09 Jun History: This Date

<< Jun 08| HISTORY “4” “2”DAY |Jun 10 >>
Events, deaths, births, of 09 JUN v.5.51
[For events of Jun 09 Julian go to Gregorian date: 1583~1699 Jun 19 — 1700s Jun 20 — 1800s Jun 21 — 1900~2099 Jun 22]

ALTERNATE SITES ANY DAY OF THE YEAR IN HISTORY ART “4” JUN 09 wikipedia

• English Restoration... • “Have you no sense of decency?”... • 6~Day War: 5th day... • USSR invades Karelia... • UK leases Hong Kong... • Mormons head West... • Colonials burn British ship... • Battle of Brandy Station... • Condamnés à mort par la Révolution... • Dickens dies... • Sri Lanka Army shells civilians... • McNamara is born... • Home Sweet Home author is born... • US sailor dies victim of Israel... • St. Lawrence River discovered... • Georgia Charter... • Hope for An Loc... • Domino Theory challenged... • Tax withholding... • Antitrust charges against Intel... • Bertha von Suttner geboren... • Patricia Cornwall is born... • Donald Duck...

^ On a 09 June:
2002 First round of the parliamentary elections in France. Some 8500 candidates compete for the 577-seat National Assembly. Less than 50 candidates get over 50% of the vote and are elected outright. Those who receive less than 12.5% of the vote are eliminated. The rest will enter the decisive second round on 16 June. President Jacques Chirac's moderate rightist coalition (UMP: Union pour une Majorité Présidentielle) gets results that foreshadow a parliamentary majority and the end of “cohabitation” with a Socialist prime minister.
2000 France becomes the 12th country to ratify the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (which has not been ratified nor even signed by the US)
2000 The US Justice Department released a report saying an 18-month investigation had found no credible evidence that conspirators aided or framed James Earl Ray in the 1968 assassination of civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr.

1998 Antitrust charges filed against Intel ^top^
by the Federal Trade Commission. The government alleged that the chipmaker squelched competition by retaliating against three companies that tried to enforce patents against Intel and its allies. When the companies refused to license their patented technology on Intel's terms, the chipmaker withheld important product information and threatened to cut off chip supplies. The FTC argued that such tactics were unfair because Intel was exploiting its "monopoly" power.

1997 British lease on New Territories in Hong Kong expires

1995 IBM consent decree ends
A federal judge gives IBM permission to file a motion to end a 1956 consent decree. The decree, which followed an antitrust case, limited the ways in which the company could sell computers. The company argued that the computer industry had changed dramatically in the thirty-eight years since the decree was imposed. IBM argued that the terms of the agreement created higher computer prices for consumers.

1986 The Rogers Commission releases its report on the Challenger disaster, criticizing NASA and rocket-builder Morton Thiokol for management problems leading to the explosion that claimed the lives of seven astronauts.
1985 American Thomas Sutherland is kidnapped and held hostage in Lebanon

1981 Xerox introduces PC
Xerox became the first office products company to enter the personal computer market when it introduced the Xerox 820 on this day in 1981. The machine, which retailed for $3,000, boasted two disk drives and a monitor displaying twenty-four lines of 80-character type. (However, the monitor could not display graphics.)

1978 Gutenberg Bible (1 of 21) sells for $2.4 million, London
1978 Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormons) strikes down 148 year policy of excluding black men from priesthood
1972 14" of rain in 6 hrs burst Rapid City SD dam, drowns 200

1972 South Vietnamese soldiers reach An Loc    ^top^
      Part of a relief column composed mainly of South Vietnamese 21st Division troops finally arrives in the outskirts of An Loc. The division had been trying to reach the besieged city since April 9, when it had been moved from its normal station in the Mekong Delta and ordered to attack up Highway 13 from Lai Khe to open the route to An Loc. The South Vietnamese forces had been locked in a desperate battle with a North Vietnamese division that had been blocking the highway since the very beginning of the siege. As the 21st Division tried to open the road, the defenders inside An Loc fought off repeated attacks by two North Vietnamese divisions that had surrounded the city early in April. This was the southernmost thrust of the North Vietnamese invasion that had begun on March 30; the other main objectives were Quang Tri in the north and Kontum in the Central Highlands.
      Although the lead elements of the 21st Division reached the outskirts of the city on this day, they did not represent significant reinforcements for An Loc, having suffered tremendous casualties in their fight up the highway and the two-month siege was not lifted. It would not be lifted until large numbers of fresh reinforcements were flown in to a position south of the city from which they then successfully attacked the North Vietnamese forces that surrounded the city. By the end of the month, most of the Communist troops within the city had been eliminated, but the North Vietnamese forces still blocked Route 13 and continued to shell An Loc.

1970 Harry A Blackmun becomes a Supreme Court Justice
1969 The US Senate confirms Warren Burger as chief justice of the United States, succeeding Earl Warren.

1967 Fifth day of the Six-Day War    ^top^
      On 05 June 1967, responding to the Egyptian reoccupation of Gaza and the closure of the Gulf of Aqaba to Israeli shipping, Israel launched simultaneous military offensives against Egypt and Syria. Jordan subsequently entered the fray, but the Arab coalition was no match for Israel’s well-supplied and famously proficient armed forces.
      In six days, Israel occupied the Gaza Strip and the Sinai Peninsula of Egypt, the Golan Heights of Syria, and the West Bank and Arab sector of East Jerusalem, both previously under Jordanian rule.
      The so-called Six-Day War gave Israel control of territory three times its original size, and Jerusalem was unified under Jewish rule, despite a UN resolution calling for the preservation of the holy city’s Arab sector.
      Arab leaders, forced to accept a UN cease-fire, met at Khartoum in the Sudan in August to discuss the future of Israel in the Middle East. They decided upon a policy of no peace, no negotiations, and no recognition of Israel, and also made plans to zealously defend the rights of Palestinian Arabs in the territories occupied by Israel.

1965 Michel Fazy runs the mile in 3 minute 53.6 seconds

1964 CIA report challenges Domino Theory ^top^
In reply to a formal question submitted by President Lyndon B. Johnson — "Would the rest of Southeast Asia necessarily fall if Laos and South Vietnam came under North Vietnamese control?" — the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) submits a memo that effectively challenges the "domino theory" backbone of the Johnson administration policies. This theory contended that if South Vietnam fell to the communists, the rest of Southeast Asia would also fall "like dominoes," and the theory had been used to justify much of the Vietnam War effort. The CIA concluded that Cambodia was probably the only nation in the area that would immediately fall. "Furthermore," the report said, "a continuation of the spread of communism in the area would not be inexorable, and any spread which did occur would take time — time in which the total situation might change in any number of ways unfavorable to the communist cause." The CIA report concluded that if South Vietnam and Laos also fell, it "would be profoundly damaging to the US position in the Far East," but Pacific bases and allies such as the Philippines and Japan would still wield enough power to deter China and North Vietnam from any further aggression or expansion. President Johnson appears to have ignored the CIA analysis — he eventually committed over 500'000 US soldiers to the war in an effort to block the spread of communism to South Vietnam.

1957 Anthony Eden resigns as British PM

1954 “Have you no sense of decency, sir?”   ^top^
      In a dramatic confrontation, Joseph Welch, special counsel for the US Army, lashes out at Senator Joseph McCarthy during hearings on whether communism has infiltrated the US armed forces. Welch's verbal assault marked the end of McCarthy's power during the anticommunist hysteria of the Red Scare in the US. Senator McCarthy (R-Wisconsin) experienced a meteoric rise to fame and power in the US Senate when he charged in February 1950 that "hundreds" of "known communists" were in the Department of State. In the years that followed, McCarthy became the acknowledged leader of the so-called Red Scare, a time when millions of people in the US became convinced that communists had infiltrated every aspect of US life. Behind closed-door hearings, McCarthy bullied, lied, and smeared his way to power, destroying many careers and lives in the process. Prior to 1953, the Republican Party tolerated his antics because his attacks were directed against the Democratic administration of Harry S. Truman.
      When Republican Dwight D. Eisenhower entered the White House in 1953, however, McCarthy's recklessness and increasingly erratic behavior became unacceptable and the senator saw his clout slowly ebbing away. In a last-ditch effort to revitalize his anticommunist crusade, McCarthy made a crucial mistake. He charged in early 1954 that the US Army was "soft" on communism. As Chairman of the Senate Government Operations Committee, McCarthy opened hearings into the Army. Joseph N. Welch, a soft-spoken lawyer with an incisive wit and intelligence, represented the Army. During the course of weeks of hearings, Welch blunted every one of McCarthy's charges. The senator, in turn, became increasingly enraged, bellowing "point of order, point of order," screaming at witnesses, and declaring that one highly decorated general was a "disgrace" to his uniform.
      On 09 June 1954, McCarthy again became agitated at Welch's steady destruction of each of his arguments and witnesses. In response, McCarthy charged that Frederick G. Fisher, a young associate in Welch's law firm, had been a long-time member of an organization that was a "legal arm of the Communist Party." Welch was stunned. As he struggled to maintain his composure, he looked at McCarthy and declared, "Until this moment, Senator, I think I never really gauged your cruelty or your recklessness." It was then McCarthy's turn to be stunned into silence, as Welch asked, "Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last?" The audience of citizens and newspaper and television reporters burst into wild applause. Just a week later, the hearings into the Army came to a close. McCarthy, exposed as a reckless bully, was officially condemned by the US Senate for contempt against his colleagues in December 1954. During the next two-and-a-half years McCarthy spiraled into alcoholism. Still in office, he died in 1957.

1944 The Red Army invades Karelian Isthmus in Finland (again!)    ^top^
      The USSR's troops penetrate into East Karelia, in Finland, as it fights to gain back control of territory that had already been ceded to it. According to the terms of the Treaty of Moscow of 1940, Finland was forced to surrender parts of its southeastern territory, including the Karelian Isthmus, to the Soviet Union, which was eager to create a buffer zone for Leningrad. To protect itself against further Russian encroachment, Finland allowed Germany to traverse its country in its push eastward into Russia, despite the fact that it did not have a formal alliance with the Axis power.
      Emboldened by the damage Germany was inflicting on Russia, Finland pursued the "War of Continuation" and won back large parts of the territory it had ceded to Moscow in the 1940 treaty. But as Germany suffered setback after setback, and the Allies continued bombing runs in the Balkans, using Russia as part of its "shuttle" strategy, Finland began to panic and made overtures to Stalin about signing an armistice.
      By 09 June, the Red Army was once again in the East Karelia, and Stalin was in no mood to negotiate, demanding at least a symbolic "surrender" of Finland entirely. Finland turned back to its "friend," Germany, which promised continued support. A change in Finnish government resulted in a change in perspective, and Finland finally signed an armistice that gave Stalin what he wanted: all the old territory from the 1940 treaty and a guarantee that German troops would evacuate Finnish soil. Finland agreed but the German army refused to leave. Terrible battles were waged between the two behemoths; finally, with the defeat of the Axis, Russia got what it wanted, not only in Finnish territory, but also in war reparations to the tune of $300 million. Finland would become known for its passivity in the face of the Soviet threat in the postwar era.

1943 Tax withholding in US ^top^
World War II prompted sweeping fiscal changes in the United States, as President Franklin Roosevelt and his fellow legislators geared the nation for the rigors of wartime production. Along with reallocating vast chunks of America's work force to the task of manufacturing military items, Roosevelt helped establish tight controls on wages, prices, and consumption. While most of these initiatives were brought to a halt shortly after the declaration of peace in 1945, at least one wartime fiscal policy — the Current Tax Payment Act — has had some enduring impact. Indeed, the tax legislation, which hit the law books on this day in 1943, paved the path for withholding on income taxes. In particular, the bill, popularly known as the "Pay As You Go Tax," allows to withhold federal income taxes from American taxpayers before they get paid their wages or salaries.

1940 Norway surrenders to Nazi Germany during WW II
1940 Chute de Rouen.

1934 Donald Duck's movie debut.    ^top^
      Donald Duck makes his first film appearance, in The Wise Little Hen, a short by Walt Disney. Donald, along with Mickey Mouse (who debuted in 1928), would become one of Disney's most beloved characters. Donald's popularity also led to other characters in the Duck family, including Daisy Duck, Uncle $crooge, and nephews Huey, Dewey, and Louey. Al Taliaferro would draw the comic strip.
      Donald's creator, Walt Disney, was born on a Missouri farm and showed an early interest in art. He sold his first sketches to neighbors when he was just seven, and he attended the Kansas City Art Institute at night during high school. At age 16, during World War I, Disney went overseas with the Red Cross and drove an ambulance decorated with cartoon characters.
      Back in Kansas City, Disney worked as an advertising cartoonist. He founded a company, Laugh-O-Gram, with his older brother, Roy, but the company went bankrupt, and the brothers left Kansas City for Hollywood with $40 and some art supplies in the early 1920s. Once in California, the brothers built a camera stand in their uncle's garage and started their company in the back of a Hollywood real estate office.
      Disney began making a series of animated short films called Alice in Cartoonland and developed a stable of animated characters. In 1928, Disney introduced Mickey Mouse in two silent films, followed by Steamboat Willie (1928), the first fully synchronized sound cartoon ever made. Walt Disney provided Mickey's squeaky voice himself. The company then launched the "Silly Symphony" series of sound cartoons. One installment in the series, The Three Little Pigs (1934), became the most popular cartoon up to that time. Meanwhile, the company developed increasingly sophisticated animation technology.

The company released the first feature-length animated film, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, in 1937. The film grossed $8 million, an incredible success during the Depression. During World War II, Disney devoted most of his company's resources to the production of training and propaganda films for the military. In 1965, he designed the Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow (EPCOT), which later inspired Disney's EPCOT Center in Orlando, Florida. He also helped establish the California Institute of the Arts in 1961.
During Disney's four-decade career, he won more than 1000 honors and citations from around the world, including 48 Academy Awards and seven Emmys. Harvard, Yale, the University of Southern California, and UCLA all awarded him honorary degrees. He also won the Presidential Medal of Freedom, France's Legion of Honor and Officer d'Academie decorations, Thailand's Order of the Crown, Brazil's Order of the Southern Cross, Mexico's Order of the Aztec Eagle, and the Showman of the World Award from the National Association of Theatre Owners. In addition to his films, his legend lives on through Disneyland, Walt Disney World, and EPCOT Center. Walt Disney died in 1966.

1931 Goddard patents rocket-propelled aircraft design.
1902 first Automat restaurant opens (818 Chestnut St, Phila)
1902 Woodrow Wilson is unanimously elected president of Princeton University. In this position, Wilson would already exhibit both the idealistic integrity and the occasional lack of political acumen that would later mark his tenure as 28th president of the United States.

1898 Britain granted 99-year lease on Hong Kong    ^top^
      With the signing of the Second Convention of Peking by British and Chinese authorities, Britain was granted an additional ninety-nine years of rule over the island of Hong Kong. In 1839, at the outbreak of the First Opium War, Britain invaded and occupied Hong Kong, a sparsely inhabited island off the coast of southeast China. Two years later, China, defeated in its efforts to resist European interference in its economic and political affairs, formally ceded Hong Kong to the British with the signing of the Chuenpi Convention. Britain’s new colony flourished as an East-West trading center and as the commercial gateway and distribution center for southern China. In 1898, Britain was granted an additional ninety-nine years of rule over the prosperous colony.
      In September of 1984, after years of negotiations, the British and Chinese Communists signed a formal agreement that approved the 1997 turnover of the island in exchange for a Chinese pledge to preserve Hong Kong’s capitalist system. On July 1, 1997, Hong Kong reverted back to Chinese rule during ceremonies attended by Chinese and British officials, including Prince Charles of Wales, heir to the British throne. The chief executive under the new Hong Kong government, Tung Chee Hwa, formulated a policy based upon the concept of "one country, two systems," thus preserving Hong Kong’s role as a principal capitalist center in Asia.

1883 first commercial electric railway line in the US begins operation (Chicago El)
1869 Charles Elmer Hires sells his first root beer (Phila)
1863 Battle of Brandy Station, Virginia

1863 Battle of Brandy Station (Fleetwood Heights)    ^top^
      The largest cavalry battle of the war is fought at Brandy Station, Virginia. After the Confederate victory at Chancellorville in early May, Lee began to prepare for another invasion of the North by placing General J.E.B. Stuart's cavalry at Brandy Station, just east of Culpeper, to screen the rest of the Army of Northern Virginia as it started toward the Blue Ridge mountains. Stuart used this time at Brandy Station to stage a grand parade in order to boost morale and show off his dashing troopers to local residents.
      Unbeknownst to Stuart, his pompous display was observed by uninvited Union cavalry and infantry under the command of General Alfred Pleasonton, who lurked across the Rappahannock. On 09 June, Pleasonton struck the surprised Rebels in a two-pronged assault. After initially falling back, the Confederates eventually rallied, and the battle raged all day around St. James Church.
      The battle's key moment came when Union troops headed to seize Fleetwood Hill, an elevation from which the Yankees could shell the entire battlefield. Confederate Lieutenant John Carter struggled to mount a cannon on the hill and fired a single shot that stopped the Union troopers in their tracks. The Yankee officer leading the charge suspected the Confederates had a line of guns sitting just over the top of the hill, when in fact it was a single gun with barely enough powder for a single shot. Carter's heroic act saved the day for Stuart. The move bought time for the Confederates, and they held the hill.
      The battle continued until late afternoon, with many spectacular cavalry charges and saber fights in addition to hand-to-hand combat by dismounted cavalry. In the end, Stuart's forces held the field. Although it was technically a Rebel victory, the battle demonstrated how far the Union cavalry had come since the beginning of the war. Stuart's cavalry had been the master of their Union counterparts, but its invincibility was shattered on that muggy Virginia day.

1863 Siege of Port Hudson, Louisiana continues
1863 Siege of Vicksburg, Mississippi continues
1862 Battle of Port Republic, last of 5 battles in Jacksons Valley camp

1856 Mormon handcart pioneers depart for Salt Lake City    ^top^
      In an extraordinary demonstration of resolve and fortitude, nearly 500 Mormons leave Iowa City and head west for Salt Lake City carrying all their goods and supplies in two-wheeled handcarts. Of all the thousands of pioneer journeys to the West in the 19th century, few were more arduous than those undertaken by the so-called Handcart Companies from 1856 to 1860. The secular and religious leader of the Mormons, Brigham Young, had established Salt Lake City as the center of a new Utah sanctuary for the Latter-day Saints in 1847. In subsequent years, Young worked diligently to encourage and aid Mormons who made the difficult overland trek to the Great Salt Lake. In 1856, however, a series of poor harvests left the church with only a meager fund to help immigrants buy wagons and oxen. Young suggested a cheaper mode of travel: "Let them come on foot with handcarts or wheelbarrows; let them gird up their loins and walk through and nothing shall hinder or stay them." Amazingly, many Mormons followed his advice. On this day in 1856, a band of 497 Mormons left Iowa City, Iowa, and began the more than 1,000-mile trek to Salt Lake City. They carried all their goods in about 100 two-wheeled handcarts, most of which were heaped with the maximum load of 400 to 500 pounds. Each family usually had one cart, and the father and mother took turns pulling while any children old enough helped by pushing.
      The handcart immigrants soon ran into serious problems. The Mormon craftsmen who had constructed the handcarts back in Iowa City had chosen to use wooden axles instead of iron in order to save time and money. Sand and dirt quickly wore down the wood, and water and heat made the axles splinter and crack. As the level terrain of the prairies gave way to the more rugged country of the Plains, the sheer physical challenge of hauling a 220-kg cart began to take its toll. One British immigrant who was a skilled carpenter wrote of having to make three coffins in as many days. Some of the pilgrims gave up. Two girls in one handcart group left to marry a pair of miners they met along the way. The majority, however, struggled on and eventually reached the Salt Lake Valley. Over the course of the next four years, some 3000 Mormon converts made the overland journey by pushing and pulling heavy-laden handcarts. Better planning and the use of iron axles made the subsequent immigrations slightly easier than the first, and some actually made the journey more quickly than if they had used ox-drawn wagons. Still, once the church finances had recovered, Young's followers returned to using conventional wagons. The handcart treks remained nothing less than heroic. One Mormon girl later estimated that she and her family had each taken over a million steps to reach their goal, pushing and pulling a creaking wooden handcart the entire way.

1822 Charles Graham receives first patent for false teeth
1790 First book copyrighted under the constitution, Philadelphia Spelling Book.
1784 In the first step toward formal organization of the Roman Catholic Church in the US, Father John Carroll is appointed superior of the American missions by Pius VI.

1772 British vessel burned off of Rhode Island    ^top^
      In an incident that some regard as the first naval engagement of the American Revolution, colonists boarded the Gaspee, a British vessel that ran aground off the coast of Rhode Island, and set it aflame. The Gaspee had been pursuing the Hanna, an American smuggling ship, when it ran aground off of Namquit Point in Providence’s Narragansett Bay on 09 June. That evening, John Brown, an American merchant angered by high British taxes on his goods, rowed out to the Gaspee with a number of other colonists and seized control of the ship. After evacuating its crew, the Americans set the Gaspee on fire.
      When British officials attempted to prosecute the colonists involved in the so-called Gaspee Affair, they found no Americans willing to testify against their countrymen. This renewed the tension in British-American relations, and inspired the Boston Patriots to found the "Committee of Correspondence," a propaganda group that rallied Americans to their cause by publicizing all anti-British activity that occurred throughout the thirteen colonies.

1732 Georgia Charter granted to Oglethorpe    ^top^
      James Edward Oglethorpe, a British philanthropist and member of the House of Commons, was granted a royal charter by King George II to found a debtor colony south of South Carolina. First elected to the British Parliament in 1722, Oglethorpe became concerned with the plight of the debtor classes as chairman of a parliamentary committee investigating the deplorable penal conditions in Britain at the time. In 1732, he proposed the establishment of an asylum for debtors in the region south of the American colony of South Carolina. The British recognized the advantages of a buffer colony between South Carolina and Spanish Florida and Oglethorpe was made a twenty-year trustee of the colony of Georgia, named after King George. He carefully selected about one hundred debtors, and on 11 January 1733, the expedition sailed into Charleston harbor in the American colonies. After purchasing supplies, Oglethorpe led the settlers down the coast to Georgia, where they traveled inland along the Savannah River, establishing Georgia's first permanent European settlement — Savannah — on February 12.
      After forging friendly relations with the Yamacraw, a branch of the Creek confederacy who agreed to cede land to the colonists for settlement, he set about establishing a defense against the Spanish by building forts and instituting a system of military training. England declared war on Spain in 1739; in the next year, Oglethorpe led English and Native American forces in an invasion of Spanish Florida. He failed to capture St. Augustine, however, and in May of 1742, a large Spanish and Cuban force arrived to Florida. Oglethorpe retreated to Fort Frederica on St. Simons Island south of Savannah, and on 07 July, the Spanish attacked.
      During the five-day Battle of Bloody Marsh, Oglethorpe’s outnumbered force successfully withstood the Spanish assault, and the Georgia governor carried out two brilliant wilderness ambushes that forced the Spanish to give up the siege on 12 July. His victory effectively ended Spanish claims to the territory of Georgia, and thus proved essential in strengthening the southern border of the thirteen colonies. Georgia, rich in export potential, later grew into one of the most prosperous British colonies in America.

1549 In England, Parliament established a uniformity of religious services and the first Book of Common Prayer, as Anglicanism became the newly established national faith.

1534 Cartier discovers the St. Lawrence River    ^top^
      French navigator Jacques Cartier became the first European explorer to discover the St. Lawrence River in present-day Quebec, Canada. Cartier had been commissioned by King Francis I of France to explore the northern American lands in search of riches and the Northwest Passage to Asia. In 1534, he entered the Gulf of St. Lawrence by the Strait of Belle Isle, explored its barren north coast for a distance and then traveled down the west shore of Newfoundland to Cape Anguille.
      From there, he discovered Magdalen and Prince Edwards islands, explored Chaleur Bay, and claimed Quebec’s Gaspe Peninsula for France. He next discovered the inlet of the St. Lawrence River, sailed north to Anticosti Island, and then returned to Europe. Previously thought to be a barren and inhospitable region, Cartier’s discoveries of the warm and fertile lands around the Gulf of St. Lawrence inspired Francis I to dispatch him on a second expedition. On this voyage, he ascended the St. Lawrence to the site of present-day Quebec City and, leaving some of his men to prepare winter quarters, continued to the native village of Hochelaga, the site of the modern-day city of Montreal. On his return to France he explored Cabot Strait along the southern coast of Newfoundland. Cartier led a final expedition to the region in 1541, as part of an unsuccessful colonization effort. In the seventeenth century, his extensive geographical discoveries formed the basis of France’s claims to the rich St. Lawrence Valley.

1660 (29 May Julian) The English Restoration ^top^
      Under invitation by leaders of the English Commonwealth, Charles II [09 Jun 1630 – 17 Feb 1685], the exiled king of England, enters London in triumph on his 30th birthday, to assume the throne and end eleven years of military rule. Four days earlier he had landed at Dover.
— 1653 Portrait of Charles II by Philippe de Champaigne [1602-1674] >>>
      Prince of Wales at the time of the English Civil War, Charles fled to France after the Parliamentarians of Oliver Cromwell [05 May 1599 – 14 Sep 1658] defeated the Royalists of Charles I [30 Nov 1600 – 10 Feb 1649] in 1646. In 1649, Charles vainly attempted to save his father’s life by presenting Parliament a signed blank sheet of paper, thereby granting whatever terms were required. However, Oliver Cromwell was determined to execute Charles I, and on 10 February (30 January Julian) 1649, the king was beheaded in London.
      After his father's death, Charles was proclaimed king of Scotland and parts of Ireland and England, and went to Scotland to raise an army. In 1651, he invaded England but was defeated by Cromwell at the Battle of Worcester. Charles escaped to France, and later lived in exile in Germany and then in the Spanish Netherlands.
      After Cromwell’s death in 1658, the English republican experiment faltered. Cromwell’s son Richard proved an ineffectual leader and the public resented the strict Puritanism of England’s military rulers.
      In 1660, in what became known as the English Restoration, General George Monck [17 Dec 1608 – 14 Jan 1670] met with Charles and arranged to restore him in exchange for a promise of amnesty and religious toleration for his former enemies. Charles issued on 15 April (04 April Julian) 1660 his Declaration of Breda, expressing his personal desire for a general amnesty, liberty of conscience, an equitable settlement of land disputes, and full payment of arrears to the army. The actual terms were to be left to a free parliament, and on this provisional basis Charles was proclaimed king in May 1660. Landing at Dover on 05 June (25 May Julian), he reached a rejoicing London on his 30th birthday.
      In the first year of the Restoration, Oliver Cromwell was posthumously convicted of treason and his body disinterred from its tomb in Westminster Abbey and hanged from the gallows at Tyburn.

1456 23rd recorded perihelion passage of Halley's Comet

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^ Deaths which occurred on a 09 June:
2001 Nessra Malaha, 65, Salimia Malaha, 65, and her niece Hikmet Malaha, 25, by shrapnel from Israeli tank shells. The three women were Bedouin living in a camp near the Jewish enclave settlement Netzarim.

2000 Sabaratnam Vijitha, 2, Madduvil South ^top^
Sivapirakasam Sasthiri of Nunavil South
Somasunderam kurukal Gobalakumar,20, of Madduvil North
Sangarapillai Salini, 15, of Madduvil North
Thambu Sabaratnam, 45, of Madduvil South
Thambu Manonmani, 50, of Madduvil South
T.Sivasothi, 46, Principal, Santhira Mouliga School,
Varithamby Sivapakiyam, 70, of Kalvayal
civilians killed in shelling by the Sri Lanka Army in the Thenmaradchi area. The same day 25 Sri Lanka Army soldiers, including a senior officer, are killed at Sarasalai in the Jaffna peninsula in an attack on positions of the LTTE (Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam). http://www.tamilnet.com/reports/2000/06/1002.html

2000 Jacob Lawrence, 82, in Seattle, painter.
1994 Jan Tinbergen, Dutch mathematician-physicist-economist-socialist activist, born on 12 April 1903. His major publications include Statistical Testing of Business Cycles (1938), Econometrics (1942), Economic Policy (1956), and Income Distribution (1975).
1972 John Paul Vann, senior US advisor in Vietnam's Central Highlands, in a helicopter crash, probably shot down by North Vietnamese. Vann had successfully directed the battle against the North Vietnamese invaders at Kontum.
1969 Harold Davenport, mathematician born on 30 October 1907. He worked on number theory, in particular the geometry of numbers, Diophantine approximation and the analytic theory of numbers. He wrote a number of important textbooks and monographs including The higher arithmetic (1952). He wrote the monograph Analytic methods for Diophantine equations and Diophantine inequalities (1962) which includes many of his contributions extending the Hardy-Littlewood method. He also wrote an important monograph on the analytic approach to the theory of the distribution of primes Multiplicative number theory (1967).

^ 1967 Gary Ray Blanchard, 20.
      Crew member of US spy ship attacked by Israelis the previous day. Grievously wounded, he dies on the operating table at 03:15 32 others died earlier.
     On 670608, the fourth day of the Six-Day War, the Israeli high command had received reports that Israeli troops in El Arish were being fired upon from the sea, presumably by an Egyptian vessel as they had a day before. The United States had announced that it had no Naval forces within hundreds of miles of the battle front on the floor of the United Nations a few days earlier; however, the USS Liberty, an American intelligence ship assigned to monitor the fighting, arrived in the area, 22 km off the Sinai coast, as result of a series of United States communication failures, whereby messages directing the ship not to approach within 160 km were not received by the Liberty. The Israelis mistakenly thought this was the ship doing the shelling and war planes and torpedo boats attacked, killing 33 members of the Liberty's crew and wounding 172. This according to the official version.
      However the survivors and books such as Assault on the Liberty and "The USS Liberty: Dissenting History vs. Official History" tell a different story, according to which it was a deliberate attack. Admiral Thomas H. Moorer wrote on June 8, 1997:

I am confident that Israel knew the Liberty could intercept radio messages from all parties and potential parties to the ongoing war, then in its fourth day, and that Israel was preparing to seize the Golan Heights from Syria despite President Johnson's known opposition to such a move..... And I believe Moshe Dayan concluded that he could prevent Washington from becoming aware of what Israel was up to by destroying the primary source of acquiring that information - the USS Liberty.

Another alleged Israeli motivation is that they wanted to hide their (alleged) war crime of shooting some 1000 Egyptian prisoners, mentioned in The Washington Report on Middle East Affairs:

According to eyewitness accounts by Israeli officers and journalists, the Israeli Army ... executed as many as 1000 Arab prisoners during the 1967 war. Historian Gabby Bron wrote in the Yediot Ahronot in Israel that he witnessed Israeli troops executing Egyptian prisoners on the morning of June 8, 1967, in the Sinai town of El Arish.

1963 Jacques Villon = Gaston Duchamp, French Cubist painter born on 31 July 1875. — MORE ON “VILLON” AT ART “4” JUNE with links to images.
1953 About 100 persons, by tornado, Worcester, Massachusetts. It destroys Assumption College.
1945 Antonin Prochaska, Czech artist born on 05 June 1882.

^ 1911 Carry Nation, US hatchet lady, a real smasher, who died on 09 June 1911.
     Born Carry Amelia Moore on 25 November 1846, she was social reformer, hatchet lady scourge of barkeepers and drinkers. “Nation” is from her 1877 marriage (her 2nd) to her second husband, David Nation, who divorced her in 1901 on grounds of desertion. In 1867 she married and abandoned after a few months because of his alcoholism Dr. Charles Gloyd.
     As a child Carry Moore experienced poverty, her mother's mental instability, and frequent bouts of ill health. Although she held a teaching certificate from a state normal school, her education was intermittent. In 1867 she married a young physician, Charles Gloyd, whom she left after a few months because of his alcoholism. In 1877 she married David Nation, a lawyer, journalist, and minister, who divorced her in 1901 on the grounds of desertion.
      Carry Nation entered the temperance movement in 1890, when a US Supreme Court decision in favor of the importation and sale of liquor in “original packages” from other states weakened the prohibition laws of Kansas, where she was living. In her view, the illegality of the saloons flourishing in that state meant that anyone could destroy them with impunity. A formidable woman, some 180cm tall and weighing some 80kg, she dressed in stark black-and-white clothing. Alone or accompanied by hymn-singing women, she would march into a saloon and proceed to sing, pray, hurl biblical-sounding vituperations, and smash the bar fixtures and stock with a hatchet. At one point, her fervour led her to invade thegovernor's chambers at Topeka. Jailed many times, she paid her fines from lecture-tour fees and sales of souvenir hatchets, at times earning as much as $300 per week. She herself survived numerous physical assaults.
      Nation published a few short-lived newsletters, called variously The Smasher's Mail, The Hatchet, and The Home Defender, and her autobiography, The Use and Need of the Life of Carry A. Nation (1904). Her “hatchetation” period was brief but brought her national notoriety. She was for a time much in demand as a temperance lecturer; she also railed against fraternal orders, tobacco, foreign foods, corsets, skirts of improper length, and mildly pornographic art of the sort found in some barrooms of the time. She was an advocate of woman suffrage. Later she appeared in vaudeville, at Coney Island, New York, and briefly in 1903 in Hatchetation, an adaptation of Ten Nights in a Bar-room. Despite her campaign, she did not carry the nation much toward the 29 January 1919 ratification of the 18th Amendement to the US Constitution, which went into effect on 29 January 1920, with its enforcement regulated by the 28 October 1919 National Prohibition Act, promoted by Congressman (from 04 Mar 1903 to 03 Mar 1923) Andrew J. Volstead [31 Oct 1860 – 20 Jan 1947] of Minnesota, a lawyer. All this was due, more than to Carry Nation, to the efforts of more conventional reformers, who had been reluctant to support her. Prohibition was a boon to criminals (as the “war against drugs” would be years later) and it was repealed by the 21st Amendment to the US Consitution, ratified on 05 December 1933.

1901 Edward Moran, US painter born on 19 August 1829. — MORE ON MORAN AT ART “4” JUNE with links to images.

^ 1870 Charles Dickens Dickens was born in 1812 and attended school in Portsmouth. His father, a clerk in the navy pay office, was thrown in debtors' prison in 1824, and 12-year-old Charles was sent to work in a factory. The miserable treatment of children and the institution of the debtors' jail became topics of several Dickens novels. In his late teens, Dickens became a reporter and started publishing humorous short stories when he was 21. In 1836, Dickens married Catherine Hogarth, with whom he would have nine children. On 31 March 1836, the first monthly installment of what would become The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club, the first novel of 24-year-old Charles Dickens, is published under the pseudonym Boz as Sketches by Boz. The short sketches were originally commissioned as captions for humorous drawings by caricaturist Robert Seymour, but Dickens' whimsical stories about the kindly Samuel Pickwick and his fellow club members soon became popular in their own right. Only 400 copies were printed of the first installment, but by the 15th episode, 40'000 copies were printed. When the stories were published in book form in 1837, Dickens quickly became the most popular author of the day. In 1838, Dickens published Oliver Twist, followed by Nicholas Nickleby (1839). In 1841, Dickens published two more novels, then spent five months in the US, where he was hailed as a literary hero. Dickens churned out major novels every year or two, usually serialized in his own circular. Among his most important works are David Copperfield (1850), Great Expectations (1861), and A Tale of Two Cities (1859). Beginning in 1850, he published his own weekly circular of fiction, poetry, and essays called Household Words. In 1858, Dickens separated from his wife and began a long affair with a young actress named Ellen Ternan. In the late 1850s, he began a series of public readings, which became immensely popular. He dies, in Godshill, England,.with his last novel, The Mystery of Edwin Drood, still unfinished. DICKENS ONLINE:
American Notes for General Circulation: 1 (1842) American Notes for General Circulation: 2 (1842) American Notes for General Circulation (1874) Barnaby Rudge (PDF) Barnaby Rudge Barnaby Rudge (zipped PDF) A Child's History of England A Christmas Carol A Christmas Carol (PDF) A Christmas Carol (zipped PDF) A Christmas Carol: The Reading Version David Copperfield David Copperfield (zipped PDF) Dombey and Son (PDF) Great Expectations Great Expectations (PDF) Great Expectations (zipped PDF) The Haunted Man and the Ghost's Bargain The Lazy Tour of Two Idle Apprentices Letters of Charles Dickens to Wilkie Collins The Life and Adventures of Martin Chuzzlewit (PDF) The Life and Adventures of Martin Chuzzlewit (zipped PDF) The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby (zipped PDF) The Old Curiosity Shop The Old Curiosity Shop The Old Curiosity Shop (zipped PDF) The Perils of Certain English Prisoners	Bleak House Bleak House Bleak House (zipped PDF) Little Dorrit Little Dorrit (PDF) Little Dorrit (zipped PDF) Hard Times Hard Times Hard Times (zipped PDF) The Chimes The Chimes The Battle of Life The Holly Tree Hunted Down The Lamplighter The Cricket on the Hearth Doctor Marigold The Life of Our Lord Mugby Junction A Message from the Sea Mrs. Lirriper's Legacy Mrs. Lirriper's Lodgings To Be Read at Dusk Tom Tiddler's Ground Pictures from Italy Reprinted Pieces Sketches by Boz Somebody's Luggage	Mudfog and Other Sketches Master Humphrey's Clock The Mystery of Edwin Drood The Mystery of Edwin Drood Oliver Twist Oliver Twist (PDF) Oliver Twist (zipped PDF) Our Mutual Friend Our Mutual Friend (PDF) The Pickwick Papers The Pickwick Papers The Pickwick Papers (zipped PDF) The Seven Poor Travellers Sketches of Young Couples Sketches of Young Gentlemen Speeches, Literary and Social Sunday Under Three Heads A Tale of Two Cities A Tale of Two Cities A Tale of Two Cities A Tale of Two Cities (zipped PDF) The Uncommercial Traveller The Wreck of the Golden Mary co-author of: No Thoroughfare No Thoroughfare editor of: A House to Let

1855 Piotr Michalowski, Polish artist born on 02 July 1800 or 1801.
1798 Johann Georg Pforr, German artist born on 04 January 1745.

Condamnés à mort par la Révolution: ^top^
1794 (21 prairial an II):
VIERNE Joseph, passementier, domicilié à Nismes (Gard), comme contre-révolutionnaire, par le tribunal criminel dudit département.
DEBURE Jean, laboureur, domicilié à Creux (Sarthe), par la commission révolutionnaire séante à Laval, comme brigand de la Vendée.
LEROY Pierre, aîné, et LEROY René, tisserands, domiciliés à Nuillé-sur-Ouette (Mayenne), comme contre-révolutionnaires, par la commission militaire de Laval.
Par le tribunal révolutionnaire de Paris:
PELLETIER Jacques, cafetier, 70 ans, natif de St Germain (Haute Saône), domicilié à Paris, comme convaincu d’être entré en France en 1792 pour servir d’espion et être l’agent des puissances étrangères, et de correspondre avec les émigrés.
WEYTARD Amable Joseph (dit Fontbouillant), distributeur de tabac, 57 ans, né à Gannat, domicilié à Gusset (Allier).
VALLEE Pierre Louis, administrateur du district du Puy-la-Montagne, 37 ans, né à St Vast, domicilié à Pontjoi (Eure et Loire), comme ayant versé des pleurs à la mort de Capet, en disant que c’était un assassinat, et en tenant les propos les plus injurieux envers la convention nationale, et le jugement qu’elle avait rendu contre le tyran.
BEAUFILS Pierre Louis, 54 ans, né à l'Yonne-la-Forêt (Eure), juge de paix, domicilié à la Ferté-les-Bois, canton de Puy-la-Montagne (Eure et Loire), pour avoir fait des adresses en faveur de la tyrannie, pour avoir incarcéré des patriotes, pour s'être apitoyé sur la mort du roi et pour avoir tenu des propos contre-révolutionnaires.
      ... comme conspirateurs:
PERROY Claude, 60 ans, natif de Marsigny-sur-Loire, ex maître des comptes de Dijon, domicilié à Cercy (Saône et Loire), ... ayant, au mépris des lois, perçu la dîme en nature, et ayant dit lorsqu'on lui offrait des assignats, que ça lui était égal parce qu'il espérait s'en torcher le derrière, dans deux ou trois mois, etc.
CORMEAUX François Georges, ex curé réfractaire, 47 ans, né et domicilié à Lamballe (Côtes du Nord).
CROISY Louis, 35 ans, ex curé, né et domicilié au Havre-Libre (Somme).
ROUGANE André (dit Pinsat) président du bureau de conciliation, 75 ans, né et domicilié à Cusset (Allier).
HERBAULT Jean Antoine, cultivateur, secrétaire de la municipalité, 30 ans, né à Tonnerre (Orne), ex procureur au ci-devant bailliage de Châteauneuf, domicilié à Moulins (Allier).
AUVRAY Jean Baptiste, 51 ans né à Paris, ci-devant secrétaire de Gilbert-de-Voisins, président au ci-devant parlement de Paris, commis chez un payeur de rentes, domicilié à Paris.
CHANTEMERLE Amable, prêtre, 37 ans, né à Thièrs (Puy-de-Dôme), instituteur et homme de lettres, domicilié à Paris.
GUERBOIS André, valet de chambre tapissier du président Gilbert et voisins, 43 ans, né à Hantiles (Seine et Oise).
PHORTIEN Nicolas Marie Antoine Mathieu (dit Dépinay), ex noble et lieutenant colonel des grenadiers de Champagne, 58 ans, natif de Laigle (Orne), domicilié à St Sauveur (Eure et Loire).
LEPELLETIER Louis Jean (dit Labidouderie), avocat et administrateur du district, 45 ans, né et domicilié à Puy-la-Montagne, (Eure et Loire), ... ayant versé des pleure à la mort de Capet, dit que c'était un assassinat et s'étant permis les propos les plus injurieux.
SLABEURACH Marie Léopold, secrétaire de Puy-la-Montagne, 30 ans, natif de Gournay (Seine Inférieure), domicilié à Puy-la-Montagne (Indre et Loire) [sic].
             ... domiciliés à la Ferté-les-Bois (Eure et Loire):
SLABEURACH René Marie Max Léopold, député à l'assemblée législative, 35 ans, natif de Gournay (Seine Inférieure), ... l'un des principaux agents de Capet et de son comité autrichien, et comme ayant provoqué la présentation d'une adresse au tyran roi contre la journée du 20 juin.
GARNIER Armand Modeste, inspecteur des Bois nationaux de la Ferté-les-Bois, ci-devant garde marteau, 52 ans, né à Veronne (Eure).
GAURIAUX-DEVAUX (ou GORIAUX-DEVAUX) Pierre René Marc, 62 ans, né au Melle-sur-Sarthe (Orne), ci-devant régisseur de la Ferté-les-Bois.
LEBOULANGER Jean Guillaume, garde général des bois nationaux, ci-devant, inspecteur des bâtiments, 38 ans, né à Blalouy.
             ... domiciliés à Saint-Sylvestre, (Puy-de-Dôme):
DEPONS Elisabeth, 63 ans, née à Pragoulin, ex noble, ex religieuse.
DEPONS Renée Marguerite, 59 ans, née à Pragoulin, ex noble et religieuse.
DEPONS René, fils, 34 ans, né à Hesse, paye de Liège, ex noble, officier de marine des Etats-Unis de l'Amérique Septentrionales.
DEPONS Louis, 69 ans, né à Pragoulin, commune de St Sylvestre, ex noble et chevalier de St Louis.
1793:
CORDE Jean, tisserand, domicilié à Bielles (Ille-et-Vilaine), chef d'attroupement contre-révolutionnaire. par le tribunal criminel dudit département.
RESTIFS Pierre, domestique, laboureur, domicilié à Balazè (Ille-et-Vilaine), comme contre-révolutionnaire, par le tribunal criminel dudit département.
LASUTTES Jean, médecin, domicilié à Montpellier, département de l'Hérault, comme chef de brigands, par le tribunal criminel du département de la Lozère.

1676 Hendrik-Jacobszoon Dubbels, Dutch artist born in 1620 or 1621.
0597 Saint. Columba, 76, pioneer missionary to Scotland. From the Isle of Iona, Columba evangelized the mainland of Scotland and Northumbria.
0068 Nero, Roman Emperor, suicide.

^ Births which occurred on a 09 June:

1989 Gregory Smith, in West Reading, Pennsylvania. He who would solve math problems at age 14 months, and read by age 2. He started school in August 1994 and graduated from high school in Orange Park, Florida, on 11 June 1999. In September 1999, he enrolled at Randolph-Macon College in Ashland, Virginia. He graduated cum laude on 31 May 2003 with a BS in Mathematics and minors in History and Biology [photo >]. Starting on 09 June 2003, he studies for a Ph.D. in mathematics at the University of Virginia. Meanwhile he has founded International Youth Advocates to champion nonviolence and children's rights.

1959 George Washington, first ballistic missile sub, is launched in Groton, Connecticut.

1958 Donald Michael Santini, Mass, murderer (FBI Most Wanted List)

^ 1956 Patricia Cornwall, bestselling crime novelist
      Patricia Cornwall, creator of crime-solving medical examiner Kay Scarpetta, in Miami, Florida.
      Cornwall's family moved to North Carolina when she was seven, shortly after her parents divorced. Her mother had a nervous breakdown when Cornwall was nine and tried to give the children away to evangelist Billy Graham and his wife, Ruth. The Grahams placed the children in foster care and kept an eye on them for years. Cornwall, who attended Davidson College in North Carolina and became a newspaper reporter in Charlotte, later wrote a profile of Ruth Graham, which she turned into her first book, a biography of Graham.
      Cornwall married an English professor some 17 years her senior, who later became a minister. The couple moved to Richmond, Virginia, where Cornwall's character Scarpetta would be based. The couple later divorced. Hoping to become a crime novelist, Cornwall spent six years studying forensic science and working at the morgue. She wrote three novels between 1984 and 1988, all featuring a dashing, adventurous, and poetic detective hero, with a minor medical-examiner character named Kay Scarpetta.
      An editor advised Cornwall to focus on Scarpetta and to write grittier fiction based on everyday crime situations faced by the morgue. Cornwall wrote Postmortem, which was finally accepted by Scribner's after seven other publishers rejected it. The novel won five major mystery awards that year and sold hundreds of thousands of copies in paperback. Cornwall's subsequent Scarpetta novels, including Cruel and Unusual (1993) and Cause of Death (1996), sold in the millions and have been translated into 22 languages, earning her multimillion-dollar advances.

1954 Lon Tomohisa Horiuchi, US Asian, Catholic, son of a US Army officer, he grows up in Hawaii and would graduate from West Point in 1976. He would join the FBI in 1984. He would become notorious as the sniper who shot and killed Vicki Weaver on 22 August 1992 as she was holding her infant daughter, during the Ruby Ridge standoff. Horiuchi was never punished for that.

^ 1951 Ayman Mohamed Rabie El Zawahri, "docteur" du Jihad égyptien
     En Egypte, on le surnomme "le Docteur" car il est diplômé de médecine. Ayman El Zawahri, qui figure dans la liste établie par les Etats-Unis, a mis sa conception radicale de l'islamisme au service d'Oussama Ben Laden, dont il est parfois considéré comme le bras droit. Pour un membre des services égyptiens de sécurité, qui l'a interrogé au début des années 1980, le chirurgien serait "un maître cerveau de la planification". De là à en faire le "chef du service Action" d'Al-Qaida, l'organisation de Ben Laden, il n'y a qu'un pas que beaucoup d'experts de l'antiterrorisme se hâtent de franchir.
      Né le 09 Jun 1951 à Guiza, au pied des Pyramides, Ayman El Zawahri est le fils d'un professeur de pharmacologie à l'université du Caire. Riche et puissante, sa famille a compté un premier secrétaire de la Ligue arabe et des responsables d'Al-Azhar, la mosquée-université millénaire qui reste la référence de l'islam sunnite. Ayman s'est très vite lancé dans la politique en rejoignant les Frères musulmans, à une époque où beaucoup de dirigeants de la confrérie étaient pendus ou internés. Cela lui a valu, en 1966, son premier dossier à la police de la sécurité de l'Etat. A la faculté de médecine du Caire, Zawahri est devenu un membre actif de ce qui était alors l'embryon de l'organisation extrémiste égyptienne Al-Jihad (guerre sainte) avant de prendre la tête de cette organisation au début des années 1970. Quelques années plus tard, les islamistes sont entrés en conflit ouvert avec le président Anouar El Sadate, qui ne voulait pas leur accorder une charia (législation islamique) pure et dure. Cela allait valoir son arrêt de mort au président, exécuté par Al-Guihad, le 06 octobre 1981.
      Zawahri a figuré parmi les milliers d'islamistes arrêtés après l'assassinat. Mais il a été relaxé trois ans plus tard, par manque de preuves. Tout comme le cheikh Omar Abdel Rahman, la figure de proue de l'autre organisation extrémiste musulmane, la Gamaa islamiya. Les deux hommes ont cheminé ensemble pendant le conflit afghan : le cheikh prêchait pour convaincre de nouvelles recrues arabes et le chirurgien organisait un camp de "moudjahidins arabes" en Afghanistan. La victoire assurée, Zawahri a sillonné l'Europe, au Danemark (1991) et en Suisse (1993), où les extrémistes avaient commencé à s'installer pour prolonger leur combat.
      A cette époque de guerre ouverte avec le régime du président Moubarak, Al-Jihad monte des attentats contre plusieurs ministres. En 1995, à Addis Abeba, le président lui-même échappe de peu à l'assassinat. Le Caire accuse Zawahri, qui se trouverait alors au Soudan. La même année, l'ambassade d'Egypte à Islamabad est détruite par un attentat. Les soupçons se portent sur Zawahri, qui est condamné à mort par contumace en Egypte.
      En 1998, celui qui était déjà très proche de Ben Laden le rejoint officiellement pour combattre "les Américains et les Juifs", en cosignant sa fatwa autorisant l'assassinat des civils dans le cadre du djihad. Le FBI trouve sa patte dans les attentats contre les ambassades américaines du Kenya et de Tanzanie (07 Aug 1998), et plus tard dans l'attaque du destroyer USS Cole au Yémen (12 Oct 2000).

1944: 23 puppies (record litter) born to Lena, a foxhound, Ambler, Pennsylvania.
1924 John Colin Scott, New Zealand architect who died on 30 July 1992. He is best known for the Futuna Chapel.

^ 1916 Robert Strange McNamara, in San Francisco
      McNamara grew up to receive a degree in Economics from the University of California at Berkeley and an M.B.A from Harvard Business School. At the age of twenty-four, following a brief stint at the accounting firm of Price Waterhouse (now Price Waterhouse Cooper), McNamara returned to Harvard Business School as an accounting instructor. Rejected from the army due to poor eyesight at the outbreak of World War II, McNamara volunteered as an instructor for a Harvard program teaching Army Air Corps officers the principles of systematic management, especially the allocation of personnel, materials, and money. McNamara’s excellence in this field eventually earned him a commission as a Captain in the Army Air Corps, where he was one of the first members of a special unit, the Office of Statistical Control (OSC). Led by Col. Charles Thornton, the OSC was charged with assembling and analyzing data to provide logistical support for American bombers.
      After the war, Thornton marketed his team’s management skills to private companies. Enter Ford Motor Corporation. Reigning atop a messy, outdated family company registering heavy losses, Henry Ford II was smart enough to recognize that the system he had inherited form his grandfather was in need of an overhaul. He hired Thornton’s group, en masse, to begin work in February 1946. The members of the group, labeled the "Whiz Kids," ranged in age from 26 to 34, signaling a major change in Ford’s stodgy hierarchy.
      The Whiz Kids instituted a modern economic approach to Ford’s business administration, implementing organizational changes to make planning and production processes more systematic. Six of them eventually became vice-presidents, and two, McNamara and fellow Whiz Kid Arjay Miller, rose to the position of company president. At Col. Thornton’s departure from Ford, McNamara became the de facto leader of the Whiz Kids. He instituted the systematic sampling of public opinion, known now as "market research"; he hired Ford president Lee Iacocca; and he conceived the Ford Falcon, Ford’s most successful car until the release of the Mustang in 1964.
      A registered Republican, McNamara was offered a cabinet position by John F. Kennedy after the 1960 presidential election, and given the choice of becoming Secretary of Defense or Secretary of the Treasury, he chose the Defense Department. McNamara remained Secretary of Defense until 1968, when his changing attitude toward the war in Vietnam led him to resign. Later he was president of World Bank.

1893 Cole Porter Indiana, composer/lyricist (Anything Goes, Kiss Me Kate)
1885 John Edensor Littlewood, mathematician who died on 06 September 1977. He collaborated with Godfrey Harold Hardy [07 Feb 1877 – 01 Dec 1947], working on the theory of series, the Riemann zeta function, inequalities, and the theory of functions.
1865 Carl Nielsen Norre-Lyndelse Denmark, composer (Det Uuslukkelige)
1864 Floris Arntzenius, Duch artist who died in 1925.
1849 Michael-Peter Ancher, Danish painter who died on 19 September 1927. — MORE ON ANCHER AT ART “4” JUNE with links to images.
1843 Bertha von Suttner

^ 1843 Bertha Sophia Felicita Gräfin Kinsky von Chinic und Tettau (Bertha von Suttner), Austria, novelist, pacifist (Peace Nobel 1905)
Baroness von Suttner

      Als eine der einflußreichsten, politischen Journalisten ihrer Zeit wurde sie zur Begründerin der deutschen, österreichischen und ungarischen Friedensgesellschaften. Ebenso kämpfte sie gegen die Unterdrückung der Frauen und den Antisemitismus. Ihr Buch Die Waffen nieder (1889) entwickelte sich zum Bestseller. Sie regte die Stiftung des Friedensnobelpreises an — und wurde später selbst die erste weibliche Trägerin dieses Preises (1905).
     Bertha von Suttner und Alfred Nobel freilich verband nicht nur eine enge persönliche Beziehung (allein aus seinem Todesjahr 1896 sind 24 meist sehr lange Briefe von Bertha erhalten), sondern auch darüber hinaus gehende Interessen: Beide arbeiteten sie für den Frieden und gegen den Krieg - wenn auch mit unterschiedlichen Wegvorstellungen. Er hoffte auf Abschreckung durch Entwicklung eines neuen, zu bedrohlichen Kriegsmittels, also auf Technik. Während sie auf Kommunikation, auf internationale Vereinbarungen und Verständigung, auf Verhinderung der Kriegsursachen und Aufklärung setzte. Im Gegensatz zu Bertha von Suttner hatte Nobel an seiner eigenen Haltung aber durchaus Zweifel. Neben der Entwicklung neuer Sprengstoffe förderte er die Friedensbewegung mit erheblichen Geldsummen und verfolgte mit Interesse ihre Entwicklung. Mit seinen noblen Spenden war der Schwede immerhin das großzügigste Mitglied der "Österreichischen Gesellschaft der Friedensfreunde".
      Berthas Buch Die Waffen nieder (1890) begeisterte ihn. Der Entschluß der beiden 1892, gemeinsam ein Buch zu schreiben, wurde zwar nie ausgeführt, doch mündete damals Berthas ständiges Thema, wie Alfred sein Geld am besten für den Frieden einsetzen könne, erstmals in konkrete Pläne eines Friedenspreises. Nobels Testament sollte schließlich enthüllen, welchen Weg diese Idee genommen hatte: Finanziert aus den Zinsen des Vermögens, werden seit 1901 jährlich am 10. Dezember, dem Todestag Nobels (wie auch von Berthas geliebten Gatten Arthur) fünf Preise verliehen. Einer davon steht im Dienste des Friedens. 1905 endlich erhielt Bertha von Suttner als erste Frau diesen Friedensnobelpreis, der nicht zuletzt auf die Anregungen der großen Österreicherin zurückgeht.
     Gestorben ist Bertha von Suttner am 21.Juni 1914, sieben Tage vor Beginn des 1. Weltkrieges.

1812 Johann Gottfried Galle, German astronomer who, on 23 September 1846, discovered the planet Neptune at the Berlin Observatory. Neptune, the eighth planet from the sun, was postulated by the French astronomer Urbain Le Verrier [11 Mar 1811 – 23 Sep 1877] who calculated the approximate location of the planet by studying gravity-induced disturbances in the motions of the planets, particularly Uranus. A few days after Leverrier announced his findings, after only an hour of searching, Galle (helped by student Heinrich Louis d'Arrest) found Neptune within one degree of the position that had been computed by Le Verrier. 3 years before Le Verrier, John Couch Adams [05 Jun 1819 – 21 Jan 1892] had become the first person to predict the position of a planet beyond Uranus, but this was not published. Galle died on 10 July 1910.

^ 1791 John Howard Payne, US playwright, actor, diplomat.
Payne followed the techniques and themes of the European Romantic blank-verse dramatists. A precocious actor and writer, Payne wrote his first play, Julia, or, The Wanderer, when he was 15. Its success caused him to be sent to Union College, Schenectady, N.Y., but family finances forced him to leave two years later. At 18 he made his first stage appearance in John Home's Douglas, but he encountered much opposition from established actors, and in 1813, at the height of the War of 1812, he sailed for England. At first interned as an enemy national, he was later released and triumphed at Drury Lane in Douglas, repeating his success in other European capitals. In Paris Payne met the actor Talma, who introduced him to French drama, from which many of his more than 60 plays were adapted, and to Washington Irving, with whom he was to collaborate on two of his best plays. The finest play Payne authored, Brutus: or, The Fall of Tarquin, was produced at Drury Lane on 03 December 1818. Brutus persisted for 70 years, serving as a vehicle for three of the greatest tragedians of the 19th century: Edwin Booth, Edwin Forrest, and Edmund Kean. Other important plays were Clari: or, The Maid of Milan, which included Payne's famous song "Home, Sweet Home"; Charles the Second (1824), written with Irving; and Thérèse (1821), a French adaptation. Because of weak copyright laws, Payne received little return from his successful plays, and in 1842 he accepted a consular post in Tunis. He died on 09 April 1852 in Tunis.
PAYNE ONLINE: The Lament of the Cherokee —

HOME, SWEET HOME

'MID PLEASURES and palaces though we may roam,
Be it ever so humble, there's no place like home;
A charm from the sky seems to hallow us there,
Which, seek through the world, is ne'er met with elsewhere.
Home, home, sweet, sweet home!
There's no place like home, oh, there's no place like home!

An exile from home, splendor dazzles in vain;
Oh, give me my lowly thatched cottage again!
The birds singing gayly, that came at my call-
Give me them-and the peace of mind, dearer than all!
Home, home, sweet, sweet home!
There's no place like home, oh, there's no place like home!

I gaze on the moon as I tread the drear wild,
And feel that my mother now thinks of her child,
As she looks on that moon from our own cottage door
the woodbine, whose fragrance shall cheer me no more.
Home, home, sweet, sweet home!
There's no place like home, oh, there's no place like home!

How sweet 'tis to sit 'neath a fond father's smile,
And the caress of a mother to soothe and beguile!
Let others delight 'mid new pleasure to roam,
But give me, oh, give me, the pleasures of home,
Home, home, sweet, sweet home!
There's no place like home, oh, there's no place like home!
To thee I'll return, overburdened with care;
The heart's dearest solace will smile on me there;
No more from that cottage again will I roam;
Be it ever so humble, there's no place like home.
Home, home, sweet, sweet home
There's no place like home, oh, there's no place like home!

1781 George Stephenson inventor (principle RR locomotive)
1737 Henri-Joseph Antonissen, Flemish artist who died on 04 April 1794.

^ 1672 (30 May Julian) Pyotr Alekseyevich, who would be Peter I “the Great”, tsar of Russia, jointly with his half-brother Ivan V from 1682 to 1696, then alone until his 08 February (28 Jan Julian) 1725 death, after having greatly modernized and expanded Russia, and having been proclaimed imperator in 1721, quite fittingly, as Russia has been an imperialist power ever since. — [Click on image for portraits of Peter the Great >]
      Pyotr was the son of Tsar Alexis [19 Mar 1629 – 08 Feb 1876] by his second wife, Natalya Kirillovna Naryshkina [1651-1694]. Unlike his half-brothers, sons of his father's first wife, the pious Mariya Ilinichna Miloslavskaya [1625-1669], Peter was a healthy child, lively and inquisitive. It is probably significant to his development that his mother's former guardian, Artamon Sergeyevich Matveyev [1625 – 25 May 1682], had raised her in an atmosphere open to progressive influences from the West.
     When Alexis died, Peter was only four years old. His elder half-brother, a sickly youth, then succeeded to the throne as Fyodor III [09 Jun 1661 – 07 May 1682]; but, in fact, power fell into the hands of the Miloslavskys, relatives of Fyodor's mother, who deliberately pushed Peter and the Naryshkin circle aside. When Fyodor died childless in 1682, a fierce struggle for power ensued between the Miloslavskys and the Naryshkins: the former wanted to put Fyodor's brother, the sickly and feebleminded Ivan V [06 Sep 1666 – 08 Feb 1696], on the throne; the Naryshkins stood for the healthy and intelligent Peter. Representatives of the various orders of society, assembled in the Kremlin, declared themselves for Peter, who was then proclaimed tsar; but the Miloslavsky faction exploited a revolt of the Moscow streltsy (musketeers of the sovereign's bodyguard} who killed some of Peter's adherents, including Matveyev. Ivan and Peter were then proclaimed joint tsars (Ivan the senior one) on 05 June 1682 by the boyar duma; and, because of Ivan's precarious health and Peter's youth, Ivan's sister Sophia Alekseyevna [27 Sep 1657 – 14 Jul 1704] was made regent when the two were crowned on 05 July 1682. Clever and influential, Sophia took control of the government; excluded from public affairs, Peter lived with his mother in the village of Preobrazhenskoye, near Moscow, often fearing for his safety. All this left an ineradicable impression on the young tsar and determined his negative attitude toward the streltsy.
      One result of Sophia's overt exclusion of Peter from the government was that he did not receive the usual education of a Russian tsar; he grew up in a free atmosphere instead of being confined within the narrow bounds of a palace. While his first tutor, the former church clerk Nikita Zotov, could give little to satisfy Peter's curiosity, the boy enjoyed noisy outdoor games and took especial interest in military matters, his favorite toys being arms of one sort or another. He also occupied himself with carpentry, joinery, blacksmith's work, and printing.
      Near Preobrazhenskoye there was a nemetskaya sloboda (“German colony”) where foreigners were allowed to reside. Acquaintance with its inhabitants aroused Peter's interest in the life of other nations, and an English sailboat, found derelict in a shed, whetted his passion for seafaring. Mathematics, fortification, and navigation were the sciences that appealed most strongly to Peter. A model fortress was built for his amusement, and he organized his first “play” troops, from which, in 1687, the Preobrazhensky and Semyonovsky Guards regiments were formed, to become the nucleus of a new Russian Army.
      Early in 1689 Natalya Naryshkina arranged Peter's marriage to the beautiful Eudoxia Fyodorovna Lopukhina [09 Aug 1669 – 07 Sep 1731]. This was obviously a political act, intended to demonstrate the fact that the 17-year-old Peter was now a grown man, with a right to rule in his own name. The marriage did not last long: Peter soon began to ignore his wife, and in 1698 he relegated her to a convent. There she took vows in 1699 but left six months later and resumed life as a laywoman. Following the torture, trial, death sentence, and murder of her son, Tsarevich Alexis [28 Feb 1690 – 07 Jul 1718], for alleged treason, she was kept in confinement at a fortress east of St. Petersburg on Lake Ladoga. Upon the 18 May 1727 crowning of her grandson Peter II [23 Oct 1715 – 29 Jan 1730] as emperor, she was released and later installed at the Voznesensky Convent in Moscow and provided with a generous allowance. After the death of Peter II, she made a feeble, unsuccessful attempt to succeed him.
      In August 1689 a new revolt of the streltsy took place. Sophia and her faction tried to use it to their own advantage for another coup d'état, but events this time turned decisively in Peter's favor. He removed Sophia from power and banished her to the Novodevichy convent; she was forced to become a nun after a streltsy rebellion in 1698. Though Ivan V remained nominally joint tsar with Peter, the administration was now largely given over to Peter's kinsmen, the Naryshkins, until Ivan's death in 1696. Peter, meanwhile continuing his military and nautical amusements, sailed the first seaworthy ships to be built in Russia. His games proved to be good training for the tasks ahead.
      At the beginning of Peter's reign, Russia had a huge territory, but with no access to the Black Sea, the Caspian, or to the Baltic, and to win such an outlet became the main goal of Peter's foreign policy.
     The first steps taken in this direction were the campaigns of 1695 and 1696, with the object of capturing Azov from the Crimean Tatar vassals of Turkey. On the one hand, these Azov campaigns could be seen as fulfilling Russia's commitments, undertaken during Sophia's regency, to the anti-Turkish “Holy League” of 1684 (Austria, Poland, and Venice); on the other they were intended to secure the southern frontier against Tatar raids, as well as to approach the Black Sea. The first campaign ended in failure (1695), but this did not discourage Peter: he promptly built a fleet at Voronezh to sail down the Don River and in 1696 Azov was captured. To consolidate this success Taganrog was founded on the northern shore of the Don Estuary, and the building of a large navy was started. The Grand Embassy (1697–1698)
      Having already sent some young nobles abroad to study nautical matters, Peter, in 1697, went with the so-called Grand Embassy to western Europe. The embassy comprised about 250 persons, with the “grand ambassadors” Franz Lefort, Fyodor.Alekseyevich Golovin [1650 – 10 Aug 1706], and P.B. Voznitsyn at its head. Its chief purposes were to examine the international situation and to strengthen the anti-Turkish coalition, but it was also intended to gather information on the economic and cultural life of Europe. Traveling incognito under the name of Sgt. Pyotr Mikhaylov, Peter familiarized himself with conditions in the advanced countries of the West. For four months he studied shipbuilding, working as a ship's carpenter in the yard of the Dutch East India Company at Saardam; after that he went to Great Britain, where he continued his study of shipbuilding, working in the Royal Navy's dockyard at Deptford, and he also visited factories, arsenals, schools, and museums and even attended a session of Parliament. Meanwhile, the services of foreign experts were engaged for work in Russia.
      On the diplomatic side of the Grand Embassy, Peter conducted negotiations with the Dutch and British governments for alliances against Turkey; but the Maritime Powers did not wish to involve themselves with him because they were preoccupied with the problems that were soon to come to a crisis, for them, in the War of the Spanish Succession.
     From England, Peter went on to Austria; but while he was negotiating in Vienna for a continuance of the anti-Turkish alliance, he received news of a fresh revolt of the streltsy in Moscow. In the summer of 1698 he was back in Moscow, where he suppressed the revolt. Hundreds of the streltsy were executed, the rest of the rebels were exiled to distant towns, and the corps of the streltsy was disbanded. The Northern War (1700–1721)
      When it became clear that Austria, no less than the Maritime Powers, was preparing to fight for the Spanish Succession and to make peace with Turkey, Peter saw that Russia could not contemplate a war without allies against the Turks, and he abandoned his plans for pushing forward from the Sea of Azov to the Black Sea. By the Russo-Turkish Peace of Constantinople (Istanbul, 1700) he retained possession of Azov. He was now turning his attention to the Baltic instead, following the tradition of his predecessors.
      The Swedes occupied Karelia, Ingria, Estonia, and Livonia and blocked Russia's way to the Baltic coast. To dislodge them, Peter took an active part in forming the great alliance, comprising Russia, Saxony, and Denmark–Norway, which started the Northern War in 1700. This war lasted for 21 years and was Peter's main military enterprise. In planning it and in sustaining it he displayed iron willpower, extraordinary energy, and outstanding gifts of statesmanship, generalship, and diplomacy. Mobilizing all the resources of Russia for the triumph of his cause, constantly keeping himself abreast of events, and actively concerning himself with all important undertakings, often at his personal risk, he could be seen sometimes in a sailor's jacket on a warship, sometimes in an officer's uniform on the battlefield, and sometimes in a laborer's apron and gloves with an axe in a shipyard.
      The defeat of the Russians at Narva (1700), very early in the war, did not deter Peter and, in fact, he later described it as a blessing: “Necessity drove away sloth and forced me to work night and day.” He subsequently took part in the siege that led to the Russian capture of Narva (1704) and in the battles of Lesnaya (1708) and of Poltava (08 Jul 1709). At Poltava, where Charles XII of Sweden suffered a catastrophic defeat, the plan of operations was Peter's own: it was his idea to transform the battlefield by works of his military engineers—the redoubts erected in the path of the Swedish troops to break their combat order, to split them into little groups, and to halt their onslaught. Peter also took part in the naval battle of Gangut (Hanko, or Hangö) in 1714, the first major Russian victory at sea.
      The treaties concluded by Russia in the course of the war were made under Peter's personal direction. He also traveled abroad again for diplomatic reasons—e.g., to Pomerania in 1712 and to Denmark, northern Germany, Holland, and France in 1716–1717.
      In 1703, on the banks of the Neva River, where it flows into the Gulf of Finland, Peter began construction of the city of St. Petersburg (now Leningrad) and established it as the new capital of Russia in 1712. By the Treaty of Nystad (10 September 1721) the eastern shores of the Baltic were at last ceded to Russia, Sweden was reduced to a secondary power, and the way was opened for Russian domination over Poland. In celebration of Peter's imperialist triumph, the Senate on 02 November (22 October Julian) 1721, changed his title from tsar to that of emperor (imperator) of all the Russias.
     The peasant serfs and the poorer urban workers had to bear the greatest hardships in wartime and moreover were intensively exploited in the course of Peter's great work for the modernization and development of Russia (as always, everywhere). Their sufferings, combined with onerous taxation, provoked a number of revolts, the most important of which were that of Astrakhan (1705–1706) and that led by Kondraty Afanasyevich Bulavin in the Don Basin (1707–1708). These revolts were cruelly put down.
      In 1710, in the middle of the Northern War, when Peter might have pressed further the advantage won at Poltava, Turkey declared war on Russia. In the summer of 1711 Peter marched against the Turks through Bessarabia into Moldavia, but he was surrounded, with all his forces, on the Prut River. Obliged to sue for peace, he was fortunate to obtain very light terms from the inept Turkish negotiators, who allowed him to retire with no greater sacrifice than the retrocession of Azov. The Turkish government soon decided to renew hostilities; but the Peace of Adrianople (Edirne) was concluded in 1713, leaving Azov to the Turks. From that time on Peter's military effort was concentrated on winning his war against Sweden.
     Peter had a son, the tsarevich Alexis, by his discarded wife Eudoxia. Alexis was his natural heir, but he grew up antipathetic to Peter and receptive to reactionary influences working against Peter's reforms. Peter, meanwhile, had formed a lasting liaison with a low-born woman, the future empress Catherine I [15 Apr 1684 – 17 May 1727], who bore him other children and whom he married in 1712. Pressed finally to mend his ways or to become a monk in renunciation of his hereditary rights (1716), Alexis took refuge in the dominions of the Holy Roman emperor Charles VI [01 Oct 1685 – 20 Oct 1740], but he was induced to return to Russia in 1718. Thereupon proceedings were brought against him on charges of high treason, and after torture he was condemned to death. He died in prison, presumably by violence, before the formal execution of the sentence.
      Even during the second half of the Northern War, Peter had sent exploratory missions to the East, to the Central Asian steppes in 1714, to the Caspian region in 1715, and to Khiva in 1717. The end of the war left him free to resume a more active policy on his southeastern frontier. In 1722, hearing that the Ottoman Turks would take advantage of Persia's weakness and invade the Caspian region, Peter himself invaded Persian territory. In 1723 Persia ceded the western and southern shores of the Caspian to Russia in return for military aid.
     The campaign along the parched shores of the Caspian obviously put a great strain on Peter's health, already undermined by enormous exertions and also by the excesses in which he occasionally indulged himself. In the autumn of 1724, seeing some soldiers in danger of drowning from a ship aground on a sandbank in the Gulf of Finland, he characteristically plunged himself into the icy water to help them. Catching a chill, he became seriously ill in the winter but even so continued to work; indeed, it was at this time that he drew up the instructions for the expedition of Vitus Bering to Kamchatka.
      When Peter died early in the following year, he left an empire that stretched from Arkhangelsk (Archangel) on the White Sea to Mazanderan on the Caspian and from the Baltic Sea to the Pacific Ocean. Though he had in 1722 issued a decree reserving to himself the right to nominate his successor, he did not in fact nominate anyone. His widow Catherine, whom he had crowned as empress in 1724, succeeded him to the temporary exclusion of his grandson, the future Peter II.

     At the beginning of Peter's reign, Russia was backward by comparison with the countries of western Europe. This backwardness inhibited foreign policy and even put Russia's national independence in danger. Peter's aim, therefore, was to overtake the developed countries of western Europe as soon as possible, in order both to promote the national economy and to ensure victory in his wars for access to the seas. Breaking the resistance of the boyars, or members of the ancient landed aristocracy, and of the clergy and severely punishing all other opposition to his projects, he initiated a series of reforms that affected, in the course of 25 years, every field of the national life, administration, industry, commerce, technology, and culture.
     At the beginning of Peter's reign there was already some degree of economic differentiation between the various regions of Russia; and in the towns artisans were establishing small businesses, small-scale production was expanding, and industrial plants and factories were growing up, with both hired workers and serfs employed. There was thus a nascent bourgeoisie, which benefited considerably from Peter's plans for the development of the national industry and trade. The reform of the urban administration was particularly significant.
      By a decree of 1699, townspeople (artisans and tradesmen) were released from subjection to the military governors of the provinces and were authorized to elect municipalities of their own, which would be subordinated to the Moscow municipality, or ratusha, the council of the great merchant community of the capital. This reform was carried further in 1720, with the establishment of a chief magistracy in St. Petersburg, to which the local town magistracies and the elected municipal officers of the towns (mayors, or burmistry; and councilors, or ratmany) were subordinated.
      All townspeople, meanwhile, were divided between “regulars” and “commons” (inferiors). The regulars were subdivided between two guilds, the first comprising rich merchants and members of the liberal professions (doctors, actors, and artists); the second, artisans (classified according to their vocations) and small tradesmen. A merchant belonged to the first or to the second guild according to the amount of his capital; and those who were also manufacturers had special privileges, coming under the jurisdiction of the College of Manufactures and being exempt from the billeting of troops, from elective rotas of duty, and from military service. The commons were hired laborers, without the privileges of regulars.
      Thanks to the reforms, the economic activity and the population of the towns increased. Anyone engaged in trade was legally permitted to settle in a town and to register himself in the appropriate category, and there was a right of “free commerce for people of every rank.”
      In order to create a more flexible system of control by the central power, Russia was territorially divided in 1708 into eight guberny , or governments, each under a governor appointed by the tsar and vested with administrative, military, and judicial authority. In 1719 these guberny were dissolved into 50 provintsy, or provinces, which in turn were subdivided into districts. The census of 1722, however, was followed by the substitution of a poll tax for the previous hearth tax; and this provoked a wave of popular discontent, against which Peter decided to distribute the army regiments (released from active service by the Peace of Nystad) in garrisons throughout the country and to make their maintenance obligatory on the local populations. Thus came into being the “regimental districts,” which did not coincide with the administrative. The regimental commanders, with their own sphere of jurisdiction and their own requirements, added another layer to the already complex system of local authority.
     In the course of Peter's reign, medieval and obsolescent forms of government gave place to effective autocracy. In 1711 he abolished the boyarskaya duma, or boyar council, and established by decree the Senate as the supreme organ of state, to coordinate the action of the various central and local organs, to supervise the collection and expenditure of revenue, and to draft legislation in accordance with his edicts. Martial discipline was extended to civil institutions, and an officer of the guards was always on duty in the Senate. From 1722, moreover, there was a procurator general keeping watch over the daily work of the Senate and its chancellery and acting as “the eye of the sovereign.”
      When Peter came to power the central departments of state were the prikazy, or offices, of which there were about 80, functioning in a confused and fragmented way. To replace most of this outmoded system, Peter in 1718 instituted 9 kollegy (boards), the number of which was by 1722 expanded to 13. Their activities were controlled, on the one hand, by the General Regulation and, on the other, by particular regulations for individual colleges, and indeed there were strict regulations for every branch of the state administration. Crimes against the state came under the jurisdiction of the Preobrazhensky Office, responsible immediately to the tsar.
      A secondary purpose of Peter's Grand Embassy to western Europe in 1697 had been to obtain firsthand acquaintance with advanced industrial techniques, and the exigencies of his great war against Sweden, from 1700, made industrial development an urgent matter. In order to provide armaments and to build his navy (Russia had virtually no warships at all), metallurgical and manufacturing industries on a grand scale had to be created; and Peter devoted himself tirelessly to meeting these needs. Large capital investments were made, and numerous privileges were accorded to businessmen and industrialists. These privileges included the right to buy peasant serfs for labor in workshops, with the result that a class of “enlisted” serfs came into existence, living in specified areas and bound to the factories. The methods of other countries were further studied, and foreign experts were invited to Russia. The overall result was satisfactory: the army and the navy were supplied with their material needs; a great number of manufacturing establishments were founded (mainly with serf labor); the metallurgical industry was so far advanced that by the middle of the 18th century Russia led Europe in this field; and the foreign-trade turnover was increased sevenfold in the course of the reign.
     Peter established a regular army on completely modern lines for Russia in the place of the unreliable streltsy and the militia of the gentry. While he drew his officers from the nobility, he conscripted peasants and townspeople into the other ranks. Service was for life. The troops were equipped with flintlock firearms and bayonets of Russian make; uniforms were provided; and regular drilling was introduced. For the artillery, obsolete cannons were replaced with new mortars and guns designed by Russian specialists or even by Peter himself (he drew up projects of his own for multicannon warships, fortresses, and ordnance). The Army Regulations of 1716 were particularly important; they required officers to teach their men “how to act in battle,” “to know the soldier's business from first principles and not to cling blindly to rules,” and to show initiative in the face of the enemy. For the navy, Peter's reign saw the construction, within a few years, of 52 battleships and hundreds of galleys and other craft; thus a powerful Baltic fleet was brought into being. Several special schools prepared their pupils for military or naval service and finally enabled Peter to dispense with foreign experts. Cultural and educational measures.
      From 01 January (Julian) 1700, Peter introduced a new chronology, making the Russian calendar conform to European usage with regard to the year, which in Russia had hitherto been numbered “from the Creation of the World” and had begun on 01 September (he adhered however to the Julian Old Style as opposed to the Gregorian New Style for the days of the month). In 1710 the Old Church Slavonic alphabet was modernized into a secular script.
      Peter was the first ruler of Russia to sponsor education on secular lines and to bring an element of state control into that field. Various secular schools were opened; and since too few pupils came from the nobility, the children of soldiers, officials, and churchmen were admitted to them. In many cases, compulsory service to the state was preceded by compulsory education for it. Russians were also permitted to go abroad for their education and indeed were often compelled to do so (at the state's expense). The translation of books from western European languages was actively promoted. The first Russian newspaper, Vedomosti (“Records”), appeared in 1703. The Russian Academy of Sciences was instituted in 1724.
      Beside his useful measures, Peter often enforced superficial Europeanization rather brutally; for example, when he decreed that beards should be shorn off and Western dress worn. He personally cut the beards of his boyars and the skirts of their long coats (kaftany). The Raskolniki (Old Believers) and merchants who insisted on keeping their beards had to pay a special tax, but peasants and the Orthodox clergy were allowed to remain bearded.
     In 1721, in order to subject the Orthodox Church of Russia to the state, Peter abolished the Patriarchate of Moscow. Thenceforward the patriarch's place as head of the church was taken by a spiritual college, namely the Holy Synod, consisting of representatives of the hierarchy obedient to the tsar's will. A secular official, the ober-prokuror, was appointed by the tsar to supervise the Holy Synod's activities. The Holy Synod ferociously persecuted all dissenters and conducted a censorship of all publications.
      Priests officiating in churches were obliged by Peter to deliver sermons and exhortations that were intended to make the peasantry “listen to reason” and to teach such prayers to children that everyone would grow up “in fear of God” and in awe of the tsar. The regular clergy were forbidden to allow men under 30 years old or serfs to take vows as monks.
      The Orthodox Church was thus transformed into a pillar of the absolutist regime, even more than it already was traditionally. Partly in the interests of the nobility, the extent of land owned by the church was restricted; Peter disposed of ecclesiastical and monastic property and revenues at his own discretion, for state purposes.
      Peter's internal policy served to protect the interest of Russia's ruling class (a common habit of rulers), the landowners and the nascent bourgeoisie. The material position of the landed nobility was strengthened considerably under Peter. Almost 40'000 hectares of land and 175'000 serfs were allotted to it in the first half of the reign alone. Moreover, a decree of 1714 that instituted succession by primogeniture and so prevented the breaking up of large properties also removed the old distinction between pomestya (lands granted by the tsar to the nobility in return for service) and votchiny (patrimonial or allodial lands) so that all such property became hereditary.
      Moreover, the status of the nobility was modified by Peter's Table of Ranks (24 Jan 1722). This replaced the old system of promotion in the state services, which had been according to ancestry, by one of promotion according to services actually rendered. It classified all functionaries, military, naval, and civilian alike, in 14 categories, the 14th being the lowest and the 1st the highest; and admission to the 8th category conferred hereditary nobility. Factory owners and others who had risen to officer's rank could accede to the nobility, which thus received new blood. The predominance of the boyars ended.

     Peter was two meters tall; he was handsome and of unusual physical strength. Unlike all earlier Russian tsars, whose Byzantine splendors he repudiated, he was very simple in his manners; for example, he enjoyed conversation over a mug of beer with shipwrights and sailors from the foreign ships visiting St. Petersburg. Restless, energetic, and impulsive, he did not like splendid clothes that hindered his movements; often he appeared in worn-out shoes and an old hat, still more often in military or naval uniform. He was fond of merrymaking and knew how to conduct it, though his jokes were frequently crude; and he sometimes drank heavily and forced his guests to do so too. A just man who did not tolerate dishonesty, he was terrible in his anger and could be cruel when he encountered opposition: in such moments only his intimates could soothe him, best of all his beloved second wife, Catherine, whom people frequently asked to intercede with him for them. Sometimes Peter would beat his high officials with his stick, from which even Prince Aleksandr Danilovich Menshikov [16 Nov 1673 – 23 Nov 1729], his closest friend, received many a stroke. One of Peter's great gifts of statesmanship was the ability to pick talented collaborators for the highest appointments, whether from the foremost families of the nobility or from far lower levels of society.
      As a ruler, Peter often used the methods of a despotic landlord, the whip and arbitrary rule. He always acted as an autocrat, convinced of the wonder-working power of compulsion by the state. Yet with his insatiable capacity for work he saw himself as the state's servant, and whenever he put himself in a subordinate position he would perform his duties with the same conscientiousness that he demanded of others. He began his own army service in the lowest rank and required others likewise to master their profession from its elements upward and to expect promotion only for services of real value.
      Peter's personality left its imprint on the whole history of Russia. A man of original and shrewd intellect, exuberant, courageous, industrious, and iron-willed, he could soberly appraise complex and changeable situations so as to uphold consistently the general interests of Russia and his own particular designs. He did not completely bridge the gulf between Russia and the Western countries, but he achieved considerable progress in development of the national economy and trade, education, science and culture, and foreign policy. Russia became a great power, without whose concurrence no important European problem could thenceforth be settled. His internal reforms achieved progress to an extent that no earlier innovator could have envisaged.

^ 1640 Leopold I, Holy Roman emperor who died on 05 May 1705.
      During his reign Austria emerged from a series of struggles with the Turks and the French to become a great European power, in which monarchical absolutism and administrative centralism gained ascendancy.
      Leopold, the second son of the first marriage of Ferdinand III [13 Jul 1608 – 02 Apr 1657] to his cousin Maria Anna, daughter of Philip III [14 Apr 1578 – 31 Mar 1621] of Spain, was destined for the church. He received a careful education by excellent teachers, among whom the cultured count Johann Ferdinand Portia was the leading personality. Made lord high steward by his student, Portia retained his influence with Leopold until his death in 1665. From an early age Leopold showed an inclination toward learning. He learned easily and became fluent in Latin, Italian, and Spanish, but he did not like French and later would not have it spoken at court. Besides concerning himself with antiquarian studies, history, literature, natural science, and astronomy, his special interest was music, having inherited the musical talents of his father. The keynote of his personality was a deepdevotion, which made him the personification of pietas Austriaca, the loyal Catholic attitude of his house. From his religiosity, however, also derived a fatalistic strain, which had its negative side for a ruling monarch. He rejected all political compromising on denominational questions.
      When his elder brother, Ferdinand IV [08 Sep 1633 – 09 Jul 1654], died quite unexpectedly, Leopold suddenly found himself heir apparent to the Austrian Habsburg lands. In 1655 the Lower Austrian estates did homage, and he was elected and crowned king of Hungary, the Bohemian coronation following in 1656. Then, in 1657, his father died, and a new imperial election was due. After long and difficult struggles against the opposition of France, Leopold was elected and crowned in the summer of 1658.
      Leopold acquired a claim to the Spanish throne by his first marriage, in 1666, to Margarita Teresa, daughter of Philip IV [08 Apr 1605 – 17 Sep 1665] of Spain; she died in 1673. Leopold's health was bad, and, when he fell dangerously ill in 1670, everybody expected the Austrian line of the Habsburgs to become extinct. He recovered, however, and in 1673 married Claudia Felicitas from the Tirolian branch of the Austrian Habsburgs. In 1676 the Emperor solemnized his third marriage, with Eleonore of Palatinate-Neuburg; this proved a happy union and produced 10 children, among them the future emperors Joseph I [26 Jul 1678 – 18 Apr 1711] and Charles VI [01 Oct 1685 – 20 Oct 1740].
      With untiring energy and a deep sense of duty, Leopold undertook the unwonted task of government. From the beginning he had to fight wars, first of all against the Turks. In 1683 they appeared before Vienna, and for the second time in its history the city suffered a Turkish siege. Leopold had left the capital with his court to await the outcome at Passau. An imperial army was summoned, and from the time of their repulse at Vienna the Turks were gradually forced into the defensive, especially after the military genius of Prince Eugene of Savoy [18 Oct 1663 – 24 Apr 1736] appeared on the scene in 1696. In the Treaty of Carlowitz (26 Jan 1699), almost the whole of Hungary was freed from Turkish rule.
      The Hungarian nobles, however, who were mostly Calvinists, did not want to exchange Turkish rule for a centralized Habsburg government, which threatened to introduce the Counter-Reformation. Their opposition had been a serious problem all the time, and Leopold, who usually showed clemency, took a firm stand for once, refusing to recall the cruel sentences after the so-called Nobles' Plot. Three of the most prominent Hungarian noblemen were executed, and Hungarian resistance flared up again in the fierce Kuruc risings.
     Though Leopold's policy toward Catholic France was undecided at first, he finally had to agree to a coalition with the Protestant naval powers, Holland and England. In the course of the long struggle with France, the empire scored several military successes; but in the end French diplomacy remained victorious, always dividing the enemy at the decisive moment. The Emperor was accused of a wavering attitude and lack of initiative, and these character traits were indeed partly responsible for the failure of his policies. The war ended in the unfavorable Treaty of Rijswijk (1697), under the terms of which Strasbourg had to be ceded to France, a great discredit to Leopold.
      Apart from some contributions from the empire and subsidies from its allies, the financial burden of all these wars had to be borne by Leopold's hereditary countries, the finances of which were badly organized. During his long reign Leopold found it impossible to arrive at a sound financial basis; indeed, he was careless in these matters and for years suffered the treasury to be mismanaged by Count Sinzendorf.
      Emperor Leopold was not always fortunate in the choice of his ministers. There was, for example, Count Eusebius Pötting, with whom he had formed a warm friendship but who was not the right man for the post of ambassador to Madrid. On the other hand, councillors who had convinced the Emperor of their sincerity and honesty found excellent chances for a court career, even if they were middle class, like the Austrian court chancellor Johann Paul Hocher.
      Leopold no longer regarded the empire as his primary responsibility; rather, in his view, concern for the power and prestige of the Habsburg dynasty and lands took the first place. From the outset the Spanish succession formed the central aim of his politics. What lay behind this was the idea of the unity of the House of Habsburg, the two lines being considered only as parts of the same entail. At the death (1700) of the childless Charles II [06 Nov 1661 – 01 Nov 1700] of Spain, his throne and the vast Spanish holdings passed by bequest to Philippe, duc d'Anjou, a grandson of Louis XIV [05 Sep 1638 – 01 Sep 1715] of France. There could be no question for Emperor Leopold that the Spanish heritage had to be defended by force of arms. In the middle of the War of the Spanish Succession (1701–1714), Leopold died.
      The Emperor was of medium size, rather slender in his youth but stout in later life. His face was pale, and he had dark hair and the typical Habsburg traits of a strongly developed lower lip and a protruding chin. A Turkish traveller described him as a cultivated man of extreme ugliness.
      If the Emperor, who had not been trained for the throne, rarely interfered with the course of events, he, nevertheless, impressed contemporaries with an imperturbability founded in personal piety, which did not fail him even during the worst crises to his long reign. His biographer, the Jesuit Hans Jacob Wagner von Wagenfels [–1702], quite aptly praises his magnanimity as his most conspicuous character trait. The interest Leopold took in all matters of learning, his gift for music, and his preoccupation with historiography made him a patron of renown and, notwithstanding the military conflicts of the time and his precarious finances, gave enormous impetus to learning and the arts throughout the Austrian countriesand especially made Vienna a famous cultural center. His reign saw the first flourishing of Baroque culture in Austria.
      In spite of the Emperor's great personal simplicity, the sums expended to maintain the imperial court were gigantic. At all occasions the Emperor was anxious to emphasize his imperial dignity; official journeys, such as his coronation journey to Frankfurt in 1658, as well as the numerous pilgrimages he undertook to assure divine assistance against his enemies, were used for ostentation. A special concern of the Emperor was to reshape Vienna into a worthy imperial residence. The Vienna court was famous for its costly theatricals, in which at times the Emperor and Empress also took part. Italian operas and ballets were lavishly staged, often with some additional music composed by Leopold himself. As the Emperor was very fond of hunting, courtly pleasures also included heron hawking and hunting wild boars and stags in the vicinity of the residence. Though Leopold undertook no more extensive journeys after 1693, he enjoyed these regular hunting expeditions until his death.
      Leopold I was a devoted book collector and, in the director of the court library, Peter Lambeck, found a helper of great renown. He was known for the encouragement he extended to learning, whereby he tried to secure the services of famous scholars for his court.

1597 Pieter Janszoon Saenredam, Dutch painter who died on 16 August 1665. — MORE ON SAENREDAM AT ART “4” JUNE with links to images.

Holidays Oklahoma : Senior Citizens Day

Religious Observances Christian : St Pelagia / RC : Ephraem, deacon and doctor / RC : SS Primus and Felician, martyrs / Ang, Luth, RC : Columba, Abbot of Iona / Luth : Aidan and Bede, confessors

Thought for the day:
“Music is the only sensual pleasure without vice.” {other than excessive loudness, dissonance, and sour notes}
“Next to the slanderer, we detest the bearer of the slander.” — Mary Catherwood, US novelist [1847~1901].— {What we hate the most about slander concerning us is that it is true. Calumny is false.}

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updated Wednesday 08-Jun-2005 15:29 UT
Previous update Tuesday 08-Jun-2004 23:31 UT

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