Wed,  Aug  27th,  2008

                                                  On This Day:

 

      -26: (BC) Origin of Egyptian Era

    1783: First hydrogen balloon flight (unmanned); reaches 900 m altitude

    1883: The 18 mile long island of Krakatoa, west of Java,
                  explodes with a force of 1,300 megatons.
                  The sound was heard 3,000 miles away!  (World's biggest explosion)

    1896: Zanzibar loses to England in a 38 minute war (9:02 AM-9:40 AM)

    1912: Edgar Rice Burroughs' publishes Tarzan

    1927: Parks College, America's oldest aviation school, opens

    1928: 16 die in a NYC subway's second worst accident

    1937: George E T Eyston sets world auto speed record at 345.49 MPH

    1939: Erich Warsitz makes first jet-propelled flight (in a Heinkel He-178)

    1945: U.S. troops land in Japan after Japanese surrender

    1950: U.S. Army seizes all Railroads on President Truman's orders to prevent a strike. 
                  They hold them for 2 years.

    1962: Mariner 2 launched; first probe to fly by Venus

    1966: Francis Chichester begins the first solo sail around the world

    1975: Veronica & Colin Scargill (England) complete tandem bicycle ride,
                  a record 18,020 miles around the world

    1980: Seattle Computer Products releases Tim Paterson's 86-DOS
                  (aka QDOS, Microsoft eventually invests $75,000 for it and licenses it to IBM,
                  where it became IBM PC-DOS 1.0 - the original DOS for personal computers)
                  Note: As to the exact date,
                  Tim Paterson replied to an email inquiry in 2003 with this: 
                  “86-DOS was ready to be shipped in late August, 1980.
                  By my memory, it is likely the first shipment occurred in early September.
                  There is no record of the exact date.
                  Since "released" doesn't necessarily mean the same as "shipped",
                  you could pick one of the last working days in August 1980
                  if you needed a day to tie it to :).
                  ” August 27th was a Wednesday, mid-week in 1980.

    1984: President Reagan announces the Teacher in Space project

    1994: At Langenthal Germany,
                  Horst Ortmann spits a cherry stone a world record distance of 28.98 meters

                      Born On This Day:

 

     -551: (B.C.) Confucius, philosopher (2559 years ago)

    1770: Georg Wilhelm F Hegel,
                  German philosopher/inventor (dialectic) (238 years ago)

    1809: Hannibal Hamlin,
                  (R) 15th VP (1861-65) (199 years ago)

    1865: Charles Gates Dawes, 
                  (R) 30th VP (1925-29, Nobel 1925) (143 years ago)

    1882: Samuel Goldwyn,
                  pioneer film maker/producer (MGM) (126 years ago)

    1908: Lyndon Baines Johnson,
                  36th U.S. president (D) (11/20/1963-1/20/1969
                  Took office after John Kennedy died) (100 years ago)

    1910: Mother Teresa, (Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu),
                  Yugoslavia (Nobel 1979) (98 years ago)

    1954: John Lloyd,
                  tennis player (former husband of Chris Everet) (54 years ago)

    1959: Gerhard Berger,
                  formula-1 racer (Italian Grand Prix-1988) (49 years ago)

 
                                                                               Today Is:

                                                                  (Gibralter) Late Summer Bank Holiday

                                                                  (Texas) Lyndon B. Johnson's Birthday

                      My PostCard




                                                 

                                    (ร้านขายของที่ระลึก ฮานอย, เวียตนาม)



             >> http://reidiary.exteen.com/20080827/my-postcard 

                                  My PostCard

                                                                                           เพราะผู้ชนะรู้อะไรบางอย่าง
                                                                   และผู้แพ้ก็เรียนรู้ได้บทเรียนจากความพ่ายแพ้

                        Thu,

               Aug  21st,  2008

   

                                                           On This Day:

    1680: Pueblo Indians took possession of Santa Fe from Spanish

    1858: First Lincoln-Douglas debate (Illinois)

    1888: Adding machine is patented

    1911: The Mona Lisa is stolen from the Louvre in Paris

    1945: The American ship Tossk fires torpedoes at, and sinks, a Japanese ship
                  (the crew was unaware of the end of WW II hostilities a week ago)

    1959: Hawaii becomes the 50th state

    1963: Martial law declared in S Vietnam

    1965: Gemini 5 launched into Earth orbit (2 astronauts)

    1968: Warsaw Pact forces enter Czechoslovakia to end reform movement

    1972: First hot air balloon flight over the Alps

    1977: Donna Patterson Brice sets high speed water skiing rec (111.11 mph)

    1985: Mary Decker Slaney runs mile in world record 4:16.71

    1986: Volcanic eruption in Cameroon releases poison gas, killing 2,000

    1988: Cease fire between Iran & Iraq takes effect after 8 years of war

    1989: Voyager 2 begins a flyby of the planet Neptune

    1991: Communist coup is crushed in USSR in 2 days

    1997: Hudson Foods Company closes a plant in Nebraska, 
                  agreeing to destroy 25 million pounds of hamburger
                  after the largest meat recall in U.S. history

    1998: Samuel Bowers, a 73-year-old former Ku Klux Klan leader,
                  is convicted in Hattiesburg Mississippi of ordering a 1966 firebombing
                  that killed civil rights activist Vernon Dahmer

                               Born On This Day:

     1165: Philip II Augustus,
                   first great Capetian king of France (1179-1223) (843 years ago)

     1765: William IV, king of England (1830-37) (243 years ago)

     1930: Princess Margaret, 
                   England (Sister of Queen Elizabeth) (78 years ago)

     1936: Wilt “The Stilt” Chamberlain,
                   basketball and volleyball player (72 years ago)

     1938: Kenny Rogers,
                   singer (Lady) actor (Coward of the County) (70 years ago)

                                Wed,

               Aug  20th, 2008

                                               On This Day:

    1781: George Washington begins to move his troops south to fight Cornwallis

    1866: President Andrew Johnson formally declared the Civil War over

    1896: Dial telephone patented

    1908: Congo Free State becomes the Belgian Congo

    1913: First pilot to parachute from an aircraft (Adolphe Pegoud-France)

    1914: German forces occupy Brussels, Belgium during WW I

    1918: Britain opens offensive on Western front during WW I

    1920: Allen Woodring wins Oympic 200 m dash wearing borrowed shoes

    1929: First airship flight around the Earth flying eastward completed

    1940: British PM Churchill says of the Royal Air Force,
                  “Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few”

    1940: Leon Trotsky, assassinated in Mexico City by Stalin agents, dies 8/21

    1947: Turner Caldwell in D-558-I sets aircraft speed record, 1131 kph

    1948: U.S. expels Soviet Consul General in New York, Jacob Lomakin

    1949: Hungary (Magyar People's Republic) accepts constitution

    1953: Russia publicly acknowledges hydrogen bomb test detonation

    1955: First airplane to exceed 1800 mph (2897 kph)-HA Hanes, Palmdale Ca

    1955: Hundreds killed in anti-French rioting in Morocco & Algeria

    1957: USAAF balloon breaks an altitude record at 102,000' (310,896 m)

    1960: Senegal breaks from the Mali federation

    1968: 650,000 Warsaw Pact troops invade Czechoslovakia

    1971: FBI begins covert investigation of journalist Daniel Schorr

    1975: Viking 1 launched toward orbit around Mars, soft landing

    1977: Voyager 2 is launched towards Jupiter and Saturn,
                  and eventual fly-bys of Uranus and Neptune (it passed Neptune in 1988 and
                  continues to transmit data even though it is leaving the solar system)

    1978: Gunmen open fire on an Israeli El Al Airline bus in London

    1980: Reinhold Messner of Italy is first to solo ascent Mt Everest

    1985: Hanspeter Beck of South Australia, finishes a 3,875 mile,
                  51 day trip from Western Australia to Melbourne on a unicycle

    1985: Israel ships 96 TOWs to Iran on behalf of the U.S.

    1988: Iran and Iraq enact a cease-fire in their 5 year war.

    1988: Yordanka Donkova of Bulgaria sets 100m hurdle woman's record (12.21)

    1992: The Republican national convention in Houston renominates
                  President George H.W. Bush and Vice President Dan Quayle
                  (they lose the election to Democoratic candidates Bill Clinton and Al Gore)

    1998: Retaliating 13 days after the deadly embassy bombings in East Africa,
                  the United States launches cruise missile strikes against 
                  al-Qaida training camps in Afghanistan
                  and at what was described as a chemical plant in Sudan

                 Born On This Day:

    1778: Bernardo O'Higgins,
                 won independence for Chile (230 years ago)

    1785: Oliver Hazard Perry,
                 U.S. Naval hero (“We have met the enemy”) (223 years ago)

    1833: Benjamin Harrison, North Bend,
                 Ohio (R) 23rd President (3/4/1889-3/3/1893) (175 years ago)

    1860: Raymond Poincare, France, 
                 PM (1912), president (148 years ago)

    1901: Salvatore Quasimodo, Italy,
                 poet/critic/translator (Nobel 1959) (107 years ago)

    1938: Jean-Loup Chretien,
                 first French traveler in space (on Soyuz T-6) (70 years ago)

    1944: Rajiv Gandhi,
                 PM of India (1984- ) (64 years ago)

    1957: Cindy Nicholas, Canada,
                 swimmer, swam English Channel 19 times (51 years ago)

                                                                                Today Is:

                                                                          (Hungary) Constitution Day (1949)

                                                                             Tue,

                 Aug  19th,

          2008

                    On This Day:

      440: St Sixtus III ends his reign as Catholic Pope

    1263: King James I or Argon censors Hebrew writings

    1787: W Herschel discovers Enceladus, a moon of Saturn

    1812: The USS Constitution (“Old Ironsides”) defeats the British frigate HMS Guerriere

                  east of Nova Scotia during the War of 1812

    1848: The New York Herald reports the discovery of gold in California

    1909: First race at the Indianapolis Speedway

    1909: Indianapolis 500 race track opens

    1934: A plebiscite in Germany approves vesting sole executive power in Adolf Hitler

                  as Fuhrer

    1942: First American offensive in Pacific in WW2, Guadalcanal, Solomon Is

    1955: Floods from the remnants of Hurricane Diane kill 200 people & cause

                  the first billion-dollar damages due to a storm (in the N.E. U.S.)

    1960: Francis Gary Powers is convicted of spying by a tribunal in the USSR

                  (U-2 incident)

    1960: Sputnik 5 carries 2 dogs, 3 mice into orbit (later recovered alive)

    1974: U.S. Ambassador Rodger P. Davies is shot and killed at the American embassy

                  in Nicosia Cyprus during a protest by Greek Cypriots

    1976: President Gerald R Ford wins the Republican presidential nomination

                  at the convention in Kansas City

    1978: 422 die in an arson fire at a movie theater in Iran

    1979: Crew of Soyuz 32 returns to Earth aboard Soyuz 34 after 175 day flight

    1980: Saudi Arabian Lockhead Tristar crashes on landing at Riyadh, 301 die

    1981: 2 U.S. Navy F-14 jet fighters shot down 2 Soviet-built Libyan SU-22

    1982: Renaldo Nehemiah of U.S. sets record for 110 m hurdles, 12.93 sec

    1982: Soyuz T-7 launched, Svetlana Savtiskaya second woman in space

    1984: Lee Trevino wins the PGA

    1985: Japan launches its second probe of Halley's Comet, Suisei

    1988: Iran-Iraq begin a cease-fire in their 8-year-old war (11 PM EDT)

    1989: Tadeusz Mazowiecki, elected first non-communist president of Poland

    1991: Coup in Russia deposes Mikhail Gorbachev

    1994: President Clinton ends the nation's 30-year open-door policy for Cuban refugees

                                           Born On This Day:

    1785: Seth Thomas,

                  pioneer in mass production of clocks (223 years ago)

    1871: Orville Wright,

                  builder of bicycles and airplanes. (137 years ago)

    1878: Manuel Quezon,

                  first president of Philippine Commonwealth (1935-42) (130 years ago)

    1903: James Gould Cozzens, U.S.,

                  novelist (1949 Pulitzer-Guard of Honor) (105 years ago)

    1919: Malcolm Forbes, publisher (Forbes Magazine) (89 years ago)

    1940: Jill St John, (Oppenheim), Los Angeles CA,

                  actress (Diamonds are Forever) (68 years ago)

    1969: Christian Slater,

                  actor (Legend of Billie Jean) (39 years ago)

    1970: Matthew Perry,

                  actor (Friends) (38 years ago)

                                                                                Today Is:

                                                                                           (Ethiopia) Buhe

            Sun,

               Aug  17th,

                           2008

                    On This Day:

      682: St Leo II begins his reign as Catholic Pope

    1787: Citizens of the Jewish faith are granted permission in Budapest Hungary

                  to pray in groups

    1790: The capital city of the U.S. moves to Philadelphia from New York City

    1807: Robert Fulton's “North River Steam Boat” steamboat, aka the “Clermont”,

                  begins its first successful round-trip up and down the Hudson River

                  (travels from New York City to Albany NY in 32 hours)

    1815: Napoleon arrives at the island of St. Helena to begin serving his exile

    1869: The first international boat race is held (Thames River)

                  (Oxford beats Harvard)

    1877: Asaph Hall discovers Mars' moon, Phobos

    1877: F.P. Cahill becomes the first person to be killed by Billy the Kid

    1903: Joseph Pulitzer donates one million dollars to Columbia University,

                  enabling the Pulitzer Prizes in his name

    1915: A patent is granted for the automobile electric starter

    1940: President Franklin D Roosevelt & Canadian Prime Minister William M King

                  agree to a joint defense commission

    1943: U.S. and British forces enter Messina,

                  marking completion of Allied conquest of Sicily in WWII

    1945: President Sukarno declares Indonesia to be independent from the Netherlands

                  (National Day)

    1959: A 7.1 earthquake strikes Yellowstone National Park

    1960: Francis Gary Powers' U-2 spy trial begins in Moscow

    1960: Gabon gains independence from France (National Day)

    1961: The construction of the Berlin Wall begins,

                  just days after East Belin closed the border to West Berlin

    1962: East German border guards shoot & kill 18-year old Peter Fechter

                  as he attempts to cross the Berlin Wall into the western sector

    1966: NASA's Pioneer 7 is launched into solar orbit to measure cosmic ray activity

    1970: Venera 7 is launched by the USSR for soft landing on Venus

    1973: Lee Trevino's makes his first hole-in-one

    1978: Three Americans, Maxie Anderson, Ben Abruzzo and Larry Newman,

                  complete the first trans-Atlantic balloon crossing in the Eagle II

                  (Presque Isle Maine to Miserey France)

    1985: Rajiv Gandhi announces Punjab state elections in India

    1987: The U.S.S. Stark is hit by an Iraqi missile, killing 37 sailors

                  (Iraq later apologized for the attack)

    1987: The Dow Jones Industrial Average closes above 2,700 for first time (2,700.57)

    1988: Pakistani President Mohammad Zia ul-Haq and U.S. Ambassador Arnold Raphel

                  are killed in a plane crash

    1988: Butch Reynolds of the U.S. sets the 400m record (43.29 seconds) in Zurich

    1998: Russia devalues the ruble

                                            Born On This Day:

   1786: Davy Crockett,

                 U.S. politician (publicly promoted as a frontiersman and adventurer)

                 (222 years ago)

    1844: Menelik II,

                 King of Ethiopia (1896-1913) (164 years ago)

    1870: Frederick Russell,

                 developed first successful typhoid fever vaccine (138 years ago)

    1905: John Hay Whitney,

                 publisher (NY Herald Trib 1961-67) (103 years ago)

    1929: Francis Gary Powers,

                 U.S. spy (USSR captures him in 1959 U-2 incident) (79 years ago)

    1943: Robert De Niro, NYC,

                 actor (Bang the Drum Slowly, Taxi Driver) (65 years ago)

    1960: Sean Penn,

                 actor (Fast Times at Ridgemont High) (48 years ago)

                                                                                  Today Is:

                                                    (Argentina) San Martin Day (1850)

                                                    (India) Janmashtami

                                                    (Indonesia-1945, Gabon-1960) Independence Day

              ดาราในหมู่ดาว

                        นักกีฬาชั้นนำมีอยู่มากมาย

         เป็นหมู่ดาวพราวแสงที่ระยิบระยับประดับฟ้า

         เมื่อมองขึ้นไปผู้ชมก็นิยมชมชอบต่างๆ กัน

         ทุกคนมีดาราในดวงใจของตนเอง

                                                หมู่ดาวนี้ย่อมมีดวงดาวสว่างไสวประกายเจิดจ้ากว่าดวงอื่น

                                   โคจรเปลี่ยนมาให้ชื่นชมอยู่เสมอ

                                   เป็นซุปเปอร์สตาร์หรือดาราในหมู่ดาว

                                                                             ดาวเด่นของกีฬาเทนนิสประเภทชาย

                                                             เมื่อดวงเก่าเริ่มโคจรจากไป

                                                             ชื่อของ โรเจอร์ เฟดเดอเรอร์

                                                             นักเทนนิสสวิตเซอร์แลนด์

                                                             ก็สะสมความสามารถและผลงานได้เจิดจรัส

                                                             ขึ้นมาทอแสงประดับอยู่บนฟากฟ้า

                                                             เป็นดาราอีกดวงที่เจิดจ้าอย่างสวยงามมายาวนาน

                                                             นานพอจะเรียกว่าเป็นดาวค้างฟ้าในโลกของเทนนิส

                                               คนที่ทั้งเก่งทั้งดีมีอยู่น้อย

                               เฟดเดอเรอร์ก็เป็นนักกีฬาคนหนึ่งในนั้น

                               นอกจากฝีมือความสามารถที่มีอยู่ในตัวแล้ว

                               ยังเห็นบุคลิกของความเป็นสุภาพบุรุษในสนามเสมอ

                               เขาเป็นตัวอย่างที่ดีสำหรับเยาวชนรุ่นหลังที่สมควรเอ่ยถึง

                               ให้เห็นถึงการเข้าแข่งขันเพื่อชัยชนะแบบแฟร์เพลย์

                               อยู่ในกรอบของกฏกติกามารยาทที่มีไว้เพื่อให้ปฏิบัติตาม

                               แม้สำหรับบางคนอาจเห็นว่าไม่สำคัญเท่ากับชัยชนะ

                               เฟดเดอเรอร์เป็นนักเทนนิสที่เก่งมาก

                               มีสปิริตของความเป็นนักกีฬา

                               กล้าหาญแข่งขันเพื่อชัยชนะพร้อมกับรักษากฏเกณฑ์ด้วย

                               เขาจึงเป็นซุปเปอร์สตาร์ที่เปล่งประกายเจิดจ้าสวยงาม

                               เป็นดาราในดวงใจของหลายๆ คน

                                 นักกีฬาหญิงก็เคยมีให้เห็น

                คริส อีเวอร์ต นักเทนนิสอเมริกันรุ่นเก่า

                ทั้งฝีมือและชื่อเสียงระดับแกรนด์สแลมอีกคนหนึ่ง

                เคยชมการแข่งขันหญิงเดี่ยวของเธอหลายครั้ง

                เพราะตอนนั้นเธอเก่งและโด่งดังมาก

                และได้เห็นสิ่งที่ไม่เคยเห็นมาก่อนเลย

                นั่นคือความมีสปิริตสูงของเธอในขณะแข่งขัน

                เมื่อคู่ต่อสู้ตีโต้ลูกได้ดี

                และสามารถตีลูกวินเนอร์จนเธอตอบโต้ไม่ได้

                ลูกนั้นเป็นลูกดีแต่ก็ชิดเส้นมากอาจเห็นไม่ชัดเจนจนตัดสินผิดพลาด

                กรรมการตัดสินให้เป็นลูกออก

                คู่แข่งขันของเธอจึงไม่พอใจเห็นว่าการตัดสินไม่ถูกต้อง

                แม้จะสอบถามทักท้วงแล้วก็ไม่เป็นผลให้กลับคำตัดสินได้

                แต่เธอกลับเป็นฝ่ายได้คะแนนนี้

                                              เมื่อเล่นคะแนนถัดมา

                              คู่แข่งขันจะเป็นฝ่ายได้คะแนน

                              จากการเล่นผิดพลาดของเธอเอง (Unforced Error)

                                              บางเกมส์เป็นเกมส์เสิร์ฟของเธอ

                              เสิร์ฟไปแล้วลูกนั้นเสียแต่บางครั้งบางที

                              ด้วยความเร็วความแรงกับตำแหน่งที่ลูกตก

                              อาจทำให้การตัดสินผิดพลาดให้เป็นลูกดีเธอได้คะแนน

                              คู่แข่งขันย่อมเกิดความหงุดหงิดไม่เห็นด้วย

                              โดยเฉพาะเมื่อเกิดขึ้นในคะแนนสำคัญๆ

                              ในการเสิร์ฟคะแนนถัดไป

                              จะได้เห็นเธอเสิร์ฟ Double Fault

                              นี่คือสปิริตนักกีฬาที่ คริส อีเวอร์ต มีให้กับคู่แข่งขัน

                                                         นักกีฬาที่มีความสามารถสูง

                                       จะพอใจกับการแข่งขันเอาชนะกันที่ความสามารถในกรอบของกฏกติกา

                                       เขาเข้าใจดีว่าไม่มีใครสามารถชนะได้ทุกครั้งเสมอไป

                                       โลกไม่สร้างคนเก่งขึ้นมาแค่คนเดียว

                                       และไม่ได้สร้างคนขึ้นมาแบบเดียว

                                       วันไหนใครดีกว่า  พร้อมกว่า  อีกฝ่ายก็ต้องยอมรับ

                                       สปิริตเป็นเรื่องส่วนตัวภายในของแต่ละบุคคล

                                       ใครจะมีหรือไม่มีก็ได้

                                       บางคนก็เห็นเป็นเรื่องล้าสมัยไร้สาระไม่ทันโลก

                                       แต่การใช้ความสามารถของตัวเองจนได้ชัยชนะอย่างใสสะอาด

                                       กับสปิริตที่มีให้แก่กันในฐานะนักกีฬาเหมือนกัน

                                       เป็นคุณค่าขจรขจายเพิ่มความพร่างพราวของแสงดาวให้ยิ่งสวยงาม

                                       และเรืองรองอยู่ในดวงใจอยู่ในความทรงจำ

                                       แม้วันหนึ่งดาราซุปเปอร์สตาร์เหล่านี้จะต้องโคจรจากไป

                     สุดท้ายขอแสดงความยินดีกับดาราในหมู่ดาว โรเจอร์ เฟดเดอเรอร์

                                 กับฝีมือและคุณงามความดีที่มั่นคงยาวนาน

                 ช่วยให้ไปจนถึงเหรียญทองเทนนิสโอลิมปิคมาครอบครองได้สมปรารถนา

                                Thu,

               Aug  14th, 2008

                         On This Day:

      410: After three years of attacks on, and alliances with, Rome,

                  King Alaric leads the Visigoths in sacking Rome

    1385: The Portuguese defeat the Castilians at Aljubarrota and retain their independence

    1756: Daniel Boone marries 16-year-old Rebecca Bryan

    1842: Seminole Wars end after 8 years of battle

                  (remaining Native Americans are sent from Florida to Oklahoma)

    1846: Henry David Thoreau is jailed for tax resistance for one night

                  because of his opposition to the Mexican War

                  (his friend Emerson came to see him and asked, “Why are you in there?”

                  Thoreau answered, “Why are you out there?”)

    1848: Oregon becomes a territory

    1888: A patent is granted for the electric meter to O.B. Shallenberger of Rochester NY

    1896: Gold is discovered in Canada’s Yukon Territory

             (within the next year more than 30,000 people rushed to the area to look for gold)

    1900: International forces, including U.S. Marines, end the siege of Beijing

                  (ending the Boxer Rebellion an attempt to purge China of foreigners)

    1912: 2,500 U.S. Marines invade Nicaragua

                  which was in default of loans to the U.S. and Europe (U.S. remains until 1925)

    1917: China declares war on Germany & Austria at the start of WW I

    1924: The first two-way radio message is made to an aircraft

    1935: President Roosevelt signs the Social Security Act into law,

                  creating unemployment insurance and pension plans for the elderly

    1936: The last public hanging in the U.S. is held in Owensboro

                  by the order of the sheriff of Davies County Kentucky

                  (a 29-year-old African American man, Rainey Bethea,

                  is convicted of killing an elderly white woman)

    1941: The Atlantic Charter,

                  an 8-point declaration of principles that renounces aggression,

                  is issued by President Roosvelt and Prime Minister Churchill

    1941: Corporal Josef Jakobs, a German spy,

                  becomes the last prisoner to be executed at the Tower of London

                  (executed by an eight man firing squad of Scots Guards)

    1945: V-J Day: President Truman announces that Japan has surrendered unconditionally,

                  ending World War II

    1947: India is granted independence within the British Commonwealth

    1947: Pakistan is established when the British rule over India ends

                  and India is partitioned into Pakistan and India

    1958: Elvis Presley's mother, Gladys Presley, dies at age 46

    1962: French & Italian workers break through at Mount Blanc Vehicular Tunnel

    1962: NASA civilian test pilot Joseph A Walker takes the X-15 to 60,000 m

    1962: A U.S. mail truck in Plymouth Massachusetts is robbed of more than $1.5 million

    1969: British troops arrive in Northern Ireland

                  to intervene in sectarian violence between Protestants and Roman Catholics

    1971: Bahrain proclaims independence after 110 years of British rule

    1971: British begin internment without trial in Northern Ireland

    1972: East German Aeroflot Illyushin 62 crashes near Moscow, killing 156 people

    1973: The U.S. ceases bombing raids into Cambodia,

                  marking the official end to 12 years of combat in Indochina by the U.S.

    1974: Congress authorizes U.S. citizens to own gold

    1979: A rainbow is seen in Northern Wales for a 3-hour duration

    1982: Grace Kelly, princess of Monaco, is killed in a car crash at age 52

    1984: IBM releases MS-DOS version 3.0

    1992: The U.S. announces that emergency airlifts of food to Somalia will begin

                  in response to mass deaths due to starvation

    1995: Shannon Faulkner becomes the first female cadet in the history of The Citadel,

                  South Carolina's state military college

                  (she quit the school less than a week later)

    1996: The Republican National Convention in San Diego nominates Bob Dole

                  for president and Jack Kemp for vice president

    1948: CBS-TV begins the first nightly news broadcast

                  (with anchorman Douglas Edwards)

                                            Born On This Day:

    1777: Hans Christian Oersted,

                 Denmark physicist/chemist (View of Chemical Law) (231 years ago)

    1867: John Galsworthy,

                 English author (Forsyte Saga-Nobel 1932) (141 years ago)

    1946: Susan St James, Los Angeles,

                 (MacMillan & Wife, Kate & Allie, Name of Game) (62 years ago)

    1959: Earvin “Magic” Johnson, Lansing Michigan,

                 fomrer WBA basketball player (49 years ago)

                                                                              Today Is:

                                                     (Bahrain) Independence Day (1971)

                                                     (Liechtenstein) Prince Franz-Joseph Day

                                                     (Pakistan-1947, Bahrain-1971) Independence Day

                                                     (Portugal) Independence Day (1385)

            Wed,

               Aug  13th,

                            2008

                                                  On This Day:

      523: St John I begins his reign as Catholic Pope

    1521: Spanish conquistadors capture Mexico City from the Aztecs

    1651: Litchfield Connecticut is founded

    1704: English and Austrian forces,

                  led by John Churchill and Prince Rupert,

                  defeat the French at the Battle of Blenheim

                  during the War of the Spanish Succession

    1831: A blue sun is observed throughout the southern United States

    1831: Nat Turner leads the uprising of slaves in Virginia

    1844: The first college on the U.S. West Coast, Willamette, is founded in Salem Oregon

    1868: Earthquakes kill 25,000 people & cause $300 million in damages (Peru & Ecuador)

    1870: John Wesley Powell begins his exploration of the Grand Canyon

    1876: The Reciprocity Treaty between the U.S. and Hawaii is ratified.

    1907: The first taxicab goes into service (NYC)

    1923: Mustapha Kemal is elected president of Turkey

    1928: The Soviet Union's Spartacan Games begin

    1932: Adolf Hitler rejects the offered post of Germany's vice-chancellor,

                  stating he is prepared to hold out “for all or nothing”

    1945: 35 Jewish patriots sacrifice their lives to blow up the Nazi rubber plant in Silesia

    1945: 1,500 Allied planes fly over the Japanese capital of Tokyo

                  in a devastating fire-bombing raid

    1946: Britain transfers illegal immigrants bound for Palestine to Cyprus

    1960: The Central African Republic & Chad proclaim their independence from France

    1960: The first two-way telephone conversation by satellite

                  takes place via the Echo 1 balloon satellite

    1961: Berlin becomes divided as East Germany seals off the border

                  between the Soviet and Allied sections of Occupied Berlin in order to

                  halt the flight of refugees to the West

    1967: The Daughters of the American Revolution refuse to allow Joan Baez

                  to perform at Constitution Hall in Washington DC because of

                  her opposition to the Vietnam War

    1980: Tatyana Kazankina of the USSR

                  sets the 1.5k woman's record (3:52.47) in the Soviet Union

    1988: Ronald J Dossenbach sets world record for pedalling across Canada from Vancouver,

                  BC to Halifax, NS in 13 days, 15 hr, 4 min

    1988: The U.S. beats Jamacia 5-1, in the second round of the World Soccer Cup

    1989: Searchers in Ethiopia find the wreckage of a plane which had disappeared

                  almost a week earlier while carrying Texas Congressman Mickey Leland

                  and 15 other people (no survivors)

    1995: Baseball Hall of Fame great Mickey Mantle dies at a Dallas hospital

                  of liver cancer at age 63

                             Born On This Day:

   1422: William Caxton,

                 first English printer (Histories of Troy) (586 years ago)

    1655: Johann Christoph Denner,

                 invented the clarinet (353 years ago)

    1814: Anders Jonas Angstrom, Sweden,

                 physicist, founded spectroscopy (194 years ago)

    1898: Jean Borota, France,

                 tennis champ (35 Wimbeldons between 1922-64) (110 years ago)

    1899: Alfred Hitchcock, London,

                 director (Psycho, Birds, Rear Window) (109 years ago)

    1902: Felix Wankel, Germany,

                 inventor (Wankel rotary-piston engine) (106 years ago)

    1912: Ben Hogan, Dublin TX,

                 PGA golfer (U.S. Open 1950/51/53) (96 years ago)

    1918: Frederick Sanger, England,

                 chemist (Nobel 1958, 1980) (90 years ago)

    1927: Fidel Castro Ruz,

                 Cuban political leader (1959- ) (81 years ago)

    1951: Dan Fogelberg, Peoria Illinois,

                 rocker (Same Auld Lang Syne) (57 years ago)

    1955: Betsy King,

                 LPGA golfer (1990 Dinah Shore, 1990 U.S. Women's Open) (53 years ago)

                                                                   Today Is: 

                                                                 (Tunisia) International Women's Day