This date in history

[BossMark]

1982-Spain opens its border with the British territory of Gibraltar after a 13-year blockade.

2000-The Chernobyl atomic power plant, site of the world's worst nuclear accident, is officially closed down.

[Aktungbby]

1896: the U.S. government awards Patent Number 573,174 to Hungarian -born inventor Stephen M. Balzer for a gasoline-powered motor buggy that he built two years earlier. Balzer never mass-produced any of his cars, but his "experimental" vehicle was one of the first functioning automobiles to be built in the U.S. Today, the Balzer car is on display at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington DC; the first gas-powered car in the museum's collection.
The Balzer car had a three-cylinder, air-cooled rotary motor. He developed also 5-cylinder rotary engines. When Samuel P. Langley learned about these vehicles and their engine in 1898, he contacted Balzer, ordering one for his experimental airplane. Balzer had problems finishing this engine, delivering finally not earlier than 1900. For proper use, Langley's technical assistant, Charles M. Manly had to modify it heavily. Thus, it became the Manly–Balzer engine, the first purpose-built aero-engine. Cutting edge technology on two fronts: automotive and aeronautical! The 5 cylinder Manly-Balzer used in the Langley 'Aerodrome' The 52 hp engine was a marvel; unfortunately the Aerodrome plane was not...splashing twice into the Potomac with courageous Manly at the controls both times (he survived) leaving the door open shortly for the Wright brothers with a 12 hp engine but a better plane! History turns on the what if's

[Jimbuna]

1877 - Thomas Edison patents phonograph.

[Aktungbby]

1811:
''In the Mississippi River Valley near New Madrid, Missouri, the greatest series of (4) earthquakes in U.S. history begins when a quake of an estimated 8.6 magnitude on the Richter scale slams the region. Although the earthquake greatly altered the topography of the region, the area was only sparsely inhabited at the time, and there were no known human fatalities.
The earthquake raised and lowered parts of the Mississippi Valley by as much as 15 feet and changed the course of the Mississippi River. At one point, the Mississippi momentarily reversed its direction, giving rise to Reelfoot Lake in northwest Tennessee. A 30,000-square-mile area was affected, and tremors were felt as far away as the eastern coast of the (then) United States, where the shock was reported to have rung church bells.'' Having been a chief appraiser in the Santa Cruz Mountains where & when the epicenter of Loma Prieta hit in 1989 at 6.9, and 2 very recent Napa Quakes directly under my humble abode at 5.8 & 6.0 on the Richter scale...I pay attention to the numbers. A map (below) showing a lesser quake in New Madrid's 1895 event compared to the similar level Richter scale '94 LA quake's area, shows what we're envisioning here. At the time of the 1811 quakes, there was little habitation settlementwise and no deaths were recorded- likewise no really accurate maps were possible...that is certainly no longer the situation. The New Madrid Fault Zone has recorded upward of 4000 seismic events since 1811 and is overdue for another big one. I Think I'll stick it out in Napa...at least the FEMA office is open here already. http://www.showme.net/~fkeller/quake/maps.htm FYI: as to TNT force equivalents: 8.6 =120 megatons; 6.0=15 kilotons(Napa/Hiroshima's LittleBoy); 6.9=349 kilotons (Loma Prieta) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richter_magnitude_scale

[Jimbuna]

1944 - Ardennes campaign ('Battle of the Bulge') begins in Belgium.

[Jimbuna]

1957 - Shippingport Atomic Power Station in Pennsylvania USA, the world's 1st nuclear power plant begins to generate electricity.

[Aktungbby]

1944: The US Supreme Court upheld Korematsu vs United States, 6-3, the right of the government to evacuate people of Japanese descent including U.S. citizens from the West Coast. A true American hero of a half-century's duration was thus created:
On March 27, 1942, General John L. DeWitt, commander of the Western Defense Area, prohibited Japanese Americans from leaving the limits of Military Area No. 1 in preparation for their eventual evacuation to internment camps. Fred Korematsu underwent plastic surgery on his eyelids in the unsuccessful hope of passing as a Caucasian, changed his name to Clyde Sarah, and claimed to be of Spanish and Hawaiian heritage...

Former horse stalls converted for temporary occupation by Japanese American internees at Tanforan Assembly Center, San Bruno, California, 1942.
When on May 3, 1942, General DeWitt ordered Japanese Americans to report on May 9 to Assembly Centers as a prelude to being removed to the camps Korematsu refused and went into hiding in the Oakland area. He was arrested on a street corner in San Leandro on May 30, 1942, after being recognized as a "Jap". Ernest Besig, the director of the American Civil Liberties Union in northern California, asked him whether he would be willing to use his case to test the legality of the Japanese American internment. Korematsu agreed, and was assigned civil rights attorney Wayne M Collins. The ACLU in fact argued for Ernest Besig not to fight Korematsu’s case, since many high-ranking members of the ACLU were close to Franklin Roosevelt, and the ACLU didn’t want to be perceived badly in time of war. Besig decided to take Korematsu's case in spite of this. Korematsu felt that “people should have a fair trial and a chance to defend their loyalty at court in a democratic way, because in this situation, people were placed in imprisonment without any fair trial.” On June 12, 1942, Korematsu had his trial date and was given $5,000 bail. After arraignment June 18, 1942, Besig posted bail and he and Fred tried to leave. When met by Military Police, Besig told Fred to go with them. The Military Police took Fred to the Presidio, Korematsu was tried and convicted in federal court on September 8, 1942, for a violation of Public Law No. 503, which criminalized the violations of military orders issued under the authority of Executive Order 9066, and was placed on five years' probation. He was taken from the courtroom and returned to the Tanforan Assembly Center, and thereafter he and his family were placed in the Central Utah War Relocation Center situated at Topaz, Utah. As an unskilled laborer, he was eligible to receive only $12 per month for working eight hours per day at the camp. He was placed in a horse stall with one light bulb, and he later remarked that “jail was better than this.” He moved to Salt Lake City, Utah where he continued to fight racism. He still knew there were inequalities amongst the Japanese, as he experienced these inequalities in his everyday life. He found work repairing water tanks in Salt Lake City, but after three months on the job, he discovered he was being paid half of what his white coworkers were being paid. He told his boss that this was unfair and asked to be paid the same amount, but his boss only threatened to call the police and try to get Korematsu arrested for being Japanese, so he left his job. After this incident, Korematsu lost hope, remaining quiet for over thirty years.
In the early 1980s, while researching a book on internment cases, lawyer and professor Peter Irons came across evidence that Charles Fahy, the Solicitor General of the United States who argued Korematsu v. United States before the Supreme Court, had deliberately suppressed reports from the FBI and military intelligence which concluded that Japanese-American citizens posed no security risk. These documents revealed that the military had lied to the Supreme Court, and that government lawyers had willingly made false arguments. Irons concluded that the Supreme Court’s decision was invalid since it was based on unsubstantiated facts, distortions, and misrepresentations. Along with a team of lawyers , Irons petitioned for writs of error coram nobis with the federal courts, seeking to overturn Korematsu's conviction.
On November 10, 1983, Judge Marilyn Patel of the U.S. District Court in San Francisco formally vacated the conviction. Korematsu stood in front of Judge Marilyn Patel and said, “I would like to see the government admit that they were wrong and do something about it so this will never happen again to any American citizen of any race, creed, or color If anyone should do any pardoning, I should be the one pardoning the government for what they did to the Japanese-American people.” Korematsu spoke out after September 11, 2001, on how the United States government should not let the same thing happen to people of Middle-Eastern descent as what happened to Japanese Americans. When prisoners were detained at Guantanamo Bay for too long a period, in Korematsu’s opinion, he filed two amicus curiae briefs with the Supreme Court and warned them not to repeat the mistakes of the Japanese internment. President Clinton awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian honor in the United States, to Korematsu in 1998, saying, "In the long history of our country's constant search for justice, some names of ordinary citizens stand for millions of souls." Move over Rosa Parks! From 2001 until his death in 2005, Korematsu served on the Constitution Project's bipartisan Liberty and Security Committee. Discussing racial profiling in 2004, he warned, "No one should ever be locked away simply because they share the same race, ethnicity, or religion as a spy or terrorist. If that principle was not learned from the internment of Japanese Americans, then these are very dangerous times for our democracy." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korematsu_v._United_States

[Catfish]

^ "It goes hard in present times...but he was right! "

Good article ..

Roger that

[Jimbuna]

1922 - Theresa Vaughn, 24, confessed in court in Sheffield, England, to being married 61 times over 5 years in 50 cities in three countries.

[Jimbuna]

1522 - Suleiman the Magnificent accepts the surrender of the surviving Knights of Rhodes, who are allowed to evacuate. They eventually settle on Malta and become known as the Knights of Malta.

[Sailor Steve]

1606 The Susan Constant, Godspeed and Discovery set sail from London. Their landing at Jamestown, VA, was the start of the first permanent English settlement in America.

1803 The United States purchased the Louisiana Territories from France for $15 million.

1880 New York's Broadway became known as the "Great White Way" when it was lighted by electricity.

1928 Mail delivery by dog sled began in Lewiston, ME.

[Jimbuna]

1898 - Scientists Pierre and Marie Curie discover radium.

[Sailor Steve]

1937Walt Disney debuted the first, full-length, animated feature in Hollywood, CA. The movie was Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.

[Jimbuna]

1990 - Lech Walesa sworn in as Poland's 1st popularly elected president.

[Sailor Steve]

1895 German physicist Wilhelm Röntgen made the first X-ray. It was of his wife's hand.