First Confidential

THIS DAY IN HISTORY - FEBRUARY 1st

American proverb - There ain't no such thing as a free lunch, Quote

“There ain't no such thing as a free lunch.”

~ American proverb

Wikiquote (American proverb (Proverbs are popularly defined as "short expressions of popular wisdom". Efforts to improve on the popular definition have not led to a more precise definition. The wisdom is in the form of a general observation about the world or a bit of advice, sometimes more nearly an attitude toward a situation.)

This Day in History

February 1st, 481

Roman Empire Decline and Fall of Rome

Roman Empire:
481 - Vandal king Huneric organizes a conference between Catholic and Arian bishops at Carthage.

Wikipedia  Image: Relief from a 3rd-century sarcophagus depicting a battle between Romans and Germanic warriors; the central figure is perhaps the emperor Hostilian / Depiction of the Menorah on the Arch of Titus in Rome.

February 1st, 1411

Warsaw Confederation (January 28, 1573), an important development in the history of Poland and Lithuania that extended religious tolerance to nobility and free persons within the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth is considered the formal beginning of religious freedom in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, and in fact is the first such document in Europe

First Peace of Thorn: is signed in Toruń, Monastic State of the Teutonic Knights (Prussia).

Wikipedia  Painting: Warsaw Confederation (January 28, 1573); an important development in the history of Poland and Lithuania that extended religious tolerance to nobility and free persons within the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth is considered the formal beginning of religious freedom in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, and in fact is the first such document in Europe.

February 1st, 1662

China: the world's most populous country, covering approximately 9.6 million square kilometres, second-largest country by land area (China from NASA Wordwind Satellite; Great Wall China, credit National Geographic; LongJi Terrace, credit National Geographic; Great Bear Rainforest, credit Paul Nicklen, National Geographic; Platoons of clay soldiers were buried with China's first emperor, Qin Shi Huang Di, (required a labor force of 700,000 to build), credit O. Louis Mazzatenta, National Geographic)

China:
1662 - Siege of Fort Zeelandia; The Chinese general Koxinga seizes the island of Taiwan after a nine-month siege.

Wikipedia  Photo: China from NASA Wordwind Satellite; © Great Wall of China, credit National Geographic; LongJi Terrace, credit National Geographic; Great Bear Rainforest, credit Paul Nicklen, National Geographic; Platoons of clay soldiers were buried with China's first emperor, Qin Shi Huang Di, (required a labor force of 700,000 to build), credit O. Louis Mazzatenta, National Geographic.

February 1st, 1709

Robinson Crusoe is a novel by Daniel Defoe that was first published in 1719, inspired by the rescue of Alexander Selkirk, shipwrecked on a desert island

Alexander Selkirk is rescued after being shipwrecked on a desert island, inspiring the book Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe.

Wikipedia  Image: Robinson Crusoe is a novel by Daniel Defoe that was first published in 1719, inspired by the rescue of Alexander Selkirk, shipwrecked on a desert island.

February 1st, 1796

Toronto the largest city in Canada and the provincial capital of Ontario: ● Downtown Toronto featuring the CN Tower and Financial District from the Toronto Islands, ● City Hall, ● the Ontario Legislative Building, ● Casa Loma, ● Prince Edward Viaduct, and the ● Scarborough Bluffs

The capital of Upper Canada is moved from Newark to York.

Wikipedia  Photo: Toronto the largest city in Canada and the provincial capital of Ontario: ● Downtown Toronto featuring the CN Tower and Financial District from the Toronto Islands, ● City Hall, ● the Ontario Legislative Building, ● Casa Loma, ● Prince Edward Viaduct, and the ● Scarborough Bluffs.

February 1st, 1814

Global Earthquake epicenters

Earthquake:
1814 - Mayon Volcano in the Philippines erupts, killing around 1,200 people, the most devastating eruption of the volcano.

Wikipedia  Image: Preliminary Determination of Epicenters / Aleppo Syria; Anchorage, Alaska - March 28, 1964 Prince William Sound USA earthquake and tsunami; 8.9 Mega Earthquake Strikes Japan; Tsunami Swirls Japan's Ibaraki Prefecture March 12 2011. credit NOAA / NGDC, NOAA National Geophysical Data Center, USGS, National Geographics.

February 1st, 1861

Lincoln Memorial: an American national monument built to honor the 16th President of the United States, Abraham Lincoln - located on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. across from the Washington Monument American Civil War: Battle of Antietam; Stone Bridge at Antietam Battlefield - Sharpsburg, Maryland American Civil War, Battle of Mobile Bay: at Mobile Bay near Mobile, Alabama, Admiral David Farragut leads a Union flotilla through Confederate defenses and seals one of the last major Southern ports

American Civil War:
1861 - Texas secedes from the Union.
1865 - The United States President signs the Abraham Lincoln Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, abolishing slavery.

Wikipedia  Image: ● Lincoln Memorial; an American national monument built to honor the 16th President of the United States, Abraham Lincoln - located on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. across from the Washington Monument.
● The northern army led by George McClellan and the southern army led by Robert E. Lee met at Antietam Creek, Maryland in September, 1862. It was a bloody battle where 13,000 Confederates and 12,000 Union troops died in just one day. McClellan had hesitated to attack before the battle thus letting the southern troops regroup. Also, he had saved reserves and refused to use them at the end of the battle thinking that Lee was holding reserves for a counterattack, even though those reserves didn't exist. The Union victory stopped Lee's northward advance and was a turning point in the war.
● Battle of Antietam / Stone Bridge at Antietam Battlefield - Sharpsburg, Maryland
● Battle of Mobile Bay (1890) by Xanthus Russell Smith.
● Although photography was still in its infancy, war correspondents produced thousands of images, bringing the harsh realities of the frontlines to those on the home front in a new and visceral way. The Atlantic.

February 1st, 1884

The Oxford English Dictionary, published by the Oxford University Press, is the self-styled premier dictionary of the English language (Work began on the dictionary in 1857, but it was not until 1884 that it started to be published in unbound fascicles as work continued on the project under the name A New English Dictionary on Historical Principles; Founded Mainly on the Materials Collected by The Philological Society)

The first volume (A to Ant) of the Oxford English Dictionary is published.

Wikipedia.org  Photo: The Oxford English Dictionary, published by the Oxford University Press, is the self-styled premier dictionary of the English language. (Work began on the dictionary in 1857, but it was not until 1884 that it started to be published in unbound fascicles as work continued on the project under the name A New English Dictionary on Historical Principles; Founded Mainly on the Materials Collected by The Philological Society.)

February 1st, 1893

Thomas Edison (right) demonstrating the kinetograph (motion picture camera), with the assistance of George Eastman, who helped develop the film used in the early motion picture machines

Thomas Edison finishes construction of the first motion picture studio, the Black Maria in West Orange, New Jersey.

Wikipedia  Photo: Thomas Edison (right) demonstrating the kinetograph (motion picture camera), with the assistance of George Eastman, who helped develop the film used in the early motion picture machines.

February 1st, 1924

Russian Social Democratic Labor Party splits into two groups; the Bolsheviks (Russian for 'majority') and Mensheviks (Russian for 'minority')

Russian Revolution:
1924 - The United Kingdom recognizes the Soviet Union.

Wikipedia  Image: The Russian Revolution is the collective term for a series of revolutions in Russia in 1917, which destroyed the Tsarist autocracy and led to the creation of the Soviet Union.

February 1st, 1942

World War II: Second firestorm raid on Germany, the Royal Air Force conducts an air raid on the town of Kassel, killing 10,000 and rendering 150,000 homeless World War II: Battle of Leyte Gulf; Battle of Leyte Gulf; The first kamikaze attack: A Japanese plane carrying a 200-kilogram (440 lb) bomb attacks HMAS Australia off Leyte Island World War II: German V1 flying-bomb and V2 Rockets - Preparations for a Salvo Launch of V-2 Rockets in the Heidelager near Blizna (Poland) (1944) World War II: Eastern Front (World War II); was a theatre of World War II between the European Axis powers and co-belligerent Finland against the Soviet Union, Poland, and some other Allies which encompassed Northern, Southern and Eastern Europe from 22 June 1941 to 9 May 1945

World War II:
1942 - Josef Terboven, Reichskommissar of German-occupied Norway, appoints Vidkun Quisling the Minister President of the National Government.
1942 - Marshalls-Gilberts raids; the first offensive action by the United States against Japanese forces in the Pacific Theater.
1942 - Voice of America, the official external radio and television service of the United States government, begins broadcasting with programs aimed at areas controlled by the Axis powers.
Post World War II:
1946 - Parliament of Hungary abolishes the monarchy after nine centuries, and proclaims the Hungarian Republic.

Wikipedia  Photo: Bombing of Dresden in World War II; August Schreitmüller's sculpture 'Goodness' surveys Dresden after a firestorm started by Allied bombers in 1945. USS Bunker Hill was hit by kamikazes piloted by Ensign Kiyoshi Ogawa and another airman on 11 May 1945. 389 personnel were killed or missing from a crew of 2,600; Ensign Kiyoshi Ogawa, who flew his aircraft into the USS Bunker Hill during a Kamikaze mission on 11 May 1945; Kamikaze Missions - Lt Yoshinori Yamaguchi's Yokosuka D4Y3 (Type 33 Suisei) "Judy" in a suicide dive against USS Essex. The dive brakes are extended and the non-self-sealing port wing tank is trailing fuel vapor and/or smoke 25 November 1944.
German V1 flying-bomb and V2 Rockets - Preparations for a Salvo Launch of V-2 Rockets in the Heidelager near Blizna (Poland) (1944), credit German History in Documents and Images GHDI.

Eastern Front (World War II); Germans race towards Stalingrad. August 1942; Soviet children during a German air raid in the first days of the war, June 1941, by RIA Novosti archive; Soviet sniper Roza Shanina in 1944. About 400,000 Soviet women served in front-line duty units Caucasus Mountains, winter 1942/43; Finnish ski patrol: the invisible enemy of the Soviet Army with an unlimited supply of skis; Men of the German Engineers Corps cross a river which is swollen after the first autumn rains, to strengthen bridges linking the German positions on the central front in Russia. by Keystone / Getty Images. October 1942; Russian snipers fighting on the Leningrad front during a blizzard. Photo by Hulton Archive / Getty Images, 1943; German soldiers surrendering to the Russians in Stalingrad, the soldier holding the white flag of surrender is dressed in white so that there could be no doubt of his intentions, a Russian soldier is on the right of the photograph. by Keystone / Getty Images, January 1943.

February 1st, 1957

The Wankel engine is a type of internal combustion engine using an eccentric rotary design to convert pressure into a rotating motion instead of using reciprocating pistons

Felix Wankel's first working prototype (DKM 54) of the Wankel engine runs at the NSU research and development department Versuchsabteilung TX in Germany.

Wikipedia  Image: The Wankel engine is a type of internal combustion engine using an eccentric rotary design to convert pressure into a rotating motion instead of using reciprocating pistons.

February 1st, 1978

Rolling Stone Cover of Roman Polanski (Rolling Stone Cover by Julian Allen)

Director Roman Polanski skips bail and flees the United States to France after pleading guilty to charges of engaging in sex with a 13-year-old girl.

Wikipedia  Image: Rolling Stone Cover of Roman Polanski (Rolling Stone Cover by Julian Allen).

February 1st, 1979

Iran hostage crisis: Iranian leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini orders the release of 13 female and black American hostages being held at the US Embassy in Tehran

Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini is welcomed back to Tehran, Iran after nearly 15 years of exile.

Wikipedia  Photo: The Iran hostage crisis was a diplomatic crisis between Iran and the United States where 52 Americans were held hostage for 444 days from November 4, 1979, to January 20, 1981, after a group of Islamist students and militants took over the American Embassy in Tehran in support of the Iranian Revolution. President Carter called the hostages "victims of terrorism and anarchy", adding that the "United States will not yield to blackmail". The hostages were formally released into United States custody the following day, just minutes after the new American president Ronald Reagan was sworn into office.

February 1st, 2002

Anti-Terrorism Court of Pakistan hands down the death sentence to British born Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh and life terms to three others suspected of murdering Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl

Reporter Daniel Pearl American Journalist, South Asia Bureau Chief of the Wall Street Journal, kidnapped January 23, 2002, is beheaded and mutilated by his captors.

Wikipedia  Photo: Attack: Daniel Pearl was abducted from Karachi while researching a story on Islamist militancy - his body was found three months later. / Associated Press

February 1st, 2003

Space Shuttle program, STS-28 Mission: Space Shuttle Columbia takes off on a secret five-day military mission

Space Shuttle program, STS-107 Mission: Space Shuttle Columbia disintegrates during reentry into the Earth's atmosphere, killing all seven astronauts aboard.

Wikipedia  Photo: NASA - ● Space Shuttle Columbia launch pad ● Space Shuttle Columbia lift off, credit Corbis ● This image of the STS-107 shuttle Columbia crew in orbit was recovered from wreckage inside an undeveloped film canister. The shirt colors indicate their mission shifts. From left (bottom row): Kalpana Chawla, mission specialist; Rick Husband, commander; Laurel Clark, mission specialist; and Ilan Ramon, payload specialist. From left (top row) are astronauts David Brown, mission specialist; William McCool, pilot; and Michael Anderson, payload commander. Ramon represents the Israeli Space Agency. credit: NASA / JSC ● Space Shuttle Columbia re-entry