Today in History - October 4
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1226 Oct 4,
St. Francis of Assisi, founder of the Franciscans and one of
history's most famous nature lovers, died. [see Oct 3]
(MC, 10/4/01)
1289 Oct 4, Louis X, the
Stubborn, king of France (1314-16), was born.
(MC, 10/4/01)
1515 Oct 4, Lucas Cranach
(d.1586), the Younger, German painter, was born.
(WUD, 1994, p.339)(MC, 10/4/01)
1535 Oct 4, The 1st full
English translation of the Bible was printed in Switzerland. Miles
Coverdale’s translation of the Bible into English (from Dutch and
Latin) was the first complete version in English and was dedicated
to Henry VIII.
(TL-MB, 1988, p.15)(MC, 10/4/01)
1542 Oct 4, Roberto Bellarmino,
Italian Jesuit theologian, diplomat, saint, was born.
(MC, 10/4/01)
1582 Oct 4, Theresa of Avila
(b.1515), Spanish mystic writer and saint, died. She co-founded with
John of the Cross (1542-1591) the Order of Discalced (barefoot)
Carmelites. "Untilled ground, however rich, will bring forth
thistles and thorns; so also the mind of man."
(CU, 6/87)(WUD, 1994, p.769)(AP, 12/8/97)(MC,
10/4/01)
1589 Oct 4, Francisco de
Cuellar, a Spanish Armada officer from the wrecked galleon Lavia,
wrote a letter from Antwerp to King Philip that was later valued for
its descriptions of Ireland. He had spent 6 months evading English
forces to get to Scotland where after 6 more months he reached the
Netherlands.
(ON, 5/02, p.12)
1626 Oct 4, Richard Cromwell
(d.1659), lord protector of England (1658-59), was born.
(MC, 10/4/01)
1636 Oct 4, The Massachusetts
Plymouth Company drafted its 1st law.
(MC, 10/4/01)
1648 Oct 4, Peter Stuyvesant
established America's 1st volunteer firemen.
(MC, 10/4/01)
1669 Oct 4, Rembrandt H. van
Rijn (b.1606), painter and etcher (Steel Masters, Night Watch),
died. In 1999 Simon Schama published the biography "Rembrandt's
Eyes."
(WSJ, 11/24/99, p.A16)(MC, 10/4/01)
1712 Oct 4, Utrecht banished
poor Jews.
(MC, 10/4/01)
1744 Oct 4, The HMS Victory
sank in the English Channel with at least 900 men aboard. The
175-foot sailing ship had separated from its fleet during a storm.
In 2009 Odyssey Marine Exploration reported finding the vessel about
330 feet beneath the surface and more than 50 miles from where
anybody would have thought it went down.
(AP, 2/1/09)
1772 Oct 4, Francois-Louis
Pierne, composer, was born.
(MC, 10/4/01)
1777 Oct 4, George Washington's
troops launched an assault on the British at Germantown, Penn.,
resulting in heavy American casualties. British General Sir William
Howe repelled Washington's last attempt to retake Philadelphia,
compelling Washington to spend the winter at Valley Forge.
(AP, 10/4/97)(HN, 10/4/98)
1795 Oct 4, General Napoleon
Bonaparte led the rout of counterrevolutionaries in the streets of
Paris, beginning his rise to power. France was in the midst of
economic disaster—a factor that aided royalist
counterrevolutionaries in their attempts to incite rebellion against
the young republican government. Bonaparte, looking for a new
command while on half pay in Paris, joined the defense of the
Convention against overwhelming odds.
(HN, 10/4/99)(HNQ, 10/26/00)
1810 Oct 4, Alexander Walewski,
French earl, foreign minister, son of Napoleon I, was born.
(MC, 10/4/01)
1814 Oct 4, Jean Francois
Millet (d.1875), French painter, was born.
(www.artrenewal.org/asp/database/art.asp?aid=745)
1822 Oct 4, Rutherford B.
Hayes, the 19th president (R) of the United States, was born in
Delaware, Ohio. Hayes was a major-general in the Civil War, then an
Ohio congressman, then succeeded Grant as president (1877-81). Hayes
won the Electoral College by a margin of one vote after his opponent
won the popular vote in an election so fraught with charges of vote
fraud that there were even fears of a coup. Hayes refused to
seek a second term.
(AP, 10/4/97)(HN, 10/4/98)(MC, 10/3/01)
1824 Oct 4, The Federal
Constitution of the United Mexican States of 1824 was enacted, after
the overthrow of the Mexican Empire of Agustin de Iturbide. In the
new constitution, the republic took the name of United Mexican
States, and was defined as a representative federal republic, with
Catholicism as the official religion. A liberal constitution,
established at this time, was later replaced by Santa Anna.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1824_Constitution_of_Mexico)(AP,
9/15/10)
1832 Oct 4, William Griggs,
inventor (photo chromo lithography), was born.
(MC, 10/4/01)
1854 Oct 4, Abraham Lincoln
made his 1st political speech at Illinois State Fair.
(MC, 10/4/01)
1859 Oct 4, Karl Baedeker
(b.1801), German travel writer and tour guide (Die Schweiz), died.
(MC, 10/4/01)
1861 Oct 4, Frederic Remington
(d.1909), American Western painter and sculptor, was born.
(AAP, 1964)(WUD, 1994, p.1213)(HN, 10/4/00)
1861 Oct 4, The Union ship USS
South Carolina captured two Confederate blockade runners outside of
New Orleans, La.
(HN, 10/4/98)
1862 Oct 4, Edward Stratemeyer,
author, was born. He created the Hardy Boys, Rover Boys, Nancy Drew
and the Bobbsey Twins. The first series of books written/produced by
Stratemeyer was The Rover Boys, written under the pseudonym of
Arthur M. Winfield. There were 30 volumes, written between 1899 and
1926. The Bobbsey Twins series (Laura Lee Hope) was next, and is the
oldest "surviving" series, extending to 72 volumes, written between
1904 and 1979. Tom Swift, attributed to Victor Appleton, began in
1910 and there were 40 volumes before the series ended in 1941.
(There was also a Tom Swift, Jr. series, by Victor Appleton II.) The
Hardy Boys (Franklin W. Dixon, 85 volumes from 1927 to 1985) and
Nancy Drew (Carolyn Keene, 78 volumes from 1930 to 1985) are the
other best-known Stratemeyer books.
(HN,
10/4/00)(http://pw2.netcom.com/~drmike99/aboutbobbsey.html)
1862 Oct 4, Battle of Corinth,
Mississippi, ended.
(MC, 10/4/01)
1874 Oct 4, Kiowa leader
Santanta, known as "the Orator of the Plains," surrendered in
Darlington, Texas. He was later sent to the state penitentiary,
where he committed suicide October 11, 1878.
(HN, 10/4/98)
1877 Oct 4, Pancho Villa
(d.1923), [Doroteo Arango], Mexican revolutionary rebel, was born.
[see Jun 5, 1878]
(MC, 10/4/01)
1879 Oct 4, Edward Murray East,
botanist, was born. His research led to the development of hybrid
corn.
(HN, 10/4/00)
1881 Oct 4, [Heinrich AH]
Walther von Brauchitsch, German field marshal, was born.
(MC, 10/4/01)
1883 Oct 4, Orient Express made
its 1st run linking Istanbul, Turkey, to Paris by rail.
(MC, 10/4/01)
1884 Oct 4, Damon Runyon,
journalist and short story writer, was born. “Guys & Dolls” was
based on his writings.
(HN, 10/4/00)(MC, 10/4/01)
1887 Oct 4, The first issue of
the International Herald Tribune was published as the Paris Herald
Tribune.
(AP, 10/4/99)
1892 Oct 4, Engelbert Dollfuss,
Austrian Fascist chancellor, was born. He was killed by Nazis in
1934.
(MC, 10/4/01)
1895 Oct 4, Buster Keaton
(Joseph F. Keaton), star of silent film comedies including Sherlock,
Jr. and The General, was born in Piqua, Kan. He is considered a
legendary presence in the history of cinema. Nicknamed 'The Great
Stone Face', he graduated to full-length films in the 1920s, which
featured his amazing stunts rivaled only by Chaplin.
(AP, 10/4/97)(HN, 10/4/98)(MC, 10/4/01)
1895 Oct 4, Hattie McDaniel,
actress (Gone With the Wind, Academy Award), was born.
(MC, 10/4/01)
1895 Oct 4, Richard Sorge,
German spy for USSR in Tokyo (WW II), was born.
(MC, 10/4/01)
1895 Oct 4, The first U.S. Open
golf tournament was held, at the Newport Country Club in Rhode
Island. At the US Amateur Golf Championship at Newport, R.I.,
officials ruled against the prone position use of a pool cue to sink
a put.
(AP, 10/4/97)(SFC, 11/29/97, p.C3)
1903 Oct 4, Ernst
Kaltenbrunner, Austrian Nazi (SS/SD) and successor to Reinhard
Heydrich, was born. He was hanged in 1946.
(MC, 10/4/01)
1904 Oct 4, 1st day of NYC
subway, 350,000 people rode the 9.1 mile tracks. [see Oct 24, 27]
(MC, 10/4/01)
1904 Oct 4, Frederic Auguste
Bertholdi, French sculptor (Statue of Liberty), died.
(MC, 10/4/01)
1905 Oct 4, Orville Wright
piloted the first flight longer than 30 minutes. The flight lasted
33 minutes, 17 seconds and covered 21 miles.
(HN, 10/4/98)
1909 Oct 4, The Cunard liner
"Lusitania" crossed the Atlantic in four days, 15 hours and 52
minutes.
(MC, 10/4/01)
1910 Oct 4, Scottish surgeon
Joseph Bell died. He was the real-life model for Arthur Conan
Doyle's character Sherlock Holmes.
(MC, 10/4/01)
1911 Oct 4, The 1st public
elevator began service at London's Earl's Court Metro Station.
(MC, 10/4/01)
1912 Oct 4, Gen. Zeledon,
Nicaraguan opponent of US occupation, was executed.
(MC, 10/4/01)
1914 Oct 4, The first German
Zeppelin raided London.
(HN, 10/4/98)
1915 Oct 4, Dinosaur National
Monument in Colorado and Utah was established. Pres. Woodrow Wilson
established Dinosaur National Monument in Jensen, Utah.
(SFEC, 3/14/99, p.T8)(MC, 10/4/01)
1916 Oct 4, The California
State Federation of Labor maintained its policy of banning Japanese
workers from joining labor unions.
(SFEC, 12/26/99, p.W5)
1916 Oct 4, National Lead, US
Steel (preferred) and Peoples Gas were removed from the Dow Jones.
AT&T was first added to the DJIA.
(WSJ, 5/28/96, R45,46)(WSJ, 4/2/04, p.C1)
1919 Oct 4, Rene Marques,
Puerto Rican playwright and short story writer, was born.
(HN, 10/4/00)
1921 Oct 4, League of Nations
refused to assist starving Russians.
(MC, 10/4/01)
1923 Oct 4, Charlton Heston
III, American actor, was born. His films included “10 Commandments,”
“Ben Hur” and “Planet of Apes.”
(HN, 10/4/98)(MC, 10/4/01)
1928 Oct 4, Alvin Toffler,
writer and futurist, was born. His work included “Future Shock”
(1970).
(HN, 10/4/00)(NW, 9/16/02, p.34D)
1931 Oct 4, The comic strip
"Dick Tracy," created by Chester Gould (1900-1985), made its debut.
(AP,
10/4/97)(www.internationalhero.co.uk/d/diktracy.htm)
1933 Oct 4, First issue of
Esquire magazine was published.
(MC, 10/4/01)
1931 Oct 4, Aerial circus star
Clyde Pangborn and playboy Hugh Herndon, Jr. set off in Miss Veedol
to complete the first nonstop flight across the Pacific Ocean from
Sabishiro Beach in Misawa City, Japan. A young boy gave Panghorn 5
apples from Misawa City.
(ON, 1/03,
p.10)(www.historylink.org/essays/output.cfm?file_id=7495)
1939 Oct 4, Last Polish troops
surrendered to German Wehrmacht.
(MC, 10/4/01)
1940 Oct 4, Adolf Hitler and
Benito Mussolini conferred at Brenner Pass in the Alps, where the
Nazi leader sought Italy's help in fighting the British.
(AP, 10/4/97)
1940 Oct 4, 12 German aircrafts
were shot down above England.
(MC, 10/4/01)
1941 Oct 4, Jackie Collins,
actress, author, was born in London, England. Her books included
“The world Is Full of Married Men (1968), “Stud” (1969), “Bitch”
(1979) and “Deadly Embrace” (2002).
(MC, 10/4/01)(SSFC, 8/4/02, Par p.14)
1941 Oct 4, Anne Rice,
novelist, was born in New Orleans, La. Her books included “Interview
with a Vampire.”
(HN, 10/4/00)(MC, 10/4/01)
1943 Oct 4, German occupiers
forbade the flying of kites. Violation carried a 6 month jail
sentence.
(MC, 10/4/01)
1946 Oct 4, Susan Sarandon,
American film actress, was born.
(HN, 10/4/00)
1947 Oct 4, Max Karl Ernst
Planck (b.1858), German physicist (Nobel 1918), died.
(WUD, 1994 p.1101)(MC, 10/4/01)
1949 Oct 4, United Nations'
permanent NYC headquarters was dedicated.
(MC, 10/4/01)
1951 Oct 4, Henrietta Lacks, a
black woman, died of cancer in Baltimore. Cells from her body,
later known as HeLa cells, were cultivated for research. In 1974 Dr.
Nelson-Rees (d.2009 at 80), a UC Berkeley geneticist, reported that
the HeLa cells had contaminated other cell cultures in laboratories
around the world. In 1986 Michael Gold authored “A Conspiracy of
Cells,” a chronicle of the Nelson-Rees study. In 2010 Rebecca Skloot
authored “The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks.”
(SFC, 1/28/09, p.B10)(SSFC, 2/14/10,
p.F3)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henrietta_Lacks)
1952 Oct 4, Pres. Truman
arrived in SF to campaign for Democratic presidential candidate
Adlai Stevenson.
(SFC, 10/4/02, p.E4)
1957 Oct 4, The television
series "Leave It to Beaver" premiered on CBS. It ended in 1963 after
6 season. Joe Connelly (d.2003 at 85), writer-producer, co-created
the show. It featured Jerry Mathers (9) as Beaver, Tony Dow (12) as
his older brother Wally, Hugh Beaumont as the father and Barbara
Billingsley (1915-2010) as the mother.
(AP, 10/4/97)(SFC, 2/15/03, p.A25)(SSFC,
10/17/10, p.C9)
1957 Oct 4, Jimmy Hoffa was
elected president of the Teamsters Union.
(AP, 10/4/07)
1957 Oct 4, The Space Age and
"space race" began as the Soviet Union launched Sputnik (traveler),
the first man-made space satellite. The satellite, built by Valentin
Glushko, weighed 184 pounds and was launched by a converted
Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (ICBM). Sputnik, developed under
the chief scientist Sergei Korolyov, orbited the earth every 96
minutes at a maximum height of 584 miles. The event was timed to
celebrate the 40th anniversary of the Bolshevik revolution. In 1958,
it reentered the earth's atmosphere and burned up. It was followed
by 9 other Sputnik spacecraft.
(WSJ, 10/7/96, p.B4)(SFC, 8/2/97, p.A12)(SFEC,
9/28/97, p.A14)(WSJ, 10/3/97, p.A8)(AP, 10/4/97)(HN, 10/4/98)(AP,
10/1/07)
1958 Oct 4, The first
trans-Atlantic passenger jetliner service was begun by British
Overseas Airways Corporation (BOAC) with flights between London and
New York.
(AP, 10/4/97)
1959 Nov 4, In San Francisco a
protest meeting was staged at Portsmouth Square to oppose plans for
an 800-car garage at a cost of $3.2 million. 100 foot trees in the
plaza were later felled for the underground parking structure.
(SSFC, 11/1/09, DB p.42)
1961 Oct 4, In San Francisco
comedian Lenny Bruce was arrested on charges of using lewd and
obscene language following his first act at the Jazz Workshop in
North Beach. Police code No. 205 was cited. Bail was set at $367.50.
(SSFC, 10/2/11, DB p.42)
1963 Oct 4-1963 Oct 8,
Hurricane Flora, killed some 7-8,000 people in Cuba and Haiti.
(SFC, 11/30/98, p.A2)
1965 Oct 4, Pope Paul VI became
the first reigning pontiff to visit the Western Hemisphere as he
addressed the U.N. General Assembly.
(AP, 10/4/97)
1968 Oct 4, Cambodia admitted
that the Viet Cong used their country for sanctuary.
(www.nationalreview.com/robbins/robbins200408180835.asp)
1970 Oct 4, Janis Joplin
(b.1943) was found dead in a seedy Hollywood motel of a heroin
overdose at age 27. Her classic songs included: "Down on Me," "Ball
and Chain," and "Piece of My Heart." In 1992 Laura Joplin authored
“Love, Janis.”
(WSJ, 1/9/97, p.A8)(SFEC, 3/16/97, Z1 p.4)(SSFC,
8/21/05, p.F1)
1972 Oct 4, Judge John Sirica
imposed a gag order on the Watergate break-in case.
(www.u-s-history.com/pages/h1791.html)
1974 Oct 4, Anne Sexton
(b.1928), American poet, died in Massachusetts. In 1991 Diane
Middlebrook (1939-2007), authored “Anne Sexton: A Biography.”
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anne_Sexton)(SSFC,
12/16/07, p.A1)
1974 Oct 4, In Greece the New
Democracy party (ND), was founded. It became the main center-right
political party.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Democracy_(Greece))
1976 Oct 4, Barbara Walters
made her debut as the first female nightly network news anchor. She
was hired by ABC-TV, and offered a then-unheard of million dollar a
year salary to co-anchor with veteran Harry Reasoner. But
Reasoner was not pleased with having her there. In addition to their
lack of chemistry, the network's ratings did not improve, and she
was replaced in mid-1978. She joined another ABC show, 20/20, where
she had much greater success.
(http://tinyurl.com/yj2yufw)(www.poynter.org/content/content_view.asp?id=99440)
1976 Oct 4, Agriculture
secretary Earl Butz resigned in the wake of a controversy over a
joke he'd made about blacks.
(AP, 10/4/97)
1976 Oct 4, In Gregg v.
Georgia, the U.S. Supreme Court lifted the ban on the death sentence
in murder cases. This restored the legality of capital punishment,
which had not been practiced since 1967. The first execution
following this ruling was Gary Gilmore in 1977.
(HN, 10/4/98)
1978 Oct 4, Funeral services
were held at the Vatican for Pope John Paul I.
(AP, 10/4/98)
1980 Oct 4, Some 520 people
were forced to abandon the cruise ship “Prisendam” in the Gulf of
Alaska after the Dutch luxury liner caught fire—no deaths or serious
injury resulted. The ship capsized and sank a week later.
(AP, 10/4/08)
1982 Oct 4, Frank Rosenthal
(1929-2008), Las Vegas casino operator, survived a car bomb when his
Cadillac exploded as he turned the key. He ran the mob-owned
Stardust, Fremont, Hacienda and Marina casinos. In 1995 Martin
Scorsese made his film “Casino,” based on the life of Frank
Rosenthal.
(SFC, 10/17/08, p.B8)(Econ, 11/1/08, p.99)
1982 Oct 4, Glenn H. Gould
(b.1932), eccentric Canadian pianist, died in Toronto of a cerebral
hemorrhage. In 1997 Peter F. Ostwald wrote a biography titled:
"Glenn Gould." In 2010 the documentary “Genius Within: The Inner
Life of Glenn Gould” was directed by Pater Raymont and Michele
Hozer.
(WSJ, 8/5/97,
p.A16)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glenn_Gould)(SFC, 11/19/10,
p.E8)
1985 Oct 4, Islamic Jihad
issued a statement saying it had killed American hostage William
Buckley. Fellow hostage David Jacobsen, however, later said he
believed Buckley had died (in Lebanon) of torture injuries four
months earlier.
(AP, 10/4/97)
1986 Oct 4, In the Netherlands
Queen Beatrix officially opened the Oosterscheldekering for use by
saying the well-known words: De stormvloedkering is gesloten. De
Deltawerken zijn voltooid. Zeeland is veilig. (The flood barrier is
closed. The Delta Works are completed. Zealand is safe.) It was the
world's largest movable flood barrier.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oosterscheldekering)
1987 Oct 4, National Football
League owners staged their first games since the players union went
on strike, with nonstriking and replacement personnel on the
gridiron at sparsely attended stadiums.
(AP, 10/4/97)
1988 Oct 4, Indian professor
Mithileshwar Singh, freed the day before by his Lebanese kidnappers,
said his captors had treated him well during his 20 months of
imprisonment, but acknowledged "there is no substitute for freedom."
(AP, 10/4/98)
1989 Oct 4, Fawaz Younis, a
Lebanese hijacker convicted of commandeering a Jordanian jetliner in
1985 with two Americans aboard, was sentenced in Washington to 30
years in prison.
(AP, 10/4/99)
1989 Oct 4, Famed race horse
Secretariat, the 1973 Triple Crown winner, died at Claiborne Farm,
Paris, Ky., at age 19 ½.
(AH, 10/04, p.15)
1990 Oct 4, For the first time
in nearly six decades, German lawmakers met in the Reichstag for the
first meeting of reunified Germany’s parliament.
(AP, 10/4/00)
1991 Oct 4, Pres. Bush signed
Executive Order 12775 which prohibited certain transactions with
respect to Haiti.
(www.archives.gov/federal-register/executive-orders/1991.html#12775)
1991 Oct 4, Leonard C. Odell
died at age 83. He and his older brother Allan (d.1994) wrote some
7,000 Burma Shave poems beginning in 1925 in rural Minnesota. The
Burma-Shave phenomenon faded in 1963, when Phillip Morris bought
Burma-Vita and the signs began to come down.
(http://tinyurl.com/f4s8h)(www.two-lane.com/burmashave.html)
1991 Oct 4, In Madrid, Spain,
26 nations, including the United States, signed the Antarctic
Treaty, which imposed a 50-year ban on oil exploration and mining in
Antarctica.
(AP, 10/4/01)
1991 Oct 4, Carl Bildt
(b.1949), leader of the Moderates, began serving PM of Sweden and
continued to Oct 7, 1994. His center-right government was blighted
by a deep recession followed by a huge row over whether to build the
Oresund Bridge to Denmark.
(SFC, 9/20/98, p.A12)(Econ, 9/23/06,
p.60)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Bildt)
1992 Oct 4, In the Netherlands
an Israeli El Al Jumbo Jet transport, enroute from New York to Tel
Aviv, crashed into an Amsterdam apartment complex and killed 43
people. Since then scores of people complained of unidentified
health problems. In 1998 it was revealed that the jet carried 50
gallons of dimethyl methylphosphonate, a non-poisonous ingredient of
sarin nerve gas, destined for Israel. A report on the crash was
released in 1999 and said that the plane's ballast included
carcinogenic depleted uranium.
{Netherlands, Air Crash, Israel, Medical}
(AP, 10/4/97)(WSJ, 4/22/99,
A1)(www.pacificnews.org/jinn/stories/5.03/990211-cargo.html)
1992 Oct 4, In Mozambique a
peace accord ended 17 years of civil war during which some 600,000
people were killed.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rome_General_Peace_Accords)(WSJ,
2/14/00, p.B13C)
1993 Oct 4, In Somalia US
troops blasted their way out of Bakara Market in Mogadishu and left
an estimated 500 Somalis dead. Dozens of cheering, dancing Somalis
dragged the body of an American soldier through the streets of
Mogadishu.
(SFC, 5/6/99, p.E4)(AP, 10/4/98)
1993 Oct 4, The Russian White
House was shelled. In Moscow, the occupation of the Russian
parliament building ended as tanks and paratroopers flushed out
hard-line opponents of Boris Yeltsin. Rebel parliamentarians led by
Vice President Alexander Rutskoi and Chairman Ruslan
Khasbulatov surrendered after a total of 10 hours. As many as 150
people were killed.
(HFA, '96, p.40)(AP,
10/4/98)(http://tinyurl.com/8cg4r)
1994 Oct 4, President Clinton
welcomed South African President Nelson Mandela to the White House.
(AP, 10/4/99)
1994 Oct 4, In France Florence
Rey (19), a literature student, participated in a bungled holdup
that left 3 police officers, a taxi driver, and her accomplice-lover
dead following a car chase. In 1998 she was sentenced to 20 years in
prison.
(SFC, 10/2/98, p.B3)
1994 Oct 4, Exiled Haitian
President Jean-Bertrand Aristide vowed in an address to the U.N.
General Assembly to return to Haiti in 11 days.
(AP, 10/4/99)
1995 Oct 4, Pope John Paul the
Second arrived in the United States for a five-day visit.
(AP, 10/4/00)
1995 Oct 4, Hurricane Opal
battered the Florida panhandle.
(AP, 10/4/05)
1996 Oct 4, A judge in
Philadelphia issued an injunction preventing major-league baseball
umpires from striking for the remainder of the postseason over an
incident in which Roberto Alomar of the Baltimore Orioles spat on
umpire John Hirschbeck.
(AP, 10/4/97)
1996 Oct 4, The Dow Jones hit a
record 5,992.86 on reports of weak employment.
(SFC, 10/5/96, p.A1)
1996 Oct 4, In New Zealand the
government agreed to settle the biggest land claim ever filed by
indigenous Maoris. The Ngai Tahu people would receive land and cash
worth $117 million and regain some fishing rights. The Maoris number
about 12% of the country’s 3.6 million people.
(SFC, 10/5/96, p.A10)
1997 Oct 4, Some 500,000 people
gathered in Washington DC for the Promise Keepers’ “Sacred Assembly
of Men.” It was one of the largest religious gatherings in U.S.
history.
(SFEC, 10/5/97, p.A1)(AP, 10/4/98)
1997 Oct 4, US Federal
officials arrested Theresa Marie Squillacote, a former Pentagon
lawyer, her husband Kurt Alan Stand, and James Michael Clark for
espionage that began with the recruitment of Stand in 1972 by the
East Germans. He pleaded guilty to spying for East Germany in 1998.
(SFC, 10/7/97, p.A14)(WSJ, 6/3/98, p.A1)
1997 Oct 4, The Chicago Field
Museum of Natural History paid $8,362,500 for the T, rex skull from
S. Dakota at a Sotheby’s auction in New York.
(SFEC, 10/5/97, p.A13)
1997 Oct 4, From Bosnia it was
reported that an Egyptian ship loaded with Soviet-made T-55 tanks
was sitting at anchor in the Croatian port of Ploce. The shipment
was registered with officials of the foreign peace force. An error
on the manifest said the tanks were intended for the Bosnian Army.
(SFC, 10/4/97, p.A8)
1997 Oct 4, From Brazil it was
reported that fires in the Amazon had increased 28% over the past
year and that clouds of smoke were thicker and covered more area
than those due to the burning forests of Indonesia.
(SFC, 10/4/97, p.A17)
1997 Oct 4, In Columbia rebels
of the Revolutionary Armed Forces killed 17 policemen near San Juan
de Arama. The rebels were staging a growing campaign to disrupt
municipal elections. They had already killed 26 candidates and
forced more than 1,500 to withdraw.
(SFC, 10/6/97, p.A17)
1997 Oct 4, It was reported
that France banned 20% of all cars from the streets of Paris for one
day last week due to smog.
(SFC, 10/4/97, p.A17)
1997 Oct 4, It was reported
that Greenpeace had found crabs contaminated with twice Europe’s
allowed radiation level near the La Hague nuclear waste reprocessing
plant near Cherbourg in northwestern France.
(SFC, 10/4/97, p.A17)
1997 Oct 4, In Spain Princess
Christina Federica de Borbon y Grecia (32) married Inaki Urdangarin
(29), a Basque professional handball team player.
(SFEC, 10/5/97, p.A17)
1998 Oct 4, US and Algerian
navies conducted a small joint search-and-rescue exercise in the
Mediterranean.
(SFC, 12/3/98, p.A17)
1998 Oct 4, In Argentina
Marcelo Cattaneo, the younger brother of Pres. Menem’s former deputy
chief of staff, was found hanging by the neck outside Buenos Aires.
He had been named 2 months earlier as the man who tried to bribe
former directors of the Banco de la Nacion. A newspaper article on
the 1994-1995 IBM-Banco de la Nacion bribery scheme was stuffed in
his mouth.
(SFEC, 10/25/98, p.A24)
1998 Oct 4, In Brazil national
elections Fernando Henrique Cardoso won with 50.3% of the vote in
early returns vs. 35.6% for Luiz Inacio da Silva of the Workers
Party.
(SFEC, 9/20/98, p.A21)(SFC, 10/5/98, p.A8)
1998 Oct 4, In Iraq a
Palestinian burst into a Baghdad synagogue and sprayed the crowd
with gunfire. 2 Jews and 2 Muslims were killed.
(SFC, 10/5/98, p.A9)
1998 Oct 4, In Mexico the
Indians of San Juan Chamula in Chiapas boycotted the elections in
protest for the jailing of 5 men accused of murder. They were jailed
a year ago during a dispute between Catholic and Protestant
converts.
(SFC, 10/5/98, p.a10)(SFC, 10/6/98, p.A10)
1998 Oct 4, In Mexico Hector
Teran, governor of Baja California and leader of the opposition
National Action Party, died at age 67.
(SFC, 10/5/98, p.A17)
1998 Oct 4, Russian envoys
warned Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic that NATO might launch
air-strikes unless he took "decisive measures" to end the
humanitarian crisis in the southern province of Kosovo.
(AP, 10/4/99)
1998 Oct 4, Former Swiss Pres.
Jean-Pascal Delamuraz died at age 62. He served his one year
rotating term in 1996 and made headlines that Dec. when he described
Jewish demands for compensation for Holocaust victims as blackmail.
(SFC, 10/5/98, p.A17)
1999 Oct 4, It was reported
that Edmund T. Pratt, an ex-Pfizer executive, planned to donate $35
million to endow the Duke Univ. School of Engineering.
(SFC, 10/4/99, p.A3)
1999 Oct 4, An Illinois jury
ordered State Farm to pay $456 million to 4.7 million customers in a
lawsuit accusing the nation’s largest car insurer of using inferior
parts for auto body repairs. Four days later, the judge ruled State
Farm had committed fraud, and awarded $730 million in actual and
punitive damages on top of the jury verdict. State Farm appealed.
(SFC, 10/8/99, p.A3)(SFC, 10/9/99, p.A3)(AP,
10/4/00)
1999 Oct 4, MCI WorldCom
planned to acquire Sprint Corp. for over $100 billion. The deal was
quashed in 2000.
(SFC, 10/5/99, p.A1)(WSJ, 6/28/00, p.A1)
1999 Oct 4, The UN Security
Council approved a one-time increase in oil sales for Iraq from
$5.26 billion to $8.3 billion.
(WSJ, 10/5/99, p.A1)
1999 Oct 4, Israeli PM Ehud
Barak and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat agreed on terms for the
first safe route between the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
(SFC, 10/5/99, p.A11)
1999 Oct 4, In Russia Prime
Minister Putin planned to resettle thousands of Chechens in areas
under Russian control, an indication that Moscow planned to split
Chechnya in two. Chechen fighters shot down a Russian Sukhoi-24
warplane that was searching for another downed plane.
(SFC, 10/5/99, p.A10)(SFC, 10/6/99, p.A10)
1999 Oct 4, In South Korea
radioactive water leaked inside a nuclear power plant in Wolsung and
exposed 22 workers to small amounts of radiation.
(SFC, 10/6/99, p.A11)
2000 Oct 4, 3Com was expected
to announce plans to join with Harris Interactive for the largest
Internet survey to date.
(SFC, 10/4/00, p.D1)
2000 Oct 4, In Indonesia Pres.
Wahid denied clemency to Tommy Suharto and ordered the arrest of a
Timorese militia chief.
(SFC, 10/5/00, p.A12)
2000 Oct 4, In Israel Barak
agreed to withdraw heavy arms from the West Bank and Gaza in a bid
to halt violence. Amid fresh bloodshed in the West Bank and Gaza,
Secretary of State Madeleine Albright brought Israeli Prime Minister
Ehud Barak and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat together for talks
in Paris.
(WSJ, 10/5/00, p.A1)(AP, 10/4/01)
2000 Oct 4, In the Ivory Coast
a bus-station bombing killed 4 people and a state of emergency was
declared.
(WSJ, 10/6/00, p.A1)
2000 Oct 4, In Serbia the
Constitutional Court set aside part of the Sep 24 voting results in
a move seen to buy time for Pres. Milosevic. Citizens blocked an
attempt by the government to use force against strikers and
protesters. Major protests were planned to force Milosevic from
office.
(SFC, 10/5/00, p.A1)
2001 Oct 4, The US pledged $320
m million in aid to Afghanistan refugees.
(SFC, 10/5/01, p.A1)
2001 Oct 4, Reagan National
Airport re-opened.
(SFC, 10/5/01, p.A15)
2001 Oct 4, NYC officials
estimated that the Sep 11 disaster would cost as much as $105
billion over the next 2 years. Depending on the number of jobs
permanently shifted out of the city, the September 11th attacks
could cost New York City as much as $83-95 billion dollars, though
the financial loss could never compare to the horrendous loss of
nearly 3,000 lives.
(SFC, 10/5/01, p.A15)(HNQ, 9/11/02)
2001 Oct 4, In Texas Barry
Bonds hit his 70th home run to tie Mark McGwire's 1998 record in a
10-2 victory over Houston. Rickey Henderson homered to pass Ty Cobb
and become baseball's career leader in runs scored with 2,246 during
San Diego's 6-3 win over Los Angeles.
(SFC, 10/5/01, p.A1)(AP, 10/4/02)
2001 Oct 4, In Texas Mark
Stroman (b.1969), in the wake of 9/11, went on a shooting spree
targeting people of Middle Eastern descent killing 2 people and
wounding a third. The victims were from South Asia. Stroman was
later convicted and sentenced to death. He was executed on July 20,
2011.
(SFC, 7/21/11,
p.A9)(www.tdcj.state.tx.us/stat/stromanmark.htm)
2001 Oct 4, Algeria’s Pres.
Bouteflika promised to recognize the Berber language, compensate
victims of police brutality and prosecute police involved in
brutality.
(WSJ, 10/5/01, p.A1)
2001 Oct 4, The British
government released a 16-page document over the Internet that
presented details on Osama bin Laden’s responsibility for the Sep 11
terrorist attacks.
(SFC, 10/5/01, p.A16)
2001 Oct 4, The EU made a joint
announcement with Spain that the Basque ETA would be put on the list
of terrorist organizations whose assets would be frozen by the EU.
(WSJ, 10/5/01, p.A1)
2001 Oct 4, In Israel PM Sharon
warned the US that it risked appeasing the Arab nations: “Do not try
to appease the Arabs at our expense.” A Palestinian posing as an
Israeli soldier killed 3 Israelis in Afula. A Palestinian was killed
during a 2nd day of fighting in Hebron.
(SFC, 10/5/01, p.D4)(WSJ, 10/5/01, p.A1)
2001 Oct 4, Macedonian security
forces, in opposition to external warnings, took control of 3 ethnic
Albanian villages but met with resistance from others.
(SFC, 10/5/01, p.D4)
2001 Oct 4, Pakistan announced
that it sees sufficient grounds for an indictment against Osama bin
Laden.
(WSJ, 10/5/01, p.A1)
2001 Oct 4, In the Philippines
government forces captured 13 members of Abu Sayyaf and killed
another in a southern clash.
(SFC, 10/5/01, p.D6)
2001 Oct 4, A chartered Russian
Tupelov-154 airplane crashed in to the Black Sea and all 78 people
aboard were killed. The Sibir Airlines jet was bound to Novosibirsk
from Tel Aviv. An accidental missile strike from Ukrainian military
forces was suspected but denied by Ukraine officials. Pres. Putin
said terrorists might have been responsible. Later evidence
indicated that flight 1812 was hit by an S-200 missile. On Oct 12
Ukraine and Russia acknowledged that an errant missile was the
probable cause. In 2003 Ukraine agreed to pay $200,000 for each
Israeli killed.
(SFC, 10/6/01, p.A11)(WSJ, 11/21/03,
p.A1)(www.ncsj.org/AuxPages/100501crash.shtml)
2001 Oct 4, Swissair resumed
flying following a 2-day shut down propped by a $281 million Swiss
government loan. [see Jan 31, 2002]
(SFC, 10/5/01, p.B4)
2002 Oct 4, Hans Blix, UN
weapons inspector, endorsed a US demand that Iraq make a full
declaration of its weapons program before inspections resume.
(SFC, 10/5/02, p.A7)
2002 Oct 4, John Walker Lindh,
the so-called "American Taliban," received a 20-year sentence after
a sobbing, halting plea for forgiveness before a federal judge in
Alexandria, Va.
(AP, 10/4/07)
2002 Oct 4, Richard C. Reid
pleaded guilty to trying to blow up a trans-Atlantic flight with
explosives hidden in his shoes and declared himself a follower of
Osama bin Laden.
(AP, 10/4/02)
2002 Oct 4, US federal agents
arrested 4 suspected al Qaeda terrorists, 3 in Portland and 1 in
Detroit. 2 other suspected cell members were overseas.
(SFC, 10/5/02, p.A1)
2002 Oct 4, A jury in Los
Angeles awarded former smoker Betty Bullock (1938-2003) $850,000 in
medical costs and $28 billion in punitive damages against Philip
Morris. On Dec 18 a judge reduced the punitive award to $28 million.
The punitive portion was reduced to $13.8 million in 2009. This was
upheld by a state appeals court in 2011.
(SFC, 10/5/02, p.A2)(SFC, 12/19/02, p.A8)(SFC,
8/18/11, p.C6)
2002 Oct 4, The DJIA fell 188
to 7,528. Nasdaq fell 25 to 1,139.
(SFC, 10/5/02, p.B1)
2002 Oct 4, In Barbados
delegations from Russia, Cuba, South Africa, Colombia and France's
overseas territories abandoned an anti-racism conference that voted
to exclude whites saying they'll have no part in discrimination. The
walkout, on the fourth day of the six-day African and African
Descendants World Conference Against Racism, came after a day of
negotiations failed. Some 200 delegates had voted Wednesday for
whites and Asians to leave the deliberations, saying slavery was too
painful a subject to discuss in front of non-Africans.
(AP, 10/5/02)
2002 Oct 4, Foreign ministers
from six Pacific nations arrived in Java's ancient royal capital of
Yogyakarta for a day of talks that Indonesia said would tackle the
thorny issue of terrorism.
(AP, 10/4/02)
2002 Oct 4, Lawmakers from
rival Iraqi Kurdish factions met for the first time in 8 years, in a
rare show of political unity ahead of a possible U.S. attack on
Iraq.
(AP, 10/4/02)
2002 Oct 4, In Nepal King
Gyanendra stunned the country when he announced he was firing Prime
Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba, postponing November elections and
assuming direct power for the first time since absolute rule by the
monarchy was abolished in 1990.
(Reuters, 10/5/02)
2002 Oct 4, North Korean
officials told a visiting US delegation that the country has a
second covert nuclear weapons program.
(AP, 4/24/03)
2002 Oct 4, Pakistan said it
successfully test-fired a medium-range surface-to-surface ballistic
missile. It was named Hatf-IV (Shaheen-1) and had a range of 700 km
(430 miles).
(AP, 10/4/02)
2002 Oct 4, In central Somalia
heavy fighting between the Sa'ad subclan and the Majerten clan
killed at least 10 people and injured 25 others.
(AP, 10/5/02)
2002 Oct 4, Regional mediators
said the Sudanese government and southern rebels have agreed to a
cessation of hostilities and the resumption of peace talks to end
the country's 15-year civil war.
(AP, 10/4/02)
2003 Oct 4, A U.S. military
source said Polish troops had discovered and destroyed French-made
anti-aircraft missiles in Iraq. France swiftly denied selling any
weapons to Iraq in violation of a U.N. arms embargo and had stopped
making the Roland missiles 15 years ago.
(AP, 10/4/03)
2003 Oct 4, Sid McMath (91),
former 2-term governor of Arkansas, died.
(WSJ, 10/6/03, p.A1)
2003 Oct 4, In southwest Brazil
a small airplane carrying congressman Rep. Jose Carlos Martinez and
three others went missing. All 4 were found dead the next day.
(AP, 10/4/03)(AP, 10/5/03)
2003 Oct 4, In London James
Forlong (44), a former Sky News television correspondent who
resigned after he admitted faking parts of a report on the war in
Iraq, was found dead at his home in a possible suicide.
(AP, 10/6/03)
2003 Oct 4, Eight Indonesian
soldiers plummeted into the ocean and were presumed dead after a
helicopter crew cut the ropes carrying them during rehearsal of a
mid-air stunt.
(AP, 10/4/03)
2003 Oct 4, In Haifa, Israel,
Hanadi Taysser Darajat (29), a female Palestinian lawyer, blew
herself up in a crowded Mediterranean beach restaurant, killing 21
people including 4 children. A brother and cousin, Jihad terrorists,
had been killed in June. Her suicide inspired a piece of
installation art in 2004 at the Stockholm Museum titled "Snow White
and the Madness of Truth."
(SFC, 10/11/03, p.A7)(WSJ, 1/22/04, p.D6)(AP,
10/4/04)(LSA, Fall/06, p.32)
2003 Oct 4, In Italy
anti-globalization demonstrators set fire to an employment agency,
smashed cars and windows and hurled insults at government
headquarters in Rome.
(AP, 10/4/03)
2003 Oct 4, A shipment of
uranium-enriching centrifuge gear was seized at the Italian port of
Taranto in 2003, forcing Libya to admit and eventually renounce its
efforts to acquire nuclear weapons. In 2009 Urs Tinner, suspected of
involvement in the world's biggest nuclear smuggling ring, said in a
Swiss TV documentary that he tipped off US intelligence about a
delivery of centrifuge parts meant for Libya's nuclear weapons
program.
(http://articles.latimes.com/2004/nov/28/world/fg-network28)(WSJ,
12/31/03, p.A1)(AP, 1/22/09)
2004 Oct 4, Americans Dr.
Richard Axel (58) of Columbia Univ. and Linda Buck (57) of the Fred
Hutchinson Cancer Center in Seattle won the Nobel Prize in Medicine
for their 1991 discovery of how people recognize odors. In 2008
Linda Buck and her co-authors retracted their 2001 paper on smell
due to inconsistencies on data.
(SFC, 10/5/04, p.A5)(SFC, 3/7/08, p.A6)
2004 Oct 4, Pres. Bush signed
an extension of middle-class tax cuts.
(WSJ, 10/5/04, p.A1)
2004 Oct 4, Mike Melvill
piloted SpaceShipOne, designed by Burt Rutan, climbed to 367,442
feet in a 2nd leg and captured the $10 million Ansari X Prize. The
single pilot was accompanied by the weight of 2 others to meet a
3-person requirement.
(SFC, 10/5/04, p.A1)(Econ, 10/9/04, p.75)
2004 Oct 4, Gordon Cooper
(b.1927), US astronaut in the Mercury program, died in Ventura, Ca.
He piloted Faith 7 around Earth on May 15-16, 1963.
(SFC, 10/5/04, p.B7)
2004 Oct 4, Cambodia's
legislature approved a long-delayed agreement to put surviving Khmer
Rouge leaders on trial for atrocities that claimed nearly two
million lives during their murderous rule in the late 1970s.
(AP, 10/4/04)
2004 Oct 4, The Denmark Science
Ministry said it aims to show the North Pole belongs to Denmark and
is sending an expedition to try to prove that the seabed there is a
natural continuation of Danish territory.
(AP, 10/4/04)
2004 Oct 4, Officials in Haiti
said they have found hundreds more bodies, raising the death toll
from Tropical Storm Jeanne to nearly 2,000 people. Later estimates
put the death toll at 3,000.
(AP, 10/4/04)(AP, 11/1/07)
2004 Oct 4, Suspected
separatist rebels attacked sleeping villagers in northeastern India,
killing six in a third day of explosions and gun attacks that have
left at least 63 people dead.
(AP, 10/4/04)
2004 Oct 4, Retired general
Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono was confirmed as Indonesia's next leader as
final counting from the country's first direct presidential polls
gave him a landslide victory over his predecessor.
(AFP, 10/4/04)
2004 Oct 4, Iranian President
Mohammad Khatami arrived in Khartoum to start a three-day visit to
Sudan.
(AP, 10/4/04)
2004 Oct 4, Insurgents
unleashed a pair of powerful car bombs near the symbol of U.S.
authority in Iraq, the Green Zone, where the U.S. Embassy and key
government offices are located as well as hotels occupied by
hundreds of foreigners. Two other explosions brought the day's
bombing toll to at least 26 dead and more than 100 wounded.
(AP, 10/4/04)(SFC, 10/5/04, p.A3)
2004 Oct 4, Six separatist
rebels were killed in a clash between separatist rebels and security
forces in a thickly forested area in Jammu and Kashmir.
(AP, 10/4/04)
2004 Oct 4, Palestinian
militants fired off two more rockets at the Israeli town of Sderot,
lightly wounding one person, according to rescue workers. Ongoing
violence in northern Gaza killed at least seven Palestinians,
including a teenager.
(AP, 10/4/04)
2004 Oct 4, Syrian President
Bashar Assad replaced about one-third of his Cabinet, bringing new
faces to the key interior and information ministries.
(AP, 10/4/04)
2004 Oct 4, It was reported
that Vietnam had embarked on a major overhaul of its debt-laden
companies as it opens up its economy.
(WSJ, 10/4/04, p.A15)
2005 Oct 4, President Bush
defended his Supreme Court nominee, Harriet Miers, from suggestions
by some skeptical Republicans that she was not conservative enough,
and insisted Miers shared his strict-constructionist views. Miers
ended up withdrawing.
(AP, 10/4/06)
2005 Oct 4, Americans John L.
Hall and Roy J. Glauber and German Theodor W. Haensch won the 2005
Nobel Prize in physics for work that could lead to better
long-distance communication and more precise navigation worldwide
and in space.
(AP, 10/4/05)
2005 Oct 4, The US Mint
unveiled the design for a new Jefferson nickel called the Jefferson
1800, designed by Jamie Franki. It will begin circulating in 2006.
(SFC, 10/5/05, p.A7)
2005 Oct 4, The DJIA fell 94.37
to 10,441.11.
(SFC, 10/5/05, p.C1)
2005 Oct 4, Insurance claims
for Hurricane Katrina were estimated at $34.4 billion in personal
and commercial property loss claims.
(SFC, 10/5/05, p.C1)
2005 Oct 4, Hurricane Stan
slammed into Mexico’s Gulf coast.
(AP, 10/4/06)
2005 Oct 4, Philadelphia
selected EarthLink to run its municipal wireless system.
(SFC, 10/5/05, p.C1)
2005 Oct 4, According to the
IMF major oil producers were now a bigger source of funds for
financial markets and US creditors than China, Japan and the rest of
Asia.
(WSJ, 10/4/05, p.A1)
2005 Oct 4, Google and Sun
Microsystems announced an alliance to promote each other’s products.
(SFC, 10/5/05, p.A1)
2005 Oct 4, It was reported
that phthalate chemicals, used in a wide variety of products from
toys to cosmetics, had been found to block the action of fetal
androgens in rodents. Androgen hormones are critical in developing
males.
(WSJ, 10/4/05, p.A1)
2005 Oct 4, In Afghanistan a
bomb exploded near a key crossing point on the Afghan-Pakistan
border, killing three people and wounding 20. Authorities blamed
Taliban insurgents.
(AP, 10/5/05)
2005 Oct 4, In London Russia’s
Pres. Putin met with EU leaders for talks on expanding cooperation
in the fight against crime, including terrorism, and strengthening
trade ties.
(AP, 10/4/05)
2005 Oct 4, A Bosnian Serb
panel said it identified more than 17,000 people with varying levels
of blood on their hands for abetting the 1995 Srebrenica massacre.
(WSJ, 10/5/05, p.A1)
2005 Oct 4-2005 Oct 5, In
Canada Toronto's chief medical officer said 4 more residents of a
nursing home for the elderly have died of an unknown respiratory
illness, bringing the number fatally infected by the disease to 10.
Officials said Legionnaires’ disease was the likely cause as the
deaths rose to 16.
(AP, 10/5/05)(SFC, 10/7/05, p.A3)
2005 Oct 4, China’s state media
reported that raging floodwaters spawned by Typhoon Longwang along
the southeastern coast swept away 59 paramilitary police officers
and washed away two buildings at a military training school.
(AP, 10/4/05)
2005 Oct 4, In Colombia a judge
ordered the re-arrest of a man in a wheelchair who hijacked a
Colombian airliner, but said he could remain under house arrest due
to his failing health.
(AP, 10/4/05)
2005 Oct 4, Colombia granted
political asylum to former Ecuadorian President Lucio Gutierrez, who
has said he faces treason charges in his homeland.
(AP, 10/4/05)
2005 Oct 4, Croatia began
delayed EU membership talks, after UN chief war crimes prosecutor
Carla del Ponte endorsed Zagreb's cooperation with her court.
(AFP, 10/4/05)
2005 Oct 4, French President
Jacques Chirac said that Turkey would need to undergo a "major
cultural revolution" before entering the EU, and he reiterated that
France would hold a referendum on admitting Ankara to the bloc.
(AP, 10/4/05)
2005 Oct 4, It was reported
that French Attorney Jean-Marc Goldnadel had launched
classaction.fr, a French Web site that lets users sign up to
lawsuits online for as little as 12 euros ($14.50). President
Jacques Chirac had announced the introduction of class action suits
earlier in the year.
(AP, 10/4/05)
2005 Oct 4, In India's
northeast 11 people, including five villagers hacked to death by
rival tribesmen, were reported killed. Separatist insurgencies have
raged in Manipur and Assam states for the past two decades.
(AP, 10/4/05)
2005 Oct 4, Indonesia’s central
bank raised interest rates for the 3rd time in 5 weeks one point to
11% in an effort to keep a lid on inflation.
(WSJ, 10/5/05, p.A18)
2005 Oct 4, The 1st day of
Ramadan began for Muslims.
(AP, 10/4/05)
2005 Oct 4, Iraqi lawmakers
approved the death penalty for anyone financing or "provoking"
terrorism.
(AP, 10/4/05)
2005 Oct 4, A suicide car bomb
exploded at a checkpoint at the main entrance of Baghdad's Green
Zone, killing two Iraqi policemen and wounding one.
(AP, 10/4/05)
2005 Oct 4, In western Iraq
some 2,500 U.S. troops along with Iraqi forces launched their second
major offensive in a week, sweeping into three towns to take them
back from insurgents who had killed Marines there last month.
(AP, 10/4/05)
2005 Oct 4, Japan's Cabinet
endorsed a one-year extension of the country's naval mission to
support U.S.-led troops in Afghanistan, citing renewed concerns
about terrorism after the recent bombings in Indonesia.
(AP, 10/4/05)
2005 Oct 4, In Nigeria at least
3 civilians were killed in crossfire and a Lagos police headquarters
was burned down after a dispute between armed police and soldiers
erupted in street fighting. Witnesses said that brawling broke out
after an army officer tried to prevent a police patrol extorting an
illegal 20 naira (seven cent) toll from a motorcycle taxi driver.
(AP, 10/5/05)
2005 Oct 4, Jim Gray (43), one
of Northern Ireland's most high-profile Protestant militants was
shot to death outside his home in east Belfast, more than six months
after he was ousted by his outlawed group.
(AP, 10/4/05)
2005 Oct 4, Pakistani security
forces arrested Abdul Latif Hakimi, the chief spokesman of
Afghanistan's ousted Taliban regime, describing his capture as a
major blow to the Islamic militia.
(AFP, 10/4/05)
2005 Oct 4, A Palestinian woman
brandishing a knife stabbed and wounded an Israeli soldier at a
checkpoint outside the West Bank city of Nablus before other
soldiers shot and killed her.
(AP, 10/4/05)
2005 Oct 4, In Peru Maritza
Garrido Lecca, a former ballet teacher who used her dance studio to
hide Shining Path founder Abimael Guzman, was sentenced to 20 years
in prison after a three-month civilian retrial. Nicholas Shakespeare
used the story as inspiration for his novel "The Dancer Upstairs"
(1995), which John Malkovich turned into a 2002 movie of the same
name, starring Javier Bardem.
(AP, 10/5/05)
2005 Oct 4, A Philippine
provincial government filed a lawsuit in Nevada accusing Canadian
mining giant Placer Dome Inc. of damaging the environment and health
of residents of an island about 100 miles south of Manila. Placer
Dome was blamed for a March 1996 environmental accident that sent
millions of tons of open-pit copper mine waste down a river to the
Marinduque capital, Boac.
(AP, 10/4/05)
2005 Oct 4, Spain said it will
build a third high-security fence between its Melilla enclave and
Morocco after undocumented immigrants repeatedly stormed two
existing barriers.
(AP, 10/4/05)
2005 Oct 4, UN peacekeepers
preparing to pull out of Sierra Leone said they have completed the
mission they began six years ago but warn the country still has a
long way to go before it recovers from one of Africa's most brutal
wars.
(AP, 10/4/05)
2005 Oct 4, Sudan's government
and rebels from Darfur met for a 2nd day of talks in Nigeria. The
visiting Dutch PM urged all parties to reach a power-sharing deal by
the end of the year.
(AP, 10/4/05)
2005 Oct 4, A new Syrian TV
series began broadcasting around the Middle East. It tells the story
of Arabs living in residential compounds in Saudi Arabia and the
militant Islamists who want to blow them up so they can collect
their rewards in heaven, 72 beautiful virgins.
(AP, 10/10/05)
2005 Oct 4, The UAE Labor
Ministry announced that company executives will find their names on
a sheet of shame published by the government if they don't start
paying wages to their laborers.
(AP, 10/4/05)
2005 Oct 4, The UN Security
Council warned Ethiopia and Eritrea against reigniting their border
war and urged Eritrea to immediately reverse its ban on all
helicopter flights by UN peacekeepers.
(AP, 10/4/05)
2005 Oct 4, Venezuela said it
has reduced its holdings of US Treasury securities and moved some
foreign exchange reserves into European investments.
(SFC, 10/5/05, p.A18)
2005 Oct 4-2005 Oct 9, The
World Golf Championships took place at Harding Park Golf Course
along Lake Merced in SF, Ca.
(SFCM, 10/2/05, p.6)
2006 Oct 4, A US federal court
awarded $143 million to 3 closed nuclear power plants because the
government failed to remove spent fuel rods. The 3 Yankee company
reactors were located in Connecticut, Maine, and Massachusetts.
(WSJ, 10/5/06, p.A6)
2006 Oct 4, Ousted
Hewlett-Packard Chairwoman Patricia Dunn, a company officer and
three investigators were charged with violating California privacy
laws in a corporate spying scandal. The charges were later dropped,
with a judge calling their conduct a "betrayal of trust and honor"
that nonetheless did not rise to the level of criminal activity.
(AP, 10/4/07)
2006 Oct 4, American Roger D.
Kornberg, whose father won a Nobel Prize a half-century ago, was
awarded the prize in chemistry for his studies of how cells take
information from genes to produce proteins.
(AP, 10/4/06)
2006 Oct 4, A Philadelphia jury
awarded a woman $1 million and her husband $500,000 in compensatory
damages after finding that Wyeth's hormone replacement drug Prempro
was a cause of her breast cancer. In the first federal Prempro
trial, a jury last month in Little Rock, Arkansas found Wyeth was
not negligent and had adequately warned patients and doctors of the
cancer risk associated with the drug. Wyeth faced some 5,000
lawsuits involving its hormone replacement drugs.
(Reuters, 10/4/06)
2006 Oct 4, The DJIA rose
123.27 to 11,850.61, to close at record high for the 2nd day in a
row. Nasdaq rose 47.30 to 2,290.
(SFC, 10/5/06, p.C1)
2006 Oct 4, In Berkeley, Ca.,
the new 2,002-acre Eastshore State Park was dedicated. The 8.5 mile
strip ran north along the East Bay from the Bay Bridge to Richmond.
(SFC, 10/5/06, p.B1)
2006 Oct 4, Scientists reported
that the Hubble Space Telescope had revealed 16 objects about the
size of Jupiter near the center of the Milky Way and that the
discovery gave strong evidence that planets are abundant in other
parts of the galaxy.
(SFC, 10/5/06, p.A4)
2006 Oct 4, New York Times
correspondent R.W. Apple Jr. died in Washington at age 71.
(AP, 10/4/07)
2006 Oct 4, Afghanistan's
intelligence agency said security agents have arrested 17 people
allegedly trained in Pakistan who they believe planned to launch
suicide attacks in three Afghan provinces. In southern Afghanistan
suspected Taliban militants attacked a police checkpoint, and the
ensuing clash left six militants dead and three wounded.
(AP, 10/4/06)(AP, 10/5/06)
2006 Oct 4, In Sao Paulo,
Brazil, court officials said 14 workers at a juvenile detention
center were convicted and sentenced to up to 87 years in prison for
beating inmates with iron bars and wood to find out who organized an
escape attempt in 2000.
(AP, 10/4/06)
2006 Oct 4, British PM Tony
Blair said the Irish Republican Army's violent campaign in Northern
Ireland is over, following a report into paramilitary activity that
raised hopes of reviving self-rule.
(AP, 10/4/06)
2006 Oct 4, In Britain a
Muslim-owned business, which reportedly housed a makeshift mosque,
was petrol-bombed following three nights of clashes between white
and south Asian youths on the London outskirts.
(AFP, 10/5/06)
2006 Oct 4, In Chile government
officials announced plans to build a 62-mile highway through Pumalin
Park, a nature reserve created by Douglas Tompkins of SF. The
government also signaled that it will push ahead with the proposed
$4 billion hydroelectric complex to dam the Baker and Pasqua rivers
south of Pumalin.
(SSFC, 10/8/06, p.A1)
2006 Oct 4, Professor Eugene
Polzik and his team at the Niels Bohr Institute at Copenhagen
University in Denmark reported a breakthrough in teleportation by
using both light and matter.
(Reuters, 10/4/06)
2006 Oct 4, The world's biggest
book fair opened in Frankfurt, Germany, with Indian authors taking
center stage and a new scheme to protect writers' copyrights from
Internet piracy creating a buzz.
(AFP, 10/4/06)
2006 Oct 4, Iraqi authorities
took a brigade of up to 700 policemen out of service and put members
under investigation for "possible complicity" with death squads
following a mass kidnapping earlier this week. A series of bombs
went off in rapid succession in a shopping district in a mainly
Christian neighborhood of Baghdad, killing 16 people and wounding
87. The dead were among 26 people killed in attacks across Iraq. A
suicide bomber attacked an Iraqi police base in the town of Ramadi,
but guards shot at the explosives-packed vehicle and detonated it
before it could hit the base.
(AP, 10/4/06)(AP, 10/5/06)
2006 Oct 4, In Malawi pop
singer Madonna traveled to a village 12 miles outside the capital
Lilongwe, where she is funding the construction of a center to feed
and educate about 1,000 orphans.
(Reuters, 10/5/06)
2006 Oct 4, In Nicaragua
defense ministers from across the Americas agreed to create an
international land-mine removal center and many called for joint
military missions for disaster relief and peacekeeping worldwide.
(AP, 10/4/06)
2006 Oct 4, In Nigeria
militants freed around 25 kidnapped oil workers but five abducted
expatriates were still missing in another part of the Niger Delta.
(AP, 10/4/06)
2006 Oct 4, Masked men killed a
local Hamas political activist as he set out for morning prayers
before dawn in the northern West Bank.
(AP, 10/4/06)
2006 Oct 4, Sri Lanka's air
force bombed separatist rebel positions in the embattled north, a
day after the insurgents agreed to peace talks with the government.
(AP, 10/4/06)
2006 Oct 4, Sources said fresh
inter-rebel fighting in Sudan has forced 10,000 Darfuris to seek
refuge near a camp of African Union forces monitoring a
widely-ignored truce.
(AP, 10/4/06)
2007 Oct 4, US marshals posing
as supporters arrested convicted tax-evaders Ed and Elaine Brown at
their rural, fortress-like home in New Hampshire. They had engaged
in a 9-month standoff with authorities. They were convicted in
January of scheming to avoid federal income taxes by hiding $1.9
million of income between 1996 and 2003 and were sentenced in April.
In 2010 Brown (67) was sentenced 37 years in prison.
(AP, 10/5/07)(SFC, 1/12/10, p.A4)
2007 Oct 4, The recording
industry won a major fight in its effort to stop illegal music
downloading with a US jury decision to impose $222,000 damages
against a Minnesota woman who used a Web service to share music.
(Reuters, 10/5/07)
2007 Oct 4, Idaho Sen. Larry
Craig defiantly vowed to serve out his term in office despite losing
a court attempt to rescind his guilty plea in a men's room sex
sting.
(AP, 10/4/08)
2007 Oct 4, Former city
maintenance worker John Ashley shot five people in a law office in
Alexandria, La., killing two of them; Ashley was shot and killed by
police following a standoff.
(AP, 10/4/08)
2007 Oct 4, In Philadelphia
Mustafa Ali (36), a convicted bank robber, shot and killed two
armored car guards servicing an ATM outside a bank. Several schools
were locked down amid a massive manhunt for the gunman, who was
arrested the next day.
(AP, 10/4/07)(AP, 10/6/07)
2007 Oct 4, Microsoft outlined
its vision, dubbed HealthVault, in which a person can view, from one
place, their complete health records.
(Econ, 10/6/07, p.74)(http://tinyurl.com/2fop6p)
2007 Oct 4, A British soldier
was killed in an explosion about 19 miles west of Kandahar city. 82
British personnel, including 57 soldiers, have been killed in
Afghanistan since operations began there in November 2001.
(AP, 10/5/07)
2007 Oct 4, The Australian
government approved plans for a controversial multi-billion-dollar
pulp mill in Tasmania despite objections it could ruin one of the
country's most pristine environments.
(AFP, 10/4/07)
2007 Oct 4, Canada’s PM Stephen
Harper vowed to crack down on illegal drugs, saying the Conservative
government would propose mandatory prison time for serious drug
offenses.
(Reuters, 10/4/07)
2007 Oct 4, Health Canada said
that it has stopped the sale of Novartis Pharmaceuticals
anti-inflammatory drug Prexige and will cancel its market
authorization due to the risk for serious liver-related effects
including hepatitis.
(AP, 10/4/07)
2007 Oct 4, Canada became the
first country to notify the World Trade Organization that it has
agreed to allow a Canadian company to make generic medicines for
export to Rwanda.
(AFP, 10/7/07)
2007 Oct 4, In Chile the widow
and five children of Gen. Augusto Pinochet were among 23 people
indicted on charges of corruption related to the dictator's US bank
accounts.
(AP, 10/5/07)
2007 Oct 4, In Congo a cargo
plane crashed in a residential neighborhood near the main airport in
Kinshasa, plowing into homes and killing at least 52 people. The
next day Congolese President Joseph Kabila sacked Transport Minister
Remy Henri Kuseyo Gatanga.
(AP, 10/4/07)(Reuters, 10/5/07)
2007 Oct 4, Egypt sent a
high-level protest to dozens of European nations expressing
"astonishment and regret" at their refusal to endorse Cairo's call
for a Middle East nuclear free zone at a conference last month. At
last month's IAEA session, 25 of the 27 EU nations abstained as did
other countries hoping to join the union. In all, 47 nations
abstained. Israeli objections forced a vote in which 53 countries,
Muslim states and their supporters from the developing world, backed
the proposal.
(AP, 10/17/07)
2007 Oct 4, Ethiopia pledged
5,000 troops to a future UN-African Union peacekeeping mission for
Darfur.
(AP, 10/4/07)
2007 Oct 4, In northeast France
dozens of hooded youths attacked two police vehicles with metal
bars, set fire to more than a dozen parked cars and torched a
community center in Saint-Dizier.
(AP, 10/5/07)
2007 Oct 4, Siemens, one of the
world’s biggest electrical engineering firms, accepted a $285
million fine imposed by a court in Munich for bribery by its
communications division. CEO Peter Loscher announced a
re-organization that included reducing its 9 divisions to three and
downsizing the 11-man executive board. The ruling named officials in
Nigeria, Libya and Russia as recipients of 77 bribes totaling some
$17.5 million.
(Econ, 10/13/07, p.70)(WSJ, 11/16/07, p.A1)
2007 Oct 4, The Wai Wai, an
indigenous group in Guyana, backed by government decree and a
US-based conservation organization, said it has banned miners and
loggers from its section of the Amazon jungle and pledged to pursue
an economic strategy based on ecotourism, research and traditional
crafts.
(AP, 10/5/07)
2007 Oct 4, Iranian state
television reported that Iran and Syria have signed an agreement for
Tehran to export a billion dollars worth of gas every year to its
chief regional ally.
(AP, 10/4/07)
2007 Oct 4, President Jalal
Talabani said Iraq has ordered light military equipment from China
worth $100 million because the United States is unable to meet
Baghdad's requirements. A government minister said the official
Iraqi investigation into the Blackwater shooting last month
recommended that the security guards face trial in Iraqi courts and
that the company compensate the victims. Abbas Hassan Hamza, the
mayor of the religiously mixed town of Iskandariyah, was killed
along with four of his guards in a roadside bomb attack. Hamza
belonged to Iraqi PM Nouri al-Maliki's Dawa party. In Baghdad, a car
bomb exploded near people on line at a gas station, killing four
civilians and wounding eight others. 3 civilians were shot by
American troops near a checkpoint in Abu Lukah set up by Iraqis who
have joined forces against extremists. A US soldier was killed by
small-arms fire during operations in a southern section of Baghdad.
(Reuters, 10/4/07)(AP, 10/4/07)(AP, 10/5/07)
2007 Oct 4, It was reported
that in Kuwait the nomadic Bedouin, Arabic for "without," numbered
about 100,000 people and have been refused what they feel is their
birthright: citizenship.
(AP, 10/4/07)
2007 Oct 4, Dutch authorities
said their customs officers had found 100 dead beetles stuffed with
cocaine whilst examining a parcel from Peru.
(Reuters, 10/4/07)
2007 Oct 4, Officials said the
Nigerian central bank has raised its benchmark interest rate MPR
from eight to nine percent because of rising inflation.
(AFP, 10/4/07)
2007 Oct 4, South Korean
President Roh Moo-hyun and North Korean leader Kim Jong Il pledged
to seek a peace treaty to replace the Korean War's 1953 cease-fire
and expand projects to reduce tension across the world's last Cold
War frontier.
(AP, 10/4/07)
2007 Oct 4, Militants holding
some 230 Pakistani troops killed three of the captive soldiers
before dawn in apparent retaliation for army raids on guerrilla
hide-outs near the Afghan border.
(AP, 10/4/07)
2007 Oct 4, Philippine
President Gloria Arroyo called for increased trade with India at the
start of a three-day visit.
(AP, 10/4/07)
2007 Oct 4, The government of
Somalia announced a crackdown on Islamic militants.
(WSJ, 10/6/07, p.A1)
2007 Oct 4, The head of South
Africa's main union body stood down from his office pending the
outcome of an investigation into the disappearance of a large cash
donation.
(AFP, 10/5/07)
2007 Oct 4, Spanish police
arrested almost the entire leadership of Batasuna as the banned
party held a meeting in the Basque town of Segura. The operation
confirmed the hard line against ETA by the Socialist government of
PM Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero since the armed group officially
ended a 15-month-old ceasefire in June.
(AP, 10/5/07)
2007 Oct 4, Prominent world
figures led by former President Carter and Desmond Tutu of South
Africa said they were shocked by the suffering in Darfur and
criticized Sudan's government in exceptionally harsh terms.
(AP, 10/4/07)
2007 Oct 4, A union official
said Zimbabwean teachers have called off a strike for better wages
after reaching a deal with the government.
(AFP, 10/4/07)
2008 Oct 4, The fight over
control of Wachovia intensified, as a judge temporarily agreed to
block the sale of the bank to Wells Fargo, Citigroup announced in a
news release. The next day the battle for control of Wachovia tilted
toward Wells Fargo as a state appeals court blocked a lower court
ruling that had favored rival bidder Citigroup.
(AP, 10/5/08)(AP, 10/6/08)
2008 Oct 4, In SF the 8th
annual Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival, backed by financier
Warren Hellman, continued or its 2nd day in Goldengate Park with an
audience of some 40,000. The next day the festival drew some 100,000
fans. SF also celebrated its annual LoveFest, begun in 2004, with a
downtown parade that drew tens of thousands of spectators.
(SSFC, 10/5/08, p.B1,B3)(SFC, 10/6/08, p.E1)
2008 Oct 4, In the Porter Ranch
area of Los Angeles County Karthik Rajaram (45), an unemployed
financial adviser despondent over his troubles, shot and killed his
wife (39), mother-in-law (69), and 3 sons (7,12,19), before taking
his own life.
(SFC, 10/7/08, p.A6)
2008 Oct 4, Luis Santos
(b.1986), a Concord, Ca., resident, was stabbed to death after a
party near the San Diego college campus. Esteban Nunez (19), the son
of former Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez, was later arrested along
with three others in connection with the stabbing death. In 2010
Esteban Nunez pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter and on June
25, 2010, he and a co-defendant were sentenced to 16 years in
prison.
(SFC, 5/6/10,
p.A4)(http://tinyurl.com/2eaav49)(SFC, 6/26/10, p.A4)
2008 Oct 4, The US coalition
says its forces have killed five militants in two operations
targeting al-Qaida and Taliban insurgents in eastern Afghanistan.
(AP, 10/4/08)
2008 Oct 4, The leaders of
Britain, France, Germany and Italy began meeting in Paris at a
summit on the world financial crisis threatening banks, growth and
jobs across the continent. They vowed to do all they could to
prevent Wall Street's turmoil from destabilizing their banking
systems. Germany's No. 2 commercial property lender, Hypo Real
Estate Holding AG, said its $48 billion rescue plan had unraveled
when private banks pulled out.
(AP, 10/5/08)
2008 Oct 4, A ceremony in
Diwaniyah marked the departure of Polish troops from Iraq. Poland
sent combat troops into Iraq as part of the US-led coalition and had
2,500 troops deployed there at its peak. The last 900 were being
pulled out this month. Two US helicopters collided while landing at
a base in Baghdad. One Iraqi soldier was killed.
(AP, 10/4/08)(AP, 10/5/08)
2008 Oct 4, In Mexico gunmen
killed Salvador Vegara, the mayor of Ixtapan de la Sal, a resort
town southwest of Mexico City. Vegara was in a car with two other
people when the gunmen opened fire from another vehicle. The bodies
of 5 men were found asphyxiated in a car in the eastern part of
Tijuana. The men were beaten and had their hands bound. The bodies
of two beheaded men were found wrapped in blankets on a road
elsewhere in the city. The heads were in black plastic bags nearby.
(AP, 10/4/08)
2008 Oct 4, In Sri Lanka heavy
fighting near the rebels' administrative capital of Kilinochchi left
20 guerrillas and 4 soldiers dead. Soldiers overran five rebel
bunkers in the Mullaitivu district, killing 5 rebels. 4 rebels and a
soldier were killed in clashes in the Vavuniya and Welioya regions.
(AP, 10/5/08)
2008 Oct 4, Taiwan's president
welcomed a US decision to sell the island up to $6.5 billion in
advanced weaponry, while China warned the move would damage
relations between Beijing and Washington.
(AP, 10/4/08)
2009 Oct 4, James Jones, US
national security adviser, said on CNN that Al-Qaida has fewer than
100 fighters operating in Afghanistan.
(SFC, 10/7/09, p.A3)(http://tinyurl.com/y8kax72)
2009 Oct 4, In San Francisco
Michael Bailey (26) of Baton Rouge, La., was shot and killed after
being lured with friends at the City Nights club by a woman, who set
them up for a robbery at the Alice Griffith public housing project.
On Dec 23 prosecutors charged 5 people in the killing of Bailey. 2
of the 5 suspects were still at large.
(SFC, 10/6/09, p.C1)(SFC, 12/24/09, p.C4)
2009 Oct 4, In New Hampshire
Kimberly Cates (42) was killed and her daughter, Jaimie (11) was
gravely wounded following a machete attack by Steven Spader during a
home invasion by 4 teenagers. Steven Spader (17) and Christopher
Gribble (19) both of Brookline, N.H., were charged with first-degree
murder. In 2010 Spader was found guilty of murder and other charges
and sentenced to life in prison.
(www.cbsnews.com/8301-504083_162-20013067-504083.html)(SFC,
11/10/10, p.A6)
2009 Oct 4, Algerian
coastguards picked up 45 Algerian would-be migrants to Europe at
three places off the coast west of Algiers.
(AFP, 10/4/09)
2009 Oct 4, Mercedes Sosa (74),
Argentine singer, died. Her music was banned after the generals
seized power in 1976. She had released over 70 albums and turned the
songs of others into great anthems of the left.
(Econ, 10/10/09, p.42)
2009 Oct 4, Grameenphone,
Bangladesh’s largest mobile phone firm, opened the largest IPO in
Bangladesh history. It aimed to raise $70 million. It was owned by
Telenor, a Norwegian telephone company, and Grameen Telecom, a
non-profit founded by Muhammad Yunus, a pioneer of microfinance.
(Econ, 10/17/09, p.88)
2009 Oct 4, Greeks cast ballots
in a snap general election likely to produce a change in government.
Voters angered by scandals and a foundering economy were expected to
reject the conservatives in favor of the opposition Socialists.
Socialist leader George Papandreou trounced the conservatives
under PM Costas Karamanlis (53) in an election focused on rescuing
the economy. Papandreou took 44% of the vote and won 160 of 300
parliamentary seats.
(AP, 10/4/09)(AP, 10/5/09)(SFC, 10/5/09,
p.A2)(Econ, 10/10/09, p.54)
2009 Oct 4, In Iraq a fuel
tanker exploded near a checkpoint outside of Baghdad International
Airport, along a route once known as the world's deadliest road
because of frequent attacks there during the height of the
insurgency. The cause of the fire was under investigation. The body
of Imad Elia (45), an employee at Kirkuk's health directorate, was
found dumped in a field south of Kirkuk. He was shot in the chest
and authorities believe the captors kept shooting into his body
after he was dead. Elia was kidnapped two days before, but his
family was unable to pay the ransom demands. At least 10 Christian
families have left Kirkuk in recent weeks, fearing kidnap-for-ransom
gangs that have turned their sights on Christians.
(AP, 10/4/09)(AP, 10/5/09)
2009 Oct 4, In Nigeria an
amnesty for militant in the Niger Delta officially expired.
(Econ, 10/24/09, p.57)
2009 Oct 4, North Korea told
visiting Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao that it was open to bilateral
and multilateral talks on its nuclear programs.
(AFP, 10/4/09)
2009 Oct 4, In Pakistan
security forces and special police battled militants in a firefight
that killed six of the insurgents, including two commanders, Noorul
Amin and Fazl-e-Rabbi. Police in Peshawar arrested Hukam Khan, a
militant who was involved in attacking and looting convoys taking
supplies to US and NATO forces in Afghanistan and recovered a
substantial quantity of stolen goods. Hakimullah Mehsud, the new
leader of the Taliban in Pakistan, met with reporters in the
country's tribal areas for the first time since winning control of
the militants. Mehsud vowed to strike back at Pakistan and the US
for the increasing number of drone attacks in the tribal areas along
the border with Afghanistan.
(AP, 10/4/09)(AP, 10/5/09)
2009 Oct 4, The UAR’s official
news agency said Sheik Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the president of
the United Arab Emirates, has signed a law regulating the
development of a civilian nuclear program, clearing the way for
construction of a nuclear power plant with help from the United
States.
(AP, 10/5/09)
2009 Oct 4, Pope Benedict
opened a special meeting of bishops on Africa by praising the
continent as the world's spiritual center but lamenting that it
risks being afflicted by materialism and religious fundamentalism.
(AP, 10/4/09)
2010 Oct 4, President Barack
Obama said the United States was facing an "untenable fiscal
situation" and would have to get serious about tackling its federal
deficit.
(Reuters, 10/5/10)
2010 Oct 4, US federal agents
spread out across Alabama to arrest 11 people on charges of
conspiracy, bribery and honest services fraud related to attempts to
legitimize bingo halls in 2009 and 2010.
(SFC, 10/5/10, p.A6)
2010 Oct 4, In New Jersey Craig
Mueller (45) killed his brother with sniper fire from a second-floor
window in the home they shared, took down a neighbor who came to the
victim's aid and turned the gun on himself.
(AP, 10/4/10)
2010 Oct 4, In Afghanistan 3
NATO service members were killed by bombings in the south and an
insurgent attack killed another in the east, raising the coalition's
death toll to 11 in the first four days of October. NATO announced
that a joint Afghan-coalition unit launched a night mission that
killed a senior Taliban leader named Farman and two other militants
in eastern Paktia province. A police convoy was ambushed in Khash
Rod district. 5 militants were killed, 3 others wounded and two
captured during a gunbattle. Habibullah Aghonzada, a former district
chief, was gunned down by assailants as he prayed at a packed mosque
in Kandahar city. 3 night time explosion in Kandahar City killed up
to 4 Afghan police officers. Noor Ahman, deputy mayor in Kandahar,
was killed in an insurgent attack. In the southwest 2 civilians
riding a motorcycle died when a roadside bomb exploded as they
passed. 2 others were killed by rockets in the country's east.
(AP, 10/4/10)(AP, 10/5/10)(SFC, 10/5/10,
p.A5)(AP, 10/6/10)
2010 Oct 4, In Belgium European
and Asian leaders opened a formal summit amid high security and
palace opulence, hoping to agree on commitments to keep the global
financial system on an even keel and find a better balance on the
Europe-dominated IMF.
(AP, 10/4/10)
2010 Oct 4, Britain’s treasury
chief George Osborne said payments to jobless families will be
capped and child benefits for high earners scrapped in a sweeping
overhaul of the country's welfare system.
(AP, 10/4/10)
2010 Oct 4, Millions of
commuters in London endured a grim journey to work after staff on
the Underground network walked out for the second time in a month,
sparking calls for tougher strike laws.
(AFP, 10/4/10)
2010 Oct 4, British biologist
Robert G. Edwards, whose contributions to the technology of in vitro
fertilization have made more than 4 million couples parents, was
awarded the 2010 Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine. Louise
Brown, the first test-tube baby, was born Jul 25, 1978.
(www.latimes.com/health/la-sci-nobel-medicine-20101005,0,7666490.story)
2010 Oct 4, Central African
Republic government troops regained control of Yalinga, a town held
by rebels since September 18. On Oct 6 a spokesman for the rebel
group, the Convention of Patriots for Justice and Peace (CPJP),
claimed its fighters still held the town in the unstable east of the
country.
(AFP, 10/6/10)
2010 Oct 4, Colombia's defense
minister Rodrigo Rivera said authorities have seized $29 million and
17 million euros in cash in a home in a poor district south of the
capital, Bogota. Rivera said the money belonged to drug traffickers
including Daniel "El Loco" Barrera. Authorities were offering a $2.7
million reward for Barrera's capture.
(AP, 10/5/10)
2010 Oct 4, A Cuban human
rights leader revealed the names of nine inmates apparently offered
early release by the government in exchange for accepting exile,
including some convicted of violent crimes such as hijacking,
assault and piracy.
(AP, 10/4/10)
2010 Oct 4, Ethiopian PM Meles
Zenawi was sworn in for another five-year term, almost five months
after controversial polls propelled his party to victory.
(AFP, 10/4/10)
2010 Oct 4, France's
Sanofi-Aventis launched an $18.5 billion hostile takeover offer for
Genzyme Corp., stepping up its effort to capture the US biotech
company's promising drugs for high cholesterol and lucrative
treatments for rare genetic disorders.
(AP, 10/4/10)
2010 Oct 4, In Hungary a
torrent of toxic red sludge from an alumina plant tore through
Kolontar and two other villages. The next day Hungary declared a
state of emergency in three counties. After some days 9 people were
reported killed and some 150 injured.
(Reuters, 10/5/10)(AFP, 10/8/10)(AP,
10/11/10)(Econ, 10/16/10, p.63)
2010 Oct 4, In Indonesia heavy
rain unleashed flash floods and mudslides, killing at least 91
people in West Papua province's village of Wasior. Rescuers
struggled to reach the area.
(AP, 10/5/10)(AP, 10/6/10)(AP, 10/7/10)
2010 Oct 4, In Iraq 5 people
were killed in violence in Baghdad and central Iraq, including a
roadside bomb targeting a junior minister.
(AFP, 10/4/10)
2010 Oct 4, Japan issued a
travel alert for Europe, joining the United States and Britain in
warning of a possible terrorist attack by al-Qaida or other groups,
but tourists appeared to be taking the mounting warnings in stride.
(AP, 10/4/10)
2010 Oct 4, Tokyo-based Toshiba
unveiled the world's first high definition liquid crystal display
3-D television that does not require special glasses, one of the
biggest consumer complaints about the technology.
(AP, 10/4/10)
2010 Oct 4, The Pakistani
Taliban claimed responsibility for a pre-dawn attack on tankers
carrying fuel to Afghanistan for US and other NATO forces, left
vulnerable on the side of the road after Pakistan shut down a key
border crossing. Some 20 trucks went up in flames and four people
were killed and seven injured. A US drone strike killed eight
militants, including five Germans, in North Waziristan, where
Western intelligence had traced an alleged plot to attack
high-profile targets in Europe.
(AP, 10/4/10)(AFP, 10/5/10)
2010 Oct 4, Arsonists torched a
mosque in a Palestinian village in the West Bank, scrawling
"revenge" on a wall in Hebrew and charring copies of the Muslim holy
book in a blaze that threatened to stoke new tensions over
deadlocked Mideast peacemaking.
(AP, 10/4/10)
2010 Oct 4, In the northern
Philippines motorcycle-riding gunmen killed a regional trial court
judge, prompting calls to exempt judges from a current gun ban.
(AP, 10/4/10)
2010 Oct 4, In Russia Yuri
Luzhkov, the former mayor of Moscow who was fired by Pres. Medvedev,
said in a published interview that he plans to form his own
political movement.
(AP, 10/4/10)
2010 Oct 4, Russia's VimpelCom
Ltd and Weather Investments, the investment company headed by
Egyptian telecom mogul Naguib Sawiris, said they are merging to form
what would become the world's fifth largest mobile telecommunication
service provider in a deal valued at over $6.5 billion. Under the
agreement VimpelCom, which is Russia's second largest mobile phone
service provider, would own via Weather 51.7 percent of Egypt's
Orascom Telecom and all of Italy's Wind Telecomunicazioni SpA, both
of which are headed by Sawiris.
(AP, 10/5/10)
2010 Oct 4, In Somalia two
women, a boy and two men were killed in Mogadishu by stray bullets
from fighting taking place between pro-government forces and
Islamist militants.
(AP, 10/4/10)
2010 Oct 4, An official said
Syria has accused a 19-year-old blogger who is in prison of being a
spy in the first comment from authorities on a case that sparked
calls by a leading rights group for the young woman's release. Tal
al-Mallohi was taken into custody in December. Her blog, known for
poetry and social commentary, focused mostly on the suffering of
Palestinians.
(AP, 10/4/10)
2010 Oct 4, It was reported
that Syria has ordered the arrest of 33 people over false testimony
given in the UN-backed probe into the assassination of Lebanese
ex-premier Rafiq Hariri. Observers said the warrants carried no
legal weight in Lebanon as the crime in question took place on
Lebanese soil and the complainant as well as most of the defendants
are Lebanese.
(AFP, 10/4/10)
2010 Oct 4, Vietnamese
officials said weekend floods triggered by heavy rains have
displaced thousands of villagers in central Vietnam, and left 3
people dead and 3 others missing.
(AP, 10/4/10)
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