Today in History - September 12
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490 BCE Sep 12, Athenian and
Plataean Hoplites commanded by General Miltiades drove back a Persian
invasion force under General Datis at Marathon. [see Sep 9]
(HN, 9/12/98)
352 CE Sep 12, Maximinus van Trier, bishop of Trier,
saint, died.
(MC, 9/12/01)
1015 Sep 12, Lambert I with the
Beard, count of Leuven, died in battle at about age 65.
(MC, 9/12/01)
1185 Sep 12, Andronicus I
Comnenus, Byzantine emperor (1183-85), was lynched.
(MC, 9/12/01)
1213 Sep 12, Simon de Montfort
defeated Raymond of Toulouse and Peter II of Aragon at Muret, France.
(HN, 9/12/98)
1494 Sep 12, Francois I of
Valois-Angoulome, king of France (1515-47), was born.
(MC, 9/12/01)
1556 Sep 12, Emperor Charles
resigned and his brother Ferdinand of Austria took over. Charles V
resigned and ended his days in a Spanish monastery. He bequeathed Spain
to his son Philip II, and the Holy Roman Empire to his brother
Ferdinand I. A few years of peace in Europe followed. The event formed
the basis for a later historical play by Friedrich Schiller, which was
in turn used by Verdi for his opera "Don Carlos."
(TL-MB, 1988, p.19)(WSJ, 3/21/96, p.A-12)(MC,
9/12/01)
1591 Sep 12, Richard Grenville
(b.1542), English vice-admiral and cousin of Sir. Walter Ralegh
(Raleigh), died in battle against Spanish ships at age 49. He made 2
voyages to Roanoke Island in 1585 and 1586.
(MC, 9/12/01)(www.nps.gov/fora/grenville.htm)
1609 Sep 12, English
explorer Henry Hudson sailed his ship, the Half Moon, into the river
that later took his name. Hudson sailed for the Dutch East India
Company in search of the Northwest Passage, a water route linking the
Atlantic and Pacific Oceans.
(AP, 9/12/97)(Econ, 7/4/09, p.28)
1612 Sep 12, Russia’s Tsar Vasili
IV (b.1552) died.
(www.etoile.co.uk/Romanov/Timeline.html)
1624 Sep 12, The 1st submarine was
tested in London.
(MC, 9/12/01)
1642 Sep 12, Cinq Mars, French
plotter, was executed.
(MC, 9/12/01)
1662 Sep 12, Gov. Berkley of
Virginia was denied his attempts to repeal the Navigation Acts.
(HN, 9/12/98)
1683 Sep 12, A combined Austrian
and Polish army defeated the Ottoman Turks at Kahlenberg and lifted the
siege on Vienna, Austria. The severed head of Kara Mustapha, Turkish
grand vizier, was preserved by Austria as a souvenir of the siege of
Vienna.
(WSJ, 3/27/96, p.A-16)(HN, 9/12/98)(SFEC, 2/6/00,
p.A1)
1683 Sep 12, Prince Eugene of
Savoy repelled an invasion of Vienna, Austria, by Turkish forces.
(Hem., Dec. '95, p.69)(WSJ, 3/27/96, p.A-16)
1683 Sep 12, Marco d'Aviano, sent
by Pope Innocent XI to unite the outnumbered Christian troops, spurred
them to victory. The Turks left behind sacks of coffee which the
Christians found too bitter, so they sweetened it with honey and milk
and named the drink cappuccino after the Capuchin order of monks to
which d'Aviano belonged. An Austrian baker created a crescent-shaped
roll, the Kipfel, to celebrate the victory. Empress Maria Theresa later
took it to France where it became the croissant.
(Reuters, 4/28/03)(WSJ, 6/3/03, p.D5)
1695 Sep 12, New York Jews
petitioned governor Dongan for religious liberties.
(MC, 9/12/01)
1720 Sep 12, Frederick Philipse
III, land owner (Bronx, Westchester & Putnam), was born in NYC.
(MC, 9/12/01)
1722 Sep 12, The Treaty of St.
Petersburg put an end to the Russo-Persian War.
(HN, 9/12/98)
1733 Sep 12, Francois Couperin "Le
Grand", French composer, died at 64.
(MC, 9/12/01)
1751 Sep 12, Amsterdam refused to
establish a Jewish ghetto.
(MC, 9/12/01)
1758 Sep 12, Charles Messier
observed the Crab Nebula and began a catalog.
(MC, 9/12/01)
1764 Sep 12, Jean Philippe Rameau,
French composer (Castor en Pollux), died at 80.
(MC, 9/12/01)
1776 Sep 12, Nathan Hale left
Harlem Heights Camp (127th St) for a spy mission.
(MC, 9/12/01)
1786 Sep 12, Despite his failed
efforts to suppress the American Revolution, Lord Cornwallis was
appointed governor general of India. [see Feb 24]
(HN, 9/12/98)
1789 Sep 12, Franz Xaver Richter,
composer, died at 79.
(MC, 9/12/01)
1808 Sep 12, Jose Celestino Mutis
(b.1732-1808), Spanish naturalist, died in Santa Fe de Bogote
(Colombia). He spent 40 years on his unfinished work “Flora de Nueva
Granada.”
(www.famousamericans.net/josecelestinomutis/)
1812 Sep 12, Richard March Hoe was
born in NYC. He built the first successful rotary printing press.
(HN, 9/12/00)
1814 Sep 12, A British fleet under
Sir Alexander Cochrane began the bombardment of Fort McHenry, the last
American defense before Baltimore. Lawyer Francis Scott Key had
approached the British attackers seeking the release of a friend who
was being held for unfriendly acts toward the British. Key himself was
detained overnight on September 13 and witnessed the bombardment of
Fort McHenry from a guarded American boat.
(www.nps.gov/history/history/online_books/hh/5/hh5h.htm)
1814 Sep 12, The Battle of North
Point was fought near Baltimore during War of 1812. British General
Ross was killed by a sniper’s bullet in a skirmish just prior to the
main battle. The battle proved to be strategic American victory, but
since they left the field in the hands of the British, tactically it
was a defeat for the Americans.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_North_Point)
1818 Sep 12, Richard Gatling
(d.1903), American inventor, was born. The Gatling gun, an early type
of machine gun, was named after him.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Jordan_Gatling)
1829 Sep 12, Charles Dudley
Warner, essayist and novelist who, with Mark Twain, wrote "The Guilded
Age," was born.
(HN, 9/12/98)
1836 Sep 12, Mexican authorities
crushed the revolt which broke out on August 25.
(HN, 9/12/98)
1840 Sep 12, Composer Robert
Schumann married Clara Wieck.
(MC, 9/12/01)
1857 Sep 12, A wooden-hulled
steamship, the SS Central America under Capt. William L. Herndon, sank
off the coast of Georgia. The ship carried 21 tons of gold from
California to New York and 425 of 528 passengers were drowned. The
wreck was in 8,000 feet of water and in 1987-1988 salvage operations
were begun by Tommy Thompson. He hauled in $500 million worth of gold
bars, coins and nuggets. After a court battle he was awarded 92% of the
gold. The story is told in the 1998 book "Ship of Gold in the Deep Blue
sea" by Gary Kinder. The loss of the gold sparked "The Panic of 1857."
The SS Central America sank off Cape Romain, SC.
(WSJ, 5/22/98, p.W3)(WSJ, 6/19/98, p.W9)(SFEC,
6/28/98, BR p.3)(WSJ, 12/3/99, p.W16)(WSJ, 1/28/00, p.B1)(ON, 7/01,
p.2)(MC, 9/12/01)
1860 Sep 12, William Walker
(b.1824), conqueror of Nicaragua, was convicted and executed by the
government of Honduras. The British had arrested him and turned him
over to the government. In 2008 Stephen Dando-Collins authored
“Tycoon’s War: How Cornelius Vanderbilt Invaded a Country to Overthrow
America's Most Famous Military Adventurer.”
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Walker_(soldier))(SSFC, 4/10/05,
p.F4)
1862 Sep 12, The Battle of Harpers
Ferry took place in Virginia.
(MC, 9/12/01)
1866 Sep 12, The first burlesque
show opened in NYC. The show was a four act performance called "The
Black Crow", running for 475 performances and made a reported $1.3
million for its producers.
(MC, 9/12/01)
1869 Sep 12, Peter M. Roget,
English physician and lexographer, died. In 2008 Joshua Kendall
authored “The Man Who Made Lists: Love, Death, Madness, and the
Creation of Roget’s Thesaurus” (1852).
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Roget)(WSJ,
3/22/08, p.W10)
1878 Sep 12, The Cleopatra Needle
was installed in London.
(MC, 9/12/01)
1880 Sep 12, H.L. Mencken (Henry
Louis Mencken, d.1956), American author, social satirist, was born in
Baltimore, Md. He worked for the "Baltimore Sun" and later edited the
"Smart Set" magazine with George Jean Nathan. He wrote a philological
work entitled "The American Language." Nietzschean iconoclast H.L.
Mencken referred to "Boobus Americanus" and was cynical about American
democracy. Mencken won fame as a journalist with the Baltimore Morning
Herald and Baltimore Sun, editor of The American Mercury magazine and
as a literary critic. Mencken's criticism was often directed at the
American middle class and members of what he called...the "boobeoisie
(BOOB-WA-ZEE)." Very popular in the post-WWI period, Mencken’s literary
criticism was instrumental in bringing writers such as D.H. Lawrence,
Ford Madox Ford and Sherwood Anderson to the fore.
(AP, 9/12/97)(HNQ, 6/20/98)(HN,
9/12/98)(www.todayinliterature.com)
1860 Sep 12, William Walker
(b.1824), US adventurer, was convicted and executed by the government
of Honduras. The British had arrested him and turned him over to the
government.
(SSFC, 4/10/05,
p.F4)(www.sfmuseum.org/hist1/walker.html)
1888 Sep 12, Maurice Chevalier
(d.1972), actor, was born in Paris, France.
(HN, 9/12/00)(www.jimpoz.com)
1892 Sep 12, Alfred A. Knopf,
American publisher, was born. In 1966 he received the Alexander
Hamilton Medal.
(HN, 9/12/98)(MC, 9/12/01)
1897 Sep 12, Irene Joliot-Curie,
French physicist (neutron, Nobel 1935), was born.
(MC, 9/12/01)
1898 Sep 12, Ben Shahn (d.1969),
American painter (1964 Arts & Letters), was born In Kaunas,
Lithuania.
(WSJ, 12/1/98,
p.A20)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ben_Shahn)
1902 Sep 12, The Yacolt Fire
burned 238,000 acres in Oregon and Washington and killed 38 people.
(SFC, 10/30/03, p.A15)
1906 Sep 12, Dmitri Dmitriyevich
Shostakovich, composer, was born in St. Petersburg, Russia. [see Sep 25]
(MC, 9/12/01)
1910 Sep 12, Alexander D.
Langmuir, epidemiologist, was born. He created and led the U.S.
Epidemic Intelligence Service.
(HN, 9/12/00)
1910 Sep 12, Gustav Mahler's 8th
Symphony premiered in Munich with 1028 musicians.
(MC, 9/12/01)
1913 Sep 13, Jesse Owens, track
and field athlete, was born. He was a four-gold medal winner at the
1936 Olympic games at Berlin.
(HFA, '96, p.38)(AHD, 1971, p.938)(HN, 9/12/98)
1914 Sep 12, During World War I,
the First Battle of the Marne ended in an Allied victory against
Germany.
(AP, 9/12/06)
1918 Sep 12, British troops retook
Havincourt, Moeuvres, and Trescault along the Western Front.
(HN, 9/12/98)
1918 Sep 12, During World War I,
U.S. forces led by Gen. John J. Pershing launched an attack on the
German-occupied St. Mihiel salient north of Verdun, France.
(AP, 9/12/97)
1919 Sep 12, Adolf Hitler joined
the German Worker's Party. In 2004 Robert O. Paxton authored "The
Anatomy of Fascism," on the rise and fall of Hitler and Mussolini.
(HN, 9/12/98)(SSFC, 4/4/04, p.M3)
1927 Sep 12, Sigmund Romberg's
musical "My Maryland," premiered in NYC.
(MC, 9/12/01)
1928 Sep 12, Actress Katharine
Hepburn (b.1907) made her stage debut in "The Czarina."
(MC, 9/12/01)
1931 Sep 12, Kristin Hunter,
author, was born. Her work included "God Bless the Child" and
"The Survivors."
(HN, 9/12/00)
1931 Sep 12, George Jones, country
singer, was born.
(HN, 9/12/00)
1931 Sep 12, Ian Holm, actor
(Henry V), was born in Ilford, Essex, England.
(MC, 9/12/01)
1931 Sep 12, In Honolulu, Hawaii,
Thalia Massie, wife of a Navy officer, accused 5 nonwhite island men of
gang rape. A trial that followed resulted in a hung jury. On Jan 8,
1932 a vigilante group that included the Massie’s killed, Joseph
Kahahawai, one the rape suspects.
(SFC, 5/28/05, p.E1)
1932 Sep 12, The German Reichstag
under the new chairmanship of Hermann Goring gave a vote of no
confidence to Franz von Papen and his government. Just before that vote
was taken, Papen had slapped an order on Göring's desk dissolving
the Reichstag and calling yet again for new elections.
(www.historyplace.com/worldwar2/riseofhitler/collapse.htm)
1934 Sep 12, Estonia, Latvia &
Lithuania signed the Baltic Entente in Geneva against the USSR.
(LC, 1998, p.24)(MC, 9/12/01)
1935 Sep 12, Millionaire Howard
Hughes flew his own designed plane at 352.46 mph.
(MC, 9/12/01)
1938 Sep 12, Tatiana Troyanos,
mezzo-soprano (Octavian-Der Rosenkavalier), was born in NYC.
(MC, 9/12/01)
1938 Sep 12, In a speech in
Nuremberg, Adolf Hitler demanded self-determination for the Sudeten
Germans in Czechoslovakia.
(AP, 9/12/97)
1939 Sep 12, In response to the
invasion of Poland, the French Army advanced into Germany and on this
day made their furthest penetration-five miles.
(HN, 9/12/00)
1940 Sep 12, The Lascaux Caves in
France, with their prehistoric wall paintings, were discovered in the
Dordogne region. 4 teens, following their dog down a hole near Lascaux
France discover 17,000-year-old drawings now known as Lascaux Cave
Paintings. The paintings consisting mostly of animal representations
(horses), are among the finest examples of art from the Paleolithic
period.
(SFEC, 5/30/99, p.T4)(HN, 9/12/00)(MC, 9/12/01)
1940 Sep 12, Italian forces began
an offensive into Egypt from Libya.
(HN, 9/12/98)
1941 Sep 12, The US ship Busko
captured the 1st German ship in WW II.
(MC, 9/12/01)
1942 Sep 12, Free-Poland &
Belgium asked Pope to condemn Nazi-war crimes. He did not.
(MC, 9/12/01)
1943 Sep 12, Michael Ondaatje,
Canadian novelist and poet, was born. His work included "The English
Patient."
(HN, 9/12/00)
1943 Sep 12, German paratroopers
took Benito Mussolini from the hotel where he was being held by Italian
resistance forces. Waffen-SS troops under Otto Skorzeny freed Mussolini
at Gran Sasso in the Abruzzi Mountains.
(AP, 9/12/97)(SFC, 4/25/97, p.A15)
1944 Sep 12, The second Quebec
Conference opened with President Roosevelt and British Prime Minister
Winston Churchill in attendance.
(AP, 9/12/06)
1944 Sep 12, During World War II,
U.S. Army troops entered Germany for the first time, near Trier.
(AP, 9/12/97)(HN, 9/12/98)
1944 Sep 12, A US submarine patrol
that included the USS Pampanito, the Growler and the Sealion II, came
upon a Japanese convoy carrying war material. The Japanese transport
Kachidoki Maru, carrying over 900 British soldier, was sunk by the
Pampanito. Much of the convoy was sunk including most of some 2,000
Allied prisoners of war. The subs after chasing stragglers of the
convoy returned to find 159 British and Australian survivors clinging
to wreckage [see Sep 14]. Some 1000 POWs from Australia were on the
Japanese freighter Enoura Maru sunk by the USS Sealion. Alistair
Urquhart of Scotland, a prisoner on the Kachidoki Maru, was picked up 5
days later by a Japanese whaling ship and taken to Japan, where he was
forced to work in a coal mine. Kachidoki Maru had been captured earlier
in the war as the President Harrison home ported in SF. The Pampanito
was later berthed as a visitor attraction in SF. In 2008 Urquhart (89)
visited the Pampanito.
(SFC, 5/27/97, p.A17)(SFC,12/5/97, p.C3)(SFC,
9/17/08, p.B1)
1945 Sep 12, French troops landed
in Indochina.
(HN, 9/12/98)
1949 Sep 12, Irina Rodnina, USSR,
pairs figure skater (Olympic-gold-1972, 76, 80), was born.
(MC, 9/12/01)
1952 Sep 12, Noel Coward's
"Quadrille," premiered in London.
(MC, 9/12/01)
1953 Sep 12, Senator John
Fitzgerald Kennedy (36) of Massachusetts married Jacqueline Lee Bouvier
(24).
(AP, 9/12/03)
1953 Sep 12, Nikita Khrushchev
became the 1st Secretary of USSR Communist Party. His glass and marble
Palace of Congresses obliterated the last vestiges of the 17th century
palace of Tsarina Natalie Kirilovna Naryshkina, the mother of Peter the
Great. [see Sep 13]
(MC, 9/12/01)(AM, Jul/Aug ‘97 p.33)
1954 Sep 12, Lassie premiered on
CBS-TV.
(AP, 9/12/04)
1957 Sep 12, James Vicary
(b.1915), a market researcher, announced that he had invented a new way
to get people to buy things, whether they wanted them or not. He called
it subliminal advertising and said that he had tested the process at a
New Jersey movie theater. In 1962 he admitted that his results were
fabricated in order to drum up business for his market research firm. A
subliminal projector called a tachistoscope had been used during World
War II in training soldiers to recognize enemy aircraft. A book
published in 1898 (The New Psychology by E.W. Scripture) laid out most
of the principles of subliminal response.
(WSJ, 11/5/07,
p.B1)(www.straightdope.com/classics/a1_187.html)
1957 Sep 12, Archbishop Makarios
of Cyprus visited the US.
(MC, 9/12/01)
1958 Sep 12, The science-fiction
movie "The Blob," starring Steve McQueen, billed as "Steven," was
released.
(AP, 9/12/08)
1958 Sep 12, The US Supreme Court,
in Cooper v. Aaron, unanimously ruled that Arkansas officials who were
resisting public school desegregation orders could not disregard the
high court's rulings.
(AP, 9/12/08)
1959 Sep 12, NBC launched
"Bonanza," the first color western on TV. 428 episodes were produced
and the show ran to 1973. 431 episodes were filmed at the 570-acre site
in Incline Village, Nevada. Michael Landon (d.1991) played Little Joe,
Lorne Greene (d.1987) played Ben Cartwright, and Dan Blocker (d.1972)
played Hoss. [see Jan 16, 1973]
(SFC, 9/3/98, p.A12)(SSFC, 6/9/02, p.A29)(SSFC,
8/8/04, p.D2)
1959 Sep 12, The Luna 2, a Soviet
space probe, was launched for the moon.
(SFEC, 9/28/97, p.A14)
1960 Sep 12, Democratic
presidential candidate John F. Kennedy addressed the issue of his Roman
Catholic faith, telling a Protestant group in Houston, "I do not speak
for my church on public matters, and the church does not speak for me."
(AP, 9/12/00)
1964 Sep 12, Typhoon Gloria struck
Taiwan killing 330, with $17.5 million damage.
(MC, 9/12/01)
1966 Sep 12, "The Monkees" debuted
on NBC TV. "Hey, hey we're the Monkees- and we don't monkey around."
The show ran to 1868 and won an Emmy.
(WSJ, 1/9/97, p.A8)(AP, 9/12/01)
1966 Sep 12, The situation comedy
Family Affair'' premiered on CBS.
(AP, 9/12/06)
1966 Sep 12, The Beatles received
a gold record for "Yellow Submarine."
(MC, 9/12/01)
1970 Sep 12, US professor Timothy
Leary, LSD proponent, escaped from a California jail. Leary escaped
from the State Men’s Colony in San Luis Obispo with the help of his
third wife, Rosemary and the Weather Underground. He went to Algiers
and joined Black Panther leader Eldridge Cleaver, who kidnapped the
Learys after a political disagreement. They soon escaped and made their
way to Afghanistan. In 1974 he was caught and revealed his
collaborators to the FBI.
(http://tinyurl.com/4ncp8t)(SFC, 6/1/96, p.A7)(SFC,
7/1/99, p.A9)
1970 Sep 12, The Univ. of Alabama
under coach Bear Bryant football team played against an integrated
opponent for the 1st time losing to the Univ. of Southern California
42-21.
(WSJ, 9/8/05, p.D10)
1970 Sep 12, The Soviet Union
launched its unmanned Soviet Luna 16. It was the first robotic probe to
land on the Moon and return a sample to Earth.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luna_16)
1972 Sep 12, The situation comedy
"Maude" premiered on CBS.
(AP, 9/12/02)
1974 Sep 12, The start of
court-ordered busing to achieve racial integration in Boston's public
schools was marred by violence in South Boston. The Boston
desegregation plan had been drafted by Robert Dentler (1928-2008) and
Marvin Scott of Boston Univ.
(AP, 9/12/99)(SFC, 4/8/08, p.B5)
1974 Sep 12, Haile Selassie I,
"King of Kings, Lord of Lords, and Conquering Lion of the Tribe of
Judah," was deposed by the military from the Ethiopian throne. A
military committee (known as the Dergue) was established from several
divisions of the Ethiopian Armed forces. General Aman Amdon was elected
as spokesperson for the Dergue and implemented policies for the
country, which included land distribution to peasants, nationalizing
industries and services under public ownership and led Ethiopia into
the Socialism.
(AP, 9/12/99)(http://tinyurl.com/7lnnz)
1974 Sep 12, In its 1st major
attack ETA killed 12 people with a bomb at a Madrid cafe.
(AP, 3/22/06)
1977 Sep 12, Robert Lowell
(b.1917), US poet (Near the Ocean), died of a heart attack in NYC. In
2003 Frank Bidart and David Gewanter edited "Robert Lowell: Collected
Poems." In 2005 Saskia Hamilton edited “The Letters of Robert Lowell.”
(www.kirjasto.sci.fi/rlowell.htm)(SSFC, 7/13/03,
p.M6)(Econ, 7/25/05, p.73)
1977 Sep 12, In South Africa
Steven Biko died while under police custody. He headed the Black
Consciousness Movement and was the country’s best known political
dissident. He was detained and held in Port Elizabeth and later driven
naked in a truck 700 miles to Pretoria where he died in a prison cell.
In 1997 the five police officers involved in his detention filed for
amnesty. They were retired Col. Harold Snyman, retired Lt. Col. Gideon
Nieuwoudt, Ruben Marx, Johan Beneke, and then Capt. Daantjie Siebert.
In 1999 former Detective Sgt. Gideon Nieuwoudt was denied amnesty
because he denied any crime. This killing was the breaking point and
led to international protests and a UN imposed arms embargo.
(SFC, 1/28/97, p.A7)(WSJ, 2/6/97, p.A9)(AP,
9/12/97)(SFEC, 1/10/99, p.A23)(MC, 9/12/01)
1978 Sep 12, The TV sitcom "Taxi"
premiered on ABC television.
(http://www.timvp.com/taxi.html)
1978 Sep 12, The first annual "Day
of Martyrs" was held in South Africa to remember those who gave their
lives in the struggle against apartheid.
(http://tinyurl.com/3xydbn)
1980 Sep 12, Yao Ming was born in
Shanghai, China. He grew to 7’6’’ and in 2002 was drafted to play for
the Houston Rockets basketball team.
(SSFC, 5/22/05, p.24)
1980 Sep 12, Turkish military took
over in coup after factional fighting. All political parties were
abolished. Gen. Kenan Evren led a bloodless coup in response to years
of street battles between left and right-wing radical groups that left
some 5,000 dead.
(AP,
11/4/02)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1980_Turkish_coup_d'%C3%A9tat)
1981 Sep 12, George Leong, poet,
organized the first Annual Asian American Jazz Festival.
(SFC, 5/12/96, p.C-1)
1981 Sep 12, The TV show "People's
Court" (1981-1993) premiered with retired Judge Joseph Wopner
premiered. Rusty Burrell was the bailiff (d.2002).
(www.tv.com/the-peoples-court/show/12330/summary.html)(SFC, 4/20/02,
p.A23)
1983 Sep 12, Filiberto Ojeda Rios
(d.2005), a Puerto Rican nationalist leader, was involved in the
robbery of a Connecticut armored truck. It was considered an act of
domestic terrorism because the money was used to fund activities by the
Puerto Rican nationalist Macheteros, or Cane Cutters. Only about
$80,000 of the $7 million was recovered. In 2005 Rios was shot and
killed by FBI agents in Puerto Rico
(www.amw.com/fugitives/case.cfm?id=24432). In 2008 Avelino Gonzalez
Claudio (65), a Puerto Rican militant suspected in the Connecticut
robbery, was arrested in Puerto Rico, where he lived quietly under an
assumed name.
(http://tinyurl.com/2rju8s)(AP, 9/25/05)(AP, 2/8/08)
1983 Sep 12, The USSR vetoed a UN
resolution deploring its shooting down of South Korea’s KAL flight 007
plane.
(www.globalpolicy.org/security/membship/veto/vetosubj.htm)
1986 Sep 12, Joseph Cicippio, the
acting comptroller at the American University in Beirut, was kidnapped;
he was released in December 1991.
(AP, 9/12/97)
1986 Sep 12, Frank Nelson
(b.1911), actor (Jack Benny Show), died in Hollywood, Ca.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Nelson)
1986 Sep 12, The United States
released Soviet physicist Gennady Zakharov. On Sep 29 the Soviet Union
released journalist Nicholas Daniloff. Both had been accused of
espionage.
(http://www.russianlife.net/article.cfm?Number=407)(AP, 9/29/01)
1987 Sep 12, Reports surfaced that
Democratic presidential candidate Joseph Biden had borrowed, without
attribution, passages of a speech by British Labor Party leader Neil
Kinnock for one of his own campaign speeches. The Kinnock report, along
with other damaging revelations, prompted Biden to drop his White House
bid.
(AP, 9/12/97)
1988 Sep 12, Hurricane Gilbert,
called the storm of the century, smashed into the Gulf coast. It
slammed into Jamaica with torrential rains and winds of 145 mph,
killing 45 people and causing damage estimated at up to $1 billion. It
also devastated the Yucatan peninsula and left 225 people dead. The
storm hit the Dominican Republic, Haiti, Jamaica, Cuba, Cayman Islands
and Mexico before striking Texas.
(NOHY, 3/90, p.181)(AP, 9/12/97)(SFC, 10/10/97,
p.A15)
1989 Sep 12, David Dinkins,
Manhattan borough president, won New York City's Democratic mayoral
primary, defeating incumbent Mayor Ed Koch and two other candidates on
his way to becoming the city's first black mayor.
(AP, 9/12/99)
1990 Sep 12, The TV drama
“Gabriel’s Fire” premiered with James Earl Jones as Gabriel Bird.
(LSA, Fall, 2007,
p.27)(www.imdb.com/title/tt0098801/)
1990 Sep 12, Representatives of
the World War Two allies and West and East Germany signed the Two Plus
Four Treaty in Moscow giving international sanction to German unity.
(AP,
9/12/00)(www.foothill.fhda.edu/divisions/unification/finalset.html)
1991 Sep 12, Saying Middle East
peace negotiations might be in jeopardy, President Bush told reporters
he would use his veto authority, if necessary, to delay action on
Israel's call for $10 billion in housing loan guarantees.
(AP, 9/12/01)
1991 Sep 12, The space shuttle
Discovery blasted off on a mission to deploy an observatory designed to
study the Earth's ozone layer.
(AP, 9/12/01)
1992 Sep 12, The space shuttle
Endeavour blasted off, carrying with it Mark Lee and Jan Davis, the
first married couple in space; Mae Jemison, the first black woman in
space; and Mamoru Mohri, the first Japanese citizen to fly on a U.S.
spaceship.
(AP, 9/12/97)
1992 Sep 12, Actor Anthony Perkins
died from AIDS in Hollywood at age 60.
(AP, 9/12/97)(www.imdb.com/name/nm0000578/bio)
1992 Sep 12, Ed Peck, actor (Zoot
Suit, Bullitt), died of heart attack at 75.
(www.imdb.com/name/nm0669653/)
1992 Sep 12, In Peru the Shining
Path guerilla leader Abimael Guzman was captured by police chief Ketin
Vidal with help from a CIA operative nick-named “Superman.” Oscar
Ramirez, aka Feliciano, took over the leadership. Guzman, a former
philosophy professor, was tried by a military court and sentenced to
life in jail. The verdict was overturned in Jan 2003.
(SFE, 9/17/96, p.A11)(SFC, 7/14/99, p.C10)(SFC,
12/8/00, p.A20)(Econ, 10/30/04, p.44)
1993 Sep 12, The space shuttle
Discovery blasted off from Cape Canaveral on a 10-day mission.
(AP, 9/12/98)
1993 Sep 12, Actor Raymond Burr
(76) died of liver cancer at his Northern California ranch.
(AP, 9/12/98)
1994 Sep 12, A stolen,
single-engine Cessna crashed into the South Lawn of the White House,
coming to rest against the executive mansion; the pilot, Frank Corder,
was killed.
(AP, 9/12/99)
1994 Sep 12, Tom Ewell (S. Yewell
Tompkins), US actor (7 Year Itch), died at 85.
(www.imdb.com/name/nm0263885/)
1994 Sep 12, In Canada the Parti
Quebecois won a parliamentary election.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quebec_general_election,_1994)
1995 Sep 12, The Belarussian
military border guards shot down a hydrogen balloon during an
international race, killing its two American pilots.
(SFC, 9/2/96, p.A12)(AP, 9/12/00)
1995 Sep 12, Jeremy Brett, English
actor (Sherlock Holmes), died at 59.
(www.imdb.com/name/nm0107950/)
1996 Sep 12, Last-minute
intervention by Republican presidential candidate Bob Dole led to
Senate postponement of action on a treaty designed to eliminate
chemical weapons. President Clinton said the agreement was threatened
by "a bitter partisan debate."
(AP, 9/12/97)
1996 Sep 12, The first
African-American civil War memorial was dedicated in Washington DC.
(SFC, 9/11/96, p.C1)
1996 Sep 12, The Turkish
government agreed to allow some 2,500 Iraqi Kurds, former US employees
and their families, to enter Turkey and be evacuated to the US.
(SFC, 9/13/96, p.A13)
1996 Sep 12, In Columbia
government officials promised to halt forcible destruction of small
coca plantations for the time being in order to end protests.
(SFC, 9/13/96, p.A13)
1997 Sep 12, Pres. Clinton named
Dr. David Satcher, 56, as the new surgeon general.
(SFC, 9/13/97, p.A20)
1997 Sep 12, With little to show
after three days of shuttle diplomacy, Secretary of State Madeleine
Albright declared she wouldn't return to the Mideast until Israeli and
Palestinian leaders made the "hard decisions" necessary to restart
peace talks.
(AP, 9/12/98)
1997 Sep 12, Senate Foreign
Relations Chairman Jesse Helms, exercising iron control, prevented any
committee hearing on William Weld's nomination to be ambassador to
Mexico.
(AP, 9/12/98)
1997 Sep 12, Edwin Lawrence
Njuguna of Kenya was stabbed to death in Napa, Calif., after being
dragged with two friends from a car by skinheads.
(SFC, 10/1/97, p.A12)
1997 Sep 12, It was reported that
Comoros government troops under Pres. Mohamed Taki were routed on
Anjouan and half of a force of 300 were killed or captured by people
who demanded to be French again.
(SFC, 9/12/97, p.A12)
1997 Sep 12, In southeast Congo a
plane crashed enroute to a religious meeting. All 20 aboard were killed.
(SFEC, 9/14/97, p.A24)
1997 Sep 12, The Chinese Communist
Party Congress opened under Pres. Jiang Zemin and embraced a program of
bold economic reform. The event was held every 5 years. Jiang Zemin was
expected to stay as general-secretary. The positions of Li Peng and
Qiao Shi were in question. Jiang issued a call to use layoffs,
bankruptcies, shareholding and other capitalist policies to attack the
nation’s industrial ills.
(SFC, 8/28/97, p.C2)(SFC, 9/13/97, p.A8)(SFC,
9/15/97, p.A10)
1997 Sep 12, In Mexico a crowd of
tens of thousands rallied in the central square of Mexico City in
support of the Zapatista movement.
(SFEC, 9/14/97, p.A24)
1998 Sep 12, Sammy Sosa of the
Chicago Cubs became the fourth major league baseball player to hit 60
home runs in a single season.
(AP, 9/12/99)
1998 Sep 12, Lindsay Davenport won
the U.S. Open, defeating defending champion Martina Hingis, 6-3, 7-5.
(AP, 9/12/99)
1998 Sep 12, The White House
responded to Kenneth Starr's graphic report on President Clinton by
calling it a "hit-and-run smear campaign."
(AP, 9/12/03)
1998 Sep 12, Leaders of striking
pilots at Northwest Airlines ratified a new contract, ending a walkout
that began August 28.
(AP, 9/12/03)
1998 Sep 12, In Albania Democratic
Party leader Azem Hajdari (35) was assassinated.
(WSJ, 9/14/98, p.A1)(USAT, 9/15/98, p.12A)(SFC,
9/14/98, p.A12)
1998 Sep 12, In Chile the
anniversary of the 1973 coup was marked by weekend clashes with police
and 2 people were killed and 77 injured.
(WSJ, 9/14/98, p.A1)
1998 Sep 12, In Israel as many as
100,000 people rallied in Tel Aviv demanding that the government move
the peace process forward.
(SFEC, 10/4/98, p.T11)
1999 Sep 12, "The Practice" and
"Ally McBeal," both created by writer-producer David E. Kelley, were
named best drama series and best comedy series at the 51st Emmy Awards.
(AP, 9/12/00)
1999 Sep 12, Andre Agassi captured
his second US Open title, dominating Todd Martin 6-4, 6-7 (5-7), 6-7
(2-7), 6-3, 6-2.
(AP, 9/12/00)
1999 Sep 12, In Bangladesh police
clashed with protestors seeking the resignation of Prime Minister
Hasina. Opposition parties called for a 3-day general strike.
(WSJ, 9/13/99, p.A1)
1999 Sep 12, In Dagestan Russian
troops seized control of the villages of Karamakhi and Chabanmakhi.
(SFC, 9/13/99, p.A13)
1999 Sep 12, In Indonesia Pres.
Habibie under intense international pressure said he will allow armed
foreign peacekeepers into East Timor. Reports had reached Jakarta that
troops had attacked 30,000 people in the seminary town of Dare.
(SFC, 9/13/99, p.A1,10)(AP, 9/12/00)
1999 Sep 12, North Korea agreed
indirectly to freeze its missile testing program.
(SFC, 9/13/99, p.A10)
2000 Sep 12, Hillary Rodham became
the first first lady to win an election as she claimed victory in the
New York Democratic Senate primary, defeating little-known opponent Dr.
Mark McMahon.
(AP, 9/12/01)
2000 Sep 12, Chase Manhattan
agreed to acquire J.P. Morgan for about $36 billion in stock.
(WSJ, 9/13/00, p.A1)
2000 Sep 12, Stanley Turrentine,
saxophonist, died at age 66.
(SFC, 9/13/00, p.A23)
2000 Sep 12, A series of clashes
between police and protesters marred a generally peaceful second day of
the three-day Asia-Pacific Economic Summit in Melbourne, Australia.
(AP, 9/12/01)
2000 Sep 12, The EU lifted
diplomatic sanctions against Austria.
(SFC, 9/13/00, p.A12)
2000 Sep 12, In Chechnya a truck
bomb killed a woman and her daughter in the Oktyabrsky market in Grozny.
(SFC, 9/14/00, p.C7)
2000 Sep 12, In the Netherlands a
bill was passed that converted same-sex partnerships into full-fledged
marriages.
(SFC, 9/13/00, p.A12)
2000 Sep 12, In Zimbabwe the stock
exchange made a record 500 point gain after the IMF announced that it
would not resume financial assistance. The official inflation was 53.6%
and local cash could not be moved out of the country.
(WSJ, 9/15/00, p.A17)
2001 Sep 12, Pres. Bush called
Tuesday’s terrorist attacks "acts of war." Stunned rescue workers
continued to search for bodies in the World Trade Center's smoking
rubble a day after a terrorist attack that shut down the financial
capital, badly damaged the Pentagon and left thousands dead. The US
began building a broad int’l. coalition for a possible military
retaliation against those responsible for the terrorist attacks on Sep
11. Federal authorities said followers of Osama bin Laden were
responsible for airline hijackings directed at NYC and the Pentagon.
The US air system remained grounded and financial markets closed.
(SFC, 9/13/01, p.A1,16)(AP, 9/12/02)
2001 Sep 12, The FAA gave airlines
a 3-page security directive to guard against further terrorist attacks.
It included a ban on curbside checking and effectively eliminated the
jobs of thousands of skycaps.
(WSJ, 9/13/01, p.A1)(WSJ, 9/17/01, p.A6)
2001 Sep 12, In Afghanistan
Mohammad Omar, the Taliban leader, went into hiding. The Taliban
military repositioned weaponry in anticipation of a US strike.
(SFC, 9/13/01, p.A12)
2001 Sep 12, An Israeli woman was
killed by a Palestinian shooting ambush in the West Bank.
(SFC, 9/13/01, p.A12)
2001 Sep 12, In Mexico a
twin-engine LET 410 plane crashed in the Yucatan and all 19 people
aboard were killed. The 16 passengers were all Seattle-area tourists on
a Holland America cruise.
(SFC, 9/13/01, p.C3)(SFC, 9/14/01, p.A32)
2001 Sep 12, In Nigeria fighting
resumed in Jos and the death toll estimate was raised to 165. Police
moved to quell the violence.
(SFC, 9/13/01, p.C2)
2002 Sep 12, Pres. Bush addressed
the UN and laid out his case against Iraq's Pres. Saddam Hussein. Bush
told skeptical world leaders at the United Nations to confront the
"grave and gathering danger" of Saddam Hussein's Iraq, or to stand
aside as the United States acted. Bush was expected to announce US
plans to rejoin Unesco, headquartered in Paris. France favored a demand
for weapons inspectors in Iraq along with force if Iraq resisted.
(WSJ, 9/12/02, p.A1,4)(SFC, 9/13/02, p.A1)(AP,
9/12/03)
2002 Sep 12, L. Dennis Kozlowski
(55), former CEO of Tyco Int'l. was indicted along with Mark Swartz,
financial adviser, for a $600 million racketeering scheme. 3 former
Tyco International executives were charged with looting the
conglomerate of hundreds of millions of dollars; all three pleaded
innocent at their arraignment in New York.
(SFC, 9/13/02, p.B1)(AP, 9/12/03)(WSJ, 10/30/03,
p.C1)
2002 Sep 12, Tahitian authorities
found a 55-foot catamaran, the Hakuna Matata, that belonged to former
NBA star Bison Dele (b.1969 as Brian Carson Williams). His brother,
Kevin Williams (Miles Dabord) was seen docking the catamaran on July 16
in Taravao, Tahiti. Williams met his girlfriend on July 8 in Papeete
and described a scuffle that left 3 people dead. He was last seen Sept.
5 in Phoenix, when he tried to pick up an order for $500,000 in
American Double Eagle coins using his brother's passport. A comatose
Williams was arrested Sep 19 at a San Diego hospital and died Sep 27.
(SFC, 9/14/02, p.A15)(SFC, 9/17/02, p.A1)(SFC,
9/19/02, p.A7)(SFC, 9/20/02, p.A1)(SFC, 9/21/02, p.A1)(SFC, 9/28/02,
p.A5)
2002 Sep 12, In Maine 14 guest
workers from Honduras and Guatemala were drowned when their van fell
off a bridge into the Allagash Wilderness Waterway.
(SFC, 9/13/02, p.A3)
2002 Sep 12, The World Bank
pledged $120 million to help Angola rebuild after more than two decades
of civil war, but told its leaders they must take measures to dispel
suspicion of high-level corruption.
(AP, 9/12/02)
2002 Sep 12, In western Guatemala
heavy rains loosened a mountainside, burying about 30 homes and killing
at least 17 people. Officials said that nearly two dozen others were
missing.
(AP, 9/13/02)
2002 Sep 12, In Nicaragua
prosecutors have filed new corruption charges against Amelia Aleman,
sister of former President Arnoldo Aleman, accusing her of embezzling
funds from a state-owned construction company and ordering its work
force to handle her private home-improvement projects.
(AP, 9/13/02)
2003 Sep 12, A climate prediction
experiment, expected to involve two million people around the world,
was launched. The program, downloaded from (www.climateprediction.net)
and ran on an ordinary desktop or laptop computer.
(Reuters, 9/11/03)
2003 Sep 12, Johnny Cash (71),
singer, died. His rough, unsteady voice championed the downtrodden and
reached across generations with songs like "Ring of Fire," "I Walk the
Line" and "Folsom Prison Blues."
(AP, 9/12/03)(SFC, 9/13/03, p.A12)
2003 Sep 12, In Colombia 4
Israelis, 2 Britons, a German and a Spaniard were kidnapped near
archaeological ruins high in the Sierra Nevada, about 465 miles north
of Bogota. 2 of the tourists were freed Nov 24. The other 4 were
released Dec 22. In 2004 the German government billed Reinhilt Weigel
$17,630 to cover the cost of a helicopter used to bring her part of the
way home, after she was released by rebels. In 2009 she lost her appeal.
(AP, 9/15/03)(WSJ, 11/25/03, p.A1)(AP,
12/23/03)(SFC, 5/29/09, p.A2)
2003 Sep 12, In Bombay (Mumbai),
India, police shot and killed a man believed to have masterminded car
bombings in Bombay last month that killed 53 people. Naseer and his
aide were traveling in a car that carried explosives, guns and
detonators when police intercepted it.
(AP, 9/12/03)
2003 Sep 12, US soldiers
mistakenly opened fire on uniformed Iraqi policemen chasing highway
bandits at night, killing eight officers and a Jordanian security guard
in Fallujah.
(AP, 9/12/04)
2003 Sep 12, The Palestinians
urged the UN Security Council to demand that Israel not expel Yasser
Arafat and halt any threats to his safety.
(AP, 9/12/03)
2003 Sep 12, In Portugal's Madeira
Islands a small airplane crashed into the sea, apparently killing all
nine people on board. The Beechcraft 200 was carrying eight Spaniards
and a British pilot from the islands off northwest Africa to the
southern Spanish city of Malaga.
(AP, 9/12/03)
2003 Sep 12, In Rwanda Paul Kagame
took the oath of office as the nation's first popularly elected
president since the 1994 genocide.
(AP, 9/12/03)
2003 Sep 12, Typhoon Maemi, the
most powerful ever to ever hit South Korea, flipped over a floating
hotel, twisted massive cranes, killed at least 117 people. The main
port of Busan reported $1.3 billion in damage.
(WSJ, 9/16/03, p.A1)(AP, 9/13/04)
2003 Sep 12, The UN Security
Council lifted 11-year-old sanctions on Libya after Moammar Gadhafi's
government took responsibility for bombing a Pan Am jet over Scotland
and agreed to pay the victims' families $2.7 billion.
(AP, 9/12/03)
2004 Sep 12, The US fiscal gap,
measured as future receipts minus future obligations, was reported to
be between $40 and 72 trillion. The debt portended a severe economic
decline or financial collapse.
(SSFC, 9/12/04, p.A1)
2004 Sep 12, US Airways filed for
bankruptcy protection for the second time in two years.
(AP, 9/12/05)
2004 Sep 12, In Columbus, Ohio, a
suspected arson fire in an apartment complex left 10 people dead.
(SFC, 9/13/04, p.A3)
2004 Sep 12, Jerome Chodorov (93),
playwright, died in Nyack, N.Y.
(AP, 9/12/05)
2004 Sep 12, In southern
Afghanistan US forces backed by helicopter gunships killed 22
insurgents, including 3 Arab fighters.
(AP, 9/13/04)(SFC, 9/14/04, p.A7)
2004 Sep 12, In Heart,
Afghanistan, mobs loyal to Gov. Khan burned a half dozen int’l. aid
compounds and as many as 7 people were killed.
(SFC, 9/13/04, p.A3)(WSJ, 9/13/04, p.A1)
2004 Sep 12, Hurricane Ivan
skirted Grand Cayman with winds near 155 mph as it churned toward Cuba.
The storm has been blamed for 56 deaths across the Caribbean so far,
including 34 in Grenada and 11 in Jamaica.
(AP, 9/12/04)
2004 Sep 12, People in Hong Kong
turned out in large numbers for a legislative election, many venting
anger at their leaders and hoping to hand pro-democracy opposition
politicians unprecedented clout in the Chinese territory. Pro-democracy
opposition figures gained more clout in Hong Kong's legislature with
three new seats, but they fell short of expectations.
(AP, 9/12/04)(AP, 9/13/04)
2004 Sep 12, Militants pounded
central Baghdad with intense mortar barrages, targeting the Green Zone
and destroying a U.S. vehicle along a major street. At least 25 people
were killed, including an Arab television journalist, some of them when
a US helicopter fired at crowds around the burning vehicle. The death
toll across Iraq reached 59.
(AP, 9/12/04)(SFC, 9/13/04, p.A1)
2004 Sep 12, Three Polish soldiers
were killed in Iraq when they were attacked with grenades and
machine-gun fire as they returned to their base from a demining
operation.
(AP, 9/12/04)
2004 Sep 12, Pakistani security
forces and militants clashed in fighting that killed at least nine
people in the mountains near the Afghan border.
(AP, 9/13/04)
2005 Sep 12, Michael Brown, the
director of the US Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), resigned
after being recalled to Washington amid criticism of the federal
response to Hurricane Katrina. Officials reported that 45 bodies were
found at Memorial Hospital in New Orleans. This raised the official
death toll from Hurricane Katrina in Louisiana to 280.
(Reuters, 9/12/05)(SFC, 9/13/05, p.A8)
2005 Sep 12, At the start of his
confirmation hearing, US Supreme Court nominee John Roberts pledged to
judge with humility and without fear or favor'' if approved as the
nation's 17th chief justice.
(AP, 9/12/06)
2005 Sep 12, In California worker
error at Toluca Lake caused a power outage in the LA area. Most of the
power was restored within 90 minutes.
(SFC, 9/13/05, p.A3)
2005 Sep 12, Oracle Corp.
confirmed that CEO Larry Ellison would pay $100 million to a charity to
settle charges of insider trading.
(SFC, 9/13/05, p.D1)
2005 Sep 12, EBay has agreed to
buy fast-growing Internet start-up Skype for up to $4.1 billion in cash
and shares, in a move to tap new sources of growth and add free Web
telephone calls to its online auctions. Niklos Zennstrom of Sweden and
Janus Friis of Denmark founded Skype using a programming team from
Estonia.
(AP, 9/12/05)(Econ, 9/17/05, p.69)
2005 Sep 12, Business software
maker Oracle Corp. is buying its struggling rival Siebel Systems Inc.
for about $5.85 billion, continuing a recent shopping spree that has
eliminated two of its biggest competitors in nine months.
(AP, 9/12/05)
2005 Sep 12, An official said
China will no longer consider death tolls and other relevant
information about natural disasters to be state secrets in a move aimed
at boosting government transparency.
(AP, 9/12/05)
2005 Sep 12, In Colombia Porfirio
Ramirez (42) and his son, Linsen Ramirez (22), hijacked a
Colombian airline. The father in a wheelchair dodged a checkpoint and
smuggled grenades onto a plane. All passengers and crew were eventually
freed unharmed. The elder hijacker said he hijacked the plane to bring
attention to a case in which he was partially paralyzed by a police
bullet during a raid on his house some 14 years ago and had
unsuccessfully sought government compensation.
(AP, 9/13/05)
2005 Sep 12, An international
environmental group warned that only 887 hippos are left in Congo, and
that they will be extinct in the African country. The latest aerial
survey puts the hippopotamus population in northeastern Congo's Virunga
National Park down to under 1,000 animals, compared to some 29,000 in
1974.
(AP, 9/12/05)
2005 Sep 12, President Jacques
Chirac, following a weeklong hospital stay, met with India's PM Singh.
(AP, 9/12/05)
2005 Sep 12, The new Hong Kong
Disneyland theme park on Lantau Island opened. Zeng Qinghong, China’s
vice-president, presided over opening ceremonies.
(SSFC, 9/18/05, p.C2)(Econ, 9/17/05, p.44)
2005 Sep 12, A huge car bomb
exploded outside a popular restaurant in Baghdad's upscale Mansour
neighborhood. At least one person was killed and 17 were wounded.
(AP, 9/12/05)
2005 Sep 12, In Japan PM Junichiro
Koizumi's triumph in parliamentary polls handed the leader a new
mandate to harness his revitalized ruling party and turn promises into
action for a range of sweeping economic reforms.
(AP, 9/12/05)
2005 Sep 12, King Abdullah II of
Jordan paid Pope Benedict XVI a visit, saying he wanted to foster an
honest dialogue between the West and moderate Islam.
(AP, 9/12/05)
2005 Sep 12, In Mexico Chinese
President Hu Jintao promised Mexican leaders that he would crack down
on the millions of dollars worth of Chinese contraband entering their
nation, goods that undermine Mexican businesses ranging from sandal
makers to religious icon sellers.
(AP, 9/12/05)
2005 Sep 12, Armed men broke into
an upscale Amsterdam home and kidnapped Claudia Melchers (37), the
daughter of a millionaire whose fortune came from selling chemicals,
including to Iraq in the 1980s. Her children were left unharmed.
(AP, 9/13/05)
2005 Sep 12, Protestant extremists
attacked Northern Ireland police and British troops into a third day,
littering streets with rubble and burned-out vehicles in violence
sparked by anger over a restricted parade.
(AP, 9/12/05)
2005 Sep 12, Norwegians lined up
at polling stations in what promised to be a close race between a
governing center-right coalition advocating lower taxes and a
left-leaning opposition that wants to spend more of the Nordic nation's
oil wealth on the welfare system. Jens Stoltenberg, head of the Labor
Party, and 2 allied parties won 87 of the parliament’s 169 seats.
(AP, 9/12/05)(Econ, 9/17/05, p.51)
2005 Sep 12, Pakistan’s President
Pervez Musharraf offered to construct a security fence to deter
incursion of militants and drug merchants from Afghanistan.
(AP, 9/12/05)
2005 Sep 12, Joyous Gazans flooded
into empty Jewish settlements and Palestinians climbed ropes and
clambered over walls to the Egyptian side of Rafah to join a chaotic
celebration of the end of 38 years of Israeli military rule over the
Gaza Strip. Palestinians set fire to abandoned synagogues.
(AP, 9/12/05)
2005 Sep 12, Samsung Electronics
of South Korea unveiled the world's first 16-gigabit NAND flash memory
chip, a device the firm said will usher in a new era in data storage.
(AP, 9/12/05)
2005 Sep 12, Syria consented to a
UN investigator's request to question top officials about the
assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, a probe
that increases the pressure on an increasingly isolated Damascus.
(AP, 9/12/05)
2005 Sep 12, Turkey sold a 51%
stake in Tupras, an oil refinery, for $4.1 billion to a consortium of
Koc Holding and Royal Dutch/Shell.
(Econ, 9/17/05, p.64)
2005 Sep 12, A senior UN official
said traffickers have been shifting to the manufacture of
amphetamine-type drugs in Asia as cultivation and production of heroin
drops sharply.
(AP, 9/13/05)
2005 Sep 12, Uzbekistan,
increasingly hostile toward foreign non-governmental organizations it
accuses of fomenting revolution in the ex-Soviet state, shut a second
US charity in four days.
(AP, 9/13/05)
2006 Sep 12, In California Gov.
Schwarzenegger signed a minimum wage bill that will boost the hourly
rate by 75 cents in January and another 50 cents a year later to $8 an
hour.
(SFC, 9/13/06, p.B3)
2006 Sep 12, Hewlett-Packard named
CEO Mark Hurd to succeed Patricia Dunn as board chairman as of
mid-January 2007 following the recent furor over phone probes of board
members.
(WSJ, 9/13/06, p.A1)
2006 Sep 12, Joan Valerie
Bondurant, former spy and UC prof. of political science, died in
Tucson, Az. She had translated documents for the CIA in India where she
met Gandhi and grew fascinated by satyagraha, a thesis of nonviolent
resistance. Her books included “Conquest of Violence: The Gandhian
Philosophy of Conflict” (1958).
(SFC, 9/21/06, p.B5)
2006 Sep 12, Hurricane Florence
headed toward north Atlantic shipping lanes after blowing out windows,
peeling away roofs and knocking out power to thousands in Bermuda.
(AP, 9/12/06)
2006 Sep 12, Afghan forces killed
12 suspected Taliban militants in a shootout south of Kabul. More than
30 suspected insurgents were detained as security forces fought back
against a deadly spike in violence. The UN urged NATO forces to take
military action to destroy the opium industry in southern Afghanistan,
saying cultivation of the crop is out of control.
(AP, 9/12/06)
2006 Sep 12, In Bangladesh police
in Dhaka baton-charged thousands of opposition supporters in violent
clashes outside the prime minister's office that left at least 110
people injured. A 14-party opposition alliance led by the Awami League
is demanding electoral reforms ahead of January's national elections.
(AP, 9/12/06)
2006 Sep 12, Canada and the United
States formally signed an agreement to end a protracted dispute over
Canadian softwood lumber.
(Reuters, 9/12/06)
2006 Sep 12, Pope Benedict XVI
delivered a speech at Regensburg Univ. that included brusque words
about Islam. He quoted a 14th century Byzantine emperor as saying “Show
me just what Muhammad brought that was new, and there you will find
things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the
sword the faith he preached.” The speech quickly provoked criticism
from the world’s Muslim communities. The pontiff later said he
regretted that Muslims were offended.
(SFC, 9/15/06, p.A17)(AP, 9/12/07)
2006 Sep 12, Iraqi PM Nouri
al-Maliki made his first official visit to Iran since taking office and
planned to ask Tehran to prevent al-Qaida members believed to be in
Iran from crossing into Iraq to carry out attacks. A parked car bomb
detonated in Baghdad's upscale Mansour neighborhood, killing at least
six people and wounding 18 others. Bombings, mortar attacks and
shootings overnight and during the day left at least 24 people dead and
dozens wounded around the country.
(AP, 9/12/06)
2006 Sep 12, An Israeli military
court ordered the release of 18 imprisoned Hamas lawmakers, including
three Cabinet ministers, and raised questions about the army's case. A
spokesman for the outgoing Hamas-led administration said the group is
prepared to back peace efforts with Israel as part of the new coalition
government being formed by the Palestinians. Hamas militants killed an
Israeli soldier during a gunbattle in the Gaza Strip.
(AP, 9/12/06)
2006 Sep 12, In Mexico gunmen
ambushed and killed Enrique Barrera, police chief of the town of
Linares in the border state of Nuevo Leon, in the latest slaying of a
law officer in a region ravaged by a war between drug gangs.
(AP, 9/13/06)
2006 Sep 12, Montenegro's election
authorities said the governing pro-Western coalition led by Prime
Minister Milo Djukanovic won last weekend's parliamentary elections.
(AP, 9/12/06)
2006 Sep 12, Serbia toughened its
stand on Kosovo as parliament decided that a planned new constitution
would refer to the disputed province as an "integral" part of Serbia,
regardless of U.N.-led negotiations on whether to grant it independence.
(AP, 9/12/06)
2006 Sep 12, In Syria armed
Islamic militants attempted to storm the US Embassy in Damascus. Four
people were killed, including three of the assailants. One of Syria's
anti-terrorism forces was killed and 11 other people were wounded. The
only Islamic militant arrested in the attack died from his wounds, and
authorities were unable to question him.
(AP, 9/12/06)(AP, 9/13/06)
2006 Sep 12, In Turkey a bomb
exploded near a park in a primarily residential area of Diyarbakir and
10 people were killed. 7 children were among the dead. The bomb was
made by hand, placed in a thermos and went off as it was being
transported.
(AP, 9/13/06)
2006 Sep 12, Uganda extended a
September 12 deadline for the rebel Lord's Resistance Army to agree to
a peace deal or lose an amnesty offer for war crimes charges its
leaders face.
(AFP, 9/13/06)
2006 Sep 12, In Yemen a stampede
during a campaign rally for President Ali Abdullah Saleh killed at
least 51 people and injured more than 230, most of them schoolchildren
and teenagers.
(AP, 9/12/06)
2007 Sep 12, The US SEC said it
had filed civil fraud charges against Douglas Hamilton, Craig Johnson,
James Kinney and Kenneth Taylor, the former vice presidents of finance
for Toronto-based Nortel's optical, wireline, wireless and enterprise
business units.
(AP, 9/13/07)
2007 Sep 12, Exxon Mobil Corp.
said in a filing with the SEC that it had filed a request with the
Int’l. Center for Settlement of Investment Disputes for arbitration
over compensation from the Venezuelan government for seized oil
production assets.
(WSJ, 9/14/07, p.A9)
2007 Sep 12, Oil prices briefly
topped a record $80 a barrel.
(AP, 9/12/08)
2007 Sep 12, The World
Conservation Union's 2007 Red List of Threatened Species reported that
more than 16,300 species of animals and plants are on the verge of
disappearing from the planet, with nearly 200 more species approaching
extinction within the last year. Gorillas and orangutans were both
classified as Critically Endangered.
(www.livescience.com/animals/070912_red_list.html)
2007 Sep 12, Phil Frank (b.1943),
creator of the Farley and Elderberries comic strips, died from a brain
tumor in Bolinas, Ca. His Farley strip had run in the SF Chronicle for
decades.
(SFC, 9/14/07, p.A1)
2007 Sep 12, Qari Yousef Ahmadi, a
Taliban spokesman, said that US and other military forces must leave
Afghanistan before the militant group would consider holding peace
talks with the Afghan government, backtracking from an earlier
statement. Fighting in Afghanistan killed some 75 people as the Muslim
holy month of Ramadan began, including 45 suspected Taliban militants
who died in airstrikes and Afghan army gunfire.
(AP, 9/12/07)(AP, 9/13/07)
2007 Sep 12, The specter of foot
and mouth disease returned to haunt Britain after a new suspected
outbreak was detected close to last month's outbreak site.
(AFP, 9/12/07)
2007 Sep 12, Canada’s defense
minister said Canada will give a one-time payment of $19,200 to people
who say their health was harmed by US military Agent Orange spray
programs at a base in eastern Canada 40 years ago. The US military
tested Agent Orange, Agent Purple and several other powerful defoliants
on a small section of the base in Gagetown, New Brunswick, over seven
days in 1966 and 1967. Roughly 4,500 people were expected to be
eligible for the payment, at a total cost of $92 million.
(AP, 9/13/07)
2007 Sep 12, Police in Chile
battled rampaging youths over night on the anniversary of the 1973
military coup. One officer was killed, 41 people injured with some 304
people arrested.
(SFC, 9/13/07, p.A4)
2007 Sep 12, Beijing showed off
its new multibillion-dollar airport terminal, a mammoth structure of
glass and steel with a gracefully sloping roof that the owners said is
meant to impress visitors to China's capital for the 2008 Olympics.
(AP, 9/12/07)
2007 Sep 12, Li Changjiang, the
head of China's product safety agency, said the Chinese-made toys
children receive for Christmas this year will be safe, pledging that
problems over the use of dangerous lead paint will be resolved in time
for holiday exports.
(AP, 9/12/07)
2007 Sep 12, Akmal Shaikh (51), a
British citizen, was arrested in Urumqi, in China's western Xinjiang
region, with four kg (8.8 pounds) of heroin. He was later convicted and
sentenced to die on Dec 29, 2009. Supporters of Shaikh said he was
duped into carrying the drugs for a criminal gang. If the death penalty
is carried out, Shaikh would become the first national from a European
Union country to be executed in China in 50 years.
(AFP,
12/22/09)(www.amnesty.org.uk/actions_details.asp?ActionID=638)
2007 Sep 12, The Republic of
Congo, the smaller, oil-rich western neighbor of the Democratic
Republic of Congo, numbered about 3.7 million inhabitants.
(AFP, 9/12/07)
2007 Sep 12, Ethiopia entered the
third millennium 7 years after the rest of the world, amid lavish
celebrations, religious fervor and messages of hope from the troubled
country's leaders.
(AFP, 9/12/07)
2007 Sep 12, A massive 8.4
earthquake struck Indonesia, killing at least 10 people, injuring
dozens and triggering a tsunami that hit one city on the island of
Sumatra.
(AP, 9/12/07)(Reuters, 9/13/07)
2007 Sep 12, Gunmen ambushed an
Iraqi police checkpoint in the Gayara area south of Mosul before dawn,
killing six officers in a sophisticated attack on fledgling Iraqi
security installations. In Diyala's al Salam area, gunmen opened fire
on a car at 9 a.m. killing two and wounding two others. An hour later
in another area, assailants shot into a crowd in central Muqdadiyah
killing two and wounding two. Other scattered violence left at least
five other Iraqis dead, including a civilian killed by a roadside bomb
on Palestine Street, a popular shopping district in Baghdad. The bomb
targeted a passing convoy of SUVs, and left five other people wounded.
Robbers dressed as police commandos hijacked an armored truck in
eastern Baghdad, bound and gagged its guards, and made off with about
$550,000 in Iraqi currency.
(AP, 9/12/07)
2007 Sep 12, Japanese PM Shinzo
Abe announced he will resign, ending a troubled year-old government
that has suffered a string of damaging scandals and a humiliating
electoral defeat.
(AP, 9/12/07)
2007 Sep 12, Allies of Pakistan's
military ruler blocked opposition leader Imran Khan from entering,
Karachi, the country's biggest city, just days after the government
sent a former prime minister back into exile. City police chief Azher
Farooqi said the former cricket star was barred because his presence
could cause unrest. Rebels armed with rocket launchers surrounded a
security post on the outskirts of the troubled city of Bannu, which
borders North Waziristan. They wounded a policeman and a soldier before
whisking away 12 paramilitary troops. Pakistani helicopter gunships and
artillery pounded pro-Taliban militant hideouts in a tribal region near
the Afghan border, killing up to 40 insurgents.
(AP, 9/12/07)(AFP, 9/12/07)
2007 Sep 12, In the Philippines a
court found former Pres. Joseph Estrada guilty of taking more than $85
million in bribes and kickbacks and sentenced him to life imprisonment,
ending a trial that spanned 6 years.
(SFC, 9/12/07, p.A19)
2007 Sep 12, Russia’s President
Vladimir Putin dismissed his long-serving PM Mikhail Fradkov and
nominated little-known Cabinet official Victor Zubkov (b.1941) to
replace him in a surprise move that could put Zubkov in the running to
replace Putin next year.
(AP, 9/12/07)(WSJ, 9/13/07, p.A3)(Econ, 9/15/07,
p.64)
2007 Sep 12, Serbia warned the EU
it would not accept any decision on Kosovo taken outside the UN, and
its ally Russia told the US to stop backing Kosovo independence while
talks continue.
(AP, 9/12/07)
2007 Sep 12, Turkish troops killed
4 Kurdish guerrillas in a the southeastern province of Siirt.
(AP, 9/12/07)
2008 Sep 12, The US accused
Rodriguez Chacin and 2 other top aides to Venezuela’s Pres. Chavez of
helping Colombian guerrillas traffic cocaine and procure weapons for
FARC. Chacin had just resigned on Sep 8 from Venezuela’s Interior
Ministry.
(SFC, 9/13/08, p.A5)
2008 Sep 12, The SF Opera said it
had received a commitment from board chairman John A. Gunn (64) and
wife Cynthia Fry Gunn for a gift of $40 million. John Gunn served as
chairman and CEO of Dodge and Cox Investment Managers.
(SFC, 9/13/08, p.A2)
2008 Sep 12, In southern
California a commuter train smashed head-on into a freight train
killing at least 25 people in the deadliest US passenger train accident
in 15 years. Officials the next day attributed the accident to failure
of the passenger train engineer to stop at a red light. It was later
found that engineer Robert Sanchez, who died in the crash, had sent a
text message 22 seconds before the crash.
(AP, 9/13/08)(Reuters, 9/13/08)(WSJ, 10/2/08, p.A11)
2008 Sep 12, David Foster Wallace
(b.1962), the author best known for his 1996 novel "Infinite Jest," was
found dead in his home in Claremont, Ca.
(AP, 9/13/08)(SSFC, 9/14/08, p.B7)
2008 Sep 12, Taliban militants
attacked a logistics convoy in western Afghanistan, sparking a clash
that killed 10 insurgents and five Afghan guards. Afghan police said
they had arrested three suspects accused of giving the US military
false information that led to the August 22 bombardment of the village
of Azizabad.
(AP, 9/12/08)(AP, 9/14/08)
2008 Sep 12, Bolivian President
Evo Morales decreed a state of siege and sent troops to the eastern
province of Pando where at least 16 people were killed in street
battles between pro- and anti-government activists. Another 2 people
were killed at Pando's main airfield as government troops took control,
opening fire to disperse protesters.
(AP, 9/12/08)(AP, 9/14/08)
2008 Sep 12, British and French
firefighters extinguished a 1,000-degree inferno in the Channel Tunnel
but tens of thousands of travelers faced more delay as they waited for
the undersea link to reopen.
(AP, 9/12/08)
2008 Sep 12, Shops throughout
China pulled a milk powder, suspected sickening babies, from shelves in
the latest safety scandal to rock the country's food industry.
Investigators soon detained 19 people and were questioning 78 to find
out how melamine was added to milk supplied to Sanlu Group Co., China's
biggest milk powder producer. On Sep 15 Zhang Zhenling, vice president
of Sanlu Group, read a letter of apology at a news briefing in
Shijiazhuang, capital of Hebei Province, where the corporation is
based. China later reported that more than 6,000 babies had fallen ill
and three died after drinking contaminated milk powder. Consumer
complaints to Sanlu Group regarding its baby milk formula had begun as
early as last December.
(AP, 9/12/08)(AP, 9/13/08)(AFP, 9/15/08)(AFP,
9/17/08)(SFC, 9/24/08, p.A12)
2008 Sep 12, Pope Benedict XVI
urged France to take Christianity into account despite its secular
tradition, saying on his first visit there as pontiff that church and
state should be open to each other.
(AP, 9/12/08)
2008 Sep 12, Tens of thousands of
Muslims joined pro-independence rallies across Indian-controlled
Kashmir, leading to scattered clashes with police that left at least
two protesters dead and dozens injured.
(AP, 9/12/08)
2008 Sep 12, Mexican police found
the bodies of 24 men with their hands bound and shot to death
execution-style outside the capital. On Nov 27 prosecutors charged a
municipal police commander and an alleged drug cartel member with
homicide in the September massacre.
(AP, 9/13/08)(AP, 11/28/08)
2008 Sep 12, In Pakistan a US
Predator drone fired 2 missiles at a home in the village of Tolkhel,
North Waziristan, killing at least 12 people.
(SFC, 9/13/08, p.A3)
2008 Sep 12, Poland's last
communist leader, General Wojciech Jaruzelski, and seven other
Soviet-era officials went on trial over the declaration of martial law
more than a quarter of a century ago. The 1981 decision led to the
deaths of dozens of people and the jailing of hundreds more.
(Reuters, 9/12/08)
2008 Sep 12, Russia’s Itar-Tass
news reported that Syria’s Tartous port is being renovated to provide a
permanent facility for the Russian navy.
(SFC, 10/3/08, p.A14)
2008 Sep 12, A South African judge
ruled that prosecutors were wrong to charge ANC President Jacob Zuma
with corruption, effectively clearing way for the 66-year-old former
freedom fighter to become the country's next president.
(AP, 9/12/08)
2008 Sep 12,The Sudanese
government army and Janjaweed militias launched new attacks in a
mountainous area of south Darfur according to rebel claims made the
next day. UN boss Ban Ki-moon welcomed the establishment of an Arab
League panel led by Qatar that will work with the African Union and
United Nations to sponsor peace talks in Sudan's Darfur region.
(AFP, 9/12/08)(AFP, 9/13/08)
2008 Sep 12, Samak Sundaravej
ended his bid to return to power as Thailand's prime minister, after a
revolt within the ruling party torpedoed his re-election in parliament.
(AFP, 9/12/08)
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