Thursday, December 13, 2012

December 16 in history


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DEC 15      INDEX      DEC 17
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Events


714 – Pepin of Herstal, mayor of the Merovingian palace, dies at Jupille (modern Belgium). He is succeeded by his infant grandson Theudoald while his wife Plectrude holds actual power in the Frankish Kingdom.

755 – An Lushan revolts against Chancellor Yang Guozhong at Yanjing, initiating the An Lushan Rebellion during the Tang dynasty of China.

1431 – Hundred Years' War: Henry VI of England is crowned King of France at Notre Dame in Paris.

1497 – Vasco da Gama rounds the Cape of Good Hope, passing the Great Fish River, where Bartolomeu Dias had previously turned back to Portugal.

1575 – An earthquake with an estimated magnitude of 8.5 strikes Valdivia, Chile.

1598 – Seven-Year War: Battle of Noryang: The final battle of the Seven-Year War is fought between the China and the Korean allied forces and Japanese navies, resulting in a decisive allied forces victory.

1653 – English Interregnum: The Protectorate: Oliver Cromwell becomes Lord Protector of the Commonwealth of England, Scotland and Ireland.

1689 – Convention Parliament: The Declaration of Right is embodied in the Bill of Rights.

1707 – Last recorded eruption of Mount Fuji in Japan.

1761 – Seven Years' War: After a four-month siege, the Russians under Pyotr Rumyantsev take the Prussian fortress of Kołobrzeg.

1773 – American Revolution: Boston Tea Party:  A group of Massachusetts colonists, members of the Sons of Liberty, disguise themselves as Mohawk Indians, board three British tea ships moored in Boston Harbor, and dump 342 chests of tea into Boston harbor as a protest against the Tea Act.

1811 – In the Mississippi River Valley near New Madrid, Missouri, the first two in a series of four severe earthquakes, the greatest series of earthquakes in U.S. history, begin when a quake of an estimated 8.6 magnitude on the Richter scale slams the region. Although the earthquakes greatly altered the topography of the region, the area was only sparsely inhabited at the time, and there were no known human fatalities.

1826 – In an act that foreshadows the American rebellions to come, Benjamin Edwards rides into Mexican-controlled Nacogdoches, Texas, and proclaims himself ruler of the Republic of Fredonia.

1838 – Great Trek: Battle of Blood River: Voortrekkers led by Andries Pretorius and Sarel Cilliers defeat Zulu impis, led by Dambuza (Nzobo) and Ndlela kaSompisi in what is today KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa.

1850 – The Charlotte Jane and the Randolph bring the first of the Canterbury Pilgrims to Lyttelton, New Zealand.

1863 – American Civil War: Confederate President Jefferson Davis names General Joseph E. Johnston commander of the Army of Tennessee replacing Braxton Bragg, who lost all of Tennessee to the Union during 1863.

1864 – American Civil War: Battle of Nashville: Major General George Thomas's Union forces defeat Lieutenant General John Bell Hood's Confederate Army of Tennessee. The Battle of Nashville ends leaving behind 4400 causalities.

1903 – Taj Mahal Palace & Tower hotel in Bombay first opens its doors to the guests.

1907 – President Theodore Roosevelt sends a message that the U.S. is a world power when he sends the 'Great White Fleet' to international ports around the world.

1912 – First Balkan War: The Royal Hellenic Navy defeats the Ottoman Navy at the Battle of Elli.

1914 – World War I: At approximately 8 o'clock in the morning, German battle cruisers from Franz von Hipper's Scouting Squadron catch the British navy by surprise as they began heavy bombardment of Hartlepool and Scarborough, English port cities on the North Sea.

1918 – Vincas Mickevičius-Kapsukas declares the formation of the Lithuanian Soviet Socialist Republic.

1920 – Haiyuan earthquake: One of the deadliest earthquakes in history rocks the Gansu province of midwestern China, causing massive landslides and the deaths of an estimated 200,000 people. The earthquake, measuring 8.5 magnitude on the Richter scale, affects an area of some 25,000 square miles, including 10 major population centers.

1922 – President of Poland Gabriel Narutowicz is assassinated by Eligiusz Niewiadomski at the Zachęta Gallery in Warsaw.

1927 – Donald Bradman makes his debut in first-class cricket for New South Wales against South Australia. Batting at No. 7, he scores a century.

1930 – Bank robber Herman Lamm and members of his crew are killed by a 200-strong posse, following a botched bank robbery in Clinton, Indiana.

1937 – Theodore Cole and Ralph Roe attempt to escape from the American federal prison on Alcatraz Island in San Francisco Bay; neither is ever seen again.

1938 – Adolf Hitler institutes the Cross of Honour of the German Mother.

1941 – World War II: Japanese forces occupy Miri, Sarawak.

1942 – The Holocaust: Schutzstaffel chief Heinrich Himmler orders that Roma candidates for extermination be deported to Auschwitz.

1944 – World War II: Battle of the Bulge: The last major German offensive of the war, Operation Mist, also known as the Ardennes Offensive, begins with the surprise offensive of three German armies through the Ardennes forest in an attempt to push the Allied front line west from northern France to northwestern Belgium. The Battle of the Bulge, so-called because the Germans create a "bulge" around the area of the Ardennes forest in pushing through the American defensive line, is the largest fought on the Western front.

1946 – Thailand joins the United Nations.

1947 – William Shockley, John Bardeen and Walter Brattain build the first practical point-contact transistor.

1950 – Korean War: In the wake of the massive Chinese intervention in support of communist North Korea, U.S. President Harry S. Truman declares a state of emergency.  Proclaiming that "Communist imperialism" threatens the world's people, Truman calls upon the American people to help construct an "arsenal of freedom."

1950 – At the age of 22 actress Shirley Temple announces her retirement from films.

1957 – Sir Feroz Khan Noon replaces Ibrahim Ismail Chundrigar as Prime Minister of Pakistan.

1960 – A United Airlines Douglas DC-8 and a TWA Lockheed Super Constellation collide over Staten Island, New York, and crash, killing all 128 people aboard both aircraft and 6 more on the ground. The improbable mid-air collision is the only such accident to have occurred over a major city in U.S. history.

1965 – Vietnam War: With nearly 200,000 U.S. military personnel in South Vietnam already, Gen. William Westmoreland, Commander of U.S. Military Assistance Command Vietnam, sends U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara a message stating that he would need an additional 243,000 men by the end of 1966. Citing a rapidly deteriorating military situation in which the South Vietnamese are losing the equivalent of an infantry battalion (500 soldiers) a week in battle, Westmoreland predicts that he would need a total of 600,000 men by the end of 1967 to defeat the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese. Although the high tide of U.S. troop strength in South Vietnam never reaches 600,000, there are more than 540,000 U.S. troops in South Vietnam by 1969.

1968 – Second Vatican Council: Official revocation of the Edict of Expulsion of Jews from Spain.

1971 – Bangladesh Liberation War and Indo-Pakistani War of 1971: Two weeks after the Indian invasion of East Pakistan in support of the independence movement there, 90,000 Pakistani troops surrender to the Indian forces. The surrender of the Pakistan Army brings an end to both conflicts. East Pakistan is subsequently declared the independent nation of Bangladesh. This is commemorated annually as Victory Day in Bangladesh, and as Vijay Diwas in India.

1971 – The United Kingdom recognizes Bahrain's independence. This is commemorated annually as Bahrain's National Day.

1972:  Henry Kissinger announced at a news conference in Washington that the North Vietnamese had walked out of the ongoing private negotiations in Paris.

1978 – Cleveland, Ohio, becomes the first major American city to default on its financial obligations since the Great Depression.

1979 – Libya joins four other OPEC nations in raising crude oil prices, which has an immediate, dramatic effect on the United States. The night before the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries' annual price-setting meeting in Caracas, two member states announce plans to raise the price of their oil by $4 (Libya) and $2 (Indonesia) per barrel.

1985 – Paul Castellano and Thomas Bilotti are shot dead on the orders of John Gotti, who assumes leadership of New York's Gambino crime family

1986 – Gennady Kolbin replaces Dinmukhamed Konayev as First Secretary of the Kazakh Communist Party, prompting the Jeltoqsan protests which began the next day.

1989 – Romanian Revolution: Protests break out in Timișoara, Romania, in response to an attempt by the government to evict dissident Hungarian pastor László Tőkés.

1989 – U.S. Appeals Court Judge Robert Smith Vance is assassinated by a mail bomb sent by Walter Leroy Moody, Jr.

1991 – Kazakhstan declares independence from the Soviet Union.

1995 – Official adoption of the name of "Euro".

1998:  President Bill Clinton announced he had ordered air strikes against Iraq because it refused to cooperate with United Nations (U.N.) weapons inspectors. Clinton's decision did not have the support of key members of Congress, who accused Clinton of using the air strikes to direct attention away from ongoing impeachment proceedings against him.

2013 – A bus falls from an elevated highway in the Philippines capital Manila killing at least 18 people with 20 injured.

2014 – Militants belonging to Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan attacked an Army Public School in the Pakistani city of Peshawar killing 145 people.



Saints' Days and Holy Days

      O Sapientia, quae ex ore Altissimi prodisti attingens a fine usque ad finem, fortiter suaviterque disponens omnia: Veni ad docendum nos viam prudentiae.

      O Wisdom, That comest out of the mouth of the Most High, That reachest from one end to another, and dost mightily and sweetly order all things: come, to teach us the way of prudence!

      O WISDOM, Who o're earth below,
      Forth from the Mouth of God didst flow,
      Draw nigh and help us when we call,
      And strongly, sweetly order all;
      The path of prudence teach, that we
      May dwell eternally with Thee.


Traditional Western

Eusebius, Bishop of Vercelli, Martyr.     Semi-double.
O Sapientia  [Anglican medieval English usage]


Contemporary Western

Adelaide of Italy


Anglican, Episcopal, Lutheran

Ralph Adams Cram, Richard Upjohn and John La Farge (Episcopal Church (USA))


Eastern Orthodox
Saints

Prophet Haggai (Aggaeus) (500 BC)
Martyr Marinus of Rome (283)
Martyrs Promus (Probus) and Hilary, by the sword
Saint Memnon, Archbishop of Ephesus (c. 440)
Saint Modestus II, Patriarch of Jerusalem (634)
Saint Simeon, Archbishop of Antioch (834-840)
Blessed Empress Theophania of Byzantium (893),
      wife of Byzantine Emperor Leo VI the Wise
Saint Nicholas Chrysoberges, Patriarch of Constantinople (995)

Pre-Schism Western Saints

Martyrs Valentine, Concordius, Navalis and Agricola,
      martyrs venerated in Ravenna in Italy. (c. 305)
Women Martyrs of North-West Africa, a great number of women
      martyred under Hunneric, Arian King of the Vandals (482)
Saint Dabheog (Beoc, Beanus, Mobeoc), founder of a monastery on an island in Lough Derg in Donegal in Ireland (5th century)[13]
Saint Ado of Vienne (875)[13][note 7]
Saint Adelaide of Italy, daughter of the King of Burgundy, she was married to Lothair II of Italy, became a nun (999)

Post-Schism Orthodox Saints

Saint Sophia of Suzdal, nun (Solomonia Saburova),
      wife of Grand Duke Basil III of Moscow (1542)
New Martyrs and Confessors

New Hieromartyr Vladimir Alexeyev, Priest, of Okhansk (1918)
New Hieromartyr Arcadius (Ostalsky), Bishop of Bezhetsk (1937)
New Hieromartyr Alexander Kolokolov, Protopresbyter of Tver (1937)
New Hieromartyr Paul Favoritov, Priest of Tver (1937)
New Hieromartyr Macarius Smirnov, Priest-monk of Tver (1937)
New Hieromartyr Peter Zinoviev, Priest of Tver (1937)
New Hieromartyr Theodosius Boldiriev, Priest of Tver (1937)
New Hieromartyrs Priests Elias Cheredeev, and Vladimir Damaskinus(1937)


Coptic Orthodox









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