Today in History- November 6th

Today in History- November 6:

General Interest
1962 : U.N. condemns apartheid

On this day in 1962, the United Nations General
Assembly adopts a resolution condemning South Africa’s
racist apartheid policies and calling on all its
members to end economic and military relations with
the country.

In effect from 1948 to 1993, apartheid, which comes
from the Afrikaans word for “apartness,” was
government-sanctioned racial segregation and political
and economic discrimination against South Africa’s
non-white majority. Among many injustices, blacks were
forced to live in segregated areas and couldn’t enter
whites-only neighborhoods unless they had a special
pass. Although whites represented only a small
fraction of the population, they held the vast
majority of the country’s land and wealth.

Following the 1960 massacre of unarmed demonstrators
at Sharpeville near Johannesburg, South Africa, in
which 69 blacks were killed and over 180 were injured,
the international movement to end apartheid gained
wide support. However, few Western powers or South
Africa’s other main trading partners favored a full
economic or military embargo against the country.
Nonetheless, opposition to apartheid within the U.N.
grew, and in 1973 a U.N. resolution labeled apartheid
a “crime against humanity.” In 1974, South Africa was
suspended from the General Assembly.

After decades of strikes, sanctions and increasingly
violent demonstrations, many apartheid laws were
repealed by 1990. Finally, in 1991, under President
F.W. de Klerk, the South African government repealed
all remaining apartheid laws and committed to writing
a new constitution. In 1993, a multi-racial,
multi-party transitional government was approved and,
the next year, South Africa held its first fully free
elections. Political activist Nelson Mandela, who
spent 27 years in prison along with other
anti-apartheid leaders after being convicted of
treason, became South Africa’s new president.

In 1996, the South African Truth and Reconciliation
Commission (TRC), established by the new government,
began an investigation into the violence and human
rights violations that took place under the apartheid
system between 1960 and May 10, 1994 (the day Mandela
was sworn in as president). The commission’s objective
was not to punish people but to heal South Africa by
dealing with its past in an open manner. People who
committed crimes were allowed to confess and apply for
amnesty. Headed by 1984 Nobel Peace Prize winner
Archbishop Desmond Tutu, the TRC listened to testimony
from over 20,000 witnesses from all sides of the
issue–victims and their families as well as
perpetrators of violence. It released its report in
1998 and condemned all major political
organizations—-the apartheid government in addition to
anti-apartheid forces such as the African National
Congress—-for contributing to the violence. Based on
the TRC’s recommendations, the government began making
reparation payments of approximately $4,000 (U.S.) to
individual victims of violence in 2003.

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General Interest
1962 : U.N. condemns apartheid

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1860 : Abraham Lincoln elected president

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1917 : Bolsheviks revolt in Russia

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1917 : Canadians take Passchendaele

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American Revolution
1789 : John Carroll named first Catholic bishop in
U.S.

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Automotive
1899 : First Packard is completed

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1986 : Alfa Romeo approves Fiat takeover

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Civil War
1861 : Jefferson Davis elected

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Cold War
1988 : Renowned Soviet dissident Andrei Sakharov
visits United States

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Crime
1982 : A woman ices her husband with anti-freeze

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Disaster
1977 : Dam gives way in Georgia

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Entertainment
1921 : The Sheik opens

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1939 : Hedda Hopper Show debuts

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1946 : Sally Field born

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Literary
1558 : Playwright Thomas Kyd is baptized

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Old West
1528 : Cabeza de Vaca discovers Texas

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Presidential
1906 : Teddy Roosevelt travels to Panama

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Vietnam War
1963 : General Minh takes over leadership of South
Vietnam

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1970 : South Vietnamese forces attack into Cambodia

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Wall Street
1851 : Happy birthday, Mr. Dow

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1984 : No holiday for traders

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1996 : Clinton’s win sparks Dow

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World War I
1917 : British victory at Passchendaele

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World War II
1941 : Stalin celebrates the Revolution’s anniversary

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This Day in History- August 31st

On This Day: Wednesday August 31, 2005
This is the 243rd day of the year, with 122 days remaining in 2005.
Fact of the Day: White House baby
In 1893, Mrs. Grover Cleveland, Frances Folsom Cleveland, became the first presidential wife to give birth at the White House (girl, Esther). The first child born in the White House, though, was the granddaughter of Thomas Jefferson in 1806: Jefferson’s daughter, Patsy (Mrs. Thomas Mann Randolph, Jr.) gave birth to a son named for James Madison.
Holidays
Kyrgyzstan: Independence Day.
Malaysia: Hari Kebangsaan / Freedom Day.
Trinidad and Tobago: Independence Day.
Kazakhstan: Constitution Day.
Moldova: National Language Day.
Feast Day of St. Paulinus of Trier, St. Aidan of Lindisfarne, St. Raymond Nonnatus, and The Servite Martyrs of Prague.
Events
1521 – Cortes captured the city of Tenochtitlan, Mexico, and set it on fire.
1887 – Thomas Edison patented the Kinetoscope, the forerunner of the motion picture camera.
1888 – The body of Mary Ann “Polly” Nichols, the first victim of Jack the Ripper, was found mutilated in Buck’s Row, London.
1903 – A Packard auto completed the first transcontinental road trip.
1939 – Nazi leader Adolf Hitler signed an order to attack Poland, and German forces moved to the frontier.
1961 – A concrete wall replaced the barbed wire fence that separated East Germany and West Germany — the Berlin Wall.
1962 – The Caribbean nation of Trinidad and Tobago became independent within the British Commonwealth.
1980 – The Polish trade union Solidarity was formed in Gdansk.
1990 – East Germany and West Germany signed a reunification treaty.
Births
1880 – Wilhelmina, Dutch queen (1890-1948).
1897 – Fredric March (Ernest Frederick McIntyre Bickel), American Academy Award-winning actor.
1908 – William Saroyan, American Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright.
1918 – Alan Jay Lerner, American songwriter, lyricist.
1935 – Eldridge Cleaver, American black activist.
1945 – Itzhak Perlman, Israeli violinist.
Deaths
1969 – Rocky Marciano, American world heavyweight boxing champion.
1973 – John Ford (Sean Aloysius O’feeney), American film director.
1997 – Diana, princess of Wales, from injuries in a car accident, along with her companion Dodi Fayed and driver Henri Paul.
2002 – Lionel Hampton, American jazz musician and bandleader.

This day in History- August 30th

On This Day: Tuesday August 30, 2005
This is the 242nd day of the year, with 123 days remaining in 2005.
Fact of the Day: Hoyle
Edmond Hoyle was from London and he collected instructions for playing games; he may have been the first technical writer on card games. His “Short Treatise on the Game of Whist” was published in 1742 and it became the model guide to the rules of the game. Hoyle’s name became synonymous with the idea of “correct” play according to the rules and the phrase “according to Hoyle” was first recorded in 1906 (OED). The Hoyle codification of the laws and strategy of backgammon (1743) is still largely in force. He also wrote treatises on chess (1761) and other games. Familiar with the laws of probability, he appended to one of his books a life table for annuities. He died at the age of 97.
Holidays
Feast Day of Saints Felix and Audauctus, St. Fantinus, St. Pammachius, St. Margaret Ward, and St. Ruan or Rumon.
Peru: Saint Rose of Lima Day.
Turkey: Victory Day.
Events
1862 – Union forces were defeated by the Confederates at the Second Battle of Bull Run in Manassas, Virginia.
1881 – The first stereo system, for a telephonic broadcasting service, was patented in Germany by Clement Adler.
1901 – Scottish inventor Hubert Cecil Booth patented the vacuum cleaner.
1963 – The hot-line communications link between Washington, D.C. and Moscow went into operation.
1991 – Azerbaijan declared independence.
1999 – Residents of East Timor voted for independence from Indonesia in a United Nations-sponsored ballot.
Births
1797 – Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, British novelist.
1870 – Maria Montessori, Italian educator.
1871 – Ernest Rutherford, New Zealand-born English physicist.
1898 – Shirley Booth, American actress.
Deaths
30 B.C.E. – Cleopatra, Queen of Egypt, by suicide.
1483 – Louis XI, King of France.