2003 Tadanosuke Hashimoto, Japanese man born on 27 April 1891.
2002 Three Afghan soldiers, killed “by mistake” by US Special Forces troops. Two other Afghan soldiers are wounded. According to the US military, a “variety of intelligence sources” had indicated that a group of Taliban and Qaeda leaders were planning to meet in the evening at a walled compound in Khomar Kalay village, near Gardez in the mountainous region bordering on Pakistan. Before dawn today, about 20 American Special Forces soldiers, accompanied by about 80 Afghan soldiers from the Gardez area, drive up to the compound in trucks and sport utility vehicles. Their plan was to surround the compound and apprehend the suspects as they departed. But as the vehicles approached, men started running from the compound carrying weapons, including AK-47 rifles and at least one rocket-propelled grenade launcher. One group of those armed men took what the US soldiers “thought” were flanking positions behind a wall, then “appeared” to aim a grenade launcher at the US convoy. At that point, the US commander ordered his men to open fire. The shooting was over within minutes, without any of the attackers being hurt. Seventeen others inside the compound laid down their weapons. The Afghan victims were loyal to the interim government of Hamid Karzai, recognized by the US, and appeared to have come from nearby Logar Province.
2001 Ahmed Salah Abu el-Hilu, 17, Palestinian, in a clash with Israeli forces near Ramallah.
2001 Zvi Shelef, 63, of massive head wounds after being shot at on a northern West Bank road near Baka a-Sharkia, north of Tul Karm, and close to the Green Line.. He was a resident of the Jewish enclave settlement. Mevo Dotan.
1996 The four Saudi men accused of the 13 November 1995 bombing of the Saudi National Guard training center in Riyadh are beheaded in Riyadh's main square. Before their execution, they are coerced by the Saudi's into a public confession. In the confession, they claim to have read bin Laden communiqués.
| ^
1996 Timothy
Francis Leary, with the last words: “Why
not? Why not? Why not?”. Born on 22 October 1920, Leary was a clinical psychologist at Harvard University, a dabbler in Eastern mysticism, a fugitive and convict, a stand-up comedian and actor, a writer and a software designer and an exponent of cybernetics. Most of all, he was a publicist for psychedelic experience, repeating “turn on, tune in, drop out” to advertise the wonders of LSD. Some of his books: High Priest (1968), Politics of Ecstasy (1968), an autobiography Flashback (1983), Chaos and Cyberculture (1994). Leary, the son of a US Army officer, was raised in a Catholic household and attended Holy Cross College, the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, and the University of Alabama (B.A., 1943). In 1950 he received a doctorate in psychology from the University of California at Berkeley, where he was an assistant professor until 1955. During the 1950s Leary developed an egalitarian model for interaction between the psychotherapist and the patient, promoted new techniques of group therapy, and published a system for classifying interpersonal behavior. He acquired a reputation as a promising young scholar and was appointed to the position of lecturer at Harvard University in 1959. At Harvard, Leary began experimenting with psilocybin, a synthesized form of the hallucinogenic agent found in certain mushrooms. He concluded that psychedelic drugs could be effective in transforming personality and expanding human consciousness. Along with a colleague, he formed the Harvard Psychedelic Drug Research Program and began administering psilocybin to graduate students; he also shared the drug with several prominent artists, writers, and musicians. Leary explored the cultural and philosophical implications of psychedelic drugs; in contrast to those within the psychedelic research community who argued that the drugs should be used only by a small elite, Leary came to believe that the experience should be introduced to the general public, particularly to young people. Leary's experiments were highly controversial, and he was dismissed from Harvard in 1963 after colleagues protested. During the mid-1960s Leary lived in a mansion in Millbrook, New York, where he formed the center of a small hedonistic community and began to intensively explore LSD, a more powerful psychedelic drug. His research, which initially had emphasized careful control over the “set and setting” of the psychedelic experience, became increasingly undisciplined and unstructured. He traveled widely and gave many public lectures, especially on college campuses, and because of his high public profile, he became a focus of the emerging public debate over LSD. His phrase “turn on, tune in, drop out” became a popular counterculture slogan. Cultural conservatives saw Leary as a corrosive influence on society, President Richard Nixon called him “the most dangerous man in America” (though Nixon was), while many researchers felt that Leary delegitimized the serious study of psychedelic drugs. After arrests in 1965 and 1968 for possession of marijuana and a prolonged legal battle, Leary was incarcerated in 1970. He soon escaped and became a fugitive, living outside the United States for more than two years until being recaptured in Afghanistan (a country that had enough troubles without him). He was freed in 1976 and settled in southern California. During the 1980s and '90s Leary continued to appear publicly in lectures and debates, although he never regained the stature he had enjoyed during the 1960s. He also designed computer software and was an early advocate of the potential of new technologies such as virtual reality and the Internet. |
1982 Juan Antonio Zunzunegui, novelista español.
1976 Jacques Monod, médico, profesor y científico francés, P. Nobel de Medicina y Fisiología en 1965.
1970 Some 66'000 after 15:23, when Yungay, Peru, is leveled by 7.9 magnitude earthquake, which provokes a tremendous rock slide and floods.
1966 Monjes budistas se queman en Saigón como protesta contra la política del Gobierno militar de Vietnam del Sur.
| ^
1962 Adolf Eichmann,
56, hanged. At Ramie Prison near Tel Aviv, Israel, Adolf Eichmann, the Nazi S.S. colonel who organized Adolf Hitler's "final solution of the Jewish question," is executed for his crimes against humanity. During World War II, Eichmann, a fanatical Nazi, was appointed head of the Gestapo's Jewish section by Nazi leader Adolf Hitler, and, with horrifying efficiency, carried out the Fuehrer's orders. From 1942 to 1945, Eichmann oversaw the systematic abuse of Jews in German-occupied territories, organized their subsequent mass deportation to concentration camps, and then carried out Hitler's "final solution to the Jewish question" — the genocidal murder of millions of Jews, primarily in the gas chambers of the concentration camps. In 1945, Eichmann was captured by US forces and imprisoned, but he managed to escape before having to face the Nuremberg international war crimes tribunal. Eichmann traveled under an assumed identity, and in 1950 arrived in Argentina, which maintained lax immigration policies and was a safe haven for many accused war criminals. After over a decade of pursuit, Israeli agents located Eichmann living under a false name in Argentina, and on May 23, 1960, kidnapped him near Buenos Aires. The agents circumvented extradition procedures and transported him to Israel, where he was judged by a special war crimes tribunal in two successive trials. Known as the "human symbol" of the genocide of the Jewish people, on 15 December 1961 Eichmann was condemned to death for the abuse and murder of millions of Jews. On 31 May 1962, he was hanged. His body was subsequently cremated and his ashes thrown into the sea. |
1949 Fernando de los Ríos Urruti, político español.
1935 Quake kills 50'000 in Quetta Pakistan — Un terremoto destruye la ciudad de Quetta (Pakistán) y mueren más de 56'000 personas.
1931 Eugène Maurice Pierre Cosserat, French astronomer and mathematician born on 04 March 1866. He studied the deformation of surfaces, which led him to a theory of elasticity.
1916 Egisto Lanceretto, Italian artist born on 21 August 1848.
1910 Elizabeth Blackwell, 89, first woman physician
1907 Francesco Siacci, Italian major general and mathematician born on 20 April 1839.
1906 Treinta personas, por una bomba arrojada en la calle Mayor de Madrid contra la comitiva de la boda del Rey Alfonso XIII con la princesa Victoria Eugenia de Battenberg. Los Reyes resultan ilesos.
| 1889:
2209 victims of the Johnstown Flood
^top^ In a river valley on the Appalachian Plateau, a neglected dam and a phenomenal storm led to a catastrophe in which over 2200 people died, tens of thousands were left homeless, and a prospering city, Johnstown, Pennsylvania, was nearly wiped off the face of the earth. Johnstown was located on the Conemaugh River at the mouth of Stony Creek, and was 23 km downstream from Lake Conemaugh, a recreational lake of the prestigious South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club. Lake Conemaugh was held back by the South Fork Dam, which was owned and maintained by the sporting club. By 1889, the dam was in need of repairs, and when particularly severe torrential rains struck the area in late May, the president of the club sent telegraphs to Johnstown and other nearby towns warning that the dam might soon break. However, flooding was a familiar occurrence in the valley, and most Johnstown residents took no more precaution than casually moved their belongings to the second story of their homes. On 31 May, engineers at the dam realized its collapse was imminent, and they sent riders down the valley to evacuate area residents. Few heeded the warning. Just after three o’clock in the afternoon the South Fork Dam collapsed, and twenty million tons of water went roaring down the valley toward Johnstown. The flood swept through the communities of South Fork, Mineral Point, Woodvale, and East Conemaugh, accumulating debris, which included trees, houses, barns, animals, and people, both dead and alive. By the time it reached Johnstown, the flood appeared as a rolling hill of debris about thirty feet high and nearly half-a-mile wide. With one great swoop, over one thousand Johnstown buildings were demolished and sent tumbling down the roaring torrent. Over two thousand people were killed or drowned within minutes, and many bodies were washed several miles down the valley. Among the survivors of the calamity, there was a scarcely an individual who had not lost a friend or relative in the Johnstown Flood. Despite the great scope of the tragedy, reconstruction of the devastated community began almost immediately, and the American Red Cross arrived to construct shelters for homeless residents while tons of relief supplies arrived from well-wishers around the country. In a river valley in central Pennsylvania, heavy rain and a neglected dam lead to a catastrophe in which 2209 people die and a prosperous city, Johnstown, is nearly wiped off the face of the earth. Johnstown, located at the confluence of the Little Conemaugh River and Stony Creek, was 14 miles downstream from Lake Conemaugh, a reservoir turned recreational lake that was owned and maintained by the prestigious South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club. The sporting club, which catered to a wealthy clientele from nearby Pittsburgh, included Andrew Carnegie and Henry Clay Frick on its membership rolls. Lake Conemaugh was held back by the South Fork Dam, a large earth-fill dam that was completed by the club in 1881. By 1889, the dam was in dire need of repairs. When several days of heavy rain struck the area in late May 1889, club officials struggled to reinforce the neglected dam, which was under tremendous pressure from the swollen waters of Lake Conemaugh. The dam began to disintegrate, and on 31 May the lake's water level passed over the top of the dam. Realizing that the dam's collapse was imminent, club officials sent riders down the valley to evacuate area residents. However, flooding was a familiar occurrence in the valley, and few Johnstown residents heeded the riders' desperate warnings. Most just took the same simple precautions they did when Little Conemaugh River flooded: They moved their belongings to the second story of their homes and settled down to wait out the storm. At 15:10, the South Fork Dam washed away, drowning several laborers who were struggling to maintain it. Club officials on high ground watched awe-struck as 20 million tons of water went roaring down the valley toward Johnstown. The deluge swept through the communities of South Fork, Mineral Point, Woodvale, and East Conemaugh, accumulating debris, including rocks, trees, houses, barns, railroad cars, animals, and people, both dead and alive. By the time it reached Johnstown, at 16:07, the flood appeared as a rolling hill of debris more than 10 meters high and some 700 meters wide. In a terrible swoop, the northern half of the city was swept away, sending some 1500 demolished Johnstown buildings tumbling down with the roaring torrent. It took 10 minutes for the waters of Lake Conemaugh to pass through Johnstown, and 2000 people were drowned or crushed in the torrent. A few survivors were washed up along with numerous corpses several miles down the valley. At the old Stone Bridge in Johnstown, debris piled 40 feet high caught fire, and some 80 huddled survivors of the flood perished in the flames. A total of 2209 died as a result of the disaster. Among the survivors of the calamity, there was a scarcely an individual who had not lost a friend or relative in the Johnstown Flood. Despite the great scale of the tragedy, reconstruction of the devastated community began almost immediately, and Clara Barton and the American Red Cross constructed shelters for homeless residents while well-wishers around the country sent tons of relief supplies. The South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club was widely criticized for its failure to maintain the South Fork Dam, but no successful lawsuits were ever brought against the organization. |
1837 Nicolas André Monsiau, French painter and illustrator born in 1754. — MORE ON MONSIAU AT ART “4” MAY with links to images.
1832 Évariste Galois, from wounds suffered the previous day in a duel with Perscheux d'Herbinville. Galois was a French mathematician born on 25 October 1811. Galois produced a method of determining when a general equation could be solved by radicals, and in the process outlined the group theory now called Galois theory (but probably not all in the night before the duel).
1809 Franz Josef Haydn composer, in Wien (Vienna) Austria
|
Condamnés à mort par la Révolution:
^top^ 1795 (12 prairial an III): MARCADÉ René Pierre, tisserand, et maître d'école, domicilié à St Germain-le-Fouilloux (Mayenne), comme brigand de la Vendée, par la commission révolutionnaire de Laval. 1794 (12 prairial an II): PONT Joseph, 50 ans, ex curé, né et domicilié à Toutenaut (Saône et Loire), comme conspirateur, ayant refusé d'abjurer l'état ecclésiastique, en disant à un des commissaires de sa commune qui lui observa à ce sujet, que plusieurs évêques avaient abjuré, qu'il étaient des évêques postiches, que l'on ne savait pas ce qui pouvait arriver par la suite. CHAILLOU René, laboureur, domicilié à St Julien (Loire Inférieure), comme brigand de la Vendée, par la commission militaire séante à Laval. LAMBERT Joseph, domicilié à Arras (Pas-de-Calais), né à Salon près de Luxembourg, par la commission militaire d'Arras, comme émigré. MARCHAU, (dit Lamirault), domicilié à Limoges (Haute Vienne), comme émigré, par la commission militaire d'Arras. Par le tribunal révolutionnaire de Paris: SIMONET Claude François Marie, ex fermier général adjoint, 42 ans, né et domicilié à Dijon (Côte-d'Or), comme complice des conspirations et complots contre le peuple français, notamment, en mêlant au tabac de l'eau et des ingrédients nuisibles à la santé des citoyens qui en faisaient usage. BEAUFFRE J. B. Pierre, 66 ans, né à Châteauneuf, (Indre et Loire), domicilié à Paris, comme convaincu d'être complice d'une conspiration qui à existé depuis le 10 août 1792, en tenant des propos pour dissoudre la représentation nationale et rétablir la royauté MARGUERIT Edouard Marie, ex noble et major de la garde du tyran roi, major en second du régiment ci-devant de la reine, 58 ans, né à Bayeux (Calvados), domicilié à Agny, même département, comme complice des crimes commis par Capet, à la journée du 10 août 1792. CARON Jean Hyacinthe, 36 ans, natif de Ruvigny ex curé domicilié à Moulin (Meuse), comme conspirateur, par le tribunal révolutionnaire de Paris. DUVIVIER Louis, employé à l'extraordinaire des guerres, domicilié à Paris, comme conspirateur. HERY Th. Casimir, officier au 25ème régiment, domicilié à Fleury, (Loiret), comme conspirateur. HUGAULT Sylvain, ex curé, domicilié à Issoudun (Indre), comme conspirateur. HUGUET Philippe, faiseur de bas, domicilié à Paris, comme conspirateur. LAMORRE Thérèse Françoise, ex noble, âgée de 62 ans, né et domicilié à Bar-sur-Ornain (Meuse), comme conspiratrice. SAINT-SAULIEU Pierre, 44 ans, feudiste, ci-devant receveur de l’abbaye de Cormeuil, natif d’Orléans (Loiret), domicilié à Paris, comme convaincu de conspiration. |
1740 Frederick-William I king of Prussia (1713-1740)
1594
Jacopo Robusti “Tintoretto” “il Furioso”, great
Venetian Mannerist
painter born in 1518. — MORE
ON “TINTORETTO” AT ART “4” MAY
with links to images.— 90'000'000 BC (approximately, they didn't have calendars back then, but they had cameras >): Paralititan Stromeri, of unknown causes [it overdosed on an ancient psychodelic mushroom, according to one theory, which I have just concocted out of thin air], in a swamp that would become Egypt's Bahariya Oasis Its carcass is devoured by carnivorous dinosaurs and some of its bones remain there while the region changes to desert and on 31 May 2001 it is announced that they have been discovered in 2000 by University of Pennsylvania graduate student Joshua B. Smith, who gives the species its name meaning “paralytic titan” [just kidding...it really means “tidal giant”] and estimates that it weighed 70 tons and was nearly 30 meters long. Ernst Stromer von Reichenbach was a German geologist who, in 1935, uncovered a wealth of Late Cretinaceous ... er... make that Cretaceous fossils at the site, including four entirely new dinosaur species, but the fossils were destroyed during an Allied bombing of Munich during World War II [which suggests a new theory on the disapperance of the dinosaurs: they were bombed out of existence by cretinous creatures that eventually evolved into Osama Bin Laden].
http://www.dinosaur.org/ http://dinosauria.com/
