NEWPORT NEWS, VA – Four Riverside skilled nursing and assisted living communities were showcased in the 2018-19 U.S. News & World Report Best Nursing Home ratings, the health system announced this week.
The Orchard, Sanders Retirement Village, Riverside Healthy Living Community – Smithfield and Riverside Convalescent Center – West Point each received “High Performing” marks in one or both of the rating categories – Overall and Short-Stay Rehabilitation.
The ratings were published as part of U.S. News’ Nursing Home Finder, a decision-support tool created to help consumers looking for a nursing facility for themselves or a family member in need of either short-term rehabilitation or long-term nursing care.
The Nursing Home Finder, which rates more than 15,000 nursing homes, reflects analysis of data collected and published by the U.S. federal government using a methodology defined by U.S. News & World Report.
This year, U.S. News & World Report introduced a new Short-Stay Rehabilitation Rating, which evaluated nursing homes on the quality of care they provide to patients requiring rehabilitation care during short-term post-acute stays. All four Riverside locations were rated “High Performing” in this category.
The report methodology also provided an Overall Rating, which reflects a nursing home’s care of all residents, both short- and long-stay. Sanders Retirement Village and Riverside Healthy Living Community – Smithfield both earned “High Performing” Overall Ratings, while The Orchard and Riverside Convalescent Center – West Point received “Better than Average.”
“Today, there are so many places to choose from when it comes to skilled nursing and assisted living services, so making a decision can feel overwhelming for an older adult looking for care, or their loved ones who are helping them,” said Ed Heckler, Vice President of Riverside’s Lifelong Health and Aging Related Services division. “Riverside is proud of its communities that were so highly rated in the most recent U.S. News & World Report Nursing Home Finder, a very credible tool that can prove invaluable to helping families make the best possible care choices. These ratings underscore the care that our Riverside team members deliver daily to our residents, fulfilling on the Riverside promise to care for others as we would care for those we love.”
Riverside’s performance in the “Best Nursing Home” ratings is just the latest accolade the health system has received for developing a full continuum of care that serves more than 7,000 older adults each day.
Several Riverside skilled nursing care facilities earned a five-star rating from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. Last October, former First Lady Rosalynn Carter presented the Riverside Center for Excellence in Aging and Lifelong Health with the 2018 Rosalynn Carter Leadership in Caregiving Award. In addition, the center led the proposal in Riverside’s recent award of a nearly $1 million federal grant to enhance dementia care and wellness across the region.
To learn more about Riverside’s continuum of care for older adults, visit riversideonline.com.
Archives for January 2019
Sharks, laser beams, and shipwrecks: your role as an underwater shark detective
The Virginia Institute of Marine Science Eastern Shore Laboratory presents their public seminar series on the first Wednesday of the month.
Ms. Avery Paxton, Postdoctoral Fellow, Visiting Scholar Duke University Marine Lab, Beaufort NC Presents: Sharks, laser beams, and shipwrecks:your role as an underwater shark detective.
Come learn how you can be an underwater shark detective, harnessing advanced technology to solve mysteries of an imperiled shark species, the sand tiger shark. During the evening, we’ll virtually dive on World War II shipwrecks resting in the ‘Graveyard of the Atlantic’ that are frequented by sand tiger sharks. You’ll learn how our team is studying sand tiger sharks using marine robots outfitted with lasers, photographs from scuba divers, and more. We’ll conclude by discussing opportunities for you to become involved and help our team solve longstanding mysteries about sand tiger sharks.
Wednesday, February 6, 2018
7:30 PM Seaside Hall
Virginia Institute of Marine Science
Wachapreague, Virginia
The seminar is free and open to everyone. Seating capacity is 60 people and space is available on a first come-first serve basis. Coffee and light refreshments will be provided. For further information call VIMS at 787-5816.
If you would like to access the seminar on your home computer, please go to:
http://vims.adobeconnect.com/afterhours and log in as a guest at the date-time of the event.
Earthquake Recorded off VA Coast
VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. (WAVY) — A 4.7 magnitude earthquake was recorded Tuesday night off the coast of Virginia, according to the United States Geological Survey.
The agency specifically measured the quake as 219 kilometers from Ocean City, Maryland, — about 125 miles away — around 6:30 p.m.
There were no reports of any tsunami threat or any other effects from the quake, which is considered minor at 4.7. The USGS models show the area in which light shaking could have occurred was far offshore, but some viewers in the Tidewater region reported experiencing a slight moment of shaking.
The Richter scale, which measures the strength of earthquakes, goes from 1-10, increasing in intensity times 10 with each level. A 4.7 level quake is considered small to moderate in strength, but they’re much less common on the East Coast than the West Coast of United States, which is set right along major tectonic plates.
The August 23, 2011, Virginia earthquake was a magnitude 5.8, the strongest recordest east of the Rocky Mountains since 1944.
With an epicenter in Louisa County, northwest of Richmond, that quake was widely felt across more than a dozen states in the eastern U.S. and in Canada.
No deaths were reported, but it caused between $200 to $300 million in damage.
Liberals at Google Shield Sex Slavery
Google is alleged to be involved in the facilitation of sex trafficking even going so far as paying lobbyists in DC to oppose the crackdown on sex trafficking. As a note, Eric Schmidt, Executive Director of Google and its parent company Alphabet, stepped down and has distanced himself from Google.
Google paid Andriod OS creator Andy Rubin $90 million as left the company. Rubin received the payout after allegations surfaced of sexual misconduct, which includes claims looked into by Google made by a woman that Rubin forced her to perform oral sex. But, there’s more…
While at Google Rubin is also alleged to have engaged in human sex trafficking- paying hundreds of thousands of dollars to women to be, in Rubin’s words ‘owned’ by him”
From a 190 page shareholder complaint against Alphabet and it’s parent company Google. Insane.
What did Google do? They gave him a $90 million exit package. Another sexual abuser was paid millions and then went to Uber.
Google then covered up and shielded Backpage.com, a classified advertising website. Prosecutors have accused Backpage of permitting prostitution ads featuring underage sex trafficking victims.
Google found Rubin’s “bondage sex videos” and he had numerous sex slaves that he loaned out?
Eric Schmidt, who hand crafted Hillary’s campaign, fostered a culture that allowed rampant sexual harassment and discrimination and participated in the coverup.
More on Backpage.com
Despite widespread revulsion at its business model, Backpage has managed to elude a series of legal challenges and beat back legislative efforts to stop it from advertising children for sex. The sex trafficking hub has repeatedly cited Section 230 of the CDA, which protects an Internet site from liability for crimes by people using the site’s services, as its defense.
“Proponents have argued that it protects and promotes free speech on the Internet,” a report noted. “They have, however, ignored the devastating impact the law can have in its current form.”
In its successful efforts, Backpage has benefitted from the help of an all-star cast of lawyers and legal scholars, as well as significant political and lobbying muscle that it could not assemble itself.
“The common factor behind nearly all those forces: Alphabet Inc.’s Internet giant, Google,” the report said. Here are some of the worst examples of young girls being sold through Backpage that are cited in the report:
• A case in Atlanta, GA of a 12-year-old girl whose pimp regularly tasered her and even forced her to work while pregnant with his child.
• A New York City case of a 13-year-old girl who was regularly beaten and even kicked down a stairwell for trying to escape her pimp.
• A Miami case of a 13-year-old girl whose pimp had tattooed his name on the girl’s eyelids.
• A Seattle case in which a 15-year-old girl was sold for sex more than 150 times.
• A Chicago case in which a 16-year-old, suffering from depression, left home. Three weeks later, she was advertised for sex on Backpage and murdered at the hands of her Backpage buyer.
The report’s analysis of public records, tax documents and legal filings and other publicly-available documents shows Google has financed and supported a broad array of groups and individuals who have fought aggressively to thwart legal challenges to Backpage’s business model. Efforts have included:
• Legal scholars and groups supported by Google have written letters and amicus briefs in support of Backpage. More than half of the 42 signatories of a letter opposing a bill to tackle online child trafficking—22 in all—were either directly funded by Google, or worked at institutions that were funded by the company.
• At least four of Google’s lobbying firms have also worked to block efforts by the U.S. Congress to strengthen laws to prevent child sex-trafficking under the Stop Advertising Victims of Exploitation (SAVE Act) of 2014 that would have targeted Backpage and held it accountable.
• Google hired one of the leading campaigners for shutting down Backpage’s child-trafficking ads, who, after being hired, then changed her stance on the issue to align with her new employer. She now argues that it isn’t possible to shut down sites like Backpage and that laws should target buyers rather than websites that advertise children for sex.
Google’s financial support of EFF, CDT and dozens of other groups, has contributed to a string of legal successes by Backpage and complicated the quest for justice among its underage victims. Since 2011, the nonprofits have helped Backpage defeat several cases related to child sex trafficking by filing Section 230 briefs on Backpage’s behalf. Among the initiatives the groups have helped defeat:
• A legal case brought by three underage sex-trafficking victims who were advertised on Backpage and sold for sex in Massachusetts and Rhode Island more than 1,900 times over three years.
• Proposed state laws aimed at curbing Backpage’s child sex advertisements in Washington, New Jersey, and Tennessee.
• Efforts by law enforcement in Cook County, Illinois, to prevent the use of credit card payments to purchase ads offering children for sex.
• Efforts by 49 state attorneys general to amend Section 230 to give state and local law enforcement officials the authority to criminally investigate and prosecute companies like Backpage for promoting child sex trafficking.
• The “reckless” standard in early versions of Congressional legislation such as the SAVE Act, which strengthened child sex trafficking laws by making it illegal for online advertisers to recklessly disregard child sex trafficking occurring on their websites.
Defenders of CDA Section 230 claim it promotes and protects free expression on the Internet. Alphabet Inc.’s Google has another reason to protect Section 230: business. Google says the law provides it with almost unlimited immunity from liability for crimes committed using its services. That includes the posting of pirated movies and music to its YouTube service, fraudulent advertisements posted through its AdWords service or Google suggesting trademarked terms as advertising keywords.
“Section 230 has been central to Google’s stratospheric success over the past two decades,” the report said. “Partly as a result of the provision, a Harvard professor reported in 2011 that Google earned over $1 billion in revenue annually from Google advertisers posting unlawful material related to child trafficking, illegal drugs, and counterfeit goods.”
Governor Northam Announces Legislative Proposals to Combat Gun Violence and Improve Safety in the Commonwealth
Comprehensive package of gun safety measures includes universal background checks, assault weapons ban, and extreme risk protective orders
RICHMOND—Governor Ralph Northam today announced a comprehensive package of legislation that will prevent gun violence and improve the safety of Virginia’s citizens and communities. The package includes measures to require universal background checks; establish an Extreme Risk Protective Order; reinstate Virginia’s One Handgun a Month law; prohibit individuals subject to final protective orders from possessing firearms; ban assault firearms; prevent children from accessing firearms; and require individuals to report lost or stolen firearms to law enforcement.
“We lose too many Virginians each year to senseless gun violence, and it is time we take meaningful steps to protect the health and safety of our citizens,” said Governor Northam. “I look forward to opening a dialogue with the General Assembly on this legislative package of reasonable gun violence reforms, which appropriately balances Second Amendment Rights with public safety.”
“I want to thank Governor Northam for his commitment to preventing gun violence in the Commonwealth, and for advancing this commonsense legislative package that will undoubtedly enhance public safety and save lives,” said Secretary of Public Safety and Homeland Security Brian Moran. “I look forward to working with our partners in the General Assembly on both sides of the aisle to find common ground and pass these reasonable measures.”
The Extreme Risk Protective Order, patroned by Delegate Rip Sullivan and Senator George Barker, creates a legal mechanism to temporarily separate a person from their firearms and prevent them from accessing firearms when the court finds that they pose a substantial danger to themselves or others.
“Every death by gun violence is a tragedy, and one of the most heartbreaking facts is that many of these are preventable. This bill, which mirrors legislative steps taken in numerous states from Florida to California, would enable family and friends to stop—with plenty of due process and respect for Second Amendment rights—an individual from committing gun violence before a single shot is fired,” said Delegate Rip Sullivan. “Not only would this bill help stop horrific events like school shootings, it will help address one of the less talked-about crises in Virginia—suicide by firearm. Evidence from other states shows that this type of bill saves lives while remaining consistent with the Second Amendment. It is long past time for us in the Commonwealth to pass this critical bill to curb the emergency that is preventable gun violence.”
The universal background check bill, patroned by Delegate Ken Plum and Senator Louise Lucas, will close a significant loophole in Virginia law, and require background checks on all firearm sales, including private, or online sales.
“Universal background checks are the only way that we can protect Virginians by keeping guns out of the hands of dangerous people,” said Senator Louise Lucas. “According to an April 2017 Quinnipiac Poll, 94 percent of Virginians are in support of universal background checks. Gun violence is an epidemic, and I am delighted to sponsor and fight for legislation that will help end this epidemic in Virginia.”
Prior to its repeal in 2012, Virginia’s one handgun a month law had been in effect for almost 20 years. Delegate Jeion Ward and Senator Mamie Locke will sponsor legislation to reinstate this law. Virginia has consistently been identified as a source state for crime guns recovered in other states, and this bill will help to prevent people from stockpiling firearms and transporting them for sale in other states.
The protective order bill, patroned by Delegate Kathleen Murphy and Senator Janet Howell, will prevent any person subject to a final order of protection from purchasing, possessing, or transporting firearms. It will also require these individuals to turn over their firearms within 24 hours, and certify to the courts that the firearms have been transferred.
“Having lost a brother to gun violence, this issue is personal for me,” said Delegate Kathleen Murphy. “As the co-founder of the Gun Violence Prevention Caucus and the co-chair of the Safe Virginia Initiative, I’m dedicated to saving lives in the Commonwealth by preventing gun violence. I’m proud to support Governor Northam in this effort.”
The lost and stolen firearm bill, patroned by Delegate Jeff Bourne and Senator Jennifer McClellan, requires that any person who loses, or has a firearm stolen from their possession, report the loss or theft to law enforcement within 24 hours of discovery.
The child access prevention bill, patroned by Delegate Cliff Hayes and Senator Janet Howell, increases the penalty for leaving a loaded, unsecured firearm around a child and raises the age of a child in existing law from 14 to 18.
“Legislation should be a reflection of our values,” said Delegate Cliff Hayes. “We believe this legislation will protect the lives of many innocent young people. This can be done by securing weapons in a way that will not endanger their lives.”
Delegate Kathy Tran and Senator Adam Ebbin will patron legislation to ban the sale, purchase, possession, and transport of assault firearms in the Commonwealth. The bill also modifies the definition of assault firearm to any firearm that is equipped with a magazine that holds more than 10 rounds of ammunition.
“I am honored to work with Governor Northam to advance commonsense gun safety measures. Assault weapons are intended for the battlefields of war and do not belong in our neighborhoods, schools, and places of worship,” said Delegate Kathy Tran. “It is time for us to pass an assault weapons ban and make Virginia safer for our families and communities.”
“Assault-style weapons have been the common denominator in too many mass shootings. Americans have learned no one is safe from the horrors these guns inflict, even when they are praying in a house of worship, learning in a classroom, or dancing at a concert,” said Senator Adam Ebbin. “Limiting the sale of firearms designed to inflict mass carnage is both a public health necessity and a moral imperative. I am proud to carry Governor Northam’s bill to block access to them in Virginia.”
Myth and the Gun Control Narrative
A Department of Justice report shows that only seven percent of nearly 300,000 state and federal prisoners who possessed a firearm during their crime purchased the gun from a licensed firearm dealer.
About 13 percent of state and federal prisoners surveyed used a gun during their crime, and of those prisoners, only 1.3 percent obtained it from a retail source.
The survey also revealed that only 0.8 percent of prisoners who possessed a gun during their offense got the firearm from a gun show, a statistic which shows that “gun show loopholes” often decried by gun control advocates are not contributing significantly to crime.
This information undercuts Democrat claims that expanding background checks will keep us safer. Politico quoted Rep. Mike Thompson (D-CA) saying universal background check legislation “will help save lives.” But how will it save lives if less than three percent of criminals acquire their guns at retail or gun show while the vast majority steal or otherwise acquire them on the side?
The report estimates that 287,400 prisoners had a gun on them when they committed the crime for which they are imprisoned, and a majority of those prisoners either stole the gun, found it at the scene of the crime, or bought it off the street or from the underground market, according to the 2016 Survey of Prison Inmates.
The List: The Origin of Culture
“The list is the origin of culture”–Umberto Eco.
Psychologists say that obsessive compulsive list makers are trying to create an illusion of control in otherwise chaotic lives.
And, there’s nothing wrong with that. In the words of the American abstract artist, Charles Green Shaw: “Real happiness consists in not what we actually accomplish, but what we think we accomplish.”
In 1983, Susan Sontag edited an anthology of French critic Rolande Barthes’s work and penned the introduction to it. She included Barthes’s own list of likes and dislikes, originally titled J’aime, je n’aime pas (I like, I don’t like):
I like: salad, cinnamon, cheese, pimento, marzipan, the smell of new-cut hay (why doesn’t someone with a “nose” make such a perfume), roses, peonies, lavender, champagne, loosely held political convictions, Glenn Gould, too-cold beer, flat pillows, toast, Havana cigars, Handel, slow walks, pears, white peaches, cherries, colors, watches, all kinds of writing pens, desserts, unrefined salt, realistic novels, the piano, coffee, Pollock, Twombly, all romantic music, Sartre, Brecht, Verne, Fourier, Eisenstein, trains, Médoc wine, having change, Bouvard and Pécuchet, walking in sandals on the lanes of southwest France, the bend of the Adour seen from Doctor L.’s house, the Marx Brothers, the mountains at seven in the morning leaving Salamanca, etc.
I don’t like: white Pomeranians, women in slacks, geraniums, strawberries, the harpsichord, Miró, tautologies, animated cartoons, Arthur Rubinstein, villas, the afternoon, Satie, Bartók, Vivaldi, telephoning, children’s choruses, Chopin’s concertos, Burgundian branles and Renaissance dances, the organ, Marc-Antoine Charpentier, his trumpets and kettledrums, the politico-sexual, scenes, initiatives, fidelity, spontaneity, evenings with people I don’t know, etc.
The recently released volume of Susan Sontag’s diaries, As Consciousness Is Harnessed to Flesh: Journals and Notebooks, 1964-1980 (public library), was among the best psychology and philosophy books of 2012 and has already given us Sontag’s wisdom on writing, boredom, censorship, and aphorisms, her radical vision for remixing education, and her illustrated insights on love and art. All through her list making.
Beliefs
This is the very first entry in Sontag’s earliest published journal, dated November 23, 1947
I believe:
(a) That there is no personal god or life after death
(b) That the most desirable thing in the world is freedom to be true to oneself, i.e., Honesty
(c) That the only difference between human beings is intelligence
(d) That the only criterion of an action is its ultimate effect on making the individual happy or unhappy
(e) That it is wrong to deprive any man of life
[Entries “f” and “g” are missing.]
(h) I believe, further more, that an ideal state (besides “g”) should be a strong centralized one with government control of pulic utilities, banks, mines + transportation and subsidy of the arts, a comfortable minimum wage, support of disabled and age. State care of pregnant women with no distinction such as legitimate + illegitimate children.
To Read
from Sontag’s journals, December 19, 1948 (NB: she’s 15)
There are so many books and plays and stories I have to read—Here are just a few:
The Counterfeiters—Gide
The Immoralist—”
Lafcadio’s Adventures—”
Corydon—Gide
Tar—Sherwood Anderson
The Island Within—Ludwig Lewisohn
Sanctuary—William Faulkner
Esther Waters—George Moore
Diary of a Writer—Dostoyevsky
Against the Grain—Husmans
The Disciple—Paul Bourget
Sanin—Mikhail Artsybashev
Johnny Got His Gun—Dalton Trumbo
The Forsyte Saga—Galsworthy
The Egoist—George Meredith
Diana of the Crossways—”
The Ordeal of Richard Feverel—”
poems of Dante, Ariosto, Tasso, Tibullus, Heine, Pushkin, Rimbaud, Verlaine, Apollinaire
plays of Synge, O’Neill, Calderón, Shaw, Hellman . . .
[This list goes on for another five pages, and more than a hundred titles are mentioned.]
On Interpretation
from Sontag’s journals, December 31, 1956
1. Nothing is uninterpreted.
2. To interpret is to determine, restrict; or to exfoliate, read meaning into.
3. Interpretation is the medium by which we justify context.
4. To interpret a word is different from defining it; it means to specify a range of contexts (not equivalents)
Rules + duties for being 24
from Sontag’s journals, January 15, 1957 (the day before her 24th birthday)
1. Have better posture.
2. Write Mother 3 times a week.
3. Eat less.
4. Write two hours a day minimally
5. Never complain publicly about Brandeis or money.
6. Teach David to read.
Later, undated but “most likely late February or early March 1957”:
DON’T
1. Criticize publicly anyone at Harvard—
2. Allude to your age (boastfully, mock-respectfully, or otherwise)
3. Talk about money
4. Talk about Brandeis
DO
1. Shower every other night
2. Write Mother every other day
Self-assessments
from Sontag’s journals, 1957
What do I believe?
In the private life
In holding up culture
In music, Shakespeare, old buildings
What do I enjoy?
Music
Being in love
Children
Sleeping
Meat
My faults
Never on time
Lying, talking too much
Laziness
No volition for refusal
Germany is building an Army. What could possibly go wrong?
GERMANY’S defence minister says an EU army is “already taking shape” as the bloc looks to deepen military cooperation between member states.
Ursula Von der Leyen said Europe “needs to improve its ability to act on behalf of its own security” at a time of global uncertainty, adding major progress has been made towards realising a joint defence force.
Like the development of the EU’s single market and free movement principle, developing a European army will take time, she said.
But she said cooperation between member states has been boosted in recent months thanks to new reforms and the “obvious benefit” of working together.
Writing in the German newspaper Handelsblatt, Ms Von der Leyen hit back at claims by another German politician who argued the EU should forge ahead with building a “real European army” instead of just talking about it.
In response, she said Wolfgang Clement was right in principle but had neglected to mention “the progress we Europeans have made in the last few years”.
She said: “Europe’s army is already taking shape.
“Reforms over the past months and years have brought our armed forces closer together. We’re working quickly.
“But let’s not forget that achievements that are now taken for granted, such as the internal EU market or freedom of movement didn’t happen overnight.
“They came about thanks to careful, measured progress, and member states pursing clear goals, one step after another.”
EU leaders including Angela Merkel and Emmanuel Macron have previously expressed their hopes of forming an EU defence force.
Trump’s Proposed Rollback of Wetlands Regulations will effect Chesapeake Bay
Washington, D.C. – The Trump Administration’s proposed rollback of federal clean water regulations would undermine the Chesapeake Bay cleanup, in part by eliminating federal protections for at least 34,000 acres of wetlands and some headwater streams, according to a report by the Environmental Integrity Project.
Last month, the EPA released proposed new regulations that would redefine what “Waters of the U.S.” should be protected by the federal Clean Water Act. Under the Trump Administration’s proposal, isolated wetlands not connected by surface waters to navigable waterways in an average year would be stripped of federal protections. This would make them more vulnerable to real estate development or pollution. Also left vulnerable would be streams that flow only after rain or snowmelt, called “ephemeral” streams.
The Environmental Integrity Project’s report, “Undermining Protections for Wetlands and Streams,” uses laser mapping data collected by federal researchers and University of Maryland scientists to show that there are 34,560 acres of scattered wetlands called “Delmarva Potholes” on the Delmarva peninsula that would be stripped of federal protections by the Trump Administration’s proposal.
That acreage is the equivalent of 54 square miles of green that provide vitally important filtration services by keeping farm runoff pollution out of the Chesapeake Bay. That’s a landmass almost the size of Washington, D.C. Delmarva Potholes also serve as a home for wildlife and a defense against flooding.
In the Chesapeake Bay region states, there are also 37,809 miles of intermittent or ephemeral streams – more than half of the total miles of waterways, often at the headwaters of rivers, according to EIP’s report, which is based on EPA figures.
The Trump Administration’s December 11 proposal leaves intermittent streams (meaning streams that flow every spring, for example, but not all year) as a protected category, but removes protections for ephemeral streams (those that flow only after rains or snowfall.) EIP’s report argues that this distinction between intermittent andephemeral streams is likely to sow confusion and leave an unknown number of streams unprotected, even though they should be kept clean as a source of drinking water and as tributaries to the Chesapeake Bay.
History Notes this week of Jan 13
588 BC: Traditional start date for Nebuchadnezzar II’s siege of Jerusalem, which steadily tightens the noose around the Jewish
1412: The Medici family of Florence is formally appointed to act as banker to the Papacy, an account that greatly accelerated their rise as the most powerful family in Italy, to say nothing of hastening the development of modern banking and accounting methods to accurately deal with vast sums of money.
1493: From his anchorage off the Caribbean island of
1559: Coronation of Elizabeth I as Queen of England.
1707: The Scottish Parliament ratifies the Act of Union with England, beginning the process of creating the United Kingdom of England, Scotland and Wales (and later, Northern Ireland). Interestingly, back in January 2011, the Scottish Parliament decided to hold a plebiscite on the de-ratification of the Act of Union, in order to make Scotland an independent country within the EU. The independence vote was finally taken in September of 2014 and was handily defeated 54/46, with a historically high turnout of 85% of the electorate making their voices heard.
1759: Opening day for the British Museum.
1761: Great Britain captures Pondicherry, India from its former French overlords. Despite coming under British rule from this point, the city never lost its French colonial flavor. It served culturally as a competitive rival to Bombay and Calcutta, both of which were under British influence from the early days of the East India Company.
1784: The new United States government ratifies the Treaty of Paris, which acknowledges its existence as an independent political entity.
1741: Birth of Benedict Arnold (d.1801).
1786: The Virginia General Assembly accepts the Virginia Statute of Religious Freedom, written by Thomas Jefferson– as part of the supreme law of the Commonwealth. Jefferson was so pleased with this concise document that he insisted it be included in his epitaph.
1794: Death of British historian and man of letters, Edward Gibbon (b.1737), best known for his seminal work, The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. His research and subsequent publication of this true magnum opus sets the standard for scholarly work to this day.
1815: The frigate USS President, under the command of Commodore Stephen Decatur, is captured by a squadron of four British frigates as it tries to break out of its year-long blockade of New York harbor.
1875: Birth of Albert Schweitzer (d.1965), musician, theologian, and medical doctor whose work in easing the lives of African tribesmen in Gabon, and his deep intellectual response to the real problems of both colonialism and the de-colonizing movement earned him the Nobel Peace Prize in 1952.
1889: In Atlanta, incorporation of the Pennington Medicine Company, which became famous and wealthy from their premier retail product, Coca-Cola.
1902: Birth of Scottish runner and Christian missionary to China, Eric Liddell (d.1945). He is the protagonist of the Academy
1919: Death of Rosa Luxemburg (b.1871), a fiery Marxist absolutist who played a crucial role in agitating German workers during the 1918 revolution, through her pamphleteering and communist agitation in the immediate aftermath of the Great War. With the functional dissolution of the German government, bands of vigilante enforcers known as the Freicorps roamed the cities and countryside, enforcing a harsh German nationalism against the untrammeled influences of outside forces. As a particularly blatant exemplar of those outside forces, Rosa Luxemburg found herself increasingly harassed by the Freicorps and finally on this day, she was arrested, tortured, and murdered- her corpse thrown into the Landwher Canal for good measure. Since her death, the international communist movement has worked to beatify her as a martyr for the Marxist-Socialist movement.
1929: Birth of Civil Rights activist and Baptist preacher, Martin Luther King, Jr.
1932: Birth of Don “Big Daddy” Garlits. A pioneer in the field of drag racing, he perfected the rear-engine Top Fuel dragster, an innovation motivated by the loss of part of his foot in a dragster accident.
1938: Norway formally annexes for itself a huge slice of Antarctica, naming the area Queen Maude Land. It remains the only du jure territorial occupation on the continent, although the rest of it is divided up between six other claimants and multiple non-claimants (including the U.S. and Russia) who maintain permanent scientific stations above and below the ice.
1943(a): After over 6 months of brutal combat and continuing losses to the U.S. Marines, the Japanese army completes Operation KE, the evacuation of Guadalcanal, which they consider a great success.
1943(b): First day of the Casablanca Conference between President Roosevelt and Prime Minister Winston Churchill with representatives of the Free French forces. Joseph Stalin was invited but declined to attend because of the ongoing siege of Stalingrad. This conference was notable for publicly declaring unconditional surrender as the core Allied war aim against Germany. The decision was also made to not attempt to open a second European front via cross-channel invasion, but to continue the pressure on the southern flank by invading Sicily. As an aside, in order to get to the conference, Roosevelt became the first President to fly in an airplane while serving in office, taking a plane between Miami and Casablanca across the Atlantic Ocean.
1943(c): Opening day for The Pentagon, at the time and for decades afterward, the world’s largest office building. The building remains a uniquely functional space; despite its size, a normal person can walk from any office to any other in 12 minutes or less. Its hubs and spokes provide for a straightforward office numbering system and the courtyard in the middle provides a very nice respite from the cube-farm world inside.
1950: First flight of the prototype MiG-17 fighter plane, a workhorse of the communist bloc through the 1980s.
1991: At midnight local time, the United States-led coalition opens fire in Operation Desert Storm. President George H.W. Bush, in his Address to the Nation, puts it very simply: “The liberation of Kuwait has begun.”
2001:Wikipedia goes on line.
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