Today in History

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This day in History

 

Today in History

 

WORST MODERN EARTHQUAKE:

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July 28, 1976

At 3:42 a.m., an earthquake measuring between 7.8 and 8.2 magnitude on the Richter scale flattens Tangshan, a Chinese industrial city with a population of about one million people. As almost everyone was asleep in their beds, instead of outside in the relative safety of the streets, the quake was especially costly in terms of human life. An estimated 242,000 people in Tangshan and surrounding areas were killed, making the earthquake one of the deadliest in recorded history, surpassed only by the 300,000 who died in the Calcutta earthquake in 1737, and the 830,000 thought to have perished in China's Shaanxi province in 1556.

Caught between the Indian and Pacific plates, China has been a very active location for earthquakes throughout history. Earthquakes have also played a significant part in China's culture and science, and the Chinese were the first to develop functioning seismometers. The area of northern China hit by the Tangshan earthquake is particularly prone to the westward movement of the Pacific plate.

In the days preceding the earthquake, people began to notice strange phenomena in and around Tangshan. Well-water levels rose and fell. Rats were seen running in panicked packs in broad daylight. Chickens refused to eat. During the evening of July 27 and the early morning hours of July 28, people reported flashes of colored light and roaring fireballs. Still, at 3:42 a.m. most people were sleeping quietly when the earthquake struck. It lasted for 23 seconds and leveled 90 percent of Tangshan's buildings. At least a quarter-of-a-million people were killed and 160,000 others injured. The earthquake came during the heat of midsummer, and many stunned survivors crawled out of their ruined houses naked, covered only in dust and blood. The earthquake started fires and ignited explosives and poisonous gases in Tangshan's factories. Water and electricity were cut off, and rail and road access to the city was destroyed.

The Chinese government was ill-prepared for a disaster of this scale. The day following the quake, helicopters and planes began dropping food and medicine into the city. Some 100,000 soldiers of the People's Liberation Army were ordered to Tangshan, and many had to march on foot from Jinzhou, a distance of more than 180 miles. About 30,000 medical personnel were called in, along with 30,000 construction workers. The Chinese government, boasting self-sufficiency, refused all offers of foreign relief aid. In the crucial first week after the crisis, many died from lack of medical care. Troops and relief workers lacked the kind of heavy rescue training necessary to efficiently pull survivors from the rubble. Looting was also epidemic. More than 160,000 families were left homeless, and more than 4,000 children were orphaned.

Tangshan was eventually rebuilt with adequate earthquake precautions. Today, nearly two million people live there. There is speculation that the death toll from the 1976 quake was much higher than the official Chinese government figure of 242,000. Some Chinese sources have spoken privately of more than 500,000 deaths.

 

 

1868

 

14th Amendment adopted

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Following its ratification by the necessary three-quarters of U.S. states, the 14th Amendment, guaranteeing to African Americans citizenship and all its privileges, is officially adopted into the U.S. Constitution.

Two years after the Civil War, the Reconstruction Acts of 1867 divided the South into five military districts, where new state governments, based on universal manhood suffrage, were to be established. Thus began the period known as Radical Reconstruction, which saw the 14th Amendment, which had been passed by Congress in 1866, ratified in July 1868. The amendment resolved pre-Civil War questions of African American citizenship by stating that "all persons born or naturalized in the United States...are citizens of the United States and of the state in which they reside." The amendment then reaffirmed the privileges and rights of all citizens, and granted all these citizens the "equal protection of the laws."

In the decades after its adoption, the equal protection clause was cited by a number of African American activists who argued that racial segregation denied them the equal protection of law. However, in 1896, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Plessy v. Ferguson that states could constitutionally provide segregated facilities for African Americans, so long as they were equal to those afforded white persons. The Plessy v. Ferguson decision, which announced federal toleration of the so-called "separate but equal" doctrine, was eventually used to justify segregating all public facilities, including railroad cars, restaurants, hospitals, and schools. However, "colored" facilities were never equal to their white counterparts, and African Americans suffered through decades of debilitating discrimination in the South and elsewhere. In 1954, Plessy v. Ferguson was finally struck down by the Supreme Court in its ruling in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka.

1932 Bonus Marchers evicted by U.S. Army

During the Great Depression, President Herbert Hoover orders the U.S. Army under General Douglas MacArthur to evict by force the Bonus Marchers from the nation's capital.

Two months before, the so-called "Bonus Expeditionary Force," a group of some 1,000 World War I veterans seeking cash payments for their veterans' bonus certificates, had arrived in Washington, D.C. Most of the marchers were unemployed veterans in desperate financial straits. In June, other veteran groups spontaneously made their way to the nation's capital, swelling the Bonus Marchers to nearly 20,000 strong. Camping in vacant government buildings and in open fields made available by District of Columbia Police Chief Pelham D. Glassford, they demanded passage of the veterans' payment bill introduced by Representative Wright Patman.

While awaiting a vote on the issue, the veterans conducted themselves in an orderly and peaceful fashion, and on June 15 the Patman bill passed in the House of Representatives. However, two days later, its defeat in the Senate infuriated the marchers, who refused to return home. In an increasingly tense situation, the federal government provided money for the protesters' trip home, but 2,000 refused the offer and continued to protest. On July 28, President Herbert Hoover ordered the army to evict them forcibly. General MacArthur's men set their camps on fire, and the veterans were driven from the city. Hoover, increasingly regarded as insensitive to the needs of the nation's many poor, was much criticized by the public and press for the severity of his response.

1945 U.S. Senate approves United Nations charter

In a ringing declaration indicating that America's pre-World War II isolation was truly at an end, the U.S. Senate approves the charter establishing the United Nations. In the years to come, the United Nations would be the scene of some of the most memorable Cold War confrontations between the United States and the Soviet Union.

In 1919, following the close of World War I, President Woodrow Wilson implored the U.S. Senate to approve the charter for the League of Nations. Postwar isolationism and partisan politics killed U.S. participation in the League, however. In July 1945, with World War II coming to a close, the U.S. Senate indicated the sea change in American attitudes toward U.S. involvement in world affairs by approving the charter for the United Nations by a vote of 89 to 2. President Harry S. Truman was delighted with the vote, declaring, "The action of the Senate substantially advances the cause of world peace." Acting Secretary of State Joseph Grew also applauded the Senate's action, noting, "Millions of men, women and children have died because nations took to the naked sword instead of the conference table to settle their differences." The U.N. charter would provide the "foundation and cornerstone on which the international organization to keep the peace will be built." Once the charter had been ratified by a majority of the 50 nations that hammered out the charter in June 1945, the U.S. Senate formally approved U.S. participation in the United Nations in December 1945.

Whether the United Nations became a "foundation and cornerstone" of world peace in the years that followed is debatable, but it was certainly the scene of several notable Cold War confrontations between the United States and the Soviet Union. In 1950, with the Russians absent from the U.N. Security Council, the United States pushed through a resolution providing U.N. military assistance to South Korea in the Korean War. And in one memorable moment, during a speech denouncing Western imperialism in 1960, Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev took off one of his shoes and pounded his table with it to make his point.

1932 Bonus Marchers evicted by U.S. Army

During the Great Depression, President Herbert Hoover orders the U.S. Army under General Douglas MacArthur to evict by force the Bonus Marchers from the nation's capital.

Two months before, the so-called "Bonus Expeditionary Force," a group of some 1,000 World War I veterans seeking cash payments for their veterans' bonus certificates, had arrived in Washington, D.C. Most of the marchers were unemployed veterans in desperate financial straits. In June, other veteran groups spontaneously made their way to the nation's capital, swelling the Bonus Marchers to nearly 20,000 strong. Camping in vacant government buildings and in open fields made available by District of Columbia Police Chief Pelham D. Glassford, they demanded passage of the veterans' payment bill introduced by Representative Wright Patman.

While awaiting a vote on the issue, the veterans conducted themselves in an orderly and peaceful fashion, and on June 15 the Patman bill passed in the House of Representatives. However, two days later, its defeat in the Senate infuriated the marchers, who refused to return home. In an increasingly tense situation, the federal government provided money for the protesters' trip home, but 2,000 refused the offer and continued to protest. On July 28, President Herbert Hoover ordered the army to evict them forcibly. General MacArthur's men set their camps on fire, and the veterans were driven from the city. Hoover, increasingly regarded as insensitive to the needs of the nation's many poor, was much criticized by the public and press for the severity of his response.

 

 

 

Birthdays

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---- Lu Pan Hong Kong

1165 Ibn al-'Arabi Muslim mystic/philosopher

1746 Thomas Heyward soldier, signed Decl of Ind

1750 Philippe Fabre d'glantine France, poet/satirist/politician

1844 Gerard Manley Hopkins England, poet (The Windhover)

1859 Balington Booth founded Volunteers of America

1866 Beatrix Potter England, children's author (Tale of Peter Rabbit)

1874 Ernst Cassirer Germany, philosopher/educator (Essay on Man)

1887 Marcel Duchamp painter (Nude Descending a Staircase)

1892 Joe E Brown Holgate Ohio, comedian (Buck Circus Hour)

19-- Brianne Leary Providence RI, actress (CHiPs, Baa Baa Black Sheep)

19-- France Lee McCain York Pa, actress (Apple's Way, 13 Queens Blvd)

19-- Gregg Giuffria rocker (House of Lords-Sahara)

19-- Scott Bloom actor (The Stuff)

1901 Rudy Vallee Vt, singer (Vagabond Dreams, My Time Is Your Time)

1907 Earl S Tupper invented Tupperware

1907 Vivian Vance Cherryvale Ks, actress (Ethel Mertz-I Love Lucy)

1909 Malcolm Lowry novelist (Under the Volcano)

1910 Bill Goodwin SF Calif, announcer (Burns & Allen, Boing Boing Show)

1911 Ann Doran Amarillo Tx, actress (Longstreet, Shirley)

1911 Gerhard Stoeck Germany, javelin thrower (Olympic-gold-1936)

1912 Eleazar de Carvalho Iguat£, Brazil, conductor/tuba (Tiradentes)

1916 David Brown NYC, director (Jaws, Planet of the Apes)

1916 Laird Cregar Phila, actor (Charley's Aunt, Hangover Square)

1922 Jacques Piccard Switzerland, undersea explorer (bathyscaph Trieste)

1929 Jacqueline Lee Bouvier Kennedy Onassis 1st lady (1961-63)

1930 Darryl Hickman Hollywood Cal, actor (Human Comedy, Tea & Sympathy)

1934 Jacques D'Amboise dancer/educator (NYC Ballet Company)

1937 Peter Duchin NYC, pianist/bandleader (Peter Duchin Orch)

1938 Robert Hughes [studley Forrest], Australia, writer/critic

1940 Phil Proctor comedian (Firesign Theater)

1941 Riccardo Muti Napoli Italy, conductor (Philadelphia Orch)

1943 Bill Bradley Crystal City Mo, NY Knick/(Sen-D-NJ)/Rhodes scholar

1943 Lawrence Elkins football player FL (Houston Oilers)

1943 Mike Bloomfield blues musician (Analine)

1944 Daniel Morelon France, 1K speed skater (Olympic-gold-1968, 72)

1945 Jim Davis cartoonist (Garfield)

1945 Richard Wright rocker (Pink Floyd-The Wall)

1946 Linda Kelsey Minneapolis, actress (Billie-Lou Grant, Kate-Day by Day)

1947 Barbara Ferrell US, 400m relay racer (Olympic-gold-1968)

1947 Elena Novikova-Belova USSR, foils (Olympic-gold-1968)

1947 Sally Struther Portland Oregon, actress (Gloria-All in the Family)

1948 Georgia Engel Wash DC, actress (Georgette-Mary Tyler Moore Show)

1949 Marilyn Quayle wife of vice president Dan Quayle

1949 Vida Blue major-league pitcher (Cy Young & AL MVP 1971)

1958 Terry Fox ran "Marathon of Hope" across Canada

1961 Scott E Parazynski Little Rock Ark, MD/astronaut

1967 Lori Loughlin NY, actress (Edge of Night, New Kids, Secret Admirer)

 

 

 

Deaths which occurred on July 28:

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1540 Thomas Cromwell King Henry VIII's chief minister, executed

1655 Cyrano de Bergerac French dramatist/novelist, dies in Paris

1746 John Peter Zenger journalist, involved in 1st admendment fight, dies

1750 Johann Sebastian Bach German composer (Art of the Fugue), dies at 65

1794 Maximilien Robespierre Fr revolutionary/avocat (1781), guillotined

1794 Robespierre & 22 other terrorists executed to thunderous cheers

1937 Joseph Lee father of Playgrounds movement, dies

1971 Diane Arbus photographer, commits suicide at 48

1974 Truman Bradley host (Science Fiction Theater), dies at 69

1984 Bess Flowers actress, dies at 85

1985 Grant Williams actor, dies of toxic poisoning at 54

1987 James Burnham philosopher (Coming Defeat of Communism), dies at 81

 

 

 

On this day...

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1586 Sir Thomas Harriot introduces potatoes to Europe

1588 Spanish Armada sails to overthrow England's Queen Elizabeth I

1609 Admiral George Somers settles in Bermuda

1821 Peru declares independence from Spain (National Day)

1830 Revolution in France replaces Charles X with Louis Philippe

1849 Memmon is 1st clipper to reach SF, 120 days out of NY

1851 Total solar eclipse captured on a daguerreotype photograph

1862 Confederate forces defeated at More's Hill, Mo

1864 Atlanta Campaign-Battle of Ezra Church

1866 Metric system becomes a legal measurement system in US

1868 14th Amendment ratified, citizenship to exslaves

1882 The opera "Parsifal" is produced (Bayreuth)

1883 Shocks triggered by the volcano Epomeo (Isle of Ischia, Italy)

destroyed 1,200 houses at Casamicciola killing 2,000

1896 City of Miami incorporated

1898 Start of Sherlock Holmes "Adventure of the Retired Colourman"(BG)

1900 Hamburger created by Louis Lassing in Connecticut

1906 Yankees turn triple-play, beat Cleveland 6-4

1913 US wins its 1st Davis Cup since 1902, beating England, 3-2

1914 Austria-Hungary attacks Serbia-WW I begins

1914 Foxtrot 1st danced at New Amsterdam Roof Garden (NYC, by Harry Fox)

1915 10,000 blacks march on 5th Ave (NYC) protesting lynchings

1915 US forces invade Haiti, stays until 1924

1928 Olympics open at Amsterdam

1929 Chicago Cardinals become 1st NFL team to train out of state (Mich)

1930 114ø F (46ø C), Greensburg, Kentucky (state record)

1931 Congress makes "The Star-Spangled Banner" our 2nd national anthem

1931 White Sox score 11 in 8th to beat Yankees 14-12

1932 Pres Hoover evicts bonus marchers from their encampment

1933 1st singing telegram delivered (to Rudy Vallee), NYC

1933 NFL divides into 2, 5 team divisions

1934 118ø F (48ø C), Orofino, Idaho (state record)

1935 G Neujmin discovers asteroid #1386 Storeria

1938 K Reinmuth discovers asteroid #1485 Isa

1940 Yankee Charle Keller hits 3 HRs to beat White Sox 10-9

1942 Nazis liquidate 10,000 Jews in Minsk Russia

1943 Italian Facist dictator Benito Mussolini resigns

1943 Pres FDR announces end of coffee rationing in US

1945 US Army bomber crashes into 79th floor of Empire State Bldg, 14 die

1945 US Senate ratifies UN charter 89-2

1948 I.G. Farben chemical plant explodes in Ludwigshafen, Germany, 182 die

1951 Walt Disney's "Alice In Wonderland" released

1957 White Sox' James Landis struck out 5 times in a game

1959 Hawaii's 1st US election sends 1st Asian-Americans to Congress

1960 Republican National convention selects Richard Nixon

1962 19 die in a train crash in Steelton Pa

1962 Mariner I launched to Mars falls into Atlantic Ocean

1964 Ranger 7 launched toward the Moon; sent back 4308 TV pictures

1967 Pirate Radio Station 390 (Radio Invicta) (England) closes down

1971 16 time gold glover Brook Robinson commits 3 errors in 6th inning

1973 Skylab 3's astronauts (Bean, Garriott & Lousma) launched

1974 69 die when packed bus strikes heavy truck (Belem, Brazil)

1976 242,000 die in Tientsin-Tangshan (China) 8.2 earthquake

1976 Eldon Joersz & Geo Morgan set world air speed record of 3,530 kph

1976 White Sox John Odom (5 inn) & Francisco Barrios (4 inn) no-hits A's

1977 1st oil flow through the Alaska pipeline

1977 Roy Wilkins turn over NAACP leadership to Benjamin L Hooks

1978 600,000 attend Watkins Glen Summer Jam in NY

1978 At Old Timer's Game it's announced Martin will again manage Yankees

1978 Perth Observatory discovers asteroid #3188 & #3422

1978 Price of gold tops $200-an-oz level for 1st time

1979 Dave Kingman becomes 6th to have a 2nd 3 HR game

1980 Fernando Bela£nde Terry becomes president of Peru

1983 AL Pres Lee MacPhail threw out umpire's decision & allows

George Brett's 2 run HR against Yanks on July 24 (pine tar game)

NASA launches Telstar-3A

1984 23rd modern Olympic games opens in Los Angeles

1986 NASA releases transcript from doomed Challenger, pilot Michael Smith

could be heard saying, "Uh-oh!" as spacecraft disintegrated

1987 Angel Cordero Jr becomes the 4th jockey to win 6,000 races

1988 IBM announces price hike on older models

1988 Israeli diplomats arrive in Moscow for 1st visit in 21 years

1988 Jordan cancels $1.3 billion development plan in West Bank

1988 Winnie Mandella's home in Soweto, South Africa destroyed by arson

1988 Yanks' Tommy John makes 3 errors on 1 play yet beats Brewers 16-3

1989 Braves Dale Murphy, hits 2 3-run HRs in an inning, 14th man to hit

2 HRs in an inning. Also ties record of 6 RBIs in an inning

NASA's Lewis Research Center, Cleve, announce new high-temperature

superconductors able to operate at 33 to 37 Gigahertz

1990 Blackout hits Chicago

1991 Buffalo Bills beat Phila Eagles, 17-13 in American Bowl in Wembley

1991 Expo's Dennis Martinez pitches baseball's 15th perfect game (Dodgers)

1991 Miguel Indurain of Spain wins the Tour de France bicycle race

2061 31st recorded perihelion passage of Halley's Comet

 

 

 

 

Holidays

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Note: Some Holidays are only applicable on a given "day of the week"

 

Bermuda : Adm George Somers Day (1609)

San Marino : Fall of Facism Day (1943)

US : Joseph Lee Day-honors playgrounds (1937)

US : Volunteers of America founders day (1859)

Virgin Islands : Hurricane Supplication Day - - - - - ( Monday )

Gilroy, California : Garlic Festival - - - - - ( Friday )

Peru : Independence Day (1824)

 

 

Religious Observances

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Luth : Commemoration of JS Bach, Heinrich Schtz, GF Handel

RC : Comm of SS Nazarius, Celsus, martyrs & Innocent I, pope

RC : Commemoration of St Victor I, 14th pope (189-199)

 

 

Religious History

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1675 Death of Bulstrode Whitelocke 69, an influential English lawyer during theCommonwealth of Oliver Cromwell. Among Whitelocke's last words: 'There has been one truereligion in the world; and that is the work of the Spirit of God in the hearts and soulsof men.'

1881 Birth of J. Gresham Machen, an American Presbyterian theologian who taught atPrinceton and Westminster seminaries. Two of his writings still endure: 'New Testament Greekfor Beginners' (1923) and 'The Virgin Birth of Christ' (1932).

1889 The first Divine Liturgy (worship service) of the Armenian Church in America wascelebrated in Worcester, MA. It was led by Rev. Hovsep Sarajian, himself the first Armenianclergyman to come to America.

1942 Death of W.M. Flinders Petrie, 89, English archaeologist. He was regarded bycolleague William Foxwell Albright as 'the greatest genius among biblical archaeologists.'

1960 American Trappist Thomas Merton wrote in a letter: 'I can depend less and lesson my own power and sense of direction... It is so strange to advance backwards and getwhere you are going in a totally unexpected way.'

Edited July 28, 2004 by WEAREBORG4102