Men Who Made History…TODAY

Men who made History

1544        Sep 19, Francis, the king of France, and Charles V of Austria signed a peace treaty in Crespy, France, ending a 20-year war. 1692        Sep 19, Giles Corey was pressed to death for standing mute and refusing to answer charges of witchcraft brought against him. He is the only person in America to have suffered this punishment. 1788        Sep 19, Charles de Barentin became lord chancellor of France.1796        Sep 19, President Washington’s farewell address was published. In it, America’s first chief executive advised, “Observe good faith and justice toward all nations. Cultivate peace and harmony with all.” 1871        Sep 19, President Abraham Lincoln’s body was transferred to a partially completed permanent tomb at Springfield, Il. 1881        Sep 19, The 20th president of the United States, James A. Garfield, died of wounds inflicted by assassin, Charles J. Guiteau. Alexander Graham Bell had made several unsuccessful attempts to remove the assassin’s bullet with a new metal detection device. 1900        Sep 19, President Loubet of France pardoned Jewish army captain Alfred Dreyfus, twice court-martialed and wrongly convicted of spying for Germany. 1982        Sep 19, Prof. Scott E. Fahlman of Carnegie Mellon Univ. posted an emoticon, the first online smiley face, in a message to an online electronic bulletin board at 11:44 a.m., during a discussion about the limits of online humor and how to denote comments meant to be taken lightly. 2004        Sep 19, President George W. Bush has decided to lift sanctions against Libya, which he expects to trigger release of more than $1 billion US to families of Pan Am 103 victims. 2005        Sep 19, Mark Latham, former head of Australia’s Labor Party, published “The Latham Diaries,” the story of the Labor Party from 1996-2005, and a sobering account of the state of Australian democracy 100 years after Federation. 2006        Sep 19, Warren Buffet, billionaire investor, pledged $50 million to help set up an international nuclear fuel bank that aspiring powers could turn to for reactor fuel instead of making it on their own. 2006        Sep 19, John Nejedly (91), former 10-year California state senator, died. He helped lead the 1982 fight against the Peripheral Canal and wrote the bill authorizing the construction of the bridge on Highway 160 near Antioch, which was named in his honor. 2006        Sep 19, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad addressed the UN General Assembly and took aim at US policies in Iraq and Lebanon. He accused Washington of abusing its power in the UN Security Council to punish others while protecting its own interests and allies. 2007        Sep 19, President Francois Bozize of the Central African Republic (CAR) dubbed as “grotesque” allegations from Human Rights Watch that his army was guilty of various abuses against civilians in the country. 2007        Sep 19, Vlatko Pavletic (77), a former speaker of Croatia’s parliament who served as acting president for two months beginning in Dec, 1999, died. 2008        Sep 19, Ken Cockrel Jr. was sworn in as the city’s new mayor, vaulted into office by a sex scandal that destroyed the reign of Kwame Kilpatrick and threw Detroit’s government into chaos for months. 2010        Sep 19, Moscow mayor Yuri Luzhkov (74) left the country for what his spokesman said was a holiday in Austria, amid growing speculation that he could be dismissed from one of Russia’s most powerful jobs. Luzhkov and his billionaire property mogul wife Yelena Baturina were viewed as having fallen out of favor.2011        Sep 19, President Barack Obama laid out a $3 trillion plan to cut US deficits by raising taxes on the rich, but Republicans mocked it as a political stunt, signaling the proposal has little chance of becoming law. 2011        Sep 19, Mauritanian President Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz called for closer ties with China during a visit to the Chinese-Arab economic and trade forum in Yinchuan. Both countries signed an agreement granting the Mauritanian armed forces financial support worth 20 million yuan (2.3 millions euros, 3.1 million dollars).2014        Sep 19, In Washington DC Omar Gonzalez (42), carrying a knife, climbed a fence of the White House, ran inside and reached the East Room before he was apprehended. 2014        Sep 19, Scottish nationalist Alex Salmond resigned as leader of his party and will quit as First Minister of his country after losing an independence referendum.