successor he picked for governor was elected in
1932.
Soon after vigorously campaigning
for Franklin Roosevelt in 1932, Long, with his own designs on the
office, began loudly denouncing the new president. In response, many
of his allies in the Louisiana legislature turned against him and
would no longer vote for his candidates. In an effort to regain power
in the state, Long managed to pass a series of laws giving him control
over the appointment of every public position in the state, including
every policeman and schoolteacher. |
1930 NYC public schools begin teaching Hebrew
1928
Pius XI issues the encyclical Rerum
Orientalium, promoting study of the history, doctrine and liturgy
of Eastern Orthodoxy. He recommends that priests apply themselves to special
studies at the Oriental Institute in Rome, founded in 1917 by Benedict XV.
1925 Germany is admitted into the League of Nations.
1920 US Air Mail service begins (NYC to SF)
1915
Germany begins a new offensive in Argonne on the Western Front.
1892
1st appearance of "The Pledge of Allegiance" (Youth's Companion)
1864 George McClellan accepts nomination as Democratic
candidate for President
1863 Confederate Lieutenant
Dick Dowling with 47 Texas volunteers thwarts a Union naval landing at Sabine
Pass (Fort Griffin), northeast of Galveston, Texas.
1858
Lincoln makes a speech about when you can fool people
1845
Oxford Movement leader, John Henry Newman, 44, resigns from the
Church of England — convinced that it had severed itself from its ancient
episcopal moorings and true apostolic succession — and became a Roman
Catholic.
1845 A French column surrenders at Sidi
Brahim in the Algerian War
^
1810 The Pacific Fur Company's first ship leaves for
Oregon
The sailing
ship Tonquin leaves New York with 33 employees of Jacob Astor's
new Pacific Fur Company on board. Six months later, the Tonquin would
arrive at the mouth of the Columbia River, where Astor's men establish
the town of Astoria and begin trading for furs with the Indians. Thus
began the first major American involvement in the lucrative far western
fur trade.
During the colonial
era, the powerful British Hudson's Bay Company, along with several
French companies based in Montreal, had dominated the North American
fur trade. But slowly and timidly, Americans began to establish their
own fur companies in the early nineteenth century, particularly after
Thomas Jefferson doubled the size of the United States with the Louisiana
Purchase of 1803, and the Lewis and Clark Expedition (1804-6) reported
that the vast new American territory was rich in beaver. Based on
their explorations, Lewis and Clark suggested that furs could be carried
over the Rockies by horse to the Columbia River and from there shipped
to the Orient more cheaply than the British or French could move furs
eastward to Europe.
Recognizing
a rare business opportunity, the German-born immigrant John Jacob
Astor organized his Pacific Fur Company and dispatched the Tonquin
for the Oregon coast to try and make Lewis and Clark's proposal a
reality. But while the small trading post of Astoria initially quickly
proved a success, the American control of the Pacific Northwest fur
trade did not last. By late 1813, Astor's partners, who were mostly
Canadian, decided to sell out to the British North West Company, and
during the War of 1812 the British Navy took control of Astoria.
With the British temporarily dominating
the region, Astor decided to dissolve the Pacific Fur Company and
focus his efforts on his American Fur Company, an enterprise that
eventually came to control three-quarters of the American fur trade.
Despite the loss of his first Pacific coast outpost at Astoria, Astor's
profits from his American Fur Company, the War of 1812, and large
investments in real estate, eventually made him the wealthiest American
of his day and established one of the great enduring family fortunes.
|
1796 Battle of Bassano — French beat Austrians
1760 Montréal surrendered by the French to the British.
1755 Battle of Lake George: British forces under
William Johnson defeat the French and the Indians..
^
1664 New Amsterdam surrenders to the British.
Dutch Governor Peter Stuyvesant surrenders
New Amsterdam (about 120 houses and 1000 inhabitants), the capital
of New Netherland, to an English naval squadron under Colonel Richard
Nicolls with 300 soldiers. Stuyvesant had hoped to resist the English,
but he was an unpopular ruler, and his Dutch subjects refused to rally
around him. Five years later, New Amsterdam's name was changed to
New York, in honor of the Duke of York, who organized the mission.
The colony of New Netherland was established
by the Dutch West India Company in 1624 and grew to encompass all
of present-day New York City and parts of Long Island, Connecticut,
and New Jersey. A successful Dutch settlement in the colony grew up
on the southern tip of Manhattan Island and was christened New Amsterdam.
To legitimatize Dutch claims to New
Amsterdam, Dutch governor Peter Minuit formally purchased Manhattan
from the local tribe from which it derives it name in 1626. According
to legend, the Manhattans — Indians of Algonquian linguistic
stock — agreed to give up the island in exchange for trinkets
valued at only $24. However, as they were ignorant of European customs
of property and contracts, it was not long before the Manhattans came
into armed conflict with the expanding Dutch settlement at New Amsterdam.
Beginning in 1641, a protracted war was fought between the colonists
and the Manhattans, which resulted in the death of more than 1000
Indians and settlers.
In 1664,
New Amsterdam passed to English control, and English and Dutch settlers
lived together peacefully. In 1673, there was a short interruption
of English rule when the Netherlands temporary regained the settlement.
In 1674, New York was returned to the English, and in 1686 it became
the first city in the colonies to receive a royal charter. After the
US War of Independence, it became the first capital of the United
States. |
1636 Harvard College (later University) is founded by
the Massachusetts Puritans at New Towne. It was the first institution of
higher learning established in North America, and was originally founded
to train future ministers.
1628 John Endecott arrives
with colonists at Salem, Massachusetts, where he will become the governor.
1565 Turkish siege of Malta broken by Maltese and Knights
of Saint John.
1529 Ottoman Sultan Suleiman re-enters
Buda and establishes John Zapolyai as the puppet king of Hungary.
1522 Spanish navigator Juan de Elcano returns to Spain,
completes the first circumnavigation of the globe, expedition begins under
Ferdinand Magellan.
1380 Russians defeat Tatars
at Kulikovo, beginning decline of Tatars.
0070 Following
a six-month siege, Jerusalem surrenders to the 60'000 soldiers of Titus'
Roman army. Over a million Jewish citizens perished in the siege and, following
the city's capture, another 97'000 are sold into slavery.
|
2000
Bureau of Indian Affairs apologizes 
Deaths
