December 4, 2013

Born on this date
Happy Birthday, Marina Kosan!

230 years ago
1783

War
General George Washington received the officers of the victorious Continental Army to say farewell in the Long Room of Fraunces Tavern in lower Manhattan in New York City.

175 years ago
1838

War
Captain John Prince led the Essex Militia in a rout of 400 American raiders at the Battle of Windsor, Upper Canada. Four invaders were executed.

120 years ago
1893

War
A patrol of 34 British South Africa Company soldiers was ambushed and annihilated by more than 3,000 Matabele warriors on the Shangani River in Matabeleland, Rhodesia during the First Matabele War.

70 years ago
1943

Hit parade
#1 single in the U.S.A. (Billboard): Paper Doll--The Mills Brothers (5th week at #1)

War
The Second Cairo Conference opened, with Turkish President İsmet İnönü present for discussions with U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt and U.K. Prime Minister Winston Churchill. Allied forces in Italy cracked the German line at Mount Camino, 15 miles inland from the Gulf of Gaeta. U.K. forces yielded the town of Orsogna in the face of strong German counterattacks. Australian forces repulsed three Japanese counterattacks near Wareo, New Guinea in their drive to expel the enemy from the Huon Peninsula. A U.S. aircraft carrier task force carried out the heaviest Allied assault on Japan's Marshall Islands.

Defense
The U.S. Army advised the House of Representatives Military Affairs Committee that the number of officers would be reduced by 25,000 to to a total of 625,000.

Politics and government
In Yugoslavia, resistance leader Marshal Josip Broz Tito proclaimed a provisional democratic Yugoslav government-in-exile.

Journalism
Tel Aviv newspapers suspended by U.K. authorities during recent riots resumed publication.

Labour
U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt closed down the Works Progress Administration, because of the high levels of wartime employment in the United States.

60 years ago
1953

Hit parade
#1 single in the U.K. (New Musical Express): Answer Me--Frankie Laine (4th week at #1)

At the movies
The Robe, the first feature film made in the wide-screen process known as CinemaScope, opened in theatres. The stars included Richard Burton, Jean Simmons, Victor Mature, and Michael Rennie.

50 years ago
1963

Music
Jan & Dean recorded the single version of the song Dead Man's Curve.

40 years ago
1973

Died on this date
Alfred Fuller, 85. Canadian-born U.S. businessman. Mr. Fuller, a native of Welsford, Nova Scotia, founded the Fuller Brush Company in Hartford, Connecticut in 1906.

Law
The Canadian government of Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau passed a bill outlawing wiretapping and other forms of electronic surveillance except by police forces.

Crime
"Chicago 7" conspiracy defendants David Dellinger, Abbie Hoffman, and Jerry Rubin, and their attorney, William Kunstler, were found guilty of contempt of court in their trial which had taken place in 1969-1970. The ruling was made by U.S. District Court Judge Edward Gignoux, a judge from Maine who had been appointed by the U.S. Supreme Court to hear the case. Rennie Davis, Tom Hayden, and attorney Leonard Weinglass were acquitted of contempt charges. John Froines and Lee Weiner, the other two "Chicago 7" defendants, had been freed from further prosecution on November 3.

Energy
U.S. President Richard Nixon formally appointed Deputy Treasury Secretary William Simon as his new "energy czar," and also announced that he was issuing an executive order creating a new Federal Energy Office and that the Federal Energy Administration, which Mr. Simon would head, would be established later by statute. Mr. Simon, who would gain cabinet rank as counselor to the President, would keep his current position with the Treasury Department.

Protest
Independent truckers, upset with rising fuel costs and government-imposed reductions in highway speed limits, began three days of blockades of key U.S. highways in Pennsylvania, Ohio, West Virginia, Connecticut, and Delaware.

30 years ago
1983

Hit parade
#1 single in Switzerland: Come Back and Stay--Paul Young

War
For the first time since August 1982, when the United States had become militarily involved in Lebanon, U.S. planes struck at Syrian antiaircraft batteries in the mountains east of Beirut. Two U.S. planes were shot down; one pilot was rescued, while in the other plane, one crewman was killed and the other, Navy Lieutenant Robert Goodman, captured by Syrians. Syria said that two of its soldiers had been killed in the raids, which U.S. President Ronald Reagan claimed were in response to a Syrian attack on U.S. reconnaissance planes the previous day. Later that day, eight U.S. Marines were killed at the Beirut airport when their observation bunker was hit by artillery fire from the Syrian-backed militia.

Terrorism
U.K. soldiers involved in an undercover operation in Northern Ireland shot and killed two Irish Republican Army gunmen and wounded another, who escaped.

25 years ago
1988

Hit parade
#1 single in New Zealand (RIANZ): The Only Way is Up--Yazz and the Plastic Population (3rd week at #1)

#1 single in Switzerland: Groovy Kind of Love--Phil Collins (6th week at #1)

Music
Roy Orbison performed at the Front Row Theater in Highland Heights, Ohio, a suburb of Cleveland, in what turned out to be his last concert. He had recently finished recording his Mystery Girl album, but none of the new songs were performed, because Mr. Orbison claimed the touring band hadn't rehearsed them yet.

20 years ago
1993

Hit parade
#1 single in Australia (ARIA): Please Forgive Me--Bryan Adams (2nd week at #1)

#1 single in Italy (FIMI): Living on My Own (1993)--Freddie Mercury (9th week at #1)

#1 single in Spain (PROMUSICAE): Boom! Shake the Room--D.J. Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince (5th week at #1)

#1 single in Flanders (Ultratop 50): I'd Do Anything for Love (But I Won't Do That)--Meat Loaf (3rd week at #1)

#1 single in France (SNEP): Living on My Own (1993)--Freddie Mercury (9th week at #1)

#1 single in the Netherlands (De Nederlandse Top 40): I'd Do Anything for Love (But I Won't Do That)--Meat Loaf (5th week at #1)

#1 single in the U.S.A. (Billboard): I'd Do Anything for Love (But I Won't Do That)--Meat Loaf (5th week at #1)

U.S.A. Top 10 (Cash Box)
1 I'd Do Anything for Love (But I Won't Do That)--Meat Loaf (5th week at #1)
2 Again--Janet Jackson
3 All That She Wants--Ace of Base
4 Please Forgive Me--Bryan Adams
5 Shoop--Salt-N-Pepa
6 Gangsta Lean--D.R.S.
7 Hero--Mariah Carey
8 Breathe Again--Toni Braxton
9 Just Kickin' It--Xscape
10 Can We Talk--Tevin Campbell

Singles entering the chart were U.N.I.T.Y. by Queen Latifah (#53); Getto Jam by Domino (#59); True Love by Elton John and Kiki Dee (#68); Cry for You by Jodeci (#76); The Power of Love by Celine Dion (#87); and The Song Remembers When by Trisha Yearwood (#89).

Canada's Top 10 (RPM)
1 Please Forgive Me--Bryan Adams
2 Again--Janet Jackson
3 All That She Wants--Ace of Base
4 Both Sides of the Story--Phil Collins
5 Hero--Mariah Carey
6 I'd Do Anything for Love (But I Won't Do That)--Meat Loaf
7 I'll Always Be There--Roch Voisine
8 When There's Time (For Love)--Lawrence Gowan
9 No Rain--Blind Melon
10 Human Wheels--John Mellencamp

Singles entering the chart were Breathe Again by Toni Braxton (#79); I Can See Clearly Now by Jimmy Cliff (#85); Amazing by Aerosmith (#89); Paying the Price of Love by the Bee Gees (#91); and Goodnight Song by Tears for Fears (#95).

Died on this date
Margaret Landon, 90. U.S. missionary and authoress. Mrs. Landon, born Margaret Mortenson, and her husband Kenneth Landon were Presbyterian missionaries in Thailand from 1927-1937. They returned to the United States, where Mrs. Landon wrote the historical novel she's best known for, Anna and the King of Siam (1944).

Frank Zappa, 52. U.S. musician. Mr. Zappa was the leader of the rock group The Mothers of Invention in the 1960s, and was an avant-garde composer who recorded more than 60 albums. He died after battling prostate cancer for several years.

Music
This blogger attended a free concert by the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra at the downtown campus of Grant MacEwan Community College in the afternoon, and that evening, with enjoyable female company, attended a performance of Handel's Messiah at the Northern Alberta Jubilee Auditorium in Edmonton.

Space
The U.S. space shuttle Endeavour moved to within 30 feet of the Hubble Space Telescope so that the astronauts, in pairs, could go on spacewalks to conduct needed repairs to the telescope, which was not providing clear enough pictures because of a flaw in its main mirror.

Crime
The body of 12-year-old Polly Klaas, who had been abducted from her home in Petaluma, California on October 1, was found near Cloverdale, California. Richard Allen Davis, who had been arrested four day earlier for parole violation, led police to the body.

Football
NCAA
Army 16 Navy 14 @ Giants Stadium, East Rutherford, New Jersey

10 years ago
2003

Terrorism
Interpol put the former Liberian President Charles Taylor on its most-wanted list.

Economics and finance
U.S. President George W. Bush withdrew a punitive tax on steel imports in order to avoid a trade war between the United States and the European Union.