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August 22, 2014 – Segment 1
Marc shares some of the events that happened on this day in history, including a 1791 slave revolt in Saint-Domingue, which marked the beginning a 12 year revolution that led to the formation of Haiti, the killing of Irish activist and politician Michael Collins, and the murder of Huey P. Newton.
On this day
564 –Columba reports seeing a monster in Loch Ness, Scotland
1485 –King Richard III is killed in the Battle of Bosworth Field, by Lancastrian claimant to the throne Henry Tudor (the future Henry VII). In 2012, archaeologists found the final burial place of the King under a parking garage in Leicester, England.
1639 –Madras, India (now Chennai), is founded by the British East India Company on a sliver of land bought from local Nayak rulers
1791 –Slave Revolution in Saint-Domingue: The slaves of African descent revolted against the ruling French government, thus beginning a 12 year revolution that would see the colony declared independent. The nation was renamed Haiti and was the first independent nation in Latin America and the first post-colonial black-led nation in the world.
1831 –Nat Turner’s s rebellion commences just after midnight in Southampton County, Virginia, leading to the deaths of more than 50 whites and several hundred African Americans who were killed in retaliation for the uprising
1848 –The United States annexes New Mexico
1864 –Twelve nations sign the First Geneva Convention
1867 –Fisk University, Nashville Tenn., was incorporated under Tennessee law. The mission of the institution was to realize “a dream of an educational institution that would be open to all regardless of race, and that would measure itself by the highest standards, not of Negro education, but of American education at its best.” The school was established by Rev. Erastus Milo Cravath, John Ogden and Rev. Edward P. Smith. The school was named after General Clinton B. Fisk of the Tennessee Freedman’s Bureau. The first students ranged in ages from 7-70yrs, a testament to the hunger for education throughout the recently emancipated and impoverished population. In 1930 Fisk became the first African American institution to gain accreditation by the Southern Association Colleges and Schools. Notable Alumni include John Hope Franklin, W.E B. DuBois, Wade H. McCree and Nikki Giovani.
1902 –Cadillac Motor Company is founded
1902 –Theodore Roosevelt becomes the first President of the United States to ride in an automobile
1910 –Korea is annexed by Japan with the signing of the Japan-Korea Treaty of 1910, ushering in a period of Japanese rule that lasted until the end of World War II
1922-Michael Collins, activist, Sinn Fein politician, former IRA director of intelligence and Commander in Chief of the Irish Free State Army, is shot dead during an Anti-Treaty ambush at Beal no Blath, County Cork, during the Irish Civil War. Due to lack of witness, no official inquiry was ever made into the death. Collins’s body lay in state for three days. On the day of his funeral 500,000 people filled the streets of Dublin, to pay their respects.
1941 –German troops reach Leningrad, leading to the infamous Siege of Leningrad. The Siege would officially begin on the 8th of September, after the Germans completed their encirclement of the city. The two and a half year operation claimed the life of over 1,000,000 residents as the city suffered artillery and aerial bombardment; as well as starvation and isolation.
1961 –Ida Siekmann died attempting to cross the Berlin Wall. The 58 year old Siekemann lived in a home that straddled the East/West Berlin boarder, as the entrance to her apartment was on the west side of the wall and her back courtyard was on the east side. Construction on the wall began on the 13th of August. By the 18th East German authority had ordered all doors that exited to the west boarded up and sealed shut. Ida’s home was sealed on the 21st of August, cutting her off from her family in the west of the city. She jumped to her death from the window of her 3rd floor apartment. The death of Ida Siekmann was reported as a “fatal jump to freedom” in the press, condemning the Soviets and placing blame on the East German leadership.
1966 –Labor movements NFWA and AWOC merge to become the United Farm Workers Organizing Committee, predecessor of the United Farm Workers
1968 –Pope Paul VI becomes the first pope to visit Latin America, upon his arrival in Bogotá, Colombia on this day
1971 –J. Edgar hoover and John Mitchell announce the arrest of 20 of the anti-war activists, the Camden 28.
1972 –Rhodesia’s invitation to the 1972 Olympic Games was rescinded after protest from other African nations questioning the legitimacy of the East African nation following the colony’s mostly white minority government’s declaration of independence from Great Britain in 1965; and subsequent civil war against black native forces during the Zimbabwe war of Liberation (1964-1977). Rhodesia was officially expelled in 1975. At the 1980 Moscow games the nation re-entered into the competition as the independent nation of Zimbabwe.
1978 –The Sandinista National Liberation Front occupies national palace in Nicaragua
1978 –Jomo Kenyatta, the first President of the Republic of Kenya died
1989 –Huey Percy Newton, co-founder and leader of the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense was fatally shot. The revolutionary, agitator, educator and co-founder of the Black Panther Party for Self Defense was shot and killed by Black Guerilla Family Member Tyrone Robinson (24). The death was reported as a drug deal gone, but speculation still surrounds the circumstances of his death due to tensions between the BGF and Newton.
1992 –On the second day of the Ruby Ridge siege, FBI sniper killed Victoria Waver, the wife of white separatist Randy Weaver
1996 –President William Clinton signs welfare reform into law. The Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Actor or Welfare Reform Act, was an attempt encourage welfare recipients go to work in lieu of accepting assistance. The Act included controversial provisions such as
-Legal immigrants may not receive Federal welfare benefits and social services during their first five years in the US, cutting off their access to Food stamps and SSI benefits as well.
– States must generally deny assistance to people that have been convicted of a drug felony with the exception of pregnant women and adults in drug treatment programs.
-Single mothers on welfare that do not help identify the child’s father will lose 25% of her benefits
-After two months, states can require adults to perform community service.
-Federal welfare funding will be given to states and they will run their own program.
2004 –Versions of The Scream and Madonna, two paintings by Edvard Munch are stolen at gunpoint from the Munch museum in Oslo, Norway.
Birthday
1834 –Samuel Pierpont Langley, American astronomer, physicist and aeronautics pioneer
1861 –Mary Elizabeth Wood, American librarian and Missionary
1862 –Claude Debussy, French composer
1893 –Dorothy parker, American short story writer and poet
1904 –Deng Xiaoping, Chinese Communist leader
1933 –Asa Grand Hillard, III, educator, historian and psychologist born in Galveston, Texas. Hillard earned his Doctor of Education degree in educational psychology from the University of Denver in 1963. He taught at San Francisco State University and was a consultant to the Peace Corp and superintendent of schools in Liberia. Hillard also served as the Fuller E. Calloway Professor of Urban Education at Georgia State University, and a founding member of the Association for the Study of Classical African Civilizations and the National Black Child Development.
This day in music
1906 –The Victor Talking Machine Company of Camden, NJ start production of the Victrola. Hand cranked record player with Horn cabinet sold for $200.
1964 –Supremes score number 1 hit on the U.S. charts with ‘Where Did Our Love Go’
1964 –Martha and The Vandellas ‘Dancing in The Streets’, released
1978 –Sid Vicious made his last live stage appearance.
2011 –Nickolas Ashford, hall of fame songwriter and recording artist died. He met his wife Valerie Simpson in NYC in 1963 and the two began to perform and compose together. Popular works include ‘Let’s go Get Stoned’ for Ray Charles, ‘Reach Out and Touch Somebody’s Hand’ for Diana Ross and ‘I’m Ever Woman’ for Chaka Khan.
This day in music: birthdays
1822 –Josef Strauss, Composer
1920 –John Lee Hooker, Blues singer guitarist (1951 top selling album ‘I’m in The Mood’
1938 –Rockabilly singer and guitarist Dale Hawkins (1957 single ‘Suisie Q’).
1958 –Vernon Reid, Living Color (‘Lover Rears its Ugly Head’)
1961 –Debbie Peterson drummer for The Bangles (‘Walk Like an Egyptian’, ‘Manic Monday’).
