On This Day in History

[cleglaw]

I am learning new stuff all the time since I started this thread (and the birthday and death threads).

In 1993 on April 22, the web browser Mosaic version 1.0 was released.

Mosaic was not the first PC browser... But Mosaic was the first browser written and supported by a team of full-time programmers, which was reliable and easy enough for novices to install, and the inline graphics proved immensely appealing. Mosaic made the Web accessible to the ordinary person for the first time.

link

[twoheadedragon]

1500 – Portuguese explorer Pedro Álvares Cabral and his crew became the first Europeans to sight Brazil when they spotted Monte Pascoal.

1945 - World War II: After learning that Soviet forces have taken Eberswalde without a fight, Adolf Hitler admits defeat in his underground bunker and states that suicide is his only recourse.

[ss]

1661 -King Charles II of England, Scotland and Ireland is crowned in Westminster Abbey.

1982 - The ZX Spectrum is released. Elliot still uses his...

[twoheadedragon]

1014 - Battle of Clontarf: Brian Boru defeats Viking invaders, but is killed in battle.

[Gay Titan]

April 24, 1916...The Easter Rebellion begins. In Dublin, the Irish Republican Brotherhood, a secret organization of Irish nationalists led by Patrick Pearse, launches the so-called Easter Rebellion, an armed uprising against British rule.

[twoheadedragon]

April 24th, 1800 - The United States Library of Congress is established when President John Adams signs legislation to appropriate $5,000 to purchase "such books as may be necessary for the use of Congress"

[cleglaw]

April 25, 1990 - The Hubble Telescope was deployed from Space Shuttle Discovery into orbit.
Some Hubble photos:

Veil Nebula, Supernova Remnant

These opaque, dark knots of gas and dust are called "Bok globules," and they are absorbing light in the center of the nearby emission nebula and star-forming region, NGC 281. The globules are named after astronomer Bart Bok, who proposed their existence in the 1940's.
Bok hypothesized that giant molecular clouds, on the order of hundreds of light-years in size, can become perturbed and form small pockets where the dust and gas are highly concentrated. These small pockets become gravitationally bound and accumulate dust and gas from the surrounding area. If they can capture enough mass, they have the potential of creating stars in their cores; however, not all Bok globules will form stars. Some will dissipate before they can collapse to form stars. That may be what's happening to the globules seen here in NGC 281.

[twoheadedragon]

April 25th, 1792 – The guillotine was first used to carry out capital punishment in France, with crowds marveling at the machine's speed and precision.

[twoheadedragon]

April 26th, 1986 – The Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in Chernobyl, Ukrainian SSR suffered a steam explosion, resulting in a fire and a nuclear meltdown.


A monument to the victims of the Chernobyl disaster at Moscow's Mitino cemetery, where some of the firefighters who battled the flames and later died of radiation exposure are buried.

[LaFille]

I saw a quite big documentary about the Tchernobyl disaster a year or two ago and it moved me like a TV program rarely had; what a situation it was...
That statue is neat; first time I see it.

April 26
1564: Birth of William Shakespear, English poet/playwriter
1711: Birth of David Hume, Scottish philosopher, among else; one who's considered to be at the origin of the utilitarist ideas, an ethics that has considerable importance still today.
1962: The Ranger 4 spacecraft, first U.S. spacecraft to reach another celestial body, crashes into the moon after a power failure prevented it to perform any of its planned operations.

[cleglaw]

On April 27 in Quebec:
1992 - Lina Haddad, age 27, gave birth to Quebec's first quintuplets - three boys and two girls.

1977 - Parti Quebecois government proposed the Charter of the French Language as Bill One in the National Assembly; to make French the working language in Quebec and limit the use of English.

[twoheadedragon]

April 27, 1810 - Beethoven composes his famous piano piece, Für Elise.


(Sorry, couldn't find one of him from 1810, so I got one of him from 1804

[twoheadedragon]

April 27, 2005 - The Superjumbo jet aircraft Airbus A380 makes its first flight from Toulouse, France.

[twoheadedragon]

April 27, 1521 - Battle of Mactan: Explorer Ferdinand Magellan is killed by natives in the Philippines led by chief Lapu-Lapu.

Monument to Magellan:



Monument to Lapu-Lapu:



Location of Mactan Island:

[cleglaw]

The one billionth minute since the start of January 1, Year Zero occurred at 10:40 AM on April 28, 1902.

[twoheadedragon]

April 28, 1192 - Assassination of Conrad of Montferrat (Conrad I), King of Jerusalem, in Tyre, two days after his title to the throne is confirmed by election. The killing is carried out by Hashshashin.

Imaginary portrait (he was actually blond) of Conrad by François-Édouard Picot, c. 1843, Salles des Croisades, Versailles.

[twoheadedragon]

April 28, 1792 - France invades Austrian Netherlands (present day Belgium), beginning the French Revolutionary War.





Results:
French victory; survival of the French Republic, several French client republics established, Treaty of Lunéville and Treaty of Amiens, Beginning of the Napoleonic Wars.

[twoheadedragon]

April 28, 1945 - Benito Mussolini and his mistress Clara Petacci are executed by a firing squad consisting of members of the Italian resistance movement.

[twoheadedragon]

April 28, 1969 - Charles de Gaulle resigns as President of France.

[LaFille]

April 28/29
1997: the 1993 Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production, Stockpiling and Use of Chemical Weapons and on their Destruction goes into effect.

[...] The convention augments the Geneva Protocol of 1925 for chemical weapons and includes extensive verification measures such as on-site inspections. It does not, however, cover biological weapons. The convention is administered by the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), which conducts inspection of military and industrial plants in all of the member nations as well as working with stockpile countries.

Controlled substances
The convention distinguishes three classes of controlled substance, chemicals which can either be used as weapons themselves or used in the manufacture of weapons. The classification is based on the quantities of the substance produced commercially for legitimate purposes. Each class is split into Part A, which are chemicals that can be used directly as weapons, and Part B which are chemicals useful in the manufacture of chemical weapons.

* Schedule 1 chemicals have few, or no uses outside of chemical weapons. These may be produced or used for research, medical, pharmaceutical or chemical weapon defence testing purposes but production above 100 grams per year must be declared to the OPCW. A country is limited to possessing a maximum of 1 tonne of these materials. Examples are mustard and nerve agents, and substances which are solely used as precursor chemicals in their manufacture. A few of these chemicals have very small scale non-military applications, for example minute quantities of nitrogen mustard are used to treat certain cancers.

* Schedule 2 chemicals have legitimate small-scale applications. Manufacture must be declared and there are restrictions on export to countries which are not CWC signatories. An example is thiodiglycol which can be used in the manufacture of mustard agents, but is also used as a solvent in inks.

* Schedule 3 chemicals have large-scale uses apart from chemical weapons. Plants which manufacture of more than 30 tonnes per year must be declared and can be inspected, and there are restrictions on export to countries which are not CWC signatories. Examples of these substances are phosgene, which has been used as a chemical weapon but which is also a precursor in the manufacture of many legitimate organic compounds and triethanolamine, used in the manufacture of nitrogen mustard but also commonly used in toiletries and detergents. [...]

Member states
Almost all countries in the world have joined the Chemical Weapons Convention. As of 3 January 2008, 183 of the 195 states recognized by the United Nations are party to the CWC. Of the 12 states that have not, five have signed but not yet ratified the treaty: (Bahamas, Dominican Republic, Guinea-Bissau, Israel, and Myanmar) while seven states have not signed the treaty: Angola, North Korea, Egypt, Iraq, Lebanon, Somalia, and Syria. [...]

World stockpile
The total world declared stockpile of chemical weapons was about 48,692 tons in early 2007. A total of 71,330 tonnes have been declared to OPCW of which about 23,688 tonnes (over 30%) had been destroyed by June 30, 2007. More than 30% of the 8.67 million declared chemical munitions and containers have been destroyed. Several countries that are not members are suspected of having chemical weapons, especially Syria and North Korea, while some member states (including Sudan and the People's Republic of China) have been accused by others of failing to disclose their stockpiles. [...]

Current progress
By July 2007, 33% of known chemical weapons stockpiles had been destroyed worldwide, falling far short of the 100% goal set for in 2007.[9] Furthermore, by 2006, only 40% of countries had passed the required legislation to outlaw participation in chemical weapons production.

On 11 July 2007, the OPCW confirmed the destruction of the entire chemical weapons stockpile in Albania. Albania is the first nation to completely destroy all of its chemical weapons under the terms of the CWC. The Albanian stockpile included 16,678 kilograms of mustard agent, lewisite, adamsite, and chloroacetophenone. The United States assisted with and funded the destruction operations.

The United States of America completed Phase III in June 2007. Over 66% of the chemical weapons destroyed in the world since the treaty came into force were destroyed in the U.S. Russia completed Phase II in 2007 and had received extensions on the remaining phases. Russia had destroyed 22% of its stockpile by July, 2007. In 2006, India, and "a state party", which together accounted for three percent of world stockpiles, had destroyed 39% and 29%, respectively, of their weapons. Libya only joined the convention in 2004, and had just commenced activities.

The United States General Accounting Office has announced it does not expect Russia to reach 100% destruction until 2027, and the United States, 2014; both after the treaty's final deadline. The Pentagon, in late 2006, announced that it expected disposal of the U.S. stockpile to not be completed until 2023. [...]

Source: Wikipedia entry