This Day in History: 07/20
1881: Sitting Bull surrenders
1914: Caillaux trial begins in Paris
1944: Assassination plot against Hitler fails
1951: King of Jordan assassinated
1960: Ceylon chooses world's first woman PM
1969: Armstrong Walks on the Moon
1974: Turkey invades Cyprus
1976: Viking 1 lands on Mars
1984: A serial-killing couple is apprehended
2003: BBC admits Kelly was 'main source'
1881: SITING BULL SURRENDERS
Five years after General George A. Custer's infamous defeat at the Battle of Little Bighorn, Hunkpapa Teton Sioux leader Sitting Bull surrenders to the U.S. Army, which promises amnesty for him and his followers. Sitting Bull had been a major leader in the 1876 Sioux uprising that resulted in the death of Custer and 264 of his men at Little Bighorn. Pursued by the U.S. Army after the Indian victory, he escaped to Canada with his followers.
Born in the Grand River Valley in what is now South Dakota, Sitting Bull gained early recognition in his Sioux tribe as a capable warrior and a man of vision. In 1864, he fought against the U.S. Army under General Alfred Sully at Killdeer Mountain and thereafter dedicated himself to leading Sioux resistance against white encroachment. He soon gained a following in not only his own tribe but in the Cheyenne and Arapaho Native American groups as well. In 1867, he was made principal chief of the entire Sioux nation.
In 1873, in what would serve as a preview of the Battle of Little Bighorn three years later, an Indian military coalition featuring the leadership of Sitting Bull skirmished briefly with Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer. In 1876, Sitting Bull was not a strategic leader in the U.S. defeat at Little Bighorn, but his spiritual influence inspired Crazy Horse and the other victorious Indian military leaders. He subsequently fled to Canada, but in 1881, with his people starving, he returned to the United States and surrendered.
He was held as a prisoner of war at Fort Randall in South Dakota territory for two years and then was permitted to live on Standing Rock Reservation straddling North and South Dakota territory. In 1885, he traveled for a season with Buffalo Bill Cody's Wild West show and then returned to Standing Rock. In 1889, the spiritual proclamations of Sitting Bull influenced the rise of the "Ghost Dance," an Indian religious movement that proclaimed that the whites would disappear and the dead Indians and buffalo would return.
His support of the Ghost Dance movement had brought him into disfavor with government officials, and on December 15, 1890, Indian police burst into Sitting Bull's house in the Grand River area of South Dakota and attempted to arrest him. There is confusion as to what happened next. By some accounts, Sitting Bull's warriors shot the leader of the police, who immediately turned and gunned down Sitting Bull. In another account, the police were instructed by Major James McLaughlin, director of the Standing Rock Sioux Agency, to kill the chief at any sign of resistance. Whatever the case, Sitting Bull was fatally shot and died within hours. The Indian police hastily buried his body at Fort Yates within the Standing Rock Reservation. In 1953, his remains were moved into Mobridge, South Dakota, where a granite shaft marks his resting place.
SOURCE: http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/sitting-bull-surrenders
1914: CAILLAUX TRIAL BEGINS IN PARIS
As war threatened in the Balkans, the attention of much of the French people focuses instead on the sensational case of Madame Henriette Caillaux, whose trial for the murder of Gaston Calmette, editor of the newspaper Le Figaro, opens on July 20, 1914, in Paris.
Joseph Caillaux, a left-wing politician, had been appointed prime minister of France in 1911. He was forced out of office the following year, however, after he was accused of being too accommodating to Germany. Chosen again as a cabinet minister in 1913, the relatively pacifist Caillaux was under almost constant attack from the right. In his personal life, Caillaux was relatively indiscreet, parading his mistresses around during his life as a bachelor and carrying on a secret love affair with one of them, his future second wife, while he was still married to his first wife.
Although Caillaux was an old friend of Raymond Poincare, elected president of France in March 1913, he and Poincare had become political adversaries even before World War I began the following summer. Shortly after his election, Poincare supported legislation that would increase the required length of military duty in France from two to three years, a measure that seemed necessary to many as a way of offsetting Germany's enormous population advantage-70 million to 40 million-in the case of a war. Despite opposition from Caillaux and other liberals, including the country's Socialist leader, Jean Jaures, the bill passed in August 1913. When Caillaux continued to attack it, he became the object of a major smear campaign led by Gaston Calmette, the most powerful journalist in France and the editor of the leading right-wing journal Le Figaro.
Beginning in December 1913, Calmette claimed he could and would publicize certain documents that would prove Caillaux, while serving as minister of finance in 1911, had obstructed justice in a financial scandal in which he may have been personally involved. Moreover, Calmette threatened to publish love letters exchanged between Caillaux and his second wife, Henriette, while he was still married to his first wife.
When Calmette threatened to publish intercepted wire communications supposedly showing Caillaux's sympathy to Germany-a claim that spurred a protest by the German government against the interception of its official correspondence-Caillaux went to Poincare and asked him to prevent Calmette from revealing the documents. If Poincare declined to do so, Caillaux pointed out, he himself would make public intercepted cables in his possession that revealed the French president's secret negotiations with the Vatican, a revelation that would certainly anger Poincare's secular and anticlerical supporters. The French government subsequently issued an official denial of the existence of the German cables, but Calmette continued to threaten to publish Caillaux's love letters.
On March 16, 1914, Henriette Caillaux took a taxi to the offices of Le Figaro in the rue Drouot. After waiting for an hour to see the chief editor, she walked with him into his private office and fired six shots at him from her automatic pistol. Struck by four of the bullets, Calmette died that evening.
While to the east, in Vienna and Berlin, plans proceeded that would begin the First World War, Parisians-and many others in France-were riveted by the Caillaux affair, and completely unaware of the imminent crisis in Europe. In addition to being a sensational crime, the case was also a clash between left- and right-wing politics in France. Madame Caillaux's trial for Calmette's murder began July 20, 1914. Eight days later, the jury acquitted Madame Caillaux, on the grounds that hers was a crime passionnel. The same day, July 28, Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia.
1944: ASSASSINATION PLOT AGAINST HITLER FAILS
On this day in 1944, Hitler cheats death as a bomb planted in a briefcase goes off, but fails to kill him.
High German officials had made up their minds that Hitler must die. He was leading Germany in a suicidal war on two fronts, and assassination was the only way to stop him. A coup d'etat would follow, and a new government in Berlin would save Germany from complete destruction at the hands of the Allies. That was the plan. This was the reality: Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg, chief of the army reserve, had been given the task of planting a bomb during a conference that was to be held at Berchtesgaden, but was later moved to Hitler's "Wolf's Lair, a command post at Rastenburg, Prussia. Stauffenberg planted the explosive in a briefcase, which he placed under a table, then left quickly. Hitler was studying a map of the Eastern front as Colonel Heinz Brandt, trying to get a better look at the map, moved the briefcase out of place, farther away from where the Fuhrer was standing. At 12:42 p.m. the bomb went off. When the smoke cleared, Hitler was wounded, charred, and even suffered the temporary paralysis of one arm-but he was very much alive. (He was even well enough to keep an appointment with Benito Mussolini that very afternoon. He gave Il Duce a tour of the bomb site.) Four others present died from their wounds.
As the bomb went off, Stauffenberg was making his way to Berlin to carry out Operation Valkyrie, the overthrow of the central government. In Berlin, he and co-conspirator General Olbricht arrested the commander of the reserve army, General Fromm, and began issuing orders for the commandeering of various government buildings. And then the news came through from Herman Goering-Hitler was alive. Fromm, released from custody under the assumption he would nevertheless join the effort to throw Hitler out of office, turned on the conspirators. Stauffenberg and Olbricht were shot that same day. Once Hitler figured out the extent of the conspiracy (it reached all the way to occupied French), he began the systematic liquidation of his enemies. More than 7,000 Germans would be arrested (including evangelical pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer), and up to 5,000 would wind up dead-either executed or as suicides. Hitler, Himmler, and Goering took an even firmer grip on Germany and its war machine. Hitler became convinced that fate had spared him-"I regard this as a confirmation of the task imposed upon me by Providence"-and that "nothing is going to happen to me... [T]he great cause which I serve will be brought through its present perils and...everything can be brought to a good end."
SOURCE: http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/assassination-plot-against-hitler-fails
1951: KING OF JORDAN ASSASSINATED
While entering a mosque in the Jordanian sector of east Jerusalem, King Abdullah of Jordan is assassinated by a Palestinian nationalist.
Abdullah was a member of the Hashemites, an Arab dynasty said to be directly descended from the Prophet Muhammad. During World War I, with British support, Abdullah led an Arab revolt against Turkish rule in Jordan. In 1921, the British made him the emir of Transjordan, and with Jordanian independence in 1946 he became the country's monarch. Two years later, he led his armies against the newly declared state of Israel, and Jordan annexed east Jerusalem along with the portions of Palestine now known as the West Bank. In 1951, his efforts to create an Arab federation under Hashemite rule ended when he was assassinated in Jerusalem.
After a brief sojourn on the Jordanian throne, Abdullah's son was declared mentally unfit to rule and was replaced by Abdullah's grandson, Hussein bin Talal. King Hussein ruled until he died in 1999; he was succeeded by his son, Abdullah.
SOURCE: http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/king-of-jordan-assassinated
1960: CEYLON CHOOSES WORLD'S FIRST WOMAN PM
1960: Ceylon chooses world's first woman PM
Mrs Sirimavo Bandaranaike, widow of Ceylon's assassinated prime minister Solomon Bandaranaike, has become the world's first woman prime minister.
Her Sri Lanka Freedom Party won a resounding victory in the general election taking 75 out of 150 seats.
Mrs Bandaranaike only entered politics after her husband was shot by an extremist Buddhist on 26 September 1959.
She has become known as the "weeping widow" for frequently bursting into tears during the election campaign and vowing to continue her late husband's socialist policies.
This week's election was called after Dudley Senanayake's United National Party failed to produce a working majority after winning elections in March.
Aristocratic by birth
Mrs Bandaranaike was born into the Ceylon aristocracy and her husband was a landowner. She was educated by Roman Catholic nuns at St Bridget's school in the capital, Colombo, and is a practising Buddhist.
She married in 1940 aged 24 and has three children - and until her husband's death seemed content in her role as mother and retiring wife.
Her SLFP aims to represent the "little man" although its policies during the campaign were not clear.
Mr Bandaranaike attributed her success to the "people's love and respect" for her late husband and urged her supporters to practise "simple living, decorum and dignity".
Her husband came to power in 1955, eight years after independence, and declared himself a Buddhist which appealed to nationalists. But his government was wracked by infighting among Sinhalese and Tamils and lacked direction.
Mrs Bandaranaike inherits a country in a state of flux and her party's proposed programme of nationalisation may bring her into conflict with foreign interests in commodities like tea, rubber and oil.
SOURCE: http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/july/20/newsid_2784000/2784527.stm
1969: ARMSTRONG WALKS ON THE MOON
At 10:56 p.m. EDT, American astronaut Neil Armstrong, 240,000 miles from Earth, speaks these words to more than a billion people listening at home: "That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind." Stepping off the lunar landing module Eagle, Armstrong became the first human to walk on the surface of the moon.
The American effort to send astronauts to the moon has its origins in a famous appeal President John F. Kennedy made to a special joint session of Congress on May 25, 1961: "I believe this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to Earth." At the time, the United States was still trailing the Soviet Union in space developments, and Cold War-era America welcomed Kennedy's bold proposal.
In 1966, after five years of work by an international team of scientists and engineers, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) conducted the first unmanned Apollo mission, testing the structural integrity of the proposed launch vehicle and spacecraft combination. Then, on January 27, 1967, tragedy struck at Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, when a fire broke out during a manned launch-pad test of the Apollo spacecraft and Saturn rocket. Three astronauts were killed in the fire.
Despite the setback, NASA and its thousands of employees forged ahead, and in October 1968, Apollo 7, the first manned Apollo mission, orbited Earth and successfully tested many of the sophisticated systems needed to conduct a moon journey and landing. In December of the same year, Apollo 8 took three astronauts to the dark side of the moon and back, and in March 1969 Apollo 9 tested the lunar module for the first time while in Earth orbit. Then in May, the three astronauts of Apollo 10 took the first complete Apollo spacecraft around the moon in a dry run for the scheduled July landing mission.
At 9:32 a.m. on July 16, with the world watching, Apollo 11 took off from Kennedy Space Center with astronauts Neil Armstrong, Edwin Aldrin Jr., and Michael Collins aboard. Armstrong, a 38-year-old civilian research pilot, was the commander of the mission. After traveling 240,000 miles in 76 hours, Apollo 11 entered into a lunar orbit on July 19. The next day, at 1:46 p.m., the lunar module Eagle, manned by Armstrong and Aldrin, separated from the command module, where Collins remained. Two hours later, the Eagle began its descent to the lunar surface, and at 4:18 p.m. the craft touched down on the southwestern edge of the Sea of Tranquility. Armstrong immediately radioed to Mission Control in Houston, Texas, a famous message: "The Eagle has landed."
At 10:39 p.m., five hours ahead of the original schedule, Armstrong opened the hatch of the lunar module. As he made his way down the lunar module's ladder, a television camera attached to the craft recorded his progress and beamed the signal back to Earth, where hundreds of millions watched in great anticipation. At 10:56 p.m., Armstrong spoke his famous quote, which he later contended was slightly garbled by his microphone and meant to be "that's one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind." He then planted his left foot on the gray, powdery surface, took a cautious step forward, and humanity had walked on the moon.
"Buzz" Aldrin joined him on the moon's surface at 11:11 p.m., and together they took photographs of the terrain, planted a U.S. flag, ran a few simple scientific tests, and spoke with President Richard M. Nixon via Houston. By 1:11 a.m. on July 21, both astronauts were back in the lunar module and the hatch was closed. The two men slept that night on the surface of the moon, and at 1:54 p.m. the Eagle began its ascent back to the command module. Among the items left on the surface of the moon was a plaque that read: "Here men from the planet Earth first set foot on the moon--July 1969 A.D--We came in peace for all mankind."
At 5:35 p.m., Armstrong and Aldrin successfully docked and rejoined Collins, and at 12:56 a.m. on July 22 Apollo 11 began its journey home, safely splashing down in the Pacific Ocean at 12:51 p.m. on July 24.
There would be five more successful lunar landing missions, and one unplanned lunar swing-by, Apollo 13. The last men to walk on the moon, astronauts Eugene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt of the Apollo 17 mission, left the lunar surface on December 14, 1972. The Apollo program was a costly and labor intensive endeavor, involving an estimated 400,000 engineers, technicians, and scientists, and costing $24 billion (close to $100 billion in today's dollars). The expense was justified by Kennedy's 1961 mandate to beat the Soviets to the moon, and after the feat was accomplished ongoing missions lost their viability.
SOURCE: http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/armstrong-walks-on-moon
1974: TURKEY INVADES CYPRUS
1974: Turkey invades Cyprus
Thousands of Turkish troops have invaded northern Cyprus after last-minute talks in the Greek capital, Athens, failed to reach a solution.
Tension has been running high in the Mediterranean island since a military coup five days ago in which President Archbishop Makarios, a Greek Cypriot, was deposed.
The coup led to fears among the Turkish Cypriot community that the Greek-backed military rulers would ignore their rights and press for unification for Cyprus with Greece or enosis.
Archbishop Makarios became the republic's first elected president in 1959 only after agreeing to give up plans for a union with Greece.
A Turkish armada of 33 ships, including troop transporters and at least 30 tanks and small landing craft, has landed on the northern coast.
Airlifted to safety
The bulk of the Greek fleet put to sea last night from the island of Salamis.
There are reports of clashes between Greek and Turkish warships near Paphos, a port in south-western Cyprus.
Greek Cypriot forces on the island have been defending the northern coast, around Kyrenia.
The capital, Nicosia, has seen most of the fighting. Turkish paratroops and tanks have been battling for control of the airport - but they have met fierce resistance from the Greek forces.
Shops and offices in the Greek sector of the capital have been deserted since midday yesterday as rumour of the impending invasion spread.
In some parts of the city there were traffic jams as residents tried to flee to the safety of the countryside.
More than 4,500 Britons and other foreign nationals have been moved to the safety of army bases and others have been airlifted to safety in specially-chartered planes.
So far there has been no indication of the casualty figure, but it is thought the Greeks have suffered most from air strikes.
Although Greek military reports from Nicosia claim significant progress has been made against the Turkish forces. Several Turkish planes are reported to have been shot down and "enemy forces" kept out of Turkish Cypriot villages in the north of the island
The Turks have made it clear they will not settle for anything less than the removal of the newly-imposed Greek Cypriot leader Nikos Sampson.
SOURCE: http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/july/20/newsid_3866000/3866521.stm
1976: VIKING I LANDS ON MARS
On the seventh anniversary of the Apollo 11 lunar landing, the Viking 1 lander, an unmanned U.S. planetary probe, becomes the first spacecraft to successfully land on the surface of Mars.
Viking 1 was launched on August 20, 1975, and arrived at Mars on June 19, 1976. The first month of its orbit was devoted to imaging the surface to find appropriate landing sites. On July 20, 1976, the Viking 1 lander separated from the orbiter, touched down on the Chryse Planitia region of Mars, and sent back the first close-up photographs of the rust-colored Martian surface.
In September 1976, Viking 2--launched only three weeks after Viking 1--entered into orbit around Mars, where it assisted Viking 1 in imaging the surface and also sent down a lander. During the dual Viking missions, the two orbiters imaged the entire surface of Mars at a resolution of 150 to 300 meters, and the two landers sent back more than 1,400 images of the planet's surface.
SOURCE: http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/iviking-1i-lands-on-mars
2003: BBC ADMITS KELLY WAS 'MAIN SOURCE'
The BBC has confirmed that weapons expert Dr David Kelly, who was found dead two days ago, was the main source for a controversial report which sparked a deep rift with the government.
The row centres on a report by journalist Andrew Gilligan during the Today programme on BBC Radio 4 in which he said the government had "sexed up" its dossier on Iraq to boost public support for the war.
The BBC has until now refused to disclose the name of Mr Gilligan's source for the allegations.
But the director of news, Richard Sambrook, today said he could confirm that it was the senior Ministry of Defence adviser.
'Profoundly sorry'
Mr Sambrook said the BBC believed it had correctly interpreted and reported the information obtained from Dr Kelly during interviews.
He added that the BBC had, until now, owed Dr Kelly a duty of confidentiality. He said he was "profoundly sorry" that his involvement as the source for the reports had ended in tragedy.
The body of Dr Kelly, a senior Ministry of Defence adviser, was discovered in woodland near his Oxfordshire home on Friday morning, with a knife and a packet of painkillers close by.
Police confirmed he had bled to death from a cut to his wrist.
Evidence to MPs
Before his death, Dr Kelly gave evidence to MPs that he had spoken to Mr Gilligan.
However, he said he did not believe he was the main source for the most controversial claims about the dossier.
He told MPs: "From the conversation I had I don't see how he could make the authoritative statement he was making from the comments I made."
The Prime Minister, Tony Blair, commented today, "I am pleased that the BBC has made this announcement.
"Whatever the differences, no one wanted this tragedy to happen."
The government has set up an independent judicial inquiry, chaired by Lord Hutton, to establish the facts surrounding Dr Kelly's death.
Both Mr Blair and the BBC have said they will cooperate fully.
SOURCE: http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/july/20/newsid_3798000/3798761.stm
1914: Caillaux trial begins in Paris
1944: Assassination plot against Hitler fails
1951: King of Jordan assassinated
1960: Ceylon chooses world's first woman PM
1969: Armstrong Walks on the Moon
1974: Turkey invades Cyprus
1976: Viking 1 lands on Mars
1984: A serial-killing couple is apprehended
2003: BBC admits Kelly was 'main source'
1881: SITING BULL SURRENDERS
Five years after General George A. Custer's infamous defeat at the Battle of Little Bighorn, Hunkpapa Teton Sioux leader Sitting Bull surrenders to the U.S. Army, which promises amnesty for him and his followers. Sitting Bull had been a major leader in the 1876 Sioux uprising that resulted in the death of Custer and 264 of his men at Little Bighorn. Pursued by the U.S. Army after the Indian victory, he escaped to Canada with his followers.
Born in the Grand River Valley in what is now South Dakota, Sitting Bull gained early recognition in his Sioux tribe as a capable warrior and a man of vision. In 1864, he fought against the U.S. Army under General Alfred Sully at Killdeer Mountain and thereafter dedicated himself to leading Sioux resistance against white encroachment. He soon gained a following in not only his own tribe but in the Cheyenne and Arapaho Native American groups as well. In 1867, he was made principal chief of the entire Sioux nation.
In 1873, in what would serve as a preview of the Battle of Little Bighorn three years later, an Indian military coalition featuring the leadership of Sitting Bull skirmished briefly with Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer. In 1876, Sitting Bull was not a strategic leader in the U.S. defeat at Little Bighorn, but his spiritual influence inspired Crazy Horse and the other victorious Indian military leaders. He subsequently fled to Canada, but in 1881, with his people starving, he returned to the United States and surrendered.
He was held as a prisoner of war at Fort Randall in South Dakota territory for two years and then was permitted to live on Standing Rock Reservation straddling North and South Dakota territory. In 1885, he traveled for a season with Buffalo Bill Cody's Wild West show and then returned to Standing Rock. In 1889, the spiritual proclamations of Sitting Bull influenced the rise of the "Ghost Dance," an Indian religious movement that proclaimed that the whites would disappear and the dead Indians and buffalo would return.
His support of the Ghost Dance movement had brought him into disfavor with government officials, and on December 15, 1890, Indian police burst into Sitting Bull's house in the Grand River area of South Dakota and attempted to arrest him. There is confusion as to what happened next. By some accounts, Sitting Bull's warriors shot the leader of the police, who immediately turned and gunned down Sitting Bull. In another account, the police were instructed by Major James McLaughlin, director of the Standing Rock Sioux Agency, to kill the chief at any sign of resistance. Whatever the case, Sitting Bull was fatally shot and died within hours. The Indian police hastily buried his body at Fort Yates within the Standing Rock Reservation. In 1953, his remains were moved into Mobridge, South Dakota, where a granite shaft marks his resting place.
SOURCE: http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/sitting-bull-surrenders
1914: CAILLAUX TRIAL BEGINS IN PARIS
As war threatened in the Balkans, the attention of much of the French people focuses instead on the sensational case of Madame Henriette Caillaux, whose trial for the murder of Gaston Calmette, editor of the newspaper Le Figaro, opens on July 20, 1914, in Paris.
Joseph Caillaux, a left-wing politician, had been appointed prime minister of France in 1911. He was forced out of office the following year, however, after he was accused of being too accommodating to Germany. Chosen again as a cabinet minister in 1913, the relatively pacifist Caillaux was under almost constant attack from the right. In his personal life, Caillaux was relatively indiscreet, parading his mistresses around during his life as a bachelor and carrying on a secret love affair with one of them, his future second wife, while he was still married to his first wife.
Although Caillaux was an old friend of Raymond Poincare, elected president of France in March 1913, he and Poincare had become political adversaries even before World War I began the following summer. Shortly after his election, Poincare supported legislation that would increase the required length of military duty in France from two to three years, a measure that seemed necessary to many as a way of offsetting Germany's enormous population advantage-70 million to 40 million-in the case of a war. Despite opposition from Caillaux and other liberals, including the country's Socialist leader, Jean Jaures, the bill passed in August 1913. When Caillaux continued to attack it, he became the object of a major smear campaign led by Gaston Calmette, the most powerful journalist in France and the editor of the leading right-wing journal Le Figaro.
Beginning in December 1913, Calmette claimed he could and would publicize certain documents that would prove Caillaux, while serving as minister of finance in 1911, had obstructed justice in a financial scandal in which he may have been personally involved. Moreover, Calmette threatened to publish love letters exchanged between Caillaux and his second wife, Henriette, while he was still married to his first wife.
When Calmette threatened to publish intercepted wire communications supposedly showing Caillaux's sympathy to Germany-a claim that spurred a protest by the German government against the interception of its official correspondence-Caillaux went to Poincare and asked him to prevent Calmette from revealing the documents. If Poincare declined to do so, Caillaux pointed out, he himself would make public intercepted cables in his possession that revealed the French president's secret negotiations with the Vatican, a revelation that would certainly anger Poincare's secular and anticlerical supporters. The French government subsequently issued an official denial of the existence of the German cables, but Calmette continued to threaten to publish Caillaux's love letters.
On March 16, 1914, Henriette Caillaux took a taxi to the offices of Le Figaro in the rue Drouot. After waiting for an hour to see the chief editor, she walked with him into his private office and fired six shots at him from her automatic pistol. Struck by four of the bullets, Calmette died that evening.
While to the east, in Vienna and Berlin, plans proceeded that would begin the First World War, Parisians-and many others in France-were riveted by the Caillaux affair, and completely unaware of the imminent crisis in Europe. In addition to being a sensational crime, the case was also a clash between left- and right-wing politics in France. Madame Caillaux's trial for Calmette's murder began July 20, 1914. Eight days later, the jury acquitted Madame Caillaux, on the grounds that hers was a crime passionnel. The same day, July 28, Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia.
1944: ASSASSINATION PLOT AGAINST HITLER FAILS
On this day in 1944, Hitler cheats death as a bomb planted in a briefcase goes off, but fails to kill him.
High German officials had made up their minds that Hitler must die. He was leading Germany in a suicidal war on two fronts, and assassination was the only way to stop him. A coup d'etat would follow, and a new government in Berlin would save Germany from complete destruction at the hands of the Allies. That was the plan. This was the reality: Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg, chief of the army reserve, had been given the task of planting a bomb during a conference that was to be held at Berchtesgaden, but was later moved to Hitler's "Wolf's Lair, a command post at Rastenburg, Prussia. Stauffenberg planted the explosive in a briefcase, which he placed under a table, then left quickly. Hitler was studying a map of the Eastern front as Colonel Heinz Brandt, trying to get a better look at the map, moved the briefcase out of place, farther away from where the Fuhrer was standing. At 12:42 p.m. the bomb went off. When the smoke cleared, Hitler was wounded, charred, and even suffered the temporary paralysis of one arm-but he was very much alive. (He was even well enough to keep an appointment with Benito Mussolini that very afternoon. He gave Il Duce a tour of the bomb site.) Four others present died from their wounds.
As the bomb went off, Stauffenberg was making his way to Berlin to carry out Operation Valkyrie, the overthrow of the central government. In Berlin, he and co-conspirator General Olbricht arrested the commander of the reserve army, General Fromm, and began issuing orders for the commandeering of various government buildings. And then the news came through from Herman Goering-Hitler was alive. Fromm, released from custody under the assumption he would nevertheless join the effort to throw Hitler out of office, turned on the conspirators. Stauffenberg and Olbricht were shot that same day. Once Hitler figured out the extent of the conspiracy (it reached all the way to occupied French), he began the systematic liquidation of his enemies. More than 7,000 Germans would be arrested (including evangelical pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer), and up to 5,000 would wind up dead-either executed or as suicides. Hitler, Himmler, and Goering took an even firmer grip on Germany and its war machine. Hitler became convinced that fate had spared him-"I regard this as a confirmation of the task imposed upon me by Providence"-and that "nothing is going to happen to me... [T]he great cause which I serve will be brought through its present perils and...everything can be brought to a good end."
SOURCE: http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/assassination-plot-against-hitler-fails
1951: KING OF JORDAN ASSASSINATED
While entering a mosque in the Jordanian sector of east Jerusalem, King Abdullah of Jordan is assassinated by a Palestinian nationalist.
Abdullah was a member of the Hashemites, an Arab dynasty said to be directly descended from the Prophet Muhammad. During World War I, with British support, Abdullah led an Arab revolt against Turkish rule in Jordan. In 1921, the British made him the emir of Transjordan, and with Jordanian independence in 1946 he became the country's monarch. Two years later, he led his armies against the newly declared state of Israel, and Jordan annexed east Jerusalem along with the portions of Palestine now known as the West Bank. In 1951, his efforts to create an Arab federation under Hashemite rule ended when he was assassinated in Jerusalem.
After a brief sojourn on the Jordanian throne, Abdullah's son was declared mentally unfit to rule and was replaced by Abdullah's grandson, Hussein bin Talal. King Hussein ruled until he died in 1999; he was succeeded by his son, Abdullah.
SOURCE: http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/king-of-jordan-assassinated
1960: CEYLON CHOOSES WORLD'S FIRST WOMAN PM
1960: Ceylon chooses world's first woman PM
Mrs Sirimavo Bandaranaike, widow of Ceylon's assassinated prime minister Solomon Bandaranaike, has become the world's first woman prime minister.
Her Sri Lanka Freedom Party won a resounding victory in the general election taking 75 out of 150 seats.
Mrs Bandaranaike only entered politics after her husband was shot by an extremist Buddhist on 26 September 1959.
She has become known as the "weeping widow" for frequently bursting into tears during the election campaign and vowing to continue her late husband's socialist policies.
This week's election was called after Dudley Senanayake's United National Party failed to produce a working majority after winning elections in March.
Aristocratic by birth
Mrs Bandaranaike was born into the Ceylon aristocracy and her husband was a landowner. She was educated by Roman Catholic nuns at St Bridget's school in the capital, Colombo, and is a practising Buddhist.
She married in 1940 aged 24 and has three children - and until her husband's death seemed content in her role as mother and retiring wife.
Her SLFP aims to represent the "little man" although its policies during the campaign were not clear.
Mr Bandaranaike attributed her success to the "people's love and respect" for her late husband and urged her supporters to practise "simple living, decorum and dignity".
Her husband came to power in 1955, eight years after independence, and declared himself a Buddhist which appealed to nationalists. But his government was wracked by infighting among Sinhalese and Tamils and lacked direction.
Mrs Bandaranaike inherits a country in a state of flux and her party's proposed programme of nationalisation may bring her into conflict with foreign interests in commodities like tea, rubber and oil.
SOURCE: http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/july/20/newsid_2784000/2784527.stm
1969: ARMSTRONG WALKS ON THE MOON
At 10:56 p.m. EDT, American astronaut Neil Armstrong, 240,000 miles from Earth, speaks these words to more than a billion people listening at home: "That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind." Stepping off the lunar landing module Eagle, Armstrong became the first human to walk on the surface of the moon.
The American effort to send astronauts to the moon has its origins in a famous appeal President John F. Kennedy made to a special joint session of Congress on May 25, 1961: "I believe this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to Earth." At the time, the United States was still trailing the Soviet Union in space developments, and Cold War-era America welcomed Kennedy's bold proposal.
In 1966, after five years of work by an international team of scientists and engineers, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) conducted the first unmanned Apollo mission, testing the structural integrity of the proposed launch vehicle and spacecraft combination. Then, on January 27, 1967, tragedy struck at Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, when a fire broke out during a manned launch-pad test of the Apollo spacecraft and Saturn rocket. Three astronauts were killed in the fire.
Despite the setback, NASA and its thousands of employees forged ahead, and in October 1968, Apollo 7, the first manned Apollo mission, orbited Earth and successfully tested many of the sophisticated systems needed to conduct a moon journey and landing. In December of the same year, Apollo 8 took three astronauts to the dark side of the moon and back, and in March 1969 Apollo 9 tested the lunar module for the first time while in Earth orbit. Then in May, the three astronauts of Apollo 10 took the first complete Apollo spacecraft around the moon in a dry run for the scheduled July landing mission.
At 9:32 a.m. on July 16, with the world watching, Apollo 11 took off from Kennedy Space Center with astronauts Neil Armstrong, Edwin Aldrin Jr., and Michael Collins aboard. Armstrong, a 38-year-old civilian research pilot, was the commander of the mission. After traveling 240,000 miles in 76 hours, Apollo 11 entered into a lunar orbit on July 19. The next day, at 1:46 p.m., the lunar module Eagle, manned by Armstrong and Aldrin, separated from the command module, where Collins remained. Two hours later, the Eagle began its descent to the lunar surface, and at 4:18 p.m. the craft touched down on the southwestern edge of the Sea of Tranquility. Armstrong immediately radioed to Mission Control in Houston, Texas, a famous message: "The Eagle has landed."
At 10:39 p.m., five hours ahead of the original schedule, Armstrong opened the hatch of the lunar module. As he made his way down the lunar module's ladder, a television camera attached to the craft recorded his progress and beamed the signal back to Earth, where hundreds of millions watched in great anticipation. At 10:56 p.m., Armstrong spoke his famous quote, which he later contended was slightly garbled by his microphone and meant to be "that's one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind." He then planted his left foot on the gray, powdery surface, took a cautious step forward, and humanity had walked on the moon.
"Buzz" Aldrin joined him on the moon's surface at 11:11 p.m., and together they took photographs of the terrain, planted a U.S. flag, ran a few simple scientific tests, and spoke with President Richard M. Nixon via Houston. By 1:11 a.m. on July 21, both astronauts were back in the lunar module and the hatch was closed. The two men slept that night on the surface of the moon, and at 1:54 p.m. the Eagle began its ascent back to the command module. Among the items left on the surface of the moon was a plaque that read: "Here men from the planet Earth first set foot on the moon--July 1969 A.D--We came in peace for all mankind."
At 5:35 p.m., Armstrong and Aldrin successfully docked and rejoined Collins, and at 12:56 a.m. on July 22 Apollo 11 began its journey home, safely splashing down in the Pacific Ocean at 12:51 p.m. on July 24.
There would be five more successful lunar landing missions, and one unplanned lunar swing-by, Apollo 13. The last men to walk on the moon, astronauts Eugene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt of the Apollo 17 mission, left the lunar surface on December 14, 1972. The Apollo program was a costly and labor intensive endeavor, involving an estimated 400,000 engineers, technicians, and scientists, and costing $24 billion (close to $100 billion in today's dollars). The expense was justified by Kennedy's 1961 mandate to beat the Soviets to the moon, and after the feat was accomplished ongoing missions lost their viability.
SOURCE: http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/armstrong-walks-on-moon
1974: TURKEY INVADES CYPRUS
1974: Turkey invades Cyprus
Thousands of Turkish troops have invaded northern Cyprus after last-minute talks in the Greek capital, Athens, failed to reach a solution.
Tension has been running high in the Mediterranean island since a military coup five days ago in which President Archbishop Makarios, a Greek Cypriot, was deposed.
The coup led to fears among the Turkish Cypriot community that the Greek-backed military rulers would ignore their rights and press for unification for Cyprus with Greece or enosis.
Archbishop Makarios became the republic's first elected president in 1959 only after agreeing to give up plans for a union with Greece.
A Turkish armada of 33 ships, including troop transporters and at least 30 tanks and small landing craft, has landed on the northern coast.
Airlifted to safety
The bulk of the Greek fleet put to sea last night from the island of Salamis.
There are reports of clashes between Greek and Turkish warships near Paphos, a port in south-western Cyprus.
Greek Cypriot forces on the island have been defending the northern coast, around Kyrenia.
The capital, Nicosia, has seen most of the fighting. Turkish paratroops and tanks have been battling for control of the airport - but they have met fierce resistance from the Greek forces.
Shops and offices in the Greek sector of the capital have been deserted since midday yesterday as rumour of the impending invasion spread.
In some parts of the city there were traffic jams as residents tried to flee to the safety of the countryside.
More than 4,500 Britons and other foreign nationals have been moved to the safety of army bases and others have been airlifted to safety in specially-chartered planes.
So far there has been no indication of the casualty figure, but it is thought the Greeks have suffered most from air strikes.
Although Greek military reports from Nicosia claim significant progress has been made against the Turkish forces. Several Turkish planes are reported to have been shot down and "enemy forces" kept out of Turkish Cypriot villages in the north of the island
The Turks have made it clear they will not settle for anything less than the removal of the newly-imposed Greek Cypriot leader Nikos Sampson.
SOURCE: http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/july/20/newsid_3866000/3866521.stm
1976: VIKING I LANDS ON MARS
On the seventh anniversary of the Apollo 11 lunar landing, the Viking 1 lander, an unmanned U.S. planetary probe, becomes the first spacecraft to successfully land on the surface of Mars.
Viking 1 was launched on August 20, 1975, and arrived at Mars on June 19, 1976. The first month of its orbit was devoted to imaging the surface to find appropriate landing sites. On July 20, 1976, the Viking 1 lander separated from the orbiter, touched down on the Chryse Planitia region of Mars, and sent back the first close-up photographs of the rust-colored Martian surface.
In September 1976, Viking 2--launched only three weeks after Viking 1--entered into orbit around Mars, where it assisted Viking 1 in imaging the surface and also sent down a lander. During the dual Viking missions, the two orbiters imaged the entire surface of Mars at a resolution of 150 to 300 meters, and the two landers sent back more than 1,400 images of the planet's surface.
SOURCE: http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/iviking-1i-lands-on-mars
2003: BBC ADMITS KELLY WAS 'MAIN SOURCE'
The BBC has confirmed that weapons expert Dr David Kelly, who was found dead two days ago, was the main source for a controversial report which sparked a deep rift with the government.
The row centres on a report by journalist Andrew Gilligan during the Today programme on BBC Radio 4 in which he said the government had "sexed up" its dossier on Iraq to boost public support for the war.
The BBC has until now refused to disclose the name of Mr Gilligan's source for the allegations.
But the director of news, Richard Sambrook, today said he could confirm that it was the senior Ministry of Defence adviser.
'Profoundly sorry'
Mr Sambrook said the BBC believed it had correctly interpreted and reported the information obtained from Dr Kelly during interviews.
He added that the BBC had, until now, owed Dr Kelly a duty of confidentiality. He said he was "profoundly sorry" that his involvement as the source for the reports had ended in tragedy.
The body of Dr Kelly, a senior Ministry of Defence adviser, was discovered in woodland near his Oxfordshire home on Friday morning, with a knife and a packet of painkillers close by.
Police confirmed he had bled to death from a cut to his wrist.
Evidence to MPs
Before his death, Dr Kelly gave evidence to MPs that he had spoken to Mr Gilligan.
However, he said he did not believe he was the main source for the most controversial claims about the dossier.
He told MPs: "From the conversation I had I don't see how he could make the authoritative statement he was making from the comments I made."
The Prime Minister, Tony Blair, commented today, "I am pleased that the BBC has made this announcement.
"Whatever the differences, no one wanted this tragedy to happen."
The government has set up an independent judicial inquiry, chaired by Lord Hutton, to establish the facts surrounding Dr Kelly's death.
Both Mr Blair and the BBC have said they will cooperate fully.
SOURCE: http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/july/20/newsid_3798000/3798761.stm