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Post by Deleted on Sept 18, 2010 18:23:39 GMT
Today would have been my grandmother's 112th birthday.
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Post by bixaorellana on Oct 3, 2010 18:32:07 GMT
I saw a sign in downtown Xoxo advising that tomorrow, October 4, is Day of the Glaziers. How will you all be celebrating?
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Post by Deleted on Oct 4, 2010 8:31:14 GMT
On October 4th, 1945, the national health care system was created in France to give health coverage to all salaried workers and to continue to pay at least partial salary to the ill.
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Post by onlymark on Oct 4, 2010 13:33:19 GMT
October 4th 1824 - Mexico becomes a republic.
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Post by bixaorellana on Oct 4, 2010 15:21:26 GMT
So the US is only lagging behind France by sixty-five years? (actually more, in terms of real coverage) Guess who didn't know that fact in #33.
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Post by hwinpp on Oct 5, 2010 8:17:35 GMT
Me?
I only realised it was the 3rd of October on the 3rd of October. The goddam German embassy didn't invite me.
The French embassy, on the other hand, seems very forgiving towards it's citoyens.
There used to be a certain restaurant owner in Phnom Penh, (owned the Deauville near Wat Phnom) wo was a wanted man in France. They never got him extradited and he always got invited to the French embassy on Bastille Day. But I heard the ambassador avoided shaking his hand.
Alas, he died about half a year ago. The ratatatatatouille there on Thursday nights is still good though ;D
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Post by Deleted on Oct 5, 2010 9:26:07 GMT
Oh, do you have something you would like the German embassy to forgive you for? C'mon, you can tell us!
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Post by bixaorellana on Oct 5, 2010 16:13:58 GMT
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Post by mickthecactus on Oct 5, 2010 16:20:47 GMT
so, on to WWII then.........
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Post by Deleted on Oct 10, 2010 15:59:56 GMT
Aside from the depressing thought that yesterday would have been John Lennon's 70th birthday, :'(and today is 10/10/10 ,I would like to wish all our Canadian friends and visitors a happy,joyous and blessed Thanksgiving. (Even though it's on the calendar as being tomorrow...am sneaking it in early for those of you perhaps getting together with loved ones today). Have a lovely!
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Post by Deleted on Oct 15, 2010 12:33:51 GMT
On 15 October 1917, Margaretha Geertruida Zelle, aka Mata Hari was executed in the Bois de Vincennes in Paris. Legend would have us believe that she blew a kiss to the firing squad beforehand.
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Post by bixaorellana on Oct 22, 2010 13:46:46 GMT
Oct. 22, 1962, President John F. Kennedy announced an air and naval blockade of Cuba, following the discovery of Soviet missile bases on the island. An AnyPorter in Cuba herealso ~1797 French balloonist Andre-Jacques Garnerin safely made the 1st parachute descent, from a height of @3,000 feet. 1844 Actress Sarah Bernhardt was born in Paris. 1954 West Germany joined the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. 1968 Apollo 7, with astronauts Wally Schirra, Donn Fulton Eisele and R. Walter Cunningham aboard, returned to Earth.
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Post by bixaorellana on Oct 26, 2010 14:12:07 GMT
October 26 --1774, the First Continental Congress adjourned in Philadelphia. 2001, President George W. Bush signed the USA Patriot Act, giving authorities unprecedented ability to search, seize, detain or eavesdrop in their pursuit of possible terrorists. Born October 26, 1911 ~~ Mahalia JacksonAlso: 1905 – Norway becomes independent from Sweden. 1958 – Pan American Airways makes the first commercial flight of the Boeing 707 from New York City to Paris, France. 1999 – Britain's House of Lords votes to end the right of hereditary peers to vote in Britain's upper chamber of Parliament.
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Post by Deleted on Nov 3, 2010 15:56:58 GMT
My mother would have been 90 years old today.
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Post by bixaorellana on Nov 3, 2010 16:39:44 GMT
I salute your mother's long and full life, Casimira. My maternal grandfather would have been 118 yesterday. Today in history:1839, The first Opium War between China and Britain broke out. 1903, Walker Evans, the American photographer best known for his portrayal of America during the Great Depression, was born. 1957, The Soviet Union launched into orbit Sputnik 2, the second manmade satellite; a dog on board named Laika was sacrificed in the experiment. ("sacrificed" ) 1970, Salvador Allende was inaugurated as president of Chile.
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Post by onlymark on Nov 3, 2010 18:11:19 GMT
All well and good Bixa, but you miss out a far more important fact - 1952 - Clarence Birdseye marketed the first frozen peas.
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Post by Deleted on Nov 3, 2010 19:39:07 GMT
Laïka was a stray dog who was chosen because she was so friendly. She died from the heat six hours after the launch. I'm sure that some of the technical team who actually knew her cried.
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Post by bixaorellana on Nov 11, 2010 20:30:42 GMT
Armistice Day / Remembrance Day / Veterans Dayen.wikipedia.org/wiki/Remembrance_DaySoldiers of the 353rd Infantry near a church at Stenay, Meuse in France, wait for the end of hostilities. This photo--> was taken at 10:58 a.m., on November 11, 1918, two minutes before the armistice ending World War I went into effect. World War I – known at the time as “The Great War” - officially ended when the Treaty of Versailles was signed on June 28, 1919, in the Palace of Versailles outside the town of Versailles, France. However, fighting ceased seven months earlier when an armistice, or temporary cessation of hostilities, between the Allied nations and Germany went into effect on the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month. For that reason, November 11, 1918, is generally regarded as the end of “the war to end all wars.” There are three surviving veterans of WWI, all from the Allies. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_surviving_veterans_of_World_War_Iclick pics for details I see that the US veteran is from Bethany, Missouri, as was my paternal grandfather, who was a sergeant with Battery C in the 55th Artillery. (Link included to show what goldmines for family history can be found online.)
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Post by Deleted on Nov 11, 2010 23:03:19 GMT
The last French veteran died two years ago.
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Post by bixaorellana on Nov 12, 2010 0:48:00 GMT
The reason the boy in the middle picture above looks so young is because he's only sixteen. He was not the youngest combatant in WWI ~ James Martin, 14, Australia George Maher, 13, England John Condon, 13, Ireland -- youngest allied soldier killed in WWI
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Post by mickthecactus on Nov 12, 2010 10:06:49 GMT
Apparently on the last day of the war, November 11 1918, there were still 10,000 casualties, dead and injured, of which 3,000 were American.
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Post by bixaorellana on Nov 12, 2010 15:41:29 GMT
More insanity! I never knew that, Mick. Here's what I got from googling, if anyone else is interested: At 5.10 on the morning of 11th Nov 1918, the Armistice between the Allies (essentially Britain, France and America) and Germany was signed in a railway carriage in a forest clearing at Compiegne just outside Paris, but it would be a further six hours before the treaty would come into effect.
... the terrible truth [is] that in those final six hours the killing continued. The Commonwealth War Graves Commission alone records 863 British and Commonwealth deaths for that last day of the war. One historian estimates that over 11,000 soldiers on all sides were killed, wounded or were missing on the final day of the war.
By the end of the First World War, there were just two areas of fighting left, both on the Western Front. The other nations - Austria-Hungary, Turkey, Bulgaria - had surrendered leaving Germany to fight on alone.
Around Mons in Belgium, the Canadian General Sir Arthur Currie was leading the British and Canadian troops on that final day. Britain’s General Haig and Currie knew the end was in sight and didn’t want a bloodbath. As a consequence, the number of deaths amongst their forces was relatively low.
Further south, near Verdun, it was a very different story. American Generals were throwing men into action throughout the morning of 11th November, up until the stroke of 11am, with hundreds of deaths and several thousand casualties. Some might see the deliberate forcing of troops to die in a war awaiting a formal end as murder.
But the American General John Pershing didn't believe in the Armistice. It was, he believed, clearly a mistake, letting Germany off the hook.
A week before the Armistice, on the battlefields of the Argonne where US troops were fighting, the final set battle of World War One took place.
It was here, by the banks of the Sambre-Oise Canal, that 2,000 British soldiers (including the war poet Wilfred Owen) lost their lives.Above extracted from this page on BBC's open university. For more details and an in-depth look at the arrogance of "leaders of men", go here.
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Post by bixaorellana on Nov 12, 2010 16:04:14 GMT
And, on November 12 in history ~~ 954 -- Lotharius becomes king of France 1439 -- Plymouth, England, becomes the first town incorporated by the English Parliament. 1554 -- Britain's Parliament re-establishes Roman Catholicism. 1682 -- Swedish king Karel XI establishes absolute monarchy. 1775 -- General Washington forbids recruiting officers enlisting blacks. 1793 -- Jean Sylvain Bailly, the first Mayor of Paris, is guillotined. 1859 -- Jules Leotard performs 1st Flying Trapeze circus act (Paris). He also designed garment that bears his name. 1900 -- World's Fair in Paris opens (50 million visitors). 1912 -- Robert Scott's diary & dead body found in Antarctica. 1927 -- Leon Trotsky was expelled from the Communist Party and Joseph Stalin became the ruler of the Soviet Union. 1933 -- Nazis receive 92% of vote in Germany. 1942 -- The World War II battle of Guadalcanal begins. 1970 -- A cyclone and tidal wave hit East Pakistan, killing over 200,000 people. 1977 -- New Orleans elects 1st black mayor, Ernest "Dutch" Morial. 1990 -- Akihito becomes emperor of Japan. 2003 -- Shanghai Transrapid sets up a new world record for commercial railway systems -- 501 km/hour (311 mph) Yes, I got carried away. Blame it on this site, where you can see much, much more.
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Post by onlymark on Nov 12, 2010 16:52:06 GMT
bixa, as regards the signing of the Armistice, there is extra history involving the railway carriage. Are you curious enough to find out?
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Post by mickthecactus on Nov 12, 2010 17:09:51 GMT
Indeed there is. Are you Bixa?
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Post by Deleted on Nov 12, 2010 17:42:40 GMT
Wow,that 1977 trivia re. NOLA ,a trip down memory lane...I had just arrived back into the city,been there ever since...jeez... "Dutch"s campaign slogan was "ATTITUDE". I still have the button somewhere.
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Post by bixaorellana on Nov 12, 2010 17:52:46 GMT
Okay ~~ you guys definitely have my number. If you won't let me in on the railway carriage details, I'll find them myself and post them here.
Yeah, Casimira -- 1977 ...... it was so exciting!
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Post by onlymark on Nov 12, 2010 17:58:18 GMT
Don't forget the location of the signing either.
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Post by bixaorellana on Nov 12, 2010 22:03:58 GMT
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Post by Deleted on Nov 18, 2010 10:45:10 GMT
The Louvre opened as a museum on 18 November 1793 under the name "Musée central des arts." The Mona Lisa was already one of the paintings on display.
At 210,000 square meters, it is reputedly the largest museum in the world. In the next few years, it will open annexes in Lens, France and Abu Dhabi.
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