This Week in History
HISTORY, 13 Apr 2015
Satoshi Ashikaga – TRANSCEND Media Service
April 13-19
QUOTE OF THE WEEK:
“Truth has no special time of its own. Its hour is now–always.” – Albert Schweitzer
APRIL 13
1987 Portugal and the People’s Republic of China sign an agreement in which Macau would be returned to China in 1999.
1984 India moves into Siachen Glacier thus annexing more territory from the Line of Control.
1983 US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site.
1975 Bus massacre in Lebanon: An attack by the Phalangist resistance kills 26 militia members of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, marking the start of the 15-year Lebanese Civil War.
1972 Vietnam War: The Battle of An Lộc begins.
1972 The Universal Postal Union decides to recognize the People’s Republic of China as the only legitimate Chinese representative, effectively expelling the Republic of China administering Taiwan.
1970 An oxygen tank aboard Apollo 13 explodes, putting the crew in great danger and causing major damage to the spacecraft while en route to the Moon.
– Visit pertinent websites, for instance, The True Story Apollo 13, YouTube Apollo 13 – The Real Story, and Apollo 13: Facts about NASA’s Near Disaster.
1958 Cold War: American Van Cliburn wins the inaugural International Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow.
1953 CIA director Allen Dulles launches the mind-control program Project MKULTRA.
– Visit pertinent websites, for instance, CIA Mind Control Experiments: Declassified Documents Reveal Sex Abuse and More, CIA Mind Control; and The Mind Control Doctors: From Harvard to Guantanamo.
1948 The Hadassah medical convoy massacre: In an ambush, 79 Jewish doctors, nurses and medical students from Hadassah Hospital and a British soldier are massacred by Arabs in Sheikh Jarra near Jerusalem.
1945 World War II: Soviet and Bulgarian forces capture Vienna, Austria.
1945 World War II: German troops kill more than 1,000 political and military prisoners in Gardelegen, Germany.
1944 Diplomatic relations between New Zealand and the Soviet Union are established.
1943 World War II: The discovery of mass graves of Polish prisoners of war killed by Soviet forces in the Katyń Forest Massacre is announced, causing a diplomatic rift between the Polish government in exile in London from the Soviet Union, which denies responsibility.
1941 A Pact of neutrality between the USSR and Japan is signed.
1919 Eugene V. Debs is imprisoned at the Atlanta Federal Penitentiary in Atlanta, Georgia, for speaking out against the draft during World War I.
– Visit pertinent websites, for instance, Eugene Debs Starts Prison Term for Speaking Against Draft, Remembering Eugene V. Debs’ Imprisonment for Speaking Against War, and/or The Anti-War Speech That Sent Eugene Debs to Prison.
– For conscription, visit, for instance, Conscription WW1, Speech against Conscription and War by Emma Goldman in 1917, Australia and World War I: Recruitment and Conscription, Conscription (Military Draft) in the Civil War; On Conscription by Daniel Webster, and/or Debate: French Canadians Against Conscription.
– For conscientious objector/objection, visit, for instance, Conscientious objector, Conscientious Objection Fact Sheet, Who Is a Conscientious Objector?, and Conscientious Objection and Alternative Service.
1919 Jallianwala Bagh massacre: British troops gun down at least 379 unarmed demonstrators in Amritsar, India; at least 1200 are wounded.
1919 The establishment of the Provisional Government of the Republic of Korea.
1909 The Turkish military reverses the Ottoman countercoup of 1909 to force the overthrow of Sultan Abdul Hamid II.
1902 James C. Penney opens his first store in Kemmerer, Wyoming.
1873 The Colfax massacre, in which more than 60 African Americans are murdered, takes place.
1868 The Abyssinian War ends as British and Indian troops capture Maqdala.
1849 Hungary becomes a republic.
APRIL 14
2014 Twin bomb blasts in Abuja, Nigeria, kill at least 75 people and injures 141 others.
2005 The Oregon Supreme Court nullifies marriage licenses issued to gay couples a year earlier by Multnomah County.
2003 U.S. troops in Baghdad capture Abu Abbas, leader of the Palestinian group that killed an American on the hijacked cruise liner the MS Achille Lauro in 1985.
2003 The Human Genome Project is completed with 99% of the human genome sequenced to an accuracy of 99.99%.
2002 Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez returns to office two days after being ousted and arrested by the country’s military.
1999 NATO mistakenly bombs a convoy of ethnic Albanian refugees – Yugoslav officials say 75 people were killed.
1994 In a U.S. friendly fire incident during Operation Provide Comfort in northern Iraq, two United States Air Force aircraft mistakenly shoot-down two United States Army helicopters, killing 26 people.
1991 The Republic of Georgia introduces the post of President after its declaration of independence from the Soviet Union.
1988 In a United Nations ceremony in Geneva, Switzerland, the Soviet Union signs an agreement pledging to withdraw its troops from Afghanistan.
1986 The heaviest hailstones ever recorded (1 kilogram (2.2 lb)) fall on the Gopalganj district of Bangladesh, killing 92.
1986 In retaliation for the April 5 bombing in West Berlin that killed two U.S. servicemen, U.S. president Ronald Reagan orders major bombing raids against Libya, killing 60 people.
1978 1978 Tbilisi Demonstrations: Thousands of Georgians demonstrate against Soviet attempts to change the constitutional status of the Georgian language.
1967 Gnassingbé Eyadéma overthrows President of Togo Nicolas Grunitzky and installs himself as the new president, a title he would hold for the next 38 years.
1965 US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site.
1948 US performs atmospheric nuclear test at Enwetak.
1945 Osijek, Croatia, is liberated from fascist occupation.
1944 Bombay Explosion: A massive explosion in Bombay harbor kills 300 and causes economic damage valued then at 20 million pounds.
1941 World War II: German general Erwin Rommel attacks Tobruk.
1940 World War II: Royal Marines land in Namsos, Norway in preparation for a larger force to arrive two days later.
1928 The Bremen, a German Junkers W33 type aircraft, reaches Greenly Island, Canada – the first successful transatlantic aeroplane flight from east to west.
1912 The British passenger liner RMS Titanic hits an iceberg in the North Atlantic at 23:40 (sinks morning of April 15th).
– For more information, visit, for instance, Encyclopedia Titanica, History: Titanic, Titanic Facts, and/or Titanic.com.
1909 A massacre is organized by Ottoman Empire against Armenian population of Cilicia.
1906 The Azusa Street Revival opens and will launch Pentecostalism as a worldwide movement.
1894 The first ever commercial motion picture house opened in New York City using ten Kinetoscopes, a device for peep-show viewing of films.
1865 U.S. President Abraham Lincoln is shot in Ford’s Theatre by John Wilkes Booth (died April 15th).
1849 Hungary declares itself independent of Austria with Lajos Kossuth as its leader.
1828 Noah Webster copyrights the first edition of his dictionary.
APRIL 15
2014 A total lunar eclipse occurs, producing a Blood Moon.
2014 More than 200 female students are declared missing after a mass kidnapping in Borno State, Nigeria.
2013 Two bombs explode near the finish line at the Boston Marathon in Boston, Massachusetts, killing three people and injuring 264 others.
1989 Upon Hu Yaobang‘s death, the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989 begin in China.
1986 The United States launches Operation El Dorado Canyon, its bombing raids against Libyan targets in response to a bombing in West Germany that killed two U.S. servicemen.
1984 USSR performs nuclear test at Eastern Kazakh/Semipalitinsk USSR.
1970 During the Cambodian Civil War, massacres of the Vietnamese minority results in 800 bodies flowing down the Mekong River into South Vietnam.
1969 The EC-121 shootdown incident: North Korea shoots down a United States Navy aircraft over the Sea of Japan, killing all 31 on board.
1957 White Rock, British Columbia officially separates from Surrey, British Columbia and is incorporated as a new city.
1955 US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site.
1955 McDonald’s restaurant dates its founding to the opening of a franchised restaurant by Ray Kroc, in Des Plaines, Illinois.
– McDonald’s and its pop culture and corporate culture.
– McDonald’s and Coca Cola in Russia.
– McDonald’s Israel’s policy over the Israel and Palestine issues.
– McDonald’s theory on conflict prevention.
1952 The maiden flight of the B-52 Stratofortress
1945 The Bergen-Belsen concentration camp is liberated.
1942 The George Cross is awarded “to the island fortress of Malta – its people and defenders” by King George VI.
1941 In the Belfast Blitz, two-hundred bombers of the German Luftwaffe attack Belfast, Northern Ireland, United Kingdom killing one thousand people.
1940 The Allies begin their attack on the Norwegian town of Narvik which is occupied by Nazi Germany.
1936 First day of the Arab revolt in Mandatory Palestine.
1923 Insulin becomes generally available for use by people with diabetes.
1912 The British passenger liner RMS Titanic sinks in the North Atlantic at 2:20 a.m., two hours and forty minutes after hitting an iceberg. Only 710 of 2,227 passengers and crew on board survive. See this event on April 14, mentioned above. Titanic hit an iceberg at 23:40 on April 14 and sank at 2:20 on April 15.
1900 Philippine–American War: Filipino guerrillas launch a surprise attack on U.S. infantry and begin a four-day siege of Catubig, Philippines.
1892 The General Electric Company is formed.
1865 Abraham Lincoln dies after being shot the previous evening by actor John Wilkes Booth.
1861 President Abraham Lincoln calls for 75,000 Volunteers to quell the insurrection that soon became the American Civil War
1783 Preliminary articles of peace ending the American Revolutionary War (or American War of Independence) are ratified.
APRIL 16
2003 The Treaty of Accession is signed in Athens admitting ten new member states to the European Union.
2001 India and Bangladesh begin a five-day border conflict, but are unable to resolve the disputes about their border.
1995 George W. Bush names April 16 as Selena Day in Texas, after she was killed two weeks earlier.
1992 The Katina P runs aground off of Maputo, Mozambique and 60,000 tons of crude oil spill into the ocean.
1990 The “Doctor of Death”, Jack Kevorkian, participates in his first assisted suicide.
1980 US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site.
1963 Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. pens his Letter from Birmingham Jail while incarcerated in Birmingham, Alabama for protesting against segregation.
1961 In a nationally broadcast speech, Cuban leader Fidel Castro declares that he is a Marxist–Leninist and that Cuba is going to adopt Communism.
1957 USSR performs atmospheric nuclear test.
1947 Bernard Baruch coins the term “Cold War” to describe the relationship between the United States and the Soviet Union.
1945 More than 7,000 die when the German refugee ship Goya is sunk by a Soviet submarine.
1945 The United States Army liberates Nazi Sonderlager (high security) prisoner-of-war camp Oflag IV-C (better known as Colditz).
1945 World War II: The Red Army begins the final assault on German forces around Berlin, with nearly one million troops fighting in the Battle of the Seelow Heights.
1944 World War II: Allied forces start bombing Belgrade, killing about 1,100 people. This bombing fell on the Orthodox Christian Easter.
1941 World War II: The Ustaše, a Croatian far-right organization is put in charge of the Independent State of Croatia (or “NDH”) by the Axis Powers after the Axis Operation 25 invasion.
– Ante Pavelić, the leader of the Croatian far-right and the head of the Independent State of Croatia or NDH. Visit Hitler and Pavelić.
Atrocities committed by the NDH: Visit, for instance,
– Holocaust and the Independent State of Croatia; Remeberance Day of Genocide;
– Catholic clergy involvement with the Ustashe;
– Holocaust Controversies; and
– the United States’ Response to Gonovide in the Independent State of Croatia.
The Vatican and the Ustashe Genocide: Visit, for instance,
– The Vatican’s Role in the Ustashe Gonocide;
– the Vatican and the Ustashe; The Role of the Catholic Church in Yugoslavia’s Holocaust; and/or
The Bleiburg Gonocide of Croats of NDH by the Allied Powers in May 1945, just after WWII in Europe: Visit, for instance,
– More Hidden History Revealed: The Bleiburg Masscare;
– The Bleiburg Masscrers: the Shame of the British Army and the Yugoslav Communists; and/or
– Bleiburg and Moral Equivelance.
1941 World War II: The Italian convoy Duisburg, directed to Tunisia, is attacked and destroyed by British ships.
1925 During the Communist St Nedelya Church assault in Sofia, Bulgaria, 150 are killed and 500 are wounded.
1922 The Treaty of Rapallo, pursuant to which Germany and the Soviet Union re-establish diplomatic relations, is signed.
1919 Polish–Soviet War: The Polish army launches the Vilna offensive to capture Vilnius in modern Lithuania.
1919 Mohandas Gandhi organizes a day of “prayer and fasting” in response to the killing of Indian protesters in the Jallianwala Bagh massacre by the British colonial troops three days earlier.
1917 Vladimir Lenin returns to Petrograd, Russia from exile in Switzerland.
1853 The first passenger rail opens in India, from Bori Bunder, Bombay to Thane.
1847 The accidental shooting of a Māori by an English sailor results in the opening of the Wanganui Campaign of the New Zealand land wars.
APRIL 17
2014 NASA‘s Kepler confirms the discovery of the first Earth-size planet in the habitable zone of another star.
2010 Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, calls for the US to be expelled from the international nuclear system because religion prohibits the use of nuclear weapons. Visit the following websites, for instance:
– Religion and Nuclear Weapons; How does religion really influence Iranian nuclear policy?
– Nuclear War and Mass Destruction in Judaism
– The Role of Religion and Nuclear Disarmament
– Faiths United Against Nuclear Weapons.
– Religious Quotes about Nuclear Weapons.
– Nuclear Weapons, Ethics, Morals and Law.
2006 Sami Hammad, a Palestinian suicide bomber, detonates an explosive device in Tel Aviv, killing 11 people and injuring 70.
1987 USSR performs nuclear test at Eastern Kazakh/Semipalitinsk USSR.
1986 Nezar Hindawi‘s attempt to detonate a bomb aboard an El Al flight from London to Tel Aviv is thwarted.
1986 The Three Hundred and Thirty Five Years’ War between the Netherlands and the Isles of Scilly ends.
1984 Police Constable Yvonne Fletcher is killed by gunfire from the Libyan People’s Bureau (Embassy) in London during a small demonstration outside the embassy. Ten others are wounded. The events lead to an 11-day siege of the building.
1982 US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site.
1982 Patriation of the Canadian constitution in Ottawa by Proclamation of Queen Elizabeth II, Queen of Canada.
1978 Mir Akbar Khyber is assassinated, provoking a communist coup d’état in Afghanistan.
1975 The Cambodian Civil War ends. The Khmer Rouge captures the capital Phnom Penh and Cambodian government forces surrender.
1973 George Lucas begins writing the treatment for The Star Wars.
1971 The People’s Republic of Bangladesh forms, under Sheikh Mujibur Rahman at Mujibnagor.
1969 Communist Party of Czechoslovakia chairman Alexander Dubček is deposed.
1969 Sirhan Sirhan is convicted of assassinating Robert F. Kennedy.
1964 Jerrie Mock becomes the first woman to circumnavigate the world by air.
1961 Bay of Pigs Invasion: A group of Cuban exiles financed and trained by the CIA lands at the Bay of Pigs in Cuba with the aim of ousting Fidel Castro.
1951 The Peak District becomes the United Kingdom’s first National Park.
1949 At midnight 26 Irish counties officially leave the British Commonwealth. A 21-gun salute on O’Connell Bridge, Dublin, ushers in the Republic of Ireland.
1946 Syria obtains its independence from the French occupation.
1945 World War II: Brazilian forces liberate the town of Montese, Italy, from Nazi forces.
1944 Forces of the Communist-controlled Greek People’s Liberation Army attack the smaller National and Social Liberation resistance group, which surrenders. Its leader Dimitrios Psarros is murdered.
1942 French prisoner of war General Henri Giraud escapes from his castle prison in Festung Königstein.
1941 World War II: The Kingdom of Yugoslavia surrenders to Germany.
1912 Russian troops open fire on striking goldfield workers in northeast Siberia, killing at least 150.
1897 The Aurora, Texas UFO incident.
1895 The Treaty of Shimonoseki between China and Japan is signed. This marks the end of the First Sino-Japanese War, and the defeated Qing Empire is forced to renounce its claims on Korea and to concede the southern portion of the Fengtien province, Taiwan and the Pescadores Islands to Japan.
APRIL 18
2013 A suicide bombing in a Baghdad cafe kills 27 people and injures another 65.
2007 A series of bombings, two of them being suicides, occur in Baghdad, killing 198 and injuring 251.
1996 In Lebanon, at least 106 civilians are killed when the Israel Defense Forces shell the United Nations compound at Quana where more than 800 civilians had taken refuge.
1996 In Lebanon, at least 106 civilians are killed when the Israel Defense Forces shell the United Nations compound at Quana where more than 800 civilians had taken refuge.
1992 General Abdul Rashid Dostum revolts against President Mohammad Najibullah of the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan and allies with Ahmed Shah Massoud to capture Kabul.
1988 The United States launches Operation Praying Mantis against Iranian naval forces in the largest naval battle since World War II.
1983 A suicide bomber destroys the United States embassy in Beirut, Lebanon, killing 63 people.
1980 The Republic of Zimbabwe (formerly Rhodesia) comes into being, with Canaan Banana as the country’s first President. The Zimbabwe Dollar replaces the Rhodesian Dollar as the official currency.
1968 US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site.
1961 CONCP is founded in Casablanca as a united front of African movements opposing Portuguese colonial rule.
1961 The Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations (VCDR), a cornerstone of modern international relations, is adopted.
– Text of the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations.
– Watch and listen to the lecture of the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations.
1955 Twenty-nine nations meet at Bandung, Indonesia, for the first Asian-African Conference.
1954 Gamal Abdal Nasser seizes power in Egypt.
1946 The International Court of Justice holds its inaugural meeting in The Hague, Netherlands.
1945 Over 1,000 bombers attack the small island of Heligoland, Germany.
1943 World War II: Operation Vengeance, Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto is killed when his aircraft is shot down by U.S. fighters over Bougainville Island.
1942 World War II: The Doolittle Raid on Japan. Tokyo, Yokohama, Kobe and Nagoya are bombed.
1912 The Cunard liner RMS Carpathia brings 705 survivors from the RMS Titanic to New York City.
1909 Joan of Arc is beatified in Rome.
1897 The Greco-Turkish War is declared between Greece and the Ottoman Empire.
APRIL 19
2011 Fidel Castro resigns from the Communist Party of Cuba‘s central committee after 45 years of holding the title.
1999 The German Bundestag returns to Berlin, the first German parliamentary body to meet there since the Reichstag was dissolved in 1933.
1995 Oklahoma City bombing: The Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, USA, is bombed, killing 168.
1987 USSR performs underground nuclear test.
1985 USSR performs nuclear test at Eastern Kazakh/Semipalitinsk, USSR.
1975 India‘s first satellite, Aryabhata, is launched.
1973 The Portuguese Socialist Party is founded in the German town of Bad Münstereifel.
1973 USSR performs nuclear test at Eastern Kazakh/Semipalitinsk USSR.
1972 US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site.
1971 Vietnam War: Vietnam Veterans Against the War begin a five-day demonstration in Washington, D.C.
1971 Sierra Leone becomes a republic, and Siaka Stevens the president.
1960 Students in South Korea hold a nationwide pro-democracy protest against president Syngman Rhee, eventually forcing him to resign.
1954 The Constituent Assembly of Pakistan recognises Urdu and Bengali as the national languages of Pakistan.
1951 General Douglas MacArthur retires from the military.
1950 Argentina becomes a signatory to the Buenos Aires copyright treaty.
1948 Burma joins the United Nations.
1943 World War II: In Poland, the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising begins, after German troops enter the Warsaw ghetto to round up the remaining Jews.
1943 Swiss chemist Dr. Albert Hofmann deliberately takes LSD for the first time.
1942 World War II: In Poland, the Majdan-Tatarski ghetto is established, situated between the Lublin Ghetto and a Majdanek subcamp.
1928 The 125th and final fascicle of the Oxford English Dictionary is published.
1903 The Kishinev pogrom in Kishinev (Bessarabia) begins, forcing tens of thousands of Jews to later seek refuge in Palestine and the Western world.
1897 Léo Taxil exposes his own fabrications concerning Freemasonry.
1865 Funeral service for Abraham Lincoln is held in the East Room of the White House.
1855 Visit of Napoleon III to Guildhall, London.
1839 The Treaty of London establishes Belgium as a kingdom and guaranteeing its neutrality.
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Satoshi Ashikaga is a member of the TRANSCEND Network for Peace, Development and Environment originally from Japan.
(Sources and references: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/April_13 to 19; http://www.historyorb.com/events/april/13 to 19; http://www.brainyhistory.com/days/april_13.html to 19.html, and pertinent websites and documents, mentioned above.)
This article originally appeared on Transcend Media Service (TMS) on 13 Apr 2015.
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