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GAS price chartOn a July 19:


2002
The stock of natural gas utilities company Nicor (GAS) is downgraded by Goldman Sachs from “Market Perform” to “Market Underperform” and by Merrill Lynch from “Near Term Neutral / Long Term Buy” to “Near and Long Term Reduce or Sell”. The stock falls from its previous close of $38.01 to an intraday low of $18.00 and closes at $22.75. It had traded as high as $48.56 as recently as 18 June 2002. [5~year price chart >]






2002
The stock of healthcare facilities company Beverly Enterprises (BEV) falls from its previous close of $6.85 to an intraday low of $3.50 and closes at $4.10. It had traded as high as $17.50 ot 01 December 1997 and $12.09 as recently as 26 July 2001. [< 5~year price chart]

2002 Doctor found to have murdered 215+ patients      top
      The chairman of an inquiry panel states that its 09 July 2002 interim 2000-page report reveals that British family physician Harold Fredrick Shipman murdered certainly 215 of his patients, and probably up to 83 more, in 23 years as a trusted small-town practitioner, motive unknown. In only one case was there evidence that he killed for money.
      Shipman, 56, was convicted on 31 January 2000 of murdering 15 of his patients — all elderly women — by injecting them with heroin, and of forging one will. He is already serving 15 life sentences with no possibility of parole, making any further trial futile, as the UK does not have the death sentence.
      Shipman maintained his innocence.He was liked and admired by those who new him in Hyde, a small community in northern England.
    The yearlong inquiry has investigated the deaths of 494 of Shipman's patients between 1974 and 1998. It found that at least 215 of them were killed by Shipman, most of them by lethal injection. The true number is far greater and cannot be estimated. In 45 more cases there was strong but inconclusive evidence that Shipman had killed the victims. Investigators found too little evidence to determine if the deaths of 38 others were natural or not.
      Shipman began his killing spree in March 1975, a year after he entered practice, with Mrs. Eva Lyons, who was suffering from terminal cancer and was in great pain. Shipman deliberately hastened her death by the administration of an excessive dose of strong opiate, probably morphine or diamorphine. His proven victims, ranging in age from 41 (Peter Lewis, 02 Jan 1985) to 93 (Miss Ann Cooper, 15 Feb 1988), included 171 women and 44 men. In a minority of the cases the killings might be considered euthanasia (which is illegal even if requested by the victim). Shipman's last murder was that of Mrs. Kathleen Grundy, on 24 June 1998.
      For more than 20 years Shipman was a respected member of the community in Hyde, a working-class town of 22'000 just outside Manchester in northwest England. In 1992, he set up a practice in the town. Between then and 1998 he killed certainly 143 persons, according to the report.
      But his activities did not arouse suspicion until March 1998, when another doctor, who had been asked by Shipman to cosign some cremation certificates, expressed concern at the number of deaths. Police concluded there wasn't enough evidence to pursue charges.
      The investigation was reopened months later after the daughter of an 81-year-old widow discovered that her mother apparently had changed her will to leave everything to Shipman. That led to exhumations and eventually to Shipman's trial and conviction. A jury found that he deliberately injected heroin into 15 elderly women -- many in good health -- during routine checkups in their homes or at his office, falsifying computer records to create fictitious symptoms to explain their deaths.
      The inquiry will now consider how Shipman was able to escape detection for so long and what safeguards could prevent such a crime from happening again.Its final report is due late in 2003.
— In alphabetical order, the first victim seems to be Mrs. Lizzie Adams, who died on 28 February 1997 at the age of 77; and the last one Mrs Joyce Woodhead who died on 23 February 1997 at the age of 74.
Koirala 2001 The prime minister of Nepal, Girija Prasad Koirala, 76 [photo >], hands his resignation to King Gyanendra. Koirala's most recent 15-month term was beset by a bribery scandal involving the national airline's lease of a plane, increasing attacks by Maoists guerrillas, and fighting for a communist republic, and the 01 June 2001 massacre of the royal family by Crown Prince Dipendra. Koirala's government was blamed, both because soldiers assigned to protect the king and queen failed to do so, and because of the belated, piecemeal way in which the official version came out.
2001 In England, best-selling novelist and disgraced former Conservative politician Lord Jeffrey Archer of Weston-Super-Mare, 61, is convicted and sentenced to four years in prison on four counts of perjury and obstructing justice in his 1987 suit against the Daily Star tabloid newspaper that reported he'd hired prostitute Monica Coghlan (she was killed on 27 April 2001 when she was struck by a stolen car driven by a fleeing robbery suspect in northwestern England). Archer was elected to the House of Commons at age 29 in 1969, but within five years was forced to resign after bad investments drove him to bankruptcy. That experience inspired his first book, Not a Penny More, Not a Penny Less. His third novel, Kane & Abel made him a multi-millionaire. He also wrote To Cut a Long Story Short, A Twist in the Tale, The Eleventh Commandment, The Prodigal Daughter, As the Crow Flies, A Matter of Honor, Shall We Tell the President?, First Among Equals, The Fourth Estate, Honor Among Thieves, A Quiver Full of Arrows, and the play The Accused.
2001 Gray and white Muffy the cat escapes from its cage in a Providence RI baggage room, darts down the tarmac and claws its way up into a Continental Airlines MD-80 jet wheel well, forcing 82 passengers off the plane bound to Newark, N.J. After eight hours of trying to coax and tempt the cat down, maintenance crews remove panels on the bottom of the wing, near its seam with the body, to pull Muffy out.
2000 President Clinton shuttled between Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat and his own experts during peace talks at Camp David after delaying his departure for an economic summit in Japan.
1996 A US Food and Drug Administration advisory committee recommended, with some conditions, that the abortion-inducing drug RU-486 be approved. Bosnian Serb official Radovan Karadzic yielded to international pressure to give up all political power.
1995 End of IBM's antitrust restrictions      top
      The Justice Department says it favors releasing IBM from antitrust restrictions imposed in 1956, which had limited the company's ability to compete in the personal computer industry. In a court filing, the Justice Department says the consent decree no longer promotes the public interest in competition. The department indicaten that it would be willing to lift restrictions on IBM's service, personal computer, and workstation businesses. Restrictions would remain on mainframes, an area where IBM still dominated.
1994 CompuServe's bimonthly CD-ROM      top
      CompuServe offers its subscribers CD-ROMs, including album and movie previews. The company planned to sell the disk for $7.95 every other month. At the time, CD-ROMs were not yet standard issue on personal computers: The company estimated about one-third of its two million subscribers owned a CD-ROM drive at the time. In 1994 and 1995, interest in CD-ROMs as delivery devices for multimedia content grew; however, with the increased popularity of the Web in the late 1990s, many companies cut back their investment in CD-ROM publishing.
1991 The apartheid South African government acknowledged that it had been giving money to the Inkatha Freedom Party, the main rival of the African National Congress. President Bush toured the Souda Bay U.S. naval base during a visit to Greece.
1987 El partido socialdemócrata de Cavaco Silva vence en las elecciones legislativas de Portugal.
1985 Christa McAuliffe of New Hampshire was chosen to be the first schoolteacher to ride aboard the space shuttle. (McAuliffe and six other crew members died when the "Challenger" exploded shortly after liftoff.)
1984 Geraldine A Ferraro, (Rep-D-NY), won Democratic VP nomination
1980 Inauguración de los Juegos Olímpicos de Moscú. 59 países secundan el boicot preconizado por Estados Unidos.
1979 Nicaragua Liberation Day; Managua fell to Sandinista guerrillas, two days after President Anastasio Somoza had fled the country.
1979 Miller to the Treasury      top
      By the summer of 1979, America's economy is in a sorry state: oil prices have soared sky high, triggering a nasty burst of inflation that only exacerbates the nation's fiscal woes. Americans also struggle under the strain of bloated consumer prices and an ever-swelling standard of living. It is in this dire atmosphere that President Jimmy Carter names G. William Miller to run the beleaguered Treasury Department.
      A lawyer turned businessman, Miller certainly was qualified to lead the Treasury: he had run a few corporations, including Textron Inc., and also served a stint as the director of the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston. And Miller, who, at the time of his nomination, was working as the Chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, was well acquainted with America's financial maladies. So it was no surprise that Miller, who was nominated for the Treasury post on July 19, passed through the approval process with little fuss; he was sworn in to office on August 6. Whatever his skills and experience, Miller was no match for the economy. By the dawn of 1980 inflation had ballooned to its highest point in 33 years and an increasingly frustrated electorate was primed to oust Carter and his staff from office.
1975 The Apollo and Soyuz space capsules that were linked in orbit for two days separated.
1974 The US House of Representatives Judiciary Committee recommends that President Richard Nixon should stand trial in the Senate for any of the five impeachment charges against him.
1974 El dictador Francisco Franco ha de ser hospitalizado y el príncipe don Juan Carlos asume provisionalmente la Jefatura del Estado español.
1972 Vietnam peace talks resume      top
      Washington and Hanoi announce that the private Paris peace talks have resumed. Henry Kissinger and North Vietnamese negotiator Le Duc Tho conferred for over six hours and, by mutual agreement, neither side revealed details of the meetings. The talks had been suspended when the North Vietnamese had launched their Nguyen Hue Offensive earlier in the year. Though the peace talks resumed, heavy fighting continued in South Vietnam. A force of 8,000 to 10,000 South Vietnamese troops moved north toward the district capital at Hoi An in the communist-controlled Binh Dinh province. The troop movement marked the beginning of a counteroffensive in the coastal province to retake territory lost to the communists in the early days of the Nguyen Hue Offensive. Saigon's forces succeeded in taking Hoi An two days later, but lost the western half of the city one week after that.
1969 Apollo 11 and its astronauts, Neil Armstrong, Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin and Michael Collins, went into orbit around the moon.
1964 President Khanh calls for expanding the war      top
      On what the South Vietnamese call the "Day of Shame" — the 10th anniversary of the signing of the Geneva Accords that partitioned Vietnam — South Vietnamese Premier Nguyen Khanh, at a rally in Saigon, calls for an expansion of the war to North Vietnam. Ambassador Maxwell Taylor and other U.S. officials present declined comment on Khanh's position, but it was known that the United States regarded this as breaking an agreement to consult with Washington before issuing such a call.
1967 Race riots in Durham NC
1966 Gov James Rhodes declares state of emergency in Cleveland (race riot)
1956 United States withdraws offer of aid for Aswan Dam      top
      Secretary of State John Foster Dulles announces that the United States is withdrawing its offer of financial aid to Egypt to help with the construction of the Aswan Dam on the Nile River. The action drove Egypt further toward an alliance with the Soviet Union and was a contributing factor to the Suez Crisis later in 1956. In December 1955, Secretary Dulles announced that the United States, together with Great Britain, was providing nearly $70 million in aid to Egypt to help in the construction of the Aswan Dam on the Nile River. Dulles had agreed to this assistance only reluctantly. He was deeply suspicious of Egyptian leader Gamal Abdel Nasser, who he believed to be a reckless and dangerous nationalist. However, others in the Eisenhower administration convinced Dulles that the American aid might pull Nasser back from his relationship with the Soviet Union and prevent the growth of Soviet power in the Middle East. Just seven months after the announcement, however, Dulles declared that the American offer was being revoked. He cited difficulties in arranging the financial details of the U.S. grant with the Egyptian government, but his real motivation was Nasser's unceasing attacks on Western colonialism and imperialism and Egypt's continued dalliance with the Soviet Union. Dulles might have believed that without the American aid, the dam project would fold. On this point, he was wrong. The Soviets rushed to Egypt's aid, and the Aswan Dam was officially opened in 1964. Nasser, of course, was furious with the U.S. action. So, too, were the British, who believed that America's withdrawal of aid had provided the opening for Soviet penetration of Egypt. In October 1956, British, French, and Israeli forces attacked Egypt, claiming that they were protecting the Suez Canal. The incident nearly provoked a U.S.-Soviet confrontation, but President Dwight D. Eisenhower coupled stern warnings against any Soviet military action with a refusal to support the British, French, and Israeli invasion. The invading forces withdrew from Egypt in early 1957. Nevertheless, the damage to U.S. relations with the Middle East was done and the area would remain a Cold War hotspot throughout the next 35 years.
1950 Aprobación definitiva del Opus Dei y de la sociedad sacerdotal de la Santa Cruz.
1949 Laos becomes an associated state within French Union.
1944 Plot to assassinate Hitler:      top
      A group of German officers plot to kill Nazi leader Adolf Hitler, whom they feel is leading Germany to ruin. The next day, Colonel Klaus von Stauffenberg , 36, would leave a briefcase concealing a time bomb at Hitler's feet during a meeting, and excuse himself. The bomb killed four people, but a table shielded Hitler, who was only slightly wounded. In Berlin, the conspirators, believing that the Fuhrer was dead, set in motion their plans to seize control of the German government. However, by midnight, some of the conspirators, including von Stauffenberg, were dead, the first of several thousands who ultimately died in the bloody aftermath of the conspiracy
1943 US bombs Rome for the first time      top
      More than 150 B-17 and 112 B-24 bombers attack railway yards in Rome in an attempt to break the will of the Italian people to resist — as Hitler lectures their leader, Benito Mussolini, on how to prosecute the war further.
      On July 16, President Franklin Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill had appealed to the Italian civilian population to reject Mussolini and Hitler and "live for Italy and civilization." As an "incentive," American bombers raided the city, destroying its railways. Panic broke out among the Romans. Convinced by Mussolini that the Allies would never bomb the holy city, civilians had poured into the Italian capital for safety. The bombing did more than shake their security in the city — it shook their confidence in their leader. The denizens of Rome were not alone in such disillusion. In a meeting in northern Italy, Hitler attempted to revive the flagging spirits of Il Duce, as well as point out his deficiencies as a leader.
      Afraid that Mussolini, having suffered successive military setbacks, would sue for a separate peace, leaving the Germans alone to battle it out with Allied forces along the Italian peninsula, Hitler decided to meet with his onetime role model to lecture him on the manly art of war. Mussolini remained uncharacteristically silent during the harangue, partly due to his own poor German (he would request a translated synopsis of the meeting later), partly due to his fear of Hitler's response should he tell the truth — that Italy was beaten and could not continue to fight. Mussolini kept up the charade for his German allies: Italy would press on.
      But no one believed the brave front anymore. Just a day later, Hitler secretly ordered Field Marshal Erwin Rommel to take command of the occupied Greek Islands, better to "pounce on Italy" if and when Mussolini capitulated to the United States. But within a week, events would take a stunning turn.
      II Guerra mundial. Desde las 11 hasta las 13 horas, 270 aviones aliados bombardean las barriadas periféricas de Roma.
1942 German U-boats are withdrawn from positions off the U.S. Atlantic coast due to effective US anti-submarine countermeasures.
1941 President Roosevelt appointed FEP Committee
1941 British Prime Minister Winston Churchill launched his "V for Victory" campaign in Europe.
1936 El general Franco llega a Tetuán y se pone al frente del sublevado Ejército español de Marruecos. Formación del decimonoveno gobierno republicano, presidido por José Giral, que decide armar al pueblo.
1918 German armies retreat across Marne River in France (WW I)
1914 Sunday : in the aftermath of the June 28 assassination of Archduke Francis Ferdinand:
  • The Austrian Ministerial Council meets in secret. It is decided that Conrad shall be given his chance and Serbia will be "beaten to earth."
  • The Ultimatum to Serbia is drafted. [view text of the ultimatum]
  • 1911 Pennsylvania passes movie censorship laws      top
          Pennsylvania becomes the first state to pass laws censoring movies. From their debut as peep shows in penny arcades and vaudeville attractions, movies were viewed with suspicion by authorities wishing to safeguard American morals. As early as 1909, movie producers had submitted to censorship, allowing the Board of Censorship in New York, for example, to review new films. The board, a citizens committee later called The National Board of Review, soon became a national organization. The Pennsylvania laws, however, were the first specifically allowing censorship by a government body. Other states followed Pennsylvania, and in 1915 the U.S. Supreme Court upheld such laws, agreeing that government bodies may censor pictures. Fearing increased government censorship, studios begin working together to censor their own films. They established a self-policing association, the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America (MPPDA), and in 1930 the organization adopted the Production Code. William H. Hays, the former U.S. postmaster general under President Harding and past chairman of the Republic National Committee, was tagged to head the new group. Hays wielded such power that the MPPDA came to be called the "Hays Office," and the Production Code adopted in 1930 was commonly referred to as the "Hays Code." For the next three decades, the Code imposed strict guidelines on the cinematic treatment of sex, crime, religion, violence, and other controversial subjects. The Code required that no film should "lower the standards of those who see it. Hence, the sympathy of the audience should never be thrown to the side of crime, wrongdoing, evil, or sin." The Code specifically prohibited the portrayal of illegal drug trafficking, "sex perversion," and profanity. It also prohibited the portrayal of clergy members as comic characters or villains, and the portrayal of interracial relationships. The Code deeply influenced the kinds of films that were made until the late 1960s, when the standards were revised in response to social change. New standards adopted in 1966 permitted more liberal portrayals of sexual content but imposed heavier restrictions on violence. In 1968, the Code was replaced by the movie ratings system, which greatly expanded the range of permissible subjects for film.
    1898 Emile Zola flees France      top
          Novelist Emile Zola flees France on this day in 1898 to escape imprisonment after being convicted of libel against the French army in the notorious Dreyfus affair. Zola was a well-known writer who had published his first book, a collection of stories, more than three decades earlier. After failing his baccalaureate, he worked in the sales department of a major French publisher, who encouraged his writing and published his first book.
          He became one of the most famous writers in France with the publication of his 1877 hit, The Drunkard, part of his 20-novel cycle exploring the lives of two families. In 1898, Zola wrote an inflammatory newspaper letter, entitled "J'Accuse," exposing a military cover-up regarding Captain Alfred Dreyfus. Dreyfus, a French army captain, had been accused of espionage in 1894 and sentenced in a secret military court-martial to imprisonment in a South American penal colony. Two years later, evidence of Dreyfus' innocence surfaced, but the army suppressed the information. Zola's letter blamed the military for concealing its mistaken conviction. Zola's letter provoked national outrage on both sides of the issue, among political parties, religious organizations, and others. He was brought to trial for libel, convicted, and sentenced to one year's imprisonment. He fled France but returned in 1899, after Dreyfus was pardoned. Zola died in 1902, four years before Dreyfus was finally exonerated.
    ZOLA ONLINE: en français:   
  • Germinal
  • Contes à Ninon
  • J'accuse!
  • L'Argent
  • L'Assommoir
  • L'Oeuvre
  • La Bête humaine
  • La Conquête de Plassans
  • La Curée
  • La Débâcle
  • La Terre
  • Le Docteur Pascal
  • Le Roman expérimental
  • 1870 France declares war on Prussia; the Franco-Prussian war begins
    1863 Engagement at Buffington Island on the Ohio River
    1863 Siege of Fort Wagner, Charleston Harbor, South Carolina continues
    1863 Morgan's raiders defeated at Buffington Island      top
          Confederate General John Hunt Morgan's raid on the North is dealt a serious blow when a large part of his force is captured as they try to escape across the Ohio River at Buffington Island, Ohio. Cut off from the south, Morgan fled north with the remnants of his command and was captured a week later at Salineville, Ohio. This was the last and most daring of Morgan's four raids into Union-held territory. The main purpose of the raid was to take pressure off of Chattanooga, Tennessee, by drawing Union troops away from the army of General William Rosecrans. It began on 02 July at Burkesville, Kentucky, and continued into Indiana. Morgan departed with more than 2400 troopers, but he split his force on two occasions, and suffered many casualties in skirmishes with Federal detachments. Morgan and his forces rode east into Ohio and feigned an advance toward a panicked Cincinnati, but bypassed the city and continued eastward to Pomeroy, Ohio. His men were worn down by the long days in the saddle, and the Yankee pursuit finally caught up at Buffington Island, just outside of Pomeroy. While Morgan made plans to cross the swollen Ohio River, Federal gunboats guarded the fords and Union cavalry attacked the Confederates. In a short time, Morgan lost 800 men, nearly all of who were captured. Morgan escaped with 400 of his men, and fled north in search of a more suitable place to cross the river—which they never found. Morgan surrendered on July 26.
    1862 Forrest's 1st raid
    1849 Se promulga una ley para incorporar a España al intento internacional de establecer el Sistema Métrico Decimal.
    1848 First Woman's Rights Convention begins      top
          At the Wesleyan chapel in Seneca Falls, New York, the Woman's Rights Convention — the first of its kind ever held in the United States — commenced with almost two hundred women in attendance. The convention was organized by Lucretia Mott and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, two Quakers who met at the 1840 World Antislavery Convention held in London.
          As women, Mott and Stanton were barred from the convention floor, and the common indignation that this aroused in both of them was the impetus for their founding woman's rights movement in the United States. In 1848, at Stanton's home near Seneca Falls, the two women, working with Martha Wright, Mary Ann McClintock, and Jane Hunt, sent out a call for a women's conference to be held at Seneca Falls beginning on July 19.
         The announcement, published in the Seneca County Courier on July 14, read, "A Convention to discuss the social, civil, and religious condition and rights of women will be held in the Wesleyan Chapel, at Seneca Falls, N.Y., on Wednesday and Thursday, the 19th and 20th of July current; commencing at 10 o'clock A.M. During the first day the meeting will be exclusively for women, who are earnestly invited to attend. The public generally are invited to be present on the second day, when Lucretia Mott, of Philadelphia, and other ladies and gentlemen, will address the Convention."
          On July 19, 200 women convened at the Wesleyan Chapel, and Stanton read the "Declaration of Sentiments and Grievances," a treatise that she had drafted over the previous few days. Stanton's declaration was modeled closely on the Declaration of Independence, and its preamble featured the proclamation, "We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men and women are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights..." The Declaration of Sentiments and Grievances then detailed the injustices inflicted upon women in the United States and called upon U.S. women to organize and petition for their rights.
          The first day of the convention was for women only, but on the second day men were invited to intend — and some 40 did, including the famous African American abolitionist Frederick Douglass. That day, the Declaration of Sentiments and Grievances was adopted and signed by the assembly. The convention also passed 12 resolutions — 11 unanimously — which called for specific equal rights for women. The ninth resolution, which declared "it is the duty of the women of this country to secure to themselves their sacred right to the elective franchise," was the only one to meet opposition. After a lengthy debate, in which Douglass sided with Stanton in arguing the importance of female enfranchisement, the resolution was passed. For proclaiming a women's right to vote, the Seneca Falls Convention was subjected to public ridicule, and some backers of women's rights withdrew their support. However, the resolution marked the beginning of the women's suffrage movement in America.
          The Seneca Falls Convention was followed two weeks later by an even larger meeting in Rochester, New York. Thereafter, national woman's rights conventions were held annually, providing an important focus for the growing women's suffrage movement. After years of struggle, the 19th Amendment was adopted in 1920, granting US women the constitutionally protected right to vote.
    1825 The American Unitarian Association is founded by members of the liberal wing ofthe Congregational churches in New England.
    1816 Survivors of French frigate Medusa rescued off Senegal after 17 days
    1808 Guerra de la Independencia española. Batalla de Bailén (Jaén), en la que las tropas napoleónicas de Dupont sufren su primera derrota ante las españolas de Castaños.
    Rosetta stone1799 Rosetta Stone discovered      top
          During French General Napoleon Bonaparte's Egyptian campaign, a group of his soldiers discovered near the town of Rosetta, north of Alexandria, a black basalt slab, 100cm high by 70cm wide by 30cm deep, inscribed with ancient writing. Experts eventually determined that the "Rosetta Stone," as it became known, was inscribed by priests of Ptolemy V with an identical text in Egyptian hieroglyphic (at the top), demotic (in the middle), and Greek (at the bottom), thus holding the key to solving the riddle of hieroglyphics.
          Hieroglyphics, one of the most unique form of written language, were used by the Ancient Egyptians from 3000 B.C. to within a few hundred years of the birth of Christ. In hieroglyphics, conventionalized pictures are used to represent meanings that seem arbitrary and are seldom obvious, and the writing thus remained a mystery to modern archaeologists and linguistics until 1799, when the key to deciphering the dead written language was discovered near Rosetta, Egypt.
          In 1801, the British took the Rosetta Stone from the French, and a Swedish diplomat, Johan David Akerblad, made some progress in identifying some of the phonetic letters in the cursive text. Later, the British Egyptologist Thomas Young went further, and identified some of the proper names. However, it was not until the work of the French Egyptologist Jean-François Champollion in 1821 that the two Egyptian scripts, the hieroglyphic and demotic, were recognized as belonging to the same spoken language. With his knowledge of demotic, Champollion was able to decipher the hieroglyphics on the Rosetta Stone and thus other archaeological items, and Ancient Egypt was open to scientists as never before.
         Part of the writing on the stone, translated into English:
    ...whereas king PTOLEMY THE EVER-LIVING, THE BELOVED OF PTAH, THE GOD EPIPHANES EUCHARISTO, the son of King Ptolemy and Queen Arsinoe, the Gods Philopatores, has been a benefactor both to the temples and to those who dwell in them, as well as those who are his subjects, being a god sprung from a god and goddess (like Horus the son of lsis and Osiris, who avenged his father Osiris) and being benevolently disposed towards the gods, has dedicated to the temples revenues in money and wheat and has undertaken much outlay to bring Egypt into prosperity, and to establish the temples, and has been generous with all his own means; and of the revenues and taxes levied in Egypt some he has wholly remitted and others has lightened, in order that the people and the others might be in prosperity during his reign: and whereas he has remitted the debts to the crown being many in number which they in Egypt and in the rest of the kingdom owed: and whereas those who were in prison and those who were under accusation for a long time, he has freed of the charges against them; and whereas he has directed that the gods shall continue to enjoy the revenues of the temples and the yearly allowances given to them, both of wheat and money, likewise also the revenues assigned to the gods from vine land and from gardens and other properties which belonged to the gods in his father's time...
    1788 Prices plunge on the Paris stock market.
    1588 The Spanish Armada reaches England      top
          The so-called "Invincible Armada," a massive Spanish fleet sent to secure control of the English Channel and transport a Spanish army to the British isle from the Netherlands, was first sighted off the Cornish coast of England.
          In the late 1580s, Queen Elizabeth's support of the Dutch rebels in the Spanish Netherlands led King Philip II of Spain to plan the conquest of England. A giant Spanish invasion fleet was completed by 1587, but Sir Francis Drake's daring raid on the Spanish port of Cadiz delayed the Armada's departure until 1588. On May 19, 1588, the Invincible Armada, consisting of 130 ships and carrying 2500 guns and 30'000 men, set sail from Lisbon. Delayed by storms, the Armada did not reach the southern coast of England until July 19, and by that time, Elizabeth had prepared an adequate defense.
          On July 21, the outnumbered English navy began bombarding the eleven-kilometer-long line of Spanish ships from a safe distance, taking full advantage of their superior long-range guns. Over the next week, the Spanish Armada continued to advance, but its ranks were thinned considerably by the English assault. On July 28, the Spanish retreated to Calais, France, but English sent ships loaded with explosives into the crowded harbor, which, along with damage caused by panicked ship collisions, took a heavy toll on the Armada.
          The next day, an attempt to reach the Netherlands was thwarted by a small Dutch fleet, and the Spanish were forced to face the pursuing English fleet. The superior English guns again won the day and the Armada retreated north to Scotland. Battered by storms and suffering from a lack of supplies, the Armada sailed on a difficult journey back to Spain around Scotland and the east of Ireland. By the time the last of the surviving fleet reached Spain in October, half of the so-called Invincible Armada had been destroyed. Queen Elizabeth's decisive defeat of the Armada made England a world-class naval power, and introduced effective long-range weapons into naval warfare for the first time, ending the era of boarding and close-quarter fighting.
    1553 15-year-old Lady Jane Grey deposed as England's Queen after 9 days
    1545 King Henry VIII of England watches his flagship, Mary Rose, capsize as it leaves to battle the French.
    1525 The Catholic princes of Germany form the Dessau League to fight against the Reformation.
    1195 Las tropas del rey castellano Alfonso VIII son derrotadas en la batalla de Alarcos por el ejército del emir almohade Abu Yaqub al-Mansur.
    1068 En la Llantada, Sancho II de Castilla derrota a su hermano Alfonso VI de León en un juicio de Dios para decidir quién ocupa ambos reinos; sin embargo, Alfonso no acepta el resultado del combate y continúa las hostilidades.
    0532 Start of Dionysian Pascal Cycle
    1321 -BC- origin of Era of Menophres
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    GinzburgDeaths which occurred on a July 19:      top
    2002 Aleksandr I. Ginzburg, 65 [< photo], in Paris, poet and human rights activist in the Soviet Union, who was repeatedly imprisoned until exchanged to the US in 1979 for two convicted spies.
    2001 Mohammed Salameh Etnizi, 22, Mohammed Hilmy Etnizi, 20, and 3-month-old Amira Wael Etnizi, Palestinians shot by members of the “Road Safety Group”, identified with Kach, an outlaw extremist Jewish organization. Israeli settlers opened fire on the Palestinian car near the Palestinian village of Idna, west of Hebron, killing the three and wounding four. The murderers' car ran an Israeli army roadblock nearby and escaped into Israel after the shooting.
    1989 112 people, as a United Air Lines Flight 232, a DC-10, crashes at 16:00 while making an emergency landing at Sioux City, Iowa; 184 other people survived. [Last communications with the tower and comments by the surviving pilot].
    1989 Dos jefes del Cuerpo de Intendencia del Ejército de Tierra de España, asesinados a tiros en las proximidades del Gobierno Militar de Madrid, por un comando de Euzkadi Ta Askatasuna.
    1981 José María Pemán, escritor español.
    1965 Syngman Rhee, político y presidente surcoreano.
    1957 Curzio Malaparte, escritor italiano.
    1929 Fausto Zonaro, Italian artist born on 18 September 1854.
    1907 Theodor Pixis, German artist born on 01 July 1831.
    1886 José Joaquim Verde, poeta portugués.
    1878 Zolotarev, mathematician who produced fundamental work on analysis and number theory.
    1824 Agustín de Iturbide, el depuesto emperador de México, fusilado, tras volver a su país del destierro con intención de hacerse con el poder.
    1817 Jean-Antoine-Théodore Giroust, French artist born on 10 November 1753.
    1664 Egbert Lievensz van der Poel, Dutch painter born on 09 March 1621. — LINKS
    1545 Some 470 as Royal Navy HMS Mary Rose rolls over and sinks during battle of the Solent
    1692 Five Massachusetts women are hanged for witchcraft. Fifteen young girls in the Salem community charged as many as 150 citizens in the area with witchcraft during the greater part of this year.
    1510 38 Jews, burned at the stake, in Berlin, Prussia
    1374 François Pétrarque      top
         Pétrarque est trouvé mort ce matin, la veille de son 70ème anniversaire, la tête reposant sur un manuscrit de Virgile. Il fut l’un des plus importants poètes du Quattrocento Italien. Dans ses Rimes, ses Triomphes ou ses Odes, il a su faire valoir son génie créatif, sa sensibilité profonde, sa connaissance du monde extérieur autant que du monde intérieur. Cet historien, archéologue, chercheur de manuscrits anciens, érudit, curieux de tout, ne s’arrêtant que quand il savait Tout d’une chose et sachant qu’il ne connaîtrait jamais le Tout d’aucune chose, fut le premier des grands humanistes de la Renaissance. Les poèmes sont écrits en Toscan du XIVème siècle. Ils sont composés en l’honneur de Laure de Noves et réunis dans un Canzionere publié en 1470.
    0514 Saint Symmachus, Pope
    Births which occurred on a July 19:      top
    1934 Retractable car headlamps      top
          Harold T. Ames files a patent application for his retractable headlamps. The design would later become one of the defining details on Ames’ most triumphant project, the Cord 810. Ames, then the chief executive at Duesenberg, asked Cord designer Gordon Buehrig to make a “baby version” of the Duesenberg car. Buehrig’s response, the Cord 810, is widely held to be one of the most influential cars in American automotive history. It was the last great offering of the Auburn, Cord, and Duesenberg triumvirate, as the company became insolvent at the end of the Depression.
          In 1952 the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) chose the 1937 Cord as one of eight automotive works of art for a year-long exhibition. MoMA’s summation of the Cord’s lines are as follows: “Many of the Cord’s lines are borrowed form aerodynamics… The Cord suggests the driving power of a fast fighter plane. It is, in fact, a most solemn expression of streamlining.”
    1922 George McGovern (Sen-D-SD), pres candidate (D-1972)
    1898 Herbert Marcuse Berlin, communist philosopher (One-Dimensional Man)
    1896 A.J. Cronin England, author (Citadel, Shining Victory)
    1894 Khinchin, mathematician.
    1879 Alfred Justitz, Czech German artist who died in 1934.
    1865 Charles Horace Mayo surgeon, cofounded Mayo Clinic
    1860 Lizzie Borden murderer, gave her mother forty whacks
    1838 Jose Manuel Balmaceda, político chileno
    1834 Hilaire-Germain-Edgar Degas, French impressionist painter who died on 26 September 1917. — MORE ON DEGAS AT ART “4” JULY LINKSL'impresario Portrait d'un HommeSelf-PortraitHenri de Gas and his Niece LucyDancing ClassDancing Class RehearsalThe RehearsalDance LessonPosingDancersRehearsing Ballet RehearsalThe CurtainBallet RehearsalSingers on StageDancer on StageBallet Dancers in the WingsThe StarOrchestra of the OperaConcertCirque FernandoFour DancersDancers in PinkThe Dance ExaminationWoman Ironing aboutMillinery ShopWoman with a HatRace HorsesChevaux a LongchampRacehorses in Front of the GrandstandAux Courses en ProvinceLa famille BelleliMorning BathBathingWoman BathingWoman Getting out of the Bath Girl Drying HerselfAfter the BathAnother After the BathCombing HairWomen RelaxingMadame CamusRoman Beggar WomanWomen in a CafeMichel LevyCup of ChocolateYoung SpartansDavid & GoliathThe RapeIn a New Orleans Cotton OfficeIn a Café (The Absinthe Drinker)At the BeachMarguerite de Gas, the Artist's SisterAchille de Gas in the Uniform of a CadetHilaire de Gas, Grandfather of the ArtistSpartan Girls Challenging BoysThe Suffering of the City of New Orleans.Courtyard of a House in New Orleans.Portraits in a New Orleans Cotton officeRace HorsesCarriage at the RacesDance Class.Dancing ExaminationThe Star
    1827 Johann Till, Austrian artist who died on 21 November 1894.
    1817 Briot, mathematician
    1814 Samuel Colt, inventor of the first practical revolver.
    1803 Ramón de Mesonero Romanos, escritor español.
    1792 Polydore Roux, French artist who died on 12 April 1833.
    1789 John Martin, British painter who died on 17 February 1854. — MORE ON MARTIN AT ART “4” JULY LINKSThe Assuaging of the Waters
    Manfred and the Witch of the AlpsThe Great Day of His Wrath53 prints at FAMSF
    The Bard _ The subject comes from Thomas Gray's poem The Bard
    1768 François Joseph Servois, at Mont-de-Laval (N of Morteau), Doubs, France, mathematician      top
          François-Joseph Servois's father, Jacques-Ignance Servois, was a merchant and his mother was Jeanne-Marie Jolliet. Servois's first intention was to join the priesthood and he began by following this aim and was ordained at Besançon. However, this was in the early days of the French Revolution and a time of great political and military activity in France. Servois soon changed his mind about following a career in the Church, and left in 1793 to join the army.
          He was at the artillery school in Châlons-sur-Marne in 1794 and immediately after this he was promoted to lieutenant. There were numerous military campaigns by the French army shortly after this and Servois was in the thick of the action serving as a staff officer. However, he had a great love of mathematics and while on the military campaigns Servois spent all his free time studying.
          Legendre realised that Servois had considerable mathematical talents and he supported a move to have him appointed to the artillery school of Besançon as professor of mathematics. Appointed to this post in July 1801, Servois went on to hold similar positions over the next few years. His first move was only a few months after his first appointment at Besançon when he moved to the artillery school in Châlons-sur-Marne where he had begun his military career. Then in 1802 he made his second move, this time to the artillery school in Metz.
          In comparison with his earlier appointments, Servois spent quite a while in Metz at the artillery school, remaining there until 1808. His next move was to the artillery school La Fère where he remained until 1816 when he moved to the artillery and engineering school at Metz. Hardly had he arrived in Metz when a position as curator of the artillery museum in Paris fell vacant. Servois was appointed as curator in 1816 and he held this post until he retired in 1827. After he retired Servois returned to his home town of Mont-de-Laval where he lived for nearly twenty further years.
          Servois worked in projective geometry, functional equations and complex numbers. He introduced the word pole in projective geometry. He also came close to discovering the quaternions before Hamilton.
          Servois published a paper on differential operators in the Annales de mathématique in November 1814. Servois introduced the terms "commutative" and "distributive" in this paper describing properties of operators, and he also gave some examples of noncommutativity. Although he does not use the concept of a ring explicitly, he does verify that linear commutative operators satisfy the ring axioms. In doing so he showed why operators could be manipulated like algebraic magnitudes. This work initiates the algebraic theory of operators.
          Servois was critical of Argand's geometric interpretation of the complex numbers. He wrote to Gergonne telling him so in November 1813 and Gergonne published the letter in the Annales de mathématique in January 1814. Servois wrote:
         "I confess that I do not yet see in this notation anything but a geometric mask applied to analytic forms the direct use of which seems to me simple and more expeditious."
         Considered as a leading expert by many mathematicians of his day, he was consulted on many occasions by Poncelet while he was writing his book on projective geometry Traité des propriétés projective. Servois died on 17 April 1847 at Mont-de-Laval, Doubs, France.
         His entry for the Foot-in-Mouth prize is this quotation: "[The infinitesimals] neither have nor can have theory; in practise it is a dangerous instrument in the hands of beginners ... anticipating, for my part, the judgement of posterity, I would predict that this method will be accused one day, and rightly, of having retarded the progress of the mathematical sciences."
    1748 Pierre Alexandre Wille, French artist who died on 09 January 1821.
    1636 Jean-Baptiste Monnoyer, Franco-Flemish flower-painter who died on 16 February 1699. — MORE ON MONNOYER AT ART “4” JULY LINKSFlowers — other FlowersStill-Life of Flowers and Fruits
    Holidays Burma : Martyrs' Day / Laos : Independence Day (1949)

    Religious Observances Old Catholic : St Vincent de Paul, confessor / Santas Áurea, Justa, Rufina y Tecla; santos Antonio, Ambrosio y Arsenio.
    Thoughts for the day: “Every noble work is at first impossible.”
    “Every noble work, when first shown to be possible, is attacked by conservatives.”
    “Not every impossible work is noble.”
    ‘Impossible’ n'est pas français.”
    “If it's possible, we've done it already; if it's impossible, it will take a little longer.”
    “Not everything attacked by conservatives is a noble work.”
    “Nobility has been abolished by the Revolution.”
    “La Révolution n'a pas besoin de savants.” —
    [tels que Lavoisier]
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