^
Births
which occurred on a 13 November:
^
1940 The Jeep, prototype completed
(not yet under that name).
In
1939, the US Army asked the US's automobile manufacturers to submit
designs for a simple and versatile military vehicle. It would be two
full years before the official US declaration of war, but military
officials, who knew this declaration to be inevitable, recognized
the need for an innovative troop-transport vehicle for the global
battlefields of World War II. The American Bantam Car Company, a small
car manufacturer, submitted the first design approved by the army,
but the production contract was ultimately given to Willys-Overland,
a company that had a larger production capability and offered a lower
bid.
The Willys Jeep, as it
would become known during the war, was similar to the Bantam design,
and featured four-wheel drive, an open-air cab, and a rifle rack mounted
under the windshield. On this day, the first Willys-Overland Jeep
prototype is completed, and submitted to the US Army for approval.
One year later, with the US declaration of war, mass production of
the Willys-Overland Jeep began. By the war's end in 1945, some 600'000
Jeeps had rolled off the assembly lines and onto the battlefields
of Asia, Africa, and Europe.
The efficient and sturdy four-wheel drive Jeep became a symbol of
the US war effort: no obstacle could stop its advance. Somewhere along
the line the vehicle acquired the name "Jeep," likely evolving from
the initials G.P. for "general purchase" vehicle, and the nickname
stuck. In 1945, Willys-Overland introduced the first civilian Jeep
vehicle, the CJ-2A, the forefather of today's sport utility vehicles
(SUVs). |
1939 The Grapes of Wrath de John Steinbeck se
publica.
1934 Carl Sagan, científico americano.
1929 Jaime Gil de Biedma, escritor español.
1923
Roger Somville, British artist.
1923 Pío Cabanillas
Gallas, abogado y político español.
1914 Julio Caro
Baroja, historiador y antropólogo español.
1914
The brassiere, invented by Caresse Crosby, is patented.
1898
Fidencio Constantino Síntora “el Niño Fidencio”,
in Iramuco, Guanajuato state, Mexico. During his life, and even more so
after his death, he was and is still reputed as a holy worker of miracle
cures, whose seekers flock to hamlet El Espinazo (where he lived from 1921),
municipio de Mina, Nuevo León state, especially on the anniversaries of
his 19 October 1938 death there, and of his falsely assumed 19 March birthday..
1878 Max
Dehn, mathematician.
1876 Wilczynski,
mathematician.
^
1862 Mary Henrietta Kingsley, English explorer of
West and Central Africa and writer who died on 03 June 1900.
She was the first European to visit
parts of Gabon. Kingsley was born in London, the daughter of a medical
doctor who traveled extensively. Mary Henrietta Kingsley made her
first visit to Africa in 1893, following the deaths of her parents.
She sailed to the Gulf of Guinea port of Calabar, on the coast of
what is now Nigeria, and from there traveled inland. From the Niger
River region to the north, she traveled southward as far as the lower
Congo River region in what is now northern Angola. Throughout the
trip she studied African religious practices.
She returned to England in 1894. Kingsley went again to West Africa
later that year, stopping first on the coast of what are now Cameroon
and Gabon. In Gabon she traveled by steamboat up the Ogooué River.
At Lambaréné, she continued her river journey by canoe into the Great
Forest region, territory that was then seldom visited by Europeans.
After studying the life and culture of the region's Fang people, she
returned to the Cameroon coast. Before her return to England in 1895,
she climbed Mount Cameroon, the area's highest peak (4095 m).
Kingsley made her final trip to Africa
in 1899, planning to visit West Africa again, but the outbreak that
year of the Boer War in South Africa led her to travel there instead.
While working in Cape Town as a nurse caring for Boer prisoners of
war, she contracted typhoid fever and died at the age of 38. Kingsley
wrote several books about her experiences in Africa, including Travels
in West Africa (1897), West African Studies (1899),
and The Story of West Africa (1899). |
1860 Antonio Zoppi, Italian artist who died on 28 April
1926.
1856 Louis D Brandeis, Massachusetts, the
first Jew to be a US Supreme Court Justice (1916-1939). He died on 05 October
1941.
1854 maréchal Lyautey, à Nancy
^
1850 Robert Louis Balfour
Stevenson, Scottish novelist and poet, author of Treasure
Island and Dr.
Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, in Scotland.
Stevenson studied civil engineering and law, but decided to pursue
a career as a writer and began publishing essays and travel pieces.
His decision alienated his parents, who expected him to follow the
family trade of lighthouse keeping. The family wasn't reconciled for
years.
In 1876, Stevenson fell
in love with an American woman named Fanny Vandegrift Osbourne, who
was separated from her husband. When she returned to San Francisco
in 1879, Stevenson followed her. The couple married and returned to
Scotland in 1880. Stevenson published a collection of essays in 1881,
and Treasure
Island, one of his most popular books, in 1883. In 1885,
he published the first version of the popular nursery-rhyme book A
Child's Garden of Verses. In 1846, he published Kidnapped,
and in 1886 he published The
Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.
In 1888, the family set off for the South Seas, seeking a healthier
climate for Stevenson's tuberculosis. The family finally settled in
Samoa, where Stevenson died on 03 December 1894.
— D'abord
étudiant en droit, il se met ensuite à écrire des livres pour enfants
dont L'Île au Trésor, un vrai chef d'oeuvre. Puis, c'est
Le cas du docteur Jekyll et de Mr Hyde. En raison de sa santé,
il se retire dans l'île de Samoa, dans le Pacifique, où il devient
l'ami des indigènes, et où il mourra.
STEVENSON ONLINE: |
|
Treasure Island
Treasure
Island
Treasure
Island
Treasure Island
Treasure Island
Kidnapped
Kidnapped
Across
the Plains
Across
the Plains
The Art of Writing
Ballads
The Black Arrow
Catriona
Essays of Travel
Fables
In the South Seas
An
Inland Voyage
An
Inland Voyage
Underwoods
Vailima Letters |
Lay
Morals, and Other Papers
The
Master of Ballantrae
The
Master of Ballantrae
Memoir of Fleeming Jenkin
Memories and Portraits
The Merry Men
Moral Emblems
New Arabian Nights
New Poems
Prince
Otto: A Romance
Prince
Otto: A Romance
Records of a Family of Engineers
The Silverado Squatters
The
Silverado Squatters
Songs of Travel and Other Verses
St. Ives
Edinburgh: Picturesque Notes
The Beach of Falesa
Familiar Studies of Men and Books
Island Nights' Entertainments |
The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
The
Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
A Child's Garden of Verses
A
Child's Garden of Verses, and Underwoods; with Life of R. L. Stevenson
by Alexander Harvey
Tales and Fantasies (includes The Story of a Lie)
Travels with a Donkey in the Cevennes
Virginibus Puerisque and Other Papers
The Weir of Hermiston: An Unfinished Romance
A
Footnote to History: Eight Years of Trouble in Samoa
A
Footnote to History: Eight Years of Trouble in Samoa
The Pocket R.L.S., Favourite Passages from Stevenson
Prayers Written at Vailima, and A Lowden Sabbath Morn
The
Letters of R. L. Stevenson, volume 1 , volume
2
co-author of:
The
Dynamiter
The
Dynamiter
The Ebb-Tide
The Wrecker
The Wrong Box
The Plays of W. E. Henley and R. L. Stevenson |
1838 Joseph F Smith 6th President of Mormon church
1832 Eugenio Montero Ríos, político español.
1831 James Maxwell Edinburgh Scot, physicist (Treatise on Electricity)
1819 Estanislao Figueras, político español.
1792 Edward John Trelawney, English traveler and author
(Adv of Younger Son). He died on 13 August 1881.
^
1761 John Moore, British
general who died in action on 16 January 1809.
He was born in Glasgow, the son of John
Moore [1729-1802], a doctor and writer. A career soldier he joined
the British Army in 1776, an ensign in the 51st Foot then based on
Minorca. He first saw action in 1778 during the American Revolutionary
War under the 8th Duke of Hamilton. In 1783 he returned to Britain
and in 1784 he was elected to Parliament for Lanark, Selkirk, Peebles
and Linlithgow.
In 1787 he was
made a Major and joined the 60th briefly before returning to the 51st.
In 1791 his unit was assigned to the Mediterranean and he was involved
in campaigning in Corsica and was wounded at Calvi. He was given a
Colonelcy and became Adjutant-General to Sir Charles Stuart. Personal
problems in Corsica led to him being reassigned to Sir Ralph
Abercromby [07 Oct 1734 – 28 Mar 1801] in the West Indies.
In 1798 he was made a Major-General and served in Ireland.
In 1799 he commanded a brigade in the expedition to Egmont-op-Zee,
his force was badly defeated and he was seriously injured himself.
He recovered to lead the 52nd regiment during their campaigns in Egypt.
He returned to England in 1803 to head the training of the army at
Shorncliffe camp. In 1804 Moore was knighted and promoted to Lieutenant-General.
In 1806 he returned to active duty in the Mediterranean and then in
1808 in the Baltic to assist the Swedish. Disagreements with Gustav
IV Adolf [01 Nov 1778 – 07 Feb 1837 ] led to him being soon
sent home where he was ordered to Portugal.
Moore took comand of the British forces in the Iberian peninsula following
the return of more senior commanders to Britain to face an inquiry
over the Convention of Cintra. When Napoleon arrived in Spain with
200'000 men Moore was forced to retreat northwards over winter to
La Coruña. The British forces rallied to hold the town while
they were evacuated and Moore was killed during the battle of La
Coruña (16 Jan 1809) (at the time known in English as Corunna)
and was buried in the ramparts of the town. When the French took the
town a monument was built over his grave by the orders of Soult [29
Mar 1760 – 26 Nov 1851]. The
monument was rebuilt and made more permanent in 1811.
—
Commissioned at 15, Sir John Moore served in the US War of Independence
and within eight years was a member of parliament. In 1794 he was
involved with the British backing of Paoli's conquest of Corsica and
then served in West Indies. Becoming a major general in 1798, Moore
then took part in operations in Holland and Egypt, where he was a
leading player in defeating the French at the second battle of Aboukir.
Sir John Moore's main contribution,
however, to Britain was his training of light infantry and his military
changes earned him a lieutenant generalcy. He became the commander
of British troops in Portugal following the removal of Sir Harry Burrard
for his signing of the Convention of Cintra and advanced in to Spain
to back local forces against the French. Moving to attack the dispersed
French forces he found himself cut off from his supply lines and began
a horrific retreat to La
Coruña. There he organised a skillful rearguard battle that kept
the French from attacking his embarking army but he was mortally wounded
during the engagement. His French counterpart, Marshal Soult,
was so impressed by Moore that he ordered a monument erected to his
fallen foe as a sign of respect.
|
^
1595 Georg Wilhelm, who became
elector of Brandenburg in 1619, and died on 01 December 1640.
Though a Calvinist, George William
was persuaded by his Roman Catholic adviser Adam von Schwarzenberg
to stay out of the struggle between the Holy Roman emperor and the
German Protestant princes. His neutrality won him the hostility of
both sides. In 1631 Gustav II Adolf [19 Dec 1594 – 16
Nov 1632] of Sweden occupied Brandenburg, forcing the elector
to join the Protestants, but, after the Swedish defeat by an imperial
army at Nördlingen (1634), George William withdrew from the conflict.
|
^
1567 Maurice, Prince Of Orange, Count Of Nassau,
hereditary stadholder of the United Provinces of
the Netherlands, who died on 23 April 1625. He developped military
strategy, tactics, and engineering that made the Dutch army the most
modern of his time in Europe.
Maurice
was the second son of William I the Silent [24 Apr 1533 – 10
Jul 1584]. Although known as the prince of Orange, he did not actually
inherit that principality until 1618, on the death of his elder half
brother. A child of William's disastrous marriage to the schizophrenic
Anna of Saxony and delicate as a youth, Maurice was shuffled from
place to place during the years of his father's struggle against Spanish
tyranny. His boyhood was further overshadowed by the desertion and
betrayal of his father by former allies and finally by William's assassination.
It was hardly surprising that these experiences deepened his natural
reserve, leaving him suspicious of friends as well as of enemies.
At the time of his father's death,
Maurice was still a student at the newly founded University of Leiden,
but the States of Holland swiftly invested him as stadholder (chief
executive). He later also became stadholder of Zeeland, Utrecht, Overijssel,
and Gelderland. The years 1584–1586 were critical. English help
for the Netherlands revolt had finally materialized in the person
of the Earl of Leicester, who headed an English expeditionary force,
temporarily strengthening the provinces' defenses but imperilling
the cause of the rebels by political blunders. Fortunately for Maurice,
he had the assistance of the master politician Johan van Oldenbarnevelt
[14 Sep 1547 – 13 May 1619], landsadvocaat (pensionary) of Holland.
With Maurice's cousin and loyal supporter, William Louis [13 Mar 1560
– 13 Jul 1620], stadholder of Friesland, Oldenbarnevelt and
Maurice formed a powerful triumvirate. Under the three, the northern
provinces steadily consolidated their position against Spain, grew
progressively richer by trade and shipping, and prepared themselves
for independence.
Oldenbarnevelt
took control of domestic and foreign affairs; Maurice, as federal
commander in chief, attended to military matters with the aid of William
Louis. Mathematics, ballistics, and military engineering had fascinated
Maurice since childhood; now he was in a position to put his theories
to the test. His first task was to reduce the army's size and improve
its organization. He did his best to remove the perpetual curse of
all contemporary armies, mutiny, by ensuring that his soldiers were
properly and promptly paid, equipped with better arms, given improved
and more regular training, and instructed in the science of fortification
and siege warfare. The secret of Maurice's military planning was to
bring to the art of siege warfare (the dominant type of warfare of
his century) those habits of steady, close observation and attention
to detail so characteristic of the Dutch in all the arts and sciences
of the time. He was also greatly helped by the advice of Simon Stevin
[1548-1620], the great mathematician and philosopher of Bruges, then
living in Holland, whose lectures attracted his attention.
The fruits of his efforts were harvested in the 1590s. Beginning with
Breda (the Nassau family seat), Maurice captured one enemy stronghold
after another. In a series of actions, remarkable less for their audacity
than for cool and systematic planning, the Spanish front lines were
pushed back to the north, east, and south until the republic's territory
began to assume something very much like its modern shape. Joyfully
the Holland towns paid homage to their savior; Maurice was hailed
(literally) as the engineer of victory.
He had less success in the south. With great reluctance, Maurice was
persuaded by the impatient Oldenbarnevelt to try to reunite the northern
and southern Netherlands, divided by Spanish conquests. His attempt
to invade Flanders and rouse it to repel its Spanish conquerors failed
completely. After an initial victory at Nieuwpoort in 1601, Maurice
was compelled to withdraw. Later, Oostende had to be surrendered.
Oldenbarnevelt's optimism had proved totally misplaced. The southerners
were apathetic, even hostile, to the appeals of the Hollanders. Even
Maurice, with his doubts about the wisdom of undertaking such a campaign,
was taken by surprise by its outcome. The defeat revealed that there
was one department of military reform he had overlooked, intelligence
{in this he was not the last}. Unwillingly, and with bitterness, Maurice
had to bow to facts. He agreed first to an armistice (1607) and then
a 12-year truce with Spain (1609). The division of the Netherlands
was to continue.
The problems of
war had brought out the strength of Maurice's character. An English
visitor noted that he was “of great forwardness, good presence
and courage, flaxen haired, endued with a singular wit.” With
growing confidence, he stood up for his own interests as well as those
of his people against the English queen, Elizabeth I, and her emissaries
as well as those of France. As Maurice's stature grew to match his
responsibilities, he increasingly resented the continual interference
by Oldenbarnevelt in military matters. The unsuccessful foray into
Flanders was a special cause of friction, and the long siege of Oostende
put a heavy strain on their relations. Estrangement was made worse
by the negotiations for the truce; Maurice suspected Oldenbarnevelt
of sacrificing Dutch independence in his anxiety for a peace with
Spain, while Oldenbarnevelt suspected Maurice of attempting to acquire
sovereign power.
During the decade
after the truce, the partnership turned into a war, as yet private
and undeclared, for supremacy. Maurice's mastery of strategy again
stood him in good stead. While Oldenbarnevelt was more deeply drawn
into the bitter theological politics of the times, Maurice patiently
waited for his moment, quietly consolidating his support in Zeeland
and Amsterdam. Oldenbarnevelt, confident of his power in the Holland
states, emerged as the champion of Erastianism
(which advocated dominance of the state over the church) and of those
moderate Protestants who wanted religious toleration, in opposition
to the intolerance of the orthodox Dutch Calvinists.
It was 1617 before Maurice came out publicly as protector of the Calvinists
(the so-called Counter-Remonstrants). When Oldenbarnevelt obtained
authority for his supporters in the towns to raise levies of professional
soldiers (waardgelders), Maurice acted swiftly. Marching to the Brill
(in South Holland) on 28 and 29 September 1617, he disbanded the levies.
Next, he took advantage of his legal right to approve appointments
in the local governments in order to purge each vroedschap (council)
of his opponents. By the summer of 1618 he had forcibly dismissed
all the waardgelders. It then only remained to remove Oldenbarnevelt.
On 29 August 1618, the old statesman was arrested, and on 13 May 1619,
he was executed. The long political trial was marked by persistent
bias, petty spite, and inexcusable cruelty and injustice. Maurice
did not himself dictate the sentence, but he ostentatiously refrained
from exercising his prerogative of pardon, and he personally endorsed
the demand for the probably illegal forfeiture of Oldenbarnevelt's
property. The trial and execution of his old ally remain a blot upon
his character and career.
After
this victory, Maurice wielded unprecedented power. In all but name
the Stadholder was king. Yet, having forged his alliance with orthodox
Calvinism, created an Orangist Party, and packed local, provincial,
and federal offices with his supporters, Maurice pressed his “revolution”
no further. In 1621 he ended with a flourish the truce with the Spanish
that he had detested for 12 long years. Ironically, the Calvinist
hero was quickly faced by a Habsburg threat so dangerous that he was
compelled to conclude an alliance with Roman Catholic France. Just
as he was dying (of a liver complaint), Breda, the scene of his first
spectacular victory against the Spanish, was again being lost to the
enemy, and it surrendered on 02 June 1625. Diego Velázquez
[06 Jun 1599 – 06 Aug 1660] made it the subject of his famous
painting La
Rendición de Breda, known as Las Lanzas (1635,
307x367cm)
The last 10 years of
his life added nothing to Maurice's reputation. He was a great soldier
but not a great statesman. In peace he had few of the sympathetic
qualities that had drawn men to his father to settle issues by advice
and discussion. His greatest claim to fame was his repulsion of the
Spanish from 1590 to 1609 and the extension and securing of the frontiers
of the Dutch Republic. Yet his achievement fell short of reunifying
the whole of the Netherlands, and his vindictive pursuit of Oldenbarnevelt
helped to divide the republic permanently into Orangists and anti-Orangists.
For the latter, Oldenbarnevelt's martyrdom provided a focus and a
rallying cry down to the French Revolution.
Maurice's was an involuted and contradictory character. The circumstances
of his childhood left him vulnerable to fears, suspicions, and resentments;
yet he was also a man of great courage, capable of magnanimity on
the battlefield. His natural caution did not inhibit his capacity
for swift and decisive action. Coldly logical, he enjoyed a joke,
albeit a sarcastic one. His lack of passion may have prevented him
from marrying but did not prevent him from fathering a brood of illegitimate
children.
— See the portrait Maurice,
Prince of Orange (1620) by Miereveld.
|
1486 Johann Albert Eck, German theologian who died on 10
February 1543.
1312 Edward III, his name as king
of England from 1327, who won victories against such renowned foes as Baybars,
Llewellyn, and Wallace. Edward III died on 21 June 1377.
^
0354 Saint
Augustine of Hippo Numidia (Algeria), convert/Christian
philosopher, greatest of the Early Latin Church Fathers. Of his many
writings, two have endured: "Confessions" describes the circumstances
leading to his conversion to the Christian faith, and "The City of
God" was written as a Christian view of the sacking of Rome by the
Visigoths in the year 410.
Aurelius
Augustinus, qui sera plus connu sous le nom de saint Augustin, nait
à Thagaste, dans l'actuelle Algérie.
In
North Africa in the fourth century when the Roman empire was still
powerful, a Christian girl named Monica and her non-Christian husband,
had a son named Augustine who was born on this day. Augustine was
destined to become one of the most important church leaders of all
time. As a growing boy, his mother instructed him in the ways of the
Lord, but Augustine ignored her. At sixteen he went to Carthage and
began living an immoral life. Although Augustine ignored his mother's
warning to avoid evil, he could not escape her constant prayers that
God would draw Augustine back to Himself.
In early manhood, Augustine became a Manichaean, a religion which
said that Good and Evil, Light and Darkness are in an eternal war.
Augustine liked this religion because it did not require him to live
a moral life. In his late twenties, however, he felt growing dissatisfaction
with his philosophy. He crossed the sea to Rome, studied Plato, and
began teaching rhetoric, but he became increasingly skeptical of ever
finding the truth.
Augustine's
mother Monica followed him to Italy and she attended church in Milan.
The pastor there was the famous Ambrose. He befriended Augustine and
helped him to understand the Bible. One day, after reading Paul's
epistle to the Romans, Augustine accepted Jesus Christ. In later years,
Augustine looked back on his life and saw clearly that his salvation
was the direct result of his mother's constant prayer. At the time
of his conversion, neither Augustine nor Monica could have foreseen
that Augustine's own ministry and influence would continue over the
centuries, become foundational for Middle Ages Catholicism and even
influence men such as Luther and Calvin in reforming and strengthening
the church. His classic writings The Confessions, and The
City of God are still widely published and read to this day.
Saint Augustine died on 28 August 430.
SAINT AUGUSTINE ONLINE: |
|
Confessiones
de
Civitate Dei
de
Trinitate
de
Dialectica
de
Fide et Symbolo
de
Catechizandis Rudibus
Sermones
Regula
Sancti Augustini |
The City of God
Confessions
Confessions
Confessions
Dialectics
Enchiridion
Expositions on the Book of Psalms
On Christian Doctrine |
|
1986
US violates Iran arms boycott 
1862
2002
Irv Rubin, 57, chairman of the terrorist 
