Today in History - August 9
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480BC Aug 9, The
Persian army defeated Leonidas and his Spartan army at the battle
Thermopylae, Persia. In 1998 Steven Pressfield authored: "Gates of
Fire, An Epic Novel of the Battle of Thermopylae." In 2006 Paul
Cartledge authored “Thermopylae: The Battle That Changed the World.”
(HN, 8/9/98)(SFEC, 11/29/98, BR p.3)(WSJ, 11/11/06,
p.P11)
48BC Aug 9, Julius Caesar defeated
Gnaius Pompey at Pharsalus.
(HN, 8/9/98)
378 Aug 9, In the Battle of
Adrianople the Visigoth Calvary defeated Roman Army.
(MC, 8/9/02)
1378 Aug 9, Cardinals declared
pope Urbanus VI lawless (anti-Christian, devil).
(MC, 8/9/02)
1387 Aug 9, Henry V, British king
famous for his victory at Agincourt, France, was born. [see Aug 29]
(HN, 8/9/98)
1483 Aug 9, Pope Sixtus IV
celebrated the first mass in the Sistine Chapel, which was named in his
honor.
(HN, 8/9/98)
1549 Aug 9, France declared war on
England. England declared war on France.
(TL-MB, 1988, p.17)(HN, 8/9/98)
1593 Aug 9, Izaak Walton (d.1683),
biographer, fisherman, writer (Compleat Angler), was born in England.
"That which is everybody's business is nobody's business."
(AP, 8/29/98)(MC, 8/9/02)
1631 Aug 9, John Dryden, the 1st
official poet laureate of England (1668-1700), was born at Aldwinkle,
Northamptonshire.
(HN, 8/9/02)
1638 Aug 9, Jonas Bronck of
Holland became the 1st European settler in the Bronx.
(MC, 8/9/02)
1645 Aug 9, Settlers in New
Amsterdam gained peace with the Indians after conducting talks with the
Mohawks.
(HN, 8/9/98)
1672 Aug 9, Jose Ximenez (70),
Spanish composer, died.
(MC, 8/9/02)
1673 Aug 9, Dutch recapture NY
from English. It was regained by English in 1674.
(MC, 8/9/02)
1757 Aug 9, English Ft. William
Henry, NY, surrendered to French and Indian troops.
(MC, 8/9/02)
1778 Aug 9, Captain Cook reached
Cape Prince of Wales in the Bering straits.
(MC, 8/9/02)
1790 Aug 9, The Columbia returned
to Boston Harbor after a three-year voyage, becoming the first ship to
carry the American flag around the world.
(AP, 8/9/97)
1805 Aug 9, Austria joined
Britain, Russia, Sweden and the Kingdom of Piedmont-Sardinia in the
third coalition against France.
(HN, 8/9/98)
1813 Aug 9, After reports that
British naval vessels were nearing St. Michaels, Md., to attack the
shipbuilding town that night, the county militia placed lanterns on the
tops of the tallest trees and on the masts of vessels in the harbor;
and had all other lights extinguished. When the British attacked, they
directed their fire too high and overshot the town.
(HNQ, 11/25/02)
1814 Aug 9, Andrew Jackson and the
Creek Indians signed the Treaty of Fort Jackson, giving the whites 23
million acres of Creek territory.
(HN, 8/9/98)
1819 Aug 9, William Thomas Green
Morton (d.1868), American dentist who 1st used ether on a patient
(1846), was born.
(WUD, 1994, p.932)(MC, 8/9/02)
1829 Aug 9, The locomotive
"Stourbridge Lion" went into service.
(MC, 8/9/02)
1830 Aug 9, Louis-Philippe
formally accepted the crown of France, following abdication of Charles
X, last brother of guillotined Louis XVI. He was the son of the
opportunistic Duke d'Orleans, first cousin to the late king, who
renounced his royal heritage and called himself plain Phillipe Egalite.
Louis-Philippe voted for his cousin's death in 1793, but followed him
to the guillotine in 1794.
(MC, 8/9/02)
1831 Aug 9, 1st US steam engine
train run was from Albany to Schenectady, NY.
(MC, 8/9/02)
1842 Aug 9, The United States and
Canada signed the Webster-Ashburton Treaty, resolving a border dispute
between Maine and Canada's New Brunswick.
(AP, 8/9/97)(HN, 8/9/98)
1848 Aug 9, The Barnburners
(anti-slavery) party merged with the Free Soil Party and nominated
Martin Van Buren for president at its convention in Buffalo, N.Y. The
Hunkers and the Barnburners were two factions within the Democratic
Party of New York split over the slavery issue in 1848. They injected
the issue into the Democratic National Convention held in Baltimore in
1848 when they both sent delegations. The Barnburners (who were also
known as the "Softs" while the Hunkers were called the "Hards") were
firm supporters of the Wilmot Proviso of 1846 that sought to restrict
the spread of slavery to newly acquired territory.
(AP, 8/9/97)(HNQ, 11/28/98)(MC, 8/9/02)
1854 Aug 9, Henry David Thoreau
published "Walden," in which he described his experiences while living
near Walden Pond on Cape Cod in Massachusetts.
(Hem, Dec. 94, p.44)(AP, 8/9/97)
1859 Aug 9, The escalator was
patented. The first working escalator appeared in 1900.
Manufactured by the Otis Elevator Company for the Paris Exposition, it
was installed in a Philadelphia office building the following year.
(HN, 8/9/00)
1862 Aug 9, Hector Berlioz' opera
"Beatrice et Benedict," premiered in Baden-Baden.
(MC, 8/9/02)
1862 Aug 9, At Cedar Mountain,
Virginia, Confederate General "Stonewall" Jackson repelled an attack by
Union forces. Gen. Charles S. Winder was killed.
(HN, 8/9/98)(MC, 8/9/02)
1875 Aug 9, Albert William
Ketelbey, composer (In a Monastery Garden), was born in Aston, England.
(MC, 8/9/02)
1896 Aug 9, Leonide Massine,
Russian-born US choreographer (Diaghilev Ballet Russe 1914-20), was
born.
(WUD, 1994, p.882)(MC, 8/9/02)
1896 Aug 9, Jean Piaget,
psychologist who did pioneering work on the development of children's
intellectual faculties, was born.
(HN, 8/9/98)
1896 Aug 9, Otto Lilienthal,
German aerodynamic engineer, made his last glide when his glider No. 11
was upset by a sudden gust of wind and he was unable to regain control.
Lilienthal broke his back in the crash and died the next day in a
Berlin clinic. He had made more than 2,000 test flights in gliders and
convinced many people that flight was possible and set the stage for
early aviation. He once wrote that "we must fly and fall, fly and fall
until we can fly without falling." He also influenced flight theory by
using bird flight as a model for the basis of aviation.
(HNPD, 8/9/98)
1899 Aug 9, Pamela Lyndon Travers
(P.L. Travers), author of the Mary Poppins books, was born.
(HN, 8/9/00)
1902 Aug 9, Edward VII was crowned
king of England following the death of his mother, Queen Victoria.
(SFEM, 1/26/97, p.40)(AP, 8/9/98)
1904 Aug 9, Friedrich Ratzel (59),
German social-geographer (Lebensraum), died.
(MC, 8/9/02)
1910 Aug 9, Alva Fisher patented
the first complete, self-contained electric washing machine.
(HN, 8/9/00)(MC, 8/9/02)
1913 Aug 9, Herman Eugene Talmadge
(d.2002), later George state governor and US Senator, was born.
(SFC, 3/22/02, p.A27)
1919 Aug 9, Ruggiero Leoncavallo
(62), Italian composer (Pagliacci), died.
(MC, 8/9/02)
1927 Aug 9, Robert Shaw, actor and
writer, was born in England.
(HN, 8/9/00)(MC, 8/9/02)
1928 Aug 9, Bob Cousey, Hall of
Fame basketball player and coach of the Boston Celtics , was born.
(HN, 8/9/98)
1930 Aug 9, A forerunner of the
cartoon character Betty Boop made her debut in Max Fleischer’s animated
short "Dizzy Dishes."
(AP, 8/9/00)
1931 Aug 9, In Germany two Berlin
police officers were shot and killed during a Communist demonstration.
In 1993 Erich Mielke (d.2000 at 92), former head of the East German
Stasi, was convicted for participating in the shooting.
(SFC, 5/26/00, p.D3)
1936 Aug 9, Jesse Owens won his
fourth gold medal at the Berlin Olympics as the United States took
first place in the 400-meter relay.
(AP, 8/9/97)(HN, 8/9/98)
1941 Aug 9, President Franklin
Roosevelt and Prime Minister Winston Churchill met at Placentia Bay,
Newfoundland. Their meeting produced the Atlantic Charter, an agreement
between the two countries on war aims, even though the United States
was still a neutral country.
(HN, 8/9/98)
1942 Aug 9, Mahatma Gandhi and 50
others were arrested in Bombay after the passing of a "quit India"
campaign by the All-India Congress.
(MC, 8/9/02)
1943 Aug 9, Bertolt Brecht's
"Galileo," premiered in Zurich.
(MC, 8/9/02)
1943 Aug 9, Franz Jaegerstaetter,
an avowed conscientious objector, was executed outside Berlin for
treason after his request to be excused from regular army service for
religious reasons was denied. The married father of four was
posthumously exonerated in 1997 by a Berlin court. In 2007 he was
beatified by the Roman Catholic Church.
(AP, 10/27/07)
1943 Aug 9, Chaim Soutine
(b.1893), Jewish expressionist painter, died in Paris of a perforated
ulcer.
(WSJ, 5/14/98,
p.A20)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaim_Soutine)
1944 Aug 9, Smokey Bear debuted as
spokesman for fire prevention. The image of "Smokey the Bear" was
created by an artist as the official forest-fire spokesbear. He was
named in 1945 reportedly in honor of Smokey Joe Martin, asst. chief of
the New York City Fire Dept. A real bear from a 1950 New Mexico fire
was pressed into service and lived until 1976 at the Washington
National Zoo. [see 1945]
(SFEC, 6/22/97, p.T6)(ON, 4/03, p.9)
1944 Aug 9, 258 black American
sailors based at Port Chicago, Calif., refused to load a munitions ship
following the Jul 17 explosion of another ship that killed 320 men,
two-thirds of them black. The sailors were court-martialed, fined and
imprisoned for their refusal.
(AP, 8/9/04)
1945 Aug 9, The 10,000 lb.
plutonium bomb, Fat Man, was dropped over Nagasaki after the primary
objective of Kokura was passed due to visibility problems. It killed an
estimated 74,000 people. The B-29 bomber plane Bock's Car so named for
its assigned pilot, Fred Bock, was piloted by Captain Charles W.
Sweeney (d.2004). Kermit Beahan (d.1989) was the bombardier.
(WSJ, 7/19/95, p.A-12)(AP, 8/9/97)(HN, 8/9/98)(SFC,
3/17/00, p.D6)(HNQ, 3/31/00)
1960 Aug 9, There was a race riot
in Jacksonville Florida.
(MC, 8/9/02)
1961 Aug 9, The United Kingdom
applied for membership in the European Community.
(http://europa.eu.int/abc/history/1961/index_en.htm)
1962 Aug 9, Hermann Hesse (85),
winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature (1946), died in Switzerland.
(iUniv. 7/2/00)(MC, 8/9/02)
1965 Aug 9, Singapore proclaimed
its independence from the Malaysian Federation. Singapore became
independent from Britain and was booted from the Malayan federation.
Lee Kuan Yew became the new prime minister.
(AP,8/9/97)(WSJ,6/11/96,p.A9A)(SFC,6/8/96,p.A11)(WSJ,12/31/96, p.1)
1967 Aug 9, Joe Orton (34),
English actor, playwright (What the Butler Saw, Loot), was murdered
(bludgeoned with a hammer) while he slept by his male lover. In 1978
John Lahr authored “Prick Up Your Ears,” a biography of Orton.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Orton)(WSJ,
1/13/06, p.P8)
1968 Aug 9, The 267-day Detroit
newspaper strike ended.
(www.loc.gov/rr/news/chronological/exception_report.html)
1969 Aug 9, Actress Sharon Tate
and four other people were found brutally murdered in her Los Angeles
home; cult leader Charles Manson and a group of his disciples were
later convicted of the crime. Charles Manson's followers killed actress
Sharon Tate and her three guests in her Beverly Hills home. The dead
included Abigail Folger and Voyteck Freykowski.
(SFEC, 3/16/97, z1 p.4)(AP, 8/9/97)(HN, 8/9/98)(MC,
8/9/02)
1971 Aug 9, British begin
internment without trial in Northern Ireland when almost 300 men were
arrested and interned under the Special Powers Act in dawn swoops that
ended around August 14th. Not one unionist extremist was
interned. Word soon got out of the internment camps that the men were
being routinely mistreated and tortured. Sectarian attacks continued,
supported by the British army. These actions and other repressive
actions by the British administration of the time lead to the peaceful
march which turned bloody on 30 January 1972, now known as Bloody
Sunday.
(SFC, 1/30/97,
p.A18)(www.bloodysundaytrust.org/eduintern.htm)
1972 Aug 9, The pesticide Compound
1080, or sodium fluoroacetate, was banned as of this day by the EPA. It
had been used against coyotes but other animals were dying from its
use. It was reinstated in 1985 for use in livestock protection collars.
DDT was banned.
{Chemistry, Environment, USA, Animals}
(http://fluoridealert.org/pesticides/sodium.fluoroacetate.epa.90.htm)(SFC,
5/17/97, p.A17)(SFC, 6/18/99, p.A3)
1974 Aug 9, President Nixon's
resignation took effect. Gerald R. Ford was sworn in as the 38th US
President (1974-1976). Ford said "Our long national nightmare is over"
after he assumed the presidency following Richard Nixon‘s resignation.
After being sworn in, Ford spoke in the White House‘s East Room and
said, "My fellow Americans, our long national nightmare is over." It
was a line that Ford initially objected to saying, feeling it was a
little hard on Nixon. In 2007 Robert Dallek authored “Nixon and
Kissinger: Partners in Power.”
(SFEC, 5/11/97, p.T8,9)(HN, 8/9/98)(HNQ,
6/23/00)(Econ, 5/19/07, p.87)
1974 Aug 9, Trumpeter Bill Chase
(b.1934) and 3 members of the Chase Band died in a plane crash while
enroute to a performance in Minnesota. Lead guitarist Angel South (aka
Lucien Gondron d. 1998 at 55) had struck out on his own solo career.
(http://jazzworks.wordpress.com/2007/11/02/bill-chase-1934-1974/)
1975 Aug 9, Dimitri D.
Shostakovitch (b.1906) Soviet composer of 15 symphonies, died. His work
included Sun Over Motherland and the Violin Concerto No. 2. Symphony
No. 13, "Babi Yar," written to commemorate the massacre of Jews during
WW II. It premiered in the US in 1970. Symphony No. 12, "The Year
1917," was dedicated to the memory of Lenin. In 2004 Solomon Volkov
authored Shostakovich and Stalin: The Extraordinary Relationship
Between the Great Composer and the Brutal Dictator."
(WUD, 1994, p.1320)(SFC, 1/30/98, p.E5)(HN,
9/25/98)(WSJ, 6/29/99, p.A12)(SSFC, 3/28/04, p.M3)
1976 Aug 9, John Roselli (b.1905),
Chicago mobster hired by the CIA to kill Castro, was found murdered.
His decomposing body was found in a 55-gallon steel fuel drum floating
in Dumfounding Bay near Miami, Florida. Roselli had been strangled and
stabbed and his legs were sawed off.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johnny_Roselli)
1978 Aug 9, A California statewide
Teamsters warehouse workers strike began.
(SFC, 8/15/03, p.E9)
1978 Aug 9, James G. Cozzens
(b.1903), US writer (Guard of Honor, Pulitzer), died. His novels
included “The Last Adam” (1933), “The Just and the Unjust” (1942),
“Guard of Honor” (1948; Pulitzer Prize), “By Love Possessed” (1957),
and “Morning, Noon, and Night” (1968).
(http://libweb.princeton.edu/libraries/firestone/rbsc/aids/cozzens.html)
1979 Aug 9, In California Forrest
Silva Tucker, William McGirk and John Waller escaped from San Quentin
prison in a hand made kayak named Rub-a-Dub-Dub. McGirk (38) was
captured Oct 31. Waller was recaptured within months. Tucker was caught
after a few years in Boston in a credit scam but was released in error.
He was later identified as a member of the Massachusetts "Over the Hill
Gang" and in 1999 was caught on suspicion of robbing a Florida bank.
(SFC, 4/27/99, p.A1,4)(SFC, 10/29/04, p.F11)
1982 Aug 9, A federal judge in
Washington ordered John W. Hinckley Jr., who had been acquitted of
shooting President Ronald Reagan and three others by reason of
insanity, committed to a mental hospital.
(AP, 8/9/07)
1985 Aug 9, A federal judge in
Norfolk, Va., found retired Navy officer Arthur J. Walker guilty of
seven counts of spying for the Soviet Union.
(AP, 8/9/97)
1987 Aug 9, Independent Counsel
Lawrence E. Walsh, vowing to investigate the Iran-Contra affair
"vigorously but fairly," told a meeting of the American Bar Association
in San Francisco that he would not be deterred by the "popularity of
persons involved."
(AP, 8/9/97)
1988 Aug 9, President Reagan
nominated Lauro Cavazos to be secretary of education; Cavazos became
the first Hispanic to serve in the Cabinet.
(AP, 8/9/98)
1988 Aug 9, Hockey star Wayne
Gretzky of the Edmonton Oilers was traded to the Los Angeles Kings.
(AP, 8/9/98)
1989 Aug 9, Toshiki Kaifu was
elected prime minister of Japan, succeeding Sousuke Uno.
(AP, 8/9/99)
1989 Aug 9, In Mexico, a train
fell into the San Rafael River after a bridge collapsed, killing 112
people.
(AP, 8/9/99)
1990 Aug 9, A week after Iraq
invaded Kuwait, Western European diplomats and Arab witnesses reported
that Iraq had virtually sealed its borders, preventing thousands of
foreigners from leaving Iraq or Kuwait.
(AP, 8/9/00)
1991 Aug 9, In South Africa,
hundreds of police battled neo-Nazis as pro-apartheid extremists tried
to stop a speech by President F.W. de Klerk.
(AP, 8/9/01)
1992 Aug 9, Closing ceremonies
were held for the Barcelona Summer Olympics, with the Unified Team of
former Soviet republics winning 112 medals to 108 for the United
States.
(AP, 8/9/97)
1993 Aug 9, Reputed "Hollywood
Madam" Heidi Fleiss pleaded innocent in Los Angeles to five counts of
pandering and one count of selling cocaine. Fleiss was convicted in
1994 of three counts of pandering and acquitted of the drug charge, but
the verdicts were later thrown out due to jury misconduct. She
eventually pleaded guilty to attempted pandering.
(AP, 8/9/98)
1993 Aug 9, Mohamed M. Tabet (54),
commissar of Casablanca, was executed by firing squad. He had committed
violent acts against some 16000 women.
(http://tinyurl.com/7lwt4)
1994 Aug 9, A divided US Senate
opened formal debate on legislation to provide health insurance for
millions of Americans without it.
(AP, 8/8/99)
1995 Aug 9, Netscape
Communications went public and was valued at $2.2 billion. In 1999 Jim
Clark and Owen Edwards authored "Netscape Time: The Making of the
Billion-Dollar Start-Up That Took on Microsoft."
(WSJ, 11/25/98, p.B1)(SFEC, 6/27/99, BR p.6)
1995 Aug 9, A Boeing 737 belonging
to Guatemala’s Aviateca airline hit the Chichontepec volcano in El
Salvador on a flight from Miami and killed all 65 on board.
(SFC, 11/1/96, p.A18)
1995 Aug 9, Jerry Garcia,
guitarist and lead singer of the Grateful Dead, died in San Francisco
of a heart attack at age 53. In 1999 Blair Jackson authored "Garcia: An
American Life." In 2002 Dennis McNally authored "A Long Strange Trip:
The Inside History of the Grateful Dead."
(WSJ, 8/11/95, p.A7)(AP, 8/9/97)(SFEC, 8/29/99, BR
p.1)(SSFC, 8/11/02, p.M1)
1996 Aug 9, In Jacksonville, Fla.,
a jury held the Brown and Williamson Tobacco Co. liable for the lung
cancer of Grady Carter and awarded damages of $750,000.
(WSJ, 8/12/96, p.A1)
1996 Aug 9, Bob Dole telephoned
Jack Kemp to ask him to be his running mate; Kemp accepted.
(AP, 8/9/97)
1996 Aug 9, Frank A. Whittle (89),
inventor of the Jet engine, died.
(www.allstar.fiu.edu/aerojava/whittle.htm)
1996 Aug 9, In Burundi suspected
Hutu rebels killed 22 in Cibitoke province.
(WSJ, 8/12/96, p.A1)
1996 Aug 9, In India there was an
incident of food poisoning caused by Clostridium botulinum. 106 people
fell ill and 6 died after eating at a canteen in the town of
Bhiwandi, 80 miles north of Bombay. Seeds from a poisonous weed also
became suspect.
(SFEC, 8/11/96, p.A20) (WSJ, 8/12/96, p.A1)
1996 Aug 9, A weary-looking Boris
Yeltsin was sworn into his second term as president of Russia.
(AP, 8/9/97)
1996 Aug 9, Pyotr Karpov, a
Russian deputy agent in declaring whether state-owned firms should be
declared bankrupt, was charged with taking bribes in 1994 in Saratov.
He was arrested 2 weeks ago and sent to prison in Saratov.
(SFEC, 8/11/96, p.A16)
1997 Aug 9, In NYC police officer
Justin Volpe sodomized Abner Louima in the bathroom of the 70th
precinct in Brooklyn. [see Aug 13] In 1999 Volpe was sentenced to 30
years in prison and ordered to pay $277,495 in restitution. In 2001 a
tentative settlement awarded Abner Louima $9 million.
(SFC, 5/26/99, p.A1)(SFC, 12/14/99, p.A3)(SFC,
3/23/01, p.A4)
1997 Aug 9, An Amtrak train
derailed on a bridge near Kingman, Arizona, and 183 of 350 passengers
were injured. A flash flood had undermined supports for a small bridge.
(WSJ, 8/11/97, p.A1)(AP, 8/9/07)
1997 Aug 9, In Brazil Herbert Jose
de Souza, sociologist, died at age 60 of AIDS that he acquired as a
hemophiliac from contaminated blood. He spent his life fighting
inequality, hunger and police brutality.
(SFC, 8/11/97, p.A15)
1997 Aug 9, It was reported that
800,000 children of North Korea were in immediate danger of dying from
malnutrition. UNICEF was appealing for a $14.3 million emergency fund
for supplies such as high-energy milk.
(SFC, 8/9/97, p.A9)
1998 Aug 9, Americans, Kenyans and
Tanzanians held church and memorial services to mourn those killed in
bombing attacks on two U.S. embassies.
(AP, 8/9/99)
1998 Aug 9, A strike by 73,000
telephone workers of NYC-based Bell Atlantic began.
(SFC, 8/10/98, p.A2)
1998 Aug 9, In Afghanistan victory
in the battle for Mazar-i-Sharif was claimed by both sides.
(WSJ, 8/10/98, p.A1)
1998 Aug 9, In London, England,
the 13th Anglican Lambeth Conference, which had opened on July 18,
closed. The 749 bishops present declared that homosexual acts were
incompatible with scripture, but that gays were loved by God.
(Econ, 3/29/08,
p.50)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lambeth_Conferences)
1998 Aug 9, In China engineers
blew up secondary dikes in Jianli County, 90 miles upriver from Wushan,
to relieve pressure from the swollen Yangtze and the worst floods in 44
years.
(SFC, 8/10/98, p.A12)(AP, 8/9/99)
1998 Aug 9, In Peru Pres. Pastrana
replaced the top leaders of the military.
(WSJ, 8/10/98, p.A1)(WSJ, 8/11/98, p.A1)
1998 Aug 9, In South Korea
flooding over the last 7 days claimed 165 lives that included 3 US
soldiers.
(WSJ, 8/10/98, p.A1)
1999 Aug 9, Pres. Clinton
presented former Pres. Jimmy Carter and Rosalynn Carter the Medal of
Freedom, the highest US civilian award. Other recipients included Lloyd
Bentson, former US Treasury secretary; Gerald Ford, former US
president; Edgar M. Bronfman, Pres. of the World Jewish Congress; Evy
Dubrow, International Ladies Garment Workers Union representative;
Sister M. Isolina Ferre, founder and chief executive officer of four
community service centers in Puerto Rico; Oliver White Hill, civil
rights lawyer; Max Kampelman lawyer, negotiator and diplomat; and Edgar
Wayburn, five time president and a member of the board of directors of
the Sierra Club.
(SFC, 8/10/99,
p.A3)(www.medaloffreedom.com/1999Recipients.htm)
1999 Aug 9, In Algiers 2 bombings
left 3 people dead and 10 wounded.
(SFC, 8/11/99, p.C4)
1999 Aug 9, In Angola police shut
down Radio Ecclesia, a Roman Catholic radio station that was one of the
few independent sources of information in the country.
(SFC, 8/10/99, p.A10)
1999 Aug 9, In Japan the
parliament adopted the Rising Sun flag as the national symbol and an
ode to the emperor.
(WSJ, 8/10/99, p.A1)
1999 Aug 9, Russian President
Boris Yeltsin dismissed Prime Minister Sergei Stepashin and the entire
Cabinet, marking the fourth time in 17 months he had fired the
government. Yeltsin named Vladimir Putin, a former KGB agent, the new
prime minister.
(SFC, 8/9/99, p.A1)(AP, 8/9/00)
1999 Aug 9, Four large apparel
corporations settled out of court in a suit to end sweatshop labor in
Saipan. Nordstrom, J. Crew, Cutter & Buck and Gymboree agreed to
pay $1.25 million to reimburse workers for recruitment fees and to set
up a program to monitor island contractors.
(SFC, 8/10/99, p.A1)
1999 Aug 9, In Yemen 8 Britons and
2 Algerians were convicted and sentenced to 7 years in prison for
plotting terrorist acts.
(SFC, 8/10/99, p.A10)
2000 Aug 9, Bridgestone /
Firestone Inc. announced the recall of 6.5 million tires used mainly on
Ford SUVs and light trucks due to 46 [88] deaths and over [250] 300
accidents related to the tires.
(SFC, 8/10/00, p.A2)(SFC, 9/6/00, p.A1)
2000 Aug 9, Nicholas Samuel
Markowitz (b.1984), having been kidnapped in Los Angeles, was murdered
near Santa Barbara after a feud over drug money between his
half-brother Benjamin Markowitz and Jesse James Hollywood (20). The
murder inspired the 2006 film “Alpha Dog.” Hollywood was not present at
the murder, but ordered it. He immediately skipped town, but was
arrested five years later in Saquarema, Brazil with his pregnant
girlfriend Marcia Reis. In July, 2009, he was convicted of first-degree
murder and kidnapping and jurors recommended life in prison.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicholas_Markowitz)(SFC, 7/16/09, p.A6)
2000 Aug 9, In New Jersey 2 small
planes collided in midair and the bulk of one plane crashed through the
roof a house. All 11 passengers were killed.
(SFC, 8/10/00, p.A3)
2000 Aug 9, In Texas Brian Keith
Roberson (36) was executed for the 1986 stabbing deaths of an elderly
couple in Dallas. Oliver Cruz (33) was executed for the 1988 abduction,
rape and fatal stabbing of a 24-year-old woman in San Antonio.
(SFC, 8/10/00, p.A2)
2000 Aug 9, In Indonesia Pres.
Wahid announced that he would hand over daily government operations to
Vice Pres. Megawati Sukarno.
(SFC, 8/10/00, p.A10)
2000 Aug 9, In Spain Francisco
Casanova Vicente, army officer, was shot twice in the back as he
arrived home in Pamplona. The murder was blamed on the ETA.
(SFC, 8/10/00, p.A11)
2001 Aug 9, Pres. Bush announced
that he would allow taxpayer dollars to be used for stem cell research
limited to some 5 dozen existing stem cell lines.
(SFC, 8/10/01, p.A1)(WSJ, 8/10/01, p.A1)
2001 Aug 9, It was reported that
the US had decided to pay China $34,567 to cover the costs of the spy
plane that was detained on Hainan island. China had asked for $1
million and rejected the offer.
(SFC, 8/10/01, p.A12)(SFC, 8/13/01, p.A12)
2001 Aug 9, In Colombia an
explosion killed 3 children and injured 35 in the northern town of San
Francisco. Police blamed the ELN.
(SFC, 8/10/01, p.A18)
2001 Aug 9, In the Comoros islands
military troops staged a bloodless coup on the island of Anjouan due to
grievances over promotions and pay.
(SFC, 8/10/01, p.A18)
2001 Aug 9, In Indonesia Pres.
Sukarnoputri named a new Cabinet stacked with specialists instead of
politicians. In Aceh province police and rebels accused each other of
massacring 31 people.
(SFC, 8/10/01, p.A16)(WSJ, 8/10/01, p.A1)
2001 Aug 9, The IRA offered
publicly to put its arsenal of weapons "completely and verifiably
beyond use."
(SFC, 8/10/01, p.A16)
2001 Aug 9, In Jerusalem a
Palestinian suicide bomber, Izzadine Masri, killed himself and 15
others at the Sbarro pizzeria. 90 people were wounded. Hamas claimed
responsibility.
(WSJ, 8/10/01, p.A1)(SFC, 7/24/02, p.A14)(AP, 8/9/06)
2001 Aug 9, In Macedonia
government forces battled rebels for control of Tetovo and one
policeman was killed. A peace agreement was scheduled to be formally
signed Aug 13.
(SFC, 8/10/01, p.A12)
2002 Aug 9, Oscar-winning actor
and National Rifle Association president Charlton Heston, 78, revealed
that doctors had told him he had symptoms consistent with Alzheimer's
disease.
(AP, 8/8/03)
2002 Aug 9, Barry Bonds of the SF
Giants hit his 600th homerun and joined the ranks of Henry Aaron (660),
Babe Ruth (714) and Willie Mays (755).
(SFC, 8/10/02, p.A1)
2002 Aug 9, The Bush
administration said the 1969 National Environmental Policy Act does not
extend beyond the few miles of territorial waters.
(SFC, 8/10/02, p.A3)
2002 Aug 9, US officials said they
broke up an int'l. child pornography ring headquartered in Clovis, Ca.
10 Americans were arrested in Operation Hamlet. Lloyd Alan Emmerson
(45), chiropractor, was arrested Jan 26 on a tip from Danish police.
(SFC, 8/10/02, p.A1,11)(SFC, 8/13/02, p.A13)
2002 Aug 9, Kris Eggle (28),
Arizona park ranger, was killed by a gunman at the Mexican border of
organ Pipe Cactus National Monument.
(WSJ, 1/22/03, p.A1)
2002 Aug 9, In eastern Afghanistan
a powerful explosion ripped through an Afghan construction firm's
building in the city of Jalalabad, killing 21 people and injuring 85
others.
(AP, 8/9/02)(SFC, 8/10/02, p.A8)
2002 Aug 9, China reported 70
people dead from landslides and flooding in Hunan province.
(SFC, 8/10/02, p.A9)
2002 Aug 9, In Colombia fighting
among outlaw groups for control of a gold mine and cocaine crops in the
mountainous north killed 50 fighters. 4 policemen were killed in a
rebel ambush in central Colombia in the town of Paz de Ariporo. Army
soldiers killed two rebels in the southern town of San Vicente del
Caguan.
(AP, 8/9/02)
2002 Aug 9, In central Colombia
hundreds of soldiers attacked the Metro Block right-wing paramilitary
force, killing and capturing dozens of fighters outside Segovia.
Paramilitary commander Rodrigo later said that an army soldier executed
24 paramilitary men along a roadside near Segovia.
(AP, 8/10/02)(SSFC, 8/11/02, p.A16)(AP, 8/18/02)
2002 Aug 9, In northeastern Congo
United Nations observers discovered a grave containing the hacked
bodies of 38 women and children outside Bunia.
(AP, 8/10/02)
2002 Aug 9, Makiko Tanaka, former
Japanese foreign minister, resigned as a member of parliament after
failing to clear up allegations she had misused state funds.
(AP, 8/9/02)
2002 Aug 9, Myanmar's junta freed
14 political prisoners, but the move was far short of the release of
all prisoners of conscience that opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi has
demanded as a precondition for national reconciliation.
(AP, 8/9/02)
2002 Aug 9, Three Pakistani nurses
were killed when militants lobbed two grenades at a crowd of women
leaving a missionary hospital chapel, the second assault on a Christian
target in Pakistan in less than a week.
(AP, 8/9/02)
2002 Aug 9, President Kim Dae-jung
named the head of South Korea's largest business newspaper as prime
minister, the day after the opposition took control of parliament in a
by-election landslide.
(Reuters, 8/9/02)
2002 Aug 9, Rescue workers found
the bodies of 19 people killed swept away by rushing water near
Russia's Black Sea coast after some of Europe's worst flooding in
decades turned rivers and streets into torrents. At least 27 people
died, 21 of them in Russia.
(AP, 8/9/02)
2002 Aug 9, In Zimbabwe a
government deadline for the white farmers to give up their land passed
without incident, and it remained uncertain if police would try to
forcibly evict them.
(AP, 8/9/02)
2003 Aug 9, The US Army fired up
its first chemical weapons incinerator located near a residential area,
outside Anniston, Ala., to destroy two rockets loaded with enough sarin
nerve agent to wipe out a city.
(SSFC, 8/10/03, p.A4)(AP, 8/9/08)
2003 Aug 9, Gregory Hines (57),
considered the greatest tap dancer of his generation, died of cancer in
Los Angeles.
(AP, 8/11/03)
2003 Aug 9, In northeastern Brazil
84 inmates from a maximum security prison escaped through a tunnel.
(AP, 8/9/03)
2003 Aug 9, Mitar Rasevic, Bosnian
Serb prison chief of 37 guards at the KP-Dom detention facility in
Foca, surrendered in Belgrade to the Yugoslav war crimes tribunal. He
was wanted on charges of enslavement, torture and murder at the wartime
prison.
(AP, 8/15/03)
2004 Aug 9, Oil prices for
September delivery of light crude hit a record high of $44.98 since
trading began in NYC in 1983.
(SFC, 8/10/04, p.A1)
2004 Aug 9, In McAlester,
Oklahoma, District Judge Steven Taylor sentenced Terry Nichols to 161
consecutive life sentences for the 1995 Oklahoma City federal building
bombing. Terry Nichols, addressing a court for the first time, asked
victims of the blast for forgiveness
(SFC, 8/10/04, p.A3)(AP, 8/9/05)
2004 Aug 9, Trump Hotels and
Casino Resorts Inc. announced it would soon file for Chapter 11
bankruptcy. 3 Trump properties had filed for bankruptcy in 1992.
(SFC, 8/11/04, p.C1)
2004 Aug 9, David Raksin (92),
Oscar-nominated movie and TV composer, died in Van Nuys, Calif.
(AP, 8/9/05)
2004 Aug 9, The death toll from
this season's monsoon rains across South Asia passed 2,000, as
authorities in India reported that 39 bodies were found floating in
receding flood waters and four children were killed when a house
collapsed.
(AP, 8/9/04)
2004 Aug 9, Forensic experts said
they found a mass grave in the waste dump of a coal mine in eastern
Bosnia, which they suspect may contain the bodies of about 350 Muslims
who disappeared from a Bosnian Serb detention centre during the Bosnian
war.
(AP, 8/9/04)
2004 Aug 9, Al Sadr, whose
loyalists battled U.S. troops for a fifth straight day, vowed to fight
to the death. A suicide attacker detonated a car bomb northeast of
Baghdad, killing six people and wounding the deputy governor who was
the intended target.
(AP, 8/9/04)
2004 Aug 9, Four masked,
black-clad men who said they belong to a group that has claimed
responsibility for kidnappings and killings in Iraq beheaded a man
identified only as a Bulgarian in a video posted on the Internet.
(AP, 8/9/04)
2004 Aug 9, In Japan a
nonradioactive steam leak killed 5 people and injured seven in the
worst-ever accident at a nuclear power plant in Fukui prefecture. The
No. 3 reactor of the Mihama Nuclear Power Plant was shutdown and not
restarted until January 2007.
(AP, 8/9/04)(Econ, 8/14/04, p.54)(AP, 1/9/07)
2004 Aug 9, Mauritania arrested
renegade officers and Islamic extremists to break up what officials
said was a brewing coup involving a terror campaign.
(WSJ, 8/10/04, p.A1)
2004 Aug 9, Officials in South
Africa prepared to kill some 30,000 ostriches following the deaths of
over 1,500 due to avian influenza.
(SFC, 8/10/04, p.A3)
2005 Aug 9, The US Federal Reserve
raised interest rates by a quarter point to 3.5%. It marked the 10th
increase since tightening began in 2004.
(SFC, 8/10/05, p.C1)
2005 Aug 9, The US State
Department said the US will begin issuing electronic passports in
December to help tighten border and identity security.
(AP, 8/9/05)
2005 Aug 9, A three-judge panel of
the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta ordered a new trial
after agreeing with defense attorneys who challenged the 2001
convictions five Cuban intelligence agents. All five acknowledged being
Cuban agents but said they were spying on "terrorist" exile groups
opposed to Castro, not the U.S. government.
(AP, 8/10/05)
2005 Aug 9, Charles McCoy Jr.
pleaded guilty to involuntary manslaughter and 10 other charges in a
series of Ohio highway shootings and was sentenced to 27 years in
prison.
(AP, 8/9/06)
2005 Aug 9, Officials in San Jose,
Ca., opened their new $390 million, 18-story City Hall. It was designed
by Richard Meier with an original budget of $214 million.
(SFC, 8/10/05, p.B4)
2005 Aug 9, In Tennessee inmate
George Hyatte escaped after his wife shot and killed a guard escorting
him outside the Kingston courthouse. A tip from a cabbie the next day
led police to arrest George and Jennifer Hyatte at a budget motel in
Columbus, Ohio.
(SFC, 8/10/05, p.A6)(AP, 8/11/05)
2005 Aug 9, Discovery and its crew
of seven glided back to Earth ending a 14-day test of space shuttle
safety. NASA’s STS 114 flight was shadowed by the ghosts of Columbia
(AP, 8/9/05)(Econ, 8/13/05, p.68)
2005 Aug 9, Abe Hirschfield,
immigrant multi-millionaire, died in NYC. Hirschfield was born in
Poland but grew up in Israel. His 1986 autobiography was titled “An
Accidental Wedding.”
(SFC, 8/10/05, p.B7)
2005 Aug 9, Matthew McGrory (32),
the deep-voiced 7-foot-plus actor who moved from appearances on Howard
Stern's radio show to a high-profile role as a gentle giant in the
movie "Big Fish," died in Los Angeles.
(AP, 8/10/05)
2005 Aug 9, Judith Rossner
(b.1935) author of "Looking for Mr. Goodbar" (1975), died.
(SFEC, 10/5/97, BR p.4)(SFC, 8/12/05, p.B9)
2005 Aug 9, A roadside bomb attack
in eastern Afghanistan killed a US service member, the fifth American
casualty in a week. Suspected Taliban rebels gunned down an Afghan
woman accused of spying for the coalition.
(AP, 8/10/05)
2005 Aug 9, Qari Amadullah, a
suspected Taliban rebel leader, died in heavy fighting in eastern
Afghanistan. 5 other militants were killed and 3 US soldiers were
wounded during the clash.
(AP, 8/12/05)
2005 Aug 9, Australia’s Foreign
Minister Alexander Downer said Australia and China are negotiating an
agreement to allow Australia to export uranium to China for peaceful
purposes.
(AP, 8/9/05)
2005 Aug 9, In Chechnya gunmen
sprayed bullets at a car in Grozny, killing one person, wounding a
child in the head, and setting the vehicle ablaze.
(AP, 8/9/05)
2005 Aug 9, China’s official media
reported that 123 miners trapped in south China have little chance of
survival. One body was recovered the next day.
(AP, 8/9/05)(AP, 8/11/05)
2005 Aug 9, In Ethiopia the
National Electoral Board released results for the May 15 election. The
ruling coalition captured a majority in parliamentary elections
shadowed by fraud allegations and deadly violence.
(AP, 8/9/05)
2005 Aug 9, Suez, a French water
and power company, announced a $14 billion purchase of 49.9% of the
shares of Electrabel, a Belgian electricity firm.
(Econ, 8/13/05, p.52)
2005 Aug 9, A suicide bomber
struck near a US convoy in Baghdad and gunmen opened fire on police
patrols around the city in attacks that killed at least 16 people.
(AP, 8/9/05)
2005 Aug 9, In Iraq 4 American
soldiers were killed when insurgents attacked their patrol in the
northern city of Beiji, and a car bomb targeting a joint U.S.-Iraqi
patrol in Baghdad killed seven people, including one US soldier.
(AP, 8/10/05)
2005 Aug 9, Murders in Jamaica
reached 1,028, up 25% from 2004.
(Econ, 8/13/05, p.32)
2005 Aug 9, In Pakistan Derik
Cyprian, a former Cabinet minister who disappeared Aug. 2, was found
strangled to death on a dirt road on the outskirts of Lahore.
(AP, 8/9/05)
2005 Aug 9, South Africa’s
Johannesburg Women’s Jail reopened its doors as a museum.
(Econ, 8/13/05, p.74)
2005 Aug 9, In Sudan Lt. Gen.
Salva Kiir Mayardit, the commander of the Sudan People's Liberation
Army was inaugurated as Sudan's first vice president and president of
the new, autonomous southern government.
(AP, 8/9/05)
2005 Aug 9, Francois Dalle (87),
former chief executive of L'Oreal (1957-1984) and credited with
transforming the French cosmetics company into a global giant, died in
Geneva.
(AP, 8/22/05)
2005 Aug 9, Six of Venezuela's
indigenous communities received title to their ancestral lands in a
ceremony that Venezuela's president said reversed centuries of
injustice. An estimated 300,000 Venezuelans belong to 28 indigenous
groups, many living in the country's sparsely populated southeast.
(AP, 8/9/05)
2006 Aug 9, The White House said
neither Israel nor Hezbollah should escalate their month-old war, as
Israel decided to widen its ground invasion in southern Lebanon.
(AP, 8/9/07)
2006 Aug 9, In Ohio Osama Sabhi
Abulhassan (20) and Ali Houssaiky (20), both of Dearborn, Mich., were
charged with money laundering in support of terrorism after authorities
said they found airplane passenger lists and information on airport
security checkpoints in their car.
(AP, 8/9/06)
2006 Aug 9, The American Humane
Society said it will give China $100,000 to vaccinate dogs against
rabies if it promises to immediately stop their mass slaughter in areas
where humans have died from the disease.
(AP, 8/9/06)
2006 Aug 9, Physicist James A. Van
Allen (91), who discovered the radiation belts surrounding the Earth
that now bear his name, died in Iowa City, Iowa.
(AP, 8/9/07)
2006 Aug 9, Hamid Karzai,
Afghanistan's first democratically elected president, strongly hinted
in an interview that he will not run for another term in office. A
roadside bomb killed 2 Afghan soldiers and wounded 3 as they returned
after a mission to help police surrounded by insurgents in Paktika
province. In the eastern province of Nuristan US soldiers and warplanes
drove off an insurgent attack on a new American base, killing 19
militants. Local authorities pleaded for emergency relief for thousands
of villagers made homeless by heavy rain and flooding that has ravaged
provinces in eastern Afghanistan and left at least 35 people dead.
(AP, 8/9/06)(AP, 8/10/06)
2006 Aug 9, Roland Horngacher,
Vienna's top police commander, was suspended from duty on suspicion of
improperly accepting gifts, including travel vouchers from the former
head of an Austrian bank linked to the collapse of U.S. commodities
broker Refco Inc.
(AP, 8/10/06)
2006 Aug 9, In Buenos Aires Raul
Antonio Guglielminetti, a former intelligence agent and two retired
military officers, were arrested in connection with human rights abuses
dating to Argentina's "Dirty War" against political dissent.
(AP, 8/11/06)
2006 Aug 9, In Brazil suspected
gang members threw homemade bombs, sent banks on fire, and torched
buses in the region and two other cities overnight in Sao Paulo state.
In Rio de Janeiro gunbattles between gangs vying for control of the
city's lucrative drug trade have resulted in the deaths of 19 people
since Aug 6.
(AP, 8/10/06)
2006 Aug 9, Brazil’s environment
ministry said police had arrested 46 people, including 16 agents of the
federal environmental protection agency, for allegedly operating
illegal logging operations in the Amazon rainforest and in southern
Brazil.
(AP, 8/10/06)
2006 Aug 9, Two teenage Britons
were finally found guilty of killing 10-year-old Nigerian schoolboy
Damilola Taylor following a six-year investigation marred by legal and
forensic blunders. Danny Preddie (18) and Ricky Preddie (19) from
Peckham, south London, were convicted of the manslaughter of Taylor who
died in November, 2000, after being stabbed in the leg with a broken
bottle.
(Reuters, 8/9/06)
2006 Aug 9, Masked gunmen killed
five Indians in Colombia even as UN officials marked World Indigenous
Day with a call for illegal combat groups to keep Indians out of the
country's armed conflict. Colombian rebels kidnapped two engineers and
a helicopter pilot who were part of a seismographic oil exploration
crew in Choco state. The National Liberation Army (ELN) was believed to
be responsible.
(AP, 8/10/06)
2006 Aug 9, Ethiopia’s army killed
13 rebels and caught other commanders of the eastern Ogaden National
Liberation Front, a separatist movement, after they crossed from
Somalia.
(Reuters, 8/12/06)
2006 Aug 9, Kerala, a southern
Indian state, banned the sale and production of Coke, Pepsi, Sprite and
other soft drinks because of concerns over pesticide contamination.
Four Indian states, Rajasthan, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh and Chattisgarh,
have already imposed a ban on sale of Coke and Pepsi at colleges,
schools and government offices. Several other states have said they are
examining the issue.
(AP, 8/9/06)
2006 Aug 9, In India authorities
arrested Pritam Singh, a former army soldier and his wife, for
allegedly aborting female fetuses, several of which were found dumped
in a well behind an illegal clinic in Patran town, Punjab.
(AP, 8/10/06)
2006 Aug 9, Swollen rivers swamped
thousands of villages and towns across India's south and west, forcing
4.5 million from their homes as rescuers struggled to bring them food
and drinking water.
(Reuters, 8/9/06)
2006 Aug 9, Gunmen on two
motorcycles assassinated Col. Qassim Abdel-Qadir, administrative head
of an Iraqi army division in the southern city of Basra. A roadside
bomb exploded near a US patrol in eastern Baghdad's Shiite neighborhood
of Habibiya, killing one bystander and wounding one US soldier. Police
found the bodies of three men who were shot in the head and dumped in
two locations in southwestern Baghdad.
(AP, 8/9/06)
2006 Aug 9, Israel's Security
Cabinet approved a wider ground offensive in south Lebanon that was
expected to take 30 days as part of a new push to badly damage
Hezbollah. Israeli's military struck Lebanon's largest Palestinian
refugee camp, killing at least one person and wounding three others. An
Israeli airstrike killed a family of 7 in the Bekaa Valley. 15 Israeli
soldiers were killed in a single day of fighting. Israel said it killed
as many as 40 Hezbollah fighters but a Hezbollah spokesman said only 3
had been killed. Hezbollah leader Sheik Hassan Nasrallah warned all
Israeli Arabs to leave the port city of Haifa so the militant group
could step up attacks without fear of shedding the blood of fellow
Muslims.
(AP, 8/9/06)(SFC, 8/10/06, p.A10)
2006 Aug 9, In Mexico the body of
Enrique Perea Quintanilla (50), publisher of the magazine Dos Caras,
Una Verdad (Two Faces, One Truth) was found on a dirt road about 10
miles from Chihuahua City. Authorities said that organized crime was
likely behind the killing.
(AP, 8/11/06)
2006 Aug 9, Maoist rebels and the
Nepal government said they had settled a dispute over monitoring each
other's fighters and weapons, a move which revives their peace process
and power-sharing plans.
(AFP, 8/9/06)
2006 Aug 9, Two Norwegians and two
Ukrainians were kidnapped at gunpoint from an oil services ship off the
coast of Nigeria.
(Reuters, 8/9/06)
2006 Aug 9, In Poland the US
specialists secretly removed 90 pounds of weapons-grade uranium from a
research reactor and transferred it to Russia for re-processing.
(SFC, 8/10/06, p.A8)(WSJ, 8/10/06, p.A1)
2006 Aug 9, Sergei Skripal (55), a
retired Russian colonel, was sentenced by a military court in Moscow to
13 years imprisonment for passing along state secrets to Britain.
(AP, 8/9/06)
2006 Aug 9, A South Korean
citizens' group said North Korea has requested help from South Korea to
cope with devastating floods.
(AP, 8/9/06)
2006 Aug 9, A Justice Ministry
official said Swiss authorities will provide the US with details from
bank accounts US investigators suspect of being used for terrorist
funding.
(AP, 8/9/06)
2006 Aug 9, In Venezuela 8
candidates opposing Pres. Chavez called off a primary and agreed to
support front runner Gov. Manuel Rosales in the Dec 3 presidential
balloting.
(SFC, 8/10/06, p.A8)
2007 Aug 9, President Bush held a
news conference in which he publicly prodded Pakistani President Pervez
Musharraf, his embattled war-on-terror partner, to hold free
presidential elections, share intelligence and take "swift action"
against terrorist leaders in his country.
(AP, 8/9/08)
2007 Aug 9, David Beckham made his
long-awaited Major League Soccer debut, entering in the 72nd minute of
the Los Angeles Galaxy's 1-0 loss to D.C. United.
(AP, 8/9/08)
2007 Aug 9, The US Federal Reserve
injected $24 billion to the banking system in the wake of a credit
squeeze due to failing subprime mortgages and another $38 billion the
next day. The European Central Bank (ECB) offered unlimited loans at 4%
to stem the credit squeeze as it extended to Europe.
(Econ, 8/18/07, p.64)(WSJ, 11/6/07, p.A1)
2007 Aug 9, WuXi PharmaTech, a
Chinese pharmaceutical research firm, began trading on the NYSE at $14
per share. By Sep 22 its shares had doubled in value.
(Econ, 9/22/07, p.79)
2007 Aug 9, President Hamid Karzai
said extremism that plagues Afghanistan has crept across the border
into Pakistan, at the opening of a 4-day meeting between more than 600
Pakistani and Afghan tribal leaders.
(AP, 8/9/07)
2007 Aug 9, China banned exports
by two toy manufacturers whose products were subject to major recalls
in the United States.
(AP, 8/9/08)
2007 Aug 9, A government news
agency reported that 2 former bank employees were sentenced to death
for stealing $6.7 million from their branch's vault in northern China.
Most of the money was spent on lottery tickets.
(AP, 8/9/07)
2007 Aug 9, The death toll from
the worst monsoon floods to hit South Asia in decades passed 2,000 even
as torrents of muddy water receded from millions of acres of farmland
and rains shifted west.
(AFP, 8/9/07)
2007 Aug 9, Newly declassified
documents said Canadian intelligence officials suspected that Maher
Arar, a Syrian-born Canadian citizen detained by the US in 2002 as a
terror suspect and deported, had been sent to a third country for
torture as part of the CIA's "extraordinary rendition" program. Arar
was detained in September 2002 by US authorities during a flight
stopover in New York while returning home to Canada from a vacation in
Tunisia.
(AP, 8/10/07)
2007 Aug 9, In Canada 2 people
were killed and six people wounded in an early-morning shooting in a
Vancouver restaurant.
(Reuters, 8/9/07)
2007 Aug 9, In Ecuador Venezuelan
President Hugo Chavez offered to help Ecuador build a $5 billion oil
refinery, as the socialist leader pledged to spread his government's
oil wealth to another South American ally.
(AP, 8/10/07)
2007 Aug 9, Iranian officials told
Iraqi PM Nouri al-Maliki that they were doing everything they could to
help stabilize his nation, but only a US pullout would bring true peace.
(AP, 8/9/07)
2007 Aug 9, In Iraq tens of
thousands of Shiite pilgrims converged on a golden-domed shrine in
northern Baghdad. 7 pilgrims were killed and four wounded when gunmen
in a speeding car opened fire and threw hand grenades at them as they
were en route to Baghdad from the Dabouniyah area. Gunmen fired on
Iraqi soldiers guarding pilgrims in the predominantly Sunni
neighborhood of Yarmouk in western Baghdad, prompting a battle and
panic that left one attacker dead and one soldier and three pilgrims
wounded. A bomb exploded near the house of a Shiite family, killing a
man and his wife, and wounding three, including a 5-year-old child, in
the religiously mixed neighborhood of Baiyaa in western Baghdad. 2
British soldiers were killed and two others were seriously wounded when
a roadside bomb hit their convoy north of the Rumaylah oil fields west
of Basra.
(AP, 8/9/07)
2007 Aug 9, Lithuanian military
leaders welcomed home its small contingent of combat troops from Iraq.
The 50 troops were withdrawn last week from the southern Iraqi city of
Basra, where they had been serving under Danish command. Lithuania also
has 137 soldiers and officers deployed in Afghanistan. In June
lawmakers approved plans to send 420 troops to the Middle East, the
Balkans, the trans-Caucasus republics and other locations.
(AP, 8/9/07)
2007 Aug 9, A disaster management
agency said more than 520,000 people need urgent food aid in Mozambique
while 600,000 face famine between now and April next year.
(AP, 8/9/07)
2007 Aug 9, President Gen. Pervez
Musharraf decided against declaring a state of emergency in Pakistan
and will press ahead with plans to hold free and fair elections.
(AP, 8/9/07)
2007 Aug 9, In the Philippines Abu
Sayyaf extremists ambushed a truckload of troops going to market, then
fought a gunbattle with soldiers in pursuit. The death toll included 25
soldiers and 27 militants on the volatile southern island of Jolo.
(AP, 8/9/07)(AP, 8/10/07)
2007 Aug 9, A small airplane
plunged into the sea moments after taking off from the French
Polynesian resort island of Moorea, apparently killing all 20 people
aboard in the territory's worst-ever plane crash.
(AP, 8/10/07)
2007 Aug 9, Officials said a total
of 28 people died and hundreds of homes were destroyed by a series of
forest fires which swept through parts of South Africa and Swaziland
since the end of last month.
(AP, 8/9/07)
2007 Aug 9, The International
Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies more than doubled
its Sudan floods appeal to almost 5.5 million Swiss francs (4.6 million
dollars, 3.3 million euros) after flood waters rose above levels set in
1988.
(AP, 8/9/07)
2008 Aug 9, In SF the 10th annual
Gumball 3000 Rally, an 8-day, 3,000 mile trip across the West Coast,
North Korea and China, began with a parade that included some 100
participants who had apparently paid the $120,000 entrance fee.
(SSFC, 8/10/08, p.B3)
2008 Aug 9, Bernie Mac (50), the
actor and comedian, died in Chicago. He had teamed up in the casino
heist caper "Ocean's Eleven" and gained a prestigious Peabody Award for
his sitcom "The Bernie Mac Show."
(AP, 8/9/08)
2008 Aug 9, Mahmoud Darwish (67),
a Palestinian poet, died, died in Houston. His poetry eloquently told
of his people's experiences of exile, occupation and infighting.
(AP, 8/10/08)(Econ, 8/23/08, p.75)
2008 Aug 9, In Afghanistan
airstrikes and clashes north of Kabul killed 11 people, some of whom
were believed to be civilians.
(AP, 8/10/08)
2008 Aug 9, In Algeria a suicide
car bomb attack on security forces killed at least eight people and
injured 19 others in the coastal town of Zemmouri el Bahri, east of
Algiers, the second such blast this month.
(AFP, 8/10/08)
2008 Aug 9, AU spokesman
El-Ghassim Wane said the African Union has frozen Mauritania's
membership in the wake of a coup in the country.
(AP, 8/9/08)
2008 Aug 9, In northeast England
Xi Zhou and Zhen Xing Yang, both 25, were found murdered with serious
head injuries in Newcastle.
(AFP, 8/11/08)
2008 Aug 9, In Burkina Faso heavy
rains caused a mudslide at an illegal gold mine that killed at least 31
people.
(SSFC, 8/10/08, p.A4)
2008 Aug 9, Tang Yongming (47), a
knife-wielding Chinese man, attacked two relatives of a coach for the
US Olympic men's volleyball team at a tourist site in Beijing, killing
Todd Bachman (62) and injuring his wife on the first day of the
Olympics. Yongming then committed suicide by throwing himself from the
second story of the site, the 13th century Drum Tower just five miles
from the main Olympics site.
(AP, 8/9/08)(SFC, 8/11/08, p.A12)
2008 Aug 9, Georgia, the third
largest contributor to the U.S.-led coalition in Iraq, said it's
pulling out its 2,000-strong contingent from Iraq to join the fighting
in the breakaway province of South Ossetia.
(AP, 8/9/08)
2008 Aug 9, Separatist forces in
Georgia's breakaway province of Abkhazia launched air and artillery
strikes to drive Georgian troops from their bridgehead in the region.
The Abkhazian move was prompted by Georgia's military action to regain
control over another breakaway province, South Ossetia.
(AP, 8/9/08)
2008 Aug 9, In northeastern
Guatemala robbers armed with machetes hacked a US tourist to death and
seriously wounded his wife in an attack aboard the couple's sailboat on
Lake Izabal.
(AP, 8/10/08)
2008 Aug 9, In India an official
said monsoon rains had crumpled homes and triggered flash floods in
southern India, killing 18 people. Floods, mudslides, house collapses
and lightning strikes have killed at least 184 people across the
country so far this year.
(AP, 8/9/08)
2008 Aug 9, In Iraq a bodyguard
who works for Youth and Sports minister Jassim Mohammed Ja'afar was
gunned down outside his home near the city of Kirkuk. Unidentified
gunmen shot dead a 50-year-old woman outside her home in the al-Maamoun
district in Mosul.
(AP, 8/9/08)
2008 Aug 9, Russia sent hundreds
of tanks and troops into the separatist province of South Ossetia and
bombed Georgian towns in a major escalation of the conflict that has
left scores of civilians dead and wounded. Russian Foreign Minister
Sergey Lavrov told reporters in Moscow that some 1,500 people have been
killed, with the death toll rising. Russian military aircraft bombed
the Georgian town of Gori. Georgia's President Mikhail Saakashvili
proposed a cease-fire. As part of his proposal, Georgian troops were
pulled out of Tskhinvali and had been ordered to stop responding to
Russian shelling.
(AP, 8/9/08)
2008 Aug 9, In Sri Lanka air force
fighter jets pounded a Tamil Tiger supply base and an intelligence
operation center deep in rebel-held Mullaitivu district. Separately,
helicopter gunships overnight hit a radio center operated by the Sea
Tigers. Scattered battles in Vavuniya killed 16 rebels and one soldier
while three rebels died in Mullaitivu. Separate clashes killed five
insurgents in Welioya and Jaffna.
(AP, 8/9/08)(AP, 8/10/08)
2008 Aug 9, Syria said it would
bar UN nuclear investigators from revisiting a site bombed by Israeli
jets on suspicion it was a secretly built atomic reactor.
(AP, 8/9/08)
2008 Aug 9, Disaster officials
said landslides and floods killed at least 101 people in northern
Vietnam, covering the homes of some victims as they slept in their beds.
(AP, 8/10/08)(WSJ, 8/12/08, p.A8)
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