Timeline New Mexico
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New Mexico is about 1/3 the size of Egypt and about
the same size as Norway.
(SSFC, 10/9/05, Par p.27)
The pinõn tree is the state tree of New Mexico.
(WSJ, 7/31/06, p.A1)
250mil-200Mil
The Chinle Formation of sedimentary rock was laid down by rivers in
much of New Mexico and Arizona during this period. In 2007 scientists
reported that fossil bones found in the Chinle Formation indicated that
dinosaurs and their early relatives lived side by side for millions of
years before the relatives died off leaving dinosaurs to dominate.
(SFC, 7/20/07, p.A4)
210Mil BC Scientists in New Mexico in 1947 uncovered
fossil rock from this period. In 2005 a close examination revealed that
the fossils looked like a 6-foot long, 2-legged dinosaur. It was named
Effigia okeeffeae and identified as a reptile, an ancient relative to
modern alligators and crocodiles.
(SFC, 1/26/06, p.A2)
23k-10k BC The Sandia Cave provided human shelter
back to this period and was excavated by archeologist Frank Hibben in
the 1930s after it was discovered by Boy Scouts.
(SFEC, 5/30/99, p.T8)
11050BC-10900BC Clovis points (from Clovis New
Mexico), tools of Paleo-Indian hunters (known as Clovis people), were
dated in 2007 to this period. They pursued ice-age mammoths, camels,
bison and horses. These people were ancestral to the Folsom culture and
were believed to have arrived across a land bridge from Asia. Clovis
culture was reported to be very similar to Solutrean.
(NH, 2/97, p.22)(SFC, 11/1/99, p.A9)(Arch, 7/02,
p.51)(SFC, 2/23/07, p.A4)
c600BCE Turquoise was first mined in the American
southwest about this time and began to show up in Mesoamerica.
(Arch, 1/05, p.27)
190BCE A volcanic lava flow occurred at the 114,000
acre El Malpais National Monument and covered wood that was later dated
to this time.
(SFC, 12/24/99, p.A25)
500CE By this time the
Chalchihuites culture (New Mexico) engaged in extensive turquoise
mining and exporting raw turquoise to West Mexican centers like Alta
Vista.
(Arch, 1/05, p.28)
c850-1100 Native Indians in Chaco Canyon [New Mexico]
built multistory buildings and roads. Evidence was later discovered
that they designed a vast map of the yearly sun cycle and the 19-year
cycle of the moon.
(WSJ, 6/16/00, p.W2)
919AD Pueblo Bonito, Chaco Canyon
Nat'l Monument in Northern New Mexico had its ceremonial room
completed. Occupancy lasted till c1130.
(K.I.-365D, p.159)
1000-1150 In the Mimbres Valley the local people made
a black-on-white pottery.
c1275 Indian settlers built a town
called Atsina on top of El Morro (New Mexico).
(SSFC, 4/10/05, p.F9)
1276 A 25-year drought began in
the Four Corner region.
(HN, 2/11/97)(AM, 9/01, p.44)
c1300 The Anasazi Indian culture
of the American southwest, 15 to 20 thousand people, disappeared from
the Four Corners region about this time. All the Anasazi were gone from
Mesa Verde. They probably moved south and broke up into present-day
Pueblo tribes. Anasazi means enemy ancestors in Navajo.
(SFC, 5/19/96, T-1)(HN, 2/11/97)(AM, 9/01, p.44)
1540 Feb 23, Spanish explorer
Francisco Vasquez de Coronado began his unsuccessful search for the
fabled Seven Cities of Gold in the American Southwest. Antonio de
Mendoza, Viceroy of Mexico, sent Francisco Coronado overland to search
for the fabled Seven Cities of Cibola in present day New Mexico.
Coronado, Spanish explorer, introduced horses, mules, pigs, cattle, and
sheep into the American southwest. An Indian guide spoke of a rich
kingdom called Quivira. When no cities were found he confessed under
torture that the story was false.
(NPS-CNM, 4/1/97)(HN, 2/23/99)(TL-MB, 1988,
p.16)(SFC, 1/31/04, p.D1)
1541 Spanish conquistadors arrived
in New Mexico and encountered the Jemez Indians, who numbered around
30,000. The Jemez lived in fortified villages in the high mesas and had
arrived over 200 years earlier. In 2001 the tribe numbered about 3,400.
(SSFC, 11/11/01, p.C8)
1598 Don Juan de Onate visited El
Morro for the 1st time as he led some 1,000 settlers from Mexico to New
Mexico.
(SSFC, 4/10/05, p.F9)
1605 Apr 16, New Mexico’s Gov. Don
Juan de Onate passed by the sandstone bluff of El Morro where he left
his mark in the stone. He was returning from an expedition to the Gulf
of California, which he called the South Sea.
(SSFC, 4/10/05, p.F9)
1610 Spanish colonists founded
Santa Fe. They built the block long adobe El Palacio as a seat for the
governor-general.
(SFEC, 7/6/97, p.T7)(SSFC, 6/10/01, p.T9)
1620 Jul 29, New Mexico’s Gov. Don
Juan de Eulate passed by the sandstone bluff of El Morro on return from
the pueblos of Zuni. He left his mark in the stone.
(SSFC, 4/10/05, p.F9)
1629 In New Mexico construction
began on the Mission church of San Esteban del Rey at the Acoma Pueblo
mesa. It took 14 years to complete and required more than 20,000 tons
of earth and rock to be hauled up the mesa on foot.
(SSFC, 9/24/06, p.G6)
1680 Aug 13, War started when the
Spanish were expelled from Santa Fe, New Mexico, by Indians under Chief
Pope.
(HN, 8/13/98)
1680 Aug 21, Pueblo Indians took
possession of Santa Fe, N.M., after driving out the Spanish. They
destroyed almost all of the Spanish churches in Taos and Santa Fe.
(AP, 8/21/97)(SFEC, 6/21/98, Z1 p.8)
c1700 The Plaza del Cerro was
built in Chimayo (later part of New Mexico), by Spanish settlers.
(SFEC, 10/8/00, p.T10)
1706 Apr 23, Spanish Gov.
Francisco Cuervo y Valdes founded a new villa consisting of 35 families
and named it in honor of the viceroy of New Spain, who was also the
Duke of Albuquerque, a town in southwestern Spain. The 1st r was later
dropped and in 2006 Albuquerque, NM, celebrated its 300th anniversary.
(SSFC, 5/22/05, p.E12)
1733 In New Mexico La Iglesia de
Santa Cruz de la Canada was built. It is the oldest and most formal of
the 6 adobe missions scattered along the western shoulder of the Sangre
de Cristo mountains between Taos and Santa Fe. It features the art work
of primitive artist Jose Rafael Aragon, who was buried here in 1862.
The book “La Iglesia de Santa Cruz de la Canada, 1733-1983” covered
this period. It was edited and published by poet and writer Jim Sagel
(d.1998 at 50). Sagel received the Governor’s Award for the book in
1984.
(SFC, 5/12/96, p.T-5)(SFC, 4/9/98, p.C14)
1752 Two French men arrived in
Santa Fe with an authorized trading license from Spain. The town
burghers imprisoned them and confiscated their goods.
(SFC, 12/31/00, BR p.12)
1777-1787 Juan Bautista de Anza served as the
governor of New Mexico.
(SFC, 6/7/00, p.A15)
1778 Juan Bautista de Anza led a
punitive expedition across new Mexico and Colorado against the
Comanches. His forces cornered and killed Comanche Chief Cuerno Verde
and other leaders at what later became Rye, Colo.
(SFC, 6/7/00, p.A15)
1821 Sep 1, William Becknell led a
group of traders from Independence, Mo., toward Santa Fe on what would
become the Santa Fe Trail.
(HN, 9/1/99)
1821 Nov 16, Trader William
Becknell reached Santa Fe, N.M., on the route that became known as the
Santa Fe Trail.
(HN, 11/16/98)
1821 Mexican rule began over the
New Mexico territory.
(SSFC, 5/22/05, p.E12)
1825 The US government launched a
mapping and surveying expedition of the Sant Fe Trail. The notes ended
up filed for decades. In 2000 David Dary authored “The Santa Fe Trail:
Its History, Legends and Lore.”
(WSJ, 12/28/00, p.A9)
1835 The San Ysidro church was
built on the outskirts of Santa Fe, NM. It was named after the patron
saint of farmers.
(LP, Spring 2006, p.42)
1839 The New Mexico governor
surprised arriving traders with an arbitrary import duty of $500 per
wagon, regardless of size or value of contents.
(SFC, 12/31/00, BR p.12)
1846 Aug 18, U.S. forces led by
Gen. Stephen W. Kearney captured Santa Fe, N.M. As commander of the
Army of the West during the Mexican War, Brig. Gen. Stephen Watts
Kearny captured Santa Fe without a shot being fired. Kearny (1794-1848)
then served as military governor of New Mexico for a month.
(AP, 8/18/97)(HNQ, 4/23/00)
1846 Aug 22, Gen. Stephen W.
Kearny proclaimed all of New Mexico a territory of the United States.
The US pledged to honor the land grants in northern New Mexico that
were awarded by the Spanish and Mexican governors of the territory.
(WSJ, 5/7/99, p.A6)(AP, 8/22/07)
1846 Brigadier General Stephen W.
Kearney commissioned a map of the New Mexico territory.
(www.discoveryeditions.com/tpl)(LP, Spring 2006,
p.44)
1846-1847 Susan Shelby Magoffin (18) accompanied her
husband on a wagon train from Missouri to New Mexico and maintained a
diary that was published in 1982: "Down the Santa Fe Trail and Into
Mexico: The Diary of Susan Shelby Magoffin."
(ON, 11/03, p.8)
1847 Jan 19, New Mexico Governor
Charles Bent was slain by Pueblo Indians in Taos.
(HN, 1/19/99)
1848 May 30, Mexico ratified the
Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo giving US: New Mexico, California and parts
of Nevada, Utah, Arizona & Colorado in return for $15 million.
(MC, 5/30/02)
1849 Jan, A relief party from
Taos, New Mexico, rescued the remaining members of the John C. Fremont
expedition in the Colorado Mountains. Ten men died from cold and
starvation before the rescue.
(ON, 12/06, p.7)
1849 Sep 17-18, Lt. J.H. Simpson
and R.H. Kern, Philadelphia artist, visited El Morro in New Mexico
during an exploration trip of new US territory. They copied many of the
inscription there.
(SSFC, 4/10/05, p.F9)
1850 Sep 9, Territories of New
Mexico & Utah created.
(MC, 9/9/01)
1850 French priest Jean-Baptiste
Lamy was dispatched by Rome to bring order and discipline to the New
Mexican territory.
(WSJ, 9/13/06, p.D10)
1855 Mar 3, Congress approved
$30,000 to test camels for military use. Sec. of War Jefferson Davis
sent agents to northern Africa to purchase a small herd of camels and
sent them to New Mexico to transport goods to California
(SC, 3/3/02)(SFC, 2/20/04, p.A22)
1857 Lt. Edward F. Beale visited
El Morro, New Mexico, with a camel caravan testing the feasibility of
employing camels as Army animals in the American southwest.
(SSFC, 4/10/05, p.F9)
1857 Army Lt. Joseph Ives surveyed
the Grand Canyon with “wondering delight,” but concluded that it was
“altogether valueless.” His chief scientist John Strong Newberry
declared that it was a geological paradise.
(SFEC, 10/4/98, BR p.12)
1860 The 95,000 acre Baca Ranch,
NM, was founded under a land grant to a Spanish leader. The property
contained the Valles Caldera, the collapsed crater of an ancient
volcano. The property was sold to James P. Dunigan, an oil man, in 1962
for $2.5 mil. It was sold to the US government in 1999 for $101 million.
(SFC, 9/9/99, p.A3)
1860 Pinos Altos, NM, was founded
when three 49ers stopped to take a drink in Bear Creek and discovered
gold.
(WSJ, 5/21/04, p.W2)
1862 Feb 21, The Texas Rangers won
a Confederate victory in the Battle of Val Verde, New Mexico.
(HN, 2/21/98)
1862 Mar 26, Battle of La Glorieta
Pass, New Mexico Territory (Apache Canyon, Pigeon's Ranch).
(SS, 3/26/02)
1864-1865 Army Col. Kit Carson, directed by Brig.
Gen. James Carleton, forced the move of some 9,000 Dineh Navajo from
Canyon de Chelly in Arizona to the Bosque Redondo reservation near Fort
Sumner, New Mexico. About half the people survived in what came to be
known as the Long Walk. In 2006 Hampton sides authored “Blood and
Thunder: An epic of the American West,” an account of the Navaho move.
(SFC, 1/3/97, p.A26)(SFEC, 5/4/97, z1 p.4)(SSFC,
1/7/01, p.T9)(WSJ, 10/7/06, p.P12)
1866 Sep 1, Manuelito, the last
Navaho chief, turned himself in at Fort Wingate, New Mexico.
(MC, 9/1/02)
1867 Mar 2, Congress abolished
peonage in New Mexico.
(SC, 3/2/02)
1868 Navaho Indians living under
confinement near Fort Sumner, New Mexico, were allowed to return to
their homelands in Arizona following a visit by Gen. William Tecumseh
Sherman. Some 7,100 survivors of the 1864 Long Walk had been released
onto a New Mexico reservation of 5,500 acres. The Navajo returned to
Hopi land where 3.5 million acres, 1/6th of their former homeland, was
returned.
(SFC, 1/3/97, p.A26)(SFEC, 5/4/97, z1 p.4)(WSJ,
10/7/06, p.P12)
1869 John Wesley Powell led an
expedition to explore the canyons of the Green and Colorado River. Over
3 years he led two expeditions to explore the Grand Canyon. Three
members of the first expedition were killed, reportedly by Indians. His
written account was suspected to be inflated if not fictitious. A 1997
novel by Oakley Hall, “Separations,” depicted the events.
(HFA, '96, p.127)(SFC, 4/23/97, p.D5)
1869-1886 St. Francis Cathedral was built in Santa
Fe, New Mexico, under the direction of French priest (later bishop)
Jean-Baptiste Lamy.
(SSFC, 6/10/01, p.T8)
1875 French priest Jean-Baptiste
Lamy became archbishop of the New Mexican territory.
(WSJ, 9/13/06, p.D10)
1878 Feb 18, The bitter and bloody
Lincoln County War began with the murder of Billy the Kid's mentor,
Englishman rancher John Tunstall. Hired killers of James J. Dolan
gunned down John Tunstall in Lincoln, N.M. Tunstall’s partner Alexander
McSween formed a posse known as the Regulators to get even. Billy the
Kid was part of the posse.
(SFEC, 2/23/96, p.T8,9)(HN, 2/18/99)
1878 Apr 1, In Lincoln, N.M., the
Regulators, including Billy the Kid, ambushed and killed Sheriff
William Brady, a James Dolan partisan, along with a deputy.
(SFEC, 2/23/96, p.T8,9)(SFC, 2/2/01, p.A14)
1878 Jul, In Lincoln, N.M.,
soldiers from Fort Stanton and 40 men of James Dolan surrounded the
McSween home for 5 days. McSween and 4 supporters were killed but Billy
the Kid and several Regulators managed to escape.
(SFEC, 2/23/96, p.T8,9)
1878 Oct 1, General Lew Wallace
was sworn in as governor of New Mexico Territory and served to 1881. He
went on to deal with the Lincoln County War, Billy the Kid and wrote
“Ben-Hur.“
(HN, 10/1/98)(HNQ, 4/22/00)
1878 Nov 13, New Mexico Governor
Lew Wallace offered amnesty to many participants of the Lincoln County
War, but not to gunfighter Billy the Kid.
(HN, 11/13/98)
1880 Gen. Lew Wallace (1827-1905)
of Indiana published “Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ.” Some of book was
written while Wallace was living in Santa Fe at El Palacio as the
Territorial governor in the 1870s.
(WSJ, 2/14/96, p.A-15)(HT, 3/97, p.66)(SFEC, 7/6/97,
p.T7)
1880 Pueblo Chochiti men led
anthropologist Adolph F.A. Bandolier to Frijoles Canyon in New Mexico.
Bandolier later authored the novel on Pueblo life called “The
Delightmakers.” Cliff dwelling in the area were preserved (1916) in a
national park named after Bandelier.
(SSFC, 8/1/04, p.D7)
1881 Apr 28, Billy the Kid was
held in Lincoln County Courthouse jail, near Carrizozo N.M. for the
shooting of Sheriff William Brady, but escaped and killed two guards.
He used an 1876 single-action army revolver made by Samuel Colt. The
gun sold for $46,000 in 1998.
(SFEC, 2/23/96, p.T8,9)(AP, 7/14/97)(WSJ, 5/22/98,
p.W12)(SFC, 2/2/01, p.A14)
1881 Jul 14, Outlaw Billy the Kid
(21), (born as Henry McCarty) aka William H. Bonney or Kid Antrim, was
shot and killed by Sheriff Pat Garrett in Fort Sumner, New Mexico.
Billy had been held in Lincoln County Courthouse jail but escaped and
killed two guards. The Kid had fled to Fort Sumner and on a tip,
Garrett set out toward Fort Sumner to find him, with lawmen John Poe
and Thomas C. "Kip" McKinney. According to some, Pete Maxwell had
alerted Poe to the Kid's whereabouts. Many details about Billy the
Kid's death are controversial but, apparently, as he was returning to
Maxwell's house he came upon Poe and McKinney outside, unsure of
whether they were friends or foes. Garrett was awaiting inside, and as
the Kid entered the room, Garrett shot him above the heart.
Newspaperman A.J. Fountain awarded Garrett a gold star, which fetched
$100,000 at auction in 2008. Joel Jacobsen later authored "Such Men as
Billy the Kid."
(AP, 7/14/97)(HNPD, 7/14/98)(SFC, 2/2/01,
p.A14)(SFC, 6/17/08, p.B8)
1882 Nov 2, Newly elected John Poe
replaced Pat Garrett as sheriff of Lincoln County, New Mexico
Territory.
(HN, 11/2/98)
1882 Park Van Tassel, a saloon
owner in Albuquerque, NM, launched the city’s 1st gas balloon named
“The city of Albuquerque.”
(SSFC, 9/25/05, E9)
1891 The New Mexico Military
Institute was founded in Roswell, NM.
(SSFC, 8/1/04, p.D8)
1893 Mar 10, New Mexico State
University canceled its first graduation ceremony, because the only
graduate Sam Steele was robbed and killed the night before.
(HN, 3/10/98)(MC, 3/10/02)
1898 A film was made in New Mexico
for the first time.
(WSJ, 4/7/98, p.A16)
1898 Jim White, cowboy, was one of
the 1st white settlers to venture into New Mexico’s Carlsbad Caverns.
His efforts helped turn the caves into a national park in 1930.
(SSFC, 6/20/04, p.D5)
1905 The El Tovar Hotel, designed
by Charles Whittlesey, opened at the edge of the Grand Canyon. It was
named after Pedro de Tobar, a member of the 1540 Coronado expedition.
(SFEM, 10/12/97, p.16)
1907 Nov 16, The Gila Cliff
Dwellings in New Mexico was established as a national monument. People
of the Mogollon culture lived in these cliff dwellings from the 1280s
through the early 1300s.
(SSFC, 9/21/08,
p.E6)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gila_Cliff_Dwellings_National_Monument)
1907 A 2nd balloon was launched in
Albuquerque, NM.
(SSFC, 9/25/05, E9)
1912 Jan 6, New Mexico became the
47th state of the US.
(HFA, '96, p.22)(AP, 1/6/98)
1913 Sep 22, Coal mine explosion
killed 263 at Dawson, New Mexico. [see Oct 22]
(MC, 9/22/01)
1913 Oct 22, An explosion at
Dawson, NM, coal mine killed 263 mine workers. [see Sep 22]
(MC, 10/22/01)
1915-1929 Alfred V. Kidder, archeologist, excavated
numerous bones of Indians buried in the upper Pecos Valley of New
Mexico. In 1999 the bones of nearly 2,000 Indians were returned by
Harvard Univ. to New Mexico for burial.
(SFC, 5/19/99, p.A3)
1916 Mar 9, Pancho Villa led 1,500
horsemen in a night raid on Columbus, New Mexico. 18 US soldiers and
citizens were killed as the town was looted and burned. President
Woodrow Wilson responded by ordering General John J. "Black Jack"
Pershing to "pursue and disperse" the bandits. Wilson called out
158,664 National Guard members to deal with the situation.
(HN, 3/9/99)(SFC, 5/17/06, p.A11)(AP, 3/9/07)
1916 Mar 19, The First
Aerosquadron took off from Columbus, NM, to join Gen. John J. Pershing
and his Punitive Expedition for Pancho Villa in Mexico.
(HN, 3/19/99)
1916 Bandelier National Park, NM,
was named after anthropologist Adolph F.A. Bandelier. [see 1880)
(SSFC, 8/1/04, p.D7)
1918 The Los Alamos Ranch School
was founded by Ashley Pond.
(SSFC, 8/1/04, p.D6)
1919 Mabel Dodge Sterne
(1879-1962), wealthy banking heiress, moved to New Mexico began
transforming her adopted Taos home into a cultural hinterland for those
on the avant-garde of cultural expression. In 1923 she married Tony
Luhan, a native American, and became Mabel Dodge Luhan. In 1933 she
authored the autobiography “Intimate Memories.” In 2008 Flannery Burke
authored “From Greenwich Village to Taos: Primitivism and Place at
Mabel Dodge Luhan’s.”
(WSJ, 7/31/08,
p.A11)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mabel_Dodge_Luhan)
1921 Oct 29, Bill Maudlin,
American political cartoonist whose GI “Willie” and “Joe” characters
appeared in Stars and Stripes newspapers, was born in New Mexico. He
won Pulitzer Prizes in 1945 and 1959.
(HN, 10/29/98)(MC, 10/29/01)
1921 Albert Fall, New Mexico
senator, was appointed as Interior Secretary to Pres. Harding. Fall got
Harding to sign an executive order to transfer control of oil reserves
from the Navy to the Interior. Leases on the Elk Hills and Teapot Dome
to businessmen Edward Doheny and Harry Sinclair soon followed and Fall
was $400,000 richer. Fall was fined $100,000 in 1929 and was sentenced
to a year in jail. He pleaded poverty and never paid the fine.
(SSFC, 7/14/02, p.G2)
1922 The Colorado River Compact
allocated 7.5 million acre-feet of water from the upper basin states
(Wyoming, Colorado, Utah and New Mexico) to be delivered to the lower
basin sates (California, Arizona and Nevada) plus the rights to divert
another 1 million acre-feet from the river’s lower tributaries.
(SFEC, 8/24/97, p.A10)(SFCM, 7/17/05, p.6)
1924 Jun 3, The US Forest Service
designated 750,000 acres of the Gila National Forest in New Mexico as
the Gila Wilderness, America’s first wilderness area. The Forest
Service extended itself in a conservation direction promoted by Aldo
Leopold, Arthur Carhart, and other agency staff.
(www.foresthistory.org/research/usfscoll/policy/Wilderness/1924_Gila.html)
1926 Nicolai Fechin (1881-1955),
painter, moved to Taos, New Mexico, in 1926 and turned his home into a
work of art now known as the Fechin Institute. He was born in Kazan,
Russia and emigrated in 1923. He died on the West Coast. His work
includes “Russian Singer with Fan” (1924).
(HT, 5/97, p.50)
1927 Willa Cather authored “Death
Comes for the Archbishop.” Bishop Jean Marie Latour, her novel’s hero,
was the fictional name for the French Bishop Jean-Baptiste Lamy,
dispatched as a priest by Rome in 1850 to bring order and discipline to
the New Mexican territory.
(WSJ, 9/13/06, p.D10)
1928 Nov 20, Mrs. Glen Hyde became
the first woman to dare the Grand Canyon rapids in a scow. Her flat
bottomed boat used sweep oars for maneuvering.
(HN, 11/20/98)
1929-1949 Georgia O’Keeffe used the Rancho de los
Burros on Ghost Ranch in New Mexico as her summer home. The site abuts
the Carson National Forest, rich in dinosaur bones. Ghost Ranch is now
a conference center and 21,000 acre preserve owned by the Presbyterian
Church. Her winter home was down the road in Abiquiu. Above Abiquiu is
the Plaza Blanca, captured by O’Keeffe in her painting: From the White
Place 1940. It is on land owned by the Dar Al Islam mosque, which owns
9,000 surrounding acres.
(SFC, 5/12/96, p.T-6)
1930 New Mexico’s Carlsbad Caverns
became a national park. Jim White, one of the 1st white settlers to
venture into the caves (1898), helped turn them into a national park.
(SSFC, 6/20/04, p.D5)
1930s The Sandia Cave (23k-10k
BC), possibly the earliest known human shelter in North America, was
excavated by archeologist Frank Hibben after it was discovered by Boy
Scouts.
(SFEC, 5/30/99, p.T8)
1933 Jan 18, The White Sands
National Monument in NM was established.
(MC, 1/18/02)
1934 May 13, A great dustbowl
storm occurred. [see Apr 14, 1935]
(SS, Internet, 5/13/97)
1935 Apr 14, A major sandstorm,
dubbed “The Black Blizzard,” ravaged the US Midwest. The Black Sunday
was the worst day of the almost decade long Dust Bowl era. It ravaged
Colorado, Kansas, New Mexico, Oklahoma and Texas. In 2005 Timothy Egan
authored “The Worst Hard Time: The Untold Story of Those Who Survived
the Great American Dust Bowl.”
(SSFC, 1/8/06,
p.M1)(www.english.uiuc.edu/maps/depression/dustbowl.htm)(Sm, 3/06,
p.111)
1939 Aug 2, US Congress passed the
Hatch Act. Its main provision is to prohibit federal employees from
engaging in partisan political activity. Named after Senator Carl Hatch
of New Mexico, the law was officially known as An Act to Prevent
Pernicious Political Activities.
(SFC, 3/12/08,
p.E2)(www.multieducator.com/Documents/hatchact.html)
1943 Dec 31, John Denver, singer
(Rocky Mt High), was born in NM.
(MC, 12/31/01)
1945 Jul 16, The first US test
explosion of the atomic bomb was made at Alamogordo Air Base, south of
Albuquerque, New Mexico, equal to some twenty thousand tons of TNT. The
bomb was called the Gadget and the experiment was called Trinity from a
poem by John Donne (Batter my heart, three-person’d God), and it was
conducted in a part of the desert called Jornada del Muerto, (Dead
Man’s Trail), and measured the equivalent of 18,600 (21,000) tons of
TNT. It was the culmination of 28 months of intense scientific research
conducted under the leadership of physicist Dr. J. Robert Oppenheimer
under the code name Manhattan Project. The successful atomic test was
witnessed by only one journalist, William L. Laurence of the New York
Times, who described seeing the blinding explosion: "One felt as though
he had been privileged to...be present at the moment of the Creation
when the Lord said: Let There be Light." Oppenheimer’s own thoughts
from the Hindu Bhagavad-Gita were very different: "I am become death,
the shatterer of worlds." The event is described in Richard Thode’s
"The Making of the Atomic Bomb." In 2005 Diane Preston authored
“Before the Fallout: From Marie Curie to Hiroshima.”
(NOHY, 3/1990, p.212-213)(HNPD, 7/16/98)(SFC,
12/31/98, p.D4)(SFEC, 12/19/99, Par p.15)(SSFC, 7/10/05, p.E3)
1945-1970 Norris Bradbury directed the Los Alamos
National Laboratory in New Mexico. The Bradbury Science Museum in Los
Alamos was later named after him.
(SSFC, 8/1/04, p.D6)
1946 Apr 16, 1st US launch of
captured V-2 rocket was at White Sands, NM. It reached 8 km.
(MC, 4/16/02)
1947 Jul 2, An object crashed near
Roswell, N.M. The Army Air Force later insisted it was a weather
balloon, but eyewitness accounts gave rise to speculation it might have
been an alien spacecraft.
(AP, 7/2/97)
1947 Jul 5, Rancher Mac Brazel
found unusual debris 75 miles northwest of Roswell, NM, scattered over
an area 300 years wide and ¾ of a mile long. This led to rumors
of an alien crash. The military said it was a crashed weather balloon.
(SSFC, 8/1/04, p.D8)
1947 Dr. Clayton S. White (d.2003)
helped establish Lovelace Medical Center in Albuquerque, NM.
(SFC, 5/4/04, p.B7)
1949 Feb 24, A V-2 WAC-Corporal
was the 1st rocket to outer space. It was fired at White Sands, NM, and
reached 400 km.
(MC, 2/24/02)
1949-1984 Georgia O’Keeffe lived in a remodeled adobe
house on 3 acres in Abiquiu.
(SFC, 7/16/97, p.E3)
1950 Hot Springs, NM, voted
1,294-295 to change its name to Truth or Consequences. Radio show host
Ralph Edwards had promised to broadcast from the town that agreed to
change its name to that of his radio show.
(SFC, 11/17/05, p.B5)
1950 A real bear from a New Mexico
fire was pressed into service as Smokey the Bear and lived until 1976
at the Washington National Zoo. The image of “Smokey the Bear” was
created by an artist in 1944 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.
(SFEC, 6/22/97, p.T6)
1951 May, Richard L. Garwin (23)
arrived at Los Alamos, N.M., to work on the hydrogen bomb. By July he
had developed a preliminary H-bomb design for Edward Teller.
(SFC, 4/24/01, p.A2)
1951 Jun 27, Sidney M. Gutierrez,
Major USAF, astronaut (STS 40), was born in Albuquerque, NM.
(SC, 6/27/02)
1951 Nov 27, 1st rocket to
intercept an airplane was fired at White Sands, NM.
(MC, 11/27/01)
1951 In New Mexico Winkler Mills
Craftsmen, Inc., located near the Nambé Pueblo, made traditional
bronze and copper cookware and gifts. The owner retired and offered the
business to his secretary, Pauline Platt Cable. She took over the
day-to-day operations of the business. In 1953 Nambe began making metal
dishes using an alloy of aluminum and 7 other metals.
(SFC, 5/21/08,
p.G7)(www.nambe.com/StoreCatalog/ctl10101/sitecontent/History/History)
1953 The film “Salt of the Earth”
was written by Michael Wilson, directed by Herbert Biberman and
produced by Paul Jerrico (d.1997 at 82). All three men had been
blacklisted by HUAC. The film chronicled a long strike by
Mexican-American zinc miners in New Mexico.
(SFC,10/30/97, p.A26)
1954 Mar 19, The 1st rocket-driven
sled on rails was tested in Alamogordo, NM.
(MC, 3/19/02)
1954 The town of Madrid was put up
for sale in the Wall Street Journal for $250,000. There were no buyers.
Madrid later became an artist's colony and the final stop along the
Turquoise Trail along Route 14.
(SFEC, 5/30/99, p.T8)
1955 May 18, 28.7 cm rain fell at
Lake Maloya, NM, for a state record.
(SC, 5/18/02)
1956 Jun 30, United DC-7 and a TWA
collided over the Grand Canyon killing 128.
(MC, 6/30/02)
1957 The Santa Fe Opera began its
summer festival under founder John Crosby.
(WSJ, 6/30/98, p.A17)
1957 Hondo Oil Co., led by Robert
O. Anderson (1917-2007), discovered the quarter-billion-barrel
Empire-Abo oilfield in southeast New Mexico.
(WSJ, 12/8/07, p.A7)
1958 Mar 22, Movie producer Mike
Todd (56) and three other people were killed in the crash of Todd's
private plane near Grants, N.M.
(AP, 3/22/08)
1958 Georgia O'Keeffe created her
oil on canvas painting "Ladder to the Moon."
(SFEC, 8/10/97, p.T7)(SSFC, 6/22/03, p.C8)
1960s Families of the pre-1846
land grants of northern New Mexico seized a courthouse, destroyed
property and threatened a rebellion over holdings that had been
whittled away over the years.
(WSJ, 5/7/99, p.A6)
1960s The state game commission
imported 38 oryx from southern Africa. By 2002 the animals number over
4,000.
(WSJ, 1/29/02, p.A1)
1964 Leon Shulman Gaspard
(b.1882), Russian-born American artist, died in Taos, New Mexico. His
work included “The Finish of the Kermesse.”
(WSJ, 12/1/07,
p.W3)(www.askart.com/AskART/artists/biography.aspx?artist=5968)
1966 The 2.7 mile Sandia Peak
Tramway opened in Albuquerque, NM.
(SSFC, 9/26/04, p.D9)
1968 Ralph Looney (d.2000 at 76)
authored “Haunted Highways,” a collection of tales about New Mexico
ghost towns.
(SFC, 9/5/00, p.A24)
1970 Dec 2, The US Senate voted to
give 48,000 acres of New Mexico back to the Taos Indians.
(HN, 12/2/98)
1971 Aviator Sid Cutter revived
ballooning in Albuquerque, NM, to commemorate his mother’s birthday.
The experience led him to invite balloonists from around the world for
the 1st int’l. balloon festival.
(SSFC, 9/25/05, E9)
1974 Amateur and professional
archeologists met in New Mexico and created the American Rock Art
Research Assoc. (ARARA) for the study and conservation of rock art.
(PacDis, Summer ’97, p.12)
1975 The MITS Altair 8800 was
introduced by Microinstrumentation & Telemetry Systems of
Albuquerque, N.M. It was sold by mail-order and Bill Gates and Paul
Allen developed the first software program for it.
(WSJ, 11/16/98, p.R10)
1976 The 1st CRAY-1 supercomputer
was installed at Los Alamos Laboratories in New Mexico for a 6-month
trial.
(www.cisl.ucar.edu/computers/gallery/cray/cray1.jsp)(WSJ, 3/2/00, p.B8)
1984 The Santa Fe Institute was
founded as a nonprofit research and education center. It specialized in
the interdisciplinary study of complex systems.
(Wired, 2/98, p.174)
1986 Mar 6, Georgia O'Keefe (98),
US painter (Flowers), died in Santa Fe, NM.
(SSFC, 6/22/03,
p.C8)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgia_O'Keeffe)
1986 Jun 18, 25 people were killed
when a twin-engine plane and helicopter carrying sightseers collided
over the Grand Canyon.
(AP, 6/18/07)
1986 Lechugilla Cave, a few miles
from Carlsbad Caverns in New Mexico, was discovered. It was the 5th
largest cave in the world and the deepest in the continental US.
(CW, Fall, 02, p.23)
1988 The Waste Isolation Pilot
Plant (WIPP) near Carlsbad, N.M. was completed. It received its 1st
shipment of nuclear waste in 1999.
(SFC, 3/26/99, p.A3)(SFC, 3/27/99, p.A2)
1990 The Santa Fe Photography and
Digital Workshops began their summer programs. www.santefeworkships.com
(SSFC, 6/10/01, p.T8)
1991 Ron Nicolino (52) sought
permission for his project “Bras Across the Grand Canyon,” but the
request was denied. He used his bra collection to create a 1,300 pound
“Big Giant Bra Ball” at his Point Richmond, Ca., home.
(SSFC, 12/23/01, p.A25)
1992 Oct, The International UFO
Museum and research Center opened in Roswell, New Mexico.
(SFC, 6/23/96, p.T7)
1992 Willard F. Clark, printer and
woodblock artist, died. He had just completed his book “Remembering
Santa Fe.”
(SSFC, 8/8/04, p.D9)
1993 May 17, President Clinton
visited the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, the
birthplace of the atomic bomb to promote a five-year, $20 billion
defense-conversion plan.
(AP, 5/17/98)
1995 Ralph Looney authored
“O’Keeffe and Me: A Treasured Friendship,” the story of his association
with artist Georgia O’Keeffe.
(SFC, 9/5/00, p.A24)
1995 The Taos Talking Pictures
Festival began.
(WSJ, 4/7/98, p.A16)
1996 Jul 27, The Santa Fe Opera
premiered "Emmeline" by Tobias Picker. It was based on a novel by
Judith Rossner.
{New Mexico, opera}
(WSJ, 8/15/96, p.A10)(www.current.org/prog613.html)
1996 Jul, A woman was kidnapped a
sexually assaulted for 4 days by David Parker Ray with assistance from
his daughter Glenda Jean Ray. Father and daughter were arrested in 1999
following another rape and torture.
(SFC, 4/27/99, p.A3)
1996 Ted Turner purchased the
588,000-acre Vermejo Park Ranch from Pennzoil Corp. The land contained
as much as $2.5 billion in gas underground.
(WSJ, 4/28/04, p.B1)
1997 The Georgia O'Keeffe Museum
opened in Santa Fe.
(WSJ, 3/2/00, p.B20)
1997 A woman (22) vanished from a
bar near Elephant Butte. Her body was never found. In 1999 Dennis Roy
Yancy pleaded guilty to her 2nd degree murder.
(SFC, 12/3/99, p.A5)
1998 Mar 28, It was reported that
the US government conducted a series of “sub-critical” underground
explosions involving radioactive plutonium in a sealed chamber 960 feet
below ground at the Los Alamos National Lab.
(SFC, 3/28/98, p.A5)
1998 May 13, Federal regulators
approved a plan to store nuclear bomb waste in the New Mexico at the
Waste isolation Pilot Project (WIPP).
(SFC, 5/14/98, p.A3)
1998 Jun 8, In New Mexico the $77
million Sloan Digital Sky Survey was reported to be about to start
probing the universe.
(SFC, 6/9/98, p.A3)
1998 Jul 13, Four young cousins in
Gallup, N.M., died after becoming trapped in a car trunk.
(AP, 7/13/99)
1999 Mar 22, A woman, held as a
sex hostage, escaped from David Ray and Cindy Hendy near Elephant Butte
Lake, NM. Ray and Hendy were arrested on charges of kidnapping and
torture and then other reports emerged that 4-6 other victims had been
mutilated and dumped into the lake. Hendy told police that Ray may have
killed as many as 14 people.
(SFC, 3/31/99, p.A6)(SFC, 5/13/99, p.A3)
1999 Mar 26, The Waste Isolation
Pilot Plant (WIPP) near Carlsbad, N.M. received its first
shipment of nuclear waste. The facility was completed in 1988.
(SFC, 3/26/99, p.A3)(SFC, 3/27/99, p.A2)
1999 Apr 27, Idaho Gov. Dirk
Kempthorne announced the movement of plutonium-contaminated waste out
of Idaho to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant near Carlsbad, New Mexico.
(SFC, 4/27/99, p.A6)
1999 Jun 16, In Santa Fe 34 tribes
filed a multibillion-dollar lawsuit against the nation's largest
tobacco companies.
(SFC, 6/17/99, p.a3)
1999 Aug 8, Raffi Kodikian (25)
stabbed to death his friend David Coughlin during a hiking expedition
in the Rattlesnake Canyon in Carlsbad Caverns National Park. Severe
dehydration caused Coughlin to ask Kodikian to be killed.
(SFC, 8/19/99, p.A3)
1999 cAug 22, Orlando Gabaldon
(51), a prison inmate, was beaten to death at a private prison.
Wackenhut Corrections Corp. opened 2 prisons under a $25 million-a-year
contract to hold some 1,500 inmates.
(SFC, 8/24/99, p.A13)
1999 Dec 4, In New Mexico 13
people were killed when a van carrying 17 crashed into a
tractor-trailer on an icy stretch of I-40 35 miles east of Albuquerque.
The victims were undocumented workers from Mexico.
(SFEC, 12/5/99, p.A12)(WSJ, 12/6/99, p.A1)
1999 Don Imus, national radio show
host, opened a 4,000-acre ranch in northern New Mexico to help sick
children experience cowboy life. In 2004 his charity spent $2.6 million
to host 100 children. Tax inquiries in 2005 were dropped.
(WSJ, 3/24/05, p.A1)(WSJ, 3/25/05, p.B3)
2000 May 4, A controlled burn was
begun in Bandolier Nat’l. Monument.
(SFC, 5/9/00, p.A3)
2000 May 7, A second fire was set
to contain an earlier blaze that was begun to clear brush on the
Bandelier National Monument in New Mexico; the second fire blew out of
control, destroying more than 200 homes and damaging part of the Los
Alamos National Laboratory before it was controlled.
(AP, 5/7/01)
2000 May 8, In New Mexico a
controlled burn Bandolier National Monument near the Los Alamos
National Laboratory blew out of control and 500 people were forced to
evacuate the area.
(SFC, 5/9/00, p.A3)
2000 May 10, The fire at Los
Alamos, New Mexico, burned 30 homes and forced the evacuation of all
11,000 residents. 3,700 acres were scorched.
(SFC, 5/11/00, p.A3)(WSJ, 5/11/00, p.A1)
2000 May 11, At Los Alamos 25,000
people were evacuated and the fire destroyed at least 150-260 homes.
Flames scorched parts of the nuclear weapons facility.
(SFC, 5/12/00, p.A1)(WSJ, 5/12/00, p.A1)
2000 May 12, The Los Alamos fire
toll covered 30,000 acres with 191 housing structures burned.
(SFC, 5/13/00, p.A1)
2000 Jun 1, At Los Alamos hard
drives with classified nuclear secrets were discovered missing. They
were found June 16 behind a photocopier.
(WSJ, 6/13/00, p.A1)(SFC, 6/17/00, p.A1)
2000 Aug 19, In New Mexico a gas
pipeline explosion near Carlsbad killed 10 people camping on the banks
of the Pecos River. An 11th victim died 2 days later. Investigators
found corrosion in the blown pipe wall. Amanda Smith (25), the 12th
victim, died in Sept.
(SFC, 8/21/00, p.A3)(SFC, 8/22/00, p.A4)(SFC,
9/6/00, p.A7)
2000 Oct 19, It was reported that
scientists had brought to life 4 strains of bacteria entombed in salt
crystals of New Mexico rock for 250 million years.
(SFC, 10/19/00, p.A1)
2000 The federal government
purchased the 95,000 acre Baca Ranch from a Texas family and renamed it
Valles Caldera National Preserve. Public tours began in Sep 2001.
(SSFC, 11/11/01, p.C8)
2000 Forest Guardians filed a
federal lawsuit in New Mexico over bird deaths against IMC Potash
Carlsbad, a division of IMC Global. US Fish and Wildlife estimated that
from 1996-2000 over 1,600 birds had died in a shallow lake where
wastewater was discharged.
(SFC, 7/7/08, p.A9)
2001 Dec 30, Rev. Jack Brock of
the Christ Community Church and his wife Sharon burned Harry Potter
books in Alamogordo after calling them “a masterpiece of satanic
deception.”
(SFC, 1/1/02, p.A2)
2001-2005 Some 80 million pinõn trees died in
Arizona and New Mexico due to drought.
(WSJ, 7/31/06, p.A1)
2002 Mar 8, Five people were
killed in a 14-vehicle pile-up on I-40 when smoke and flame from a
construction site swept across the highway near Santa Rosa.
(SFC, 3/9/02, p.A6)
2002 Mar 23, The Kokopelli fire
covered 1000 acres and the 5-2 Fire on the Mescalero Apache reservation
covered 2,400. At least 32 homes were lost.
(SSFC, 3/24/02, p.A20)
2002 Mar 23, Richard Bradford (70)
author, died in Santa Fe. His work included the novels "Red Sky at
Morning" (1968) and “So Far From Heaven.”
(SFC, 3/27/02, p.A21)
2002 Mar 24, Gov. Gary Johnson
declared a state disaster as an 800-acre fire burned 28 homes in Alto.
Fireplace ashes dumped in a backyard sparked the wildfire.
(SFC, 3/25/02, p.A9)
2002 Aug 18, US federal agents
said they had seized over 2,300 unregistered missiles at a
counter-terrorism school, High Energy Access Tools (HEAT), in Roswell,
New Mexico, that was training students from Arab countries and arrested
its Canadian leader.
(Reuters, 8/18/02)(WSJ, 8/19/02, p.A1)
2002 Oct 14, In New Mexico VP
Cheney met with representatives of Bajagua, a start-up waste processing
firm targeting waste water in Tijuana, Mexico. Waste from Tijuana
flowed into San Diego County and its Tijuana River estuary. Bajagua
spent $585,000 in lobbying efforts from 2001-2006. Estimates of costs
to the US ranged from $580-780 million. A 1999 environmental impact
statement called the Bajagua plan not feasible.
(WSJ, 1/27/07, p.A15)
2002 Nov 5, Bill Richardson
(b.1947) was elected governor of New Mexico. Over the next 4 years he
brought some 60 film productions to the state, cut personal income tax
rates by 40%, halved the capital gains tax and provided generous tax
credits to job-creating businesses.
(Econ, 7/8/06, p.26)(http://rulers.org/2002-11.html)
2003 Apr 5, In Israel Brian Avery
(23), a peace activist from Albuquerque, NM, was wounded when Israeli
troops opened fire in Jenin.
(SSFC, 4/6/03, p.A8)
2003 Jul 24, Colin McMillan, an
oilman awaiting confirmation as US Navy secretary, was found dead at
his 55,000-acre ranch in New Mexico. His death was ruled a suicide.
(SFC, 7/26/03, p.A3)
2003 Aug 31, The burned body of
Katie Sepich (22) was found at an old dump in Las Cruces, NM. She had
been raped and strangled earlier that same day. In 2006 DNA evidence
identified Gabriel Adrian Avila, already in prison for burglary and
assault, as her killer.
(SFC, 2/28/07, p.B5)(http://tinyurl.com/yvb63k)
2003 Sep 11, In Nogales, New
Mexico, federal agents discovered a 985-foot tunnel to Mexico equipped
to move drugs on railcars.
(SSFC, 9/13/03, p.A3)
2003 Sep 20, A Grand Canyon
sightseeing helicopter crashed and all 7 aboard were killed.
(WSJ, 9/22/03, p.A1)
2003 Nov 5, Mexican President
Vicente Fox asked New Mexico state leaders for better treatment of
illegal immigrants from his country.
(AP, 11/5/03)
2004 Jul 7, In Hondo, NM, Cody
Posey (14) was arrested for the murder of his father, stepmother and
stepsister. His father was manager of a ranch owned by ABC newsman Sam
Donaldson.
(SFC, 7/8/04, p.A3)
2004 John McAfee, computer
software multi-millionaire, formed a network of runways in New Mexico
and Arizona for recreational light sport aircraft.
(WSJ, 4/21/07, p.A10)
2005 Feb 17, An archaeology report
by the Museum of New Mexico's Office of Archaeological Studies
confirmed that a 600-year-old pueblo is buried under Santa Fe's City
Hall, its convention center, the parking lot they share and nearby
federal buildings.
(AP, 2/17/05)
2005 May 8, Kristi Black (19) was
found strangled in the apartment shared with Ivan Villa (22) in
Ruidoso, New Mexico. Villa disappeared with Justin, his 16-month-old
stepson, leading to a frantic search for the toddler. Later in the
month Justin was recovered in Mexico. On Oct 5, 2006, Villa turned
himself in to US authorities in Guadalajara.
(AP, 10/6/06)
2005 Jul 15, It was reported that
an estimated 100,000 gamecock breeders operated in the US, where
cockfights were only legal in Louisiana and New Mexico. Breeders
prepared the birds with injections of testosterone and methamphetamines.
(WSJ, 7/15/05, p.A1)
2005 Nov 3, R.C. Gorman (b.1931),
Navajo artist, died in Albuquerque, NM. He was dubbed “the Picasso of
American Indian Art” by the NY Times.
(SFC, 11/3/05, p.B6)
2005 Nov 21, In New Mexico, police
arrested Monsignor Dale Fushek (53), former vicar gen’l. of the Phoenix
Roman Catholic Diocese, on sex charges involving boys and young men. On
May 22, 2006, three of the 10 misdemeanor counts were dismissed at the
request of the prosecution. On December 5, 2006, the lawsuit filed on
January 27, 2005, was settled by the Diocese of Phoenix for $100,000.
The settlement does not imply any admission of guilt, according to the
Diocesan attorney Mike Haran. The case was dismissed with prejudice,
which means it cannot be refiled.
(SFC, 11/22/05,
p.A6)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dale_Fushek)
2005 Dec 13, Virgin Galactic, the
British company created by entrepreneur Richard Branson to send
tourists into space, and New Mexico announced an agreement for the
state to build a $225 million spaceport.
(AP, 12/13/05)
2006 Jan 2, Grass fires in New
Mexico, Oklahoma and Texas left at least 4 people dead with over 250
structures burned.
(SFC, 1/3/06, p.A4)
2006 Jan 8, Wildfires in the
southwest US spread to Arkansas and Colorado destroying 9 more homes.
Over the last 2 weeks the fires in New Mexico, Oklahoma and Texas have
destroyed 475 homes and left 5 people dead.
(SFC, 1/9/06, p.A3)
2006 Jan 29, The Mexican
government said the US Border Patrol in New Mexico arrested Francisco
Javier Gutierrez, a Mexican immigration official, who was allegedly
trying to help a group of undocumented migrants sneak into the US.
(AP, 1/30/06)
2006 Feb 8, The NY Times reported
that Representative Heather Wilson of New Mexico, who chairs the House
Subcommittee on Technical and Tactical Intelligence, said in an
interview that she had "serious concerns" about the Bush
administration's domestic spying program.
(AFP, 2/8/06)
2006 Mar 9, Scientists from Sandia
National Laboratories in New Mexico reported that they produced
superheated gas exceeding temperatures of 2 billion degrees Kelvin, or
3.6 billion degrees Fahrenheit.
(www.livescience.com/technology/060308_sandia_z.html)
2006 Jun 1, The Univ. of
California ceded control of Los Alamos National Laboratory in New
Mexico to a consortium, the Los Alamos National Security, which
included, UC, Bechtel, Washington Group Int’l., and BWX Technologies.
(Econ, 6/17/06,
p.85)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Los_Alamos_National_Laboratory)
2006 Jun 13, Luis Jimenez
(b.1940), Chicago sculptor, was killed in Hondo, New Mexico, while
hoisting pieces of a massive mustang for final assembly. The work was
installed at the Denver Airport in February, 2008.
(SFC, 6/27/06,
p.E2)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luis_Jim%C3%A9nez_(sculptor))(WSJ,
2/7/08, p.A1)
2006 Jul, Eclipse Aviation of
Albuquerque, NM, hoped to get approval from the FAA for its new very
light jet (VLJ), which sets 5 passengers and a pilot.
(Econ, 7/1/06, p.61)
2006 Sep 8, Sudan's President Omar
al-Bashir agreed to release American journalist Paul Salopek and his
Chadian assistants after meeting with New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson.
(AP, 9/9/06)
2006 Sep, In New Mexico the Second
Chance prison facility opened for non-violent prisoners with
substance-abuse problems. It was founded by Rick Pendery, a
Scientologist and former real-estate developer, based on principles of
L. Ron Hubbard, the founder of Scientology.
(WSJ, 1/19/07, p.A1)
2007 Jan 10, Sudan and rebel
groups, prodded by New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson, agreed on a
60-day ceasefire, plus diplomatic efforts by the UN and African Union,
to end the conflict in Darfur.
(AFP, 1/11/07)
2007 Jan 21, New Mexico’s Gov.
Bill Richardson entered the race for the Democratic presidential
nomination.
(SFC, 1/22/07, p.A3)
2007 Mar 12, New Mexico’s Gov.
Bill Richardson signed a bill that outlawed cockfighting. This left
Louisiana as the only state to allow organized cockfighting.
(WSJ, 3/13/07, p.A4)
2007 Mar 13, New Mexico got an
official state neckwear, a real Western icon, the bolo tie.
(AP, 3/13/07)
2007 Mar, Lawmakers in New Mexico
passed bill penalizing drivers who come to New Mexico with drunk
driving convictions from other states.
(Econ, 3/17/07, p.37)
2007 Apr 8, Bill Richardson, the
New Mexico governor who has undertaken diplomatic missions to countries
at odds with the United States, began a rare visit to isolated North
Korea to recover remains of American servicemen killed in the Korean
War.
(AP, 4/9/07)
2007 Apr 19, Luis Posada Carriles
(79), an anti-Castro exile wanted in Cuba for the 1976 bombing of a
Cuban airliner, was freed from a New Mexico jail after he posted
$250,000 bond and his family put up another $100,000. He must wear an
electronic monitoring device while under house arrest at his wife's
home in Miami pending his May 11 trial on immigration fraud charges.
Posada's immigration case was later thrown out by a federal judge, but
the government appealed.
(AP, 4/20/07)(AP, 4/19/08)
2007 May 21, Bill Richardson, Gov.
of New Mexico, officially joined the race for the Democratic
presidential nomination.
(WSJ, 5/22/07, p.A1)
2007 Aug 5, A medical plane left
the Ruidoso Regional Airport on a flight to University of New Mexico
Hospital, and crashed almost immediately in Devil's Canyon in the
Lincoln National Forest. 5 people were killed including a 15-month-old
patient and her mother.
(AP, 8/7/07)
2007 Aug 17, New Mexico’s Gov.
Bill Richardson ordered the state Health Department to resume planning
of a medical marijuana program despite the agency's worries about
possible federal prosecution.
(AP, 8/18/07)
2007 Sep 10, US defense research
company QinetiQ announced that an unmanned solar-powered aircraft had
soared for 54 hours more than 50,000 feet above New Mexico and may hold
the record for unmanned flight.
(AP, 9/10/07)
2008 Feb 14, New Mexico announced
that Hillary Clinton won the Feb 5 Democratic caucus giving her 14
delegates to 12 for Obama.
(SFC, 2/15/08, p.A3)
2008 May 6, In New Mexico Wayne
Bent (66), the leader of an apocalyptic sect, was arrested and charged
with felony sex crimes against children.
(SFC, 5/7/08, p.A4)
2008 Jun 9, Engineers from the Los
Alamos National Laboratory and IBM Corp. unveiled, the world's fastest
supercomputer, a $100 million machine that for the first time has
performed 1,000 trillion calculations per second in a sustained
exercise. Named Roadrunner it will be used primarily on nuclear weapons
work.
(AP, 6/10/08)
2008 Aug 24, In New Mexico 8
inmates escaped from a county jail in Clovis. 3 were captured the next
day and 5 remained at large.
(AP, 8/26/08)
2009 Jan 5, New Mexico Gov. Bill
Richardson, Obama's choice for commerce secretary, withdrew under
pressure of a federal investigation into how his political donors
landed a lucrative transportation contract.
(AP, 1/5/09)
2009 Feb 2, In New Mexico Richard
Leon Goyette (47) was arrested in Albuquerque for conveying false
information. Angered over losses in the stock market he has sent
financial institutions angry e-mails and dozens of threatening letters
containing suspicious powder.
(WSJ, 2/4/09, p.A6)
2009 Feb 27, New Mexico
authorities said they have recovered bones from 13 victims at a desert
site west of Albuquerque. 2 victims were identified as prostitutes
reported missing in 2004.
(SFC, 2/28/09, p.A4)
2009 Feb 12, Ed Grothus (b.1923),
owner of the Black Hole “nuclear waste” junk store in Los Alamos, NM,
died. The former Manhattan Project machinist began collecting rejected
equipment from the weapons lab at Los Alamos in 1969 and in 1972
established his Omega Peace Institute at a former Lutheran church,
which later became his First Church of High Technology.
(SFC, 3/14/09, p.A10)
2009 Mar 18, New Mexico Gov. Bill
Richardson, who has supported capital punishment, decided to sign
legislation to repeal the state’s death penalty. The repeal takes
effect on July 1, and applies only to crimes committed after that date.
(AP, 3/19/09)
2009 May 2, Mine That Bird, under
New Mexico trainer Bennie Woolley Jr., won the Kentucky Derby. With an
inspired ride on the rail from Calvin Borel the win was one of the
greatest upsets in 135 years of America's most famous horse race.
(AP, 5/3/09)
2009 Jun 9, In New Mexico a
helicopter crashed while attempting to rescue Megumi Yamamoto, a
Japanese graduate student who was hiking in the mountains above Santa
Fe. Police Sgt Andy Tingwall and Yamamoto died in the crash.
(SFC, 6/15/09, p.A6)
2009 Jun 19, New Mexico Gov. Bill
Richardson took part in a ceremonial groundbreaking at the remote site
of Spaceport America, about 45 north of Las Cruces. The spaceport was
being constructed for commercial space development.
(SFC, 6/20/09, p.A4)
Go to http://www.timelinesdb.com
Subject = New Mexico
End of file.