jgo
jgo's JournalOn This Day: Ike warns of military-industrial complex. What the numbers now reveal. - Jan. 17, 1961
(edited from Wikipedia)
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Eisenhower's farewell address
Eisenhower's farewell address was the final public speech of Dwight D. Eisenhower as the 34th President of the United States, delivered in a television broadcast on January 17, 1961. Perhaps best known for advocating that the nation guard against the potential influence of the military–industrial complex, a term he is credited with coining, the speech also expressed concerns about planning for the future and the dangers of massive spending, especially deficit spending, the prospect of the domination of science through federal funding and, conversely, the domination of science-based public policy by what he called a "scientific-technological elite".
Background
Eisenhower served as president for two full terms from January 1953 to January 1961, and was the first U.S. president to be term-limited from seeking re-election again. He had overseen a period of considerable economic expansion, even as the Cold War deepened. Three of his national budgets had been balanced, but spending pressures mounted. The recent presidential election had resulted in the election of John F. Kennedy, and the oldest American president in a century was about to hand the reins of power to the youngest elected president.
The speech
Duration: 15 minutes and 31 seconds.
As early as 1959, Eisenhower began working with his brother Milton and his speechwriters, including his chief speechwriter Malcolm Moos, to develop his final statement as he left public life. It went through at least 21 drafts. The speech was "a solemn moment in a decidedly unsolemn time", warning a nation "giddy with prosperity, infatuated with youth and glamour, and aiming increasingly for the easy life."
As we peer into society's future, we – you and I, and our government – must avoid the impulse to live only for today, plundering for our own ease and convenience the precious resources of tomorrow. We cannot mortgage the material assets of our grandchildren without risking the loss also of their political and spiritual heritage. We want democracy to survive for all generations to come, not to become the insolvent phantom of tomorrow.
Until the latest of our world conflicts, the United States had no armaments industry. American makers of plowshares could, with time and as required, make swords as well. But we can no longer risk emergency improvisation of national defense. We have been compelled to create a permanent armaments industry of vast proportions. Added to this, three and a half million men and women are directly engaged in the defense establishment. We annually spend on military security alone more than the net income of all United States corporations.
Now this conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence—economic, political, even spiritual—is felt in every city, every Statehouse, every office of the Federal government. We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet, we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources, and livelihood are all involved. So is the very structure of our society.
In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist. We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.
"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eisenhower%27s_farewell_address
(edited from article)
"
Four Quotes From Eisenhower’s Military-Industrial Complex Speech That Still Resonate Today
January 17, 2023
[Statistics from the article]
The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were the most expensive wars in US history. But now, after both wars ended, the defense budget has not gone down – in fact, it has risen to record-high levels.
The United States spends more now on defense than it ever has – more than the next eight countries combined, four of which are close US allies.
The defense sector is one of the most powerful industries in politics. During the 2022 election, the industry spent $101 million in lobbying and contributed over $18 million to political campaigns. Most of that money flows to politicians – both Republican and Democrat – who sit on the committees that determine annual defense spending.
The conventional wisdom is that cuts to the Pentagon’s budget will be punished by voters for being ‘weak on defense.’ But the evidence doesn’t stack up. All 85 congressional representatives who supported a cut to the defense budget won re-election in 2022, including several in competitive districts. Politicians who write blank checks for the Pentagon might be afraid of their donors, not their constituents.
"
https://blog.ucsusa.org/jknox/four-quotes-from-eisenhowers-military-industrial-complex-speech-that-still-resonate-today/
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On This Day: Hitler moves into multi-room underground dwelling for 3 months - Jan. 16, 1945
https://www.democraticunderground.com/1016371345
On This Day: Wikipedia officially launched, now "last best place on the Internet"? - Jan. 15, 2001
https://www.democraticunderground.com/1016371303
On This Day: Tito elected president, remains for life, another 27 years - Jan. 14, 1953
https://www.democraticunderground.com/1016371263
On This Day: U.S. invasion of Mexico ends in California, continues south - Jan. 13, 1847
https://www.democraticunderground.com/1016371216
On This Day: Earthquake devastates Haiti. In 2023, Haiti "trapped in living nightmare" - Jan 12, 2010
https://www.democraticunderground.com/1016371156
On This Day: Hitler moves into multi-room underground dwelling for 3 months - Jan. 16, 1945
(edited from article, with numerous photos)
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The Brief Luxurious Life of Adolf Hitler, 50 Feet Below Berlin
Jan. 16, 2015
The Russians were closing in and Berlin was under a barrage of bombing raids when, on this day, Jan. 16, 70 years ago, Adolf Hitler went underground. In a structure that still remains, about fifty feet below the gardens of the Reich Chancellery, he lived out his remaining 105 days in the Führerbunker.
For an air-raid shelter, it was practically luxurious. Equipped with its own heating, electricity and water, according to Ian Kershaw’s Hitler: A Biography, the 3,000-square-foot reinforced bunker was accessible via a red-carpeted corridor lined with paintings re-hung from Hitler’s grander chambers in the Chancellery under which it was location. In his study hung his most revered piece of art: a portrait of Frederick the Great.
For the first month or two, at least, Hitler’s daily life changed little in the bunker, as Robert Payne depicts it in The Life and Death of Adolf Hitler; running a war, it seemed, looked much the same below as above ground. After meeting with his generals and strategizing until early in the morning, sometimes as late as 5 a.m., Payne writes:
“[Hitler] got up about 11:30 a.m., bathed quickly, took a hurried breakfast, and held his first conference at noon. The rest of the day was entirely taken up with conversations with political and military leaders. He took lunch in the late afternoon. It consisted of vegetable soup, corn on the cob, jellied omelets, and whatever delicacies Fräulein Manzialy, his vegetarian cook, could provide for him.”
A few factors prevented the bunker’s residents from feeling like everything was business as usual, however. For one: The constant threat of death, and the dissolution of Hitler’s dream of empire. For another: The sense of claustrophobia as the underground offices filled with officers and support staff, as well as Eva Braun and the wife and six children of Hitler’s propaganda minister, Joseph Goebbels, according to a report from one of the SS guards who was inside.
"
https://time.com/3660353/hitler-bunker/
(edited from Wikipedia)
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Führerbunker
The Führerbunker was an air raid shelter located near the Reich Chancellery in Berlin, Germany. It was part of a subterranean bunker complex constructed in two phases in 1936 and 1944. It was the last of the Führer Headquarters used by Adolf Hitler during World War II.
Hitler took up residence in the Führerbunker on 16 January 1945, and it became the center of the Nazi regime until the last week of World War II in Europe. Hitler married Eva Braun there on 29 April 1945, less than 40 hours before they committed suicide.
After the war, both the old and new Chancellery buildings were levelled by the Soviets. The underground complex remained largely undisturbed until 1988–89, despite some attempts at demolition. The excavated sections of the old bunker complex were mostly destroyed during reconstruction of that area of Berlin. The site remained unmarked until 2006, when a small plaque was installed with a schematic diagram. Some corridors of the bunker still exist but are sealed off from the public.
Construction
The Reich Chancellery bunker was initially constructed as a temporary air-raid shelter for Hitler, who actually spent very little time in the capital during most of the war. Increased bombing of Berlin led to expansion of the complex as an improvised permanent shelter. The elaborate complex consisted of two separate shelters, the Vorbunker ("forward bunker"; the upper bunker), completed in 1936, and the Führerbunker, located 8 ft 2 in lower than the Vorbunker and to the west-southwest, completed in 1944.
They were connected by a stairway set at right angles and could be closed off from each other by a bulkhead and steel door. The Vorbunker was located 4 ft 11 in beneath the cellar of a large reception hall behind the old Reich Chancellery at Wilhelmstrasse 77. The Führerbunker was located about 28 ft beneath the garden of the old Reich Chancellery, 390 ft north of the new Reich Chancellery building at Voßstraße 6.
[Approx. 30 rooms]
Besides being deeper under ground, the Führerbunker had significantly more reinforcement. Its roof was made of concrete almost 9 ft 10 in thick. About 30 small rooms were protected by approximately 13 ft 1 in of concrete; exits led into the main buildings, as well as an emergency exit up to the garden. The Führerbunker development was built by the Hochtief company as part of an extensive programm of subterranean construction in Berlin begun in 1940.
Hitler's accommodations were in this newer, lower section, and by February 1945 it had been decorated with high-quality furniture taken from the Chancellery, along with several framed oil paintings. After descending the stairs into the lower section and passing through the steel door, there was a long corridor with a series of rooms on each side. On the right side were a series of rooms which included generator/ventilation rooms and the telephone switchboard. On the left side was Eva Braun's bedroom/sitting room (also known as Hitler's private guest room), an antechamber (also known as Hitler's sitting room), which led into Hitler's study/office. On the wall hung a large portrait of Frederick the Great, one of Hitler's heroes. A door led into Hitler's modestly furnished bedroom. Next to it was the conference/map room (also known as the briefing/situation room) which had a door that led out into the waiting room/anteroom.
The bunker complex was self-contained. However, as the Führerbunker was below the water table, conditions were unpleasantly damp, with pumps running continuously to remove groundwater. A diesel generator provided electricity, and well water was pumped in as the water supply. Communications systems included a telex, a telephone switchboard, and an army radio set with an outdoor antenna. As conditions deteriorated at the end of the war, Hitler received much of his war news from BBC radio broadcasts and via courier.
[Numerous support staff]
Hitler moved into the Führerbunker on 16 January 1945, joined by his senior staff, including Martin Bormann. Eva Braun and Joseph Goebbels joined them in April, while Magda Goebbels and their six children took residence in the upper Vorbunker. Two or three dozen support, medical, and administrative staff were also sheltered there.
[Last days]
On 16 April, the Red Army started the Battle of Berlin, and they started to encircle the city by 19 April. Hitler made his last trip to the surface on 20 April, his 56th birthday, going to the ruined garden of the Reich Chancellery where he awarded the Iron Cross to boy soldiers of the Hitler Youth. That afternoon, Berlin was bombarded by Soviet artillery for the first time.
Hitler was in denial about the dire situation and placed his hopes on the units commanded by Waffen-SS General Felix Steiner. Hitler was told at his afternoon situation conference on 22 April that Steiner's forces had not moved, and he fell into a tearful rage when he realised that the attack was not going to be carried out. He openly declared for the first time the war was lost—and he blamed his generals. Hitler announced that he would stay in Berlin until the end and then shoot himself.
Hitler married Eva Braun after midnight on 28–29 April in a small civil ceremony within the Führerbunker. He then took secretary Traudl Junge to another room and dictated his last will and testament. Hans Krebs, Wilhelm Burgdorf, Goebbels, and Bormann witnessed and signed the documents at approximately 04:00. Hitler then retired to bed.
SS-Brigadeführer Wilhelm Mohnke, commander of the center government district of Berlin, informed Hitler during the morning of 30 April that he would be able to hold for less than two days. Later that morning, Weidling informed Hitler that the defenders would probably exhaust their ammunition that night and again asked him for permission to break out. Weidling finally received permission at about 13:00. Hitler shot himself later that afternoon, at around 15:30, while Eva took cyanide.
In accordance with Hitler's instructions, his and Eva's bodies were burned in the garden behind the Reich Chancellery. Goebbels became the new Head of Government and Chancellor of Germany (Reichskanzler) in accordance with Hitler's last will and testament. Reichskanzler Goebbels and Bormann sent a radio message to Dönitz at 03:15, informing him of Hitler's death, and that he was the new Head of State and President of Germany (Reichspräsident), in accordance with Hitler's last will and testament.
Goebbels and family
Krebs talked to General Vasily Chuikov, commander of the Soviet 8th Guards Army, at about 04:00 on 1 May, and Chuikov demanded unconditional surrender of the remaining German forces. Krebs did not have the authority to surrender, so he returned to the bunker. In the late afternoon, Goebbels had his children poisoned, and he and his wife left the bunker at around 20:30. There are several different accounts on what followed. According to one account, Goebbels shot his wife and then himself. Another account was that they each bit on a cyanide ampule and were given a coup de grâce immediately afterwards.
Post-war events
The outer ruins of both Chancellery buildings were leveled by the Soviets between 1945 and 1949 as part of an effort to destroy the landmarks of Nazi Germany. A detailed interior site investigation by the Soviets, including measurements, took place on 16 May 1946. During extensive construction of residential housing and other buildings on the site, work crews uncovered several underground sections of the old bunker complex; for the most part these were destroyed. Other parts of the Chancellery underground complex were uncovered, but these were ignored, filled in, or resealed.
Government authorities wanted to destroy the last vestiges of these Nazi landmarks. The construction of the buildings in the area around the Führerbunker was a strategy for ensuring the surroundings remained anonymous and unremarkable. The emergency exit point for the Führerbunker (which had been in the Chancellery gardens) was occupied by a car park.
On 8 June 2006, during the lead-up to the 2006 FIFA World Cup, an information board was installed to mark the location of the Führerbunker. The board, including a schematic diagram of the bunker, can be found at the corner of In den Ministergärten and Gertrud-Kolmar-Straße, two small streets about three minutes' walk from Potsdamer Platz. Rochus Misch, one of the last people living who was in the bunker at the time of Hitler's suicide, attended the ceremony.
"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F%C3%BChrerbunker
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On This Day: Wikipedia officially launched, now "last best place on the Internet"? - Jan. 15, 2001
https://www.democraticunderground.com/1016371303
On This Day: Tito elected president, remains for life, another 27 years - Jan. 14, 1953
https://www.democraticunderground.com/1016371263
On This Day: U.S. invasion of Mexico ends in California, continues south - Jan. 13, 1847
https://www.democraticunderground.com/1016371216
On This Day: Earthquake devastates Haiti. In 2023, Haiti "trapped in living nightmare" - Jan 12, 2010
https://www.democraticunderground.com/1016371156
On This Day: Landmark U.S. report on smoking published 2 years after UK report - Jan. 11, 1964
https://www.democraticunderground.com/1016371101
On This Day: Wikipedia officially launched, now "last best place on the Internet"? - Jan. 15, 2001
(edited from varied articles)
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Wikipedia Day 2024: Celebrating the Global Knowledge Hub
Wikipedia Day, observed annually on January 15, is a commemoration of the birth and establishment of Wikipedia, the world's largest and most popular online encyclopedia. Since its inception, Wikipedia has become an integral part of the digital landscape, serving as a go-to source for information on a vast array of topics. This day is an opportunity to recognize and appreciate the platform that has revolutionized access to knowledge globally.
The Genesis of Wikipedia
Wikipedia was officially launched on January 15, 2001, by Jimmy Wales and Larry Sanger. What began as a humble experiment in collaborative, open-source information sharing has evolved into a massive repository, containing millions of articles in multiple languages. The founders envisioned a platform where people from around the world could contribute and edit articles, creating a dynamic and continually updated resource.
Global Impact
Wikipedia's impact on the dissemination of knowledge cannot be overstated. Its open editing model allows for a diverse range of contributors, ensuring a multitude of perspectives on various subjects. The platform has become a vital tool for students, researchers, and the general public, offering easily accessible and comprehensive information.
Wikipedia's influence extends beyond the digital realm. The site has played a crucial role in democratizing information, making it available to people irrespective of their geographical location or socioeconomic status. Its multilingual approach has further facilitated the sharing of knowledge across borders and language barriers.
"
https://english.newstracklive.com/news/wikipedia-day-2024-celebrating-the-global-knowledge-hub-sc57-nu318-ta318-1308509-1.html
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Wikipedia Is the Last Best Place on the Internet
People used to think the crowdsourced encyclopedia represented all that was wrong with the web. Now it's a beacon of so much that's right.
Feb. 17, 2020
In its first decade of life, the website appeared in as many punch lines as headlines. The Office's Michael Scott called it “the best thing ever,” because “anyone in the world can write anything they want about any subject—so you know you are getting the best possible information.” Praising Wikipedia, by restating its mission, meant self-identifying as an idiot.
That was in 2007. Today, Wikipedia is the eighth-most-visited site in the world. The English-language version recently surpassed 6 million articles and 3.5 billion words; edits materialize at a rate of 1.8 per second. But perhaps more remarkable than Wikipedia's success is how little its reputation has changed. It was criticized as it rose, and now makes its final ascent to … muted criticism. To confess that you've just repeated a fact you learned on Wikipedia is still to admit something mildly shameful. It's as though all those questions that used to pepper think pieces in the mid-2000s—Will it work? Can it be trusted? Is it better than Encyclopedia Britannica?—are still rhetorical, when they have already been answered, time and again, in the affirmative.
Of course, muted criticism is far better than what the other giants at the top of the internet are getting these days. Pick any inflection point you like from the past several years—the Trump election, Brexit, any one of a number of data breaches, alt-right feeding frenzies, or standoffish statements to Congress—and you'll see the malign hand of platform monopolies. Not too long ago, techno-utopianism was the ambient vibe of the elite ideas industry; now it has become the ethos that dare not speak its name. Hardly anyone can talk abstractly about freedom and connection and collaboration, the blithe watchwords of the mid-2000s, without making a mental list of the internet's more concrete negative externalities.
Yet in an era when Silicon Valley's promises look less gilded than before, Wikipedia shines by comparison. It is the only not-for-profit site in the top 10, and one of only a handful in the top 100. It does not plaster itself with advertising, intrude on privacy, or provide a breeding ground for neo-Nazi trolling. Like Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook, it broadcasts user-generated content. Unlike them, it makes its product de-personified, collaborative, and for the general good. More than an encyclopedia, Wikipedia has become a community, a library, a constitution, an experiment, a political manifesto—the closest thing there is to an online public square. It is one of the few remaining places that retains the faintly utopian glow of the early World Wide Web. A free encyclopedia encompassing the whole of human knowledge, written almost entirely by unpaid volunteers: Can you believe that was the one that worked?
"
https://www.wired.com/story/wikipedia-online-encyclopedia-best-place-internet/
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Defying easy categorization: Wikipedia as primary, secondary and tertiary resource
Caroline Ball
Published on 21 Mar 2023
Wikipedia is the world’s largest information source, used daily by millions of individuals around the world – yet such is its uniqueness and dominance that rarely is the question asked: what exactly is Wikipedia? This article sets out to explore the different categories of source that Wikipedia could be defined as (primary, secondary or tertiary) alongside the varied ways in which Wikipedia is used, which defy easy categorization, exemplified by a broad-ranging literature review and focusing on the English language Wikipedia. It concludes that Wikipedia cannot easily be categorized in any information category but is defined instead by the ways it is used and interpreted by its users.
Wikipedia is a crowdsourced online encyclopaedia, indeed, the online encyclopaedia. It is one of many projects owned by the Wikimedia Foundation, a non-profit organization based in San Francisco and founded in 2003 to fund Wikipedia (itself launched in 2001) and other such wiki projects, which include media site Wikimedia Commons, dictionary and thesaurus Wiktionary, the knowledge base Wikidata and wikis for books, quotes, travels, a newspaper, tutorials and courses.1 However, Wikipedia is the oldest, largest, and almost certainly best known, of all the Wikimedia projects.
In terms of coverage, usage, currency and public awareness, its nearest online rival, Encyclopaedia Britannica, does not even come close. Encyclopaedia Britannica contains an estimated 120,000 articles;2 as of writing, the English language Wikipedia contains 6,552,009 and rises by roughly 17,000 articles a month.
As can be seen from the research drawn on within this literature review, many of the uses Wikipedia can be put to could almost certainly not have been foreseen by founders Jimmy Wales and Larry Sanger when they set out to ‘pretty single-mindedly [aim] at creating an encyclopaedia’, since these uses have resulted from the way it has been structured (enacted) and the lived experience of those using it.
"
https://insights.uksg.org/articles/10.1629/uksg.604
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On This Day: Tito elected president, remains for life, another 27 years - Jan. 14, 1953
https://www.democraticunderground.com/1016371263
On This Day: U.S. invasion of Mexico ends in California, continues south - Jan. 13, 1847
https://www.democraticunderground.com/1016371216
On This Day: Earthquake devastates Haiti. In 2023, Haiti "trapped in living nightmare" - Jan 12, 2010
https://www.democraticunderground.com/1016371156
On This Day: Landmark U.S. report on smoking published 2 years after UK report - Jan. 11, 1964
https://www.democraticunderground.com/1016371101
On This Day: Julius Caesar crosses the Rubicon - Jan. 10, 49 BCE
https://www.democraticunderground.com/1016371042
On This Day: Tito elected president, remains for life, another 27 years - Jan. 14, 1953
(edited from Wikipedia)
"
Josef Broz Tito
Josip Broz (1892–1980), commonly known as Tito, was a Yugoslav communist revolutionary and politician who served in various positions of national leadership from 1943 until his death in 1980. During World War II, he was the leader of the Yugoslav Partisans, often regarded as the most effective resistance movement in German-occupied Europe. He also served as the prime minister from 2 November 1944 to 29 June 1963 and president of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia from 14 January 1953 until his death on 4 May 1980. Tito's political ideology and policies are collectively known as Titoism.
Drafted into military service, he distinguished himself. After being seriously wounded and captured by the Russians during World War I, he was sent to a work camp in the Ural Mountains. He participated in some events of the Russian Revolution in 1917 and the subsequent Russian Civil War. Upon his return to the Balkans in 1920, he joined the Communist Party of Yugoslavia (KPJ). Having assumed de facto control over the party by 1937, he was formally elected its general secretary in 1939 and later its president, the title he held until his death. During World War II, after the Nazi invasion of the area, he led the Yugoslav guerrilla movement, the Partisans (1941–1945). By the end of the war, the Partisans – with backing of the Allies since mid-1943 – took power in Yugoslavia.
After the war, Tito was the chief architect of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (SFRY), serving as the prime minister (1944–1963), president (1953–1980; since 1974 president for life), and marshal of Yugoslavia, the highest rank of the Yugoslav People's Army (JNA). Despite being one of the founders of the Cominform, he became the first Cominform member and the only leader in Joseph Stalin's lifetime to defy Soviet hegemony in the Eastern Bloc, leading to the expulsion of Yugoslavia from the organisation in 1948 in the event known as the Tito–Stalin split.
In the following years, Tito went on to initiate the idiosyncratic model of socialist self-management in which firms were managed through workers' councils and all workers were entitled to workplace democracy and equal share of profits. Tito wavered between supporting either a centralised or more decentralised federation and ended up favouring the latter in order to keep ethnic tensions under control; thus, the constitution was gradually developed in order to delegate as much power as possible to each republic in keeping with the Marxist theory of withering away of the state.
A very powerful cult of personality was built around Tito, which was maintained by the League of Communists of Yugoslavia even after his death. After Tito's death, the leadership of Yugoslavia was transformed into an annually rotating presidency to give representation to all of Yugoslavia's nationalities and to prevent the emergence of an authoritarian leader. Twelve years after his death, as communism collapsed in Eastern Europe and ethnic tensions escalated, Yugoslavia dissolved and descended into a series of interethnic wars.
Historians critical of Tito view his presidency as authoritarian and see him as a dictator, while others characterise him as a benevolent dictator. He was a popular public figure both in Yugoslavia and abroad. He remains a popular leader in the former countries of Yugoslavia. Viewed as a unifying symbol, his internal policies maintained the peaceful coexistence of the nations of the Yugoslav federation.
Evaluation
Dominic McGoldrick writes that as the head of a "highly centralised and oppressive" regime, Tito wielded tremendous power in Yugoslavia, with his authoritarian rule administered through an elaborate bureaucracy that routinely suppressed human rights. The main victims of this repression were during the first years known and alleged Stalinists, such as Dragoslav Mihailović and Dragoljub Mićunović, but during the following years, even some of the most prominent among Tito's collaborators were arrested.
On 19 November 1956, Milovan Đilas, perhaps the closest of Tito's collaborators and widely regarded as his possible successor, was arrested because of his criticism of Tito's regime. Victor Sebestyen writes that Tito "was as brutal as" Stalin. The repression did not exclude intellectuals and writers, such as Venko Markovski, who was arrested and sent to jail in January 1956 for writing poems considered anti-Titoist.
Even if, after the reforms of 1961, Tito's presidency had become comparatively more liberal than other communist regimes, the Communist Party continued to alternate between liberalism and repression. Yugoslavia managed to remain independent from the Soviet Union, and its brand of socialism was in many ways the envy of Eastern Europe, but Tito's Yugoslavia remained a tightly controlled police state.
According to David Matas, outside the Soviet Union, Yugoslavia had more political prisoners than all of the rest of Eastern Europe combined.
Tito's secret police were modelled on the Soviet KGB. Its members were ever-present and often acted extrajudicially, with victims including middle-class intellectuals, liberals and democrats. Yugoslavia was a signatory to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, but scant regard was paid to some of its provisions.
Tito's Yugoslavia was based on respect for nationality, although Tito ruthlessly purged any flowerings of nationalism that threatened the Yugoslav federation. However, the contrast between the deference given to some ethnic groups and the severe repression of others was sharp. Yugoslav law guaranteed nationalities to use their language, but for ethnic Albanians, the assertion of ethnic identity was severely limited. Almost half of the political prisoners in Yugoslavia were ethnic Albanians imprisoned for asserting their ethnic identity.
Yugoslavia's post-war development was impressive, but the country ran into economic snags around 1970 and experienced significant unemployment and inflation.
Legacy
Tito is credited with transforming Yugoslavia from a poor nation to a middle-income one that saw vast improvements in women's rights, health, education, urbanisation, industrialisation, and many other areas of human and economic development. A 2010 poll found that as many as 81% of Serbians believe that life was better under Tito. Tito also ranked first in the "Greatest Croatian" poll which was conducted in 2003 by the Croatian weekly news magazine Nacional.
The Croat historian Marijana Belaj wrote that for some people in Croatia and other parts of the former Yugoslavia, Tito is remembered as a sort of secular saint, mentioning how some Croats keep portraits of Catholic saints together with a portrait of Tito on their walls as a way to bring hope. The practice of writing letters to Tito has continued well after his death with several websites in former Yugoslavia devoted entirely as forums for people to send posthumous letters to him, where they often talk about various personal problems.
Belaj wrote that much of the posthumous appeal of the Tito cult centres around Tito's everyman persona and how he was presented as a "friend" to ordinary people, in contrast to the way in which Stalin was depicted in his cult of personality as a cold, aloof god-like figure whose extraordinary qualities set him apart from ordinary people. The majority of those who come to Kumrovec on 25 May to kiss Tito's statue are women. Belaji wrote that the appeal of the Tito cult today centres less around communism, observing that most people who come to Kumrovec do not believe in communism, but rather due to nostalgia for their youth in Tito's Yugoslavia, and affection for an "ordinary man" who became great.
In the years following the dissolution of Yugoslavia, historians started highlighting that human rights were suppressed in Yugoslavia under Tito, particularly in the first decade up until the Tito–Stalin split. On 4 October 2011, the Slovenian Constitutional Court found a 2009 naming of a street in Ljubljana after Tito to be unconstitutional. While several public areas in Slovenia (named during the Yugoslav period) do already bear Tito's name, on the issue of renaming an additional street the court ruled that:
The name "Tito" does not only symbolise the liberation of the territory of present-day Slovenia from fascist occupation in World War II, as claimed by the other party in the case but also grave violations of human rights and basic freedoms, especially in the decade following World War II.
Some scholars have named Tito as responsible for the systematic eradication of the ethnic German (Danube Swabian) population in Vojvodina by expulsions and mass executions following the collapse of the German occupation of Yugoslavia at the end of World War II, in contrast to his inclusive attitude towards other Yugoslav nationalities.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josip_Broz_Tito
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On This Day: U.S. invasion of Mexico ends in California, continues south - Jan. 13, 1847
https://www.democraticunderground.com/1016371216
On This Day: Earthquake devastates Haiti. In 2023, Haiti "trapped in living nightmare" - Jan 12, 2010
https://www.democraticunderground.com/1016371156
On This Day: Landmark U.S. report on smoking published 2 years after UK report - Jan. 11, 1964
https://www.democraticunderground.com/1016371101
On This Day: Julius Caesar crosses the Rubicon - Jan. 10, 49 BCE
https://www.democraticunderground.com/1016371042
On This Day: Three days of terrorism, including Charlie Hebdo attack, end in France - Jan. 9, 2015
https://www.democraticunderground.com/1016370983
On This Day: U.S. invasion of Mexico ends in California, continues south - Jan. 13, 1847
(edited from Wikipedia)
"
[Invasion background]
The Mexican–American War was an invasion of Mexico by the United States Army from 1846 to 1848.
It followed the 1845 American annexation of Texas, which Mexico still considered its territory because Mexico refused to recognize the Treaties of Velasco. This treaty was signed by President Antonio López de Santa Anna while he was captured by the Texian Army during the 1836 Texas Revolution. The Republic of Texas was de facto an independent country, but most of its Anglo-American citizens who had moved from the United States to Texas after 1822 wanted to be annexed by the United States.
Sectional politics over slavery in the United States were preventing annexation because Texas, formerly a slavery-free territory under Mexican rule, would have been admitted as a slave state, upsetting the balance of power between Northern free states and Southern slave states. In the 1844 United States presidential election, Democrat James K. Polk was elected on a platform of expanding U.S. territory to Oregon, California (also a Mexican territory), and Texas by any means, with the 1845 annexation of Texas furthering that goal.
However, the boundary between Texas and Mexico was disputed, with the Republic of Texas and the U.S. asserting it to be the Rio Grande and Mexico claiming it to be the more-northern Nueces River. Polk sent a diplomatic mission to Mexico in an attempt to buy the disputed territory, together with California and everything in-between for $25 million (equal to equivalent to $750,636,132 in 2022), an offer the Mexican government refused.
Polk then sent a group of 80 soldiers across the disputed territory to the Rio Grande, ignoring Mexican demands to withdraw. Mexican forces interpreted this as an attack and repelled the U.S. forces on April 25, 1846, a move which Polk used to convince the Congress of the United States to declare war.
Beyond the disputed area of Texas, U.S. forces quickly occupied the regional capital of Santa Fe de Nuevo México along the upper Rio Grande. U.S. forces also moved against the province of Alta California and then turned south.
Conquest of California
Commodore John D. Sloat, commander of the U.S. Navy's Pacific Squadron, near Mazatlan, Mexico, had received orders to seize San Francisco Bay and blockade California ports when he was positive that war had begun. Sloat set sail for Monterey, reaching it on July 1. On July 9, 70 sailors and Marines landed at Yerba Buena and raised the American flag. Later that day in Sonoma, the Bear Flag was lowered, and the American flag was raised in its place.
On July 15, Sloat transferred his command of the Pacific Squadron to Commodore Robert F. Stockton, who was more militarily aggressive. He mustered the willing members of the California Battalion into military service with Frémont in command. Stockton ordered Frémont to San Diego to prepare to move northward to Los Angeles. As Frémont landed, Stockton's 360 men arrived in San Pedro. General Castro and Governor Pío Pico wrote farewells and fled separately to the Mexican state of Sonora.
Stockton's army entered Los Angeles unopposed on August 13, whereupon he sent a report to the secretary of state that "California is entirely free from Mexican dominion."
The Californios under the leadership of José María Flores, acting on their own and without federal help from Mexico, in the Siege of Los Angeles, forced the American garrison to retreat on September 29. They also forced small U.S. garrisons in San Diego and Santa Barbara to flee.
Captain William Mervine landed 350 sailors and Marines at San Pedro on October 7. They were ambushed and repulsed at the Battle of Dominguez Rancho by Flores' forces in less than an hour. Stockton arrived with reinforcements at San Pedro, which increased the American forces there to 800.
Meanwhile, Kearny and his force of about 115 men, who had performed a grueling march across the Sonoran Desert, crossed the Colorado River in late November 1846. On December 7,100 lancers under General Andrés Pico (brother of the governor), tipped off and lying in wait, fought Kearny's army of about 150 at the Battle of San Pasqual. General Pico kept the hill under siege for four days until a 215-man American relief force arrived.
Frémont and the 428-man California Battalion arrived in San Luis Obispo on December 14 and Santa Barbara on December 27. On December 28, a 600-man American force under Kearny began a 150-mile march to Los Angeles. On January 8, 1847, the Stockton-Kearny army defeated the Californio force in the two-hour Battle of Rio San Gabriel. The next day, January 9, the Stockton-Kearny forces fought and won the Battle of La Mesa. On January 10, the U.S. Army entered Los Angeles to no resistance.
[Californio capitulates]
On January 12, Frémont and two of Pico's officers agreed to terms for a surrender. Articles of Capitulation were signed on January 13 by Frémont, Andrés Pico and six others at a ranch at Cahuenga Pass (modern-day North Hollywood). This became known as the Treaty of Cahuenga, which marked the end of armed resistance in California.
[Invasion continues]
The U.S. Army, under Major General Winfield Scott, invaded the Mexican heartland and captured the capital, Mexico City, in September 1847.
[Mexico loses more than half its territory]
Although Mexico was defeated on the battlefield, negotiating peace was a politically fraught issue. Some Mexican factions refused to consider any recognition of its loss of territory. Although Polk formally relieved his peace envoy, Nicholas Trist, of his post as negotiator, Trist ignored the order and successfully concluded the 1848 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. It ended the war, and Mexico recognized the cession of present-day Texas, California, Nevada, and Utah as well as parts of present-day Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico, and Wyoming. The U.S. agreed to pay $15 million for the physical damage of the war and assumed $3.25 million of debt already owed by the Mexican government to U.S. citizens. Mexico relinquished its claims on Texas and accepted the Rio Grande as its northern border with the United States, a loss of 55% of its territory.
[Aftermath]
The victory and territorial expansion Polk envisioned inspired patriotism among some sections of the United States, but the war and treaty drew fierce criticism for the casualties, monetary cost, and heavy-handedness. The question of how to treat the new acquisitions intensified the debate over slavery in the United States. Although the Wilmot Proviso that explicitly forbade the extension of slavery into conquered Mexican territory was not adopted by Congress, debates about it heightened sectional tensions. Some scholars see the Mexican–American War as leading to the American Civil War. Many officers who had trained at West Point gained experience in the war in Mexico and later played prominent leadership roles during the Civil War.
In Mexico, the war worsened domestic political turmoil. Since the war was fought on home ground, Mexico suffered large losses of life from both the military and civilian population. The nation's financial foundations were undermined, and more than half of its territory was lost. Mexico felt a loss of national prestige, leaving it in what a group of Mexican writers, including Ramón Alcaraz and José María del Castillo Velasco, called a "state of degradation and ruin... [As for] the true origin of the war, it is sufficient to say that the insatiable ambition of the United States, favored by our weakness, caused it."
"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mexican%E2%80%93American_War
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Cahuenga
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On This Day: Earthquake devastates Haiti. In 2023, Haiti "trapped in living nightmare" - Jan 12, 2010
https://www.democraticunderground.com/1016371156
On This Day: Landmark U.S. report on smoking published 2 years after UK report - Jan. 11, 1964
https://www.democraticunderground.com/1016371101
On This Day: Julius Caesar crosses the Rubicon - Jan. 10, 49 BCE
https://www.democraticunderground.com/1016371042
On This Day: Three days of terrorism, including Charlie Hebdo attack, end in France - Jan. 9, 2015
https://www.democraticunderground.com/1016370983
On This Day: Gabby Giffords, 18 others, shot; 6 killed - Jan. 8, 2011
https://www.democraticunderground.com/1016370948
On This Day: Earthquake devastates Haiti. In 2023, Haiti "trapped in living nightmare" - Jan 12, 2010
(edited from Wikipedia)
"
The 2010 Haiti earthquake was a catastrophic magnitude 7.0 Mw earthquake that struck Haiti at 16:53 local time on Tuesday, 12 January 2010. The epicenter was near the town of Léogâne, Ouest department, approximately 16 mi west of Port-au-Prince, Haiti's capital.
By 24 January, at least 52 aftershocks measuring 4.5 or greater had been recorded. An estimated three million people were affected by the quake. Death toll estimates range from 100,000 to about 160,000 to Haitian government figures from 220,000 to 316,000, although these latter figures are a matter of some dispute. The government of Haiti estimated that 250,000 residences and 30,000 commercial buildings had collapsed or were severely damaged. The nation's history of national debt, prejudicial trade policies by other countries, and foreign intervention into national affairs contributed to the existing poverty and poor housing conditions that increased the death toll from the disaster.
The earthquake caused major damage in Port-au-Prince, Jacmel and other cities in the region. Notable landmark buildings were significantly damaged or destroyed, including the Presidential Palace, the National Assembly building, the Port-au-Prince Cathedral, and the main jail. Among those killed were Archbishop of Port-au-Prince Joseph Serge Miot, and opposition leader Micha Gaillard. The headquarters of the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH), located in the capital, collapsed, killing many, including the Mission's Chief, Hédi Annabi.
Many countries responded to appeals for humanitarian aid, pledging funds and dispatching rescue and medical teams, engineers and support personnel. The most-watched telethon in history aired on 22 January, called "Hope for Haiti Now," raising US$58 million by the next day. Communication systems, air, land, and sea transport facilities, hospitals, and electrical networks had been damaged by the earthquake, which hampered rescue and aid efforts; confusion over who was in charge, air traffic congestion, and problems with prioritising flights further complicated early relief work. Port-au-Prince's morgues were overwhelmed with tens of thousands of bodies. These had to be buried in mass graves.
As rescues tailed off, supplies, medical care and sanitation became priorities. Delays in aid distribution led to angry appeals from aid workers and survivors, and looting and sporadic violence were observed. On 22 January, the United Nations noted that the emergency phase of the relief operation was drawing to a close, and on the following day, the Haitian government officially called off the search for survivors.
Conditions in the aftermath
In the nights following the earthquake, many people in Haiti slept in the streets, on pavements, in their cars, or in makeshift shanty towns either because their houses had been destroyed, or they feared standing structures would not withstand aftershocks. Construction standards are low in Haiti; the country has no building codes. Engineers have stated that it is unlikely many buildings would have stood through any kind of disaster. Structures are often raised wherever they can fit; some buildings were built on slopes with insufficient foundations or steel supports. A representative of Catholic Relief Services has estimated that about two million Haitians lived as squatters on land they did not own. The country also suffered from shortages of fuel and potable water even before the disaster.
Casualities
The most reliable academic estimate of the number of earthquake casualties in Haiti (over 95% were in the immediate Port-au-Prince area) "within six weeks of the earthquake" appears to be the 160,000 estimate in a 2010 University of Michigan study.
"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_Haiti_earthquake
(edited from United Nations Information Center News)
"
Haiti’s harrowing humanitarian crisis remains at the top of the United Nations’ agenda
Washington, DC, 20 July 2023
Citizens, in the meantime, are “trapped in a living nightmare,” Secretary-General Guterres said following his visit to Port-au-Prince on 1 July. “I have heard appalling accounts of women and girls being gang-raped and of people being burned alive.” Speaking to reporters in the capital he said, “Every day counts. If we do not act now, instability and violence will have a lasting impact on generations of Haitians.”
At a summit of regional leaders, Guterres expressed solidarity with the Haitian people who are “facing a terrible and mutually reinforcing cycle” of crises. “I condemn in the strongest possible terms the widespread sexual violence which the armed gangs have used as a weapon to instill fear,” he said, calling on the entire international community to urgently “put the victims and the civilian population at the center of our concerns and priorities.”
The humanitarian and political crisis in Haiti continues to deteriorate. The World Food Program announced cuts in food assistance to some 100,000 Haitians at a time when nearly half of the nation’s population, 4.9 million people, are going hungry. Three million children are in desperate need, UNICEF reported, but only 23 per cent of the humanitarian appeal has been funded. The result is children are “being forced to join armed groups for protection” because “it means food and income for the family.” Speaking to reporters after her visit, UNICEF Executive Director Catherine Russell, who is also the Un Principal Advocate for Haitidetailed shocking accounts of violence from some of its victims. “The world is failing Haiti. . . . Haitians and our team there tell me it’s never been worse,”.
William O’Neill, the UN Independent Expert on the situation of Human Rights in Haiti, also underscored a broad range of concerns, describing the nation as a “country bruised by violence, misery, fear, and suffering.” In a recent statement, he voiced particular concern about “reports received regarding the trafficking of migrant children and women, including allegations of organ trafficking and human trafficking for sexual purposes.” The situation is becoming more and more severe, he said: “The survival of an entire nation is at stake."
"
https://www.un.org/en/information-center-washington/haiti%E2%80%99s-harrowing-humanitarian-crisis-remains-top-united-nations%E2%80%99
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On This Day: Landmark U.S. report on smoking published 2 years after UK report - Jan. 11, 1964
https://www.democraticunderground.com/1016371101
On This Day: Julius Caesar crosses the Rubicon - Jan. 10, 49 BCE
https://www.democraticunderground.com/1016371042
On This Day: Three days of terrorism, including Charlie Hebdo attack, end in France - Jan. 9, 2015
https://www.democraticunderground.com/1016370983
On This Day: Gabby Giffords, 18 others, shot; 6 killed - Jan. 8, 2011
https://www.democraticunderground.com/1016370948
On This Day: Chrysler saved by $1.5 Billion bailout; saved again by minivan - Jan. 7, 1980
https://www.democraticunderground.com/1016370899
On This Day: Landmark U.S. report on smoking published 2 years after UK report - Jan. 11, 1964
(edited from Wikipedia)
"
Although there had always been an awareness of the negative health effects of smoking, it was not until the 1950s that evidence began to be published suggesting that cigarette smoking caused lung cancer and other diseases. At the end of the decade, the Royal College of Physicians in the United Kingdom appointed a committee to investigate the relationship between smoking and health. The committee's report, issued on March 7, 1962, clearly indicated cigarette smoking as a cause of lung cancer and bronchitis and argued that it probably contributed to cardiovascular disease as well.
After pressure from the American Cancer Society, the American Heart Association, the National Tuberculosis Association, and the American Public Health Association, President John F. Kennedy authorized Surgeon General Terry's creation of the Advisory Committee. The committee met from November 1962 to January 1964 and analyzed over 7,000 scientific articles and papers.
[The] report for the United States. Smoking and Health: Report of the Advisory Committee to the Surgeon General of the United States, released on January 11, 1964, concluded that lung cancer and chronic bronchitis are causally related to cigarette smoking. The report also noted out that there was suggestive evidence, if not definite proof, for a causative role of smoking in other illnesses such as emphysema, cardiovascular disease, and various types of cancer. The committee concluded that cigarette smoking was a health hazard of sufficient importance to warrant appropriate remedial action.
In June 1964, the Federal Trade Commission voted by a margin of 3–1 to require that cigarette manufacturers "clearly and prominently" place a warning on packages of cigarettes effective January 1, 1965, stating that smoking was dangerous to health, in line with the warning issued by the Surgeon General's special committee. The same warning would be required in all cigarette advertising effective July 1, 1965.
The landmark Surgeon General's report on smoking and health stimulated a greatly increased concern about tobacco on the part of the American public and government policymakers and led to a broad-based anti-smoking campaign. It also motivated the tobacco industry to intensify its efforts to question the scientific evidence linking smoking and disease. The report was also responsible for the passage of the Cigarette Labeling and Advertising Act of 1965, which, among other things, mandated Surgeon General's health warnings on cigarette packages.
Cigarette smoking of nicotine was defined as not an addiction in the Surgeon General's first report on smoking (published by a committee of doctors who were largely smokers themselves).
Findings
The report's conclusions were almost entirely focused on the negative health effects of cigarette smoking. It found:
cigarette smokers had a seventy percent increase in age-corrected mortality rate
cigarette smoke was the primary cause of chronic bronchitis
a correlation between smoking, emphysema, and heart disease.
In addition, it reported:
a causative link between smoking and a ten- to twenty-fold increase in the occurrence of lung cancer
a positive correlation between pregnant women who smoke and underweight newborns.
As did the World Health Organization during this period, but possibly influenced by the fact that they were all smokers themselves, the Committee defined cigarette smoking as a "habituation" rather than an overpowering "addiction". Committee members agreed with most Americans that this habit (though often strong) was possible for individuals to break.
In the years that followed the Surgeon General's report, millions of Americans successfully chose to quit smoking, with two-thirds to three-quarters of ex-smokers quitting unaided by nicotine replacement methods. In addition, the "cold turkey," or sudden-and-rapid-cessation, method has been found to be the most successful in terms of stopping smoking over long periods of time. However, in a controversial move in 1989, a later Surgeon General, Dr. C. Everett Koop, M.D., shifted course and redefined cigarette smoking as "an addiction" rather than a habit.
Effects
The report's publication had wide effects across the United States. It was deliberately published on a Saturday to minimize the negative effect on the American stock markets, while maximizing the coverage in Sunday newspapers. The release of the report was one of the top news stories of 1964. It led to policy and public opinion changes such as the Federal Cigarette Labeling and Advertising Act of 1965 and the Public Health Cigarette Smoking Act of 1969, which mandated warning labels on cigarettes and instituted a ban on the broadcasting of cigarette advertisements on radio and/or television.
"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smoking_and_Health
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luther_Terry
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On This Day: Julius Caesar crosses the Rubicon - Jan. 10, 49 BCE
https://www.democraticunderground.com/1016371042
On This Day: Three days of terrorism, including Charlie Hebdo attack, end in France - Jan. 9, 2015
https://www.democraticunderground.com/1016370983
On This Day: Gabby Giffords, 18 others, shot; 6 killed - Jan. 8, 2011
https://www.democraticunderground.com/1016370948
On This Day: Chrysler saved by $1.5 Billion bailout; saved again by minivan - Jan. 7, 1980
https://www.democraticunderground.com/1016370899
On This Day: FDR speaks out for the "Four Freedoms" - Jan. 6, 1941
https://www.democraticunderground.com/1016370866
On This Day: Julius Caesar crosses the Rubicon - Jan. 10, 49 BCE
(edited from Wikipedia)
"
The Rubicon
The Latin word Rubico comes from the adjective rubeus, meaning "red". The river was so named because its waters are colored red by iron deposits in the riverbed.
During the Roman Republic, the Rubicon marked the boundary between the Roman province of Cisalpine Gaul and Italy proper, controlled directly by Rome and its socii (allies), to the south. On the north-western side, the border was marked by the river Arno, a much wider and more important waterway, which flows westward from the Apennine Mountains (the Arno and the Rubicon rise not far from each other) into the Tyrrhenian Sea.
In 49 BCE, perhaps on the 10th January, Julius Caesar led a single legion, Legio XIII Gemina, south over the Rubicon from Cisalpine Gaul to Italy to make his way to Rome. In doing so, he deliberately broke the law limiting his imperium, making armed conflict inevitable. Suetonius depicts Caesar as undecided as he approached the river, and attributes the crossing to a supernatural apparition. It was reported that Caesar dined with Sallust, Hirtius, Gaius Oppius, Lucius Cornelius Balbus, and Servius Sulpicius Rufus on the night after his crossing.
According to Suetonius, Caesar uttered the famous phrase alea iacta est ('the die is cast') upon crossing the Rubicon, signifying that his action was irreversible. The phrase "crossing the Rubicon" is now used to refer to committing irrevocably to a grave course of action, similar to the modern phrase "passing the point of no return," but with the added connotation of risking danger. The presence of Caesar and his legion in Italy forced Pompey, the consuls, and a large part of the senate to flee Rome. Caesar's victory in the subsequent civil war ensured that he would never be punished for his actions.
After Caesar's crossing, the Rubicon was a geographical feature of note until about 42 BCE, when Octavian merged the Province of Cisalpine Gaul into Italia and the river ceased to be the extreme northern border of Italy. The decision robbed the Rubicon of its importance, and the name gradually disappeared from the local toponymy.
After the fall of the Western Roman Empire, and during the first centuries of the Middle Ages, the coastal plain between Ravenna and Rimini was flooded many times. The Rubicon, like other small rivers of the region, often changed its course during this period. For this reason, and to supply fields with water after the revival of agriculture in the late Middle Ages, during the 14th and 15th centuries, hydraulic works were built to prevent other floods and to regulate streams. As a result of this work, these rivers started to flow in straight courses, as they do today.
Casear's civil war
Caesar's civil war (49–45 BC) was a civil war during the late Roman Republic between two factions led by Gaius Julius Caesar and Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus (Pompey), respectively. The main cause of the war was political tensions relating to Caesar's place in the republic on his expected return to Rome on the expiration of his governorship in Gaul.
Before the war, Caesar had led an invasion of Gaul for almost ten years. A build-up of tensions starting in late 50 BC, with both Caesar and Pompey refusing to back down, led to the outbreak of civil war. Pompey and his allies induced the Senate to demand Caesar give up his provinces and armies in the opening days of 49 BC. Caesar refused and instead marched on Rome.
The war was fought in Italy, Illyria, Greece, Egypt, Africa, and Hispania. The decisive events occurred in Greece in 48 BC: Pompey defeated Caesar at the Battle of Dyrrhachium, but the subsequent larger Battle of Pharsalus was won by Caesar and Pompey's army disintegrated. Many prominent supporters of Pompey (termed Pompeians) surrendered after the battle, such as Marcus Junius Brutus and Cicero. Others fought on, including Cato the Younger and Metellus Scipio. Pompey fled to Egypt, where he was assassinated upon arrival.
Caesar led a military expedition to Asia Minor before attacking North Africa, where he defeated Metellus Scipio in 46 BC at the Battle of Thapsus. Cato and Metellus Scipio killed themselves shortly thereafter. The following year, Caesar defeated the last of the Pompeians, at the Battle of Munda in Spain, who were led by his former lieutenant Labienus. Caesar was then made dictator perpetuo ("dictator in perpetuity " or "dictator for life " ) by the Roman senate in 44 BC. He was assassinated by a group of senators (including Brutus) shortly thereafter.
The civil war is one of the commonly recognised endpoints of Rome's republican government. Some scholars view the war as the proximate cause of the republic's fall, due to its polarising interruption of normal republican government. Caesar's comprehensive victory followed by his immediate death left a power vacuum; over the following years his heir Octavian was eventually able to take complete control, forming the Roman Empire as Augustus.
Crossing the Rubicon
Crossing the Rubicon, Suetonius claims Caesar exclaimed alea iacta est ("the die is cast " ), though Plutarch maintains Caesar spoke in Greek quoting the poet Menander with anerriphtho kubos ("let the die be thrown " ); Caesar's own commentaries do not mention the Rubicon at all. This marked a formal start to hostilities, with Caesar being "undoubtedly a rebel".
On both sides, the rank and file soldiers followed their leaders: "the Gallic legions obeyed their patron and benefactor [who] deserved well of the res publica... others followed Pompey and the consuls [who] represented the res publica". Caesar made sure to address his men: according to his own account, he spoke of injustices done to him by his political enemies, how Pompey had betrayed him, and focused mostly on how the rights of tribunes had been trampled by the Senate's ignoring tribunician vetoes, parading the tribunes who had fled the city before the troops in their disguises. On the senatus consultum ultimum, Caesar argued it was unnecessary and should be confined only to circumstances in which Rome was under direct threat.
For most Romans, the choice of what side to pick was difficult. Only a small number of people were committed to one side or the other at the onset of hostilities. For example, Gaius Claudius Marcellus, who as consul in 50 BC had charged Pompey with defending the city, chose neutrality. The then-young Marcus Junius Brutus, whose father had been treacherously killed by Pompey during Brutus' childhood, whose mother was Caesar's lover, and who had been raised in Cato the Younger's house, chose to leave the city, setting off a post in Cilicia and thence to Pompey's camp. Caesar's most trusted lieutenant in Gaul, Titus Labienus also defected from Caesar to Pompey, possibly due to Caesar's hoarding of military glories or an earlier loyalty to Pompey.
"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rubicon
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caesar%27s_civil_war
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On This Day: Three days of terrorism, including Charlie Hebdo attack, end in France - Jan. 9, 2015
https://www.democraticunderground.com/1016370983
On This Day: Gabby Giffords, 18 others, shot; 6 killed - Jan. 8, 2011
https://www.democraticunderground.com/1016370948
On This Day: Chrysler saved by $1.5 Billion bailout; saved again by minivan - Jan. 7, 1980
https://www.democraticunderground.com/1016370899
On This Day: FDR speaks out for the "Four Freedoms" - Jan. 6, 1941
https://www.democraticunderground.com/1016370866
On This Day: Dreyfus paraded through streets amid chants for death - Jan. 5, 1895
https://www.democraticunderground.com/1016370841
On This Day: Three days of terrorism, including Charlie Hebdo attack, end in France - Jan. 9, 2015
(edited from Wikipedia)
"
January 2015 Île-de-France attacks
From 7 to 9 January 2015, terrorist attacks occurred across the Île-de-France region, particularly in Paris.
Three attackers killed a total of 17 in four shooting attacks, and police then killed the three assailants. The attacks also wounded 22 other people. A fifth shooting attack did not result in any fatalities.
Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) claimed responsibility and said that the coordinated attacks had been planned for years. The claim of responsibility for the deadly attack on the magazine came in a video showing AQAP commander Nasr Ibn Ali al-Ansi, with gunmen in the background that were later identified as the Kouachi brothers. However, while authorities say the video is authentic, there is no proof that AQAP helped to carry out the attacks. Amedy Coulibaly, who committed another leg of the attacks (the Montrouge shooting and the Hypercacher Kosher Supermarket siege) claimed that he belonged to ISIS before he died.
On December 16, 2020, 14 people who were accomplices to both the Jewish supermarket attack and the Charlie Hebdo shooting, including Coulibaly's former partner Hayat Boumeddiene, were convicted. However, three of these accomplices were not yet captured and were tried in absentia.
Attack events summary
The attacks began on 7 January, when two gunmen attacked the headquarters of the satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo, killing 12 people and wounding 12 others before escaping. On 9 January, police tracked the assailants to an industrial estate in Dammartin-en-Goële, where they took a hostage.
Another gunman shot a police officer on 8 January. He killed four more victims and took hostages on January 9 at a kosher supermarket near the Porte de Vincennes.
French armed forces and police conducted simultaneous raids in Dammartin and Porte de Vincennes, killing all three attackers.
[Nationwide deployment]
After 12 January 2015 and for an indefinite period, as part of Operation Sentinelle, nearly 10,500 military personnel were deployed in France to secure 830 sensitive places (school, churches, press organizations, etc ).
[Scale]
At the time, the attacks comprised the deadliest act of terrorism in France since the 1961 Vitry-Le-François train bombing by the Organisation armée secrète (OAS), which was working against Algerian independence. These fatalities were surpassed ten months later by the November 2015 Paris attacks.
Background
In December 2014, three attacks occurred in a span of three days in France.
The first attack occurred in Joué-lès-Tours, in which a knife-wielding man attacked a police station, injuring three officers before being killed. The second attack occurred in Dijon, in which a man used a vehicle to run over eleven pedestrians in several areas of the city before being arrested. The third attack occurred in Nantes, in which a vehicular attack at a Christmas market resulted in ten people being injured and one fatality. The driver was arrested after attempting suicide.
Although the French government concluded that the attacks were not related to each other, it heightened the nation's security and deployed 300 soldiers to patrol the nation's streets.
Charlie Hebdo shooting
The first and deadliest of the attacks occurred at 11:30 CET on January 7, 2015, at the offices of Charlie Hebdo. The Charlie Hebdo magazine began publishing in 1970 with the goal of satirizing religion, politics, and other topics. In 2011, the magazine's offices were destroyed by a gasoline bomb after it published a caricature of the Prophet Mohammed. Two gunmen, later identified as Chérif and Saïd Kouachi, entered the building and fatally shot eight employees, two police officers, and two others, and injured eleven other people.
The primary motive behind the shooting is said to be the Charlie Hebdo cartoons making fun of numerous Islamic leaders. The shooting received widespread condemnation internationally and a National Day of Mourning was held in France on 8 January.
Killed:
Cabu, 76, cartoonist.
Elsa Cayat, 54, columnist .
Charb, 47, cartoonist, columnist, and director of publication of Charlie Hebdo.
Philippe Honoré, 73, cartoonist.
Bernard Maris, 68, columnist.
Mustapha Ourrad, 60, copy editor.
Tignous, 57, cartoonist.
Georges Wolinski, 80, cartoonist.
Frédéric Boisseau, 42, building maintenance worker.
Franck Brinsolaro, 49, bodyguard for Charb.
Ahmed Merabet, 42, police officer.
Michel Renaud, 69, a travel writer.
Fontenay-aux-Roses and Montrouge shootings
A few hours after the Charlie Hebdo attack, a 32-year-old man who was out jogging in Fontenay-aux-Roses was shot and wounded. The man suffered injuries to his arm and back and as of 11 January was in critical condition. Shell casings found at the scene were later linked to the weapon carried by Amedy Coulibaly at the Hypercacher Kosher Supermarket hostage crisis on January 9. However, the jogger refuted Coulibaly's involvement and recognized Amar Ramdani, a friend of Coulibaly, as the gunman.
On 8 January, Coulibaly shot and killed municipal police officer Clarissa Jean-Philippe at the junction of Avenue Pierre Brossolette and Avenue de la Paix in Montrouge (a suburb of Paris), and critically wounded a street sweeper. As police continued their search for Charlie Hebdo suspects, they initially dismissed the idea that there could be a link between this shooting and the Charlie Hebdo killings, but later confirmed they were in fact connected.
Dammartin-en-Goële hostage crisis
On 9 January, the assailants of the Charlie Hebdo shooting, Chérif and Saïd Kouachi, went to the office of Création Tendance Découverte, a signage production company on an industrial estate in Dammartin-en-Goële. The siege ended after nine hours at 16:30 after a combined force of French Armed Forces and police stormed the building and killed both Kouachi brothers, the assailants.
Hypercacher Kosher Supermarket siege
On 9 January 2015, Amedy Coulibaly, armed with a submachine gun, an assault rifle, and two Tokarev pistols, entered and attacked a Hypercacher kosher supermarket in Porte de Vincennes in Paris, France. There, Coulibaly murdered four Jewish hostages and held fifteen other hostages during a siege in which he demanded that the Kouachi brothers not be harmed. The siege ended when police stormed the supermarket, killing Coulibaly.
Several people were wounded during the incident. Lassana Bathily, a Muslim shop assistant born in Mali, was hailed as a hero in the crisis for risking his life to hide people from the gunman in a downstairs refrigerator room and assisting police after he escaped from the market.
Killed:
Philippe Braham, 45, IT sales executive.
Yohan Cohen, 22, an economics student and worker at Hyper Cacher.
Yoav Hattab, 21, a Tunisian college student.
François-Michel Saada, 64, retiree.
Cyber attacks
French media reported that hackers breached the security of French municipality websites during the Île-de-France attacks, changing them to display jihadist propaganda. The French Defense Ministry and security bodies reported that about 19,000 French websites were targeted in an unprecedented wave of denial-of-service attacks following the publication of Charlie Hebdo with a depiction of the sacred prophet Muhammad on the cover. The websites of French businesses, religious groups, universities, and municipalities were also hacked and altered to display pro-Islamist messages.
Incidents at mosques
In the week after the shooting, [there was a call] for strengthening of the surveillance of mosques. The French interior department reported that 54 anti-Muslim incidents were recorded in France in the first week after the shootings; this compared to 110 complaints in the first nine months of 2014. The 2015 incidents included 21 reports of shootings and blank grenade throwing at Islamic buildings including mosques; and 33 cases of personal threats and insults.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/January_2015_%C3%8Ele-de-France_attacks
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlie_Hebdo_shooting
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypercacher_kosher_supermarket_siege
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On This Day: Gabby Giffords, 18 others, shot; 6 killed - Jan. 8, 2011
(edited from Wikipedia)
"
2011 Tucson shooting
On January 8, 2011, U.S. Representative Gabby Giffords and 18 others were shot during a constituent meeting held in a supermarket parking lot in Casas Adobes, Arizona, in the Tucson metropolitan area. Six people were killed, including federal District Court Chief Judge John Roll; Gabe Zimmerman, one of Giffords's staffers; and a 9-year-old girl, Christina-Taylor Green.
Giffords was holding the meeting, called "Congress on Your Corner", in the parking lot of a Safeway store when Jared Lee Loughner drew a pistol and shot her in the head before proceeding to fire on other people. One additional person was injured in the immediate aftermath of the shooting. News reports identified the target of the attack to be Giffords, a Democrat representing Arizona's 8th congressional district. She was shot through the head at point-blank range, and her medical condition was initially described as "critical".
Loughner, a 22-year-old Tucson man who was fixated on Giffords, was arrested at the scene. Federal prosecutors filed five charges against him, including the attempted assassination of a member of Congress and the assassination of a federal judge. Loughner previously had been arrested once (but not convicted) on a minor drug charge and had been suspended by his college for disruptive behavior. Court filings include notes handwritten by Loughner indicating he planned to assassinate Giffords.
Loughner did not cooperate with authorities, invoking his right to remain silent. He was held without bail and indicted on 49 counts. In January 2012, Loughner was found by a federal judge to be incompetent to stand trial based on two medical evaluations, which diagnosed him with paranoid schizophrenia. On August 7, Loughner had a hearing in which he was judged competent. He pleaded guilty to 19 counts, and in November 2012 was sentenced to life in prison.
Following the shooting, American and international politicians expressed grief and condemnations. Gun control advocates pushed for increased restrictions on the sale of firearms and ammunition, specifically high-capacity magazines. Some commentators criticized the use of harsh political rhetoric in the United States, with a number blaming the political right wing for the shooting. In particular, Sarah Palin was criticized for a poster by her political action committee that featured stylized crosshairs on an electoral map which included Giffords. Palin rejected claims that she bore any responsibility for the shooting. President Barack Obama led a nationally televised memorial service on January 12, and other memorials took place.
Victims
Six people were killed in the attack:
Christina-Taylor Green, 9, of Tucson.
Dorothy "Dot" Morris, 76, a retired secretary from Oro Valley.
John Roll, 63, chief judge of the U.S. District Court for Arizona.
Phyllis Schneck, 79, homemaker from Tucson.
Dorwan Stoddard, 76, retired construction worker.
Gabriel "Gabe" Zimmerman, 30, community outreach director for Giffords.
In addition to the six dead, thirteen other people were wounded by gunshot in the attack, while a fourteenth person was injured subduing Loughner. Gabrielle Giffords and two other members of her staff were among the surviving gunshot victims. Staffer Ron Barber, shot in the thigh and face, would later succeed Giffords in her House seat.
Gabby Giffords
Daniel Hernández Jr., one of Giffords's interns, assisted her after she was wounded and is credited with saving her life.
Giffords was taken to University Medical Center in critical condition, although she was still conscious. Within 38 minutes, Giffords underwent emergency surgery, and part of her skull was removed to prevent further brain damage caused by swelling. She was placed into a medically induced coma to allow her brain to rest. During a memorial ceremony on January 12, President Obama announced that earlier that day Giffords had opened her eyes for the first time since the attack.
As Giffords's status improved, she began simple physical therapy and music therapy. On January 21, 2011, less than two weeks after the attack, her condition was deemed sufficiently stable for her to be released to Houston's Memorial Hermann Medical Center. A few days later she was moved to the center's Institute for Rehabilitation and Research to undergo a program of physical therapy and rehabilitation. After examination, her Houston doctors were optimistic, saying she has "great rehabilitation potential".
On August 1, 2011, she made her first public appearance on the House floor to vote in favor of raising the debt limit ceiling. She was met with a standing ovation and accolades from her fellow members of Congress. Giffords engaged in intensive rehabilitation treatments in Asheville, North Carolina, from October 25 through November 4. In 2011, Mark Kelly, Giffords's husband, published a memoir, Gabby: A Story of Courage and Hope, crediting her with joint authorship. He wrote that Giffords vows to return to Congress, although she continues to struggle with language and has lost 50 percent of her vision in both eyes. Kelly himself was elected U.S. Senator from Arizona in 2020.
"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_Tucson_shooting#
(edited from New York Times)
"
For Giffords, Progress on Gun Safety Is Like Her Recovery: ‘Inch by Inch’
A 2011 mass shooting left Gabrielle Giffords, then a Democratic congresswoman, partly paralyzed and unable to speak fluently. She has since built a powerful advocacy group.
Published Jan. 30, 2023
Updated June 20, 2023
WASHINGTON — Twelve years after a bullet ripped through the left side of her brain, Gabrielle Giffords speaks mainly in stock phrases and short bursts, conveying meaning with her eyes or a boxer’s swing of her left arm, the one that is still fully mobile. “Enough is enough!” she might say. Or: “Be passionate! Be courageous!”
But in an interview at the headquarters of the gun safety group that bears her name, amid a string of mass shootings in California, there was something more that Ms. Giffords wanted to say. Asked what Americans should know about her, she closed her eyes and rocked slowly back and forth, as if to summon words from deep within. She shushed a colleague who tried to speak for her. And then she delivered a speech unlike any she had given as a congresswoman from Arizona, before the 2011 mass shooting that nearly killed her.
“I’m getting better,” she said haltingly, laboring over each word. “Slowly, I’m getting better. Long, hard haul, but I’m getting better. Our lives can change so quickly. Mine did when I was shot. I’ve never given up hope. I chose to make a new start, to move ahead, to not look back. I’m relearning so many things — how to walk, how to talk — and I’m fighting to make the country safer. It can be so difficult. Losses hurt; setbacks are hard. But I tell myself: Move ahead.”
Ms. Giffords, 52, who goes by Gabby, is arguably America’s most famous gun violence survivor. She had come to the group’s headquarters in Washington for an update and a strategy session. The timing of her visit underscored two competing truths: The gun safety movement she helps lead is stronger than ever. But the nation’s gun violence epidemic is worsening.
"
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/30/us/politics/gabby-giffords-mass-shootings.html
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