25 Jul History: This Date

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Events, deaths, births, of JUL 25
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ALTERNATE SITES ANY DAY OF THE YEAR IN HISTORY ART “4” JUL 25 wikipedia

On a 25 July:
2002 The stock of electric utility Reliant Energy (REI) is upgraded by Banc of America Securities from Market Perform to Buy. The stock recovers from its 24 July intraday low of $4.23 and close of $5.41 to an intraday high of $8.81 and closes at $8.80. On 23 July it had already plunged from an intraday high of $13.34 to an intraday low of $7.52 and closed at $7.91. REI is still much below its price at any time before July 2002 and its high of $50.02 on 30 April 2001. [3~year price chart >]
2000 The Middle East summit at Camp David collapses.
1999 Mathematician Dr. John Cosgrave, of St. Patrick's College, Dublin, Ireland, announces that he has discovered that the 382'447th Fermat number F382'447, 2ⁿ+ 1 where n is the 115'128-digit number 2^382'447, has the prime factor 3 x 2^382'449 + 1. In August 1640, Fermat [17 Aug 1601 – 12 Jan 1665] had guessed that all the numbers of the form 2ⁿ+ 1 where n is the p^th power of 2 (since called Fermat numbers, Fp), are prime, as he observed to be the case for F0, F1, F2, F3 and F4: 3, 5, 17, 257, 65537, and thought that he had almost proved in general. He was wrong. In 1732 Euler [15 Apr 1707 – 18 Sep 1783] discovered that P5, 2ⁿ+ 1 where n = 2⁵, which is 4'294'967'297, has the prime factorization 641 x 6'700'417. In 1854 Clausen [16 Jan 1801 – 23 May 1885] proved that F6, the 6th Fermat number 2ⁿ+ 1 where n = 2⁶, 18'446'744'073'709'551'617 is not a prime; and on 07 July 1880 Landry [1798–] wrote to Lucas [04 Apr 1842 – 03 Oct 1891] that is the product of 67'280'421'310'721 with the prime 274'177. It was only in 1970 that F7, the 7th Fermat number (2ⁿ+ 1 where n = 2⁷), 340'282'366'920'938'463'463'374'607'431'768'211'457, was prime factorized as (116'503'103'764'643 x 2⁹+ 1) x (11'141'971'095'088'142'685 x 2⁹ + 1) which is 59'649'589'127'497'217 x 5'704'689'200'685'129'054'721, though it had been proved not to be a prime more than 60 years earlier. By the time Cosgraves announces his discovery, no Fermat number has been proved to be a prime beyond the 4th (2ⁿ+ 1 where n = 2⁴ , i.e. 2¹⁶+ 1 = 65'537), but some, all smaller than Cosgrave's, have been proved not to be prime, including all Fp with 4 < p <23 (but no factor of F14, F20, or F22 has yet been found).
1996 AT&T says that it will promote Microsoft's Internet Explorer browser. In return, Microsoft will grant the company access to tens of millions of potential subscribers by building AT&T's Internet provider service into all copies of Windows 95
1994 El rey Hussein de Jordania y el primer ministro israelí, Isaac Rabin, firman en Washington una reconciliación histórica que pone fin a 46 años en estado de guerra entre los dos países. — The Middle East summit at Camp David collapsed.
1991 El Gobierno de Guatemala y la guerrilla suscriben en Querétaro (México) un acuerdo para lograr la democratización del país.
1990 US Ambassador tells Iraq, US won't take sides in Iraq-Kuwait dispute
1989 El diputado socialista español Enrique Barón es elegido presidente del Parlamento Europeo.
1983 1st nonhuman primate (baboon) conceived in a lab dish, San Antonio
1981 Voyager 2 encounters Saturn
1979 Israel devuelve a Egipto 60 km2 de la península del Sinaí.
1979 El Gobierno de Nicaragua nacionaliza la banca y las empresas financieras.
1972 US health officials concede Blacks were used as guinea pigs in unethical 40 year syphillis experiment.

^ 1969 US's Vietnamization policy is announced
     President Richard Nixon, at a briefing in Guam for the news media accompanying him on his trip to Asia, discusses at length the future role the United States should play in Asia and the Pacific region after the conclusion of the Vietnam War. Nixon said that while the United States would continue to have primary responsibility for the defense of its allies against nuclear attack, the noncommunist Asian nations would have to bear the burden of their own defense against conventional attack and assume responsibility for internal security. The president's remarks were nicknamed the "Nixon Doctrine."
      President Richard Nixon announces that henceforth the United States will expect its Asian allies to tend to their own military defense. The Nixon Doctrine, as the president's statement came to be known, clearly indicated his determination to "Vietnamize" the Vietnam War. When Richard Nixon took office in early 1969, the United States had been at war in Vietnam for nearly four years. The bloody conflict had already claimed the lives of more than 25'000 US soldiers and countless Vietnamese. Despite its best efforts, the United States was no closer to victory than before. At home, antiwar protesters were a constant presence in US cities and on college campuses.
      Nixon campaigned in 1968 with the promise of "peace with honor" in Vietnam. In July 1969, an important part of his plan for Vietnam became evident. During a stopover in Guam during a multination tour, the president issued a statement. It was time, he declared, for the United States to be "quite emphatic on two points" in dealing with its Asian allies. First, he assured the US's friends in Asia that "We will keep our treaty commitments." However, "as far as the problems of military defense, except for the threat of a major power involving nuclear weapons," the United States would be adopting a different stance. In relation to military defense, the US would now "encourage and has a right to expect that this problem will be increasingly handled by, and the responsibility for it taken by, the Asian nations themselves." He concluded that his recent talks with several Asian leaders indicated, "They are going to be willing to undertake this responsibility."
      The Nixon Doctrine marked the formal announcement of the president's "Vietnamization" plan, whereby US troops would be slowly withdrawn from the conflict in Southeast Asia and be replaced by South Vietnamese troops. Over the course of his first term in office, Nixon held true to this doctrine by withdrawing a substantial portion of America's fighting forces from Vietnam. In 1973, the United States and North Vietnam signed a peace treaty formally bringing the Vietnam War to a conclusion. Two years later, North Vietnamese forces crushed the South Vietnamese army and succeeded in reuniting the divided country under a communist regime.

1968 Pope Paul VI issues his Encyclical Humanae Vitae (On the Regulation of Birth) — translations [English, Français, Español, Italiano, Português]

^ 1964 US Joint Chiefs propose air strikes against North Vietnam.
Following a meeting of the National Security Council to discuss the deteriorating situation in Saigon, the Joint Chiefs of Staff draw up a memo proposing air strikes against North Vietnam. These missions were to be conducted in unmarked planes flown by South Vietnamese and Thai crews. There was no action taken on this recommendation. However, the situation changed in August 1964 when North Vietnamese torpedo boats attacked US destroyers off the coast of North Vietnam. What became known as the Tonkin Gulf incident led to the passage of the Tonkin Gulf Resolution, which passed 416 to 0 in the House and 88 to 2 in the Senate. The resolution gave the president approval to "take all necessary measures to repel an armed attack against the forces of the United States and to prevent further aggression." Using the resolution, Johnson ordered the bombing of North Vietnam by US aircraft in retaliation for the Tonkin Gulf incident. In 1965, as the situation continued to deteriorate in South Vietnam, Johnson initiated a major commitment of US troops to South Vietnam, which ultimately totaled more than 540'000 by 1968.

1964 Race riot in Rochester NY
1963 US, Russia & England sign nuclear test ban treaty
1962 Los representantes de los 14 países que celebran en Ginebra la conferencia de desarme acuerdan la neutralidad de Laos.
1959 Vice President Richard Nixon squares off against Soviet Premier Nikita Khruschev during the so-called Kitchen debate in Moscow.
1957 Monarchy in Tunisa abolished in favor of a republic — Proclamación de la República en Túnez, tras 250 años de monarquía.
1956 Jordanians attack UN Palestine truce.
1953 NYC transit fare rises from 10 cents to 15 cents, 1st use of subway tokens.
1952 1952, Puerto Rico becomes a self-governing commonwealth of the United States. (Constitution Day) — Se promulga la Constitución de Puerto Rico como Estado libre Asociado de los EEUU.
1950 Se inicia la Guerra de Corea.
1947 US Air Force, Navy, and War Department are united to form the US Department of Defense, under which the US Department of the Army is created.
1946 Se celebra la conferencia de Londres, intento británico de reunir a David Ben Gurión y a Hadj Ahmed para solucionar pacíficamente la convivencia entre palestinos y hebreos.
1946 1st bikini is shown at a Paris fashion show
1946 US detonates underwater A-bomb at Bikini Atoll (5th atomic explosion, 1st underwater).
1944 1st jet fighter used in combat (Messerschmitt 262)

^ 1943 Fascists have king dismiss Mussolini
      With American and British forces racing across Sicily, Benito Mussolini, fascist dictator of Italy, is voted out of power by his own Grand Council and arrested upon leaving a meeting with King Vittorio Emanuele, who tells Il Duce that the war is lost. Mussolini responded to it all with an uncharacteristic meekness.
      During the evening of 24 July and the early hours of 25 July, the Grand Council of the fascist government met to discuss the immediate future of Italy. While all in attendance were jittery about countermanding their leader, Mussolini was sick, tired, and overwhelmed by the military reverses suffered by the Italian military. He seemed to be looking for a way out of power. One of the more reasonable within the Council, Dino Grandi, argued that the dictatorship had brought Italy to the brink of military disaster, elevated incompetents to levels of power, and alienated large portions of the population. He proposed a vote to transfer some of the leader's power to the king. The motion was passed, with Mussolini barely reacting.
      While some extremists balked, and would later try to convince Mussolini to have those who voted with Grandi arrested, Il Duce was simply paralyzed, unable to choose any course of action. Shortly after the Grand Council vote, Mussolini, groggy and unshaven, kept his routine 20-minute meeting with the king, during which he normally updated Victor Emanuele on the current state of affairs. This morning, the king informs Mussolini that General Pietro Badoglio would assume the powers of prime minister and that the war is all but lost for the Italians. Mussolini offers no objection.
      Upon leaving the meeting, he is arrested by the police, who had been secretly planning a pretext to remove the leader for quite some time. They now had the Council vote of "no confidence" as their formal rationale. Assured of his personal safety, Mussolini acquiesced to this too, as he had to everything else leading up to this pitiful denouement. When news of Mussolini's arrest was made public, relief seemed to be the prevailing mood. There was no attempt by fellow fascists to rescue him from the penal settlement on the island of Ponza to which he was committed. The only remaining question was whether Italy would continue to fight alongside its German allies or surrender to the Allies.
      Benito Mussolini, an Italian World War I veteran and publisher of Socialist newspapers, broke with the Italian Socialists in 1919 to establish the nationalist Fasci di Combattimento. Commonly known as the Fascist party, Mussolini's new, right-wing organization advocated Italian nationalism, had black shirts for uniforms, and launched a program of terrorism and intimidation against its leftist opponents. On 28 October 1922, Mussolini led the Fascists on a march on Rome, and King Emmanuel, who had little faith in Italy's parliamentary government, asked Mussolini to form a new government.
      Initially, Mussolini, who was appointed prime minister at the head of three-member Fascist cabinet, cooperated with the Italian parliament, but, with the assistance of his brutal police organization, he soon became the effective dictator of Italy. In 1924, a socialist backlash was suppressed, and, on 03 January 1925, the Fascist State was officially proclaimed with Mussolini as Il Duce.
      Although Mussolini appealed to Italy's former Western allies for new treaties, his brutal 1935 invasion of Ethiopia ended all hope of alliance with the Western democracies. In 1936, Mussolini joined Nazi leader Adolf Hitler in his support of Francisco Franco's Nationalist forces in the Spanish Civil War, prompting the signing of a treaty of cooperation in foreign policy between Italy and Nazi Germany in 1937.
      Although Hitler's Nazi revolution was modeled after the rise of Mussolini and the Italian Fascist Party, Fascist Italy and its Il Duce proved overwhelmingly the weaker partner in the Berlin-Rome Axis during World War II.
      In July of 1943, the failure of the Italian war effort and the imminent invasion of the Italian mainland by the Allies led to a rebellion within the Fascist party. On 24 July, two days after the fall of Palermo, the Fascist Grand Council rejected the policy dictated by Hitler through Mussolini, and the next day, Il Duce was arrested. On 26 July , Fascist Marshal Pietro Badoglio took over the reins of the Italian government.
      On 03 September the Italian government surrendered unconditionally to the Allies, but on 12 September German commandos freed Mussolini from his prison in the Abruzzi Mountains. He subsequently became the puppet leader of German-controlled Northern Italy. However, with the collapse of Nazi Germany in April of 1945, Mussolini was captured by Italian partisans. On 29 April, after a brief court-martial, Mussolini and his mistress Clara Petacci were executed by firing squad. Their bodies, brought to Milan, were hanged by their feet in a public square for all the world to see.

1941 The US government freezes Japanese and Chinese assets.
1938 Guerra Civil española: Comienza la batalla del Ebro, que duró cuatro meses y fue ganada por los nacionales.
1936 Guerra Civil española: Fuerzas republicanas recuperan Albacete y Lérida, en principio a favor de los sublevados.
1933 Record high temperature in Japan: 41ºC in Yamagata, on "Doyo Ushi no Hi" — a day determined by the ancient solar calendar as the hottest, celebrated yearly by eating eels, thought to offer relief from the heat.

1925 First 50'000-watt radio broadcast
A radio station in Schenectady, New York, owned by General Electric, broadcasts with a 50'000-watt transmitter, the most powerful transmitter used to date. The station still uses the same wattage in its broadcasts today as WGY Radio.

1924 Greece announces the deportation of 50'000 Armenians.

^ 1917 Mata Hari sentenced to death         ^top^
      Mata Hari, the archetype of the seductive female spy, was sentenced to death in France for allegedly selling French military secrets to the Germans. Mata Hari first came to Paris in 1905, and found fame as a performer of exotic Indian-inspired dances in the Parisian salons. She soon began touring all over Europe, telling the story of how she was born in a sacred Indian temple and taught ancient Indian dances by a priestess who gave her the name Mata Hari, meaning "eye of the dawn."
      In reality, Mata Hari was born in a small town in northern Holland, and her real name was Margaretha Geertruida Zelle Macleod. However, regardless of the authenticity of her eastern origins, Mata Hari packed dance halls from Russia to America, largely due to her willingness to dance almost entirely naked in public. Mata Hari was also a famous courtesan in European society, and with the outbreak of World War I her catalogue of lovers began to include high-ranking French officers.
      In February of 1917, French authorities arrested her for espionage, and in July, she was found guilty and sentenced to death. On 15 October 1917, she was executed by a French firing squad at the Vincennes barracks outside of Paris. It is generally believed that Mata Hari never acted as a spy for Germany or any other nation, and that her only crimes were her elaborate stage fallacy and weakness for military men.

1914 Russia declares that it will act to protect Serbian sovereignty.
1914 Austria rompe relaciones diplomáticas con Serbia y tres días más tarde la invade, lo que se desencadena la Primera Guerra Mundial.

^ 1914 Friday : in the aftermath of the June 28 assassination of Archduke Francis Ferdinand: ^top^

The Serbian reply to the Austrian ultimatum is formulated in such a way as to yield where at all possible. This reply must also win public support. [view text of the ultimatum]

The Serbian leadership fears for the worst. Austria will attack no matter what the contents of the reply. Serbia orders general mobilization of it's army at 15:00 pm. Nobody knew it, but, World War I had just begun.

A mere 5 minutes before the deadline, Serbian Prime Minister Nikola Pasic personally delivers the reply to the Austrian ambassador, Baron Vladimir von Giesl at 17:55, saying: "Part of your demands we have accepted... For the rest, we place our hopes on your loyalty and chivalry as an Austrian general.". The reply yields almost everywhere. It might as well have yielded nothing. [view text of the reply]

The Austrian legation departs Belgrade on the 18:30 pm train as planned. The train is across the Danube and back in the Empire by 18:40 pm.

The Austrian mobilization order must be signed by Emperor Franz Josef. Berchtold obtains this signature at 7:23 pm by telling the aged Emperor that the Serbs were already attacking. Conrad was given his marching orders. Alarm Day for the Austrian army was set for 27-Jul and troop movements would begin on the day following.

An oversight: Germany has not been informed of these actions by her ally, Austria-Hungary.

1912 Comoros is proclaimed a French colony.
1909 French aviator Louis Blériot becomes the first person to fly across the English Channel in an airplane (a monoplane), from Calais to Dover in 37 minutes. — Louis Blériot, a bordo del aeroplano Blériot XI, logra cruzar el Canal de la Mancha en poco más de media hora.

^ 1904 Textile mills strike
      Throughout the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries the booming textile mills in Fall River, Massachusetts, were lightning rods for labor action. Mill managers and textile honchos, who had first descended upon Fall River in 1811, pushed their largely female work force to toil for long hours in abysmal conditions. By 1871, Fall River had become one of the textile capitals of the United States and many of the mill owners had raked in hefty profits.
      The prosperity, though, didn't trickle down to the textile workers, prompting them to stage a series of increasingly bitter strikes. But, despite the torrent of protests, and the female employees' decision to form their own union in 1875, the textile workers struggled to gain rights or recognition from the mill owners. The advent of the industrial revolution only exacerbated the situation, as the textile chiefs took the advent of automation as an excuse to hire young children to staff their mills. Much like their adult cohorts, the children worked for hours on end in the local mills. This pernicious development outraged the adult work force and prompted them to take action on an unprecedented scale.
      Indeed, on this day in 1904, some 25'000 textile workers in Fall River hit the picket line to protest against conditions at the mills. The strike stretched on for most of the late summer and, though they hardly toppled the textile owners, the workers helped force the situation at mills, as well as the plight of child laborers, onto the national stage. The child labor issue, which was symptomatic of a larger phenomenon (in 1900 roughly 250'000 children under the age of 15 worked in mills, factories and mines) proved to be particularly resonant and prompted the formation of the National Child Labor Committee later that year.

1901 Comienza en Filipinas una insurrección contra EE.UU. encabezada por Emilio Aguinaldo, partidario de la independencia del país.

^ 1898 US invades Puerto Rico
      During the Spanish-American War, at Guanica Bay, US forces launched their invasion of Puerto Rico, a 174-km long, 65-km wide island that was one of Spain's two principle possessions in the Caribbean. With little resistance and only seven deaths, US troops under General Nelson A. Miles were able to secure the island by mid-August. On 18 October 1898, only one year after Puerto Rico had been granted home rule by the Spanish, American troops raised the US flag over the island, formalizing US authority over its one million inhabitants.
      In December, the Treaty of Paris was signed, ending the Spanish-American War and approving the ceding of Puerto Rico to the United States. In the first three decades of its rule, the US government made efforts to Americanize its new possession, including the granting of full US citizenship to Puerto Ricans in 1917 and the consideration of a measure that would make English the island's official language. However, during the 1930s, a nationalist movement led by the Popular Democratic Party won wide support across the island and further US assimilation was prevented.
      Beginning in 1948, Puerto Ricans could elect their own governor, and in 1952, the US Congress approved a new Puerto Rican constitution that made the island an autonomous US commonwealth with its citizens retaining American citizenship. The constitution was formally adopted by Puerto Rico on 25 July 1952, the fifty-fourth anniversary of the US invasion. Movements for Puerto Rican statehood, along with lesser movements for Puerto Rican independence, have won supporters on the island, but popular referendums in 1967 and 1993 demonstrated that the majority of Puerto Ricans still supported their special status as a US commonwealth.
     — Guerra de Estados Unidos contra España. Tropas estadounidenses desembarcan en Guánica (Puerto Rico) y se apoderan de toda la isla.

1897 Jack London sails for the Klondike ^top^ Jack London, 21, (actual name John Griffith Chaney), leaves for the Klondike to join the gold rush, where he will write his first successful stories. London was born in San Francisco on 12 January 1876. His father, an astrologer named Chaney, abandoned the family, and his unwed mother, a spiritualist and music teacher, married a Mr. London, whose last name. Jack assumed. From the age of 14, London dropped out of school and struggled to make a living, working in a cannery and as a sailor, oyster pirate, and fish patroller. During the national economic crisis of 1893, he joined a march of unemployed workers. He was jailed for vagrancy for a month, during which time he decided to go to college. The 17-year-old London completed a high school equivalency course and enrolled at the University of California at Berkeley, where he read voraciously for a year. However, he dropped out to join the 1897 gold rush. While in the Klondike, London began submitting stories to magazines. In 1900, his first collection of stories, The Son of the Wolf, was published. Three years later, his story The Call of the Wild made him famous around the country. London continued to write stories of adventure amid the harsh natural elements. He sailed a ketch to the South Pacific, telling of his adventures in The Cruise of the Snark (1911). During his 17-year career, he wrote 50 fiction and nonfiction books. He settled in northern California about 1911, having already written most of his best work. The optimism and energy with which he attacked his task are best conveyed in his autobiographical novel Martin Eden (1909), perhaps his most enduring work. He wrote two other autobiographical novels of considerable interest: The Road (1907) and John Barleycorn (1913). Although Jack London became the highest-paid writer in the United States, his earnings never matched his expenditures, so that his hastily written output is of uneven quality. His Alaskan stories The Call of the Wild (1903), White Fang (1906), and Burning Daylight (1910), in which he dramatized in turn atavism, adaptability, and the appeal of the wilderness, are outstanding. Other important works are The Sea-Wolf (1904), which features a Nietzschean superman hero, and The Iron Heel (1907), a fantasy of the future that is a terrifying anticipation of fascism. London, a heavy drinker, died on 22 November 1916 of renal failure.
JACK LONDON ONLINE: The Acorn-Planter (1916) A play about the Nishinam tribe and their encounter with explorers. Adventure Before Adam (1907) Modern narrator dreams visit to a prehistoric community. Burning Daylight (1910) Klondike Goldrush, corruption from sudden wealth. The Call of the Wild (1903) Sled dog's journey of transformation. [summary] Children of the Frost (1902) Klondike stories, including The Law of Life and Nam-Bok, the Liar. The Cruise of the Snark Dutch Courage and Other Stories (1922) Early stories published posthumously. The Faith of Men and Other Stories (1904) from the north, including The story of Jees Uck and The One Thousand Dozen. The Game (1905) About boxing The God of His Fathers: Tales of the Klondyke (1901), including The Scorn of Women and A Daughter of the Aurora. The House of Pride and Other Tales of Hawaii 1912), including Koloau the Leper and The Sheriff of Kona. The Human Drift (1917) Stories like Small-Boat Sailing, essays such as The Human Drift, etc. The Iron Heel Futuristic: fascist tyranny and socialist revolution. Island Tales Jerry of the Islands (1917) John Barleycorn autobiographical nonfiction dealing with the debilitating effects of alcohol. his journalism Non-fiction newspaper and magazine articles. Lost Face (1910) Stories, including To Build a Fire. Love of Life, and Other Stories (1907) Stories, including Brown Wolf and The Story of Keesh. Martin Eden (1913) Seaman pursues dreams of education and literary fame. Michael, Brother of Jerry (1917) A dog story. Moon-Face, and Other Stories (1906) including All Gold Canyon and Planchette The Mutiny of the Elsinore The Night-Born (1913) Stories including War, The Mexican, and To Kill a Man. On the Makaloa Mat (1919) Best Hawaii stories, including Shin Bones and The Water Baby. The People of the Abyss His nonfiction observations of the slums of London. The Red One (1918) Title novella, and stories. Revolution, and Other Essays (1909) and stories, socialist. The Road Nonfiction, his days as a hobo The Sea-Wolf (1904) Voyages of a ship with a ruthless skipper. Selected Works Smoke Bellew (1912) A Son of the Sun (1912) South Pacific stories. The Son of the Wolf (1900) Klondike stories, including The White Silence. South Sea Tales (1911), including Mauki and The Terrible Solomans. The Star Rover (1915) Great reincarnation novel. The Strength of the Strong (1914) Stories including The Dream of Debs, South of the Slot, and The Unparalleled Invasion. Tales of the Fish Patrol (1905) based on his youthful experiences, including A Raid on the Oyster Pirates. The Turtles of Tasman (1916) Stories, including Told in the Drooling Ward. The Valley of the Moon (1913) War of the Classes Nonfiction, mainly his socialist speeches When God Laughs, and Other Stories (1911), including The Apostate, Just Meat, A Piece of Steak, and Chinago. White Fang (1906) Taming of a wild dog. Uncollected Stories, including A Thousand Deaths.	DUPLICATE SITES: Adventure Before Adam Burning Daylight The Call of the Wild The Game The God of His Fathers: Tales of the Klondyke The House of Pride and Other Tales of Hawaii The Human Drift The Iron Heel Jerry of the Islands John Barleycorn Lost Face Love of Life, and Other Stories Martin Eden Michael, Brother of Jerry Moon-Face, and Other Stories The Night-Born On the Makaloa Mat The People of the Abyss The Red One The Sea-Wolf A Son of the Sun The Son of the Wolf South Sea Tales Tales of the Fish Patrol The Valley of the Moon War of the Classes When God Laughs, and Other Stories White Fang TRIPLICATE SITES: The Call of the Wild The Sea-Wolf
White Fang — Summary Two men are out in the wild of the north. Their dogs disappear as they are lured by a she-wolf and eaten by the pack. They only have three bullets left and Bill, one of the men, uses them to try to save one of their dogs; he misses and is eaten with the dog. Only Henry and two dogs are left; he makes a fire, trying to drive away the wolves. They draw in close and he is almost eaten, saved only by a company of men who were traveling nearby. The wolves are in the midst of a famine. They continue on, lead by several wolves alongside the she-wolf, and when they finally find food the pack starts to split up. The she-wolf mates with one of the wolves and has a litter of pups. Only one survives after several more famines, and he grows strong and is a feisty pup. They come to an Indian village where the she-wolf's (who is actually half-wolf, half-dog) master is. He catches her again and White Fang, her pup, stays nearby. Soon, she is sold to another Indian, while White Fang stays with Gray Beaver, her master. The other dogs of the village terrorize White Fang, especially one named Lip-lip. White Fang becomes more and more vicious, encouraged by his master. He kills other dogs. Gray Beaver goes to Fort Yukon to trade and discovers whiskey. White Fang is passed into the hands of Beauty Smith, a monster of a man. He fights other dogs until he meets his match in a bulldog and is saved only by a man named Scott. Scott tames White Fang and takes him back to California with him. There White Fang learns to love his master and his master's family and even saves Scott's father from a criminal that escaped from the nearby prison. White Fang has puppies with Collie, one of the master's dogs, and lives a happy life.

1894 Japanese forces sink the British steamer Kowshing which was bringing Chinese reinforcements to Korea.
1871 Carrousel patented by Wilhelm Schneider, Davenport, Iowa.
1868 US President Andrew Johnson signs an act of Congress creating the territory of Wyoming.
1866 Ulysses S. Grant is named General of the Army, the first to hold the rank. Born on 27 April 1822, he had been commander of the Union armies during the late years (1864–65) of the US Civil War, and would become the 18th president of the United States (1869–77). — GRANT ONLINE: Personal Memoirs of US Grant volume 1, volume 2 (After retiring from the Presidency in 1877, Grant became a partner in a financial firm, which went bankrupt. About that time he learned that he had cancer of the throat. He started writing his recollections to pay off his debts and provide for his family, racing against death to produce a memoir that ultimately earned nearly $450'000. Soon after completing the last page, on 23 July 1885, he died).
1863 Major General George McClellan appointed first commander of the force later designated the Army of the Potomac
1861 The Crittenden Resolution, calling for the American Civil War to be fought to preserve the Union and not for slavery, is passed by Congress.

^ 1861 US Congress resolves that Civil War is for Union, not abolition.
The Crittenden-Johnson Resolution passes, declaring that the war is being waged for the reunion of the states and not to interfere with the institutions of the South, namely slavery. The measure was important in keeping the pivotal states of Missouri, Kentucky, and Maryland in the Union. This resolution should not be confused with the Crittenden Compromise—a plan circulated after the Southern states began seceding from the Union that proposed to protect slavery as an enticement to keep the Southern states from leaving—which was defeated in Congress. At the beginning of the war, many Northerners supported a war for to keep the Union together, but had no interest in advancing the cause of abolition. The Crittenden-Johnson plan was passed in 1861 to distinguish the issue of emancipation from the war's purpose. The common denominator of the two plans was Senator John Crittenden from Kentucky. Crittenden carried the torch of compromise borne so ably by another Kentucky senator, Henry Clay, who brokered such important deals as the Missouri Compromise of 1820 and the Compromise of 1850 to keep the nation together. Clay died in 1852, but Crittenden carried on the spirit befitting the representative of a state deeply divided over the issue of slavery. Although the measure was passed in Congress, it meant little when, just two weeks later, President Lincoln signed a confiscation act, allowing for the seizure of property—including slaves—from rebellious citizens. Still, for the first year and a half of the Civil War, reunification of the United States was the official goal of the North. It was not until Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation of September 1863 that slavery became a goal.

1861 Siege of Fort Wagner, Charleston Harbor, South Carolina continues
1850 Gold is discovered in the Rogue River in Oregon, extending the quest for gold up the Pacific coast.
1845 China grants Belgium equal trading rights with Britain, France and the United States.
1845 Canadian-born Catholic missionary François Blanchet is consecrated bishop of the Pacific Northwest. He devoted 45 years to planting churches, and is remembered today as the 'Apostle of Oregon.'
1834 Se decreta la exclusión de la sucesión a la Corona de España del pretendiente carlista Carlos María Isidro de Borbón.
1814 Battle of Niagara Falls (Lundy's Lane); British and American forces fight each other to a stand off, in some of the fiercest fighting in the War of 1812.
1805 Aaron Burr visits New Orleans with plans to establish a new country, with New Orleans as the capital city.
1799 Battle of Abukir. French-Egyptian forces under Napolean I, on his way back from Syria, beat Turks
1798 Napoleón entra triunfante en El Cairo.
1797 Fuerzas tinerfeñas rechazan victoriosamente el ataque de una potente flota inglesa mandada por Nelson, que pretendía apoderarse de Santa Cruz de Tenerife.
1775 Maryland issues currency depicting George III trampling Magna Carta
1759 British capture Fort Niagara from French (7 Years' War)
1729 North Carolina becomes royal colony
1670 Jews are expelled from Vienna Austria
1593 France's Protestant King Henri IV converts to Roman Catholic (“Paris vaut bien une messe.”) — Enrique IV de Francia decide abjurar del protestantismo para lograr el trono, convencido con la frase París bien vale una misa.
1587 Japanese Chief Imperial Minister Toyotomi Hideyoshi, 51, bans Kirishitan (Christianity) in Japan and orders all Christians to leave. He believed that the missionaries were spies, but refrained from slaying the Christians. The Catholic missionaries hid themselves and remained, and within ten years they baptized 65'000 persons (1587-97), making a total of 300'000 faithful, and 134 religious.
1582 El marqués de Santa Cruz obtiene para España la resonante victoria naval de la isla Terceira sobre las tropas de don Antonio, autoproclamado rey de Portugal en contra de Felipe II.
1581 Felipe II de España entra solemnemente en Lisboa y es coronado rey de Portugal.
1564 Maximillian II becomes emperor of the Holy Roman Empire.
1554 Marie Tudor épouse Philippe II d'Espagne. Cette reine d'Angleterre, fille du roi Henri VIII, sera le farouche soutien de l'Église catholique dans son pays. Son mariage la rendra très impopulaire : l'Angleterre se verra entraînée par Philippe II dans sa guerre contre la France. Elle y perdra Calais qu'elle occupait depuis deux siècles. — La reina inglesa María Tudor se casa con el futuro rey de España Felipe II, en la catedral de Winchester.
1394 Charles VI of France issues a decree for the general expulsion of Jews from France.
1360 Jews are expelled from Breslau Silesia
0326 Constantine refuses to carry out the traditional pagan sacrifices.
0325 The Council of Nicaea closes. Regarded as the first 'ecumenical council,' its 300 attending bishops drafted the Nicene Creed and fixed the formula for Easter Sunday.

TO THE TOP

Deaths which occurred on a 25 July:
2003 James P. Shenton, US historian born on 17 March 1925. Author of History of the United States to 1865 (1963), History of the United States From 1865 to the Present (1964), These United States (1978).
2003 Mahmoud Qabha, 5, by bullets from a machine gun atop an Israeli armored personnel carrier which fires “due to a malfunction” at the jeep in which Mahmoud was, waiting peacefully behind two other cars to enter the village Barta'a, along the Green Line to the north of Baka al-Garbiyeh, in the northern West Bank. One of Mahmoud's sisters is shot in the hand and another sister is wounded also. His mother and grandfather, also in the car, are unharmed physically.
2002 Elimelech Shapira, 43 [photo >], Jewish rabbi settler, after being shot in ambush at 04:00 as he was in car traveling near Qalqilyah, West Bank, between the enclave settlements Alei Zahav and Peduel, this one Shapira's home. Another man in the car is wounded.
2002 Dmitri Pundikov, 33, Israeli from Bat-Yam, from injuries suffered on 17 July in double suicide bombing in Tel Aviv, which caused 5 immediate and 2 delayed deaths, including this one.

^ 2001 Phoolan Devi, 38, India's “Bandit Queen” M.P., murdered.      ^top^
     Three masked gunmen fired on Devi as she stepped from her car when she returned home for lunch from a session of the lower house of Parliament. Her security guard was wounded.
      Devi — the daughter of a low-caste family in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh — never went to school and, like most women in India, remained illiterate all her life. She was sold into marriage at age 11, fled her brutal husband and fell in love with a highway robber. Her lover was killed by upper-caste men from the village of Behmai who took her prisoner and raped her repeatedly.
      She escaped, formed her own gang and in 1981 returned to the village for revenge. On her orders, gang members mowed down 22 upper-caste men with machine-gun fire.
      Devi portrayed the 10-year rebellion that followed as a caste struggle in one of India's most backward regions, where upper-caste Hindus routinely preyed on members of the lower castes.

[< 28 April 1998 photo of Devi. — Click to zoom in]

     Devi was idolized by India's poor as a horseback-riding heroine who roamed the countryside, her hallmark red bandanna tied around her head, a rifle slung across her back, exacting retribution from wealthy upper-caste landowners.
      She was jailed in 1983 for the slaughter of the villagers, though she denied the charges and was never tried. The Supreme Court freed her 11 years later. At least 70 cases of murder, kidnapping and extortion are still pending against her.
Saleh Darwazeh

      After her release, Devi sought to take her fight for justice for the poor into government. She became a member of Parliament in 1996, winning with a wide margin, thanks mostly to the support of women and the poor.
      Devi was the subject of a number of books and an award-winning 1994 film, "The Bandit Queen."
      Members of her Samajwadi Party said that the government has recently reduced the number of guards assigned to Devi and that might have prompted her old enemies to strike.
      "I see a political conspiracy in Phoolan's killing. I have no doubt it's linked to the U.P. elections," said Amar Singh, Samajwadi Party leader. Crucial elections are due in Uttar Pradesh is 2002

2001 Seven persons executed in cold blood by Kenyan police..
An “elite squad” of the Kenyan Police Force surrounds a bus on the Mombasa Road, forces all the passengers out and detains eight persons. The other passengers are then allowed to continue with their journey. Seven of the detainees are ordered to lie on the ground, and then shot in the back by police officers. The eighth person is put into the trunk of one of the police vehicles. The police attempts a coverup, saying that the victims were robbers who died in a shootout. On 27 July Amnesty International protests.

2001 Saleh Darwazeh, by missiles from a hilltop Israeli army base, as he was driving his Volkswagen on a West Bank road near Nablus. He was a prominent member of the political wing of Hamas. [photo >]
On 2 August 2001 a Palestinian military court would sentence to death Ahmed Abu Issah, 50, who confessed giving the Israelis information on the movements of Darwazeh, receiving about $45 each time.

2000: 113 people in the first Concorde crash.         ^top^
      A chartered Air France Concorde crashes near Gonesse, 15 km north-east of Paris at 16:44 local, shortly after takeoff from De Gaulle airport, slamming into a hotel and a restaurant, killing all 100 passengers and 9 crew aboard, and 4 people in the Relais Bleu hotel, where several other people were injured. All of the passengers were German, on their way to New York to join the cruise ship MS Deutschland. The first Concorde plane flew in 1969. After the crash, 12 of the needle-nosed supersonic jets remain, 5 operated by Air France and 7 by British Airways.
     The crash was apparently caused by a tire exploding as the plate was taking off. Debris from the tire punctured a fuel tank, which caught fire, which spread to incapacitate two engines. The plane was going too fast to abort the take-off, and once in the air it caught not gain altitude to turn for an emergency landing.

1985 Santiago Montero Díaz, historiador español.
1982 Harold Rudolf “Hal” Foster, born on 16 August 1892, Canadian-born cartoonist and creator of Prince Valiant, a comic strip. — more with links to images.
1972 Américo Castro, historiador español.
1969 Otto Dix, German Expressionist painter born in 1891. — MORE ON DIX AT ART “4” JULY with links to images.
1959 Dr Isaac Halevi Herzog, 71, chief rabbi of Israel (1936-59)
1957 Ricardo Rojas, escritor argentino.

^ 1956 Fifty-two persons in sinking of Andrea Doria
      One hour before midnight on 25 July 1956, the Swedish ocean liner Stockholm collides with the Italian liner Andrea Doria off the coast of Nantucket. Both ships are equipped with radar and authorities would be puzzled as to the cause of the accident that left fifty-two people dead. Although the Stockholm makes it back to port, the Andrea Doria sinks.
      At 23:10, 70 km south of Nantucket Island, the Italian ocean liner Andrea Doria and the Swedish ocean liner Stockholm collide in a heavy Atlantic fog. Fifty-one passengers and crew were killed in the collision, which ripped a great hole in the broad side of the Italian vessel. Miraculously, all 1660 survivors on the Andrea Doria were rescued from the severely listing ship before it sunk late the next morning. Both ships were equipped with sophisticated radar systems, and authorities were puzzled as to the cause of the accident.
      In the mid-1950s, more than 50 passenger liners steamed between Europe and America, exploiting a postwar boom in transatlantic ocean travel. The lavishly appointed Andrea Doria, put to sea in 1953, was the pride of the Italian line. It was built for luxury, not speed, and boasted extensive safety precautions, such as state-of-the-art radar systems and 11 watertight compartments in its hull. The Stockholm, which went into service in 1948, was a more modest ocean liner, less than half the tonnage and carrying 747 passengers and crew on its fateful voyage. The Andrea Doria held 1706 passengers and crew in its final journey.
      On the night of 25 July 1956, the Stockholm was just beginning its journey home to Sweden from New York, while the Andrea Doria was steaming in the opposite direction. The Italian liner had been in an intermittent fog since midafternoon, but Captain Piero Calami only slightly reduced his speed, relying on his ship's radar to get him to his destination safely and on schedule. The Stockholm, meanwhile, was directed north of its recommended route by Captain H. Gunnar Nordenson, who risked encountering westbound vessels in the name of reducing travel time. The Stockholm also had radar and expected no difficulty in navigating past approaching vessels. It failed to anticipate, however, that a ship like the Andrea Doria could be hidden until the last few minutes by a fogbank.
      At 22:45, the Stockholm showed up on the Doria's radar screens, at a distance of about 17 nautical miles (31 km). Soon after, the Italian ship showed up on the Stockholm's radar, about 12 miles away (22 km). What happened next has been subject to dispute, but it's likely that the crews of both ships misread their radar sets. Captain Calami then exacerbated a dangerous situation by making a turn to port for an unconventional starboard-to-starboard passing, which he wrongly thought the other ship was attempting. About two miles (4 km) away from each other, the ship's lights came into view of each other. Third Officer Johan-Ernst Bogislaus Carstens, commanding the bridge of the Stockholm, then made a conventional turn to starboard.
      Less than a mile (more than 1 km) away, Captain Calami realized he was on a collision course with the Stockholm and turned hard to the left, hoping to race past the bow of the Swedish ship. Both ships were too large and moving too fast to make a quick turn. At 23:10, the Stockholm's sharply angled bow, reinforced for breaking ice, smashed 10 meters into the starboard side of the Andrea Doria. For a moment, the smaller ship was lodged there like a cork in a bottle, but then the opposite momentum of the two ships pulled them apart, and the Stockholm's smashed bow screeched down the side of the Doria, showering sparks into the air.
      Five crewmen of the Stockholm were killed in the collision. On the Andrea Doria, the carnage was much worse. The bow of the Swedish ship crashed through passenger cabins, and 46 passengers and crew were killed. One man watched as his wife was dragged away forever by the retreating bow of the Stockholm. Fourteen-year-old Linda Morgan was asleep on the Doria when the impact somehow catapulted her out of bed and onto the Stockholm's crushed bow. She was later dubbed "the miracle girl" by the press.
      With seven of its 10 decks open to the Atlantic waters, the Andrea Doria listed more than 20 degrees to port in minutes, and its watertight compartments were compromised. A lifeboat evacuation began on the doomed ship. The evacuation initially went far from smoothly. The port side could not be used because the ship was listing too much, which left 1044 lifeboat seats for the 1706 on board. Passengers in the lower cabins fought their way through darkened hallways filling up with ocean water and leaking oil. The first lifeboat was not deployed until an hour after the collision, and it held more crew than passengers.
      Fortunately, the Stockholm, which had suffered a nonfatal blow, was able to lend its lifeboats to the evacuation effort. Several ships heard the Doria's mayday and came to assist. At 02:00 on July 26, the Ile de France, another great ocean liner, arrived and took charge of the rescue effort. It was the greatest civilian maritime rescue in history, and 1660 lives were saved. The Stockholm limped back to New York.
      At 10:09 on 26 July, the Andrea Doria sank into the Atlantic. Almost immediately, the wreck, located at a depth of 75 m, became a popular scuba diving destination. However, because of the extreme depth, the presence of sharks, and unpredictable currents, the Doria is known as the "Mount Everest" of diving locations.

1946 George Dorsey, 28; his wife Mae Murray Dorsey, 23; his sister Dorothy (Dorsey) Malcolm, 20; and her husband Roger Malcolm, 24; Blacks, shot with shotguns and pistols more than 60 times by 12 to 15 White men at the Moore's Ford bridge over the Apalachee River, 100 km east of Atlanta, Georgia. This enraged US President Harry Truman and led to anti-lynching legislation and to the desegregation of the US military. But no one was ever brought to justice for this the last mass lynching in the US. While drunk, Roger Malcolm [photo >] had on 14 July 1946 stabbed his White landlord's son, Barnette Hester, 29, been jailed in Monroe and then, became clear that Hester would survive the seemingly fatal wound, freed on bond on 25 July to await trial; the four were driving home when they were assaulted. George Dorsey was a World War II veteran, who had returned to civilian life nine months earlier.
1934 Engelbert Dollfuss Austrian chancellor assassinated by Nazis. Born on 04 October 1892, Dollfuss studied law and economics in Vienna and Berlin. Then he became secretary to the Lower Austrian Peasant Federation and, in 1927, director of the Lower Austrian chamber of agriculture. He was a member of the conservative and clerically oriented Christian Social Party, the core of whose constituency came from Austria's conservative peasantry. Dollfuss rose rapidly in Austrian politics, serving as president of the federal railways in 1930 and as minister of agriculture from 1931. In May 1932 he became chancellor, heading a conservative coalition led by the Christian Social Party. Faced with a severe economic crisis caused by the Great Depression, Dollfuss decided against joining Germany in a customs union, a course advocated by many Austrians. He was in part dissuaded by a League of Nations loan of $9'000'000 and by the fear of Allied countermeasures. Severely criticized by both Social Democrats and nationalists, he countered by drifting toward an increasingly authoritarian regime. The Italian leader Benito Mussolini became his principal foreign ally. Italy guaranteed Austrian independence at Riccione (August 1933), but in return Austria had to abolish all political parties and reform its constitution on the Fascist model. Dollfuss' attacks on Parliament, begun in March 1933, culminated that September in the permanent abolition of the legislature and the formation of a corporate state based on his Vaterländische Front, with which he expected to replace Austria's political parties. In foreign affairs he steered a course that converted Austria virtually into an Italian satellite state. Hoping therewith to prevent Austria's incorporation into Nazi Germany, he fought his domestic political opponents along fascist-authoritarian lines. In February 1934 paramilitary formations loyal to the chancellor crushed Austria's Social Democrats in bloody encounters. With a new constitution of May 1934, his regime became completely dictatorial. In June 1934, however, Germany incited the Austrian Nazis to civil war.
1918: 3 Blacks and 2 Whites, in race riot in Chester Pennsylvania.
1918 Carlos Guido Spano, poeta argentino.
1909 Frans Lebret (or Lebrett, Dutch artist born on 07 November 1820.
1863 Karl-Gottfried-Traugott Faber, German artist born on 10 November 1785 or 1786.
1861 Clara Sockl (or Soterius) von Sachsenheim, Austrian artist born on 05 November 1822.

^ 1853 Joaquin Murrieta, “Tres Dedos”, and 6 other bandits, killed for reward.
In a macabre instance of rough frontier justice, California Rangers would claim a $6000 reward by bringing in the severed head — preserved in whiskey — of outlaw Joaquin Murrieta. In the early months of 1853, a wild band of desperadoes began terrorizing Calaveras County in central California. Law officers believed a shadowy character named Joaquin Murrieta led the outlaws, although confusion abounded since there were at least four other desperadoes named "Joaquin" in the territory. Whatever the identity of the leader, the California legislature resolved to stop the outlaws. In the spring of 1853, the government created a special force of California Rangers led by a Los Angeles Deputy Sheriff named Harry Love. The state also offered a $6000 reward to anyone who brought in Murrieta-dead or alive. For several weeks, Love and his team of 20 rangers scoured the Calaveras countryside without success. The rangers got a lucky break, however, when they captured Murrieta's brother-in-law and forced him to lead them to the outlaw's camp on Cantua Creek.
Early on the morning of this day, Love and his rangers attack the outlaw camp. Caught by surprise and badly outnumbered, eight of the bandits were killed, including Murrieta and his right hand man, Tres Dedos (also known as Three Fingered Jack). To prove they had indeed killed Murrieta and deserved their award, the rangers cut off the head of the outlaw. They also took the distinctive hand that gave Three Fingered Jack his nickname. The rangers preserved the gory body parts in whiskey-filled vats until they could exhibit them to the authorities in Stockton. Later, some claimed that the severed head was not Murrieta's. Love, however, gathered 17 affidavits from people who had known the outlaw and were willing to swear it was Murrieta's head. The state agreed and gave the $6,000 award to Love and his rangers. Love further profited from the deal by taking Murrieta's head on a tour of California mining camps, charging $1 to see it. Eventually, the head ended up in San Francisco Museum, where it was destroyed in the great earthquake of 1906.

1835 Tomás Zumalacárregui, general carlista.

^ 1834 Samuel Taylor Coleridge, 61, English lyrical poet, critic, and philosopher.
      His Lyrical Ballads, written with William Wordsworth, heralded the English Romantic movement, and his Biographia Literaria (1817) is the most significant work of general literary criticism produced in the English Romantic period. Coleridge was born on 21 October 1772.
[< click on image for three portraits of Coleridge]
      Coleridge's father died when he was a boy, and young Coleridge was sent off to boarding school in London. He was a lonely student who fell into dissolution and debt after he went to Cambridge in 1791. He fled his debtors and enlisted in the cavalry, which he later abandoned with help from his brothers. When he returned to Cambridge, he met poet Robert Southey. The two launched an ambitious plan to establish a democratic utopia in Pennsylvania. Southey talked Coleridge into marrying the sister of Southey's fiancée, so they would both have wives to help start the utopia. Though Coleridge did not love the woman, he married her and remained married after Southey abandoned the utopian plan.
      In 1795, Coleridge met the poet William Wordsworth. The two became close friends and collaborators, assisted by Dorothy Wordsworth, the poet's sister. The siblings moved near Coleridge in 1797, and the following year Wordsworth and Coleridge published Lyrical Ballads, which established the Romantic school of poetry. It included Coleridge's famous poem The Rime of the Ancient Mariner.
      Coleridge's life began unraveling at the turn of the century. He became estranged from his wife and fell in love with Sara Hutchinson, whose sister married Wordsworth three years later. Meanwhile, his health began to suffer, and he began taking large doses of opium to control his rheumatism and other problems. He became addicted to opium, and his creative output waned. In 1810, he broke with Wordsworth, and the two would not reconcile for nearly 20 years.
      Coleridge supported himself for a decade with successful lecture series on literature, beginning in 1808. Meanwhile, he single-handedly wrote, edited, and distributed his review, The Friend, for about a year. His 1813 tragedy, Remorse, was well received. Thanks to the help of Dr. James Gillman and his wife, Coleridge began to cut back on his opium use. In 1816, he published the fragmentary poem Kubla Khan, written under the influence of opium, circa 1797. In 1817, he published a significant work of criticism, Biographa Literaria, and in 1828 was reconciled with Wordsworth.

COLERIDGE ONLINE:

Christabel

A Coleridge Companion, by John Spencer Hill

Confessions of an Inquiring Spirit, and Miscellaneous Essays From "The Friend"

Imagination in Coleridge, ed. by John Spencer Hill

Kubla Kha

Lyrical Ballads (first edition), also by Wordsworth

Lyrical Ballads (multiple versions of 1st edition), also by W.W.

The Rime of the Ancient Mariner

Selected works and criticism

^ 1832 One man in the first railroad accident         ^top^
      In the first recorded railroad accident in US history four people are thrown off a vacant car on the Granite Railway near Quincy, Massachusetts. The victims had been invited to view the process of transporting large and weighty loads of stone when a cable on a vacant car snapped on the return trip, throwing them off the train and over a ten-meter cliff. One man is killed and the others are seriously injured.
      The steam locomotive was first pioneered in England at the beginning of the nineteenth century by Richard Trevithick and George Stephenson. The Baltimore & Ohio Railroad began operation in 1828 with horse-drawn cars, but after the successful run of the Tom Thumb, a steam train that out-raced a horse in a public demonstration in 1830, steam power was added. By 1831, the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad had completed a line from Baltimore and Frederick, Maryland, and two years later, Andrew Jackson rode the B&O and gave railroad travel its presidential christening.
      The acceptance of railroads came quickly in the 1830s, and by 1840, the nation had almost 4800 kms of railway, far greater then the combined European total of only 2900 km. The railroad network expanded quickly in the years before the Civil War, and by 1860, the American railroad system had become a national network of some 48'000 km. Nine years later, transcontinental railroad service became possible for the first time

1781 Ubaldo A. Gandolfi, Italian painter born in 1728. — more with link to images.
1736 Jean-Baptiste Joseph Pater, French painter born on 29 December 1695. — MORE ON PATER AT ART “4” JULY with links to images.
1652 Bonaventura Peeters I, Flemish marine painter and satirical poet, born on 23 July 1614. — MORE ON PEETERS AT ART “4” JULY with links to images.
1630 Jan Tilens, Flemish artist born on 06 April 1589.

^ 1570 Ivan Viskovati, chancellor (=foreign minister) of Russia, executed, under the rule of Ivan IV "The Terrible" ("Grozny") and his oprichnina (the same year that Ivan ordered the massacre of Novgorod). Viskovati had had the temerity to ask Ivan to stop his reign of terror enforced by numerous executions (Ivan later admitted to 3000 of these).
Em tudo o ano 1570: mais de 300 executados na Praça Vermelha em Moscou, entre eles o ministro das relações exteriores Ivan Viskováti que teve a coragem de pedir a Ivan que parasse com a matança.

Births which occurred on a 25 July:
2001 María de Jesús and María Teresa Quiej Alvarez, born to Leticia Alba Alvarez, in Mazatenango, departamento de Suchitepéquez, Guatemala, conjoined at the top of their heads which face in different directions (“craniopagus twins”). Sponsored by Healing the Children, they would arrive at UCLA's Mattel Children's Hospital in Los Angeles on 07 June 2002 and be surgically separated on 06 August 2002 after a 23-hour operation. María Teresa would need several follow-up operations, including some to place a valve in her skull to relieve pressure of fluid on her brain. As late as 15 April 2003 the latest valve would have to be removed because it had become infected, and on 02 May 2003 it would be replaced by a new one in a 3-hour operation in Guatemala City. The twins are the first children born to Wenceslao Quiej and Alba Leticia Alvarez. Their mother indicates that she experienced a normal pregnancy, but, as many women in rural areas, did not receive any prenatal care. During her eight days of labor, Mrs. Alvarez was initially attended at home by a midwife, but when the midwife realized it was a complicated delivery, she referred the family to a private clinic in their area. When clinic staff realized the mother was having twins, they performed a C-section. Much to everyone’s surprise, they saw that the babies were fused at the top of their heads. At birth, the twins weighed 2 kg. Because of the babies’ condition, the clinic transferred them to Guatemala’s Social Security hospital. The girls lived there until they were brought to UCLA. Healing The Children, a nonprofit group that helps find medical care for children in underdeveloped countries, approached Dr. Jorge Lazareff, one of its volunteer neurosurgeons, for help in accepting the twins’ cases. Led by Lazareff and UCLA plastic-reconstructive surgeon Dr. Henry Kawamoto Jr., a UCLA physician team is donating its services to the twins’ care. Still, nursing, hospitalization and additional medical expenses are expected to cost the hospital upwards of $1.5 million.
1978 Louise Joy Brown, the first "test-tube baby," in Oldham, England; she'd been conceived through the technique of in-vitro fertilization.
1957 Ray Billingsley, cartoonist ("Curtis").

^ 1945 Kaiser-Frazer automobile company
      Henry Kaiser and Joseph Frazer announced plans to form a corporation to manufacture automobiles on this day in 1945. The two men formed an unlikely pair. Kaiser, raised in modest circumstances, was a true American self-made man. By 1945, he sat atop an empire of shipbuilding, cement, steel, and other basic building businesses, and had amassed a considerable fortune. His company’s shipbuilding feats had made him a media favorite during World War II, with reporters labeling him “the Miracle Man.”
      By contrast, Frazer was a direct descendant of Martha Washington, and he’d attended Hotchkiss and Yale. Frazer never finished his studies at Yale, opting to take a manual labor job at Packard. At Packard he rose steadily through the management structure, becoming by the mid-1940s a solid, respectable executive.
      The two men first encountered one another when in 1942 Kaiser urged car companies to plan ahead for post-war production; Frazer answered on behalf of Packard, labeling the suggestion “half-baked” and “stupid.” The men met again in 1945 in San Francisco and two weeks later Kaiser-Frazer was born. With Frazer’s contacts in the auto industry, and Kaiser’s capital and experience with huge government contracts, the two men were optimistic about their chances. In addition, labor groups were encouraging competition to the Big Three and had announced a willingness to cooperate with any new entries into Detroit.
      Kaiser and Frazer had to generate enough capital to acquire and build full production facilities. They had to find reliable sources for raw materials and negotiate labor contracts, and they had to do it all before the Big Three could convert back from wartime production if they were to have a chance a surviving. Amazingly, they pulled it off, leasing the Ford Willow Run Plant and producing 11'000 cars in 1946. Unfortunately, their financiers gave them trouble: while losses were anticipated during their first year, the two men didn’t expect to be punished so severely by squeamish investors. The company lost $19 million and their stock plummeted.
      A year later, however, Willow Run produced 100'000 cars and Kaiser-Frazer recorded $19 million in profit. Success was within their grasp, and the next year they made $10 million — but the downturn in profits and the impending release of Big Three post-war models caused the company’s stock to slip. Without money Kaiser-Frazer couldn’t afford to come up with new models, and consumers turned away from them. In 1949 the company lost $30 million and was poised to endure the fate of so many other independents after the war.
      The differences between the two partners manifested themselves during the bad times, and management failed to respond positively to the difficulties. Frazer left the business and Kaiser presided until 1953 when he sold out to Willys-Overland. Ironically, in Kaiser’s last year the company turned out a few remarkable cars including, arguably, America’s first compact car.

1935 Adnan Khashoggi billionaire/arms dealer
1924 Luis Suárez Fernández, historiador español.
1906 Manuel Diez Alegría, militar español.
1905 Elías Canetti, escritor búlgaro, nacionalizado británico.
1902 Eric Hoffer longshoreman, philosopher, author (True Believer, In Our Time)
1889 Ubaldo Oppi, Italian artist who died in 1946.
1880 Morris Raphel Cohen, American philosopher and mathematician.
1874 Joaquín Torres-García, Uruguayan painter and sculptor who died on 08 August 1949. — LINKS
1871 Arturo Tosi, Italian artist who died on 03 January 1956. [¿Tosi Catarro?]
1870 Maxfield Parrish, US Golden Age illustrator who died in 1966. He studied under the great Brandywine illustrator Howard Pyle. — MORE ON PARRISH AT ART “4” JULY with links to images.
1857 Francis Coates Jones, US painter who died in 1932 — links to two images.
1848 Arthur James Balfour, prime Minister of Great Britain, 1902-1905 — Arthur Balfour, estadista conservador inglés.
1844 Thomas Couperthwaite Eakins, in Philadelphia. — Philadelphia Realist painter, photographer, teacher. — MORE ON EAKINS AT ART “4” JULY with links to images.
1822 Santiago Arcos Arlegui, político chileno.
1808 Listing, mathematician who wrote one of the earliest texts on Topology.
1781 Merry-Joseph Blondel, French painter who died on 12 June 1853. — more with links to images.
1752 Alexandre Jean Noël, French artist who died in January 1834.
1628 Nicolas-Claes-Franszoon Hals, Dutch artist who died on 17 July 1686.
1512 Diego de Covarrubias, teólogo español.

Holidays Costa Rica : Annexation of Guanacaste Day/Anexión de Guanacaste / Luiza Puerto Rico : Fiesta de Santiago Apóstol / Netherlands : Independence Day / Puerto Rico : Constitution Day (1952) / Tunisia : Republic Day (1957)

Religious Observances RC, Luth, Ang, Cong : St James the Elder, apostle / RC : St Christopher, patron of travelers / Santiago Apóstol, patrón de España. Santos Cristóbal, Florencio, Teodomiro y Valentina.

Thoughts for the day:
“Don't need a new religion, haven't used the old one up yet.”
“I never liked the middle ground — the most boring place in the world." — Louise (Berliawsky) Nevelson [23 Sep 1899 – 17 Apr 1988], Ukranian-born US sculptor and graphic artist [links to images of artwork by Nevelson].
“The dinosaurs in the mainstream are the ones who die when the flood comes.”

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