7 April History: This Date

<< Apr 06| HISTORY “4” “2”DAY |Apr 08 >>
Events, deaths, births, of APR 07
[For Apr 07 Julian go to Gregorian date: 1583~1699: Apr 17 — 1700s: Apr 18 — 1800s: Apr 19 — 1900~2099: Apr 20]

ALTERNATE SITES "" ANY DAY OF THE YEAR IN HISTORY ART “4” APR 07

• World allows genocide in Rwanda... • “El Greco” dies... • US breaks with Iran... • Computer protocols RFC... • Hammarsjkold elected UN Secretary General... • IBM System 360... • World Health Day... • Guillotinés par la Révolution... • Farm Relief Act... • Great battleship is sunk... • Italy invades Albania... • Poet Wordsworth is born... • Image and sound telecast... • Mathematician François Français is born... • Eisenhower's domino theory speech... • P.T. Barnum dies... • Tito President–for–life... • Lewis and Clark leave winter quarters... • North Vietnamese prepare final offensive... • Vietnam War claims 16 more lives...

On an April 07:
2003 This year's Pullet Surprises are awarded: biography: Robert Caro's Master of the Senate (1100 pages, 3rd volume of LBJ bio) — fiction: Jeffrey Eugenides's Middlesex (500+ pages, narrated by a girl who turns into a boy) — history: Rick Atkinson's An Army at Dawn (700 pages, 1st volume of a WWII history) — nonfiction: Samantha Power's A Problem From Hell: America and the Age of Genocide — poetry: Paul Muldoon's Moy Sand and Gravel. [correction: those are Pulitzer Prizes]
2001 Ganga and Jamuna Shrestha, 10-month-old conjoined twin girls from a poor Nepalese family from the outskirts of Katmandu, undergo an operation to separate their brains, at Singapore's General Hospital. The operation started at 16:00 the previous day and will continue until completed on 08 April. by two team of surgeons headed by Dr. Keith Goh. Each multidisciplinary team consists of a neurosurgeon, a plastic surgeon and. others, they work in relays. The girls were born joined at the head (vertical craniopagus), their brains sharing some blood vessels. Sandhya and Bushan Shrestha are, respectively, the father and mother of the babies.
2000 Attorney General Janet Reno meets in Washington with the father of Elián González; Reno later tells reporters that officials will arrange for Juan Miguel González to reclaim his son, but she would give Elian's Miami relatives one more chance to drop their resistance and join in a peaceful transfer.
1991 US military planes began airdropping supplies to Kurdish refugees who were facing starvation and exposure in the snow-covered mountains of northern Iraq. The United States warned Iraq not to interfere with the relief effort.
1990 John Poindexter (National Security Advisor to US president Bush Sr.) found guilty in Iran-Contra scandal.
1990 Michael Milken pleads innocent to security law violations
1990 A display of Robert Mapplethorpe photographs opened at Cincinnati's Contemporary Arts Center, the same day the center and its director were indicted on obscenity charges (both were acquitted).

1980 US breaks relations with Iran ^top^
      During the Iran Hostage Crisis, US President Jimmy Carter orders all Iranian diplomats expelled from the United States and prohibits any further exports to that nation.
      On 04 November 1979, the Iran Hostage Crisis had begun when militant Iranian students, outraged that the US government had allowed the ousted Shah of Iran to travel to New York City for medical treatment, seized the US embassy in Teheran. The Ayatollah Khomeini, Iran's political and religious leader, took over the hostage situation, refusing all appeals to release the hostages, even after the U.N. Security Council demanded an end to the crisis in a unanimous vote.
      However, two weeks after the embassy's storming, the Ayatollah began to release all non-US captives, and all female and minority Americans, citing these groups as among the people oppressed by the government of the United States. However, the remaining fifty-two captives remained at the mercy of the Ayatollah for the next fourteen months.
      Even after the Shah died, US President Jimmy Carter was unable to diplomatically resolve the crisis. Finally, on 24 April 1980, seventeen days after breaking off diplomatic relations with the country, he ordered a disastrous rescue mission in which eight US military personnel were killed and no hostages rescued.
      In November of 1980, due in part to his failure to resolve the hostage crisis, Carter lost the presidential election to Republican Ronald Reagan. Shortly after, with the assistance of Algerian intermediaries, successful negotiations began between the US and Iran.
      On 20 January, 1981, the day of Reagan's inauguration, the United States freed almost $8 billion in frozen Iranian assets, and the hostages were released after 444 days. The next day, Jimmy Carter flew to Wiesbaden, West Germany, to greet the Americans on their way home.

1978 US President Carter postpones production of the neutron bomb

1975 North Vietnamese prepare for final offensive. ^top^
North Vietnamese forces prepare to launch the "Ho Chi Minh Campaign," designed to set the conditions for a final communist victory in South Vietnam. By this time, well over two-thirds of South Vietnam was under communist control as South Vietnamese forces had fallen back in panic when the North Vietnamese pressed the attack. The Ho Chi Minh Campaign offensive was the final phase of the North Vietnamese plan to defeat South Vietnam. Despite the imposition of a cease-fire by the terms of the 1973 Paris Peace Accords, fighting had continued between South Vietnamese forces and the North Vietnamese troops left in South Vietnam at the end of the 1972 Easter Offensive. In December 1974, the North Vietnamese launched a major attack against the lightly defended province of Phuoc Long, located north of Saigon along the Cambodian border. They overran the provincial capital at Phuoc Binh on 06 January 1975. President Richard Nixon had repeatedly promised South Vietnamese President Nguyen Van Thieu that the United States would come to the aid of South Vietnam if the North Vietnamese violated the Peace Accords in a major way.
However, by the time the Communists captured Phuoc Long, Nixon had resigned from office and his successor, Gerald Ford, was unable to convince a hostile Congress to make good on Nixon's promises to Saigon. This situation emboldened the North Vietnamese, who launched Campaign 275 in March 1975, to capture the provincial capital of Ban Me Thuot (Darlac province) in the Central Highlands. The South Vietnamese defenders fought very poorly and were quickly overwhelmed by the North Vietnamese attackers. The United States did nothing. Stunned by the lack of response from Washington, South Vietnamese President Nguyen Van Thieu ordered his forces in the Highlands to withdraw to more defensible positions to the south. What started out as a reasonably orderly withdrawal soon degenerated into a panic that spread throughout the South Vietnamese armed forces. They abandoned Pleiku and Kontum with very little fighting and the North Vietnamese pressed the attack from the west and north. In quick succession, Quang Tri, Hue, and Da Nang in the north fell to the communist onslaught. The North Vietnamese continued to attack south along the coast, defeating the South Vietnamese forces at each encounter. As the North Vietnamese forces closed on the approaches to Saigon, the politburo in Hanoi issued an order to Gen. Van Tien Dung to launch the Ho Chi Minh Campaign, the final assault on Saigon itself. Dung ordered his forces into position for the final battle. The South Vietnamese 18th Division made a valiant final stand at Xuan Loc, 60 km northeast of Saigon, in which the South Vietnamese soldiers destroyed three of Dung's divisions. After a week, however, the South Vietnamese succumbed to the North Vietnamese. By 27 April, the North Vietnamese had completely encircled Saigon and began to maneuver for their final assault. By the morning of 30 April, it was all over. When the North Vietnamese tanks broke through the gates of the Presidential Palace in Saigon, the South Vietnamese surrendered. The Vietnam War was over.

1971 US President Nixon promises to withdraw 100'000 more servicemen from Vietnam by December.
1969 The US Supreme Court unanimously strikes down laws prohibiting private possession of obscene material.

1969 First Request for Comments on computer protocols ^top^
      Steve Crocker, a graduate student at the University of California at Los Angeles, sent the first Request for Comments (RFC) to a group of graduate students working on protocols for computer networking.
      The federally-funded ARPA project, the computer networking initiative that spawned the Internet, had contracted for specially designed hardware to create a computer network linking UCLA, U.C. Santa Barbara, Stanford Research Institute, and the University of Utah. While the hardware was almost ready, no one had yet developed software standards that would tell the machines how to communicate. By default, an informal group of graduate students at the four universities began discussing basic protocols for computer-to-computer communications.
      Crocker, a member of the group, realized the group's discussions needed to be put down on paper to help organize their thoughts. On 07 April 1969, he sent out the first RFC, entitled "Host Software," which described the basic "handshake" between two computers. RFC Number 1 set the tone for the future development of the Internet. Its title and tone suggested an open dialogue among a friendly working group of people. A series of RFC's over the next several years established the basic technical protocols — as well as the basic social etiquette of the Internet.

1966 US recovers lost H-bomb from Mediterranean floor (whoops!)

1964 IBM System 360 computer is presented ^top^
IBM chairman Tom Watson, Jr., charters a train to bring two hundred reporters from New York to IBM's Poughkeepsie plant, where he unveils a new line of IBM computers called System/360. The product line, which consists of a series of compatible computers, replaces all of IBM's previous computers.
Before System/360, every IBM machine required custom software and programming. System/360 allowed one machine to run on another's programs. The company spent a reported $5 billion to develop the line: In the end, the gamble paid off. The System/360 line would make IBM the world's leading mainframe provider and would fuel the company's growth for the next three decades.

1963 Tito becomes President-for-Life. ^top^
     A new Yugoslav constitution proclaims Yugoslavia a Socialist Federal Republic and Tito its president for life. Formerly known as Josip Broz, Tito was born to a large peasant family in Croatia in 1892. At that time, Croatia was part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and in 1913 Broz was drafted into the Austro-Hungarian army. After the outbreak of World War I, he fought against Serbia and in 1915 was sent to the Russian front, where he was captured. In the prisoner-of-war camp, he converted to Bolshevism and in 1917 participated in the Russian Revolution. He fought in the Red Guard during the Russian Civil War and in 1920 returned to Croatia, which had been incorporated into the multinational but Serb-dominated kingdom of Yugoslavia. He joined the Communist Party of Yugoslavia (CPY) and was an effective organizer before his arrest as a political agitator in 1928. Released from prison in 1934, he rapidly rose in the ranks of the CPY and took the name Tito, which was a pseudonym he used in underground Party work. He went to the USSR to work with Comintern--the Soviet-led international Communist organization--and in 1937-38 survived Soviet leader Joseph Stalin's purge of the CPY leadership. In 1939, Tito became secretary-general of the CPY. In 1941, Axis forces invaded and occupied Yugoslavia, and Tito and his communist partisans emerged as the leaders of the anti-Nazi resistance.
      In 1944, Soviet forces liberated Yugoslavia, and in March 1945 Marshal Tito was installed as head of a new federal Yugoslav government. Non-communists were purged from the government, and in November 1945 Tito was elected Yugoslav premier in an election limited to candidates from the communist-dominated National Liberation Front. The same month, the Federal People's Republic of Yugoslavia, comprising the Balkan republics of Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Montenegro, Slovenia, and Macedonia, was proclaimed under a new constitution. Although the Yugoslav republics were granted autonomy over some of their affairs, Tito held the ultimate power and ruled dictatorially, suppressing opposition to his rule. He soon came into conflict with Moscow, which disapproved of his independent style, especially in foreign affairs, and in early 1948 Joseph Stalin attempted to purge the Yugoslav leadership. Tito maintained control, and later in 1948 the CPY was expelled from Cominform, the confederation of Eastern European communist parties.
      Isolated from the USSR and its satellites, Yugoslavia was courted by the West, which offered aid and military assistance, including an informal association with NATO. After Stalin's death in 1953, Yugoslav-Soviet relations gradually improved, but Tito was critical of the Soviet invasions of Hungary and Czechoslovakia, and attempted to develop common policies with countries unaligned with the United States or the USSR, such as Egypt and India. In 1953, Tito was elected Yugoslav president and was repeatedly re-elected until 1963, when his term was made unlimited. Although he used his secret police to purge political opponents, the average Yugoslavian enjoyed more freedoms than the inhabitants of any other communist country in Eastern Europe. Tito died in May 1980, just a few days before his 88th birthday. After the collapse of communism in 1989, ethnic tensions resurfaced, and in 1991 the Yugoslav federation broke apart, leaving only Serbia and Montenegro remaining in the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. In 1992, civil war erupted over Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic's attempts to keep ethnically Serbian areas in other republics under Yugoslav rule.

1956 Spain relinquishes its protectorate in Morocco

1954 Eisenhower gives "domino theory" speech. ^top^
US President Dwight D. Eisenhower coins one of the most famous Cold War phrases when he suggests the fall of French Indochina to the communists could create a "domino" effect in Southeast Asia. The so-called "domino theory" dominated US thinking about Vietnam for the next decade. By early 1954, it was clear to many US policymakers that the French were failing in their attempt to re-establish colonial control in Indochina (Vietnam), which they lost during World War II when the Japanese took control of the area. The Vietnamese nationalists, led by the communist Ho Chi Minh, were on the verge of winning a stunning victory against French forces at the battle of Dien Bien Phu. In just a few weeks, representatives from the world's powers were scheduled to meet in Geneva to discuss a political settlement of the Vietnamese conflict. US officials were concerned that a victory by Ho's forces and/or an agreement in Geneva might leave a communist regime in control of all or part of Vietnam.
In an attempt to rally congressional and public support for increased US aid to the French, President Eisenhower gives a historic press conference on 07 April 1954. He spent much of the speech explaining the significance of Vietnam to the United States. First was its economic importance, "the specific value of a locality in its production of materials that the world needs" (materials such as rubber, jute, and sulphur). There was also the "possibility that many human beings pass under a dictatorship that is inimical to the free world." Finally, the president noted, "You have broader considerations that might follow what you would call the 'falling domino' principle." Eisenhower expanded on this thought, explaining, "You have a row of dominoes set up, you knock over the first one, and what will happen to the last one is a certainty that it will go over very quickly." This would lead to disintegration in Southeast Asia, with the "loss of Indochina, of Burma, of Thailand, of the Peninsula, and Indonesia following." Eisenhower suggested that even Japan, which needed Southeast Asia for trade, would be in danger. Eisenhower's words had little direct immediate impact--a month later, Dien Bien Phu fell to the communists, and an agreement was reached at the Geneva Conference that left Ho's forces in control of northern Vietnam. In the long run, however, Eisenhower's announcement of the "domino theory" laid the foundation for US involvement in Vietnam. John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson both used the theory to justify their calls for increased US economic and military assistance to non-communist South Vietnam and, eventually, the commitment of US armed forces in 1965.

1953 Hammarskjold elected UN Secretary General ^top^
     By a vote of fifty-seven to one, Dag Hammarskjold, 47, of Sweden is elected secretary general of the United Nations.
      The son of Hjalmar Hammarskjold, a former prime minister of Sweden, he entered politics in 1930 as a secretary on a governmental committee on unemployment. Over the next decade, he served as a chairman for the National Bank of Sweden while undertaking a number of diplomatic missions to France and elsewhere.
      After World War II, he was appointed an adviser to the prime minister's cabinet on financial and economic problems, and proved instrumental in shaping Sweden's postwar economy. In 1947, he was appointed to the foreign ministry and in 1951, formally entered the cabinet as deputy foreign minister. In the same year, he traveled to the United Nations as vice chairman of the Swedish delegation and in 1952 was appointed acting chairman.
      Elected U.N. secretary general on the recommendation of the Security Council on 07 April 1953, he led missions to China, the Middle East, and elsewhere to become better acquainted with the U.N.'s member states and to arrange peace settlements. In 1957, he was unanimously re-elected secretary general. During his second term, he initiated and directed the United Nation's vigorous role in the Belgian Congo. He was on his fourth mission to the central African country when he was killed in a plane crash in Northern Rhodesia on 18 September 1961.
      He was succeeded as secretary general by U Thant of Myanamar. In the same year, Dag Hammarskjold was posthumously awarded the 1961 Nobel Prize for Peace. Hammarskjold endeared himself to Christians, after his death in 1961, through the 1964 publication of his spiritual journal, Markings.

1948 World Health Day ^top^
The constitution of the World Health Organization, a specialized agency of the United Nations dedicated to improving health conditions in all nations, comes into force. The anniversary of the constitution's ratification has since been designated World Health Day.
The constitution was drafted in 1946 by representatives to the International Health Conference meeting in New York City. The World Health Organization admits all sovereign states, including those not belonging to the United Nations, to full membership, and admits territories that are not self-governing to associate membership. In 1999, there were 191 members of the organization. The World Health Organization has made notable strides in checking leprosy, polio, malaria, cholera, and tuberculosis, and sponsors medical research on tropical and other diseases

1946 Part of East Prussia incorporated into Russian SFSR.

1939 Italy invades Albania ^top^
In an effort to mimic

Hitler's conquest of Prague, Benito Mussolini's troops, though badly organized, invade and occupy Albania. Less than a week later, Italy would annex Albania.
Although the invasion of Albania was intended as but a prelude to greater conquests in the Balkans, it proved a costly enterprise for Il Duce. Albania was already dependent on Italy's economy, so had little to offer the invaders. And future exploits in neighboring nations, in Greece in particular, proved to be disastrous for the Italians.

1934 Farm-Relief Act ^top^
Congress seemingly came to the aid of the nation's farmers by passing the Jones-Connally Farm-Relief Act. The bill effectively placed an expanded roster of farm products under the control of the Agricultural Adjustment Administration (AAA). Established in 1933, the AAA was charged with delivering farmers from the woes of the Depression by slashing production and increasing prices. Thanks to legislation like the Jones-Connally bill, as well as the controversial decision to destroy ten million acres of cotton and six million baby pigs, the AAA was soon able to boost prices and incomes for larger-scale farmers (an extended drought also played a part in hiking crop prices).
However, sharecroppers, and small and tenant farmers did not readily reap benefits from the agency's programs. In 1936, the Supreme Court deemed the legislation that had fostered the AAA unconstitutional and forced Congress to draft new plans for rescuing farmers.

1933 Prohibition ends in the US, Utah becomes 38th state to ratify 21st Amendment.

1927 Telecast of sound and moving image. ^top^
Employees at Bell Telephone Laboratories in New York City gather to watch a 2-by-3 inch image of Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover reading a speech in Washington DC. Hoover reads the speech into a telephone so viewers can both see and hear him. The image is transmitted at eighteen images per second.

1922 Naval Reserve #3, "Teapot Dome," leased to Harry F Sinclair
1915 The first coast-to-coast commercial telephone service is established between New York and California. A call costs $20.70 for the first three minutes and $6.75 for each additional minute.
1914 The British House of Commons passes the Irish Home Rule Bill.
1891 Nebraska introduces the 8 hour work day
1888 Start of Sherlock Holmes's adventure Yellow Face.
1865 Engagement at High Bridge, Virginia
1865 Engagement at Cumberland Church, Virginia
1865 Siege at Spanish Fort, Alabama continues
1863 Naval attack on Charleston, South Carolina
1862 Union forces led by General Ulysses S. Grant defeat the Confederates at the Battle of Shiloh (Pittsburg Landing), Tennessee. Island #10 surrenders after long siege.
1862 Siege of Yorktown, Virginia continues
1831 Dom Pedro abdicates to son, Dom Pedro II crowned emperor of Brazil

1805 Lewis and Clark leave winter quarters. ^top^
After a long winter, the Lewis and Clark expedition departs its camp among the Mandan Indians and resumes its journey West along the Missouri River. The Corps of Discovery had begun its voyage the previous spring, and it arrived at the large Mandan and Minnetaree villages along the upper Missouri River (north of present-day Bismarck, North Dakota) in late October. Once at the villages, Meriwether Lewis and William Clark directed the men to build a sturdy log fort. The following winter was a harsh one, but the expedition had plenty of provisions. The two captains made the best of their enforced halt, making copious notes in their journals and preparing maps of their route. Most importantly, they met frequently with the local Indians, who provided them with valuable information about the mysterious country that lay ahead. As spring came to the upper Missouri, Lewis and Clark prepared to resume their journey.
Lewis wrote a long report for President Thomas Jefferson that would be sent back down to St. Louis with 16 men traveling on the expedition's large keelboat. Although Lewis had yet to explore any truly unknown country, his report provided a good deal of valuable information on the upper Missouri River region and its inhabitants. He optimistically predicted the expedition would be able to reach the Pacific and make a good start on the return journey before the coming winter. "You may therefore expect me to meet you at Monachello [Monticello] in September 1806," he told the president. In fact, the journey was more difficult and slow than Lewis anticipated. The expedition actually spent the winter of 1805-06 along the Pacific Coast, and Lewis did not finally meet with Thomas Jefferson in Washington, D.C., until 01 January 1807. However, as Lewis and Clark prepared to leave Fort Mandan on this day in 1805, they did not know the trials ahead and were likely filled with optimism and excitement. As the keelboat shoved off and started down the Missouri with Lewis' report to Jefferson, the Corps of Discovery (and their female guide, Sacagawea) resumed the far more difficult task of rowing their small boats upstream. That night Lewis wrote in his journal that, "Our vessels consisted of six small canoes, and two large pirogues. This little fleet altho' not quite so rispectable as those of Columbus or Capt. Cook, were still viewed by us with as much pleasure as those deservedly famed adventurers ever beheld theirs." As Lewis began his journey into a land "on which the foot of civilized man had never trodden," he proclaimed this day of departure as "among the most happy of my life."

1798 Territory of Mississippi organized
1794 (18 germinal an II) DURAND Nicolas, secrétaire de la municipalité de Coupray, y demeurant, département de la Haute Marne, condamné à la déportation, par le tribunal criminel dudit département, pour avoir tenu des propos inciviques.
1788 first settlement in Ohio, at Marietta
1712 Slave revolt in New Yolk City.
1541 Spanish founder of the Jesuits Francis Xavier, on his 35th birthday, and three friends set sail from Lisbon, Portugal for Goa. They would become the first Catholic missionaries to travel to India.
[< click on image for portrait of Saint Francis Xavier baptizing a queen]

TO THE TOP

Deaths which occurred on an April 07:
2003:: 22 students aged 11 to 18, by fire, at the beginning of the school day, in an old two-story wooden school in village Sydyi Bal, near Vilyuisk in the Sakha Republic (called by its Russian name, Yakutiya, before 1992), Siberia. Ten students are injured with burns and fractures from jumping out of upstairs windows.
2002 Fernando Vadayo Calderón, Jerson Yamid Meléndez Novoa, Dulfai Gavilán Falla, Wilson Javier Cruzado Jiménez, Néstor Alejandro Calderón Guevara, Diego Ramos Gómez, and at least 6 other Colombians by a car bomb (50 kg of potassium chloride) at 01:05 in the entertainment district of Villavicencio, capital of Meta state. 67 persons are injured.
2002 Sarah Levy-Hoffman, 89, of Tel-Aviv, Israeli, of injuries received on 27 March 2003 in suicide bombing at the Park Hotel in Netanya, Israel, which caused 23 immediate deaths, and 7 delayed deaths, including this one.

2001: 9 Vietnam and 7 US persons, including Lt. Col. Marty Martin, 40, and Maj. Charles Lewis, in helicopter crash. ^top^
     The sixteen were searching for the remains of Americans missing in action (“MIAs”) from the Vietnam War. The Russian-made MI-17 helicopter crashes in central Vietnam. There are no survivors. Those killed were the advance team for a 95-member Hawaii-based US group that was scheduled to begin work at six MIA recovery sites in early May. The helicopter was a Vietnamese military aircraft and its pilot was Vietnamese.
      The Joint Task Force “Full Accounting”, based in Camp H.M. Smith, Hawaii, has searched for MIA remains from the Indochina War in Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia and southern China since it was established on 23 January 1992, and later it expanded operations to include World War II and Korean War MIA recovery cases.
      The sky was hazy when the helicopter crashed at mid-afternoon near Thanh Tranh village in Quang Binh province's Bo Tranh district, about 450 km south of Hanoi. Vietnamese police said local authorities found one Vietnamese man still alive when they reached the crash site Saturday. The man told them the helicopter was carrying an MIA search team. He later died.
      Since 1973, the remains of 591 American service members formerly listed as unaccounted for have been identified and returned to their families. There are 1992 Americans still unaccounted for from the war in Southeast Asia, including 1498 in Vietnam. The United States spends $5 million to $6 million annually on MIA recovery operations in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia. Quang Binh province, where the accident occurred, was the southernmost province of North Vietnam during the war, just north of the former demilitarized zone. It contains many military crash sites because it was heavily bombed during the war.
     The US concern for dead bodies far exceeds that for the living: Vietnamese children in danger from land mines, Vietnamese and US victims of Agent Orange, mixed race children which US servicemen had with Vietnamese women and left behind where they are discriminated against by Vietnamese society, etc.

2001 Timothy Thomas, 19, Black, unarmed, shot (for RWB*) once in the chest by Cincinnati policeman Steve Roach, 27, White. Thomas was wanted on 14 warrants for misdemeanors and traffic violations, including driving without a license and failing to wear a seat belt. Police chased him several blocks into a dark alley before he was killed. He is the fourth Black killed by Cincinnati police since November 2000. Three were shot and a fourth died of asphyxiation in police custody, resulting in charges against two officers. This latest killing would provoke several days of riots. The killer cop would be charged only with negligent homicide and obstructing official business (with a maximum penalty of 9 month in prison) and then, on 26 September 2001, be acquitted even of that. [*RWB = Running While Black]

1994 Agathe Uwilingiyimana, prime minister of Rwanda; ^top^
Joseph Kavaruganda, president of the Supreme Court of Rwanda,
ten Belgian peacekeepers,
and hundreds of other victims of the Rwandan Massacres.
     In the Rwandan capital of Kigali, violence eruptes between the Patriotic Front rebel group, dominated by Rwanda's Tutsi people, and government soldiers and militias, dominated by the Hutus. Gangs of youth, police, and other groups join in the chaotic fighting. The day before, Juvenal Habyarimana, the president of Rwanda; and Cyprien Ntyamira, the president of Burundi; were killed when their plane was downed by rocket fire on its journey back from a peace conference in Tanzania. The death of President Habyarimana, the leader of Rwanda since 1973, exasperated an already tense internal situation in Rwanda, and violence broke out in Kigali as soon as word of his death arrived. The fighting and racial massacres quickly spread to the rest of the country, and in the ensuing civil war, the Hutu-dominated government and militia forces were gradually driven into neighboring central African countries by the Tutsi-led Patriotic Front. During their retreat, the Hutu soldiers and militiamen massacred over 500,000 Tutsi civilians and tens of thousands of Hutu civilian moderates. The genocide was conducted in a particularly brutal manner, with most victims hacked to death with machetes or bludgeoned to death with clubs. In 1996, the massacres resumed as the former Hutu government forces, militiamen, and other refugees were expelled from Zaire and Tanzania and re-entered Rwanda, now controlled by a Tutsi-led government.
The world does nothing to stop the genocide.
      Rwandan armed forces kill 10 Belgian peacekeeping officers in a successful effort to discourage international intervention in their planned genocide that had begun only hours earlier. In less than three months, Hutu extremists who controlled Rwanda murdered an estimated 500'000 to 800'000 innocent civilian Tutsis in the worst episode of ethnic genocide since World War II. The Tutsis, a minority group that made up about 10% of Rwanda's population, received no assistance from the international community, although the United Nations later conceded that a mere 5000 soldiers deployed at the outset would have stopped the wholesale slaughter.
      The immediate roots of the 1994 genocide went back a few years. In the early 1990s, President Juvenal Habyarimana, a Hutu, began using anti-Tutsi rhetoric to consolidate his own power among the Hutus. Beginning in October 1990, there were several massacres of hundreds of Tutsis. Although the two ethnic groups were very similar, sharing the same language and culture for centuries, the law required registration based on ethnicity. The government and army began to assemble the Interahamwe (meaning "those who attack together") and prepared for the elimination of the Tutsis by arming Hutus with guns and machetes.
      In January 1994, the United Nations forces in Rwanda warned that larger massacres were imminent. On 06 April 1994, President Habyarimana's plane was shot down, killing him and several of his close advisers. It is not known if the attack was carried out by the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), a Tutsi military organization stationed outside the country at the time, or by Hutu extremists trying to instigate a mass killing. In any event, Hutu extremists in the military, led by Colonel Bagosora, immediately went into action, murdering Tutsis and moderate Hutus within hours of the plane crash.
      The Belgian peacekeepers were killed the following day, a key factor in the withdrawal of U.N. forces from Rwanda. Within days, the radio stations in Rwanda were broadcasting appeals to the Hutu majority to kill all Tutsis in the country. The army and the national police directed the slaughter, sometimes threatening Hutu civilians when persuasion didn't work. Thousands of innocent people were hacked to death with machetes by their neighbors. Despite the horrific crimes, the international community, especially the United States, hesitated to take any action. They wrongly ascribed the genocide to chaos amid tribal war.
      It was left to the RPF to begin an ultimately successful military campaign for control of Rwanda. By the summer, the RPF had defeated the Hutu forces and driven them out of the country and into several neighboring nations. However, by that time, 75% of the Tutsis living in Rwanda had been murdered. Years after the genocide, thousands of Hutus remained in prison awaiting trials for murder. Unfortunately, there were not enough people, either living or innocent of the crimes, to staff the legal system.

1990: 190 person in arson fire aboard a ferry en route from Norway to Denmark killed.
1989 A Soviet submarine carrying nuclear weapons sinks in the Norwegian Sea.
1986 Leonid Vitalyevich Kantorovich, Russian mathematician and economist born on 19 January 1912.
1972 "Crazy" Joe Gallo, mobster, killed at his 43rd birthday party.
1961 Vanessa Bell, English painter born on 13 May 1879. — MORE ON BELL AT ART “4” APRIL with links to images.
1947 Henry Ford, 83, in Dearborn, Michigan. He founded the Ford automobile company.

1945, 2498 Japanese sailors as Yamato is sunk ^top^
The Japanese battleship Yamato, ostensibly the greatest battleship in the world, is sunk in Japan's first major counteroffensive in the struggle for Okinawa. Weighing 72'800 tons and outfitted with nine 460-mm guns, the battleship Yamato and accompanying fleet were Japan's only hope of destroying the Allied fleet off the coast of Okinawa. But insufficient air cover and fuel cursed the endeavor as a suicide mission. Struck by 19 US aerial torpedoes, it was sunk.

1934 Ernst Paul Heinz Prüfer, German mathematician born on 10 November 1896.
1933 Raymond Edward Alan Christopher Paley, English mathematician born on 07 January 1907. dies in an avalanche while on a skiing vacation, near Banff, Canada.
1923 Edward Killingworth Johnson, British artist born in 1825.
1900 Frederic Edwin Church, US Hudson River School painter born on 04 May 1826, specialized in Landscapes. — MORE ON CHURCH AT ART “4” APRIL with links to images.

1891 Phineas Taylor Barnum, in Bridgeport, Connecticut, circus showman..
      Though he was gravely ill, the 81-year-old showman's sense of humor hadn't deserted him. He requested that a New York paper run his obituary before he died so he could enjoy reading it, and the paper obliged. Barnum was born in Bethel, Connecticut, in 1810. When young Phineas was 15, his father died, leaving Barnum to support his mother and five siblings. He worked as publisher of a weekly paper in Danbury, Connecticut, and was arrested for libel several times. He married at age 19 and in 1934 went to New York promoting Joice Heth, a woman he claimed was 161 years old and had been a nurse to George Washington. He earned $1,500 a week promoting her but later admitted Heth's history was a hoax. In 1942, he purchased John Scudder's American Museum in New York and filled the five-story marble building with sensational curiosities from around the world, including a pair of Siamese twins joined at the chest, and an alleged mermaid preserved in liquid. The museum also presented dramatic spectacles, beauty contests, and other sensational entertainment.
      The most popular of the museum's spectacles, however, was Barnum's friend Charles Stratton, a diminutive man known as General Tom Thumb. Thumb became so popular that Barnum and Stratton were invited to an audience with the Queen of England. During the 26 years Barnum ran the museum, some 82 million guests--including Charles Dickens and the Prince of Wales--visited. After two devastating fires, Barnum closed the museum in 1868 and moved on to promote a more legitimate attraction: Swedish singer Jenny Lind, whom he billed as "The Swedish Nightingale." She gave nearly 100 concerts under Barnum's management.
      Interested in politics, Barnum served in the Connecticut state legislature and became mayor of Bridgeport. When his wife died, he married a woman 40 years his junior. At age 60, Barnum launched P.T. Barnum's Grand Traveling Museum, Menagerie, Caravan and Circus, the largest circus venture in US history up to that time. Although circuses had been around for many years, Barnum magnified the experience, offering action in three different rings at once. In 1872, he began billing his circus as "The Greatest Show on Earth." In 1881, he teamed up with James A. Bailey to form the "P.T. Barnum's Greatest Show on Earth, and The Great London Circus, Sanger's Royal British Menagerie and the Grand International Allied Shows United." The show was more commonly known, however, as the Barnum and London Circus. In 1882, Barnum added the 6 1/2-ton elephant Jumbo to the show. In 1888, the show changed its name to "Barnum & Bailey Greatest Show on Earth." Barnum died after spending his entire life revolutionizing entertainment, popularizing not just the circus but also museums and concerts as entertaining activities. His last words were reportedly, "Ask Bailey what the box office was at the Garden last night."

1889 Paul David Gustav du Bois-Reymond, German mathematician born on 02 December 1831, brother of physiologist Emil Heinrich du Bois-Reymond [07 Nov 1818 – 26 Dec 1896].
1803 Toussaint-Louverture, 60, prisoner in France. He was a leader of the Haitian independence movement during the French Revolution, who emancipated the slaves and briefly established Haiti as a black-governed French protectorate, but was captured by treachery by general Charles Leclerc with whom he had made peace.

1794 (18 germinal an II) Condamnés à mort par la Révolution: ^top^
Par le ttribunal révolutionnaire de Paris:
BIZOT François Marie, âgé de 50 ans, né à Besançon, ingénieur, ex maire de Montargis, département du Loiret comme conspirateur.
JULIEN Jean François, âgé de 60 ans, chirurgien et officier municipal de la commune de Montargis, né et domicilié à Montargis, département du Loiret, comme conspirateur.
LACOREE Elisabeth Thérèse, veuve Pericard, maître des comptes, âgée de 70 ans, née et domiciliée à Paris, département de la Seine, comme conspiratrice.
LAMOTTE François (dit Senones), François Pierre, ex noble, domicilié à Bonneuil, département de la Seine, comme conspirateur.
DROUILLARD Suzanne, femme du ci-devant marquis de Senones, âgée de 36 ans, native de St Dominique, département de la Mayenne, domiciliée à Bonneuil, département de la Seine, condamnée à mort, comme conspiratrice.
LAVILETTE Charles Léonard, administrateur du district de Montargis, âgé de 45 ans, natif de Clamecy, ci-devant, président de l'élection, depuis juge du district domicilié à Montargis, département du Loiret, comme convaincu d'être complice de manœuvres pratiquées de la part du tyran roi et de ses suppôts dans l'intervalle du 20 juin au 10 août 1792.
MOUZIN Etienne, âgé de 28 ans, notaire, domicilié à Dijon département de la Côte-d'Or, comme conspirateur, ayant eu des intelligences avec les ennemis extérieures avec les ennemis extérieurs de la République.
PELE VARENNES Marie Joseph Hippolite, ci-devant receveur particulier des finances, depuis receveur de district, natif de Sens, âgé de 53 ans, domic

ilié à Montargis, département du Loiret, comme conspirateur, en rédigeant et signant une adresse liberticide, envoyée au tyran roi, contre le peuple, sur les événements du 20 juin 1793.
PERRUCHOT Bernard, notaire, né et domicilié à Dijon, département de la Côte-d'Or, comme convaincu d'avoir eu des intelligences avec les ennemis extérieures de la République.
SAINT-GERMAIN Antoine Louis Claude (dit Dapchon), ex marquis, maréchal de camp, âgé de 45 ans, né et domicilié à Paris, département de la Seine, comme conspirateur.
A Arras:
D'ABOVILLE Bernard Alexandre, âgé de 25 ans, né à Commelin (Meuse), capitaine au 24° régiment, guillotiné.
MOUILLÉ Nicolas, maréchal-des-logis au 6ème régiment d'hussards, domicilié à Nancy, département de la Haute Marne, comme émigré.
PETAIN François, âgé de 43 ans, né et demeurant à St Pol, pérruquier, ci-devant concierge de la maison d'arrêt, époux de Capron Marie Anne Rose Séraphine.
RUAUX Jean Antoine Baptiste, âgé de 23 ans, né à Rennes(Ille et Vilaine), officier.
Par la commission militaire ou révolutionnaire de Laval:
AUVRAY Léonore Augustin, ex-noble et curé, domicilié à la Bazonge de Chemère, canton de Laval, département de la Mayenne comme contre-révolutionnaire.
     ... comme brigands de la Vendée:
BAZILE Louis, cordonnier, domicilié à Menil, canton de Château-Gontier, département de la Mayenne
JOUSSELIN Julien, filassier, domicilié à Dupertre, département de la Mayenne
LEPINE Gaspard, filassier, domicilié à Marigné, département de Mayenne et Loire
MENARD Jean, laboureur, domicilié à Nosière département de la Mayenne
QUANTIN René, laboureur, domicilié à Romagné, département d’Ille-et-Vilaine
SOUDRAIN Jean, sabotier, domicilié à Tigné, département de Mayenne et Loire
Par la commission militaire de Nantes, comme brigands de la Vendée:
GODART Jean, domicilié à St Fulgent, département de la Vendée — JASMIN Jacques, domicilié à Bourg, département de la Vendée
     ... domiciliés à Bouguenais, département de la Loire Inférieure:
DUTAY Jean — GARNIER Quentin — GUILLON Pierre — PELLETIER Pierre — PLINE Louis (ou ELINE?) — ROBERTOT Charles — TREMAR Barthélemi
Ailleurs:
BOURRET Jean Antoine, frère-lai-trapiste, domicilié à Tanargues, département de l'Ardèche comme réfractaire à la loi, par le tribunal criminel dudit département.
CANNIVET Noël, déserteur autrichien, domicilié à St Michel, département de l’Aisne comme distributeur de faux assignats, par le tribunal militaire du département du Nord.
CLER François, propriétaire agriculteur, domicilié à St Chamas, département des Bouches du Rhône comme chef d'émeute, par le tribunal révolutionnaire dudit département.
DEMOI François Pierre, ex curé et chevalier de la Roche-Beaucourt, domicilié à Neuvic, département de la Dordogne comme réfractaire à la loi, par le tribunal criminel dudit département.
SPILMAN Marie Eve, négociante ci-devant femme de chambre de la femme Ducelard, domiciliée à Besançon, département du Doubs, comme distributrice de faux assignats, le 18 germinal an 3, par le tribunal criminel dudit département.

1707 Willen van de Velde, British Dutch English marine painter born on 18 December 1633. — MORE ON VAN DE VELDE AT ART “4” APRIL with links to images.
1614 Doménikos Theotokópoulos “El Greco”, Cretan-born Spanish painter, whose elongated figures puzzled his contemporaries but gained appreciation in the 20th century. He also was a sculptor and an architect. — MORE ON EL GRECO AT ART “4” APRIL with links to images.
0030 Jesus of Nazareth, is crucified by Roman soldiers in Jerusalem (scholars' estimate)

Births which occurred on an April 07: ^top^
1987 Danny Almonte, in the Dominican Republic. He would be an outstanding pitcher for a South Bronx little league baseball team in 2001, his father having presented a false certificate showing Danny's birth on 07 April 1989 (the maximum age for Little League is 12). The fraud would unravel at the end of August 2001.
1920 Ravi Shankar Benares India, sitar player (Sounds of India) (played at Woodstock [1969] and with George Harrison in the Bangla-Desh Benefit concerts [1971]; was George Harrison's sitar teacher; was resident lecturer at CCNY)
1901 Christopher Wood, British painter who commited suicide on 21 August 1930. — MORE ON WOOD AT ART “4” APRIL with links to images.
1890 Adam Styka, Polish French artist who died in 1959.
1889 Gabriela Mistral Chilean poet (Desolación, Tenderness) (Nobel 1945)
1883 Gino Severini, Italian Cubist and Futurist painter, who died on 27 February 1966. — MORE ON SEVERINI AT ART “4” APRIL with links to images.
1879 Ardengo Soffici, Italian artist who died on 18 August 1964.
1874 Frederick Carl Friesecke, US artist who died in 1939.
1866 Ivar Fredholm, Stockholm, Sweden, mathematician best remembered for his work on integral equations and spectral theory, and actuary, who died on 17 August 1927.
1860 W. K. Kellogg a real corn flake.
1857 Hans Andersen “Brendekilde”, Danish painter, glass designer, and ceramicist who died on 30 March 1942. — more
1836 William Godwin, English diarist, author, philosopher, born on 03 Mar 1756. Husband of Mary Wollstonecraft [27 Apr 1759 – 10 Sep 1797], father of Mary Shelley [31 Aug 1797 – 01 Feb 1851]. — GODWIN ONLINE: Enquiry Concerning Political Justice and its Influence on Morals and Happiness — Imogen: A Pastorial Romance From the Ancient British — Thoughts on Man, His Nature, Productions, and Discoveries — Things as They Are, or The Adventures of Caleb Williams (26 May 1794)
1823 Guillaume Jules Hoüel, French Norman mathematician who became interested in non-euclidean geometry once he had been made aware of the work of Bolyai [15 Dec 1802 – 27 Jan 1860] and Lobachevsky [01 Dec 1792 – 24 Feb 1856]. He published translations of many important works by Bolyai, Beltrami [16 Nov 1835 – 18 Feb 1900], Helmholtz [31 Aug 1821 – 08 Sep 1894] and Riemann [17 Sep 1826 – 20 Jul 1866]. He corresponded with Tilly [16 Aug 1837 – 04 Aug 1906] on non-euclidean geometry. Among his other researches, Hoüel compiled log tables and worked on planetary perturbations. Hoüel died on 14 June 1886.
1806 Armand François Christophe Toussaint, French artist who died on 24 May 1862.
1786 William Rufus DeVane King (D) 13th VP (1853)
1775 Francis C Lowell founded first raw cotton-to-cloth textile mill

1770 William Wordsworth, one of the founders of the Romantic school of poetry, near England's Lake District ^top^
      Wordsworth lost his mother when he was 8 and his father five years later. Wordsworth attended Cambridge, then traveled in Europe, taking long walking tours with friends through the mountains.
      While studying in France in 1791, he fell in love and had a daughter. Intending to marry the mother, he returned to England to straighten out problematic financial matters, but a series of events prevented their reunion.
      During his 20s, Wordsworth lived with his sister Dorothy and developed a close working partnership with Samuel Taylor Coleridge since they met, in 1795. Their collaboration flourished, and in 1798 they published Lyrical Ballads, with a Few Other Poems in 1798, launching the Romantic movement. The book, which included Coleridge's Rime of the Ancient Mariner and Wordsworth's Tintern Abbey, sold out within two years. The book's second edition included a preface by the authors, which became an important manifesto of Romantic poetry. On 21 December 1799, Wordsworth and his sister Dorothy moved into Dove Cottage in Westmoreland, England, not far from the home of Coleridge.
      In 1802, after years of living on a modest income, Wordsworth came into a long-delayed inheritance from his father and was able to live comfortably with his sister. That year, he married their longtime neighbor Mary Hutchinson and had five children. The poet's stature grew steadily, though most of his major work was written by 1807. In 1843, he was named poet laureate of England, and he died on 23 April 1850, at the age of 80.
WORDSWORTH ONLINE: The Complete Poetical Works (HTML at Bartleby)
co-author (with Coleridge) of:
Lyrical Ballads (multiple versions of the first edition, with commentary) (HTML, SGML, and page images)
Lyrical Ballads, with a Few Other Poems

1768 François Joseph Français, French mathematician, in Saverne, Bas-Rhin. ^top^
     François Français was the brother of Jacques Français [20 Jun 1775 – 09 Mar 1833]. The brothers were the children of Jacques Frédéric Français, who was a grocer in Saverne, and Maria Barbara Steib. In 1789 François became a seminarian. Two years later, in June 1791, he was appointed professor in the Collège at Colmar. Just over a year later, in September 1792, he was appointed to the chair of mathematics in the Collège at Strasbourg.
      Political events produced an interlude in Français' career. In the Vendée province there was an uprising against the Revolution which was sparked off by the persecution of religion and by the introduction of conscription in February 1793. By the middle of March there was an alliance of Royalists and peasants with a fair size army. In May 1793, Français joined the government army which was moving to put down the rebellion.
      The rebel army at this stage numbered around 30'000 and they took the towns of Thouars, Parthenay, and Fontenay in May. Crossing the Loire the rebels moved east taking Angers in the middle of June but their progress was stopped when they failed to take the town of Nantes. During the summer months there was confused fighting with the government forces somewhat fragmented. Français continued to fight with the government forces and as the autumn approached they became a more cohesive force under a single command and heavily defeated the rebel army (by this time numbering around 65'000) in October.
      The fighting did not stop there and it was not until the end of December that the government forces mopped up all resistance. Français, however, left the government army in October and returned to teaching. The period of army life must have been attractive to Français for he quickly rejoined the army as an officer and served for a further four years until October 1797 when he was appointed professor of mathematics at the Ecole Centrale du Haut-Rhin in Colmar.
      Français never seemed to be one to stay in any one post for long but this appointment in Colmar lasted longer than any of his others. He remained there for six years but, once he moved on in September 1803 to the Lycée in Mainz, he was to teach mathematics in a number of different institutions over the next few years. In 1804 he taught at the Ecole d'Artillerie in La Fère, then he returned to Mainz and taught at the Ecole d'Artillierie there.
      Much of François Français's work was published after his 30 October 1810 (in Mainz, Germany) death by his brother who added to it in a way to make the contribution of each hard to distinguish. François worked on partial differential equations and his memoir of 1795 on this topic was developed further and presented to the Académie des Sciences in 1797. Lacroix [28 Apr 1765 – 24 May 1843] praised Français' work and described it as making a major contribution to the study of partial differential equations; however, it was not published.
      Français was friendly with Arbogast [04 Oct 1759 – 18 Apr 1803] and together they worked on the calculus of derivations. After Arbogast died in 1803, Français inherited his mathematical papers and continued to work on the calculus of derivations. He presented a memoir on this topic, in particular applying the methods to study projectiles in a resistant medium, to the Académie des Sciences in 1804. This memoir was very highly praised by Biot [21 Apr 1774 – 03 Feb 1862] in a report of 22 April 1805, but again the work was not published.
      After this Français did work which was praised by Legendre [18 Sep 1752 – 10 Jan 1833], Lagrange [25 Jan 1736 – 10 Apr 1813], Lacroix [28 Apr 1765 – 24 May 1843] and Biot but submitted no further memoirs during his lifetime. However, as described above, his brother published much of his work after his death, publishing four memoirs of François Français's work. While not of the first rank, the mathematical activity of the Français brothers merits mention for its originality and diversity.

1705 Dionys Nymegen (or Nijmegen), Dutch artist who died on 28 August 1789.
1652 Cape Town is founded by the Dutch as a settlement.
1648 Ferdinand van Kessel, Flemish artist who died in 1696.
1613 Gerrit Dou, Dutch painter who died on 09 February 1675. — MORE ON DOU AT ART “4” APRIL with links to images.
1506 St Francis Xavier Jesuit missionary to India, Malaya, and Japan
[< click on image for portrait of Saint Francis Xavier baptizing a queen]

Holidays China: Ching Ming - families gather at graves of ancestors / Yugoslavia : Republic Day (1963) / Haiti : World Health Day (1948) / Mass : Student Government Day (Friday )

Religious Observances Orthodox : Annunciation of Mary (3/25 OS) / St John Baptist de la Salle, priest, patron of teachers
Palm Sunday in 1895, 1963, 1968, 1974, 2047, 2058, 2069, 2115, 2120.
Good Friday in 1882, 1939, 1944, 1950, 2023, 2034, 2045, 2102.
Easter Sunday in 1901, 1912, 1985, 1996, 2075, 2080.

Thoughts for the day: “Cheap things are of no value, valuable things are not cheap.”
“Valuable, things are not, people are.”
“Some things may be valuable, people are invaluable.”
“Cheap people are of no value to sellers of valuable things.”
“Cheap people value things, valuable people value able people.”
“All people are created equal, but they do not remain that way.”
“All people are created equal and born unequal.”
“All animals are created equal, but some are more equal than others.”
“Cheapness is expensive.”
“Being poor is expensive.”
“No date on the calendar is as important as tomorrow.” — Roy W. Howard, US newspaper publisher [01 Jan 1883 – 20 Nov 1964].
“Never do today what you can put off until a more important date on the calendar.”.

TO THE TOP

PLEASE CLICK HERE TO WRITE to HISTORY 4 2DAY
http://www.safran-arts.com/42day/history/h4apr/h4apr07.html
http://members.xoom.virgilio.it/all42day/history/h4apr/h4apr07.html
http://h42day.0catch.com/history/h4apr/h4apr07.html
http://www.ifrance.com/7aujourdhui/history/h4apr/h4apr07.html
updated Tuesday 06-Apr-2004 23:52 UT

site safe for children