December 8, 2008

170 years ago
1838

War
Nils von Schoultz and fellow republican rebels Dorrephus Abbey, Daniel George, Martin Woodruff, Joel Peeler, and Sylvanus Swift were executed at Fort Henry in Kingston, Upper Canada.

100 years ago
1908

Born on this date
John Volpe. U.S. politician. Mr. Volpe, a Republican, was Governor of Massachusetts from 1961-1963 and 1965-1969, and was chairman of the National Governors Association from 1967-1968. He served as U.S. Secretary of Transportation in the administration of President Richard Nixon from 1969-1973, and as U.S. Ambassador to Italy from 1973-1977. Mr. Volpe died on November 11, 1994, 27 days before his 86th birthday.

90 years ago
1918

Defense
The Royal Canadian Naval Air Service was discontinued; cadets being trained were demobilized.

80 years ago
1928

Died on this date
Arthur Paget, 77. U.K. military officer. General Sir Arthur participated in various colonial wars, and was Commander-in-Chief in Ireland, where he was partly responsible for the Curragh incident in 1914, in which many officers resigned their commissions rather than fight the Ulster Volunteers, who were opposed to home rule for Ireland.

Diplomacy
In La Paz, Bolivia, the Paraguayan Charge d'Affaires was given his passport and started under guard for Peru because of the situation created by the border clash between Bolivia and Paraguay; the Bolivian envoy to Paraguay was also given his passports. The International Conference of American States, in Washington, cabled to Bolivia and Paraguay to go slow. Paraguay asked the Council of the League of Nations for arbitration.

Delegates from Bolivia boarded the U.S. battleship USS Maryland, anchored off Antofagasta, Chile, and exchanged goodwill messages with U.S. President-elect Herbert Hoover.

Politics and government
Bolivian President Hernando Siles suspended the municipal election because of the situation created by the border clash with Paraguay. Congress met in secret session and a commission was appointed to take charge of the situation.

Protest
Popular demonstrations took place in La Paz, with thousands of citizens parading through the streets. Three cavalry squadrons were placed about the Paraguayan Legation.

Cycling
The team of Franco Georgetti and Fred Spencer won a six-day race at Madison Square Garden in New York, covering 2,290 miles and 9 laps in 144 hours.

Football
NCAA
Georgia Tech 20 Georgia 6
Tennessee 13 Florida 12
Alabama 13 Louisiana State 0
Creighton 9 Marquette 6
Tulsa 27 Haskell Indians 6
North Carolina 14 Duke 7
Chattanooga 19 Southern 0
Southwestern 32 Hendrix 0
Clark 26 Alabama State Normal 0

70 years ago
1938

Died on this date
Friedrich Glauser, 42. Austro-Hungarian-born Swiss author. Mr. Glauser, a native of Vienna, moved to Switzerland with his family in 1910, and served in the French Foreign Legion from 1921-1923. He was best known for the Sergeant Studer series of detective novels in the 1930s, which made references to current European history. Mr. Glauser was a morphine and opium addict for most of his life, and died of a stroke.

60 years ago
1948

Theatre
Anne of the Thousand Days by Maxwell Anderson, starring Rex Harrrison and Joyce Redman, opened at the Shubert Theatre on Broadway in New York.

Canadiana
The Royal Canadian Navy established the Maritime Museum of Canada at the Halifax Naval Dockyard.

Aviation
A four-engine B-50 refuelled in mid-air to complete a 9,400-mile non-stop flight from Fort Worth, Texas to Hawaii.

Diplomacy
The United Nations General Assembly's Political Committee overrode Soviet bloc opposition to pass a U.S. resolution granting UN recognition to the South Korean government and prolonging the UN Korean Commission, boycotted by the U.S.S.R.

Philip Jessup, acting chief of the permanent U.S. mission to the United Nations, was given ambassadorial rank.

Politics and government
The National Unity Party won 34 of 45 seats in elections for the Costa Rican Constituent Assembly. The Constitutional Party was next with 6 seats, followed by the Social Democratic Party with 4, and the National Fellowship Party with 1.

The U.S. Justice Department asked the House of Representatives Committee on Un-American Activities to drop its separate investigation of Communist spy activity and to refrain from calling witnesses scheduled to appear before a New York federal grand jury hearing testimony on allegedly subversive acts of U.S. Communist leaders.

Terrorism
The Egyptian government ordered the dissolution of the Muslim Brotherhood, a fanatical nationalist organization held responsible for a six-month series of bombings, assassinations, and riots.

Scandal
Former Japanese Prime Minister Hitoshi Ashida was arrested on charges of accepting a bribe, after the Diet waived his parliamentary immunity.

50 years ago
1958

Hit parade
#1 single in the U.S.A. (Billboard): To Know Him, is to Love Him--The Teddy Bears (2nd week at #1)

Vancouver's Top 10 (CKWX)
1 I Got Stung/One Night--Elvis Presley (3rd week at #1)
2 Queen of the Hop--Bobby Darin
3 To Know Him is to Love Him--The Teddy Bears
4 I Got a Feeling/Lonesome Town--Ricky Nelson
5 Problems/Love of My Life--The Everly Brothers
6 Tom Dooley--The Kingston Trio
7 Come On Let's Go--Ritchie Valens
8 Beep Beep--The Playmates
9 Treasure of Your Love--Eileen Rodgers
10 Whole Lotta Lovin'/Coquette--Fats Domino

Singles entering the chart were My Happiness by Connie Francis (#34); Love You Most of All by Sam Cooke (#39); The Diary by Neil Sedaka (#44); Whose Heart are You Breaking Now by Johnny Love (#49); Nobody But You by Dee Clark (#51); Goodbye Baby by Jack Scott (#54); Red River Rose by the Ames Brothers (#58); Love Look Away by Tony Bennett (#59); and Yellow Bird by the Mills Brothers (#60).

Died on this date
Tris Speaker, 70. U.S. baseball player and manager. Mr. Speaker, nicknamed "The Grey Eagle," played center field with the Boston Americans/Red Sox (1907-1915); Cleveland Indians (1916-1926); Washington Nationals (1927); and Philadelphia Athletics (1928), batting .345 with 117 home runs and 1,529 runs batted in in 2,789 games. He led the American League in batting in 1916 (.386); tied for the AL lead in homers in 1912 (10); and led in RBIs in 1923 (130). Mr. Speaker was also known as one of the best defensive center fielders in history. He helped the Red Sox win World Series in 1912 and 1915, and managed the Indians from 1919-1926, compiling a 617-520 record and leading them to the World Series championship in 1920. Mr. Speaker was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1937. He died of a heart attack.

War
Israeli Ambassador Abba Eban charged the United Arab Republic with aggression in the Lake Huleh border region and warned the United Nations Security Council that Israel would retaliate against further attacks.

Diplomacy
French representatives to the United Nations walked out of the General Assembly's Political Committee when it opened debate on the Algerian problem in the presence of three Algerian provisional government measures.

Communist Chinese Premier Chou En-lai and North Korean Premier Kim Il Sung issued a joint communique in Peking charging the United States with obstructing "the peaceful settlement of the Korea question" and demanding the withdrawal of all United Nations forces from Korea.

Politics and government
On the advice of Alabama Attorney General John Patterson, voter registrars of six Alabama counties refused to produce their registration records for a Federal Civil Rights Commission hearing in Montgomery.

Economics and finance
500 delegates met in Cairo for the inaugural meeting of the Asian-African Economic Council, organized by the Cairo secretariat of the People's Solidarity Council.

40 years ago
1968

Died on this date
Phil Handler, 60. U.S. football player and coach. Mr. Handler was a guard with the Chicago Cardinals (1930-1936), and was an assistant and/or head coach with the Cardinals (1937-1951), compiling a head coaching record of 4-34, while helping the team win the NFL championship in 1947. He was an assistant coach with the Chicago Bears (1952-1967), helping them win the NFL championship in 1963. Mr. Handler suffered a heart attack shortly after the end of the 1967 season and was forced to reduce his activities with the Bears; he died after a second heart attack.

War
The South Vietnamese delegation arrived in Paris to join the peace talks, still insisting that the National Liberation Front (Viet Cong) not be recognized as separate from the North Vietnamese delegation.

30 years ago
1978

Hit parade
#1 single in Sweden (Topplistan): You're the One that I Want--John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John (8th week at #1)

#1 single in West Germany (Media Control): Y.M.C.A.--Village People

#1 single in France (IFOP): You're the One that I Want--John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John (13th week at #1)

At the movies
The Deer Hunter, co-produced and directed by Michael Cimino, and starring Robert De Niro, John Cazale, John Savage, Meryl Streep, and Christopher Walken, opened in theatres in Los Angeles and New York.





Died on this date
Golda Meir, 80. Prime Minister of Israel, 1969-1974. Mrs. Meir, born Golda Mabovitch in Kiev, moved to the United States at the age of 8, settling in Milwaukee. She and her husband Morris Meyerson moved to Palestine in 1921. Mrs. Meyerson served as a Jewish diplomat during the negotiations leading to Israel's independence in 1948, and entered politics in 1949, when she was elected to the Knesset as a member of the Mapai Party, which merged into the Labor Party in 1968. She was Minister of Labour from 1949-1956 and was then appointed Minister of Foreign Affairs, at which time she changed her surname to Meir. Mrs. Meir served as Foreign Minister until 1966, when she resigned for health reasons. When Prime Minister Levi Eshkol died in 1969, she was elected as his successor. Mrs. Meir was known for promoting peaceful relations with neighbouring countries, but was in office when Egyptian and Syrian forces attacked Israel in 1973 to begin the Yom Kippur War. Although Israel won the war, the government was badly shaken by the lack of preparedness for the attack, and Mrs. Meir resigned as Prime Minister in 1974. She continued to sit in the Knesset until her death after a long battle with lymphoma.

Abominations
It was reported that investigators at the Peoples Temple compound at Jonestown, Guyana had discovered an audio tape recording of the final minutes of the November 18 mass suicide/murder (hear audio). The tape featured the screams of dying children and the rantings of Rev. Jim Jones as he cajoled members into drinking cyanide-laced Kool-Aid. The tape revealed that members who objected to committing suicide were talked out of their objections were talked out of their objections or forced to drink the poison. As he was urging them to follow his orders, Rev. Jones said, "This is not the way that people who are socialistic Communists should die."

25 years ago
1983

Space
The U.S. space shuttle Columbia landed at Edwards Air Force Base, California to conclude its 10-day mission.

Diplomacy
The current round of Strategic Arms Reduction Talks (START) between the U.S.A. and U.S.S.R. ended, with no date set for their resumption. The U.S.A. sought to dispel the suspicion that the Soviets had broken off talks as a protest against the deployment of the first of 572 U.S. intermediate-range nuclear missiles in western Europe. U.S. President Ronald Reagan said that the Soviets had been careful to say that they were walking out, although Soviet chief of general staff Marshal Nikolai Ogarkov had said three days earlier that the U.S.S.R. was considering a walkout.

Politics and government
The U.K. House of Lords voted 74-24 in favour of a motion to allow their debates to be televised.

20 years ago
1988

Hit parade
#1 single in Finland (Musiikkituottajat – IFPI Finland): I Wanna Be Your Wife--Spagna

Edmonton's top 10 (CKRA)
1 Baby, I Love Your Way/Freebird Medley (Free Baby)--Will to Power
2 Look Away--Chicago
3 Wild, Wild West--Escape Club
4 Kokomo--The Beach Boys
5 I Don't Want Your Love--Duran Duran
6 Waiting for a Star to Fall--Boy Meets Girl
7 Hold Me Now--One-To-One
8 How Can I Fall--Breathe
9 In Your Room--Bangles
10 The Loco-Motion--Kylie Minogue

War
A seaborne Israeli force raided a Palestine Liberation Organization base near Beirut.

Diplomacy
Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev cut short his visit to New York City and returned home immediately upon learning of the extent of the damage caused by the previous day's earthquake in the Soviet republic of Armenia. He postponed visits to Cuba and Great Britain.

Defense
Admiral William Crowe, chairman of the U.S. joint chiefs of staff, said that the U.S.S.R.'s proposed reduction in military forces by 500,000 troops (about 10%) and removal of 10,000 tanks, 8,500 artillery pieces, and 800 aircraft by 1991 would "fall far short of redressing the conventional balance in Europe."

Disasters
A United States Air Force A-10 Thunderbolt II crashed into an apartment complex in Remscheid, West Germany, killing 5 people and injuring 50 others.

10 years ago
1998

Abominations
81 villagers, including women and children, were massacred by armed groups near Tadjena in western Algeria.